Diplomatic activities

fter restoring the unity of the state in 1357, following the renunciation of his imperial rights by Matthew Kantakouzenos, John V prepared to confront the Turkish threat. The Serbian state, after Stefan Dusan's death in December 1355, had fallen apart and no longer constituted a menace for Byzantium. The Turks, however, were becoming increasingly dangerous, making continuous incursions into Thrace, and destroying all before them. In 1359 they reached the walls of Constantinople, in 1362 they took Adrianople and in 1363 they occupied Didymoteichon and Philippopolis. The settlement of Turks in Europe was made official in 1365, when Sultan Murad I made Adrianople his capital and established Turks in the region, driving out the local population, who were forcibly transported to Asia Minor.

John, conscious of the military and financial weakness of the state, initiated a series of important diplomatic moves with the aim of finding suitable allies who would help him hold back the Turks. He dispatched Patriarch Kallistos I to Serres to negotiate with Dusan's widow, but the Patriarch's sudden death put an end to the negotiations. Nor did the efforts to come to an agreement with the Italian maritime republics prove any more successful. The only success John V was able to achieve at this time, following his contacts with Pope Urban V (1362-70), was the setting in motion of a crusade, to be led by the King of Cyprus, Peter I. However, the crusade that began in 1365 and that was to have been directed against the Turks, was finally turned against Egypt, thus frustrating the expectations of John V.