Michael VII Doukas
1050 – 1090 · Generation XXVIII · Emperor (r. 1071–1078) · Doukas
Michael (AD 1050 – 1090). Emperor (r. 1071–1078). Married Maria around AD 1065; they were set apart in AD 1078. Son of Constantine X; abdicated to a monastery. His subjects nicknamed him Parapinakes — “minus a quarter” — for the shrinking of the currency on his watch, and the name carried a judgment. Reckoned a feeble ruler, he leaned on courtiers, above all the finance minister Nikephoritzes, who raised taxes and spent lavishly while the army went underpaid until it mutinied. The reign became a chronicle of things slipping away: Bari, the empire’s last Italian possession, fell to the Normans; the Balkans broke into rebellion; the Seljuk Turks pressed forward in the east; and the empire’s own western mercenaries turned their arms against it.
One of 13 people of Doukas (1006–1303) in this archive. A great civil house that took the throne between the Macedonians and the Komnenoi.
Parents
- Constantine X Doukas (1006 – 1067)
- Eudokia Makrembolitissa (1021 – 1096)
Siblings
- Andronikos Doukas (1057 – 1077)
- Konstantios Doukas (1060 – 1081)
- Leo Diogenes (1069 – 1087) (half)
- Nikephoros Diogenes (1069 – 1094) (half)
Partners
- Married Maria (1053 – 1103) in 1065; they separated in 1078
Life
- 1050 — Born
- 1065 — Married Maria
- 1078 — Parted from Maria
- 1090 — Died