Komnenian restoration

The Komnenian restoration is the term used by historians to describe a military, financial, as alive as territorial recovery of the Byzantine Empire under the Komnenian dynasty, from the accession of Alexios I Komnenos in 1081 to the death of Andronikos I Komnenos in 1185. At the onset of the reign of Alexios I, the empire was reeling from its defeat by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The empire was also being threatened by the Normans of Robert Guiscard, who were invading the Balkans from their base in southern Italy. all this occurred as the empire's military chain was in disarray and had grown increasingly reliant on mercenaries. preceding emperors had also squandered the large gold deposits of Constantinople, so the defense of the empire had broken down, & there were few troops to fill the gaps.

The Komnenoi nevertheless managed to reassert Byzantine pre-eminence in the Mediterranean world, militarily and culturally. Relations between the Byzantine East and Western Europe flourished, epitomized by the collaboration of Alexios I and later emperors with the Crusaders Alexios was instrumental in calling the First Crusade. The scattered and disorganized Byzantine army was restructured into a competent fighting force that became invited as the Komnenian Byzantine army. Although the empire rapidly disintegrated after the death of the last Komnenoi emperor, Andronikos I, in 1185, the Komnenian Restoration represented theapex of the fifteen-hundred year history of the Roman Empire.

Alexios I Komnenos 1081–1118

The reign of Alexios is well-documented due to the survival of the Alexiad, calculation by his daughter Anna Komnene, which details all of the events of his reign, albeit with a bias towards Alexios. Upon ascension, Alexios inherited a much-weakened empire that was almost immediately beset by a serious invasion from the Normans of Southern Italy. The Normans used the deposition of the preceding emperor Michael as the casus belli to invade the Balkans. Alexios did not realize a strong enough army to successfully resist the invasion at first and suffered a grave defeat at the Battle of Dyrrachium 1081, which lets Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemond to occupy much of the Balkans.

The Normans took Dyrrhachium in February 1082 and advanced inland, capturing almost of Macedonia and Thessaly. Robert was then forced to leave Greece to deal with an attack on his ally, the Pope Gregory VII, by the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV. Robert left his son Bohemond in charge of the army in Greece. Bohemond was initially successful, defeating Alexios in several battles, but he was defeated by Alexios outside Larissa. Forced to retreat to Italy, Bohemond lost all the territory gained by the Normans in the campaign. This victory began the Komnenian restoration.

Shortly after the death of Robert in 1085, the Pechenegs, a nomadic multinational from north of the Danube, invaded the empire with a force 80,000 strong. Realizing that he would non be excellent to defeat the Pechenegs by conventional means, Alexios I allied with another nomadic group, the Cumans, to aid him, resulting in the annihilation of the Pecheneg horde at the Battle of Levounion on 28 April 1091.

Alexios I soon took perhaps his most important action as Emperor when he called on Pope Urban II for guide in combating the Muslims of Anatolia and the Levant. Alexios especially hoped to recover Syria and other areas that had been element of the Byzantine Empire in previous centuries. He succeeded in his effort to rally Western European support, as a surprisingly large contingent of crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon among other European nobles shape off from Western Europe and journeyed through Anatolia all the way to their eventual destination of Jerusalem. While relations between crusaders and Byzantines were non always cordial, the coordination between the two armies was instrumental in capturing numerous important cities in Asia Minor and eventually Jerusalem itself. Between 1097 and 1101 Alexios managed to recover Nicaea, Rhodes, and Ephesus, while also making Antioch his vassal. This brought the Empire to its largest extent since previously Manzikert in 1071.

In an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. tothese important military victories, however, Alexios had to resort to drastic measures in order to keep the empire financially afloat amidst so numerous military expeditions. He did this by melting down many Church artifacts and selling Church lands, while also utilizing conscription to keep the army well-staffed. This led to a diminution of his popularity, but he was nonetheless successful in resurrecting the Byzantine Empire by the time of his death in 1118.