Family Tree of the Second Bulgarian Empire
23 reigning rulers across four dynasties — with their consorts, kin and the family's Byzantine branch
The Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) was ruled by four successive dynasties — the Asen, Terter, Smilets and Shishman houses — from the uprising of the brothers Peter and Asen against Byzantium to the fall of Tarnovo to the Ottomans. This family tree charts every tsar and their relatives across those two centuries, together with the Asens in Byzantium: the descendants of Ivan Asen III, who lived on in Constantinople as the noble Asanes family. Switch between the houses with the tabs, expand a branch to follow a line, and select any name for their reign, family ties and the primary sources behind each fact.
Manuel Asen
- Parents
- Siblings
Manuel Asen was one of the five sons of Tsar Ivan Asen III (John III Asen) and Irene Palaiologina. He belonged to the first generation of the Byzantine branch of the family, settled in the Empire after his parents' flight from Tarnovo in 1280.
The sources mention him sparingly — among the Asen brothers active at the Byzantine court and in the armies at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Unlike his more prominent brothers Andronikos and Isaac, Manuel remains in the shadows, and the evidence for his own activity is fragmentary.
- “Мануил Асен като син на Йоан III Асен е отбелязан за първи път във „Fragmentum“.”— Genealogy and Prosopography of the Asen Dynasty 1186–1460, p. 288