Constantin X

Constantin X Doukas is a Byzantine emperor which reigns of 1059 with 1067.

He is aristocratic family member of the Doukas who dominates the Byzantine company until the reign of Alexis Ier Comnène and whose incomes come from great fields in Thrace and Macedonia and of real estates dispersed in Asia Mineure. Minister and principal adviser of Isaac I {{er}} Comnène it succeeds this more or less constrained last to abdicate in 1059 following unpopular tax decisions But Constantin, resulting from the civil aristocracy, does not have the supports in the army of his predecessor. Also it in its letter of advent must sent to different the Thèmes to evoke the agreement concluded with Isaac to avoid any rebellion. It rests to control on the Byzantine big families including that of her predecessor.

Scholar and intellectual, it cannot continue the work of Isaac Ier, being satisfied to spend its time in erudite discussions and to write interminable essays on the tiniest points of the law.

Like representative of the civil nobility, it facilitates the entry with the senate with the broadest layers of the middle-class. It removes the tax measures of Isaac Ier but increases considerably the national expenditure by the creation of a plethoric civil administration. Constantin, in order to reduce the weight of the army recruits foreign mercenaries more and more.

That does not prevent the aggravation of the external threat. Thus Constantin X is unable to answer the many attackers of the empire:

the Norman ones of Robert Guiscard tackle the Byzantine possessions in Italy of the South.
in 1064, the Hungarians remove Belgrade.
the Ouzes break on Balkans before being overcome (1064) and replaced on the territory of current the Bulgaria by the Petchenègues.
From 1065 the capacity of the Seljoukides increases in Asia Mineure. They seize Ani in 1065, devastate the Cilicie and take Césarée in 1067.

With her death, his wife Eudoxie Makrembolitissa is in charge of regency in the name of her son Michel VII. To exert this regency, and in spite of prohibition that Constantin had made him before dying, it remarie with Romain IV Diogène

Constantin had initially married a girl of Constantin Dallassène, noble Byzantine. He does not seem to have had children of this first marriage. He marries in second weddings before 1050 Eudoxie Makrembolitissa of which it a:

* Michel VII († 1087), emperor

* Anne, nun

* a son, shortly after dead 1059

* Andronic (1057 † after 1081) emperor associated with 1067 to 1078, married in 1068 with Marie, girl of Béla Ier, king de Hongrie

* Constantin Porphyrogénète (1060 † 1081) emperor associated with 1071 to 1078

* Théodora, married to Domenico Selvo, Doge de Venise

* Zoe (1062 † 1136)

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