After his father's death, Guy entered the service of his erstwhile enemy, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. According to the emperor's daughter, Anna Komnene, he was drawn to Byzantine service by certain promises made by Alexios. At the Byzantine court, Guy became one of Alexios' most trusted councilors and was rewarded with the rank of sebastos. In August 1096, he helped negotiate between the Alexios and the leaders of the First Crusade, even serving as a hostage for the emperor's good faith during the dealings with Godfrey of Bouillon. Guy was with the Byzantine army campaigning in Asia Minor when, at Philomelium around 20 June 1098, it was met by the nominal leader of the Crusade, Stephen, Count of Blois, who reported that the siege of Antioch was going very badly.[1]
In 1108, Guy was with his half-brother, Bohemond, when the latter attacked Byzantine Dyrrachium. Defeated, Bohemond sued for peace and during the negotiations Guy was entrusted with keeping the Byzantine hostages. He returned to Italy shortly after and died there on 5 July 1108, as recorded in the necrology of the Cathedral of San Matteo in Salerno.[1]
Alexios I Komnenos, Latinized Alexius I Comnenus, was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. Although he was not the first emperor of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during his reign that the Komnenos family came to full power and initiated a hereditary succession to the throne. Inheriting a collapsing empire and faced with constant warfare during his reign against both the Seljuq Turks in Asia Minor and the Normans in the western Balkans, Alexios was able to curb the Byzantine decline and begin the military, financial, and territorial recovery known as the Komnenian restoration. His appeals to Western Europe for help against the Turks was the catalyst that sparked the First Crusade.
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.
Raymond of Saint-Gilles, also called Raymond IV of Toulouse or Raymond I of Tripoli, was the count of Toulouse, duke of Narbonne, and margrave of Provence from 1094, and one of the leaders of the First Crusade from 1096 to 1099. He spent the last five years of his life establishing the County of Tripoli in the Near East.
Bohemond I of Antioch, also known as Bohemond of Taranto or Bohemond of Hauteville, was the prince of Taranto from 1089 to 1111 and the prince of Antioch from 1098 to 1111. He was a leader of the First Crusade, leading a contingent of Normans on the quest eastward. Knowledgeable about the Byzantine Empire through earlier campaigns with his father, he was the most experienced military leader of the crusade.
Bohemond II was Prince of Taranto from 1111 to 1128 and Prince of Antioch from 1111/1119 to 1130. He was the son of Bohemond I, who in 1108 was forced to submit to the authority of the Byzantine Empire in the Treaty of Devol. Three years later, the infant Bohemond inherited the Principality of Taranto under the guardianship of his mother, Constance of France. The Principality of Antioch was administered by his father's nephew, Tancred, until 1111. Tancred's cousin, Roger of Salerno, managed the principality from 1111 to 1119. After Roger died in the Battle of the Field of Blood, Baldwin II of Jerusalem took over the administration of Antioch. However, he did acknowledge Bohemond's right to personally rule the principality upon reaching the age of majority.
Nikephoros Bryennios was a Byzantine general, statesman and historian. He was born at Orestias (Adrianople) in the theme of Macedonia.
Alexios IV Angelos, Latinized as Alexius IV Angelus, was Byzantine Emperor from August 1203 to January 1204. He was the son of Emperor Isaac II Angelos and his first wife, an unknown Palaiologina, who became a nun with the name Irene. His paternal uncle was his predecessor Emperor Alexios III Angelos. He is widely regarded as one of the worst Byzantine emperors for calling upon the Fourth Crusade to help him gain power, which ultimately led to the sack of Constantinople.
The Principality of Antioch was one of the Crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of modern-day Turkey and Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It extended around the northeastern edge of the Mediterranean, bordering the County of Tripoli to the south, Edessa to the east, and the Byzantine Empire or the Kingdom of Armenia to the northwest, depending on the date.
Kilij Arslan ibn Suleiman (1079–1107) was the Seljuq Sultan of Rum from 1092 until his death in 1107. He ruled the Sultanate during the time of the First Crusade and thus faced the earliest attacks from Christian forces. He also re-established the Sultanate of Rum after the death of Malik Shah I of the Seljuk Empire and defeated the Crusaders in three battles during the Crusade of 1101. Kilij Arslan was the first Muslim and Turkish commander to fight against the Crusaders, commanding his horse archers as a teenager.
The Treaty of Devol was an agreement made in 1108 between Bohemond I of Antioch and Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, in the wake of the First Crusade. It is named after the Byzantine fortress of Devol. Although the treaty was not immediately enforced, it was intended to make the Principality of Antioch a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire.
The Battle of Dyrrhachium took place on October 18, 1081 between the Byzantine Empire, led by the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, and the Normans of southern Italy under Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia and Calabria. The battle was fought outside the city of Dyrrhachium, the major Byzantine stronghold in the western Balkans, and ended in a Norman victory.
Tancred was an Italo-Norman leader of the First Crusade who later became Prince of Galilee and regent of the Principality of Antioch. Tancred came from the house of Hauteville and was the great-grandson of Norman lord Tancred of Hauteville.
The Komnenian restoration is the term used by historians to describe the military, financial, and 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 institution was in disarray and had grown increasingly reliant on mercenaries. Previous emperors had also squandered the large gold deposits of Constantinople, so the defense of the empire had broken down, and there were few troops to fill the gaps.
Wars between the Normans and the Byzantine Empire were fought from c. 1040 until 1185, when the final Norman invasion of the Byzantine Empire was defeated.
Roger, the son of Dagobert, was a Norman magnate who deserted to the Byzantine Empire where he entered the service of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. He is the founder of the noble Byzantine family of Rogerios.
Byzantine Anatolia refers to the peninsula of Anatolia during the rule of the Byzantine Empire. Anatolia was of vital importance to the empire following the Muslim invasion of Syria and Egypt during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in the years 634–645 AD. Over the next two hundred and fifty years, the region suffered constant raids by Arab Muslim forces raiding mainly from the cities of Antioch, Tarsus, and Aleppo near the Anatolian borders. However, the Byzantine Empire maintained control over the Anatolian peninsula until the High Middle Ages, when imperial authority in the area began to collapse.
Alexios Komnenos was a Byzantine aristocrat and nephew of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Promoted to the rank of sebastos, he served as doux of Dyrrhachium from 1106 until after 1108. During this time, he led the successful resistance to a siege of Dyrrhachium by Bohemond I of Antioch, leading to the Treaty of Devol.
The timeline of the Principality of Antioch is a chronological list of events of the history of the Principality of Antioch.
The timeline of the Latin Empire is a chronological list of events of the history of the Latin Empire—the crusader state that developed on the ruins of the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade in the 13thcentury.
Peter Aliphas was an 11th-century Frankish knight who served first under Robert Guiscard and later under the Byzantine Empire.
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