ABSTRACT
The European powers and Timur, negotiated several alliances during the last decade of the Central Asian conqueror's long military career. According to the eastern sources these alliances were confined to Byzantium and the Latin powers, the Ifrangs or Ifranjs as the western Christian powers were called in the Timurid chronicles. Up to 1395 the same sources described all Christian powers as enemies, and various Christian peoples were systematically attacked by the conqueror in the period leading up to this date. Certainly other powers showed strong interest in the opportunities that might be offered by the new conqueror, for as early as 1394 the Venetian senate was discussing the opportunity of an approach. It is hard to detect in Timur's strategies any clear continuity with the intensive Mongol interest in fostering relations with the West. In later eastern sources Timur's western agreements were reduced to a generic mention of Frankish involvement, above all during the Anatolian campaign.
