Background
Theodore Laskaris was born in c. 1174, to the Laskaris, a noble but not particularly renowned Byzantine family of Constantinople. He was the son of Manuel Laskaris and wife Ioanna Karatzaina.
Theodore Laskaris was born in c. 1174, to the Laskaris, a noble but not particularly renowned Byzantine family of Constantinople. He was the son of Manuel Laskaris and wife Ioanna Karatzaina.
He became the son-in-law of the Emperor Alexius III and distinguished himself during the sieges of Constantinople by the Latins (1203 - 1204). After the capture of the city he gathered a band of fugitives in Bithynia and established himself in the town of Nicaea, which became the chief rallying-point for his countrymen. Relieved of the danger of invasion by a Latin force which had defeated him in 1204 but was recalled to Europe by a Bulgarian invasion, he set to work to form a new Byzantine state in Asia Minor, and in 1206 assumed the title of emperor. During the next years Theodore was beset by enemies on divers sides. He maintained himself stubbornly in defensive campaigns against the Latin emperor Henry, defeated his rival Alexius Comnenus of Trebizond, and carried out a successful counter-attack upon Gayath-ed-din, the sultan of Koniah, who had been Instigated to war by the deposed Alexius III. Theodore's crowning victory was gained in 1210, when in a battle near Pisidian Antioch he captured Alexius and wrested the town itself from the Turks. At the end of his reign he ruled over a territory roughly conterminous with the old Roman provinces of Asia and Bithynia. Though there is no proof of higher qualities of statesmanship in him, by his courage and military skill he enabled the Byzantine nation not merely to survive, but ultimately to beat back the Latin invasion.
In 1198/9, Theodore married Anna Angelina, daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios III Angelos and Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera; she was the widow of his cousin the sebastokratōr Isaac Komnenos. Theodore and Anna had three daughters and two sons who died young.
After Anna Angelina died in 1212, Theodore took Philippa of Armenia (1183-aft. 1219) as his second wife. She was a daughter of King Ruben III of Armenia; this marriage was annulled a year later and they divorced in 1216. They had one son.
Theodore's third wife was Maria of Courtenay (1204-September, 1222), whom he married in 1219. She was the daughter of Emperor Peter II of Courtenay and Empress Yolanda of Flanders, but they had no children.