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DYNASTIC STEUGGLES IN EMPIEE 69 death with Cantacuzenus, and invited him, even as early as 1329, to occupy the throne as co-emperor, and the offer was renewed. 1 Cantacuzenus, notwithstanding that he was pressed to accept by the only noble near him in rank, Apocaukus, who afterwards became his great enemy, refused. The emperor, however, continued to treat him as a friend, and was constantly accompanied by him on his various expeditions. Like every emperor from the recapture of Constan- Appeals for tinople down to 1453, Andronicus turned his attention to the the West and sought to obtain aid against the Turks, even at the price of coercing his people into a Union with Eome. The Turks had invaded Macedonia and attacked Euboea and Athens. As the southern portion of the Balkan peninsula was still ruled in part by the descendants of the crusading barons and by the remnant of the Catalans, there was reason to believe that the pope would be ready to arouse the West against the common enemy of Christendom. Accordingly the emperor took advantage of the passage of Dominican missionaries through Constantinople from Tartary to convey to Pope John the Twenty-second his desire for Union and his request for aid. The pope replied by sending preachers and by urging the emperor to do all he could to accomplish his part. His successor in 1335 grew alarmed at the attacks made by the Turks by sea on various places in the Mediterranean, and finding that the Catalans had seized Athens from Gautier de Brienne, who held it as his duchy, he excom- municated them. He invited Andronicus to join the king of France and Naples in a Crusade against the Turks which the Venetians and the Genoese had promised also to aid. The emperor gladly gave his consent and sent a number of ships, but the needs of Cyprus, which was being attacked by the Saracens, were decided to be more pressing than those of the empire, and the Crusade was not proceeded with. Andronicus in 1339 sent Barlaam, the author of many con- troversial works, to the pope, at that time in Avignon. On his arrival he pointed out that the Turks had seized the seats 1 Cant. ii. 9, 14, 15 ; Greg. ix. 10, xiii. 3 ; Ducas, vi.