One of the difficulties of the student of political and social history of the thirteenth and two following centuries is that of being unable to get glimpses of personal characteristics or domestic life. The men who figure in contemporary writings are too often little better than dummies who move and turn, but do not suggest vitality. An historical novel of the period written upon the lines of Scott or Dumas, of Kingsley or Charles Reade, or better still, anything corresponding to Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales,’ would be of priceless value in giving indications not merely of what was the environment of a Constantinopolitan but of the characteristics of an individual of the period. The writers on whom we have to depend are mostly Churchmen, who describe the persons of whom they write as if they felt bound to make them correspond with one of half a dozen approved models.
The absence of better indications may be accounted for. The subjects of the empire during the century and a half preceding 1453 lived in the midst of alarms. Its boundaries had been constantly changing and continually narrowing. Disaster followed disaster; usurpations, dynastic struggles, inroads of Genoese and Venetians; struggles with them and between them; ever encroaching Turks, battles, triumphs, defeats, hopes of final success, but territory still decreasing; hope of aid from the West or from Tamerlane; illusions all: finally the last siege and extinction. The writers in the midst of such times thought they had more important matter to deal with than the depiction of scenes of domestic character or delineations of prominent persons.
CHAPTER IX
ACCESSION OF CONSTANTINE DRAGASES; PATRIARCH GREGORY DEPOSED; RENEWED ATTEMPT TO OBTAIN AID FROM THE WEST; EMPEROR MEETS WITH LITTLE SUCCESS; ARRIVAL OF CARDINAL ISIDORE; RECONCILIATION SERVICE DECEMBER 12, 1452, IN HAGIA SOPHIA; DISSENSIONS REGARDING IT.
The emperor John left no son, and the succession had therefore to pass to one of his three brothers, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas. Constantine, the eldest, was at the time of the emperor’s death at Sparta, but Demetrius claimed that as his elder brother was not born in the purple, while he had inherited that honour, the crown ought to be placed on his head. The dowager empress, the widow of Manuel, the clergy, senate, the troops and people generally, declared in favour of Constantine.[185]
While the matter was still under debate, Thomas, who had learned at Gallipoli the death of his brother, arrived in the capital and immediately supported the nomination of Constantine. An embassy was sent to the Morea and on January 6, 1449, placed the crown on the head of Constantine Dragases, the last Christian emperor of Constantinople.[186]
On March 12, he arrived in the capital and his brother Thomas, who had been appointed despot, went after some days to the Morea. There he was shortly afterwards joined by Demetrius who had withdrawn his opposition and accepted the situation.
The party opposed to the Union had now become sufficiently strong to call together a Synod, which met in the autumn of 1450. The three patriarchs of the East were present, and under their guidance the assembly declared the patriarch Gregory to be an enemy of the Orthodox Church and deposed him. In his stead they appointed Athanasius.