Andronikos II Palaiologos

   Emperor (q.v.) from 12821328, during whose long reign Byzantium's (q.v.) final decline began. Andronikos's first problem was to heal the wounds opened by his father Michael VIII's union of the churches (qq.v.). Despite his renunciation of the Council of Lyons (q.v), which had effected that union, despite his removal of Patriarch John XI Bekkos (q.v.) and the reinstatement of Patriarch Joseph I (q.v.), despite even the release from prison of those who had opposed union, the Arsenite (q.v.) extremists were not satisfied. Failure to heal the wounds within the church was mirrored by other failures at home and abroad. The coinage, the hyperpyron, continued to be devalued, and the monies saved by reducing the size of the navy were not enough to alleviate the general economic distress. Instead, the empire was forced to rely on the Genoese. As a result, he was drawn into a war between Venice (q.v.) and Genoa that lasted from 1296-1302. The rest of his foreign policy consisted of concentrating on protecting Byzantine territory in Asia Minor (q.v.) while using diplomacy to ward off Serbia and Bulgaria (qq.v). The advancing Serbs (q.v.) were bought off by the marriage of Andronikos's five-year-old daughter Simonis to Stefan Urosh II Milutin (q.v.), in addition to Byzantine acceptance of Serbian seizure of Skopje in Macedonia (qq.v.). However, the Ottoman advance in Asia Minor (q.v.) was relentless after the Byzantine defeat at Bapheus (1302), culminating in the capture of Prousa (q.v.) in 1326. Andronikos hired the Catalan Grand Company (q.v.), who won some successes against the Ottomans in 1304. That same year they joined forces with some Alan (q.v.) mercenaries, but they soon fell out with them; the Alans decided to pillage Thrace (q.v.) instead. When Catalan commander Roger de Flor (q.v.) was assassinated in 1305, the Catalans themselves went on a rampage in Greece (q.v.) that ceased only in 1311 when they established the duchy of Athens and Thebes (qq.v.). Thereafter, until 1321, there was a lull in military activities, giving the empire a breather. However, from 1321-1328, the final years of Andronikos II's reign, a tragic civil war occurred with his grandson, who finally overthrew him to become Andronikos III (q.v.). Perhaps Andronikos II is best remembered as a lover of the arts and of scholarship, a patron of men such as Theodore Metochites and Nikephoros Gregoras (qq.v.).