13 - Two Paradoxes of Border Identity: Michael VIII Palaiologos and Constantine Doukas Nestongos in the Sultanate of Rūm

Summary

After the battle at Mantzikert in 1071, a considerable number of Byzantine aristocratic families continued to hold their ancestral possessions despite now being under sway of the victorious Seljuks. There was a phenomenon of divided families, with members of the same clan continuing to enjoy political careers on both sides of the Byzantine-Seljuk border. The number of families with ‘double’ Byzantine-Seljuk affiliation was enormous: the Komnenoi, Gabrades, Maurozomoi, Tornikioi, Bardachlades, Pakourianoi (a branch of the ‘Greek’ Hethoumides), to list but a few. Little is known about the identity of those who remained Byzantine in the Seljuk territory. However, one can assume that the semi-independent position of some Byzantine lords now outside the borders of the empire did not disappear after the Seljuk conquest.

The self-portraits of the Byzantine courtiers who became Seljuk can also be found in sources from a later period, the thirteenth century. Close relations, and sometimes alliances, between the two states, Byzantium (and the Nicaean Empire) and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rūm, allowed those many members of the Byzantine aristocracy who were at odds with the emperor to seek asylum at the Seljuk court. They sometimes had relatives in Rūm, and in most cases their new fortune was built up with grants and gifts from the sultan. The traditional political and social influence of the Greek aristocracy continued in the Sultanate. Two cases, that of Michael Palaiologos, the future emperor Michael VIII (1259–82), and that of his mysterious parakoimōmenos tēs megalēs sphendonēs, give insights into the minds of the noble refugees.

Michael Palaiologos, the son of Andronikos Palaiologos (d. between 1248 and 1252), the megas domestikos (highest-ranking military official of Byzantium), and Theodora (the daughter of Alexios Palaiologos and Irene Angelina, elder daughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos [r. 1195–1203]), was the head of the aristocratic fronde in the Empire of Nicaea. He was arrested twice on suspicion of disloyalty. Nonetheless, sometime between the end of 1253 and November 1254, the emperor John III Batatzes (1221–54) appointed him megas konostablos. When governing the provinces of Mesothynia and Optimates, the Nicaean frontier territory on the Sangarios River, Michael Palaiologos received the news in 1256 that the emperor was going to arrest him.