Manuel Komnenos

Manuel Komnenos (; 1145–1185?) was the eldest son of Byzantine emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, and the progenitor of the Grand Komnenos dynasty of the Empire of Trebizond. He served his uncle, Manuel I Komnenos, as a diplomatic envoy to the Russian principalities and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also helped his father escape imprisonment in Constantinople. His opposition to the regency of Empress-dowager Maria of Antioch and the protosebastos Alexios Komnenos landed him in prison, but he was released in April 1182, when his father stood poised to take power in the Byzantine capital. Nevertheless, Manuel opposed his father's policy of persecuting the aristocracy, and refused to sanction or supervise the execution of Maria of Antioch. As a result, when Andronikos crowned himself emperor in 1183, Manuel was bypassed in the succession, and his younger brother John Komnenos was made co-emperor instead; Manuel received the title of sebastokrator. Despite his well-known opposition to Andronikos' more tyrannical policies, Manuel was blinded by Isaac II Angelos when the latter overthrew Andronikos in 1185. His subsequent fate is unknown, but his two sons, Alexios and David, went on to found the Empire of Trebizond in 1204, which was ruled by Manuel's descendants until its fall in 1461. Origin and early life Manuel Komnenos was born in 1145, the firstborn son of the future Byzantine emperor Andronikos Komnenos. The identity of his mother is unknown and disputed among scholars, but she was most likely a member of the high Byzantine aristocracy. Whatever her origin, Manuel was of high birth: his paternal grandfather, Isaac, was a younger son of the founder of the Komnenian house, Alexios I Komnenos and Empress Irene Doukaina. At a young age, Manuel received the high court title of sebastos from his uncle, Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. The Emperor was of an age with Manuel's father, and the two had grown up together. Manuel I cherished this friendship and would always be partial to Andronikos, even though the latter, like his own father, was a highly ambitious man who coveted the throne. His ambition, plotting with foreign powers, rumours of attempting to assassinate Manuel I, and above all his scandalous affair with his niece Eudokia (a daughter of the sebastokrator Andronikos) brought Manuel's father into trouble, and in 1155, he was imprisoned by the Emperor in the dungeons of the Great Palace of Constantinople.