Andronikos III Palaiologos, commonly Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus, was the Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341. He was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and Rita of Armenia. He was proclaimed co-emperor in his youth, before 1313, and in April 1321 he rebelled against his grandfather, Andronikos II Palaiologos. He was formally crowned co-emperor in February 1325, before ousting his grandfather outright and becoming sole emperor on 24 May 1328.
Michael VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus reigned as Byzantine emperor from 1261 until his death in 1282, and previously as the co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea from 1259 to 1261. Michael VIII was the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty that would rule the Byzantine Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. He recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261 and transformed the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Byzantine Empire. His reign saw considerable recovery of Byzantine power, including the enlargement of the Byzantine army and navy. It also included the reconstruction of the city of Constantinople, and the increase of its population. His re-establishment of the University of Constantinople contributed to the Palaeologan Renaissance, a cultural flowering between the 13th and 15th centuries.
The Empire of Trebizond, or Trapezuntine Empire, was a successor state of the Byzantine Empire that existed during the 13th through to the 15th century. The empire consisted of the Pontus, or far northeastern corner of Anatolia, and portions of southern Crimea.
Ivan Shishman ruled as emperor (tsar) of Bulgaria in Tarnovo from 1371 to 3 June 1395. The authority of Ivan Shishman was limited to the central parts of the Bulgarian Empire.
The Byzantine navy was the naval force of the Byzantine Empire. Like the state it served, it was a direct continuation from its Roman predecessor, but played a far greater role in the defence and survival of the state than its earlier iteration. While the fleets of the Roman Empire faced few great naval threats, operating as a policing force vastly inferior in power and prestige to the army, command of the sea became vital to the very existence of the Byzantine state, which several historians have called a "maritime empire".
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state that existed between 1185 and 1396. A successor to the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Tsars Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the early 15th century.
The Despotate of Dobruja or Principality of Karvuna was a 14th-century quasi-independent Bulgarian polity in the region of modern Dobruja, that split off from the Second Bulgarian Empire under the influence of the Byzantine Empire. The Despotate of Dobruja existed from 1356 to 1411.
The Byzantine–Bulgarian wars were a series of conflicts fought between the Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria which began after the Bulgars conquered parts of the Balkan peninsula after 680 AD. The Byzantine and First Bulgarian Empire continued to clash over the next century with variable success, until the Bulgarians, led by Krum, inflicted a series of crushing defeats on the Byzantines. After Krum died in 814, his son Omurtag negotiated a thirty-year peace treaty. Simeon I had multiple successful campaigns against the Byzantines during his rule from 893 to 927. His son Peter I negotiated another long-lasting peace treaty. His rule was followed by a period of decline of the Bulgarian state.
The Ottoman Navy or The Imperial Navy, also known as the Ottoman Fleet, was the naval warfare arm of the Ottoman Empire. It was established after the Ottomans first reached the sea in 1323 by capturing Praenetos, the site of the first Ottoman naval shipyard and the nucleus of the future navy.
Dobrotitsa was a Bulgarian noble, ruler of the de facto independent Principality of Karvuna and the Kaliakra fortress from 1354 to 1379–1386.
Salah Rais was the 7th King of Algiers, an Ottoman privateer and admiral. He is alternatively referred to as Sala Reis, Salih Rais, Salek Rais and Cale Arraez in several European sources, particularly in Spain, France and Italy.
The Bulgarian–Ottoman wars were fought between the kingdoms remaining from the disintegrating Second Bulgarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, in the second half of the 14th century. The wars resulted with the collapse and subordination of the Bulgarian Empire, and effectively came to an end with the Ottoman conquest of Tarnovo in July 1393, although other Bulgarian states held out slightly longer, such as the Tsardom of Vidin until 1396 and the Despotate of Dobruja until 1411. As a result of the wars the Ottoman Empire greatly expanded its territory on the Balkan peninsula, stretching from the Danube to the Aegean Sea.
The Palaiologan army refers to the military forces of the Byzantine Empire under the rule of the Palaiologos dynasty, from the late 13th century to its final collapse in the mid-15th century. The army was a direct continuation of the forces of the Empire of Nicaea, which itself was a fractured component of the formidable Komnenian army of the 12th century. Under the first Palaiologan emperor, Michael VIII, the army's role took an increasingly offensive role whilst the naval forces of the empire, weakened since the days of Andronikos I Komnenos, were boosted to include thousands of skilled sailors and some 80 ships. Due to the lack of land to support the army, the empire required the use of large numbers of mercenaries.
The medieval Bulgarian army was the primary military body of the First and the Second Bulgarian Empires, and some Puppet states of the former, like the Despotate of Dobruja. During the first decades after the foundation of the country, the army consisted of a Bulgar cavalry and a Slavic infantry. The core of the Bulgarian army was the heavy cavalry, which consisted of ca. 12,000 heavily armed riders. At its height in the 9th and 10th centuries, it was one of the most formidable military forces in Europe and was feared by its enemies. There are several documented cases of Byzantine commanders abandoning an invasion because of a reluctance to confront the Bulgarian army on its home territory.
The siege of Constantinople (1235) was a joint Bulgarian–Nicaean siege on the capital of the Latin Empire. Latin emperor John of Brienne was besieged by the Nicaean emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes and Tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria.
The Uprising of Ivaylo was a rebellion of the Bulgarian peasantry against the incompetent rule of Emperor Constantine Tikh and the Bulgarian nobility. The revolt was fuelled mainly by the failure of the central authorities to confront the Mongol menace in north-eastern Bulgaria. The Mongols had looted and ravaged the Bulgarian population for decades, especially in the region of Dobrudzha. The weakness of the state institutions was due to the accelerating feudalisation of the Second Bulgarian Empire.
The Savoyard crusade was a crusading expedition to the Balkans in 1366–67. It was born out of the same planning that led to the Alexandrian Crusade and was the brainchild of Pope Urban V. It was led by Count Amadeus VI of Savoy and directed against the growing Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe. Although intended as a collaboration with the Kingdom of Hungary and the Byzantine Empire, the crusade was diverted from its main purpose to attack the Second Bulgarian Empire. There the crusaders made small gains that they handed over to the Byzantines. It did take back some territory from the Ottomans in the vicinity of Constantinople and on Gallipoli but all these conquests were reversed within less than five years by the Turks.
Ivan Asen II, also known as John Asen II, was Emperor (Tsar) of Bulgaria from 1218 to 1241. He was still a child when his father Ivan Asen I – one of the founders of the Second Bulgarian Empire – was killed in 1196. His supporters tried to secure the throne for him after his uncle, Kaloyan, was murdered in 1207, but Kaloyan's other nephew, Boril, overcame them. Ivan Asen fled from Bulgaria and settled in the Rus' principalities.
