Download PDF | Catholics and Sultans The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923 by Charles A. Frazee
396 Pages
Introduction
The collapse of the Byzantine state in May 1453 not only ended one of the world’s most enduring empires, but also prepared the way for a new confrontation between European Catholics and Ottoman Turks, In one sense, this contest was but a continuation of the Christian—Muslim struggle which began with the Crusades, yet it had aspects which made it unique, since the areas which the Turks had occupied prior to the conquest were inhabited principally by Greek and other Eastern Christians.
Latin Catholics and Greek Orthodox had long been at odds over doctrinal, liturgical, and administrative issues, so that some Western observers saw the Byzantine defeat as God’s judgment on heretics, but the majority of Western Christians regarded the Greek collapse and the occupation of ‘New Rome’ as an unmitigated disaster. Nearly everyone in the West feared that Mehmet II might suppress the Orthodox church just as he had the Byzantine state, but the contrary proved true. Mehmet made the church part of his administration and assured that its leadership, which he controlled, should be noted for its hostility towards Latin Catholicism.
The Turkish conquest further alienated the two Christian churches by removing forever the emperors who had often befriended the papacy despite that policy’s unpopularity. It also eliminated the influence of the small Greek party which favoured church union, who now had no choice but to live in impotent exile in Italy. The results of the Turkish capture of Constantinople in 1453 resembled those of the Fourth Crusade, for both events shattered the hopes of those who sought a single Greek and Latin Christian church, even though this union would not have included the Slavic or Arab-speaking churches and would have created a new schism within Eastern Christendom.
The period of overt hostility between the Turks and the papacy following Constantinople’s fall was remarkably short-lived; within fifty years the Curia and the Porte had entered into negotiations and, in the sixteenth century, when the French and Turks sealed an alliance against the Habsburgs, the position of Ottoman Catholics was secured. Thereafter, a permanent French embassy, established in Istanbul, provided a sheltering wing for Western missionaries making their way into the Ottoman world.
The Catholic community of Istanbul had almost disappeared by the time the missionaries arrived. It soon became evident that these newcomers were not content to serve as chaplains to the Catholic diplomatic and merchant communities, but intended to proselytize actively among the Orthodox and Eastern Christians throughout the Empire. Latin missionaries, at heroic costs and often under very difficult circumstances, laboured at this task until several Near Eastern churches were formed in communion with Rome. Local clergy, who often welcomed the Western religious orders when they first appeared, became hostile once they realized separate and rival ecclesiastical organizations were being created.
The latter part of the eighteenth century was a period of decline due to the suppression of the Jesuits and the rationalist attitudes of the Enlightenment. Then came the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era which further disrupted the Catholic communities of the East. But once these years passed the nineteenth-century Catholic revival joined to papal initiatives provoked new interest in the Orient. Missionaries again poured into the Ottoman Empire to regain what was lost so that, by 1900, the church and its institutions had never been stronger. Yet, the best of times was making way for the worst. The First World War crushed both empire and church. When the Turkish Republic was proclaimed in 1923 there were few Catholics left to cheer.
Ottoman gains and the Catholic response
AFTER THE CONQUEST
During the Turkish siege of Constantinople, which began in late April 1453, the Catholic community living within the Byzantine capital was divided. Some actively sought to aid Emperor Constantine XI and the Greek defenders; others believed that the only practical course was to remain neutral. Generally speaking, the first point of view was held by those living inside the city’s walls, Venetians and those Westerners who had come specifically to aid in its defence. With them stood Cardinal Isidoros of Kiev, legate of Pope Nicholas V, who had announced the decisions of the Council of Florence in the past December, his companion Leonardo of Chios, archbishop of Mitilini, and the Franciscan friars of the convent of St Anthony of the Cypresses. They believed it their duty to support the emperor because he had advocated the union of the churches.
The contrary opinion was held by most of the Latin Catholics who lived in Galata, the thriving Genoese colony on the eastern side of the Golden Horn. There were no romantics in that community of hard-headed merchants whose sentiments reflected the sober assessment that the Empire could not survive. It made little difference to them whether the ruler of Constantinople was Greek or Turk. Their concern was business; they could deal with anyone who allowed them to pursue their commercial interests in the East. While they might sympathize with the gallant struggle of their fellow Christians, they were anxious to be on good terms with Mehmet IT. A treaty of several years’ standing between the Galatans and the Ottomans defined their relations.
Many of the Latin defenders, like the captain Giovanni Giustiniani, gave their lives in defence of the city. Some were captured after its capitulation on 29 May and had to be ransomed, while others, like the Venetian bailie Girolamo Minotto, were executed by the victorious Turks. The Catholic churches of the city survived without major damage. Because of the friars’ support of the Greeks only the Franciscan convent of St Anthony was confiscated, and the Venetian church of St Mary was temporarily closed.*
Despite the neutrality professed throughout the siege by the Galatans and the security they had been guaranteed by the Turks, many fled the city on the vessels which evacuated the refugees from Constantinople. The governor of the colony, Podesta Angelo Lomellino, and his council were embarrassed by this flight, knowing that Mehmet II would not approve. When a delegation from Galata came to his camp to offer the victorious Turkish leader their congratulations and to deliver the keys of their city into his hands they were practically ignored.
Several days later two ambassadors, Babalino Pallavicini and Marco de Franchi, with an interpreter, had better success. They were given an imperial firman, a grant of privileges, which set forth the rules for the governing of the colony now that the Turks were the masters. In the firman the Galatans obtained the right to trade within the Empire, and were promised security for their lives and property and freedom to practise the Catholic faith. Their sons were not subject to the devsirme, the forced recruitment of boys from Christian families for the Janissary corps or the Ottoman civil service, nor were any Muslims to be settled within the colony. On the other hand, the town and its citizens were to be disarmed. The walls and the citadel of Galata were to be torn down and every adult male became subject to the cizye, the poll tax levied on nonMuslims in the Islamic world. No bells were to be rung nor clocks strike the hour nor would the construction of new churches be permitted. All such stipulations were consonant with Islamic practice in dealing with a city which voluntarily submitted to Muslim rule.
On 3 June Mehmet crossed the Golden Horn to visit Galata. In an official ceremony Podesta Lomellino paid him homage. The firman between Mehmet and his Italian subjects was proclaimed. Then a Turkish administrator, a kaimakam, was installed as local governor. After this ceremony Mehmet toured the town. He ordered an inventory of property of those who had fled; their houses to be sealed and, if the owners did not return within three months, the buildings and their contents to be transferred to the Turkish government.
In September the former podesta left for Genoa. With Mehmet’s permission, the Galatans were permitted to choose an Elder to represent them before the Turkish authorities. He was to be assisted by a governing council, the Serenissima Communita di Pera e Galata, which met in the sacristy of the small chapel of St Anne on the grounds of the Franciscan convent. This was the site of St Francis Catholic church, the largest in Galata, built during the Western occupation of the Byzantine capital in the thirteenth century.’
At the time of the conquest the ecclesiastical government of Galata’s Latin churches was complicated by a number of factors. Officially, they were under the authority of the Greek patriarch Gregorios ITI Mammas, but this prelate had moved to Rome several years before 1453 because of the unpopularity of his pro-unionist sentiments. The acting head of the Latin churches was a vicar appointed by the patriarch. Usually the superior of the Franciscan convent of St Francis was appointed to this office, but the heads of other religious orders might also be chosen. The vicar’s actual authority, however, was severely limited. Since the vast majority of Galatans were Genoese, many of them attended St Michael’s church where the clergy were Genoese, sent out to the East by the archbishop of that city. The religious orders had their own superiors in Western Europe who took a hand in the affairs of their Eastern communities. Besides the Franciscan Conventuals, who served at St Francis, these included Franciscan Observants, Dominicans, and Benedictines. In 1453 a total of thirteen Catholic churches and chapels were to be found in Galata to minister to the Western Catholics who had settled in the Byzantine capital, and several others were found in Constantinople itself.*
The Orthodox populations of the Empire were organized by Turkish law into millets, or nations, under their own religious leaders, but Mehmet and his successors always treated Latin Catholics as foreigners. No matter what his national origin, everyone coming from Western Europe was a ‘Frank’. The Catholic community of Galata was legally defined by the firman of 1453 and, as other Catholic groups entered the Ottoman world, they were required to negotiate individual firmans with the Ottoman government to regulate their presence in the Empire. The Shari‘a, the sacred law of Islam, did not cover the status of foreigners: hence the need for these special arrangements.
THE PAPAL REACTION TO MEHMET’S VICTORY
The Venetians on Crete were the first Catholics to learn that Constantinople had fallen, when a boat filled with refugees reached the island in early June 1453. Other survivors began landing in the Peloponnesus, Cyprus, Euboea, and the Aegean islands closest to the fallen capital. The papal fleet which had been commissioned by Pope Nicholas V to aid Constantinople was anchored in the harbour of Chios when its commanders heard that their mission was now pointless and therefore ordered a return to Italy. By the end of June reports reaching Venice from officials in Greece told of the destruction of Galata as well as Constantinople, the slaughter of every inhabitant over six years of age, and the capture of the papal fleet. The Venetians at once drafted a letter to the pope informing him of the disaster and urging that Italy prepare itself for an attack.
The Venetian messenger who carried the letter to Rome spread the news in all the cities along his route. In Bologna, Cardinal Bessarion, leader of the Greeks at the Council of Florence who had supported union between the churches, was stunned by the announcement. The messenger reached Rome on 4 July to announce to the papal court that the Eastern Roman Empire was no more. Pope Nicholas V and his cardinals convened in an emergency meeting to discuss what should be done.*
The Genoese heard the news from Venetian messengers on 6 July and the Signoria, shattered by the information, assumed that Galata shared the fate of the capital. A feeling of defeatism spread, for Genoa was already at war with Naples and its resources were heavily taxed. Couriers from Venice reached Emperor Frederick IIT at Graz. The usually passive ruler was visibly moved. Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, then at the court, wrote to Pope Nicholas, ‘What is this execrable news which is borne to us concerning Constantinople? My hand trembles even as I write; my soul is horrified, yet neither is it able to restrain its indignation nor express its misery. Alas, wretched Christianity!...of the two lights of Christendom, one has been extinguished.”
During the summer Pope Nicholas began marshalling the forces of Christendom for a counterattack. He commissioned three galleys to sail to Eastern waters and ordered five more to be fitted out in Venice. He then sent legates to the Italian cities summoning them to meet in Rome in October. Late in September he issued a bull to all Christians urging a crusade against the Turks. In it he called Mehmet II the cruellest persecutor of Christ’s church ‘the son of Satan, son of perdition and son of death, seeking like his father, the devil, to devour both bodies and souls. He has risen up like a rabid beast whose thirst is never satisfied by the shedding of Christian blood.’® He encouraged princes to defend their faith with their lives and wealth, and proclaimed a plenary indulgence to anyone who would equip a soldier for six months. He promised to spend still more of the papal income (60,000 ducats had already been committed) for defence, and announced that both pope and cardinals had agreed to tithe themselves. All Christians were to desist from civil wars and enlist in the great endeavour to push back the Turks.
At the end of November while the meeting of the Italian cities was in progress in Rome, a ship arrived in Venice bringing more refugees from the East, among them Cardinal Isidoros who had managed to escape to the Peloponnesus after having been ransomed by the citizens of Galata. He had made his way to Crete, accompanied by those Franciscans of St Anthony’s who had escaped. From their personal experience they added to the information about the conquest already known in Italy. Isidoros set off for Rome to report directly to the pope. He, and many others who had escaped from Constantinople, believed that Mehmet planned an attack upon Italy in the very near future. He composed a letter which was circulated throughout Italy describing the fall of the Byzantine capital and urging the need for action. Meanwhile Leonardo of Chios was also seeking to inform the West of the conquest. In contrast to Isidoros who claimed that Satan had inspired the Turks to victory, Leonardo attributed the defeat of the Greeks to their own lukewarm attitude towards the union of the churches. He complained, ‘Alas what hope is there for a people hardened in serious iniquity, who have remained for so many years without spiritual life, cut off, as they were, from their head.’ The union was not a true one, but ‘fictitious’, and now God’s justice had fallen upon the impious Greeks.”
Cardinal Bessarion, head of the Greeks in Italy, sought to mobilize the Italian states to assist his homeland. He sent a stirring appeal to the Doge of Venice beseeching the Republic to take action against the Ottomans. He believed that the united action of the Italian city states could yet stave off disaster: ‘J can no longer, unfortunately, request help for the salvation of the Empire or of my fatherland, but I can ask it for the protection and honour of Christendom, for the preservation of the faith of Christ.’
The missionaries sent to announce the crusade throughout Europe were met with indifference, while at Rome the envoys of the Italian states found they had little in common. Actually, while the Venetians in Rome were talking about action to be taken against the Turks, the Republic had dispatched Bartolomeo Minotto, the son of its last bailie, to seek out Mehmet and attempt to reach an agreement with him which would protect Venice’s commercial interests in the Orient. Bartolomeo did not know that the Turks had executed his father; he hoped to ransom him and to secure the release of the other Venetian prisoners. Since his father was dead, this part of Bartolomeo’s purpose could not be fulfilled, but after long discussions with Mehmet IT at Edirne, he reached agreement with him on a treaty signed in April 1454. The treaty provided that ‘Between Sultan Mehmet and the Signoria of Venice, including all its present and future possessions, as far as the banner of St Mark flies, henceforth, as before, there is peace and friendship.’ Venice pledged it would never enter into any alliance against the Turks.°
The one solid accomplishment of Nicholas’ Roman conference was the Peace of Lodi, signed by delegates of Florence, Venice and Milan on 9 April 1454. This brought to a conclusion the internal wars on the peninsula, but nothing was done to recapture Constantinople. The response to Nicholas by the other European powers had been completely negative. The Emperor Frederick did bestir himself into summoning a Diet for 23 April 1454 to discuss the situation. Invitations to come to Regensburg were sent to all European and German princes, but when the time came, hardly anyone had arrived. The Emperor himself was absent and only sent a delegate. The eloquence of Aeneas Sylvius was wasted on empty chairs. Efforts to enlist Alfonso V of Aragon proved futile for, despite this sovereign’s repeated assertions of his eagerness to drive back the Turk, his navy remained in port. The best the pope could do was to commission a fleet of five vessels to sail east to encourage the Christian people still living outside Mehmet’s rule.”
Pope Nicholas V died on 24 March 1455 lamenting his inability to aid the Christian Greeks now under Islamic leaders and unaware that the Christians had won a battle at Belgrade several days before, thereby temporarily checking the Turkish advance. The conclave which met to choose his successor was composed of fifteen cardinals, two of whom were Greek, Bessarion and Isidoros. Eight of the fifteen supported Bessarion for the papal office since he was so well known both for his learning and his devotion to the crusading ideal. The Greek cardinal had apparently done nothing to promote his candidacy, hence the Frenchman, Alain of Avignon, protested. ‘Behold the poverty of the Latin church which cannot find a man worthy of the apostolic throne unless it looks to Greece.’ The cardinals elected the aged Alfonso Borgia who assumed the name Calixtus IIT at his coronation on 20 April 1455. He was the first of the Borgia popes.’ Calixtus was devoted to the Crusade. Not only was he interested in regaining Constantinople but he also believed that Christian arms should be used to regain Jerusalem.
In September 1455, Calixtus began gathering a fleet, commissioning Archbishop Pietro Urrea of Tarragona to be commander. The force was to go into the Aegean to support Chios and the other islands still held by the Christians. King Alfonso V of Aragon was to augment the papal fleet of sixteen ships with fifteen more of his own. Calixtus envisioned a land army led by Philip the Good of Burgundy. This prince had already shown his disposition with a romantic flair when, at the Feast of the Pheasant, held at Lille in February 1454, he and his courtiers had promised to take the cross.
All the hopes Calixtus had for the crusade were thwarted by the actions of those in whom he had placed his trust. Alfonso became embroiled in a war with Genoa in which Archbishop Urrea gladly enlisted the papal fleet to aid his countrymen. The pope dismissed the archbishop because of his partisanship and lack of judgment, appointing a new commander, Cardinal Ludovico Scamparo, on 17 December. Scamparo was made responsible for serving as the pope’s legate to all Greek lands and territories in the East Mediterranean. On 13 May 1456 he was given the cross by Pope Calixtus and went off to Istria. Here five thousand men boarded the papal vessels and the flotilla set sail for Naples to join Alfonso’s ships. But once more Alfonso delayed so in August the pope ordered his fleet to leave for the Aegean without the Neapolitans.
The papal fleet first visited Rhodes, then Chios, and finally Lemnos and its island dependencies where the family of the Gattilusi ruled as vassals of the Turks. On Chios and Lesbos their reception was polite but cool. The island rulers feared the wrath of the Turks too much to welcome the Christian navy. The fleet expelled the Turkish garrisons on Lemnos and Samothrace in August 1457, and successfully destroyed a Turkish fleet off Lesbos. After this victory, the Christians retired to Rhodes and then returned to Italy. No significant change had been effected in the Aegean but the pope was so enthusiastic over the victory at Lesbos that he caused a medal to be struck to commemorate the event. On it were the words, ‘I have been chosen for the destruction of the enemies of the faith.”
Calixtus never doubted that his vision of reconquering the Christian East would be realized. He continued to urge Franciscan missionaries to keep his hope alive among all Christian people. Letters were constantly being sent from Rome to the Catholic princes of Western Europe to rouse them to common action against the Turks. The pope was also in correspondence with the Muslim leader of Eastern Anatolia, the Turkoman Uzun Hasan, who was known to consider Mehmet a dangerous rival. At length Calixtus died in the summer of 1458. He would have been pleased to know his dream for the crusade was shared by his successor, the wellknown humanist, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who became Pope Pius IT on 29 August 1458.
PIUS Il, THE HUMANIST CRUSADER
Reports of the Turkish occupation of the Peloponnesus during the summer of 1458 confirmed Pius’ conviction that action must be taken against Mehmet. On 13 October 1458, less than two months after he had assumed office, the pope published a bull, Vocavit nos Pius, summoning the heads of the European states to come to a congress at Mantua to plan for a crusade; he would himself preside.
The optimistic pope left Rome with six cardinals in late January 1459, and after a slow journey through Italy reached Mantua in May. Not a single king or prince was to be found; only minor officials had come, sent as delegates by the European princes. The chagrined pope ordered new messages sent to the courts of Europe, pointing out the urgency of the situation. Despite growing defeatism even within the papal party, he remained convinced that it was still possible to rally Christendom against the Turk, but only Bessarion and Torquemada, the Spanish cardinal, showed any determination.
The Congress at Mantua finally convened on 1 June 1459 with Pope Pius offering a solemn Mass in St Peter’s church. Representatives from Naples, Epirus, Cyprus, Rhodes, Trebizond, Bosnia and Hungary were in attendance. The bishop of Koroni delivered the sermon urging Christians to action. Then the sessions were suspended to await the arrival of new delegations. Francesco Sforza at last dispatched a party from Milan and in August a Burgundian embassy arrived. Venice, the key to any successful operation in the East, refrained, arguing that unless all Christian princes were unanimous in their intent to pursue the Holy War, the Republic intended to stand aside.
Having spent the summer in idleness, on 26 September the Congress held its first working session. Pius delivered an address which deplored the indifference of the Catholic West to the plight of Eastern Christians. Bessarion responded to the pope’s address on behalf of the cardinals. He seconded every point the pope had made. Then deliberations commenced on the measures to be taken. The Congress heard with dismay that the Emperor Frederick III had proclaimed himself king of Hungary, an action bound to trouble central Europe. At the same time there was some encouragement from France, England, and the Holy Roman Empire, whose delegations finally arrived in late autumn.
By 19 December an agreement was reached. The emperor would provide an army of thirty thousand infantry and ten thousand horse while the Italian states would provide a fleet. A tithe would be levied on the income of the clergy; the laity would pay one-thirtieth and the Jews one-twentieth of their incomes to raise funds for the venture. All that remained was to close the Congress on 19 January 1460 with the official bull. Cardinal legates were sent to the princes and Franciscan friars to the laity to stir up enthusiasm for the crusade. Bessarion went off to Germany, while Isidoros, who had succeeded to the title of patriarch of Constantinople on 20 April 1459, proceeded to Ancona to supervise preparation of the fleet.**
While the pope waited for his envoys to return, news of the Turkish conquest of Lesbos arrived in Rome; after only a month’s siege Mitilini had fallen. The lord of the island, Niccolé Gattilusi, had surrendered, and announced his conversion to Islam, but was killed by the Turks anyway. Three hundred prominent Italian citizens had been put to death by the Ottomans, by their bodies being sawed in two, while hundreds more became Turkish slaves.**
The indifference of the Western princes to his pleas for military action made Pius decide upon a personal appeal to Mehmet IT in 1461 hoping that persuasion might prove more effective than force. It is hard to assess the weight and seriousness of this gesture, but apparently Pius thought that the resolution of the Turkish prince might be shaken. Some have argued that the pope was engaged in a flight of fantasy, but perhaps he recognized in Mehmet a leader who compared favourably with the chiefs of state in Western Europe.
The letter was a lengthy one, written in the style of the Renaissance. Its aim was to convince Mehmet that if he had enjoyed success as a Muslim, he would have even greater prospects upon conversion to Christianity. For all of this pleading, Pius received no answer from the Turkish leader. Further to demonstrate his commitment, he ordered the head of St Andrew to be brought to Rome with great ceremony on Palm Sunday 1462. The despot Thomas Palaeologos had left the relic at the papal fort of Narni; now it was transported to the gates of Rome by Cardinal Bessarion. As the procession passed through the Holy City, the ailing Cardinal Isidoros, victim of a stroke which had left him unable to speak, greeted St Andrew, now, like himself, an exile in Italy. The head was at last given to Pope Pius by Bessarion to be placed in a shrine prepared for it in St Peter’s.
On 23 September 1463 the pope charged the cardinals that at last the time had come for the leaders of the Roman church personally to take the cross. The pontiff asserted, ‘It will be said, of course, ‘‘What has this sickly old man, this priest, to do with war? What business have cardinals and officials of the Roman court in the camp? Why do they not stay at home and send a fleet with troops accustomed to fight?” ’ He answered his own questions: ‘Our cry, “Go forth!” has resounded in vain. Perhaps if the word is “Come with me!’ it will have more effect.’ He drafted new appeals to the Catholic princes and issued the bull of the crusade on 22 October.”
The next few months witnessed strenuous efforts to organize the pope’s crusade. In November a special treasury was set up in which 27,000 gold coins were deposited. Legates were dispatched to the various capitals and preachers to the people.
On 18 June 1464 the pope took the cross in St Peter’s in Rome and immediately afterwards set out with his party for Ancona. He was not well and the journey became very difficult. Crusaders from the poorer people of France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands were already gathering at the Italian ports in response to the papal summons. Many were without funds or arms, and the local Italians were anxious to be rid of them. In Ancona, the main centre of activity, the arrival of thousands of would-be warriors had strained the city’s resources. Quarrels were frequent among the nationalities; sickness ever present. The archbishop of Crete, named by Pius to put things in order, despaired and asked the poorest and weakest to return home.
Pius got to Ancona on 1g July to find the situation bordering on chaos. Professional soldiers were hard to find; his call to war had been answered only by innocents. Venice, which was to provide the fleet, had still not sent its ships. His already poor health broke down in the heat. Everyone around him saw he was a dying man. On 14 August 1464 he gave his last advice to the cardinal of Pavia, Jacopo Ammanati, ‘Keep the continuation of our holy enterprise in the mind of the brothers and aid it with all your power. Woe unto you if you desert God’s work.’ In a few moments Europe’s most dedicated crusader died. The Venetian fleet arrived to learn the news that Pius was gone. It sailed back to port; Pius’ soldiers packed their few possessions and left for home. The papal galleys were turned over to Venice and the treasury sent off to the king of Hungary. It was a dismal end for Pius’ enterprise.”*
THE FURTHER SUCCESSES OF MEHMET II
The successor of Pius II was a Venetian, Pietro Barbaro, who took the name of Paul II. The new pope was anxious that the papacy should support his native city since, despite the Republic’s efforts to keep on good terms with the sultan, war had broken out between Venice and the Turks.
After seven years in the papacy Paul was dead and Sixtus IV became the incumbent of St Peter’s throne in 1471. Sixtus continued the tradition of his predecessors, sending legates throughout Europe to convince the princes of the need for a crusade. He even saw the Russians as allies in the cause. An adventurer named Giovanni Battista della Volpe had convinced Cardinal Bessarion that the Grand Prince of Moscow, Ivan III, might be persuaded to aid Catholic Europe. The bait was to be Bessarion’s ward, Zoe Palaeologa, daughter of the now deceased despot, Thomas Palaeologos. Negotiations with Ivan proved a success; Zoe was married to him by proxy in Rome in 1472 and then sent off to Russia. The desired effect failed to materialize, however, since Zoe reconverted to Orthodoxy, taking a new name, Sophia, and Ivan’s interest in the crusade evaporated.”
Cardinal Bessarion went on his final mission for the sake of his homeland in 1472. Sixtus IV dispatched him to France to enlist the aid of King Louis XI. The meeting with the French monarch went badly, no sign of interest was forthcoming. Discouraged and ill, the aging cardinal had to be carried back over the Alps in a litter; he died in Ravenna before reaching Rome, on 14 November 1472.
In Istanbul Mehmet took the advice of Venice’s Italian rivals that he really had little to fear from any alliance formed against him. The Catholic ambassadors of Genoa and Florence took every occasion to urge the sultan to pursue the war against the Republic. Apparently the only Venetian response to counter these stratagems was to resort to attempts upon the sultan’s life, none of which proved successful.
In 1472 a Christian fleet composed of papal, Venetian and Neapolitan vessels was made ready to attack the East. The papal navy, twenty-three galleys, was commanded by the Neapolitan cardinal, Olivera Caraffa. The Christian forces harassed the Anatolian cities of the Ottomans and struck Izmir, pillaged and then temporarily garrisoned it. These brief victories were all that was accomplished; Mehmet’s power had hardly been challenged. Proof of this appeared the following year when Mehmet attacked and overwhelmed Uzun Hasan at Bashkent on 11 August 1473, and with the defeat of their Muslim ally, both papal and Venetian hopes were crushed and Venice was forced to agree to peace.
Mehmet’s gains determined him to inaugurate new moves against the pockets of Christian power adjacent to his empire. His first targets were the remaining Genoese colonies of the Black Sea. A force led by Ahmet Gedik Pasa struck Caffa; for three days there was resistance, but then the Genoese commander, recognizing the hopelessness of the situation, negotiated surrender. The Ottomans agreed to peace provided the Genoese left the Crimea. The Catholics were uprooted from their homes; some returned to Genoa, while others were permanently settled in Istanbul. Several hundred young men and boys from Caffa were forcibly recruited for the Janissary corps.
The expelled Genoese community, numbering almost two thousand people, was placed in the neighbourhood of the Edirne Gate where the inhabitants were permitted to organize themselves along the lines of the Genoese in Galata. This area came to be known as Kaffa-Mahalessi (the Caffan quarter), a name which it held until its destruction by fire in July 1919. Mehmet decreed that two abandoned Byzantine monasteries and their churches should be placed at the disposal of the Catholic clergy who came with the Caffans. They were dedicated to St Mary and St Nicholas and were served by Dominicans. St Mary held the Madonna of Caffa, an image which was the most precious of the objects brought with the exiles from the Crimea. St Nicholas became the home of both Latin and Armenian Catholics, who shared the building.” Mehmet then turned his attention towards the island of Rhodes, since this fortress was the strongest bastion left in Catholic hands in the East, garrisoned by the Knights Hospitallers of St John. There had been constant tension between the two states over the refusal of the Knights to pay tribute to Mehmet since his accession, and, at best, an uneasy truce was all that both sides had agreed upon. The Knights were no longer so numerous as they had been in earlier times, but their discipline and devotion made up for what they lacked in numbers. In 1480 the Grand Master was Pierre d’Aubusson. He was well aware that Rhodes must prepare itself for an eventual attack by the Ottomans. The arrival of a Turkish envoy on the island in the summer of 1479 with a proposal to renew the truce surprised the Knights since they had been informed that preparations were under way for an attack. Although the treaty was renewed the Knights continued to strengthen their defences, Their fears proved well founded when in December 1479 a Turkish fleet appeared off Rhodes and troops were sent to pillage some of the undefended villages. Then on 23 May 1480 another fleet began landing forces on the west coast. Soon the city of Rhodes was invested. The odds against the Christians were great; the Turks had many more men and powerful cannon. The Knights numbered less than three hundred with their sergeants and three to four thousand French and Italian troops. In bitter fighting, however, they turned back every Ottoman assault. Finally the siege was broken off, and to the acclaim of Catholic Christendom, Rhodes was saved."® While the siege of Rhodes was in progress Mehmet struck out in still another direction against the Catholic world. He dispatched Ahmet Gedik Pasa with 140 vessels from the Albanian port of Vioré to attack Italy. Mehmet may well have had designs on Rome itself. One contemporary, Niccolé Sanguindo, reported that the sultan believed Constantinople to be the daughter of Rome, and having won the daughter he also hoped to gain the mother. In late July Ahmet Gedik landed on the south coast of Apulia. He invested the castle and city of Otranto, near Brindisi, and took it on 18 August 1480. The news that the Turks had an army in the peninsula finally forced the Italians into action. Pope Sixtus IV called for men and money while quietly making plans to flee to Avignon should that prove necessary. King Ferrante in Naples, son of Alfonso V, sent appeals to the sovereigns of Europe for immediate assistance.
The Turkish troops pillaged and burned the countryside and dealt harshly with the captives. They destroyed the Greek monastery of San Niccolé di Casole and led eight hundred Christians of Otranto to a hill outside the city where they gave them the option of embracing Islam or suffering death. Most held to their faith, despite the prospect of execution by impaling or beheading. The archbishop, Stefano Bendinelli, was sawn in two as was the military captain of the garrison. Thousands of townspeople were sent off to Albania as slaves.
The pope and the Roman cardinals donated 150,000 ducats to fit out an army and construct twenty-five galleys. The money was distributed to the kings of Naples and Hungary. The pope also issued a bull to all Christendom on 8 April 1481, asking for assistance. Within the year the Christian forces had rallied, and the Turks were expelled on 10 September 1481. The news gave Rome’s citizens occasion to celebrate a three-day holiday. The withdrawal was seen as a major check on the Turks but, in fact, it was only a limited victory over Ottoman ambitions. It was much more important that death, at last, had come to Catholic Europe’s most formidable enemy. Mehmet IIT died on 3 May 1481.”
THE PAPACY MOVES FROM FOE TO FRIEND
Mehmet’s successor was his son Bayezit, who first had to contend for the sultanate with his younger brother Gem. Bayezit’s support proved the stronger and Cem mistakenly sought the assistance of the Knights of St John to obtain his father’s throne. He sent ambassadors to Rhodes asking for a treaty of friendship and permission to come to the island. The surprised Grand Master, Pierre d’Aubusson, hardly knew what to make of such a request, but negotiations were concluded satisfactorily when the Knights promised Cem their aid. With this assurance he came to Rhodes. While he was negotiating, the Grand Master sent messengers to Bayezit reporting that Cem was in Rhodes and questioned the sultan’s reaction. Bayezit proved to be quite willing for the Knights to hold his brother and in return for their cooperation in acting as Cem’s jailors, he offered to pay the Christian order thirty-five thousand ducats annually, and in addition ten thousand more each year in compensation for the damage done by his father’s attacks on Rhodes. A secret treaty was signed between them on 7 December 1482.
The unfortunate Cem was transported to the Knights’ priory at Nice within the year. News that the son of the terrible Mehmet the Conqueror and the pretender to his throne was now in Western Europe caused many Christians to shake their heads in disbelief. At once a debate began on how best this unexpected turn of events might be used to Christendom’s advantage. Gem began composing a poem about his fate, aware now that he was more a prisoner than a guest. He was shunted about the establishments of the order in France, where he had at least one affair with the daughter of a guard, until at last it was decided that a special castle should be built for him. Here he languished for the next several years.”*
Bayezit II came to power in the last three years of the pontificate of Sixtus IV. While the pope urged upon Catholic Europe the need for the crusade, the appeal had been heard so many times before that it was counted a mere rhetorical formality. Indeed Sixtus’ real concerns were closer to home: building the chapel which still bears his name, forming its famous choir, patronizing the Vatican library and its museum.
The situation changed when Innocent VIII succeeded him in 1484. Innocent held real hope for containing the Turks, for he believed Cem could be used to advantage over Bayezit. Two years after his accession he persuaded the Knights to place Cem directly under papal protection. It was another three years before the Turkish prince actually came to Rome, however, since the French King Charles VIII objected strongly to the transfer. He arrived in the Eternal City in the spring of 1489.
Cem was lavishly received. All the ceremonies attendant upon the arrival of a foreign dignitary at the papal court were closely followed. Cem approached Innocent, embraced him and gave him a kiss. He did not, however, remove his turban, which appeared to some onlookers as a breach of protocol, but the pope chose to pay no attention. Cem spoke to the pontiff through an interpreter, recounting the misfortunes of his past, and asking Innocent to aid him in returning to his homeland. After the reception, he was assigned a residence in the Castel Sant’Angelo.
The news that Cem was now in Rome and presumably cooperating with the pope was rightly judged dangerous in Istanbul. The pope was known also to be making overtures to Kait-bey, Mamluk sultan in Cairo, sounding him out on the possibility of an anti-Ottoman alliance. Bayezit took immediate action. In November 1490 he dispatched an embassy to Rome, headed by Mustafa Bey, his chief gatekeeper. Mustafa brought a gift of 120,000 gold coins, numerous personal items and a letter of friendship as a sign of the sultan’s regard for the pope. Innocent greeted the delegation warmly, accepted the gifts and promised to consider the sultan’s letter carefully. The Ottoman envoy was allowed to meet and talk with Cem and later a secret audience was held between Mustafa and the Roman cardinals.”
Whether the ghosts of Innocent’s predecessors were shaking in their graves cannot be known, but certainly many Christians looked aghast at this turn of events. The Italian states were not only amazed at the pope’s extraordinary good fortune in having both the Conqueror’s sons courting his favour, but they were also envious that the papal finances had overnight increased enormously. Some had their misgivings. Sigismondo dei Conti da Foligno observed, “It really seemed absurd to many serious and learned men that the pontiff should find himself so easily in alliance with the Turks and could enter into business with them so eagerly.’*
Mustafa Bey carried Pope Innocent’s acknowledgement of Bayezit’s letter back to Istanbul. The pope was pleased that the sultan had protested he intended no hostile action against any of the eastern European Catholic states: Venice, Rhodes, or Cyprus. He was willing to continue keeping Cem a prisoner in Rome, but at an increased price, 45,000 ducats each year. Failure to pay might result in Cem’s being ‘unleashed.’
In May 1492 Bayezit renewed his contacts with Rome, sending an ambassador with the funds to pay for Cem’s confinement. Once again the reception accorded the Ottoman delegation was cordial, for in addition to the payment of gold Bayezit had sent the pope a precious reliquary containing part of the Holy Lance along with several other objects of Christian devotion. Promises of continued cooperation were made. Innocent’s special arrangement with the Porte allowed him to spend money as few popes before or after him have done.
Later in 1492 Innocent was dead and Alexander VI, a Spaniard and a Borgia, was elected to the papacy. This same year saw Granada, the last Muslim state in Spain, extinguished, so that, in Bayezit’s view, the new pope might indeed return to the papacy’s traditional crusading position. That this did not happen is attributable to the fact that the interests of Alexander VI were very much forged by his family and its need of money. He sought to take full advantage of his inherited position as Cem’s jailor. No crusader, he actually sought to allay the pressure of the French king, Charles VIII, for a call to arms of all Europe against the Turks.
Alexander commenced a series of letters to Bayezit II which continued over the next several years. He asked that the subsidy paid to Rome should be increased, to the astronomical sum of 300,000 gold ducats. Alexander warned Bayezit that Charles threatened an invasion of Italy because of his claims on the throne of Naples and that this would be only the prelude to French designs on Istanbul. Alexander pointed out that should Cem fall into French hands there would be no end to the consequences. Bayezit paid up commenting, ‘Our friendship will grow with God’s help from day to day. Do not forget to report to us on your welfare; we, on our part, will be pleased to hear such news.’**
At length the pope sent a personal envoy, Giorgio Bucciardo, to Istanbul to put his case for even more funds, as he awaited the imminent invasion of the French king. On his return to Italy in 1494 Bucciardo and the Ottoman ambassador, Assam Bey, bringing 40,000 ducats to the pope, were taken captive at Sinigaglia by Alexander’s enemy, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and held prisoner. Charles VIII, having received the correspondence carried by the embassy, expressed his outrage that the head of Christendom was in league with the sultan.
Bayezit responded to these threats by tighter surveillance of those Christians in his empire who might be in collaboration with his enemies. The Venetians, perennial foes of papal policies in Italy, were assumed to be in alliance with the French. Compromising correspondence from the Venetian bailie in Istanbul, Girolamo Marcello, had been intercepted by Ottoman officials in 1492 and Marcello had been expelled for spying. Since 1489 Venice had also held the island of Cyprus on a claim that Caterina Cornaro, the widow of the last Luisgnan king, had bequeathed her island to the Republic. Bayezit feared that Venice might very well intend to use Cyprus as a new stronghold in the East Mediterranean to enhance its maritime empire.
The invasion of Italy by the French proved to be a temporary success. Charles VITI took Rome on 11 January 1495, and among other demands forced Pope Alexander to hand over Cem. The unfortunate captive, once more under a new master, was ordered to join Charles for the next four weeks on campaign in southern Italy. Cem unexpectedly died on 25 February 1495 at Capua.
Whatever plans Charles may have entertained for his prisoner were forever gone. After much haggling the body of the deceased was handed over to Ottoman officials for burial in the royal cemetery in Bursa. For Bayezit obviously the death of his brother came as a great relief. Henceforth his policies toward Catholic Europe could be pursued from a position of strength.
THE VENETIAN ECLIPSE
Throughout the 1490s Bayezit had concentrated on improving the Ottoman navy for its inevitable contest with Venice for control of Eastern waters. In 1497 a Venetian pilgrim ship to Jerusalem was taken and its passengers killed or enslaved. Open hostilities began again in 1499 with an attack launched by the Turks against the remaining Venetian possessions in Dalmatia and on the Greek mainland. All Venetians in Istanbul were placed under arrest. Navpaktos (Lepanto) fell to the Turks and the Catholics departed. In the following year the important ports on the south coast of the Peloponnesus, Methoni and Koroni, were conquered. The new Ottoman fleet had proven its worth.
The Hungarian King L4szl6 VIII together with Louis XII of France joined Venice in alliance against the Turks. Pope Alexander VI turned on his former Ottoman friend and issued a crusading bull on 1 June 1500. A French fleet sailed into the Aegean, but this did not prevent further losses to the Christian powers. A treaty ending the war was signed on 14 December 1503. In accordance with its terms, the Venetians gave up their Greek ports and the few cities of Albania still remaining in their hands.”
The decline of Venetian power in the East Mediterranean over the next fifty years grew out of that city’s inability to cope with the larger nation states of Europe and the loss of its markets consequent on the shift in trade to the Atlantic. Commerce with Egypt still brought the city large profits in 1500 but soon even this would end. The League of Cambrai which was formed in 1508 by the Holy Roman Emperor, Maxmilian I, and included France, Spain and the papacy, aimed specifically at the destruction of Venetian power. Against such opposition Venice had no chance. In 1509 the Venetians were crushed at Agnadello and never fully recovered. The fact that Venice, the strongest Catholic power in the East, had been defeated by a coalition including the papacy, was not lost on the Ottomans. It proved to the Turkish officials that they need have no real concern about a great Western counterattack.
THE POLICIES OF BAYEZIT II
The sultanate of Bayezit II was a prosperous time for Muslims, but this good fortune did not extend to the Catholics in Istanbul. Their numbers were in great decline — less than two hundred and fifty Caffan Genoese households were counted in the city by the time of Bayezit’s accession. In Galata only eight Catholic churches were functioning in 1500.”
Bayezit followed his father’s policy in keeping the Orthodox Christians of his empire hostile to Catholicism. Patriarch Maximos III Manasses admonished the Venetian Doge against any persecution of the Orthodox in the territories of the Republic. Maximos went so far as to proclaim, ‘Although the great and most exalted monarch is of another faith, he leaves the Christians and everyone else complete freedom of opinion and belief...’, in contrast, of course, to Venice.?"
To further the distinction which the Orthodox hierarchy wanted to make between themselves and the Latins, Maximos ITI summoned a council which was concluded during the patriarchate of Symeon of Trebizond in 1484. The Orthodox hierarchy believed it to the Greek church’s advantage to demonstrate both to itself and to the sultan that the church union reached at Florence was dead. The assembly, in which the Melkite patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem also participated, drew up a service for those Orthodox who once lived under Italian Catholic rule and had recognized the pope and the decisions of the Council of Florence. Any person seeking to be restored to Orthodoxy was required to condemn ‘the terrible and foreign doctrines of the Latins’ specifically in those areas in which agreement had been reached at Florence. After swearing his assent and signing a statement to that effect, the convert was then anointed with Holy Oil. The council did not, it should be noted, require re-baptism.”*
SELIM I AND THE ROMAN POPES
Bayezit’s ambitious son Selim I, a contemporary of Pope Julius II and the Medici pope, Leo X, ruled in Istanbul at a time when the Renaissance was in full flower in Rome. Julius had too many activities in Italy to be troubled by the Ottomans but Leo, a Philhellene, did occupy himself with the East. However, the actions of a German priest, Martin Luther, were eventually to consume more of his attention.
Leo worried over the successes of Selim as they were reported to him in Rome. He had a Greek aide, Ioannis Laskaris, who encouraged him to free his countrymen and, to further interest in the East, Leo subsidized a Greek College in Rome where Laskaris and Markos Musurus, another Catholic Greek, taught the Greek language and its literature. Laskaris was often used by Leo as his personal envoy. Leo believed that the Christian princes should be alerted to the dangers to which Christendom was exposed by Ottoman expansion, and to that end he sent numerous letters to Europe’s rulers. To win the support of France, the pope encouraged Francis I to think he might be named emperor in the East.
Since Hungary bordered the Ottomans, Leo focused his efforts in Rome on trying to collect funds for the Hungarian army. But the Hungarian peasants, armed to fight the Turks, turned instead on their own nobility. In 1515 a terrible civil war broke out which ended with the peasants crushed and tens of thousands killed. ‘The Hungarian Diet, in an attempt to prevent future uprisings, passed legislation making all peasants permanent serfs.
Early in 1518 Selim addressed a letter to Pope Leo notifying him that the Ottoman armies were now free of concern in Asia and that the West would soon be hearing from him. The news brought panic to Rome. The pope ordered daily processions to St Peter’s. He walked barefoot, accompanied by the ambassadors of the Catholic powers, following Rome’s most precious relics. The Venetians informed the Turks of all this and warned Selim that the pope was forming a league, the Fraternity of the Holy Crusade, to bring French, Germans and English into alliance against him.
In the midst of Leo’s preparations, word reached Rome that the sultan had died. The pope ordered prayers of thanksgiving in all of Rome’s churches, and plans for the crusade were suspended. Everyone believed Selim’s sole remaining son, Siileyman II, would be a man of peace.”
SULEYMAN II AND THE CATHOLIC POWERS
In the autumn of 1520, Siileyman inherited his father’s throne at a time when the Ottoman world was poised to make further political and military gains against Catholic Europe. During his lifetime he raised the prestige of his empire to its highest point, hence ‘Magnificent’ has been added to his name by Western authors. He is known as ‘Kanuni’, the lawgiver, by the Turkish people, in token of his concern that all in his domain should enjoy fair and equitable justice. Throughout his long reign the empire’s economy prospered as never before, and Istanbul, reflecting the magnificence of its sultan, became the most important city of the Mediterranean.
In many ways Siileyman shared the values of his father. He believed it to be his vocation to pursue the Holy War against the Christians so as to extend the borders of Islam, and at the same time to fight against Muslim heresy, which was ever more pressing since Shi’ism had become identified with Persian aggression against his nation.
Siileyman so constructed his administration that military matters received priority over all other concerns of empire. The Janissary corps, his father’s pride, was further developed to become the largest and best trained infantry in Europe. In addition, the native Turkish siphais, long the most honoured group in Ottoman society, provided a cavalry noted for its ability to sweep through the country-side in support of the main body of troops when on campaign.
There can be little doubt that Siileyman’s success was in large part due to the particularly favourable conditions during his reign, which fell at the critical period of the Protestant Reformation, when Latin Christendom was divided into two warring factions. It also coincided with a time of great social unrest in Eastern Europe. There a rapacious nobility sought to enjoy extravagant pleasures wrung from the toil of a suffering peasantry and at the same time to limit the powers of the central government lest it be forced to make some sacrifices for the good of the nation. Finally, the Ottoman sovereign was fortunate that the two strongest Catholic powers of Europe, France and the Habsburgs, were locked in combat for years, dissipating whatever strength a united Europe might have been able to gather to thwart his plans.
The French king, Francis I, in his contest with the Habsburg Charles V for contro! of northern Italy suffered a stunning defeat at Pavia in February 1525. Charles V captured Francis and confined him in Spain after the battle. While her son languished in imprisonment, an idea was born in the mind of his regent mother, Louise d’Angouléme, for a new coalition against the Habsburgs. With her son’s approval, but surrounded with great secrecy, she entrusted a French envoy with a mission to Istanbul. His purpose was to forge an agreement with Siileyman which would provide for concerted action against what both French and Ottomans feared, an unchallenged Habsburg ascendancy in Europe. The first ambassador died en route in Bosnia, but the second, Jean Frangipani, reached the Ottoman capital and made the French plans known.
Siileyman was impressed. He dictated a letter which marks the beginning of French—Ottoman diplomatic affairs.
I, who am the Sultan of Sultans, the King of Kings, the Distributor of crowns to the princes of this world, the Shadow of God upon earth, the Supreme Sovereign of the White Sea and Black Sea, of Roumelia, Anatolia and of the countries which my glorious ancestors have conquered, as well as the numerous countries subjugated by my own triumphant sword, to Francis, who is prince of the country of France...
The French envoy made his presentation and the sultan had been pleased with the message from Francis:
All that he [the envoy] has spoken at the foot of my throne, the refuge of the world, has made me perfectly understand your situation. In these times, it is not rare to see kings defeated and taken prisoner. Do not let your courage lag. In all circumstances, our glorious ancestors have never refused to fight the enemy and make conquests; and I, too, go
forth in all seasons against powerful provinces and well-fortified strongholds.*°
The newly formed alliance between the French and Turks was put to the test in 1528. While the French under the now liberated Francis I attacked the Habsburgs in the west, Siileyman marched northward to aid his vassal Janos Zapolya in Transylvania. In the following spring an even stronger force left Istanbul to aid Zapolya’s continuing struggle against the Habsburgs. Together they occupied Buda in September. The Turkish sultan then ordered an advance into Austria and besieged Vienna. For three weeks the defenders held on; it was to be long enough, for with the approach of winter Stileyman lifted the siege. He withdrew once more, scouring the Hungarian plain as he headed back to his capital, satisfied that the Habsburgs had been sufficiently warned not to disturb the delicate balance of power in the northern Balkans. He left a Turkish garrison in Buda to support Zapolya. Meanwhile, in the west, a truce had been agreed upon at Cambrai in August 1529 between Francis I and Charles V. The emperor wanted to be free to deal with the Lutheran princes in Germany. The papacy, despite Charles’ role as head of Catholic Christendom, was no friend of the emperor, for it feared his pretensions to unite Italy and to submit the Protestant problem to a general council. Pope Clement VII paid for his sentiments when Charles’ army looted Rome in 1527."7
Recognizing that there was little permanence in the European situation as it then stood, Francis I knew better than to give up his understanding with Stileyman. He kept the Turkish alliance secret, lest he, like Zapolya, suffer excommunication. Letters continued to pass between the two sovereigns concerning affairs of common interest. One issue raised in 1528 dealt with the rights of French merchants in Egypt. Since Mamluk times the Catholic merchants of Alexandria, French and Catalans, enjoyed special privileges to trade there, and these agreements were confirmed by Selim I after the conquest of Egypt. Among them was the right of the merchants to own several Catholic churches which were served by Franciscans from the Holy Land. Francis asked Siileyman for permission to make repairs to these buildings and inquired about the loss of one of the Catholic shrines in Jerusalem, apparently a chapel on Mt Zion. The sultan replied that work could begin on the Alexandrian churches, but as for the chapel, ‘for a long time it has been a mosque and Muslims have prayed there’, hence it was impossible to return it to Christian use. Siileyman pledged, ‘The other places, except the mosque, remain in Christian hands; no one, under our benign Sovereignty, will ever molest those who are there.’*? The importance of Stileyman’s renewal of the agreement with the Catholics of Alexandria had broad implications for the future, since this grant of privileges was used as the basis for all further negotiations between France and the Porte during the sultan’s lifetime.
In 1534 the first official French ambassador, Jean de la Forét, was dispatched to the Ottoman capital. His arrival in May 1534 opened the door to increased French influence in the Turkish empire, and with it the possibility of a change in the situation of Ottoman Catholics.
La Forét’s instructions were to seek trading privileges as well as a military agreement with the Turks, and, in addition, to have the religious rights accorded to the Alexandrian merchants extended everywhere in the Ottoman Empire. In effect, this would allow the French merchants and diplomats in the Orient to own Catholic churches and employ clergy to serve them. La Forét, who carried on the talks with the vezir, Ibrahim Pasa, made significant progress in all these matters. It was further agreed that a joint attack would be made upon Italy: France would strike Lombardy while an Ottoman fleet invaded Naples by sea. The ambassador was also assured that ‘merchants, agents, delegates, and all other servants of the king would not be molested or judged by Muslim officials and would enjoy freedom of worship’.** One of the articles of agreement would have allowed the pope to join in the attack upon the Habsburgs. Unfortunately, a few weeks after the agreement was negotiated Ibrahim Pasa fell from power and was strangled. As a result, the proposed text of the French—-Ottoman treaty was never confirmed by Siileyman. Nevertheless, the proposal did have a positive effect, since Silleyman was well aware of what had transpired and understood what his French ally wanted from the Ottomans in return for their cooperation. Meanwhile in Western Europe, Pope Paul III had brought Charles and Francis together again, so that the projected invasion of Italy was quietly called off by the French monarch.
Apparently unaware of this truce between the Christian powers, Siileyman led his army across the Balkans to Vloré in Albania where a navy was assembled for the attack upon Italy. After a weary wait for the French strike into Lombardy, he dismissed his invasion force and, in his disappointment, directed that the fleet should be used against the remaining Venetian possessions in the Adriatic, since Venice was a Habsburg ally. Corfu was invested and then his admiral, Barbarossa, sailed into the Aegean against the Venetianheld islands.
CATHOLICS IN ISTANBUL DURING SULEYMAN’S RULE
Despite the continued decline in the total population of Latins, in Siileyman’s time Catholics still held nine churches in Galata and three in Istanbul itself. A visitor in Galata during this period counted 500 Genoese, 500 freed slaves of various nationalities, and a total of 600 Spaniards, Venetians and Neapolitans. By far the largest number of Catholics were the six thousand slaves, some of whom belonged to the state, others to private individuals. The lot of the public slaves was indescribably miserable, but life in Galata was pleasant and genteel. Men and women were tastefully and stylishly dressed and enjoyed life in a society based upon Italian customs greatly different from Oriental mores. The major complaint of the Galatans came from the settlement of Granadan Moors in their midst. Still resentful over their expulsion from Spain, they often took out their spite on the Catholics of the Ottoman capital.**
The Dominicans who had lost their church of St Paul to the Muslims were compensated in 1535 when the church of St Peter was deeded to them by a wealthy Galatan, Angelo Zaccaria. The new residence was called Ss Peter and Paul, since the friars wanted to recall their former convent at their new centre. In 1557, the Dominicans also assumed responsibility for St Benedict’s church.”
In the middle of the sixteenth century there appeared a number of Orthodox patriarchs without the usual animosity towards the Latin church. In large measure this was due to the return to Istanbul of Greeks who had been educated at Padua and had there lost some of their prejudices. Some of these received Orders and held responsible positions in the church, becoming advisors to the patriarchs. Patriarchs Dionysios II and Joasaph II were known to be well disposed to the Latins and especially Metrophanes III, named to the patriarchate in 1565. Metrophanes, former metropolitan of Caesarea, had previously enjoyed a journey to Italy where he had visited Venice and Rome and was favourably impressed. His own clergy, though aware of his pro-Latin sentiments, took no action against him so long as Siileyman ruled.**
The one incident which disturbed Catholic tranquility in the Ottoman capital at this time occurred when two over-zealous missionaries of the newly founded Capuchin Order arrived in Istanbul in 1551. One was a Spaniard, Juan Zuaze of Medina, and the other a Neapolitan, Giovanni of Troia. Having met at Portiuncla in 1550 they had decided, after consulting with the head of their order, on a mission to the Turks, Contrary to the practice of the Catholic clergy in the capital, they saw their mission as an effort to convert the Muslims to Christianity. Once the Turks became aware of what they were doing, the Capuchins were arrested, beaten and thrown into prison. The Catholic community bailed them out with the understanding they would leave the city.
The Capuchins sailed off to visit the Holy Land and afterwards went to Egypt where they imprudently sought once more to make Muslim conversions, preaching in front of the pasa of Cairo. The expected happened: they were thrown into prison and left without food and water. A week later the French consul at Alexandria came to Cairo to bargain for their release, but it was too late. They were found dead in their cells; the first Capuchin missionaries had become the first Capuchin martyrs.*"
By the end of Siileyman’s reign, the Catholics inside Ottoman boundaries enjoyed relative freedom and stability in the practice of their religion. Although the Ottoman sultans, from Mehmet II to Siileyman, could have closed the capital’s churches and expelled the Catholic population at a moment’s notice, they did not. Toleration continued even in the face of difficult and prolonged conflicts with Western Catholic powers and almost constant papal calls for a crusade. On the other hand, for Eastern Catholics, especially the Hungarians and Bosnians, the gains made by the Turks at their expense were devastating.
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