Heir To The Byzantine Throne: 2006

#1 Favonius Cornelius

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Posted 13 March 2006 - 07:45 PM

I was wondering if there were any royalty living today that could in any way trace their blood line to any Byzantine imperial family?

#2 Neos Dionysos

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Posted 13 March 2006 - 07:50 PM

Not sure about current... but... in Nicol's book The Immortal Emperor he does go into a bit of the family tree and shows gravestones of men in England and Spain up till the early 20th century that have as an epitah "King of the Greeks", or "Heir to the Throne of Romans", etc...

#3 Favonius Cornelius

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Posted 13 March 2006 - 09:09 PM

I remember reading that the later Emperors married off their daughters frequently in attempts to solidify the dieing Empire's political connections. So I wondered if there were any existing royals in Europe who could trace themselves back to this at least.

Is there a Roman Emperor living TODAY?! :P

#4 Philhellene

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Posted 13 March 2006 - 09:16 PM

Quote

I was wondering if there were any royalty living today that could in any way trace their blood line to any Byzantine imperial family?

Maybe Kantakuzenoi? The members of this family held high posts in Romania in 19th-20th centuries. Romanian name of Kantakuzenoi - Cantacuzino.

By the way, you should visit the site of the Cantacuzino Institute

This post has been edited by Philhellene: 13 March 2006 - 09:36 PM

#5 Ziriel

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Posted 18 March 2006 - 03:50 PM

Hmm...

The Last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI, has one daughter, Magdalena, of whom I can't find any mention anywhere else aside from info from Constantine XI.

Constantine had 5 brothers: John (childless), Theodore (1 daughter: Helena and maybe more), Andronicus (childless, became a monk), Demetrius (1 daughter: Helena) and Thomas (2 daughters, 2 sons: Helena, Zoe - later Sophia, Andreas and Manuel).

Three Helena's are stated as descendants, aside from Sophia, Andreas and Manuel:

- Helena, Theodore's daughter, married John II of Cyprus. They had one child:
> Charlotte of Cyprus, who inherited her father's throne and died childless.

- Helena, Demetrius' daughter, married Mehmet II and had no known descendants.

- Helena, Thomas' daughter, married Lazar Brankovich, Despot of Serbia, before being annexed by the Ottoman Turks.

- Zoe/Sophia, Thomas' other daughter, became Grand Duchess of Moscow as Ivan III's second wife.
* Although Ivan and Sophia had children, Sophia's last known descendants perished in Russia during the Time of Troubles (1600's).

- Manuel, Thomas' younger son, lived a comfortable life in Istanbul, but not much is known about his two children: John and Andrew.

- Andreas, Thomas' elder son, became a de jure Byzantine Emperor with financial help from the Pope. He sold his 'title' to France's Charles VIII in 1494, but Charles dies only 4 years after. Andreas died in 1503, but named the famous Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand II of Aragon & Isabella of Castille) as his heirs in his will.

According to Wikipedia, "Thomas Palaelogus' male-line soon went extinct."

This post has been edited by Ziriel: 18 March 2006 - 03:52 PM

#6 Kosmo

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Posted 24 March 2006 - 02:07 PM

The Cantacuzino family, and Paleologu to a lesser extent, played an important tole in romanian history.
The Cantacuzino were greeks that came in Valahia around 1600 and became wealthy boiars (noble land owners). Later members got to the throne for short periods and became rulers "mare voievod si domn-great voyevoda and lord"
They were also a family that promoted culture.
After 1715 they lost their claims to power to other fanariots (greeks from Isatnbul, but kept huge fortunes and political ambitions.
One of them was the richest romanian and merried his daughter with the composer George Enescu.
Some historians say that their claim of imperial descendence is false and for sure is unproven.
There are still some 50 Cantacuzino all over the world.
One later Cantacuzino was

#7 Ziriel

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Posted 24 March 2006 - 03:49 PM

Aside from the Cantacuzino family, the Dukes of Bavaria also descend from the Byzantine Emperors.

#8 Grey Beard

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Posted 27 April 2006 - 04:53 AM

There is a family in, I think South America that spend a great deal of energy trying to establish their claim. They take people to court for using Byzantine symbols and titles.

The web site is:
http://www.new-byzantium.org/

I'll let you decide if they are crackpots or not.

I am not sure of the rest of this. I could very well be wrong.

Basil the Bulgar Slayer (Basil II ?) married his sister (Anna) to the Duke of Kiev who was, I think named Vald (The Impaler ?) She converted him to Christianity and is, also I think, considered to be the patron saint of Russia. I found a man claiming to be a decendant who lives in Tennessee or Kentucky. He knew who Vald was but had no idea about the geneology of Vald's wife.

This post has been edited by Grey Beard: 27 April 2006 - 04:54 AM

#9 Tobias

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Posted 27 April 2006 - 05:41 AM

That family in South America is quite interesting. I honestly can't see them gaining very much in the way of a new Byzantine state, however.

It was Basil II who was named "Bulgaroktonos", meaning "The Bulgar Slayer". He did marry his sister to the Ruler of Kiev, who was named Vladimir. As a consequence of his marriage, he was baptised as a christian, and went on to convert most of his people, the Rus, to christianity. He was not the Vlad the Impaler we have all come to know and love, however; Vladimir of Kiev was a fair while before that unpleasant fellow...:)

This post has been edited by Tobias: 27 April 2006 - 05:47 AM

#10 Horu

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Posted 27 April 2006 - 06:05 AM

Tobias, on Apr 27 2006, 05:41 AM, said:

Yeah wow, only about 350 years.

I would imagine some of the Noble blood lines in Europe could trace something somewhere, the Byznatines especially in the last century or so really married a lot of their daughters off in that general direction. Not to mention the fact that they were purposely trying to get Western Kingdoms to have some form of claim to their throne in and effort to get help against the Ottomans.

#11 Favonius Cornelius

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Posted 27 April 2006 - 05:44 PM

Excellent, this is a lot of possibility and detail I was hoping to find. So someone help me here and give me a short list of names of who could possibly and truly be today's Emperor...