Robert I | |
---|---|
Latin Emperor of Constantinople | |
Reign | 25 March 1221 –1228 |
Coronation | 25 March 1221 |
Predecessor | Yolande |
Successor | Baldwin II |
Died | 1228 Morea, Principality of Achaea |
Spouse | Lady of Neuville |
House | House of Courtenay |
Father | Peter II of Courtenay |
Mother | Yolanda of Flanders |
Robert I (died 1228), also known as Robert of Courtenay, was Latin Emperor of Constantinople from 1221 until his death in 1228. He was a younger son of the emperor Peter II of Courtenay, and Yolanda of Flanders. [1]
When it became known in France that Peter of Courtenay was dead, his eldest son, Philip, Marquis of Namur, renounced the succession to the Latin empire of Constantinople in favor of his brother Robert, who set out to take possession of his distracted inheritance. [1] On the way to his new homeland, Robert stayed in Hungary from autumn 1220 to early 1221, enjoying the hospitality of his brother-in-law Andrew II of Hungary. It is possible that Villard de Honnecourt also belonged to his entourage. Robert and Andrew made political alliance against Theodore Komnenos Doukas, Despot of Epirus. Andrew II and his heir Béla escorted Robert until the Bulgarian border. There Robert mediated the wedding between Tsar Ivan Asen II and Andrew's daughter, Anna Maria. [2]
Crowned emperor on 25 March 1221, Robert's first loss was Thessalonica in 1224 to Theodore Doukas of Epirus. [3] Worried about the situation of the Catholic Latin Empire, pope Honorius III called for a crusade for the defense of Thessalonica, [3] but the response was ineffective. [3] In the same year, Robert's empire would suffer another defeat to John Ducas Vatatzes at the Battle of Poimanenos. [4]
Following this defeat Robert was compelled to make peace with his chief foe, John III Ducas Vatatzes, emperor of Nicaea, who was confirmed in all his conquests. Robert promised to marry Eudokia, daughter of the late emperor of Nicaea, Theodore I Lascaris [5] and Anna Angelina. He had been betrothed to Eudokia on a former occasion; the circumstances surrounding the failed negotiations are unclear, but George Akropolites states that the arrangement was blocked on religious grounds by the Orthodox Patriarch Manuel Sarantenos: Robert's sister Marie de Courtenay was married to Emperor Theodore I Laskaris. Accordingly, Robert, already Theodore's brother-in-law, could not also be his son-in-law. [6] Regardless, Robert soon repudiated this engagement, and married the Lady of Neuville, already the fiancée of a Burgundian gentleman. Heading a conspiracy, the Burgundian drove Robert from Constantinople, he fled to Rome to seek redress from the pope who convinced him to return to Constantinople, but on his return trip, in early 1228, the emperor died in Morea. [3]
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.
Henry was Latin emperor of Constantinople from 1205 until his death in 1216. He was one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade in which the Byzantine Empire was conquered and Latin Empire formed.
The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzantine Empire as the Western-recognized Roman Empire in the east, with a Catholic emperor enthroned in place of the Eastern Orthodox Roman emperors. The main objective to form a Latin Empire was planned over the course of the Fourth Crusade, promoted by crusade leaders such as Boniface of Montferrat, as well as the Republic of Venice.
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 during the subsequent struggle for Constantinople, 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.
Theodore Komnenos Doukas or Theodore Angelos Komnenos was the ruler of Epirus and Thessaly from 1215 to 1230 and of Thessalonica and most of Macedonia and western Thrace from 1224 to 1230. He was also the power behind the rule of his sons John and Demetrios over Thessalonica in 1237–1246.
Michael II Komnenos Doukas, Latinized as Comnenus Ducas, often called Michael Angelos in narrative sources, was from 1230 until his death in 1266/68 the ruler of the Despotate of Epirus, which included Epirus in northwestern Greece, the western part of Greek Macedonia and Thessaly, and western Greece as far south as Nafpaktos.
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.
Marie de Courtenay was Empress consort of Nicaea from 1219 until 1221. She was a daughter of Peter II of Courtenay and Yolanda of Flanders. She married Emperor Theodore I Laskaris of Nicaea. Marie served as regent for her younger brother, Baldwin II, Latin Emperor, in 1228, and styled herself "Empress of Constantinople."
Golem was an Albanian nobleman who ruled the Principality of Arbanon, in its phase of semi-independency. He was the last ruler of Arbanon before its final annexation in the reemerging Byzantine Empire. His holdings included Krujë and probably Ohrid.
Lady of Neuville was the empress consort of Robert of Courtenay, Latin Emperor of Constantinople. Her first name is unknown, though a number of genealogies have assigned her the name Eudoxie (Eudoxia). The name is possibly a confusion with Eudokia Laskarina, a Byzantine princess that was previously betrothed to Robert, whose name is Latinized to Eudoxia.
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.
Isaac Laskaris was a brother of Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris, who along with his brother Alexios Laskaris fled to the Latin Empire and unsuccessfully tried to topple Theodore's successor, John III Doukas Vatatzes, in 1224.
Alexios Laskaris was a brother of Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris, who along with his brother Isaac Laskaris fled to the Latin Empire and unsuccessfully tried to topple Theodore's successor, John III Doukas Vatatzes, in 1224.
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 during the struggle for Constantinople, 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.
Constantine Komnenos Maliasenos Doukas Bryennios was a Byzantine Greek nobleman and magnate active in Thessaly in the first half of the 13th century.
The struggle for Constantinople was a complex series of conflicts following the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, fought between the Latin Empire established by the Crusaders, various Byzantine successor states, and foreign powers such as the Second Bulgarian Empire and Sultanate of Rum, for control of Constantinople and supremacy in the former empire's territory.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Robert of Courtenay". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 401.