Alexios II Komnenos

Male 1169 - 1183  (14 years)


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  • Name Alexios II Komnenos 
    Born 10 Sep 1169  Constantinople, Istanbul, Turkey Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Died Oct 1183 
    Cause: Murder 
    Person ID I482640  Little Chute Genealogy
    Last Modified 6 May 2016 

    Father Manuel I Komnenos,   b. 28 Nov 1122, Constantinople, Istanbul, Turkey Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 24 Sep 1180, Constantinople, Istanbul, Turkey Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 57 years) 
    Mother Bertha von Sulzbach,   b. cir 1120,   d. 1159  (Age ~ 39 years) 
    Married 1146 
    Family ID F179422  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Maria Kukaina,   b. 1137,   d. 1217  (Age 80 years) 
    Married 02 Mar 1179 
    Children 
     1. Eudokia Komnena,   b. 1168, Istanbul, Turkey Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 04 Nov 1202, Aniane, Herault, Languedoc-Roussillon, France Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 34 years)
    Last Modified 21 Jul 2022 
    Family ID F179421  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Photos
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    482640a.jpg

  • Notes 
    • On Manuel's death in 1180, Maria, who became a nun under the name Xene, took the position of regent (according to some historians). She excluded her young son from power, entrusting it instead to Alexios the protosebastos (a cousin of Alexios II), who was popularly believed to be her lover. Friends of the young Alexios II now tried to form a party against the empress mother and the protosebastos; Alexios II's half-sister Maria, wife of Caesar John (Renier of Montferrat), stirred up riots in the streets of the capital.

      Their party was defeated on 2 May 1182, but Andronikos Komnenos, a first cousin of Emperor Manuel, took advantage of the disorder to aim at the crown. He entered Constantinople, received with almost divine honours, and overthrew the government. His arrival was celebrated by a massacre of 80,000 Latins in Constantinople, especially the Venetian merchants, which he made no attempt to stop. He allowed Alexios II to be crowned but was responsible for the death of most of the young emperor's actual or potential defenders, including his mother, his half-sister, and the Caesar, and he refused to allow him any voice in public affairs.

      The betrothal in 1180 of Alexios II to Agnes of France, daughter of Louis VII of France and his third wife Adèle of Champagne and at the time a child of nine, had not apparently been followed by their marriage. Andronikos was now formally proclaimed as co-emperor before the crowd on the terrace of the Church of Christ of the Chalkè, and not long afterwards, on the pretext that divided rule was injurious to the Empire, he caused Alexios II to be strangled with a bow-string, in October 1183. During the reign of Alexius II, the Byzantine Empire was invaded by King Béla III, losing Syrmia and Bosnia to the Kingdom of Hungary in 1181; later even Dalmatia was lost to the Venetians. Kilij Arslan II invaded the empire in 1182, defeating the Byzantines at the Siege of Cotyaeum, resulting in the Empire losing Cotyaeum and Sozopolis.