born 1118, Constantinople
died Sept. 1185, Constantinople
Byzantine emperor (118385), the last of the Comnenus dynasty.
A cousin of Manuel I Comnenus , he raised an army and seized power in 1182, causing a massacre of Westerners in Constantinople. He was crowned coemperor with Alexius II in 1183; two months later he had Alexius strangled and married his 13-year-old widow. Andronicus reformed the Byzantine government and asserted the independence of the Eastern church, provoking a Sicilian Norman invasion. News of the Normans' approach led to a revolt, in which Andronicus was killed by a mob and Isaac II Angelus was declared emperor.