Michael II the Amorian
Michael II took the throne in a chapel on Christmas morning with the fetters still on his legs. He came from Amorion in Phrygia, from a family of no distinction and possibly of Jewish-influenced sectarian background, and rose through the army with Leo the Armenian, whom he helped to the throne in 813. Leo then condemned him to death in December 820 for conspiracy — the sentence was to be thrown into the palace furnace — and postponed it over Christmas at the empress's urging. Michael's supporters entered the chapel of St Stephen before dawn on 25 December disguised as choristers, killed Leo at the altar, and brought Michael from the dungeon to the throne room, where he was crowned before a smith could be found to strike off his irons. His reign was spent surviving. Thomas the Slav, an old comrade, raised a revolt that took most of Asia Minor and besieged Constantinople for a year from 821, with Arab backing and a fleet, and was defeated in 823 with Bulgarian help. Crete was lost in 824 to Andalusian exiles and became a base for raiding the Aegean for the next 140 years; the Aghlabids landed in Sicily in 827 and took two centuries to finish, and the island was lost with them. He was a moderate iconoclast who exiled rather than executed, and married a nun who was a granddaughter of a previous emperor to shore up his legitimacy. He died in 829 and founded a dynasty of three. The manner of his accession is the second time in five years that an emperor was murdered in a palace chapel, and Byzantine writers noted the pattern. His dynasty produced Theophilos and Michael III and ended in 867 when Basil the Macedonian murdered his own patron.
- Lived: 770 CE – 829 CE
- Nationality: Byzantine
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state, military_leader
