Theodore I Laskaris or Lascaris was the first emperor of Nicaea—a successor state of the Byzantine Empire—from 1205 to his death. Although he was born to an obscure aristocratic family, his mother was related to the imperial Komnenos clan. He married Anna, a younger daughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos in 1200. He received the title of despot before 1203, demonstrating his right to succeed his father-in-law on the throne.
Theodore II Doukas Laskaris or Ducas Lascaris was Emperor of Nicaea from 1254 to 1258. He was the only child of Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes and Empress Irene Laskarina. His mother was the eldest daughter of Theodore I Laskaris, who had established the Empire of Nicaea as a successor state to the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor after the crusaders captured the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Theodore received an excellent education from two renowned scholars, Nikephoros Blemmydes and George Akropolites. He made friends with young intellectuals, especially with a page of low birth, George Mouzalon. Theodore began to write treatises on theological, historical and philosophical themes in his youth.
John III Doukas Vatatzes, Latinized as Ducas Vatatzes, was Emperor of Nicaea from 1221 to 1254. He was succeeded by his son, known as Theodore II Laskaris.
Robert I, also Robert of Courtenay, Latin Emperor of Constantinople, was a younger son of the emperor Peter II of Courtenay, and Yolanda of Flanders.
The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzantine Empire as the Western-recognized Roman Empire in the east, with a Catholic emperor enthroned in place of the Eastern Orthodox Roman emperors. The main objective of the Latin Empire was planned by Venice, which promoted the creation of this state for their self-benefit.
The Empire of Nicaea or the Nicene Empire was the largest of the three Byzantine Greek rump states founded by the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire that fled when Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian armed forces during the Fourth Crusade, a military event known as the Sack of Constantinople. Like the other Byzantine rump states that formed due to the 1204 fracturing of the empire, such as the Empire of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus, it was a continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived well into the medieval period. A fourth state, known in historiography as the Latin Empire, was established by an army of Crusaders and the Republic of Venice after the capture of Constantinople and the surrounding environs.
The Battle of Pelagonia or Battle of Kastoria took place in early summer or autumn 1259, between the Empire of Nicaea and an anti-Nicaean alliance comprising Despotate of Epirus, Kingdom of Sicily and the Principality of Achaea. It was a decisive event in the history of the Eastern Mediterranean, ensuring the eventual reconquest of Constantinople and the end of the Latin Empire in 1261.
Theodore Komnenos Doukas or Theodore Angelos Komnenos was the ruler of Epirus and Thessaly from 1215 to 1230 and of Thessalonica and most of Macedonia and western Thrace from 1224 to 1230. He was also the power behind the rule of his sons John and Demetrios over Thessalonica in 1237–1246.
The House of Laskaris, Latinized as Lascaris, was a Byzantine Greek noble family which rose to prominence during the late Byzantine period. The members of the family formed the ruling dynasty of the Empire of Nicaea, a Byzantine rump state that existed from the 1204 sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade until the restoration of the Empire under the Palaeologan dynasty in 1261.
Alexios Komnenos Strategopoulos was a Byzantine aristocrat and general who rose to the rank of megas domestikos and Caesar. Distantly related to the Komnenian dynasty, he appears in the sources already at an advanced age in the early 1250s, leading armies for the Empire of Nicaea against Epirus. After falling out of favour and being imprisoned by Theodore II Laskaris, Strategopoulos sided with the aristocrats around Michael VIII Palaiologos, and supported him in his rise to the throne after Theodore II's death in 1258. He participated in the Pelagonia campaign in 1259, going on to capture Epirus, but his successes were undone in the next year and he was captured by the Epirotes. Released after a few months, he led the unexpected reconquest of Constantinople from the Latin Empire in July 1261, restoring the Byzantine Empire. He was captured again by the Epirotes in the next year and spent several years in captivity in Italy, before being released. He retired from public affairs and died in the early 1270s.
The Battle of Antioch on the Meander was a military engagement near Antioch-on-the-Meander between the forces of the Empire of Nicaea and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm. The Turkish defeat ensured continued Nicaean hegemony of the Aegean coast of Asia Minor. The Seljuk sultan, Kaykhusraw I, was killed on the field of battle. The battle took place near the modern town of Yamalak in Kuyucak district in Aydın Province.
Marie de Courtenay was Empress consort of Nicaea from 1219 until 1221. She was a daughter of Peter II of Courtenay and Yolanda of Flanders. She married Emperor Theodore I Laskaris of Nicaea. Marie served as regent for her younger brother, Baldwin II, Latin Emperor, in 1228, and styled herself "Empress of Constantinople."
The siege of Constantinople in 1260 was the failed attempt by the Nicene Empire, the major remnant of the fractured Byzantine Empire, to retake Constantinople from the Latin Empire and re-establish the City as the political, cultural and spiritual capital of a revived Byzantine Empire.
Andronikos Komnenos Palaiologos, was a governor-general of Thessalonica and Grand domestic of the Empire of Nicaea. He was the father of the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, the founder of the Palaeologue dynasty.
Andronikos Palaiologos was the son-in-law and heir-apparent of Theodore I Laskaris, Emperor of Nicaea, in the 1210s.
Isaac Laskaris was a brother of Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris, who along with his brother Alexios Laskaris fled to the Latin Empire and unsuccessfully tried to topple Theodore's successor, John III Doukas Vatatzes, in 1224.
Alexios Laskaris was a brother of Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris, who along with his brother Isaac Laskaris fled to the Latin Empire and unsuccessfully tried to topple Theodore's successor, John III Doukas Vatatzes, in 1224.
The Empire of Thessalonica is a historiographic term used by some modern scholars to refer to the short-lived Byzantine Greek state centred on the city of Thessalonica between 1224 and 1246 and ruled by the Komnenodoukas dynasty of Epirus. At the time of its establishment, the Empire of Thessalonica, under the capable Theodore Komnenos Doukas, rivaled the Empire of Nicaea and the Second Bulgarian Empire as the strongest state in the region, and aspired to capturing Constantinople, putting an end to the Latin Empire, and restoring the Byzantine Empire that had been extinguished in 1204.
John Ises was a senior military commander of the Empire of Nicaea, with the rank of protostrator.
The Nicaean–Latin wars were a series of wars between the Latin Empire and the Empire of Nicaea, starting with the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The Latin Empire was aided by other Crusader states established on Byzantine territory after the Fourth Crusade, as well as the Republic of Venice, while the Empire of Nicaea was assisted occasionally by the Second Bulgarian Empire, and sought the aid of Venice's rival, the Republic of Genoa. The conflict also involved the Greek state of Epirus, which also claimed the Byzantine inheritance and opposed Nicaean hegemony. The Nicaean reconquest of Constantinople in 1261 AD and the restoration of the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty did not end the conflict, as the Byzantines launched on and off efforts to reconquer Southern Greece and the Aegean islands until the 15th century, while the Latin powers, led by the Angevin Kingdom of Naples, tried to restore the Latin Empire and launched attacks on the Byzantine Empire.
