Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

The external policy of Michael VIII

Page 6

Thus, around Charles of Anjou gradually assembled all those who were dissatisfied with and offended by the Byzantine Emperor; the Serbs and Bulgars, Baldwin II and John IV Lascaris, even cautious Venice, became tools in the hands of the ambitious and skillful king. The marriage between Baldwin's son and Charles' daughter gave Baldwin the hope, with the aid of his new relative, of restoring the Latin Empire. Such was the general international situation in Italy and the Balkan peninsula, which must have roused extreme fear in Michael VIII for Constantinople and his throne.

But the skillful politician Charles faced in Michael VIII a politician no less skillful, who concentrated his chief attention upon the papal curia, to which he promised the union of the churches. Pope Gregory X willingly inclined to the desire of the Emperor, not only from fear of the increasing power of Charles, which could not but alarm him, but because of his sincere desire to establish ecclesiastical peace and unity and to further the liberation of Jerusalem. In his peaceful policy of coming to an understanding with the eastern church Gregory X undoubtedly met many obstacles from Charles, who was planning the forcible subjugation of the Emperor. But the pope succeeded in persuading Charles to postpone for a year the expedition against Byzantium already decided on, and within that time he accomplished the union with the eastern church.

The envoys of Michael Palaeologus to the council, which was to be held in the French city of Lyons, passed safely through the dominions of Charles, who provided them with special safe conducts and provisions. At Lyons in 1274, the union was achieved between the pope and the representatives of Michael VIII. According to newly studied Vatican documents, this union led at once to negotiations between Gregory X and Michael VIII concerning a new anti-Turkish league. A cardinal of high rank went to Constantinople in the depth of winter. The date and place for a personal conference of the pope and the Emperor were immediately fixed: the two venerable personages were to meet on Easter Monday, 1276, at Brindisi or at Valona. But at the very beginning of that year, on January 6, the pope suddenly died, and the project came to nothing. Michael, however, felt that the union gave him the right to hope for papal support in his plans to reconquer the regions of the Balkan peninsula, which had formerly been under the power of the Empire. Accordingly he opened hostilities against the troops of Charles and his allies and met with great success, because Charles was at the time diverted by some difficulties with Genoa.

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