Alexios V. Dukas, called Murtzuflos (Gloomy) - Byzantine Emperor
He ruled from January to April 1204.
Alexios V. was the great-grandson of the emperor Alexia I. Komnéna and the son-in-law of the emperor Alexia III.
In January 1204, the people of Constantinople demanded a change in the imperial throne. In the Temple of Divine Wisdom, the people chose Nikolai Kanabos as their new emperor. Emperor Alexios IV. asked for help from the Crusaders IV. the Crusades, who camped under the walls of Constantinople. However, Alexios IV. he lost the trust of the Byzantine nobles and they elected Alexius V as the new emperor.
Alexios V. had Alexius IV imprisoned and strangled for inviting Latinos - "Western knights" - to Byzantium. On April 13, 1204, the Crusaders invaded Constantinople and plundered it for three days. Alexios V. escaped to his mother-in-law Alexius III, but he imprisoned and blinded him. The Byzantine Empire split into four parts, the Latin Empire, the Epirus Despotate, the Trapezoid Empire, and the Nicaea Empire, which became a kind of continuation of the Byzantine tradition and statehood.
The blinded emperor was seized by the Latin and sentenced to death for the murder of Emperor Alexius IV. He was executed by dropping him from a triumphal pillar in Constantinople.
Collective of authors - History of Byzantium
- published by Academia, Nakladatelství Československé akadémie věd - Praha 1992, ISBN 80-200-0454-8
He ruled from January to April 1204.
Alexios V. was the great-grandson of the emperor Alexia I. Komnéna and the son-in-law of the emperor Alexia III.
In January 1204, the people of Constantinople demanded a change in the imperial throne. In the Temple of Divine Wisdom, the people chose Nikolai Kanabos as their new emperor. Emperor Alexios IV. asked for help from the Crusaders IV. the Crusades, who camped under the walls of Constantinople. However, Alexios IV. he lost the trust of the Byzantine nobles and they elected Alexius V as the new emperor.
Alexios V. had Alexius IV imprisoned and strangled for inviting Latinos - "Western knights" - to Byzantium. On April 13, 1204, the Crusaders invaded Constantinople and plundered it for three days. Alexios V. escaped to his mother-in-law Alexius III, but he imprisoned and blinded him. The Byzantine Empire split into four parts, the Latin Empire, the Epirus Despotate, the Trapezoid Empire, and the Nicaea Empire, which became a kind of continuation of the Byzantine tradition and statehood.
The blinded emperor was seized by the Latin and sentenced to death for the murder of Emperor Alexius IV. He was executed by dropping him from a triumphal pillar in Constantinople.
Collective of authors - History of Byzantium
- published by Academia, Nakladatelství Československé akadémie věd - Praha 1992, ISBN 80-200-0454-8