Berthold II, Count of Katzenelnbogen

Berthold II (fl. 1199–1217), Count of Katzenelnbogen or Katzenellenbogen, was a German noble and participant of the Fourth Crusade, who became lord of Velestino in Frankish Greece and regent of the Kingdom of Thessalonica.

Life

Born sometime before 1183, Berthold was the son of Berthold I, Count of Katzenelnbogen, and nephew of the powerful Bishop of Münster, Hermann II (1173–1202). Berthold joined the court of his uncle, and is attested as being with him at Worms in February 1199, after Hermann had joined the court of Philip of Swabia. Disappointed with the political disunity and civil war in the Holy Roman Empire in the aftermath of Philip's 1198 election as King of the Germans, Berthold joined the Fourth Crusade in 1202, arriving at the Crusader camp after the Crusaders had besieged and captured Sara in Dalmatia. Like most of the German contingent, he was placed under the orders of Boniface of Montferrat, with whom he developed a close personal relationship.

Following the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders and the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, it was not Boniface, but Baldwin of Flanders who became the new Latin Emperor. Berthold supported Boniface in his brief revolt against Baldwin, and after Boniface was placated with the title of King of Thessalonica, Berthold accompanied Boniface in his conquest of Greece in 1204–05. He was rewarded with the lordship over Great Vlachia in Thessaly, with the town of Velestino as his seat. In 1205, he was sent by Pope Innocent III to a diplomatic mission in Asia Minor, in order to mediate in a dispute between Leo II, ruler of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and Bohemond IV, the Prince of Antioch. After that he went on to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and is mentioned in documents of 1206 and 1207 in the entourage of John of Ibelin, regent of the kingdom.

He returned to Greece in 1207/8. In the meantime, Boniface of Montferrat had been killed, fighting against the Bulgarians, and had left his underage son Demetrius as his heir, with his mother Margaret of Hungary as regent. In the so-called "Lombard Rebellion" of the kingdom's barons 1208–09, he loyally supported Emperor Henry of Flanders, and was named as castellan of Serres, where he kept imprisoned the leader of the Lombard barons, Umberto II of Biandrate. Berthold had a close relationship with Margaret of Hungary, and soon became regent of Thessalonica (he is attested in this position in 1217, but probably held it as early as ca. 1208). In 1211, however, the Latin Archbishop of Heraclea Perinthus complained to the Pope that Berthold forcefully kept Margaret in his possession, and that he had misappropriated lands belonging to the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.

Berthold is last mentioned in a letter of 21 April 1217 by Pope Honorius III, which calls him regent (bailli) of the Kingdom of Thessalonica (baiulus regni Thessalonicensis). He probably died soon after that.

Sources

• Miller, William (1908). The Latins in the Levant, a History of Frankish Greece (1204–1566). New York: E.P. Dutton and Company.
• Setton, Kenneth M. (1976). The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), Volume I: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: DIANE Publishing. ISBN 0-87169-114-0.
• Todt, Klaus-Peter (2006). "Graf Berthold II. von Katzenelnbogen (vor 1183-nach 1217) im ägäischen Raum und im Nahen Osten". Nassauische Annalen (in German) 117: 65–87.