Wilhelm II of Villehardouin

Wilhelm II of Villehardouin († May 1, 1278 ) was the last prince of Achaia from the Villehardouin family ; he ruled the principality at the height of his power.

Coin minted under Wilhelm with the inscription +: G: PRINCEACh (Prince of Achaia) and +: CLARENTIA (place of minting)

Wilhelm was the son of Gottfried I von Villehardouin . In 1236 he supported the Latin Empire against the Nicaea Empire , and was rewarded for this by the Venetians with rule over the Duchy of Archipelagos and other Venetian territories in the Aegean Sea . He came to power in Achaia when his brother Gottfried II von Villehardouin died.

As a prince he conquered the rest of the Peloponnese , which at the time was called Morea , and built the fortress Mistra near Sparta . In 1249 he conquered Monemvasia with the help of his Euboean allies and later that year joined King Louis IX in Cyprus . of France with 400 knights and 28 ships at the sixth crusade . Ludwig gave him permission to mint coins in the style of royal French money in Clarentia . After taking Damiette in June 1249, William ended his participation in the crusade and returned to the Peloponnese. In 1251 he built the Maina fortress (also called Megali Maina or Grand Magne ) to contain the rebellious Milingen tribe in the interior of the Mani . The exact location of this castle is controversial among historians. There are several possible sites with fortress ruins in the Mani.

Wilhelm was recognized as lord by the Duchy of Archipelagos, the Duchy of Athens and the Venetian lords of Euboea. In 1255 his second wife, Carintana dalle Carceri, a Venetian woman, died, which led to a dispute over the inheritance of a fief in Euboea. War broke out between Venice and Achaia, the Guerre des terciers de l'Eubée , the war of the Terciers of Euboea - the Terciers were the three Venetian lords of the island. Wilhelm won the contest and also defeated the Duke of Athens in 1258, thereby consolidating his influence on the duchy.

In 1259 he married Anna Komnene Dukaina, daughter of Michael II Angelos , despot of Epirus , whereby he forged an alliance with Epirus against Nicaea, in which Manfred of Sicily was included. In September of that year he led the Achaean army into the battle of Pelagonia against Nicaea, in which he was defeated, also because the Epirot army deserted. He fled the battlefield and hid under a haystack where he was discovered and captured. He was taken to Nicaea, where he remained under arrest until 1262 and was forced to surrender Monemvasia and Mistra to the Byzantine Empire , which had been restored with the conquest of Constantinople the previous year.

Like his former liege Balduin II, Wilhelm had now lost all of his power. In the Viterbo Agreement of 1267 they both recognized Karl of Anjou as overlord, who had shortly before defeated and killed Wilhelm's ally Manfred. As Charles's vassal, Wilhelm and 400 Achaean knights fought in the battle of Tagliacozzo in 1268 against Konradin .

Wilhelm and Anna had two daughters, Isabella and Margarete; Isabella, the elder, married into the Anjou family . Wilhelm's successor was Karl von Anjou himself in 1278, with which the rule of the Villehardouin came to an end and from now on Achaia was essentially ruled as a province of the Kingdom of Naples . With the decreasing power of Achaia, the Duchy of Athens became the most powerful state in Greece.

Wilhelm was also known as a poet and a troubadour , and the Manuscrit du Roi , which contains two compositions by Wilhelm, was written in Achaia during his reign. Wilhelm was fluent in Greek in addition to his native French .

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Chronicle of Morea , anonymous medieval document published by the Principality of Achaia in the early 14th century
The Greek text of the Chronicle of Morea

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Ferdinand Gregorovius: History of the city of Athens in the Middle Ages . CH Beck, Munich 1980, ISBN 978-3-8496-4078-1 ( online version in the Google book search).

predecessor	Office	successor
Gottfried II of Villehardouin	Prince of Achaia 1246–1278	Charles I.

personal data
SURNAME	Villehardouin, Wilhelm II. Von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Wilhelm II of Achaia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Prince of Achaia
DATE OF BIRTH	13th Century
DATE OF DEATH	May 1, 1278

[1] Ferdinand Gregorovius: History of the city of Athens in the Middle Ages . CH Beck, Munich 1980, ISBN 978-3-8496-4078-1 ( online version in the Google book search).