A Threat to Invade Cyprus: Pope John XXII, Walter of Brienne Duke of Athens, and the Latin East in 1331

The Brienne family first laid claim to the throne of Cyprus in the 1260s. The family subsequently rose high in the service of the Angevin kings of Naples and continued to assert their claim from time to time, but they seem never to have been a serious threat to Lusignan rule. Nevertheless, recently discovered papal letters demonstrate that as late as 1331 there were concerns that Walter VI of Brienne, duke of Athens, would divert to Cyprus a planned expedition against the Catalans occupying his duchy. Although King Robert the Wise of Naples was the rival of King Hugh IV of Cyprus for the title of king of Jerusalem, the letters also reveal that Pope John XXII called upon Robert to prevent such an invasion, as other newly uncovered letters show the pope to have done when the Genoese threatened to send invasion fleets to the island in 1317 and 1328. The new letters are published in an appendix.

Settlement Pattern and Land Use under the Frankish Feudal System in the Northwestern Peloponnese (Thirteenth–Mid-Fifteenth Centuries)

Following the Fourth Crusade, one of the Frankish states that were established in former Byzantine territories was the Principality of Morea, in the Peloponnese. A strict hierarchy consisting of the prince, the barons, and the fief-knights quickly implemented a feudal system and imposed it on the locals; towers were erected and settlements were relocated. Fieldwork in the Patras area, in the northwestern Peloponnese, has focused on identifying the implementation of the feudal system on the level of the barony and that of the fief. Data are drawn from surface surveys and from historical records, including Ottoman tax registers. Spatial analysis in GIS is used to examine the role of the towers in the economic and social life of the subordinate settlements and how the exercise of power manifests itself in the landscape.

The Strange Case of the Diocese of Olena and the Churches of Andravida, Capital of the Principality of Achaia

By the mid-thirteenth century, at least five Latin churches stood in Andravida (Andreville), capital of the Principality of Achaia, and yet the town lay in the diocese of Olena, an obscure village. Understandably, it is the unanimous view of writers of every sort that the Latin bishops merely took their title from Olena but were actually bishops of Andravida, where they allegedly presided. Many even assert that these de facto bishops of Andravida employed as their cathedral the Dominican church of Holy Wisdom (Sancta Sophia), ubiquitously identified with the vaulted remains of the Gothic east end of a church still prominent in the town. After reviewing the evidence for the above claims, this paper analyzes the phenomena in light of the broader context of the transition from Byzantine to Frankish secular control and from Greek to Latin ecclesiastical rule. It proposes instead that, after the Frankish conquest, a Greek bishop remained in situ in Olena, leading the Franks to created a new episcopal see in Andravida, the memory of which persisted for centuries. With the eventual demise, deposition, or departure of the Greek prelate, however, there was no need for the new see. Whether the Latin bishops of Olena then resided in Andravida, Olena, or both, they did not preside from the Dominican church of Holy Wisdom.

Discovering a Hospitaller Order in Frankish Greece: The Order of St James in the Principality of Achaia

The Hospital of St James in Andravida, a mixed house of male and female religious in the capital of the Principality of Achaia, has long been known to historians of Frankish Greece, but recent publications allow us to identify the institution as the head of an entire hospitaller order, founded by Prince Geoffrey I of Villehardouin. This helps explain Geoffrey II’s desire to incorporate St James into the military-hospitaller Teutonic Order, initiating a long struggle within and over St James that involved the papacy and that, understandably, has not been examined closely until now. The saga ended under Prince William II with the incorporation of St James into the Templar Order instead, although with the dissolution of the latter St James came into the hands of the Hospitallers. This paper tells the history of this newly discovered Order of St James from 1209/1210 until its absorption into the Templars in 1246.

Aux origines de la « frankokratia »

Résumé La Grande Idée et la guerre de Crimée façonnent le cadre idéologique et politique dans lequel se déroule une prise de conscience de la période spécifique que constitue la « φραγκοκρατία ». En multipliant les parallèles entre les événements des années 1850 et ceux du XIIIe siècle, on entend démontrer que l’Occident ne comprend rien au monde grec, qui, en conséquence, doit le rejeter. Byzance obtient ainsi sa complète réhabilitation, entraînant par ricochet une virulente critique contre les « Francs », coupables de son renversement. Cette appréhension des rapports de force est amplifiée par Constantin Paparrigopoulos qui construit le roman national grec en proposant sa conception de l’hellénisme trimillénaire. Progressivement, l’hostilité à la « φραγκοκρατία » se diffuse, et devient un segment original de l’histoire médiévale grecque sous l’impulsion de Spyridon Lambros, au début du XXe siècle. (La première partie de l’étude figure dans Frankokratia 1 (2020), 3‑55.)

The Cistercian Mission in Transylvania

Just before 1200 and just after 1240 two Cistercian abbeys, first a male house at Cârța, not far from Sibiu (Sancta Maria in Kerz), and then a nunnery in Brașov (Sancta Katherina), were established in Transylvania, a borderland of the territories ruled by the Hungarian crown inhabited by Eastern-rite Christians, especially Romanians. Conventionally, often following the model of older historiography on Frankish Greece, modern scholars have understood the arrival of the Cistercian Order in this remote area as an effort at conversion initiated by the papal see. Reassessing older evidence within a new historiographical paradigm and adding newly discovered documentary sources, this paper argues instead that the Cistercian mission in Transylvania was tied to local factors, cultural, social, and economic, and thus the White Monks endured as long as their cooperation with the elite of the German colonists in southern Transylvania remained fruitful. In the light of the evidence, and similar to parallel developments in Frankish Greece, neither ethnic conflict nor a desire to convert non-Latins played a determining role in the historical evolution of the Cistercian presence in Transylvania.

Aux origines de la « frankokratia ».

Résumé L’histoire du concept « φραγκοκρατία » s’insère dans un long débat idéologique, qui concerne l’appréhension de l’identité grecque depuis le Moyen Âge et découle de la place accordée à Byzance dans l’historiographie grecque des XIXe et XXe siècles. Confrontés aux Turcs et à l’Occident, les érudits byzantins – puis grecs – définissent l’ethnicité hellénique en s’appuyant sur des critères géographiques, politiques, culturels, linguistiques ou religieux. En une première partie, le phénomène est examiné à travers les productions de lettrés ressortissant tant de l’Empire byzantin que des pays grecs sous domination latine. On y observe l’hétérogénéité des ethnonymes utilisés pour caractériser les envahisseurs (« Francs », « Latins », « Occidentaux », « Vénitiens »), dont le parcours sémantique – sens collectif ou spécifique – acquiert progressivement des connotations péjoratives. Cet héritage lexical complexe se transmettra aux époques ultérieures (à suivre).

Latin Emperors and Serbian Queens: Anna and Helena

Latin Constantinople in the 1240s and 1250s has often been considered a ripe fruit waiting to fall into the hands of one of the competing political entities in the region (Nicaea, Epiros, Bulgaria, etc.). This paper argues, on the contrary, that under Emperor Baldwin II (1240-1273) the Latin Empire remained a dynamic power in the post-1204 Byzantine world. The basis for this re-evaluation is a revisionist study of the genealogical relations between a number of leading families in the region (among others the Villehardouin, Da Verona, and Cayeux), creating networks both within Latin Romania and beyond. One of the main hypotheses advanced is that two Serbian queens – Stefan Nemanja’s third wife Anna (of Hainaut) and Stefan Uroš I’s wife Helena (Angelos/Courtenay) – were in fact what one might call Latin imperial princesses. This in turn leads to a reconsideration of Latin-Serbian relations in the period 1204-1261.