OTHOMAN TURKS INTRODUCED INTO MOREA. 273 rule the Byzantine possessions in the Peloponnesus, until the time of his death, in 1380. His administration was only troubled by partial hostilities on the part of the Franks of Achaia, with whom he usually succeeded in maintaining a close alliance, in order that both might be able to employ their whole military force in protecting their territories against the incursions of the Catalans and the Turkish pirates. On one occasion, a joint expedition of the Greek and Frank troops invaded Boeotia, to punish the Grand Company for plundering in the Morea. This expedition took place while the duchy of Athens and Neopatras was governed by Roger Lauria, as viceroy for Frederic, duke of Randazzo. In the year 1388, Theodore Paleologos, the son of the emperor John V., arrived at Misithra, as governor of the Byzantine possessions in the Peloponnesus; and from that time, until the final conquest of the country by the Othoman Turks, it was always governed by members of the imperial family of Paleologos, bearing the title of Despot. In latter years, when the territory of the Byzantine empire became circumscribed to the vicinity of Constantinople, several despots were often quartered on the revenues of the Morea at the same time. Theodore I., however, reigned without a colleague. But the archonts having taken measures to prevent his governing with the degree of absolute power which he considered to be the inherent right of a viceroy of the emperors of the East, he brought to support his despotic authority a corps of Turkish auxiliaries under the command of Evrenos, whose name became subsequently celebrated in Othoman history as one of the ablest generals of sultan Murad I. This was the first introduction of the Othoman Turks into the Peloponnesus. But the incapacity of the Byzantine despots, and the selfishness of the Greek archonts, soon rendered them the arbiters of its fate. In the year 1391, hostilities broke out with the Franks, and S A. D. 1388. $ 1. CHAP. IX. Evrenos, who had quitted the Morea, was invited to return, for no Greek could be found fit to be intrusted with the command of the army. The Othomans displayed their usual military energy and talent, and in the first campaign they captured the celebrated fortress of Akova, or Mategrifon. About the same time, a corps of Albanian and Byzantine troops, issuing from Leondari, which had now risen up as a Greek town on the decline of the Frank city of Veligosti, defeated a body of the Franks, and took the prince who commanded them prisoner. This prince, however, redeemed himself before the end of the year, by paying a ransom.2 Incessant hostilities had now destroyed all the farmhouses of the better class, and the people were either crowded into the walled towns and fortified castles, or lodged in wretched huts concealed in the valleys, so that the destruction of these temporary habitations might be a matter of little importance. The great plains were almost depopulated; the Greeks had generally entirely abandoned the occupation of agriculture, restricting themselves to the cultivation of their olive-groves, orchards, mulberry trees, and vineyards. A new race of labourers was required to till the soil for the production of grain, and to guard the cattle that were becoming wild in the mountains: such a race was required to endure greater hardships and perpetuate its existence on coarser food, and with less clothing, than could be done by either the Greeks or the Sclavonians who previously pursued the occupation of agriculturists. This class was found among the rude 1 The Chronicon Breve, at the end of Ducas, says that Evrenos united with the prince; but the context warrants the inference that the despot is thereby meant, who had moved from Leondari before the arrival of the Othoman general. 2 This prince appears to have been Hugh, prince of Galilee, son of the empress Mary de Bourbon, widow of Robert, emperor and prince of Achaia, by her first marriage with Guy de Lusignan. Hugh was his mother's bailly in Achaia at the time of her death in 1387, and continued to possess considerable fiefs in the principality. In the year 1391, the principality of Achaia was governed by Peter of San Superano, as vicar-general, in virtue of an appointment from the titular emperor James de Baux, the lord-paramount. INVASION OF OTHOMAN TURKS. 275 peasantry of Albania, who began about this time to emigrate into the Peloponnesus as colonists and labourers, as well as in the capacity of mercenary soldiers. An immigration of about ten thousand souls is mentioned as having taken place at one time; and from year to year the Albanian population of the peninsula acquired increased importance, while the Sclavonians rapidly diminished, or became confounded in the greater numbers of the Greeks.1 In the year 1397, sultan Bayezid I. sent his generals Iakoub and Evrenos into the Peloponnesus, to punish the despot Theodore for having taken part in the confederacy of the Christian princes that was broken up by the defeat of Sigismund, king of Hungary, at the battle of Nicopolis on the Danube. On this occasion a powerful Othoman army entered the peninsula by the isthmus of Corinth, and extended its ravages as far as the walls of Modon. Argos at this time belonged to the Venetian republic, which had purchased it from Mary d'Enghien, the last heir of the fief granted by William Villehardoin to Guy de la Roche.2 Though it was defended by a Venetian garrison, the Othoman troops stormed the place, and the inhabitants were either massacred or carried away as slaves and sold in the Asiatic markets. The sultan's object in this invasion was merely to punish the despot and to employ and enrich his troops, not to take permanent possession of the country. His army therefore retired in autumn, carrying with it an immense booty and about thirty thousand slaves. The destruction of the crops and cattle, and the depopulation and 1 The last mention of the Sclavonians as an element in the population of the Peloponnesus of some political importance, is contained in an enumeration of the various races inhabiting the country, by Mazaris, a Byzantine writer of the first quarter of the fifteenth century. He enumerates Lacedemonians (Tzakones,) Italians (Franks,) Peloponnesians (Greeks,) Sclavonians, Illyrians (Albanians,) Egyptians (Gipsies,) and Jews. Boissonade, Anecdota Græca, tom. iii. p. 174. See Chapter i. § viii. p. 40. Crusius, Turcogræcia, Zyg., epist. 92. Compare Chalcocondylas, 51, Phrantzes, 62, p. 83, edit. Bonn., correcting the year. The indiction, however, is right. Chronicon Breve, Ducas, anno 1389--1394. A. D. 1397. CHAP. IX. desolate condition of the country, produced a severe famine. $ 1. The despot Theodore, alarmed at the deplorable state to which his territory was reduced, in his eagerness to procure some ready money sold the city of Misithra to the grand-master of the knights of the Hospital at Rhodes, as if the Morea had been his own private domain. This unwarranted exercise of power met with so determined an opposition from the Greek inhabitants, who refused to transfer their allegiance to a society of Latin military monks, that it was impossible to complete the transaction, and by the advice and intercession of the archbishop of Lacedæmon, the Greek archonts consented to receive the despot Theodore again as their prince, on his taking a solemn oath not to take any important step in the government of the province without convoking an assembly of the Greek aristocracy, and receiving their consent to the proposed measure. Had the Greek archonts of the Morea possessed any capacity for government, or any patriotism, they might from this time have conducted the public administration; but their mutual jealousies and family feuds soon enabled the despot to make their own selfishness and malicious passions the instruments for regaining all the authority he had lost. Theodore died in the year 1407, and was succeeded by his nephew, Theodore Paleologos II., son of his brother the emperor Manuel II.1 At the time of his death, the Byzantine possessions had increased so much in extent that they embraced fully two-thirds of the peninsula. He had annexed Corinth to the despotat in the year 1404. The Frank principality of Achaia was divided among several barons. The counts of Cephalonia, of the family of Tocco, who had risen to power by the favour of the house of Anjou, were in possession of Clarentza, and divided the sovereignty of the rich plain of Elis 1 Chalcocondylas, 114. with the family of Centurione, who held Chalandritza, the city of Arcadia, and a part of Messenia. The Pope was the possessor of Patras, which was governed by its Latin archbishop; and the Venetian republic kept garrisons in Modon, Coron, Nauplia, Argos, and Thermisi, which were their only possessions in the Peloponnesus.1 A. D. 1415. SECT. II.-THE EMPEROR MANUEL II. ATTEMPTS TO AMELIORATE In the year 1415 the emperor Manuel II. visited the Peloponnesus, in order to strengthen the position of his son Theodore II. by reorganising the province, which, in consequence of the rapid conquests of the Othoman Turks, had now become the most valuable possession of the Byzantine empire beyond the Hellespont, and began to excite an attention it had never before received from the statesmen of Constantinople. As it was the native seat of the Greek race, and the only country that offered profitable posts, these Byzantine politicians at last made the discovery that they were themselves Greeks, and not Romans. To the Peloponnesus, therefore, the imperial government turned its regards, in the hope that this most important part of ancient Greece might prove the means of restoring the Greek name to some share of its former glory. Manuel II. devoted himself to the task he had undertaken both with zeal and judgment. He regulated the amount of taxes to be paid by the inhabitants with justice, and with what he conceived to be great moderation; and he introduced so many administrative reforms that he destroyed the local domination of the archonts, 1 Thermisi is a castle of the middle ages, on the coast of Argolis, nearly opposite the town of Hydra. It is now in ruins. It was built to command the anchorage, which was often used by vessels ascending the Archipelago when met by a northerly wind. A few traces of Hellenic remains are visible in the walls, and the modern name is evidently connected with the temple of Ceres Thermesia.-Pausanias, lib. ii. chap. xxxiv. |
