The nuncios found, or professed to find, the proposal of the emperor reasonable, and returned to Rome. The pope expressed his satisfaction, but declared that he could not suggest a place of meeting till he had communicated with the princes of the West. After some time he sent word that though he regarded the Union of the Churches as the most important question with which Christendom had to deal, he was obliged to defer fixing the time and the place for the Council until he had secured peace among the Italian princes. The death of Clement, in 1352, delayed the execution of this project.
Character of Cantacuzenus.
It is difficult to form an impartial judgment of the characters of Cantacuzenus and John, whose reigns cover the period during which, if it had been possible, the empire might have recovered its strength. The history of the reign written by the former, as well as the narrative of Ducas, places the conduct of the elder emperor in a favourable light. The charge most commonly brought against him, of having introduced the Turks into Europe, can only be accepted with considerable reserve. As we have already seen, he was not the first to introduce them. The Spaniards must bear the responsibility of this charge. Once it became necessary to fight, whether against Serbians, Bulgarians, or internal enemies, an emperor can hardly be blamed for obtaining auxiliaries. The mercenaries most easily obtainable were the Turks. All contending parties in the Balkan peninsula were ready to accept their aid. The excuses of Cantacuzenus are evidence which proves that he realised the danger of their obtaining a permanent foothold in Europe. A more valid justification is furnished by the fact that, with the object of preventing them crossing into Thrace without his permission, he endeavoured to close the two passages which they had been accustomed before his time to employ—namely, from Lampsacus and between Sestos and Abydos.
When his own conduct during the time of their joint emperorship is compared with that of John it is seen that in love of country, in devotion to its interests, as well as in sagacity, he is greatly his superior. The difficulties that arose between them were in fact largely due to the jealousy, weakness, debauchery, and incompetence of John. When a youth he was simply a drunken reprobate. That a young emperor, who believed that he had been supplanted by another in his right to the sole occupancy of the throne, should resent references to his profligacy and his irregular life was natural enough, but Cantacuzenus cannot justly be blamed because he refused to surrender the government into his hands.
Our estimate of the character of Cantacuzenus has to be based mainly on his own writings. But through them we know the man better perhaps than any other emperor. When dealing with events illustrating his own motives and conduct, he is an unconscious hypocrite. He gives us his version of all the principal events of his reign. His despatches and his speeches are reported at weary length, but they usually leave the impression of having been revised and modified by the light of his subsequent experience. His own narrative is confirmed to a considerable extent by that of Ducas, who, however, is open to suspicion as a partisan. His grandfather had belonged to the party of Cantacuzenus and had escaped into Asia Minor to avoid the vengeance of Apocaukus. Ducas describes Cantacuzenus as distinguished by the soundness of his judgment and by his great courage.[71]
Cantacuzenus is great in accounting for his failures. Judged by his own narrative, which may be described as an apologia pro vita sua, he appears a respectable ecclesiastically minded man of mediocre talent, seriously desirous of the good of the people whom he governed, but anxious, above all, not only to become emperor but to found an imperial family.
The vanity of Cantacuzenus leads him seldom to lose an occasion of reporting what friends or enemies say in his favour. When he sent the embassy to Pope Clement the Sixth to explain why he had employed Turks and to propose to render aid to the sovereigns of the West in the expedition which Clement contemplated, he remarks that the pontiff spoke in the highest terms of his moderation and kindness in not having treated his ungrateful enemies with more severity.[72] In his many negotiations with Rome he never fails to report expressions complimentary to his own sagacity, character, and conduct. In like manner he records the flattering expressions used regarding him by the Ottoman sultan, expressions which then, as now, are nearly destitute of all meaning, as if they were a serious representation of the sentiments of the writer. He cannot resist pointing out that Nicephorus Gregoras, whose History he declares to be false and malicious, had at one time awarded him unbounded praise.[73]
When the chief of the Genoese forces which had captured Heraclia and were flushed with victory proposed to attack the capital, Cantacuzenus makes him abandon his design because he knew that it was defended by the emperor, who was the equal in wisdom and experience of any commander of the age.[74] It is in the same spirit of self-laudation that he declares that in the struggle with the Serbians before Salonica he had exterminated some by the simple terror of his name and others by his army.[75]
Reign of John after retirement of Cantacuzenus (1355 to 1391).
John occupied the throne after the retirement of Cantacuzenus for upwards of thirty-five years. A youth largely spent in selfish pleasures gave little promise that the young man of twenty-three would be able to cope with the difficulties by which the empire was beset. With the aid of his mother, Anne of Savoy, and of partisans whose only hope was in the patronage of the new ruler, he had succeeded in ridding himself of his elderly, respectable, and patriotic colleague. He had now to face the difficulties with which the empire was beset. Of these the dynastic struggle which still continued with Matthew, the son of Cantacuzenus, was soon disposed of. An agreement had been arrived at before the withdrawal of his father by which Matthew should retain the title of emperor and remain in possession of certain districts of the Rhodope mountains, and of the island of Lemnos. A few months later the island was exchanged for a lordship in the Morea. Shortly afterwards Matthew was made prisoner by the Serbians, delivered to John, and, after he had been kept for a while prisoner in Tenedos, abdicated and retired in 1358 to the Morea.