Demetrios Tzamplakon
Demetrios Tzamplakon (Greek: Δημήτριος Τζαμπλάκων, fl. 1345–1366/67) was a Byzantine aristocrat and senior military leader.
The Tzamplakones were an important and wealthy aristocratic family attested since the mid-13th century, when one of its members achieved the high military rank of Domestic of the Schools. Alexios Tzamplakon, Demetrios' father, was this man's son.[1][2] His brothers, Asomatianos and Arsenios, also achieved high offices during the same period.[3] Demetrios was married to Eudokia Palaiologina and had several children, whose names are unknown. One of his daughters married a certain Nikephoros Laskaris, attested at Christoupolis (modern Kavala) in 1366/67.[4]
Demetrios is first attested in 1345, already holding the senior military rank of megas stratopedarches, during the siege of Serres by the forces of the Serbian ruler Stephen Dushan. A large part of the city's population, under Manuel Asen, wanted to surrender the city to the Serbs, while Tzamplakon led the loyalist faction.[2][5] After the city's fall, he withdrew to Christoupolis, and is still attested in the 1360s.[2] He donated his extensive lands in Macedonia to the Vatopedi Monastery of Mount Athos.[2]
References
[edit]Sources
[edit]- Guilland, Rodolphe (1967). Recherches sur les institutions byzantines [Studies on the Byzantine Institutions]. Berliner byzantinische Arbeiten 35 (in French). Vol. I. Berlin and Amsterdam: Akademie-Verlag & Adolf M. Hakkert. OCLC 878894516.
- Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
- Trapp, Erich; Beyer, Hans-Veit; Walther, Rainer; Sturm-Schnabl, Katja; Kislinger, Ewald; Leontiadis, Ioannis; Kaplaneres, Sokrates (1976–1996). Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit (in German). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. ISBN 3-7001-3003-1.