John VI Kantakouzenos

John VI Kantakouzenos served as grand domestic under Andronikos III Palaiologos and regent for the young John V Palaiologos before seizing the Byzantine throne for himself in 1347. His path to power required two ruinous civil wars that bled away much of the empire's remaining Balkan territory to the Serbs and Bulgarians, but the catastrophic loss was Gallipoli — ceded to the Ottoman Turks during the conflict, it became their gateway into Europe. By 1354 his former ward had grown up and forced him out. He retired to a monastery under the name Joasaph Christodoulos and turned historian, recordin…