The head of Constantine, the head of Constantinople, fell during the fall of Constantinople.
(All my own work. I thank you!) [Alix: ahem…]
Quite exactly how Constantine became separated from his head during or after the fight to save his Byzantine ‘capital’ from the Ottoman invaders is much debated. But separated they became.
At that point, on May 29th 1453, the once mighty Empire now comprised only two morsels: tiny Trebizond (which would fall to Sultan Mehmed in 1461) and the Despotate of Morea, which would hold out a further seven years until 1460.
The capital of the Despotate of Morea was Mystras, and it is argued that Mystras was the last capital of the Byzantine Empire. That’s perhaps a good question for Mr Paxman to have on University Challenge? Too obscure? Anyway, that is where the skipper of ‘Missy Bear’ dragged his First Mate to spend most of yesterday. And yes, it did involve climbing up yet another big hill to see a medieval fortification. There was the usual huffing and puffing and mild complaining from the crew…
Sotiris had dropped off our Fiat hire-car the previous evening so that we could get away early. 50 Euros. Cash. We took the old road from Kalamata towards Sparta. The road winds slowly up the western side of the Taygetus Mountains, through a steep, wooded gorge, and then switchbacks down the eastern side towards the flat, extensive and fertile plain of the river Eurotas.
Occasionally the road is single-file, simply because one half has disappeared down the hillside. But fortunately, some plastic hazard warning tape is all that the Greek highways authority needs to prevent certain catastrophe!
We stopped now and then to partake of the mountain air, which was two or three degrees cooler than down in the bay. The colours were innumerable shades of lush greens and bright yellows. Most spring flowers seem to be of yellow hues (gorse, broom, sage, daisy, wild fennel), mixed with some purples. The immediate sense was of the gentle background hum of insects, presumably bees. We had passed innumerable hives on the way, and many smallholdings offered to sell the passer-by honey, olives, olive oil and other local goodies. We passed a roadside taverna that had a suckling pig spinning over a charcoal barbecue. But it was only 10:00 and we were too early for a pork sandwich. Anyway, it was still probably a bit too pink inside.
We passed many, small fallen rocks on the roadside and occasionally on the tarmac. We overtook one car with a flat tyre undoubtedly caused by the driver having not avoided one of these sharp pointy objects. There were signs in Cyrillic on the road side, presumably saying “Beware of Falling Rocks”, but I have never understood the value of those signs? Being beware, doesn’t actually stop the blighters lining you up and hurling themselves down the cliff at your car, no matter how intently and tentatively you peer up through the windscreen.
At one point, the road goes through a short tunnel, or what I thought was just a big slab of overhanging limestone that was about to slip at any moment. I think we both held our breath until we emerged on the other side.
We eventually turned off right at a brown sign saying Mystras, and headed back uphill before we landed on the olive-tree-covered river plain. Around the final bends we glimpsed the Frankish fort perched atop a rocky pinnacle like a bird of prey. On a little ledge or plateau halfway up, nestles the upper or old town. (The newer town lay below out of sight, but all commanded views over the plain below.
We parked at the gate to the upper town and I pointed up. “Right, let’s start at the top!” I could sense the fall of a crest.
The fort is the oldest part of the site and is Frankish: you may remember (from ‘One Eye of the Republic”) how Geoffrey Villehouardin and a few knights conquered most of the Peloponnese peninsula, after landing at Methoni in a storm. His palace, at La Cremonie - in the valley below us - was known as the Mediterranean Camelot and knights would pop in enroute to the Holy Land. His son William built the fortification in 1249 as a defence against Slavic tribes still roaming the Taygetos mountains.
After the Greeks retook Constantinople from the Crusaders, they then beat the Franks in battle in the Morea and made them cede by treaty several Peloponnesian sites including Mystras. Many Greeks in Constantinople, realising that their capital was doomed eventually to fall to the Ottomans, moved to this new stronghold. The site was secure with natural protection and a good source of freshwater with which to withstand sieges. They financed/built churches, monasteries and palaces. And it was through these that Alix and I now wondered, armed with the plan from our Cadogan guide. Many of the churches are still dressed with well-preserved medieval frescos.
The city is now completely deserted, save for a few nuns in one of the monasteries. It is peaceful and covered in the tall yellow umbels of wild fennel. All insects seem to love that. The city was finally abandoned in the 1950s, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If feels slightly eerie wandering around what is effectively an open-air, Byzantine museum. Much of it is still standing, especially the churches, but much of the housing is gone. And the site would have been jam-packed with housing, crammed inside the outer and inner protective walls. There would have been further peasant housing outside the outer (lower) wall, with the great unwashed rushing into the walled areas in times of danger.
Anyway, back to Constantine Palaeologus (who would become Emperor Constantine XI). He was born into the famous Palaeologus dynasty, who had retaken Constantinople from the Crusaders. The family had ruled ever since. As son of the emperor Manuel II, he became Despot of Morea, based at Mystras. In 1449 after the death of John VIII, and following some internecine shenanigans (well it is Greece), Constantine was crowned in the tiny cathedral at Mystras. He then sailed on a Venetian ship to Constantinople to organise its final defence. Soon he would be sans tete, and seven years later Demetrios Palaeologus would hand over the keys of Mystras to the Ottomans.
Under the Turks in 1460, Mystras remained the most important city in the region. According to a 17th century traveller, the Greek population still lived within the fortified city, while Muslim, Jewish and Greek communities had sprung up outside the walls. Interestingly, the inhabitants produced silkworms, and cultivated olives, vines, citrus fruit, figs and tobacco, much of which was exported to western Europe. Up until now, I had not spotted a mulberry tree in the Peloponnese (probably due to my incompetence), so you can imagine my delight when I found my first specimen in the lower town in Mystras. And then, of course, as these things tend to play out, I rounded the next bend to find a whole orchard of them!
I don’t think the Ottomans were too kind to the city in their latter-years, and I understand that the Egyptians (Ibrahim Pasha) torched it during the War of Independence.
But it was the Bavarian King Otto who hammered in the final nail in 1834, when he founded the modern city of Sparta in the valley below. The inhabitants of Mystras simply moved down to the new city. Of which there is nothing at all remarkable, as far as I can see… Constantine would not have been impressed!