Queer Places:
Church of the Holy Apostles, now Fatih Mosque, Ali Kuşçu, Hattat Nafiz Caddesi No:6, 34083 Fatih/İstanbul, Turkey
Basil I, called the Macedonian (811 – 29 August 886), was a Byzantine Emperor who reigned from 867 to 886. Born a simple peasant in the theme of Macedonia, he rose in the Imperial court. He entered into the service of Theophilitzes, a relative of Emperor Michael III (r. 842–867), and was given a fortune by the wealthy Danielis. He gained the favour of
Michael III, whose mistress he married on the emperor's orders, and was proclaimed co-emperor in 866. He ordered the assassination of Michael the next year. Despite his humble origins, he showed great ability in running the affairs of state. He was the founder of the Macedonian dynasty. He was succeeded upon his death by his son (perhaps actually Michael III's son) Leo VI.
In his last years Emperor Michael III took a favourite, Basil, a strong,
illiterate peasant from Armenia, talented with horses, and raised him to the
level of Court Chamberlain. All kind of speculation floats around him,
including the possibility that he was Michael’s gay lover. Michael ordered
Basil to marry a young woman who was almost certainly Michael’s mistress, in
order to give his mistress free access to the palace (and Michael), without
scandalising the clergy. It is possible, then, that when Basil’s wife bore him
children, they were in fact the children of the emperor… Whatever the details,
Basil tightened his grip on Michael’s affections, becoming a serious rival to
Michael’s uncle, Bardas. On 21 April 866, on the eve of a naval expedition
which he was meant to be leading to liberate Crete from the Muslims, Bardas
was sitting next to Michael in the imperial pavilion, when Basil stepped
forward and assassinated him. The emperor was obviously in on the coup because
he issued a statement declaring Bardas a traitor and exonerating Basil. Having
assassinated Michael’s uncle, Bardas, in 866, 18 months later, on 24 September
867, Basil and seven followers killed the emperor Michael as he lay in a
drunken stupor in his bedchamber. Basil had himself proclaimed basileus. Basil
led successful wars in the East against the Arabs and the Paulicians, and
seized back the entire Dalmatian coast, Bari, and all southern Italy for the
Empire. He initiated a major review and digest of the laws (on the model of
Justinian’s code) and also commissioned the building of new churches and
palaces. He had four sons but one, young Constantine, was the apple of his
eye. When Constantine died suddenly in 879, Basil went into a decline,
becoming surly, reclusive and unbalanced.
Basil died on 29 August 886, from a fever contracted after a serious hunting accident when his belt was caught in the antlers of a deer, and he was allegedly dragged 16 miles through the woods. He was saved by an attendant who cut him loose with a knife, but he suspected the attendant of trying to assassinate him and had the man executed shortly before he himself died. One of the first acts of Leo VI as ruling emperor was to rebury, with great ceremony, the remains of Michael III in the Imperial Mausoleum within the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. This did much to confirm in public opinion the view that Leo considered himself to have been Michael's son.
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