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Cantacuzenus
The House of Kantakouzenos ( Kantakouzenoi; el, Καντακουζηνός, pl. Καντακουζηνοί), Latinized as Cantacuzenus and anglicized as Cantacuzene, was one of the most prominent Greek noble families of the Byzantine Empire in the last centuries of its existence. The family was one of the Empire's wealthiest and provided several prominent governors and generals, as well as two Byzantine emperors. The Kantakouzenoi intermarried extensively with other Byzantine noble families such as the Palaiologoi, the Philanthropenoi, the Asen, and the Tarchaneiotes. The feminine form of the name is Kantakouzene ( el, Καντακουζηνή), Latinized as Cantacuzena. Etymology The origin of the family's surname, to follow Donald Nicol, "lies between romantic guesswork and philological conjecture." Prince Michael Cantacuzino, an 18th-century Romanian aristocrat of the Cantacuzino family who traced his ancestry to this Byzantine family, provides examples of the first kind, su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantacuzino
The House of Cantacuzino (french: Cantacuzène) is a Romanian aristocratic family of Greek origin. The family gave a number of princes to Wallachia and Moldavia, and it claimed descent from a branch of the Byzantine Kantakouzenos family, specifically from Byzantine Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (reigned 1347–1354). After the Russo-Ottoman War of 1710–11, a lateral branch of the family settled in Russia, receiving the princely (''Knyaz'', as opposed to ''Velikij Knyaz'') status. In 1944, Prince Ștefan Cantacuzino settled in Sweden, where his descendants form part of the unintroduced nobility of that country. Origin of the family Members of the family claim that the genealogical links between the Byzantine Greek and Romanian branches of the family have been extensively researched.Jean-Michel Cantacuzène, ''Mille ans dans les Balkans'' Éditions Christian Paris (1992) . The family first appears among the Phanariotes in the late 16th century, with Michael "Şeytanoğlu" Kant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantacuzino Family
The House of Cantacuzino (french: Cantacuzène) is a Romanian aristocratic family of Greek origin. The family gave a number of princes to Wallachia and Moldavia, and it claimed descent from a branch of the Byzantine Kantakouzenos family, specifically from Byzantine Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (reigned 1347–1354). After the Russo-Ottoman War of 1710–11, a lateral branch of the family settled in Russia, receiving the princely ('' Knyaz'', as opposed to ''Velikij Knyaz'') status. In 1944, Prince Ștefan Cantacuzino settled in Sweden, where his descendants form part of the unintroduced nobility of that country. Origin of the family Members of the family claim that the genealogical links between the Byzantine Greek and Romanian branches of the family have been extensively researched.Jean-Michel Cantacuzène, ''Mille ans dans les Balkans'' Éditions Christian Paris (1992) . The family first appears among the Phanariotes in the late 16th century, with Michael "Şeytanoğlu" Kan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palaiologan Period
The Byzantine Empire was ruled by the Palaiologos dynasty in the period between 1261 and 1453, from the restoration of Byzantine rule to Constantinople by the usurper Michael VIII Palaiologos following its recapture from the Latin Empire, founded after the Fourth Crusade (1204), up to the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire. Together with the preceding Nicaean Empire and the contemporary ''Frankokratia'', this period is known as the late Byzantine Empire. From the start, the regime faced numerous problems.Mango, p. 255 The Turks of Asia Minor had begun conducting raids and expanding into Byzantine territory in Asia Minor by 1263, just two years after the enthronment of the first Palaiologos emperor Michael VIII. Anatolia, which had formed the very heart of the shrinking empire, was systematically lost to numerous Turkic ''ghazis'', whose raids evolved into conquering expeditions inspired by Islamic zeal, the prospect of economic gain, and the desire to seek refuge from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Nicol
Donald MacGillivray Nicol, (4 February 1923 – 25 September 2003) was an English Byzantinist. Life Nicol was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, to a Church of Scotland minister, and received a classical education at King Edward VII School in Sheffield and St Paul's School in London. Registering as a conscientious objector in 1941, he served in 1942–1946 in the Friends' Ambulance Unit, with which he first visited wartime Greece in 1944–1945, visiting Ioannina and the Meteora monasteries. After earning his first Classics degree at Cambridge University, he returned to Greece in 1949–1950 as a member of the British School at Athens. During this time, he also visited Mount Athos, spending Easter 1949 at the Hilandar Monastery, and revisited Meteora. In 1950, Nicol married Joan Mary Campbell, with whom he had three sons. He completed his doctoral thesis for Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1952. The thesis, on the medieval Despotate of Epirus, led to his first book, ''The Des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Greeks
The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans of Orthodox Christianity throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They were the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), of Constantinople and Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Greek islands, Cyprus, and portions of the southern Balkans, and formed large minorities, or pluralities, in the coastal urban centres of the Levant and northern Egypt. Throughout their history, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as ''Romans'' ( gr, Ῥωμαῖοι, Rhōmaîoi), but are referred to as "Byzantine Greeks" in modern historiography. Latin speakers identified them simply as Greeks or with the term Romei. The social structure of the Byzantine Greeks was primarily supported by a rural, agrarian base that consisted of the peasantry, and a small fraction of the poor. These peasants lived within three kinds of settlements: the ''chorion'' or village, the ''agridion'' or hamlet, and the ''proast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Sipylus
Mount Spil ( tr, Spil Dağı), the ancient Mount Sipylus ( grc, Σίπυλος) (elevation ), is a mountain rich in legends and history in Manisa Province, Turkey, in what used to be the heartland of the Lydians and what is now Turkey's Aegean Region. Its summit towers over the modern city of Manisa as well as over the road between İzmir and Manisa. The contiguous mass of Mount Yamanlar, also overlooking the Gulf of İzmir, has often been considered an extension of the Mount Sipylus massif, with which it shares much history, although it is actually an extinct volcano and a distinct geographical formation. History The Manisa relief, a full-faced statue carved into a cliff face, is found near Mount Sipylus, several kilometers east of Manisa. It is traditionally identified as Cybele and dated to the late Hittite or Luwian period in late second millennium BCE. The sculpture is known as ''Taş Suret'' in Turkish (meaning "Stone Figure") and sometimes also referred to as such in in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Emperor
This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised sovereign authority are included, to the exclusion of junior co-emperors (''symbasileis'') who never attained the status of sole or senior ruler, as well as of the various usurpers or rebels who claimed the imperial title. The following list starts with Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, who rebuilt the city of Byzantium as an imperial capital, Constantinople, and who was regarded by the later emperors as the model ruler. It was under Constantine that the major characteristics of what is considered the Byzantine state emerged: a Roman polity centered at Constantinople and culturally dominated by the Greek East, with Christianity as the state religion. The Byzantine Empire was the direct le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fourth Crusade
The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate, the strongest Muslim state of the time. However, a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army's 1202 siege of Zara and the 1204 sack of Constantinople, the capital of the Greek Christian-controlled Byzantine Empire, rather than Egypt as originally planned. This led to the partitioning of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders. The Republic of Venice contracted with the Crusader leaders to build a dedicated fleet to transport their invasion force. However, the leaders greatly overestimated the number of soldiers who would embark from Venice, since many sailed from other ports, and the army that appeared could not pay the contracted price. In lieu of payment, the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo proposed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac II Angelos
Isaac II Angelos or Angelus ( grc-gre, Ἰσαάκιος Κομνηνός Ἄγγελος, ; September 1156 – January 1204) was Byzantine Emperor from 1185 to 1195, and again from 1203 to 1204. His father Andronikos Doukas Angelos was a military leader in Asia Minor (c. 1122 – aft. 1185) who married Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa (c. 1125 – aft. 1195). Andronikos Doukas Angelos was the son of Constantine Angelos and Theodora Komnene (b. 15 January 1096/1097), the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina. Thus Isaac was a member of the extended imperial clan of the Komnenoi. Rising by revolt Niketas Choniates described Isaac's physical appearance: "He had a ruddy complexion and red hair, was of average height and robust in body". During the brief reign of Andronikos I Komnenos, Isaac was involved (alongside his father and brothers) in the revolt of Nicaea and Prousa. Atypically, the Emperor did not punish him for this disloyalty, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Kantakouzenos (Caesar)
John Kantakouzenos ( gr, Ἰωάννης Καντακουζηνός; ) was a military commander and an early member of the Kantakouzenos family. The contemporary historian Niketas Choniates describes him as a brave, audacious and experienced soldier but frequently led astray by his foolhardiness and presumption. Life He was one of the victims of the reign of terror unleashed by the usurper Andronikos I Komnenos (reigned 1183–1185) in 1183, who had him blinded, though possibly not completely, then thrown into prison, because he attacked a court eunuch who blamed the disasters befalling the empire on the incompetence of Andronikos' predecessor, his under-age nephew Alexios II Komnenos (). Donald Nicol argues this shows he was a partisan of the House of Angelos, and he had his reward when Isaac II Angelos () came to the throne in 1185: the new emperor give him the rank of ''Caesar'' and appointed him to command the expedition against the Bulgarians in 1186, who had recently reb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caesar (title)
Caesar ( English Caesars; Latin ''Caesares''; in Greek: ''Kaîsar'') is a title of imperial character. It derives from the ''cognomen'' of Julius Caesar, a Roman dictator. The change from being a familial name to a title adopted by the Roman emperors can be traced to AD 68, following the fall of the Julio–Claudian dynasty. Origins The first known individual to bear the ''cognomen'' of "Caesar" was Sextus Julius Caesar, who is likewise believed to be the common ancestor of all subsequent Julii Caesares. Sextus' great-grandson was the dictator Gaius Julius Caesar. After he seized control of the Roman Republic following his war against the Senate, he adopted the title of ''dictator perpetuo'' ("dictator in perpetuity"), a title he only held for about a month before he was assassinated in 44 BC. Julius Caesar's death did not lead to the restoration of the Republic, and instead led to the rise of the Second Triumvirate, composed by three dictators including Ju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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