John V Palaiologos - Biography

Biography

John V was the son of Emperor Andronikos III and his wife Anna, the daughter of Count Amadeus V of Savoy by his second wife Maria of Brabant. His long reign was marked by the gradual dissolution of imperial power amid numerous civil wars and the continuing ascendancy of the Ottoman Turks.

Coming to the throne at age nine, his reign began with immediate civil war between his designated regent, his father's friend John Kantakouzenos, and a self-proclaimed council of regency composed of his mother Anna, the patriarch John XIV Kalekas, and the megas doux Alexios Apokaukos. It was during this civil war in 1343 that Anna pawned the Byzantine crown jewels for 30,000 Venetian ducats. From 1346 to 1349, the Black Plague devastated Constantinople.

Victorious in 1347, John Kantakouzenos ruled as co-emperor until John V's attack on his son Matthew in 1352 led to a second civil war.In this second civil war John V asked the ruler of Serbia,Stephan Dushan for help and Dushan obliged by sending 4,000 Serbian horsemen to his aid. However Matthew Kantacouzenos asked his father,Byzantine Emperor John Kantacouzenos VI for help and 10,000 Ottoman Turks showed up at Demotika in October 1352 and engaged the forces of John V's Serbian allies in an open field battle which resulted in the destruction of the allies and a victory for the more numerous Turks in the service of the Byzantines. It was this conflict that saw the Ottoman Empire acquire its first European territory at Çimpe and Gallipoli. Able to retake Constantinople in 1354, John V was able to remove and tonsure John VI; by 1357, he had deposed Matthew as well after being captured by the Serbs and ransomed over to John V.

The Ottomans, who had been allied with the Kantakouzenoi, continued to press John. Suleyman Paşa, the son of the Ottoman sultan, led their forces in Europe and was able to take Adrianople and Philippopolis and exact tribute from the Emperor. John V appealed to the West for help, proposing to end the schism between the Byzantine and Latin churches by submitting the patriarchate to the supremacy of Rome.

In 1366 he reached the Hungarian Kingdom, arriving to the Royal city of Buda to meet the King Louis I of Hungary. However the Byzantine emperor offended the King staying on his horse as Louis did the contrary and advanced by walk to him. The Hungarian monarch then offered him help with the condition that John should change his confession to the catholic, or at least achieving that the Patriarch recognize the Pope's supremacy. The Emperor left the court of Buda with empty hands and continued his trip throughout Europe searching for assistance against the Ottomans. Impoverished by war, he was detained as a debtor when he visited Venice in 1369 and later captured in his way back in Bulgarian territories. In 1371, he recognized the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan Murad I. Murad later assisted him against his son Andronikos when the latter deposed him in 1376.

In 1390, his grandson John VII briefly usurped the throne, but was quickly overthrown. The same year, John ordered the strengthening of the Golden Gate in Constantinople, utilizing marble from the decayed churches in and around the city. Upon the completion of this construction, Bayezid I demanded that John raze these new works, threatening war and the blinding of his son Manuel whom he held in captivity. John V filled the Sultan's order, but is said to have suffered from this humiliation and died soon thereafter on 16 February 1391.

John V was finally succeeded to the imperial throne by his son Manuel. His younger son Theodore had already succeeded to the Despotate of Morea in 1383.