The Aegean islands

Who he is

Name

Not pinned: no governor of Rhodes, the Cyclades, Lesbos, Chios, Samos or Lemnos is named for 1 January 1200. The islands answer to the megas doux Michael Stryphnos as head of the navy.

Title

Island governors and fiscal officers under the megas doux (head of the fleet)

Since

Stryphnos megas doux since about 1195

Born

not pinned

Family

See the province of Hellas and the Peloponnese.

Confidence

low

Wikipedia (Byzantine navy, Michael Stryphnos, Leo Gabalas); the 1204 partition for the island groups; Benjamin of Tudela for the island Jewish communities.

Overlord

Alexios III Angelos

What it holds

• The Cyclades (Naxos, Paros, Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Syros, Kea, Kythnos, Serifos, Milos, Ios, Amorgos, Thera)
• Rhodes and the Dodecanese (Kos, Kalymnos, Leros, Karpathos, Symi, Tilos, Nisyros, Astypalaia); Patmos and Leipsoi are the monastery of St John's (separate record)
• Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria
• Lemnos with Agios Efstratios and Skyros
• Thasos and Samothrace
• Customs and the ship levy of the islands

How it was acquired

Imperial since antiquity, with Crete's reconquest (961) securing the southern sea.

Allies and rivals

The Italian republics trade through the islands (Venice under the chrysobull of 1198; Pisa and Genoa under their own grants); Genoese and Pisan corsairs prey on them. Imbros and Tenedos at the Dardanelles are written by the Constantinople researcher; the Asian coast opposite is the Anatolia sheet's (byw).

How things stand that morning

Imperial; governors not pinned. Rhodes still imperial (its breakaway ruler appears only by 1203-1204). No corsair holds an island that winter as far as the sources show; whether the Genoese corsairs found at the Naxian castle of Apalirou in 1207 were already there is not pinned (do not assume).

Wealth

Mastic of Chios, wine, oil, grain and the harbour dues of Rhodes, Chios and Mytilene; no figures.

Military

Island castles (Rhodes, Mytilene, Chios, Naxos (Apalirou), Lemnos); the imperial fleet is weak under Stryphnos: Steiriones's first fleet was destroyed by Kaphoures off Sestos before a second, reinforced with Pisan ships, won (about 1195-1197).

Threats

• Genoese and Pisan corsairs
• The decay of the imperial fleet
• Local archons seizing islands when the centre weakens (Rhodes by 1203-1204)

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.

1. by 1203-1204 (later)An independent ruler, usually identified with Leo Gabalas, takes Rhodes.Depends on: The collapse of central authority in 1203-1204. Stopped by: Continued imperial control of the fleet and the island.

Places of note

• Castle of Mytilene: Chief fortress of Lesbos
• Kastro Apalirou: Inland Byzantine fortress and chief place of Naxos

Where the sources disagree

• Kaphoures (Gafforio): English Wikipedia (Byzantine navy) gives no year; French Wikipedia (Alexis III Ange, citing Smyrlis 2015) puts his piracy in 1195-1197, with complaints by Italian merchants against Stryphnos's extortions behind it. Over before 1 January 1200 (confidence medium-high).
• Leone Vetrano: Italian Wikipedia has him take Corfu in 1197 and raid the Aegean, the Hellespont and the Peloponnese, briefly taking Methone (undated); Miller (1908) has him hold Corfu about 1199. Corfu is the Epirus researcher's; nothing places him on an Aegean island that winter.

Evidence: No island governor is pinned for 1200; the groups follow the 1204 partition.

On the map: The island groups follow the 1204 partition; the governors and fiscal districts of 1199 are not pinned.

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.