Alexios was born in 1048 in Constantinople. He was the son of the Domestic of the Schools John Komnenos and Anna Dalassena, and the nephew of Isaac I Komnenos (emperor 1057–1059). Alexios' father declined the throne on the abdication of Isaac, who was thus succeeded by four emperors of other families between 1059 and 1081.
Alexius was crowned on April 4, 1081. After more than 50 years of ineffective or short-lived rulers, Alexius, in the words of Anna Comnena, his daughter and biographer, found the empire “at its last gasp, ” but his military ability and diplomatic gifts enabled him to retrieve the situation. He drove back the south Italian Normans, headed by Robert Guiscard, who were invading western Greece (1081-82). This victory was achieved with Venetian naval help, bought at the cost of granting Venice extensive trading privileges in the Byzantine Empire. In 1091 he defeated the Pechenegs, Turkic nomads who had been continually surging over the Danube River into the Balkans. Alexius halted the further encroachment of the Seljuq Turks, who had already established the sultanate of Rūm (or Konya) in central Anatolia. He made agreements with Sulaymān ibn Qutalmïsh of Konya (1081) and subsequently with his son Qïlïch Arslan (1093), as well as with other Muslim rulers on Byzantium’s eastern border.
To later generations Alexius appeared as the ruler who pulled the empire together at a crucial time, thus enabling it to survive until 1204, and in part until 1453, but modern scholars tend to regard him, together with his successors John II (reigned 1118–43) and Manuel I (reigned 1143-80), as having effected only stopgap measures. Judgments of Alexius must be tempered by allowing for the extent to which he was handicapped by the inherited internal weaknesses of the Byzantine state and, even more, by the series of crises precipitated by the western European Crusaders from 1097 onward. The Crusading movement, motivated partly by a desire to recapture the holy city of Jerusalem, partly by the hope of acquiring new territory, increasingly encroached on Byzantine preserves and frustrated Alexius’s foreign policy, which was primarily directed toward the reestablishment of imperial authority in Anatolia. His relations with Muslim powers were disrupted on occasion, and former valued Byzantine possessions, such as Antioch, passed into the hands of arrogant Western princelings, who even introduced Latin Christianity in place of Greek. Thus, it was during Alexius’s reign that the last phase of the clash between the Latin West and the Greek East was inaugurated. He did regain some control over western Anatolia; he also advanced into the southeast Taurus region, securing much of the fertile coastal plain around Adana and Tarsus, as well as penetrating farther south along the Syrian coast. But neither Alexius nor succeeding Comnenian emperors were able to establish permanent control over the Latin Crusader principalities. Nor was the Byzantine Empire immune from further Norman attacks on its western islands and provinces-as in 1107–08, when Alexius successfully repulsed Bohemond I of Antioch’s assault on Avlona in western Greece. Continual Latin (particularly Norman) attacks, constant thrusts from Muslim principalities, the rising power of Hungary and the Balkan principalities-all conspired to surround Byzantium with potentially hostile forces. Even Alexius’s diplomacy, whatever its apparent success, could not avert the continual erosion that ultimately led to the Ottoman conquest.
Helping churches and monasteries that recognized his patronage, the emperor simultaneously eradicated the sprouts of independence among church hierarchs.
Alexius’s policy of strengthening the central authority and building up professional military and naval forces resulted in increased Byzantine strength in western and southern Anatolia and eastern Mediterranean waters. But he was unable or unwilling to limit the considerable powers of the landed magnates who had threatened the unity of the empire in the past. Indeed, he strengthened their position by further concessions, and he had to reward services, military and otherwise, by granting fiscal rights over specified areas. This method, which was to be increasingly employed by his successors, inevitably weakened central revenues and imperial authority. He repressed heresy and maintained the traditional imperial role of protecting the Eastern Orthodox church, but he did not hesitate to seize ecclesiastical treasure when in financial need. He was subsequently called to account for this by the church.
Under Alexios the debased solidus)was discontinued and a gold coinage of higher fineness was established in 1092, commonly called the hyperpyron at 4. 45 grs. The hyperpyron was slightly smaller than the solidus.
Alexios' reform of the Byzantine monetary system was an important basis for the financial recovery and therefore supported the so-called Komnenian restoration, as the new coinage restored financial confidence.
Alexei Komnin was a very courageous and brave man, he was one of the last wleave the battle of Dirrahia, although he was wounded in the head. This feature he did not lose in his old age, when he personally led the troops against the Koni sultan. He was a very clever and cunning person and more than once emerged victorious from difficult situations.
Alexey Komnin in the end of 1077 - the beginning of 1078 married the representative of the Duk dynasty Irina Dukine, the daughter of Caesar Andronicus Duka.
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