William of Villehardouin
William II | |
---|---|
Prince of Achaea | |
Reign | 1246–1278 |
Predecessor | Geoffrey II |
Successor | Charles I |
Born | c. 1211 Kalamata, Achaea |
Died | 1 May 1278 |
Spouse |
|
Issue | |
Roman Catholicism |
William of Villehardouin (
In the early 1250s, William was the most powerful ruler of Frankish Greece. Most neighboring Frankish rulers acknowledged his suzerainty. In 1255, he laid claim to the northern
A succession crisis in Nicaea prompted the Epirote ruler Michael II Komnenos Doukas to form an anti-Nicaean coalition with William and Manfred of Sicily. In the summer of 1259, William and Michael assembled the bulk of their armies and marched as far as Pelagonia to fight the Nicaeans. The Frankish and Epirote troops could not cooperate effectively, and archers from the enemy camp harassed them continuously. After the Epirotes abandoned their allies unexpectedly, the Nicaeans inflicted a decisive defeat on the Franks. William fled from the battlefield, but he was captured and sent to Nicaea. He was still in prison when Nicaean troops seized Constantinople and destroyed the Latin Empire in July 1261. The triumphant Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos released William in return for three southern Morean fortresses in late 1261. The possession of the three forts facilitated further Byzantine expansion, and William was forced to seek external support. With the approval of Baldwin II, he swore fealty to the Angevin king of Sicily, Charles I. William acknowledged Charles and his descendants as his heirs in the Treaty of Viterbo on 24 May 1267. Charles sent troops to Achaea and with their help, William was able to resist Byzantine invasions during the last years of his reign.
Background
Ruling from 1246 to 1278, William was the fourth
In the newly established principality, Geoffrey held the
As the Franks could not conquer all the Byzantine territories, two successor states,
Early life
William was the second son of Geoffrey I of Villehardouin and his wife Elisabeth.[17] Elisabeth remained in France when her husband left for the Fourth Crusade. She and their elder son, Geoffrey, only moved to Achaea when Geoffrey's position stabilized after the Parliament of Ravennika.[18] She gave birth to William in the castle of Kalamata around 1211.[15][18] Growing up in the Morea, William could speak Greek like a native and he felt home with both Franks and Greeks.[15][19] As a younger son, William received the Barony of Kalamata in fief, while his brother succeeded their father as prince around 1229.[20] William married an unnamed daughter of Narjot de Toucy, a high-ranking official of the Latin Empire.[5] He administered Achaea as regent during his brother's military campaigns for the defense of Constantinople.[5]
Reign
Expansion and crusade
William came to power in Achaea when the childless Geoffrey II died in the summer of 1246.
War of the Euboeote Succession
Carintana dalle Carceri was one ruler of Negroponte, sharing Oreus and the island's northern triarchy, or third, with Grapella of Verona.[29] When she died in 1255, William wanted to seize her lordship, but Grapella laid claim to her inheritance.[29] As the triarchs owed allegiance to both Achaea and Venice, Grapella could cite a 1216 ruling by the Venetian bailo, or governor, of Negroponte, that stated a co-ruler of a triarchy was entitled to re-unite it if his or her partner died without issue.[29][30] The lords of the island's two other triarchies, Guglielmo I da Verona and Narzotto dalle Carceri, supported Grapella's claim.[29][30] The Venetian chronicler Marino Sanudo writes that the conflict developed into a war after William had Guglielmo and Narzotto imprisoned, because their wives convinced the Venetian bailo Paolo Gradenigo to intervene and he seized the island's capital, Chalcis.[30] If the two triarchs were indeed incarcerated, they were held in captivity only for some months.[30] William appointed his nephew Geoffrey of Briel to lead an army to Negroponte.[29][30] The Achaean troops laid waste to the island and expelled the Venetians.[29][30]
The
The war quickly spread to mainland Greece.
Defeat and captivity
Doge Ranieri Zeno ordered the new bailo of Negroponte,
Michael VIII dispatched his brother, John Palaiologos, with fresh troops to Thessalonica.[45] He sent envoys to Epirus, Sicily and Achaea to start peace negotiations, but Michael II, Manfred and William refused.[45] Enforced by newly hired mercenary troops, John Palaiologos launched a full-scale invasion of Epirus.[46] Unable to resist alone, Michael II called for his allies' assistance in the spring of 1259.[46] William assembled the bulk of the Achaean army. The Aragonese version of the Chronicle of the Morea, in this respect a source of dubious reliability, estimates that "eight thousand first-class men-at-arms and twelve thousand men on foot" gathered for the campaign.[47] William led the Achaean army across the Gulf of Corinth and joined his father-in-law at Arta.[46] They marched to southern Thessaly, where reinforcements from Athens, Salona, Negroponte, Naxos and other Aegean islands joined them.[48] After the Frankish and Epirote commanders decided to fight a pitched battle instead of attacking fortified towns, the allies marched to Macedonia as far as the plain of Pelagonia to meet the enemy force in June 1259.[46][49] Although the combined number of the Epirote–Frankish soldiery outnumbered the Nicaean troops, their command remained divided.[49]
John Palaiologos avoided battle, but his Cuman and Turkish archers continuously harassed the enemy camp.[50] As their constant attacks exhausted the Franks and Epirotes, Michael II entered into negotiations with John Palaiologos's envoys, who urged him to desert his Frankish allies. The Byzantine historian, George Pachymeres, asserts that the Epirote–Frankish coalition split after Achaean knights disrespected the beautiful Vlach wife of Michael II's bastard son, John Doukas, because William refused to discipline them. Outraged by William's rude remarks about his illegitimate birth, John Doukas deserted to the Nicaeans and convinced his father to abandon the campaign. John's unexpected attack from the rear caused panic and the Franks' retreat quickly turned into a flight. Historian Kenneth Setton considers this whole episode, not reported by the more contemporary Akropolites, doubtful. Akropolites credits the allies' defeat to Michael II's inability to resist the archers' attack. After his flight from the battlefield, the Epirotes either followed his suit or deserted to the Nicaean.[51] As the Nicaean victory seemed inevitable, William fled towards Kastoria. Akropolites writes that William hid under a haystack, but a soldier recognized him by his large protruding teeth.[52] He was shackled and sent to Nicaea together with Anseau of Toucy, Geoffrey of Briel and other Achaean aristocrats.[53] Michael VIII demanded the entire Achaean principality for William's release.[54] William refused, stating that Achaea was "a land acquired by force of arms, held by right of conquest" by the conquerors' descendants, and that he could not surrender his vassals' territory.[26][54] During his prolonged but comfortable captivity, Guy I of Athens assumed the regency for him in Achaea.[26]
The Nicaeans failed to conquer Thessaly and Epirus after their victory at Pelagonia, but their hold of Thessalonica was secured.[55] As the Latin Empire was in ruins and exhausted, Michael VIII decided to re-conquer Constantinople from the Latins. He concluded an alliance with Genoa to secure naval support for the siege, but his general, Alexios Strategopoulos, seized Constantinople without Genoese assistance, taking advantage of the absence of the Latin garrison on 25 July 1261. Michael VIII was again crowned emperor in the Hagia Sophia and quickly deposed his underage co-emperor, John IV.[55][56] After the fall of the Latin Empire, new negotiations began between Michael VIII and William about the conditions of William's release.[54] They reached a compromise when William agreed to cede Mistra, Grand Magne and Monemvasia.[54] As they had been built or conquered by William, their transfer did not violate Achaean customary law, but he could not cede frontier castles "without the counsel and consent of his liegemen". To legalize the transfer of the three castles, William's wife convoked the imprisoned Achaean lords' wives to a parliament.[57] Although Guy I opposed the proposal, the "parliament of dames" consented to it because the Achaean ladies wanted their husbands back.[26][57] Before releasing William, Michael VIII extracted an oath of fealty from him and took two Achaean ladies, Margaret of Passavant and an unnamed sister of John Chauderon, as hostages to secure William's compliance with their agreement.[26] William returned to Achaea late in 1261.[57][58] After the Byzantines had taken possession of the three castles, the Tzakones and the Melingoi transferred their loyalty to Michael VIII.[59]
Conflicts with the Byzantines
Neither William nor Michael VIII believed the peace treaty would be lasting: the Byzantines could use their Moreot bridgeheads for further expansion, while William could hardly acquiesce to the territorial losses.[60] As a consequence of the Byzantine expansion in the Morea, William could rarely offer fiefs to western European knights, which diminished his principality's military power. Yet the Byzantines refrained from launching major invasions against Achaea because the Frankish cavalry were still able to inflict severe defeats on them. Instead, they attacked poorly garrisoned fortresses and seized them with the support of the local Greeks and Slavs.[61] Pope Urban IV released William from the oath he had taken at Constantinople under duress, and William started peace negotiations with the Venetians.[59] In May 1262, William abandoned his claim to rule parts of Negroponte directly in return for the recognition of his suzerainty over the island. The Venetians were to destroy their seaside fort at Chalcis, but their quarter in the city was expanded.[62][63]
The possession of the port of Monemvasia allowed the Byzantines to transfer troops to the Morea.[59] By the end of 1262, they seized Cape Maleas and took control of the nearby Mani Peninsula.[60] Pope Urban IV urged the Catholic bishops and abbots of Frankish Greece to support the Achaeans against the "schismatic" Byzantines on 27 April 1263, but he soon realized he could achieve his principal goal, the unity of Christendom, only through negotiating with Michael VIII.[64] Michael VIII sent a new army to Monemvasia in the summer of 1263.[60] The Byzantines invaded Arcadia and seized small fortresses, but the Franks routed them near William's capital at Andravida. Another Byzantine army marched towards Kalavryta and seized it with the support of the local population. Next year, the Byzantine commander John Kantakouzenos launched a new invasion of Arcadia, but he perished in a skirmish near Andravida. As he had failed to pay off his Turkish mercenaries, they entered into William's service. With their support, William defeated the Greeks at Nikli and laid siege to Mistra, but he could not capture it.[60]
In response to the Byzantine offensive in the Morea, Urban IV proclaimed a crusade against Michael VIII, but he also appointed new delegates to start negotiations with him about the church union.[65] Manfred of Sicily was willing to support the Franks against the Byzantines by force, but Pope Urban, who regarded Manfred as the principal enemy of the Papacy, rejected the offer.[54] Instead of promoting an anti-Byzantine coalition, the papal delegates mediated a reconciliation between Michael VIII and William before the Pope died in October 1264.[65]
Angevin suzerainty
Urban's successor,
As Charles's loyal vassal, William led 400 knights to fight against Charles's opponent, the young Hohenstaufen prince Conradin in the Battle of Tagliacozzo on 23 August 1268.[70] On his return to Achaea in January 1269, William captured Valona to establish a secure bridgehead for Charles's troops on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. The Achaean barons formally recognized the Treaty of Viterbo in the presence of Charles's envoys in 1270. Next year, Charles appointed the Marshal of Sicily, Dreux of Beaumont, to represent him as captain general in Achaea.[71]
At the same time, the adventurer
As William's son-in-law Philip died childless early in 1277, it was evident that Charles or Charles's offspring would inherit Achaea from William on his death.[73][74] He died on 1 May 1278.[73] With his death, the male line of the Villehardouin family became extinct.[75] Charles succeeded him without opposition, but he allegedly never visited Achaea. Galeran of Ivry represented Charles in the principality as bailli and vicar-general.[73]
Legacy
Historian
Achaea could never regain its power after the Nicaean victory at Pelagonia.[54] Although the Byzantine governors of the Morea conquered the baronies of Passavant and Kalavryta during the last years of his reign, William kept most lands he had inherited from his brother.[73] After the Treaty of Viterbo, Achaea "passed for the duration of its checkered history into the orbit of Neapolitan politics, warfare, and intrigue".[79] With opening the princely print at Glarentza, William put an end to his principality's dependence on Byzantine coins.[80] The Achaean coins were struck on the patterns of William's coins during the reign of his successor.[81]
Family
William's first wife, the unnamed daughter of Narjot of Toucy, was King Louis IX's second cousin through her grandmother,
William's next wife, Anna Komnene Doukaina, took the name of Agnes on their marriage.
Notes
- ^ Most historians accept that Monemvasia was conquered by William in 1248. Alternatively, the historian Haris Kalligas writes that the defenders only surrendered in 1252 or 1253, while Guillaume Saint-Guillain says that William's brother, Geoffrey, had already seized Monemvasia in the late 1220s.[23][24]
References
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 5, 332.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 69, 73–74.
- ^ a b Longnon 1969, p. 237.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 72, 80–81.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Longnon 1969, p. 244.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 80–81.
- ^ Fine 1994, p. 70.
- ^ a b c d Longnon 1969, p. 239.
- ^ Lock 1995, p. 49.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 39–40.
- ^ Lock 1995, p. 81.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 61–62.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 82, 315.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 65–66.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Setton 1976, p. 68.
- ^ Longnon 1969, p. 243.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 362–363.
- ^ a b Longnon 1969, p. 240.
- ^ a b c d Cheetham 1981, p. 87.
- ^ Longnon 1969, pp. 242, 244.
- ^ Lock 1995, p. 317.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 82, 317.
- ^ Saint-Guillain 2016, pp. 241–294.
- ^ Heslop 2020, p. 227 (note 4).
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 36 (note 43).
- ^ a b c d e Fine 1994, p. 166.
- ^ a b c d Setton 1976, p. 69.
- ^ a b Lock 1995, p. 85.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Longnon 1969, p. 245.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Setton 1976, p. 78.
- ^ a b Setton 1976, p. 79.
- ^ Setton 1976, pp. 78–79.
- ^ a b c d e Longnon 1969, p. 246.
- ^ Cheetham 1981, pp. 88–89.
- ^ Setton 1976, pp. 79–80.
- ^ Lock 1995, p. 318.
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 420 (note 89).
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 420.
- ^ a b c d e f Setton 1976, p. 421.
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 80.
- ^ a b Fine 1994, p. 161.
- ^ Setton 1976, pp. 81–82.
- ^ a b c Setton 1976, p. 82.
- ^ a b Setton 1976, p. 83.
- ^ a b Setton 1976, p. 84.
- ^ a b c d Setton 1976, p. 86.
- ^ Setton 1976, pp. 86–88.
- ^ Setton 1976, pp. 86–87.
- ^ a b Fine 1994, p. 162.
- ^ Longnon 1969, p. 247.
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 88-89.
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 89.
- ^ Setton 1976, pp. 88–89.
- ^ a b c d e f Setton 1976, p. 98.
- ^ a b Fine 1994, p. 164.
- ^ Lock 1995, p. 64.
- ^ a b c Setton 1976, p. 99.
- ^ a b Lock 1995, p. 302.
- ^ a b c Fine 1994, pp. 166–167.
- ^ a b c d Fine 1994, p. 167.
- ^ a b Fine 1994, p. 168.
- ^ Fine 1994, p. 189.
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 80 (note 56).
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 99 (note 61).
- ^ a b Setton 1976, p. 100.
- ^ a b Lock 1995, p. 84.
- ^ Setton 1976, pp. 102–103.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 85, 170.
- ^ Setton 1976, pp. 103–104.
- ^ Lock 1995, p. 87.
- ^ a b Lock 1995, p. 86.
- ^ Fine 1994, p. 190.
- ^ a b c d Setton 1976, p. 127.
- ^ Lock 1995, p. 92.
- ^ Fine 1994, p. 193.
- ^ Cheetham 1981, p. 86.
- ^ Lock 1995, p. 102.
- ^ Wallace & Boase 1977, p. 226.
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 105.
- ^ a b c Cheetham 1981, p. 88.
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 127 (note 16).
- ^ Setton 1976, p. 78 (note 41).
- ^ Lock 1995, p. 363.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 95, 102, 304.
- ^ Lock 1995, pp. 82, 127, 187, 363.
Sources
- ISBN 0-300-02421-5.
- ISBN 0-472-08260-4.
- Heslop, Michael (2020). Medieval Greece: Encounters Between Latins, Greeks and Others in the Dodecanese and the Mani. ISBN 978-0-367-85907-7.
- Lock, Peter (1995). The Franks in the Aegean: 1204-1500. ISBN 0-582-05139-8.
- Longnon, Jean (1969) [1962]. "The Frankish States in Greece, 1204–1311". In ISBN 0-299-04844-6.
- Saint-Guillain, Guillaume (2016). "The conquest of Monemvasia by the Franks: Date and context". Rivista Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici. 52: 241–294. ISSN 0557-1367.
- ISBN 0-87169-114-0.
- Wallace, David J.; Boase, T. S. R. (1977). "Frankish Greece". In ISBN 0-299-06820-X.
Further reading
- Bon, Antoine (1969). La Morée franque. Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté d'Achaïe [The Frankish Morea. Historical, Topographic and Archaeological Studies on the Principality of Achaea] (in French). Paris: De Boccard. OCLC 869621129.