Andronicus, the name of four emperors of Constantinople. - Andronicns I. Comnenns, grandson of Alexis I., born in 1110, died Sept. 12, 1185. He distinguished himself by his martial ability, dissolute conduct, and romantic adventures. In his youth he served against the Turks, was for some time a prisoner, and was afterward appointed to the military command of Cilicia. He besieged Mopsuestia, and though his campaign was unsuccessful, he was rewarded by his cousin the emperor Manuel with new honors. He engaged in a treasonable correspondence with the king of Hungary, and was imprisoned twelve years in a tower of the palace. Escaping after two unsuccessful attempts, he reached Kiev in Russia, persuaded the grand duke Yaroslav to form an alliance with Manuel against the Hungarians, and for this was pardoned, but was afterward exiled to a command on the Cilician frontier. At the head of a band of adventurers, he undertook the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and, after roving lawlessly through Persia and Turkey, at length fixed his residence at Œnoe, a city of Pontus. On the death of Manuel the populace called him to the purple. He put to death the son and widow of Manuel (1183), but was strict in dispensing justice among the people.

A popular rising in favor of his kinsman Isaac Angelus put an end to his career, and he was murdered by the populace with slow tortures. - Andronicus II. Palaeologns, the Elder, born in 1258, died Feb.

13, 1332. He was crowned emperor in his 15th year, and held the title nine years as the colleague, and from 1282 to 1328 as the successor of his father Michael. In his reign Osman, the founder of the Ottoman empire, effected the conquest of Bithynia, and advanced within sight of Constantinople. Andronicus invited for his assistance from the west a multitude of Catalans, who defeated the Turks in two great battles, but were themselves driven out only after great trouble.His own grandson, Andronicus III., compelled him to abdicate in 1328, and shut him up in a monastery, where he died four years afterward. - Andronicus III. Palaeologns, the Younger, grandson of the preceding, born in 1296, died June 15, 1341. He revolted against his grandfather in 1321, was made his colleague in 1325, but again revolted and deposed him in 1328. He reconquered Chios from the Genoese (1329), and took Epirus from the Albanians (1337). In 1333 the Turks took Nicaea and made it their capital, and Andronicus joined the fruitless alliance of the western powers against them. He was also at war with the Catalans in Greece, and more successfully with the Bulgarians, Kiptchak Tartars, and Servians. His internal administration was moderate and conciliatory.

He left the empire and his infant heir John under the guardianship of John Can-tacuzenus. - Andronicus IV. Palaeologns, grandson of the preceding, governed the empire in the absence of his father John VI., afterward conspired with the son of the sultan Murad to murder their fathers, and was captured and partially blinded. Escaping from a long imprisonment by the aid of the Genoese, he brought about a division of the empire between his father and himself, Andronicus making Selymbria his capital. The dates of these events are very uncertain. On the death of John VI. in 1391, Andronicus gave way to his brother Manuel II., and died a monk.