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A Byzantine Grand Embassy to Russia in 1400

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Dimitri Obolensky
Dimitri Obolensky*
Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford
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Extract

The Acta Patriarchatus Constantinopolitani, published by Miklosich and Müller, contain a pittakion sent by Matthew I, Patriarch of Constantinople (1397–1410), to his subordinate and representative in Moscow, Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia. The document is undated, but it is clear from the contents that it was written either in the last three weeks of December 1399 or, more probably, in 1400. Its professed aim was to persuade the Russian primate to embark on a fund-raising campaign in aid of Constantinople, besieged by the forces of the Ottoman Sultan, Bayazid I.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 4: Essays Presented to Sir Steven Runciman , 1978 , pp. 123 - 132
Copyright
Copyright ©The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1978

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References

1. Acta Patriarchatus Constantinopolitani, ed. F. Miklosich and J. Müller, II (Vienna, 1862), pp. 359–61 [cited hereafter as MM). For a definition of a pittakion, see Darrouzès, J., Le Registre synodal du patriarcat byzantin au XIVe siècle, Etude paléographique et diplomatique (Paris, 1971), pp. 172–81 Google Scholar. Cf. idem, Recherches sur les de l’Eglise byzantine (Paris, 1970), pp. 90, 160 n. 2, 181 n. 3, 221, 338 n. 5, 357, 366, 389, 398, 454, 495 n. 1, 553, 568.

2. Among recent events alluded to by the Patriarch are the reconciliation of the Emperors Manuel II and John VII (early December 1399), Manuel’s departure from Constantinople on his aid-seeking tour of western Europe (10 December 1399) andjohn’s simultaneous assumption of imperial audiority in Byzantium. The Patriarch’s additional statement that John VII ‘has undertaken the struggle against the unbelievers and attends to all matters concerning the guarding and safety of the city and of the Christians’ would seem to reflect the situation as it was early in 1400, when John’s plans for the defence of Constantinople against Bayazid’s forces had time to mature.

3. : MM, II, p. 360. There is no question in this letter of seeking military aid from the Russians. The Turkish siege of Constantinople lasted from 1394 to 1402. See Barker, J. W., Manuel II Palaeologus (1391–1425): A Study in Late Byzantine Statesmanship (New Brunswick, N.J., 1969), pp. 183–99, 479–81 Google Scholar.

4. It has been translated into Russian by Pavlov, A. S. (Pamyatniki drexmerusskogo kanonicheskogo prava: Russkaya Istoricheskaya Biblioteka, VI (St. Petersburg, 1880)Google Scholar, appendices, pp. 311–16) and into English by J. W. Barker (op. cit., pp. 202–4).

5. In the main, I follow Barker’s translation.

6. MM, II, p. 360.

7. See Barker, op. cit., p. 211, n. 15.

8. Dölger, F., who dates the letter entrusted to this embassy to between 1397 and December 1399 (Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des oströmischen Reiches, V (Munich, 1965), p. 85 Google Scholar, no. 3868), mistakenly identifies its principal secular addressee as Prince Dimitri Donskoy. Dimitri had died in 1389, and was succeeded by his son Basil I (1389–1425).

9. MM, II, p. 359.

10. Dölger, Regesten, no. 3267.

11. Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisey, XI (Moscow, 1965), p. 168; in the Troitskaya Letopis’ there is no mention of Ryazan’ or Lithuania: Priselkov, M. D., Troitskaya Letopis’ (Moscow-Leningrad, 1950), p. 448 Google Scholar.

12. See Nicol, D. M., ‘A Byzantine Emperor in England: Manuel II’s Visit to London in 1400–1401’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, XII, 2 (1970), pp. 205–6.Google Scholar

13. MM, II, pp. 360–1: . Barker has, I believe, mistranslated as ‘if indeed you ever exerted yourself (op. cit., p. 203). The meaning is surely ‘even though you exerted yourself in the past’.

14. Ibid., p. 360.

15. See Barker, op. cit., p. 139, n. 28; Nicol, D. M., The Last Centuries of Byzantium (London, 1972), p. 302.Google Scholar

16. Barker, op. cit., p. 164.

17. The Russian pilgrim, Archimandrite Ignatius of Smolensk, who was in Constantinople from June 1389 to February 1392, writes with manifest disapproval of John VII’s attempts, which began in 1390, ‘to seek the rule of Constantinople with Turkish aid’: ‘Khozhdenie Ignatiya Smolyanina’, ed. S. V. Arsen’ ev, Pravoslavny Palestinsky Sbomik, IV, 3 (St. Petersburg, 1887), p. 12;G. P. Majeska, The Journey of Ignatius of Smolensk to Constantinople (1389–92) (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University), pp. 15, 100.

18. MM, II, p. 360.

19. For Alexios Aaron, see Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, ed. E. Trapp and others, I (Vienna, 1976), p. 1. On the in late Byzantine society, see Verpeaux, J., ‘Les “oikeioi”. Notes d’histoire institutionnelle et sociale’, REB, XXIII (1965), 89–99 Google Scholar; Weiss, G., Joannes Kantakuzenos—Aristokrat, Staatsmann, Kaiser und Mönch—in der Gesellschaftsentwicklung von Byzanz im 14. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1969), pp. 143–5 Google Scholar and passim; Maksimović, Lj., Vizantijska provincijska uprava u doba Paleoioga (Belgrade, 1972), pp. 14–15, 18–19, 33, 35, 117 Google Scholar.

20. MM, II, pp. 171–2, 177–97; J. Darrouzès, Le Registre synodal, p. 125, nos. 24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37. Medvedev, Cf. I. P., ‘Reviziya vizantiiskikh dokumentov na Rusi v kontse XIV v.’, Vspomogatel’nye istoricheskie distsipliny, VII (Leningrad, 1976), 289–97.Google Scholar

21. MM, II, pp. 278–85.

22. : MM, II, p. 284.

23. : MM, II, p. 278. The people with whom Archbishop Michael is said to have ‘a community and a kinship in dialect and language’ are, as the context shows, the inhabitants of ‘Mavrovlachia’ (i.e. Moldavia) and Galicia. Though we cannot exclude the possibility that the local language known to Michael was Rumanian, it seems more likely to have been one of the Slavonic languages—Polish, Ukrainian or Russian. The Moldavians, it should be recalled, who were soon (in 1401) to be given a separate metropolitanate by the Byzantine authorities, used Church Slavonic as their liturgical language. The wording of the Patriarch’s statement does not, in my opinion, justify the belief that Archbishop Michael was himself of either Slavonic or Rumanian descent.

24. MM, II, p. 359. The note has been reconstructed as follows by Darrouzès, Le Registre synodal, p. 132, note 41: . Barker (op. cit., p. 204, n. 4) erroneously identifies and and mistranslates ‘Raoul of Bethlehem’. For a palaeographical description of the manuscript, see Darrouzès, op. cit., p. 81, and ibid., p. 455 for a photographie reproduction of the relevant folio.

25. E.g. the simultaneous use of the singular and the plural to describe the pittakion, and the improbable reference to Kiev as the embassy’s point of destination, doubtless inspired by the opening words of the document: .

26. For this reason I find it difficult to accept Darrouzès’ description of the extant text as ‘une minute préparatoire’ (p. 132, n. 41).

27. A second marginal note, of no great substance, refers to the agreement between Manuel II and John VII: MM, II, p. 360; Darrouzès, op. cit., p. 132, n. 41; Barker, op. cit., p. 204, n. 4.

28. In a document issued in Barcelona on 25 September 1404, King Martin describes ‘Contastinus Rali et Theodoras Rali eius filius Paleologii’ as ‘affines et ambassaiatores excellentissimi imperatoris Contastinopolis’: Diplomatari de l’Orient Català (1301–1409)), ed. A. Rubiói Lluch (Barcelona, 1947), p. 702; cf. ibid., pp. 697, 703, 70g. Marinesco, Cf. C., ‘Du nouveau sur les relations de Manuel II Paléologue (1391–1425) avec l’Espagne’, Atti dello VIII Congresso Intemazionale di studi bizantini (Palermo 3–10 Aprile 1951), I (Rome, 1953), pp. 420–36 Google Scholar; Estopañan, S. Cirac, Bizancio y España. La unión, Manuel II Paleólogo y sus recuerdos en España (Barcelona, 1952), pp. 54–9, 122 Google Scholar; Barker, op. cit., pp. 255–7; Fassoulakis, S., The Byzantine Family of Raoul-Ral(l)es (Athens, 1973), pp. 66–7 Google Scholar, no. 53; Dölger, Regesten, V, p. 90, nos. 3297, 3298.

29. Xivrey, J. Berger de, ‘Mémoire sur la vie et les ouvrages de l’empereur Manuel Paléologue’, Mémoires de l’Institut de France, XIX (1853), p. 152 Google Scholar. Cf. C. Marinesco, op. cit., pp. 434–5.

30. the older form of the name (a contraction of Rudolfus or Rodulfus), continued to be used as late as the seventeenth century; in Constantinople it was preserved as late as the end of the fourteenth. By the middle of the fourteenth century, however, it begins to appear frequently in its hellenized form (later ). See Fassoulakis, op. cit., pp. 4–5. In a document issued by the Byzantine Patriarchate in October 1399, the same person is referred to forty-eight times as (MM, II, pp. 304–12), and only once (p. 309) as . Two other candidates for identification with ὁ of the marginal note might be considered. The first is Constantine’s son, Theodore Rhales Palaiologos. He accompanied his father on the mission to Spain, where he apparently remained until 1410: Diplomatari de l’Orient Català, pp. 702, 703, 709; Marinesco, op. cit., p. 433; Barker, op. cit., p. 256; Fassoulakis, op. cit., p. 67, no. 54. However, as a younger man and a less experienced diplomat, he would have cut a less impressive figure than his father in the Russian embassy of 1400. This is not an adequate reason for eliminating the son: yet the father remains the stronger candidate.

Another possible, but far less convincing, candidate is Manuel (Palaiologos) Raoul or Rales, mentioned (forty-nine times) in the above-mentioned document of the Patriarchate of 1399: MM, II, pp. 304–12, cf. Fassoulakis, op. cit., pp. 56–7, no. 41. Though an oikeios of the Emperor Manuel II, he seems, by comparison with the two professional diplomats cited above, a somewhat marginal figure.

31. Dölger, , Regesten, V, p. 85, no. 3269 Google Scholar; Nicol, D. M., The Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos (Cantacuzenus) ca. 1100–1460. A Genealogical and Prosopographical Study (Washington, D.C., 1968), pp. 165–6 Google Scholar; Hunger, H., Johannes Chortasmenos (ca. 1370-ca. 1436/37). Briefe, Gedichte und Kleine Schriften. Einleitung, Regesten, Prosopographie, Text (Wiener Byzantinistische Studien, VII [Vienna, 1969]), pp. 106–7 Google Scholar. Barker, op. cit., pp. 154–7.

32. Barker, , op. cit., pp. 155, 488–9.Google Scholar

33. Hunger (Johannes Chortasmenos, pp. 106–7) believes that Theodore was the son of the co-emperor Matthew Kantakouzenos and thus Manuel II’s first cousin. Nicol is sceptical, and points out that there is no real evidence that Matthew had a son named Theodore (‘The Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos. Some Addenda and Corrigenda’, OOP, XXVII (1973), 312–13). Nicol does, however, accept that Hunger was right to reject his earlier identification of the emperor’s relative with another Theodore Kantakouzenos, who is described by Demetrios Kydones as Manuel’s and who helped Manuel to defend Thessalonica against the Turks. Cf. Dennis, G. T., ‘The Reign of Manuel II Palaeologos in Thessalonica, 1382–1387’ (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, CLIX [Rome, 1960]), pp. 71–2, n. 52 Google Scholar.

34. See Binon, St., ‘A propos d’un prostagma inédit d’Andronic III Paléologue’, BZ, XXXVIII (1938), 146–55 Google Scholar; Laurent, V., ‘Le Vaticanus Latinus 4789. Histoire et alliances des Cantacuzènes aux XlVe-XVe siècles’, REB, IX (1952), 82 Google Scholar.

35. Hunger, Johannes Chortasmenos, p. 107.

36. MM, II, p. 361. The word used for ‘works of charity’ is ; both Pavlov and Barker (see n. 4, above) mistranslate it as ‘liturgies’.