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 title ' Nobilissimus ' was given to senior army commanders, the future emperor Alexios I Komnenos being the first to be thus honoured.

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.

Alexios was the son of Ioannis Komnenos and Anna Dalassena, and the nephew of Isaac I Komnenos ( emperor 1057 – 1059 ).

Alexios ' father declined the throne on the abdication of Isaac, who was accordingly succeeded by four emperors of other families between 1059 and 1081.

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

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.

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.

The mother of Alexios, Anna Dalassena, was to play a prominent role in this coup d ' état of 1081, along with the current empress, Maria of Alania.

Furthermore, to aid the conspiracy Maria had adopted Alexios as her son, though she was only five years older than he Maria was persuaded to do so on the advice of her own " Alans " and her eunuchs, who had been instigated to do his by Isaac Komnenos.

Anna then protested that the family was in fear for their lives, her sons were loyal subjects ( Alexios and Isaac were discovered absent without leave ), and had learned of a plot by enemies of the Komnenoi to have them both blinded and had, therefore, fled the capital so they may continue to be of loyal service to the emperor.

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.

Alexios arranged for Maria to stay on the palace grounds, and it was thought that Alexios was considering marrying the erstwhile empress.

However, this situation changed drastically when Alexios ' first son John II Komnenos was born in 1087: Anna's engagement to Constantine was dissolved, and she was moved to the main Palace to live with her mother and grandmother.

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.

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

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.

The chief original part of Zonaras ' history is the section on the reign of Alexios Komnenos, whom he criticizes for the favour shown to members of his family, to whom Alexios entrusted vast estates and significant state offices.

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

From there she negotiated with the emperor for the safety of family members left in the capital, while protesting her sons ' innocence of hostile actions ; under the falsehood of making a vesperal visit to worship at the church, she deliberately excluded the grandson of Botaneiates and his loyal tutor, met with Alexios and Isaac and fled for the forum of Constantine.

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 suffered several defeats before being able to strike back with success.

Next, Alexios had to deal with disturbances in Thrace, where the heretical sects of the Bogomils and the Paulicians revolted and made common cause with the Pechenegs from beyond the Danube.

Paulician soldiers in imperial service likewise deserted during Alexios ' battles with the Normans.

Alexios overcame this crisis by entering into an alliance with a horde of 40, 000 Cumans, with whose help he crushed the Pechenegs at Levounion in Thrace on 29 April 1091.

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

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.

Transferring each contingent into Asia, Alexios promised to supply them with provisions in return for their oaths of homage.

The crusaders believed their oaths were made invalid when the Byzantine contingent under Tatikios failed to help them during the siege of Antioch ; Bohemund, who had set himself up as Prince of Antioch, briefly went to war with Alexios in the Balkans, but was blockaded by the Byzantine forces and agreed to become Alexios ' vassal by the Treaty of Devol in 1108.

Dalassena was the effective administrator of the Empire during Alexios ' long absences in military campaigns: she was constantly at odds with her daughter-in-law and had assumed total responsibility for the upbringing and education of her granddaughter Anna Komnene.

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

Rare seal of Alexios I with a depiction of the Resurrection

By seeking close alliances with powerful noble families, Alexios put an end to the tradition of imperial exclusivity and coopted most of the nobility into his extended family and, through it, his government.

By his marriage with Irene Doukaina, Alexios I had the following children:

Andronikos was now formally proclaimed as co-emperor before the crowd on the terrace of the Church of Christ of the Chalkè, and not long afterwards, on the pretext that divided rule was injurious to the Empire, he caused Alexios II to be strangled with a bow-string ( October 1183 ).

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.

These formed the nucleus of the army, with the addition of the armed retainers of Alexios ' relatives and the nobles enrolled in the army and the substantial aid of a large force of allied Cumans, which won the Battle of Levounion against the Pechenegs ( Petcheneks or Patzinaks ).

* 1203 – Isaac II Angelos, restored Eastern Roman Emperor, declares his son Alexios IV Angelos co-emperor after pressure from the forces of the Fourth Crusade.

* 1261 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.

* July 25 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, thus re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.

It was through this gate that the forces of the Empire of Nicaea, under General Alexios Strategopoulos, entered and retook the city from the Latins on 25 July 1261.

The Byzantine army's nadir was reached in 1091, when Alexios I could manage to field only 500 soldiers from the Empire's professional forces.

The united forces met little resistance in the eastern Serbian lands-the Greek squadrons were fighting among themselves as the local Byzantine commanders: Alexios Brannes supported the new Emperor, while Andronicus Lapardes opposed him-and deserted the Imperial Army, going onto adventures on his own.

In 1091 the Pechenegs, a semi-nomadic Turkic people of the prairies of southwestern Eurasia, were decisively defeated as an independent force at the Battle of Levounion by the combined forces of a Byzantine army under Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and a Cuman army under Togortok and Bunaq.