Smyrniote crusades

The Smyrniote crusades (1343–1351) were two Crusades sent by Pope Clement VI against the Beylik of Aydin under Umur Bey which had as their principal target the coastal city of Smyrna in Asia Minor. The crusade was mostly successful in restricting piracy and leading to Umur's death and Smyrna remained in Latin hands until 1402.

Background

Smyrna had been conquered at the beginning of the 14th century by the Aydinids who had used it since 1326-1329 as base for piracy in the southeastern Mediterranean sea. By the early 1340s the Aydinids and other Turkish beyliks had forced several Aegean islands to pay tributes and had devastated the surrounding coastal regions.

The first Smyrniote crusade was the brainchild of Clement VI. The threat of Turkish piracy in the Aegean Sea had induced Clement's predecessors, John XXII and Benedict XII, to maintain a fleet of four galleys there to defend Christian shipping, but starting in the 1340s, Clement endeavoured with Venetian aid to expand this effort into a full military expedition. He commissioned Henry of Asti, the Catholic patriarch of Constantinople, to organise a league against the Turks, who had increased their piracy in the Aegean in recent years. Hugh IV of Cyprus and the Knights Hospitaller joined, and on 2 November 1342, the Pope sent letters to engage the men and ships of Venice. The Papal bull granting the Crusade indulgence and authorising its preaching throughout Europe, Insurgentibus contra fidem, was published on 30 September.

First expedition

According to plan, twenty galleys fitted by the Cypriots, Hospitallers, Venetians and the papacy were to gather at Negroponte on the feast of All Saints on 1 November 1343. On 13 May next year, the united forces defeated a substantially larger Turkish fleet in the Battle of Pallene, at the western prong of the Chalcidice peninsula.