Background
Andronikos II was born on March 25, 1259 at Nicaea. He was the eldest surviving son of Michael VIII Palaiologos and Theodora Palaiologina, grandniece of John III Doukas Vatatzes.
Andronikos II was born on March 25, 1259 at Nicaea. He was the eldest surviving son of Michael VIII Palaiologos and Theodora Palaiologina, grandniece of John III Doukas Vatatzes.
Andronicus weakened Byzantium by reducing its land forces to a few thousand cavalry and infantry and eliminating the navy altogether, relying solely on a Genoese mercenary fleet.
His lack of military initiative enabled the Ottoman Turks to gain control of nearly all of Anatolia by 1300, and his employment of Catalan mercenaries in 1304 ended disastrously, because the Catalans proved more inclined to pillage Byzantine cities than to fight the Turks.
In the war between the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa, Andronicus unwisely took sides, favouring Genoa, and suffered the wrath of the greatly superior Venetian navy.
Internally, Andronicus’s reign was marked by a steady disintegration of centralized authority and increasing economic difficulties, although he did sponsor a revival of Byzantine art and culture and championed the independence of the Eastern Orthodox church.
During his reign the great monastery complex at Mount Athos in Greece enjoyed its golden age.
In 1328 Andronicus, after quarreling with his grandson who would become Andronicus III and excluding him from the succession, was deposed by him and entered a monastery.
Andronikos II died as a monk at Constantinople in 1332.
He was an intellectual and theologian rather than a statesman or soldier.
On 8 November 1273 Andronikos II married as his first wife Anna of Hungary, daughter of Stephen V of Hungary and Elizabeth the Cuman, with whom he had two sons.
Anna died in 1281, and in 1284 Andronikos married Yolanda (renamed Irene), a daughter of William VII of Montferrat, with whom he had seven children.
Andronikos II also had at least two illegitimate daughters.
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She married Toqta, Khan of the Golden Horde.
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( 1294 – after 1336)
She married John II Doukas, ruler of Thessaly.
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