Michael IX Palaiologos

Michael IX Palaiologos was acclaimed co-emperor in 1281 and was crowned in 1294.[2] In 1302, he was sent at the head of Alanian mercenaries against the Turks in Asia Minor,[3] and in 1304–1305 he was charged with dealing with the rebellious Catalan Company. After successfully organizing the murder of the Catalan commander Roger de Flor in an elaborate plot, Michael IX led the Byzantine troops (augmented by Turks and 5–8,000 Alans) against the furious Catalans (who swore revenge for the assassination of their commander), but was decisively defeated at the Battle of Apros.[4]

A brave and energetic soldier willing to make personal sacrifices to pay or encourage his troops, Michael IX was generally unable to overcome the Catalans and is the only Palaiologan emperor to predecease his father. Michael IX's premature death at age 43 was attributed in part to grief over the accidental murder of his younger son Manuel Palaiologos by retainers of his older son and co-emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos.[5]

Michael IX Palaiologos married Rita of Armenia (renamed Maria, later nun Xene), daughter of King Leo III of Armenia and Queen Keran of Armenia on 16 January 1294.[6] By this marriage, Michael IX had several children, including:

• Andronikos III Palaiologos[7]
• Manuel Palaiologos, despotēs[5]
• Anna Palaiologina,[8] who married Thomas I Komnenos Doukas and then Nicholas Orsini.
• Theodora Palaiologina, who married Theodore Svetoslav of Bulgaria and then Michael Asen III of Bulgaria.

• Bartusis, Mark C. (1992). The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 1204-1453. University of Pennsylvania Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Geanakoplos, Deno (1975). "Byzantium and the Crusades, 1261-1354". In Hazard, Harry W. (ed.). A History of the Crusades: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Vol. III. The University of Wisconsin Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Giannouli, Antonia (2013). "Coronation Speeches in the Palaiologan Period". In Beihammer, Alexander; Constantinou, Stavroula; Parani, Maria (eds.). Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean. Brill.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Hilsdale, Cecily J. (2014). Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline. Cambridge University Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Korobeĭnikov, Dimitri (2014). Byzantium and the Turks in the Thirteenth Century. Oxford University Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Nicol, Donald M. (1993). The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Russell, Eugenia (2013). Literature and Culture in Late Byzantine Thessalonica. Bloomsbury Academic.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.