Constantine IX Monomachos

Constantine Monomachos came from the urban aristocracy and claimed the Byzantine throne in June 1042 by marrying the sitting empress Zoë Porphyrogenita; he shared power with her and her sister Theodora. He inherited a treasury fattened by Basil II and burned through it on gifts, building projects, and a wholesale expansion of the aristocracy during a period of economic growth. Constantine tried reforms - a new office to manage civil judges, a law school, tax exemptions through an early pronoia system - but most landed weakly. He won two civil wars and beat back a Kievan Rus' raid, but the Pechenegs humiliated him in the West and the Seljuq Turks gained ground in the East. In 1054 his handling of papal legates helped trigger the Great Schism between Catholic and Orthodox churches. He died in January 1055 from an infection tied to chronic arthritis, later blamed for the army's rot before Manzikert but now seen as the last emperor of his era to attempt something like a coherent program of reform.