While the Byzantine troops were assembling for the expedition, Alexios was approached by the Doukas faction at court, who convinced him to join a conspiracy against Nikephoros III.

During this time, Alexios was rumored to be the lover of Empress Maria of Alania, the daughter of King Bagrat IV of Georgia, who had been successively married to Michael VII Doukas and his successor Nikephoros III Botaneiates, renowned for her beauty.

However, his mother consolidated the Doukas family connection by arranging the Emperor's marriage to Irene Doukaina, granddaughter of the Caesar John Doukas, the uncle of Michael VII, who would not have supported Alexios otherwise.

As a measure intended to keep the support of the Doukai, Alexios restored Constantine Doukas, the young son of Michael VII and Maria, as co-emperor and a little later betrothed him to his own first-born daughter Anna, who moved into the Mangana Palace with her fiancé and his mother.

Alexios became estranged from Maria, who was stripped of her imperial title and retired to a monastery, and Constantine Doukas was deprived of his status as co-emperor.

Alexios attempted to organize a resistance to the new regime from Adrianople and then Mosynopolis, where he was joined by the later usurper Alexios V Doukas Mourtzouphlos in April 1204, after the definitive fall of Constantinople to the crusaders and the establishment of the Latin Empire.

Trying to escape Boniface's " protection ", Alexios III attempted to seek shelter with Michael I Komnenos Doukas, the ruler of Epirus, in 1205.

* Eudokia Angelina, who married ( 1 ) King Stefan I Prvovenčani of Serbia, then ( 2 ) Emperor Alexios V Doukas, and ( 3 ) Leo Sgouros, ruler of Corinth.

Alexios V Doukas, surnamed Mourtzouphlos (, d. December 1205, Constantinople ) was Byzantine Emperor ( 5 February – 12 April 1204 ) during the second and final siege of Constantinople by the participants of the Fourth Crusade.

When the populace rebelled in late January 1204, the emperors barricaded themselves in the palace and entrusted Alexios Doukas with a mission to seek help from the crusaders.

Instead, Alexios Doukas used his access to the palace to arrest the emperors.

Alexios V Doukas was crowned in early February 1204.

Alexios Doukas

Alexios Doukas

nl: Alexios V Doukas Mourtzouphlos

Michael VIII Palaiologos was the son of the megas domestikos Andronikos Doukas Komnenos Palaiologos by Theodora Angelina, the granddaughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos and Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina.

At the end of January, 1204, the influential court official Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos took advantage of riots in the capital to imprison Alexios IV and seize the throne as Emperor Alexios V. At this point Isaac II died, allegedly of shock, while Alexios IV was strangled on 28 or 29 January.

As Alexios was entrusted with substantial armed forces to combat the impending Norman invasion, the Doukas faction, led by the Caesar John, conspired to overthrow Nikephoros and replace him with Alexios.

March 19, 1205 ), Emperor of Byzantium ( 1204 – 1205 ); and two younger brothers: Alexios Laskaris, Latin military leader against the Bulgars who fought with the French against John III Doukas Vatatzes and was imprisoned and blinded, and Isaakios Laskaris.

* Alexios Komnenos ( d. 1183 ), lover of the Empress Maria Komnene and leader of her regency council

The leader of the all-powerful aristocratic class was John Kantakouzenos, who after the death of Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos was the effective regent for the latter's infant son, John V. A faction in Constantinople, formed around the powerful megas doux Alexios Apokaukos, plotted against him, and managed to enlist the support of dowager empress Anna of Savoy and the Patriarch John Kalekas.

Urban II's movement took its first public shape at the Council of Piacenza, where, in March 1095, Urban II received an ambassador from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos asking for help against Muslim ( Seljuk ) Turks who had taken over most of formerly Byzantine Empire Anatolia.

In 1074, the western mercenaries led by Roussel de Bailleul rebelled in Asia Minor, but Alexios successfully subdued them by 1076.

This did not, however, lead to a demotion, as Alexios was needed to counter the expected invasion of the Normans of Southern Italy, led by Robert Guiscard.

Alexios dealt with the first disorganized group of Crusaders, led by the preacher Peter the Hermit, by sending them on to Asia Minor, where they were massacred by the Turks in 1096.

Alexios III finally took action, and led 17 divisions from the St. Romanus Gate, vastly outnumbering the crusaders.

In 1199-1201 another unsuccessful revolt was led by Manuel Kamytzes, son-in-law of Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos.

However, almost immediately, he had to help the Emperor defend his throne against a revolt, led by General Alexios Branas.

Meanwhile, an imperial embassy led by Alexios Bryennios Komnenos and the prefect of Constantinople, John Kamateros, came to Antioch to negotiate the marriage.

Over the winter of 1178-1179 an Imperial embassy accompanying Philip, and led by the Genoese Baldovino Guercio, was sent to the French court to secure a match between Agnes and Alexios, the only son and heir apparent of Manuel by his second wife Maria of Antioch.

Alexios I Komnenos, Latinized as Alexius I Comnenus (, 1056 – 15 August 1118 — note that some sources list his date of birth as 1048 ), was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118, and although he was not the founder of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during his reign that the Komnenos family came to full power.

The Empire in 1180 A. D when Alexios II became EmperorOn Manuel's death in 1180, Maria, who became a nun under the name Xene, took the position of regent ( according to some historians ).

During Paschal's papacy some efforts were made by the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I to bridge the schism between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, but these failed, as he pressed the demand that the Patriarch of Constantinople recognise the Pope's primacy over " all the churches of God throughout the world " in late 1112.

The sack of some Thracian towns helped Alexios ' situation a little, but meanwhile hostility between the restive Crusaders and the inhabitants of Constantinople was growing.

The Byzantine Emperor, Alexios III Angelos, hoping to retain some influence in Cilicia, sent Leo a royal crown, which was gracefully received.

Alexios I, who had requested only some western knights to serve as mercenaries to help fight the Seljuk Turks, blockaded these armies in the city and would not permit them to leave until their leaders swore oaths promising to restore to the Empire any land formerly belonging to it that they might conquer on the way to Jerusalem.

Although some bronze coins have been attributed to Alexios I, and silver aspers were certainly coined by John I, Manuel struck both bronze coins and a large silver currency.

In 1203, faced with the Fourth Crusade and the return of his nephew, Alexios IV Angelos, Alexios III fled Constantinople with a magnificent treasure and some female relatives, including his daughter Eirene.

It was written in the reign of Basil II ( 976-1025 ), revised and rearranged under Alexios I Komnenos ( 1081 – 1118 ), and perhaps copied by Codinus, whose name it bears in some ( later ) manuscripts.

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 halt the Byzantine decline and begin the military, financial, and territorial recovery known as the Komnenian restoration.

Under one of these emperors, Romanos IV Diogenes ( 1067 – 1071 ), Alexios served with distinction against the Seljuq Turks.

Alexios was ordered to march against his brother-in-law Nikephoros Melissenos in Asia Minor but refused to fight his kinsman.

As stated in the Alexiad, Isaac and Alexios left Constantinople in mid-February 1081 to raise an army against Botaneiates.

This coin was struck by Alexios during his war against Robert Guiscard.

As early as 1090, Alexios had taken reconciliatory measures towards the Papacy, with the intention of seeking western support against the Seljuqs.

* Constantine Humbertopoulos, who had assisted Alexios in gaining the throne in 1081 conspired against him in 1091 with an Armenian called Ariebes.

Friends of the young Alexios II now tried to form a party against the empress mother and the prōtosebastos ; Alexios II's half-sister Maria, wife of Caesar John ( Renier of Montferrat ), stirred up riots in the streets of the capital.

Together with his father and brothers, Alexios had conspired against Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos ( c. 1183 ), and thus he spent several years in exile in Muslim courts, including that of Saladin.

At that point the deposed emperor was ransomed by Michael I of Epirus, who sent him to Asia Minor, where Alexios ' son-in-law Theodore I Laskaris of the Empire of Nicaea was holding his own against the Latins.

Here Alexios III conspired against his son-in-law after the latter refused to recognize Alexios ' authority, and received the support of Kay Khusrau I, the sultan of Rûm.

Brought back to Constantinople, Alexios V was condemned to death for treason against Alexios IV, and was thrown from the top of the Column of Theodosius.

In 1187, Alexios Branas, the victor over the Normans, was sent against the Bulgarians but turned his arms against his master, and attempted to seize Constantinople, only to be defeated and slain by Isaac's brother-in-law Conrad of Montferrat.

While preparing for yet another offensive against Bulgaria in 1195, Alexios Angelos, the Emperor's older brother, taking advantage of the latter's absence from camp on a hunting expedition, proclaimed himself emperor, and was readily recognised by the soldiers as Emperor Alexios III.

In March 1095, Alexios sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza to ask Pope Urban II for aid against the Turks.