Byzantine civil war of 1373–1379
| Byzantine civil war of 1373–1379 | |||||||||
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| Part of the Byzantine civil wars | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 John V Palaiologos Ottoman Empire Republic of Venice
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Andronikos IV Palaiologos Savcı Bey Republic of Genoa
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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John V Palaiologos Manuel II Palaiologos Murad I
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Andronikos IV Palaiologos Savcı Bey (POW)
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The Byzantine civil war of 1373–1379 was a military conflict fought in the Byzantine Empire between Byzantine Emperor John V Palaiologos and his son, Andronikos IV Palaiologos, also growing into an Ottoman civil war as well, when Savcı Bey, the son of Ottoman Emperor Murad I joined Andronikos in a joint rebellion against their fathers. It began when Andronikos sought to overthrow his father in 1373. Although he failed, with Genoese aid, Andronikos was eventually able to overthrow and imprison John V in 1376. In 1379 however, John V escaped, and with Ottoman help, regained his throne. The civil war further weakened the declining Byzantine Empire, which had already suffered several devastating civil wars earlier in the century. The major beneficiary of the war were the Ottomans, whose vassals the Byzantines had effectively become.
When John V assumed sole rule of the Empire in 1354, he pursued a clearly pro-Western foreign policy. He gave Lesbos and his sister's hand in marriage to a Genoese, Pontic Heraclea, Byzantium's last Anatolian port, was sold to the Venetians, and he himself converted to Roman Catholicism, an action that alienated him from his subjects and gained little in return. By the 1360s, the Byzantine Empire was a shadow of its former self. Its last domains in Thrace were being overrun by the Ottomans, who in 1365 captured Adrianople (modern Edirne). Seeking aid from the West, in 1369 John V visited Pope Urban V that summer, and following that he sailed to Venice, where he negotiated a treaty in which the Venetians would cancel the emperor's debt in return for the island of Tenedos. On leaving Byzantine soil he left his two sons, Andronikos IV and Manuel, to manage Constantinople and Thessalonica respectively. Andronikos IV, the elder son and co-emperor, however refused to hand over Tenedos to the Venetians as agreed, and the Emperor was detained by the Venetians for two years until Manuel intervened on his behalf.
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