As noted earlier, a Venetian fleet of 32 ships intercepted 38 or 48 Byzantine and Genoese warships (39galleysandmaking south for the Morea. The battle took place off the island of Spetsai (Spetses, Settepozzi) near Hydra, south of Athens: off the NE coast of the Morea, and was won by the Venetian side (Nicol B&V p.180; Norwich 1996: 220). See next.
1263-64:
1. The Morea: With the help of Pope Urban IV, Michael VIII concluded peace with his former enemies in 1263 and 1264 respectively. By the terms of the treaties, the Achaian leader William II (Guillaume de Villehardouin) was obliged to cede Mystras, Monemvasia and Maina in the Morea to the Byzantines. (In their correspondence the pope addresses Michael as “illustrious Emperor of the
Greeks”.)
Michael VIII had relied on an alliance with Genoa against Venice and the Latin states of the Aegean Sea, but in the end he made treaties with both Genoa and Venice, seeking to maintain a balance of power advantageous to the Empire. — Wikipedia, ‘Michael VIII’, accessed 2009.
2. The naval failure of 1263 caused Michael to lose confidence in the Genoese. So he discharged about 60 Genoese ships whose sailors’ wages he was paying, and sent them back to Genoa. He expelled the Genoese colony from Constantinople; they were required to move to Herakleia, on the Thracian coast of the Sea of Marmara (Nicol B&V p.180; Norwich 1996: 221). Cf 1265 – negotiations with Venice.
1263-68:
Serbia, western Kosovo: Famous mural paintings (frescoes) in the elegantly- constructed monastery church of Sopochani, built for king Stefan Urosh I.
Interestingly, the apostle Philip and other ancient saints are painted beardless, while Urosh himself and a procession of local bishops are painted with beards: Urush has a very dark and quite full beard, and the bishops have full grey beards. At this time the town of Rasa or Rasha was the centre of the Serbian domains, and the region to the east close upon Bulgarian Nish was a borderland. The intersection-point between Rascia/Serbia, Byzantium and Bulgaria lay SW of Bulgarian Sofia-Serdica, i.e. between Bulgarian Sofia and Byzantine Skopje. The southern border with Byzantium lay beyond the town of Prizren/Prishtina. Skopje was the NW outpost of the Byzantines.
1263-91:
Constantinople: According to El-Cheikh, Ibn Jubayr says that the Byzantine emperor rebuilt Maslama’s mosque in 455/1263 [sic: AD 1077?]. The mosque has not survived.
The historian Ibn ‘Abd al-Zahir (d. AH 692/1291-92) states that while the ambassador from Egypt was touring Constantinople with ‘al-Ashkari’ (“the Laskarid”: Theodore II, d. 1258), they came to the mosque built centuries earlier by Maslama. Saladin had wanted at one time to reconstruct this mosque, but the Byzantines had refused. According to Ibn ‘Abd al-Zahir, God postponed this deed, so that it would be God’s reward for al-Zahir, and a glory for his state. Thus, as late as the late thirteenth century, and despite the recent destruction of the city by the Latins, Constantinople’s symbolic importance had not diminished. — Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, ‘The Islamic View of Late Byzantium’, at
http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/islam-byzantium.asp.
1264: fl. Roger Bacon, English friar and philosopher. Between 1237 and 1245 he taught at the university of Paris. Otherwise he was based mainly in Oxford. He wrote on mathematics, astronomy, astrology, optics, alchemy and physiology.
1264:
1. Greece: Emperor Michael Palaiologos personally led a large force towards Macedonia in a display of military strength that caused Epirus to submit to him. The Despot Michael Angelos accepted the nominal suzerainty of Palaiologos and agreed to strengthen the bond by dynastic marriages. This submission re- constituted the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire. But the Latins still controlled most of the Peloponnese, and the Venetians continued to hold Crete. Meanwhile Bulgaria requests help from the Kipchaks or so-called "Tartars" of the 'Golden Horde'* in preesnt-day Ukraine-southern Russia; a Kipchak detachment raids into Byzantine Thrace.
(*) The western-most of the four great khanates into which the Mongol Empire broke when Kubilai ascended the throne (1260). Also known as the "Kipchak Empire" because many of its subjects were Kipchak Turks. It was formed In 1242, when Batu, son of Genghis, established his capital at Sarai, commanding the lower stretch of the Volga River.
The Tatar incursion into Thrace
A joint Bulgarian-Tatar (‘Russian Mongol’) expedition invaded Thrace up to the vicinity of Constantinople. They rescued the exiled Seljuk sultan Izz al-Din (Izzeddin) Kaykaus II from Byzantine Aenos (Enez) where Michael had ordered him confined (LBA p.53).
— Nogai, a general of the ‘Golden Horde’ (Kipchaks or “Tatars”), led 2,000 men across the Danube, sending the Byzantine forces fleeing before him. Then, joining up with the Bulgarians, he and the Bulgarian Tsar devastated the towns of
Thrace. Ainos, the Thracian town at the Aegean mouth of the Ebrus or Maritsa river, withstood an attack by Bulgarians and ‘Tatars’ but the garrison (which included Varangians: English-born élite infantrymen) chose to surrender Izzeddin (Freely 2008: 90). See 1266.
Golden Horde ‘Mongols’ (Kipchaks), whom Kaykaus (the ex-sultan detained by Michael at Aenus) had called to his aid. The Kipchaks rescued Kaykaus, but Kaykaus’ own Turkish retinue of about 1,000 defected to Michael, and he enrolled them as a regiment in the ‘Greek’ (Rhomaioi) army under the name “Turcopouli” (Treadgold 1997: 738).
Because of its location, Constantinople could not be bypassed by traders or envoys plying between Egypt and the Golden Horde in Russia. Trade had to pass through the straits controlled by the Byzantine emperor who could, and on occasion did, detain envoys. One such instance occurred in 1265 when relations between Berke, the khan of the Golden Horde, and Michael VIII Palaeologus became strained to the point of open hostility. The probable cause was the detention by the emperor of the Seljuk sultan `Izz al-Din Kaykawus II who, out of favour with his Mongol overlord Hulegu, had fled to
Constantinople, where he was coolly received by Michael VIII, reluctant to
antagonize the Il-khan. `Izz al-Din was imprisoned until, in the spring of 1265 (or more probably 1264), he was liberated by a coalition of the troops of Nogai
(Mangu) and Constantine Tech/Tich, tsar of Bulgaria. The Mongol troops then ravaged much of Thrace and Bulgaria. —Denis Sinor, ‘Mongols in the West’ [1999], www.deremilitari.org/resources/articles/sinor1.htm.
See 1266.
A detachment of the Varangian Guard was instrumental in freeing the former Seljuk sultan Azz-ed-Din [sic: Izzeddin], when the Bulgarian Tsar ambushed the Byzantine army and besieged them in the small town of Ainos in Thrace. In return for Azz-ed-Din's freedom, the Tsar granted the garrison their lives and allowed them to keep the town. A relief force arrived the next day and the Varangians returned to a furious emperor, who had them flogged, dressed in women's clothes and led on donkeys around the streets of Constantinople.
Source: http://www.geocities.com/egfrothos/battlehonours.html, accessed 2009.
2. Caria: Emperor Michael’s brother John campaigns in SW Asia Minor. His troops pushed the Turks out of the lower Meander or Menderes valley and re- took Tralles, the modern Aydin, inland from Ephesus. He also took control of the town of Magedon and the Kaistros or Cayster valley* (LBA p.57). See 1269.
In addition to Latins and Cumans, John’s army included ‘Greek’ troops from Thrace, Macedonia and Asia Minor (LBA p.31, citing Pachymeres).
(*) From north to south the three key rivers of the Thrakesion region were the Hermon or Hermos, the Cayster/Kaistros and the Meander. The Hermos
(modern Gediz) enters the Aegean near Smyrna. The Kaistros enters the Aegean near Ephesus. The Meander enters the Aegean near Miletos.
Magedon, a town in ancient Lydia, lies north of the upper Hermos, near Saittai/Saettae. Tralles lies inland in the Meander valley. –Cf notes to Akropolites, trans. Macrides 2007: 153, 382.
3. Syria: Bar Hebraeus becomes Jacobite (Monophysite) maphrian [patriarch] of the East.
1264-67:
Prince John governs the SW region of Asia Minor, trying to build it up; but when he departs, the Türkmen reinvade. See 1265 and 1269.
“The reconquest of Constantinople was, in fact, a disaster for the empire's Anatolian possessions, since with the transfer of imperial attention back to Constantinople, the Asian provinces were neglected just as the Mongols weakened Seljuq hegemony over the nomadic Turkmen tribes, allowing them unrestricted access to the ill-defended Byzantine districts. Most of the
southwestern and central coastal regions were lost by about 1270.” —‘Anatolia’, (2010): In Encyclopædia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/eb/article- 44366.
1265:
1. Marriage alliance with Mongol-ruled Persia: Upon his succession, Abaqa or Abaka, 1265-82, second of the Mongol Khans of Persia (the “Ilkhanate”), received (8 February 1265) the hand of Maria Despoina Palaiologina, the ‘natural’ and adopted daughter of Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, in marriage (Lippard 1984: 197; she was the daughter of his mistress, a Diplovatatzina). Hence “Mary of the Mongols”, the latterday name of the Theotokos Panagiotissa, the
monastery and church she later built or rebuilt in Constantinople. See 1266. The Mongols effectively governed as far as the borders of Byzantium, the Seljuk king Ghiyath ad-Din Kay Khusrau III (1265–1284) being simply the nominal or puppet ruler of all of Anatolia.
More formally, we can say that the Seljuks nominally ruled west of Caesarea, while the Ilkhans imposed direct rule east of Caesarea. The intersection point of the realms of the Muslim Seljuks, the Christian Armenians of Cilicia and the ‘pagan’ Ilkhans lay immediately south of Caesarea.
2a. The East: Emperor Michael, writes Lindner, “recalled troops serving in Anatolia to deploy them in the Balkans. Future Anatolian operations were undertaken by expeditions from Europe, not by local garrisons.
“To the populace, then, Byzantine military responses were tardy and manned by soldiers sharing no ties with, and perhaps little care for, the land and citizens to be protected. The military forces on the borders, the akritai [local militia], lost their privileges and many consequently deserted. In 1265 Michael confiscated lands held from the state by some akritai and replaced their revenues with a pension of 40 hyperpyra (gold coins). He also tried to enrol the akritai in the regular army. His brother John persuaded him to reconsider, but the akritai were not convinced of their emperor's good intentions” (Lindner).
that in Pachymeres’ judgement ultimately caused the collapse of the empire (Cassidy p.332).
2b. NW Asia Minor: As the Byzantine Empire continued the re-conquest of Latin territory, Turks under Ertoghrul/Ertugrul—father of the Ottoman founder Osman I—began their raids into Byzantine western Anatolia. Tradition says that Ertugrul at first commanded just 400 horsemen or families (one family supplying one horseman). Sogut* and Eskisehir (Dorylaeum) were taken (or settled) in 1265 and 1289 respectively [Fleet 2009: 118] (others say 1277). In 1265 Osman was a boy aged seven.
Michael Palaeologus was unable to deal with these early setbacks due to the need to transfer troops to the West.
(*) As the crow flies, Sogut is 60 km SE of Nicaea-Iznik or 125 km east of Brusa: Cf 1302.
3. The West: Failed treaty negotiations: Byzantium’s attempt to strike a treaty with Venice was thwarted (1265) by the doge Zeno's arrogance: he refused to address Michael as 'emperor of the Romans' and insisted on maintaining his own title (adopted in 1204) as 'Lord of a quarter and half-a-quarter of the whole Romaic imperium' ["Quartae Partis et Dimidiae Totius Imperii Romaniae Dominator"]. - Michael in retaliation gave (1267) Venice's rivals, the Genoese, commercial rights which threatened Venice's own prosperity (Freeman 2004). Cf 1266.
4. Nikephoros I Doukas Angelos, the future Despot of Epirus (d. 1295/96), married Anna Palaiologina Kantakouzene, Basilissa and later Regent of Epirus (born ca 1244/50, died 1313).
5. Outremer (Latin Palestine): The Muslims under Baibars, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, take Latin-ruled Caesarea Maritima, the Hospitaller fortress Arsuf, and Haifa. He razes Caesarea to the ground (NCMH p.618).
fl. "Sa'di", Persian poet and popular moralist. Populariser of the ghazal form of verse. Born in Shiraz, studied in Baghdad, he became a wanderer until returning to Shiraz in 1256. In this period the Khwarizmi Shahdom was destroyed by the Mongols [cf above: sack of Baghdad 1258].
Territory in 1265-70
The leading powers of western Eurasia/North Africa were the post-Mongol ‘Golden Horde’ (Kipchak Empire), ruling west to modern Ukraine; the post- Mongol Ilkhan Empire ruling west to Rum (Turkish Asia Minor); and the Mamluks in Egypt. Among the Christian powers, the four strongest on paper looked to be: Castile, France, Hungary and the Christian Roman Empire of the Greeks (which we call Byzantium). The ‘German Empire’ had lost its unity and
become just a collection of small states.
The Roman (Byzantine) Empire was now centred on the Aegean, controlling somewhat more territory in Europe than in Asia. The Greeks ruled the north- western third of Asia Minor; part of the Morea; and much of the northern
Balkans—southern Bulgaria, Thrace and Macedonia—including a toe-hold as far as the Adriatic. Constantinople also has suzerainty over Epirus (its vassal since 1262) and thereby the whole lower Adriatic coast.
A line from Skopje running east to Philippopolis (Plovdiv) and thence to the coast at Burgas broadly indicates the N border. Serdica [Sofia] and Turnovo were held by Bulgaria, while Skopje and Philippopolis were held by the Byzantines. In other words, Byzantium held the bottom third of modern Bulgaria.
From west to east, the empire’s neighbours were: 1 Serbia; 2 the subordinate Despotate of Epiros; 3 the (small) County of Cephalonia; 4 the Frankish or Latin Principality of Achaia (= the northern two-thirds of the Peloponnese, bordering Byzantine Morea); 5 the Duchy of Athens; 6 the principality of Wallachian
Thessaly; 7 Venetian-ruled Euboea and Crete; 8 the Venetian-ruled 'Duchy of the Archipelago' in the Cyclades, west of Byzantine Rhodes: see 1269; 9 Bulgaria; and, in Asia: 10 the Seljuq sultanate of Rum (subordinated to post-Mongol Persia).
The borders of Bulgaria and the Seljuk domains were about equidistant from Constantinople, the Turks being slightly closer, namely east of Nicaea.
In Asia, comparing the position in 1265 with that in 1214, we see that Turkish tribes have advanced west into the upper and middle Sangarius basin—the region between Nicaea and Ankara—and now control, or at least they dominate, the Dorylaeon [Eskisehir] and Amorium region. The Turkish-Byzantine border lay just east of Nicaea on the western curve of the lower Sangarius River, or at least that was the extent of the contested marchland between Byzantium and the Turks of the Sahib-ata tribe.* On a positive note, the Byzantines controlled rather more of Caria (SW Asia Minor) in 1265 than they did in 1214, albeit that Caria was being threatened by the Turks of the Inanj tribe.
(*) Named for ‘Sahip Ata’ or Fakhr al-Din Ali, a leading official at the Seljuq court; the beylik in question was established in the period 1265-75 by his sons, hence “Sahipata-ogullari”.
Hopwood, “Frontier” p.155, lists the Byzantine frontier forts as: Leuke/Lefke on the Sangarius River just east of Nicaea; Melangeia [Malagina], between Lefke and Vezirkhan/Vesirhan at the curve in the middle Sangarius; Kabaia/Geyve NE of Nicaea; and the sites named in the Ottoman chronicles as Cadirlu, Leblebeci- Hisar [elsewhere glossed as Lubluce**] and Kara Çepis [Cadirlu and Kara Çepis unlocated on my detailed map of Turkey, MO’R]. Turkish leblebeci ‘fruit/nut market/seller’, hisar = ‘castle, fortress, citadel’; kara = ‘black, noble’.
(**) Or Lüblüce, located on the western slope of Mt Olympus, i.e. south of Bursa, according to Nicolle 2008: 37.
Byzantium held the SW of Asia Minor until after 1267. But on the borders of Rum and Byzantium thereafter, there would form various small but aggressive Turkish ghazi* principalities, namely Germiyan [supplanting the Sahib-ata from 1278: see there], Menteshe [see 1269: replacing the Inanj] and Aydin [inland from Ephesus: see 1269, 1280 and 1282].
(*) Ghazi: ‘frontier holy-warriors’ or jihadists.
It is disputed whether the religious motivation of Turkish raiders was dominant or decisive. Some would say that the idea of ‘ghazis’ is a later construct, proposing that at the time the main motive for raiding was plunder. It is also argued that the Turks gained much territory by ‘osmosis’: the Greek peasants preferred the
lighter taxation of the ‘infidel’, and were in many cases, because of that, ready to change their religion.
1266:
1. The north: Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, anxious to make a peace alliance, gave his other illegitimate or adopted daughter Euphrosyne (Eirene) Palaeologina to Nogai, de facto* khan of the Golden Horde [Kipchak Empire], as a wife. Nogai’s son by Euphrosyne, Chaka, will become tsar of Bulgaria. See 1298. (*) He never formally assumed the title, serving in turn five khans who were his nominal rulers.
2. d. Helena Doukaina, Manfred’s widow, Greek-born former Queen of the ‘Two Sicilies’, 1258–1266.
3. The Crimea: Traders from Genoa arrived and purchased the town of Theodosia from the ruling Golden Horde (‘Kipchak empire’). They established a flourishing trading settlement called Caffa or Kaffa, which will virtually monopolise trade in the Black Sea area and serve as the chief port and administrative centre for the Genoese settlements around the Sea. An Italian outpost on the edge of the vast Kipchak empire, it came to house ( - after the plague of 1347) one of Eurasia’s biggest slave markets - exporting mainly Russians and other Slavs via the Bosporus to Egypt.
Slavery
With the recovery of Constantinople, there was, once again, a political and to some degree economic reorientation toward Egypt. Of primary importance to the Mamluks, and also important for the nexus of relationships between the
Byzantines and the Muslims, was the slave trade, which brought to Egypt slaves (mamluk, ‘owned’*) for its armies from the Crimea through Constantinople. Almost immediately after the recovery of the capital, Emperor Michael VIII and
the Egyptian sultan Baibars exchanged embassies regarding the importation of slaves from the Black Sea. Laiou comments that Gregoras (Bonn ed.), 1:101–2, records the Egyptians only needed to sail to the northern coast of the Black Sea, i.e. to Kaffa, once a year, to procure slaves. —Laiou 2001.
(*) The mamluks or slave soldiers, many of whom were Kipchak Turks, were slaves only in relation to the sultan; they stood far higher in social status than free-born Egyptians, including other troops. —Daniel Pipes, ‘Military Slaves: A Uniquely Muslim Phenomenon’, 2000; online 2010 at
http://www.danielpipes.org/448/military-slaves-a-uniquely-muslim- phenomenon
F
Morrisson & Cheynet, in Laiou ed., 2002: 848, have collated the recorded prices of slaves sold by the Genoese at Pera [Galata: facing Constantinople on the north] (1281) and Kaffa on the north coast of the Black Sea (1289) and by the Venetians on Crete (1300). For comparison: In these years the cost of a horse ranged from 12 to 91 hyperpyra (gold coins); median 25.
- Pera: median price for a slave: 20-23 hyperpyra. That is, same as a horse.
Highest: 31 for a “white” slave woman. Lowest: 6.5 for a boy aged 6-7. Some are referenced as “white”; one was an Abkhasi.
- Kaffa: average 25-40 hyperpyra.
- Crete: median 20-22. Some are referenced as “Turks”.
(a) S Italy passes from German or Hohenstaufen to French or Angevin rule: 40 years old Charles of Anjou, adjectival Angevin*, brother of the French king, inherits the title ‘king of Sicily’ (and Naples) and conquers S Italy.
In this campaign Provencal, French, Flemish and N Italian troops under Charles defeat and kill Manfred, the German king of Sicily, at Benevento. Manfred’s troops were Germans, S Italians and Arabs, i.e. Italian and Sicilian Saracens. Naples is chosen as the capital.
Angevin S Italy will become a major enemy of the Byzantines. See 1267, 1271, 1274.
The use of some plate armour – supplementing their mail hauberks - by the German knights at Benevento was a novelty; it did not come into wide use until the next century.