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Laskaris
The Laskaris or Lascaris ( el, Λάσκαρις, later Λάσκαρης) family was a Byzantine Greek noble family whose members formed the ruling dynasty of the Empire of Nicaea from 1204 to 1261 and remained among the senior nobility up to the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire, whereupon many emigrated to Italy and then to Smyrna (much later). According to George Pachymeres, they were also called Tzamantouros (Tζαμάντουρος). The feminine form of the name is Laskarina (Λασκαρίνα). Etymology The origin of the name is unclear. In 1928, the Greek scholar Phaedon Koukoules proposed an origin from δάσκαρης, a Cappadocian variant for "teacher", but the δ>λ shift in Cappadocian is attested only in the late 19th century, so that its application to the mid-11th century or earlier is dubious. A year later, G. Stamnopoulos proposed an alternative etymology from the name Λάσκας or Λάσκος and the -άρις ending borrowed from the Latin ''-arius'', ...
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Theodore II Laskaris
Theodore II Doukas Laskaris or Ducas Lascaris ( gr, Θεόδωρος Δούκας Λάσκαρις, Theodōros Doukas Laskaris; 1221/1222 – 16 August 1258) was Emperor of Nicaea from 1254 to 1258. He was the only child of Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes and Empress Irene Laskarina. His mother was the eldest daughter of Theodore I Laskaris who had established the Empire of Nicaea as a successor state to the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor, after the crusaders captured the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Theodore received an excellent education from two renowned scholars, Nikephoros Blemmydes and George Akropolites. He made friends with young intellectuals, especially with a page of low birth, George Mouzalon. Theodore began to write treatises on theological, historical and philosophical themes in his youth. Emperor John III arranged for Theodore to marry Elena of Bulgaria in 1235, to forge an alliance with her father, Ivan ...
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Constantine Laskaris
Constantine Laskaris ( gr, Κωνσταντίνος Λάσκαρις) may have been Byzantine Emperor for a few months from 1204 to early 1205. He is sometimes called "Constantine XI", a numeral now usually reserved for Constantine Palaiologos. Early years Constantine Laskaris was born of a noble but not particularly renowned Byzantine family. Virtually nothing is known of him prior to the events of the Fourth Crusade. He found favour after his brother Theodore married into the imperial family, becoming the son-in-law of Emperor Alexios III Angelos. During the first siege of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1203 he was given command of the best body of troops available and led the Greek defenders on sorties against the entrenched Crusaders. None were successful in their goal of lifting the siege, and finally Constantine was ordered to attack the Burgundians who were on guard at the time.Geoffrey De Villehardouin, 'Memoirs Or Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of C ...
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Theodore I Laskaris
Theodore I Laskaris or Lascaris ( gr, Θεόδωρος Κομνηνὸς Λάσκαρις, Theodōros Komnēnos Laskaris; 1175November 1221) was the first emperor of Nicaea—a successor state of the Byzantine Empire—from 1205 to his death. Although he was born to an obscure aristocratic family, his mother was related to the imperial Komnenos clan. He married Anna, a younger daughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos in 1200. He received the title of despot before 1203, demonstrating his right to succeed his father-in-law on the throne. The Fourth Crusade forced AlexiosIII to flee from Constantinople in 1203. Theodore was imprisoned by the crusaders (commonly referred to as " Latins" by the Byzantines), but he escaped. After crossing the Bosporus into Asia Minor (in present-day Turkey), he started to organise the local Greeks' resistance against the Latins in Bithynia in his father-in-law's name. He concluded an alliance with the Seljuq sultan of Rum, but he could ...
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John IV Laskaris
John IV Doukas Laskaris (or Ducas Lascaris) ( el, Ἰωάννης Δούκας Λάσκαρις, ''Iōannēs Doukas Laskaris'') (December 25, 1250 – c. 1305) was emperor of Nicaea from August 16, 1258, to December 25, 1261. This empire was one of the Greek states formed from the remaining fragments of the Byzantine Empire, after the capture of Constantinople by Roman Catholics during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Biography John was a son of Theodore II Doukas Laskaris, Emperor of Nicaea, and Elena of Bulgaria. His maternal grandparents were Emperor Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria and his second wife Anna Maria of Hungary. Anna was originally named Mária and was the eldest daughter of Andrew II of Hungary and Gertrude of Merania. John IV was only seven years old when he inherited the throne on the death of his father. The young monarch was the last member of the Laskarid dynasty, which had done much to restore the Byzantine Empire. His regent was originally the bureaucrat George Mouza ...
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Empire Of Nicaea
The Empire of Nicaea or the Nicene Empire is the conventional historiographic name for the largest of the three Byzantine Greek''A Short history of Greece from early times to 1964'' by W. A. Heurtley, H. C. Darby, C. W. Crawley, C. M. Woodhouse (1967), p. 55: "There in the prosperous city of Nicaea, Theodoros Laskaris, the son in law of a former Byzantine Emperor, establish a court that soon become the Small but reviving Greek empire." rump states founded by the aristocracy of the Byzantine/Roman Empire that fled after Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian armed forces during the Fourth Crusade, a military event known as the Sack of Constantinople. Like other Byzantine rump states that formed after the 1204 fracturing of the empire, such as the Empire of Trebizond and the Empire of Thessalonica, it was a continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived well into the medieval period. A fourth state, known in historiography as the Latin ...
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John III Doukas Vatatzes
John III Doukas Vatatzes, Latinized as Ducas Vatatzes ( el, Ιωάννης Δούκας Βατάτζης, ''Iōannēs Doukas Vatatzēs'', c. 1192 – 3 November 1254), was Emperor of Nicaea from 1221 to 1254. He was succeeded by his son, known as Theodore II Laskaris. Life John Doukas Vatatzes, born in about 1192 in Didymoteicho, was probably the son of the general Basil Vatatzes, who was killed in battle in 1194, and his wife, a cousin of the Emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos. John Doukas Vatatzes had two older brothers. The eldest was Isaac Doukas Vatatzes (1188-1261), while his younger brother died young. Through his marriage to Eudokia Angelina he fathered Theodora Doukaina Vatatzaina, who later married Michael VIII Palaiologos. The middle brother's name is unknown, but his daughter married the ''protovestiarios'' Alexios Raoul. A successful soldier from a military family, John was chosen in about 1216 by Emperor Theodore I Laskaris as the second husband ...
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Michael VIII Palaiologos
Michael VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus ( el, Μιχαὴλ Δούκας Ἄγγελος Κομνηνὸς Παλαιολόγος, Mikhaēl Doukas Angelos Komnēnos Palaiologos; 1224 – 11 December 1282) reigned as the co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea from 1259 to 1261, and as Byzantine emperor from 1261 until his death in 1282. Michael VIII was the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty that would rule the Byzantine Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. He recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261 and transformed the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Byzantine Empire. His reign saw considerable recovery of Byzantine power, including the enlargement of the Byzantine army and navy. It would also include the reconstruction of the city of Constantinople, and the increase of its population. Additionally, he re-established the University of Constantinople, which led to what is regarded as the Palaiologan Renaissance between the 13th and 15th centuries. It was ...
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Palaiologan Dynasty
The House of Palaiologos ( Palaiologoi; grc-gre, Παλαιολόγος, pl. , female version Palaiologina; grc-gre, Παλαιολογίνα), also found in English-language literature as Palaeologus or Palaeologue, was a Byzantine Greek family that rose to nobility and produced the last and longest-ruling dynasty in the history of the Byzantine Empire. Their rule as Emperors and Autocrats of the Romans lasted almost two hundred years, from 1259 to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. The origins of the family are unclear. Their own medieval origin stories ascribed them an ancient and prestigious origin in ancient Roman Italy, descended from some of the Romans that had accompanied Constantine the Great to Constantinople upon its foundation in 330. It is more likely that they originated significantly later in Anatolia since the earliest known member of the family, possibly its founder, Nikephoros Palaiologos, served as a commander there in the second half of the 11th centur ...
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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 ...
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Anna Komnene Angelina
Anna Komnene Angelina or Comnena Angelina (c. 1176 – 1212) was an Empress of Nicaea. She was the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios III Angelos and of Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera. Life Her first marriage was to the '' sebastokratōr'' Isaac Komnenos Vatatzes, a great-nephew of the emperor Manuel I Komnenos. They had one daughter, Theodora Angelina. Soon after Anna's father became emperor, in 1195, Isaac Komnenos was dispatched to combat the Vlach-Bulgarian Rebellion. He was captured, became a pawn between rival Bulgarian and Vlach factions, and died in chains. Her second marriage to Theodore Laskaris, eventually emperor of Nicaea, was celebrated in a double wedding in early 1200 (the other couple was Anna's sister Irene and Alexios Palaiologos). Issue Anna and Isaac had one daughter: * Theodora Angelina, betrothed to Ivanko of Bulgaria, Dobromir Chrysos, and finally Leopold VI, Duke of Austria. Anna and Theodore had three daughters and two short-lived sons: * Ni ...
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George Mouzalon
George Mouzalon ( el, Γεώργιος Μουζάλων, Geōrgios Mouzalōn; – 25 August 1258) was a high official of the Empire of Nicaea under Theodore II Laskaris (). Of humble origin, he became Theodore's companion in childhood and was raised to high state office upon the latter's assumption of power. This caused great resentment from the aristocracy, which had monopolized high offices and opposed Theodore's policies. Shortly before Theodore's death in 1258, he was appointed regent of Theodore's under-age son John IV Laskaris (). He was assassinated only a few days later by soldiers, as the result of a conspiracy led by the nobles under the soon-to-be emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (). Biography Early life and service under Theodore II The Mouzalon family is first attested in the 11th century, but produced few notable members until the mid-13th century, with exception of Nicholas IV Mouzalon, Patriarch of Constantinople in 1147–1151.. George Mouzalon was bor ...
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Battle Of Poimanenon
The Battle of Poimanenon or Poemanenum was fought in early 1224 (or possibly late 1223) between the forces of the two main successor states of the Byzantine Empire; the Latin Empire and the Byzantine Greek Empire of Nicaea. The opposing forces met at Poimanenon, south of Cyzicus in Mysia, near Lake Kuş. Background and battle Since the Treaty of Nymphaeum in 1214, the Latin Empire had controlled the northwestern littoral of Asia Minor, from Nicomedia to Adramyttium, as well as the Mysian plain. In November 1221, the energetic founder of the Nicaean Empire, Theodore I Laskaris, died, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, John III Doukas Vatatzes, who had emerged as the victor out of the civil strife that had commenced since the death of Theodore I Laskaris. The succession was disputed by Theodore's brothers, the ''sebastokratores'' Alexios Laskaris and Isaac Laskaris, who rose up in revolt and requested the aid of the Latin emperor, Robert of Courtenay. At the head of a Latin arm ...
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