58 | Mahmud Pasha and His Christian Circle
the end of the fourteenth century. This information has led modern historians
to argue that Mahmud Pasha’s paternal grandfather must have been one of the
last two Byzantine rulers of Thessaly, either Alexios Angelos Philanthropenos (r.
1373–1390) or Manuel Angelos Philanthropenos (r. 1390–1394), both of whom held
the rank of caesar.
Although Kritoboulos writes that Mahmud Pasha’s mother was Greek,
Chalkokondyles suggests that she was Serbian. In another passage, he indicates
that George Amiroutzes, a high official (protovestiarios) of the empire of Trebi-
zond, was a cousin of Mahmud Pasha. Two anonymous sixteenth-century Greek
chronicles elaborate further on this relationship by saying that George Ami-
routzes “was a grandson of Iagaris, son of his daughter; similarly also Mahmud
Pasha, from the other daughter of Iagaris, who was in Serbia. And this Protoves-
tiarios with that Pasha were first cousins, sons of two sisters.” The name Iagaris
leads us to three prominent members of the Byzantine court: Markos, Androni-
kos, and Manuel Palaiologos Iagaris, all of whom held high court positions in
the first half of the fifteenth century. Probably one of them was Mahmud Pasha’s
maternal grandfather.
Another piece of information strengthens the argument for the relationship
of the grand vizier with the house of the Palaiologoi. In his description of the
1460 Ottoman campaign in the Morea, George Sphrantzes writes that the family
of Manuel Bochalis, leader of the defenders of Gardiki, was spared the cruel fate
of the other defenders after the fall of the fortress by the intervention of Mahmud
Pasha, who was related to Bochalis’s wife, since her father, George Palaiologos,
was first cousin to his mother.
The name of Mahmud Pasha’s mother is not known, but Chalkokondyles
mentions that she and her son were captured by the Ottomans. According to an
Ottoman document of 1463, the sultan donated to her the Greek Orthodox mon-
astery of Prodromos Petras in Istanbul, which suggests she retained her Chris-
tian faith.
The Reasons for Mahmud Pasha’s Appointment
To shed light on appointments of descendants of Balkan aristocratic families to
high Ottoman offices, we should look for the reasons of Mahmud Pasha’s ap-
pointment. It should be borne in mind that his Byzantine identity was related
only to his family descent and connections and had nothing to do with his edu-
cation and formation, which was exclusively Ottoman. That he was captured at a
very young age is confirmed by various sources, like Taşköprüzade, the Ottoman
biographer of scholars, who mentions that he was carried from Serbia to Edirne
on the same horse with two other boys. Upon his arrival in Edirne, he was edu-
cated in the palace school of Murad II, and therefore his formation happened
within the Ottoman court.