Overview
The Komnenos dynasty is not the 1066 imperial house. Constantine X Doukas is the emperor on that bookmark. Alexios Komnenos took the throne on 1 April 1081, after the collapse that followed Manzikert, and held it until 15 August 1118. His son John II and his grandson Manuel I continued the restoration. Manuel is the emperor the 1178 bookmark seats.
The 1066 table below is Constantine's Doukas seat, the empire the Komnenoi have not taken. The 1178 table is Manuel's, and the dynasty row on that card is Komnenos.
Starts
1066
Constantine X Doukas wears the crown. He died in May 1067. Alexios, born about 1057, is a child of the kouropalates John Komnenos and Anna Dalassene. The family is already great. It is not yet imperial. Manzikert in 1071 and the civil wars after it are what open the road to 1081.
| Seat | Detail |
|---|---|
| Start | 1066 |
| Title | Byzantine Empire |
| Realm size | 133 counties |
| Status | Independent |
| Culture | Greek |
| Faith | Orthodoxy |
| Dynasty | Doukas |
1178
Manuel I Komnenos is the emperor, near the end of a reign that began in 1143. Myriokephalon was in 1176. He died in 1180. The card is the late Komnenian empire Alexios founded and John II held together.
| Seat | Detail |
|---|---|
| Start | 1178 |
| Bookmark | Call of the Empire |
| Title | Byzantine Empire |
| Realm size | 91 counties |
| Status | Independent |
| Culture | Greek |
| Faith | Orthodoxy |
| Dynasty | Komnenos |
Alexios I Komnenos
Alexios I Komnenos was born about 1057. He became emperor by deposing Nikephoros III Botaneiates. The reign opened under attack from Robert Guiscard in the Balkans and from Turkish settlement in Anatolia after Manzikert.
He rebuilt the army and the tax, issued the hyperpyron in place of the debased older coin, and tied military service to grants that later writers call pronoia. In 1095–1096 he received the First Crusade at Constantinople and took oaths from its leaders. The crusaders took Nicaea for him and then Antioch for themselves. His daughter Anna Komnene wrote the Alexiad, the court history of the reign.
He died on 15 August 1118. John II succeeded and spent 1118–1143 on the frontiers. Manuel, John's son, is the man the 1178 bookmark still calls emperor. The portrait and the full reign sit on Alexios's own historical page.
Later impact
The Komnenian century runs from Alexios in 1081 through John, Manuel, and the short violent reign of Andronikos I, who was killed in 1185. After Andronikos the Angelos emperors hold the title. The Fourth Crusade takes Constantinople in 1204. A 1178 campaign under Manuel is the last quiet stretch of the restoration Alexios began.
The Komnenos name does not end with the city. A branch founded the Empire of Trebizond on the Black Sea in 1204, and that court lasts until 1461. The emperors of Constantinople after 1261 are Palaiologos. The dynasty page and the Byzantine realm page meet in Manuel's bookmark and split again after his death.
Played from 1066, the Doukas emperor is the start and Alexios is the future of the house. Played from 1178, Manuel is the start and the Angelos collapse, the crusade of 1204, and Trebizond are the future. Alexios himself is the reign between those two cards.
Historical links
- Manuel I Komnenos · 1178 · Byzantine Empire
- Constantine X Doukas · 1066 · Byzantine Empire
- Byzantine Empire
- Seljuk Empire
- Alexios I Komnenos
- Republic of Venice
- Silk and Silver: Alexios and Venice
All realms · dynasty · 1066 · 1178