William II of Villehardouin
William II Villehardouin (died
May 1,
1278) was the last Villehardouin
prince of Achaea and ruled the principality at the height of its power and influence.
William was the son of
Geoffrey I Villehardouin. In
1236 he aided the
Latin Empire against the
Byzantine Empire of Nicaea, and was rewarded with the overlordship of the
Venetian Duchy of the Archipelago and other Venetian territories in the
Aegean Sea. In 1239 he married the daughter of
Narjot de Toucy and of Narjot's first wife (who was the daughter of the dowager empress
Anna). William came to power in Achaea in
1246 when his brother Geoffrey II Villehardouin died.
As prince he conquered the remaining territory of the
Peloponnese (known at the time as
Morea) and built the fortress of
Mistra near
Sparta. In
1249 he captured
Monemvasia with help from his
Euboean vassals, and later that year accompanied
Louis IX of France on the
Seventh Crusade, joining him in
Cyprus with 400 knights and 28 ships. Louis also gave him a license to
mint coins in the style of royal French money.
Under William's rule the Duchy of the Archipelago, the
Duchy of Athens, and the Venetian lords of Euboea recognized him as their lord. In
1255 his Venetian second wife Carintana dalle Carceri died, leading to a dispute over the inheritance of a fief in Euboea, and war broke out between Venice and Achaea (the
Guerre des terciers de l'Eubée, the "War of the Terciers of Euboea,"
terciers being the three Venetian lords of the island). William won the war and also defeated the Duke of Athens in
1258, reaffirming his influence over the duchy.
In
1259 he married Anna Komnene Doukaina, daughter of
Michael II of Epirus, forming an alliance with the Byzantine
Despotate of Epirus against Nicaea, an alliance which also included
Manfred of Sicily. In September of that year he led the Achaean forces at the
Battle of Pelagonia against the Nicaeans, but the Epirote army deserted and William was defeated. He fled the field and hid under a haystack, where he was captured and brought to Nicaea. He remained in captivity until
1262, and was forced to hand over Monemvasia and Mistra to the Byzantine Empire, which had been restored in
Constantinople the previous year.
William had now lost all of his previous power, as had his former lord,
Baldwin II of Constantinople, whose Latin Empire was lost with the Byzantine restoration. William and Baldwin both acknowledged
Charles of Anjou as lord of Achaea under the
Treaty of Viterbo in
1267; Charles had earlier defeated and killed William's old ally Manfred. As a vassal of Charles, William and 400 Achaean knights fought against
Conradin at the
Battle of Tagliacozzo in
1268.
William and Anna had two daughters,
Isabella and
Margaret; Isabella, the elder daughter, married Charles's son Philip of Sicily, who, however, predeceased his father. Charles personally succeeded William in 1278, ending the Villehardouin dynasty and setting up Angevin rule, with the principality governed essentially as a province of the
Kingdom of Naples. With the decreasing power and influence of Achaea, the Duchy of Athens became the most powerful state in
Greece.
William was also noted as a
poet and
troubadour, and the
Manuscrit du Roi, containing two of his own compositions, was written in Achaea during his reign. He was fluent in both
French and
Greek.
The
Villehardouins.
