Andronik I. Komnenos

Andronicus offers problems to the sober historian as much as to the novelist or the psychologist. Did he attempt to establish a 'democratic monarchy', as some have thought? Did his short reign see a revolution which, had it succeeded, might have saved the Byzantine empire from the catastrophe of 1204? Policies which fail are always difficult to judge; and Andronicus as a statesman met with little sympathy from contemporary historians and men of letters, even from those, who like Nicetas Choniates and Eustathius, were fascinated by his personality. Dr. Oktawiusz Jurewicz of the University of Warsaw … provides a cool and scholarly account of Andronicus' life and reign which avoids none of the difficult problems. After an introductory chapter on Byzantium under the first three Comneni (pp. 16-28) he deals with Andronicus' birth and parentage (pp. 29-42), his career in Constantinople (pp. 43-61), his sojourn in Galician Russia (pp. 62-78), his travels in the east (pp. 79-92), his struggle for empire (pp. 93-107), and his reign (pp. 108-41). There follows an excursus on his Galician connections, a chronological table, a very full bibliography (pp. 154-70), an index and a genealogical table of the Comneni. The author's general conclusion is that Andronicus had no revolutionary designs. He was trying to break the power of the feudal nobility of the provinces solely in order to restore the centralized government of the great days of the Byzantine empire and it is in this context that his measures in favour of the peasantry must be seen. His great mistake – apart from that of being too late – lay precisely in his failure to seek the lasting support of either the rural peasantry or the city artisans. Many detailed problems of dating and prosopography are fruitfully discussed, with admirable command of the literature. (Robert Browning)