ALEXIOS Komnenos, son of IOANNES Komnenos kuropalates and domestikos & his wife Anna Dalassena ([1056/57]-15 Aug 1118). Nikeforos Bryennios names (in order) "Manuel, Isaacius, Alexius, Adrianus, Nicephorus" as the five sons of "Ioanni" and his wife Anna[160]. His parentage is confirmed by the Alexeiad naming "Ioannes Komnenos, my grandfather on my father's side"[161]. His birth date is estimated from the Alexeiad recording that he was "only fourteen years old" when he wished to campaign with Emperor Romanos Diogenes "against the Persians"[162], assumed to refer to the campaign against the Seljuks which culminated in the battle of Manzikert in 1071. On the other hand, Zonaras records that Emperor Alexios lived "annos LXX fere aut circiter"[163]. Chalandon suggests that the age indicated by Zonaras "[offre] plus de chances d´avoir été connu exactement et tirant en outre plus de vraisemblance des événements", pointing out that otherwise Alexios would have commanded troops at the age of 22 which he says "me paraît peu probable"[164]. However, the age given by Zonaras does not appear consistent with the chronology of the family of his parents, particularly because Alexios appears to have been their sixth child. Nikeforos Bryennios records that "Anna...cum filiis" were banished "in insulam principis dictam" [Prinkipo], dated to [1072][165]. Nikeforos Bryennios records that, after the death of "Diogenis", Emperor Mikhael VII recalled "curopalatissam Annam...Comnenorum matrem...cum filiis" from exile, dated to late 1072[166].Proedros 1074. Stratopedarchos. Appointed dux and megas domestikos 1078 by Emperor Nikeforos Botaneiates. Sébastos 1079. An undated seal records "Alexis Comnène sébaste et domestique de l´Occident"[167]. An undated seal records "sebaston ede s domestikon meg Alexion men ton Komnenon deiknyo"[168]. Following a Doukas/Komnenos family council atTzurullon in Thrace, Alexios invaded Constantinople. He succeeded 4 Apr 1081 as Emperor ALEXIOS I, after rebelling against Emperor Nikeforos Botaneiates who was obliged to abdicate.Faced with an empire weakened by the loss of most of Asia Minor as well as its Italian possessions, in economic ruin, andwith a depleted army and navy, Emperor Alexios set about the slow process ofreconstruction and restoring the power of Byzantium. He allied himself with Venice to prevent Robert "Guiscard" Duke of Apulia from capturing Durazzo. He granted Venice duty-free trade throughout the empire and the right to establish colonies under its own administration, as a reward for having defeated the Norman fleet in 1081. The setback for the Normans was short-lived as Durazzo fell to Robert "Guiscard" in Oct 1081, although it was recaptured in 1085 by Byzantium[169]. In 1085, Emperor Alexios agreed a treaty with the Seljuks under which Nikomedia and parts of the Anatolian coast were returned to Byzantium, although Chaka, a rival Turkish leader, captured the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Rhodos in the 1080s[170]. Emperor Alexios also allied himself with the Kumans [Polovtsy] to beat the Pechenegs at Mount Lebounion 29 Apr 1091. The emperor suppressed rebellions led by Theodoros Gabras in 1092[171] and Nikeforos Diogenes in 1094[172]. Good relations were restored with the papacy in Sep 1089 when, at the Council of Melfi, Pope Urban IV lifted the papal excommunication on the emperor[173]. After the armies of the First Crusade arrived in Constantinople, their relations with Emperor Alexios I were tense. Albert of Aix records that the emperor gave "filium suum Johannem" as hostage to guarantee the army´s safe passage through imperial territory, dated to end 1096[174]. Godefroi de Bouillon [Duke of Lower Lotharingia] finally swore allegiance to the emperor on Easter Sunday in 1097, agreeing that the emperor should become overlord of any new principalities founded in the Levant by the crusaders and that any land captured which had previously belonged to the empire should be handed back to Byzantium[175]. Building on the crusading army's capture of Nikaia, Alexios recaptured Smyrna, Ephesus and Sardes from the Turks. After the fall of Antioch 3 Jun 1098, Bohémond of Apulia refused to acknowledge the emperor as his overlord in breach of the earlier agreement and declared himself Prince of Antioch. The threat to Byzantine interests posed by this new principality on its borders provoked Emperor Alexios to attack. Bohémond left his nephew Tancred as regent in Antioch and returned to Europe to prepare a larger-scale campaign against Byzantium. Alexios defeated him at Avlona on the Adriatic coast in Oct 1107, and forced Bohémond to recognise his suzerainty in 1108. Emperor Alexios carried out a major reorganisation of the administration of the empire, aimed at lightening the old bureaucracy and introduced a range of new titles which he distributed to the numerous potential challengers from his own and other ex-imperial families (see Introduction). The list of obituaries of the monastery of Christ Philanthropos, founded by Empress Eirene Doukas, records the death 15 Aug of "tou eusebos basileusavtos kyrou Alexiou tou Komneneou kai ktetoros tis autis monis"[176]. Zonaras records that Emperor Alexios lived "annos LXX fere aut circiter", reigned for 37 years, 4 months "et dies aliquot", and died "anno mundi 6626"[177].
m firstly ([1075]) --- Argyre, daughter of --- Argyros & his wife --- (-before Oct 1077). Nikeforos Bryennios records that "Alexium Comnenum" married "filia Argyri…viri nobilis" as his first wife[178].
m secondly (betrothed before Oct 1077, [1078]) EIRENE Doukaina, daughter of ANDRONIKOS Doukas & his wife Maria Troiane ([1066]-19 Feb [1133]). The Alexeiad records that Eirene, mother of Anna Komnene, was "kinswoman" of the Doukas family and "legal wife of my [Anna Komnene's] father" but does not name her parents[179]. This passage follows soon after the text which names Mikhael and Ioannes as grandsons of "the Cæsar Ioannes" and "Georgios Palaiologos the husband of their sister"[180]. The omission of Eirene from this list of brothers and sister suggests that she was not the daughter of Andronikos Doukas. In another passage, the Alexeiad records that Anna "on my mother's side [was] related to the Doukas"[181]. Any doubts about her parentage are resolved in a further passage which records that, at the time of the Komnenoi rebellion in 1081, the future Emperor Alexios left "his wife, fifteen years old at the time…in the 'lower' palace with her sisters and mother and the Cæsar, her grandfather on the paternal side", and in yet another passage which explicitly states that she was "a daughter of Andronikos, the Cæsar's eldest son"[182]. Nikeforos Bryennios records that "Alexium Comnenum" married "primogenitam…filiarum" of Andronikos[183]. The Alexeiad records that she was crowned empress "on the seventh day after the public proclamation" of her husband's accession[184]. She supported her daughter's attempt to have the latter's husband Nikeforos Briennios succeed her husband as emperor, but retired to a convent after her husband died. There is some confusion relating to the date of death of Empress Eirene. Prodromos, in a poem addressed to the empress, lists (in chronological order) the deaths which had occurred in her family: "la protection des Romains, Alexis...un gendre très célèbre...Nicéphore...l´enfant d´Andronic...mais son épouse décéda auparavant...la prophyrogénète Eudocie" and adds that "tu as fait disparâitre deux fils en même temps, cruel Telkine, la vie d´Andronic et la vigueur d´Isaac. L´un erre aux extrémités de l´Anatolie, mort vivant...l´autre est parti dans l´occident ténébreux de l´Hadès"[185]. The latter part of the passage appears to refer to the death of Andronikos and the exile of Isaakios, both events dated to [1130/31]. This suggestion appears confirmed by the song composed by Mikhael Italicos after the death of Andronikos which records that "Irène Doukaina et le césar Nicéphore Bryennios" accompanied his body from the Asian bank back to Constantinople[186]. Prodromos also records that Empress Eirene was present at the funeral of Gregorios Kamateros which he says was foretold by the appearance of a comet, dated to 1126 or 14 Aug 1132 (the latter date being favoured by Gautier as he points out that the passage follows a reference to the summer being very dry, which was apparently the case in 1132)[187]. The typikon of Isaakios Komnenos (dated [1151/52]) records that Empress Eirene died "à la première indiction dix-neuvième jour de février", identified by Gautier as the first year of the indiction (=[1137/38]) during which the monastery of Kosmoteira was founded ([1151/52]), and adds in the same sentence that "mon père et basileus a quitté ce monde le quinzième [jour] d´août, cinquième jour"[188]. However, the Alexeiad confirms that the empress died before her son-in-law Nikeforos Bryennios (dated to [1136/37], see below), when recording the deaths (in that order) of "the great Alexius...the Empress Irene...the Caesar [her husband]", but gives no further indication to enable the events to be dated[189]. In addition, the obituary of the typikon of Kosmoteira (dated Oct 1136) records "tes makariotates despoines kai metros tes basileias mou", the word "makariotates" being applied in the source to the individuals named who were deceased at the time (µa?a??t?? = deceased)[190]. Chalandon concludes that the typikon of Isaakios Komnenos could not therefore refer to the indiction which started in 1137/38, excludes the previous indiction which started in 1122/23 because of the later sources which name the empress as living after that date, and suggests as a solution a transcription error in the typikon which should refer to the eleventh year of the previous indiction [1132/33][191]. Gautier highlights the anomaly in the typikon of Isaakios Komnenos which (as noted above) in the same sentence uses the indiction year for the empress´s death but the day of the week to date the death of her husband, suggests another transcription error whereby (in the case of the empress) a word indicating the first day of the week (Sunday) was misread as "indiction", and adds that 1133 was the only year around that time when 19 Feb fell on a Sunday[192]. Gautier concludes that, in light of all these considerations, 1133 is the best possibility for the date of the empress´s death, but notes that the speculations concerning the transcript of the typikon of Isaakios Komnenos cannot now be checked against the original manuscript as it no longer survives[193].
Emperor Alexios I & his second wife had nine children