II (). In his service he led Turkish raids into Byzantine territory around the Maeander River valley. According to Geoffrey of Villehardouin, a participant in the Fourth Crusade and author of De la Conquête de Constantinople, at the time of the fall of Constantinople to the forces of the Fourth Crusade, Michael was present in the city, having possibly returned from exile in the period after the deposition of Alexios III and the restoration of Isaac II and his son Alexios IV in 1203–04. Michael then entered into the service of Boniface of Montferrat, who received the Kingdom of Thessalonica and overlordship over Greece in the division of the spoils among the Crusaders, and followed Boniface west as the latter went to take up his kingdom in September 1204. Villehardouin reports that Boniface trusted Michael, but the latter soon abandoned Boniface and went to Epirus, where he installed himself as the leader of the local Greeks against the Latin Crusaders. The process of Michael's establishment in Epirus is obscure. The hagiography of St. Theodora of Arta, written in the late 13th century, maintains that Alexios III had appointed Michael as governor in the Peloponnese and a certain Senachereim, who was Michael's relative by marriage (they both had married first cousins from the Melissenos family), as governor of the Theme of Nicopolis in Epirus. When the local inhabitants rose in revolt against him, Senachereim called upon Michael for aid. Michael rushed to Nicopolis, but not before the locals had killed Senachereim. After that, Michael, himself widowed, took Senachereim's widow as his wife and succeeded him as governor. Although generally regarded as inaccurate due to the many errors it contains, this part of the hagiography is at least partially corroborated by Villehardouin's account that he married the daughter of a local magnate. It is certain that Michael was never appointed governor of the Peloponnese, but the hagiography's reference to the peninsula has led to suggestions by modern scholars that he is to be identified with the Michael who led the Peloponnesian Greeks in the Battle of the Olive Grove of Kountouras against the Crusaders, in the summer of 1205. This commonly held identification has been questioned by more recent research by the historian Raymond-Joseph Loenertz, who suggests that Michael leaving Epirus, which still was not securely under his control, to go on campaign in the Peloponnese would have been extremely unlikely as