Download PDF | The Cambridge History Of Turkey, Byzantium To Turkey, 1071– 1453. Vol. 1 Cambridge University Press (2009).
543 Pages
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF TURKEY
Volume I of The Cambridge History of Turkey examines the rise of Turkish power in Anatolia from the arrival of the first Turks at the end of the eleventh century to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. Taking the period as a whole, rather than dividing it along the more usual pre-Ottoman/ Ottoman fault line, the volume covers the political, economic, social, intellectual and cultural history of the region as the Byzantine Empire crumbled and Anatolia passed into Turkish control to become the heartland of the Ottoman Empire.
In this way, the contributors to the volume engage with and emphasise the continuities of the era rather than its dislocations, situating Anatolia within its geographic context at the crossroads of Central Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The world which emerges is one of military encounter, but also of cultural co-habitation, intellectual and diplomatic exchange, and political finesse. This is a state-of-the-art work of reference on an understudied period in Turkish history by some of the leading scholars in the field.
KATE FLEET is Director of the Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies, Newnham College, Cambridge, and Newton Trust Lecturer in Ottoman History at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Cambridge University. Her previous publications include European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State (1999) and, as joint-editor, The Ottomans and Trade (2006).
Contributors
JULIAN CHRYSOSTOMIDES is the Director of the Hellenic Institute, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London and is Emerita Reader in Byzantine History at the University of London. Her books include Funeral Oration on his Brother Theodore: Manuel II Palaeologos (Thessalonike, 1985) and Monumenta Peloponnesiaca: Documents for the History of the Peloponnese in the 14th and 15th Centuries (Camberley, 1995).
HOWARD CRANE isa Professor in the Department of the History of Art at Ohio State University. His books include The Garden of Mosques: Hafiz Hiiseyin al-Ayvansarayi’s Guide to the Muslim Monuments of Ottoman Istanbul (Leiden, 2000) and Risale-i Mi’mariyye: an Early Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Treatise on Architecture (Leiden, 1987).
KATE FLEET is the Director of the Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies, Newnham College, Cambridge and is Newton Trust Lecturer in Ottoman History at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge. Her books include European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: the Merchants of Genoa and Turkey (Cambridge, 1999).
PAL FODOR is Head of the Department of the Early Modern Age at the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has published extensively on the military and administrative organisation and the ruling elite of the Ottoman state as well as on Ottoman political relations with Europe. His books include In Quest of the Golden Apple: Imperial Ideology, Politics, and Military Administration in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul, 2000), and Affairs of State are Supreme’: the Orders of the Ottoman Imperial Council Pertaining to Hungary (1544-15 45, 1552) (Budapest, 2005), which he co-authored with Géza David, with whom he has also co-edited several collections of articles on Ottoman—European relations.
MACHIEL KIEL was Director of the Netherlands Archaeological Institute in Istanbul. He is Adviser to UNESCO for Bosnia-Hercegovina and lectures on Islamic Architecture at istanbul Teknik Universitesi. He has also worked for eighteen years as a builder and stone cutter at the Dutch Service for Historical Monuments, thus combining academic study with work in the archives and practical experience in building. He has written extensively on the Ottoman Balkans and his books include Studies on the Ottoman Architecture of the Balkans (Aldershot, 1990).
RUDI PAUL LINDNER is Professor of History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he teaches comparative medieval history and the history of astrophysics. He has published on the history of steppe nomads, early Ottoman historiography, medieval monetary history and the development ofastronomical institutions in the twentieth-century USA. His books include Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia (Bloomington, 1983) and Explorations in Ottoman Prehistory (Bloomington, 2006).
CHARLES MELVILLE is Reader in Persian History at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge. His books include A History of Persian Earthquakes (Cambridge, 1982), which he co-authored with N. N. Ambraseys and The Seismicity of Egypt, Arabia and the Red Sea: a Historical Review (Cambridge, 1994) (with N. N. Ambraseys and R. D. Adams).
AHMET YASAR OCAK is a Professor in the Department of History at Hacettepe Universitesi. His work is on Seljuk and Ottoman social, cultural and religious history and his extensive publications include Babailer Isyam: Aleviligin Tarihsel Altyapist Yahut Anadolu’da Islam-Tiirk Heterodoksisinin Tesekkiilii (Istanbul, 2000), Osmanh Imparatorlugu’nda Marjinal Sifilik: Kalenderiler (Ankara, 1999), Osmanl Toplumunda Zindtklar ve Miilhidler Yahut Dairenin Disina Cikanlar, 3rd edn (Istanbul, 2003), San Saltik: Popiiler Islam’in Balkanlardaki Destani Onciisti, (Ankara, 2002) and Kiiltiir Tarihi Kaynagi Olarak Mendkibndmeler: Metodolojik Bir Yaklasim (Ankara, 1997).
A note on transliteration
Ottoman Turkish has been transliterated using modern Turkish orthography, and diacritical marking of long vowels has not been used for Arabic and Persian terms or names. Names have been given in their Turkish form except when in common usage in English. Where figures are more familiar under a different form, both forms are given.
Introduction , KATE FLEET
This first volume of The Cambridge History of Turkey considers the transition period from the arrival of the Turks in Anatolia to the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the creation of an Ottoman Empire with its imperial capital of Istanbul. The first four chapters examine various aspects of the political history of the period: the history of Byzantium, the Mongol period in Anatolia, the Turkish advance into Europe and the rise of the Turkish states, including that of the Ottomans. The following four chapters deal with various aspects of the social and economic life of the period, focusing on the military, the economy, art and architecture, and the cultural and religious milieu of this world of transition from Byzantium to Ottoman Empire.
The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes by the Turkomans at the battle of Malazgirt (Manzikert) is taken as a turning point in the history of Anatolia and the Byzantine Empire. From this time the Byzantines were unable to stem the flow of the Turks into Anatolia and the slow process of Turkification had begun. But it was not a battle of conquest, as both Julian Chrysostomides (p. 10) and Ahmet Yasar Ocak (p. 356) point out in this volume. The Seljuk ruler Alp Arslan was intending not to conquer Anatolia, but rather to move against Syria and Egypt. This was not the first Turkish appearance in the region and Byzantine Anatolia had already been weakened before the battle of Malazgirt by many years of Turkoman raiding.
Inthe same way as 1071 has become a seminal (and useful) date for historians, so too has the date of 1453 when the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman ruler Mehmed II and the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist. This date has been taken to symbolise the beginning of the imperial power of the Ottoman Empire, the creation of an imperial capital and the commencement of true Ottoman might. It was not, of course, quite like that. The Byzantine Empire had been crumbling slowly for a considerable period well before 1453, and by that date had been reduced merely to the capital and a small strip of territory around it. The city had undergone Ottoman sieges before, under Bayezid I in the 1390s and again under Murad II in 1422. Its conquest, however, created shockwaves across the western world. Many believed it presaged the arrival of the Turks in Rome itself, and the extirpation of the Christian faith. For the Ottomans, the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire was symbolically significant. Further, the location of the city, controlling the crossing between east and west, and the waterway between north and south, between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, made it economically and strategically important for a state which had territory in both Asia and Europe. Its fall did not, however, represent any sudden or dramatic departure from Turkish policy but was a continuation in the development of the Ottoman state in line with the fall of Byzantine cities before it, such as Thessalonike in 1430.
Both 1071 and 1453, therefore, are dates whose significance as crucial moments in history is overplayed. They are, however, convenient signifiers of periods of change and transformation in directions of events in history and as such make useful starting and end points for this volume.
One date that is largely ignored by the periodisation of this volume is the turn of the fourteenth century, taken as the notional starting point of the Ottoman state. This has certain advantages. It does not overplay history in favour of the ultimate winners, the Ottomans, and thus tries to avoid seeing history backwards when outcomes are known. The Ottomans tend to dominate studies of the later part of this period, as a result of the fact that they came out on top. But, as Rudi Paul Lindner points out, there was no way that this could have been foreseen in 1300 (Lindner, p. 102), or, one might add, in 1402 after the devastating defeat at the battle of Ankara when Ottoman forces were crushed by Timur and the Ottoman state plunged into a period of internecine warfare. The ignoring of 1300 as a turning point date also allows a greater appreciation of this period as one of slow transformation marked by fluidity and fusion rather than in stark terms of collisions and sudden change. This is a period in which the region passes from an Orthodox, Byzantine empire to an Ottoman, Muslim one. It is characterised by gradual assimilation, adaptation and absorption and is marked by a high degree of flexibility and fusion of cultures. Such fusion is evident in the intellectual world of the period, the literature, art and architecture, and in the make-up of the Turkish states.
This was a world of intellectual mobility, dynamism and cosmopolitanism, as is clearly to be seen in Ahmet Yasar Ocak’s discussion of the intellectual and cultural aspects of the period (chapter 9). Intellectuals and ideas were drawn from outside the region into the courts of the new Turkish states. What was to develop from this fusion of Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Byzantine elements was a distinctly Turkish intellectual world expressed in a Turkish which was to become the Ottoman language of the empire. “The intellectual world of medieval Turkey’, as Ocak notes, ‘created the bases of the intellectual performance of the Ottoman Empire for centuries to come’ (Ocak, p. 422).
Such fusion of diverse elements is reflected also in art and architecture, the fourteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth being a period of significant transformation in Turkish art and architecture which shows the continuation of Rum Seljuk influences in central and eastern Anatolia while, particularly in western Anatolia, there was a considerable departure from tradition, drawing on diverse sources including late Byzantine, Timurid and Mamluk art (Crane, p. 266). But there was also a mix, with Seljuk-influenced buildings appearing in the west and innovative ones being built in the central regions (Crane, p. 279).
This amalgamation of different influences is clearly evident in the make-up of Ottoman society. As Pal Fodor demonstrates, the early Ottoman military organisation was an amalgam of Turkoman, Seljuk, Ilkhanid and Byzantine elements (p. 192), with a considerable contribution from the Byzantines, the Venetians and the Genoese to the development of the Ottoman navy (Fodor, p. 224). Despite the general view that the Turks were not seafarers, they in fact took early, and successfully, to the water.
Flexibility and the ability to adopt, absorb and use outside sources was a significant factor in Turkish success, particular in that of the Ottomans. One of the elements accounting for the Ottomans’ development of ‘one of the best war machines of the age’ was that ‘they had the necessary ability and readiness to accommodate foreign technologies and experts and to take part in international trade and transfer of knowledge and weapons’ (Fodor, p. 226). This ability to utilise foreigners and benefit from outside expertise is also evident in Turkish economic practice (Fleet, p. 258)
One of the problems facing research on the economy, and indeed on most aspects of the period, is the lack of sources (Ocak, p. 353, Fleet, pp. 228-9). This has resulted in a dearth of research in many areas, or the establishment of views which need to be reassessed. Thus, for example, the idea that the Turks lacked economic motivation or acumen, although now firmly under attack, has yet finally to be put to rest. Historians have often portrayed the period from 1071 to the fall of Constantinople as one of destruction. It is certainly the case that there was much devastation inflicted on the region by a variety of forces: the crusaders, the Turkomans, the Mongols, the Mamluks and Timur. But this does not mean, and could not logically mean for Anatolia over the whole four-hundred-year period, blanket and continuous devastation. The Mongols, as Charles Melville points out, have often come out of the history of Anatolia rather badly (Melville, p. 51). Either overlooked in a seamless progression from Seljuk to Ottoman, or viewed as a brief preamble to Ottoman history, they have frequently failed to feature large for historians of Turkish Anatolia. For historians of the Ilkhans, their Anatolian phase has often not featured at all. As Melville argues, there needs to be more work on assessing the Mongol contribution to the history of Anatolia, and on what impact Mongol practices had on the development of Turkish, in particular Ottoman, government, on the extent to which the IIkhans simply adopted the Seljuk practices they found in place and what elements they introduced from their steppe background. Ikhan financial practices did affect the development of administration under the Ottomans who adopted accounting methods from them and imitated their coins.
More research is also needed on the organisation and functioning of the medreses, research into which is only in its initial phase (Ocak, p. 412), on Shi’ism in Anatolia and onthe role of conversion and apostasy, an area in which emotive rather than objective history has been influential (Ocak, p. 403). The Turkish presence in Europe is another area where emotive response has far too often warped historical analysis. Despite the attitude that the Turks ‘came last and consequently, when the nation-states were set up, had to go first’ (Kiel, p. 138), Machiel Kiel demonstrates that contacts between the various Turkic peoples and the Balkans go back at least as far as the settlement of the Slavs (Kiel, p. 138). It is odd that the Ottomans, who were established on European soil from the mid-fourteenth century, should have been so vehemently rejected as a European power when, in Kiel’s estimation, ‘the land to the East of the line from Nikopol (Nikopolis, Nigbolu) on the Danube to Kavala on the Aegean, and most ofthe southern half of Macedonia was, until 1912, at least as “Turkish” as most of Anatolia’ (Kiel, p. 156). Destruction of Ottoman monuments in the Balkans has been a concrete expression of the rewriting of the history of the region in the twentieth century which has so coloured and distorted research.
The history of this period has frequently been viewed through the mirror of the modernage. The rise of Turkish power in Anatolia and the Balkans has been interpreted by many historians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries under the all-powerful shadow of the nation-state which has so often sought to model history in its own image. British historians have been befogged by the miasma of philhellenism, Balkan historians intellectually trammelled by the Ottoman yoke which for many lay heavily across both their lands and their mental outlooks, Turkish historians ensnared in the requirements of “Turkishness’. On many occasions views have been adopted ‘as the result either of conscious prejudice or of innocent superficiality of conviction’, in Ahmet Yasar Ocak’s phrase, referring specifically to the assessment of the Turks who arrived in Anatolia as primitive, adopted by older-generation western historians (Ocak, Pp. 400). It is to be hoped that this volume will contribute to a clearer conception of the period and that it will encourage the conduct of research outside the constriction of the political requirements of any particular age.
The period 1071-1453, thus, is one in which much stays the same, much changes slowly, and much emerges new from a chrysalis-like fusion of cultures. By 1453 the world of Anatolia and much of the Balkans had become a Turkish, Muslim one, and the world of Byzantium was gone.
The Byzantine Empire from the eleventh to the fifteenth century
JULIAN CHRYSOSTOMIDES
The defeat ofthe Byzantine army by the Seljuk Turks at the battle of Malazgirt (Manzikert) in 1071 ushered in a period of military decline, which, despite its fluctuations, culminated with the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. This event brought to an end an empire, which, despite the ethnic, linguistic and religious varieties existing within its borders, in essence had maintained its Graeco-Roman and Christian culture and tradition.’
Originally the eastern half (pars orientalis) ofthe Roman Empire, Byzantium had throughout its existence to defend its territories against forces that rose in the east, west andnorth. Asa result of the migrations of the Germanic tribes, the western half was lost to the empire by the end of the fifth century, despite the subsequent attempts by Justinian I (527-65) to re-conquer these territories. Yet, as long as the empire held on to Asia Minor, its wealthiest province after Egypt in terms of men and resources, it had the possibility of reasserting itself, first against the Persians and later against the Arabs, despite the loss of North Africa, Egypt, Syria and Palestine.
The migrations of various tribes from Asia brought additional pressure to bear on the empire’s northern frontiers. Of these, the most serious in this period were those of the Slavs, the Bulgars of Turkic origin, and the halfSlavicised Sarmatian peoples, namely the Serbs and Croats. Slav pressure on the northern frontier was resolved by a political decision. Unable militarily to contain them beyond the Danube frontier and put an end to their attacks, the Byzantines settled the Slavs in depopulated areas of the empire, including Asia Minor,” as they did with the Armenians.’ Both these solutions proved to be economically and militarily to the empire’s advantage. On the other hand, the defeat of the Avars in Pannonia by Charlemagne’s son Pippin in 796 made it possible for the Bulgars to move westward and become a major threat to the empire.
The Arab pressure brought to bear on the eastern frontier led to the reorganisation of the provinces, known as the ‘theme system’, which involved settling troops (themes) in districts under the administration and the supreme authority of a strategos (general), who combined both military and civil authority and was directly responsible to the emperor. This system, which was developed and extended to territories as they were reincorporated within the frontiers of the empire, not only played a part in the recruitment of a loyal army but in addition protected the existence of a free peasantry which contributed both militarily and economically, and enabled the empire to ward off its enemies both in the Balkans and in the east.* Similarly, the problems created in the north, first by the migratory Slav and later Bulgar peoples, were checked to some extent by the use of military force coupled with diplomacy entailing both religious and cultural influence.
By the eighth century the Byzantine Empire had successfully defended Constantinople against the Arabs and the Slavs, and consolidated its rule in Asia Minor. By the middle of the ninth century it had made such a remarkable recovery that it was able to take the offensive in all directions, in the west, in the Balkans and in the east. Following a series of military victories, the Byzantines began by the tenth century to penetrate well into Arab territory, thus initiating a period of expansion on all fronts, including the recapture of the islands of Crete (961) and Cyprus (965). These military achievements reached their apogee in the reign of Basil II (976-1025). In southern Italy, Calabria and Apulia were once more under the firm control of the empire, while in the north, with the conquest of Bulgaria, its frontiers extended to the Danube and the Drava. In the east, with the annexation of Ani and later of Vaspurkan, ceded to the empire by its king who was unable to defend his lands against the incursions of the Turks, the empire’s frontiers extended eastward of Lake Van and beyond the Euphrates.* At the close of Basil II’s reign in 1025 the Byzantine Empire had emerged as the dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean, and succeeded in drawing within its sphere of influence the Slavs of the Balkans and Russia.
These achievements could not have been accomplished without a degree of continuity in the policies of the emperors who had ruled the empire during this period, nor without a well-structured political, military and economic organisation. The years that immediately followed Basil II’s death were not entirely devoid of success, but as time went on the lack ofa leadership capable of assessing and responding to military and social problems aggravated the situation. The position deteriorated further with the clash between the civil aristocracy in the court of Constantinople and the large landowners of Asia Minor who had provided military leadership but had also profited economically from the eastern expansion. Their drive to absorb both the land and the free small landholders after Basil II’s death remained unchecked. In addition, the centralisation initiated under Constantine IX Monomachos (1042-55) weakened both the military and naval structures of the empire, for these changes not only affected the economic welfare of the state owing to the loss of revenue from taxation, but also deprived the state of its soldiers.°
In addition to the internal difficulties, the empire had as a result of its expansion to face new forces along its frontiers. The most formidable of these were the Normans in the west, the Pechenegs in the north and the Seljuks in the east, the last two being of Turkic origin. The Pechenegs were not unknown to the Byzantines, for they had succeeded in establishing a working relation with them for a long time and used them to control the Russians, Magyars and Bulgars, as becomes clear from the advice given by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos (905-59) to his son Romanos:
So long as the emperor of the Romans is at peace with the Pechenegs, neither Russians nor Turks can come upon the Roman dominions by force of arms, nor can they exact from the Romans large and inflated sums in money and goods for the price of peace . . . To the Bulgarians also the emperor of the Romans will appear more formidable, and can impose on them the need for tranquillity, if he is at peace with the Pechenegs.”
This situation was fundamentally altered after Basil II’s death (1025). The annexation of Bulgaria exposed the empire to the Pecheneg raids, which left devastation in their wake.’ Despite periodic agreements, such accords did not last long and the Pechenegs remained a constant threat. Far more destructive, however, proved to be the Uzes, another nomadic Turkic tribe which crossed the Danube in 1065 and reached Thessalonike, penetrating into Greece, ravaging the countryside and killing the inhabitants.? In Asia Minor a new foe appeared on the scene, the Seljuk Turks, who proved to be even more formidable. The annexation of Armenia during the reigns of Basil II and Constantine IX Monomachos exposed the empire to Seljuk incursions.” These coincided with the social and economic changes taking place within the empire that were to affect its military potential. Michael Psellos’s discerning remark, put in the mouth of Isakios I Komnenos, that ‘imperialist policy .. . could not be effected without much expenditure of money and men, as well as sufficient reserve’ was confirmed by subsequent events,” for Constantine IX’s decision to disband the thematic armies of Iberia and Mesopotamia, and to impose taxation in place of military service, forced large sections of the population to desert to the enemy.” The running down of the theme system in this particular case was not a one-off decision but a policy which was applied to the rest of the empire and resulted in the undermining of the social and economic structures upon which its military and naval strength was based.* The resulting vacuum in the defence sector was filled by the large-scale recruitment of foreign mercenaries, with specific taxes being raised for this purpose.“ These measures not only were a drain on the treasury, but also aggravated the situation by provoking armed rebellions at a time when cities and countryside were devastated by enemy attacks.”
In 1068, during the minority of Michael VII Doukas, the son of Constantine X Doukas (1059-67), Romanos Diogenes, a professional soldier, was chosen as emperor. The need for a military man to counter enemy attacks was apparent at least to the dowager empress, Eudocia, whose choice he was.”* The newly appointed emperor, a member of the military party, hurriedly collected a motley army, mainly consisting of Pechenegs, Uzes, Normans and Franks, each contingent obeying the orders of its own leader. At a crucial stage he split his forces, sending a contingent of his most experienced soldiers to invest Chliat (Ahlat) on Lake Van.” But above all, it was the betrayal of Andronikos Doukas, Michael’s cousin and son of the caesar, John Doukas, who spread false rumours during the engagement that Diogenes had been defeated, which undermined the whole venture. This led to a large section of the Uzes changing sides and joining their fellow Turks,’® while the Franks, under Roussel of Bailleul, and the Armenians, resentful of Byzantine religious pressure, fled the camp. Andronikos Doukas, most probably with a view to ousting Diogenes, withdrew from the battlefield and headed with his army to Constantinople.” The result was the Byzantine defeat and the capture of Diogenes. The Turkish sultan, Alp Arslan (1063-72), seems at this stage not to have been interested in proceeding with the conquest of Anatolia, his main concern being to move his forces against Syria and Egypt.” He therefore treated Diogenes honourably and agreed to release him on condition that the Byzantines paid an annual tribute and provided military help.** But the powers in Constantinople, primarily John Doukas, rejected the agreement, the empress was removed to a nunnery and Michael VII was proclaimed sole emperor (1071-8).” In response, Diogenes sought Alp Arslan’s help to regain his throne. Defeated, he was blinded despite the assurances given him to the contrary, and died soon after. Using Diogenes’s death as an excuse, Alp Arslan directed his forces against Asia Minor, the defences of which had already been eroded by the incursions and pillaging of the independent Turkish bands (Turkomans) during the preceding decades.*4
These events unfolding in the east had their counterpart in the west. The same year that witnessed the disaster of Malazgirt (Manzikert) also saw the fall of Bari, the last Byzantine possession, to the Normans under Robert Guiscard, whose target became the imperial possessions on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, and ultimately Constantinople. Similarly, the Byzantines lost ground in the Balkans where they suffered repeated insurrections.” But above all, what eroded the remaining strength of the empire from within were the various rebellions of both pretenders and foreign mercenaries, such, for example, as that of Roussel of Bailleul who revolted in the name of John Doukas.”® In order to suppress these rebellions the Byzantine government had to call in Turkish mercenaries, thus aggravating the situation further and inadvertently assisting the Turkish expansion into Byzantine territory.” By 1180 the Sultanate of Rum (based on Roman territory) had arisen on Byzantine soil, extending from Cilicia to the Hellespont, thus bringing to a close the imperial presence in the heart of Asia Minor.”8
The dynasty of the Komnenoi and their successors, IO8I—1204
Meanwhile, a series of insurrections brought to power first Nikephoros III Botaneiates in 1078 and, three years later, Alexios 1 Komnenos, who found ‘an empire surrounded on all sides by barbarians’ and a depleted treasury.” His immediate task was to introduce reforms which gathered civil authority and military power in the hands of an officer, the katepano, in charge of a region, and in addition to bring in further tax impositions to build up the army.” Ina climate ofrivalries and rebellions Alexios strengthened his position by extensive land grants and titles to his family and partisans, a policy that often elicited criticism.* This solution, though perhaps inevitable, was indeed a double-edged sword, for while it strengthened his authority, at the same time it encouraged separatist elements. In addition, it further undermined the agrarian structures that up to the early eleventh century had been responsible for the economic and military strength of the empire. An astute politician, Alexios tried to resolve the immense problems facing him by having recourse to both diplomacy and war. He opened negotiations with Pope Gregory VIl and the German emperor, and secured the naval support of Venice during Robert Guiscard’s blockade of Dyrrachium (Durazzo).” Although in 1082 Venetian help was bought at ahigh price, for itinvolved granting them extensive quarters and commercial privileges® which in the long run were to prove detrimental to the empire, nevertheless for the time being the Norman defeat gave them a respite, particularly when the Slavs in the Balkans took advantage of the Norman invasion to assert their independence.
The pressure from the western front, but above all the continuous lack of resources in both cash and manpower, forced Alexios to concentrate on recovering coastal territories, realising that any attempt to regain lands within the heart of Anatolia, fragmented by the constant devastating raids of the Turkomans and parcelled out among the Turkish beys, would have necessitated a considerable military force that was an impossibility in the present circumstances, a problem, in fact, that remained unresolved also under his successors. The loss of Asia Minor, the richest province of the empire in both men and resources, inevitably deprived the rulers of any possibility of reclaiming the lost territories through concerted campaigns. All that Alexios could do for the moment was to give instructions to the governors of towns, along both the Black Sea and Paphlagonia, bypassed by the Turks, to remain at their post and defend their areas,*4 a policy which in certain cases, for example Trebizond (Trabzon), proved successful.” These measures, further strengthened and developed by Alexios’s successors, led to the revival of the theme system. At the head of each theme, either land or maritime, there was a governor, now called dux, with both military and civil functions. These administrative areas, however, were in size a mere shadow of their predecessors.*°
Alexios’s immediate concern was the recovery of the territories adjacent to the coast of the Propontis from marauding Turks, who, at the time established in Nicaea (Iznik), then under Siileyman (1077/8-86), raided the countryside of Bithynia as far as Damalis on the Bosphorus. Though Alexios did succeed in relieving these areas and pushing the Turks further inland, he had no other alternative but to conclude an armistice with Siileyman.” This was not a longterm solution, for at the sultan’s death his domains were divided among the emirs he had left in charge, one of them being Caka (Tzachas), who, some years earlier, had been taken prisoner in one of the Turkish raids and presented to Emperor Nicephoros Botaneiates (1078-81), who honoured him with the title nobelissimus. However, having lost his position on the accession of Alexios Komnenos, Caka set out on a venture of creating his own state and assuming the title of emperor. Taking advantage of the attacks of the Pechenegs in the outskirts of Constantinople in 1090-1, he succeeded with the help of a local Greek in building a navy and seizing islands and towns fringing the coast, including Mitylene and Chios.** Once Alexios had resolved the problem of the Pechenegs with the help of the Cumans, another nomadic tribe, which decimated them at the battle of Levounion,” he turned his attention to Caka and the rebuilding of the imperial navy. The ships the emperor had at his disposal could not match those commanded by Caka and any attempt to tackle him at sea remained unsuccessful. The problem was finally resolved when Alexios entered into an alliance with Caka’s son-in-law, Kili¢ Arslan | (1092-1107), who supposedly elimitated him after a banquet.4° Meanwhile, Alexios had succeeded in rebuilding the navy which dealt successfully with the insurrections of Crete and Cyprus.**
These successes coincided with the launching by Urban II at the Council of Clermont (1095) of the first crusade for the liberation of the Holy Land from the Muslims.*” The outcome was that, instead of the western mercenaries the emperor had appealed for, and had used in the past, he had to face the arrival of multitudes of unarmed pilgrims or armed contingents that added to the already existing pressures.” The demand made on logistics, involving transport, provisioning and policing the crowds, often undisciplined and destructive, was immense. Nevertheless, Alexios succeeded in controlling the situation, demanding an oath from the leaders that whatever areas they conquered which had once belonged to the Roman Empire would be restored to Byzantium. His insistence on this oath has been interpreted by some modern historians as a ploy to turn the crusaders into his vassals. However, using a western convention was the only way available to him of exerting control over the crusaders who presented a potential threat.” In return, he promised to assist them in their march, providing them with essential supplies and guides. This co-operation reached its climax with the capture of Nicaea (Iznik) and the march through Cappadocia.“® By the time the crusaders had reached Antioch, however, the complications had increased. Stephen of Blois’s desertion and his report to the emperor at Philomelion (Aksehir) that the crusaders were facing complete collapse, in addition to the rumours that Turkish forces were trying to overtake the emperor before he could reach Antioch, left Alexius with no alternative but to beat a retreat. At this moment the safety of the empire was paramount. Henceforth, thanks to Bohemond of Antioch’s manipulations, any possibility of co-operation had ended.” His subsequent attack on the empire and his final defeat at Dyrrachium (Durazzo), followed by his submission, albeit nominal, in September 1108 under the treaty of Devol,*® enhanced the prestige of Alexios who now turned his attention to the Balkans. Aware of Hungary’s importance as a political factor in both the Balkans and the Adriatic, he had arranged the marriage of his son and heir, John, to a Hungarian princess (1104), an alliance that consolidated Byzantine-Hungarian relations at least during his reign. But above all, Alexios succeeded in strengthening imperial authority and recovering some lost territory. The frontier in the Balkans extended as far as Belgrade in the north, to Scodra (Shkodra) in the south, including Kotor, Dubrovnik and Ragusa, and in the north-east it followed the river Danube to the Black Sea. In the south in Asia Minor the frontier stretched from the river Meander (Btiyiik Menderes) to Philomelion (Aksehir) as far as Ancyra (Ankara) and then veered to the east along the Black Sea as far as Trapezous (Trebizond, Trabzon). It was this legacy that Alexios left to his successors at his death in 1118.
His son, John II (1118-43), considered by Niketas Choniates as the greatest of the Komnenoi, continued his father’s policies with determination and prudence.” The main problems he had to face in the west, particularly in the early part of his reign, were his relations with Hungary and its rising influence in the Balkans and the Adriatic. In the east the recovery of lands in Anatolia from the Turks, the Armenians in Cilicia, the Norman principality of Antioch and its links with Sicily occupied him throughout his reign. His decision, on the advice of his finance counsellor, to run down on grounds of economy the fleet that his father had reorganised was a serious mistake. This ‘ill-advised policy or pennypinching’, as Choniates notes, resulted in the control of the seas passing into the hands of the pirates.*°
In addition to these problems, a fresh horde of Pechenegs crossed the Danube in 1122 and pillaged imperial lands as far south as Thrace and Macedonia, although they then suffered a crushing defeat by the Byzantine army. Following his father’s policy John settled those Pechenegs who survived the battle on imperial lands and drafted them into the Byzantine army. This event put an end once and for all to their marauding activities.**
John, however, failed to extricate himself from the extensive commercial privileges granted to the Venetians by his father in 1082 which were strangling the Byzantine economy. Forced by gunboat diplomacy involving attacks on Corfu, Kephalonia, Lesbos (Mitylene), Chios and Rhodes, and with his naval force reduced, he had no alternative but to renew and extend their privileges in 1126. Unable to free himself from Venetian economic dominance in the empire, he tried to encourage the Pisans by renewing in 1136 the more limited privileges his father had once granted them,” though at the time Pisa could hardly compete with Venice. On the other hand, as a counterpoise to Norman expansion under Roger II of Sicily, who had united Sicily and Apulia under his rule and had crowned himself emperor in 1130, John sought a rapprochement with the German rulers and the papacy.
Following his successful encounter with Hungary over Serbia around 1130, John was finally able to turn his attention to the east. He conducted campaigns against the Turks in Bithynia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Galatia and Paphlagonia and constructed fortresses to stem the Turkish expansion.* His objective was the recovery of Antioch, then under the regency of Jocelin I of Courtenay. Judging that the Sultanate of Rum was at the time going through internal dissensions, the emperor moved his forces against the emirate of the Danismends of Malatya (Melitene), which he defeated in 1135. The road to Syria, however, was barred by the kingdom of Lesser Armenia, established in Cilicia sometime around 1071 by refugees from Armenia proper fleeing before the Turks.” Since that time, Lesser Armenia had extended its territory at the expense of Byzantium and had established good relations with the Latin rulers in the east. In the spring of 1137 John moved his forces to capture Tarsus, Adana and Mamistra (Misis) in quick succession. By August he had reached Antioch which surrendered after a short siege. Raymond of Poitiers, husband of Constance of Antioch, daughter of Bohemond II, swore allegiance to the emperor and recognised the suzerainty of the empire. A year later John made a solemn entry into Antioch. This victory was short lived. The Latins withdrew their support and the emperor had no alternative but to leave Antioch. Whether he was planning to establish for his son Manuel, as Kinnamos states, a frontier principality consisting of Attaleia (Antalya), Antioch and Cyprus which would have provided more effective defence is difficult to tell 5° At any rate, contrary to the perception of the west that accepting the status quo would best serve the interests of his people,” John, as he wrote to King Fulk of Jerusalem, had no intention of relinquishing his aim of taking control of Antioch and extending his authority to the south.>® These designs, however, were never fulfilled for he died in the spring of 1143. His third son and successor, Manuel I (1143-80), continued his plans and those of his grandfather, though his approach differed in conformity with the changing circumstances.
The developments in the west and in particular the Norman expansion in the Mediterranean forced Manuel to strengthen his alliance with the German king, Conrad III (1138-52), whose sister-in-law, Bertha of Sulzbach, he married in compliance with his father’s earlier arrangements. These projects of co-operation between the two rulers were placed in jeopardy by the second crusade, sparked off by the capture of Edessa by the Muslims in 1144. This undertaking brought together not only the French and Norman kings, Louis VII (1137-80) and Roger II of Sicily (1130-54), but also Conrad, thus depriving Manuel of his ally in the west. The very aims of the crusade of strengthening the Latin principalities, including Antioch, ran counter to Manuel’s aspirations of bringing them under at least nominal imperial authority and putting an end to the hostilities. In fact at the time Raymond of Antioch, ar from seeking co-operation, was harassing Cilician cities subject to the Romans.”
While Manuel was dealing with the passage of the crusaders, a task wrought with difficulties similar to those confronted by his grandfather Alexios I with the first crusade,°° Roger’s objective was to attack the empire and capture Constantinople.® In April 1147 he seized Corfu, Thebes and Corinth, the last two being the wealthiest silk-manufacturing cities of Greece.°* The Norman hostilities inevitably diverted Manuel’s attention from east to west. As the leader of a Mediterranean power, Manuel had no alternative but to defend its interests both in Sicily and in southern Italy. With the help of Venice he succeeded in recapturing Corfu. In appreciation of their services Manuel renewed the Venetian privileges in 1147 and a year later extended their quarters. However, his lengthy confrontation with the Normans not only proved too costly for the imperial resources but also went counter to the interests of the Venetians who proceeded to mend their relations with the Normans.™ The situation was further complicated by Roger’s stirring up of the Hungarians and Serbs against the empire. Conrad’s death in February 1152 undermined the plan for a concerted Italian campaign. The new German king, Frederick I Barbarossa (1152-90), unlike his predecessor, never concluded an agreement with Manuel. Apart from the political interests, what acerbated the situation was Frederick's claims to imperial sovereignty which carried with it universal dimensions, a concept which ran counter to Byzantine tenets. As a result of these complications Manuel’s Italian campaign, far from being successful, had ended with the Byzantine defeat at Brindisi in 1156 and the loss of the conquered territory. The emperor had no alternative but to come to terms with Roger’s successor, William I (1154-66), through the mediation of Pope Hadrian IV in 1158. The same year saw the culmination of Manuel’s policy towards the Latin principalities when Byzantine suzerainty was recognised by both Reynald of Antioch and King Baldwin of Jerusalem.
Manuel’s relations with Venice, on the other hand, deteriorated, and as a counterpoise Manuel concluded alliances with both Pisa and Genoa,” though these two city-states could hardly redress the balance. In addition, the growing Genoese commercial activity proved an irritant to the Venetians to the extent that in 1162, with the complicity of the Pisans, they attacked and destroyed the Genoese headquarters.® Refusing to pay indemnities to the Genoese, and to subscribe to his Italian policy, as Manuel insisted, the Venetians were expelled from the empire and their property confiscated in 1171, while the Genoese privileges were extended.” In retaliation, the Venetians launched an attack and pillaged the Aegean islands, but failed to hold on to Chios, chased by the Byzantine fleet as far as Cape Malea. With the Byzantine fleet unable to proceed any further, it became clear that only through diplomacy could the hostility be resolved, particularly as Venice had concluded an alliance with Barbarossa against Ancona in 1173, and an agreement in 1175 with William II of Sicily (1166-89), who recognised Venetian commercial activities in the Adriatic.”° The Veneto-Byzantine negotiations were concluded in 1179 with the renewal of the Venetian privileges, the release of prisoners, the restitution of sequestered property and the promise of reimbursement of damages inflicted on them in 1171.” Yet, the Venetians do not seem to have hastened to return to Constantinople. Whether this was a consequence of Manuel’s prevarication in paying damages, or their reluctance to return, is difficult to tell.
However, the insoluble problem, despite the progress made by the Komnenoi, remained Asia Minor.” The very nature of the conquest, with its multifarious elements devoid of a single authority able to impose control and establish law and order, brought upheaval and desolation. Though Byzantium had secured the coastal areas from the Black Sea in the north as far as Laodikeia (Denizli) in the south and had reconquered the western part of the Anatolian plateau as far as Amorion (Hisar near Emirdag), the forays for plunder into Byzantine territory, particularly by the Turkomans, continued unabated, despite the existing agreements.” The only respite in some cases came as a result of fortifications, built for example in Chliara (Kirkaga¢), Pergamon (Bergama) and Atramyttion (Edremit), thus enabling the return of the population to pursue, as Choniates puts it, ‘the good things of civilized life’.”4
In 1175 came the break between Constantinople and Ikonion (Konya) that led to Manuel’s expedition against Kilig Arslan II (1156-92) the following year and his defeat at Myriokephalon~a defeat that the emperor himself considered comparable to that of Malazgirt (Manzikert) a century earlier.” It soon became clear that the grandiose plans Manuel had embraced both in the west and east as a response to external circumstances could not be fully realised, for Byzantium at the time simply lacked the resources. As a consequence the alliances and agreements based on largesse entered into, in particular, with his eastern foes could not be maintained without military might to enforce them. The recruitment of mercenaries, both foreign and native, was not only a great burden to the exchequer but often resulted in the plunder and devastation of the provinces.”°
These weaknesses became apparent on Manuel’s death in 1180 when his son, Alexios II, a minor, ascended the throne under the tutelage of his mother, Mary of Antioch. The interplay of a number of factors — resentment against the Latins, whose dominant position was more apparent under the regency, the power of the landed families, the abuse of tax-collectors and the poverty of the majority — led to a palace revolution, which spread to the people and brought to power Andronikos I Komnenos, Manuel’s cousin, unleashing in these earlier stages a massacre of the Latins (1182).” A year later, having eliminated both Alexios and his mother, Andronikos was proclaimed emperor (1183-5).
A man full of contradictions, both brutal and humane, Andronikos introduced reforms and enforced the laws against abuse of power by the landed magnates, the sale of offices and the rapacity of tax-collectors, thus restoring ameasure of prosperity to the provinces.’* On the other hand, his ruthless character and irrational suspicions turned his rule into a reign of terror, thus ultimately alienating the powerful landed aristocracy on whose co-operation the defence of the empire rested. His external policy equally antagonised the western powers. The agreements that Manuel I had secured with so much effort were in tatters: Hungary occupied Dalmatia and parts of Croatia and Sirmium; the Serbs declared their independence and expanded their territory at the expense of Byzantium; while the Normans, having occupied Corfu (Kerkyra), Kephalonia and Zakynthos, sailed to Thessalonike which they sacked.”
This external and internal disintegration led to the downfall of Andronikos and the Komnenian dynasty. The new occupant of the throne, Isakios II Angelos (1185-95), failed to deal with the developments in the Balkans and in particular Bulgaria, whose ruler, Asen, was crowned emperor of Bulgaria by the newly established archbishop of Trnovo in 1187. On the other hand, the Byzantines succeeded in ousting the Normans from Thessalonike and in coming to an agreement with Hungary. But the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin (Salah al-Din) in 1187 and the launching of the third crusade in 1189 created fresh problems for the Byzantines. Of the leaders, Richard Lionheart and Philip II Augustus chose to sail to the east, while Frederick I Barbarossa opted for the land route through Asia Minor. To safeguard his passage he came to an understanding with both the Byzantines and the Seljuk ruler, Kilig Arslan II, through whose lands he was to pass on his way to Jerusalem. This aroused Byzantine suspicions and led Isakios II to renew the alliance with Saladin made by Andronikos I.8° However, despite Frederick’s occupation of the Byzantine city of Philippopolis (Filibe, Plovdiv) and the verbal hostility between the two rulers which might have resulted in a German attack on Constantinople, a treaty was concluded in 1190 with the Byzantines promising the necessary provisioning in both victuals and transport.™ This venture not only failed to lead to the capture of Jerusalem, but proved detrimental to Byzantium when Richard Lionheart captured Cyprus,*” which was to remain in western hands.
The internal abuses, the extortions of tax-collectors, the sale of offices and the extravagant expenditure seem to have continued unabated.* Nor did the situation improve under Isakios II’s brother Alexios III Angelos who ousted him in 1195.54 On the contrary, the dissension within the imperial family led to the final stages of the disintegration. The appeal by Isakios and his son Alexios to Philip of Swabia, whose brother had married Isakios’s daughter, began a chain of events which under Venice’s direction were to divert the fourth crusade from Egypt, first to Zara and then to Constantinople. These coincidences, underpinned by commercial interests, resulted in the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders and the division of the imperial lands among them. The idea had been contemplated in the past,** but as the possibility of a successful colonisation in Palestine and Syria grew more remote, the capture of Constantinople became a reality.
In July 1203 Alexios IV was crowned co-emperor when Isakios was restored to his throne but he was unable to fulfil his promises to the crusaders and make the necessary exorbitant payments. This led to the crusaders and Venice drawing up a treaty proposing the partition of the empire among themselves. This was put into practice when the people rebelled against Alexios IV for having subjected them to the Latins and brought Alexios V Doukas to the throne. On 13 April 1204 Constantinople fell to the crusaders, who unleashed a massacre, pillage and sheer wanton destruction that lasted for three days.*° This destruction spread also to the provinces.
Latin rule and the Byzantine Empire in exile, 1204-61
Following the capture of Constantinople a new political order had to be established.*” The leader who proved instrumental in implementing the agreement and manipulating the election of the emperor was Enrico Dandolo, the doge of Venice. Bypassing Boniface of Montferrat, the most eligible candidate, given his ability and Byzantine connections, Dandolo, with Venetian interests in mind, engineered the election of Count Baldwin of Flanders.** With the exception of the doge all other crusaders had to swear an oath of fealty to the emperor.*° According to this agreement one-quarter of all imperial territory together with five-eighths of the capital were to be assigned to the emperor; one-quarter of the remaining territory, in addition to the remaining threeeighths of Constantinople, were granted to the Venetians.®° The remainder of the territories was apportioned as fiefs to the knights. Apart from five-eighths of the capital, Baldwin received land in Thrace and in the north-west region of Asia Minor, his kingdom thus straddling the Bosphorus and the Hellespont. Boniface, displeased with the areas allocated to him, seized Thessalonike and established a kingdom there, and then set out to conquer Boeotia, Attica and the Peloponnese, granting suzerainty to various French leaders, who were to owe allegiance to him as king, and not to the emperor.” Venice, aware of its military incapability to impose its rule on such an extensive area, relinquished the territories of Epirus, Acarnania, Aetolia and the Peloponnese granted to it by the treaty, and restricted its rule to the two ports of Coron (Korone) and Modon (Methone) in the south-western tip of the Peloponnese. These were referred to as ‘the right eye of Venice’, for they controlled the routes to the Adriatic and southern Mediterranean.” Venice also occupied other islands in the Ionian and the Aegean and bought Crete from Boniface of Montferrat. Of all the participants in the fourth crusade, Venice alone was gradually to establish a maritime empire in the eastern Mediterranean which was to last until the early years of the eighteenth century, in contrast to the transient presence of the rest of the crusaders.
As a result of the destruction of the central authority of Constantinople, three states arose competing for the political succession of Byzantium. Michael Angelos, with his capital at Arta, established his authority over Epirus, Acarnania and Aetolia as an independent political entity in opposition to the kingdom of Thessalonike, to the Venetians in the Adriatic and to the Slavs in the north. Shortly before the capture of the city the brothers Alexios and David Komnenos, grandsons of Andronikos I Komnenos, took possession of Trebizond (Trabzon). David went on subsequently to seize Sinope (Sinop) and extend his rule to Paphlagonia and the Pontic Heraclea. In Asia Minor a large section of the population, who had sought refuge there, rallied round Theodore Laskaris, a son-in-law of Alexios III Angelos. The Latin advance into Asia Minor against Laskaris was halted by the revolt of the Byzantine magnates of Thrace, whose offer of co-operation had been rejected by both Boniface and Baldwin. In the ensuing bloody revolt they called in the Bulgarian tsar, Kalojan, who invaded with his Cumans and defeated the crusaders near Adrianople (Edirne). Baldwin was taken prisoner and later died in captivity; a number of Frankish knights lost their lives, among them Louis of Blois, the claimant to Nicaea (iznik).%
While the crusaders directed their interest to the European part of the territories, Theodore Laskaris established his rule in Nicaea and went on to reintroduce the imperial structures of both secular and ecclesiastical administration. Michael Autoreianos, a scholar, was elected patriarch of Constantinople in 1208 and proceeded to crown Laskaris emperor. Thus Nicaea was eventually to emerge as the legal and official Byzantine Empire in exile and as such it challenged the authority of the Latin rule in Constantinople.*4 Henry of Flanders, Baldwin’s brother and successor, in contrast to earlier policy, adopted a conciliatory approach towards the Greeks and won a number of the Greek magnates to his rule. Though he opened hostilities against Nicaea, he was once more forced by the Bulgarian threat to conclude a two-year armistice with Theodore Laskaris in the spring of 1207. This gave Theodore a respite to concentrate on the task of imposing his authority on the centrifugal elements that sought to establish independent principalities.» One such rebel was Theodore Mangaphas who seized Philadelphia (Alasehir), while Sabbas Asidenos captured the town of Sampson, near Miletus (Balat).%° Manuel Mavrozomes, in co-operation with Keyhtisrev I (1204-10), the Seljuk leader, tried to establish himself in the Meander valley. In this case, according to Choniates, Theodore Laskaris came to an agreement with Keyhiisrev and granted him a portion of the territory which included Chonai (Honas) and Phrygian Laodikeia (Denizli).”” Despite these agreements, the Turks, intent on capturing the coastal regions, took advantage of the upheavals and seized a number of fortresses, including Attaleia (Antalya).%* In addition, at the mediation of Venice, Keyhiisrev entered into a secret alliance with Henry in 1209,” and tried to elicit support among the Byzantines by championing the cause of Alexios III Angelos, Theodore’s father-in-law, who had returned from the west and had taken refuge with the sultan. Hostilities continued round Antioch on the Meander with losses for the Nicaeans, but the sultan’s defeat and death in 1211 removed for the time being the pressure on the eastern front, thus giving Theodore the opportunity to turn his attentions to the Latins. After the Byzantine victory on the Rhyndakos (Orhaneli) river in that year, Henry moved on to Pergamon (Bergama) and Nymphaion (Nif, now Kemalpasazade). However, subsequent hostilities and skirmishes between the two forces proved both indecisive and draining, and in 1214 a treaty was concluded at Nymphaion between the two empires.’°° Relations between Nicaea and Constantinople remained friendly after Henry’s death and in 1216 Theodore married Henry’s niece as his third wife. Three years later, Theodore renewed the former extensive trade privileges to the Venetians operating in the empire of Nicaea."
The peaceful relations with the Latins left Theodore free to tackle the empire of Trebizond which owed allegiance to the Latin emperor of Constantinople. In that year Theodore annexed all their lands west of Sinope (Sinop), includingHerakleia (Eregli) and Amastris (Amasra). This provoked the Seljuk ruler, Keykavus I (1210-20). He attacked Trebizond (Trabzon), seized Sinope (1215-16) captured Alexios Komnenos and reinstalled him on the throne of Trebizond as his vassal. With Sinope as their naval base, the Seljuks were gradually to develop into an important maritime element in the Black Sea."
During this period Epirus under Michael I Angelos (1204-15) grew in importance, but it was under his half-brother and successor, Theodore Angelos (1215-24), that conflict broke out between the two Byzantine states.’ By then, Theodore Angelos had captured Peter of Courtenay, the newly elect emperor of Constantinople, Henry’s successor, on his way to Constantinople, and had turned his attention to the kingdom of Thessalonike, which, since the death of Boniface of Monferrat in his campaign against the Bulgars in 1207, had lost its vitality and direction. In addition, the return of the crusaders to the west and the lack of support since Henry’s death in 1216 had undermined the Latin empire’s ability to survive. Towards the end of 1224, after a long-drawn-out siege, the city capitulated."° Theodore Angelos now controlled an extensive part of the territory of the old empire, which gave him the justification to style himself ‘Emperor of the Romans’, and assume the three imperial family names of Angelos, Doukas and Komnenos, thus challenging the Nicaean pre-eminence.
In Nicaea, Theodore I Laskaris bequeathed the crown to his son-in-law John III Doukas Vatatzes (1222-54). This unleashed a rebellion by Theodore’s brothers supported by the Latins, who also in 1228 sought an alliance with the Seljuks against Vatatzes. The attempt to overthrow him failed, and as a result of his victory by both land and sea the Latin lands in Asia Minor passed under Byzantine dominion, with the exception of the coast opposite Constantinople and the territory round Nicomedia (izmit). Vatatzes was now able to strengthen and expand the fleet, originally organised by Theodore I, and to extend Byzantine control over the Aegean islands lying between Greece and Asia Minor. He harassed Latin shipping moving towards Constantinople, and along the coast of Thrace. His naval capability inevitably could not compete at this stage with the Venetian fleet, whose primary aim though seems to have been the control of the sea routes that would promote their mercantile activities. By then the Venetians had established links with the Frankish Levant, and had concluded treaties with Keyhtisrev I, which gave them access to Attaleia (Antalya), indispensable for their commercial activities with Egypt. In addition, under his successor, Keykavus I, by then in control of Sinope (Sinop), they secured a further agreement and, of major importance, access to the Black Sea region under the agreement renewed with Keykubad I (1220-37) in 1220."°” These commercial successes would eventually be extended as far as Crimea, and would involve other western merchants, including Pisans, Amalfitans and Genoese after the Veneto-Genoese treaty in 1232.
This mercantile prosperity could hardly stem the gradual political deterioration and fragmentation of Latin rule, which inevitably weakened their hold on the conquered lands.’ The realization of this among the occupied Greeks is illustrated by the appeal made by the population of Adrianople (Edirne) to Vatatzes in 1225 to take possession of the city.°? Nicaea’s pre-eminence, however, was challenged by Theodore Angelos who by now ruled not only the kingdom of Thessalonike but also parts of Thrace and had entered into an alliance with Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria (1218-41) against Vatatzes. Theodore moved against Adrianople, forcing Vatatzes to withdraw. His success spurred him on to focus his attention on Constantinople. In this, he was stopped by his ally, Ivan Asen, whose aspirations to create a Bulgaro-Byzantine empire with its capital in Constantinople went counter to Theodore’s plans. Theodore dissolved the agreements and turned against his former ally, but, defeated in 1230,
I1o
he was taken prisoner."° His domains in Epirus, Thessaly and Thessalonike passed to his brother Manuel, though his recent acquisitions in Thrace, Macedonia and part of Albania were incorporated into Asen’s kingdom. Asen, in addition, supplanted Greek influence in Serbia. The capture of Constantinople, however, eluded Asen despite the various and ever-changing alliances and diplomatic manoeuvrings. After his death in 1241, and the Mongol invasion in 12.43, Which affected both the Balkans and the Turkish emirates in Asia Minor, Bulgaria was out of the contest for the capture of Constantinople, thus leaving Nicaea as the sole contender.
The friendly relations and commercial exchanges established between Nicaea and the Seljuks during the Mongol invasion were of short duration. In 1243 the Mongols defeated the Seljuks, whose control was fractured, resulting in the emergence of various beyliks including those of Aydin and Mentese on the western coast of Anatolia."' Hostilities resumed once the Mongol threat had receded. From 1250 onwards, Vatatzes undertook a number of expeditions to hold back Turkoman and Seljuk encroachment along the frontier."* This situation continued under his successors. A partial remedy, following the longestablished Byzantine tradition, was to settle the troublesome and destructive Cumans along the frontier regions in the Meander valley as well as in Macedonia and Thrace in order to strengthen the defences, and gradually assimilate them into a sedentary way of life.“ During his long reign Vatatzes succeeded in doubling the size of the empire of Nicaea. He had laid strong economic and social foundations™ and against all odds he had emerged from all the competing forces as the statesman poised to capture the city and restore the Byzantine Empire. This did not, in fact, take place under him or his son, Theodore II Laskaris (1254-8), or his grandson John IV Laskaris (1258-9), but under the usurper Michael VIII Palaeologos (1259-82), who went on to establish his own dynasty by eliminating the Laskarids.”
A resourceful statesman, Michael was able to defeat the triple anti-Nicaean coalition, formed by Frederick II’s son Manfred of Sicily, Michael of Epirus and William of Villehardouin of Achaia, at the battle of Pelagonia (1259)." As a result of this resounding defeat, their newly found ally, the Serbian king, Uro$, had to withdraw from the recently occupied Macedonian cities. The way was now open for the capture of the city. To neutralise any possible resistance by the Venetians, Michael negotiated with the Genoese rivals, and signed a treaty at Nymphaeum (Nymphaion) in March 1261. In accordance with this treaty, in return for extensive commercial privileges enjoyed in the past by the Venetians, the Genoese were to provide naval aid to the empire.” As it turned out, this proved unnecessary. Constantinople was captured by Michael’s commander, Alexios Strategopoulos, who, while reconnoitring in its vicinity, found the city defenceless with the greater part of the Frankish garrison having sailed with the Venetian fleet into the Black Sea against the island of Daphnousion.
The last phase, 1261-1453
For Michael Palaeologos, the capture of Constantinople was the first step towards the restoration of the rest of the empire. This inevitably brought him into conflict with the Bulgars and the Mongols over Thrace and Macedonia, the Despotate of Epirus with its claims on Thessaly, the Latins in the Peloponnese and the Aegean islands. With the capture of Constantinople, the empire’s position was transformed from a provincial state into a power with an important role in Mediterranean politics, and hence needing to neutralise its enemies in the west through diplomatic means, for the restoration of its former lands could not be achieved militarily given its financial situation. The main obstacle to Michael’s plans of restoration was the Sicilian kingdom, which assumed the role of protector of the Latins in Greece, first under Manfred of Hohenstaufen (1258-66) and later under Charles of Anjou (1265-85), the brother of the king of France. In order to counteract Manfred’s plans Michael entered into negotiations with the papacy. Though Urban IV (1261-4) had at first given his support to the Franks in the Peloponnese and had excommunicated the Genoese for their co-operation with Michael, his objection to the house of the Hohenstaufen prevented him from forming an alliance between Sicily and the papacy. In fact, the pope later actively supported Charles of Anjou in taking over the kingdom of Sicily. Taking advantage of this situation Michael VIII approached the papacy with the offer of the union of the two churches, those of Rome and Constantinople. The time was important, for though Michael had earlier been successful in the Peloponnese, the situation had now been reversed and the empire had to fight on three fronts. As his allies the Genoese had been defeated by the Venetians in the Gulf of Nauplia in the spring of 1263, Michael was forced to end his alliance with Genoa and begin negotiations with Venice in 1265 with the aim of renewing and extending the privileges they had once enjoyed under the Komnenoi. But, as the Venetians were slow to ratify the treaty," Michael renewed his agreements in 1267 with the Genoese, who by then had established their dominance in the Black Sea. In addition he granted them quarters in Galata, a suburb in Constantinople, which was to develop into an important commercial base."”° Michael was clearly aware that without a navy to give him mastery of the seas it was impossible to defend the city."
The victory of Charles of Anjou at the battle of Benevento in 1266 renewed Latin aspirations for the recapture of Constantinople and a pact was signed a year later on 27 May 1267 with the ousted Latin emperor, Baldwin II, in the presence of the pope. Shortly thereafter Charles intervened in Greece and took over Manfred’s possessions in Epirus with the support of William II Villehardouin, who placed himself under his protection. Charles widened his circle of allies against Byzantium by entering into alliance with both Serbs and Bulgars. To counteract this pressure, Michael VIII reopened negotiations with Pope Clement IV on the question of the unification of the two churches. On Clement’s death in 1268 he turned to the king of France, Louis IX, Charles’s brother, whose ambition was to liberate the Holy Land rather than to recapture Constantinople. Charles’s participation in his brother’s crusade against Tunisia lifted the immediate western pressure off Byzantium. In order to counteract hostilities from Serbs, Bulgarians and the Seljuks, Michael entered into a series of agreements with the Hungarians, the Tatars of the Golden Horde and the Mamluks of Egypt. In addition, negotiations with Rome, resumed after Gregory X’s installation in 1271 in the hope that the papacy would put a check on Charles of Anjou’s ambitions against Byzantium, led Michael to conclude the union of the two churches at the Council of Lyons on 6 July 1274, despite strong opposition from the majority of the Byzantine clergy and people. This union, however, was not to last.
The new political situation gave Michael the opportunity to resume his activities aimed at the reconquest of the territories in Greece. Though he failed in Thessaly he succeeded in parts of the Peloponnese and in Arcadia, and with the help of the Italian Licario he captured Euboea and a number of the Aegean islands, excluding Naxos and Andros, thus establishing a naval presence in the area and clearing the archipelago of piracy.” The fall of the Angevins in Sicily, instigated by Michael in 1282, put an end to their hopes of recapturing Constantinople.4 On the other hand, his western political orientation, perhaps imposed on him by the circumstances of the time, asit had been on Manuel I, led to the neglect of the Asiatic lands, which had remained faithful to the Laskarids. In the early stages of Michael’s assuming power the population of Bithynia, in collaboration with the army, rebelled against him.'* Opposition to his rule spread also in the aftermath of the ecclesiastical union with Rome. As a result of heavy taxation, depletion of agricultural manpower (recruited to fight in his western campaigns), the dissatisfaction of the population and the upheavals brought about by the enemy attacks, what remained of Byzantine Asia Minor thirty years after the reconquest of Constantinople were some isolated fortresses, which controlled the coast from the Black Sea along the Aegean to the Mediterranean, the rest having fallen to the Turkomans. At the same time, what was to prove a more formidable enemy, the Ottoman Turks, settled in the region of Sangarios (Sakarya) and made their appearance on the coast of Bithynia.”° The disintegration of life, the wanton destruction of the towns by the enemy both in the Balkans and in the east, the sale of the inhabitants into slavery, famine and plague, and the stream of refugees to Constantinople, exacerbated the situation. This was the legacy that Michael VIII left to his son Andronikos at his death in 1282, a situation which worsened with the passage of time.”
Under strong economic pressure Andronikos II (1282-1328) followed a policy of conciliation towards the west, the Serbs and the Bulgars through a series of marriage alliances that succeeded in stemming their advance for a time.’”8 Unwittingly he sided with Genoa against Venice in the conflict that broke out between the two maritime powers in 1296. Abandoned by the Genoese, who concluded peace with the Venetians three years later, Byzantium had ultimately to give in to Venetian demands for compensation and on 4 October 1302 renewed the commercial privileges granted to them in 1277.”° Faced with these financial burdens and the ever-deteriorating economic conditions, loss of revenue from tax exemptions and abuse of office, Andronikos resorted to reducing both the army and navy and was forced to rely entirely on foreign mercenaries”° in order to stem the Turkish advance. He first negotiated with the Alans, allowing them to settle in the empire as soldiers, but, defeated by the Turks in their first encounter, they began to pillage Byzantine lands. Later, the highly experienced Catalan Grand Company of mercenaries, under Roger de Flor, at the time out of employment, offered their services to the emperor, who accepted their terms and in addition showered Roger with titles in order to incorporate him within the Byzantine administrative structure. In 1304 in their first encounter with the Turks, who were then besieging Philadelphia (Alasehir), the Catalans were successful, thus proving once again what a small but well-trained and cohesive army could achieve. But relying on an alien independent mercenary army, dissatisfied with irregular pay, proved a risky solution. Soon thereafter the Catalans began attacking and pillaging the Byzantine countryside. Persuaded to move to the European section during the winter of that year, they returned in the spring to continue pillaging and transporting Turks from Asia to Thrace, despite the presence of the Byzantine
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navy. Far from ameliorating the situation, the assassination of Roger de Flor
132
(1305) in fact worsened it.”* To avenge their leader’s death the Catalans moved
into Thrace and in conjunction with Alans and Turks continued their plunder, resulting in famine in the capital during the winter of 1306/7.” They later headed to Thessaly, defeated the Franks, and took over Thebes and Athens, thus establishing a Catalan principality.*4
During these turbulent events, the Byzantines, as a result of their victory at Pelagonia in 1259, had succeeded in securing the fortresses of Monembasia, Mane, Gerakiand Mystras,” and despite periodic defeats went on gradually to consolidate and expand their possessions, ultimately developing into a quasiindependent state which will later be referred to as the Despotate of the Morea. Given the distance ofthese possessions from Constantinople and the precarious nature of communications by sea as a result of piracy, governors in charge of these areas, although originally appointed annually under Andronikos II, were later given extended tenure. Owing to the circumstances, which required speed and continuity of decision making, they were on occasion to act without consulting Constantinople, though not to act ina manner contrary to imperial policy.%°
In the Balkans, the Bulgars, taking advantage of this turbulent situation, extended their dominion along the coast of the Black Sea, capturing fortresses and seaports, among them Mesembria and Anchialos, victories confirmed by the Byzantino-Bulgarian treaty of 1307.” In the west, Philip of Tarentum seized Dyrrachium, while Charles of Valois, aspiring to the crown of Constantinople, entered into an agreement with Venice, Charles II of Anjou, king of Naples, and Pope Clement V.%* This alliance was further strengthened by Charles of Valois allying himself with the king of Serbia, and with members of the Byzantine nobility. As a result of this expedition, Theobald of Cepoy, Charles of Valois’s representative, received an oath of fealty from the Catalan Company. But it was Venice that derived real profit from this expedition. Its fleet had cleared the Aegean of piracy, while its subjects, the Cornaro of Crete, had captured Karpathos.”?
Hardly were these difficulties out of the way than the empire was plunged into a civil war between Andronikos II and his grandson Andronikos III (132841). Fora brief period a modus vivendi was established, which was to be disturbed by the death of Andronikos III, and the fresh conflict that broke out between the regency, headed by Anna of Savoy in the name of her young son, John V (1341-91), and John Kantakouzenos, Grand Domestic, who put himself forward as a rival emperor. To cover part of the costs of these military preparations the empress was forced to raise a loan of 30,000 ducats, placing part of the crown jewels as surety.“° ruler DuSan first sided with Kantakouzenos, but, alarmed at his successes in
In the ensuing clash and ever-changing alliances, the Serbian
Thessaly, he swiftly jettisoned him and entered into an agreement with the regency in Constantinople. To counteract this new threat, Kantakouzenos turned to his old ally Umur, the emir of Aydin, and with his help was able to change the course of the civil war in his favour. At the beginning of 1343 Kantakouzenos moved into Thrace, extensively devastated by the pillaging of his allies.'7 Meanwhile, the political conflict led to a social convulsion in Thessalonike with the Zealot revolt, which established the city’s independence from Constantinople from 1342 to 1349."
Meanwhile, the western confederacy under the auspices of Pope Clement VI, formed in response to Anna of Savoy’s appeals to the west against Kantakouzenos, which also entailed the prospects once again of the union of the two churches, included Venice, Cyprus, Naples, Genoa and the Hospitallers. The aim of the expedition was not to become involved in the Byzantine civil war but to stem the growing power of Aydin and its piratical activities in the Aegean. In 1344 the crusading force partially occupied Smyrna (izmir) with the result that the war with Umur dragged on for years. Unable to secure his support, Kantakouzenos, after consultation with Umur, approached in 1346 a more formidable ally, the Ottoman Sultan Orhan (c.1324-62) to whom he gave his daughter Theodora in marriage.“ As a result of this help, he established his authority over the whole of Thrace, and went on to crown himself emperor with the aim of securing Constantinople. To counteract his progress, Empress Anna negotiated with the leader of Saruhan (a beylik on the Aegean coast in western Anatolia). The agreement misfired, for, instead of attacking Kantakouzenos, their force of 6,000 men invaded Bulgaria and plundered and devastated Thrace including the vicinity of Constantinople. The empress had soon to give up the struggle and recognise her opponent as Emperor John VI (1347-54). Her son John V married Kantakouzenos’s younger daughter, Helena, thus legitimising his father-in-law’s position. The conclusion of the civil war also put an end to the Zealot rebellion and Thessalonike returned to central government control. Yet, the economic state of the empire was in tatters. Thrace, the most fertile area left still in its possession, following social upheavals and Turkish devastation had turned into a desert.”
The power that profited most from the Byzantine civil war was Serbia. Under Stefan DuSan (1331-55), the Serbs had extended their dominion to Epirus and Macedonia, with the result that their possessions now stretched from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth, and from the Adriatic to the Aegean coast. Constantinople itself, however, eluded them for they possessed no fleet and all attempts to involve Venice in their plans failed. On the contrary both maritime powers tried to derive some profit from the civil war and in 1346 the Genoese recaptured the island of Chios, which was to remain
an important trading base until the mid-sixteenth century.”°
Equally impotent at sea were the Byzantines whose fleet, built under Andronikos III in reaction to the Turkish activities, was allowed to decline, despite its successes.” Faced with the aggressive attitude of the Genoese and anxious to assert the empire’s commercial activities, Kantakouzenos set out to construct a navy in 1347-8 despite the difficulties in recruiting experienced crews.™* The immediate Genoese response was to set the arsenal of Constantinople on fire and to lay siege to the city in order to pursue their attacks on the maritime towns on the Pontus and the Propontis.“? “This attack put an end’, as Gregoras admits, ‘to the empire’s hopes of deriving any profit from the
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commercial activity of Constantinople.’”° This event, in addition to the exten-
sive privileges granted to both Venice and Genoa, which controlled almost all aspects of Byzantine commercial life, made any recovery impossible.™ Though active, it was to remain limited and subordinate to the extensive Latin activities.”
In these pressing circumstances the Veneto-Genoese antagonism came as a relief to the Byzantines, forcing the Genoese to direct their activities against their rivals who aimed at breaking their monopoly of the Black Sea trade. In the ensuing confrontation, Venice allied with Peter IV of Aragon, joined at a later stage by Kantakouzenos. The naval confrontation in 1352 was indecisive and the war dragged on until 1355, when peace was signed. Meanwhile, Kantakouzenos, left to rely on his own resources, was forced to make peace with the Genoese and recognise their demands, particularly as they had by now entered into an agreement with Orhan. In response to this move the Venetians came to an understanding with John V who, relegated to a minor position by his father-in-law, took the opportunity to rebel against him in November 1354. The Venetians offered John V a loan of 20,000 ducats on the understanding that he would hand over the island of Tenedos as collateral.** This agreement did not materialise. Nevertheless John V opened hostilities against his brotherin-law Matthew Kantakouzenos, then governor of Adrianople (Edirne) and the surrounding area. The city opened its gates and welcomed in the legitimate emperor, while Matthew retired to the citadel. He was rescued by his father who arrived with his Turkish troops to recover the lost areas and punish the culprits by unleashing his soldiers to plunder ferociously.* To salvage the situation John V appealed to the Bulgars and Serbs, receiving from Stefan DuSan a cavalry division of 4,000 men, while Orhan provided Kantakouzenos with a contingent under his son, Stileyman.”’ The defeat of John V’s forces led Kantakouzenos to the decision to set aside the legitimate emperor and declare his own son Matthew co-emperor. But his triumph was short lived. Turkish assistance had its complications. Not only did it alienate the majority of the population, who now sided with the legitimate emperor, but the Ottomans themselves were far from being satisfied with providing soldiery, or looting and plundering the countryside. They were now seeking to establish themselves in the European section of what was left of the empire. In 1352 they took possession of Tzympe near Callipolis (Gallipoli, Gelibolu), and two years later in March 1354 Orhan’s son, Siileyman, occupied Callipolis despite Kantakouzenos’s pleas for its return.
John V soon seized the ascendancy and, with the help of the Genoese, he was able to recover his throne, forcing his father-in-law to abdicate and enter a monastery. But their relations seem to have remained amicable. Kantakouzenos spent the rest of his days in writing up his history and in taking part in theological discussions and political decisions. His son Manuel Kantakouzenos continued to rule the Byzantine Peloponnese successfully, and at his death he was succeeded for a brief period by his brother Matthew. In 1382 the governance passed to John V’s youngest son, Theodore I Palaeologos.*”
With Siileyman’s occupation of Callipolis (Gelibolu) a systematic Turkish advance began in Thrace. The capture of Didymoteichon (Dimetoka) in 1361, and subsequently that of Adrianople (Edirne),* ushered in the methodical occupation of the Balkans, consolidated under Murad I (1362-89) by an effective policy of colonisation. Faced with the Turkish advance Bulgaria was forced to submit, resulting in a confrontation with both Hungary and Byzantium, in the course of which the Byzantines occupied Anchialos on the coast of the Black Sea. This, however, was a small consolation. John V’s appeal to Rome had no response. He turned to Hungary, journeying to Buda in 1366, but there too disappointment awaited him. Louis I of Hungary, like the papacy, demanded conversion to the Catholic faith prior to military help. On his way home John V was detained by the Bulgarians, and it was only through the assistance of his cousin Amadeo of Savoy, the Green Count, who had arrived with a small crusading army, that he was liberated. Amadeo seized Callipolis (Gelibolu), and attacked the Bulgarians, forcing them to free the emperor and return both Mesembria and Sozopolis on the Black Sea to the Byzantines.
But in order to confront the Ottomans a greater force was needed which could only come from the west, for since the death of Stefan DuSan and the fragmentation of the Serbs no power was left in the Balkans to face the Turks. It was imperative, therefore, to secure western help. This meant appealing to Rome, as Michael VIII had done in the past, and indeed as John V had done in 1355, with the offer of union of the two churches. On this occasion Amadeo persuaded the emperor to travel to Rome to make his confession of faith in the hope that this would lead to military assistance. The majority of the clergy and the people seem to have been against the idea, and despite Kantakouzenos’s insistence that any attempt at the union of the two churches had to be conducted through an ecumenical council, John V left for Rome, where he made his personal confession of faith in 1369." In so far as military assistance to Byzantium was concerned it was an utter failure. On his way back John V, weighed down by debts, offered the sale of Tenedos to the Venetians. Owing to its geographical position at the entrance of the Hellespont, Tenedos controlled the shipping to the Black Sea. Described by the Venetians as ‘la chiave dello stretto’, the key to the straits, it was in consequence much prized by them.’® The deal, however, was postponed, but given Genoese commercial interests in the region, and particularly in Caffa, the island was to become a bone of contention between the Venetians and the Genoese a few years later.
The external political pressures brought to bear by the Ottoman advance into the Balkans and the defeat of the Serbs at the battle of Cirmen on the Maritsa (Meric¢) river in 13371 were further increased by the dynastic conflicts which were to shake the empire once more for the following two decades. In 1373 John V’s eldest son and co-emperor, Andronikos IV, and Savci, Murad’s son, revolted against their respective fathers. They were both captured, but Andronikos survived his punishment and was imprisoned. His place in the succession was taken by his brother, Manuel II, who reigned as co-emperor until 1376. In that year Andronikos staged his second revolt, instigated by the Genoese to prevent the cession of Tenedos to the Venetians agreed by John V in return for the crown jewels and the establishment of a joint Veneto-Byzantine rule on the island." Before the Genoese had time to occupy the island the Venetians had annexed it, thus unleashing the Chioggia War between the two maritime cities which was to last until the treaty of Turin in August 1381. The treaty stipulated the demilitarisation and evacuation of the island, and that the inhabitants be dispersed to the Venetian colonies. Despite repeated pleas by the Byzantines Tenedos was never returned to them but Venice continued to use it as a commercial base."®
Having overthrown his father and brother with Turkish help, Andronikos ruled until 1379. In that summer John V and Manuel II, with Turkish and Venetian assistance, recaptured the city." In the arrangement concluded in 1381-2 Andronikos IV was recognised as the legitimate heir and Manuel, apparently against his father’s wishes, moved to Thessalonike where he had earlier been governor. There he attempted to pursue an independent course of action and, in opposition to his father’s policy of appeasement towards the Ottomans, opened hostilities against them. At first successful, Manuel was to lose the city to the Turks after a four-year siege in 1387 and was forced to submit to Murad 1.77 After Andronikos’s third rebellion and subsequent death, Manuel was faced with a fresh dynastic rebellion by John VII, Andronikos’s son, who had been excluded from his inheritance as a result of his father’s final revolt. With the assistance of the Turks and the Genoese, John VII seized Constantinople in 1390, but had to flee when Manuel regained the city with the help of the Hospitallers."® On his father’s death in 1391 Manuel succeeded to the throne.
These early years were undoubtedly the most humiliating period of Manuel’s life, as his letters and Dialogues indicate. As a vassal of the Turks he had earlier had to participate with his father in the campaigns of Murad against other Turkish beyliks, but most unbearable were the two campaigns conducted by Bayezid I (1389-1402) in Asia Minor in 1390 and 1391, one of which was against the Byzantine city of Philadelphia (Alasehir)."°° Manuel was forced to witness atrocities and suffer hardships and indignities. But what he found intolerable was, as he wrote, the thought that he ‘had to fight along with those and on behalf of those whose every increase in strength lessens our own strength’.’”°
The more prosperous part of what was left of the empire at the time was the Byzantine Peloponnese. Despite the vicissitudes of the civil war between John V and John VI Kantakouzenos, and periodic clashes with the principality of Achaia, the province under Manuel Kantakouzenos prospered. In co-operation with the principality of Achaia and the Venetians, Manuel was able to stem the ravages of the Catalan—Turkish aggression.” In 1376, an event occurred which was to prove momentous for the fortunes of the Peloponnese. In that year the princess of Achaia, Queen Joanna | of Naples (1341-82), anxious to protect her domains threatened by the Albanians and the Turks, entered into an agreement with the Hospitallers of Rhodes placing the principality under their protection for a period of five years. Sometime later, in mid-1378 the Hospitallers hired two companies of Navarrese and Gascon mercenaries for eight This assignment provided the Navarrese with the opportunity to
settle in Greece where they were to become a major source of disruption for
months.’””
the Byzantine province.
After the expiration of their contract the Navarrese offered their services to Neri Acciaiuoli, the lord of Corinth, who, taking advantage of the internal conflict in the Catalan duchies, was able to secure Megara and soon after Thebes and Livadia.’? Soon, however, the Navarrese went on the rampage, attacking the Acciaiuoli estates and vandalising the area.’”* These destructive activities, features of an undisciplined mercenary army, were soon to be transformed into a drive for the conquest of the principality of Achaia, which they achieved. The overthrow of Queen Joanna I by Charles III of Durazzo indirectly furthered their fortunes, for they immediately swore allegiance to the new prince of Achaia, Jacques de Baux, and their three leaders were recognised as baillies and captains of the principality.” Of the three leaders of the Navarrese Company of mercenaries, Pierre de Saint Superan was to emerge as vicar general of the principality of Achaia, whereupon he put into motion his plans for expansion into Byzantine territory. This coincided with the death of Manuel Kantakouzenos in April 1380, and the rebellion of the archons (individuals who wielded authority) against the central authority of the Palaeologoi.'7° Though Manuel’s brother, Matthew, assumed authority he lacked his brother’s ability to impose his will on the archons, whose centrifugal tendencies in the earlier stages of Manuel’s rule had proved so destructive to the province.’””
It was to deal with this situation that Theodore I Palaeologos, John V’s youngest son, was despatched to the Peloponnese to restore order. He was to rule the Despotate from 1382 to 1407. His first task was to establish a degree of co-operation with his neighbours, Venice and Neri Acciaiuoli. The more important of the two were the Venetians, for though their domains in the Peloponnese were limited to Coron and Modon, their influence was felt over the whole peninsula. Although the Navarrese had already signed treaties with both, their relations with Neri rested on shaky grounds, for their expansionist policies went counter to his ambitions to conquer the remaining Catalan duchies of Neopatras and Athens.
The first signs of a concerted policy between Neri and Theodore, who married the former’s elder daughter, are seen in the attempts both made between 1383 and 1384 to draw Venice into an alliance to stem the Turkish piratical attacks.”® These attempts failed and they had to rely on their own resources. The alliance was extended to include Theodore’s brother Manuel II, then ruling Thessalonike and fighting a defensive war against the Turks.’”? However, despite a contingent of a hundred cavalry sent by Manuel II from Thessalonike and the small amount of military help given him by Neri, Theodore failed to subdue the rebels. Relying on Navarrese support, they turned down all his attempts at reconciliation.’®° In addition, the renewal of the Veneto-Navarrese treaty in 1387™ further weakened his position. This situation lasted until the capture of Thessalonike by the Turks in that year, and his brother’s submission to Murad.
This disastrous event, together with the Turkish expansion into Serbia, Albania and central Greece, inevitably affected the rulers of both Thessaly and Epirus who were siphoned into the Ottoman sphere of influence."** Theodore had no other alternative but to steer towards a rapprochement with the Turks, possibly through the mediation of his brother Manuel, when he presented himself in Prousa (Bursa) in the summer of 1387." At any rate when Murad’s commander Evrenos made his appearance in the Peloponnese in the early days of September of that year, he had come there as an ally at Theodore’s invitation.**4 On his march to the south, Evrenos plundered parts of Thessaly and Albania, devastated areas of Achaia, and attacked and pillaged the territories of Coron and Modon.*®®
Arapprochement with Murad offered also Neri Acciaiuoliimportant advantages. It put an end to the Turkish incursions against his possessions while Evrenos’s armies dealt with his arch-enemies, the Navarrese. He was thus left free to press on with the conquest of the Catalan possessions and on 2 May 1388 he captured the Acropolis of Athens."*° But the advantages Theodore reaped from the Turkish assistance, enabling him to break the opposition of his rebels, recover towns and fortresses from the Navarrese and consolidate his hold on the country, also had drawbacks. Evrenos’s soldiery, who lived on pillage, spread destruction on their march through the Peloponnese, the Greek peasants bearing the full brunt of it. It soon became clear that the help given was a doubled-edged sword. In fact, the Turkish advance into the Morea had presented Evrenos with the opportunity of holding on to the captured territory and this new development left Theodore in a worse plight than before. In the summer of 1388 he visited Murad in Bursa. He was well received by the sultan and allowed to retain his lands,” becoming Murad’s vassal, as his father and brother had before him. Emboldened by the sultan’s support, Theodore even clashed with the Venetians over the cities of Argos and Nauplia, sold to them by Marie d’Enghien."**
The Byzantine-Turkish co-operation came to an end with the death of Murad | at the battle of Kosovo Polje (Kosyphopedion) in 389. The degree of freedom enjoyed by the Christian vassals in the reign of Murad I gave way to a rigid policy of centralisation under his successor, Bayezid I (1389-1402), who saw a vassal’s function as serving purely Ottoman interests. He backed Andronikos IV’s son John VII’s attempt to oust his grandfather and assume authority in Constantinople, though the attempt failed.*° Soon afterwards there were rumours in Thessalonike and Constantinople that the sultan was building ships, and that he intended placing Manuel II in charge of this force which ostensibly was directed against Sinop, although the Venetians suspected that its true aim was their possessions of Negroponte (Euboea) and Crete.'° Their fears were increased when, by 1393, Bayezid had annexed the beyliks of Aydin and Mentese, subdued Karaman, subjugated Bulgaria and directed attacks against the Christian territories in the Aegean, Chios, Lesbos and Rhodes.” Acquiring a foothold in the Peloponnese would not only have facilitated the eventual conquest of the province, but enabled him to launch a twopronged attack on the Aegean islands. In the winter of 1393/4, after a meeting at Serres with his vassals, who included the Serbian princes and the Palaeologoi, Bayezid marched into central Greece, capturing the county of Salona (Amphissa), the last Catalan possession. On receiving the news of Timur’s advance into Syria, he veered north and laid siege to Constantinople, a siege
that was to last for six years.’
At the same time, another army, especially recruited in Thrace and well equipped, was dispatched to the Peloponnese with orders ‘to spare nothing’.’”
During these desperate times, Manuel renewed his appeal to the west for help. He found a willing listener in King Sigismund, for with the conquest of Bulgaria, Hungary’s independence was also threatened by the Ottomans. Sigismund’s call for a crusade was answered by a number of European powers, particularly France. The venture ended in disaster at the battle of Nikopolis in 1396, Sigismund barely escaping with his life. The Turkish victory inevitably made the situation worse. In 1397 the Turks under Yakub Pasa invaded the peninsula, devastated the city of Argos and took its people into captivity.” The Venetian tragedy of Argos brought the realisation home to Theodore that in future he might not be able to defend his domains, although he had put up a valiant resistance at Leontarion on 21 June, forcing Yakub to beat a retreat.
Soon after that, the Turks besieged Corinth, leaving Theodore with no other option but to offer the castellany to the Hospitallers.° momentous importance for the fortunes of the Despotate, for the presence
The move was of
of the Knights in the area had an immediate effect: Corinth was spared from destruction and Navarrese incursions into Byzantine territory came to an abrupt halt. However, the renewed Turkish attack in 1399 and early 1400 compelled Theodore sometime early in the latter year to accept the new offer made by the Hospitallers to buy up the whole of the Despotate. There is no doubt that with the resumption of Turkish hostilities the Knights were anxious to strengthen their defensive position. The Hospitallers’ offer came at the right moment, and in fact fitted Theodore’s plans to use them as a lever to dislodge the Turks from the Morea, but always with the intention of reclaiming his possessions from the Knights once the Turkish danger had been removed.’” However, the transactions did not proceed as anticipated. The inhabitants of Mistra rebelled, and Theodore had no alternative but to begin negotiations for the retrocession. On the other hand, his negotiations with the Hospitallers induced Bayezid to offer a truce, with the sole condition that the Hospitallers withdrew from the Peloponnese.’
Meanwhile, in 1399 the emperor renewed his appeal to the west for military help. France responded by sending Jean le Meingre, Maréchal Boucicaut with a small military contingent. His successes, even if limited, proved that a welltrained army could achieve much. He therefore advised the emperor to travel to Europe and personally appeal to the rulers. Having first reconciled with his nephew John VII, Andronikos VI’s son, whom he left in charge of the city, Manuel, accompanied by Boucicaut, set out on 10 December 1399 for his journey, which was to take him to Italy, France and England. John VII, too, like his uncle in the past, would make a number of attempts at a reconciliation with Bayezid, which would prove fruitless. Manuel remained in Europe until 1403 but, despite all the promises, adequate help was never realised. Aid came in a more or less accidental way from a different quarter — from Timur.
As a result of the defeat of the Ottomans by Timur at the battle of Ankara on 28 July 1402, the Ottoman state broke up. Aydin, Saruhan, Teke and Mentese recovered their independence while the remaining part of the Ottoman state was competed for by Bayezid’s sons. The eldest, Siileyman, escaped to the European section, and signed a treaty in 1403 with Byzantium, the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarevi¢ and the Christian powers, including Venice and Genoa.”°° As a result of the treaty, Thessalonike and a considerable territory in Chalkidike and the littoral of the Thermaic Gulf, all the land from Panidos on the Sea of Marmora to Constantinople and north to Mesembria on the Black Sea coast were restored to the empire. In addition, the status of vassal state and the yearly tribute were cancelled. In Anatolia Mehmed and Isa fought for control. Both, however, lost out to Siileyman who took Bursa in 1404. Stileyman in turn was to fall to another brother, Musa, who defeated and killed him in 1411. Byzantium was faced with a new threat. The sacred war against the Christians was openly taken up again.*” The Turkish armies attacked Thessalonike*” that had been ceded by Siileyman — and Musa’s envoy, Ibrahim Pasa, was sent to Constantinople to claim the tribute which had been abolished since 1402.7 Meanwhile, Venice had concluded a treaty with Musa to safeguard its territories in Albania, Greece and the Aegean.*°4 Manuel was left to fend for himself. In July 14133 the situation changed once more, this time with the defeat and overthrow of Musa by another of Bayezid’s sons, Mehmed (1413-21). Despite occasional Turkish raids, Mehmed I conducted a policy of peaceful co-existence, with both the Byzantines and the Serbs.*” This was to last for almost nine years.
and overran Thrace, Thessaly and Serbia — places
During this period, Manuel II’s aim was to consolidate his possessions in the Morea, as he had done earlier after the death of his brother Theodore I in 1407, during the minority of his own son Theodore II, who succeeded his uncle. After the peace treaty with Mehmed I, Manuel returned to the Morea in 1415 via Thessalonike where his son Andronikos had now succeeded his uncle John VII. His main task in the Morea was to construct the defensive wall of Hexamillion across the isthmus of Corinth, a project in which Theodore had tried for years to involve the Venetians without success.**° Despite objections from some large landowners, the majority of the population, including the Albanians who led a nomadic existence and consequently felt more vulnerable to Turkish incursions, offered their labour or materials to ensure that the wall was speedily completed to provide safety to the inhabitants. Its completion, however, did not apparently please the sultan, though originally he seems to have given his consent.**” Aware of Mehmed’s attitude and the possibility that he might try to destroy the wall, Venice ordered its castellans of Coron and Modon to give every assistance to the emperor in the event ofa Turkish assault on the Hexamillion.?”
This was an ominous sign. Soon after, freed from his campaign against Karaman, Mehmed turned his attention to the Aegean, ravaged the islands and attacked Venetian merchant shipping on its way from the Black Sea to Negroponte. Manuel II’s proposal for a concerted policy was never taken up, not even after the Turkish raids on the island which carried away 1,500 people into slavery.*°? The Veneto-Turkish confrontation ended with the defeat of Mehmed’s navy off Gelibolu on 29 May 1416, followed by a treaty signed three years later.*”°
For the Byzantines the situation deteriorated further with Mehmed’s death and the accession of his son Murad II (1421-44, 1446-51), who followed an ageressive policy reminiscent of that of his grandfather, Bayezid I. Manuel II’s elder son and co-emperor, John VIII, then in charge of the government, tried to use a Turkish pretender, Mustafa, who in 1416 had claimed to be a son of Bayezid I. Contrary to Manuel II’s advice to come to an understanding with Murad II, John opted to support Mustafa in his bid for the Ottoman throne. The attempt failed. Mustafa was captured and put to death.” Immediately afterwards, Murad laid siege to Constantinople, but its walls proved invincible, for the cannons at the sultan’s disposal, supposedly German, proved ineffective. Faced with a new rival, his young brother, another Mustafa, Murad was forced to withdraw.?”
Though he had failed with Constantinople, Murad kept up the pressure. In the spring of 1423 his armies, under Turahan, invaded the Peloponnese, stormed the fortifications, destroyed the wall of Hexamillion and devastated the area.” Some months later the Byzantines succeeded in signing a peace treaty, according to which they became once more tributaries to the Turks. Despite the invasion, the Peloponnese showed tenacity to survive. The political continuity, maintained by Manuel II during the minority ofhis son Theodore II, and later by John VIII and Constantine IX, had given the Despotate new vigour. With the exception of the Venetian colonies, the rest of the Peloponnese was thus unified under Byzantine rule, despite Murad’s attack and the devastation of 1446; it was to survive until after the fall of Constantinople.”
Ottoman pressure on both land and sea, however, remained relentless. Even the Hospitallers in Rhodes felt the impact and sought refuge in Venetian protection. In the summer of 1423 they offered Rhodes to the Signoria in exchange for territories of equal value, either in Negroponte or in the Peloponnese.*” This proposal was never realised. Rhodes remained in Hospitaller hands until 1522. But in the same year Manuel’s third son, Despot Andronikos, then ruling Thessalonike, decided to hand over the city to the Venetians.” Such a solution was inevitably unacceptable to the sultan. Despite the prolonged diplomatic missions and the willingness of the Venetians to reach a compromise or even support a pretender, the attempt failed. On 29 March 1430 the city was captured.*”
With the capture of Thessalonike, the pressures on Constantinople increased. John VIII seems to have believed that salvation could come only from the west, to be accomplished through the union of the two churches — asolution that in the past had been sought, unsuccessfully, by his predecessors Michael VIII and John V. Conditions looked promising. In contrast to the earlier position when any agreement presupposed the prior recognition of papal ecclesiastical supremacy, now, as a result of the western conciliar movement and the Council of Constance (1414), any decision concerning the union fell under the jurisdiction of the council, to which the pope had to adhere. This raised the hopes of the Byzantines that the doctrinal, ecclesiastical and liturgical differences between the two churches would be discussed at a council, as they had always insisted, on equal terms, and not dictated by the pope. Despite
8 John went ahead with
Manuel’s advice for caution concerning the union, his plan. On 24 November 1437 he travelled to the west with a large delegation. After protracted theological discussions and disputes, the proclamation of the union of the churches was issued in Florence on 6 July 1439.”° Instead of the much-hoped for help from the west against the Ottomans, the union, as Manuel II had predicted, brought internal dissension, and in addition alienated the Byzantines from the rest of the Orthodox world, in particular Russia. After concluding agreements with Serbia, Hungary and Karaman, Murad II abdicated, leaving the throne to his young son Mehmed II. He returned almost immediately, however, to lead the Ottoman armies against the last combined, but inadequately prepared and non-coordinated, attempt of the Christian forces against the Ottomans under Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini. This force was defeated on 10 November 1444 at Varna. Two years later, once more back on the throne, Murad carried out attacks into the Peloponnese. His artillery destroyed the wall of Hexamillion, rebuilt only a few years before, and took 60,000 people into captivity, state, and at the same time putting an end to the idea ofa united independent Greek Despotate of the Morea under John VIII's brother, Constantine. On the death of John, Constantine XI was crowned emperor in the Peloponnese on 6
»° reducing the Despotate to a vassal
January 1449, and two months later he arrived in Constantinople. Despite his ability, courage and tenacity he could not have saved the city. Constantinople lay like an island in the midst ofan Ottoman ocean. The new sultan, Mehmed II (1444-6, 1446-51), was determined to succeed where his father had failed. An astute and outstanding tactician, he began his preparations by building the fortress of Rumeli Hisar on the Asiatic coast of the Bosphorus, by means of which he encircled the city and kept control on the movements of ships. On hearing the news of this undertaking, the people in Constantinople knew that the end of the city had come."
Constantine XI’s appeals to the west produced some help but not enough to stem Ottoman progress. The west had no co-ordinated strategy against the Turkish advance. Each country viewed the question of Constantinople from the viewpoint of its own interests and ambitions, and success was therefore impossible. It remained up to individuals, primarily Venetians and Genoese, to make the last stand.** The fortifications of Constantinople had in the past protected the city, but could not withstand the new artillery, built by the Hungarian Orban who, unable to sell his cannon in Constantinople, had crossed to the other side and offered it to the Ottomans.” As Kritoboulos wrote, this ‘cannon decided the whole issue’.*4 The city fell on 29 May 1453, followed by a three-day pillage and its accompanying destruction.” Thus closed the history of an empire that had lasted more than a thousand years.
The pacification of Anatolia took four hundred years finally to be established, and this was brought about by the ability of the Ottoman Turks to impose their authority. The destruction and suffering that occurred in those intervening years, as a result of the vacuum of centralised political power, are documented by Byzantine historians, contemporary to the events. Though, inevitably, their narrative centres on the political, social and economic devastation brought about by the Turkic tribes, there are glimpses of strong relations developing between the two peoples, divided by language, religion and customs. As early as John II Komnenos’s reign, Choniates reports that the Christians inhabiting the islets of Lake Pousgouse (Beysehir Golii) became friends with the Turks of Konya, allied with them and ‘looked upon the Romans as their enemies. Thus custom’, as Choniates observes, ‘reinforced by time is stronger than race and religion.’”°
On another social level, offering an example of co-existence and assimilation in the opposite direction are the Axouchs —a family which held a distinguished position in the political life of the empire under the Komnenoi. The first Axouch, a Turkish boy, was given as a present to Alexios I following the peaceful surrender of Nicaea (Iznik) in June 1097 and the exchange of gifts between the emperor and the Turks. The young Axouch and John II, then both ten years old, were brought up together in the palace and became inseparable friends. Subsequently Axouch rose to the high position of grand domestic; his son Alexios, ‘an energetic man expert in military science, with a tongue as sharp as his mind and dignified in appearance’, acted as protostrator under Manuel I.”
This ‘co-existence’, even as enemies, seems at times to have led the Byzantines to try to assess and acknowledge their opponents’ strengths. An example of this is Manuel II Palaeologos’s evaluation of the Ottoman success, in an attempt to identify Turkish strengths vis-a-vis Byzantine weaknesses. From his personal experience he considered that their achievement on the battlefield stemmed from the fact that not only were the Turkish army more numerous, but also, and more importantly, ‘they were brave, experienced in warfare, well-trained .. . gradually over a long period of time to bear the hardships and pains .. . when others would not have remained even in a friendly country producing all good things’ .””
This self-evaluation and rational exploration, reflected also in Manuel’s Dialogues with a Muterriz,”° derive from that long tradition of the classical world, for which Byzantium acted not only as a repository but also as an appreciative guardian of its inestimable value, to be transmitted to the west shortly before and after the fall of Constantinople. The question arises as to what extent this civilisation influenced the new power, the Ottomans, that rose on what had been the Byzantine Empire. To what extent can it be said that ‘the new society (Turkic-Muslim) differed from those of Asiatic steppe and of the Islamic Middle East because it arose in a Byzantine milieu’?”°
Anatolia under the Mongols
CHARLES MELVILLE
The period of Mongol rule in Anatolia, that is, roughly the century between the battle of Késedag in 1243 and the collapse of the Ilkhanid regime in the 13408, if mentioned at all, is generally treated only as a brief preamble to the rise of the Ottomans. Even then, as in the nationalist histories of Russia and China, Mongol rule is seen as an unwelcome interlude that wrecked the country and left no formative traces. Rather, traditional Ottoman Turkish history arises seamlessly out of the history of the Seljuks of Rum, the principal, though latterly only notional, rulers of central Anatolia between their victory over the Byzantines at Malazgirt (Manzikert) in 1071 and their obscure demise in the early fourteenth century. By this time, one of the beyliks that was later the kernel of the Ottoman state was already in existence, among numerous others. According to Kafesoglu, for example, this beylik ‘on the western frontier of the Seljuk state (sic), with regard to its moral fibre and organization, acquired many values from Seljuk Turkishness’ and ‘kept Anatolia as a Turkish motherland’. At the other end of the spectrum, comparisons have been drawn between the formation and development of the Mongol and Ottoman empires, with no reference at all to the Mongols in Anatolia.”
Others have been ready to examine in more detail late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Anatolian society, in which the Ikhanate was the dominant power. Numismatists in particular have recently taken another look at the traditional view, and have emphasised the continuity of Ottoman from IIkhanid practices.’ Yet here too, interest in the Mongols arises solely in connection with the circumstances in which the Ottoman state emerged. It is difficult, with hindsight, to look at the Mongol period without regard to later Turkish history.
Just as the historians of Turkey impose their own vision on Anatolian affairs, so the historians of the IIkhanate (primarily an Iranian regime, in a geographical sense at least) have tended to ignore the situation in Anatolia unless it impinged directly on events at the ordu (Mongol court). Rum has been dubbed the Mongol “Wild West’: a land of opportunity, perhaps, only loosely under central control, and even a province where the ‘unprecedented mildness’ of the Mongol regime has been noted.* To evaluate such views, we should treat the affairs of Anatolia as part of the larger Ilkhanid state. This underwent various phases of development, which furthermore had similar corollaries in other provinces of the IIkhanate too, such as Fars and Khurasan.
It is important to recall that the IIkhanid regime was centred in Azerbaijan in north-west Iran, orientated east rather than west, and essentially uninterested in the border regions with Byzantium. Mongol relations with the Christian west remained on the whole cordial; of far more concern were the borders in south-east Anatolia, with Mamluk Syria, and in the north with the Golden Horde.
The territories of Mongol Rum were not contiguous with those of modern Turkey in Asia Minor. To the north, hugging the eastern Black Sea coast, the Christian kingdom of Trebizond (Trabzon) maintained its independence until after the fall of Byzantium. East of Erzurum was the province of Greater Armenia, including the important summer quarters at Aladag, scene of the coronation of several IIkhans. Lesser Armenia (Cilicia) continued to cling to a separate existence south of the Taurus mountains throughout the period, while further east Diyar Bekr (Diyarbakir) was a separate governorship and remained culturally and politically more bound up with the Arab lands of Upper Mesopotamia. These regions come only briefly into focus in the story of IIkhanid Anatolia. The Turkicisation of the southern peripheries of Rum was nevertheless one of the long-term results of the Mongol invasions and of the changes that they brought with them in the ethnic composition of the population, in the form of semi-nomadic Turkoman pastoralists who in time came to exercise political power throughout the region.’
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