Despina Khatun
Consort of Uzun Hasan, leader of the White Sheep Turkmens
1444 CE to 1500 CE
Theodora Megale Komnene, also known as Despina Khatun (from the Greek title Despoina and Mongol title Khatun, both meaning "Lady, princess, queen") is the daughter of John IV of Trebizond, who marries the Aq Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan in 1458.
She becomes the mother of Martha (Halima), who becomes the mother of first Safavid king, Shah Ismail I. John IV had approved the marriage only on the condition that his daughter be allowed to continue her Orthodox Christian religion, a condition to which Uzun Hasan had agreed.
Despina is famous for her extreme beauty among the Greek women.
She is accompanied by a group of Orthodox Christian priests and is allowed to build Orthodox churches in Iran.
Uzun Hasan strengthens his anti-Ottoman alliance by this marriage and gains the support of many Greek, Armenian and Georgians.
Marriage between Christians and Muslim rulers, although uncommon, is not unprecedented.
Speros Vryonis provides several examples from the Sultanate of the Seljuk Turks, beginning with Kilij Arslan II.
A later example is Michael VIII Palaiologos marrying off his illegitimate daughters Euphrosyne and Maria to Nogai Khan and Abaqa Khan respectively.
Previous Emperors of Trebizond had married off female relatives, most notably Alexios III, during whose reign two of his sisters and two of his daughters were married to rulers of neighboring Muslim states.
In Western Europe, Theodora inspires the myth of the "Princess of Trebizond", a fixture of tales of damsels in distress as well as of a possible grand Crusade against the Ottoman Turks.
The legend inspires several artists, including Pisanello and Jacques Offenbach.
Source: Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California, 1971), pp.
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The Great Crossroads
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Trebizond, at the southeast corner of the Black Sea, is the capital of the last remnant of Greek empire.
Although subject to brief periods of domination by the neighboring Seljuq Turks, Mongols, and the Greeks of Nicaea or Constantinople, the Empire of Trebizond had been largely bypassed by both the Seljuqs and the Mongols because of its relative isolation, difficulties of access, and conflict among its enemies.
Its prosperity lies partly in export of its own products—silver, iron, alum, cloth, and black wine—and partly from taxes on transit trade to western Iran.
After the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II in 1453, Trebizond and the Morea were left as the last remnants of the Greek imperial tradition.
Mehmed II had immediately summoned Emperor John IV of Trebizond to pay tribute in Constantinople and imposed heavy tolls on Trapezuntine and Venetian shipping through the straits.
John had apparently failed to cooperate, and in 1456 the Sultan dispatched his governor of Amasya, Hizir Bey, to attack Trebizond by both land and sea.
According to the contemporary historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles of Athens, Hizir raided the countryside, even penetrating into the marketplace of Trebizond, capturing altogether about two thousand people.
The city, deserted due to plague, is likely to fall; John makes his submission and agrees to pay an annual tribute of two thousand gold pieces in return for the return the captives Hizir had taken.
John IV of Trebizond had sent his brother David to ratify the treaty before Mehmed II himself, which he does in 1458, but the tribute is raised to three thousand gold pieces.
An alliance with the powerful Aq Qoyunlu tribe, who are the Ottomans' most powerful rival, appears more than beneficial.
Trebziond and the Aq Qoyunlu have a history of cooperation.
The-great aunt of John IV of Trebizond, the reigning emperor, had married Qara Osman, emir of the Aq Qoyunlu.
Uzun Hassan eagerly agrees to be the protector of Trebizond, as well as making other concessions, in return for the hand of John’s daughter Theodora, who is widely famous for her great beauty.
News of the Princess of Trebizond as the consort of the powerful Uzun Hassan will spread to the West, and helps to foster stories of Princess of Trebizond.
However, this alliance will fail to help John's successor, his brother David.
Mehmet had gradually annexed the last Palaiologian possessions in the Morea, completing the task with the conquest of Mistra on May 29, 1460.
Mehmed marches on the imperial city of Trebizond in 1461.
Uzun Hassan initially supports the Trapuzentines, but he is persuaded by the Ottomans to abandon the effort.
After securing the eastern border, Mehmed attacks Trebizond, whose last emperor, David Megas Komnenos, finally surrenders to Mehmed on August 15, 1461, after a twenty-one-day siege, ending the polity.
The transformation of the Eastern Greco-Roman world into the Ottoman world is at last complete.
Mehmed II has conquered Anatolia as far as the Euphrates from the Turkmen principalities by 1461, but fails to push further due to resistance from the Mamluks of Syria as well as from the Ak Koyunlu, or “white sheep”, Turkmens.
Following the death of Kara Osman, founder of the Ak Koyunlu dynasty of southeastern Anatolia, a civil war had ensued among his descendants in 1435.
Uzun Hasan had emerged victorious by 1453 and succeeded to the throne.
His principality, centered at Amida, is surrounded by two hostile powers: in the east, the rival Turkmen dynasty of Kara Koyunlu, led by Jahan Shah; and in the west, the growing power of the Ottomans.
Uzun Hasan has entered into a series of alliances to secure his western flank.
He had made a major move in 1458 by marrying Theodora, the daughter of the late John IV of Trebizond.
He has also strengthened diplomatic ties with Venice, Muscovy, Burgundy, Poland, and Egypt and with the Karamanid dynasty of south-central Anatolia.
In 1461, Uzun Hasan begins his campaigns against the Kara Koyunlu, who occupy the region of present northern Iraq and Azerbaijan and have begun moving into eastern Anatolia.
The Venetian Senate, seeking allies in its war against the Ottomans, had in 1463 sent Lazzaro Querini as its first ambassador to Tabriz, but he had been unable to persuade Uzun Hasan to attack the Ottomans.
Hasan had sent his own envoys to Venice in return.
In 1471, Querini returns to Venice with Hasan's ambassador Murad.
The Venetian Senate votes to send another to Azerbaijan, choosing Caterino Zeno after two other men decline.
Zeno, whose wife is the niece of Uzun Hasan's wife Despina Khatun, is able to persuade Hasan to attack the Turks.
Uzun Hasan invades Anatolia with the support of many Turkmen princes who had been dispossessed by Mehmed.
Hasan is successful at first, meeting the Ottomans in battle near Erzincan in 1471, but there are no simultaneous attacks by any of the western powers.
Giosafat Barbaro, who had been selected in 1473 as another Venetian ambassador to Azerbaijan, due to his experience in the Crimean, Muscovy, and Tartary, gets on well with Uzun Hassan but he is unable to persuade the ruler to attack the Ottomans again.
Shortly afterwards, ...
…Hasan's son Ughurlu Muhammad rises in rebellion, seizing the city of Shiraz.