Guillaume I de Champlit

Guillaume was the son of Ed I de Champlitte , Viscount Dijon , the unrecognized son of Count Champagne Hugo I. In 1199, Guillaume and his brother Ed responded to the call of Pope Innocent III to oppose the infidels. Taking part in the Fourth Crusade, Champlitt left his wife Eustache de Courtenay, the granddaughter of King Louis VI Tolstoy, at home. Eustache was pregnant, and in 1200 gave birth to a son Guillaume.

During the campaign, Champlitt made friends with Geoffrey de Villardouin . Guillaume actively participated in the assault on Constantinople and fought close to the city walls. He was seriously injured and broke his arm when he retreated under a hail of stones that the Greeks threw from the walls into his squad. In this battle, his brother Ed died. Guillaume reconciled Villardouin with Baldwin of Flanders , when the question arose of who should be the Latin emperor.

After being elected emperor of Baldwin, Champlitt participated in the campaigns of Boniface of Monferrat and witnessed the creation of the Kingdom of Thessaloniki , Duchy of Athens , Bodonitsa Marquisate and the Flax of Solon. He began to think about acquiring his own inheritance. Participating in the storming of the fortress of Acrocorinth , Champlitt met with Geoffrey Villardouin, Jr. , the nephew of the imperial marshal, who recognized himself as his vassal . This latter convinced him to capture the Peloponnese , the vast southern Greek peninsula. With the permission of Boniface of Monferrat , King of Thessaloniki, he and Geoffrey Villardouin set about conquering this part of Greece. When the crusader army entered the Peloponnese, it stumbled upon the resistance of the Greeks of Laconia , Arcadia, and Argolis, led by the despot Epirus Michael Duca . In 1205, both troops converged at an olive grove near Kunduros. Although the crusaders were in the minority (500-700 soldiers), they were better prepared for the battle, and defeated the resistance militia, which was almost 10 times numerically superior. Michael Duca fled to Epirus . After this important victory, the whole Peloponnese submitted to the knights, except for the southeastern part of the peninsula, where the Greeks remained in power. The powerful Byzantine tycoon Lev Sgur ruled here, married to one of the daughters of the former emperor Alexei III Angel , Evdokia Angelina . Sgur strengthened in the impregnable fortress of Acrocorinth, from where it successfully repelled all the assaults of the Franks for 5 years.

The Achaean Principality was founded on the occupied lands, and Guillaume Champlitt became the first prince. Legally, it was considered the linen of King Thessaloniki. Later, Pope Innocent II II recognized the title of prince for Guillaume. Mikhail Epirusky once again opposed Guillaume in 1206, but after the defeat at Kato Ahei refused to conquer the Peloponnese.

The new prince set about organizing his possessions. The newly formed country was ruled by a council of four French nobles and four Greek archons , chaired by Geoffrey de Villardouin. The territory of the Achaean Principality was divided into 12 baronies; allotments were awarded to the most important associates of Champlitt. Part of the land was granted to the Knights Templar , Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights .

In 1209 he received news of the death of his older brother Louis de Champlit in France. Guillaume hurriedly went home to claim his share of the inheritance from family estates in Burgundy and Franche-Comté. Driving through Italy, he fell ill and died in Puglia .

• Karpov S.P. Latin Latin. - St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2000 .-- 256 s. - ISBN 5-89329-247-2
• Assumption F. I. Division VIII. Laskari and Paleologists // History of the Byzantine Empire. In 5 volumes - M .: AST, Astrel, 2005 .-- V. 5 .-- 558 p. - ISBN 5-271-03856-4
• Gregorovius F. History of the city of Athens in the Middle Ages (From the Justinian era to the Turkish conquest). - M .: Alpha-book, 2009 .-- 767 p. - ISBN 978-5-9922-0307-3
• Riley-Smith J. The Oxford History of the Crusades. - Oxford University Press, 2002 .-- 457 p. - ISBN 978-0-87661-406-8