Nicholas Kanabos was elected

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, to Fall of Constantinople, its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. On ...

during the Fourth Crusade on 27 January 1204 by an assembly of the Byzantine Senate, priests, and the mob of

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

in direct opposition to co-emperors

Isaac II Isaac II Angelos or Angelus ( grc-gre, Ἰσαάκιος Κομνηνός Ἄγγελος, ; September 1156 – January 1204) was Byzantine Emperor from 1185 to 1195, and again from 1203 to 1204. His father Andronikos Doukas Angelos was a ...

and Alexios IV. Nicholas was a young noble who was chosen after three days of sorting through several unwilling candidates and refused to assume the lofty position. Though popularly chosen, he never accepted imperial power, and took sanctuary in the bowels of

Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia ( 'Holy Wisdom'; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque ( tr, Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi), is a mosque and major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The cathedral was originally built as a Greek Ortho ...

Alexios V Doukas Alexios V Doukas ( gr, Ἀλέξιος Δούκας; – December 1204), in Latinised spelling Alexius V Ducas, was Byzantine emperor from February to April 1204, just prior to the sack of Constantinople by the participants of the Fourth ...

, who had deposed Emperors

and Alexios IV, offered Nicholas a prominent position in his own administration. Nicholas's supporters initially denounced the attempt to remove him from imperial power; however, as Alexios V grew more popular, Nicholas's support began to collapse. Early in February, Alexios V arrested and imprisoned Nicholas and his wife without significant resistance. Nicholas was ultimately executed. The contemporary historian Niketas Choniates described Nicholas Kanabos as a man "gentle by nature, of keen intelligence, and versed in generalship and war". According to the

Novgorod Chronicle The Novgorod First Chronicle (russian: Новгородская первая летопись) or The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016–1471 is the most ancient extant Old Russian chronicle of the Novgorodian Rus'. It reflects a tradition different ...

, he "reigned" for six days and six nights."

References

Sources

* * (

) *Cheynet, Jean-Claude (1990).
Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (963–1210)
'. p. 142. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kanabus, Nicholas 12th-century births 1204 deaths 13th-century Byzantine emperors 13th-century murdered monarchs Byzantine usurpers Christians of the Fourth Crusade Deaths by strangulation