Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

Foreign affairs under the last Comneni, Alexius II and Andronicus I 

Page 7

The well-known ten days siege of Thessalonica by land and sea began. A narrative of this siege, rather rhetorical but nevertheless valuable, was written by an eyewitness, the archbishop of Thessalonica, Eustathius. In August, 1185, Thessalonica, which ranked next to Constantinople, was captured by the Normans, who affected there an appalling destruction and massacre, the revenge of the Latins for the massacre of 1182. Said a Byzantine historian of that time, Nicetas Choniates: Thus, between us and them (the Latins) a bottomless gulf of enmity has established itself; we cannot unite our souls and we entirely disagree with each other, although we keep up our external relations and often live in the same house. After some days of pillage and murder the Norman troops advanced farther to the east, towards Constantinople.

When the news of the capture of Thessalonica and of the approach of the Norman troops to the capital had reached Constantinople, the population of the city broke out in revolt, accusing Andronicus of making no preparations for resisting the enemy. With unexpected rapidity Isaac Angelus was proclaimed emperor. Andronicus was dethroned and died after atrocious tortures. With the revolution of 1185 the epoch of the Byzantine Comneni ended.

The short reign of Andronicus I, who on his accession to the throne had set himself the goal of protecting the agricultural class, or peasants, against the arbitrary domination of the large landowners, and of freeing the state from the foreign Latin preponderance, differs strikingly in character from the rule of all other Comneni. For this reason alone the reign of Andronicus deserves intense and strictly scientific investigation. In some respects, particularly in the sphere of social problems and interests, the time of Andronicus, which has not yet been satisfactorily elucidated, presents a fascinating field for further researches

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