On the 4th of April 1081, at Easter time, Alexios Komnenos was crowned as Emperor Alexios I by Patriarch Kosmas in the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
The economic situation of the state at that time was not an enviable one: the state coffers were empty and the currency had been particularly devalued. The reign of the Komnenoi and Angeloi dynasties, however, that lasted from 1081 to 1204, is considered as a period of respite and recovery for the Byzantian Empire. Yet despite the undoubted superficial glamour that existed due to the reorganization of the state by Komnenoi, along with the fact that some sectors of the economy such as artisan skills and agricultural production prospered, the state did not manage to profit overall by it. This period was marked by the indications of a first and increasingly long-term economic decline. Such indications included the economic ascent of aristocratic landowners to the detriment of the state, the weakening of army and mercantile marine due to state indifference, and the loss of revenue due to the granting of widespread tax exemptions and concessions. Finally, another drawback was the unchecked transposition of the major commercial routes of the time to areas outside Byzantine territory. The precarious economic situation of the Komnenoi was, on a large scale, marked by the monetary devaluation that, while they did not cause it, they couldn't reverse it either. The Byzantinist S. Runciman described the situation of Byzantium in the 12th century in the phrase: "Under the efficient government of Alexios I 's son, Emperor John II, the decline was almost unseen".