Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines Byzantine political attitudes towards the Ottomans and western Europeans during the critical last century of Byzantium. It explores the political orientations of aristocrats, merchants, the urban populace, peasants, and members of ecclesiastical and monastic circles in three major areas of the Byzantine Empire in their social and economic context.
Table of ContentsPart I. Introduction and Political Setting: 1. The topic and the sources; 2. The shrinking Empire and the Byzantine dilemma between East and West after the Fourth Crusade; Part II. Thessalonike: 3. Social organization, historical developments, and political attitudes in Thessalonike: an overview (1382–1430); 4. Byzantine Thessalonike (1382–7 and 1403–23); 5. Thessalonike under foreign rule; Part III. Constantinople: 6. The Byzantine court and the Ottomans: conflict and accommodation; 7. The first challenge: Bayezid I's siege of Constantinople (1394–1402); 8. From recovery to subjugation: the last fifty years of Byzantine rule in Constantinople (1403–53); Part IV. The Despotate of the Morea: 9. The early years of Palaiologan rule in the Morea (1382–1407); 10. The final years of the Byzantine Morea (1407–60); Conclusion; Appendix 1. Archontes of Thessalonike (14th–15th cents.); Appendix 2. 'Nobles' and 'small nobles' of Thessalonike (1425); Appendix 3. Constantinopolitan merchants in Badoer's account book (1436–40); Appendix 4. Members of the Senate of Constantinople cited in the synodal tome of August 1409; Appendix 5. Some Greek refugees in Italian territories after 1453.
