244 chapter four
Mamluk chroniclers reporting the incident elaborate upon it and
explain: “In the year 622 [= 4th November 1263–24th october 1264] the
news came [to cairo] that the envoys to king Berke had been detained
by al-Ashkarī [= Michael VIII] for so long that most of their animals had
died. the Sultan called to his presence the patriarch [of alexandria] and
the bishops and asked them: ‘What does a man deserve who had broken
the oath that he has sworn?ʼ they answered that he should be excom-
municated from his church. the Sultan made them put this down in writ-
ing, and then showed them al-Ashkarī ’s treaty and said: ‘he has dared to
detain my ambassadors, and he has paid tribute to Hūlākū.ʼ then he sent
to him a monk, a Greek philosopher, a priest and a bishop, to excommu-
nicate him. he wrote him a letter of denunciation. he also wrote a letter
to king Berke, sending it with the emir fāris al-Dīn aqūsh al-Mas‛ūdī, with
gifts for Berke. When this arrived to al-Ashkarī, he immediately released
[the first envoys] who went onward to king Berke.”402
al-Maqrīzī’s version is complemented by al-Mufaḍḍal, who purports
to quote Michael VIII himself: the egyptian ambassadors found envoys
from Hūlāwūn [= hülegü] at Michael’s court, and the emperor justified
holding the earlier group sent from cairo by explaining that he “was in
fear that Hūlāwūn would find out.”403 Ibn ‛abd al-Ẓāhir gives the same
explanation.404
the Byzantine emperor also drew blame from his allies in the coalition
against the Ilkhanate through his wavering attitude to ‛Izz al-Dīn. at first
the emperor had received the refugee sultan and his men generously at
court, and part of the group had been settled in Dobruja under Saru Saltuq
Dede, but this goodwill gave way to its opposite. News reached egypt that
“al-Ashkarī has changed his mind, and has shut him away in a fortress”405
which pachymeres identifies as enos, at the mouth of the Maritza on the
aegean.406 according to pachymeres, Michael VIII held the ex-sultan in a
form of palatial house arrest as a result of an understanding with hülegü:
the Ilkhanate could consolidate its dominion while “‛Izz al-Dīn was held
far from ‘persiaʼ.”407 By this arrangement, the emperor could secure his
402 al-Maqrīzī/tiesenhausen, Sbornik, I, p. 421.
403 Ibid., p. 179.
404 Ibid., pp. 52–53.
405 al-Dhahabī/ibid., p. 200.
406 Modern enez; pachymeres/Bekker, I, p. 233; cf. Dölger, Regesten, III, p. 46, Mutafciev,
Einwanderung, p. 2, canard, “un traité,” pp. 215–216, papacostea, “crise,” p. 348.
407 pachymeres/Bekker, I, p. 233.