Helena Palaiologina (daughter of Demetrios Palaiologos)

Helena Palaiologina (April 1442 – 1470) was the daughter of Demetrios Palaiologos, Despot of the Morea and his second wife Theodora Asanina, daughter of Paul Asanes. She entered the harem of Sultan Mehmed II.^[1]

Biography

In autumn 1458, Mehmed II sent a messenger to Helena's father, the Despot of the Morea Demetrios Palaiologos, with orders to hand over the sixteen-year-old Helena, famed for her beauty, for inclusion in the Imperial Harem.^[2]

In 1460, Mehmed invaded the Despotate of the Morea. Demetrios agreed to leave his capital of Mistra and surrender it to the Turks on May 30. The sultan arrived with the van of his army on the next day, and Demetrios was summoned to appear before him. Mehmed left no doubt that Demetrios was to consider himself a hostage and that Greek rule in Mistra was over, and once again demanded that Helena, who was then in Monemvasia with her mother, be handed over to him.^[3]

According to the Byzantine historian George Sphrantzes, she was taken to the Sultan Mehmed II's harem on 30 May 1460 and later was released.^[4] However, according to the Ottomanist Franz Babinger, Helena may never have entered the sultan's harem, for Mehmed feared she might poison him.^[5]

Demetrios died in 1470 in a monastery in Edirne.^[5] Helena's mother Theodora Asanina also soon died. Helena herself died of bubonic plague just before her father. An unknown rhetorician who composed a lament in her honour could not find tears enough to bemoan her passing.

References

Bibliography

• Babinger, Franz (1992). Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01078-6.