Alexius i Comnenus

Alexius I Comnenus

Alexius I Comnenus, Byzantine emperor 1081–1118, detail of an illumination from a Greek …

(credit: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)

(born 1048, Constantinople—died Aug. 15, 1118) Byzantine emperor (1081–1118). An experienced military leader, he seized the Byzantine throne in 1081, driving back the invading Normans and Turks and founding the Comnenian dynasty. Alexius increased Byzantine strength in Anatolia and in the eastern Mediterranean but failed to curb the power of the landed magnates who had divided the empire in the past. He protected the Eastern Orthodox church but did not hesitate to seize its assets when in financial need. His appeal for Western support in 1095 was a factor in Pope Urban II's call for the First Crusade. Alexius's relations with the Crusaders were difficult, and from 1097 onward the Crusades frustrated his foreign policy.

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Alexius i Comnenus 

(Alexios Komnenós). Born circa 1048 into a family of provincial nobles; died Aug. 15, 1118. Byzantine emperor from 1081. Founder of the Comneni dynasty. Prominent military commander.

Relying on the support of the Comneni family and their relatives in the military aristocracy, Alexius I Comnenus usurped the throne of the emperor. He persecuted the Bogomils, supressed numerous feudal uprisings, and strove to subordinate the church to the imperial power. In the early 1090’s Alexius repulsed the onslaught of the Normans under Robert Guiscard and the Seljuks, and in 1091 that of the Pechenegs. Taking advantage of the successes of the crusaders, he increased the empire’s domains in Asia Minor. In 1108, Alexius forced Bohemund of Tarentum, prince of Antioch, to acknowledge himself a vassal of the Byzantine emperor.

REFERENCES

Istoriia Vizantii, vol. 2. Moscow, 1967. Chapters 12–13.
Chalandon, F. Essai sur la règne d’Alexis I Comnène. Paris, 1900.

A. P. KAZHDAN