Manuel Komnenos Doukas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Manuel Ducas)
Jump to: navigation, search

Manuel Komnenos Doukas or Comnenus Ducas (Greek: Μανουήλ Κομνηνός Δούκας, Manouēl Komnēnos Doukas), often inaccurately called Manuel Angelos (a name he never used), (born c. 1187, d. c. 1241), was ruler of Thessalonica from 1230 to 1237 and of Thessaly from 1239 until his death in c. 1241.

Manuel was a legitimate son of the sebastokratōr John Doukas. He was thus a first cousin of the emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos, and a brother of Michael I Komnenos Doukas and Theodore Komnenos Doukas of Epirus. Probably after 1225 or 1227 he was given the court dignity of despotes by his brother, Theodore. At about the same time he married, perhaps as his second wife, Maria, the illegitimate daughter of Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria, helping to cement his brother's alliance with this country.

After his brother's defeat and capture by the Bulgarians at the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230, Manuel was allowed by Ivan Asen II to rule in Thessalonica and its environs with the title of despotes. At one point Manuel tried to establish contacts with the Papacy, but in 1232 the longstanding breach with the Eastern Patriarchate at Nicaea was finally healed.

Manuel ruled peacefully until 1237, when his widowed father-in-law Ivan Asen II married Irene, the daughter of the captive Theodore. At this point Theodore and his sons were released from captivity and resolved to recover the rule of Thessalonica. Manuel was unsuccessful in seeking the support of Prince Geoffrey II Villehardouin of Achaea, and was forced to flee to Asia Minor.

After a spell among the Seljuks of Rum and in Nicaea, Manuel returned to Greece with Nicaean support in 1239 and captured several fortresses including Larissa and Pharsalos from Theodore's son John Komnenos Doukas, establishing himself as ruler of Thessaly. Theodore and John had to agree to a division of the family lands. When Manuel died about 1241, the area passed into the hands of his other nephew, Michael II Komnenos Doukas of Epirus.

By his wife Maria of Bulgaria, Manuel may have had at least one daughter:

Preceded by
Theodore
Ruler of Thessalonica
12301237
Succeeded by
John
Preceded by
Theodore
Ruler of Thessaly
1230–1237
Succeeded by
John
Preceded by
John
Ruler of Thessaly
12391241
Succeeded by
Michael

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
  • P. Lock, The Franks in the Aegean 1204–1500, New York, 1995.
  • K. Varzos, Ē genealogia tōn Komnēnōn, (Thessalonica, 1984), vol. 2, 637-656.
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.