Gregory Taronites (governor of Chaldia)
Byzantine governor
Gregory Taronites (Greek: Γρηγόριος Ταρωνίτης, romanized: Grēgorios Tarōnitēs; Armenian: Գրիգոր Տարոնիտես) was a Byzantine governor of the theme of Chaldia (modern north-eastern Black Sea coast of Turkey) who rebelled against Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in 1103/4 and governed his province as a virtually independent ruler until his defeat in battle in 1106/7. He was then imprisoned for some time in the Prison of Anemas, before obtaining an imperial pardon. Some scholars have proposed an identification with Gregory Gabras, but this is disputed.
Origin and early life
Gregory belonged to the aristocratic family of the Taronitai, a clan of princely Armenian origin from Taron. His parents are unknown, but he was the nephew of the panhypersebastos Michael Taronites, who married Maria Komnene, the sister of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118). Some scholars, beginning with Karl Hopf and including Alexander Vasiliev and Claude Cahen, argued that Gregory Taronites was the same as Gregory Gabras, attested for the last time c. 1091. This was the son of Theodore Gabras, who had governed the theme of Chaldia as a practically independent ruler from c. 1075 until his death in battle against the Turkomans in 1098.
“Gregory Taronites (governor of Chaldia)” enters the record as byzantine governor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gregory, Taronites and governor can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gregory Taronites (governor of Chaldia)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.