heir of Theodore, was a child of eight years, and minorities were always
disastrous to the state. We have seen in the history of previous centuries
how frequently the infancy of a prince led to a violent contest for the
place of regent, or even to a usurpation of the throne. The case of John
IV. was no exception to the rule; the ministers of his father fought and
intrigued to gain possession of the helm of affairs, till at last an able
and unprincipled general, named Michael Paleologus, thrusting himself to
the front, was named tutor to the Emperor, and given the title of
“Despot.”
Michael was as ambitious as he was unscrupulous. The place of regent was
far from satisfying his ambition, and he determined to seize the throne,
though he had steeped himself to the lips in oaths of loyalty to his young
master. He played much the same game that Richard III. was destined to
repeat in England two centuries later. He cleared away from the capital
the relatives and adherents of the little prince, placed creatures of his
own in their places, and conciliated the clergy by large gifts and
hypocritical piety. Presently the partisans of Michael began to declaim
against the dangers of a minority, and the necessity for a strong hand at
the helm. After much persuasion and mock reluctance the regent was induced
to allow himself to be crowned. From that moment the boy John Ducas was
thrust aside and ignored: ere he had reached the age of ten his wicked
guardian put out his eyes and plunged him into a dungeon, where he spent
thirty years in darkness and misery.
The usurpation of Michael tempted all the enemies of the Greek Empire to
take arms. The Epirot despot allied himself with the Frankish lords of
Greece, and their united armies, aided by auxiliaries from Italy, invaded
Macedonia; moreover the Latin emperor of Constantinople stirred up the
Venetians to ravage his neighbours’ borders. But in 1260 the troops of
Michael won, over the allied armies of the Franks and Epirots, the last
great victory that a Byzantine army was ever destined to achieve. The
field of Pelagonia decided the lot of the house of Paleologus, for
Michael’s enemies were so crushed that they could never afterwards make
head against him.
Freed from all danger from the West, Michael was now able to turn against
Constantinople, and complete the reconstruction of the empire. The city
was ripe for its fall, and Baldwin of Courtenay had long been awaiting his
doom.
The long reign of the last Latin sovereign of Constantinople is
sufficiently characterized by the fact that Baldwin spent nearly half the
years of his rule outside the bounds of Romania, as he wandered from court
to court in the West, striving to stir up some champion who would deliver
him from the inevitable destruction impending over his realm. He gained
little by his tours, his greatest success being that, in 1244, he got from
St. Louis a considerable sum of ready money in acknowledgment of the
liberality with which he had presented the holy king with a choice
selection of relics, including the rod of Moses, the jawbone of John the
Baptist, and our Lord’s crown of thorns.
In 1261 Baldwin was in worse straits than ever. He was stripping off the
lead of his own palace roof, to sell it for a few zecchins to the
Venetians, and burning the beams of his outhouses in default of money to
buy fuel. His son and heir was in pawn to the Venetian banking firm of the
Capelli, who had taken him as the only tangible security that could be
found for a modest loan which they had advanced to the imperial exchequer.
With the government in such a desperate condition there was no longer any
power of resistance left in Constantinople. When the Venetian fleet, the
sole remaining defence of the empire, was away at sea, the city fell
before a sudden and unpremeditated attack, made by Alexius Strategopulus,
commander in Thrace under the emperor Michael.
Alexius, with eight hundred regular troops and a few scores of half-armed
volunteers, was admitted by treachery within the walls. Before this
formidable array the heirs of the Crusaders fled in base dismay, and the
Empire of Romania came to an inglorious and a well-deserved end.
Its monarch resumed his habitual mendicant tours in Western Europe, and
never ceased to besiege the ears of popes and kings with demands for aid
to recover his lost realm. At last Baldwin passed away: his sole memorial
is the fact that he made a distressed and itinerant emperor in search of a
champion, one of the stock figures in the Romances of his day. No one in
Western Europe was ignorant of his tale, and he survives as the prototype
of the dispossessed sovereigns of fifty legends of chivalry.
XXIV. DECLINE AND DECAY. (1261-1328.)
There was now once more a Byzantine empire, and to an unobservant reader
the history of the reigns of the Paleologi looks like the natural
continuation and sequel of the history of the reigns of Isaac Angelus and
his brother. If the annals of Michael VIII. and his son were written on to
the end of that of Alexius Angelus, the intervening gap of the Latin
Conquest might almost pass unperceived, and the reader might imagine that
he was investigating a single continuous course of events. The Frank
dominion at Constantinople, and the heroic episode of the Empire of
Nicaea, would pass equally unnoticed.
We need not insist on the perniciousness of such a view. Great as may seem
the similarity of the Byzantine Empire of 1204, and that of 1270, it had
really suffered an entire transformation in that period. To commence by
the most obvious and external sign of change, it will be observed that the
lands subject to Michael Paleologus were far more limited in extent than
those which had obeyed Alexius Angelus. The loss in Asia was less than
might have been expected: Theodore Lascaris and John Ducas had kept back
the Turk, and only two districts of no great extent had fallen into Moslem
hands—the Pisidian coast with the seaport of Adalia on the south, and the
Paphlagonian coast with the seaport of Sinope on the north. Besides these
the distant Pontic province had now become the empire of Trebizond.
In Europe the loss was far more serious: four great blocks of territory
had been lost for ever. The first was a slip along the southern slope of
the Balkans, in Northern Thrace and Macedonia, which had fallen into the
hands of the Bulgarians, and become completely Slavonized. The second was
the district which is represented by the modern land of Albania. When the
Angeli of Thessalonica fell before John Ducas, a younger member of the
house retired to the original mountain house of the dynasty, and preserved
the independence of the “Despotate of Epirus.” Here the Angeli survived
for some generations, maintaining themselves against the Emperors of
Constantinople by a strict alliance with the Latin princes of Southern
Greece.
Next in the list of Old-Byzantine territories which Michael never
recovered, we must place Greece proper, now divided between the Princes of
Achaia, of the house of Villehardouin, and the Briennes, who had succeeded
to the Duchy of Athens. But the Paleologi still retained a considerable
slice of the Peloponnesus, and were destined to encroach ere long on their
Frankish neighbours. Lastly, we must mention the islands of the Aegean, of
which the large majority were held either by the Venetian government, or
by Venetian adventurers, who ruled as independent lords, but subordinated
their policy to that of their native state.
But the territorial difference between the empire of 1204 and the empire
of 1261 was only one of the causes which crippled the realm of the
Paleologi. Bad though the internal government of the dominions of Alexius
III. had been, there was still then some hope of recovery. The old
traditions of East-Roman administrative economy, though neglected, were
not lost, and might have been revived by an emperor who had a keen eye to
discover ability and a ready hand to reward merit. New blood in the
_personnel_ of the ministry, and a keen supervision of details by the
master’s eye, would have produced an improvement in the state of the
empire, though any permanent restoration of strength was probably made
impossible by the deep-seated decay of society. But by the time of Michael
Paleologus even amelioration had become impossible. The three able
emperors who reigned at Nicaea, though they had preserved their
independence against Turk and Frank, had utterly failed in restoring
administrative efficiency in their provinces. John Vatatzes, himself a
thrifty monarch, who could even condescend to poultry-farming to fill his
modest exchequer, found that all his efforts to protect native industry
could not cause the dried-up springs of prosperity to flow again. The
whole fiscal and administrative machinery of government had been thrown
hopelessly out of gear.
It was the commercial decline of the empire that made a reform of the
administration so hopeless. The Paleologi were never able to reassert the
old dominion over the seas which had made their predecessors the arbiters
of the trade of Christendom. The wealth of the elder Byzantine Empire had
arisen from the fact that Constantinople was the central emporium of the
trade of the civilized world. All the caravan routes from Syria and Persia
converged thither. Thither, too, had come by sea the commodities of Egypt
and the Euxine. All the Eastern products which Europe might require had to
be sought in the storehouses of Constantinople, and for centuries the
nations of the West had been contented to go thither for them. But the
Crusades had shaken this monopoly, when they taught the Italians to seek
the hitherto unknown parts of Syria and Egypt, and buy their Eastern
merchandize from the producer and not from the middleman. Acre and
Alexandria had already profited very largely at the expense of
Constantinople ere the Byzantine Empire was upset in 1204. But the Latin
conquest was the fatal blow. It threw the control of the trade of the
Bosphorus into the hands of the Venetians, and the Venetians had no desire
to make Constantinople their one central mart: they were just as ready to
trade through the Syrian and Egyptian ports. To them the city was no more
than an important half-way house for the Black Sea trade, and an emporium
for the local produce of the countries round the Sea of Marmora.
From 1204 onward Italy rather than Constantinople became the centre and
starting-place for all European trade, and the great Italian republics
employed all their vigilance to prevent the Greek fleet from recovering
its old strength. Henceforth the Byzantine war-navy was insignificant, and
without a war-navy the Paleologi could not drive away the intruders and
restore the free navigation of the Levant to their own mercantile marine.
The emperors who succeeded each other on the restored throne of
Constantinople were, without exception, men more fitted to lose than to
hold together an exhausted and impoverished empire. Their lot was cast, it
is true, in hard times; but hardly one of them showed a spark of ability
or courage in endeavouring to face the evil day. The three monarchs of the
house of Lascaris who ruled at Nicaea had been keen soldiers and competent
administrators, but with the return of the emperors to Constantinople the
springs of energy began to dry up, and the gloom and decay of the ruined
capital seemed to affect the spirit and brain of its rulers.
[Illustration]
Byzantine Chapel At Ani, The Old Capital Of Armenia. (_From "L’Art
Byzantin." Par Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
Michael Paleologus, though it was his fortune to recover the city which
his abler predecessors had failed to take, was a mere wily intriguer, not
a statesman or general. Having usurped the throne by the basest treachery
towards his infant sovereign, he always feared for himself a similar fate.
Suspicion and cruelty were his main characteristics, and in his care for
his own person he quite forgot the interests of the State. Even
contemporary chroniclers saw that he was deliberately setting himself to
weaken the empire, because he dreaded the resentment of his subjects. He
disbanded nearly all the native Greek troops, and refrained as far as
possible from employing Greek generals.
One of his minor acts in this direction may be said to have been the
original circumstance which set the Ottoman Turks, the future bane of the
empire, on their career of conquest. The borders of the empire in Asia
were defended by a native militia, who held their lands under condition of
defending the castles and passes of the Bithynian and Phrygian mountains.
The institution, which somewhat resembled a simple form of European
feudalism, had worked so well that the Byzantine Empire had for a century
and a half kept its Asiatic frontier practically intact, in spite of all
the pressure of the Seljouk Turks of the Sultanate of Iconium. But the
Bithynian militia were known to be attached to the house of Ducas, which
Michael had dethroned, and he therefore resolved to disarm them. The
measure was carried out, not without bloodshed, but the disbanded levy
were not replaced by any adequate number of regular troops. Michael’s
financial straits did not permit him to keep under arms a very large
force, such as was required to garrison his eastern line of forts after
the abolition of the previous machinery of defence. Ten years only before
Othman, the father of the Ottoman Turks, succeeded to the petty
principality which was destined to be the nucleus of the Turkish Empire,
the way for him had been thrown open by Michael’s suspicious disarmament
of the guards of his own frontier.
Michael lived for twenty-one years after the recovery of Constantinople,
but he did not win a single important advantage in all the rest of his
reign. In Europe he barely held his own against the Bulgarians, the
Franks, and the fleets of Genoa and Venice. The troubles which befell him
at the hands of the two naval powers were largely of his own creation, for
he shifted his alliance from one to the other with such levity and
suddenness that both regarded him as unfriendly. Though all through his
reign he was at war either with Genoa or Venice, yet such was the distrust
felt for him that, when at war with one of the rivals, he could not always
secure the help of the other. Venice had been the mainstay of the Frank
emperors of Constantinople, and Michael might, therefore, have been
expected to remain staunch to the Genoese. On the other hand, the Genoese
had designs on the Black Sea trade, which touched the Emperor’s pocket
very closely, while the Venetians were more connected with the distant
commerce of Syria and Egypt, which did not concern him. Balancing one
consideration with the other, Michael played false to both the powers, and
often saw his coast ravaged and his small fleet compelled to take refuge
in the Golden Horn, while the enemy’s vessels swept the seas. On land he
was less unlucky, and the Duke of Athens and the despot of Epirus were
both kept in check, though neither of them were subdued.
But it was in Asia that Michael’s rule was most unfortunate. In the second
half of his reign the Seljouks, though split into several principalities
owing to the break up of the Sultanate of Iconium, united to assail the
borders of the empire. They conquered the Carian and Lydian inland, though
Tralles and several other towns made a vigorous resistance, and reduced
Michael’s dominion in South-western Asia Minor to a mere strip along the
coast. A similar fate befell Eastern Bithynia, where the Turks forced
their way as far as the river Sangarius.
But the ruin of Byzantine Asia was reserved to fall into the times of
Michael’s son and successor, Andronicus II. This prince had all the faults
of his father, levity, perfidy, and cruelty, with others added from which
Michael had been free—cowardice and superstition. The main interest which
Andronicus took in life was concerned with things ecclesiastical—it would
be wrong to say things religious—and he spent his life in making and
unmaking patriarchs of Constantinople. No prelate could bear with him
long, and in the course of his reign he deposed no less than nine of them.
While Andronicus was quarrelling with his patriarchs the empire was going
to ruin. The Seljouk chiefs from the plateau of Asia Minor were pressing
down more and more towards the coast, and making their way to the very
gates of Ephesus and Smyrna. At last the emperor, growing seriously
alarmed when the Turks appeared on the shores of the Propontis itself, and
threatened the walls of Nicaea and Prusa, resolved to make an unwonted
effort to beat them back.
[Illustration]
Adronicus Paleologus Adoring Our Lord. (_From "L’Art Byzantin." Par
Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
In 1302 the long war of the “Sicilian Vespers” between the houses of Anjou
and Aragon came to an end, and the hordes of mercenaries of all nations
which the two pretenders to the crown of Sicily had maintained were turned
loose on the world. It occurred to Andronicus that he might hire enough of
the veterans of the Sicilian war to enable him to beat back the Turks into
their hills. All Europe acknowledged that they were the hardiest and
best-disciplined troops in Christendom, though they were also the most
cruel and lawless. Accordingly the emperor applied to Roger de Flor, a
renegade Templar, the commander of the mercenaries who had served Frederic
of Aragon, and offered to take him into his service, with as many of his
followers as could be induced to accompany him. Roger accepted with
alacrity, and came to Constantinople in 1303 with 6,000 men at his back;
other bodies were soon to follow. Andronicus loaded the “Grand Company,”
as Roger de Flor styled his men, with unlimited promises, and a certain
amount of ready money. Roger himself was given the title of “Grand Duke,”
and married to a lady of the imperial house. After clearing the Turks out
of the Bithynian coast-land the “Grand Company” spent the winter of 1303-4
in free quarters along the southern coast of Propontis. Their plundering
habits and their arrogance soon brought them into ill odour with the
inhabitants, who complained that they were well-nigh as great a curse as
the Turks. In the next year Roger moved south with his host, and drove the
Turks out of Lydia and Caria; but instead of putting the emperor into
possession of the reconquered land, he garrisoned every fortress with his
own men, and raised and appropriated the imperial taxes. There can be
little doubt that he was plotting to seize on the provinces he had
regained, and to reign at Ephesus as an independent prince. At last Roger
went so far as to lay formal siege to Philadelphia, because its
inhabitants preferred to obey orders from Constantinople, and would not
admit him within their gates. Andronicus then lured him to an interview at
Adrianople, and in his very presence the great _condottiere_ was
assassinated by George the Alan, an officer whose son had been slain in a
brawl by Roger’s soldiers. The Emperor had probably arranged the murder,
and certainly refused to arrest its perpetrator [1307].
He was promptly punished. The “Grand Company” was not disorganized by the
loss of its leader, and thought of nothing but revenge. Assembling
themselves in haste, and abandoning Asia Minor to the Turks, they marched
on Constantinople, harrying the land far and wide with fiendish cruelty.
The Emperor sent his son Michael against them, but the young prince was
disgracefully beaten in two fights at Gallipoli and Apros, and the
mercenaries spread themselves all over Thrace and plundered it up to the
gates of the capital. It almost looked as if a second Latin Conquest of
Constantinople was about to take place, for the leaders of the “Grand
Company” got succour from Europe, raised a corps of Turkish auxiliaries,
and occupied Thrace for two years. But they could not storm the walls of
Constantinople or Adrianople, and at last, after two years of plundering,
they had stripped the country so bare that they were driven away by
famine. Drifting southward and westward they ravaged Macedon and Thessaly,
and at last reached Greece. Here they fell into a quarrel with Walter de
Brienne, Duke of Athens, slew him in battle and took his capital. Then at
last did the wandering horde settle down; they seized the duchy, divided
its fiefs among themselves, and established a new dynasty on the Athenian
throne. The empire was at last quit of them, for when once they ceased to
wander the “Grand Company” ceased to be dangerous.
This disastrous war with the mercenaries not only ruined Thrace and
Macedonia, but was the cause of the final loss of the Byzantine provinces
of Asia Minor. While Andronicus was feebly attempting to cope with the
“Grand Company,” the Seljouk chiefs had conquered Lydia and Phrygia once
more, and then advanced yet further north to siege Mysia and Bithynia. By
1325 they had reduced the Emperor’s dominions on the east of the straits
to a narrow strip, reaching from the Dardanelles to the northern exit of
the Bosphorus, and bounded by the Bithynian hills to the south. Five
Seljouk leaders had carved out for themselves principalities in the
conquered districts, Menteshe in the south, Aidin and Saroukhan in Lydia,
Karasi in Mysia, and in the Bithynian borderland Othman, destined to a
fame very different from that of his long-forgotten compeers.
While Othman and the rest were turning the once thickly-peopled countries
of Western Asia Minor into a desert sparsely inhabited by wandering
nomads, Andronicus II. was busied in a war even more uncalled for than
that with the mercenaries. He wished to exclude from the succession to the
throne his grandson and heir, who bore the same name as himself. But the
younger Andronicus took measures to defend his rights, and raised armed
bands. Grandfather and grandson were ere long engaged in a long but
feebly-conducted war, which was only terminated in 1328, when the old man
acknowledged Andronicus the younger as his heir, and made him his
colleague on the throne. But his grandson, not contented with this measure
of success, made him retire from the conduct of affairs, and assumed
control over every function of government. The name of Andronicus II. was
still associated with that of Andronicus III. on the coinage and in the
public prayers, but he took no further part in the rule of the empire. In
1332 he died, at a good old age, lamented by no single individual in the
realm which he had ruled for fifty years. At his death the empire was only
two-thirds of the size that it had been at his accession.
XXV. THE TURKS IN EUROPE.
Andronicus III. was a shade better than the incapable old man whom he
supplanted. Though he was given—like all his house—to treachery and
deceit, and though his life was loose and luxurious, he was at any rate
active and energetic. He may be described as a weak reflection or copy of
Manuel Comnenus, being a mighty hunter, a bold spear both in the
tournament and on the battle-field, and a great spender of money. If he
had not the brains to keep his empire together, he at any rate fought his
best, and did not sit apathetically at home like his grandfather while
everything was going to rack and ruin.
Nevertheless, Andronicus III. was destined to see the termination of the
process which had begun under Andronicus II.—the entire loss of the
Asiatic provinces of the empire to the Turks. It was now with the Ottomans
almost exclusively that he had to deal; the other Seljouk hordes had no
longer any marchland along the shrunken frontier of his dominions.