1. The lineage of Angeloi

The founder of this Byzantine aristocratic lineage was Constantine Angelos, who came from Philadelphia, Asia Minor. The rise of this lineage is particularly interesting from both historical and sociological standpoint, since it came about rather quickly during the period of aristocratization of the Byzantine Empire, when someone’s background played a great, if not even a key role. The Angeloi, unlike some other Byzantine families, were not an old family, so their lineage was not thought of particularly highly in the first half of the 12th century. Aware of that fact, in the second half of the 12th century, some members of the Angelos family used the much more esteemed surname Komnenos in their signatures. It is believed that the surname Angelos came from the word angel (messenger), but has also been associated with the toponym Angel or Agel, in the region close to the town of Amid (mod. Diyarbakır) in Mesopotamia.¹

2. A beautiful newcomer from Philadelphia

Philadelphia, a town in the Lydia region, Asia Minor, was the birthplace of Constantine Angelos, the founder of the future imperial family. This newcomer to Constantinople managed to marry Theodora, the youngest daughter of the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118), somewhere between 1110 and 1115. Niketas Choniates pointed out that Constantine’s parents were simple and unknown folks, but he had great figure and beautiful appearance, which helped him win the favors of the Byzantine princess.² It should be stressed here that Theodora Komnene was previously married to Constantine Kourtikes. Constantine Angelos, as the Emperor’s son-in-law, received the court dignity of panhypersebastos. However, the handsome Philadelphian was not considered equal to other Emperor’s sons-in-law, who were of nobler origin and had higher titles. Even Theodora herself suffered because of her marriage that was not to the liking of her closest kin, so she was receiving different treatment than the other Emperor’s daughters. It was evident even in the minor things, such as, for example, holiday gifts: the poor received less money, grains and wine on Theodora’s birthday than on birthdays of her sisters, and also less on Constantine Angelos’ birthday than on birthdays of other Emperor’s sons-in-law.³

It seems that the rise to esteem of Constantine Angelos was a slow and difficult one. It is not known whether he played any significant role during the reigns of emperors Alexius I and John II (1118-1143), but only during the reign of Manuel I (1143-1180) did he assume a rather high position and on several occasions carried out important military tasks. Thus in 1154, while being in command over the Byzantine fleet in the conflict with the Kingdom of Sicily, he overruled the Emperor’s command to wait for reinforcements, and not only was he defeated but he was also captured as prisoner.⁴ In any case, thanks to Constantine Angelos, his brothers Nicolas, John and Michael also had good careers.

Constantine Angelos had five sons with Theodora Komnene: Constantine, John, Alexios, Andronikos and Isaac. It is striking that they all had the typical Komnenos names, favorite in this imperial lineage. The oldest son, Constantine, quickly disappears from the sources, while John was the founder of the so-called Epirus branch of the Angelos family, and Andronikos was the founder of the Constantinople branch. The fourth son, Alexios Angelos, was linked with one of the grandest monuments of the Byzantine art in the Balkans, the Church of St. Panteleimon in Nerezi, near Skopje, erected in 1164.⁵

3. The Constantinopolitan Branch of the Angelos Family

Out of the five sons of Constantine Angelos and Theodora Komnene, the deepest trace in history was left by John and Andronikos. They took part in some military campaigns in the Balkan Peninsula and in Asia Minor during the 1160s and 1170s. In the fateful battle at Myriokephalon, in 1176, brothers John and Andronikos Angelos commanded over the advance contingent and successfully lead their army through the difficult gorges of Myriokephalon, but it is a known fact that this conflict ended with the utter defeat of the Byzantine army. In the next year, 1177, Andronikos Angelos was part of the emissary delegation to the King of Jerusalem, Baldwin IV (1174-1185). He turned out to be less successful than his brother John Angelos. In 1179, Manuel I sent him with the best battalions to go to war with the Seljuqs, but not only did he not do anything, but rather he allowed for the enemy to carry out a night raid and break down his soldiers, while he took the infamous flight. The Emperor wanted to humiliate his uncle, Andronikos Angelos, by having him wear the women’s clothes and walk down the city streets, but he determined not to do it in the last moment.⁶ Andronikos Angelos did not live to see his sons becoming the Byzantine emeperors.

The Angelos lineage came into conflict with the Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (1183-1185) who ordered three out of the six sons of Andronikos Angelos to be blinded. However, the coup of September 1185 ended the terror of Andronikos I Komnenos and brought to power the son of Andronikos Angelos, Isaac II Angelos (1185-1195, 1203-1204). It is interesting to note that the Angelos family was in the first ranks of the battle against the anti-aristocratic policy of Andronikos I Komnenos, and thus gathered the main fruits of victory by being on the winning side.

3.1. Emperors at Constantinople

Unlike Andronikos I Komnenos, who energetically and violently fought against the deviations of the Byzantine society, Isaac II Angelos let it all go with the flow. The old illnesses of the Empire, covered with the mere appearance of the might and glory during the Komnenos dynasty, came out in the surface and disclosed the depths of the crisis in the Byzantine Empire. No one attempted any longer to put a stop to the abuses in the central and provincial administration. Selling of positions, bribing officials, blackmailing the tax collectors started occurring on a daily basis. It was being said of the Emperor Isaac II that he was selling the officials’ positions as if they were vegetables in a green market.⁷ During his time, the usurpations of the imperial power were happening quite often, something completely unknown in the Byzantine history of the 12th century. Thus the historical work by Niketas Choniates, the main source for this era, turns from the victorious panegyric to the great emperors of the Komnenos dynasty into a mournful chronicle of coups, humiliating failures and various misfortunes of the Angelos dynasty.

During the reign of Isaac’s older brother Alexios III Angelos (1195-1203), the situation became even worse. The population was exhausted by exorbitant taxes, since the state kept increasing them, while the tax collectors abused their authority greatly. The careless court was spending large sums of money; great sums were being paid to the foreign monarchs, with the attempt by the weak Constantinople government to win their favors in this manner. Alexius III was the typical product of that age of decline, whose personality was a perfect mix of the ultimate love of power and the cowardly weakness.⁸ On several occasions he completely distanced himself from the ideals of the Byzantine basileus. The sources recorded that he suffered from gout, which made him bed-ridden on several occasions, since he could not walk.⁹

The Byzantine Empire, which during the reign of Isaac II, although weak and ill, managed to maintain its positions to a certain degree, during the reign of his brother Alexius III, lost its last defensive force. A year after year, its internal decline was becoming more and more clear, and the coup of 1195 had some far-reaching consequences in the sphere of the foreign policy. The Byzantine positions weakened in relation to its South-Slavic neighbors, the Bulgarians and the Serbs.

The relationship between the provinces and the capital, not particularly strong for quite some time, became with time an insurmountable gap. Moreover, during the reign of Alexios III, the centrifugal forces were strengthening within the Empire, the general patriotism was giving way to the provincial patriotism, and the feudal break-up of the state came about, that is, the phenomenon of regional lords getting so strong that they refused to acknowledge the authority of the basileus in Constantinople.

After the well-known events, relating to the departure of Alexios (IV) Angelos for the West, the arrival of the Crusaders at the doors of Constantinople in the summer of 1203, the infamous escape of Alexios III from the capital, the first Crusaders’ capture of the megalopolis in the Bosporus, the tension about the pay-up of the promised award to the Latin knights that lasted several months, and the coup within the city walls (January 1204), during which both Alexius IV and Isaac II were killed, the Crusaders finally seized Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire was destroyed in April 1204. Thus the reign of the “Constantinople” branch of the Angelos dynasty ended, despite the later attempts by Alexios III to get involved in the fights for the Byzantine throne during the murky days in the first decade of the 13th century.

The Angelos dynasty played a significant, even though completely negative, role in the history of the Byzantine Empire, making way for the first fall of Constantinople. One of the old researchers wrote that never had there been the more fruitless and incompetent imperial lineage than the Angelos family.¹⁰ This assessment, repeated in one way or the other by all researchers who followed, is completely justified when refering to the “Constantinople” branch of the Angelos family – the emperors Isaac II and Alexios III, and their father, Andronikos Angelos, as well as Isaac’s son Alexios IV. Such a negative assessment that the historiography has made of this imperial lineage thus far could hardly have any serious revisions.

4. The Epirus Branch of the Angelos family

Unlike Andronikos Angelos, his older brother John not only lived to see the coup from 1185, but also took part in it and obtained the title of the military commander, and then, in very old age, played an important role during the reign of his nephews Isaac II and Alexios III. Moreover, in the coup from 1185, while Isaac was having second thoughts whether to accept the imperial crown that the people had offered him, John took his hat off and asked that the diadem be placed on his head “as he was displaying his naked skull and bald head, shiny like the full moon.”¹¹ However, after the terror reign of Andronikos I Komnenos, the population of Constantinople was mistrustful towards the old people and did not grant John’s wish.

It is believed that the military commander John Angelos passed away around 1200, but he most definitely did not live to see the rise of his sons in the Epirus State, which was created on the ruins of the Byzantine Empire. Michael Angelos (1205-1215), John’s illegitimate son, was its founder and the first ruler. Michael I Angelos managed to expand the state by conquering Larissa in 1212, and later on by seizing the port of Dyrrachion and the island of Corfu from the Venetians. His successor was his half-brother Theodore I Angelos Doukas Komnenos (1215-1230), during whose reign the Epirus State was at its biggest expansion. Already at the beginning of his reign, in 1217, he became famous for imprisoning the Latin Emperor Peter II of Courtenay in the gorges of Albania. Soon afterwards, he started the battle against the Kingdom of Thessalonica, the Latin State founded by Boniface of Montferrat. In either 1224/5 or 1227, he managed to seize Thessalonica, the former second-largest city of the Byzantine Empire, and was crowned the emperor by the Archbishop of Ohrid, Demetrios Chomatenos. Thus Theodore ruled over the region spreading from the Adriatic to the Aegean Sea, to include, besides the old areas of the Epirus State, Thessaly and most of Macedonia. When he seized Adrianople in 1225, it seemed that the Epirus State, and not the Empire of Nicaea, would win the battle for the restitution of the Byzantine Empire. However, Theodore I Angelos was defeated and captured by the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Asen (1218-1241) at the battle near Klokotnitsa on the Maritsa river in the spring of 1230. After this event, the Empire of Thessalonica broke up in several independent regions which began developing separately.

Theodore I was succeeded in Thessalonica by his younger brother Michael Angelos (1230-1237), and later Theodoros’ son, John Angelos (1237-1244). On the other hand, Michael II Angelos (1230-1268), the illegitimate son of Michael I, assumed power over the Epirus. Since in the meantime the Empire of Nicaea became very strong and expanded their estates in Europe, the Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes (1221-1254) forced John Angelos to waive his imperial title in Thessalonica in 1242, but allowed him to keep the title of the despotes, used previously by the rulers of the Epirus State. John was succeeded by his brother Demetrios Angelos (1244-1246) in Thessalonica, during whose reign the Nicaean battalions seized the city.

After the death of Despotes Michael II Angelos (1268), Thessaly was separated from Epirus, and both of the states were ruled over by the members of the Angelos family. Despot Nikephoros I Angelos (1268-1290), son of Michael II, came to power in Epirus, while the military commander John I Angelos (1268-1289), illegitimate son of Michael II, came to power in Thessaly. Nikephoros I was succeeded in Epirus by his son Thomas Angelos (1290-1318), and in Thessaly, John I was first succeeded by his sons Theodoros and Constantine Angelos (1289-1303), and later by his grandson and Constantine’s son-in-law, John II Angelos (1303-1318). As it turned out, both Angelos monarch dynasties died in 1318: in Epirus with the death of Thomas Angelos, and in Thessaly with the death of John II Angelos.

5. Assesment

Unlike the “Constantinople” branch of the Angelos family, which ruled over the Byzantine Empire for less than twenty years (1185-1204), the “Epirus” branch proved to be much more competent. They were capable to form a state in the difficult times after 1204, and rule over it, going through rise and decline, for more than a century (1205-1318).