Bartholomew II Ghisi

Bartholomew II Ghisi (Italian: Bartolommeo Ghisi; died 1341) was a Latin feudal lord in medieval Greece, lord of Tinos and Mykonos, Triarch of Negroponte and Grand Constable of the Principality of Achaea.

Biography

Bartholomew was the son of George I Ghisi and Alice dalle Carceri.^[1] His father died at the Battle of the Cephissus against the Catalan Company in 1311, and his mother, who assumed regency while he was still minor, two years later.^[2] From his father, Bartholomew inherited the lordship of Tinos, Mykonos, and parts of Kea and Serifos in the Duchy of Naxos, and from his mother one of the triarchies of Euboea (according to Raymond-Joseph Loenertz the central triarchy of Chalkis^[3]), while his father's other possession by his first wife, the Barony of Chalandritsa in the Principality of Achaea, returned to a member of the Dramelay family, Nicholas of Dramelay.^[4] Batholomew married a daughter of Engilbert of Liederkerque,^[5] and had a son, George II Ghisi.^[1]

Bartholomew later came to hold the post of Grand Constable of the Principality of Achaea, probably through his marriage, although he does not appear to have had lands there.^[5] In 1320, he was taken prisoner, along with several high-ranking nobles of the Principality, by the Byzantine governor of Mystras, Andronikos Asen, at the castle of Saint George, and was sent to Constantinople.^[6] He was released in 1324.^[7] From 1317 to 1327 Bartholomew and his fellow triarchs, backed by the Venetians, confronted the Catalans of the Duchy of Athens for the domination in Euboea.^[8] In 1326/27, he reached a rapprochement with the Catalans, sealed by the marriage of his son George II to Simona of Aragon, daughter of the Catalan vicar-general Alfonso Fadrique. Bartholomew received—probably as Simona's dowry—half the castellany of the Castle of Saint Omer in Thebes, which he held until its destruction in c. 1331/34.^[9][10] This pro-Catalan attitude led to remonstrances by Venetian officials.^[11] At the same time (1326/27) he had a conflict for unknown reasons with the Duke of Naxos Nicholas I Sanudo and was therefore condemned by the Venetian bailo of Negroponte, who confiscated some of his goods while his wife was imprisoned (by the bailo or Sanudo). The affair was judged several times at Venice but its final outcome remains unknown; however Bartholomew must have regained his standing with Venice since he was included in its truce with the Catalans in 1331.^[12]

In 1328, Bartholomew and his brother Marino sold their share of Kea (half the island) to Ruggiero Premarin.^[13] In 1331/32, Bartholomew reverted to an hostile attitude toward the Catalans (perhaps partly because of the dismissal of Alfonso Fadrique from the post of vicar-general) and backed Walter VI of Brienne in his abortive attempt to enforce his ancestral claims on the Duchy of Athens.^[14] It was precisely in order to avoid the Castle of Saint Omer falling in Brienne's hands that the Catalans destroyed it.^[10] According to the prologue of the French version of the Chronicle of the Morea, it derives from a prototype that Bartholomew held at the Castle of Saint Omer. It is therefore likely that Bartholomew owned be the original version of the Chronicle, whose versions in various languages are the major primary source about the history of Frankish Greece.^[15]

Bartholomew II Ghisi died in 1341.^[5]

References

Sources

• Bon, Antoine (1969). La Morée franque. Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté d’Achaïe (in French). Paris: De Boccard. 
• Loenertz, Raymond-Joseph (1975). Les Ghisi, dynastes vénitiens dans l'Archipel (1207-1390) (in French). Florence: Olschki. 
• Ravegnano, Giorgio (2000). "GHISI, Bartolomeo". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 54 (in Italian). Retrieved 30 July 2013. 
• Setton, Kenneth M. (1976). The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), Volume I: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. DIANE Publishing. ISBN 0-87169-114-0.