Helena Palaiologina
1431 – 1473 · Generation XLI · Palaiologos
Helena Palaiologina was a Byzantine princess who became the last Despotess of Serbia. Born in the Morea in 1431, she was the first child of Thomas Palaiologos, Despot of the Morea, and his wife Catherine Zaccaria, and an elder sister of Zoe, who married Ivan III of Russia. In October 1446 she left Glarentza for Smederevo, and that December she married Lazar Branković, son of the Serbian ruler Đurađ Branković.
Lazar succeeded his father on 24 December 1456 but died after barely a year. Helena then shared power with her brother-in-law Stefan Branković as the Ottomans pressed in. Seeking an ally, she married her eldest daughter Jelena, renamed Maria, to Stephen Tomašević, the heir to the Bosnian throne, on 1 April 1459. But on 20 June 1459 the Ottomans took Smederevo, ending the Serbian despotate.
She left Serbia and reached Ragusa, modern Dubrovnik, in April 1462, and while there she married her daughter Milica to Leonardo III Tocco of Epirus. In June 1463 she joined her mother and brothers in exile on Corfu, and she settled at last on the island of Lefkada, where she became a Catholic and then a nun named Hypomone. She died there on 7 November 1473. Her third daughter, Jerina, married Gjon Kastrioti II.
One of 19 people of Palaiologos (1190–1503) in this archive. The last and longest-lived house — it retook the city in 1261 and lost it in 1453.
Line of descent: Manuel Komnenos → John Komnenos → Alexios I Komnenos → Theodora Komnene → Andronikos Angelos Doukas → Alexios III Angelos → Irene Angelina → Theodora Palaiologina → Michael VIII Palaiologos → Andronikos II Palaiologos → Michael IX Palaiologos → Andronikos III Palaiologos → John V Palaiologos → Manuel II Palaiologos → Thomas Palaiologos → Helena Palaiologina.
Parents
- Thomas Palaiologos (1409 – 1465)
- Catherine Zaccaria (1410 – 1462)
Siblings
- Sophia Palaiologina (1449 – 1503)
- Andreas Palaiologos (1453 – 1502)
Partners
- Married Lazar Branković (1421 – 1458) in 1446
Life
- 1431 — Born
- 1446 — Married Lazar
- 1473 — Died
Sources
- Helena Palaiologina, Despotess of Serbia · Wikipedia
- Lazar Branković · Wikipedia