Recent male line descendants of Byzantine dynasties

Wendell

Many Europea royal houses descend from the Komnenoi, including the Wittelsbachs and the Oldenburgs, which have provided Greek monarchs post-independence, but are there ay known or probable male line descendants of the later dynasties of the Eastern Roman Empire, such as the Palaiologoi or the Kantakouzenoi? I've tried researching this, and have not found all that much, so I was wondering if anyone here knew.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The Immortal Emperor by Donald Nicol is the standard biography of Constantine XI. IIRC, the final chapter is about male line descendents (real and alleged) of the last Byzantine emperor.
 
JonasResende

JonasResende

Wendell said:
Many Europea royal houses descend from the Komnenoi, including the Wittelsbachs and the Oldenburgs, which have provided Greek monarchs post-independence, but are there ay known or probable male line descendants of the later dynasties of the Eastern Roman Empire, such as the Palaiologoi or the Kantakouzenoi? I've tried researching this, and have not found all that much, so I was wondering if anyone here knew.
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Well, the Palaiologoi inherited the marquessate of Montferrat in northern Italy, and when they died out in the male line there, the passed through the female line into the house of Gonzaga, Lorraine and then Habsburg.
 

Wendell

JonasResende said:
Well, the Palaiologoi inherited the marquessate of Montferrat in northern Italy, and when they died out in the male line there, the passed through the female line into the house of Gonzaga, Lorraine and then Habsburg.
Click to expand...

That much I did know. I was hoping for something much closer to Greece culturally and/or geographically.
 
Valena

Valena

Wendell said:
Do you know of anything validating their descent, not affinity to, but descent from the imperial Kantakouzenoi?
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Genealogical research is still doubtful (and it's likely they are connected but morganatically/descending from a bastard of some emperor on the very best), but there's the best we have for Kantakouzenoi descendants in the region.
 

January First-of-May

In terms of female lines, probably the best you're going to get is the descendants of Helena Palaiologina, niece of Constantine XI. I happened to make an attempt in researching the most senior line of these a few years back; I'll quote the successor list, as far as I understood it, from my original research file (it starts when the normal Byzantine line dies out):

TOCCO
Leonardo I, titular Despot of Arta.............................ca.1519-1570
Costanza (fem).................................................1570->1591
(?)Francesco, co-lord of Refrancore............................>1591-1596
Leonardo II, titular Despot of Arta............................1596-1641
Antonio, titular Prince of Achaia..............................1641-1678
Carlo (Antonio), 3rd Prince of Montemiletto.....................1678-1701
Leonardo III, 4th Pr Montemiletto.............................1701-1776
Restaino, 5th Pr Montemiletto.................................1776-1796
Carlo II, 6th Pr Montemiletto..................................1796-1824
Francesco I or II, 7th Pr Montemiletto.........................1824-1877
Carlo III, 8th Pr Montemiletto..................................1877-1888
SERRA
Francesco II or III, 7th Duke of Cassano.......................1888-1917
Giuseppe, 8th D Cassano........................................1917-1918
Luigi I, 9th D Cassano.........................................1918-1935
Francesco III or IV, 10th D Cassano............................1935-1988
Luigi II, 11th Duke of Serra (Cassano?)........................1988-

[Note: I wouldn't advice assuming all of this is entirely correct!]


And as for alleged (male-line) Palaiologos descendants, this site gives a few paths that might or might not be real (some are apparently clearly erroneous at detailed inspection, some might be close to reality).
And then there's the Godscall Palaiologos story...
 

Bee

The Regnal Chronologies website has a section on pretenders, including one for Byzantium. It ends with the Paleologus claim merging into the Hohenzollerns of Prussia.
 

January First-of-May

Wendell said:
Actually, I thik I found it: http://my.raex.com/~obsidian/pretends.html#Byzantine
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Ooh, that's the site I was kind of replying to in my research :)

I found lots of errors in their findings, including the Byzantine line. The kind-of-above is the line assuming there was nothing wrong with Helena's succession, which also happens to miss the Russian nobility entirely (as Zoe was Helena's younger sister). If there was something wrong, the succession goes to a very obscure Italian branch a few generations closer than the Montferrats, and it gets complicated from that (I don't remember specifically).
 
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