Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204-1453

Crusade, Religion and Trade between Latins, Greeks and Turks

Nikolaos G. Chrissis, Mike Carr

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317161042
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

The conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade shattered irreversibly the political and cultural unity of the Byzantine world in the Greek peninsula, the Aegean and western Asia Minor. Between the disintegration of the Byzantine Empire after 1204 and the consolidation of Ottoman power in the fifteenth century, the area was a complex political, ethnic and religious mosaic, made up of Frankish lordships, Italian colonies, Turkish beyliks, as well as a number of states that professed to be the continuators of the Byzantine imperial tradition. This volume brings together western medievalists, Byzantinists and Ottomanists, combining recent research in the relevant fields in order to provide a holistic interpretation of this world of extreme fragmentation. Eight stimulating papers explore various factors that defined contact and conflict between Orthodox Greeks, Catholic Latins and Muslim Turks, highlighting common themes that run through this period and evaluating the changes that occurred over time. Particular emphasis is given on the crusades and the way they affected interaction in the area. Although the impact of the crusades on Byzantine history leading up to 1204 has been extensively examined in the past, there has been little research on the way crusading was implemented in Greece and the Aegean after that point. Far from being limited to crusading per se, however, the papers put it into its wider context and examine other aspects of contact, such as trade, interfaith relations, and geographical exploration.

PART I
Frankish Greece between East and West

1
New Frontiers: Frankish Greece and the Development of Crusading in the Early Thirteenth Century

Nikolaos G. Chrissis

After the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, several Latin states were set up in Romania. Beside the Latin Empire established at the imperial capital, these states also included the kingdom of Thessalonica, the principality of Achaia, the duchy of Athens and Thebes, the duchy of the Archipelago, as well as several smaller lordships and various Venetian possessions in the Aegean. The Latin conquest is, of course, a famous and well-studied event, and excellent research has been carried out on the Frankish states by scholars such as Jean Longnon, Robert Lee Wolff, David Jacoby and Peter Lock.¹ However, an aspect which has not been scrutinized is that Frankish Greece effectively constituted a crusade frontier. A series of (little-known and even less studied) crusades were proclaimed for the defence of the Frankish states in Greece throughout the thirteenth century, starting as early as 1205 – merely a year after the conquest. A crucial element was that the opponents of these crusades were Christians: the Orthodox Greeks and Bulgarians.² The use of holy war against Orthodox Christians constituted a radical ‘innovation’ of the thirteenth century and a departure from earlier practice.³

This was not an isolated case. There was an expansion of crusading activity in various fronts beyond the original aim of the Holy Land, particularly in the thirteenth century. Crusades were proclaimed with growing frequency at all frontiers of Latin Christendom, both external, such as the Iberian Peninsula and the Baltic, and internal, in southern France, Italy and Germany, where heretics and other ‘enemies of the Church’ appeared to threaten the faith. Pope Innocent III is largely credited with transforming the crusade movement by reorganizing it and widening its application, and by energetically pursuing expeditions in the Holy Land and elsewhere.⁴

The present essay will assess the place of Frankish Greece in this process. It will explore how the evolution of the crusade affected western involvement in Frankish Greece; and, conversely, the role the latter played in the development of crusading at large. It will be argued that, as the crusade was implemented in a wide variety of conflicts, a set of largely similar measures was used in largely dissimilar circumstances. And because crusading came with a specific outlook and preconceived notions regarding the crusaders’ task and the nature of their opponents, it could decisively shape the policies in the area and the terms of interaction between the groups on either side of the conflict. By highlighting religious difference in a highly militarized context, the crusade actually contributed in creating frontiers, rather than simply being deployed in pre-existent ones.

Norman Housley has examined comparatively the frontiers between the Teutonic Order-State (Ordensstaat) and the pagans in the Baltic; the one between Christians and Moors in Spain; and the one between Christian pirates and Turks in sixteenth-century Dalmatia. He has concluded that the vigorous propagation and pursuit of holy war existed simultaneously with established patterns of coexistence, and therefore it is erroneous to see these elements as mutually exclusive. But at the same time he has warned against dismissing the importance of the notions of holy war and religious difference, as they could ‘shap[e] thinking and behaviour and at times even dictat[e] response’ along these frontiers. In Housley’s view, however, the notion of such a ‘frontier’ was not formed in Latin Romania before the Ottoman expansion in the fifteenth century.⁵ It will be shown here, however, that Frankish Greece was actually such a frontier in the thirteenth century, where the crusade significantly affected actions and perceptions between Latins and Greeks.

The terms ‘frontier’ and ‘frontier society’ have been used with little methodological consistency in medieval studies. They have taken various and sometimes antithetical meanings, encompassing notions of military confrontation and territorial expansion; of cultural and intellectual exchange and socio-political coexistence; as well as the notion of ‘mental frontier’, the existence or construction of a perception of the other side as fundamentally alien.⁶ In the present examination, the term ‘frontier’ refers mostly to a combination of the first and the last meaning: the delimitation of a specific zone of frequent armed conflict, where an irreconcilable sense of religious and cultural otherness between the combatants took shape. There can be no doubt that coexistence and extensive exchange between Latins and Greeks was also a feature of Romania from the thirteenth century onwards;⁷ but the intention here is to show the context in which such contact operated. As Housley has shown for other crusade frontiers in his aforementioned work, convivencia and religious warfare were not mutually exclusive.

The genesis of crusading in Frankish Greece will be investigated in the following pages, starting with Innocent III but focusing particularly on the pontificate of Honorius III (1216–27), when the characteristics of a fully fledged crusade front emerged more clearly. Comparisons will also be made with other areas where the crusade was implemented, specifically the Baltic and southern France. The close parallels in crusading activity on the three fronts, despite considerably different circumstances on the ground, will demonstrate the importance of the wider context in shaping local responses. It will be shown that interpretations are inadequate without reference to the overall evolution of holy war, as the specific local circumstances cannot fully account for the way conflict and contact in these areas developed.

Outline of Crusading Activity in Frankish Greece, 1205–25

The crucial first step for the introduction of crusading in Frankish Greece was taken by Innocent III. As early as May 1205 he issued a call to the Christian faithful in France, granting the crusade indulgence to those who would help Emperor Baldwin I stabilize the Latin Empire.⁸ Between 1205 and 1207, he also organized preaching and recruitment in the West for a new expedition to Constantinople.⁹

An army, raised in Flanders and elsewhere in France, set out by late 1207 but was defeated by the Greeks of Epiros upon its arrival in Romania. Innocent did not proclaim another crusade for Frankish Greece after that point, on account of pressing preoccupations in the West during this period, such as the struggle for the German throne and the eruption of the crusade against the heretics in southern France. Furthermore, after 1213, Innocent focused his attention and efforts on the Fourth Lateran Council and the plans for a great new crusade for the Holy Land (that is, the Fifth Crusade).¹⁰

It was left to Innocent’s successor, Honorius III, to proceed further with the implementation of crusading in Frankish Greece. Honorius did so on two occasions. In 1217 the newly elected Latin Emperor, Peter of Courtenay, and the papal legate, Cardinal John Colonna, were captured on their way to Constantinople by the Greek ruler of Epiros, Theodore Doukas. Pope Honorius immediately demanded the release of the prisoners and threatened to use the crusade against Theodore. In November 1217 orders were dispatched to the French clergy to preach a crusade aimed at rescuing Emperor Peter and helping the Latin Empire. The project was, however, abandoned as soon as Theodore agreed to release the legate, early in the following year. The pope, in his joy at the release of his legate, seems to have forgotten about the emperor, who died two years later, still in captivity.¹¹

The second crusading effort was much more substantial. The kingdom of Thessalonica had come under sustained attack from the Greeks of Epiros, and as the pressure mounted in the early 1220s, the young king Demetrius, son of Boniface of Montferrat, fled to Italy in search of help. Pope Honorius was quick in trying to provide crusade reinforcements for Thessalonica. A contingent was dispatched in 1222 under Hubert of Biandrate, who had served in the past as regent of the kingdom, while from May 1223 Honorius organized a larger crusade for the relief of the city, under the command of Demetrius’ half-brother, Marquis William VI of Montferrat. The crusading force was to act in combination with the armies of the Latin Empire and the principality of Achaia. The expedition was planned for the spring of 1224; however, its departure was postponed as the marquis fell ill, and Thessalonica was captured by the Greeks in December 1224. William and his army set out in the spring of the following year but failed to take back the city. The crusade came to an inglorious end as the marquis and many of his soldiers died in an epidemic of dysentery.¹²

Actions: Crusade Mechanisms Deployed in Frankish Greece and in Other Fronts

These crusades achieved little in terms of concrete results. However, it is important that the papacy as well as the local Latin secular powers chose crusading as the means to deal with the situation in Frankish Greece. Innocent’s crusade calls were in direct response to requests by the Latin Emperors Baldwin and Henry, while Honorius launched the crusade for Thessalonica following King Demetrius’ pleas.¹³ In order to understand why and how this came about, we need to examine certain aspects of this crusading activity in more detail.

A crusade can be identified by a series of characteristics, which by the thirteenth century had crystallized in a rather fixed and recognizable form. These included: the papal proclamation (as the papacy was the only authority capable of calling a crusade); the preaching of the cross in various provinces; the grant of remission of sins (indulgences) and other privileges – such as legal immunity and protection of their property – to participants and contributors; the taking of the cross and the crusade vow by the recruits; the raising of funds through specific means such as crusade tithes (taxation on ecclesiastical revenues), donations of the faithful or the redemption of crusade vows (that is, the payment of an appropriate monetary sum in place of personal participation in the campaign). Alongside these practical aspects, equally distinct was the argumentation and rhetoric used to legitimize these expeditions and motivate response to crusade calls, by presenting the war as a sanctified and penitential endeavour, in service to God, the Church and Christendom.¹⁴

Among the characteristics of a crusade, the granting of indulgences is a particularly crucial marker. Crusading was seen as a penitential activity, a means for the crusader to atone for sin. It is debatable whether, from a theological and canonical point of view, the crusade indulgence initially referred to a remission of sin (more accurately, the temporal punishment for sin) or to a remission of the penance imposed by the Church on account of sin. As in many other aspects of crusading, the practice and formulas were only standardized at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). It seems certain, nevertheless, that popular perception, unhindered by theological niceties, followed the wider interpretation, equating the indulgence with a complete cleansing from sin which guaranteed access to heaven. By the end of the twelfth century, a plenary indulgence (full remission of sins) was granted to the participants of crusades to the Holy Land and to those who paid for the expenses of others to fight there.¹⁵ Indulgences had been granted...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Contributors
• Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I: Frankish Greece Between East and West
• Part II: Byzantine Reactions to the Latins
• Part III: Latins Between Greeks and Turks in the Fourteenth Century
• Part IV: The Ottomans’ Western ‘Frontier’
• Conclusion
• Index