Manuel Kantakuzenos (usurper)

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Manuel Kantakuzenos ( Middle Greek Μανουήλ Καντακουζηνός ; † after 1469) was a Byzantine usurper in the despotate of Morea .

Life

Manuel was a member of the Kantakuzenos family , which provided several emperors and despots in the 14th century . Through his father Georgios Palaiologos Kantakuzenos he was a grandson of Demetrios I. Kantakuzenos , who in 1383 lost the power of government in Morea to the paleologists . He had three brothers named Theodoros , Thomas (governor of Selymbria ) and Demetrios Sechtanes, and four sisters, including Zoe and Anna .

After the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans and the death of the last emperor Constantine XI. on May 29, 1453, Manuel, then governor of Mani , joined a rebellion of about 30,000 Albanians who rose up in Morea under the leadership of Peter Bua against the despots Thomas and Demetrios Palaiologos . In December 1453 he had himself proclaimed despot by the Albanians and took the Albanian first names Ghin and Cucchia for himself and his wife Maria . Militarily he tried to forge an alliance with the Venetians . A little later, Johannes Asanes Zaccaria , a son of the last Latin prince of Achaia , instigated an anti-Byzantine revolt in Morea.

The two palaeologists, who had previously been at war with one another, joined forces and called their Ottoman overlords for help. With the support of Turkish troops from the Thessalian governor Turahan Bey , they were able to put down both rebellions by October 1454. Manuel probably fled to Ragusa , where in 1457 a Cantacuzenus as troublemakers is on record.

In 1458 Manuel Kantakuzenos returned to Morea as a mediator in the army of Sultan Mehmed II , but was accused of treason and expelled again. In the following years he lived in Herzegovina at the court of Stjepan Vukčić Kosača , whose son Vladislav Manuel's sister Anna married. Between 1466 and 1469 he stayed several times on behalf of his brother-in-law in Venice and Ragusa . Manuel was later accepted at the court of the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus , where he died at an unknown time.

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literature

  • Edith Brayer, Paul Lemerle , Vitalien Laurent: Le Vaticanus Latinus 4789. Histoire et alliances des Cantacuzènes aux XIVe - XVe siècles. In: Revue des études byzantines. Volume 9, 1951, ISSN  0766-5598 , pp. 47-105, here: pp. 72, 84, 97-99.
  • Nicolas Cheetham: Mediaeval Greece. Yale University Press, New Haven CT 1981, ISBN 0-300-02421-5 .
  • William Miller : The Latins in the Levant, a History of Frankish Greece (1204-1566) . EP Dutton, New York NY 1908.
  • Donald M. Nicol: The Byzantine family of Kantakouzenos (Cantacuzenus) approx. 1100-1460. A genealogical and prosopographical study (= Dumbarton Oaks Studies . Volume 11). Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Washington DC 1968, pp. 201-203 No. 83.
  • Donald M. Nicol: The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 0-521-43991-4 .
  • 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. 96 No. 10978.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ On the sometimes contradicting genealogical information in the sources cf. in summary Nicol, Kantakouzenos. P. 201 f.
  2. ↑ See Miller, Latins. P. 426 f.
  3. ↑ See Nicol, Last Centuries. P. 396.
  4. ↑ See Nicol, Kantakouzenos. P. 202; Cheetham, Mediaeval Greece. P. 218.
  5. ↑ See Nicol, Kantakouzenos. P. 203.
personal data
SURNAME Manuel Kantakuzenos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Μανουήλ Καντακουζηνός (Middle Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Byzantine usurper in the despotate of Morea
DATE OF BIRTH 14th century or 15th century
DATE OF DEATH after 1469