Peter of Courtenay
Peter of Courtenay was crowned Latin Emperor of Constantinople in Rome and was captured before he could reach the city. Born around 1155, he was a French count of the royal house — a grandson of Louis VI — who had been on the Third Crusade and the Albigensian Crusade, and had married Yolanda of Flanders, whose two brothers Baldwin and Henry had been the first two Latin emperors after the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204. Henry died in 1216, probably poisoned, and the barons offered the throne to Peter as the husband of the last surviving sibling. He went to Rome and was crowned by Honorius III in April 1217 — deliberately in the church of San Lorenzo outside the walls rather than in St Peter's, so that nobody could later argue that the pope had crowned an emperor in the imperial city. He then made the decision that ended him. Yolanda sailed for Constantinople and arrived safely. Peter took the land route through the Balkans with a few thousand men, having agreed with Venice to attack Dyrrachium on the way — an obligation that cost him time and men he did not have. He crossed into the territory of Theodore Komnenos Doukas of Epirus, who received him hospitably, ambushed the column in the mountain passes, and imprisoned him. He was never seen again and probably died in captivity in 1218. Yolanda governed as regent for two years and did it competently. Their son Robert inherited an empire already collapsing, and their grandson Baldwin II spent his reign pawning relics.
- Lived: 1155 CE – 1219 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: emperor, crusader
