Officers: prévôtés, bailiwicks, seneschals · The Byzantine Empire (the Empire of the Romans) · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Vlachia

A Byzantine fiscal province named after the Vlachs, the Latin-speaking herdsmen of the Thessalian hills.

Soulis places the late 12th-century province round Mount Othrys between Lamia, Domokos and Halmyros; Choniates speaks of a 'Great Vlachia' near Meteora, in the west. Benjamin of Tudela (1160s) put the start of 'Wallachia' at Zetounion (Lamia) and described the Vlachs as hill people who came down to plunder. There is no sign that the Vlachs acted as one body under their own leaders in 1200, so this is drawn as a Byzantine district, not a self-governing land.

Who he is

Title
Governor of the province of Vlachia
Confidence
low

The 1198 chrysobull for Venice lists 'Provincia Valachie' among the Thessalian districts, and the Partitio of 1204 has 'Provintia Blachie cum personalibus et monasterialibus in eis existentibus' (with the private and monastic estates in it). No governor or Vlach leader is named before 1204.

Overlord

Alexios III

What it holds

  • The Othrys hills between Lamia, Domokos and Halmyros, with their villages and summer pastures
  • private and monastic estates inside it (Partitio)

How it was acquired

Office in the emperor's gift.

Allies and rivals

Overlaps the empress's estates at Domokos and Halmyros; the Vlachs move flocks between the hills and the plain.

How things stand that morning

Byzantine fiscal province; no Vlach rising recorded.

Wealth

Flocks, cheese, wool and hides; transhumance between the Othrys and the plain.

Military

No castles of note recorded for the province itself.

Threats

  • Kamytzes's invasion of Thessaly in 1201

Where the sources disagree

  • Wikipedia notes the two locations (Soulis's Othrys, Choniates's Meteora) without reconciling them; this record follows Soulis for the province of 1198.

Evidence: One line in the chrysobull of 1198 and one in the Partitio; the location is a modern argument.

On the map: Drawn on the Othrys after Soulis; if Choniates's western Great Vlachia is meant, the land lay round Meteora instead.

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.

Sources and studies

  1. Great Vlachia (Wikipedia, citing Soulis and the 1198 chrysobull)
  2. Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae (1204), Wikipedia summary of the text and of Oikonomides and Carile
  3. Benjamin of Tudela, Itinerary (about 1165-1168), trans. M. N. Adler (1907); figures cited from memory of that translation, not re-checked in this run

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.