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Rh by the empress and opposed by a powerful party at court, he rebelled, and got himself crowned emperor at Didymoteichos in Thrace, while John Palaeologus and his supporters maintained themselves at Constantinople. The civil war which ensued lasted six years, during which the rival parties called in the aid of the Servians and Turks, and engaged mercenaries of every description. It was only by the aid of the Turks, with whom he made a disgraceful bargain, that Cantacuzene brought the war to a termination favourable to himself. In 1347 he entered Constantinople in triumph, and forced his opponents to an arrangement by which he became joint emperor with John Palaeologus and sole administrator during the minority of his colleague. During this period, the empire, already broken up and reduced to the narrowest limits, was assailed on every side. There were wars with the Genoese, who had a colony at Galata and had money transactions with the court; and with the Servians, who were at that time establishing an extensive empire on the north-western frontiers; and there was a hazardous alliance with the Turks, who made their first permanent settlement in Europe, at Callipolis in Thrace, towards the end of the reign (1354). Cantacuzene was far too ready to invoke the aid of foreigners in his European quarrels; and as he had no money to pay them, this gave them a ready pretext for seizing upon a European town. The financial burdens imposed by him had long been displeasing to his subjects, and a strong party had always favoured John Palaeologus. Hence, when the latter entered Constantinople at the end of 1354, his success was easy. Cantacuzene retired to a monastery (where he assumed the name of Joasaph Christodulus) and occupied himself in literary labours. He died in the Peloponnese and was buried by his sons at Mysithra in Laconia. His History in four books deals with the years 1320–1356. Really an apologia for his own actions, it needs to be read with caution; fortunately it can be supplemented and corrected by the work of a contemporary,. It possesses the merit of being well arranged and homogeneous, the incidents being grouped round the chief actor in the person of the author, but the information is defective on matters with which he is not directly concerned.

Cantacuzene was also the author of a commentary on the first five books of Aristotle’s Ethics, and of several controversial theological treatises, one of which (Against Mohammedanism) is printed in Migne (Patrologia Graeca, cliv.). History, ed. pr. by J. Pontanus (1603); in Bonn, ''Corpus scriptorum hist. Byz.'', by J. Schopen (1828–1832) and Migne, cliii., cliv. See also Val Parisot, Cantacuzène, homme d’état et historien (1845); E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lxiii.; and C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).

JOHN VI. or VII. (1390–1448), surnamed Palaeologus, East Roman emperor, son of Manuel II., succeeded to the throne in 1425. To secure protection against the Turks he visited the pope and consented to the union of the Greek and Roman churches, which was ratified at Florence in 1439. The union failed of its purpose, but by his prudent conduct towards the Ottomans he succeeded in holding possession of Constantinople, and in 1432 withstood a siege by Sultan Murad I.

See : History; and also E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi. 97-107 (ed. Bury, 1896); E. Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire, pp. 115–130 (1903).

JOHN (1167–1216), king of England, the youngest son of Henry II. by Eleanor of Aquitaine, was born at Oxford on the 24th of December 1167. He was given at an early age the nickname of Lackland because, unlike his elder brothers, he received no apanage in the continental provinces. But his future was a subject of anxious thought to Henry II. When only five years old John was betrothed (1173) to the heiress of Maurienne and Savoy, a principality which, as dominating the chief routes from France and Burgundy to Italy, enjoyed a consequence out of all proportion to its area. Later, when this plan had fallen through, he was endowed with castles, revenues and lands on both sides of the channel; the vacant earldom of Cornwall was reserved for him (1175); he was betrothed to Isabella the heiress of the earldom of Gloucester (1176); and he was granted the lordship of Ireland with the homage of the Anglo-Irish baronage (1177). Henry II. even provoked a civil war by attempting to transfer the duchy of Aquitaine from the hands of Richard Cœur de Lion to those of John (1183). In spite of the incapacity which he displayed in this war, John was sent a little later to govern Ireland (1185); but he returned in a few months covered with disgrace, having alienated the loyal chiefs by his childish insolence and entirely failed to defend the settlers from the hostile septs. Remaining henceforth at his father’s side he was treated with the utmost indulgence. But he joined with his brother Richard and the French king Philip Augustus in the great conspiracy of 1189, and the discovery of his treason broke the heart of the old king (see ).

Richard on his accession confirmed John’s existing possessions; married him to Isabella of Gloucester; and gave him, besides other grants, the entire revenues of six English shires; but excluded him from any share in the regency which was appointed to govern England during the third crusade; and only allowed him to live in the kingdom because urged to this concession by their mother. Soon after the king’s departure for the Holy Land it became known that he had designated his nephew, the young Arthur of Brittany, as his successor. John at once began to intrigue against the regents with the aim of securing England for himself. He picked a quarrel with the unpopular chancellor (q.v.), and succeeded, by the help of the barons and the Londoners, in expelling this minister, whose chief fault was that of fidelity to the absent Richard. Not being permitted to succeed Longchamp as the head of the administration, John next turned to Philip Augustus for help. A bargain was struck; and when Richard was captured by Leopold, duke of Austria (December 1192), the allies endeavoured to prevent his release, and planned a partition of his dominions. They were, however, unable to win either English or Norman support and their schemes collapsed with Richard’s return (March 1194). He magnanimously pardoned his brother, and they lived on not unfriendly terms for the next five years. On his deathbed Richard, reversing his former arrangements, caused his barons to swear fealty to John (1199), although the hereditary claim of Arthur was by the law of primogeniture undoubtedly superior.

England and Normandy, after some hesitation, recognized John’s title; the attempt of Anjou and Brittany to assert the rights of Arthur ended disastrously by the capture of the young prince at Mirebeau in Poitou (1202). But there was no part of his dominions in which John inspired personal devotion. Originally accepted as a political necessity, he soon came to be detested by the people as a tyrant and despised by the nobles for his cowardice and sloth. He inherited great difficulties—the feud with France, the dissensions of the continental provinces, the growing indifference of England to foreign conquests, the discontent of all his subjects with a strict executive and severe taxation. But he cannot be acquitted of personal responsibility for his misfortunes. Astute in small matters, he had no breadth of view or foresight; his policy was continually warped by his passions or caprices; he flaunted vices of the most sordid kind with a cynical indifference to public opinion, and shocked an age which was far from tender-hearted by his ferocity to vanquished enemies. He treated his most respectable supporters with base ingratitude, reserved his favour for unscrupulous adventurers, and gave a free rein to the licence of his mercenaries. While possessing considerable gifts of mind and a latent fund of energy, he seldom acted or reflected until the favourable moment had passed. Each of his great humiliations followed as the natural result of crimes or blunders. By his divorce from Isabella of Gloucester he offended the English baronage (1200); by his marriage with Isabella of Angoulême, the betrothed of Hugh of Lusignan, he gave an opportunity to the discontented Poitevins for invoking French assistance and to Philip Augustus for pronouncing against him a sentence of forfeiture. The murder of Arthur (1203) ruined his cause in Normandy and Anjou; the story that the court of the peers of France condemned him for the murder is a fable, but no legal process was needed to convince men of his guilt. In the later quarrel with Innocent III. (1207–1213; see