Emperor or Sultan?

I have been exchanging notes with a Byzantine art historian who recently found this painting although she has never actually seen it. Fundamentally unknown, it was sold at Christie's in 1995 as a portrait of John VIII, and then disappeared into some collector's private world. Christie's dated it to the early 1500s, maybe as late as the 1520s. The few scholars who have mentioned it assign it to a school or follower of Gentile Bellini.

When I saw the picture, I immediately saw it as Mehmed II. Mehmed -- and later Suleiman the Magnificent -- were sometimes portrayed as Byzantines, which is, I think, shorthand for "the ruler in Constantinople."  

Here, for example is a woodcut of John VIII serving as a representation of Mehmed II in the 1493 Nuremburg Chronicle. 

She -- the art historian -- believes the painting is John VIII, and feels details closely resemble those of John in the Sinaii portrait: 

One problem with either identification is the late date of the portrait. Mehmed died in 1481, John in 1448. Was someone making a collection of Byzantine emperors or Ottoman sultans?

The main problem, though, is that the location of the portrait is unknown.  I am writing this entry on the off-chance that someone our there reading has seen the portrait and can give more information about it. Where is it? Who was the painter? Are there similar paintings out there? Would the collector make himself known to the art historian and allow her to see it?

You can write me at the e-mail address up at the right.

O Palaiologos

 Ὁ Παλαιολόγος + ··

Partial signature of John VIII Palaiologos, 1439

In mid-June I had a letter from Daniel Moss, a London dealer in historical letters and manuscripts, asking for my help in confirming this partial signature of John Palaiologos. I say "partial" because the full signature is below:

 This is from the Laurentian copy of the Act of Union.   Ὁ Παλαιολόγος with the cross and two dots comes in the second line.  

+ Ἰωάννης ἐν Χριστῷ τῷ θεῷ πιστὸς βασιλεὺς καὶ αὐτωκράτωρ ῥωμαίων 

ὁ Παλαιολόγος+··

+ John Palaiologos, faithful ruler in Christ our God, emperor of the Romans +·· 

Here in the Venetian copy held in the Vatican, the signature line is broken in the middle of auto - krator.

I sent Moss the signature pictures I had, reading references, and a link to my blog on the Florence signing. We discussed the signature a little more, and the conversation seemed to have come to a natural end. Then four days later I received an e-mail from him in which he asked me if I would like to have it. Two weeks after Daniel Moss had first written me, I was holding John's signature in my hands.   

It is a large signature, 9 cm long, written with a quill pen. The ink is still red, red edging toward brown, but very red where it collected in the loops and down-strokes. 

At the bottom left of the paper is part of a watermark, an eagle with sun? a sphere on a rod?

At some point, the paper with the signature (16.8cm x 7.7cm) was glued at six places to a slightly larger, darker, stiffer paper.  Someone made a note on it that says:  The signature of the emperor Palaiologos to the Condordat / between Eugenius IV & the Emperor, made St. Maria / Novella in Florence 1439. In the Laurentian Library.

The signing was not done at S. Maria Novella: that is the Dominican convent where most of the Greek delegation was staying. Fra Angelico was working there at the time, and his assistant was the young Benozzo Gozzoli who later painted the Greeks into his frescos for the Medici chapel.  

The Act of Union should have been signed on July 2, but an error was found in the text and the whole thing -- in Latin and Greek -- had to be recopied, the Latin text on the left side, the Greek on the right.  The Greeks signed in the early afternoon of 5 July, a Sunday.  They signed at the Palazzo Peruzzi where John was staying, a palazzo where the Florentine government put important visitors, on the main route from the piazza to S. Croce, and quite a long way from the rest of the Greeks.  They signed in order of precedence, witnessed by three Latin bishops.  Then John sent the document with ten clerics and four court officials over to Pope Eugenius.  John said that Bessarion would make a speech when they got there.  Bessarion did, a long one, and after the speech everyone went into another room where the Pope signed Eugenius catholice ecclesie episcopus ita diffiniens subscripsi, followed by the Latins in order of precedence.  The next day, Monday July 6, was the formal day of Union.  A high mass was said at the Duomo.  Somehow, arrangements could not quite be worked out for an Orthodox liturgy. 

Later in the month, four or five more official copies were signed -- this was at the Pope's request.  John said, "Why five?  Two are enough -- we take one and you take the other" -- and then still more copies, with varying numbers of signatures, depending on who showed up, or who had left town. The cost of the gold for the Emperor's seals would have made seals for twenty-nine of them, looking at the footnote in Gill: seals for four, looking at the footnote in Syropoulos.

* * * * * *

On the back of the paper for my signature is written, very small (2.8 cm):  .

* * * * * *

Thank you, Daniel Moss

Thanks to Walter Andrews for his help.

Demetrios fled to Galata

Constantinople and Galata, 15th C Florentine chest. MMA.

Sphrantzes writes:
In the summer of the same year (1423), the αὐθεντόπουλος Demetrios, accompanied by Ilario Doria and his son-in-law, George Izaoul, fled (ἔφυγεν) to Galata with the intention of going over to the Turks; if they did not get to them, to Hungary instead.

Syropoulos writes:
Matters were in a critical situation because of the war, and the despot Demetrius was forced, at the beginning of the second year of hostilities, to flee (ἀπέδρᾳ) to Galata with Doria, γαμβρός of the Emperor. His father and mother urged him to return, but he was unwilling. His intent was to go to the emperor of the Germans. They unwillingly allowed this and arranged his voyage in company with Matthaios Asan, Doria, and several other archons.

I have written on Demetrios before.  Nearly everything I wrote was wrong, and this is a reconsideration.

In 1423 Demetrios was sixteen and at loose ends.  His father had offered him Lemnos the previous year but he refused to go. Then his father had a devastating stroke, which made his brother John sole emperor. His older brothers Theodoros and Andronikos were despots (although Andronikos would give up Thessalonike in September).  Constantine had recently come of age and, although we know nothing about him until he became regent for John in November, he was undoubtedly demonstrating a sense of responsibility. 

Demetrios went across the Golden Horn to Galata.  Galata was a self-governing commune under the rule of Genoa, and so going to Galata meant Demetrios had left the Eastern Empire.  Other discontent young men went with him -- George Izaoul had been turfed out of Ioannina which replaced him with Carlo Tocco, and Demetrios Kantakuzenos of Trebizond who was in Constantinople because of family problems there.  Matthaios Asan went: he remained a close friend for the rest of their lives, later governing Corinth, then arranging a face-saving surrender to Mehmed.  Demetrios married Asan's sister. Izaoul's father-in-law, Ilario Doria, is more difficult to explain: he had married Manuel's half-sister, and perhaps he, too, felt he had been passed over once too often.

The two different accounts reflect, to a great extent, the prejudices of their writers.  Sphrantzes, writing fifty years after the event, showed consistent disapproval of Demetrios whenever he came into the narrative.  Syropoulos, writing an account of the Council of Union, was anxious to portray Demetrios in as good a light as possible because he had been a supporter of the anti-unionists during the miseries of Ferrara and Florence.

Ganchou (below) adds an important element to the story in printing a letter from Francesco Filelfo  to Cardinal Piccolomini.  Filelfo not only substantiates the Sphrantzes account, but says that John had sent him to Hungary to  tell Emperor Sigismund that Demetrios might be planning to go over to the Turks, and to ask his help in heading it off.  But Filelfo also says that there was trouble between the brothers. This is important to remember, even if we don't know what it was.

John was nearly double Demetrios' age, and his teenage years had been burdened with training for being emperor.  At present he was burdened with a dying father and his differences with his father, and overwhelmed with the threats to the City, the Morea, and Thessaloniki from the Turks.  

There is no information about Demetrios for 13 years.  He took up the rule of Lemnos in 1425 (once he was of age -- he had rejected the position earlier, when he would have had to have a regent), and later  married (probably) the sister of Kantakouzenos Stravoummetes, a governor of Lamia. She died.  He married Zoe Paraspondylos in the spring of 1436. Then in November 1437 he was required to accompany John to the Council of Union at Ferrara.  Syropoulos quotes John as saying, "Everyone knows why he has to come with us."  Disloyalty is assumed, but there is no evidence.

What we know about Demetrios at the Council depends for the most part on Syropoulos, and recall that Syropoulos appreciates Demetrios' position (although Demetrios had been extremely rude to Syropoulos in Ferrara), while trying to show John at a disadvantage.  John was very much at a disadvantage: quite apart from the humiliation of having to attend the council at all, if he had a chance of aid for Constantinople, he was was in severe pain from gout, bedridden much of the time he was there, and surrounded by several hundred orgulous Greeks.

Syropoulos shows us John's public humilations of Demetrios, and Demetrios flailing to assert himself.  Demetrios was 30 years old by the time of the council, married, a despot.  At least twice, Syropoulos tells of John asking Demetrios for his opinion in doctrinal discussions, calling him ἀδελφούτζικε.   John took Demetrios with him and the patriarch to confer with the pope, then ostentatiously left him to wait in a courtyard for three hours. Demetrios left Ferrara and went  to Venice.  

When the council was forced to move to Florence in early 1439 because of plague, John asked Demetrios to join him. It took the patriarch -- Joseph II -- to persuade him to come, but John waited in Florence for three weeks for Demetrios to arrive.  There was another episode of ἀδελφούτζικε.  Demetrios asked the patriarch to help him get permission from John to return to Venice.  The patriarch did, but then a delegation of cardinals came to see John and he complained about Demetrios.  The cardinals asked him to stay until the end.  The patriarch -- very ill at this point -- conveyed the information to Demetrios who responded, "I will stay but not because of the cardinals: I stay because of the imperial command. Personally I have no information or experience with matters of dogma. I know nothing about the subject."

Then the patriarch died on 10 June.  He was buried in the Domenican church of S. Maria Novella where many of the Greek delegation had been staying. Demetrios participated in the funeral service, then four days later left for Venice with Gemistos and Scholarios who could not bear to be present for the signing of the Act of Union. On the way back to Venice, a group of Latins tried to attack an elderly bishop in their group.  Demetrios protected him.  Syropoulos gives other incidents where Demetrios stood up for anti-unionists.  It was with this trip to the West that Demetrios built up his great store of credit with the anti-unionists, and why he had so much support in his later attempts to gain the throne.

This is enough for now.  Demetrios  is regarded as the black sheep of the Palaiologos family.  Sphrantzes is taken as the last word. Barker calls him "reckless and selfish," and "worthless": that seems to be the preferred view which disregards his apparently competent rule on Lemnos and at Mistra, his recorded acts of kindness, and his friendship with Gemistos. 

History prefers the sacrificial lamb to the black sheep.

T. Ganchou, "Giourgès Izoul de Ioannina, fils du despote Esau Buondelmonti, ou les tribulations balkaniques d’un prince d’Épire d’possédé," Medioevo Greco 8 (2008) 159-199. If you need a copy of this article, I will be glad to send it.  

See also, Ganchou, “IlarioDoria, le gambros Génois de Manuel II Palaiologos: beau-frère ougendre?" Revue des Études Byzantines 66 (2008) 71-94.

The Battle of the Echinades

 

With the news from last week about the purchase of six of the Echidnades by the Emir of Qatar, I thought it would be interesting to read about the battle of the Echidnades of early spring 1428, a battle that is usually called the last triumph of the Byzantine fleet. The single documentary source for the battle is an anonymous encomium to Manuel II and John VIII Palaiologos and it is printed in volume 2 of Spyridon Lampros' Παλαιολόγεια καὶ Πελοπονησιακά (I can send this to anyone who needs it). The text is, I think, not quite in the right order, and I have indicated where there appears to be a gap in the copyist's work. Pierre MacKay made the translation.

* * * * * * * * * *

(194) There is a certain Carlo, an Italian by race, a keen and audacious man, who was very well treated by the emperors and honored in no small way, even to the point that he rose to the rank of despot He began by claiming an ancestral command over the islands of Ithaka, Zakynthos, Leucas and Cephallonia, to which he added, little by little, territory ranging from Aetolia to Thesprotia and Molossia, which amounts to a part, but not all, of Epirus, together with the part of Achaia between the Achelous and the Evenus rivers. Greeks occupied all the settlements along the sea there, but inland it was barbarians, then and now. These he threw out, some by deceit and persuasion, some by trickery, and some even by force, until he ruled it all, lands that in ancient times had held many races: Aetolians, Acarnanians, Amphilochians, Cassopeans, Dolopes, Ambraciots, Athamanians, Thesprotians, Molossians and the part of the Chaonians that is associated with the Acroceraunian mountain. These many ancient populations had in the past been strong and numerous, but are now left in extreme poverty and even the names of some have vanished. “Long ages bring long forgetfulness.” The entire land is now inhabited sparsely and in small settlements by Albanians, an Illyrian race living entirely in villages. They are a nomadic race, leading a wretched life without cities, fortifications, towns, fields or vineyards, who love only the mountains and the plains. Cities, two of which are important, still preserve the Greek race. Ambracia [Arta] situated close to the gulf or that name and lying above the innermost recess. It was settled by Golgos, son of Cypselus, located well up from the sea and the Aracthus river flows by it. Later it was moved a little inland (195) and changed its name. The other is something more recent, but still not all that recent, by the lake of Acherousia, which was established by a certain Johannes and bears his name [Ioannina]. It might be Ephyra of the Thesprotians, since that was close by this location in antiquity.

Having once gained possession of these, he purchased a town in Peloponnesus named Kyllene, from a certain Oliveri [taken by Oliveri in Spring, 1418, sold to Carlo in summer 1421]. I think it is said to be the port of Elis, and after it was captured by the Italians, it was enlarged to make a great city and was named Clarentza. I shall omit other details, since they are matters for a historian. Once in control of Kyllene, as has been told, he incorporated into his holdings the territory between the mouth of the Alpheios river and the Achelous river, near which is Dyme, an ancient Achaean city and he collected under his rule everything belonging to Hollow Elis and whatever extended from there to Mount Pholoe [1422–27], in some cases persuading Prince Centurione [by this time incapacitated by severe gout], who had earlier, from what the story tells, taken the cities of Messenia, and in some cases taking possession by force.

Having all this, and not wishing to stop there, but rather showing total ingratitude to his benefactors, in the middle of the winter season, when three years [1424–27] had passed, he seized all the livestock of the Albanians, a great many horses, cattle, sheep and pigs, and since there was a truce, this was a complete violation, but still he took them. Elis was a place most suitable for them, especially because of its depopulation, for it had in recent years gone through periods of great scarcity. So he got the animals through the winter easily, and had abundant fodder. He went down into a warmer area near the shore of Hollow - - - [Here there seems to be a gap in the copy] - - the place is visible. Gathering their forces against him they [the Byzantine forces] settled in and dug a trench around the place, and laid siege to the Eleian town, (196) bringing together foot troops on the landward side and, on the seaward side, encircling it with galleys. Carlo, learning about the investment of Clarentza and fearing it, brought together a fleet from the islands, and another from Epirus---he called also on some ships from Marseilles---and sent the combined force out under the command of one of this sons, named Turnus. The emperor sent out his own galleys with the good Leontarios as commander and general, putting everything regarding general safety and the maintenance of the men under his supervision along with the planning for a victorious engagement.

They set sail toward the Echinades until they came to the first islands opposite them, at which point they raised a banner, sang paeans, sounded trumpets and beat a sort of deep [- - -]-shaped kettledrum. Emboldened by this encouragement and artifice, they charged in and smashed their opponents, crushing the outriggers of some of them. They killed a great many of their opponents, first with archery and missiles and then with javelins and catapult bolts as they closed in as if they were fighting a land battle. They took some ships with their crews and reduced others to such ruinous states that they turned and fled. The flagship was nearly taken, together with its commander, since most of the troops on deck had fallen. Of the remainder, many threw their javelins aside and shouted to the glory of the emperor as they called out, naming themselves as his servants and begging for mercy. The rowers in the belly of the galley melted away. The flagship was almost captured, and this would have happened if there had not been an intervention of fate. Since they thought that it could not escape, the imperial warships turned to other matters.

The Tocco flagship had fallen away from its mooring and from the back-curved fluke of the iron anchor by which it had been held in place, for that had broken off. It tried make a turn (197) but could only swing about and alter its heading slowly owing to the weight it was dragging. Then it suddenly veered toward its enemy. The sails slackened, and then a strong sea breeze blew up, bellied out the canvas, and granted it the freedom of flight. It was pursued, and ran ashore on Lefcas, thus stealing its safety by running away. 

 

Fifty percent of the Tocco forces were captured and among these many of good family, including one of Carlo's nephews. Most of those who took flight were wounded or killed. Our side gained an almost tearless victory. This triumph shook Carlo's soul; it destroyed the spirit of the opposition and it dragged down and lowered all Carlo's expectations. It gained for us all the cities of Elis, made us friends instead of enemies, relatives instead of strangers, and it gave us an alliance rather than conflict. Carlo, abandoning arms and war, exchanged them for cheer and festivity, for he gained a son-in-law in the despot, the good and noble brother of the most holy emperor, whose superior qualities would require many encomia. 

 

When your father is the Emperor

  The Palaiologos family, 1408.  

[Note: I have obtained new information which has changed my mind somewhat about Manuel as a father. I no longer agree with what I have written here.]

I have lately been writing a chapter on the brothers Palaiologos, one that has made me quite sad.  It is clear that John, Theodoros, Andronikos, Constantine, Demetrios, and Thomas have to be examined both in parallel -- they are always written about in isolation -- and they have to be considered within the atmosphere created by their father, Manuel II. Manuel was fundamentally a good man.  He had remarkable endurance and courage. He was an outstanding emperor. He loved his sons -- and in the addresses to John (below) he calls him φίλτατε, dearest, but he often demonstrated it in ways that must have often been imperceptible to them. I could write another chapter analyzing aspects of Manuel's life and how it might have affected his attitudes towards his sons, but that does not belong in this book.

Sphrantzes' account of his own relationship with Manuel, one he considered generous and loving, and one of which he was intensely proud, is instructive.  If, perhaps, not taken completely as gospel, it still reflects a teenager's perspective. He wrote, "When I became a personal minister to [the Emperor], [Constantine] was able to obtain through me many favors he needed from his father." Manuel could be indulgent to his young attendant where he could not be indulgent directly to his son. 

An example of Manuel's attitude as a father comes from his commentary he wrote to his compilation of dream interpretation. In a completely gratuitous comment he says, "The affection [for a small child] will be short because (as I have observed) Greek children are especially prone to lose their charm after two or three years of age."

This is the age, as parents will recognize, when children discover the use of the word, "No"; the age when they sometimes strive fiercely for the independence they are not yet capable of using. They tend to fall a lot, have tantrums, be more difficult to manage than a month or so ago when they were perfectly loveable.  This is the age when they leave babyhood and begin to become human beings.This is clearly not the first time Manuel has expressed this view, as he says, and although there is no hint as to the date of the composition of this book, or of the manuscript, the totally extraneous nature of the comment in its location supports the idea that this was in fact his view of small children.

 In his recent dissertation, Florin Leonte has made abundantly clear Manuel's style of fatherhood, although Leonte's  primary concern is with the rhetorical devices and genre to be found in Manuel's various orations and philosophical treatises. I am basing these next comments on my understanding of Leonte.

About the time the family portrait above was painted -- John would have been 16 or so and had been made co-ruler, as you can tell by his dress which is just like his father's, Manuel addressed to him a long essay, Ὑποθῆκαι βασιλικῆς ἀγωγῆς, or Foundations of Imperial Conduct. In this he referred to John as a μειράκιον, a boy, who spent more time hunting and playing than he did studying. It is striking to learn that John, whom we can see as nearly obsessive about hunting in 1438 and 1439, had already become so attached to this physical and emotional outlet.  (I should add that by 16, John had already mastered the byways of extremely complex and formal Byzantine Greek, however much playing he had been doing.) Or that his father thought him so attached.  But then, Manuel mentions that he has given John a horse and an eagle -- wonderful presents for any boy -- and that now he is giving him more formal training. 

 

Then by 1410 when John was 18 and thus of age, Manuel followed the Foundations with seven Orations. Leonte thinks these orations were delivered in public, before an audience focused on John. In the sixth Manuel criticized John for mistakes, in the seventh for rudeness and being critical, never complimenting John or pointing out any strengths. (This from a man commonly known to have a violent temper.) However much John needed correction, it is painful to think of what must have been the effect of hearing himself publicly lectured and criticized by his father. There is evidence from later in his life that criticism, and conflict, would intensify an already chronic illness, while the pattern of humiliation set so early accompanied John even after death. Consider the incidents of his forced marriage to a woman extremely unattractive to him, his having to take jewels to pawn in Venice, his having to be carried in to the first session of the Council of Union, his rejection by the clergy and people of Constantinople after his return from the Council, his long illness, and the church’s refusal of Christian burial to his body -- all of them public demonstrations of inadequacy. 

 

Speaking both as father and as emperor, Manuel addressed the Orations to ethical concerns -- pleasure in the fifth, courtesy to courtiers in the seventh, and there is much internal evidence that these are statements about previous conversations between father and son. Manuel used Plato, Aristotle, and the Bible as his authorities, arguing that true happiness could only be found by right action and education, and humility was the highest virtue a person could attain. Despair (ἀπόγνοσις) and judgment of others’ conduct led the list of sins. There is much that is interesting in these Orations, but my concern here is the unconscious cruelty in the humiliation of a bright and sensitive boy, young man, any boy or young man, in public.

It is difficult to think that these texts, or similar letters, would not have been urged on the younger sons for study in their roles as rulers -- the second says, "it is necessary for us to say what we think about this issue for your pleasure and equally for the benefit of those who would come across this work" -- and that Manuel, when visiting Theodoros and Andronikos in their despotates, would not have spent considerable time repeating many of the points he had directed to John.

Constantine well-internalized his father's remarks on duty, not from these Orations but from the Dialogue on Marriage: "But a ruler’s and an emperor's duty is to accept any risk in order to save his people, and to regard dying a light burden, whenever freedom is at stake and whenever the risk concerns . . . Faith." Typically, John Barker in his biography of Manuel gives great attention to the manuscript provenances of these Orations but says nothing about their contents, and certainly nothing about Manuel as a father, even while criticizing John as "mediocre."

We know nothing of the attitude of Helena towards the children at any age -- she bore ten, and saw seven of them die, five of them as children. The only clue of her feelings towards any of them comes when John returned to Constantinople, emotionally ravaged and physically ill from the Council of Union, the dangerous winter voyage, and the death of his wife -- his mother refused to pray for him as emperor because of his support of Union. Constantine has always been considered particularly close to their mother -- he was named for her father, the second child to be so named, and he seemed to have used the Dragaś name -- but she also refused to pray for him in turn as emperor because of his support of Union. 

This family isolated its children, even from each other. The boys appear to have had their own households, tutors, and staffs, at about the age of seven.  Andronikos was sent off to Thessaloniki as Despot at the age of 8, Theodoros to Mistra at the age of 8 or 10.

It is not enough to say that such treatment was typical of the upper-class late Byzantine family, or normal within the Palaiologos family.  It still created lonely children.

The pitiful First Lord of the Imperial Wardrobe

Constantine Palaiologos and Georgios Sphrantzes

Fotis Kontoglou, Town  Hall, Athens

There is no surviving contemporary portrait of either Constantine or Sphrantzes, but this modern one seems quite convincing, and though I would not opt for a flowered silk for battle, it does appear that Sphranzes is wearing the green gown he was given by Constantine when he was rescued from prison at Patras.

At the beginning of his wonderful account of his life, he identifies himself as "the pitiful first lord of the imperial wardrobe" -- πρωτοβεστιαρίτης. He was seventy-six or so then, living as a monk, and suffering miserably from rheumatism. The last of his book speaks of death: Demetrios Palaiologos, his daughter Helene, his wife Theodora.  Cardinal Bessarion. Thomas Palaiologos' daughter Helene.  His friend from childhood and spiritual brother, Joseph. He himself was so ill in his last two years as to have been given last rites three times, and even though "I escaped death, I remained deaf for a long time; I could not even hear bells tolling next to me."   

He wrote a book to record his world forever lost,  a world where wardrobes were important.  So Kontoglou's green gown is important.   The title of protovestiaritis had little to do with being a valet and much to do with indicating that the bearer was physically close to the emperor, essentially all the time. Sphrantzes was close to three of them.   When he was sixteen and a half, Manuel  had put him in charge of his chamber. Sphrantzes had grown up at court, his father was Thomas' tutor, his uncle was Constantine's, and he and his cousins had been the imperial playmates and aides.

While we nowhere get a sense that Manuel was affectionate to his sons, we do see -- in Sphrantzes' telling -- a great deal of fondness for the boy.  In fact, Manuel was easier with the young Sphrantzes than with his own sons, and Sphrantzes could get favors for Contantine that Constantine could not get for himself.  Manuel had a chest Sphrantzes coveted, one that had belonged to his own father, John V.  Manuel had said he wanted to give it to his son John, but then, when he gave Sphrantzes the robe lined with fur, he gave him the chest, too. When Manuel was ill and making provisions for his will, he spoke to his wife and sons specifically directing them to care for Sphrantzes and reward him has he had not been able to.
 
Sphrantzes liked clothes, paid attention to them, at least where he himself was concerned.  The clothes of others are unmentioned. Manuel gave him a caftan -- kavadi -- a dark one lined with fur, and directed that he be given a green robe.  The "new empress" Sophia of Montferrat, sent it to him, saying it was for his future wife.  The position in Manuel's chamber allowed him to become knowledgeable about fabrics, if he had not been already.  When he describes his gifts from Constantine at Patras, he identified the "expensive double green tunic lined with fine green linen" as from Lucca, the red cap embroidered with gold with a silk lining from Thessaloniki, and the heavy gold-colored caftan from Brusa.  There was also a green coat, but its fabric is unspecified. 

He presents himself as Constantine's confidant, but I suspect Constantine never confided completely in anyone.  He doesn't specify his abilities, but the long list of embassies -- and entrusting him to select a wife -- indicates Constantine's estimation of him  It is significant that each place Constantine ruled, Sphranzes was given the highest administrative position: when Constantine was despot in the Morea, Sphrantzes was governor -- κεφάλη -- of Patras; when Constantine was despot in Selybria, Sphranzes was κεφάλη of Selybria; when Constantine was despot of the Morea at Mistra, Sphrantzes was κεφάλη of Mistra.  His job description was put succinctly by Constantine: "You are to govern your command well.  You are to put an end to the many instances of injustice and reduce the power of the numerous local lords.  Make it clear to everybody here that you are in charge -- μόνον ἀρχὴν -- and that I am the lord --μόνον αὐθεντην."

Constantine gave him the highest title in the court, after those given within the imperial family, that of μεγασλογοτθέτης -- but it is not the one he uses to identify himself.  A certain touching jealousy about his dignity and titles can be read in a telling three-way exchange he had with Constantine and Loukas Notaras.

Sphrantzes was a serious little man, and, I think, lonely.  His book is erratic in what it tells and what it doesn't tell.  He is deeply respectful of women, so respectful, that he does not expose them to our common gaze, except that he does say that Constantine's wife Theodora was really lovely.  But he knew Sophia of Montferrat, he knew Cleofe Malatesta, and he might have left us something about them.  Or about Helena, wife and mother of emperors. Or about his wife. Or about a lot of other things.

A few times his senses break through his dignity and repression, and he gives us memorable images that allow you to slip into a different story entirely.  Like the tower where he was imprisoned at Patras:

"I was taken prisoner; I had sustained multiple wounds and was thrown into the dark tower of a house, full of ants, weevils, and mice, as it was located in front of the grain storage.  I was put in secure irons and my leg was held by a strong chain, which was attached to a big post."

Or the time Mehmed I asked permission to pass through Constantinople on the way to Asia Minor.  There was a formal escort to whom Mehmed talked all the way.  Then:

"The holy emperor and his sons were waiting with a boat . . . When Mehmed embarked they greeted each other from their respective boats and carried on a conversation until they reached Skoutari . . . Mehmed landed and went to the tents that had been pitched for him.  The imperial family ate, drank, and sent food to each other on the boats until they sailed home early in the evening . . ."

And one last from Corfu where he had retired:

"On January 15, 1470, so much snow covered the whole island of Corfu as no local inhabitant had ever seen.  It was even possible to catch foxes and hares by hand."

Most of the quotations are from Marios Philippides, The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: A Chronicle by George Sphrantzes (Amherst, 1980).

When Constantine became emperor

Byzantine plaque placed in modern times to mark the crowning
of Constantine XI, which probably never happened.
Ag. Demetrios, Mistra.

Becoming emperor was for Constantine, like becoming despot, a muddled and unpleasant process sabotaged by his older brothers.  Consider becoming despot. Theodoros, his older brother and despot of Mistra, decided in 1427 that he wished to withdraw from ruling and enter a monastery -- never-mind that his wife was pregnant -- he had been working this idea off and on since at least 1423 and probably earlier.  When John arrived with Constantine to install him as despot at Mistra, just after Christmas, Theodoros had changed his mind.

The net result of this was that Constantine, with Thomas and John, managed to go out and acquire Patras, and Elis, and wives, bringing the whole Morea except for the Venetian ports, under Greek control.  Theodoros hived off a great deal of his own territory in an effort to pacify Constantine, and Constantine made Sphrantzes governor of the southern territories that Mehmed would give Korkondelos Kladas in 1460.

In 1436 Theodoros again decided he was finished with being despot and would prefer to be closer to Constantinople. It was noticed that he was avid to be heir to the throne. John had not been well. John sent Constantine to Mistra to take over -- he had created Constantine and Thomas despots in 1428 while in the Morea -- and Constantine went in June.  Theodoros followed him on the next ship and the next thing anyone knew armies had been collected and Theodoros was briefly at war with Constantine and Thomas.  John had to send two sets of clerics to Mistra to get things calmed down.

Finally, in 1443, Theodoros was really finished with being despot of Mistra, and it was settled that Constantine would have Mistra and Theodoros would have the small territory of Selymbria (Silivri) just down the coast from Constantinople. Everyone knew that Theodoros wanted to be close to Constantinople. John's health was poor, and Theodoros wanted to be emperor.  Everyone also knew that John, their mother Helena, and nearly everyone else but Demetrios wanted Constantine to be emperor.

There was never a set sequence for the heir to the throne in Constantinople.  It was usual for the reigning emperor to designate an heir, and have him crowned in advance of actual need. Manuel himself had been made co-emperor with his father over his older brother Andronikos.  Then Manuel made his nephew John VII, co-emperor over his oldest son, later John VIII. Manuel was present at his son's crowing in 1421. Despite this immediate and flexible precedent, John never formally designated Constantine his heir -- he talked about it, but nothing was put on paper and there was no ceremony.  It is inconceivable now that he would have been so careless in those fragile times, particularly considering how ill he was.  He had nearly died from his first attack of gout in 1432, and since the Council of Union, he had never been really well.

Theodoros had watched his uncle dying of gout at Mistra in 1407 and he knew what was happening with John.  By the early summer of 1448 his plans were accomplished, he had made an alliance with Alfonso V of Naples who selected a Spanish bride for him.  Alfonso would supply troops to take Constantinople, and once Theodoros was in place, the bride would be shipped out.   Then a Catalan ship arrived in port at Selymbria and it was carrying plague. It may have been carrying troops, too, but that didn't matter.  Plague spread in the city.  Theodoros was advised to leave for safety, but in his usual manner he dithered.

Theodoros died miserably of plague on June 21.  They carried his body to Constantinople where it was buried in the Pantokrator in a night ceremony, and then his supporters -- there appear to have been quite a few -- had to figure out how to explain themselves.  It was three months before there was a formal court observance of his death -- he was family: it had to be done -- but John was not present.  Scholarios spoke, mostly about their collective fury at Theodoros' behavior, but still trying to do a proper eulogy. 

A little more than a month later, on October 31, John died. The way should have been clear for Constantine, but Demetrios knew about sabotage, he got to Constantinople first, and he had his own supporters. Considering the violence of four and a half years later, one can have a certain sympathy with the pro-Ottoman party, particularly as Demetrios was known to be strongly anti-Union. Thomas was on the way to Constantinople at the time, and got the news at Gallipoli.  Their mother, Helena, and the upper nobility managed to keep control with Thomas' support, though apparently it was nearly a month of uncertainty (or waiting for a ship) before men were formally dispatched to inform Constantine.  Alexios Philanthropenos Laskaris, who had been travelling with Thomas, on a mission from Constantine, was sent back to Mistra with Manuel Palaiologos Iagros. (One wonders if Constantine, knowing of John's illness, had planned for Thomas and Laskaris to discuss his position with John.)

On January 6 they made him emperor -- βασιλέα πεποιήκεν, Sphrantzes writes: he wasn't there, being off on a mission from the court to ask permission of Sultan Murad II for Constantine to accept the title.  There is no information as to how they made him emperor. Pseudo-Kodinos has two coronation ceremonies: what appears to be central to both is the act of anointing, and then of placing a crown on the emperor's head by the patriarch. Sphrantzes never mentions a crowning.  Pseudo-Sphrantzes says "they crowned Kyr Konstantinon," implying that Philanthropenos and Iagros (both relatives) did the crowning.  Two people (the emperor and the patriarch) could perform a crowning if there was to be a second emperor, such as John VIII.

Something happened in Mistra, but there is no evidence for its happening in Ag. Demetrios. Did Constantine symbolically crown himself as did his grandfather, John VI Kantakuzenos? There was no official crown for the Eastern Empire, in the way that the British monarch is crowned with St. Edward's Crown.* Other emperors -- Manuel I and John VI -- who had become emperor outside the City made a point of a ceremony performed by the Patriarch when they got there.  A later crowning for Constantine in Constantinople would have been very nearly impossible -- the Patriarch was a committed Unionist, Constantine was a pragmatic Unionist -- while most of the clergy, the people, and most important, the Empress Helena were in violent opposition to the idea.**  Anti-Unionist John Eugenikos, in a letter to Constantine of 1450 emphasizing his faults, wrote that he had not been crowned.

There was no Greek ship to take Constantine to Constantinople. (What happened to all that famous Monemvasia shipping?) He tried to get the use of a ship from Crete, but the duca said he had to get permission from Venice. A Catalan ship appeared -- Constantine and Thomas had also been in correspondence with Alfonso V, and a bride for Constantine was also under discussion -- and the last emperor arrived in Constantinople on 12 March 1449.

* I cannot remember where I acquired this information about there being no official single crown.  I would be grateful for corrections, information, and sources.


** Donald M. Nicol, The Immortal Emperor, p. 37-40.

6000

One of several pairs of blue soldier legs:
Rethymnon district. Another pair of legs here.

By 1444, there was no army in the Morea: a generation of men had come to adulthood without military training or experience.  There were the stratioti bands, there were the armed bands that worked for individual archons, but there was no organized group under any sort of centralized military command.  This was thoroughly demonstrated at the Ottoman attack on the Isthmus in December 1446, when Constantine and Thomas Palaiologos were nearly killed, trying to hold together the Moreote troops who panicked and ran. [Allow them a little leeway: the wall construction couldn't have held off Boy Scouts with pocket knives.]  Doukas says there were 60,000 in the Greek army and a Venetian letter to John Hunyadi said the Turks took 60,000 prisoners.

We need not give this number a moment's credence: 60,000 would have been far more than one-third of the total population.  Nor need the odd zero cause too much concern:  the number of participants in the Kladas revolt varies from 160 to 16 to 166 to 16,000.The most consistent number for

the number of troops in the Morea is 6,000. 

6000 goes back at least to the Chronicle of the Morea which says that the Prince had available 18,000 mounted knights, of whom 6000 were on duty at any one time.  The Chronicle has a Homeric sense of numbers and need not be given any credence either, but that seems to be the first appearance of the 6000.

In 1417 -- maybe a year earlier, maybe a year later -- Plethon suggested that the Morea needed a force of 6000, always on duty, not having to take part of the year off to farm for their families.  6000, is, in fact, a reasonable number and Plethon would have had access to any population and tax numbers available.

In 1418, a Venetian letter to the Despotate cited a letter of 1417 from the Despotate saying that they had 6000 Albanians under arms (and implying that they were uncontrollable).  This was when John VIII was conquering territory of the Principality of Achaia. Zakythinos quotes Iorga who quotes the Cronica Dolfina to say that John was leading 10,000 horse and 20,000 foot.  Clearly no one has given a moment's thought to the logistics of 10,000 horses and 30,000 men, let alone how this might relate to the Moreote population. I have a certain reliance in numbers in official Venetian documents, especially as these armed Albanians had been giving Methoni and Koroni considerable trouble, and the Venetian administrations needed to know exactly what they were dealing with.

No Moreote army was in evidence when Turahan Bey broke down Manuel's Hexamilion in 1423 -- the defenders ran away when they saw him coming: again, remember the construction -- and raided up to the walls of Mistra and burned Akova, before turning north to Davia.  Theodoros quivered behind Mistra's walls, dithered about becoming a monk, and offered the Morea to Venice.  Venice had just been given Thessaloniki by Andronikos Palaiologos and was having no more Palaiologos hand-me-downs.

No Moreote army, but bands of Albanians made an attempt to stop the Ottoman forces at Davia.  800 of them were killed.  800 is another recurrent number in the 15th century and I have written of 800 here and here. But neither the Despot, nor his brother Despot, nor protostrator, nor megas stratorpedarches, nor any kefali made the slightest recorded gesture of defense.

Around the time of the Conferences of Basel, and Ferrara-Florence, in the late 1430s, Moreote troop numbers were flying around and we get statements of 50,000 and 15,000, but the point was to convince the western powers that there was a substantial number of Greeks, worth western support. 

Then in 1443, a letter of John VIII written in Catalan by the Neopolitan consul who was also acting as John's ambassador -- a letter sent to Alfonso V of Naples who was considering offering John an army and twenty-plus galleys, said that the Morea had 40,000 Greek and Albanian horsemen, and 20,000 or more archers. That is a total of 60,000.  Here is 6,000 again, just with an extra 0. 

Chalcocondyles caught the 6,000 infection and it appears frequently in his history: 6,000  Venetians troops were defeated by Antonio Acciaiuoli's 300; Beyazid I had 6,000 hounds; the Ottoman sultan was accompanied by 6,000 infantry at all times; Milan captured 6,000 cavalry from the Venetians; 6,000 Turks fell in battle against the Hungarians; Murad brought 6,000 troops to inspect the Isthmus in 1446 (before bringing up the rest of the army to fight the 60,000).

 Bessarion described the problem of the Moreote army in a letter to Constantine of early 1444, after Constantine had become Despot and rebuilt the Isthmus wall which had been down for 20 years.

* * * * * *

. . . I know that the present Peloponnesians are, in essence, brave and good-spirited, and strong in body, but in other respects they are naked of arms and untrained, in some part owing to the cruelty of their oppressive leaders and their harsh exactions, and in some part to an overpowering softness and laziness of the generation. These you will take care to train together with immigrants brought, as I have said, either willingly or unwillingly from elsewhere, and you will harden and habituate them to real contests and combat. You will supply them with arms. You will lighten the burdens and unreasonable taxes they suffer under and you will rebuild their downtrodden characters and restore their ancient nobility of soul. Distinguishing between agriculture and military service, and separating the warlike from the peace-loving, you will give to each what is proper, a single craft and a single duty, setting down laws for each of them to carry out. 

For manly discipline is in part inherent and in part learned, and no increase in it will come about without learning and study. Whence, both the clever and the dull in character, in every matter in which they wish to become distinguished, must learn and study it. 

Translation copyright © Pierre A. MacKay 2012.