Angelus

of Byzantium

The earliest known ancestor is Manuel Angelus, from Philadelphia in Asia Minor; he lived in the second half of the eleventh century, and had four sons that we know of: (1) Constantine, see below; (2) John, who was a military commander in Italy in the 1150s; (3) Michael, who was a sebastos in 1147 and a protonobilissimos hyperstatos in 1166; and (4) Nicholas, of whom we know nothing except that he was living in 1148.

Constantine Angelos (c1085-1166) was the second husband of Theodora Comnena, a younger daughter of the Comnenus emperor Alexios I (1048-1118). They were the parents of seven children: (1) Andronicus, see below; (2) John (c1126-c1200) who took the last name Ducas from his maternal grandmother, the empress Irene Ducaena - see Ducas for his descendants in Epirus and Thessalonica; (3) Alexios, whose son Michael was a hostage to Frederick Barbarossa in 1189; (4) Isaac, military governor of Cilicia - two probable children: (a) Constantine, despot of Crete, and (b) a daughter who married Basil Batatzes - many descendants, including the Palaeologus emperors, but I think not us; (5) Maria, married Constantine Kamytzes and had descendants; (6) Eudoxia, married a court official named Gudelios Tsykandeles; and (7) Zoe, married Andronicus Synadenos.

Andronicus Angelus married Euphrosyne Castamonitissa (c1125-c1195, daughter or niece of the general Theodore Castamonites); they were the parents of nine children: (1) Constantine, blinded in 1183, but a sebastocrator in 1185; (2) John, whose son Andronicus was also a hostage to Frederick Barbarossa; (3) Emperor Alexios III, see below; (4) Michael and (5) Theodore, both blinded in 1184; (6) Emperor Isaac II, see farther below; (7) Irene, married John Cantacuzenus - their son Michael tried to claim the throne in 1195 but was imprisoned by Alexios III; (8) Theodora, married briefly to Conrad of Montferrat; no children; became a nun; and (9) a daughter whose existence is uncertain but may have been the mother of the Theodora Angela who married Leopold VI of Austria - many descendants, but not us.

The fourth son, Isaac (1156-1204), was proclaimed Emperor Isaac II by the mob that overthrew his cousin, Andronicus I Comnenus, in 1185. He ruled for ten years, during which time he defeated the Normans in Sicily, extended his territories in the Balkans, and tried but failed to retake Cyprus. He was deposed and blinded by his brother, Alexios III, in 1195, but was briefly restored (1203-1204) by the Crusaders who had occupied Constantinople. The surname of Isaac's first wife Irene is unknown, but she is thought to have been a Palaelogina. Their children were the Emperor Alexius IV (murdered in 1204) and Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia and mother of Mary, Duchess of Brabant (see Hohenstaufen and Brabant); also Euphrosyne, a nun, and Anna (name uncertain), who married Roman Mstislavich, Grand Prince of Kiev; many descendants among the Russian nobility, including the Romanovs. Isaac II married secondly Margaret (rebaptized Maria) of Hungary, daughter of King Béla III (see Arpád; we are not descended from her, but we are descended from her brother Andrew II); they were the parents of two sons who left no known descendants.

Alexios III Angelus (c1153-1211) spent some years as an exile at the court of Saladin, because he had conspired to overthrow the Comnenoi. His brother brought him back to Constantinople in 1190, but he usurped the throne himself in 1195. His wife was Euphrosyne Ducaena Kamaterina, whose father Andronicus Ducas was a relative the former imperial Ducas family. They are pictured in the painting above. As far as I can tell we are not descended from their daughter Eudoxia, who married first Stephan II of Serbia (many descendants) and then the emperor Alexios V Ducas Murtzuphlos (ruled very briefly in 1204, during the Crusaders' siege of Constantinople). But we are descended from their elder daughter Anna, who married Theodore Lascaris, the first Emperor of Nicaea (the title taken by some of the emperors while the Latins held Constantinople). They had five children; we are descended from their daughter Maria, who married Béla IV of Hungary, through the Angevins and Hohenstaufens; see Lascaris). Alexios III also had a daughter Irene, who married first Andronicus Contostephanos and second Alexios Comnenus Palaeologus (ancestors of the Palaeologus emperors and also of Count Dracula.).

see the euweb page on this family.