Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

Never in its long history had the deck been so thoroughly stacked against Byzantium. The new Ottoman sultan Bayezid, a man whose speed in battle would soon earn him the nickname “the Thunderbolt,” was more menacing than his father, Murad, had ever been. Ominously taking the title “Sultan of Rum” (Rome), he was determined to crush any thoughts of independence. Forcibly reminding the emperor of who his master was, Bayezid peremptorily summoned Manuel II to Asia Minor. Philadelphia, one of the seven cities of Revelation and the last Christian outpost in Anatolia, still resisted the Turks. Clearly relishing the agony it caused, Bayezid ordered Manuel to help reduce this final Byzantine city to ruin.

Manuel II had no choice but to participate in the final political extinction of the Christian East. The imperial writ now barely extended beyond the walls of Constantinople itself, and the emperor didn’t have any illusions about the weakness of the Byzantine position. It could still claim a few ports on the Aegean and most of the Peloponnese, but such scraps hardly deserved to be called an empire. Any show of resistance against the overwhelming force of the Turks would almost certainly be suicidal, and the sultan was already dangerously hostile.

The campaign was mercifully short, and Manuel II was back in Constantinople in time to marry a Serbian princess named Helena Dragases the next year.^* The emperor was willing to play the faithful vassal to keep the Ottoman wolf at bay, but Bayezid seemed determined to provoke a war. After increasing the tribute that the impoverished empire had to pay, the sultan ordered a huge Turkish quarter to be set up in Constantinople that was independent of Byzantine authorities and governed instead by Muslim judges. As if such humiliations weren’t bad enough, the unstable sultan then took to bouts of arbitrary cruelty, mutilating several Byzantine ambassadors and screaming that he would kill his imperial vassal. By this time, Manuel II had had enough. There was no sense in trying to appease such an unpredictable monster. When Bayezid summoned him for a campaign against Transylvania, Manuel II slammed the gates shut in his face and prepared for war. A few months later, the Ottoman army appeared, and the siege began.

Despite the overwhelming power of the Ottoman forces, Bayezid suffered from the same weakness that many would-be conquerors of Constantinople had discovered before him. Without a navy, there was no hope of an effective blockade, and the land walls of the city were stout enough to resist any attempt thrown at them. To make matters worse, the furious sultan soon got word that his recent foray into Transylvania had awakened Hungary to the Turkish threat, and a new Crusade was lumbering on its way. Briefly raising the siege, Bayezid raced to the Bulgarian city of Nicopolis, somehow arriving before the crusaders, and smashed their army to pieces. Ordering his men to lop off the heads of ten thousand prisoners, the sultan returned to Constantinople, conquering Athens and central Greece for good measure along the way.

By 1399, when the Thunderbolt returned, Manuel II was no longer in his capital. Taking advantage of the sultan’s absence, the emperor had boarded a ship and headed to Europe. Landing triumphantly in Venice, he was given a warm reception, and wherever he went, from Paris to London, crowds flocked to see him. The emperor had come for assistance, but not to beg, and a Europe trembling in the first stirrings of the Renaissance greeted him with open arms. This tall, gracious figure seemed every inch an emperor, a worthy successor of Augustus or Constantine, and erudite into the bargain. Manuel’s visit, so different from the one his father, John, had made just a few years before, brought up no mention of a union of churches, or of a humiliating submission. Manuel sat on the throne of the Caesars, and, no matter how debased that throne had become, its dignity was still unparalleled.

In terms of style, Manuel’s European visit was a tour de force, but practically speaking it achieved as little as his father’s had. There were some vague promises of support, but no one was in a hurry to help. Henry IV was too insecure on his English throne, the king of France was hopelessly insane, and the rest of Europe was still asleep to the danger. Manuel traveled from capital to capital in vain, stubbornly refusing to give up while there was the faintest hope. Just as he was succumbing to despair, salvation arrived from a most unexpected quarter. The electrifying news swept through Europe, quickly reaching Manuel II where he was staying in Paris. A great army from the east had invaded Asia Minor, and Bayezid had withdrawn to fight it. Constantinople was saved.