Loukas Notaras
Loukas Notaras ( Greek Λουκάς Νοταράς ) ( † 3 or June 4, 1453, executed ) was the last Megas Doux of the Byzantine Empire. This position (literally Grand Duke, in terms of function but rather Grand Admiral ) was expanded under the Palaiologos dynasty and functioned as the production of an unofficial " prime minister ", the place of the Megas board of the Imperial bureaucracy Logothetes, who had this feature formerly clothed.
Notaras was Greek and came from Monemvasia, where his family was passing through numerous commercial activities to prosperity.
Due to his famous dictum "I a Turkish turban in the midst of the city would prefer (ie Konstantin Opel ) see as a Western Mitra " it is often the Synaxis and the Orthodox attributed to resistance to the adopted in the Council of Florence Church Union. However, this is not true, as he along with his Emperor Constantine XI. Palaeologus did everything to get help from the Catholic West and at the same time to avoid unrest in the Orthodox population. His pragmatic course, the middle resulted, however, to which has been condemned his memory from both sides of the conflict. The attacks on his course were exacerbated by the political maneuvering within the imperial administration. Constantine's close friend and personal secretary Georgios Sphrantzes loses rarely a positive word about Notaras. This setting was later acquired by Edward Gibbon.
During the siege of Constantinople Opel Notaras commanded the troops on the north-western sea wall, or the surprisingly successful inserts to prevent undermining of the city wall near the Blachernae Palace. According to some sources Notaras fled from his post after the Turkish flag had been hoisted on the tower above the Kerkoporta; this representation could also be politically motivated defamation. In any case, he succeeded in the sea wall, through which the Venetians had captured the city in 1204 to hold against the Turkish fleet until breakthrough along the Mesoteichon made his resistance is futile.
Notaras, his wife ( a Palaiologina ) and his son were captured by the Turks. Initially them grace was granted to help restore public order was progressing and in exchange for the majority of Notaras assets. However, he was shortly after the fall of the city, was executed along with his son and stepson of Kantakouzenos. This could be because the Sultan to let the wisdom of his decision, an important nobleman of the Byzantine Empire with connections to the Vatican and Venice alive, had reconsidered; Gibbon assumes that Notaras was already caught up in an intrigue that effect. However, the more well-known representation of the Runciman:
This story was originally recorded by Doukas (XL, 381 ), a Greek who lived in the time of Constantine Opel If the city, but does not appear in the reports of other Greeks who witnessed the conquest were. However Doukas was often hostile to Notaras, so there was no reason for him, such a story about his honourableness invent.
Notaras wife died as a slave on the road to Adrian Opel, the former capital of the Ottoman Empire, in the city Mesene. Two members of his family were on the passenger list of a Genoese ship, which escaped the fall of the city. His daughter Anna was with her aunt center of the Byzantine exile community in Venice. Anna Notaras founded together with Zacharias Calliergis and Nikolaos Vlastos the first printing of Greek texts in Venice.
A collection of Loukas Notaras 's letters was published under the title Epistulae. The book contains ad Theodorum Carystenum, Scho Lario, Eidem, ad eundem, & Sancto magistro Gennadio Scho Lario. He also serves as a character in the book of John Angelos of the Finnish author Mika Waltari.