Murad could not write. When the treaty with Ragusa was brought for his signature, he put his hand in the ink and made the impression of his fingers upon the paper. This is the origin of the tughra, which has ever since been the official signature of the house of Osman.[276]
VI
When Murad was settling himself in Adrianople, and laying plans for the conquest of Macedonia and Bulgaria, he was menaced by a new crusade. Despite its futile ending, or better, for that very reason, the expedition of Amadeo of Savoy in 1366 commands our attention. For it furnishes, as does the expedition of Admiral Boucicaut from Genoa in 1399, a striking illustration of how easily the growing Ottoman power might have been crushed by a resolute body of crusaders with a single aim, and of how impossible it was to secure that oneness of purpose, owing to the ingrained animosity of the East and West, of the Greek and Catholic Churches.
In 1361, when Lorenzo Celsi was elevated to the dogeship of Venice, the Senate had made overtures to John Palaeologos for an alliance against Murad.[277] This plan was frustrated by the successes of the Osmanlis in Thrace. The Venetians held back, and allowed John to suffer the humiliation of signing the treaty that made him a vassal of Murad. In the crusade that ended in the disaster of the Maritza, the Venetian participation was half-hearted, and it proved valueless. The Venetians were not even on hand to prevent Murad from crossing the Dardanelles. In fact, there is every reason to believe that they now began to look upon the Osmanlis as a valuable tool in checkmating the ambition of Louis of Hungary to inherit the shortlived empire of Stephen Dushan.[278]
When he saw that Murad had come into Thrace to stay, and that there was no hope from the Venetians, John Palaeologos turned to the Hungarians. He made a secret visit to Buda to enlist the aid of Louis, and made the usual promise that the Byzantines would return to the Roman fold.[279] On his return he passed through the principality of Sisman, who had just inherited the lower portion of Bulgaria. Sisman, either at the suggestion of Andronicus Palaeologos, who wanted to succeed his father, or in the hope of winning favour with Murad, detained the emperor in the fortress of Nicopolis on the Danube.[280]
Amadeo VI of Savoy was one of the princes who had taken the cross from Pope Urban V at Avignon on Holy Friday, 1363, for the crusade that never materialized. The receipt of a letter from Louis of Hungary, informing him of the imprisonment of his cousin (John’s mother was a princess of Savoy), and pointing out the rapid spread of Ottoman power, caused Amadeo to yield to the Pope’s continued and urgent solicitations.[281] With some fifteen hundred soldiers, he embarked for the East on fifteen galleys. After a stop at Negropont and Mitylene to get reinforcements, Amadeo entered the Hellespont, and captured Gallipoli without difficulty. The Osmanlis fled by night, abandoning the fortress.[282]
But the Savoyards made no attempt to follow up this victory, or even to keep Gallipoli. Instead of attacking the infidels, they sailed into the Black Sea, and started a vigorous campaign against the Bulgarians. Sozopolis and Burgas were captured, and several other important fortresses to the north. The bravery of the crusaders was rivalled only by their cruelty. Their bloodlust made such an impression upon the Bulgarians that they wanted nothing to do with Franks bearing the cross. When the Savoyards laid siege to Varna, Sisman gave up his prisoner to save the city.
John Palaeologos was borne back triumphantly to Constantinople. But friction soon arose. When Amadeo urged upon his kinsman the necessity of paying the price of his rescue and of the continued support of the crusaders by fulfilling his promise to return to the Roman Church, he met with stubborn refusal on the part of emperor and patriarch alike. In wild rage, Amadeo withdrew to Pera, and began to fight the Greeks by sea and land. The Constantinopolitans were so frightened that ‘they did not dare to show their head out of doors’. Pressed on all sides by Osmanli and Bulgarian, as well as by his deliverers, the wretched John saw no other way out than to promise openly to abjure his errors and swear allegiance to the Pope.
Having wrung this promise from those whom he had come to defend, Amadeo sailed away to Rome, where he reported to the Pope in full consistory ‘how at his request the emperor of Constantinople and his people desired to submit to the obedience and belief of the Holy Roman Church in hope that the Church would aid them against the infidels who were too strongly oppressing them’.
Urban and the cardinals listened without great interest to the Count of Savoy’s recital of his success in preparing the ground for a reunion of the churches. The story was getting to be an old one. John’s overture was received with suspicion. Urban had got the same promise in the spring of 1366 in a letter from Louis, which reported the interview John had sought at Buda.[283] To the envoy of Louis, who had arrived in Avignon just as Urban was starting for Rome, the Pope gave a letter commanding the King of Hungary to put off his crusade until the union of the churches was actually accomplished.[284]