Constantine XI Dragases Palaiologos or Dragaš Palaeologus (Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Δραγάσης Παλαιολόγος, Kōnstantînos Dragásēs Palaiológos; 8 February 1404 – 29 May 1453) was the last Byzantine emperor, reigning from 1449 until his death in battle at the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Together, they extended Roman rule to cover almost the entire Peloponnese for the first time since the Fourth Crusade more than two hundred years before and rebuilt the ancient Hexamilion wall, which defended the peninsula from outside attacks.

The Byzantine Empire, once extending throughout the eastern Mediterranean, was reduced to the imperial capital of Constantinople, the Peloponnese, and a handful of islands in the Aegean Sea, and was also forced to pay tribute to the Ottomans.

[6] As the empire dwindled, the emperors concluded that the only way to ensure that their remaining territory was kept intact was to grant some of their holdings to their sons, who received the title of despot, as appanages to defend and govern.

From an early age, he was admired by George Sphrantzes (later a famed Byzantine historian), who would later enter his service, and later encomiasts often wrote that Constantine had always been courageous, adventurous, and skilled in martial arts, horsemanship, and hunting.

[12] Notable images of Constantine include a seal currently located in Vienna (of unknown provenance, probably from an imperial chrysobull), a few coins, and his portrait among the other Byzantine emperors in the Biblioteca Estense copy of the history of Zonaras.

Unfortunately for Malatesta, the Catalans had little interest in helping him recover Patras, and they attacked and seized Glarentza instead, which Constantine had to buy back from them for 6,000 Venetian ducats, and began plundering the Moreot coastline.

Although he was received with a grand ceremony organized by Constantine and Demetrios (who had returned sometime earlier), the news of the unification stirred a wave of resentment and bitterness among the general populace,[29] who felt that John had betrayed their faith and their world view.

He had just made a deal with Murad himself and raised an army, portraying himself as the champion of the Turk-supported cause that opposed the union of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches and declared war on John.

The philosopher Gemistus Pletho, employed in Constantine's service, said that while Constantinople had once been the New Rome, Mystras and the Morea could become the "New Sparta", a centralized and strong Hellenic kingdom in its own right.

The restoration had cost much in both money and manpower; many of the Moreot landowners had momentarily fled to Venetian lands to avoid financing the venture while others had rebelled before being compelled through military means.

[46][better source needed] With the issue of succession peacefully resolved, Helena sent two envoys, Manuel Palaiologos Iagros and Alexios Philanthropenos Laskaris, to the Morea to proclaim Constantine as emperor and bring him to the capital.

[47] Careful not to anger the anti-unionists through being crowned by Gregory III, Constantine believed that his proclamation at Mystras had sufficed as an imperial coronation and had given him all the constitutional rights of the one true emperor.

Demetrios was granted Constantine's former capital, Mystras, and given authority over the southern and eastern parts of the despotate, while Thomas ruled the northwest and Corinthia alternating between Patras and Leontari as his place of residence.

In February 1449, Constantine had sent Manuel Dishypatos as an envoy to Italy to speak with Alfonso V of Aragon and Naples in order to secure military aid against the Ottomans and forge a marriage alliance.

Nicholas V merely wrote that Constantine had to try harder to convince his people and clergy and that the price of further military aid from the west was full acceptance of the union achieved at Florence; the name of the Pope had to be commemorated in the churches in Greece and Gregory III had to be reinstated as patriarch.

Though they made little difference in coming battle, the reinforcements were probably more appreciated by Constantinople's citizens than the actual purpose of Isidore's and Leonard's visit: cementing the Union of the Churches.

[1] Loukas Notaras was successful in calming down the situation in Constantinople somewhat, explaining to an assembly of nobles that the Catholic visit was made with good intentions and that the soldiers who had accompanied Isidore and Leonard might just be an advance guard; more military aid might have been on its way.

He sent letters to the pope, Alfonso V of Aragon and Naples, King Ladislaus V of Hungary, and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III to inform them that unless Western Christianity acted, Constantinople would fall to the Ottomans.

The emperor then left the church, going to the imperial palace and asking his household there for forgiveness and saying farewell to them before again disappearing into the night, going to make a final inspection of the soldiers manning the city walls.

[106] Though none of the authors were eyewitnesses, a vast majority of those who wrote of Constantinople's fall, both Christians and Muslims, agree that Constantine died in the battle, with only three accounts claiming that the emperor escaped the city.

The Venetian physician Niccolò Barbaro, who was present at the siege, wrote that no one knew if the emperor had died or escaped the city alive, noting that some said that his corpse had been seen among the dead while others claimed that he had hanged himself as soon as the Ottomans had broken through at the St. Romanus gate.

[110] Nicola Sagundino, a Venetian who had once been a prisoner of the Ottomans following their conquest of Thessaloniki decades before, gave an account of Constantine's death to Alfonso V of Aragon and Naples in 1454 since he believed that the emperor's fate "deserved to be recorded and remembered for all time".

The text is dedicated to the young Prince Constantine, of the same name as the old emperor and the heir to the Greek throne, and its preface states that "Constantinople may soon again change masters", alluding to the possibility that Greece might conquer the ancient city.

Though much of Philippides' work relies on primary sources, some of his negative assessment seems speculative; he suggests that Constantine's campaigns in the Morea made the peninsula "easier prey for the Turks", something that cannot be substantiated through the actual events that unfolded.

One story, propagated until as late as the 20th century, was that Constantine's supposed empress had been six months pregnant at the time of Constantinople's fall and that a son had been born to her while Mehmed was warring in the north.

[120] Though the circumstances are completely fictional, the story might carry a shred of the truth; a grandson of Constantine's brother Thomas, Andreas Palaiologos, lived in Constantinople in the 16th century, converted to Islam and served as an Ottoman court official.

[123] Andronikos Kallistos, a prominent 15th-century Greek scholar and Byzantine refugee to Italy, wrote a text entitled Monodia in which he laments the fall of Constantinople and mourns Constantine Palaiologos, whom he refers to as "a ruler more perceptive than Themistocles, more fluent than Nestor, wiser than Cyrus, more just than Rhadamanthus and braver than Hercules".

Klontzas' miniatures show the emperor sleeping beneath Constantinople and guarded by angels, being crowned once more in the Hagia Sophia, entering the imperial palace and then fighting a string of battles against the Turks.

[130] In 1625, Thomas Roe, an English diplomat, sought permission from the Ottoman government to remove some of the stones from the walled-up Golden Gate to send them to his friend, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, who was collecting antiquities.