Download PDF | Harry J Magoulias - Doukas. Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks -Wayne State University Press (1975).
345 Pages
INTRODUCTION
Classical philologists in the past, have been very critical of the literary quality of Byzantine historians. In the flush of nineteenth-century Romanticism a new edition of Byzantineauthors, Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae (1828-1897), was undertaken in Bonn, Germany. Byzantine philology, however, had not yet come into its own, and the editors lookedwith revulsion upon the solecisms of Byzantine writers. Sounsavory did they consider their appointed task that theycompleted the editions with amazing speed. B.G. Niehbuhr (1776-1831) began the publication with the promise that it would be both an important step for the study of history andphilology and a glorious reflection on the German nation, but shortly before his death, he considered it of little value.
It is true that Byzantine historians, no matter how hardthey tried, often found the task of writing in the style of Herodotus and Thucydides beyond their abilities. The problemof resurrecting a simplified classical Greek language has beeninherited by modern Greek scholars, resulting in a remarkablelinguistic controversy which has yet to be resolved. Languagelike faith has an eternal quality about it, and once it reachesperfection ought not to be blemished by evolution, especiallywhen such evolution points to degeneration-or so thought thepurist Byzantine writers.
For the contemporary Greek Orthodox Christian in Greece, Greek Orthodox pertains not only toOrthodox Christianity as developed in the Greek East but alsoto the worship of Christ in the Greek language-not modernGreek, but the Greek of the Septuagint and of the original NewTestament, the ecclesiastical Greek of the Church Fathers. Theancestral language is the national treasure.
Byzantium produced works of intellectual and artisticmerit to the last, despite one political disaster after another. Asguardians of the intellectual heritage of antiquity, the Byzantines called into life a peculiar medieval culture and literature of their own. Byzantium's "last splendid glow" was particularlyreflected in the written works of those historians who wereliving during the siege and Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Theirreversible advance of the Ottoman Turks, the distress andanguish at the impending disaster, the prophecies of hope andthe tragic disillusionments of reality, the religious issue of unionwith Rome, determining the fate of the empire, all form part ofthe fascinating story recorded by the last Byzantine historians.
By the middle of the fifteenth century the Byzantinestate-it had long ceased to be an empire-was confined toConstantinople, nearby Thrace, and the major part of the Peloponnesos at some distance from the capital. Byzantium hadbecome so contracted, had suffered so many humiliating setbacks, that it was no longer able effectively to defend theislands and its remaining few possessions. From different vantage points, Byzantium's last fourhistorians-George Sphrantzes, Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Michael Kritovoulos and the author of this history, Doukashave preserved the sound and fury of its death throes as well asthe meaning of its ultimate and total disaster. Sphrantzes' Chronicum Minus covers the period of hislife from 1413 to 1477.
At the age of sixteen he entered theservice of Manuel II Palaiologos; in later life and in high office, he dutifully served Constantine XI Palaiologos. At the Fall hewas captured but was able to redeem himself. His fifteen-yearold son was accused of trying to assassinate Mehmed II theConqueror, and was murdered by the Sultan. Thamar, hisdaughter, entered the sultan's harem, became ill and died.
In1,468 Sphrantzes entered monastic orders and changed his nameto Gregory. Sphrantzes' linguistic style is admirable; it is neitherclassical nor demotic. Because of the fate of Thomas and Demetrios, the last survivors of the Palaiologan dynasty, he could not believe, like Doukas and Chalkokondyles, in the imminent resurrection of the Greek nation and the restoration of theempire with a Greek emperor, under whose rule the Greek language would be spoken and glorified once again. His ownpolitical experience, the failures of Constantine XI's effortsbefore the Fall, and the political realities in the West did not encourage him to believe that the Greek nation would beliberated by the West. Laonikos Chalkokondyles, an Athenian aristocrat, recording the events taking place between the years 1298 and1463, placed the Ottoman Turks in center stage.
He states that he wrote his history in Greek so that it could be read in bothEast and West where many know the language. He consideredthe glory of classical Greek significant not only for the past but also for the future when the empire would be restored to theGreek nation, and a Greek emperor would once again rule andbe succeeded by Greeks. Thus Chalkokondyles consciously imitates the archaic style of Herodotus and Thucydides. He viewedthe Fall of Constantinople and the dissolution of the empire as merely an episode, resting all his hopes for the forthcomingresurrection on Greek learning.
By this humanistic ideal hehoped to unite the fallen and materially debilitated Hellenismof his age with the. glory of ancient Greece. He took great pains to explain why the Byzantines, who were Greeks, were calledRomans. The few Romans, he contended, were Hellenized bythe more numerous Greeks in the East where Greek languageand culture were dominant. Thanks only to tradition theymaintained the name Roman. Chalkokondyles ended his description of the Fall by saying that thus did Constantinople payfor Ilium, the Byzantines suffer for the Hellenes who set out from Aulis, and Constantine fall for the foolishness of Paris. Michael Kritovoulos was a member of the nobility of Imbros.
To save Imbros from catastrophe at the hands of theTurks, he placed the island under voluntary subjugation to thesultan. Mehmed 11 the Conqueror rewarded Kritovoulos byappointing him governor of the island; he served in this capacityuntil 1466 when Imbros was occupied by the Venetians. Kritovoulos made his way to Constantinople where his stay must have been depressing. To curry the favor of the Conqueror hecomposed a eulogistic history of Mehmed II's conquests fromthe year 1451 to 1467. But he must have been sorely disappointed by the sultan's response to his work.
He neither commissioned Kritovoulos' history to be translated into Turkish and Latin nor awarded the refugee a pension to complete his historyand to sustain him in his old age. Kritovoulos began his history by contending that sincethe works of many renowned rulers have been recorded, it would be improper if the glorious deeds of the Conqueror werenot preserved, and this should be done in the Greek tongueespecially because Mehmed II's achievements were no less signif. icant than those of Alexander the Great!
Through the mediumof the Greek language the feats of the sultan would becomeknown to Westerners as far away as the British Isles. His fellow countrymen might recoil from Kritovoulos' obsequious praise of the despised tyrant, yet through his account the animosity with which the other three Byzantinehistorians viewed the sultan can be judged. Like Chalkokondyles, Kritovoulos writes in Attic Greek which he manipulatesrather well. As for his political beliefs, the horrors of destruction and enslavement brought on by the Fall convinced himthat the real interest of the conquered Greeks required a rapprochement with the Turks; he recognized that help from theWest could never be adequate to overcome the prodigious might of the Ottomans.
He agreed with the diplomacy of collaboration adopted by George Gennadios Scholarios, appointedecumenical patriarch by the sultan after the Fall; there was noother way of preserving the Greek nation, its language, culture, and holy orthodox faith. Thus the only practical avenue left open, as Kritovoulos saw it, was cooperation with the difficult sultan; to take flight to the West, as many others had done, wasno solution to the problem. Doukas, grandson of Michael Doukas and author of Historia Turco-Byzantina, is the fourth Byzantine historian.
Hisbaptismal name is unknown; however, as his grandfather wascalled Michael, it is likely, following Byzantine tradition, that his name was Michael also, provided he was a first-born son. Thegrandfather, Michael Doukas, "a gold link" in the lineage of theancient Doukas family, as the historian boasts, was one of over two hundred partisans of Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos incarcerated in Constantinople during the disastrous civil war (1341-1347). When the prisoners attacked and killed the powerful grand duke, Alexios Apokavkos, the virtual dictator of Constantinople, on 11 June 1345, all were executed but six, one of whom was Michael Doukas, who escaped disguised as amonk. The historian's grandfather crossed the straits and sought refuge in Ephesus where he received the protection and lavishsupport of the Turkish emir, Isa, the son of Aydin, who wasgreatly impressed by Michael Doukas' profound learning andknowledge of medicine. The refugee had such great appreciationfor his patron that he regarded the emir as "one crowned byGod"! According to Doukas his grandfather did not wish toreturn from Ephesus, his adopted fatherland, to Constantinople, because he foresaw that sooner or later the Ottomans wouldadvance and overthrow the Byzantine state. This bond betweenthe Aydinoglu emirs and the Doukas family determined thehistorian's interests. Much of what he writes concerns Ionia andthe struggles between the heirs of Aydin and the Juneid familywho dispossessed them. Similarly, the reason for the flight of the Doukas family from Constantinople explains the historian'sdislike of the Palaiologan emperors whom he bitterly attacks asusurpers of the imperial throne. All we know of the personal life of Doukas, the historian, is the little that he reveals to us. At the accession of MuradII in 1421, Doukas, who owned a dwelling in New Phokaia, analum-producing Genoese colony, was secretary to the podesta, Giovanni Adorno, and composed for him two sets of letters inTurkish offering to fit out a fleet to transport Murad II and histroops across the straits to Gallipoli to engage his rival andbrother, Mustafa. Adorno was thus able to wipe out a heavydebt owed the sultan for his lease of the alum mines (XXV 5, 8). From New Phokaia Doukas crossed to the larger andricher island of Lesbos to go into the service of the Gattilusiofamily. He next appears in Adrianople in 1451 on a mission at the time Murad II died and Mehmed II Fatih, the Conqueror, first entered the Ottoman capital (XXXIII 4). It is likely that inAdrianople he was an eyewitness of the initial tests of themonstrous cannon cast by the Hungarian cannon-founder Urban(XXXV 3). In November 1452, when preparations for the siegeof Constantinople were taking place, Doukas was present at Didymoteichos where he saw the corpses of the executed Venetian crew and their captain, Antonio Rizzo (XXXV 2).
For his sources, Doukas received a firsthand account ofthe Turkish sect of Biirkliidje Mustafa (Perklitzias) from aCretan monk living in Samos (XXI 11, 12, 13, 14). After theFall of Constantinople in 1453 Doukas tells of meeting awell-born lady who had been taken captive by the Turks; sherelated what the schism between Unionist and anti-Unionist clergy meant for her (XXXVII 6). The historian also spokepersonally with those Turkish troops who had taken Constantinople and slaughtered 2,000 of the defenders, instead of takingthem captive to be ransomed, because they were led to believethat some 50,000 Greek and allied troops were within the City.
His knowledge of Turkish and Italian as well as Greek enabledDoukas to get firsthand accounts of the events leading to andfollowing the Fall from conquerors and conquered alike. Hisfamiliarity with Genoese merchants and magistrates gave himaccess to important information. In 1455 Domenico Gattilusio, regent of Lesbos, sent Doukas with generous gifts to prepare a lavish banquet aboardDomenico's galley, in honor of Hamza, the Turkish admiral andgovernor of the Chersonese (XLIII 5). In August of the sameyear, forty days after the death of Domenico's father, Doukaswas in Adrianople to deliver the annual tribute to Mehmed II, on behalf of the new lord of Lesbos.
The viziers ordered Doukasto bring Domenico in person to the sultan to make obeisanceand to receive from the sultan's hands the commission to ruleLesbos (XLIV 1). Fleeing before the bubonic plague, MehmedTI traveled from Adrianople to Philippopolis and thence to theBulgarian town of Izladi (Zlatica), and Doukas and his masterfollowed. The new treaties were finally signed in the presence ofthe sultan; Domenico was attired in a gold-embroidered robeand his retinue were provided with silken garments for theceremony (XLIV 2). Mehmed II, nonetheless, was intent on taking both Oldand New Phokaia from the Genoese. His grand admiral, YunusPasha, on the false pretext that he had pursued a Lesbian ship., into port thus giving him rights of possession, demanded thesurrender of Domenico's mother-in-law who happened to be onboard.
Doukas was now sent to Constantinople where he contested Yunus' claims before the viziers; while the case was beingheard, the sultan furtively sent troops to take possession of Old Phokaia because Yunus had occupied New Phokaia. The casewas summarily dismissed (XLIV 7). In August 1456 Doukas was again in Adrianople tosubmit the annual tribute on behalf of the lord of Lesbos. Herehe pleaded for the lives of some forty Lesbian troops takencaptive on the island of Lemnos and happily succeeded in savingthem from execution (XLV 7).
In September 1462 Mehmed II dispatched sixty-sevenships to take the island of Lesbos from the usurper NicoloGattilusio who had horribly murdered his brother Domenico. And thus we come to the siege of Mitylene in which a force of 5,000 armed troops and 25,000 unarmed residents weretrapped. Doukas, recording the events as they unfolded, hadjust completed the phrase "The citizens within, therefore, seeing ... " when Mitylene was taken by storm, and the historianwas either sold into slavery, died of abuse, or slain by theenemy (XLV 23). Why did Doukas write his history? He was, he says, prompted by the nuns to do so (XXXVI 2). In contrast toKritovoulos, he asserts that it would have been improper for him to record the exploits of the "impious tyrant and implacable enemy and murderer of our nation," had he not recognizedin these desperate times the fulfillment of an oracle, which herecalled from his youth, that soon after the end of the Palaiologan dynasty the Ottomans too would be destroyed. The restoration of the Hellenic nation would follow directly. This wasDoukas' unrealistic conviction (XLII 14). Doukas then was a fervent believer in dreams, prophecies, and oracles which he was careful to cite; none, it should benoted, was fulfilled. Shortly before his death Murad II dreamedof an apparition which put on and then removed a ring, thesymbol of autocracy, from the sultan's thumb and four fingersin succession. The seers gave two interpretations of the dream: either that Murad, represented by the thumb, would be succeeded by four descendants in his line or that his immediatesuccessor (Mehmed II) would reign only four years, after whichthe Ottoman dynasty would come to its end (XXXIII 8). Doukas, of course, preferred the latter reading because it concurred with the prophecy he had heard as a youth from "certainold and venerable men."
When the usurper Michael VIII Palaiologos came to thethrone, he anxiously inquired of the oracle if his son wouldsucceed him. The oracle replied, "mamaimi," which was interpreted to mean, "so many of his line would reign as there wereletters in the unintelligible word." Doukas asserts that, according to the prophecy, "the end of the Ottoman tyranny wouldtake place with the end of the reign of the Palaiologoi" (XLII 14). Again the historian informs us that Janos Hunyadi'sambassador was eager to advise the Turkish battery how tobring down the walls of Constantinople because of a prophecyhe had heard that the misfortunes of Christian Europe wouldcome to an end only with the Fall of Constantinople (XXXVIII 13). Finally, Doukas cites the false prophecy which led manyConstantinopolitans vainly to seek refuge in Hagia Sophiawhen it was learned that the Turks had entered the City, It was said that the Ottomans would advance only as far as the Forumof Constantine and that an angel of the Lord would thendescend delivering a sword to a poor and unknown man whowould then proceed to avenge the Christians by driving theenemy from Europe and the east as far as Persia (XXXIX 18). Thus the ancient boundaries of the empire would be restored. Doukas as a historian is interesting because he describes certain technological processes such as the preparation of alumwhich was very important to dyemaking in both East and West (XXV 4), and the technique of covering cannon with felt soaked in oil to prevent it from shattering from the heat of discharge (XXXVIII 11). Fascinated by the recent invention of guns shooting lead balls, Doukas carefully describes their effect on both men and metal (XXX 7, XXXVIII 3). He also reveals that the Ottomans had better guns than the Europeans(XXXVIII 3)! The incredibly rapid advance of the Ottoman Turkswho, thanks to the devastating civil war between John V Palaiologos and John VI Kantakouzenos, crossed to Gallipoli andEuropean Thrace in 1354, soon made them the dominant power in the Balkans. Henceforth, Christian rulers and subjects suffered one indignity after the other at the hands of their Turkishoverlords.
Doukas relates how John VI Kantakouzenos, to secureTurkish troops to support his cause, gave his daughter Theodorain marriage to the Ottoman Orchan and in addition a dowry of bounteous treasures (IX 1). Following the disaster at Kossovo in1389 Stefan Lazarevio, prince and despot of northern Serbia, offered his sister Maria and large amounts of silver from Serbiansilver mines as tribute to Bayazid I Yildirim (IV 1). Later, George Brankovic married his daughter Mara to Murad II, providing her with a generous dowry of gold and silver (XXX 1). How galling it must have been to the Christian populace to seetheir princesses sacrificed to infidels for political considerations! In an illuminating passage Doukas describes how theOttoman rulers loathed their own countrywomen, looking uponthem as bears and hyenas, passionately preferring Christianbeauties (IX I, XXX 3). Time and again the historian hammers home, in disgust, how the sultans were given to drunkenness, incontinence, lasciviousness, and lewdness, wantonly indulgingtheir heterosexual and homosexual appetites as well as committing animal copulation (IX 1, XV 2, XIX 2, XXV 2, 9, XXIX 5, XXX 3, XL 6, 7, XLIV 8). The Ottomans called the tune to which the Byzantineshad to dance. Because of an alleged joint conspiracy on the part of Murad I's son Kunduz and John V Palaiologos' first-born, Andronikos, the sultan compelled the emperor, on threat of war, to blind Andronikos just as he had gouged out the eyes of Kunduz; John V obliged, by partially blinding his grandson andnamesake as well (XII 2). Murad's successor, Bayazid I, forcedJohn V to dismantle the newly erected fortifications at theGolden Gate, threatening to blind his son Manuel, the futureemperor, if he refused (XII 3, 4). John VII Palaiologos had toaccede to Bayazid's demand that a Turkish kadi be introducedinto Constantinople to adjudicate all disputations betweenTurks and Byzantines according to Islamic law (XV 1). Emperors were no longer masters of their own homes. When Mustafa callously refused to honor his agreement to deliver Gallipoli to the Byzantines in return for their crucial support against his brother Murad II, he made it painfully clear that it was preferable to dishonor his oath than to deliver upMuslims to infidel Christians, thus making slaves of a freepeople. His duty, asserts Mustafa, was to capture Christian towns and convert their inhabitants to Islam. To reward theByzantines with possession of Gallipoli, which the Turks neededfor the subjugation of Christians, would be an absurd action onhis part (XXIV 12). Once again, the Byzantines ate crow. The Ottoman occupation of Thessaloniki in 1430 andthe indignities suffered by the Christian inhabitants of Byzantium's second largest city, the ravaging of maidens and highborn ladies, the pillaging of houses and churches, the conversionof monasteries into mosques, the sacrificing of a ram inside thefamous shrine of St. Demetrios by Murad II, the carrying awayof the citizens to be sold into slavery leaving the city to berepopulated by Turks are set down by Doukas as the "ill-fatedfirstfruit of future calamities destined to befall the imperial capital" (XXIX 5). Twenty-three years later Constantinople was to suffer the same evils but magnified. Mehmed II ascended the altar of Hagia Sophia to offer his praise to Allah and a ulema recited theprayer from the pulpit of the Great Church (XL 1)! Themagnificent monasteries in the fallen capital were first plundered by the Ottoman troops and then occupied by dervishes, fullers, and cobblers, and by entire families of Turks (XLII 13). The Constantinopolitans, taken captive, were cruelly separatedfrom their families and scattered from Anatolia to Egypt (XLI 18). The nobility of the capital were first ransomed and thenwantonly slaughtered by the conqueror who spared only themaidens and youths selected for their comeliness to serve hiscarnal pleasure (XL 7, 8). The Turkish penchant for eliminating both real andpossible rivals of their own race and family is underscored byDoukas. Bayazid I gouged out the eyes of his older brother (thereby causing his death and creating a precedent for hissuccessors), and also poisoned his brother-in-law (III 3, IV 3). Murad II strangled his infant brother Mustafa (XXVIII 6), andMehmed II did the same to his half-brother (XXXIII 10). Juneidand his entire family were violently exterminated as a result of his machinations against Murad II (XXVIII 14).
To avenge themurder of his brother and rival Mustafa, Musa burned to deathall the inhabitants of the village in which the culprits dwelled(XIX 6). Mehmed II executed the thirty surviving members of the Venetian crew, whose ship was the first to be sunk by the cannon of the new fortress of Bag-kesen (Rumeli Hisar), andsavagely impaled through the anus their captain Antonio Rizzo(XXXV 2). Later, Mehmed II was haunted by the sight of largenumbers of his own men transfixed by Vlad the Impaler (XLV20, 22). In a particularly macabre scene Doukas records avictory banquet, spread out over the cadavers of slaughteredSerbs, celebrated by Musa (XIX 8). Both Ottomans and Christians suffered savage and inhuman treatment at the hands of Temir-khan (Tamerlane) whoburied his victims alive in Sebastea with ingenious sadism (XV6) and raised a gruesome pyramid of skulls at Smyrna (XVII 4); so devastating was the desolation wrought by his armies that neither dog's bark, nor chicken's cackle, nor child's cry was tobe heard (XVII 6). Doukas also supplies evidence of large scale conversionsof the Christian population of Anatolia and the Balkans toIslam. John VI Kantakouzenos refers contemptuously to thetroops defending Constantinople as a race of low birth, halfTurkish and half-Greek (IX 3). Temir-khan uses the same term(mixovarvaroi), to describe the Ottomans (XVI 4).
Although Doukas cites one case of forced conversion, that of Michael Pylles, interpreter to the Ottoman court (XXVIII 5), and one unsuccessful attempt by Temir-khan tocompel the archbishop of Philadelphia, through torture, torenounce his faith (XXII 7), the Turks were extremely successful in bringing many Christians to Muhammad's faith simply byopening up key posts in both the government and the army toChristian peasants (XXIII 2, 9); the creation of the elite Janissary corps, a fanatic slave army, from converted Christianyouths, and the imposition of the deashirme, the youth tribute, were masterstrokes of Ottoman policy.
Many Constantinopolitans who were enslaved after the fall and scattered throughout Ottoman dominions, were converted to Islam (XLI 18). Doukas reveals that Bayazid, Murad II's vizier, and Abdullah, Juneid's son-in-law, were both Albanians (XXI 3). Halil, Bayazid's brother-in-law and captain of the Janissary corps, wasa Greek (XXVIII 12), Sulayman Balta-oglu, Mehmed II's grandadmiral of the Ottoman fleet, was a Bulgar (XXXVIII 7). Alexander gi3man, a converted member of the Bulgar rulingfamily, was made governor of Smyrna (XXI 6).
While Christians were being converted to Islam, a fascinating Turkish sect, Doukas tells us, was emerging whichpreached reconciliation between the rival faiths of Islam andChristianity. The prophet of this movement was BurkludjeMustafa. He taught a primitive communism in which all property and possessions, with the exception of women, were heldin common. Salvation for Turks could be achieved only "inconcord with the faith of the Christians." It was a remarkabledoctrine, which, if it had succeeded, would have saved Christians in Ottoman lands untold misery. Doukas is important as a source of Ottoman practicesand customs.
He records how the death of a sultan was carefullyhidden until his successor could arrive from the provinces inorder to forestall rioting, revolts, and insurrections (XXII 11, XXXIII 4). He provides us with a fascinating description of thepublic lamentation displayed on the occasion of Murad II'sdeath and the arrival of his successor Mehmed II (XXXIII 4). When Murad's remains were laid to rest in Prusa, Vizier Ishakpoured gold coins into the hands of the indigent bystanders(XXXIII 5). We admire Doukas for his graphic and, at times, brilliant-although admittedly biased-cameo portraits of key historical figures. His descriptions of Bayazid I's lasciviousness(XIV 2), Sophia of Montferrat's shapely figure but, alas, homelyface (XX 6), John V's promiscuity (X 4, XII 2), and Temirkhan's macabre sadism (XV 6, XVII 1) are-highly effective.
The historian is not so prejudiced that he is unable topraise the virtues of some Ottoman sultans and criticize thevices of erring emperors. Having supported the peace-lovingMehmed I against his rival Musa (XX 1), Manuel II Palaiologos later shifted his support to both Mehmed I's brother and to hisson against Murad II, thereby incurring the wrath and rancor of the sultan (XXIII 7, XXVIII 6). When Murad emerged triumphant in this civil war, Manuel dispatched his ambassadors tohim with the feeble and unconvincing argument that it wasVizier Bayazid who was to blame for the misunderstandingsbetween emperor and sultan (XXVIII 2). Doukas praises MuradII, however, as virtuous and gentle (XXIX 7), kindly disposed toboth Turks and Christians, a man of goodwill who honored hisoaths and treaties, a lover of peace (XXXIII 6), a genuine friendof upright conscience (XXXIV 2).
As for Mehmed II Fatih the Conqueror, whom Doukasthoroughly despises, he provides a deeply penetrating but wholly one-sided characterization. He calls the sultan "the trulyflesh-wearing demon" (XXXIII 12), "the untamed dragon"(XXXIV 9), "the barbarian" (XXXIV 11), "Antichrist" (XXXIII 12; XXXIV 5), "the braggart" (XXXIV 12), "impious tyrant and implacable enemy and murderer of our nation" (XLII 14), and "secretive and irascible" (XLV 15). Doukas also mentionsrepeatedly Mehmed II's disregard for human life and describeswith foreboding Mehmed II's unrelenting obsession to takeConstantinople. Sleepless, he planned his strategy at night, tracing on paper Constantinople's fortifications, carefully staging in detail every proposed operation (XXXV 6).
Mehmed II is also given credit for taking great pains torepopulate Constantinople after the Fall with Christians as well as with Turks. Five thousand families were brought in from theprovinces (XLII 3). He resettled some 4,000 men and women, taken captive in the Balkans, in the outlying towns and villages of Constantinople (XLII 12). From the Peloponnesos the conqueror brought 2,000 families to live in the City as well as2,000 youths to serve as Janissaries (XLV 12). What are Doukas' feelings about Constantine XI Palaiologos? Because he was not crowned emperor at Hagia Sophia bythe ecumenical patriarch but at Mistra by the local metropolitan, Doukas refuses to consider him the legitimate emperor, referring to his brother, John VIII, as "the last emperor of theRomans" (XXVIII 7). Constantine petitioned the pope for military aid in return for compliance with the Union of FerraraFlorence (1439), but Doukas asserts that he was, nonetheless, insincere in his motives (XXXVI 2).
He repeated Manuel II'sunfortunate strategy of supporting rivals against the sultan bythreatening Mehmed II with the release of Orchan, Sulayman's grandson and the sultan's cousin, who had been exiled toConstantinople, thereby arousing the Ottoman's ire and convincing him that the Byzantine capital must fall (XXXIV 2). Yet the last ruler of Byzantium acquitted himself, in theface of certain defeat and death, with the courage of a true heroin a Greek tragedy. When he was offered his life and thePeloponnesos if he would surrender the capital, Constantinerefused because the obloquy that would have been heaped onhim would have made life intolerable (XXXVIII 18). The de scription of Constantine's death in the forefront of battle, abandoned and exhausted, is deeply moving.
Thus ended the glorious line of Christian emperors whohad reigned for 1129 years. Begotten by one Constantine, Christian Constantinople expired in the embrace of another Constantine; the Cross was replaced by the Crescent, and Christ gave way to Muhammad. The pillage, slaughter, enslavement, and desecration of Hagia Sophia, so poignantly expressed byDoukas, must have seemed like the end of the world to theByzantines (XXXIX 20, 21, 24, 29; XL 1, 2). How anguishedwas the historian's soul as he realized that the greatest cathedral of Byzantine Christianity, the magnificent symbol of its spiritual being, was to be converted into a mosque (XL 2). Basic to Doukas' explanation of the course of historical events is the concept of Tyche or Fortune, both good and evil. He speaks of the "evil Fortune" of the Byzantines (V 1, VI 5, VIII 1); this evil Fortune sows hatred and gives birth to envy (V1), and envy casts the evil eye on all good things and takes sharpaim (XXVIII 1); Fortune lets fly shafts of wrath (XXXII 1). Fortune is a tipping scale, rising and failing unpredictably (XIX10, 12); the reversal of Fortune is like a recoiling sling (XIX12); Fortune is fickle (XIX 13, XXII 3). Although in Greekmythology Clotho spins the thread of life, Doukas equates evil Fortune with Atropo, the Fate who cuts life's thread, andpictures her as spinning destruction and death.
Thus, evil Fortune spins out counterclockwise the threads of the destiny of the Byzantines (VI 5, VIII 1); Fortune spins out death (XXII 8), and Destiny's threads come undone (XXII 10); because of Mehmed I's friendship with Byzantine emperors and Christians, he is overlooked by Atropo, and so he died peacefully (XXII 8). Fortune also smiles (XXIV 12) and looks brightly on her favorites (XXIX 2). Finally, it is the Fortune of the Romans that has raised up Mustafa in his contest for power with MuradII (XXIV 11).
And what is the cause of Byzantium's misfortunes? Thestock answer of Greek historians is the sins of the Byzantines! The Turks are God's instrument by which He chastises theByzantines for submitting to Michael VIII Palaiologos, theusurper who had blinded and imprisoned the legitimate successor, John IV Laskaris. All those who recognized Michael VIII as emperor, avers Doukas, brought down on their heads the frightful anathemas and excommunications leveled against the sinner and his fellow conspirators by Patriarch Arsenios.
On the other hand, the "Sleepless Eye" punishes the other Christian nationsbecause of their continuous insurrections against Byzantium (VI 2). Bayazid I's triumphs and licentious abuse of Christianyouths and maidens are viewed by Doukas as "the wages of our sins" (XV 3). The Ottoman juggernaut, savagely despoiling theland and the Christian population, would be stopped only whenChristians received the fear of God in their hearts. They areguilty of impiety toward the Divinity, scorning their baptism inthe Holy Trinity and transgressing God's commandments(XXIII 8).
God casts His vote against the Byzantines "in Hisineffable judgments because of the multitude of our nation'ssins" (XXIII 8). Doukas asserts that Murad II crushed theCrusaders at Varna because the Christians had been hardened bysins; the cause of their misfortunes was their wicked deeds(XXXII 5). Hagia Sophia is deserted after the notorious Liturgyof Union (12 December 1452) "because of the transgressionsand iniquities of the inhabitants" (XXXVII 5). The Ottoman Turks and the spiritual failures of Byzantium were not, however, the nation's only enemies. Doukas is intent on recording the reprehensible acts of betrayal against the Byzantines on the part of Christian allies.
He condemns theduplicity of the Genoese, playing both sides, constructingtowers for sultans, offering their ships to transport Turkishtroops, and betraying to the enemy vital information crucial tothe c:efense of Constantinople in her last days (XIX 2, XXV 8, XXVII 2, 3, XXXVIII 19, 20). He scores the Albanians for betraying Constantine and his brother Thomas, delivering toMurad II the defenses of the Hexamilion in the Peloponnesoswith 60,000 Christian captives (XXXII 7). The Venetians, concerned with protecting their commercial interests in the Aegean, were guilty of impaling Byzantine seamen captured in the service of the Turks (XXI 8). Theyhad promised to make Thessaloniki a "second Venice," but when the Turks demanded that they cede the city to them, theVenetians were afraid that the Greek inhabitants would openthe gates to the Turks and so they brutally maltreated them.
Not only did they deport the leading citizens but they alsodrowned and tortured many as infidels (XXIX 4). Doukas cites two noted Hungarians for their part inaiding and abetting the cause of the Turks. Urban, a renegadecannon founder, who was denied a decent salary in Constantinople because the emperor was destitute of funds, fled into theeager and waiting arms of Mehmed II and in return for substantial remuneration cast the cannon used to bring down the walls of the capital (XXXV 1). Janos Hunyadi's ambassador to thesultan volunteered information on how to aim the cannon balls in a triangular pattern so that the walls would easily shatter andcrumble (XXXVIII 12, 13). Although Doukas saw through the duplicity of Westerners, yet he belonged to that party of Byzantine Greeks whobelieved that some accommodation with the West was absolutely necessary to Byzantium's survival.
What then were his views on the crucial issue of Church Union? An agent of Genoese interests, pro-Latin in his sentiments, Doukas emerges from the pages of his account as aUnionist aristocrat who has no compassion or sympathy for theanti-Unionist commoners of Constantinople, the Orthodox national party. He reviles the Constantinopolitans as being vulgar and baseborn. He is convinced that Church Union was a necessary concession to the preservation of the state.
If Doukas' grandfather had forsaken Byzantium to takeup residence in Ephesus as a sinecure of the emir of Aydin, considering his place of refuge as his fatherland (V 5), thehistorian was in the hire of Genoese magistrates undertaking thecomposition of letters aimed at supporting the Ottoman causeagainst Byzantine interests. Consequently, he was unable tosympathize with the religious sentiments of his fellow Greeks who refused to compromise their faith and forget the lessons of recent history in order to secure military assistance fromsuspect and untrustworthy Westerners. Since the thirteenth century the record had played the same old tune: submission toRome. The price was too high to pay. The world was collapsingabout their feet, yet the faithful refused, once again, to sell their souls in order to save their bodies. Their religious devotion, for all that, did not mean that they were any less realistic. They alone recognized that the West was unable to stop theOttoman advance.
Doukas expresses his disgust at the refusal of the Orthodox national party, members of whom he calls schismatics, toaccept the validity of sacraments administered by clerics whohad participated in the Unionist Liturgy of 12 December 1452(XXXVI 6). This was a purely Donatist position which had beencondemned by the Church in the fourth century. Unionist priests were considered to be excommunicates and an exactingpenitential canon was imposed on all those who witnessed aliturgy celebrated by them.
Anti-Unionist clergy refused toserve with Unionist counterparts (XXXVII 5). The theological implications of the position of the antiUnionists should not be overlooked. Attention has been drawnto their untenable Donatist view of sacraments performed byUnionist clergy. Their rejection of the church council as thelegitimate instrument for the resolution of schism and theological differences, and, therefore, as the infallible organ for theformulation of doctrine, raised an insurmountable ecclesiastical barrier to Church Union. The Unionists, on the other hand, did a great disserviceto the Greek cause.
The consequences of the two Councils of Union (1274 and 1439) shattered the illusion of emperors whothought that they could manipulate church policy and teachingwith impunity to serve political exigencies. The tragic outcomewas that neither emperors nor church hierarchy, alone or inconcert, could any longer pose as the defenders and preserversof Orthodoxy, the national spiritual treasure. Both church andstate leaders lost the confidence of the masses who took it uponthemselves to preserve their religious heritage. Emperors andbishops in collusion might betray the Orthodox cause (sometimes for money, as Doukas points out [XXXI 9]) but not thepeople-monks, nuns, or laymen. The impolitic actions of bothimperial and ecclesiastical authorities, pressured by a papacydemanding spiritual submission in return for military aid, resulted in the demoralization of the beleaguered Orthodox Christian flock at the very moment the external threat of theOttoman Turks was at its greatest.
Unity, not Union, was theneed of that dark hour. In those last few ominous and dark months precedingthe Fall, Hagia Sophia, the heart of Byzantium, the national symbol of the true faith, was abandoned by the Orthodoxfaithful. Incredibly, the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom was reviled by the anti-Unionists as a refuge of demons, Jews, pagans, and heretics. Nothing could more poignantly portraythe abject despair of the Orthodox populace than the bitter desolation of Hagia Sophia, the center of the stage of Byzantine history for eleven centuries.
The chorus and the protagonists had gone their separate ways, exiting from opposite wings, leaving the theater to be taken over by an alien troupe. Thecurtain had been rung down. Doukas' own heart was torn bythis intolerable reality (XXXVII 5, XL 2). Doukas writes in a vivid and exciting journalistic style. Although he has been accused of perpetrating barbarisms in his misuse of proper case endings, it would perhaps be more exact to say that Doukas uses neologisms, spoken linguistic forms brought about by a living language in evolution. His account is spiced with folk expressions, and he makes effective use of theharangue, which is usually brief but always characteristic of the historical figure who utters it.
He also takes the trouble totranslate Turkish and Italian words for the benefit of his readers. I have avoided using Latin spellings for Greek names, which translators from Greek into English have done in thepast, and Greek spellings for foreign names which Doukas uses. I have transliterated Greek names, for the most part, and for other foreign names I have used the spelling of their respectivelanguages. For a register of Turkish names and their variants inGreek, the reader is referred to the important work of GyulaMoravcsik, Byzantinoturcica. Vol. 2: Sprachreste der Turkvolker in den Byzantinischen Quellen (Berlin, 1958). Four printed editions preceded Vasile Grecu's critical edition of Doukas' Historic Turco-Byzantina, published inBucharest in 1958, the edition I have translated.
The first was edited by 1. Bullialdus in Paris in 1649 from the BibliothequeNationale ms. gr. 1310, designated as MS P by Grecu; this is afolio edition with Bullialdus' Latin translation and with copious notes added. In 1729 a Venetian edition was published by theJavarina Press in folio. In 1834 Immanuel Bekker published theBonn edition in the series Corpus scriptorum historiae byzantinae. To this edition an old, anonymous Italian translationwhich continues where the Greek text leaves off has beenadded. This fact has caused some to believe that the translation was made from a more complete codex, of which the last pagemay have been lost.
It seems more likely that the translator mayhave simply borrowed from another source in order to supplement the account of the siege of Mitylene in 1462. The fourthedition prior to Grecu's is found in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, CLVII. Actually, the Venetian, Bonn, and Migne publicationsare merely reprintings of the original Bullialdus edition of 1649. Grecu discovered a second manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale ms. gr. 1766, which he designates as MS P1.
The latter enabled Grecu to correct certain errors found in thefirst four editions of Doukas' history and to prepare a newcritical edition to which he added a Rumanian translation. BothMSS P and P1 are undated; Grecu believes MS P is a sixteenthcentury copy while P1 belongs to the eighteenth century. Although MS P was written as a continuous story without divisions, Bullialdus, the first editor, separated it into chapters. Grecu subdivided the chapters into paragraphs, and I havefollowed him in my translation.
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