Posted by This post is about four deaths in the period 1205 to 1207. Three of the people whose deaths are featured in the post have played a major role in the Fourth Crusade and they all died away from their homes in or near the territory of the newly formed “Latin Empire”. The fourth, Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan. killed two of the three Latins before he died himself.
The civic leader of the Fourth Crusade was the 41st Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo. Bonifac of Montferrat was nominated as the leader of the Fourth Crusade in 1201 following the death of Count Thibaut of Champagne. Baldwin of Flanders “took the cross” on the 23 February 1200 in Bruges, meaning he became committed to embark on a Crusade.
In March 1201 the Crusaders started negotiations with Venice, which agreed to transport them to Egypt. The Crusaders arrived in Venice in 1202, but they were unable to pay the transportation fee they had agreed with the Venetians.
In March 1204, the Crusader and Venetian leadership decided on the outright conquest of Constantinople, and drew up a formal agreement to divide the Byzantine Empire between them.
In April 1204 the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade under the leadership of the Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo, conquered Constantinople and proclaimed the Latin Empire. The original name of this state in the Latin language was Imperium Romaniae (“Empire of Romania“). This name was used based on the fact that the common name for the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in this period had been Romania (Ῥωμανία, “Land of the Romans“).
Following the treaty Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae (Partition of the lands of the empire of Romania), which was signed in October 1204 between the Venetians and the other Crusaders, the Doge of Venice acquired the title: Dominator quartae et dimidiae partis totius Romaniae (“Lord of a quarter and a half quarter of all of Romania“). The treaty It gave the Latin Emperor direct control of one fourth of the Byzantine territory, to Venice three eighths – including three eighths of the city of Constantinople, with Hagia Sophia – and the remaining three eighths were apportioned among the other Crusader chiefs. Through this division, Venice became the chief power in Latin Romania, and the effective power behind the Latin Empire.
Enrico Dandolo was the 41st Doge of Venice from 1192 until his death in 1205. When he assumed the dogeship of Venice he was already more than 80 years old and blind. In spite of that, he led the FourthCrusade to Constantinople and conquered it. There are two theories trying to explain why the fourth crusade never made to Egypt, its original destination.
The first theory is one of “determination”. According to it, Doge Dandolo from the very beginning wanted to conquer IStanbul and used the Crusaders to achive his objective.
The seond theory is one of “flow”. Things hapenned not because there was a plan, but because one thing led to another.The flow of things resulted in the end result.
The nominal leaer of the Fourth Crusade, Bonifac of Montferrat, did not become the Emperor because Dandolo and the other Crusaders thought that he had strong ties to the deposed rulers of Constantinople, and thus gave the position to Baldwin of Flanders, who was crowned Latin Emperor on the 16 May 1204.
Bonifac of Montferrat eventually became the King of the Kingdom of Thessalonica. He was crowned in 1205. Late 13th and 14th century sources suggest that Boniface based his claim to Thessalonica on the statement that his younger brother Renier had been granted Thessalonica on his marriage to Maria Komnene in 1180
The Latins did not have an easy task in their hands. In addition to their internal conflicts and the problems of the local population, they had to deal with the emergent power of the Bulgarian Empire.
Under Tsar Kaloyan (1170 – 1207) the Bulgarians were a force to be reckoned with. The name Kaloyan is derived from the Greek expression for John the Handsome (Kallos Ioannis). His Greek enemies also called him Skyloioannes (“John the Dog”).
Kaloyan was a shrewd leader and he tried to come to terms with the Latins. However the Latins were dead set on governing the land they had conquered and did not accept any of Kaloyan’s proposals. This was a fateful decision. Kaloyan became the Nemesis of the Latins.
The first of the three Latins to to die was Baldwin.He was captured by the Bulgarians in the battle of Adrianople in 1205, and taken prisoner to Bulgaria, where he was killed shortly after. Here is how the story goes (Wikipedia).
The Greek burghers of Adrianople (now Edirne in Turkey) and nearby towns rose up against the Latins in early 1205. Kaloyan promised that he would send them reinforcements before Easter. Considering Kaloyan’s cooperation with the rebels a dangerous alliance, Emperor Baldwin decided to launch a counter-attack and ordered the withdrawal of his troops from Asia Minor. He laid siege to Adrianople before he could muster all his troops. Kaloyan hurried to the town at the head of an army of more than 14,000 Bulgarian, Vlach and Cuman warriors. A feigned retreat by the Cumans drew the heavy cavalry of the crusaders into an ambush in the marshes north of Adrianople, enabling Kaloyan to inflict a crushing defeat on them on 14 April 1205.
Baldwin was captured on the battlefield and died in captivity in Tarnovo. Choniates accused Kaloyan of having tortured and murdered Baldwin because he “seethed with anger” against the crusaders. George Akropolites added that Baldwin’s head was “cleaned of all its contents and decorated all round with ornaments” to be used as a goblet by Kaloyan. On the other hand, Baldwin’s brother and successor, Henry, informed the pope that Kaloyan behaved respectfully towards the crusaders who had been captured at Adrianople.
Dandolo was the second to die. He took part in the disastrous expedition against the Bulgarians; he survived the battle of Adrianople, and returned to Constantinople, where died died shortly afterwards (May 1205). He was buried in the women’s gallery in the gallery of the Basilica of Saint Sophia, one of the places reserved for the imperial family. He was the first and last man to be buried in the great basilica.
According to tradition, after the conquest of the city by the Turks in 1453, his tomb was opened and his bones were thrown to the dogs. The plaque bearing the inscription ‘Henricus Dandolo’ still stands in the Sophia Museum. Recent studies identified it as a fake tombstone in the 1800s, positioned there by the Italian architect Gaspare Forlati.
The third to Latin to die was Boniface (Wikipedia).
The Battle of Messinopolis took place on 4 September 1207, at Mosynopolis near the town of Komotini in contemporary Greece, and was fought between the Bulgarians and the Latin Empire. It resulted in a Bulgarian victory.
While the armies of the Bulgarian emperor Kaloyan were besieging Adrianople, Boniface of Montferrat, king of Thessalonica, launched attacks towards Bulgaria from Serres. His cavalry reached Messinopolis at 5 days raid to the east of Serres but in the mountainous terrain around the town his army was attacked by a larger force composed mainly of local Bulgarians. The battle began in the Latin rear guard and Boniface managed to repulse the Bulgarians, but while he was chasing them he was killed by an arrow, and soon the crusaders were defeated. His head was sent to Kaloyan, who immediately organized a campaign against Boniface’s capital of Thessalonica.
However, Kaloyan died under mysterious circumstances during the siege, and the grieved Bulgarians raised the siege.
The contradictory records of Kaloyan’s death gave rise to multiple scholarly theories, many of them accepting that he was murdered.