William of Villehardouin
William of Villehardouin was the fourth prince of Achaea in Frankish Greece, from 1246 to 1278. The younger son of Prince Geoffrey I, he held the Barony of Kalamata in fief during the reign of his elder brother Geoffrey II. William ruled Achaea as regent for his brother during Geoffrey's military campaigns against the Greeks of Nicaea, who were the principal enemies of his overlord, the Latin Emperor of Constantinople Baldwin II. William succeeded his childless brother in the summer of 1246. Conflicts between Nicaea and Epirus enabled him to complete the conquest of the Morea in about three years. He captured Monemvasia and built three new fortresses, forcing two previously autonomous tribes, the Tzakones and Melingoi, into submission. He participated in the unsuccessful Egyptian crusade of Louis IX of France, who rewarded him with the right to issue currency in the style of French royal coins.
In the early 1250s, William was the most powerful ruler of Frankish Greece. Most neighboring Frankish rulers acknowledged his suzerainty. In 1255, he laid claim to the northern terziere, or third, of the Lordship of Negroponte on the island of Euboea. Although the two other rulers of Negroponte were his vassals, they rejected his claim. They gained the support of Venice, Guy I de la Roche, Lord of Athens, and other Frankish rulers. The conflict developed into a war of succession that caused much destruction in Euboea and mainland Greece. After William's victory in Attica in May 1258, Guy and his allies surrendered. Guy was tried for his disloyalty but was allowed to keep his Achaean fiefs.
A succession crisis in Nicaea prompted the Epirote ruler Michael II Komnenos Doukas to form an anti-Nicaean coalition with William and Manfred of Sicily. In the summer of 1259, William and Michael assembled the bulk of their armies and marched as far as Pelagonia to fight the Nicaeans. The Frankish and Epirote troops could not cooperate effectively, and archers from the enemy camp harassed them continuously. After the Epirotes abandoned their allies unexpectedly, the Nicaeans inflicted a decisive defeat on the Franks. William fled from the battlefield, but he was captured and sent to Nicaea. He was still in prison when Nicaean troops seized Constantinople and destroyed the Latin Empire in July 1261. The triumphant Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos released William in return for three southern Morean fortresses in late 1261. The possession of the three forts facilitated further Byzantine expansion, and William was forced to seek external support. With the approval of Baldwin II, he swore fealty to the Angevin king of Sicily, Charles I. William acknowledged Charles and his descendants as his heirs in the Treaty of Viterbo on 24 May 1267. Charles sent troops to Achaea and with their help, William was able to resist Byzantine invasions during the last years of his reign.
Background
Ruling from 1246 to 1278, William was the fourth prince of Achaea. A state in Frankish Greece, Achaea was established in Byzantine territories in the Morea in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. William's father Geoffrey I of Villehardouin began the conquest of the Morea with a local Greek aristocrat's support in late 1204. As his ally soon died, Geoffrey approached Boniface of Montferrat, the ruler of the newly established Frankish Kingdom of Thessalonica, for military aid. Boniface appointed William of Champlitte to accompany Geoffrey back to the Morea and they mustered 500 knights and Serjeanty for the campaign. They captured Patras and other Byzantine fortresses and forced the Messenian and Arcadian Greek aristocrats into submission. William of Champlitte received the title of Prince of Achaea from Pope Innocent III in November 1205. The Franks could not capture Monemvasia in southeastern Morea, and Greek corsairs seized the fortress. The Frankish conquerors were also unable to overcome the natives in the southeastern mountainous region.In the newly established principality, Geoffrey held the Barony of Kalamata in Messenia in fief. When William died in 1208, Geoffrey assumed power likely with his peers' consent. He swore fealty to the Latin Emperor of Constantinople, Henry, at the Parliament of Ravennika in 1209. Henry confirmed Geoffrey as the new Prince of Achaea and made him an immediate imperial vassal. The leaders of the Fourth Crusade had promised much of the Morea to Venice in their 1204 treaty about the distribution of the Byzantine Empire. In a new treaty Geoffrey recognized he held parts of his principality in fief from Venice, but the Venetians took no further steps to assert their theoretical suzerainty.
As the Franks could not conquer all the Byzantine territories, two successor states, Epirus and Nicaea, emerged on the western and eastern borderlands of the Byzantine Empire respectively. The Greeks of Epirus started the reconquest of the former Byzantine territories in Thessaly in the 1210s. They annihilated the Kingdom of Thessalonica and captured the city of Thessalonica in December 1224. Their expansion towards Constantinople came to an abrupt end when they suffered a massive defeat by the Bulgarians in the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230. The Greeks of Nicaea launched invasions against the Latin Empire from the east. By 1235, they reconquered Anatolia and seized a European bridgehead at Gallipoli. In theory, the princes of Achaea still owed allegiance to the Latin Emperors, but in practice Emperor Baldwin II would have been unable to defend Constantinople without Achaean military and financial support. In return, he acknowledged Geoffrey's elder son and successor, Geoffrey II, as the overlord of the triarchs of the island of Negroponte.
Early life
William was the second son of Geoffrey I of Villehardouin and his wife Elisabeth. Elisabeth remained in France when her husband left for the Fourth Crusade. She and their elder son, Geoffrey, only moved to Achaea when Geoffrey's position stabilized after the Parliament of Ravennika. She gave birth to William in the castle of Kalamata around 1211. Growing up in the Morea, William could speak Greek like a native and he felt home with both Franks and Greeks. As a younger son, William received the Barony of Kalamata in fief, while his brother succeeded their father as prince around 1229. William married an unnamed daughter of Narjot de Toucy, a high-ranking official of the Latin Empire. He administered Achaea as regent during his brother's military campaigns for the defense of Constantinople.Reign
Expansion and crusade
William came to power in Achaea when the childless Geoffrey II died in the summer of 1246. By the time of William's ascension, the relationship between Epirus and Nicaea had grown tense. In December 1246, Nicaean troops attacked and captured Thessalonica. William took advantage of the two Greek powers' conflict to complete the conquest of the southeastern Morea. He laid siege to Monemvasia with the support of a Venetian fleet and other Frankish rulers, including Guy I de la Roche, Lord of Athens, and Angelo Sanudo, Duke of the Archipelago. The defenders suffered because of famine, but they capitulated only in 1248, after William promised to respect their property and liberty. He rewarded the town's leaders with estates and exempted them from feudal obligations. William's conquest of Monemvasia forced the Tzakones of nearby Mount Parnon into submission. To secure his gains, William ordered the construction of new fortresses. First, in late 1248 and early 1249, he personally directed the construction of Mistra near the Mount Taygetus; then the castle of Grand Magne was built on the Laconian Gulf. A third castle, Beaufort, was constructed on the Messenian Gulf. These castles secured the Frankish control of the Mount Taygetus, forcing the local Slavic tribe of the Melingoi to acknowledge William as their ruler in return for the confirmation of their liberty.Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy spent the winter of 1248–49 in Achaea. He was on the way to Cyprus where the participants of Louis IX of France's crusade against Egypt were assembling. William decided to join the crusade and mustered 400 knights and armed a fleet of 24 ships before he left for Cyprus together with Hugh in May 1249. On the way, he sent 100 knights to Rhodes, an island that the Genoese had recently conquered from the Nicaeans, to strengthen its defence. From Cyprus, William accompanied Louis to Egypt and remained with him until the end of the abortive military campaign. As a reward, Louis granted him the right to mint coins in the style of the French Tornesel. William returned to Achaea in May 1250. During the following five peaceful years, Achaea was the dominant power of Frankish Greece as most of the lesser Frankish rulers acknowledged William as their overlord.
War of the Euboeote Succession
was one ruler of Negroponte, sharing Oreus and the island's northern triarchy, or third, with Grapella of Verona. When she died in 1255, William wanted to seize her lordship, but Grapella laid claim to her inheritance. As the triarchs owed allegiance to both Achaea and Venice, Grapella could cite a 1216 ruling by the Venetian Bailo of Negroponte, or governor, of Negroponte, that stated a co-ruler of a triarchy was entitled to re-unite it if his or her partner died without issue. The lords of the island's two other triarchies, Guglielmo I da Verona and Narzotto dalle Carceri, supported Grapella's claim. The Venetian chronicler Marino Sanudo writes that the conflict developed into a war after William had Guglielmo and Narzotto imprisoned, because their wives convinced the Venetian bailo Paolo Gradenigo to intervene and he seized the island's capital, Chalcis. If the two triarchs were indeed incarcerated, they were held in captivity only for some months. William appointed his nephew Geoffrey of Briel to lead an army to Negroponte. The Achaean troops laid waste to the island and expelled the Venetians.The Doge of Venice, Reniero Zeno, made Marco Gradenigo the new bailo. Gradenigo gained the support of William's vassal, William de la Roche and his brother, Guy I of Athens. Guglielmo of Verona and Narzotto dalle Carceri met Gradenigo at Guy's seat in Thebes on 14 June 1256. At the meeting, the two triarchs rejected Achaean overlordship and swore fealty to Venice for their lordships. Two other Frankish lords, Thomas II d'Autremencourt, Lord of Salona and Ubertino Pallavicini, Marquess of Bodonitsa, joined the anti-Achaean coalition, while William secured the support of Othon de Cicon, Lord of Karystos in Negroponte and the Genoese. Gradenigo attacked Chalcis, and the Venetian infantrymen routed the Achaean cavalry near the city.
The war quickly spread to mainland Greece. When William made preparations for an invasion of Attica, Geoffrey of Briel, who was the son-in-law of Guy of Athens, deserted him. Before long, Chalcis surrendered to the Venetians. William assembled his army and invaded Athens across the Isthmus of Corinth in the spring of 1258. Guy I of Athens and his allies tried to stop the invasion at Mount Karydi, but William inflicted a decisive defeat on them in May 1258. Guy and his allies fled to Thebes, and William pillaged Attica and Boeotia. William attacked Thebes, but the city's archbishop persuaded him to abandon the siege. Guy pledged he would never fight against William and agreed to accept the decision of the High Court of Achaea for his disloyalty. After hearing Guy at Nikli, the Achaean aristocrats sitting at the High Court decided they could not judge the case because Guy owed fealty to William only for his Moreot domains, not for the Lordship of Athens. Instead of forfeiting Guy's Moreot fiefs, the High Court referred his case for judgement to King Louis IX. As Guy accepted this ruling, peace was restored between the two Frankish rulers. Louis IX received Guy in Paris in June 1259. The King and the French barons decided Guy had done adequate penance for breaking his oath of fealty by undertaking the arduous journey to France.