Kantakouzenos
Cantacuzenus is the name of a Byzantine family.
At the time of Emperor Alexius I ( Byzantium ), the first Cantacuzenus ( 1094/1107 ) is attested as a strategist ( military commander and governor of a topic (Byzantine administration) ) and the family assumes the role as the Archons.
Among the Palaiologues they gained in Thrace a huge manorial system.
Middle of the 14th century was John Cantacuzenus, the later Emperor John VI. , The largest Byzantine landowner and leader of the party that represented the interests of the aristocratic landowners against the emerging urban middle class. His daughter Theodora he gave the Ottoman Sultan Orhan I, a woman, and the family took a turks friendly attitude.
After John forced to abdicate and his son Maththaios Asanes Cantacuzenus was overthrown, the family until 1383 under Manuel Asanes († 1380 ), Maththaios Asanes Cantacuzenus († 1383 ) and Demetrius I Asanes († 1383/84 ) administered the Despotate of Mistra as Apanage until it was retaken by the Palaiologos.
From 1453, when Constantinople was conquered by the Turks, they succeeded (no more than nobles, but as Fanariots within the Greek bourgeois entrepreneurship ) continue to hold, in the service of the Ottomans an important position.
By the ancestors of the great-grandmother of Demetrius I Asanes, Yolande ( Violante, Irene ) of Montferrat, the family Cantacuzenus is related to several royal houses of Europe. This is evidenced by the pedigree of Demetrios I..
From the branch of the family, who had settled in Romania and Russia, also emerged significant personalities. The Romanian name is Cantacuzino. A prominent prince of the Romanian branch was Şerban Cantacuzino I.. Whether it is to succeed Demetrius I or of Ioannes is controversial among historians. It is certain that focus on the descendants of Maththaios.