10 Times Alexios I Komnenos Saved the Byzantine Empire
Posted by Powee Celdran
Welcome back to the Byzantium Blogger and here we are again with another Byzantine history article! In this one being the 13th part of this series featuring top lists concerning the lives of emperors who I think have interesting stories, we will go over Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081-1118) who many consider to be one of the greatest Byzantine emperors. Alexios I Komnenos who is immortalized through his daughter Anna Komnene’s work The Alexaid was one of those few Byzantine emperors to achieve a lot, both as a successful military commander on the battlefield and as a reformer and diplomat emperor.
Although no matter how much successes Alexios I achieved as emperor in his 37-year reign, his rise to power was a complicated one and so were the times he grew up in. The Byzantine Empire Alexios I grew up in during the late 11th century was past the golden age it had at the beginning of the same century; it was to put it short troubled on all sides. After a series of unfortunate events which included incompetent emperors, military disasters, economic decline, and foreign invasions which all took place during the 11th century, the Byzantine Empire by the 1070s hit one of its lowest points. One major disaster for the Byzantines took place in 1071 and this was their defeat to the invading Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert which thus brought in an age of instability to the Byzantine Empire wherein most of their territory in their heartland Asia Minor had been lost to the Turks. Had the young and energetic Alexios of the noble Komnenos family not usurped power in 1081 from the previous incompetent Doukas Dynasty, the Byzantine Empire may have ended sooner wherein it would have fallen to two invading powers: the Seljuk Turks in the east and the Normans in the west.
Alexios I true enough began his reign battling the Normans who had invaded the Balkans and eventually expelling their invasion. He too fought off and defeated the nomadic Pechenegs in the north and later on called upon armies from Western Europe which came as the First Crusade to assist the Byzantines in taking back the lands they lost to the Turks in Asia Minor. Although the First Crusade did not entirely help the Byzantines regain their territory- as they at the end took lands for themselves- they still at least stabilized the situation in the east by neutralizing the Turks and thus allowing the Byzantines to take back what the Turks had taken from them in Asia Minor. Alexios I thus died in 1118 at least returning some stability and economic prosperity to his empire all while also establishing the Komnenos Dynasty that would once again make Byzantium a dominant power in medieval Europe in what would be known as the “Komnenian Restoration”. Here in this article, we will go over 10 instances in Alexios I Komnenos’ life wherein he saved the Byzantine Empire both through military victories and reforms. Before beginning this top 10 list though, I would first give a background to the 11th century Byzantine Empire Alexios grew up in and the catastrophic Battle of Manzikert which brought Byzantium to its knees.
At the beginning of the 11th century, the Byzantine Empire under Emperor Basil II (r. 976-1025) of the Macedonian Dynasty entered a golden age as a military and cultural superpower.
In Basil II’s long reign, Byzantium had control of the entire Balkans thanks to Basil’s conquest of the Bulgarian Empire all while it too expanded east into Georgia and Armenia and west to Southern Italy. Although the Byzantine Empire reached its peak of territory and influence at Basil II’s death in 1025, it would all be downhill for them afterwards. Without having any children, Basil was succeeded by his incompetent and useless younger brother Constantine VIII (r. 1025-1028) and it was during his reign when the slow decline had begun. In the meantime, Basil II’s reign had also seen the rise of new military aristocratic families such as that of Komnenos and Diogenes which would eventually produce emperors, though Constantine VIII’s successor did not come from either of those families, rather it was another weak person being the Mayor of Constantinople Romanos Argyros who married Constantine’s daughter Zoe and following Constantine’s death in 1028 succeeded him as Emperor Romanos III (r. 1028-1034).
As emperor, Romanos III launched an unnecessary offensive against the Arabs in Syria in 1030 which ended with a humiliating defeat for the Byzantines all while he too focused on finding all sorts of ways to produce children with Zoe in which none worked due to the couple’s old age. Romanos III died in 1034 allegedly being killed in his bath by his servant taking orders from Zoe and her young lover Michael the Paphlagonian wherein the latter then succeeded Romanos as Emperor Michael IV (r. 1034-1041). During Michael IV’s reign, a massive Byzantine expedition under the command of the brilliant general George Maniakes was organized to recapture Sicily from the Arabs and in this expedition, the Byzantines were assisted by foreign allies including the Lombards and the Normans, the latter being a new people from Northern France that have arrived in Italy to fight as mercenaries before establishing their own lands there, while part of this expedition too was the future King of Norway Harald III Hardrada (r. 1046-1066) who here served the Byzantines.
Although the expedition to reclaim Sicily was initially a success, it was cancelled in 1040 due to infighting among the Byzantine army and thus Sicily never returned to Byzantine hands again all while the Normans soon began taking Byzantine territory in Southern Italy as their own. Michael IV died in 1041 and what followed was the unpopular rule of his nephew Michael V (r. 1041-1042) which ended with him being overthrown by the people and the empress sisters Zoe and Theodora co-ruling the empire for 2 months until Zoe married the Byzantine senator Constantine Monomachos. The reign of the new emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042-1055) was an eventful one as it saw the Byzantines defeat a naval invasion of the Bosporus by the Kievan Rus’ in 1043 and the annexation of the Armenian Kingdom of Ani in 1045, however the annexation of Ani which further expanded Byzantium eastwards only exposed the Byzantines to new enemies in the east, most notably the Seljuk Turks of Central Asia who first invaded Byzantine Asia Minor in 1048 and scored a minor victory over the Byzantines and their Georgian allies.
In the meantime, Constantine IX’s reign had also witnessed Pecheneg invasions into the Byzantine Balkans and the rise of the Normans as an independent power in Southern Italy but the most important part of his reign however was the Great Schism in 1054 wherein the Churches of Rome (Catholic) and Constantinople (Orthodox) were to be fully split forever due to disagreements over minor doctrines and the pope and Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicating each other. Constantine IX then died in 1055 whereas his wife Zoe had already died in 1050, thus Constantine was succeeded by Zoe’s sister Theodora (r. 1055-1056) being the last member of the Macedonian Dynasty which ruled Byzantium since 867. With the death of Theodora in 1056, the Macedonian Dynasty thus ended and thus she was succeeded by her secretary as Emperor Michael VI (r. 1056-1057) who also only lasted a year in power as his policy to not support the army only led to a number of generals led by Alexios’ uncle Isaac Komnenos to rebel against him. The future emperor Alexios I Komnenos was then born in 1057 to the general John Komnenos and his wife Anna Dalassene, the same year his uncle Isaac- John’s older brother- took the throne from Michael VI after winning the civil war against him.
As emperor, Isaac I Komnenos (r. 1057-1059) was an energetic ruler who sought to restore Byzantium to its old glory and reverse its ongoing decline. Isaac I thus made reforms to fill the imperial treasury although this meant increasing taxes which therefore made him unpopular, but he too personally campaigned against the invading Pechenegs in the Balkans and removed the power-hungry Patriarch of Constantinople Michael I Keroularios from his position. Although Isaac had ambitions to reverse the decline Byzantium was at, he suddenly fell ill in 1059 and abdicated from power and listening to the advice of the powerful politician Michael Psellos, Isaac passed the throne to his friend and fellow general Constantine Doukas. The new emperor Constantine X Doukas (r. 1059-1067) however proved to be a weak ruler whose decisions further ruined the empire. One such terrible decision he made was to disband the army in the east and this was done at the worst time possible as the Seljuks had once again invaded it once they got a new ambitious ruler in Alp Arslan (r. 1063-1072) who in 1064 sacked the city of Ani.
Constantine X’s reign too saw the Balkans further threatened by the Pechenegs and the Hungarians as well as the loss of more territory in Southern Italy to the Normans under their new duke Robert Guiscard (r. 1059-1085). In 1067, Constantine X died and although he made his wife the empress Eudokia swear to never remarry, she decided to remarry anyway in 1068 to the general Romanos Diogenes as the empire needed a strong military man at a difficult time like this. As emperor, Romanos IV Diogenes (r. 1068-1071) spent his reign mostly campaigning against the Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor who had been raiding it with massive numbers and serving under Romanos IV in his campaigns against the Seljuks were the young Alexios Komnenos and his older brother Manuel. However, the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan had no intention to conquer all of Byzantine Asia Minor, rather he just wanted to take some of it in order to gain land access to achieve his conquest of Arab Egypt in the south. Romanos IV on the other hand was not willing to let the Seljuks have anything, instead he was intent to finish them off and expel them from Asia Minor for good as true enough Alp Arslan could not control his people in mindlessly raiding Asia Minor.
In 1071 then- during the same year that all of Byzantine Italy had fallen to the Normans under Robert Guiscard- Romanos IV gathered an army of up to 40,000, most of which included disorganized foreign mercenaries and marched east to confront Alp Arslan and the Seljuks at the area of Lake Van in Armenia. Although Alp Arslan was willing to sue for peace with Romanos, Romanos declined it and thus began the Battle of Manzikert wherein the Byzantines’ organized formations were no match to the hit-and-run tactics of the Seljuks who at the end surrounded the Byzantines in a crescent formation. To make things worse for Romanos, his rival general Andronikos Doukas betrayed him by deserting the battle thus leading to Romanos being captured by the Seljuks and humiliated before Alp Arslan who however eventually released Romanos and began treating him with respect when realizing he was the emperor. Romanos thus was not forced to give up a lot to Alp Arslan and was true enough even allowed to return to Constantinople but when returning, he was met with a shocking surprise.
Watch this video above by Byzansimp to learn more about Alexios I Komnenos
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I. Defeating a Troublesome Norman Mercenary
As Romanos IV returned to Constantinople following his defeat at Manzikert, he had already lost the throne as his rival the Caesar John Doukas- brother of the late Constantine X- and his son Andronikos- who betrayed Romanos in battle- had declared Romanos to be dead and thus placed his stepson Michael VII Doukas (r. 1071-1078)- son of Constantine X and Eudokia- as the new emperor all while Michael’s mother Eudokia was forced to retire.
Romanos however refused to give up and so he was forced to battle his rivals, the Doukas loyalists in a civil war battle in 1072 which ended with Romanos defeated, captured by his rivals, and blinded so brutally that he died. In the meantime, the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan had also died in 1072 being assassinated by a disgruntled official of his. The new emperor Michael VII meanwhile like his father Constantine X before him was another weak ruler uninterested in state affairs which he left to his uncle the Caesar John Doukas and his ministers Michael Psellos and the corrupt eunuch Nikephoritzes. Due to Nikephoritzes’ corruption and manipulation of the grain trade to make money for himself, rebellion started all over the empire, including a major one in Bulgaria which was seen as an independence movement which was however crushed by the Byzantine general Nikephoros Bryennios.
To make things worse for the Byzantines, the Seljuks following their victory at Manzikert continuously raided deep into Asia Minor all while the economy too had suffered that the Solidus, Byzantium’s standard gold currency had been reduced in value by a quarter! In the meantime, not only did the Seljuks make things worse for the Byzantines in Asia Minor, rather in 1073 a group of Norman mercenaries led by a certain Roussel de Bailleul who previously fought under Romanos IV after defeating the Seljuks established their own breakaway state in what was Byzantine territory in Northern Asia Minor. When discovering that the Norman Roussel had created his own state with himself as its prince, Michael VII then sent his uncle John Doukas to defeat it and recapture it for the empire, however John was defeated and routed by the Normans. Roussel then eventually proceeded west to the suburbs of Constantinople across the Bosporus which he sacked and then proclaimed John as his puppet emperor against Michael. To settle the problem of Roussel, Michael VII then made a deal with the Seljuks in Asia Minor agreeing to hand over more territory to them in Asia Minor in exchange for defeating Roussel and his Normans. Roussel however managed to escape the Seljuks wherein the latter took their lands promised to them in Asia Minor anyway, though in 1076 Roussel and his threat was finally dealt with as he was captured by the young general Alexios Komnenos who then brought him in chains to Constantinople where Roussel was to be imprisoned in. John Doukas and his son Andronikos meanwhile were forced to step down from their court positions for conspiring with Roussel all while in the Danube frontier of the empire, the Byzantine garrison rebelled due to Nikephoritzes’ taxation policies and thus allied with the Pechenegs, though this rebellion did not end in success. In 1077 however, two major military revolts broke out against Michael VII’s rule, one in the Balkans led by the general Nikephoros Bryennios and the other in Asia Minor by the aged general Nikephoros Botaneiates. To deal with Botaneiates’ rebellion, Michael released Roussel from prison which only ended with Roussel joining the rebels and dying shortly afterwards. Michael VII then considered allying with the Seljuks again promising them more lands in Asia Minor in exchange for defeating Botaneiates, though this again did not in any way succeed.
II. Usurping Nikephoros III Botaneiates
In early 1078, Michael VII Doukas abdicated from power in favor of the 76-year-old general Nikephoros Botaneiates who then took over as the new emperor Nikephoros III (r. 1078-1081) who then married Michael’s wife the empress Maria of Alania whereas Michael retired as a monk. With Michael VII out of power, his top minister Nikephoritzes too lost his position, and he was thus beaten to death.
In order to gain military support to seize the throne from Michael VII, Nikephoros like Michael VII before him allied with the Seljuks who he promised to give up land in Asia Minor too, thus it was in Nikephoros III’s reign when practically almost if not all of Asia Minor was lost to the Seljuks. Nikephoros III’s reign too saw the Byzantine Solidus devalued again, this time by a full third, although on the positive side, Nikephoros III had appointed the young and able Alexios Komnenos as the military commander in the Balkans. When commanding the armies in the Balkans, Alexios had first defeated the ongoing rebellion of Nikephoros Bryennios in 1078 at the Battle of Kalavrye whereas the captured Bryennios was blinded and following that, he defeated the rebellion of Nikephoros Basilakes by ambushing his camp in a night attack. Nikephoros III then ordered Alexios to cross over to Asia Minor and defeat another rebellion, this time by the rebel general Nikephoros Melissenos, though Alexios refused to follow the emperor’s orders as Melissenos was his brother-in-law, however Alexios was not fired from command as he was needed to help repel the upcoming Norman invasion of the Balkans by Robert Guiscard.
In the meantime, Alexios too was approached with an offer by both his mother Anna Dalassene and the empress Maria of Alania to help overthrow Nikephoros III and thus make Alexios take over as emperor ruling alongside Maria and Michael VII’s son Constantine. Furthermore, the empress Maria also adopted Alexios who was just 5 years younger than her as her son in order to secure his succession and thus in early 1081, Alexios left Constantinople claiming to raise an army against the Norman invasion, though his real intention was to raise this army to overthrow Nikephoros III as at this point Alexios now had the intention to usurp power in order to save the empire from the rule of an old man who was just leading the empire into decay. As Anna gathered the people in the Hagia Sophia in an act of protest against the old emperor Nikephoros III, Alexios and his older brother Isaac with an army arrived before the walls of Constantinople and put the city under siege.
Nikephoros III on the other hand seeing that he had no more allies left to turn to considered abdicating but in favor of the rebel Melissenos, though the letter the emperor sent to Melissenos approving him as successor was intercepted by Alexios Komnenos’ agents. The letter was therefore shown to Alexios who then took this as an opportunity to make himself emperor whereas the rebel Melissenos eventually cut a deal with Alexios and supported him. Alexios eventually too managed to break into Constantinople whereas his troops sacked the city for 3 days all while the 79-year-old Nikephoros III by the convincing of the Patriarch of Constantinople Cosmas stepped down in order to not prolong the civil war, thus the old emperor retired as a monk in Constantinople dying later that year. Alexios I was then crowned as the new emperor by the patriarch Cosmas, though being true to his word in rewarding the empress Maria of Alania for her part in putting him in power, Alexios allowed her to stay in the palace all while her son Constantine was to keep his title as co-emperor and therefore rule together with Alexios. Additionally, now that Alexios was the new emperor, his mother arranged for him to marry Irene Doukaina, granddaughter of the Cesar John Doukas in order to forge an alliance between both Komnenos and Doukas families.
III. The War Against the Normans
Although the 24-year-old Alexios I Komnenos had just saved the empire from decay by usurping the old and ineffective emperor Nikephoros III in 1081, the Byzantine Empire was to face a new immediate threat in the form of a massive Norman invasion led by the Norman duke of Southern Italy Robert Guiscard himself.
Now, back in 1074, Michael VII Doukas when still reigning as Byzantine emperor promised a marriage between his son and co-emperor Constantine Doukas and Robert Guiscard’s daughter Helena, but this marriage never pushed through as Michael VII was ousted from power in 1078 by Nikephoros III Botaneiates who broke off the marriage agreement which therefore gave Robert a reason to invade Byzantium claiming that his daughter was mistreated. Immediately after coming to power in 1081, Alexios I offered to make peace with Robert who however refused the offer as he had already raised an army to invade Byzantium, thus Robert began the invasion of the Byzantine Balkans by sending his son Bohemond to attack Albania. Once Bohemond arrived in Albania, Robert then captured the Byzantine held island of Corfu and afterwards laid siege to the important port of Dyrrhachion in Albania, however a storm in the Adriatic Sea destroyed most of Robert’s ships. Alexios on the other hand when hearing of the Norman invasion requested for naval assistance from the growing Republic of Venice in Italy to provide him with ships to counterattack the Norman fleet whereas he too left the administration of the empire to his capable mother Anna while he set off to fight the Normans.
The Venetian ships true enough helped the Byzantines defeat Robert’s navy as he had less experienced sailors, though despite suffering casualties on sea, Robert continued besieging Dyrrhachion. To make things worse for Robert, a plague struck his camp and killed 10,000 of his soldiers and 500 of his knights, therefore giving Alexios who was in Thessaloniki the opportunity to attack Robert while he was at his weakest. Alexios thus rushed west to Dyrrhachion wherein he managed to lead a surprise assault on Robert’s troops from behind as they attacked the city and although the Byzantine charge on the Normans was initially a success, the tide of battle changed when Robert’s Lombard division descended on a division of the Byzantine army. Alexios’ Varangian Guard on the other hand who mostly consisted of Anglo-Saxon warriors from England in an act of revenge against the Normans for taking over their homeland in 1066 led a charge against the Norman knights but the end, these Anglo-Saxon Varangians only got separated from the main Byzantine army and obliterated by the Norman knights. In the meantime, the Norman troops too managed to break the Byzantine lines and charge directly at Alexios’ camp whereas Alexios according to his daughter and historian Anna Komnene personally battled a number of Norman soldiers and barely escaped with his life.
Alexios though managed to survive and escape to the city of Ohrid, though the Byzantines at the end still lost the Battle of Dyrrhachion to the Normans in October of 1081 whereas the city of Dyrrhachion in the following year (1082) surrendered to the Normans. Once getting a hold of Dyrrhachion, the Normans thus advanced east into Greece without facing much resistance from the Byzantines, though when news of a local revolt in Italy reached Robert, he was forced to return home and crush it. Alexios in the meantime had apparently paid off Robert’s subjects in Southern Italy to rise up in revolt against him while he too paid off the German king Henry IV (r. 1054-1105) with 360,000 gold coins to attack Robert’s territory in Italy in order to get Robert out of Byzantine territory. As Robert returned to Italy to deal with the local rebellion and the German invasion, his son Bohemond was left behind in Greece wherein he suffered two defeats to Alexios’ army. Despite facing two defeats, Bohemond still laid siege to the Byzantine city of Larissa in Thessaly in 1083, however when laying siege to the city, Bohemond was defeated in a surprise attack by Alexios here assisted by 7,000 allied Seljuk troops, thus forcing Bohemond to flee back to Italy. Robert however after succeeding in expelling the German invasion and crushing the rebellion in his lands in Southern Italy resumed his invasion of Byzantine Greece in 1085. This second wave of invasion however was aborted as Robert died of a fever in Greece whereas his men decided to return home, thus Byzantium was saved from the Norman invasion, although it was not over yet for Bohemond to torment Byzantium.
IV. Dealing with the Pechenegs and Tzachas of Smyrna
At the same time as dealing with the Norman threat in the Balkans, Alexios I and his wife Irene Doukaina began starting their family as in 1083, their first child Anna who was to be her father’s biographer was born. Later, in 1087, Alexios’ first son John who was to be his heir was born and with John’s birth, Alexios’ co-emperor Constantine Doukas was stripped of his title as co-emperor which then went to John whereas Constantine’s mother the former empress Maria of Alania was forced to retire to a monastery. In the meantime, the heretical Christian sects of the Bogomils and Paulicians residing in the Balkans revolted against imperial rule and allied with the invading Pechenegs from the north of the Danube who in 1087 as well raided into Byzantine Thrace wherein they captured a number of cities.
Alexios thus rushed north from Constantinople to deal with the Pechenegs which he successfully dealt with until he was defeated by them at the Battle of Dorystolon, thus Alexios was forced to sign a truce with the Pechenegs and pay them off. The Pechenegs however broke the truce and in 1090 invaded Thrace again all while making an alliance with Tzachas of Smyrna (r. 1081-1093), a Turkish lord and father-in-law to the Seljuk sultan Kilij Arslan I (r. 1079-1107) who had seized Smyrna in Asia Minor from the Byzantines and made it his own state. Having a powerful navy which he seized from the Byzantines, Tzachas had begun making preparations for a naval attack on Constantinople whereas his Pecheneg allies were to attack by land. Alexios however managed to overcome this crisis by first dealing with the Pecheneg threat by allying with their mortal enemy being the Cumans, another nomadic people from Eastern Europe and together, the Byzantines led by Alexios himself and the Cumans destroyed and massacred the Pechenegs at the Battle of Levounion in 1091.
This battle thus happened to be such a heavy blow for the Pechenegs that they would never return to threaten the Byzantines again with full force, however the threat of Tzachas was still around. In 1092 then, Alexios sent his own fleet led by his brother-in-law John Doukas to attack Tzachas’ territories in Asia Minor and here the Byzantines true enough succeeded in taking back Lesbos and other Aegean islands from Tzachas. In the following year (1093), Alexios then made a temporary alliance with the Seljuk sultan and Tzachas’ son-in-law Kilij Arslan I to eliminate Tzachas which the sultan managed to do so by personally killing Tzachas himself. Although the Pechenegs and Tzachas were eliminated, the Cumans who were supposedly Byzantium’s ally began raiding Byzantine territory in Thrace in 1094 being led by a pretender who claimed to be Constantine Diogenes, the late emperor Romanos IV’s long-dead son, however this threat was short lived as the Cumans’ leader was killed in battle near Adrianople. With the Balkans now more or less pacified, Alexios I thus turned his attention to taking back what was once Byzantine territory in Asia Minor, but in order to do this, he needed more foreign allies.
V. Alexios I and the First Crusade
Ever since Alexios I Komnenos came to power in 1081, almost all of Byzantine Asia Minor had been lost to the newly formed empire of the Seljuk Turks, and although Alexios at times sent peasant armies to attack the Seljuk camps and even once allied with Western Europeans such as Count Robert I of Flanders (r. 1071-1093) in 1086 against the Seljuks, it still did not entirely remove the Seljuks as a threat. In order to really eliminate the Seljuks in Asia Minor as a threat, the only solution Alexios saw was to reconcile with the Papacy who Byzantium broke up with during the Great Schism of 1054 and that way gain large armies from across Western Europe.
In 1095, Alexios sent ambassadors to Italy appealing to Pope Urban II for military support from the west at the Council of Piacenza. The pope considered assisting Alexios, however he mistook the request as rather than just sending the few Western mercenaries Alexios asked for, he instead preached what would be a massive Crusade movement at the Council of Clermont in France later in 1095 which was not really intended to assist the troubled Byzantines but to take back the important holy city of Jerusalem which too had recently fallen to the Seljuk Turks. Pope Urban’s message to start a Crusade movement was true enough so powerful that thousands of people from Western Europe whether rich or poor took up arms and began marching east. The first movement in this First Crusade launched in 1095 was known as the “People’s Crusade” which consisted of poor unarmed peasants led by the charismatic monk Peter the Hermit. The People’s Crusade too was the first wave of the Crusaders to arrive in Byzantine territory in the Balkans which they pillaged thus forcing Alexios to hastily ship them across the Marmara Sea to Asia Minor and there, they were massacred by the Seljuks of Kilij Arslan I at the Battle of Civetot in 1096, although their leader Peter the Hermit managed to survive.
The main army of the First Crusade however which were led by different noblemen of Europe including the Count of Toulouse Raymond IV (r. 1094-1105), Godfrey of Bouillon, and Alexios’ old enemy the Norman Bohemond of Taranto had arrived later in 1096 causing further trouble for Alexios. The leaders of the Crusade however took their own separate ways to reach Constantinople and thus Alexios demanded to personally meet each leader and one-by-one extract an oath of allegiance from them which also required them to return whatever land they capture from the Seljuks back to the Byzantine Empire in exchange for being supplied with provisions. Once each leader took his oath, Alexios thus shipped them and their armies off across the sea to Asia Minor wherein the leaders and their troops later regrouped to besiege Nicaea in 1097, the former Byzantine city which became the Seljuks’ capital. At the end, the siege was a success thanks to the efforts of the Crusaders, however the Byzantine troops sent by Alexios took the city back for themselves behind the backs of the Crusaders which deeply upset them.
The Crusaders however later in 1097 when proceeding deep into Asia Minor decisively defeated the Seljuks at the Battle of Dorylaeum which thus cleared much of the Seljuk threat in Asia Minor and this therefore allowed the Byzantines led by Alexios’ brother-in-law John Doukas to recapture much of Western Asia Minor from the Seljuks from 1097-1099. The Crusaders eventually arrived before the walls of Antioch and since the Byzantines did not come as far as there, the Crusaders then believed that their oaths to Alexios had been invalid and so when the Crusaders managed to successfully capture Antioch from the Seljuks in 1098, they did not return it back to the Byzantines but rather they took it for themselves wherein Bohemond being one of their leaders set it up as his own principality with him as its prince. To put it short, the First Crusade ended with ultimate success when they managed to capture Jerusalem in 1099 and establish the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
VI. Alexios I’s Monetary Reforms
For about 700 years, the gold Solidus or Nomisma coin which was established by Emperor Constantine I the Great (r. 306-337) had been the standard gold currency of the Byzantine Empire and had therefore never lost its value until the 11th century. It was only during the reign of Michael VII Doukas from 1071-1078 when the solidus was first devalued and not by a little but by a full quarter hence giving Michael VII the nickname Parapinakes which in Greek meant “minus a quarter”. Furthermore, in the reign of Michael VII’s successor Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078-1081), the solidus was further devalued, this time by a full third!
As the new emperor, Alexios I Komnenos took it upon himself to save the empire not just from foreign threats but from economic decline as well and thus he saw that the solution to this problem was to create a new currency altogether. In 1092, after a long overhaul of the old Byzantine Solidus currency, Alexios I introduced a new gold coin known as the Hyperpyron which fully replaced the Solidus as Byzantium’s standard gold currency. The name “Hyperpyron” in the meantime meant “super-refined” in Greek and in terms of weight it weighed slightly lighter than the old Solidus at 4.45 grams though like the Solidus it was also made of pure gold but unlike the Solidus, the Hyperpyron was lesser in fineness being 20.5 carats instead of 24 which the Solidus was. The Hyperpyron thus remained the new standard gold currency of the Byzantine Empire until the 14th century when the Byzantines ceased to mint gold coins due to economic problems. Additionally, Alexios I further in his reign further reformed the imperial economy by introducing an electrum coin known as the Aspron Trachy which was worth a third of the Hyperpyron and made with 25% gold and 75% silver. The other coins Alexios I introduced was the Histamenon made of an alloy known as billon which valued at 48 to the Hyperpyron and with 7% silver wash and the copper Tetarteron and Noummion which was worth respectively 18 and 36 to the billon Aspron Trachy.
VII. Forming a Dynasty and Creating New Titles
Before Alexios I Komnenos came to power, the Byzantine Empire’s government was exclusively imperial and centered around the emperor and his court which thus created strong opposition from the nobility who despite all their wealth and power felt excluded from running the empire.
Alexios I in the meantime despite coming from the noble Komnenos family was not in any way descended from a previous ruling dynasty and although his uncle Isaac I Komnenos who ruled from 1057-1059 was the first emperor from the Komnenos family which gained prominence during Basil II’s reign (976-1025), he was just a one-time Komnenos ruler whereas it would be Alexios I that would be the one to establish the imperial dynasty. Another problem Alexios I had inherited when coming to power was the strong opposition to imperial rule posed by powerful noble families. In order to put an end to this problem, Alexios’ solution was to form alliances with these powerful noble families by marrying off his family members to them and this was a highly possible solution considering that the Komnenos family was a large one. One such example of how Alexios united other noble families with his own was seen through the marriage alliance he made in 1097 between his daughter Anna Komnene and the general Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger who was the son or grandson of Alexios’ former enemy the general Nikephoros Bryennios who he defeated and blinded back in 1078 when serving the emperor Nikephoros III. Another example of how Alexios used marriage to seal alliances with the other noble families of Byzantium to achieve political unity was his own marriage to Irene Doukaina of the former imperial Doukas Dynasty, thus that way the former rival Komnenos and Doukas clans became allies.
Together, Alexios and Irene had 7 children who reached adulthood and all were married either to other members of Byzantium’s nobility or to foreign princesses in order to seal alliances with foreign powers and this was seen in the marriage of Alexios’ son and heir John to the Hungarian princess Piroska who was renamed Irene in Byzantium after her mother-in-law. Additionally, Alexios had created another solution to prevent opposition among family members of the emperor and to do this, he created new court titles which despite its great prestige had no practical roles such as that of Panhypersebastos which he gave to his son-in-law Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger and Sebastokrator which he gave to his older brother Isaac in order to satisfy him whereas this title too was later given to Alexios’ younger sons Andronikos and Isaac. Although Alexios’ reforms in giving extended family members imperial titles and letting them be in government was successful, it also made the Byzantine Empire and its court more centered on family connections than merit, and this would be the way things would work in the Byzantine Empire until its fall in 1453. On the other hand, because of the marriages Alexios made between his own family members and that of members of other noble families in Byzantium, almost all emperors of Byzantium despite coming from a different dynasty from the 12th century onwards would all be related to Alexios I either by direct descent or marriage.
VIII. Dealing with the Crusade of 1101 and Bohemond of Antioch
The First Crusade was no doubt a success as it ended with the Crusader armies of Western Europe neutralizing the Seljuk Turks and other Muslim powers of the Middle East and additionally establishing their own states there such as the Principality of Antioch, County of Edessa, County of Tripoli, and Kingdom of Jerusalem. Since the First Crusade ended in success, more waves of Crusading armies from Western Europe once again headed east, this time to assist the newly formed Crusader states in the Middle East collectively known as Outremer.
One such new wave of Crusader armies to go east took place in 1101 which was known as the “Crusade of 1101” and like the First Crusade it also consisted of unruly mobs of peasants passing through Byzantine territory. This mob of peasants which came from the Northern Italian region of Normandy in 1101 like the People’s Crusade of 1096 pillaged their way through the Byzantine Balkans and even went as far as attacking the imperial Blachernae Palace of Constantinople from outside the city walls and killing Alexios’ pet lion. To deal with this unruly mob, Alexios did the same as he did to the People’s Crusade by ferrying them across the Bosporus to Asia Minor where this Crusade also met a doomed end being annihilated by the Seljuks under Sultan Kilij Arslan I. In the meantime, the Norman Bohemond who had been Prince of Antioch since his capture of the city in 1098 was ambushed, captured, and imprisoned by the Danishmends, another Turkish power in 1100.
Bohemond was later released from prison in 1103 whereas Alexios I offered to pay his ransom, and rather than thanking Alexios for the offer, Bohemond instead returned to Europe to ask both the new pope Paschal II and the King of France Louis VI (r. 1108-1137) for permission to launch a new Crusade, not against the Muslims of the Middle East but against the Christian Byzantine Empire as Bohemond believed that Alexios had betrayed the First Crusade. After raising a large army in 1107 together with Venetian ships, Bohemond directly attacked the Byzantine Empire taking the same route his father Robert Guiscard took back in 1081 in attacking the same port city of Dyrrhachion in Albania. Alexios I in the meantime had already knew the Normans’ fighting style as he already defeated them before and here, instead of attacking them head-on, he blockaded Bohemond’s camp until Bohemond was forced to surrender in 1108. Here, Bohemond was forced to submit to a humiliating peace treaty known as the Treaty of Devol agreeing that he and his Principality of Antioch would be a Byzantine vassal. With his ambitions to conquer Byzantium crushed, Bohemond later died in 1111 in Italy a broken man not even returning back to Antioch, thus saving Byzantium again.
IX. Defeating the Seljuks One More Time
On the other hand, although the First Crusade had initially neutralized the threat of the Seljuks in Asia Minor and thus allowed the Byzantines to regain their lands there, the defeat of the Crusade of 1101 allowed the victorious Seljuks now based in the city of Iconium in Central Asia Minor to once again make raids into recently retaken Byzantine territory in Asia Minor that in 1113 they even tried to take Nicaea from the Byzantines, though the Byzantine troops there managed to repel this Seljuk attack.
The Seljuk Sultanate in the meantime had a change of rulers as following the death of Sultan Kilij Arslan I in 1107, the Seljuk throne was vacant for 3 years until his son Malik Shah (r. 1110-1116) assumed power in 1110 after returning from imprisonment in Iran. In 1116, Alexios I despite now being terminally ill decided to take to the battlefield one last time and crush the Seljuks again wherein here, he managed to defeat a number of Seljuk raids into Byzantine territory and afterwards march deep into Asia Minor with the intention to take the Seljuk capital Iconium. According to Alexios’ daughter Anna Komnene in “The Alexiad”, Alexios here developed a strategy of having his soldiers form a hollow square formation with the baggage train at the center, infantry on the outside, and cavalry in between. Using this strategy, Alexios, although unable to take Iconium, was able to take the fortress town of Philomelion before the Seljuk army could attack them and thus using the same formation, Alexios led a counterattack against the advancing Seljuks.
The Seljuks at first did not attack the Byzantine formations with any vigor until their sultan Malik Shah arrived the following day, and thus the Seljuks simultaneously attacked the Byzantine formations. The Byzantines however struck back with two counterattacks, the first being unsuccessful but the second led by Alexios’ son-in-law Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger being a success that it managed to rout one division of the Seljuks with their sultan included. In the following day, Malik Shah led another attack on the Byzantines, and despite surrounding the Byzantine forces, the Seljuks were at the end put into flight by the Byzantines. Defeated, Malik Shah surrendered to Alexios I wherein he agreed to evacuate his subjects from Byzantine lands in Asia Minor and to give up his raids into it in exchange for Alexios evacuating Greek Christians from Seljuk lands and relocating them to Byzantine lands. This defeat was apparently so humiliating for Malik Shah that later in 1116, he was deposed, blinded, and killed by his brother who took over as the new Seljuk sultan Mesud I (r. 1116-1156).
X. Choosing the Right Successor
Alexios I Komnenos in his last years had lost much of his popularity as despite defeating the Seljuks one last time at the Battle of Philomelion in 1116, he was active in persecuting the heretical Bogomil and Paulician Christian sects. One of Alexios’ last acts as emperor true enough was in having the Bogomil leader Basil the Physician burned at the stake after a theological dispute with him. Due to Alexios’ failing health in his last years, control of the Byzantine government was left in the hands of his ambitious wife Irene Doukaina considering that Alexios’ mother and power behind his early rule Anna Dalassene had already died in around 1100.
Being basically in control of the imperial government, Irene made it her goal to alter her husband’s succession by having their daughter Anna, their eldest child and her husband Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger succeed Alexios. Alexios despite his failing health still did not fall for his wife’s ambitions in altering the succession but was instead still intent to stick to his original plan which was for his eldest son John to succeed him as John true enough had already been crowned by his father as co-emperor back in 1092 when only 5-years-old. John’s mother Irene however did not like him and did not see him worthy of succeeding his father, though Alexios saw no other choice but to stick to tradition by having his eldest son instead of his daughter succeed him as he saw that based on recent history, being succeeded by a daughter and her husband could only lead the empire into danger as seen back in the 11th century with the empress Zoe and her husbands.
As Alexios was on his deathbed in August of 1118, he passed his signet ring, a symbol of imperial authority to his son John officially naming him as his successor, and shortly after, Alexios had died at the age of 61. John II Komnenos (r. 1118-1143) was thus crowned as the new emperor despite initial opposition from the palace guard who believed he had no proof that his father chose him as his successor. John’s mother Irene in the meantime when discovering that her son was crowned as the new emperor was shocked but was powerless to convince John to step down or have her son-in-law Nikephoros contest John’s rule. The one however to challenge the rule of John II was his older sister Anna who plotted to assassinate him, however the plot was discovered and Anna was thus forced to retire to a monastery where she would live out the rest of her days writing “The Alexiad” being her father’s biography whereas their mother Irene too was forced into a monastery to live out the rest of her days. Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger on the other hand renounced his part in the plot against John II and thus swore his loyalty to his brother-in-law and was therefore allowed to keep his position as a general. To put it short, John II like his father was another successful emperor both on the battlefield and in state administration, but his reign would be a story for another time.
Conclusion
Alexios I Komnenos’ story is perhaps one of the most eventful of all Byzantine emperors, and there is a lot more in terms of story to tell about Alexios I than told in this article. Unfortunately, we will just stop here as I could go on forever if I told more details about the life of Alexios I such as the many failed coups against his rule, additional dealings with the Crusaders after the First Crusade, and his other reforms which otherwise were not very good for the Byzantine Empire as a whole.
Alexios I can true enough be considered one of the greatest Byzantine emperors as he gave his all to save the empire many times when everything seemed to be irreversible for the Byzantines. He came at the right time to save the empire from the rule of the old and incompetent emperor Nikephoros III by usurping him in 1081 when the Byzantine Empire was in near collapse. Despite initially losing in battle, he bravely fought off Robert Guiscard’s massive Norman invasion of the Balkans not only through military strength but through diplomacy by having Robert’s enemies attack him from behind. He brutally crushed the Pechenegs in battle and thus removing them as a threat to the empire while he too did the same to the troublesome Turkish emir Tzachas before calling upon the First Crusade to strike against the Seljuks and take back what the Byzantines lost to them in their heartland Asia Minor. Although the First Crusade caused some further trouble for the Byzantines by creating their own states in the Middle East, it nevertheless neutralized the threat of the Seljuks for the Byzantines and thus allowed Byzantium to regain much of Asia Minor. Furthermore, Alexios I reformed Byzantium’s decaying currency by replacing it with a new one, prevented succession crisis and limited the ambitions of the nobility by including them into one big extended imperial family, asserted power over the newly formed Crusader states, and neutralized the threat of the Seljuks one last time. Overall, Alexios I as Byzantine emperor was one with one of the greatest legacies as he not only restored stability to Byzantium when it seemed like the end was near but he too partially thanks to the First Crusade took back almost half of what they lost in Asia Minor from the Seljuks.
The greatest legacy though of Alexios I was in establishing a rather long and stable dynasty being the Komnenos Dynasty and a period of what would be known as the “Komnenian Restoration” as it was not only his rule that saw Byzantium rise from the ashes and reemerge as a dominant power but the reigns of his son John II Komnenos (1118-1143) and grandson Manuel I Komnenos (1143-1180) too saw Byzantium continue being a dominant power in medieval Europe. Now, no matter how great Alexios I was, his greatness though remains over exaggerated especially through the eyes of his daughter Anna Komnene in her biography of him known as “The Alexiad” which depicts Alexios as somewhat superhuman, however Alexios still had his faults which also would be damaging to Byzantium in the long term. For one, Alexios I was responsible for starting Byzantium’s “feudal system” known as the Pronoia system which granted land to soldiers in exchange for their service while he too made Byzantium’s government more centered on family connections rather than merit. Additionally, Alexios’ other policies had also proved to cause Byzantium more suffering in the future such as in getting the Italian Republic of Venice a Byzantine ally as this had just further indebted Byzantium to Venice as a trading partner. Another one of Alexios’ policies that had further weakened Byzantium in the future was in calling in the First Crusade and because of this, the Crusades had now become more or less a permanent movement that would continue to trouble Byzantium in the following years. Although despite his faults, Alexios I at least brought Byzantium back as a dominant power by the time the 12th came and for throughout most of the 12th century, Byzantium would stay that way. Now, what are your thoughts on Alexios I Komnenos and do you really think he really saved the Byzantine Empire when it seemed like all hope was lost and more so brought Byzantium into a new golden age? I would like to thank you all for reading this article and please continue to support me by following and subscribing to my sites!
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