Constantine Palaiologos’ Conspiracy: A Prologue to the Age of Civil Wars in Byzantium

Abstract

This research addresses the chronologically first episode among dynastic conflicts during the reign of Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282–1328), when the emperor’s younger brother Constantine Porphyrogennetos made a conspiracy. The scholarship has not developed a consensus as to the fairness of accusations against the latter. This article uses the analysis of written sources account to prove that there was a real conspiracy and to find out its content, circumstances, and consequences for the Byzantine state and society. The conclusion is that the conspiracy was uncovered at an early stage, so it did not take full shape. The initiator of the conflict was Constantine Palaiologos. The conspirators, the high-ranking Byzantine military commander representing a major noble family Michael Strategopoulos in particular, tried to lean on various social elements and even to use for their own advantage the controversies within the Byzantine Church, with their final goal to overthrow Andronikos II with the use of military force. Despite his exceptional position in the hierarchy of court titles, Constantine Palaiologos was actually deprived of power as public administrator, and therefore he tried to usurp the rights for which, in his view, he could claim due to uncertainty of his place in power relations in Byzantium of the late thirteenth century. By uncovering the conspiracy against him, Andronikos II strengthened his position on the throne and neutralized the immediate threat of destabilizing the state, preventing (or postponing?) the possible outbreak of civil war in the Empire.