Although the Turks were rapidly gaining ground on the mainland, they were repulsed in the attack which they made upon Corfù in 1431, and did not renew the attempt for another century. Meanwhile, after the fall of Constantinople and the subsequent collapse of the Christian states of Greece, Corfù became the refuge of many distinguished exiles. Thomas Palaiologos, the last Despot of the Morea, and the historian Phrantzes fled thither; the latter wrote his history at Corfù at the instance of some noble Corfiotes, and lies buried in the church of Sts Jason and Sosipater, where Caterina Zaccaria, wife of Thomas Palaiologos, also rests. About the same time the island obtained a relic which had the greatest influence upon its religious life. Among the treasures of Constantinople at the moment of the capture were the bodies of St Theodora, the imperial consort of the iconoclast emperor Theophilos, and St Spiridion, the latter a Cypriote bishop who took a prominent part at the council of Nice and whose remains had been transferred to Constantinople when the Saracens took Cyprus. A certain priest, Kalochairetes by name, now brought the bodies of the two saints to Corfù, where they arrived in 1456. Upon the priest’s death his two eldest sons became proprietors of the male saint’s remains, and his youngest son received those of the female, which he bestowed upon the community. The body of St Spiridion ultimately passed to the distinguished family of Boulgaris, to which it still belongs, and is preserved in the church of the saint, just as the body of St Theodora reposes in the metropolitical church. Four times a year the body of St Spiridion is carried in procession, in commemoration of his alleged services in having twice delivered the island from plague, once from famine, and once from the Turks. His name is the most widespread in Corfù, and the number of boys called “Spiro” is legion[255].