Constantine XI Palaiologos Κωνσταντῖνος ΙΑ' Παλαιολόγος |
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Emperor of the Byzantine Empire | |
Constantine XI Palaiologos | |
Reign | 6 January 1449 – 29 May 1453 |
Coronation | 6 January 1449 |
Predecessor | John VIII Palaiologos |
Successor | Office abolished |
Spouse | Maddalena Tocco Caterina Gattilusio |
Issue | |
None | |
Dynasty | Palaiologos dynasty |
Father | Manuel II Palaiologos |
Mother | Helena Dragaš |
Born | February 8, 1404 |
Died | May 29, 1453 | (aged 48)
Constantine XI Dragasēs Palaiologos (or Palaeologus) (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος ΙΑ' Δραγάσης Παλαιολόγος, Kōnstantinos XI Dragasēs Palaiologos, Serbian: Константин XI Драгаш Палеолог,Konstantin XI Dragaš Paleolog) (February 8, 1404[1] – May 29, 1453) was the last reigning Byzantine Emperor[2][3][4] from 1449 to his death as member of the Palaiologos dynasty. After his death in battle during the fall of Constantinople, he became a legendary figure in Greek folklore as the "Marble Emperor" who would awaken and recover the Empire and Constantinople from the Turks[5]. His death and fall marked the end of the millenium-old Byzantine Empire, the direct successor of the Ancient Roman Empire. He was a son of Manuel II Palaiologos and Helena Dragaš, the daughter of the Serbian prince Constantine Dragaš.
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Constantine was born in Mistra[6] as the eighth of ten children. He spent most of his childhood in Constantinople under the supervision of his parents. During the absence of his older brother in Italy, Constantine was regent in Constantinople from 1437–1440.
Constantine became the Despotes of Morea (the Medieval name for the Peloponnesus) in October 1443, ruling from the fortress and palace in Mistra. At the time, Mistra was a center of arts and culture rivalling Constantinople.
After establishing himself as the Despot, Constantine worked to strengthen the defence of Morea, including reconstructing a wall across the Isthmus of Corinth called the Hexamilion, "the Six Mile Wall."
In the summer of 1444, he launched an invasion of the Latin Duchy of Athens from Morea, swiftly conquering Thebes and Athens and forcing its Florentine duke to pay him tribute. The Duchy was ruled by Nerio II Acciaioli, a vassal of the Ottoman Sultan.
However, his triumph was short-lived. In the autumn of 1446, the Ottomans advanced on Morea with 50–60,000 soldiers. Constantine and his brother Thomas braced for the attack at the Hexamilion, which the Ottoman army reached on November 27, 1446. While the wall may have held against medieval attacks, Sultan Murad had cannons to supplement the usual siege engines and scaling ladders, leaving the Hexamilion in ruins by December 10. Constantine and Thomas barely escaped. The winter prevented a full conquest of Morea, and Murad left that to another day, but put an end to Constantine's attempt to expand his Despotate.
Constantine XI married twice: the first time on July 1, 1428 to Maddalena Tocco, niece of Carlo I Tocco of Epirus, who died in November 1429; the second time to Caterina Gattilusio, daughter of Dorino of Lesbos, who also died (1442). He had no children by either marriage. After Caterina's death, in 1447, Constantine XI sent George Sphrantzes to the East to find a bride for the emperor in Trebizond and Georgia. The choice eventually fell on the Georgian princess, a daughter of George VIII, but the negotiations took time and they were overtaken by the tragic events of 1453.[7]
Despite the foreign and domestic difficulties during his reign, which culminated in the fall of Constantinople and of the Byzantine Empire, contemporary sources generally speak respectfully of the emperor Constantine. When his brother, Emperor John VIII Palaiologos, died, a dispute erupted between Constantine and his brother Demetrios Palaiologos over the throne. Demetrios drew support for his opposition to the union between the Orthodox and Catholic churches. The Empress Helena, acting as regent, supported Constantine. They appealed to the Ottoman Sultan Murad II to arbitrate the disagreement.
Murad chose Constantine, who was crowned at Mistra on January 6, 1449. It was unusual to crown an emperor outside of Constantinople (and without a Patriarch of the Orthodox Church), and no ecclesiastical coronation was ever performed. Constantine was forced to seek passage to his capital on a Catalan ship, arriving in March 1449. Constantine XI attempted to marry a distant cousin, Maria Branković, the widow of Murad II, but the courtship failed.
Sultan Murad died in 1451, succeeded by his 19 year old son Mehmed II. Soon afterwards, Mehmed II began agitating for the conquest of Constantinople. Responded to this, Constantine threatened to release Prince Orhan, a pretender to the Ottoman throne, unless Mehmed met some of his demands. By this, Mehmed considered Constantine to have broken the truce and he following winter of 1451–52, Mehmed built Rumelihisari, a fortress on a hill at the European side of the Bosporus, just north of the city. For Constantine that was a clear prelude for a siege and immediately started organizing the defence.
He managed to rise funds to stockpile foods for the upcoming siege and to repair the old Theodosian walls, but the poor economics didn't allowed him to rise the necessary army to defend them against the massive Ottoman army. Desperate for any type of military assistance, Constantine XI appealed to the West and reaffirmed the union of Eastern and Roman Churches which had been signed at the Council of Florence. However, the union was overwhelmingly rejected by the strong anti-union ("anthenotiki") part of his subjects, while it dangerously estranged him from Loukas Notaras, his chief minister and military commander who was a leading anti-union figure. Although some troops did arrive from the mercantile city states in the north of Italy, the Western contribution was not adequate to counterbalance Ottoman strength. While Constantine also sought assistance from his brothers in Morea, any help was forestalled by an Ottoman invasion of the peninsula in 1452. The siege of the city began in the winter of 1452. Constantine faced a siege with 7,000 men in his capital of 60,000 people, within a city intended to be defended by a number many times that.
Before the beginning of the siege, Mehmed II made an offer to Constantine XI. In exchange for the surrender of Constantinople, the emperor's life would be spared and he would continue to rule in Mistra, to which, as preserved by G.Sphrantzes, Constantine's reply was:
"To surrender the city to you is beyond my authority or anyone else's who lives in it, for all of us, after taking the mutual decision, shall die out of free will without sparing our lives"
He led the defence of the city and took an active part in the fighting along the land walls. At the same time, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain the necessary unity between the Genovese, Venetian, and Greek troops.
As the city fell on May 29, 1453, Constantine is said to have remarked: "The city is fallen but I am alive". Realising that the end had come, he reportedly discarded his purple cloak and led his remaining soldiers into a last charge where he was killed. Although it is alleged by some like Sphrantzes, who doubted the truth of the story, that the only way the Emperor was later identified was by his purple boots and that his body was decapitated and his head sent across Asia Minor to legitimize the victory, others claim that the Turks were never able to identify his body, and that he was very likely buried in a mass grave alongside his soldiers.
The fall of the city marked the end of the millennium-old Byzantine Empire, as the medieval continuation of the Roman Empire[8] and the end of the line of succession of the Roman Emperors, nearly 1,500 years after Augustus (although the Latin Catholics together with many western scholars never acknowledged such a line of succession after 800[9]). (The eastern neighbors of the empire did acknowledge its Emperors as the continuation of the succession of the Roman Emperors).
A legend tells that when the Ottomans entered the city, an angel rescued the emperor, turned him into marble and placed him in a cave under the earth near the Golden Gate, where he waits to be brought to life again to conquer the city back for Christians[10][11].
While serving as ambassador to Russia in February 1834, Achmet Pacha presented Tsar Nicholas with a number of gifts, including a jewel-encrusted sword supposedly taken from Constantine XI's corpse [12].
Constantine XI's legacy was used as a rallying cry for Greeks during their war for Independence with the Ottoman Empire. Today the Emperor is considered a national hero in Greece.
During the Balkan Wars and the Greco-Turkish War, under the influence of the Megali Idea, the name of the then-Greek king, Constantine, was used in Greece as a popular confirmation of the prophetic myth about the Marble King who would liberate Constantinople and recreate the lost Empire.
Some Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholics consider Constantine XI a saint (or a national martyr or ethnomartyr, (Greek: ἐθνομάρτυρας). However, the Greek Orthodox Church has never canonized him.
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Constantine XI Palaiologos
Palaiologos dynasty
Born: 8 February 1405 Died: 29 May 1453 |
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Regnal titles | ||
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Preceded by John VIII Palaiologos |
Byzantine Emperor 1448–1453 |
Office abolished Claimed by Mehmed II and others in exile
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Preceded by Theodore II Palaiologos |
Despot of Morea 1443–1449 |
Succeeded by Thomas Palaiologos |
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