Isaac's Empire

[Midgard]

Good stuff, and not overly optimistic on the Empire, which is very well considered. Now, given Manuel's OTL personality, he would be probably seeking a major long-term project/undertaking - in OTL, his Italian adventure was it, thanks to his semi-love affair with the Western culture.

With no Crusades to really propagate the Western culture in the East (other than assorted mercenaries or such being involved), is Manuel still as enamored with all things Western as in OTL? Also, is his personality anything like OTL, or is it a completely different person named the same?

Finally, I have a feeling that without an enemy to conquer without upsetting the delicate balance of power, Manuel's reign may bring disaster upon the Empire, as it may destroy some buffer states that would have better been left alone, while dissipating the Imperial power on various small projects. That is, unless Manuel can locate a project to dedicate his energies to that will NOT result in the above problems down the line for his children or grandchildren to deal with (which was more or less the situation of OTL, at least in general terms - many of the events leading to OTL IVth Crusade have been indirectly the results of Manuel's OTL policies and adventures).

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Manuel's reign may bring disaster upon the Empire,

you might not be too far wrong there...

 

[mikegold]

Good stuff, and not overly optimistic on the Empire, which is very well considered. Now, given Manuel's OTL personality, he would be probably seeking a major long-term project/undertaking - in OTL, his Italian adventure was it, thanks to his semi-love affair with the Western culture.

With no Crusades to really propagate the Western culture in the East (other than assorted mercenaries or such being involved), is Manuel still as enamored with all things Western as in OTL? Also, is his personality anything like OTL, or is it a completely different person named the same?

Finally, I have a feeling that without an enemy to conquer without upsetting the delicate balance of power, Manuel's reign may bring disaster upon the Empire, as it may destroy some buffer states that would have better been left alone, while dissipating the Imperial power on various small projects. That is, unless Manuel can locate a project to dedicate his energies to that will NOT result in the above problems down the line for his children or grandchildren to deal with (which was more or less the situation of OTL, at least in general terms - many of the events leading to OTL IVth Crusade have been indirectly the results of Manuel's OTL policies and adventures).

Well there's always Egypt. Nothing serious to the immediate East or West, and semi-friendly Christians southward.

For the slightly less ambitious, Zirid Tunisia is also pretty isolated.

Who's the big Muslim power in Mesopotamia and points eastward, the Abbasids? Khwarezm?

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

"Who's the big Muslim power in Mesopotamia and points eastward, the Abbasids? Khwarezm?"

I'm not sure, help with this area would be appreciated... If the Seljuk collapse occurs OTL, which Muslim power does come to power in Mesopotamia? I have a feeling the Abbasids rose again for a brief period of glory, but can someone please confirm this or else tell me who was in power in this area in the period 1143-1180?

 

[Don_Giorgio]

John II selected Manuel as his heir because he was too superstituous... There was a prophecy circulating by that time known as the "AIMA" prophecy... (AIMA means blood in greek) this prophecy was connected with the Comneni Emperors so the initials of the Emperors must match the letters from AIMA... A=Alexius I, I=Ioannes II, M=Manuel I, A=Alexius II...
According to legend failure to match the heirs with the letters could lead to the collapse of the dynasty... Ironically this happened with Andronicus I Comnenus... who if i am not mistaken had selected an heir with a different initial letter...

Andronicus I firstborn son and heir was named Manuel so his initial letter in his name broke with the AIMA prophecy and lead to the fall of the Comneni... At least thats what the lagend says... It must be noted though that Andronicus I favoured his second son Ioannes because of the prophecy but according to primogeniture Manuel had the genuine claim...

 

[Midgard]

Andronicus I firstborn son and heir was named Manuel so his initial letter in his name broke with the AIMA prophecy and lead to the fall of the Comneni... At least thats what the lagend says... It must be noted though that Andronicus I favoured his second son Ioannes because of the prophecy but according to primogeniture Manuel had the genuine claim...

Technically, primogeniture was not enshrined into law at the time, and even when it was more or less accepted as a principle during the days of the Palaiologoi, there was only precedent, not any actual legal basis for it. Therefore, while Manuel technically did have a claim, it was the question of who Andronikos preferred to inherit - he was well within his rights as the reigning Emperor to select his own heir, primogeniture or not (see actions of Andronikos II 150 years later, admittedly unsuccessful - he could, and did choose his heirs, although by then the disinherited future Andronikos III was powerful enough on his own to rise up against his grandfather and depose him).

Also, as far as AIMA prophecy goes, it should be noted that before his death, Ioannes II's son Alexios was the designated heir, which would have completely disregarded the "prophecy". Just some food for thought... given that Alexios was Ioannes II's firstborn, it is hard to see how AIMA prophecy could have figured into the thinking of the Komnenoi before Andronikos I. Even then, one can argue that the AIMA prophecy was technically violated not by Andronikos I, but by Isaakios II - after all, Isaakios himself would still have been a part of the AIMA cycle, but the fact that he was inherited (admittedly involuntarily) by his brother Alexios III would have broken the cycle.

And yes, the Angeli were related to Alexios I, so technically, they were still a branch of the Komnenoi family, as were the Palaiologoi...

 

[Midgard]

Well there's always Egypt. Nothing serious to the immediate East or West, and semi-friendly Christians southward.

For the slightly less ambitious, Zirid Tunisia is also pretty isolated.

Who's the big Muslim power in Mesopotamia and points eastward, the Abbasids? Khwarezm?

Egypt does appear to be a logical choice... and it CAN lead to alternate Crusades where the Empire attempts to use the excess of Western manpower and landless nobles to its own advantage. After all, it would make more sense for Manuel to have the Westerners occupied in Egypt or Tunis or any location like that, instead of potentially threatening his Italian dominions, or worse.

The question is, will Manuel himself resist the temptation to participate... if he does participate, it can potentially leave the Empire in a danger of a civil war as an Emperor fighting a prolonged campaign across the Mediterranean is almost like an invitation to the pretenders to the throne, various adventurers, different would-be invaders, etc etc...

 

[Paladin]

Excellent work. Manages to keep the Empire going without too much wankery. A possible preoccupation for Manual: if memory serves, he'll come to power at roughly the same time that Frederick Barbarossa did. Barbarossa spent a great deal of his reign attempting to pacify northern Italy. Perhaps this'll bring into conflict the Eastern Empire? We could see a potential "long war" between the Easter and Western Empires over Italy.

 

[Nikephoros]

I like how often this timeline is updated.

One question though. Did you write this at once and split it up, or did you write it in chunks?

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

I like how often this timeline is updated.

One question though. Did you write this at once and split it up, or did you write it in chunks?

Thanks!

I wrote Isaac and Alexius a few weeks back and split those up
Did John today
And hopefully will start work on Manuel tomorrow
I've got exams on at the moment though so progress may be a little hit and miss
The timeline will keep going AT LEAST until the Mongol invasion; the idea of Genghis' hordes before the walls of Constantinople is what prompted me to start writing.
Hey if it's popular enough I'll keep going for as long as realistically possible...

 

[Midgard]

Thanks!

I wrote Isaac and Alexius a few weeks back and split those up
Did John today
And hopefully will start work on Manuel tomorrow
I've got exams on at the moment though so progress may be a little hit and miss
The timeline will keep going AT LEAST until the Mongol invasion; the idea of Genghis' hordes before the walls of Constantinople is what prompted me to start writing.

And since the Byzantines were actually the only army of the time realistically capable of stopping the Mongols, or at least fighting them to a standstill (providing the Imperial army does not disintegrate and actually manages to keep its training, equipment, and numbers by the time the Mongols show up)...

Hey if it's popular enough I'll keep going for as long as realistically possible...

Please do!

 

[Jammy]

Please do!

Seconded - this is rapidly becoming one of my favourite TL's

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

The First Decade of the Reign of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, 1143-1153
Hopefully this will give a taster for what is to come later in the reign...

Emperor Manuel I had barely a year in Constantinople before he was forced to return east. En route, he stopped off at Iconium, where his brother Isaac had been seized and arrested by the governor, Michael Branas. Branas was rewarded by the Emperor, but Isaac was nonetheless freed from prison and restored to the position of Governor of Syria, he was, after all, Manuel’s last surviving brother, and had much greater knowledge of the situation in the East.
During John’s reign, an ambitious young Atabeg had risen to power in Mosul, by the name of Zengi. While an attempt to unify Mosul and Aleppo in 1128 had been thwarted by the Emperor, Zengi, ever an ambitious man, remained determined to end the Byzantine monopoly on power in the Levant, and unite the Islamic statelets of the region under his rule. His ambitions had been kept in check by Isaac, but, while Isaac had been imprisoned over the past year, much had changed.
In the summer of 1144, Zengi led a powerful army into the Sultanate of Aleppo, besieging its second city, Edessa. The emir, Masul ibn-Ak Sunkur, send an emergency messenger to Constantinople, begging for aid from the Emperor, but Manuel was still in the capital at the time, enjoying celebrating a peaceful first year on the throne. Nevertheless, the young Emperor had a love of battle and war, and immediately set out to aid Aleppo. En route there was the stop at Iconium as described above, and, after gathering some 40,000 soldiers, Manuel arrived at Aleppo on Christmas Day, 1144.
He was too late. The next morning, word arrived from Edessa; Zengi occupied the city, and was marching on Aleppo itself with a large army. Immediately, Masul ibn-Ak Sunkur panicked, and secretly sent messengers to Zengi, offering terms of surrender. Manuel, who had retreated to Antioch to gather more troops, was disgusted to discover that the cowardly emir had caved in to Zengi. Moreover, he was profoundly alarmed. After ruling for less than two years, he had already allowed the balance of power in the Middle East to slide against him. Zengi had two states in the bag, and was now determined to seize a third; Damascus.
However, it was not to be. After a long fruitless summer in 1145, where he consistently failed to make any headway against the Damascenes, he was assassinated by a slave from Edessa in 1146. Manuel’s first great foe was dead, but his ghost would haunt the empire for decades to come.
For a while, it seemed as though the balance of power had been restored. Zengi’s realm was divided between his two sons, with Mosul going to Saif ad-Din Ghazi, the elder, and Aleppo to Nur-ad-Din, the younger. Isaac Komnenos, governor of Syria, could, it seemed, breathe easy. Reassured, Manuel returned to Constantinople.
The peace would not last. In 1149, supported by a force of Damascene mercenaries eager to divide the brothers, Nur-ad-Din marched on Mosul. Saif ad-Din quickly marched out to meet his brother, and the two Muslim armies met at Ar-Raqqah on the Euphrates. The outcome was a shattering victory for Nur-ad-Din. Saif fled to Constantinople, but was murdered en route by a group of bandits. Once again, one man ruled supreme in Mosul and Aleppo.
Suddenly it seemed all the east was in flames. In Armenia, the ambitious King Toros II invaded Anatolia in 1151. Why exactly he chose to attack Byzantium then is unknown, but it finally gave Manuel a chance to unleash his armies. For eight years the warlike Emperor had been denied a battle, now he would not be denied. The Armenians were smashed in two massive battles, at Theodosiopolis and Manzikert. For centuries later, Manzikert would be known as “the terrible day” for the Armenians; it marked the end of medieval Armenia. The capital at Ani was victim to a brutal sacking, and the north of the country was overrun King Demtere I of Georgia. Manuel had been deliberately brutal in his treatment of Armenia, it was intended as a powerful statement to the Mediterranean; this was what would happen if the Roman Empire was sufficiently provoked. Unfortunately for the Mediterranean, and ultimately Byzantium herself, few states learned this lesson.


THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND SURROUNDING STATES IN 1152AD

 

[Midgard]

Hmm... I think I see the beginnings of what might end up becoming a "delayed Manzikert" of sorts down the line, resulting in a set of much-later Crusades. Which means... the Mongols are more likely to trigger the Crusades.

My only concern of sorts regarding this TL is the reapperance of the same historical figures in the same roles, even 80-plus years after the POD. While the ascention of Alexios I was almost certain had Isaakios I been in power for longer, there is no telling that Alexios would even have the same sons as in OTL - in OTL, he was married to Eirene Doikaina, the daughter of Andronikos Doukas (the same one who in OTL betrayed Romanos IV at Manzikert), but without the politics leading to that alliance, the two might not have even been married, let alone had the exact same children (Ioannos and Anna both being OTL characters, more or less).

By the time of Manuel I, it is almost impossible for the same people to be around, including Nur-ed-din, Zengi, etc. Especially since many of the alliances that led to the birth of Christian figures of the day would not have existed, or would have been drastically altered - I mean, technically, changing conception time by 30 seconds can result in a different child being born, and when you have 80 years of history that has been altered in a significant way, it is VERY unlikely that the same characters will show up.

Just a personal pet peeve though - don't let it discourage you.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

My only concern of sorts regarding this TL is the reapperance of the same historical figures in the same roles

It's easier than making them up!
Although I will start having to invent characters in the not too distant future... great...
Having said that I have already got several imaginary characters lined up, including a whole new set of Popes (the Papacy has been changed by the execution of Innocent II), and a thirteenth century Emperor who was hinted at in part 2.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

In 1154, a new and potentially dangerous element appeared in Manuel’s sphere of influence, the new King of Italy, Frederick I. Despite the best efforts of Manuel’s Catapan of Italy, one Michael Markopoulos, Frederick was crowned Emperor of the West by Pope Victor IV on June 18th 1155.
For Manuel this was a most alarming prospect. There had not been an Emperor of the West for almost twenty years, thanks in part to firm Byzantine support of the Popes Anacletus II and Victor IV. However, despite this, the Byzantines remained as far as the Popes were concerned schismatic heretics. Victor’s crowning of Frederick as Emperor, one feels, may have been a desperate attempt to escape from the influence of Constantinople; once a valued ally, now the dominator of Italy.

Victor died a few months after crowning Frederick Emperor, and there was now a strong feeling amongst the Cardinals that a stronger figure was needed to lead the Papacy to a glorious new era of domination. Therefore it was announced that the new Pope would be a German bishop, one who would bear the title Gregory VIII.

Gregory immediately sent ambassadors to Frederick, urging him to “restore Italy to one empire, as in the days of the past, with one Emperor, and one Pope”. Though officially an invitation for the Emperor to attack Pisa, which had sunk into piracy after being eclipsed by Byzantine Genoa, few could have failed to notice the true meaning of the Pope’s words. Manuel Komnenos in Constantinople certainly didn’t. How he got word of it is unknown, but it is certain that in 1157, he sent messages to both Gregory and Frederick, urging them to halt the slide towards war. Only Gregory bothered to respond, sending a rude letter addressed to “Emperor of the Greeks”. Manuel was incandescent with rage. Immediately, he began to gather troops. At Genoa, grain was brought in from Corsica and Sardinia, in readiness for a siege, while at Palermo, capital of Byzantine Italy, construction began on a war fleet. Demands were sent to the Zirid emir at Tunis for money and horses which the Emir quickly made available, he was after all little more than an Imperial vassal. Italy prepared herself for war.

In June 1158, Frederick set out upon his second Italian expedition. Pisa, the expedition’s official target was captured and sacked, soon to be followed by an even more glittering prize; Milan. Manuel meanwhile had arrived at Bari, with a gigantic army of almost 100,000 men. The two emperors sat either side of Rome, each waiting for the other to back down. Neither did.
The two sides finally met in battle on April 3rd 1159, just north of Rome. Fighting was extremely fierce, but eventually the Byzantines began to emerge victorious. The Pisans in Frederick’s army suddenly revolted, and surrounded a squadron of German knights, massacring them to a man. Many of Frederick’s other German subjects turned and fled before the disciplined Imperial onslaught. Zigzagging north up Italy they were caught in a pincer movement by a Genoan-Venetian army. Few made it back to Germany alive.

The Emperor Frederick meanwhile had been captured. Brought before Manuel, the Eastern Emperor at first refused to believe that the bloodied and tattered man covered in dirt was the mighty Western Emperor of the Romans (or Franks, the Byzantines never referred to a Western Emperor as “Roman” if they could help it). Manuel’s terms were harsh. Ravenna and Pisa were seceded to the Eastern Empire, and Frederick would give up the title “Emperor of the Romans”. Frederick retreated, greatly humiliated by his sudden reversal of fortune, and would never return to Italy again.
Yet, in the long run, The Holy German Empire, as it came to be known, had been saved from itself by Manuel. Nominally the victor of the battle, the Byzantine Emperor can have hardly known the far-flung consequences of his victory at the Battle of Rome, nor would he have given them a moment’s notice. For now though, he had business with the Pope.

Gregory VIII had initially tried to flee after hearing the news of the battle, but there was nowhere for him to go. In France, the French and English monarchs were engaged in a savage war, and in Spain the situation was much the same. Only one significant Catholic power remained to come to the Pope’s aid, but in 1159 the Kingdom of Hungary did not act. Manuel marched on Rome. Gregory miserably flitted from aristocrat to aristocrat, begging them to find some way to stop the Byzantines. It was not to be. On April 9th, Manuel entered Rome. On April 10th, Pope Gregory VIII was declared deposed, and on the 11th, a little known Sicilian Cardinal by the name of Jordan was proclaimed Pope Anacletus III.

Anacletus III made it clear from the start that he wished a reunion of the churches, a request Manuel was all to happy to grant, this was, after all the only reason he had placed Anacletus on the throne of St. Peter’s. When Manuel departed Rome that autumn, Pope and Emperor travelled to Constantinople together, thus Anacletus III became the first Pope to set foot in Constantinople since Constantine I in the eighth century.
He met with barely disguised hostility from the populace. Despite being as Orthodox as they were, he was seen as a traitor to the Orthodox faith for demanding supremacy over them as Patriarch of Rome. Manuel on the other hand was a conquering hero, who had re-established near full Imperial rule over Italy. And so when their beloved Emperor asked the general populace to accept Anacletus, their hostility was muted somewhat. Perhaps this Sicilian could be another step towards the total restoration of the Roman Empire?

One man, of course, disagreed, the Patriarch Luke. As head of the Orthodox Church, he surely was the head of matters of spirituality in the Roman Empire? Luke, by now seriously worried, began to spread shocking and dangerous rumours. The court of the Emperor would be moved back to Rome, the dreaded “filoque” clause would be added to the Nicene Creed, the Patriarchate of Constantinople would be reduced to a mere bishopric.
In modern times it can be hard to understand the devotion that the Byzantines had for their religion; it can only be compared to that of modern day football hooligans. A crowd of rioters suddenly surrounded Pope Anacletus’ temporary accommodation in part of the Palace. The Emperor was furious, and rode to the citizens almost alone, begging them to give the Pope a second chance, and assuring them that Constantinople would remain heart of the Roman Empire. Once again, when faced with their conquering hero, the citizens relented.

On February 1st, the Third Council of Nicaea was held. In it, a new brand of Christianity was hammered out, blending Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The Pope was head of the church, and his deputy would be the Patriarch of Constantinople, with all three other Patriarchs below them. Above all the Patriarchs was the Emperor himself; who, as equal of the Apostles, reserved the right to make of break Patriarchs. The filoque clause was removed from the Nicene Creed. A whole range of bishoprics were shuffled around, largely to compensate the Patriarch for his loss in status. Now he gained full responsibility for all Italy south of Rome herself, Sicily, and Sardinia.
The people of Constantinople rejoiced. The Roman Church was united once again. Not only had this but the Council also attended to some distinctly non-spiritual matters. Rome would once again be part of the Empire.
Manuel’s dominion was now at its greatest extent since the days of Heraclius. He ruled all of Italy south of the Po, the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, parts of Syria, and much of the Caucasus. Most other Emperors would have been happy with this vast realm, yet for Manuel it was not enough. The conqueror of Armenia and Sicily was determined to go further.

In 1162, the opportunity dawned. In Hungary, the death of King Géza II had prompted a minor struggle for power between the dead King’s son Stephen, and his brother, confusingly also named Stephen. The brother had already earlier fled to Constantinople, where he was supported by Manuel. Meanwhile, in Hungary, a tattered parish priest had turned up, claiming to be Pope Gregory VIII. Gregory urged King Stephen to break with the so recently reunited church, to follow the true Catholic faith, and the young king followed the Pope’s advice. This was, for Manuel, a final insult that he must return.

In 1163, he invaded Hungary. Stephen and Gregory attempted a counterassault, heading south towards Constantinople while Manuel was away, but they were ambushed by a force led by George Paleaologus, one of Manuel’s trusted generals. Battered, but not broken, they returned to Hungary, where the Emperor was waiting. At the battle of Siscia, once again Manuel emerged triumphant over a disorganized Western army. King Stephen fell down dead, while Pope Gregory did another of his famous vanishing acts. Manuel’s Stephen became King Stephen IV of Hungary, but not without a heavy demand from Manuel. All Hungary west of the Danube would be ceded to the Empire, it had once been Roman land, and would be restored to the Empire. Stephen tried to negotiate, but Manuel was inflexible. Finally, the new King agreed, and Manuel added another sizeable chunk to the Roman Empire.

The Emperor was now forty six years old. In a reign of twenty one years he had proved himself perhaps the greatest conqueror in all Byzantine history, surpassing Heraclius, Nicephorus Phocas, even Basil the Bulgar Slayer himself. Yet unlike these Emperors, there was no-one to check Manuel’s inexorable advance. To the east, the Seljuks had collapsed, to be replaced by a revived but still weak Abbasid Caliphate, and a more east Turkish dynasty, the Khwarezm Shah. In the south, Nur-ad-Din still proved resolutely unable to sieze Damascus and set himself up as a credible rival to the Empire. And the west had been humiliated not once, but twice before Manuel, who now had control of the Papacy, and could rest easy in this theatre.

In 1168 though, the inevitable finally happened; the fall of Damascus. A triumphant Nur-ad-Din now reigned over the largest and most powerful state to border Byzantium, and he had his eyes set on the next prize-Fatimid Egypt.

The Fatimids had once been a great power, but had never recovered from their disastrous defeat at the hands of Alp Arslan over a century previously. Their Caliphate had become increasingly introverted and isolated, reduced to little more than Egypt itself. Widely detested throughout the Islamic World for its Shiite faith, Egypt could only hope that Manuel Komnenos would come to its aid when Nur-ad-Din’s nephew Saladin marched on it in 1172. But Manuel, seeming stripped of his energy, would do no such thing. He had suddenly become disinterested in military matters, preferring to spend time with his ageing wife Theophano. Manuel and Theophano were childless, and desperately sought a son to revitalize the Empire. So, when the Empress, who must have been forty at the very least, conceived and gave birth to a son, Alexander, in 1170, it was widely hailed as a miracle. The proud father spent more and more time with his baby son over the next few years, intending to shape the boy into a new great Emperor. In this he failed. In 1174, he returned east.

Nur-ad-Din was in a position of dangerous strength. He held several great cities, Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Cairo, and funds from the conquest of Egypt steeled his armies. Manuel, seeing too late that the Muslim was now a credible threat to the Empire, hurriedly marched south.
As he crossed Asia Minor, the Emperor noticed that it was becoming more and more difficult to raise armies. His troops were spread out around the world, in Italy, Hungary and Armenia. In the absence of the peasant small-holders that made up the bulk of Manuel’s army, the great landowners had snatched up their plots, and great estates had radiated out once again. Here, the ageing Emperor must finally have begun to realize the immense damage he had wrought on his Empire. Byzantium was exhausted, and close to breaking point. Manuel could no longer gather armies of 50,000 or more men. He arrived at Antioch with a contingent of some fifteen thousand soldiers, and prepared for his last campaign.

As with all of Manuel’s wars, it began with staggering success. A week before Manuel had arrived at Antioch; Nur-ad-Din had finally passed away. His Sultanate was in chaos, and the Emperor advanced rapidly south. Aleppo fell, then Tripoli, Damascus, and Acre. By the beginning of 1176, the Emperor had surrounded Jerusalem. The Holy City fell to the Byzantine force on March 12th, providing a welcome boost in morale; Jerusalem was part of the Empire for the first time since 638! Manuel settled down in the city to plan his last great conquest, Egypt. But it was not to be.

In early September, he and his small army marched out of Jerusalem, to meet Saladin, Sultan of Egypt. Seeing the veteran Byzantine force approaching, Saladin retreated to a heavily fortified pass near the town of Gaza, and proposed a truce. Manuel refused, and began the assault on September 17th, 1176.

The Byzantine vanguard was the first to encounter Saladin's troops, and made it through the pass with few casualties, as the Egyptians were not finished setting up their positions. By the time the vanguard reached the end of the pass the rear was just about to enter; this allowed the Egyptians to almost completely trap them. Panicking, the commander John Ducas ordered the vanguard to return, but they could do nothing but watch, as little by little, waves of Muslim forces overwhelmed Manuel’s veterans.

Manuel himself was in no position to help either. As the shadows lengthened, he and his bodyguard turned and fled to Jerusalem. There, embassies were sent to Saladin, promising peace and a rich tribute, which the Sultan accepted. The invincible Emperor had been defeated.
Manuel returned to Constantinople the following spring, to hold a triumph, displaying the riches of the Holy Land for all to see. But the Emperor was mentally and physically drained. He had had ambitious plans for the Christianization the Holy Lands, vast new churches in Damascus and Aleppo, bringing Armenia into the Roman Church. In all of these he failed. For three years he sat in Constantinople, doing little but bask in his people’s affection. For them, he was Megas Basileus, the greatest Emperor, who had raised Byzantium to the mightiest power in the known world. Manuel, an intensely intelligent man, knew better. On September 17th 1180, four years to the day since Gaza, he died.

On the face of it, Manuel Komnenos was a truly great Emperor. He had extended Imperial prestige to its greatest height since Justinian, and had achieved a reunion of the churches that looked set to last. He died adored by his people, with a wife, son and brother at his bedside, and a vast empire.

Yet Manuel, for all his efforts, had wrecked the empire. The treasuries, after nearly forty years of unending warfare, lay empty, his armies were impossibly stretched to maintain order in Italy, Hungary, Armenia, and Palestine. He had made few arrangements for Alexander’s regency, and fewer for the future defence of the Empire. Even his most cherished achievement, Church unity, would not last for long after his death.
In conclusion then, while Manuel Komnenos was certainly a great Emperor, he was not a good one. And it is on his head, that the blame for three decades of future chaos must be placed.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND SURROUNDING STATES IN 1180AD

 

[Jammy]

Another good installment, looks like the Empires about to going into trouble can see the papacy being more annoyed with Bzyantines this time round.

Dear oh dear - keep it up

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

The Emperor Alexander II was crowned in early October 1180. From the start, he did inspire confidence, largely due to the fact he was a 10 year old boy. Barely a few weeks after taking the throne therefore, Alexander was shoved aside by a prominent general named Andronicus, the cousin of Alexander’s father Manuel.

Andronicus Komnenos had grand plans for the empire. Unlike his cousin, he fully understood that the outlying regions would have to be brought over fully to Imperial loyalty. His attention turned first to Italy, where Imperial rule was resented, if not entirely hated. There, in several cities, notably Florence, he set up large schools, funded by the Emperor alone. The Byzantine garrisons in the city were largely withdrawn, and Italians were promoted in the civil service. Unlike most emperors before him, Andronicus realized that for his Empire to function, conquered peoples had to be given a stake in it. Accordingly, he laid out new laws. In Syria and Palestine, Islam would be tolerated, and in the heretical church in Armenia would be suppressed, but gently, owing largely to the steady trickle of people to Uniate Christianity.

Andronicus though, was not a naturally patient or gentle man. Accordingly, in 1182, he had himself crowned co-Emperor. The army was beginning to get restive through lack of pay, and Andronicus, realist as he was, decided that they needed to be paid now and brought onside, before it was too late. He proposed a massive tax on the wealthy landowners, which would cripple them, but give the army a solid monetary base to tighten control in Manuel’s conquests, and relieve pressure on the poor. When the rich, contemptuously refused Andronicus’ taxes, the Emperor’s patience snapped. Leading a small force of the Emperor’s elite Saxon Guard, he burned the Thracian manor of one rich landowner, one Constantine Nafpliotis, as an example to the others. Nafpliotis, who was visiting a relative in Athens, returned to his estate to find it a smoking ruin.

News quickly spread, but it had the opposite effect of what Andronicus had desired. Nafpliotis now led a revolt of some of the richest and most powerful men in the Byzantine Empire. Using their immense funds, they were able to gather a large mercenary army, and marched on Constantinople, demanding the surrender of the Emperor, and the withdrawal of his hated tax.

In Constantinople, Andronicus panicked. He deployed some 30,000 soldiers from Bulgaria to confront the threat, but the seriously demoralized troops were ambushed en-route by a group of Bulgarian brigands and badly bloodied. The brigands then marched on Sardica, and sacked the place, killing the Byzantine governor, and proclaiming a Second Empire of Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the loyalists were smashed by the landowners and their mercenaries, who sent messengers ahead to Constantinople asking for just one thing, the surrender of Andronicus Komnenos.

Here, the Emperor Alexander made the first of several decisions that would cripple the Empire throughout his long reign. One night, while Andronicus slept peacefully, Alexander ordered the Saxon Guards to attack. Andronicus tried to fight back, but was by now approaching seventy years old, and was quickly overwhelmed by the tough Englishmen. A week later, the twelve year old Emperor met with the noblemen near Adrianople. He brought with him the severed head of Andronicus.

Constantine Nafpliotis was victorious, but now, with the young Emperor before him, he had a new idea. Somehow he convinced the Patriarch Basil II and Alexander’s mother Theodora that a marriage between the young Emperor and his daughter Irene would be a good idea to ensure the loyalty of the landowners. The twelve year old Emperor of the Romans and the ten year old daughter of an aristocrat were married in the autumn of 1182. A pair of children reigned over a Roman Empire that was collapsing into disaster.

In Hungary, King Ladislaus III, an intelligent plotter of a man, saw his chance. With Bulgaria in revolt, the Imperial troops west of the Danube were isolated. In a violent battle, the Byzantines were defeated by the Hungarian, who pressed his advantage, moving down into Dalmatia. By the end of 1183, Byzantium’s Balkan territories were in great trouble.

Even the Church, Manuel’s proudest achievement began to crack. The long reign of Pope Anacletus III had finally come to an end in 1181, and he was succeeded by Anacletus IV. Anacletus IV then angered the powerful King Henry I of England by demanding that he practice Uniate Christianity, rather than the pure Catholicism which remained strong to the north and west of the Christian world. Henry pointedly refused, and allied with the Catholic Emperor of Germany, Henry IV. The two Henrys then devoted their considerable power to the conquest of Uniate France. Caught in a pincer movement, the French quickly surrendered. It was what they did next that was so damaging. The two empires decided to place their frontier along the river Seine, and placed a “Patriarch of the West” in Paris, who controlled a long narrow strip of territory along the length of the river. This Patriarch was essentially a reinstated Pope, a pupil of the long dead Gregory VIII, who called himself Michael I, the first Pope of Paris. With the Parisian Papacy Catholicism burned back into life, and Christendom was once more divided.

Not that Emperor Alexander would have been remotely concerned by this. The young man had fallen totally under the spell of the two most important women in his life; he had developed a passionate hatred. In 1188, Empress Irene II, aged just sixteen, managed to persuade the Senate that her mother in law Theodora was an enemy of the state. The Senate panicked, and the Saxon Guards were sent in. For the second time in just six years, a senior member of the Imperial family met their maker on the end of an English axe.

While Byzantium descended into chaos, to the north, Bulgaria was thriving. Tsar Peter IV was a superbly talented military leader. In 1190, he crushed an attempted Imperial reconquest led by Constantine Nafpliotis, punishing the landowner with blinding, just as the great Emperor Basil II had blinded Bulgarians in the distant past. Adrianople, undefended, was sacked the next year, and in 1193, the newly built Bulgarian fleet began to harass the coastal cities of northern Anatolia. Alexander, responded by sending a small flotilla of around twenty dilapidated warships, which were duly crushed.
However, Alexander was no longer really in control of his own court. Ever since her marriage to him a decade ago, Irene Nafpliota had been steadily increasing her influence over her inept husband. As a teenager, she had ridded herself of her main rival for power, Alexander’s mother Theodora, now she turned her attention to seizing total control of the Roman Empire.

It is clear that Irene was an unusually intelligent woman, and she must have laid out her plans with real care and caution. In 1193, the same year as the fleet’s humiliation at the hands of the Bulgarians, she had fallen pregnant, delivering a son, Isaac, on Christmas Day of that year. The baby boy cemented her claims to the throne, and, with the baby just a few weeks old, she had him crowned co-Emperor. Slowly, advocating the rights of her son, Irene’s influence lengthened. Alexander II was slowly but surely pushed aside. He appeared less and less in public, with Irene and her young son taking command. By the late 1190’s he had fallen into drunkenness and despair, despite fathering three more children, all daughters; Zoe, Theophano and Anna.

Irene could now congratulate herself on being the most powerful human being in the Empire. Unfortunately, she misused her position. She began to favour a Syrian general, Abu Karim Muhammad, who was, as his name suggests, an Arab. Naturally this caused immense scandal at the courts of both Constantinople and Rome, despite the fact that it was Karim who had been able to maintain a tenuous Imperial presence in Palestine. Never mind the fact that Karim had renounced Islam and spoke perfect Greek and Latin, his race made him an object of loathing as a “Saracen infidel”. In cosmopolitan Antioch this mattered little, and even in Constantinople it could have been tolerated, but for Rome it was unacceptable. In 1202, Anacletus IV wrote a stern letter to the Empress, urging her to sack the great general. Irene prevaricated for a while, but pressure was slowly but surely building against Karim, and the general was dismissed.

For Karim, this was an outrage, which he had no intention of accepting. His armies were extremely loyal to him, Irene, having starved the army of income, commanded the loyalty of only the Saxon Guard. Upon returning to Antioch, Karim sent messengers to Al-Adil, the Sultan of Egypt, offering him Palestine and Cyprus in exchange for military support. The Sultan enthusiastically agreed, and Karim gained some 10,000 heavy cavalry to support his Byzantine native troops. His army thus gained, he returned west; to Constantinople.

The news reached Irene that the capital was being marched on near the end of 1203. The empress sent messengers to Rome, demanding money and troops from Anacletus and the Catapan of Italy, David Bringas, but the Pope had passed away, and Bringas was already fully engaged crushing a revolt in Corsica. The Empress was left powerless.

Then, suddenly it seemed as though the Lord sent her a miracle. Near Nicaea, Karim had settled down to eat at the home of a noble who had revolted with him. The general had begun to choke and splutter, before slumping down, face first in a bowl of food. He had choked on a grape. The Empress had been saved.

Or so it seemed. In fact, Karim’s death brought only the shortest term benefit to the empire. Upon hearing the news of the general’s death, Al-Adil decided to invade Palestine anyway. Jerusalem fell after just a few days, and a massacre ensued. Every Christian and Jew found within the city walls was brutally murdered. Some, in an irony, were crucified in front of the Holy Sepulcher. It was an act of sickening brutality, that, unfortunately, would be repeated all too often over the decades to come.

By 1210, Syria and Palestine were effectively lost. Antioch held out, as did a few coastal strongholds like Acre and Tripoli. But other than these, all of Manuel’s last great conquest was lost. In Constantinople, the apathetic rule of Empress Irene and her woeful husband continued. The Empire needed a saviour. In 1212, it finally got one.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND SURROUNDING STATES IN 1212AD

 

[Jammy]

The Empire needed a saviour. In 1212, it finally got one.

Oh goodie

 

[Midgard]

Great updates, and it is nice to see an alternate beginning to Byzantium's troubles... better yet, the Empire is in a position to actually weather them this time around. I wonder, however, how they would do against the Mongols, and who the "savior" you are referring to is.

One small nitpick - Alexander would have technically been Alexander IV... Alexander Severus is considered the first, whereas one of the short-lived IIIrd century Emperors was the second. Leo the Wise's brother was actually Alexander III, not I.