Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

Political and social conditions in the Empire

Page 4

Owing to the feudalizing processes within the Empire which had begun before the Palaeologi, the skillfully organized central state machinery gradually weakened; at times, the central departments had almost nothing to do, for the Empire was disunited and disorganized to an extreme degree. Under the Palaeologi, finances, which had been undermined at the root by the Latin regime, became absolutely exhausted. The taxes from the few devastated provinces which still remained in the hands of the Emperor were not paid; all the balances of the funds were spent; the imperial jewelry was sold; soldiers could not be fed; misery reigned everywhere. A historian of the fourteenth century, Nicephorus Gregoras, described the wedding festivities of John V:

At that time, the palace was so poor that there was in it no cup or goblet of gold or silver; some were of pewter, and all the rest of clay ... at that festival most of the imperial diadems and garb showed only the semblance of gold and jewels; (in reality) they were of leather and were but gilded, as tanners do sometimes, or of glass which reflected in different colors; only seldom, here and there, were precious stones having a genuine charm and the brilliancy of pearls, which does not mislead the eyes. To such a degree the ancient prosperity and brilliance of the Roman Empire had fallen, entirely gone out and perished, that, not without shame, I tell you this story.

The cities particularly threatened by the Turks began to be deserted by their population. After the taking of Callipolis (Callipol) by the Turks a number of inhabitants of Constantinople left for the West. In 1425 many people emigrated from Thessalonica, and some of them went to Constantinople in the hope that the capital was more secure than Thessalonica. This was the critical time when Thessalonica was occupied by the Venetians, and the Turks were about to seize the city, which actually happened in 1430.

The reduced territory of the Empire and the very small population made it impossible for the Palaeologian government to keep a large local army, so that the army was composed of mercenaries of various nationalities. Under the Palaeologi appeared the Spanish (Catalan) companies, Turks, Genoese, and Venetians, Serbs and Bulgars. There were also, as before, Anglo-Saxon mercenaries, the so-called Varangians or Anglo-Varangians, and Vardariots, of Turkish stock. Unable to pay its mercenaries well, the government was forced sometimes to tolerate their arrogant restlessness and their devastation of entire provinces and large centers, as, for example, the bloody passage of the Catalans through the Balkan peninsula. Having a weak and disorganized land army, the Palaeologi endeavored in vain to restore the navy, which was in a state of complete decay. Michael Palaeologus accomplished something. But his successor, Andronicus II, neglected the fleet again, so that the islands of the Archipelago which were under the control of the Empire could no longer be protected against the aggressions of the pirates. The navy could do nothing against the well equipped and strong fleets of the Genoese and Venetians, or even against the Turkish fleet, which had just made its appearance. The Black and Aegean Seas passed entirely out of the control of Byzantium, and in the fourteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth the fleets of the Italian commercial republics were masters there.

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