Robert (Latin Empire)

This article deals with the Latin emperor, Robert von Courtenay, for his uncle of the same name see Robert von Courtenay .

Robert von Courtenay (* around 1200; † January 1228 in Chlemoutsi ) was an emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople from the House of Courtenay from 1221 to 1228 .

Life

origin

Robert was the second son of Peters von Courtenay († 1217), Count of Auxerre, from his second marriage to Jolante von Flanders († 1219). On his father's side, he was a member of the French royal dynasty of the Capetians as the great-grandson of King Louis VI. the fat one . On the mother's side, he was a descendant of the powerful Flemish counts ; his uncles Balduin (X 1205) and Heinrich († 1216) were leaders of the fourth crusade (1200–1204) and, after the conquest of Constantinople , officiated successively as the first emperors of the newly established Latin empire of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) .

After the heirless death of Emperor Heinrich in 1216, the Latin barons of Constantinople proclaimed his brother-in-law Peter von Courtenay to be their new emperor, after which he set out on a journey to the east with his wife and younger daughters. Robert stayed in his homeland alone with his older brother, Count Philip II of Namur . There is no known information about his early years. For the year 1220 he is still mentioned as a young man (ætate juvenem), which means that he was not older than twenty years and therefore hardly had the opportunity to excel historically. His incorrect title in a Belgian chronicle as "Count of Namur" (Robertus comes Nanurcensis) suggests that he participated in the rule of Namur from 1216 onwards, although his name does not appear in his brother's documents.

Succession to the throne (1219–1221)

The Latin Empire (red) when Emperor Roberts came to power.

Peter von Courtenay was crowned emperor by the Pope on April 9, 1217 in Rome , but only a few weeks later on his onward journey to Constantinople, he fell into captivity by the Greek despot of Epirus, in which he quickly died. For the time being, Jolante had taken over the reign in Constantinople alone until her death in late 1219. On the question of the succession of the imperial couple, the Latin barons reached an agreement in December 1219 on their eldest son, Count Philip of Namur, who, however, rejected the imperial dignity that had been proposed to him. Instead, Count Philip, after consulting King Philip II of France, recommended his younger brother Robert as the new emperor to the barons.

With only a small retinue, Robert began his journey to the east in the summer of 1220. Unlike his parents, he did not go to Italy to be crowned by the Pope, but chose the route via Hungary , where he spent the winter at the court of his sister Jolante and her husband, King Andreas II , and in the spring Moving on to Constantinople via Bulgaria in 1221 . There he was crowned emperor by the Latin patriarch in Hagia Sophia on March 25, 1221 and in the same month he was first certified with an imperial title (Robertus, Dei gratia fidelissimus in Christo Imperator, a Deo coronatus Romanie moderator et semper augustus) . Since the death of his uncle Heinrich in 1216, he was the first emperor to have a personal presence in Constantinople.

Collapse (1221-1224)

Robert, who was both politically and militarily inexperienced, had taken on a very difficult successor. It is true that his uncle Heinrich helped the Latin Empire to establish a closed area of ​​power, which encompassed the Aegean from the Troas in Asia Minor through Thrace , Thessaloniki , Thessaly and Attica to the Peloponnese and was ruled in a feudal hierarchy, but which was constantly under threat from the West and the East was. Against the rule of the Latins established in Constantinople in 1204, a Greek counter- empire prevailed in Nicaea in Asia Minor , with whose emperor Theodoros I Laskaris a shaky peace could be kept since 1213. After the death of Empress Jolante in 1219, the latter, as her son-in-law, demanded the reign of Constantinople, which was rejected by the Latin barons and therefore caused new battles in Asia Minor. In Europe, the Latins were exposed to sustained military pressure from the Greek despot of Epirus , Theodoros I Angelos , who made the conquest of Thessaloniki his goal.

In order to end the state of war on the two fronts, Robert reached an armistice with his brother-in-law Theodoros I Laskaris in his first year of reign by promising to marry his daughter Eudokia Laskarina . Through this relief in the east, the forces of the Latins could now be concentrated on the defensive battle against Theodoros I Angelos, who conquered the strategically important fortress of Serres in 1221 . However, these plans were dashed with the sudden death of Laskaris in 1222, whereupon his son-in-law John III in Nicaea . Vatatzes has usurped the power, who wanted nothing to do with a peace with the Latins, as they supported the displaced Laskarids. The situation culminated in the military collapse of the Latin Empire in 1224, when his army was first defeated by Vatatzes in the Battle of Poimanenon and then an attempt to recapture Serres failed miserably. As a result, the Latins had lost control of Asia Minor to Nicaea and had to accept the conquest of Thessaloniki by Angelos, which shattered the territorial integrity of the Latin Empire. The Latin principalities in Athens and the Peloponnese could still hold out, but the emperor in Constantinople could only reach them by sea and thus became effectively independent.

Loss of power (1224-1228)

In 1225 Robert bought the peace with Vatatzes by giving up all claims to areas in Asia Minor, including the island of Lesbos, in favor of Nicaea. Against Angelus he relied on support from the west, but an attempt to retake Thessaloniki by Margrave Wilhelm VI. von Montferrat failed with his feverish death in Thessaly. A request for help to King Louis VIII of France was due to his death in November 1226. Shortly afterwards, the Latins had also lost control of Thrace after Theodoros Angelos also conquered Adrianopolis . Although the Greek population of the city ended their rule over them again in a revolt in 1227, they subsequently placed themselves under the protection of the Vatat, with which the kingdom of Nicaea was now able to gain a foothold on European soil. The Latin rule has thus shrunk to the city of Constantinople and its immediate surroundings, which now represented an island surrounded by the Greek world.

The losses and persistent military failures had evidently shaken the confidence of the Latin barons crammed into Constantinople in their emperor. A crusader chronicle reports a bloody outrage of the barons against the imperial family. His engagement to Eudokia Laskarina , daughter of the emperor of Nikaia Theodor I. Komnenos Laskaris , dropped, Robert had fallen in love with the daughter of a deceased knight from the Artois , whose mother was a Greek. He had married the young lady in secret, although she was far below his standard. It was probably in 1226 that the barons' pent-up displeasure with their emperor, coupled with a graecophobic attitude, had discharged against these women. After they stormed the imperial palace, they killed their mother and apparently tortured the emperor's wife following the Byzantine nomos . According to another source, Robert took the bride of a Burgundian knight with her ambitious mother into the palace and secretly married her. The insulted bridegroom therefore penetrated the palace with several comrades: they threw their mother into the sea, shaved the head of the new empress and cut off her nose.

The Latin Empire (red) around 1230 after the reign of Emperor Roberts.

This incident was likely to have been decisive for Robert to leave Constantinople in order to personally solicit support for his city empire in the west. Handing over the affairs of government to his sister Maria , he traveled by sea to Rome in the spring of 1227 ; any results from the talks with the Pope are not known. On the return journey he died at the court of his brother-in-law Gottfried II von Villehardouin in the Peloponnese by spring 1228 at the latest. He was succeeded to the throne by his underage brother Baldwin II , for whom Johann von Brienne took over the reign in the interests of the barons.

judgment

The judgment of Emperor Robert is largely negative in historical research, starting in the 17th century with Du Change (Histoire de l'empire de Constantinople sous les empereurs français) to more recent considerations such as by Jean Longnon ( L'empire latin de Constantinople et la principauté de Morée, 1949) and Robert Lee Wolff ( The Latin Empire of Constantinople, 1204–1261, 1962). The picture is drawn here of an incompetent and inactive ruler, who at no time did justice to the given situation, who was ultimately responsible for the collapse of the Eastern Latin Empire, which his glorious uncles had promised to establish. This view was adopted largely uncritically from medieval historiography, in particular by northern French chroniclers such as the anonymous author of the Chronicon Turonense and above all Alberich von Trois-Fontaines , in whose opinion the emperor was “somewhat incompetent and limited” (quasi rudis et idiota ) has been. The military responsibility of the powerful Latin barons in the decisive years from 1221 to 1224 and their influence on the public image in their Franco-Flemish homeland over the emperor and the events in distant Greece is mostly suppressed. In contrast to the emperor, who died prematurely, many of them had the opportunity to spread their view of things and to shift the decisive responsibility for the catastrophe to the now defenseless emperor, which encouraged a correspondingly early judgment in historiography.

Benevolent authors consider Emperor Robert neutral to regrettable at best, as a descendant who was not brought up to rule and who was put on the throne of a medieval state threatened from all sides without any political or military experience.

literature

• Filip Van Tricht: Robert of Courtenay (1221–1227): An Idiot on the Throne of Constantinople? , in: Speculum 88 (2013) 996-1034.

Remarks

1. ↑ See Van Tricht, p. 1021, note 101.
2. ↑ See Chronicon Turonense, in: RHGF 18, p. 300.
3. ↑ See Reineri annales sancti Jacobi Leodiensis, in: MGH SS 16, p. 678.
4. ↑ In the report of the Venetian Podestà of Constantinople to the Doges, Count Philip of Namur is already referred to as Emperor (domino et Imperatore Philippum). Cf. Tafel, GL Fr. & Thomas, GM: Documents on the older commercial and state history of the Republic of Venice, Vol. 2 (1856), No. CCLVII, pp. 215-221.
5. ↑ See L'estoire de Eracles, in: RHC Hist. Occ. 2, p. 294; Chronicon Turonense, in: RHGF 18, p. 300.
6. ↑ See Tafel, GL Fr. & Thomas, GM: Documents on the older commercial and state history of the Republic of Venice, Vol. 2 (1856), CCLX, pp. 227-230.
7. ↑ The ambassador had reached the French king during his siege of Avignon, during which the king contracted a dysentery which resulted in death. See Chronique rimée de Philippe Mouskes , Vol. 2, ed. von Reiffenberg (1838), p. 539.
8. ↑ See L'estoire de Eracles, in: RHC Hist. Occ. 2, p. 294f.
9. ^ Friedrich von Raumer : History of the Hohenstaufen and their time, Volume 3, Chapter 13 Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1824 online [1] at Project Gutenberg
10. ↑ Among other things, the English chronicler Matthäus Paris has located Robert's death in the year 1228. See Chronica Majora, Vol. 3, ed. by William Stubbs (1876), p. 145. His sister Maria also registered as his deputy regent in February 1228. See Samuel Löwenfeld: Une lettre de l'impératrice Marie. In: Archives de l'Orient latin, Vol. 2/2 (1884), pp. 256-257.
11. ^ In Kenneth M. Setton: A History of the Crusades, Vol. 2. Philadelphia, 1962.
12. ↑ See Albericus Trium Fontium Chronica, in: MGH SS 23, p. 910f.

Web links

• Kaiser Robert at genealogie-mittelalter.de

predecessor	Office	successor
Peter	Latin emperor 1219–1228	Baldwin II