Did the Duke of Carinthia fight in the 1259 battle of Pelagonia?

Kyriakos

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Just checking on some lowly wiki article. The battle of Pelagonia was fought as a serious prelude to the 1261 liberation of Constantinople. The main sides were the Empire of Nicaea (army led by the current Sebastocrator, not the actual Emperor Palaiologos), and The principality of Achaea. Allies of the latter were Epiros (but they left prior to the actual battle) and the dutchy of Athens.

The article mentions some issue with 300 german mercenaries on the side of the Nicaean Empire, who were supposedly led by a 'duke of Carinthia'. The problem is that those troops died (it seems from a charge by 400 Sicilean knights), and also their duke, but Carinthia seems to have kept the same leaderhead up to a few years later.
Btw Carinthia is some kind of medieval hell-hole in lower Austria of that time :D

Can you help in regards to whether this duke was named as being part of the Nicaean forces in Pelagonia, and if indeed there is some issue there with the timeline in Carinthia? :)

The article from wiki is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pelagonia

wikinthia said:
In the Chronicle of Morea, there is a problem with the document's claim that the "Duke of Carinthia" was present at the battle. The duke at the time was Ulrich III of Carinthia, but he ruled for many years after 1259, and was probably not at the battle; the writer of the Chronicle may have invented a fictitious duke as a counterbalance to William.
 
Looks like authors of the "Chronicle of the Morea" confused something.

Dukes of Carinthia were:

1201-1256: Bernard Spanheim
1256-1269: Ulrich III Spanheim
1269-1276: Přemysl Otakar II

As you can see no of them died in 1259.

Btw Carinthia is some kind of medieval hell-hole in lower Austria of that time

Actually it was a rather dynamically developing region at that time.

For example duke Bernard established 3 new ducal cities in Carinthia.
 
They might either have written 'duke of Carinthia' to have it sound more supposedly 'worth-noting', or (an explanation someone mentioned in another forum) maybe at the time some offspring/relatives of Ulrich III were also typically termed 'Duke of Carinthia', despite having no official power while he reigned.

Other than that... maybe it was some lower noble from Carinthia leading those 300 german mercenaries.
 
I'm just saying there's a thread specifically created for such questions so as to reduce clutter. :dunno:
 
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