WAnna of Hohenstaufen, born Constance, was an Empress of Nicaea. She was a daughter of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and Bianca Lancia.
WJohn III Doukas Vatatzes, Latinized as Ducas Vatatzes, was Emperor of Nicaea from 1222 to 1254. He was succeeded by his son, known as Theodore II Laskaris.
WJohn IV Doukas Laskaris was emperor of Nicaea from August 18, 1258, to December 25, 1261. This empire was one of the Greek states formed from the remaining fragments of the Byzantine Empire, after the capture of Constantinople by Roman Catholics during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
WThe Empire of Nicaea or the Nicene Empire is the conventional historiographic name for the largest of the three Byzantine Greek rump states founded by the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire that fled after Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian forces during the Fourth Crusade. Like the Empire of Trebizond and the Empire of Thessalonica, it claimed to be the continuation of the Roman Empire.
WMaria Laskarina was a Queen consort of Hungary by marriage to Béla IV of Hungary. She was the daughter of Theodore I Laskaris and Anna Komnena Angelina.
WTheodore I Laskaris or Lascaris was the first Emperor of Nicaea—a successor state of the Byzantine Empire—from 1205 to his death. Although he was born to an obscure Byzantine aristocratic family, his mother was related to the imperial Komnenos clan. He married a younger daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios III Angelos in 1200. He received the title of despot before 1203, demonstrating his right to succeed his father-in-law on the throne.
WTheodore II Doukas Laskaris or Ducas Lascaris was Emperor of Nicaea from 1254 to 1258. He was the only child of Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes and Empress Irene Laskarina. His mother was the eldest daughter of Theodore I Laskaris who had established the Empire of Nicaea as a successor state to the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor, after the crusaders captured the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Theodore received an excellent education from two renowned scholars, Nikephoros Blemmydes and George Akropolites. He made friends with young intellectuals, especially with a page of low birth, George Mouzalon. Theodore began to write treatises on theological, historical and philosophical themes in his youth.