The Byzantine Wives of Mongol Khans

If you arrive at the right hour and ring the bell, the gatekeeper will let you into a modest chamber where edicts from Ottoman sultans hang on the walls, declaring the church under their protection—a rare sanctuary that was never converted into a mosque. He may also tell you about its founder, a Byzantine princess named Maria, who became the wife of a Mongol khan.

What makes this site unusual is not only its survival as a Christian church in Istanbul, a city where most churches were converted into mosques, but also the extraordinary partnership it symbolizes—a marriage bridging the worlds of the steppe and the Christian empire.

In the world of Chinggis Khan (1162–1227), Byzantium did not exist. The Mongols knew of a ‘last sea’ far to the west, but they could only guess at who lived on its shores. Likewise, Byzantium—medieval Europe’s most advanced state and heir to the legacy of Rome—knew little about the Eurasian steppes. The situation changed in the thirteenth century when, over the course of fifteen years, the Turkic-Mongol tümensiTümen, meaning ‘unit of ten thousand’, was a decimal unit of measurement used by the Turkic and Mongol peoples to quantify and organize their societies in groups of 10,000., the descendants of Chinggis Khan, led by Batu, conquered the lands of Rus, burned Hungary, and advanced into Poland. Almost simultaneously, the tümens of the commander Baiju Noyon struck the Muslim states of Asia Minor, the Asian part of modern Turkey. Thus, a good half of the world known to the Byzantines came under Mongol rule. The empire’s eastern neighbors, the Seljuk Turks, attempted resistance, but with disastrous results: their sultan fled the battlefield, and his lands were soon controlled by the Mongols.

The empire’s eastern neighbors, the Seljuk Turks, attempted resistance, but with disastrous results: their sultan fled the battlefield, and his lands were soon controlled by the Mongols. The next in line for conquest was Byzantium itself. In the early thirteenth century, the once-powerful empire was going through difficult times: by 1204, European crusaders had captured and plundered Constantinople, causing the empire to fragment, with one of its parts becoming the empire of Nicaea.

This successor state found itself on the western edge of the Mongol expansion, and the Laskaris dynasty, which ruled Nicaea, had every reason to worry about its fragile domain. Born from the ruins of fallen Byzantium, it was caught between Europe and Asia and was in no position to repel an invasion from the east. Thus, unconventional diplomacy became necessary for survival.

In 1257, Hulagu, the grandson of Chinggis Khan, marched from Karakorum to the Middle East with his army. His aim was to establish his own ulu, a Mongol state modeled after the Golden Horde. However, before Hulagu could realize his ambitions, Emperor Theodore II Laskaris made a strategic, preemptive move and invited the Mongols to Nicaea himself, to secure an alliance and safeguard his empire.

The Mongol envoys were met at the border and taken on a deliberately long and circuitous journey to the capital. Along the way, the Greeks showcased their mountain fortresses, bustling cities, and villages filled with carefully assembled crowds to greet the visitors. What was discussed in the negotiations remains unknown, but the goal was achieved—the envoys saw exactly what their hosts wanted them to see. Theodore II convinced them that the Nicene Empire could be a reliable Mongol ally in the West.

The result was an agreement for a marriage alliance. Mongol khans had traditionally readily taken wives from conquered peoples. Having a Christian woman from a noble family in the Great Khan’s harem not only facilitated negotiations with Western rulers but also provided another means of controlling their own subjects.

Byzantium also actively practiced dynastic marriages as a diplomatic strategy. In the Middle Ages, brides from Constantinople were highly esteemed at Christian courts across Europe and Asia, with strong demand for their lineage and cultural sophistication. In the twelfth century, women from the ruling Komnenos dynasty could be found in the courts of all major European powers from Sicily to Kyiv. However, despite the groundwork laid for an alliance, circumstances intervened, and the Nicene emperor and Hulagu never did become relatives. Nevertheless, their efforts paved the way for future cooperation and, crucially, helped Nicaea avoid an unnecessary war.

The non-aggression pact with the Mongols allowed the rulers of Nicaea to focus on their primary goal—the recapture of Constantinople. In 1261, the great city was taken without a major siege or bloodshed, and Michael VIII Palaiologos ascended the throne. A distant relative of the Laskarids, he seized power by capturing and blinding the rightful heir, John IV Laskaris. But unrest quickly broke out in the restored empire—unrest that the Mongols were quick to exploit.

At this point, a new force entered the power struggle for the eastern Mediterranean: Nogai, a great-grandson of Chinggis Khan and a powerful general of the Golden Horde. A skilled commander, Nogai launched a devastating raid on Bulgaria and Macedonia. His campaign was so successful that Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos had no time to gather his forces and barely escaped capture by the Mongols. To buy his safety, Palaiologos offered Nogai his daughter—albeit an illegitimate one—as a bride. Her name was Euphrosyne, and she rose to become a formidable presence at the court of a descendant of Chinggis Khan, wielding considerable influence in a world shaped by diplomacy, power, and cultural exchange.

For Nogai (1230–1299), a marriage with the Byzantine emperor’s daughter—even an illegitimate one—was a valuable gift. Despite his high rank as beklerbeg, the great-grandson of Chinggis Khan never managed to ascend the throne of the Golden Horde. Instead, he focused on establishing his own dominion on the distant fringes of the Mongol world. Under his leadership, his warriors formed a de facto independent state in the steppes of what is now Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova. Nogai’s cavalry was feared in Hungary and Bulgaria, and Russian princes sought alliances with him.

Nogai himself had a fluid religious identity, negotiating alliances with both the Christian rulers of the Balkans and the Muslim leaders of Egypt. His wife, Euphrosyne, was just as politically active. She schemed against Byzantium’s enemies in the Balkans and ultimately disrupted a planned alliance between Serbia and Bulgaria against her father Michael VIII Palaiologos. Euphrosyne also supported her husband’s struggle for the throne of the Golden Horde and may have perished along with him or returned to Constantinople, where her sister Maria was preparing for marriage to another Mongol ruler.

Maria’s mission was even more challenging than Euphrosyne’s. Hulagu Khan’s territories lay far from Byzantium, leaving Michael VIII Palaiologos unable to support his daughter after she married into Hulagu’s family to become the wife of Abaqa Khan (1234–1282). The religious landscape of the Ilkhanate, the Mongol state founded by Hulagu, was highly complex. At the time of the Byzantine–Mongol alliance, the Ilkhan rulers practiced Buddhism, and the Nestorian Christians held significant influence among the Mongol elite, including Dokuz Khatun, the recently deceased wife of Hulagu, in their number.

Iran's cities housed not only Muslims but also Buddhists from Central Asia, followers of Mongol shamanism, and Christians of various denominations ranging from Orthodoxy to Monophysitism. These Christian communities looked to Maria with hope, expecting her to protect their interests at the khan’s court and prevent their decline amid the gradual Islamization of the empire.

The illegitimate daughter of the Byzantine usurper quickly adapted to the court and earned the respect of those around her. Hulagu’s courtiers addressed her with deference, calling her ‘Despina’, a direct adoption of her Byzantine title meaning ‘lady’. In the history of the Ilkhanate, she became known as ‘Despina Khatun’.

It is unclear whether Abaqa Khan loved his Byzantine wife in the modern sense, but there was evidently a degree of mutual understanding between them. Maria Palaiologina resided at court, managed her own household, and acted as protector of Christians, particularly Georgians. In the list of Abaqa Khan’s wives compiled by the chronicler Rashid ad-Din, the Byzantine princess was ranked third, immediately after his two favored Mongol wives. This placement indicates the high status that ‘Despina’ held at court.

Maria’s education and intelligence were likely beneficial to Abaqa. The ruler of Iran sought alliances against his enemies, the Mamluks of Egypt, and sent envoys not only to Edward of England and the Pope but even to the Council of Lyon. Indeed, his Byzantine wife may well have played a role in shaping his Western diplomacy.

Abaqa and Maria's marriage lasted seventeen years. Though they had few children (we know of only a daughter), Maria fulfilled her mission. During this time, Byzantium remained undisturbed by significant raids from the east. After Abaqa’s death in 1282, his son Tekuder ascended the throne. As a child, he had been baptized under the name Nicholas, but upon taking power, he converted to Islam.

Maria remained at court, observing the power struggles within the Ilkhanate until the 1290s, when she returned to Constantinople. By then, her father was no longer emperor—her brother, Andronikos II Palaiologos, had taken the throne. Settling in the capital, Maria led the customary life of a Byzantine widow devoted to charity.

However, a new political force had emerged in Anatolia, threatening Byzantium—the Ottoman Turks. Within a few years, they had conquered the Byzantine borderlands and approached Nicaea, the main city of Byzantine Anatolia. In response, Andronikos turned to his half-sister for help, and Maria set out for negotiations with Osman.

What precisely the Mongol queen orchestrated in these talks remains unknown, but her intervention had an impact. Osman, angered by their meeting, immediately seized a fortress near Nicaea but refrained from attacking the city itself. Other Turkish rulers also heeded the widow’s words and temporarily halted their raids on Byzantine lands. Those who ignored her warnings were dealt with a year later when a Mongol cavalry detachment arrived in Anatolia to suppress them.

Andronikos II Palaiologos was pleased with his success in using a princess to prevent raids and so initiated marriage negotiations with the next Ilkhan of Iran, Ghazan Khan, who reigned from 1295 to 1304. Unlike his predecessors, Ghazan was a Muslim and showed little interest in the proposal. Nevertheless, he remained true to his alliance with Byzantium, and during his reign, the Ottomans were careful not to provoke Constantinople further.

At the same time, the emperor sent his daughter, whose name remains unknown, as a bride to Uzbek Khan of the Golden Horde, who ruled from 1313 to 1341. The Horde and Byzantium shared economic interests, as a significant trade route connecting Europe and China ran through the Golden Horde via Crimea. Italian merchants from Genoa and Venice controlled the Crimean ports, and the alliance between Constantinople and the Horde allowed both rulers to negotiate with them on more favorable terms.

Life for the Byzantine princess in Uzbek Khan’s court, however, was far from easy. She spent winters in Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde, and in summer, she traveled across the steppes of the North Caucasus, following her husband’s nomadic lifestyle.

In the 1330s, the famous traveler Ibn Battuta visited Uzbek Khan’s court and encountered the Byzantine emperor’s daughter among the khan’s wives. He recorded her name as ‘Bayalun’, and while the exact form of her name is not known for certain, this recorded name may have derived from the title Bayan (He)lun, meaning ‘Lady Helen’. Ibn Battuta described her thus:

At the time of Ibn Battuta’s visit, the khan’s wife was expecting a child. She requested permission from Uzbek Khan to visit her relatives in Constantinople, and with his consent, she set out on her journey, accompanied by a corps of 5,000 horsemen. The procession traveled along the Black Sea coast and, with great honor, arrived in Constantinople. What happened to her afterward remains unknown. Only the Arabic version of her name, Bayalun, has been preserved, along with historical accounts of how the alliance with two branches of the Chinggisid dynasty helped the weakening Byzantine Empire maintain its small holdings in Europe and Asia. By the mid-fourteenth century, as both Byzantium and the various Mongol ulus weakened, ties between the two states began to fade.

These events raise the question: how did the Byzantine presence influence the Mongols in the Chinggisid court? One theory suggests that Byzantine princesses introduced the double-headed eagle as a heraldic symbol in the Golden Horde. At the very least, during the reign of Janibek Khan, coins bearing an image resembling the well-known heraldic bird began to appear. Some even argue that the Grand Duchy of Moscow borrowed its emblem not from Byzantium but from the Ulus of Jochi.

In popular culture, the double-headed eagle is often considered a symbol of Byzantium, though in heraldry, it predates the eastern Roman Empire by centuries. The first to use the double-headed eagle were the Hittites of Anatolia, long before our era. In the early centuries of the common era, the symbol—representing the connection between East and West—appeared in various Asian cultures but primarily those influenced by Iran. Neither the Roman Empire nor early Byzantium used the double-headed eagle. Instead, the Romans favored the classic single-headed eagle, and after Christianization, symbols such as the expanded-armed cross or the Chi-Rho monogram, signifying Jesus Christ, became prominent.

The revival of the double-headed eagle began in the twelfth century. As a symbol of dominion over both East and West, it was first adopted by the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia and later by the caliphs of Baghdad. The double-headed eagle became a popular emblem of power and was frequently minted on coins.

From there, it may have made its way to the Mongols, who readily used foreign currencies in trade, and to Byzantium, where the senior rulers of the Palaiologos dynasty eventually embraced it.

Both the great states used the same symbol, but while the Mongols made it a widely recognized and uniquely significant emblem, Byzantium used many others along with it. Lions were particularly popular, but after Constantinople was reconquered, the new dynasty insisted on redefining the empire’s symbolic identity. Thus, the Byzantines officially adopted the double-headed eagle as their coat of arms. Along with it came the motto ‘King of Kings, ruling over those who reign’, which adorned Palaiologan buildings in 1453.

The smaller the empire became, the longer its motto and the more elaborate its heraldry was. Ultimately, the double-headed eagle became the most widely recognized emblem of Byzantium, which was unsurprising, as its depictions not only survived in art but also influenced the heraldry of later states, such as the Serbian Despotate and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The original Byzantine eagle can still be seen today, appearing in frescoes preserved in the Chora Church, which was built during the Palaiologos era. These frescoes depict Byzantine officials and noblewomen whose garments are quite literally embroidered with double-headed eagles.

There, too, survives a mosaic of the nun Melanie, better known as Maria Palaiologina, the Mongol Khatun and great benefactor. The church she founded still stands in Istanbul, a reminder of a woman who dared to journey to an unfamiliar land and became one of those who helped two great states—one rising, the other fading, Byzantium and the Golden Horde—reach agreements and avoid bloodshed. Perhaps now more than ever, this lesson is worth remembering.