Leachim

Leachim († before 1151 in Venice ) was the son of the Venetian doge Domenico Michiel , who represented him together with a probably unrelated Domenico as vice duke from 1122 to 1125 in Venice. This was necessary because the Doge personally led a fleet against Byzantium and into the Holy Land . The name Leachim is an anagram of the paternal name. Leachim probably died before 1151 and left numerous descendants. His handwritten signature as "vice dux" appears in a certificate. The office of vice-duke was last held by a son of Enrico Dandolofilled out. Until the early 17th century, Leachim had largely fallen into oblivion, as it found no place in the Venetian chronicle. Only the edition of a document from the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore changed this.

Origin and family

Leachim's father cannot be clearly assigned the personal names that appear in contemporary documents. Therefore, its origin cannot be clearly clarified, including the Leachims. Domenico Michiel may have been the son of Giovanni who commanded the great fleet that went to the Holy Land in 1100 and nephew of Doge Vitale Michiel . In a notarial act from 1104, however, a Domenico Michiel, son of Pietro, who was a resident of the Venetian community of San Cassan , also appears. In some documents from 1151 and 1160 there appears a Leachim, son of Michiel, who was also a resident of San Cassan. The matching community makes an identification of that Domenico Michiel from 1104 with the dog of the same name plausible. Then the later vice duke Leachim would be a grandson of the said Pietro and not of Giovanni, son of Vitale.

Among the contemporaries are two other men, namely a vice duke who ruled Venice with Leachim from 1122 to 1125, while the doge Domenico Michiel was absent, and a iudex who appears in 1125, together with said Michiel and another Michiel, Giovanni, also this iudex and signatory of a document in which the monastery Ss. Trinità di Brondolo recognizes the rights of the sons of the iudex Andrea Michiel, among whom there was another Domenico Michiel. This was property that was returned to the monastery after the father's death. So it is not possible to prove with certainty which ramo or branch of the large Michiel family the Doge belonged to. The namesakes cannot be identified with the Doge with any certainty.

His wife Vita, whose existence is only documented by Andrea Dandolo's chronicle , i.e. not until the middle of the 14th century, gave birth to a daughter named Adelasa, who married Michiel's successor in the doge chair and their son Leachim.

Wars of the father against Byzantium and in the Holy Land, Vice-duke (1122–1125)

In 1120, envoys from the Patriarch of Jerusalem and King Baldwin II reached Venice, along with other Christian capitals. They sought support there, because the year before the army of the Principality of Antioch had been destroyed in the Battle of the Bloodfield by the army of the Emir of Aleppo, Ilghazi . Michiel was also urged to help by a letter from Pope Calixtus II .

But first the Doge wanted to clarify the relationship with the Byzantine emperor. In his final years, Emperor Alexios I had also opened the empire to competitors from Pisa and Genoa, and relations with the crusader states were tense. After the death of the emperor in 1118, the Doge turned to his successor John II to have the great privilege (Chrysobullon) of 1082 renewed. But the emperor refused to renew it, whereupon the doge instructed all Venetian traders to return to Venice.

The Crusader States around 1135

In August 1122, a fleet of 100 ships, 15,000 strong, and under the personal guidance of the Doge, set sail. They attacked the Byzantine Corfu , but the main town withstood the siege. When the news of the capture of Baldwin II reached the Venetians in the spring, they broke off the siege and drove eastwards. On May 30, 1123 they defeated a fleet of the Egyptian sultan at Ascalon and, after William of Tire , the army decided to attack Tire. The Pactum Warmundi was concluded in Jerusalem . This pactum provided that Venice should have its own quarters in each city of the Kingdom of Jerusalem . In addition, there was extensive tax exemption, permission to use the measures and weights there and legal supervision of its citizens. The latter should also apply to cases in which there was a dispute with non-Venetians. The Venetians were thus removed from royal jurisdiction. Corresponding privileges should also apply to the principality of Antioch . In addition, Venice was to receive a third of the cities still to be conquered, Tire and Ascalon, and their territories. After King Baldwin was freed from captivity on May 2, 1125, he confirmed these far-reaching privileges. Tire surrendered after four months of siege. Allegedly the enthusiasm was so great - at least this is what the Historia ducum Venetorum from the 13th century claims - that the Doge was offered the crown of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. After these widespread successes, the fleet went home.

On the return voyage , the fleet approached Rhodes , whose capital was besieged, then islands of the Aegean were sacked. In Dalmatia, the Hungarians had subjugated the cities, but now the Doge forced the surrender of Traù and Spalato . The Venetians also won at Belgrado. In June 1125 the fleet returned to Venice after almost three years. It was not until 1126 that the emperor informed the doge that he was ready to restore the treaties. We learn little about the years following these successes. Between the end of 1129 and the beginning of 1130 Domenico Michiel resigned from his office and retired to the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore . There he died and was also buried.

The vice duke Leachim personally signed a certificate with "Ego Leachim Michael vice dux manu mea subscripsi". Why he did not succeed his father in office, but rather his brother-in-law, is unclear.

reception

Just as Andrea Dandolo in his Chronica per extensum descripta, which was written in the middle of the 14th century and soon became authoritative for the historiography of Venice, does not mention Leachim, the son of a Dog, so is the Cronica di Venexia detta di Enrico Dandolo from the late 14th century, the oldest vernacular chronicle of Venice. Also Pietro Marcello calls him in 1502 in his later into the vernacular entitled Vite de'prencipi di Vinegia translated work, "Domenico Michiele Doge XXXIIII." In the section about his father either. This is due to the strong dependence of Venetian historiography on the work of Doge Andrea Dandolo.

According to the Chronicle of Gian Giacomo Caroldo , which he completed in 1532, the Venetians asked the Doge for his opinion, and the “general concione”, on his suggestion, chose Pietro Polani as his successor, not his son.

Coat of arms of "Domenico Michiel" based on ideas from the 17th century. Heraldry did not begin until the 3rd quarter of the 12th century, later, in retrospect, coats of arms were also given to the early Doges who never had such a coat of arms (“fanta-araldica”); this served to relate the families of this era to the earliest possible doges. Heinrich Kellner mentions the anecdote that led to the inclusion of the coins visible in the coat of arms: "When there was a lack of money on the ships", "he had Läder Müntz made / paid his people with it / instead of gold and silver".

The Frankfurt lawyer and judge Heinrich Kellner describes in his Chronica , published in 1574, that is Warhaffte actual and short description, of all people living in Venice , the deeds of "Dominicus Michiel", who in 1120 became "Hertzog". But even he does not report on a vice-duke (or even two). Since the waiter is heavily dependent on Marcellus, this is not surprising.

In the translation of Alessandro Maria Vianoli's Historia Veneta , which appeared in Nuremberg in 1686 under the title Der Venetianischen Herthaben Leben / Government, und Die Aussterben / Von dem First Paulutio Anafesto an / bis on the Marcum Antonium Justiniani , who was in power at the time, the author believes, “ no pen / as clever and well-cut it may be / his incomparable high understanding and heroic deeds will be able to boast and describe sufficiently. "The leather coins," which he calls Michelotti, "the author mentions, as well as the acceptance of the coins in the "coat of arms" of the Falier, also that he was followed in 1129 by "Petrus Polanus" in office. But he neither mentions the maintenance of Michiel supremacy in the doge's absence, nor the question of procuring gold for the exchange for the leather coins, nor does he answer the question why the son-in-law succeeded him, not his son.

Michiel's coat of arms at Serifos Castle , built in 1433, photographed in 2016. It shows the “coins” that Doge Michiel had issued.

Johann Friedrich LeBret published his four-volume State History of the Republic of Venice from 1769 to 1777 , in which he stated in the first volume, published in 1769, that the doge "Dominicus Michieli" was "already quite old" at the time of his election. Then LeBret describes the fighting in the Holy Land in detail. The doge "had money made of leather, and promised the soldiers that the true value of this money would be returned to them in Venice in good silver". "This inventive spirit made himself so popular with his fatherland that the Michielische house, which descended in a straight line from him, still has these coins in its coat of arms."

Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna , who knew the archive holdings extremely well, points out in the fourth volume of his huge work Delle Inscrizioni Veneziane , published in 1834 , in which he lists and classifies a huge number of Venetian inscriptions, that there were a number of name variants for the Dogean son , which often gave cause for confusion. So before him Luchino , Ioachino , Leaco and its diminutive Leachino , but also Eleaco were common. The contemporary and therefore correct name emerged from a document in which the vice-duke signed himself, namely as Leahino . There a Pietro and a Marcello appear as sons of the vice-duke. Many of these discoveries were made by Fortunato Olmo , according to Cicogna, who wrote a history of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore from 1619 . This was still aware of stocks that are now considered lost.

In his Il Palazzo ducale di Venezia from 1861, Francesco Zanotto believes that Venice was hit by natural disasters, epidemics and hunger, then the city fire of 1120. After him the Doge went 'with the general approval of the nation'. The author describes the campaign in great detail. On the one hand, Zanotto admits that one cannot hide the fact that there are so great differences between the historians that one would need the thread of Ariadne to find out of this labyrinth , on the other hand he had not noticed some of the progress made in research.

Unlike Heinrich Kretschmayr 1905 in the first volume of his three-volume History of Venice . In connection with the war in the Levant, Kretschmayr brings in the new idea that the Doge might have had the ambition to revise the rejection of a hereditary monarchy that was enforced over a hundred years ago. It is true that the Doge did not appoint his son as his successor, but rather his son-in-law, but the Doge was probably accessible to such ideas at an advanced age. So the Doge led the fleet himself, while his sons “Leachino” and Domenico stayed behind as “Vice-Dogs” - Kretschmayr himself puts the word in quotation marks (p. 225). At the same time he considers Domenico to be the Doge's second son. "Glorious victor in three theaters of war, Domenico Michiele returned to Venice in June 1125, henceforth a great figure in patriotic history." The Doge's high position, perhaps also personal efforts, would have ensured that the Dogat of the family was retained in the female line , because his son-in-law Pietro Polani became his successor. In a comment, Kretschmayr sees nothing unusual in the substitution by his sons, similar to Enrico Dandolo , even if other authors claim that his substitution by his son " Renier Dandolo " was "contrary to common belief" (p. 492). Here the author is referring to a line of continuity, which was ineffective in the long term, but which had the potential to revive the traditional striving for hereditary rule, i.e. the establishment of a Dog dynasty.

swell

Historiography

• Luigi Andrea Berto (Ed.) Historia ducum Venetorum (Testi storici veneziani: XI – XIII secolo), Padua 1999, pp. 4 f., 8–11.
• Roberto Cessi , Fanny Bennato (eds.): Venetiarum historia vulgo Petro Iustiniano Iustiniani filio adiudicata , Venice 1964, pp. 2, 73, 92, 101-108, 256.

Documents, council resolutions

• Luigi Lanfranchi (Ed.): S. Giorgio Maggiore , Vol. II, Venice 1968, n. 145, pp. 318-320.
• Roberto Cessi (Ed.): Acta Consilii sapientum , in: Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio di Venezia , Vol. I, Bologna 1950, n.VII, IX, pp. 242, 244.
• Marco Pozza (Ed.): Gli atti originali della Cancelleria veneziana , Vol. I, Venice 1994, n.7, p. 53.

literature

• Marco Pozza: Michiel, Domenico , in: Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 74 (2010) 300–303 (here a brief treatment of Leachim).
• Heinrich Kretschmayr : History of Venice , 3 vol., Vol. I, Gotha 1905, pp. 225, 492.

Remarks

1. ^ Marco Pozza: Gli Atti originali della cancelleria veneziana. 1090-1198 , Il Cardo, 1994, p. 53; Luigi Lanfranchi : S. Giorgio Maggiore , Comitato per la pubblicazione delle fonti relative alla storia di Venezia, 1968, pp. 318-320, here: p. 320.
2. ^ Ester Pastorello (Ed.): Andrea Dandolo, Chronica per extensum descripta aa. 460-1280 dC , (= Rerum Italicarum Scriptores XII, 1), Nicola Zanichelli, Bologna 1938, pp. 231-237 ( digitized, pp. 230 f. ).
3. ^ Roberto Pesce (Ed.): Cronica di Venexia detta di Enrico Dandolo. Origini - 1362 , Centro di Studi Medievali e Rinascimentali “Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna”, Venice 2010, pp. 58–60.
4. ↑ Pietro Marcello : Vite de'prencipi di Vinegia in the translation by Lodovico Domenichi, Marcolini, 1558, pp. 62-65 ( digitized version ).
5. ↑ Șerban V. Marin (Ed.): Gian Giacomo Caroldo. Istorii Veneţiene , Vol. I: De la originile Cetăţii la moartea dogelui Giacopo Tiepolo (1249) , Arhivele Naţionale ale României, Bucharest 2008, pp. 128-133. ( online ).
6. ↑ So the coats of arms of the much later descendants of these doges, especially since the 17th century, were projected back onto the alleged or actual members of the families (allegedly) ruling Venice since 697: "Il presupposto di continuità genealogica su cui si basava la trasmissione del potere in area veneziana ha portato come conseguenza la già accennata attribuzione ai dogi più antichi di stemmi coerenti con quelli realmente usati dai loro discendenti "(Maurizio Carlo Alberto Gorra: Sugli stemmi di alcune famiglie di Dogi prearaldici , associazione nobiliare regional veneta. Rivista di studi storici, ns 8 (2016) 35–68, here: p. 41).
7. ↑ Heinrich Kellner : Chronica that is Warhaffte actual and short description, all life in Venice , Frankfurt 1574, p. 25v – 27r ( digitized, p. 25v ).
8. ↑ Alessandro Maria Vianoli : Der Venetianischen Herthaben life / government, and withering / from the first Paulutio Anafesto an / bit on the now-ruling Marcum Antonium Justiniani , Nuremberg 1686, pp. 200-208 ( digitized ).
9. ↑ Johann Friedrich LeBret : State history of the Republic of Venice, from its origins to our times, in which the text of the abbot L'Augier is the basis, but its errors are corrected, the incidents are presented in certain and from real sources, and after a Ordered the correct time order, at the same time adding new additions to the spirit of the Venetian laws and secular and ecclesiastical affairs, to the internal state constitution, its systematic changes and the development of the aristocratic government from one century to another , 4 vols., Johann Friedrich Hartknoch , Riga and Leipzig 1769–1777, Vol. 1, Leipzig and Riga 1769, pp. 298–309 ( digitized version ).
10. ^ Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna : Delle Inscrizioni Veneziane , Vol. IV, Venice 1834, p. 297, note 67.
11. ↑ Historiarum insulae S. Georgii Maioris prope Venetias positae libri tres Fortunato Ulmo Veneto Cassinensi , BMV: Ms. lat. IX, 177 (after: Sabine Engel: An adulteress among monks. Rocco Marconis Adultera (c. 1516) by San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice , in: Daphnis 32 (2003) 399-434, here: p. 405.) Olmo published 1612 De translatione corporis S. Pauli martyris è Constantinopoli Venetias ad Monasterium S. Georgii Maioris ( digital copy ).
12. ↑ Francesco Zanotto: Il Palazzo ducale di Venezia , Vol. 4, Venice 1861, pp. 88–92 ( digitized version ).
13. ^ Heinrich Kretschmayr : History of Venice , 3 vol., Vol. 1, Gotha 1905, pp. 225, 492 ( digitized , pages 48 to 186 are missing!).