Decline & Fall - Byzantium 03 (51 page)

Princess of Taranto and titular Latin Empress of Constantinople.
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There he remained until the autumn of 1338, when Catharine accompanied him to her house in Achaia - of which her husband Philip was also ruler - and, using him as a figurehead, settled down to promote an anti-Byzantine rising in Epirus. It was not long before she succeeded. In Arta, the Governor Theodore Synadenus was arrested and imprisoned; and early in 1339 y
oun
g Nicephorus himself returned in state to Epirus, where he was installed in the coastal stronghold of Thomocastrum.

But the revolt was short-lived. Outside Arta, Ioannina and one or two other towns it failed to spark. The Emperor himself was back in 1340, as usual with John Cantacuzenus at his side; Arta was successfully besieged; and well before the end of the year a general amnesty had been announced and Synadenus restored to liberty. The Grand Domestic then rode off to Thomocastrum where, despite the presence of the Angevin fleet off the coast, Nicephorus was easily persuaded to abandon his claims and return to Thessalonica. There, in a somewhat vague gesture of compensadon, he was granted the tide of
panhypersebastos
and promised the hand of Cantacuzenus's daughter Maria in marriage. For a boy not quite thirteen, it had been an eventful year.

In the early spring of 1341, while still at Thessalonica, the Emperor celebrated the wedding of his cousin Irene to John Cantacuzenus's eldest son Matthew, thus binding the two families still more closely together. Soon afterwards he and his Grand Domestic returned together to Constantinople - into the thick of a new crisis. This time, however, it was a crisis of a very different kind: a crisis that could have arisen only in Byzantium. It concerned a small group of Orthodox hermits, mostly on Mount Athos, known as the hesychasts.

Hesychasm - the Greek word means 'holy silence' - was nothing new. From the earliest days of Christianity, the Orthodox Church had maintained a strong tradition of mystical asceticism whose adherents had spent their lives in silent and solitary meditation. Then, in the 13 30s, a monk named Gregory of Sinai had wandered through the eastern Mediterranean spreading the word that by following certain physical techniques it was possible to obtain a vision of the divine, uncreated Light that had surrounded Jesus Christ at his Transfiguration on Mt Tabor. Gregory's

1
Catharine, it will be remembered, was the daughter of Charles of Valois by his wife Catharine of Courtenay, granddaughter of the Emperor Baldwin; her husband, Philip of Taranto, was the son of Charles II of Anjou. Sec p.
27}.

teachings had found particular favour on the Holy Mountain, which quickly became the centre of the hesychast movement. Unfortunately, however, they also aroused the age-old Byzantine passion for religious disputation; particularly since the recommended techniques - which included the lowering of the chin to the chest, the fixing of the eyes on the navel, the regulation of breathing and the unceasing repetition of the Jesus Prayer
1
- were all too obviously open to criticism and even to ridicule.

The spearhead of the opposition to the hesychasts was an Orthodox monk from Calabria by the name of Barlaam. His remarkable learning and erudition had soon caught the attention of John Cantacuzenus, who had found him a teaching post at the University of Constantinople; and in 1339
h
e
h
a
d even been sent on a secret embassy to the Pope at Avignon to explain the Byzantine position on Church union. On his return, however, he had been rash enough to enter into a public debate with Nicephorus Gregoras, the greatest scholar of his day, by whom he had been thoroughly trounced; and it may partly have been in an effort to cover his shame that he now launched a violent campaign against practices which he considered to be nothing more than superstition, and heretical superstition at that. But the hesychasts too had their champion - one of their own number, the theologian Gregory Palamas, who produced a vast manifesto,
Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts.
This document, subsequently endorsed by all Gregory's colleagues on the Mountain, constituted a formidable piece of evidence and was largely responsible - with Cantacuzenus himself, whose own sympathies were strongly pro-hesychast - for persuading the Emperor to call a council of the Church and so to settle the matter.

That council was held in St Sophia on 10 June 1341, under the presidency of the Emperor himself. It was over in a single day, and resulted in an overwhelming victory for the hesychasts. Barlaam and all his works were condemned. Gregory Palamas and his friends behaved with commendable generosity, embracing him and complimenting him on the presentation of his case. He himself however, having first admitted his errors, then took the decision in extremely bad part, loudly complaining that the inquiry had been rigged against him before returning, chastened and discredited, to Calabria. There, according to Cantacuzenus, in his deep disillusionment he renounced Orthodoxy altogether and adopted the Church of Rome, ending a somewhat chequered career as Bishop of Gerace.

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'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.'

After the members of the council had returned to their homes, the Emperor complained of exhaustion and retired to rest at the monastery of the Hodegon
1
- where, on the following day, he was stricken with a violent fever. For the next four days it grew steadily worse, and on 15 June 1341 he died. He had ruled wisely and well — better far than the grandfather who had done his utmost to keep him from the throne. For all the waywardness of his early youth, he had matured into an energetic, hardworking and - except when the pleasures of the chase got the better of him - conscientious Emperor. His legal reforms and the measures he took against corruption earned him the gratitude of his subjects, not only for introducing them in the first place but for the determination with which he carried them out. Always more of a soldier and man of action than a diplomat or statesman, he was fortunate enough to have John Cantacuzenus at his right hand throughout his reign, and intelligent enough to take his advice.

His tragedy, and that of his successors, was to have come to the throne at a time when his Empire was already doomed: his gains in the Balkans - which were due not so much to Byzantine military prowess as to the internal disintegration of the states concerned - were to prove transitory, and were in any case insignificant compared with the effective loss of Anatolia, which had brought the Ottoman Turks to within sight of Constantinople. This decline was no fault of his, and he had been powerless to prevent it. None the less, he had achieved more than most people would have thought possible; and the partnership (for such it was) of himself and his Grand Domestic did much to raise the spirits of a sad and demoralized people - and to prepare them for the still greater tribulations that lay ahead.

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The monastery stood just to the cast of St Sophia, down by the sea walls.

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8

Civil War

[1
341-7]

There is nothing more conducive to the destruction of a nation, whether it be republic or monarchy, than the lack of men of wisdom or intellect. When a republic has many citizens, or a monarchy many ministers, of high quality it quickly recovers from those losses that are brought about by misfortune. When such men are lacking, it falls into the very depths of disgrace. That is why I deplore the present state of the Empire which, having produced so many excellent men in the past, has now been reduced to such a level of sterility that today's governors possess nothing to elevate them above those whom they govern.

John Cantacuzenus, to ambassadors from the Empress Anne

Even before the body of Andronicus III Palaeologus had been laid in its grave, it was plain that he had made one disastrous mistake: he had given no clear instructions regarding his successor. There could be no doubt that John, the elder of his two sons, who had celebrated his ninth birthday three days after his father's death, was the heir-presumptive; but the Byzantine monarchy was not in theory hereditary — even though it usually proved to be so in practice - and his father had, surprisingly enough, taken no steps to proclaim or crown him co-Emperor. The Grand Domestic John Cantacuzenus cherished no imperial ambitions; he had been invited more than once by Andronicus to share the throne, but had always
refused. His loyalty to the littl
e prince and to his mother, the Empress Anne of Savoy, was unquestioned. On the other hand he had effectively directed the affairs of the Empire for thirteen years, and in the circumstances it never struck him that he would not continue to do so. Almost without thinking he moved into the imperial palace, devoting his energies to the maintenance of law and order and the ensuring of a smooth transfer of power.

The task, however, proved harder than he had expected. His closeness

to the late Emperor had aroused bitter jealousies. During Andronicus's life these had remained largely hidden; now they emerged for the world to see. Perhaps the most resentful of all was the Empress Anne herself, conscious as she was that her husband had always preferred the company of his Grand Domestic to her own. Then there was the Patriarch, John Calecas. Having begun his career most unpromisingly as a married priest,
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he owed his promotion entirely to Cantacuzenus who, having first arranged his pro forma election as Metropolitan of Thessalonica, had then prepared his way to the Patriarchal throne. But in John Calecas ambition outweighed gratitude. Had not Andronicus, he demanded, twice already appointed him Regent, before leaving Constantinople on campaign? And did not this clearly indicate that he should be Regent on this occasion also?

The Grand Domestic could easily have pointed out that since he had himself always accompanied the Emperor on his campaigns he would not in the past have been eligible for the regency, and that the present situation was thus in no sense a parallel; he was far more concerned, however, by the behaviour of another of his former proteges, Alexius Apocaucus. An upstart adventurer of obscure origin, making no pretence to noble birth or gentle breeding, Apocaucus had been - with Cantacuzenus himself, Theodore Synadenus and Syrgiannes Palaeologus - one of the leading supporters of Andronicus III in his struggle with his grandfather. Since then he had attached himself to the Grand Domestic, who had helped and befriended him and thanks to whom he had acquired considerable power and immense wealth. Indeed it was Cantacuzenus who, only a short while before, had obtained for him his present position - the equivalent to High Admiral — which carried with it the command of a newly-built fleet guarding the Hellespont against Turkish marauders. On the death of Andronicus his first thought had been to profit by this association, and he had persistently urged his patron to accept the crown - which, as he rightly pointed out, was his for the asking. He, Apocaucus, might then have enjoyed the same position in relation to the new Emperor as the latter had to the old.

John Cantacuzenus, however, was adamant. His duty was to the reigning house of Palaeologus which, after eighty years and three Emperors - four if the unfortunate Michael IX is included - he believed to have established its legitimacy. In his eyes, to accept the throne would

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In the Orthodox Church married priests are normally ineligible for promotion, candidates for bishoprics and all other high offices being chosen from among celibate monks.

be nothing less than an act of usurpation, and he refused to consider it. And so Apocaucus turned against his old friend and began working for his downfall, while Empress, Patriarch and Grand Domestic together evolved a somewhat uneasy
modus vivendi
for the conduct of state affairs.

How long this would have lasted is open to question; after only a month, however, the third member of the triumvirate was called once again to the defence of the Empire. The death of a
basileus
was nearly always seen by neighbouring states as an invitation to make trouble, while an interregnum was more promising still; and before long Byzantium's three main enemies were all back on the offensive - the Serbs advancing on Thessalonica, the Bulgars massing on the northern frontier and the Turks plundering the coast of Thrace. To meet this triple threat John Cantacuzenus was obliged to recruit troops at his own expense, and in mid-July he left Constantinople. He met with quite astonishing success: by the time he returned to the capital in September, order had been restored and treaties signed with Stephen Dushan, John Alexander and the Emir Orhan. As bonus, a delegation had arrived from the Morea offering the surrender to the Empire of the Principality of Achaia, where the local barons had been deeply incensed by the decision of Catharine of Valois to turn over the government to the Florentine banking house of Acciajuoli.

To John Cantacuzenus, this last development was the most welcome of all. With Achaia back in imperial hands, the Catalans in southern Greece would almost certainly be obliged to come to terms and the Empire's position in the Balkan peninsula would be immeasurably strengthened. And yet, as things turned out, it would have been better for him had the offer never been made; for the ensuing negotiations obliged him on 23 September to return with his army to Thrace, and during this second enforced absence from the capital his enemies struck. Led by Alexius Apocaucus, a group of the highest personages in the Empire - they included the Empress Anne (who had by now been persuaded that John had been plotting against her and her son), the Patriarch, and even Cantacuzenus's own father-in-law, the Bulgar Andronicus Asen - declared the Grand Domestic to be a public enemy. A mob was quickly collected - never a serious difficulty in Constantinople - which marched on his palace, pillaged it and burnt it to the ground. His country estates were destroyed or confiscated. The Patriarch was at last able to proclaim himself Regent, while Apocaucus, promoted to the rank of
megas dux,
was appointed Prefect of the City. Meanwhile John's mother and other members of his family were placed under house arrest; all those of his known associates who had not already escaped were hunted down; and an order, signed personally by the Empress, was sent to him at his camp at Didymotichum, some twenty-five miles to the south of Adrianople, relieving him of his command and disbanding the army.