No crickets here! Thank you for an entertaining read!
So following the utter fuckery that was the fall of Constantinople to its new Latin and Crusader overlords, a number of malcontents sprang up to take advantage of the situation.
Among them was Theodoros Mankaphas, ‘Theodoros the Fool’ according to chroniclers. Mankaphas had long been a thorn in Constantinople’s side. Back in 1188, he had been one of the innumerable rebels against Isaakios II. Mankaphas had gone so far as to crown himself emperor and mint his own coins before being defeated and imprisoned in Constantinople. At some point during the chaos, he escaped his prison and entrenched himself in Philadelphia once again.
In the Peloponnesos we find Leon Sgouros, a tyrant of legendarily violent temper, who once beat a young boy to death with his own hands when the lad accidentally broke a glass cup. Sgouros attacked the ancient city of Athens, beseiging the Parthenon itself before giving up and destroying the homes of the Athenians and carrying off their livestock for his own purposes. 1
From the court of Queen Tamar of Georgia came David and Alexios Megaskomnenos. David and Alexios were brothers, sons of Manuel Komnenos, himself the eldest son of Emperor Andronikos I. After their grandfather was killed and their father blinded (dying soon after), their mother spirited them away to Georgia. These young men seized the city of Trebizond and established their own empire there, with the elder brother, Alexios I, as ruler. Alexios, who Choniates tells us was as mysterious as Hylas, Herakles’ legendary companion, hid himself within the walls of Trebizond. It was his spirited younger brother, David, who would take care of the action. The Greek chroniclers were skeptical or outright dismissive of the fledgling empire of Trebizond; Pachymeres calls them “barbarians”. Because being regular Komnenoi wasn’t good enough, David and Alexios leveled up to Megaskomnenos, Grand Komnenos. I like to think of them as being the sort of annoying shits who would try to give themselves ‘kewl’ nicknames like Raven Moonblood and Hawk Slamchest and then pester everyone to call them that.
But the most important was Theodoros Laskaris in Nikaia. Theodoros, his beautiful wife Anna Angelina, and his brothers escaped by the skin of their teeth from Constantinople just before it fell. They made their way to Nikaia, where they established a Greek state to stand against the Latins. Theodoros was at this time in his late thirties, and the chronicler Georgios Akropolites tells us he was very dark, not very tall, with mismatched eyes and a forked beard. Once safely esconced in Nikaia, he set about banging his hot wife and being more awesome than you.
Back in Constantinople, the new emperor Baldwin had to be among the most unlucky of princes. Although the helpless Mourtzouphlos had been thrown to his death, Baldwin still looked like a ponce so long as Alexios III was still running around free. Trying to control the Crusader lords was like herding cats. The new Patriarch of Constantinople was a Venetian named Tomasso Morosini, “fatter than a hog raised in a pit” according to Choniates, who busied himself melting down an ancient statue of Hera and making coins out of it.
Baldwin’s beloved wife, Marie, did not even know her husband had been elected emperor. Baldwin’s regard for his wife was remarked upon by almost every chronicler of the Fourth Crusade; Gislebert of Mons says that he “loved her with an ardor rarely found in any man, so that he devoted himself solely to her and was content with her alone.” Marie had been pregnant when Baldwin had left on Crusade, so she stayed behind in Flanders as regent until their two daughters were old enough for her to leave. Still believing her husband was en route to the Holy Land, Marie took ship and landed in Acre, where she immediately sickened and died on August 9, 1204.
Baldwin gathered together his army and made plans to chase down Alexios III like the dog he was. He marched out towards Alexios’ last known whereabouts, and as he went the common people beseeched him for protection from Kaloyan of Bulgaria. Bonifazio of Montferrat chased after him, taking along his wife, Margit, and her two sons. Bonifazio was anxious to take possession of Thessaloniki and as Baldwin was marching in that direction, he went to Baldwin and told him, “Yo, let me and my bottom bitch go and get comfy in Thessaloniki, while you deal with Kaloyan. Once I’m lord of Thessaloniki, I can help a brotha out in a jam.” 2
Baldwin got inordinantly pissy about this, and told Bonifazio he could go shove it. Bonifazio was hopping mad. He had stood aside when Baldwin was elected emperor, and accepted him as his liege lord; he had asked for Thessaloniki, and been promised it; and now here he was, with his men and his new family all ready to go, and Baldwin was suddenly putting the breaks on his plans. Bonifazio took his family and his men and abandoned Baldwin, heading for the nearest city, Demotika. There he presented his stepson Manuel Angelos, the son of Margit and her first husband Isaakios II, proclaiming him the new emperor in opposition to Baldwin 3. The people cheered him, and soon he had collected enough soldiers to go and lay seige to the city of Adrianople. Geoffrey de Villehardouin was sent to talk him down, and Bonifazio withdrew and returned to Demotika.
Enrico Dandolo and the other Venetian and Crusader lords who’d remained behind in Constantinople sent Baldwin a letter, saying, “Good news! Bonifazio gave up his rebellion against you! Yay!”
Baldwin, who had made it to Thessaloniki in his pursuit of Alexios III, got this letter and hit the roof. He turned right around and marched back to Constantinople, determined to deal with Bonifazio. Dandolo and Louis of Blois, seeing all their hard work unraveling, met with him and talked him down. They convinced Bonifazio to come to Constantinople, meet with Baldwin, and hug that shit out. Bonifazio got what he wanted, which was Thessaloniki, after all. No sooner did he arrive than Mikhael Doukas, who I mentioned earlier, deserted him and set up his own kingdom in Epiros.
Meanwhile, Kaloyan was entering the zenith of his reign in Bulgaria. He had finally succeeded in being recognized as “king” by the pope, and had sent his son, Bithleem, to Rome to be educated 4. At his court, Kaloyan and his Kuman wife, Anna, presided over the most promising members of the next generation of his dynasty, the Asenids. There was Kaloyan’s young daughter, Marija, and his nephews Ivan Asen II and Aleksandr, sons of Ivan Asen I. Boril and Dobromir Strez were brothers, sons of Kaloyan’s sister. There was another nephew, Alexei Slav, perhaps the son of Kaloyan’s long-dead brother Teodor-Kalopeter. Kaloyan had spent his adult life killing more people than polio, and for the first time ever he was getting some respect.
It was at this moment that Emperor Baldwin made the biggest mistake of his life.
When the Crusading army first marched on Constantinople, Kaloyan had volunteered his services eagerly. Not knowing or not caring about Kaloyan’s hate-on for the Greeks, Baldwin turned him down. Now, when Kaloyan wanted acknowledgment of his status as king of Bulgaria, Baldwin was like, “Wait, didn’t you die like three years ago?” and treated him like a misbehaving vassal. As far as Baldwin was concerned, the Bulgarian lands were his by right as the new Byzantine emperor, and Kaloyan was just another barbarian miscreant.
I am not kidding you when I say this was the biggest mistake of Baldwin’s life. Kaloyan had grown up hating the Byzantines with every breath he took. If his hate for them ran hot, his feelings for Baldwin were positively nuclear.
Notes:
- Don’t. Ask.
- Okay, Bonifazio probably didn’t talk like that, but would you prefer I render his dialogue in a laughably stereotypical Italian accent?
- As Manuel was still a wee thing, Bonifazio expected to be regent. Naturally.
- After Kaloyan’s death, Bithleem is never mentioned again. Presumably he either died in Rome, or decided to stay there and avoid the bloody infighting that was about to erupt amongst his cousins.
SOURCES:
Evergates, Theodore. Aristocratic women in medieval France, 1999.
One of the things I love about MSenne’s histories is her choices of phrasing:
- “So following the utter fuckery …”
- “… and being more awesome than you.”
- Paraphrasing of Bonifazio of Montferrat, in para 8.
- “… and hug that shit out.”
And that’s just this episode.
I’m hoping a future series covers early American history, with the asshattery of George III, the fuckwits of Lord North, and the luck so incredible he must have been fellatioing the GM of George Washington.
Cricket-free zone here. If I liked popcorn, I’d have a five-gallon bucket of it standing by.
Oslo, I started this season with a five-gallon bucket of popcorn. Now it’s empty. 
I need more popcorn. I’ll go sack my cousin’s seat of power. Who’s with me?
Does your cousin have Twizzlers?
Somehow, I think an Ostragoth is exactly the right person to have along for some good sacking.
The only crickets are the ones heard as everyone else waits with bated breath for the next instalment!
Theodoros Laskaris was getting himself set up in Nikaia. Surrounded on all sides by enemies, the first thing he had to do was make peace with some of them. First up was the Selcuk sultan Rükneddin, brother of Keyhüsrev. Laskaris agreed to pay him off with money, jewels, wine, and perky-breasted women so long as Rükneddin didn’t show up and chew his face off. The ink was barely dry on this treaty when Rükneddin keeled over dead on July 6, 1204.
As I related before, Keyhüsrev had been exiled by his brother Rükneddin and found refuge at Alexios III’s court in Constantinople. He was there during the seige, and Ibn Bibi says that Keyhüsrev came to blows with a Crusader knight who he overheard insulting Alexios III. He fled the city with Alexios III, but receiving word that his brother was dead, headed for Selcuk territory to reclaim his throne. On his way, he detoured to Nikaia and met with Theodoros Laskaris and Theodoros’ wife, Anna Angelina, whom Keyhüsrev regarded as his sister (he had underwent some kind of baptism/adoption ceremony with Alexios III, Anna’s daddy). Theodoros Laskaris was, understandably, excited about the possibility of having a Selcuk sultan who was friendly to him, and his wife Anna gave Keyhüsrev a substantial sum of money and some troops to help him out. When Keyhüsrev successfully took the Selcuk throne, Theodoros and Anna visited his court in February-March 1205. In return, Keyhüsrev helped Theodoros Laskaris out by sending him soldiers to fight off some of the other rebels and upstarts, such as Theodoros Mankaphas.
Meanwhile, the ex-emperor Alexios III was still drifting from place to place, trying to stay one step ahead of the Franks and Latins who wanted his head on a stick. In the Peloponnesos he found temporary refuge with the tyrant Leon Sgouros, who married his daughter, Eudokia Angelina 1, in autumn 1204.
Hearing that his cousin Mikhael had gotten himself set up in Epiros, Alexios III and his wife Euphrosyne left their daughter Eudokia behind with the violent madman they had married her to, and set off to seek refuge in Epiros. They were captured on their way by Bonifazio and thrown into prison, where they bartered their imperial clothing for wine.
The Frankokratia (Frankish regime 2) was now in firm control of Constantinople itself. Among the most important holdouts against the regime was the ancient city of Adrianople, right on the border with Bulgaria. The Adrianopolitans (Adrianopolites? Adrianopolitese?) seized control of the city and declared that their Crusader overlords could suck dick for all they cared.
Well, Emperor Baldwin decided this would just not do. He and his homeboy, Louis of Blois, set out with about 140 knights to go beseige Adrianople. Louis had sat out most of the Crusade so far, having been deathly ill for the entire seige of Constantinople, and he was eager to get out in the field and kick ass for Christ and country. This crew found itself hopelessly outmatched by the well-defended Adrianople, so Baldwin sent word to his brother Hendrik, Enrico Dandolo, and the other Crusader lords, saying for them to give him a hand. Enrico Dandolo, despite being decrepit and totally goddamn blind, gathered together a small army and marched out to Adrianople to Baldwin’s aid.
The Greeks of Adrianople sent a message to Kaloyan, begging him to come and deliver them from the Crusaders. Kaloyan, who had the thirst for vengeance of any ten Mortal Kombat characters and the self-restraint of Mike Tyson, jumped at the call. Kaloyan showed up in April, an army of sheepskin-clad Kuman berserkers at his back. The Crusaders, mounted on their great armored horses, looked down on the Kumans and “had no more fear or care for them than a troop of children”, Robert de Clari tells us.
To properly set the tone for what happens next, I’d like for you to imagine the theme music from *The Terminator *in your heads at this point. The Crusader knights decided to simply run the Kumans over with heavy cavalry. They charged; the Kumans fell back, and emboldened by this, Louis of Blois charged headlong into the fray, followed by his men. Baldwin and his forces chased after Louis, trying to head him off, but it was too late – their army’s strong line had disintegrated by means of a simple trick. The Kumans double-backed, firing arrows, surrounding the knights that had broken away from the main army. Seperated from their fellows, Louis and Baldwin’s soldiers panicked. Louis was knocked off his horse, but although badly wounded, he managed to make his way to Baldwin’s side.
Louis died defending Baldwin, fighting to the last. Baldwin was captured alive.
Enrico Dandolo was now the senior Crusader lord left on the field. As night fell, the Kumans retreated back to their own camps, and Enrico Dandolo personally went around to the tents of his own soldiers, telling them to take heart. Knowing there was no way he could defeat Kaloyan on his own, Dandolo rallied the men left alive, turned around, and headed back to Constantinople under cover of night. Cleverly, he left the torches and campfires burning in camp, to give Kaloyan the impression that they were still camped out in front of the walls of Adrianople. The going was slow, as they refused to abandon their wounded men and so dragged them along after them. Worse still, the next morning Kaloyan realized Dandolo and the shattered Crusader army had fled, and took off in hot pursuit.
Hendrik of Flanders, Baldwin’s younger brother, met them on the road. He was on his way with reinforcements intended for the seige of Adrianople. Now he learned that Louis of Blois was dead and his brother Baldwin was Kaloyan’s captive. With no one else left alive and able to take the job, Hendrik was made regent of the empire.
Kaloyan carried Baldwin off to captivity in Bulgaria. Much speculation surrounded his exact fate. His brother Hendrik gave up hope of getting his brother back alive after a year. Some back home believed Baldwin never died, and twenty full years later an imposter turned up in Flandersclaiming to be Baldwin, miraculously returned from the dead.
Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, a French monk and chronicler, gives us a story that he said he heard from a Flemish priest who had visited Bulgaria. The story goes that while Baldwin was held prisoner at Kaloyan’s court, Kaloyan’s Kuman wife Anna approached him. She offered to free him from his shackles if he would marry her and make her his empress. Baldwin blew her off. Furious, Anna went to Kaloyan and lied, saying that Baldwin had tried to seduce her. Kaloyan got roaring drunk and killed Baldwin in retaliation. Modern historians are inclined to dismiss this account as a variation on the tale of Potiphar’s wife, but considering what happened later, I have to wonder.
Georgios Akropolites tells us that Kaloyan had Baldwin’s skull hollowed out, gilded in metal, and encrusted with precious jewels, and used it as a wine cup, in imitation of the Bulgarian khan Krum (who did the same to the Emperor Nikephoros in 811).
Notes:
- She was freshly widowed from her bigamous second husband, Mourtzouphlos, and her first husband, Stefan of Serbia, was still alive.
- The Byzantine Greeks called all Western Europeans “Franks” or “Latins”, regardless of their actual nationality.
SOURCES:
Housley, Norman. Knighthoods of Christ: essays on the history of the Crusades and the Knights Templar, presented to Malcolm Barber, 2007.
And so it was, at the Latin Empire’s greatest moment of weakness, that Enrico Dandolo chose just that opportunity to croak in May 1205. He became the first and only person to be buried in the Hagia Sophia, although his body was later destroyed 1.
It is a pity that in this story all-too-often the most gifted and bravest leaders were men who were denied a chance to show their mettle due to illegitimacy (Mikhael Doukas) or being a younger son (Hendrik of Flanders), forced to sit in the shadows of lesser men until their nations were tattered almost beyond hope of salvation. Hendrik of Flanders, now acting emperor in the absence of his brother Baldwin, was a brave man and a great warrior. Unlike his brother, he was sympathetic to the native Greeks, which won him much support, and a shrewd military commander. His chronicler/fanboy, Henri de Valenciennes, honors him as an epic hero, loyal to his men, humble enough to take advice from his barons.
Hendrik almost instantly ran smack into the brick wall that was Theodoros Laskaris. On paper, the Crusaders had divided up the Byzantine territories for themselves, but Laskaris and his homies were actually *occupying *it, and if you told him to step off, Laskaris would yell something like “Crash and burn, bitch!” and poke you with a sword until you crawled back to wherever you came from. Laskaris had just sent Hendrik running back to Constantinople when he faced the onslaught of David Megaskomnenos 2. David fared no better than Hendrik, and slunk off to lick his wounds. For good measure, Laskaris then thrashed Manuel Mavrozomes, the father-in-law of the Selcuk sultan Keyhüsrev, who had been trying to carve out his own petty kingdom from the ruins of the Byzantine empire. This being done, Theodoros Laskaris celebrated by crowning himself emperor of Nikaia that summer.
Hendrik and David had nothing in common other than they had both been punched in the throat by Theodoros Laskaris, but that was enough. David vowed to become Hendrik’s loyal vassal if Hendrik had his back against Laskaris. At the same time, Kaloyan was on the march again. He razed Philippopolis and crucified that city’s governor, Alexios Aspietes, who was hung upside down, his ankles pierced and nailed to a stake.
As for Bonifazio of Montferrat, he may have had beef with the Flanders crew in the past, but he wasn’t a total idiot and he knew his little kingdom in Thessaloniki was threatened by Kaloyan. He had just spent the past year setting himself up in Thessaloniki with his wife, Margit of Hungary, and their new baby, Demetrios (named for Thessaloniki’s patron saint). This son joined a blended family comprising Bonifazio’s children by an earlier marriage (Guglielmo and Agnese) and Margit’s two sons by Isaakios II (Kaloioannes and Manuel). Bonifazio wanted to make nice-nice with Hendrik, and as Hendrik had an illegitimate daughter 3 but no wife, Bonifazio offered him the hand of his own daughter, Agnese, who Villehardouin assures us was “very good and fair”. Hendrik married Agnese “with great joy” on February 4, 1207.
Theodoros Laskaris was tired of fighting a war on all fronts and seeing his shit getting jacked. He wanted some kind of empire worth leaving to his son, Nikolaos 4. So he decided to make a deal with the devil, and sent a message to Kaloyan. Laskaris’ plan, according to Villehardouin, was that he and Kaloyan would form a tag team, crushing Constantinople between the two of them. Kaloyan was eager as always to wreck his seemingly inexhaustible fury upon his enemies, and he gathered together a gigantic army of Kumans, Bulgarians, and Vlakhs and swept down onto Adrianople. Hendrik and his men were too busy fighting off Theodoros Laskaris to come to Adrianople’s aid. Kaloyan’s army smashed through the walls of Adrianople, but his Kuman warriors refused to fight in the summer heat on this boring-ass seige and abandoned Kaloyan. Just when victory seemed certain, Kaloyan turned around and left Adrianople, unwilling to fight on without the Kumans.
Hendrik was still tied up fighting Theodoros Laskaris, who, having been chased as far as the city of Nikomedia, offered a two-year truce. Hendrik saw a chance to split Laskaris from Kaloyan, and accepted. In June he was finally able to turn around and march to Adrianople, which had escaped being razed to the ground only by the fickleness of the Kumans. Hendrik decided to pursue Kaloyan into his own countryside; Villehardouin tells us that the people of Adrianople were so destitute after the seige that they trailed after his army into the dangerous mountain regions of Kaloyan’s domain, foraging as they went. The Vlakhs and Bulgarians ambushed Hendrik’s army, and he was forced to retreat back to Adrianople.
In October, Hendrik met back up with his father-in-law, Bonifazio. Both were thrilled to hear that Agnese was pregnant 5. Hendrik and Bonifazio decided to join forces and take the fight to Kaloyan. After many bro-fists and happy tears, Bonifazio and his men ventured into the mountains in pursuit of Kaloyan. There he was ambushed, and although Bonifazio fought bravely, armed with only a lance, he took a bad cut and bled out. His soldiers, seeing him weak from blood loss, panicked. Some fled, and those who stayed behind to try to help him were slaughtered by Bulgarians. Bonifazio’s head was cut off and sent to Kaloyan, who probably held it aloft by the hair while screaming “WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?!” into his face.
While Kaloyan gloated over his victories and drank hard liquor from Emperor Baldwin’s jewel-encrusted skull, his wife Anna was working her wiles on her husband’s nephew Boril, Mrs. Robinson-style. Presumably Kaloyan was getting suspicious as to why his wife always smelled like dicks, so Anna and Boril hatched a plan to bump off Kaloyan so that Boril could take his crown and his queen. Their cunning plot was for Boril to stab Kaloyan in the side with a spear, which, surprise surprise, successfully killed him. Anna was a widow for however long it took for Boril to put on Kaloyan’s crown and say the vows.
Boril’s Asenid cousins realized their lives weren’t worth spit now that Boril was in charge. Ivan Asen II and Aleksandr, the sons of Ivan Asen I, ran off into the mountains with the Kumans and made their way to Kiev. Their cousins Alexei Slav and Dobromir Strez (Boril’s brother) also got while the getting was good.
Notes:
- I myself saw the remnants of his tomb when I lived in Istanbul a few years ago.
- David’s brother Alexios was ruling in Trebizond, but he left all the fighting to David. Alexios Megaskomnenos was like Maris on Fraiser: heard from but never seen.
- Her name is never given by any chronicler. Apparently she accompanied her father on Crusade, or he sent for her after Constantinople’s capture.
- Theodoros Laskaris’ children by Anna Angelina were Nikolaos, Ioannes, Irene, Maria, and Eudokia. Both sons would predecease him.
- This is the last mention of Agnese in history. Neither she nor her unborn child appear again. Historians assume, and I think it’s likely, that Agnese and her baby died in childbirth.
SOURCES:
Angold, Michael. A Byzantine government in exile: government and society under the Laskarids of Nicaea, 1204-1261, 1975.
In the course of a few short months, Hendrik of Flanders’ life turned upside down. Bonifazio of Montferrat died in October 1208, followed shortly thereafter by Kaloyan. Bulgaria was buzzing like a wasp’s nest. Boril’s cousin, Alexei Slav, fled to Constantinople and joined up with Hendrik. Alexei, who had been Kaloyan’s second-in-command until Boril’s coup d’etat, must’ve impressed Hendrik, as he married Hendrik’s illegitimate daughter.
Right about the same time that Bonifazio of Montferrat died, one of his most vicious enemies killed himself. I’m referring to Leon Sgouros, the tyrant of Korinth, and third husband of Eudokia Angelina (daughter of Alexios III). Bonifazio had chased Sgouros all the way from the legendary hot gates of Thermopylae to the citadel of the Akrokorinth 1, where Sgouros holed up for a seige. After almost four years, Sgouros despaired and in an epic act of defiance, he rode his horse off the walls of the Akrokorinth to their deaths. After his suicide, his widow Eudokia Angelina disappears from history and we hear no more of her.
Bonifazio’s death meant that his eldest son, Guglielmo, became marquis of Montferrat in Italy, and the younger son, Demetrios, who was not yet four, became king of Thessaloniki. A strapping young Italian count, Oberto di Biandrate, stepped up as regent and guardian for Demetrios. Oberto was Bonifazio’s distant cousin and homeboy, but he is best known for despising Emperor Hendrik with every fiber of his being. What caused this hatred is unknown. Bonifazio and Hendrik had long since buried the hatchet, but Oberto’s hate-on for Hendrik was so intense the only plausible explanation is that Oberto had once caught the guy fucking his girlfriend.
Oberto joined forces with a guy who had the awesomely FRANCSH name of Amédée Pofey, and they hatched a plan to make Hendrik’s life a living hell. Their goal was nothing less than recruiting Bonifazio’s eldest son, Guglielmo, to depose Hendrik and take his place as emperor. Unfortunately for them, Guglielmo wanted nothing to do with the Frankokratia or them – the troubadour Elias Cairel lamented that Guglielmo preferred “two oxen and a plow in Montferrat to an emperor’s crown”. While they tried to get Guglielmo to see things their way, Amédée and Oberto had to stall for time.
Hendrik arrived in Thessaloniki in January 1209 to find that Oberto had locked the gates and refused to open them until Hendrik agreed to a list of ricockulous demands. These demands were things like “All of continental Greece, even the parts you don’t actually own” and “A lifetime supply of twizzle sticks and the choicest Durban.” Hendrik and his soldiers were freezing their asses off so Hendrik said “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” and called Oberto’s bluff. Once inside Thessaloniki, Hendrik sat down Bonifazio’s widow, Margit of Hungary, and had a talk with her. She agreed that Oberto’s demands were whack and nullified them. Oberto was put in prison, and immediately his homies took up arms in revolt.
Hendrik spent most of the spring of 1209 chasing Oberto’s followers around. He offered amnesty to any of them who would take it, but much to his disappointment only Amédée Pofey took him up on the offer. Hendrik marched on Thebes, but was greeted joyfully by the native Greeks who surrounded him, singing and playing on horns and drums, and shouting “Long may you live!”, according to his chronicler Henri de Valenciennes. When they saw Hendrik’s popularity and his imposing army, the Theban lords surrendered. Meantime, Oberto broke out of prison and Hendrik caught up to him on the island of Euboia. Amazingly, Hendrik forgave him for all his scheming and let Oberto go free. Oberto ran off back to Italy, presumably while flipping Hendrik double birds and screaming, “She still moans my name not yours MINE MINE MINE!”
While all this was going on, Mikhael of Epiros was watching with great interest. Mikhael was not a gold medalist in revenge like Kaloyan, nor was he a rage machine like Oberto. Mikhael was a young master of the art of the double cross, and he knew that Emperor Hendrik was by far the most powerful enemy that he needed to neutralize. He sent word that he wanted to ally with Hendrik and offered the hand of one of his daughters 2 to Hendrik’s younger brother, Eustace, and with her one-third of his domains as dowry. Eustace was all for a sloe-eyed Greek virgin with HUGE… tracts of land. Even as Eustace was bedding his daughter, Mikhael was making back-alley deals with the Venetians and the Bulgarians Boril and Strez.
Dobromir Strez was Boril’s brother. As soon as he crowned himself king of Bulgaria, Boril ordered Strez to be hunted down and killed. Strez had fled to Serbia, and found refuge at the court of King Stefan 3. According to the Serbian monk Theodosius, Stefan and Strez made a vow of true brotherhood, spit in their palms to solemnize it, and invaded Bulgaria on their honeymoon. Together they wrestled a chunk of territory from Boril. According to the *totally unbiased *Theodosius (please be noting sarcasm) Strez turned on his allies, flinging Serbian captives to their deaths from his citadel overlooking the Vardar river, telling them, “Take care that your sheepskin coat doesn’t get wet!” before dropping them over the edge. His brother Boril got in touch with him, wanting an ally and hoping Strez had forgotten all about that “hunting you down and killing you” business. The two brothers reunited and then allied with Mikhael of Epiros.
Mikhael launched an attack on the kingdom of Thessaloniki in the summer of 1210. Pope Innocent III lamented in letters that Mikhael had hired Latin mercenaries, who happily slaughtered their own Catholic brothers in the service of their Greek masters, “whom even now they call dogs.” Hendrik kicked them in the nads until all three peed blood, and the ill-fated alliance of Mikhael/Boril/Strez splintered. And who woulda thunk it, Mikhael turned right around and allied with Hendrik *against *Boril and Strez. How could they have seen THAT one coming??
Now we return to a familiar face: Alexios III. Did you forget that he and his wife, Euphrosyne, were still alive? They had been captured by Bonifazio in 1204 and sent to Italy for safe-keeping, only to be ransomed by Mikhael of Epiros in 1210. Alexios III didn’t stay in Epiros for long; he lit out almost immediately, hellbent to make it to the court of Keyhüsrev, now the Selcuk sultan. Akropolites tells us that Alexios III “could not bear to go to the emperor, his son-in-law Theodoros”, as apparently he hated Theodoros Laskaris as much as he’d hated his other son-in-law, Mourtzophlos. It’s among the oddest twists in this tale that with all the backstabbing and double-crosses and double-dealings, almost the only two people who remained perfectly loyal to one another are two of the ‘villains’, Alexios III and Keyhüsrev.
Keyhüsrev welcomed his ‘adoptive father’ Alexios III with great joy. Although he had enjoyed a couple of years of relative peace and quiet with his neighbor, Theodoros Laskaris, but fuck that. He took on Alexios III’s cause as his own, and together they set out to win back Alexios III’s empire.
Starting with Nikaia.
Notes:
- Closely related to the Aggro Crag.
- Mikhael had three legitimate daughters, and unfortunately, we don’t know the name of Eustace’s wife. His other daughters were Maria (wife of Konstantinos Maliassenos) and Theodora. He had one illegitimate son, Konstantinos, later known as Mikhael II.
- Eudokia Angelina’s first husband, the one who’d thrown her out of their castle in her underwear.
Another thrilling episode of the SDMB’s favourite weekly soap opera!
I love MSenne’s characterization of Oberto’s TEH RAEG. Yet another case of how she makes dry historical facts come to life full of all-too-familiar sex and violence.
It would be awesome for her histories to wind up on WikiBooks.
Yes, Mississippienne, you need to publish this. Preferably in a format with lots of maps and pictures and a chart so we can keep track of who’s smack-talkin’ who. (The guy who wanted to stay home with his plow and oxen was the sanest of the bunch…)
(If you really want to publish, PM me. I may have a few contacts.)
Yes pls., a book is considerably easier to carry and read in the bathroom than my iMac. 
I am a huge fan of history-based humor (Blackadder, Will Cuppy), so I thank you from the bottom of my hear for sharing this.
So excited to see some love for my series! I hope y’all stick around, because we don’t have much more to go.
In the summer of 1211, Theodoros Laskaris, emperor of Nikaia, received a letter from his erstwhile ally, Keyhüsrev. In the letter, Keyhüsrev stated that it was bullshit that Theodoros was calling himself the emperor, when that title rightfully belonged to Alexios III 1, and that for his presumption he was gonna go down like a little bitch.
Theodoros broke out in a cold sweat. He was surrounded on all sides by bloodthirsty enemies and the one ally at his back had turned on him. Theodoros had a good cry, wiped off his face, breathed deeply a few times, and got ready to rumble. His soldiers numbered only 2,000, and according to Akropolites 800 of those were Latin mercenaries. They stripped to their waists, put their knives in their teeth like in Apocalypse Now, and set out to confront Keyhüsrev and Alexios III.
Keyhüsrev, Alexios III, and the Selcuk army came over the horizon, high-fiving each other over their grand plan to reconquer Alexios III’s empire, starting with Nikaia. Keyhüsrev’s own two eldest sons were living in Nikaia under the care of Laskaris’ wife (and Keyhüsrev’s ‘adoptive sister’) Anna Angelina, but Keyhüsrev doesn’t seem to have given a shit what might happen to them. Hendrik of Flanders, for his part, was thrilled at the possible neutralization of his enemy Theodoros Laskaris, and set out with his own army, hoping to trap Laskaris in a two-sided war.
Theodoros Laskaris’ army faced off with the Selcuk army on June 17, 1211. The Turks immediately began body-slamming Theodoros’ soldiers, and and it was obvious the Greeks and Latin mercenaries couldn’t take much more of that brutal onslaught. Spotting Keyhüsrev himself, Laskaris galloped towards him, determined to end this one-on-one. Keyhüsrev met Laskaris, smashing him across the head with his badass mace. Stunned, Theodoros Laskaris fell from his horse. Somehow he got his feet under him and drew his sword. When he saw this, Keyhüsrev contemptuously told his own soldiers, “Take this man!” Theodoros Laskaris slashed the back legs of Keyhüsrev’s horse, sending Keyhüsrev tumbling into the dirt. Before his Turks could save him, Laskaris sliced off Keyhüsrev’s head.
The Selcuk Turks panicked at the sight of their dead sultan. Having less loyalty to Alexios III than Keyhüsrev had, they dumped him for Theodoros Laskaris’ soldiers to capture, and turned tail right back into Selcuk territory. Miraculously, Theodoros Laskaris had won the day. He celebrated by having Alexios III’s eyes gouged out 2 and locking him away in a monastery where he soon died.
Keykavus (Keyhüsrev’s eldest son, who had grown up in Nikaia) immediately signed a peace treaty with Theodoros Laskaris. In return, he was given his father’s body and some scratch, and allowed to hasten off to Selcuk territory to begin his own bloody warfare with his younger brothers over who got to be sultan. Hendrik of Flanders backed off, uncertain of being able to destroy Laskaris without the Selcuk Turks to take the brunt of the war.
Theodoros Laskaris, thrilled by the one-two punch of eliminating Alexios III and Keyhüsrev, was afire with ambition. He decided to make a play for Constantinople itself. Laskaris sent out a proclamation urging the other Greeks to rally to his side so that he might free the Byzantine lands “from the Latin dogs”. He knew that Hendrik didn’t feel confident enough to face him on his home turf, and if he could take out Hendrik, his other rivals (Mikhael and the Megaskomnenos brothers) would fall like dominos.
Hendrik’s 600-some-odd soldiers fought Theodoros Laskaris’ army, twice that size, in Asia Minor near the river Ryndakos (Luparkhos) in October 1211. According to Hendrik of Flanders’ own account, it was a solid thrashing, and not a single one of his own knights were mortally wounded. Hendrik sent a letter to his European allies the following year, addressing it to “all his friends”, crowing about the triumph over his four great enemies – Theodoros Laskaris, Boril and Stez, Mikhael of Epiros – and begging for reinforcements. None ever came. Throughout his rule, Hendrik worked miracles with an army that never comprised more than about 2,000 men, and was perpetually strapped for cash.
After he returned to Nikaia, one disaster after another befell Theodoros Laskaris. His wife Anna Angelina died, followed by both their sons, Nikolaos and Ioannes. Of a large and bountiful family, all that were left were himself and his three daughters.
While Hendrik’s army was still tied up with Nikaia, Boril of Bulgaria seized the opportunity to invade Thessaloniki. Hendrik’s brother Eustace and Alexei Slav (Hendrik’s son-in-law and Boril’s own cousin) grabbed him by the short and curlies and tossed him back across the border. It was a spectacular disaster for the Bulgarians. Boril’s military strategy was like watching someone play chess using dice, a spare button, and that shoe thing from a Monopoly game, forgetting the rules halfway through, and flipping the chessboard in frustration. He didn’t even have time to lick his wounds before his own people were rising up against his crappy rule.
Boril was in a bad sitch. The Latins and Greeks hated him; the Serbs hated him because of Strez; and as for Strez, he had pissed off Mikhael of Epiros and was busy being chased around Macedonia like a child trying to avoid a spanking. In desperation, Boril got in touch with King András II of Hungary 3 and asked him to please come save him. András charged in like Mario to save the princess, and rescued Boril from his own ineptitude.
Hendrik of Flanders then offered a pretty sweet deal to both Boril and András of Hungary: the hand of two of his own nieces. Hendrik’s sister, Yolande, was married to Pierre de Courtenay, France’s most warlike baron 4. Yolande and Pierre had a pack of children, including a couple of daughters of doable age. András’ first wife, Gertrude von Meran, had recently died and he was happy enough to marry Hendrik’s niece Yolandette. Boril was still married to his Kuman wife Anna… whatever! Anna found herself divorced and sent back to her tribe. Boril married the other Courtenay girl, and then made Hendrik an offer of his own: the hand of his own stepdaughter, Marija.
Marija was the daughter of Kaloyan and his Kuman wife, Anna. Robert de Clari tells us that Hendrik was reluctant to accept the proposal at first, because of the status of her family (on her mother’s side she was one generation away from being a pagan nomad princess, and her father had murdered Hendrik’s brother Baldwin). But he swallowed his pride and accepted. Boril loaded Marija down with bling-bling and sent her to Constantinople to marry Hendrik.
Okay, so as to illustrate how all the major players in this saga are related:
Hendrik is the brother of Eustace, father-in-law of Alexei Slav, and the stepson-in-law and uncle-in-law of Boril.
Eustace is Hendrik’s brother and the son-in-law of Mikhael of Epiros.
Boril is the stepfather-in-law and nephew-in-law of Hendrik and Eustace, cousin and stepfather of Marija, brother-in-law to András of Hungary, brother of Dobromir Strez and cousin to Alexei Slav, Ivan Asen II, and Aleksander.
Alexei Slav is Boril and Strez’s cousin, and son-in-law to Hendrik.
Mikhael of Epiros is the father-in-law of Eustace and cousin-in-law of Theodoros Laskaris.
Theodoros Laskaris is the cousin-in-law to Mikhael of Epiros, and formerly brother-in-law of Stefan of Serbia, Mourtzophlos, Alexios Palaiologos, and Leon Sgouros.
King András of Hungary is the brother-in-law of Boril, nephew-in-law of Hendrik and Eustace, and brother of Margit.
Margit of Hungary is the sister of King András II of Hungary, widow of Isaakios II and Bonifazio of Montferrat, former stepmother-in-law to Hendrik, and recently wife of Crusader lord Nicolas de St. Omer.
… I don’t even know if that could be made into any kind of chart that would make sense.
- Never mind that he had nothing left to be emperor of. This was a minor detail as far as Keyhüsrev was concerned.
- Oh, how the might had fallen.
- The brother of Margit, Isaakios II and Bonifazio’s widow.
- Pierre was a grandson of King Louis VI of France.
Mmm maps and pictures.
And thanks for the new post.
I need to go back to the first post and try to assemble/construct a family tree of all the players. When I studied a lot of European history I put all the trees included together, like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s really amazing how interbred those families became.
I’m working on a family tree (actually, several), so be patient! For those wanting some pictoral representation, I present to youEmperor Manuel I Komnenos(artist’s rendition).
And I thought Chinese history was a soap opera…
Hee hee hee…