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.
Umberto Eco was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory, as well as Foucault's Pendulum, his 1988 novel which touches on similar themes.
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.
Prester John was a legendary Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian nation lost amid the pagans and Muslims in the Orient. The accounts were often embellished with various tropes of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Magi, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures.
Niketas or Nicetas Choniates, whose actual surname was Akominatos (Ἀκομινάτος), was a Byzantine Greek historian and politician. He accompanied his brother Michael Akominatos to Constantinople from their birthplace Chonae. Nicetas wrote a history of the Eastern Roman Empire from 1118 to 1207.
The Archpoet, or Archipoeta, is the name given to an anonymous 12th-century author of ten medieval Latin poems, the most famous being his "Confession" found in the Carmina Burana manuscript. Along with Hugh Primas of Orléans, he is cited as the best exemplar of Goliardic poetry and one of the stellar poets of the Latin Middle Ages.
Conrad of Montferrat was a nobleman, one of the major participants in the Third Crusade. He was the de facto King of Jerusalem by virtue of his marriage to Isabella I of Jerusalem from 24 November 1190, but officially elected only in 1192, days before his death. He was also the eighth Marquess of Montferrat from 1191.
Otto of Freising was a German churchman of the Cistercian order and chronicled at least two texts which carries valuable information on the political history of his own time. He was the bishop of Freising from 1138. Otto participated in the Second Crusade; he lived through the journey and reached Jerusalem, and later returned to Bavaria in the late 1140s, living for another decade back in Europe.
Alessandria is a city and commune in Piedmont, Italy, and the capital of the Province of Alessandria. It is also the largest municipality of the region. The city is sited on the alluvial plain between the Tanaro and the Bormida rivers, about 90 kilometres east of Turin.
Cosmas Indicopleustes was a merchant and later hermit from Alexandria in Egypt. He was a 6th-century traveller who made several voyages to India during the reign of emperor Justinian. His work Christian Topography contained some of the earliest and most famous world maps. Cosmas was a pupil of the East Syriac Patriarch Aba I and was himself a follower of the Church of the East.
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.
Renier of Montferrat (1162–1183) was the fifth son of William V of Montferrat and Judith of Babenberg. He became son-in-law of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos and Caesar in 1180, and was later murdered in a Byzantine power-struggle.
Kyot the Provençal is claimed by Wolfram von Eschenbach to have been a Provençal poet who supplied him with the source for his Arthurian romance Parzival. Wolfram may have been referring to the northern French poet Guiot de Provins, but this identification has proven unsatisfactory. The consensus of the vast majority of scholars today is that Kyot was an invention by Wolfram, and that Wolfram's true sources were Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail and his own abundant creativity.
Guiot de Provins, also spelled Guyot, was a French poet and trouvère from the town of Provins in the Champagne area. A declining number of scholars identify him with Kyot the Provençal, the alleged writer of the source material used by Wolfram von Eschenbach for his romance Parzival, but most others consider such a source to be a literary device made up by Wolfram. At any rate, Guiot was a popular writer in his day.
Bertha of Sulzbach, also known as Irene, was a Byzantine empress by marriage to Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos.
Stephen IV was King of Hungary and Croatia, ascending to the throne between 1163 and 1165, when he usurped the crown of his nephew, Stephen III. He was the third son of Béla II of Hungary, and when his conspiracy against his brother Géza II failed, he was exiled from Hungary in the summer of 1157. He first sought refuge in the Holy Roman Empire, but received no support from Emperor Frederick I. Shortly afterwards he moved to the Byzantine Empire, where he married a niece of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, Maria Komnene, and converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Peter II, born Theodor, also known as Theodor-Peter, was the first emperor or tsar of the restored Bulgarian Empire from 1185 to 1197. He hails from the Byzantine theme of Paristrion, although his exact place and date of birth are unknown.
Various species of mythical headless men were rumoured, in antiquity and later, to inhabit remote parts of the world. They are variously known as akephaloi or Blemmyes and described as lacking a head, with their facial features on their chest. These were at first described as inhabitants of ancient Libya or the Nile system (Aethiopia). Later traditions confined their habitat to a particular island in the Brisone River, or shifted it to India.
Baldwin of Antioch was a Frankish knight and general in service of the Byzantine Empire during the Byzantine–Seljuk Wars. He was the son of Princess Constance of Antioch and Raymond of Poitiers. His brother-in-law was Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. An ally of the Emperor in his battles against the Seljuk Turks, Baldwin was one of his most trusted advisors and the only one of Manuel's senior commanders "of Western origin".
The siege of Shaizar took place from April 28 to May 21, 1138. The allied forces of the Byzantine Empire, Principality of Antioch and County of Edessa invaded Muslim Syria. Having been repulsed from their main objective, the city of Aleppo, the combined Christian armies took a number of fortified settlements by assault and finally besieged Shaizar, the capital of the Munqidhite Emirate. The siege captured the city, but failed to take the citadel; it resulted in the Emir of Shaizar paying an indemnity and becoming the vassal of the Byzantine emperor. The forces of Zengi, the greatest Muslim prince of the region, skirmished with the allied army but it was too strong for them to risk battle. The campaign underlined the limited nature of Byzantine suzerainty over the northern Crusader states and the lack of common purpose between the Latin princes and the Byzantine emperor.
