John II Dukas

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John II Angelos Dukas ( Middle Greek Ιωάννης Βʹ Άγγελος Δούκας ; * around 1295; † 1318 ) was ruler of Thessaly and Central Greece since 1303 .

Life

Johannes was the son of Konstantin Dukas and his wife Anna Euagionissa Dukaina († 1317). When his father died in 1303, John, then still a child, succeeded him in ruling Thessaly. The Thessalian magnates appointed his father's cousin, Duke Guido II de la Roche of Athens, as guardian and regent .

Guido de la Roche immediately began to energetically build up his rule in Thessaly; with Antoine le Flamenc he appointed his own bailiff . This brought him into conflict with the despot of Epirus , Thomas Komnenos Dukas , and his mother and regent Anna Palaiologina Kantakuzene , who attacked Thessaly in the same year and occupied the castles of Pindus and Phanarion . To counterattack, Guido united 900 Frankish knights and 6,000 Greek and Bulgarian mercenaries under his flag and marched against Ioannina . In view of this army power, the despot gave in and lifted the occupation of the castles. In the north, Guido penetrated into Byzantine territory as far as Thessaloniki , but withdrew again due to the presence of the Empress Irene von Montferrat in the city.

Guido de la Roche was less successful in the fight against the Catalan Company , which invaded Thessaly in 1306 and plundered around for three years. When Guido died in 1308, John II, who had meanwhile come of age, resisted the attempt by the new Duke of Athens, Walter V von Brienne , to maintain the protectorate over Thessaly, whereupon he himself hired the Catalan mercenaries. After conquering several cities in Thessaly with their help in 1309 and securing them by contract, Walter no longer needed the company and suspended the agreed wages. The Catalans decided to hold several castles they had conquered for Walter and demanded that they be recognized by him as his feudal men . Walter rejected this compromise and threatened the company with violence. In the winter of 1310 both sides prepared for battle; on March 15, 1311 there was the decisive battle at Halmyros , which ended with a crushing defeat for the knights of the Duke of Athens, who also fell.

The withdrawal of the Catalans to Boeotia and Attica and the death of Walter von Brienne gave John II, who now called himself “Lord of the lands of Athens and Neopatra ”, more political room for maneuver in his territory in Thessaly. However, since he enjoyed little support from the local magnates, he tried to strengthen his position by rapprochement with the Byzantine Empire. In 1315 (or as early as 1309) he married Irene Palaiologina , an illegitimate daughter of Emperor Andronikos II. Palaiologos . Presumably on the occasion of this wedding, Johannes, like his father before, was granted the high title of sebastocrator by the emperor ; According to the epitaph of the poet Manuel Philes , he was even despot. Linked to this was the recognition of the nominal suzerainty of the Byzantine Empire over Thessaly.

John II, ailing from childhood, died in 1318 without leaving an heir. Thessaly came largely under the control of the powerful magnate Stephan Gabrielopulos ; the areas in the south around Neopatras were occupied by the Almogàvers of the Catalan Company, who established their own duchy Neopatria here.

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literature

  • Божидар Ферјанчић: Севастократори у Византији . In: Зборник радова Византолошког института . Vol. 11, 1968, ISSN  0584-9888 , pp. 141-192 ( PDF file; 4.0 MB ), here: pp. 183 f.
  • John Van Antwerp Fine: The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 1994, ISBN 0-472-08260-4 , pp. 238-241.
  • David Jacoby: The Catalan Company in the East: The Evolution of an Itinerant Army (1303-1311). In: Gregory I. Halfond (Ed.): The Medieval Way of War: Studies in Medieval Military History in Honor of Bernard S. Bachrach. Ashgate, Farnham 2015, ISBN 978-1-4724-1960-6 , pp. 153-182, here: p. 157.
  • Angeliki E. Laiou: Constantinople and the Latins. The Foreign Policy of Andronicus II 1282-1328. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1972, ISBN 0-674-16535-7 , pp. 226-230.
  • Peter Lock: The Franks in the Aegean, 1204-1500 . Pearson / Longman, Harlow 1995, ISBN 0-582-05140-1 .
  • Donald M. Nicol : The Despotate of Epiros 1267-1479. A contribution to the history of Greece in the middle ages. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1984, ISBN 0-521-26190-2 , pp. 74-75 and passim .
  • Donald M. Nicol: The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 0-521-43991-4 , pp. 142-143, 182.
  • Georg Ostrogorsky : History of the Byzantine State (= Handbook of Ancient Studies . Bd. 12,1,2) 3rd edition CH Beck, Munich 1963, ISBN 3-406-01414-3 , pp. 408-410.
  • Demetrios I. Polemis: The Doukai. A Contribution to Byzantine Prosopography (= University of London Historical Studies. Vol. 22, ISSN  0076-0692 ). Athlone Press, London 1968, p. 98.
  • Claudia Rapp : A previously unknown letter from Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus to John II, Sebastocrator of Thessaly . In: Byzantine Journal . Vol. 81, 1988, pp. 12-28.
  • Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 3: Faber Felix - Juwayni, Al- . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2012, ISBN 978-2-503-53243-1 , pp. 370-371.
  • Erich Trapp , Rainer Walther, Hans-Veit Beyer: Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit . 1. Fascicle: Ἀαρών - Ἀψαρᾶς (= publications of the Commission for Byzantine Studies . Vol. 1/1). Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1976, ISBN 3-7001-0169-4 , p. 17 No. 206.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Polemis, Doukai , p. 98.
  2. ↑ See PLP 1, p. 17.
  3. ↑ See Lock, Franks , p. 101.
  4. ↑ See Fine, Late Medieval Balkans , p. 251.
  5. ↑ On the dating problem cf. Nicol, Epiros , p. 74 FN 40. The earlier date 1309 in Gregoras (1, 249) may refer to the engagement.
  6. ↑ See Nicol, Epiros , p. 74.
personal data
SURNAME John II Dukas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES John II Angelos Dukas; Ιωάννης Β΄ Άγγελος Δούκας (Middle Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek ruler of Thessaly, grandson of John I Dukas Komnenos
DATE OF BIRTH around 1295
DATE OF DEATH 1318