Nathan DC Websdale, University of Oxford

The career of David Grand Komnenos, grandson of Emperor Andronikos I (1183-85) and the enigmatic co-founder of the Empire of Trebizond in 1204, remains poorly understood. The major antagonist of the early Empire of Nicaea, David’s popularity eclipsed that of the emperor-in-exile Theodore Laskaris (1205-1221) at several points. However, through his alignment with the Latin occupiers of Constantinople he also threatened the very existence of a Byzantine revival and was omitted from the chroniclers of Trebizond. When he met a murky if sudden end in 1212 the destruction of his domain allowed for his opponents’ expansion and changed the course of the thirteenth century in Anatolia. David as the seventeen-year-old prince produced a series of seals and inscriptions that staked his claim to exist outside of the imperial model and relied instead upon a double effect of his name. Portrayed on his seals utilising his youth as a latter-day biblical King David the Prophet, David Grand Komnenos broke with the artistic traditions of multiple centuries and created an innovation that pitted this heir of Andronikos I against that of Alexios III (1195-1203) in a struggle to be the ‘true’ King David. Yet this developing use of King David also sat alongside an Orthodox consolidation of local cults that by 1206 had made David’s principality one of only two safe havens reported by Constantinopolitan exiles. Supporting this expansion through local ties of loyalty to the Komnenoi name in Paphlagonia that stretched back to the 1050s, the outrage David’s rivals felt at the success of the upstart youth is preserved in their letters with no little venom. Most fascinating of all is the relationship that can be drawn between his opponents’ letters, civic inscriptions, sermons, and the sigillographic evidence of David’s actions which demonstrate an iconographic response. Together this helps illuminate the suppression of this fascinating yet often overlooked figure.