Theodore I Komnenos Laskaris or Lascaris (; 1175November 1221) was the first emperor of Nicaea—a successor state of the Byzantine Empire—from 1205 to his death. Although he was born to an obscure aristocratic family, his mother was related to the imperial Komnenos clan. He married Anna, a younger daughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos in 1200. He received the title of despot before 1203, demonstrating his right to succeed his father-in-law on the throne.
The Fourth Crusade forced AlexiosIII to flee from Constantinople in 1203. Theodore was imprisoned by the crusaders (commonly referred to as "Latins" by the Byzantines), but he escaped. After crossing the Bosporus into Asia Minor (in present-day Turkey), he started to organise the local Greeks' resistance against the Latins in Bithynia in his father-in-law's name. He concluded an alliance with the Seljuq sultan of Rum, but he could not stop the Latins' expansion. Neither could he prevent a claimant to the imperial throne, Alexios Komnenos, from establishing a Byzantine successor state, the Empire of Trebizond, in northern Asia Minor. Theodore's position consolidated only after Tzar Kaloyan of Bulgaria inflicted a crushing defeat on the Latins in the Battle of Adrianople (in Thrace) in 1205.
Greeks fleeing from the Latin Empire — the crusader state that emerged in the Byzantine core territories — swarmed to Asia Minor to live under Theodore's rule. The Latins captured Theodore's father-in-law and made an alliance with AlexiosI of Trebizond, but Theodore routed their united troops. He secured the support of most Bithynian aristocrats and seized the domains of those who resisted him. In 1205, he assumed the traditional titles of the Byzantine emperors. Three years later, he convoked a Church council to elect a new Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople. The new patriarch crowned Theodore emperor and established his seat at Theodore's capital, Nicaea. The Orthodox population of the Latin Empire regarded Theodore as the main defender of their Church, but the rulers of Epirus—a realm that developed in the western regions of the Byzantine Empire—debated the legality of his coronation.
Theodore's father-in-law did not abandon his claim to the throne. After being released from prison, AlexiosIII persuaded the Seljuqs to invade Nicaea, but Theodore defeated them in 1211. The Latin Emperor Henry of Flanders captured important fortresses in western Asia Minor in 1212, but he ran out of soldiers and could not place garrisons in them. Henry implicitly acknowledged the existence of the Empire of Nicaea in his peace treaty with Theodore. Theodore conquered western Paphlagonia on the Black Sea coast from AlexiosI of Trebizond. Around 1220, Theodore tried to persuade the Latins of Constantinople to acknowledge his rule, but they refused. Theodore established a powerful state, located in the vicinity of Constantinople, which enabled his successors to expel the Latins from the city and revive the Byzantine Empire in 1261.
Early life
Parentage Theodore Komnenos Laskaris was born to a noble, but not particularly renowned, Byzantine family around 1175.George Akropolites stated that Theodore was "more than 45 years old but less than 50" when he died in 1221, implying that he was born between 1171 and 1176. Nicephorus Gregoras said that Theodore was "around 30 years old" when he was proclaimed emperor in 1205. His parents' names are unknown. If Theodore followed the Byzantine custom of giving his father's name to his firstborn son, his father was called Nicholas. Theodore's mother belonged to an unidentified branch of the imperial Komnenos family and he proudly adopted her surname. Theodore had no fewer than six brothers — Constantine, George, Alexios, Isaac, Manuel and Michael. Manuel and Michael must have been born to a different mother, as they bore the surname Tzamantouros instead of Komnenos. Theodore was also related to the aristocratic Phokas family, most likely through the marriage of one of his aunts.
The Laskaris held estates in western Asia Minor. Both Theodore and his brother, Constantine, had a seal representing Saint George and bearing the inscription Diasorites. The seal expressed their connection to the monastery of Saint George Diasorites, located in Pyrgion in the valley of the river Kaistros.
Early career The contemporaneous historian Niketas Choniates introduced Theodore as a "daring youth and fierce warrior" in his chronicle. The slightly later historian George Akropolites recorded that Theodore was "small in body but not excessively so, quite dark, and had a flowing beard forked at the end". Theodore rose to prominence through his family ties with the Komnenoi. His first extant seal mentions his titles of sebastos and protovestiarites. The first one was a court title, originally reserved for the Byzantine emperors' relatives, but Emperor Alexios III Angelos () started to sell it to wealthy merchants. As protovestiarites, Theodore was the commander of a cadet unit of the guards of the imperial palace.
Emperor AlexiosIII, who had no sons, wanted to solve the problem of succession by marrying off his two eldest daughters. Late in 1200, he gave his firstborn daughter, Irene, in marriage to Alexios Palaiologos, and her younger sister, Anna, to Theodore. Palaiologos was elevated to the rank of despot, demonstrating his right to succeed his father-in-law on the throne. When Palaiologos died before 1203, Theodore received the same title.
Fall of Constantinople
To seize the Byzantine throne, Emperor AlexiosIII had blinded and imprisoned his elder brother, Isaac II Angelos (). Isaac's son, Alexios, fled from Constantinople to Germany to seek his Catholic relatives' assistance. He concluded an agreement with the leaders of the Fourth Crusade, promising a large sum, 800,000 hyperpyra, for their support. The crusaders reached Constantinople and captured Pera on the opposite coast of the Golden Horn on 6July 1203. Theodore conducted raids against the invaders, but they laid siege to the Byzantine capital. The walls of Constantinople were vulnerable, and AlexiosIII fled in panic to Thrace during the night of 17–18 July. He drained the treasury and took the imperial insignia with him.
IsaacII was released and his son was crowned his co-emperor as AlexiosIV. Theodore was imprisoned after his father-in-law's flight, but he escaped in September 1203. The details of his escape are unknown, but Choniates stated that Theodore left Constantinople "armed only with practical wisdom and a brave spirit". For a while, Theodore was hiding in a church dedicated to Saint Michael. Theodore himself claimed that God "miraculously removed" him from the prison and guided him across the Bosporus to Asia Minor. His wife and daughters accompanied him. They reached Nicaea, but the city's leadership only admitted his family, because they feared AlexiosIV's revenge. Theodore, as he later remembered, moved "from one region to another", avoiding the traps that his (unidentified) enemies laid for him.
AlexiosIV could not pay off the crusaders. They refused to leave Constantinople and raided and plundered the nearby Thracian villages. The Byzantines blamed AlexiosIV for the crusaders' acts. The army rebelled and proclaimed the general Alexios Mourtzouphlos Doukas emperor on 28January 1204. IsaacII had already died, and the new emperor had AlexiosIV murdered, providing the crusaders with an excuse to make a new assault on Constantinople again. When they breached the walls on 12April, AlexiosV fled. A group of aristocrats offered the imperial crown to Theodore's brother, Constantine, but he rejected it. The crusaders captured Constantinople and plundered it completely.
Although the Byzantine capital fell to the crusaders, neither AlexiosIII Angelos nor AlexiosV Doukas abandoned their claim to the throne. A third claimant soon appeared on the scene: a grandson of Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (), Alexios, seized Trebizond on the Black Sea coast in Asia Minor and assumed the title of emperor. The crusaders elected one of their leader, Baldwin of Flanders, emperor in May 1204.
Resistance
By the time of Theodore's arrival, Asia Minor had been a centre of uprisings against the imperial government for decades. A rebellious magnate, Theodore Mangaphas, held Philadelphia; another aristocrat, Sabas Asidenos, ruled Sampson; and Nikephoros Kontostephanos controlled the lands on the upper course of the Maeander River. Theodore appeared as his father-in-law's representative and secured the Bithynian towns' loyalty in AlexiosIII's name until the end of 1204. The local Greeks acknowledged him as the strategos (or military leader) of Bithynia. He established his seat in Bursa, but he made frequent journeys to attend assemblies and dinners, encouraging the local Greeks' resistance against the "Latins", as the crusaders were universally called. He also took control of state revenues, and he could offer money to the Seljuq Sultan of Rum, Rukn al-Din Suleiman II, in return for his assistance against the Latins. SuleimanII died and his underage son, Izz al-Din Kilij Arslan III, succeeded him in June 1204.
The crusaders set up a commission to distribute the Byzantine territories among them in September. In Asia Minor, the "duchy of Nicaea" was granted to Louis I, Count of Blois, and the "duchy of Philadelphia" to Stephen of Perche, although the Latins had not conquered these lands. The Venetians seized the port of Lampsacus on the Asian side of the Hellespont and a French knight, Peter of Bracieux, captured the nearby Pegai. Emperor AlexiosI of Trebizond's brother and co-emperor, David Komnenos, launched a military campaign into Paphlagonia and occupied the towns along the Black Sea coast. His conquest facilitated Bracieux's invasion of Bithynia. He routed Theodore at Poemanenum on 6December and his victory enabled him to seize Bythinian forts.
The Latins captured and publicly executed AlexiosV in Constantinople. They also arrested AlexiosIII in Thessaly, forcing him to cede the imperial insignia to them early in 1205. A grandson of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (), Manuel Maurozomes, and Maurozomes's son-in-law, the deposed Sultan of Rum, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kaykhusraw I, came to Nicaea. Theodore detained them, but they soon came to terms. He lent money to Kaykhusraw to regain his throne in return for his promise of military support. Kaykhusraw and Maurozomes hurried to Konya, the capital of Rum. They dethroned the underage Kilij Arslan in Kaykhusraw's favor in March 1205.
By the end of 1204, the Latins had captured Thrace, Thessaly and northern Greece. Emperor AlexiosIII's cousin, Michael Doukas, who organised the Greeks' resistance in Epirus, was forced to swear fealty to Pope Innocent III to secure his protection. Emperor Baldwin dispatched his brother, Henry, to conquer Asia Minor early in 1205. Henry defeated Theodore Mangaphas and Theodore Laskaris' brother, Constantine, in the Battle of Adramyttion on 19March 1205. The Latins could not follow up their victory, because Tzar Kaloyan of Bulgaria stirred up a rebellion in Thrace and invaded the province. Kaloyan's invasion forced Emperor Baldwin to withdraw his knights from Anatolia. Kaloyan inflicted a crushing defeat on the Latin army in the Battle of Adrianople on 14 April 1205. Louis of Blois and Stephen of Perche perished in the battlefield. Baldwin was captured and died in captivity in Bulgaria.