Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Maps of the Byzantine and Venetian worlds
- 1 Venice: the Byzantine province
- 2 Venice: the Byzantine protectorate
- 3 Venice: the ally of Byzantium
- 4 Venice: the partner of Byzantium
- 5 Byzantium, Venice and the First Crusade
- 6 The parting of the ways
- 7 The calm before the storm
- 8 The Fourth Crusade
- 9 Venice in Byzantium: the Empire of Romania
- 10 Venice: champion of a lost cause
- 11 Byzantium, Venice and the Angevin threat
- 12 Byzantium, Venice and Genoa
- 13 Conflicting interests and competing claims
- 14 Byzantium, Venice and the Turks
- 15 Byzantium: the victim of commercial rivalry
- 16 The profit and honour of Venice
- 17 Jewels for an island
- 18 Byzantium in thrall to the Turks and in debt to Venice
- 19 Byzantine optimism and Venetian vacillation
- 20 Byzantium the suppliant of Venice
- 21 The worst news for all of Christendom: Venice and the fall of Constantinople
- 22 Legacies and debts
- Byzantine Emperors
- Doges of Venice
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Byzantium, Venice and the Angevin threat
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 April 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Maps of the Byzantine and Venetian worlds
- 1 Venice: the Byzantine province
- 2 Venice: the Byzantine protectorate
- 3 Venice: the ally of Byzantium
- 4 Venice: the partner of Byzantium
- 5 Byzantium, Venice and the First Crusade
- 6 The parting of the ways
- 7 The calm before the storm
- 8 The Fourth Crusade
- 9 Venice in Byzantium: the Empire of Romania
- 10 Venice: champion of a lost cause
- 11 Byzantium, Venice and the Angevin threat
- 12 Byzantium, Venice and Genoa
- 13 Conflicting interests and competing claims
- 14 Byzantium, Venice and the Turks
- 15 Byzantium: the victim of commercial rivalry
- 16 The profit and honour of Venice
- 17 Jewels for an island
- 18 Byzantium in thrall to the Turks and in debt to Venice
- 19 Byzantine optimism and Venetian vacillation
- 20 Byzantium the suppliant of Venice
- 21 The worst news for all of Christendom: Venice and the fall of Constantinople
- 22 Legacies and debts
- Byzantine Emperors
- Doges of Venice
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
When turned out of Constantinople in 1261, the Latin Emperor Baldwin II with the Venetian Podesta had sailed to Negroponte. In Greece he rewarded the homage and sympathy of the French lords of Thebes and Athens by investing them with empty titles. The French Prince of Achaia, William of Villehardouin, could not receive his emperor, for he was a prisoner in Constantinople. From Greece Baldwin sailed on to Italy and landed in Apulia, where he was warmly greeted by King Manfred of Sicily. Manfred persuaded him to go to see the pope at his palace at Viterbo. Pope Urban IV, elected in August 1261, had been stunned by the news from Constantinople. It was a fearful blow to Christendom. He seems first to have heard it from a Venetian delegation that had come to congratulate him on his appointment. His immediate reaction had been to authorise a crusade against the usurper and schismatic Michael Palaiologos ‘who calls himself Emperor of the Greeks’. The Venetians were at first fully in accord with this plan. They promised to provide a fleet. The crusade was preached and funds were collected in France, Castile and England. But the pope's hands were tied by events in Italy. The man who saw himself as leader of a crusade to Constantinople was Manfred of Sicily, who had sent Baldwin to see the pope. Manfred's kingdom was well situated for an invasion of Byzantine territory. He already owned bases on the coast of Albania and northern Greece.
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- Byzantium and VeniceA Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations, pp. 188 - 211Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989