Michael V Kalaphates
Michael V was emperor for four months, exiled the woman who had adopted him, and was blinded by a crowd. He was the nephew of an emperor and the son of a ship-caulker, which is what his surname means and what everyone in Constantinople called him. His uncle Michael IV had married the empress Zoe, the daughter of Constantine VIII and the source of the dynasty's legitimacy, and had arranged before dying in 1041 for Zoe to adopt his nephew as her son and heir. She did, and he was crowned in December 1041 having sworn to treat her as mother and mistress. He spent the first months removing the people who had made him, exiling the powerful eunuch John the Orphanotrophos who was his own uncle, and promoting men from outside the aristocracy, which was probably good policy and left him without allies. In April 1042 he had Zoe accused of attempting to poison him, tonsured and sent to an island. The proclamation was read out in the forum, and the city rose within hours. Michael Psellos, who was there, describes the whole population in the streets, the mob attacking the houses of his relatives, and Zoe brought back in a nun's habit and displayed — which failed to satisfy anyone, because the crowd now demanded her sister Theodora as well. Michael fled to a monastery, was dragged out and blinded in the street, and died a monk before the end of the year. The rising is one of the very few occasions on which the population of Constantinople removed an emperor directly, without an army or a palace faction, and it did so in defence of a dynasty's legitimacy rather than against taxation. Zoe and Theodora reigned jointly for two months.
- Lived: 1015 CE – 1042 CE
- Nationality: Byzantine
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state
