troops and concentration points for field armies. It has also been suggested that the regions around these military bases were the most likely areas for pronoia grants to be located. Legacy The Komnenian Byzantine army was a resilient and effective force but it was over-reliant on the leadership of an able emperor. After the death of Manuel I in 1180 able leadership was wanting. First there was Alexios II, a child-emperor with a divided regency, then a tyrant, Andronikos I, who attempted to break the power of the aristocracy who provided the leadership of the army, and finally the incompetents of the Angeloi dynasty. Weak leadership allowed the Komnenian system of rule through the extended imperial family to break down. The regionally based interests of the powerful aristocracy were increasingly expressed in armed rebellion and secession; mutual distrust between the aristocracy and the bureaucrats of the capital was endemic and both these factors led to a disrupted and fatally weakened Empire.Birkemmeier, p. 235 When Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Byzantine successor states established at Epirus, Trebizond and especially Nicaea based their military systems on the Komnenian army. The success of the Empire of Nicaea in particular in reconquering former Byzantine territories (including Constantinople) after 1204, may be seen as evidence of the strengths of the Komnenian army model. Though there is some reason to restrict the term Komnenian army solely to the period of the rule of the Komnenian emperors, the real break with this system came after the recovery of Constantinople in 1261, when the Byzantine army became sufficiently distinct from its earlier form to deserve a separate identity as the Palaiologan army. The Byzantine Empire enjoyed an economic and cultural renaissance during the 12th century and the Komnenian army played a crucial part in providing the political and territorial stability which allowed this cultural flowering. Timeline 1081 – Alexios I led an army of 20–25,000 men to attack the invading Normans, but was heavily defeated at the Battle of Dyrrhachion.Birkenmeier, p. 62 1083 – Leading his rebuilt army of 15,000 men (including 7,000 Seljuk Turks), the emperor decisively defeated the Norman army at the Battle of Larissa. 1091 – A massive invasion by the Pechenegs was defeated at the Battle of Levounion by an army of Byzantines with the assistance of 5,000 Vlach mercenaries, 500 Flemish knights, and supposedly 40,000 Cumans. 1092–1097 – John