Thomas Preljubović
Ruler of Epirus in Ioannina
Thomas Preljubović (Serbian: Тома Прељубовић, romanized: Toma Preljubović; Greek: Θωμάς Κομνηνός Παλαιολόγος, romanized: Thōmas Komnēnos Palaiologos) was ruler of the Despotate of Epirus in Ioannina from 1367 to his death in 1384. Thomas was an unpopular ruler and is appraised very negatively by his contemporaries. On December 23, 1384 he was stabbed to death by his guards at dawn. The conspiracy of the faction which overthrew him involved his wife Maria Angelina who succeeded him.
A great deal of his rule was preoccupied with fighting against the Albanians of the Despotate of Arta to his south, the Zenebishi family to his north and the Mazreku and other clans to his northwest. Thomas gave himself the self-styled epithet of Albanian-slayer (Greek: Αλβανοκτόνος/Αλβανιτόκτονος) after torturing Albanian prisoners in order to terrify his enemies.
Life
Early years
Thomas was the son of caesar Gregorios Preljub (Greek: Grēgorios Prealimpos), the Serbian governor of Thessaly, who died in late 1355 or early 1356. His mother Princess Irene Nemanjić was a daughter of Dušan the Mighty, Emperor of Serbia and his wife, Helena of Bulgaria.
After the violent death of his father, Thomas' claim to Thessaly was asserted by his mother Irene, but they were forced to flee to Serbia by the advance of Nikephoros II Orsini in 1356. Here, Irene married Radoslav Hlapen, the ruler of Vodena, who took Thomas under his wing.
“Thomas Preljubović” enters the record as ruler of Epirus in Ioannina. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thomas, Preljubović and Ruler can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q718006. VIAF identifies the subject as 88340922. The Library of Congress control number is n85230743. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1367, 1384, 1355 and 1356.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Preljubović” 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.