Leo Sgouros

Who he is

Name

Leo Sgouros

Title

Archon and governor of Nauplia (a hereditary local governor; his seal gives the court rank sebastohypertatos)

Since

about 1198, succeeding his father Theodore Sgouros

Born

not pinned

Family

Sgouros of Nauplia: son of Theodore Sgouros, his predecessor as lord of Nauplia. No marriage of his before 1204 is recorded; his marriage to Eudokia Angelina, daughter of Alexios III, belongs to 1204 (later).

Confidence

high

Wikipedia (Leo Sgouros), citing Brand (1968), Fine (1994), Magdalino and the ODB; Niketas Choniates for his later career; Miller (1908) calls him the hereditary lord of Nauplia.

Overlord

Alexios III Angelos, through the megas doux Michael Stryphnos and the praetor of Hellas and the Peloponnese

What it holds

• Nauplia: the walled town on its rock (Acronauplia) and its harbour
• The district (horion) of Nauplia, as its hereditary governor: taxes and the ships it owed the fleet
• Family estates round Nauplia (extent not pinned)

How it was acquired

By inheritance from his father Theodore Sgouros about 1198. Theodore's own origins and appointment are not pinned.

Allies and rivals

Rivals: the archontes of Argos and Corinth and the metropolitans of Corinth and Argos-Nauplia, whom he will later attack; Michael Choniates and the Athenians (his raids on Attica come about 1201-1203). No ally outside the Argolid is recorded for 1199.

How things stand that morning

Holds Nauplia as hereditary archon under the emperor and pays and serves through the province. Argos and Corinth are not his on 1 January 1200: their citadels fall to him about 1201-1202. He is not yet in revolt, so his ground is coloured byzantium.

Wealth

The harbour of Nauplia and its tolls; the wine, oil and grain of the Argive plain; the revenues of the horion (taxes and ship money) that pass through his hands.

Military

The citadel of Acronauplia; a household following and the town's men; ships owed by the horion. No figures in the sources.

Threats

• Imperial officials who might curb a too-powerful archon
• The rival towns of Argos and Corinth

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. about 1201-1202 (not in 1200)Seizes the citadels of Argos and Corinth and rules the north-eastern Peloponnese on his own; murders the metropolitan of Corinth (undated, before 1204).Depends on: The Kamytzes-Chrysos revolt in Thessaly and Macedonia (1200-1201) cutting the south off from Constantinople, and the weakness of the megas doux Stryphnos. Stopped by: A firm imperial governor with troops in the Peloponnese, or the Thessalian revolt failing early.

Later, on the likely course

1. winter 1201-1202, 1203, 1204 (later)Stryphnos winters at Athens in 1201-1202 without checking him; Sgouros attacks Athens (the Acropolis holds under Michael Choniates), takes Thebes and reaches Larissa, where he marries Eudokia Angelina (1204).Depends on: His seizure of Argos and Corinth first. Stopped by: Any check to his rise in 1200-1201.

Places of note

• Acronauplia, the citadel of Nauplia: Walled rock citadel over the harbour, Sgouros's seat

Where the sources disagree

• Wikipedia's lead ties his rise to the turmoil of the Fourth Crusade, but its narrative and Brand date the seizure of Argos and Corinth to about 1201-1202, before the crusade. On 1 January 1200 he is not independent, so no sgouros realm record is written and his ground is byzantium.

Evidence: His succession about 1198 and his rise about 1201-1202 rest on Choniates and modern syntheses; the extent of his district in 1199 is not pinned.

On the map: A rough block round Nauplia; his family lands and the horion's bounds are not recorded. Modern accounts call him governor of 'the Argolid and Nauplia': if his district already took in the Argive plain in 1199, the block should reach Argos's countryside, but not the Larissa citadel, which he seized about 1201-1202.

Primary sources for Byzantium

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Chronicle of Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (about 1227 to 1241, at the Cistercian abbey of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne). The widest net of any Latin chronicle for 1200, compiled from dozens of sources, many now lost. Read online
• History of Niketas Choniates, Niketas Choniates (about 1185 to 1217, in stages, with a final revision in exile at Nicaea after 1204). The central narrative for the Byzantine Empire under Alexios III Angelos: the Bulgarian and Vlach war under Kaloyan, the breakaway of Ivanko in the Rhodopes and his capture by treachery in 1200, Dobromir Chrysos at Prosek and Strumica and the emperor's campaign and settlement with him, the Cuman raids into Thrace, John Komnenos the Fat's one-day revolt at Constantinople on 31 July 1200, the loosening of imperial control in the provinces and the rise of Leo Sgouros, and the court's fiscal abuses. Read online
• The Capture of Constantinople, Gunther of Pairis (about 1205 to 1210). Written at the Cistercian abbey of Pairis in Alsace from the account of its abbot Martin, who preached the crusade at Basel in 1200 (Gunther gives the sermon) and led a contingent from the Upper Rhine. Read online
• The Conquest of Constantinople, Robert de Clari, knight of Picardy (about 1205 to 1216). A rank-and-file crusader's account that begins with the preaching of the crusade and the taking of the cross in 1199 to 1200 by the counts of Flanders, Blois and Champagne and by the Picard lords, among them Peter of Amiens, Robert's own lord, then the negotiations with Venice. Read online
• The Palace Revolution of John Komnenos (31 July 1200), Nicholas Mesarites (1200 or soon after). An eyewitness narrative of the one-day coup of John Komnenos the Fat at Constantinople on 31 July 1200: the crowning of the usurper in Hagia Sophia, the mob's plunder of the Great Palace, the stand of the palace clergy and the guard at the church of the Virgin of the Pharos, where Mesarites was skeuophylax, and the recovery of the palace by Alexios III's men that night. Read online
• History of the doges of Venice (about 1229, with a continuation). The earliest surviving Venetian narrative close to the events. Read online
• The Conquest of Constantinople (Villehardouin), Geoffrey of Villehardouin (about 1207 to 1213). Opens with the preaching of Fulk of Neuilly and the tournament at Ecry (28 November 1199) where Theobald III of Champagne and Louis of Blois took the cross, then the taking of the cross by Baldwin of Flanders, Hugh of Saint-Pol, Geoffrey of Perche and others through early 1200, the assemblies at Soissons and Compiegne in 1200, and the six envoys sent to Venice in the winter of 1200 to 1201. Read online
• The History of the Seljuks of Rum, Ibn Bibi (Nasir al-Din Husayn ibn Muhammad) (about 1281 to 1285, at Konya). The main Seljuk narrative for Rum begins with Kilij Arslan II's partition of the sultanate among his sons and his death (1192), Kaykhusraw I's first reign at Konya, his deposition in 1196 to 1197 by Rukn al-Din Sulayman II, Kaykhusraw's wanderings to Cilician Armenia, Aleppo and Constantinople, Sulayman's reduction of his brothers' towns (Tokat, Malatya, Amasya, and Ankara by 1204) and his Erzurum and Georgian campaigns. Read online

7 more in the sources library for The Balkans and Byzantium.