Alexios I Komnenos
Emperor at Constantinople when the First Crusade passed through. His envoys asked the pope for help in 1095; he supplied the crusading armies and bound their leaders by oath, and a Latin chronicler accused him of abandoning them.
A legation from the emperor of Constantinople came to the synod of Piacenza in 1095 and asked the pope and all Christians for help against the pagans, who held the country up to the walls of the city (Bernold of Constance, Chronicle 1095 (p. 462)).
Anna Komnene, who names herself his daughter (Anna Komnene, Alexiad preface), tells the sequel from his side. He dreaded the arrival of the Frankish armies, sent officers to receive them courteously, supply them and watch them (Anna Komnene, Alexiad 10.5), and required their leaders to swear that they would hand over to him any towns they took that had belonged to the empire (Anna Komnene, Alexiad 10.9–10). The Latin chronicler Bernold tells it otherwise: the “king of Constantinople”, he writes under 1098, withdrew his help from the crusaders and closed the road to pilgrims (Bernold of Constance, Chronicle 1098 (p. 466)).
In the timeline
- 1095 to 1099, firm dateThe First Crusade
In 1095 Pope Urban II calls the knights of the West to go east in arms for the remission of their sins. Four years later the armies storm Jerusalem and massacre its defenders and inhabitants, as their own writers report.
Primary sources
Alexiad
- Anna Komnene, Alexiad prefacesourcebooks.fordham.edu
- Anna Komnene, Alexiad 10.5sourcebooks.fordham.edu
- Anna Komnene, Alexiad 10.9–10sourcebooks.fordham.edu