Topic summary
Komnenian Byzantine army
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Byzantine army (Komnenian era).
Legacy
The Komnenian Byzantine army was a resilient and effective force but it was over-reliant on the leadership of an able emperor. After the death of Manuel I in 1180 able leadership was wanting. First there was Alexios II, a child-emperor with a divided regency, then a tyrant, Andronikos I, who attempted to break the power of the aristocracy who provided the leadership of the army, and finally the incompetents of the Angeloi dynasty. Weak leadership allowed the Komnenian system of rule through the extended imperial family to break down. The regionally based interests of the powerful aristocracy were increasingly expressed in armed rebellion and secession; mutual distrust between the aristocracy and the bureaucrats of the capital was endemic and both these factors led to a disrupted and fatally weakened Empire.