Bartholomew le Gros, Bishop of Pécs’s double political mission in Aragon

Abstract

Bartholomew le Gros, Bishop of Pécs’s double political mission in Aragon Bartholomew le Gros (Barthélemy De Gros) was born as the second son of a landlord in the region of Saône-et-Loire in Burgundy, France and became a priest in the neighbourhood of the famous Benedictine monastery of Cluny. He went on crusade to Constantinople in 1204 where the Latin Empire was established. As a friend of her family, he became a member of the escort of the princess of Flanders Yolanda, daughter of the count of Flanders who had become, as Baudouin V, the emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. King Andrew II of Hungary, having been widowed for two years, married Yolanda, the daughter of the emperor. Barthélemy De Gros as a member of the escort of the princess had to come to Hungary with her and became bishop of Pécs from 1219 to 1251. At the time of the war between the Pope and the Western Roman Emperor, King Andrew II of Hungary wanted a European Catholic king to marry his daughter, therefore he sent his bishop of Pécs Bartholomew le Gros on the mission to deliver a proposal of marriage of his daughter Yolanda to King James I «the Conqueror» of Aragon, grandson of King Alfonso II.