Crusades and Crusaders in Medieval Greece 71
ecclesiastical peace with the West, he found it impossible to do so at the time,
because of the suspicions of the Byzantine people.157 In 1364, John v offered
Byzantine participation to the Holy Land crusade proclaimed by Urban v in
hope that this could also provide relief to Byzantium against the Turks. The
emperor said, however, that this participation would be under the condition
that the crusading army would not harm the Greeks.158 Such were the residual
fears instilled by the earlier use of the crusades against the Byzantines. Neither
were such fears entirely unjustified. The “schismatic Greeks” could still be seen
as a legitimate target for Latin crusading activity. A few months earlier, in fact,
the Venetians had tried to persuade the pope to grant indulgences against the
Greek schismatics on Crete, as their rebellion hindered the crusade under
preparation.159
Suspicion lingered. Even in the setting days of the empire, sympathy for the
Byzantines was not guaranteed. In late 1452 the issue of whether assistance
should be offered to the “schismatic and heretical Greeks” against the Turks
was hotly debated in the papal curia, and there were clearly those who believed
that no help whatsoever should be given to the Byzantines on account of their
transgressions.160 The position adopted by many westerners, in the late 14th
and 15th centuries, was a grudging acceptance that help should be provided
to the Greeks, because they were Christians, although schismatics.161 It was
a question of the duty of Latin Christendom to the Faith more than a feeling
of fraternity with the Christians of the East. This mood is encapsulated per-
fectly by Ciriaco of Ancona. Being informed of the victories of Murad ii and his
recent invasion of the Morea in 1446, Ciriaco wrote to a friend of his:
For I believe that such a lamentable blow to Christendom—this miser-
able slaughter which the Turks have perpetrated upon this people, even
though they are Greeks and deserving of some measure of punishment—157 Laiou, Constantinople, pp. 325–28.
158 Paul Lecacheux and Guillaume Mollat, eds., Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain v
(1362–1370) se rapportant à la France, befar (Paris, 1902), no. 1305.
159 Thiriet, Délibérations des assemblées, 2:273 (no. 743); Housley, Avignon Papacy, pp. 213–22.
160 James Hankins, “Renaissance Crusaders: Humanist Crusade Literature in the Age of
Mehmed ii,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995), 111–207, at 148–68 (e.g. p. 149: “Hereticis
et scismaticis et excomunicatis non est comunicandum et multo minus auxilium
prestandum”).
161 Michael Angold, “The Decline of Byzantium seen through the Eyes of Western Travellers,”
in Travel in the Byzantine World, ed. Ruth Macrides (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 213–32, at 217–20.