Renier of Trit

Last updated May 05, 2019

Renier of Trit was a knight from Trith-Saint-Léger, Hainaut, who took part to the Fourth Crusade and became the first Frankish duke of Philippopolis (modern Plovdiv, Bulgaria) from 1204 to 1205.

Trith-Saint-Léger is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.

The County of Hainaut, sometimes given the spelling Hainault, was a historical lordship within the medieval Holy Roman Empire with its capital eventually established at Mons, and named after the river Haine, both now in Belgium. Besides Mons, it included the city of Valenciennes, now in France. It consisted of what is now the Belgian province of Hainaut and the eastern part of the French département of Nord.

Fourth Crusade 1204 Crusade that captured Constantinople rather than Jerusalem

The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first conquering the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate, the strongest Muslim state of the time. However, a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army sacking the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Greek Christian-controlled Byzantine Empire.

Life

Born in Valenciennes, he was probably the son of a castellan of the town mentioned in 1141. He seems to appear in the official record in 1180. After the accession of Baldwin IX as Count of Flanders in 1194 he appears on several important acts of Baldwin, including the treaty between the latter and Richard Lionheart in June/July 1197 and another in 1199 with John Lackland.^[1]

Valenciennes Subprefecture and commune in Hauts-de-France, France

Valenciennes is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.

A castellan is the title used in Medieval Europe for an appointed official, a governor of a castle and its surrounding territory referred to as the castellany. The title of governor is retained in the English Prison system, as a remnant of the medieval idea of the castellan as head of the local prison. The word stems from the Latin Castellanus, derived from castellum "castle". Sometimes also known as a constable of the castle district, the Constable of the Tower of London is, in fact, a form of castellan, with representative powers in the local or national assembly. A castellan was almost always male, but could occasionally be female, as when, in 1194, Beatrice inherited her father's castellany of Bourbourg upon the death of her brother, Roger.

The Count of Flanders was the ruler or sub-ruler of the county of Flanders, beginning in the 9th century. The title was held for a time by the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Spain. During the French Revolution in 1790, the county of Flanders was annexed to France and the peerage ceased to exist. In the 19th century, the title was appropriated by Belgium and granted twice to younger sons of the King of the Belgians. The most recent holder died in 1983.

He took the cross alongside his suzerain; in the spring 1203, in Corfu, he was one of the few leaders who advocated in favor of the diversion of the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople.^[2]

Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman Empire (330–395), of the Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Crusader state known as the Latin Empire (1204–1261), until finally falling to the Ottoman Empire (1453–1923). It was reinaugurated in 324 from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, and dedicated on 11 May 330. The city was located in what is now the European side and the core of modern Istanbul.

After the conquest of Constantinople and the establishment of the Latin Empire, Renier was granted Philippopolis and the territory as far as the river Maritsa by Emperor Baldwin I following the October 1204 partition of the conquered and yet to be conquered lands of the Byzantine Empire. Renier's land lay within the realm of Bulgaria, in territory claimed by Byzantium and subsequently the Franks.

The siege and sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Mutinous Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the city, the Latin Empire was established and Baldwin of Flanders was crowned Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople in the Hagia Sophia.

Latin Empire feudal Crusader state (1204–1261) founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire

The Empire of Romania, more commonly known in historiography as the Latin Empire or Latin Empire of Constantinople, and known to the Byzantines as the Frankokratia or the Latin Occupation, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. It was established after the capture of Constantinople in 1204 and lasted until 1261. The Latin Empire was intended to supplant the Byzantine Empire as the titular Roman Empire in the east, with a Western Roman Catholic emperor enthroned in place of the Eastern Orthodox Roman emperors.

Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, with a city population of 346 893 as of 2018 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. It is an important economic, transport, cultural, and educational center. There is evidence of habitation in Plovdiv dating back to the 6th millennium BCE, when the first Neolithic settlements were established. It has been considered to be one of the oldest cities in the world; however, archaeological excavations in 2016 and 2017 have shown that this may not be the case.

Renier's first campaigns that fall and winter to take possession of his imperial fief were successful, but the next year Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan swooped down and took Adrianople and threatened Philippopolis. Renier was abandoned by his son Renier, his brother Gilles, his nephew James of Bondues and his son-in-law Achard of Verli, which tried to go to Constantinople but were captured and executed by Kaloyan.^[2] With only a small force remaining at his command, Renier holed up in the castle of Stenimaka. It was during an effort to relieve Adrianople that Emperor Baldwin was captured. In the summer of 1205, the Paulicians of Philippopolis tried to surrender the city to Kaloyan, but Renier sallied from his fortress and razed their quarter of the city, leaving the rest to the brave defence of the united Latin and Greek populations, who declared Alexios Aspietes as emperor. Nevertheless, the city was taken and the Greek quarter burned. Later that same year, the imperial regent Henry of Flanders marched into Bulgaria and relieved Stenimaka and Renier in July 1206.

Tsar, also spelled czar, or tzar, is a title used to designate East and South Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers of Eastern Europe, originally Bulgarian monarchs from 10th century onwards. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism. The term is derived from the Latin word Caesar, which was intended to mean "Emperor" in the European medieval sense of the term—a ruler with the same rank as a Roman emperor, holding it by the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official —but was usually considered by western Europeans to be equivalent to king, or to be somewhat in between a royal and imperial rank.

Kaloyan, also known as Kalojan, Johannitsa or Ioannitsa was emperor of Bulgaria from 1196 to 1207. He was a younger brother of Theodor and Asen who led the anti-Byzantine uprising of the Bulgarians and Vlachs in 1185. The uprising ended with the restoration of the independence of Bulgaria. He spent years as a hostage in Constantinople in the late 1180s. Theodor made him his co-ruler after Asen was murdered in 1196. A year later, Theodor-Peter was also assassinated, and Kaloyan became the sole ruler of Bulgaria.

Alexios Aspietes was a Byzantine governor and military leader who was captured by the Bulgarians, and led an anti-Bulgarian rebellion at Philippopolis in 1205, being acclaimed emperor by the citizens.

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The Battle of Adrianople occurred around Adrianople on April 14, 1205 between Bulgarians, Vlachs and Cumans under Tsar Kaloyan of Bulgaria, and Crusaders under Baldwin I, who only months before had been crowned Emperor of Constantinople, allied with Venetians under Doge Enrico Dandolo. It was won by the Bulgarians, after a successful ambush.

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The Battle of Philippopolis or Battle of Plovdiv took place on 30 June 1208 in the surroundings of Philippopolis between the armies of the Bulgarian Empire and the Latin Empire. The Crusaders were victorious.

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Garnier de Traînel was the bishop of Troyes from 1193 until his death. He took part in the Fourth Crusade (1202–04) and in the founding of the Latin Empire.

References

↑ Longnon 1978 , p. 150
1 2 Longnon 1978 , p. 151

Sources

Setton, Kenneth M.; Robert Lee Wolff and Harry W. Hazard, eds. (1969). A History of the Crusades: Volume II — The Later Crusades, 1189 – 1311. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-04844-6.
Longnon, Jean (1978). Les compagnons de Villehardouin: Recherches sur les croisés de la quatrième croisade. Geneva: Librairie Droz.

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New creation	Duke of Philippopolis 1204–1208	Succeeded by Gérard de Strøm

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[1] Longnon 1978 , p. 150

[L151-2] 1 2 Longnon 1978 , p. 151

Renier of Trit

Contents

Life

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References

Sources