Guy Pallavicini
| Guy Pallavicini | |
|---|---|
| Marquess of Bodonitsa | |
| Reign | 1204 – c. 1237 |
| Successor | Ubertino Pallavicini |
| Spouse | Sibylla |
| Issue | Ubertino, Mabilia, Isabella |
| House | House of Pallavicini |
Guy or Guido Pallavicini, called Marchesopoulo by his Greek subjects, was the first marquess of Bodonitsa in Frankish Greece from 1204 to his death in or shortly after 1237. He was one of the most important Frankish rulers in Greece, and played a major role in the short-lived Kingdom of Thessalonica: in 1208–1209 he supported the Lombard rebellion against King Demetrius of Montferrat, but by 1221 he was the kingdom's regent (bailli), and was left to defend the city against the ruler of Epirus, Theodore Komnenos Doukas. Left unsupported by the Latin Empire, and with a projected crusade to relieve the city delayed, he surrendered the city in December 1224. The belated arrival of the crusade helped to save his own fief from falling to the Epirotes, however, and he was soon able to return there, dying on or shortly after 1237.
Guido hailed from a distinguished family of Lombardy in northern Italy, that ruled over a series of fiefs in the area between Parma, Piacenza, and Cremona. Guy joined the Fourth Crusade—according to William Miller, "because at home every common man could hale him before the courts".
In autumn 1204, following the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders and the division of the Byzantine Empire among the Crusader leaders, he accompanied Boniface of Montferrat as he went west to establish his Kingdom of Thessalonica. During Boniface's march south into Greece, Guy was appointed warden of the strategic pass of Thermopylae. Guy made the nearby settlement of Bodonitsa (modern Mendenitsa) his seat, erecting a castle on the ruins of ancient acropolis, probably that of Pharygai, which gave wide sight over the coastal plain around the Malian Gulf. The exact bounds of the marquisate are unknown, but it lay between the northern boundaries of the Duchy of Athens and the town of Zetouni (modern Lamia), whose part-owner Guy was. The Chronicle of the Morea reports that Boniface soon transferred suzerainty over Bodonitsa to the Prince of Achaea, William of Champlitte (r. 1205–1209); however, the report of Marino Sanudo Torsello, that this only occurred under Geoffrey II of Villehardouin (r. c. 1229–1246, is more likely to be correct. According to the Chronicle, Guy participated in the long siege of the Acrocorinth, held by the Greek lord Leo Sgouros.
...
Wikipedia