Kantakuzenos

Kantakuzenos is the name of a Byzantine family.

historical overview

At the time of Emperor Alexios I (Byzantium) the first Kantakuzenos (1094/1107) is attested as a strategist (military commander and governor of a subject ), and the family takes the position of archons . Under the paleologists they gained a huge manorial power in Thrace . In the middle of the 14th century, Johannes Kantakuzenos, who later became Emperor Johannes VI. , the largest Byzantine landowner and leader of the party that represented the interests of the noble landowners vis-à-vis the emerging urban bourgeoisie. He married his daughter Theodora to the Ottoman Sultan Orhan I , and the family adopted a friendly attitude towards the Turks. After Johannes was forced to abdicate and his son Matthaios Asanes Kantakuzenos was ousted, the family administered the despotate of Mistra until 1383 under Manuel Asanes († 1380), Matthaios Asanes Kantakuzenos († 1383) and Demetrios I. Asanes († 1383/84) as an apanage until it was recaptured by the paleologists. From 1453, after Constantinople had been conquered by the Turks, they succeeded (no longer as aristocrats, but as fanariots within the Greek bourgeois entrepreneurship) to maintain an important position in the service of the Ottomans. Through the ancestors of the great-grandmother of Demetrios I. Asanes , Yolande (Violante, Irene) von Montferrat , the Kantakuzenos family is related to several royal families in Europe. This is proven by the genealogical table of Demetrios I.

From the branch of the family that had settled in Romania and Russia, important personalities also emerged. The Romanian family name is Cantacuzino . A prominent prince from the Romanian branch was Șerban I. Cantacuzino . Whether it is a successor to Demetrios I or Ioannes is controversial among historians. What is certain is that they are descendants of Matthaios.

Family relationships

1. John VI Kantakuzenos , Byzantine Emperor ⚭ Irene (Palaiologina Komnena) Asanina of Bulgaria (* approx. 1300; † approx. 1379); Daughter of Andronikos Asanes
   1. Matthaios Asanes Kantakuzenos , Byzantine co-emperor, despot of Mistra (1357-ca. 1380) and despot of Morea (1380–1383) ⚭ Irene Palaiologina , daughter of the despot Demetrios Palaiologos
      1. Johannes Kantakuzenos , despot in the Peloponnese from 1361
      2. Demetrios I. Asanes Kantakuzenos , Despot of Morea (1383)
      3. Theodora Kantakuzene († after 1360), presumably a nun in the monastery of St. Martha
      4. Helena Asanina Kantakuzene († after February 1394) ⚭ after 1361 Don Luis Fadrique de Aragón († 1381/82), from 1365 Count of Malta and Gozo , 1379 to 1381 Vicar General of the Duchy of Athens , Baron of Salona
      5. Maria ⚭ approx. 1365 Ioannes Laskaris Kalopheros († 1392 in Cyprus)
   2. Manuel Kantakuzenos , Despot of Morea (1348-1380)
   3. Maria Kantakuzene ⚭ Nikephoros II. Orsini († 1359), despot of Epiros
   4. Theodora Kantakuzene ⚭ Orhan I. , Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
   5. Helena Asanina Kantakuzene († 1391) ⚭ 1347 Johannes V. Palaiologos , Byzantine emperor
   6. Andronikos Kantakuzenos

More family members

• Manuel Kantakuzenos († after 1469) Byzantine usurper in the despotate of Morea

literature

• Alexander Kazhdan : Kantakouzenos . In: Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium New York - Oxford 1991, Vol. 2, pp. 1103-1104 with family tree

Web links

• http://www.ghyka.com/Familles/Cantacuzino/Cantacuzino.htm
• http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BYZANTIUM%2012611453.htm#_Toc177455187
• http://genealogy.euweb.cz/byzant/byzant5.html#I6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pedigree of Demetrios I. Kantakuzenos ( Memento of the original from December 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ In "Medieval lands" by Charles Cawley.
3. ↑ Charles Cawley, Merdieval Lands op. Cit.