Andronikos II Palaiologos
Andronikos II Palaiologos reigned for over four decades, the longest reign of any Palaiologan emperor, and yet his legacy is one of gradual and seemingly unstoppable decline. He inherited a restored but weakened empire and made choices that accelerated its deterioration. He repudiated the Union of Lyon that his father Michael VIII had negotiated with Rome, which satisfied the Orthodox church domestically but removed any prospect of western military support. He drastically reduced the Byzantine navy, relying instead on Genoese mercantile power - a shortsighted economy that left Byzantine sea lanes vulnerable. To protect the eastern frontier against the Turks, he hired the Catalan Company in 1303, a mercenary force that initially defeated the Turks but then went rogue and terrorized the Byzantine provinces for years - the Catalan Revenge - causing enormous damage to Thrace and Macedonia. The final decades of his reign were consumed by a devastating civil war against his grandson Andronikos III. He was finally forced to abdicate in May 1328 and died as a monk in 1332.
- Lived: 1259 CE – 1332 CE
- Nationality: byzantine
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state
