ISACCO II, Angelo, EMPEROR OF THE EAST. - He was emperor twice, from 1185 to 1195 and, with the help of the Latins, from August 1203 until January 1204. His reign was highly turbulent. He obtained the throne through an act of violence in 1185 and lost it through a revolutionary plot by his brother Alessio III (1195-1203), who had him blinded.
Among the acts of his government, notable are the imperial diplomas for the Italian republics of Venezia, Genova, and Pisa; his treaty with the sultan of Egypt Salah ed-din against the Latin expedition of the Crusade of Emperor Federico I; and certain regulations concerning monastic law (Patmos, Atene), matrimonial law (the removal, in one case, of the impediment of the seventh degree of consanguinity), the new provision concerning the organization of episcopal sees (Taxis), and finally the prohibition imposed upon bishops against the use of marriage and even cohabitation with their wives.
It has therefore rightly been said that I. followed the system of caesaropapism; toward the Roman Church as well he showed little sympathy during his first reign, but in the second he recognized the primacy of the pope.