Editing Isaac I Komnenos (section)

=== Reign ===
The first act of the new emperor was to reward his partisans: his fellow conspirators were named to high offices—his own brother John was named ''domestikos ton scholon'' of the West and received the high title of ''[[kouropalates]]'', which was also awarded to Kekaumenos and Bryennios.{{sfn|Cheynet|1996|p=70}}{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|pp=219–220}} The troops that had followed him received a [[donative]] and were quickly sent back east, to avoid any trouble with the populace of Constantinople.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=220}}{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}} Patriarch Michael Keroularios was also rewarded for his support, by receiving sole authority for all personnel and financial matters of the Church, which were previously under the purview of the emperor, while the Patriarch's nephews received high court titles.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=220}}{{sfn|Kaldellis|Krallis|2012|p=109}}

====Fiscal reforms====
[[File:Histamenon of Isaac I.jpg|thumb|300x300px|Gold ''[[histamenon]]'' struck by Isaac. His martial posture, bearing a naked sword, is unique among [[Byzantine coinage]].{{efn|Constantine IX Monomachos was the first emperor to introduce the sword as an element, being depicted holding a spear and a sheathed sword in his silver ''[[miliaresion|miliaresia]]''. Isaac's depiction with a drawn sword on the prestigious gold coinage was novel and, following the outcry it raised, abandoned by subsequent rulers. The iconography of Isaac's coinage may have drawn inspiration from similar portrayals of [[caliphs]] in [[gold dinars]].{{sfn|Grotowski|2007|pp=110–111}}}}]]
Isaac's rise to power was a turning point in Byzantine history, marking the definitive end of the long-lived Macedonian dynasty. Although powerful generals had previously suborned power, they had ruled alongside the Macedonian emperors; Isaac was the first military strongman to usurp power outright since the 9th century.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=598}} This was reflected in the coinage struck in his name, which uniquely showed him holding a drawn sword; while it may have simply indicated his intention to restore "capable military rule" (Kaldellis), it came to be understood as a claim to rule by right of conquest. Certainly it highlighted Isaac's determination to make reforms and restore the effectiveness of the army.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}} 

The task he faced was truly herculean, as the politically weak emperors of the previous thirty years had fostered corruption and inefficiency, handing out titles and their attendant state salaries (''rogai'') in exchange for support.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}}{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=220}} The devaluation of the coinage under Constantine IX had been a first reaction to the brewing crisis, but Isaac was the first emperor in this period who certainly faced a budget deficit.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=220}} To fund his cherished army, Isaac was therefore obliged to begin strict economies: he reduced or abolished the ''rogai'' of those who had been awarded titles, enforced a stricter and more efficient collection of taxes, reclaimed misappropriated imperial estates, and cancelled grants of such lands and tax exemptions made under Constantine IX and Michael VI, particularly those that had been granted to monasteries and churches, using a law of [[Nikephoros II Phokas]].{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}}{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|pp=220–221}} Even though salaries of officials, especially members of the [[Byzantine Senate|Senate]], were cut,{{sfn|ODB|loc="Isaac I Komnenos" (C. M. Brand, A. Cutler), pp. 1011–1012}} Isaac's efforts were enthusiastically received even among some senior members of the civil bureaucracy, judging by the comments of Psellos and [[Michael Attaleiates]].{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|pp=220–221}}

{{Quote
 |quote = [Isaac Komnenos] was eager to lose no time in cutting out the dead wood which had long been accumulating in the Roman Empire. We can liken it to a monstrous body, a body with a multitude of heads, an ugly bull-neck, hands so many that they were beyond counting, and just as many feet; its entrails were festering and diseased, in some parts swollen, in others wasting away, here afflicted with dropsy, there diminishing with consumption. Now Isaac tried to remedy this by wholesale surgery.
 |author = [[Michael Psellos]]
 |source = ''Chronographia'', VII.51{{sfn|Sewter|1953|pp=233–234}}
}}

====Downfall of Keroularios====
[[File:Michael Keroularios.jpg|right|thumb|Patriarch Michael Keroularios on his throne, from the ''[[Madrid Skylitzes]]'']]
The only point of criticism raised by Psellos is his haste and severity, judging that by a more gradual and judicious, step by step approach, he would have reaped greater success with far less opposition.{{sfn|ODB|loc="Isaac I Komnenos" (C. M. Brand, A. Cutler), pp. 1011–1012}}{{sfn|Sewter|1953|pp=238–239}} Thus his appropriation of Church lands provoked the reaction of Michael Keroularios, with whom Isaac's relations had been steadily deteriorating. The Patriarch's role in Isaac's accession and his extensive new powers over the Church quickly went to his head. He is said to have admonished and berated the emperor, even going as far as threatening to destroy him "like an oven he had made".{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=221}}{{sfn|ODB|loc="Michael I Keroularios" (A. Kazhdan), p. 1361}} He is also alleged to have worn [[imperial purple]] boots, a privilege restricted to the emperor, and which may indicate, according to Kaldellis, that Keroularios was influenced by [[Papal]] theories and conceived of the secular and clerical powers as co-equal, a traditional Byzantine approach known as a [[Symphonia (theology)|symphonia]].{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=221}}

Finally, on 8 November 1058, while Keroularios was visiting a church outside the [[Walls of Constantinople|city walls]], and hence was away from his supporters in the urban mob, Isaac sent the [[Varangian Guard]] to arrest him and take him to [[Prokonnesos]], where he was placed under house arrest. Isaac applied considerable pressure on Keroularios to resign, but the latter steadfastly refused. In the end, the emperor decided to convene a [[synod]] against the Patriarch. This too was to take place away from the capital, somewhere in [[Thrace]], with Psellos, who had himself been earlier persecuted by Keroularios, as the chief accuser. In the event, Keroularios died on 21 January 1059, before the synod could take place. Isaac appointed the bureaucrat Constantine Leichoudes as the new patriarch.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=221}}{{sfn|ODB|loc="Michael I Keroularios" (A. Kazhdan), p. 1361}}

====Military situation====
The rebellion and civil war that brought Isaac to the throne had concentrated Byzantium's military might away from its borders. The contemporary [[Armenians|Armenian]] historian [[Aristakes Lastivertsi]] reports that the [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]n lord [[Ivane I, Duke of Kldekari|Ivane]] took advantage of this opportunity to capture two Byzantine frontier forts as well as an imperial tax collector, and lay siege to [[Theodosiopolis in Armenia|Theodosiopolis]]. The Byzantine ''doux'' at [[Ani]] drove him off, but Ivane then called upon some Turks for assistance. About a month after Isaac's coronation, these raiders reached [[Melitene]], whose inhabitants were allowed to depart before the city was plundered by the Turks. Local Byzantine troops managed to blockade the mountain passes, forcing the raiders to winter in the region of [[Chorzane]]. In spring 1058, the Turks were ambushed and defeated while they attacked the fort of Mormrans, leaving most of their captives behind. At about the same time or shortly after, another Turkish raid into [[Taron (historic Armenia)|Taron]] was heavily defeated by the Byzantine defenders. Melitene was repaired and refortified, and made the seat of a ''doux''.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=222}} 

Constantine IX had famously abolished the military obligations of the Armenian [[theme (Byzantine district)|thematic troops]] in exchange for cash payments, a step widely regarded, both by contemporaries and modern historians, as having catastrophic consequences for Byzantium's eastern defences, especially against the [[Seljuq Empire|mounting Turkish threat]]. The Turks had taken [[Vaspurakan]] during the [[regency]] following Constantine's death, exposing the Anatolian interior to their raids.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|pp=595–596}} While Isaac does not appear to have acted to restore the thematic armies,{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}} according to Kaldellis, the reaction of the local forces to these events does not appear to indicate a degradation of Byzantium's defensive abilities in the East, but rather the continued and successful application of old-established counter-raiding principles as codified in Nikephoros Phokas' ''[[De velitatione bellica]]'' a century earlier.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=222}}

Isaac led only one military expedition, in late summer of 1059, into the Balkan provinces that had been suffering raids by the [[Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1301)|Hungarians]] and the [[Pechenegs]]. The details of the campaign are obscure, but the two had possibly entered into an alliance. At [[Serdica]], the emperor made a treaty with the Hungarians—who appear to have kept the fortress town of [[Sirmium]]—before moving against the Pechenegs in the area of [[Moesia]]. Most of the Pechenegs submitted again to imperial authority. The only major combat was against the fortified stronghold of a certain Selte, a recalcitrant Pecheneg leader.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}}{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|pp=222–223}}

On its return march the army was caught in a sudden storm on 24 September. Many men and supplies were lost, while Isaac barely escaped death when a tree struck by lightning fell next to him.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}}{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|pp=222–223}} This was followed by the false rumour that a tax assessor in the eastern provinces was plotting rebellion, and Isaac hastened back to the capital.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=223}} Despite these events, Psellos claims that at this point Isaac's character changed markedly, and that he became "more haughty to such an extent that he held everyone else in contempt", including his own brother.{{sfn|Sewter|1953|p=244}}

====Illness, abdication, and death====
Isaac was a passionate hunter with both the horse and the falcon, spending much time at a hunting lodge outside Constantinople.{{sfn|Sewter|1953|pp=244–245}} On a hunt he fell ill. As the fever lasted for several days, Isaac, fearing he would die soon, named Constantine Doukas as his successor on 22 November 1059,{{efn|In earlier studies the date of Isaac's abdication was commonly accepted as 25 December 1059. In 1966, Paul Gautier revised the date to 22 November, with the proclamation and coronation of Constantine Doukas taking place on 23 November. {{harvnb|Varzos|1984|p=43 (note 12)}}}} and agreed to resign and retire to a monastery. Psellos claims that he was the main author of this nomination, even against the initial opposition of Empress Catherine.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=223}}{{sfn|Sewter|1953|pp=245–252}}{{sfn|Varzos|1984|pp=42–43, 44–45}} 

According to Psellos, Isaac began to recover soon after Doukas' nomination, and started reconsidering his decision. Psellos again took the decisive step of having Doukas publicly acclaimed as emperor on 23 November, with Psellos putting the purple sandals on his feet. Isaac then resigned himself to his fate, and was [[tonsure]]d as a monk, retiring to the Stoudion monastery.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=223}}{{sfn|Sewter|1953|pp=256–257}} Psellos' prominent role in these events may simply be exaggeration and self-promotion, especially as he was writing this part of his history during the reign of Constantine Doukas and his son [[Michael VII Doukas]] ({{reign|1071|1078}}). No contemporary or later source, not even during the [[Komnenian dynasty]] (1081–1180), described or implied a coup by Doukas and his supporters, and the legality of the transition was never questioned.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=223}} 

Empress Catherine remained at the palace, and was even allowed to be mentioned first in the imperial acclamations, with Doukas coming second. This joint reign lasted for a brief while, before she too retired to the [[Myrelaion]] monastery under the [[monastic name]] of Xene.{{sfn|Varzos|1984|pp=46–47}} Isaac lived the remainder of his life as a simple monk in Stoudion, readily performing menial tasks until he died in 1060,{{sfn|Varzos|1984|p=43}} probably on 1 June.{{sfn|Schreiner|1975|p=160. "[Isaac] then lived 6 months and 10 days"}}