Career
Manuel Tagaris was of lowly origins—the Tagaris family is first attested in the early years of the 14th century and comprised a handful of members. He served as governor of Philadelphia, from ca. 1309, in which capacity he repelled a Turkish attack on the city in 1310/11.
During his long governorship of Philadelphia, he clashed with the local bishops of Philadelphia and Ephesus, Theoleptus and Manuel Gabalas, respectively.
By April 1321, he had risen to the high post of megas stratopedarches at the court in Constantinople, when Andronikos III Palaiologos, the grandson of Andronikos II, fled the capital, marking the beginning of the Byzantine civil war of 1321-1328. When Andronikos II ordered him to pursue the prince and arrest him, Tagaris refused, claiming the order to be unenforceable, a view in which he was supported by the Emperor"s other advisers.
In 1329, he was sent to take the field against Orhan, the ruler of the rising Ottoman beylik. He probably died sometime before 1342.
Manuel married twice, first to a lady of unknown first name, but descended from the Monomachos and Doukas families, and then to Theodora Asenina Palaiologina.