As The Komnenoi World Turns S1 E3

[transemacabre]

1169 was a year of highs and lows for Manuel. His attempted conquest of Egypt fell apart when the Greek army was unable to cooperate with the Latins from the army of Jerusalem ¹, but his wife Maria of Antioch was finally pregnant. The Porphyra chamber was prepared for the imperial birth, drapped with silks and decorated with symbols meant to ward off the Evil Eye, then blessed by the patriarch. Manuel himself sat by her bedside as Empress Maria was in labor, although Choniates tells us he "gave most of his attentions to the man who was watching the stars and gaping at the heavens."



Empress Maria gave birth to a son, which was heralded to the people by Latin and Ethiopian trumpeters and the display of a red pearl-embroidered infant's slipper from the window of the Great Palace. The people rejoiced in the street; children left their classrooms and the old and sick left their beds to celebrate. Food and wine was distributed in the streets. Eight days later the baby was baptised, of course, Alexios, with his half-sister Maria Porphyrogenita as godmother.

Now that he had a porphyrogenitos son of his own, Manuel broke off the engagement between his daughter and Béla, but threw Béla a bone by marrying him to Empress Maria's half-sister, Agnes of Chatillon ². Maria Porphyrogenita would then wait around for several more years as her father dangled her as a marriage prize to one foreign ruler and then another. In 1170, he sent a letter to King Henry II of England, wanting to marry Maria Porphyrogenita to one of Henry's sons; then in 1172 he agreed to marry her to King William II of Sicily, only to break that off to pursue an alliance with the German emperor Barbarossa's son, Heinrich. All of these matches fell through and Maria Porphyrogenita rapidly approached Byzantine old maidhood.


Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, artist's rendition

By the mid-1170s, Manuel had gotten fed up with Kılıç Arslan riding around cracking skulls and slaying virgins, and resolved to take him out, once and for all. He assembled a massive army, with contigents from Serbia, Hungary, and the Crusader kingdoms, filled with bloodthirsty berserkers, badass armored knights, battle-hardened veterans, some of those flying monkeys from The Wizard of OZ, and the Undertaker from the WWE. Manuel's intention was nothing less than to conquer Konya and kick the Turks out of Anatolia entirely.

The Byzantine army marched out, nearing the ancient ruined fortress of Myriokephalon. Manuel's army was so huge that the baggage train stretched behind the army ten miles. Manuel was so confident that he rejected offers from Kılıç Arslan to make peace, against the advice of his veteran commanders, "giving ear entirely to his relatives, especially those who had never heard the sound of a war trumpet and had shining heads of hair and bright faces, and who wore gold chains and necklaces of pearls and transparent precious stones." He also didn't bother to scout ahead to see if the Turks were waiting for them.

Kılıç Arslan and his Turk warriors laid in wait for the Byzantine army to wind through the narrow pass at Tsiviritze. The Turks surrounded the Byzantine army and swept down on them like birds of prey. The regiment from Antioch broke ranks and ran, but the Greeks fought bravely. They had their backs to the rock walls and were penned in on all sides by Turks; debris and dead animals fell underfoot, preventing the soldiers from reaching one another. Manuel fought ferociously, but when night fell and the Turks slunk away, Manuel slumped, stunned, under a pear tree with his helmet askew. He even hatched a plan to sneak away in the dead of night and leave the foot-soldiers to be killed or captured as slaves. His nephew, Andronikos Kontostephanos, had to shame him into remaining with them.

In the end, only Kılıç Arslan's mercy allowed the spanked Byzantine army to limp home painfully. Among the dead were Manuel's favorite nephew, Ioannes protosebastos, Ioannes' brother-in-law Ioannes Kantakouzenos, and Empress Maria's brother Baldwin of Antioch.

Having survived the embarassment of Myriokephalon, Manuel turned his attention once again to his ne'er-do-well cousins Andronikos and Theodora. He sent Nikephoros Palaiologos, the governor of Trebizond, to kidnap Theodora and her two children by Andronikos. As Choniates tells us, because of "his passionate love for her and his ardent devotion to the children which Theodora bore him", Andronikos begged Manuel for safe conduct to return to Constantinople and ransom Theodora and their children.

To impress Manuel, Andronikos came up with a masterful show of remorse. He appeared before Manuel, wearing a heavy chain around his neck, and had a bystander grasp the chain and dash him against the throne. Impressed by this, Manuel forgave Andronikos YET AGAIN and welcomed him back into his good graces. Sometimes while writing this series I found myself wondering if Manuel was perhaps mildly autistic or something; he never seemed to respond to things the way one would be expected to. He shrugged off assassination attempts and decades-long feuds, but then he'd turn around and absolutely destroy an innocent person if he didn't like his horoscope that week ³. It's like he only worried about the most inconsequential crap.

By the way, the name of that bystander who forcefully dashed Andronikos Komnenos against Manuel's throne is known. He was Isaakios Angelos, a cousin 4 of both Manuel and Andronikos. Remember him well; you will meet him and his kin again soon.

So Emperor Manuel's daughter, Maria Porphyrogenita, "longing for the marriage bed" as Choniates puts it, had aged into her thirties without a suitable marriage. Manuel's choice fell on a teenaged boy, Renier, the son of the marquis of Montferrat, who was "too young to grow a beard". Renier's older brother, William Longsword, a warrior of great renown, had married Sibylla, the sister and heiress of the brave but doomed King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem ⁵, but died in 1177, leaving her pregnant. Another brother, Conrad, will appear on the scene shortly. Maria and Renier married in 1180 and Manuel gave Renier the title of kaisar (caesar).

No expense was spared for the next Imperial wedding, that of little Alexios, Manuel and Empress Maria's son, with Agnes, daughter of king Louis VII of France. The chronicler William of Tyre, who attended the wedding, was overwhelmed by the pomp and splendour and the games in the Hippodrome.

Meanwhile, yet another Komnenoi cousin was beginning a steady rise to power. His name was Alexios protosebastos, and he was a son of Manuel's brother Andronikos ⁶. He was a foppish, lazy fellow and so of course Manuel decided he was destined for great things. His cousin Maria Porphyrogenita hated his guts.

Another villain at court was the vile Aaron Isaakios, a native of Korinth, who had spent several years in captivity in Sicily and while there had mastered several languages. He was employed as the interpreter at court, but Empress Maria reported to Manuel that Aaron was saying one thing to foreign dignitaries and then another to the Greeks, so Manuel had him blinded as punishment. Aaron had been one of the chief accusers of Alexios Axoukh.

In September 1180, Manuel fell ill. He declared his intention to be dressed as a monk on his deathbed, apparently having held off those vows of chastity as long as humanly possible, and so, wrapped in a threadbare black cloak, babbling about his son Alexios and weeping over his fate, he died.

The new emperor Alexios II was just eleven years old. His mother, Maria of Antioch, immediately stepped in as regent. She chose Alexios protosebastos as her lover, enraging her stepdaughter Maria. Alexios protosebastos and other unscrupulous lordlings busied themselves by looting the treasury. As for the young emperor, Alexios II was spoiled and wild, spending his time chariot racing or hunting and neglecting his education.

Maria Porphyrogenita, together with her husband Renier, plotted to murder Alexios protosebastos and seize power. Their co-conspirators included Alexios Komnenos ⁷ (Manuel's illegitimate son by his niece Theodora Vatatzaina), the general Andronikos Lapardas, Ioannes and Manuel Komnenos (both sons of the notorious Andronikos), and Ioannes Kamateros ⁸. Their plot was discovered and the conspirators arrested, but Maria Porphyrogenita and Renier managed to flee and hole up in the Hagia Sophia. They were joined by Italian mercenaries, a phalanx of Greek soldiers loyal to Maria Porphyrogenita, and an unruly mob of Byzantine citizens. Street fighting broke out between supports of Maria Porphyrogenita and supporters of the regency.

Tumult rocked the city. The common people resented the rule of this foreign empress and her lover. The church of Haghia Sophia had become a fortress. Alexios protosebastos "clung to the palace apartments like an octopus clamping its suckers on a rock". There was fighting in the streets.

Constantinople needed a miracle. Constantinople needed a hero.

Constantinople got Andronikos Komnenos.

Footnotes:
1. Led by King Amaury of Jerusalem, who had married Maria Komnene, one out of Manuel's seemingly inexhausteable supply of nieces.
2. A couple of years later, Béla would become King Béla III of Hungary.
3. As another example of his capricious moods, when the courtier Stephanos Hagiochristophorites tried to marry a noblewoman, Manuel had his nose cut off and had him whipped.
4. His grandmother was Theodora Komnene, a daughter of the Emperor Alexios I, who had married a man of humble origins but "graced with a handsome bloom on his face" named Konstantinos Angelos.
5. Baldwin IV and Sibylla were the children of King Amaury of Jerusalem by his first marriage to Agnes of Edessa. Their half-sister, Isabella, was born of his second marriage to Maria Komnene, a niece of Manuel. Baldwin IV suffered from leprosy.
6. His sister Eudokia had been Andronikos' lover.
7. Yes, I KNOW, another freaking Alexios.
8. Ioannes Kamateros was a distant imperial cousin (he was descended from Michael Doukas, brother of the Empress Irene, the mother of Emperor Ioannes II) and the brother of Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera, the wife of Alexios Angelos.

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Renier was re-named Ioannes. Actually, I suspect he was a Renier mark 2. The Alerami generally named their eldest son after the paternal grandfather, so the eldest of the boys should have been a Renier. However, the eldest we know of is William, and given the apparent age gaps (William was probably not born until several years into his parents' marriage), it looks plausible that there may have been a Renier who died in childhood, and the name was then re-used on the youngest boy.