Chapter X: The Restoration of the Greek Empire (2)

The disgraceful retreat of his son Michael to Peges, induced Andronicus to change the military governors in Asia, instead of teaching him the necessity of reforming the military system. The command of Nicomedia was entrusted to a Tatar chief who had recently embraced Christianity; and by the marriage of this Tatar’s daughter with Suleiman, a Turkish emir, peace was restored to a small district and a barrier was formed against the incursions of Othman. But the unemployed Turkish troops transferred their services to other leaders, and carried on their incursions in more distant provinces. This preference of a Tatar general indicates a deep-rooted distrust of the courage and fidelity of the Greek nobles, as well as contempt for their military skill; and, indeed, a factious spirit, directed to personal interest, could alone have caused the insensibility to national honour which made the nobles and the troops submit tamely to the insults they received from their emperor. Well might the brave old Spaniard Muntaner declare that God had stricken the Greek race with his curse, for every one could trample them down.

A new crisis in the fate of the Byzantine Empire suddenly presented itself by the arrival of an army of Spaniards, composed chiefly of Catalans and men of Aragon; but this race of strangers, hitherto unknown in the East, soon disappeared from the scene. They came and departed as if they were under the guidance of the destroying angel. In daring courage, steady discipline, and military skill, they were not surpassed by any Greek or Roman army. Their warlike deeds entitled them to rank as a host of heroes; their individual acts made them appear a band of demons. They had proved invincible on every field of battle. They had broken the lances of the chivalry of France in many a well-fought action; and they were firmly convinced that no troops on earth could encounter their shock. Guided by a sovereign like Leo III, or like Basil II, they might have conquered the Seljuk Turks, strangled the Ottoman power in its cradle, and carried the double-headed eagle of Byzantium victorious to the foot of Mount Taurus, and to the banks of the Danube, but Andronicus could neither make use of their valour, nor secure their obedience. His own senseless intrigues roused their hostile feelings; and after they had made every tribe in the Seljuk empire tremble for a moment, they turned on the Greek Empire, where they carried on their inhuman ravages with a degree of cruelty and rapacity which history cannot attempt to portray. They laid both the empire and the Greek nation prostrate in the dust, bleeding with wounds from which they never recovered.

The Catalan Grand Company--for that is the name by which this Spanish army is known in the Eastern history--consisted of troops formed in the twenty years’ war that followed the Sicilian Vespers.[c]

THE CATALAN GRAND COMPANY

[Sidenote: [1303-1307 A.D.]]

After the peace of Sicily many thousands of Genoese, Catalans, etc., who had fought by sea and land under the standard of Anjou or Aragon, were blended into one nation by the resemblance of their manners and interest. They heard that the Greek provinces of Asia were invaded by the Turks; they resolved to share the harvest of pay and plunder, and Frederick king of Sicily most liberally contributed the means of their departure. In a warfare of twenty years, a ship or a camp was become their country; arms were their sole profession and property; valour was the only virtue which they knew; their women had imbibed the fearless temper of their lovers and husbands; it was reported that, with a stroke of their broad-swords, the Catalans could cleave a horseman and a horse; and the report itself was a powerful weapon.

Roger de Flor was the most popular of their chiefs; and his personal merit overshadowed the dignity of his prouder rivals of Aragon. The offspring of a marriage between a German gentleman of the court of Frederick the Second and a damsel of Brindisi, Roger was successively a templar, an apostate, a pirate, and at length the richest and most powerful admiral of the Mediterranean. He sailed from Messina (Messana) to Constantinople, with eighteen galleys, four great ships, and eight thousand adventurers; and his previous treaty was faithfully accomplished by Andronicus the elder, who accepted with joy and terror this formidable succour. A palace was allotted for his reception, and a niece of the emperor was given in marriage to the valiant stranger, who was immediately created great duke or admiral of Romania. After a decent repose, he transported his troops over the Propontis, and boldly led them against the Turks; in two bloody battles thirty thousand of the Moslems were slain; he raised the siege of Philadelphia, and deserved the name of the deliverer of Asia.

But after a short season of prosperity, the cloud of slavery and ruin again burst on that unhappy province. The inhabitants escaped (says a Greek historian) from the smoke into the flames; and the hostility of the Turks was less pernicious than the friendship of the Catalans. The lives and fortunes which they had rescued, they considered as their own; the willing or reluctant maid was saved from the race of circumcision for the embraces of a Christian soldier; the exaction of fines and supplies was enforced by licentious rapine and arbitrary executions; and, on the resistance of Magnesia, the great duke besieged a city of the Roman Empire. These disorders he excused by the wrongs and passions of a victorious army; nor would his own authority or person have been safe had he dared to punish his faithful followers, who were defrauded of the just and covenanted price of their services.

The threats and complaints of Andronicus disclosed the nakedness of the empire. His golden bull had invited no more than five hundred horse and a thousand foot soldiers; yet the crowds of volunteers, who migrated to the East, had been enlisted and fed by his spontaneous bounty. While his bravest allies were content with three byzants, or pieces of gold, for their monthly pay, an ounce or even two ounces of gold were assigned to the Catalans, whose annual pension would thus amount to near £100 [$500]; one of their chiefs had modestly rated at three hundred thousand crowns the value of his future merits; and above a million had been issued from the treasury for the maintenance of these costly mercenaries. A cruel tax had been imposed on the corn of the husbandman; one-third was retrenched from the salaries of the public officers; and the standard of the coin was so shamefully debased that of the four-and-twenty parts only five were of pure gold.

At the summons of the emperor, Roger evacuated a province which no longer supplied the materials of rapine; but he refused to disperse his troops; and while his style was respectful, his conduct was independent and hostile. The grand duke of Romania condescended to accept the title and ornaments of cæsar; but he rejected the new proposal of the government of Asia with a subsidy of corn and money, on condition that he should reduce his troops to the harmless number of three thousand men. Assassination is the last resource of cowards. The cæsar was tempted to visit the royal residence of Hadrianopolis; in the apartment, and before the eyes of the empress, he was stabbed by the Alan guards (1307).

The loss of their leader intimidated the crowd of adventurers, who hoisted the sails of flight and were soon scattered round the coasts of the Mediterranean. But a veteran band of fifteen hundred Catalans, or French, stood firm in the strong fortress of Gallipoli on the Hellespont, displayed the banners of Aragon, and offered to revenge and justify their chief by an equal combat of ten or a hundred warriors. Instead of accepting this bold defiance, the emperor Michael, the son and colleague of Andronicus, resolved to oppress them with the weight of multitudes; every nerve was strained to form an army of thirteen thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, and the Propontis was covered with the ships of the Greeks and Genoese. In two battles by sea and land, these mighty forces were encountered and overthrown by the despair and discipline of the Catalans; the young emperor fled to the palace; and an insufficient guard of light horse was left for the protection of the open country.

Victory renewed the hopes and numbers of the adventurers; every nation was blended under the name and standard of the Grand Company; and three thousand Turkish proselytes deserted from the imperial service to join this military association. In the possession of Gallipoli the Catalans intercepted the trade of Constantinople and the Black Sea, while they spread their devastations on either side of the Hellespont over the confines of Europe and Asia. To prevent their approach, the greatest part of the Byzantine territory was laid waste by the Greeks themselves; the peasants and their cattle retired into the city: and myriads of sheep and oxen, for which neither place nor food could be procured, were unprofitably slaughtered on the same day. Four times the emperor Andronicus sued for peace, and four times he was inflexibly repulsed, till the want of provisions and the discord of the chiefs compelled the Catalans to evacuate the banks of the Hellespont and the neighbourhood of the capital. After their separation from the Turks, the remains of the great company pursued their march through Macedonia and Thessaly, to seek a new establishment in the heart of Greece.[b]

At this point we may take a glance briefly at the history of Athens, which fell into the hands of the Catalans.[a]

THE DUCHY OF ATHENS

[Sidenote: [1204-1311 A.D.]]

In the partition of the empire in 1204 the principality of Athens and Thebes had been assigned to Otto de la Roche, a noble warrior of Burgundy, with the title of “great duke,” which the Latins understood in their own sense, and the Greeks more foolishly derived from the age of Constantine. Otto followed the standard of the marquis of Montferrat; the ample state which he acquired by a miracle of conduct or fortune was peaceably inherited by his son and two grandsons, till the family, though not the nation, was changed, by the marriage of an heiress into the elder branch of the house of Brienne.

WALTER DE BRIENNE AND CEPHISUS

[Sidenote: [1311-1456 A.D.]]

The son of that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy of Athens; and with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he invested with fiefs, he successively reduced above thirty castles of the vassal or neighbouring lords.

But when informed of the approach and ambition of the great company, he collected a force of seven hundred knights, sixty-four hundred horse, and eight thousand foot, and boldly met them on the banks of the river Cephisus in Bœotia, March 15, 1311. The Catalans amounted to no more than thirty-five hundred horse, and four thousand foot; but the deficiency of numbers was compensated by stratagem and order. They formed round their camp an artificial inundation; the duke and his knights advanced without fear or precaution on the verdant meadow; their horses plunged into the bog; and he was cut in pieces, with the greatest part of the French cavalry. His family and nation were expelled; and his son Walter de Brienne, the titular duke of Athens, the tyrant of Florence, and the constable of France, lost his life in the field of Poitiers.

Attica and Bœotia were the rewards of the victorious Catalans; they married the widows and daughters of the slain; and during fourteen years the great company was the terror of the Grecian states. Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty of the house of Aragon; and, during the remainder of the fourteenth century, Athens, as a government or an appanage, was successively bestowed by the kings of Sicily. After the French and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of the Acciajuoli, a family plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and sovereign in Greece. Athens, which they embellished with new buildings, became the capital of a state that extended over Thebes, Argos, Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly; and their reign was finally determined by Muhammed II, who strangled the last duke and educated his sons in the discipline and religion of the seraglio.[b]

To return now to the affairs of the Byzantine emperors.

ANDRONICUS II TO THE RESTORATION OF THE PALÆOLOGI (1311-1355 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1311-1320 A.D.]]

The Turkish auxiliaries returned home after the battle of Cephisus, 1311, in order to enjoy the wealth they had amassed in the expedition. The emperor Andronicus allowed them to pass through the empire unmolested, on condition that they refrain from every act of pillage, and they reached the shore of the Hellespont, escorted by a corps of three thousand Greek cavalry. The imperial government could never act either with honesty or boldness. A plot was framed to disarm the Turks as they were waiting for vessels to transport them over to Asia; but the Greeks were now so universally distrusted that their plots had little chance of succeeding, for everybody suspected their treachery and watched their proceedings. The Turks learned their danger, surprised a neighbouring fort, and commenced plundering the country. The emperor Michael attacked them with the Greek army, but defeat was his invariable companion. Khalil, the Turkish general, was a soldier formed in the severe discipline of the Catalan camp; his superior generalship and the perfect tactics of his troops gained a complete victory. The camp, baggage, and imperial crown of Michael became the spoil of the conquerors. Khalil gleaned the remains of the Catalan ravages.

Philes Palæologus, a man remarkable for his virtue, afflicted by the sufferings of his fellow-countrymen, solicited the emperor for permission to serve against the Turks. Andronicus, though he placed more confidence in his piety than in the military operations he proposed, conferred on him the office of protostrator and authorised him to levy an army. The success of Philes proves that the ruin of the empire was caused by the folly of Andronicus and the corruption of the government. Philes enrolled only veteran Greek soldiers, and selected officers of experience, without reference to birth and court favour. Constant exercise and strict discipline soon restored the spirit of the Byzantine army, and Philes led his men to encounter a plundering expedition of the Turks in the vicinity of Bizya, commanded by Khalil in person. A bloody battle ensued, for the Turks were too much accustomed to vanquish the Greeks to yield without a desperate contest. Philes, however, remained master of the field, and followed up his success with such vigour that he soon besieged the Turks in their fortified camp, while the Byzantine fleet, aided by eight Genoese galleys, blockaded them by sea. After a fierce struggle, the camp was taken; the greater part of the Turks were slain by the Greeks: the remainder were sold as slaves by the Genoese. The affair occurred in the year 1315. It may be considered as the last scene of the Catalan expedition, so that for twelve years the greater part of the Greek Empire of Constantinople had been plundered and devastated by the Catalan Grand Company and its Turkish auxiliaries.

Other enemies had taken advantage of the weakness of the empire during this calamitous period. The Seljuk Turks had almost completed the conquest of Asia Minor; the Ottomans had extended their possessions on the southern shores of the Propontis; the Genoese arrogated to themselves the possession of several cities and islands, and various chiefs seized different towns that were left without garrisons to defend them, and lived in a state of piratical independence. Every bond of society appeared to be dissolved in the countries inhabited by the Greek race, and every stranger, whether Mussulman or Christian, thought himself strong enough to subdue the Greeks.

The most important conquest of the time, however, was that of Rhodes, by the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem, both from its durability and from the renown of the conquerors. Andronicus sent an army to raise the siege; but his troops were defeated, and the knights took the city of Rhodes on the 15th of August, 1310. As sovereigns of this beautiful island they were long the bulwark of Christian Europe against the Turkish power; and the memory of the chivalrous youth who, for successive ages, found an early tomb at this verge of the Christian world, will long shed a romantic colouring on the history of Rhodes. They sustained the declining glory of a state of society that was hastening to become a vision of the past; they were the heroes of a class of which the Norse sea-kings had been the demigods. The little realm they governed as an independent state consisted of Rhodes, with the neighbouring islands of Cos, Calymnos, Syme, Leros, Nisyros, Telos, and Chalce; on the opposite continent they possessed the classic city of Halicarnassus, and several strong forts, of which the picturesque ruins still overhang the sea.

The emperor Andronicus II displayed the same want of sound judgment and right feeling in his private that he did in his public conduct, and his latter days were embittered by family disputes caused by his own folly and injustice. His second wife, Irene of Montferrat, persecuted him with demands to dismember the empire, in order to form appanages for her children. Andronicus resisted her solicitations at the expense of a quarrel, and Irene long lived separated from him at Thessalonica. The emperor Michael allowed his father to control the arrangements of his family and regulate his private actions. Michael’s eldest son was named Andronicus. He was the third emperor of the name who occupied the Byzantine throne, but he is known in history generally as Andronicus the Younger. When a child, he was an especial favourite with his grandfather, who directed his education. That education was undoubtedly a mixture of unwise indulgence and capricious restraint. The young Andronicus grew up a dissipated youth, and his debauched habits produced a terrible tragedy in his family. He was informed that his favourite mistress admitted another lover, and he employed bravos to waylay his rival. It happened that on that very night his own brother Manuel hastened quickly to the lady’s house, where he expected to find Andronicus. The assassins mistook the despot for the lover, and Manuel was murdered on the spot. The dreadful news reached their father Michael at Thessalonica, where he was residing in a declining state of health. Anguish soon terminated his life (1320).

[Sidenote: [1320-1321 A.D.]]

The young Andronicus was now heir-apparent to the empire, if the expression be admissible in a state without a fixed order of hereditary succession. But the murder of Manuel changed the affection of the old emperor into implacable hatred, and it was generally thought that the reigning sovereign had the power of naming his successor. The emperor Michael VIII had introduced the custom that a new oath of allegiance should be taken, whenever a change occurred in the order of succession. When Michael, the son of Andronicus II, died, the new oath was administered in the name of Andronicus II alone, and did not contain that of Andronicus III, who was the direct heir. It also contained a clause promising implicit obedience to whomsoever he might declare emperor. These circumstances indicated that he intended to exclude his grandson from the throne; nor was he long in selecting a favourite on whom it was supposed he intended to confer the imperial title. The choice was marked by the singular perverseness which characterised many of his most important acts. He had compelled his second son Constantine to marry the daughter of his favourite minister, Muzalon. The incidents of this union were both ridiculous and disgraceful. The lady had been destined to be the bride of Theodore, the emperor’s brother, when it was discovered that she had already indulged in illicit intercourse with one of her relatives, and would have presented the imperial family very prematurely with an intruder. Theodore broke off the match; but the emperor, moved by his attachment to the father, and by the penitence of the fair sinner, subsequently compelled his own son Constantine to marry her. The young prince thought himself entitled to have a bastard as well as his wife. The youth was named Michael Catharus, and became so great a favourite with his grandfather, the emperor Andronicus, that he showed a disposition to adopt him as the heir to the empire, but the representations of his ministers prevented this act of folly.

[Sidenote: [1321-1332 A.D.]]

The government of the old emperor was now generally unpopular; and as he was suspected of being anxious to prevent his grandson Andronicus from succeeding to the throne, the cause of the prince was made the rallying-point of the discontented. The most distinguished partisans of Andronicus the Younger were Cantacuzenus the historian, a man of the highest rank, of extensive connections among the Byzantine aristocracy, of great wealth, ability, and military as well as literary accomplishments, but devoured by ambition, and overflowing with cunning and self-conceit; Synadenus, a man of equal rank and talent; and Sir Janni, a man of superior boldness and ability, but with a want of fixed principles and steady conduct that gave him the character of a political adventurer. With these it is necessary to mention Apocaucus, who was the ablest administrator and financier of the party. The intrigues of the partisans of the young prince did not escape the attention of the emperor’s ministers, who would, doubtless, have maintained order by arresting the most dangerous, had not Andronicus been more anxious to punish his grandson, by depriving him of all chance of succeeding to the empire, than to prevent a rebellion. He now resolved to bring the prince to a public trial; and on Palm Sunday, 1321, the young Andronicus was unexpectedly summoned to the palace of Blachernæ. His partisans comprehended that the crisis of their own fate, as well as that of the prince, must be decided before sunset. Cantacuzenus and Synadenus accordingly assembled their followers, and filled the palace with a force that so completely intimidated both the judges and the emperor that the prince was pardoned, and a feigned reconciliation took place between the grandfather and the grandson.

Andronicus II resolved to remove Cantacuzenus and Synadenus from his grandson’s society, for he justly considered them as the authors of the plots against his government. Cantacuzenus was named governor of Thessaly, and Synadenus was sent to Prilapos. These officers collected as many troops as they were able under the pretence of repairing to their posts; and when their levies were completed they marched to Hadrianopolis, where the young Andronicus joined them and raised the standard of rebellion.

The prince was popular; he gained the people by proclaiming that the province of Thrace was exempt from some of the most onerous taxes, and his mercenaries enabled him to advance against Constantinople. But his soldiers, who cared little for political questions, pillaged the inhabitants wherever they passed; bands of robbers began to lay waste the villages which had escaped destruction from the Catalans and the Turks, and the collectors of the public revenue, availing themselves of these disorders, embezzled the money in their hands. Cantacuzenus says that the young Andronicus was averse to march against his grandfather, fearing lest his army should storm Constantinople. In order, therefore, to prevent his grandfather from being dethroned, he wrote secretly to the old emperor to advise that measures might be concerted to turn aside the first ardour of his own troops. A treaty was concluded at Rhegium, where the prince had established his headquarters, by which the rights of Andronicus the Younger to the succession of the empire were recognised, and he was invested with the government of Thrace from Selymbria to Christopolis as his appanage.

This peace was of very short duration. The exactions of the prince’s troops, and the intrigues of Sir Janni and the emperor induced several cities of Thrace to desert the party of the young Andronicus. Heraclea received an imperial garrison, and the prince, finding that his cause was losing ground, assembled his army and laid siege to the city in November, 1321. His troops had clamoured for the renewal of the war during the summer; they were averse to keep the field in winter, so that, when the attack on Heraclea was defeated, the prince marched up to the walls of Constantinople. He had now few partisans in the capital, and he was soon compelled to retire into winter quarters at Didymoteichos. A new treaty of peace was concluded at Epibates in July, 1322, which removed some of the causes of dissatisfaction to both parties.

On the 2nd of February, 1325, Andronicus the Younger received the imperial crown. This may be considered a proof that the ministers of the emperor had persuaded him to stifle all his resentment, and lay aside his schemes for excluding his grandson from the throne. But in the following year the two emperors allowed the city of Prusa to be taken by the Ottoman Turks, without either making an effort to relieve it. This fact seemed to prove that neither could allow his best officers and troops to succour this important city, lest his colleague should take advantage of their absence. Intrigues followed intrigues.

The civil war was renewed under circumstances extremely unfavourable to the old emperor, whose conduct rendered it inevitable. The people were universally disgusted with his despotism and injustice, and the young Andronicus seems to have expected that they would have immediately admitted him into Constantinople. Finding that this could not be effected, he hastened into Macedonia in the midst of winter, leaving the protostrator Synadenus to blockade the capital. Liberal promises of reduced taxation, and the assurance that all arrears due to the imperial treasury should be cancelled, insured his entry into most of the towns, and rendered his march a triumph. Thessalonica, Edessa, Castoria, Berœa, Pelagonia, Achrida, and Deabolis, opened their gates. The krall [king] of Servia, who consulted his own interest, refused to assist the officers of the reigning emperor, and took advantage of the confusion to gain possession of the frontier fortress of Prosacon. Strumbitza and Melenicon were the only strong places that remained in the possession of the partisans of Andronicus II.

While these events happened, Synadenus gained a complete victory over the garrison of Constantinople, on its making an attempt to raise the blockade. When the news of this victory reached Andronicus, he hastened to the army before the walls of the capital. Treasonable assistance was soon secured, and on the night of Monday, May 23rd, 1328, a party of soldiers scaled the walls; the garrison joined in proclaiming Andronicus III; the gates were thrown open, and the young emperor marched directly to the imperial palace to assure his grandfather that, though he had ceased to govern, he would be treated with all the honour due to a sovereign prince.

Two years after the taking of Constantinople, Andronicus III was attacked by a serious illness, and his ministers feared lest his grandfather might again recover the throne. To prevent the possibility of this event, Synadenus compelled the old man to become a monk, and to sign a declaration that he would never again mount the throne, nor pretend to dispose of the empire in case of his grandson’s death. Andronicus II had already lost the use of his eyes, and this, his last public act, was signed with two crosses, one in red ink as emperor and another in black as a humble monk. The patriarch Isaiah sent to congratulate him on his change of life: the petulant old man regarded this message as an insult, and sent back some violent and probably not unjust reproaches to the head of the church. His name continued to be mentioned in the public prayers as the most religious and most Christian basileus, the monk Antony. One evening, after a literary party at which his daughter Simonida was present, he was suddenly seized with an illness which soon terminated his life. He expired on the 13th day of February, 1332, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

[Sidenote: [1332-1352 A.D.]]

Andronicus II was a man who, with few personal vices, possessed many of the worst qualities of a sovereign. He had capacity enough to direct the whole civil and ecclesiastical business of the empire, but was destitute of the judgment necessary to direct it well. He rarely took a right step, and never at the proper time; so that his petulant pride and pedantic despotism proved more ruinous to the empire than the worst vices of many of his predecessors. His ecclesiastical bigotry especially served as an instrument of providence for effecting the ruin and degradation of the orthodox Eastern church, and of the Greek race. That the Greeks allowed themselves to be so long misled and oppressed by so worthless and weak a sovereign, may perhaps be accepted as a proof that the nation was sunk in selfishness and bigotry like the emperor.[c]

Andronicus III, now absolute monarch, showed great bravery against the Turks, but he could not stay their progress in Anatolia, nor prevent their descents on Europe. Neither could he complete the conquest of Epirus nor live at peace with his neighbours on the peninsula.

He died in 1341, leaving his son, Joannes V (Palæologus), a minor, under the regency of his wife, Anne of Savoy. The lord chamberlain, Cantacuzenus, affected at first to protect them, but his protégés soon found him too powerful. They got up scandals about him, imprisoned his relatives, allowed the houses of his partisans to be destroyed. These latter forced him to take the crown under the title of Joannes VI. Civil war again broke out in the empire. Cantacuzenus allied himself with Stephen, krall of Servia, and with Omur Beg, the Seljuk emir of Ionia. Anne of Savoy asked help from the latter’s rival, Orkhan, sultan of the Ottomans.

Intrigue alternated with massacre. Cantacuzenus contrived to gain over this same Orkhan by giving him his daughter Theodora. On both sides the infidels were authorised to carry off Byzantine subjects, and the ports and vessels of the empire were placed at their disposal to enable them to transport their captives into Asia. The foreigners took advantage of the general anarchy to oppress the provinces and towns. The krall of Servia conquered Macedonia as far as Pheræ, and called himself czar of the Greeks and Servians. The Genoese retook Chios, which Andronicus III had seized from them, and blockaded Constantinople, defended by other Italians, under Facciolati.

The latter, whilst the empress was giving a banquet to her partisans, opened the Golden Gate to Cantacuzenus. Anne was obliged to come to an agreement. It was arranged that Cantacuzenus should be emperor first, but only for ten years; that is, until Joannes V attained his twenty-first year. The partisans of neither side were satisfied with this transaction.

So feeble was the empire that the Genoese ventured to impose their own will in the very capital. Cantacuzenus had tried to reconstruct an Hellenic navy, and attempted to bring a little life into the port of Byzantium by lowering the port dues. The Genoese considered this injurious to their Galatian colony. They massacred the crew of a Grecian ship, and exacted that a large territory adjoining Galata should be ceded to them. A war followed, which lasted four years (1348-1352). To fight the Genoese the Greeks had called in Venetian and Catalan fleets. A bloody naval battle was fought under the very walls of the town, and the Greeks were victorious. Cantacuzenus had to capitulate (May 6, 1352) and give them all they demanded.

Civil war also soon recommenced. The whole country was horribly ravaged. An Ottoman army under Suleiman (Solyman), son of Orkhan and in Cantacuzenus’ pay, carried off the inhabitants by thousands. Joannes V was despoiled of his authority and private domains; in the room of the fallen prince, Matthias, son of Joannes VI, was associated with his father and crowned emperor at St. Sophia (1354). Then, in 1355, with the concurrence of Francesco Gattilusio and other Genoese, Palæologus surprised and entered Constantinople. He had to negotiate.

Joannes V and Joannes VI continued to live in the palace with equal authority. Matthias was to keep the crown for life, as well as Hadrianopolis. Lesbos had ceded its full sovereignty to Gattilusio (1355).

Joannes VI did not feel at all secure. Perhaps he felt remorse for having brought so many evils on the empire; perhaps he had a fit of religious fervour and contempt for worldly things, but at any rate he donned the monkish garb and retired into the convent of Mangana (1355). He only came out to join his prayers to the threats of Joannes V in order to make Matthias lay aside the purple (1357).

By the abdication to which he had forced his son, the legitimate order of succession resumed its course in the house of Palæologus. Unhappily, the Greek Empire of the fourteenth century was not strong enough to stand the shocks of civil war. Irreparable losses in men, money, and territory were inflicted on her. Genoa and Venice were driving their talons deeper and deeper into her enfeebled body. The Greek Morea, and even Thessalonica, had grown used to doing as they would. Finally, the different parties had shown the Ottomans methods which they were not likely to forget.[88]

THE CRUSADE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: [1343-1391 A.D.]]

Latin Europe alone could have saved the Greek Empire, but in the fourteenth century she was worn out by wars with nation after nation, by the antagonism between the Roman pope and the Avignon pope, and even between council and council. When a sovereign pontiff appeared authorised to speak in the name of Europe, he imposed, as the first condition to an uncertain union, the recognition of his supremacy by the Eastern church.

It would take too long to recall all the crusading projects which were raised in the papal court of Avignon, and in that of the French kings from Philippe le Bel to Philippe VI of Valois. Under Benedict XII, a fleet was placed under the orders of the legate Henry, patriarch _in partibus_ of Constantinople. Smyrna was taken from the Ionian emir, Omur Beg (1343). Fifty-two pirate ships were destroyed by the Christian fleet in sight of Athos (1344).

In 1366 Amadeus VI of Savoy, uncle of Joannes V, appeared in Byzantine waters. He took Gallipoli and Sozopolis from the Turks, repulsed an invasion of the Bulgarians, took from them Mesembria and Varna, and dictated a peace. In 1390, Louis II of Clermont, duke of Bourbon, landed at Tunis, Africa (Mehadia), but failed in the assault.

Thus in the West the crusading spirit was not yet extinct. Many of these crusades inspired little love for the Grecian Empire. Among the numerous projects presented to the popes and western sovereigns, there was one urging that the conquest of Byzantium was an indispensable preliminary to delivering the Holy Land.

Joannes V Palæologus hoped, although this formidable Western sword was in so many hands, to turn it against the enemies of the empire. So pressing was the danger, that the head of the orthodox church had to consent to go and kneel at Rome before Pope Urban V (1369). Unfortunately the resources of the pope had been exhausted by the last enterprise. At Venice Joannes V had to borrow, at high interest, enough money to continue his journey. After a fruitless tour in the south of France, as Joannes V was passing through Venice, quite unable to repay the loan, he was imprisoned at the request of his creditors. Thus the sacred person of the heir of Constantine the Great was kept in pledge by Venetian usurers.

THE EMPIRE TRIBUTARY TO THE TURKS

[Sidenote: [1369-1391 A.D.]]

Joannes V had two sons, between whom he had divided his dominions beforehand. The elder, Andronicus, had been associated with the emperor; the second, Manuel, was governor of Thessaly. The emperor first addressed himself to the elder, begging him to collect funds for his ransom. Andronicus coldly replied that the treasury was empty. In truth, he was in no hurry to hasten the return of his father and colleague. Manuel had more pity. He mortgaged his lands and sent the money.

When Joannes returned to Constantinople he rewarded the two sons according to their deserts. Andronicus he disgraced, and associated Manuel with him in the empire. Abandoned by all his supporters, he consented to pay tribute to Murad I in 1381. Then, under the weight of crushing necessities, he had to sustain a further humiliation. Besides the tribute, he promised Murad to furnish a military contingent, and to give him one of his sons as hostage.

The Greek Empire now found itself in exactly the same position with regard to the Turks as the Russian princes were in relation to the khans of the Golden Horde. Like the princes of Moscow, Tver, and Ryazan, the basileus only existed by submitting to humiliations; like them, he had to cringe to the horde. His situation was worse than theirs; the khan only asked from the Russian _kniazes_ tribute, obedience, and a military contingent. What more could he find to tempt his avarice in poverty-stricken Russia? The relations of the sultan and the basileus were not the same. The one could not pardon the other for perpetuating his memory in a city that was to be the capital of the new empire. The exactions were therefore more severe, the humiliations more cruelly calculated, the desire for spoliation was inextinguishable. Joannes V ended his miserable life in 1391, and his son Manuel succeeded him.

Of all the Palæologi, Manuel was the most cultivated and the most generous. He only felt the more shame at the degradation of the times. Perhaps he may best be compared with the Russian prince, Alexander Nevski.[e]

FOOTNOTES

[85] [Well may Gelzer[f] comment on this event, “The very worst friend of the Greeks did not see that the regaining of Constantinople was the true beginning of the national misfortune.”]

[86] The ceremony took place on the 2nd February, 1267.--PACHYMERES,[d] I, 207. The power of Michael was despotic, and his conduct arbitrary in the extreme. To render Veccus and Xiphilinus amenable to his ecclesiastical reasoning, he ordered their houses to be destroyed and their vineyards to be rooted out.--PACHYMERES,[d] I, 151, 165.

[87] [We may here omit, as more properly belonging to religious history, the procession of patriarchs whom Andronicus raised to power and who fairly cudgelled one another with excommunications. Veccus was deposed for Joseph, who yielded to Gregorius, against whom the Arsenites conspired; he fell, and Athanasius lasted four years, leaving wholesale excommunication in a jar, which was not found for four years, and caused immense confusion and terror until Athanasius said he had revoked it some years before as secretly as he had invoked it. He was then restored for a time, till he was forced out for Nephon, who set a better table than the emperor. Glycys followed, and then Gerasimus, who was chosen because he was old and deaf, but he died in a year. His successor was Isaiah, whose failure to be compliant brought on many of the troubles of the later civil wars.]

[88] [The fate of the empire was sealed when Murad took Hadrianopolis in 1361, following this the next year with the capture of Philippopolis and Serres.]