Johann of Brienne
Johann von Brienne ( French Jean de Brienne ; * around 1169/74; † March 23, 1237 in Constantinople ) was a French crusader who, as the husband of Queen Mary , reigned as King of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1210 to 1212 . He also led the reign in Outremer for his underage daughter, Queen Isabella II , from 1212 to 1225 . He then became the father-in-law of the Roman-German Emperor Frederick II , with whom he was, however, an enemy and who also fought as the Pope's general. In 1231, Johann was finally elected Emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople , where he formally co- ruled with his underage son-in-law Baldwin II .
An aged paladin , faithful and always destitute, he was a typical knight errant whose journeys throughout Europe and one after the other led him to the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople.
Life
Origin and early years
Johann was born as the youngest son of Count Érard II of Brienne and Agnes of Montbéliard. His family had a long tradition of crusaders, Count Érard I had already participated in the first crusade , Count Érard II and his brother Andreas fought on the third crusade . Following this example, Johann also embarked on a life as a knight, although as the youngest son of the count, a spiritual career must have been predetermined for him. The small county of Brienne in Champagne went to his eldest brother Walter III. while he could not hope for a greater inheritance himself.
According to the world chronicle of Burchard von Ursberg , Johann accompanied his brother to Rome in 1200 . Walter intended with the support of the Pope to fight against the reign of German lords and for his wife's inheritance in the Kingdom of Sicily . But Johann joined the fourth crusade , which started at the same time from Venice and which led to the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 . Nothing more is reported about him from the course of the crusade, but while he was fighting in Greece, his brother died in Apulia in 1205 . In 1209 Johann appeared again as a crusader at the beginning of the Albigensian Crusade . In the Canso de la crozada des Guilhem de Tudèla he is mentioned during the siege of Béziers . During this time, since the death of his brother, he was also responsible for the administration of the County of Brienne for his nephew Walter IV , who was only born in 1205.
King of Jerusalem
In 1208 the Haute Cour of the Kingdom of Jerusalem sent an embassy to King Philip II August with the request to designate a husband for the still underage Queen Maria , the daughter of Queen Isabella I and Conrad of Montferrat . His choice fell on Johann von Brienne, to whom he gave 40,000 silver livres as a morning gift for the marriage. This is probably why Philip II recognized him as a suitable candidate, since Johann was already relatives in Outremer through his cousins from Montbéliard. Walter von Montbéliard once moved to Italy with the Brienne brothers in order to make a career in the Levant.
On September 13, 1210, John reached the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which, however, has actually only ruled over a stretch of coast since Saladin had conquered the holy city of Jerusalem in 1187. The Estoire de Eracles of Ernoul According Johann led 300 knights with what is, however, considered to be very credible. The very next day, on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14th, he married Queen Mary in the Church of the Holy Cross in Acre , in order to be solemnly crowned with her on October 2nd, 1210 in Tire . According to current law, Johann took over the reign in the kingdom for his underage wife. In order to strengthen his position, he primarily protected his closest relatives. So he took Walter von Montbéliard, who had fallen out of favor in Cyprus, at his court and married his sister-in-law Philippa de Champagne to his cousin Érard von Brienne-Ramerupt , with which, however, he made opponents among the long-established feudal nobility.
An important matter that immediately occupied John's kingship was the preparation of a great crusade to recapture Jerusalem. The initiative came mainly from Pope Innocent III. for whom it was a personal matter and with whom Johann had been in contact since his coronation. In 1211 he sent Walter von Montbéliard with a small reconnaissance expedition into the Nile Delta to scout out suitable landing sites for an attack on Cairo . This was the third expedition of its kind that the Frankish Lords Outremers had carried out since the beginning of the 13th century. An attack on Cairo as the main residence of the Egyptian-Syrian Sultanate of the Ayyubids has meanwhile been seen as the most promising alternative for regaining the holy city.
Regent of Jerusalem
In 1212, Queen Maria died in childbirth giving birth to her daughter and now Queen Isabella II . John's kingship came to an end, as he had only held it in the name of his wife, but as the father of the new queen, he was now the guardian of the kingdom. However, the pent-up displeasure of several barons broke out against him. The two powerful Ibelin brothers Philipp and "the old man" Johann moved to Cyprus, where they became very influential. The young Balian of Sidon also turned away from him, although he could only be reconciled a few years later (1218) through his marriage to Johann's niece, Marguerite de Reynel .
In order to win allies and with the prospect of a new crown, Johann married the Armenian princess Stephanie (Rita), the eldest daughter and heir to the throne of the Armenian king of Cilicia, Leon II , who shortly after the wedding personally met John in Acre met. With this, however, he got into further conflicts with his Frankish neighbors, especially with Prince Bohemond IV of Antioch , who was involved in inheritance disputes with the Armenians. In the summer of 1216, Leon II used the absence of Prince Bohemond IV to occupy Antioch on the Orontes and to appoint his cousin Raimund Ruben as prince there. Johann did not intervene in the conflict, but it was mainly thanks to the authority of the Pope that the situation did not develop into an outright war among the Franconian Outremers. Everything else had to be subordinated to the crusade, which was decided at the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 .
Damiette crusade
In the summer of 1217, King Andrew II of Hungary and Duke Leopold VI met. from Austria with their crusader contingents in Acre. In addition to them, King Hugo I of Cyprus and Bohemond IV of Antioch also joined the army. The first battles against the Ayyubids were waged in Palestine, but they were unsuccessful. The Saracen army could neither be raised nor the strategically important castle on Mount Tabor conquered. In addition, tensions arose in the unity among the crusaders, which had been sparked by the question of the supreme command, which John claimed as a matter of course as King-Regent of Jerusalem. This went so far that the kings Andreas and Hugo ended their participation in the spring of 1218 and started their journey home, which resulted in a severe loss of staff. At least the majority of the Cypriot knighthood remained with the army, whose undisputed leader was now Johann.
After Dutch and Lorraine knights arrived in Acre under the Count of Holland in May 1218, Johann decided to attack Egypt. On May 24th he set sail and reached Damiette on May 27th, the siege of which he immediately took up. On June 6th, Sultan al-Adil I. Abu Bakr (Saphadin) approached with his army and camped south of Damiette. Johann managed to repel two attacks by the Saracens on the Christian camp. In October the Christians were reinforced by an Italian contingent from Genoa . At the end of August they succeeded in capturing the chain tower of Damiette , with which the port of the city could be sealed off. The sultan died only a few days later, whereupon the Ayyubids fell out through internal power struggles.
In the spring of 1219, the apostolic legate Pelagius von Albano arrived at the crusader camp, with whom Johann immediately got into a dispute over the military command. In order to underpin his own claim to leadership, Johann even had coins minted in Damiette with his own name. In this way, however, the Christians weakened their own position vis-à-vis Sultan al-Kamil , who in the face of the power struggle with his brothers showed himself to be willing to negotiate and even offered to surrender Jerusalem for a withdrawal of the Franks from Damiette. While Johann and the Barons Outremers were ready to accept this offer, Pelagius and the European knights who supported him refused any negotiations with the infidels and insisted that the fight continue. On November 5, 1219 Damiette could finally be completely taken.
Despite the success, no unity could be found among the Christians. In February 1220 a letter from Pope Honorius III. Damiette, in which he gave his legate the fullest decision-making power, in the foresight of being able to credit the expected success of the crusade to the church. Then on March 19, Johann left the Crusaders and returned to Acre, where he faced other problems. In April 1220 his wife Stephanie of Armenia died, according to rumors, because Johann had killed her with his own hands, because she had planned an assassination attempt on his daughter, Queen Isabella II, in order to put her own son on the throne. The latter died shortly afterwards, after which the Brienne family lost its claim to the Armenian crown. King Leon II also died that same year, whereupon his second daughter Isabella succeeded him to the throne. Then Johann had to organize the defense against the attacks of the Syrian sultan al-Mu'azzam , al-Kamil's brother. This had used the absence of the Frankish barons in Damiette to conquer their possessions. By November 1220 he succeeded in repelling al-Mu'azzam from Akkon and Château Pèlerin , only he could not liberate the occupied Caesarea Maritima .
In November 1220, the young Staufer ruler Friedrich II was crowned the new Roman emperor in Rome , who then took a vow of crusade and sent the first advance detachments from Sicily to Damiette. With the personal intervention of the emperor, the crusaders, who had not yet ventured out of Damiette, linked the final victory over the Saracens. Meanwhile, their army was strengthened by French knights arriving and in May 1221 the Duke of Bavaria reached the scene with a larger contingent. Thereupon Johann returned to Damiette in July 1221, at a personal request of Legate Pelagius. Again both argued about accepting the sultan's offer of peace, but in the end Pelagius was able to prevail with the support of the Duke of Bavaria, who had come to fight.
On July 17th, the army marched towards Cairo. The emperor was no longer waited for because he had postponed his crusade several times. In the vicinity of al-Mansura , in the middle of the branching system of the Nile arms, the army fell into a trap of the Saracens. Sultan al-Kamil had used the annual flooding of the Nile and had the dikes destroyed, flooding the crusaders' deployment area. Surrounded by swamp and morass and beset by the warriors of the sultan, who was reinforced by his brothers, the knights had no other chance but to surrender. Despite years of intensive preparation, the crusade ended in disaster after three years, with a high loss of people and material as a result. As the price of their free withdrawal, the Franks had to hand Damiette over to the Sultan on September 8, 1221. Apart from an eight-year armistice, not a single success could be achieved, and the retaking of Jerusalem was further than ever.
Father-in-law and enemy of the emperor
After Johann had restored the defensive readiness of the remainder of Jerusalem in the following year, he personally intended to travel to Italy to meet with Pope Honorius III. and Emperor Friedrich II to negotiate a new crusade. Though not intended by him, he would never return to the Christian Outremer; he appointed his cousin Odo von Montbéliard as his deputy . In March 1223 the King-Regent of Jerusalem, the Emperor and the Pope met in Ferentino and it was agreed that a new great crusade should be led to the Orient as soon as possible. The Pope had preaching for this in Germany, France and England, and the Emperor undertook to set sail as its leader in June 1225. In order to additionally underpin his serious will, Emperor Friedrich II got engaged to Queen Isabella II, whereby his personal interests should also be inextricably linked with Outremer.
In order to promote the crusade, Johann personally toured the courts of Europe. But already in England he met with widespread disinterest, because King Henry III. was in constant power struggles with its own barons. In Paris , Johann met the dying Philip II August and his son, Louis VIII , showed no interest in moving to the Holy Land personally. Only financial support could be expected from France. After these failures, Johann went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela . Also from King Ferdinand III. from Castile-Léon he received no promise for the crusade, but instead he married his twenty-year-old sister Berengaria in Toledo in 1224 . After another long stay in France, Johann was back in Calabria in May 1225 , where he met again with Frederick II. Due to the low response, both agreed that the crusade should be postponed. To this end, Johann and the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Hermann von Salza , and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Gerold, should lobby the Pope for a postponement of the imperial vow. Successfully negotiating in it, a new start date for the crusade was set in August 1227.
In August 1225 Frederick II was married to Queen Isabella II, who was staying in Acre, by long distance marriage. His admiral Heinrich von Malta had represented him there. He immediately brought the queen to Brindisi , where the emperor married his bride on November 9th. By right now Frederick II was King of Jerusalem in the name of his wife, combined with the claim to the reign; the Barons Outremers present also immediately paid homage to him as their new regent. Apparently, however, Johann had hoped to retain his reign in Acre, possibly on the basis of a promise from the imperial advisor Hermann von Salza, since he assumed that the emperor would return to Europe after the end of the crusade. But he had the intention to hand over the government in Acre to his own confidants, about which now Johann got into a bitter argument with his son-in-law, in which there is also said to have been an insulting exchange of words. According to Salimbene von Parma , Johann described his son-in-law as a "fi de becer" (son of a butcher), alluding to the rumors surrounding his birth in Jesi . Immediately afterwards, Johann sat down in the Patrimony of Petri at the side of the Pope, with whom the emperor had been connected in a subliminal conflict for some time.
Field captain of the Pope
In 1226 Friedrich moved to northern Italy to assert his sovereign rights against the Lombard city union. The Lombards were traditionally anti-Imperial and therefore in agreement with the Pope, who fundamentally rejected a strong imperial power in Italy, especially since the Staufer emperors also ruled the Kingdom of Sicily and thus embraced the papal state. In the service of the Pope, Johann worked with the Lombards against his son-in-law, and with success. In the summer of 1226 he succeeded in persuading Faenza to join the Lombard League. The Emperor failed, the Lombards under his dominion return, which especially the connection was lost to Germany.
Pope Honorius III died on March 18, 1227. and already on the following day with Gregory IX. a successor elected. Meanwhile, the emperor fell behind with the crusade. After the Landgrave of Thuringia died at the beginning of September, Friedrich II decided to delay his departure further and only sent a few advance detachments under the Duke of Limburg and Hermann von Salza to Acre. This time, however, he received no indulgence from the Pope and was excommunicated on September 29, 1227. In March 1228 the Pope repeated his ban and threatened to end the rule of Frederick II in the Kingdom of Sicily. On May 5th, Queen Isabella II died after the birth of her only child, who later became King Conrad IV. With the death of his daughter, Johann finally lost all legal basis for his claim to rule in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. On July 28th, despite his banishment, the emperor set sail with his crusade fleet towards the holy land ( see: Frederick II's crusade ).
The Pope immediately took advantage of the emperor's absence to take action against him in southern Italy. On July 31, 1228, he released all subjects from their oath of loyalty to him, which amounted to a de facto dismissal. At the same time the battles against the emperor's governor began. Johann had been gubernator of the Pope in the north of the Papal States since December 1227 and was now appointed commander of an army of papal mercenaries, who were also called "key soldiers" because of their banner. Johann first moved with them to the Ancona region in order to drive out Duke Rainald von Spoleto , who had invaded there before. At the same time, another papal army under the leadership of John's former opponent Pelagius von Albano advanced into the Kingdom of Sicily. In April 1229 the emperor ended his crusade; he had won Jerusalem back to Christianity by treaty and was on his way home. At the same time, Johann was able to lock Rainald von Spoleto in Sulmona and occupy some coastal towns in Apulia in order to prevent his son-in-law from landing. Nevertheless, the news of the return of the emperor caused panic in the papal party. On the orders of Pelagius, Johann had to break off the siege of Sulmonas and instead lay siege to the fortress Caiazzo near Capua . But on the news that the emperor was approaching, he had to withdraw from Caiazzo in September 1229 and move north to the Papal States. Frederick II was ultimately able to triumph over his opponents and for the time being reconciled with the Pope in the Treaty of San Germano (July 9, 1230).
Emperor of Constantinople
Already at the beginning of 1229, through the mediation of the Pope, Johann was elected as their procurator by the barons of the Latin Empire of Constantinople , which he had once co-founded as a crusader over twenty-five years earlier , which meant the position of co-emperor. The year before, Emperor Robert died there, followed by the underage Emperor Baldwin II . In April 1229 Johann had negotiated with the emissaries of the Latin barons in Perugia about the nature of his rule in Constantinople and negotiated his elevation to emperor. In memory of his experiences with his son-in-law regarding the Kingdom of Jerusalem, he continued to enforce that he should remain in this dignity until the end of his life, even after Baldwin II had come of age. In order to dynastically consolidate this division of power, his future co-emperor was to marry his daughter from his third marriage.
In March 1230 the Bulgarians under Ivan Assen II won the battle of Klokotnitsa against the Greek despot of Thessalonica and thus subjugated large parts of Thrace , Macedonia and Albania . This also put the Latin Empire in immediate danger, as it was limited to the city of Constantinople and its surrounding area. While it was now under pressure from Europe by the Bulgarians, it had to face Asia Minor against the Byzantine emperor in exile John III. Dukas Vatatzes claim that he wanted to recapture Constantinople.
It was only after Johann had finished his last battles against his hated son-in-law that he was able to leave for Constantinople. He carried 500 knights and 5,000 infantrymen who had been financed by the Pope. In the autumn of 1231 he was crowned emperor in Hagia Sophia . He immediately set about improving the city's seemingly hopeless situation. He secured the military support of Venice through extensive trade privileges, although he thereby drove Genoa to the side of Vatatzes. In 1233 he led a campaign against the Nikaia Empire , which, however, was unsuccessful. In 1235 Vatatzes entered into a formal alliance with Ivan Assen II and went to Europe, where he conquered the Venetian Gallipoli after a bloody battle and the fortress of Chorlu. At the same time Constantinople was sealed off from the sea by the Byzantine fleet and Ivan Assen II marched with his Bulgarians in front of the walls of the city, which Johann defended with no more than 160 knights. During the ongoing siege, Johann managed to divide his opponents by diplomatic means. Ivan Assen II could be convinced that a weak Latin Constantinople would be a better neighbor to him than a strong Byzantine one. Thereupon he gave up the siege and withdrew to the Balkans. The Byzantine fleet in front of the Golden Horn was then put to flight by a Venetian fleet and ships belonging to Prince Gottfried II of Achaia , and Johannes Vatatzes had to retreat to Asia Minor.
The salvation of Latin Constantinople was heard at the courts of the western princes as an act of heroism. The Flemish poet Philippe Mouskes compared Johann, albeit exaggerated, with Ajax , Hector , Roland , Ogier the Dane and Judas Maccabeus .
death
After an adventurous life, Johann von Brienne died in Constantinople on March 27, 1237, on his deathbed he joined the third order of the Franciscans . He has been in contact with this young mendicant order since its founding days. During the crusade of Damiette in April 1219 he met St. Francis of Assisi personally and met him a second time in February 1220. Francis had joined the crusade to convert the sultan. Most likely, John was also in Assisi in 1228 when Pope Gregory IX canonized Francis. present.
In the church of San Francesco of Assisi there is a splendid grave monument, erected in the middle of the 14th century, which, based on two coats of arms, serves as the resting place of a Latin emperor of Constantinople. More recent research in the history of art today largely agrees that this is Johann von Brienne. It is believed that Count Walter VI. Brienne had the tomb erected for his great-great-uncle. The remains of the emperor, who died in Constantinople, were probably moved to Assisi.
Marriages and offspring
Johann von Brienne married three times. He had a daughter from his first wife, Maria von Montferrat († 1212):
- Isabella II (* 1212; † 1228), Queen of Jerusalem.
With his second wife, Stephanie of Armenia († 1220), he had a son who died young:
- Johann (* 1216; † 1220).
He had four children from his third wife, Berengaria of León († April 12, 1237):
- Alfons of Akkon († 1270), who married Marie d'Issoudun, Countess of Eu, and became Count of Eu as a husband , and also Grand Chamberlain of France;
- Johann von Akkon (1227–1296), who became the grand cupid of France in 1258;
- Ludwig von Akkon († 1297), who married Agnes of Beaumont and when her husband became Vice Count of Beaumont;
- Maria (1225–1275), ⚭ 1229/1234 with Emperor Balduin II of Constantinople .
Johann's third wife died just a few weeks after him. The descendants of their eldest son Alfons were represented as Counts of Eu in the French aristocracy for several generations. He also had offspring through the younger son Ludwig, both in France and in England (Lords Beaumont).
literature
- Joseph François Lafitau: Histoire de Jean de Brienne, Roy de Jérusalem et Empereur de Constantinople. Moette et al., Paris 1727.
- Gregory Fedorenko: The Crusading Career of John of Brienne, c. 1210-1237. In: Nottingham Medieval Studies. Vol. 52, 2008, ISSN 0078-2122 , pp. 43-79, doi : 10.1484 / J.NMS.3.428 .
- Sylvia Schein: Johann V. v. Brienne . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 5, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-7608-8905-0 , column 498 f.
- Ludwig Böhm: Johann von Brienne, King of Jerusalem, Emperor of Constantinople (around 1170-1237). Heidelberg 1938.
- Jürgen Wiener: The tomb of Johann von Brienne: Emperor of Constantinople and King of Jerusalem. Düsseldorf 1998.
- Wolfgang Stürner : Friedrich II. 1194-1250. Special edition. 3. Edition in one volume, fully bibliographically updated and expanded to include a foreword and documentation with additional information. Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 2009, ISBN 978-3-89678-664-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Burchardi Praeposti Ursperbegenis Chronicon , MGH , Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, pp. 86-88.
- ↑ Eracles XXX, 14, RHC Occ, II, 308.
- ↑ Chronica , MGH SS32, p. 42f.
- ↑ Edgar Hertlein: The grave monument of a Latin emperor of Constantinople. In: Journal for Art History. 29, 1966, ISSN 0044-2992, pp. 1-50.
- ↑ Jürgen Wiener p. 115.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Maria |
King of Jerusalem (de iure uxoris with Maria) 1210–1212  |
Isabella II |
| Johann of Ibelin |
Regent of Jerusalem 1210-1225 |
Emperor Friedrich II. |
| Baldwin II |
Latin emperor (co-emperor next to Baldwin II) 1231–1237  |
Baldwin II |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Johann of Brienne |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Jean de Brienne |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French crusader, king of Jerusalem and co-emperor of Constantinople |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1170 |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 23, 1237 |
| Place of death | Constantinople |