History 303 – The Third Kingdom (A CK2 Jerusalem AAR)
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An all too brief moment of freedom. I am sure Anselm suffered from what is now called PTSD, after 20+ years of fighting and seeing too many of his men, his friends, die, in wars he often didn't believe in. This includes a Jihad against fellow Christians in Aragon. Not to mention the physical injuries he suffered, including the ones which left him permanently disfigured.
They have seen it all, great victories and devastating defeats. They have risen from a cast aside bastard and climbed to great heights, with some becoming Kings and Queens, and even Emperors, however briefly, before being cast back down. But they continue to fight on, and begin the climb again.
Day 11 - Godfrey of Lucano
Day 11 - Godfrey of Lucano
Godfrey de Cognac, the Baron of Lucano, inherited Oulltrejourdain upon the death of his father, Anselm ‘the Lion’. He officially became Duke Godfrey II of Oultrejourdain. However, throughout his short life and forever after, he was simply known as Godfrey of Lucano. This is because bringing the Barony of Lucano into the Duchy of Oultrejourdain is his greatest and sole contribution to history of the de Cognac dynasty, other than fathering Anselm ‘the Apostle’, of course. Godfrey had inherited Lucano from his grandfather Meletios, Emira Amice the Lionheart’s husband. Meletios had been a distant relative of the current Byzantine Emperor when he married Amice matrilineally. However, circumstances, revolts, and the Black Death suddenly found him elevated to being the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire. However, his time as Emperor was short-lived as he was soon deposed by a strong faction demand. Luckier than most former Emperors, he survived the regime change and was simply exiled to the Barony of Lucano on the Italian coast of the Adriatic Sea, far from the seat of power in Constantinople. There he spent out the rest of his days. On his death, the Barony went to his grandson, Godfrey, rather than to his eldest son, Emir Anselm the Lion, due to inheritance laws in both the Byzantine and the Ayyubid Empires.
Little else is known of Godfrey of Lucano. It is this very obscurity that emphasizes why Godfrey of Lucano might have harbored ill will toward various rulers in his time, specifically the Emperors of the Ayyubid, Byzantine, and the Holy Roman Empires.
While still a toddler, Godfrey became the Baron of Lucano upon the death of his grandfather, Meletios Rentakenos. The title should have gone to his father Anselm the Lion as the only son of Meletios, but the Byzantine Emperor refused to release the Barony of Lucano to a vassal of the Ayyubid Empire. So instead, Godfrey, a boy only 2 years of age, was basically exiled from his family and sent to claim the Barony of Lucano because of the greed of the Byzantine Emperor. Godfrey would grow up alone, far from his family, his parents and sisters, with only the nurses and retainers his father had sent with him, to remind him of his English culture and Catholic religion. With little guidance or support, Godfrey would end up marrying the first woman he ever slept with, a low born Greek girl named Joscella, as soon as he came of age. But that marriage would prove successful and yield two sons and two daughters before Godfrey’s untimely death at the age of 29.
History would repeat itself when Godfrey was denied his own birthright upon the death of his other grandfather, Duke Gottfried 'the Wise' von Babenberg of Austria. As the eldest male descendant of the Duke, through his mother, Joan von Babenberg, Godfrey should have inherited the County of Wein and the Duchy of Austria. However, Godfrey was now a vassal of the Byzantine Empire and the Basileus again refused to allow even the small Barony of Lucano to leave his Empire, and the Holy Roman Emperor was not about to allow the Duchy of Austria become part of the Byzantine Empire. So, this time, Godfrey's 4-year old young son, Anselm, was the one torn from his family, as Godfrey was denied his birthright and the titles were passed down directly to the young boy.
The three existing de Cognac generations were now isolated and divided, each serving three separate empires, and it was unlikely they would ever be joined again. Godfrey had grown up with little expectation at that point that he would ever be anything other than a Baron under the Eastern Roman Empire. One son was already taken from him to serve the Holy Roman Empire and he expected another of his children to inherit the Duchy of Oultrejourdain upon the death of his father and be forced to serve the Ayyubid Empire. Eventually, a third child would inherit the Barony of Lucano and relive his own lonely exile in the Eastern Roman Empire following Godfrey’s death.
But all those expectations changed when his father gained independence for the Duchy of Oultrejourdain. Not only were the de Cognacs free, but that independence allowed Godfrey to once again become heir to his father’s titles and in time his oldest son, Anselm, the Duke of Austria, could then become his heir. Anselm ‘the Lion’ had given his son a chance to reunite the scattered family.
With Anselm the Lion’s death as a free and independent Duke, Godfrey inherited the Duchy and brought the Barony of Lucano out of the Byzantine Empire and into the independent Duchy of Oultrejourdain. Godfrey was finally free of the Byzantine Empire which had so disrupted his life and family.
He also inherited the ongoing Holy War for Damascus against the Ayyubid Revolt. He would successfully end that war quickly, expanding the de Cognac holdings northward into Syria.
Godfrey would also inherit his father's susceptibility to Cancer, being diagnosed soon after he arrived in the Holy Land. However, he had in his employ the famed Anghel ‘the Wise’, a Vlach adventurer and scholar, as his Court Physician. Anghel would cure Godfrey of the cancer and as his reward he would become the first Bishop of Damascus.
With the Revolt against the Ayyubid Empire still ongoing. Godfrey decided to lay claim to the rest of the Emirate of Damascus and declared war against the Badshah Ablarion. Unfortunately, at the Battle of Al Mafraq, Godfrey's five years of freedom and independence and the 14 years of freedom and independence of the de Cognac dynasty would end as he was killed in battle and his son, Duke Anselm of Austria, inherited Oultrejourdain and the Barony of Lucano and brought them under the rule of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Godfrey de Cognac, the Baron of Lucano, inherited Oulltrejourdain upon the death of his father, Anselm ‘the Lion’. He officially became Duke Godfrey II of Oultrejourdain. However, throughout his short life and forever after, he was simply known as Godfrey of Lucano. This is because bringing the Barony of Lucano into the Duchy of Oultrejourdain is his greatest and sole contribution to history of the de Cognac dynasty, other than fathering Anselm ‘the Apostle’, of course. Godfrey had inherited Lucano from his grandfather Meletios, Emira Amice the Lionheart’s husband. Meletios had been a distant relative of the current Byzantine Emperor when he married Amice matrilineally. However, circumstances, revolts, and the Black Death suddenly found him elevated to being the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire. However, his time as Emperor was short-lived as he was soon deposed by a strong faction demand. Luckier than most former Emperors, he survived the regime change and was simply exiled to the Barony of Lucano on the Italian coast of the Adriatic Sea, far from the seat of power in Constantinople. There he spent out the rest of his days. On his death, the Barony went to his grandson, Godfrey, rather than to his eldest son, Emir Anselm the Lion, due to inheritance laws in both the Byzantine and the Ayyubid Empires.
Little else is known of Godfrey of Lucano. It is this very obscurity that emphasizes why Godfrey of Lucano might have harbored ill will toward various rulers in his time, specifically the Emperors of the Ayyubid, Byzantine, and the Holy Roman Empires.
While still a toddler, Godfrey became the Baron of Lucano upon the death of his grandfather, Meletios Rentakenos. The title should have gone to his father Anselm the Lion as the only son of Meletios, but the Byzantine Emperor refused to release the Barony of Lucano to a vassal of the Ayyubid Empire. So instead, Godfrey, a boy only 2 years of age, was basically exiled from his family and sent to claim the Barony of Lucano because of the greed of the Byzantine Emperor. Godfrey would grow up alone, far from his family, his parents and sisters, with only the nurses and retainers his father had sent with him, to remind him of his English culture and Catholic religion. With little guidance or support, Godfrey would end up marrying the first woman he ever slept with, a low born Greek girl named Joscella, as soon as he came of age. But that marriage would prove successful and yield two sons and two daughters before Godfrey’s untimely death at the age of 29.
History would repeat itself when Godfrey was denied his own birthright upon the death of his other grandfather, Duke Gottfried 'the Wise' von Babenberg of Austria. As the eldest male descendant of the Duke, through his mother, Joan von Babenberg, Godfrey should have inherited the County of Wein and the Duchy of Austria. However, Godfrey was now a vassal of the Byzantine Empire and the Basileus again refused to allow even the small Barony of Lucano to leave his Empire, and the Holy Roman Emperor was not about to allow the Duchy of Austria become part of the Byzantine Empire. So, this time, Godfrey's 4-year old young son, Anselm, was the one torn from his family, as Godfrey was denied his birthright and the titles were passed down directly to the young boy.
The three existing de Cognac generations were now isolated and divided, each serving three separate empires, and it was unlikely they would ever be joined again. Godfrey had grown up with little expectation at that point that he would ever be anything other than a Baron under the Eastern Roman Empire. One son was already taken from him to serve the Holy Roman Empire and he expected another of his children to inherit the Duchy of Oultrejourdain upon the death of his father and be forced to serve the Ayyubid Empire. Eventually, a third child would inherit the Barony of Lucano and relive his own lonely exile in the Eastern Roman Empire following Godfrey’s death.
But all those expectations changed when his father gained independence for the Duchy of Oultrejourdain. Not only were the de Cognacs free, but that independence allowed Godfrey to once again become heir to his father’s titles and in time his oldest son, Anselm, the Duke of Austria, could then become his heir. Anselm ‘the Lion’ had given his son a chance to reunite the scattered family.
With Anselm the Lion’s death as a free and independent Duke, Godfrey inherited the Duchy and brought the Barony of Lucano out of the Byzantine Empire and into the independent Duchy of Oultrejourdain. Godfrey was finally free of the Byzantine Empire which had so disrupted his life and family.
He also inherited the ongoing Holy War for Damascus against the Ayyubid Revolt. He would successfully end that war quickly, expanding the de Cognac holdings northward into Syria.
Godfrey would also inherit his father's susceptibility to Cancer, being diagnosed soon after he arrived in the Holy Land. However, he had in his employ the famed Anghel ‘the Wise’, a Vlach adventurer and scholar, as his Court Physician. Anghel would cure Godfrey of the cancer and as his reward he would become the first Bishop of Damascus.
With the Revolt against the Ayyubid Empire still ongoing. Godfrey decided to lay claim to the rest of the Emirate of Damascus and declared war against the Badshah Ablarion. Unfortunately, at the Battle of Al Mafraq, Godfrey's five years of freedom and independence and the 14 years of freedom and independence of the de Cognac dynasty would end as he was killed in battle and his son, Duke Anselm of Austria, inherited Oultrejourdain and the Barony of Lucano and brought them under the rule of the Holy Roman Emperor.
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A very plausible sounding twist on dynasty and inheritance and feudal obligations.
So a Christian subject once more.
So a Christian subject once more.
Just caught up with this tale! Fantastic stuff, and as others have said packed full of twists and turns. Eager to see how a return to life as subjects of a Christian monarch alters the fortunes of the de Cognac family.
Definitely a twisted mess, which would have gotten even more convoluted if Anselm the Lion and failed to gain independence, then Godfrey's worse fears would have come true.
Anselm the Lion served a Sunni liege before his independence, Godfrey served an Orthodox one before his independence, but now Anselm the Apostle returns them to the Catholic Church.
It has been fun and nailbiting at times, with the family on the verge of losing it all a couple times, but now the de Cognac are coming into their own and becoming players beyond the boundaries of the Holy Land.
Glad you are enjoying it, thank you. The de Cognac fortunes have been on the rise since Amice the Lionheart led the 8th Crusade to victory, now they have moved beyond survival and are ready to take their place on the world stage.
Day 12 - Anselm ‘the Apostle’
Day 12 - Anselm ‘the Apostle’
The de Cognacs brief time of freedom and independence under Duke Anselm ‘the Lion’ and Godfrey of Lucano, ended with Godfrey’s death in battle during the 2nd Oultrejourdainian Holy War for Damascus. The only consolation was that all the scattered de Cognac holdings were finally united under one ruler.
As mentioned last week, Godfrey's son had inherited the Duchy of Austria from his great grandfather, Duke Gottfried ‘the Wise’ von Babenberg, before Anselm the Lion’s death, (this time skipping over Godfrey due to inheritance laws in the Byzantine and Holy Roman Empires), and young Anselm had been forced to swear fealty to the Holy Roman Emperor in order to claim his inheritance.
With Godfrey’s death, the younger Anselm inherited the Duchy of Oultrejourdain at the age of 11, bringing it into the Holy Roman Empire, subject to his liege Kaiser Wigerich II 'the Pious' Scarponois. Once again, the de Cognac’s were forced to put their futures into the hands of another.
The young Duke Anselm also inherited the Barony of Lucano from his father, which provided a strategic link between the two landlocked halves of his expanded domain. Lucano provided a port of call and a fleet of ships to provide his own transport of goods and soldiers across the eastern Mediterranean Sea between the Levant coast to the west of Oultrejourdain and the northeast coast of Italy, just south of Austria. This port would prove to be of critical importance in the years to come to support Anselm the Apostle’s later wars on both fronts as well as internal trade within his realm. It wasn’t until the capture of the ports of Galilee and then the rest of the Jerusalem coast by Matthew ‘the Monk’ that Lucano’s importance began to wane. Yet the Barony of Lucano still remains a part of the Royal family’s personal demesne even to today, their vacation home on the Adriatic Sea.
Anselm's grandmother Joan van Babenberg became his regent, replacing his Austrian vassals who had controlled his regency council as Duke of Austria. Oultrejourdain would become his primary title. The first act of Joan was to accept the surrender of Badshah Ablarion in the Holy War for Damascus. Godfrey of Lucano's commander, Simon of Richmond had won the Battle of Al Mafraq, avenging his liege’s death and had gone on to siege down Al Mafraq itself. Simon of Richmond would be named Count of Irbid for his victory, but to appease the Lords of Austria several Germans were also given land in the newly conquered territory to try and unite the two halves of Anselm's realm. Amalrich von Kyburg was granted the County of Al Mafraq and Adolf von Zelking was granted one of the older de Cognac holdings, the County of Kerak.
Badshah Ablarion's quick surrender of Damascus was more to do with his imminent defeat to the rebels in Ayyubid, than Oultrejourdain's overwhelming victories. Within a month of surrendering Damascus, the rebel, Is'mail 'the Mutilator', would usurp the Empire from Ablarion, who would die soon after in the new Badshah's dungeons. Is'mail would immediately declare a new Sunni Caliphate.
With the Ayyubid revolt over, Anselm's regency council was free to usurp the Duchy title of Damascus from Emir Khalil of the Nabilid Emirate.
In 1376, Anselm would come of age and be married to Princess Ursula von Sponheim, daughter of the former Emperor. The current Emperor, Kaiser Wigerich II ‘the Pious’ Scarponnois, would grant Duke Anselm a seat on his Council as an advisor and appoint him a Commander of the Empire.
Anselm's first act once free of his regency council was to move his capitol from Wien to Damascus and followed immediately by him pressing his grandmother's claim on the Duchy of Steiermark against Duke Stoigniew 'the Drunkard'. Here is where the importance of Lucano came into play, as Anselm was able to quickly ferry his larger levys from Oultrejourdain and Damascus across the Mediterranean Sea in the Lucano fleet and march them north from Venice into Steiermark to support his Austrian levys.
Within in three years, Anselm had made his grandmother, Duchess Joan 'the Loyal' of Steiermark. It was just in time, as mere months later, Duchess Joan would die of the Great Pox, and Anselm would inherit the Duchy. Not long after her death, the Holy Father in Rome announced that Duchess Joan von Babenberg of Steiermark was being considered for Sainthood, and would be known as the Blessed Joan ‘the Loyal’.
Anselm would spend the next ten years trying to secure control of all of the de jure titles of Austria and Steiermark. However, these efforts were stymied by the Emperor who kept trying to enforce realm peace and prevent Anselm from growing even stronger and expanding within the Holy Empire. But Anselm persevered and was able to gain control of all the de jure territory of both Duchies. This ultimately led to his crowning as the Archduke of Austria in 1390. With his elevation to Archduke, Anselm would grant his brother John the County of Eppenstein and the Duchy of Steiermark. Duke John and his descendants would effectively become the Castellans for all of the German lands in the Archduchy of Austria and later the Kingdom of Jerusalem, ruling in the King's name.
The Holy Roman Empire, as well as trying to prevent Anselm's growing power, also failed to provide protection from the Ayyubid Empire when the Badshah tried to reclaim some of his lands in Oultrejourdain. But Anselm was able to ferry his German troops east with the Lucano fleet to the Levant and defend his home with the help of several of the Holy Orders.
Throughout this time period, Bishop Anghel 'the Wise' of Damascus had been proselytizing throughout Damascus and Oultrejourdain with Anselm's full support. The results of this led to the conversion of the bulk of Anselm's subjects in the Holy Land. This success would lead to Bishop Anghel 'the Wise' being beatified and Anselm gaining the nickname 'the Apostle'.
In 1394, Pope Hadrianus VI, also known as 'the Bold' launched the ill-fated 10th Crusade. This Crusade targeted the lands in Jerusalem held by Sultan Batauray of Rum. Archduke Anselm had pledged his support, but he and the bulk of his armies were currently far to the west, pressing his wife's claim on Saintois. By the time he had won that war and made his wife Countess of Saintois, the Crusade was already in dire straits. The disastrous Battle of Ascalon had seen 100,000 men joined in battle, the Crusaders defeated, and 40,000 men left dead. As the Lucano fleet sailed east and landed Austria's armies back in the Holy Land, the Crusaders had already suffered a second major defeat at Sarafand. Anselm had returned too late, the Pope would abandon the Crusade in the spring of 1399, much to his embarrassment and shame.
Shortly after the Crusade ended, Anselm petitioned Pope Hadrianus VI asking him to officiate at Anselm’s official coronation as Archduke of Austria. The Pope agreed, on one condition. Anselm must prove his devotion to the Church by punishing an impious ruler who had been excommunicated for his wickedness and defiance of the Church and force him to abdicate his throne. Anselm was taken aback, he did not wish to start a war just to legitimize his crown. He was already planning to refuse the request even before he learned who Hadrianus VI wanted punished.
Hadrianus VI had excommunicated King Guerau ‘the Hammer’ of Aragon and wanted Anselm to declare war on him. Guerau d’Urgell was the husband of Anselm’s youngest sister, Joan. It turned out Hadrianus blamed Anselm’s delay in joining the Crusade for its failure (which might actually be true), and sought to punish him, as well as King Guerau, by having them fight their own family. Anselm refused the cruel request, and never received a coronation or had his rule as Archduke blessed by the Church.
Four years later, Archduke Anselm 'the Apostle' would set out to do what the 10th Crusade had failed to do, he declared a Holy War on the Sultan of Rum for the Duchy of Galilee. Unfortunately, complications from gout would take him before the war was over. It would fall to his son, Matthew, to claim Galilee.
The de Cognacs brief time of freedom and independence under Duke Anselm ‘the Lion’ and Godfrey of Lucano, ended with Godfrey’s death in battle during the 2nd Oultrejourdainian Holy War for Damascus. The only consolation was that all the scattered de Cognac holdings were finally united under one ruler.
As mentioned last week, Godfrey's son had inherited the Duchy of Austria from his great grandfather, Duke Gottfried ‘the Wise’ von Babenberg, before Anselm the Lion’s death, (this time skipping over Godfrey due to inheritance laws in the Byzantine and Holy Roman Empires), and young Anselm had been forced to swear fealty to the Holy Roman Emperor in order to claim his inheritance.
With Godfrey’s death, the younger Anselm inherited the Duchy of Oultrejourdain at the age of 11, bringing it into the Holy Roman Empire, subject to his liege Kaiser Wigerich II 'the Pious' Scarponois. Once again, the de Cognac’s were forced to put their futures into the hands of another.
The young Duke Anselm also inherited the Barony of Lucano from his father, which provided a strategic link between the two landlocked halves of his expanded domain. Lucano provided a port of call and a fleet of ships to provide his own transport of goods and soldiers across the eastern Mediterranean Sea between the Levant coast to the west of Oultrejourdain and the northeast coast of Italy, just south of Austria. This port would prove to be of critical importance in the years to come to support Anselm the Apostle’s later wars on both fronts as well as internal trade within his realm. It wasn’t until the capture of the ports of Galilee and then the rest of the Jerusalem coast by Matthew ‘the Monk’ that Lucano’s importance began to wane. Yet the Barony of Lucano still remains a part of the Royal family’s personal demesne even to today, their vacation home on the Adriatic Sea.
Anselm's grandmother Joan van Babenberg became his regent, replacing his Austrian vassals who had controlled his regency council as Duke of Austria. Oultrejourdain would become his primary title. The first act of Joan was to accept the surrender of Badshah Ablarion in the Holy War for Damascus. Godfrey of Lucano's commander, Simon of Richmond had won the Battle of Al Mafraq, avenging his liege’s death and had gone on to siege down Al Mafraq itself. Simon of Richmond would be named Count of Irbid for his victory, but to appease the Lords of Austria several Germans were also given land in the newly conquered territory to try and unite the two halves of Anselm's realm. Amalrich von Kyburg was granted the County of Al Mafraq and Adolf von Zelking was granted one of the older de Cognac holdings, the County of Kerak.
Badshah Ablarion's quick surrender of Damascus was more to do with his imminent defeat to the rebels in Ayyubid, than Oultrejourdain's overwhelming victories. Within a month of surrendering Damascus, the rebel, Is'mail 'the Mutilator', would usurp the Empire from Ablarion, who would die soon after in the new Badshah's dungeons. Is'mail would immediately declare a new Sunni Caliphate.
With the Ayyubid revolt over, Anselm's regency council was free to usurp the Duchy title of Damascus from Emir Khalil of the Nabilid Emirate.
In 1376, Anselm would come of age and be married to Princess Ursula von Sponheim, daughter of the former Emperor. The current Emperor, Kaiser Wigerich II ‘the Pious’ Scarponnois, would grant Duke Anselm a seat on his Council as an advisor and appoint him a Commander of the Empire.
Anselm's first act once free of his regency council was to move his capitol from Wien to Damascus and followed immediately by him pressing his grandmother's claim on the Duchy of Steiermark against Duke Stoigniew 'the Drunkard'. Here is where the importance of Lucano came into play, as Anselm was able to quickly ferry his larger levys from Oultrejourdain and Damascus across the Mediterranean Sea in the Lucano fleet and march them north from Venice into Steiermark to support his Austrian levys.
Within in three years, Anselm had made his grandmother, Duchess Joan 'the Loyal' of Steiermark. It was just in time, as mere months later, Duchess Joan would die of the Great Pox, and Anselm would inherit the Duchy. Not long after her death, the Holy Father in Rome announced that Duchess Joan von Babenberg of Steiermark was being considered for Sainthood, and would be known as the Blessed Joan ‘the Loyal’.
Anselm would spend the next ten years trying to secure control of all of the de jure titles of Austria and Steiermark. However, these efforts were stymied by the Emperor who kept trying to enforce realm peace and prevent Anselm from growing even stronger and expanding within the Holy Empire. But Anselm persevered and was able to gain control of all the de jure territory of both Duchies. This ultimately led to his crowning as the Archduke of Austria in 1390. With his elevation to Archduke, Anselm would grant his brother John the County of Eppenstein and the Duchy of Steiermark. Duke John and his descendants would effectively become the Castellans for all of the German lands in the Archduchy of Austria and later the Kingdom of Jerusalem, ruling in the King's name.
The Holy Roman Empire, as well as trying to prevent Anselm's growing power, also failed to provide protection from the Ayyubid Empire when the Badshah tried to reclaim some of his lands in Oultrejourdain. But Anselm was able to ferry his German troops east with the Lucano fleet to the Levant and defend his home with the help of several of the Holy Orders.
Throughout this time period, Bishop Anghel 'the Wise' of Damascus had been proselytizing throughout Damascus and Oultrejourdain with Anselm's full support. The results of this led to the conversion of the bulk of Anselm's subjects in the Holy Land. This success would lead to Bishop Anghel 'the Wise' being beatified and Anselm gaining the nickname 'the Apostle'.
In 1394, Pope Hadrianus VI, also known as 'the Bold' launched the ill-fated 10th Crusade. This Crusade targeted the lands in Jerusalem held by Sultan Batauray of Rum. Archduke Anselm had pledged his support, but he and the bulk of his armies were currently far to the west, pressing his wife's claim on Saintois. By the time he had won that war and made his wife Countess of Saintois, the Crusade was already in dire straits. The disastrous Battle of Ascalon had seen 100,000 men joined in battle, the Crusaders defeated, and 40,000 men left dead. As the Lucano fleet sailed east and landed Austria's armies back in the Holy Land, the Crusaders had already suffered a second major defeat at Sarafand. Anselm had returned too late, the Pope would abandon the Crusade in the spring of 1399, much to his embarrassment and shame.
Shortly after the Crusade ended, Anselm petitioned Pope Hadrianus VI asking him to officiate at Anselm’s official coronation as Archduke of Austria. The Pope agreed, on one condition. Anselm must prove his devotion to the Church by punishing an impious ruler who had been excommunicated for his wickedness and defiance of the Church and force him to abdicate his throne. Anselm was taken aback, he did not wish to start a war just to legitimize his crown. He was already planning to refuse the request even before he learned who Hadrianus VI wanted punished.
Hadrianus VI had excommunicated King Guerau ‘the Hammer’ of Aragon and wanted Anselm to declare war on him. Guerau d’Urgell was the husband of Anselm’s youngest sister, Joan. It turned out Hadrianus blamed Anselm’s delay in joining the Crusade for its failure (which might actually be true), and sought to punish him, as well as King Guerau, by having them fight their own family. Anselm refused the cruel request, and never received a coronation or had his rule as Archduke blessed by the Church.
Four years later, Archduke Anselm 'the Apostle' would set out to do what the 10th Crusade had failed to do, he declared a Holy War on the Sultan of Rum for the Duchy of Galilee. Unfortunately, complications from gout would take him before the war was over. It would fall to his son, Matthew, to claim Galilee.
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Well Anselm appears to have navigated the various challenges of his disparate realm pretty well, all told.
Being under the umbrella of the Holy Roman Empire helped with some ambitions, but the Emperor did little to honor his feudal obligations when outside forces came for Anselm's lands in the east, but by then Anselm had the money and power to handle it on his own.
Day 13 - Matthew 'the Monk'
Day 13 - Matthew 'the Monk'
So, we finally come down to Matthew 'the Monk', the founder of the Third Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Matthew was 25 years old when he became the 2nd Archduke of Austria and Duke of Oultrejourdain and Damascus. He was immediately embroiled in his late father’s Holy War for Galilee against the Sultan of Rum and had to answer to Kaiser Ehrenfried von Nassau who called upon him to be an advisor to the Council of the Holy Roman Empire. He also had to deal with the machinations of his rival, Prince-Bishop Werner of Frankfurt.
The war for Galilee would last six years, a bloody affair that raged across the Holy Land seeing the same castles change hands multiple times. At the end, Galilee would become part of the Archduchy of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire. As his father had done before him, Matthew would divide the spoils amongst both his Austrian and Middle Eastern subjects, trying to unite his two peoples. Folkhard von Wurtemberg was granted the County of Amman, Gilbert FitzInga was granted the County of Tiberias, Roger, Matthew’s court physician was granted barony of Belfort and founded the Belfort dynasty, and the Bishopric of Sidon was granted to Matthew’s bastard half-brother, Severino, Anselm ‘the Apostle’s’ one sin. At the same time, Martin de Cognac, Matthew’s son and heir was granted the de Cognac’s oldest holdings in the fertile lands of Al Jawf.
The war would leave Matthew physically scarred, but a better, more experienced soldier and skilled in languages, who had lost the slothful, indolent lifestyle he had led as the pampered son and heir of the Archduke.
He had also gained the ear of the Kaiser Ehrenfried von Nassau and provided evidence that saw Prince-Bishop Werner of Frankfurt, arrested and stripped of his offices, ending that petty rivalry of his youth.
With peace in the Archduchy, Matthew was formally crowned Archduke of Austria by Pope Anastasius V, giving his title a legitimacy that his father had not had, because Anselm had not had been denied an official coronation. At that moment, Matthew was content with his place in the Holy Roman Empire and in the Holy Catholic Church. That would all change in less than a year.
It began with the death of Kaiser Ehrenfried von Nassau, who was killed in battle. Matthew had lost a mentor and a friend, a man who would later be beatified and held up as an exemplary example of a Christian ruler.
The newly elected Emperor who followed Ehrenfried was not such a man. The cynical Kaiser Siegmund von Meissen would immediately test Matthew’s loyalty by insisting he lead an attack on his own brother-in-law, King Kazimierz of Hungary. Kazimierz Rurikid was married to Matthew’s sister Isabella and Matthew’s niece, Princess Agnieszka, was the heir to the Kingdom of Hungary. Matthew had begged to be spared this duty, but the new Emperor insisted, so Matthew found himself forced by oaths and duty to attack his own family. Poland was attacking Hungary over claims to Lesser Poland and Kaiser Siegmund had pledged his support to Poland, and was now asking Archduke Matthew to lead the Empire’s troops in the war.
Matthew did his duty and lead the Imperial troops throughout the early part of the war, sieging Hewes and fighting in several battles, until a revolt in the Archduchy allowed him to diplomatically withdraw from the war. Poland would eventually defeat Hungary and regain Krakow and Sacz from King Kazimierz.
The Austrian revolt was an ill-advised plan by Count Jordan of Al’Ula to place Matthew’s Uncle John, the Duke of Steiermark, on the throne of the Archduchy. The revolt was short lived, as even Duke John himself supported Matthew and fought at his side against the rebels. Part of Count Jordan’s complaint was being ruled by a distant title, why was the Archduchy of Austria ruling in the Holy Land? This ignored the fact that Matthew’s capitol was in Damascus.
Matthew agreed in part, and shortly afterward legitimized his claim to rule in the Levant by usurping the crown of Jerusalem from his cousin King Rajmund ‘the Noble’ of Bohemia and England. With his control of the Duchies of Oultrejourdain and Galilee, Matthew had a much greater claim on the crown than Rajmund. Rajmund, as King of Bohemia and England, controlled a vast far flung territory stretching from England to Aquitaine to Poland and Bohemia itself as well as additional scattered territory throughout Germany, but Bohemia no longer controlled any territory in de jure Jerusalem. On March 15, 1415, Archduke Matthew of Austria was crowned as King Matthew of Jerusalem, and made Jerusalem his primary title.
But that was just the beginning. The rest of the Jerusalem, including the Holy City itself, was still held by the Sultan of Rum.
Before Matthew could look to reclaim more of Jerusalem, he was first forced to defend what he had. In 1417, the regency council for Padishah Uluҫ ‘the Cleansing Flame’ of the Ayyubid Khaganate declared a Holy War on the Holy Roman Empire for the Duchy of Galilee. While many Catholic Kings rallied to the defense of Jerusalem, including Matthew’s cousins, King Ott of Aragon and King Rajmund of Bohemia, as well as the Kings of Lithuania, Denmark, and Poland, one ruler was noticeably absent, Matthew’s own liege, Kaiser Siegmund.
Matthew, with the help of his fellow Catholic Kings were able to hold their own against the might of the Ayyubid Khaganate even without the help of the Kaiser, but it would drag on for five bloody years, with most of the war fought within Jerusalem’s borders. Matthew’s people suffering greatly during this time.
Kaiser Siegmund would have been happy to lose this war, which would weaken his strongest vassal. Even while Matthew was still fighting against the Ayyubid, Count Dietpold of Krems was encouraged by the Kaiser to initiate a revolt against King Matthew to institute gavelkind inheritance in Jerusalem in attempt to break up the de Cognac’s power by splitting the Archduchy of Austria from Jerusalem in the next generation. The Counts of Negev and Varazdin were induced to join the revolt with Count Dietpold.
The Holy War for Galilee ended first, when Padishah Uluҫ ‘the Cleansing Flame’ of the Ayyubid Khaganate was faced with an internal revolt to put Prince Abdul-Aziz on his throne. Padishah Uluҫ abandoned his war for Galilee to deal with the revolt, giving the Kaiser a victory that he didn’t want.
In an attempt to ensure peace in the Holy Land, Matthew would arrange the marriage of his son, Anselm, to the sister of Padishah Uluҫ, Princess Ayten ‘the Ill-tempered’ of the Ayyubid. Padishah Uluҫ agreed to the marriage and a non-aggression pact was made between the two rulers. Matthew could then focus his full attention on the rebels in Austria. The revolt was quickly put down, with the help of Matthew’s newest ally, Despot Staurakios of Epirus, Matthew’s son-in-law, husband to his daughter, Princess Adelaide de Cognac.
Unfortunately, within a year, Uluҫ would be dead, murdered at the age of 20, and Badshah Abdul-Aziz II ‘the Usurper’ would rule the Ayyubid Empire. The short-lived non-aggression pact was gone.
Matthew and his son-in-law, Despot Staurakios of Epirus, would spend the next seven years allied in a series of wars against the Sultanate of Rum. From these wars, Matthew would gain the Duchies of Jerusalem and Ascalon and Staurakios would gain the Duchy of Paphlagonia. But Staurakios would also gain much more. His military successes against Rum would raise his popularity in the Byzantine Empire and on the death of his cousin, Basileus Nikolaos ‘the Hammer’ Palaiologos, Staurakios would be elected as the next Basileus of the Byzantine Empire, and the last.
Now we come to it, the tipping point that turned Matthew ‘the Monk’ against both his Emperor and the Papacy. It started in 1436 with a new Emperor. Emelrich von Meissen succeeded his kinsman, Kaiser Siegmund, and immediately got into a squabble with Pope Hadrianus VII over free investiture. A squabble that would undermine the moral authority of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and put the Kingdom of Jerusalem at odds with both its spiritual and secular rulers.
The Papacy had been for years trying to get the Holy Roman Empire to end the practice of free investiture that it had instituted in 1417. The earlier Kaisers had simply ignored the Papacy on this issue, and the Papacy had had to accept the status quo. But the new Kaiser took offense at the request and took the matter public, disputing the Church’s right to interfere with the internal workings of the Empire. The dispute would escalate until Pope Hadrianus VII was threatening to excommunicate Kaiser Emelrich.
While this was going on, the newly consolidated lands of Jerusalem had become too tempting a target and Badshah Abdul-Aziz II of the Ayyubid Empire decided to launch a Jihad against the Holy Roman Empire to claim all of Jerusalem. In response, Pope Hadrianus VII began planning a Crusade against the Ayyubid Empire, targeting its heart, Egypt. Kaiser Emelrich could have accepted this gesture as a peace offering from the Pope, but instead he saw it as Hadrianus once again interfering in the Empire, so he decided he needed his own pope, one that would do as he asked and one who would not threaten him with excommunication. So, the Prince-Archbishop of Tyrol was invested by Kaiser Emelrich as Pope Gregory IX with his seat high in the Alps at Trento.
The creation of an anti-pope shocked and enraged Pope Hadrianus VII. In one stroke, he had lost all support from the largest Catholic realm in the world, an attack on his authority as well as on his incomes.
King Matthew initially voiced his support of Hadrianus, Kaiser Emelrich had gone too far and was undermining the moral authority of the Church. Additionally, the Kaiser had decided unilaterally for all his subjects that they were no longer could look to Rome for spiritual guidance. On a more personal level, since Jerusalem was at least nominally now outside of the Roman Catholic Church, Matthew could no longer participate in Hadrianus’ Crusade and coordinate with the other Catholic Crusaders in attacking the Ayyubid Empire and getting their help to defend Jerusalem from Badshah Abdul-Aziz II’s separate Jihad for Jerusalem.
So, Matthew hired as many of the Holy Orders as he could, raised his local levys in Jerusalem and sent messengers west to raise his levys in the Archduchy of Austria. He was prepared to defend Jerusalem on his own, expecting no help from the Kaiser and unable to call his own allies into the war as technically the Kaiser was leading the defense. Even if he couldn’t work directly with the Crusaders, their attack on Egypt should relieve some pressure on Jerusalem.
Then Pope Hadrianus VII did the unforgivable. Desperate to retain the support of the other Catholic realms and looking to chastise Kaiser Emelrich, Hadrianus VII allowed Prince Mayor Manfred II von Anhalt of the Hansa to turn the Crusade away from the Ayyubid Empire and towards a new target, the Byzantine Empire. The Pope had let Crusade be corrupted into attacking a fellow Christian ruler, one who also happened to be Matthew’s son-in-law and most important ally.
Jerusalem had been abandoned by the Pope and was now truly on its own against the Ayyubid Empire, and worse, Matthew was left with a terrible choice. Basileus Staurakios Palaiologos had called on Matthew for aid to defend Byzantium, Matthew would now have to decide whether or not he would honor the alliance that had served him so well and defend his family, knowing in doing so he would be choosing to fight against his fellow Christians and the Holy Catholic Church itself.
Matthew chose honor and family. The bulk of the army he had gathered at Damascus was made up of the Knightly Orders, they would not fight their fellow Christians, so they would be left behind to defend Jerusalem against the Muslim Jihad. Christian armies 20,000 men strong were descending on Constantinople, Matthew didn’t have the men to match those numbers even after combining his levys from Jerusalem and Austria, so he decided on a different tact. He wouldn’t fight his fellow Christians over what was essentially something that was rooted in a petty squabble between the Pope and the Kaiser, he would go after the Pope directly. More messengers were sent to the Austrian levys and Matthew sailed with his levys from Galilee for Lucano.
Landing at Lucano, Matthew’s armies marched across Italy and converged on Rome, his Levantine levys crossing the spine of Italy from the east and his Austrian levys marching through the Alpine passes from the north. The siege of Rome would last four months before the College of Cardinals ordered the gates to be thrown open and the city to surrender.
It was during the sack of Rome that Matthew stumbled upon the Holy Grail, found hidden in the Pope Hadrianus VII’s personal chambers. With it were notes of the Pope’s and his predecessors’ attempts to unlock the secrets of the Grail and claim immortality for themselves. Matthew was outraged, not only had the Popes hidden this holy relic rather than sharing it with the Christian world, they were attempting to use it for their own selfish ends.
The Pope was, of course, with the Crusaders in Byzantium, but Matthew had hoped the capture of Rome would awaken Hadrianus to the damage he was doing to the whole of Christianity by attacking a fellow Christian realm and end the madness. But it was too late, Constantinople had fallen and the Catholic Crusaders had cheered as they raped the Queen of Cities. With Constantinople’s fall in 1441, it was the end of an era, the last vestiges of Roman Empire, that had existed as a Republic and then an Empire for close to 2,000 years, had fallen.
After the sack of Rome, many had called for Matthew de Cognac’s excommunication from the Catholic Church. However, Matthew was already outside the Church’s authority, as a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, he was spiritually subservient to the Anti-pope in Trento, so such an action by the Pope in Rome would carry little weight. Another reason the Pope did not excommunicate Matthew may have simply been that Pope Hadrianus VII was afraid of the de Cognac King. He had sacked Rome once, and there was little that could stop him from doing it again if the Pope further antagonized him.
Following the Rape of Constantinople and the end of the Crusade, Matthew wasted little time and moved to cut ties with the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor had destroyed the moral authority of the Church with his support of the Anti-pope and had prevented Matthew from being able to join and prevent the 11th Crusade from losing its way and being corrupted. This, as well as the Emperor’s earlier failures to come to Jerusalem’s aid against the Sunni Jihad for Jerusalem, convinced Matthew that Jerusalem, the Archduchy of Austria, and the de Cognac dynasty would be better off on their own. This was further reinforced by the support of a strong ally in his son-in-law, Basileus Staurakios of the new Achaian Empire, who had rallied the largest surviving remnant of the fallen Byzantium Empire.
Also, declaring Jerusalem’s independence had an added benefit. It ended the Jihad for Jerusalem against the Holy Roman Empire as Jerusalem was no longer part of the Empire.
The Independence war lasted three years with all of the battles fought in Europe. The Kaiser again refusing to venture to the Holy Land, even then. In the end, King Matthew and the main de Cognac dynasty were free from subservience to another ruler.
Only once last task remained. During the war, Nestore Scipari, the Count of Jerusalem, had inherited the Kingdom of Italy, pulling out the very heart of the newly independent land. King Nestore refused to allow Matthew to peacefully annex Jerusalem so a last war was fought against Italy to restore the Holy City to its rightful place. Two years later, Nestore surrendered and Kingdom of Jerusalem was complete.
Jerusalem and the de Cognac dynasty were now free, and would never again be subservient to an outside ruler. This period also was the start of a new era that saw an improving diplomatic situation with the Ayyubid Empire based upon Matthew’s earlier marriage to Princess Ilknur Ayyubid, which ensured a continuing nonaggression pact with the Ayyubid Empire in the Holy Land for the rest of Matthew’s reign.
Matthew ‘the Monk’ would die of Cancer in 1448 at the age of 70 leaving behind an independent Kingdom that would withstand the test of time and endure, unlike its predecessors. His grandson, Simon de Cognac, would inherit Jerusalem, but his reign would be short-lived. In 1451, 11-year old Walter de Cognac, the great-grandson of Matthew ‘the Monk’, would receive the crowns of Jerusalem and Austria and it would be he that ushered in the Renaissance and the Golden Age of Jerusalem.
So, we finally come down to Matthew 'the Monk', the founder of the Third Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Matthew was 25 years old when he became the 2nd Archduke of Austria and Duke of Oultrejourdain and Damascus. He was immediately embroiled in his late father’s Holy War for Galilee against the Sultan of Rum and had to answer to Kaiser Ehrenfried von Nassau who called upon him to be an advisor to the Council of the Holy Roman Empire. He also had to deal with the machinations of his rival, Prince-Bishop Werner of Frankfurt.
The war for Galilee would last six years, a bloody affair that raged across the Holy Land seeing the same castles change hands multiple times. At the end, Galilee would become part of the Archduchy of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire. As his father had done before him, Matthew would divide the spoils amongst both his Austrian and Middle Eastern subjects, trying to unite his two peoples. Folkhard von Wurtemberg was granted the County of Amman, Gilbert FitzInga was granted the County of Tiberias, Roger, Matthew’s court physician was granted barony of Belfort and founded the Belfort dynasty, and the Bishopric of Sidon was granted to Matthew’s bastard half-brother, Severino, Anselm ‘the Apostle’s’ one sin. At the same time, Martin de Cognac, Matthew’s son and heir was granted the de Cognac’s oldest holdings in the fertile lands of Al Jawf.
The war would leave Matthew physically scarred, but a better, more experienced soldier and skilled in languages, who had lost the slothful, indolent lifestyle he had led as the pampered son and heir of the Archduke.
He had also gained the ear of the Kaiser Ehrenfried von Nassau and provided evidence that saw Prince-Bishop Werner of Frankfurt, arrested and stripped of his offices, ending that petty rivalry of his youth.
With peace in the Archduchy, Matthew was formally crowned Archduke of Austria by Pope Anastasius V, giving his title a legitimacy that his father had not had, because Anselm had not had been denied an official coronation. At that moment, Matthew was content with his place in the Holy Roman Empire and in the Holy Catholic Church. That would all change in less than a year.
It began with the death of Kaiser Ehrenfried von Nassau, who was killed in battle. Matthew had lost a mentor and a friend, a man who would later be beatified and held up as an exemplary example of a Christian ruler.
The newly elected Emperor who followed Ehrenfried was not such a man. The cynical Kaiser Siegmund von Meissen would immediately test Matthew’s loyalty by insisting he lead an attack on his own brother-in-law, King Kazimierz of Hungary. Kazimierz Rurikid was married to Matthew’s sister Isabella and Matthew’s niece, Princess Agnieszka, was the heir to the Kingdom of Hungary. Matthew had begged to be spared this duty, but the new Emperor insisted, so Matthew found himself forced by oaths and duty to attack his own family. Poland was attacking Hungary over claims to Lesser Poland and Kaiser Siegmund had pledged his support to Poland, and was now asking Archduke Matthew to lead the Empire’s troops in the war.
Matthew did his duty and lead the Imperial troops throughout the early part of the war, sieging Hewes and fighting in several battles, until a revolt in the Archduchy allowed him to diplomatically withdraw from the war. Poland would eventually defeat Hungary and regain Krakow and Sacz from King Kazimierz.
The Austrian revolt was an ill-advised plan by Count Jordan of Al’Ula to place Matthew’s Uncle John, the Duke of Steiermark, on the throne of the Archduchy. The revolt was short lived, as even Duke John himself supported Matthew and fought at his side against the rebels. Part of Count Jordan’s complaint was being ruled by a distant title, why was the Archduchy of Austria ruling in the Holy Land? This ignored the fact that Matthew’s capitol was in Damascus.
Matthew agreed in part, and shortly afterward legitimized his claim to rule in the Levant by usurping the crown of Jerusalem from his cousin King Rajmund ‘the Noble’ of Bohemia and England. With his control of the Duchies of Oultrejourdain and Galilee, Matthew had a much greater claim on the crown than Rajmund. Rajmund, as King of Bohemia and England, controlled a vast far flung territory stretching from England to Aquitaine to Poland and Bohemia itself as well as additional scattered territory throughout Germany, but Bohemia no longer controlled any territory in de jure Jerusalem. On March 15, 1415, Archduke Matthew of Austria was crowned as King Matthew of Jerusalem, and made Jerusalem his primary title.
But that was just the beginning. The rest of the Jerusalem, including the Holy City itself, was still held by the Sultan of Rum.
Before Matthew could look to reclaim more of Jerusalem, he was first forced to defend what he had. In 1417, the regency council for Padishah Uluҫ ‘the Cleansing Flame’ of the Ayyubid Khaganate declared a Holy War on the Holy Roman Empire for the Duchy of Galilee. While many Catholic Kings rallied to the defense of Jerusalem, including Matthew’s cousins, King Ott of Aragon and King Rajmund of Bohemia, as well as the Kings of Lithuania, Denmark, and Poland, one ruler was noticeably absent, Matthew’s own liege, Kaiser Siegmund.
Matthew, with the help of his fellow Catholic Kings were able to hold their own against the might of the Ayyubid Khaganate even without the help of the Kaiser, but it would drag on for five bloody years, with most of the war fought within Jerusalem’s borders. Matthew’s people suffering greatly during this time.
Kaiser Siegmund would have been happy to lose this war, which would weaken his strongest vassal. Even while Matthew was still fighting against the Ayyubid, Count Dietpold of Krems was encouraged by the Kaiser to initiate a revolt against King Matthew to institute gavelkind inheritance in Jerusalem in attempt to break up the de Cognac’s power by splitting the Archduchy of Austria from Jerusalem in the next generation. The Counts of Negev and Varazdin were induced to join the revolt with Count Dietpold.
The Holy War for Galilee ended first, when Padishah Uluҫ ‘the Cleansing Flame’ of the Ayyubid Khaganate was faced with an internal revolt to put Prince Abdul-Aziz on his throne. Padishah Uluҫ abandoned his war for Galilee to deal with the revolt, giving the Kaiser a victory that he didn’t want.
In an attempt to ensure peace in the Holy Land, Matthew would arrange the marriage of his son, Anselm, to the sister of Padishah Uluҫ, Princess Ayten ‘the Ill-tempered’ of the Ayyubid. Padishah Uluҫ agreed to the marriage and a non-aggression pact was made between the two rulers. Matthew could then focus his full attention on the rebels in Austria. The revolt was quickly put down, with the help of Matthew’s newest ally, Despot Staurakios of Epirus, Matthew’s son-in-law, husband to his daughter, Princess Adelaide de Cognac.
Unfortunately, within a year, Uluҫ would be dead, murdered at the age of 20, and Badshah Abdul-Aziz II ‘the Usurper’ would rule the Ayyubid Empire. The short-lived non-aggression pact was gone.
Matthew and his son-in-law, Despot Staurakios of Epirus, would spend the next seven years allied in a series of wars against the Sultanate of Rum. From these wars, Matthew would gain the Duchies of Jerusalem and Ascalon and Staurakios would gain the Duchy of Paphlagonia. But Staurakios would also gain much more. His military successes against Rum would raise his popularity in the Byzantine Empire and on the death of his cousin, Basileus Nikolaos ‘the Hammer’ Palaiologos, Staurakios would be elected as the next Basileus of the Byzantine Empire, and the last.
Now we come to it, the tipping point that turned Matthew ‘the Monk’ against both his Emperor and the Papacy. It started in 1436 with a new Emperor. Emelrich von Meissen succeeded his kinsman, Kaiser Siegmund, and immediately got into a squabble with Pope Hadrianus VII over free investiture. A squabble that would undermine the moral authority of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and put the Kingdom of Jerusalem at odds with both its spiritual and secular rulers.
The Papacy had been for years trying to get the Holy Roman Empire to end the practice of free investiture that it had instituted in 1417. The earlier Kaisers had simply ignored the Papacy on this issue, and the Papacy had had to accept the status quo. But the new Kaiser took offense at the request and took the matter public, disputing the Church’s right to interfere with the internal workings of the Empire. The dispute would escalate until Pope Hadrianus VII was threatening to excommunicate Kaiser Emelrich.
While this was going on, the newly consolidated lands of Jerusalem had become too tempting a target and Badshah Abdul-Aziz II of the Ayyubid Empire decided to launch a Jihad against the Holy Roman Empire to claim all of Jerusalem. In response, Pope Hadrianus VII began planning a Crusade against the Ayyubid Empire, targeting its heart, Egypt. Kaiser Emelrich could have accepted this gesture as a peace offering from the Pope, but instead he saw it as Hadrianus once again interfering in the Empire, so he decided he needed his own pope, one that would do as he asked and one who would not threaten him with excommunication. So, the Prince-Archbishop of Tyrol was invested by Kaiser Emelrich as Pope Gregory IX with his seat high in the Alps at Trento.
The creation of an anti-pope shocked and enraged Pope Hadrianus VII. In one stroke, he had lost all support from the largest Catholic realm in the world, an attack on his authority as well as on his incomes.
King Matthew initially voiced his support of Hadrianus, Kaiser Emelrich had gone too far and was undermining the moral authority of the Church. Additionally, the Kaiser had decided unilaterally for all his subjects that they were no longer could look to Rome for spiritual guidance. On a more personal level, since Jerusalem was at least nominally now outside of the Roman Catholic Church, Matthew could no longer participate in Hadrianus’ Crusade and coordinate with the other Catholic Crusaders in attacking the Ayyubid Empire and getting their help to defend Jerusalem from Badshah Abdul-Aziz II’s separate Jihad for Jerusalem.
So, Matthew hired as many of the Holy Orders as he could, raised his local levys in Jerusalem and sent messengers west to raise his levys in the Archduchy of Austria. He was prepared to defend Jerusalem on his own, expecting no help from the Kaiser and unable to call his own allies into the war as technically the Kaiser was leading the defense. Even if he couldn’t work directly with the Crusaders, their attack on Egypt should relieve some pressure on Jerusalem.
Then Pope Hadrianus VII did the unforgivable. Desperate to retain the support of the other Catholic realms and looking to chastise Kaiser Emelrich, Hadrianus VII allowed Prince Mayor Manfred II von Anhalt of the Hansa to turn the Crusade away from the Ayyubid Empire and towards a new target, the Byzantine Empire. The Pope had let Crusade be corrupted into attacking a fellow Christian ruler, one who also happened to be Matthew’s son-in-law and most important ally.
Jerusalem had been abandoned by the Pope and was now truly on its own against the Ayyubid Empire, and worse, Matthew was left with a terrible choice. Basileus Staurakios Palaiologos had called on Matthew for aid to defend Byzantium, Matthew would now have to decide whether or not he would honor the alliance that had served him so well and defend his family, knowing in doing so he would be choosing to fight against his fellow Christians and the Holy Catholic Church itself.
Matthew chose honor and family. The bulk of the army he had gathered at Damascus was made up of the Knightly Orders, they would not fight their fellow Christians, so they would be left behind to defend Jerusalem against the Muslim Jihad. Christian armies 20,000 men strong were descending on Constantinople, Matthew didn’t have the men to match those numbers even after combining his levys from Jerusalem and Austria, so he decided on a different tact. He wouldn’t fight his fellow Christians over what was essentially something that was rooted in a petty squabble between the Pope and the Kaiser, he would go after the Pope directly. More messengers were sent to the Austrian levys and Matthew sailed with his levys from Galilee for Lucano.
Landing at Lucano, Matthew’s armies marched across Italy and converged on Rome, his Levantine levys crossing the spine of Italy from the east and his Austrian levys marching through the Alpine passes from the north. The siege of Rome would last four months before the College of Cardinals ordered the gates to be thrown open and the city to surrender.
It was during the sack of Rome that Matthew stumbled upon the Holy Grail, found hidden in the Pope Hadrianus VII’s personal chambers. With it were notes of the Pope’s and his predecessors’ attempts to unlock the secrets of the Grail and claim immortality for themselves. Matthew was outraged, not only had the Popes hidden this holy relic rather than sharing it with the Christian world, they were attempting to use it for their own selfish ends.
The Pope was, of course, with the Crusaders in Byzantium, but Matthew had hoped the capture of Rome would awaken Hadrianus to the damage he was doing to the whole of Christianity by attacking a fellow Christian realm and end the madness. But it was too late, Constantinople had fallen and the Catholic Crusaders had cheered as they raped the Queen of Cities. With Constantinople’s fall in 1441, it was the end of an era, the last vestiges of Roman Empire, that had existed as a Republic and then an Empire for close to 2,000 years, had fallen.
After the sack of Rome, many had called for Matthew de Cognac’s excommunication from the Catholic Church. However, Matthew was already outside the Church’s authority, as a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, he was spiritually subservient to the Anti-pope in Trento, so such an action by the Pope in Rome would carry little weight. Another reason the Pope did not excommunicate Matthew may have simply been that Pope Hadrianus VII was afraid of the de Cognac King. He had sacked Rome once, and there was little that could stop him from doing it again if the Pope further antagonized him.
Following the Rape of Constantinople and the end of the Crusade, Matthew wasted little time and moved to cut ties with the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor had destroyed the moral authority of the Church with his support of the Anti-pope and had prevented Matthew from being able to join and prevent the 11th Crusade from losing its way and being corrupted. This, as well as the Emperor’s earlier failures to come to Jerusalem’s aid against the Sunni Jihad for Jerusalem, convinced Matthew that Jerusalem, the Archduchy of Austria, and the de Cognac dynasty would be better off on their own. This was further reinforced by the support of a strong ally in his son-in-law, Basileus Staurakios of the new Achaian Empire, who had rallied the largest surviving remnant of the fallen Byzantium Empire.
Also, declaring Jerusalem’s independence had an added benefit. It ended the Jihad for Jerusalem against the Holy Roman Empire as Jerusalem was no longer part of the Empire.
The Independence war lasted three years with all of the battles fought in Europe. The Kaiser again refusing to venture to the Holy Land, even then. In the end, King Matthew and the main de Cognac dynasty were free from subservience to another ruler.
Only once last task remained. During the war, Nestore Scipari, the Count of Jerusalem, had inherited the Kingdom of Italy, pulling out the very heart of the newly independent land. King Nestore refused to allow Matthew to peacefully annex Jerusalem so a last war was fought against Italy to restore the Holy City to its rightful place. Two years later, Nestore surrendered and Kingdom of Jerusalem was complete.
Jerusalem and the de Cognac dynasty were now free, and would never again be subservient to an outside ruler. This period also was the start of a new era that saw an improving diplomatic situation with the Ayyubid Empire based upon Matthew’s earlier marriage to Princess Ilknur Ayyubid, which ensured a continuing nonaggression pact with the Ayyubid Empire in the Holy Land for the rest of Matthew’s reign.
Matthew ‘the Monk’ would die of Cancer in 1448 at the age of 70 leaving behind an independent Kingdom that would withstand the test of time and endure, unlike its predecessors. His grandson, Simon de Cognac, would inherit Jerusalem, but his reign would be short-lived. In 1451, 11-year old Walter de Cognac, the great-grandson of Matthew ‘the Monk’, would receive the crowns of Jerusalem and Austria and it would be he that ushered in the Renaissance and the Golden Age of Jerusalem.
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de Cognacs free at least - and as much as any are surely the true heirs of the Roman legacy so despoiled and descrated by upstart Germans and corrupt Pontiffs.
What an entirely believable ugly mess of a mid-15th century world.
What an entirely believable ugly mess of a mid-15th century world.
Just found this AAR. This was a really interesting medium of telling the story, and a great tale as well!
Horrible border gore, but what else can you expect from CK2?
Horrible border gore, but what else can you expect from CK2?
I was so happy when the Pope called for the 11th Crusade against the Ayyubid for Egypt. The Ayyubid had just called for a Jihad against the HRE for Jerusalem, so the Crusade would help fight them off, since the Holy Roman Empire had been slow to send help to defend Jerusalem, plus there was a good chance I could win the Crusade and claim Egypt. But after that initial rush, it all went down hill. First, I realized the Kaiser had just elevated an Antipope, who now was head of my religion as a vassal to the HRE, so I couldn't even join the Crusade, and then the Hansa convinced the Pope to switch targets to attack the Byzantine Empire, which was led by my son-in-law and greatest ally, who called me to join him against the Crusade. So now I was fighting against a Jihad and a Crusade. We lost to the Crusade, which ended the Byzantine Empire, but I was able to stop the Jihad by declaring independence from the HRE.
The de Cognacs brought the focus of the Church back to its roots in the Holy Land, free of the trappings of the Papacy. The defection of first Bohemia/England and then Jerusalem/Austria left the Holy Roman Empire scattered and on the decline.
Welcome, you arrived just in time for the finale. I was definitely trying a different approach, for me at least, and am glad you liked it and the story it tells.
As you and @stnylan say, it is border gore galore. Byzantine Empire was looking good until the Crusade tore it apart and created a bunch of scattered remnants, Achaia, Wallachia which included parts of Siciliy, the Papacy holding lands in Italy and Thrace. But everything else was already a mess, Bohemia scattered all over and entangled with the HRE. Jerusalem split onto two continents, and splitting the Ayyubid Empire in half.
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Day 14 – Course Summary and Conclusions
Day 14 – Course Summary and Conclusions
So that is it, the events that lead to the founding of the Third Kingdom of Jerusalem. As we have seen over the last 10 classes, the de Cognacs had every reason to distrust the lieges that laws of Man and the Church had set over them, and strive to be free of subservience to anyone other than God himself.
Right from the beginning, Philip de Cognac dealt with the broken promises of his father and King, Richard ‘the Lionheart’. And then both his uncles, King John ‘the Black’ and King Geoffrey ‘the Usurper’ sent him into exile to avoid fulfilling those same promises and hoping he would not return.
Princess Ingeborg was even more betrayed. King Philippe of France spurned and broke his marriage vows to her within days of their marriage and imprisoned her, and then stole her dowry and her honor because he had failed to get his way. Her brother, King Knud VI, unfairly blamed her for the wreck of her marriage and the loss of her dowry and also exiled her from her home. Her new liege, King Amaury ‘the Holy’, stole her lands and title and banished her to the desert. Her direct liege, Duke Geoffrey of Oultrejourdain tried to steal the land she had rightfully gained by force of arms. And finally, her next liege, King Guy II, slandered, abused, and threatened the life and the livelihood of both her and her children all because she had rejected his lecherous advances.
Their son, Richard ‘the Blessed’, who had spent his life in service to Jerusalem and the Church, defending Jerusalem from countless Holy Wars and Jihads and serving the Church in the Crusade for Anatolia and the Holy War for Alexandria, was ultimately betrayed. First by his Duke, Raoul de Lusignan, who seduced and raped his daughter while Richard lay in prison in Venice, leaving her dishonored and pregnant. And then by his King, Guy ‘the Holy’ de Lusignan, who put his own life and comfort ahead of the good of the realm and gave away Richard’s lands and titles and even his wife to free himself from captivity.
Richard ‘the Crusader’ would arguably suffer the most at the hands of the princes of men and the Church. His life-long service in the defense of Jerusalem and to the Church in the 6th Crusade was rewarded with only treachery and betrayal. His lands kept from him by the leaders of the Crusade, his titles stolen by the treachery of the tyrannical King Taimur ‘the Frog’ of Jerusalem and his family abused and stolen from him by the Pope, himself.
Richard ‘the Just’ was twice abandoned to the infidel by the kings who owed him allegiance, first as a child when was he forced to take his grandmother’s lands of Al Karak in lieu of his father and give allegiance to the Athanasoisid Sultan, and then again when Cyprus was forced to surrender he and his lands of Al Jawf to the Athanasoisid once more, due to the treachery of same King Taimur ‘the Frog’ of Jerusalem who had betrayed his father. And all this time, Richard’s three daughters were stolen and kept by the Pope in Rome, who chose to blame Richard for the actions of the kings’ who had abandoned him.
Amice ‘the Lionheart’ was probably the de Cognac who suffered the least under her liege lords. Other than Emir Aarif’s one attempt to revoke Khaybar and all the Muslims’ carelessness with the lives of the men she provided as part of her feudal levy, she had little complaint for her feudal lords. Her ire was reserved for the Pope and other princes of the Church who had stolen her and her sisters from their home and family and tried to gain control of her inheritance. Her disdain for other Catholic rulers came from the knowledge she gleaned during her research for her book which showed her the treatment her forebearers had suffered under the rule of Christian Kings.
Anselm ‘the Lion’ wasn’t exactly betrayed by his liege, except for the loss of his son Godfrey to a petty squabble between the Sultan and the Basileus of the Byzantine Empire over the Barony of Lucano, but he and his people were sorely abused. The Ayyubid Sultans called on Anselm and his levys almost to the exclusion of their other vassals. The Sultans used them to handle every issue from minor peasant revolts to full on invasions with little time to recover in between. Anselm and his men were the tip of the Ayyubid spear and they were put to use way too often, and it cost him and his people too much in blood. Too many of his own men had had to die for him to become the war leader that could finally free Oultrejourdain from the Ayyubid and gain the de Cognac their first taste of freedom.
Godfrey of Lucano was the victim of that petty squabble between the Sultan and the Basileus of the Byzantine Empire that saw him torn from his family as a toddler and sent into exile across the sea. Then years later a second squabble, this time between Emperors, would repeat the tragedy, with his own son and heir, Anselm, this time being the child torn from his family as a young boy.
Anslem ‘the Apostle’ was a victim the same as his father, but Godfrey’s premature death allowed Anselm to be reunited with his mother and siblings after only a few years of separation. However, it was at the cost of the de Cognacs short-lived freedom from the rule of others. For Anselm had been forced to give his allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire, and the independent Duchy of Oultrejourdain was pulled into the Empire upon Godfrey’s death. The Emperors tried to prevent the de Cognacs from consolidating their power, but despite the attempts to enforce realm peace and prevent Anslem from claiming the birthright bequeathed by his grandmother Joan von Babenberg, the de Cognacs had grown too powerful and were able to proclaim themselves the Archdukes of Austria.
We come to Matthew ‘the Monk’, with all that history of betrayal of and callousness with the lives of his ancestors by their feudal and spiritual rulers. At first, he might have seen hope under the rule of the saintly Kaiser Ehrenfried von Nassau, but unfortunately, Ehrenfried’s successors did not live up to that ideal, and proved just as venal as those rulers Matthew’s forebearers had dealt with. The failure of the von Meissen Kaisers to honor their feudal contracts and defend Jerusalem from Muslim attacks as well as their conflict with the Popes in Rome over free investiture that lead to the raising of an Anti-pope in Trento and the weakening of the moral authority of the Catholic religion was the beginning. This, followed by the Pope in Rome’s failure and collusion in the corruption of the 11th Crusade and the Rape of Constantinople and Matthew’s discovery in Rome of the most Holy Christian relic, the Holy Grail, hidden from the world by the Papacy as it tried to unlock its secrets and claim immortality for itself, was too much.
Matthew rejected the Holy Roman Empire and claimed independence for the Third Kingdom of Jerusalem and he rejected the spiritual leadership of the Popes in Rome by taking the Holy Grail and choosing to share it with the world.
And that is why the Holy Grail to this day remains at Petra, guarded by the Grail Knights*. Every Christian child of Jerusalem can now make the pilgrimage to Petra to drink from the Cup after their First Communion, as I did, and I’m sure many of you did as well. Only during Holy week is it brought to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and used throughout the week, giving other Christians from around the world the chance to also drink from the Cup, before being returned to Petra after the celebration of Easter.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
That wraps up this course on the founding of the Third Kingdom of Jerusalem. I hope you now have a better understanding of the people and events that led up to that historic moment. How the founding was shaped by the tenacity of the early members of the de Cognac dynasty as they weathered the trials and tribulations thrown at them not only by their foreign adversaries, but also by those whom one would expect to be their natural allies, their liege lords and the spiritual heads of their own religion.
It has been a pleasure to share this time with you all.
*Grail Knight Legend - Many people actually believe there has only ever been one Grail Knight for the past 580 years, sustained by the Cup and is the true immortal King of Jerusalem. They think the Kings of Jerusalem have periodically chosen to honor outstanding citizens who have recently passed as the latest Grail Knight to hide that fact. Some believe Prince Martin, Matthew’s first son and heir, who was said to have died in an Ayyubid dungeon, leaving his son Simon to become the second King of Jerusalem, has actually been the Grail Knight. But others claim it is Matthew ‘the Monk’, himself, who is the immortal Grail Knight, as he trusted no one else to keep it safe.
So that is it, the events that lead to the founding of the Third Kingdom of Jerusalem. As we have seen over the last 10 classes, the de Cognacs had every reason to distrust the lieges that laws of Man and the Church had set over them, and strive to be free of subservience to anyone other than God himself.
Right from the beginning, Philip de Cognac dealt with the broken promises of his father and King, Richard ‘the Lionheart’. And then both his uncles, King John ‘the Black’ and King Geoffrey ‘the Usurper’ sent him into exile to avoid fulfilling those same promises and hoping he would not return.
Princess Ingeborg was even more betrayed. King Philippe of France spurned and broke his marriage vows to her within days of their marriage and imprisoned her, and then stole her dowry and her honor because he had failed to get his way. Her brother, King Knud VI, unfairly blamed her for the wreck of her marriage and the loss of her dowry and also exiled her from her home. Her new liege, King Amaury ‘the Holy’, stole her lands and title and banished her to the desert. Her direct liege, Duke Geoffrey of Oultrejourdain tried to steal the land she had rightfully gained by force of arms. And finally, her next liege, King Guy II, slandered, abused, and threatened the life and the livelihood of both her and her children all because she had rejected his lecherous advances.
Their son, Richard ‘the Blessed’, who had spent his life in service to Jerusalem and the Church, defending Jerusalem from countless Holy Wars and Jihads and serving the Church in the Crusade for Anatolia and the Holy War for Alexandria, was ultimately betrayed. First by his Duke, Raoul de Lusignan, who seduced and raped his daughter while Richard lay in prison in Venice, leaving her dishonored and pregnant. And then by his King, Guy ‘the Holy’ de Lusignan, who put his own life and comfort ahead of the good of the realm and gave away Richard’s lands and titles and even his wife to free himself from captivity.
Richard ‘the Crusader’ would arguably suffer the most at the hands of the princes of men and the Church. His life-long service in the defense of Jerusalem and to the Church in the 6th Crusade was rewarded with only treachery and betrayal. His lands kept from him by the leaders of the Crusade, his titles stolen by the treachery of the tyrannical King Taimur ‘the Frog’ of Jerusalem and his family abused and stolen from him by the Pope, himself.
Richard ‘the Just’ was twice abandoned to the infidel by the kings who owed him allegiance, first as a child when was he forced to take his grandmother’s lands of Al Karak in lieu of his father and give allegiance to the Athanasoisid Sultan, and then again when Cyprus was forced to surrender he and his lands of Al Jawf to the Athanasoisid once more, due to the treachery of same King Taimur ‘the Frog’ of Jerusalem who had betrayed his father. And all this time, Richard’s three daughters were stolen and kept by the Pope in Rome, who chose to blame Richard for the actions of the kings’ who had abandoned him.
Amice ‘the Lionheart’ was probably the de Cognac who suffered the least under her liege lords. Other than Emir Aarif’s one attempt to revoke Khaybar and all the Muslims’ carelessness with the lives of the men she provided as part of her feudal levy, she had little complaint for her feudal lords. Her ire was reserved for the Pope and other princes of the Church who had stolen her and her sisters from their home and family and tried to gain control of her inheritance. Her disdain for other Catholic rulers came from the knowledge she gleaned during her research for her book which showed her the treatment her forebearers had suffered under the rule of Christian Kings.
Anselm ‘the Lion’ wasn’t exactly betrayed by his liege, except for the loss of his son Godfrey to a petty squabble between the Sultan and the Basileus of the Byzantine Empire over the Barony of Lucano, but he and his people were sorely abused. The Ayyubid Sultans called on Anselm and his levys almost to the exclusion of their other vassals. The Sultans used them to handle every issue from minor peasant revolts to full on invasions with little time to recover in between. Anselm and his men were the tip of the Ayyubid spear and they were put to use way too often, and it cost him and his people too much in blood. Too many of his own men had had to die for him to become the war leader that could finally free Oultrejourdain from the Ayyubid and gain the de Cognac their first taste of freedom.
Godfrey of Lucano was the victim of that petty squabble between the Sultan and the Basileus of the Byzantine Empire that saw him torn from his family as a toddler and sent into exile across the sea. Then years later a second squabble, this time between Emperors, would repeat the tragedy, with his own son and heir, Anselm, this time being the child torn from his family as a young boy.
Anslem ‘the Apostle’ was a victim the same as his father, but Godfrey’s premature death allowed Anselm to be reunited with his mother and siblings after only a few years of separation. However, it was at the cost of the de Cognacs short-lived freedom from the rule of others. For Anselm had been forced to give his allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire, and the independent Duchy of Oultrejourdain was pulled into the Empire upon Godfrey’s death. The Emperors tried to prevent the de Cognacs from consolidating their power, but despite the attempts to enforce realm peace and prevent Anslem from claiming the birthright bequeathed by his grandmother Joan von Babenberg, the de Cognacs had grown too powerful and were able to proclaim themselves the Archdukes of Austria.
We come to Matthew ‘the Monk’, with all that history of betrayal of and callousness with the lives of his ancestors by their feudal and spiritual rulers. At first, he might have seen hope under the rule of the saintly Kaiser Ehrenfried von Nassau, but unfortunately, Ehrenfried’s successors did not live up to that ideal, and proved just as venal as those rulers Matthew’s forebearers had dealt with. The failure of the von Meissen Kaisers to honor their feudal contracts and defend Jerusalem from Muslim attacks as well as their conflict with the Popes in Rome over free investiture that lead to the raising of an Anti-pope in Trento and the weakening of the moral authority of the Catholic religion was the beginning. This, followed by the Pope in Rome’s failure and collusion in the corruption of the 11th Crusade and the Rape of Constantinople and Matthew’s discovery in Rome of the most Holy Christian relic, the Holy Grail, hidden from the world by the Papacy as it tried to unlock its secrets and claim immortality for itself, was too much.
Matthew rejected the Holy Roman Empire and claimed independence for the Third Kingdom of Jerusalem and he rejected the spiritual leadership of the Popes in Rome by taking the Holy Grail and choosing to share it with the world.
And that is why the Holy Grail to this day remains at Petra, guarded by the Grail Knights*. Every Christian child of Jerusalem can now make the pilgrimage to Petra to drink from the Cup after their First Communion, as I did, and I’m sure many of you did as well. Only during Holy week is it brought to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and used throughout the week, giving other Christians from around the world the chance to also drink from the Cup, before being returned to Petra after the celebration of Easter.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
That wraps up this course on the founding of the Third Kingdom of Jerusalem. I hope you now have a better understanding of the people and events that led up to that historic moment. How the founding was shaped by the tenacity of the early members of the de Cognac dynasty as they weathered the trials and tribulations thrown at them not only by their foreign adversaries, but also by those whom one would expect to be their natural allies, their liege lords and the spiritual heads of their own religion.
It has been a pleasure to share this time with you all.
*Grail Knight Legend - Many people actually believe there has only ever been one Grail Knight for the past 580 years, sustained by the Cup and is the true immortal King of Jerusalem. They think the Kings of Jerusalem have periodically chosen to honor outstanding citizens who have recently passed as the latest Grail Knight to hide that fact. Some believe Prince Martin, Matthew’s first son and heir, who was said to have died in an Ayyubid dungeon, leaving his son Simon to become the second King of Jerusalem, has actually been the Grail Knight. But others claim it is Matthew ‘the Monk’, himself, who is the immortal Grail Knight, as he trusted no one else to keep it safe.
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Bravo indeed! Really great work, @Dunaden. Loved the style and the story was fantastic, gripping all the way through and pretty much every flavour of drama imaginable over the three hundred years. And to cap it all off, the Holy Grail itself ends up being revealed! A fitting end to an incredible dynasty.
A nicely put together short AAR. A pleasure to follow.
No ambitions to carry forawrd into EU4 I presume?
No ambitions to carry forawrd into EU4 I presume?