Cantacuze'nus

Cantacuze'nus, a Greek princely family. (1) JOHANNES CANTACUZENUS was a noted soldier and statesman of the Byzantine empire in the reigns of Andronicus II. and III., the latter of whom in 1341 left him guardian and prime minister of his son, Johannes V., then nine years old. Cantacuzenus, however, proclaimed himself the child's colleague, 26th October 1341, and after a five years' civil war secured his recognition, as well as the marriage of one daughter to the young emperor, and of another to the Sultan Orchan, whose help had been necessary to him. A second war, during which the Turks occupied Gallipoli, caused his retirement in 1355 to a monastery, where he died in 1383. He wrote a history of his time, and a defence of Christianity.—(2) MATTHIAS, his son, was also made a colleague in the empire in 1353, and on his father's abdication began a war which ended, two years later, in his own deposition. He too died in 1383.—(3) His brother, MANUEL (died 1380) was governor of Peloponnesus from 1348, and was recognised as despot of Misithra by Johannes V.; he did much to encourage the immigration of the Albanians into the depopulated Morea.—The family was notable among the Fanariots (q.v.), and in later years a Russian branch supplied several brave and successful leaders to the cause of Greek independence.