The
fall of Constantinople and John Sthaurachii in 15th century England
Niall
C.E.J. O’Brien
In May 1453 the Ottoman
forces of Mehmet II breached the ancient Theodosian walls of Constantinople as
the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, fell in battle. Thus more than a
thousand years of Roman/Greek life in Constantinople ceased and the city became
the capital of the enlarged Ottoman Empire.[1] Among
those who died defending the city in this last great siege was the father and
brother of John Sthaurachii, a resident of the city at the time of the siege. After
the conquest John’s mother, brother and two sisters along with kinsmen and
relations were taken into captivity and reduced to slavery.[2] Over
the following seven years the Ottomans conquered the last remaining territories
of the Byzantine Empire.[3]
Sometime between May
1453 and the Autumn of 1459 John Sthaurachii, who had lost all his possessions,
was allowed to leave the Ottoman Empire or as he said it ‘fled his native
country’ and went to western Europe. There he travelled around each country and
diocese trying to raise money to pay the ransom for the release of his mother
and sisters. His brother was not mention for ransom and may possibly have been
deceased by 1459. John Sthaurachii also sought money for his own sustenance. In
an effort to open doors and improve his chances of getting money John
Sthaurachii now styled himself as Sir John Sthaurachii, knight.[4] Elsewhere
he described himself as a late noble of Constantinople.[5]
Constantinople in 1453 by B. de la Broquiere
There were already a
number of religious orders in Europe in the fifteen century whose purpose was
to raise money to release Christian captives in Muslim hands. The Trinitarian
order was one such group that had a number of houses in England. But these
houses were poor and spent much of their collected money aiding the local poor
rather than sending it overseas to free Christian captives.[6]
The most common way of
raising ransom money in fifteen century Europe was by way of the granting of
indulgences by diocesan bishops to their parishioners who gave money in return
for the deliverance of sins. Government assistance programmes were very few and
the church provided a safety net to society which would have been much poorer
otherwise.[7] It
is also the case that western governments had showed little solidarity with the
Byzantine Empire in the years before 1453 and so may have not given much
sympathy to John Sthaurachii. In 1455 Pope Calixtus III issued letters to all
the rulers of Europe to the Byzantines defend themselves against the Turks. In
September 1455 the Pope ordered that a tenth of the value of each
ecclesiastical benefice across Europe be paid into a relief fund. Yet by 1459
the Pope was in many cases dropping the need to raise funds to repel the Turks
(as with funds collected at Eton College) and instead wanted the money
redirected to the ‘subvention of Christian regions’, which could mean anything.[8]
But it is also true to
say that many people in rural Byzantium favoured rule under the Turk than
submit to any subordination to Rome.[9] As
a city dweller, John Sthaurachii had possibly strong pro-Western attachment.
Certainly after the enslavement of his family he had few other places to go to
seek help.
By 1459 John
Sthaurachii was in England, travelling here and there and everywhere seeking
aid. On 18th October 1459 Bishop Thomas Bekynton of Bath and Wells
issued a grant of forty days of indulgences to all ‘confessed and contrite
persons’, from his palace at Wells to all who would give assistance and relief
to Sir John Sthaurachii, knight. The grant was to end on 4th April
1460.[10]
At about the same time
as John Sthaurachii travelled to Wells to tell Bishop Bekynton his story, he
also travelled to other dioceses such as Durham. There Bishop Lawrence Booth
allowed John Sthaurachii a grant of indulgence for forty days to end on 4th
April 1460 after hearing his story.[11]
This success at getting indulgences must have lifted the spirits of John Sthaurachii for the welfare of his family back in the Ottoman Empire. Yet John Sthaurachii was
not the only Byzantine exile seeking aid in Europe at that time. Instead he was
part of a number of former Byzantium scholars and noblemen who travelled Europe
and England around 1459/60 seeking alms to free family members from captivity.
Other people like this included Demetrius Anderisa (treasurer to the last
Byzantium emperor), John Pole de Albo Castro, Demetrius Conisius, and Michael
Chauriant. Many of these people also received grants of indulgences to last
forty days in return for ransom money.[12]
It is not known how
much money John Sthaurachii raised to help his family because no sooner than he
appears in the English records he disappears shortly after. It is equally not
known if he got grants of indulgences in other countries and if he ever
succeeded in freeing his family. Instead the Sthaurachii family became the
forgotten members of a former empire overran by history and another empire. The
European Renaissance, especially in Italy, benefited from the intellectual and
artistic exiles from the conquered Constantinople.[13]
But
on a personal note the conquest for John Sthaurachii and his fellow exiles was
a personal tragedy which possibly didn’t have a happy ending. They were the
poor exiles of a faraway country of which we know little about as a later
British Prime Minister would write of another country dissolved by bigger
neighbours.
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End of post
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[1]
Haldon, J., Byzantium: A History
(Stroud, 2005), p. 65
[2] Maxwell-Lyte,
Sir H.C. & Dawes, M.C.B. (eds.), The
register of Thomas Bekynton, Bishop of Bath & Wells 1443-1465 (Somerset
Record Society, Vol. 49, 1934), part 1, no. 1254
[3]
Haldon, J., Byzantium: A History
(Stroud, 2005), p. 65
[4] Maxwell-Lyte,
Sir H.C. & Dawes, M.C.B. (eds.), The
register of Thomas Bekynton, Bishop of Bath & Wells 1443-1465 (Somerset
Record Society, Vol. 49, 1934), part 1, no. 1254
[5]
Brodeur, A.F., Indulgences and Solidarity
in Late Medieval England (University of Toronto thesis, 2015), p. 98, note
271
[6]
Brodeur, A.F., Indulgences and Solidarity
in Late Medieval England (University of Toronto thesis, 2015), pp. 92, 93
[7] Brodeur,
A.F., Indulgences and Solidarity in Late
Medieval England (University of Toronto thesis, 2015), p. 2
[8]
Twemlow, J.A. (ed.), Calendar of entries
in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. XI,
1455-1464 (London, 1921), pp. 20, 386-7
[9]
Haldon, J., Byzantium: A History
(Stroud, 2005), pp. 64, 65
[10] Maxwell-Lyte,
Sir H.C. & Dawes, M.C.B. (eds.), The
register of Thomas Bekynton, Bishop of Bath & Wells 1443-1465 (Somerset
Record Society, Vol. 49, 1934), part 1, no. 1254
[11]
Storey, R.L. (ed.), Register of Thomas
Langley, Bishop of Durham, 1406-1437 (5 vols. Durham, 1956), no. 330; https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/69222/3/Brodeur_Ann_F_201506_PhD_thesis.pdf
accessed on 27th August 2017
[12]
Brodeur, A.F., Indulgences and Solidarity
in Late Medieval England (University of Toronto thesis, 2015), p. 98
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