A Fourteenth Century Knight
The Greek Empire enjoyed an uninterrupted peace during the reign of Muhammed I, which lasted until the year 1421; and Manuel devoted his attention during this period to restoring some order in the public administration, and to re-establishing the sway of the central authority in the distant provinces of the empire. After completing his reforms in the civil, financial, military, and ecclesiastical departments of Constantinople, he found it necessary to visit the provinces in person, in order to reduce the local power of the Greek archons within reasonable bounds. He quitted Constantinople in the month of July, 1413, and commenced his operations by reducing the island of Thasos, the citadel of which resisted his little army for two months. The emperor then visited Thessalonica, where it appears that he remained more than a year. His nephew Joannes, who was governor of the city, assumed the monastic habit; but whether he was compelled by the emperor to adopt this step, in order to allow the new reforms to be carried into execution, is uncertain. The despot Andronicus, the emperor’s second son, was appointed governor of Thessalonica. After his father’s death he sold the city to the Venetians for the sum of fifty thousand sequins.
In March, 1415, Manuel visited the Peloponnesus. The Roman Empire of the East had shrunk to such pitiful dimensions that the Byzantine province, which comprised only about three-quarters of that peninsula, was now its most extensive province. The first care of the emperor was to strengthen the means of defending this territory by fortifying the Isthmus of Corinth. He then directed his attention to reforming the abuses which the feudal tyranny of the Franks and the unprincipled fiscal extortions of the Greek archons had introduced into the administration. These abuses were rapidly exterminating the Greek agricultural population, and making way for the immigration of a ruder class of Albanian labourers.
When we compare the reforms of Manuel with the legislation of Orkhan, we are astonished at the great intellectual superiority displayed by the Ottomans at this period. The Greek emperor adopted only a few temporary devices to arrest the progress of social putrefaction in a diseased society. His own talents and the energies of his people were incompetent to make any bold efforts for extirpating the sources of the evil, and for infusing a spirit of honesty and patriotism into Greek society. Yet the fact that Greek society as well as the imperial government was rapidly decaying was generally acknowledged. The despot Theodore, Manuel’s brother, who died about the year 1407, had felt the task of undertaking the regeneration of Greece so hopeless, and had found the difficulty of governing the Peloponnesians so great, that he attempted to sell his province to the knights of Rhodes, after he had introduced numerous colonies of Albanians to fill up the void caused by the decrease of the native population.
From a satirist of the time, we learn that while the emperor Manuel was occupied in diminishing the power and checking the abuses of the archons of the Peloponnesus and of the Constantinopolitan officials, many of the courtiers in his household made a traffic of creating new corruptions in the administration by selling imperial decrees and golden bulls. The character of the native Greeks he declares to be equally bad. He says: “They are formed of three parts: their tongue speaks one thing, their mind meditates another, and their actions accord with neither.” There can be no good administration among an utterly demoralised people. When the emperor returned to Constantinople, he carried with him some of the most turbulent and intriguing of the Peloponnesian chiefs, who had, previous to his arrival, contrived to appropriate the greater part of the taxes levied on the people to their own use. Indeed the most important result of Manuel’s visit was the introduction of such a degree of order in the provincial administration, that a fixed sum could be regularly remitted to the imperial treasury at Constantinople. His son Theodore remained as his viceroy at Misithra.
[1421-1431 A.D.]
The death of Sultan Muhammed I in 1421 involved the empire in a contest with his son, Murad II. The self-conceit of the Greeks persuaded them that they could guide the progress of the Ottomans by their superiority in diplomacy. No experience could teach them that rhetoric and scholastic learning are feeble arms against military discipline and national courage. A pretender to the Ottoman throne resided at Constantinople, named Mustapha, who asserted that he was a son of Bajazet. He was now acknowledged as lawful sultan, and Manuel concluded with him a treaty, by which Mustapha promised to restore Gallipoli, the Chalcidice of Macedonia, and the maritime cities on the Black Sea, while the emperor engaged to furnish money and military stores. He was abandoned by his followers, taken prisoner by Murad II, and hanged, in order to convince the world that he was an impostor.
Murad resolved to punish Manuel for his intrigues. The emperor was now weakened by age, and the direction of public affairs was in a great measure entrusted to his son Joannes, who endeavoured to appease the sultan with abject apologies. Murad gave the imperial ambassadors no answer until his preparations were completed. He then marched forward and formed the siege of Constantinople, establishing his own headquarters at the church of the Fountain, and commencing his lines of circumvallation in the month of June, 1422. His lines extended from the Golden Gate to the Wooden Gate; two movable towers were built to assist the storming of the wall, and cannon were employed by the Ottomans for the first time. This early artillery, however, was so ill-constructed and ill-served that it produced little effect. A thousand of the bravest janizaries fell before the walls; while the Greeks, fighting under cover of their battlements, lost only 130 killed and wounded. Murad II did not renew his attack on Constantinople, and the last act of Manuel’s reign was to sign a treaty of peace, by which Murad left the empire in possession of a few cities in Thrace, of Thessalonica, and a few forts near the mouths of the Strymon, Mount Athos, Zeitounion, and some places in Thessaly. Manuel also engaged to pay the sultan an annual tribute of three hundred thousand aspers.
Manuel adopted the monastic habit two years before his death, and took the name of Matthew, but he continued to give his advice on public affairs. He died in July, 1425, at the age of seventy-seven, after a reign of thirty-four years.