Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus given name Isaac
Family
At the death of Byzantine emperor John II Komnenos in 1143, the throne passed not to his third and oldest living son, Isaac Komnenos, but his youngest son, Manuel I Komnenos, who successfully claimed the throne. Isaac nevertheless served amiably as sebastokrator, and his first wife Theodora Kamaterina (d. 1144) bore him a daughter, Irene Komnene, and other children. Irene Komnene married an unnamed Doukas Kamateros and gave birth to Isaac Komnenos, a minor member of the Komnenos family, c. 1155.Life
Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates provides most of the following account of his life. Isaac was the son of an unnamed member of the noble Byzantine family, Doukas Kamateros, and Irene Komnene, daughter of sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos.Governor and prison
Isaac Komnenos married an Armenian princess on Cyprus.
Emperor Manuel I Komnenos made Isaac governor of Isauria and the town of Tarsus, where he started a war against the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, soldiers of which captured him. As Emperor Manuel died in 1180, seemingly nobody greatly cared about the fate of Isaac, whose long imprisonment seemingly failed to improve his general disposition. On account of his Armenian royal wife, he perhaps endured not too harsh terms of captivity.
In 1183 his aunt Theodora Komnene, queen consort of Jerusalem, arranged with the new Byzantine emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (1183–1185), to marry their daughter Eirene to a son of Manuel I, and contribute to Isaac's ransom. Constantine Makrodoukas, a loyal supporter of the emperor and uncle of Isaac, and Andronikos Doukas, a relative, childhood friend, described as a "sodomite and debaucher", both contributed to his ransom. These two relatives personally stood surety for the fealty of Isaac Komnenos to the Byzantine emperor. The Knights Templar, whom Niketas Choniates labels "the Phreri," contributed as well, as part of their international banking functions.
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