| John VI Kantakouzenos | |
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| John VI presiding over a synod | |
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| Reign | 31 March 1347 - 10 December 1354 (7 years, 254 days) |
| Predecessor | John V Palaiologos (alone) |
| Successor | John V Palaiologos (alongside Matthew Kantakouzenos) |
| Co-monarch | John V Palaiologos |
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| Reign | 15 April 1353 - 10 December 1354 (1 year, 239 days) |
| Predecessor | Himself (alongside John V Palaiologos) |
| Successor | Matthew Kantakouzenos (alongside John V Palaiologos) |
| Co-monarch | Matthew Kantakouzenos |
| Spouse | Irene Asanina |
| Issue | |
| Matthew Kantakouzenos Manuel Kantakouzenos, Despotēs of the Morea Andronikos Kantakouzenos Maria Kantakouzene, Despoina of Epirus Theodora Kantakouzene Helena Kantakouzene, Byzantine Empress |
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| Full name | |
| John VI Kantakouzenos Ἰωάννης ΣΤʹ Καντακουζηνός |
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| House | House of Kantakouzenos |
| Father | Michael Kantakouzenos |
| Mother | Theodora Palaiologina Angelina |
| Born | 1292 Constantinople, Byzantine Empire |
| Died | 15 June 1383 (aged 91) Peloponnese, Greece |
| Burial | Mistra, Peloponnese, Greece |
John VI Kantakouzenos or Cantacuzenus (Greek: Ἰωάννης ΣΤʹ Καντακουζηνός, Iōannēs VI Kantakouzēnos) (c. 1292 – 15 June 1383) was the Byzantine emperor from 1347 to 1354.
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Born in Constantinople, John Kantakouzenos was the son of a Michael Kantakouzenos, governor of the Morea. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was a descendant of the reigning house of Palaiologos. He was also related to the imperial dynasty through his wife Eirene Asanina, a second cousin of Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos. Kantakouzenos became a close friend to Andronikos III and was one of his principal supporters in Andronikos' struggle against his grandfather, Andronikos II Palaiologos. On the accession of Andronikos III in 1328, he was entrusted with the supreme administration of affairs. On the death of the emperor in 1341, John Kantakouzenos was left as the designated regent, and guardian of his son John V Palaiologos, who was nine years old.
John had no imperial ambitions of his own, and refused to be crowned co-emperor despite being offered the opportunity by Andronikos III Palaiologos several times during the reign of latter. After the death of the emperor, John again refused to take the throne, and insisted that the rightful heir was John V, and that he would assume administrative control of the Empire until he was of age. Despite his stalwart devotion to the young emperor and his mother the empress Anna of Savoy, his friendship with the late emperor had aroused both the jealousy of the Patriarch of Constantinople and his former protege Alexios Apokaukos, and the paranoia of the empress who suspected him to be an usurper. When John Kantakouzenos left Constantinople for Morea, his enemies seized the opportunity to declare John V emperor and order the disbandment of Kantakouzenos's army. When news reached the army at Didymoteichon in Thrace, they declared Kantakouzenos emperor, and this marked the start of the civil war between John Kantakouzenos and the regency in Constantinople headed by Anna of Savoy, Apokaukos and the Patriarch.
The civil war which ensued lasted six years, during which the rival parties called in the aid of the Serbians, Bulgarians, and the Ottoman Turks, and engaged mercenaries of every description. It was only by the aid of the Ottoman Turks, with whom he made a bargain, that John VI Kantakouzenos brought the war to an end favourable to himself.
In 1347, he entered Constantinople in triumph with an army of 1,000 men, and forced his opponents to an arrangement by which he became joint emperor with John V Palaiologos and sole administrator during the minority of his colleague. His triumph in the six-year civil war is the subject of the poem "John Kantakouzenos Triumphs" by the modern Greek poet Constantine Cavafy.
He made his own son Matthew Kantakouzenos a co-emperor in 1353.
During this period, the empire, already broken up and reduced to narrow limits, was assailed on every side. There was an unsuccessful war with the Genoese, and in particular their colony at Galata, across from Constantinople itself. His later involvement in the Venetian–Genoese War of 1350–1355 also brought no concrete results, and was terminated by a treaty with Genoa in May 1352. War also erupted against the Serbians, who were at that time establishing an extensive empire on the north-western frontiers; and there was a hazardous alliance with the Ottoman Turks, who made their first permanent settlement in Europe, at Gallipoli in Thrace, towards the end of his reign. In 1349, he sent a newly-built fleet of 9 fair-sized ships and about 100 smaller ones against the Genoese, but it was captured in its entirety. Then in 1351, he sent 12 ships to help Venice against Genoa, but the fleet was defeated.
Kantakouzenos was far too ready to invoke the aid of foreigners in his European quarrels; and as he had no money to pay them, this gave them a ready pretext for seizing upon a European town. The financial burdens imposed by him had long been displeasing to his subjects, and a strong party had always favoured John V Palaiologos. Hence, when the latter entered Constantinople at the end of 1354, his success was easy.
Kantakouzenos retired to a monastery (where he assumed the name of Joasaph Christodoulos) and occupied himself in literary labours.
He died in the Peloponnese and was buried by his sons at Mistra in Laconia.
In 1367 Joasaph (as he was now known) was appointed the representative of the Eastern Orthodox Church to negotiate with Paul of Smyrna then the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople to attempt a reconciliation of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. They agreed to call a grand ecumenical council to be attended by the Pope, all the Patriarchs and bishops and archbishops of both the eastern and western churches.[1] This plan was subsequently refused by Pope Urban V and so nothing came of it.
His History in four books deals with the years 1320–1356. An apologia for his own actions, it needs to be read with caution; fortunately it can be supplemented and corrected by the work of a contemporary, Nikephoros Gregoras. It possesses the merit of being well arranged and homogenous, the incidents being grouped round the chief actor in the person of the author, but the information is defective on matters with which he is not directly concerned. Kantakouzenos also wrote a defence of Hesychasm, a Greek mystical doctrine.
By his wife Irene Asanina, a daughter of Andronikos Asan (son of Emperor Ivan Asen III of Bulgaria by Eirene Palaiologina, herself daughter of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos), John VI Kantakouzenos had several children, including:
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John VI Kantakouzenos
Kantakouzenos dynasty
Born: Unknown 1292 Died: 15 June 1383 |
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| Regnal titles | ||
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| Preceded by John V Palaiologos |
Byzantine Emperor 1347–1353 with John V Palaiologos (1341–1376) Matthew Kantakouzenos (1353–1357) |
Succeeded by John V Palaiologos |