The Immortal Emperor

by Donald M Nicol

  The Emperor John VIII felt that the time had come to look for help from the western Christian world, as his father had done some twenty years before, without much success. In November 1423 he set out for Venice and Hungary. He nominated his brother Constantine as regent in Constantinople until he came back. Constantine was still young. It was his first taste of authority and he was given the title of Despot to go with it." He had his bedridden father, the old Emperor Manuel, at hand to advise him; and, after a few false starts, they arranged a new peace treaty with the Sultan Murad. It was a humiliating arrangement. But it meant that the city of Constantinople was, for a while, spared further onslaughts from the Turks. It was signed on zz February 1424.12 By all accounts Constantine discharged his duties as regent with dignity and success. His brother John returned from his travels in Italy and Hungary at the beginning of November 1424. He had gained little. The Catholic King of Hungary had piously advised him that his chances of securing aid from western Christendom would be much enhanced if he and his people would swear obedience to the pope and unite with the church of Rome. The suggestion was far from new. John's father Manuel had heard it before. He had always dismissed it as a move likely to alarm and antagonise the Turks if not as a form of moral blackmail.13

  Manuel. died on 11 July 1415 at the age of seventy-five, having taken the monastic habit for his last few months. John VIII became Emperor in fact as well as in name. His brother, the Despot Constantine, must now be given an appanage to call his own. In their recent treaty the Turks had graciously allowed the Byzantines to retain as a fief a strip of land to the north of Constantinople. It ran along the Black Sea coast from the town of Mesembria in the north to Derkos in the south. It seems also to have included the port of Selymbria to the west of Constantinople. This was the area allotted to the Despot Constantine in 14z5. In so far as it covered the northern approaches to Constantinople it was strategically important. But there was little that Constantine could have done if the Turks chose to break the terms of their treaty and relieve him of his fief."'

  On his way to Venice in 14z3 John VIII had broken his journey in the Morea. There he had words with his brother the Despot Theodore at Mistra. Theodore preferred the quiet life of scholarship to the stress of administration and warfare. Two years earlier he had gone through an arranged marriage with Cleope Malatesta from Rimini. It was at first an unhappy union and he expressed a deep desire to become a monk. He took the opportunity of his brother's visit to confide in him. When John returned to Constantinople he assumed that Theodore was still of the same mind. He therefore recalled Constantine from Mesembria and designated him to succeed his brother as Despot in the Morea. Constantine had proved his loyalty and ability in a number of ways. He would make an excellent governor at Mistra. Theodore, however, had by then changed his mind. Some of his admirers, notably his scholarly friend John Eugenikos, had applauded his intention to renounce the vainglory of this world in favour of the delights of the religious life. His more worldly friends, however, had persuaded him that the world had need of him. When the moment came, he declined to step down in favour of Constantine and patched up his differences with his wife. Theodore was to remain as Despot at Mistra for another twenty years. They were years of prosperity, not least in the cultural and intellectual life of the province. Under Theodore's patronage scholars and philosophers gathered at the court at Mistra. Cleope Malatesta came to share and to encourage her husband's scholarly taste; and he was desolated when she died in 1433, for he had come to love her dearly."

  Constantine was thus thwarted of his chance to become Despot at Mistra. After his father's death, however, John VIII as Emperor devised a plan for using Constantine's talents to better purpose. He could have a separate appanage in the Morea to call his own. It was evident that Theodore, happy though he was in his domain at Mistra, was not the most practical of men and could benefit from some assistance and support. In 14z3 the Turks had broken through the defensive wall across the Isthmus of Corinth which Manuel II had built to keep them out. They had invaded and devastated the Morea. Shortly before, the Italian ruler of Epiros and the offshore island of Cephalonia, Carlo Tocco, had occupied Clarentza and the plain of Elis on the north-western side of the peninsula. Theodore arranged a truce with him but it was broken in 1426 and Tocco resumed his campaign. The Emperor John determined to rid the Morea of this nuisance. In 1427 he set out from Constantinople to take personal charge of the matter. He took his brother Constantine with him and also George Sphrantzes. It was then that Sphrantzes formally entered the service of Constantine. They reached Mistra on z6 December and made straight for Clarentza to lay siege to it by land and sea. In a naval skirmish in the nearby Echinades islands Carlo Tocco's ships were sunk and he accepted defeat. He agreed to relinquish his recent conquests; but he hit on a plan to save what was left of his dignity. He offered his young niece, Maddalena, in marriage to the Emperor's brother Constantine, presenting him with Clarentza and Elis as her dowry. It was an amicable arrangement that suited both parties. On i May 14z8 Clarentza was handed over and on i July Constantine was married to Maddalena Tocco in a ceremony near Patras. She took the more familiar Greek name of Theodora; and her uncle Carlo Tocco sailed away to his domains in Epiros.16

  A curious letter in verse was addressed to the Despot Constantine before his wedding. Its anonymous author, claiming to be divinely inspired, congratulated the Emperor on his victory but warned Constantine against marrying the niece of Carlo Tocco. The Tocco family were not to be trusted.'' It may have been sound advice, though not for the reasons given. For the appointment of Constantine as a second Despot in the Morea, with or without his Italian wife, affected the system of government and was to lead to trouble in the future. Until 1142.8 the Despotate had been governed by one scion of the imperial family appointed by the Emperor in Constantinople. Now there were to be two, and before long three. The third was to be Constantine's youngest brother Thomas, who had been brought up at Mistra. In theory the Despotate remained one and undivided. But in practice, as was soon to be proved, the central authority, which had worked well in the fourteenth century, broke down and the Byzantine province of the Morea disintegrated into separate and often warring principalities.1e Theodore had declined to make way for his brother at Mistra. But he was persuaded to surrender a generous part of his allotted territory, including the harbour town of Vostitza (Aigion) on the northern coast of the Morea, several towns and fortresses in Lakonia, as well as Kalamata and Messenia on the western side of the peninsula. His young brother Thomas was given the castle of Kalavryta to the north of Mistra. Constantine at first based himself on Clarentza, to which he was entitled by conquest as well as by marriage. The Emperor should have known his brothers better than to suppose that they would collaborate. For they were a contentious brood.'s

  While he was still with them, however, Constantine persuaded him that Clarentza was well placed for attacking and capturing the flourishing commercial and strategic port of Patras not far away. Patras had changed hands several times. In 14i8 it was governed by its Latin Archbishop, Pandolfo Malatesta, whom the pope had appointed four years before, although the Turks claimed it as a fief and the Venetians had a proprietary interest in it as a market. It was they who alerted the pope to the danger facing the city in 1428. In July the three brothers John, Constantine and Thomas joined forces in an assault on Patras. It was the young Thomas's first experience of war. They failed to take the city and withdrew once the defenders had agreed to pay Constantine an annual tribute of 500 gold coins. According to George Sphrantzes, who was with them, the main cause of their failure was the reluctance of their brother, the Despot Theodore, to help them. He was still dithering about his monastic vocation. He must also have had it in mind, however, that the governor of Patras, the Archbishop Malatesta, was his brother-in-law. It would be injudicious to co-operate in his downfall. The pope was none too pleased with Cleope Malatesta in any case, for he had heard that she had gone over to the Orthodox church, perhaps to win t
he heart of her husband. Theodore therefore stayed at Mistra.zo

  It was time for the Emperor John to return to Constantinople. Before leaving, he summoned Constantine to Mistra for a conference. There Constantine and Sphrantzes met in secret and decided to make a second attempt to capture Patras. If they were successful Constantine would stay in the Morea. If they failed he would go back to his appanage on the Black Sea, while retaining possession of Clarentza and the other places in the Morea which had come to him as his wife's dowry. Sphrantzes describes what followed in great detail. He and Constantine marched from Vostitza along the coast, bypassing Patras, to reach Clarentza and Chloumoutsi, where Constantine's wife was staying. They were confident that the Greek inhabitants of Patras would support them. From Clarentza Constantine sent envoys to their leaders to prepare the way for his entry into the city. On i March 14z9 he led his army towards Patras. The city fathers sent out a messenger who came back to report that Constantine meant to attack and capture the city and its castle. On zo March, Palm Sunday, the attack was launched. It developed into a long siege punctuated by minor engagements, in one of which Constantine's horse was shot from under him and he was all but killed or captured. His friend Sphrantzes saved his life, though in doing so he himself was wounded and taken prisoner. He was released, more dead than alive, on z3 April. It was not until early in May that the defenders agreed to negotiate. Their Archbishop had gone to Italy to seek reinforcements. They promised that if he were not back by the end of the month they would surrender. Constantine and his troops withdrew, taking over the fortress of Saravalle as they went.

  The Archbishop had not returned by the end of May. On i June Constantine came back and called upon the leading men of Patras to honour their agreement and surrender. Four days later they met in the cathedral of St Andrew, the city's patron saint, and resolved to accept Constantine as their lord. The city of Patras was thus added to his Despotate and there was no question of his leaving the Morea. The castle on the hill above the city, however, was held by the archbishop's men and did not give in for another twelve months. The surrender of Patras distressed the pope, annoyed the Venetians and, worst of all, angered the Turks. The Sultan Murad delivered an ultimatum. Sphrantzes, Constantine's dependable and faithful friend, who had spent forty days in a dungeon at Patras for his master's sake, was sent to pacify the Sultan and, after long talks with him and with Turahan, the Ottoman commander of Thessaly, averted the threat of Turkish reprisals. Constantine sent other ambassadors to mollify the pope and the Venetians. The negotiations took several months.

  Sphrantzes, however, had got no further than the Venetian harbour of Naupaktos across the water from Patras when the dispossessed Archbishop Malatesta arrived there from Italy with some Catalan ships and soldiers. He had urged the Sultan to protest against the occupation of his archdiocese by the Greeks. It was too late. The unruly Catalans whom he had brought as a relief force showed little interest in recovering Patras, though they plundered the coast and stormed their way into Clarentza. Constantine was able to buy it back from them for 6,ooo Venetian ducats. Later, however, he ordered that Clarentza be destroyed for fear of it falling into the hands of pirates. The archbishop died at Pesaro in Italy in 1441, still protesting that Patras was his and that it was the duty of all Christians in the west to help him win back the apostolic see of St Andrew. In the meantime the castle above Patras surrendered to Constantine in July 1430. The loyal Sphrantzes had his reward. In November he was appointed as the first Byzantine governor of the city now triumphantly restored to the empire after 225 years of foreign occupation.21

  More triumphs followed. Constantine's brother Thomas, whose base was at Kalavryta, brought to an ignoble end the foreign Principality of Achaia which had endured under rulers of various nationalities since the Fourth Crusade in 1x04. Its last prince was the Genoese Centurione Zaccaria who died, bereft of almost all his territory, in 143z. His daughter Caterina had married Thomas and brought him what was left of the Principality as her dowry.22 The cause of western colonialism in the Morea had been dying for some years. The initiative of Constantine and his brothers, supported by the Emperor John VIII, relegated it to the history books. By 1430 nearly all of southern Greece had been cleared of foreign potentates and restored to Byzantine rule, except for the Venetian harbours and colonies at Argos, Nauplion, Modon and Coron. Constantine's successes compensated for the dreadful news coming to the Emperor from other quarters. In March 1430 the Sultan Murad put a bloody end to the Venetian regime in Thessalonica. It had lasted only for seven years. Thessalonica became Turkish. In October of the same year the city of Ioannina in the north-west of Greece submitted to the Turks. The Morea was once again Byzantine, but the whole of mainland Greece to the north of the Isthmus of Corinth was now in Turkish control.23

  The Venetians were not enthusiastic about the revival of Greek fortunes in the Morea. They had lost face and a fortune of their own in the rash investment in Thessalonica. They must keep better hold on their properties in the south of Greece. There was mutual distrust between Greeks and Venetians. In an attempt to offset their influence on the economy of his Despotate, Constantine approached the commune of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), whose merchants were frequent visitors to his shores. The government of Ragusa was interested in securing trade concessions and drafted a formal agreement setting out their terms in a letter to Constantine in February 1431.29 No such agreement seems to have been concluded. But the fact that it was even proposed is another sign of the revived initiative of the Despotate of the Morea under Constantine's management. The Turks too were uneasy about the Byzantine revival in the Morea. In the spring of 1431 Turahan, the Sultan's general in Thessaly, took the precaution of sending troops south to demolish once again the wall across the Isthmus of Corinth. The Greeks must not be allowed to use its shelter to cover their rebellious activities. They must be reminded that they were the Sultan's vassals.25

  It remained to be seen whether the often quarrelsome sons of the family of Palaiologos could build on their success and hold the Morea as an island of Christianity against the forces of Islam. Fate was unkind to the Despot Constantine. In November 1429, not long after his victory at Patras, his Italian wife MaddalenaTheodora died at Stameron in Elis. They had been married for less than eighteen months and he was grief-stricken. She was buried at Clarentza, though her remains were later moved to the church of the Life-Giving Christ (Zoodotos) at Mistra. Two of the scholarly literati of Mistra, John Eugenikos and Bessarion, Bishop of Nicaea, mourned the melancholy event in stylised epitaphs.26 Some months later, perhaps because he wished to be nearer to Mistra, Constantine came to a new arrangement with his younger brother Thomas. The capital of Thomas's appanage was Kalavryta. In March 1432 he agreed with Constantine that they should exchange their territories. Constantine transferred his court to Kalavryta. Thomas moved to Elis. It was an amicable exchange and presumably had the approval of their brother, the Emperor John, and also of the senior of the three Despots in the Morea, Theodore, who still held sway at Mistra.27

  The harmony between them all did not last long. It was bedevilled by the question of seniority among them. The Emperor John had married three times, but his marriages had produced no heir to the throne whom he could designate as co-Emperor. It was assumed that one of his brothers would succeed him when the time came. His own preference was for Constantine, a fact known and resented by the Despot Theodore. Constantine could get on with his younger brother Thomas. But his personal relations with Theodore were soured by envy and jealousy. In August 1435 the Emperor summoned him to Constantinople. George Sphrantzes went with him. Theodore may well have suspected that the matter of the succession to the throne was being arranged. In March 1436 he too arrived in Constantinople. The Emperor was unable to bring his brothers to a discussion, still less to an agreement. They returned separately to the Morea. They were in a mood to fight it out. About the end of the year 1436 two mediators came from the capital to calm them down and prevent a civil war. A third mission led
by the future Patriarch Gregory Mammes brought them to their senses. It was agreed that Constantine should move to Constantinople, while his brothers Theodore and Thomas stayed as Despots in the Morea. The Emperor needed him once again to act as regent, for he was shortly leaving for Italy. Constantine reached Constantinople on 24 September 1437. Nothing had been said about his nomination as co-Emperor. But his appointment as regent for a second time clearly indicated that he was regarded as heir-apparent to the throne.28

  John VIII sailed for Italy at the end of November. The purpose of his journey was to attend the council which the Pope, Eugenius IV, was convening at Ferrara to accomplish the union of the Greek and Latin churches. It had always been the view of the papacy that the Christians of the west could not go to the rescue of Byzantium from the Turks until the Byzantine church had renounced its errors and acknowledged obedience to Rome. Only then could a crusade be preached and mounted for the relief of Constantinople and the discomfiture of the Turks. After long negotiations Pope Eugenius had persuaded John VIII and the hierarchy of his church to discuss the matter at a council at Ferrara. To make sure that they would come he sent ships to fetch them. The ships brought a company of archers from Crete for the defence of Constantinople; and it was on one of these that Constantine sailed from the Morea, embarking at Karystos in Euboia on i September. Among his fellow passengers was a Venetian cleric, Marco Condulmer, whom he had last encountered at the surrender of Patras in 1429.29 The Emperor led an impressive delegation to Italy. With him were the Patriarch of Constantinople, Joseph II, representatives of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem, bishops, monks and secular clergy, among them the learned Bessarion of Nicaea, Mark Eugenikos of Ephesos, and the monk Isidore, Bishop of Kiev. Among the laymen, the most distinguished was the philosopher George Gemistos Plethon from Mistra, who had known the Emperor and his brothers for some years. Also in the Emperor's company was his younger brother Demetrios to whom he had given the title of Despot in 1429. Demetrios had already shown rebellious tendencies and he was known to be against any plan for the union of the churches. But he could not safely be left behind in Constantinople. There was a suspicion that he had been trying to interest the Turks in supporting his own bid for succession to the throne.30