Birthday Greetings # 64

There seems to be some sort of a rule that states that once an empire reaches a certain point in its decline then the ruling family, no matter how much talent they may have displayed in preceding generations, will produce nothing but morons and irresponsible halfwits to shepherd said empire through its declining years.

With that as due warning, happy birthday to Andronikos IV Palaiologos; Byzantine emperor, sort of.  Andronikos was the son of the reigning emperor John V although "reigning" is a generous description of how John spent his time.  Much of his career seemed to involve being tossed into prison by either people he owed money to or his own relatives.

In keeping with tradition Andronikos had been made co-emperor with his father in 1350 which seems to have kept him happy for a while but he watched with increasing disgust as his father mismanaged the war ravaged remnants of empire that were left to him.  Finally in 1373 when John submitted as a vassal to the Turkish sultan Andronikos had had enough.  Moving swiftly and decisively, he made a bad situation worse.  Andronikos hooked up with a disaffected son of the Turkish sultan and the pair of them revolted against their respective fathers.  John wasn't really able to do anything about this (he was only the emperor after all) but the Turkish sultan carried the banner for the older generation and crushed both uprisings.  He then blinded and executed his son and sent a very heavy hint that John should do the same with Andronikos.  Unfortunately taking good advice wasn't John's strong suit.  In fact it's difficult to identify any suit John was particularly strong in.  He half blinded Andronikos (one eye only) and put him in prison thus managing to completely alienate his son without actually having done sufficient to stop him rebelling again.

A few years later Andronikos was sprung from prison by the Genoese.  The cities of Venice and Genoa had been circling the empire like vultures ripping off the few remaining economically viable bits for themselves.  Naturally they expected payment for their services.  Once free Andronikos fled to the Turkish sultan and begged for aid.  In return for Turkish military help to overthrow his father he offered to hand Gallipoli over to the Turks.  Byzantine possession of Gallipoli was the only thing stopping the Turks from flooding across the Sea of Marmara and overrunning what was left of the empire's European territories (they'd already captured all of Asia Minor), to hand it over was a breathtaking combination of barking stupidity and criminal irresponsibility.

The Turks gave our boy some troops and he promptly went back to Constantinople, tossed daddy into prison and settled down to rule those bits of the empire he hadn't given away.  The first thing he had to do was pay off the Genoese.  They demanded the island of Tenedos which had a strategic position near the Turkish coast.  Andronikos handed it over despite the fact that his father had actually sold it to Venice some time earlier.  This prompted the local governor to revolt and hand the island over to the Venetians anyway.  Meanwhile, displeased at the presence of a Genoese patsy on the imperial throne the Venetians managed to organise the escape of John V from his prison.  John promptly fled to the Turkish sultan (who by this stage must have thought he was caught up in an extended soap opera) and in return for more concessions was given Turkish troops who threw Andronikos out of Constantinople allowing John V to resume what is increasingly inaccurately referred to as "his reign".

Andronikos fled and hid out in Galata for a while (a Genoese outpost just across the water from Constantinople).  Eventually, showing the sort of judgement that had marked his entire reign John V forgave Andronikos and reinstated him in the succession.  John was, however, just sensible enough not to let him come back to Constantinople.  Instead he was given the seaside resort town of Selymbria as his own little territory.  It is, of course, not unknown for rebellious princes, if politics or sentiment dictates that they can't actually be executed, to be sent to a far off part of the empire to get them out of the way with a face saving title.  It's an indication of how low the Byzantine empire had sunk that this particular "far off part of the empire" is now about forty kilometres from downtown Istanbul.  It would be rather like the Queen of Britain exiling a rebellious son to govern Brighton.

Fortunately for everyone (except of course Andronikos) he predeceased his father thus allowing John's second son Manuel to inherit the wreckage of the empire.  Manuel was actually quite competent, by comparison with his father and brother he looked like a genius.