Kotanitzes Tornikios

Mentioned in the sources from 1280 to 1306. He was Monk of the Peribleptos Monastery in Constantinople in 1280–1283 and monk of the Μεγίστη μονή in Prusa, 1283. He held the position of Deputy commander (ὑποστράτηγος) during his stay at the Serbian court, 1297. As an outlaw, who rebelled against the Byzantine Emperor, he joined the Serbs before 1280. In 1280 he commanded the Serbian troops and plundered the Macedonian borderland till Serres. He was captured by the Byzantines. In 1283 he fled from the Μεγίστη μονή in Prusa and sought asylum at the Serbian court. Around 1297 he together with the Serbian troops looted the border regions of Macedonia. The Serbian King Stefan Uroš II Milutin handed over Kotanitzes Tornikios to Byzantines as a consequence of the peace agreement. Kotanitzes Tornikios is attested in 1306. Probably he was still in prison. According to the historian Georgios Pachymeres the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos ordered to put the rebellious general Kassianos in prison together with Kotanitzes Tornikios. Gordana Tomović assumes that Kotanitzes Tornikios is the same person as the Despot Tornikos from the inscription of the gramatikь Nestorь in the Church of Saint George at Gorni Kozjak