The Reluctant Emperor: A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295-1383

by Donald M. Nicol

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.

Genres: History, Biography, Greece, Nonfiction

228 pages, Paperback

First published March 28, 1996

About the author

Donald MacGillivray Nicol was an English Byzantinist.

Reviews

[Anatolikon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun and quick read, but at times a bit out of date. Nicol has a lively narrative despite it being one of those "one damn thing after another" sort of story. He manages to be both sympathetic and critical towards Kantakouzenos. Since so much of the material is derived from Kantakouzenos's own history, one imagines that a much more critical study could be written, but this is reasonably done in that Nicol neither trusts what Kantakouzenos is saying but tries to understand why he's saying what he says. That said, this is still a biography in a rather narrow sense: it is squarely focused on Kantakouzenos, with some attention given to his family. While I applaud Nicol's attempt to write an important sort of history in an era that generally does not approve of such forms of writing, it is not flawlessly done. In the introduction, Nicol explicitly states that it is not a social or cultural history of Byzantium at the time. This is fair for a biography, but Nicol's rigid adherence to this rule means that some things are brushed over so quickly that it's hard to assess their importance. We hear again and again about hesychasm and Gregory Palamas, but even a good couple of paragraphs explaining these very important matters for late Byzantium would have been nice. In a similar vein, the Zealots of Thessalonika get a very brief explanation but then continue to appear in the book with little explanation of what they were doing or why they matter. Sure, it's not a book on the Zealots of Palamas, but explaining late Byzantine culture a little better might be useful for attempting to understand Kantakouzenos's role in the world. Readers are expected to know the story, which is a bit odd given that most of this book is a general narrative.

Some old ideas permeate the book as well. A few times Nicol speaks of the inevitability of Turkish conquest, which seems completely at odds with the story that he is actually telling in which the Romans are deeply intertwined with various Turkish polities. Nicol may know how things end eventually, but no Ottoman juggernaut appears to be on the scene yet. Nicol's attitudes towards women is also questionable: Anna of Savoy in particular gets written off after the death of Andronikos III but then, from the story Nicol tells, goes on to be a major player in the subsequent civil war. The Theodora-esque statement of Kantakouzenos's wife upon his abdication, despite coming from Kantakouzenos's hand(!) is dismissed, since it seems that such a thing couldn't have been desired by a mere woman. In any case, it's a decent book.

[Astor Teller · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enlightening read about the Byzantine Emperor John VI Cantacuzene who abdicated to become the monk Joasaph (but still meddling in the affair of the empire). You could call the author Donald M. Nicol an encomiast, if he hadn’t been so critical of John’s autobiography that the emperor wrote after he retired from the throne (Nicol’s assessment of the autobiography didn’t entice me to read it).

What I value the most from this read is the political intrigues involving so many factions that John Cantacuzene is dealing with: The Muslim factions such as the fledgling Ottoman Empire he has married his daughter into and who often comes to his aid in the Byzantine civil wars, Genoese and Venetians fighting for the lucrative trade and forcing the Byzantines to take sides, and the Latins who isn’t keen on helping at all.

I also liked reading about the hesychast monks and the many mercenary bands roaming the empire.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and provocative challenge to the standard narrative of John VI. I recommend reading the either book, if you be discouraged in the early chapters, it is worth finishing. Nicol demonstrate is capacity for all aspects of history and his social analysis has significant implications for wider studies of the Palaiologian era.

[Hall's Bookshop · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot of intuition, feeling and emotion in this biography, written more because Nicol liked Kantakouzenos, than because the subject needed to be written on (which it did). I also dislike Nicol's bland staccato style, which shows him up against his mentor Runciman, who was a real master of narration. Even so, I enjoyed the book, and I was satified that there was full disclosure of the nature of Nicol's interest in the subject.

JM 27/02/20

[onejusthead · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Elliot Gates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicol set out to create a biography of this little known Emperor. Using (mostly) historical sources he gives us just that.

A must read for any Byzantine history fan.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad tale of the last days of Byzantium as seen by one of its last rulers.