MATTHEW CANTACUZENUS  , Byzantine emperor, was the son of John VI . Cantacuzenus (q.v.) . In return for the support he gave to his father during his struggle with John V. he was allowed to annex part of Thrace under his own dominion and in 1353 was proclaimed joint emperor . From his Thracian principality he levied several wars against the Servians . An attack which be prepared in 1350 was frustrated by the defection of his Turkish auxiliaries . In 1357 he was captured by his enemies, who delivered him to the rival emperor, John V . Anglorum sive historia minor (1067-1253) has been edited by F . Madden (3 vols., Rolls series, 1866–1869) . Matthew Paris is often confused with " Matthew of Westminster," the reputed author of the Flores historiarum edited by H . R . Luard (3 vols., Rolls series, 189o) . This work, compiled by various hands, is an edition of Matthew Paris, with continuations extending to 1326 .

Matthew Paris also wrote a

life of Edmund Rich (q.v.), which is probably the work printed in W . Wallace's St Edmund of Canterbury (London, 1893) PP . 543–588, though this is attributed by the editor to the monk Eustace; Vitae abbatum S Albani (up to 1225) which have been edited by W . Watts (164o, &c.) ; and (possibly) the Abbreviatio chronicorum (1000–1255), edited by F . Madden, in the third volume of the Historia Anglorum . On the value of Matthew as an historian see F . Liebermann in G . H . Pertz's Scriptores xxviii. pp . 74–106; A . Jessopp's Studies by a Recluse (London, 1893) ; H . Plehn's Politische Character Matheus Parisiensis (Leipzig, 1897) .

(H . W . C .