The Oxford History of Byzantium

by Cyril Mango

  Between 1290 and 1307, Andronikos pursued a variety of measures for stemming the Turkish tide, none of which had lasting effects. In 1290–3, the emperor moved his court to Anatolia, where he personally oversaw the rebuilding of fortifications, and generally attempted to boost morale. In 1294–5, his general Alexios Philanthropenos campaigned quite successfully in the Maeander Valley, but these gains were summarily lost when Philanthropenos staged an abortive coup and was blinded. In the spring of 1302, Andronikos’ son, Michael IX, and the general Mouzalon led expeditions respectively to recover control of the Maeander defences, and expel the Ottomans from the vicinity of Nicomedia, which they were harrying. Both were futile, the defeat Mouzalon experienced at Bapheus (July 1302) counting as Osman Beg’s first major victory over the Byzantines. Later that same summer a desperate Andronikos contracted the services of the Catalan Grand Company. For exorbitantly high pay, the latter—some 6,500 strong, and led by the mercurial Roger de Flor—duly campaigned in Anatolia in the spring and summer of 1303, driving back the Turks in a swathe from Cyzicus to Philadelphia, and simultaneously pillaging and plundering at will. But again these gains were ephemeral. No sooner did the Catalans vacate these territories than the Turks resumed raiding and besieging key fortresses. At this juncture, however, the Catalans themselves became a scourge to Byzantium, when Roger was assassinated whilst visiting Michael IX in Adrianople. They now undertook a two-year war of revenge, the main theatre of which was Thrace, whose cities and villages were mercilessly raided and pillaged. In summer 1307 the Company began moving west for new spoils, eventually establishing themselves as the masters of the Duchy of Athens and Thebes, after defeating Walter of Brienne in 1311. Thus, instead of enabling a solid Byzantine recovery in Asia Minor, the Catalans reduced much of Thrace and Macedonia to scorched earth, and likewise left Anatolia in chaos.

  Thereafter Andronikos II sent few troops to Anatolia. Instead, he intensified negotiations for an alliance with the Mongol Ilkhanids of Persia, hoping thereby to attain troops to attack the Turks, in particular the Ottomans, who by now had begun a regular siege of Nicaea. Evidently these, too, were fruitless, and throughout the closing decades of his reign the Ottoman and Karasi beyliks rapidly consolidated as the major Turkish successors to Byzantium in north-west Anatolia, as did Saruhan, Aydin, and Menteshe to the south. Meanwhile, the Rhomaioi who opted not to live under Turkish rule fled into Byzantine territory across the Marmara, or to the few unconquered strongholds—which in Bithynia amounted to Nicaea, Nicomedia, and Prousa until 1326, when it capitulated to Osman’s son Orhan. South of these, the only significant quasi-autonomous centre remaining at the end of Andronikos II’s reign was Philadelphia (finally lost in 1390), and for that privilege its citizens paid tribute to the neighbouring begs of Germiyan.

  The dynastic strife marring the final eight years of Andronikos II’s reign was a simmering conflict between a profoundly bewildered old man (in 1320, Andronikos was 60) whose policies were bankrupt, and a somewhat reckless and flamboyant grandson in his 20s—namely Andronikos III, who anticipated inheriting the throne in direct succession to his father, Michael IX. However, the elder Andronikos disinherited his grandson in 1320, following a tragic incident wherein the latter’s brother was murdered and their father subsequently died of shock and sorrow. The younger Andronikos promptly organized armed opposition, drumming up popular support with promises of generous tax cuts. In all, the tensions between the two Andronikoi were played out from 1320 through 1328 in three stages of open warfare. In the first round (1321), the younger Andronikos marched on Constantinople and eventually negotiated receipt of Thrace as an appanage. The second (1322) resulted in Andronikos III’s formal investment as co-emperor, along with a stipend, state-supplied troops, and residence in Didymoteichon. The third and final round of open warfare (1327–8) was something of a miniature Balkan war, with Andronikos III backed by the Bulgarians, and Andronikos II supported by the Serbs. The action culminated with the younger Andronikos taking Constantinople on 23 May 1328, following which his grandfather abdicated. He would die as the monk Antonios, in 1332. This lengthy period of transition clearly fragmented and enfeebled government, and acutely damaged the economy, particularly agriculture. Still, its negative effects do not appear to have been permanent.

  Andronikos III’s accession at 31 brought a new circle of advisers to the helm, most prominent of whom was the aristocratic and immensely wealthy John Kantakouzenos, who served as Grand Domestic (army commander-in-chief). They collectively faced the challenge of recovery and likewise retrenchment—of digesting the reduction of Byzantium to the dimensions of a small European state in the face of increasingly powerful neighbours to the north (primarily Serbia) and south (the rising beyliks in north-west Anatolia). Andronikos III’s objectives in Anatolia appear to have been twofold—to retain control over the remaining Bithynian outposts (Nicaea, Nicomedia), and likewise of the key eastern Aegean islands next to the nascent maritime beyliks. A final attempt to relieve besieged Nicaea was mounted in summer 1329, but imperial troops were defeated by Orhan at Pelekanos (10 June), and within two years the city capitulated. Andronikos endeavoured to spare Nicomedia the same fate by negotiating a tributary arrangement with Orhan in August 1333, the first of its kind with the Ottomans, but its value was shortlived, and Nicomedia likewise surrendered in 1337. By that date, then, Byzantine Bithynia had become substantially incorporated into the Ottoman beylik, the prosperity and vitality of which at this time deeply impressed the contemporary Arab traveller, Ibn Battuta. On the west coast, the Byzantines scored a significant victory in recovering Chios in 1329, in which context Andronikos III personally met with the beg of Saruhan and an envoy from Umur, the beg of Aydin. Six years later Andronikos would form a close tie with the latter, also involving financial indemnities, that enabled him to recover Lesbos.

  In Europe, Andronikos and Kantakouzenos exhibited military and diplomatic finesse in reincorporating Thessaly (1333) and Epiros (1340–1), which brought together a considerable block of territory that had not been under imperial rule since 1204. The tragedy, however, was that this region would soon be targeted for attack and settlement by the Serbs, when Stephen Dušan created his little Balkan ‘empire’ in the 1340s and 1350s, partly at Byzantium’s expense. Stephen came to power in 1331, and quickly resumed Serbia’s southward expansionism in a series of campaigns extending to 1334. In a peace negotiated that year, Andronikos surrendered five key fortresses, including Ochrid and Prilep, and formally recognized Serbian conquests of Byzantine territory effected since the days of king Milutin. It was an attempt at stabilization, and likewise at obtaining in Serbia an ally and, as with Aydin, a future supplier of mercenary soldiers.

  All in all, Andronikos III’s foreign policy showed considerable signs of vigour. It was a sustained effort to take a difficult and deteriorated situation in hand, and make something new of it; it constitutes the last important example of its kind in Palaiologan history.

  1341–1371/2: The Irreparable Ravaging of the State

  The interval 1341–71/2 was an agonizing time of troubles from which Byzantium never recovered. The state was again torn to shreds by civil wars, notably in 1341–7 (the so-called ‘Second [Palaiologan] Civil War’) and again in 1352–7, with new episodes of dynastic strife brewing again in the early 1370s. These civil wars were accompanied and succeeded by foreign invasion and settlement, notably Serbian and Ottoman, on a serious and devastating scale. Throughout the ‘Second Civil War’ and after, Byzantine cities were simmering with social unrest, with instances of bloody collision between rich and poor. At the same time, society became divided by Byzantium’s last major religious controversy, Hesychasm, the outcome of which had a decisive impact on future directions of philosophical and theological speculation. Finally, nature herself seemed to conspire against the Byzantines in those years, with several major earthquakes of devastating impact. The general misery was compounded from 1347 on by the appearance of bubonic plague. The interplay of all the
se factors makes the interval 1341–71/2 a transition into serious decay. Indeed, that the state even survived the 1340s and 1350s is amazing. As the fourteenth century progressed, the main objective of its leaders became more and more the preservation of Constantinople, Thessalonica, and its territories in the Morea.

  The core problem throughout this time of troubles was a chronic power struggle within the leadership, which fractured government and facilitated foreign encroachments. In essence this would evolve as a protracted conflict between the Palaiologoi and the Kantakouzenoi, in three major phases: 1341–7, 1347–54, and 1354–7.

  The Grand Duke Alexios Apokaukos (killed in 1345). On a lectern in front of him is a manuscript of the Hippocratic corpus open on the aphorism ‘Life is short, art is long’, etc. The manuscript in question, at one time in the library of the Sultans’ Seraglio at Istanbul, is the present Paris gr. 2144.

  The downward spiral was triggered in 1341 by the fact that Andronikos III’s son and successor, John V, was barely 10 years old at his father’s death. Thus a regency council was established, its members being John’s mother Anna of Savoy, Kantakouzenos, and the patriarch John XIV Kalekas. Difficulties arose in the summer of 1341, when the ambitious Kalekas, in alliance with the High Admiral Alexios Apokaukos, convinced the empress that Kantakouzenos’ secret agenda was to overthrow Anna and John, and establish his own dynastic rule. In September, while Kantakouzenos was in Thrace, Kalekas proclaimed himself regent, and a violent assault on Kantakouzenos’ family and supporters was unleashed; in October, Anna ordered Kantakouzenos to resign his command. Ostensibly to protect and secure the rights of young John V, Kantakouzenos replied by accepting acclamation as emperor at Didymoteichon. This opened the ‘Second Civil War’ that would last down to 2 February 1347. It was especially devastating because both sides made extensive use of foreign mercenary soldiers—Kantakouzenos engaging Serbs and Turks, and the regency relying mainly on Turks. Throughout much of the struggle, Kantakouzenos’ Turkish mercenaries came from Umur, beg of Aydin. In 1345, however, he formed close ties with the Ottoman sultan Orhan—to whom he gave his daughter Theodora in marriage the following year. The five years of violence this war entailed profoundly ravaged the Thracian and Macedonian countryside, with war bands pillaging and looting at will, often in lieu of pay. The continuous intervention of foreign mercenaries finally worked to their own expansionary advantage. Throughout this crisis, down to his death in 1355, Stephen Dušan in particular exploited the chaos within Byzantium to expand the Serbian state into a tiny empire, including much of Macedonia and large chunks of northern Greece. Eventually Kantakouzenos triumphed, entering Constantinople in early February 1347, and forming an accord with Anna whereby he and John V would rule as co-emperors, the latter as the junior partner throughout the next decade. The liaison was sealed later that May, when Kantakouzenos’ daughter, Helena, was married to Anna’s son, now aged 15.

  At this juncture Byzantium was truly in delapidated shape, with its agricultural and commercial foundations severely battered, an empty central treasury, and its populace impoverished and demoralized. Against this background we can only assume that the impact of bubonic plague, beginning in late summer 1347, must have been considerable—as indeed it was in neighbouring areas like Cairo, where its horrors are well documented. Moreover, eight subsequent outbreaks are recorded between the 1360s and 1420s.

  While John VI’s ‘dual rule’ with his son-in-law between 1347 and 1354 is interesting for his efforts, albeit futile, to impose a favourable balance of power and interests vis-à-vis the re-established Italian colonies in Constantinople (Genoese and Venetian), and for the support he gave to the triumph of Hesy-chasm1 as championed by Gregory Palamas in 1351, ultimately it was a politically unstable arrangement that quickly unravelled. On the one hand, Kantakouzenos’ own supporters felt that he should establish a dynasty in his own right, elevating his son Matthew (b. 1325) as co-emperor and heir apparent. John V Palaiologos, on the other hand, growing into his late teens and early twenties, began scheming to attain full power, and be rid of Kantakouzenos’ tutelage. Down to 1353 Kantakouzenos attempted to conciliate the ambitions of both his son-in-law and son, but finally, after John V had unleashed a military attack upon Matthew, he relegated John V to exile on the island of Tenedos, and in 1354 had Matthew crowned, with an appanage in Thrace. In effect, Kantakouzenos had finally proclaimed what his antagonists had feared all along—the usurpation of Palaiologan rule. The Palaiologoi, however, would not be displaced since popular and ecclesiastical opinion supported the claims of John V, and the foundations of Kantakouzenos’ regime quickly disintegrated. In 1354 the Ottoman Turks led by Orhan’s eldest son Süleyman Pasha occupied the key fortress of Kallipolis. With this the Ottomans obtained an important crossing point from Asia Minor to Thrace. In the ensuing months, Süleyman not only refused to surrender Kallipolis, but began fostering Ottoman settlements throughout the Gallipoli peninsula, which would form a spearhead for the Ottoman invasion of Thrace. This development created panic in Constantinople, upon which John V and the Genoese capitalized to stage a coup that returned him to the throne, in November 1354, now as sole occupant. Kantakouzenos abdicated and became a monk, occupying himself with writing his memoirs and theological treatises until his death in 1383.

  Facing: John VI Kantakouzenos presiding over the council of 1351, which condemned the opponents of Gregory Palamas. Miniature of a manuscript containing the deposed emperor’s theological works, 1370–5.

  John V’s final duel with Matthew Kantakouzenos in 1354–7 constituted the closing stage of the protracted Palaiologan—Kantakouzenid rivalry. Throughout Matthew obtained troops from Orhan, his brother-in-law, and Süleyman at Kallipolis may likewise have been supportive. It climaxed in summer 1356 with Matthew’s capture, which derailed his planned attack on Constantinople, and ended when he renounced his title (1357) and later withdrew to the Morea (1361–83 or 1391). Thus, at the age of 25 John V finally established himself as the rightful successor to Andronikos III.

  As mentioned above, Süleyman Pasha’s movements into Thrace after spring 1354 represented the first steps in the Turkish expansion into southeastern Europe. By the time he died, in 1357, it was apparent to all that the Turks were well on the way to encircling Constantinople from behind. The upper and middle stretches of the Maritsa River were under Turkish control, and the key northern fortresses of Didymoteichon and Adrianople were within striking distance. In occupied territory villages were being assigned as fiefs to various commanders, some in fact being Turkified, as colonists from Anatolia moved into this new ‘land of opportunity’. The extent to which Orhan, the reigning Ottoman sultan, supported this incipient expansion into Europe is not known, though he seemingly endorsed it without actively participating himself. After a lull between 1357 and 1359, the Turkish commanders in Rumili continued their raids, taking Didymoteichon in November 1361. These accelerated throughout the 1360s, but without any central direction from Orhan’s successor, Murad I (1362–89), who was fully occupied in Anatolia the first decade of his reign. Philippopolis, then Bulgarian and a major fortification on the Belgrade-to-Constantinople highway, was captured in 1363 or 1364. It seems, finally, that Adrianople was taken in 1369.

  John V’s reaction to these setbacks cannot be plotted in detail, although he clearly realized their gravity. At the outset of his sole rule, however, he concluded that the only viable hope was aid from the West—judging from his appeal to Pope Innocent VI in 1355 for ships and troops, proffering in return ecclesiastical union, and his son Manuel as papal ward and guarantee of compliance. Innocent was unmoved. A decade later John placed his hopes on his cousin Amadeo VI of Savoy, who envisioned a crusade in the classic style, prefacing recovery of the Holy Land with succour for Byzantium. Amadeo indeed sailed from Venice in June 1366 and seized Kallipolis from the Ottomans. Between April and early June 1367, John and Amadeo explored a variety of possible stratagems in Constantinople, including an ecumenical council to secure the uni
on of the two churches, and John personally journeying to Rome to formally confess the Catholic faith. When Amadeo returned to Italy with Byzantine envoys the proposals were presented to Urban V, who rejected a council as useless, but would welcome an imperial visit. Perhaps moved by the fall of Adrianople, John V relented, and on 17 October 1369 professed the Catholic faith in the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Rome. Three days later he endured a public spectacle of submission on the steps of St Peter’s basilica.

  No other Byzantine emperor had abased himself so profoundly to the papacy, which ipso facto reveals the extent of John V’s despair over the future of his realm. After a further five months’ stay in Rome, and another year in Venice, he returned to Constantinople in autumn 1371. In the interim no help had materialized from the West, and the situation in the Balkans had deteriorated even further. At this juncture, the epigonoi of Stephen Dušan’s empire—principally King Vukašin, in the vicinity of Prilep, Skopje, and Ochrid, and his brother Jovan Ugleša, based further south at Serres—attempted to organize a counter-offensive against the Turks in the vicinity of Adrianople. On 26 September 1371, roughly a month before John V’s return, the Serbian forces confronted a Turkish army near the Maritsa River at ernomen and were annihilated. For the Serbs, the consequences of this defeat were momentous, since Turkish absorption of the southern Slavic lands seemed virtually assured. Several of the surviving lords now submitted to the Ottomans as tributary vassals, including the legendary Marko Kraljevič, the son of King Vukašin, who had died in the battle.