Thomas I Komnenos Doukas

Who was Thomas I Komnenos Doukas?

Thomas I Komnenos Doukas or Dukas ruler of Epirus from c. 1297 until his death in 1318.

Thomas was the son of Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas and Anna Palaiologina Kantakouzene, a niece of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos. In 1290 he was conferred the court dignity of despotes by his mother's cousin, Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos. Thomas' succession to his father's principality was endangered by the marriage of his sister Thamar Angelina Komnene to Philip I of Taranto, a son of King Charles II of Naples and Maria of Hungary in 1294. Although Philip had been promised to inherit Epirus in his wife's right, when Nikephoros died between September 1296 and July 1298, Anna secured the succession of her son Thomas and assumed the regency.

This isolated Epirus from its strongest ally and left it practically without outside support. Charles II of Naples demanded that Epirus be turned over to Philip and Thamar, but Anna refused, claiming that the arrangement had been broken when Thamar had been forced to abandon her Orthodox faith.