Recaps

Vitus traveled to Northern Thrace to investigate unrest and found that Demetrius and Thomas had fallen into conflict over the spoils from a captured castle. After Demetrius withdrew and Thomas fled west, Vitus dealt with the remaining forces and surveyed Burgas as a potential Black Sea Fleet home port.

• Vitus learned that Northern Thrace was in turmoil and traveled there to investigate the army's conduct.
• Vitus discovered that Demetrius and Thomas had quarreled over captured treasure, and Demetrius had destroyed a bridge to leave Thomas behind.
• Vitus threatened to storm the fortress, prompting its Bulgarian defenders to surrender and Demetrius to seek his help.
• Vitus sent Demetrius back to Blachernae Palace and found that Thomas had withdrawn to Western Thrace.
• Vitus dealt with the remaining forces in Northern Thrace and identified Burgas as a suitable home port for the Black Sea Fleet.

Vitus returned to Constantinople for a triumph honoring his campaigns, then Manuel II named him co-emperor alongside John, assigning Vitus responsibility for military conquest. The brothers accepted a division of duties intended to prevent another succession conflict.

• Vitus learned that Manuel II had summoned him to Constantinople for a triumph and traveled there with his troops, banners, trophies, and prisoners.
• On May 16, 1433, Vitus entered Constantinople through the Golden Gate and led his disciplined legions to Hagia Sophia, where Manuel II and the imperial family awaited him.
• Manuel II brought Vitus and John into a private room and warned his sons that family conflicts had brought the Empire close to destruction.
• Demetrius promised not to start a civil war, but Thomas accused him of destroying a bridge and failing to capture a fort.
• Manuel II declared that John would continue managing internal affairs and diplomacy while Vitus would lead foreign conquests as co-emperor.
• John and Vitus accepted Manuel II's arrangement for the joint rule of two emperors.

Vitus was crowned emperor after Manuel secured vows of peace among his sons, then returned to his old quarters at Blachernae Palace. At the imperial council, John reported that the restored Empire had only 1.85 million people, and the ministers began discussing how to rebuild regional administration.

• Manuel announced his decision before the imperial family and made John and Vitus swear not to harm their brothers, while Helena Dragaš was expected to keep the family united.
• The Patriarch crowned Vitus at Hagia Sophia, and the officers and soldiers hailed him as Basileus.
• Vitus returned to his familiar courtyard at Blachernae Palace and dismissed the servants so he could rest alone.
• At the council meeting, John read a report stating that the Empire had a population of 1.85 million, with Greeks making up eighty percent.
• John explained that wars, plague, and Ottoman exploitation had devastated the population, then opened discussion on restoring the theme and pronoia systems.

Vitus and the Imperial Council reorganized the Eastern Roman Empire’s provincial administration and military, then realized the empire needed an emergency loan of 300,000 Florins. After the meeting, Vitus rewarded the troops and reflected on the burdens of sharing the throne.

• Vitus argued that the Theme and Pronoia systems were obsolete and proposed civil governors alongside a centralized professional army.
• The council divided the empire into Constantinople and nine provinces, separating civil, judicial, and military authority except in Cyprus, where Theodore remained despot.
• Vitus drafted an imperial decree appointing Constantine and Lucas to command the First Legion, while the council set the empire’s forces and annual military expenditure.
• John asked Vitus to borrow from Florence against imperial estates and mines, and Vitus calculated that the empire needed an emergency loan of 300,000 Florins.
• Vitus promised soldiers property transfers, cash rewards, and honorary titles, then caught fish and cooked soup for them before contemplating the burdens of the throne.

After Vitus's coronation, he and John assigned posts to their brothers and prepared to fill provincial offices. A Florentine delegation arrived in Constantinople to negotiate, and Vitus left the palace's formal rituals behind to host them on a terrace.

• Vitus warned John that Demetrius and Thomas were unfit to govern, but John appointed Demetrius provincial judge of Macedonia and Thomas garrison general of Northern Thrace.
• The Florence delegation arrived in Constantinople, where Phil Di Maggio learned that his brother-in-law Vitus had become co-emperor.
• Cosimo de' Medici asked about the damage to Blachernae Palace, and a guard blamed the Fourth Crusade and Count Henry of Flanders.
• Phil presented Florence's letter of credence to John VIII and Vitus, and the emperors hosted the delegation at a formal palace meal.
• After John VIII left to handle religious matters, Vitus took over the negotiations and invited the envoys to eat Italian-style food on a terrace overlooking the Golden Horn.
• Phil ate honey pies and told Vitus that his court had more rules than the courts of Sigismund and Charles VII.

Vitus negotiated a loan from Florence’s delegation while refusing to grant foreign merchants tax exemptions, then received a letter from Agnes. Phil explored Constantinople and discovered the University of Constantinople’s reduced enrollment and Gennaro Gonnecchia’s plans to retire.

• Vitus secured a three-hundred-thousand-Florin loan from the Florentine delegation at an annual interest rate of 18%, with repayment over five years, and sent the agreement to John VIII for approval.
• Vitus refused to offer commercial privileges, and he and the delegation finalized an agreement that concealed its interest terms in wording that avoided the Church’s ban on interest.
• Phil delivered Agnes’s letter to Vitus and told him that Agnes was in good health and Romanus enjoyed arithmetic and geometry.
• Cosimo de' Medici went to the market while Phil explored the Pandidakterion and found a medical dissection class taught by Gennaro Gonnecchia.
• Gennaro told Phil that the university’s enrollment had fallen from five hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty as professors and students took government posts, and said he planned to retire in Florence.

Phil chose a site for Florence’s trading station in Constantinople and welcomed the removal of foreign merchants’ tax exemptions, while Vitus oversaw a military exercise and avoided a discussion about church union. The chapter ended with Vitus leaving to deal with an issue at the military camp outside the city.

• Phil selected a plot beside the Golden Horn for Florence’s trading station and bought nearby land for a bank branch and shops.
• Phil visited Hagia Sophia and learned that many clergy had gone to Macedonia and Thrace or taken local official posts.
• Phil saw a notice ending foreign merchants’ tax-exempt privileges and hurried to the Venetian quarter to witness the change.
• Eastern Roman troops posted new tariffs, confiscated some merchants’ firearms, and staged a naval and artillery exercise in the Golden Horn.
• Vitus disembarked from an oared warship and discussed the lost formula for Greek fire on his way back to Blachernae Palace.
• The Patriarch raised the church union with Vitus, who excused himself to attend to a problem at the military camp.

Murad II captured Trebizond and sent its people to Constantinople as part of a proposed prisoner exchange, while John Palaiologos agreed to receive them and promised Maria Komnenos he would rescue her brother David. In Constantinople, soldiers worried that incoming nobles would compete for their promised estates, and John faced a growing protest from nobles demanding their former lands back.

• Murad II captured Trebizond in less than four hours, and David Komnenos surrendered in exchange for protection for the residents.
• Isangai advised Murad II to exchange Trebizond captives for Ottoman prisoners and Turkic residents held by the Eastern Romans.
• The Eastern Roman fleet intercepted an Ottoman transport carrying a thousand captives, and Maria Komnenos asked John Palaiologos to bring her niece ashore.
• Damien and Renaf discussed the influx of Trebizond nobles and the delayed land deeds for Third Legion officers.
• John agreed to exchange refugees, promised Maria he would try to rescue David, and received a report that nobles were demanding the return of their estates.

Vitus, John, and Theodore devised a way to reject most nobles’ land claims by citing centuries of unpaid estate taxes, then discussed trade and competing plans for expansion. The brothers left the claims to be settled family by family, while Theodore and Vitus remained at odds over the profits from African exploration and a campaign against the Ottoman and Mamluk.

• John brought Vitus documents from nobles demanding the return of estates, and Vitus argued that the empire could not restore all the land or recognize the pronoia nobles’ claims.
• Theodore proposed punishing noble families for their long-overdue estate taxes, giving John a pretext to deny most claims.
• John, Vitus, and Theodore reviewed the families’ influence and holdings, marking thirty-five families for negotiations and considering returning estates to key Imperial Council ministers.
• Vitus grilled mutton and shared beer with Theodore as they discussed Theodore’s investment in Prince Henry’s African exploration.
• Vitus argued that conquering the Ottoman and Mamluk offered better prospects than the African route, but Theodore rejected his plan.

John summoned the old nobles and restored only part of their estates, prompting a clandestine gathering and leaving George Sphrantzes unsure where to turn. After George and other nobles went to Blachernae Palace, John outlined plans to punish or relocate them, and Manuel asked how the empire would handle its future aristocracy.

• On June 10, John summoned representatives of the noble families, restoring some estates while demanding that most nobles pay centuries of overdue taxes.
• After George Sphrantzes received only five hundred stremmas of farmland, Nikephoros invited him to a banquet where nobles discussed dangerous plans.
• George found a toy carved with symbols of the field legions and realized that the nobles could not challenge the emperor's army.
• George visited Manuel at Pantokrator Monastery, where the eunuch directed him to seek the forgiveness of John and the other emperor at Blachernae Palace.
• George and Nikephoros found many nobles waiting in the palace courtyard as daylight approached.
• John told Vitus he would execute nobles with serious offenses and relocate the others, then Manuel approved the plan and asked how John would shape the future aristocracy.

Vitus proposed tying military obligations and taxes to property ownership, while Damien sought help managing the land deeds awarded to soldiers. Constantine failed to secure Georgia’s military alliance but began evacuating Trebizond refugees, leaving him convinced that recovering Anatolia would remain out of reach.

• Vitus proposed requiring wealthy landowners to serve in wartime or pay an exemption tax, and John VIII agreed to discuss the decree at the imperial council.
• Finance Minister Stephen Synolian delivered land deeds to the Attica Legion, and Damien asked him to arrange estate management for soldiers who could not leave camp.
• Vitus told Damien and Marcus to wait for Trebizond civil officials to be resettled and assigned to local administrative posts.
• Constantine arrived in Georgia to seek an alliance, but King Alexander I refused to commit unless Rome assembled a stronger coalition against the Ottomans.
• Alexander I allowed Constantine’s fleet to recruit Trebizond refugees, and Constantine carried four thousand people toward the Roman Empire.
• Constantine concluded that the Ottomans were too strong for Rome to defeat without a large Crusade and that church-union opposition would prevent the Holy See from helping.

Vitus opposed spending heavily on Constantinople’s public works and inspected the Aqueduct of Valens and the Underground Cistern. He left the city’s restoration plans in question after learning how its water system had survived the siege.

• The fleet returned four thousand refugees, and John planned to settle farmers on imperial estates while Vitus’s proposal to select five hundred candidates for provincial posts was scheduled for an examination.
• Vitus warned that the Empire needed to preserve public lands and independent farmers, then rejected Nicholas Melas’s proposal to spend more on Constantinople while the treasury still owed nearly twelve thousand Florins to the shipyard and arsenal.
• Vitus recalled how Michael VIII Palaiologos’s costly restoration of Constantinople had weakened the Empire’s eastern defenses and argued against repeating that mistake.
• Vitus inspected the Aqueduct of Valens and learned that its maintenance had received three thousand Florins and that Ottoman forces had blocked the channel without destroying it during the siege.
• Vitus descended into the Underground Cistern, where the civil official showed him the fish in its water and the old columns carved with Medusa.

Vitus recruited Gennaro Gonnecchia to establish a privately funded university in Adrianople focused on medicine, mathematics, and natural philosophy. Venice approved an agreement concerning taxes and Thessaloniki, while John VIII asked whether the Empire’s population could reach two million by year’s end.

• Vitus offered Gennaro Gonnecchia funding to manage a university beyond the Church’s control, and Gennaro chose Adrianople and planned to recruit Italian colleagues.
• Vitus gave Gennaro designs for hospital heating and suggested facilities for clean water, bathing, and washing.
• Vitus asked Carlo Notaras whether he needed anyone’s consent to fund a university privately, and Carlo said the law did not prohibit it.
• John VIII reported that Venice had accepted the current tax rate and agreed that the Empire could redeem Thessaloniki at its original price.
• Doge Foscari signed Venice’s agreement after its governing bodies approved it, then planned a special measure to prevent further Greek expansion.
• John VIII asked Nicholas Melas whether the Empire’s population could reach two million by the end of the year.

Damien inspected his newly granted estate in Epirus during his leave, then discovered a wrecked Venetian warship on the coast and returned to Constantinople early to report the suspicious find. The ship had no flag, and its water-damaged logbook recorded no voyage.

• Nikola estimated that Venice’s population would reach two million only around 1435, while Vitus considered Venice’s military options against Skanderbeg.
• Damien planned to profit from his Epirus estate by leasing farmland and pasture and managing its forest for timber.
• Damien inspected his castle and surrounding villages, then spent several days surveying his property with local hunters.
• Damien and two hunters found a wrecked, unflagged Venetian warship with corpses, cannons, and a logbook on the beach.
• The village priest identified the ship as Venetian, but its logbook gave no record of its voyage, so Damien cut short his leave and returned to Constantinople with it.

Damien’s warning about Venice prompted the emperors to prepare the fleet, but an Ottoman squadron soon entered the Dardanelles, sending Vitus and the Eastern Roman navy to respond. After the fleets clashed, a captain reported that masked figures were aboard the Ottoman ships, leaving Vitus suspecting their crews were not what they seemed.

• Damien presented the logbook and warned John and Vitus that Venice might be preparing a fleet and an invasion of Cyprus.
• The imperial council judged Damien’s suspicions uncertain, but Vitus ordered the fleet to prepare for war and inspected the ships at the Golden Horn.
• An Eastern Roman garrison spotted twenty-nine Ottoman oared sailing ships entering the Dardanelles and sent signals to raise the alarm.
• Vitus ordered Marcus to defend Gallipoli, then sailed aboard the flagship Euboea to meet the approaching fleet.
• On October 5, an Eastern Roman captain reported an engagement with the Ottoman ships and said their crews maneuvered poorly, while masked figures appeared aboard every vessel.

After defeating an Ottoman fleet reinforced with Venetian galleasses, Vitus learned that Venice’s new ships threatened the Empire’s control of the sea. He ordered an expedition to seize a foothold on the eastern shore opposite Constantinople, where Greek troops landed and began attacking the Ottoman fortress.

• Vitus’s squadron engaged the Ottoman fleet, using chain shot to disable its galleys while Ottoman galleasses covered the retreat.
• Vitus returned to Constantinople with seven captured ships and told John that Venice had supplied the Ottomans with new galleasses.
• Vitus proposed taking ground across the strait to prevent Ottoman cannons from threatening Constantinople, and John approved the operation.
• On October 20, the Third Legion sailed across the Golden Horn and landed south of the Ottoman stronghold at Chrysopolis.
• Vitus’s soldiers dragged cannons ashore, exchanged fire with the fortress, blocked Chrysopolis’s roads, and began building a pier for supplies.

Vitus secured Chrysopolis and strengthened the Eastern Roman position on the eastern bank before welcoming Agnes and their sons to Constantinople. At the start of 1434, the imperial court reviewed the provinces’ reports, while family members and senior officials gathered for an imperial council.

• Vitus avoided Turahan’s fortified camp, then oversaw the repair of Chrysopolis’s walls and the construction of forts to secure the eastern bank.
• Agnes arrived in Thrace with Romanus and newborn Leo, and Vitus welcomed his family in Constantinople.
• Romanus ran through Blachernae Palace with Anna, the daughter of the fallen Emperor of Trebizond, while Vitus explained that the Sultan still held David Komnenos captive.
• The imperial family dined with the old emperor, who quietly held Leo, and Romanus fell asleep at the table after a day of mischief.
• Vitus helped senior ministers understand the statistical tables and Arabic numerals in provincial reports, and Varro Santis was assigned to teach them the new methods.
• On January 5, 1434, John, Vitus, the old emperor, Demetrius, and Thomas attended an imperial council to review the completed reports.

John reviewed the empire’s finances while Vitus considered Constantinople’s book trade and the future of monastic scriptoria. After learning that the Mamluks had lost Syria and Lebanon to the Ottomans, Vitus refused their request to buy firearms and planned to aid Skanderbeg against Venice instead.

• John read the fiscal report, and Nicholas Melas forecast that tax revenue would rise to 800,000 florins as production recovered.
• Vitus visited a monastery’s scriptorium, learned about its expensive illustrated books, and declined to commission one until Romanus had advanced further in his studies.
• Vitus worried that the spread of printing would reduce monastery income from copying books.
• A Mamluk envoy told John that the Ottomans had driven the Mamluk border south to Jerusalem and taken Syria and Lebanon.
• Vitus rejected the Mamluks’ request to buy firearms because imperial garrisons needed weapons and he intended to supply equipment to Skanderbeg against Venice.

Elion Daltino sold firearms to the Mamluks in Alexandria and doubted their five-year truce with the Ottomans would last. In Prague, Sigismund recognized the Utraquists and secured their recognition as King of Bohemia, then prepared to leave for Rome.

• Elion Daltino arrived in Alexandria with three thousand Matchlocks and ten cannons, which Mamluk nobles bought for thirty thousand Florins in spices.
• Elion learned that the Ottomans and Mamluks had agreed to a five-year truce and judged that the Ottomans would not honor it for long.
• Sigismund summoned Bohemian nobles and clergy in Prague and negotiated an agreement recognizing the Utraquists as legitimate in return for their recognition of him as King of Bohemia.
• Sigismund reflected that his authority and royal finances were weak, then ordered preparations for a journey to Rome with Hunyadi and Jeanne.

Sigismund traveled to Rome and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Eugene IV. He granted Jeanne d'Arc's promised fief of Kuttenberg to the church at her request, and she resigned as commander to remain in Rome and study Latin and theology.

• Jeanne d'Arc looked back at Prague as Sigismund's army departed, reflecting on the Hussites and the war.
• Sigismund crossed Italy to Rome, where he negotiated with the Holy See over his coronation.
• Eugene IV crowned Sigismund in St. Peter's Basilica, and Sigismund received congratulations from envoys.
• Sigismund granted the church secular jurisdiction over Kuttenberg and the surrounding region after Jeanne asked him to donate her promised fief to help the poor.
• The pope confirmed the donation and welcomed Jeanne as the Maid of Orléans, while avoiding the subject of divine revelation.
• Jeanne resigned as commander and told Sigismund she would remain in Rome to study Latin and theology.

In May 1434, Vitus endured the Imperial Council’s disputes over religion, law, and taxes before proposing that the empire conquer Tauris-Crimea instead of fighting the Ottomans. He planned to take the peninsula before autumn with one field legion and three thousand levies.

• John VIII convened the Imperial Council after Manuel’s funeral, where the patriarch reported that the church council in Rome was nearing its conclusion and advised outward agreement with the Holy See.
• Thomas accused Demetrius of taking a bribe, and Demetrius retaliated by questioning the wealth of Thomas’s wife while Vitus doodled through the argument.
• Vitus returned to his quarters, where Romanus finished an arithmetic test and Agnes told Vitus she felt stifled by life in Blachernae Palace.
• After the council debated revising the Basilika and then turned to taxes, Vitus argued that the empire’s limited population and revenue made a war against the Ottomans unwise.
• Vitus revealed that he intended to conquer Tauris-Crimea, and he said he planned to take the peninsula before autumn with one field legion and three thousand levies.

Vitus secured funding and prepared a campaign to conquer Crimea, then led an expedition fleet out of the Golden Horn. After passing Ottoman batteries in the Bosphorus, the fleet entered the Black Sea and sailed toward the peninsula.

• The Imperial Council allocated fifty thousand Florins for Vitus’s campaign, and Vitus declared that Theodoro had no claim to Roman Crimea.
• Agnes offered Vitus another fifty thousand Florins for military expenses in exchange for first choice of pastureland after the war.
• Vitus ordered the Tuna Legion to prepare, called up three thousand Thracian militiamen, and hired more than thirty merchant ships.
• Vitus instructed Constantine to guard the borders and avoid involvement in the war between Albania and Venice before the fleet departed on June 9.
• The Ottoman garrison fired on Vitus’s fleet in the Bosphorus, and the Roman ships returned fire and destroyed one cannon.
• Vitus’s fleet entered the Black Sea and followed the coastal route northwest before turning toward the southwestern coast of the peninsula.

Vitus Palaiologos led the Roman fleet to capture Chersonesus and then marched inland to take Mangup. Alexios Gavras surrendered, and Vitus ordered his family and defenders to relocate to the imperial homeland.

• Vitus ordered the fleet to bombard Chersonesus, destroying its trebuchets and forcing the defenders to surrender.
• The Roman marines took the harbor, and Vitus introduced himself to the residents as Emperor of Rome before Greek locals welcomed him.
• Vitus left five hundred men guarding Chersonesus and led the main force toward Mangup, where Alexios Gavras prepared to defend the city.
• Vitus demanded Mangup’s surrender, and after the Gothic soldiers abandoned their posts under artillery fire, Alexios Gavras gave up the city.
• Vitus had a guard take the land and population registers and ordered Alexios Gavras and his people to move to residences in the imperial homeland.

Vitus led the Eastern Roman forces into the northern steppe, where a surprise attack defeated a Tatar tribe with help from enslaved Eastern Europeans. After the battle, he recruited some freed slaves to fight and sent the others to resettlement on the peninsula.

• Vitus allowed ordinary prisoners of war to return home, sent their officers to be resettled, and prepared wagons while waiting for reinforcements.
• On July 20, the second batch of reinforcements arrived, and Vitus led his main force into the steppe before the conscripted militia arrived.
• Greek cavalry scouts spotted a Tatar camp, but a gunshot exposed their position and triggered a flare signaling nearby troops to attack.
• A mountain infantry company advanced on the camp as the Tatar chief led a charge; Greek musketeers killed the chief, and the surviving nomads fled.
• Greek infantry and Eastern European slaves cleared the camp, while most of the nomads and livestock escaped because too few cavalrymen were available.
• Vitus recruited 130 able-bodied slaves to fight alongside the legion and sent the remaining slaves to the rear to become free wage-earning citizens.

Vitus’s Tuna Legion pursued fleeing nomads, freed hundreds of slaves, and formed a small dragoon company as rumors spread across Crimea. Haji Giray gathered a force of more than twenty thousand riders and surrounded Vitus’s army, but the Greeks’ artillery shattered the first probing attack and forced the Khan to retreat.

• Vitus split the Tuna Legion into two columns to pursue nomad tribes fleeing north, while Krezer led infantry after a migrating tribe and routed its riders, prompting a slave revolt.
• Krezer’s men gathered the abandoned livestock and more than seven hundred slaves, and Vitus formed a company of 130 mounted musketeers.
• Haji Giray dismissed rumors that Greek firearms were magic, gathered more than twenty thousand riders, and advanced toward Vitus’s position.
• Vitus drew his forces together and summoned Marcus’s column as Haji Giray surrounded the Greek army and sent three thousand riders to probe its defenses.
• The Greek artillery devastated the probing cavalry, and further shells carved through the nomad formation, forcing Haji Giray to fall back.