Then came the best Byzantine emperor

Basil II Boulgaroktonos.

Basil expanded the Empire’s territories all the way to the danube and was a brilliant financial admin. All was great at that time.

His successors were poorly chosen men who were husbands of the Empress Zoe, except for Constantine Monomachos who was fairly good

Then a bloke came along by 1060~ named Constantine X Doulas

Doukas

What about the Great Schism?

Doukas was pathetic, destroyed the army, and economy

Oh the schism?

I’ll get into that later

His successor Romanos IV diogenes suffered a horrible defeat at Manzikert in 1071 to the turks and all was in shambles since he was taken captive

His successors weren’t great either until a certain fellow named Alexios I Komnenos came along

Until 1185 the Komnenids were good and competent rulers who held the empire upright

Alexios John and Manuel were all good and well meaning.

Manuel too, except in 1176 towards the end of his reign

He suffered a defeat to the turks at Myriokephalon.

Whoops! And in the early 1180s when he died, his successor was his 14 year old son.

John’s cousin Andronikos I Komnenos had the youth strangled and took reign

Andronikos was cruel.

He was eventually killed after a week of public torture

Coming around the late 12th century we see the most spineless rulers

The Angelids.

Isaac II Angelos was a pathetic ruler who did almost nothing

His relative Alexios III Angelos wasn’t better at all. Cruel and lavish, he emptied the treasury on personal items and dismantled the army

The issue here was the crusaders

Alexios was expelled by the crusaders and Isaac’s son Alexios IV Angelos was put into power

Alexios IV was a pederast according to his father, who he freed from prison as they joint ruled

Isaac was blinded on orders of Alexios III bte

Btw

The Crusaders here were horrible. Ruthless pillagers who forgot the main mission to recover the holy land

Eventually, on Feb 8 1204, the two Angelids were killed by Alexios V Doukas Mourtzuphlos who tried to handle the crusaders

He was executed in 1205 by being thrown from the column of theodosius.

The Crusaders handled Constantinople for 50 years.

Meanwhile in exile, the Byzantine was the Nicean Empire

Theodore I Laskaris held power for a while, and he was pretty decent

Holding off Turks and expanding territory

His successor John III Doukas Vatatzes was even more better

A pious emperor who made territorial gains and was canonized as a saint in Christianity later

His son Theodore II Laskaris lasted 4 years; albeit he too was brilliant in his own sense. The previous two emperors were epileptic

Despite his epilepsy, John III and Theodore II managed to keep the empire going on

They handed their throne off to John IV Laskaris, Theodore’s 8 year old son who had a regent for 3 years.