Principality of Achaea

Achaea was founded in 1205 by William of Champlitte and Geoffrey I of Villehardouin, who undertook to conquer the Peloponnese on behalf of Boniface of Montferrat, King of Thessalonica. With a force of no more than 100 knights and 500 foot soldiers, they took Achaea and Elis, and after defeating the local Greeks in the Battle of the Olive Grove of Koundouros, became masters of the Morea. The victory was decisive, and after the battle all resistance from the locals was limited to a few forts that continued to hold out. The fort of Araklovon[2] in Elis, was defended by Doxapatres Boutsaras and withstood the attacks until 1213, when the garrison finally surrendered. The fort of Monemvasia, and the castles of Argos, Nauplia and Corinth under Leo Sgouros held out until his suicide in 1208. By 1212, these too had been conquered, and organized as the lordship of Argos and Nauplia, and only Monemvasia continued to hold out until 1248. William of Champlitte ruled Achaea until he departed for France to assume an inheritance, but died on the way there in 1209. He was succeeded by Geoffrey I of Villehardouin, who ruled until his own death in 1219.

Geoffrey I was succeeded by his son Geoffrey II, who ruled until his death in 1245. By confiscating the ecclesiastical taxes, in the years 1221-1223 he built himself a powerful castle at Chlemoutsi, near modern Kyllini, which he used as his main residence. Because of this, he came into conflict with the Catholic Church, and was briefly excommunicated by the Pope. When John III of Nicaea besieged Constantinople in 1236, Geoffrey II came to the aid of the Latin Empire with 100 knights, 800 archers and 6 vessels.

Under his son and successor, Prince William II Villehardouin, the Principality reached its zenith. William was a poet and troubadour, and his court had its own mint at Glarentza, and a flourishing literary culture, using a distinct form of spoken French. In 1249, William II moved the capital of Achaea to the newly built fortress of Mistra, near ancient Sparta. In 1255 he became embroiled in the War of the Euboeote Succession, and in 1259 he allied with Michael II, despot of Epirus, against Michael VIII Palaeologus of Nicaea. However, Michael II then deserted to join the Nicaean side, and William was taken prisoner at the Battle of Pelagonia. After Michael recaptured Constantinople in 1261, William was released in 1262 in return for Mistra and much of Laconia, which became a Byzantine province (the nucleus of the future Despotate of the Morea), as well as an oath of allegiance to the Emperor.

Map of the Greek and Latin states in southern Greece ca. 1278

However, soon after his release, William broke his oath of allegiance, and begun seeking alliances with and help from various Western nations.[16] Informed by the local Byzantine governor of William's actions, Michael VIII sent an army under the command of his half-brother, Constantine, against William, but the expedition was unsuccessful, the Byzantines first being routed at the Battle of Prinitza in 1263 and then, after Constantine's return to Constantinople, suffering a heavy defeat at the Battle of Makryplagi in 1264.[17][18]

Despite his successes at Prinitza and Makryplagi, the war with the Byzantines had taken a toll on Achaean resources, and their empire remained a looming threat. A proposal to marry William's elder daughter Isabella to Andronikos, eldest son of Michael VIII, was strongly opposed by the Achaean nobility, who had no desire to come under Byzantine rule. Both William and his overlord Baldwin II, now dispossessed of Constantinople, had hoped for aid from King Manfred of Sicily, who had sent troops to aid William at Pelagonia. But Manfred fell under Papal sanction and was killed in 1266, when Charles of Anjou conquered his kingdom. Charles was now ascendant in Italy, and William and Baldwin came to terms with him in the Treaty of Viterbo (1267). In return for the military aid and funds they so greatly needed, Charles obtained the suzerainty over Achaea from Baldwin, and the Principality itself from William. The latter was to retain the Principality for life, and it was to pass to his daughter, Isabella, who was to marry one of Charles' sons.[19]

These were hard terms, essentially detaching Achaea from the Latin Empire and making it a dependency of the Kingdom of Sicily. Nonetheless, William fulfilled his obligations, leading an Achaean force to aid Charles against the invasion of Conradin at the Battle of Tagliacozzo (1268), and bringing Isabelle to Italy to marry Charles' son Philip in 1271.[20] The military support of Charles allowed William to resist the Byzantines, and the last years of his reign were relatively quiet.[21]

However, after the death of William in 1278, the seeds of a calamitous succession dispute were laid. In the normal course of events, Achaea would have passed to a cadet branch of the House of Anjou. However, his son-in-law Philip had died in 1277 without an heir, and a reversionary clause in the Treaty of Viterbo provided that the Principality would go to Charles of Anjou, rather than Isabelle, should this occur.[21] Charles duly took possession of the Principality, which he ruled through a series of baillis; he would never personally visit it.[22]

A renewed commitment by Charles to retake the Latin Empire (Treaty of Orvieto, 1281) was forestalled by the War of the Sicilian Vespers, and this struggle with the Crown of Aragon consumed the remainder of his life. His son Charles II succeeded him in Achaea as well as Sicily (now reduced to the Kingdom of Naples), but was a prisoner in Aragonese hands. In the interim, the rule of Achaea devolved upon a series of baillis chosen from the Morean nobility. Not long after his release and coronation in 1289, he granted the Principality to Isabelle of Villehardouin upon her marriage with Florent of Hainaut, in part to redress the grasping application of the Treaty of Viterbo at William's death. However, he retained feudal overlordship over the Principality, and his grant provided that neither Isabelle nor any daughter who was her heir might marry without his consent.[23]

For this period the principality was under a violent succession dispute, which originated from the dispossessed Latin Emperor Baldwin II's gift of the overlordship of Achaea to Charles I of Sicily in return for support in his attempt to reconquer the throne in Constantinople, an action which ignored the rights of the Villehardouin Princes of Achaea. The Angevin kings of Naples subsequently gave Achaea as their fief to a series of their own relatives and creatures, who fought against Princess Margaret of Villehardouin and her heirs.

Map of the southern Balkans and western Anatolia in 1410. The Principality of Achaea under Centurione II Zaccaria was by then reduced to the western Morea.

Charles II of Naples had at first granted the fiefdom of Morea or Achaea to Princess Isabella of Villehardouin (from the Villehardouin dynasty), but he deposed her in 1307 and granted it to his son Philip I of Taranto, who in 1313 transferred it to Matilda (or Mafalda, or Maud) of Hainaut, heiress of Isabella of Villehardouin, who was married to Louis of Burgundy, titular King of Thessalonica. But Margaret, younger daughter of William II Villehardouin, claimed her rights from 1307. In 1313 she claimed them again without success and then transferred her rights to her daughter Isabelle of Sabran, wife of Ferdinand of Majorca. The son of Ferdinand and Isabelle, known as James the Unfortunate, was proclaimed prince of the Morea in 1315 under the regency of his father, who conquered the principality between 1315 and 1316 but was defeated and executed by Louis of Burgundy and Matilda in 1316. In 1316 Louis of Burgundy died and King Robert of Naples deposed Matilda and gave the principality to his brother John of Durazzo, to whom Matilda was briefly married under duress before being imprisoned.

From 1331 the feudal lords began to recognize the rights of James, and in 1333 the recognition was total. Then John transferred his rights to his sister-in-law, Catherine of Valois, titular Empress of Constantinople, wife of Philip I of Taranto, whose stepson Robert claimed her rights until 1346 when she died. Then the claim was issued by the son of Philip and Catherine, Philip II of Taranto. In 1349 James was succeeded by his son James IV (II of the Morea). In 1364 Robert of Taranto, stepson of Catherine and eldest surviving son of Philip I of Taranto, died. In 1373 Philip II transferred his rights to his cousin, overlord and former sister-in-law Queen Joan I of Naples, whose third husband James IV of Majorca, when he died in 1375, left her his own claim to the principality, at which point she became more or less uncontested Princess of Achaea. However, when Joan was imprisoned in Naples in 1381, another, much younger, James, James of Baux, grandson of Catherine and nephew of Philip II, who in 1374 had become titular Emperor of Constantinople, used the opportunity and seized Achaea. In 1383, Achaea was annexed by Charles III of Naples, successor and murderer of Queen Joan of Naples, who was the grandson of John of Durazzo, and James of Baux was driven away. In 1383 the Vicary government began, lasting until 1396, under the Durazzo kings of Naples.

In 1404, Ladislaus, King of Naples, installed Centurione II Zaccaria, the lord of Arkadia (modern Kyparissia), as prince. Centurione continued to hold the post until 1430, when invasions by the Despots of the Morea, Constantine Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos, conquered the heartland of the Principality in Achaea. Centurione married off his daughter and heiress, Catherine, to Thomas, and retreated to his ancestral Messenian castle. On his death in 1432, this too was seized by the Byzantines. In about 1450, his illegitimate son, John Asen, was the focus of rebellions against Constantine, who was despot at the time. The Byzantine reconquest proved short-lived, however, as in 1460, the Ottomans conquered the Despotate.

• Lord Geoffrey's Fancy (first published 1962, Bello Publishing, ISBN 1447232259). One of the last books by British historical novelist Alfred Duggan, this covers events in the Morea and the Duchy of Athens during the period 1257–1272. It is told from the perspective of an English knight who follows Geoffrey of Briel, a real person who held the Barony of Karytaina. Duggan was an archaeologist and historian; key facts are taken from the Chronicle of the Morea then fleshed out but it is as accurate as any historical reconstruction can be.
• Princess Isabeau (Πριγκιπέσσα Ιζαμπώ), a novel by the Greek writer Angelos Terzakis about Princess Isabella, originally serialized in the Kathimerini newspaper in 1937–38.