Alexios I Komnenos

1057 – 1118 · Generation XXVIII · Emperor (r. 1081–1118) · Komnenos

Alexios I Komnenos took the throne in 1081 at the head of a collapsing empire and over thirty-seven years began its recovery, the Komnenian restoration. His parents were John Komnenos and Anna Dalassene, and the emperor Isaac I was his uncle. He made his name as a general under three emperors, putting down the rebel mercenary Roussel de Bailleul and, as commander in the west, the rebellions of Nikephoros Bryennios and Nikephoros Basilakes.

In 1081 he and his brother Isaac rebelled against Nikephoros III Botaneiates, with their mother Anna Dalassene directing much of the coup from the capital. To win the support of the powerful Doukas family, he married Irene Doukaina, a granddaughter of the Caesar John Doukas. Once emperor, he leaned for years on his mother’s judgement and had her crowned Augusta.

His enemies came from every side. The Normans of southern Italy under Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemond took Dyrrhachium and Corfu, and it took an alliance with the German emperor Henry IV and years of war to drive them back. In 1091, with the help of Cuman allies, he crushed the Pechenegs at Levounion in Thrace. Turning east, where the Seljuk Turks now held most of Asia Minor, he sought help from the West, and in 1095 his envoys put his case to Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza. The pope’s call at Clermont that November launched the First Crusade, which restored much of western Anatolia to the empire.

Alexios died on 15 August 1118 and was succeeded by his son John II. Under him the Komnenos family secured a hereditary hold on the throne. His daughter Anna Komnene told the story of his reign in the Alexiad, the history she named after him.

Place in the family

• The archive records 43 of his descendants, across 13 generations.

One of 14 people of Komnenos (1081–1185) in this archive. The house of the Komnenian restoration, ruling through a web of marriages to its own kin.

Line of descent: Manuel Komnenos → John Komnenos → Alexios I Komnenos.

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Parents

• John Komnenos (1015 – 1067)
• Anna Dalassene (1025 – 1102)

Partners

• Married Irene Doukaina (1066 – 1138) in 1078 — 4 children together

Children

• John II Komnenos (1087 – 1143)
• Anna Komnene (1083 – 1153)
• Isaac Komnenos (1093 – 1152)
• Theodora Komnene (1096 – ?)

Life

• 1057 — Born
• 1078 — Married Irene
• 1118 — Died

Sources

1. Alexios I Komnenos · Wikipedia
2. Anna Komnene · Wikipedia