• Nem Talált Eredményt

The Marriage of Andrew II of Hungary and Yolande de Courtenay

In document Rencontre de l'Est et de l'Ouest (Pldal 34-38)

In order to have an undivided picture of the motives of Emperor Robert’s Hungarian visit, we have to have an overview of the relationship of Hungary and the Latin Empire, especially the diplomatic background of the marriage of King Andrew II and Yolande de Courtenay, years before in 1215. Through the paternal line the queen originated from the house of Capet: she was daughter of Peter de Courtenay-Capet, count of Auxerre, later to be elected Emperor of Constantinople (1216-17), and Yolande, countess of Flanders and Hainaut, herself regent empress of the Latin Empire, a sister of emperors Baldwin (1204-05) and Henry of Constantinople (1205-16). Queen Yolande and her brother, Robert were great-grandchildren of King Louis VI of France. (See Dynastic table: Western, Byzantine and Latin Empire Contacts of the House of Árpád in the early 13th c.) The marriage was duly an organic part of a diplomatic alliance system, and was well-integrated into the decade-long constellation of the political schemes of Hungary in the Balkans and the Outremer, furthering the kingdom’s Bulgarian-Nicaean-Latin orientation versus the Byzantine heir Epirus and its Serbian and Venetian allies.

After the fall of Byzantium in 1204, and following the initial hostilities be-tween the “conquerors” of the Frankish East and the Asenid Bulgarians and the Greek successor Nicaea, the Constantinople Latins and Hungary in the early 1210s they were bound to approach one another, and particularly with the intermediation of Hungary started to warm up their rapports. The major concern of Hungary was to hold up a balance of powers after the loss of the

29 Marie-Geneviève Grossel, “Ces "chroniqueurs à l’oreille épique". Remarques sur l’utilisation de la geste chez Philippe Mousket et Aubri de Trois-Fontaines”, In: Ce nous dist li escris ... Che est la verite. Études de littérature médiévale offertes à André Mosan, éd. Miren Lacassagne (Senefiance, 45), Aix-en-Provence, CUERMA, 2000, pp. 97–112. Another authority states that Mouskés used Albericus’ Chronicon that is why he must have it finished by 1251. Jacques Nothomb, “La date de la chronique rimée de Philippe Mousket”, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire, 4, 1925, pp. 77–89.

30 M.-G. Grossel, “Ces "chroniqueurs à l’oreille épique"…”, art. cit., p. 97.

31 François Suard, “L’épopée médiévale et la Picardie”, Perspectives médiévales, 20, 1994, pp. 68–79.

main political factor, Byzantium, and did not wish that any power would take her place and occupy a superior position and gain excessive power. Her inter-est was to keep the Franks “on the political map” and preserve the crusad-ers’ state in the midst of the Greek successor states’ attempts in reorganizing Byzantium, or, prevent the Bulgarians striving for a grand power position and taking a large share out of the former Byzantine lands. As one of the Greek successors, Nicaea was herself, in the insignificant territory she had control over in Asia Minor, driven back and threatened by the Seljuks, it seemed the Lascarid emperors would join in an alliance even with their former Latin ad-versaries. The real menace that endangered the political balance was the other successor state, Epirus, whose despot, Michael Komnenos Doukas Angelos (1205-15), strengthened with his Venetian and Serbian allies, which would shed a perilous shadow on the Balkans.32 Epirus was a major military power, and laid successive and regular assaults against Bulgaria and the Thessalian and Thracian territories of the Latin Empire, who were continuously forced back towards the innermost regions of Constantinople. Hungary was also concerned to keep up Latin power in Thessaly since the second greatest Latin state, Thessalonica was ruled – after the death of King Boniface of Montferrat in 1207 – by the Dowager Queen, Margaret of the house of Árpád, Andrew’s sister (and formerly basilissa of Byzantium).33 Both the Bulgarians and the Latins could only expect any help from the Latin power of Eastern Europe, Hungary, for which they were even forced, willy-nilly, to come to terms with one another.34 The alliance system was being forged and was to be confirmed through marriages: in 1214 Andrew II’s son, Béla was engaged to a daughter of the Tsar of Bulgaria, Boril.35 Emperor Henry married the step-daughter of

32 Jean Longnon, L’empire latin des Constantinople et la principauté de Morée, Paris, Payot, 1949, p. 124; Konstantin Jireček, A bolgárok története [History of the Bulgarians], Nagybecskereken, Pleitz, 1899, p. 231; Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571), 2 t., Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1976, t. 1, p. 35; Urkunden zur älte-ren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig mit besonderer Beziehung auf Byzanz und die Levante vom neunten bis zum Ausgang des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, Hrsg. G. L. F.

Tafel – G. M. Thomas, 2 t. (Fontes rerum Austriacarum, Zweite Abtheilung, Diplomataria et acta, 12-14) Wien, Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1856, t. 2, p. 119.

33 J. Longnon, L’empire latin, op. cit., p. 100.

34 Ibid., p. 128, p. 148; Genoveva Tsankova-Petkova, “À propos des rapports bulgaro-francs au commencement du xiiie siècle”, Bulgarian Historical Review, 4, 1976, 4, pp. 51–61, p. 60.

35 Magyar Országos Levéltár Mohács előtti gyűjtemény, Diplomatikai Levéltár [Hungarian National Archives Collection of charters before mohács, 1526, Diplomatic Collection]: 91934.

Géza Érszegi, “Eine neue Quelle zur Geschichte der bulgarischen–ungarischen Beziehungen während der Herrschaft Borils”, Bulgarian Historical Review, 3, 1975, 2, pp. 91–97, p. 94.

Boril.36 A Bulgarian oligarch, a major political factor of Asenid power, Strez married an illegitimate offspring of Emperor Henry.37 The rapports were to be crowned with the marriage of King Andrew II and Emperor Henry’s niece, Yolande de Courtenay (1215). The bride had been staying in Constantinople for months, and it seems her marriage was a conscious political act of Emperor Henry.38 (All our documentary sources justify, the princess arrived from Romania, that is, Constantinople, from the court of Emperor Henry to Hungary, through the intermediation of the Franks, and not at all from France.39) From the point of view of Latin interests they also needed to come to terms with the Nicaean Lascarids, which was supported by Hungary as well. That is why, a few years later the dynastic contacts were further deep-ened: the heir-to-the-throne of Hungary, Prince Béla married Mary Laskaris, daughter of Theodore, Emperor of Nicaea (1204-21) in 1218, while the 1214 Nymphaeon treaty between the Franks and the Greeks was to be crowned with the marriage of Marie de Courtenay – the sister of Yolande, Queen of Hungary and daughter of the would-be emperor, Peter de Courtenay and Yolande of Flanders – with Emperor Theodore Lascaris.40 The dynastic ties were further bound by the marriage of another sister-in-law of King Andrew, Agnes de Courtenay and Geoffroi II de Villehardouin, Prince of Achaia, the influential lord of the whole of the Peloponnese, who was hopefully expected to mobilize armies and have them crossed over to the mainland of Thessaly,

36 J. Longnon, L’empire latin, op. cit., p. 149.

37 Peter Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 1204-1500, London, Longman, 1995, p. 55.

38 Bálint Hóman – Gyula Szekfű, Magyar történet [Hungarian history], 5 t., Budapest, 1928, t. 2, p. 21.

39 A delegation was sent for her : “Constantinopolim ad transducendam … coniugem … transmissimus”. Az Árpád-házi királyok okleveleinek kritikai jegyzéke [Critical list of the charters of the Árpád kings], 2 t., ed. Imre Szentpétery – Iván Borsa, Budapest, Magyar Országos Levéltár, 1923-87, t. 1, pp. 105–106. No 322; Codex diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis, ed. Georgius Fejér, tom. I-XI, vol. 1-43, Buda, 1829–1844, t. 3/1, p. 286; “dum Constantinopolim ad transducendam conjugem nostram Reginam Yolen transmissimus”. Árpád-kori új okmánytár [New collection of charters from the Árpád age], ed. Gusztáv Wenzel Gusztáv, 12 t., Pest-Budapest, 1860-74, t. 6, p. 383.

40 [Georgius Acropolites] Georgii Acropolitae Opera, In: Constantinus Manasses, Ioel, Georgius Acropolita, (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae [hereinafter CSHB], 29), Hrsg. Immanuel Bekker, Bonnae, Weber, 1837. p. 30; Robert Lee Wolff, “The Latin Empire of Constantinople 1204–1261”, In: A History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, 5 t., Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1969, t. 2, The Later Crusades 1189–1311, ed. R. L. Wolff – Harry W. Hazard, pp. 187–234, p. 209; Alice Gardner, The Lascarids of Nicaea. The Story of an Empire in Exile, London, Methuen, 1912, p. 85.

in a way holding Epirus in check.41 The joint system of several dynastic mar-riages is also highlighted by other chroniclers.42 The close ties between the king of Hungary and the Latins are also emphasized in the narrative sources under investigation, according to the continuator of Henri de Valenciennes, probably Baudouin d’Avesnes, Emperor Henry, “through these marriages earned peace and great help” to his country.43 Philippe Mouskés points out that Henry “had a great love” and honour towards King Andrew.44

However, as the newly elected Emperor, Peter de Courtenay was killed on his way to the East, even before actually occupying the throne, and his consort, Yolande was needed to rule as a regent empress until 1219, the Empire was to rely on the support of Hungary more than ever.45 The newly elected Emperor, Yolande’s son, Robert had to start his rule in a desperate search for allies. The situation was even more acute, the “female rule” of Margaret in

41 P. Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, op. cit., table 3; J. Longnon, “The Frankish states in Greece, 1204–1300”, In: A History of the Crusades, II. The Later Crusades 1189–1311, op. cit., pp. 235–

276, p. 242.

42 [Albéric/Aubri de Trois-Fontaines] Alberici Monachi Trium Fontium Chronicon, ed.

P. Scheffer-Boichorst, Monumenta Germaniae Historica [hereinafter MGH], Scriptores in Folio, 23, Chronica aevi Suevici, Hrsg. Georg Heinrich Pertz, Hannoverae, Hahn, 1874.

p. 906; G. Tsankova-Petkova, “À propos des rapports bulgaro-francs”, art. cit., pp. 58–61;

R. L. Wolff, “The Latin Empire”, In: op. cit., p. 212.

43 Compilation dite de Baudouin D’Avesnes. [Chronicon Hanoniense quod dicitur Balduini Avennensis] In: La conquête de Constantinople, avec la continuation de Henri de Valenciennes, Texte orig., accompagné d’une tr. par Joseph N. de Wailly – Natalis de Wailly, Paris, Firmin Didot, 1872, pp. 423–424.

44 “Le buens rois de Hungrie, Andrius, ot L’ainsnée que mult ama”. Histoire de l’Empire de Constantinople sous les empereurs françois, divisés en deux parties dont la première contient l’histoire de la conquête de la ville de Constantinople par les François et les Vénitiens, écrite par Geoffroy de Ville-Harduin [...] Avec la suite de cette histoire, jusque l’an MCCXL ti-rée de l’histoire de France ms. de Philippe Mouskes [...] La seconde contient une histoire générale de ce que les Français et les Latins ont fait de plus mémorable dans l’Empire de Constantinople depuis qu’ils s’en rendirent maîtres jusques à ce que les Turcs s’en sont em-parez. éd. Charles Dufresne Du Cange [Orig. Paris, 1657, 209-219, p. 211] Venise, Javarina, 1729, p. 88; [Philippe Mouskés]: Chronique métrique de la conquête de Constantinople par les Francs par Philippe Mouskés, In: Chronique de la prise de Constantinople par les Francs écrite par Geoffroy de Ville-Hardoin; suivie de la Continuation de Henri de Valenciennes, et plusieurs autres morceaux en prose et en vers, relatifs à l’occupation de l’Empire grec par les Français au treizième siècle, éd. J.–A. Buchon, Paris, Verdière, 1828 (Collection des chroni-ques nationales Françaises, 3) (hereafter Mouskés, Chronique métrique) p. 347; Chronique rimée de Philippe Mouskés, ed. Reiffenberg, t. 2, p. 402. vv. 23004-23005.

45 R. L. Wolff, “The Latin Empire”, In: op. cit., p. 212.

Thessalonica was not to resist the Epirote attacks any longer. (Finally, in 1224 Thessalonica, along with the whole Frankish kingdom was lost to Epirus and the despot, Theodore Komnenos Doukas became emperor of Byzantium.)46 Robert inherited only a city, more or less surrounded by Epirote Greeks. This is the light in which his visit to Hungary is to be seen.

The voyage of Emperor Robert de Courtenay through Hungary

In document Rencontre de l'Est et de l'Ouest (Pldal 34-38)