The Byzantine Empire (the Empire of the Romans)

Who rules

Name

Alexios III Angelos, who signs and styles himself Alexios Komnenos

Title

Emperor and autocrat of the Romans (basileus kai autokrator ton Rhomaion), crowned in Hagia Sophia

Since

8 April 1195, when the army in Thrace acclaimed him while his brother Isaac II was out hunting; Isaac was caught at Stagira, blinded and imprisoned

Born

about 1153 (aged about 46 on 1 January 1200)

Family

Second son of Andronikos Angelos and Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa; younger brother of the deposed Isaac II. Married about 1169 to Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera. No son; three daughters, Irene, Anna and Eudokia (below).

Confidence

high

Choniates (the main narrative, written by the emperor's own logothete) for the reign, the court, the Ivanko war, the Italians and the fleet; English Wikipedia lives of Alexios III, Euphrosyne, Alexios Palaiologos, Theodore Laskaris, Manuel Kamytzes, Constantine Mesopotamites, Niketas Choniates, John X Kamateros and the sebastokrator John Doukas; the provincial list of the Venetian chrysobull of 1198 (Tafel and Thomas I); the Partitio Romaniae of 1204 for the Thracian districts.

Overlord

None. The emperor holds of no one and claims, in theory, the whole Roman world; in practice he is pressed by the German kings (whose Staufen claimant is married to his niece), courted and lectured by the pope, and squeezed by Venice.

What the realm holds

• Constantinople with its suburbs on both shores of the Bosporus and the Golden Horn (Constantinople), the palaces of Blachernae and the Great Palace
• Thrace from the Bosporus to the Nestos: the districts of Adrianople and Didymoteichon, Thrace and Macedonia, Selymbria, Tzouroulos and Theodoropolis, Mesene, Arkadiopolis and Bulgarophygon, the Chersonese (Gallipoli), Brachialion, Bizye with Medeia and Agathopolis, the lower Hebros, Mosynopolis and Boleron (in revolt that winter), and the Black Sea ports from Sozopolis to Varna (written here)
• Philippopolis, its district and the Rhodopes: imperial in name; Ivanko's revolt holds the mountain forts and the theme of Smolena (written by bul)
• Macedonia: Thessalonica, Serres and the Strymon, Berroia, Moglena, Vodena, Prilep and Pelagonia, Ohrid, Kastoria; Thessaly with Larissa, Demetrias and Halmyros (written by mac). The land between the Strymon and the Vardar, with Strumica and Prosek, is held by Dobromir Chrysos under the treaty of 1197 (mac)
• Epirus, Nikopolis and Dyrrachion with Avlona (written by epi)
• Hellas and the Peloponnese: Athens, Thebes, Euboea, Corinth, Argos and Nauplia, Patras, Lakedaimon, Monemvasia, Methone and Koron; Crete; the Aegean islands (written by pel)
• Asia Minor: Bithynia with Nicomedia, Nicaea and Prousa, the Optimatoi and Mesothynia, the Thrakesion and the Aegean coast with Smyrna and Ephesus, Philadelphia, the Maeander lands, Paphlagonia, the Pontic coast with Trebizond, and Attaleia (written by the Anatolia sheet)
• The tolls (kommerkion) of the Bosporus at Hieron and of the Hellespont at Abydos, and the market dues of the capital

How it was acquired

By usurpation: acclaimed by the army in Thrace on 8 April 1195 with the help of his wife's party and of nobles who wanted Isaac II gone (among them Theodore Branas, George Palaiologos, Manuel Kantakouzenos, John Petraliphas and Constantine Raoul, Choniates book page 247); crowned in Hagia Sophia.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Stefan Nemanjic of Serbia, the emperor's son-in-law and sebastokrator (the alliance holds that winter and breaks during 1200); Dobromir Chrysos, a recognised client since 1197 and married to Kamytzes's daughter; the Pisans, whom the emperor favours against Venice. Enemies: Kaloyan (Ioannitsa) of Bulgaria and his Cuman allies, at war with the empire without a truce; Ivanko, in revolt since 1199 and in alliance with Kaloyan (late in 1199 he sent herds and Roman captives to Kaloyan's people by the Haemus as the price of their alliance); the Seljuk sultan Rukn al-Din Suleymanshah II of Konya on the Asian frontier. Uneasy: Venice (privileges confirmed in November 1198, but taxed, set against the Pisans and still owed compensation for the seizures of 1171); Genoa (after the corsair Kaphoures); the German king Philip of Swabia (son-in-law of the deposed Isaac II); Pope Innocent III (union talks).

The realm that morning

The emperor controls the capital, the Thracian plain, Macedonia and Greece through appointed governors, and the islands through the megas doux; real control is weakest at the edges. In Thrace on 1 January 1200: the districts round the capital, the Marmara coast, the Gallipoli peninsula, Adrianople and Didymoteichon, Bizye and Arkadiopolis and the Black Sea ports (Sozopolis, Anchialos, Mesembria, and Varna beyond the Haemus) are held; the Boleron plain between Mosynopolis and Xantheia is in revolt or wavering after Ivanko's victory over Kamytzes (the exact state of each town that morning is not pinned); the northern edge of Thrace toward the Haemus is open to Cuman and Vlach raids, the last dated one in April 1199. The army that marched against Ivanko in 1199 under the sons-in-law and Kamytzes lost its commander and some forts and is not in a state to fight (in May 1200 it refuses battle).

The emperor himself is in the capital.

Wealth

The trade of Constantinople (silk weaving, the luxury trades of the guilds, the grain, fish and wine trades, the transit of the Black Sea and the Levant), the tolls of the straits, the land tax of the provinces and the revenues of the imperial estates (episkepseis). Thrace supplies the capital with grain, wine, livestock and salt (Anchialos).

Military

See army_and_fleet. The great fortresses of Thrace are Adrianople, Didymoteichon, Bizye, Arkadiopolis, Tzouroulos, Selymbria and the land walls of the capital; on the Black Sea, Anchialos (refortified with towers and garrisons by Isaac II after the Vlachs sacked it about 1190) and Varna (retaken from the Vlachs then).

Threats

• Ivanko's revolt and its spread into the Boleron plain (Mosynopolis to Xantheia and Abdera), with Kaloyan behind him
• Cuman and Vlach raids across the Haemus, most likely in the winter and spring when the Danube freezes
• A coup in the capital: the emperor has no son, and kinsmen (the sebastokrator's line, the Kantakouzenoi) have shown their hopes; the Komnenian nobles in the city (John Komnenos the Fat, the young brothers Alexios and David Komnenos, grandsons of Andronikos I) and Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos are the men behind the attempt of July 1201 (or 1200)
• Isaac II and the young Alexios, and through them Philip of Swabia
• Venetian resentment; western crusaders who may come by the empire
• An empty treasury and an army unwilling to fight

Family in 1200

Emperor

Alexios III, about 46. Choniates portrays him as indolent and easily led, but he took the field in person against Chrysos (1197) and will do so against Ivanko (spring 1200).

Empress

Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera, born about 1155, daughter of the megas droungarios Andronikos Doukas Kamateros and a Kantakouzene. She organised the coup of 1195 and rules beside him; accused of adultery with Vatatzes by her own brother Basil Kamateros and her son-in-law Andronikos Kontostephanos in 1196, she was banished to the convent of Nematarea near the mouth of the Black Sea in October 1196 and recalled about six months later, in the spring of 1197. See Euphrosyne.

Daughters

Irene, the eldest: widow of Andronikos Kontostephanos; married Alexios Palaiologos in February 1199 (before Shrovetide), after he divorced his first wife. Anna: widow of the sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos (taken by the Bulgarians at Serres in 1196, died in their prison); married Theodore Laskaris at the same time, February 1199, according to Choniates (some modern accounts put this marriage in late 1200; not pinned). Eudokia: wife of the Serbian grand zupan Stefan Nemanjic, who holds the Byzantine rank of sebastokrator; the marriage breaks up during 1200 or 1201 (later). Their exact ages are not pinned (all born in the 1170s or about then).

Grandchildren

Theodora, daughter of Anna by Isaac Komnenos, a child, promised to Ivanko in 1197 (Choniates says the wedding was put off because she was still a child); Eudokia's sons by Stefan in Serbia (the Serbia sheet). Whether Irene has yet borne a child to Palaiologos (their daughter Theodora, mother of the later Michael VIII) by 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

Heir

No son. The despotes Alexios Palaiologos, husband of the eldest daughter, is treated as heir since his marriage in 1199. In 1198 or early 1199 (the sources differ), during an illness of the emperor and before the new marriages, rival kinsmen had put themselves forward: the old sebastokrator John Doukas, his nephew the protostrator Manuel Kamytzes, and the sons of the kaisar John Kantakouzenos by the emperor's sister Irene (Choniates, book page 274).

Rivals in the family

Isaac II, blind, and his son Alexios (born about 1182), prisoners in the capital. Isaac's daughter Irene married Philip of Swabia on 25 May 1197; Philip has been king of the Romans (in the Staufen line) since March 1198, so the deposed emperor has a son-in-law on a western throne. Isaac's queen is Margaret (Maria) of Hungary, sister of King Emeric.

Kin with power

The sebastokrator John Doukas, the emperor's paternal uncle, born about 1125 and very old (dead about 1200, date not pinned); his sons include Michael (a bastard, a tax collector in Asia who rebels in the summer of 1200), Constantine, Theodore and Manuel. The Kamytzai (Manuel Kamytzes, cousin, protostrator, now a prisoner). The Kantakouzenoi (the sons of the emperor's sister Irene). The Kamateroi through the empress (Basil Kamateros her brother; Michael Stryphnos married to her sister Theodora; the patriarch John X Kamateros of the same family).

Officers in 1200

Despotes (highest title, borne by the heir)

Alexios Palaiologos, made despotes in 1199 on his marriage to Irene (Alexios Palaiologos).

Sebastokrator

John Doukas, the emperor's uncle (from 1185, under Isaac II); alive at the turn of 1200 as far as the sources show, but very old. The Serbian grand zupan Stefan Nemanjic also holds the dignity as the emperor's son-in-law.

Logothetes ton sekreton (head of the civil administration and the courts)

Niketas Choniates, the historian, from 1196/1197 to February 1204; before that logothete of the general treasury (about 1195-1196). His brother Michael Choniates is metropolitan of Athens.

Epi tou kanikleiou (keeper of the imperial inkstand, the chief minister of the chancery)

Theodore Eirenikos, who replaced Constantine Mesopotamites after Mesopotamites was driven from office in the summer of 1197 by a court faction led by Michael Stryphnos.

Megas doux (commander of the fleet, with the islands under him)

Michael Stryphnos, husband of the empress's sister Theodora Kamatera (Stryphnos).

Protostrator

Manuel Kamytzes, the emperor's cousin, protostrator since 1185; captured by Ivanko late in 1199 and a prisoner that winter. The emperor refuses to ransom him, confiscates his fortune and imprisons his wife and son (date of the confiscation not pinned, before June 1200). Written by the Macedonia researcher (mac).

Protovestiarites (commander of the young guards of the Blachernae palace)

Theodore Laskaris, attested about 1200-1203; whether he held it on 1 January 1200 is not pinned (Theodore Laskaris).

Megas domestikos (commander of the army)

not pinned. Alexios Gidos was domestic of the West in 1189 and shared the command beaten at Arkadiopolis in 1194; no later notice. The field commands of 1199-1200 go to the sons-in-law and Kamytzes.

Megas hetaireiarches

George Palaiologos, father of the despotes, held it; he was killed at the siege of Kritzimos in 1199. Successor not pinned.

Keeper of the private fisc (epi tou idikou)

John Spyridonakes, a Cypriot of humble birth, had held it before he was made governor of Smolena (after Ivanko's fall, so in 1200 or later); whether he still held it on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

The prisons of the capital

John Lagos, whose sale of releases and embezzlement of alms will set off a riot in early February 1200.

Eparch of the city, logothete of the drome, megas droungarios, akolouthos of the Varangians

not pinned.

Relations in 1200

Venice

Alexios III issued a chrysobull to Doge Enrico Dandolo in November 1198 confirming the Venetians' privileges since 1082 (their quarter on the Golden Horn, freedom from the sales tax (kommerkion)) and listing the provinces and towns of the empire where they trade free, from the Peloponnese and Thessaly to Thrace (Thrace and Macedonia, Choirobakchoi, Selymbria, Tzouroulos and Theodoropolis, Mesene, Arkadiopolis and Bulgarophygon, the Chersonese, Adrianople and Didymoteichon, Brachialion, Philippopolis) and Asia. In practice, Choniates says, the emperor ignored the treaty, extracted money from the Venetians, taxed their ships and set the Pisans against them, so that the two nations fought in the city and at sea, and he never paid the balance of the compensation Manuel I had promised for the seizures of 1171. Venice is not at war with the empire, but Dandolo has grievances.

Pisa

Privileges renewed by Isaac II in 1192; the emperor favours the Pisans against the Venetians, and Pisans fight for him in 1203.

Genoa

Privileges of 1192 from Isaac II; relations soured by the Genoese merchant turned corsair Kaphoures (Gafforio), whom Stryphnos had fined and who then ravaged the Aegean; the emperor negotiated through Genoese go-betweens while arming ships under the Calabrian corsair Steiriones, and an agreement followed (about 1197-1198; the dating is Choniates's order of events, not pinned).

The pope

Innocent III wrote to Alexios III and to the patriarch John X Kamateros in August 1198, sending the subdeacon Albert and the notary Albertino to Constantinople, to urge the union of the churches under Rome and help for the crusade. The emperor answered politely, and the patriarch defended the rights of his church; Innocent replied in November 1199, restating Roman primacy and proposing that the patriarch come or send to a council. On 1 January 1200 these letters are in flight; the talks run on into 1200 and produce nothing. Rome has proclaimed the crusade (the fortieth on clerical income was ordered at the end of December 1199) and the barons who took the cross at Ecry on 28 November 1199 have chosen Theobald III of Champagne to lead them; nobody yet plans to go by way of Constantinople.

The German kings

Henry VI demanded tribute at Christmas 1196 and the emperor raised it with the 'German tax' (Alamanikon) and by stripping the imperial tombs at the Holy Apostles, but Henry died in September 1197 and the money was never sent. Since 1198 there are two kings of the Romans: Philip of Swabia, husband of Isaac II's daughter Irene, and Otto of Brunswick. Philip's marriage gives the deposed line a powerful western patron.

Bulgaria

At war since the Asen revolt of 1185-1186. Kaloyan (Ioannitsa) has ruled at Tarnovo since 1197 with Cuman allies; Cumans and Vlachs raided Thrace in 1199 (feast of St George, 23 April, near Mesene and Tzouroulos, as far as Rhaidestos, and again in the autumn); Kaloyan probably took Branicevo, Velbazhd, Skopje and Prizren from the empire during 1199 (not pinned). No truce: Kaloyan is allied with the rebel Ivanko. Kaloyan is also opening his own line to Rome: Innocent III's envoy reached him with a papal letter at the end of December 1199. Peace comes only in 1201-1202 (later). See the Bulgaria records (bul).

Ivanko

In revolt since 1199 (he was given Philippopolis and the troops facing the Vlachs, promised the emperor's granddaughter Theodora, and then turned the post into his own lordship); victorious at the end of 1199. See bul for his domain.

Chrysos

At peace since the treaty of autumn 1197, holding the land between the Strymon and the Vardar with Strumica and Prosek; married (1197/1198) to Kamytzes's daughter, whom the emperor made divorce her husband for him (mac).

Serbia

Friendly: Stefan Nemanjic is the emperor's son-in-law and sebastokrator. His father Stefan Nemanja, the monk Simeon, died at Hilandar on 13 February 1199 (some notes in Choniates's translator date it 1200). The marriage and the alliance break in 1200 or 1201 (later).

Rum

Rukn al-Din Suleymanshah II has ruled at Konya since 1197; Turkmen raids on the Maeander frontier; an affair over plundered merchants of Konya and a botched plot to have the sultan murdered follow in August 1200 (later). The sultan's deposed brother Kaykhusraw I spent his exile in Constantinople in these years (the date of his arrival is not pinned).

Hungary

Correct and distant: King Emeric is brother of Isaac II's queen.

Army and fleet

The army is a mix of the guard, hired foreigners and provincial troops. The Varangian guard of axe-bearing foreigners (English and Scandinavian) guards the emperor and the palaces (Varangians); the young guards of the Blachernae palace serve under the protovestiarites; Alans, Cumans and Latins (Pisans among them) serve for pay; the provinces furnish troops raised through governors and holders of pronoia (grants of the revenue of named peasants and villages for service). The field army musters at Kypsella on the lower Hebros (1197, spring 1199, 1200).

Its record is poor: beaten at Arkadiopolis (1194) and Serres (1196), mutinous in 1196, ambushed in 1199, and in May 1200 it will refuse to fight Ivanko. The fleet under the megas doux Michael Stryphnos has been stripped of its gear for profit (Choniates); the emperor relied on a hired Calabrian corsair, Steiriones, against Kaphoures. Eunuchs guarding the imperial hunting forests stop shipwrights cutting timber (Choniates, of the years before 1203).

No figures for men or ships are given in the sources for 1199-1200.

Treasury

Empty by Choniates's account: the tribute demanded by Henry VI was raised in 1197 by a special tax and by stripping gold and silver from the imperial tombs; the emperor lavishes gifts on his kin, sells offices and even the rank of sebastos to rich merchants, and farms out taxes. No sums are given here.

Church

The patriarch of Constantinople is John X Kamateros (since 5 August 1198), of the empress's family; he is answering Innocent III's letters. The great monasteries of the capital (the Pantokrator, the Stoudios, St George of Mangana, the Evergetis) and of Thrace (the Kosmosoteira at Bera, Kosmosoteira; the monasteries of Mount Ganos, sacked by the Cumans in 1197-1198) hold estates with their peasants (paroikoi). The archbishop of Ohrid, the metropolitans of Thessalonica (Constantine Mesopotamites, deposed in 1197 and soon restored, as far as the sources show), Athens (Michael Choniates) and the Thracian sees (Herakleia, Adrianople, Philippopolis, Mosynopolis, Trajanopolis, Mesembria, Anchialos) are the emperor's subjects.

The Orthodox Church is not on the Church map.

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. early February 1200Riot in the capital against John Lagos, keeper of the prisons, who sold releases to thieves and embezzled alms; Alexios Palaiologos brings troops into the city while the emperor is across the water at Chrysopolis.Depends on: Lagos still in post and the crowd roused. Stopped by: Lagos removed beforehand, or a stronger hand in the city.
2. spring 1200 (before 21 June)The emperor musters the army at Kypsella and marches against Ivanko; the troops will not fight, and the townsfolk of the capital mock him.Depends on: Ivanko still in revolt and the emperor deciding to campaign in person. Stopped by: A settlement with Ivanko over the winter, or a Bulgarian or Turkish crisis drawing the emperor elsewhere.
3. May 1200The emperor sends envoys to offer Ivanko peace on his own terms.Depends on: the failure of the spring campaign. Stopped by: an imperial victory in the field.
4. about July 1200 (Choniates's translator; Treadgold says spring)Alexios Palaiologos, on the emperor's orders, meets Ivanko under oath, has him seized and chained; the emperor takes back his towns and forts without difficulty, Ivanko's brother Mitos flees, and the emperor returns to the capital. Ivanko is put to death.Depends on: Ivanko trusting a sworn safe-conduct and the promised marriage. Stopped by: Ivanko refusing to come in person, or Kaloyan sending help.
5. during 1200The protostrator Kamytzes, by now a prisoner in Bulgaria ('Mysia'), begs the emperor to ransom him; the emperor refuses and Chrysos pays. Kamytzes goes to Prosek and in 1201 rises with Chrysos, taking Pelagonia and Prilep and stirring Thessaly, Hellas and the Peloponnese (mac).Depends on: the emperor's refusal to pay. Stopped by: the emperor ransoming his cousin.
6. summer 1200Michael, the sebastokrator John's bastard son, a tax collector in Asia, rebels, is beaten and flees to Sultan Rukn al-Din, then raids the Maeander towns with Turkish troops (Anatolia sheet).Depends on: his grievances in Mylasa and Melanoudion. Stopped by: recall or reward.
7. 31 July 1201 in most modern accounts (31 July 1200 in Magoulias's dating of Choniates)John Komnenos 'the Fat', son of the protostrator Alexios Axouch, has himself crowned in Hagia Sophia and seizes the western part of the Great Palace with noble backers (the driving force was probably Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos), Georgian and Italian hirelings and the crowd; Alexios Palaiologos and the Varangians retake it that night and he is beheaded.Depends on: the emperor away from the Great Palace and the guard slow to move. Stopped by: an alert guard or the plotters betrayed.
8. August 1200Plundered merchants of Konya bring Rukn al-Din into a quarrel with the emperor; a peace is made and compensation paid, then the emperor's plot to have the sultan murdered is exposed and Turkish raids resume (Anatolia sheet).Depends on: the merchants' complaint. Stopped by: prompt compensation without the murder plot.
9. November 1200The emperor, back from the east, is nearly shipwrecked crossing to Chalcedon; then races and shows in the Great Palace.Depends on: an eastern campaign that autumn. Stopped by: nothing in particular.
10. the Byzantine year 1 September 1200 to 31 August 1201 (winter of 1200-1201 or later)Vlachs and Cumans ravage the best of Thrace and come near the land gates of the capital; they are called home when Prince Roman of Galicia falls on their own lands (the Rus' chronicle dates Roman's attack to 1202).Depends on: Kaloyan's war with the empire continuing and the Danube freezing. Stopped by: a peace with Kaloyan, or a strong Thracian army.
11. 1200 or 1201The marriage of Eudokia and Stefan of Serbia breaks; she returns to Constantinople and the Serbian alliance ends.Depends on: the quarrel in the Serbian household. Stopped by: reconciliation.
12. late 1200 (if the later dating is right)Anna's marriage to Theodore Laskaris.Depends on: the emperor's choice; Choniates puts it in February 1199, already done. Stopped by: nothing; recorded only because the date is disputed.
13. March 1201 (later than 1200)Kaloyan takes Konstanteia and storms Varna on the Saturday before Easter 1201, burying its defenders alive and pulling down the walls.Depends on: the war continuing into 1201. Stopped by: a peace with Kaloyan in 1200.

Places of note

• Blachernae palace, the emperor's residence: The Komnenian palace at the north-west corner of the city, by the land walls and the Golden Horn; the court's usual seat.
• Great Palace: The old palace complex by the Hippodrome, used for ceremonies, races and shows.
• Kypsella, the army's mustering place: Camp of the field army on the lower Hebros in 1197, 1199 and 1200.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign notes (Part 8, section 4) say the crusade's fortieth was ordered at the end of December 1199 and the Ecry barons have taken the cross; that agrees with this record. The campaign notes say nothing on Byzantium.
• Stefan Nemanja's death: the brief and most accounts give 13 February 1199; Magoulias's notes to Choniates (note 1427) give 13 February 1200. Left for the Serbia researcher; if 1200 is right he is still alive on 1 January.
• Theodore Laskaris's marriage to Anna: Choniates (book page 280) puts it together with Irene's marriage before Shrovetide (February) 1199; the English Wikipedia life of Theodore I puts it in late 1200. This record follows Choniates.
• Ivanko's capture: about July 1200 in Magoulias's margin dating, spring 1200 in Treadgold. Either way after 1 January.
• Start of Ivanko's revolt: Choniates's editors put the news of it just after the weddings of February 1199 (van Dieten dates the campaign to summer 1199); the English Wikipedia life of Kaloyan (after Madgearu) has Ivanko already allied with Kaloyan by 1198. On either dating he is in revolt and allied with Kaloyan on 1 January 1200.
• John Komnenos the Fat: 31 July 1201 in the English Wikipedia and most modern accounts, 31 July 1200 in Magoulias's dating of Choniates. Either way after 1 January 1200.

Evidence: Choniates was logothete of the sekreta throughout these years and writes from inside the court; the chronology of his book for 1197-1201 is loose and the translator's dates are partly conjectural (van Dieten, Brand). The provincial lists of 1198 and 1204 give the fiscal districts. Thin: the names of the Thracian governors, the eparch and most court officers on 1 January 1200.

On the map: The outline follows the plain and coast the emperor's governors held; the northern edge toward the Haemus is a raiding belt rather than a line, and its course between the Sakar hills and the Strandzha is our estimate. The empire's other European and Asian provinces are drawn by the other researchers' records.

Primary sources for this realm

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
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III (pontifical years 1 to 3, 1198 to 1201), Innocent III (Lotario dei Conti di Segni) and the papal chancery (1198 onwards, year by year). The register for the second and third pontifical years (February 1199 to February 1201) holds the letters that set the eastern stage for 1200: the exchange with Kaloyan of Bulgaria opened in December 1199 and continued through 1200 over union with Rome and a crown, letters to Vukan of Zeta and to Stefan of Serbia, letters to Alexios III and the patriarch John Kamateros pressing for church union and help for the crusade, the preaching commissions and the legation of Peter Capuano, the Antioch succession quarrel between Bohemond and Leo of Armenia, letters to Aimery of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and the French interdict over Ingeborg. Read online
• The Surviving Works of Michael Choniates, Metropolitan of Athens, Michael Choniates (Akominatos) (about 1182 to 1217). Michael was metropolitan of Athens from 1182 to 1204, and his letters and speeches are the only inside view of a Greek provincial city about 1200: the poverty of Attica, piracy in the Saronic Gulf, the exactions of tax officials and governors, his memorandum (hypomnestikon) to Alexios III asking relief for Athens, and the rise of Leo Sgouros of Nauplia, whom he describes seizing Argos and Corinth and attacking Athens in 1203. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online
• Documents on the Early Commercial and Political History of Venice, including the Partitio Romaniae of 1204 (documents 814 to 1299, edited by G. L. F. Tafel and G. M. Thomas, 3 vols (Vienna, 1856 to 1857)). Volume 1 (814 to 1205) prints Venice's treaties with Byzantium, the chrysobull of 1198 to Venice with its list of imperial provinces, the Venetian treaty with the crusaders of April 1201, and the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae of late 1204, which divides the Empire by its fiscal districts and so records the provincial structure (themes, episkepseis, estates) that was in place in 1200. Read online

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