Isaac II Angelos
Isaac II Angelos or
Angelus (
Greek: Ισαάκιος
Άγγελος, Isaakios II Angelos'') (September
1156 - January,
1204) was
Byzantine emperor from
1185 to
1195, and again from
1203 to
1204.
His father
Andronikos Angelos was a son of Theodora Komnene, the youngest daughter of Emperor
Alexios I Komnenos and
Eirene Doukaina. Thus Isaac was a member of the extended imperial clan.
During the brief reign of
Andronikos I Komnenos, Isaac was involved (alongside his father and brothers) in the revolt of
Nicaea and
Prousa. Atypically, the Emperor did not punish him for this disloyalty, and Isaac remained at
Constantinople.
On
September 11,
1185, during Andronikos' absence from the capital, the latter's lieutenant
Stephanos Hagiochristophorites moved to arrest Isaac. Isaac killed Hagiochristophorites and took refuge in the church of
Hagia Sophia. Andronikos, in some ways a capable ruler, was hated for his efforts to keep the aristocracy obedient and his cruelty. Isaac appealed to the populace, and a tumult arose which spread rapidly over the whole city. When Andronikos arrived he found that his authority was overthrown, and that Isaac had been proclaimed emperor. Andronikos attempted to flee by boat but was apprehended. Isaac handed him over to the people of the City, and he was killed on
September 12, 1185.
Isaac II Angelos strengthened his position as emperor with dynastic marriages in 1185 and
1186. His niece,
Eudokia Angelina, was married to
Stefan, son of
Stefan Nemanja of
Serbia. Isaac's sister, Theodora, was married to the Italian marquis
Conrad of Montferrat. In January 1186 Isaac himself married
Margaret of Hungary (who was renamed Maria), daughter of king
Béla III. Hungary was one of the empire's largest and most powerful neighbours, and Margaret also had the benefit of high aristocratic descent, being related to the royal families of
Kiev, the
Holy Roman Empire,
Italy,
Provence, and earlier Byzantine dynasties.
Isaac inaugurated his reign with a decisive victory over the Norman King of
Sicily William II (on the banks of the
Strymon,
7 September 1185), who had invaded the
Balkans towards the end of Andronicus I's reign. Elsewhere his policy was less successful. He failed in an attempt to recover
Cyprus from the rebellious noble
Isaac Comnenus, thanks to Norman interference.
The oppressiveness of his taxes, increased to pay his armies and finance his marriage, resulted in the
Vlach-Bulgarian Rebellion late in 1185. The rebellion led to the establishment of the
Second Bulgarian Empire under the
Asen dynasty. In
1187,
Alexios Branas, the victor over the Normans, was sent against the rebels 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.
The emperor's attention was next demanded in the east, where several claimants to the throne successively rose and fell. In
1189 the
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa sought and obtained permission to lead his troops on the
Third Crusade through the
Byzantine Empire; but he had no sooner crossed the border than Isaac, who had meanwhile sought an alliance with
Saladin, threw every impediment in his way, and was only compelled by force of arms to fulfil his engagements in
1190.
The next five years were disturbed by continued warfare with
Bulgaria, against which Isaac led several expeditions in person. In spite of a promising start, these ventures had little effect, and on one occasion in 1190 Isaac barely escaped with his life. 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. Isaac was blinded and imprisoned in Constantinople.
After eight years of captivity, he was raised from his dungeon to his throne once more after the arrival of the
Fourth Crusade and the flight of Alexios III from the capital. But both mind and body had been enfeebled by confinement, and his son
Alexios IV Angelos was associated on the throne as the effective monarch.
Heavily beholden to the crusaders, Alexios IV was unable to meet his obligations and his vacillation caused him to lose the support of both his crusader allies and his subjects. 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 January 28 or 29.
Isaac has the reputation of one of the most unsuccessful princes that occupied the Byzantine throne. Surrounded by a crowd of slaves, mistresses and flatterers, he permitted his empire to be administered by unworthy favourites, while he squandered the money wrung from his provinces on costly buildings and expensive gifts to the churches of his metropolis.
The identity of Isaac II's first wife is unknown, but her name, Herina (i.e., Eirene), is found on the necrology of
Speyer Cathedral, where their daughter Irene is interred. (
It must be noted, however, that it would have been extremely unusual for a mother and daughter to bear the same name, unless the mother's name was monastic.) Isaac's wife may have been a member of the
Palaiologos family. Their third child was born in 1182 or 1183 and she was dead or divorced by 1185, when Isaac remarried. Their children were:
* Euphrosyne Angelina, a nun
*
Eirne Angelina, married first to
Roger III of Sicily, and secondly to
Philip of Swabia*
Alexios IV AngelosBy his second wife,
Margaret of Hungary (renamed Maria), Isaac II had two sons:
* John Angelos, born no earlier than January 1193. He is said to have migrated to Hungary and to have been governor of
Sirmium and
Belgrade around 1254
* Manuel Angelos, born after 1195
*
Nicetas Choniates,
Historia, ed. J.-L. Van Dieten, 2 vols. (Berlin and New York, 1975); trans. as
O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates, by H.J. Magoulias (Detroit; Wayne State University Press, 1984).
*
*Angold, Michael,
The Byzantine Empire: A Political History, 1025-1204, 2nd edition (London and New York, 1997)
*Brand, C.M.,
Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180-1204 (Cambridge, MA, 1968)
*Harris, Jonathan,
Byzantium and the Crusades (London, 2003)
*Hiestand, Rudolf, 'Die Erste Ehe Isaaks II Angelus und Seine Kinder',
Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik, 47 (1997).
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 3 vols (Oxford, , 1991).
*K. Varzos,
' genealogia tōn Komn"nōn (Thessalonica, 1984) vol. 2 pp. 807-840.
