The (Byzantine) Empire Strikes Back

Frankish Crusaders had conquered most of the Peloponnese (Morea) by 1212. They had almost 50 years before the reformed Byzantine Empire regained a foothold in the Morea.

Transcript

Jen: 0:02

They came to Nikli where they found the Princess together with all the gentle women of the Peloponnese, which is otherwise called Morea. Who had convened an assembly in order to take counsel regarding the news they had heard about those three castles, which the Prince was going to give at that time to the Emperor. So that he and his men, all those of the Morea, the bannerets and the knights who were in Constantinople, might be released from prison. For this reason, those ladies were assembled there together with the Princess at the castle of Nikli holding a parliament and receiving counsel. And there were no other men with them except for Sir Leonardo, who is the Logothete and Sir Pierre de Vaux, that wisest of men whose wisdom was unsurpassed in all the Principality. Only those two men attended the parliament. This is lines 4,391 through 4,407 in the Greek version of the Chronicle of Morea translated to English in the 2009 book by Shawcross titled"The Chronicle of Morea: Historiography in Crusader Greece. And it's found on pages 316 through 317. I'm Jen Glaubius, and this is the Helonaki Deep Dive. A podcast about mapping and analysis for historical and archeological research. In this episode. I'm going to continue discussing the history of Vostitsa picking up where we left off in the last episode, which was just after the establishment of the Frankish principality of Achaia. Let's dive in. Before we get started on the history. I just want to tell you that I've started a Flickr site for the Helonaki. And. I'm adding albums of photos from different locations. So there'll be an album for specific locations that I mention. Because I've been to a lot of these places over the many years, I've gone to Greece. And my pictures are not always the best, but I want you to be able to see what some of these places look like now. So you'll be able to see the links for locations that I mention in the episode, in the show notes, which you can find either on the Helonaki website or on Patreon. Where we left off last time. Geoffrey Villehardouin had taken charge of the Principality of Achaia. He had helped take it over. And then he pushed out Champlitte. And he was in charge of it. This Principality of Achaia encompassed most of the Peloponnese by the year 1212, that's when they had taken Corinth and Argos from the forces of Leo Sgouros. Remember, who is the Byzantine archon, the big land owner who tried to take power for himself even before the Franks arrived. Those crusaders arrived. What he didn't hold in the Peloponnese though was Monemvasia, which is a coastal fortress that I mentioned last time, that it's really difficult to take. And Geoffrey Villehardouin never took it. Also nearby, in the area of modern Laconia, which is very mountainous. It's the area around Sparta. It's the Taygetos mountains, which are difficult to get around and it had been settled by these Slavic groups. Way back. During the Byzantine period. And so it was also kind of a holdout. So Monemvasia, the area area around the Taygetos mountains, Venetian areas in Southwestern Peloponnese so Modon and Coron. The relationship between the Venetians and the Franks was okay. At this point, the Venetians were pretty satisfied with the ports of Modon and Coron. And they're also busy because at this point they're trying to also take the island of Crete. Later on, they're going to try to expand their territory, but at this point they're happy with what they have in this area. And as I said, Monemvasia was very difficult to conquer the Franks are not going to take it for another 36 years. And the Slav peoples in the Taygetos mountains are just going to continue to be a problem. They're also not going to be integrated, for at least another 30 years. So what had actually changed in the Peloponnese with the coming of the Franks? It's around this time or perhaps earlier that the Peloponnese is sometimes also known as the Morea and through this period and later, Morea is the term usually used. Like the Chronicle of Morea refers to the Peloponnese. And so that happens at this point. For the people in the Morea, the Peloponnese, I mean the lower classes, the peasants, not that much changed. Through time during the Byzantine period, many small freeholders had lost their land and instead were working on large estates. And so is it you're working on a larger state or are you a serf? How much of a difference is that? Not entirely much. You're still working for someone. What did change was what the Greek elite, those very large landowners. And they were no longer at the top of the society. Before the Frankish conquests, they had to pay taxes to the Byzantine empire and sometimes unhappy with that. And that's why some of them had revolted even before the Fourth Crusade. But now. With the coming of the Franks, they were no longer at the top of the society. And instead you had feudalism on top of what they owned. So the elites, many of them kept their land and many privileges, but there were no longer at the top. Who was at the top was the Prince of Achaia, Geoffrey. And beneath him were the barons that he established. There would end up being 12 total at the height of the Principality of Achaia. And these baronies went to Frankish knights who had helped Villehardouin actually conquer the area. And all the knights who had helped came from areas like from Flanders to Provence. But most of them are from Champagne and Burgundy within the area that becomes France. But you also have lower ranked knights again, coming from those areas and they're given fiefs within the baronies. And so these lower ranked knights would owe allegiance to the barons. They would have to ask the Baron, like, say I want to build a castle or a tower to help defend myself. They'd have to ask the Baron for permission. And then ultimately all the barons and the knights owed allegiance to the Prince of Achaia. Geoffrey Villehardouin actually established a parliament. The barons had a say in what was going on in the Principality of Achaia. So who is left out is the Greek elite, those big landowners at the beginning. Later on, some of them will later be granted fiefs. So they'll become more integrated into the feudal system. But despite not being in the feudal system, it just meant there was another layer on top of them that then they had to pay taxes to this baron or whatever knight had held their land in a fief, but they still mostly held their land. What got seized by the Franks though, were any estates that had been owned by the Byzantine state. The land of any absentee landowners. And of course, anyone who had fought against the Franks. And the most problematic one is that Villehardouin seized land and property and income, belonging to Orthodox ecclesiastical institutions, basically Orthodox churches and monasteries. And so this might be a good time to finally talk about the schism between the Eastern and Western parts of the Christian Church. So the Eastern part, I'm just going to call Orthodox and the Western church I'll call Catholic or Latin. The schism occurred in 1054. So almost 200 years before the Fourth Crusade. And it was over many reasons. But part of it was over the role of the Bishop of Rome, who we know as the Pope. And who had gained power as in charge of all the other bishops But that role versus basically what was a Bishop, but what in the Greek language, they call the patriarch. And so the patriarch in Constantinople was an important part of this Eastern church. So there's problems over the role, like is the Pope in charge of the Eastern part? Like anything that the patriarch in Constantinople had been in charge of. And this is part of like the big problems. It also plays into the Fourth Crusade itself, like, because there's a schism. The Catholic crusaders are okay with going and conquering an Orthodox population. They're okay with conquering constantinople because it's not part of their Christian Church. So, this is a huge thing. It's going to play a role going forward in the Morea. So the Franks themselves would establish some of their own churches in the Peloponnese, but they were vastly outnumbered by the Orthodox population who kept wanting to keep their own priests and churches and so on and so forth. So Villehardouin had seized church property and their income and eventually his family would use that to construct the castle of Chlemoutsi in the western Morea. And so part of it was there was a dispute because the Orthodox priests actually gave orders, like made peasants into priests so they could escape serfdom. So you ended up with like large, large numbers of Orthodox priests relative to the population. So Villehardouin was like wait, wait, wait. Not all those people should be priests. This, this is, this is a bit much, this is too much. So they finally come to agreement that the number of priests would be in proportion to the size of the community. And Villehardouin then gave the churches and monasteries at least some of their land and income back. And that's happened in 1223. So Geoffrey Villehardouin died around 1230 at the age of 60. When he passed away, his eldest son also named Geoffrey. So Geoffrey, the second became Prince of Achaia. And this is where we're going to widen our view because the Byzantine empire was down, but not out at this point. So when the Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204. The elites fled and went to the other areas. And what ended up happening were three separate little empires were formed. So one of them, the one furthest east was the Empire of Trebizond along the south coast of the Black Sea. And that empire itself, would last for a long time, but it doesn't figure into the story. So we're just going to ignore the Empire of Trebizond. Instead We're going to talk about the other two. The one to the most west was the Despotate in Epirus. So it was a Despotate because it was founded by a son of the emperor. Who would be called a Despot, so not the, the modern meaning of despot just Despot, meaning the son of an emperor. Now this Despotate in Epirus they were trying to get back Constantinople because whoever got Constantinople would basically have the Byzantine empire. They're trying to make their way east to get Constantinople. The third of these little empires was the Empire of Nicea and it was in Asia Minor. So just to the east of Constantinople. And this one ended up being the most important they were attacking Frankish territory because they were trying to go west to get Constantinople back from the Franks, from this Latin emperor of Constantinople. So the second Geoffrey Villehardouin, he owes allegiance to the Latin emperor of Constantinople. And so he leaves the Morea. He takes his knights with him and he goes to help fight off Byzantine attacks. So the attacks from the Empire of Nicea, not in Constantinople itself, but in their territory, he goes in 1236 and 1239 and 1243. So you'd see the Byzantines are really trying to take back that territory. And he's able to do this because things are pretty stable in the Morea. Like not much is happening. The Venetians are staying in their area. Things are pretty okay. Then Geoffrey the second dies in 1246 and he has no heirs. So the rule passes to his younger brother, William Villehardouin, who now becomes the Prince of Achaia. Now, unlike Geoffrey the second, William had actually been born in the Morea. He had been born in the castle of Kalamata. And before his brother died, William was the Baron of Kalamata. This is in the southern part of the Morea. So William as the prince finishes securing the Morea. So he blockades, Monemvasia. He gets some help from the Venetians. They have all those ships, naval power. Blockades Monemvasia, and it gets them to surrender in 1248. The holdouts had been basically, three large landowning families. And so he's like, all right. I've blockaded you out, you surrendered, I'm going to give you fiefs. So this is when he begins to integrate some of these large elite landowners into the feudal system. So the last hold out are the Slavs in the Taygetos Mountains. And so William makes sure that there are castles built on either end of those mountains. So there's Mistra, which is near the ancient site of Sparta. And then Maina near Cape Matapan. So in the southern part of the Mani, which is very mountainous. And it's going to come up again as an area that whoever's in charge of the Peloponnese really can't control. And so William has these castles built. And it's a show of power and so the Slavs of Taygetos come to terms with William Villehardouin. And so at this point, William holds everything. Basically. He doesn't have anyone rebelling against him. The only parts that aren't in Frankish hands are the two ports of Modon and Coron that belong to the Venetians. And this is really the height of the Frankish Principality in Achaia. So it's about at this point that William gets involved in what's going on between the remnants of the Byzantine empire. So William marries the daughter of the Despot Michael the second of Epirus. So that more western Byzantine offshoot. And so his father-in-law says, Hey, I'm trying to fight against the Empire of Nicea. This other Byzantine off shoot that was led by the Palaeologos family. And he's like, Hey, I need your help fighting against them. Bring your knights north and helped me fight them off. And so it's 1259. William's like, okay. Knights, barons. Here we go. Let's go fight for my father-in-law. When it comes to battle though, Despot Michael fled the scene. And he left William and his allies, like all of his barons and knights and they got surrounded by the Palaeologos troops from the Empire of Nicea and they're captured in October of 1259. And they will remain in prison. And they're still prisoners two years later when the Nicea Empire captures Constantinople. So they take it from the Latins from the last remaining crusader troops there in 1261. So then the Nicea Empire becomes the Byzantine Empire. So now the Byzantines are like, all right. You're still in prison. Would you like to get out? If you'd like to get out all you have to do is surrender. Oh, let's say all the Principality of Achaia. Just give us all of the Morea and you can get out. And William's like, Nope. Nope. You can't have it all. And, he negotiates them down to giving them three castles. Monemvasia. Remember that fortification that's really difficult to take. And also those two castles, he had built around Taygetos, Mistra and Maina. And he agrees to do it. And then the accord goes to the parliament in Achaia, which is full of these Frankish ladies. Because their husbands, the barons and knights were prisoners in Constantinople. And that's the bit I read in the intro of this episode. And so they agree William and his barons get out, but they've been humiliated because they were captured. And more importantly, the Byzantines now have a foothold back in the Morea. So here's the situation in the 1260s. There had been 50 years of Frankish rule with only those two little Venetian territories. Things were mostly peaceful. The Frankish knights sometimes had gone to Constantinople to help defend it. And then they ended up getting captured, but there hadn't been any fighting in the Morea in the Peloponnese itself, but now there are three entities with a stake in getting control of the Morea. There's the Venetians, they'll expand their territory a little bit if they can, but they're not actively trying to expand at this point. Then there are the Franks who are playing defense, trying to keep the land that they have. So they've lost like three castles to the Byzantines and they're trying to keep what they have, but they're playing defense. And then you have the Byzantines who are in it to win it. They have gotten a foothold, those three castles, including Monemvasia, which is really, really difficult to take. And they were just given it and they are going to try to take all of the Morea at this point that they can. And that's what they do once the Byzantines have that foothold, they're going to fight. So starting even that year, after they get those three castles, the Byzantines were fighting to expand their territory. They thought the Franks were very weak. William had been in prison for a couple of years. And so they're like, yes, we will do our best. And so they end up going up and attacking Andravida, which is not too far from Chlemoutsi. So it's toward the Northwestern part of the Peloponnese. They attacked it. Didn't take it, but they did start working on capturing the area of Kalavryta, which is just to the south of Vostitsa, but separated from Vostitsa by again some mountains. So the Byzantines would end up taking Kalavryta in the next few years. The next year they, again, attack Andravida and they try using Turkish mercenaries, but didn't pay them on time. And so William Villehardouin, he hires those Turkish mercenaries pays them and uses them to defeat the Byzantine forces at Nikli. So it pushes them back and has a battle at, at Nikli, which is where that parliament of the Frankish ladies had gathered to get William out of prison. After that, after this few big pushes the Byzantines have taken territory, but then attacks become more sporadic depending on what's going on elsewhere in the Byzantine empire. Did they have the resources to put into trying to push the Franks out of the Morea or not? And so there'll be nothing for a while and then they'll fight and try to take more territory. And I just want to note here that it's interesting. The terrain of the Peloponnese of the Morea really. It partly determines where these attacks are going. Now Andravida was kind of important because it was near Chlemoutsid, kind of the near the seat of the principality of Achaia. But Kalamata where Villehardouin had been born and had been baron was much, much closer. Look at the map. Like Kalamata is much closer to Mistra, which is where the Byzantines will set up as their capital. And Kalamata is pretty close but through the mountains it would have been really difficult to go there. Whereas going towards Andravida, you can go through some of the valleys and much easier territory and hit a bit closer towards the seat where Villehardouin actually was ruling from. I also want to note Kalavryta falls to the Byzantines fairly soon. And it's not that far from Vostitsa, but Vostitsa itself is going to stay out of Byzantine hands. So the big change in this period is that now there's almost a constant state of war. And so trade is going to be reduced and agriculture as well. So any money that I've been going towards, other things now, the Franks are putting into beefing up their existing castles and building more castles or towers. They're also putting money into hiring mercenaries. And so these mercenaries would go around and plunder the land and indiscriminately kill people. And so you'd end up with less population and the land just devastated. Overall, like the Franks, they had fewer knights, they'd had problems after being captured. But whenever they take the field in like a large battle, they would still win, they had the technology to win. So instead of large battles, the Byzantines would instead infiltrate into towns and try to stage a coup or take towns that were not very well defended. And so that you have this kind of slow process by the Byzantines because they were not winning large battles. The Byzantines also had an advantage that most of the local Greeks and Slavs that were in the area tended to support the Byzantines. So they got help from within. And as I said, William Villehardouin never really recovered from being taken prisoner. He had the height of the Principality of Achaia, but then he's weakened, he's in a weak position. And so he signs a treaty with the king of Sicily, a man named Charles of Anjou. And basically he signs over control of the Morea. So Villehardouin would keep ruling in practice, but control of the Principality of Achaia is now in the hands of Charles of Anjou. William dies without a male heir. And so Charles of Anjou sends a regent at first to rule the Morea. And then William's daughter, Isabel marries a man named Florent of Hainault. And Florent becomes the de facto Prince of Achaia. He does a pretty good job. He comes to terms with the Byzantines. So there's some peace. Finally in the, about the 1290s. So after 30 years of almost non-stop low scale warfare, there's some peace, but it only lasts until Florent's death in the later 1290s. So Isabelle Villehardouin ends up marrying again and she doesn't choose as wisely this time. She marries a man named Phillip of Savoy. And so she marries him. He basically becomes Prince of Achaia and he's corrupt. He sells off offices and fiefs to get money, is fighting anyone who's opposed to him. And more importantly, for the people in the Morea, he's raising taxes on them and taking back any privileges they had been given. And of course, as you might expect this angers the local Greeks and also the Slavs of Skorta. So not the Taygetos, but an area in the modern region of Arcadia, where again, to keep them in check, there had been two baronies established on either side with castles. And so in 1302, the Slavs of Skorta revolt and the local Greeks as well. And this revolt is violently put down and Philip confiscates the rebels land. It just stirs everything up again. And so there's constant warfare again. So after Isabel and Phillip pass away, Isabel's daughter Maude, Villehardouin would rule the Principality of Achaia next. She did a pretty good job, but after her death in 1324, the Byzantines had been taking territory and basically all the barons of the principality are on their own against the Byzantines. They're still under the rule of the family of Charles of Savoy, who was the King of Sicily, but they're kind of scattered all over the Byzantines have made big inroads. And so. They're kind of on their own, they're on the defensive and not doing so well and weak. And so they're going to invite other people in to try to help them. So there ended up being many, many different things going on since you don't really have one principality, but scattered baronies and things going on. And so I'm not going to follow all of that, but instead, let's look at what happened with Vostitsa itself. At the beginning, like the 1210s, the Vostitsa Barony was established with Hugh of Charpigny and it stays in the hands of that Charpigny family until they have a daughter. No, son. And this daughter ends up being married off to Dreux of Charny. This is what's going on in 1324. So the death of Maud Villehardouin, Vostitsa is one of those few Frankish baronies that's not in Byzantine hands. So it's still in the hands of the Franks. Until 1359 when the Charny family must've needed money and they sell the Barony of Vostitsa to Marie of Bourbon. She only keeps it for about four years before she sells it off to a man from Florence. Part of a Florentine banking family named Nerio Acciajuoli and I, sorry, I'm butchering his name. And so Nerio buys Vostitsa the entire Barony in 1363. And Nerio actually buys Vostitsa and he ends up acquiring all of the Northern coastline of the Peloponnese. So everything between Corinth in the east to Patra in the west, everything along the coast. And he holds it for almost 20 years, but then Vostitsa is seized from him by the Navarrese Company. Now the Navarrese Company was a group of mercenaries originally from the area, on the border between France and Spain. And so they'd been hired into the area of Epirus, so like modern Albania, and then they ended up getting invited into the Morea to kind of help in the fighting between the Byzantines and whoever else. And the Navarrese Company see that everybody, especially the Franks were like pretty weak that they had to invite in mercenaries and they ended up taking power. So they seize a lot of what was left to Frankish Achaia and take power. So they seize Vostitsa away from Nerio. And the leader of the Navarrese Company, a man named Peter de San Superan is given Vostitsa outright in 1386. Now Nerio says I own it and he'll try to get it back, but he never gets control, the Navarrese Company will control Vostitsa into about 1400, which is where we're going to end this part of the history. So we talked about the Morea in general during the early part of the Frankish period. And then when things split apart, focused more on Vostitsa. What had been left of the Frankish Morea will end up changing hands to people who have money or the strength to actually take it. The Venetians during this time had mostly kept to Modon and Coron in the southwestern Peloponnese, but around 1390, they tried to expand and they end up taking the port city of Nauplio in the eastern Morea, another port city. The Byzantines had taken a substantial amount of the Morea, but did not control all of it. And because there had been constant fighting, the population was low. They didn't have enough people to actually do all the cultivation. And so the Byzantines in the 13 hundreds ended up bringing in Albanians to settle in the Morea, Epirus, Thessaly, and Attica. So you have another group, you have Greeks, you have a distinct Slavic group, and now you have ethnic Albanians in the Morea as well. And you have this situation. The Byzantines have a substantial amount of control. They do have support from many local Greeks, but you know, who's not necessarily happy? The elite land holders. They actually staged a rebellion in 1387 against Theodore the Despot of Morea. To put down this rebellion in 1387. Theodore would call for help from the Ottoman Empire. He's like, please send troops to help put this down. And so Ottoman troops led by Evrenos Beg will raid the Morea, called in by Theodore in 1387. And they go all the way from Corinth, from the isthmus, all the way to the Venetian ports of Modon and Coron. But once they go in 1387, they know the area a bit And they ended up raiding in the 1390s and many times after that. And so in the next episode, I'll talk about the founding of the Ottoman empire and the relationship with the Byzantine empire as a whole, and especially in the Morea. Not much for endnotes this time. I want to talk a little bit, there are many sources, that I've looked at for this, and you can find the list in the show notes. I do want to say, the Chronicle of Morea that I read in the last episode and at the beginning of this episode as well, there are many different sources for it. There's a Greek version and that's a translation of the Greek version that I read for this. There are French versions which give much of the same information, but there are slight changes. The Chronicle of Morea itself was written over a hundred years after the Frankish conquests in 1204. And so it's written much later Thanks for listening. Email questions or comments to deepdive@helonaki.com or ask them on the Helonaki Deep Dive Facebook page. Show notes with links to resources mentioned in this episode will be available at helonaki.com. That's H E L O N A K I.com. You can also find ways to support the show now, including merch such as t-shirts mugs and stickers with the Helonaki Deep Dive logo at helonaki.com/support. My thanks to Patreon supporters at the geospatial analyst level, Leah Varrell and Janice and Jerry Farrell. Your support keeps the Helonaki Deep Dive going. The Helonaki Deep Dive is written and produced by me, Jen Glaubius of the Helonaki. The theme music is Deep Ocean Instrumental by Dan-o of danosongs.com additional sounds from zapsplat.com. Thanks for listening.