Skip to main content

Isaac II Angelo Biography

Isaac II Angelo

(Isaac II Angelo or the Angel;?, 1155-Constantinople, 1204).Emperor of Byzantium (1185-1195 and 1203-1204).He was the first representative of the Angel dynasty.During his years of reign he overcame the many complications that arose, but despite his ability as a ruler, at his death, the Empire was more weakened, mainly due to the problems in the Balkans.

Son From Andronicus the Angel, he occupied the throne of Byzantium on September 12, 1185, after a revolution dethroned Alexius I Komnenos, the last of the Komnenos emperors.It was the harshness of the rule of Alexios and the fear of the Normans, who had recently conquered Thessalonica, the causes that elevated the Angels to the imperial throne.

Isaac II Angelo and his son Alexius IV

The same year as Isaac's coronation, his leader, Alexius Dranas, defeated Norman William II and he put to flight the Norman army that was heading towards Constantinople.After expelling the Normans in the Balkans, an insurrection broke out there against the Empire, led by the Wallachian-Bulgarian brothers Peter and Asen.The basileo commanded his generals against the brothers, but eventually led the troops in person during the campaigns of the next two years, in order to prevent rebellions within the army.

Internal problems forced Isaac to make peace with Peter and Asen in the autumn of 1188 and the Bulgarians declared themselves independent.To ensure peace with the Normans, Isaac allied himself with the King of Sicily, Tancredo di Lecce, and married his daughter Irene to Roger, Tancredo's first-born.

Isaac II signed a pact with the German emperor.Frederick I Barbarossa, for whom he promised to collaborate with him in the Crusade and to supply the German troops on their way to Constantinople.However, aware that Barbarossa had also made an agreement with the Sultan of Iconium, enemy of Byzantium, he in turn established an alliance with Saladin against the Sultan of Iconium and hindered the expedition of the Germans as much as possible.

The ineptitude of Isaac II in negotiations led the Germans to seize Adrianople and Philippopolis and march against Constantinople in early 1190.But faced with the impossibility of taking Constantinople, the two emperors signed the peace and the crusaders crossed the Dardanelles.

Meanwhile, the problem in the Balkans was getting worse.Isaac II organized annual expeditions between 1191 and 1194, which were defeated on all occasions.The campaign of 1194 was especially disastrous, and in 1195 the Basel went to war in person.In April, when Isaac was camped in Kypsella, in southern Thrace, a conspiracy emerged within the royal family, led by Alexios, the emperor's brother.He led an army insurrection, assumed the throne (Alexios III the Angel) and ordered the capture of Isaac, whose eyes were gouged out and held captive in Constantinople.

His reign was plagued with conspiracies.and rebellions.To diminish the power of the nobility, he avoided granting important administrative positions to members of the main families, to whom he assigned a merely military function.Isaac, consequently, relied on the bureaucracy created by him in Constantinople.The emperor showed special attention to administrative, military and diplomatic affairs.

In 1203 Isaac II was restored to the throne, thanks to the efforts of his son, Alexios IV, who reigned together with his father and with the support of the Christians of the IV Crusade.A year later he was assassinated in jail, following the success of a conspiracy by the palace steward, Alejo Ducas Murzuflo, who reigned as Alejo V.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jose Refugio Velasco Biography

José Refugio Velasco (Aguascalientes, 1851-Mexico, 1923) Mexican military.He evicted Pancho Villa de Torreón during the Huerta regime and, after the latter's fall, was part of the interim Carbajal government.Appointed commander-in-chief of the army, he signed the Teoloyucán Accords (1914) with the constitutionalists, which put an end to the Huerta period.

Gregorio Vazquez de Arce Biography

Gregorio Vázquez de Arce (Gregorio Vázquez de Arce y Ceballos; Santa Fe de Bogotá, 1638- id ., 1711) Colombian painter.Of Andalusian origin, he studied painting in the workshop of Baltasar de Figueroa, appreciating in his work the influence of Murillo and Zurbarán, who received through the Andalusian artists who worked in Santa Fe.He made numerous series of paintings on religious themes, in addition to cultivate the portrait and allegorical painting.

Carlos Suriñach Biography

Carlos Suriñach (Barcelona, ​​1915-New Haven, Connecticut, 1997) Spanish composer and conductor, nationalized from the United States.Trained in Barcelona, ​​Cologne and Berlin, he spent most of his career in the US.His work, symphonic, for stage and chamber, is influenced by flamenco ( Andalusian dance , 1946; Magic Fair , 1956; Spanish Suite , 1970; Concerto for piano and orchestra , 1973).

John newcombe Biography

John Newcombe (Sydney, 1944) Australian tennis player.His sporting life began as a soccer and cricket player, and it was not until 1957 that he began in tennis, a sport in which he was junior champion of Australia at seventeen, which earned him being selected for the Australian Cup team.Davis, formed by a group of Australian tennis players who won all the most important tournaments that were played (Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Emerson, etc.). In 1966 he won the Davis Cup against Spain in Sydney , forming a couple with Tony Roche, with whom he formed one of the best couples in the history of world tennis.He returned to renew the title two years later, in 1968.He was individual champion at Wimbledon in 1967 and 1968 and won the United States Open, in Forest Hills in 1967.However, he obtained his greatest successes in the doubles modality, always with Tony Roche and sometimes with Fletcher; with them he was awarded the Wimbledon title in 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969 and 1970.After his retirem...

Jorge Bessières Biography

Jorge Bessières (?, 1780-Molina de Aragón, 1825) French adventurer.In the War of Independence he deserted the French army and joined the Spanish.In 1822 he participated in the republican uprising in Barcelona, ​​but soon he went over to the absolutist side and was appointed field marshal.In 1825 he led an ultra-realistic uprising.He was shot.

Hugo Wast Biography

Hugo Wast (Córdoba, 1883-Buenos Aires, 1962) Pseudonym of the Argentine novelist Gustavo Martínez Zuviría, one of the most discussed Argentine writers of the 20th century.Of some of his novels, such as Flor de durazno (1911), taken to the big screen in what was Carlos Gardel's acting debut, more than one hundred thousand copies were sold, and many of them translations have been made in up to eight languages; however, the criticism is generally negative: some historians of Spanish-American literature go so far as to dispense with his name; others even affirm that their work lacks literary value. Hugo Wast, one of the most widely read Spanish-speaking writers in the world, became a lawyer at the Universidad del Litoral (Santa Fe), was a professor of Economics at said University and directed the National Library, in Buenos Aires, from 1931 to 1955.Deputy to the Cortes (1916-1920) and Minister of Justice and Public Education (1943-1944), he obtained in 1922 the gold medal of the...

Menstruation in the Middle Ages: aphrodisiac blood

At present, talk about menstruation or monthly bleeding , is something normal and assimilated by society.When the girls begin to stain, either they already know what is going on, or they are explain calmly and in detail. However, and Assuming that 99% of people in the world know what menstruation is, there is an undeniable fact: the scandalous thing of the matter.said Chef, one of the most polemic characters in the animated South Park series, about women: « I do not trust an animal that is bleeding for five days and does not die «.For the tranquility of many, the character was removed shortly. Menstrual scandal But it is true that a woman, in menstrual period, can lose 40 ml if everything is normal .If the bleeding is abundant, the amount can be doubled.The question is, what to think ian of this circumstance who lived it in the Middle Ages? At that time people were burned for witchcraft, diseases were cured with leeches and other irreproducible barbarities here. As expecte...

The Battle of Trafalgar - Background, Characters, Countries, Battle and Consequences

The Battle of Trafalgar, rivers of ink have been poured over a naval battle of such caliber. English ships against a Franco-Spanish Aramade, the tension between these three countries not resolved for centuries, seemed to settle in this terrible battle.But what caused this confrontation, what characters intervened, where the battle took place or what consequences it had.This and other questions are going to answer them in this article that we have titled The Battle of Trafalgar-Background, Characters, Countries, Battle and Consequences , let us know all the data, how a battle was created that has inspired great writers and film directors. Index of the article The Battle of Trafalgar | Background Spain, France and England throughout history have coincided in terms of interests, the three countries with a strong tendency to colonialism and expansion territorial, they have often been harmed their interests.Roughs that have been limited on some occasions through treaties and...

The Legend of the Holy Grail

No other medieval fable is so rich in symbolism, so diverse and, in many cases, as contradictory in its meaning as the legend of the Holy Grail . Is there any historical proof that allows us to suppose that there was a Grail that could be found? Or its legend is nothing more than a charming literary tale created by troubadours to entertain the members of the European courts? The legend of the Grail was recorded in history at the end of the 13th century.The mind of a talented French poet called Chretien de Troyes . However, when he wrote his Grail Story , Chretien included a host of pre-Christian elements.The legend went back, in fact, several centuries ago, to the Celtic stories of King Arthur , to the Irish tales, to the Welsh bards, where Christianity had not yet arrived. In fact, for the first Christian narrator of the legend of the Grail , Chretien de Troyes , the Holy Grail was not even a glass, but appears as a lavish and magical dish whose function is ...

The history of the flags of the world

Maybe you've ever stopped to think where the flags come from, because they have those colors or shapes, because some have drawings and others have stripes.Because there are flags of different countries that are very similar, it may be a coincidence or perhaps they have something in common.To this and other questions we will answer in this article that we have titled The history of the flags of the world. History of the flags of the world | Origin of the Flags The flags are responsible for generating the identity signals of a country , it is the embodiment of a series of values ​​that hold a community together or region that share a series of characteristics, whether geographical, cultural or historical. When several nations have shared a common period in history, it is normal that they also share symbols, examples such as the flags of the Nordic countries or as with New Zealand and Australia. Today all countries are represented by their corresponding flag, but ...