The 13th Century Latin Empire: A Patchwork of Loosely Arranged Fiefdoms and Principalities Nominally under the Central Authority of Constantinople

International Relations, Medieval history,, Military history, Regional History

The siege of Constantinople in 1204, by Palma il Giovane

In earlier blogs we have seen how the ruling elites from aristocratic Byzantine Greek families managed to carve out chunks of the vast Byzantine Empire and establish their own imperial dynasties in the early 13th century. The three rump states of Trebizond, Nicaea and Epirus all came into being at the expense of the Latin Empire. Their action was a reaction to the Crusade leaders from Catholic Europe who had deposed the old regime in Constantinople (the Angelos dynasty) and proceeded to divvy up the imperial Byzantine lands among themselves and their financial backers. The latter, representing the political and commercial interests of Venice, a key player in the whole enterprise, did very well, netting three-eighths of the old empire’s strategic possessions including Crete) and innumerable war spoils from Byzantium. The crusader hierarchy elected from their leaders, Baldwin, Count of Flanders and Hainaut, as the first Latin emperor of Constantinople.

Nomenclature: the term “Latin Empire” was not contemporary to the period, and was only applied by historians in the 16th century to distinguish the Crusader feudal state from the classical Roman Empire and the  Byzantine Empire (both of which called itself “Roman”). The term “Latin” was chosen because the crusaders—Franks, Venetians, and other Westerners—were Roman Catholic and used Latin as their liturgical and scholarly language in contrast to the Eastern Orthodox locals who used Greek in both liturgy and common speech. The Byzantines referred to the Latin Empire as the Frankokratia (“rule of the Franks”) or the Latinokratia (“rule of the Latins”). The crusaders themselves in documents tended to use the expression “Empire of Constantinople” or more commonly referred to the empire as “Romania” and themselves as “Romans” [Jacobi, David (1999), “The Latin empire of Constantinople and the Frankish states in Greece”, in Abulafia, David (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. V: c. 1198–c. 1300, (Cambridge University Press), pp. 525–542].

Latin imperial crest

Attempts by the Crusader state to expand its imperial boundaries was hampered by constant conflict with its neighbours, the Bulgarian Empire to the north and the three Byzantine successor states. Baldwin I didn’t last long as Latin emperor, his army was crushed by Tsar Kaloyan’s Bulgarian troops at the Battle of Adrianople, with Baldwin captured and dying in prison later in 1205. Latin fortunes improved for a while with his successor, Henry of Flanders (for competence, the pick of the Latin emperors by a wide margin), who won back most of the lost territory in Thrace and concluded a successful peace treaty with the Bulgarian enemies after marrying Kaloyan’s daughter.

After Henry’s death there was a swift turnover of Latin regents🄰 and the Despotate of Epirus stepped up its campaign to wrest the Kingdom of Thessalonica from the Latin Empire, finally capturing it in 1224. The threat from Epirus receded however after the Epirotes were badly beaten by the Bulgarians under Tsar John Asen (Battle of Klokotnitsa, 1230)…around this time the burgeoning power of the Empire of Nicaea replaced Epirus as the principal Byzantine threat to the Latin state.

The Latin empire, now led by Baldwin II (known as Porphyrogenitus – “born to the purple”), was economically diminished and reduced in area to little beyond the city of Constantinople itself. Baldwin spent much of his long reign as emperor scurrying round the courts of Western Europe cap-in-hand in a largely fruitless quest for aid for Constantinople’s impoverished state. Nicaea meanwhile was tightening the screws on Constantinople. In 1259 the Nicaeans defeated the Principality of Achaea, a vassal state of the Latin Empire (Battle of Pelagonia). The loss of Achaea, the strongest of the Frankish states in Greece, was a decisive blow for the Latins in the defence of their imperial capital.

Seal of Baldwin II Porphyrogenitus

After a failed attempt to take Constantinople in 1260 the Niceans were ultimately successful in the endeavour the following year, without planning to do so. A small force of Nicaea on a scouting mission in the proximity of Constantinople’s walls fortuitously discovered that virtually the entire garrison and the Venetian fleet had temporarily vacated the city, leaving it defenceless. Seizing the opportunity the Nicaeans located an unguarded entry point and stormed the city, capturing it in the name of Nicaea’s emperor, Michael VIII Palaiologos. The Latins had lost, irrevocably, their Byzantine empire, with their remaining possessions reduced to a few enclaves in southern Greece, the title of emperor was nonetheless retained, in name only, by a succession of claimants up until 1383.

Composition of the Latin Empire: The empire was a feudalistic polity, comprising numerous vassal states or fiefdoms, including the Duchy of Philippopolis (northern Thrace); Lemnos (island in the Aegean); the Kingdom of Thessalonica (Macedonia and Thessaly)🄱; the County of Salona (modern Amfissa in central Greece); the Marquisate of Bodonitsa (central Greece)🄲; the Principality of Achaea (encompassing the Morea or Peloponnese peninsula🄳; the Duchy of Athens (encompassing Attica, Boeotia and parts of southern Thessaly); the Duchy of Naxos (or of the Archipelago) (encompassing most of the Cyclades islands); the Triarchy of Negroponte (island of Negroponte (modern Euboea); the Principality of Adrianople (modern Edirne, eastern Thrace)🄴; the County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos (several Ionian islands)🄵. All of these entities and regions within the Byzantine world were ultimately absorbed by the Ottoman Empire.

The Latin Empire entities, Venetian possessions and the Byzantine rump states

Encumbrances to empire: The Latin Empire was intended to recreate the Roman Empire in an eastern setting (Byzantium) with a Catholic monarchy, but as a political entity it only lasted a mere 57 years (cf. the preceding Byzantine Empire which, established by Constantine in 330 CE, was in its 874th year when Constantinople was sacked). The Latin Empire failed abjectly to establish itself as an enduring power, the seeds of which were present from the onset. The Crusade leaders started dividing up who gets what part of the Byzantine “pie” before they had started the process of conquest in some of the regions (in fact the conquest of the former Byzantine imperial space was never completed). The approach to the whole task lacked cohesion. Moreover, the “individual expeditions undertaken by various Latin knights and commoners, as well as by the Venetian state, prevented systematic implementation of the partition plan”. The territories the Latins occcupied in the European part of “Romania“ and the Aegean, as a consequence, became “a mosaic of (mainly small) political entities”[David Jacoby, ‘After the fourth crusade: The Latin empire of constantinople and the Frankish states’, (Jan. 2009) DOI:10.1017/CHOL9780521832311.028 in The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492 (pp.759-778)]. These separate smaller “principalities and regions were in principle dependent on the Latin emperor’s suzerainty “ but were in “de facto (terms) practically independent entities” [Filip Van Tricht, The Latin Renovatio of Byzantium: The Empire of Constantinople (1204–1228) (2011)]. All of this worked against the task of making the empire centrally unified and coherent. Allied to this, Venice’s singular pursuit of its self-interest by its nature worked to the detriment of crusader goals. Another factor weighing down the Latin Empire was its economic decline, heavily in debt to the Venetians, Latin emperors were forced to resort to hocking their royal jewels to meet their costs. A succession of wars with the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine claimants proved costly. By the time of the last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, the population of the once-great metropolis Constantinople had plummeted alarmingly.

🄰 this period was the Latinokrakaria

🄱 Thessalonica’s short history as an quasi-independent entity was characterised by ongoing warfare, principally with the Bulgarian Empire before being conquered by Epirus (1224)

🄲 both Salona and Bodonitsa originally were vassal states of the Kingdom of Thessalonica

🄳 Achaea, the strongest of the Crusader states, exercising suzerainty over the Lordship of Argos and Nauplia. Achaea continued to prosper even after the eclipse of the Latin Empire. Its main rival was the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea which eventually succeeded in conquering the principality

🄴 the Principality of Adrianople committed itself to a course of fluidity in regard to the dominant powers venturing into its orbit, shifting allegiances readily from Constantinople to Epirus to Bulgaria to Nicaea during the 1220s for the quid pro qua of retaining its local autonomy [Filip Van Tricht, ‘The Byzantino-Latin Principality of Adrianople and the Challenge of Feudalism (1204/6–ca. 1227/28)’, www.core.ac.uk]

🄵 in addition to these both the Genoese and Venetians possessed colonies in the Greek islands and in mainland Greece at one time or other (Genoa: including Lesbos, Lemnos, Thasos, Samothrace, Ainos, Lordship of Chios and port of Phocaea; Venice: including Crete, Corfu, Lefkas, Tinos and Mykonos)

The 13th Century Empire of Nicaea: An Empire in Exile and the Restoration of Imperial Byzantine

Inter-ethnic relations, International Relations, Medieval history,, Military history, Regional History

After crusaders from the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204—instead of attacking and subduing Egypt as the original plan was meant to be—the vast Byzantine Empire splintered into four main, distinct entities, comprising a Latin successor state in the Balkans and Constantinople itself, and three Byzantine Greek rump states. One of these in north-eastern Anatolia became the small Empire of Trebizond, which I looked at in a recent blog (08-May-2024), ‘Byzantine-Lite: The Empire of Trebizond under the Komnenos Dynasty’.

The Byzantine neighbourhood, post-1204

The largest and most powerful of the Greek successor states to emerge was Nicaea (then the name of a city-state in north-western Anatolia). Styling itself under the cognomen Empire of Nicaea, the dominant Laskaris family of nobles, proclaimed Theodore (I) Lakaris emperor (basileus) in 1205. The Laskarii staked a claim on the Byzantine throne as well but had plenty of competition, the other two Greek Byzantine successor states, Trebizond and (the Despotate of) Epirus, both advanced claims to be the rightful heirs to the Byzantine crown.

Emperor Theodore I Lakaris

Proceeding by conquest, alliance and intermarriage: While Theodore I and his successors within the Lakaris dynasty were eyeing off Byzantium, the Nicene Empire had plenty of more immediate challenges to face. The territorial boundaries of the empire was surrounded by hostile states, so it had to deal constantly with multiple conflicts and crisis points. Ongoing wars were waged against the Latin Empire𝕬 (Henry of Flanders, Robert of Courtenay) to the north; against the Seljuk Turks of Iconium (Asia Minor); and against its rival successor states, Trebizond and Epirus𝕭. Aside from waging war Theodore deflected some of the threats to Nicaea by the stratagem of alliances and arranged royal marriages.

Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes (source: Etsy.com)

Less Roman, more Hellenistic: Theodore’s successor as emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes (his son-in-law) continued the strategy, allying with Bulgaria against the Latins and to help neutralise any threats from Epirus𝕮. John failed in a combined Nicaean-Bulgarian siege of Constantinople in 1235 but his reign did achieve military victories and diplomacy which resulted in an enlargement of Nicaea’s imperial territories…eg, Battle of Poemanenum, 1224, John decisively defeated the Latin army, giving Nicaea a foothold on the Balkans littoral; military campaigning against Epirus led to new Nicene gains in Macedonia and Thrace (Thessalonica fell to John in 1246). John’s successful rule also benefitted from his domestic policy, the economy was reformed, agriculture boomed, taxes were reduced and prosperity in Nicaea thrived. Emperor Theodore II, a man of letters, succeeeded John III, marking a cultural renaissance for the empire – Hellenistic learning flourished with Nicaea forging a more distinctly overt Greek identity, throwing off the shadow of its Roman past. At the same time Theodore undertook a military restructuring, the creation of a formidable army of native Greek troops, ending the state’s reliance on foreign mercenaries [‘The Rise of the Empire of Nicaea: How the Byzantines Reclaimed the Throne’, Timeless Treasure, (video, You Tube) Nov. 2023].

Battle of Pelagonia, 1259 (source: Attarisiya/X.com)

Palaiologos’ palace coup: Theodore II’s reign unfortunately was too brief, he died in 1258 after only four years at the helm, with the throne falling to his eight-year-old son, John IV, creating a situation ripe for instability and opportunism. The power vacuum was quickly filled by the grand constable (megas konostaulos) Michael Palaiologos who launched a coup, making himself co-emperor with John IV. Within a short period Michael had deposed the infant John (and had him blinded). Taking the throne as sole emperor (basileus), Michael VIII Palaiologos’ dynastic line continued to rule the empire right up to the Ottoman takeover of Constantinople in 1453. Meantime, Michael consolidated his position and that of Nicaea by defeating the alliance of William of Villehardouin, Prince of Achaea and Michael II Komnenos Doukas of Epirus at the Battle of Pelagonia in 1259.

The Gate of the Spring – entrance in the Constantinople walls breached by Strategopolous and his soldiers

Capturing Constantinople by accident: Pelagonia elevated Michael’s prestige at home, however with the stigma of the “emperor-usurper” still figuring prominently in many Nicaean minds, for genuine legitimacy Michael needed to secure the ultimate goal, the prize of Constantinople [‘Michael VIII Palaiologos’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. First attempts at conquest in 1260 saw Michael personally leading a failed siege attempted on the city. While Michael was doing a deal with the Republic of Genoa to secure naval support for a new assault on the Latin capital, the unexpected happened. Nicaean general, Alexios Strategopolous and a small force were on a reconnaissance mission which took them close to the city of Constantinople, when it stumbled on a virtually unguarded city/citadel (most of the Latin garrison and the naval fleet were away conducting a raid on the Nicene island of Daphnousia). Alexios seized the opportunity and his force surreptitiously found its way inside the fortified walls where it easily overcame feeble resistance. Baldwin II the Latin emperor, panicked and fled the city, leaving the Nicaeans in complete control of Constantinople.

Emperor Michael VII Palaiologos

A hollow prize: Michael VIII by a stroke of good fortune had regained Byzantium for Nicaea, but the city and the empire was a shell of its former glory. Constantinople was in a very impoverished and diminished state, ravaged by war, most of its treasure either destroyed or shipped off to Western Europe (much of it ended up in Venice). Michael did what he could to fortify and strengthen the restored empire including a massive building project, but Constantinople as a trading port declined and Byzantium would never again hold the military and economic sway it commanded before the 1204 sacking by the Crusaders. After Charles I of Anjou triumphed over Manfred, king of Sicily (Battle of Benevento, 1266), Michael’s foreign policy became preoccupied with the rivalry with Charles. This proved a catastrophic blunder, long-term, as Michael withdrew troops from their posts in Asia Minor to bolster his army in confronting the Latins in the Aegean littoral, thus weakening his Anatolian defences against the burgeoning threat posed by the Seljuks to his east.

Hagia Sophia (former church) in Iznik (modern name of Nicaea) (photo: Greekcitytimes.com)

Byzantine post-Michael VIII, the inevitable decline and fall: After Emperor Michael’s death in 1282, his dynastic successors managed merely to squander the restored empire’s “remaining resources in several bloody civil wars” [The Accidental Reconquest of Constantinople’, Krystian Gajdzis, Medium, 28Aug-2022, www.medium.com]. The cost of looking inward was ill-fated neglect of the growing menace of the tribe of Osman and their descendants’ piecemeal capture of Byzantine cities across northern Anatolia, taking them inexorably closer and closer to Constantinople, something succeeding Byzantine emperors were increasingly powerless to prevent [Roger Crowley, 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West, (2005)].

City of Nicaea: fell to the Ottomans in 1331 (Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493, source: Byzantium.gr)

𝕬 the Latins were regularly bankrolled by the affluent Republic of Venice

𝕭 Nicaea got some respite from Seljuk border raids with the appearance of the all-conquering Mongol horde in Anatolia, forcing the Sultanate of Rum to focus its energies on repelling the Mongol advance

𝕮 John continued the practice, marrying off his son (Theodore) to a Bulgarian princess

Byzantine-Lite: The Empire of Trebizond under the Komnenos Dynasty

Economics and society,, Inter-ethnic relations, International Relations, Medieval history,, Regional History

We all know of the great empires of history, the names roll off the tongue easily—Roman, Byzantine, British, Spanish, Chinese, Mongol, Persian, Alexander the Great, Ottoman, etc—we’ve read the history texts at school and seen countless historically bastardised film interpretations, but what of the myriad of little and little known and often ephemeral (small “e”) empires of the distant past? Not so familiar. I’ve always marvelled at the idea of these lesser, obscure imperial entities and been intrigued by how they managed to exist (and persist) at all side by side with the aforementioned “big boys”, the powerful and by definition expansive empires🄰.

Regional map, 1265: Byzantine, Eurasia, Black Sea (image: University of Texas Libraries (U Texas at Austin))

Byzantine’s successor states: Take for instance the Trapezuntine Empire, more commonly called the Empire of Trebizond…who outside of the learned medievalist has ever heard of it, let alone be confident of pinpointing its location on any world atlas? Time to fill in a few gaps in the general knowledge caper. Imperial Trebizond consisted mainly of several small portions of land in the region known as the Pontus on the southern shores of the Black Sea🄱. The “empire” had its origins in the sack of Constantinople and dissolution of the Byzantine Empire by crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Byzantine’s eclipse provided the opportunity for the creation of five new rump states from its existing territory – what became the empires of Trebizond, Nicaea and Thessalonica and the despotates of Morea and Epirus.

Trebizond imperial flag: Double-headed eagle (associated with ports and harbours)

This didn’t happen by osmosis, in the case of Trebizond the empire came about when the Komnenos brothers (Alexios and David), descended royally from Komnenian Byzantine emperors, seized Trebizond and the surrounding province of Chaldia with the military support of their formidible relative, Queen Tamar of Georgia. The elder brother had himself crowned emperor of Trebizond (Alexios I)🄲. Emperor Alexios, styling himself Megas Komnenos🄳, also laid claim to the Byzantine throne however the Trebizond rulers lost out to the more militarily accomplished Nicene Empire in that contest. Michael VIII Palaiologos of Nicaea became emperor of the restored Byzantine Empire (aka Latin Empire) in 1261 and the Palaiologan Dynasty ran the empire right up to Constantinople’ fall to the Ottomans in 1453.

Extent of the Trebizond Empire (Wikipedia: Original image by Ichthyovenator)

A nominal “empire: Trebizond was something of an outlier when it comes to classic empire material…for a start, aside from acquiring Erzurum to its south in the early 14th century and the coastal enclave of Sinope in eastern Anatolia🄴, there was no expansive growth as we saw with ancient Rome and Great Britain, the Pontus-based “empire” failed abjectly to expand its borders in any lasting way. Nor was it an empire with a conglomerate structure (or if you like, the necessary political configuration), ie, a situation where a dominant central power controls peripheral (outer) client states or colonies, Trebizond acquired no vassal states to speak of subordinate to its power [“A Glossary of Political Economy Terms: Empire”, (Auburn University), www.auburn.edu/]. It lacked the military force to realise these goals by conquest. In short the Trapezuntine Empire was an empire in name only🄵.

Alexios I of Trebizond and his army (depicted by an unknown artist)

Last Greek empire standing: The only really stand-out achievement of the Trebizond Empire was its staying power. Despite its disadvantages —positioned within the sphere of influence of more powerful states such as the Seljuk Turks; the destabilising roles of Genoa and Venice; the decimation of the Black Death; the instability of civil war (which allowed the Genoese and Turks to further encroach territorially on a weakened Trebizond)—the empire survived for so long, from its founding in 1204 to its ultimate conquest by the Ottomans under Sultan Mehmet II in 1461—257 years, 22 emperors (including two empresses)—even outlasting the supposedly impregnable Constantinople which fell in 1453, as well as outliving the other Byzantine successor states in the region🄶. For this reason imperial Trebizond is sometimes called the last “Greek empire”.

Scholars point to a number of factors contributing to the empire’s surprising longevity. One is a favourable geographical location, the Pontiac Mountains behind Trebizond provide an advantageous natural barrier to invaders with designs on the mini-state. The capital city of Trebizond, built to resemble a kind of “mini-Constantinople” complete with imitation Hagia Sophia church, was further protected by the erection of impressively strong walls and fortifications [‘Trebizond’, The Byzantine Legacy, www.thebyzantinelegacy.com].

Trebizond’s Hagia Sophia

The inestimable value of Mongol patronage and strategic alliances: But above all else what permitted Trezibond to continue to survive in such a turbulent world was its commercial importance, and what permitted its commerce to thrive was the expansion west and southwards of the all-conquering Mongol Empire. The Mongols’ capture of Baghdad and the eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258 resulted in the terminus of the lucrative Silk Road being diverted to Trebizond, making the city-state a funnel between east and west trade and enriching the small empire [Michael Goodyear, ‘Empire of Trebizond’, 21-May-2019, World History Encyclopedia, www.worldhistory.org]. The other critical practice to preserve Trebizond’s independence was marriage diplomacy, of which the Komnenian rulers were very adept. Trebizond rulers formed alliances with rivals, defusing potential threats to the empire by arranging the marriage of many of its (beautiful) princesses to the Byzantine royalty and to Black Sheep and White Sheep Turkomen (nomadic Turkish confederations) (Goodyear).

Trebizond continued to pay tribute to the Mongols as a vassal state which guaranteed its continued protection under the all-powerful Turco-Mongol warlord Tamerlane (or Timur), but once he departed the scene (beginning of the 15th century) and Mongol power waned, the Ottoman Turks re-emerged as the greatest danger to the tiny empire’s survival.

Map of city citadel, Trebizond (source: armenica.org)

Endgame for Megas Komnenos: The tipping point for the Ottomans to decisively move on Trebizond seems to be Emperor David Komnenos’ intrigues with European powers with the purpose of launching a new crusade against the Ottoman Empire. Mehmet II laid seize to Trebizond in 1461 and after a concerted sea and land blockage, it compelled David, bereft of any sign of relief from his Christian allies, to surrender the citadel-city almost without a single sword needing to be drawn in anger. The fall of Trebizond, the final Greek outpost, as one historian noted, also extinguished the last vestiges of the Roman Empire, nearly 1,500 years after its beginnings [Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453, (1993, 2nd edition].

‘Conquest of Trebizond’ (Cassone work 1461, by Apollonio di Giovanni di Tommaso)

Postscript: Trebizond under the Ottomans became the modern city of Trabzon, which during WWI was captured by the Russians. Interestingly, following the war a proposition was made at the Paris Peace Conference for an independent Pontiac Greek state (the would-be “Republic of Pontus”) including Trabzon and most of the post-Trebizond space. While the key figure at the talks US President Wilson supported its creation, the Greek prime minster didn’t, fearing the mini-state would be too vulnerable to withstand any Turkish attempt to absorb it, and the proposition was lost.

🄰 of course the reality was that most of them didn’t persist for long

🄱 plus several even smaller enclaves on the Crimean Peninsula

🄲 his brother, David, became commander of the state’s imperial army

🄳 Megas means “great” or “grand”. After 1282 Komnenian emperors added basileus and autokrator to their list of royal titles

🄴 the Komnenos emperors managed to lose Sinope twice, the first time to the Nicene Empire and the second time for keeps, to the Sultanate of Rum

🄵 although it did meet some of the criteria for an empire, it had a flourishing commerce and wealth (mainly from its silver mines) and it possessed an entrenched ruling class

🄶 the fate of Theodoro (it’s Crimean enclaves) managed to be postponed even longer than that of Trebizond, they were not absorbed into the Ottoman Empire until 1475

Living on the Pointy End: Pole-Sitting and its Ancient Antecedent the Stylites

Leisure activities, Memorabilia, Performing arts, Popular Culture, Social History, Society & Culture

The first two decades of the 21st century have been witness to a raft of passing fads and rages, we’ve seen the likes of Planking, Twerking and Tebowing, etc ad nauseam, it makes me wonder whatever happened to the, by definition, sedentary craze of pole-sitting? Like most crazes, I guess, it is of its time and the shelf life is never infinite. It’s day, or its heyday, was in the 1920s up to around the early 1930s when the peak of the craze subsided.

‘Shipwreck’ Kelly at work

Pole-sitting
The initial exponent of pole-sitting or specifically flagpole-sitting, so far as we know, was New Yorker Alvin ‘Shipwreck’ Kelly. Prior to his preoccupation with pole-sitting, Kelly was a jack-of-all-trades, trying his hand as a steelworker, steeplejack⋖a⋗, high diver, boxer and movie double. He also was a naval ensign during WWI and held a pilot’s licence and performed aerial stunt flights. Opinions differ on how ‘Shipwreck’ got into the business of pole-sitting, one view goes that the habit came early, scrambling up a pole at the tender age of seven, others attribute it to a dare or to a publicity stunt for a Philadelphia department store [‘Body of ‘Shipwreck’ Kelly Lies Unclaimed in Morgue’, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 13-Oct-1952, (Google News Archive)]. In January 1924 his ‘career’ took off with a record-setting sit atop a pole for 13 hours and 13 minutes to help promote a Hollywood film. Kelly’s best-ever effort was 49 days and one hour, Atlantic City 1930.

AK keeping up with the news at ground-level (Photo: Everett/Fine Art America)

At the height of his popularity Kelly was earning $500 a day, coming from charging money to people to watch his feats of endurance, from books about his life, from endorsements and personal appearances. His fame also led to a 28-day tour of the United States, sitting on poles in a different city on each day of the tour. But the glory days did not last, the onset of the Great Depression saw his popularity plummet rapidly, Americans quickly lost interest in spending precious money watching men sit on poles with more serious and urgent concerns taking centre stage in their lives (Saratosa Tribune).

‘Dixie’ Blandy (Source: Facebook)

Pole-sitting became competitive with Richard ‘Dixie’ Blandy challenging and even besting Kelly’s 49-day record. Brandy’s accomplishment, 77 days, was the stuff of legend, sustained as it was on a diet of bottles of whiskey and three packs of cigarettes a day [‘The Mad 1920s: Fad of Pole-Sitting’, Messynessy, 25-Sep-2020, www.chic.com]. Interestingly, prior to being bitten by the pole-sitting bug Blandy, like Kelly, tried an assortment of jobs including circus worker, boxer, house painter, steeplejack, riveter, merchant marine, salesman and (wait for it) flagpole painter. Unlike Kelly though, the Louisiana-born Blandy didn’t become inactive because of the Depression, continuing the activity and even breaking his 1933 record twice more, the second time in Stockholm, Sweden, added to Dixie’s legend – a sit of 125 days in a chair affixed to a pole 200-feet above the ground, while consuming 92 bottles of whiskey and his customary diurnal 3 packs of cigs⋖b⋗.[‘Richard Ernest “Dixie” Blandy’, Findagrave, www.findagrave.com]. Blandy actually died on the job, killed in 1974 when the flagpole supporting him collapsed.

Publicity shot: Dixie was popular with the ladies, married 6 times (all his wives met him via the phone at his pole-sitting events) (Source: Dayton Daily News)
Paalzitten (Noordwijkerhout)

Blandy notwithstanding, the fad had seen its day after the Depression bit hard. Since then there have been attempts from time to time to revive the pole-sitting caper. In the Netherlands for example pole-sitting became a competitive sport In the 1970s – the Dutch call it Paalzitten (literally “sit tight”). This is a world away from the pursuit that made Alvin and Dixie famous, the poles in the Netherland sit above not solid ground but water and nose-bleeds are uncommon as Dutch derrières are perched barely two arm lengths from the level of the water…“a tourist attraction more than a spectator sport”. [‘Paalzitten Is A Dutch Competitive Sport Where You Have To Sit On A Pole For Hours’, The Engineer, www.wonderfulengineering.com].

💢 💢 💢

Stylites
The fad of Pole-sitting originated in the 1920s as we have seen, but there are historical precedents for this curious pastime. In the early Christian period certain ascetic monks of a particularly fanatical bent practiced something broadly analogous to pole-sitting. These holy men of Late Antiquity were called  ‘Stylites’ (from Greek stylos, ‘pillar’). Stylites were “pillar-dwellers” not pole-sitters, and their motivation was spiritual salvation rather than money and fame which spurred on ‘Shipwreck’ Kelly and his ilk. Stylites’ also differed from the pole-sitters in modus operandi, standing on the pillars was their preferred position. Sitting was something they tended to resort to only when overcome by fatigue or perhaps sleep.

6th century depiction of Ur-Simeon Stylites

The ‘poles’ in question were in fact narrow columns or towers atop which were small platforms which housed the Stylite. The platform were usually encircled by a railing of sorts to prevent the hermit-preacher from falling off. The most famous of the practitioners—the ur-Stylite—was Simeon Stylites the Elder whose early zeal for Christianity led him to ascend a pillar in Syria in AD 423. Later he relocated to a second, nearby pillar more than 15 metres above the ground, apparently staying in it till his death 37 years later⋖c⋗.

Icon depicting both Simeon the Elder & Simeon the Younger

Simeon’s devotion to the practice made him quite a celebrity in the Christian world, he corresponded with the high and mighty including the Eastern emperors Theodosius II and Leo I, even exerting some influence on ecclesiastical matters, such was his standing. Visitors flocked to observe him praying, preaching and fasting on his high platform. Pilgrims and sightseers sought spiritual counselling, healing for the sick, intervention on behalf of the oppressed, etc. Simeon was too popular, a double wall had to be constructed around his pillar to keep the thronging multitudes from getting too close and disturbing his prayer sessions [‘St. Simeon Stylites’, Britannica, www.britannica.com].

Luke the Stylite

The pre-Medieval Christian lifestyle caught on among the more ascetically inclined of the early Byzantine clergy (including women) with many following the prototypical Stylite, some even adopting his name. The more notable of these include St Daniel of Constantinople, St Simeon Stylites the Younger (Antioch), St Alypius of Paphlagonia (north-central Anatolia) and St Simeon Stylites (III) of Lesbos. As this list shows, prominence in the Stylite calling was a passport to sainthood. The Stylites needed to be a stoical lot as they were exposed to all kinds of weather at the top (although some were fortunate enough to be furnished with a small hut to escape into in time of severe inclemency).

Georgian hermit headquarters (Source: Vintage News)

Footnote: If you think the Stylites were confined to the so-called “Dark Ages”, think again! The practice has not entirely been extinguished in the 21st century. A monk in Georgia (Maxime Qavtaradze) in 2013 celebrated 20 years of lofty solitude as a ascetic hermit atop a mountain pillar a la the Stylites⋖d⋗. The original Stylites however would not recognise their barest of existences in the Georgian pillar set-up…Maxime lives in a small cosy cottage with adjoining church house on the top of his pillar, and the monk descends twice a week to the village below to say prayers with his parishioners [‘Georgian Monk Renews Tradition, Lives Atop Pillar’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 11-Sep-2013, www.rferl.org].

⋖a⋗ perhaps serving as a kind of altitude training for his later pole-sitting marathons

⋖b⋗ to avoid a calamitous outcome in marathon stints, the pole-sitters tied their legs to the vertical structure when wanting to sleep

⋖c⋗ meagre parcels of food were fetched to Simeon by his disciples

⋖d⋗ in this case a limestone rock pillar