Constantine Doukas of Thessaly

For other people named Constantine Doukas (disambiguation), see Constantine Doukas (disambiguation) (disambiguation).

Constantine Doukas or Dukas (Latinized as Ducas) ([Κωνσταντίνος Δούκας, Kōnstantinos Doukas] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) was ruler of Thessaly from 1289 to his death in 1303.

Life

Constantine Doukas was the second son of John I Doukas of Thessaly by his wife, whose monastic name was Hypomone ("Patience"). He succeeded to his father's lands because his older brother Michael Komnenos had been abducted and imprisoned in Constantinople. After succeeding his father in or shortly before 1289, Constantine ruled Thessaly and Central Greece from Neopatras. He was assisted by his younger brother Theodore Angelos, who died c. 1300.

Early in his reign, Constantine's mother entered into negotiations with the Byzantine Empire and, in exchange for recognizing nominal Byzantine suzerainty, Constantine was invested with the court title of sebastokratōr. Constantine continued his father's war against Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas of Epirus and his Angevin allies. The campaign of 1295 resulted in Thessalian occupation of the fortresses that Nikephoros had designated as the dowry of his daughter Thamar Angelina Komnene when she married Philip I of Taranto, son of King Charles II of Naples and Maria of Hungary. Most of these conquests were lost to the Angevins in 1296, when a truce was signed. Further fighting followed in 1301, and Angelokastron in Aetolia-Acarnania had to be returned to Philip of Taranto. Virtually nothing else is known about the reign of Constantine, who died in 1303.

Family

By his wife Constantine Doukas had at least one son:

• John II Doukas, who succeeded as ruler of Thessaly.

References

• John V.A. Fine Jr., The Late Medieval Balkans, Ann Arbor, 1987.
• Nicolas Cheetham, Mediaeval Greece, Yale University Press, 1981.
• D.I. Polemis, The Doukai, London, 1968.