The Komnenoi in Constantinople (1057–1185).

The Evolution of a Ruling Family

I.

The Komnenoi emerged as the strongest and best organized family among new
Byzantine aristocracy in the second half of the eleventh century. They managed to incorporate
into the internal history of their genos all the most powerful tendencies of the development of
the eleventh-century Byzantine society, symbolizing thus the culmination of the union of
relatives in the struggle for the supremacy over rival clans. Their strength rested on the strong
sense of family solidarity and firm, hierarchically ordered family structure, two phenomena
characteristic for the eleventh century. The internal, family concord, as well as the alliance
based on kinship and marriage, reached their ultimate expression in the successful
insurrection of two brothers, Alexios and Isaac Komnenos, against Emperor Nikephoros
Botaneiates and Alexios’ seizure of the imperial crown early in April of 1081. As opposed to
short-lived reign of Isaac’s and Alexios’ uncle, Isaac I Komnenos, a quarter of a century
earlier (1057–1059), the new generation of this family demonstrated kinship solidarity and
cooperation equally strong before and after the conquest of the throne. Direct share in the
imperial rule, along with the new basileus, took his elder brother Isaac, honoured by the new
superb, highest-rank dignity of sebastokrator which drew him abreast to the emperor, but also
their mother, powerful Anna Dalassene. Her high status was not confirmed by an equally
magnificent official title merely because of the inexorable limitations imposed by her sex,
though her actual position of the first empress was evident during the first one and a half
decades of her son’s reign.
Other members of the new imperial clan, including the most prominent members and
clients of the powerful Doukas family – who became truly loyal to the new basileus Alexios
Komnenos after the coronation of Irene Doukaina had been arranged – gained absolute
control over Constantinople during the early years of the new regime, getting hold of all the
power within the new victorious elite, as well as the highest ranks and the largest estates in
the Empire. They made the backbone of the stable government system based on the power
and unity of the family – the first in the sequence of concentric circles of power and authority,
in the centre of which stood the emperor as the very source from which they sprang. A kind of
the “privatization” of the Empire, the final stage of which began with Alexios’ ascension to
the throne, had for its most obvious consequence the taking over of the complete Byzantine
administrative and bureaucratic apparatus by a limited circle of aristocrats in cognatic
relationship with the basileus. The formation of the Comnenian clan, stable and hierarchically

1
ordered structure on whose proper functioning rested all the power of the current basileus
from the Comnenian family, began when the family outgrew the narrow framework of private
interests and developed into an instrument to govern the Empire.
Being all-encompassing and effective, this kind of government and distribution of
power in the Empire ensured a secure position of each new Comnenian emperor on the
throne. The Comnenian clan was merely an outward expression of family’s power and the
primary and the most conspicuous structure of the new Empire of the Komnenoi, in the heart
of which stood the ruling family itself.
Distinguished and detached position of the Comnenian family was the most
prominent feature of the newly established government: the family was the central element in
every segment of the functioning of the new regime and new imperial elite. In the same extent
as the Komnenoi and members of their broadly taken clan took over all the political power in
the Empire, they subordinated in a similar all-encompassing manner Byzantine
historiographic and complete literary production to the family and its interests. After a decade
of Alexios’ reign (after 1091, when the last contemporary dissonant voices were heard –
coming from the pen of John Oxite, titular patriarch of Antioch, and the famous critic of
Emperor Alexios), the Komnenoi managed to take complete control over the cultural and
spiritual life of the Empire, more through the imposition of their own models as the dominant
ones than by adoption and adjustment of the general postulates of imperial ideology to the
peculiarities of their genos.
Contemporary, Comnenian sources, as the third constituent element making the
picture of the new Comnenian Empire complete, were also engendered within the ruling
family, the heart and the basis of the new regime. In much the same way as the members of
the Comnenian genos and the ruling clan stemming from it completely took control over the
Empire, in Byzantine sources of the time the attention was exclusively focused on the very
same political elite – both indirectly, through patronage, and directly, through literary
activities of the members of this imperial clan. Close relations of all the scholars with the
topmost circles of the ruling clan, their inclination towards patrons from those circles, as well
as the awareness of the significance of history as the genre best suited to meet one’s
(sometimes selfish, or strictly familial) purposes, resulted in a somewhat paradoxical
circumstance that the only historical works of the Comnenian epoch came from the pen of the
members – moreover, the most distinguished ones – of this clan: Caesar Nikephoros
Bryennios and his wife, the first-born daughter of Alexios I, Anna Komnene. With its
radically different spirit, the world chronicle by John Zonaras, an overt opponent of the new
family policy of Alexios Komnenos, seems to reflect the desire of the author to express, even
in this way, his deliberate disagreement with and detachment from the dominating,

2
omnipresent and undoubtedly imposed tendencies of the historiographic production of the
Comnenian period, focused exclusively on the ruling genos.

II.

The period of one and a half centuries, which elapsed from the basic formation of this
genos until the collapse of its main, imperial line, brought about the emergence of numerous
phenomena closely related to the family and its functioning and their transposition to the
highest imperial level. Accordingly, the study of the parallel evolution of the Comnenian
family and Byzantine society had to follow the same model: through the account of particular
phenomena that marked this period, the social background from which they sprang was more
clearly thrown into relief.
The structure of the book was thus determined by parallel evolutions of the ruling
Comnenian clan and the whole of the Byzantine society of this period, by processes that often
coincided and/or conditioned and induced each other. The account of these complex
phenomena was presented in three broad synthetic units:
the first, introductory section (The Komnenoi before the Establishment of the
Dynasty) dealing with the situation within the Comnenian family, its evolution and
strengthening in the period preceding the Alexios Komnenos’ ascension to the throne in 1081;
the second, central section (The Image of the Family: Structures and Phenomena),
giving an insight into the structure and ways of functioning of the Comnenian family, and
their clan, as the bases upon which rested the power of new, young elite, which through the
establishment of its rule profoundly and irreversibly determined the course of future political
and social history of the Empire until its final collapse;
the third section (The Image of the Emperor and Dynasty: Its Establishing and
Transformation) dealing with outward manifestations of the essential values of the
Comnenian society and corresponding imperial, i.e. family ideology. This last section also
presents an analysis and explication of the mutual relationship and intertwining of the clan
and ideology (the family/the dynasty; the emperor/his public image), whereas the chapter
concluding both this section and the study (The Birth of the Dynasty) is an attempt at a
synthetic and conclusive overview of the complexity and controversial character of the
Comnenian age.
Compared to other chapters, the introductory one, the protagonists of which are the
first Comnenian emperor, Isaac I, and Anna Dalassene, the wife of Isaac’s younger brother
John Komnenos and the architect of the future power of her family, has a different

3
chronological structure. Aimed at a better understanding of the development of the
Comnenian family, which enabled its members to conquer the imperial power and keep it in
their hands, the overview of events both within the family and in the Empire could not acquire
the diachronic quality characteristic for other chapters and the main body of the study.
Each of the two main sections of the book, the second and the third, are composed of
four studies aimed at elucidating the features characteristic for the Komnenos family and
Comnenian society. Particular problems dealt with in them were considered within the broad
context in which they emerged and evolved, with an attempt to illuminate them from as many
aspects as possible. Although each of them could function as a separate unit, their character,
internal organization of the material and general structure were intended to supplement each
other and interact with other chapters of the book, making thus a mosaic which in its
complexity should provide a comprehensive and multidimensional insight into equally
complicated processes of the evolution of the Comnenian family and of the Byzantine society
of their age.
The second section of the book (The Image of the Family: Structures and
Phenomena) is aimed at an analysis, as comprehensive as possible, of the structure, character
and functioning of broadly taken Comnenian family and their numerous and powerful clan.
The first chapter has the title The Clan: masters and clients and deals with the
establishment and development of the well-known phenomenon of the Comnenian clan, as
one of the most pronounced features of the new system of government, fully established as
early as the reign of Alexios Komnenos. Among the members of the Comnenian clan three
clearly defined groups are distinguished. Special attention is paid to the traditional clientele
of the Komnenoi, i.e. to the clients of the ruling family well-proven through their generations
long service to this clan.
The chapter Brothers, or on the Power of Ambition dwells upon the phenomenon of
inner Comnenian antagonism. The struggle for the imperial crown was in the period of the
Comnenian rule limited to the members of this clan, which managed to embrace all the
imperial traditions of the Byzantine eleventh century. It was for that reason that the struggle
for supremacy acquired the character of the struggle for prevalence within the family, the
guise of an interfamilial conflict, as is clearly shown by the example of the conflict between
Emperor John Komnenos, his sister Anna and his brother Isaac.
The third chapter, The Comnenian Women, is dedicated to the analysis of prominent
political, social and cultural role of women in the Empire of the Komnenoi. Although women
– empresses, had had a significant role in the eleventh century before the Comnenian
emperors ascended to the throne, the importance they acquired in the period of their rule –
until the great turn that took place during Manuel’s reign (about 1155–1160) – was
unparalleled in Byzantine history. Anna Dalassene, Alexios Komnenos’ mother, with her
appearance and all her actions, manifested in the clearest way this new importance, the new
role women had during the greatest part of the rule of the emperors of this house. The answer

4
to the question why women acquired such an important position in the Comnenian society
should undoubtedly be sought for in the family and its traditions that persisted in this clan
long after the conquest of the throne. In much the same way as within the Comnenian family,
where Anna Dalassene (the Mother of the Komnenoi!)1 was the most influential, substituting
the male head of the family, she enjoyed a prominent status in the governmental structures
after the family ascended to the throne in 1081. As long as the imperial Comnenian family
was strong as a family, i.e. as long as the Comnenian emperors had real families, as it was the
case with Alexios I, John II, and the son of the latter, Sebastokrator Andronikos, women
played an important role both in politics and in social life and were sponsors / patrons of
scholars. Once the genuine family disappeared from emperor’s life, which happened during
Manuel Komnenos’ reign, women lost the role they had acquired – partially owing to the
persistence of patriarchal family relations – in the dawn of the reign of Alexios I Komnenos.
Beloved Fathers and Mothers: peculiarities of the Comnenian philantrophy is the last
chapter in this section of the book and it deals with the ideology of the family love as an
important segment of both the Comnenian imperial ideology in general, and the new spirit
brought by this clan. Its first part (Beloved fathers and mothers –
) dwells on the declared love of children for their parents, which also had an
important political dimension as another means of gaining prevalence in the family. The
above-mentioned phrases are particularly common in the Comnenian period, especially during
the reign of John Komnenos, the emperor facing the strongest opposition in the circle of his
closest relatives. The frequency of these terms (which penetrated into the reality of the
Comnenian society possibly/probably through Michael Psellos’ Historia Syntomos) especially
in Anna Komnene’s Alexiad and Muses of Emperor Alexios clearly speaks of their political
significance. The second part of the chapter (Brothers and sisters – ) brings an
analysis of the relationship between brothers, like the “relation of equality” between Alexios
and Isaac, but also of the ideological philadelphia, particularly prominent in the case of the
(short-lived) reconciliation between brothers, Emperor John II and Sebastokrator Isaac. The
philadelphia of Manuel Komnenos, on the other hand, was fully directed to the descendants
of his brother Andronikos, since the emperor persistently felt threatened by his elder brothers
even long after their death.
The third section of the book (The Image of the Emperor and Dynasty: Its
Establishing and Transformation) deals with different aspects of imperial ideology, the
image of the emperor and methods used by members of the ruling clan in the creation of their
public image in the Byzantine society of the Comnenian period.
The first two chapters have a complex structure reflecting the complexity of issues
treated within them. The first among them (Creators of the Comnenian Ideology: I. WRITERS;
II. MOTIFS: 1) The genos; 2) The fusion of the Doukai and Komnenoi; 3) Emperor-warrior; 4)
Apostle-like emperor) points to the main directions of the development of the Comnenian

1
It is worth noting that in Alexiad Anna Komnene insists on calling her grandmother Mother of the Komnenoi,
whereas the official “titulature” of Anna Dalassene on her numerous seals was Mother of the Emperor.

5
imperial ideology through an overview of the principal features of historical and encomiastic
literature and their dominant motifs.
The second chapter treats the phenomenon of the Comnenian patronage of scholars,
i.e. it elucidates the paths of creation of literary circles in the twelfth-century Byzantium and
throws light on the interaction between patrons and their learned clients, as well as on the
mutual relationship of rhetoricians (Praises for patrons: rhetoricians and Byzantine elite in
the Comnenian Age: I. Alexios Komnenos and Irene Doukaina: the beginnings and the
establishment of models; II. The reigns of John and Manuel Komnenos: the flourishing of
rhetoric: a) Rhetoricians and emperors; b) Rhetoricians and other patrons).
The third chapter (Between humility and pride: from Christ Pantepoptes to Christ
Pantokrator) is dedicated to the churches and monasteries built by the Komnenoi, whose
character and dedications are yet another expression of the rivalry and struggle for ascendancy
within the family. From Christ Pantepoptes (All-Seeing) of Anna Dalassene, through Christ
Pantokrator (Almighty) of John II Komnenos or the Holy Virgin Kosmosoteira (Saviour of
the World) of John’s brother Isaac (who himself also rebuilt the church of Christ the Savour
in Chora), through their endowment practice the members of the Comnenian family expressed
their familial and, in close relationship with it, political aspirations, also evident in the
establishment of direct associations with the Holy Virgin and Christ.
The last chapter (The Birth of the Dynasty) is a summary conclusion of the study, with
an accent placed on the political aspect of the Comnenian rule and the struggle of the
emperors from this family for legitimacy.

***

The essential novelty introduced by the rule of the Komnenoi was the all-inclusiveness
of the imperial genos, which, owing to deliberate policy of its leaders, embraced all the most
important Byzantine families, securing thus that the right of succession is kept exclusively
within the limits of their family. As a consequence of the diminishing and, subsequently,
disappearance of the competition for the crown outside the ruling family, emerged an inner
antagonism among the Komnenoi, which drove many of the members of the imperial clan,
encouraged by the position almost equal to that of the basileus, to challenge the hierarchy
within the family and attempt to gain the supremacy over relatives for themselves and their
descendants.
It was in this intermingling of love and hatred, cooperation and antagonism, ultimate
intertwining of the family and administrative apparatus, as well as in diverse manifestations of
this phenomena, that the essence of a new Byzantium, the new Empire of the Komnenoi, was
embodied.

6
 The Birth of the Dynasty

!
"örandner, Prodromos, XIII/266.

The eleventh century was a period of extensive changes in the history of the Byzantine
Empire, evident in numerous vital aspects of its life: from the expanding of its borders and the
acquisition of new / old territories that were to be incorporated into the administrative
organization of the state, to the first significant emersion of the Westerners and their meddling
with Byzantine domestic policy, which foreboded gradual strengthening of these foreigners,
the ultimate consequence of which was to be seen in its most manifest form in 1204. At the
same time, this turbulent century in the history of the Byzantine Empire brought complete and
final establishment of the idea of a dynasty in theoretically non-hereditary empire of the
Romaioi in a somewhat paradoxical manner: leaving aside the opening quarter of the eleventh
century (which, judged by its distinctive features, appears to be a part of the Byzantine tenth
century), marked by one of the most prominent figures of Byzantine history, powerful
Emperor Basil II, the remaining decades of the century witnessed vehement and incessant
struggle for the attainment of imperial legitimacy and the establishment of a dynasty, i.e. the
struggle of emperors to secure succession to the throne to their sons or to candidates they had
chosen. From the reign of Basil II and his brother Constantine VIII, until that of Alexios
Komnenos – whose ascension to the throne, as it was subsequently found, put an end to a
lasting series of civil wars between the new, young Byzantine aristocracy and the old nobility
gathered around the imperial court, in which the former overpowered the latter – securing
succession to the throne and a long-lasting reign that could provide conditions for the
emergence of a future dynasty were objectives difficult to attain, though aspired by all the
emperors, supported by numerous relatives, allies and clients.
Ever since the legitimacy of the Macedonian dynasty, the incontestability of which in
the period when it rested merely on the last female offspring of this great family – Zoe and
Theodora – may, from the modern point of view, seem steadier than it must have been in
reality during the 1030s, 1040s and 1050s, until the actual legitimacy of the Comnenian
dynasty, achieved as late as the advanced years of Alexios’ reign, the Empire witnessed
numerous attempts to establish the hereditary rule. The methods to secure the imperial crown
were diverse: the traditional sword was accompanied by a solemn oath of all the highest

7
officials in the Empire, instituted by Emperor Constantine X Doukas, anxious to secure the
uncertain position of his son Michael and his younger brother Konstantios.2
Generally uncertain background and origin of new ruling families are yet another
evidence of the evolution of the Byzantine society and the great transformation undergone by
the Byzantine aristocracy in the eleventh century – especially when compared with elite from
the previous one. Young aristocracy aspired to take the place of the old Macedonian dynasty,
and the most influential and powerful houses (oikoi) from the tenth century. Konstantios
Doukas, born in 1060, was the first porphyrogenite after a hundred years’ period. At the same
time, he was the first such emperor’s son with a family name, demonstrating once again that
new clans were coming to power in the Empire. The Empire under the Macedonian dynasty
differed from that under the Komnenoi inasmuch as the two imperial families that marked the
opening and the closing decades of the eleventh century differed from each other.
Intertwining of two theoretically opposite principles of succession was present in the
Byzantine Empire until its fall. However, since the early Byzantine period, the principle of
election, according to which the worthiest was chosen for the emperor, was in reality
suppressed by the idea of hereditary rule and the passing of the crown from father to son, but
it retained its significance in the imperial ideology as one of the motifs asserting the
legitimacy of a basileus – usually the one who already ruled – in a perfectly circular
argumentation in which one element of imperial legitimacy was either conditioned or justified
by the other. In other words, the idea of hereditary rule was undoubtedly prevalent and
generally accepted in the middle Byzantine period, whereas the motif of election of the
worthiest (optimus) for the emperor was still very often used, though usually post factum –
when the worthiest of the candidates was strongly seated and secure on the imperial throne. It
was only due to peculiar circumstances of the Macedonian dynasty – like the strange
relationship of Basil I to his son Leo, troubles of the latter to provide a male heir and the fact
that the future Basil II and his brother were under age when their father Romanus II died –
that the idea of the legitimacy of hereditary rule was not so firmly and clearly formulated and
put forward, though it was undoubtedly established in reality.
Incessant struggle for supremacy among Byzantine elite during the half century
following the extinction of the male line of the long-lived Macedonian dynasty hindered the
establishment of a sufficiently strong concept of hereditary rule of a single family, i.e. the

2
A. Rambaud, L'Empire grec au dixième siècle, Paris 1870, 23–38, remains a valuable study on the development
of the idea of dynastic legitimacy in the tenth century. See G. Ostrogorski, Bemerkungen zum byzantinischen
Staatsrecht der Komnenenzeit, Südost-Forschungen 8 (1945) 261-270. Oikonomidès, Serment; Medvedev,
# .

8
formation of a real dynasty.3 For the genos of Doukai this objective, so important and eagerly
aspired by any emperor and imperial family in formation, was almost at hand: they
theoretically established the dynasty through the recognition of the right of succession to the
little sons of Constantine X. This right was significantly reinforced by the above-mentioned
fact that Constantine’s youngest son, Konstantios, was porphyrogenite (born in purple),
which was considered to be an indisputable evidence of hereditary, dynastic rule. Still, it was
only Alexios Komnenos to become the first real founder of a dynasty, the progenitor of the
lineage whose direct or indirect offspring would rule the Empire until its final collapse.
In his personal triumph, as well as in the aggrandisement of his family, Alexios
superbly combined diverse endeavours to establish hereditary rule, typical of the eleventh
century, continuing with great success the tradition of his own genos and pursuing the
imperial pretensions of the Doukas family, whose members put forward and supported him as
their imperial candidate in the spring of 1081. As early as the reign of John II Komnenos, the
Glorious Dynasty of the Komnenoi became an established political fact. An the same time, it
developed into a powerful idea in whose formation Emperor John Komnenos must have
played a significant part, though his contribution cannot be fully elucidated. Alexios’ son used
the dynastic idea to underline the relationship with his father, i.e. the progenitor of the
imperial dynasty, handing down thus constituted legitimacy to his first-born son, who bore
grandfather’s name – as illustrated in the so-called Muses of Emperor Alexios, written
probably during the early years of John II Komnenos’ reign. Intermingling of the family and
imperial ideologies – which was characteristic for the most part of the Comnenian period and
was undoubtedly the most vigorous in the first generation of ‘porphyry-born’ rulers –
contributes to a somewhat simplified idea of Alexios’ political relations with his rivals and his
struggle to secure power and hand it down to his eldest son. Alexios Komnenos’ seizure of
power following the conquest of Constantinople on Holy Thursday, April 1, 1081, by no
means implied the establishment of the Comnenian dynasty on the throne, whatever this term,
hardly suitable to illustrate the actual circumstances of the time, might mean. The conquest of
Constantinople and official coronation of the emperor by the client of the Doukas genos, the
patriarch of Constantinople, Kosmas, were merely the beginning of the great and lasting
struggle of Alexios Komnenos (as well as of his successors!) for the establishment of the
dynasty and the recognition of its legitimacy, against powerful men both from other families
and among his own relatives.
Despite the short-lived reign of Alexios’ uncle, Isaac I, more than two decades before,
the idea of the recovery of the crown to the hold of the Komnenoi was expressed neither in

3
H. Hunger, Zum Dinastieproblem in Byzanz, Anzeiger philologisch – historische Klasse Österreichischer
Akademie der Wissenschaften 131 (1994) 271–284.

9
the actions of the aspirant, young Alexios Komnenos, nor in the decision of his relatives to
choose him as the candidate for the throne if the planned apostasy ended with success. It was
by that decision that the third son of Anna Dalassene officially obtained the supremacy in the
newly established family hierarchy. On the other hand, Emperor Isaac I Komnenos neither
managed to engender the embryo of a real dynasty, nor to constitute a firm ideological basis
on the grounds of which his cousins could claim the imperial crown for themselves in the next
generation. The reign of Isaac I Komnenos remained an isolated and ephemeral phenomenon,
making him the most desolate of all eleventh-century Byzantine emperors – confined to the
restricted framework of his small family. Alexios Komnenos had thus to start from scratch
and to generate the legitimacy of his authority from practically nothing in order to secure the
succession to the throne to the Komnenoi in general and, subsequently, to establish his own
lineage as legitimate, within the numerous and ramified family at the head of which he
formally stood.
The fact that we are not able to provide precise answer to the question “When was the
Comnenian dynasty born?”, reveals the full complexity of this problem during Alexios
Komnenos’ and his successors’ reigns. Years 1081, 1083, 1087, 1092, 1118, related to the
founder of the dynasty, Alexios I, or 1122 of John Komnenos’ reign4, had their place in the
formation of the dynasty, as years in which important events for the establishment of the
hereditary rule of the Comnenian genos took place. All the years mentioned had their
significance for the consolidation on the throne of the Comnenian family as a whole, and
creation of the Comnenian dynasty as its separate branch. In the same time, the fact that it is
impossible to determine the time or period in which the principle of succession among the
Komnenoi was definitely established – not only in the broader family of the ruling emperor
but, in the first place, within its imperial line – clearly shows that there was a great deal of
opposition, particularly from emperor’s ambitious relatives, against which three generations
of the Komnenoi were compelled to fight until their last moments in order to secure the crown
for the successors they had chosen.
Each of the reigns of the Comnenian emperors was marked by a totally new and
different necessity to fight for the legitimacy of conquered or aspired power, imposed on the
emperor and, subsequently, on his prospective successor. The longer the Komnenoi held the
throne, the greater the circle of aspirants to the crown was – within the imperial genos in
particular. The rivalry within the Comnenian family, which as the time and generations passed

4
1081: Alexios’ ascension to the throne; 1083: the birth of the first ‘porphyry-born’ Komnenos, Alexios’
daughter Anna; 1087: the birth of Alexios’ first son, future Emperor John; 1092: the coronation of young
Emperor John; 1118: Alexios’ final decision, made at his death-bed, that John would be his only successor, and
his death; 1122: the coronation of Alexios, the eldest son of John Komnenos.

10
was becoming not only more vehement but also ideologically more complex, is also the
evidence of the failure of the imperial line of Komnenoi to detach itself, clearly and
irreversibly, from a wider milieu of the family. Just contrary to the usual way of instituting the
legitimacy of a dynasty, the securing of the right to succession was more and more difficult
task for each of the emperors from this imperial house. Paradoxically, while the concept of the
legitimacy of the Komnenoi as the ruling family was enhancing, as the twelfth century
advanced, individual members of the family chosen to descend in the Comnenian lineage
were compelled to defend and substantiate their hereditary right more strenuously and to
justify it by increasingly complex elaboration.
Since the reign of Alexios Komnenos, when the consolidation of the Comnenian rule
was still in the course, owing to which no more than a single attempt to overthrow the
emperor, initiated from within the family, was recorded – obscure and lacking clearly defined
objectives5 – the burden of (il)legitimacy of authority was becoming so increasingly heavy
that in the second half of the reign of Alexios’ grandson, Manuel, the idea of the Comnenian
dynasty had to be infused with an entirely new sense and supplemented by new motifs, akin to
the early period of the Comnenian rule, i.e. the period in which the family was securing its
position on the throne. Reverse lines of development of the Comnenian family and the
Comnenian dynasty reached their extreme points during Manuel’s reign: the family circle
surrounding the emperor became incalculably vast, with, on one side, one or two generations
younger relatives making the pyramid of power and the administrative apparatus, and, on the
other, narrowed, almost nonexistent Comnenian dynasty, which the emperor could not detach
from the other Komnenoi and shape into a distinguishable, separate unit despite the long-
awaited birth of the heir on September 14, 1169.
Once the members of the Comnenian family ceased to be threatened by outer
opponents, this complex evolution of family structures became accompanied by the decay of
solidarity within the genos, evident in their attitude towards the ruling Comnenian lineage.6
Three stages of the evolution of the Comnenian family resemble a negative gradation of
family feelings and solidarity:
1) Cordial relations of the first generation of the Komnenoi, full of harmony and
solidarity, exemplified in the ideal fraternal pair of Alexios I and Sebastokrator Isaac.
2) Divisions between the closest relatives in the next generation, which brought about
the actual creation of at least two distinct factions ( ) among the children of Alexios
Komnenos: the one headed by Emperor John II Komnenos, and the other, whose most
prominent exponent was John’s sister Anna Komnene, having on her side their mother ex-

5
By John, son of Sebastokrator Isaac, probably in 1091, or at latest in 1093.
6
Cf. Magdalino, Manuel, 190–191.

11
Empress Irene Doukaina. Their younger brother Isaac established his own line as a separate
group within the family. It finally brought to an end the supremacy of the rival, imperial,
lineage of his brother John II Komnenos, by the ascension to the throne of Isaac’s younger
son, Andronikos I (1183–1185).
3) Rivalry, followed by the overt opposition and antagonism, made Manuel I
Komnenos feel constantly endangered by his own brothers – even the already dead ones – and
cousins, especially his life-long rival in many aspects, Andronikos Komnenos. The feeling of
insecurity as regards his own legitimacy, together with the rising opposition within the other
branches of the Comnenian genos, led Emperor Manuel Komnenos to defend his right to the
imperial throne throughout his life, even in the late years of his reign, when the rhetorical
works asserting his right to the crown must have been the only context in which it was
challenged.
Manuel was the only Comnenian emperor who, facing the immediate threat to his
succession planned and fostered the establishment of the ideology of the Comnenian
dynasty that exceeded mere support to scholars entitled to praise the magnificence and
legitimacy of the basileus and his imperial genos on public occasions. Manuel perceived
gradual intensification and prevalence of anti-dynastic ideas over the concepts according to
which the imperial legitimacy was explicitly and in a somewhat simplified manner related to
the linear sequence Alexios I – John II – Manuel. It seems that it was with the idea of adding
his son Alexios to this sequence that Manuel Komnenos appointed scholars from his learned
milieu to amend key texts on the Comnenian ideology with explications that would disqualify
the mere idea of denying the right to succession to his direct heir. The evidence for the strain
with which Manuel was dealing with the problem of continuing of his own dynastic line is
provided not only by drafting and interpolation of an obviously anachronistic dynastic
vindication of Alexios I’s ascent to the throne into the historical work of Nikephoros
Bryennios, but also by meticulous revision of anti-dynastic passages of Alexiad, the work
that, undoubtedly, owed such an anti-dynastic character to the intention of its author, Anna
Komnene.
Unlike his grandfather, Alexios, and his father, John, Manuel Komnenos was
supported by none of his closest relatives: while the indisputable successor of his father John
II, basileus Alexios, and the eldest sebastokrator, Andronikos, both occupying higher ranks in
the family hierarchy than Manuel, died in 1142, the overt animosity of the third brother, Isaac,
could only provide further evidence for the lack of support within the Comnenian family for
his pretensions, and designate once for all his takeover / conquest of the throne as usurpation
and violation of the hierarchy of the genos. The fact that the succession of Manuel’s son,
Alexios, was threatened showed not only that the Comnenian dynasty was put in danger, but

12
that the whole imperial clan, whose major branches were under the threat of extinction, was
challenged.
Similar to all other changes on the throne during the Comnenian period, the situation
in the family after Manuel’s death was obscure, whereas the ambitions of individual members
of the genos, believed to have vanished or to have been suppressed, emerged in full vigour.
This time, not long after the death of mighty Manuel on September 24, 1180, dissension and
conflicts among the closest relatives displayed in full light the fact that the last remains of
unity among emperor’s descendants were dying out, simultaneously with the waning of this
powerful family and the family ideal as defined in the 1130s and 1140s, the golden age of the
Comnenian family ideology. Despite Manuel’s endeavours throughout the last decade of his
life to secure the succession for young Alexios in an incontestable manner, and the solemn
oath taken for that purpose by Constantinopolitan elite and ecclesiastical dignitaries, in the
eyes of the major part of the Romaioi this problem assumed a somewhat different guise –
though possibly not so precise in distinguishing between a dynasty and a family, it definitely
more authentically reflected the actual situation and affairs in the capital than the
ideologically pretentious last will of the deceased emperor, with its depiction of young
Manuel’s son Alexios as far superior to other members of the imperial family, which resulted
in a misleading impression about the actual state of things.
In a remark dating from the period immediately following Manuel’s death, found in a
manuscript originating not from Constantinople but from central Greece, a brief account of
the circumstances of 1180 was given, as understood by a certain hieromonk Basil: he
commenced his work and writing during the reign of Manuel Komnenos, to complete it after
emperor’s death, during the basileia of Alexios, his porphyrogenite son, and Maria, his
[Alexios’] porphyrogenite sister.7 This contemporary observation and an example of
understanding – or, seen from a different point of view, misunderstanding – of the plethora of
problems related to Manuel’s succession, throws light on severe disunion within generally
fragile imperial branch of the Comnenian genos, to which the deceased basileus, the last real
emperor of the Comnenian dynasty, considerably contributed by his actions and, particularly,
by his succession policy. Scheme according to which emperor’s indisputable successor
Alexios was accompanied on the imperial throne by his half-sister Maria was contrary to all
Manuel’s efforts after 1169 to detach his son from the rest of the family. It further threw into
relief the weakness and the final collapse of his succession policy, which he was eagerly
trying to put into practice for several decades. The fiasco of Manuel’s dynastic policy was
obvious enough to his contemporaries. They perceived it more clearly than it could be

7
Dated Greek Minuscule Manuscripts to the Year 1200. eds. K. Lake and S. Lake. VI Manuscripts in Moscow
and Leningrad, Boston 1936, 246/15, Cod. 512.

13
guessed from later historical works – the learned History of Niketas Choniates and possibly
even more from the commentaries in the thirteenth-century Short Chronicle giving basically
true, though somewhat biased account of the political circumstances in Constantinople after
Manuel’s death, in which there was no mention of Maria, the porphyrogenite, for whom there
could be no place among legitimate aspirants to the father’s crown.8

***

Three emperors from the three imperial generations of the Komnenoi had to face the
challenges regarding the recognition of their reign as legitimate, inasmuch as they were
compelled to strive in order to secure unobstructed succession of imperial crown to their sons
and heirs. Cyclical transformation of the Comnenian family and dynasty gave rise to a
situation in which, after nearly a century on throne, the members of the main, imperial branch
of the family had to cope with problems and troubles similar to those faced by the founder of
the dynasty, Alexios Komnenos. Like in a closed circle of legitimistic troubles, the sequence
of events incessantly urged the emperors to involve into the same struggle for the crown and
generally recognized legitimacy over several imperial generations. Each of the Comnenian
emperors had within his genos a counterpart, whose character and relationship with the
crowned basileus, and accordingly the head of the family, testified to the transformation of
the ruling family, the increased rivalry within the circle of closest relatives and eagerness of
relatives belonging to the family line not wrapped in purple to oust the imperial lineage from
power. Simultaneously, their imperial ambitions were signs of actual decline of the
Comnenian dynasty, which paved the way for the incorporation of aspirants’ family lines –
like the Angeloi – within it. Paradoxically, the idea of the legitimacy of the Comnenian
dynasty was used as the most efficient means to that end.
From Alexios I Komnenos and his brother, Sebastokrator Isaac, through John II and
his brother Isaac, who also bore the highest title introduced by the founder of the dynasty, to
Manuel and Andronikos, son of the latter Isaac, including a somewhat uncommon example of
porphyry-born Anna Komnene, the Komnenoi deprived of the imperial power and little by
little ousted from the Comnenian dynasty – lacking any sense of true affiliation with it and
considering that the advancement of their family line was by no means related to the power or
survival of the dynasty, but was moreover adverse to it –- were becoming increasingly
resolute to destroy it. To further illustrate the increasing rivalry within the Comnenian genos,
it should be said that emperors’ endeavours to appoint, unequivocally and clearly, their
successors were becoming proportionally more pronounced in each new generation. It was an

8
Schreiner, Kleinchroniken, 14/147.

14
expression of the urge to forestall the menaces to the dynasty as much as possible by
underlining its factual existence and stable future.
Family circumstances, as well as those political and social, surrounding Alexios I
Komnenos were somewhat different from those that his successors on the throne from
generations to follow had to face. He was the only Comnenian basileus who had to cope with
a total critique of the legitimacy of his reign, critique of his family’s aspiration to power in
general, as well as of means by which he was establishing and strengthening the Comnenian
rule. The turning point, in that sense, was the moment of the simultaneous (or almost
simultaneous) reaction within and beyond the ruling family, after a decade of Alexios’ rule.
The rebellion of John, the eldest son of Sebastokrator Isaac, against the authority of his uncle,
the emperor, merely foreshadowed the discontent with the status of minor members of the
family among those Komnenoi whose chances to reach the throne were decreasing both in
theory and practice. It was actually the beginning of the process that left a strong imprint on
the Comnenian period and ultimately led to the collapse of the dynasty.
A comprehensive critique of Alexios’ reign, written by John Oxite, is another
powerful testimony of the crisis of Alexios’ reign and the Comnenian rule in general during
the last decade of the eleventh century. After the involvement into the second series of
warfare both in the East and in Europe, repeated expropriation of the church property despite
the solemn repentance of 1082, to John Oxite Alexios’ reign appeared as a complete violation
of the law ( ), which, along with the emperor, involved all his subjects, unable to
resist the domination of emperor’s clan which held all the power in its hands.9 Basing his
critique on a simplified account of Alexios’ successful exploits and great deeds before the
ascension to the throne and, on the other side, all kinds of troubles which befell the Empire
after he put on most enviable porphyry, John Oxite referred to God’s non-consent to his reign,
thus practically denying to Alexios the principal source of the legitimacy of a basileus, i.e. the
grace of God by which emperors become emperors and owing to which they ruled, in the
perfect harmony of the Christian universe. The resentment of the patriarch of Antioch, as well
as the conflict between Leo of Chalcedon and the basileus, were the signs of a much broader
dissatisfaction with Alexios’ reign, at that time in full vigour. Alexios must have perceived
those threats to his rule. In his decision to crown his son John as emperor at that time, in 1092
– putting into practice counsels given to him by Theophylact of Ochrid four years earlier in
basilikos logos pronounced on January 6, 1088 – we can trace Alexios’ awareness of the
necessity to broaden the basis of his authority, and the recognition of the need to establish and
reinforce the Comnenian (his!) dynasty as soon as possible, weakening thus rivals and
opponents, whose opposition was but one step from overt summons to abdication.

9
Jean l’Oxite, 19–55, here 45. Cf. Lavriotis, 403–404; 404–405.

15
Accordingly, young John Komnenos became the holder of the legitimacy of the Komnenoi,
i.e. Alexios’ line of the Comnenian genos, and the warrant of his father’s succession,
considerably shattered and far and wide disputed. It is no wonder that, as far as the idea of the
dynasty is concerned, Emperor John Komnenos was the most conscious and the most
responsible to the family among the rulers of this imperial genos. Aware of the struggle for
dynastic legitimacy – whose holder he was for more than a quarter of a century – and its
importance, John provided for the coronation of his first-born son Alexios four years after his
own ascent to the throne, i.e. when little Alexios came to the age at which, according to
Byzantine criteria, manhood was attained.10 The remaining three John II’s sons, as opposed to
his own brothers, bore from the beginning the same, the highest title of sebastokrator, making
a unified whole from which, by deliberate intention of the emperor, only basileus Alexios was
singled out. By the coronation of Alexios in 1122, the Comnenian dynasty was, it seemed,
indisputably and clearly established. The diffusion of this motif in the poetry of Theodore
Prodromos, particularly during the last decade of John’s reign, is the best evidence of
dynasty’s authority, but also of the power of the dynastic idea.
The year of 1122 was intended to be the turning point in the unstable dynastic
situation of the Komnenoi: it should have secured once for all the succession of John II and
directed the lines of development of both the family and the dynasty. And like the issue of the
instituting of a dynasty in the Comnenian period itself, the crucial decade for the
establishment of the legitimacy and the idea of the Comnenian dynasty – the period between
Alexios’ coronation in 1122 and 1133/1134 (when Theodore Prodromos became the leading
rhetorician at the court of John Komnenos, praising the imperial dynasty and confirming its
legitimacy) is lacking in historical sources, and thus cannot be fully studied and elucidated. It
was in the poetry of Theodore Prodromos that the concept of the dynasty and imperial family
acquired its full shape: young basileus Alexios was singled out from among his three younger
brothers, three sebastokrators who, bearing the same title, occupied the same, significantly
lower position in the hierarchy.
By a turn of fortune, life-long effort of John Komnenos to establish the dynasty was
annihilated in the last year of emperor’s life when both his successor, Alexios, and the second
son, Andronikos, died within a short period of time. All his endeavours, concluded by the
coronation of Alexios as basileus in 1122, were wiped out during two summer months two
decades later. John II Komnenos was compelled to decide on the successor to the throne by
his last will – a kind of oral testament, the oath taken by all the aristocrats and the army
accompanying him on his last, fatal campaign. He chose the youngest son, Manuel, violating

10
John II’s son, Alexios Komnenos, was already fifteen when he was crowned, since he was probably born late
in 1106. Cf. Varzos I, 74/339.

16
the age hierarchy of his descendants, which actually lost its meaning once the factual division
between basileus Alexios and his three brothers, sebastokrators, ceased to exist.
However, the shadow of illegitimacy of his own rule, the need to vindicate the way in
which he got hold of the crown, which accompanied his endeavours to secure the throne for
his successors, tormented Manuel Komnenos throughout his life. The rivalry between Manuel
and his elder brother Isaac, an antagonism belonging to time past, marked a great deal of
Manuel’s efforts to establish and reinforce the legitimacy of his rule. In the actions and the
obsession of this basileus with the urge to defend and assert his right to the crown, we can
also trace a kind of irrationality, which was gaining ground in Byzantium towards the end of
the twelfth century, to actually acquire the most prominent place in the later Byzantine
political thought. Whole century after the extinction of the Comnenian dynasty, the
anonymous author of one Short Chronicle gave an account of the plan of Emperor John
Komnenos, which, while being fantastic, shows that the generations to come were puzzled
even more than his contemporaries by ambiguous and perplexing circumstances within the
circle of emperor’s descendants11: the emperor, John II, wanted to appoint his first-born son
Alexios as the emperor in Rome, the second one, Andronikos, in the region of Jerusalem and
kyr Isaac somewhere else; this last should also rule in Constantinople, since kyr Manuel was
still too young.

11
Schreiner, Kleinchroniken, 6/58.

17