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Title: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 6

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: Henry Hart Milman

Release date: November 1, 1996 [eBook #736]
Most recently updated: March 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/736

Credits: David Reed and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE — VOLUME 6
***

HISTORY OF THE DECLINE
AND FALL OF THE ROMAN
EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 6

1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)

Contents
Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part I.
Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part II.
Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part III.
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part I.
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part II.
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part III.
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.—
Part I.
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.—
Part II.
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.—
Part III.
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.—
Part IV.
Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part I.
Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part II.
Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part III.
Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part I.
Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part II.
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part I.
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part II.
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part III.
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part IV.
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.—Part
I.
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.—Part
II.

Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.—Part
III.
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part I.
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part II.
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part III.
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part IV.
Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part I.
Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part II.
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
Empire.—Part I.
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
Empire.—Part II.
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
Empire.—Part III.
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
Empire.—Part IV.
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part I.
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part II.
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part III.
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part IV.
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part I.
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part II.
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part III.
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part IV.
Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth
Century.—Part I.
Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth
Century.—Part II.

Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part I.
Preservation Of The Greek Empire.—Numbers, Passage, And
Event, Of The Second And Third Crusades.—St. Bernard.—
Reign Of Saladin In Egypt And Syria.—His Conquest Of
Jerusalem.—Naval Crusades.—Richard The First Of England.—
Pope Innocent The Third; And The Fourth And Fifth Crusades.—
The Emperor Frederic The Second.—Louis The Ninth Of
France; And The Two Last Crusades.—Expulsion Of The Latins
Or Franks By The Mamelukes.

In a style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps compare the
emperor Alexius 1 to the jackal, who is said to follow the steps, and to
devour the leavings, of the lion. Whatever had been his fears and toils in the
passage of the first crusade, they were amply recompensed by the
subsequent benefits which he derived from the exploits of the Franks. His
dexterity and vigilance secured their first conquest of Nice; and from this
threatening station the Turks were compelled to evacuate the neighborhood
of Constantinople. While the crusaders, with blind valor, advanced into the
midland countries of Asia, the crafty Greek improved the favorable
occasion when the emirs of the sea-coast were recalled to the standard of
the sultan. The Turks were driven from the Isles of Rhodes and Chios: the
cities of Ephesus and Smyrna, of Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were
restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the Hellespont to the
banks of the Mæander, and the rocky shores of Pamphylia. The churches
resumed their splendor: the towns were rebuilt and fortified; and the desert
country was peopled with colonies of Christians, who were gently removed
from the more distant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we
may forgive Alexius, if he forgot the deliverance of the holy sepulchre; but,
by the Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul reproach of treason and
desertion. They had sworn fidelity and obedience to his throne; but he had
promised to assist their enterprise in person, or, at least, with his troops and
treasures: his base retreat dissolved their obligations; and the sword, which
had been the instrument of their victory, was the pledge and title of their
just independence. It does not appear that the emperor attempted to revive

his obsolete claims over the kingdom of Jerusalem; 2 but the borders of
Cilicia and Syria were more recent in his possession, and more accessible to
his arms. The great army of the crusaders was annihilated or dispersed; the
principality of Antioch was left without a head, by the surprise and captivity
of Bohemond; his ransom had oppressed him with a heavy debt; and his
Norman followers were insufficient to repel the hostilities of the Greeks and
Turks. In this distress, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of
leaving the defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful Tancred; of
arming the West against the Byzantine empire; and of executing the design
which he inherited from the lessons and example of his father Guiscard. His
embarkation was clandestine: and, if we may credit a tale of the princess
Anne, he passed the hostile sea closely secreted in a coffin. 3 But his
reception in France was dignified by the public applause, and his marriage
with the king’s daughter: his return was glorious, since the bravest spirits of
the age enlisted under his veteran command; and he repassed the Adriatic at
the head of five thousand horse and forty thousand foot, assembled from the
most remote climates of Europe. 4 The strength of Durazzo, and prudence
of Alexius, the progress of famine and approach of winter, eluded his
ambitious hopes; and the venal confederates were seduced from his
standard. A treaty of peace 5 suspended the fears of the Greeks; and they
were finally delivered by the death of an adversary, whom neither oaths
could bind, nor dangers could appal, nor prosperity could satiate. His
children succeeded to the principality of Antioch; but the boundaries were
strictly defined, the homage was clearly stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus
and Malmistra were restored to the Byzantine emperors. Of the coast of
Anatolia, they possessed the entire circuit from Trebizond to the Syrian
gates. The Seljukian dynasty of Roum 6 was separated on all sides from the
sea and their Mussulman brethren; the power of the sultan was shaken by
the victories and even the defeats of the Franks; and after the loss of Nice,
they removed their throne to Cogni or Iconium, an obscure and in land town
above three hundred miles from Constantinople. 7 Instead of trembling for
their capital, the Comnenian princes waged an offensive war against the
Turks, and the first crusade prevented the fall of the declining empire.
1 (return)
[ Anna Comnena relates her father’s conquests in Asia
Minor Alexiad, l. xi. p. 321—325, l. xiv. p. 419; his Cilician
war against Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328—324; the war

of Epirus, with tedious prolixity, l. xii. xiii. p. 345—406; the
death of Bohemond, l. xiv. p. 419.]
2 (return)
[ The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a nominal
dependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one is
still legible in the church of Bethlem,) they respectfully
placed before their own the name of the reigning emperor,
(Ducange, Dissertations sur Joinville xxvii. p. 319.)]
3 (return)
[ Anna Comnena adds, that, to complete the imitation, he
was shut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder
how the Barbarian could endure the confinement and
putrefaction. This absurd tale is unknown to the Latins. *
Note: The Greek writers, in general, Zonaras, p. 2, 303, and
Glycas, p. 334 agree in this story with the princess Anne,
except in the absurd addition of the dead cock. Ducange has
already quoted some instances where a similar stratagem
had been adopted by Norman princes. On this authority
Wilken inclines to believe the fact. Appendix to vol. ii. p. 14.
—M.]
4 (return)
[ Ἀπὸ Θύλης, in the Byzantine geography, must mean
England; yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry
I. would not suffer him to levy any troops in his kingdom,
(Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad. p. 41.)]
5 (return)
[ The copy of the treaty (Alexiad. l. xiii. p. 406—416) is an
original and curious piece, which would require, and might
afford, a good map of the principality of Antioch.]
6 (return)
[ See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes, (tom. ii. part
ii.,) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and
Damascus, as far as it may be collected from the Greeks,
Latins, and Arabians. The last are ignorant or regardless of
the affairs of Roum.]
7 (return)
[ Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and by
Strabo, with an ambiguous title of Κωμόπολις, (Cellarius,
tom. ii. p. 121.) Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude
(πλῆθος) of Jews and Gentiles. under the corrupt name of
Kunijah, it is described as a great city, with a river and
garden, three leagues from the mountains, and decorated (I
know not why) with Plato’s tomb, (Abulfeda, tabul. xvii. p.
303 vers. Reiske; and the Index Geographicus of Schultens
from Ibn Said.)]
In the twelfth century, three great emigrations marched by land from the
West for the relief of Palestine. The soldiers and pilgrims of Lombardy,

France, and Germany were excited by the example and success of the first
crusade. 8 Forty-eight years after the deliverance of the holy sepulchre, the
emperor, and the French king, Conrad the Third and Louis the Seventh,
undertook the second crusade to support the falling fortunes of the Latins. 9
A grand division of the third crusade was led by the emperor Frederic
Barbarossa, 10 who sympathized with his brothers of France and England
in the common loss of Jerusalem. These three expeditions may be compared
in their resemblance of the greatness of numbers, their passage through the
Greek empire, and the nature and event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief
parallel may save the repetition of a tedious narrative. However splendid it
may seem, a regular story of the crusades would exhibit the perpetual return
of the same causes and effects; and the frequent attempts for the defence or
recovery of the Holy Land would appear so many faint and unsuccessful
copies of the original.
8 (return)
[ For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anna
Comnena, (Alexias, l. xi. p. 331, &c., and the viiith book of
Albert Aquensis.)]
9 (return)
[ For the second crusade, of Conrad III. and Louis VII., see
William of Tyre, (l. xvi. c. 18—19,) Otho of Frisingen, (l. i.
c. 34—45 59, 60,) Matthew Paris, (Hist. Major. p. 68,)
Struvius, (Corpus Hist Germanicæ, p. 372, 373,) Scriptores
Rerum Francicarum à Duchesne tom. iv.: Nicetas, in Vit.
Manuel, l. i. c. 4, 5, 6, p. 41—48, Cinnamus l. ii. p. 41—49.]
10 (return)
[ For the third crusade, of Frederic Barbarossa, see Nicetas
in Isaac Angel. l. ii. c. 3—8, p. 257—266. Struv. (Corpus.
Hist. Germ. p. 414,) and two historians, who probably were
spectators, Tagino, (in Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p. 406—416,
edit Struv.,) and the Anonymus de Expeditione Asiaticâ
Fred. I. (in Canisii Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p. ii. p. 498—
526, edit. Basnage.)]
I. Of the swarms that so closely trod in the footsteps of the first pilgrims,
the chiefs were equal in rank, though unequal in fame and merit, to Godfrey
of Bouillon and his fellow-adventurers. At their head were displayed the
banners of the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, and Aquitain; the first a
descendant of Hugh Capet, the second, a father of the Brunswick line: the
archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince, transported, for the benefit of the
Turks, the treasures and ornaments of his church and palace; and the
veteran crusaders, Hugh the Great and Stephen of Chartres, returned to

consummate their unfinished vow. The huge and disorderly bodies of their
followers moved forward in two columns; and if the first consisted of two
hundred and sixty thousand persons, the second might possibly amount to
sixty thousand horse and one hundred thousand foot. 11 111 The armies of
the second crusade might have claimed the conquest of Asia; the nobles of
France and Germany were animated by the presence of their sovereigns;
and both the rank and personal character of Conrad and Louis gave a
dignity to their cause, and a discipline to their force, which might be vainly
expected from the feudatory chiefs. The cavalry of the emperor, and that of
the king, was each composed of seventy thousand knights, and their
immediate attendants in the field; 12 and if the light-armed troops, the
peasant infantry, the women and children, the priests and monks, be
rigorously excluded, the full account will scarcely be satisfied with four
hundred thousand souls. The West, from Rome to Britain, was called into
action; the kings of Poland and Bohemia obeyed the summons of Conrad;
and it is affirmed by the Greeks and Latins, that, in the passage of a strait or
river, the Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred thousand, desisted
from the endless and formidable computation. 13 In the third crusade, as the
French and English preferred the navigation of the Mediterranean, the host
of Frederic Barbarossa was less numerous. Fifteen thousand knights, and as
many squires, were the flower of the German chivalry: sixty thousand
horse, and one hundred thousand foot, were mustered by the emperor in the
plains of Hungary; and after such repetitions, we shall no longer be startled
at the six hundred thousand pilgrims, which credulity has ascribed to this
last emigration. 14 Such extravagant reckonings prove only the
astonishment of contemporaries; but their astonishment most strongly bears
testimony to the existence of an enormous, though indefinite, multitude.
The Greeks might applaud their superior knowledge of the arts and
stratagems of war, but they confessed the strength and courage of the
French cavalry, and the infantry of the Germans; 15 and the strangers are
described as an iron race, of gigantic stature, who darted fire from their
eyes, and spilt blood like water on the ground. Under the banners of
Conrad, a troop of females rode in the attitude and armor of men; and the
chief of these Amazons, from her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the
epithet of the Golden-footed Dame.
11 (return)
[ Anne, who states these later swarms at 40,000 horse and
100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their head

two brothers of Flanders. The Greeks were strangely
ignorant of the names, families, and possessions of the Latin
princes.]
111 (return)
[ It was this army of pilgrims, the first body of which was
headed by the archbishop of Milan and Count Albert of
Blandras, which set forth on the wild, yet, with a more
disciplined army, not impolitic, enterprise of striking at the
heart of the Mahometan power, by attacking the sultan in
Bagdad. For their adventures and fate, see Wilken, vol. ii. p.
120, &c., Michaud, book iv.—M.]
12 (return)
[ William of Tyre, and Matthew Paris, reckon 70,000 loricati
in each of the armies.]
13 (return)
[ The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus,
(ennenhkonta muriadeV,) and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo
apud Ducange ad Cinnamum, with the more precise sum of
900,556. Why must therefore the version and comment
suppose the modest and insufficient reckoning of 90,000?
Does not Godfrey of Viterbo (Pantheon, p. xix. in Muratori,
tom. vii. p. 462) exclaim? ——Numerum si poscere quæras,
Millia millena militis agmen erat.]
14 (return)
[ This extravagant account is given by Albert of Stade, (apud
Struvium, p. 414;) my calculation is borrowed from Godfrey
of Viterbo, Arnold of Lubeck, apud eundem, and Bernard
Thesaur. (c. 169, p. 804.) The original writers are silent. The
Mahometans gave him 200,000, or 260,000, men, (Bohadin,
in Vit. Saladin, p. 110.)]
15 (return)
[ I must observe, that, in the second and third crusades, the
subjects of Conrad and Frederic are styled by the Greeks and
Orientals Alamanni. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus are
the Poles and Bohemians; and it is for the French that he
reserves the ancient appellation of Germans. He likewise
names the Brittioi, or Britannoi. * Note: * He names both—
Brittioi te kai Britanoi.—M.]
II. The number and character of the strangers was an object of terror to
the effeminate Greeks, and the sentiment of fear is nearly allied to that of
hatred. This aversion was suspended or softened by the apprehension of the
Turkish power; and the invectives of the Latins will not bias our more
candid belief, that the emperor Alexius dissembled their insolence, eluded
their hostilities, counselled their rashness, and opened to their ardor the road
of pilgrimage and conquest. But when the Turks had been driven from Nice
and the sea-coast, when the Byzantine princes no longer dreaded the distant

sultans of Cogni, they felt with purer indignation the free and frequent
passage of the western Barbarians, who violated the majesty, and
endangered the safety, of the empire. The second and third crusades were
undertaken under the reign of Manuel Comnenus and Isaac Angelus. Of the
former, the passions were always impetuous, and often malevolent; and the
natural union of a cowardly and a mischievous temper was exemplified in
the latter, who, without merit or mercy, could punish a tyrant, and occupy
his throne. It was secretly, and perhaps tacitly, resolved by the prince and
people to destroy, or at least to discourage, the pilgrims, by every species of
injury and oppression; and their want of prudence and discipline continually
afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The Western monarchs had
stipulated a safe passage and fair market in the country of their Christian
brethren; the treaty had been ratified by oaths and hostages; and the poorest
soldier of Frederic’s army was furnished with three marks of silver to
defray his expenses on the road. But every engagement was violated by
treachery and injustice; and the complaints of the Latins are attested by the
honest confession of a Greek historian, who has dared to prefer truth to his
country. 16 Instead of a hospitable reception, the gates of the cities, both in
Europe and Asia, were closely barred against the crusaders; and the scanty
pittance of food was let down in baskets from the walls. Experience or
foresight might excuse this timid jealousy; but the common duties of
humanity prohibited the mixture of chalk, or other poisonous ingredients, in
the bread; and should Manuel be acquitted of any foul connivance, he is
guilty of coining base money for the purpose of trading with the pilgrims.
In every step of their march they were stopped or misled: the governors had
private orders to fortify the passes and break down the bridges against
them: the stragglers were pillaged and murdered: the soldiers and horses
were pierced in the woods by arrows from an invisible hand; the sick were
burnt in their beds; and the dead bodies were hung on gibbets along the
highways. These injuries exasperated the champions of the cross, who were
not endowed with evangelical patience; and the Byzantine princes, who had
provoked the unequal conflict, promoted the embarkation and march of
these formidable guests. On the verge of the Turkish frontier Barbarossa
spared the guilty Philadelphia, 17 rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and
deplored the hard necessity that had stained his sword with any drops of
Christian blood. In their intercourse with the monarchs of Germany and
France, the pride of the Greeks was exposed to an anxious trial. They might

boast that on the first interview the seat of Louis was a low stool, beside the
throne of Manuel; 18 but no sooner had the French king transported his
army beyond the Bosphorus, than he refused the offer of a second
conference, unless his brother would meet him on equal terms, either on the
sea or land. With Conrad and Frederic, the ceremonial was still nicer and
more difficult: like the successors of Constantine, they styled themselves
emperors of the Romans; 19 and firmly maintained the purity of their title
and dignity. The first of these representatives of Charlemagne would only
converse with Manuel on horseback in the open field; the second, by
passing the Hellespont rather than the Bosphorus, declined the view of
Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor, who had been crowned at
Rome, was reduced in the Greek epistles to the humble appellation of Rex,
or prince, of the Alemanni; and the vain and feeble Angelus affected to be
ignorant of the name of one of the greatest men and monarchs of the age.
While they viewed with hatred and suspicion the Latin pilgrims the Greek
emperors maintained a strict, though secret, alliance with the Turks and
Saracens. Isaac Angelus complained, that by his friendship for the great
Saladin he had incurred the enmity of the Franks; and a mosque was
founded at Constantinople for the public exercise of the religion of
Mahomet. 20
16 (return)
[ Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but in the third
he commanded against the Franks the important post of
Philippopolis. Cinnamus is infected with national prejudice
and pride.]
17 (return)
[ The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by Nicetas,
while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his
countrymen, (culpâ nostrâ.) History would be pleasant, if we
were embarrassed only by such contradictions. It is likewise
from Nicetas, that we learn the pious and humane sorrow of
Frederic.]
18 (return)
[ Cqamalh edra, which Cinnamus translates into Latin by the
word Sellion. Ducange works very hard to save his king and
country from such ignominy, (sur Joinville, dissertat. xxvii.
p. 317—320.) Louis afterwards insisted on a meeting in mari
ex æquo, not ex equo, according to the laughable readings of
some MSS.]
19 (return)
[ Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum,
(Anonym Canis. p. 512.) The public and historical style of

the Greeks was Ριξ... princeps. Yet Cinnamus owns, that
Ἰμπεράτορ is synonymous to Βασιλεὺς.]
20 (return)
[ In the Epistles of Innocent III., (xiii. p. 184,) and the
History of Bohadin, (p. 129, 130,) see the views of a pope
and a cadhi on this singulartoleration.]
III. The swarms that followed the first crusade were destroyed in Anatolia
by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish arrows; and the princes only escaped
with some squadrons of horse to accomplish their lamentable pilgrimage. A
just opinion may be formed of their knowledge and humanity; of their
knowledge, from the design of subduing Persia and Chorasan in their way
to Jerusalem; 201 of their humanity, from the massacre of the Christian
people, a friendly city, who came out to meet them with palms and crosses
in their hands. The arms of Conrad and Louis were less cruel and
imprudent; but the event of the second crusade was still more ruinous to
Christendom; and the Greek Manuel is accused by his own subjects of
giving seasonable intelligence to the sultan, and treacherous guides to the
Latin princes. Instead of crushing the common foe, by a double attack at the
same time but on different sides, the Germans were urged by emulation, and
the French were retarded by jealousy. Louis had scarcely passed the
Bosphorus when he was met by the returning emperor, who had lost the
greater part of his army in glorious, but unsuccessful, actions on the banks
of the Mæander. The contrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the retreat of
Conrad: 202 the desertion of his independent vassals reduced him to his
hereditary troops; and he borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea
the pilgrimage of Palestine. Without studying the lessons of experience, or
the nature of the war, the king of France advanced through the same country
to a similar fate. The vanguard, which bore the royal banner and the
oriflamme of St. Denys, 21 had doubled their march with rash and
inconsiderate speed; and the rear, which the king commanded in person, no
longer found their companions in the evening camp. In darkness and
disorder, they were encompassed, assaulted, and overwhelmed, by the
innumerable host of Turks, who, in the art of war, were superior to the
Christians of the twelfth century. 211 Louis, who climbed a tree in the
general discomfiture, was saved by his own valor and the ignorance of his
adversaries; and with the dawn of day he escaped alive, but almost alone, to
the camp of the vanguard. But instead of pursuing his expedition by land,
he was rejoiced to shelter the relics of his army in the friendly seaport of

Satalia. From thence he embarked for Antioch; but so penurious was the
supply of Greek vessels, that they could only afford room for his knights
and nobles; and the plebeian crowd of infantry was left to perish at the foot
of the Pamphylian hills. The emperor and the king embraced and wept at
Jerusalem; their martial trains, the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to
the Christian powers of Syria, and a fruitless siege of Damascus was the
final effort of the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe
with the personal fame of piety and courage; but the Orientals had braved
these potent monarchs of the Franks, with whose names and military forces
they had been so often threatened. 22 Perhaps they had still more to fear
from the veteran genius of Frederic the First, who in his youth had served in
Asia under his uncle Conrad. Forty campaigns in Germany and Italy had
taught Barbarossa to command; and his soldiers, even the princes of the
empire, were accustomed under his reign to obey. As soon as he lost sight
of Philadelphia and Laodicea, the last cities of the Greek frontier, he
plunged into the salt and barren desert, a land (says the historian) of horror
and tribulation. 23 During twenty days, every step of his fainting and sickly
march was besieged by the innumerable hordes of Turkmans, 24 whose
numbers and fury seemed after each defeat to multiply and inflame. The
emperor continued to struggle and to suffer; and such was the measure of
his calamities, that when he reached the gates of Iconium, no more than one
thousand knights were able to serve on horseback. By a sudden and resolute
assault he defeated the guards, and stormed the capital of the sultan, 25 who
humbly sued for pardon and peace. The road was now open, and Frederic
advanced in a career of triumph, till he was unfortunately drowned in a
petty torrent of Cilicia. 26 The remainder of his Germans was consumed by
sickness and desertion: and the emperor’s son expired with the greatest part
of his Swabian vassals at the siege of Acre. Among the Latin heroes,
Godfrey of Bouillon and Frederic Barbarossa could alone achieve the
passage of the Lesser Asia; yet even their success was a warning; and in the
last and most experienced age of the crusades, every nation preferred the
sea to the toils and perils of an inland expedition. 27
201 (return)
[ This was the design of the pilgrims under the archbishop of
Milan. See note, p. 102.—M.]
202 (return)
[ Conrad had advanced with part of his army along a central
road, between that on the coast and that which led to

Iconium. He had been betrayed by the Greeks, his army
destroyed without a battle. Wilken, vol. iii. p. 165. Michaud,
vol. ii. p. 156. Conrad advanced again with Louis as far as
Ephesus, and from thence, at the invitation of Manuel,
returned to Constantinople. It was Louis who, at the passage
of the Mæander, was engaged in a “glorious action.” Wilken,
vol. iii. p. 179. Michaud vol. ii. p. 160. Gibbon followed
Nicetas.—M.]
21 (return)
[ As counts of Vexin, the kings of France were the vassals
and advocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint’s
peculiar banner, which they received from the abbot, was of
a square form, and a red or flaming color. The oriflamme
appeared at the head of the French armies from the xiith to
the xvth century, (Ducange sur Joinville, Dissert. xviii. p.
244—253.)]
211 (return)
[ They descended the heights to a beautiful valley which by
beneath them. The Turks seized the heights which separated
the two divisions of the army. The modern historians
represent differently the act to which Louis owed his safety,
which Gibbon has described by the undignified phrase, “he
climbed a tree.” According to Michaud, vol. ii. p. 164, the
king got upon a rock, with his back against a tree; according
to Wilken, vol. iii., he dragged himself up to the top of the
rock by the roots of a tree, and continued to defend himself
till nightfall.—M.]
22 (return)
[ The original French histories of the second crusade are the
Gesta Ludovici VII. published in the ivth volume of
Duchesne’s collection. The same volume contains many
original letters of the king, of Suger his minister, &c., the
best documents of authentic history.]
23 (return)
[ Terram horroris et salsuginis, terram siccam sterilem,
inamnam. Anonym. Canis. p. 517. The emphatic language of
a sufferer.]
24 (return)
[ Gens innumera, sylvestris, indomita, prædones sine
ductore. The sultan of Cogni might sincerely rejoice in their
defeat. Anonym. Canis. p. 517, 518.]
25 (return)
[ See, in the anonymous writer in the Collection of Canisius,
Tagino and Bohadin, (Vit. Saladin. p. 119, 120,) the
ambiguous conduct of Kilidge Arslan, sultan of Cogni, who
hated and feared both Saladin and Frederic.]
26 (return)
[ The desire of comparing two great men has tempted many

writers to drown Frederic in the River Cydnus, in which
Alexander so imprudently bathed, (Q. Cœurt. l. iii c. 4, 5.)
But, from the march of the emperor, I rather judge, that his
Saleph is the Calycadnus, a stream of less fame, but of a
longer course. *
Note: * It is now called the Girama: its course is described in M’Donald
Kinneir’s Travels.—M.]
27 (return)
[ Marinus Sanutus, A.D. 1321, lays it down as a precept,
Quod stolus ecclesiæ per terram nullatenus est ducenda. He
resolves, by the divine aid, the objection, or rather
exception, of the first crusade, (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l.
ii. pars ii. c. i. p. 37.)]
The enthusiasm of the first crusade is a natural and simple event, while
hope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise congenial to the spirit of the
times. But the obstinate perseverance of Europe may indeed excite our pity
and admiration; that no instruction should have been drawn from constant
and adverse experience; that the same confidence should have repeatedly
grown from the same failures; that six succeeding generations should have
rushed headlong down the precipice that was open before them; and that
men of every condition should have staked their public and private fortunes
on the desperate adventure of possessing or recovering a tombstone two
thousand miles from their country. In a period of two centuries after the
council of Clermont, each spring and summer produced a new emigration
of pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy Land; but the seven great
armaments or crusades were excited by some impending or recent calamity:
the nations were moved by the authority of their pontiffs, and the example
of their kings: their zeal was kindled, and their reason was silenced, by the
voice of their holy orators; and among these, Bernard, 28 the monk, or the
saint, may claim the most honorable place. 281 About eight years before the
first conquest of Jerusalem, he was born of a noble family in Burgundy; at
the age of three-and-twenty he buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux,
then in the primitive fervor of the institution; at the end of two years he led
forth her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux 29 in
Champagne; and was content, till the hour of his death, with the humble
station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age has abolished,
with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the honors of these spiritual
heroes. The meanest among them are distinguished by some energies of the
mind; they were at least superior to their votaries and disciples; and, in the

race of superstition, they attained the prize for which such numbers
contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernard stood high above his
rivals and contemporaries; his compositions are not devoid of wit and
eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as much reason and humanity as
may be reconciled with the character of a saint. In a secular life, he would
have shared the seventh part of a private inheritance; by a vow of poverty
and penance, by closing his eyes against the visible world, 30 by the refusal
of all ecclesiastical dignities, the abbot of Clairvaux became the oracle of
Europe, and the founder of one hundred and sixty convents. Princes and
pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his apostolical censures: France,
England, and Milan, consulted and obeyed his judgment in a schism of the
church: the debt was repaid by the gratitude of Innocent the Second; and his
successor, Eugenius the Third, was the friend and disciple of the holy
Bernard. It was in the proclamation of the second crusade that he shone as
the missionary and prophet of God, who called the nations to the defence of
his holy sepulchre. 31 At the parliament of Vezelay he spoke before the
king; and Louis the Seventh, with his nobles, received their crosses from his
hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy conquest of the
emperor Conrad: 311 a phlegmatic people, ignorant of his language, was
transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone and gestures; and his
progress, from Constance to Cologne, was the triumph of eloquence and
zeal. Bernard applauds his own success in the depopulation of Europe;
affirms that cities and castles were emptied of their inhabitants; and
computes, that only one man was left behind for the consolation of seven
widows. 32 The blind fanatics were desirous of electing him for their
general; but the example of the hermit Peter was before his eyes; and while
he assured the crusaders of the divine favor, he prudently declined a
military command, in which failure and victory would have been almost
equally disgraceful to his character. 33 Yet, after the calamitous event, the
abbot of Clairvaux was loudly accused as a false prophet, the author of the
public and private mourning; his enemies exulted, his friends blushed, and
his apology was slow and unsatisfactory. He justifies his obedience to the
commands of the pope; expatiates on the mysterious ways of Providence;
imputes the misfortunes of the pilgrims to their own sins; and modestly
insinuates, that his mission had been approved by signs and wonders. 34
Had the fact been certain, the argument would be decisive; and his faithful
disciples, who enumerate twenty or thirty miracles in a day, appeal to the

public assemblies of France and Germany, in which they were performed.
35 At the present hour, such prodigies will not obtain credit beyond the
precincts of Clairvaux; but in the preternatural cures of the blind, the lame,
and the sick, who were presented to the man of God, it is impossible for us
to ascertain the separate shares of accident, of fancy, of imposture, and of
fiction.
28 (return)
[ The most authentic information of St. Bernard must be
drawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition
by Père Mabillon, and reprinted at Venice, 1750, in six
volumes in folio. Whatever friendship could recollect, or
superstition could add, is contained in the two lives, by his
disciples, in the vith volume: whatever learning and
criticism could ascertain, may be found in the prefaces of the
Benedictine editor.]
281 (return)
[ Gibbon, whose account of the crusades is perhaps the least
accurate and satisfactory chapter in his History, has here
failed in that lucid arrangement, which in general gives
perspicuity to his most condensed and crowded narratives.
He has unaccountably, and to the great perplexity of the
reader, placed the preaching of St Bernard after the second
crusade to which i led.—M.]
29 (return)
[ Clairvaux, surnamed the valley of Absynth, is situate
among the woods near Bar sur Aube in Champagne. St.
Bernard would blush at the pomp of the church and
monastery; he would ask for the library, and I know not
whether he would be much edified by a tun of 800 muids,
(914 1-7 hogsheads,) which almost rivals that of Heidelberg,
(Mélanges tirés d’une Grande Bibliothèque, tom. xlvi. p. 15
—20.)]
30 (return)
[ The disciples of the saint (Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 2, p. 1232. Vit.
iida, c. 16, No. 45, p. 1383) record a marvellous example of
his pious apathy. Juxta lacum etiam Lausannensem totius
diei itinere pergens, penitus non attendit aut se videre non
vidit. Cum enim vespere facto de eodem lacû socii
colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacus ille esset, et mirati
sunt universi. To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought,
the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of
his library the beauties of that incomparable landscape.]
31 (return)
[ Otho Frising. l. i. c. 4. Bernard. Epist. 363, ad Francos
Orientales Opp. tom. i. p. 328. Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 4, tom. vi. p.
1235.]

311 (return)
[ Bernard had a nobler object in his expedition into Germany
—to arrest the fierce and merciless persecution of the Jews,
which was preparing, under the monk Radulph, to renew the
frightful scenes which had preceded the first crusade, in the
flourishing cities on the banks of the Rhine. The Jews
acknowledge the Christian intervention of St. Bernard. See
the curious extract from the History of Joseph ben Meir.
Wilken, vol. iii. p. 1. and p. 63.—M.]
32 (return)
[ Mandastis et obedivi.... multiplicati sunt super numerum;
vacuantur urbes et castella; et pene jam non inveniunt quem
apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique
viduæ vivis remanent viris. Bernard. Epist. p. 247. We must
be careful not to construe pene as a substantive.]
33 (return)
[ Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante facies
armatorum, aut quid tam remotum a professione meâ, si
vires, si peritia, &c. Epist. 256, tom. i. p. 259. He speaks
with contempt of the hermit Peter, vir quidam, Epist. 363.]
34 (return)
[ Sic dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quòd a Domino sermo
egressus sit? Quæ signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est
quod ad ista ipse respondeam; parcendum verecundiæ meæ,
responde tu pro me, et pro te ipso, secundum quæ vidisti et
audisti, et secundum quod te inspiraverit Deus. Consolat. l.
ii. c. 1. Opp. tom. ii. p. 421—423.]
35 (return)
[ See the testimonies in Vita ima, l. iv. c. 5, 6. Opp. tom. vi.
p. 1258—1261, l. vi. c. 1—17, p. 1286—1314.]
Omnipotence itself cannot escape the murmurs of its discordant votaries;
since the same dispensation which was applauded as a deliverance in
Europe, was deplored, and perhaps arraigned, as a calamity in Asia. After
the loss of Jerusalem, the Syrian fugitives diffused their consternation and
sorrow; Bagdad mourned in the dust; the cadhi Zeineddin of Damascus tore
his beard in the caliph’s presence; and the whole divan shed tears at his
melancholy tale. 36 But the commanders of the faithful could only weep;
they were themselves captives in the hands of the Turks: some temporal
power was restored to the last age of the Abbassides; but their humble
ambition was confined to Bagdad and the adjacent province. Their tyrants,
the Seljukian sultans, had followed the common law of the Asiatic
dynasties, the unceasing round of valor, greatness, discord, degeneracy, and
decay; their spirit and power were unequal to the defence of religion; and,
in his distant realm of Persia, the Christians were strangers to the name and

the arms of Sangiar, the last hero of his race. 37 While the sultans were
involved in the silken web of the harem, the pious task was undertaken by
their slaves, the Atabeks, 38 a Turkish name, which, like the Byzantine
patricians, may be translated by Father of the Prince. Ascansar, a valiant
Turk, had been the favorite of Malek Shaw, from whom he received the
privilege of standing on the right hand of the throne; but, in the civil wars
that ensued on the monarch’s death, he lost his head and the government of
Aleppo. His domestic emirs persevered in their attachment to his son
Zenghi, who proved his first arms against the Franks in the defeat of
Antioch: thirty campaigns in the service of the caliph and sultan established
his military fame; and he was invested with the command of Mosul, as the
only champion that could avenge the cause of the prophet. The public hope
was not disappointed: after a siege of twenty-five days, he stormed the city
of Edessa, and recovered from the Franks their conquests beyond the
Euphrates: 39 the martial tribes of Cœurdistan were subdued by the
independent sovereign of Mosul and Aleppo: his soldiers were taught to
behold the camp as their only country; they trusted to his liberality for their
rewards; and their absent families were protected by the vigilance of
Zenghi. At the head of these veterans, his son Noureddin gradually united
the Mahometan powers; 391 added the kingdom of Damascus to that of
Aleppo, and waged a long and successful war against the Christians of
Syria; he spread his ample reign from the Tigris to the Nile, and the
Abbassides rewarded their faithful servant with all the titles and
prerogatives of royalty. The Latins themselves were compelled to own the
wisdom and courage, and even the justice and piety, of this implacable
adversary. 40 In his life and government the holy warrior revived the zeal
and simplicity of the first caliphs. Gold and silk were banished from his
palace; the use of wine from his dominions; the public revenue was
scrupulously applied to the public service; and the frugal household of
Noureddin was maintained from his legitimate share of the spoil which he
vested in the purchase of a private estate. His favorite sultana sighed for
some female object of expense. “Alas,” replied the king, “I fear God, and
am no more than the treasurer of the Moslems. Their property I cannot
alienate; but I still possess three shops in the city of Hems: these you may
take; and these alone can I bestow.” His chamber of justice was the terror of
the great and the refuge of the poor. Some years after the sultan’s death, an
oppressed subject called aloud in the streets of Damascus, “O Noureddin,

Noureddin, where art thou now? Arise, arise, to pity and protect us!” A
tumult was apprehended, and a living tyrant blushed or trembled at the
name of a departed monarch.
36 (return)
[ Abulmahasen apud de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p.
ii. p. 99.]
37 (return)
[ See his article in the Bibliothèque Orientale of D’Herbelot,
and De Guignes, tom. ii. p. i. p. 230—261. Such was his
valor, that he was styled the second Alexander; and such the
extravagant love of his subjects, that they prayed for the
sultan a year after his decease. Yet Sangiar might have been
made prisoner by the Franks, as well as by the Uzes. He
reigned near fifty years, (A.D. 1103—1152,) and was a
munificent patron of Persian poetry.]
38 (return)
[ See the Chronology of the Atabeks of Irak and Syria, in De
Guignes, tom. i. p. 254; and the reigns of Zenghi and
Noureddin in the same writer, (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 147—221,)
who uses the Arabic text of Benelathir, Ben Schouna and
Abulfeda; the Bibliothèque Orientale, under the articles
Atabeks and Noureddin, and the Dynasties of Abulpharagius,
p. 250—267, vers. Pocock.]
39 (return)
[ William of Tyre (l. xvi. c. 4, 5, 7) describes the loss of
Edessa, and the death of Zenghi. The corruption of his name
into Sanguin, afforded the Latins a comfortable allusion to
his sanguinary character and end, fit sanguine
sanguinolentus.]
391 (return)
[ On Noureddin’s conquest of Damascus, see extracts from
Arabian writers prefixed to the second part of the third
volume of Wilken.—M.]
40 (return)
[ Noradinus (says William of Tyre, l. xx. 33) maximus
nominis et fidei Christianæ persecutor; princeps tamen
justus, vafer, providus’ et secundum gentis suæ traditiones
religiosus. To this Catholic witness we may add the primate
of the Jacobites, (Abulpharag. p. 267,) quo non alter erat
inter reges vitæ ratione magis laudabili, aut quæ pluribus
justitiæ experimentis abundaret. The true praise of kings is
after their death, and from the mouth of their enemies.]

Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part II.
By the arms of the Turks and Franks, the Fatimites had been deprived of
Syria. In Egypt the decay of their character and influence was still more
essential. Yet they were still revered as the descendants and successors of
the prophet; they maintained their invisible state in the palace of Cairo; and
their person was seldom violated by the profane eyes of subjects or
strangers. The Latin ambassadors 41 have described their own introduction,
through a series of gloomy passages, and glittering porticos: the scene was
enlivened by the warbling of birds and the murmur of fountains: it was
enriched by a display of rich furniture and rare animals; of the Imperial
treasures, something was shown, and much was supposed; and the long
order of unfolding doors was guarded by black soldiers and domestic
eunuchs. The sanctuary of the presence chamber was veiled with a curtain;
and the vizier, who conducted the ambassadors, laid aside the cimeter, and
prostrated himself three times on the ground; the veil was then removed;
and they beheld the commander of the faithful, who signified his pleasure to
the first slave of the throne. But this slave was his master: the viziers or
sultans had usurped the supreme administration of Egypt; the claims of the
rival candidates were decided by arms; and the name of the most worthy, of
the strongest, was inserted in the royal patent of command. The factions of
Dargham and Shawer alternately expelled each other from the capital and
country; and the weaker side implored the dangerous protection of the
sultan of Damascus, or the king of Jerusalem, the perpetual enemies of the
sect and monarchy of the Fatimites. By his arms and religion the Turk was
most formidable; but the Frank, in an easy, direct march, could advance
from Gaza to the Nile; while the intermediate situation of his realm
compelled the troops of Noureddin to wheel round the skirts of Arabia, a
long and painful circuit, which exposed them to thirst, fatigue, and the
burning winds of the desert. The secret zeal and ambition of the Turkish
prince aspired to reign in Egypt under the name of the Abbassides; but the
restoration of the suppliant Shawer was the ostensible motive of the first

expedition; and the success was intrusted to the emir Shiracouh, a valiant
and veteran commander. Dargham was oppressed and slain; but the
ingratitude, the jealousy, the just apprehensions, of his more fortunate rival,
soon provoked him to invite the king of Jerusalem to deliver Egypt from his
insolent benefactors. To this union the forces of Shiracouh were unequal: he
relinquished the premature conquest; and the evacuation of Belbeis or
Pelusium was the condition of his safe retreat. As the Turks defiled before
the enemy, and their general closed the rear, with a vigilant eye, and a battle
axe in his hand, a Frank presumed to ask him if he were not afraid of an
attack. “It is doubtless in your power to begin the attack,” replied the
intrepid emir; “but rest assured, that not one of my soldiers will go to
paradise till he has sent an infidel to hell.” His report of the riches of the
land, the effeminacy of the natives, and the disorders of the government,
revived the hopes of Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad applauded the pious
design; and Shiracouh descended into Egypt a second time with twelve
thousand Turks and eleven thousand Arabs. Yet his forces were still inferior
to the confederate armies of the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern an
unusual degree of military art, in his passage of the Nile, his retreat into
Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the surprise of
Alexandria, and his marches and countermarches in the flats and valley of
Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His conduct was seconded by the courage
of his troops, and on the eve of action a Mamaluke 42 exclaimed, “If we
cannot wrest Egypt from the Christian dogs, why do we not renounce the
honors and rewards of the sultan, and retire to labor with the peasants, or to
spin with the females of the harem?” Yet, after all his efforts in the field, 43
after the obstinate defence of Alexandria 44 by his nephew Saladin, an
honorable capitulation and retreat 441 concluded the second enterprise of
Shiracouh; and Noureddin reserved his abilities for a third and more
propitious occasion. It was soon offered by the ambition and avarice of
Amalric or Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the pernicious
maxim, that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God. 442 A
religious warrior, the great master of the hospital, encouraged him to
proceed; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or promised, a fleet to
act with the armies of Syria; and the perfidious Christian, unsatisfied with
spoil and subsidy, aspired to the conquest of Egypt. In this emergency, the
Moslems turned their eyes towards the sultan of Damascus; the vizier,
whom danger encompassed on all sides, yielded to their unanimous wishes,

and Noureddin seemed to be tempted by the fair offer of one third of the
revenue of the kingdom. The Franks were already at the gates of Cairo; but
the suburbs, the old city, were burnt on their approach; they were deceived
by an insidious negotiation, and their vessels were unable to surmount the
barriers of the Nile. They prudently declined a contest with the Turks in the
midst of a hostile country; and Amaury retired into Palestine with the shame
and reproach that always adhere to unsuccessful injustice. After this
deliverance, Shiracouh was invested with a robe of honor, which he soon
stained with the blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while, the Turkish
emirs condescended to hold the office of vizier; but this foreign conquest
precipitated the fall of the Fatimites themselves; and the bloodless change
was accomplished by a message and a word. The caliphs had been degraded
by their own weakness and the tyranny of the viziers: their subjects blushed,
when the descendant and successor of the prophet presented his naked hand
to the rude gripe of a Latin ambassador; they wept when he sent the hair of
his women, a sad emblem of their grief and terror, to excite the pity of the
sultan of Damascus. By the command of Noureddin, and the sentence of the
doctors, the holy names of Abubeker, Omar, and Othman, were solemnly
restored: the caliph Mosthadi, of Bagdad, was acknowledged in the public
prayers as the true commander of the faithful; and the green livery of the
sons of Ali was exchanged for the black color of the Abbassides. The last of
his race, the caliph Adhed, who survived only ten days, expired in happy
ignorance of his fate; his treasures secured the loyalty of the soldiers, and
silenced the murmurs of the sectaries; and in all subsequent revolutions,
Egypt has never departed from the orthodox tradition of the Moslems. 45
41 (return)
[ From the ambassador, William of Tyre (l. xix. c. 17, 18,)
describes the palace of Cairo. In the caliph’s treasure were
found a pearl as large as a pigeon’s egg, a ruby weighing
seventeen Egyptian drams, an emerald a palm and a half in
length, and many vases of crystal and porcelain of China,
(Renaudot, p. 536.)]
42 (return)
[ Mamluc, plur. Mamalic, is defined by Pocock, (Prolegom.
ad Abulpharag. p. 7,) and D’Herbelot, (p. 545,) servum
emptitium, seu qui pretio numerato in domini possessionem
cedit. They frequently occur in the wars of Saladin,
(Bohadin, p. 236, &c.;) and it was only the Bahartie
Mamalukes that were first introduced into Egypt by his
descendants.]

43 (return)
[ Jacobus à Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of Jerusalem no
more than 374 knights. Both the Franks and the Moslems
report the superior numbers of the enemy; a difference
which may be solved by counting or omitting the unwarlike
Egyptians.]
44 (return)
[ It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term in extent
and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans,
and that of the Turks, (Savary, Lettres sur l’Egypte, tom. i. p.
25, 26.)]
441 (return)
[ The treaty stipulated that both the Christians and the Arabs
should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 113.
—M.]
442 (return)
[ The Knights Templars, abhorring the perfidious breach of
treaty partly, perhaps, out of jealousy of the Hospitallers,
refused to join in this enterprise. Will. Tyre c. xx. p. 5.
Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 117.—M.]
45 (return)
[ For this great revolution of Egypt, see William of Tyre, (l.
xix. 5, 6, 7, 12—31, xx. 5—12,) Bohadin, (in Vit. Saladin, p.
30—39,) Abulfeda, (in Excerpt. Schultens, p. 1—12,)
D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. Adhed, Fathemah, but very
incorrect,) Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 522—525,
532—537,) Vertot, (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i.
p. 141—163, in 4to.,) and M. de Guignes, (tom. ii. p. 185—
215.)]
The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral tribes of
the Cœurds; 46 a people hardy, strong, savage impatient of the yoke, addicted
to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their national chiefs. The
resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seems to identify them with
the Carduchians of the Greeks; 47 and they still defend against the Ottoman
Porte the antique freedom which they asserted against the successors of
Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to embrace the profession of
mercenary soldiers: the service of his father and uncle prepared the reign of
the great Saladin; 48 and the son of Job or Ayud, a simple Cœurd,
magnanimously smiled at his pedigree, which flattery deduced from the
Arabian caliphs. 49 So unconscious was Noureddin of the impending ruin
of his house, that he constrained the reluctant youth to follow his uncle
Shiracouh into Egypt: his military character was established by the defence
of Alexandria; and, if we may believe the Latins, he solicited and obtained

from the Christian general the profanehonors of knighthood. 50 On the
death of Shiracouh, the office of grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as
the youngest and least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his
father, whom he invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his
equals, and attached the army to his person and interest. While Noureddin
lived, these ambitious Cœurds were the most humble of his slaves; and the
indiscreet murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who
loudly protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead
his sons in chains to the foot of the throne. “Such language,” he added in
private, “was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals; but we are
now above fear and obedience; and the threats of Noureddin shall not extort
the tribute of a sugar-cane.” His seasonable death relieved them from the
odious and doubtful conflict: his son, a minor of eleven years of age, was
left for a while to the emirs of Damascus; and the new lord of Egypt was
decorated by the caliph with every title 51 that could sanctify his usurpation
in the eyes of the people. Nor was Saladin long content with the possession
of Egypt; he despoiled the Christians of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of
Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir: Mecca and Medina acknowledged him
for their temporal protector: his brother subdued the distant regions of
Yemen, or the happy Arabia; and at the hour of his death, his empire was
spread from the African Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to
the mountains of Armenia. In the judgment of his character, the reproaches
of treason and ingratitude strike forcibly on our minds, impressed, as they
are, with the principle and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition
may in some measure be excused by the revolutions of Asia, 52 which had
erased every notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the
Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his benefactor; his
humane and generous behavior to the collateral branches; by their
incapacity and his merit; by the approbation of the caliph, the sole source of
all legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishes and interest of the
people, whose happiness is the first object of government. In his virtues,
and in those of his patron, they admired the singular union of the hero and
the saint; for both Noureddin and Saladin are ranked among the Mahometan
saints; and the constant meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a
serious and sober color over their lives and actions. The youth of the latter
53 was addicted to wine and women: but his aspiring spirit soon renounced
the temptations of pleasure for the graver follies of fame and dominion: the

garment of Saladin was of coarse woollen; water was his only drink; and,
while he emulated the temperance, he surpassed the chastity, of his Arabian
prophet. Both in faith and practice he was a rigid Mussulman: he ever
deplored that the defence of religion had not allowed him to accomplish the
pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times each day, the sultan
devoutly prayed with his brethren: the involuntary omission of fasting was
scrupulously repaid; and his perusal of the Koran, on horseback between
the approaching armies, may be quoted as a proof, however ostentatious, of
piety and courage. 54 The superstitious doctrine of the sect of Shafei was
the only study that he deigned to encourage: the poets were safe in his
contempt; but all profane science was the object of his aversion; and a
philosopher, who had invented some speculative novelties, was seized and
strangled by the command of the royal saint. The justice of his divan was
accessible to the meanest suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it
was only for a kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of equity.
While the descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed
his garments, he was affable and patient with the meanest of his servants.
So boundless was his liberality, that he distributed twelve thousand horses
at the siege of Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than forty-seven
drams of silver and one piece of gold coin were found in the treasury; yet,
in a martial reign, the tributes were diminished, and the wealthy citizens
enjoyed, without fear or danger, the fruits of their industry. Egypt, Syria,
and Arabia, were adorned by the royal foundations of hospitals, colleges,
and mosques; and Cairo was fortified with a wall and citadel; but his works
were consecrated to public use: 55 nor did the sultan indulge himself in a
garden or palace of private luxury. In a fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the
genuine virtues of Saladin commanded the esteem of the Christians; the
emperor of Germany gloried in his friendship; 56 the Greek emperor
solicited his alliance; 57 and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and
perhaps magnified, his fame both in the East and West.
46 (return)
[ For the Cœurds, see De Guignes, tom. ii. p. 416, 417, the
Index Geographicus of Schultens and Tavernier, Voyages, p.
i. p. 308, 309. The Ayoubites descended from the tribe of the
Rawadiæi, one of the noblest; but as they were infected with
the heresy of the Metempsychosis, the orthodox sultans
insinuated that their descent was only on the mother’s side,
and that their ancestor was a stranger who settled among the
Cœurds.]

47 (return)
[ See the ivth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The ten
thousand suffered more from the arrows of the free
Carduchians, than from the splendid weakness of the great
king.]
48 (return)
[ We are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd. Bat,
1755, in folio) for the richest and most authentic materials, a
life of Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi Bohadin,
and copious extracts from the history of his kinsman the
prince Abulfeda of Hamah. To these we may add, the article
of Salaheddin in the Bibliothèque Orientale, and all that may
be gleaned from the Dynasties of Abulpharagius.]
49 (return)
[ Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may share the
praise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of the
founder.]
50 (return)
[ Hist. Hierosol. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1152. A
similar example may be found in Joinville, (p. 42, edition du
Louvre;) but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify infidels
with the order of Christian knighthood, (Ducange,
Observations, p 70.)]
51 (return)
[ In these Arabic titles, religionis must always be
understood; Noureddin, lumen r.; Ezzodin, decus;
Amadoddin, columen: our hero’s proper name was Joseph,
and he was styled Salahoddin, salus; Al Malichus, Al
Nasirus, rex defensor; Abu Modaffer, pater victoriæ,
Schultens, Præfat.]
52 (return)
[ Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin,
observes, from many examples, that the founders of
dynasties took the guilt for themselves, and left the reward
to their innocent collaterals, (Excerpt p. 10.)]
53 (return)
[ See his life and character in Renaudot, p. 537—548.]
54 (return)
[ His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in the first
chapter of Bohadin, (p. 4—30,) himself an eye-witness, and
an honest bigot.]
55 (return)
[ In many works, particularly Joseph’s well in the castle of
Cairo, the Sultan and the Patriarch have been confounded by
the ignorance of natives and travellers.]
56 (return)
[ Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.]

57 (return)
[ Bohadin, p. 129, 130.]
During its short existence, the kingdom of Jerusalem 58 was supported
by the discord of the Turks and Saracens; and both the Fatimite caliphs and
the sultans of Damascus were tempted to sacrifice the cause of their religion
to the meaner considerations of private and present advantage. But the
powers of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were now united by a hero, whom
nature and fortune had armed against the Christians. All without now bore
the most threatening aspect; and all was feeble and hollow in the internal
state of Jerusalem. After the two first Baldwins, the brother and cousin of
Godfrey of Bouillon, the sceptre devolved by female succession to
Melisenda, daughter of the second Baldwin, and her husband Fulk, count of
Anjou, the father, by a former marriage, of our English Plantagenets. Their
two sons, Baldwin the Third, and Amaury, waged a strenuous, and not
unsuccessful, war against the infidels; but the son of Amaury, Baldwin the
Fourth, was deprived, by the leprosy, a gift of the crusades, of the faculties
both of mind and body. His sister Sybilla, the mother of Baldwin the Fifth,
was his natural heiress: after the suspicious death of her child, she crowned
her second husband, Guy of Lusignan, a prince of a handsome person, but
of such base renown, that his own brother Jeffrey was heard to exclaim,
“Since they have made him a king, surely they would have made me a god!”
The choice was generally blamed; and the most powerful vassal, Raymond
count of Tripoli, who had been excluded from the succession and regency,
entertained an implacable hatred against the king, and exposed his honor
and conscience to the temptations of the sultan. Such were the guardians of
the holy city; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward, and a traitor: yet its fate
was delayed twelve years by some supplies from Europe, by the valor of the
military orders, and by the distant or domestic avocations of their great
enemy. At length, on every side, the sinking state was encircled and pressed
by a hostile line: and the truce was violated by the Franks, whose existence
it protected. A soldier of fortune, Reginald of Chatillon, had seized a
fortress on the edge of the desert, from whence he pillaged the caravans,
insulted Mahomet, and threatened the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin
condescended to complain; rejoiced in the denial of justice, and at the head
of fourscore thousand horse and foot invaded the Holy Land. The choice of
Tiberias for his first siege was suggested by the count of Tripoli, to whom it
belonged; and the king of Jerusalem was persuaded to drain his garrison,

and to arm his people, for the relief of that important place. 59 By the
advice of the perfidious Raymond, the Christians were betrayed into a camp
destitute of water: he fled on the first onset, with the curses of both nations:
60 Lusignan was overthrown, with the loss of thirty thousand men; and the
wood of the true cross (a dire misfortune!) was left in the power of the
infidels. 601 The royal captive was conducted to the tent of Saladin; and as
he fainted with thirst and terror, the generous victor presented him with a
cup of sherbet, cooled in snow, without suffering his companion, Reginald
of Chatillon, to partake of this pledge of hospitality and pardon. “The
person and dignity of a king,” said the sultan, “are sacred, but this impious
robber must instantly acknowledge the prophet, whom he has blasphemed,
or meet the death which he has so often deserved.” On the proud or
conscientious refusal of the Christian warrior, Saladin struck him on the
head with his cimeter, and Reginald was despatched by the guards. 61 The
trembling Lusignan was sent to Damascus, to an honorable prison and
speedy ransom; but the victory was stained by the execution of two hundred
and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid champions and martyrs of
their faith. The kingdom was left without a head; and of the two grand
masters of the military orders, the one was slain and the other was a
prisoner. From all the cities, both of the sea-coast and the inland country,
the garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field: Tyre and Tripoli
alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin; and three months after the
battle of Tiberias, he appeared in arms before the gates of Jerusalem. 62
58 (return)
[ For the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, see William of Tyre,
from the ixth to the xxiid book. Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist.
Hierosolem l i., and Sanutus Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. iii.
p. vi. vii. viii. ix.]
59 (return)
[ Templarii ut apes bombabant et Hospitalarii ut venti
stridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli (the
Christian light troops) semet ipsi in ignem injiciebant,
(Ispahani de Expugnatione Kudsiticâ, p. 18, apud
Schultens;) a specimen of Arabian eloquence, somewhat
different from the style of Xenophon!]
60 (return)
[ The Latins affirm, the Arabians insinuate, the treason of
Raymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he
would have been a saint and a hero in the eyes of the latter.]
601 (return)
[ Raymond’s advice would have prevented the abandonment

of a secure camp abounding with water near Sepphoris. The
rash and insolent valor of the master of the order of Knights
Templars, which had before exposed the Christians to a fatal
defeat at the brook Kishon, forced the feeble king to annul
the determination of a council of war, and advance to a camp
in an enclosed valley among the mountains, near Hittin,
without water. Raymond did not fly till the battle was
irretrievably lost, and then the Saracens seem to have
opened their ranks to allow him free passage. The charge of
suggesting the siege of Tiberias appears ungrounded
Raymond, no doubt, played a double part: he was a man of
strong sagacity, who foresaw the desperate nature of the
contest with Saladin, endeavored by every means to
maintain the treaty, and, though he joined both his arms and
his still more valuable counsels to the Christian army, yet
kept up a kind of amicable correspondence with the
Mahometans. See Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 276, et seq.
Michaud, vol. ii. p. 278, et seq. M. Michaud is still more
friendly than Wilken to the memory of Count Raymond,
who died suddenly, shortly after the battle of Hittin. He
quotes a letter written in the name of Saladin by the caliph
Alfdel, to show that Raymond was considered by the
Mahometans their most dangerous and detested enemy. “No
person of distinction among the Christians escaped, except
the count, (of Tripoli) whom God curse. God made him die
shortly afterwards, and sent him from the kingdom of death
to hell.”—M.]
61 (return)
[ Benaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is celebrated by
the Latins in his life and death; but the circumstances of the
latter are more distinctly related by Bohadin and Abulfeda;
and Joinville (Hist. de St. Louis, p. 70) alludes to the
practice of Saladin, of never putting to death a prisoner who
had tasted his bread and salt. Some of the companions of
Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed, in a
valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur, (Abulfeda, p. 32.)]
62 (return)
[ Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom and city
(Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. ii. p. 226—278,)
inserts two original epistles of a Knight Templar.]
He might expect that the siege of a city so venerable on earth and in
heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would rekindle the last sparks of
enthusiasm; and that, of sixty thousand Christians, every man would be a
soldier, and every soldier a candidate for martyrdom. But Queen Sybilla
trembled for herself and her captive husband; and the barons and knights,
who had escaped from the sword and chains of the Turks, displayed the
same factious and selfish spirit in the public ruin. The most numerous

portion of the inhabitants was composed of the Greek and Oriental
Christians, whom experience had taught to prefer the Mahometan before the
Latin yoke; 63 and the holy sepulchre attracted a base and needy crowd,
without arms or courage, who subsisted only on the charity of the pilgrims.
Some feeble and hasty efforts were made for the defence of Jerusalem: but
in the space of fourteen days, a victorious army drove back the sallies of the
besieged, planted their engines, opened the wall to the breadth of fifteen
cubits, applied their scaling-ladders, and erected on the breach twelve
banners of the prophet and the sultan. It was in vain that a barefoot
procession of the queen, the women, and the monks, implored the Son of
God to save his tomb and his inheritance from impious violation. Their sole
hope was in the mercy of the conqueror, and to their first suppliant
deputation that mercy was sternly denied. “He had sworn to avenge the
patience and long-suffering of the Moslems; the hour of forgiveness was
elapsed, and the moment was now arrived to expiate, in blood, the innocent
blood which had been spilt by Godfrey and the first crusaders.” But a
desperate and successful struggle of the Franks admonished the sultan that
his triumph was not yet secure; he listened with reverence to a solemn
adjuration in the name of the common Father of mankind; and a sentiment
of human sympathy mollified the rigor of fanaticism and conquest. He
consented to accept the city, and to spare the inhabitants. The Greek and
Oriental Christians were permitted to live under his dominion, but it was
stipulated, that in forty days all the Franks and Latins should evacuate
Jerusalem, and be safely conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt; that
ten pieces of gold should be paid for each man, five for each woman, and
one for every child; and that those who were unable to purchase their
freedom should be detained in perpetual slavery. Of some writers it is a
favorite and invidious theme to compare the humanity of Saladin with the
massacre of the first crusade. The difference would be merely personal; but
we should not forget that the Christians had offered to capitulate, and that
the Mahometans of Jerusalem sustained the last extremities of an assault
and storm. Justice is indeed due to the fidelity with which the Turkish
conqueror fulfilled the conditions of the treaty; and he may be deservedly
praised for the glance of pity which he cast on the misery of the vanquished.
Instead of a rigorous exaction of his debt, he accepted a sum of thirty
thousand byzants, for the ransom of seven thousand poor; two or three
thousand more were dismissed by his gratuitous clemency; and the number

of slaves was reduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In this
interview with the queen, his words, and even his tears suggested the
kindest consolations; his liberal alms were distributed among those who had
been made orphans or widows by the fortune of war; and while the knights
of the hospital were in arms against him, he allowed their more pious
brethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care and service of the
sick. In these acts of mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our admiration
and love: he was above the necessity of dissimulation, and his stern
fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than to affect, this
profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. After Jerusalem had been
delivered from the presence of the strangers, the sultan made his triumphal
entry, his banners waving in the wind, and to the harmony of martial music.
The great mosque of Omar, which had been converted into a church, was
again consecrated to one God and his prophet Mahomet: the walls and
pavement were purified with rose-water; and a pulpit, the labor of
Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary. But when the golden cross that
glittered on the dome was cast down, and dragged through the streets, the
Christians of every sect uttered a lamentable groan, which was answered by
the joyful shouts of the Moslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had
collected the crosses, the images, the vases, and the relics of the holy place;
they were seized by the conqueror, who was desirous of presenting the
caliph with the trophies of Christian idolatry. He was persuaded, however,
to intrust them to the patriarch and prince of Antioch; and the pious pledge
was redeemed by Richard of England, at the expense of fifty-two thousand
byzants of gold. 64
63 (return)
[ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.]
64 (return)
[ For the conquest of Jerusalem, Bohadin (p. 67—75) and
Abulfeda (p. 40—43) are our Moslem witnesses. Of the
Christian, Bernard Thesaurarius (c. 151—167) is the most
copious and authentic; see likewise Matthew Paris, (p. 120
—124.)]
The nations might fear and hope the immediate and final expulsion of the
Latins from Syria; which was yet delayed above a century after the death of
Saladin. 65 In the career of victory, he was first checked by the resistance of
Tyre; the troops and garrisons, which had capitulated, were imprudently
conducted to the same port: their numbers were adequate to the defence of
the place; and the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat inspired the disorderly

crowd with confidence and union. His father, a venerable pilgrim, had been
made prisoner in the battle of Tiberias; but that disaster was unknown in
Italy and Greece, when the son was urged by ambition and piety to visit the
inheritance of his royal nephew, the infant Baldwin. The view of the
Turkish banners warned him from the hostile coast of Jaffa; and Conrad
was unanimously hailed as the prince and champion of Tyre, which was
already besieged by the conqueror of Jerusalem. The firmness of his zeal,
and perhaps his knowledge of a generous foe, enabled him to brave the
threats of the sultan, and to declare, that should his aged parent be exposed
before the walls, he himself would discharge the first arrow, and glory in his
descent from a Christian martyr. 66 The Egyptian fleet was allowed to enter
the harbor of Tyre; but the chain was suddenly drawn, and five galleys were
either sunk or taken: a thousand Turks were slain in a sally; and Saladin,
after burning his engines, concluded a glorious campaign by a disgraceful
retreat to Damascus. He was soon assailed by a more formidable tempest.
The pathetic narratives, and even the pictures, that represented in lively
colors the servitude and profanation of Jerusalem, awakened the torpid
sensibility of Europe: the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, and the kings of
France and England, assumed the cross; and the tardy magnitude of their
armaments was anticipated by the maritime states of the Mediterranean and
the Ocean. The skilful and provident Italians first embarked in the ships of
Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. They were speedily followed by the most eager
pilgrims of France, Normandy, and the Western Isles. The powerful succor
of Flanders, Frise, and Denmark, filled near a hundred vessels: and the
Northern warriors were distinguished in the field by a lofty stature and a
ponderous battle-axe. 67 Their increasing multitudes could no longer be
confined within the walls of Tyre, or remain obedient to the voice of
Conrad. They pitied the misfortunes, and revered the dignity, of Lusignan,
who was released from prison, perhaps, to divide the army of the Franks.
He proposed the recovery of Ptolemais, or Acre, thirty miles to the south of
Tyre; and the place was first invested by two thousand horse and thirty
thousand foot under his nominal command. I shall not expatiate on the story
of this memorable siege; which lasted near two years, and consumed, in a
narrow space, the forces of Europe and Asia. Never did the flame of
enthusiasm burn with fiercer and more destructive rage; nor could the true
believers, a common appellation, who consecrated their own martyrs, refuse
some applause to the mistaken zeal and courage of their adversaries. At the

sound of the holy trumpet, the Moslems of Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the
Oriental provinces, assembled under the servant of the prophet: 68 his camp
was pitched and removed within a few miles of Acre; and he labored, night
and day, for the relief of his brethren and the annoyance of the Franks. Nine
battles, not unworthy of the name, were fought in the neighborhood of
Mount Carmel, with such vicissitude of fortune, that in one attack, the
sultan forced his way into the city; that in one sally, the Christians
penetrated to the royal tent. By the means of divers and pigeons, a regular
correspondence was maintained with the besieged; and, as often as the sea
was left open, the exhausted garrison was withdrawn, and a fresh supply
was poured into the place. The Latin camp was thinned by famine, the
sword and the climate; but the tents of the dead were replenished with new
pilgrims, who exaggerated the strength and speed of their approaching
countrymen. The vulgar was astonished by the report, that the pope himself,
with an innumerable crusade, was advanced as far as Constantinople. The
march of the emperor filled the East with more serious alarms: the obstacles
which he encountered in Asia, and perhaps in Greece, were raised by the
policy of Saladin: his joy on the death of Barbarossa was measured by his
esteem; and the Christians were rather dismayed than encouraged at the
sight of the duke of Swabia and his way-worn remnant of five thousand
Germans. At length, in the spring of the second year, the royal fleets of
France and England cast anchor in the Bay of Acre, and the siege was more
vigorously prosecuted by the youthful emulation of the two kings, Philip
Augustus and Richard Plantagenet. After every resource had been tried, and
every hope was exhausted, the defenders of Acre submitted to their fate; a
capitulation was granted, but their lives and liberties were taxed at the hard
conditions of a ransom of two hundred thousand pieces of gold, the
deliverance of one hundred nobles, and fifteen hundred inferior captives,
and the restoration of the wood of the holy cross. Some doubts in the
agreement, and some delay in the execution, rekindled the fury of the
Franks, and three thousand Moslems, almost in the sultan’s view, were
beheaded by the command of the sanguinary Richard. 69 By the conquest
of Acre, the Latin powers acquired a strong town and a convenient harbor;
but the advantage was most dearly purchased. The minister and historian of
Saladin computes, from the report of the enemy, that their numbers, at
different periods, amounted to five or six hundred thousand; that more than
one hundred thousand Christians were slain; that a far greater number was

lost by disease or shipwreck; and that a small portion of this mighty host
could return in safety to their native countries. 70
65 (return)
[ The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously described
by Bernard Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terræ Sanctæ, c.
167—179,) the author of the Historia Hierosolymitana, (p.
1150—1172, in Bongarsius,) Abulfeda, (p. 43—50,) and
Bohadin, (p. 75—179.)]
66 (return)
[ I have followed a moderate and probable representation of
the fact; by Vertot, who adopts without reluctance a romantic
tale the old marquis is actually exposed to the darts of the
besieged.]
67 (return)
[ Northmanni et Gothi, et cæteri populi insularum quæ inter
occidentem et septentrionem sitæ sunt, gentes bellicosæ,
corporis proceri mortis intrepidæ, bipennibus armatæ,
navibus rotundis, quæ Ysnachiæ dicuntur, advectæ.]
68 (return)
[ The historian of Jerusalem (p. 1108) adds the nations of the
East from the Tigris to India, and the swarthy tribes of
Moors and Getulians, so that Asia and Africa fought against
Europe.]
69 (return)
[ Bohadin, p. 180; and this massacre is neither denied nor
blamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa
complentes, (the English soldiers,) says Galfridus à
Vinesauf, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 346,) who fixes at 2700 the number
of victims; who are multiplied to 5000 by Roger Hoveden,
(p. 697, 698.) The humanity or avarice of Philip Augustus
was persuaded to ransom his prisoners, (Jacob à Vitriaco, l.
i. c. 98, p. 1122.)]
70 (return)
[ Bohadin, p. 14. He quotes the judgment of Balianus, and
the prince of Sidon, and adds, ex illo mundo quasi hominum
paucissimi redierunt. Among the Christians who died before
St. John d’Acre, I find the English names of De Ferrers earl
of Derby, (Dugdale, Baronage, part i. p. 260,) Mowbray,
(idem, p. 124,) De Mandevil, De Fiennes, St. John, Scrope,
Bigot, Talbot, &c.]

Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part III.
Philip Augustus, and Richard the First, are the only kings of France and
England who have fought under the same banners; but the holy service in
which they were enlisted was incessantly disturbed by their national
jealousy; and the two factions, which they protected in Palestine, were more
averse to each other than to the common enemy. In the eyes of the
Orientals; the French monarch was superior in dignity and power; and, in
the emperor’s absence, the Latins revered him as their temporal chief. 71
His exploits were not adequate to his fame. Philip was brave, but the
statesman predominated in his character; he was soon weary of sacrificing
his health and interest on a barren coast: the surrender of Acre became the
signal of his departure; nor could he justify this unpopular desertion, by
leaving the duke of Burgundy with five hundred knights and ten thousand
foot, for the service of the Holy Land. The king of England, though inferior
in dignity, surpassed his rival in wealth and military renown; 72 and if
heroism be confined to brutal and ferocious valor, Richard Plantagenet will
stand high among the heroes of the age. The memory of Cœur de Lion, of the
lion-hearted prince, was long dear and glorious to his English subjects; and,
at the distance of sixty years, it was celebrated in proverbial sayings by the
grandsons of the Turks and Saracens, against whom he had fought: his
tremendous name was employed by the Syrian mothers to silence their
infants; and if a horse suddenly started from the way, his rider was wont to
exclaim, “Dost thou think King Richard is in that bush?” 73 His cruelty to
the Mahometans was the effect of temper and zeal; but I cannot believe that
a soldier, so free and fearless in the use of his lance, would have descended
to whet a dagger against his valiant brother Conrad of Montferrat, who was
slain at Tyre by some secret assassins. 74 After the surrender of Acre, and
the departure of Philip, the king of England led the crusaders to the
recovery of the sea-coast; and the cities of Cæsarea and Jaffa were added to
the fragments of the kingdom of Lusignan. A march of one hundred miles

from Acre to Ascalon was a great and perpetual battle of eleven days. In the
disorder of his troops, Saladin remained on the field with seventeen guards,
without lowering his standard, or suspending the sound of his brazen kettle-
drum: he again rallied and renewed the charge; and his preachers or heralds
called aloud on the unitarians, manfully to stand up against the Christian
idolaters. But the progress of these idolaters was irresistible; and it was only
by demolishing the walls and buildings of Ascalon, that the sultan could
prevent them from occupying an important fortress on the confines of
Egypt. During a severe winter, the armies slept; but in the spring, the Franks
advanced within a day’s march of Jerusalem, under the leading standard of
the English king; and his active spirit intercepted a convoy, or caravan, of
seven thousand camels. Saladin 75 had fixed his station in the holy city; but
the city was struck with consternation and discord: he fasted; he prayed; he
preached; he offered to share the dangers of the siege; but his Mamalukes,
who remembered the fate of their companions at Acre, pressed the sultan
with loyal or seditious clamors, to reserve his person and their courage for
the future defence of the religion and empire. 76 The Moslems were
delivered by the sudden, or, as they deemed, the miraculous, retreat of the
Christians; 77 and the laurels of Richard were blasted by the prudence, or
envy, of his companions. The hero, ascending a hill, and veiling his face,
exclaimed with an indignant voice, “Those who are unwilling to rescue, are
unworthy to view, the sepulchre of Christ!” After his return to Acre, on the
news that Jaffa was surprised by the sultan, he sailed with some merchant
vessels, and leaped foremost on the beach: the castle was relieved by his
presence; and sixty thousand Turks and Saracens fled before his arms. The
discovery of his weakness, provoked them to return in the morning; and
they found him carelessly encamped before the gates with only seventeen
knights and three hundred archers. Without counting their numbers, he
sustained their charge; and we learn from the evidence of his enemies, that
the king of England, grasping his lance, rode furiously along their front,
from the right to the left wing, without meeting an adversary who dared to
encounter his career. 78 Am I writing the history of Orlando or Amadis?
71 (return)
[ Magnus hic apud eos, interque reges eorum tum virtute
tum majestate eminens.... summus rerum arbiter, (Bohadin,
p. 159.) He does not seem to have known the names either
of Philip or Richard.]

72 (return)
[ Rex Angliæ, præstrenuus.... rege Gallorum minor apud eos
censebatur ratione regni atque dignitatis; sed tum divitiis
florentior, tum bellicâ virtute multo erat celebrior, (Bohadin,
p. 161.) A stranger might admire those riches; the national
historians will tell with what lawless and wasteful
oppression they were collected.]
73 (return)
[ Joinville, p. 17. Cuides-tu que ce soit le roi Richart?]
74 (return)
[ Yet he was guilty in the opinion of the Moslems, who attest
the confession of the assassins, that they were sent by the
king of England, (Bohadin, p. 225;) and his only defence is
an absurd and palpable forgery, (Hist. de l’Académie des
Inscriptions, tom. xv. p. 155—163,) a pretended letter from
the prince of the assassins, the Sheich, or old man of the
mountain, who justified Richard, by assuming to himself the
guilt or merit of the murder. *
Note: * Von Hammer (Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 202) sums up
against Richard, Wilken (vol. iv. p. 485) as strongly for acquittal. Michaud
(vol. ii. p. 420) delivers no decided opinion. This crime was also attributed
to Saladin, who is said, by an Oriental authority, (the continuator of Tabari,)
to have employed the assassins to murder both Conrad and Richard. It is a
melancholy admission, but it must be acknowledged, that such an act would
be less inconsistent with the character of the Christian than of the
Mahometan king.—M.]
75 (return)
[ See the distress and pious firmness of Saladin, as they are
described by Bohadin, (p. 7—9, 235—237,) who himself
harangued the defenders of Jerusalem; their fears were not
unknown to the enemy, (Jacob. à Vitriaco, l. i. c. 100, p.
1123. Vinisauf, l. v. c. 50, p. 399.)]
76 (return)
[ Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince, remained in
Jerusalem, nec Cœurdi Turcis, nec Turci essent obtemperaturi
Cœurdis, (Bohadin, p. 236.) He draws aside a corner of the
political curtain.]
77 (return)
[ Bohadin, (p. 237,) and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf, (l. vi. c. 1
—8, p. 403—409,) ascribe the retreat to Richard himself;
and Jacobus à Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience to
depart, in alterum virum mutatus est, (p. 1123.) Yet Joinville,
a French knight, accuses the envy of Hugh duke of
Burgundy, (p. 116,) without supposing, like Matthew Paris,
that he was bribed by Saladin.]

78 (return)
[ The expeditions to Ascalon, Jerusalem, and Jaffa, are
related by Bohadin (p. 184—249) and Abulfeda, (p. 51, 52.)
The author of the Itinerary, or the monk of St. Alban’s,
cannot exaggerate the cadhi’s account of the prowess of
Richard, (Vinisauf, l. vi. c. 14—24, p. 412—421. Hist.
Major, p. 137—143;) and on the whole of this war there is a
marvellous agreement between the Christian and
Mahometan writers, who mutually praise the virtues of their
enemies.]
During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation 79 between the
Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and broken, and again
resumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal courtesy, the gift of snow
and fruit, the exchange of Norway hawks and Arabian horses, softened the
asperity of religious war: from the vicissitude of success, the monarchs
might learn to suspect that Heaven was neutral in the quarrel; nor, after the
trial of each other, could either hope for a decisive victory. 80 The health
both of Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a declining state; and they
respectively suffered the evils of distant and domestic warfare: Plantagenet
was impatient to punish a perfidious rival who had invaded Normandy in
his absence; and the indefatigable sultan was subdued by the cries of the
people, who was the victim, and of the soldiers, who were the instruments,
of his martial zeal. The first demands of the king of England were the
restitution of Jerusalem, Palestine, and the true cross; and he firmly
declared, that himself and his brother pilgrims would end their lives in the
pious labor, rather than return to Europe with ignominy and remorse. But
the conscience of Saladin refused, without some weighty compensation, to
restore the idols, or promote the idolatry, of the Christians; he asserted, with
equal firmness, his religious and civil claim to the sovereignty of Palestine;
descanted on the importance and sanctity of Jerusalem; and rejected all
terms of the establishment, or partition of the Latins. The marriage which
Richard proposed, of his sister with the sultan’s brother, was defeated by the
difference of faith; the princess abhorred the embraces of a Turk; and Adel,
or Saphadin, would not easily renounce a plurality of wives. A personal
interview was declined by Saladin, who alleged their mutual ignorance of
each other’s language; and the negotiation was managed with much art and
delay by their interpreters and envoys. The final agreement was equally
disapproved by the zealots of both parties, by the Roman pontiff and the
caliph of Bagdad. It was stipulated that Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre

should be open, without tribute or vexation, to the pilgrimage of the Latin
Christians; that, after the demolition of Ascalon, they should inclusively
possess the sea-coast from Jaffa to Tyre; that the count of Tripoli and the
prince of Antioch should be comprised in the truce; and that, during three
years and three months, all hostilities should cease. The principal chiefs of
the two armies swore to the observance of the treaty; but the monarchs were
satisfied with giving their word and their right hand; and the royal majesty
was excused from an oath, which always implies some suspicion of
falsehood and dishonor. Richard embarked for Europe, to seek a long
captivity and a premature grave; and the space of a few months concluded
the life and glories of Saladin. The Orientals describe his edifying death,
which happened at Damascus; but they seem ignorant of the equal
distribution of his alms among the three religions, 81 or of the display of a
shroud, instead of a standard, to admonish the East of the instability of
human greatness. The unity of empire was dissolved by his death; his sons
were oppressed by the stronger arm of their uncle Saphadin; the hostile
interests of the sultans of Egypt, Damascus, and Aleppo, 82 were again
revived; and the Franks or Latins stood and breathed, and hoped, in their
fortresses along the Syrian coast.
79 (return)
[ See the progress of negotiation and hostility in Bohadin,
(p. 207—260,) who was himself an actor in the treaty.
Richard declared his intention of returning with new armies
to the conquest of the Holy Land; and Saladin answered the
menace with a civil compliment, (Vinisauf l. vi. c. 28, p.
423.)]
80 (return)
[ The most copious and original account of this holy war is
Galfridi à Vinisauf, Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi et
aliorum in Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published
in the iid volume of Gale’s Scriptores Hist. Anglicanæ, (p.
247—429.) Roger Hoveden and Matthew Paris afford
likewise many valuable materials; and the former describes,
with accuracy, the discipline and navigation of the English
fleet.]
81 (return)
[ Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish notion of the
indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran with his
last breath.]
82 (return)
[ See the succession of the Ayoubites, in Abulpharagius,

(Dynast. p. 277, &c.,) and the tables of M. De Guignes, l’Art
de Vérifier les Dates, and the Bibliothèque Orientale.]
The noblest monument of a conqueror’s fame, and of the terror which he
inspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax which was imposed on the laity,
and even the clergy, of the Latin church, for the service of the holy war. The
practice was too lucrative to expire with the occasion: and this tribute
became the foundation of all the tithes and tenths on ecclesiastical
benefices, which have been granted by the Roman pontiffs to Catholic
sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of the apostolic see. 83 This
pecuniary emolument must have tended to increase the interest of the popes
in the recovery of Palestine: after the death of Saladin, they preached the
crusade, by their epistles, their legates, and their missionaries; and the
accomplishment of the pious work might have been expected from the zeal
and talents of Innocent the Third. 84 Under that young and ambitious priest,
the successors of St. Peter attained the full meridian of their greatness: and
in a reign of eighteen years, he exercised a despotic command over the
emperors and kings, whom he raised and deposed; over the nations, whom
an interdict of months or years deprived, for the offence of their rulers, of
the exercise of Christian worship. In the council of the Lateran he acted as
the ecclesiastical, almost as the temporal, sovereign of the East and West. It
was at the feet of his legate that John of England surrendered his crown;
and Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over sense and
humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and the origin of the
inquisition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth and the fifth, were
undertaken; but, except a king of Hungary, the princes of the second order
were at the head of the pilgrims: the forces were inadequate to the design;
nor did the effects correspond with the hopes and wishes of the pope and
the people. The fourth crusade was diverted from Syria to Constantinople;
and the conquest of the Greek or Roman empire by the Latins will form the
proper and important subject of the next chapter. In the fifth, 85 two
hundred thousand Franks were landed at the eastern mouth of the Nile.
They reasonably hoped that Palestine must be subdued in Egypt, the seat
and storehouse of the sultan; and, after a siege of sixteen months, the
Moslems deplored the loss of Damietta. But the Christian army was ruined
by the pride and insolence of the legate Pelagius, who, in the pope’s name,
assumed the character of general: the sickly Franks were encompassed by
the waters of the Nile and the Oriental forces; and it was by the evacuation

of Damietta that they obtained a safe retreat, some concessions for the
pilgrims, and the tardy restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The
failure may in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication of
the crusades, which were preached at the same time against the Pagans of
Livonia, the Moors of Spain, the Albigeois of France, and the kings of
Sicily of the Imperial family. 86 In these meritorious services, the
volunteers might acquire at home the same spiritual indulgence, and a larger
measure of temporal rewards; and even the popes, in their zeal against a
domestic enemy, were sometimes tempted to forget the distress of their
Syrian brethren. From the last age of the crusades they derived the
occasional command of an army and revenue; and some deep reasoners
have suspected that the whole enterprise, from the first synod of Placentia,
was contrived and executed by the policy of Rome. The suspicion is not
founded, either in nature or in fact. The successors of St. Peter appear to
have followed, rather than guided, the impulse of manners and prejudice;
without much foresight of the seasons, or cultivation of the soil, they
gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits of the superstition of the times.
They gathered these fruits without toil or personal danger: in the council of
the Lateran, Innocent the Third declared an ambiguous resolution of
animating the crusaders by his example; but the pilot of the sacred vessel
could not abandon the helm; nor was Palestine ever blessed with the
presence of a Roman pontiff. 87
83 (return)
[ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p. 311—374)
has copiously treated of the origin, abuses, and restrictions
of these tenths. A theory was started, but not pursued, that
they were rightfully due to the pope, a tenth of the Levite’s
tenth to the high priest, (Selden on Tithes; see his Works,
vol. iii. p. ii. p. 1083.)]
84 (return)
[ See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Murat. Script. Rer. Ital.,
(tom. iii. p. 486—568.)]
85 (return)
[ See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in Jacobus
à Vitriaco, (l. iii. p. 1125—1149, in the Gesta Dei of
Bongarsius,) an eye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius, (in
Script. Muratori, tom. vii. p. 825—846, c. 190—207,) a
contemporary, and Sanutus, (Secreta Fidel Crucis, l. iii. p. xi.
c. 4—9,) a diligent compiler; and of the Arabians
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 294,) and the Extracts at the end
of Joinville, (p. 533, 537, 540, 547, &c.)]

86 (return)
[ To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the pope
(A.D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem.
Fideles mirabantur quòd tantum eis promitteret pro sanguine
Christianorum effundendo quantum pro cruore infidelium
aliquando, (Matthew Paris p. 785.) A high flight for the
reason of the xiiith century.]
87 (return)
[ This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 332,) and the fine
philosophy of Hume, (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 330.)]
The persons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims, were under the
immediate protection of the popes; and these spiritual patrons soon claimed
the prerogative of directing their operations, and enforcing, by commands
and censures, the accomplishment of their vow. Frederic the Second, 88 the
grandson of Barbarossa, was successively the pupil, the enemy, and the
victim of the church. At the age of twenty-one years, and in obedience to
his guardian Innocent the Third, he assumed the cross; the same promise
was repeated at his royal and imperial coronations; and his marriage with
the heiress of Jerusalem forever bound him to defend the kingdom of his
son Conrad. But as Frederic advanced in age and authority, he repented of
the rash engagements of his youth: his liberal sense and knowledge taught
him to despise the phantoms of superstition and the crowns of Asia: he no
longer entertained the same reverence for the successors of Innocent: and
his ambition was occupied by the restoration of the Italian monarchy from
Sicily to the Alps. But the success of this project would have reduced the
popes to their primitive simplicity; and, after the delays and excuses of
twelve years, they urged the emperor, with entreaties and threats, to fix the
time and place of his departure for Palestine. In the harbors of Sicily and
Apulia, he prepared a fleet of one hundred galleys, and of one hundred
vessels, that were framed to transport and land two thousand five hundred
knights, with their horses and attendants; his vassals of Naples and
Germany formed a powerful army; and the number of English crusaders
was magnified to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But the inevitable or
affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed the strength and
provisions of the more indigent pilgrims: the multitude was thinned by
sickness and desertion; and the sultry summer of Calabria anticipated the
mischiefs of a Syrian campaign. At length the emperor hoisted sail at
Brundusium, with a fleet and army of forty thousand men: but he kept the
sea no more than three days; and his hasty retreat, which was ascribed by

his friends to a grievous indisposition, was accused by his enemies as a
voluntary and obstinate disobedience. For suspending his vow was Frederic
excommunicated by Gregory the Ninth; for presuming, the next year, to
accomplish his vow, he was again excommunicated by the same pope. 89
While he served under the banner of the cross, a crusade was preached
against him in Italy; and after his return he was compelled to ask pardon for
the injuries which he had suffered. The clergy and military orders of
Palestine were previously instructed to renounce his communion and
dispute his commands; and in his own kingdom, the emperor was forced to
consent that the orders of the camp should be issued in the name of God and
of the Christian republic. Frederic entered Jerusalem in triumph; and with
his own hands (for no priest would perform the office) he took the crown
from the altar of the holy sepulchre. But the patriarch cast an interdict on
the church which his presence had profaned; and the knights of the hospital
and temple informed the sultan how easily he might be surprised and slain
in his unguarded visit to the River Jordan. In such a state of fanaticism and
faction, victory was hopeless, and defence was difficult; but the conclusion
of an advantageous peace may be imputed to the discord of the
Mahometans, and their personal esteem for the character of Frederic. The
enemy of the church is accused of maintaining with the miscreants an
intercourse of hospitality and friendship unworthy of a Christian; of
despising the barrenness of the land; and of indulging a profane thought,
that if Jehovah had seen the kingdom of Naples he never would have
selected Palestine for the inheritance of his chosen people. Yet Frederic
obtained from the sultan the restitution of Jerusalem, of Bethlem and
Nazareth, of Tyre and Sidon; the Latins were allowed to inhabit and fortify
the city; an equal code of civil and religious freedom was ratified for the
sectaries of Jesus and those of Mahomet; and, while the former worshipped
at the holy sepulchre, the latter might pray and preach in the mosque of the
temple, 90 from whence the prophet undertook his nocturnal journey to
heaven. The clergy deplored this scandalous toleration; and the weaker
Moslems were gradually expelled; but every rational object of the crusades
was accomplished without bloodshed; the churches were restored, the
monasteries were replenished; and, in the space of fifteen years, the Latins
of Jerusalem exceeded the number of six thousand. This peace and
prosperity, for which they were ungrateful to their benefactor, was
terminated by the irruption of the strange and savage hordes of Carizmians.

91 Flying from the arms of the Moguls, those shepherds 911 of the Caspian
rolled headlong on Syria; and the union of the Franks with the sultans of
Aleppo, Hems, and Damascus, was insufficient to stem the violence of the
torrent. Whatever stood against them was cut off by the sword, or dragged
into captivity: the military orders were almost exterminated in a single
battle; and in the pillage of the city, in the profanation of the holy sepulchre,
the Latins confess and regret the modesty and discipline of the Turks and
Saracens.
88 (return)
[ The original materials for the crusade of Frederic II. may
be drawn from Richard de St. Germano (in Muratori, Script.
Rerum Ital. tom. vii. p. 1002—1013) and Matthew Paris, (p.
286, 291, 300, 302, 304.) The most rational moderns are
Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvi.,) Vertot, (Chevaliers de
Malthe, tom. i. l. iii.,) Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli,
tom. ii. l. xvi.,) and Muratori, (Annali d’ Italia, tom. x.)]
89 (return)
[ Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not what to
say: “Chino qui il capo,” &c. p. 322.]
90 (return)
[ The clergy artfully confounded the mosque or church of
the temple with the holy sepulchre, and their wilful error has
deceived both Vertot and Muratori.]
91 (return)
[ The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is related
by Matthew Paris, (p. 546, 547,) and by Joinville, Nangis,
and the Arabians, (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530.)]
911 (return)
[ They were in alliance with Eyub, sultan of Syria. Wilken
vol. vi. p. 630.—M.]
Of the seven crusades, the two last were undertaken by Louis the Ninth,
king of France; who lost his liberty in Egypt, and his life on the coast of
Africa. Twenty-eight years after his death, he was canonized at Rome; and
sixty-five miracles were readily found, and solemnly attested, to justify the
claim of the royal saint. 92 The voice of history renders a more honorable
testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, a hero, and a man; that his
martial spirit was tempered by the love of private and public justice; and
that Louis was the father of his people, the friend of his neighbors, and the
terror of the infidels. Superstition alone, in all the extent of her baleful
influence, 93 corrupted his understanding and his heart: his devotion
stooped to admire and imitate the begging friars of Francis and Dominic: he
pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of

kings twice descended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritual
knight-errant. A monkish historian would have been content to applaud the
most despicable part of his character; but the noble and gallant Joinville, 94
who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has traced with the pencil
of nature the free portrait of his virtues as well as of his failings. From this
intimate knowledge we may learn to suspect the political views of
depressing their great vassals, which are so often imputed to the royal
authors of the crusades. Above all the princes of the middle ages, Louis the
Ninth successfully labored to restore the prerogatives of the crown; but it
was at home and not in the East, that he acquired for himself and his
posterity: his vow was the result of enthusiasm and sickness; and if he were
the promoter, he was likewise the victim, of his holy madness. For the
invasion of Egypt, France was exhausted of her troops and treasures; he
covered the sea of Cyprus with eighteen hundred sails; the most modest
enumeration amounts to fifty thousand men; and, if we might trust his own
confession, as it is reported by Oriental vanity, he disembarked nine
thousand five hundred horse, and one hundred and thirty thousand foot,
who performed their pilgrimage under the shadow of his power. 95
92 (return)
[ Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St. Louis, by the
confessor of Queen Margaret, (p. 291—523. Joinville, du
Louvre.)]
93 (return)
[ He believed all that mother church taught, (Joinville, p.
10,) but he cautioned Joinville against disputing with
infidels. “L’omme lay (said he in his old language) quand il
ot medire de la loi Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loi
Crestienne ne mais que de l’espée, dequoi il doit donner
parmi le ventre dedens, tant comme elle y peut entrer” (p.
12.)]
94 (return)
[ I have two editions of Joinville, the one (Paris, 1668) most
valuable for the observations of Ducange; the other (Paris,
au Louvre, 1761) most precious for the pure and authentic
text, a MS. of which has been recently discovered. The last
edition proves that the history of St. Louis was finished A.D.
1309, without explaining, or even admiring, the age of the
author, which must have exceeded ninety years, (Preface, p.
x. Observations de Ducange, p. 17.)]
95 (return)
[ Joinville, p. 32. Arabic Extracts, p. 549. *
Note: * Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 94.—M.]

In complete armor, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis leaped
foremost on the beach; and the strong city of Damietta, which had cost his
predecessors a siege of sixteen months, was abandoned on the first assault
by the trembling Moslems. But Damietta was the first and the last of his
conquests; and in the fifth and sixth crusades, the same causes, almost on
the same ground, were productive of similar calamities. 96 After a ruinous
delay, which introduced into the camp the seeds of an epidemic disease, the
Franks advanced from the sea-coast towards the capital of Egypt, and strove
to surmount the unseasonable inundation of the Nile, which opposed their
progress. Under the eye of their intrepid monarch, the barons and knights of
France displayed their invincible contempt of danger and discipline: his
brother, the count of Artois, stormed with inconsiderate valor the town of
Massoura; and the carrier pigeons announced to the inhabitants of Cairo
that all was lost. But a soldier, who afterwards usurped the sceptre, rallied
the flying troops: the main body of the Christians was far behind the
vanguard; and Artois was overpowered and slain. A shower of Greek fire
was incessantly poured on the invaders; the Nile was commanded by the
Egyptian galleys, the open country by the Arabs; all provisions were
intercepted; each day aggravated the sickness and famine; and about the
same time a retreat was found to be necessary and impracticable. The
Oriental writers confess, that Louis might have escaped, if he would have
deserted his subjects; he was made prisoner, with the greatest part of his
nobles; all who could not redeem their lives by service or ransom were
inhumanly massacred; and the walls of Cairo were decorated with a circle
of Christian heads. 97 The king of France was loaded with chains; but the
generous victor, a great-grandson of the brother of Saladin, sent a robe of
honor to his royal captive, and his deliverance, with that of his soldiers, was
obtained by the restitution of Damietta 98 and the payment of four hundred
thousand pieces of gold. In a soft and luxurious climate, the degenerate
children of the companions of Noureddin and Saladin were incapable of
resisting the flower of European chivalry: they triumphed by the arms of
their slaves or Mamalukes, the hardy natives of Tartary, who at a tender age
had been purchased of the Syrian merchants, and were educated in the camp
and palace of the sultan. But Egypt soon afforded a new example of the
danger of prætorian bands; and the rage of these ferocious animals, who had
been let loose on the strangers, was provoked to devour their benefactor. In
the pride of conquest, Touran Shaw, the last of his race, was murdered by

his Mamalukes; and the most daring of the assassins entered the chamber of
the captive king, with drawn cimeters, and their hands imbrued in the blood
of their sultan. The firmness of Louis commanded their respect; 99 their
avarice prevailed over cruelty and zeal; the treaty was accomplished; and
the king of France, with the relics of his army, was permitted to embark for
Palestine. He wasted four years within the walls of Acre, unable to visit
Jerusalem, and unwilling to return without glory to his native country.
96 (return)
[ The last editors have enriched their Joinville with large and
curious extracts from the Arabic historians, Macrizi,
Abulfeda, &c. See likewise Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 322
—325,) who calls him by the corrupt name of Redefrans.
Matthew Paris (p. 683, 684) has described the rival folly of
the French and English who fought and fell at Massoura.]
97 (return)
[ Savary, in his agreeable Letters sur L’Egypte, has given a
description of Damietta, (tom. i. lettre xxiii. p. 274—290,)
and a narrative of the exposition of St. Louis, (xxv. p. 306—
350.)]
98 (return)
[ For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants was asked
and granted; but the sultan’s generosity reduced that sum to
800,000 byzants, which are valued by Joinville at 400,000
French livres of his own time, and expressed by Matthew
Paris by 100,000 marks of silver, (Ducange, Dissertation xx.
sur Joinville.)]
99 (return)
[ The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their sultan is
seriously attested by Joinville, (p. 77, 78,) and does not
appear to me so absurd as to M. de Voltaire, (Hist. Générale,
tom. ii. p. 386, 387.) The Mamalukes themselves were
strangers, rebels, and equals: they had felt his valor, they
hoped his conversion; and such a motion, which was not
seconded, might be made, perhaps by a secret Christian in
their tumultuous assembly. *
Note: * Wilken, vol. vii. p. 257, thinks the proposition could not have
been made in earnest.—M.]
The memory of his defeat excited Louis, after sixteen years of wisdom
and repose, to undertake the seventh and last of the crusades. His finances
were restored, his kingdom was enlarged; a new generation of warriors had
arisen, and he advanced with fresh confidence at the head of six thousand
horse and thirty thousand foot. The loss of Antioch had provoked the
enterprise; a wild hope of baptizing the king of Tunis tempted him to steer

for the African coast; and the report of an immense treasure reconciled his
troops to the delay of their voyage to the Holy Land. Instead of a proselyte,
he found a siege: the French panted and died on the burning sands: St.
Louis expired in his tent; and no sooner had he closed his eyes, than his son
and successor gave the signal of the retreat. 100 “It is thus,” says a lively
writer, “that a Christian king died near the ruins of Carthage, waging war
against the sectaries of Mahomet, in a land to which Dido had introduced
the deities of Syria.” 101
100 (return)
[ See the expedition in the annals of St. Louis, by William de
Nangis, p. 270—287; and the Arabic extracts, p. 545, 555, of
the Louvre edition of Joinville.]
101 (return)
[ Voltaire, Hist. Générale, tom. ii. p. 391.]
A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that which
condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, under the
arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the state of
Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious sultans of the Baharite
and Borgite dynasties 102 were themselves promoted from the Tartar and
Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys, or military chiefs, have
ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants. They produce
the great charter of their liberties, the treaty of Selim the First with the
republic: 103 and the Othman emperor still accepts from Egypt a slight
acknowledgment of tribute and subjection. With some breathing intervals of
peace and order, the two dynasties are marked as a period of rapine and
bloodshed: 104 but their throne, however shaken, reposed on the two pillars
of discipline and valor: their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and
Syria: their Mamalukes were multiplied from eight hundred to twenty-five
thousand horse; and their numbers were increased by a provincial militia of
one hundred and seven thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six
thousand Arabs. 105 Princes of such power and spirit could not long endure
on their coast a hostile and independent nation; and if the ruin of the Franks
was postponed about forty years, they were indebted to the cares of an
unsettled reign, to the invasion of the Moguls, and to the occasional aid of
some warlike pilgrims. Among these, the English reader will observe the
name of our first Edward, who assumed the cross in the lifetime of his
father Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers the future conqueror of
Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege; marched as far as Nazareth

with an army of nine thousand men; emulated the fame of his uncle
Richard; extorted, by his valor, a ten years’ truce; 1051 and escaped, with a
dangerous wound, from the dagger of a fanatic assassin. 106 1061 Antioch,
107 whose situation had been less exposed to the calamities of the holy war,
was finally occupied and ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt
and Syria; the Latin principality was extinguished; and the first seat of the
Christian name was dispeopled by the slaughter of seventeen, and the
captivity of one hundred, thousand of her inhabitants. The maritime towns
of Laodicea, Gabala, Tripoli, Berytus, Sidon, Tyre and Jaffa, and the
stronger castles of the Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and the
whole existence of the Franks was confined to the city and colony of St.
John of Acre, which is sometimes described by the more classic title of
Ptolemais.
102 (return)
[ The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes, the
Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites,
Circassians, is given by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag.
p. 6—31) and De Guignes (tom. i. p. 264—270;) their
history from Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the beginning of the
xvth century, by the same M. De Guignes, (tom. iv. p. 110—
328.)]
103 (return)
[ Savary, Lettres sur l’Egypte, tom. ii. lettre xv. p. 189—208.
I much question the authenticity of this copy; yet it is true,
that Sultan Selim concluded a treaty with the Circassians or
Mamalukes of Egypt, and left them in possession of arms,
riches, and power. See a new Abrégé de l’Histoire
Ottomane, composed in Egypt, and translated by M. Digeon,
(tom. i. p. 55—58, Paris, 1781,) a curious, authentic, and
national history.]
104 (return)
[ Si totum quo regnum occupârunt tempus respicias,
præsertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis,
injuriis, ac rapinis refertum, (Al Jannabi, apud Pocock, p.
31.) The reign of Mohammed (A.D. 1311—1341) affords a
happy exception, (De Guignes, tom. iv. p. 208—210.)]
105 (return)
[ They are now reduced to 8500: but the expense of each
Mamaluke may be rated at a hundred louis: and Egypt
groans under the avarice and insolence of these strangers,
(Voyages de Volney, tom. i. p. 89—187.)]
1051 (return)
[ Gibbon colors rather highly the success of Edward. Wilken
is more accurate vol. vii. p. 593, &c.—M.]

106 (return)
[ See Carte’s History of England, vol. ii. p. 165—175, and
his original authors, Thomas Wikes and Walter Hemingford,
(l. iii. c. 34, 35,) in Gale’s Collection, (tom. ii. p. 97, 589—
592.) They are both ignorant of the princess Eleanor’s piety
in sucking the poisoned wound, and saving her husband at
the risk of her own life.]
1061 (return)
[ The sultan Bibars was concerned in this attempt at
assassination Wilken, vol. vii. p. 602. Ptolemæus Lucensis is
the earliest authority for the devotion of Eleanora. Ibid. 605.
—M.]
107 (return)
[ Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis, 1. iii. p. xii. c. 9, and De
Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the Arabic
historians.]
After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre, 108 which is distant about seventy
miles, became the metropolis of the Latin Christians, and was adorned with
strong and stately buildings, with aqueducts, an artificial port, and a double
wall. The population was increased by the incessant streams of pilgrims and
fugitives: in the pauses of hostility the trade of the East and West was
attracted to this convenient station; and the market could offer the produce
of every clime and the interpreters of every tongue. But in this conflux of
nations, every vice was propagated and practised: of all the disciples of
Jesus and Mahomet, the male and female inhabitants of Acre were esteemed
the most corrupt; nor could the abuse of religion be corrected by the
discipline of law. The city had many sovereigns, and no government. The
kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus, of the house of Lusignan, the princes of
Antioch, the counts of Tripoli and Sidon, the great masters of the hospital,
the temple, and the Teutonic order, the republics of Venice, Genoa, and
Pisa, the pope’s legate, the kings of France and England, assumed an
independent command: seventeen tribunals exercised the power of life and
death; every criminal was protected in the adjacent quarter; and the
perpetual jealousy of the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and
blood. Some adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross,
compensated their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages:
nineteen Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith, were
despoiled and hanged by the Christians; and the denial of satisfaction
justified the arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched against Acre, at the head
of sixty thousand horse and one hundred and forty thousand foot: his train
of artillery (if I may use the word) was numerous and weighty: the separate

timbers of a single engine were transported in one hundred wagons; and the
royal historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, was
himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices of the
Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and despair; but they
were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs, and overwhelmed on all sides
by the powers of the sultan. After a siege of thirty three days, the double
wall was forced by the Moslems; the principal tower yielded to their
engines; the Mamalukes made a general assault; the city was stormed; and
death or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. The convent, or
rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days longer; but the great
master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five hundred knights, only ten
were left alive, less happy than the victims of the sword, if they lived to
suffer on a scaffold, in the unjust and cruel proscription of the whole order.
The king of Jerusalem, the patriarch and the great master of the hospital,
effected their retreat to the shore; but the sea was rough, the vessels were
insufficient; and great numbers of the fugitives were drowned before they
could reach the Isle of Cyprus, which might comfort Lusignan for the loss
of Palestine. By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications
of the Latin cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened
the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a mournful
and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had so long resounded
with the world’s debate. 109
108 (return)
[ The state of Acre is represented in all the chronicles of te
times, and most accurately in John Villani, l. vii. c. 144, in
Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. 337, 338.]
109 (return)
[ See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus, l. iii. p.
xii. c. 11—22; Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., in De Guignes, tom.
iv. p. 162, 164; and Vertot, tom. i. l. iii. p. 307—428. *
Note: * After these chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize composition,
“Essai sur ‘Influence des Croisades sur l’Europe,” par A H. L. Heeren:
traduit de l’Allemand par Charles Villars, Paris, 1808,’ or the original
German, in Heeren’s “Vermischte Schriften,” may be read with great
advantage.—M.]

Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part I.
Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—State Of Constantinople.—
Revolt Of The Bulgarians.—Isaac Angelus Dethroned By His
Brother Alexius.—Origin Of The Fourth Crusade.—Alliance Of
The French And Venetians With The Son Of Isaac.—Their Naval
Expedition To Constantinople.—The Two Sieges And Final
Conquest Of The City By The Latins.

The restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne was speedily
followed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches. 1 A religious
and national animosity still divides the two largest communions of the
Christian world; and the schism of Constantinople,
by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most
dangerous
enemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman empire in the
East.
1 (return)
[ In the successive centuries, from the ixth to the xviiith,
Mosheim traces the schism of the Greeks with learning,
clearness, and impartiality; the filioque (Institut. Hist.
Ecclés. p. 277,) Leo III. p. 303 Photius, p. 307, 308. Michael
Cerularius, p. 370, 371, &c.]
In the course of the present History, the aversion of the Greeks for the
Latins has been often visible and conspicuous. It was originally derived
from the disdain of servitude, inflamed, after the time of Constantine, by the
pride of equality or dominion; and finally exasperated by the preference
which their rebellious subjects had given to the alliance of the Franks. In
every age the Greeks were proud of their superiority in profane and
religious knowledge: they had first received the light of Christianity; they
had pronounced the decrees of the seven general councils; they alone
possessed the language of Scripture and philosophy; nor should the
Barbarians, immersed in the darkness of the West, 2 presume to argue on
the high and mysterious questions of theological science. Those Barbarians
despised in then turn the restless and subtile levity of the Orientals, the

authors of every heresy; and blessed their own simplicity, which was
content to hold the tradition of the apostolic church. Yet in the seventh
century, the synods of Spain, and afterwards of France, improved or
corrupted the Nicene creed, on the mysterious subject of the third person of
the Trinity. 3 In the long controversies of the East, the nature and generation
of the Christ had been scrupulously defined; and the well-known relation of
father and son seemed to convey a faint image to the human mind. The idea
of birth was less analogous to the Holy Spirit, who, instead of a divine gift
or attribute, was considered by the Catholics as a substance, a person, a
god; he was not begotten, but in the orthodox style he proceeded. Did he
proceed from the Father alone, perhaps by the Son? or from the Father and
the Son? The first of these opinions was asserted by the Greeks, the second
by the Latins; and the addition to the Nicene creed of the word filioque,
kindled the flame of discord between the Oriental and the Gallic churches.
In the origin of the disputes the Roman pontiffs affected a character of
neutrality and moderation: 4 they condemned the innovation, but they
acquiesced in the sentiment, of their Transalpine brethren: they seemed
desirous of casting a veil of silence and charity over the superfluous
research; and in the correspondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the
pope assumes the liberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the
passions and prejudices of a priest. 5 But the orthodoxy of Rome
spontaneously obeyed the impulse of the temporal policy; and the filioque,
which Leo wished to erase, was transcribed in the symbol and chanted in
the liturgy of the Vatican. The Nicene and Athanasian creeds are held as the
Catholic faith, without which none can be saved; and both Papists and
Protestants must now sustain and return the anathemas of the Greeks, who
deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the
Father. Such articles of faith are not susceptible of treaty; but the rules of
discipline will vary in remote and independent churches; and the reason,
even of divines, might allow, that the difference is inevitable and harmless.
The craft or superstition of Rome has imposed on her priests and deacons
the rigid obligation of celibacy; among the Greeks it is confined to the
bishops; the loss is compensated by dignity or annihilated by age; and the
parochial clergy, the papas, enjoy the conjugal society of the wives whom
they have married before their entrance into holy orders. A question
concerning the Azyms was fiercely debated in the eleventh century, and the
essence of the Eucharist was supposed in the East and West to depend on

the use of leavened or unleavened bread. Shall I mention in a serious
history the furious reproaches that were urged against the Latins, who for a
long while remained on the defensive? They neglected to abstain, according
to the apostolical decree, from things strangled, and from blood: they fasted
(a Jewish observance!) on the Saturday of each week: during the first week
of Lent they permitted the use of milk and cheese; 6 their infirm monks
were indulged in the taste of flesh; and animal grease was substituted for
the want of vegetable oil: the holy chrism or unction in baptism was
reserved to the episcopal order: the bishops, as the bridegrooms of their
churches, were decorated with rings; their priests shaved their faces, and
baptized by a single immersion. Such were the crimes which provoked the
zeal of the patriarchs of Constantinople; and which were justified with
equal zeal by the doctors of the Latin church. 7
2 (return)
[ ''AndreV dussebeiV kai apotropaioi, andreV ek sktouV
anadunteV, thV gar 'Esperiou moiraV uphrcon gennhmata,
(Phot. Epist. p. 47, edit. Montacut.) The Oriental patriarch
continues to apply the images of thunder, earthquake, hail,
wild boar, precursors of Antichrist, &c., &c.]
3 (return)
[ The mysterious subject of the procession of the Holy Ghost
is discussed in the historical, theological, and controversial
sense, or nonsense, by the Jesuit Petavius. (Dogmata
Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii. p. 362—440.)]
4 (return)
[ Before the shrine of St. Peter he placed two shields of the
weight of 94 1/2 pounds of pure silver; on which he
inscribed the text of both creeds, (utroque symbolo,) pro
amore et cautelâ orthodoxæ fidei, (Anastas. in Leon. III. in
Muratori, tom. iii. pars. i. p. 208.) His language most clearly
proves, that neither the filioque, nor the Athanasian creed
were received at Rome about the year 830.]
5 (return)
[ The Missi of Charlemagne pressed him to declare, that all
who rejected the filioque, or at least the doctrine, must be
damned. All, replies the pope, are not capable of reaching
the altiora mysteria qui potuerit, et non voluerit, salvus esse
non potest, (Collect. Concil. tom. ix. p. 277—286.) The
potuerit would leave a large loophole of salvation!]
6 (return)
[ In France, after some harsher laws, the ecclesiastical
discipline is now relaxed: milk, cheese, and butter, are
become a perpetual, and eggs an annual, indulgence in Lent,
(Vie privée des François, tom. ii. p. 27—38.)]

7 (return)
[ The original monuments of the schism, of the charges of
the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles of
Photius, (Epist Encyclica, ii. p. 47—61,) and of Michael
Cerularius, (Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p. 281—
324, edit. Basnage, with the prolix answer of Cardinal
Humbert.)]
Bigotry and national aversion are powerful magnifiers of every object of
dispute; but the immediate cause of the schism of the Greeks may be traced
in the emulation of the leading prelates, who maintained the supremacy of
the old metropolis superior to all, and of the reigning capital, inferior to
none, in the Christian world. About the middle of the ninth century, Photius,
8 an ambitious layman, the captain of the guards and principal secretary,
was promoted by merit and favor to the more desirable office of patriarch of
Constantinople. In science, even ecclesiastical science, he surpassed the
clergy of the age; and the purity of his morals has never been impeached:
but his ordination was hasty, his rise was irregular; and Ignatius, his
abdicated predecessor, was yet supported by the public compassion and the
obstinacy of his adherents. They appealed to the tribunal of Nicholas the
First, one of the proudest and most aspiring of the Roman pontiffs, who
embraced the welcome opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of
the East. Their quarrel was embittered by a conflict of jurisdiction over the
king and nation of the Bulgarians; nor was their recent conversion to
Christianity of much avail to either prelate, unless he could number the
proselytes among the subjects of his power. With the aid of his court the
Greek patriarch was victorious; but in the furious contest he deposed in his
turn the successor of St. Peter, and involved the Latin church in the
reproach of heresy and schism. Photius sacrificed the peace of the world to
a short and precarious reign: he fell with his patron, the Cæsar Bardas; and
Basil the Macedonian performed an act of justice in the restoration of
Ignatius, whose age and dignity had not been sufficiently respected. From
his monastery, or prison, Photius solicited the favor of the emperor by
pathetic complaints and artful flattery; and the eyes of his rival were
scarcely closed, when he was again restored to the throne of
Constantinople. After the death of Basil he experienced the vicissitudes of
courts and the ingratitude of a royal pupil: the patriarch was again deposed,
and in his last solitary hours he might regret the freedom of a secular and
studious life. In each revolution, the breath, the nod, of the sovereign had
been accepted by a submissive clergy; and a synod of three hundred bishops

was always prepared to hail the triumph, or to stigmatize the fall, of the
holy, or the execrable, Photius. 9 By a delusive promise of succor or
reward, the popes were tempted to countenance these various proceedings;
and the synods of Constantinople were ratified by their epistles or legates.
But the court and the people, Ignatius and Photius, were equally adverse to
their claims; their ministers were insulted or imprisoned; the procession of
the Holy Ghost was forgotten; Bulgaria was forever annexed to the
Byzantine throne; and the schism was prolonged by their rigid censure of
all the multiplied ordinations of an irregular patriarch. The darkness and
corruption of the tenth century suspended the intercourse, without
reconciling the minds, of the two nations. But when the Norman sword
restored the churches of Apulia to the jurisdiction of Rome, the departing
flock was warned, by a petulant epistle of the Greek patriarch, to avoid and
abhor the errors of the Latins. The rising majesty of Rome could no longer
brook the insolence of a rebel; and Michael Cerularius was
excommunicated in the heart of Constantinople by the pope’s legates.
Shaking the dust from their feet, they deposited on the altar of St. Sophia a
direful anathema, 10 which enumerates the seven mortal heresies of the
Greeks, and devotes the guilty teachers, and their unhappy sectaries, to the
eternal society of the devil and his angels. According to the emergencies of
the church and state, a friendly correspondence was some times resumed;
the language of charity and concord was sometimes affected; but the Greeks
have never recanted their errors; the popes have never repealed their
sentence; and from this thunderbolt we may date the consummation of the
schism. It was enlarged by each ambitious step of the Roman pontiffs: the
emperors blushed and trembled at the ignominious fate of their royal
brethren of Germany; and the people were scandalized by the temporal
power and military life of the Latin clergy. 11
8 (return)
[ The xth volume of the Venice edition of the Councils
contains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius:
they are abridged, with a faint tinge of prejudice or
prudence, by Dupin and Fleury.]
9 (return)
[ The synod of Constantinople, held in the year 869, is the
viiith of the general councils, the last assembly of the East
which is recognized by the Roman church. She rejects the
synods of Constantinople of the years 867 and 879, which
were, however, equally numerous and noisy; but they were
favorable to Photius.]

10 (return)
[ See this anathema in the Councils, tom. xi. p. 1457—
1460.]
11 (return)
[ Anna Comnena (Alexiad, l. i. p. 31—33) represents the
abhorrence, not only of the church, but of the palace, for
Gregory VII., the popes and the Latin communion. The style
of Cinnamus and Nicetas is still more vehement. Yet how
calm is the voice of history compared with that of
polemics!]
The aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and manifested in
the three first expeditions to the Holy Land. Alexius Comnenus contrived
the absence at least of the formidable pilgrims: his successors, Manuel and
Isaac Angelus, conspired with the Moslems for the ruin of the greatest
princes of the Franks; and their crooked and malignant policy was seconded
by the active and voluntary obedience of every order of their subjects. Of
this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless be ascribed to the
difference of language, dress, and manners, which severs and alienates the
nations of the globe. The pride, as well as the prudence, of the sovereign
was deeply wounded by the intrusion of foreign armies, that claimed a right
of traversing his dominions, and passing under the walls of his capital: his
subjects were insulted and plundered by the rude strangers of the West: and
the hatred of the pusillanimous Greeks was sharpened by secret envy of the
bold and pious enterprises of the Franks. But these profane causes of
national enmity were fortified and inflamed by the venom of religious zeal.
Instead of a kind embrace, a hospitable reception from their Christian
brethren of the East, every tongue was taught to repeat the names of
schismatic and heretic, more odious to an orthodox ear than those of pagan
and infidel: instead of being loved for the general conformity of faith and
worship, they were abhorred for some rules of discipline, some questions of
theology, in which themselves or their teachers might differ from the
Oriental church. In the crusade of Louis the Seventh, the Greek clergy
washed and purified the altars which had been defiled by the sacrifice of a
French priest. The companions of Frederic Barbarossa deplore the injuries
which they endured, both in word and deed, from the peculiar rancor of the
bishops and monks. Their prayers and sermons excited the people against
the impious Barbarians; and the patriarch is accused of declaring, that the
faithful might obtain the redemption of all their sins by the extirpation of
the schismatics. 12 An enthusiast, named Dorotheus, alarmed the fears, and

restored the confidence, of the emperor, by a prophetic assurance, that the
German heretic, after assaulting the gate of Blachernes, would be made a
signal example of the divine vengeance. The passage of these mighty
armies were rare and perilous events; but the crusades introduced a frequent
and familiar intercourse between the two nations, which enlarged their
knowledge without abating their prejudices. The wealth and luxury of
Constantinople demanded the productions of every climate; these imports
were balanced by the art and labor of her numerous inhabitants; her
situation invites the commerce of the world; and, in every period of her
existence, that commerce has been in the hands of foreigners. After the
decline of Amalphi, the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, introduced their
factories and settlements into the capital of the empire: their services were
rewarded with honors and immunities; they acquired the possession of
lands and houses; their families were multiplied by marriages with the
natives; and, after the toleration of a Mahometan mosque, it was impossible
to interdict the churches of the Roman rite. 13 The two wives of Manuel
Comnenus 14 were of the race of the Franks: the first, a sister-in-law of the
emperor Conrad; the second, a daughter of the prince of Antioch: he
obtained for his son Alexius a daughter of Philip Augustus, king of France;
and he bestowed his own daughter on a marquis of Montferrat, who was
educated and dignified in the palace of Constantinople. The Greek
encountered the arms, and aspired to the empire, of the West: he esteemed
the valor, and trusted the fidelity, of the Franks; 15 their military talents
were unfitly recompensed by the lucrative offices of judges and treasures;
the policy of Manuel had solicited the alliance of the pope; and the popular
voice accused him of a partial bias to the nation and religion of the Latins.
16 During his reign, and that of his successor Alexius, they were exposed at
Constantinople to the reproach of foreigners, heretics, and favorites; and
this triple guilt was severely expiated in the tumult, which announced the
return and elevation of Andronicus. 17 The people rose in arms: from the
Asiatic shore the tyrant despatched his troops and galleys to assist the
national revenge; and the hopeless resistance of the strangers served only to
justify the rage, and sharpen the daggers, of the assassins. Neither age, nor
sex, nor the ties of friendship or kindred, could save the victims of national
hatred, and avarice, and religious zeal; the Latins were slaughtered in their
houses and in the streets; their quarter was reduced to ashes; the clergy were
burnt in their churches, and the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate

may be formed of the slain from the clemency which sold above four
thousand Christians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and
monks were the loudest and most active in the destruction of the
schismatics; and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord, when the head of
a Roman cardinal, the pope’s legate, was severed from his body, fastened to
the tail of a dog, and dragged, with savage mockery, through the city. The
more diligent of the strangers had retreated, on the first alarm, to their
vessels, and escaped through the Hellespont from the scene of blood. In
their flight, they burnt and ravaged two hundred miles of the sea-coast;
inflicted a severe revenge on the guiltless subjects of the empire; marked
the priests and monks as their peculiar enemies; and compensated, by the
accumulation of plunder, the loss of their property and friends. On their
return, they exposed to Italy and Europe the wealth and weakness, the
perfidy and malice, of the Greeks, whose vices were painted as the genuine
characters of heresy and schism. The scruples of the first crusaders had
neglected the fairest opportunities of securing, by the possession of
Constantinople, the way to the Holy Land: domestic revolution invited, and
almost compelled, the French and Venetians to achieve the conquest of the
Roman empire of the East.
12 (return)
[ His anonymous historian (de Expedit. Asiat. Fred. I. in
Canisii Lection. Antiq. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 511, edit. Basnage)
mentions the sermons of the Greek patriarch, quomodo
Græcis injunxerat in remissionem peccatorum peregrinos
occidere et delere de terra. Tagino observes, (in Scriptores
Freher. tom. i. p. 409, edit. Struv.,) Græci hæreticos nos
appellant: clerici et monachi dictis et factis persequuntur. We
may add the declaration of the emperor Baldwin fifteen
years afterwards: Hæc est (gens) quæ Latinos omnes non
hominum nomine, sed canum dignabatur; quorum
sanguinem effundere penè inter merita reputabant, (Gesta
Innocent. III., c. 92, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum,
tom. iii. pars i. p. 536.) There may be some exaggeration,
but it was as effectual for the action and reaction of hatred.]
13 (return)
[ See Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. vi. p. 161, 162,) and a
remarkable passage of Nicetas, (in Manuel, l. v. c. 9,) who
observes of the Venetians, kata smhnh kai jratriaV thn
Kwnstantinou polin thV oikeiaV hllaxanto, &c.]
14 (return)
[ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 186, 187.]

15 (return)
[ Nicetas in Manuel. l. vii. c. 2. Regnante enim (Manuele)....
apud eum tantam Latinus populus repererat gratiam ut
neglectis Græculis suis tanquam viris mollibus et
effminatis,.... solis Latinis grandia committeret negotia....
erga eos profusâ liberalitate abundabat.... ex omni orbe ad
eum tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles et ignobiles
concurrebant. Willelm. Tyr. xxii. c. 10.]
16 (return)
[ The suspicions of the Greeks would have been confirmed,
if they had seen the political epistles of Manuel to Pope
Alexander III., the enemy of his enemy Frederic I., in which
the emperor declares his wish of uniting the Greeks and
Latins as one flock under one shepherd, &c (See Fleury,
Hist. Ecclés. tom. xv. p. 187, 213, 243.)]
17 (return)
[ See the Greek and Latin narratives in Nicetas (in Alexio
Comneno, c. 10) and William of Tyre, (l. xxii. c. 10, 11, 12,
13;) the first soft and concise, the second loud, copious, and
tragical.]
In the series of the Byzantine princes, I have exhibited the hypocrisy and
ambition, the tyranny and fall, of Andronicus, the last male of the
Comnenian family who reigned at Constantinople. The revolution, which
cast him headlong from the throne, saved and exalted Isaac Angelus, 18
who descended by the females from the same Imperial dynasty. The
successor of a second Nero might have found it an easy task to deserve the
esteem and affection of his subjects; they sometimes had reason to regret
the administration of Andronicus. The sound and vigorous mind of the
tyrant was capable of discerning the connection between his own and the
public interest; and while he was feared by all who could inspire him with
fear, the unsuspected people, and the remote provinces, might bless the
inexorable justice of their master. But his successor was vain and jealous of
the supreme power, which he wanted courage and abilities to exercise: his
vices were pernicious, his virtues (if he possessed any virtues) were useless,
to mankind; and the Greeks, who imputed their calamities to his negligence,
denied him the merit of any transient or accidental benefits of the times.
Isaac slept on the throne, and was awakened only by the sound of pleasure:
his vacant hours were amused by comedians and buffoons, and even to
these buffoons the emperor was an object of contempt: his feasts and
buildings exceeded the examples of royal luxury: the number of his eunuchs
and domestics amounted to twenty thousand; and a daily sum of four
thousand pounds of silver would swell to four millions sterling the annual

expense of his household and table. His poverty was relieved by
oppression; and the public discontent was inflamed by equal abuses in the
collection, and the application, of the revenue. While the Greeks numbered
the days of their servitude, a flattering prophet, whom he rewarded with the
dignity of patriarch, assured him of a long and victorious reign of thirty-two
years; during which he should extend his sway to Mount Libanus, and his
conquests beyond the Euphrates. But his only step towards the
accomplishment of the prediction was a splendid and scandalous embassy
to Saladin, 19 to demand the restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to
propose an offensive and defensive league with the enemy of the Christian
name. In these unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of the
Greek empire crumbled into dust. The Island of Cyprus, whose name
excites the ideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by his namesake, a
Comnenian prince; and by a strange concatenation of events, the sword of
our English Richard bestowed that kingdom on the house of Lusignan, a
rich compensation for the loss of Jerusalem.
18 (return)
[ The history of the reign of Isaac Angelus is composed, in
three books, by the senator Nicetas, (p. 228—290;) and his
offices of logothete, or principal secretary, and judge of the
veil or palace, could not bribe the impartiality of the
historian. He wrote, it is true, after the fall and death of his
benefactor.]
19 (return)
[ See Bohadin, Vit. Saladin. p. 129—131, 226, vers.
Schultens. The ambassador of Isaac was equally versed in
the Greek, French, and Arabic languages; a rare instance in
those times. His embassies were received with honor,
dismissed without effect, and reported with scandal in the
West.]
The honor of the monarchy and the safety of the capital were deeply
wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Walachians. Since the victory
of the second Basil, they had supported, above a hundred and seventy years,
the loose dominion of the Byzantine princes; but no effectual measures had
been adopted to impose the yoke of laws and manners on these savage
tribes. By the command of Isaac, their sole means of subsistence, their
flocks and herds, were driven away, to contribute towards the pomp of the
royal nuptials; and their fierce warriors were exasperated by the denial of
equal rank and pay in the military service. Peter and Asan, two powerful
chiefs, of the race of the ancient kings, 20 asserted their own rights and the

national freedom; their dæmoniac impostors proclaimed to the crowd, that
their glorious patron St. Demetrius had forever deserted the cause of the
Greeks; and the conflagration spread from the banks of the Danube to the
hills of Macedonia and Thrace. After some faint efforts, Isaac Angelus and
his brother acquiesced in their independence; and the Imperial troops were
soon discouraged by the bones of their fellow-soldiers, that were scattered
along the passes of Mount Hæmus. By the arms and policy of John or
Joannices, the second kingdom of Bulgaria was firmly established. The
subtle Barbarian sent an embassy to Innocent the Third, to acknowledge
himself a genuine son of Rome in descent and religion, 21 and humbly
received from the pope the license of coining money, the royal title, and a
Latin archbishop or patriarch. The Vatican exulted in the spiritual conquest
of Bulgaria, the first object of the schism; and if the Greeks could have
preserved the prerogatives of the church, they would gladly have resigned
the rights of the monarchy.
20 (return)
[ Ducange, Familiæ, Dalmaticæ, p. 318, 319, 320. The
original correspondence of the Bulgarian king and the
Roman pontiff is inscribed in the Gesta Innocent. III. c. 66—
82, p. 513—525.]
21 (return)
[ The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis Romæ
prosapiâ genitores tui originem traxerunt. This tradition, and
the strong resemblance of the Latin and Walachian idioms, is
explained by M. D’Anville, (Etats de l’Europe, p. 258—
262.) The Italian colonies of the Dacia of Trajan were swept
away by the tide of emigration from the Danube to the
Volga, and brought back by another wave from the Volga to
the Danube. Possible, but strange!]
The Bulgarians were malicious enough to pray for the long life of Isaac
Angelus, the surest pledge of their freedom and prosperity. Yet their chiefs
could involve in the same indiscriminate contempt the family and nation of
the emperor. “In all the Greeks,” said Asan to his troops, “the same climate,
and character, and education, will be productive of the same fruits. Behold
my lance,” continued the warrior, “and the long streamers that float in the
wind. They differ only in color; they are formed of the same silk, and
fashioned by the same workman; nor has the stripe that is stained in purple
any superior price or value above its fellows.” 22 Several of these
candidates for the purple successively rose and fell under the empire of
Isaac; a general, who had repelled the fleets of Sicily, was driven to revolt

and ruin by the ingratitude of the prince; and his luxurious repose was
disturbed by secret conspiracies and popular insurrections. The emperor
was saved by accident, or the merit of his servants: he was at length
oppressed by an ambitious brother, who, for the hope of a precarious
diadem, forgot the obligations of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship. 23
While Isaac in the Thracian valleys pursued the idle and solitary pleasures
of the chase, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invested with the purple, by
the unanimous suffrage of the camp; the capital and the clergy subscribed to
their choice; and the vanity of the new sovereign rejected the name of his
fathers for the lofty and royal appellation of the Comnenian race. On the
despicable character of Isaac I have exhausted the language of contempt,
and can only add, that, in a reign of eight years, the baser Alexius 24 was
supported by the masculine vices of his wife Euphrosyne. The first
intelligence of his fall was conveyed to the late emperor by the hostile
aspect and pursuit of the guards, no longer his own: he fled before them
above fifty miles, as far as Stagyra, in Macedonia; but the fugitive, without
an object or a follower, was arrested, brought back to Constantinople,
deprived of his eyes, and confined in a lonesome tower, on a scanty
allowance of bread and water. At the moment of the revolution, his son
Alexius, whom he educated in the hope of empire, was twelve years of age.
He was spared by the usurper, and reduced to attend his triumph both in
peace and war; but as the army was encamped on the sea-shore, an Italian
vessel facilitated the escape of the royal youth; and, in the disguise of a
common sailor, he eluded the search of his enemies, passed the Hellespont,
and found a secure refuge in the Isle of Sicily. After saluting the threshold
of the apostles, and imploring the protection of Pope Innocent the Third,
Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of Philip of
Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy, he heard that
the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice for the deliverance
of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled in his bosom, that their
invincible swords might be employed in his father’s restoration.
22 (return)
[ This parable is in the best savage style; but I wish the
Walach had not introduced the classic name of Mysians, the
experiment of the magnet or loadstone, and the passage of
an old comic poet, (Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l. i. p. 299,
300.)]
23 (return)
[ The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, by

supposing that he had been released by his brother Isaac
from Turkish captivity This pathetic tale had doubtless been
repeated at Venice and Zara but I do not readily discover its
grounds in the Greek historians.]
24 (return)
[ See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in the
three books of Nicetas, p. 291—352.]
About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the nobles of
France were again summoned to the holy war by the voice of a third
prophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the hermit, but far below St.
Bernard in the merit of an orator and a statesman. An illiterate priest of the
neighborhood of Paris, Fulk of Neuilly, 25 forsook his parochial duty, to
assume the more flattering character of a popular and itinerant missionary.
The fame of his sanctity and miracles was spread over the land; he
declaimed, with severity and vehemence, against the vices of the age; and
his sermons, which he preached in the streets of Paris, converted the
robbers, the usurers, the prostitutes, and even the doctors and scholars of the
university. No sooner did Innocent the Third ascend the chair of St. Peter,
than he proclaimed in Italy, Germany, and France, the obligation of a new
crusade. 26 The eloquent pontiff described the ruin of Jerusalem, the
triumph of the Pagans, and the shame of Christendom; his liberality
proposed the redemption of sins, a plenary indulgence to all who should
serve in Palestine, either a year in person, or two years by a substitute; 27
and among his legates and orators who blew the sacred trumpet, Fulk of
Neuilly was the loudest and most successful. The situation of the principal
monarchs was averse to the pious summons. The emperor Frederic the
Second was a child; and his kingdom of Germany was disputed by the rival
houses of Brunswick and Swabia, the memorable factions of the Guelphs
and Ghibelines. Philip Augustus of France had performed, and could not be
persuaded to renew, the perilous vow; but as he was not less ambitious of
praise than of power, he cheerfully instituted a perpetual fund for the
defence of the Holy Land. Richard of England was satiated with the glory
and misfortunes of his first adventure; and he presumed to deride the
exhortations of Fulk of Neuilly, who was not abashed in the presence of
kings. “You advise me,” said Plantagenet, “to dismiss my three daughters,
pride, avarice, and incontinence: I bequeath them to the most deserving; my
pride to the knights templars, my avarice to the monks of Cisteaux, and my
incontinence to the prelates.” But the preacher was heard and obeyed by the

great vassals, the princes of the second order; and Theobald, or Thibaut,
count of Champagne, was the foremost in the holy race. The valiant youth,
at the age of twenty-two years, was encouraged by the domestic examples
of his father, who marched in the second crusade, and of his elder brother,
who had ended his days in Palestine with the title of King of Jerusalem; two
thousand two hundred knights owed service and homage to his peerage; 28
the nobles of Champagne excelled in all the exercises of war; 29 and, by his
marriage with the heiress of Navarre, Thibaut could draw a band of hardy
Gascons from either side of the Pyrenæan mountains. His companion in
arms was Louis, count of Blois and Chartres; like himself of regal lineage,
for both the princes were nephews, at the same time, of the kings of France
and England. In a crowd of prelates and barons, who imitated their zeal, I
distinguish the birth and merit of Matthew of Montmorency; the famous
Simon of Montfort, the scourge of the Albigeois; and a valiant noble,
Jeffrey of Villehardouin, 30 marshal of Champagne, 31 who has
condescended, in the rude idiom of his age and country, 32 to write or
dictate 33 an original narrative of the councils and actions in which he bore
a memorable part. At the same time, Baldwin, count of Flanders, who had
married the sister of Thibaut, assumed the cross at Bruges, with his brother
Henry, and the principal knights and citizens of that rich and industrious
province. 34 The vow which the chiefs had pronounced in churches, they
ratified in tournaments; the operations of the war were debated in full and
frequent assemblies; and it was resolved to seek the deliverance of Palestine
in Egypt, a country, since Saladin’s death, which was almost ruined by
famine and civil war. But the fate of so many royal armies displayed the
toils and perils of a land expedition; and if the Flemings dwelt along the
ocean, the French barons were destitute of ships and ignorant of navigation.
They embraced the wise resolution of choosing six deputies or
representatives, of whom Villehardouin was one, with a discretionary trust
to direct the motions, and to pledge the faith, of the whole confederacy. The
maritime states of Italy were alone possessed of the means of transporting
the holy warriors with their arms and horses; and the six deputies proceeded
to Venice, to solicit, on motives of piety or interest, the aid of that powerful
republic.
25 (return)
[ See Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 26, &c., and
Villehardouin, No. 1, with the observations of Ducange,
which I always mean to quote with the original text.]

26 (return)
[ The contemporary life of Pope Innocent III., published by
Baluze and Muratori, (Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii.
pars i. p. 486—568), is most valuable for the important and
original documents which are inserted in the text. The bull
of the crusade may be read, c. 84, 85.]
27 (return)
[ Por-ce que cil pardon, fut issi gran, si s’en esmeurent mult
li cuers des genz, et mult s’en croisierent, porce que li
pardons ere si gran. Villehardouin, No. 1. Our philosophers
may refine on the causes of the crusades, but such were the
genuine feelings of a French knight.]
28 (return)
[ This number of fiefs (of which 1800 owed liege homage)
was enrolled in the church of St. Stephen at Troyes, and
attested A.D. 1213, by the marshal and butler of
Champagne, (Ducange, Observ. p. 254.)]
29 (return)
[ Campania.... militiæ privilegio singularius excellit.... in
tyrociniis.... prolusione armorum, &c., Duncage, p. 249,
from the old Chronicle of Jerusalem, A.D. 1177—1199.]
30 (return)
[ The name of Villehardouin was taken from a village and
castle in the diocese of Troyes, near the River Aube,
between Bar and Arcis. The family was ancient and noble;
the elder branch of our historian existed after the year 1400,
the younger, which acquired the principality of Achaia,
merged in the house of Savoy, (Ducange, p. 235—245.)]
31 (return)
[ This office was held by his father and his descendants; but
Ducange has not hunted it with his usual sagacity. I find that,
in the year 1356, it was in the family of Conflans; but these
provincial have been long since eclipsed by the national
marshals of France.]
32 (return)
[ This language, of which I shall produce some specimens, is
explained by Vigenere and Ducange, in a version and
glossary. The president Des Brosses (Méchanisme des
Langues, tom. ii. p. 83) gives it as the example of a language
which has ceased to be French, and is understood only by
grammarians.]
33 (return)
[ His age, and his own expression, moi qui ceste uvre dicta,
(No. 62, &c.,) may justify the suspicion (more probable than
Mr. Wood’s on Homer) that he could neither read nor write.
Yet Champagne may boast of the two first historians, the
noble authors of French prose, Villehardouin and Joinville.]

34 (return)
[ The crusade and reigns of the counts of Flanders, Baldwin
and his brother Henry, are the subject of a particular history
by the Jesuit Doutremens, (Constantinopolis Belgica;
Turnaci, 1638, in 4to.,) which I have only seen with the eyes
of Ducange.]
In the invasion of Italy by Attila, I have mentioned 35 the flight of the
Venetians from the fallen cities of the continent, and their obscure shelter in
the chain of islands that line the extremity of the Adriatic Gulf. In the midst
of the waters, free, indigent, laborious, and inaccessible, they gradually
coalesced into a republic: the first foundations of Venice were laid in the
Island of Rialto; and the annual election of the twelve tribunes was
superseded by the permanent office of a duke or doge. On the verge of the
two empires, the Venetians exult in the belief of primitive and perpetual
independence. 36 Against the Latins, their antique freedom has been
asserted by the sword, and may be justified by the pen. Charlemagne
himself resigned all claims of sovereignty to the islands of the Adriatic
Gulf: his son Pepin was repulsed in the attacks of the lagunas or canals, too
deep for the cavalry, and too shallow for the vessels; and in every age,
under the German Cæsars, the lands of the republic have been clearly
distinguished from the kingdom of Italy. But the inhabitants of Venice were
considered by themselves, by strangers, and by their sovereigns, as an
inalienable portion of the Greek empire: 37 in the ninth and tenth centuries,
the proofs of their subjection are numerous and unquestionable; and the
vain titles, the servile honors, of the Byzantine court, so ambitiously
solicited by their dukes, would have degraded the magistrates of a free
people. But the bands of this dependence, which was never absolute or
rigid, were imperceptibly relaxed by the ambition of Venice and the
weakness of Constantinople. Obedience was softened into respect, privilege
ripened into prerogative, and the freedom of domestic government was
fortified by the independence of foreign dominion. The maritime cities of
Istria and Dalmatia bowed to the sovereigns of the Adriatic; and when they
armed against the Normans in the cause of Alexius, the emperor applied,
not to the duty of his subjects, but to the gratitude and generosity of his
faithful allies. The sea was their patrimony: 38 the western parts of the
Mediterranean, from Tuscany to Gibraltar, were indeed abandoned to their
rivals of Pisa and Genoa; but the Venetians acquired an early and lucrative
share of the commerce of Greece and Egypt. Their riches increased with the

increasing demand of Europe; their manufactures of silk and glass, perhaps
the institution of their bank, are of high antiquity; and they enjoyed the
fruits of their industry in the magnificence of public and private life. To
assert her flag, to avenge her injuries, to protect the freedom of navigation,
the republic could launch and man a fleet of a hundred galleys; and the
Greeks, the Saracens, and the Normans, were encountered by her naval
arms. The Franks of Syria were assisted by the Venetians in the reduction of
the sea coast; but their zeal was neither blind nor disinterested; and in the
conquest of Tyre, they shared the sovereignty of a city, the first seat of the
commerce of the world. The policy of Venice was marked by the avarice of
a trading, and the insolence of a maritime, power; yet her ambition was
prudent: nor did she often forget that if armed galleys were the effect and
safeguard, merchant vessels were the cause and supply, of her greatness. In
her religion, she avoided the schisms of the Greeks, without yielding a
servile obedience to the Roman pontiff; and a free intercourse with the
infidels of every clime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of
superstition. Her primitive government was a loose mixture of democracy
and monarchy; the doge was elected by the votes of the general assembly;
as long as he was popular and successful, he reigned with the pomp and
authority of a prince; but in the frequent revolutions of the state, he was
deposed, or banished, or slain, by the justice or injustice of the multitude.
The twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and jealous
aristocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant, and the people to a
cipher. 39
35 (return)
[ History, &c., vol. iii. p. 446, 447.]
36 (return)
[ The foundation and independence of Venice, and Pepin’s
invasion, are discussed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 81,
No. 4, &c.) and Beretti, (Dissert. Chorograph. Italiæ Medii
Ævi, in Muratori, Script. tom. x. p. 153.) The two critics
have a slight bias, the Frenchman adverse, the Italian
favorable, to the republic.]
37 (return)
[ When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right of
sovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, oti
hmeiV douloi Jelomen einai tou 'Rwmaiwn basilewV,
(Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de Administrat. Imperii, pars ii.
c. 28, p. 85;) and the report of the ixth establishes the fact of
the xth century, which is confirmed by the embassy of
Liutprand of Cremona. The annual tribute, which the

emperor allows them to pay to the king of Italy, alleviates,
by doubling, their servitude; but the hateful word douloi
must be translated, as in the charter of 827, (Laugier, Hist.
de Venice, tom. i. p. 67, &c.,) by the softer appellation of
subditi, or fideles.]
38 (return)
[ See the xxvth and xxxth dissertations of the Antiquitates
Medii Ævi of Muratori. From Anderson’s History of
Commerce, I understand that the Venetians did not trade to
England before the year 1323. The most flourishing state of
their wealth and commerce, in the beginning of the xvth
century, is agreeably described by the Abbé Dubos, (Hist. de
la Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 443—480.)]
39 (return)
[ The Venetians have been slow in writing and publishing
their history. Their most ancient monuments are, 1. The rude
Chronicle (perhaps) of John Sagorninus, (Venezia, 1765, in
octavo,) which represents the state and manners of Venice in
the year 1008. 2. The larger history of the doge, (1342—
1354,) Andrew Dandolo, published for the first time in the
xiith tom. of Muratori, A.D. 1728. The History of Venice by
the Abbé Laugier, (Paris, 1728,) is a work of some merit,
which I have chiefly used for the constitutional part. * Note:
It is scarcely necessary to mention the valuable work of
Count Daru, “History de Venise,” of which I hear that an
Italian translation has been published, with notes defensive
of the ancient republic. I have not yet seen this work.—M.]

Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part II.
When the six ambassadors of the French pilgrims arrived at Venice, they
were hospitably entertained in the palace of St. Mark, by the reigning duke;
his name was Henry Dandolo; 40 and he shone in the last period of human
life as one of the most illustrious characters of the times. Under the weight
of years, and after the loss of his eyes, 41 Dandolo retained a sound
understanding and a manly courage: the spirit of a hero, ambitious to
signalize his reign by some memorable exploits; and the wisdom of a
patriot, anxious to build his fame on the glory and advantage of his country.
He praised the bold enthusiasm and liberal confidence of the barons and
their deputies: in such a cause, and with such associates, he should aspire,
were he a private man, to terminate his life; but he was the servant of the
republic, and some delay was requisite to consult, on this arduous business,
the judgment of his colleagues. The proposal of the French was first
debated by the six sages who had been recently appointed to control the
administration of the doge: it was next disclosed to the forty members of the
council of state; and finally communicated to the legislative assembly of
four hundred and fifty representatives, who were annually chosen in the six
quarters of the city. In peace and war, the doge was still the chief of the
republic; his legal authority was supported by the personal reputation of
Dandolo: his arguments of public interest were balanced and approved; and
he was authorized to inform the ambassadors of the following conditions of
the treaty. 42 It was proposed that the crusaders should assemble at Venice,
on the feast of St. John of the ensuing year; that flat-bottomed vessels
should be prepared for four thousand five hundred horses, and nine
thousand squires, with a number of ships sufficient for the embarkation of
four thousand five hundred knights, and twenty thousand foot; that during a
term of nine months they should be supplied with provisions, and
transported to whatsoever coast the service of God and Christendom should
require; and that the republic should join the armament with a squadron of
fifty galleys. It was required, that the pilgrims should pay, before their

departure, a sum of eighty-five thousand marks of silver; and that all
conquests, by sea and land, should be equally divided between the
confederates. The terms were hard; but the emergency was pressing, and the
French barons were not less profuse of money than of blood. A general
assembly was convened to ratify the treaty: the stately chapel and place of
St. Mark were filled with ten thousand citizens; and the noble deputies were
taught a new lesson of humbling themselves before the majesty of the
people. “Illustrious Venetians,” said the marshal of Champagne, “we are
sent by the greatest and most powerful barons of France to implore the aid
of the masters of the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem. They have
enjoined us to fall prostrate at your feet; nor will we rise from the ground
till you have promised to avenge with us the injuries of Christ.” The
eloquence of their words and tears, 43 their martial aspect, and suppliant
attitude, were applauded by a universal shout; as it were, says Jeffrey, by
the sound of an earthquake. The venerable doge ascended the pulpit to urge
their request by those motives of honor and virtue, which alone can be
offered to a popular assembly: the treaty was transcribed on parchment,
attested with oaths and seals, mutually accepted by the weeping and joyful
representatives of France and Venice; and despatched to Rome for the
approbation of Pope Innocent the Third. Two thousand marks were
borrowed of the merchants for the first expenses of the armament. Of the
six deputies, two repassed the Alps to announce their success, while their
four companions made a fruitless trial of the zeal and emulation of the
republics of Genoa and Pisa.
40 (return)
[ Henry Dandolo was eighty-four at his election, (A.D.
1192,) and ninety-seven at his death, (A.D. 1205.) See the
Observations of Ducange sur Villehardouin, No. 204. But
this extraordinary longevity is not observed by the original
writers, nor does there exist another example of a hero near
a hundred years of age. Theophrastus might afford an
instance of a writer of ninety-nine; but instead of
ennenhkonta, (Prom. ad Character.,)I am much inclined to
read ebdomhkonta, with his last editor Fischer, and the first
thoughts of Casaubon. It is scarcely possible that the powers
of the mind and body should support themselves till such a
period of life.]
41 (return)
[ The modern Venetians (Laugier, tom. ii. p. 119) accuse the
emperor Manuel; but the calumny is refuted by
Villehardouin and the older writers, who suppose that

Dandolo lost his eyes by a wound, (No. 31, and Ducange.) *
Note: The accounts differ, both as to the extent and the cause
of his blindness According to Villehardouin and others, the
sight was totally lost; according to the Chronicle of Andrew
Dandolo. (Murat. tom. xii. p. 322,) he was vise debilis. See
Wilken, vol. v. p. 143.—M.]
42 (return)
[ See the original treaty in the Chronicle of Andrew
Dandolo, p. 323—326.]
43 (return)
[ A reader of Villehardouin must observe the frequent tears
of the marshal and his brother knights. Sachiez que la ot
mainte lerme plorée de pitié, (No. 17;) mult plorant, (ibid.;)
mainte lerme plorée, (No. 34;) si orent mult pitié et plorerent
mult durement, (No. 60;) i ot mainte lerme plorée de pitié,
(No. 202.) They weep on every occasion of grief, joy, or
devotion.]
The execution of the treaty was still opposed by unforeseen difficulties
and delays. The marshal, on his return to Troyes, was embraced and
approved by Thibaut count of Champagne, who had been unanimously
chosen general of the confederates. But the health of that valiant youth
already declined, and soon became hopeless; and he deplored the untimely
fate, which condemned him to expire, not in a field of battle, but on a bed of
sickness. To his brave and numerous vassals, the dying prince distributed
his treasures: they swore in his presence to accomplish his vow and their
own; but some there were, says the marshal, who accepted his gifts and
forfeited their words. The more resolute champions of the cross held a
parliament at Soissons for the election of a new general; but such was the
incapacity, or jealousy, or reluctance, of the princes of France, that none
could be found both able and willing to assume the conduct of the
enterprise. They acquiesced in the choice of a stranger, of Boniface marquis
of Montferrat, descended of a race of heroes, and himself of conspicuous
fame in the wars and negotiations of the times; 44 nor could the piety or
ambition of the Italian chief decline this honorable invitation. After visiting
the French court, where he was received as a friend and kinsman, the
marquis, in the church of Soissons, was invested with the cross of a pilgrim
and the staff of a general; and immediately repassed the Alps, to prepare for
the distant expedition of the East. About the festival of the Pentecost he
displayed his banner, and marched towards Venice at the head of the
Italians: he was preceded or followed by the counts of Flanders and Blois,
and the most respectable barons of France; and their numbers were swelled

by the pilgrims of Germany, 45 whose object and motives were similar to
their own. The Venetians had fulfilled, and even surpassed, their
engagements: stables were constructed for the horses, and barracks for the
troops: the magazines were abundantly replenished with forage and
provisions; and the fleet of transports, ships, and galleys, was ready to hoist
sail as soon as the republic had received the price of the freight and
armament. But that price far exceeded the wealth of the crusaders who were
assembled at Venice. The Flemings, whose obedience to their count was
voluntary and precarious, had embarked in their vessels for the long
navigation of the ocean and Mediterranean; and many of the French and
Italians had preferred a cheaper and more convenient passage from
Marseilles and Apulia to the Holy Land. Each pilgrim might complain, that
after he had furnished his own contribution, he was made responsible for
the deficiency of his absent brethren: the gold and silver plate of the chiefs,
which they freely delivered to the treasury of St. Marks, was a generous but
inadequate sacrifice; and after all their efforts, thirty-four thousand marks
were still wanting to complete the stipulated sum. The obstacle was
removed by the policy and patriotism of the doge, who proposed to the
barons, that if they would join their arms in reducing some revolted cities of
Dalmatia, he would expose his person in the holy war, and obtain from the
republic a long indulgence, till some wealthy conquest should afford the
means of satisfying the debt. After much scruple and hesitation, they chose
rather to accept the offer than to relinquish the enterprise; and the first
hostilities of the fleet and army were directed against Zara, 46 a strong city
of the Sclavonian coast, which had renounced its allegiance to Venice, and
implored the protection of the king of Hungary. 47 The crusaders burst the
chain or boom of the harbor; landed their horses, troops, and military
engines; and compelled the inhabitants, after a defence of five days, to
surrender at discretion: their lives were spared, but the revolt was punished
by the pillage of their houses and the demolition of their walls. The season
was far advanced; the French and Venetians resolved to pass the winter in a
secure harbor and plentiful country; but their repose was disturbed by
national and tumultuous quarrels of the soldiers and mariners. The conquest
of Zara had scattered the seeds of discord and scandal: the arms of the allies
had been stained in their outset with the blood, not of infidels, but of
Christians: the king of Hungary and his new subjects were themselves
enlisted under the banner of the cross; and the scruples of the devout were

magnified by the fear of lassitude of the reluctant pilgrims. The pope had
excommunicated the false crusaders who had pillaged and massacred their
brethren, 48 and only the marquis Boniface and Simon of Montfort 481
escaped these spiritual thunders; the one by his absence from the siege, the
other by his final departure from the camp. Innocent might absolve the
simple and submissive penitents of France; but he was provoked by the
stubborn reason of the Venetians, who refused to confess their guilt, to
accept their pardon, or to allow, in their temporal concerns, the interposition
of a priest.
44 (return)
[ By a victory (A.D. 1191) over the citizens of Asti, by a
crusade to Palestine, and by an embassy from the pope to the
German princes, (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. x. p. 163,
202.)]
45 (return)
[ See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C. P. of
Gunther, (Canisii Antiq. Lect. tom. iv. p. v.—viii.,) who
celebrates the pilgrimage of his abbot Martin, one of the
preaching rivals of Fulk of Neuilly. His monastery, of the
Cistercian order, was situate in the diocese of Basil.]
46 (return)
[ Jadera, now Zara, was a Roman colony, which
acknowledged Augustus for its parent. It is now only two
miles round, and contains five or six thousand inhabitants;
but the fortifications are strong, and it is joined to the main
land by a bridge. See the travels of the two companions,
Spon and Wheeler, (Voyage de Dalmatie, de Grèce, &c.,
tom. i. p. 64—70. Journey into Greece, p. 8—14;) the last of
whom, by mistaking Sestertia for Sestertii, values an arch
with statues and columns at twelve pounds. If, in his time,
there were no trees near Zara, the cherry-trees were not yet
planted which produce our incomparable marasquin.]
47 (return)
[ Katona (Hist. Critica Reg. Hungariæ, Stirpis Arpad. tom.
iv. p. 536—558) collects all the facts and testimonies most
adverse to the conquerors of Zara.]
48 (return)
[ See the whole transaction, and the sentiments of the pope,
in the Epistles of Innocent III. Gesta, c. 86, 87, 88.]
481 (return)
[ Montfort protested against the siege. Guido, the abbot of
Vaux de Sernay, in the name of the pope, interdicted the
attack on a Christian city; and the immediate surrender of
the town was thus delayed for five days of fruitless

resistance. Wilken, vol. v. p. 167. See likewise, at length, the
history of the interdict issued by the pope. Ibid.—M.]
The assembly of such formidable powers by sea and land had revived the
hopes of young 49 Alexius; and both at Venice and Zara, he solicited the
arms of the crusaders, for his own restoration and his father’s 50
deliverance. The royal youth was recommended by Philip king of Germany:
his prayers and presence excited the compassion of the camp; and his cause
was embraced and pleaded by the marquis of Montferrat and the doge of
Venice. A double alliance, and the dignity of Cæsar, had connected with the
Imperial family the two elder brothers of Boniface: 51 he expected to derive
a kingdom from the important service; and the more generous ambition of
Dandolo was eager to secure the inestimable benefits of trade and dominion
that might accrue to his country. 52 Their influence procured a favorable
audience for the ambassadors of Alexius; and if the magnitude of his offers
excited some suspicion, the motives and rewards which he displayed might
justify the delay and diversion of those forces which had been consecrated
to the deliverance of Jerusalem. He promised in his own and his father’s
name, that as soon as they should be seated on the throne of Constantinople,
they would terminate the long schism of the Greeks, and submit themselves
and their people to the lawful supremacy of the Roman church. He engaged
to recompense the labors and merits of the crusaders, by the immediate
payment of two hundred thousand marks of silver; to accompany them in
person to Egypt; or, if it should be judged more advantageous, to maintain,
during a year, ten thousand men, and, during his life, five hundred knights,
for the service of the Holy Land. These tempting conditions were accepted
by the republic of Venice; and the eloquence of the doge and marquis
persuaded the counts of Flanders, Blois, and St. Pol, with eight barons of
France, to join in the glorious enterprise. A treaty of offensive and defensive
alliance was confirmed by their oaths and seals; and each individual,
according to his situation and character, was swayed by the hope of public
or private advantage; by the honor of restoring an exiled monarch; or by the
sincere and probable opinion, that their efforts in Palestine would be
fruitless and unavailing, and that the acquisition of Constantinople must
precede and prepare the recovery of Jerusalem. But they were the chiefs or
equals of a valiant band of freemen and volunteers, who thought and acted
for themselves: the soldiers and clergy were divided; and, if a large majority
subscribed to the alliance, the numbers and arguments of the dissidents

were strong and respectable. 53 The boldest hearts were appalled by the
report of the naval power and impregnable strength of Constantinople; and
their apprehensions were disguised to the world, and perhaps to themselves,
by the more decent objections of religion and duty. They alleged the
sanctity of a vow, which had drawn them from their families and homes to
the rescue of the holy sepulchre; nor should the dark and crooked counsels
of human policy divert them from a pursuit, the event of which was in the
hands of the Almighty. Their first offence, the attack of Zara, had been
severely punished by the reproach of their conscience and the censures of
the pope; nor would they again imbrue their hands in the blood of their
fellow-Christians. The apostle of Rome had pronounced; nor would they
usurp the right of avenging with the sword the schism of the Greeks and the
doubtful usurpation of the Byzantine monarch. On these principles or
pretences, many pilgrims, the most distinguished for their valor and piety,
withdrew from the camp; and their retreat was less pernicious than the open
or secret opposition of a discontented party, that labored, on every occasion,
to separate the army and disappoint the enterprise.
49 (return)
[ A modern reader is surprised to hear of the valet de
Constantinople, as applied to young Alexius, on account of
his youth, like the infants of Spain, and the nobilissimus
puer of the Romans. The pages and valets of the knights
were as noble as themselves, (Villehardouin and Ducange,
No. 36.)]
50 (return)
[ The emperor Isaac is styled by Villehardouin, Sursac, (No.
35, &c.,) which may be derived from the French Sire, or the
Greek Kur (kurioV?) melted into his proper name; the
further corruptions of Tursac and Conserac will instruct us
what license may have been used in the old dynasties of
Assyria and Egypt.]
51 (return)
[ Reinier and Conrad: the former married Maria, daughter of
the emperor Manuel Comnenus; the latter was the husband
of Theodora Angela, sister of the emperors Isaac and
Alexius. Conrad abandoned the Greek court and princess for
the glory of defending Tyre against Saladin, (Ducange, Fam.
Byzant. p. 187, 203.)]
52 (return)
[ Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, l. iii. c. 9) accuses the doge
and Venetians as the first authors of the war against
Constantinople, and considers only as a kuma epi kumati,
the arrival and shameful offers of the royal exile. * Note: He

admits, however, that the Angeli had committed
depredations on the Venetian trade, and the emperor himself
had refused the payment of part of the stipulated
compensation for the seizure of the Venetian merchandise by
the emperor Manuel. Nicetas, in loc.—M.]
53 (return)
[ Villehardouin and Gunther represent the sentiments of the
two parties. The abbot Martin left the army at Zara,
proceeded to Palestine, was sent ambassador to
Constantinople, and became a reluctant witness of the
second siege.]
Notwithstanding this defection, the departure of the fleet and army was
vigorously pressed by the Venetians, whose zeal for the service of the royal
youth concealed a just resentment to his nation and family. They were
mortified by the recent preference which had been given to Pisa, the rival of
their trade; they had a long arrear of debt and injury to liquidate with the
Byzantine court; and Dandolo might not discourage the popular tale, that he
had been deprived of his eyes by the emperor Manuel, who perfidiously
violated the sanctity of an ambassador. A similar armament, for ages, had
not rode the Adriatic: it was composed of one hundred and twenty flat-
bottomed vessels or palanders for the horses; two hundred and forty
transports filled with men and arms; seventy store-ships laden with
provisions; and fifty stout galleys, well prepared for the encounter of an
enemy. 54 While the wind was favorable, the sky serene, and the water
smooth, every eye was fixed with wonder and delight on the scene of
military and naval pomp which overspread the sea. 541 The shields of the
knights and squires, at once an ornament and a defence, were arranged on
either side of the ships; the banners of the nations and families were
displayed from the stern; our modern artillery was supplied by three
hundred engines for casting stones and darts: the fatigues of the way were
cheered with the sound of music; and the spirits of the adventurers were
raised by the mutual assurance, that forty thousand Christian heroes were
equal to the conquest of the world. 55 In the navigation 56 from Venice and
Zara, the fleet was successfully steered by the skill and experience of the
Venetian pilots: at Durazzo, the confederates first landed on the territories
of the Greek empire: the Isle of Corfu afforded a station and repose; they
doubled, without accident, the perilous cape of Malea, the southern point of
Peloponnesus or the Morea; made a descent in the islands of Negropont and
Andros; and cast anchor at Abydus on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont.
These preludes of conquest were easy and bloodless: the Greeks of the

provinces, without patriotism or courage, were crushed by an irresistible
force: the presence of the lawful heir might justify their obedience; and it
was rewarded by the modesty and discipline of the Latins. As they
penetrated through the Hellespont, the magnitude of their navy was
compressed in a narrow channel, and the face of the waters was darkened
with innumerable sails. They again expanded in the basin of the Propontis,
and traversed that placid sea, till they approached the European shore, at the
abbey of St. Stephen, three leagues to the west of Constantinople. The
prudent doge dissuaded them from dispersing themselves in a populous and
hostile land; and, as their stock of provisions was reduced, it was resolved,
in the season of harvest, to replenish their store-ships in the fertile islands of
the Propontis. With this resolution, they directed their course: but a strong
gale, and their own impatience, drove them to the eastward; and so near did
they run to the shore and the city, that some volleys of stones and darts were
exchanged between the ships and the rampart. As they passed along, they
gazed with admiration on the capital of the East, or, as it should seem, of
the earth; rising from her seven hills, and towering over the continents of
Europe and Asia. The swelling domes and lofty spires of five hundred
palaces and churches were gilded by the sun and reflected in the waters: the
walls were crowded with soldiers and spectators, whose numbers they
beheld, of whose temper they were ignorant; and each heart was chilled by
the reflection, that, since the beginning of the world, such an enterprise had
never been undertaken by such a handful of warriors. But the momentary
apprehension was dispelled by hope and valor; and every man, says the
marshal of Champagne, glanced his eye on the sword or lance which he
must speedily use in the glorious conflict. 57 The Latins cast anchor before
Chalcedon; the mariners only were left in the vessels: the soldiers, horses,
and arms, were safely landed; and, in the luxury of an Imperial palace, the
barons tasted the first fruits of their success. On the third day, the fleet and
army moved towards Scutari, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople: a
detachment of five hundred Greek horse was surprised and defeated by
fourscore French knights; and in a halt of nine days, the camp was
plentifully supplied with forage and provisions.
54 (return)
[ The birth and dignity of Andrew Dandolo gave him the
motive and the means of searching in the archives of Venice
the memorable story of his ancestor. His brevity seems to
accuse the copious and more recent narratives of Sanudo, (in

Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxii.,) Blondus,
Sabellicus, and Rhamnusius.]
541 (return)
[ This description rather belongs to the first setting sail of
the expedition from Venice, before the siege of Zara. The
armament did not return to Venice.—M.]
55 (return)
[ Villehardouin, No. 62. His feelings and expressions are
original: he often weeps, but he rejoices in the glories and
perils of war with a spirit unknown to a sedentary writer.]
56 (return)
[ In this voyage, almost all the geographical names are
corrupted by the Latins. The modern appellation of Chalcis,
and all Euba, is derived from its Euripus, Evripo, Negri-po,
Negropont, which dishonors our maps, (D’Anville,
Géographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 263.)]
57 (return)
[ Et sachiez que il ni ot si hardi cui le cuer ne fremist, (c.
66.).. Chascuns regardoit ses armes.... que par tems en arons
mestier, (c. 67.) Such is the honesty of courage.]
In relating the invasion of a great empire, it may seem strange that I have
not described the obstacles which should have checked the progress of the
strangers. The Greeks, in truth, were an unwarlike people; but they were
rich, industrious, and subject to the will of a single man: had that man been
capable of fear, when his enemies were at a distance, or of courage, when
they approached his person. The first rumor of his nephew’s alliance with
the French and Venetians was despised by the usurper Alexius: his flatterers
persuaded him, that in this contempt he was bold and sincere; and each
evening, in the close of the banquet, he thrice discomfited the Barbarians of
the West. These Barbarians had been justly terrified by the report of his
naval power; and the sixteen hundred fishing boats of Constantinople 58
could have manned a fleet, to sink them in the Adriatic, or stop their
entrance in the mouth of the Hellespont. But all force may be annihilated by
the negligence of the prince and the venality of his ministers. The great
duke, or admiral, made a scandalous, almost a public, auction of the sails,
the masts, and the rigging: the royal forests were reserved for the more
important purpose of the chase; and the trees, says Nicetas, were guarded
by the eunuchs, like the groves of religious worship. 59 From his dream of
pride, Alexius was awakened by the siege of Zara, and the rapid advances
of the Latins; as soon as he saw the danger was real, he thought it
inevitable, and his vain presumption was lost in abject despondency and

despair. He suffered these contemptible Barbarians to pitch their camp in
the sight of the palace; and his apprehensions were thinly disguised by the
pomp and menace of a suppliant embassy. The sovereign of the Romans
was astonished (his ambassadors were instructed to say) at the hostile
appearance of the strangers. If these pilgrims were sincere in their vow for
the deliverance of Jerusalem, his voice must applaud, and his treasures
should assist, their pious design but should they dare to invade the
sanctuary of empire, their numbers, were they ten times more considerable,
should not protect them from his just resentment. The answer of the doge
and barons was simple and magnanimous. “In the cause of honor and
justice,” they said, “we despise the usurper of Greece, his threats, and his
offers. Our friendship and his allegiance are due to the lawful heir, to the
young prince, who is seated among us, and to his father, the emperor Isaac,
who has been deprived of his sceptre, his freedom, and his eyes, by the
crime of an ungrateful brother. Let that brother confess his guilt, and
implore forgiveness, and we ourselves will intercede, that he may be
permitted to live in affluence and security. But let him not insult us by a
second message; our reply will be made in arms, in the palace of
Constantinople.”
58 (return)
[ Eandem urbem plus in solis navibus piscatorum abundare,
quam illos in toto navigio. Habebat enim mille et sexcentas
piscatorias naves..... Bellicas autem sive mercatorias
habebant infinitæ multitudinis et portum tutissimum.
Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10.]
59 (return)
[ Kaqaper iervn alsewn, eipein de kai Jeojuteutwn
paradeiswn ejeid?onto toutwni. Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l.
iii. c. 9, p. 348.]
On the tenth day of their encampment at Scutari, the crusaders prepared
themselves, as soldiers and as Catholics, for the passage of the Bosphorus.
Perilous indeed was the adventure; the stream was broad and rapid: in a
calm the current of the Euxine might drive down the liquid and
unextinguishable fires of the Greeks; and the opposite shores of Europe
were defended by seventy thousand horse and foot in formidable array. On
this memorable day, which happened to be bright and pleasant, the Latins
were distributed in six battles or divisions; the first, or vanguard, was led by
the count of Flanders, one of the most powerful of the Christian princes in
the skill and number of his crossbows. The four successive battles of the

French were commanded by his brother Henry, the counts of St. Pol and
Blois, and Matthew of Montmorency; the last of whom was honored by the
voluntary service of the marshal and nobles of Champagne. The sixth
division, the rear-guard and reserve of the army, was conducted by the
marquis of Montferrat, at the head of the Germans and Lombards. The
chargers, saddled, with their long caparisons dragging on the ground, were
embarked in the flat palanders; 60 and the knights stood by the side of their
horses, in complete armor, their helmets laced, and their lances in their
hands. The numerous train of sergeants 61 and archers occupied the
transports; and each transport was towed by the strength and swiftness of a
galley. The six divisions traversed the Bosphorus, without encountering an
enemy or an obstacle: to land the foremost was the wish, to conquer or die
was the resolution, of every division and of every soldier. Jealous of the
preeminence of danger, the knights in their heavy armor leaped into the sea,
when it rose as high as their girdle; the sergeants and archers were animated
by their valor; and the squires, letting down the draw-bridges of the
palanders, led the horses to the shore. Before their squadrons could mount,
and form, and couch their Lances, the seventy thousand Greeks had
vanished from their sight: the timid Alexius gave the example to his troops;
and it was only by the plunder of his rich pavilions that the Latins were
informed that they had fought against an emperor. In the first consternation
of the flying enemy, they resolved, by a double attack, to open the entrance
of the harbor. The tower of Galata, 62 in the suburb of Pera, was attacked
and stormed by the French, while the Venetians assumed the more difficult
task of forcing the boom or chain that was stretched from that tower to the
Byzantine shore. After some fruitless attempts, their intrepid perseverance
prevailed: twenty ships of war, the relics of the Grecian navy, were either
sunk or taken: the enormous and massy links of iron were cut asunder by
the shears, or broken by the weight, of the galleys; 63 and the Venetian
fleet, safe and triumphant, rode at anchor in the port of Constantinople. By
these daring achievements, a remnant of twenty thousand Latins solicited
the license of besieging a capital which contained above four hundred
thousand inhabitants, 64 able, though not willing, to bear arms in defence of
their country. Such an account would indeed suppose a population of near
two millions; but whatever abatement may be required in the numbers of
the Greeks, the belief of those numbers will equally exalt the fearless spirit
of their assailants.

60 (return)
[ From the version of Vignere I adopt the well-sounding
word palander, which is still used, I believe, in the
Mediterranean. But had I written in French, I should have
preserved the original and expressive denomination of
vessiers or huissiers, from the huis or door which was let
down as a draw-bridge; but which, at sea, was closed into
the side of the ship, (see Ducange au Villehardouin, No. 14,
and Joinville. p. 27, 28, edit. du Louvre.)]
61 (return)
[ To avoid the vague expressions of followers, &c., I use,
after Villehardouin, the word sergeants for all horsemen who
were not knights. There were sergeants at arms, and
sergeants at law; and if we visit the parade and Westminster
Hall, we may observe the strange result of the distinction,
(Ducange, Glossar. Latin, Servientes, &c., tom. vi. p. 226—
231.)]
62 (return)
[ It is needless to observe, that on the subject of Galata, the
chain, &c., Ducange is accurate and full. Consult likewise
the proper chapters of the C. P. Christiana of the same
author. The inhabitants of Galata were so vain and ignorant,
that they applied to themselves St. Paul’s Epistle to the
Galatians.]
63 (return)
[ The vessel that broke the chain was named the Eagle,
Aquila, (Dandolo, Chronicon, p. 322,) which Blondus (de
Gestis Venet.) has changed into Aquilo, the north wind.
Ducange (Observations, No. 83) maintains the latter reading;
but he had not seen the respectable text of Dandolo, nor did
he enough consider the topography of the harbor. The south-
east would have been a more effectual wind. (Note to
Wilken, vol. v. p. 215.)]
64 (return)
[ Quatre cens mil homes ou plus, (Villehardouin, No. 134,)
must be understood of men of a military age. Le Beau (Hist.
du. Bas Empire, tom. xx. p. 417) allows Constantinople a
million of inhabitants, of whom 60,000 horse, and an infinite
number of foot-soldiers. In its present decay, the capital of
the Ottoman empire may contain 400,000 souls, (Bell’s
Travels, vol. ii. p. 401, 402;) but as the Turks keep no
registers, and as circumstances are fallacious, it is
impossible to ascertain (Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, tom. i.
p. 18, 19) the real populousness of their cities.]
In the choice of the attack, the French and Venetians were divided by
their habits of life and warfare. The former affirmed with truth, that
Constantinople was most accessible on the side of the sea and the harbor.

The latter might assert with honor, that they had long enough trusted their
lives and fortunes to a frail bark and a precarious element, and loudly
demanded a trial of knighthood, a firm ground, and a close onset, either on
foot or on horseback. After a prudent compromise, of employing the two
nations by sea and land, in the service best suited to their character, the fleet
covering the army, they both proceeded from the entrance to the extremity
of the harbor: the stone bridge of the river was hastily repaired; and the six
battles of the French formed their encampment against the front of the
capital, the basis of the triangle which runs about four miles from the port to
the Propontis. 65 On the edge of a broad ditch, at the foot of a lofty rampart,
they had leisure to contemplate the difficulties of their enterprise. The gates
to the right and left of their narrow camp poured forth frequent sallies of
cavalry and light-infantry, which cut off their stragglers, swept the country
of provisions, sounded the alarm five or six times in the course of each day,
and compelled them to plant a palisade, and sink an intrenchment, for their
immediate safety. In the supplies and convoys the Venetians had been too
sparing, or the Franks too voracious: the usual complaints of hunger and
scarcity were heard, and perhaps felt their stock of flour would be
exhausted in three weeks; and their disgust of salt meat tempted them to
taste the flesh of their horses. The trembling usurper was supported by
Theodore Lascaris, his son-in-law, a valiant youth, who aspired to save and
to rule his country; the Greeks, regardless of that country, were awakened to
the defence of their religion; but their firmest hope was in the strength and
spirit of the Varangian guards, of the Danes and English, as they are named
in the writers of the times. 66 After ten days’ incessant labor, the ground
was levelled, the ditch filled, the approaches of the besiegers were regularly
made, and two hundred and fifty engines of assault exercised their various
powers to clear the rampart, to batter the walls, and to sap the foundations.
On the first appearance of a breach, the scaling-ladders were applied: the
numbers that defended the vantage ground repulsed and oppressed the
adventurous Latins; but they admired the resolution of fifteen knights and
sergeants, who had gained the ascent, and maintained their perilous station
till they were precipitated or made prisoners by the Imperial guards. On the
side of the harbor the naval attack was more successfully conducted by the
Venetians; and that industrious people employed every resource that was
known and practiced before the invention of gunpowder. A double line,
three bow-shots in front, was formed by the galleys and ships; and the swift

motion of the former was supported by the weight and loftiness of the latter,
whose decks, and poops, and turret, were the platforms of military engines,
that discharged their shot over the heads of the first line. The soldiers, who
leaped from the galleys on shore, immediately planted and ascended their
scaling-ladders, while the large ships, advancing more slowly into the
intervals, and lowering a draw-bridge, opened a way through the air from
their masts to the rampart. In the midst of the conflict, the doge, a venerable
and conspicuous form, stood aloft in complete armor on the prow of his
galley. The great standard of St. Mark was displayed before him; his threats,
promises, and exhortations, urged the diligence of the rowers; his vessel
was the first that struck; and Dandolo was the first warrior on the shore. The
nations admired the magnanimity of the blind old man, without reflecting
that his age and infirmities diminished the price of life, and enhanced the
value of immortal glory. On a sudden, by an invisible hand, (for the
standard-bearer was probably slain,) the banner of the republic was fixed on
the rampart: twenty-five towers were rapidly occupied; and, by the cruel
expedient of fire, the Greeks were driven from the adjacent quarter. The
doge had despatched the intelligence of his success, when he was checked
by the danger of his confederates. Nobly declaring that he would rather die
with the pilgrims than gain a victory by their destruction, Dandolo
relinquished his advantage, recalled his troops, and hastened to the scene of
action. He found the six weary diminutive battles of the French
encompassed by sixty squadrons of the Greek cavalry, the least of which
was more numerous than the largest of their divisions. Shame and despair
had provoked Alexius to the last effort of a general sally; but he was awed
by the firm order and manly aspect of the Latins; and, after skirmishing at a
distance, withdrew his troops in the close of the evening. The silence or
tumult of the night exasperated his fears; and the timid usurper, collecting a
treasure of ten thousand pounds of gold, basely deserted his wife, his
people, and his fortune; threw himself into a bark; stole through the
Bosphorus; and landed in shameful safety in an obscure harbor of Thrace.
As soon as they were apprised of his flight, the Greek nobles sought pardon
and peace in the dungeon where the blind Isaac expected each hour the visit
of the executioner. Again saved and exalted by the vicissitudes of fortune,
the captive in his Imperial robes was replaced on the throne, and surrounded
with prostrate slaves, whose real terror and affected joy he was incapable of
discerning. At the dawn of day, hostilities were suspended, and the Latin

chiefs were surprised by a message from the lawful and reigning emperor,
who was impatient to embrace his son, and to reward his generous
deliverers. 67
65 (return)
[ On the most correct plans of Constantinople, I know not
how to measure more than 4000 paces. Yet Villehardouin
computes the space at three leagues, (No. 86.) If his eye
were not deceived, he must reckon by the old Gallic league
of 1500 paces, which might still be used in Champagne.]
66 (return)
[ The guards, the Varangi, are styled by Villehardouin, (No.
89, 95) Englois et Danois avec leurs haches. Whatever had
been their origin, a French pilgrim could not be mistaken in
the nations of which they were at that time composed.]
67 (return)
[ For the first siege and conquest of Constantinople, we may
read the original letter of the crusaders to Innocent III.,
Gesta, c. 91, p. 533, 534. Villehardouin, No. 75—99.
Nicetas, in Alexio Comnen. l. iii. c. 10, p. 349—352.
Dandolo, in Chron. p. 322. Gunther, and his abbot Martin,
were not yet returned from their obstinate pilgrim age to
Jerusalem, or St. John d’Acre, where the greatest part of the
company had died of the plague.]

Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part III.
But these generous deliverers were unwilling to release their hostage, till
they had obtained from his father the payment, or at least the promise, of
their recompense. They chose four ambassadors, Matthew of Montmorency,
our historian the marshal of Champagne, and two Venetians, to congratulate
the emperor. The gates were thrown open on their approach, the streets on
both sides were lined with the battle axes of the Danish and English guard:
the presence-chamber glittered with gold and jewels, the false substitute of
virtue and power: by the side of the blind Isaac his wife was seated, the
sister of the king of Hungary: and by her appearance, the noble matrons of
Greece were drawn from their domestic retirement, and mingled with the
circle of senators and soldiers. The Latins, by the mouth of the marshal,
spoke like men conscious of their merits, but who respected the work of
their own hands; and the emperor clearly understood, that his son’s
engagements with Venice and the pilgrims must be ratified without
hesitation or delay. Withdrawing into a private chamber with the empress, a
chamberlain, an interpreter, and the four ambassadors, the father of young
Alexius inquired with some anxiety into the nature of his stipulations. The
submission of the Eastern empire to the pope, the succor of the Holy Land,
and a present contribution of two hundred thousand marks of silver.
—“These conditions are weighty,” was his prudent reply: “they are hard to
accept, and difficult to perform. But no conditions can exceed the measure
of your services and deserts.” After this satisfactory assurance, the barons
mounted on horseback, and introduced the heir of Constantinople to the city
and palace: his youth and marvellous adventures engaged every heart in his
favor, and Alexius was solemnly crowned with his father in the dome of St.
Sophia. In the first days of his reign, the people, already blessed with the
restoration of plenty and peace, was delighted by the joyful catastrophe of
the tragedy; and the discontent of the nobles, their regret, and their fears,
were covered by the polished surface of pleasure and loyalty The mixture of
two discordant nations in the same capital might have been pregnant with

mischief and danger; and the suburb of Galata, or Pera, was assigned for the
quarters of the French and Venetians. But the liberty of trade and familiar
intercourse was allowed between the friendly nations: and each day the
pilgrims were tempted by devotion or curiosity to visit the churches and
palaces of Constantinople. Their rude minds, insensible perhaps of the finer
arts, were astonished by the magnificent scenery: and the poverty of their
native towns enhanced the populousness and riches of the first metropolis
of Christendom. 68 Descending from his state, young Alexius was
prompted by interest and gratitude to repeat his frequent and familiar visits
to his Latin allies; and in the freedom of the table, the gay petulance of the
French sometimes forgot the emperor of the East. 69 In their most serious
conferences, it was agreed, that the reunion of the two churches must be the
result of patience and time; but avarice was less tractable than zeal; and a
larger sum was instantly disbursed to appease the wants, and silence the
importunity, of the crusaders. 70 Alexius was alarmed by the approaching
hour of their departure: their absence might have relieved him from the
engagement which he was yet incapable of performing; but his friends
would have left him, naked and alone, to the caprice and prejudice of a
perfidious nation. He wished to bribe their stay, the delay of a year, by
undertaking to defray their expense, and to satisfy, in their name, the freight
of the Venetian vessels. The offer was agitated in the council of the barons;
and, after a repetition of their debates and scruples, a majority of votes
again acquiesced in the advice of the doge and the prayer of the young
emperor. At the price of sixteen hundred pounds of gold, he prevailed on the
marquis of Montferrat to lead him with an army round the provinces of
Europe; to establish his authority, and pursue his uncle, while
Constantinople was awed by the presence of Baldwin and his confederates
of France and Flanders. The expedition was successful: the blind emperor
exulted in the success of his arms, and listened to the predictions of his
flatterers, that the same Providence which had raised him from the dungeon
to the throne, would heal his gout, restore his sight, and watch over the long
prosperity of his reign. Yet the mind of the suspicious old man was
tormented by the rising glories of his son; nor could his pride conceal from
his envy, that, while his own name was pronounced in faint and reluctant
acclamations, the royal youth was the theme of spontaneous and universal
praise. 71

68 (return)
[ Compare, in the rude energy of Villehardouin, (No. 66,
100,) the inside and outside views of Constantinople, and
their impression on the minds of the pilgrims: cette ville
(says he) que de toutes les autres ere souveraine. See the
parallel passages of Fulcherius Carnotensis, Hist. Hierosol. l.
i. c. 4, and Will. Tyr. ii. 3, xx. 26.]
69 (return)
[ As they played at dice, the Latins took off his diadem, and
clapped on his head a woollen or hairy cap, to
megaloprepeV kai pagkleiston katerrupainen onoma,
(Nicetas, p. 358.) If these merry companions were Venetians,
it was the insolence of trade and a commonwealth.]
70 (return)
[ Villehardouin, No. 101. Dandolo, p. 322. The doge affirms,
that the Venetians were paid more slowly than the French;
but he owns, that the histories of the two nations differed on
that subject. Had he read Villehardouin? The Greeks
complained, however, good totius Græciæ opes transtulisset,
(Gunther, Hist. C. P. c 13) See the lamentations and
invectives of Nicetas, (p. 355.)]
71 (return)
[ The reign of Alexius Comnenus occupies three books in
Nicetas, p. 291—352. The short restoration of Isaac and his
son is despatched in five chapters, p. 352—362.]
By the recent invasion, the Greeks were awakened from a dream of nine
centuries; from the vain presumption that the capital of the Roman empire
was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of the West had violated the
city, and bestowed the sceptre, of Constantine: their Imperial clients soon
became as unpopular as themselves: the well-known vices of Isaac were
rendered still more contemptible by his infirmities, and the young Alexius
was hated as an apostate, who had renounced the manners and religion of
his country. His secret covenant with the Latins was divulged or suspected;
the people, and especially the clergy, were devoutly attached to their faith
and superstition; and every convent, and every shop, resounded with the
danger of the church and the tyranny of the pope. 72 An empty treasury
could ill supply the demands of regal luxury and foreign extortion: the
Greeks refused to avert, by a general tax, the impending evils of servitude
and pillage; the oppression of the rich excited a more dangerous and
personal resentment; and if the emperor melted the plate, and despoiled the
images, of the sanctuary, he seemed to justify the complaints of heresy and
sacrilege. During the absence of Marquis Boniface and his Imperial pupil,
Constantinople was visited with a calamity which might be justly imputed

to the zeal and indiscretion of the Flemish pilgrims. 73 In one of their visits
to the city, they were scandalized by the aspect of a mosque or synagogue,
in which one God was worshipped, without a partner or a son. Their
effectual mode of controversy was to attack the infidels with the sword, and
their habitation with fire: but the infidels, and some Christian neighbors,
presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flames which bigotry
had kindled, consumed the most orthodox and innocent structures. During
eight days and nights, the conflagration spread above a league in front, from
the harbor to the Propontis, over the thickest and most populous regions of
the city. It is not easy to count the stately churches and palaces that were
reduced to a smoking ruin, to value the merchandise that perished in the
trading streets, or to number the families that were involved in the common
destruction. By this outrage, which the doge and the barons in vain affected
to disclaim, the name of the Latins became still more unpopular; and the
colony of that nation, above fifteen thousand persons, consulted their safety
in a hasty retreat from the city to the protection of their standard in the
suburb of Pera. The emperor returned in triumph; but the firmest and most
dexterous policy would have been insufficient to steer him through the
tempest, which overwhelmed the person and government of that unhappy
youth. His own inclination, and his father’s advice, attached him to his
benefactors; but Alexius hesitated between gratitude and patriotism,
between the fear of his subjects and of his allies. 74 By his feeble and
fluctuating conduct he lost the esteem and confidence of both; and, while he
invited the marquis of Monferrat to occupy the palace, he suffered the
nobles to conspire, and the people to arm, for the deliverance of their
country. Regardless of his painful situation, the Latin chiefs repeated their
demands, resented his delays, suspected his intentions, and exacted a
decisive answer of peace or war. The haughty summons was delivered by
three French knights and three Venetian deputies, who girded their swords,
mounted their horses, pierced through the angry multitude, and entered,
with a fearful countenance, the palace and presence of the Greek emperor.
In a peremptory tone, they recapitulated their services and his engagements;
and boldly declared, that unless their just claims were fully and
immediately satisfied, they should no longer hold him either as a sovereign
or a friend. After this defiance, the first that had ever wounded an Imperial
ear, they departed without betraying any symptoms of fear; but their escape

from a servile palace and a furious city astonished the ambassadors
themselves; and their return to the camp was the signal of mutual hostility.
72 (return)
[ When Nicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious league,
he bestows the harshest names on the pope’s new religion,
meizon kai atopwtaton... parektrophn pistewV... tvn tou Papa
pronomiwn kainismon,... metaqesin te kai metapoihsin tvn
palaivn 'RwmaioiV?eqvn, (p. 348.) Such was the sincere
language of every Greek to the last gasp of the empire.]
73 (return)
[ Nicetas (p. 355) is positive in the charge, and specifies the
Flemings, (FlamioneV,) though he is wrong in supposing it
an ancient name. Villehardouin (No. 107) exculpates the
barons, and is ignorant (perhaps affectedly ignorant) of the
names of the guilty.]
74 (return)
[ Compare the suspicions and complaints of Nicetas (p. 359
—362) with the blunt charges of Baldwin of Flanders,
(Gesta Innocent III. c. 92, p. 534,) cum patriarcha et mole
nobilium, nobis promises perjurus et mendax.]
Among the Greeks, all authority and wisdom were overborne by the
impetuous multitude, who mistook their rage for valor, their numbers for
strength, and their fanaticism for the support and inspiration of Heaven. In
the eyes of both nations Alexius was false and contemptible; the base and
spurious race of the Angeli was rejected with clamorous disdain; and the
people of Constantinople encompassed the senate, to demand at their hands
a more worthy emperor. To every senator, conspicuous by his birth or
dignity, they successively presented the purple: by each senator the deadly
garment was repulsed: the contest lasted three days; and we may learn from
the historian Nicetas, one of the members of the assembly, that fear and
weaknesses were the guardians of their loyalty. A phantom, who vanished in
oblivion, was forcibly proclaimed by the crowd: 75 but the author of the
tumult, and the leader of the war, was a prince of the house of Ducas; and
his common appellation of Alexius must be discriminated by the epithet of
Mourzoufle, 76 which in the vulgar idiom expressed the close junction of
his black and shaggy eyebrows. At once a patriot and a courtier, the
perfidious Mourzoufle, who was not destitute of cunning and courage,
opposed the Latins both in speech and action, inflamed the passions and
prejudices of the Greeks, and insinuated himself into the favor and
confidence of Alexius, who trusted him with the office of great
chamberlain, and tinged his buskins with the colors of royalty. At the dead

of night, he rushed into the bed-chamber with an affrighted aspect,
exclaiming, that the palace was attacked by the people and betrayed by the
guards. Starting from his couch, the unsuspecting prince threw himself into
the arms of his enemy, who had contrived his escape by a private staircase.
But that staircase terminated in a prison: Alexius was seized, stripped, and
loaded with chains; and, after tasting some days the bitterness of death, he
was poisoned, or strangled, or beaten with clubs, at the command, or in the
presence, of the tyrant. The emperor Isaac Angelus soon followed his son to
the grave; and Mourzoufle, perhaps, might spare the superfluous crime of
hastening the extinction of impotence and blindness.
75 (return)
[ His name was Nicholas Canabus: he deserved the praise of
Nicetas and the vengeance of Mourzoufle, (p. 362.)]
76 (return)
[ Villehardouin (No. 116) speaks of him as a favorite,
without knowing that he was a prince of the blood, Angelus
and Ducas. Ducange, who pries into every corner, believes
him to be the son of Isaac Ducas Sebastocrator, and second
cousin of young Alexius.]
The death of the emperors, and the usurpation of Mourzoufle, had
changed the nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the disagreement of
allies who overvalued their services, or neglected their obligations: the
French and Venetians forgot their complaints against Alexius, dropped a
tear on the untimely fate of their companion, and swore revenge against the
perfidious nation who had crowned his assassin. Yet the prudent doge was
still inclined to negotiate: he asked as a debt, a subsidy, or a fine, fifty
thousand pounds of gold, about two millions sterling; nor would the
conference have been abruptly broken, if the zeal, or policy, of Mourzoufle
had not refused to sacrifice the Greek church to the safety of the state. 77
Amidst the invectives of his foreign and domestic enemies, we may discern,
that he was not unworthy of the character which he had assumed, of the
public champion: the second siege of Constantinople was far more
laborious than the first; the treasury was replenished, and discipline was
restored, by a severe inquisition into the abuses of the former reign; and
Mourzoufle, an iron mace in his hand, visiting the posts, and affecting the
port and aspect of a warrior, was an object of terror to his soldiers, at least,
and to his kinsmen. Before and after the death of Alexius, the Greeks made
two vigorous and well-conducted attempts to burn the navy in the harbor;
but the skill and courage of the Venetians repulsed the fire-ships; and the

vagrant flames wasted themselves without injury in the sea. 78 In a
nocturnal sally the Greek emperor was vanquished by Henry, brother of the
count of Flanders: the advantages of number and surprise aggravated the
shame of his defeat: his buckler was found on the field of battle; and the
Imperial standard, 79 a divine image of the Virgin, was presented, as a
trophy and a relic to the Cistercian monks, the disciples of St. Bernard.
Near three months, without excepting the holy season of Lent, were
consumed in skirmishes and preparations, before the Latins were ready or
resolved for a general assault. The land fortifications had been found
impregnable; and the Venetian pilots represented, that, on the shore of the
Propontis, the anchorage was unsafe, and the ships must be driven by the
current far away to the straits of the Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing
to the reluctant pilgrims, who sought every opportunity of breaking the
army. From the harbor, therefore, the assault was determined by the
assailants, and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his
scarlet pavilions on a neighboring height, to direct and animate the efforts
of his troops. A fearless spectator, whose mind could entertain the ideas of
pomp and pleasure, might have admired the long array of two embattled
armies, which extended above half a league, the one on the ships and
galleys, the other on the walls and towers raised above the ordinary level by
several stages of wooden turrets. Their first fury was spent in the discharge
of darts, stones, and fire, from the engines; but the water was deep; the
French were bold; the Venetians were skilful; they approached the walls;
and a desperate conflict of swords, spears, and battle-axes, was fought on
the trembling bridges that grappled the floating, to the stable, batteries. In
more than a hundred places, the assault was urged, and the defence was
sustained; till the superiority of ground and numbers finally prevailed, and
the Latin trumpets sounded a retreat. On the ensuing days, the attack was
renewed with equal vigor, and a similar event; and, in the night, the doge
and the barons held a council, apprehensive only for the public danger: not
a voice pronounced the words of escape or treaty; and each warrior,
according to his temper, embraced the hope of victory, or the assurance of a
glorious death. 80 By the experience of the former siege, the Greeks were
instructed, but the Latins were animated; and the knowledge that
Constantinople might be taken, was of more avail than the local precautions
which that knowledge had inspired for its defence. In the third assault, two
ships were linked together to double their strength; a strong north wind

drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes and Soissons led the van;
and the auspicious names of the pilgrim and the paradise resounded along
the line. 81 The episcopal banners were displayed on the walls; a hundred
marks of silver had been promised to the first adventurers; and if their
reward was intercepted by death, their names have been immortalized by
fame. 811 Four towers were scaled; three gates were burst open; and the
French knights, who might tremble on the waves, felt themselves invincible
on horseback on the solid ground. Shall I relate that the thousands who
guarded the emperor’s person fled on the approach, and before the lance, of
a single warrior? Their ignominious flight is attested by their countryman
Nicetas: an army of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was
magnified to a giant in the eyes of the Greeks. 82 While the fugitives
deserted their posts and cast away their arms, the Latins entered the city
under the banners of their leaders: the streets and gates opened for their
passage; and either design or accident kindled a third conflagration, which
consumed in a few hours the measure of three of the largest cities of France.
83 In the close of evening, the barons checked their troops, and fortified
their stations: They were awed by the extent and populousness of the
capital, which might yet require the labor of a month, if the churches and
palaces were conscious of their internal strength. But in the morning, a
suppliant procession, with crosses and images, announced the submission of
the Greeks, and deprecated the wrath of the conquerors: the usurper escaped
through the golden gate: the palaces of Blachernæ and Boucoleon were
occupied by the count of Flanders and the marquis of Montferrat; and the
empire, which still bore the name of Constantine, and the title of Roman,
was subverted by the arms of the Latin pilgrims. 84
77 (return)
[ This negotiation, probable in itself, and attested by Nicetas,
(p 65,) is omitted as scandalous by the delicacy of Dandolo
and Villehardouin. * Note: Wilken places it before the death
of Alexius, vol. v. p. 276.—M.]
78 (return)
[ Baldwin mentions both attempts to fire the fleet, (Gest. c.
92, p. 534, 535;) Villehardouin, (No. 113—15) only
describes the first. It is remarkable that neither of these
warriors observe any peculiar properties in the Greek fire.]
79 (return)
[ Ducange (No. 119) pours forth a torrent of learning on the
Gonfanon Imperial. This banner of the Virgin is shown at

Venice as a trophy and relic: if it be genuine the pious doge
must have cheated the monks of Citeaux.]
80 (return)
[ Villehardouin (No. 126) confesses, that mult ere grant
peril; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 13) affirms, that nulla
spes victoriæ arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises those
who thought of flight, and the monk praises his countrymen
who were resolved on death.]
81 (return)
[ Baldwin, and all the writers, honor the names of these two
galleys, felici auspicio.]
811 (return)
[ Pietro Alberti, a Venetian noble and Andrew d’Amboise a
French knight.—M.]
82 (return)
[ With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him enneorguioV,
nine orgyæ, or eighteen yards high, a stature which would,
indeed, have excused the terror of the Greek. On this
occasion, the historian seems fonder of the marvellous than
of his country, or perhaps of truth. Baldwin exclaims in the
words of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex nobis centum
alienos.]
83 (return)
[ Villehardouin (No. 130) is again ignorant of the authors of
this more legitimate fire, which is ascribed by Gunther to a
quidam comes Teutonicus, (c. 14.) They seem ashamed, the
incendiaries!]
84 (return)
[ For the second siege and conquest of Constantinople, see
Villehardouin (No. 113—132,) Baldwin’s iid Epistle to
Innocent III., (Gesta c. 92, p. 534—537,) with the whole
reign of Mourzoufle, in Nicetas, (p 363—375;) and
borrowed some hints from Dandolo (Chron. Venet. p. 323—
330) and Gunther, (Hist. C. P. c. 14—18,) who added the
decorations of prophecy and vision. The former produces an
oracle of the Erythræan sibyl, of a great armament on the
Adriatic, under a blind chief, against Byzantium, &c.
Cœurious enough, were the prediction anterior to the fact.]

Constantinople had been taken by storm; and no restraints, except those
of religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by the laws of
war. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as their general; and the
Greeks, who revered his name as that of their future sovereign, were heard
to exclaim in a lamentable tone, “Holy marquis-king, have mercy upon us!”
His prudence or compassion opened the gates of the city to the fugitives;
and he exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the lives of their fellow-

Christians. The streams of blood that flowed down the pages of Nicetas
may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand of his unresisting
countrymen; 85 and the greater part was massacred, not by the strangers,
but by the Latins, who had been driven from the city, and who exercised the
revenge of a triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles, some were less mindful
of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himself was indebted for his safety
to the generosity of a Venetian merchant. Pope Innocent the Third accuses
the pilgrims for respecting, in their lust, neither age nor sex, nor religious
profession; and bitterly laments that the deeds of darkness, fornication,
adultery, and incest, were perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons
and holy nuns were polluted by the grooms and peasants of the Catholic
camp. 86 It is indeed probable that the license of victory prompted and
covered a multitude of sins: but it is certain, that the capital of the East
contained a stock of venal or willing beauty, sufficient to satiate the desires
of twenty thousand pilgrims; and female prisoners were no longer subject to
the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquis of Montferrat was the
patron of discipline and decency; the count of Flanders was the mirror of
chastity: they had forbidden, under pain of death, the rape of married
women, or virgins, or nuns; and the proclamation was sometimes invoked
by the vanquished 87 and respected by the victors. Their cruelty and lust
were moderated by the authority of the chiefs, and feelings of the soldiers;
for we are no longer describing an irruption of the northern savages; and
however ferocious they might still appear, time, policy, and religion had
civilized the manners of the French, and still more of the Italians. But a free
scope was allowed to their avarice, which was glutted, even in the holy
week, by the pillage of Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled by
any promise or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth of the
Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, might lawfully
execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A portable and universal
standard of exchange was found in the coined and uncoined metals of gold
and silver, which each captor, at home or abroad, might convert into the
possessions most suitable to his temper and situation. Of the treasures,
which trade and luxury had accumulated, the silks, velvets, furs, the gems,
spices, and rich movables, were the most precious, as they could not be
procured for money in the ruder countries of Europe. An order of rapine
was instituted; nor was the share of each individual abandoned to industry
or chance. Under the tremendous penalties of perjury, excommunication,

and death, the Latins were bound to deliver their plunder into the common
stock: three churches were selected for the deposit and distribution of the
spoil: a single share was allotted to a foot-soldier; two for a sergeant on
horseback; four to a knight; and larger proportions according to the rank
and merit of the barons and princes. For violating this sacred engagement, a
knight belonging to the count of St. Paul was hanged with his shield and
coat of arms round his neck; his example might render similar offenders
more artful and discreet; but avarice was more powerful than fear; and it is
generally believed that the secret far exceeded the acknowledged plunder.
Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the largest scale of experience or
expectation. 88 After the whole had been equally divided between the
French and Venetians, fifty thousand marks were deducted to satisfy the
debts of the former and the demands of the latter. The residue of the French
amounted to four hundred thousand marks of silver, 89 about eight hundred
thousand pounds sterling; nor can I better appreciate the value of that sum
in the public and private transactions of the age, than by defining it as seven
times the annual revenue of the kingdom of England. 90
85 (return)
[ Ceciderunt tamen eâ die civium quasi duo millia, &c.,
(Gunther, c. 18.) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to try
the amplifications of passion and rhetoric.]
86 (return)
[ Quidam (says Innocent III., Gesta, c. 94, p. 538) nec
religioni, nec ætati, nec sexui pepercerunt: sed fornicationes,
adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium exercentes, non
solûm maritatas et viduas, sed et matronas et virgines
Deoque dicatas, exposuerunt spurcitiis garcionum.
Villehardouin takes no notice of these common incidents.]
87 (return)
[ Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble virgin, (p.
380,) whom a soldier, eti martusi polloiV onhdon
epibrimwmenoV, had almost violated in spite of the entolai,
entalmata eu gegonotwn.]
88 (return)
[ Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut de
pauperibus et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur, (Hist. C. P.
c. 18; (Villehardouin, (No. 132,) that since the creation, ne
fu tant gaaignié dans une ville; Baldwin, (Gesta, c. 92,) ut
tantum tota non videatur possidere Latinitas.]
89 (return)
[ Villehardouin, No. 133—135. Instead of 400,000, there is a
various reading of 500,000. The Venetians had offered to
take the whole booty, and to give 400 marks to each knight,

200 to each priest and horseman, and 100 to each foot-
soldier: they would have been great losers, (Le Beau, Hist.
du. Bas Empire tom. xx. p. 506. I know not from whence.)]
90 (return)
[ At the council of Lyons (A.D. 1245) the English
ambassadors stated the revenue of the crown as below that
of the foreign clergy, which amounted to 60,000 marks a
year, (Matthew Paris, p. 451 Hume’s Hist. of England, vol.
ii. p. 170.)]
In this great revolution we enjoy the singular felicity of comparing the
narratives of Villehardouin and Nicetas, the opposite feelings of the marshal
of Champagne and the Byzantine senator. 91 At the first view it should
seem that the wealth of Constantinople was only transferred from one
nation to another; and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks is exactly
balanced by the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the miserable
account of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss, the pleasure to the
pain; the smiles of the Latins were transient and fallacious; the Greeks
forever wept over the ruins of their country; and their real calamities were
aggravated by sacrilege and mockery. What benefits accrued to the
conquerors from the three fires which annihilated so vast a portion of the
buildings and riches of the city? What a stock of such things, as could
neither be used nor transported, was maliciously or wantonly destroyed!
How much treasure was idly wasted in gaming, debauchery, and riot! And
what precious objects were bartered for a vile price by the impatience or
ignorance of the soldiers, whose reward was stolen by the base industry of
the last of the Greeks! These alone, who had nothing to lose, might derive
some profit from the revolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society
is strongly painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself. His stately
palace had been reduced to ashes in the second conflagration; and the
senator, with his family and friends, found an obscure shelter in another
house which he possessed near the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of
this mean habitation that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guarded in the
disguise of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate flight, the
relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In a cold, wintry
season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of prosperity, departed on foot; his
wife was with child; the desertion of their slaves compelled them to carry
their baggage on their own shoulders; and their women, whom they placed
in the centre, were exhorted to conceal their beauty with dirt, instead of
adorning it with paint and jewels Every step was exposed to insult and

danger: the threats of the strangers were less painful than the taunts of the
plebeians, with whom they were now levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in
safety till their mournful pilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above
forty miles from the capital. On the way they overtook the patriarch,
without attendance and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and
reduced to a state of apostolical poverty, which, had it been voluntary,
might perhaps have been meritorious. In the mean while, his desolate
churches were profaned by the licentiousness and party zeal of the Latins.
After stripping the gems and pearls, they converted the chalices into
drinking-cups; their tables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered
with the pictures of Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot the
most venerable objects of the Christian worship. In the cathedral of St.
Sophia, the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent asunder for the sake of the
golden fringe; and the altar, a monument of art and riches, was broken in
pieces and shared among the captors. Their mules and horses were laden
with the wrought silver and gilt carvings, which they tore down from the
doors and pulpit; and if the beasts stumbled under the burden, they were
stabbed by their impatient drivers, and the holy pavement streamed with
their impure blood. A prostitute was seated on the throne of the patriarch;
and that daughter of Belial, as she is styled, sung and danced in the church,
to ridicule the hymns and processions of the Orientals. Nor were the
repositories of the royal dead secure from violation: in the church of the
Apostles, the tombs of the emperors were rifled; and it is said, that after six
centuries the corpse of Justinian was found without any signs of decay or
putrefaction. In the streets, the French and Flemings clothed themselves and
their horses in painted robes and flowing head-dresses of linen; and the
coarse intemperance of their feasts 92 insulted the splendid sobriety of the
East. To expose the arms of a people of scribes and scholars, they affected
to display a pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet of paper, without discerning that
the instruments of science and valor were alike feeble and useless in the
hands of the modern Greeks.
91 (return)
[ The disorders of the sack of Constantinople, and his own
adventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p. 367—369,
and in the Status Urb. C. P. p. 375—384. His complaints,
even of sacrilege, are justified by Innocent III., (Gesta, c.
92;) but Villehardouin does not betray a symptom of pity or
remorse.]

92 (return)
[ If I rightly apprehend the Greek of Nicetas’s receipts, their
favorite dishes were boiled buttocks of beef, salt pork and
peas, and soup made of garlic and sharp or sour herbs, (p.
382.)]
Their reputation and their language encouraged them, however, to
despise the ignorance and to overlook the progress of the Latins. 93 In the
love of the arts, the national difference was still more obvious and real; the
Greeks preserved with reverence the works of their ancestors, which they
could not imitate; and, in the destruction of the statues of Constantinople,
we are provoked to join in the complaints and invectives of the Byzantine
historian. 94 We have seen how the rising city was adorned by the vanity
and despotism of the Imperial founder: in the ruins of paganism, some gods
and heroes were saved from the axe of superstition; and the forum and
hippodrome were dignified with the relics of a better age. Several of these
are described by Nicetas, 95 in a florid and affected style; and from his
descriptions I shall select some interesting particulars. 1. The victorious
charioteers were cast in bronze, at their own or the public charge, and fitly
placed in the hippodrome: they stood aloft in their chariots, wheeling round
the goal: the spectators could admire their attitude, and judge of the
resemblance; and of these figures, the most perfect might have been
transported from the Olympic stadium. 2. The sphinx, river-horse, and
crocodile, denote the climate and manufacture of Egypt and the spoils of
that ancient province. 3. The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, a
subject alike pleasing to the old and the new Romans, but which could
really be treated before the decline of the Greek sculpture. 4. An eagle
holding and tearing a serpent in his talons, a domestic monument of the
Byzantines, which they ascribed, not to a human artist, but to the magic
power of the philosopher Apollonius, who, by this talisman, delivered the
city from such venomous reptiles. 5. An ass and his driver, which were
erected by Augustus in his colony of Nicopolis, to commemorate a verbal
omen of the victory of Actium. 6. An equestrian statue which passed, in the
vulgar opinion, for Joshua, the Jewish conqueror, stretching out his hand to
stop the course of the descending sun. A more classical tradition recognized
the figures of Bellerophon and Pegasus; and the free attitude of the steed
seemed to mark that he trod on air, rather than on the earth. 7. A square and
lofty obelisk of brass; the sides were embossed with a variety of picturesque
and rural scenes, birds singing; rustics laboring, or playing on their pipes;

sheep bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and a scene of fish and fishing;
little naked cupids laughing, playing, and pelting each other with apples;
and, on the summit, a female figure, turning with the slightest breath, and
thence denominated the wind’s attendant. 8. The Phrygian shepherd
presenting to Venus the prize of beauty, the apple of discord. 9. The
incomparable statue of Helen, which is delineated by Nicetas in the words
of admiration and love: her well-turned feet, snowy arms, rosy lips,
bewitching smiles, swimming eyes, arched eyebrows, the harmony of her
shape, the lightness of her drapery, and her flowing locks that waved in the
wind; a beauty that might have moved her Barbarian destroyers to pity and
remorse. 10. The manly or divine form of Hercules, 96 as he was restored to
life by the masterhand of Lysippus; of such magnitude, that his thumb was
equal to his waist, his leg to the stature, of a common man: 97 his chest
ample, his shoulders broad, his limbs strong and muscular, his hair curled,
his aspect commanding. Without his bow, or quiver, or club, his lion’s skin
carelessly thrown over him, he was seated on an osier basket, his right leg
and arm stretched to the utmost, his left knee bent, and supporting his
elbow, his head reclining on his left hand, his countenance indignant and
pensive. 11. A colossal statue of Juno, which had once adorned her temple
of Samos, the enormous head by four yoke of oxen was laboriously drawn
to the palace. 12. Another colossus, of Pallas or Minerva, thirty feet in
height, and representing with admirable spirit the attributes and character of
the martial maid. Before we accuse the Latins, it is just to remark, that this
Pallas was destroyed after the first siege, by the fear and superstition of the
Greeks themselves. 98 The other statues of brass which I have enumerated
were broken and melted by the unfeeling avarice of the crusaders: the cost
and labor were consumed in a moment; the soul of genius evaporated in
smoke; and the remnant of base metal was coined into money for the
payment of the troops. Bronze is not the most durable of monuments: from
the marble forms of Phidias and Praxiteles, the Latins might turn aside with
stupid contempt; 99 but unless they were crushed by some accidental injury,
those useless stones stood secure on their pedestals. 100 The most
enlightened of the strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits of their
countrymen, more piously exercised the right of conquest in the search and
seizure of the relics of the saints. 101 Immense was the supply of heads and
bones, crosses and images, that were scattered by this revolution over the
churches of Europe; and such was the increase of pilgrimage and oblation,

that no branch, perhaps, of more lucrative plunder was imported from the
East. 102 Of the writings of antiquity, many that still existed in the twelfth
century, are now lost. But the pilgrims were not solicitous to save or
transport the volumes of an unknown tongue: the perishable substance of
paper or parchment can only be preserved by the multiplicity of copies; the
literature of the Greeks had almost centred in the metropolis; and, without
computing the extent of our loss, we may drop a tear over the libraries that
have perished in the triple fire of Constantinople. 103
93 (return)
[ Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, par agrammatoiV
BarbaroiV, kai teleon analfabhtoiV, (Fragment, apud Fabric.
Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 414.) This reproach, it is true,
applies most strongly to their ignorance of Greek and of
Homer. In their own language, the Latins of the xiith and
xiiith centuries were not destitute of literature. See Harris’s
Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 9, 10, 11.]
94 (return)
[ Nicetas was of Chonæ in Phrygia, (the old Colossæ of St.
Paul:) he raised himself to the honors of senator, judge of the
veil, and great logothete; beheld the fall of the empire,
retired to Nice, and composed an elaborate history from the
death of Alexius Comnenus to the reign of Henry.]
95 (return)
[ A manuscript of Nicetas in the Bodleian library contains
this curious fragment on the statues of Constantinople,
which fraud, or shame, or rather carelessness, has dropped in
the common editions. It is published by Fabricius, (Bibliot.
Græc. tom. vi. p. 405—416,) and immoderately praised by
the late ingenious Mr. Harris of Salisbury, (Philological
Inquiries, p. iii. c. 5, p. 301—312.)]
96 (return)
[ To illustrate the statue of Hercules, Mr. Harris quotes a
Greek epigram, and engraves a beautiful gem, which does
not, however, copy the attitude of the statue: in the latter,
Hercules had not his club, and his right leg and arm were
extended.]
97 (return)
[ I transcribe these proportions, which appear to me
inconsistent with each other; and may possibly show, that
the boasted taste of Nicetas was no more than affectation
and vanity.]
98 (return)
[ Nicetas in Isaaco Angelo et Alexio, c. 3, p. 359. The Latin
editor very properly observes, that the historian, in his
bombast style, produces ex pulice elephantem.]

99 (return)
[ In two passages of Nicetas (edit. Paris, p. 360. Fabric. p.
408) the Latins are branded with the lively reproach of oi tou
kalou anerastoi barbaroi, and their avarice of brass is clearly
expressed. Yet the Venetians had the merit of removing four
bronze horses from Constantinople to the place of St. Mark,
(Sanuto, Vite del Dogi, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. xxii. p. 534.)]
100 (return)
[ Winckelman, Hist. de l’Art. tom. iii. p. 269, 270.]
101 (return)
[ See the pious robbery of the abbot Martin, who transferred
a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris, diocese of Basil,
(Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 19, 23, 24.) Yet in secreting this
booty, the saint incurred an excommunication, and perhaps
broke his oath. (Compare Wilken vol. v. p. 308.—M.)]
102 (return)
[ Fleury, Hist. Eccles tom. xvi. p. 139—145.]
103 (return)
[ I shall conclude this chapter with the notice of a modern
history, which illustrates the taking of Constantinople by the
Latins; but which has fallen somewhat late into my hands.
Paolo Ramusio, the son of the compiler of Voyages, was
directed by the senate of Venice to write the history of the
conquest: and this order, which he received in his youth, he
executed in a mature age, by an elegant Latin work, de Bello
Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis per Gallos
et Venetos restitutis, (Venet. 1635, in folio.) Ramusio, or
Rhamnusus, transcribes and translates, sequitur ad unguem,
a MS. of Villehardouin, which he possessed; but he enriches
his narrative with Greek and Latin materials, and we are
indebted to him for a correct state of the fleet, the names of
the fifty Venetian nobles who commanded the galleys of the
republic, and the patriot opposition of Pantaleon Barbus to
the choice of the doge for emperor.]

Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The
French And Venetians.—Part I.
Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians,—Five
Latin Emperors Of The Houses Of Flanders And Courtenay.—
Their Wars Against The Bulgarians And Greeks.—Weakness And
Poverty Of The Latin Empire.—Recovery Of Constantinople By
The Greeks.—General Consequences Of The Crusades.

After the death of the lawful princes, the French and Venetians, confident
of justice and victory, agreed to divide and regulate their future possessions.
1 It was stipulated by treaty, that twelve electors, six of either nation, should
be nominated; that a majority should choose the emperor of the East; and
that, if the votes were equal, the decision of chance should ascertain the
successful candidate. To him, with all the titles and prerogatives of the
Byzantine throne, they assigned the two palaces of Boucoleon and
Blachernæ, with a fourth part of the Greek monarchy. It was defined that
the three remaining portions should be equally shared between the republic
of Venice and the barons of France; that each feudatory, with an honorable
exception for the doge, should acknowledge and perform the duties of
homage and military service to the supreme head of the empire; that the
nation which gave an emperor, should resign to their brethren the choice of
a patriarch; and that the pilgrims, whatever might be their impatience to
visit the Holy Land, should devote another year to the conquest and defence
of the Greek provinces. After the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins,
the treaty was confirmed and executed; and the first and most important
step was the creation of an emperor. The six electors of the French nation
were all ecclesiastics, the abbot of Loces, the archbishop elect of Acre in
Palestine, and the bishops of Troyes, Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem,
the last of whom exercised in the camp the office of pope’s legate: their
profession and knowledge were respectable; and as they could not be the
objects, they were best qualified to be the authors of the choice. The six
Venetians were the principal servants of the state, and in this list the noble

families of Querini and Contarini are still proud to discover their ancestors.
The twelve assembled in the chapel of the palace; and after the solemn
invocation of the Holy Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and vote. A just
impulse of respect and gratitude prompted them to crown the virtues of the
doge; his wisdom had inspired their enterprise; and the most youthful
knights might envy and applaud the exploits of blindness and age. But the
patriot Dandolo was devoid of all personal ambition, and fully satisfied that
he had been judged worthy to reign. His nomination was overruled by the
Venetians themselves: his countrymen, and perhaps his friends, 2
represented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefs that might arise to
national freedom and the common cause, from the union of two
incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of a republic and the
emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge left room for the more equal
merits of Boniface and Baldwin; and at their names all meaner candidates
respectfully withdrew. The marquis of Montferrat was recommended by his
mature age and fair reputation, by the choice of the adventurers, and the
wishes of the Greeks; nor can I believe that Venice, the mistress of the sea,
could be seriously apprehensive of a petty lord at the foot of the Alps. 3 But
the count of Flanders was the chief of a wealthy and warlike people: he was
valiant, pious, and chaste; in the prime of life, since he was only thirty-two
years of age; a descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of the king of France,
and a compeer of the prelates and barons who had yielded with reluctance
to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel, these barons, with the
doge and marquis at their head, expected the decision of the twelve electors.
It was announced by the bishop of Soissons, in the name of his colleagues:
“Ye have sworn to obey the prince whom we should choose: by our
unanimous suffrage, Baldwin count of Flanders and Hainault is now your
sovereign, and the emperor of the East.” He was saluted with loud applause,
and the proclamation was reechoed through the city by the joy of the Latins,
and the trembling adulation of the Greeks. Boniface was the first to kiss the
hand of his rival, and to raise him on the buckler: and Baldwin was
transported to the cathedral, and solemnly invested with the purple buskins.
At the end of three weeks he was crowned by the legate, in the vacancy of
the patriarch; but the Venetian clergy soon filled the chapter of St. Sophia,
seated Thomas Morosini on the ecclesiastical throne, and employed every
art to perpetuate in their own nation the honors and benefices of the Greek
church. 4 Without delay the successor of Constantine instructed Palestine,

France, and Rome, of this memorable revolution. To Palestine he sent, as a
trophy, the gates of Constantinople, and the chain of the harbor; 5 and
adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws or customs best adapted to
a French colony and conquest in the East. In his epistles, the natives of
France are encouraged to swell that colony, and to secure that conquest, to
people a magnificent city and a fertile land, which will reward the labors
both of the priest and the soldier. He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the
restoration of his authority in the East; invites him to extinguish the Greek
schism by his presence in a general council; and implores his blessing and
forgiveness for the disobedient pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended
in the answer of Innocent. 6 In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he
arraigns the vices of man, and adores the providence of God; the conquerors
will be absolved or condemned by their future conduct; the validity of their
treaty depends on the judgment of St. Peter; but he inculcates their most
sacred duty of establishing a just subordination of obedience and tribute,
from the Greeks to the Latins, from the magistrate to the clergy, and from
the clergy to the pope.
1 (return)
[ See the original treaty of partition, in the Venetian
Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo, p. 326—330, and the
subsequent election in Ville hardouin, No. 136—140, with
Ducange in his Observations, and the book of his Histoire de
Constantinople sous l’Empire des François.]
2 (return)
[ After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a French
elector his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his
exclusion, quidam Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex, usus
oratione satis probabili, &c., which has been embroidered by
modern writers from Blondus to Le Beau.]
3 (return)
[ Nicetas, (p. 384,) with the vain ignorance of a Greek,
describes the marquis of Montferrat as a maritime power.
Dampardian de oikeisqai paralion. Was he deceived by the
Byzantine theme of Lombardy which extended along the
coast of Calabria?]
4 (return)
[ They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint no
canons of St. Sophia the lawful electors, except Venetians
who had lived ten years at Venice, &c. But the foreign clergy
was envious, the pope disapproved this national monopoly,
and of the six Latin patriarchs of Constantinople, only the
first and the last were Venetians.]

5 (return)
[ Nicetas, p. 383.]
6 (return)
[ The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for the
ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of
Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of
which the collection in 2 vols. in folio is published by
Stephen Baluze) are inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori,
Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. p. l. c. 94—105.]
In the division of the Greek provinces, 7 the share of the Venetians was
more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more than one fourth was
appropriated to his domain; a clear moiety of the remainder was reserved
for Venice; and the other moiety was distributed among the adventurers of
France and Lombardy. The venerable Dandolo was proclaimed despot of
Romania, and invested after the Greek fashion with the purple buskins. He
ended at Constantinople his long and glorious life; and if the prerogative
was personal, the title was used by his successors till the middle of the
fourteenth century, with the singular, though true, addition of lords of one
fourth and a half of the Roman empire. 8 The doge, a slave of state, was
seldom permitted to depart from the helm of the republic; but his place was
supplied by the bail, or regent, who exercised a supreme jurisdiction over
the colony of Venetians: they possessed three of the eight quarters of the
city; and his independent tribunal was composed of six judges, four
counsellors, two chamberlains two fiscal advocates, and a constable. Their
long experience of the Eastern trade enabled them to select their portion
with discernment: they had rashly accepted the dominion and defence of
Adrianople; but it was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a
chain of factories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast, from the
neighborhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The labor
and cost of such extensive conquests exhausted their treasury: they
abandoned their maxims of government, adopted a feudal system, and
contented themselves with the homage of their nobles, 9 for the possessions
which these private vassals undertook to reduce and maintain. And thus it
was that the family of Sanut acquired the duchy of Naxos, which involved
the greatest part of the archipelago. For the price of ten thousand marks, the
republic purchased of the marquis of Montferrat the fertile Island of Crete
or Candia, with the ruins of a hundred cities; 10 but its improvement was
stinted by the proud and narrow spirit of an aristocracy; 11 and the wisest
senators would confess that the sea, not the land, was the treasury of St.

Mark. In the moiety of the adventurers the marquis Boniface might claim
the most liberal reward; and, besides the Isle of Crete, his exclusion from
the throne was compensated by the royal title and the provinces beyond the
Hellespont. But he prudently exchanged that distant and difficult conquest
for the kingdom of Thessalonica Macedonia, twelve days’ journey from the
capital, where he might be supported by the neighboring powers of his
brother-in-law the king of Hungary. His progress was hailed by the
voluntary or reluctant acclamations of the natives; and Greece, the proper
and ancient Greece, again received a Latin conqueror, 12 who trod with
indifference that classic ground. He viewed with a careless eye the beauties
of the valley of Tempe; traversed with a cautious step the straits of
Thermopylæ; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes, Athens, and Argos;
and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth and Napoli, 13 which resisted his
arms. The lots of the Latin pilgrims were regulated by chance, or choice, or
subsequent exchange; and they abused, with intemperate joy, their triumph
over the lives and fortunes of a great people. After a minute survey of the
provinces, they weighed in the scales of avarice the revenue of each district,
the advantage of the situation, and the ample or scanty supplies for the
maintenance of soldiers and horses. Their presumption claimed and divided
the long-lost dependencies of the Roman sceptre: the Nile and Euphrates
rolled through their imaginary realms; and happy was the warrior who drew
for his prize the palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium. 14 I shall not
descend to the pedigree of families and the rent-roll of estates, but I wish to
specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were invested with the duchy of
Nice and the lordship of Demotica: 15 the principal fiefs were held by the
service of constable, chamberlain, cup-bearer, butler, and chief cook; and
our historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fair establishment on the
banks of the Hebrus, and united the double office of marshal of Champagne
and Romania. At the head of his knights and archers, each baron mounted
on horseback to secure the possession of his share, and their first efforts
were generally successful. But the public force was weakened by their
dispersion; and a thousand quarrels must arise under a law, and among men,
whose sole umpire was the sword. Within three months after the conquest
of Constantinople, the emperor and the king of Thessalonica drew their
hostile followers into the field; they were reconciled by the authority of the
doge, the advice of the marshal, and the firm freedom of their peers. 16

7 (return)
[ In the treaty of partition, most of the names are corrupted
by the scribes: they might be restored, and a good map,
suited to the last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an
improvement of geography. But, alas D’Anville is no more!]
8 (return)
[ Their style was dominus quartæ partis et dimidiæ imperii
Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in the
year of 1356, (Sanuto, p. 530, 641.) For the government of
Constantinople, see Ducange, Histoire de C. P. i. 37.]
9 (return)
[ Ducange (Hist. de C. P. ii. 6) has marked the conquests
made by the state or nobles of Venice of the Islands of
Candia, Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos,
Andros, Mycone, Syro, Cea, and Lemnos.]
10 (return)
[ Boniface sold the Isle of Candia, August 12, A.D. 1204.
See the act in Sanuto, p. 533: but I cannot understand how it
could be his mother’s portion, or how she could be the
daughter of an emperor Alexius.]
11 (return)
[ In the year 1212, the doge Peter Zani sent a colony to
Candia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But in their
savage manners and frequent rebellions, the Candiots may
be compared to the Corsicans under the yoke of Genoa; and
when I compare the accounts of Belon and Tournefort, I
cannot discern much difference between the Venetian and
the Turkish island.]
12 (return)
[ Villehardouin (No. 159, 160, 173—177) and Nicetas (p.
387—394) describe the expedition into Greece of the
marquis Boniface. The Choniate might derive his
information from his brother Michael, archbishop of Athens,
whom he paints as an orator, a statesman, and a saint. His
encomium of Athens, and the description of Tempe, should
be published from the Bodleian MS. of Nicetas, (Fabric.
Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 405,) and would have deserved Mr.
Harris’s inquiries.]
13 (return)
[ Napoli de Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient seaport of
Argos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate
on a rocky peninsula, with a good harbor, (Chandler’s
Travels into Greece, p. 227.)]
14 (return)
[ I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who strives to
expose the presumption of the Franks. See the Rebus post C.
P. expugnatam, p. 375—384.]

15 (return)
[ A city surrounded by the River Hebrus, and six leagues to
the south of Adrianople, received from its double wall the
Greek name of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into
Demotica and Dimot. I have preferred the more convenient
and modern appellation of Demotica. This place was the last
Turkish residence of Charles XII.]
16 (return)
[ Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No. 146—158) with
the spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of the
marshal are so acknowledged by the Greek historian (p. 387)
mega para touV tvn Dauinwn dunamenou strateumasi:
unlike some modern heroes, whose exploits are only visible
in their own memoirs. * Note: William de Champlite,
brother of the count of Dijon, assumed the title of Prince of
Achaia: on the death of his brother, he returned, with regret,
to France, to assume his paternal inheritance, and left
Villehardouin his “bailli,” on condition that if he did not
return within a year Villehardouin was to retain an
investiture. Brosset’s Add. to Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 200. M.
Brosset adds, from the Greek chronicler edited by M.
Buchon, the somewhat unknightly trick by which
Villehardouin disembarrassed himself from the troublesome
claim of Robert, the cousin of the count of Dijon. to the
succession. He contrived that Robert should arrive just
fifteen days too late; and with the general concurrence of the
assembled knights was himself invested with the
principality. Ibid. p. 283. M.]
Two fugitives, who had reigned at Constantinople, still asserted the title
of emperor; and the subjects of their fallen throne might be moved to pity
by the misfortunes of the elder Alexius, or excited to revenge by the spirit
of Mourzoufle. A domestic alliance, a common interest, a similar guilt, and
the merit of extinguishing his enemies, a brother and a nephew, induced the
more recent usurper to unite with the former the relics of his power.
Mourzoufle was received with smiles and honors in the camp of his father
Alexius; but the wicked can never love, and should rarely trust, their
fellow-criminals; he was seized in the bath, deprived of his eyes, stripped of
his troops and treasures, and turned out to wander an object of horror and
contempt to those who with more propriety could hate, and with more
justice could punish, the assassin of the emperor Isaac and his son. As the
tyrant, pursued by fear or remorse, was stealing over to Asia, he was seized
by the Latins of Constantinople, and condemned, after an open trial, to an
ignominious death. His judges debated the mode of his execution, the axe,
the wheel, or the stake; and it was resolved that Mourzoufle 17 should

ascend the Theodosian column, a pillar of white marble of one hundred and
forty-seven feet in height. 18 From the summit he was cast down headlong,
and dashed in pieces on the pavement, in the presence of innumerable
spectators, who filled the forum of Taurus, and admired the accomplishment
of an old prediction, which was explained by this singular event. 19 The
fate of Alexius is less tragical: he was sent by the marquis a captive to Italy,
and a gift to the king of the Romans; but he had not much to applaud his
fortune, if the sentence of imprisonment and exile were changed from a
fortress in the Alps to a monastery in Asia. But his daughter, before the
national calamity, had been given in marriage to a young hero who
continued the succession, and restored the throne, of the Greek princes. 20
The valor of Theodore Lascaris was signalized in the two sieges of
Constantinople. After the flight of Mourzoufle, when the Latins were
already in the city, he offered himself as their emperor to the soldiers and
people; and his ambition, which might be virtuous, was undoubtedly brave.
Could he have infused a soul into the multitude, they might have crushed
the strangers under their feet: their abject despair refused his aid; and
Theodore retired to breathe the air of freedom in Anatolia, beyond the
immediate view and pursuit of the conquerors. Under the title, at first of
despot, and afterwards of emperor, he drew to his standard the bolder
spirits, who were fortified against slavery by the contempt of life; and as
every means was lawful for the public safety implored without scruple the
alliance of the Turkish sultan Nice, where Theodore established his
residence, Prusa and Philadelphia, Smyrna and Ephesus, opened their gates
to their deliverer: he derived strength and reputation from his victories, and
even from his defeats; and the successor of Constantine preserved a
fragment of the empire from the banks of the Mæander to the suburbs of
Nicomedia, and at length of Constantinople. Another portion, distant and
obscure, was possessed by the lineal heir of the Comneni, a son of the
virtuous Manuel, a grandson of the tyrant Andronicus. His name was
Alexius; and the epithet of great 201 was applied perhaps to his stature,
rather than to his exploits. By the indulgence of the Angeli, he was
appointed governor or duke of Trebizond: 21 211 his birth gave him
ambition, the revolution independence; and, without changing his title, he
reigned in peace from Sinope to the Phasis, along the coast of the Black
Sea. His nameless son and successor 212 is described as the vassal of the
sultan, whom he served with two hundred lances: that Comnenian prince

was no more than duke of Trebizond, and the title of emperor was first
assumed by the pride and envy of the grandson of Alexius. In the West, a
third fragment was saved from the common shipwreck by Michael, a
bastard of the house of Angeli, who, before the revolution, had been known
as a hostage, a soldier, and a rebel. His flight from the camp of the marquis
Boniface secured his freedom; by his marriage with the governor’s
daughter, he commanded the important place of Durazzo, assumed the title
of despot, and founded a strong and conspicuous principality in Epirus,
Ætolia, and Thessaly, which have ever been peopled by a warlike race. The
Greeks, who had offered their service to their new sovereigns, were
excluded by the haughty Latins 22 from all civil and military honors, as a
nation born to tremble and obey. Their resentment prompted them to show
that they might have been useful friends, since they could be dangerous
enemies: their nerves were braced by adversity: whatever was learned or
holy, whatever was noble or valiant, rolled away into the independent states
of Trebizond, Epirus, and Nice; and a single patrician is marked by the
ambiguous praise of attachment and loyalty to the Franks. The vulgar herd
of the cities and the country would have gladly submitted to a mild and
regular servitude; and the transient disorders of war would have been
obliterated by some years of industry and peace. But peace was banished,
and industry was crushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The Roman
emperors of Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities, were
armed with power for the protection of their subjects: their laws were wise,
and their administration was simple. The Latin throne was filled by a titular
prince, the chief, and often the servant, of his licentious confederates; the
fiefs of the empire, from a kingdom to a castle, were held and ruled by the
sword of the barons; and their discord, poverty, and ignorance, extended the
ramifications of tyranny to the most sequestered villages. The Greeks were
oppressed by the double weight of the priests, who were invested with
temporal power, and of the soldier, who was inflamed by fanatic hatred; and
the insuperable bar of religion and language forever separated the stranger
and the native. As long as the crusaders were united at Constantinople, the
memory of their conquest, and the terror of their arms, imposed silence on
the captive land: their dispersion betrayed the smallness of their numbers
and the defects of their discipline; and some failures and mischances
revealed the secret, that they were not invincible. As the fears of the Greeks
abated, their hatred increased. They murdered; they conspired; and before a

year of slavery had elapsed, they implored, or accepted, the succor of a
Barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose gratitude they trusted. 23
17 (return)
[ See the fate of Mourzoufle in Nicetas, (p. 393,)
Villehardouin, (No. 141—145, 163,) and Guntherus, (c. 20,
21.) Neither the marshal nor the monk afford a grain of pity
for a tyrant or rebel, whose punishment, however, was more
unexampled than his crime.]
18 (return)
[ The column of Arcadius, which represents in basso relievo
his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is still extant
at Constantinople. It is described and measured, Gyllius,
(Topograph. iv. 7,) Banduri, (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P. p. 507,
&c.,) and Tournefort, (Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre xii.
p. 231.) (Compare Wilken, note, vol. v p. 388.—M.)]
19 (return)
[ The nonsense of Gunther and the modern Greeks
concerning this columna fatidica, is unworthy of notice; but
it is singular enough, that fifty years before the Latin
conquest, the poet Tzetzes, (Chiliad, ix. 277) relates the
dream of a matron, who saw an army in the forum, and a
man sitting on the column, clapping his hands, and uttering a
loud exclamation. * Note: We read in the “Chronicle of the
Conquest of Constantinople, and of the Establishment of the
French in the Morea,” translated by J A Buchon, Paris, 1825,
p. 64 that Leo VI., called the Philosopher, had prophesied
that a perfidious emperor should be precipitated from the top
of this column. The crusaders considered themselves under
an obligation to fulfil this prophecy. Brosset, note on Le
Beau, vol. xvii. p. 180. M Brosset announces that a complete
edition of this work, of which the original Greek of the first
book only has been published by M. Buchon in preparation,
to form part of the new series of the Byzantine historian.—
M.]
20 (return)
[ The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of which
Nicetas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope) are
learnedly explored, and clearly represented, in the Familiæ
Byzantinæ of Ducange.]
201 (return)
[ This was a title, not a personal appellation. Joinville speaks
of the “Grant Comnenie, et sire de Traffezzontes.”
Fallmerayer, p. 82.—M.]
21 (return)
[ Except some facts in Pachymer and Nicephorus Gregoras,
which will hereafter be used, the Byzantine writers disdain
to speak of the empire of Trebizond, or principality of the
Lazi; and among the Latins, it is conspicuous only in the

romancers of the xivth or xvth centuries. Yet the
indefatigable Ducange has dug out (Fam. Byz. p. 192) two
authentic passages in Vincent of Beauvais (l. xxxi. c. 144)
and the prothonotary Ogerius, (apud Wading, A.D. 1279,
No. 4.)]
211 (return)
[ On the revolutions of Trebizond under the later empire
down to this period, see Fallmerayer, Geschichte des
Kaiserthums von Trapezunt, ch. iii. The wife of Manuel fled
with her infant sons and her treasure from the relentless
enmity of Isaac Angelus. Fallmerayer conjectures that her
arrival enabled the Greeks of that region to make head
against the formidable Thamar, the Georgian queen of Teflis,
p. 42. They gradually formed a dominion on the banks of the
Phasis, which the distracted government of the Angeli
neglected or were unable to suppress. On the capture of
Constantinople by the Latins, Alexius was joined by many
noble fugitives from Constantinople. He had always retained
the names of Cæsar and BasileuV. He now fixed the seat of
his empire at Trebizond; but he had never abandoned his
pretensions to the Byzantine throne, ch. iii. Fallmerayer
appears to make out a triumphant case as to the assumption
of the royal title by Alexius the First. Since the publication
of M. Fallmerayer’s work, (München, 1827,) M. Tafel has
published, at the end of the opuscula of Eustathius, a curious
chronicle of Trebizond by Michael Panaretas, (Frankfort,
1832.) It gives the succession of the emperors, and some
other curious circumstances of their wars with the several
Mahometan powers.—M.]
212 (return)
[ The successor of Alexius was his son-in-law Andronicus I.,
of the Comnenian family, surnamed Gidon. There were five
successions between Alexius and John, according to
Fallmerayer, p. 103. The troops of Trebizond fought in the
army of Dschelaleddin, the Karismian, against Alaleddin,
the Seljukian sultan of Roum, but as allies rather than
vassals, p. 107. It was after the defeat of Dschelaleddin that
they furnished their contingent to Alai-eddin. Fallmerayer
struggles in vain to mitigate this mark of the subjection of
the Comneni to the sultan. p. 116.—M.]
22 (return)
[ The portrait of the French Latins is drawn in Nicetas by the
hand of prejudice and resentment: ouden tvn allwn eqnvn
eiV ''AreoV?rga parasumbeblhsqai sjisin hneiconto all’ oude
tiV tvn caritwn h tvn?mousvn para toiV barbaroiV toutoiV
epexenizeto, kai para touto oimai thn jusin hsan anhmeroi,
kai ton xolon eixon tou logou prstreconta. [P. 791 Ed. Bek.]
23 (return)
[ I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence, the eight

books of the Histoire de C. P. sous l’Empire des François,
which Ducange has given as a supplement to Villehardouin;
and which, in a barbarous style, deserves the praise of an
original and classic work.]
The Latin conquerors had been saluted with a solemn and early embassy
from John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the revolted chief of the Bulgarians
and Walachians. He deemed himself their brother, as the votary of the
Roman pontiff, from whom he had received the regal title and a holy
banner; and in the subversion of the Greek monarchy, he might aspire to the
name of their friend and accomplice. But Calo-John was astonished to find,
that the Count of Flanders had assumed the pomp and pride of the
successors of Constantine; and his ambassadors were dismissed with a
haughty message, that the rebel must deserve a pardon, by touching with his
forehead the footstool of the Imperial throne. His resentment 24 would have
exhaled in acts of violence and blood: his cooler policy watched the rising
discontent of the Greeks; affected a tender concern for their sufferings; and
promised, that their first struggles for freedom should be supported by his
person and kingdom. The conspiracy was propagated by national hatred, the
firmest band of association and secrecy: the Greeks were impatient to
sheathe their daggers in the breasts of the victorious strangers; but the
execution was prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor’s brother, had
transported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellespont. Most of the
towns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and the signal; and
the Latins, without arms or suspicion, were slaughtered by the vile and
merciless revenge of their slaves. From Demotica, the first scene of the
massacre, the surviving vassals of the count of St. Pol escaped to
Adrianople; but the French and Venetians, who occupied that city, were
slain or expelled by the furious multitude: the garrisons that could effect
their retreat fell back on each other towards the metropolis; and the
fortresses, that separately stood against the rebels, were ignorant of each
other’s and of their sovereign’s fate. The voice of fame and fear announced
the revolt of the Greeks and the rapid approach of their Bulgarian ally; and
Calo-John, not depending on the forces of his own kingdom, had drawn
from the Scythian wilderness a body of fourteen thousand Comans, who
drank, as it was said, the blood of their captives, and sacrificed the
Christians on the altars of their gods. 25
24 (return)
[ In Calo-John’s answer to the pope we may find his claims

and complaints, (Gesta Innocent III. c. 108, 109:) he was
cherished at Rome as the prodigal son.]
25 (return)
[ The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which
encamped in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of
Moldavia. The greater part were pagans, but some were
Mahometans, and the whole horde was converted to
Christianity (A.D. 1370) by Lewis, king of Hungary.]
Alarmed by this sudden and growing danger, the emperor despatched a
swift messenger to recall Count Henry and his troops; and had Baldwin
expected the return of his gallant brother, with a supply of twenty thousand
Armenians, he might have encountered the invader with equal numbers and
a decisive superiority of arms and discipline. But the spirit of chivalry could
seldom discriminate caution from cowardice; and the emperor took the field
with a hundred and forty knights, and their train of archers and sergeants.
The marshal, who dissuaded and obeyed, led the vanguard in their march to
Adrianople; the main body was commanded by the count of Blois; the aged
doge of Venice followed with the rear; and their scanty numbers were
increased from all sides by the fugitive Latins. They undertook to besiege
the rebels of Adrianople; and such was the pious tendency of the crusades
that they employed the holy week in pillaging the country for their
subsistence, and in framing engines for the destruction of their fellow-
Christians. But the Latins were soon interrupted and alarmed by the light
cavalry of the Comans, who boldly skirmished to the edge of their
imperfect lines: and a proclamation was issued by the marshal of Romania,
that, on the trumpet’s sound, the cavalry should mount and form; but that
none, under pain of death, should abandon themselves to a desultory and
dangerous pursuit. This wise injunction was first disobeyed by the count of
Blois, who involved the emperor in his rashness and ruin. The Comans, of
the Parthian or Tartar school, fled before their first charge; but after a career
of two leagues, when the knights and their horses were almost breathless,
they suddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the heavy squadrons of the
Franks. The count was slain on the field; the emperor was made prisoner;
and if the one disdained to fly, if the other refused to yield, their personal
bravery made a poor atonement for their ignorance, or neglect, of the duties
of a general. 26
26 (return)
[ Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the defeat to
the cowardice of Dandolo, (p. 383;) but Villehardouin shares
his own glory with his venerable friend, qui viels home ére

et gote ne veoit, mais mult ére sages et preus et vigueros,
(No. 193.) * Note: Gibbon appears to me to have
misapprehended the passage of Nicetas. He says, “that
principal and subtlest mischief. that primary cause of all the
horrible miseries suffered by the Romans,” i. e. the
Byzantines. It is an effusion of malicious triumph against the
Venetians, to whom he always ascribes the capture of
Constantinople.—M.]

Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The
French And Venetians.—Part II.
Proud of his victory and his royal prize, the Bulgarian advanced to
relieve Adrianople and achieve the destruction of the Latins. They must
inevitably have been destroyed, if the marshal of Romania had not
displayed a cool courage and consummate skill; uncommon in all ages, but
most uncommon in those times, when war was a passion, rather than a
science. His grief and fears were poured into the firm and faithful bosom of
the doge; but in the camp he diffused an assurance of safety, which could
only be realized by the general belief. All day he maintained his perilous
station between the city and the Barbarians: Villehardouin decamped in
silence at the dead of night; and his masterly retreat of three days would
have deserved the praise of Xenophon and the ten thousand. In the rear, the
marshal supported the weight of the pursuit; in the front, he moderated the
impatience of the fugitives; and wherever the Comans approached, they
were repelled by a line of impenetrable spears. On the third day, the weary
troops beheld the sea, the solitary town of Rodosta, 27 and their friends,
who had landed from the Asiatic shore. They embraced, they wept; but they
united their arms and counsels; and in his brother’s absence, Count Henry
assumed the regency of the empire, at once in a state of childhood and
caducity. 28 If the Comans withdrew from the summer heats, seven
thousand Latins, in the hour of danger, deserted Constantinople, their
brethren, and their vows. Some partial success was overbalanced by the loss
of one hundred and twenty knights in the field of Rusium; and of the
Imperial domain, no more was left than the capital, with two or three
adjacent fortresses on the shores of Europe and Asia. The king of Bulgaria
was resistless and inexorable; and Calo-John respectfully eluded the
demands of the pope, who conjured his new proselyte to restore peace and
the emperor to the afflicted Latins. The deliverance of Baldwin was no
longer, he said, in the power of man: that prince had died in prison; and the

manner of his death is variously related by ignorance and credulity. The
lovers of a tragic legend will be pleased to hear, that the royal captive was
tempted by the amorous queen of the Bulgarians; that his chaste refusal
exposed him to the falsehood of a woman and the jealousy of a savage; that
his hands and feet were severed from his body; that his bleeding trunk was
cast among the carcasses of dogs and horses; and that he breathed three
days, before he was devoured by the birds of prey. 29 About twenty years
afterwards, in a wood of the Netherlands, a hermit announced himself as the
true Baldwin, the emperor of Constantinople, and lawful sovereign of
Flanders. He related the wonders of his escape, his adventures, and his
penance, among a people prone to believe and to rebel; and, in the first
transport, Flanders acknowledged her long-lost sovereign. A short
examination before the French court detected the impostor, who was
punished with an ignominious death; but the Flemings still adhered to the
pleasing error; and the countess Jane is accused by the gravest historians of
sacrificing to her ambition the life of an unfortunate father. 30
27 (return)
[ The truth of geography, and the original text of
Villehardouin, (No. 194,) place Rodosto three days’ journey
(trois jornées) from Adrianople: but Vigenere, in his version,
has most absurdly substituted trois heures; and this error,
which is not corrected by Ducange has entrapped several
moderns, whose names I shall spare.]
28 (return)
[ The reign and end of Baldwin are related by Villehardouin
and Nicetas, (p. 386—416;) and their omissions are supplied
by Ducange in his Observations, and to the end of his first
book.]
29 (return)
[ After brushing away all doubtful and improbable
circumstances, we may prove the death of Baldwin, 1. By
the firm belief of the French barons, (Villehardouin, No.
230.) 2. By the declaration of Calo-John himself, who
excuses his not releasing the captive emperor, quia debitum
carnis exsolverat cum carcere teneretur, (Gesta Innocent III.
c. 109.) * Note: Compare Von Raumer. Geschichte der
Hohenstaufen, vol. ii. p. 237. Petitot, in his preface to
Villehardouin in the Collection des Mémoires, relatifs a
l’Histoire de France, tom. i. p. 85, expresses his belief in the
first part of the “tragic legend.”—M.]
30 (return)
[ See the story of this impostor from the French and Flemish
writers in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. iii. 9; and the ridiculous

fables that were believed by the monks of St. Alban’s, in
Matthew Paris, Hist. Major, p. 271, 272.]
In all civilized hostility, a treaty is established for the exchange or ransom
of prisoners; and if their captivity be prolonged, their condition is known,
and they are treated according to their rank with humanity or honor. But the
savage Bulgarian was a stranger to the laws of war: his prisons were
involved in darkness and silence; and above a year elapsed before the
Latins could be assured of the death of Baldwin, before his brother, the
regent Henry, would consent to assume the title of emperor. His moderation
was applauded by the Greeks as an act of rare and inimitable virtue. Their
light and perfidious ambition was eager to seize or anticipate the moment of
a vacancy, while a law of succession, the guardian both of the prince and
people, was gradually defined and confirmed in the hereditary monarchies
of Europe. In the support of the Eastern empire, Henry was gradually left
without an associate, as the heroes of the crusade retired from the world or
from the war. The doge of Venice, the venerable Dandolo, in the fulness of
years and glory, sunk into the grave. The marquis of Montferrat was slowly
recalled from the Peloponnesian war to the revenge of Baldwin and the
defence of Thessalonica. Some nice disputes of feudal homage and service
were reconciled in a personal interview between the emperor and the king;
they were firmly united by mutual esteem and the common danger; and
their alliance was sealed by the nuptials of Henry with the daughter of the
Italian prince. He soon deplored the loss of his friend and father. At the
persuasion of some faithful Greeks, Boniface made a bold and successful
inroad among the hills of Rhodope: the Bulgarians fled on his approach;
they assembled to harass his retreat. On the intelligence that his rear was
attacked, without waiting for any defensive armor, he leaped on horseback,
couched his lance, and drove the enemies before him; but in the rash pursuit
he was pierced with a mortal wound; and the head of the king of
Thessalonica was presented to Calo-John, who enjoyed the honors, without
the merit, of victory. It is here, at this melancholy event, that the pen or the
voice of Jeffrey of Villehardouin seems to drop or to expire; 31 and if he
still exercised his military office of marshal of Romania, his subsequent
exploits are buried in oblivion. 32 The character of Henry was not unequal
to his arduous situation: in the siege of Constantinople, and beyond the
Hellespont, he had deserved the fame of a valiant knight and a skilful
commander; and his courage was tempered with a degree of prudence and

mildness unknown to his impetuous brother. In the double war against the
Greeks of Asia and the Bulgarians of Europe, he was ever the foremost on
shipboard or on horseback; and though he cautiously provided for the
success of his arms, the drooping Latins were often roused by his example
to save and to second their fearless emperor. But such efforts, and some
supplies of men and money from France, were of less avail than the errors,
the cruelty, and death, of their most formidable adversary. When the despair
of the Greek subjects invited Calo-John as their deliverer, they hoped that
he would protect their liberty and adopt their laws: they were soon taught to
compare the degrees of national ferocity, and to execrate the savage
conqueror, who no longer dissembled his intention of dispeopling Thrace,
of demolishing the cities, and of transplanting the inhabitants beyond the
Danube. Many towns and villages of Thrace were already evacuated: a heap
of ruins marked the place of Philippopolis, and a similar calamity was
expected at Demotica and Adrianople, by the first authors of the revolt.
They raised a cry of grief and repentance to the throne of Henry; the
emperor alone had the magnanimity to forgive and trust them. No more
than four hundred knights, with their sergeants and archers, could be
assembled under his banner; and with this slender force he fought 321 and
repulsed the Bulgarian, who, besides his infantry, was at the head of forty
thousand horse. In this expedition, Henry felt the difference between a
hostile and a friendly country: the remaining cities were preserved by his
arms; and the savage, with shame and loss, was compelled to relinquish his
prey. The siege of Thessalonica was the last of the evils which Calo-John
inflicted or suffered: he was stabbed in the night in his tent; and the general,
perhaps the assassin, who found him weltering in his blood, ascribed the
blow, with general applause, to the lance of St. Demetrius. 33 After several
victories, the prudence of Henry concluded an honorable peace with the
successor of the tyrant, and with the Greek princes of Nice and Epirus. If he
ceded some doubtful limits, an ample kingdom was reserved for himself
and his feudatories; and his reign, which lasted only ten years, afforded a
short interval of prosperity and peace. Far above the narrow policy of
Baldwin and Boniface, he freely intrusted to the Greeks the most important
offices of the state and army; and this liberality of sentiment and practice
was the more seasonable, as the princes of Nice and Epirus had already
learned to seduce and employ the mercenary valor of the Latins. It was the
aim of Henry to unite and reward his deserving subjects, of every nation

and language; but he appeared less solicitous to accomplish the
impracticable union of the two churches. Pelagius, the pope’s legate, who
acted as the sovereign of Constantinople, had interdicted the worship of the
Greeks, and sternly imposed the payment of tithes, the double procession of
the Holy Ghost, and a blind obedience to the Roman pontiff. As the weaker
party, they pleaded the duties of conscience, and implored the rights of
toleration: “Our bodies,” they said, “are Cæsar’s, but our souls belong only
to God.” The persecution was checked by the firmness of the emperor: 34
and if we can believe that the same prince was poisoned by the Greeks
themselves, we must entertain a contemptible idea of the sense and
gratitude of mankind. His valor was a vulgar attribute, which he shared with
ten thousand knights; but Henry possessed the superior courage to oppose,
in a superstitious age, the pride and avarice of the clergy. In the cathedral of
St. Sophia he presumed to place his throne on the right hand of the
patriarch; and this presumption excited the sharpest censure of Pope
Innocent the Third. By a salutary edict, one of the first examples of the laws
of mortmain, he prohibited the alienation of fiefs: many of the Latins,
desirous of returning to Europe, resigned their estates to the church for a
spiritual or temporal reward; these holy lands were immediately discharged
from military service, and a colony of soldiers would have been gradually
transformed into a college of priests. 35
31 (return)
[ Villehardouin, No. 257. I quote, with regret, this
lamentable conclusion, where we lose at once the original
history, and the rich illustrations of Ducange. The last pages
may derive some light from Henry’s two epistles to Innocent
III., (Gesta, c. 106, 107.)]
32 (return)
[ The marshal was alive in 1212, but he probably died soon
afterwards, without returning to France, (Ducange,
Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 238.) His fief of
Messinople, the gift of Boniface, was the ancient
Maximianopolis, which flourished in the time of Ammianus
Marcellinus, among the cities of Thrace, (No. 141.)]
321 (return)
[ There was no battle. On the advance of the Latins, John
suddenly broke up his camp and retreated. The Latins
considered this unexpected deliverance almost a miracle. Le
Beau suggests the probability that the detection of the
Comans, who usually quitted the camp during the heats of
summer, may have caused the flight of the Bulgarians.

Nicetas, c. 8 Villebardouin, c. 225. Le Beau, vol. xvii. p.
242.—M.]
33 (return)
[ The church of this patron of Thessalonica was served by
the canons of the holy sepulchre, and contained a divine
ointment which distilled daily and stupendous miracles,
(Ducange, Hist. de C. P. ii. 4.)]
34 (return)
[ Acropolita (c. 17) observes the persecution of the legate,
and the toleration of Henry, ('Erh, * as he calls him) kludwna
katestorese. Note: Or rather 'ErrhV.—M.]
35 (return)
[ See the reign of Henry, in Ducange, (Hist. de C. P. l. i. c.
35—41, l. ii. c. 1—22,) who is much indebted to the Epistles
of the Popes. Le Beau (Hist. du Bas Empire, tom. xxi. p. 120
—122) has found, perhaps in Doutreman, some laws of
Henry, which determined the service of fiefs, and the
prerogatives of the emperor.]
The virtuous Henry died at Thessalonica, in the defence of that kingdom,
and of an infant, the son of his friend Boniface. In the two first emperors of
Constantinople the male line of the counts of Flanders was extinct. But their
sister Yolande was the wife of a French prince, the mother of a numerous
progeny; and one of her daughters had married Andrew king of Hungary, a
brave and pious champion of the cross. By seating him on the Byzantine
throne, the barons of Romania would have acquired the forces of a
neighboring and warlike kingdom; but the prudent Andrew revered the laws
of succession; and the princess Yolande, with her husband Peter of
Courtenay, count of Auxerre, was invited by the Latins to assume the
empire of the East. The royal birth of his father, the noble origin of his
mother, recommended to the barons of France the first cousin of their king.
His reputation was fair, his possessions were ample, and in the bloody
crusade against the Albigeois, the soldiers and the priests had been
abundantly satisfied of his zeal and valor. Vanity might applaud the
elevation of a French emperor of Constantinople; but prudence must pity,
rather than envy, his treacherous and imaginary greatness. To assert and
adorn his title, he was reduced to sell or mortgage the best of his patrimony.
By these expedients, the liberality of his royal kinsman Philip Augustus,
and the national spirit of chivalry, he was enabled to pass the Alps at the
head of one hundred and forty knights, and five thousand five hundred
sergeants and archers. After some hesitation, Pope Honorius the Third was
persuaded to crown the successor of Constantine: but he performed the

ceremony in a church without the walls, lest he should seem to imply or to
bestow any right of sovereignty over the ancient capital of the empire. The
Venetians had engaged to transport Peter and his forces beyond the Adriatic,
and the empress, with her four children, to the Byzantine palace; but they
required, as the price of their service, that he should recover Durazzo from
the despot of Epirus. Michael Angelus, or Comnenus, the first of his
dynasty, had bequeathed the succession of his power and ambition to
Theodore, his legitimate brother, who already threatened and invaded the
establishments of the Latins. After discharging his debt by a fruitless
assault, the emperor raised the siege to prosecute a long and perilous
journey over land from Durazzo to Thessalonica. He was soon lost in the
mountains of Epirus: the passes were fortified; his provisions exhausted; he
was delayed and deceived by a treacherous negotiation; and, after Peter of
Courtenay and the Roman legate had been arrested in a banquet, the French
troops, without leaders or hopes, were eager to exchange their arms for the
delusive promise of mercy and bread. The Vatican thundered; and the
impious Theodore was threatened with the vengeance of earth and heaven;
but the captive emperor and his soldiers were forgotten, and the reproaches
of the pope are confined to the imprisonment of his legate. No sooner was
he satisfied by the deliverance of the priests and a promise of spiritual
obedience, than he pardoned and protected the despot of Epirus. His
peremptory commands suspended the ardor of the Venetians and the king of
Hungary; and it was only by a natural or untimely death 36 that Peter of
Courtenay was released from his hopeless captivity. 37
36 (return)
[ Acropolita (c. 14) affirms, that Peter of Courtenay died by
the sword, (ergon macairaV genesqai;) but from his dark
expressions, I should conclude a previous captivity, wV
pantaV ardhn desmwtaV poihsai sun pasi skeuesi. * The
Chronicle of Auxerre delays the emperor’s death till the year
1219; and Auxerre is in the neighborhood of Courtenay.
Note: Whatever may have been the fact, this can hardly be
made out from the expressions of Acropolita.—M.]
37 (return)
[ See the reign and death of Peter of Courtenay, in Ducange,
(Hist. de C. P. l. ii. c. 22—28,) who feebly strives to excuse
the neglect of the emperor by Honorius III.]
The long ignorance of his fate, and the presence of the lawful sovereign,
of Yolande, his wife or widow, delayed the proclamation of a new emperor.
Before her death, and in the midst of her grief, she was delivered of a son,

who was named Baldwin, the last and most unfortunate of the Latin princes
of Constantinople. His birth endeared him to the barons of Romania; but his
childhood would have prolonged the troubles of a minority, and his claims
were superseded by the elder claims of his brethren. The first of these,
Philip of Courtenay, who derived from his mother the inheritance of Namur,
had the wisdom to prefer the substance of a marquisate to the shadow of an
empire; and on his refusal, Robert, the second of the sons of Peter and
Yolande, was called to the throne of Constantinople. Warned by his father’s
mischance, he pursued his slow and secure journey through Germany and
along the Danube: a passage was opened by his sister’s marriage with the
king of Hungary; and the emperor Robert was crowned by the patriarch in
the cathedral of St. Sophia. But his reign was an æra of calamity and
disgrace; and the colony, as it was styled, of New France yielded on all
sides to the Greeks of Nice and Epirus. After a victory, which he owed to
his perfidy rather than his courage, Theodore Angelus entered the kingdom
of Thessalonica, expelled the feeble Demetrius, the son of the marquis
Boniface, erected his standard on the walls of Adrianople; and added, by his
vanity, a third or a fourth name to the list of rival emperors. The relics of the
Asiatic province were swept away by John Vataces, the son-in-law and
successor of Theodore Lascaris, and who, in a triumphant reign of thirty-
three years, displayed the virtues both of peace and war. Under his
discipline, the swords of the French mercenaries were the most effectual
instruments of his conquests, and their desertion from the service of their
country was at once a symptom and a cause of the rising ascendant of the
Greeks. By the construction of a fleet, he obtained the command of the
Hellespont, reduced the islands of Lesbos and Rhodes, attacked the
Venetians of Candia, and intercepted the rare and parsimonious succors of
the West. Once, and once only, the Latin emperor sent an army against
Vataces; and in the defeat of that army, the veteran knights, the last of the
original conquerors, were left on the field of battle. But the success of a
foreign enemy was less painful to the pusillanimous Robert than the
insolence of his Latin subjects, who confounded the weakness of the
emperor and of the empire. His personal misfortunes will prove the anarchy
of the government and the ferociousness of the times. The amorous youth
had neglected his Greek bride, the daughter of Vataces, to introduce into the
palace a beautiful maid, of a private, though noble family of Artois; and her
mother had been tempted by the lustre of the purple to forfeit her

engagements with a gentleman of Burgundy. His love was converted into
rage; he assembled his friends, forced the palace gates, threw the mother
into the sea, and inhumanly cut off the nose and lips of the wife or
concubine of the emperor. Instead of punishing the offender, the barons
avowed and applauded the savage deed, 38 which, as a prince and as a man,
it was impossible that Robert should forgive. He escaped from the guilty
city to implore the justice or compassion of the pope: the emperor was
coolly exhorted to return to his station; before he could obey, he sunk under
the weight of grief, shame, and impotent resentment. 39
38 (return)
[ Marinus Sanutus (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. p. 4, c. 18,
p. 73) is so much delighted with this bloody deed, that he
has transcribed it in his margin as a bonum exemplum. Yet
he acknowledges the damsel for the lawful wife of Robert.]
39 (return)
[ See the reign of Robert, in Ducange, (Hist. de C. P. l. ii. c.
—12.)]
It was only in the age of chivalry, that valor could ascend from a private
station to the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople. The titular kingdom
of Jerusalem had devolved to Mary, the daughter of Isabella and Conrad of
Montferrat, and the granddaughter of Almeric or Amaury. She was given to
John of Brienne, of a noble family in Champagne, by the public voice, and
the judgment of Philip Augustus, who named him as the most worthy
champion of the Holy Land. 40 In the fifth crusade, he led a hundred
thousand Latins to the conquest of Egypt: by him the siege of Damietta was
achieved; and the subsequent failure was justly ascribed to the pride and
avarice of the legate. After the marriage of his daughter with Frederic the
Second, 41 he was provoked by the emperor’s ingratitude to accept the
command of the army of the church; and though advanced in life, and
despoiled of royalty, the sword and spirit of John of Brienne were still ready
for the service of Christendom. In the seven years of his brother’s reign,
Baldwin of Courtenay had not emerged from a state of childhood, and the
barons of Romania felt the strong necessity of placing the sceptre in the
hands of a man and a hero. The veteran king of Jerusalem might have
disdained the name and office of regent; they agreed to invest him for his
life with the title and prerogatives of emperor, on the sole condition that
Baldwin should marry his second daughter, and succeed at a mature age to
the throne of Constantinople. The expectation, both of the Greeks and
Latins, was kindled by the renown, the choice, and the presence of John of

Brienne; and they admired his martial aspect, his green and vigorous age of
more than fourscore years, and his size and stature, which surpassed the
common measure of mankind. 42 But avarice, and the love of ease, appear
to have chilled the ardor of enterprise: 421 his troops were disbanded, and
two years rolled away without action or honor, till he was awakened by the
dangerous alliance of Vataces emperor of Nice, and of Azan king of
Bulgaria. They besieged Constantinople by sea and land, with an army of
one hundred thousand men, and a fleet of three hundred ships of war; while
the entire force of the Latin emperor was reduced to one hundred and sixty
knights, and a small addition of sergeants and archers. I tremble to relate,
that instead of defending the city, the hero made a sally at the head of his
cavalry; and that of forty-eight squadrons of the enemy, no more than three
escaped from the edge of his invincible sword. Fired by his example, the
infantry and the citizens boarded the vessels that anchored close to the
walls; and twenty-five were dragged in triumph into the harbor of
Constantinople. At the summons of the emperor, the vassals and allies
armed in her defence; broke through every obstacle that opposed their
passage; and, in the succeeding year, obtained a second victory over the
same enemies. By the rude poets of the age, John of Brienne is compared to
Hector, Roland, and Judas Machabæus: 43 but their credit, and his glory,
receive some abatement from the silence of the Greeks. The empire was
soon deprived of the last of her champions; and the dying monarch was
ambitious to enter paradise in the habit of a Franciscan friar. 44
40 (return)
[ Rex igitur Franciæ, deliberatione habitâ, respondit nuntiis,
se daturum hominem Syriæ partibus aptum; in armis probum
(preux) in bellis securum, in agendis providum, Johannem
comitem Brennensem. Sanut. Secret. Fidelium, l. iii. p. xi. c.
4, p. 205 Matthew Paris, p. 159.]
41 (return)
[ Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 380—385)
discusses the marriage of Frederic II. with the daughter of
John of Brienne, and the double union of the crowns of
Naples and Jerusalem.]
42 (return)
[ Acropolita, c. 27. The historian was at that time a boy, and
educated at Constantinople. In 1233, when he was eleven
years old, his father broke the Latin chain, left a splendid
fortune, and escaped to the Greek court of Nice, where his
son was raised to the highest honors.]

421 (return)
[ John de Brienne, elected emperor 1229, wasted two years
in preparations, and did not arrive at Constantinople till
1231. Two years more glided away in inglorious inaction; he
then made some ineffective warlike expeditions.
Constantinople was not besieged till 1234.—M.]
43 (return)
[ Philip Mouskes, bishop of Tournay, (A.D. 1274—1282,)
has composed a poem, or rather string of verses, in bad old
Flemish French, on the Latin emperors of Constantinople,
which Ducange has published at the end of Villehardouin;
see p. 38, for the prowess of John of Brienne.

N’Aie, Ector, Roll’ ne Ogiers
Ne Judas Machabeus li fiers
Tant ne fit d’armes en estors
Com fist li Rois Jehans cel jors
Et il defors et il dedans
La paru sa force et ses sens
Et li hardiment qu’il avoit.]

44 (return)
[ See the reign of John de Brienne, in Ducange, Hist. de C.
P. l. ii. c. 13—26.]
In the double victory of John of Brienne, I cannot discover the name or
exploits of his pupil Baldwin, who had attained the age of military service,
and who succeeded to the imperial dignity on the decease of his adoptive
father. 45 The royal youth was employed on a commission more suitable to
his temper; he was sent to visit the Western courts, of the pope more
especially, and of the king of France; to excite their pity by the view of his
innocence and distress; and to obtain some supplies of men or money for
the relief of the sinking empire. He thrice repeated these mendicant visits,
in which he seemed to prolong his stay and postpone his return; of the five-
and-twenty years of his reign, a greater number were spent abroad than at
home; and in no place did the emperor deem himself less free and secure
than in his native country and his capital. On some public occasions, his
vanity might be soothed by the title of Augustus, and by the honors of the
purple; and at the general council of Lyons, when Frederic the Second was
excommunicated and deposed, his Oriental colleague was enthroned on the
right hand of the pope. But how often was the exile, the vagrant, the
Imperial beggar, humbled with scorn, insulted with pity, and degraded in his
own eyes and those of the nations! In his first visit to England, he was
stopped at Dover by a severe reprimand, that he should presume, without
leave, to enter an independent kingdom. After some delay, Baldwin,

however, was permitted to pursue his journey, was entertained with cold
civility, and thankfully departed with a present of seven hundred marks. 46
From the avarice of Rome he could only obtain the proclamation of a
crusade, and a treasure of indulgences; a coin whose currency was
depreciated by too frequent and indiscriminate abuse. His birth and
misfortunes recommended him to the generosity of his cousin Louis the
Ninth; but the martial zeal of the saint was diverted from Constantinople to
Egypt and Palestine; and the public and private poverty of Baldwin was
alleviated, for a moment, by the alienation of the marquisate of Namur and
the lordship of Courtenay, the last remains of his inheritance. 47 By such
shameful or ruinous expedients, he once more returned to Romania, with an
army of thirty thousand soldiers, whose numbers were doubled in the
apprehension of the Greeks. His first despatches to France and England
announced his victories and his hopes: he had reduced the country round
the capital to the distance of three days’ journey; and if he succeeded
against an important, though nameless, city, (most probably Chiorli,) the
frontier would be safe and the passage accessible. But these expectations (if
Baldwin was sincere) quickly vanished like a dream: the troops and
treasures of France melted away in his unskilful hands; and the throne of
the Latin emperor was protected by a dishonorable alliance with the Turks
and Comans. To secure the former, he consented to bestow his niece on the
unbelieving sultan of Cogni; to please the latter, he complied with their
Pagan rites; a dog was sacrificed between the two armies; and the
contracting parties tasted each other’s blood, as a pledge of their fidelity. 48
In the palace, or prison, of Constantinople, the successor of Augustus
demolished the vacant houses for winter fuel, and stripped the lead from the
churches for the daily expense of his family. Some usurious loans were
dealt with a scanty hand by the merchants of Italy; and Philip, his son and
heir, was pawned at Venice as the security for a debt. 49 Thirst, hunger, and
nakedness, are positive evils: but wealth is relative; and a prince who would
be rich in a private station, may be exposed by the increase of his wants to
all the anxiety and bitterness of poverty.
45 (return)
[ See the reign of Baldwin II. till his expulsion from
Constantinople, in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 1—34, the
end l. v. c. 1—33.]
46 (return)
[ Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II. to the

English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armatâ
manû, p. 407 his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c., p.
481, (a passage which has escaped Ducange;) his expulsion,
p. 850.]
47 (return)
[ Louis IX. disapproved and stopped the alienation of
Courtenay (Ducange, l. iv. c. 23.) It is now annexed to the
royal demesne but granted for a term (engagé) to the family
of Boulainvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in
the Isle de France, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the
remains of a castle, (Mélanges tirés d’une Grande
Bibliothèque, tom. xlv. p. 74—77.)]
48 (return)
[ Joinville, p. 104, edit. du Louvre. A Coman prince, who
died without baptism, was buried at the gates of
Constantinople with a live retinue of slaves and horses.]
49 (return)
[ Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Crucis, l. ii. p. iv. c. 18, p. 73.]

Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The
French And Venetians.—Part III.
But in this abject distress, the emperor and empire were still possessed of
an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value from the superstition of the
Christian world. The merit of the true cross was somewhat impaired by its
frequent division; and a long captivity among the infidels might shed some
suspicion on the fragments that were produced in the East and West. But
another relic of the Passion was preserved in the Imperial chapel of
Constantinople; and the crown of thorns which had been placed on the head
of Christ was equally precious and authentic. It had formerly been the
practice of the Egyptian debtors to deposit, as a security, the mummies of
their parents; and both their honor and religion were bound for the
redemption of the pledge. In the same manner, and in the absence of the
emperor, the barons of Romania borrowed the sum of thirteen thousand one
hundred and thirty-four pieces of gold 50 on the credit of the holy crown:
they failed in the performance of their contract; and a rich Venetian,
Nicholas Querini, undertook to satisfy their impatient creditors, on
condition that the relic should be lodged at Venice, to become his absolute
property, if it were not redeemed within a short and definite term. The
barons apprised their sovereign of the hard treaty and impending loss and as
the empire could not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling,
Baldwin was anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and to vest it
with more honor and emolument in the hands of the most Christian king. 51
Yet the negotiation was attended with some delicacy. In the purchase of
relics, the saint would have started at the guilt of simony; but if the mode of
expression were changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept the gift,
and acknowledge the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans, were
despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown which had
escaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On opening a
wooden box, they recognized the seals of the doge and barons, which were

applied on a shrine of silver; and within this shrine the monument of the
Passion was enclosed in a golden vase. The reluctant Venetians yielded to
justice and power: the emperor Frederic granted a free and honorable
passage; the court of France advanced as far as Troyes in Champagne, to
meet with devotion this inestimable relic: it was borne in triumph through
Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt; and a free gift of ten
thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to his loss. The success of this
transaction tempted the Latin emperor to offer with the same generosity the
remaining furniture of his chapel; 52 a large and authentic portion of the
true cross; the baby-linen of the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the
chain, of his Passion; the rod of Moses, and part of the skull of St. John the
Baptist. For the reception of these spiritual treasures, twenty thousand
marks were expended by St. Louis on a stately foundation, the holy chapel
of Paris, on which the muse of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality.
The truth of such remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any
human testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles
which they have performed. About the middle of the last age, an inveterate
ulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the holy crown: 53 the
prodigy is attested by the most pious and enlightened Christians of France;
nor will the fact be easily disproved, except by those who are armed with a
general antidote against religious credulity. 54
50 (return)
[ Under the words Perparus, Perpera, Hyperperum,
Ducange is short and vague: Monetæ genus. From a corrupt
passage of Guntherus, (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10,) I guess that
the Perpera was the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a
mark of silver, or about ten shillings sterling in value. In lead
it would be too contemptible.]
51 (return)
[ For the translation of the holy crown, &c., from
Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c.
11—14, 24, 35) and Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvii. p. 201
—204.)]
52 (return)
[ Mélanges tirés d’une Grande Bibliothèque, tom. xliii. p.
201—205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the soul
and manners of the Sainte Chapelle; and many facts relative
to the institution are collected and explained by his
commentators, Brosset and De St. Marc.]
53 (return)
[ It was performed A.D. 1656, March 24, on the niece of
Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c.,

were on the spot, to believe and attest a miracle which
confounded the Jesuits, and saved Port Royal, (uvres de
Racine, tom. vi. p. 176—187, in his eloquent History of Port
Royal.)]
54 (return)
[ Voltaire (Siécle de Louis XIV. c. 37, uvres, tom. ix. p. 178,
179) strives to invalidate the fact: but Hume, (Essays, vol. ii.
p. 483, 484,) with more skill and success, seizes the battery,
and turns the cannon against his enemies.]
The Latins of Constantinople 55 were on all sides encompassed and
pressed; their sole hope, the last delay of their ruin, was in the division of
their Greek and Bulgarian enemies; and of this hope they were deprived by
the superior arms and policy of Vataces, emperor of Nice. From the
Propontis to the rocky coast of Pamphylia, Asia was peaceful and
prosperous under his reign; and the events of every campaign extended his
influence in Europe. The strong cities of the hills of Macedonia and Thrace
were rescued from the Bulgarians; and their kingdom was circumscribed by
its present and proper limits, along the southern banks of the Danube. The
sole emperor of the Romans could no longer brook that a lord of Epirus, a
Comnenian prince of the West, should presume to dispute or share the
honors of the purple; and the humble Demetrius changed the color of his
buskins, and accepted with gratitude the appellation of despot. His own
subjects were exasperated by his baseness and incapacity; they implored the
protection of their supreme lord. After some resistance, the kingdom of
Thessalonica was united to the empire of Nice; and Vataces reigned without
a competitor from the Turkish borders to the Adriatic Gulf. The princes of
Europe revered his merit and power; and had he subscribed an orthodox
creed, it should seem that the pope would have abandoned without
reluctance the Latin throne of Constantinople. But the death of Vataces, the
short and busy reign of Theodore his son, and the helpless infancy of his
grandson John, suspended the restoration of the Greeks. In the next chapter,
I shall explain their domestic revolutions; in this place, it will be sufficient
to observe, that the young prince was oppressed by the ambition of his
guardian and colleague, Michael Palæologus, who displayed the virtues and
vices that belong to the founder of a new dynasty. The emperor Baldwin
had flattered himself, that he might recover some provinces or cities by an
impotent negotiation. His ambassadors were dismissed from Nice with
mockery and contempt. At every place which they named, Palæologus
alleged some special reason, which rendered it dear and valuable in his

eyes: in the one he was born; in another he had been first promoted to
military command; and in a third he had enjoyed, and hoped long to enjoy,
the pleasures of the chase. “And what then do you propose to give us?” said
the astonished deputies. “Nothing,” replied the Greek, “not a foot of land. If
your master be desirous of peace, let him pay me, as an annual tribute, the
sum which he receives from the trade and customs of Constantinople. On
these terms, I may allow him to reign. If he refuses, it is war. I am not
ignorant of the art of war, and I trust the event to God and my sword.” 56
An expedition against the despot of Epirus was the first prelude of his arms.
If a victory was followed by a defeat; if the race of the Comneni or Angeli
survived in those mountains his efforts and his reign; the captivity of
Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the Latins of the most active and
powerful vassal of their expiring monarchy. The republics of Venice and
Genoa disputed, in the first of their naval wars, the command of the sea and
the commerce of the East. Pride and interest attached the Venetians to the
defence of Constantinople; their rivals were tempted to promote the designs
of her enemies, and the alliance of the Genoese with the schismatic
conqueror provoked the indignation of the Latin church. 57
55 (return)
[ The gradual losses of the Latins may be traced in the third
fourth, and fifth books of the compilation of Ducange: but of
the Greek conquests he has dropped many circumstances,
which may be recovered from the larger history of George
Acropolita, and the three first books of Nicephorus,
Gregoras, two writers of the Byzantine series, who have had
the good fortune to meet with learned editors Leo Allatius at
Rome, and John Boivin in the Academy of Inscriptions of
Paris.]
56 (return)
[ George Acropolita, c. 78, p. 89, 90. edit. Paris.]
57 (return)
[ The Greeks, ashamed of any foreign aid, disguise the
alliance and succor of the Genoese: but the fact is proved by
the testimony of J Villani (Chron. l. vi. c. 71, in Muratori,
Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 202, 203) and William
de Nangis, (Annales de St. Louis, p. 248 in the Louvre
Joinville,) two impartial foreigners; and Urban IV threatened
to deprive Genoa of her archbishop.]
Intent on his great object, the emperor Michael visited in person and
strengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The remains of the
Latins were driven from their last possessions: he assaulted without success

the suburb of Galata; and corresponded with a perfidious baron, who
proved unwilling, or unable, to open the gates of the metropolis. The next
spring, his favorite general, Alexius Strategopulus, whom he had decorated
with the title of Cæsar, passed the Hellespont with eight hundred horse and
some infantry, 58 on a secret expedition. His instructions enjoined him to
approach, to listen, to watch, but not to risk any doubtful or dangerous
enterprise against the city. The adjacent territory between the Propontis and
the Black Sea was cultivated by a hardy race of peasants and outlaws,
exercised in arms, uncertain in their allegiance, but inclined by language,
religion, and present advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They were
styled the volunteers; 59 and by their free service the army of Alexius, with
the regulars of Thrace and the Coman auxiliaries, 60 was augmented to the
number of five-and-twenty thousand men. By the ardor of the volunteers,
and by his own ambition, the Cæsar was stimulated to disobey the precise
orders of his master, in the just confidence that success would plead his
pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, and the distress and
terror of the Latins, were familiar to the observation of the volunteers; and
they represented the present moment as the most propitious to surprise and
conquest. A rash youth, the new governor of the Venetian colony, had sailed
away with thirty galleys, and the best of the French knights, on a wild
expedition to Daphnusia, a town on the Black Sea, at the distance of forty
leagues; 601 and the remaining Latins were without strength or suspicion.
They were informed that Alexius had passed the Hellespont; but their
apprehensions were lulled by the smallness of his original numbers; and
their imprudence had not watched the subsequent increase of his army. If he
left his main body to second and support his operations, he might advance
unperceived in the night with a chosen detachment. While some applied
scaling-ladders to the lowest part of the walls, they were secure of an old
Greek, who would introduce their companions through a subterraneous
passage into his house; they could soon on the inside break an entrance
through the golden gate, which had been long obstructed; and the conqueror
would be in the heart of the city before the Latins were conscious of their
danger. After some debate, the Cæsar resigned himself to the faith of the
volunteers; they were trusty, bold, and successful; and in describing the
plan, I have already related the execution and success. 61 But no sooner had
Alexius passed the threshold of the golden gate, than he trembled at his own
rashness; he paused, he deliberated; till the desperate volunteers urged him

forwards, by the assurance that in retreat lay the greatest and most
inevitable danger. Whilst the Cæsar kept his regulars in firm array, the
Comans dispersed themselves on all sides; an alarm was sounded, and the
threats of fire and pillage compelled the citizens to a decisive resolution.
The Greeks of Constantinople remembered their native sovereigns; the
Genoese merchants their recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter
was in arms; and the air resounded with a general acclamation of “Long life
and victory to Michael and John, the august emperors of the Romans!”
Their rival, Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most pressing
danger could not prompt him to draw his sword in the defence of a city
which he deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure than regret: he fled from the
palace to the seashore, where he descried the welcome sails of the fleet
returning from the vain and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia. Constantinople
was irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and the principal families
embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steered for the Isle of Euba,
and afterwards for Italy, where the royal fugitive was entertained by the
pope and Sicilian king with a mixture of contempt and pity. From the loss
of Constantinople to his death, he consumed thirteen years, soliciting the
Catholic powers to join in his restoration: the lesson had been familiar to his
youth; nor was his last exile more indigent or shameful than his three
former pilgrimages to the courts of Europe. His son Philip was the heir of
an ideal empire; and the pretensions of his daughter Catherine were
transported by her marriage to Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the
Fair, king of France. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female
line by successive alliances, till the title of emperor of Constantinople, too
bulky and sonorous for a private name, modestly expired in silence and
oblivion. 62
58 (return)
[ Some precautions must be used in reconciling the
discordant numbers; the 800 soldiers of Nicetas, the 25,000
of Spandugino, (apud Ducange, l. v. c. 24;) the Greeks and
Scythians of Acropolita; and the numerous army of Michael,
in the Epistles of Pope Urban IV. (i. 129.)]
59 (return)
[ Qelhmatarioi. They are described and named by Pachymer,
(l. ii. c. 14.)]
60 (return)
[ It is needless to seek these Comans in the deserts of
Tartary, or even of Moldavia. A part of the horde had
submitted to John Vataces, and was probably settled as a

nursery of soldiers on some waste lands of Thrace,
(Cantacuzen. l. i. c. 2.)]
601 (return)
[ According to several authorities, particularly Abulfaradj.
Chron. Arab. p. 336, this was a stratagem on the part of the
Greeks to weaken the garrison of Constantinople. The Greek
commander offered to surrender the town on the appearance
of the Venetians.—M.]
61 (return)
[ The loss of Constantinople is briefly told by the Latins: the
conquest is described with more satisfaction by the Greeks;
by Acropolita, (c. 85,) Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 26, 27,)
Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. c. 1, 2) See Ducange, Hist. de C.
P. l. v. c. 19—27.]
62 (return)
[ See the three last books (l. v.—viii.) and the genealogical
tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular emperor of
Constantinople was James de Baux, duke of Andria in the
kingdom of Naples, the son of Margaret, daughter of
Catherine de Valois, daughter of Catharine, daughter of
Philip, son of Baldwin II., (Ducange, l. viii. c. 37, 38.) It is
uncertain whether he left any posterity.]
After this narrative of the expeditions of the Latins to Palestine and
Constantinople, I cannot dismiss the subject without resolving the general
consequences on the countries that were the scene, and on the nations that
were the actors, of these memorable crusades. 63 As soon as the arms of the
Franks were withdrawn, the impression, though not the memory, was erased
in the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syria. The faithful disciples of the
prophet were never tempted by a profane desire to study the laws or
language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity of their primitive manners
receive the slightest alteration from their intercourse in peace and war with
the unknown strangers of the West. The Greeks, who thought themselves
proud, but who were only vain, showed a disposition somewhat less
inflexible. In the efforts for the recovery of their empire, they emulated the
valor, discipline, and tactics of their antagonists. The modern literature of
the West they might justly despise; but its free spirit would instruct them in
the rights of man; and some institutions of public and private life were
adopted from the French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy
diffused the knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and
classics were at length honored with a Greek version. 64 But the national
and religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed by persecution, and
the reign of the Latins confirmed the separation of the two churches.

63 (return)
[ Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades, speaks
of the kingdoms of the Franks, and those of the Negroes, as
equally unknown, (Prolegom. ad Geograph.) Had he not
disdained the Latin language, how easily might the Syrian
prince have found books and interpreters!]
64 (return)
[ A short and superficial account of these versions from
Latin into Greek is given by Huet, (de Interpretatione et de
claris Interpretibus p. 131—135.) Maximus Planudes, a
monk of Constantinople, (A.D. 1327—1353) has translated
Cæsar’s Commentaries, the Somnium Scipionis, the
Metamorphoses and Heroides of Ovid, &c., (Fabric. Bib.
Græc. tom. x. p. 533.)]
If we compare the æra of the crusades, the Latins of Europe with the
Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, industry, and
art, our rude ancestors must be content with the third rank in the scale of
nations. Their successive improvement and present superiority may be
ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and imitative spirit,
unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary
or retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have derived
the most early and essential benefits from a series of events which opened
to their eyes the prospect of the world, and introduced them to a long and
frequent intercourse with the more cultivated regions of the East. The first
and most obvious progress was in trade and manufactures, in the arts which
are strongly prompted by the thirst of wealth, the calls of necessity, and the
gratification of the sense or vanity. Among the crowd of unthinking
fanatics, a captive or a pilgrim might sometimes observe the superior
refinements of Cairo and Constantinople: the first importer of windmills 65
was the benefactor of nations; and if such blessings are enjoyed without any
grateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the more
apparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported into Italy from
Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of the Latins were more
slowly felt and supplied; the ardor of studious curiosity was awakened in
Europe by different causes and more recent events; and, in the age of the
crusades, they viewed with careless indifference the literature of the Greeks
and Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematical and medicinal knowledge
might be imparted in practice and in figures; necessity might produce some
interpreters for the grosser business of merchants and soldiers; but the
commerce of the Orientals had not diffused the study and knowledge of

their languages in the schools of Europe. 66 If a similar principle of religion
repulsed the idiom of the Koran, it should have excited their patience and
curiosity to understand the original text of the gospel; and the same
grammar would have unfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties of
Homer. Yet in a reign of sixty years, the Latins of Constantinople disdained
the speech and learning of their subjects; and the manuscripts were the only
treasures which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle
was indeed the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous
Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his Latin votaries
humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version, from the Jews and Moors of
Andalusia. The principle of the crusades was a savage fanaticism; and the
most important effects were analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was
ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and
Palestine; 67 and each relic was preceded and followed by a train of
miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new
legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the establishment of the
inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and friars, the last abuse of
indulgences, and the final progress of idolatry, flowed from the baleful
fountain of the holy war. The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals
of their reason and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the
times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity
and fable.
65 (return)
[ Windmills, first invented in the dry country of Asia Minor,
were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105, (Vie
privée des François, tom. i. p. 42, 43. Ducange, Gloss. Latin.
tom. iv. p. 474.)]
66 (return)
[ See the complaints of Roger Bacon, (Biographia
Britannica, vol. i. p. 418, Kippis’s edition.) If Bacon himself,
or Gerbert, understood someGreek, they were prodigies, and
owed nothing to the commerce of the East.]
67 (return)
[ Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz, (uvres de
Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 458,) a master of the history of the
middle ages. I shall only instance the pedigree of the
Carmelites, and the flight of the house of Loretto, which
were both derived from Palestine.]

Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The
French And Venetians.—Part IV.
In the profession of Christianity, in the cultivation of a fertile land, the
northern conquerors of the Roman empire insensibly mingled with the
provincials, and rekindled the embers of the arts of antiquity. Their
settlements about the age of Charlemagne had acquired some degree of
order and stability, when they were overwhelmed by new swarms of
invaders, the Normans, Saracens, 68 and Hungarians, who replunged the
western countries of Europe into their former state of anarchy and
barbarism. About the eleventh century, the second tempest had subsided by
the expulsion or conversion of the enemies of Christendom: the tide of
civilization, which had so long ebbed, began to flow with a steady and
accelerated course; and a fairer prospect was opened to the hopes and
efforts of the rising generations. Great was the increase, and rapid the
progress, during the two hundred years of the crusades; and some
philosophers have applauded the propitious influence of these holy wars,
which appear to me to have checked rather than forwarded the maturity of
Europe. 69 The lives and labors of millions, which were buried in the East,
would have been more profitably employed in the improvement of their
native country: the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would have
overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have been
enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly correspondence with the
climates of the East. In one respect I can indeed perceive the accidental
operation of the crusades, not so much in producing a benefit as in
removing an evil. The larger portion of the inhabitants of Europe was
chained to the soil, without freedom, or property, or knowledge; and the two
orders of ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers were comparatively
small, alone deserved the name of citizens and men. This oppressive system
was supported by the arts of the clergy and the swords of the barons. The
authority of the priests operated in the darker ages as a salutary antidote:

they prevented the total extinction of letters, mitigated the fierceness of the
times, sheltered the poor and defenceless, and preserved or revived the
peace and order of civil society. But the independence, rapine, and discord
of the feudal lords were unmixed with any semblance of good; and every
hope of industry and improvement was crushed by the iron weight of the
martial aristocracy. Among the causes that undermined that Gothic edifice,
a conspicuous place must be allowed to the crusades. The estates of the
barons were dissipated, and their race was often extinguished, in these
costly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride
those charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave, secured
the farm of the peasant and the shop of the artificer, and gradually restored a
substance and a soul to the most numerous and useful part of the
community. The conflagration which destroyed the tall and barren trees of
the forest gave air and scope to the vegetation of the smaller and nutritive
plants of the soil. 691
68 (return)
[ If I rank the Saracens with the Barbarians, it is only
relative to their wars, or rather inroads, in Italy and France,
where their sole purpose was to plunder and destroy.]
69 (return)
[ On this interesting subject, the progress of society in
Europe, a strong ray of philosophical light has broke from
Scotland in our own times; and it is with private, as well as
public regard, that I repeat the names of Hume, Robertson,
and Adam Smith.]
691 (return)
[ On the consequences of the crusades, compare the valuable
Essay of Heeren, that of M. Choiseul d’Aillecourt, and a
chapter of Mr. Forster’s “Mahometanism Unveiled.” I may
admire this gentleman’s learning and industry, without
pledging myself to his wild theory of prophets interpretation.
—M.]
Digression On The Family Of Courtenay.
The purple of three emperors, who have reigned at Constantinople, will
authorize or excuse a digression on the origin and singular fortunes of the
house of Courtenay, 70 in the three principal branches: I. Of Edessa; II. Of
France; and III. Of England; of which the last only has survived the
revolutions of eight hundred years.
70 (return)
[ I have applied, but not confined, myself to A genealogical
History of the noble and illustrious Family of Courtenay, by

Ezra Cleaveland, Tutor to Sir William Courtenay, and
Rector of Honiton; Exon. 1735, in folio. The first part is
extracted from William of Tyre; the second from Bouchet’s
French history; and the third from various memorials,
public, provincial, and private, of the Courtenays of
Devonshire The rector of Honiton has more gratitude than
industry, and more industry than criticism.]
I. Before the introduction of trade, which scatters riches, and of
knowledge, which dispels prejudice, the prerogative of birth is most
strongly felt and most humbly acknowledged. In every age, the laws and
manners of the Germans have discriminated the ranks of society; the dukes
and counts, who shared the empire of Charlemagne, converted their office
to an inheritance; and to his children, each feudal lord bequeathed his honor
and his sword. The proudest families are content to lose, in the darkness of
the middle ages, the tree of their pedigree, which, however deep and lofty,
must ultimately rise from a plebeian root; and their historians must descend
ten centuries below the Christian æra, before they can ascertain any lineal
succession by the evidence of surnames, of arms, and of authentic records.
With the first rays of light, 71 we discern the nobility and opulence of Atho,
a French knight; his nobility, in the rank and title of a nameless father; his
opulence, in the foundation of the castle of Courtenay in the district of
Gatinois, about fifty-six miles to the south of Paris. From the reign of
Robert, the son of Hugh Capet, the barons of Courtenay are conspicuous
among the immediate vassals of the crown; and Joscelin, the grandson of
Atho and a noble dame, is enrolled among the heroes of the first crusade. A
domestic alliance (their mothers were sisters) attached him to the standard
of Baldwin of Bruges, the second count of Edessa; a princely fief, which he
was worthy to receive, and able to maintain, announces the number of his
martial followers; and after the departure of his cousin, Joscelin himself
was invested with the county of Edessa on both sides of the Euphrates. By
economy in peace, his territories were replenished with Latin and Syrian
subjects; his magazines with corn, wine, and oil; his castles with gold and
silver, with arms and horses. In a holy warfare of thirty years, he was
alternately a conqueror and a captive: but he died like a soldier, in a horse
litter at the head of his troops; and his last glance beheld the flight of the
Turkish invaders who had presumed on his age and infirmities. His son and
successor, of the same name, was less deficient in valor than in vigilance;
but he sometimes forgot that dominion is acquired and maintained by the
same arms. He challenged the hostility of the Turks, without securing the

friendship of the prince of Antioch; and, amidst the peaceful luxury of
Turbessel, in Syria, 72 Joscelin neglected the defence of the Christian
frontier beyond the Euphrates. In his absence, Zenghi, the first of the
Atabeks, besieged and stormed his capital, Edessa, which was feebly
defended by a timorous and disloyal crowd of Orientals: the Franks were
oppressed in a bold attempt for its recovery, and Courtenay ended his days
in the prison of Aleppo. He still left a fair and ample patrimony But the
victorious Turks oppressed on all sides the weakness of a widow and
orphan; and, for the equivalent of an annual pension, they resigned to the
Greek emperor the charge of defending, and the shame of losing, the last
relics of the Latin conquest. The countess-dowager of Edessa retired to
Jerusalem with her two children; the daughter, Agnes, became the wife and
mother of a king; the son, Joscelin the Third, accepted the office of
seneschal, the first of the kingdom, and held his new estates in Palestine by
the service of fifty knights. His name appears with honor in the transactions
of peace and war; but he finally vanishes in the fall of Jerusalem; and the
name of Courtenay, in this branch of Edessa, was lost by the marriage of his
two daughters with a French and German baron. 73
71 (return)
[ The primitive record of the family is a passage of the
continuator of Aimoin, a monk of Fleury, who wrote in the
xiith century. See his Chronicle, in the Historians of France,
(tom. xi. p. 276.)]
72 (return)
[ Turbessel, or, as it is now styled, Telbesher, is fixed by
D’Anville four-and-twenty miles from the great passage
over the Euphrates at Zeugma.]
73 (return)
[ His possessions are distinguished in the Assises of
Jerusalem (c. B26) among the feudal tenures of the
kingdom, which must therefore have been collected between
the years 1153 and 1187. His pedigree may be found in the
Lignages d’Outremer, c. 16.]
II. While Joscelin reigned beyond the Euphrates, his elder brother Milo,
the son of Joscelin, the son of Atho, continued, near the Seine, to possess
the castle of their fathers, which was at length inherited by Rainaud, or
Reginald, the youngest of his three sons. Examples of genius or virtue must
be rare in the annals of the oldest families; and, in a remote age their pride
will embrace a deed of rapine and violence; such, however, as could not be
perpetrated without some superiority of courage, or, at least, of power. A

descendant of Reginald of Courtenay may blush for the public robber, who
stripped and imprisoned several merchants, after they had satisfied the
king’s duties at Sens and Orleans. He will glory in the offence, since the
bold offender could not be compelled to obedience and restitution, till the
regent and the count of Champagne prepared to march against him at the
head of an army. 74 Reginald bestowed his estates on his eldest daughter,
and his daughter on the seventh son of King Louis the Fat; and their
marriage was crowned with a numerous offspring. We might expect that a
private should have merged in a royal name; and that the descendants of
Peter of France and Elizabeth of Courtenay would have enjoyed the titles
and honors of princes of the blood. But this legitimate claim was long
neglected, and finally denied; and the causes of their disgrace will represent
the story of this second branch. 1. Of all the families now extant, the most
ancient, doubtless, and the most illustrious, is the house of France, which
has occupied the same throne above eight hundred years, and descends, in a
clear and lineal series of males, from the middle of the ninth century. 75 In
the age of the crusades, it was already revered both in the East and West.
But from Hugh Capet to the marriage of Peter, no more than five reigns or
generations had elapsed; and so precarious was their title, that the eldest
sons, as a necessary precaution, were previously crowned during the
lifetime of their fathers. The peers of France have long maintained their
precedency before the younger branches of the royal line, nor had the
princes of the blood, in the twelfth century, acquired that hereditary lustre
which is now diffused over the most remote candidates for the succession.
2. The barons of Courtenay must have stood high in their own estimation,
and in that of the world, since they could impose on the son of a king the
obligation of adopting for himself and all his descendants the name and
arms of their daughter and his wife. In the marriage of an heiress with her
inferior or her equal, such exchange was often required and allowed: but as
they continued to diverge from the regal stem, the sons of Louis the Fat
were insensibly confounded with their maternal ancestors; and the new
Courtenays might deserve to forfeit the honors of their birth, which a
motive of interest had tempted them to renounce. 3. The shame was far
more permanent than the reward, and a momentary blaze was followed by a
long darkness. The eldest son of these nuptials, Peter of Courtenay, had
married, as I have already mentioned, the sister of the counts of Flanders,
the two first emperors of Constantinople: he rashly accepted the invitation

of the barons of Romania; his two sons, Robert and Baldwin, successively
held and lost the remains of the Latin empire in the East, and the
granddaughter of Baldwin the Second again mingled her blood with the
blood of France and of Valois. To support the expenses of a troubled and
transitory reign, their patrimonial estates were mortgaged or sold: and the
last emperors of Constantinople depended on the annual charity of Rome
and Naples.
74 (return)
[ The rapine and satisfaction of Reginald de Courtenay, are
preposterously arranged in the Epistles of the abbot and
regent Suger, (cxiv. cxvi.,) the best memorials of the age,
(Duchesne, Scriptores Hist. Franc. tom. iv. p. 530.)]
75 (return)
[ In the beginning of the xith century, after naming the father
and grandfather of Hugh Capet, the monk Glaber is obliged
to add, cujus genus valde in-ante reperitur obscurum. Yet we
are assured that the great-grandfather of Hugh Capet was
Robert the Strong count of Anjou, (A.D. 863—873,) a noble
Frank of Neustria, Neustricus... generosæ stirpis, who was
slain in the defence of his country against the Normans, dum
patriæ fines tuebatur. Beyond Robert, all is conjecture or
fable. It is a probable conjecture, that the third race
descended from the second by Childebrand, the brother of
Charles Martel. It is an absurd fable that the second was
allied to the first by the marriage of Ansbert, a Roman
senator and the ancestor of St. Arnoul, with Blitilde, a
daughter of Clotaire I. The Saxon origin of the house of
France is an ancient but incredible opinion. See a judicious
memoir of M. de Foncemagne, (Mémoires de l’Académie
des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 548—579.) He had promised to
declare his own opinion in a second memoir, which has
never appeared.]
While the elder brothers dissipated their wealth in romantic adventures,
and the castle of Courtenay was profaned by a plebeian owner, the younger
branches of that adopted name were propagated and multiplied. But their
splendor was clouded by poverty and time: after the decease of Robert,
great butler of France, they descended from princes to barons; the next
generations were confounded with the simple gentry; the descendants of
Hugh Capet could no longer be visible in the rural lords of Tanlay and of
Champignelles. The more adventurous embraced without dishonor the
profession of a soldier: the least active and opulent might sink, like their
cousins of the branch of Dreux, into the condition of peasants. Their royal
descent, in a dark period of four hundred years, became each day more

obsolete and ambiguous; and their pedigree, instead of being enrolled in the
annals of the kingdom, must be painfully searched by the minute diligence
of heralds and genealogists. It was not till the end of the sixteenth century,
on the accession of a family almost as remote as their own, that the princely
spirit of the Courtenays again revived; and the question of the nobility
provoked them to ascertain the royalty of their blood. They appealed to the
justice and compassion of Henry the Fourth; obtained a favorable opinion
from twenty lawyers of Italy and Germany, and modestly compared
themselves to the descendants of King David, whose prerogatives were not
impaired by the lapse of ages or the trade of a carpenter. 76 But every ear
was deaf, and every circumstance was adverse, to their lawful claims. The
Bourbon kings were justified by the neglect of the Valois; the princes of the
blood, more recent and lofty, disdained the alliance of his humble kindred:
the parliament, without denying their proofs, eluded a dangerous precedent
by an arbitrary distinction, and established St. Louis as the first father of the
royal line. 77 A repetition of complaints and protests was repeatedly
disregarded; and the hopeless pursuit was terminated in the present century
by the death of the last male of the family. 78 Their painful and anxious
situation was alleviated by the pride of conscious virtue: they sternly
rejected the temptations of fortune and favor; and a dying Courtenay would
have sacrificed his son, if the youth could have renounced, for any temporal
interest, the right and title of a legitimate prince of the blood of France. 79
76 (return)
[ Of the various petitions, apologies, &c., published by the
princes of Courtenay, I have seen the three following, all in
octavo: 1. De Stirpe et Origine Domus de Courtenay: addita
sunt Responsa celeberrimorum Europæ Jurisconsultorum;
Paris, 1607. 2. Representation du Procedé tenû a l’instance
faicte devant le Roi, par Messieurs de Courtenay, pour la
conservation de l’Honneur et Dignité de leur Maison,
branche de la royalle Maison de France; à Paris, 1613. 3.
Representation du subject qui a porté Messieurs de Salles et
de Fraville, de la Maison de Courtenay, à se retirer hors du
Royaume, 1614. It was a homicide, for which the
Courtenays expected to be pardoned, or tried, as princes of
the blood.]
77 (return)
[ The sense of the parliaments is thus expressed by Thuanus
Principis nomen nusquam in Galliâ tributum, nisi iis qui per
mares e regibus nostris originem repetunt; qui nunc tantum a
Ludovico none beatæ memoriæ numerantur; nam Cortini et
Drocenses, a Ludovico crasso genus ducentes, hodie inter

eos minime recensentur. A distinction of expediency rather
than justice. The sanctity of Louis IX. could not invest him
with any special prerogative, and all the descendants of
Hugh Capet must be included in his original compact with
the French nation.]
78 (return)
[ The last male of the Courtenays was Charles Roger, who
died in the year 1730, without leaving any sons. The last
female was Helene de Courtenay, who married Louis de
Beaufremont. Her title of Princesse du Sang Royal de
France was suppressed (February 7th, 1737) by an arrêt of
the parliament of Paris.]
79 (return)
[ The singular anecdote to which I allude is related in the
Recueil des Pieces interessantes et peu connues, (Maestricht,
1786, in 4 vols. 12mo.;) and the unknown editor quotes his
author, who had received it from Helene de Courtenay,
marquise de Beaufremont.]
III. According to the old register of Ford Abbey, the Courtenays of
Devonshire are descended from Prince Florus, the second son of Peter, and
the grandson of Louis the Fat. 80 This fable of the grateful or venal monks
was too respectfully entertained by our antiquaries, Cambden 81 and
Dugdale: 82 but it is so clearly repugnant to truth and time, that the rational
pride of the family now refuses to accept this imaginary founder. Their most
faithful historians believe, that, after giving his daughter to the king’s son,
Reginald of Courtenay abandoned his possessions in France, and obtained
from the English monarch a second wife and a new inheritance. It is certain,
at least, that Henry the Second distinguished in his camps and councils a
Reginald, of the name and arms, and, as it may be fairly presumed, of the
genuine race, of the Courtenays of France. The right of wardship enabled a
feudal lord to reward his vassal with the marriage and estate of a noble
heiress; and Reginald of Courtenay acquired a fair establishment in
Devonshire, where his posterity has been seated above six hundred years.
83 From a Norman baron, Baldwin de Brioniis, who had been invested by
the Conqueror, Hawise, the wife of Reginald, derived the honor of
Okehampton, which was held by the service of ninety-three knights; and a
female might claim the manly offices of hereditary viscount or sheriff, and
of captain of the royal castle of Exeter. Their son Robert married the sister
of the earl of Devon: at the end of a century, on the failure of the family of
Rivers, 84 his great-grandson, Hugh the Second, succeeded to a title which
was still considered as a territorial dignity; and twelve earls of Devonshire,

of the name of Courtenay, have flourished in a period of two hundred and
twenty years. They were ranked among the chief of the barons of the realm;
nor was it till after a strenuous dispute, that they yielded to the fief of
Arundel the first place in the parliament of England: their alliances were
contracted with the noblest families, the Veres, Despensers, St. Johns,
Talbots, Bohuns, and even the Plantagenets themselves; and in a contest
with John of Lancaster, a Courtenay, bishop of London, and afterwards
archbishop of Canterbury, might be accused of profane confidence in the
strength and number of his kindred. In peace, the earls of Devon resided in
their numerous castles and manors of the west; their ample revenue was
appropriated to devotion and hospitality; and the epitaph of Edward,
surnamed from his misfortune, the blind, from his virtues, the good, earl,
inculcates with much ingenuity a moral sentence, which may, however, be
abused by thoughtless generosity. After a grateful commemoration of the
fifty-five years of union and happiness which he enjoyed with Mabe his
wife, the good earl thus speaks from the tomb:—

“What we gave, we have;
What we spent, we had;
What we left, we lost.” 85

But their losses, in this sense, were far superior to their gifts and
expenses; and their heirs, not less than the poor, were the objects of their
paternal care. The sums which they paid for livery and seizin attest the
greatness of their possessions; and several estates have remained in their
family since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In war, the Courtenays
of England fulfilled the duties, and deserved the honors, of chivalry. They
were often intrusted to levy and command the militia of Devonshire and
Cornwall; they often attended their supreme lord to the borders of Scotland;
and in foreign service, for a stipulated price, they sometimes maintained
fourscore men-at-arms and as many archers. By sea and land they fought
under the standard of the Edwards and Henries: their names are
conspicuous in battles, in tournaments, and in the original list of the Order
of the Garter; three brothers shared the Spanish victory of the Black Prince;
and in the lapse of six generations, the English Courtenays had learned to
despise the nation and country from which they derived their origin. In the
quarrel of the two roses, the earls of Devon adhered to the house of
Lancaster; and three brothers successively died either in the field or on the
scaffold. Their honors and estates were restored by Henry the Seventh; a

daughter of Edward the Fourth was not disgraced by the nuptials of a
Courtenay; their son, who was created Marquis of Exeter, enjoyed the favor
of his cousin Henry the Eighth; and in the camp of Cloth of Gold, he broke
a lance against the French monarch. But the favor of Henry was the prelude
of disgrace; his disgrace was the signal of death; and of the victims of the
jealous tyrant, the marquis of Exeter is one of the most noble and guiltless.
His son Edward lived a prisoner in the Tower, and died in exile at Padua;
and the secret love of Queen Mary, whom he slighted, perhaps for the
princess Elizabeth, has shed a romantic color on the story of this beautiful
youth. The relics of his patrimony were conveyed into strange families by
the marriages of his four aunts; and his personal honors, as if they had been
legally extinct, were revived by the patents of succeeding princes. But there
still survived a lineal descendant of Hugh, the first earl of Devon, a younger
branch of the Courtenays, who have been seated at Powderham Castle
above four hundred years, from the reign of Edward the Third to the present
hour. Their estates have been increased by the grant and improvement of
lands in Ireland, and they have been recently restored to the honors of the
peerage. Yet the Courtenays still retain the plaintive motto, which asserts
the innocence, and deplores the fall, of their ancient house. 86 While they
sigh for past greatness, they are doubtless sensible of present blessings: in
the long series of the Courtenay annals, the most splendid æra is likewise
the most unfortunate; nor can an opulent peer of Britain be inclined to envy
the emperors of Constantinople, who wandered over Europe to solicit alms
for the support of their dignity and the defence of their capital.
80 (return)
[ Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. i. p. 786. Yet this
fable must have been invented before the reign of Edward
III. The profuse devotion of the three first generations to
Ford Abbey was followed by oppression on one side and
ingratitude on the other; and in the sixth generation, the
monks ceased to register the births, actions, and deaths of
their patrons.]
81 (return)
[ In his Britannia, in the list of the earls of Devonshire. His
expression, e regio sanguine ortos, credunt, betrays,
however, some doubt or suspicion.]
82 (return)
[ In his Baronage, P. i. p. 634, he refers to his own
Monasticon. Should he not have corrected the register of
Ford Abbey, and annihilated the phantom Florus, by the
unquestionable evidence of the French historians?]

83 (return)
[ Besides the third and most valuable book of Cleaveland’s
History, I have consulted Dugdale, the father of our
genealogical science, (Baronage, P. i. p. 634—643.)]
84 (return)
[ This great family, de Ripuariis, de Redvers, de Rivers,
ended, in Edward the Fifth’s time, in Isabella de Fortibus, a
famous and potent dowager, who long survived her brother
and husband, (Dugdale, Baronage, P i. p. 254—257.)]
85 (return)
[ Cleaveland p. 142. By some it is assigned to a Rivers earl
of Devon; but the English denotes the xvth, rather than the
xiiith century.]
86 (return)
[ Ubi lapsus! Quid feci? a motto which was probably
adopted by the Powderham branch, after the loss of the
earldom of Devonshire, &c. The primitive arms of the
Courtenays were, Or, three torteaux, Gules, which seem to
denote their affinity with Godfrey of Bouillon, and the
ancient counts of Boulogne.]

Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And
Constantinople.—Part I.
The Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Elevation
And Reign Of Michael Palæologus.—His False Union With The
Pope And The Latin Church.—Hostile Designs Of Charles Of
Anjou.—Revolt Of Sicily.—War Of The Catalans In Asia And
Greece.—Revolutions And Present State Of Athens.

The loss of Constantinople restored a momentary vigor to the Greeks.
From their palaces, the princes and nobles were driven into the field; and
the fragments of the falling monarchy were grasped by the hands of the
most vigorous or the most skilful candidates. In the long and barren pages
of the Byzantine annals, 1 it would not be an easy task to equal the two
characters of Theodore Lascaris and John Ducas Vataces, 2 who replanted
and upheld the Roman standard at Nice in Bithynia. The difference of their
virtues was happily suited to the diversity of their situation. In his first
efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded only three cities and two thousand
soldiers: his reign was the season of generous and active despair: in every
military operation he staked his life and crown; and his enemies of the
Hellespont and the Mæander, were surprised by his celerity and subdued by
his boldness. A victorious reign of eighteen years expanded the principality
of Nice to the magnitude of an empire. The throne of his successor and son-
in-law Vataces was founded on a more solid basis, a larger scope, and more
plentiful resources; and it was the temper, as well as the interest, of Vataces
to calculate the risk, to expect the moment, and to insure the success, of his
ambitious designs. In the decline of the Latins, I have briefly exposed the
progress of the Greeks; the prudent and gradual advances of a conqueror,
who, in a reign of thirty-three years, rescued the provinces from national
and foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all sides the Imperial city, a leafless
and sapless trunk, which must full at the first stroke of the axe. But his
interior and peaceful administration is still more deserving of notice and
praise. 3 The calamities of the times had wasted the numbers and the

substance of the Greeks; the motives and the means of agriculture were
extirpated; and the most fertile lands were left without cultivation or
inhabitants. A portion of this vacant property was occupied and improved
by the command, and for the benefit, of the emperor: a powerful hand and a
vigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful management, the minute
diligence of a private farmer: the royal domain became the garden and
granary of Asia; and without impoverishing the people, the sovereign
acquired a fund of innocent and productive wealth. According to the nature
of the soil, his lands were sown with corn or planted with vines; the
pastures were filled with horses and oxen, with sheep and hogs; and when
Vataces presented to the empress a crown of diamonds and pearls, he
informed her, with a smile, that this precious ornament arose from the sale
of the eggs of his innumerable poultry. The produce of his domain was
applied to the maintenance of his palace and hospitals, the calls of dignity
and benevolence: the lesson was still more useful than the revenue: the
plough was restored to its ancient security and honor; and the nobles were
taught to seek a sure and independent revenue from their estates, instead of
adorning their splendid beggary by the oppression of the people, or (what is
almost the same) by the favors of the court. The superfluous stock of corn
and cattle was eagerly purchased by the Turks, with whom Vataces
preserved a strict and sincere alliance; but he discouraged the importation of
foreign manufactures, the costly silks of the East, and the curious labors of
the Italian looms. “The demands of nature and necessity,” was he
accustomed to say, “are indispensable; but the influence of fashion may rise
and sink at the breath of a monarch;” and both his precept and example
recommended simplicity of manners and the use of domestic industry. The
education of youth and the revival of learning were the most serious objects
of his care; and, without deciding the precedency, he pronounced with truth,
that a prince and a philosopher 4 are the two most eminent characters of
human society. His first wife was Irene, the daughter of Theodore Lascaris,
a woman more illustrious by her personal merit, the milder virtues of her
sex, than by the blood of the Angeli and Comneni that flowed in her veins,
and transmitted the inheritance of the empire. After her death he was
contracted to Anne, or Constance, a natural daughter of the emperor
Frederic 499 the Second; but as the bride had not attained the years of
puberty, Vataces placed in his solitary bed an Italian damsel of her train; and
his amorous weakness bestowed on the concubine the honors, though not

the title, of a lawful empress. His frailty was censured as a flagitious and
damnable sin by the monks; and their rude invectives exercised and
displayed the patience of the royal lover. A philosophic age may excuse a
single vice, which was redeemed by a crowd of virtues; and in the review of
his faults, and the more intemperate passions of Lascaris, the judgment of
their contemporaries was softened by gratitude to the second founders of
the empire. 5 The slaves of the Latins, without law or peace, applauded the
happiness of their brethren who had resumed their national freedom; and
Vataces employed the laudable policy of convincing the Greeks of every
dominion that it was their interest to be enrolled in the number of his
subjects.
1 (return)
[ For the reigns of the Nicene emperors, more especially of
John Vataces and his son, their minister, George Acropolita,
is the only genuine contemporary; but George Pachymer
returned to Constantinople with the Greeks at the age of
nineteen, (Hanckius de Script. Byzant. c. 33, 34, p. 564—
578. Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 448—460.) Yet the
history of Nicephorus Gregoras, though of the xivth century,
is a valuable narrative from the taking of Constantinople by
the Latins.]
2 (return)
[ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 1) distinguishes between the
oxeia ormh of Lascaris, and the eustaqeia of Vataces. The
two portraits are in a very good style.]
3 (return)
[ Pachymer, l. i. c. 23, 24. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6. The reader of
the Byzantines must observe how rarely we are indulged
with such precious details.]
4 (return)
[ Monoi gar apantwn anqrwpwn onomastotatoi basileuV kai
jilosojoV, (Greg. Acropol. c. 32.) The emperor, in a familiar
conversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his
future logothete.]
499 (return)
[ Sister of Manfred, afterwards king of Naples. Nic. Greg. p.
45.—M.]
5 (return)
[ Compare Acropolita, (c. 18, 52,) and the two first books of
Nicephorus Gregoras.]
A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between John Vataces and his son
Theodore; between the founder who sustained the weight, and the heir who
enjoyed the splendor, of the Imperial crown. 6 Yet the character of

Theodore was not devoid of energy; he had been educated in the school of
his father, in the exercise of war and hunting; Constantinople was yet
spared; but in the three years of a short reign, he thrice led his armies into
the heart of Bulgaria. His virtues were sullied by a choleric and suspicious
temper: the first of these may be ascribed to the ignorance of control; and
the second might naturally arise from a dark and imperfect view of the
corruption of mankind. On a march in Bulgaria, he consulted on a question
of policy his principal ministers; and the Greek logothete, George
Acropolita, presumed to offend him by the declaration of a free and honest
opinion. The emperor half unsheathed his cimeter; but his more deliberate
rage reserved Acropolita for a baser punishment. One of the first officers of
the empire was ordered to dismount, stripped of his robes, and extended on
the ground in the presence of the prince and army. In this posture he was
chastised with so many and such heavy blows from the clubs of two guards
or executioners, that when Theodore commanded them to cease, the great
logothete was scarcely able to rise and crawl away to his tent. After a
seclusion of some days, he was recalled by a peremptory mandate to his
seat in council; and so dead were the Greeks to the sense of honor and
shame, that it is from the narrative of the sufferer himself that we acquire
the knowledge of his disgrace. 7 The cruelty of the emperor was
exasperated by the pangs of sickness, the approach of a premature end, and
the suspicion of poison and magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyes and
limbs, of his kinsmen and nobles, were sacrificed to each sally of passion;
and before he died, the son of Vataces might deserve from the people, or at
least from the court, the appellation of tyrant. A matron of the family of the
Palæologi had provoked his anger by refusing to bestow her beauteous
daughter on the vile plebeian who was recommended by his caprice.
Without regard to her birth or age, her body, as high as the neck, was
enclosed in a sack with several cats, who were pricked with pins to irritate
their fury against their unfortunate fellow-captive. In his last hours the
emperor testified a wish to forgive and be forgiven, a just anxiety for the
fate of John his son and successor, who, at the age of eight years, was
condemned to the dangers of a long minority. His last choice intrusted the
office of guardian to the sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the
courage of George Muzalon, the great domestic, who was equally
distinguished by the royal favor and the public hatred. Since their
connection with the Latins, the names and privileges of hereditary rank had

insinuated themselves into the Greek monarchy; and the noble families 8
were provoked by the elevation of a worthless favorite, to whose influence
they imputed the errors and calamities of the late reign. In the first council,
after the emperor’s death, Muzalon, from a lofty throne, pronounced a
labored apology of his conduct and intentions: his modesty was subdued by
a unanimous assurance of esteem and fidelity; and his most inveterate
enemies were the loudest to salute him as the guardian and savior of the
Romans. Eight days were sufficient to prepare the execution of the
conspiracy. On the ninth, the obsequies of the deceased monarch were
solemnized in the cathedral of Magnesia, 9 an Asiatic city, where he
expired, on the banks of the Hermus, and at the foot of Mount Sipylus. The
holy rites were interrupted by a sedition of the guards; Muzalon, his
brothers, and his adherents, were massacred at the foot of the altar; and the
absent patriarch was associated with a new colleague, with Michael
Palæologus, the most illustrious, in birth and merit, of the Greek nobles. 10
6 (return)
[ A Persian saying, that Cyrus was the father and Darius the
master, of his subjects, was applied to Vataces and his son.
But Pachymer (l. i. c. 23) has mistaken the mild Darius for
the cruel Cambyses, despot or tyrant of his people. By the
institution of taxes, Darius had incurred the less odious, but
more contemptible, name of KaphloV, merchant or broker,
(Herodotus, iii. 89.)]
7 (return)
[ Acropolita (c. 63) seems to admire his own firmness in
sustaining a beating, and not returning to council till he was
called. He relates the exploits of Theodore, and his own
services, from c. 53 to c. 74 of his history. See the third book
of Nicephorus Gregoras.]
8 (return)
[ Pachymer (l. i. c. 21) names and discriminates fifteen or
twenty Greek families, kai osoi alloi, oiV h megalogenhV
seira kai crush sugkekrothto. Does he mean, by this
decoration, a figurative or a real golden chain? Perhaps,
both.]
9 (return)
[ The old geographers, with Cellarius and D’Anville, and
our travellers, particularly Pocock and Chandler, will teach
us to distinguish the two Magnesias of Asia Minor, of the
Mæander and of Sipylus. The latter, our present object, is
still flourishing for a Turkish city, and lies eight hours, or
leagues, to the north-east of Smyrna, (Tournefort, Voyage du
Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxii. p. 365—370. Chandler’s Travels
into Asia Minor, p. 267.)]

10 (return)
[ See Acropolita, (c. 75, 76, &c.,) who lived too near the
times; Pachymer, (l. i. c. 13—25,) Gregoras, (l. iii. c. 3, 4,
5.)]
Of those who are proud of their ancestors, the far greater part must be
content with local or domestic renown; and few there are who dare trust the
memorials of their family to the public annals of their country. As early as
the middle of the eleventh century, the noble race of the Palæologi 11 stands
high and conspicuous in the Byzantine history: it was the valiant George
Palæologus who placed the father of the Comneni on the throne; and his
kinsmen or descendants continue, in each generation, to lead the armies and
councils of the state. The purple was not dishonored by their alliance, and
had the law of succession, and female succession, been strictly observed,
the wife of Theodore Lascaris must have yielded to her elder sister, the
mother of Michael Palæologus, who afterwards raised his family to the
throne. In his person, the splendor of birth was dignified by the merit of the
soldier and statesman: in his early youth he was promoted to the office of
constable or commander of the French mercenaries; the private expense of
a day never exceeded three pieces of gold; but his ambition was rapacious
and profuse; and his gifts were doubled by the graces of his conversation
and manners. The love of the soldiers and people excited the jealousy of the
court, and Michael thrice escaped from the dangers in which he was
involved by his own imprudence or that of his friends. I. Under the reign of
Justice and Vataces, a dispute arose 12 between two officers, one of whom
accused the other of maintaining the hereditary right of the Palæologi The
cause was decided, according to the new jurisprudence of the Latins, by
single combat; the defendant was overthrown; but he persisted in declaring
that himself alone was guilty; and that he had uttered these rash or
treasonable speeches without the approbation or knowledge of his patron.
Yet a cloud of suspicion hung over the innocence of the constable; he was
still pursued by the whispers of malevolence; and a subtle courtier, the
archbishop of Philadelphia, urged him to accept the judgment of God in the
fiery proof of the ordeal. 13 Three days before the trial, the patient’s arm
was enclosed in a bag, and secured by the royal signet; and it was
incumbent on him to bear a red-hot ball of iron three times from the altar to
the rails of the sanctuary, without artifice and without injury. Palæologus
eluded the dangerous experiment with sense and pleasantry. “I am a
soldier,” said he, “and will boldly enter the lists with my accusers; but a

layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with the gift of miracles. Your
piety, most holy prelate, may deserve the interposition of Heaven, and from
your hands I will receive the fiery globe, the pledge of my innocence.” The
archbishop started; the emperor smiled; and the absolution or pardon of
Michael was approved by new rewards and new services. II. In the
succeeding reign, as he held the government of Nice, he was secretly
informed, that the mind of the absent prince was poisoned with jealousy;
and that death, or blindness, would be his final reward. Instead of awaiting
the return and sentence of Theodore, the constable, with some followers,
escaped from the city and the empire; and though he was plundered by the
Turkmans of the desert, he found a hospitable refuge in the court of the
sultan. In the ambiguous state of an exile, Michael reconciled the duties of
gratitude and loyalty: drawing his sword against the Tartars; admonishing
the garrisons of the Roman limit; and promoting, by his influence, the
restoration of peace, in which his pardon and recall were honorably
included. III. While he guarded the West against the despot of Epirus,
Michael was again suspected and condemned in the palace; and such was
his loyalty or weakness, that he submitted to be led in chains above six
hundred miles from Durazzo to Nice. The civility of the messenger
alleviated his disgrace; the emperor’s sickness dispelled his danger; and the
last breath of Theodore, which recommended his infant son, at once
acknowledged the innocence and the power of Palæologus.
11 (return)
[ The pedigree of Palæologus is explained by Ducange,
(Famil. Byzant. p. 230, &c.:) the events of his private life
are related by Pachymer (l. i. c. 7—12) and Gregoras (l. ii. 8,
l. iii. 2, 4, l. iv. 1) with visible favor to the father of the
reigning dynasty.]
12 (return)
[ Acropolita (c. 50) relates the circumstances of this curious
adventure, which seem to have escaped the more recent
writers.]
13 (return)
[ Pachymer, (l. i. c. 12,) who speaks with proper contempt of
this barbarous trial, affirms, that he had seen in his youth
many person who had sustained, without injury, the fiery
ordeal. As a Greek, he is credulous; but the ingenuity of the
Greeks might furnish some remedies of art or fraud against
their own superstition, or that of their tyrant.]
But his innocence had been too unworthily treated, and his power was
too strongly felt, to curb an aspiring subject in the fair field that was opened

to his ambition. 14 In the council, after the death of Theodore, he was the
first to pronounce, and the first to violate, the oath of allegiance to
Muzalon; and so dexterous was his conduct, that he reaped the benefit,
without incurring the guilt, or at least the reproach, of the subsequent
massacre. In the choice of a regent, he balanced the interests and passions
of the candidates; turned their envy and hatred from himself against each
other, and forced every competitor to own, that after his own claims, those
of Palæologus were best entitled to the preference. Under the title of great
duke, he accepted or assumed, during a long minority, the active powers of
government; the patriarch was a venerable name; and the factious nobles
were seduced, or oppressed, by the ascendant of his genius. The fruits of the
economy of Vataces were deposited in a strong castle on the banks of the
Hermus, in the custody of the faithful Varangians: the constable retained his
command or influence over the foreign troops; he employed the guards to
possess the treasure, and the treasure to corrupt the guards; and whatsoever
might be the abuse of the public money, his character was above the
suspicion of private avarice. By himself, or by his emissaries, he strove to
persuade every rank of subjects, that their own prosperity would rise in just
proportion to the establishment of his authority. The weight of taxes was
suspended, the perpetual theme of popular complaint; and he prohibited the
trials by the ordeal and judicial combat. These Barbaric institutions were
already abolished or undermined in France 15 and England; 16 and the
appeal to the sword offended the sense of a civilized, 17 and the temper of
an unwarlike, people. For the future maintenance of their wives and
children, the veterans were grateful: the priests and the philosophers
applauded his ardent zeal for the advancement of religion and learning; and
his vague promise of rewarding merit was applied by every candidate to his
own hopes. Conscious of the influence of the clergy, Michael successfully
labored to secure the suffrage of that powerful order. Their expensive
journey from Nice to Magnesia, afforded a decent and ample pretence: the
leading prelates were tempted by the liberality of his nocturnal visits; and
the incorruptible patriarch was flattered by the homage of his new
colleague, who led his mule by the bridle into the town, and removed to a
respectful distance the importunity of the crowd. Without renouncing his
title by royal descent, Palæologus encouraged a free discussion into the
advantages of elective monarchy; and his adherents asked, with the
insolence of triumph, what patient would trust his health, or what merchant

would abandon his vessel, to the hereditary skill of a physician or a pilot?
The youth of the emperor, and the impending dangers of a minority,
required the support of a mature and experienced guardian; of an associate
raised above the envy of his equals, and invested with the name and
prerogatives of royalty. For the interest of the prince and people, without
any selfish views for himself or his family, the great duke consented to
guard and instruct the son of Theodore; but he sighed for the happy moment
when he might restore to his firmer hands the administration of his
patrimony, and enjoy the blessings of a private station. He was first invested
with the title and prerogatives of despot, which bestowed the purple
ornaments and the second place in the Roman monarchy. It was afterwards
agreed that John and Michael should be proclaimed as joint emperors, and
raised on the buckler, but that the preeminence should be reserved for the
birthright of the former. A mutual league of amity was pledged between the
royal partners; and in case of a rupture, the subjects were bound, by their
oath of allegiance, to declare themselves against the aggressor; an
ambiguous name, the seed of discord and civil war. Palæologus was
content; but, on the day of the coronation, and in the cathedral of Nice, his
zealous adherents most vehemently urged the just priority of his age and
merit. The unseasonable dispute was eluded by postponing to a more
convenient opportunity the coronation of John Lascaris; and he walked with
a slight diadem in the train of his guardian, who alone received the Imperial
crown from the hands of the patriarch. It was not without extreme
reluctance that Arsenius abandoned the cause of his pupil; out the
Varangians brandished their battle-axes; a sign of assent was extorted from
the trembling youth; and some voices were heard, that the life of a child
should no longer impede the settlement of the nation. A full harvest of
honors and employments was distributed among his friends by the grateful
Palæologus. In his own family he created a despot and two sebastocrators;
Alexius Strategopulus was decorated with the title of Cæsar; and that
veteran commander soon repaid the obligation, by restoring Constantinople
to the Greek emperor.
14 (return)
[ Without comparing Pachymer to Thucydides or Tacitus, I
will praise his narrative, (l. i. c. 13—32, l. ii. c. 1—9,) which
pursues the ascent of Palæologus with eloquence,
perspicuity, and tolerable freedom. Acropolita is more
cautious, and Gregoras more concise.]

15 (return)
[ The judicial combat was abolished by St. Louis in his own
territories; and his example and authority were at length
prevalent in France, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 29.)]
16 (return)
[ In civil cases Henry II. gave an option to the defendant:
Glanville prefers the proof by evidence; and that by judicial
combat is reprobated in the Fleta. Yet the trial by battle has
never been abrogated in the English law, and it was ordered
by the judges as late as the beginning of the last century. *
Note : And even demanded in the present.—M.]
17 (return)
[ Yet an ingenious friend has urged to me in mitigation of
this practice, 1. That in nations emerging from barbarism, it
moderates the license of private war and arbitrary revenge.
2. That it is less absurd than the trials by the ordeal, or
boiling water, or the cross, which it has contributed to
abolish. 3. That it served at least as a test of personal
courage; a quality so seldom united with a base disposition,
that the danger of a trial might be some check to a malicious
prosecutor, and a useful barrier against injustice supported
by power. The gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey might
probably have escaped his unmerited fate, had not his
demand of the combat against his accuser been overruled.]
It was in the second year of his reign, while he resided in the palace and
gardens of Nymphæum, 18 near Smyrna, that the first messenger arrived at
the dead of night; and the stupendous intelligence was imparted to Michael,
after he had been gently waked by the tender precaution of his sister
Eulogia. The man was unknown or obscure; he produced no letters from the
victorious Cæsar; nor could it easily be credited, after the defeat of Vataces
and the recent failure of Palæologus himself, that the capital had been
surprised by a detachment of eight hundred soldiers. As a hostage, the
doubtful author was confined, with the assurance of death or an ample
recompense; and the court was left some hours in the anxiety of hope and
fear, till the messengers of Alexius arrived with the authentic intelligence,
and displayed the trophies of the conquest, the sword and sceptre, 19 the
buskins and bonnet, 20 of the usurper Baldwin, which he had dropped in his
precipitate flight. A general assembly of the bishops, senators, and nobles,
was immediately convened, and never perhaps was an event received with
more heartfelt and universal joy. In a studied oration, the new sovereign of
Constantinople congratulated his own and the public fortune. “There was a
time,” said he, “a far distant time, when the Roman empire extended to the
Adriatic, the Tigris, and the confines of Æthiopia. After the loss of the

provinces, our capital itself, in these last and calamitous days, has been
wrested from our hands by the Barbarians of the West. From the lowest ebb,
the tide of prosperity has again returned in our favor; but our prosperity was
that of fugitives and exiles: and when we were asked, which was the
country of the Romans, we indicated with a blush the climate of the globe,
and the quarter of the heavens. The divine Providence has now restored to
our arms the city of Constantine, the sacred seat of religion and empire; and
it will depend on our valor and conduct to render this important acquisition
the pledge and omen of future victories.” So eager was the impatience of
the prince and people, that Michael made his triumphal entry into
Constantinople only twenty days after the expulsion of the Latins. The
golden gate was thrown open at his approach; the devout conqueror
dismounted from his horse; and a miraculous image of Mary the
Conductress was borne before him, that the divine Virgin in person might
appear to conduct him to the temple of her Son, the cathedral of St. Sophia.
But after the first transport of devotion and pride, he sighed at the dreary
prospect of solitude and ruin. The palace was defiled with smoke and dirt,
and the gross intemperance of the Franks; whole streets had been consumed
by fire, or were decayed by the injuries of time; the sacred and profane
edifices were stripped of their ornaments: and, as if they were conscious of
their approaching exile, the industry of the Latins had been confined to the
work of pillage and destruction. Trade had expired under the pressure of
anarchy and distress, and the numbers of inhabitants had decreased with the
opulence of the city. It was the first care of the Greek monarch to reinstate
the nobles in the palaces of their fathers; and the houses or the ground
which they occupied were restored to the families that could exhibit a legal
right of inheritance. But the far greater part was extinct or lost; the vacant
property had devolved to the lord; he repeopled Constantinople by a liberal
invitation to the provinces; and the brave volunteers were seated in the
capital which had been recovered by their arms. The French barons and the
principal families had retired with their emperor; but the patient and humble
crowd of Latins was attached to the country, and indifferent to the change of
masters. Instead of banishing the factories of the Pisans, Venetians, and
Genoese, the prudent conqueror accepted their oaths of allegiance,
encouraged their industry, confirmed their privileges, and allowed them to
live under the jurisdiction of their proper magistrates. Of these nations, the
Pisans and Venetians preserved their respective quarters in the city; but the

services and power of the Genoese deserved at the same time the gratitude
and the jealousy of the Greeks. Their independent colony was first planted
at the seaport town of Heraclea in Thrace. They were speedily recalled, and
settled in the exclusive possession of the suburb of Galata, an advantageous
post, in which they revived the commerce, and insulted the majesty, of the
Byzantine empire. 21
18 (return)
[ The site of Nymphæum is not clearly defined in ancient or
modern geography. But from the last hours of Vataces,
(Acropolita, c. 52,) it is evident the palace and gardens of his
favorite residence were in the neighborhood of Smyrna.
Nymphæum might be loosely placed in Lydia, (Gregoras, l.
vi. 6.)]
19 (return)
[ This sceptre, the emblem of justice and power, was a long
staff, such as was used by the heroes in Homer. By the latter
Greeks it was named Dicanice, and the Imperial sceptre was
distinguished as usual by the red or purple color.]
20 (return)
[ Acropolita affirms (c. 87,) that this “Onnet” was after the
French fashion; but from the ruby at the point or summit,
Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 28, 29) believes that it was
the high-crowned hat of the Greeks. Could Acropolita
mistake the dress of his own court?]
21 (return)
[ See Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 28—33,) Acropolita, (c. 88,)
Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. 7,) and for the treatment of the
subject Latins, Ducange, (l. v. c. 30, 31.)]
The recovery of Constantinople was celebrated as the æra of a new
empire: the conqueror, alone, and by the right of the sword, renewed his
coronation in the church of St. Sophia; and the name and honors of John
Lascaris, his pupil and lawful sovereign, were insensibly abolished. But his
claims still lived in the minds of the people; and the royal youth must
speedily attain the years of manhood and ambition. By fear or conscience,
Palæologus was restrained from dipping his hands in innocent and royal
blood; but the anxiety of a usurper and a parent urged him to secure his
throne by one of those imperfect crimes so familiar to the modern Greeks.
The loss of sight incapacitated the young prince for the active business of
the world; instead of the brutal violence of tearing out his eyes, the visual
nerve was destroyed by the intense glare of a red-hot basin, 22 and John
Lascaris was removed to a distant castle, where he spent many years in
privacy and oblivion. Such cool and deliberate guilt may seem incompatible

with remorse; but if Michael could trust the mercy of Heaven, he was not
inaccessible to the reproaches and vengeance of mankind, which he had
provoked by cruelty and treason. His cruelty imposed on a servile court the
duties of applause or silence; but the clergy had a right to speak in the name
of their invisible Master; and their holy legions were led by a prelate, whose
character was above the temptations of hope or fear. After a short abdication
of his dignity, Arsenius 23 had consented to ascend the ecclesiastical throne
of Constantinople, and to preside in the restoration of the church. His pious
simplicity was long deceived by the arts of Palæologus; and his patience
and submission might soothe the usurper, and protect the safety of the
young prince. On the news of his inhuman treatment, the patriarch
unsheathed the spiritual sword; and superstition, on this occasion, was
enlisted in the cause of humanity and justice. In a synod of bishops, who
were stimulated by the example of his zeal, the patriarch pronounced a
sentence of excommunication; though his prudence still repeated the name
of Michael in the public prayers. The Eastern prelates had not adopted the
dangerous maxims of ancient Rome; nor did they presume to enforce their
censures, by deposing princes, or absolving nations from their oaths of
allegiance. But the Christian, who had been separated from God and the
church, became an object of horror; and, in a turbulent and fanatic capital,
that horror might arm the hand of an assassin, or inflame a sedition of the
people. Palæologus felt his danger, confessed his guilt, and deprecated his
judge: the act was irretrievable; the prize was obtained; and the most
rigorous penance, which he solicited, would have raised the sinner to the
reputation of a saint. The unrelenting patriarch refused to announce any
means of atonement or any hopes of mercy; and condescended only to
pronounce, that for so great a crime, great indeed must be the satisfaction.
“Do you require,” said Michael, “that I should abdicate the empire?” and at
these words, he offered, or seemed to offer, the sword of state. Arsenius
eagerly grasped this pledge of sovereignty; but when he perceived that the
emperor was unwilling to purchase absolution at so dear a rate, he
indignantly escaped to his cell, and left the royal sinner kneeling and
weeping before the door. 24
22 (return)
[ This milder invention for extinguishing the sight was tried
by the philosopher Democritus on himself, when he sought
to withdraw his mind from the visible world: a foolish story!
The word abacinare, in Latin and Italian, has furnished

Ducange (Gloss. Lat.) with an opportunity to review the
various modes of blinding: the more violent were scooping,
burning with an iron, or hot vinegar, and binding the head
with a strong cord till the eyes burst from their sockets.
Ingenious tyrants!]
23 (return)
[ See the first retreat and restoration of Arsenius, in
Pachymer (l. ii. c. 15, l. iii. c. 1, 2) and Nicephorus
Gregoras, (l. iii. c. 1, l. iv. c. 1.) Posterity justly accused the
ajeleia and raqumia of Arsenius the virtues of a hermit, the
vices of a minister, (l. xii. c. 2.)]
24 (return)
[ The crime and excommunication of Michael are fairly told
by Pachymer (l. iii. c. 10, 14, 19, &c.) and Gregoras, (l. iv. c.
4.) His confession and penance restored their freedom.]

Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And
Constantinople.—Part II.
The danger and scandal of this excommunication subsisted above three
years, till the popular clamor was assuaged by time and repentance; till the
brethren of Arsenius condemned his inflexible spirit, so repugnant to the
unbounded forgiveness of the gospel. The emperor had artfully insinuated,
that, if he were still rejected at home, he might seek, in the Roman pontiff, a
more indulgent judge; but it was far more easy and effectual to find or to
place that judge at the head of the Byzantine church. Arsenius was involved
in a vague rumor of conspiracy and disaffection; 248 some irregular steps in
his ordination and government were liable to censure; a synod deposed him
from the episcopal office; and he was transported under a guard of soldiers
to a small island of the Propontis. Before his exile, he sullenly requested
that a strict account might be taken of the treasures of the church; boasted,
that his sole riches, three pieces of gold, had been earned by transcribing the
psalms; continued to assert the freedom of his mind; and denied, with his
last breath, the pardon which was implored by the royal sinner. 25 After
some delay, Gregory, 259 bishop of Adrianople, was translated to the
Byzantine throne; but his authority was found insufficient to support the
absolution of the emperor; and Joseph, a reverend monk, was substituted to
that important function. This edifying scene was represented in the presence
of the senate and the people; at the end of six years the humble penitent was
restored to the communion of the faithful; and humanity will rejoice, that a
milder treatment of the captive Lascaris was stipulated as a proof of his
remorse. But the spirit of Arsenius still survived in a powerful faction of the
monks and clergy, who persevered about forty-eight years in an obstinate
schism. Their scruples were treated with tenderness and respect by Michael
and his son; and the reconciliation of the Arsenites was the serious labor of
the church and state. In the confidence of fanaticism, they had proposed to
try their cause by a miracle; and when the two papers, that contained their

own and the adverse cause, were cast into a fiery brazier, they expected that
the Catholic verity would be respected by the flames. Alas! the two papers
were indiscriminately consumed, and this unforeseen accident produced the
union of a day, and renewed the quarrel of an age. 26 The final treaty
displayed the victory of the Arsenites: the clergy abstained during forty
days from all ecclesiastical functions; a slight penance was imposed on the
laity; the body of Arsenius was deposited in the sanctuary; and, in the name
of the departed saint, the prince and people were released from the sins of
their fathers. 27
248 (return)
[ Except the omission of a prayer for the emperor, the
charges against Arsenius were of different nature: he was
accused of having allowed the sultan of Iconium to bathe in
vessels signed with the cross, and to have admitted him to
the church, though unbaptized, during the service. It was
pleaded, in favor of Arsenius, among other proofs of the
sultan’s Christianity, that he had offered to eat ham.
Pachymer, l. iv. c. 4, p. 265. It was after his exile that he was
involved in a charge of conspiracy.—M.]
25 (return)
[ Pachymer relates the exile of Arsenius, (l. iv. c. 1—16:) he
was one of the commissaries who visited him in the desert
island. The last testament of the unforgiving patriarch is still
extant, (Dupin, Bibliothèque Ecclésiastique, tom. x. p. 95.)]
259 (return)
[ Pachymer calls him Germanus.—M.]
26 (return)
[ Pachymer (l. vii. c. 22) relates this miraculous trial like a
philosopher, and treats with similar contempt a plot of the
Arsenites, to hide a revelation in the coffin of some old
saint, (l. vii. c. 13.) He compensates this incredulity by an
image that weeps, another that bleeds, (l. vii. c. 30,) and the
miraculous cures of a deaf and a mute patient, (l. xi. c. 32.)]
27 (return)
[ The story of the Arsenites is spread through the thirteen
books of Pachymer. Their union and triumph are reserved
for Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. vii. c. 9,) who neither loves nor
esteems these sectaries.]
The establishment of his family was the motive, or at least the pretence,
of the crime of Palæologus; and he was impatient to confirm the succession,
by sharing with his eldest son the honors of the purple. Andronicus,
afterwards surnamed the Elder, was proclaimed and crowned emperor of the
Romans, in the fifteenth year of his age; and, from the first æra of a prolix

and inglorious reign, he held that august title nine years as the colleague,
and fifty as the successor, of his father. Michael himself, had he died in a
private station, would have been thought more worthy of the empire; and
the assaults of his temporal and spiritual enemies left him few moments to
labor for his own fame or the happiness of his subjects. He wrested from the
Franks several of the noblest islands of the Archipelago, Lesbos, Chios, and
Rhodes: his brother Constantine was sent to command in Malvasia and
Sparta; and the eastern side of the Morea, from Argos and Napoli to Cape
Thinners, was repossessed by the Greeks. This effusion of Christian blood
was loudly condemned by the patriarch; and the insolent priest presumed to
interpose his fears and scruples between the arms of princes. But in the
prosecution of these western conquests, the countries beyond the Hellespont
were left naked to the Turks; and their depredations verified the prophecy of
a dying senator, that the recovery of Constantinople would be the ruin of
Asia. The victories of Michael were achieved by his lieutenants; his sword
rusted in the palace; and, in the transactions of the emperor with the popes
and the king of Naples, his political acts were stained with cruelty and
fraud. 28
28 (return)
[ Of the xiii books of Pachymer, the first six (as the ivth and
vth of Nicephorus Gregoras) contain the reign of Michael, at
the time of whose death he was forty years of age. Instead of
breaking, like his editor the Père Poussin, his history into
two parts, I follow Ducange and Cousin, who number the
xiii. books in one series.]
I. The Vatican was the most natural refuge of a Latin emperor, who had
been driven from his throne; and Pope Urban the Fourth appeared to pity
the misfortunes, and vindicate the cause, of the fugitive Baldwin. A crusade,
with plenary indulgence, was preached by his command against the
schismatic Greeks: he excommunicated their allies and adherents; solicited
Louis the Ninth in favor of his kinsman; and demanded a tenth of the
ecclesiastical revenues of France and England for the service of the holy
war. 29 The subtle Greek, who watched the rising tempest of the West,
attempted to suspend or soothe the hostility of the pope, by suppliant
embassies and respectful letters; but he insinuated that the establishment of
peace must prepare the reconciliation and obedience of the Eastern church.
The Roman court could not be deceived by so gross an artifice; and Michael
was admonished, that the repentance of the son should precede the

forgiveness of the father; and that faith (an ambiguous word) was the only
basis of friendship and alliance. After a long and affected delay, the
approach of danger, and the importunity of Gregory the Tenth, compelled
him to enter on a more serious negotiation: he alleged the example of the
great Vataces; and the Greek clergy, who understood the intentions of their
prince, were not alarmed by the first steps of reconciliation and respect. But
when he pressed the conclusion of the treaty, they strenuously declared, that
the Latins, though not in name, were heretics in fact, and that they despised
those strangers as the vilest and most despicable portion of the human race.
30 It was the task of the emperor to persuade, to corrupt, to intimidate the
most popular ecclesiastics, to gain the vote of each individual, and
alternately to urge the arguments of Christian charity and the public
welfare. The texts of the fathers and the arms of the Franks were balanced
in the theological and political scale; and without approving the addition to
the Nicene creed, the most moderate were taught to confess, that the two
hostile propositions of proceeding from the Father by the Son, and of
proceeding from the Father and the Son, might be reduced to a safe and
Catholic sense. 31 The supremacy of the pope was a doctrine more easy to
conceive, but more painful to acknowledge: yet Michael represented to his
monks and prelates, that they might submit to name the Roman bishop as
the first of the patriarchs; and that their distance and discretion would guard
the liberties of the Eastern church from the mischievous consequences of
the right of appeal. He protested that he would sacrifice his life and empire
rather than yield the smallest point of orthodox faith or national
independence; and this declaration was sealed and ratified by a golden bull.
The patriarch Joseph withdrew to a monastery, to resign or resume his
throne, according to the event of the treaty: the letters of union and
obedience were subscribed by the emperor, his son Andronicus, and thirty-
five archbishops and metropolitans, with their respective synods; and the
episcopal list was multiplied by many dioceses which were annihilated
under the yoke of the infidels. An embassy was composed of some trusty
ministers and prelates: they embarked for Italy, with rich ornaments and
rare perfumes for the altar of St. Peter; and their secret orders authorized
and recommended a boundless compliance. They were received in the
general council of Lyons, by Pope Gregory the Tenth, at the head of five
hundred bishops. 32 He embraced with tears his long-lost and repentant
children; accepted the oath of the ambassadors, who abjured the schism in

the name of the two emperors; adorned the prelates with the ring and mitre;
chanted in Greek and Latin the Nicene creed with the addition of filioque;
and rejoiced in the union of the East and West, which had been reserved for
his reign. To consummate this pious work, the Byzantine deputies were
speedily followed by the pope’s nuncios; and their instruction discloses the
policy of the Vatican, which could not be satisfied with the vain title of
supremacy. After viewing the temper of the prince and people, they were
enjoined to absolve the schismatic clergy, who should subscribe and swear
their abjuration and obedience; to establish in all the churches the use of the
perfect creed; to prepare the entrance of a cardinal legate, with the full
powers and dignity of his office; and to instruct the emperor in the
advantages which he might derive from the temporal protection of the
Roman pontiff. 33
29 (return)
[ Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 33, &c., from the Epistles of
Urban IV.]
30 (return)
[ From their mercantile intercourse with the Venetians and
Genoese, they branded the Latins as kaphloi and banausoi,
(Pachymer, l. v. c. 10.) “Some are heretics in name; others,
like the Latins, in fact,” said the learned Veccus, (l. v. c. 12,)
who soon afterwards became a convert (c. 15, 16) and a
patriarch, (c. 24.)]
31 (return)
[ In this class we may place Pachymer himself, whose
copious and candid narrative occupies the vth and vith books
of his history. Yet the Greek is silent on the council of
Lyons, and seems to believe that the popes always resided in
Rome and Italy, (l. v. c. 17, 21.)]
32 (return)
[ See the acts of the council of Lyons in the year 1274.
Fleury, Hist. Ecclésiastique, tom. xviii. p. 181—199. Dupin,
Bibliot. Ecclés. tom. x. p. 135.]
33 (return)
[ This curious instruction, which has been drawn with more
or less honesty by Wading and Leo Allatius from the
archives of the Vatican, is given in an abstract or version by
Fleury, (tom. xviii. p. 252—258.)]
But they found a country without a friend, a nation in which the names of
Rome and Union were pronounced with abhorrence. The patriarch Joseph
was indeed removed: his place was filled by Veccus, an ecclesiastic of
learning and moderation; and the emperor was still urged by the same

motives, to persevere in the same professions. But in his private language
Palæologus affected to deplore the pride, and to blame the innovations, of
the Latins; and while he debased his character by this double hypocrisy, he
justified and punished the opposition of his subjects. By the joint suffrage
of the new and the ancient Rome, a sentence of excommunication was
pronounced against the obstinate schismatics; the censures of the church
were executed by the sword of Michael; on the failure of persuasion, he
tried the arguments of prison and exile, of whipping and mutilation; those
touchstones, says an historian, of cowards and the brave. Two Greeks still
reigned in Ætolia, Epirus, and Thessaly, with the appellation of despots:
they had yielded to the sovereign of Constantinople, but they rejected the
chains of the Roman pontiff, and supported their refusal by successful arms.
Under their protection, the fugitive monks and bishops assembled in hostile
synods; and retorted the name of heretic with the galling addition of
apostate: the prince of Trebizond was tempted to assume the forfeit title of
emperor; 339 and even the Latins of Negropont, Thebes, Athens, and the
Morea, forgot the merits of the convert, to join, with open or clandestine
aid, the enemies of Palæologus. His favorite generals, of his own blood, and
family, successively deserted, or betrayed, the sacrilegious trust. His sister
Eulogia, a niece, and two female cousins, conspired against him; another
niece, Mary queen of Bulgaria, negotiated his ruin with the sultan of Egypt;
and, in the public eye, their treason was consecrated as the most sublime
virtue. 34 To the pope’s nuncios, who urged the consummation of the work,
Palæologus exposed a naked recital of all that he had done and suffered for
their sake. They were assured that the guilty sectaries, of both sexes and
every rank, had been deprived of their honors, their fortunes, and their
liberty; a spreading list of confiscation and punishment, which involved
many persons, the dearest to the emperor, or the best deserving of his favor.
They were conducted to the prison, to behold four princes of the royal
blood chained in the four corners, and shaking their fetters in an agony of
grief and rage. Two of these captives were afterwards released; the one by
submission, the other by death: but the obstinacy of their two companions
was chastised by the loss of their eyes; and the Greeks, the least adverse to
the union, deplored that cruel and inauspicious tragedy. 35 Persecutors must
expect the hatred of those whom they oppress; but they commonly find
some consolation in the testimony of their conscience, the applause of their
party, and, perhaps, the success of their undertaking. But the hypocrisy of

Michael, which was prompted only by political motives, must have forced
him to hate himself, to despise his followers, and to esteem and envy the
rebel champions by whom he was detested and despised. While his violence
was abhorred at Constantinople, at Rome his slowness was arraigned, and
his sincerity suspected; till at length Pope Martin the Fourth excluded the
Greek emperor from the pale of a church, into which he was striving to
reduce a schismatic people. No sooner had the tyrant expired, than the
union was dissolved, and abjured by unanimous consent; the churches were
purified; the penitents were reconciled; and his son Andronicus, after
weeping the sins and errors of his youth most piously denied his father the
burial of a prince and a Christian. 36
339 (return)
[ According to Fallmarayer he had always maintained this
title.—M.]
34 (return)
[ This frank and authentic confession of Michael’s distress is
exhibited in barbarous Latin by Ogerius, who signs himself
Protonotarius Interpretum, and transcribed by Wading from
the MSS. of the Vatican, (A.D. 1278, No. 3.) His annals of
the Franciscan order, the Fratres Minores, in xvii. volumes
in folio, (Rome, 1741,) I have now accidentally seen among
the waste paper of a bookseller.]
35 (return)
[ See the vith book of Pachymer, particularly the chapters 1,
11, 16, 18, 24—27. He is the more credible, as he speaks of
this persecution with less anger than sorrow.]
36 (return)
[ Pachymer, l. vii. c. 1—ii. 17. The speech of Andronicus the
Elder (lib. xii. c. 2) is a curious record, which proves that if
the Greeks were the slaves of the emperor, the emperor was
not less the slave of superstition and the clergy.]
II. In the distress of the Latins, the walls and towers of Constantinople
had fallen to decay: they were restored and fortified by the policy of
Michael, who deposited a plenteous store of corn and salt provisions, to
sustain the siege which he might hourly expect from the resentment of the
Western powers. Of these, the sovereign of the Two Sicilies was the most
formidable neighbor: but as long as they were possessed by Mainfroy, the
bastard of Frederic the Second, his monarchy was the bulwark, rather than
the annoyance, of the Eastern empire. The usurper, though a brave and
active prince, was sufficiently employed in the defence of his throne: his
proscription by successive popes had separated Mainfroy from the common

cause of the Latins; and the forces that might have besieged Constantinople
were detained in a crusade against the domestic enemy of Rome. The prize
of her avenger, the crown of the Two Sicilies, was won and worn by the
brother of St Louis, by Charles count of Anjou and Provence, who led the
chivalry of France on this holy expedition. 37 The disaffection of his
Christian subjects compelled Mainfroy to enlist a colony of Saracens whom
his father had planted in Apulia; and this odious succor will explain the
defiance of the Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation.
“Bear this message,” said Charles, “to the sultan of Nocera, that God and
the sword are umpire between us; and that he shall either send me to
paradise, or I will send him to the pit of hell.” The armies met: and though I
am ignorant of Mainfroy’s doom in the other world, in this he lost his
friends, his kingdom, and his life, in the bloody battle of Benevento. Naples
and Sicily were immediately peopled with a warlike race of French nobles;
and their aspiring leader embraced the future conquest of Africa, Greece,
and Palestine. The most specious reasons might point his first arms against
the Byzantine empire; and Palæologus, diffident of his own strength,
repeatedly appealed from the ambition of Charles to the humanity of St.
Louis, who still preserved a just ascendant over the mind of his ferocious
brother. For a while the attention of that brother was confined at home by
the invasion of Conradin, the last heir to the imperial house of Swabia; but
the hapless boy sunk in the unequal conflict; and his execution on a public
scaffold taught the rivals of Charles to tremble for their heads as well as
their dominions. A second respite was obtained by the last crusade of St.
Louis to the African coast; and the double motive of interest and duty urged
the king of Naples to assist, with his powers and his presence, the holy
enterprise. The death of St. Louis released him from the importunity of a
virtuous censor: the king of Tunis confessed himself the tributary and vassal
of the crown of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights were free to
enlist under his banner against the Greek empire. A treaty and a marriage
united his interest with the house of Courtenay; his daughter Beatrice was
promised to Philip, son and heir of the emperor Baldwin; a pension of six
hundred ounces of gold was allowed for his maintenance; and his generous
father distributed among his aliens the kingdoms and provinces of the East,
reserving only Constantinople, and one day’s journey round the city for the
imperial domain. 38 In this perilous moment, Palæologus was the most
eager to subscribe the creed, and implore the protection, of the Roman

pontiff, who assumed, with propriety and weight, the character of an angel
of peace, the common father of the Christians. By his voice, the sword of
Charles was chained in the scabbard; and the Greek ambassadors beheld
him, in the pope’s antechamber, biting his ivory sceptre in a transport of
fury, and deeply resenting the refusal to enfranchise and consecrate his
arms. He appears to have respected the disinterested mediation of Gregory
the Tenth; but Charles was insensibly disgusted by the pride and partiality
of Nicholas the Third; and his attachment to his kindred, the Ursini family,
alienated the most strenuous champion from the service of the church. The
hostile league against the Greeks, of Philip the Latin emperor, the king of
the Two Sicilies, and the republic of Venice, was ripened into execution;
and the election of Martin the Fourth, a French pope, gave a sanction to the
cause. Of the allies, Philip supplied his name; Martin, a bull of
excommunication; the Venetians, a squadron of forty galleys; and the
formidable powers of Charles consisted of forty counts, ten thousand men
at arms, a numerous body of infantry, and a fleet of more than three
hundred ships and transports. A distant day was appointed for assembling
this mighty force in the harbor of Brindisi; and a previous attempt was
risked with a detachment of three hundred knights, who invaded Albania,
and besieged the fortress of Belgrade. Their defeat might amuse with a
triumph the vanity of Constantinople; but the more sagacious Michael,
despairing of his arms, depended on the effects of a conspiracy; on the
secret workings of a rat, who gnawed the bowstring 39 of the Sicilian
tyrant.
37 (return)
[ The best accounts, the nearest the time, the most full and
entertaining, of the conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou,
may be found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano
Malespina, (c. 175—193,) and Giovanni Villani, (l. vii. c. 1
—10, 25—30,) which are published by Muratori in the viiith
and xiiith volumes of the Historians of Italy. In his Annals
(tom. xi. p. 56—72) he has abridged these great events
which are likewise described in the Istoria Civile of
Giannone. tom. l. xix. tom. iii. l. xx.]
38 (return)
[ Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 49—56, l. vi. c. 1—13. See
Pachymer, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 7—10, 25 l. vi. c. 30, 32, 33,
and Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv. 5, l. v. 1, 6.]
39 (return)
[ The reader of Herodotus will recollect how miraculously

the Assyrian host of Sennacherib was disarmed and
destroyed, (l. ii. c. 141.)]
Among the proscribed adherents of the house of Swabia, John of Procida
forfeited a small island of that name in the Bay of Naples. His birth was
noble, but his education was learned; and in the poverty of exile, he was
relieved by the practice of physic, which he had studied in the school of
Salerno. Fortune had left him nothing to lose, except life; and to despise life
is the first qualification of a rebel. Procida was endowed with the art of
negotiation, to enforce his reasons and disguise his motives; and in his
various transactions with nations and men, he could persuade each party
that he labored solely for their interest. The new kingdoms of Charles were
afflicted by every species of fiscal and military oppression; 40 and the lives
and fortunes of his Italian subjects were sacrificed to the greatness of their
master and the licentiousness of his followers. The hatred of Naples was
repressed by his presence; but the looser government of his vicegerents
excited the contempt, as well as the aversion, of the Sicilians: the island was
roused to a sense of freedom by the eloquence of Procida; and he displayed
to every baron his private interest in the common cause. In the confidence
of foreign aid, he successively visited the courts of the Greek emperor, and
of Peter king of Arragon, 41 who possessed the maritime countries of
Valentia and Catalonia. To the ambitious Peter a crown was presented,
which he might justly claim by his marriage with the sister 419 of
Mainfroy, and by the dying voice of Conradin, who from the scaffold had
cast a ring to his heir and avenger. Palæologus was easily persuaded to
divert his enemy from a foreign war by a rebellion at home; and a Greek
subsidy of twenty-five thousand ounces of gold was most profitably applied
to arm a Catalan fleet, which sailed under a holy banner to the specious
attack of the Saracens of Africa. In the disguise of a monk or beggar, the
indefatigable missionary of revolt flew from Constantinople to Rome, and
from Sicily to Saragossa: the treaty was sealed with the signet of Pope
Nicholas himself, the enemy of Charles; and his deed of gift transferred the
fiefs of St. Peter from the house of Anjou to that of Arragon. So widely
diffused and so freely circulated, the secret was preserved above two years
with impenetrable discretion; and each of the conspirators imbibed the
maxim of Peter, who declared that he would cut off his left hand if it were
conscious of the intentions of his right. The mine was prepared with deep

and dangerous artifice; but it may be questioned, whether the instant
explosion of Palermo were the effect of accident or design.
40 (return)
[ According to Sabas Malaspina, (Hist. Sicula, l. iii. c. 16, in
Muratori, tom. viii. p. 832,) a zealous Guelph, the subjects
of Charles, who had reviled Mainfroy as a wolf, began to
regret him as a lamb; and he justifies their discontent by the
oppressions of the French government, (l. vi. c. 2, 7.) See the
Sicilian manifesto in Nicholas Specialis, (l. i. c. 11, in
Muratori, tom. x. p. 930.)]
41 (return)
[ See the character and counsels of Peter, king of Arragon, in
Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. xiv. c. 6, tom. ii. p. 133.) The
reader for gives the Jesuit’s defects, in favor, always of his
style, and often of his sense.]
419 (return)
[ Daughter. See Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 517.—M.]
On the vigil of Easter, a procession of the disarmed citizens visited a
church without the walls; and a noble damsel was rudely insulted by a
French soldier. 42 The ravisher was instantly punished with death; and if
the people was at first scattered by a military force, their numbers and fury
prevailed: the conspirators seized the opportunity; the flame spread over the
island; and eight thousand French were exterminated in a promiscuous
massacre, which has obtained the name of the Sicilian Vespers. 43 From
every city the banners of freedom and the church were displayed: the revolt
was inspired by the presence or the soul of Procida and Peter of Arragon,
who sailed from the African coast to Palermo, was saluted as the king and
savior of the isle. By the rebellion of a people on whom he had so long
trampled with impunity, Charles was astonished and confounded; and in the
first agony of grief and devotion, he was heard to exclaim, “O God! if thou
hast decreed to humble me, grant me at least a gentle and gradual descent
from the pinnacle of greatness!” His fleet and army, which already filled the
seaports of Italy, were hastily recalled from the service of the Grecian war;
and the situation of Messina exposed that town to the first storm of his
revenge. Feeble in themselves, and yet hopeless of foreign succor, the
citizens would have repented, and submitted on the assurance of full pardon
and their ancient privileges. But the pride of the monarch was already
rekindled; and the most fervent entreaties of the legate could extort no more
than a promise, that he would forgive the remainder, after a chosen list of
eight hundred rebels had been yielded to his discretion. The despair of the

Messinese renewed their courage: Peter of Arragon approached to their
relief; 44 and his rival was driven back by the failure of provision and the
terrors of the equinox to the Calabrian shore. At the same moment, the
Catalan admiral, the famous Roger de Loria, swept the channel with an
invincible squadron: the French fleet, more numerous in transports than in
galleys, was either burnt or destroyed; and the same blow assured the
independence of Sicily and the safety of the Greek empire. A few days
before his death, the emperor Michael rejoiced in the fall of an enemy
whom he hated and esteemed; and perhaps he might be content with the
popular judgment, that had they not been matched with each other,
Constantinople and Italy must speedily have obeyed the same master. 45
From this disastrous moment, the life of Charles was a series of
misfortunes: his capital was insulted, his son was made prisoner, and he
sunk into the grave without recovering the Isle of Sicily, which, after a war
of twenty years, was finally severed from the throne of Naples, and
transferred, as an independent kingdom, to a younger branch of the house of
Arragon. 46
42 (return)
[ After enumerating the sufferings of his country, Nicholas
Specialis adds, in the true spirit of Italian jealousy, Quæ
omnia et graviora quidem, ut arbitror, patienti animo Siculi
tolerassent, nisi (quod primum cunctis dominantibus
cavendum est) alienas fminas invasissent, (l. i. c. 2, p. 924.)]
43 (return)
[ The French were long taught to remember this bloody
lesson: “If I am provoked, (said Henry the Fourth,) I will
breakfast at Milan, and dine at Naples.” “Your majesty
(replied the Spanish ambassador) may perhaps arrive in
Sicily for vespers.”]
44 (return)
[ This revolt, with the subsequent victory, are related by two
national writers, Bartholemy à Neocastro (in Muratori, tom.
xiii.,) and Nicholas Specialis (in Muratori, tom. x.,) the one
a contemporary, the other of the next century. The patriot
Specialis disclaims the name of rebellion, and all previous
correspondence with Peter of Arragon, (nullo communicato
consilio,) who happened to be with a fleet and army on the
African coast, (l. i. c. 4, 9.)]
45 (return)
[ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. v. c. 6) admires the wisdom of
Providence in this equal balance of states and princes. For
the honor of Palæologus, I had rather this balance had been
observed by an Italian writer.]

46 (return)
[ See the Chronicle of Villani, the xith volume of the Annali
d’Italia of Muratori, and the xxth and xxist books of the
Istoria Civile of Giannone.]

Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And
Constantinople.—Part III.
I shall not, I trust, be accused of superstition; but I must remark that, even
in this world, the natural order of events will sometimes afford the strong
appearances of moral retribution. The first Palæologus had saved his empire
by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion and blood; and from
these scenes of discord uprose a generation of iron men, who assaulted and
endangered the empire of his son. In modern times our debts and taxes are
the secret poison which still corrodes the bosom of peace: but in the weak
and disorderly government of the middle ages, it was agitated by the present
evil of the disbanded armies. Too idle to work, too proud to beg, the
mercenaries were accustomed to a life of rapine: they could rob with more
dignity and effect under a banner and a chief; and the sovereign, to whom
their service was useless, and their presence importunate, endeavored to
discharge the torrent on some neighboring countries. After the peace of
Sicily, many thousands of Genoese, Catalans, 47 &c., who had fought, by
sea and land, under the standard of Anjou or Arragon, were blended into
one nation by the resemblance of their manners and interest. They heard
that the Greek provinces of Asia were invaded by the Turks: they resolved
to share the harvest of pay and plunder: and Frederic king of Sicily most
liberally contributed the means of their departure. In a warfare of twenty
years, a ship, or a camp, was become their country; arms were their sole
profession and property; valor was the only virtue which they knew; their
women had imbibed the fearless temper of their lovers and husbands: it was
reported, that, with a stroke of their broadsword, the Catalans could cleave a
horseman and a horse; and the report itself was a powerful weapon. Roger
de Flor 477 was the most popular of their chiefs; and his personal merit
overshadowed the dignity of his prouder rivals of Arragon. The offspring of
a marriage between a German gentleman of the court of Frederic the
Second and a damsel of Brindisi, Roger was successively a templar, an

apostate, a pirate, and at length the richest and most powerful admiral of the
Mediterranean. He sailed from Messina to Constantinople, with eighteen
galleys, four great ships, and eight thousand adventurers; 478 and his
previous treaty was faithfully accomplished by Andronicus the elder, who
accepted with joy and terror this formidable succor. A palace was allotted
for his reception, and a niece of the emperor was given in marriage to the
valiant stranger, who was immediately created great duke or admiral of
Romania. After a decent repose, he transported his troops over the
Propontis, and boldly led them against the Turks: in two bloody battles
thirty thousand of the Moslems were slain: he raised the siege of
Philadelphia, and deserved the name of the deliverer of Asia. But after a
short season of prosperity, the cloud of slavery and ruin again burst on that
unhappy province. The inhabitants escaped (says a Greek historian) from
the smoke into the flames; and the hostility of the Turks was less pernicious
than the friendship of the Catalans. 479 The lives and fortunes which they
had rescued they considered as their own: the willing or reluctant maid was
saved from the race of circumcision for the embraces of a Christian soldier:
the exaction of fines and supplies was enforced by licentious rapine and
arbitrary executions; and, on the resistance of Magnesia, the great duke
besieged a city of the Roman empire. 48 These disorders he excused by the
wrongs and passions of a victorious army; nor would his own authority or
person have been safe, had he dared to punish his faithful followers, who
were defrauded of the just and covenanted price of their services. The
threats and complaints of Andronicus disclosed the nakedness of the
empire. His golden bull had invited no more than five hundred horse and a
thousand foot soldiers; yet the crowds of volunteers, who migrated to the
East, had been enlisted and fed by his spontaneous bounty. While his
bravest allies were content with three byzants or pieces of gold, for their
monthly pay, an ounce, or even two ounces, of gold were assigned to the
Catalans, whose annual pension would thus amount to near a hundred
pounds sterling: one of their chiefs had modestly rated at three hundred
thousand crowns the value of his future merits; and above a million had
been issued from the treasury for the maintenance of these costly
mercenaries. A cruel tax had been imposed on the corn of the husbandman:
one third was retrenched from the salaries of the public officers; and the
standard of the coin was so shamefully debased, that of the four-and-twenty
parts only five were of pure gold. 49 At the summons of the emperor, Roger

evacuated a province which no longer supplied the materials of rapine; 496
but he refused to disperse his troops; and while his style was respectful, his
conduct was independent and hostile. He protested, that if the emperor
should march against him, he would advance forty paces to kiss the ground
before him; but in rising from this prostrate attitude Roger had a life and
sword at the service of his friends. The great duke of Romania
condescended to accept the title and ornaments of Cæsar; but he rejected
the new proposal of the government of Asia with a subsidy of corn and
money, 497 on condition that he should reduce his troops to the harmless
number of three thousand men. Assassination is the last resource of
cowards. The Cæsar was tempted to visit the royal residence of Adrianople;
in the apartment, and before the eyes, of the empress he was stabbed by the
Alani guards; and though the deed was imputed to their private revenge,
498 his countrymen, who dwelt at Constantinople in the security of peace,
were involved in the same proscription by the prince or people. The loss of
their leader intimidated the crowd of adventurers, who hoisted the sails of
flight, and were soon scattered round the coasts of the Mediterranean. But a
veteran band of fifteen hundred Catalans, or French, stood firm in the
strong fortress of Gallipoli on the Hellespont, displayed the banners of
Arragon, and offered to revenge and justify their chief, by an equal combat
of ten or a hundred warriors. Instead of accepting this bold defiance, the
emperor Michael, the son and colleague of Andronicus, resolved to oppress
them with the weight of multitudes: every nerve was strained to form an
army of thirteen thousand horse and thirty thousand foot; and the Propontis
was covered with the ships of the Greeks and Genoese. In two battles by sea
and land, these mighty forces were encountered and overthrown by the
despair and discipline of the Catalans: the young emperor fled to the palace;
and an insufficient guard of light-horse was left for the protection of the
open country. Victory renewed the hopes and numbers of the adventures:
every nation was blended under the name and standard of the great
company; and three thousand Turkish proselytes deserted from the Imperial
service to join this military association. In the possession of Gallipoli, 509
the Catalans intercepted the trade of Constantinople and the Black Sea,
while they spread their devastation on either side of the Hellespont over the
confines of Europe and Asia. To prevent their approach, the greatest part of
the Byzantine territory was laid waste by the Greeks themselves: the
peasants and their cattle retired into the city; and myriads of sheep and

oxen, for which neither place nor food could be procured, were unprofitably
slaughtered on the same day. Four times the emperor Andronicus sued for
peace, and four times he was inflexibly repulsed, till the want of provisions,
and the discord of the chiefs, compelled the Catalans to evacuate the banks
of the Hellespont and the neighborhood of the capital. After their separation
from the Turks, the remains of the great company pursued their march
through Macedonia and Thessaly, to seek a new establishment in the heart
of Greece. 50
47 (return)
[ In this motley multitude, the Catalans and Spaniards, the
bravest of the soldiery, were styled by themselves and the
Greeks Amogavares. Moncada derives their origin from the
Goths, and Pachymer (l. xi. c. 22) from the Arabs; and in
spite of national and religious pride, I am afraid the latter is
in the right.]
477 (return)
[ On Roger de Flor and his companions, see an historical
fragment, detailed and interesting, entitled “The Spaniards
of the Fourteenth Century,” and inserted in “L’Espagne en
1808,” a work translated from the German, vol. ii. p. 167.
This narrative enables us to detect some slight errors which
have crept into that of Gibbon.—G.]
478 (return)
[ The troops of Roger de Flor, according to his companions
Ramon de Montaner, were 1500 men at arms, 4000
Almogavares, and 1040 other foot, besides the sailors and
mariners, vol. ii. p. 137.—M.]
479 (return)
[ Ramon de Montaner suppresses the cruelties and
oppressions of the Catalans, in which, perhaps, he shared.—
M.]
48 (return)
[ Some idea may be formed of the population of these cities,
from the 36,000 inhabitants of Tralles, which, in the
preceding reign, was rebuilt by the emperor, and ruined by
the Turks. (Pachymer, l. vi. c. 20, 21.)]
49 (return)
[ I have collected these pecuniary circumstances from
Pachymer, (l. xi. c. 21, l. xii. c. 4, 5, 8, 14, 19,) who
describes the progressive degradation of the gold coin. Even
in the prosperous times of John Ducas Vataces, the byzants
were composed in equal proportions of the pure and the
baser metal. The poverty of Michael Palæologus compelled
him to strike a new coin, with nine parts, or carats, of gold,
and fifteen of copper alloy. After his death, the standard rose
to ten carats, till in the public distress it was reduced to the

moiety. The prince was relieved for a moment, while credit
and commerce were forever blasted. In France, the gold coin
is of twenty-two carats, (one twelfth alloy,) and the standard
of England and Holland is still higher.]
496 (return)
[ Roger de Flor, according to Ramon de Montaner, was
recalled from Natolia, on account of the war which had
arisen on the death of Asan, king of Bulgaria. Andronicus
claimed the kingdom for his nephew, the sons of Asan by his
sister. Roger de Flor turned the tide of success in favor of the
emperor of Constantinople and made peace.—M.]
497 (return)
[ Andronicus paid the Catalans in the debased money, much
to their indignation.—M.]
498 (return)
[ According to Ramon de Montaner, he was murdered by
order of Kyr (kurioV) Michael, son of the emperor. p. 170.
—M.]
509 (return)
[ Ramon de Montaner describes his sojourn at Gallipoli:
Nous etions si riches, que nous ne semions, ni ne labourions,
ni ne faisions enver des vins ni ne cultivions les vignes: et
cependant tous les ans nous recucillions tour ce qu’il nous
fallait, en vin, froment et avoine. p. 193. This lasted for five
merry years. Ramon de Montaner is high authority, for he
was “chancelier et maitre rational de l’armée,” (commissary
of rations.) He was left governor; all the scribes of the army
remained with him, and with their aid he kept the books in
which were registered the number of horse and foot
employed on each expedition. According to this book the
plunder was shared, of which he had a fifth for his trouble.
p. 197.—M.]
50 (return)
[ The Catalan war is most copiously related by Pachymer, in
the xith, xiith, and xiiith books, till he breaks off in the year
1308. Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 3—6) is more concise
and complete. Ducange, who adopts these adventurers as
French, has hunted their footsteps with his usual diligence,
(Hist. de C. P. l. vi. c. 22—46.) He quotes an Arragonese
history, which I have read with pleasure, and which the
Spaniards extol as a model of style and composition,
(Expedicion de los Catalanes y Arragoneses contra Turcos y
Griegos: Barcelona, 1623 in quarto: Madrid, 1777, in
octavo.) Don Francisco de Moncada Conde de Ossona, may
imitate Cæsar or Sallust; he may transcribe the Greek or
Italian contemporaries: but he never quotes his authorities,
and I cannot discern any national records of the exploits of
his countrymen. * Note: Ramon de Montaner, one of the
Catalans, who accompanied Roger de Flor, and who was

governor of Gallipoli, has written, in Spanish, the history of
this band of adventurers, to which he belonged, and from
which he separated when it left the Thracian Chersonese to
penetrate into Macedonia and Greece.—G.——The
autobiography of Ramon de Montaner has been published in
French by M. Buchon, in the great collection of Mémoires
relatifs à l’Histoire de France. I quote this edition.—M.]
After some ages of oblivion, Greece was awakened to new misfortunes
by the arms of the Latins. In the two hundred and fifty years between the
first and the last conquest of Constantinople, that venerable land was
disputed by a multitude of petty tyrants; without the comforts of freedom
and genius, her ancient cities were again plunged in foreign and intestine
war; and, if servitude be preferable to anarchy, they might repose with joy
under the Turkish yoke. I shall not pursue the obscure and various
dynasties, that rose and fell on the continent or in the isles; but our silence
on the fate of Athens 51 would argue a strange ingratitude to the first and
purest school of liberal science and amusement. In the partition of the
empire, the principality of Athens and Thebes was assigned to Otho de la
Roche, a noble warrior of Burgundy, 52 with the title of great duke, 53
which the Latins understood in their own sense, and the Greeks more
foolishly derived from the age of Constantine. 54 Otho followed the
standard of the marquis of Montferrat: the ample state which he acquired by
a miracle of conduct or fortune, 55 was peaceably inherited by his son and
two grandsons, till the family, though not the nation, was changed, by the
marriage of an heiress into the elder branch of the house of Brienne. The
son of that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy of Athens;
and, with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he invested with
fiefs, reduced above thirty castles of the vassal or neighboring lords. But
when he was informed of the approach and ambition of the great company,
he collected a force of seven hundred knights, six thousand four hundred
horse, and eight thousand foot, and boldly met them on the banks of the
River Cephisus in Bœotia. The Catalans amounted to no more than three
thousand five hundred horse, and four thousand foot; but the deficiency of
numbers was compensated by stratagem and order. They formed round their
camp an artificial inundation; the duke and his knights advanced without
fear or precaution on the verdant meadow; their horses plunged into the
bog; and he was cut in pieces, with the greatest part of the French cavalry.
His family and nation were expelled; and his son Walter de Brienne, the

titular duke of Athens, the tyrant of Florence, and the constable of France,
lost his life in the field of Poitiers Attica and Bœotia were the rewards of the
victorious Catalans; they married the widows and daughters of the slain;
and during fourteen years, the great company was the terror of the Grecian
states. Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty of the
house of Arragon; and during the remainder of the fourteenth century,
Athens, as a government or an appanage, was successively bestowed by the
kings of Sicily. After the French and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of
the Accaioli, a family, plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and sovereign
in Greece. Athens, which they embellished with new buildings, became the
capital of a state, that extended over Thebes, Argos, Corinth, Delphi, and a
part of Thessaly; and their reign was finally determined by Mahomet the
Second, who strangled the last duke, and educated his sons in the discipline
and religion of the seraglio.
51 (return)
[ See the laborious history of Ducange, whose accurate table
of the French dynasties recapitulates the thirty-five passages,
in which he mentions the dukes of Athens.]
52 (return)
[ He is twice mentioned by Villehardouin with honor, (No.
151, 235;) and under the first passage, Ducange observes all
that can be known of his person and family.]
53 (return)
[ From these Latin princes of the xivth century, Boccace,
Chaucer. and Shakspeare, have borrowed their Theseus duke
of Athens. An ignorant age transfers its own language and
manners to the most distant times.]
54 (return)
[ The same Constantine gave to Sicily a king, to Russia the
magnus dapifer of the empire, to Thebes the primicerius;
and these absurd fables are properly lashed by Ducange, (ad
Nicephor. Greg. l. vii. c. 5.) By the Latins, the lord of
Thebes was styled, by corruption, the Megas Kurios, or
Grand Sire!]
55 (return)
[ Quodam miraculo, says Alberic. He was probably received
by Michael Choniates, the archbishop who had defended
Athens against the tyrant Leo Sgurus, (Nicetas urbs capta, p.
805, ed. Bek.) Michael was the brother of the historian
Nicetas; and his encomium of Athens is still extant in MS. in
the Bodleian library, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc tom. vi. p. 405.)
* Note: Nicetas says expressly that Michael surrendered the
Acropolis to the marquis.—M.]

Athens, 56 though no more than the shadow of her former self, still
contains about eight or ten thousand inhabitants; of these, three fourths are
Greeks in religion and language; and the Turks, who compose the
remainder, have relaxed, in their intercourse with the citizens, somewhat of
the pride and gravity of their national character. The olive-tree, the gift of
Minerva, flourishes in Attica; nor has the honey of Mount Hymettus lost
any part of its exquisite flavor: 57 but the languid trade is monopolized by
strangers, and the agriculture of a barren land is abandoned to the vagrant
Walachians. The Athenians are still distinguished by the subtlety and
acuteness of their understandings; but these qualities, unless ennobled by
freedom, and enlightened by study, will degenerate into a low and selfish
cunning: and it is a proverbial saying of the country, “From the Jews of
Thessalonica, the Turks of Negropont, and the Greeks of Athens, good Lord
deliver us!” This artful people has eluded the tyranny of the Turkish
bashaws, by an expedient which alleviates their servitude and aggravates
their shame. About the middle of the last century, the Athenians chose for
their protector the Kislar Aga, or chief black eunuch of the seraglio. This
Æthiopian slave, who possesses the sultan’s ear, condescends to accept the
tribute of thirty thousand crowns: his lieutenant, the Waywode, whom he
annually confirms, may reserve for his own about five or six thousand
more; and such is the policy of the citizens, that they seldom fail to remove
and punish an oppressive governor. Their private differences are decided by
the archbishop, one of the richest prelates of the Greek church, since he
possesses a revenue of one thousand pounds sterling; and by a tribunal of
the eight geronti or elders, chosen in the eight quarters of the city: the noble
families cannot trace their pedigree above three hundred years; but their
principal members are distinguished by a grave demeanor, a fur cap, and the
lofty appellation of archon. By some, who delight in the contrast, the
modern language of Athens is represented as the most corrupt and
barbarous of the seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek: 58 this picture is too
darkly colored: but it would not be easy, in the country of Plato and
Demosthenes, to find a reader or a copy of their works. The Athenians walk
with supine indifference among the glorious ruins of antiquity; and such is
the debasement of their character, that they are incapable of admiring the
genius of their predecessors. 59
56 (return)
[ The modern account of Athens, and the Athenians, is
extracted from Spon, (Voyage en Grece, tom. ii. p. 79—

199,) and Wheeler, (Travels into Greece, p. 337—414,)
Stuart, (Antiquities of Athens, passim,) and Chandler,
(Travels into Greece, p. 23—172.) The first of these
travellers visited Greece in the year 1676; the last, 1765; and
ninety years had not produced much difference in the
tranquil scene.]
57 (return)
[ The ancients, or at least the Athenians, believed that all the
bees in the world had been propagated from Mount
Hymettus. They taught, that health might be preserved, and
life prolonged, by the external use of oil, and the internal use
of honey, (Geoponica, l. xv. c 7, p. 1089—1094, edit.
Niclas.)]
58 (return)
[ Ducange, Glossar. Græc. Præfat. p. 8, who quotes for his
author Theodosius Zygomalas, a modern grammarian. Yet
Spon (tom. ii. p. 194) and Wheeler, (p. 355,) no incompetent
judges, entertain a more favorable opinion of the Attic
dialect.]
59 (return)
[ Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name of
Athens, which they still call Athini. From the eiV thn
'Aqhnhn, we have formed our own barbarism of Setines. *
Note: Gibbon did not foresee a Bavarian prince on the
throne of Greece, with Athens as his capital.—M.]

Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The
Greek Empire.—Part I.
Civil Wars, And Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Reigns Of
Andronicus, The Elder And Younger, And John Palæologus.—
Regency, Revolt, Reign, And Abdication Of John Cantacuzene.—
Establishment Of A Genoese Colony At Pera Or Galata.—Their
Wars With The Empire And City Of Constantinople.

The long reign of Andronicus 1 the elder is chiefly memorable by the
disputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans, and the rise of
the Ottoman power. He is celebrated as the most learned and virtuous prince
of the age; but such virtue, and such learning, contributed neither to the
perfection of the individual, nor to the happiness of society. A slave of the
most abject superstition, he was surrounded on all sides by visible and
invisible enemies; nor were the flames of hell less dreadful to his fancy,
than those of a Catalan or Turkish war. Under the reign of the Palæologi,
the choice of the patriarch was the most important business of the state; the
heads of the Greek church were ambitious and fanatic monks; and their
vices or virtues, their learning or ignorance, were equally mischievous or
contemptible. By his intemperate discipline, the patriarch Athanasius 2
excited the hatred of the clergy and people: he was heard to declare, that the
sinner should swallow the last dregs of the cup of penance; and the foolish
tale was propagated of his punishing a sacrilegious ass that had tasted the
lettuce of a convent garden. Driven from the throne by the universal clamor,
Athanasius composed before his retreat two papers of a very opposite cast.
His public testament was in the tone of charity and resignation; the private
codicil breathed the direst anathemas against the authors of his disgrace,
whom he excluded forever from the communion of the holy trinity, the
angels, and the saints. This last paper he enclosed in an earthen pot, which
was placed, by his order, on the top of one of the pillars, in the dome of St.
Sophia, in the distant hope of discovery and revenge. At the end of four
years, some youths, climbing

by a ladder in search of pigeons’ nests, detected the fatal secret; and,
as Andronicus felt himself touched and bound by the excommunication,
he trembled on the brink of the abyss which had been so treacherously dug
under his feet. A synod of bishops was instantly convened to debate this
important question: the rashness of these clandestine anathemas was
generally condemned; but as the knot could be untied only by the same
hand, as that hand was now deprived of the crosier, it appeared that this
posthumous decree was irrevocable by any earthly power. Some faint
testimonies of repentance and pardon were extorted from the author of the
mischief; but the conscience of the emperor was still wounded, and he
desired, with no less ardor than Athanasius himself, the restoration of a
patriarch, by whom alone he could be healed. At the dead of night, a monk
rudely knocked at the door of the royal bed-chamber, announcing a
revelation of plague and famine, of inundations and earthquakes.
Andronicus started from his bed, and spent the night in prayer, till he felt, or
thought that he felt, a slight motion of the earth. The emperor on foot led
the bishops and monks to the cell of Athanasius; and, after a proper
resistance, the saint, from whom this message had been sent, consented to
absolve the prince, and govern the church of Constantinople. Untamed by
disgrace, and hardened by solitude, the shepherd was again odious to the
flock, and his enemies contrived a singular, and as it proved, a successful,
mode of revenge. In the night, they stole away the footstool or foot-cloth of
his throne, which they secretly replaced with the decoration of a satirical
picture. The emperor was painted with a bridle in his mouth, and Athanasius
leading the tractable beast to the feet of Christ. The authors of the libel were
detected and punished; but as their lives had been spared, the Christian
priest in sullen indignation retired to his cell; and the eyes of Andronicus,
which had been opened for a moment, were again closed by his successor.
1 (return)
[ Andronicus himself will justify our freedom in the
invective, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. i. c. i.,) which he
pronounced against historic falsehood. It is true, that his
censure is more pointedly urged against calumny than
against adulation.]
2 (return)
[ For the anathema in the pigeon’s nest, see Pachymer, (l. ix.
c. 24,) who relates the general history of Athanasius, (l. viii.
c. 13—16, 20, 24, l. x. c. 27—29, 31—36, l. xi. c. 1—3, 5, 6,
l. xiii. c. 8, 10, 23, 35,) and is followed by Nicephorus

Gregoras, (l. vi. c. 5, 7, l. vii. c. 1, 9,) who includes the
second retreat of this second Chrysostom.]
If this transaction be one of the most curious and important of a reign of
fifty years, I cannot at least accuse the brevity of my materials, since I
reduce into some few pages the enormous folios of Pachymer, 3
Cantacuzene, 4 and Nicephorus Gregoras, 5 who have composed the prolix
and languid story of the times. The name and situation of the emperor John
Cantacuzene might inspire the most lively curiosity. His memorials of forty
years extend from the revolt of the younger Andronicus to his own
abdication of the empire; and it is observed, that, like Moses and Cæsar, he
was the principal actor in the scenes which he describes. But in this
eloquent work we should vainly seek the sincerity of a hero or a penitent.
Retired in a cloister from the vices and passions of the world, he presents
not a confession, but an apology, of the life of an ambitious statesman.
Instead of unfolding the true counsels and characters of men, he displays
the smooth and specious surface of events, highly varnished with his own
praises and those of his friends. Their motives are always pure; their ends
always legitimate: they conspire and rebel without any views of interest;
and the violence which they inflict or suffer is celebrated as the spontaneous
effect of reason and virtue.
3 (return)
[ Pachymer, in seven books, 377 folio pages, describes the
first twenty-six years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the
date of his composition by the current news or lie of the day,
(A.D. 1308.) Either death or disgust prevented him from
resuming the pen.]
4 (return)
[ After an interval of twelve years, from the conclusion of
Pachymer, Cantacuzenus takes up the pen; and his first book
(c. 1—59, p. 9—150) relates the civil war, and the eight last
years of the elder Andronicus. The ingenious comparison
with Moses and Cæsar is fancied by his French translator,
the president Cousin.]
5 (return)
[ Nicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire life
and reign of Andronicus the elder, (l. vi. c. 1, p. 96—291.)
This is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false
and malicious representation of his conduct.]
After the example of the first of the Palæologi, the elder Andronicus
associated his son Michael to the honors of the purple; and from the age of
eighteen to his premature death, that prince was acknowledged, above

twenty-five years, as the second emperor of the Greeks. 6 At the head of an
army, he excited neither the fears of the enemy, nor the jealousy of the
court; his modesty and patience were never tempted to compute the years of
his father; nor was that father compelled to repent of his liberality either by
the virtues or vices of his son. The son of Michael was named Andronicus
from his grandfather, to whose early favor he was introduced by that
nominal resemblance. The blossoms of wit and beauty increased the
fondness of the elder Andronicus; and, with the common vanity of age, he
expected to realize in the second, the hope which had been disappointed in
the first, generation. The boy was educated in the palace as an heir and a
favorite; and in the oaths and acclamations of the people, the august triad
was formed by the names of the father, the son, and the grandson. But the
younger Andronicus was speedily corrupted by his infant greatness, while
he beheld with puerile impatience the double obstacle that hung, and might
long hang, over his rising ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to diffuse
happiness, that he so eagerly aspired: wealth and impunity were in his eyes
the most precious attributes of a monarch; and his first indiscreet demand
was the sovereignty of some rich and fertile island, where he might lead a
life of independence and pleasure. The emperor was offended by the loud
and frequent intemperance which disturbed his capital; the sums which his
parsimony denied were supplied by the Genoese usurers of Pera; and the
oppressive debt, which consolidated the interest of a faction, could be
discharged only by a revolution. A beautiful female, a matron in rank, a
prostitute in manners, had instructed the younger Andronicus in the
rudiments of love; but he had reason to suspect the nocturnal visits of a
rival; and a stranger passing through the street was pierced by the arrows of
his guards, who were placed in ambush at her door. That stranger was his
brother, Prince Manuel, who languished and died of his wound; and the
emperor Michael, their common father, whose health was in a declining
state, expired on the eighth day, lamenting the loss of both his children. 7
However guiltless in his intention, the younger Andronicus might impute a
brother’s and a father’s death to the consequence of his own vices; and deep
was the sigh of thinking and feeling men, when they perceived, instead of
sorrow and repentance, his ill-dissembled joy on the removal of two odious
competitors. By these melancholy events, and the increase of his disorders,
the mind of the elder emperor was gradually alienated; and, after many
fruitless reproofs, he transferred on another grandson 8 his hopes and

affection. The change was announced by the new oath of allegiance to the
reigning sovereign, and the person whom he should appoint for his
successor; and the acknowledged heir, after a repetition of insults and
complaints, was exposed to the indignity of a public trial. Before the
sentence, which would probably have condemned him to a dungeon or a
cell, the emperor was informed that the palace courts were filled with the
armed followers of his grandson; the judgment was softened to a treaty of
reconciliation; and the triumphant escape of the prince encouraged the ardor
of the younger faction.
6 (return)
[ He was crowned May 21st, 1295, and died October 12th,
1320, (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239.) His brother Theodore,
by a second marriage, inherited the marquisate of
Montferrat, apostatized to the religion and manners of the
Latins, (oti kai gnwmh kai pistei kai schkati, kai geneiwn
koura kai pasin eqesin DatinoV hn akraijnhV. Nic. Greg. l.
ix. c. 1,) and founded a dynasty of Italian princes, which was
extinguished A.D. 1533, (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 249—
253.)]
7 (return)
[ We are indebted to Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 1) for
the knowledge of this tragic adventure; while Cantacuzene
more discreetly conceals the vices of Andronicus the
Younger, of which he was the witness and perhaps the
associate, (l. i. c. 1, &c.)]
8 (return)
[ His destined heir was Michael Catharus, the bastard of
Constantine his second son. In this project of excluding his
grandson Andronicus, Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 3)
agrees with Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 1, 2.)]
Yet the capital, the clergy, and the senate, adhered to the person, or at
least to the government, of the old emperor; and it was only in the
provinces, by flight, and revolt, and foreign succor, that the malecontents
could hope to vindicate their cause and subvert his throne. The soul of the
enterprise was the great domestic John Cantacuzene; the sally from
Constantinople is the first date of his actions and memorials; and if his own
pen be most descriptive of his patriotism, an unfriendly historian has not
refused to celebrate the zeal and ability which he displayed in the service of
the young emperor. 89 That prince escaped from the capital under the
pretence of hunting; erected his standard at Adrianople; and, in a few days,
assembled fifty thousand horse and foot, whom neither honor nor duty
could have armed against the Barbarians. Such a force might have saved or

commanded the empire; but their counsels were discordant, their motions
were slow and doubtful, and their progress was checked by intrigue and
negotiation. The quarrel of the two Andronici was protracted, and
suspended, and renewed, during a ruinous period of seven years. In the first
treaty, the relics of the Greek empire were divided: Constantinople,
Thessalonica, and the islands, were left to the elder, while the younger
acquired the sovereignty of the greatest part of Thrace, from Philippi to the
Byzantine limit. By the second treaty, he stipulated the payment of his
troops, his immediate coronation, and an adequate share of the power and
revenue of the state. The third civil war was terminated by the surprise of
Constantinople, the final retreat of the old emperor, and the sole reign of his
victorious grandson. The reasons of this delay may be found in the
characters of the men and of the times. When the heir of the monarchy first
pleaded his wrongs and his apprehensions, he was heard with pity and
applause: and his adherents repeated on all sides the inconsistent promise,
that he would increase the pay of the soldiers and alleviate the burdens of
the people. The grievances of forty years were mingled in his revolt; and the
rising generation was fatigued by the endless prospect of a reign, whose
favorites and maxims were of other times. The youth of Andronicus had
been without spirit, his age was without reverence: his taxes produced an
unusual revenue of five hundred thousand pounds; yet the richest of the
sovereigns of Christendom was incapable of maintaining three thousand
horse and twenty galleys, to resist the destructive progress of the Turks. 9
“How different,” said the younger Andronicus, “is my situation from that of
the son of Philip! Alexander might complain, that his father would leave
him nothing to conquer: alas! my grandsire will leave me nothing to lose.”
But the Greeks were soon admonished, that the public disorders could not
be healed by a civil war; and that their young favorite was not destined to
be the savior of a falling empire. On the first repulse, his party was broken
by his own levity, their intestine discord, and the intrigues of the ancient
court, which tempted each malecontent to desert or betray the cause of the
rebellion. Andronicus the younger was touched with remorse, or fatigued
with business, or deceived by negotiation: pleasure rather than power was
his aim; and the license of maintaining a thousand hounds, a thousand
hawks, and a thousand huntsmen, was sufficient to sully his fame and
disarm his ambition.

89 (return)
[ The conduct of Cantacuzene, by his own showing, was
inexplicable. He was unwilling to dethrone the old emperor,
and dissuaded the immediate march on Constantinople. The
young Andronicus, he says, entered into his views, and
wrote to warn the emperor of his danger when the march
was determined. Cantacuzenus, in Nov. Byz. Hist. Collect.
vol. i. p. 104, &c.—M.]
9 (return)
[ See Nicephorus Gregoras, l. viii. c. 6. The younger
Andronicus complained, that in four years and four months a
sum of 350,000 byzants of gold was due to him for the
expenses of his household, (Cantacuzen l. i. c. 48.) Yet he
would have remitted the debt, if he might have been allowed
to squeeze the farmers of the revenue.]
Let us now survey the catastrophe of this busy plot, and the final
situation of the principal actors. 10 The age of Andronicus was consumed in
civil discord; and, amidst the events of war and treaty, his power and
reputation continually decayed, till the fatal night in which the gates of the
city and palace were opened without resistance to his grandson. His
principal commander scorned the repeated warnings of danger; and retiring
to rest in the vain security of ignorance, abandoned the feeble monarch,
with some priests and pages, to the terrors of a sleepless night. These terrors
were quickly realized by the hostile shouts, which proclaimed the titles and
victory of Andronicus the younger; and the aged emperor, falling prostrate
before an image of the Virgin, despatched a suppliant message to resign the
sceptre, and to obtain his life at the hands of the conqueror. The answer of
his grandson was decent and pious; at the prayer of his friends, the younger
Andronicus assumed the sole administration; but the elder still enjoyed the
name and preeminence of the first emperor, the use of the great palace, and
a pension of twenty-four thousand pieces of gold, one half of which was
assigned on the royal treasury, and the other on the fishery of
Constantinople. But his impotence was soon exposed to contempt and
oblivion; the vast silence of the palace was disturbed only by the cattle and
poultry of the neighborhood, 101 which roved with impunity through the
solitary courts; and a reduced allowance of ten thousand pieces of gold 11
was all that he could ask, and more than he could hope. His calamities were
imbittered by the gradual extinction of sight; his confinement was rendered
each day more rigorous; and during the absence and sickness of his
grandson, his inhuman keepers, by the threats of instant death, compelled
him to exchange the purple for the monastic habit and profession. The

monk Antony had renounced the pomp of the world; yet he had occasion for
a coarse fur in the winter season, and as wine was forbidden by his
confessor, and water by his physician, the sherbet of Egypt was his common
drink. It was not without difficulty that the late emperor could procure three
or four pieces to satisfy these simple wants; and if he bestowed the gold to
relieve the more painful distress of a friend, the sacrifice is of some weight
in the scale of humanity and religion. Four years after his abdication,
Andronicus or Antony expired in a cell, in the seventy-fourth year of his
age: and the last strain of adulation could only promise a more splendid
crown of glory in heaven than he had enjoyed upon earth. 12 121
10 (return)
[ I follow the chronology of Nicephorus Gregoras, who is
remarkably exact. It is proved that Cantacuzene has
mistaken the dates of his own actions, or rather that his text
has been corrupted by ignorant transcribers.]
101 (return)
[ And the washerwomen, according to Nic. Gregoras, p. 431.
—M.]
11 (return)
[ I have endeavored to reconcile the 24,000 pieces of
Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1) with the 10,000 of Nicephorus
Gregoras, (l. ix. c. 2;) the one of whom wished to soften, the
other to magnify, the hardships of the old emperor.]
12 (return)
[ See Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. ix. 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, l. x. c. 1.)
The historian had tasted of the prosperity, and shared the
retreat, of his benefactor; and that friendship which “waits or
to the scaffold or the cell,” should not lightly be accused as
“a hireling, a prostitute to praise.” * Note: But it may be
accused of unparalleled absurdity. He compares the
extinction of the feeble old man to that of the sun: his coffin
is to be floated like Noah’s ark by a deluge of tears.—M.]
121 (return)
[ Prodigies (according to Nic. Gregoras, p. 460) announced
the departure of the old and imbecile Imperial Monk from
his earthly prison.—M.]
Nor was the reign of the younger, more glorious or fortunate than that of
the elder, Andronicus. 13 He gathered the fruits of ambition; but the taste
was transient and bitter: in the supreme station he lost the remains of his
early popularity; and the defects of his character became still more
conspicuous to the world. The public reproach urged him to march in
person against the Turks; nor did his courage fail in the hour of trial; but a
defeat and a wound were the only trophies of his expedition in Asia, which

confirmed the establishment of the Ottoman monarchy. The abuses of the
civil government attained their full maturity and perfection: his neglect of
forms, and the confusion of national dresses, are deplored by the Greeks as
the fatal symptoms of the decay of the empire. Andronicus was old before
his time; the intemperance of youth had accelerated the infirmities of age;
and after being rescued from a dangerous malady by nature, or physic, or
the Virgin, he was snatched away before he had accomplished his forty-fifth
year. He was twice married; and, as the progress of the Latins in arms and
arts had softened the prejudices of the Byzantine court, his two wives were
chosen in the princely houses of Germany and Italy. The first, Agnes at
home, Irene in Greece, was daughter of the duke of Brunswick. Her father
14 was a petty lord 15 in the poor and savage regions of the north of
Germany: 16 yet he derived some revenue from his silver mines; 17 and his
family is celebrated by the Greeks as the most ancient and noble of the
Teutonic name. 18 After the death of this childish princess, Andronicus
sought in marriage Jane, the sister of the count of Savoy; 19 and his suit
was preferred to that of the French king. 20 The count respected in his sister
the superior majesty of a Roman empress: her retinue was composed of
knights and ladies; she was regenerated and crowned in St. Sophia, under
the more orthodox appellation of Anne; and, at the nuptial feast, the Greeks
and Italians vied with each other in the martial exercises of tilts and
tournaments.
13 (return)
[ The sole reign of Andronicus the younger is described by
Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1—40, p. 191—339) and Nicephorus
Gregoras, (l. ix c. 7—l. xi. c. 11, p. 262—361.)]
14 (return)
[ Agnes, or Irene, was the daughter of Duke Henry the
Wonderful, the chief of the house of Brunswick, and the
fourth in descent from the famous Henry the Lion, duke of
Saxony and Bavaria, and conqueror of the Sclavi on the
Baltic coast. Her brother Henry was surnamed the Greek,
from his two journeys into the East: but these journeys were
subsequent to his sister’s marriage; and I am ignorant how
Agnes was discovered in the heart of Germany, and
recommended to the Byzantine court. (Rimius, Memoirs of
the House of Brunswick, p. 126—137.]
15 (return)
[ Henry the Wonderful was the founder of the branch of
Grubenhagen, extinct in the year 1596, (Rimius, p. 287.) He
resided in the castle of Wolfenbuttel, and possessed no more
than a sixth part of the allodial estates of Brunswick and

Luneburgh, which the Guelph family had saved from the
confiscation of their great fiefs. The frequent partitions
among brothers had almost ruined the princely houses of
Germany, till that just, but pernicious, law was slowly
superseded by the right of primogeniture. The principality of
Grubenhagen, one of the last remains of the Hercynian
forest, is a woody, mountainous, and barren tract,
(Busching’s Geography, vol. vi. p. 270—286, English
translation.)]
16 (return)
[ The royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburgh will
teach us, how justly, in a much later period, the north of
Germany deserved the epithets of poor and barbarous. (Essai
sur les Murs, &c.) In the year 1306, in the woods of
Luneburgh, some wild people of the Vened race were
allowed to bury alive their infirm and useless parents.
(Rimius, p. 136.)]
17 (return)
[ The assertion of Tacitus, that Germany was destitute of the
precious metals, must be taken, even in his own time, with
some limitation, (Germania, c. 5. Annal. xi. 20.) According
to Spener, (Hist. Germaniæ Pragmatica, tom. i. p. 351,)
Argentifodin in Hercyniis montibus, imperante Othone
magno (A.D. 968) primum apertæ, largam etiam opes
augendi dederunt copiam: but Rimius (p. 258, 259) defers
till the year 1016 the discovery of the silver mines of
Grubenhagen, or the Upper Hartz, which were productive in
the beginning of the xivth century, and which still yield a
considerable revenue to the house of Brunswick.]
18 (return)
[ Cantacuzene has given a most honorable testimony, hn d’
ek Germanvn auth Jugathr doukoV nti Mprouzouhk, (the
modern Greeks employ the nt for the d, and the mp for the b,
and the whole will read in the Italian idiom di Brunzuic,) tou
par autoiV epijanestatou, kai?iamprothti pantaV touV
omojulouV uperballontoV. The praise is just in itself, and
pleasing to an English ear.]
19 (return)
[ Anne, or Jane, was one of the four daughters of Amedée
the Great, by a second marriage, and half-sister of his
successor Edward count of Savoy. (Anderson’s Tables, p.
650. See Cantacuzene, l. i. c. 40—42.)]
20 (return)
[ That king, if the fact be true, must have been Charles the
Fair who in five years (1321—1326) was married to three
wives, (Anderson, p. 628.) Anne of Savoy arrived at
Constantinople in February, 1326.]

The empress Anne of Savoy survived her husband: their son, John
Palæologus, was left an orphan and an emperor in the ninth year of his age;
and his weakness was protected by the first and most deserving of the
Greeks. The long and cordial friendship of his father for John Cantacuzene
is alike honorable to the prince and the subject. It had been formed amidst
the pleasures of their youth: their families were almost equally noble; 21
and the recent lustre of the purple was amply compensated by the energy of
a private education. We have seen that the young emperor was saved by
Cantacuzene from the power of his grandfather; and, after six years of civil
war, the same favorite brought him back in triumph to the palace of
Constantinople. Under the reign of Andronicus the younger, the great
domestic ruled the emperor and the empire; and it was by his valor and
conduct that the Isle of Lesbos and the principality of Ætolia were restored
to their ancient allegiance. His enemies confess, that, among the public
robbers, Cantacuzene alone was moderate and abstemious; and the free and
voluntary account which he produces of his own wealth 22 may sustain the
presumption that he was devolved by inheritance, and not accumulated by
rapine. He does not indeed specify the value of his money, plate, and
jewels; yet, after a voluntary gift of two hundred vases of silver, after much
had been secreted by his friends and plundered by his foes, his forfeit
treasures were sufficient for the equipment of a fleet of seventy galleys. He
does not measure the size and number of his estates; but his granaries were
heaped with an incredible store of wheat and barley; and the labor of a
thousand yoke of oxen might cultivate, according to the practice of
antiquity, about sixty-two thousand five hundred acres of arable land. 23
His pastures were stocked with two thousand five hundred brood mares,
two hundred camels, three hundred mules, five hundred asses, five thousand
horned cattle, fifty thousand hogs, and seventy thousand sheep: 24 a
precious record of rural opulence, in the last period of the empire, and in a
land, most probably in Thrace, so repeatedly wasted by foreign and
domestic hostility. The favor of Cantacuzene was above his fortune. In the
moments of familiarity, in the hour of sickness, the emperor was desirous to
level the distance between them and pressed his friend to accept the diadem
and purple. The virtue of the great domestic, which is attested by his own
pen, resisted the dangerous proposal; but the last testament of Andronicus
the younger named him the guardian of his son, and the regent of the
empire.

21 (return)
[ The noble race of the Cantacuzeni (illustrious from the xith
century in the Byzantine annals) was drawn from the
Paladins of France, the heroes of those romances which, in
the xiiith century, were translated and read by the Greeks,
(Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 258.)]
22 (return)
[ See Cantacuzene, (l. iii. c. 24, 30, 36.)]
23 (return)
[ Saserna, in Gaul, and Columella, in Italy or Spain, allow
two yoke of oxen, two drivers, and six laborers, for two
hundred jugera (125 English acres) of arable land, and three
more men must be added if there be much underwood,
(Columella de Re Rustica, l. ii. c. 13, p 441, edit. Gesner.)]
24 (return)
[ In this enumeration (l. iii. c. 30) the French translation of
the president Cousin is blotted with three palpable and
essential errors. 1. He omits the 1000 yoke of working oxen.
2. He interprets the pentakosiai proV diaciliaiV, by the
number of fifteen hundred. * 3. He confounds myriads with
chiliads, and gives Cantacuzene no more than 5000 hogs.
Put not your trust in translations! Note: * There seems to be
another reading, ciliaiV. Niebuhr’s edit. in loc.—M.]
Had the regent found a suitable return of obedience and gratitude,
perhaps he would have acted with pure and zealous fidelity in the service of
his pupil. 25 A guard of five hundred soldiers watched over his person and
the palace; the funeral of the late emperor was decently performed; the
capital was silent and submissive; and five hundred letters, which
Cantacuzene despatched in the first month, informed the provinces of their
loss and their duty. The prospect of a tranquil minority was blasted by the
great duke or admiral Apocaucus, and to exaggerate his perfidy, the
Imperial historian is pleased to magnify his own imprudence, in raising him
to that office against the advice of his more sagacious sovereign. Bold and
subtle, rapacious and profuse, the avarice and ambition of Apocaucus were
by turns subservient to each other; and his talents were applied to the ruin
of his country. His arrogance was heightened by the command of a naval
force and an impregnable castle, and under the mask of oaths and flattery he
secretly conspired against his benefactor. The female court of the empress
was bribed and directed; he encouraged Anne of Savoy to assert, by the law
of nature, the tutelage of her son; the love of power was disguised by the
anxiety of maternal tenderness: and the founder of the Palæologi had
instructed his posterity to dread the example of a perfidious guardian. The