The Reluctant Emperor: A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295-1383Cambridge University Press
Donald M. Nicol
ISBN: 0521552567
price: $64.95 hardcover
This is a biography of one of the most unusual Byzantine
emperors in Constantinople who reigned from 1347 to 1354, and
subsequently spent thirty years as a monk. John Cantacuzene was
unique in that he wrote his own memoirs and in his varied talents
and interests in a long life, as a soldier, scholar, and
theologian. His dealings with the earliest leaders of the Ottoman
Turks, with the merchants of Venice and Genoa, with the papacy,
and with Stephen Dusan of Serbia also give his career a special
interest. This is the first biography of John Cantacuzene in
English.
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