Devol contract

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The Treaty of Devol was an agreement between I. Bohemond , Prince of Antioch and the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I from the year 1108 with the aim of Antioch a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire to make.

background

In 1096 the crusader armies rallied in Constantinople after marching separately across Europe. Alexios I, who had only asked the West for mercenaries in his fight against the Seljuks , held the army in the city and forbade them to move on until their leaders had sworn all the land they would conquer on their way to Jerusalem to leave the empire. The crusaders eventually took the oath, individually rather than in groups. Some, like Raymond IV of Toulousewere probably sincere, others like Bohemond probably never intended to keep their promise. The crusaders expected military support from Alexios in return, for which Alexios was also preparing, but the crusaders were angry at the Byzantine tactic negotiating the surrender of Nicaea with the Seljuks while the city was still under siege by the crusaders (see Siege of Nicaea ), to finance hoping with their plunder their journey. The crusaders, feeling betrayed by Alexios, continued on their way without Byzantine help. In 1098 , when Antioch was conquered and the crusaders themselves were besieged in the city (see Siege of Antioch ), Alexios set out to help them, but turned back when various deserters told him that the situation was hopeless. The Crusaders, who unexpectedly withstood the siege, believed Alexios had dropped them and now found the Byzantines to be completely unreliable.

Until 1100 there were several Crusader states was established, including Bohemund the Principality of Antioch. It was demanded that Antioch be handed over to the Byzantines, despite the presumed betrayal, but Bohemond claimed it for himself. Alexios, of course, disagreed, Antioch with its important port was a hub for trade with Asia, a fortress of the Orthodox Church with one important patriarchs . It had only been taken from the Empire a few decades ago, unlike Jerusalem, which was much further away and had not been in Byzantine possession for centuries. Alexios did not recognize the legitimacy of the principality, instead demanding that it be returned in accordance with the oath Bohemond swore in 1097.

In 1100 Bohemund Alexios and the Orthodox Church added to another insult, when he Bernard of Valence to the Latin Patriarch appointed and simultaneously sent the Greek Patriarch, John Oxites, the country, who then fled to Constantinople Opel. Shortly afterwards, Bohemond was captured by the Danischmenden and imprisoned for three years, after which his nephew Tankred was appointed regent. On his return, Bohemond was defeated by the Seljuks in 1104 at the Battle of Harran , a defeat that increased pressure on Antioch from both sides, the Seljuks and the Byzantines. Bohemond left Tankred as regent in Antioch and went on a trip to Europe to collect soldiers and money for a new crusade.

Bohemond's Norman relatives in Sicily had been at war with the Byzantine Empire for more than 30 years; his father, Robert Guiskard, was one of the empire's worst enemies. While Bohemond was absent, Alexios sent an army to retake Antioch and the Cilician cities. In 1107 Bohemond had set up a new army for his planned crusade against the Muslims in Syria , but led them into a campaign against Alexios. He crossed the Adriatic from Italy and besieged Dyrrhachion , the westernmost city of the Empire. Like his father, Bohemond was unable to make significant progress in the Byzantine Empire, Alexios avoided open field battles, and Bohemond's siege failed, partly because of an epidemic in his own ranks.

The contract

In September 1108, Alexios proposed to start negotiations in his Diabolis camp. (The place is named after the Albanian river Devoll .) Bohemond had no choice, he had to accept because his army, plagued by the disease, was no longer able to fight Alexios in a battle. He acknowledged that he had violated the 1097 oath, but refused to confirm that this had any connection with the current situation, especially since, in Bohemond's eyes, Alexios had also violated the agreement when he withdrew from the siege of Antioch in 1098. Alexios agreed to invalidate the 1097 oath. The terms of the contract were negotiated by Nikephoros Bryennios and recorded by his wife, Alexios' daughter Anna Komnena .

  • Bohemond agreed to become a vassal of the emperor, as well as a vassal of Alexios son and heir John II ;
  • He accepted to help defend the empire wherever and whenever aid was requested, and accepted an annual payment of 200 talents of silver in return;
  • He got the titles Sebastos and Doux (Duke) of Antioch;
  • Antioch and Aleppo were given to him as imperial fiefs (the latter were not owned by either the Byzantines or the Crusaders, the destination was understood as an invitation to conquer);
  • He agreed to return Laodicea and other Cilician areas to Alexios;
  • He accepted that Alexios should appoint a Greek patriarch.

The provisions were negotiated according to Bohemond's western understanding, so that he saw himself as the emperor's feudal vassal, a, homo ligius or ανθροπος λιζιος . From the Byzantine point of view, he was just a subjugated enemy, pressed into mercenary services for the empire, for which he was rewarded annually. The title Doux meant that he was a Byzantine subject, not an independent prince (he had given this title to himself in 1098). The regulations were more in keeping with the Byzantine Pronoia system than Western feudalism.

In any case, Antioch was given to him for life, even if the emperor (Alexios or John) should withdraw the treaty. After Bohemond's death, the principality should fall under direct Byzantine control, so that Bohemond could not found a dynasty there, although Alexios promised him a hereditary duchy elsewhere (possibly the county of Edessa ); the corresponding passage in the Alexiad is missing, but if so, then the two negotiated over areas that did not belong to them, even if Tankred administered both domains at the time.

Anna Komnena described progress in repetitive detail, with a bohemian pointing out his own mistakes and praising Alexios' and the Empire's benevolence. The contract seems to be entirely to Alexio's benefit, and the negotiations must have been quite humiliating for Bohemond. On the other hand, Anna's work was intended to praise her father, so the terms of the contract need not have been reproduced correctly. It is known that the Crusader sources mention the treaty only in passing or not at all.

The treaty concluded with an oath to Bohemond, which Anna wrote down as follows:

"... I swear to you, our lord and emperor Alexios Komnenos, the most powerful and most revered, and to you co-emperor, the three times beloved Mr. Johannes Porphyrogennetos, that I will respect and for all the agreements that have been concluded between us and confirmed orally by me will always be kept completely untouched ... In thoughts and deeds I will do everything to help and honor the Roman Empire ... "

The verbal consent was written down in two copies, one received by Alexios, the other by Bohemond. The witnesses from Bohemond camp were - according to Anna - Maurus, the bishop of Amalfi and the apostolic legate Renard, bishop of Taranto, as well as the simple clergy who accompanied them, the abbot of the monastery of St. Andrew in Brindisi with two of his monks Number of "pilgrims" not named (probably soldiers from Bohemond's army). On Alexios's side, the contract was signed by Sebastos Marinus, Roger, the son of Scrooge, Peter Aliphas, Wilhelm of Gent, Richard of the Principal (the father of Roger of Salerno ), Geoffrey of Mailli, Hubert, the son of Raoul, Paul the Roman , the ambassadors Peres and Simon from Hungary , as well as the ambassadors Basilius the Eunuch and Constantine. Interestingly, many of Alexios' Witnesses are Western Europeans themselves, and Basilios and Constantine were ambassadors in the service of Bohemond's Sicilian relatives.

No copy of the contract has survived. It is unknown whether it was written in Latin , Greek, or both. The latter is most likely given the composition of the witnesses.

Result

Bohemond returned to Sicily, where he died in 1111 before he had an opportunity to return to Antioch - if he still wanted to: at least he could have felt that he had lost his prestige and power. Perhaps he was also of the opinion that the only way to force his nephew Tankred to accept the treaty was by force of arms; in his absence Tankred actually refused the deal: in his opinion, the possession of Antioch had passed through the conquest. He saw no reason to hand it over to anyone outside of the Crusade, and he actively worked against it (as the Crusaders believed). The Crusaders seem to have believed that Alexios had betrayed Bohemond when he gave him Antioch; even before that, they considered Alexios to be underhanded and unreliable, and the treaty will have confirmed their view. The treaty made Tankred the illegal owner of Antioch, and Alexios had expected Bohemond to depose him or otherwise bring him under control. Tankred also did not allow any Greek patriarchs to come to the city - these were now appointed and resided in Constantinople.

The question of the status of Antioch and the neighboring Cilician cities troubled the empire for many years. The Treaty of Devoll seems to have been regarded as devoid of content after Bohemond's death, but Alexios' son John nevertheless tried to establish his rule over Antioch when he traveled to Antioch in 1137 to negotiate a new treaty. In 1138 a riot was staged against him, which forced him to leave the city. It was not until 1158 , until Manuel I , that Antioch actually became a Byzantine vassal after Manuel Rainald had forced the feudal oath of Chatillon as punishment for his attack on Cyprus . The Greek patriarch was reinstated and ruled alongside the Latin patriarch. Antioch, weakened by the powerless rulers after Rainald's capture by the Muslims in 1160, remained a vassal state until 1182, when internal disputes after Manuel's death in 1180 prevented the Empire from enforcing his claim.

swell

literature

  • Kenneth M. Setton (Ed.): A History of the Crusades. Volumes 2 and 5. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison WI 1969-1989, ISBN 0-299-10740-X .
  • Ralph-Johannes Lily : Byzantium and the Crusader States . Studies on the policy of the Byzantine Empire towards the Crusader states in Syria and Palestine up to the Fourth Crusade (1096-1204). Fink, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-7705-2042-4 , ( Poikila byzantina 1).
  • Thomas Asbridge : The Creation of the Principality of Antioch, 1098-1130 . The Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2000, ISBN 0-85115-661-4 .
  • Jonathan Harris: Byzantium and the Crusades . Hambledon and London, London et al 2003, ISBN 1-85285-298-4 .