Empire of Trebizond

Empire of Trebizond
1204–1461[1]
Flag of Trebizond
Double-headed eagle flag as depicted in Western portolans[2]
Map of the Empire of Trebizond shortly after the foundation of the Latin Empire in 1204, featuring the short-lived conquests in western Anatolia by David Komnenos (later reconquered by the Empire of Nicaea) and Sinope (later conquered by the Sultanate of Rum).
Map of the Empire of Trebizond shortly after the foundation of the Latin Empire in 1204, featuring the short-lived conquests in western Anatolia by David Komnenos (later reconquered by the Empire of Nicaea) and Sinope (later conquered by the Sultanate of Rum).
Status
CapitalTrebizond
Common languages
Religion
Greek Orthodoxy
GovernmentMonarchy
Notable emperors1 
• 1204–1222
Alexios I
• 1238–1263
Manuel I
• 1280–1297
John II
• 1349–1390
Alexios III
• 1459–1461
David
Historical eraLate Middle Ages
1204
12 April 1204
• Submission to the Mongol Empire
1243
• Permanent loss of Sinope
1265
1282
1340–1349
15 August 1461[1]
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Byzantine Empire
(Angelos dynasty)
Ottoman Empire
Genoese Gazaria
Principality of Theodoro
Today part ofGeorgia
Russia
Turkey
Ukraine
1 the full title of the Trapezuntine emperors after 1282 was "the faithful Basileus and Autokrator of All the East, the Iberians and Perateia"

The Empire of Trebizond or the Trapezuntine Empire was one of the three successor rump states of the Byzantine Empire that existed during the 13th through to the 15th century. The empire consisted of the Pontus, or far northeastern corner of Anatolia, and portions of southern Crimea.

The Trapezuntine Empire was formed in 1204 with the help of Queen Tamar of Georgia after the Georgian expedition in Chaldia and Paphlagonia,[3] which was commanded by Alexios Komnenos a few weeks before the Sack of Constantinople. Alexios later declared himself emperor and established himself in Trebizond (now Trabzon in Turkey).

Alexios and David Komnenos, grandsons and last male descendants of the deposed emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, pressed their claims as Roman emperors against Alexios V Doukas. While the rulers of Trebizond bore the title of emperor until the end of their state in 1461, their rivals, the Laskarids in Nikaia and the Palaiologoi in Constantinople contested their claim to the imperial title until the later fourteenth century. In the thirteenth century, George Pachymeres would call them the princes of the Laz, while Demetrios Kydones in the mid fourteenth century would claim that the emperors at Constantinople had given the rulers of Trebizond their state. For the rulers in Constantinople, Trebizond was often viewed as a rebellious former vassal or barbarian who had broken loose and proclaimed themselves as emperors but the emperors in Trebizond never renounced their imperial claim.[8]

After the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade overthrew Alexios V and established the Latin Empire, the Empire of Trebizond became one of three Byzantine successor states to claim the imperial throne alongside the Empire of Nicaea under the Laskaris family and the Despotate of Epirus under a branch of the Angelos family.[9] The ensuing wars saw the Empire of Thessalonica, the imperial government that sprang from Epirus, collapse following conflicts with Nicaea and the Second Bulgarian Empire and the final recapture of Constantinople by the Nicaeans in 1261.

Despite the Nicaean reconquest, the Emperors of Trebizond continued to style themselves as Roman emperor for two decades and to press their claim on the imperial throne. Emperor John II of Trebizond officially gave up the Trapezuntine claim to the Roman imperial title and Constantinople itself 21 years after the Nicaeans recaptured the city, altering his imperial title from "Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans" to "Emperor and Autocrat of all the East, Iberia and Perateia".[10]

The Trapezuntine monarchy survived the longest among the Byzantine successor states. The Despotate of Epirus had ceased to contest the Byzantine throne even before the Nicaean reconquest and was briefly occupied by the restored Byzantine Empire c. 1340, thereafter becoming a Serbian Imperial dependency later inherited by Italians, ultimately falling to the Ottoman Empire in 1479.

The restored empire ended in 1453 with the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans. Trebizond lasted until 1461, when the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II conquered it after a month-long siege and took its ruler and his family into captivity.[11]

The Crimean Principality of Theodoro, an offshoot of Trebizond, lasted another 14 years, falling to the Ottomans in 1475.

  1. ^ This is the date determined by Franz Babinger, "La date de la prise de Trébizonde par les Turcs (1461)", Revue des études byzantines, 7 (1949), pp. 205–207 doi:10.3406/rebyz.1949.1014
  2. ^ Androudis, Pascal (2017). "Présence de l'aigle bicéphale en Trebizonde et dans la principauté grecque de Théodoro en Crimée (XIVe-XVe siècles)" (PDF). Byzantiaka (in French). 34: 179–218. ISSN 1012-0513.
  3. ^ a b Vasiliev, A. A. (1936). "The Foundation of the Empire of Trebizond 1204–1222". Speculum. 11 (1): 3–37. doi:10.2307/2846872. JSTOR 2846872. S2CID 162791512.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ostrogorsky, G. 1997 pp. 102, 305 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Laz "Though Greek in higher culture, the rural areas of Trebizond empire appear to have been predominantly Laz in ethnic composition."
  6. ^ Rustam Shukurov (2016). The Byzantine Turks, 1204-1461. p. 289. A remarkable feature of the Pontic situation in that some groups of nomad apparently wandered Trapezuntine territories as subjects of the Grand Komnenoi. According to Brendemoen, by the 14th century, a group of Pontic nomads was bilingual and spoke both Turkic and Greek. In addition to the case of the Christian Çepni, this is substantiated by linguistic data. Moreover, the earliest Turkic dialect of the Pontos was based on the Aqqoyunlu Turkic dialect under the influence of Pontic Greek.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hewsen47 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ S. Kennedy(2019) Michael Panaretos in Context in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 904-5, 928-9. The emperors of Trebizond did pride themselves on their Laz origins to some degree. Bessarion's history of Trebizond during the sixth century only works if you identify the Laz with Trapezuntines. He does also proclaim that they legitimately rule over Lazike. See Kennedy, Two Works, 183, 264-5. This reading of history seems to have been somewhat widespread, as the Soumela history of Trebizond from the 18th century does also identify the Laz with the Trapezuntines making them the predecessors of the Grand Komnenoi.
  9. ^ Alexander A. Vasiliev (1958), History of the Byzantine Empire, Vol 2. 324–1453, second edition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, p. 506: "... on the territory of the disintegrated eastern empire, three independent Greek centers were formed; The empire of Nicaea and the empire of Trebizond in Asia Minor and the Despotat of Epirus in Northern Greece."
  10. ^ "Establishment of the Empire of Trebizond by the Grand Komnenoi, 1204". Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World, Asia Minor. Foundation of the Hellenic World. Retrieved January 21, 2018.
  11. ^ William Miller, Trebizond: The last Greek Empire of the Byzantine Era: 1204–1461, 1926 (Chicago: Argonaut, 1969), pp. 100–106


Cite error: There are <ref group=upper-alpha> tags or {{efn-ua}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=upper-alpha}} template or {{notelist-ua}} template (see the help page).