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, who were often at war with each other. The alliance involved numerous exchanges of presents, military collaboration and marital links, but dissolved in the middle of the 14th century.
Soon after the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, the Empire of Trebizond surrendered to the Mongol Empire while the court of Nicaea put its fortresses in order. [5] In the early 1250s, the Latin emperor of Constantinople Baldwin II sent an embassy to Mongolia in the person of the knight Baudoin de Hainaut, who, following his return, met in Constantinople with the departing William of Rubruck. [6] William of Rubruck also noted that he met an envoy of John III Doukas Vatatzes, Emperor of Nicaea, at the court of Möngke Khan in circa 1253.
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. [7]
Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, after re-establishing Byzantine Imperial rule, established an alliance with the Mongols, [8] who themselves were highly favourable to Christianity, as a minority of them were Nestorian Christians.[ citation needed ]
He signed a treaty in 1266 with the Mongol Khan of the Kipchak (the Golden Horde), [9] and he married two of his daughters (conceived through a mistress, a Diplovatatzina) to Mongol kings: Euphrosyne Palaiologina, who married Nogai Khan of the Golden Horde, and Maria Palaiologina, who married Abaqa Khan of Ilkhanid Persia. [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.
— 1267 letter from Pope Clement IV to Abaqa [11]
In 1265, Berke Khan sent the Golden Horde army under Nogai to Thrace, prompting to force the Byzantines to release the Mamluk envoy and the former Seljuk Sultan Kaykaus II. 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] 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. [12] [13]
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. [14] The death of Ghazan in 1304 was mourned by the Byzantines. [15]
This alliance would continue under Ghazan's successor, Oljeitu. In 1305, Ilkhan Oljeitu promised Andronikos II 40,000 men, and in 1308 dispatched 30,000 men to recover many Byzantine towns in Bithynia. [16] Andronicus II gave daughters in marriage to Toqta, as well as his successor Uzbek (1312–1341), [12] 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.
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. [12]
Alexios III Angelos, Latinized as Alexius III Angelus, was Byzantine Emperor from March 1195 to 17/18 July 1203. He reigned under the name Alexios Komnenos associating himself with the Komnenos dynasty. A member of the extended imperial family, Alexios came to the throne after deposing, blinding and imprisoning his younger brother Isaac II Angelos. The most significant event of his reign was the attack of the Fourth Crusade on Constantinople in 1203, on behalf of Alexios IV Angelos. Alexios III took over the defence of the city, which he mismanaged, and then fled the city at night with one of his three daughters. From Adrianople, and then Mosynopolis, he attempted unsuccessfully to rally his supporters, only to end up a captive of Marquis Boniface of Montferrat. He was ransomed and sent to Asia Minor where he plotted against his son-in-law Theodore I Laskaris, but was eventually captured and spent his last days confined to the Monastery of Hyakinthos in Nicaea, where he died.
Andronikos II Palaiologos, Latinized as Andronicus II Palaeologus, reigned as Byzantine emperor from 1282 to 1328. His reign marked the beginning of the recently-restored empire's final decline. The Turks conquered most of Byzantium's remaining Anatolian territories, and Andronikos spent the last years of his reign fighting his own grandson in the First Palaiologan Civil War. The war ended in Andronikos' forced abdication in 1328, after which he retired to a monastery for the remainder of his life.
John IV Doukas Laskaris was emperor of Nicaea from August 16, 1258, to December 25, 1261. This empire was one of the Greek states formed from the remaining fragments of the Byzantine Empire, after the capture of Constantinople by Roman Catholics during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
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 Ilkhanate or Il-khanate, also known as the Ilkhanids, and known to the Mongols as Hülegü Ulus, was a Mongol khanate established from the southwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanid realm was officially known as the land of Iran or simply Iran. It was established after Hülegü, the son of Tolui and grandson of Genghis Khan, inherited the West Asian part of the Mongol Empire after his brother Möngke Khan died in 1259.
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.
Manuel I Megas Komnenos was Emperor of Trebizond from 1238 until his death. He was the son of Emperor Alexios I and his wife, Theodora. At the time Manuel reigned, the Empire of Trebizond comprised a band of territory stretching along the southern coast of the Black Sea. Although Michael Panaretos, a 14th-century Trapezuntine chronicler, calls Manuel "the greatest general and the most fortunate" and states he ruled "virtuously in the eyes of God", the only event he documents for Manuel's reign is a catastrophic fire striking the city of Trebizond in January 1253. The major events of his reign are known from external sources, most important of which is the recovery of Sinope in 1254, which had been lost to the Sultanate of Rum forty years before.
Alexios I Megas Komnenos or Alexius I Megas Comnenus was, with his brother David, the founder of the Empire of Trebizond and its ruler from 1204 until his death in 1222. The two brothers were the only male descendants of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I, who had been dethroned and killed in 1185, and thus claimed to represent the legitimate government of the Empire following the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Although his rivals governing the Nicaean Empire succeeded in becoming the de facto successors, and rendered his dynastic claims to the imperial throne moot, Alexios' descendants continued to emphasize both their heritage and connection to the Komnenian dynasty by later referring to themselves as Megas Komnenos.
Konstantin Tih or Constantine I Tikh, was the tsar of Bulgaria from 1257 to 1277, he was offered the throne from Mitso Asen. He led the Bulgarian Empire at a time when the nearby Byzantine Empire disintegrated into rump states. To strengthen his position, he forged an alliance with one of the rump state—Nicaea—by marrying Irene, a daughter of Theodore II of the prominent Laskaris family.
Tokhta was Khan of the Golden Horde from 1291 to 1312. He was a son of Mengu-Timur and a great-grandson of Batu Khan.
Starting in the 1240s, the Mongols made repeated invasions of Syria or attempts thereof. Most failed, but they did have some success in 1260 and 1300, capturing Aleppo and Damascus and destroying the Ayyubid dynasty. The Mongols were forced to retreat within months each time by other forces in the area, primarily the Egyptian Mamluks. The post-1260 conflict has been described as the Mamluk–Ilkhanid War.
Öljaitü, also known as Mohammad-e Khodabande, was the eighth Ilkhanid dynasty ruler from 1304 to 1316 in Tabriz, Iran. His name means 'blessed' in the Mongolian language.
Kaykaus ibn Kaykhusraw or Kayka'us II was the sultan of the Seljuqs of Rûm from 1246 until 1262.
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.
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.