Emperor of the East, began life as a soldier, was a great favourite with the soldiers, who, in a period of anarchy, raised him to the throne at the period of the first crusade, when the empire was infested by Turks on the one hand and Normans on the other, while the crusaders who passed through his territory proved more troublesome than either. He managed to hold the empire together in spite of these troubles, and to stave off the doom that impended all through his reign of thirty-seven years (1048-1118).