Yet Alexios’ grant went further, as he offered unprecedented incentives to encourage Venetian traders to invest in Byzantium. For example, immunity was awarded to protect against claims made on the properties they were given.32 All taxes on Venetian shipping and the goods they were transporting, imports and exports alike, were removed.33 By not giving similar concessions to Amalfi, Pisa and Genoa – other Italian city-states with important trade links with the empire – the emperor provided Venice with a major competitive advantage and incentive to boost their investment in Byzantium. So significant was this development that the patriarch of Grado himself, the head of the church in Venice, journeyed to Constantinople in the spring of 1092, presumably to witness the signing of the trade privileges in person.34
Alexios’ move was another one of his gambles. There was the risk that other Italian city-states might demand the same terms. There was also the question of how to cancel or modify the terms of this generous grant in the future, to which the emperor seems to have given little thought in 1092. More significant in the short term was that the advantage handed to Venice placed further pressure on Byzantine merchants, as the widening of margins for the Italians made them dangerously competitive to local traders.
It is difficult to quantify the impact of the grant, but it is no coincidence that shortly after awarding the trading concessions, Alexios undertook a complete overhaul of the Byzantine monetary system. In the summer of 1092, the hyperpyron (literally’ ‘refined gold’), a new high-value coin, was introduced alongside several lower denominations, fixed in value in relation to each other. Although the new coins appeared only in limited numbers to start with, the re-coinage was a prerequisite for international exchange, as a stable currency was essential for foreign trade. Reforming the tattered currency was also crucial for the recovery of the severely depleted economy which had been battered by successive debasements which left little clarity over what the coinage was actually worth. Whether or not it would resuscitate the empire’s ailing aristocracy was another matter.
There had been remarkably little opposition to Alexios I Komnenos in the first decade of his reign. In spite of the difficulties posed by Byzantium’s neighbours and the worsening economic situation, the emperor was not put under serious pressure in Constantinople. Criticism of Alexios after the fall of Dyrrakhion in 1082 did not turn into direct action against him, and nothing came of the rumours of plots against the emperor which circulated in the capital in the winter of 1083.35 Nor did a disastrous expedition to the Danube region a few years later prompt rebellion, even though the emperor was wounded in battle and had to hide one of the empire’s most revered relics, the cape of the Virgin Mary, in a bed of wild flowers to prevent it being captured by the Pechenegs.36
The passivity of the ruling elite in the 1080s is all the more striking when set against the disturbances of the previous decade, when the empire was racked by civil war as several magnates took turns to try to seize the throne. This apparent calm was partly caused by the sharp decline in the fortunes of the aristocracy during this period. The removal of salaries, the collapse of independent incomes from lands which had come under pressure from raids by Byzantium’s neighbours, and the unstable financial system had significantly weakened the empire’s elites. But the failure of the aristocracy to challenge Alexios was also the result of the new emperor’s grip on the realm. Carefully targeted confiscations of property at the outset of his reign made it clear to potential rebels that dissent came at a high price. Those seen as a threat were dealt with ruthlessly; as the deposition of two patriarchs in the first three years of Alexios’ reign showed, the new emperor would not tolerate signs of mutiny or disloyalty.
By the start of the 1090s, however, Alexios could do little to prevent his position coming into question. It was becoming increasingly apparent that Alexios had steered the empire backwards. Scarce resources had been all but exhausted, with tax burdens leading to rebellion in places like Crete and Cyprus that could evade the fading grasp of Constantinople. The grant to Venice had antagonised too many, with properties given to the Italian traders taken from private individuals and from churches who were not only deprived of compensation, but also the right of appeal.37
Yet nowhere were Alexios’ limitations clearer than in Asia Minor, where the emperor’s attempts to reverse Turkish advances had proved woeful. Attempts to recover the coast had failed completely and efforts against Nicaea had been embarrassingly ineffective. As Alexios’ reign began to look like a disaster, minds inevitably turned to the alternatives.
Remarkably, the efforts to replace the emperor did not come from the most obvious sources – those who had lost status and position as a result of the Komnenoi coup in 1081, or landowners in Asia Minor whose properties had been lost to the Turks or were under threat. Nor did it come from those whose prospects had been dented by Alexios’ predilection for promoting outsiders to important positions in Byzantium, as articulated darkly by one author offering advice to the emperor in this period: ‘whenever you honour a stranger coming from the rabble [of foreigners] by naming him as primikerios or as a general’, he wrote, ‘what possible position can you give to a Roman which is worthy? You shall make him your enemy in every way’.38 In fact, the bitterest opposition to the emperor came from those who had been his strongest supporters: his own family.
Matters reached a climax in the spring of 1094 when Alexios prepared a major expedition to reinforce the north-western frontier, following repeated Serbian incursions into Byzantine territory. This was the final straw. With Asia Minor in tatters, the decision to focus on an outlying area of limited strategic importance appeared to show a profound lack of judgement. It provided confirmation, if confirmation were needed, that the emperor needed to be replaced.
Reports of misgivings about Alexios reached the ears of his nephew John Komnenos, who had recently been appointed governor of Dyrrakhion following the recall of John Doukas. Yet rather than warn his uncle about the rumours, John presented himself as a possible successor. It was a position he had become used to in the 1080s when he had been offered as a suitable match for the daughter of Henry IV of Germany during discussions to seal the alliance against the Normans.39 But the coronation of Alexios’ eldest son, John II Komnenos, as co-emperor alongside his father in the autumn of 1092 dealt a blow to John’s hopes of succession.40 When the archbishop of Bulgaria, Theophylact, informed the emperor about his nephew’s plot against him, John was summoned and put in his place by Alexios. But although the matter was swiftly resolved, the affair revealed that even some of his own family had come to believe that Alexios was living on borrowed time.41