Nicholas Kanabos (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: Νικόλαος Καναβός) was elected

Byzantine emperor The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, which Fall of Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised s ...

during the

Fourth Crusade The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid S ...

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

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

in direct opposition to co-emperors Isaac II 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 (; ; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (; ), is a mosque and former Church (building), church serving as a major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The last of three church buildings to be successively ...

. Alexios V Doukas, who had deposed Emperors Isaac II 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 Niketas or Nicetas Choniates (; – 1217), whose actual surname was Akominatos (), was a Byzantine Greek historian and politician. He accompanied his brother Michael Akominatos to Constantinople from their birthplace Chonae (from which came h ...

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 ( rus, Новгоро́дская пе́рвая ле́топись, Novgoródskaya pérvaya létopisʹ, nəvɡɐˈrot͡skəjə ˈpʲervəjə ˈlʲetəpʲɪsʲ, commonly abbreviated as NPL), also known by its 1914 Eng ...

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

References

Sources

* * (

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