Winter 1393 – 1394
Thessaly and Serres, 1393–1394
In the winter of 1393–1394 Bayezid summons his Christian vassals to Serres: Manuel II and John VII, Manuel’s brother Theodore, the Despot of the Morea, Konstantin Dragaš and Stefan Lazarević. By Manuel’s own account the sultan orders their deaths and then relents. Theodore has to follow Bayezid south and promise him Argos and Monemvasia, but he escapes to Mistra. Manuel returns to Constantinople and does not answer the sultan’s later summons.
The Byzantine Tower of Orestes on the acropolis of SerresWikimedia Commons, Vasgala, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Σέρρες - Πύργος του Ορέστη.jpg)
Bayezid marches into Thessaly, which the Ottomans annex with Larissa. The widowed countess Helena Kantakouzene surrenders Salona to him, and her daughter Maria enters his harem. In April 1394 the Ottomans take direct control of Thessalonica, which has governed itself under Ottoman overlordship since 1387, and its church and people keep most of their property.
The castle of Salona, the modern Amfissa, in an old photographWikimedia Commons, unknown photographer, Public domain (Castle of Salona.jpg)
In southern Greece Venice gains ground. Theodore hands Argos over to Venice in 1394, and Venice has held Nauplia since 1389, bought from Maria of Enghien together with Argos. Nerio I Acciaioli dies on 25 September 1394, and when Ottoman raiders attack Athens, the castellan of the Acropolis offers the town to Venice, which sends troops before the end of the year.
Sources
- Manuel II Palaiologos, Funeral Oration on his Brother Theodore (c. 1409).
- Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Histories (c. 1464).
- John W. Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus (1391–1425) (1969).
- Kenneth M. Setton, The Catalans and Florentines in Greece, 1380–1462 (1975).
- Nevra Necipoğlu, Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins (2009).
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