Andronikos III Palaiologos

Andronikos III Palaiologos (1297–1341) was the last soldier-emperor of the Palaiologan dynasty. The son of Michael IX and Rita of Armenia, he was co-emperor before 1313. In 1320 he accidentally caused the death of his brother Manuel, and the scandal, together with his wild ways, split him from his grandfather Andronikos II.

He rebelled in 1321, and intermittent civil war ended in 1328 with the old emperor retiring to a monastery. Orhan beat his relief of Nicaea at Pelekanon in 1329 and the Bulgarians beat him at Rusokastro in 1332, yet he recovered Chios, Lesbos, Phocaea, Thessaly and Epirus.

He died in 1341, aged forty-four. The quarrel over the regency between his widow Anna of Savoy and his closest friend John VI Kantakouzenos then became the civil war that opened the way to the Serbian Empire and the Ottomans in Europe.