John IV (Trebizond)

John IV Komnenos ( Greek Ιωάννης Δ΄ Μέγας Κομνηνός ; * 1403 ; † before April 22, 1460 ) was Emperor and Grand Comnene of Trebizond from 1429 until his death .

Life

Johannes was born the son of the Trapezuntian emperor Alexios IV and his wife Theodora Kantakuzena. His father declared him his heir in 1417, but he remained subordinate to his father. In 1426 he killed a courtier whom he suspected of having an affair with his mother, and then turned against his parents. His grip on power was thwarted by palace officials and he was forced to flee to Georgia .

In Georgian exile he married the daughter of King Alexander I of Georgia. However, he did not succeed in finding sufficient support in Georgia for a takeover in Trebizond. Therefore he went to the Genoese colony of Kaffa in the Crimea in 1427 . From Kaffa he returned to Trebizond in 1429 on a large Genoese galley , which was manned by recruited mercenaries. His father, who went to meet him with loyal troops after landing, had Johannes murdered in his sleep with the help of some Trapezuntian aristocrats who defected to him. His brother Alexander, in the meantime appointed heir to the throne, was unable to counter John and fled, so that at the end of October 1429 John was proclaimed the new emperor of Trebizond. One of his first acts was to punish his father's murderers, whom he arranged a solemn funeral.

His reign was marked by defensive measures against the constant attacks of the Turkmen and Ottoman neighbors on the empire of Trebizond. The first challenge was the attack by the ruler of Erbil , who was able to defeat John. However, this attack failed after a brief siege Trapezunts, which had to be finally lifted.

In 1442 the Ottoman Sultan Murad II sent a fleet against the coasts of Trapezeunts. Even if this expedition was largely without consequences, some outposts of the Trapezuntian state located in the Crimea were looted. Much of the fleet was destroyed by a storm on the way back, and the Ottomans refrained from further attacks during the further reign of Murad II. Only under his successor Sultan Mehmed II should new attacks take place.

In 1451 the Byzantine diplomat Phrantzes appeared in Trebizond to find a Trapeze or Georgian princess as bride for the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI. Win Palaiologos . Although this mission failed, it helped to maintain good relations between Trebizond and Byzantium.

After the Ottomans under Sultan Mehmed II succeeded in conquering Constantinople in 1453, the only remnants of Byzantine culture and tradition remained in addition to the Despotate Morea . Immediately after the capture of Constantinople, Mehmed II asked John to pay tribute and imposed high tariffs on Trapezuntian and Venetian trade transports through the Bosporus .

When Johannes showed a lack of willingness to cooperate with the Ottomans, he instructed the Ottoman governor of Amasia to attack Trebizond from land and sea. With the inevitable fall of his capital in mind, Johannes finally submitted to the Sultan and agreed to an annual tribute payment of 2,000 gold pieces. To conclude the contract, he sent his brother and future successor David to the Sultan's court in 1458 . This soon increased the annual tribute to 3,000 gold pieces.

Faced with the advance of the Ottomans against the last Byzantine outposts in Greece , John tried to strengthen his position through marriage alliances with the rulers of neighboring areas. His daughter Theodora married Uzun Hasan , a Turkmen from the White Mutton tribe .

As early as 1434, John had made contact with the Roman Catholic Church in the hope of gaining strong allies . Thus, in a departure from the line of his predecessors, who had refused any correspondence with the Curia, he answered several letters from Pope Eugene IV. Finally, the Metropolitan of Trebizond even took part in the Council of Basel .

Advances to the Curia, however, were overshadowed by the poor relationship between John and Genoa, the most important Western power for Trebizond. Although John owed the throne to a Genoese mercenary band, he failed several times to repay loans taken out with the Genoese. He also refused to pay the Genoese damages for a ship that had been seized and looted at his behest. The disputes with the Genoese were never really settled and severely hampered trade in the Black Sea .

John's hostile attitude towards the Genoese may have been caused by the fear that they might support his exiled brother Alexander . Alexander fled to the court of Byzantium in 1429, where he married the daughter of the Genoese prince of Lesbos . Because of his hostility to the Genoese, however, Johannes maintained better relations with the Venetians who were enemies with them, but their influence in the Black Sea region was not equal to that of the Genoese.

Johannes died before April 22nd, 1460. He was heir to his brother David, who was to be the last Trapezuntian emperor.

John IV was married twice. His first wife was a daughter of the Georgian king Alexander I. In his second marriage he married a Turkish princess.

He had a daughter from his second marriage:

• Theodora, who married Uzun Hasan of the White Wethers (Aqqoyunlu) in 1458 . She died after 1478 in Tabriz and in 1463 tried in vain to save her relatives who had been taken prisoner by Mehmed II to Adrianople ( Edirne ).

Prince Alexios of Trebizond (* 1454), who was executed in Byzantium on November 1, 1463 together with John IV's brother David and his sons, was a nephew of John IV and the son of his brother Alexander with Maria Gattilusio.

Valenza (Eudokia Komnene), who married Niccolo Crispo, Prince of Syros in 1413 , was born around 1390/1400 and could have been a sister or aunt of John IV.

source

• Laonikos Chalkokondylos, Historiae, Book 8, Chapter 46; Book 9, chapters 27-34, chapters 70-81; Book 10, Chapter 13 (ed.Anthony Kaldellis), 2014.

literature

• Thierre Ganchou: La Date de la Mort du Basileus Jean IV Komnenos de Trebizonde. In: Byzantinische Zeitschrift 93, 2000, pp. 113–124.
• Alexander Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . OUP, New York 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 (3 vols.)
• William Miller : Trebizond. The Last Greek Empire of the Byzantine Era . Hakkert, Amsterdam 1968 (unchanged reprint of the Chicago edition 1926).
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 3: Faber Felix - Juwayni, Al- . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2012, ISBN 978-2-503-53243-1 , pp. 367-369.

predecessor	Office	successor
Alexios IV	Emperor of Trebizond 1429 - 1460	David