Michael VI Bringas

1021 – 1057 · Generation XXVII · Emperor (r. 1056–1057) · Macedonian

Michael (AD null – 1057). Emperor (r. 1056–1057). 'Stratiotikos'; elderly bureaucrat; no blood tie to the Macedonian house; abdicated to Isaac I. A onetime military finance minister — the source of his nickname — he was chosen by the dying empress Theodora's advisers precisely because he could be managed, with Leo Paraspondylos staying on as chief minister. He survived one court conspiracy but fatally slighted the generals, restoring the disgraced Nikephoros Bryennios to his rank while withholding his confiscated estates; the military nobility rallied instead around Isaac Komnenos, proclaimed emperor in Paphlagonia. After the government's army was routed at Petroe near Nicaea, Michael offered through the courtier Michael Psellos to adopt Isaac and make him caesar, but a riot in the capital settled the matter. Persuaded by the patriarch to step down, he became a monk and died soon afterwards in his own house.

One of 16 people of Macedonian (811–1057) in this archive. The empire’s widest reach — a house of soldier-emperors and scholars.