Theodora Kantakouzene (died 12 November 1426) was the Empress consort of Alexios IV of Trebizond.
Contents |
Theodora and her relations are named in Dell'Imperadori Constantinopolitani, a manuscript held in the Vatican Library. The document is also known as the "Massarelli manuscript" because it was found in the papers of Angelo Massarelli (1510–1566).[1] Masarelli is better known as the general secretary of the Council of Trent, who recorded the daily occurrings of the council.[2]
Her parents were Theodore Palaiologos Kantakouzenos, uncle of the emperor of Constantinople Manuel II, and Euphrosyne Palaiologina. The Massarelli manuscript names her brothers in order of birth as Demetrios, Manuel (protostrator), George, Andronikos (megas domestikos) and Thomas.
Theodora is given as the eldest daughter of her parents. Her younger sisters are given as Maria and Eirene Kantakouzene. Eirene was married to Đurađ Branković, Prince of Serbia. Theodore Spandounes, a 16th century historian, ignoring Theodora, names another sister of Eirene as Helena Kantakouzene. He calls her wife of David of Trebizond, a son of Theodora, who in fact was the husband of Maria of Gothia. Spandounes was confused on which Emperor of Trebizond was brother-in-law to Eirene.[3]. Born in Constantinople around 1382, Theodora was only thirteenth when she became in 1395 the consort of the co-emperor Alexios IV of Trebizond, who approximatively had the same age. She became ruling empress when her husband became sole emperor in Trebizond at the death of her father-in-law the emperor Manuel III of Trebizond, in 1417. Celebrated for her great beauty, she died in 1426. The Byzantine chronicler Laonikos Chalkokondyles, who finished his work in 1464, a long time after the death of Theodora, accused her to be the mistress of the protovestiarios of the court of Trebizond, a scandalous adultery which, according to him, provoked the rebellion of her eldest son the co-emperor John IV who imprisoned his parents and tempted to kill them before be forced by the aristocracy to fly in Georgia. But this gossip is contradicted by the chronology and the other sources. It appears that Chalkokondyles is confusing with a precedent affair between a member of the imperial dynasty of Trebizond and a protovestiarios, namely Manuel III, the father-in-law of Theodora. This event is reported by the Spanish traveller Gonzalez de Clavijo, who visited Trebizond in 1404 not much after the facts. He adds that this scandalous relationship induce the young Alexios IV, Theodora's husband, to rebel against his father Manuel, so a very similar story which can explain Chalkokondyles' mistake. In fact, John IV rebelled against his father Alexios IV only after the death of Theodora (1426), at the end of 1427, certainly because his late mother couldn't now prevent the increasing rivalry between father and son to break out. On the contrary, the virtue, the piety, the great qualities and especially the perfect fidelity of Theodora are celebrated by his compatriot, the future cardinal Bessarion, in the three monodies he dedicated to his benefactress, and in a special discourse of consolation addressed to Alexios IV, really desperate by the death of his beloved empress. Last but not least, John IV himself, after his accession of the throne in 1429, paid homage to the virtues of his deceased mother in a chrysobull for the convent she founded.[4].
Wife of Alexios IV of Trebizond, she gave him at least five children[5]:
Manuel III died on 5 March 1417. Alexios IV succeeded him with Theodora as his Empress consort. She remained Empress for nearly a decade to her own death.
| Royal titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Anna Philanthropene |
Empress consort of Trebizond with Maria Gattilusio as co-empress consort 1417 – c. 1426 |
Succeeded by Bagrationi |