A Byzantine-Mongol Alliance occurred during the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century between the Byzantine Empire and the Mongol Empire.[2][lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2] Byzantium attempted to maintain friendly relations with both the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate realms,[5] and was caught in the middle of growing conflict between the two.[6] The alliance involved numerous exchanges of presents, military collaboration and marital links, but dissolved in the middle of the 14th century.
Following the Mongol partition of the Sultanate of Rum between the pro-Mongol Kilij Arslan IV in the east and the pro-Nicaean Kaykaus II in the west, the Nicaean emperor Theodore Doukas Laskaris engaged in active diplomacy with the Ilkhanate, receiving a Mongol embassy in 1257. Through Laskaris' shrewd deception, the embassy was convinced that Nicaea was a large and powerful state with a formidable army and covered entirely by mountains, thus making it exceedingly difficult for the Mongols to subjugate. The Mongol ambassadors were therefore content with Nicaea remaining independent in exchange for Rum being recognized as a Mongol protectorate. The embassy also lead to negotiations for a marriage alliance between the two rulers, however Laskaris died in 1258 before the alliance could be finalized.[10]
According to a 1267 letter by Pope Clement IV from Viterbo, Abaqa had agreed to combine forces with his father-in-law Michael VIII to help the Latins in the Holy Land, in preparation for the Eighth Crusade (the second of Louis IX):
The kings of France and Navarre, taking to heart the situation in the Holy Land, and decorated with the Holy Cross, are readying themselves to attack the enemies of the Cross. You wrote to us that you wished to join your father-in-law (the Greek emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos) to assist the Latins. We abundantly praise you for this, but we cannot tell you yet, before having asked to the rulers, what road they are planning to follow. We will transmit to them your advice, so as to enlighten their deliberations, and will inform your Magnificence, through a secure message, of what will have been decided.
Mamluk envoys were traveling through Constantinople to the Golden Horde in the summer of 1263. However, the leader of the Ilkhans would have been angered if Michael allowed the envoys to pass, leading Michael to send them back to Egypt. In response, the Golden Horde army invaded Nicaean territory, freeing the former Seljuk Sultan Kaykaus II, who had been imprisoned on Nicaean territoriy since rebelling and fleeing from the Mongols. The conflict ended after the Mamluks convinced the Golden Horde to withdraw from Byzantine territory, and the Byzantines to allow the Mamluk envoys to travel to the Golden Horde.[15]
According to Egyptian sources, Michael agreed to send fabrics to the Mongol Khan in Russia. When Michael realized the importance of the Mongols and became an ally of Noghai, he used his help to defend himself against Bulgaria when it tried to attack the Byzantine Empire in 1273 and 1279.[4] Probably in 1276, Maria Palaiologina Kantakouzene, Michael's niece, planned an attack on Byzantium. She withdrew after Michael convinced the Mongols to raid Bulgaria. Later, in 1278, the Byzantines and the Mongols jointly besieged and captured Maria in Tirnovo.[16] A group of 4,000 Mongol soldiers were dispatched to Constantinople in 1282, just before the death of Michael, to fight against the despot of Thessaly.[17][18]
Alliance under Andronikos II (1282–1328)
After 1295, Andronikos II offered Ghazan a marital alliance, in exchange for Mongol help to fight against the Turcomans at the Oriental frontier of the Byzantine Empire. Ghazan accepted the offer and promised to stop the incursions.[19] The death of Ghazan in 1304 was mourned by the Byzantines.[20]
This alliance would continue under Ghazan's successor, Oljeitu. In 1305, IlkhanOljeitu promised Andronikos II 40,000 men, and in 1308 dispatched 30,000 men to recover many Byzantine towns in Bithynia.[21] Andronicus II gave daughters in marriage to Toqta, as well as his successor Uzbek (1312–1341), but relations turned sour at the end of Andronikos's reign and the Mongols mounted raids on Thrace between 1320 and 1324, until the Byzantine port of Vicina Macaria was occupied by the Mongols in the late 1330's.[17]
Mongol control of western and central Anatolia was unstable, which allowed Turkmen groups to raid and cause damage to many frontier villages in the Byzantine Empire.[22] These raids would eventually lead to the complete collapse of Byzantine Anatolia under Andronikos II.[23] The Byzantines asked the Ilkhans for help in 1302-1303 and again in 1304-1305, but despite promises of help, it did not stop the Turkmen advances.[24]
End of friendly relations
Under Andronikos III relations seem to have turned even more conflictual. In 1341, the Mongols planned to attack Constantinople, and Andronikos III had to send an embassy to stop the attack.[17]
↑ Richard, p. 453. "The sustained attacks by the Sultan Baibars (…) rallied the Occidentals to this alliance [with the Mongols], to which the Mongols also convinced the Byzantines to adhere."
Dagron, Gilbert; Mondrain, Brigitte; Deroche, Vincent; Cheynet, Jean-Claude (2001). XXe Congrès international des études Byzantines: Collège de France - Sorbonne, 19 - 25 août 2001: pré-actes: XXe Congrès international des études Byzantines, Collège de France-Sorbonne, 19-25 août 2001. Comité d'organization du XXe Congrès international des études Byzantines, Collège de France. ISBN2-9517158-0-3.
Heath, Ian and McBride, Angus. Byzantine Armies: AD 1118–1461. Osprey Publishing, 1995, ISBN1-85532-347-8.
Cheynet, Jean-Claude and Vannier, Jean-François. "Les premiers Paléologues". Etudes prosopographiques. Publications de la Sorbonne, 1986, ISBN2-85944-110-7.
Richard, Jean. Histoire des Croisades [History of the Crusades]. Paris: Editions Fayard, 1996.
Jackson, Peter (2005). The Mongols and the West, 1221-1410. Pearson Longman. ISBN0-582-36896-0.
Luisetto, Frédéric. Arméniens & autres Chrétiens d'Orient sous la domination Mongole (in French). Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner S.A., 2007, ISBN978-2-7053-3791-9.
Sicker, Martin (2000). The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN0-275-96892-8.
Canal, Denis-Armand and Runciman, Steven. Histoire des Croisades [History of the Crusades]. Editions Dagorno, 1998, ISBN2-910019-45-4.
Morton, Nicholas (2022). The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East. Basic Books. ISBN9781541616301.
Michael VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus reigned as Byzantine emperor from 1261 until his death in 1282, and previously as the co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea from 1259 to 1261. Michael VIII was the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty that would rule the Byzantine Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. He recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261 and transformed the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Byzantine Empire. His reign saw considerable recovery of Byzantine power, including the enlargement of the Byzantine army and navy. It also included the reconstruction of the city of Constantinople, and the increase of its population. His re-establishment of the University of Constantinople contributed to the Palaeologan Renaissance, a cultural flowering between the 13th and 15th centuries.
Theodore I Laskaris or Lascaris was the first emperor of Nicaea—a successor state of the Byzantine Empire—from 1205 to his death. Although he was born to an obscure aristocratic family, his mother was related to the imperial Komnenos clan. He married Anna, a younger daughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos in 1200. He received the title of despot before 1203, demonstrating his right to succeed his father-in-law on the throne.
Theodore II Doukas Laskaris or Ducas Lascaris was Emperor of Nicaea from 1254 to 1258. He was the only child of Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes and Empress Irene Laskarina. His mother was the eldest daughter of Theodore I Laskaris, who had established the Empire of Nicaea as a successor state to the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor after the crusaders captured the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Theodore received an excellent education from two renowned scholars, Nikephoros Blemmydes and George Akropolites. He made friends with young intellectuals, especially with a page of low birth, George Mouzalon. Theodore began to write treatises on theological, historical and philosophical themes in his youth.
John III Doukas Vatatzes, Latinized as Ducas Vatatzes, was Emperor of Nicaea from 1221 to 1254. He was succeeded by his son, known as Theodore II Laskaris.
The Empire of Nicaea or the Nicene Empire was the largest of the three Byzantine Greek rump states founded by the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire that fled when Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian armed forces during the Fourth Crusade, a military event known as the Sack of Constantinople. Like the other Byzantine rump states that formed due to the 1204 fracturing of the empire, such as the Empire of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus, it was a continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived well into the medieval period. A fourth state, known in historiography as the Latin Empire, was established by an army of Crusaders and the Republic of Venice after the capture of Constantinople and the surrounding environs.
The Despotate of Epirus was one of the Greek successor states of the Byzantine Empire established in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 by a branch of the Angelos dynasty. It claimed to be the legitimate successor of the Byzantine Empire, along with the Empire of Nicaea and the Empire of Trebizond, its rulers briefly proclaiming themselves as Emperors in 1227–1242. The term "Despotate of Epirus" is, like "Byzantine Empire" itself, a modern historiographic convention and not a name in use at the time.
The Battle of Pelagonia or Battle of Kastoria took place in early summer or autumn 1259, between the Empire of Nicaea and an anti-Nicaean alliance comprising Despotate of Epirus, Kingdom of Sicily and the Principality of Achaea. It was a decisive event in the history of the Eastern Mediterranean, ensuring the eventual reconquest of Constantinople and the end of the Latin Empire in 1261.
Eudokia Palaiologina or was the third daughter of Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos and his wife, Theodora, a grandniece of Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes of Nicaea.
Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas, Latinized as Nicephorus I Comnenus Ducas was ruler of Epirus from 1267/8 to his death in 1296/98.
The House of Laskaris, Latinized as Lascaris, was a Byzantine Greek noble family which rose to prominence during the late Byzantine period. The members of the family formed the ruling dynasty of the Empire of Nicaea, a Byzantine rump state that existed from the 1204 sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade until the restoration of the Empire under the Palaeologan dynasty in 1261.
Alexios Komnenos Strategopoulos was a Byzantine aristocrat and general who rose to the rank of megas domestikos and Caesar. Distantly related to the Komnenian dynasty, he appears in the sources already at an advanced age in the early 1250s, leading armies for the Empire of Nicaea against Epirus. After falling out of favour and being imprisoned by Theodore II Laskaris, Strategopoulos sided with the aristocrats around Michael VIII Palaiologos, and supported him in his rise to the throne after Theodore II's death in 1258. He participated in the Pelagonia campaign in 1259, going on to capture Epirus, but his successes were undone in the next year and he was captured by the Epirotes. Released after a few months, he led the unexpected reconquest of Constantinople from the Latin Empire in July 1261, restoring the Byzantine Empire. He was captured again by the Epirotes in the next year and spent several years in captivity in Italy, before being released. He retired from public affairs and died in the early 1270s.
Maria Palaiologina was the daughter of the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos who became the wife of the Mongol ruler Abaqa Khan, and an influential Christian leader among the Mongols. After Abaqa's death she became the leader of a monastery in Constantinople which was popularly named after her as Saint Mary of the Mongols. Her monastic name was Melanie.
The Palaiologan army refers to the military forces of the Byzantine Empire under the rule of the Palaiologos dynasty, from the late 13th century to its final collapse in the mid-15th century. The army was a direct continuation of the forces of the Empire of Nicaea, which itself was a fractured component of the formidable Komnenian army of the 12th century. Under the first Palaiologan emperor, Michael VIII, the army's role took an increasingly offensive role whilst the naval forces of the empire, weakened since the days of Andronikos I Komnenos, were boosted to include thousands of skilled sailors and some 80 ships. Due to the lack of land to support the army, the empire required the use of large numbers of mercenaries.
The siege of Constantinople (1235) was a joint Bulgarian–Nicaean siege on the capital of the Latin Empire. Latin emperor John of Brienne was besieged by the Nicaean emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes and Tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria.
The siege of Constantinople in 1260 was the failed attempt by the Nicene Empire, the major remnant of the fractured Byzantine Empire, to retake Constantinople from the Latin Empire and re-establish the City as the political, cultural and spiritual capital of a revived Byzantine Empire.
The Battle of Poimanenon or Poemanenum was fought in early 1224 between the forces of the two main successor states of the Byzantine Empire; the Latin Empire and the Byzantine Greek Empire of Nicaea. The opposing forces met at Poimanenon, south of Cyzicus in Mysia, near Lake Kuş.
Andronikos Komnenos Palaiologos, was a governor-general of Thessalonica and Grand domestic of the Empire of Nicaea. He was the father of the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, the founder of the Palaeologue dynasty.
Euphrosyne Palaiologina was an illegitimate daughter of Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos and his mistress Diplovatatzina, who married Nogai Khan in order to form a Byzantine–Mongol alliance. She was named after goddess Euphrosyne, and was also known as Irene.
The Empire of Thessalonica is a historiographic term used by some modern scholars to refer to the short-lived Byzantine Greek state centred on the city of Thessalonica between 1224 and 1246 and ruled by the Komnenodoukas dynasty of Epirus. At the time of its establishment, the Empire of Thessalonica, under the capable Theodore Komnenos Doukas, rivaled the Empire of Nicaea and the Second Bulgarian Empire as the strongest state in the region, and aspired to capturing Constantinople, putting an end to the Latin Empire, and restoring the Byzantine Empire that had been extinguished in 1204.
The Nicaean–Latin wars were a series of wars between the Latin Empire and the Empire of Nicaea, starting with the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The Latin Empire was aided by other Crusader states established on Byzantine territory after the Fourth Crusade, as well as the Republic of Venice, while the Empire of Nicaea was assisted occasionally by the Second Bulgarian Empire, and sought the aid of Venice's rival, the Republic of Genoa. The conflict also involved the Greek state of Epirus, which also claimed the Byzantine inheritance and opposed Nicaean hegemony. The Nicaean reconquest of Constantinople in 1261 AD and the restoration of the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty did not end the conflict, as the Byzantines launched on and off efforts to reconquer Southern Greece and the Aegean islands until the 15th century, while the Latin powers, led by the Angevin Kingdom of Naples, tried to restore the Latin Empire and launched attacks on the Byzantine Empire.
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