David Komnenos (Trebizond)

David Komnenos (ruled 1458–1461; † November 1, 1463 in Yedikule Castle in today's Istanbul ) was the last ruler of the Trebizond Empire .

Life

Coming from the ruling family of the Comnenes , David was crowned emperor in 1459. After the conquest of Constantinople on May 29, 1453 and the elimination of the last remnant of Eastern Roman statehood in the Peloponnese by the Ottomans in 1460 , his small empire, located on the northeast coast of Asia Minor , was the only remaining refuge for Eastern Roman culture.

In 1461 the capital of Trapezunt was besieged by the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II . David handed over the city in August of that year and was brought with his family to Constantinople , later to Adrianople , where he initially lived as a “pensioner” of the Ottoman Empire. On March 26, 1463, however, he was arrested and imprisoned. The reason for this was that a possibly forged letter had fallen into Mehmed II's hands, which seemed to testify either to David's contacts with Uzun Hasan , the ruler of the Aq Qoyunlu and husband of the daughter of David's brother John IV. , Or to connections Rome , where a new crusade against the Turks was planned. From Adrianople David was brought to the Ottoman "state prison" in Yedikule Castle and executed there on November 1, 1463 with almost all male members of his family.

literature

• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 2: Baanes-Eznik of Kolb . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2008, ISBN 978-2-503-52377-4 , pp. 314-315.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Franz Babinger : Mehmed the Conqueror. World striker at a turning point. Piper, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-492-10621-8 , pp. 195f., 231f. and 246f.

predecessor	Office	successor
John IV	Emperor of Trebizond 1458 - 1461	---