Manuel II Palaiologos
1350 – 1425 · Generation XXXIX · Emperor (r. 1391–1425) · Palaiologos
Manuel (AD 1350 – 1425). Emperor (r. 1391–1425). Married Helena around AD 1392. Son of John V. He governed Thessalonica for his father and became heir after his elder brother’s failed usurpation; later, held at the court of Bayezid I as an honoured captive, he was made to serve in the Ottoman campaign that wiped out Philadelphia, the last Byzantine possession in Anatolia. When Bayezid blockaded Constantinople for eight years, Manuel entrusted the city to his nephew and went begging through the courts of the West — Venice, Milan, Paris, and England, where Henry IV feasted him at Eltham Palace and held a joust in his honour; no other Byzantine emperor ever visited England. The aid never came, but Ottoman civil war after the Battle of Ankara gave his empire a reprieve. Shortly before his death he took the monastic habit as Matthaios; the Greek Orthodox Church commemorates him on 21 July.
One of 20 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.
Parents
- John V Palaiologos (1332 – 1391)
- Helena Kantakouzene (1333 – 1396)
Siblings
- Andronikos IV Palaiologos (1348 – 1385)
Partners
- Married Helena (1372 – 1450) in 1392 — 3 children together
Children
- John VIII Palaiologos (1392 – 1448)
- Constantine XI Palaiologos (1405 – 1453)
- Thomas Palaiologos (1409 – 1465)
Life
- 1350 — Born
- 1392 — Married Helena
- 1425 — Died