General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> E Roman Emperor
GEDCOM line 60703 not recognizable or too long:
() 2 GIVN Alexius I

GEDCOM line 60704 not recognizable or too long:
() 2 SURN Comnenus

GEDCOM line 60705 not recognizable or too long:
() 2 NSFX E Roman Emperor

Weis" "Ancestral Roots. . ." (45:27), (105A:24).

from Jim Steven's genealogy on www:

Alexius was the Byzantine Emporer from 1081 to 1118.
The quarter century just preceeding his reign, from 1056 to 1081, is
referred to by Byzantine historians as "the time of troubles". The last
emporer of the Macedonian Dynasty, Constantine IX (d.1055),
was succeeded for about a year by his sister-in-law, then by a series of
weak and unrelated emporers, one of whom (1057-59) was Alexius'
uncle, Isaac I. This weakening of the Empire
from within bore the seeds of the crusader movement in Western Europe.
Foreign pressures on all frontiers greatly reduced the area conrolled by
the Empire. This was also a period marked by a struggle between the
central beaurocracy and the wealthy landowners of the provinces of Asia
Minor. Alexius was of the party of the landowners.
The year 1071 saw the Empire absorb two severe blows. At the battlle
of Manzikert, the Turks destroyed the Byantine Army and captured the
Emporer. After this time, the Empire was no longer able to resist the
incursions of the Turks. On the Italian front, ROBERT GUISCARD
the founder of the Norman Empire,took the city of Bari after a
three-year siege. This all but ended Byzantine power in Italy. ROBERT
actually had visions of eventually claiming the Imperial throne as his
own, leading an army to the strategic Balkan seaport of Dyrrachium. He
may well have succeeded in his ambitious plans, but he died of disease in
1085. ROBERT's death put an end to the Norman threat against
Byzantium. This was not, however, the end of Alexius' Norman problems.
A decade later, ROBERTY GUISCARD's son, Bohemond, made himself the
Prince of Antioch at Alexius' expense.
Another problem for the Empire during this time was the southerly
push of the Magyars, who were now the rulers of Hungary undrer the
descendants of Arpad [The last Hungarian in our ancestory
was ADELAIDE (d. 1062), the daughter of KING MICHAEL I.]
1091 was a critical year in the history of the Empire. Constantinople
was literaly surrounded by an allied army of Turks and Patzinaks. It
would be but a matter of time until the city would have to surrender and
the Byzantine Empire pass into history. Alexius, however, was able to
convince a barbaric Russian tribe, the Cumans, to attack the Patzinaks.
The Cumans were more successful than Alexius could have ever imagined
in his wildest dreams, for they almost literally slaughtered the entire
Patzinak army under the walls of Constantinople ! Shortly thereafter,
Alexius was also able to convince a rival prince to assasinate Tzachas,
who was the leader of the Turkish component of the alliance.
Another important event of Alexius' reign was the first crusade. During
the crisis of 1091, Alexius had appealed for aid from the West. He
wanted them to send mercenaries - he never envisioned a plan so wide
sweeping as the crusades. He welcomed the first of the crusader armies
into Constantinople in 1096. An agreement was reached whereby, in
return for the support of the Byzantine army, the crusaders would return
to the Empire any of its former territory that they liberated from the
Turks. The turning point of the first crusade was reached in1098 when
the crusaders took Antioch after a seven-month siege. As the crusader
army began to continue onward to Jerusalem, Bohemond Guiscard was
left behind as Prince of Antioch. On the pretense that the Byzantine
army was on its way back to Constantinople and had not sufficiently
participated in the siege, he refused to recognize allegience to the
Emporer. This was the first inkling of future friction between Byzantium
and the west resulting from the crusades.
Alexi