Social tensions were to come to the forefront during the civil wars, most
clearly during the second civil war, which started in October 1341, and is
thus broadly speaking contemporary with other civic rebellions in western
Europe. At first, this was a struggle for power at the centre: a dispute for
the regency for the nine-year-old heir to the throne, John V Palaiologos
(1341–91), between John Kantakouzenos on the one hand, and on the other
John V’s mother, Anne of Savoy, the patriarch and the megas doux Alexios
Apokaukos. Before declaring himself emperor, Kantakouzenos had sent
letters to the powerful and the military men of the cities, seeking their
support; when his letter was read in Adrianople, on 27 October, three men,
at least one of whom was almost certainly a merchant, aroused the people
of the city, who attacked the aristocrats and burned their houses. Quickly,
the civil war spread throughout the cities of Macedonia and Thrace. The
most acute aspects of social conflict are visible in Thessaloniki where the
opposition to Kantakouzenos was led by a group with radical tendencies,
the Zealots (see below, p. 857).
In some cities, like Serres, Kantakouzenos was opposed by members of
the aristocracy, and it is certain that social alignments in this civil war
were no more perfect than they were in western Europe. But the main
lines of division are clear: the aristocracy, of which Kantakouzenos was
the richest and most powerful representative, rallied to his side, while
in Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Didymoteichon, Adrianople and elsewhere
the merchants, perhaps the bankers, certainly the sailors and, to
a varying degree, the mesoi generally opposed Kantakouzenos, confiscated
or destroyed his supporters’ property, and imprisoned many among
them. In his History, Kantakouzenos described the civil war in self-serving
statements. More telling than those is his discussion of the accession to
power (in 1339) and the polity of Simone Boccanegra in Genoa. The revolution
of 1339 is cast in terms of the Byzantine civil war, and he sees it as
an opposition of the people to the nobles ‘because they were better than
they’. The story of Boccanegra is twisted, undoubtedly consciously, so that
all the evils that befell Genoa can be ascribed to him, as the evils resulting
from the Byzantine civil war are ascribed to Apokaukos.53 Although causal
connections between the Genoese revolution and the revolution in Thessaloniki
have been disproved, the similarities in the social aspects of the
conflict are striking.
Since the forces of Kantakouzenos and his allies controlled the countryside,
the civil war soon took the form of a struggle for the cities. Cities
were difficult to take by assault but, with the countryside looted and in
hostile hands, including the Turkish allies of Kantakouzenos, they began to
surrender in 1344–5. In 1345, with the assassination of Alexios Apokaukos,
the situation changed drastically, and in February 1347 Kantakouzenos
entered Constantinople as co-emperor. Thessaloniki resisted until 1350,
when, under pressure from the Serbs, it reluctantly accepted both John VI
Kantakouzenos and John V Palaiologos. In 1354, John V forced Kantakouzenos
to abdicate. This may be considered the end of the civil war.
The civil war was, among other things, an abortive effort to create a state
quite different from what had existed in Byzantium, one where the interests
of the commercial element would be paramount, while the resources
of the landed aristocracy and the church would be used for the needs of
defence.54 At exactly the same time, there was a conflict within the church,
between those who adopted a mystical attitude, that posited the possibility
of experiencing the Divine Light through a special form of prayer
(the hesychasts), and those who believed that God may be experienced
in his manifestations but not in his essence. The hesychast controversy
divided not only the church but other members of society, those who were
interested in theological and religious questions. While political and social
attitudes and theological positions did not entirely converge,55 neither were
they parallel.Hesychasm was practised onMount Athos, and its most vocal
proponent was Gregory Palamas; hesychasts were also staunch supporters
of Kantakouzenos. The controversy ended with the political victory of Kantakouzenos.
He presided over a church council in 1351 which pronounced
hesychasm orthodox and its opponents heretical. No wonder that Palamas,
appointed archbishop of Thessaloniki, was twice prevented by the city government
from gaining his see, and was able to enter the city only in 1350,
in the wake of Kantakouzenos’ triumph.
In the end, Kantakouzenos and the aristocracy won a short-term political
victory, but suffered crushing long-term economic defeat. In order to
win, Kantakouzenos had appealed to the Serbs in 1342 and the Turks soon
afterwards. The regency also made such appeals, unsuccessfully. Kantakouzenos,
however, was successful. Stefan Duˇsan (1331–55) gave him help,
but in the process he conquered much ofMacedonia, Thessaly, Epiros and
part of Greece, sometimes with the agreement of Kantakouzenos, but more
often without it. In 1345, he took the large and important city of Serres, and
thereafter he called himself emperor of the Serbs and the Romans. The state
of Stefan Duˇsan was large but ephemeral, breaking down after his death
in 1355. His successors retained part of it, until the Ottomans conquered it
after 1371. As for the Turks, both the amir of Aydin and, more ominously,
theOttomans sent large forces into Europe to help Kantakouzenos; in 1354,
they settled inGallipoli, and from then onwards theOttoman advance into
European territory proceeded rapidly. As a result, the Byzantine state that
emerged from the civil war was much smaller and muchweaker than before.
World History
