The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

The founder of that power was Theodore Laskaris, in whom the succession of the Eastern Empire was held to be continued. ♦1214.♦ Ten years after the taking of Constantinople, a treaty fixed his border towards the small Latin dominion in Asia. ♦1220.
1240.♦ Six years later the Latins kept only the lands north of the gulf of Nikomêdeia; sixteen years later they held only the Asiatic coast of the Bosporos. ♦1247.♦ Seven years later Chios, Lêmnos, Samos, Kôs, and other islands were won back by the growing Greek state. ♦The Nicene Empire in Europe. 1235.♦ But, long before this, the Nicene Empire had become an European power. The Thracian Chersonêsos was first won, the work beginning at Kallipolis. ♦1242.
1246.♦ Presently the Thessalonian Emperor sank to the rank of a despot under him of Nikaia; four years later Thessalonikê was incorporated with the Nicene dominions. ♦1245-1256.♦ A series of Bulgarian campaigns carried the Imperial frontier, first to the Hebros—already the Slavonic Maritza—and then to the foot of Hæmus. ♦1254-1259.♦ A series of Epeirot campaigns won a Hadriatic seaboard, and made Durazzo for a while again a city of the Empire. ♦1259.♦ The Nicene power in these regions was confirmed by the victory of Pelagonia, won over the combined forces of Epeiros, Achaia, and Sicily. ♦1260.♦ The next year Selymbria was won from the Latins, and the Frank Empire was cut down to so much territory as could be guarded from the walls of Constantinople. ♦Recovery of Constantinople, 1261.♦ At last the recovery of Constantinople changed the Empire of Nikaia into the revived Byzantine Empire of the Palaiologoi.

That Empire still lasted a hundred and ninety years, and we must carefully distinguish between its European and its Asiatic history. The Asiatic border fell back almost as soon as the seat of rule was restored to Europe. ♦Advance of the Empire in Europe.♦ In Europe the revived Empire kept the character of an advancing power till just before the entrance of the Ottoman into Europe, in some parts till just before the fall of Constantinople. Many events helped to weaken the real power of the Empire, which did not affect its geography. ♦1302.♦ Such were the earlier Turkish inroads and the destroying visit of the Catalans. ♦Advance in Peloponnêsos.♦ The land in which advance was most steady was Peloponnêsos, where, at the time of the recovery of Constantinople, the Empire did not hold a foot of ground. ♦1262.♦ Misithra, Monembasia, and Maina were the fruits of the day of Pelagonia. For a while the Imperial frontier was stationary, but from the beginning of the fourteenth century it steadily advanced. It advanced perhaps all the more after Peloponnêsos became an Imperial dependency, or an appanage for princes of the Imperial house, rather than an immediate possession of the Empire. ♦1404.♦ Early in the fifteenth century the greater part of the peninsula, including Corinth, was again in Greek hands. ♦1430.♦ At last, twenty-three years only before the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, all Peloponnêsos, except the points held by Venice, was under the superiority of the Empire.

♦Advance in Macedonia and Epeiros.♦

In more northern parts the advance of the Empire, though chequered by more reverses, went on steadily till the growth of the Servian power in the middle of the fourteenth century. ♦1308.♦ The frontier varied towards Servia, Bulgaria, Epeiros, and the Angevin power which established itself on the Hadriatic coast. Even under Andronikos the Second the Imperial dominion was extended over the greater part of Thessaly or Great Vlachia. ♦1318-1339.♦ Later still, all Epeiros, Jôannina and Arta—once Ambrakia—were won. At the moment of the great Servian advance, the Empire held the uninterrupted seaboard from the Euxine to the Pagasaian Gulf, as well as its Hadriatic seaboard from the Ambrakian gulf northward. But the Frank principalities still cut off the main body of the Empire from its possessions in Peloponnêsos.

♦Losses of the Empire in Asia.♦

In Asia there is another tale to tell. There the frontier of the Empire steadily went back from the recovery of Constantinople. A few points gained or lost to European powers go for little. ♦1260.♦ Smyrna passed for a while to Genoa. ♦The Knights of Saint John, 1309-1315.♦ The Knights of Saint John won Rhodes, Kôs, and other islands, but they did not become a power on the mainland of Asia till the Empire had almost withdrawn from that continent. ♦Advance of the Turks.♦ The Imperial power steadily crumbled away before the advance of the Turk, first the Seljuk and then the Ottoman. The small Turkish powers into which the Sultanate of Roum had now split up began to encroach on the Greek dominion in Asia as soon as its centre was transferred to Europe. By the end of the thirteenth century, the Imperial possessions in Asia had again shrunk up to a narrow strip on the Propontis, from the Ægæan to the Euxine. Losses followed more speedily when the Turkish power passed from the Seljuk to the Ottoman. ♦1326-1338.♦ Brusa, Nikaia, Nikomêdeia, were all lost within twelve years. By the middle of the fourteenth century, the Emperors kept nothing in Asia, save a strip of land just opposite Constantinople, and the outlying cities of Philadelphia and Phôkaia, their allies rather than their subjects.

The Ottoman was now all but ready to pass into Europe, and the way was made easier for him by the rise and fall of an European power which again cut short the Empire in its western provinces. ♦The Empire falls back towards Servia and Bulgaria.
1331.♦ While the Imperial frontier was advancing in Epeiros and Thessaly, it fell back towards Servia, and advanced towards Bulgaria only to fall back again. ♦Loss of Philippopolis, 1344.♦ Philippopolis, so often lost and won, now passed away for ever. ♦Conquest. Stephen Dushan.♦ And now came the great momentary advance of Servia under Stephen Dushan, which wrested from the Empire a large part of its Thracian, Macedonian, Albanian, and Greek possessions. ♦Extent of the Empire.♦ At the middle of the fourteenth century, the Empire, all but banished from Asia, kept no unbroken European dominion out of Thrace. Its other possessions were isolated. It kept Thessalonikê and Chalkidikê, with a small strip of Macedonia as far as Berrhoia and Vodena. It kept a small Thessalian territory about Lamia or Zeitouni. There was the Peloponnesian province, fast growing into importance; there was Lesbos and a few other islands. ♦1355.♦ On Stephen’s death his dominion broke in pieces, but the Empire did not win back its lost lands. For the Ottoman was already in Europe, ready, in the space of the next hundred years, to swallow up all that was left.

♦1336.♦

As in the recovery of Romania by the Greeks of Nikaia, so in the final conquest of Romania by the Turks of Brusa, Constantinople itself was—with the exception of the Peloponnesian appanage—the last point of the Empire to fall. The Turk, like the Greek, made his way in by Kallipolis; like the Greek, he hemmed in the Imperial city for years before it fell into his hands. ♦Loss of Hadrianople, 1361.
1366.♦ In seven years from his first landing, Hadrianople had become the European capital of the Turk; the Empire was his tributary, keeping, besides its outlying possessions, only the land just round the city. The romantic expedition of Amadeo of Savoy gave back to the Empire its Euxine coast as far as Mesêmbria. ♦Loss of Philadelphia, 1374-1391.♦ Before the end of the century Philadelphia was lost in Asia, and the Imperial dominion in Europe hardly reached beyond the city itself and the Peloponnesian province. Thessalonikê and the Thessalian province were both lost for a while. ♦Effects of Timour’s invasion, 1401.♦ Bajazet was on the point of doing the work of Mahomet, when the Empire was saved for another half-century by the invasion of Timour and the consequent break-up of the Ottoman power. During the Ottoman civil wars, the outlying points of the Empire were restored and seized again more than once. ♦1424.♦ At last the boundaries of the Empire were fixed by treaty between Sultan Mahomet and the Emperor Manuel, much as they had stood sixty years before. The coast of the Propontis to Selymbria, the coast of the Euxine to Mesêmbria, Thessalonikê and Chalkidikê, the Peloponnesian province, the smaller Thessalian province, the overlordship of Lesbos, Ainos, and Thasos, was all that was left. Further losses soon followed. ♦1426.♦ Thessalonikê passed from the Empire within two years. ♦1453.♦ At last, as all the world knows, the Imperial city itself fell, and the name of the Eastern Roman Empire was blotted out of European geography. ♦1460.♦ Six years later came the conquest of Peloponnêsos, and the whole of European Greece passed into the hands of foreign masters.

♦States growing out of the Empire.♦