Eustach of Flanders

Eustach of Flanders († 1216 ) was a member of the Flemish count house and from 1209 to 1216 ruler of the Kingdom of Thessaloniki .

He was a younger son of Count Baldwin V./VIII. of Hainaut-Flanders and the Countess Margaret of Flanders . His two oldest brothers were Baldwin and Heinrich , who were the first two emperors of the newly founded Latin Empire of Constantinople after the fourth crusade (1202-1204) .

Eustach probably did not take part in the fourth crusade; neither in Gottfried von Villehardouin nor in Robert de Clari is a crucifixion or any other involvement in the crusade mentioned by him. He is mentioned for the first time as the general of his brother, Emperor Heinrich, in the late year 1206, in a victorious battle against the Bulgarian Tsar Kalojan (Johannitza) near Adrianople . So it was only when he heard of the conquest of Constantinople in April 1204 that he followed his brothers to the Greek East, the former of whom had already fallen into captivity and died in the Battle of Adrianople in April 1205. At the side of his brother Heinrich, Eustach was involved in the battles against the Bulgarians and exiled Byzantines under Theodor Laskaris in the following years .

After the suppression of the Lombards uprising under Oberto von Biandrate in the Kingdom of Thessaloniki (January 1209), Eustach was installed by his brother as regent for the underage King Demetrius . At the subsequent Parliament of Ravennika (May 1209) a peacemaking marriage was agreed for him with a daughter of the Byzantine despot of Epirus, Michael I Angelos . Since 1214 Thessaloniki was exposed to the attacks of Theodoros I Angelos .

Eustach probably died in 1216, as did his brother. For the year 1217, Berthold von Katzenelnbogen was named another in the office of regent of Thessaloniki.

Individual proof

1. ↑ Geoffrey de Villehardouin: Memoirs Or Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople (Echo Library, 2010), p. 118