Andronic Ier Comnène

Andronic Ier Comnène , born in 1123, killed in 1185, Byzantine emperor of 1183 with 1185, wire of Isaac Comnène and small son of Alexis Ier Comnène.

Life former to the reign

Andronic, which lived its childhood at the sultan of Iconium, was high with his/her first cousin the future emperor Manuel {{Ier}} Comnène. Andronic was never of agreement with this last and during its reign the majority of its time in disgrace, prison and exile had passed. Andronic very intelligent, was very informed but however practiced the exercises of body and was an achieved rider, of a very great courage. These qualities made of him a very popular man in the army. His/her brother, seeking to move away it, named it duke of Cilicie in 1151 but it failed in the task which was entrusted to him. It was then condemned to have tried to foment a plot against the emperor and jeté in prison in 1154 from where it escaped first once in 1158, was taken again and escaped once again definitively in 1164. Managing to gain the court of the Russian prince Iaroslav II of Kiev, it was recalled by Manuel with which it was reconciled. This last returns it once again in Cilicie (1166) but very quickly relieves it because of its disastrous control. But Andronic flees in Palestine with the tax proceeds. With Midsummer's Day d' Acre, it allures Théodora Comnène, widow of Baudouin III of Jerusalem. She decides to follow Andronic. This last receives the stronghold of Beirut by the king Amaury of Jerusalem but learning its research by the Byzantines who received the order to burst the eyes to him it flees with Théodora (1167).

During thirteen years it carried out a wandering life. One successively crosses it with Damas, Baghdad, in Georgia, with Mardin, Erzeroum then in a Turkish emir of the old topic of Chaldée which gives him a fortress at the border turco-Byzantine. From there it carries out the life of a knight brigand, holding to ransom the caravans and plundering the imperial territory. But in one of these Théodora incursions is captured by the duke of Trébizonde. Andronic beseeching the thanks of Handbook which it obtained, receives from him a residence in a town of Black Sea after having lent oath to the basileus and to his/her son Alexis II. Of its residence it attentively observed the events which occurred to Constantinople.

Usurpation of Andronic

It is in 1182, after having raised an army, which it beats the army of Andronic Ange with the Bataille of Nicomédie. In front of the gravity of the situation the protosébaste Alexis Comnène, the regent required a compromise of Andronic but this last answered him by an ultimatum: dismissal of Alexis II and entered a monastery of the regent.

But until Andronic waited produced, the people of Constantinople exasperated by the policy of the two regents entered in revolt and the protosébaste had the burst eyes. But the revolt did not stop there, Constantinopolitains unchained devastated the districts inhabited by the Westerners who were massacred: it is the Massacre of Latin of Constantinople of 1182. However, some of the latter could escape thanks to the Venetian ships which devastated Hellespont and the islands of the Aegean Sea.

The hatred of the Greeks went on the ecclesiastics of Latin rite to the image of the cardinal Jean, papal legate Alexandre III which was decapitated and to which one attached the head to the tail of a dog. Andronic, favorable to the movement, sent troops in support for the rioters.

Interior government

It entered Constantinople a little later made carry out the regent Marie d' Antioche, was made associate with the throne and was crowned in September 1183. It then made strangle the young Alexis emperor, with a cord of arc.

Andronic went up on the throne with a reforming will. The chroniclers of the time could blame it like making him the largest praises. It changed the administration indeed completely, removed the venality of the loads, interdict of raising taxes arbitrarily, gave safety measures to the farmers, removed the right of wreck, sent reforming judges in the provinces. Andronic wanted to put an end in a radical way to the abuses of the administration, with the exactions made by the powerful ones on the poor (especially at the financial level). Of course these changes were not with the taste of everyone and its unmatched behavior involved internal rebellions, in particular of the nobility. Besides it had in 1184 to leave to shift to repress a revolt of the governors of the towns of Asia Mineure (thus, his/her cousin Isaac Comnène governor of Tarsus is established officially with Cyprus and declared himself politically independent). As revenge it was caught some with his/her parents and exasperated by the revolts in the empire, it made reign terror in Constantinople. Soon he was hated by the majority of the inhabitants of the empire.

Foreign policy

The foreign politics of Andornic was completely different from that of Handbook, it adopted a heinous attitude towards the franques populations of Syria. Besides it signed a treaty with Saladin by which it was committed helping the sultan to conquer the cross States. But in Occident, the marriage of the king Henri VI, wire of Frederic Barberousse, with Constancy, aunt and heiress of Guillaume II of Sicily, on October 29th, 1184 brings closer two to the principal enemies of Byzance.

Andronic tried to approach Rome and signed a treaty with Venice but this is not enough to prevent Guillaume II from leaving to shift against the Byzantine empire. The king of Sicily left on June 11th, 1185 Messine and Guillaume gained many victory quickly: the Durazzo June 24th is taken; August 6th the army Norman arrived in front of Thessalonique joined then by the fleet on August 15th. August 24th the Norman ones took by storm the city, panic gained Constantinople and Andronic required that one kill the prisoners who were in prison but it did not have time to publish his edict because the favorite of Andronic 1st, wanting to stop Isaac Ange, was made kill by this last. This caused the fall of Andronic, Isaac took refuge in Sainte Sophie where it was joined by an unchained population.

Humiliation of Andronic

On the instigation of his cousin Isaac Angel, the people of Constantinople rebelled and killed it in the most atrocious way which is: a hand was cut to him, one attached it on the back of a sick camel and one it exhiba in Constantinople during several days without water nor food. Lastly, one threw ebullient water with the face to him, one tore off an eye to him and one hung it by the feet between two pillars on the Hippodrome. It did not stop repeating: “ IEA pity, my God! Why bait itself on a reed broken ? ”. An Italian soldier put an end to his sufferings while plunging a blade in the belly to him.

Sources

Louis Bréhier, Life and died of Byzance , editions Albin Michel.

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