Synadenos

The Synadenos family, named after Synada in Phrygia, was a Byzantine aristocratic house whose name appears on seals as early as the ninth or tenth century. Its first known member, Philetos Synadenos, served as judge of Tarsus around the year 1000.

In the Empire of Nicaea the house opposed the Laskaris and reached its peak under the Palaiologoi. John Synadenos married Theodora Palaiologina, niece of Michael VIII; the couple founded the convent of Bebaia Elpis and left an illustrated typikon portraying the family.

Their son Theodore supported Andronikos III in the civil war of 1321 to 1328 and later governed Epirus, where rebels held him captive from 1338 to 1340. In the civil war of 1341 to 1347 the Zealots of Thessalonica drove him out of the city, and he died under house arrest in Constantinople around 1346.