May 1428 – 1432
Ioannina and the Morea, 1429–1432
Emperor John VIII and his brother Constantine beat the fleet of Carlo I Tocco, lord of Epirus, off the Echinades islands, and Carlo gives up his lands in the Morea. Glarentza passes to Byzantium on 1 May 1428 as the dowry of his niece Theodora, whom Constantine marries on 1 July. Constantine becomes a despot of the Morea beside his brother Theodore, who rules from Mistra. He lays siege to Patras on 20 March 1429, the city accepts him as its lord on 4 June, and the archbishop’s castle surrenders in July 1430.
The castle of PatrasWikimedia Commons, Nikolaos Kotopoulis, CC BY-SA 4.0 (The Castle of Patras 5.jpg)
Carlo I dies at Ioannina on 4 July 1429, and his illegitimate sons call on the Ottomans against his nephew and heir, Carlo II. After the fall of Thessalonica an Ottoman army under Sinan Pasha appears before Ioannina, and the city surrenders when Sinan promises to spare it and to respect its rights. Sinan’s grant of privileges to the citizens is dated 9 October 1430. Carlo II keeps Arta and the south of Epirus as an Ottoman vassal, and Venice takes the Tocco islands of Zante, Cephalonia and Leucas under its protection.
The surrender treaty of Ioannina with the Ottomans, written in Greek in October 1430Wikimedia Commons, unknown scribe, Public domain (Ioannina orismos 1430.jpg)
Manuel II’s youngest son Thomas, also a despot in the Morea from 1428, marries Catherine Zaccaria, the daughter and heir of Centurione II, the last prince of Achaea. When Centurione dies in 1432, Thomas takes over his remaining lands, and the principality comes to an end. The despots Theodore, Constantine and Thomas now hold all of the peninsula except the Venetian ports of Coron, Modon, Nauplia and Argos. In 1431 Turahan Bey breaks through the Hexamilion again on Murad’s orders, to remind the despots that they are the sultan’s vassals.
Sources
- Chronicle of the Tocco (about 1429).
- George Sphrantzes, Chronicon minus (about 1477).
- Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Histories (c. 1464).
- Donald M. Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros, 1267–1479 (1984).
- Denis A. Zakythinos, Le Despotat grec de Morée (1932).
- Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453 (2nd ed., 1993).
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