Palaiologos

The House of Palaiologos was a Byzantine Greek noble family that became very important in history. They were the last ruling dynasty of the Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire. Their emperors ruled for almost two hundred years, from 1259 until the city of Constantinople fell in 1453.

The family began as part of the military and grew in power over time. They took control of the empire in 1259 when Michael VIII Palaiologos became emperor. The years they ruled were difficult ones for the empire, with many wars and problems both inside and outside the country. By the 15th century, the empire was very weak and largely controlled by the growing power of the Ottoman Turks.

The most famous ruler from this family was Constantine XI Palaiologos, who died defending Constantinople in 1453. Even though many people at the time did not like the Palaiologos rulers because of their religious policies, Constantine’s brave death made people remember him as a hero. Today, many people in Greece still carry the last name Palaiologos or similar versions of it, showing how the family’s legacy continues.

Origin

The origins of the Palaiologos family are not very clear. Some later stories say the family began in Italy, especially in the city of Viterbo. These stories were shared by Palaiologoi who lived in northern Italy and wanted to connect themselves to the last emperors of the Byzantine Empire.

Another story says the Palaiologoi were among the Roman patricians who moved to Constantinople when it became the new capital of the Roman Empire in 330. The Palaiologoi likely started later in Anatolia, possibly in the Anatolic Theme. The earliest known member was Nikephoros Palaiologos, a commander in the 11th century.

In the 12th century, the Palaiologoi were part of the military aristocracy and often supported monasteries. They married into the Komnenos dynasty. After the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople in 1204, the Palaiologoi went to the Empire of Nicaea, where they held important positions.

Imperial line

See also: Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty

Michael Palaiologos, born in 1223, was the son of Andronikos Palaiologos. Through marriages with other royal families, his family could trace its roots back to earlier rulers of the empire. In his youth, Michael served as governor of towns in a region called Thrace. Though his family was well-known, he was often mistrusted by the ruling family at the time.

After some time, Michael became emperor and worked to restore the empire's strength. However, the empire faced many challenges, including civil wars and attacks from neighboring states. Despite these difficulties, the Palaiologos family ruled during a time of cultural growth, with advances in learning and the arts.

By the 15th century, the empire was greatly weakened, and the rulers often struggled to work together. Eventually, the empire fell to a nearby powerful state. Some members of the Palaiologos family continued to live, but the empire they once ruled was no more.

Other lineages

Palaeologus-Montferrat

When the Byzantines recaptured Constantinople in 1261 under Michael VIII Palaiologos, the Papacy lost prestige and faced damage to its spiritual authority. For 57 years, Constantinople had been under Catholic rule through the Latin Empire, and now the easterners asserted their right to the position of Roman emperor and to a church independent of the one centered in Rome. The Popes pursued a policy of attempting to assert their religious authority over the Byzantine Empire. Some Western pretenders who wished to restore the Latin Empire, such as the King of Sicily, Charles of Anjou, periodically enjoyed Papal support.

Michael VIII succeeded in achieving a union of the Catholic and Orthodox churches at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274, legitimizing him and his successors as rulers of Constantinople in the eyes of the West. Michael's son and successor Andronikos II wished to further legitimize the rule of the Palaiologan dynasty. Other crusader states had been formed in Greece as a result of the Fourth Crusade, notably the Kingdom of Thessalonica, which had been ruled by the Aleramici family of Montferrat. In an effort to rid himself of the threat that an Aleramici pretender might launch an invasion and attempt to seize Thessaloniki in the future, Andronikos married Yolande of Montferrat in 1284, bringing her dynastic claims to Thessaloniki into his own family line. Since Yolande was second-in-line to the throne of the March of Montferrat, the marriage had the unexpected result of creating the possibility that a Byzantine prince might inherit Montferrat. When Yolande's brother, John I of Montferrat, died without children in 1305, Montferrat legitimately passed to Yolande and her children.

The Byzantine aristocracy were less than eager of sending one of Andronikos II's sons to claim Montferrat. That a Byzantine prince, born in the purple, would be sent to live among, and rule over, Latins, was bad enough but there were also fears that he and his descendants might become 'Latinized' and that the Italians, as a result of the Montferrat inheritance, could launch an invasion in the future in hopes of placing a Catholic Palaiologos on the Byzantine throne. In the end, Andronikos II's fourth son (in order to not jeopardize the line of succession), Theodore, was chosen to travel to Montferrat, arriving there in 1306. Byzantine fears of Latinization became true; Theodore converted to Catholicism and on his visits to Constantinople, Theodore shocked the Byzantines with his shaven face and Western customs.

Theodore's descendants, the Palaeologus-Montferrat family, ruled at Montferrat until the 16th century, though they were sometimes given Greek names, such as Theodore and Sophia, most of the Palaiologan Marquises of Montferrat paid little attention to affairs in the eastern Mediterranean. The only Marquis to seriously consider using his Byzantine connection was Theodore's son, John II of Montferrat, who wished to take advantage of the Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347, between Andronikos II's great-grandson John V and John VI Kantakouzenos, in order to invade the empire and conquer Thessaloniki. An expedition to "recover" these territories was never organized.

The final Palaeologus Marquis, John George, Marquis of Montferrat, died in 1533 and rule of Montferrat was then given to Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The last female member, Margaret Paleologa, married to Federico II, died in 1566, rendering the Montferrat cadet branch extinct. Her and Federico II's descendants, with the Gonzaga name, ruled Montferrat until they were supplanted by the House of Savoy, which had also intermarried with the Palaeologus-Montferrat family in the past, in the 18th century. The name "Montferrato-Paleologo" is recorded on the Greek island of Cephalonia until the 17th century, though it is uncertain how they were connected to the Italian family. A modern Italian family, called the Paleologo-Oriundi, claim that they descend from Flaminio, an illegitimate son of John George.

Branches of unclear descent

See also: Succession to the Byzantine Empire

The probable extinction of the senior branch of the imperial Palaiologos family at some point in the 16th century did little to stop individuals in various parts of Europe from claiming descent from the old imperial dynasty. The family name Palaiologos had been relatively widespread in the Byzantine Empire, and the family had been quite extensive before a branch of it acceded to the imperial throne. Many of the non-imperial Byzantine Palaiologoi were part of the nobility and served as generals or powerful landowners. In addition to the non-imperial Palaiologoi that were descendants of older collateral lines, Byzantine genealogy is also made complicated by the fact that it was common in Byzantium to adopt the family name of one's spouse or mother, if the name was more prestigious.

Many Byzantine nobles found themselves in Constantinople in 1453, fighting against the Ottomans in their final attack. Some, such as Theophilos Palaiologos, died in the battle, whereas others were taken prisoner and executed. Nobles that could escape mostly did, many fleeing to the Morea where they had estates. There, they faced a dilemma. The Byzantine Empire had fallen and the rulers of the Morea, Thomas and Demetrios, appeared more interested in their own rivalry than in organizing resistance against the Ottomans. As such, many of them escaped into Western Europe either before or after the Morea fell in 1460.

Many Byzantine refugees, though unrelated to the emperors, legitimately bore the name Palaiologos due to the extensive nature of the family. Because the name could lend whoever bore it prestige (as well as possible monetary support), many refugees fabricated closer links to the imperial dynasty. Many Western rulers were conscious of their failure to prevent Byzantium's fall and welcomed these men at their courts. The refugees were helped in that many in Western Europe would have been unaware of the intricacies of Byzantine naming customs; to Western Europeans, the name Palaiologos meant the imperial dynasty. Though such Palaiologoi, imperial or not, were mainly concentrated in northern Italy, such as in Pesaro, Viterbo, or Venice, other Greek refugees travelled across Europe, many ending up in Rome, Naples, Milan, Paris or in various cities in Spain.

A special link between the family of Palaiologos and the city of Viterbo was forged based on a specious etymological connection of the Latin Vetus verbum (Viterbo) and the Greek Palaios logos. This link gave a certain degree of prominence to several obscure Palaiologoi who had settled in Italy during the late Middle Ages, and was held as an argument that the family had its roots in the city. Theodore Spandounes mentions a story, according to which the family, originally Romans who arrived in Constantinople in the 4th century, moved to Italy during the exarchate and one of them married in Viterbo. Later, a soldier of the family was said to have come from Viterbo to Greece in the aid of the Lascarid Emperors, where he married and had his son, allegedly the future Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (Michael's true parents were Andronikos and Theodora who had lived in the Empire of Nicaea).

'Palaiologos' as a last name continues to survive to this day in various variants. Common versions of the last name used today include the standard Palaiologos (approximately 1,800 people, most common in Greece), Palaiologou (approximately 2,000 people, again most common in Greece), Paleologos (approximately 500 people, most common in the United States but present worldwide) and Paleologo (approximately 250 people, most common in Italy). These modern Palaiologoi cannot be confidently proven to descend from the imperial dynasty, or the medieval family which produced it. Because people with the name live throughout the world and might not even be related in the first place, creating an all-encompassing modern Palaiologos genealogy is next to impossible. It is possible that many of the modern people who bear the name are descended from wealthy Greeks in the Ottoman period, who commonly assumed Byzantine surnames and claimed descent from the famous noble houses of their Byzantine past. Some might be genuine descendants of the imperial family as several of the imperial Palaiologoi are recorded as having had illegitimate children; for instance, Theodore II, Despot of the Morea, is known to have had several illegitimate children.

Paleologus of Pesaro

Main article: Paleologus of Pesaro

The Paleologus family in Pesaro, attested from the early 16th century onwards, claimed descent from 'John Palaiologos', a purported third son of Thomas Palaiologos. Their genealogy mainly derives from the tombstone of Theodore Paleologus (d. 1636), which lists Theodore's male-line ancestors five generations back, reaching Thomas. With the sole exception of Thomas's purported son John, the existence of the rest of Theodore's immediate ancestors can be verified through records at Pesaro. The earliest record of John's existence other than Theodore's tombstone are the writings of the Greek scholar Leo Allatius, who wrote in 1648, too late for his works to be considered independent evidence. Allatius was the keeper of the Vatican Library and would have had access to its vast collection of books and records and might have deduced his findings from there. As such, it is possible that Allatius had access to earlier documents, now lost, which would have proven the legitimacy of the Pesaro line. Allatius gives the sons of Thomas as "Andrea, Manuele and Ioanne". It would be difficult to explain why Allatius, a respected scholar, would simply make up a member of an ancient dynasty. The absence of any mentions of John Palaiologos in contemporary sources means that the Paleologus family's status as genuine male-line descendants of the last few Byzantine emperors can not be proven, but it is not impossible. None of their own contemporaries appear to have doubted their imperial descent.

In 1578, the members of the family living in Pesaro were embroiled in a scandal as brothers Leonidas and Scipione Paleologus, and their nephew Theodore, were arrested for attempted murder. What happened to Scipione is not known, but Leonidas was executed. On account of his young age, Theodore was exiled from Pesaro rather than executed. Following his exile, Theodore established himself as an assassin and appears to have garnered an impressive reputation. In 1599, he entered into the service of Henry Clinton, the Earl of Lincoln, in England. Theodore lived in England for the rest of his life and fathered six children, whose fates were caught up in the English Civil War of 1642–1651. His son Ferdinand Paleologus, escaping the war, settled on the recently colonized island of Barbados in the Caribbean, where he became known as the "Greek prince from Cornwall" and owned a cotton or sugar plantation.

Ferdinand died in 1670 and was survived only by his son, Theodore. Theodore left Barbados to work as a privateer, serving aboard a ship called Charles II, and died at A Coruña, Spain in 1693. Theodore had a son, who probably predeceased him, and was survived only by a posthumous daughter, Godscall Paleologue, born in January 1694. Nothing is known of Godscall's life, the only record of her existence being her baptismal records. She was the last recorded member of the family and, if their claim to descend from the imperial dynasty was true, the last true heir of the Palaiologan emperors.

Paleologo of Venice

Because Venice was the only major non-Muslim power in the Eastern Mediterranean, it represented an appealing destination for Byzantine refugees as the empire fell. Numerous people with the last name Paleologus are recorded in Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries, many serving as stratioti (mercenary light-armed cavalrymen of Greek or Albanian origin). Venetian documents frequently refer to their "strenuous" prowess in service to the Venetian Republic. Venice had first become interested in hiring stratioti after witnessing the prowess of Greek and Albanian soldiers in the First Ottoman–Venetian War of 1463–1479.

The Venetian Palaiologoi were not related to the imperial family, but they might have been distant cousins. One of the earliest references to Palaiologoi in Venice is a 1479 Senate decision concerning Theodore Palaiologos, who had recently proven himself in a campaign in Friuli. Theodore had a well-documented career as a stratiote. Born in 1452, and probably originally from Mystras in the Morea, Theodore was originally a debt collector for the Ottomans in the Morea. In 1478, Theodore travelled to Venice with his father, Paul, and became a stratiote. For his merits in the service of Venice, Theodore was granted the island Cranae, though he later ceded it to another family. In 1495, Theodore partook in a siege of Novara and also partook in later battles in Savona and Cephalonia. Due to his knowledge of the Turkish language, Theodore also accompanied Venetian ambassadors in diplomatic missions to the Ottoman Empire, visiting Constantinople several times. He died in 1532, being buried in the Orthodox church of San Giorgio dei Greci.

Theodore had married Maria, a daughter of a man by the name Demetrios Kantakouzenos. That he could marry a genuine member of the noble Kantakouzenos family indicates that he held a certain noble status. Theodore was one of the key players in the Greek community in Venice, having helped the Greek refugees there achieve permission to construct the San Giorgio dei Greci church in the first place, and his family was highly regarded by the locals. Theodore's descendants and relatives lived on in Venice and its territories long after his death. His nephew, Zuanne Paleologo, and two of Zuanne's sons, died on Cyprus, fighting the Ottomans during the 1570 Siege of Nicosia in the Fourth Ottoman–Venetian War. The 1570 will of Demetri Paleologo, a son of Theodore, begins with "Io Demetri Palleollogo, da Constantinopoli ...". Over a century had passed since Constantinople, a city Demetri had never seen, had fallen and yet he retained lingering dreams of the city.

A man by the name Andrea Paleologo Graitzas, attested in Venice in 1460, supposedly has living descendants, with numerous people with the last name Palaiologos (or variations thereof) living in Athens today claiming to descend from him.

In the Ottoman Empire

Some nobles with the last name Palaiologos remained in Ottoman Constantinople, and even prospered in the immediate post-conquest period. In the decades after 1453, Ottoman tax registers show a consortium of noble Greeks co-operating to bid for the lucrative tax farming district including Constantinople and the ports of western Anatolia. This group included names like "Palologoz of Kassandros" and "Manuel Palologoz". This group stood in close contact with two powerful viziers, Mesih Pasha and Hass Murad Pasha, both of whom were reportedly nephews to Constantine XI Palaiologos and had been forced to convert to Islam after Constantinople's fall, as well as with other converted scions of Byzantine and Balkan aristocratic families like Mahmud Pasha Angelović, forming what the Ottomanist Halil İnalcık termed a "Greek faction" at the court of Mehmed II.

Other claims of descent

Numerous people with the last name Palaiologos, living on the island of Syros in Greece, have historically claimed descent from a supposed son of Andronikos Palaiologos, one of Emperor Manuel II's sons and Despot of Thessaloniki. Their descent is questionable since there is no surviving contemporary evidence that Andronikos had children. That Andronikos suffered from elephantiasis and epilepsy, and that he died at a young age, makes it unlikely that he married and had a son.

Another family which claims to descend from the old imperial dynasty are the Paleologu of Romania, claiming to be the descendants of an otherwise unattested son of Theodore II Palaiologos, Despot of the Morea, called Emanuel Petrus (Manuel Petros in Greek). The Paleologu also live in Malta and France, one of the most famous members of the family being the French diplomat Maurice Paléologue, who in his lifetime repeatedly asserted his imperial descent. The ancestry of the Paleologu can be traced to Greeks with the name Palaiologos, but not to the imperial family. In the 18th century, several Phanariots (members of prominent Greek families in the Fener quarter of Constantinople) were granted governing positions in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (predecessors of Romania) by the Ottomans. The Phanariots sent to Wallachia and Moldavia included people with the last name Palaiologos, ancestors of the Paleologu family.

Some Italian genealogies from the 17th century onwards ascribe further sons to Thomas Palaiologos, in addition to both Andreas, Manuel and the unverified John. Notably, these include a supposed older son called Rogerio or Ruggerio, supposedly born around 1430 and sent as a hostage to Alfonso the Magnanimous of Aragon and Naples. Supposedly, Rogerio was responsible for erecting the Spirito Santo church, which still stands, in Casalsottano, a hamlet of the Italian comune San Mauro Cilento. Rogerio was supposedly survived by his two children John (Giovanni) and Angela. Giovanni was supposedly granted Perito and Ostigliano in Salerno and his descendants adopted the name Paleologo Mastrogiovanni (or just Mastrogiovanni) in his honour. The Paleologo Mastrogiovanni family is an extant family in Italy, but their claimed family history mainly derives from oral tradition, with few documents supporting it. None of the documents have been authenticated and there are several issues with the overall reconstruction of events and descent. Modern researchers overwhelmingly dismiss the existence of Rogerio as fantasy, given his clearly Italian first name, the unlikelihood of a potential imperial heir being kept as a hostage in Italy and that there are no mentions of such a figure in Byzantine records. The contemporary historian George Sphrantzes, who described the life of Thomas Palaiologos in detail, wrote on the birth of Andreas Palaiologos on 17 January 1453 that the boy was "a continuator and heir" of the Palaiologan lineage, a phrase which makes little sense if Andreas was not Thomas's first-born son.

Legacy

The Palaiologan dynasty, which ruled the Byzantine Empire until its end, was often unpopular. They tried to unite the Eastern Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church to gain support from the West against their enemies, especially the Ottoman Turks. This effort, known as the Union of the Churches, upset many people because they felt it betrayed their faith.

Emperor Constantine XI, the last ruler of the Byzantine Empire, is remembered as a hero. He died fighting the Ottoman Turks when they captured Constantinople in 1453. Many Greeks saw him as a martyr and hero, hoping he might return one day to restore their empire.

Even after the Byzantine Empire fell, people in Greece looked for descendants of the Palaiologos family. They searched in places like Italy, Cornwall, and Barbados, but unfortunately, they could not find any living relatives to bring back to Greece.

Family tree

The family tree shows the main line of the Palaiologos family, focusing on male descendants. It does not include all children or descendants from female family members. Marriages that did not have children are also left out. Emperors are shown in bold text, and women are shown in italics. Dotted lines represent family members who were not born within legal marriages. For more details about related families like the Doukas, Komnenos, Angelos, and Kantakouzenos, you can visit their articles.

Palaiologos family