HOME
*





Sgouros Family
The Sgouros ( grc-x-medieval, Σγουρός), also known as Sgouropoulos (), Sgouromallaios (), Sgouranos (), Sgouris (), Sgourismenos (), Sgouritzis (), and Sgourogiannis (), was a Byzantine Greek noble family – composed of multiple branches – that originated from Nafplio. Name The name of the family derives from the Greek adjective (), which is indicative of wavy hair. According to linguist and philologist Georgios Babiniotis, the adjective derives either from Ancient Greek (γυρός) 'curved, round' with the introduction of the prefix σ-, or from the noun (σβούρος), which might have been detached from (σβουρό-μαλλος). History The Sgouros family was a rich and powerful family, which first appeared in the middle of the 11th c. in Nafplio. From the very beginning right until the 15th c., it was part of the Byzantine provincial middle class. Members of the family appear to hold both political and ecclesiastical positions, and they were also di ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

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]  


Logothete
Logothete ( el, λογοθέτης, ''logothétēs'', pl. λογοθέται, ''logothétai''; Med. la, logotheta, pl. ''logothetae''; bg, логотет; it, logoteta; ro, logofăt; sr, логотет, ''logotet'') was an administrative title originating in the eastern Roman Empire. In the middle and late Byzantine Empire, it rose to become a senior administrative title, equivalent to a minister or secretary of state. The title spread to other states influenced by Byzantine culture, such as Bulgaria, Sicily, Serbia, and the Danubian Principalities. Byzantine Empire Origin and development In Greek, ''logothetēs'' means "one who accounts, calculates or ratiocinates", literally "one who sets the word". The exact origin of the title is unclear; it is found in papyri and works of the Church Fathers denoting a variety of junior officials, mostly charged with fiscal duties.. The ancestors of the middle Byzantine logothetes were the fiscal officials known as '' rationales'' during ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Salamis Island
Salamis ( ; el, Σαλαμίνα, Salamína; grc, label=Ancient and Katharevousa, Σαλαμίς, Salamís) is the largest Greek island in the Saronic Gulf, about off-coast from Piraeus and about west of central Athens. The chief city, Salamina, lies in the west-facing core of the crescent on Salamis Bay, which opens into the Saronic Gulf. On the eastern side of the island is its main port, Paloukia, in size second in Greece only to the port of Piraeus. Name The traditional etymology of Salamis derives it from the eponymous nymph Salamis, the mother of Cychreus, the legendary first king of the island. A more modern theory considers "Salamis" to come from the root ''sal'' 'salt' and ''-amis'' 'middle'; thus ''Salamis'' would be the place amid salt water. Other fringe theories have attempted to connect the name to the Semitic root Š-L-M 'health, safety, peace', because of the well-sheltered harbor, but have been for the most part rejected by the academic community. From ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cephalonia
Kefalonia or Cephalonia ( el, Κεφαλονιά), formerly also known as Kefallinia or Kephallenia (), is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece and the 6th largest island in Greece after Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios. It is also a separate regional units of Greece, regional unit of the Ionian Islands (region), Ionian Islands region. It was a former Latin Catholic diocese Roman Catholic Diocese of Cephalonia and Zakynthos, Kefalonia–Zakynthos (Cefalonia–Zante) and short-lived titular see as just Kefalonia. The capital city of Cephalonia is Argostoli. History Antiquity Legend An ''Aitiology, aition'' explaining the name of Cephallenia and reinforcing its cultural connections with Athens associates the island with the mythological figure of Cephalus, who helped Amphitryon of Mycenae in a war against the Taphians and Teleboans. He was rewarded with the island of Same (ancient Greece), Same, which thereafter came to be known as Kefallinia, Cephallenia. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Argolid Peninsula
The Argolid Peninsula is a peninsula situated in Greece in the Peloponnese, much of which is contained in the modern region of Argolis. One of the first major Greek settlements, Mycenae, is situated on this peninsula. During the Classical Greek era, the main settlements on this peninsula were Troezen, Hermione, and Epidaurus. During the Middle Ages, the settlement of Nafplio in the peninsula emerged as a major settlement, with the town serving as the capital of the First Hellenic Republic and of the Kingdom of Greece, from the start of the Greek Revolution The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. The Greeks were later assisted b ... in 1821 until 1834. Landforms of Argolis Peninsulas of Greece {{Greece-geo-stub ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Despot (court Title)
Despot or ''despotes'' ( grc-gre, δεσπότης, despótēs, lord, master) was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent of the Byzantine emperor. From Byzantium it spread throughout the late medieval Balkans and was also granted in the states under Byzantine cultural influence, such as the Latin Empire, the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Serbian Empire and its successor states (Bulgarian and sr, деспот, despót), and the Empire of Trebizond. With the political fragmentation of the period, the term gave rise to several principalities termed "despotates" which were ruled either as independent states or as appanages by princes bearing the title of despot; most notably the Despotate of Epirus, the Despotate of the Morea, the Despotate of Dobruja and the Serbian Despotate. In modern usage, the word has taken a different meaning: "despotism" is a form of government in which a single ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Archon
''Archon'' ( gr, ἄρχων, árchōn, plural: ἄρχοντες, ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, meaning "to be first, to rule", derived from the same root as words such as monarch and hierarchy. Ancient Greece In the early literary period of ancient Greece the chief magistrates of various Greek city states were called ''archontes''. The term was also used throughout Greek history in a more general sense, ranging from "club leader" to "master of the tables" at '' syssitia'' to "Roman governor". In Athens, a system of three concurrent archons evolved, the three office holders being known as ''archon eponymos'' (), the ''polemarch'' (), and the ''archon basileus'' (). According to Aristotle's '' Constitution of the Athenians'', the power of the king first devolved to the archons, and these offices were filled from the aristocracy by el ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Leo Sgouros
Leo Sgouros ( el, Λέων Σγουρός), Latinized as Leo Sgurus, was a Greek independent lord in the northeastern Peloponnese in the early 13th century. The scion of the magnate Sgouros family, he succeeded his father as hereditary lord in the region of Nauplia. Taking advantage of the disruption caused by the Fourth Crusade, he made himself independent, one of several local rulers that appeared throughout the Byzantine Empire during the final years of the Angeloi dynasty. He expanded his domain into Corinthia and Central Greece, eventually marrying the daughter of former Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos (r. 1195–1203). His conquests, however, were short-lived, as the Crusaders forced him back into the Peloponnese. Blockaded in his stronghold on the Acrocorinth, he committed suicide in 1208. Biography Rise to power Leo Sgouros succeeded his father, Theodore Sgouros, in circa 1198 as governor of the area of Nauplia and the Argolid, one of the districts known as ''ori ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Chartoularios
The ''chartoularios'' or ''chartularius'' ( el, χαρτουλάριος), Anglicized as chartulary, was a late Roman and Byzantine administrative official, entrusted with administrative and fiscal duties, either as a subaltern official of a department or province or at the head of various independent bureaus. History The title derives from Latin ''chartulārius'' from ''charta'' (ultimately from Greek χάρτης ''chartēs''), a term used for official documents, and is attested from 326, when ''chartularii'' were employed in the chanceries (''scrinia'') of the senior offices of the Roman state (the praetorian prefecture, the '' officium'' of the ''magister militum'', etc.).. Originally lowly clerks, by the 6th century they had risen in importance, to the extent that Peter the Patrician, when distinguishing between civil and military officials, calls the former ''chartoularikoi''. From the 7th century on, ''chartoularioi'' could be either employed as heads of departments within ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Palaiologos
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 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Doukas
The House of Doukas, Latinized as Ducas ( el, Δούκας; feminine: Doukaina/Ducaena, Δούκαινα; plural: Doukai/Ducae, Δοῦκαι), from the Latin title ''dux'' ("leader", "general", Hellenized as 'ðouks'', is the name of a Byzantine Greek noble family, whose branches provided several notable generals and rulers to the Byzantine Empire in the 9th–11th centuries. A maternally-descended line, the Komnenodoukai, founded the Despotate of Epirus in the 13th century, with another branch ruling over Thessaly. The continuity of descent amongst the various branches of the original, middle Byzantine family is not clear, and historians generally recognize several distinct groups of Doukai based on their occurrence in the contemporary sources. Polemis, who compiled the only overview work on the bearers of the Doukas name, in view of this lack of genealogical continuity "it would be a mistake to view the groups of people designated by the ''cognomen'' of Doukas as forming on ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sebastohypertatos
( gr, σεβαστοϋπέρτατος, , the supreme venerable one) was a Byzantine honorific title. The title formed the basis for a further compound title, ( gr, πρωτοσεβαστοϋπέρτατος, , the first supreme venerable one). These titles were part of the reordering of the Byzantine titulature under the Komnenian emperors, where titles formed around the formerly imperial epithet (the Greek translation of ) were created to denote kinship with the emperor. As such, and were among the titles accorded to the emperor's sons-in-law (). According to Lucien Stiernon was awarded to husbands of the third daughter of a Byzantine emperors, and to the husband of the fourth; while the husband of the second one bore the title of , and of the first that of . and both appear for the first time in the reign of John II Komnenos (): Manuel Anemas, who married John's third daughter Theodora, assumed the latter, while Theodore Vatatzes who married John's fourth daughter Eud ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]