Battle of Poimanenon

Since the Treaty of Nymphaeum in 1214, the Latin Empire had controlled the northwestern littoral of Asia Minor, from Nicomedia to Adramyttium, as well as the Mysian plain. In November 1221, the energetic founder of the Nicaean Empire, Theodore I Laskaris, died,[1] and was succeeded by his son-in-law, John III Doukas Vatatzes, who had emerged as the victor out of the civil strife that had commenced since the death of Theodore I Laskaris.[1] The succession was disputed by Theodore's brothers, the sebastokratores Alexios Laskaris and Isaac Laskaris, who rose up in revolt and requested the aid of the Latin emperor, Robert of Courtenay. At the head of a Latin army, they marched against Vatatzes. The two armies met at Poimanenon, near a church dedicated to the Archangel Michael. In the ensuing battle, Vatatzes achieved a decisive victory; among the captives taken were the two Laskaris brothers, who were blinded.

Summing up the importance of this battle, the 13th-century Byzantine historian George Akropolites wrote that "Since then (this battle), the state of the Italians [the Latin Empire] ... began to decline".[2]

The news about the defeat at Poimanenon caused panic in the Latin imperial army besieging Serres from the Despotate of Epirus, which withdrew in chaos in the direction of Constantinople and was therefore defeated decisively by the troops of the Epirote ruler, Theodore Komnenos Doukas.[3] This victory opened up the way for the recovery of most of the Latin possessions in Asia. Threatened both by Nicaea in Asia and Epirus in Europe, the Latin emperor sued for peace, which was concluded in 1225. According to its terms, the Latins abandoned all their Asian possessions except for the eastern shore of the Bosporus and the city of Nicomedia with the surrounding region.

• Abulafia, David, ed. (1999). The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 5, c.1198–c.1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139055734.
• Macrides, Ruth (2007). George Akropolites: The History - Introduction, translation and commentary. Oxford University Press. pp. 165–169. ISBN 978-0-19-921067-1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Rakova, Snezhana (2002). "Battle of Poimanenon, 1224". Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World, Asia Minor. Foundation of the Hellenic World. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 10 March 2012.
• Setton, Kenneth M. (1976). The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), Volume I: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society. p. 52. ISBN 0-87169-114-0.
• Van Tricht, Filip (2011). The Latin Renovatio of Byzantium: The Empire of Constantinople (1204–1228). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20323-5.