Alexander Komnenus

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Alexander Megas Komnenos ( Middle Greek Ἀλέξανδρος Μέγας Κομνηνός , also Skantarios Komnenos ; * around 1406; † before May 22, 1460 in Trebizond ) was a prince and co-emperor in the Trapezunt Empire .

Life

Alexander was the second son of Emperor Alexios IV and Theodora Kantakuzene . During his father's rule, his older brother John IV failed with an attempted coup in 1426 and had to flee to Georgia ; Alexios IV then elevated Alexander to co-emperor. In 1429 John IV returned to Trebizond and seized power in the empire. Alexios IV was murdered by supporters of John and Alexander banished from Trebizond. He went into exile in Constantinople , where he allegedly had incestuous relations with his sister, the Empress Maria .

In Constantinople in November 1437, Alexander met the Castilian travelogue Pero Tafur , who then traveled on to Trebizond to see Emperor John IV. On his return journey west, Tafur visited Alexander in Mytilene on Lesbos in 1438 , where he had meanwhile married Maria Gattilusio , the daughter of the Genoese island lord Dorino I Gattilusio . Alexander was in the process of preparing a naval expedition against his brother, but Tafur advised against it because John IV had entered into a new alliance with "the Turks" and had married a Muslim woman.

That Alexander intended to overthrow his brother is also confirmed by other sources. The Republic of Genoa saw its commercial interests in Trebizond endangered by the impending civil war. A copy of a letter has been preserved in the Genoese archives, in which Dorino Gattilusio is asked to make peace between the two rivals under all circumstances and to grant Alexander a pension with full freedom of residence.

Relations between the Genoese and John IV deteriorated significantly in the years that followed, reaching a low point when his (and Alexander's) younger brother David attacked Kaffa in the Crimea in 1447 . Genoa offered Alexander support in the struggle for the throne in 1451, but he seems to have reconciled with his brother, since he had lived with his family in Trebizond since around 1453. It is possible that Alexander was made co-regent by Johannes and his son Alexios, born in 1454, heir to the throne because the emperor mistrusted his youngest brother David.

Alexander died before the death of his brother John IV. According to the report of Laonikos Chalkokondyles , his widow Maria, who was praised for her beauty, was captured by the Ottomans during the 1461 conquest of Trapezunts and ended up in the harem of Sultan Mehmed II. His son Alexios was born in Constantinople in 1463 executed by the Ottomans.

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literature

  • Michel Kuršanski: La descendance d'Alexis IV, empereur de Trébizonde. Contribution à la prosopographie des Grands Comnènes. In: Revue des études byzantines. Vol. 37, 1979, ISSN  0766-5598 , pp. 239-247.
  • William Miller : Trebizond. The last Greek Empire. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London 1926 (reprinted by AM Hakkert, Amsterdam 1968), pp. 93-94, 105-106.
  • Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Volume 1: Aaron - Azarethes . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2007, ISBN 978-2-503-52303-3 , pp. 136-137.
  • Erich Trapp , Rainer Walther, Hans-Veit Beyer: Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit . 5. Fascicle: Κ ... - Κομνηνούτζικος. (= Publications of the Commission for Byzantine Studies. Volume 1/5). Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-7001-0330-1 , p. 230 No. 12122.
  • Alexander A. Vasiliev : Pero Tafur, a Spanish Traveler of the Fifteenth Century and his Visit to Constantinople, Trebizond, and Italy. In: Byzantion. Vol. 7, 1932, ISSN  0378-2506 , pp. 75-122.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ See PLP 5, p. 230.
  2. ↑ See Kuršanskis, Descendance. P. 240.
  3. ↑ See Vasiliev, Pero Tafur. P. 98; Kuršanskis, Descendance. Pp. 240, 243.
  4. ↑ See Vasiliev, Pero Tafur. P. 99, 117; Kuršanskis, Descendance. P. 241.
  5. ↑ See Kuršanskis, Descendance. P. 241.
  6. ↑ See EPLBHC 1, p. 136.
  7. ↑ See Kuršanskis, Descendance. P. 242 f.
personal data
SURNAME Alexander Komnenus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Skantarios Komnenos; Alexander Megas Komnenos (full name); Ἀλέξανδρος Μέγας Κομνηνός (Middle Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Trapezuntian prince and co-emperor, son of Emperor Alexios IV.
DATE OF BIRTH around 1406
DATE OF DEATH before May 22, 1460
Place of death Trebizond