Everything about John Iv Laskaris totally explained
John IV Doukas Laskaris or
Ducas Lascaris (
Greek: Ιωάννης Δ΄ Δούκας Λάσκαρις,
Iōannēs IV Doukas Laskaris),
December 25 1250 – c.
1305) was emperor of
Nicaea from
August 18,
1258 to
December 25,
1261. This small
empire was one of the Greek states founded after the capture of
Constantinople by Western European Christians during the
Fourth Crusade in 1204, which caused a fragmentation of the
Byzantine Empire.
John was a son of
Theodore II Doukas Laskaris and
Elena of Bulgaria. His maternal grandparents were Emperor
Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria and his second wife
Anna Maria of Hungary. Anna was originally named Mária and was the eldest daughter of
Andrew II of Hungary and
Gertrude of Merania.
John IV was only seven years old when he inherited the throne on the death of his father. The young monarch was the last member of the Laskarid dynasty, which had done much to restore the Byzantine Empire. His
regent was originally the bureaucrat George Mouzalon, but that position was usurped by the aristocrat Michael Palaiologos, who later made himself co-emperor as
Michael VIII on
January 1,
1259.
After Michael's conquest of
Constantinople on
July 25,
1261, John IV was left behind at
Nicaea, and was later blinded on Michael's orders on his eleventh birthday,
December 25 1261. This made him ineligible for the throne, and he was exiled and imprisoned in a fortress in
Bithynia. This action caused the excommunication of Michael VIII Palaiologos by the Patriarch
Arsenius Autoreianus, and a later revolt led by a Pseudo-John IV near Nicaea.
John IV spent the remainder of his life as monk, under the name Joasaph. In 1290 he was visited by
Andronikos II Palaiologos, who sought forgiveness for his father's blinding of John IV three decades earlier. The deposed emperor died about 1305 and was eventually recognized as a saint, whose memory was revered in Constantinople in the 14th century.
Ancestry
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