Manuel Kourtikes

Manuel Kourtikes or Kourtikios (Greek: Μανουήλ Κουρτίκης/Κουρτίκιος) was a Byzantine official and military commander in the 940s.

Biography

The Kourtikios or Kourtikes family was Armenian in origin and entered Byzantine service under Basil I the Macedonian (r. 867–886), when its eponymous founder, K'urdik, ceded his fortress of Lokana to the Empire.[1][2]

Manuel is mentioned for the first time as one of the officials who conspired with the co-emperor Stephen Lekapenos, when the latter deposed his father, Emperor Romanos I, in December 944.[3][4] Shortly after, however, Stephen and his brother, Constantine, were in turn deposed by their brother-in-law, the legitimate emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos.[5] Constantine VII raised Manuel to the rank of patrikios and given the post of droungarios tes viglas,[3][6] a critical position as its holder's chief duty was guarding the emperor on campaign and in the palace.[7] This suggests that Manuel either quickly defected to Constantine VII's side, or that he had been a partisan of the latter all along, and co-operated with the Lekapenoi to get rid of Romanos I, before supporting the restoration of Constantine VII.[3] A similar role is explicitly suggested by the Byzantine historian George Kedrenos for at least one other co-conspirator, Basil Peteinos.[4][8]

According to the Byzantine chroniclers, Kourtikes died an ignominious death soon after as divine punishment for his deeds.[3][9] This moralizing fable is almost certainly an invention; Theophanes Continuatus reports that he sunk with his dromon on the way to Crete, likely in the failed expedition of 949 against the Emirate of Crete.[3] Manuel was possibly related to the general Michael Kourtikios, who was active in the 970s.[3]

References
  1. ODB, "Kourtikios" (A. Kazhdan), pp. 1157–1158.
  2. Whittow 1996, p. 315.
  3. PmbZ, Manuel Kurtikes (#24878).
  4. Runciman 1988, p. 232.
  5. Runciman 1988, pp. 232–233.
  6. Runciman 1988, p. 233.
  7. ODB, "Droungarios tes viglas" (A. Kazhdan), p. 663.
  8. PmbZ, Basileios Peteinos (#20934).
  9. Runciman 1988, p. 235.

Sources
  • Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
  • Lilie, Ralph-Johannes; Ludwig, Claudia; Pratsch, Thomas; Zielke, Beate (2013). Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit Online. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Nach Vorarbeiten F. Winkelmanns erstellt (in German). Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.
  • Runciman, Steven (1988) [1929]. The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus and His Reign: A Study of Tenth-Century Byzantium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-35722-5.
  • Whittow, Mark (1996). The Making of Byzantium, 600–1025. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20496-6.
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