Michael VII Psellos, Emperor of the Romans

Michael Psellos (1017-1079) was a Constantinopolitan philosopher and politician of the eleventh century who rose to become one of the most important courtiers of the capital after 1050. He was a supporter of Isaac I Komnenos, and headed the imperial bureaucracy by the middle of Isaac's reign, despite a spell in a monastery. Upon Isaac's death, he was named junior Emperor and adviser to Isaac's young nephew and heir Alexios, who took the hand of Psellos' daughter Euphemia. Together with his ally Constantine Doukas, he dominated the early years of Alexios' reign, but was overthrown in a coup in 1078, and retired to a monastery, where he died peacefully a year later.