As The Komnenoi World Turns S2 EP6
Oct. 19th, 2012 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
transemacabreBy spring 1195, things had come to a breaking point. Constantinople was wracked with revolt after revolt as pretenders strove to clamber over the bodies of most of their relatives to seize the imperial throne. Bulgars, Vlakhs, Kumans, and Serbs all rampaged across the borders, headbutting and pantsing anyone in their way. The German army had carved a bloody, burning path through the empire. Isaakios II, for his part, was absolutely certain that he had been ordained emperor by God Almighty, and he hung on the every word of his priest and astrologer, Dositheos, who purported to fortell the future by means of consulting "demons who inspire dreams, the shapes of future events and certain apparitions from Solomonic books". Dositheos was despised, even moreso after Isaakios II tried to make him patriarch 1.
Isaakios II and his father-in-law, King Béla III of Hungary, had come up with a plan to drive Ivan Asen and Teodor-Kalopeter and all their peeps out of Byzantine territory and back into the backwater craphole from whence they came. Isaakios II set out with his new army, accompanied by his brother, Alexios Angelos, planning to attack from the south while Béla attacked from the north, catching the Bulgar-Vlakhs in a vice. Reaching Kypsela, Isaakios II decided to pause and go on a hunting trip. Alexios Angelos stayed behind, saying he needed to get his chill on.
Niketas Choniates tells us that Alexios Angelos and his wife, Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina, had long been plotting with "perverse and weak-minded men" 2 to seize the throne. Many had attempted to warn Isaakios II about his brother's plotting, but Isaakios "dismissed these reports as so much nonsense". From one perspective, that was really dumb of him, but from another, I can understand him being in denial about his every blood relative wanting his head on a fucking stick. Alexios was outwardly affectionate, masking his true intentions.
Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina came from an interesting family. Her father, Andronikos Doukas Kamateros, had been an important theologian under Manuel I, and his brother, Ioannes Kamateros, was Manuel's favorite drinking companion, "of all men the most gluttonous and hardest drinker" with a strange passion for green beans. Euphrosyne's brothers, Ioannes and Basileios Doukas Kamateros, had both paid the price for meddling in Byzantine politics. Ioannes had participated in Maria Porphyrogenita's rebellion against her stepmother back in 1181, and been imprisoned for it, being freed by Isaakios II. Basileios had rebelled against Andronikos I and been blinded.
Anyway, Alexios Angelos waited until his brother had left to go kill critters, then gathered together his cronies and had them proclaim him emperor. When Isaakios came riding back and heard the proclamations, he at first tried to rally his servants to charge the camp and kill Alexios, but when they balked, he was forced to flee on horseback. It's so hard to find good help.
The newly-proclaimed Alexios III had his brother pursued, and shortly Isaakios II was captured, blinded, and shackled. The war was called on account of revolution, and Alexios III turned around and marched back to Constantinople in triumph. Meanwhile, the Bulgars, Vlakhs, and Kumans were probably standing around, scratching their heads, wondering where their battle had gone.
As Alexios III made his way to Constantinople, his wife Euphrosyne was already holding court like an empress. The courtiers crowded around her, placing "their heads under her feet as footstools", as Euphrosyne "beguiled them with her fair words". A riot erupted in the city streets as a cabal of "artisans and other rabble" gathered around a nobleman named Alexios Kontostephanos, a "stargazer who had long been lying in wait for the throne", but Euphrosyne quickly had the mob dispersed and Kontostephanos thrown into prison. Also imprisoned was Isaakios II's son, Alexios, whom I shall call Alexakos to differentiate him from his uncle 4. He was shortly joined by his father, the blinded and wretched Isaakios II, a few days later when Alexios III arrived in Constantinople.
After his coronation, Alexios III went to mount his Arabian stallion, only to tumble into the dirt and break his crown. He climbed back up onto his horse, but when the common people saw him riding about wearing his broken crown, they whispered that it was a bad omen.
Both middle-aged, Alexios and Euphrosyne were the parents of three grown daughters: Irene, the wife of Andronikos Kontostephanos 3; Eudokia, wife of Stefan Nemanjić of Serbia; and "the rose-colored beauty" Anna, wife of an Isaakios Komnenos. Eudokia and her husband lived in faraway Serbia, but the two other sons-in-law rode beside Alexios III in his parade following his coronation.
Since the problem of the Bulgars and Vlakhs still hadn't miraculously evaporated, Alexios III chose to open negotiations with Ivan Asen. This showed an astounding lack of insight on his part, as you cannot negotiate with someone who wants to jack all your shit. All attempts to turn Ivan Asen and Teodor-Kalopeter one against the other also failed, as, unlike the Angeloi, those barbarians comprehended the virtue of filial loyalty. Perhaps it was during this calamitous period that Ivan Asen and Teodor-Kalopeter's brother Kaloyan 5 escaped from Constantinople and made his way back home. By the fall of 1195 the Bulgars and Vlakhs had overrun Byzantine territory and made their way to Thessaloniki.
Alexios III sent his son-in-law, Isaakios Komnenos 6 to deal with this. Some Kumans ambushed him on the Struma river, where Isaakios Komnenos' soldiers bravely abandoned him to be kicked in the nuts, taken prisoner, and dragged before Ivan Asen. A Greek priest, who had been taken prisoner by the Bulgars and Vlakhs, pleaded with Ivan Asen for the life of the prince. Ivan Asen threw back his head, belly-laughed, and was like, "Yo, I kill Greeks, not free them." The priest replied with a statement that could be summarized as, You live by the sword, you die by the sword. So Isaakios Komnenos lived out the last few weeks of his life in chains.
The priest's words were eerily prophetic (that, or being a bloodthirsty barbarian warlord is bad for your life expectancy). Ivan Asen, upon returning home to Bulgaria, immediately got embroiled in a domestic dispute. His wife's sister was doing the magic freak dance with one of Ivan Asen's most promising warriors, Ivanko. For whatever reason, Ivan Asen was pissed as hell that Ivanko, "tall in stature, very shrewd, in the prime of his physical vigor", was boning his sister-in-law like there was no tomorrow. When Ivan Asen demanded to speak with him, Ivanko showed up with his sword hidden in his robe. Ivan Asen got up in his face, so Ivanko pulled out his sword and killed him until he was dead from it.
Having taken the direct route to political advancement, Ivanko declared himself the new ruler of the Bulgarians. That lasted about five minutes before Teodor-Kalopeter and Kaloyan showed up to avenge their brother's death. Ivanko managed to flee to Constantinople, seeking refuge with Alexios III, who welcomed him warmly. Ivanko lied and claimed that he had killed Ivan Asen on the request of Isaakios Komnenos, the emperor's son-in-law who had died in Bulgarian custody. Alexios III was so touched that he married Ivanko to his own granddaughter, Theodora, the toddler daughter of the aforementioned Isaakios Komnenos and Anna Angelina. Ivanko, understandably not that thrilled with his four-year-old 'wife', was more interested in her mother. "Why do you give me a suckling lamb when I am in need of a full-grown goat?" Ivanko asked the emperor.
Meantime, ambassadors from the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich VI arrived in Constantinople. Friedrich I Barbarossa had died on Crusade, and his eldest son Heinrich succeeded him. Heinrich VI wanted Alexios III to know that if he didn't cut him a big fat welfare check, he was coming to kick his ass. In an attempt to dazzle the German ambassadors, Alexios III and his courtiers appeared before them clad in all their finery. The ambassadors informed him curtly that "The time has now come to take off effeminate garments and brooches and put on iron instead of gold." Alexios III was so freaked out that he resorted to ransacking his ancestor's tombs looking for treasures to pay off the Germans.
Heinrich VI also claimed the kingdom of Sicily by right of his wife, Constance, the aunt of King William II. Constance's illegitimate nephew Tancredo had claimed Sicily for his own, but he died in 1193 along with his son and co-ruler, Roger. Roger had been married to Irene Angelina, the daughter of Isaakios II. In a few short years this girl had gone from being a minor relation to the Byzantine emperor, to being elevated to a princess, to marrying the co-king of Sicily, to being a teenaged widow who's father was blinded and left to rot in prison. When Heinrich VI came to establish his rule over Sicily, he discovered little Irene, "the rose without a thorn" according to the contemporary poet, Walther von der Vogelweide, and had her married to his younger brother, Philipp of Swabia.
The same sudden event completely changed the fortunes of both Irene and her wicked uncle Alexios III. Heinrich VI keeled over dead, whether from disease or poisoning, who can say for sure. His death got Alexios III off the hook, left his widow Constance to rule Sicily on her own 7, and allowed Philipp of Swabia to step up and be crowned Holy Roman Emperor with Irene as his empress.
In Bulgaria, Teodor-Kalopeter died that year, 1197, at the hands of some of his countrymen. The youngest brother, Kaloyan, was left to lead the Bulgarians. In the midst of all this, a newcomer, Dobromir Chrysos, struck out on his own. Dobromir Chrysos was "a Vlakh and short in stature" who had originally fought for the Byzantine empire, but abandoned his former masters and fought on his own behalf (to be fair, with all the coups going on, he may not have known who to fight for anymore). He holed himself up in the fortress of Srumica, where Alexios III beseiged him for a couple of months before getting bored and wandering off.
1198 brought a new pope: Innocent III. Born Lotario de Segni, this new pope was passionate about protecting the Holy Land from the Saracens. By August, he had issued a papal bull calling for a new Crusade, and made overtures to Alexios III that went nowhere.
The stage was being set.
1. It didn't help that Dositheos was of Venetian descent, despite being rabidly anti-Latin personally.
2. Among them Theodoros Vranas, the son of the pretender Alexios Vranas, who had been killed by Conrad of Montferrat for beseiging the city.
3. Probably not the same Andronikos Kontostephanos who'd been blinded years before by Andronikos I. He would've been much older than her, although I suppose it's not impossible that Irene was his second or even third wife. More likely her husband was a cousin of his with the same name.
4. Alexakos is just a nickname for Alexios. Isaakios II's other two sons, Manuel and Kaloioannes, by his barely teenaged wife Margit of Hungary, were just babies and Alexios III didn't seem to worry much about them.
5. Also called Ioannitsa, but for simplicity's sake I'll stick to just the one name.
6. This Isaakios is of uncertain paternity. He was married to Alexios III's daughter Anna, and with her had a very young daughter named Theodora.
7. Constance and Heinrich's young son, Friedrich, would grow to be amongst the most fascinating of all medieval personages. Right how he's three years old.
Isaakios II and his father-in-law, King Béla III of Hungary, had come up with a plan to drive Ivan Asen and Teodor-Kalopeter and all their peeps out of Byzantine territory and back into the backwater craphole from whence they came. Isaakios II set out with his new army, accompanied by his brother, Alexios Angelos, planning to attack from the south while Béla attacked from the north, catching the Bulgar-Vlakhs in a vice. Reaching Kypsela, Isaakios II decided to pause and go on a hunting trip. Alexios Angelos stayed behind, saying he needed to get his chill on.
Niketas Choniates tells us that Alexios Angelos and his wife, Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina, had long been plotting with "perverse and weak-minded men" 2 to seize the throne. Many had attempted to warn Isaakios II about his brother's plotting, but Isaakios "dismissed these reports as so much nonsense". From one perspective, that was really dumb of him, but from another, I can understand him being in denial about his every blood relative wanting his head on a fucking stick. Alexios was outwardly affectionate, masking his true intentions.
Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina came from an interesting family. Her father, Andronikos Doukas Kamateros, had been an important theologian under Manuel I, and his brother, Ioannes Kamateros, was Manuel's favorite drinking companion, "of all men the most gluttonous and hardest drinker" with a strange passion for green beans. Euphrosyne's brothers, Ioannes and Basileios Doukas Kamateros, had both paid the price for meddling in Byzantine politics. Ioannes had participated in Maria Porphyrogenita's rebellion against her stepmother back in 1181, and been imprisoned for it, being freed by Isaakios II. Basileios had rebelled against Andronikos I and been blinded.
Anyway, Alexios Angelos waited until his brother had left to go kill critters, then gathered together his cronies and had them proclaim him emperor. When Isaakios came riding back and heard the proclamations, he at first tried to rally his servants to charge the camp and kill Alexios, but when they balked, he was forced to flee on horseback. It's so hard to find good help.
The newly-proclaimed Alexios III had his brother pursued, and shortly Isaakios II was captured, blinded, and shackled. The war was called on account of revolution, and Alexios III turned around and marched back to Constantinople in triumph. Meanwhile, the Bulgars, Vlakhs, and Kumans were probably standing around, scratching their heads, wondering where their battle had gone.
As Alexios III made his way to Constantinople, his wife Euphrosyne was already holding court like an empress. The courtiers crowded around her, placing "their heads under her feet as footstools", as Euphrosyne "beguiled them with her fair words". A riot erupted in the city streets as a cabal of "artisans and other rabble" gathered around a nobleman named Alexios Kontostephanos, a "stargazer who had long been lying in wait for the throne", but Euphrosyne quickly had the mob dispersed and Kontostephanos thrown into prison. Also imprisoned was Isaakios II's son, Alexios, whom I shall call Alexakos to differentiate him from his uncle 4. He was shortly joined by his father, the blinded and wretched Isaakios II, a few days later when Alexios III arrived in Constantinople.
After his coronation, Alexios III went to mount his Arabian stallion, only to tumble into the dirt and break his crown. He climbed back up onto his horse, but when the common people saw him riding about wearing his broken crown, they whispered that it was a bad omen.
Both middle-aged, Alexios and Euphrosyne were the parents of three grown daughters: Irene, the wife of Andronikos Kontostephanos 3; Eudokia, wife of Stefan Nemanjić of Serbia; and "the rose-colored beauty" Anna, wife of an Isaakios Komnenos. Eudokia and her husband lived in faraway Serbia, but the two other sons-in-law rode beside Alexios III in his parade following his coronation.
Since the problem of the Bulgars and Vlakhs still hadn't miraculously evaporated, Alexios III chose to open negotiations with Ivan Asen. This showed an astounding lack of insight on his part, as you cannot negotiate with someone who wants to jack all your shit. All attempts to turn Ivan Asen and Teodor-Kalopeter one against the other also failed, as, unlike the Angeloi, those barbarians comprehended the virtue of filial loyalty. Perhaps it was during this calamitous period that Ivan Asen and Teodor-Kalopeter's brother Kaloyan 5 escaped from Constantinople and made his way back home. By the fall of 1195 the Bulgars and Vlakhs had overrun Byzantine territory and made their way to Thessaloniki.
Alexios III sent his son-in-law, Isaakios Komnenos 6 to deal with this. Some Kumans ambushed him on the Struma river, where Isaakios Komnenos' soldiers bravely abandoned him to be kicked in the nuts, taken prisoner, and dragged before Ivan Asen. A Greek priest, who had been taken prisoner by the Bulgars and Vlakhs, pleaded with Ivan Asen for the life of the prince. Ivan Asen threw back his head, belly-laughed, and was like, "Yo, I kill Greeks, not free them." The priest replied with a statement that could be summarized as, You live by the sword, you die by the sword. So Isaakios Komnenos lived out the last few weeks of his life in chains.
The priest's words were eerily prophetic (that, or being a bloodthirsty barbarian warlord is bad for your life expectancy). Ivan Asen, upon returning home to Bulgaria, immediately got embroiled in a domestic dispute. His wife's sister was doing the magic freak dance with one of Ivan Asen's most promising warriors, Ivanko. For whatever reason, Ivan Asen was pissed as hell that Ivanko, "tall in stature, very shrewd, in the prime of his physical vigor", was boning his sister-in-law like there was no tomorrow. When Ivan Asen demanded to speak with him, Ivanko showed up with his sword hidden in his robe. Ivan Asen got up in his face, so Ivanko pulled out his sword and killed him until he was dead from it.
Having taken the direct route to political advancement, Ivanko declared himself the new ruler of the Bulgarians. That lasted about five minutes before Teodor-Kalopeter and Kaloyan showed up to avenge their brother's death. Ivanko managed to flee to Constantinople, seeking refuge with Alexios III, who welcomed him warmly. Ivanko lied and claimed that he had killed Ivan Asen on the request of Isaakios Komnenos, the emperor's son-in-law who had died in Bulgarian custody. Alexios III was so touched that he married Ivanko to his own granddaughter, Theodora, the toddler daughter of the aforementioned Isaakios Komnenos and Anna Angelina. Ivanko, understandably not that thrilled with his four-year-old 'wife', was more interested in her mother. "Why do you give me a suckling lamb when I am in need of a full-grown goat?" Ivanko asked the emperor.
Meantime, ambassadors from the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich VI arrived in Constantinople. Friedrich I Barbarossa had died on Crusade, and his eldest son Heinrich succeeded him. Heinrich VI wanted Alexios III to know that if he didn't cut him a big fat welfare check, he was coming to kick his ass. In an attempt to dazzle the German ambassadors, Alexios III and his courtiers appeared before them clad in all their finery. The ambassadors informed him curtly that "The time has now come to take off effeminate garments and brooches and put on iron instead of gold." Alexios III was so freaked out that he resorted to ransacking his ancestor's tombs looking for treasures to pay off the Germans.
Heinrich VI also claimed the kingdom of Sicily by right of his wife, Constance, the aunt of King William II. Constance's illegitimate nephew Tancredo had claimed Sicily for his own, but he died in 1193 along with his son and co-ruler, Roger. Roger had been married to Irene Angelina, the daughter of Isaakios II. In a few short years this girl had gone from being a minor relation to the Byzantine emperor, to being elevated to a princess, to marrying the co-king of Sicily, to being a teenaged widow who's father was blinded and left to rot in prison. When Heinrich VI came to establish his rule over Sicily, he discovered little Irene, "the rose without a thorn" according to the contemporary poet, Walther von der Vogelweide, and had her married to his younger brother, Philipp of Swabia.
The same sudden event completely changed the fortunes of both Irene and her wicked uncle Alexios III. Heinrich VI keeled over dead, whether from disease or poisoning, who can say for sure. His death got Alexios III off the hook, left his widow Constance to rule Sicily on her own 7, and allowed Philipp of Swabia to step up and be crowned Holy Roman Emperor with Irene as his empress.
In Bulgaria, Teodor-Kalopeter died that year, 1197, at the hands of some of his countrymen. The youngest brother, Kaloyan, was left to lead the Bulgarians. In the midst of all this, a newcomer, Dobromir Chrysos, struck out on his own. Dobromir Chrysos was "a Vlakh and short in stature" who had originally fought for the Byzantine empire, but abandoned his former masters and fought on his own behalf (to be fair, with all the coups going on, he may not have known who to fight for anymore). He holed himself up in the fortress of Srumica, where Alexios III beseiged him for a couple of months before getting bored and wandering off.
1198 brought a new pope: Innocent III. Born Lotario de Segni, this new pope was passionate about protecting the Holy Land from the Saracens. By August, he had issued a papal bull calling for a new Crusade, and made overtures to Alexios III that went nowhere.
The stage was being set.
1. It didn't help that Dositheos was of Venetian descent, despite being rabidly anti-Latin personally.
2. Among them Theodoros Vranas, the son of the pretender Alexios Vranas, who had been killed by Conrad of Montferrat for beseiging the city.
3. Probably not the same Andronikos Kontostephanos who'd been blinded years before by Andronikos I. He would've been much older than her, although I suppose it's not impossible that Irene was his second or even third wife. More likely her husband was a cousin of his with the same name.
4. Alexakos is just a nickname for Alexios. Isaakios II's other two sons, Manuel and Kaloioannes, by his barely teenaged wife Margit of Hungary, were just babies and Alexios III didn't seem to worry much about them.
5. Also called Ioannitsa, but for simplicity's sake I'll stick to just the one name.
6. This Isaakios is of uncertain paternity. He was married to Alexios III's daughter Anna, and with her had a very young daughter named Theodora.
7. Constance and Heinrich's young son, Friedrich, would grow to be amongst the most fascinating of all medieval personages. Right how he's three years old.
