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accorded to them by this general edict (chrysobull) a great benefaction in order that the monks dwelling therein may fulfil peacefully and without disturbance their pious work."205

Easter 1346 brought a momentous day in the history of Serbia. At Scopia (Skoplje, Uskub, in northern Macedonia), Dushan's capital, there assembled the noble princes of the whole kingdom of Serbia, all the higher Serbian clergy with the archbishop of Serbia at their head, the Bulgarian and Greek clergy of the conquered regions, and, finally, the protos, the head of the council of igumens (abbots), which administered Athos, and the igumens and hermits of the Holy Mountain of Athos. This large and solemn council was "to ratify and sanctify the political revolution achieved by Dushan: the foundation of a new Empire".10

First of all, the Council established a Serbian patriarchate entirely independent from the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate. Dushan needed an independent Serbian patriarch for his coronation as Emperor. As the choice of that patriarch took place without the participation of the Oecumenical Patriarchs of the East, the Greek bishops and the hermits of Mount Athos had to substitute for the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Serbian Patriarch was elected, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, who refused to recognize the acts of this council as regular, excommunicated the Church of Serbia.

After the election of the Patriarch the solemn coronation of Dushan with the imperial crown was performed.

This event had probably been preceded by the ceremony of the proclamation of Dushan as Tsar at Seres, soon after this city was taken. In connection with those events Dushan introduced at his court pompous court dignities and adopted Byzantine customs and manners. The new "basileus" turned to the representatives of the Greek nobility; the Greek language seems to have become officially equal to the Serbian tongue, for many of Dushan's charters were written in Greek. "The privileged classes in Serbia, large landowners and clergy, who had exerted enormous influence

105 Florinsky, The Athonian Acts, 95 (in Russian). Porf. Uspensky, The Christian Orient. Athos (St. Petersburg, 1892), III, part 2, 156 (in Russian).

100 Florinsky, The Southern Slavs and Byzantium, II, 126 (in Russian).

and power and limited the freedom of action of the Serbian kings, were now forced to yield to the higher authority of the Tsar, as an absolute monarch."107

In accordance with Byzantine custom, Dushan's wife was also crowned, and their ten year old son was proclaimed “Kral of all Serbian lands".

After the coronation, by means of many charters (chrysobulls) Dushan expressed his gratitude and favor to the Greek monasteries and churches, and with his wife visited Athos, where he stayed about four months, praying in all the monasteries, generously endowing them and receiving everywhere "the benediction of the saintly and holy fathers, who led angelic lives".108

After the coronation Stephen's sole dream was to reach Constantinople; after his victories and coronation he could see no impediment to the attainment of this goal. Although, in the last period of his reign, his campaigns against Byzantium were not so frequent as before, and his attention was distracted now by hostilities in the west and north, now by internal affairs, nevertheless, as Florinsky says, "to all this Dushan's attention only turns aside, no more: his eyes and thoughts are as before concentrated upon the same alluring extreme southeast corner of the peninsula. The desire of taking possession of this southeast corner, or, properly speaking, of the world city situated there, now holds still more firmly all the Tsar's thoughts, becomes the leading motive of his activity, and characterizes the whole time of his reign".109

Powerfully affected as he was by the dream of an easy conquest of Constantinople, Dushan did not immediately grasp the fact that some serious obstacles to the realization of his plan already existed. First, there was the growing power of the Turks, who were also aiming at the Byzantine capital and whom the badly organized Serbian troops could not overcome; besides, in order to take Constantinople it was necessary to have a fleet, which Dushan had not. To increase his maritime force he planned 107 Florinsky, The Monuments of Dushan's legislative activity (Kiev, 1888), p. 13 (in Russian).

108 Idem, The Southern Slavs and Byzantium, II, 134 (in Russian).

100 Florinsky, The Southern Slavs and Byzantium, II, 141 (in Russian).

to enter into alliance with Venice; but this step was from the beginning doomed to failure. The republic of St. Mark, unreconciled to the return of Constantinople to the Palaeologi, would never have consented to support Dushan in his conquest of the city for himself; if Venice conquered Constantinople, it would be for her own sake. The attempt of Dushan to form an alliance with the Turks also miscarried, due to the policy of John Cantacuzene; in any event the interests of Dushan and the Turks must undoubtedly have collided. Nor could interference in the internal strife of the Empire materially help Dushan's plans. In the last years of his reign a body of Serbian troops fighting on the side of John V Palaeologus was slain by the Turks. Dushan was doomed to disappointment; it became obvious that the way to Constantinople was closed to him.

The statement in the later chronicles of Ragusa (Dubrovnic) that Dushan undertook a vast expedition against Constantinople in the very year of his death, which alone prevented its being carried into effect, is not confirmed by any contemporary information, and the best scholars do not consider it true.110 In 1355 the Great Master of Serbia passed away.

Thus, Dushan failed to create a Greco-Serbian Empire to replace the Byzantine Empire; he managed to form only the Empire of Serbia, which included many Greek lands,111 but which after his death fell, to quote John Cantacuzene, "into a thousand pieces" 112

The existence of Dushan's monarchy was of such short duration, that, as Florinsky says, "in it, properly speaking, only two moments may be observed: the moment of formation during the whole time of Dushan's reign, and that of disintegration, starting immediately after the death of its founder" 113

"Ten years after", another Russian scholar writes (A. Pogodin), "the grandeur of the Serbian Empire seemed to belong to a

110 Florinsky, op. cit., II, 200-201, 206-207.

111 Florinsky, op. cit., II, 208.

112 Joannis Cantacuzeni, IV, 43 (III, 315).

113 Florinsky, op. cit., II, 1.

remote past."114 Thus, the most grandiose attempt of the Slavs, their third and last, to create in the Balkan peninsula a great Empire, with Constantinople at its head, ended in failure. The Balkan peninsula was open and almost defenceless to the aggressive plans of the warlike Ottoman Turks.

Byzantium and the Turks in the second half of the fourteenth century. Turkish conquests in the Balkan peninsula. The fall of Serbia and Bulgaria. Situation of Byzantium at the end of the fourteenth century.-Toward the end of the reign of Andronicus the Younger the Turks were almost in complete control of Asia Minor. The eastern portion of the Mediterranean and the Archipelago were continuously threatened by the vessels of Turkish pirates, both Ottomans and Seljuqs. The situation of the Christian population of the peninsula, coastlands, and islands became unbearable; trade died away. Turkish attacks on the Athonian monasteries forced one of the monks, Athanasius, to leave Athos and emigrate to Greece, to Thessaly, where he founded the famous monasteries "in air", "the weirdly fantastic Metéora, which crown the needle-like crags of the grim valley of Kalabaka".115 The king of Cyprus and the Master of the military order of the Hospitalers or of St. John, who had held Rhodes since the beginning of the fourteenth century, besought the Pope to rouse the West European states to take arms against the Turks. But the small relief expeditions which answered the papal appeals, though not altogether unsuccessful, could not accomplish much. The Turks were resolved to establish themselves firmly on the European coast; and this was facilitated by the civil war in the Empire, in which John Cantacuzene involved the Turks.

The first establishment of the Ottoman Turks in Europe is usually connected with the name of John Cantacuzene, who often called upon their support in his struggle with John Palaeologus. Cantacuzene even married his daughter to the Sultan Orkhan.

114 A. Pogodin, A History of Serbia (St. Petersburg, 1909), p. 79 (in Russian). 115 See Nikos A. Bees, "Geschichtliche Forschungsresultate und Mönchs-und Volkssagen über die Gründer der Meteorenklöster", in the Byzantinish-neugriechische Jahrbücher, III (1922), 364-69. W. Miller, The Latins in the Levant (London, 1908), pp. 294-95.

On the invitation of Cantacuzene the Turks as his allies devastated Thrace several times. A Byzantine historian of the fourteenth century (Nicephorus Gregoras) remarks that Cantacuzene hated the Romans as he loved the barbarians.116 It is quite possible that the first settlements of the Turks in the peninsula of Gallipoli took place with the knowledge and consent of Cantacuzene. The same Byzantine historian writes that while a Christian service was being celebrated in the imperial church, the Ottomans who had been admitted into the capital were dancing and singing near the palace, "crying out in incomprehensible sounds the songs and hymns of Muhammed, and thereby attracting the crowd to listen to them rather than to the divine Gospels".117 To satisfy the financial claims of the Turks Cantacuzene even handed over to them the money sent from Russia by the Great Prince of Moscow, Simeon the Proud, for the restoration of the Church of St. Sophia, at that time in a state of decay.

Although some private settlements of the Turks in Europe, namely in Thrace and the Thracian (Gallipoli) peninsula had existed, in all likelihood, from the first years of the reign of Cantacuzene, they did not seem dangerous, for they were, of course, under Byzantine authority. But at the beginning of the fifties, a small stronghold, near Callipolis (Gallipoli), Zympa, fell into the hands of the Turks. Cantacuzene's attempt to bribe the Turks to evacuate Zympa.failed.

In 1354 almost the whole southern coast of Thrace was struck by a terrible earthquake, which destroyed many cities and fortresses. The Turks fortified Zympa, and seized several cities in the peninsula which were abandoned by the population after the earthquake, among them Callipolis (Gallipoli). There they constructed walls, erected strong fortifications and an arsenal, and set a large garrison, so that Callipolis became an extremely important strategic center and a base of support for their further advance in the Balkan peninsula. The people of Constantinople immediately realized their danger, and the news of the capture of

116 Niceph. Gregoras, XXVIII, 2 (III, 177).

117 Idem, XXVIII, 40 (III, 202-203).

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