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CHAP. IX. acted as prime-minister. This treason of a portion of the French nobility would probably have proved the forerunner of the speedy subjection of the whole principality to the Greek empire, had the rebellion of Cantacuzenos not prevented the Byzantine administration from paying any attention to the affairs of this distant province. The Byzantine strategos at Misithra, who governed the Greek portion of the peninsula, was unable to show much activity, for he was watched with as much jealousy by the primates and archonts of the province, to prevent an increase of his administrative power, as the Frank princes and baillies at Andravida were by the barons and knights of the principality of Achaia. At last the success of the rebellion of Cantacuzenos enabled that emperor to send his son Manuel to the Peloponnesus as imperial viceroy, with the title of Despot, in the

year 1349.

The despot Manuel Cantacuzenos found the country suffering severely from the incessant forays of the Franks of Achaia, the Catalans of Attica, and the Seljouk pirates. Each district was exclusively occupied with its own separate measures of defence; each archont and landlord pursued his own private interest as his only rule of action, without any reference to the national cause. The open country was everywhere left exposed to be plundered by foreign enemies, while the walled cities were weakened by intestine factions. Manuel, however, arriving in the peninsula with a strong body of troops, succeeded in concluding a peace with the principality of Achaia; and this circumstance left at his disposal a force sufficient to repulse the attacks of the Turkish pirates, and to put an end to the civil dissensions that prevailed among the Greek archonts themselves, so that the Peloponnesus enjoyed more security under his government than it had known. for many years. The despot had, nevertheless, his own personal views to serve, for patriotism was not an active principle in any class of the Byzantine Greeks. The

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position of his family at Constantinople was by no means CHAP. IX. secure, and he resolved to take measures for maintaining his own authority as despot in the Peloponnesus, no matter what might happen elsewhere. Under the pretext that it was necessary to keep a fleet cruising off the eastern and southern coasts of the peninsula, to protect the country from the ravages of the Seljouk pirates, he imposed a tax on the Byzantine province. The collection of this tax was intrusted to a Moreot noble, named Lampoudios, whose previous intrigues had caused him to be exiled, but whose talents induced Manuel to recall him to office. The arbitrary imposition of a tax by the despot was considered an illegal act of power, and the Greeks everywhere flew to arms. Lampoudios, considering the popular cause as the one in which he was most likely to advance his own fortunes, deserted his patron and joined his insurgent countrymen. For a moment all the intestine broils and municipal quarrels, which even time rarely assuaged in the rancorous hearts of the Peloponnesian Greeks, were suddenly suspended. The mutual hatred which the archonts cherished to the hour of death, and the feuds which were regularly transmitted as a deathbed legacy to children and to heirs, as an inalienable family inheritance, were for once suspended.1 The Moreots, if we may believe the perfidious Cantacuzenos, in this record of his son's fortunes, were on this single occasion sincerely united, and made a bold attempt to surprise the despot in the fortress of Misithra; but Manuel was a soldier of some experience, trained in the arduous school of a treacherous civil war, and with a guard of three hundred chosen men-at-arms, and a body of Albanian mercenaries, who now for the first time make their appearance in the affairs of the Morea, he sallied out from the fortress, and completely defeated the Moreot

1 These strong expressions, which depict the present state of Maina, are copied from Cantacuzenos, Hist. p. 751.

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CHAP. IX. army.1 The patriotic confederacy was dissolved by the loss of this one battle. Some of the archonts submitted to the terms imposed on them by the despot, some attempted to defend themselves in the fortified towns, while others endeavoured to secure their independence by retiring into the mountains, and carrying on a desultory warfare. But the landlords, as soon as they saw their property ravaged by the Byzantine mercenaries, quickly made their peace with the despot.

The fall of the emperor Cantacuzenos induced the people of the Peloponnesus to take up arms a second time, in the hope of expelling Manuel; and they welcomed Asan, the governor deputed by the emperor John V. to supersede the despot, with every demonstration of devotion. Manuel was compelled to abandon the whole province, and shut himself up in the fortress of Monemvasia with the troops that remained faithful to his standard. His administration had been marked by great prudence, and his unusual moderation, in pardoning all those concerned in the insurrection against his plans of taxation, had produced a general feeling in his favour. When the first storm of the new outbreak was in some degree calmed, the archonts came to the conclusion that it would be more advantageous to their interests to be ruled by a governor who was viewed with little favour by the central power at Constantinople, than to be exposed to the commands of one who was sure of energetic support. The consequence of their intrigues was, that Manuel Cantacuzenos received an invitation to return to Misithra, and soon succeeded in regaining all his former power, and more, perhaps, than his former influence. He contrived, also, to obtain the recognition of his title from the feeble court at Constantinople, and he continued to

1 These Albanians were from the despotat of Acarnania, a name then given not only to the ancient Acarnania and the west of Etolia, but also to the southern part of Epirus.

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

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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.1 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 Brere, 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.