The Latin Empire of Constantinople and the Franciscans

Robert Lee Wolff

doi:10.1017/S0362152900017189

¹ There is a good deal of data on the diplomatic and military history of the Latin Empire, and on the travels in Western Europe and the private lives of the individual emperors. There is also some information about commerce and the economic situation in general. The social, religious, and intellectual development of the capital, however, (which itself was the Empire during its last years) is so badly documented that most historians have made no attempt to treat it at all, deserting it for the much more fully known history of the Frankish States in Greece proper. Longnon, J., Les Français d'Outre-Mer (Paris, 1929), 200–259, for example, has a chapter, which he calls “L'Empire Latin de Constantinople et la Principauté de Morée,” and of which only about three pages are devoted to the Empire. (Then Longnon says (p. 206-207): “L'Empire Latin ne se présente donc pas comme un état viable; dès la première génération il s'effrite, il est réduit à sa capitale … Aussi ce n'est pas tant l'ephémère Empire Latin qui sera étudié ici, que la principauté de Morée, établissement durable où se sont succedé des générations de Français …” William Miller's famous book The Latins in The Levant (London, 1908), refers only occasionally and in passing to the Empire. It is, of course, rather what its subtitle would indicate: A History of Frankish Greece, 1204-1566, and its Greek edition uses this as the main title. Gerland's, Ernst Geschichte des Lateinischen Kaiserreiches von Konstantinopel (Homburg, 1905), stops in 1216. Although Longnon is perhaps right in feeling that the more lasting settlements are more important and easier to study, the capital, to which the Latin Empire was reduced, was, after all, Constantinople, a city so important that any period in its history, no matter how obscure, deserves illumination.Google Scholar

² Much of the source material appears in print scattered through the first two volumes of Golubovich's, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell'Oriente Francescano (Quaracchi, 1913), whose purpose is to present a complete collection of source material for the Franciscan order in the East. Very little has turned up since, but what has, together with some sources missed by Golubovich, is considered in van der Vat, O., Die Anfänge der Franziskanermissionen und ihre Weiterentwicklung im nahen Orient und in den Mohammedanischen Ländern während des 13. Jahrhunderts (Werl in Westf., 1934), 104-117. in a section on the Provincia Graeciae, written of course from the Franciscan point of view. It is interesting to note that the Dominicans seem to have got their missionary activities in Romania started considerably later, and under way more slowly than the Franciscans. At this period they were much less important. Altaner, Berthold, Die Dominikanermissionen des 13. Jahrhunderts (Habelschwerdt, Schles., 1924), 9-19, has a chapter on the Provincia Graeciae almost all of which is devoted to the period after 1261.Google Scholar

³ Both letters are printed in Sbaralea, Johannes, Bullarium Franciscanum (Rome, 1759), I, 6–8. They are numbers 6431 and 6566 respectively in Potthast, A., Regesta Pontificum Romanorum (Berlin, 1874); and 2845 and 3105 respectively in Pressutti, P., Regesta Honorii Papae III (Rome, 1888). References to them may be found in Golubovich, , Biblioteca, I, 128-129, and Van der Vat, , op. cit., 105.Google Scholar

⁴ Bréhier, Louis, “Jean de Brienne,” Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastique , X (1938), 698–709, and Böhm, Ludwig, Johann von Brienne, König von Jerusalem, Kaiser von Konstantinopel (Heidelberg, 1938).Google Scholar

⁵ The main outlines of John's adventurous life are well known: born about 1148 to a modest family of Champagne, he had a somewhat obscure youth and middle age, and, at the age of nearly sixty, emerged on the scene as a member of the fourth Crusade, and participator without reward of fief in the siege of Constantinople. In 1208, somewhat to the disappointment of the barons, he was selected by Philip Augustus as the proper candidate for the empty throne of Jerusalem. He was proficient as warrior and husband; he begat four children after the age of seventy-four when he married Berengaria of Castile, and he led the armies at the siege of Damietta during the fifth Crusade (1218-1221). He imprudently consented to his daughter's marriage to Frederick on condition that he be allowed to retain Jerusalem for life; when Frederick proceeded to cheat him out of his kingdom, John conceived an undying hatred for him and accepted the command of the papal troops in Southern Italy in order to fight him. In 1229, at the age of eighty-one, he was selected as Emperor of Constantinople and regent for young Baldwin II; thereafter he performed further military feats in defense of the Empire, saving it temporarily from the Greeks. He died in 1237.Google Scholar

⁶ Bréhier accepts the traditional date 1148 for John's birth, and the traditional age of eighty-nine for his age at death. Thus he cannot have meant to place John's death in 1236, but in the traditional year 1237. The date 1236 here is therefore a misprint or a piece of carelessness as, incidentally, is the attribution in Bréhier's bibliography, col. 709, to Gerland of the well known book by Norden, Walter, Das Papsttum und Byzanz (Berlin, 1903).Google Scholar

⁷ Op. cit. , 708.Google Scholar

⁸ Böhm's reference here is wrong. He is referring to the excerpts from Matthew Paris which appear in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores , volume XXVIII, not XXV.Google Scholar

⁹ Op. cit. 97, note 40.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Raynaldus, Odoricus, Annales Ecclesiastici ab anno 1198 ubi desivit Cardinalis Baronius (Lucca, 1747), II, 180–181, Year 1237, chapter 75. Du Cange, , Histoire de Constantinople sous les Empereurs Français , ed. Buchon, in Collection des Chroniques Nationales Françaises (Paris, 1826), I, 232. (I expand Böhm's references, which are inconveniently sketchy). Böhm accepts the date, March 24, 1237, for John's death, but challenges (p. 101) the traditional statement that John was eighty-nine, and so disputes the correctness of 1148 as the year of his birth. He wishes to place John's birth in 1170, maintaining that the date 1148 rests only on the authority of George Akropolita's remark that John was eighty or more in 1232; and that all that Akropolita meant by eighty was “very old”; that John's well known military feats at the siege of Damietta could not have been performed by a man over seventy; and that a man in the Middle Ages was old at sixty. All these arguments are purely conjectural, and prove nothing, but Böhm goes on to quote La Monte, J. L., Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1932), 46, note 1. La Monte, he says, calls John of Brienne “approximately sixty years old” in 1210, and this he cites triumphantly in support of his contention for a late birth date. In point of fact, La Monte accepts the traditional date of about 1148, though he says that it seems to be a bit too early. Böhm's last and least trustworthy argument (p. 12 and p. 102) for a late date—that John's grandfather married in 1148 and that John could thus not have been born before 1170—is based on the third edition of L'art de verifier les dates (1784), II, 546, surely a poor source, in which, as Böhm himself admits (p. 12, note 23), the name itself of the noble being married on this occasion is wrongly given. So, until some better evidence turns up, 1148 must still be accepted as the approximate year of John's birth, and March 23, 1237 as the date of his death.Google Scholar

¹¹ Paris, Matthew, Historia Anglorum , ed. Frederick, Madden Sir (Rolls Series, London, 1806), II, 396, text and note 3. This passage in itself has but one improbable feature: the aliquot annis, since, as will be shown, John entered the Order almost immediately before his death.Google Scholar

¹² Du Cange, , op. cit. , 232, and note 1.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid. 233, and note 1.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Waddingus, Lucas, Annales Minorum (Quaracchi, 1931-4), 27 vols. Wadding's, own Vita is to be found in I, xxvii-clxxxviii.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Dominichelli, P. Th., ed. “Compendium Chronicarum Fratrum Minorum,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum , I (1908), 98–107; II (1909), 92-107, 305-18, 457-72, 626-41 etc. His dates are found in Pulignani, Michele Falocci, “Un' opera sconosciuta di Fra Mariano da Firenze,” Miscellanea Francescana, X (1906), 57, note 2. The other three authors cited by Du Cange are our Odoricus Raynaldus, mentioned above, who died in 1657, the best continuator of Baronius' Annales Ecclesiastici; Abraham Bzovius (Bzowski), 1567-1637, another continuator of Baronius, less good than Raynaldus, and Hieronymus Platus, 1545-1591, author of a work on the happiness of the religious state. The last two are of no importance to us, and Raynaldus is important only as a doubter of Jordanus.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Parts of the chronicle have been edited very sketchily by Muratori, , Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi (Milan, 1741), IV, col. 949-1034, as Excerpta ex Jordani Chronico. Muratori says in his introduction that he has no idea who Jordanus was. Portions omitted by Muratori but important for the life of St. Francis have been edited by Puglignani, M. F., “Leggenda francescana liturgica del XIII secolo”, Miscellanea Francescana, VIII (1901), 49-75. A good full discussion of Paulinus' life, works, and ms. tradition, and excerpts from certain of his works are to be found in Golubovich's Biblioteca, II, 74-102. The first to identify “Jordanus” as Paulinus was H. Simonsfeld, “Handschriftliches zur Chronik des sogenannten Jordanus,” Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte, XV (1875), 145-156. He and C. Eubel have written other articles about Paulinus. For references, see Golubovich, , op. cit. 78, note 2.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Raynaldus, , op. cit. II, 180 f. Year 1237, chapters 74 ff.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid. II, 234, note 1. Year 1237, chapter 81.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Annales Minorum , III, 39. The editors say that the story of John's dream appears in Jordanus, ch. 232 of part 3. A small portion of this chapter is printed in Muratori's edition, Antiquitates, IV, 997, but is not the part containing the dream. Vat. ms. 1960, Muratori's source, is also apparently the one where Wadding's editors found the story, and is certainly the one from which he himself took it.Google Scholar

²⁰ The Bollandists (Acta Sanctorum Augusti, Venice, 1753, VI, 808 f.), in their life of Benedict of Arezzo, the Franciscan provincial of the East, who is said to have taken John into the Order, quote Wadding, and share Raynaldus' doubts as to “Jordanus'” worth as a source. I owe this reference to Van der Vat, , Die Anfänge der Franziskanermissionen , 106, note 7.Google Scholar

²¹ Some notice is given these in Van der Vat, , op. cit. 106, note 7, and more particularly in Golubovich, , Biblioteca, I, 131, 137 f., 178 ff., and passim. Google Scholar

²² The remainder of the description, though not strictly relevant, is worth quoting: “Revera non fuit tempore suo, ut dicebatur, miles in mundo melior eo. Unde de eo et de magistro Alexandro (de Hales) qui erat melior clericus de mundo et erat de ordine fratrum minorum et legebat Parisius, facta fuit ad laudem eorum quedam cantio, partim in Gallico, partim in Latino, quam cantavi multotiens. Que sic inchoat: Google Scholar

Avent tutt mantenent Google Scholar

nostris florent temporibus.Google Scholar

Iste rex Iohannes quando armabatur a suis iturus ad bellum, tremebat sicut iuncus in aqua. Cumque interrogaretur a suis qua de causa sic tremeret, cum in bello contra hostes robustius et validus esset pugnator, respondebat, quod de corpore sibi cure non erat, sed timebat ne anima sua bene ordinata esset cum Deo.” Google Scholar

²³ de Adam, Salimbene, Cronica , ed. Holder Egger, O., Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores (Hanover and Leipzig, 1905-1913), XXXII, 43–44.Google Scholar

²⁴ Analecta Franciscana , III (Quaracchi, 1897), 666 ff.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid. 680 f.Google Scholar

²⁶ For a biography of him, and publication of relevant source materials, see Golubovich, . Biblioteca , I, 129 ff.Google Scholar

²⁷ Printed ibid. 143 ff.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid. 145.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid. II, 116–141. Dream story on p. 122A.Google Scholar

³⁰ Livarius Oliger, P., “Descriptio Codicis S. Antonii de Urbe una cum Appendice textuum de S. Francisco”, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum , XII (1919), 321–401. Dream story, p. 399.Google Scholar

³¹ Analecta Franciscana , III (Quaracchi, 1897), 1–575. Dream story pp. 4-5.Google Scholar

³² Analecta Franciscana , IV (Quaracchi, 1906). Dream story p. 347. Other mentions pp. 253 and 519.Google Scholar

³³ As to the date of John's entrance into the Order, we know it could not have been before 1234, and there seems no reason to doubt that the dream stories are right in dating John's initiation just before his death. (Golubovich, , Biblioteca , I, 165, prints a letter from the patriarch in 1234, in which John is referred to as Imperator without any mention of his having become a Franciscan).Google Scholar

³⁴ John's other relations with the Franciscans are not immediately connected with the Constantinopolitan phase of his career, and may be found resumed in the Note following this article.Google Scholar

³⁵ Golubovich, , Biblioteca , I, 306–9, discusses Thomas fully, pointing out that it is wrong to call him, as does his editor, Thomas Tuscus, since there is no evidence that he was a Tuscan.Google Scholar

³⁶ Tuscus, Thomas, Gesta Imperatorum et Pontificum , ed. Ehrenfeuchter, Ernest, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores , XXII (Hanover, 1872), 523. Golubovich gives this passage (Biblioteca, I, 142), as part of his discussion of Benedict of Arezzo, and with no comment on its significance for Constantinople. He quotes it from a ms. of the Laurentian Library (Plut. XXI sin. Cod. 5) and thus his text differs in minor points from Ehrenfeuchter, who used all mss., and whom I therefore prefer to cite here.Google Scholar

³⁷ The account of these various transactions is to be found in Gerard de Saint-Quentin, entitled Translatio Sancte Corone Domini Nostri Ihesu Christe, printed in Golubovich Biblioteca, II, 306-311. Golubovich gives a full bibliographical account of this document citing all previous editions and secondary works.—It was precisely such trafficking in relics which had prompted Pope Innocent III in 1215 to decree at the Fourth Lateran Council: “Inventas autem de novo [reliquias] nemo publice venerari praesumat, nisi prius auctoritate Romam Pontificis fuerint approbatae” (c. 62 [Mansi, XXII, 1050], repeated in Decretales Gregorii IX, III, 45, 2)—evidently without much success.Google Scholar

³⁸ Merores, Margarethe, “Der Venezianische Adel”, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte , XIX (1936), 200 ff. See also the article by Hopf, Karl, “Giustiniani” in Ersch, und Gruber, , Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste, LXVIII, 303-8, and the same author's Chroniques Greco-Romanes (Berlin, 1873), 486, for a genealogy.Google Scholar

³⁹ Berger, , Les Registres d'Innocent IV (Paris, 1884-97), no. 6804. See also Santifaller, L., Beiträge zur Geschichte des Lateinischen Patriarchats von Konstantinopel, 1204-1261 (Weimar, 1938), pp. 42 ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ This document is edited for the first time by Santifaller, , ibid. 71 ff. He points out that since it was produced in Venice it “schliesst sich eng an die äusseren Formen der italienischvenetianischen Notariatsurkunde” (p. 45). Special permission of the Pope was necessary, Santifaller shows, because of the Church's ancient stand against the alienation of church property, which Giustiniani would need to do to raise the money to repay the debt. Since the first Latin patriarch of Constantinople, Thomas Morosini, there had been a clause in the oath of the Patriarch on receiving the pallium from the Pope, which bound him not to sell or give or otherwise rid himself of church property. From the first, however, this had to be relaxed. Innocent III excused Morosini from this oath the same day it was taken; and Gregory IX and Innocent IV had to rescue patriarchs from financial troubles. (Ibid. 64-6).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Printed in Sbaralea, Johannes, Bullarium Franciscanum , II, 229. Registered in Potthast, , op. cit. no. 16,925, and de la Roncière, Bourel, Les Registres d'Alexandre IV (Paris, 1902), no. 2072.Google Scholar

⁴² Sbaralea, , op. cit. II, 524. Potthast, , op. cit. no. 18,697. Guiraud, , Les Registres d'Urbain IV (Paris, 1901-4), no. 434.Google Scholar

⁴³ Theodore Lascaris, first Emperor of Nicaea (1204-1222), was anxious to obtain a Greek succession to Constantinople by diplomatic as well as by military methods. He himself actually married Marie de Courtenay, daughter of the murdered Latin Emperor Peter (1217-1219) and betrothed his daughter Eudoxia to Peter's eventual successor Robert (1221-1228). His intention to call a council of Greek clergy, and achieve Union, however, never came to fruition, probably through the opposition of the Greeks themselves. Norden, W., Das Papsttum und Byzanz , (Berlin, 1903), 342–347.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ This is Norden's view (p. 348). His account of the negotiations is too short to be of much service here, save in its discussion of their political implications. All seven documents pertaining to these negotiations are registered, and the chief one, Disputatio Latinorum et Grecorum , edited by Golubovich, P. G., “Disputatio Latinorum et Grecorum seu Relatio Apocrisariorum Gregorii IX de Gestis Nicaeae in Bythnia et Nymphaeae in Lydia”, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum , XII (1919), 418–470. This supersedes the discussion in the same author's Biblioteca, I, 163-169.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Golubovich, , Archivum , 419; Biblioteca, I, 161-162; II, 510-512.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ —Golubovich, , Biblioteca , II, 512. For bibliographical details on each of the documents to be discussed, where Latin and where Greek texts (when they exist) are to be found, see Golubovich, , Archivum, 420-424. The Latin text of Germanus' letter is also registered with a list of printings in Auvray, Lucien, Les Registres de Grégoire IX (Paris, 1896), I, number 803, col. 502 and note I. Its most convenient appearance in print is in Wadding, Annales Minorum, II, 333, (Year 1232, number 34). The Greek text has not been printed in full since 1730; the excerpt recently printed by Golubovich and just quoted is authoritative, but henceforth the Latin must be cited.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Wadding, , Annales Minorum , II, 343–346, gives the text of the letter. (Year 1232, no. 38.) Google Scholar

⁴⁸ It was this Dominican, Peter, of Sezanne in France, who in 1233, converted a Moslem to Christianity in Constantinople. The account of the conversion mentions a visit by the Moslem, before his conversion, to the convent of the Franciscans. Chronologically, then, it is the second document we possess about the Franciscans in the city, preceded only by the papal letters mentioning brother Luke. Golubovich, , Biblioteca , II, 302 f.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ibid. II, 365. Both the Greek and Latin texts are printed here, 362-367.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Disputatio Latinorum et Grecorum , p. 33. Golubovich, , Archivum, 425-426, shows that all the mss. give the Franciscans preference in the title: Determinatio fratrum minorum, etc. There is also internal evidence that one of the two Franciscans must be the author. Golubovich chooses Rudolph because when all four signed, the other three wrote “sic credo et ita sentio,” while Rudolph wrote “sic subscribo et ita credo.” Google Scholar

⁵¹ Ibid. 445.Google Scholar

⁵² The entire question of the papal negotiation for Church Union during the period of the Latin Empire should be examined afresh, since much material not available to Norden has been published, but no attempt has been made at a new synthesis. The present author is now at work on this problem.Google Scholar

⁵³ Golubovich, , Biblioteca , I, 162, II, 299-300. Wadding, , op. cit. II, 358.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Golubovich, , Archivum , 446.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Although there were other attempts at Union before 1261, and although John of Parma, General of the Franciscans, was in charge, in 1249, of an expedition, from which he returned with legates to the Pope from Vatatzes, none of these add particularly to our knowledge of Constantinopolitan history; Norden, , op. cit. , pp. 355–383.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ For the most recent discussions of these missions with new material unknown even to Van der Vat see the still unfinished series of articles of Pelliot, Paul: “Les Mongols et la Papauté”, Revue de l'Orient Chrétien , XXIII (1922-3), 3–30; XXIV (1924), 225-335; XXVIII (1931-2), 3-84, and the full-length book of Sorranzo, Giovanni, Il Papato, l'Europa cristiana, e i Tartari (Milan, 1930).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Tisserant, E., “La Légation en Orient du Franciscain Dominique d'Aragon”, Revue de l'Orient Chrétien , XXIV (1924), 336–355. This article is unknown to Van der Vat.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Tisserant makes this suggestion (p. 346).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Tisserant reconstructs Dominic's itinerary from Armenian and Arabic sources.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Akropolita , ed. Heisenberg, A., (Leipzig, 1903), 91 ff. Cf. also the contemporary, semi-official Brevis nota of the Council of Lyons, ed. Weiland, L., Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Constitutiones, II (Hannover, 1896), 514: “… tertio de scismate Grecorum, quomodo Vatacius imperator Grecorum cum Grecis scismaticis occupauerant et dextruxerant terram fere usque ad Constantinopolim et de ciuitate timeri poterat, nisi a Christianis uelocem succursum haberent”.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Op. cit. 340.Google Scholar

⁶² Reference ought to be made in this context also to the pause in Constantinople of the Franciscan William of Rubruck (de Rubruquis). On his epic travel to the court of the Great Khan at Qaraqorum, he preached the sermon in St. Sophia on Palm Sunday, April 12, 1253; cf. Itinerarium Willelmi de Rubruc , ed. van den Wyngaert, A., Sinica Franciscana , I (Quaracchi, 1929; pp. 147–332), c. 1, no. 6: “Ego tamen praedicaveram publica in ramis palmarura apud Sanctam Sophiam, quod non essem nuntius nec vester [St. Louis, King of France] nec alicuius, sed ibam apud incredulos secundum regulam nostram.” See also (transl.) Rockhill, W. W., The Journey of William of Rubruck (Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, no. IV, London, 1900), p. 48.Google Scholar

⁶³ Golubovich, , Archivum , 434.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ibid 437.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Salimbene, , Cronica (note 23, supra), 321.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid. 321.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Van der Vat, , op. cit. 107 f., 172 ff. with copious references.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Ibid. 108–109.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ In Greece, the Franciscans had several establishments, the locations and names of some of which are no longer known. On Euboea (Negroponte) and in Crete, in Thebes and Corinth, however, their monasteries were founded before 1261; those at Athens and Clarentia were later. ( Ibid. 110–112).Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 1} Gerola, Guiseppe, “Giovanni e Gualtero di Brienne in S. Francesco di Assisi,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum , XXIV (1931), 339.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 2} Hoogeweg, Herman, “Der Kreuzzug von Damiette, 1218-1221,” Mittheilungen des Österrichischen Instituts für Geschichtsforschung , VIII (1887), 188–218; IX (1889), 249-88, 414-47; and Fischer, Herman, Der Heilige Franziskus von Assisi während der Jahre 1219-1221, (Freiburg [Schweiz], 1907).Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 3} Röhricht, R., Quinti Belli Sacri Scriptores Minores , (Geneva, 1879), Testimonia Minorum de Quinto Bello Sacro (Geneva, 1882), and Studien zur Geschichte des Fünften Kreuzzuges, (Innsbruck, 1891).Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 4} Golubovich, , Biblioteca , I, 1–76.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 5} Ibid. 78.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 6} The latest publications about Saint Francis at the siege are no more helpful: Golubovich, P. G., “San Francesco e i Francescani in Damiata (5 nov. 1219-2 febb. 1220)”, Studi Francescani , XXIII, N. S. XII (1926), 307–330; and Lemmens, P. L., “De Sancto Francisco Christum praedicante coram Sultano Aegypti”, Archivum Historicum Franciscanum, XIX (1926), 559-578. Golubovich deals with the period after the successful capture of the city, discussing five hitherto unnoticed Bolognese documents on the division of the city by the ι various factions among the Crusaders, two of which he reprints, and which refer to houses given to the Franciscans. By working out Francis' itinerary, Golubovich is able to show that he was probably still in the city, and personally received the church and houses which the legate Pelagius and the Bolognese Crusaders turned over to him. There is but one mention of John of Brienne in the article, as Commander of the besieging Crusaders. Lemmens' article examines the sources—Jacques de Vitry, Ernoul, Eracles, the Life by Thomas of Celano, Jordanus à Giano, and others, but does not once mention John of Brienne.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 7} Op. cit. 339.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 8} “Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis,” Analecta Franciscana , X (1926), 99.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 9} Ibid. note 5.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 10} They are named and discussed with full references to the best editions in the “Etude critique des sources” in Sabatier, Paul, Vie de St. François d'Assise , (Paris, 1931), 490–577. Besides those there considered, I have consulted the Vita by Brother Julianus de Spiro and the verse Vita by Henry of Avranches, both of which are in Analecta Francescana, X (1936), 335-371, and 407–521 respectively.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 11} Sbaralea, J. H., Bullarium Franciscanum , I.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 12} Annales Minorum , III.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 13} de Sancto Germano, Ryccardus, Chronica , ed. Garufi, Carlo Alberto, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores , VII, part II (Bologna, 1937-1938), 141. Also to be found in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, XIX (Hanover, 1866), 347.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 14} RI S. 151 and 152. MGH, SS. 350.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 15} Tafel, G. L. und Thomas, G. M., “Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig,” Fontes Rerum Austriacarum , XIII (Wien, 1856), 265 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 16} The two most recent articles are Gerola, Giuseppe, “Chi e il soverano sepolto in San Francesco d'Assisi?”, Dedalo , VIII (1927), and “Giovanni e Gualtero di Brienne in S. Francesco di Assisi”, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, XXIV (1931), 330-340. There is a less complete discussion, which none the less gives much of the source material, in Supino, I. B., La Basilica di San Francesco d'Assisi (Bologna, 1924), 68-72.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 17} Analecta Franciscana , IV (1906), 347.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 18} Published by Kleinschmidt, B., Die Basilica San Francesco in Assisi (Berlin, 1928), III, 65. This is the first publication of the list of graves, which thus was not available either to Supino or to Gerola in his first article. He uses it, however, in the second.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 19} Haseloff, A., Die Kaiserinnengräber zu Andria (Rom. 1905), 3. Haseloff's sources are Richard of San Germano sub anno 1228 and one of the continuators of William of Tyre.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 20} These sources, cited by Supino, , op. cit. 70–71, are a Libro della Sepoltura, said to be in the archives of the church at Assisi, a description of the Basilica by Brother Lodovico da Pietralunga, who died in 1580, and a sixteenth-century record. Lodovico da Pietralunga has been published by Kleinschmidt, , op. cit. III, 8-26, since Supino's work and Gerola's first article appeared.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 21} Kleinschmidt, , op. cit. 10. Supino, 70. Kleinschmidt gives the name as Elisabea, Supino, no doubt through a misreading of the manuscript, as Eugubea; the former certainly seems more reasonable. As Supino says (p. 71), Eugubea or Ecuba is “persona del tutto sconosciuta alla storia del regno di Cipro e di Gerusalemme.” Elisabea, however, though a more likely name, also appears nowhere in the genealogy of the royal family of Cyprus, cf. de Mas Latrie, Comte J. M. J. L., “Généalogie des Rois de Chypre de la Famille de Lusignan,” extrait de L'Archivio Veneto, (Venice, 1881), table at the end of the article. It may perhaps be possible that the name of the princess Echive de Montfort, first wife of Peter I of Lusignan (killed in 1369) whom he married in 1342 and who died before 1353 (Mas-Latrie, p. 25), could somehow have been twisted to give a ms. appearance Eugubea of Elisabea, but this seems improbable (Wadding gives her name in Latin as Ecchina, Annales Minorum VII, 301); and in any case she probably died somewhat too late to be buried in the tomb.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 22} Vasari, , Le Vite dei più eccellenti pittori (Florence, 1878), I, 653.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 23} Papini, R., Notizie sicure della morte sepoltura, canonizzazione e traslazione di S. Francesco d'Assisi (Folignano, 1824), 329–331.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 24} Thode, H., Franz von Assisi und die Anfänge der Kunst der Renaissance in Italien (Berlin, 1904), 297–298.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 25} Kleinschmidt, B., op. cit. I, 54–56; For the litigation see La Monte, J. L., Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, (Cambridge, 1932), 77-79.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 26} Supino, I. B., op. cit. 71.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 27} Belin, Alphonse, Histoire de la Latinité de Constantinople (2nd ed., Paris, 1894), 81. Golubovich, , Biblioteca, I, 137-138.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 28} That Supino was wrong in imagining the throned figure to be a woman, while admitting the reclining one to be a man, had already been shown by Camille Enlart, as Gerola points out: “La figure assise, jambes croisés, qu'il croit feminine, est une effigie de roi, vêtu et coiffé comme des femmes d'aujourd'hui, mais aussi comme l'étaient les hommes vers 1300.” (“La Basilique d'Assise,” Gazette des Beaux Arts , Série V, XIII [1926], 394.) Gerola is right, and the arms are actually those of Constantinople; thus previous art historians who have believed the tomb to be John's have been right, but for the wrong reason, through the strange historical accident that he was entitled to display both the arms of Jerusalem and those of Constantinople.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 29} Op. cit. I, 1878. Cited by Gerola, , 330, n. I.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 30} Kleinschmidt, , III, 22. Cited by Gerola, , 331, n. I.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 31} Walter VI of Brienne, last Duke of Athens, was the great, great grandnephew of John, and great, great grandson of John's brother Walter III, who, in 1200, married Albiria, heiress of Lecce, and thus inherited a quarrel with the Hohenstaufen, which dated back to the time of Roger II. This marriage took Walter III to South Italy, where he was killed in 1205, instead of to the Fourth Crusade. It was his posthumous son Walter IV, whom Frederick II was allegedly planning to kill over a chess-game, and who was the cause of the famous quarrel, reported above by Salimbene, between John and Frederick. Walter IV married in 1233 Marie (or Alix) de Lusignan, daughter of King Henry I of Cyprus, and was killed in 1246 in captivity at. Cairo by the Saracens after a display of great hardihood at Joppa. His son Hugh maintained, as had his ancestors, the quarrel with the Hohenstaufen, fighting on the side of the Angevins at Tagliacozzo, 1268, and dying in battle against the Aragonese in 1296. He married twice, first in 1277, Isabelle (or Helen) daughter of Guy I de La Roche, Duke of Athens, widow of the baron of Carytena, and sister of William I de La Roche of Athens; and second, in 1291, Helen (Dukas-Angela-Comnena) widow of this William I, through whom the duchy of Athens passed to the family of Brienne. Their son Walter V, last actual Duke of Athens, was killed by the Catalan Grand Company at the great battle of the Cephissos, in 1311, which cost the family the duchy as well. It is his son by Jeanne de Chatillon whose arms appear in Lorenzetti's fresco and after whom the chapel in S. Francis was named. This Walter VI, titular Duke of Athens, married in 1322 Marguerite, niece of Robert, Angevin king of Naples, and daughter of Philip of Anjou-Taranto, who himself had married Catherine de Valois, heiress to Constantinople. For a brief period in 1326, Walter was Angevin governor of Florence; he failed in an attempt (1331) to reconquer Athens; he was called by the Florentines to be ruler of Florence (1342), and forced to abdicate after one turbulent year. He became Constable of France, and died in the battle of Poitiers (Maupertuis) in 1356. Hopf, C., De Historiae Ducatus Atheniensis Fontibus (Bonn, 1852). de Sassenay, Comte Fernand, Les Brienne de Lecce et d'Athenes, (Paris, 1869), passim, especially the last chapter. For confirmation of genealogical detail, Hopf, C., Chroniques Greco-Romanes (Berlin, 1873), table II, 473. d'Arbois de Jubainville, H., Catalogue d'actes des Comtes de Brienne (950-1356), (Paris, 1872). For Walter, VI, Hopf, C., “Walther von Brienne, Herzog von Athen, und Graf von Lecce,” Historisches Taschenbuch, III, S (1854), 301-399; Paoli, C., “Della Signoria di Gualtieri duca d'Atene,” Giornale Storico degli archivi Toscani (1862); von Reumont, A., “Der Herzog von Athen,” Historische Zeitschrift, XXVI (1871), 1-74. Paoli, C., Review of the Comte de Sassenay's book, cited above, Archivio Storico Italiano, Serie III, XV (1872), 126-132. Miller, W., The Latins in the Levant (London, 1908), passim. Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 32} Paoli, C., “Nouvi documenti intorno a Gualtieri VI di Brienne”, Archivio Storico Italiano , XVI (1872), 22–62, prints the full text (39-52) of Walter's will, in which there are several legacies to Franciscan foundations. W. Miller's statement (op. cit. 265), is of interest: “Every visitor to the Lower church of St. Francis at Assisi, a church traditionally associated with the family of Brienne, who were terciers of the order, has seen in the foreground of Lorenzetti's ‘Crucifixion’ the knightly figure of the titular duke of Athens.” I can find nowhere any confirmation of his statement that the family of Brienne were Franciscan tertiaries, although it would not be surprising.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 33} Miller, W., op. cit. , 228.Google Scholar

Article contents

The Latin Empire of Constantinople and the Franciscans

Extract

Access options

References

This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.

Article contents

The Latin Empire of Constantinople and the Franciscans

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests