This chronology is taken from John Julius Norwich’s 1995 book, Byzantium: The Decline and Fall, with additional details from some of the relevant Wikipedia articles.
Romanus IV Diogenes (1068 to 1071)
A highly successful general, Romanus is, however, mostly remembered for leading the Byzantine forces to catastrophic defeat against the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert on 26 August 1071, defeat which left Anatolia – for 700 years the source of Byzantium’s grain and manpower – vulnerable to the Seljuk Turks’ slow but steady annexation.
Quite quickly central Anatolia became known as the Sultanate of Rum, a corruption of ‘Rome’, the name the Turks gave all the Greeks. This map from Wikipedia shows how the Sultanate slowly but steadily annexed Anatolia.
Expansion of the Sultanate 1100 to 1240 (source: Wikipedia)
Romanus and the Seljuk victor, Alp Arslan, got on well and Alp released Romanus to return to Constantinople. Had Romanus survived, something might have been salvaged from the defeat but he was promptly overthrown and blinded in a coup.
Michael VII Ducas (1067 to 1078)
Michael had been a boy when the usurper Romanus Diogenes made himself senior emperor. Soon after Romanus returned to Constantinople after the shameful defeat of Manzikert, he was blinded by partisans of the powerful Ducas family and power returned, at least in theory, to Michael. Michael was, however, weak and ineffectual, and his policies prompted several coup attempts, the successful one being led by…
Nicephorus III Botaneiates (1078 to 1081)
Nicephorus had risen to become military ruler of Anatolia. He rebelled against the bad rule and high taxes of Michael VII, leading his army into the capital where he was welcomed by the population (Michael wisely abdicated and went off to a monastery).
But Nicephorus, born around 1001, was now 77 years old and, having secured power, didn’t know what to do with it. While military threats mounted in the east and west, the young general Alexius Comnenos emerged as a rising star in the army, a general who never lost a battle. Learning that Nicephorus was about to have him arrested, Alexius rallied his troops and many supporters among the aristocracy and staged a coup. Alexius graciously allowed Nicephorus to retire to a monastery.
Comnenid dynasty (1081 to 1185)—
Alexius I Comnenos (1081 to 1118)
Alexius is one of the heroes of the book, a distinguished general who set about restoring military and political stability to the empire. His successes in Anatolia against the Turks had made Botaneiates jealous which is why Alexius staged a military coup before he himself was arrested. Pious and hard-working, Alexius had to fight wars against the Normans – who, led by their buccaneering leader Robert Guiscard, invaded from their base in south Italy in 1081 – and against the Seljuk Turks who continued their expansion into Anatolia.
Norwich’s account of the canny way Alexius handled the incursion of the various crusader armies into his territory is fascinating. After fifty years which had seen a dozen or so emperors come and go, Alexius was successful in establishing an enduring and (relatively) stable dynasty.
John II Comnenos (1118 to 1143)
Eldest son of Alexius I, John inherited the throne in a smooth transition, on his father’s death. His reign was dominated by wars – defending attacks by the Sicilian Normans, fending off a Venetian invasion fleet, dealing with the Hungarians to the North, and then campaigning against the Seljuk Turks and Armenians of Cilicia to the east, with the sometimes reluctant co-operation of the crusader states of Edessa and Antioch.
Manuel I Comnenos ‘the Great’ (1143 to 1180)
Manuel I Comnenos ‘the Great’ was the fourth and youngest son of John II. His two eldest brothers died before their father, who then chose Manuel over the surviving elder brother, Isaac. Manuel was an energetic ruler who launched campaigns against the Turks, humbled Hungary, achieved supremacy over the crusader states, and tried unsuccessfully to recover Italy. His extravagance and constant campaigning, however, depleted the Empire’s resources.
Alexius II Comnenos (1180 to 1183)
Alexius II Comnenos was born on 14 September 1169, the only son of Manuel I. In the years 1180 to 1182 i.e. aged 11 and 12, Alexius came under the regency of his mother, Maria of Antioch but, she was unpopular because a Latin, and was overthrown by Andronicus I Comnenos, who became co-emperor and finally had Alexius II deposed and killed.
Andronicus I Comnenos (1183 to 1185)
Born around 1118, Andronicus I Comnenos was a nephew of John II by his brother Isaac. A general in the army, Andronicus was imprisoned for conspiring against John II, but escaped and spent 15 years in exile in various courts in eastern Europe and the Middle East, where he acquired a reputation for his promiscuousness.
In 1182 Andronicus marched on Constantinople, capitalising on the unpopularity of Maria of Antioch. His arrival coincided with a city-wide uprising against the hated Venetians, who had been benefiting from trade and legal advantages. Having quelled the riots and established his authority, Andronicus had Maria strangled in prison and then overthrew his nephew Alexius II, who he had murdered, in 1183.
Andronicus’s campaign against the vast landowning aristocracy was justifiable from an economic point of view, but was accompanied by growing paranoia and tyranny, not a day going by without public tortures and executions. The Normans from Sicily took the opportunity of disorder in the Byzantine court to invade Illyria, and Andronicus’s abject failure to repel them clinched opposition to him at all levels of society, and he was overthrown and lynched in a popular uprising.
The Angelid dynasty (1185 to 1204)—
Of all the families who at one time or another wore the imperial crown of Byzantium, the Angeli were the worst… The three Angelus emperors – Isaac II, Alexius III and Alexius IV – reigned from first to last, a mere nineteen years. But each was in his own way disastrous, and together they were responsible for the greatest catastrophe that Constantinople was ever to suffer until its final fall.
(Byzantium: The Decline and Fall by John Julius Norwich, 1995, page 156)
Isaac II Angelus (1185 to 1195)
Born in September 1156, Isaac came to the throne at the head of a popular revolt against Andronicus I. His reign was marked by revolts and wars in the Balkans, especially against a resurgent Bulgaria. After ruling for ten years, he was deposed, blinded and imprisoned by his elder brother, Alexius III.
Alexius III Angelus (1195 to 1203)
Born in 1153, Alexius was the elder brother of Isaac II, who he deposed and blinded. His reign was marked by misgovernment and the increasing autonomy of provincial magnates. He was deposed by the Fourth Crusade and fled Constantinople, roaming Greece and Asia Minor, searching for support to regain his throne. He died in captivity in Nicaea in 1211.
Isaac II Angelus (18 July 1203 to 28 January 1204)
The armies of the Fourth Crusade arrived at the walls of Constantinople in 1203 and began besieging the city. Alexius III fled with his wife. The city council restored Isaac II (see two above) who, although blinded by his brother, was still the most legitimate ruler. Actual governing fell to his son, Alexius IV, but both of them failed to deal adequately with the crusader demands and Isaac was deposed by Alexius V Dukas in January 1204 and died on 28 January 1204, perhaps of poison.
Alexius IV Angelus (1 August 1203 to 28 January 1204)
The son of Isaac II, Alexius enlisted the Fourth Crusade to return his father to the throne, and reigned alongside his restored father. Due to their failure to deal with the crusaders’ demands, he was deposed by Alexius V Ducas in January 1204, and was strangled on 8 February.
Alexius V Ducas ‘Mourtzouphlos’ (5 February 1204 to 13 April 1204)
In Norwich’s view, Alexius V Ducas was the only Byzantine ruler of the time who was up to the crisis the empire now faced. Alexius was born in 1140, the son-in-law of Alexius III and a prominent aristocrat. In 1204 he deposed Isaac II and Alexius IV in a palace coup. He tried to repel the crusaders when they besieged the city, but they captured Constantinople, forcing Mourtzouphlos to flee. He joined the exiled Alexius III, but was later blinded by the latter. Captured by the crusaders, he was executed in December 1205.
Theodore I Lascaris (1205 to 1222)
Son-in-law of Alexius III, Theodore was elected emperor by the citizens of Constantinople on the day before the city fell to the crusaders. He fled to Nicaea, where he organized the Greek resistance to the Latins and was crowned emperor in 1208. Theodore managed to stop the Latin advance in Asia and to repel Seljuk attacks, establishing the Empire of Nicaea as the strongest of the Greek successor states.
John III Ducas Vatatzes (1221 to 1254)
Born around 1192, John became the son-in-law and successor of Theodore I in 1212. A capable ruler and soldier, he expanded his state in Bithynia, Thrace and Macedonia at the expense of the Latin Empire, Bulgaria and the rival Greek state of Epirus.
John Vatatzes had been a great ruler… one of the greatest, perhaps, in the whole of this history. (Norwich, p.203)
Theodore II Lascaris (1254 to 1258)
Born in 1222 the only son of John III, Theodore II Lascaris succeeded on his father’s death in 1254. His reign was marked by his hostility towards the major houses of the aristocracy, and by his victory against Bulgaria and the subsequent expansion of imperial power into Albania.
John IV Lascaris (1258 to 1261)
Born on 25 December 1250 as the only son of Theodore II, John succeeded on his father’s death aged just 8. Due to his minority, the regency was exercised at first by George Mouzalon until his assassination, and then by the successful young general, Michael Palaiologos who, within months, was crowned senior emperor.
After the recovery of Constantinople from its Latin crusader rulers in August 1261, Michael Palaiologos sidelined John IV completely, and had the 11-year-old boy imprisoned and blinded. John IV lived on in prison until around 1305.
Michael VIII Palaeologus (1259 to 1282)
One of the hero emperors, this confident young general campaigned against the Latins and Greek rivals. It was forces under his command who, in August 1261, discovered that Constantinople was virtually unguarded, the Latin garrison being away on a campaign against some island, and so sneaked in and took the city by surprise. Michael had to be woken up at his camp two hundred miles away to be told the city had been recovered for the Greeks. He quickly marched on the capital and was greeted with acclaim by the long-suffering Greek population.
Andronicus II Palaeologus (1282 to 1328)
Son of Michael VIII, Andronicus II Palaeologus was born on 25 March 1259, named co-emperor in 1261, crowned in 1272, and succeeded as sole emperor on Michael’s death in 1282.
Favouring monks and intellectuals, Andronicus neglected the army and his reign saw the collapse of the Byzantine position in Asia Minor. He named his son Michael IX co-emperor. In a protracted civil war, he was first forced to recognize his grandson Andronicus III as co-emperor, and was then deposed outright.
Andronicus III Palaeologus (1328 to 1341)
Son of Michael IX, Andronicus deposed his grandfather Andronicus II in 1328 and ruled as sole emperor until his death. He was ably supported by John Cantacuzenos. Andronicus’s reign saw defeats against the Ottoman emirate but successes in Europe, where Epirus and Thessaly were recovered.
John V Palaeologus (1341 to 1376) part one
John V Palaeologus was the only son of Andronicus III who neglected to crown him co-emperor or formally declare him his heir so that, at his father’s death, a destructive civil war broke out between his regents and his father’s closest aide, John VI Cantacuzenos, who ended up seizing power and being crowned co-emperor.
The conflict ended in 1347 with Cantacuzenos recognized as senior emperor, but he was then deposed by John V in 1354 during another civil war. Matthew Cantacuzenos, raised by John VI to the rank of co-emperor, was also deposed in 1357. John V appealed to the West for aid against the Ottomans, but in 1371 he was forced to recognize Ottoman suzerainty i.e. that Byzantium was now a tributary state of the Turks. He was deposed in 1376 by his son Andronicus IV.
John VI Cantakcuzenos (1347 to 1354)
A maternal relative of the Palaeologoi, John was declared co-emperor on 26 October 1341, and was recognized as senior emperor for ten years after the end of the civil war on 8 February 1347. Deposed by John V in 1354, he became a monk, dying on 15 June 1383.
Andronicus IV Palaeologus (1376 to 1379)
Son of John V and grandson of John VI, he was born on 2 April 1348 and raised to co-emperor in around 1352. He deposed his father on 12 August 1376 and ruled until overthrown, in his turn, in 1379. He was again recognized as co-emperor in 1381 and given Selymbria as an appanage, dying there on 28 June 1385. (An appanage is ‘provision made for the maintenance of the younger children of kings and emperors, consisting of a gift of land, an official position, or money.’)
John V Palaeologus (1379 to 1390) part two
Restored as senior emperor, John was reconciled with Andronicus IV in 1381, re-appointing him co-emperor. He was overthrown again in 1390 by his grandson, John VII.
John VII Palaeologus (April 1390 to September 1390)
Son of Andronicus IV, John was born in 1370, and named co-emperor under his father from 1377 to 1379. He usurped the throne from his grandfather John V for five months in 1390 but, with Ottoman mediation, he was reconciled with John V and his uncle, Manuel II. John held Constantinople against the Ottomans in 1399 to 1402, and was then given Thessalonica as an appanage, which he governed until his death on 22 September 1408.
John V Palaeologus (September 1390 to February 1391) part three
Restored to senior emperor, John ruled until his death in February 1391. If you count the time from his first ascension to the throne and exclude the interludes when someone else ruled, John V reigned longer than any other Byzantine emperor.
At one of the most desperate moments of its history, the Empire was governed by a ruler who was neither intelligent nor far-sighted, and who possessed virtually none of the qualities necessary to a successful statesman. (Norwich, p.347)
Manuel II Palaeologus (1391 to 1425)
Second son of John V, Manuel II Palaeologus was born on 27 June 1350. Raised to co-emperor in 1373, Manuel became senior emperor on John V’s death and ruled until his death. He travelled to the West European courts seeking aid against the Turks, and was able to use the Ottoman defeat in the Battle of Ankara to regain some territories and throw off his vassalage to them.
John VIII Palaeologus (1425 to 1448)
The Empire of which, on 21 July 1425, the thirty-two-year-old John Palaeologus became sole basileus, was effectively bounded by the walls of Constantinople; and Constantinople now presented a dismal picture indeed. (Norwich, p.388)
Eldest surviving son of Manuel II, John was born on 18 December 1392. Raised to co-emperor about 1416, he succeeded his father on the latter’s death. Seeking aid against the resurgent Ottomans, John ratified the Union of the Churches in 1439 i.e. in a desperate bid to secure help from the Pope and the Western powers, he promised to subjugate the Eastern Orthodox Church to Rome.
Constantine XI Dragases Palaeologus (1449 to 1453)
The fourth son of Manuel II and Serbian princess Helena Dragaš, Constantine was born on 8 February 1405. As Despot of the Morea from 1428, Constantine distinguished himself in campaigns that annexed the Principality of Achaea and brought the Duchy of Athens under temporary Byzantine suzerainty, but he was unable to repel Turkish attacks under Turahan Bey.
As the eldest surviving so of Manuel II, Constantine succeeded John VIII after the latter’s death. Confronted by the aggression of the new Ottoman sultan, Mehmet II, Constantine acknowledged the Union of the Churches and made repeated appeals for help to the West, but in vain. Refusing to surrender Constantinople, Constantine was killed during the final Ottoman attack on 29 May 1453.
So the city was both founded and lost under a ruler named Constantine (the emperor Constantine, who founded it in 330, and this Constantine Palaeologus, who was ruler when the city was overthrown in 1453). An epic 1,153-year-long history.
Books & Boots 
