John Doukas

1126 – 1200 · Generation XXX · Angelos

John (AD 1126 – 1200). Sebastokrator; son of Constantine Angelos; ancestor of the rulers of Epirus. Like his brother Andronikos, he preferred the grander surname of their grandmother, Irene Doukaina. He led a regiment at Myriokephalon in 1176, where his charge against the encircling Turks achieved little. An opponent of Andronikos I, he hurried to the side of his nephew Isaac Angelos in Hagia Sophia in September 1185; as Isaac hesitated to be crowned, John reportedly offered his own bald head instead, but the crowd rejected him as too old. Under Isaac II he became sebastokrator and, despite his age, led the army against the Vlach–Bulgarian rebels in 1186 until Isaac, suspecting his ambitions, removed him; in 1191 he brought the rearguard safely out of another failed campaign. He quickly accepted Alexios III’s usurpation in 1195 and was still angling for the throne in 1199. His sons Theodore, Manuel and Constantine, and his illegitimate son Michael, ruled in Epirus and Thessalonica.

Place in the family

• John Doukas was a grandson of Alexios I Komnenos.

One of 8 people of Angelos (from 1185) in this archive. The house on the throne when the Fourth Crusade took the city in 1204.

Line of descent: Manuel Komnenos → John Komnenos → Alexios I Komnenos → Theodora Komnene → John Doukas.

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Parents

• Constantine Angelos (1085 – 1166)
• Theodora Komnene (1096 – ?)

Siblings

• Andronikos Angelos Doukas (1133 – 1185)