[October 31] John VIII, emperor of Constantinople

Local Name: Iōannēs (Ίωάννης Η' Παλαιολόγος)
Parents: Manuel II, emperor of Constantinople, and Helena of Serbia
Born: 18 December 1392
House: Palaeologos
Spouse(s): (1) Anna, daughter of Basil I, grand prince of Moscow, and Sophia of Lithuania, then (2) Sophia, daughter of Theodore II, marquess of Montferrat, and Joanna of Bar, then (3) Mara, daughter of Alexios IV, emperor of Trebizond, and Theodora Kantakouzene
Predecessor: Manuel II

Reign: 1425 – 1448
Brief: John became co-emperor with his father around the age of twenty-four. By the time he was thirty, he was in charge of the defenses of Constantinople as the city was besieged by Ottoman Sultan Murad II. In the hope that he could secure the protection of the city, he travelled to Italy and agreed to the union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches. While away, his father died and he became the sole ruler of Constantinople. John returned to Italy for the Council of Florence in 1439, but the proposed union of the churches failed due to opposition by the patriarchate of Constantinople. By good diplomacy with the Ottomans, John managed to save his city from complete conquest, but that would be achieved during the reign of his brother, Constantine XI, who had served as regent during John's travels and succeeded the emperor in 1448.

Date of Death: 31 October 1448
Successor: Constantine XI

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[May 29] Constantine XI, emperor of Constantinople

True Name: Kōnstantinos XI Dragasēs Palaiologo (Κωνσταντῖνος ΙΑ' Δραγάσης Παλαιολόγος)

Parents: Manuel II, emperor of Constantinople, and Helena Dragas

Date of Birth: 8 February 1404

House: Palaiologos
Spouse: (1) Theodora, daughter of Leonard II, lord of Zante, then (2) Caterina, daughter of Dorino, lord of Lesbos, and Orietta Doria

Predecessor: John VIII

Reign: 1448 – 1453

Summary: Despite being born as the second son of the large family of Manuel II, Constantine was truly set to rule an empire. Most of his childhood was spent playing in the palaces of Constantinople and during his older brother, John VIII's, campaigns in Italy, Constantine ruled as his regent in the Imperial capital. In 1443, Constantine became the despot of Morea, a state created in the aftermath of the Latin conquest of Constantinople two centuries earlier. Mistra, its capital, was a center of arts and culture that rivaled Constantinople. With the threat of the Ottoman Empire ever present, Constantine built up the city walls and conquered the surrounding Duchy of Athens that had been tributary to the Ottomans previously. In 1446, Sultan Murad II invaded Morea, destroyed the wall, and sacked the city. Constantine fled back home and stopped any future plans of expanding Morea at the Ottoman's expense. John VIII died childless in 1448 and Constantine was next in line, but his younger brother, Demetrios, sought the throne as well. The two rival claimants sought the advice of Murad II, who favored Constantine.


Constantine was crowned in Mistra rather than Constantinople and never had a chance to be formally crowned by the patriarch in Constantinople. In 1451, Murad II died and his son, Mehmed II, took over and immediately began plans to invade Constantinople and the surviving territory of the Byzantine Empire. Constantine tried his utmost to rebuild his defenses but the economy was against him and the clergy was indifferent. A few troops from the West came in to help, but in 1452, Mehmed blockaded the city, thereby stopping future reinforcements. The army of the enemy was many times larger than Constantinople's and better equipped. Mehmed offered Constantine Morea in exchange for surrendering the Empire, but the emperor would not admit defeat. Constantine XI died the day the city fell and tradition states that he fell while leading a last charge against the Ottoman army. His body was never found and it is likely he was buried in a mass grave with his soldiers. Constantine was the last emperor of Constantinople in a line that stretched almost unbroken to Augustus, emperor of Rome. The Ottoman Empire renamed the city Istanbul soon after its conquest and relocated their capital to the city. Mehmed took the title "sultan of Rûm" as one of his subsidiary titles.

Date of Death: 29 May 1459

Successor: Mehmed II

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Hongxi, emperor of China (1425)

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[April 24] Theodore I, marquess of Montferrat

Montferrat in relation to the rest of Italy.
(Montferrat is at the top-left in burgundy)

True Name: Theodore Komnenos Doukas Angelos
Parents: Andronikos II, emperor of Constantinople, and Irene of Montferrat

Date of Birth: circa 1291

House: Palaeologos
Spouse: Argentina, daughter of Opicino Spinola of Genoa

Predecessor: John I

Reign: 1305 – 1338

Summary: The early years of Theodore's life are relatively unknown. He was the son of Andronikos II, emperor of the Byzantine Empire, and his wife, Irene. Irene was the daughter of William VII, marquess of Montferrat of the House of Aleramici. When her brother, John I, died in 1305, the claim passed to Irene, who allowed it to pass to her son, Theodore.

Theodore arrived in Montferrat, a small territory in north-western Italy near Genoa and Savoy, in 1306 and fought a short war with Marquess Manfred IV of Saluzzo, King Charles II of Naples, and claimants from the House of Acaja. He was finally recognized in 1310 by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII and the civil war formally ended. During the war, Theodore married a Genoese woman to form a dynastic alliance between Genoa and Montferrat. Their had two children, John and Yolande. Yolande married Count Aimone of Savoy while John eventually succeeded to Montferrat after his father died in 1338. Little is known about Theodore's reign as marquess.

Date of Death: 24 April 1338

Successor: John II

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[February 13] Andronikos II, emperor of Constantinople

True Name: Ανδρόνικος Β' Παλαιολόγος

Parents: Michael VIII, Byzantine Emperor, and Theodora Doukaina Vatatzina

Date of Birth: 25 March 1259

Royal House: Palaiologos

Spouse: Anna, daughter of King Stephen V of Hungary, then Yolande, daughter of Marquess William VII of Montferrat

Reign: 1272 – 1328

Predecessor: Michael VIII

Summary: Andronikos was crowned co-emperor of Constantinople at the age of two after his father, Michael VIII, recovered the empire from the Latin Crusaders who had sacked and conquered it eighty years earlier. He was born in Nicaea where the family was established prior to the reconquest. His reign, beginning in 1282, was a troubled one from the start. Problems with the Catholic and Orthodox church from the occupation made him unpopular with both. Meanwhile. the empire was broke and in debt, having only a seventh the revenue of the pre-conquest state. Andronikos raised taxes and dissolved the Byzantine navy, making the state increasingly dependent on the maritime Venetian and Genoan republics. Later attempts to rebuild the navy failed.

As a diplomat, Andronikos did everything right yet still got little in return. He married Yolande, heiress of Montferrat, in an effort to consolidate the claims of her family on the Kingdom of Thessalonica, a state formed during the Latin occupation. Furthermore, he attempted to marry his son and co-emperor, Michael IX, to the Latin Empire heiress, Catherine of Courtenay, thereby ending the Latin claim on the Byzantine throne, but the marriage attempt fell through. But no amount of diplomacy could stop the swell of Islamic fervor in Asia Minor. Andronikos purchased the help of the Catalan Company, a group of Hispanic mercenaries, but they failed to retake Asia Minor and eventually turned on the Byzantine Empire and sacked northern Greece before fleeing to the southern Latin states. The Ottoman Empire was on the rise, being led by its namesake, Osman I, as it slowly took over modern-day Turkey. Other nomadic Turkic groups were also moving into Byzantine possessions in the Near East. In the Balkans, beside the raids of the Catalan Company, Bulgaria was asserting its independence and it was only resolved by another marriage alliance. Michael's IX son, Andronikos, began a civil war for the throne and allied with the Bulgarians who were led by his brother-in-law. In 1328, Andronikos entered Constantinople and deposed his grandfather, forcing him to live out his remaining four years as a monk. 

Date of Death: 13 February 1332

Successor: Andronikos III

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