In 1081, while the Byzantine Empire was mired in a succession crisis, Robert Guiscard, Norman Duke of Apulia-Calabria, sought to take advantage and launched his conquest. To maintain appearances, he did not undertake it in his own name but in that of Michael VII Doukas, the deposed emperor—only that the latter had retired to a monastery and the man accompanying the invader was not him but a mysterious impostor who has gone down in history as Pseudo-Michael or Raiktor. The intervention was brief, and the impostor vanished from history without a trace once he was no longer useful.

The reign of the real Michael in Byzantium was not easy. Son of Constantine X and Eudokia, he did not succeed his father on the throne because it was occupied by his mother as regent, and shortly afterward she remarried the general Romanos IV Diogenes, who became the new emperor. When Michael finally came to power, thanks to an uprising organized by his uncle, the Caesar John, and the weakening of Romanos’s army after a defeat at Manzikert against the Seljuks—in which the general Andronikos, Michael’s cousin and John’s son, displayed a suspicious lack of combativeness—he found himself in a turbulent situation.

The Seljuk Empire was expanding, the Pechenegs and Cumans were making increasingly frequent incursions, the Hungarians were showing hostility, the usual attempts at usurpation broke out, and inflation devalued the currency to the point of sinking the imperial economy, earning Michael the nickname Parapinakes, that is, “minus a quarter.”

Robert Guiscard Byzantine Empire Imposter Monk
A young Michael surrounded by his parents, Constantine X and Eudoxia, in a 10th century Byzantine miniature. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

Finally, in January 1077, Nikephoros Bryennios, who was magistros (equivalent to magister officiorum) and dux of Dyrrhachium, proclaimed himself emperor in Adrianople almost simultaneously with his cousin Nikephoros Botaneiates, strategos of the Anatolic thema, who did the same in Asia Minor.

Michael, who suddenly faced several uprisings while his troops—mostly mercenaries—did not lift a finger because they weren’t being paid, was unable to extinguish so many fires: he abdicated in 1078 and took refuge in the Studion Monastery, near the Propontis (the ancient name of the Sea of Marmara). Two roosters remained in the coop vying for the throne, and Botaneiates prevailed, whose main general, Alexios Komnenos, defeated Bryennios. Following tradition, the loser was blinded, but a masterstroke was kept in reserve: his namesake son, a military man and historian famous for his beauty and wisdom, would marry Anna Komnene, also a historian… and daughter of the man who had defeated him.

That man, the aforementioned Alexios Komnenos, did not take long—three years—to rise against the new emperor and overthrow him. Botaneiates, who had taken as his wife Maria of Alania, the ex-wife of Michael VII, had proven incapable of restoring order to the empire and on top of that outraged the entire nobility, losing their support, by ordering the castration of Maria’s sons. Consequently, several rebellions erupted. The first was led by the protoproedros Nikephoros Basilakes; the second by the Varangian Guard; the third was led by Constantine Doukas, one of the sons of Michael and Maria, who had been co-emperor for four years alongside his father.

Robert Guiscard Byzantine Empire Imposter Monk
Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

The decisive one was led by Alexios Komnenos, who coordinated with John Doukas (uncle of Michael VII) to besiege Constantinople, forcing the resignation of a Botaneiates who lacked troops and intended to abdicate in favor of General Nikephoros Melissenos. But the message he sent was intercepted by George Palaiologos, one of Alexios’s commanders, and the emperor had no choice but to yield; taking refuge in Hagia Sophia, he ended up becoming a monk and died that same year, 1081. His successor was, evidently, Alexios Komnenos, who thus began both a Byzantine revival and a new and enduring dynasty.

It was then that the ghost of the previous dynasty, the Doukai, returned—ironically at the hand of an impostor who thus gave rise to one of those historical cases known as Sebastianism. He is known as Pseudo-Michael or Raiktor and was an Orthodox monk who had reached the archbishopric of Constantinople during that stormy period of internal strife, proclamations, and overthrows.

His true identity is unknown, although it is possible that he was the pinkernes (cupbearer) of the former emperor Michael VII. In any case, he pretended to be his former master, and that suited a relative of the latter who was preparing to invade the empire very well.

Robert Guiscard Byzantine Empire Imposter Monk
Robert Guiscard in an imaginary portrait by Merry-Joseph Blondel. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

It was Robert Guiscard, lord of the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria, a Norman state founded as a county in 1042 but elevated in rank by Pope Nicholas II seventeen years later. Robert, the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville (Guiscard was a nickname meaning “clever” or “fox”), had earned papal favor for his support against the German Emperor Henry IV, and in 1080 he opposed another emperor, this time the Byzantine Alexios, because, after all, he considered himself related to Michael VII: the latter had proposed in 1074 to marry his son Constantine to Olympias, Robert’s daughter.

The wedding never took place due to Michael’s abdication, which led to the cancellation of the agreement four years later. Initially, Maria and Constantine retired to the Monastery of Petrion, but she later became the wife of Botaniates, after mediation by John Doukas. The latter tried to include Constantine in the deal, suggesting he be named co-emperor or at least successor. Botaniates refused, and the engagement between the two young people was definitively broken. As we saw, the new emperor didn’t last long and was replaced by Alexios Komnenos; nonetheless, that didn’t stop Robert Guiscard.

A decade earlier he had already expelled the Byzantines from southern Italy and was now preparing to snatch Constantinople itself with a Norman-Lombard army that set sail for Greece in May 1081 in the name of the reinstated Michael VII. Shortly before, he had presented Raiktor at his court in Salerno, before all the gathered nobility, the man who claimed to be the deposed emperor and was requesting help to reclaim the throne. In a letter read publicly, this individual recounted how the usurper Botaniates had not only stolen his position but also his wife and property, forcing him to take monastic vows to remove him permanently from power.

Robert Guiscard Byzantine Empire Imposter Monk
Imaginary portrait of Bohemond I by Merry-Joseph Blondel (1843). According to Anna Komnena, he was white-skinned with red tints on his face, short blond hair, blue eyes and no beard. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

In reality, Robert knew that Raiktor was not the emperor. The princess and historian Anna Komnene recounts two versions of the story in her work The Alexiad: in one, the duke had sought a monk in Croton to play the part in the ruse; in the other, the imperial cupbearer himself volunteered. Either way, the Norman duke welcomed him and treated him as an emperor, recognizing him as Michael and announcing that he would restore what was rightfully his. Obviously, not everyone was fooled because, although at the time most people didn’t know what their ruler looked like, there were always some who did.

His daughter and son-in-law immediately realized the truth, as did Raoul, Robert’s ambassador in Constantinople, who confirmed that the man was an impostor because he had personally seen Michael in his monastic retreat. That caused many nobles to hesitate about undertaking the campaign, but the Norman duke had found the perfect casus belli, one he was not willing to give up.

A fleet of one hundred and fifty ships carrying thirty thousand men set sail from Brindisi, crossed the Adriatic, and arrived at Dyrrhachium, staging a pompous procession before the walls to present Raiktor to the defenders and urge them to surrender.

Robert Guiscard Byzantine Empire Imposter Monk
The northeastern Mediterranean after the events, just before the First Crusade and with the Byzantine Empire ruled by Alexios I Komnenos. Credit: AteshCommons / Spiridon MANOLIU / Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

The Byzantines were unimpressed, and it was necessary to besiege the city. However, news of the former emperor’s return spread like wildfire, and many of his former supporters began to join the Normans, asserting the legitimacy of their lord. Alexios, alarmed, requested help from the Venetians, but when they were approaching Dyrrhachium, they were intercepted by Bohemond of Taranto, Robert’s son to whom we’ve already dedicated an article, who explained to them that they were acting in the name of Michael VII. The invaders then defeated the imperial troops and seized the entire thema.

And that is where Raiktor’s story ends, as he suddenly disappears from the sources. What could have happened? In 1083 Guiscard had to return to Italy in haste to help Pope Gregory VII, who had been forced to barricade himself in the Castel Sant’Angelo by Henry IV. He left Bohemond in charge of the Greek campaign, but he was unable to retain his father’s territorial gains. Raiktor’s value had proven practically useless and even posed a problem for the future if it became known that his father had deceived the people.

Therefore, the most likely scenario is that the impostor was eliminated by Guiscard himself before departing, anticipating that he would resume the campaign later. And so he did; after driving out Henry IV, he returned alongside his son and, with the help of Ragusa, conquered Corfu, Cephalonia, and Durazzo, among other Dalmatian cities.

A fever took his life in the summer of 1085, and his political enemies took advantage of the moment to declare his marriage to Alberada of Buonalbergo null, which made Bohemond illegitimate, and his half-brother Roger Borsa inherited the duchy.

Bohemond went to Taranto and later embarked on the First Crusade, in which he would become the first Prince of Antioch. However, there is a curious epilogue. In 1107 he made another attempt to seize Dyrrhachium using the same tactic as his father by presenting himself as the champion of a new pretender to the Byzantine throne: an alleged son of Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, the one who had married Eudokia, Michael VII’s mother. He is known as Constantine Diogenes (or Pseudo-Constantine Diogenes or Pseudo-Leo Diogenes). But that is another story.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on May 6, 2025: Cómo Roberto Guiscardo utilizó a un monje impostor para intentar conquistar el Imperio Bizantino con un ejército normando

SOURCES

Ana Comneno, La Alexiada

George Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires from 1057 – 1453

David Barreras Martínez y Cristina Durán Gómez, Breve historia del Imperio Bizantino

Elizabeth van Houts (ed.), The Normans in Europe

Alexios G.C. Savvides, Byzantino-Normannica. The Norman Capture of Italy (to A. D. 1081) and the First Two Invasions in Byzantium (A.D. 1081-1085 and 1107-1108)

Wikipedia, Raiktor

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