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The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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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
[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
[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 Gelzerf 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.]