The pretenders website3/19/2023 ![]() From the 16th century until their extinction in 1884, the Tocco family, the seniormost female-line descendants of Thomas Palaiologos, the father of Andreas Palaiologos, laid claim to represent the legitimate Byzantine imperial dynasty, though they did not claim any imperial titles. More sound claims to the Palaiologoi inheritance were grounded on legal, rather than genealogical, inheritance as well as on matrilineal descent. The last pretender to achieve significant recognition was the 19th-century forger Demetrius Rhodocanakis (1840–1902), though several less successful forgers and impostors have also appeared since his time. Such figures have often been accompanied by invented chivalric orders, typically with fabricated connections to the Byzantine Empire, despite the fact that chivalric orders were completely unknown in the Byzantine world. Some Byzantine claimants are still active today, despite the lack of formal Byzantine succession laws making finding a legitimate heir impossible. Some families gained relatively widespread recognition, such as the Angelo Flavio Comneno, supposed descendants of the Angelos dynasty. In cases, claimants and forgers claimed the imperial title itself. The last documented and verified male-line descendants of the Palaiologoi died out in the early 16th century, but that did little to stop forgers, pretenders, impostors and eccentrics from claiming descent from the ancient emperors, not only the Palaiologoi but also earlier ruling dynasties of the empire, several of which did have descendants living beyond 1453. In 1483, Constantine XI's nephew, Andreas Palaiologos (1453–1502), in exile in Italy, proclaimed himself as the rightful emperor. Demetrios was reluctant and was captured by the Ottomans in 1460. In the aftermath of 1453, those among the Byzantine nobility who had escaped the Ottoman conquest mainly looked to the surviving members of the Palaiologos dynasty as prospective emperors, with it being suggested by some to crown Demetrios Palaiologos (1407–1470), Constantine XI's brother, who ruled in the Morea. ![]() Through marriage with the Palaiologos dynasty and through ruling the most powerful state adhering to the Eastern Orthodox Church, Russia historically also laid claim to succeed the Byzantine Empire, a claim the Russians attempted to enforce several times in the numerous Russo-Turkish wars. The Ottoman claim was not accepted internationally. As such, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, who had conquered Constantinople, proclaimed himself as the new emperor, as Kayser-i Rûm, in the aftermath of the conquest. Most of the empire's prominent dynasties were founded through usurpation of the throne. Succession through illegitimate descent, adoption, or usurpation was not considered illegal and the rightful ruler was usually considered to be whoever was in possession of Constantinople at any given time. The accession of a new ruler was often a complex process and the empire lacked formal succession laws. Though hereditary succession was often the norm, the Byzantine Empire was rooted in the bureaucracy of Ancient Rome, rather than the typical Western European ideas of hereditary inheritance. The Byzantine Empire was the medieval continuation of the ancient Roman Empire, its capital having been transferred from Rome to Constantinople in the 4th century by Rome's first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great. Historically, the most prominent claims have been those of the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Byzantium in 1453 and ruled from its former capital, Constantinople the Russian Empire, as the most powerful state practising Eastern Orthodox Christianity and various nobles and figures in Western Europe of increasingly spurious and questionable imperial descent.Ĭonstantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire on, with the last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, dying in the fighting. Since its fall, the issue of succession to the Byzantine Empire has been a major point of contention both geopolitically, with different states laying claim to the legacy and inheritance of the Byzantine Empire, and among the surviving members of the Byzantine nobility and their descendants. Claims to Byzantine legacy and inheritance
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