Europe · High and late Middle Ages
Empire of Thessalonica
1224–1246
When Theodore Komnenos Doukas of Epirus captured Thessalonica from the Latins in 1224, he had himself crowned **emperor (basileus) c. 1225, directly challenging Nicaea's claim to the Byzantine succession. This Epirote/Thessalonican empire was crippled by Theodore's catastrophic defeat and capture by Bulgaria at the Battle of Klokotnitsa (1230).
- Existed
- 1224–1246
- Shown on the map
- 1236–1249
- Peak area
- 22k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
When Theodore Komnenos Doukas of Epirus captured Thessalonica from the Latins in 1224, he had himself crowned **emperor (basileus) c. 1225, directly challenging Nicaea's claim to the Byzantine succession. This Epirote/Thessalonican empire was crippled by Theodore's catastrophic defeat and capture by Bulgaria at the Battle of Klokotnitsa (1230). Reduced and quarreling, the Thessalonican imperial title was surrendered — its later holders (John, Demetrios) submitting to Nicaea, which absorbed Thessalonica in 1246**.
Common questions
- What was the Empire of Thessalonica?
- When Theodore Komnenos Doukas of Epirus captured Thessalonica from the Latins in 1224, he had himself crowned **emperor (basileus) c. 1225, directly challenging Nicaea's claim to the Byzantine succession. This Epirote/Thessalonican empire was crippled by Theodore's catastrophic defeat and capture by Bulgaria at the Battle of Klokotnitsa (1230).
- When did the Empire of Thessalonica exist?
- The Empire of Thessalonica existed 1224–1246. On this map it is drawn 1236–1249.
- How large was the Empire of Thessalonica?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Empire of Thessalonica covered about 22,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia and the scholarship of Donald Queller, Thomas Madden and Jonathan Harris on the Fourth Crusade, whose post-conspiracy reading of 1204 this document follows. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Empire of Thessalonica en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Thessalonica
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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