Constantine Mesopotamites

Constantine Mesopotamites (Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Μεσοποταμίτης) was a senior Byzantine official, and de facto chief minister under the emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos from 1193 until his fall in summer 1197. He was also archbishop of Thessalonica from ca. 1197 until ca. 1227, but was in exile between 1204 and 1224, when the city was occupied by Latin Crusaders. Restored to his see, he refused to crown Theodore Komnenos Doukas as emperor, and departed his see again in self-exile. He was also a colleague and correspondent of the historian Niketas Choniates, and may have commissioned some of the latter's works.

Constantine's family, the Mesopotamitai, appeared in the late 11th century, and originated either from Mesopotamos (in modern Albania) or some place called Mesopotamia. One of his early assignments in the public service was as ambassador to the Republic of Genoa in ca. 1189, to negotiate a treaty. When Mesopotamites returned with his Genoese counterpart, Simone Bufferio, to Constantinople in order to ratify the treaty, however, it was discovered that he had overstepped his brief, leading to a temporary collapse in negotiations.

In 1193, despite his extreme youth—his colleague and historian Niketas Choniates refers to him derisively as a "small boy [...] less than a year after he had put down pen and ink [i.e. left school]"—he was chosen by Emperor Isaac II Angelos (r. 1185–95) to succeed his maternal uncle and chief minister, Theodore Kastamonites, when the latter suffered a stroke and died soon after. Holding the rank of epi tou kanikleiou (keeper of the imperial inkstand), he quickly succeeded in placing Isaac entirely under his influence. According to Choniates exercised power greater than that even of his predecessor, while historian Charles Brand credits him with "combining craft and guile with real ability in the management of affairs". During this period, Mesopotamites was also the recipient of a eulogy by Nikephoros Chrysoberges.

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