David of Trebizond
David Megas Komnenos | |
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Emperor and Autocrat of all the East and Perateia | |
Komnenos | |
Father | Alexios IV Megas Komnenos |
Mother | Theodora Kantakouzene |
David Megas Komnenos (
In July 2013, David and his sons and nephew were canonized by the Holy Synod of the
Ruler of the Trebizond Empire
David had played an important role throughout the reign of his older brother and predecessor
David ascended the throne shortly after his brother's death, sometime in April 1460. Although John IV had made his nephew Alexios V his heir,[2] Alexios was a minor; according to Laonikos Chalkokondyles David, with the support of the Kabasitanoi archontes, pushed the young emperor aside and took the throne for himself.[3]
With the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the threat Mehmet II posed to the pocket empire had increased. David's brother John had spent the following years up to his death building alliances to protect the empire, with the Georgian princes to the east and with Uzun Hassan of the Ak Koyunlu, and David seems to have counted on their support. The Muslim rulers of Sinope and Karaman appear to have been enlisted as allies by John or Uzun Hassan.[4]
About this time, October 1460, one
In Florence, a city that was eager to build up a network of bases in the Levant, Alighieri negotiated a treaty between Florence and David of Trebizond granting to the city a consulate (fondaco) and trading terms that included a 2% levy on exports, as were enjoyed by the Genoese and Venetians in Trebizond. Like his ancestor, Dante Alighieri, Michael Alighieri was a Florentine, but had been trading on his own account in the Black Sea. Bryer mentions a document dated 28 April 1470, wherein the protectors of the Bank of St. George at Caffa gave Michael Alighieri safe conduct which covered his children and subordinates.[6] Bryer treats Ludovico da Bologna's claims with a degree of mistrust and suspicion, noting Ludovico "seems to have been too glib and later obsessed with something of the attitude of a Baron Corvo towards the Church, which failed to take his personal ambitions seriously."[7] On the other hand, Bryer assumes Michael Alighieri was a legitimate representative of Emperor David, although the letter he bore from David to Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy "was written, if not in Italy, from an Italian point of view, and by someone who knew Trebizond well and had recently seen David Komnenos as the new Emperor."[8] William Miller, in his account of the Empire of Trebizond, likewise assumes Michael Alighieri was the legitimate representative, while ignoring the existence of the sketchy Ludovico da Bologna, who had been the primary advocate for a Christian league.[9]
With Western support against the Ottomans still unsolidified, David prematurely asked the Sultan for a remission of the tribute paid by his predecessor. Even worse, he made these demands through the envoys of Uzun Hassan, who made even more arrogant demands on behalf of their master. Sultan Mehmed dismissed them, telling they would know his answer later. That answer came the summer of the next year: a fleet under his admiral
The fall of Trebizond
After pretending to be ready to negotiate with some of his neighbors, Mehmed II besieged Sinope and obtained its surrender. The Sultan sent his fleet on to Trebizond, while he led the land army against Uzun Hassan. After Mehmed took the frontier fortress of
With David's most effective ally neutralized, Mehmed II marched to Trebizond. His fleet had landed there in early July, defeated David's army, and then plundered the suburbs, besieging the city for more than a month. The Ottoman commander
David's surrender on 15 August 1461 marks the end of the Empire of Trebizond and of the Byzantine imperial tradition.[12] The deposed emperor, along with his family and courtiers, were transported to Constantinople. Meanwhile, the population of the city was divided into three groups, with some being appointed to serve the Sultan and his officers, others being added to the population of Constantinople, and the remainder being allowed to inhabit the outskirts of Trebizond itself. Some local youths were duly conscripted into the Janissaries, while the Ottoman admiral was left to garrison the city.[13]
After the Fall
David was settled in Adrianople together with his family, and received the profits of estates in the
An excuse presented itself less than two years later. According to an interpolator in the History of Chalkokondyles, referred to here as Pseudo-Chalkokondyles,[15] David's niece, Theodora (also known as Despina Khatun), had written letters to her uncle asking that he send one of his sons or his nephew Alexios, the son of his older brother Alexander, to live with her. Pseudo-Chalkokondyles states that George Amiroutzes found these letters, and out of fear for his own safety gave them to Sultan Mehmet.[16] Theodore Spandounes claims that the letters were forged on orders of the Sultan, but the result was the same, regardless of the authenticity of the evidence. After some deliberations, Mehmet ordered David, his three sons, Basil, Manuel and Georgios, and his nephew, Alexios, to be imprisoned.[17]
Marginalia in a manuscript of the
Other members of the family fared little better. David's daughter
Spandounes, writing much later than these sources or Pseudo-Chalkokondyles but drawing on family traditions, reports a different fate for some of these people. He states that Maria's son Alexios had been spared; according to tradition he was given lands just outside the city walls of Galata, where he was known locally as "the Son of the Bey" and after whom the district of Beyoğlu was named. Spandounes also writes that the widowed Empress Helena Kantakouzene was heavily fined by the Sultan for burying her husband and her sons, and spent the rest of her life in poverty. Her youngest son, George, was raised as a Muslim, but when he was later allowed to visit Uzun Hasan in Persia, he fled from the court to his sister in Georgia, where he reverted to Christianity and married a Georgian princess.[23]
Veneration
Holy Martyr David | |
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Venerated in | Eastern Orthodoxy |
Canonized | July 10, 2013 |
Feast | 1 November |
Attributes | cross and scroll |
Genealogy
One of David's daughters survived him as the wife of a
David apparently had no children by his first wife Maria of Gothia. By his second wife Helena Kantakouzene, he had:
- Basil, beheaded 1463
- Manuel, beheaded 1463
- Anna (1447–after 1463), who was a concubine of Mehmed II and After married Zagan Pasha and then Sinan
- George, (1460–after 1463)[18]
- Unnamed daughter, who probably married Mamia Gurieli
According to the historian Warren Treadgold, David had seven sons, six of which were executed, the other presumably being George.[24]
Ancestry
16. Theodora Kantakouzene | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
7. Helena Ouresina Doukaina | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In popular culture
David and the fall of Trebizond are portrayed in Dorothy Dunnett's novel The Spring of the Ram, second book in her House of Niccolo series.
David appears as a minor character in Lawrence Schoonover's novel The Burnished Blade, where he is portrayed as an adventurous but diplomatically astute young man.[25]
See also
- Demetrio Stefanopoli, whose family claimed descent from David, and who obtained a diploma from Louis XVI recognizing his claim
References
- ^ "Canonization of New Saints by the Ecumenical Patriarchate". Ecumenical Patriarchate - Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and South East Asia. 2 August 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
- ^ William Miller (Trebizond: The last Greek Empire of the Byzantine Era: 1204-1461, 1926 (Chicago: Argonaut, 1969), p. 97) errs in stating Alexios was John's son. As Michel Kuršanskis ("La descendance d'Alexis IV, empereur de Trébizonde. Contribution à la prosopographie des Grands Comnènes", Revue des études byzantines, 37 (1979), pp. 239–247) shows, Alexios was the son of Alexander.
- ^ Chalkokondyles 9.74; translated by Anthony Kaldellis, The Histories (Cambridge: Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 2014), vol. 2 p. 359.
- ^ Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople (London: Cambridge, 1969), p. 173
- ^ The known facts of the career of Ludovico da Bologna are discussed in Anthony Bryer, "Ludovico da Bologna and the Georgian and Anatolian Embassy of 1460-1461", Beli Kartlisa, 19–20 (1965), pp. 178–198
- ^ Bryer, "Ludovico da Bologna", pp. 185f
- ^ Bryer, "Ludovico da Bologna", p. 179
- ^ Bryer, "Ludovico da Bologna", p. 197
- ^ Miller, Trebizond, pp. 98f
- ^ Runciman, Fall, pp. 173f
- ^ Runciman, Fall, p. 174
- ^ a b Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium: 1261-1453, 2nd edition (Cambridge: University Press, 1993), p. 408
- ^ Runciman, Fall, p. 176
- ^ Miller, Trebizond, p. 108
- ^ On the possible identity of this person, see Anthony Kaldellis, "The Interpolations in the Histories of Laonikos Chalkokondyles", Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 52 (2012), pp. 259–283
- ^ Chalkokondyles 9.80; translated by Kaldellis, The Histories, vol. 2 p. 365
- ^ Miller, Trebizond, p. 109
- ^ a b c William Miller, "The Chronology of Trebizond", The English Historical Review, 38 (1923), p. 410
- S2CID 191454851 – via De Gruyter.
- ^ "Filiam Trapezunti regis Annam.... connube junxit Zagano" Laonicus Chalcocondylus, De Rebus Turcis p.519
- ^ Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time, edited by William C. Hickman and translated by Ralph Manheim (Princeton: University Press, 1978), p. 230
- ^ Chalkokondyles 10.13; translated by Kaldellis, The Histories, vol. 2 p. 415
- ^ Runciman, Fall, pp. 185f
- ISBN 9782036274082.
- ^ Schoonover, Lawrence (1948). The Burnished Blade. Macmillan. Retrieved 2014-01-31.
David.
- The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
External links
- Vougiouklaki Penelope, "David Grand Komnenos", Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World: Asia Minor