As The Komnenoi World Turns, S1 E2
Now I'd like to pause and explain the AIMA prophecy.
Manuel was mad about prophecies and astrology and all manner of woo-woo; he was a very superstitious man and he saw signs and portents in everything. The time he didn't spend in bed with his niece or dodging assassins was spent holding crystals and trying to contact his 'spirit animal'. The AIMA prophecy, ascribed to someone called 'Leo the Wise', who really should've been called 'Leo the Jackass' for the amount of bloodshed and tragedy he'd cause, went thusly: the initial letter of the name of each Byzantine emperor would spell the word aima (Greek for blood), a sequence destined to repeat over and over. So far the sequence had gone as follows:
A: Alexios I
I: Ioannes II
M: Manuel
So they needed another A to fulfil the prophecy and start the sequence over again. Now Manuel had many sleepless nights over this, because he and Bertha had failed to produce a son. Despite years of enjoying the finest vaginas the Byzantine empire had to offer, Manuel was without an heir. Undaunted, he resolved to name every potential heir with an A name to make sure the prophecy would come to pass, one way or another. When his niece Theodora gave birth to a son, Manuel named him Alexios. When he betrothed his daughter Maria Porphyrogenita to Prince Béla of Hungary, Manuel had Béla renamed Alexios too, just in case.
Anyway, Manuel's wife Bertha died, and he was free to marry again. He wanted a bride from one of the Crusader states, and his choice was between Maria of Antioch 1 or her cousin, Melisende of Tripoli. He was initially leaning in Melisende's favor until rumors reached the Byzantine court that her mother, Hodierna of Jerusalem, was a dirty harlot and that there was a big question mark over the issue of Melisende's paternity. Manuel chose Maria of Antioch, which so offended Melisende's brother Raymond III of Tripoli that he sent the ships he'd prepared to take his sister to Constantinople to ravage the coasts of Byzantine Cyprus.
Maria was young and beautiful, and Manuel was so hopeful of an heir from her that he kept his would-be son-in-law Béla hanging for years over whether or not he would even get to marry Maria Porphyrogenita.
Now I'd like you to meet Kılıç Arslan bin Mesud, the young Selcuk sultan and the brother-in-law of Ioannes Tzepeles, Andronikos' Muslim convert brother. Choniates tells us that he was an ugly little scamp who walked with a limp, so misshapen that Andronikos mocked him as Koutz-Arslan (Halted Arslan). What he lacked in physical power he made up for in sheer bloody-minded ferocity. A one-two punch from Manuel's nephew Ioannes Kontostephanes and the Danishmenid sultan Yağıbasan bin Gazi humbled him enough that Kılıç Arslan signed a treaty vowing to be Manuel's friend and visited Constantinople in 1161 to ratify it. Manuel used the ocassion to show off his bling and take the sultan to watch horse racing in the Hippodrome. This in no way endeared Kılıç Arslan to Manuel, but made him more determined to pillage the shit out of the Byzantines in order to keep the supply of Cristal flowing.
Meanwhile, after a series of daring escapes from the Greeks and Vlakhs, Andronikos made his way to the court of Prince Yaroslav of Halych, in faraway snowy Ukraine in 1165. He and Yaroslav quickly became best friends, to the point where Manuel began sweating over his rogue cousin's association with the ambitious Yaroslav, not to mention Andronikos' attempts to assemble a horde of blood-thirsty Kuman shock troops, which he planned to use to conquer Constantinople. Apparently deciding it was safer to have Andronikos where he could keep an eye on him, Manuel offered him a full pardon if he'd return to Constantinople.
Andronikos was made governor of the province of Cilicia, and his first act was a foolhardy and totally insane attack on Toros of Armenia. He seems to have had a personal grudge against Toros, and maybe the two of them knew each other as boys. In 1137, Armenia had been invaded by Emperor Ioannes II, and Toros' father, King Levon I, fled into the mountains with his family. Finally, outnumbered and starving, Levon surrendered and he and his sons Toros and Roupen were brought as prisoners to Constantinople. Roupen was blinded and killed, and Levon died in captivity, but Toros escaped and returned to Armenia. He and his followers began driving out the Greek occupiers.
Andronikos' brilliant tactic to take down Toros was basically the military equivalent of coming at him windmilling his arms and legs while shouting "Oooga booga!" Toros' army calmly beat the shit out of Andronikos' army. Horrified, Andronikos naturally decided the only way to save face was to perform some deed so manly that just hearing about it would make Manuel grow chest hair. He flung his lance at Toros, who caught it squarely with his shield, and then Andronikos turned and ran like his feet were on fire and his ass was catching. Toros was unharmed and unimpressed.
Now that he had completely bungled the invasion of Armenia, Andronikos was too frightened to return to Constantinople. Instead, he turned tail and headed for Antioch, where he sought refuge with Prince Bohemond III, the brother of Manuel's new wife Maria. While there, "Andronikos, notorious for being love-smitten" seduced Philippa, the younger sister of Bohemond and Maria. He paraded about like a dandy, Philippa of Antioch trailing after him besotted with love, embarassing both Bohemond and Manuel.
Manuel hatched a cunning plan to deal with this indignity (one assumes his wife Maria was loudly complaining about Manuel's cousin dishonoring her little sister). He sent Konstantinos Kalamanos 2, "a man of reason, daring, and steadfast nobility of mind" to Antioch to seduce Philippa away from Andronikos. Philippa didn't spare Konstantinos a second look, mocking him for being short and mocking Manuel for thinking she would forsake Andronikos.
Andronikos was not nearly so loyal to Philippa. Spooked, he fled Antioch and plied his trade as a robber baron against the Turks before making his way to Jerusalem in 1166. There, he met up with his cousin Theodora Komnene, the widowed queen of King Baldwin III of Jerusalem. There's nothing a Komnenos loves more than another Komnenos, and Andronikos and Theodora started a passionate and scorching love affair. He "dragged her willy-nilly after him to be his companion and fellow wanderer", and they ran away to Damascus and then to Baghdad, seeking refuge with various Muslim lords. Theodora gave birth to two illegitimate children, Alexios and Irene, and Andronikos' son Ioannes (who had been conceived in the prison escape incident I mentioned earlier) came to live with them for awhile.
While all this was going on, Manuel was becoming increasingly paranoid over his so-far fruitless marriage to Maria of Antioch. He became convinced that Alexios Axouch, the son of the faithful Ioannes Axouch and the husband of one of Manuel's nieces, had cast an evil spell on the Empress Maria to prevent her from bearing a son. The root of this seems to have been Manuel's envy of Alexios Axoukh, as he was warmly loved by the army and a very wealthy and powerful man. He'd also offended Manuel by decorating his home with mosaics depicting the brave deeds of the Selcuk sultans, something Manuel viewed as a personal slap in the face. Manuel stripped Alexios Axoukh of his rank and possessions and exiled him to a monastery.
Alexios Axoukh's wife, Maria Komnene 3 was so heart-broken that she tried to kill herself. She survived to grovel before her uncle for clemency for her husband, but failing in this, spent her life "weeping like a mourning dove", until she eventually became deranged. We will see her son, Ioannes Komnenos Axoukh, again.
Next episode: Will Manuel and Maria ever have a son? Will Béla of Hungary ever get to marry Maria Porphyrogenita? Will Manuel ever run out of eligible nieces to marry off? Plus: the arrival of foreign adventurers! Stay tuned kids -- same Byzantine time, same Byzantine channel!
Footnotes:
1. Maria's father was Raymond of Poitiers, the uncle-lover of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
2. Konstantinos' paternal grandmother, Eufemia Vladimirovna of Kiev, had been caught in adultery by her husband, King Kálmán of Hungary, and sent back to her father's court in disgrace. There she gave birth to a son, Boris, who Kálmán refused to acknowledge as his own. Boris made many attempts to seize the Hungarian throne, married a Byzantine noblewoman, and fathered Konstantinos.
3. Her father was Manuel's eldest brother, Alexios.
Manuel was mad about prophecies and astrology and all manner of woo-woo; he was a very superstitious man and he saw signs and portents in everything. The time he didn't spend in bed with his niece or dodging assassins was spent holding crystals and trying to contact his 'spirit animal'. The AIMA prophecy, ascribed to someone called 'Leo the Wise', who really should've been called 'Leo the Jackass' for the amount of bloodshed and tragedy he'd cause, went thusly: the initial letter of the name of each Byzantine emperor would spell the word aima (Greek for blood), a sequence destined to repeat over and over. So far the sequence had gone as follows:
A: Alexios I
I: Ioannes II
M: Manuel
So they needed another A to fulfil the prophecy and start the sequence over again. Now Manuel had many sleepless nights over this, because he and Bertha had failed to produce a son. Despite years of enjoying the finest vaginas the Byzantine empire had to offer, Manuel was without an heir. Undaunted, he resolved to name every potential heir with an A name to make sure the prophecy would come to pass, one way or another. When his niece Theodora gave birth to a son, Manuel named him Alexios. When he betrothed his daughter Maria Porphyrogenita to Prince Béla of Hungary, Manuel had Béla renamed Alexios too, just in case.
Anyway, Manuel's wife Bertha died, and he was free to marry again. He wanted a bride from one of the Crusader states, and his choice was between Maria of Antioch 1 or her cousin, Melisende of Tripoli. He was initially leaning in Melisende's favor until rumors reached the Byzantine court that her mother, Hodierna of Jerusalem, was a dirty harlot and that there was a big question mark over the issue of Melisende's paternity. Manuel chose Maria of Antioch, which so offended Melisende's brother Raymond III of Tripoli that he sent the ships he'd prepared to take his sister to Constantinople to ravage the coasts of Byzantine Cyprus.
Maria was young and beautiful, and Manuel was so hopeful of an heir from her that he kept his would-be son-in-law Béla hanging for years over whether or not he would even get to marry Maria Porphyrogenita.
Now I'd like you to meet Kılıç Arslan bin Mesud, the young Selcuk sultan and the brother-in-law of Ioannes Tzepeles, Andronikos' Muslim convert brother. Choniates tells us that he was an ugly little scamp who walked with a limp, so misshapen that Andronikos mocked him as Koutz-Arslan (Halted Arslan). What he lacked in physical power he made up for in sheer bloody-minded ferocity. A one-two punch from Manuel's nephew Ioannes Kontostephanes and the Danishmenid sultan Yağıbasan bin Gazi humbled him enough that Kılıç Arslan signed a treaty vowing to be Manuel's friend and visited Constantinople in 1161 to ratify it. Manuel used the ocassion to show off his bling and take the sultan to watch horse racing in the Hippodrome. This in no way endeared Kılıç Arslan to Manuel, but made him more determined to pillage the shit out of the Byzantines in order to keep the supply of Cristal flowing.
Meanwhile, after a series of daring escapes from the Greeks and Vlakhs, Andronikos made his way to the court of Prince Yaroslav of Halych, in faraway snowy Ukraine in 1165. He and Yaroslav quickly became best friends, to the point where Manuel began sweating over his rogue cousin's association with the ambitious Yaroslav, not to mention Andronikos' attempts to assemble a horde of blood-thirsty Kuman shock troops, which he planned to use to conquer Constantinople. Apparently deciding it was safer to have Andronikos where he could keep an eye on him, Manuel offered him a full pardon if he'd return to Constantinople.
Andronikos was made governor of the province of Cilicia, and his first act was a foolhardy and totally insane attack on Toros of Armenia. He seems to have had a personal grudge against Toros, and maybe the two of them knew each other as boys. In 1137, Armenia had been invaded by Emperor Ioannes II, and Toros' father, King Levon I, fled into the mountains with his family. Finally, outnumbered and starving, Levon surrendered and he and his sons Toros and Roupen were brought as prisoners to Constantinople. Roupen was blinded and killed, and Levon died in captivity, but Toros escaped and returned to Armenia. He and his followers began driving out the Greek occupiers.
Andronikos' brilliant tactic to take down Toros was basically the military equivalent of coming at him windmilling his arms and legs while shouting "Oooga booga!" Toros' army calmly beat the shit out of Andronikos' army. Horrified, Andronikos naturally decided the only way to save face was to perform some deed so manly that just hearing about it would make Manuel grow chest hair. He flung his lance at Toros, who caught it squarely with his shield, and then Andronikos turned and ran like his feet were on fire and his ass was catching. Toros was unharmed and unimpressed.
Now that he had completely bungled the invasion of Armenia, Andronikos was too frightened to return to Constantinople. Instead, he turned tail and headed for Antioch, where he sought refuge with Prince Bohemond III, the brother of Manuel's new wife Maria. While there, "Andronikos, notorious for being love-smitten" seduced Philippa, the younger sister of Bohemond and Maria. He paraded about like a dandy, Philippa of Antioch trailing after him besotted with love, embarassing both Bohemond and Manuel.
Manuel hatched a cunning plan to deal with this indignity (one assumes his wife Maria was loudly complaining about Manuel's cousin dishonoring her little sister). He sent Konstantinos Kalamanos 2, "a man of reason, daring, and steadfast nobility of mind" to Antioch to seduce Philippa away from Andronikos. Philippa didn't spare Konstantinos a second look, mocking him for being short and mocking Manuel for thinking she would forsake Andronikos.
Andronikos was not nearly so loyal to Philippa. Spooked, he fled Antioch and plied his trade as a robber baron against the Turks before making his way to Jerusalem in 1166. There, he met up with his cousin Theodora Komnene, the widowed queen of King Baldwin III of Jerusalem. There's nothing a Komnenos loves more than another Komnenos, and Andronikos and Theodora started a passionate and scorching love affair. He "dragged her willy-nilly after him to be his companion and fellow wanderer", and they ran away to Damascus and then to Baghdad, seeking refuge with various Muslim lords. Theodora gave birth to two illegitimate children, Alexios and Irene, and Andronikos' son Ioannes (who had been conceived in the prison escape incident I mentioned earlier) came to live with them for awhile.
While all this was going on, Manuel was becoming increasingly paranoid over his so-far fruitless marriage to Maria of Antioch. He became convinced that Alexios Axouch, the son of the faithful Ioannes Axouch and the husband of one of Manuel's nieces, had cast an evil spell on the Empress Maria to prevent her from bearing a son. The root of this seems to have been Manuel's envy of Alexios Axoukh, as he was warmly loved by the army and a very wealthy and powerful man. He'd also offended Manuel by decorating his home with mosaics depicting the brave deeds of the Selcuk sultans, something Manuel viewed as a personal slap in the face. Manuel stripped Alexios Axoukh of his rank and possessions and exiled him to a monastery.
Alexios Axoukh's wife, Maria Komnene 3 was so heart-broken that she tried to kill herself. She survived to grovel before her uncle for clemency for her husband, but failing in this, spent her life "weeping like a mourning dove", until she eventually became deranged. We will see her son, Ioannes Komnenos Axoukh, again.
Next episode: Will Manuel and Maria ever have a son? Will Béla of Hungary ever get to marry Maria Porphyrogenita? Will Manuel ever run out of eligible nieces to marry off? Plus: the arrival of foreign adventurers! Stay tuned kids -- same Byzantine time, same Byzantine channel!
Footnotes:
1. Maria's father was Raymond of Poitiers, the uncle-lover of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
2. Konstantinos' paternal grandmother, Eufemia Vladimirovna of Kiev, had been caught in adultery by her husband, King Kálmán of Hungary, and sent back to her father's court in disgrace. There she gave birth to a son, Boris, who Kálmán refused to acknowledge as his own. Boris made many attempts to seize the Hungarian throne, married a Byzantine noblewoman, and fathered Konstantinos.
3. Her father was Manuel's eldest brother, Alexios.