Constantine XII Palaeologus

Emperor Constantine XII
Birth 13 October 1507 Accession 19 August 1531 Death 1 March 1532 Titles By the Grace of God, Emperor of Pantocratoria, Autocrator of the Romans, Caesar Augustus, Equal of the Apostles, God's Vicegerent on Earth, Sebastocrator, Porphyrogenitus, King of Kings Ruling over those who Rule

His Imperial Majesty Emperor Constantine XII was the eldest child of Emperor Demetrius III and Empress Helena. His short life was unremarkable by the standards of the Pantocratorian Imperial line. He married at the age of eighteen (to a lady in waiting at court named Theodora who was seven years his elder), apparently for love rather than politics. Although history records little about his wife, several examples of Greek love poetry written by Constantine to his wife in his own hand survive to this day. The marriage was not a particularly fruitful one, with only one recorded pregnancy. Few other records about the Imperial couple survive.

Constantine was made Despot of New Constantinople at the age of twenty one, in 1528. He succeeded his father in 1531. An active young man, he enjoyed jousting, which became somewhat of a national pursuit around this time. When his wife closed herself into the Empress' apartments in the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator in the last month of her pregnancy to give birth, he jousted prodigiously to pass the time. He received a wound to the thigh in mid-February whilst jousting. The wound became infected, and soon the Emperor was dying. Arrangements were made whereby he would be succeeded by the child his wife was carrying, for whom his brother Demetrius would act as regent. The young Emperor died on the first of March, seven days before the birth of his only son, Demetrius IV. It is perhaps a small mercy that he did not live to see the baby's death just a few days later.