Message from @!?_Quantum_Physics
Discord ID: 690008097632026694
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 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.
On his 11th birthday, he was blinded and exiled.
The man who ordered this was Michael VIII Palaiologos
He was brutal but an ok emperor
Not great
But he did reconquer constantinople by 1260.