Empire of Thessalonica

• 1. Introduction

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  The Empire of Thessalonica is the name modern historians give to a Greek state that held the city of Thessalonica between 1224 and 1246. Its rulers came from the Komnenodoukas dynasty, the same family that ruled the Despotate of Epirus. For a time they wore the imperial title itself. They rivaled the Empire of Nicaea and the Second Bulgarian Empire for the strongest claim to the fallen Byzantine inheritance. They aspired to capture Constantinople and undo the Latin Empire that had replaced it. How did a state built around one ambitious warlord climb high enough to threaten two established rivals? And what finally reduced that ambition to a despotate obeying Nicaea?

• 2. A Rival Crown Rises

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  The Fourth Crusade seized Constantinople in April 1204, and the Byzantine Empire splintered between the Crusader leaders and the Republic of Venice. Crusaders installed the Latin Empire in Constantinople itself, while most of northern and eastern mainland Greece fell to Boniface of Montferrat's Kingdom of Thessalonica. Two native Byzantine successor states rose to challenge the Latins. One was the Empire of Nicaea, under Theodore I Laskaris in Asia Minor. The other was the Despotate of Epirus, under Michael I Komnenos Doukas in western Greece. A third, the Empire of Trebizond, held on along the remote Pontic coast.

  Michael I Komnenos Doukas pushed his new state into Thessaly, and his successor, Theodore Komnenos Doukas, captured Thessalonica itself in 1224. Thessalonica had long stood as Byzantium's second city, ranking behind only Constantinople. Taking it gave Theodore grounds to challenge Nicaea's claim to the imperial title. Backed by the bishops of his territory, Theodore was crowned emperor at Thessalonica by Demetrios Chomatenos, the Archbishop of Ohrid. Historians cannot fix the exact date, placing it either in 1225 or in 1227-28.

  Only two rulers could realistically stop him: the Nicaean emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes and the Bulgarian emperor Ivan II Asen. Trying to get ahead of Theodore, the Nicaeans seized Adrianople from the Latins in 1225. Theodore responded by marching into Thrace and driving them out of their European holdings. The road to Constantinople lay open, yet for reasons the sources do not explain, Theodore delayed his attack. In that pause, Nicaea and the Latins patched up their quarrel. Ivan II Asen, though formally allied with Theodore, opened talks of his own for a dynastic marriage between Bulgaria and the Latin Empire.

• 3. Defeat At Klokotnitsa

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  In 1230, Theodore Komnenos Doukas finally marched on Constantinople, then unexpectedly turned his army north into Bulgaria instead. At the Battle of Klokotnitsa his forces were destroyed, and Theodore himself was taken prisoner and later blinded. Built on rapid conquest and a single commanding ruler, Thessalonica had no way to absorb such a defeat.

  Thrace, along with most of Macedonia and Albania, fell quickly to Bulgaria, which emerged as the strongest power in the Balkans. Theodore's brother Manuel Komnenos Doukas succeeded him, holding on to Thessalonica's surroundings plus the family's lands in Thessaly and Epirus. He ruled only as an acknowledged vassal of Ivan II Asen. Seeking room to maneuver, Manuel even approached his brother's former rivals in Nicaea, offering to recognize Vatatzes and the Constantinople Patriarch who resided there.

  Manuel could not stop Michael II Komnenos Doukas, born to Michael I outside of marriage, from returning from exile after Klokotnitsa. Michael seized Epirus and found considerable local support there. Manuel accepted the fait accompli, recognizing Michael II as ruler of Epirus under his own suzerainty and granting him the title of Despot. That suzerainty proved mostly nominal. By 1236-37 Michael II was acting as an independent ruler, seizing Corfu and issuing his own charters and treaties.

• 4. A Brother's Secret Return

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  Manuel Komnenos Doukas ruled until 1237, when Theodore, freed from captivity, deposed him in a coup. Theodore owed his release to an unlikely romance: the Bulgarian emperor John II Asen had fallen in love with and married his daughter Irene. Blinded and unable to claim the throne himself, Theodore crowned his son John Komnenos Doukas instead. He kept ruling from behind the throne as its real power.

  Manuel fled to Nicaea and pledged loyalty to Vatatzes, who in 1239 let him sail to Thessaly to raise an army against Thessalonica. After Manuel captured Larissa, Theodore offered terms. John and Theodore would keep Thessalonica, and Manuel would keep Thessaly. Their brother Constantine Komnenos Doukas would keep Aetolia and Acarnania, which he had already held as an appanage since the 1220s. Manuel accepted, and ruled Thessaly until his death in 1241, after which Michael II of Epirus quickly occupied it.

• 5. Bowing To Nicaea

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  A promise of safe conduct lured Theodore Komnenos Doukas to Nicaea in 1241, where Vatatzes promptly imprisoned him. The following year the Nicaean army crossed into Europe and marched on Thessalonica. Vatatzes had to break off the campaign when news arrived of a Mongol invasion of Asia Minor. Even so, he browbeat John Komnenos Doukas into submission first. In exchange for renouncing the imperial title and recognizing Nicaean authority, John was allowed to keep ruling Thessalonica, now with the lesser title of Despot.

  John died in 1244 and was succeeded by his younger brother, Demetrios Angelos Doukas. Sources describe him as a frivolous ruler who quickly made himself unpopular with his subjects. Vatatzes, meanwhile, returned to Europe and wrested most of Thrace and Macedonia away from Bulgaria, turning it into his own vassal. Leading citizens of Thessalonica were already conspiring to overthrow Demetrios and hand the city to him.

  When Vatatzes appeared before Thessalonica's walls, Demetrios refused to come out and pay homage to his suzerain. Nicaean sympathizers inside the city opened a gate anyway and let the army in. Thessalonica was folded into the Nicaean state under a new governor, Andronikos Palaiologos. Demetrios was exiled comfortably to estates in Asia Minor, and his father Theodore was sent to Vodena.

• 6. The Unfinished Ambition

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  Michael II of Epirus took up his family's old claims once Thessalonica had fallen. He hoped to rebuild a western Greek power strong enough to rival Nicaea for the Byzantine inheritance. His first attempt, an assault in 1251-53 encouraged by the aging Theodore Komnenos Doukas, failed and forced Michael to negotiate terms.

  After 1257 Michael sought outside allies against Nicaea's growing strength, including the Latin Principality of Achaea and Manfred of Sicily. Those ambitions collapsed at the Battle of Pelagonia in 1259, and in its aftermath even Epirus and Thessaly were briefly occupied by Nicaean forces. The victory cleared the way for Nicaea to retake Constantinople on the 15th of August 1261. That restored the Byzantine Empire under a new ruling house, the Palaiologos dynasty.