Taronites

Taronites (Ταρωνίτης) is the name of a Byzantine aristocratic family dedicated to the civil service at Constantinople. The feminine form of the name is Taronitissa.
==History==
The family was once the dynasty presiding over the Principality of Taron in Armenia, which was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire when the brothers Gregory and Bagrat ceded their sovereignty to the Emperor, in exchange for acceptance into his service and protection in 968. Children of the house ranked high as senior military officers and commanders throughout the eleventh century, but the family migrated to the civil service at Constantinople in the Komnenid era. Michael Taronites' marriage to Alexios I's sister showered favor upon the family, which rose to become one of the Constantinople's wealthiest and most influential.
Their power was called into action in the aftermath of Andronikos II Palaiologos' usurpation of the throne. The family patriarch Gregory Taronites was brother-in-law of Alexios Angelos, a son of Emperor Alexios IV and claimant to the purple. When Alexios marched to Constantinople and was defeated in single combat by Michael Palaiologos, Andronikos II's son, peace was made between the two rival factions and Gregory's daughters were given in marriage to Michael and his brother John Palaiologos. As a result, when Theodore II Laskaris retook Constantinople and became the sole Emperor, the Taronitoi were perhaps the house that suffered the most under his new order.
Category:Byzantine families