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Alexius Comnenus was a great emperor. He did many great things during his rule. He had a great historical family of rulers. He helped the Byzantine Empire stay safe while he was in power. He lead a great life and did many things to be remembered for.
Alexius had a family of rulers of the Byzantine and Trabzon empires. The Byzantine Empire started with Isaac I Comnenus in 1057 at Constantinople. Alexius ruled that dynasty along with John II Comnenus, Manual I Comnenus, Alexius II Comnenus, and Andronicus I Comnenus. Alexius had a daughter named Anna Comnena. She wrote Alexius Comnenus' biography. She called it the Alexiad.
The Alexiad is considered a source of historical information. Alexius was born in 1048, and died in 1118. He was the Byzantine Emperor from 1081 to 1118. He began his reign when the Byzantine Empire was being threatened by enemies on every side. He combined with the Venetians to resist the Normands from Normandy, France. In 1091 Alexius defeated the Pechenegs, a Turkish tribe that raided the empire from the north. In that same year Alexius stabilized the situation in the east by finishing a treaty with the Seljuk Turks. In 1095 Alexius asked Pope Urban II to help him recover Anatolia from the Seljuks, which helped to produce the first crusade. He forced people to take an oath of allegiance from the Crusader's leaders (One of them was Bohemond; and Bohemond was the son of Alexius' old enemy) when they arrived in Constantinople a year later. The Crusaders helped Alexius regain control of western Anatolia. He failed to prevent them from establishing independent states in Syria and Palestine. Alexius had a dispute with Bohemond over the lordship of Antioch. It ended when the Norman acknowledged that Alexius was his overlord in 1108.