[1] On Kantakouzenos himself, the German chaplain Stephan Gerlach, who lived in Constantinople at the time, reported his view that he was actually the son of the English ambassador, but this is mostly dismissed by modern scholars.
[2][3] The eminent 20th-century Byzantinist Steven Runciman at any rate considered the latter-day Kantakouzenoi "perhaps the only family whose claim to be in the direct line from Byzantine Emperors was authentic".
[4] On the other hand, according to Donald Nicol, "[...] historians have indeed labored to show that [...] of all the Byzantine imperial families that of the Kantakouzenos is the only one which can truthfully be said to have survived to this day; but the line of succession after the middle of the fifteenth century is, to say the least, uncertain.
"[5] Kantakouzenos made his wealth through successful mercantile speculations, which allowed him to engage in the lucrative tax farming of the Ottoman Empire's provinces.
[10] Consequently, Michael played an active role on the sale of offices within the Greek Orthodox community (millet), ranging from provincial episcopal sees to the Patriarchate of Constantinople and even the two Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia.
[6] Thus in 1565 he brought down the popular Patriarch Joasaph II and installed in his place Metrophanes III, whom he had already previously helped to acquire the bishoprics of Larissa and Chios.
[15] Michael preferred to live at Anchialos, a city almost exclusively inhabited by Greeks,[4] where he had built a magnificent palace that cost 20,000 ducats and was said to rival the Sultan's own.