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Manuel II (1391-1425) and the Turks
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Page 8
The battle of Angora and its significance to Byzantium. Meanwhile, the fruitless stay of Manuel in Paris began to seem endless. At this time an event which had taken place in Asia Minor induced the Emperor to leave France at once and to return to Constantinople. In July, 1402, was fought the famous battle of Angora, by which Timur (Tamerlane) defeated Bayazid and thereby relieved Constantinople from immediate danger. The news of this exceedingly important event reached Paris only two and a half months after the battle. The Emperor prepared quickly for his return journey and came back to the capital via Genoa and Venice after three years and a half of absence. The Slavonic city on the Adriatic, Ragusa (Dubrovnik), hoping that the Emperor would stop there on his way home, made elaborate preparations to welcome him. But he passed by without stopping. In memory of his stay in France, he presented to the abbey of St. Denis near Paris an illuminated manuscript of Dionysius the Areopagite, preserved today in the Louvre. Among the miniatures of this manuscript is the picture of the Emperor, his wife, and their three sons. Manuel's picture is of great interest, because the Turks found and admired in his features a strong resemblance to Muhammed, the founder of Islam. Bayazid, reported the Byzantine historian Phrantzes, said of Manuel: One who does not know that he is Emperor would say from his appearance that he is Emperor.
The fruitlessness of Manuel's journey to western Europe, as far as the substantial needs of the Empire were concerned, is evident; both historians and chroniclers of the time recognized the lack of result and pointed it out in their annals. But this journey is of great interest examined from the point of view of the information acquired by western Europe about the Byzantine Empire in the period of its fall. This journey is an episode in the cultural intercourse between West and East at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century, in the epoch of the Italian Renaissance.
The battle of Angora had great importance for the last days of the Byzantine Empire. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, the Mongol empire, which had fallen into pieces, was unified again under the power of Timur or Tamerlane (Timur-Lenk, which means in translation iron-lame, Timur the Lame). Timur had undertaken on a large scale many devastating expeditions into southern Russia, northern India, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Syria. His marches were accompanied by atrocious cruelties. Thousands of men were slain, cities ruined, fields destroyed, A Byzantine historian wrote: When Timur's Mongols left one city to go to another, they left it so deserted and abandoned, that in it was heard neither barking of dog, nor cackling of fowl, nor cry of child.
A History of the Byzantine Empire - Table of Contents
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/manuel-ii.asp?pg=8
