Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/124

 90 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE accomplished at a later day. There appeared reason to hope that the pope regarded the danger from the Moslems mainly from the statesman's point of view and desired mutual action. John was so far justified in this hope that it may be confidently asserted that had the counsels of more than one of the popes during his reign been followed there would have been a concerted action against the common enemy sufficient to have delayed the Turkish progress, and possibly to have altogether arrested it. "We shall see, however, that, although all the states of Western Europe still acknowledged the supremacy of the pope, their interests and jealousies were as diverse as they have been in modern times, and that the pontiff was able neither to induce nor to compel the nations acknowledging his supremacy to act in concert. Knowing from his own visit to Italy and from the negotiations carried on by Cantacuzenus that Eome was predisposed to aid, John, immediately he became sole ruler, sent an embassy to the pope. His delegates were authorised to make the emperor's submission to the papal authority in exchange for the undertaking by the pope to furnish galleys against the Turks. In the following year, 1356, John sent a golden bull to the pope at Avignon containing the terms of his submission. 1 The pope thereupon expressed his satisfaction by a reply to the emperor, and while communicating the good news to the knights of Khodes, the king of Cyprus, and the doge of Venice, invited them to make preparations to aid the Chris- tian cause. So far, however, as the empire was concerned, the series of efforts made at the pope's instigation were without any satisfactory result. Ill planned, inadequately sup- ported, unenergetically pursued, they were all almost useless. Six years afterwards — namely, in 1362 — John was invited to join the kings of France and Denmark and Guy de Lusignan of Cyprus in a Crusade against the Saracens, an expedition 1 Raynaldus, N. xxxii., professes to give the text of his submission. I his text is genuine it shows that John was under the same delusion as Michael had been : namely, that he could force the Orthodox Church to accept what he wanted.