Andreas Palaiologos

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Seal of Andreas in the western style, with the imperial double-headed eagle and the Latin inscription "Andreas Palaiologos, by the grace of God despot of the Rhomeans

Andreas Palaiologos (* 1453 on the Morea ; † 1502 ) was from 1465 until his death in 1502 titular - Emperor of Byzantium and titular despot of Morea . He was the last person to use the Byzantine imperial title. With his death, the main line of ends Palaiologoi dynasty.

Family and youth

Andreas Palaiologos was born in 1453 in the Despotate of Morea. His father was the despot Thomas Palaiologos , who ruled the Morea together with his brother Demetrios Palaiologos . Andreas' mother was Katharina Zaccharia from Achaia . In the same year Constantinople was conquered by the Ottomans . Andreas' uncle Constantine XI. , de facto the last Byzantine emperor, fell in battle; the conquest marks the end of the Byzantine Empire .

In exile

In 1460 the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II conquered the despotate Morea in a campaign. Thomas Palaiologos fled with his family, including Andreas, to Italy via Corfu . In order to get the support of the Pope and the Western European states, the family converted from Orthodox to Roman Catholic Christianity . Under papal protection Thomas and Andrew lived in Rome in the Papal States .

In 1465 Thomas Palaiologos, who until then had been de jure Byzantine emperor and despot of the Morea, died. Andreas now inherited his title, who continued to live in Rome and was financially supported by the Pope. Andreas and his siblings were looked after by Cardinal Bessarion after the death of their father . Reconquering and rebuilding the Byzantine Empire was unlikely, if not impossible, at this point in time. Andreas referred to himself as Imperator Constantinopolitanus ("Emperor of Constantinople").

Despite papal support, Andreas became impoverished. He was considered an enormous spendthrift, even if it is now assumed that the Pope's payments were far lower than expected and only enabled a poor standard of living. Andreas Palaiologos married a Roman prostitute .

Sale of his titles and claims to the throne

Since Andreas needed money, he decided to sell his titles and claims to the Byzantine throne. The first to respond to his offer was King Charles VIII of France . He acquired the claim to the throne in 1494, but died four years later. Since he did not leave a son and thus the question of the succession to the throne in France initially remained unresolved, Andreas decided to transfer his claims to the throne again and in another way.

Andrea's younger brother Manuel Palaiologos returned to Constantinople in 1476, where he sold his own claims to the Byzantine throne to the Ottoman Sultan Bayezit II for a comfortable pension . Manuel lived a luxurious life in Constantinople until his death, allegedly having fathered two sons there with a Turkish wife, serving in the Ottoman Navy and possibly even converting to Islam .

In his will of April 7th 1502, Andreas bequeathed his titles to the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile . He died in poverty in June 1502. Since even then the trade in titles and rights to the throne had a rather dubious reputation, the title was never used by any monarch.

The expanding Grand Duchy of Moscow saw itself as the successor state to the Byzantine Empire . In 1472 Andreas' sister Sofia (Zoe) Palaiologos married the Russian Grand Duke Ivan III. A few years later he assumed the title of Tsar (Emperor). The Tsardom of Russia was thus orthodox successor of Byzantium (see also: Third Rome ).

Most historians believe that Andreas Palaeologus had no children and thus the Palaiologoi dynasty ended (except for the branch line in Montferrat ). According to Donald M. Nicol , Andreas Palaiologos could have had two children: Konstantin Palaiologos , who served in the papal guard, and Maria , who married the Russian nobleman Mihail Vasilivich .

literature

  • Jonathan Harris: Greek Émigrés in the West, 1400-1520 . Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995. ISBN 1-871328-11-X .
  • Jonathan Harris: A worthless prince? Andreas Palaeologus in Rome, 1465-1502 . Orientalia Christiana Periodica . 61: 537-54 (1995).
  • Donald M. Nicol: The Immortal Emperor . Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 115-22. ISBN 0-521-41456-3 .
  • Steven Runciman: The Fall of Constantinople 1453 . Cambridge University Press, 1965, pp. 183-4. ISBN 0-521-09573-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Libro d'Oro di Melita
  2. ^ Norwich, John Julius, Byzantium - The Decline and Fall , p.446
  3. ↑ Certificate of transfer from M. de Foncemagne: Éclairissements historiques sur quelques circonstances du voyage de Charles VIII en Italie . In: Mémoires de littérature, tirés des registres de l'Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 17, 1751, 572-577.
  4. ↑ PK Enepekides: The Vienna Testament of Andreas Palaiologos from April 7, 1502 . In: files of the 11th Internat. Byzantine Congress 1958. Munich 1960, 138–143.
personal data
SURNAME Andreas Palaiologos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Titular Byzantine Emperor
DATE OF BIRTH 1453
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Morea
DATE OF DEATH 1502