Michel Ier Doukas

Michel Ier Ange Comnène Doukas was the founder and despotic first of Épire of 1205 until his death in 1215.

Life

Michel was the illegitimate son of the sebastokratōr bizantin Jean Doukas. He was thus a cousin of the emperors Isaac II Angel and Alexis III Angel. Before 1204 he was governor of the Thème of Mylasa in Asia Mineure. After the fall of Constantinople, Michel briefly entered the service of Boniface de Montferrat, which received the Royaume of Thessalonique and the seigniory of the Greece whose division involves corruption. Boniface is then given up by Michel. Boniface in reprisal attacks Michel. This last tried to resist the forces crossed in the Peloponnese, as a combatant with the battle of the olive grove of Koundouros. Losing the battle, it was run away with in Epire. There it founded a state, the Despotat d' Epire with for capital Arta, in the sector of the old topic of Nicopolis. Epire became the new house of the taken refuge Greeks of Constantinople. Michel was described like the second Noah, saving the men of the Latin flood. Jean X Camatéros, Patriarch of Constantinople, however did not regard Michel as being a legitimate character to replace Theodore Ier Lascaris with Nicée and thus to become Byzantine emperor. In Epire, Michel resisted the attempts at tender on behalf of Boniface de Montferrat. On his side the Latin emperor Thierry of Flanders requires that Michel subject to the Latin empire, and accepts an alliance, allowing his daughter to marry the brother of Henry, Eustace in 1209. Michel did not honor this alliance, supposing that Epire; mountainous territory would be most of the time impenetrable for Latin with whom it made and demolishes alliances. During this time, the successors of Boniface de Montferrat demade of the assistance for finally subjecting Epire but Michel is combined in 1210 with the République of Venice and attacks Thessalonique. It is attested that Michel showed cruelty towards his prisoners with in particular of the cases of Crucifixtion on Latin priests. In answer, the pope Innocent III excommunicated it. The Latin emperor Henry recovered then the city and obliged Michel to sign a new alliance. However, Michel turned his attention to capture other strategically important cities, including Larissa in Thessalie in 1212, Dyrrhachium and Corfou Venetian city in 1214. He also took the control of the ports of the Golfe of Corinth. He also took part in a war against the Serbia as combined empire of Bulgaria and Latin empire. Michel was assassinated by one of his servants in 1215 and it is his/her half-brother Theodore Doukas who succeeds to him.

Sources

The Oxford Dictionary off Byzantium, Oxford University Near, 1991.
K. Varzos, Ē genealogia tōn Komnēnōn (Thessalonica, 1984) vol. 2 pp. 669-689

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