Andronikos III Palaiologos

Andronikos was born in Constantinople on 25 March 1297. His father, Michael IX Palaiologos, began reigning in full imperial style as co-emperor c. 1295.

In March 1318, Andronikos married Irene of Brunswick, daughter of Henry I, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen. In c. 1321 she gave birth to a son, who died in infancy.

In 1320, Andronikos accidentally caused the death of his brother Manuel, after which their father, co-emperor Michael IX Palaiologos, died in his grief. The homicide and the general dissolute behavior of Andronikos III and his coterie, mostly the young scions of the great aristocratic clans of the Empire, resulted in a deep rift in the relations between young Andronikos and his grandfather, still reigning as Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos.

Emperor Andronikos II disowned his grandson Andronikos, who fled the capital, rallied his supporters in Thrace, and began to reign as rival emperor in 1321. Andronikos then waged the intermittent Byzantine civil war of 1321–28 against his reigning grandfather, who granted him to reign as co-emperor Andronikos III.

Empress Irene died on 16/17 August 1324 with no surviving child. Theodora Palaiologina, sister of Andronikos III, married the new tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria in 1324. Andronikos III, then a widower, married Anna of Savoy in October 1326. In 1327 she gave birth to Maria (renamed Irene) Palaiologina.

Andronikos III concluded the Treaty of Chernomen of 1327, an alliance with tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria against Stephen Uroš III Dečanski of Serbia. The Byzantine civil war flared again and ultimately led to the deposition in 1328 of Emperor Andronikos II, who retired to a monastery.

Silver basilikon of Andronikos II and Andronikos III

Andronikos III was first married in 1318 with Irene of Brunswick,[5] daughter of Henry I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg; she died in 1324. They had an unnamed son, who died shortly after birth in 1321.

In 1326, Andronikos III married as his second wife Anna of Savoy,[5] daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy and of his second wife Marie of Brabant, Countess of Savoy. Their marriage produced several children, including:

• Maria (renamed Eirene) Palaiologina, who married Michael Asen IV of Bulgaria
• John V Palaiologos (born 18 June 1332)
• Michael Palaiologos, despotes (designated successor)
• Irene (renamed Maria) Palaiologina, who married Francesco I Gattilusio.

According to the contemporary Byzantine historian Nicephorus Gregoras (c. 1295–1360), Andronikos also had an illegitimate daughter, Irene Palaiologina of Trebizond, who married emperor Basil of Trebizond and took over the throne of the Empire of Trebizond from 1340 to 1341.[6] The contemporary traveller Ibn Battuta (1304–1368/69) also records in his Rihla the existence of another daughter, who had been married to Öz Beg Khan of the Golden Horde, converted to Islam, and taken the name Bayalun. Ibn Battuta claims to have accompanied her to Constantinople from her husband's court in late 1332 or 1334.[7]

Andronikos III died at Constantinople, aged 44, on 15 June 1341, possibly due to chronic malaria, and was buried in the Hodegon Monastery after lying in state at the Hagia Sophia.[8][9] Historians contend that his reign ended with the Byzantine Empire in a still-tenable situation and generally do not implicate deficiencies in his leadership in its later demise. John V Palaiologos succeeded his father as Byzantine emperor, but at only nine years of age, he required a regent.

The energetic campaigns of emperor Andronikos III simply lacked sufficient strength to defeat the imperial enemies and led to several significant Byzantine reverses at the hands of Bulgarians, Serbians, and Ottomans. Andronikos III nevertheless provided active leadership and cooperated with able administrators. Under him, the empire came closest to regaining a position of power in the Balkans and the Greek peninsula after the Fourth Crusade. The loss of a few imperial territories in Anatolia, however, left the Ottoman Turks poised to expand into Europe.

Within a few months after the death of Andronikos III, controversy over the right to exercise the regency over the new emperor John V Palaiologos and the position of John Kantakouzenos as all-powerful chief minister and friend of Andronikos led to the outbreak of the destructive Byzantine civil war of 1341–47, which consumed the resources of the empire and left it in an untenable position. The weakened Byzantine Empire failed to prevent the formation of the Serbian Empire and, more ominously, the Ottoman invasion of Europe.

• List of Byzantine emperors

• Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
• Bosch, Ursula Victoria (1965), Kaiser Andronikos III. Palaiologos. Versuch einer Darstellung der byzantinischen Geschichte in den Jahren 1321–1341 (in German), Adolf M. Hakkert
• Fine, John Van Antwerp (1994). The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-08260-5.
• Garland, Lynda (1999). Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium AD 527-1204. Routledge.
• Lascaratos, J.; Marketos, S. (1997), "The fatal disease of the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus III Palaeologus (1328-1341 A.D.)", Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 90 (2): 106–109, doi:10.1177/014107689709000215, PMC 1296151, PMID 9068444
• Nicol, Donald M. (1993) [1972]. The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521439916.
• Trapp, Erich; Beyer, Hans-Veit; Walther, Rainer; Sturm-Schnabl, Katja; Kislinger, Ewald; Leontiadis, Ioannis; Kaplaneres, Sokrates (1976–1996). Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit (in German). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. ISBN 3-7001-3003-1.

• "Andronicus III." . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (9th ed.). 1878. p. 23.
• "Andronicus III" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 976.