page_title: Michael I Komnenos Doukas
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Michael I Komnenos Doukas / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Seal of Michael Komnenos Doukas, founder of the Despotate of Epirus.
context_page_description: Michael I Komnenos Doukas, Latinized as Comnenus Ducas, and in modern sources often recorded as Michael I Angelos, a name he never used, was the founder and first ruler of the Despotate of Epirus from c. 1205 until his assassination in 1214/15.
  Born c. 1170, Michael was a descendant of Alexios I Komnenos and a cousin of emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos. He began his public career in 1190, as a hostage to the Third Crusade, and went on to serve as governor of the province of Mylasa and Melanoudion in the 1190s and again in c. 1200/01. During the latter tenure he rebelled against Alexios III but was defeated and forced to flee to the Seljuk Turks. In the aftermath of the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, he attached himself to Boniface of Montferrat. Soon, however, he abandoned the Crusader leader and went to Epirus, where he established himself as ruler, apparently through marriage with the daughter or widow of a local magnate.
  Michael's domain in Epirus became a refuge and centre of resistance of the Greeks against the Latin Crusaders.
context_section_description: Michael was the illegitimate son of the sebastokrator John Doukas. His paternal grandparents were Constantine Angelos and Theodora, a daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118). Michael's uncle, Andronikos, was the father of the future emperors Isaac II Angelos (r. 1185–1195, 1203–1204) and Alexios III Angelos (r. 1195–1203), who were thus Michael's first cousins. Despite this kinship, he never used the surname "Angelos", which has been applied by some modern scholars to Michael and his dynasty. The few documents surviving from his own hand and a couple of lead seals show his name as "Michael Doukas" or "Michael Komnenos Doukas" (Μιχαήλ Κομνηνός ὁ Δούκας), evidently in an effort to emphasize his relation to the revered Doukas and Komnenos dynasties, rather than the disastrous reign of the Angeloi. The only medieval sources to use the surname "Angelos" to refer to Michael were later pro-Palaiologos historians hostile to him and the Epirote state's rival claims to the Byzantine inheritance.
  It is unknown when Michael was born; the only relevant information is the statement of Niketas Choniates that he was a "young man" in 1201. The Greek scholar Konstantinos Varzos places his birth approximately in 1170. Michael is first mentioned on 14 February 1190, when he, along with other imperial relatives, served as a hostage to Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1152–1190) during the passage of the Third Crusade through Byzantine territory. He then went on to serve as governor (doux and anagrapheus) of the theme of Mylasa and Melanoudion in Asia Minor during the last years of Isaac II's first reign. Many scholars assign him the rank of sebastos from a seal attributed to him, but this is disputed by Lucien Stiernon, as he is nowhere else mentioned with this title. Alexios III re-appointed him to the same province, probably in 1200. Demetrios Polemis, in his study on the Doukas family, reports that he was reappointed to the post by Alexios IV (r. 1203–1204), but as Varzos remarks, this is evidently an error by Polemis. In early 1201, for unknown reasons, Michael rose in revolt against the emperor. Alexios III campaigned against him in the summer 1201 and defeated him, forcing Michael to seek refuge at the court of the Seljuk Turk Sultan of Rûm, Süleymanshah II (r. 1196–1204). In his service he led Turkish raids into Byzantine territory around the Maeander River valley.
  According to Geoffrey of Villehardouin, a participant in the Fourth Crusade and author of De la Conquête de Constantinople, at the time of the fall of Constantinople to the forces of the Fourth Crusade, Michael was present in the city, having possibly returned from exile in the period after the deposition of Alexios III and the restoration of Isaac II and his son Alexios IV in 1203–04. Michael then entered into the service of Boniface of Montferrat, who received the Kingdom of Thessalonica and overlordship over Greece in the division of the spoils among the Crusaders, and followed Boniface west as the latter went to take up his kingdom in September 1204. Villehardouin reports that Boniface trusted Michael, but the latter soon abandoned Boniface and went to Epirus, where he installed himself as the leader of the local Greeks against the Latin Crusaders.
  The process of Michael's establishment in Epirus is obscure. The hagiography of St. Theodora of Arta, written in the late 13th century, maintains that Alexios III had appointed Michael as governor in the Peloponnese and a certain Senachereim, who was Michael's relative by marriage (they both had married first cousins from the Melissenos family), as governor of the Theme of Nicopolis in Epirus. When the local inhabitants rose in revolt against him, Senachereim called upon Michael for aid. Michael rushed to Nicopolis, but not before the locals had killed Senachereim. After that, Michael, himself widowed, took Senachereim's widow as his wife and succeeded him as governor. Although generally regarded as inaccurate due to the many errors it contains, this part of the hagiography is at least partially corroborated by Villeh
caption: Seal of "Michael Doukas of the blossoming branch of the sebastokrator"
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