Alexios III Angelos, Latinized as Alexius III Angelus, was Byzantine Emperor from March 1195 to 17/18 July 1203. He reigned under the name Alexios Komnenos associating himself with the Komnenos dynasty.
Alexios V Doukas, Latinized as Alexius V Ducas, was Byzantine emperor from February to April 1204, just prior to the sack of Constantinople by the participants of the Fourth Crusade. His family name was Doukas, but he was also known by the nickname Mourtzouphlos or Murtzuphlus (Μούρτζουφλος), referring to either bushy, overhanging eyebrows or a sullen, gloomy character. He achieved power through a palace coup, killing his predecessors in the process. Though he made vigorous attempts to defend Constantinople from the crusader army, his military efforts proved ineffective. His actions won the support of the mass of the populace, but he alienated the elite of the city. Following the fall, sack, and occupation of the city, Alexios V was blinded by his father-in-law, the ex-emperor Alexios III, and later executed by the new Latin regime. He was the last Byzantine emperor to rule in Constantinople until the Byzantine recapture of Constantinople in 1261.
Andronikos I Komnenos, Latinized as Andronicus I Comnenus, was Byzantine emperor from 1183 to 1185. He was the son of Isaac Komnenos and the grandson of the emperor Alexios I. In later Byzantine historiography, Andronikos I became known under the epithet "Misophaes" in reference to the great number of enemies he had blinded.
Isaac II Angelos or Angelus was Byzantine Emperor from 1185 to 1195, and co-Emperor with his son Alexios IV Angelos from 1203 to 1204. In a 1185 revolt against the Emperor Andronikos Komnenos, Isaac seized power and rose to the Byzantine throne, establishing the Angelos family as the new imperial dynasty.
John II Komnenos or Comnenus was Byzantine emperor from 1118 to 1143. Also known as "John the Beautiful" or "John the Good", he was the eldest son of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina and the second emperor to rule during the Komnenian restoration of the Byzantine Empire. As he was born to a reigning emperor, he had the status of a porphyrogennetos. John was a pious and dedicated monarch who was determined to undo the damage his empire had suffered following the Battle of Manzikert, half a century earlier.
Theodore I Laskaris or Lascaris was the first emperor of Nicaea—a successor state of the Byzantine Empire—from 1205 to his death. Although he was born to an obscure aristocratic family, his mother was related to the imperial Komnenos clan. He married Anna, a younger daughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos in 1200. He received the title of despot before 1203, demonstrating his right to succeed his father-in-law on the throne.
Theodore Branas or Vranas, sometimes called Theodore Komnenos Branas, was a general under the Byzantine Empire and afterwards under the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Under the Latin regime he was given the title Caesar and in 1206 he became governor and lord of Adrianople. He is called Livernas by western chroniclers of the Fourth Crusade, including Geoffroi de Villehardouin.
The Empire of Nicaea or the Nicene Empire was the largest of the three Byzantine Greek rump states founded by the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire that fled when Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian armed forces during the Fourth Crusade, a military event known as the Sack of Constantinople. Like the other Byzantine rump states that formed due to the 1204 fracturing of the empire, such as the Empire of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus, it was a continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived well into the medieval period. A fourth state, known in historiography as the Latin Empire, was established by an army of Crusaders and the Republic of Venice after the capture of Constantinople and the surrounding environs.
Agnes of France, renamed Anna, was Byzantine empress by marriage to Alexios II and Andronikos I Komnenos. She was a daughter of Louis VII of France and Adèle of Champagne.
Ivan Asen I, also known as Asen I or John Asen I, was emperor or tsar of Bulgaria from 1187/1188 to 1196 as co-ruler with his elder brother, Peter II. Hailing from the Byzantine theme of Paristrion, his exact place and date of birth are unknown. Most contemporaneous chronicles describe Asen and his brothers, Theodor (Peter) and Kaloyan, as Vlachs but they were probably of mixed Bulgarian, Cuman and Vlach ancestry.
Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina or better Kamatera was a Byzantine Empress by marriage to the Byzantine Emperor Alexios III Angelos.
AlexiosBranas or Vranas was a Byzantine nobleman, attempted usurper, and the last Byzantine military leader of the 12th century to gain a notable success against a foreign enemy.
Manuel Kamytzes Komnenos Doukas Angelos was a Byzantine general who was active in the late 12th century, and led an unsuccessful rebellion in 1201–02, against his cousin, Emperor Alexios III Angelos.
The House of Angelos, Latinised as Angelus, was a Byzantine Greek noble family that produced several Emperors and other prominent nobles during the middle and late Byzantine Empire. The family rose to prominence through the marriage of its founder, Constantine Angelos, with Theodora Komnene, the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. As imperial relatives, the Angeloi held various high titles and military commands under Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. In 1185, following a revolt against Andronikos I Komnenos, Isaac II Angelos rose to the throne establishing the Angeloi as the new imperial family that ruled until 1204. The period was marked by the decline and fragmentation of the Byzantine Empire, culminating in its dissolution by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 under Alexios IV Angelos.
Manuel Komnenos was the eldest son of Byzantine emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, and the progenitor of the Grand Komnenos dynasty of the Empire of Trebizond. He served his uncle, Manuel I Komnenos, as a diplomatic envoy to the Russian principalities and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also helped his father escape imprisonment in Constantinople. His opposition to the regency of Empress-dowager Maria of Antioch and the protosebastos Alexios Komnenos landed him in prison, but he was released in April 1182, when his father stood poised to take power in the Byzantine capital.
The Byzantine Empire was ruled by emperors of the Komnenos dynasty for a period of 104 years, from 1081 to about 1185. The Komnenian period comprises the reigns of five emperors, Alexios I, John II, Manuel I, Alexios II and Andronikos I. It was a period of sustained, though ultimately incomplete, restoration of the military, territorial, economic and political position of the Byzantine Empire.
The sack of Thessalonica in 1185 by Normans of the Kingdom of Sicily was one of the worst disasters to befall the Byzantine Empire in the 12th century.
John Kantakouzenos was a military commander and an early member of the Kantakouzenos family. The contemporary historian Niketas Choniates describes him as a brave, audacious and experienced soldier but frequently led astray by his foolhardiness and presumption.
Constantine Mesopotamites was a senior Byzantine official, and de facto chief minister under the emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos from 1193 until his fall in summer 1197. He was also archbishop of Thessalonica from c. 1197 until c. 1227, but was in exile between 1204 and 1224, when the city was occupied by Latin Crusaders. Restored to his see, he refused to crown Theodore Komnenos Doukas as emperor, and departed his see again in self-exile. He was also a colleague and correspondent of the historian Niketas Choniates, and may have commissioned some of the latter's works.
Isaac Komnenos Vatatzes was a Byzantine aristocrat and military commander, who was the son-in-law of Emperor Alexios III Angelos and received the rank of sebastokrator.
