John III Megas Komnenos or Grand Comnenus ( el, , ''Iōánnēs Mégas Komnēnós''; – 1362) was
emperor
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...
of
Trebizond from September 4, 1342, to May 3, 1344. He was a son of Emperor
Michael of Trebizond (who had reigned for a day in 1341) and
Acropolitissa, a daughter of
Constantine Acropolites.
John lived most of his life in
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
where his father had lived since . When Michael became Emperor of Trebizond for a day in 1341 and was quickly deposed and imprisoned by ''
megas doux''
John the Eunuch, John was still in Constantinople. However, in 1342 the leaders of the ''Scholarioi'',
Niketas Scholares and
Gregory Meitzomates
Gregory may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Gregory (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Gregory (surname), a surname
Places Australia
*Gregory, Queensland, a town in the Shire of ...
, visited him there and persuaded the young man to come with them to Trebizond and take the throne. With the approval of the Byzantine government, the group set out for Trebizond in September 1342 after enlisting the support of three
Genoese galleys, bringing their little fleet to a total of five ships. After a short but fierce fight John and his supporters captured the city on September 4, aided by a popular uprising in their favor. After the coronation of John III as emperor, the deposed Empress
Anna Anachoutlou
Anna Anachoutlou ( gr, Ἄννα Μεγάλη Κομνηνὴ Ἀναχουτλοῦ, Anna Megalē Komnēnē Anachoutloū; died 3 September 1342) ruled the Empire of Trebizond from 1341 to 1342. She was the eldest daughter of the Trapezuntine ...
was strangled, and her noble supporters executed or exiled shortly following John's coronation in
Panagia Chrysokephalos Church.
Both William Miller and
George Finlay
George Finlay (21 December 1799 – 26 January 1875) was a Scottish historian.
Biography
Finlay was born in Faversham, Kent, where his Scottish father, Captain John Finlay FRS, an officer in the Royal Engineers, was inspector of government powd ...
describe John III as a weak and dissolute ruler, who cared only for entertainment, self-indulgence, and luxury; he showed no interest over his own father who remained the prisoner of ''megas doux'' John the Eunuch. Upon the death of the ''megas doux'', Niketas marched to Limnia where he freed Michael then returned with him to Trebizond to depose John. On May 3, 1344 John was banished to the monastery of
St. Sabas (where he was kept under a Byzantine guard) and his father was restored to the throne.
The deposed emperor was eventually transferred by his father to Constantinople and from there in 1345 to
Adrianople. He escaped from there in c. 1357 and made his way to
Sinope to regain his throne, only to die in that city in 1362.
Michael Panaretos Michael Panaretos ( el, ) (c. 1320 – c. 1390) was an official of the Trapezuntine empire and a Greek historian. His sole surviving work is a chronicle of the Trapezuntine empire of Alexios I Komnenos and his successors. This chronicle not only pr ...
tells us John had a son, but not his name; all that Panaretos records about him is that he escaped from captivity in 1363 and fled first to
Caffa
uk, Феодосія, Теодосія crh, Kefe
, official_name = ()
, settlement_type=
, image_skyline = THEODOSIA 01.jpg
, imagesize = 250px
, image_caption = Genoese fortress of Caffa
, image_shield = Fe ...
, then to
Galata.
[Panaretos, ch. 80. Greek text and English translation in Scott Kennedy, ''Two Works on Trebizond'', Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 52 (Cambridge: Harvard University, 2019), pp. 37-39]
References
External links
John III Grand Komnenos ''Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World: Asia Minor''
{{DEFAULTSORT:John 03 Of Trebizond
1321 births
1362 deaths
14th-century emperors of Trebizond
Grand Komnenos dynasty
Eastern Orthodox monarchs