John Tzelepes Komnenos

John Komnenos, later surnamed Tzelepes (Τζελέπης, Tzelepēs), was the son of the sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos and grandson of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos. As a young man he followed his father during his exile and wanderings across Asia Minor and the Levant, when for a short time he was married to a daughter of Leo I, ruler of Armenian Cilicia. After the reconciliation between his father and his uncle, Emperor John II Komnenos, in 1138, he returned to the Byzantine court, but defected in the next year to the Danishmendid Turks during a siege of Neocaesarea. From there he moved to the court of the Sultan of Rum, one of whose daughters he married. According to later, and likely invented, tradition, the Ottoman dynasty hailed from one of his offspring. Life John was born in to the sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos, a younger son of Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, and his wife Irene. Little is known about his mother, who was probably of Russian descent. Exile and wanderings Relations between Isaac and his brother, John II Komnenos were cordial at first, but began to deteriorate, so that by 1130 they had become estranged. The reasons for this are left unexplained by the sources; Niketas Choniates and John Kinnamos simply report that Isaac had set his sights on the throne. In 1130, Isaac became involved in a conspiracy against John at a time when the latter was away from Constantinople, campaigning against the Seljuk Turks of the Sultanate of Rum. The conspiracy was uncovered, but Isaac and his two sons managed to flee Constantinople and find refuge at the court of the Danishmendid emir Gümüshtigin Ghazi at Melitene. John accompanied his father during his subsequent six-year exile, during which time they traversed most of Asia Minor and the Levant, as Isaac tried to rally the region's rulers to his cause against his brother.