CHAP. V. the marquis no sooner heard of the loss of his brother's dominions, than he determined to make an expedition for their recovery. The conquest of Thessalonica by the Greeks had also excited lively indignation on the part of Pope Honorius III., who felt that the stability of the papal power throughout Greece was seriously compromised by this reaction in favour of the Greek church. His holiness, therefore, willingly assisted the marquis of Montferrat with funds, to enable him to enrol a large body of troops for the recovery of his brother's heritage. The Pope even authorised a Crusade, to re-establish Demetrius as king of Saloniki. Great delays occurred before the marquis William was able to assemble an army; but at length, in the year 1225, he quitted Italy, accompanied by his brother Demetrius, at the head of a well-organised force. Their expedition sailed from Brindisi, and the army, landing at the ports of Epirus, marched over the mountains into the plain of Thessaly, without sustaining any loss-so admirably had the young marquis combined the movement of his squadrons, and taken measures for securing them abundant supplies of provisions on the road. But just as the army was commencing its operations in the extensive plains, which offered ground best suited to the movements of the heavy cavalry of which it was composed, the marquis William was attacked by the autumnal fever of the country, and died in the course of a few days. The young Demetrius, finding himself unable to manage the vassals of his brother's marquisate, and the fierce mercenaries who formed the most efficient portion of the army, was obliged to abandon this attempt to recover his kingdom, and retire to Italy. He died two years after, while engaged in endeavours to form a new expedition, A. D. 1227.

The death of Demetrius induced several European princes, under the guidance of feudal vanity, to assume the empty title of king of Saloniki, though none ever

A. D.

regained possession of any portion of the kingdom they pretended to claim. The family of Montferrat naturally 1239-1312. considered the crown as descending to the male heirs of the last king, though Demetrius had appointed the emperor Frederic II. his heir by testament. The emperor Frederic II., however, formally renounced all his right to the succession of Demetrius (A. D. 1239) in favour of Boniface III., marquis of Montferrat, who had already assumed the title of king of Saloniki. William dalle Carcere, baron of Negrepont, who married a niece of Demetrius, appears to have assumed the title after the death of marquis Boniface III.; but it was also assumed at the same time by William V., marquis of Montferrat, called the Great or Long-sword, who ceded it, with all his claims to the territory of Thessalonica, as the dowry of his daughter Irene, on her marriage with the Greek emperor, Andronicus II., in the year 1284.1 Thus the title of the descendants of the founder of the kingdom became united with the sovereignty of the Byzantine empire.

After Baldwin II. was driven from Constantinople, he affected to consider the fief of the kingdom of Saloniki as having been reunited to the empire on the death of Demetrius; and in order to purchase the aid of the house of Burgundy for recovering his throne, he ceded the title of King of Saloniki, as a fief of his imaginary empire, to Hugh IV., duke of Burgundy, in the year 1266. Hugh transmitted the empty title, for which he never rendered any service, to his brother Robert, from whom it passed to his nephew Hugh V. Hugh V., duke of Burgundy, became party to a series of diplomatic arrangements connected with the lost empire of Romania and the valuable principality of Achaia, that took place at Paris in 1312;

1 William V. married Isabella, daughter of Richard earl of Cornwall, brother of our Henry III., 28th March 1257; but Irene was the child of his second wife, Beatrice of Castille.

CHAP. V.

and he then ceded his title to the imaginary kingdom to his younger brother Louis, who became Prince of Achaia by his marriage with Maud of Hainault, the possessor of that principality. On the death of Louis, the title returned to Eudes IV., duke of Burgundy, his surviving brother, who sold all his claims to the imaginary possessions of his family in the East, to Philip of Tarentum, the titular emperor of Romania, in the year 1320. After this we find no further mention of a kingdom of Saloniki,2

1 These arrangements were embodied in a series of treaties and marriage contracts involving the following marriages: 1. Jane, sister of Hugh V., Duke of Burgundy, to Philip son of Charles of Valois, third son of Philip III. of France, (le Hardi.) Philip succeeded to the throne of France in 1328, as Philip V. (of Valois.) 2. Catherine of Valois, daughter of Catherine of Courtenay, titular empress of Romania, who had been betrothed to Hugh V. of Burgundy, was married to Philip of Tarentum. 3. Maud of Hainault, princess of Achaia, was married to Louis, brother of Hugh V.- Ducange, Histoire de Constantinople, Recueil des Cartes. Duchesne, Histoire générale des Ducs de Bourgogne, preuves, 115. Buchon, Recherches et Matériaux, 54, 238.

2

Ducange, Histoire de Constantinople, 246. Buchon, Recherches et Matériaux, 62, 69.

CHAPTER VI.

DESPOTAT OF EPIRUS-EMPIRE OF THESSALONICA.

SECTION 1.-ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INDEPENDENT GREEK PRINCIPALITY IN EPIRUS.

THAT portion of the Byzantine empire situated to the west of the range of Pindus, was saved from feudal domination by Michael, a natural son of Constantine Angelos, the uncle of the Emperors Isaac II. and Alexius III. After the conquest of Constantinople, he escaped into Epirus, where his marriage with a lady of the country gave him some influence; and assuming the direction of the administration of the whole country from Dyrrachium to Naupactus, he collected a considerable military force, and established the seat of his authority generally at Ioannina or Arta.1 The civil government of his principality was a continuation of the Byzantine forms; and there was no interruption in the territory over which he ruled of the ordinary dispensation of justice by the exist ing tribunals, nor of the regular payment of the usual taxes. The despotat of Epirus was merely a change in the name of the government, not a revolution in the condition of the people. But the political necessity in which Michael was placed, of preserving his power by the maintenance of a large and permanent military force,

1 Villehardoin, 114. Chronicon Alberti monachi Trium Fontium, in the collection of German historians by Leibnitz, tom. ii. 441. Acropolita, 8.

§ 1.

CHAP. VI. gave his administration a barbarous and rude character, more in accordance with the nature of his army, and of the mountaineers he ruled, than with the constitution of his civil government. The absence of all feudal organisation, and the employment of a large body of native militia, mingled with hired mercenaries, gave the despotat of Epirus a Byzantine type, and kept it perfectly distinct from the Frank principalities by which it was almost entirely surrounded.

The population of the territory of which Michael assumed the sovereignty, consisted of different races in various grades of civilisation. The Greeks were generally confined to the towns, and were in a flourishing condition; many were wealthy merchants and prosperous traders, as well as large proprietors of land in the richest districts. round the towns, and particularly in the vicinity of Ioannina and Arta. The Vallachian population inhabited the country called Great Vlachia, which still acknowledged the authority of its own princes; but as it was pressed back on the great range of mountains to the south and west of the Thessalian plains, it readily united its force under the authority of a Byzantine leader like Michael, from whose ambition it had evidently less to fear than from the intrusion of the rapacious Franks.1 The Albanians, broken into tribes and engaged in local quarrels or predatory warfare with their wealthier neighbours, readily acknowledged the supremacy of a chief who offered liberal pay to all the native warriors who joined his standard. The despots of Epirus long ruled their dominions by employing the various resources of the different classes of their subjects for the general good, and restraining their hostile jealousies more mildly, yet more effectually, than it would have been in the power of any one of the classes, if rendered dominant, to have done. The wealth of the

1 Nicetas, p. 410, mentions the independence of the Toparch of Great Vlachia at this period.