John Doukas (sebastokrator)

John was eldest son of the founder of the Angelos line, Constantine Angelos from Philadelphia, by Theodora Komnene, the seventh child of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118) and Empress Irene Doukaina. The couple, who married in c. 1122 (1110/15 according to Polemis), had four sons and three daughters, of whom two, John and Andronikos (the father of the future emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos), preferred to use their grandmother's far more prestigious surname of Doukas to their father's surname.[1][2] The date of John's birth is unknown, and the only reference to his age is that in 1185 he was already an old man.[3] The genealogist of the Komnenian family, Konstantinos Varzos, put his birth date approximately in 1125/27.[2]

John Doukas is first attested in the sources in March 1166, participating alongside his brothers in a church synod called to adjudicate on the interpretation of the saying of Jesus Christ "the Father is greater than I".[3][4] In 1176, along with his younger brother Andronikos, he participated as a regiment commander in the campaign against the Seljuk Sultanate of Iconium that led to the Byzantine defeat in the Battle of Myriokephalon. During the battle, he was tasked by Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–1180) with pushing back the Seljuk Turks, who had encircled the Byzantine army and were raining arrows upon it, but after a charge against them he turned back without much success.[3][4]

Killing of Hagiochristophorites, miniature by Jean Colombe in Les Passages d'outremer (c. 1473), BNF.

Like most of his noble relatives, John opposed the tyrannical regime of Andronikos I Komnenos (r. 1182–1185), and had been forced to sign written pledge of loyalty to the emperor. Nevertheless, on 11 September 1185, when his nephew Isaac Angelos killed Andronikos I's chief henchman, Stephen Hagiochristophorites, and sought sanctuary in the Hagia Sophia cathedral, John and his eldest son Isaac rushed to his side, fearing the Emperor's retribution. By the next day, a popular uprising provoked by Isaac Angelos' act of defiance had brought down the regime of Andronikos I, but Isaac Angelos hesitated to be crowned emperor. According to Niketas Choniates and Theodore Skoutariotes, John then bared his own head and offered his own bald head to be crowned, but the assembled people violently opposed this, refusing to be ruled by a man so old after the equally elderly Andronikos I, and Isaac Angelos was crowned.[3][5]

The rise of his nephew to the throne nevertheless brought John to the foremost ranks of Byzantine aristocracy, and he received the exalted title of sebastokrator.[3][6] Despite his advanced age, John was active as a field commander during the reign of Isaac Angelos. Niketas Choniates notes him attending the emperor at the court at Cypsele during the campaign against the Italo-Norman invasion in 1185. There John Doukas ordered Asen to be slapped on the face for the latter's insolent speech in front of the emperor and thus prompted the events leading to the Vlach-Bulgarian rebellion later the same year.[7] In 1186, he assumed the overall command of the Byzantine army against the Vlach-Bulgarian rebellion. Although according to Choniates he displayed some skill and was able to contain the rebels, he was soon relieved of command because Isaac Angelos suspected him of designs on the throne, and entrusted the blind general John Kantakouzenos with command instead.[8][3][9] In 1191, John once more went to the field, accompanying his nephew in an expedition against the Bulgarian rebels as commander of the rear guard. The campaign was a disastrous failure, but John was able to extricate himself and the troops under his command without losses.[3][9] In the same year, he was a participant in the synod that accepted the resignation of Dositheus, the Patriarch of Constantinople. He is recorded in the synodal acts as the senior-most of the imperial relatives.[10]

Nevertheless, Isaac Angelos still suspected him of imperial ambitions, especially due to his uncle's close contacts with the general Alexios Branas, who had rebelled in 1187: shortly before the general's rebellion, John Doukas had wed his eldest son Isaac with one of the general's daughters.[3][9] Whatever the truth of Isaac Angelos' suspicions, John was quick to recognize his other nephew Alexios Angelos, when the latter usurped the throne in April 1195, and played a prominent role in Alexios' coronation ceremony.[3][11] John Doukas is mentioned for the last time in 1199, when the death of both of Alexios III's sons-in-law, Andronikos Komnenos and Isaac Komnenos, opened the issue of the succession, as Alexios III had no male descendants. Despite his age, John Doukas apparently still hoped to rise on the throne, leading to quarrels with another of his nephews, Manuel Kamytzes, and the other imperial relatives.[12] John Doukas probably died soon after that, c. 1200, at a very advanced age for his time.[13]