Maria of Trebizond

Maria of Trebizond (also Maria Megale Comnena; * before 1404, † December 17, 1439 ) was the third wife of the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos ( ruled 1425-1448 ).

Life

Maria of Trebizond, exist about their lives only scant information was from the ruling family of wholesale Komnenen. She was the Emperor Alexios IV of Trebizond and his wife Theodora Kantakuzena, daughter of Theodoros Cantacuzenus and Euphrosyne Palaiologina daughter. In September 1427 the marriage of Mary with the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos took place after he had his second wife, who allegedly deeply ugly and therefore shunned by him Sophia of Montferrat violated.

Apparently Mary was John's favorite wife, but went out of her twelve years of marriage no children and therefore no heir apparent. Maria died in 1439; According to the English historian Steven Runciman, the cause of death was the bubonic plague. At the time of her death, her imperial husband was on an ecumenical council in Florence to negotiate the union of the Greek Orthodox with the Roman Catholic Church. Apparently diffracted by the loss of his wife, he had not the power to enforce the repulsive to the Greeks with great resistance ecclesiastical Union after his return.

Mary was buried in the Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople Opel. You should be the last Byzantine empress. The Ottomans conquered Constantinople Opel in 1453, which also ended the era of the Byzantine Empire.