page_title: Manuel Kamytzes
section_title: Under Isaac II
hierarchical_section_title: Manuel Kamytzes / Career / Under Isaac II
caption_attribution_description: Isaac II. MS Mutinensis gr. 122 f. 293v
context_page_description: Manuel Kamytzes Komnenos Doukas Angelos was a Byzantine general who was active in the late 12th century, and led an unsuccessful rebellion in 1201–02.
  A cousin of emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos, he served as a senior military commander in the Balkans, with the rank of protostrator, from 1185/6 until 1199. For Isaac II he fought against the uprising of Alexios Branas, the Vlach–Bulgarian rebels and Cuman raiders, and the German contingent of the Third Crusade under Frederick I Barbarossa. Under Alexios III he campaigned unsuccessfully against the Bulgarian rebel leader Ivanko in 1197. In early 1199, as the emperor briefly fell gravely ill, he was one of the imperial relatives who put themselves forward for the throne. Later in the year, he was captured by Ivanko, but the emperor not only refused to ransom him, but also confiscated his possessions and imprisoned his family. Enraged at this treatment, Kamytzes joined his son-in-law, Dobromir Chrysos, in rebellion in 1201. Kamytzes captured Thessaly, but was quickly abandoned by Chrysos and defeated by the Imperial armies in 1202. He probably fled to Bulgaria, where he died.
context_section_description: When Kamytzes' first cousin, Isaac II Angelos (r. 1185–1195, 1203–1204), took the throne, Kamytzes received the title of protostrator, a rank that by the 12th century was reserved for very prominent aristocrats with close family ties to the reigning dynasty. Kamytzes played an important role in the suppression of the revolt of the general Alexios Branas, which broke out in summer 1186, or, more likely, in 1187. Kamytzes and Branas were bitter enemies at court, so Kamytzes made his entire fortune available to the emperor for use against the rebel, and himself commanded the left wing of the Imperial army under Conrad of Montferrat that defeated and killed the rebel before the Walls of Constantinople.
  In September 1187, Emperor Isaac II marched out to campaign against the Vlach–Bulgarian Uprising of Asen and Peter, that had been gaining ground in the northern Balkans with the aid of Cuman mercenaries. At Lardeas, the Byzantines came upon a Cuman raiding force of 6,000 men. In the ensuing battle, in which Kamytzes commanded one of the Imperial army's detachments, the Cuman raiders were routed and their prisoners, some 12,000, liberated.
  In 1189, when the army of Frederick I Barbarossa crossed Byzantine territory as part of the Third Crusade, Kamytzes was charged, along with the Domestic of the West (commander-in-chief of the European field army), Alexios Gidos, to keep watch on the German forces and harass them by attacking any foraging parties. When Barbarossa seized Philippopolis, he sent a message to Kamytzes, stressing that his sole intention was safe and peaceful passage through Byzantine lands. Kamytzes passed this on to Isaac II, but the latter, fearing that Barbarossa secretly intended to march on Constantinople and depose him, berated Kamytzes for his inaction and ordered him to engage the Germans. As a result, Kamytzes with some 2,000 horsemen moved to set up an ambush for the Germans' supply train near Philippopolis, around 22 November 1189. The Germans were informed of this from the Armenian inhabitants of the fortress of Prousenos, where Kamytzes had set up his main camp, and set out with 5,000 cavalry to attack the Byzantine camp. The two forces met by accident near Prousenos, and in the ensuing battle, Kamytzes' men were routed. The historian Niketas Choniates—who was governor of Philippopolis and an eyewitness—writes that the Byzantines fled as far as Ohrid, and that Kamytzes abandoned his men during the flight and did not rejoin them until three days later. 
  In 1190 Kamytzes participated in yet another campaign against the Bulgarian rebels in the area of the Balkan Mountains. Along with Isaac Komnenos, he commanded the Imperial army's vanguard, while Isaac II and his brother Alexios (the future Alexios III Angelos, r. 1195–1203) commanded the main body and the sebastokrator John Doukas was in command of the rear guard. During their retreat through a narrow pass, the Bulgarians allowed the vanguard to pass, but then fell on the rest of the army, which panicked and fled.
caption: Portrait of Isaac II, from the 15th-century Mutinensis gr. 122 codex
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