Manuel II (1391-1425) and the Turks.

        In one of his essays, Manuel II wrote: “When I had passed my childhood and not yet reached the age of man, I was encompassed by a life full of tribulation and trouble; but according to many indications, it might have been foreseen that our future would cause us to look at the past as a time of clear tranquility.”[144] Manuel’s presentiments did not deceive him.

        Byzantium, or rather, Constantinople, was in a desperate and humiliating position in the last years of the reign of John V. At the moment of John’s death, Manuel was at the court of Sultan Bayazid. When tidings of his father’s death reached him, he succeeded in fleeing from the sultan and arrived in Constantinople, where he was crowned emperor. According to Ducas, Bayazid, feared the popularity of Manuel and regretted not having murdered him during his stay at his court. Bayazid’s envoy sent to Constantinople to Manuel, as Ducas related, gave the new Emperor these words from the sultan: “If you wish to execute my orders, close the gates of the city and reign within it; but all that lies outside belongs to me.”[145] Thereafter Constantinople was practically in a state of siege. The only relief for the capital lay in the unsatisfactory condition of the Turkish fleet; for that reason the Turks, though possessing both sides of the Dardanelles, were unable for the time being to cut off Byzantium from intercourse with the outside world through this strait. Especially terrible to the Christian East was the moment when Bayazid, by craftiness, gathered together in one place the representatives of the families of the Palaeologi with Manuel at their head, and the Slavonic princes; he seems to have intended to do away with them at once, “in order that,” to quote the Sultan’s words given in a writing of Manuel, “after the land had been cleared of thorns, by which he meant us [that is to say, the Christians], his sons might dance in the Christian land without fearing to scratch their feet.”[146] The representatives of the ruling families were spared, but the severe wrath of the sultan struck many nobles of their retinue.

        In 1392 Bayazid organized a maritime expedition in the Black Sea ostensibly against Sinope. But the sultan put the Emperor Manuel at the head of the Turkish fleet. Therefore Venice thought that this expedition was directed not against Sinope, but against the Venetian colonies, south of the Dardanelles, in the Archipelago — not a Turkish expedition, but a disguised Greek expedition, supported by Turkish troops. As a recent historian said, the Oriental problem of the end of the fourteenth century might have been solved by the formation of a Turko-Greek Empire.[147] This interesting episode, evidence of which is in the archives of Venice, had no important results. Shortly after, the friendly relations between Byzantium and Bayazid came to an open break, and Manuel again turned to the West which for some time had been neglected.

        Hard pressed, Manuel opened friendly negotiations with Venice. Bayazid tried to cut off Constantinople from its food supply. Such acute need was felt in the capital that, as a Byzantine chronicler said, the people pulled down their houses in order to get wood for baking bread.[148] At the request of Byzantine envoys, Venice sent some corn to Constantinople.[149]

The crusade of Sigismund of Hungary and the Battle of Nicopolis. — Meanwhile, the successes of the Turks in the Balkan peninsula again raised the question of immediate danger to western Europe. The subjugation of Bulgaria and the nearly complete conquest of Serbia had led the Turks to the borders of the Kingdom of Hungary. The king of Hungary, Sigismund, feeling complete impotence against the threatening Turkish danger with only his own forces, appealed to the European rulers for help. France answered the appeal with the greatest enthusiasm. In obedience to the voice of his people, the king of France sent a small body of troops, the duke of Burgundy at their head. Poland, England, Germany, and some smaller states also sent troops. Venice, joined the campaign. Just before Sigismund’s crusade started, Manuel seems to have formed a league with the Genoese of the Aegean islands, namely Lesbos and Chios, and with the Knights of Rhodes, in other words, with the Christian outposts in the Aegean Sea.[150] As for Manuel’s relation to Sigismund’s crusade, perhaps he pledged himself to share in the expenses of the campaign.

        The crusading enterprise ended in complete failure. In 1396, the crusaders were crushed by the Turks in the battle of Nicopolis (on the right shore of the lower Danube) and compelled to return to their homes. Sigismund, who had barely escaped capture, sailed in a small vessel by way of the mouth of the Danube and the Black Sea to Constantinople, whence, by a roundabout way through the Archipelago and the Adriatic Sea, he returned to Hungary.[151] A participator in the battle of Nicopolis, the Bavarian soldier Schiltberger, who had been taken prisoner by the Turks, and spent some time at Gallipoli, described as an eyewitness Sigismund’s passage through the Dardanelles which the Turks could not prevent. According to his statement, the Turks put all their Christian captives in line along the shore of the straits and mockingly shouted to Sigismund to leave his vessel and free his people.[152]

        After the defeat of the western crusaders at Nicopolis, the victorious Bayazid, planning to strike a final blow to Constantinople, decided to ruin the few regions that still belonged, though almost nominally, to the Empire, from which the besieged capital could get some help. He devastated Thessaly, which submitted to him, and, according to Turkish sources, even seized Athens for a short time;[153] his best generals inflicted terrible destruction on Morea, where Manuel’s brother was ruling under the title of Despot.

        Meanwhile, popular dissatisfaction was growing in the capital; the tired and exhausted populace were murmuring, accusing Manuel of their misery, and beginning to turn their eyes to his nephew John, who had in 1390 deposed for some months Manuel’s old father, John V.

The expedition of Marshal Boucicaut. — Realizing that with his own forces he would not be able to overcome the Turks, Manuel decided to appeal for help to the most powerful rulers of western Europe and to the Russian great prince Vasili I Dmitrievich. The pope, Venice, France, England, and possibly Aragon replied favorably to Manuel’s appeal. His request seemed especially flattering to the king of France, because, declared a contemporary western chronicler, “it was the first time that the ancient emperors of the whole world had appealed for help to such a remote country.”[154] Manuel’s appeal to western Europe gained him a certain, but an insufficient, amount of money, and the hope of getting from France aid in men, Manuel’s request for help from the Great Prince of Moscow, supported by a request to the same purpose from the patriarch of Constantinople, was favorably received in Moscow. There seems to have been no question at the court of Moscow of sending troops to Constantinople; it was only a question of granting “alms to those who are in such need and misery, besieged by the Turks.” Money was sent to Constantinople, where it was accepted with great gratitude. But money contributions could not help Manuel substantially.

        The king of France, Charles VI, fulfilled his promise and sent in support of Constantinople 1200 men-at-arms, at whose head he placed Marshal Boucicaut. Boucicaut was one of the most interesting men of France at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. A man of extraordinary valor and determination, he had spent all his life in long journeys and dangerous adventures. As a young man, he had set out to the East, to Constantinople, traveled all over Palestine, reached Sinai, and for several months had been captive in Egypt. On his return to France, hearing of the appeal of the king of Hungary, Sigismund, Boucicaut had hastened to him, fought with astounding valor in the fatal battle of Nicopolis, and had fallen prisoner to Bayazid. Escaping death almost by a miracle, and ransomed, Boucicaut returned to France in order, in the ensuing year, with all readiness and energy, to take the head of the body of troops sent by Charles VI to the East.

        Members of the most eminent families of the French chivalry were included among the men-at-arms of Boucicaut. He set out by sea. Notified of the approach of his vessels to the Dardanelles, Bayazid attempted to prevent the Marshal from passing through the straits. But Boucicaut, after many dangers and with much effort, succeeded in breaking through the Dardanelles, and arriving in Constantinople, where his fleet was received with the greatest joy. Boucicaut and Manuel made many devastating raids along the Asiatic coast of the Marmora Sea and the Bosphorus, and even penetrated into the Black Sea. But these successes did not change the situation; they could not free Constantinople from her approaching fall. Seeing the critical position of Manuel and his capital, as regards both finances and provisions, Boucicaut determined to return to France, but only after he had persuaded the Emperor to go with him to the West in order to make a stronger impression there and induce the western European rulers to take more decisive steps. Such modest expeditions as that of Boucicaut evidently could not help the desperate situation of Byzantium.

The journey of Manuel II in Western Europe. — When Manuel’s journey to the West was decided, his nephew John consented to take the reins of government during the Emperor’s absence. Late in the year 1399, accompanied by a retinue of clerical and lay representatives, Manuel and Boucicaut left the capital for Venice.[156]

        The Republic of St. Mark was in a difficult position when asked to lend Byzantium a helping hand. Her important commercial interests in the East caused Venice to regard the Turks, especially after their brilliant victory at Nicopolis, not only from the point of view of a Christian state, but also from that of a trading state. Venice had even made some treaties with Bayazid. Then commercial rivalry with Genoa in the East, and the attitude of Venice towards the other Italian states, also kept her forces from Manuel’s aid. They were needed at home. But Venice and the other Italian cities visited by Manuel received him with honor and showed him great compassion. Whether the Emperor saw the pope or not is doubtful. When Manuel was leaving Italy, encouraged by the promises of Venice and the Duke of Milan and the papal bulls, and planning a visit to the greatest centers of western Europe, Paris and London, he still believed in the importance and effectiveness of his long journey.

        The Emperor arrived in France at a complex and interesting time, the epoch of the Hundred Years’ War between France and England. The armistice which existed at his arrival might be broken at any moment. In France there was going on a very real and active polemic struggle between the Pope of Avignon and the University of Paris, which had reduced the papal power in France and caused the recognition of the final authority of the king in ecclesiastical affairs. Finally King Charles VI himself was subject to frequent fits of insanity.

        A solemn reception and a richly adorned residence in the palace of the Louvre were prepared in Paris for Manuel. A Frenchman who was an eyewitness of the Emperor’s entrance into Paris describes his appearance; he was of average stature and solid constitution, with a long and already very white beard, had features which inspired respect and, in the opinion of the French, was worthy of being Emperor.[157]

        His stay in Paris of more than four months afforded modest results: the king and Royal Council decided to support him by a body of men-at-arms, at whose head Marshal Boucicaut was to be placed. Satisfied with that promise, the Emperor went to London, where he was also received with great honor and given many promises, but he was soon disappointed. In one of his letters from London, Manuel wrote: “The King gives us help in warriors, marksmen, money, and vessels to carry the troops where we need.”[158] But this promise was not fulfilled. After a stay of two months in London, Manuel, loaded with presents and overwhelmed with attention and honor, but without the promised military support, returned to Paris. An English historian of the fifteenth century, Adam Usk, wrote: “I thought within myself, what a grievous thing it was that this great Christian prince from the farther East, should perforce be driven by unbelievers to visit the distant islands of the West, to seek aid against them. My God! What dost thou, ancient glory of Rome? Shorn is the greatness of thine empire this day; and truly may the words of Jeremy be spoken unto thee: ‘Princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary, (Lament. 1:1).’ Who would ever believe that thou shouldst sink to such depth of misery, that, although once seated on the throne of majesty thou didst lord it over all the world, now thou hast no power to bring succour to the Christian faith?”[159]

        Manuel's second stay in Paris lasted about two years. Information on this visit is scanty. He became, apparently, a matter of course to the French, and contemporary chroniclers who note many details concerning Manuel’s first stay in Paris, say very little of his second visit. The little information on this subject comes from his letters. Those which refer to the beginning of his second stay are marked by high spirits; but these spirits gradually fell as he began to understand that he could not count upon any important support from either England or France. Of the last period of his stay in France, there are no imperial letters.

        But some interesting records exist describing the way the Emperor spent his leisure time in Paris. In the beautifully decorated castle of the Louvre, for example, where Manuel had his residence, the Emperor turned his attention, among other decorations, to a magnificent tapestry, a kind of Gobelin, with a reproduction of spring. In his leisure time, the Emperor made a fine description written in a rather jocose style of this reproduction of spring on “a royal woven curtain.” This essay of Manuel exists today.[160]

The battle of Angora and its significance to Byzantium. — Meanwhile, the fruitless stay of Manuel in Paris began to seem endless. At this time an event which had taken place in Asia Minor induced the Emperor to leave France at once and to return to Constantinople. In July, 1402, was fought the famous battle of Angora, by which Timur (Tamerlane) defeated Bayazid and thereby relieved Constantinople from immediate danger. The news of this exceedingly important event reached Paris only two and a half months after the battle. The Emperor prepared quickly for his return journey and came back to the capital via Genoa and Venice after three years and a half of absence. The Slavonic city on the Adriatic, Ragusa (Dubrovnik), hoping that the Emperor would stop there on his way home, made elaborate preparations to welcome him. But he passed by without stopping.[161] In memory of his stay in France, he presented to the abbey of St. Denis near Paris an illuminated manuscript of Dionysius the Areopagite, preserved today in the Louvre. Among the miniatures of this manuscript is the picture of the Emperor, his wife, and their three sons. Manuel’s picture is of great interest, because the Turks found and admired in his features a strong resemblance to Muhammed, the founder of Islam. Bayazid, reported the Byzantine historian Phrantzes, said of Manuel: “One who does not know that he is Emperor would say from his appearance that he is Emperor.”[162]

        The fruitlessness of Manuel’s journey to western Europe, as far as the substantial needs of the Empire were concerned, is evident; both historians and chroniclers of the time recognized the lack of result and pointed it out in their annals.[163] But this journey is of great interest examined from the point of view of the information acquired by western Europe about the Byzantine Empire in the period of its fall. This journey is an episode in the cultural intercourse between West and East at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century, in the epoch of the Italian Renaissance.

        The battle of Angora had great importance for the last days of the Byzantine Empire. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, the Mongol empire, which had fallen into pieces, was unified again under the power of Timur or Tamerlane (Timur-Lenk, which means in translation “iron-lame,” Timur the Lame). Timur had undertaken on a large scale many devastating expeditions into southern Russia, northern India, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Syria. His marches were accompanied by atrocious cruelties. Thousands of men were slain, cities ruined, fields destroyed, A Byzantine historian wrote: “When Timur’s Mongols left one city to go to another, they left it so deserted and abandoned, that in it was heard neither barking of dog, nor cackling of fowl, nor cry of child.”[164]

        Entering Asia Minor after his Syrian expedition, Timur clashed with the Ottoman Turks. Sultan Bayazid hastened from Europe to Asia Minor to meet Timur, and there, at the city of Angora (Ancyra), in 1402, was fought a bloody battle, which ended in the complete defeat of the Turks. Bayazid himself fell a prisoner to Timur; he shortly after died in captivity, Timur did not remain in Asia Minor. He undertook an expedition against China, and on his way there died. After his death, the whole huge Mongol Empire fell to pieces and lost its significance. But after their defeat at Angora, the Turks were so weakened that for a time they were unable to take decisive steps against Constantinople; thereby the existence of the dying Empire was prolonged for another fifty years.

        In spite of Manuel’s poor success, he did not give up his plans after his return from western Europe but continued to seek for the help of the West against the Turks. There are two very interesting letters addressed by Manuel to the kings of Aragon, Martin V (1395-1410) and Ferdinand I (1412-1416). In the first, which was transmitted to Martin through the agency of the famous Byzantine humanist Manuel Chrysoloras, who was at that time in Italy, Manuel informed Martin that he was sending him, at his request, some precious relics, and begged him to convey to Constantinople the money which had been collected in Spain to help the Empire.[165] Chrysoloras’ mission, however, came to nothing. Later, during a voyage to Morea, Manuel wrote another letter from Thessalonica, this time addressed to Ferdinand I. It shows that Ferdinand had promised Manuel’s son Theodore, the despot of Morea, to come there with a considerable army to aid the Christians in general and Manuel in particular. Manuel wrote to express his hope of meeting Ferdinand in Morea, but Ferdinand never came.[166]

The situation in the Peloponnesus. — In the last fifty years of the existence of the remains of the Byzantine Empire, the Peloponnesus, rather unexpectedly, attracted the attention of the central government. As the territory of the Empire was reduced to Constantinople, the adjoining portion of Thrace, one or two islands in the Archipelago, Thessalonica, and the Peloponnesus, obviously next to Constantinople the Peloponnesus was the most important part of the Greek possessions. Contemporaries discovered that it was an ancient and purely Greek country, that the inhabitants were real Hellenes and not Romans, and that nowhere else could be created a basis for continuing the struggle against the Ottomans. While northern Greece had already fallen a prey to the Turks and the rest of ancient Greece was on the point of succumbing to the Turkish yoke, in the Peloponnesus there arose a center of Greek national spirit and Hellenic patriotism, which was powerfully affected by a dream, delusive from the historical point of view, of regenerating the Empire and opposing the might of the Ottoman state.

        After the Fourth Crusade, the Peloponnesus (or Morea) passed into the power of the Latins. At the beginning of the reign of the restorer of the Byzantine Empire, Michael VIII Palaeologus, the prince of Achaia, William Villehardouin, was captured by the Greeks and gave as ransom three strongholds; Monembasia, Maina, and the recently built Mistra. Since the Greek power in the Peloponnesus was slowly but continuously increasing at the expense of the Latin possessions, the Byzantine province which had been formed there became by the middle of the fourteenth century so important that it was reorganized as a separate despotat and made the appanage of the second son of the Constantinopolitan emperor, who became a sort of viceroy of the emperor in the Peloponnesus. At the end of the fourteenth century the Peloponnesus was mercilessly devastated by the Turks. Having lost all hope of defending the country with his own forces, the Despot of Morea proposed to yield his possessions to the Knights of the Order of Hospitalers of St. John, who at that time held the island of Rhodes, and only the popular insurrection at Mistra, capital of the Despotat, which burst out at this proposal, prevented him from doing so. The weakness of the Ottoman Turks after the defeat of Angora made it possible for the Peloponnesus to recover a little and to hope for better times.[167]

        The chief city of the Despotat of Morea, Mistra, medieval Sparta, residence of the Despot, was in the fourteenth century and at the beginning of the fifteenth a political and cultural center of reviving Hellenism. Here were the tombs of the Despots of Morea. Here John Cantacuzene died at a very advanced age, and here he was buried. While the condition of the country people made a contemporary, Mazaris, afraid that he himself would become a barbarian,[168] at the court of the Despot, in his castle of Mistra, was a cultural center which was attracting educated Greeks, scholars, sophists, and courtiers. It is related that in the fourteenth century, at Sparta, there existed a school for copiers of ancient manuscripts. Gregorovius justly compared the court of Mistra with some courts of Italian princes of the Renaissance.[169] The famous Byzantine scholar, humanist, and philosopher, Gemistus Plethon, lived at the court of the Despot of Morea during the reign of Manuel II.

        In 1415, Manuel himself visited the Peloponnesus, where his second son Theodore was Despot at the time. The Emperor’s first measure to protect the peninsula against future invasions was the construction of a wall with numerous towers on the Isthmus of Corinth. The wall was erected on the site of the rampart which in the fifth century B.C. the Peloponnesians had raised on the approach of Xerxes; this was restored in the third century A.D. by the Emperor Valerian when he fortified Greece against the Goths; and finally it was constructed again by Justinian the Great when Greece was threatened by the Huns and Slavs.[170] In preparation for this same Turkish danger in the fifteenth century, the predecessor of Theodore had established numerous colonies of Albanians in some desert regions of the Peloponnesus, and Manuel II, who delivered his funeral oration,[171] praised him for this precaution.

The projected reforms of Gemistus Plethon. — In Peloponnesian affairs in that time there were two interesting contemporary writers, quite different in character. One was the Byzantine scholar and humanist, Gemistus Plethon, a philhellenist obsessed by the idea that the Peloponnesian population was of the purest and most ancient Hellenic blood and that from the Peloponnesus had come the noblest and most famous families “of the Hellenes,” who had achieved “the greatest and most celebrated deeds.”[172] The other was Mazaris, author of the Sojourn of Mazaris in Hades, “undoubtedly,” as K. Krumbacher said, perhaps not without exaggeration, “the worst of the hitherto known imitations of Lucian,”[173] a kind of libel, in which the author describes sarcastically the customs and manners of the Peloponnesus-Morea, deriving the latter name in the form of Mora (μωρα), from the Greek word moria (μωρια)[174] meaning silliness, folly. In contrast to Plethon, Mazaris distinguished seven nationalities in the population of the Peloponnesus: Greeks (in Mazaris, Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesians), Italians (i.e. the remains of the Latin conquerors), Slavs (Sthlavinians), Illyrians (i.e. Albanians), Egyptians (Gipsies), and Jews.[175] These statements of Mazaris are historical truth. Although both writers, the learned utopian Plethon as well as the satirist Mazaris, must be used with caution, both of them afford rich and interesting cultural data on the Peloponnesus of the first half of the fifteenth century.

        To the time of Manuel II should be referred two interesting “accounts” or “addresses” written by Gemistus Plethon on the urgency of political and social reform for the Peloponnesus. One of these pamphlets was addressed to the Emperor, and the other to the Despot of Morea, Theodore. The German historian, Pallmerayer, was the first, in his History of the Peninsula of Morea, to draw the attention of scholars to the importance of those schemes of the Hellenic dreamer.[176]

        Plethon had in view the regeneration of the Peloponnesus, and for this purpose he drew up a plan for a radical change in the social system and the treatment of the land problem.[177] According to Plethon, society should be divided into three classes: (1) the cultivators of the soil (ploughmen, diggers, for example, diggers for vineyards, and shepherds); (2) those who provide instruments of work (i.e. those who care for oxen, cattle, and so on);[178] and (3) those who have the care of safety and order, i.e., the army, government, and state officials; at the head of all should be an emperor — basileus. Opposed to mercenary troops, Plethon advocated the formation of an indigenous Greek army; and that the army may devote all their time and attention to performing their proper duties, Plethon divided the population into two categories: tax-payers, and those who render military service; the soldiery should not be liable to taxation. The portion of the taxable population which takes no part in administration and defense was called by Plethon the Helots. Private land ownership was abolished; “the whole land, as it seems to have been established by nature, should be the common property of the population; every one who will may plant and build a home where he would, and till the soil as much as he would and could.”[179] These were the chief points of Plethon’s report. His scheme shows the influence of Plato, whom the Byzantine humanist greatly admired. It will remain an interesting cultural document of the Byzantine renaissance of the epoch of the Palaeologi. Several scholars indicate in Plethon’s scheme some points of analogy with parts of the Social Contract of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and with the ideas of Saint-Simon.[180]

        Thus, on the eve of the final catastrophe, Plethon was proposing to Manuel II a plan of reforms for regenerated Hellas. The French Byzantinist, Ch. Diehl, wrote: “While Constantinople is weakened and falling, a Greek state tries to be born in Morea. And however vain these aspirations may seem and however sterile these wishes may appear, nevertheless this recovery of the consciousness of Hellenism and this conception of and obscure preparation for a better future is one of the most interesting and remarkable phenomena of Byzantine history.”[181]

The siege of Constantinople in 1422. Until the beginning of the third decade of the fifteenth century, the relations between Manuel and Bayazid’s successor, Muhammed I, a noble representative of the Ottoman state, were marked, in spite of some errors on the part of the Emperor, by confidence and peace. Once, with the Emperor’s knowledge, the sultan passed through a suburb of Constantinople, where he was met by Manuel. Each sovereign remained on his own galley, and conversing from the galleys in a friendly manner, crossed the straits to the Asiatic coast where the sultan pitched his tents; but the Emperor did not descend from his galley. During dinner, the monarchs sent each other their most delicate dishes from their tables.[182] But under Muhammed’s successor, Murad II, circumstances changed.

        In the last years of his life, Manuel withdrew from state affairs and entrusted them to his son, John, who had neither experience nor the poise and noble character of his father. John insisted on supporting one of the Turkish pretenders to the sultan’s throne; an attempt at revolt failed and the infuriated Murad II decided to besiege Constantinople and crush at once this long-coveted city.

        But the Ottoman forces, which had not had time enough to recover after the defeat of Angora and which were weakened by internal complications, were not yet ready to deal such a blow. In 1422, the Turks besieged Constantinople. In Byzantine literature there is a special work on this siege written by a contemporary, John Cananus, entitled, “A narrative of the Constantinopolitan wars of 6930 (= 1422), when Amurat-bey attacked the city with a great army and would have taken it if the Blessed Mother of God had not preserved it.”[183] A strong Muhammedan army equipped with various war machinery attempted to take the city by storm but it was repulsed by the heroic efforts of the population of the capital. Some complications within the Ottoman Empire compelled the Turks to give up the siege. The capital’s relief from danger was, as always, connected in popular tradition with the intercession of the Mother of God, the constant protectress of Constantinople. Meanwhile, the Turkish troops were not satisfied to attack the capital; after an unsuccessful attempt to take Thessalonica, they marched south into Greece where they destroyed the wall on the Isthmus of Corinth built by Manuel, and devastated Morea.[184] Manuel’s co-emperor John VIII spent about a year in Venice, Milan, and Hungary in search of aid. According to the peace made with the Turks, the Emperor pledged himself to continue to pay the sultan a definite tribute, and delivered to him several cities in Thrace. The territory of Constantinople was growing still more limited. After this siege, the capital dragged out a pitiful existence for about thirty years in anxious expectation of its unavoidable ruin.

        In 1425, the paralyzed Manuel passed away. With a feeling of profound mourning the mass of the population of the capital followed the hearse of the dead Emperor. Such a crowd of mourning people had never been seen at the burial of any of his predecessors.[185] A special investigator of Manuel’s activity, Berger de Xivrey, wrote: “This feeling will seem sincere to whoever will remember all the trials which this sovereign shared with his people, all his endeavors to help them, and the deep sympathy of thought and feeling he always had for them.”[186]

        The most important event of the time of Manuel was the battle of Angora, which delayed the fall of Constantinople for fifty years. But even this brief relief from the Ottoman danger was attained not by the strength of the Byzantine emperor, but by the Mongol power accidentally created in the east. The chief event upon which Manuel had relied, the rising of western Europe in a crusade, had not taken place. The siege and storm of Constantinople by the Turks in 1422 was only a prologue to the siege and storm of 1453. In estimating relations with the Turks in Manuel’s time one must not lose sight of the personal influence which the Emperor had with the Turkish sultans and which several times delayed the final doom of the perishing Empire.