Smyrniote crusades
| Smyrniote crusades | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Giuseppe Gatteri | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Republic of Venice Knights Hospitaller Kingdom of Cyprus Dauphiné of Viennois Papal States | Emirate of Aydin | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Henry of Asti † Pietro Zeno † Martino Zaccaria † Hugh IV of Cyprus Humbert II of Viennois |
Umur Beg (1343–1348) † Hızır Beg (1348–1351) | ||||||||
The Smyrniote crusades (1343–1351) were two
The first Smyrniote crusade was the brainchild of
The first Smyrniote crusade began with the naval victory of the Battle of Pallene and ended with an assault on Smyrna, capturing the harbour and the citadel but not the acropolis, on 28 October 1344. In a gesture of overconfidence, on 17 January 1345 Henry of Asti attempted to celebrate mass in an abandoned structure which he believed had been the cathedral of the metropolitan. In the middle of the service Umur Bey swept down on the congregation and the leaders of the crusade were killed, including the Patriarch, Martino Zaccaria, commander of the Papal galleys and the Venetian commander, Pietro Zeno.
The precarious situation of the Crusaders in Asia Minor spurred the Pope to organise a second expedition in 1345. In November, under the command of
References
- ISBN 0-87169-114-0.
Further reading
- Carr, Mike. 2014. "Humbert of Viennois and the Crusade of Smyrna: A Reconsideration". Crusades 13 (1): 237–51.
- Gay, Jules. 1904. Le pape Clément VI et les affaires d'Orient. PhD thesis.