Attempts at Geopolitical Restauration
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Chapter 4 Attempts at Geopolitical Restauration Apart from aspects of the empire’s internal politics (imperial ideology, divi- sions within the Constantinopolitan court elite, problematic imperial- Venetian relations) our astrological corpus also contains information regarding Baldwin ii’s foreign politics, especially on relations with the Castilian court. The estab- lished view on the Latin empire’s geopolitical position within the Byzantine region (Balkan, Aegean, Asia Minor) under Baldwin ii is that Constantinople and its dependencies were waiting to fall into the hands of the Nicaean em- peror comme un fruit mûr, as Jean Longnon has so eloquently put it: a pas- sive existence with an inevitable outcome.1 This, however, negates the fact that on the diplomatic level the emperor and his entourage in the 1240s and 1250s continued developing one project after another with a range of international partners with the aim at maintaining and ultimately restoring his empire: the 1237–1240 crusade (with papal support), the alliance with Konya in the early 1240s, the Cuman alliance in the 1240s, the diplomatic relations with the Mon- gols in the 1240s and 1250s (which appear to have inaugurated a “Black Sea policy,” as John Giebfried has suggested, although this presumably was pre- dominantly a Venetian attempt to dominate trade in the region), the project involving the Order of Santiago in 1245–1246 (again with papal support), the 1248 campaign in the Constantinopolitan region, the re-establishment of a more active imperial policy vis-à-vis the Latin Orient (Cyprus and Syria- Palestine) in the context of the Seventh Crusade (1248–1254), a possible mar- riage alliance with Trebizond in the 1250s (with the French king Louis ix mediating), and the “grand alliance” between Achaia, Epiros, Sicily, and Con- stantinople in 1257/58–1259.2 This dynamic diplomacy—although not always 1 Longnon, L’empire latin de Constantinople, 186. See also David Jacoby, “The Latin Empire of Constantinople and the Frankish States in Greece,” in David Abulafia, ed., The New Cam- bridge Medieval History: c. 1198–c. 1300, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 1999), 530. Burkhardt, Mediterranes Kaisertum und imperialen Ordnungen, 331–332. 2 See the references in Chapter 3, note 77. There were of course diplomatic relations with other powers as well, for example the royal courts of France, England, and Hungary. On the Black Sea region: John Giebfried, “Crusader Constantinople as a Gateway to the Mongol World,” in Proceedings of the The Third International Symposium on Crusade Studies held at Saint Louis University from 28 February–1 March 2014 (forthcoming 2018). On the Cuman alliance, see Francesco Dall’Aglio, “The Military Alliance between the Cumans and Bulgaria from the Es- tablishment of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom to the Mongol Invasion,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 16 (2008–2009), 52–53. The author commits a number of inaccuracies, for example © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:�0.��63/9789004383�80_006 <UN> 82 Chapter 4 successful—corresponds with one of the six elements (namely “ein weiter Horizont der politisch- diplomatischen Beziehungen ausserhalb des eigenen Herrschaftsgebiet”) constituting what Burkhardt has called “das Machtspoten- tial einer imperialen Ordnung (im Mittelmeerraum).”3 Some of these projects came close to realizing Baldwin’s goal, notably the Pelagonia coalition which had presented a clear threat to Nicaea’s rising, but altogether fragile dominance in the region. Baldwin’s participation in this Baldwin ii did not marry a Cuman princess (though some of his barons did). On the 1248 campaign: Saint-Guillain, “Les seigneurs de Salona,” 22–24, 49. The author hypothesizes that this campaign involved yet another siege of Constantinople by the Nicaean emperor John iii Vatatzes. However, the only source informing us of this campaign (the November 1248 letter concerning feudal matters by William of Autremencourt, lord of Salona, to his Western liege lord, the bishop of Laon) only says that the prince of Achaia (domino principe) and southern barons such as Autremencourt had recently participated pro negotio fidei et Ecclesie in a cam- paign ad partes Constantinopolis and ad succurrendum imperii Romanie. This wording does not imply that the campaign was a response to an immediate threat to the capital. On the contrary, Baldwin ii in early 1248 had just returned from the West with new funds (among others, the financial aid that had been decided at the 1245 Council of Lyons) to try to restore his empire. Just as had been the case during the 1237–1240 crusade, Baldwin probably under- took an expedition to recover lost territories with the support of a number of his barons from southern Greece. One year earlier in 1247 Vatatzes had succeeded in recapturing a number of Thracian towns in the vicinity of Constantinople (among them Tzouroulon, Vizye, Medeia, and Derkos). Whether this presumed campaign met with any success is impossible to say, but it would not seem unlikely that a number of places would have been temporarily recon- quered. On Baldwin ii’s 1244–1247/48 western voyage: Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece, 155–159. On Vatatzes’ 1247 Thracian campaign: Georgios Akropolites, Historia, §47; Demetrios I. Polemis, “A Manuscript Note of the Year 1247,” Byzantinische Forschungen 1 (1966) 269–276. On the empire’s involvement in the Seventh Crusade (with the imperial couple Baldwin ii (Damietta) and Mary (Cyprus), the Toucy brothers Philip and Narjot ii (kingdom of Jeru- salem/Acre), and prince of Achaia William ii of Villehardouin (Cyprus/Damietta): Jean de Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, §137–140 (Mary of Brienne), §148 (William ii of Villehardouin), §495–498 (Narjot ii of Toucy); Martène and Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum 4: 1042 (Baldwin ii); Teulet, Layettes du Trésor des Chartes 3: n° 3954 (Philip of Toucy); Van Tricht, De Latijnse Renovatio van Byzantium, 2: 797–804. Baldwin ii and his wife Mary may well have used their presence in the region to reinforce the ties—with inter alia Antioch-Tripoli and Cyprus—that had been forged by the Emperors Baldwin i and Henry. In his Complainte de Constantinople (1262) Ruteboeuf still considered Constantinople to be the “head” of the Latin oriental “body,” while the Templar Ricaut Bonomel—writing from the perspective of the Holy Land, where he was based—in his Ir’ e dolors s’es dins mon cor asseza (1265–1266) deplored the lack of papal support for the cause of (Latin) Romania (Ruteboeuf, Oeuvres complètes, vol.1, ed. Michel Zink (Paris, 1989), 356–357; Antoine De Bastard, “La colère et la douleur d’un templier en Terre Sainte. I’re dolors s’es dins mon cor assez” Revue des langues romanes 81 (1974) 357). On the possible marriage alliance with Trebizond: Jean de Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, §591–592. Van Tricht, De Latijnse Renovatio van Byzantium, 2: 776–777. 3 Burkhardt, Mediterranes Kaisertum und imperialen Ordnungen, 374. <UN>.