Narjot de Toucy

Narjot de Toucy († 1241 ) was a lord of Bazarnes and regent ( Bailli ) of the Latin Empire of Constantinople .

Toucy came from the master family of Toucy in the Duchy of Burgundy , which had a long tradition of crusaders. His father, Sire Narjot II of Toucy, was a participant in the third crusade . How Toucy got into the Latin world of the Greek East is unclear, possibly as a participant in the fourth crusade or after participating in the crusade of Damiette , on which his brother Itier IV of Toucy died in 1218. In Constantinople he married a Byzantine noblewoman, the daughter of Theodoros Branas . Via her mother, Agnes of France , the bride was a niece of the French king Philip II August .

After the death of the Latin emperor Robert in January 1228, his underage brother Baldwin II followed. A regency council consisting of Narjot de Toucy, his father-in-law Theodoros Branas and the Connétable Geoffroy de Méry took over government affairs for him. Toucy presided over this council as Bailli . Among other things, he negotiated in 1228 with the Byzantine emperor Theodoros I Angelos in exile a one-year armistice including free trade between the Latins and the Greeks of Epirus . He sent another diplomatic mission to the Sultan of the Rum Seljuks in Konya .

In 1229 Toucy sent a diplomatic mission to Italy, which in April in Perugia was able to reach an agreement with the former king of Jerusalem, John of Brienne , by offering him the imperial dignity and reign of Constantinople. After the armistice had expired, Theodoros I Angelos marched towards Constantinople in 1230, but was captured after a battle against the Bulgarians . The following year, John of Brienne came to Constantinople and took over the government. During the first absence of Emperor Baldwin II at the courts of Western Europe, Toucy took over the reign again from 1237 to 1240.

From his marriage he had the following children:

• Philippe de Toucy († 1277), regent of Constantinople, later admiral of Sicily
• Anselin de Toucy, Lord of Mottola
• NN (daughter), ∞ with Prince Wilhelm II of Achaia
• Marguerite de Toucy, ∞ with Leonardo de Veruli, Chancellor of the Principality of Achaia. Before her marriage to Leonardo, she lived in the Pyrn Monastery

In his second marriage he married a Cuman princess around 1239/40 , possibly a daughter of Kötöny Khan, who was murdered in 1241. This marriage was intended to deepen an alliance between Latins and Cumans against the Bulgarians and Greeks of Nicaea .

literature

• Kenneth M. Setton: The Papacy and the Levant. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Vol 1, in: Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society. American Philosophical Society, 1991.
• Robert Lee Wolff: Studies in the Latin Empire of Constantinople. London 1976.

Web links

• Narjot (III) de Toucy at fmg.ac (English)