How to Slay a Dragon Page 16

  ON THE MARRIAGE OF PRINCESSES

  Fun fact: when he married his princess, Michael II had it easy. All he had to do was stage one coup and suppress a few more. Much of the time, no European princess could ever find her Prince Charming for one simple reason: incest.

  Marrying off children for political advantages was a great strategy for the medieval elite. The exchange of dowries and reverse dowries could be financially lucrative. But it wasn’t a free-for-all. In the early Middle Ages, the western Church laid down strict rules about which degrees of genetic relationship counted as incest in God’s (or what the Church claimed were God’s) eyes. Cheating on those rules was of course rampant, especially because it gave both the families and the Church an excuse to declare an annulment if the marriage ever became politically undesirable. Nevertheless, by the tenth century, the royal families of Europe were running out of equally royal options for their sons and daughters.

  This was fine for the prince, who brought his spouse into his own family and kept his rank. It was not so fine for the princess, who had to join her new family. Kunigunde was the emperor’s only surviving daughter and one of the most valuable brides in Europe—and she had no choice but to marry down.

  But for this particular princess, the inevitable demotion that came with marriage was the least of her problems.

  ON THE MARRIAGE OF KUNIGUNDE

  Everything—and everyone—had seemed respectable enough in 1486. The emperor and imperial government were having problems with Venice, Hungary, Bohemia, Switzerland, the lower nobility, the upper nobility, the Church, and the Ottomans. (In other words: business as usual.) Kunigunde was safe from all these conflicts at the court of her father’s cousin, Duke Siegmund of Austria and Tyrol. (The Holy Roman Empire in 1486 was shaped vaguely like an egg with some yolk running down into Italy, and Tyrol was the yolk.)

  Duke Albrecht of Bavaria had secured the emperor’s permission to marry the princess. Bavaria was one of the empire’s most politically and territorially powerful principalities, and Albrecht was busy making it even more powerful—he was a good choice. Siegmund had secured the emperor’s permission to negotiate her dowry and other financial matters, and he was good at his job. By early December, the preparations were complete. On January 2, 1487, the princess wed the duke with her father very much not in attendance, and afterward, new duchess Kunigunde moved to Munich with her husband. Respectable enough. Mostly.

  But you snitched a copy of the tabloid called The Conquest of Regensburg, and you know the awful truth behind this fairy tale.

  ON THE STEALING OF KUNIGUNDE

  The author of Conquest, whose decision to remain anonymous was surely for their own safety, insists that Albrecht stole the princess from her father, from the Holy Roman Empire, and from Christianity itself. The emperor had arranged for Kunigunde to marry the Ottoman sultan. The marriage would seal a deal to protect the empire from the eastern threat and lead to Kunigunde’s successful conversion of the Turks to Christianity. (One can dream.) Albrecht had forged the letter giving permission for him to marry Kunigunde. It’s representative of the way Albrecht stole the allegiance of Regensburg, seized control of the powerful city’s government, and increased taxes on monasteries.

  Never you mind that by the pamphlet’s publication in 1489, Kunigunde and Albrecht already had two little daughters, the first of their eight children. Never you mind that they had hosted Kunigunde’s brother—heir to the empire—for a congenial visit. And never you mind that the tabloid could more accurately be titled The Decision of the Regensburg City Council to Give Most Control to Albrecht in Exchange for Money, and I Don’t Like the Person Albrecht Appointed as Mayor.

  Never mind any of that. You’re the hero. Albrecht was an evil duke. Kunigunde was a princess in dire need of a rescue. You get to save her.

  ON THE SAVING OF KUNIGUNDE

  Unfortunately for you, Kunigunde had her own ideas about a rescue. Namely, that she didn’t need it.

  She had spent her childhood in the snake pit of the imperial court, occasionally mediating between supplicants and her father. As duchess, she forced her older son to accept the younger brother she favored as his co-duke. Most important, she knew treachery when she saw it. Even when others failed to. And she had the power and intelligence to reveal it.

  In the early 1500s, say the sources, all of Augsburg was entranced by a young prophet who had clearly rolled an eighteen in charisma. Anna Laminit was around eighteen years old and living in a homeless shelter when God chose her to be a saint on Earth. He did so by allowing her to survive without eating any food at all. And allowing her to flaunt her self-starvation. And, of course, allowing the people of Augsburg to throw money at her because of it.

  Emperor Maximilian—Kunigunde’s brother—sought advice from Laminit in 1502. Empress Bianca Maria Sforza organized religious rituals at Laminit’s urging in 1503. Laminit earned even more money, a larger house, the seat of honor at church, and a secret affair with at least one member of the city’s aristocracy.

  Skip ahead to Munich, 1512. The widowed Kunigunde was watching Laminit profit from her “sainthood,” and Kunigunde was having none of it.

  The duchess invited, or “invited,” Laminit to the convent that she had made her pious final home. Laminit made excuses. Kunigunde snorted and played travel agent. She organized Laminit’s trip to Munich and convinced the Augsburg city council to let their star leave. In short, she gave Laminit no way to refuse.

  The sisters at Kunigunde’s convent greeted Laminit with much fanfare and the luxury of her own bedroom.

  Kunigunde had prepared the room especially for Laminit. Not with decorations but with small holes in the door. She spied from behind the door as the visitor hid a bag of expensive fruit and pastries under her bed. Kunigunde watched as Laminit ate into her secret stash of food. Laminit was finished. But the duchess wasn’t. Kunigunde waited patiently, then watched as Laminit threw her excrement out the window.

  And that is the story of how an old woman and some gingerbread cakes unmasked a con artist whose decade-long scam had captured the minds, souls, and purses of tens of thousands. She finished a long, skillful, and overwhelmingly successful career by succeeding where an emperor and an entire city had failed.

  Princesses in medieval Europe needed rescuing. Albrecht may have been the craftily evil duke you read about in your pamphlet, and Kunigunde may have needed rescuing even more desperately than most. But unfortunately for heroes, sometimes the princess saves herself.

  HOW to STEAL the CROWN

  You slew a dragon, sure. But have you tried slaying a metaphor?

  Whatever coups you’ve witnessed and princesses you haven’t rescued and minor wrinkles you’ve faced during your quest, you probably think you’re in great shape to finally steal the throne and drive evil out of the kingdom forever (“forever” being a subjective term… very subjective). Your victories mean it’s time for one more wrinkle. In medieval Europe, stealing the crown sometimes meant stealing a crown. The object.

  On the plus side, crowns in general were rather popular jewelry among the elite of the elite. Philippa of Hainaut had ten different ones; Edward II of England had to use several of his crowns as collateral for loans. But other crowns held true power. Some countries had a designated crown (or crowns) that were necessary for coronation rituals. Even the legal heir could lose the throne to a different person who had been crowned with the royal regalia.

  In the Middle Ages, Hungary was one of those countries, with the kingdom perpetually investing its future in the Crown of St. Stephen. This custom was not initially a problem for King Albrecht II and Queen Elisabeth. It wasn’t even immediately a problem when Albrecht died in late 1439, leaving behind no male heirs but also the Polish and Hungarian nobility just itching to win the throne for themselves. Elisabeth, who was pregnant and desperately hoping for a son, simply took the official crown from the royal treasury to protect it from conniving noblemen. She hid it in her own chamber, in a case disguised
as a bench.

  The trouble started when the room—and thus the bench—caught on fire.

  Elisabeth’s most trusted lady-in-waiting, Helene Kottanner, managed to put out the fire. But the incident made the queen and her closest confidants nervous enough to move the crown from the queen’s chamber back to the treasury. And right after that, Elisabeth received warning that some Polish nobles planned to steal the throne by forcing her to remarry. She fled without a second thought, without her jewelry, without her chambermaids, and, most important, without the Crown of St. Stephen.

  What Elisabeth did have was the fervent hope of delivering an infant son who would need the crown to become king. She turned to Kottanner for the riskiest of favors: sneak back into the castle and steal… her jewelry. Her jewelry? Elisabeth was the daughter of the Holy Roman emperor and queen of multiple nations. Surely she didn’t need… But Elisabeth insisted.

  Terrified for her life—as she herself wrote in her account of events—but ever loyal, Kottanner agreed to go back for the jewels. Hiding the treasure under her dress, she smuggled the pieces out of the castle. She did not buckle one bit under the interrogation of the nobleman who tried to stop her: “Helene Kottanner, what is it you are bringing?” “I am bringing my clothes.” The practice at misdirection would serve her well, because it turned out the jewelry heist was just a warm-up.

  And that is how, on the night of February 20, 1440, Helene Kottanner and two helpers found themselves breaking into the vault of the royal treasury of Hungary to steal a crown. They wore black clothing to blend into the dark and felt shoes to muffle their footsteps. The men smuggled files and hammers underneath their coats as they made their way to the outermost of three doors protecting the vault.

  Kottanner distracted the guards (or, as she puts it, God allowed them to be distracted) while the men filed, hammered, and burned their way into the most protected place in the entire castle. The party quickly realized they had forgotten two things. First, the empty place where the crown would be missing was extremely conspicuous. Second, the crown would not exactly fit under a coat.

  Kottanner isn’t entirely clear in her account who accomplished what, but the following things happened:

  the used files were thrown down the toilet

  the crown was smuggled, unnoticed, to the castle’s chapel, which was dedicated to Saint Elisabeth of Hungary (1207–1231)

  the shelf on which the crown had stood was also smuggled out of the vault, so the crown’s absence would be less conspicuous

  the vault doors’ locks were replaced

  The heist continued as Kottanner and her helpers stole a red velvet pillow from the chapel, pulled out some of the feather stuffing, and sewed the official state crown of Hungary inside.

  But before they could get the pillow out of the castle—I am still not making this up—an old servant approached Kottanner to ask what this strange casing in front of the queen’s old chamber’s stove might be. Kottanner quickly sent the woman off to her own quarters to fetch her possessions, promising the other woman a prime position in the queen’s retinue if she cooperated—and then burned the casing down to ash.

  And then they had to make their escape across the frozen Danube. Really.

  It was all worth it, though, because Elisabeth gave birth to a healthy baby boy, the future king of Hungary, who was sealed in his role by the Crown of St. Stephen.

  If you’re looking for a story of ice and fire to help you turn metaphor into reality, here it is. Any princess can save herself and wear a crown. In 1440, this princess and her lady-in-waiting stole the crown and saved a kingdom.

  REAPING YOUR REWARD

  HOW to WIN the PRINCESS

  Heroic quests end in one of two ways: death or success. Heroes themselves also tend to end up one of two ways: either a burned-out husk of a human being or married. You probably don’t need instructions for the first option. But on the off chance you prefer marriage to a life mired in perpetual trauma, it’s time to talk about how to turn saving the princess into winning her heart.

  ISABEL

  If you’re really lucky, your quest did the hard work already. Well, if you’re lucky and you’re the greatest knight who ever lived. That was how some people remembered English warrior William Marshal (1146/47–1219). William was skillful (and lucky) enough not to die in battle, comfortable enough to ingratiate himself with a series of English royals, and successful enough at both aspects of knighthood to do better than winning the princess. King Henry II of England hoped his own daughters would be queens or German empresses, and oversaw their marriages accordingly. As for his most prized champion? Henry promised landless William the hand (and huge tracts of land) of Isabel of Stringuil, possibly the richest woman in the British Isles, and his heir Richard eventually honored that promise. Not a bad deal.

  So, if you’re in England, winning the princess after your quest would seem to have only one further requirement: be a noble.

  Score: Be a noble; 1.

  But who’s to say you’re in England? (Besides the setting of every heroic quest before yours.) You know perfectly well that if William Marshal had attempted the same cascade of good fortune in the Byzantine Empire, its royal court would have eaten him alive (possibly literally). And if you want to win the princess, it’s better to learn from the worst-case scenario. So have a nice trip to Constantinople, and don’t worry if you’re bad with names. You’ll only have to learn three or four this time.

  EUPHROSYNE, ANOTHER EUPHROSYNE, MARIA, AND ANOTHER MARIA

  Remember how Byzantine court politics do not mess around? Remember the last Irene, Maria, Euphrosyne, Irene, and Michael? Fast-forward about 450 years and five more Emperor Michaels, add three Mongol factions and Bulgaria to the mix, and recall the exact same names you learned when you were saving the princess. This time, you’re in 1259 and the future Michael VIII stands poised to steal the throne.

  You might say Michael (1223–1282) and William Marshal took similar paths toward winning the princess. Both of them acquitted themselves well in battle and politics, and occasionally fought on the side against the ruler. Both of them married women who were symbolically, rather than genetically, princesses.

  But only Michael regained the emperor’s good graces, married his beloved grandniece, fell back out of the emperor’s good graces, fought on the side of the Mongols for two years, returned to Constantinople and staged a coup, and turned his marriage into the foundation of one of the most successful dynasties in imperial history. William, on the other hand, had some land. So if you want to win a sequel as well as a princess, Michael should be your go-to example.

  Like his long-ago, princess-saving predecessor Michael II, Michael VIII staged a coup in 1259 and executed the regent ruling in place of the young emperor. Unlike his predecessor, Michael VIII then blinded and exiled the child ruler in 1261, eliminating him as a future threat to the throne.

  Michael accomplished a few minor things as emperor, such as reconquering Constantinople from the Latin west, restoring the Byzantine Empire, and spearheading a cultural and intellectual revival. His feats become even more impressive when you realize that Greek Byzantium was smack in the middle of the overly ambitious Italian city-states to the west, the Mamluks to the south, the Bulgarian Empire to the north, and above all, the Mongols to the south and east.

  Two of those Mongol states were as hungry as ever. The Golden Horde utterly ravaged Hungary in 1241 and was eager for a second round; the Ilkhanate destroyed Baghdad in 1258. Byzantine geography was not ideal.

  Luckily, the Mongols were quite happy to manage their relationship with Byzantium through marriage alliances—a process Michael knew intimately, having been married to a former emperor’s grandniece. His daughter Euphrosyne headed off to marry unofficial khan, or leader, Nogaj of (most of) the Golden Horde, and little Maria was sent to Abaqa Khan of the Ilkhanate.

  (You’ve only just arrived in Byzantium, and already Michael, Nogaj, and Abaqa have won their princesses! Imagine what�
�s going to happen when the story continues.)

  These arrangements suited Maria and Euphrosyne just fine. Khans could marry as many wives as they wanted, but Mongol queens generally held more formal power than western noblewomen. In the Golden Horde, Euphrosyne managed to secure a Greek name for her daughter, and chose (because why not) Euphrosyne. We’ll call her Euphrosyne 2. Hold that thought.

  Meanwhile, Maria grew up in the Ilkhanate and learned how to manipulate Byzantine and Mongol rulers. Under her influence, Abaqa protected and aided the Ilkhanate’s Christians to the extent that Maria was even attributed with performing miracles.

  And no, she wasn’t done yet. After Abaqa died in 1282, Maria’s widowhood got off to a bad start when she was essentially forced to marry her stepson. Eventually, she—shall we say—exiled herself without permission back to Constantinople.

  Score: Be a noble, 2; be a prince, 1; be a Mongol prince, 2.

  Now-emperor Andronikos II, Maria’s brother, might have intended to use her to secure yet another alliance. One way or another, Maria wouldn’t let him dream of it. She founded and entered the wealthy monastery of St. Mary of the Mongols—in honor of the Virgin Mary, but also in honor of the people and nation she considered hers.

  Instead, Andronikos sent his daughter Simondis to Serbia. We’ll leave Serbia, Simondis, her husband Stefan, and the letter S at that, and move on.