This complex network of ties betweenGreek- and Slavonic-speaking orthodox
potentates presupposed an effective Latin threat, and had as its axis the
agreement between Epiros and the Bulgarians; however, this alliance could
never be more than opportunistic. Bulgaria recovered its strength under
Ivan II Asen (1218–41), and Ivan made no secret of his ambition to take
Constantinople, which was also the target of the Epirot ruler in his struggle
against his Nicaean rival. The Bulgarians also had their eye on the Adriatic,
and could not forget that their ambassadors to the pope had been unable
to proceed further than Dyrrachium.49 The death of the Latin emperor
Henry in 1216, and the defeat of Peter of Courtenay the following year,
revitalised the three powers aiming for Constantinople: Nicaea, Epiros and
Bulgaria. The latter realm under Ivan Asen enjoyed its last spell of greatness
in the middle ages; from then on, its rulers were primarily concerned with
undermining the Greek contenders for the throne in Constantinople, playing
off the various factions. The City itself was almost within their sights
by 1225, and the Latins were prompted to seek a Bulgarian alliance three
years later upon the death of Emperor Robert of Courtenay (1218–28) and
with the prospect of a minor, his brother Baldwin, mounting the throne.
A marriage was planned between Baldwin II (1237–61) and Ivan’s daughter
Helena. Ivan was attracted by the prospect of gaining the regency of the
Latin empire and in April 1229 he disregarded promises made earlier to
the elderly John of Brienne. However, these plans only resulted in a breach
with Theodore Angelos of Epiros.50
In spring 1230, taking the view that he could not march on Constantinople
without first removing the Bulgarians’ threat to his rear,51 Theodore
Angelos decided to attack them. He was crushed in battle at Klokotnitsa in
theMaritsa valley,52 captured and blinded; this defeat sealed the fate of the
westernmost of theGreek rump states.53 In April 1230, Ivan Asen launched a
sweeping counter-offensive, gaining Adrianople,Didymoteichon, Boleron,
Serres, Pelagonia (Bitola) and Prilep, as well as Thessaly and Albania right
up to the gates of Dyrrachium; the town itself apparently escaped his control.
54 It is not clear whether the Bulgarians achieved their ambition of
ruling from coast to coast, from the Adriatic to the Aegean. An agreement
between Ivan and Dubrovnik of 1230 mentions Skopje, Prilep and
Devol – acquisitions effectively barring the Serbians fromMacedonia – and
even Thessaloniki, but no Adriatic port is mentioned there.55 In any case,
the text of this agreement attests a revival of trans-Balkan trade to the advantage
of one of the Slav powers, as economic facts caught up with military
ones.56 This also helped to counterbalance the overweening Italian presence
in the region’s trade.57 George Akropolites paints quite a favourable picture
of Ivan Asen’s attitude towards his Greek subjects, although this was probably
coloured by Akropolites’ desire to cast his bˆete noire, Theodore Angelos,
in the worst possible light. However, Ivan avoided Kalojan’s mistakes and
he does seem to have been regarded favourably by his new subjects; Ivan’s
recently acquired title ‘tsar of the Bulgarians and of the Greeks’ offered
them a guarantee of sorts.58 He hoped to give this title further substance
by conquering Constantinople from the Latins. Just after his victory at
Klokotnitsa in 1230, Ivan visited Mount Athos and showered gifts upon
its monasteries: a symbolic expression of his role as supposed successor to
the Byzantine emperors.59 His conquests also enabled him to intervene in
the affairs of Serbia, a potent rival whose alliance with Epiros he found
hard to forgive. Bulgarian operations led to the downfall of the Serbian
ruler Stefan Radoslav,60 who had withdrawn to Dubrovnik, and then to
Dyrrachium.61
However, Ivan was a realist and knew he could not take Constantinople
on his own. He therefore put together a league of orthodox potentates,
including John III Vatatzes, emperor of Nicaea (1221–54), and even
Theodore’s brother Manuel Angelos (1230–37), emperor at Thessaloniki.
Manuel was Ivan’s faithless son-in-law and in 1232 he had abandoned plans
for church union with Rome and with Frederick II.62 This league gave
Ivan the chance to renounce Kalojan’s nominal allegiance to the pope, and
he hoped for an immediate dividend, the transformation of the Bulgarian
church into a full patriarchate. It is likely that, from 1233, relations with
Nicaea were close enough to force the ‘unionist’ archbishop of T’rnovo
to abandon his see and retire to Mount Athos; presumably he had been
induced to return to orthodoxy by the patriarch of Nicaea.63 In spring 1235,
the Graeco-Bulgarian alliance was further strengthened at Gallipoli by the
betrothal of the future Theodore II Laskaris (1254–58) to Ivan II Asen’s
daughter, who had previously been betrothed to Baldwin II.64 After lengthy
negotiations with the patriarchs of Nicaea and the east,65 the alliance was
reinforced by the formal recognition of the new Bulgarian head churchman,
Ioakim, as patriarch; Ioakim went to Nicaea for his consecration.66
However, for the Bulgarians the problem was that this alliance would clearly
involve abandoning any claim to the Byzantine throne; part of the price for
the patriarchal title was Ivan’s renunciation of his patronage over Mount
Athos.67
From this point on, the attitude of the Bulgarians becomes rather erratic;
Ivan Asen had probably not become Vatatzes’ ally simply in order to acquire
a patriarchate, and he must have been aware of the dangers Nicaea posed
to him. After an abortive joint siege of Latin-held Constantinople in 1235–
6, Ivan performed an about-turn and entered into an alliance with the
Latins. He broke with Nicaea at the end of 1237, after a terrible pestilence
at T’rnovo which carried off his wife and one of his children, as well as
Patriarch Ioakim. Ivan believed that he was being punished for breaking his
word; Bulgarian writings of this period are full of eschatological references
to brilliant triumphs, but also to cautionary punishment for sins.68 As if
to confirm all these prophecies, Ivan himself died in 1241. Soon afterwards
the Bulgarian lands were ravaged by a terrible Mongol and Cuman army,
putting paid to imperial ambitions for a long time. Nicaea stood to benefit
from the settlement of numerous Cumans on the frontiers of Asia and
Europe,69 seeing that the outer fringes of Bulgaria became very vulnerable.
The population in Byzantino-Bulgarian borderlands such as the Rhodope
range was in fact mostly Bulgarian, ready to assist any action by fellow
Bulgarians, as it did after the death of John III Vatatzes in 1254, with longterm
consequences.
World History
