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The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon
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The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon
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The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 6
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
Ephesu and Smyrna, of Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were
restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the
Hellespont to the banks of the Maeander, 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.
[Footnote 1: 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.]
[Footnote 2: 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.)]
[Footnote 3: 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 Wilker inclines to believe
the fact. Appendix to vol. ii. p. 14. - M.]
[Footnote 4: 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.)]
[Footnote 5: 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.]
[Footnote 6: 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.]
[Footnote 7: Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and
by Strabo, with an ambiguous title, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 121.)
Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude 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 Schulrens 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.
[Footnote 8: For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anna
Comnena, Alexias, l. xi. p. 331, &c., and the viiith book of
Albert Aquensis.)]
[Footnote 9: 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 Germanicae, p. 372, 373,)
Scriptores Rerum Francicarum a Duchesne tom. iv.: Nicetas, in
Vit. Manuel, l. i. c. 4, 5, 6, p. 41 - 48 Cinnamus l. ii. p. 41 -
49.]
[Footnote 10: 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 Asiatica 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 ^* 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.
[Footnote 11: 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.]
[Footnote *: 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.,
Wichaud, book iv. - M.]
[Footnote 12: William of Tyre, and Matthew Paris, reckon 70,000
loricati in each of the armies.]
[Footnote 13: The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus,
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 quaeras, Millia millena militis agmen
erat.]
[Footnote 14: 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.)]
[Footnote 15: 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.
Note: He names both - 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
[Footnote 16: 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.]
[Footnote 17: The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by
Nicetas, while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his
countrymen, (culpa nostra.) 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.]
[Footnote 18: Cinnamus translates into Latin. 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 aequo, not ex equo, according to
the laughable readings of some MSS.]
[Footnote 19: Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum,
(Anonym Canis. p. 512.)]
[Footnote 20: 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 singular toleration.]
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; ^* 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 Maender.
The contrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the retreat of
Conrad: ^! 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. ^* 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
[Footnote *: This was the design of the pilgrims under the
archbishop of Milan. See note, p. 102. - M.]
[Footnote !: 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
Maeandes, was engaged in a "glorious action." Wilken, vol. iii.
p. 179. Michaud vol. ii. p. 160. Gibbon followed Nicetas. - M.]
[Footnote 21: 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.)]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 22: 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.]
[Footnote 23: Terram horroris et salsuginis, terram siccam
sterilem, inamoenam. Anonym. Canis. p. 517. The emphatic
language of a sufferer.]
[Footnote 24: Gens innumera, sylvestris, indomita, praedones sine
ductore. The sultan of Cogni might sincerely rejoice in their
defeat. Anonym. Canis. p. 517, 518.]
[Footnote 25: 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.]
[Footnote 26: 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. Curt. 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.]
[Footnote 27: Marinus Sanutus, A.D. 1321, lays it down as a
precept, Quod stolus ecclesiae 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. ^* 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: ^* 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.
[Footnote 28: The most authentic information of St. Bernard must
be drawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition by
Pere 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]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 29: 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, (Melanges tires d'une Grande
Bibliotheque, tom. xlvi. p. 15 - 20.)]
[Footnote 30: 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 lacu 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.]
[Footnote 31: 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.]
[Footnote *: 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]
[Footnote 32: Mandastis et obedivi . . . . multiplicati sunt
super numerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et pene jam non
inveniunt quem apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo
ubique viduae vivis remanent viris. Bernard. Epist. p. 247. We
must be careful not to construe pene as a substantive.]
[Footnote 33: Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante
facies armatorum, aut quid tam remotum a professione mea, si
vires, si peritia, &c. Epist. 256, tom. i. p. 259. He speaks
with contempt of the hermit Peter, vir quidam, Epist. 363.]
[Footnote 34: Sic dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quod a Domino
sermo egressus sit? Quae signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non
est quod ad ista ipse respondeam; parcendum verecundiae meae,
responde tu pro me, et pro te ipso, secundum quae vidisti et
audisti, et secundum quod te inspiraverit Deus. Consolat. l. ii.
c. 1. Opp. tom. ii. p. 421 - 423.]
[Footnote 35: 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 Curdistan 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; ^* 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.
[Footnote 36: Abulmahasen apud de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom.
ii. p. ii. p. 99.]
[Footnote 37: See his article in the Bibliotheque 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.]
[Footnote 38: 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 Bibliotheque Orientale, under the articles Atabeks and
Noureddin, and the Dynasties of Abulpharagius, p. 250 - 267,
vers. Pocock.]
[Footnote 39: 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.]
[Footnote *: On Noureddin's conquest of Damascus, see extracts
from Arabian writers prefixed to the second part of the third
volume of Wilken. - M.]
[Footnote 40: Noradinus (says William of Tyre, l. xx. 33) maximus
nominis et fidei Christianae persecutor; princeps tamen justus,
vafer, providus' et secundum gentis suae traditiones religiosus.
To this Catholic witness we may add the primate of the Jacobites,
(Abulpharag. p. 267,) quo non alter erat inter reges vitae
ratione magis laudabili, aut quae pluribus justitiae 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 ^* 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. ^! 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
[Footnote 41: 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.)]
[Footnote 42: 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.]
[Footnote 43: Jacobus a 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.]
[Footnote 44: 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.)]
[Footnote *: The treaty stipulated that both the Christians and
the Arabs should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii.
p. 113. - M.]
[Footnote !: 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.]
[Footnote 45: 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 Curds; ^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 Curd, 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 profane honors 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 Curds 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.
[Footnote 46: For the Curds, 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
Rawadiaei, 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 Curds.]
[Footnote 47: 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.]
[Footnote 48: 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 Bibliotheque Orientale, and all that may be
gleaned from the Dynasties of Abulpharagius.]
[Footnote 49: Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may
share the praise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of
the founder.]
[Footnote 50: 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.)]
[Footnote 51: 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 victoriae, Schultens, Praefat.]
[Footnote 52: 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.)]
[Footnote 53: See his life and character in Renaudot, p. 537 -
548.]
[Footnote 54: His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in
the first chapter of Bohadin, (p. 4 - 30,) himself an
eye-witness, and an honest bigot.]
[Footnote 55: 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.]
[Footnote 56: Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.]
[Footnote 57: Bohadin, p. 129, 130.]
During his 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. ^* 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
[Footnote 58: 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.]
[Footnote 59: 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 Kudsitica, p. 18, apud Schultens;) a
specimen of Arabian eloquence, somewhat different from the style
of Xenophon!]
[Footnote 60: 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.]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 61: 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.)]
[Footnote 62: 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
[Footnote 63: Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.]
[Footnote 64: 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
[Footnote 65: The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously
described by Bernard Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terrae
Sanctae, c. 167 - 179,) the author of the Historia
Hierosolymitana, (p. 1150 - 1172, in Bongarnius,) Abulfeda, (p.
43 - 50,) and Bohadin, (p. 75 - 179.)]
[Footnote 66: 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.]
[Footnote 67: Northmanni et Gothi, et caeteri populi insularum
quae inter occidentem et septentrionem sitae sunt, gentes
bellicosae, corporis proceri mortis intrepidae, bipenbibus
armatae, navibus rotundis, quae Ysnachiae dicuntur, advectae.]
[Footnote 68: 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.]
[Footnote 69: Bohadin, p. 180; and this massacre is neither
denied nor blamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa
complentes, (the English soldiers,) says Galfridus a 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 a Vitriaco, l. i. c. 98, p. 1122.)]
[Footnote 70: 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 Coeur 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
Caesarea 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?
[Footnote 71: 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.]
[Footnote 72: Rex Angliae, praestrenuus . . . . rege Gallorum
minor apud eos censebatur ratione regni atque dignitatis; sed tum
divitiis florentior, tum bellica 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.]
[Footnote 73: Joinville, p. 17. Cuides-tu que ce soit le roi
Richart?]
[Footnote 74: 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'Academie 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.]
[Footnote 75: 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. a Vitriaco, l. i. c. 100, p. 1123.
Vinisauf, l. v. c. 50, p. 399.)]
[Footnote 76: Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince,
remained in Jerusalem, nec Curdi Turcis, nec Turci essent
obtemperaturi Curdis, (Bohadin, p. 236.) He draws aside a corner
of the political curtain.]
[Footnote 77: Bohadin, (p. 237,) and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf,
(l. vi. c. 1 - 8, p. 403 - 409,) ascribe the retreat to Richard
himself; and Jacobus a Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience
to depart, in alterum virum muta tus 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.]
[Footnote 78: 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.
[Footnote 79: 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.)]
[Footnote 80: The most copious and original account of this holy
war is Galfridi a Vinisauf, Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi
et aliorum in Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published in
the iid volume of Gale's Scriptores Hist. Anglicanae, (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.]
[Footnote 81: Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish
notion of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran
with his last breath.]
[Footnote 82: See the succession of the Ayoubites, in
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 277, &c.,) and the tables of M. De
Guignes, l'Art de Verifier les Dates, and the Bibliotheque
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 [Footnote 83: 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.)]
[Footnote 84: See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Murat. Script.
Rer. Ital., (tom. iii. p. 486 - 568.)]
[Footnote 85: See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in
Jacobus a 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.)]
[Footnote 86: To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the
pope (A.D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem.
Fideles mirabantur quod 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.]
[Footnote 87: This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. 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 ^* 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.
[Footnote 88: 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. Eccles. 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.)]
[Footnote 89: Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not
what to say: "Chino qui il capo,' &c. p. 322]
[Footnote 90: 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.]
[Footnote 91: 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.)]
[Footnote *: 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
[Footnote 92: Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St.
Louis, by the confessor of Queen Margaret, (p. 291 - 523.
Joinville, du Louvre.)]
[Footnote 93: 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'espee, dequoi il doit donner parmi le
ventre dedens, tant comme elle y peut entrer' (p. 12.)]
[Footnote 94: 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.)]
[Footnote 95: 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 praetorian 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.
[Footnote 96: 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.]
[Footnote 97: 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.)]
[Footnote 98: 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.)]
[Footnote 99: 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. Generale,
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
[Footnote 100: 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.]
[Footnote 101: Voltaire, Hist. Generale, 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;
^* and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of a
fanatic assassin. ^106 ^! 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.
[Footnote 102: 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.)]
[Footnote 103: 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 Abrege 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.]
[Footnote 104: Si totum quo regnum occuparunt tempus respicias,
praesertim 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.)]
[Footnote 105: 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.)]
[Footnote *: Gibbon colors rather highly the success of Edward.
Wilken is more accurate vol. vii. p. 593, &c. - M.]
[Footnote 106: 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.]
[Footnote !: The sultan Bibars was concerned in this attempt at
assassination Wilken, vol. vii. p. 602. Ptolemaeus Lucensis is
the earliest authority for the devotion of Eleanora. Ibid. 605.
- M.]
[Footnote 107: 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
[Footnote 108: The state of Acre is represented in all the
chronicles of te times, and most accurately in John Villani, l.
vii. c. 144, in Muratoru Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii.
337, 338.]
[Footnote 109: 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.
[Footnote 1: 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.
Eccles. 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
[Footnote 2: (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.]
[Footnote 3: 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.)]
[Footnote 4: 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 cautela orthodoxae 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.]
[Footnote 5: 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!]
[Footnote 6: 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 privee des Francois, tom. ii. p. 27 - 38.)]
[Footnote 7: 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 Caesar 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
[Footnote 8: 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.]
[Footnote 9: 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.]
[Footnote 10: See this anathema in the Councils, tom. xi. p. 1457
- 1460.]
[Footnote 11: 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.
[Footnote 12: 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
Graecis injunxerat in remissionem peccatorum peregrinos occidere
et delere de terra. Tagino observes, (in Scriptores Freher. tom.
i. p. 409, edit. Struv.,) Graeci haereticos nos appellant:
clerici et monachi dictis et factis persequuntur. We may add the
declaration of the emperor Baldwin fifteen years afterwards: Haec
est (gens) quae Latinos omnes non hominum nomine, sed canum
dignabatur; quorum sanguinem effundere pene 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.]
[Footnote 13: 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, &c.]
[Footnote 14: Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 186, 187.]
[Footnote 15: Nicetas in Manuel. l. vii. c. 2. Regnante enim
(Manuele) . . apud eum tantam Latinus populus repererat gratiam
ut neglectis Graeculis suis tanquam viris mollibus et
effoeminatis, . . . . solis Latinis grandia committeret negotia .
. . . erga eos profusa liberalitate abundabat . . . . ex omni
orbe ad eum tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles et ignobiles
concurrebant. Willelm. Tyr. xxii. c. 10.]
[Footnote 16: 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 shephero, &c (See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom.
xv. p. 187, 213, 243.)]
[Footnote 17: 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.
[Footnote 18: 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.]
[Footnote 19: 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
daemoniac 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 Haemus. 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.
[Footnote 20: Ducange, Familiae, Dalmaticae, 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.]
[Footnote 21: The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis
Romae prosapia 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.
[Footnote 22: 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.)]
[Footnote 23: 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.]
[Footnote 24: 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 Pyrenaean 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.
[Footnote 25: See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 26, &c., and
Villehardouin, No. 1, with the observations of Ducange, which I
always mean to quote with the original text.]
[Footnote 26: 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.]
[Footnote 27: Por-ce que cil pardon, fut issi gran, si s'en
esmeurent mult licuers des genz, et mult s'en croisierent, porce
que li pardons ere su gran. Villehardouin, No. 1. Our
philosophers may refine on the causes of the crusades, but such
were the genuine feelings of a French knight.]
[Footnote 28: 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.)]
[Footnote 29: Campania . . . . militiae privilegio singularius
excellit . . . . in tyrociniis . . . . prolusione armorum, &c.,
Duncage, p. 249, from the old Chronicle of Jerusalem, A.D. 1177 -
1199.]
[Footnote 30: 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.)]
[Footnote 31: 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.]
[Footnote 32: This language, of which I shall produce some
specimens, is explained by Vigenere and Ducange, in a version and
glossary. The president Des Brosses (Mechanisme 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.]
[Footnote 33: His age, and his own expression, moi qui ceste
oeuvre 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.]
[Footnote 34: 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 Caesars, 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
[Footnote 35: History, &c., vol. iii. p. 446, 447.]
[Footnote 36: 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. Italiae Medii
Aevi, in Muratori, Script. tom. x. p. 153.) The two critics have
a slight bias, the Frenchman adverse, the Italian favorable, to
the republic.]
[Footnote 37: When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right of
sovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, (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 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.]
[Footnote 38: See the xxvth and xxxth dissertations of the
Antiquitates Medii Aevi 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 Abbe Dubos, (Hist. de la Ligue de
Cambray, tom. ii. p. 443 - 480.)]
[Footnote 39: 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 Abbe 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.
[Footnote 40: 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 Prooem. ad Character.,)I am much
inclined to read 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.]
[Footnote 41: 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.]
[Footnote 42: See the original treaty in the Chronicle of Andrew
Dandolo, p. 323 - 326.]
[Footnote 43: A reader of Villehardouin must observe the frequent
tears of the marshal and his brother knights. Sachiez que la ot
mainte lerme ploree de pitie, (No. 17;) mult plorant, (ibid;)
mainte lerme ploree, (No. 34;) si orent mult pitie et plorerent
mult durement, (No. 60;) i ot mainte lerme ploree de pitie, (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 ^* 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.
[Footnote 44: 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.)]
[Footnote 45: 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]
[Footnote 46: 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 Grece, &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.]
[Footnote 47: Katona (Hist. Critica Reg. Hungariae, Stirpis
Arpad. tom. iv. p. 536 - 558) collects all the facts and
testimonies most adverse to the conquerors of Zara.]
[Footnote 48: See the whole transaction, and the sentiments of
the pope, in the Epistles of Innocent III. Gesta, c. 86, 87,
88.]
[Footnote *: 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 Caesar, 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.
[Footnote 49: 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.)]
[Footnote 50: The emperor Isaac is styled by Villehardouin,
Sursac, (No. 35, &c.,) which may be derived from the French Sire,
or the Greek 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.]
[Footnote 51: 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.)]
[Footnote 52: Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, l. iii. c. 9) accuses
the doge and Venetians as the first authors of the war against
Constantinople, and considers 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.]
[Footnote 53: 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. ^* 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.
[Footnote 54: 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.]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 55: 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.]
[Footnote 56: In this voyage, almost all the geographical names
are corrupted by the Latins. The modern appellation of Chalcis,
and all Euboea, is derived from its Euripus, Euripo, Negri-po,
Negropont, which dishonors our maps, (D'Anville, Geographie
Ancienne, tom. i. p. 263.)]
[Footnote 57: 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."
[Footnote 58: 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 infinitae multitudinis et portum tutissimum. Gunther,
Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10.]
[Footnote 59: 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
comparisons 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.
[Footnote 60: 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.)]
[Footnote 61: 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.)]
[Footnote 62: 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.]
[Footnote 63: 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.)]
[Footnote 64: 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 replace 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
[Footnote 65: 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.]
[Footnote 66: 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.]
[Footnote 67: 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
[Footnote 68: 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.]
[Footnote 69: As they played at dice, the Latins took off his
diadem, and clapped on his head a woollen or hairy cap, (Nicetas,
p. 358.) If these merry companions were Venetians, it was the
insolence of trade and a commonwealth.]
[Footnote 70: 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 Graeciae opes transtulisset,
(Gunther, Hist. C. P. c 13) See the lamentations and invectives
of Nicetas, (p. 355.)]
[Footnote 71: 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.
[Footnote 72: When Nicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious
league, he bestows the harshest names on the pope's new religion,
(p. 348.) Such was the sincere language of every Greek to the
last gasp of the empire.]
[Footnote 73: Nicetas (p. 355) is positive in the charge, and
specifies the Flemings, 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.]
[Footnote 74: 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.
[Footnote 75: His name was Nicholas Canabus: he deserved the
praise of Nicetas and the vengeance of Mourzoufle, (p. 362.)]
[Footnote 76: 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.
^* 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 Blachernae 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
[Footnote 77: 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]
[Footnote 78: 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.]
[Footnote 79: 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]
[Footnote 80: Villehardouin (No. 126) confesses, that mult ere
grant peril; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 13) affirms, that
nulla spes victoriae arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises
those who thought of flight, and the monk praises his countrymen
who were resolved on death.]
[Footnote 81: Baldwin, and all the writers, honor the names of
these two galleys, felici auspicio.]
[Footnote *: Pietro Alberti, a Venetion noble and Andrew
d'Amboise a French knight. - M.]
[Footnote 82: With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him
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.]
[Footnote 83: 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!]
[Footnote 84: 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
Erythraean sibyl, of a great armament on the Adriatic, under a
blind chief, against Byzantium, &c. Curious 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
[Footnote 85: Ceciderunt tamen ea die civium quasi duo millia,
&c., (Gunther, c. 18.) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to
try the amplifications of passion and rhetoric.]
[Footnote 86: Quidam (says Innocent III., Gesta, c. 94, p. 538)
nec religioni, nec aetati, nec sexui pepercerunt: sed
fornicationes, adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium
exercentes, non solum maritatas et viduas, sed et matronas et
virgines Deoque dicatas, exposuerunt spurcitiis garcionum.
Villehardouin takes no notice of these common incidents.]
[Footnote 87: Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble
virgin, (p. 380,) whom a soldier, had almost violated.]
[Footnote 88: Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut
de pauperius et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur, (Hist. C. P.
c. 18; (Villehardouin, (No. 132,) that since the creation, ne fu
tant gaaignie dans une ville; Baldwin, (Gesta, c. 92,) ut tantum
tota non videatur possidere Latinitas.]
[Footnote 89: 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.)]
[Footnote 90: 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 Sclymbria, 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.
[Footnote 91: 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]
[Footnote 92: 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
[Footnote 93: Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, (Fragment,
apud Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. 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.]
[Footnote 94: Nicetas was of Chonae in Phrygia, (the old Colossae
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.]
[Footnote 95: 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. Graec.
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.)]
[Footnote 96: 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.]
[Footnote 97: 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.]
[Footnote 98: 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.]
[Footnote 99: In two passages of Nicetas (edit. Paris, p. 360.
Fabric. p. 408) the Latins are branded with the lively reproach
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.)]
[Footnote 100: Winckelman, Hist. de l'Art. tom. iii. p. 269,
270.]
[Footnote 101: 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.)]
[Footnote 102: Fleury, Hist. Eccles tom. xvi. p. 139 - 145.]
[Footnote 103: 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 Blachernae, 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.
[Footnote 1: 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 Francois]
[Footnote 2: 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.]
[Footnote 3: Nicetas, (p. 384,) with the vain ignorance of a
Greek, describes the marquis of Montferrat as a maritime power.
Was he deceived by the Byzantine theme of Lombardy which extended
along the coast of Calabria?]
[Footnote 4: 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.]
[Footnote 5: Nicetas, p. 383.]
[Footnote 6: 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 adventures 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 Thermopylae; 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 on 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
[Footnote 7: 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!]
[Footnote 8: Their style was dominus quartae partis et dimidiae
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.]
[Footnote 9: 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.]
[Footnote 10: 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.]
[Footnote 11: 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.]
[Footnote 12: 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. Graec. tom. vi. p. 405,) and
would have deserved Mr. Harris's inquiries.]
[Footnote 13: 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.)]
[Footnote 14: 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.]
[Footnote 15: 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.]
[Footnote 16: Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No. 146 -
158) with the spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of the
marshal are so knowledged by the Greek historian (p. 387): 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 Maeander 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 ^* 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
^! 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 ^!! 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, Aetolia, 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 priest, 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
[Footnote 17: 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.]
[Footnote 18: 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.)]
[Footnote 19: 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.]
[Footnote 20: 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 Familiae
Byzantinae of Ducange.]
[Footnote *: This was a title, not a personal appellation.
Joinville speaks of the "Grant Comnenie, et sire de
Traffezzontes." Fallmerayer, p. 82. - M.]
[Footnote 21: 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.)]
[Footnote !: 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 name of Caesar. 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, (Munchen, 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.]
[Footnote !!: 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 Alleddin, 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.]
[Footnote 22: The portrait of the French Latins is drawn in
Nicetas by the hand of prejudice and resentment. (P. 791 Ed.
Bak.)]
[Footnote 23: I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence,
the eight books of the Histoire de C. P. sous l'Empire des
Francois, 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
[Footnote 24: 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.]
[Footnote 25: 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
[Footnote 26: 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
ere et gote ne veoit, mais mult ere 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
[Footnote 27: The truth of geography, and the original text of
Villehardouin, (No. 194,) place Rodosto three days' journey
(trois jornees) 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.]
[Footnote 28: 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.]
[Footnote 29: 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 Memoires, relatifs a l'Histoire de France, tom. i.
p. 85, expresses his belief in the first part of the "tragic
legend." - M.]
[Footnote 30: 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 ^* 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 Caesar'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
[Footnote 31: 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.)]
[Footnote 32: 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.)]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 33: 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.)]
[Footnote 34: Acropolita (c. 17) observes the persecution of the
legate, and the toleration of Henry, ('Eon, as he calls him).]
[Footnote 35: 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
[Footnote 36: Acropolita (c. 14) affirms, that Peter of Courtenay
died by the sword, but from his dark expressions, I should
conclude a previous captivity. 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.]
[Footnote 37: 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 aera 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
[Footnote 38: 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.]
[Footnote 39: 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: ^* 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 Machabaeus: ^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
[Footnote 40: Rex igitur Franciae, deliberatione habita,
respondit nuntiis, se daturum hominem Syriae 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.]
[Footnote 41: 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.]
[Footnote 42: 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.]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 43: 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.]
[Footnote 44: 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.
[Footnote 45: 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]
[Footnote 46: Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II.
to the English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armata
manu, p. 407 his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c., p. 481,
(a passage which has escaped Ducange;) his expulsion, p. 850.]
[Footnote 47: 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 (engage) 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, (Melanges tires d'une Grande Bibliotheque, tom. xlv. p.
74 - 77.)]
[Footnote 48: 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.]
[Footnote 49: 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
[Footnote 50: Under the words Perparus, Perpera, Hyperperum,
Ducange is short and vague: Monetae 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.]
[Footnote 51: 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. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 201 -
204.)]
[Footnote 52: Melanges tires d'une Grande Bibliotheque, 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.]
[Footnote 53: 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, (Oeuvres de Racine,
tom. vi. p. 176 - 187, in his eloquent History of Port Royal.)]
[Footnote 54: Voltaire (Siecle de Louis XIV. c. 37, (Oeuvres,
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 Palaeologus, 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,
Palaeologus 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
[Footnote 55: 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.]
[Footnote 56: George Acropolita, c. 78, p. 89, 90. edit. Paris.]
[Footnote 57: 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 Caesar, 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 Caesar 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; ^* 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
Caesar 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
Caesar 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 Euboea, 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
[Footnote 58: 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.)]
[Footnote 59: They are described and named by Pachymer, (l. ii.
c. 14.)]
[Footnote 60: 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.)]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 61: 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.]
[Footnote 62: 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.
[Footnote 63: 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!]
[Footnote 64: 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 Caesar's
Commentaries, the Somnium Scipionis, the Metamorphoses and
Heroides of Ovid, &c., (Fabric. Bib. Graec. tom. x. p. 533.)]
If we compare the aera 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.
[Footnote 65: Windmills, first invented in the dry country of
Asia Minor, were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105, (Vie
privee des Francois, tom. i. p. 42, 43. Ducange, Gloss. Latin.
tom. iv. p. 474)]
[Footnote 66: See the complaints of Roger Bacon, (Biographia
Britannica, vol. i. p. 418, Kippis's edition.) If Bacon himself,
or Gerbert, understood some Greek, they were prodigies, and owed
nothing to the commerce of the East.]
[Footnote 67: Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz,
(Oeuvres 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 III.
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. ^*
[Footnote 68: 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.]
[Footnote 69: 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.]
[Footnote *: On the consequences of the crusades, compare the
valuable Essay of Reeren, 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.
[Footnote 70: 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
aera, 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
[Footnote 71: 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.)]
[Footnote 72: 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.]
[Footnote 73: 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 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.
[Footnote 74: 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.)]
[Footnote 75: 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 . . . generosae stirpis, who was slain in
the defence of his country against the Normans, dum patriae 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, (Memoires
de l'Academie 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
[Footnote 76: 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 Europae Jurisconsultorum; Paris,
1607. 2. Representation du Procede tenu a l'instance faicte
devant le Roi, par Messieurs de Courtenay, pour la conservation
de l'Honneur et Dignite de leur Maison, branche de la royalle
Maison de France; a Paris, 1613. 3. Representation du subject
qui a porte Messieurs de Salles et de Fraville, de la Maison de
Courtenay, a 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.]
[Footnote 77: The sense of the parliaments is thus expressed by
Thuanus Principis nomen nusquam in Gallia tributum, nisi iis qui
per mares e regibus nostris originem repetunt; qui nunc tantum a
Ludovico none beatae memoriae numerantur; nam Cortinoei 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.]
[Footnote 78: 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 arret of the parliament of Paris.]
[Footnote 79: 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 Mabel 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 aera 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.
[Footnote 80: 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.]
[Footnote 81: In his Britannia, in the list of the earls of
Devonshire. His expression, e regio sanguine ortos, credunt,
betrays, however, some doubt or suspicion.]
[Footnote 82: 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?]
[Footnote 83: 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.)]
[Footnote 84: 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.)]
[Footnote 85: 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.]
[Footnote 86: 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 Palaeologus. - 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 Maeander, 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 ^* 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.
[Footnote 1: 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. Graec. 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.]
[Footnote 2: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 1) distinguishes
between Lascaris, and Vataces. The two portraits are in a very
good style.]
[Footnote 3: 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.]
[Footnote 4: (Greg. Acropol. c. 32.) The emperor, in a familiar
conversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his future
logothete.]
[Footnote *: Sister of Manfred, afterwards king of Naples. Nic
Greg. p. 45. - M.]
[Footnote 5: 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 Palaeologi
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 Palaeologus, the
most illustrious, in birth and merit, of the Greek nobles. ^10
[Footnote 6: 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 merchant or broker, (Herodotus, iii.
89.)]
[Footnote 7: 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.]
[Footnote 8: Pachymer (l. i. c. 21) names and discriminates
fifteen or twenty Greek families. Does he mean, by this
decoration, a figurative or a real golden chain? Perhaps, both.]
[Footnote 9: 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
Maeander 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.)]
[Footnote 10: 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 Palaeologi ^11 stands high and
conspicuous in the Byzantine history: it was the valiant George
Palaeologus 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 Palaeologus, 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 Palaeologi 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. Palaeologus
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
Palaeologus.
[Footnote 11: The pedigree of Palaeologus 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.]
[Footnote 12: Acropolita (c. 50) relates the circumstances of
this curious adventure, which seem to have escaped the more
recent writers.]
[Footnote 13: 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 Palaeologus 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,
Palaeologus 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. Palaeologus 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 Palaeologus. In his own family he
created a despot and two sebastocrators; Alexius Strategopulus
was decorated with the title of Caesar; and that veteran
commander soon repaid the obligation, by restoring Constantinople
to the Greek emperor.
[Footnote 14: 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 Palaeologus with
eloquence, perspicuity, and tolerable freedom. Acropolita is more
cautious, and Gregoras more concise.]
[Footnote 15: 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.)]
[Footnote 16: 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.]
[Footnote 17: 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 Nymphaeum, ^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
Caesar; nor could it easily be credited, after the defeat of
Vataces and the recent failure of Palaeologus 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 Aethiopia. 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
[Footnote 18: The site of Nymphaeum 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. Nymphaeum
might be loosely placed in Lydia, (Gregoras, l. vi. 6.)]
[Footnote 19: 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]
[Footnote 20: Acropolita affirms (c. 87,) that this bonnet 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?]
[Footnote 21: 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 aera 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,
Palaeologus 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
Palaeologus; 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. Palaeologus 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
[Footnote 22: 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!]
[Footnote 23: 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
Arsenius the virtues of a hermit, the vices of a minister, (l.
xii. c. 2.)]
[Footnote 24: 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; ^* 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, ^* 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
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 25: 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, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. x. p.
95.)]
[Footnote *: Pachymer calls him Germanus. - M.]
[Footnote 26: 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.)]
[Footnote 27: 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 Palaeologus; 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 aera 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
[Footnote 28: 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 Pere 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
[Footnote 29: Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 33, &c., from the
Epistles of Urban IV.]
[Footnote 30: From their mercantile intercourse with the
Venetians and Genoese, they branded the Latins: (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.)]
[Footnote 31: 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.)]
[Footnote 32: See the acts of the council of Lyons in the year
1274. Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. xviii. p. 181 - 199.
Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. x. p. 135.]
[Footnote 33: 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 Palaeologus
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 Aetolia, 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; ^* 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 Palaeologus. 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, Palaeologus 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
[Footnote *: According to Fallmarayer he had always maintained
this title. - M.]
[Footnote 34: 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.]
[Footnote 35: 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.]
[Footnote 36: 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 Palaeologus, 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,
Palaeologus 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.
[Footnote 37: 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]
[Footnote 38: 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.]
[Footnote 39: 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 ^* of Mainfroy, and by the
dying voice of Conradin, who from the scaffold had cast a ring to
his heir and avenger. Palaeologus 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.
[Footnote 40: 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.)]
[Footnote 41: 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.]
[Footnote *: 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
[Footnote 42: After enumerating the sufferings of his country,
Nicholas Specialis adds, in the true spirit of Italian jealousy,
Quae omnia et graviora quidem, ut arbitror, patienti animo Siculi
tolerassent, nisi (quod primum cunctis dominantibus cavendum est)
alienas foeminas invasissent, (l. i. c. 2, p. 924.)]
[Footnote 43: 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."]
[Footnote 44: This revolt, with the subsequent victory, are
related by two national writers, Bartholemy a 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.)]
[Footnote 45: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. v. c. 6) admires the wisdom
of Providence in this equal balance of states and princes. For
the honor of Palaeologus, I had rather this balance had been
observed by an Italian writer.]
[Footnote 46: 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 Palaeologus 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 ^* 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; ^* 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. ^! 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; ^* 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 Caesar; but he rejected the
new proposal of the government of Asia with a subsidy of corn and
money, ^* on condition that he should reduce his troops to the
harmless number of three thousand men. Assassination is the last
resource of cowards. The Caesar 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, ^!! 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, ^!!! 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
[Footnote 47: 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.]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote !: Ramon de Montaner suppresses the cruelties and
oppressions of the Catalans, in which, perhaps, he shared. - M]
[Footnote 48: 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.)]
[Footnote 49: 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 Palaeologus 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.]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote *: Andronicus paid the Catalans in the debased money,
much to their indignation. - M.]
[Footnote !!: According to Ramon de Montaner, he was murdered by
order of Kyr Michael, son of the emperor. p. 170. - M.]
[Footnote !!!: 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'armee," (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.]
[Footnote 50: 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 Caesar 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 Memoires relatifs
a 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 Boeotia. 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 Boeotia 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.
[Footnote 51: 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.]
[Footnote 52: 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.]
[Footnote 53: 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.]
[Footnote 54: 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!]
[Footnote 55: 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. Graec 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 Aethiopian 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
[Footnote 56: 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.]
[Footnote 57: 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.)]
[Footnote 58: Ducange, Glossar. Graec. Praefat. 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.]
[Footnote 59: Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name
of Athens, which they still call Athini. 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 Palaeologus. -
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 Palaeologi, 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.
[Footnote 1: 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.]
[Footnote 2: 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 Caesar, 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.
[Footnote 3: 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.]
[Footnote 4: 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 Caesar is fancied by his French
translator, the president Cousin.]
[Footnote 5: 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 Palaeologi, 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.
[Footnote 6: 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, (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.)]
[Footnote 7: 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.)]
[Footnote 8: 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. ^* 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.
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 9: 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, ^*
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 ^*
[Footnote 10: 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.]
[Footnote *: And the washerwomen, according to Nic. Gregoras, p.
431 - M.]
[Footnote 11: 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]
[Footnote 12: 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.]
[Footnote *: 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.
[Footnote 13: 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.)]
[Footnote 14: 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.]
[Footnote 15: Henry the Wonderful was the founder of the branch
of Gruben hagen, 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.)]
[Footnote 16: 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 Moeurs, &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.)]
[Footnote 17: 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. Germaniae Pragmatica, tom. i. p.
351,) Argentifodinae in Hercyniis montibus, imperante Othone
magno (A.D. 968) primum apertae, 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.]
[Footnote 18: Cantacuzene has given a most honorable testimony.
The praise is just in itself, and pleasing to an English ear.]
[Footnote 19: Anne, or Jane, was one of the four daughters of
Amedee 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.)]
[Footnote 20: 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 Palaeologus, 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 Aetolia
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.
[Footnote 21: 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.)]
[Footnote 22: See Cantacuzene, (l. iii. c. 24, 30, 36.)]
[Footnote 23: 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.)]
[Footnote 24: 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 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. Niebuhr's edit. in
los. - 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 Palaeologi
had instructed his posterity to dread the example of a perfidious
guardian. The patriarch John of Apri was a proud and feeble old
man, encompassed by a numerous and hungry kindred. He produced
an obsolete epistle of Andronicus, which bequeathed the prince
and people to his pious care: the fate of his predecessor
Arsenius prompted him to prevent, rather than punish, the crimes
of a usurper; and Apocaucus smiled at the success of his own
flattery, when he beheld the Byzantine priest assuming the state
and temporal claims of the Roman pontiff. ^26 Between three
persons so different in their situation and character, a private
league was concluded: a shadow of authority was restored to the
senate; and the people was tempted by the name of freedom. By
this powerful confederacy, the great domestic was assaulted at
first with clandestine, at length with open, arms. His
prerogatives were disputed; his opinions slighted; his friends
persecuted; and his safety was threatened both in the camp and
city. In his absence on the public service, he was accused of
treason; proscribed as an enemy of the church and state; and
delivered with all his adherents to the sword of justice, the
vengeance of the people, and the power of the devil; his fortunes
were confiscated; his aged mother was cast into prison; ^* all
his past services were buried in oblivion; and he was driven by
injustice to perpetrate the crime of which he was accused. ^27
From the review of his preceding conduct, Cantacuzene appears to
have been guiltless of any treasonable designs; and the only
suspicion of his innocence must arise from the vehemence of his
protestations, and the sublime purity which he ascribes to his
own virtue. While the empress and the patriarch still affected
the appearances of harmony, he repeatedly solicited the
permission of retiring to a private, and even a monastic, life.
After he had been declared a public enemy, it was his fervent
wish to throw himself at the feet of the young emperor, and to
receive without a murmur the stroke of the executioner: it was
not without reluctance that he listened to the voice of reason,
which inculcated the sacred duty of saving his family and
friends, and proved that he could only save them by drawing the
sword and assuming the Imperial title.
[Footnote 25: See the regency and reign of John Cantacuzenus, and
the whole progress of the civil war, in his own history, (l. iii.
c. 1 - 100, p. 348 - 700,) and in that of Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. xii. c. 1 - l. xv. c. 9, p. 353 - 492.)]
[Footnote 26: He assumes the royal privilege of red shoes or
buskins; placed on his head a mitre of silk and gold; subscribed
his epistles with hyacinth or green ink, and claimed for the new,
whatever Constantine had given to the ancient, Rome, (Cantacuzen.
l. iii. c. 36. Nic. Gregoras, l. xiv. c. 3.)]
[Footnote *: She died there through persecution and neglect. -
M.]
[Footnote 27: Gregoras (l. xii. c. 5.) confesses the innocence
and virtues of Cantacuzenus, the guilt and flagitious vices of
Apocaucus; nor does he dissemble the motive of his personal and
religious enmity to the former.
Note: They were the religious enemies and persecutors of
Nicephorus.]
Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.
Part II.
In the strong city of Demotica, his peculiar domain, the
emperor John Cantacuzenus was invested with the purple buskins:
his right leg was clothed by his noble kinsmen, the left by the
Latin chiefs, on whom he conferred the order of knighthood. But
even in this act of revolt, he was still studious of loyalty; and
the titles of John Palaeologus and Anne of Savoy were proclaimed
before his own name and that of his wife Irene. Such vain
ceremony is a thin disguise of rebellion, nor are there perhaps
any personal wrongs that can authorize a subject to take arms
against his sovereign: but the want of preparation and success
may confirm the assurance of the usurper, that this decisive step
was the effect of necessity rather than of choice. Constantinople
adhered to the young emperor; the king of Bulgaria was invited to
the relief of Adrianople: the principal cities of Thrace and
Macedonia, after some hesitation, renounced their obedience to
the great domestic; and the leaders of the troops and provinces
were induced, by their private interest, to prefer the loose
dominion of a woman and a priest. ^* The army of Cantacuzene, in
sixteen divisions, was stationed on the banks of the Melas to
tempt or to intimidate the capital: it was dispersed by treachery
or fear; and the officers, more especially the mercenary Latins,
accepted the bribes, and embraced the service, of the Byzantine
court. After this loss, the rebel emperor (he fluctuated between
the two characters) took the road of Thessalonica with a chosen
remnant; but he failed in his enterprise on that important place;
and he was closely pursued by the great duke, his enemy
Apocaucus, at the head of a superior power by sea and land.
Driven from the coast, in his march, or rather flight, into the
mountains of Servia, Cantacuzene assembled his troops to
scrutinize those who were worthy and willing to accompany his
broken fortunes. A base majority bowed and retired; and his
trusty band was diminished to two thousand, and at last to five
hundred, volunteers. The cral, ^28 or despot of the Servians
received him with general hospitality; but the ally was
insensibly degraded to a suppliant, a hostage, a captive; and in
this miserable dependence, he waited at the door of the
Barbarian, who could dispose of the life and liberty of a Roman
emperor. The most tempting offers could not persuade the cral to
violate his trust; but he soon inclined to the stronger side; and
his friend was dismissed without injury to a new vicissitude of
hopes and perils. Near six years the flame of discord burnt with
various success and unabated rage: the cities were distracted by
the faction of the nobles and the plebeians; the Cantacuzeni and
Palaeologi: and the Bulgarians, the Servians, and the Turks, were
invoked on both sides as the instruments of private ambition and
the common ruin. The regent deplored the calamities, of which he
was the author and victim: and his own experience might dictate a
just and lively remark on the different nature of foreign and
civil war. "The former," said he, "is the external warmth of
summer, always tolerable, and often beneficial; the latter is the
deadly heat of a fever, which consumes without a remedy the
vitals of the constitution." ^29
[Footnote *: Cantacuzene asserts, that in all the cities, the
populace were on the side of the emperor, the aristocracy on his.
The populace took the opportunity of rising and plundering the
wealthy as Cantacuzenites, vol. iii. c. 29 Ages of common
oppression and ruin had not extinguished these republican
factions. - M.]
[Footnote 28: The princes of Servia (Ducange, Famil. Dalmaticae,
&c., c. 2, 3, 4, 9) were styled Despots in Greek, and Cral in
their native idiom, (Ducange, Gloss. Graec. p. 751.) That title,
the equivalent of king, appears to be of Sclavonic origin, from
whence it has been borrowed by the Hungarians, the modern Greeks,
and even by the Turks, (Leunclavius, Pandect. Turc. p. 422,) who
reserve the name of Padishah for the emperor. To obtain the
latter instead of the former is the ambition of the French at
Constantinople, (Aversissement a l'Histoire de Timur Bec, p.
39.)]
[Footnote 29: Nic. Gregoras, l. xii. c. 14. It is surprising
that Cantacuzene has not inserted this just and lively image in
his own writings.]
The introduction of barbarians and savages into the contests
of civilized nations, is a measure pregnant with shame and
mischief; which the interest of the moment may compel, but which
is reprobated by the best principles of humanity and reason. It
is the practice of both sides to accuse their enemies of the
guilt of the first alliances; and those who fail in their
negotiations are loudest in their censure of the example which
they envy and would gladly imitate. The Turks of Asia were less
barbarous perhaps than the shepherds of Bulgaria and Servia; but
their religion rendered them implacable foes of Rome and
Christianity. To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two
factions vied with each other in baseness and profusion: the
dexterity of Cantacuzene obtained the preference: but the succor
and victory were dearly purchased by the marriage of his daughter
with an infidel, the captivity of many thousand Christians, and
the passage of the Ottomans into Europe, the last and fatal
stroke in the fall of the Roman empire. The inclining scale was
decided in his favor by the death of Apocaucus, the just though
singular retribution of his crimes. A crowd of nobles or
plebeians, whom he feared or hated, had been seized by his orders
in the capital and the provinces; and the old palace of
Constantine was assigned as the place of their confinement. Some
alterations in raising the walls, and narrowing the cells, had
been ingeniously contrived to prevent their escape, and aggravate
their misery; and the work was incessantly pressed by the daily
visits of the tyrant. His guards watched at the gate, and as he
stood in the inner court to overlook the architects, without fear
or suspicion, he was assaulted and laid breathless on the ground,
by two ^* resolute prisoners of the Palaeologian race, ^30 who
were armed with sticks, and animated by despair. On the rumor of
revenge and liberty, the captive multitude broke their fetters,
fortified their prison, and exposed from the battlements the
tyrant's head, presuming on the favor of the people and the
clemency of the empress. Anne of Savoy might rejoice in the fall
of a haughty and ambitious minister, but while she delayed to
resolve or to act, the populace, more especially the mariners,
were excited by the widow of the great duke to a sedition, an
assault, and a massacre. The prisoners (of whom the far greater
part were guiltless or inglorious of the deed) escaped to a
neighboring church: they were slaughtered at the foot of the
altar; and in his death the monster was not less bloody and
venomous than in his life. Yet his talents alone upheld the
cause of the young emperor; and his surviving associates,
suspicious of each other, abandoned the conduct of the war, and
rejected the fairest terms of accommodation. In the beginning of
the dispute, the empress felt, and complained, that she was
deceived by the enemies of Cantacuzene: the patriarch was
employed to preach against the forgiveness of injuries; and her
promise of immortal hatred was sealed by an oath, under the
penalty of excommunication. ^31 But Anne soon learned to hate
without a teacher: she beheld the misfortunes of the empire with
the indifference of a stranger: her jealousy was exasperated by
the competition of a rival empress; and on the first symptoms of
a more yielding temper, she threatened the patriarch to convene a
synod, and degrade him from his office. Their incapacity and
discord would have afforded the most decisive advantage; but the
civil war was protracted by the weakness of both parties; and the
moderation of Cantacuzene has not escaped the reproach of
timidity and indolence. He successively recovered the provinces
and cities; and the realm of his pupil was measured by the walls
of Constantinople; but the metropolis alone counterbalanced the
rest of the empire; nor could he attempt that important conquest
till he had secured in his favor the public voice and a private
correspondence. An Italian, of the name of Facciolati, ^32 had
succeeded to the office of great duke: the ships, the guards, and
the golden gate, were subject to his command; but his humble
ambition was bribed to become the instrument of treachery; and
the revolution was accomplished without danger or bloodshed.
Destitute of the powers of resistance, or the hope of relief, the
inflexible Anne would have still defended the palace, and have
smiled to behold the capital in flames, rather than in the
possession of a rival. She yielded to the prayers of her friends
and enemies; and the treaty was dictated by the conqueror, who
professed a loyal and zealous attachment to the son of his
benefactor. The marriage of his daughter with John Palaeologus
was at length consummated: the hereditary right of the pupil was
acknowledged; but the sole administration during ten years was
vested in the guardian. Two emperors and three empresses were
seated on the Byzantine throne; and a general amnesty quieted the
apprehensions, and confirmed the property, of the most guilty
subjects. The festival of the coronation and nuptials was
celebrated with the appearances of concord and magnificence, and
both were equally fallacious. During the late troubles, the
treasures of the state, and even the furniture of the palace, had
been alienated or embezzled; the royal banquet was served in
pewter or earthenware; and such was the proud poverty of the
times, that the absence of gold and jewels was supplied by the
paltry artifices of glass and gilt-leather. ^33
[Footnote 30: The two avengers were both Palaeologi, who might
resent, with royal indignation, the shame of their chains. The
tragedy of Apocaucus may deserve a peculiar reference to
Cantacuzene (l. iii. c. 86) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xiv. c. 10.)]
[Footnote 31: Cantacuzene accuses the patriarch, and spares the
empress, the mother of his sovereign, (l. iii. 33, 34,) against
whom Nic. Gregoras expresses a particular animosity, (l. xiv. 10,
11, xv. 5.) It is true that they do not speak exactly of the same
time.]
[Footnote *: Nicephorus says four, p.734.]
[Footnote 32: The traitor and treason are revealed by Nic.
Gregoras, (l. xv. c. 8;) but the name is more discreetly
suppressed by his great accomplice, (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 99.)]
[Footnote 33: Nic. Greg. l. xv. 11. There were, however, some
true pearls, but very thinly sprinkled.]
I hasten to conclude the personal history of John
Cantacuzene. ^34 He triumphed and reigned; but his reign and
triumph were clouded by the discontent of his own and the adverse
faction. His followers might style the general amnesty an act of
pardon for his enemies, and of oblivion for his friends: ^35 in
his cause their estates had been forfeited or plundered; and as
they wandered naked and hungry through the streets, they cursed
the selfish generosity of a leader, who, on the throne of the
empire, might relinquish without merit his private inheritance.
The adherents of the empress blushed to hold their lives and
fortunes by the precarious favor of a usurper; and the thirst of
revenge was concealed by a tender concern for the succession, and
even the safety, of her son. They were justly alarmed by a
petition of the friends of Cantacuzene, that they might be
released from their oath of allegiance to the Palaeologi, and
intrusted with the defence of some cautionary towns; a measure
supported with argument and eloquence; and which was rejected
(says the Imperial historian) "by my sublime, and almost
incredible virtue." His repose was disturbed by the sound of
plots and seditions; and he trembled lest the lawful prince
should be stolen away by some foreign or domestic enemy, who
would inscribe his name and his wrongs in the banners of
rebellion. As the son of Andronicus advanced in the years of
manhood, he began to feel and to act for himself; and his rising
ambition was rather stimulated than checked by the imitation of
his father's vices. If we may trust his own professions,
Cantacuzene labored with honest industry to correct these sordid
and sensual appetites, and to raise the mind of the young prince
to a level with his fortune. In the Servian expedition, the two
emperors showed themselves in cordial harmony to the troops and
provinces; and the younger colleague was initiated by the elder
in the mysteries of war and government. After the conclusion of
the peace, Palaeologus was left at Thessalonica, a royal
residence, and a frontier station, to secure by his absence the
peace of Constantinople, and to withdraw his youth from the
temptations of a luxurious capital. But the distance weakened
the powers of control, and the son of Andronicus was surrounded
with artful or unthinking companions, who taught him to hate his
guardian, to deplore his exile, and to vindicate his rights. A
private treaty with the cral or despot of Servia was soon
followed by an open revolt; and Cantacuzene, on the throne of the
elder Andronicus, defended the cause of age and prerogative,
which in his youth he had so vigorously attacked. At his request
the empress-mother undertook the voyage of Thessalonica, and the
office of mediation: she returned without success; and unless
Anne of Savoy was instructed by adversity, we may doubt the
sincerity, or at least the fervor, of her zeal. While the regent
grasped the sceptre with a firm and vigorous hand, she had been
instructed to declare, that the ten years of his legal
administration would soon elapse; and that, after a full trial of
the vanity of the world, the emperor Cantacuzene sighed for the
repose of a cloister, and was ambitious only of a heavenly crown.
Had these sentiments been genuine, his voluntary abdication would
have restored the peace of the empire, and his conscience would
have been relieved by an act of justice. Palaeologus alone was
responsible for his future government; and whatever might be his
vices, they were surely less formidable than the calamities of a
civil war, in which the Barbarians and infidels were again
invited to assist the Greeks in their mutual destruction. By the
arms of the Turks, who now struck a deep and everlasting root in
Europe, Cantacuzene prevailed in the third contest in which he
had been involved; and the young emperor, driven from the sea and
land, was compelled to take shelter among the Latins of the Isle
of Tenedos. His insolence and obstinacy provoked the victor to a
step which must render the quarrel irreconcilable; and the
association of his son Matthew, whom he invested with the purple,
established the succession in the family of the Cantacuzeni. But
Constantinople was still attached to the blood of her ancient
princes; and this last injury accelerated the restoration of the
rightful heir. A noble Genoese espoused the cause of
Palaeologus, obtained a promise of his sister, and achieved the
revolution with two galleys and two thousand five hundred
auxiliaries. Under the pretence of distress, they were admitted
into the lesser port; a gate was opened, and the Latin shout of,
"Long life and victory to the emperor, John Palaeologus!" was
answered by a general rising in his favor. A numerous and loyal
party yet adhered to the standard of Cantacuzene: but he asserts
in his history (does he hope for belief?) that his tender
conscience rejected the assurance of conquest; that, in free
obedience to the voice of religion and philosophy, he descended
from the throne and embraced with pleasure the monastic habit and
profession. ^36 So soon as he ceased to be a prince, his
successor was not unwilling that he should be a saint: the
remainder of his life was devoted to piety and learning; in the
cells of Constantinople and Mount Athos, the monk Joasaph was
respected as the temporal and spiritual father of the emperor;
and if he issued from his retreat, it was as the minister of
peace, to subdue the obstinacy, and solicit the pardon, of his
rebellious son. ^37
[Footnote 34: From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene
continues his history and that of the empire, one year beyond the
abdication of his son Matthew, A.D. 1357, (l. iv. c. l - 50, p.
705 - 911.) Nicephorus Gregoras ends with the synod of
Constantinople, in the year 1351, (l. xxii. c. 3, p. 660; the
rest, to the conclusion of the xxivth book, p. 717, is all
controversy;) and his fourteen last books are still Mss. in the
king of France's library.]
[Footnote 35: The emperor (Cantacuzen. l. iv. c. 1) represents
his own virtues, and Nic. Gregoras (l. xv. c. 11) the complaints
of his friends, who suffered by its effects. I have lent them
the words of our poor cavaliers after the Restoration.]
[Footnote 36: The awkward apology of Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c. 39 -
42,) who relates, with visible confusion, his own downfall, may
be supplied by the less accurate, but more honest, narratives of
Matthew Villani (l. iv. c. 46, in the Script. Rerum Ital. tom.
xiv. p. 268) and Ducas, (c 10, 11.)]
[Footnote 37: Cantacuzene, in the year 1375, was honored with a
letter from the pope, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xx. p. 250.)
His death is placed by a respectable authority on the 20th of
November, 1411, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 260.) But if he were of
the age of his companion Andronicus the Younger, he must have
lived 116 years; a rare instance of longevity, which in so
illustrious a person would have attracted universal notice.]
Yet in the cloister, the mind of Cantacuzene was still
exercised by theological war. He sharpened a controversial pen
against the Jews and Mahometans; ^38 and in every state he
defended with equal zeal the divine light of Mount Thabor, a
memorable question which consummates the religious follies of the
Greeks. The fakirs of India, ^39 and the monks of the Oriental
church, were alike persuaded, that in the total abstraction of
the faculties of the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend
to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion and
practice of the monasteries of Mount Athos ^40 will be best
represented in the words of an abbot, who flourished in the
eleventh century. "When thou art alone in thy cell," says the
ascetic teacher, "shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner:
raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy
beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and thy thoughts
toward the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel; and
search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first,
all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and
night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul
discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a
mystic and ethereal light." This light, the production of a
distempered fancy, the creature of an empty stomach and an empty
brain, was adored by the Quietists as the pure and perfect
essence of God himself; and as long as the folly was confined to
Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not inquisitive how the
divine essence could be a material substance, or how an
immaterial substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body.
But in the reign of the younger Andronicus, these monasteries
were visited by Barlaam, ^41 a Calabrian monk, who was equally
skilled in philosophy and theology; who possessed the language of
the Greeks and Latins; and whose versatile genius could maintain
their opposite creeds, according to the interest of the moment.
The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed to the curious traveller
the secrets of mental prayer and Barlaam embraced the opportunity
of ridiculing the Quietists, who placed the soul in the navel; of
accusing the monks of Mount Athos of heresy and blasphemy. His
attack compelled the more learned to renounce or dissemble the
simple devotion of their brethren; and Gregory Palamas introduced
a scholastic distinction between the essence and operation of
God. His inaccessible essence dwells in the midst of an
uncreated and eternal light; and this beatific vision of the
saints had been manifested to the disciples on Mount Thabor, in
the transfiguration of Christ. Yet this distinction could not
escape the reproach of polytheism; the eternity of the light of
Thabor was fiercely denied; and Barlaam still charged the
Palamites with holding two eternal substances, a visible and an
invisible God. From the rage of the monks of Mount Athos, who
threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to Constantinople,
where his smooth and specious manners introduced him to the favor
of the great domestic and the emperor. The court and the city
were involved in this theological dispute, which flamed amidst
the civil war; but the doctrine of Barlaam was disgraced by his
flight and apostasy: the Palamites triumphed; and their
adversary, the patriarch John of Apri, was deposed by the consent
of the adverse factions of the state. In the character of
emperor and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the synod of the
Greek church, which established, as an article of faith, the
uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many insults, the
reason of mankind was slightly wounded by the addition of a
single absurdity. Many rolls of paper or parchment have been
blotted; and the impenitent sectaries, who refused to subscribe
the orthodox creed, were deprived of the honors of Christian
burial; but in the next age the question was forgotten; nor can I
learn that the axe or the fagot were employed for the extirpation
of the Barlaamite heresy. ^42
[Footnote 38: His four discourses, or books, were printed at
Bazil, 1543, (Fabric Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 473.) He
composed them to satisfy a proselyte who was assaulted with
letters from his friends of Ispahan. Cantacuzene had read the
Koran; but I understand from Maracci that he adopts the vulgar
prejudices and fables against Mahomet and his religion.]
[Footnote 39: See the Voyage de Bernier, tom. i. p. 127.]
[Footnote 40: Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 522, 523.
Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xx. p. 22, 24, 107 - 114, &c. The
former unfolds the causes with the judgment of a philosopher, the
latter transcribes and transcribes and translates with the
prejudices of a Catholic priest.]
[Footnote 41: Basnage (in Canisii antiq. Lectiones, tom. iv. p.
363 - 368) has investigated the character and story of Barlaam.
The duplicity of his opinions had inspired some doubts of the
identity of his person. See likewise Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec.
tom. x. p. 427 - 432.)]
[Footnote 42: See Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 39, 40, l. iv. c. 3, 23,
24, 25) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xi. c. 10, l. xv. 3, 7, &c.,)
whose last books, from the xixth to xxivth, are almost confined
to a subject so interesting to the authors. Boivin, (in Vit.
Nic. Gregorae,) from the unpublished books, and Fabricius,
(Bibliot. Graec. tom. x. p. 462 - 473,) or rather Montfaucon,
from the Mss. of the Coislin library, have added some facts and
documents.]
For the conclusion of this chapter, I have reserved the
Genoese war, which shook the throne of Cantacuzene, and betrayed
the debility of the Greek empire. The Genoese, who, after the
recovery of Constantinople, were seated in the suburb of Pera or
Galata, received that honorable fief from the bounty of the
emperor. They were indulged in the use of their laws and
magistrates; but they submitted to the duties of vassals and
subjects; the forcible word of liegemen ^43 was borrowed from the
Latin jurisprudence; and their podesta, or chief, before he
entered on his office, saluted the emperor with loyal
acclamations and vows of fidelity. Genoa sealed a firm alliance
with the Greeks; and, in case of a defensive war, a supply of
fifty empty galleys and a succor of fifty galleys, completely
armed and manned, was promised by the republic to the empire. In
the revival of a naval force, it was the aim of Michael
Palaeologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his
vigorous government contained the Genoese of Galata within those
limits which the insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to
exceed. A sailor threatened that they should soon be masters of
Constantinople, and slew the Greek who resented this national
affront; and an armed vessel, after refusing to salute the
palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in the Black Sea.
Their countrymen threatened to support their cause; but the long
and open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the
Imperial troops; till, in the moment of the assault, the
prostrate Genoese implored the clemency of their sovereign. The
defenceless situation which secured their obedience exposed them
to the attack of their Venetian rivals, who, in the reign of the
elder Andronicus, presumed to violate the majesty of the throne.
On the approach of their fleets, the Genoese, with their families
and effects, retired into the city: their empty habitations were
reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who had viewed the
destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not by arms,
but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageous
to the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the
dangerous license of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of
introducing into the ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting
lofty turrets; and of mounting a train of military engines on the
rampart. The narrow bounds in which they had been circumscribed
were insufficient for the growing colony; each day they acquired
some addition of landed property; and the adjacent hills were
covered with their villas and castles, which they joined and
protected by new fortifications. ^44 The navigation and trade of
the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded
the narrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea.
In the reign of Michael Palaeologus, their prerogative was
acknowledged by the sultan of Egypt, who solicited and obtained
the liberty of sending an annual ship for the purchase of slaves
in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary: a liberty pregnant with
mischief to the Christian cause; since these youths were
transformed by education and discipline into the formidable
Mamalukes. ^45 From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged with
superior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and
their industry supplied the Greeks with fish and corn; two
articles of food almost equally important to a superstitious
people. The spontaneous bounty of nature appears to have
bestowed the harvests of Ukraine, the produce of a rude and
savage husbandry; and the endless exportation of salt fish and
caviare is annually renewed by the enormous sturgeons that are
caught at the mouth of the Don or Tanais, in their last station
of the rich mud and shallow water of the Maeotis. ^46 The waters
of the Oxus, the Caspian, the Volga, and the Don, opened a rare
and laborious passage for the gems and spices of India; and after
three months' march the caravans of Carizme met the Italian
vessels in the harbors of Crimaea. ^47 These various branches of
trade were monopolized by the diligence and power of the Genoese.
Their rivals of Venice and Pisa were forcibly expelled; the
natives were awed by the castles and cities, which arose on the
foundations of their humble factories; and their principal
establishment of Caffa ^48 was besieged without effect by the
Tartar powers. Destitute of a navy, the Greeks were oppressed by
these haughty merchants, who fed, or famished, Constantinople,
according to their interest. They proceeded to usurp the customs,
the fishery, and even the toll, of the Bosphorus; and while they
derived from these objects a revenue of two hundred thousand
pieces of gold, a remnant of thirty thousand was reluctantly
allowed to the emperor. ^49 The colony of Pera or Galata acted,
in peace and war, as an independent state; and, as it will happen
in distant settlements, the Genoese podesta too often forgot that
he was the servant of his own masters.
[Footnote 43: Pachymer (l. v. c. 10) very properly explains
(ligios). The use of these words in the Greek and Latin of the
feudal times may be amply understood from the Glossaries of
Ducange, (Graec. p. 811, 812. Latin. tom. iv. p. 109 - 111.)]
[Footnote 44: The establishment and progress of the Genoese at
Pera, or Galata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. i.
p. 68, 69) from the Byzantine historians, Pachymer, (l. ii. c.
35, l. v. 10, 30, l. ix. 15 l. xii. 6, 9,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. v. c. 4, l. vi. c. 11, l. ix. c. 5, l. ix. c. 1, l. xv. c. 1,
6,) and Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 12, l. ii. c. 29, &c.)]
[Footnote 45: Both Pachymer (l. iii. c. 3, 4, 5) and Nic. Greg.
(l. iv. c. 7) understand and deplore the effects of this
dangerous indulgence. Bibars, sultan of Egypt, himself a Tartar,
but a devout Mussulman, obtained from the children of Zingis the
permission to build a stately mosque in the capital of Crimea,
(De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343.)]
[Footnote 46: Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 48) was
assured at Caffa, that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or
twenty-six feet long, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and
yielded three or four quintals of caviare. The corn of the
Bosphorus had supplied the Athenians in the time of Demosthenes.]
[Footnote 47: De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343, 344.
Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 400. But this land or water
carriage could only be practicable when Tartary was united under
a wise and powerful monarch.]
[Footnote 48: Nic. Gregoras (l. xiii. c. 12) is judicious and
well informed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea.
Chardin describes the present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty
days, he saw above 400 sail employed in the corn and fish trade,
(Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 46 - 48.)]
[Footnote 49: See Nic. Gregoras, l. xvii. c. 1]
These usurpations were encouraged by the weakness of the elder
Andronicus, and by the civil wars that afflicted his age and the
minority of his grandson. The talents of Cantacuzene were
employed to the ruin, rather than the restoration, of the empire;
and after his domestic victory, he was condemned to an
ignominious trial, whether the Greeks or the Genoese should reign
in Constantinople. The merchants of Pera were offended by his
refusal of some contiguous land, some commanding heights, which
they proposed to cover with new fortifications; and in the
absence of the emperor, who was detained at Demotica by sickness,
they ventured to brave the debility of a female reign. A
Byzantine vessel, which had presumed to fish at the mouth of the
harbor, was sunk by these audacious strangers; the fishermen were
murdered. Instead of suing for pardon, the Genoese demanded
satisfaction; required, in a haughty strain, that the Greeks
should renounce the exercise of navigation; and encountered with
regular arms the first sallies of the popular indignation. They
instantly occupied the debatable land; and by the labor of a
whole people, of either sex and of every age, the wall was
raised, and the ditch was sunk, with incredible speed. At the
same time, they attacked and burnt two Byzantine galleys; while
the three others, the remainder of the Imperial navy, escaped
from their hands: the habitations without the gates, or along the
shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the regent,
of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of the
city. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public
consternation: the emperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he
yielded to the obstinacy of his enemies, who rejected all
reasonable terms, and to the ardor of his subjects, who
threatened, in the style of Scripture, to break them in pieces
like a potter's vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes,
that he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses
of the war; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the
land, the other of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed
by the evils of a mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who
had believed that a few days would terminate the war, already
murmured at their losses: the succors from their mother-country
were delayed by the factions of Genoa; and the most cautious
embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to remove their
families and effects from the scene of hostility. In the spring,
the Byzantine fleet, seven galleys and a train of smaller
vessels, issued from the mouth of the harbor, and steered in a
single line along the shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their
sides to the beaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were
composed of peasants and mechanics; nor was their ignorance
compensated by the native courage of Barbarians: the wind was
strong, the waves were rough; and no sooner did the Greeks
perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leaped headlong
into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. The
troops that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were
struck at the same moment with a similar panic; and the Genoese
were astonished, and almost ashamed, at their double victory.
Their triumphant vessels, crowned with flowers, and dragging
after them the captive galleys, repeatedly passed and repassed
before the palace: the only virtue of the emperor was patience;
and the hope of revenge his sole consolation. Yet the distress
of both parties interposed a temporary agreement; and the shame
of the empire was disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power.
Summoning the chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to
despise the trivial object of the debate; and, after a mild
reproof, most liberally granted the lands, which had been
previously resigned to the seeming custody of his officers. ^50
[Footnote 50: The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene
(l. iv. c. 11 with obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras
(l. xvii. c. 1 - 7) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest
was less responsible than the prince for the defeat of the
fleet.]
But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty,
and to join his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of
Genoa and her colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace
and war, his moderation was provoked by a wanton insult of the
inhabitants of Pera, who discharged from their rampart a large
stone that fell in the midst of Constantinople. On his just
complaint, they coldly blamed the imprudence of their engineer;
but the next day the insult was repeated; and they exulted in a
second proof that the royal city was not beyond the reach of
their artillery. Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with
the Venetians; but the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely
felt in the balance of these opulent and powerful republics. ^51
From the Straits of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their
fleets encountered each other with various success; and a
memorable battle was fought in the narrow sea, under the walls of
Constantinople. It would not be an easy task to reconcile the
accounts of the Greeks, the Venetians, and the Genoese; ^52 and
while I depend on the narrative of an impartial historian, ^53 I
shall borrow from each nation the facts that redound to their own
disgrace, and the honor of their foes. The Venetians, with their
allies the Catalans, had the advantage of number; and their
fleet, with the poor addition of eight Byzantine galleys,
amounted to seventy-five sail: the Genoese did not exceed
sixty-four; but in those times their ships of war were
distinguished by the superiority of their size and strength. The
names and families of their naval commanders, Pisani and Doria,
are illustrious in the annals of their country; but the personal
merit of the former was eclipsed by the fame and abilities of his
rival. They engaged in tempestuous weather; and the tumultuary
conflict was continued from the dawn to the extinction of light.
The enemies of the Genoese applaud their prowess; the friends of
the Venetians are dissatisfied with their behavior; but all
parties agree in praising the skill and boldness of the Catalans,
^* who, with many wounds, sustained the brunt of the action. On
the separation of the fleets, the event might appear doubtful;
but the thirteen Genoese galleys, that had been sunk or taken,
were compensated by a double loss of the allies; of fourteen
Venetians, ten Catalans, and two Greeks; ^! and even the grief of
the conquerors expressed the assurance and habit of more decisive
victories. Pisani confessed his defeat, by retiring into a
fortified harbor, from whence, under the pretext of the orders of
the senate, he steered with a broken and flying squadron for the
Isle of Candia, and abandoned to his rivals the sovereignty of
the sea. In a public epistle, ^54 addressed to the doge and
senate, Petrarch employs his eloquence to reconcile the maritime
powers, the two luminaries of Italy. The orator celebrates the
valor and victory of the Genoese, the first of men in the
exercise of naval war: he drops a tear on the misfortunes of
their Venetian brethren; but he exhorts them to pursue with fire
and sword the base and perfidious Greeks; to purge the metropolis
of the East from the heresy with which it was infected. Deserted
by their friends, the Greeks were incapable of resistance; and
three months after the battle, the emperor Cantacuzene solicited
and subscribed a treaty, which forever banished the Venetians and
Catalans, and granted to the Genoese a monopoly of trade, and
almost a right of dominion. The Roman empire (I smile in
transcribing the name) might soon have sunk into a province of
Genoa, if the ambition of the republic had not been checked by
the ruin of her freedom and naval power. A long contest of one
hundred and thirty years was determined by the triumph of Venice;
and the factions of the Genoese compelled them to seek for
domestic peace under the protection of a foreign lord, the duke
of Milan, or the French king. Yet the spirit of commerce
survived that of conquest; and the colony of Pera still awed the
capital and navigated the Euxine, till it was involved by the
Turks in the final servitude of Constantinople itself.
[Footnote 51: The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene, (l.
iv. c. 18, p. 24, 25, 28 - 32,) who wishes to disguise what he
dares not deny. I regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is
still in Ms. at Paris.
Note: This part of Nicephorus Gregoras has not been printed
in the new edition of the Byzantine Historians. The editor
expresses a hope that it may be undertaken by Hase. I should
join in the regret of Gibbon, if these books contain any
historical information: if they are but a continuation of the
controversies which fill the last books in our present copies,
they may as well sleep their eternal sleep in Ms. as in print. -
M.]
[Footnote 52: Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. xii. p. 144)
refers to the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the
continuator of Andrew Dandulus, tom. xii. p. 421, 422) and Genoa,
(George Stella Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092;) both
which I have diligently consulted in his great Collection of the
Historians of Italy.]
[Footnote 53: See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, l.
ii. c. 59, p. 145 - 147, c. 74, 75, p. 156, 157, in Muratori's
Collection, tom.]
[Footnote *: Cantacuzene praises their bravery, but imputes their
losses to their ignorance of the seas: they suffered more by the
breakers than by the enemy, vol. iii. p. 224. - M.]
[Footnote !: Cantacuzene says that the Genoese lost twenty-eight
ships with their crews; the Venetians and Catalans sixteen, the
Imperials, none Cantacuzene accuses Pisani of cowardice, in not
following up the victory, and destroying the Genoese. But
Pisani's conduct, and indeed Cantacuzene's account of the battle,
betray the superiority of the Genoese - M]
[Footnote 54: The Abbe de Sade (Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque,
tom. iii. p. 257 - 263) translates this letter, which he copied
from a MS. in the king of France's library. Though a servant of
the duke of Milan, Petrarch pours forth his astonishment and
grief at the defeat and despair of the Genoese in the following
year, (p. 323 - 332.)]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turkds.
Part I.
Conquests Of Zingis Khan And The Moguls From China To
Poland. - Escape Of Constantinople And The Greeks. - Origin Of
The Ottoman Turks In Bithynia. - Reigns And Victories Of Othman,
Orchan, Amurath The First, And Bajazet The First. - Foundation
And Progress Of The Turkish Monarchy In Asia And Europe. - Danger
Of Constantinople And The Greek Empire.
From the petty quarrels of a city and her suburbs, from the
cowardice and discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend
to the victorious Turks; whose domestic slavery was ennobled by
martial discipline, religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the
national character. The rise and progress of the Ottomans, the
present sovereigns of Constantinople, are connected with the most
important scenes of modern history; but they are founded on a
previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls ^* and
Tartars; whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive
convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the
surface of the globe. I have long since asserted my claim to
introduce the nations, the immediate or remote authors of the
fall of the Roman empire; nor can I refuse myself to those
events, which, from their uncommon magnitude, will interest a
philosophic mind in the history of blood. ^1
[Footnote *: Mongol seems to approach the nearest to the proper
name of this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the
Mondchoux, their neighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called
themselves also Beda. This fact seems to have been proved by M.
Schmidt against the French Orientalists. See De Brosset. Note
on Le Beau, tom. xxii p. 402.]
[Footnote 1: The reader is invited to review chapters xxii. to
xxvi., and xxiii. to xxxviii., the manners of pastoral nations,
the conquests of Attila and the Huns, which were composed at a
time when I entertained the wish, rather than the hope, of
concluding my history.]
From the spacious highlands between China, Siberia, and the
Caspian Sea, the tide of emigration and war has repeatedly been
poured. These ancient seats of the Huns and Turks were occupied
in the twelfth century by many pastoral tribes, of the same
descent and similar manners, which were united and led to
conquest by the formidable Zingis. ^* In his ascent to greatness,
that Barbarian (whose private appellation was Temugin) had
trampled on the necks of his equals. His birth was noble; but it
was the pride of victory, that the prince or people deduced his
seventh ancestor from the immaculate conception of a virgin. His
father had reigned over thirteen hordes, which composed about
thirty or forty thousand families: above two thirds refused to
pay tithes or obedience to his infant son; and at the age of
thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against his rebellious
subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was reduced to fly and to
obey; but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth
year he had established his fame and dominion over the
circumjacent tribes. In a state of society, in which policy is
rude and valor is universal, the ascendant of one man must be
founded on his power and resolution to punish his enemies and
recompense his friends. His first military league was ratified
by the simple rites of sacrificing a horse and tasting of a
running stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his
followers the sweets and the bitters of life; and when he had
shared among them his horses and apparel, he was rich in their
gratitude and his own hopes. After his first victory, he placed
seventy caldrons on the fire, and seventy of the most guilty
rebels were cast headlong into the boiling water. The sphere of
his attraction was continually enlarged by the ruin of the proud
and the submission of the prudent; and the boldest chieftains
might tremble, when they beheld, enchased in silver, the skull of
the khan of Keraites; ^2 who, under the name of Prester John, had
corresponded with the Roman pontiff and the princes of Europe.
The ambition of Temugin condescended to employ the arts of
superstition; and it was from a naked prophet, who could ascend
to heaven on a white horse, that he accepted the title of Zingis,
^3 the most great; and a divine right to the conquest and
dominion of the earth. In a general couroultai, or diet, he was
seated on a felt, which was long afterwards revered as a relic,
and solemnly proclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Moguls ^4
and Tartars. ^5 Of these kindred, though rival, names, the former
had given birth to the imperial race; and the latter has been
extended by accident or error over the spacious wilderness of the
north.
[Footnote *: On the traditions of the early life of Zingis, see
D'Ohson, Hist des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, Paris, 1824.
Schmidt, Geschichte des Ost- Mongolen, p. 66, &c., and Notes. -
M.]
[Footnote 2: The khans of the Keraites were most probably
incapable of reading the pompous epistles composed in their name
by the Nestorian missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous
wonders of an Indian kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the
Presbyter or Priest John) had submitted to the rites of baptism
and ordination, (Asseman, Bibliot Orient tom. iii. p. ii. p. 487
- 503.)]
[Footnote 3: Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis,
at least in French, seems to be the more fashionable spelling;
but Abulghazi Khan must have known the true name of his ancestor.
His etymology appears just: Zin, in the Mogul tongue, signifies
great, and gis is the superlative termination, (Hist.
Genealogique des Tatars, part iii. p. 194, 195.) From the same
idea of magnitude, the appellation of Zingis is bestowed on the
ocean.]
[Footnote 4: The name of Moguls has prevailed among the
Orientals, and still adheres to the titular sovereign, the Great
Mogul of Hindastan.
Note: M. Remusat (sur les Langues Tartares, p. 233) justly
observes, that Timour was a Turk, not a Mogul, and, p. 242, that
probably there was not Mogul in the army of Baber, who
established the Indian throne of the "Great Mogul." - M.]
[Footnote 5: The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended
from Tatar Khan, the brother of Mogul Khan, (see Abulghazi, part
i. and ii.,) and once formed a horde of 70,000 families on the
borders of Kitay, (p. 103 - 112.) In the great invasion of Europe
(A.D. 1238) they seem to have led the vanguard; and the
similitude of the name of Tartarei, recommended that of Tartars
to the Latins, (Matt. Paris, p. 398, &c.)
Note: This relationship, according to M. Klaproth, is
fabulous, and invented by the Mahometan writers, who, from
religious zeal, endeavored to connect the traditions of the
nomads of Central Asia with those of the Old Testament, as
preserved in the Koran. There is no trace of it in the Chinese
writers de l'Asie, p. 156. - M.]
The code of laws which Zingis dictated to his subjects was
adapted to the preservation of a domestic peace, and the exercise
of foreign hostility. The punishment of death was inflicted on
the crimes of adultery, murder, perjury, and the capital thefts
of a horse or ox; and the fiercest of men were mild and just in
their intercourse with each other. The future election of the
great khan was vested in the princes of his family and the heads
of the tribes; and the regulations of the chase were essential to
the pleasures and plenty of a Tartar camp. The victorious nation
was held sacred from all servile labors, which were abandoned to
slaves and strangers; and every labor was servile except the
profession of arms. The service and discipline of the troops,
who were armed with bows, cimeters, and iron maces, and divided
by hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands, were the institutions
of a veteran commander. Each officer and soldier was made
responsible, under pain of death, for the safety and honor of his
companions; and the spirit of conquest breathed in the law, that
peace should never be granted unless to a vanquished and
suppliant enemy. But it is the religion of Zingis that best
deserves our wonder and applause. ^* The Catholic inquisitors of
Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been
confounded by the example of a Barbarian, who anticipated the
lessons of philosophy, ^6 and established by his laws a system of
pure theism and perfect toleration. His first and only article
of faith was the existence of one God, the Author of all good;
who fills by his presence the heavens and earth, which he has
created by his power. The Tartars and Moguls were addicted to
the idols of their peculiar tribes; and many of them had been
converted by the foreign missionaries to the religions of Moses,
of Mahomet, and of Christ. These various systems in freedom and
concord were taught and practised within the precincts of the
same camp; and the Bonze, the Imam, the Rabbi, the Nestorian, and
the Latin priest, enjoyed the same honorable exemption from
service and tribute: in the mosque of Bochara, the insolent
victor might trample the Koran under his horse's feet, but the
calm legislator respected the prophets and pontiffs of the most
hostile sects. The reason of Zingis was not informed by books:
the khan could neither read nor write; and, except the tribe of
the Igours, the greatest part of the Moguls and Tartars were as
illiterate as their sovereign. ^* The memory of their exploits
was preserved by tradition: sixty- eight years after the death of
Zingis, these traditions were collected and transcribed; ^7 the
brevity of their domestic annals may be supplied by the Chinese,
^8 Persians, ^9 Armenians, ^10 Syrians, ^11 Arabians, ^12 Greeks,
^13 Russians, ^14 Poles, ^15 Hungarians, ^16 and Latins; ^17 and
each nation will deserve credit in the relation of their own
disasters and defeats. ^18
[Footnote *: Before his armies entered Thibet, he sent an embassy
to Bogdosottnam Dsimmo, a Lama high priest, with a letter to this
effect: "I have chosen thee as high priest for myself and my
empire. Repair then to me, and promote the present and future
happiness of man: I will be thy supporter and protector: let us
establish a system of religion, and unite it with the monarchy,"
&c. The high priest accepted the invitation; and the Mongol
history literally terms this step the period of the first respect
for religion; because the monarch, by his public profession, made
it the religion of the state. Klaproth. "Travels in Caucasus,"
ch. 7, Eng. Trans. p. 92. Neither Dshingis nor his son and
successor Oegodah had, on account of their continual wars, much
leisure for the propagation of the religion of the Lama. By
religion they understand a distinct, independent, sacred moral
code, which has but one origin, one source, and one object. This
notion they universally propagate, and even believe that the
brutes, and all created beings, have a religion adapted to their
sphere of action. The different forms of the various religions
they ascribe to the difference of individuals, nations, and
legislators. Never do you hear of their inveighing against any
creed, even against the obviously absurd Schaman paganism, or of
their persecuting others on that account. They themselves, on
the other hand, endure every hardship, and even persecutions,
with perfect resignation, and indulgently excuse the follies of
others, nay, consider them as a motive for increased arder in
prayer, ch. ix. p. 109. - M.]
[Footnote 6: A singular conformity may be found between the
religious laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke, (Constitutions of
Carolina, in his works, vol. iv. p. 535, 4to. edition, 1777.)]
[Footnote *: See the notice on Tha-tha-toung-o, the Ouogour
minister of Tchingis, in Abel Remusat's 2d series of Recherch.
Asiat. vol. ii. p. 61. He taught the son of Tchingis to write:
"He was the instructor of the Moguls in writing, of which they
were before ignorant;" and hence the application of the Ouigour
characters to the Mogul language cannot be placed earlier than
the year 1204 or 1205, nor so late as the time of Pa-sse-pa, who
lived under Khubilai. A new alphabet, approaching to that of
Thibet, was introduced under Khubilai. - M.]
[Footnote 7: In the year 1294, by the command of Cazan, khan of
Persia, the fourth in descent from Zingis. From these
traditions, his vizier Fadlallah composed a Mogul history in the
Persian language, which has been used by Petit de la Croix,
(Hist. de Genghizcan, p. 537 - 539.) The Histoire Genealogique
des Tatars (a Leyde, 1726, in 12mo., 2 tomes) was translated by
the Swedish prisoners in Siberia from the Mogul MS. of Abulgasi
Bahadur Khan, a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over the Usbeks
of Charasm, or Carizme, (A.D. 1644 - 1663.) He is of most value
and credit for the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation.
Of his nine parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the
iid, from Mogul to Zingis; the iiid is the life of Zingis; the
ivth, vth, vith, and viith, the general history of his four sons
and their posterity; the viiith and ixth, the particular history
of the descendants of Sheibani Khan, who reigned in Maurenahar
and Charasm.]
[Footnote 8: Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie des
Mongous ses Successeurs, Conquerans de la Chine; tiree de
l'Histoire de la Chine par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Societe de
Jesus, Missionaire a Peking; a Paris, 1739, in 4to. This
translation is stamped with the Chinese character of domestic
accuracy and foreign ignorance.]
[Footnote 9: See the Histoire du Grand Genghizcan, premier
Empereur des Moguls et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, a
Paris, 1710, in 12mo.; a work of ten years' labor, chiefly drawn
from the Persian writers, among whom Nisavi, the secretary of
Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and prejudices of a
contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault of the
originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of
Genghizcan, Mohammed, Gelaleddin, &c., in the Bibliotheque
Orientale of D'Herbelot.
Note: The preface to the Hist. des Mongols, (Paris, 1824)
gives a catalogue of the Arabic and Persian authorities. - M.]
[Footnote 10: Haithonus, or Aithonus, an Armenian prince, and
afterwards a monk of Premontre, (Fabric, Bibliot. Lat. Medii
Aevi, tom. i. p. 34,) dictated in the French language, his book
de Tartaris, his old fellow-soldiers. It was immediately
translated into Latin, and is inserted in the Novus Orbis of
Simon Grynaeus, (Basil, 1555, in folio.)
Note: A precis at the end of the new edition of Le Beau,
Hist. des Empereurs, vol. xvii., by M. Brosset, gives large
extracts from the accounts of the Armenian historians relating to
the Mogul conquests. - M.]
[Footnote 11: Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy the
conclusion of the ixth Dynasty of Abulpharagius, (vers. Pocock,
Oxon. 1663, in 4to.;) and his xth Dynasty is that of the Moguls
of Persia. Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.) has extracted
some facts from his Syriac writings, and the lives of the
Jacobite maphrians, or primates of the East.]
[Footnote 12: Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we
may distinguish Abulfeda, sultan of Hamah in Syria, who fought in
person, under the Mamaluke standard, against the Moguls.]
[Footnote 13: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 5, 6) has felt the
necessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. He
describes with truth and elegance the settlement and manners of
the Moguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and
corrupts the names of Zingis and his sons.]
[Footnote 14: M. Levesque (Histoire de Russie, tom. ii.) has
described the conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the
patriarch Nicon, and the old chronicles.]
[Footnote 15: For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica
et Europaea of Matthew a Michou, or De Michovia, a canon and
physician of Cracow, (A.D. 1506,) inserted in the Novus Orbis of
Grynaeus. Fabric Bibliot. Latin. Mediae et Infimae Aetatis, tom.
v. p. 56.]
[Footnote 16: I should quote Thuroczius, the oldest general
historian (pars ii. c. 74, p. 150) in the 1st volume of the
Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, did not the same volume contain
the original narrative of a contemporary, an eye-witness, and a
sufferer, (M. Rogerii, Hungari, Varadiensis Capituli Canonici,
Carmen miserabile, seu Historia super Destructione Regni
Hungariae Temporibus Belae IV. Regis per Tartaros facta, p. 292 -
321;) the best picture that I have ever seen of all the
circumstances of a Barbaric invasion.]
[Footnote 17: Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic
documents, the danger and distress of Europe, (consult the word
Tartari in his copious Index.) From motives of zeal and
curiosity, the court of the great khan in the xiiith century was
visited by two friars, John de Plano Carpini, and William
Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetian gentleman. The Latin
relations of the two former are inserted in the 1st volume of
Hackluyt; the Italian original or version of the third (Fabric.
Bibliot. Latin. Medii Aevi, tom. ii. p. 198, tom. v. p. 25) may
be found in the second tome of Ramusio.]
[Footnote 18: In his great History of the Huns, M. de Guignes has
most amply treated of Zingis Khan and his successors. See tom.
iii. l. xv. - xix., and in the collateral articles of the
Seljukians of Roum, tom. ii. l. xi., the Carizmians, l. xiv., and
the Mamalukes, tom. iv. l. xxi.; consult likewise the tables of
the 1st volume. He is ever learned and accurate; yet I am only
indebted to him for a general view, and some passages of
Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text.
Note: To this catalogue of the historians of the Moguls may
be added D'Ohson, Histoire des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols,
(from Arabic and Persian authorities,) Paris, 1824. Schmidt,
Geschichte der Ost Mongolen, St. Petersburgh, 1829. This curious
work, by Ssanang Ssetsen Chungtaidschi, published in the original
Mongol, was written after the conversion of the nation to
Buddhism: it is enriched with very valuable notes by the editor
and translator; but, unfortunately, is very barren of information
about the European and even the western Asiatic conquests of the
Mongols. - M.]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turkds.
Part II.
The arms of Zingis and his lieutenants successively reduced
the hordes of the desert, who pitched their tents between the
wall of China and the Volga; and the Mogul emperor became the
monarch of the pastoral world, the lord of many millions of
shepherds and soldiers, who felt their united strength, and were
impatient to rush on the mild and wealthy climates of the south.
His ancestors had been the tributaries of the Chinese emperors;
and Temugin himself had been disgraced by a title of honor and
servitude. The court of Pekin was astonished by an embassy from
its former vassal, who, in the tone of the king of nations,
exacted the tribute and obedience which he had paid, and who
affected to treat the son of heaven as the most contemptible of
mankind. A haughty answer disguised their secret apprehensions;
and their fears were soon justified by the march of innumerable
squadrons, who pierced on all sides the feeble rampart of the
great wall. Ninety cities were stormed, or starved, by the
Moguls; ten only escaped; and Zingis, from a knowledge of the
filial piety of the Chinese, covered his vanguard with their
captive parents; an unworthy, and by degrees a fruitless, abuse
of the virtue of his enemies. His invasion was supported by the
revolt of a hundred thousand Khitans, who guarded the frontier:
yet he listened to a treaty; and a princess of China, three
thousand horses, five hundred youths, and as many virgins, and a
tribute of gold and silk, were the price of his retreat. In his
second expedition, he compelled the Chinese emperor to retire
beyond the yellow river to a more southern residence. The siege
of Pekin ^19 was long and laborious: the inhabitants were reduced
by famine to decimate and devour their fellow-citizens; when
their ammunition was spent, they discharged ingots of gold and
silver from their engines; but the Moguls introduced a mine to
the centre of the capital; and the conflagration of the palace
burnt above thirty days. China was desolated by Tartar war and
domestic faction; and the five northern provinces were added to
the empire of Zingis.
[Footnote 19: More properly Yen-king, an ancient city, whose
ruins still appear some furlongs to the south-east of the modern
Pekin, which was built by Cublai Khan, (Gaubel, p. 146.) Pe-king
and Nan-king are vague titles, the courts of the north and of the
south. The identity and change of names perplex the most skilful
readers of the Chinese geography, (p. 177.)
Note: And likewise in Chinese history - see Abel Remusat,
Mel. Asiat. 2d tom. ii. p. 5. - M.]
In the West, he touched the dominions of Mohammed, sultan of
Carizime, who reigned from the Persian Gulf to the borders of
India and Turkestan; and who, in the proud imitation of Alexander
the Great, forgot the servitude and ingratitude of his fathers to
the house of Seljuk. It was the wish of Zingis to establish a
friendly and commercial intercourse with the most powerful of the
Moslem princes: nor could he be tempted by the secret
solicitations of the caliph of Bagdad, who sacrificed to his
personal wrongs the safety of the church and state. A rash and
inhuman deed provoked and justified the Tartar arms in the
invasion of the southern Asia. ^! A caravan of three ambassadors
and one hundred and fifty merchants were arrested and murdered at
Otrar, by the command of Mohammed; nor was it till after a demand
and denial of justice, till he had prayed and fasted three nights
on a mountain, that the Mogul emperor appealed to the judgment of
God and his sword. Our European battles, says a philosophic
writer, ^20 are petty skirmishes, if compared to the numbers that
have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. Seven hundred
thousand Moguls and Tartars are said to have marched under the
standard of Zingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that
extend to the north of the Sihon or Jaxartes, they were
encountered by four hundred thousand soldiers of the sultan; and
in the first battle, which was suspended by the night, one
hundred and sixty thousand Carizmians were slain. Mohammed was
astonished by the multitude and valor of his enemies: he withdrew
from the scene of danger, and distributed his troops in the
frontier towns; trusting that the Barbarians, invincible in the
field, would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many
regular sieges. But the prudence of Zingis had formed a body of
Chinese engineers, skilled in the mechanic arts; informed perhaps
of the secret of gunpowder, and capable, under his discipline, of
attacking a foreign country with more vigor and success than they
had defended their own. The Persian historians will relate the
sieges and reduction of Otrar, Cogende, Bochara, Samarcand,
Carizme, Herat, Merou, Nisabour, Balch, and Candahar; and the
conquest of the rich and populous countries of Transoxiana,
Carizme, and Chorazan. ^* The destructive hostilities of Attila
and the Huns have long since been elucidated by the example of
Zingis and the Moguls; and in this more proper place I shall be
content to observe, that, from the Caspian to the Indus, they
ruined a tract of many hundred miles, which was adorned with the
habitations and labors of mankind, and that five centuries have
not been sufficient to repair the ravages of four years. The
Mogul emperor encouraged or indulged the fury of his troops: the
hope of future possession was lost in the ardor of rapine and
slaughter; and the cause of the war exasperated their native
fierceness by the pretence of justice and revenge. The downfall
and death of the sultan Mohammed, who expired, unpitied and
alone, in a desert island of the Caspian Sea, is a poor atonement
for the calamities of which he was the author. Could the
Carizmian empire have been saved by a single hero, it would have
been saved by his son Gelaleddin, whose active valor repeatedly
checked the Moguls in the career of victory. Retreating, as he
fought, to the banks of the Indus, he was oppressed by their
innumerable host, till, in the last moment of despair, Gelaleddin
spurred his horse into the waves, swam one of the broadest and
most rapid rivers of Asia, and extorted the admiration and
applause of Zingis himself. It was in this camp that the Mogul
conqueror yielded with reluctance to the murmurs of his weary and
wealthy troops, who sighed for the enjoyment of their native
land. Eucumbered with the spoils of Asia, he slowly measured
back his footsteps, betrayed some pity for the misery of the
vanquished, and declared his intention of rebuilding the cities
which had been swept away by the tempest of his arms. After he
had repassed the Oxus and Jaxartes, he was joined by two
generals, whom he had detached with thirty thousand horse, to
subdue the western provinces of Persia. They had trampled on the
nations which opposed their passage, penetrated through the gates
of Derbent, traversed the Volga and the desert, and accomplished
the circuit of the Caspian Sea, by an expedition which had never
been attempted, and has never been repeated. The return of
Zingis was signalized by the overthrow of the rebellious or
independent kingdoms of Tartary; and he died in the fulness of
years and glory, with his last breath exhorting and instructing
his sons to achieve the conquest of the Chinese empire. ^*
[Footnote !: See the particular account of this transaction, from
the Kholauesut Akbaur, in Price, vol. ii. p. 402. - M.]
[Footnote 20: M. de Voltaire, Essai sur l'Histoire Generale, tom.
iii. c. 60, p. 8. His account of Zingis and the Moguls contains,
as usual, much general sense and truth, with some particular
errors.]
[Footnote *: Every where they massacred all classes, except the
artisans, whom they made slaves. Hist. des Mongols. - M.]
[Footnote *: Their first duty, which he bequeathed to them, was
to massacre the king of Tangcoute and all the inhabitants of
Ninhia, the surrender of the city being already agreed upon,
Hist. des Mongols. vol. i. p. 286. - M.]
The harem of Zingis was composed of five hundred wives and
concubines; and of his numerous progeny, four sons, illustrious
by their birth and merit, exercised under their father the
principal offices of peace and war. Toushi was his great
huntsman, Zagatai ^21 his judge, Octai his minister, and Tuli his
general; and their names and actions are often conspicuous in the
history of his conquests. Firmly united for their own and the
public interest, the three brothers and their families were
content with dependent sceptres; and Octai, by general consent,
was proclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Moguls and Tartars.
He was succeeded by his son Gayuk, after whose death the empire
devolved to his cousins Mangou and Cublai, the sons of Tuli, and
the grandsons of Zingis. In the sixty-eight years of his four
first successors, the Mogul subdued almost all Asia, and a large
portion of Europe. Without confining myself to the order of
time, without expatiating on the detail of events, I shall
present a general picture of the progress of their arms; I. In
the East; II. In the South; III. In the West; and IV. In the
North.
[Footnote 21: Zagatai gave his name to his dominions of
Maurenahar, or Transoxiana; and the Moguls of Hindostan, who
emigrated from that country, are styled Zagatais by the Persians.
This certain etymology, and the similar example of Uzbek, Nogai,
&c., may warn us not absolutely to reject the derivations of a
national, from a personal, name.
Note: See a curious anecdote of Tschagatai. Hist. des
Mongols, p. 370. M]
I. Before the invasion of Zingis, China was divided into
two empires or dynasties of the North and South; ^22 and the
difference of origin and interest was smoothed by a general
conformity of laws, language, and national manners. The Northern
empire, which had been dismembered by Zingis, was finally subdued
seven years after his death. After the loss of Pekin, the
emperor had fixed his residence at Kaifong, a city many leagues
in circumference, and which contained, according to the Chinese
annals, fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and
fugitives. He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and
made his last stand in a third capital, till at length the
hopeless monarch, protesting his innocence and accusing his
fortune, ascended a funeral pile, and gave orders, that, as soon
as he had stabbed himself, the fire should be kindled by his
attendants. The dynasty of the Song, the native and ancient
sovereigns of the whole empire, survived about forty-five years
the fall of the Northern usurpers; and the perfect conquest was
reserved for the arms of Cublai. During this interval, the
Moguls were often diverted by foreign wars; and, if the Chinese
seldom dared to meet their victors in the field, their passive
courage presented and endless succession of cities to storm and
of millions to slaughter. In the attack and defence of places,
the engines of antiquity and the Greek fire were alternately
employed: the use of gunpowder in cannon and bombs appears as a
familiar practice; ^23 and the sieges were conducted by the
Mahometans and Franks, who had been liberally invited into the
service of Cublai. After passing the great river, the troops and
artillery were conveyed along a series of canals, till they
invested the royal residence of Hamcheu, or Quinsay, in the
country of silk, the most delicious climate of China. The
emperor, a defenceless youth, surrendered his person and sceptre;
and before he was sent in exile into Tartary, he struck nine
times the ground with his forehead, to adore in prayer or
thanksgiving the mercy of the great khan. Yet the war (it was now
styled a rebellion) was still maintained in the southern
provinces from Hamcheu to Canton; and the obstinate remnant of
independence and hostility was transported from the land to the
sea. But when the fleet of the Song was surrounded and oppressed
by a superior armament, their last champion leaped into the waves
with his infant emperor in his arms. "It is more glorious," he
cried, "to die a prince, than to live a slave." A hundred
thousand Chinese imitated his example; and the whole empire, from
Tonkin to the great wall, submitted to the dominion of Cublai.
His boundless ambition aspired to the conquest of Japan: his
fleet was twice shipwrecked; and the lives of a hundred thousand
Moguls and Chinese were sacrificed in the fruitless expedition.
But the circumjacent kingdoms, Corea, Tonkin, Cochinchina, Pegu,
Bengal, and Thibet, were reduced in different degrees of tribute
and obedience by the effort or terror of his arms. He explored
the Indian Ocean with a fleet of a thousand ships: they sailed in
sixty-eight days, most probably to the Isle of Borneo, under the
equinoctial line; and though they returned not without spoil or
glory, the emperor was dissatisfied that the savage king had
escaped from their hands.
[Footnote 22: In Marco Polo, and the Oriental geographers, the
names of Cathay and Mangi distinguish the northern and southern
empires, which, from A.D. 1234 to 1279, were those of the great
khan, and of the Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had
been found, excited and misled our navigators of the sixteenth
century, in their attempts to discover the north- east passage.]
[Footnote 23: I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Pere
Gaubil, who translates the Chinese text of the annals of the
Moguls or Yuen, (p. 71, 93, 153;) but I am ignorant at what time
these annals were composed and published. The two uncles of Marco
Polo, who served as engineers at the siege of Siengyangfou, (l.
ii. 61, in Ramusio, tom. ii. See Gaubil, p. 155, 157) must have
felt and related the effects of this destructive powder, and
their silence is a weighty, and almost decisive objection. I
entertain a suspicion, that their recent discovery was carried
from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century and
falsely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival
of the Portuguese and Jesuits in the xvith. Yet the Pere Gaubil
affirms, that the use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese
above 1600 years.
Note: Sou-houng-kian-lon. Abel Remusat. - M.
Note: La poudre a canon et d'autres compositions
inflammantes, dont ils se servent pour construire des pieces
d'artifice d'un effet suprenant, leur etaient connues depuis tres
long-temps, et l'on croit que des bombardes et des pierriers,
dont ils avaient enseigne l'usage aux Tartares, ont pu donner en
Europe l'idee d'artillerie, quoique la forme des fusils et des
canons dont ils se servent actuellement, leur ait ete apportee
par les Francs, ainsi que l'attestent les noms memes qu'ils
donnent a ces sortes d'armes. Abel Remusat, Melanges Asiat. 2d
ser tom. i. p. 23. - M.]
II. The conquest of Hindostan by the Moguls was reserved in
a later period for the house of Timour; but that of Iran, or
Persia, was achieved by Holagou Khan, ^* the grandson of Zingis,
the brother and lieutenant of the two successive emperors, Mangou
and Cublai. I shall not enumerate the crowd of sultans, emirs,
and atabeks, whom he trampled into dust; but the extirpation of
the Assassins, or Ismaelians ^24 of Persia, may be considered as
a service to mankind. Among the hills to the south of the
Caspian, these odious sectaries had reigned with impunity above a
hundred and sixty years; and their prince, or Imam, established
his lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of Mount Libanus, so
famous and formidable in the history of the crusades. ^25 With
the fanaticism of the Koran the Ismaelians had blended the Indian
transmigration, and the visions of their own prophets; and it was
their first duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind
obedience to the vicar of God. The daggers of his missionaries
were felt both in the East and West: the Christians and the
Moslems enumerate, and persons multiply, the illustrious victims
that were sacrificed to the zeal, avarice, or resentment of the
old man (as he was corruptly styled) of the mountain. But these
daggers, his only arms, were broken by the sword of Holagou, and
not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind, except the word
assassin, which, in the most odious sense, has been adopted in
the languages of Europe. The extinction of the Abbassides cannot
be indifferent to the spectators of their greatness and decline.
Since the fall of their Seljukian tyrants the caliphs had
recovered their lawful dominion of Bagdad and the Arabian Irak;
but the city was distracted by theological factions, and the
commander of the faithful was lost in a harem of seven hundred
conubines. The invasion of the Moguls he encountered with feeble
arms and haughty embassies. "On the divine decree," said the
caliph Mostasem, "is founded the throne of the sons of Abbas: and
their foes shall surely be destroyed in this world and in the
next. Who is this Holagou that dares to rise against them? If
he be desirous of peace, let him instantly depart from the sacred
territory; and perhaps he may obtain from our clemency the pardon
of his fault." This presumption was cherished by a perfidious
vizier, who assured his master, that, even if the Barbarians had
entered the city, the women and children, from the terraces,
would be sufficient to overwhelm them with stones. But when
Holagou touched the phantom, it instantly vanished into smoke.
After a siege of two months, Bagdad was stormed and sacked by the
Moguls; ^* and their savage commander pronounced the death of the
caliph Mostasem, the last of the temporal successors of Mahomet;
whose noble kinsmen, of the race of Abbas, had reigned in Asia
above five hundred years. Whatever might be the designs of the
conqueror, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina ^26 were protected
by the Arabian desert; but the Moguls spread beyond the Tigris
and Euphrates, pillaged Aleppo and Damascus, and threatened to
join the Franks in the deliverance of Jerusalem. Egypt was lost,
had she been defended only by her feeble offspring; but the
Mamalukes had breathed in their infancy the keenness of a
Scythian air: equal in valor, superior in discipline, they met
the Moguls in many a well-fought field; and drove back the stream
of hostility to the eastward of the Euphrates. ^! But it
overflowed with resistless violence the kingdoms of Armenia ^!!
and Anatolia, of which the former was possessed by the
Christians, and the latter by the Turks. The sultans of Iconium
opposed some resistance to the Mogul arms, till Azzadin sought a
refuge among the Greeks of Constantinople, and his feeble
successors, the last of the Seljukian dynasty, were finally
extirpated by the khans of Persia. ^*
[Footnote *: See the curious account of the expedition of
Holagou, translated from the Chinese, by M. Abel Remusat,
Melanges Asiat. 2d ser. tom. i. p. 171. - M.]
[Footnote 24: All that can be known of the Assassins of Persia
and Syria is poured from the copious, and even profuse, erudition
of M. Falconet, in two Memoires read before the Academy of
Inscriptions, (tom. xvii. p. 127 - 170.)
Note: Von Hammer's History of the Assassins has now thrown
Falconet's Dissertation into the shade. - M.]
[Footnote 25: The Ismaelians of Syria, 40,000 Assassins, had
acquired or founded ten castles in the hills above Tortosa.
About the year 1280, they were extirpated by the Mamalukes.]
[Footnote *: Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p.
283, 307. Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzuge, vol. vii. p. 406.
Price, Chronological Retrospect, vol. ii. p. 217 - 223. - M.]
[Footnote 26: As a proof of the ignorance of the Chinese in
foreign transactions, I must observe, that some of their
historians extend the conquest of Zingis himself to Medina, the
country of Mahomet, (Gaubil p. 42.)]
[Footnote !: Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 410 - M.]
[Footnote !!: On the friendly relations of the Armenians with the
Mongols see Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzuge, vol. vii. p. 402.
They eagerly desired an alliance against the Mahometan powers. -
M.]
[Footnote *: Trebizond escaped, apparently by the dexterous
politics of the sovereign, but it acknowledged the Mogul
supremacy. Falmerayer, p. 172 - M.]
III. No sooner had Octai subverted the northern empire of
China, than he resolved to visit with his arms the most remote
countries of the West. Fifteen hundred thousand Moguls and
Tartars were inscribed on the military roll: of these the great
khan selected a third, which he intrusted to the command of his
nephew Batou, the son of Tuli; who reigned over his father's
conquests to the north of the Caspian Sea. ^! After a festival of
forty days, Batou set forwards on this great expedition; and such
was the speed and ardor of his innumerable squadrons, than in
less than six years they had measured a line of ninety degrees of
longitude, a fourth part of the circumference of the globe. The
great rivers of Asia and Europe, the Volga and Kama, the Don and
Borysthenes, the Vistula and Danube, they either swam with their
horses or passed on the ice, or traversed in leathern boats,
which followed the camp, and transported their wagons and
artillery. By the first victories of Batou, the remains of
national freedom were eradicated in the immense plains of
Turkestan and Kipzak. ^27 In his rapid progress, he overran the
kingdoms, as they are now styled, of Astracan and Cazan; and the
troops which he detached towards Mount Caucasus explored the most
secret recesses of Georgia and Circassia. The civil discord of
the great dukes, or princes, of Russia, betrayed their country to
the Tartars. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea, and both
Moscow and Kiow, the modern and the ancient capitals, were
reduced to ashes; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and
perhaps indelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years
has imprinted on the character of the Russians. The Tartars
ravaged with equal fury the countries which they hoped to
possess, and those which they were hastening to leave. From the
permanent conquest of Russia they made a deadly, though
transient, inroad into the heart of Poland, and as far as the
borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Cracow were
obliterated: ^* they approached the shores of the Baltic; and in
the battle of Lignitz they defeated the dukes of Silesia, the
Polish palatines, and the great master of the Teutonic order, and
filled nine sacks with the right ears of the slain. From Lignitz,
the extreme point of their western march, they turned aside to
the invasion of Hungary; and the presence or spirit of Batou
inspired the host of five hundred thousand men: the Carpathian
hills could not be long impervious to their divided columns; and
their approach had been fondly disbelieved till it was
irresistibly felt. The king, Bela the Fourth, assembled the
military force of his counts and bishops; but he had alienated
the nation by adopting a vagrant horde of forty thousand families
of Comans, and these savage guests were provoked to revolt by the
suspicion of treachery and the murder of their prince. The whole
country north of the Danube was lost in a day, and depopulated in
a summer; and the ruins of cities and churches were overspread
with the bones of the natives, who expiated the sins of their
Turkish ancestors. An ecclesiastic, who fled from the sack of
Waradin, describes the calamities which he had seen, or suffered;
and the sanguinary rage of sieges and battles is far less
atrocious than the treatment of the fugitives, who had been
allured from the woods under a promise of peace and pardon and
who were coolly slaughtered as soon as they had performed the
labors of the harvest and vintage. In the winter the Tartars
passed the Danube on the ice, and advanced to Gran or Strigonium,
a German colony, and the metropolis of the kingdom. Thirty
engines were planted against the walls; the ditches were filled
with sacks of earth and dead bodies; and after a promiscuous
massacre, three hundred noble matrons were slain in the presence
of the khan. Of all the cities and fortresses of Hungary, three
alone survived the Tartar invasion, and the unfortunate Bata hid
his head among the islands of the Adriatic.
[Footnote !: See the curious extracts from the Mahometan writers,
Hist. des Mongols, p. 707. - M.]
[Footnote 27: The Dashte Kipzak, or plain of Kipzak, extends on
either side of the Volga, in a boundless space towards the Jaik
and Borysthenes, and is supposed to contain the primitive name
and nation of the Cossacks.]
[Footnote *: Olmutz was gallantly and successfully defended by
Stenberg, Hist. des Mongols, p. 396. - M.]
The Latin world was darkened by this cloud of savage
hostility: a Russian fugitive carried the alarm to Sweden; and
the remote nations of the Baltic and the ocean trembled at the
approach of the Tartars, ^28 whom their fear and ignorance were
inclined to separate from the human species. Since the invasion
of the Arabs in the eighth century, Europe had never been exposed
to a similar calamity: and if the disciples of Mahomet would have
oppressed her religion and liberty, it might be apprehended that
the shepherds of Scythia would extinguish her cities, her arts,
and all the institutions of civil society. The Roman pontiff
attempted to appease and convert these invincible Pagans by a
mission of Franciscan and Dominican friars; but he was astonished
by the reply of the khan, that the sons of God and of Zingis were
invested with a divine power to subdue or extirpate the nations;
and that the pope would be involved in the universal destruction,
unless he visited in person, and as a suppliant, the royal horde.
The emperor Frederic the Second embraced a more generous mode of
defence; and his letters to the kings of France and England, and
the princes of Germany, represented the common danger, and urged
them to arm their vassals in this just and rational crusade. ^29
The Tartars themselves were awed by the fame and valor of the
Franks; the town of Newstadt in Austria was bravely defended
against them by fifty knights and twenty crossbows; and they
raised the siege on the appearance of a German army. After
wasting the adjacent kingdoms of Servia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria,
Batou slowly retreated from the Danube to the Volga to enjoyed
the rewards of victory in the city and palace of Serai, which
started at his command from the midst of the desert.*
[Footnote 28: In the year 1238, the inhabitants of Gothia
(Sweden) and Frise were prevented, by their fear of the Tartars,
from sending, as usual, their ships to the herring fishery on the
coast of England; and as there was no exportation, forty or fifty
of these fish were sold for a shilling, (Matthew Paris, p. 396.)
It is whimsical enough, that the orders of a Mogul khan, who
reigned on the borders of China, should have lowered the price of
herrings in the English market.]
[Footnote 29: I shall copy his characteristic or flattering
epithets of the different countries of Europe: Furens ac fervens
ad arma Germania, strenuae militiae genitrix et alumna Francia,
bellicosa et audax Hispania, virtuosa viris et classe munita
fertilis Anglia, impetuosis bellatoribus referta Alemannia,
navalis Dacia, indomita Italia, pacis ignara Burgundia, inquieta
Apulia, cum maris Graeci, Adriatici et Tyrrheni insulis pyraticis
et invictis, Creta, Cypro, Sicilia, cum Oceano conterminis
insulis, et regionibus, cruenta Hybernia, cum agili Wallia
palustris Scotia, glacialis Norwegia, suam electam militiam sub
vexillo Crucis destinabunt, &c. (Matthew Paris, p. 498.)]
[Footnote *: He was recalled by the death of Octai - M.]
IV. Even the poor and frozen regions of the north attracted
the arms of the Moguls: Sheibani khan, the brother of the great
Batou, led a horde of fifteen thousand families into the wilds of
Siberia; and his descendants reigned at Tobolskoi above three
centuries, till the Russian conquest. The spirit of enterprise
which pursued the course of the Oby and Yenisei must have led to
the discovery of the icy sea. After brushing away the monstrous
fables, of men with dogs' heads and cloven feet, we shall find,
that, fifteen years after the death of Zingis, the Moguls were
informed of the name and manners of the Samoyedes in the
neighborhood of the polar circle, who dwelt in subterraneous
huts, and derived their furs and their food from the sole
occupation of hunting. ^30
[Footnote 30: See Carpin's relation in Hackluyt, vol. i. p. 30.
The pedigree of the khans of Siberia is given by Abulghazi, (part
viii. p. 485 - 495.) Have the Russians found no Tartar chronicles
at Tobolskoi?
Note: See the account of the Mongol library in Bergman,
Nomadische Strensreyen, vol. iii. p. 185, 205, and Remusat, Hist.
des Langues Tartares, p. 327, and preface to Schmidt, Geschichte
der Ost-Mongolen. - M.]
While China, Syria, and Poland, were invaded at the same
time by the Moguls and Tartars, the authors of the mighty
mischief were content with the knowledge and declaration, that
their word was the sword of death. Like the first caliphs, the
first successors of Zingis seldom appeared in person at the head
of their victorious armies. On the banks of the Onon and
Selinga, the royal or golden horde exhibited the contrast of
simplicity and greatness; of the roasted sheep and mare's milk
which composed their banquets; and of a distribution in one day
of five hundred wagons of gold and silver. The ambassadors and
princes of Europe and Asia were compelled to undertake this
distant and laborious pilgrimage; and the life and reign of the
great dukes of Russia, the kings of Georgia and Armenia, the
sultans of Iconium, and the emirs of Persia, were decided by the
frown or smile of the great khan. The sons and grandsons of
Zingis had been accustomed to the pastoral life; but the village
of Caracorum ^31 was gradually ennobled by their election and
residence. A change of manners is implied in the removal of
Octai and Mangou from a tent to a house; and their example was
imitated by the princes of their family and the great officers of
the empire. Instead of the boundless forest, the enclosure of a
park afforded the more indolent pleasures of the chase; their new
habitations were decorated with painting and sculpture; their
superfluous treasures were cast in fountains, and basins, and
statues of massy silver; and the artists of China and Paris vied
with each other in the service of the great khan. ^32 Caracorum
contained two streets, the one of Chinese mechanics, the other of
Mahometan traders; and the places of religious worship, one
Nestorian church, two mosques, and twelve temples of various
idols, may represent in some degree the number and division of
inhabitants. Yet a French missionary declares, that the town of
St. Denys, near Paris, was more considerable than the Tartar
capital; and that the whole palace of Mangou was scarcely equal
to a tenth part of that Benedictine abbey. The conquests of
Russia and Syria might amuse the vanity of the great khans; but
they were seated on the borders of China; the acquisition of that
empire was the nearest and most interesting object; and they
might learn from their pastoral economy, that it is for the
advantage of the shepherd to protect and propagate his flock. I
have already celebrated the wisdom and virtue of a Mandarin who
prevented the desolation of five populous and cultivated
provinces. In a spotless administration of thirty years, this
friend of his country and of mankind continually labored to
mitigate, or suspend, the havoc of war; to save the monuments,
and to rekindle the flame, of science; to restrain the military
commander by the restoration of civil magistrates; and to instil
the love of peace and justice into the minds of the Moguls. He
struggled with the barbarism of the first conquerors; but his
salutary lessons produced a rich harvest in the second
generation. ^* The northern, and by degrees the southern, empire
acquiesced in the government of Cublai, the lieutenant, and
afterwards the successor, of Mangou; and the nation was loyal to
a prince who had been educated in the manners of China. He
restored the forms of her venerable constitution; and the victors
submitted to the laws, the fashions, and even the prejudices, of
the vanquished people. This peaceful triumph, which has been
more than once repeated, may be ascribed, in a great measure, to
the numbers and servitude of the Chinese. The Mogul army was
dissolved in a vast and populous country; and their emperors
adopted with pleasure a political system, which gives to the
prince the solid substance of despotism, and leaves to the
subject the empty names of philosophy, freedom, and filial
obedience. ^* Under the reign of Cublai, letters and commerce,
peace and justice, were restored; the great canal, of five
hundred miles, was opened from Nankin to the capital: he fixed
his residence at Pekin; and displayed in his court the
magnificence of the greatest monarch of Asia. Yet this learned
prince declined from the pure and simple religion of his great
ancestor: he sacrificed to the idol Fo; and his blind attachment
to the lamas of Thibet and the bonzes of China ^33 provoked the
censure of the disciples of Confucius. His successors polluted
the palace with a crowd of eunuchs, physicians, and astrologers,
while thirteen millions of their subjects were consumed in the
provinces by famine. One hundred and forty years after the death
of Zingis, his degenerate race, the dynasty of the Yuen, was
expelled by a revolt of the native Chinese; and the Mogul
emperors were lost in the oblivion of the desert. Before this
revolution, they had forfeited their supremacy over the dependent
branches of their house, the khans of Kipzak and Russia, the
khans of Zagatai, or Transoxiana, and the khans of Iran or
Persia. By their distance and power, these royal lieutenants had
soon been released from the duties of obedience; and after the
death of Cublai, they scorned to accept a sceptre or a title from
his unworthy successors. According to their respective
situations, they maintained the simplicity of the pastoral life,
or assumed the luxury of the cities of Asia; but the princes and
their hordes were alike disposed for the reception of a foreign
worship. After some hesitation between the Gospel and the Koran,
they conformed to the religion of Mahomet; and while they adopted
for their brethren the Arabs and Persians, they renounced all
intercourse with the ancient Moguls, the idolaters of China.
[Footnote 31: The Map of D'Anville and the Chinese Itineraries
(De Guignes, tom. i. part ii. p. 57) seem to mark the position of
Holin, or Caracorum, about six hundred miles to the north-west of
Pekin. The distance between Selinginsky and Pekin is near 2000
Russian versts, between 1300 and 1400 English miles, (Bell's
Travels, vol. ii. p. 67.)]
[Footnote 32: Rubruquis found at Caracorum his countryman
Guillaume Boucher, orfevre de Paris, who had executed for the
khan a silver tree supported by four lions, and ejecting four
different liquors. Abulghazi (part iv. p. 366) mentions the
painters of Kitay or China.]
[Footnote *: See the interesting sketch of the life of this
minister (Yelin- Thsouthsai) in the second volume of the second
series of Recherches Asiatiques, par A Remusat, p. 64. - M.]
[Footnote *: Compare Hist. des Mongols, p. 616. - M.]
[Footnote 33: The attachment of the khans, and the hatred of the
mandarins, to the bonzes and lamas (Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine,
tom. i. p. 502, 503) seems to represent them as the priests of
the same god, of the Indian Fo, whose worship prevails among the
sects of Hindostan Siam, Thibet, China, and Japan. But this
mysterious subject is still lost in a cloud, which the
researchers of our Asiatic Society may gradually dispel.]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turkds.
Part III.
In this shipwreck of nations, some surprise may be excited
by the escape of the Roman empire, whose relics, at the time of
the Mogul invasion, were dismembered by the Greeks and Latins.
Less potent than Alexander, they were pressed, like the
Macedonian, both in Europe and Asia, by the shepherds of Scythia;
and had the Tartars undertaken the siege, Constantinople must
have yielded to the fate of Pekin, Samarcand, and Bagdad. The
glorious and voluntary retreat of Batou from the Danube was
insulted by the vain triumph of the Franks and Greeks; ^34 and in
a second expedition death surprised him in full march to attack
the capital of the Caesars. His brother Borga carried the Tartar
arms into Bulgaria and Thrace; but he was diverted from the
Byzantine war by a visit to Novogorod, in the fifty-seventh
degree of latitude, where he numbered the inhabitants and
regulated the tributes of Russia. The Mogul khan formed an
alliance with the Mamalukes against his brethren of Persia: three
hundred thousand horse penetrated through the gates of Derbend;
and the Greeks might rejoice in the first example of domestic
war. After the recovery of Constantinople, Michael Palaeologus,
^35 at a distance from his court and army, was surprised and
surrounded in a Thracian castle, by twenty thousand Tartars. But
the object of their march was a private interest: they came to
the deliverance of Azzadin, the Turkish sultan; and were content
with his person and the treasure of the emperor. Their general
Noga, whose name is perpetuated in the hordes of Astracan, raised
a formidable rebellion against Mengo Timour, the third of the
khaus of Kipzak; obtained in marriage Maria, the natural daughter
of Palaeologus; and guarded the dominions of his friend and
father. The subsequent invasions of a Scythian cast were those
of outlaws and fugitives: and some thousands of Alani and Comans,
who had been driven from their native zeats, were reclaimed from
a vagrant life, and enlisted in the service of the empire. Such
was the influence in Europe of the invasion of the Moguls. The
first terror of their arms secured, rather than disturbed, the
peace of the Roman Asia. The sultan of Iconium solicited a
personal interview with John Vataces; and his artful policy
encouraged the Turks to defend their barrier against the common
enemy. ^36 That barrier indeed was soon overthrown; and the
servitude and ruin of the Seljukians exposed the nakedness of the
Greeks. The formidable Holagou threatened to march to
Constantinople at the head of four hundred thousand men; and the
groundless panic of the citizens of Nice will present an image of
the terror which he had inspired. The accident of a procession,
and the sound of a doleful litany, "From the fury of the Tartars,
good Lord, deliver us," had scattered the hasty report of an
assault and massacre. In the blind credulity of fear, the
streets of Nice were crowded with thousands of both sexes, who
knew not from what or to whom they fled; and some hours elapsed
before the firmness of the military officers could relieve the
city from this imaginary foe. But the ambition of Holagou and
his successors was fortunately diverted by the conquest of
Bagdad, and a long vicissitude of Syrian wars; their hostility to
the Moslems inclined them to unite with the Greeks and Franks;
^37 and their generosity or contempt had offered the kingdom of
Anatolia as the reward of an Armenian vassal. The fragments of
the Seljukian monarchy were disputed by the emirs who had
occupied the cities or the mountains; but they all confessed the
supremacy of the khans of Persia; and he often interposed his
authority, and sometimes his arms, to check their depredations,
and to preserve the peace and balance of his Turkish frontier.
The death of Cazan, ^38 one of the greatest and most accomplished
princes of the house of Zingis, removed this salutary control;
and the decline of the Moguls gave a free scope to the rise and
progress of the Ottoman Empire. ^39
[Footnote 34: Some repulse of the Moguls in Hungary (Matthew
Paris, p. 545, 546) might propagate and color the report of the
union and victory of the kings of the Franks on the confines of
Bulgaria. Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 310) after forty years,
beyond the Tigris, might be easily deceived.]
[Footnote 35: See Pachymer, l. iii. c. 25, and l. ix. c. 26, 27;
and the false alarm at Nice, l. iii. c. 27. Nicephorus Gregoras,
l. iv. c. 6.]
[Footnote 36: G. Acropolita, p. 36, 37. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6,
l. iv. c. 5.]
[Footnote 37: Abulpharagius, who wrote in the year 1284, declares
that the Moguls, since the fabulous defeat of Batou, had not
attacked either the Franks or Greeks; and of this he is a
competent witness. Hayton likewise, the Armenian prince,
celebrates their friendship for himself and his nation.]
[Footnote 38: Pachymer gives a splendid character of Cazan Khan,
the rival of Cyrus and Alexander, (l. xii. c. 1.) In the
conclusion of his history (l. xiii. c. 36) he hopes much from the
arrival of 30,000 Tochars, or Tartars, who were ordered by the
successor of Cazan to restrain the Turks of Bithynia, A.D. 1308.]
[Footnote 39: The origin of the Ottoman dynasty is illustrated by
the critical learning of Mm. De Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv.
p. 329 - 337) and D'Anville, (Empire Turc, p. 14 - 22,) two
inhabitants of Paris, from whom the Orientals may learn the
history and geography of their own country.
Note: They may be still more enlightened by the Geschichte
des Osman Reiches, by M. von Hammer Purgstall of Vienna. - M.]
After the retreat of Zingis, the sultan Gelaleddin of
Carizme had returned from India to the possession and defence of
his Persian kingdoms. In the space of eleven years, than hero
fought in person fourteen battles; and such was his activity,
that he led his cavalry in seventeen days from Teflia to Kerman,
a march of a thousand miles. Yet he was oppressed by the
jealousy of the Moslem princes, and the innumerable armies of the
Moguls; and after his last defeat, Gelaleddin perished ignobly in
the mountains of Curdistan. His death dissolved a veteran and
adventurous army, which included under the name of Carizmians or
Corasmins many Turkman hordes, that had attached themselves to
the sultan's fortune. The bolder and more powerful chiefs
invaded Syria, and violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem: the
more humble engaged in the service of Aladin, sultan of Iconium;
and among these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line.
They had formerly pitched their tents near the southern banks of
the Oxus, in the plains of Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat
remarkable, that the same spot should have produced the first
authors of the Parthian and Turkish empires. At the head, or in
the rear, of a Carizmian army, Soliman Shah was drowned in the
passage of the Euphrates: his son Orthogrul became the soldier
and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on the banks of
the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom he
governed fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the father
of Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been melted into the
appellation of the caliph Othman; and if we describe that
pastoral chief as a shepherd and a robber, we must separate from
those characters all idea of ignominy and baseness. Othman
possessed, and perhaps surpassed, the ordinary virtues of a
soldier; and the circumstances of time and place were propitious
to his independence and success. The Seljukian dynasty was no
more; and the distance and decline of the Mogul khans soon
enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate
on the verge of the Greek empire: the Koran sanctified his gazi,
or holy war, against the infidels; and their political errors
unlocked the passes of Mount Olympus, and invited him to descend
into the plains of Bithynia. Till the reign of Palaeologus,
these passes had been vigilantly guarded by the militia of the
country, who were repaid by their own safety and an exemption
from taxes. The emperor abolished their privilege and assumed
their office; but the tribute was rigorously collected, the
custody of the passes was neglected, and the hardy mountaineers
degenerated into a trembling crowd of peasants without spirit or
discipline. It was on the twenty-seventh of July, in the year
twelve hundred and ninety-nine of the Christian aera, that Othman
first invaded the territory of Nicomedia; ^40 and the singular
accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the
rapid and destructive growth of the monster. The annals of the
twenty-seven years of his reign would exhibit a repetition of the
same inroads; and his hereditary troops were multiplied in each
campaign by the accession of captives and volunteers. Instead of
retreating to the hills, he maintained the most useful and
defensive posts; fortified the towns and castles which he had
first pillaged; and renounced the pastoral life for the baths and
palaces of his infant capitals. But it was not till Othman was
oppressed by age and infirmities, that he received the welcome
news of the conquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered by
famine or treachery to the arms of his son Orchan. The glory of
Othman is chiefly founded on that of his descendants; but the
Turks have transcribed or composed a royal testament of his last
counsels of justice and moderation. ^41
[Footnote 40: See Pachymer, l. x. c. 25, 26, l. xiii. c. 33, 34,
36; and concerning the guard of the mountains, l. i. c. 3 - 6:
Nicephorus Gregoras, l. vii. c. l., and the first book of
Laonicus Chalcondyles, the Athenian.]
[Footnote 41: I am ignorant whether the Turks have any writers
older than Mahomet II., nor can I reach beyond a meagre chronicle
(Annales Turcici ad Annum 1550) translated by John Gaudier, and
published by Leunclavius, (ad calcem Laonic. Chalcond. p. 311 -
350,) with copious pandects, or commentaries. The history of the
Growth and Decay (A.D. 1300 - 1683) of the Othman empire was
translated into English from the Latin Ms. of Demetrius Cantemir,
prince of Moldavia, (London, 1734, in folio.) The author is
guilty of strange blunders in Oriental history; but he was
conversant with the language, the annals, and institutions of the
Turks. Cantemir partly draws his materials from the Synopsis of
Saadi Effendi of Larissa, dedicated in the year 1696 to Sultan
Mustapha, and a valuable abridgment of the original historians.
In one of the Ramblers, Dr Johnson praises Knolles (a General
History of the Turks to the present Year. London, 1603) as the
first of historians, unhappy only in the choice of his subject.
Yet I much doubt whether a partial and verbose compilation from
Latin writers, thirteen hundred folio pages of speeches and
battles, can either instruct or amuse an enlightened age, which
requires from the historian some tincture of philosophy and
criticism.
Note: We could have wished that M. von Hammer had given a
more clear and distinct reply to this question of Gibbon. In a
note, vol. i. p. 630. M. von Hammer shows that they had not only
sheiks (religious writers) and learned lawyers, but poets and
authors on medicine. But the inquiry of Gibbon obviously refers
to historians. The oldest of their historical works, of which V.
Hammer makes use, is the "Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade," i. e. the
History of the Great Grandson of Aaschik Pasha, who was a dervis
and celebrated ascetic poet in the reign of Murad (Amurath) I.
Ahmed, the author of the work, lived during the reign of Bajazet
II., but, he says, derived much information from the book of
Scheik Jachshi, the son of Elias, who was Imaum to Sultan Orchan,
(the second Ottoman king) and who related, from the lips of his
father, the circumstances of the earliest Ottoman history. This
book (having searched for it in vain for five-and-twenty years)
our author found at length in the Vatican. All the other Turkish
histories on his list, as indeed this, were written during the
reign of Mahomet II. It does not appear whether any of the rest
cite earlier authorities of equal value with that claimed by the
"Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade." - M. (in Quarterly Review, vol.
xlix. p. 292.)]
From the conquest of Prusa, we may date the true aera of the
Ottoman empire. The lives and possessions of the Christian
subjects were redeemed by a tribute or ransom of thirty thousand
crowns of gold; and the city, by the labors of Orchan, assumed
the aspect of a Mahometan capital; Prusa was decorated with a
mosque, a college, and a hospital, of royal foundation; the
Seljukian coin was changed for the name and impression of the new
dynasty: and the most skilful professors, of human and divine
knowledge, attracted the Persian and Arabian students from the
ancient schools of Oriental learning. The office of vizier was
instituted for Aladin, the brother of Orchan; ^* and a different
habit distinguished the citizens from the peasants, the Moslems
from the infidels. All the troops of Othman had consisted of
loose squadrons of Turkman cavalry; who served without pay and
fought without discipline: but a regular body of infantry was
first established and trained by the prudence of his son. A
great number of volunteers was enrolled with a small stipend, but
with the permission of living at home, unless they were summoned
to the field: their rude manners, and seditious temper, disposed
Orchan to educate his young captives as his soldiers and those of
the prophet; but the Turkish peasants were still allowed to mount
on horseback, and follow his standard, with the appellation and
the hopes of freebooters. ^! By these arts he formed an army of
twenty-five thousand Moslems: a train of battering engines was
framed for the use of sieges; and the first successful experiment
was made on the cities of Nice and Nicomedia. Orchan granted a
safe-conduct to all who were desirous of departing with their
families and effects; but the widows of the slain were given in
marriage to the conquerors; and the sacrilegious plunder, the
books, the vases, and the images, were sold or ransomed at
Constantinople. The emperor Andronicus the Younger was
vanquished and wounded by the son of Othman: ^42 ^!! he subdued
the whole province or kingdom of Bithynia, as far as the shores
of the Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the Christians confessed the
justice and clemency of a reign which claimed the voluntary
attachment of the Turks of Asia. Yet Orchan was content with the
modest title of emir; and in the list of his compeers, the
princes of Roum or Anatolia, ^43 his military forces were
surpassed by the emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, each of whom
could bring into the field an army of forty thousand men. Their
domains were situate in the heart of the Seljukian kingdom; but
the holy warriors, though of inferior note, who formed new
principalities on the Greek empire, are more conspicuous in the
light of history. The maritime country from the Propontis to the
Maeander and the Isle of Rhodes, so long threatened and so often
pillaged, was finally lost about the thirteenth year of
Andronicus the Elder. ^44 Two Turkish chieftains, Sarukhan and
Aidin, left their names to their conquests, and their conquests
to their posterity. The captivity or ruin of the seven churches
of Asia was consummated; and the barbarous lords of Ionia and
Lydia still trample on the monuments of classic and Christian
antiquity. In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the
fall of the first angel, the extinction of the first candlestick,
of the Revelations; ^45 the desolation is complete; and the
temple of Diana, or the church of Mary, will equally elude the
search of the curious traveller. The circus and three stately
theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes;
Sardes is reduced to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet,
without a rival or a son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira
and Pergamus; and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the
foreign trade of the Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has
been saved by prophecy, or courage. At a distance from the sea,
forgotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks,
her valiant citizens defended their religion and freedom above
fourscore years; and at length capitulated with the proudest of
the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia,
Philadelphia is still erect; a column in a scene of ruins; a
pleasing example, that the paths of honor and safety may
sometimes be the same. The servitude of Rhodes was delayed about
two centuries by the establishment of the knights of St. John of
Jerusalem: ^46 under the discipline of the order, that island
emerged into fame and opulence; the noble and warlike monks were
renowned by land and sea: and the bulwark of Christendom
provoked, and repelled, the arms of the Turks and Saracens.
[Footnote *: Von Hammer, Osm. Geschichte, vol. i. p. 82. - M.]
[Footnote !: Ibid. p. 91. - M.]
[Footnote 42: Cantacuzene, though he relates the battle and
heroic flight of the younger Androcinus, (l. ii. c. 6, 7, 8,)
dissembles by his silence the loss of Prusa, Nice, and Nicomedia,
which are fairly confessed by Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. viii. 15,
ix. 9, 13, xi. 6.) It appears that Nice was taken by Orchan in
1330, and Nicomedia in 1339, which are somewhat different from
the Turkish dates.]
[Footnote !!: For the conquests of Orchan over the ten pachaliks,
or kingdoms of the Seljukians, in Asia Minor. see V. Hammer, vol.
i. p. 112. - M.]
[Footnote 43: The partition of the Turkish emirs is extracted
from two contemporaries, the Greek Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii.
1) and the Arabian Marakeschi, (De Guignes, tom. ii. P. ii. p.
76, 77.) See likewise the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles.]
[Footnote 44: Pachymer, l. xiii. c. 13.]
[Footnote 45: See the Travels of Wheeler and Spon, of Pocock and
Chandler, and more particularly Smith's Survey of the Seven
Churches of Asia, p. 205 - 276. The more pious antiquaries labor
to reconcile the promises and threats of the author of the
Revelations with the present state of the seven cities. Perhaps
it would be more prudent to confine his predictions to the
characters and events of his own times.]
[Footnote 46: Consult the ivth book of the Histoire de 'Ordre de
Malthe, par l'Abbe de Vertot. That pleasing writer betrays his
ignorance, in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the
Bithynian hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land.]
The Greeks, by their intestine divisions, were the authors
of their final ruin. During the civil wars of the elder and
younger Andronicus, the son of Othman achieved, almost without
resistance, the conquest of Bithynia; and the same disorders
encouraged the Turkish emirs of Lydia and Ionia to build a fleet,
and to pillage the adjacent islands and the sea-coast of Europe.
In the defence of his life and honor, Cantacuzene was tempted to
prevent, or imitate, his adversaries, by calling to his aid the
public enemies of his religion and country. Amir, the son of
Aidin, concealed under a Turkish garb the humanity and politeness
of a Greek; he was united with the great domestic by mutual
esteem and reciprocal services; and their friendship is compared,
in the vain rhetoric of the times, to the perfect union of
Orestes and Pylades. ^47 On the report of the danger of his
friend, who was persecuted by an ungrateful court, the prince of
Ionia assembled at Smyrna a fleet of three hundred vessels, with
an army of twenty-nine thousand men; sailed in the depth of
winter, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Hebrus. From thence,
with a chosen band of two thousand Turks, he marched along the
banks of the river, and rescued the empress, who was besieged in
Demotica by the wild Bulgarians. At that disastrous moment, the
life or death of his beloved Cantacuzene was concealed by his
flight into Servia: but the grateful Irene, impatient to behold
her deliverer, invited him to enter the city, and accompanied her
message with a present of rich apparel and a hundred horses. By a
peculiar strain of delicacy, the Gentle Barbarian refused, in the
absence of an unfortunate friend, to visit his wife, or to taste
the luxuries of the palace; sustained in his tent the rigor of
the winter; and rejected the hospitable gift, that he might share
the hardships of two thousand companions, all as deserving as
himself of that honor and distinction. Necessity and revenge
might justify his predatory excursions by sea and land: he left
nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of his fleet; and
persevered in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till his
embarkation was hastened by a fictitious letter, the severity of
the season, the clamors of his independent troops, and the weight
of his spoil and captives. In the prosecution of the civil war,
the prince of Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms
with those of the emperor; besieged Thessalonica, and threatened
Constantinople. Calumny might affix some reproach on his
imperfect aid, his hasty departure, and a bribe of ten thousand
crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantine court; but his
friend was satisfied; and the conduct of Amir is excused by the
more sacred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditary
dominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope,
the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St.
John, in a laudable crusade; their galleys invaded the coast of
Ionia; and Amir was slain with an arrow, in the attempt to wrest
from the Rhodian knights the citadel of Smyrna. ^48 Before his
death, he generously recommended another ally of his own nation;
not more sincere or zealous than himself, but more able to afford
a prompt and powerful succor, by his situation along the
Propontis and in the front of Constantinople. By the prospect of
a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithynia was
detached from his engagements with Anne of Savoy; and the pride
of Orchan dictated the most solemn protestations, that if he
could obtain the daughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably
fulfil the duties of a subject and a son. Parental tenderness was
silenced by the voice of ambition: the Greek clergy connived at
the marriage of a Christian princess with a sectary of Mahomet;
and the father of Theodora describes, with shameful satisfaction,
the dishonor of the purple. ^49 A body of Turkish cavalry
attended the ambassadors, who disembarked from thirty vessels,
before his camp of Selybria. A stately pavilion was erected, in
which the empress Irene passed the night with her daughters. In
the morning, Theodora ascended a throne, which was surrounded
with curtains of silk and gold: the troops were under arms; but
the emperor alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains
were suddenly withdrawn to disclose the bride, or the victim,
encircled by kneeling eunuchs and hymeneal torches: the sound of
flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful event; and her
pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song, which was
chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without the rites
of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord: but
it had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in
the harem of Bursa; and her father celebrates her charity and
devotion in this ambiguous situation. After his peaceful
establishment on the throne of Constantinople, the Greek emperor
visited his Turkish ally, who with four sons, by various wives,
expected him at Scutari, on the Asiatic shore. The two princes
partook, with seeming cordiality, of the pleasures of the banquet
and the chase; and Theodora was permitted to repass the
Bosphorus, and to enjoy some days in the society of her mother.
But the friendship of Orchan was subservient to his religion and
interest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the
enemies of Cantacuzene.
[Footnote 47: Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on
this amiable character, (l. xii. 7, xiii. 4, 10, xiv. 1, 9, xvi.
6.) Cantacuzene speaks with honor and esteem of his ally, (l.
iii. c. 56, 57, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 86, 89, 95, 96;) but he seems
ignorant of his own sentimental passion for the Turks, and
indirectly denies the possibility of such unnatural friendship,
(l. iv. c. 40.)]
[Footnote 48: After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the
defence of this fortress was imposed by Pope Gregory XI. on the
knights of Rhodes, (see Vertot, l. v.)]
[Footnote 49: See Cantacuzenus, l. iii. c. 95. Nicephorus
Gregoras, who, for the light of Mount Thabor, brands the emperor
with the names of tyrant and Herod, excuses, rather than blames,
this Turkish marriage, and alleges the passion and power of
Orchan, Turkish, (l. xv. 5.) He afterwards celebrates his kingdom
and armies. See his reign in Cantemir, p. 24 - 30.]
In the treaty with the empress Anne, the Ottoman prince had
inserted a singular condition, that it should be lawful for him
to sell his prisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into
Asia. A naked crowd of Christians of both sexes and every age,
of priests and monks, of matrons and virgins, was exposed in the
public market; the whip was frequently used to quicken the
charity of redemption; and the indigent Greeks deplored the fate
of their brethren, who were led away to the worst evils of
temporal and spiritual bondage ^50 Cantacuzene was reduced to
subscribe the same terms; and their execution must have been
still more pernicious to the empire: a body of ten thousand Turks
had been detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the
entire forces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his
father. Yet these calamities were of a transient nature; as soon
as the storm had passed away, the fugitives might return to their
habitations; and at the conclusion of the civil and foreign wars,
Europe was completely evacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was
in his last quarrel with his pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the
deep and deadly wound, which could never be healed by his
successors, and which is poorly expiated by his theological
dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own
history, the modern Turks confound their first and their final
passage of the Hellespont, ^51 and describe the son of Orchan as
a nocturnal robber, who, with eighty companions, explores by
stratagem a hostile and unknown shore. Soliman, at the head of
ten thousand horse, was transported in the vessels, and
entertained as the friend, of the Greek emperor. In the civil
wars of Romania, he performed some service and perpetrated more
mischief; but the Chersonesus was insensibly filled with a
Turkish colony; and the Byzantine court solicited in vain the
restitution of the fortresses of Thrace. After some artful
delays between the Ottoman prince and his son, their ransom was
valued at sixty thousand crowns, and the first payment had been
made when an earthquake shook the walls and cities of the
provinces; the dismantled places were occupied by the Turks; and
Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, was rebuilt and repeopled
by the policy of Soliman. The abdication of Cantacuzene dissolved
the feeble bands of domestic alliance; and his last advice
admonished his countrymen to decline a rash contest, and to
compare their own weakness with the numbers and valor, the
discipline and enthusiasm, of the Moslems. His prudent counsels
were despised by the headstrong vanity of youth, and soon
justified by the victories of the Ottomans. But as he practised
in the field the exercise of the jerid, Soliman was killed by a
fall from his horse; and the aged Orchan wept and expired on the
tomb of his valiant son. ^*
[Footnote 50: The most lively and concise picture of this
captivity may be found in the history of Ducas, (c. 8,) who
fairly describes what Cantacuzene confesses with a guilty blush!]
[Footnote 51: In this passage, and the first conquests in Europe,
Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish
guides; nor am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles, (l. i.
p. 12, &c.) They forget to consult the most authentic record, the
ivth book of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books,
which are still manuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras.
Note: Von Hammer excuses the silence with which the Turkish
historians pass over the earlier intercourse of the Ottomans with
the European continent, of which he enumerates sixteen different
occasions, as if they disdained those peaceful incursions by
which they gained no conquest, and established no permanent
footing on the Byzantine territory. Of the romantic account of
Soliman's first expedition, he says, "As yet the prose of history
had not asserted its right over the poetry of tradition." This
defence would scarcely be accepted as satisfactory by the
historian of the Decline and Fall. - M. (in Quarterly Review,
vol. xlix. p. 293.)
Note: In the 75th year of his age, the 35th of his reign.
V. Hammer. M.]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turkds.
Part IV.
But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their
enemies; and the Turkish cimeter was wielded with the same spirit
by Amurath the First, the son of Orchan, and the brother of
Soliman. By the pale and fainting light of the Byzantine annals,
^52 we can discern, that he subdued without resistance the whole
province of Romania or Thrace, from the Hellespont to Mount
Haemus, and the verge of the capital; and that Adrianople was
chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion in
Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with her
foundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been
assaulted by the Barbarians of the East and West; but never till
this fatal hour had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and
Europe, by the arms of the same hostile monarchy. Yet the
prudence or generosity of Amurath postponed for a while this easy
conquest; and his pride was satisfied with the frequent and
humble attendance of the emperor John Palaeologus and his four
sons, who followed at his summons the court and camp of the
Ottoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations
between the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians,
Bosnians, and Albanians; and these warlike tribes, who had so
often insulted the majesty of the empire, were repeatedly broken
by his destructive inroads. Their countries did not abound
either in gold or silver; nor were their rustic hamlets and
townships enriched by commerce or decorated by the arts of
luxury. But the natives of the soil have been distinguished in
every age by their hardiness of mind and body; and they were
converted by a prudent institution into the firmest and most
faithful supporters of the Ottoman greatness. ^53 The vizier of
Amurath reminded his sovereign that, according to the Mahometan
law, he was entitled to a fifth part of the spoil and captives;
and that the duty might easily be levied, if vigilant officers
were stationed in Gallipoli, to watch the passage, and to select
for his use the stoutest and most beautiful of the Christian
youth. The advice was followed: the edict was proclaimed; many
thousands of the European captives were educated in religion and
arms; and the new militia was consecrated and named by a
celebrated dervis. Standing in the front of their ranks, he
stretched the sleeve of his gown over the head of the foremost
soldier, and his blessing was delivered in these words: "Let them
be called Janizaries, (Yengi cheri, or new soldiers;) may their
countenance be ever bright! their hand victorious! their sword
keen! may their spear always hang over the heads of their
enemies! and wheresoever they go, may they return with a white
face!" ^54 ^* Such was the origin of these haughty troops, the
terror of the nations, and sometimes of the sultans themselves.
Their valor has declined, their discipline is relaxed, and their
tumultuary array is incapable of contending with the order and
weapons of modern tactics; but at the time of their institution,
they possessed a decisive superiority in war; since a regular
body of infantry, in constant exercise and pay, was not
maintained by any of the princes of Christendom. The Janizaries
fought with the zeal of proselytes against their idolatrous
countrymen; and in the battle of Cossova, the league and
independence of the Sclavonian tribes was finally crushed. As
the conqueror walked over the field, he observed that the
greatest part of the slain consisted of beardless youths; and
listened to the flattering reply of his vizier, that age and
wisdom would have taught them not to oppose his irresistible
arms. But the sword of his Janizaries could not defend him from
the dagger of despair; a Servian soldier started from the crowd
of dead bodies, and Amurath was pierced in the belly with a
mortal wound. ^* The grandson of Othman was mild in his temper,
modest in his apparel, and a lover of learning and virtue; but
the Moslems were scandalized at his absence from public worship;
and he was corrected by the firmness of the mufti, who dared to
reject his testimony in a civil cause: a mixture of servitude and
freedom not unfrequent in Oriental history. ^55
[Footnote 52: After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras,
there follows a dark interval of a hundred years. George
Phranza, Michael Ducas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three
wrote after the taking of Constantinople.]
[Footnote 53: See Cantemir, p. 37 - 41, with his own large and
curious annotations.]
[Footnote 54: White and black face are common and proverbial
expressions of praise and reproach in the Turkish language. Hic
niger est, hunc tu Romane caveto, was likewise a Latin sentence.]
[Footnote *: According to Von Hammer. vol. i. p. 90, Gibbon and
the European writers assign too late a date to this enrolment of
the Janizaries. It took place not in the reign of Amurath, but
in that of his predecessor Orchan. - M.]
[Footnote *: Ducas has related this as a deliberate act of
self-devotion on the part of a Servian noble who pretended to
desert, and stabbed Amurath during a conference which he had
requested. The Italian translator of Ducas, published by Bekker
in the new edition of the Byzantines, has still further
heightened the romance. See likewise in Von Hammer (Osmanische
Geschichte, vol. i. p. 138) the popular Servian account, which
resembles that of Ducas, and may have been the source of that of
his Italian translator. The Turkish account agrees more nearly
with Gibbon; but the Servian, (Milosch Kohilovisch) while he lay
among the heap of the dead, pretended to have some secret to
impart to Amurath, and stabbed him while he leaned over to
listen. - M.]
[Footnote 55: See the life and death of Morad, or Amurath I., in
Cantemir, (p 33 - 45,) the first book of Chalcondyles, and the
Annales Turcici of Leunclavius. According to another story, the
sultan was stabbed by a Croat in his tent; and this accident was
alleged to Busbequius (Epist i. p. 98) as an excuse for the
unworthy precaution of pinioning, as if were, between two
attendants, an ambassador's arms, when he is introduced to the
royal presence.]
The character of Bajazet, the son and successor of Amurath,
is strongly expressed in his surname of Ilderim, or the
lightning; and he might glory in an epithet, which was drawn from
the fiery energy of his soul and the rapidity of his destructive
march. In the fourteen years of his reign, ^56 he incessantly
moved at the head of his armies, from Boursa to Adrianople, from
the Danube to the Euphrates; and, though he strenuously labored
for the propagation of the law, he invaded, with impartial
ambition, the Christian and Mahometan princes of Europe and Asia.
From Angora to Amasia and Erzeroum, the northern regions of
Anatolia were reduced to his obedience: he stripped of their
hereditary possessions his brother emirs of Ghermian and
Caramania, of Aidin and Sarukhan; and after the conquest of
Iconium the ancient kingdom of the Seljukians again revived in
the Ottoman dynasty. Nor were the conquests of Bajazet less
rapid or important in Europe. No sooner had he imposed a regular
form of servitude on the Servians and Bulgarians, than he passed
the Danube to seek new enemies and new subjects in the heart of
Moldavia. ^57 Whatever yet adhered to the Greek empire in Thrace,
Macedonia, and Thessaly, acknowledged a Turkish master: an
obsequious bishop led him through the gates of Thermopylae into
Greece; and we may observe, as a singular fact, that the widow of
a Spanish chief, who possessed the ancient seat of the oracle of
Delphi, deserved his favor by the sacrifice of a beauteous
daughter. The Turkish communication between Europe and Asia had
been dangerous and doubtful, till he stationed at Gallipoli a
fleet of galleys, to command the Hellespont and intercept the
Latin succors of Constantinople. While the monarch indulged his
passions in a boundless range of injustice and cruelty, he
imposed on his soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and
abstinence; and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within
the precincts of his camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt
administration of justice, he collected in a house the judges and
lawyers of his dominions, who expected that in a few moments the
fire would be kindled to reduce them to ashes. His ministers
trembled in silence: but an Aethiopian buffoon presumed to
insinuate the true cause of the evil; and future venality was
left without excuse, by annexing an adequate salary to the office
of cadhi. ^58 The humble title of emir was no longer suitable to
the Ottoman greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a
patent of sultan from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the
yoke of the Mamalukes: ^59 a last and frivolous homage that was
yielded by force to opinion; by the Turkish conquerors to the
house of Abbas and the successors of the Arabian prophet. The
ambition of the sultan was inflamed by the obligation of
deserving this august title; and he turned his arms against the
kingdom of Hungary, the perpetual theatre of the Turkish
victories and defeats. Sigismond, the Hungarian king, was the
son and brother of the emperors of the West: his cause was that
of Europe and the church; and, on the report of his danger, the
bravest knights of France and Germany were eager to march under
his standard and that of the cross. In the battle of Nicopolis,
Bajazet defeated a confederate army of a hundred thousand
Christians, who had proudly boasted, that if the sky should fall,
they could uphold it on their lances. The far greater part were
slain or driven into the Danube; and Sigismond, escaping to
Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, returned after a
long circuit to his exhausted kingdom. ^60 In the pride of
victory, Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buda; that he
would subdue the adjacent countries of Germany and Italy, and
that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the altar
of St. Peter at Rome. His progress was checked, not by the
miraculous interposition of the apostle, not by a crusade of the
Christian powers, but by a long and painful fit of the gout. The
disorders of the moral, are sometimes corrected by those of the
physical, world; and an acrimonious humor falling on a single
fibre of one man, may prevent or suspend the misery of nations.
[Footnote 56: The reign of Bajazet I., or Ilderim Bayazid, is
contained in Cantemir, (p. 46,) the iid book of Chalcondyles, and
the Annales Turcici. The surname of Ilderim, or lightning, is an
example, that the conquerors and poets of every age have felt the
truth of a system which derives the sublime from the principle of
terror.]
[Footnote 57: Cantemir, who celebrates the victories of the great
Stephen over the Turks, (p. 47,) had composed the ancient and
modern state of his principality of Moldavia, which has been long
promised, and is still unpublished.]
[Footnote 58: Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The
venality of the cadhis has long been an object of scandal and
satire; and if we distrust the observations of our travellers, we
may consult the feeling of the Turks themselves, (D'Herbelot,
Bibliot. Orientale, p. 216, 217, 229, 230.)]
[Footnote 59: The fact, which is attested by the Arabic history
of Ben Schounah, a contemporary Syrian, (De Guignes Hist. des
Huns. tom. iv. p. 336.) destroys the testimony of Saad Effendi
and Cantemir, (p. 14, 15,) of the election of Othman to the
dignity of sultan.]
[Footnote 60: See the Decades Rerum Hungaricarum (Dec. iii. l.
ii. p. 379) of Bonfinius, an Italian, who, in the xvth century,
was invited into Hungary to compose an eloquent history of that
kingdom. Yet, if it be extant and accessible, I should give the
preference to some homely chronicle of the time and country.]
Such is the general idea of the Hungarian war; but the
disastrous adventure of the French has procured us some memorials
which illustrate the victory and character of Bajazet. ^61 The
duke of Burgundy, sovereign of Flanders, and uncle of Charles the
Sixth, yielded to the ardor of his son, John count of Nevers; and
the fearless youth was accompanied by four princes, his cousins,
and those of the French monarch. Their inexperience was guided
by the Sire de Coucy, one of the best and oldest captain of
Christendom; ^62 but the constable, admiral, and marshal of
France ^63 commanded an army which did not exceed the number of a
thousand knights and squires. ^* These splendid names were the
source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many might
aspire to command, that none were willing to obey; their national
spirit despised both their enemies and their allies; and in the
persuasion that Bajazet would fly, or must fall, they began to
compute how soon they should visit Constantinople and deliver the
holy sepulchre. When their scouts announced the approach of the
Turks, the gay and thoughtless youths were at table, already
heated with wine; they instantly clasped their armor, mounted
their horses, rode full speed to the vanguard, and resented as an
affront the advice of Sigismond, which would have deprived them
of the right and honor of the foremost attack. The battle of
Nicopolis would not have been lost, if the French would have
obeyed the prudence of the Hungarians; but it might have been
gloriously won, had the Hungarians imitated the valor of the
French. They dispersed the first line, consisting of the troops
of Asia; forced a rampart of stakes, which had been planted
against the cavalry; broke, after a bloody conflict, the
Janizaries themselves; and were at length overwhelmed by the
numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, and charged on all
sides this handful of intrepid warriors. In the speed and
secrecy of his march, in the order and evolutions of the battle,
his enemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajazet.
They accuse his cruelty in the use of victory. After reserving
the count of Nevers, and four-and-twenty lords, ^* whose birth
and riches were attested by his Latin interpreters, the remainder
of the French captives, who had survived the slaughter of the
day, were led before his throne; and, as they refused to abjure
their faith, were successively beheaded in his presence. The
sultan was exasperated by the loss of his bravest Janizaries; and
if it be true, that, on the eve of the engagement, the French had
massacred their Turkish prisoners, ^64 they might impute to
themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. ^! A knight,
whose life had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris,
that he might relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom
of the noble captives. In the mean while, the count of Nevers,
with the princes and barons of France, were dragged along in the
marches of the Turkish camp, exposed as a grateful trophy to the
Moslems of Europe and Asia, and strictly confined at Boursa, as
often as Bajazet resided in his capital. The sultan was pressed
each day to expiate with their blood the blood of his martyrs;
but he had pronounced that they should live, and either for mercy
or destruction his word was irrevocable. He was assured of their
value and importance by the return of the messenger, and the
gifts and intercessions of the kings of France and of Cyprus.
Lusignan presented him with a gold saltcellar of curious
workmanship, and of the price of ten thousand ducats; and Charles
the Sixth despatched by the way of Hungary a cast of Norwegian
hawks, and six horse-loads of scarlet cloth, of fine linen of
Rheims, and of Arras tapestry, representing the battles of the
great Alexander. After much delay, the effect of distance rather
than of art, Bajazet agreed to accept a ransom of two hundred
thousand ducats for the count of Nevers and the surviving princes
and barons: the marshal Boucicault, a famous warrior, was of the
number of the fortunate; but the admiral of France had been slain
in battle; and the constable, with the Sire de Coucy, died in the
prison of Boursa. This heavy demand, which was doubled by
incidental costs, fell chiefly on the duke of Burgundy, or rather
on his Flemish subjects, who were bound by the feudal laws to
contribute for the knighthood and captivity of the eldest son of
their lord. For the faithful discharge of the debt, some
merchants of Genoa gave security to the amount of five times the
sum; a lesson to those warlike times, that commerce and credit
are the links of the society of nations. It had been stipulated
in the treaty, that the French captives should swear never to
bear arms against the person of their conqueror; but the
ungenerous restraint was abolished by Bajazet himself. "I
despise," said he to the heir of Burgundy, "thy oaths and thy
arms. Thou art young, and mayest be ambitious of effacing the
disgrace or misfortune of thy first chivalry. Assemble thy
powers, proclaim thy design, and be assured that Bajazet will
rejoice to meet thee a second time in a field of battle." Before
their departure, they were indulged in the freedom and
hospitality of the court of Boursa. The French princes admired
the magnificence of the Ottoman, whose hunting and hawking
equipage was composed of seven thousand huntsmen and seven
thousand falconers. ^65 In their presence, and at his command,
the belly of one of his chamberlains was cut open, on a complaint
against him for drinking the goat's milk of a poor woman. The
strangers were astonished by this act of justice; but it was the
justice of a sultan who disdains to balance the weight of
evidence, or to measure the degrees of guilt.
[Footnote 61: I should not complain of the labor of this work, if
my materials were always derived from such books as the chronicle
of honest Froissard, (vol. iv. c. 67, 72, 74, 79-83, 85, 87, 89,)
who read little, inquired much, and believed all. The original
Memoires of the Marechal de Boucicault (Partie i. c. 22-28) add
some facts, but they are dry and deficient, if compared with the
pleasant garrulity of Froissard.]
[Footnote 62: An accurate Memoir on the Life of Enguerrand VII.,
Sire de Coucy, has been given by the Baron de Zurlauben, (Hist.
de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.) His rank and
possessions were equally considerable in France and England; and,
in 1375, he led an army of adventurers into Switzerland, to
recover a large patrimony which he claimed in right of his
grandmother, the daughter of the emperor Albert I. of Austria,
(Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Occidentale, tom. i. p. 118-124.)]
[Footnote 63: That military office, so respectable at present,
was still more conspicuous when it was divided between two
persons, (Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Francoise, tom. ii. p. 5.)
One of these, the marshal of the crusade, was the famous
Boucicault, who afterwards defended Constantinople, governed
Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in the field of
Azincour.]
[Footnote *: Daru, Hist. de Venice, vol. ii. p. 104, makes the
whole French army amount to 10,000 men, of whom 1000 were
knights. The curious volume of Schiltberger, a German of Munich,
who was taken prisoner in the battle, (edit. Munich, 1813,) and
which V. Hammer receives as authentic, gives the whole number at
6000. See Schiltberger. Reise in dem Orient. and V. Hammer,
note, p. 610. - M.]
[Footnote *: According to Shiltberger there were only twelve
French lords granted to the prayer of the "duke of Burgundy," and
"Herr Stephan Synther, and Johann von Bodem." Schiltberger, p.
13. - M.]
[Footnote 64: For this odious fact, the Abbe de Vertot quotes the
Hist. Anonyme de St. Denys, l. xvi. c. 10, 11. (Ordre de Malthe,
tom. ii. p. 310.]
[Footnote !: See Schiltberger's very graphic account of the
massacre. He was led out to be slaughtered in cold blood with the
rest f the Christian prisoners, amounting to 10,000. He was
spared at the intercession of the son of Bajazet, with a few
others, on account of their extreme youth. No one under 20 years
of age was put to death. The "duke of Burgundy" was obliged to
be a spectator of this butchery which lasted from early in the
morning till four o'clock, P. M. It ceased only at the
supplication of the leaders of Bajazet's army. Schiltberger, p.
14. - M.]
[Footnote 65: Sherefeddin Ali (Hist. de Timour Bec, l. v. c. 13)
allows Bajazet a round number of 12,000 officers and servants of
the chase. A part of his spoils was afterwards displayed in a
hunting-match of Timour, l. hounds with satin housings; 2.
leopards with collars set with jewels; 3. Grecian greyhounds; and
4, dogs from Europe, as strong as African lions, (idem, l. vi. c.
15.) Bajazet was particularly fond of flying his hawks at cranes,
(Chalcondyles, l. ii. p. 85.)]
After his enfranchisement from an oppressive guardian, John
Palaeologus remained thirty-six years, the helpless, and, as it
should seem, the careless spectator of the public ruin. ^66 Love,
or rather lust, was his only vigorous passion; and in the
embraces of the wives and virgins of the city, the Turkish slave
forgot the dishonor of the emperor of the Romans Andronicus, his
eldest son, had formed, at Adrianople, an intimate and guilty
friendship with Sauzes, the son of Amurath; and the two youths
conspired against the authority and lives of their parents. The
presence of Amurath in Europe soon discovered and dissipated
their rash counsels; and, after depriving Sauzes of his sight,
the Ottoman threatened his vassal with the treatment of an
accomplice and an enemy, unless he inflicted a similar punishment
on his own son. Palaeologus trembled and obeyed; and a cruel
precaution involved in the same sentence the childhood and
innocence of John, the son of the criminal. But the operation was
so mildly, or so unskilfully, performed, that the one retained
the sight of an eye, and the other was afflicted only with the
infirmity of squinting. Thus excluded from the succession, the
two princes were confined in the tower of Anema; and the piety of
Manuel, the second son of the reigning monarch, was rewarded with
the gift of the Imperial crown. But at the end of two years, the
turbulence of the Latins and the levity of the Greeks, produced a
revolution; ^* and the two emperors were buried in the tower from
whence the two prisoners were exalted to the throne. Another
period of two years afforded Palaeologus and Manuel the means of
escape: it was contrived by the magic or subtlety of a monk, who
was alternately named the angel or the devil: they fled to
Scutari; their adherents armed in their cause; and the two
Byzantine factions displayed the ambition and animosity with
which Caesar and Pompey had disputed the empire of the world.
The Roman world was now contracted to a corner of Thrace, between
the Propontis and the Black Sea, about fifty miles in length and
thirty in breadth; a space of ground not more extensive than the
lesser principalities of Germany or Italy, if the remains of
Constantinople had not still represented the wealth and
populousness of a kingdom. To restore the public peace, it was
found necessary to divide this fragment of the empire; and while
Palaeologus and Manuel were left in possession of the capital,
almost all that lay without the walls was ceded to the blind
princes, who fixed their residence at Rhodosto and Selybria. In
the tranquil slumber of royalty, the passions of John Palaeologus
survived his reason and his strength: he deprived his favorite
and heir of a blooming princess of Trebizond; and while the
feeble emperor labored to consummate his nuptials, Manuel, with a
hundred of the noblest Greeks, was sent on a peremptory summons
to the Ottoman porte. They served with honor in the wars of
Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Constantinople excited his
jealousy: he threatened their lives; the new works were instantly
demolished; and we shall bestow a praise, perhaps above the merit
of Palaeologus, if we impute this last humiliation as the cause
of his death.
[Footnote 66: For the reigns of John Palaeologus and his son
Manuel, from 1354 to 1402, see Ducas, c. 9 - 15, Phranza, l. i.
c. 16 - 21, and the ist and iid books of Chalcondyles, whose
proper subject is drowned in a sea of episode.]
[Footnote *: According to Von Hammer it was the power of Bajazet,
vol. i. p. 218.]
The earliest intelligence of that event was communicated to
Manuel, who escaped with speed and secrecy from the palace of
Boursa to the Byzantine throne. Bajazet affected a proud
indifference at the loss of this valuable pledge; and while he
pursued his conquests in Europe and Asia, he left the emperor to
struggle with his blind cousin John of Selybria, who, in eight
years of civil war, asserted his right of primogeniture. At
length, the ambition of the victorious sultan pointed to the
conquest of Constantinople; but he listened to the advice of his
vizier, who represented that such an enterprise might unite the
powers of Christendom in a second and more formidable crusade.
His epistle to the emperor was conceived in these words: "By the
divine clemency, our invincible cimeter has reduced to our
obedience almost all Asia, with many and large countries in
Europe, excepting only the city of Constantinople; for beyond the
walls thou hast nothing left. Resign that city; stipulate thy
reward; or tremble, for thyself and thy unhappy people, at the
consequences of a rash refusal." But his ambassadors were
instructed to soften their tone, and to propose a treaty, which
was subscribed with submission and gratitude. A truce of ten
years was purchased by an annual tribute of thirty thousand
crowns of gold; the Greeks deplored the public toleration of the
law of Mahomet, and Bajazet enjoyed the glory of establishing a
Turkish cadhi, and founding a royal mosque in the metropolis of
the Eastern church. ^67 Yet this truce was soon violated by the
restless sultan: in the cause of the prince of Selybria, the
lawful emperor, an army of Ottomans again threatened
Constantinople; and the distress of Manuel implored the
protection of the king of France. His plaintive embassy obtained
much pity and some relief; and the conduct of the succor was
intrusted to the marshal Boucicault, ^68 whose religious chivalry
was inflamed by the desire of revenging his captivity on the
infidels. He sailed with four ships of war, from Aiguesmortes to
the Hellespont; forced the passage, which was guarded by
seventeen Turkish galleys; landed at Constantinople a supply of
six hundred men-at-arms and sixteen hundred archers; and reviewed
them in the adjacent plain, without condescending to number or
array the multitude of Greeks. By his presence, the blockade was
raised both by sea and land; the flying squadrons of Bajazet were
driven to a more respectful distance; and several castles in
Europe and Asia were stormed by the emperor and the marshal, who
fought with equal valor by each other's side. But the Ottomans
soon returned with an increase of numbers; and the intrepid
Boucicault, after a year's struggle, resolved to evacuate a
country which could no longer afford either pay or provisions for
his soldiers. The marshal offered to conduct Manuel to the
French court, where he might solicit in person a supply of men
and money; and advised, in the mean while, that, to extinguish
all domestic discord, he should leave his blind competitor on the
throne. The proposal was embraced: the prince of Selybria was
introduced to the capital; and such was the public misery, that
the lot of the exile seemed more fortunate than that of the
sovereign. Instead of applauding the success of his vassal, the
Turkish sultan claimed the city as his own; and on the refusal of
the emperor John, Constantinople was more closely pressed by the
calamities of war and famine. Against such an enemy prayers and
resistance were alike unavailing; and the savage would have
devoured his prey, if, in the fatal moment, he had not been
overthrown by another savage stronger than himself. By the
victory of Timour or Tamerlane, the fall of Constantinople was
delayed about fifty years; and this important, though accidental,
service may justly introduce the life and character of the Mogul
conqueror.
[Footnote 67: Cantemir, p. 50 - 53. Of the Greeks, Ducas alone
(c. 13, 15) acknowledges the Turkish cadhi at Constantinople.
Yet even Ducas dissembles the mosque.]
[Footnote 68: Memoires du bon Messire Jean le Maingre, dit
Boucicault, Marechal de France, partie c. 30, 35.]
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death
Part I.
Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane To The Throne Of Samarcand.
- His Conquests In Persia, Georgia, Tartary Russia, India, Syria,
And Anatolia. - His Turkish War. - Defeat And Captivity Of
Bajazet. - Death Of Timour. - Civil War Of The Sons Of Bajazet. -
Restoration Of The Turkish Monarchy By Mahomet The First. - Siege
Of Constantinople By Amurath The Second.
The conquest and monarchy of the world was the first object
of the ambition of Timour. To live in the memory and esteem of
future ages was the second wish of his magnanimous spirit. All
the civil and military transactions of his reign were diligently
recorded in the journals of his secretaries: ^1 the authentic
narrative was revised by the persons best informed of each
particular transaction; and it is believed in the empire and
family of Timour, that the monarch himself composed the
commentaries ^2 of his life, and the institutions ^3 of his
government. ^4 But these cares were ineffectual for the
preservation of his fame, and these precious memorials in the
Mogul or Persian language were concealed from the world, or, at
least, from the knowledge of Europe. The nations which he
vanquished exercised a base and impotent revenge; and ignorance
has long repeated the tale of calumny, ^5 which had disfigured
the birth and character, the person, and even the name, of
Tamerlane. ^6 Yet his real merit would be enhanced, rather than
debased, by the elevation of a peasant to the throne of Asia; nor
can his lameness be a theme of reproach, unless he had the
weakness to blush at a natural, or perhaps an honorable,
infirmity. ^*
[Footnote 1: These journals were communicated to Sherefeddin, or
Cherefeddin Ali, a native of Yezd, who composed in the Persian
language a history of Timour Beg, which has been translated into
French by M. Petit de la Croix, (Paris, 1722, in 4 vols. 12 mo.,)
and has always been my faithful guide. His geography and
chronology are wonderfully accurate; and he may be trusted for
public facts, though he servilely praises the virtue and fortune
of the hero. Timour's attention to procure intelligence from his
own and foreign countries may be seen in the Institutions, p.
215, 217, 349, 351.]
[Footnote 2: These Commentaries are yet unknown in Europe: but
Mr. White gives some hope that they may be imported and
translated by his friend Major Davy, who had read in the East
this "minute and faithful narrative of an interesting and
eventful period."
Note: The manuscript of Major Davy has been translated by
Major Stewart, and published by the Oriental Translation
Committee of London. It contains the life of Timour, from his
birth to his forty-first year; but the last thirty years of
western war and conquest are wanting. Major Stewart intimates
that two manuscripts exist in this country containing the whole
work, but excuses himself, on account of his age, from
undertaking the laborious task of completing the translation. It
is to be hoped that the European public will be soon enabled to
judge of the value and authenticity of the Commentaries of the
Caesar of the East. Major Stewart's work commences with the Book
of Dreams and Omens - a wild, but characteristic, chronicle of
Visions and Sortes Koranicae. Strange that a life of Timour
should awaken a reminiscence of the diary of Archbishop Laud!
The early dawn and the gradual expression of his not less
splendid but more real visions of ambition are touched with the
simplicity of truth and nature. But we long to escape from the
petty feuds of the pastoral chieftain, to the triumphs and the
legislation of the conqueror of the world - M.]
[Footnote 3: I am ignorant whether the original institution, in
the Turki or Mogul language, be still extant. The Persic
version, with an English translation, and most valuable index,
was published (Oxford, 1783, in 4to.) by the joint labors of
Major Davy and Mr. White, the Arabic professor. This work has
been since translated from the Persic into French, (Paris, 1787,)
by M. Langles, a learned Orientalist, who has added the life of
Timour, and many curious notes.]
[Footnote 4: Shaw Allum, the present Mogul, reads, values, but
cannot imitate, the institutions of his great ancestor. The
English translator relies on their internal evidence; but if any
suspicions should arise of fraud and fiction, they will not be
dispelled by Major Davy's letter. The Orientals have never
cultivated the art of criticism; the patronage of a prince, less
honorable, perhaps, is not less lucrative than that of a
bookseller; nor can it be deemed incredible that a Persian, the
real author, should renounce the credit, to raise the value and
price, of the work.]
[Footnote 5: The original of the tale is found in the following
work, which is much esteemed for its florid elegance of style:
Ahmedis Arabsiadae (Ahmed Ebn Arabshah) Vitae et Rerum gestarum
Timuri. Arabice et Latine. Edidit Samuel Henricus Manger.
Franequerae, 1767, 2 tom. in 4to. This Syrian author is ever a
malicious, and often an ignorant enemy: the very titles of his
chapters are injurious; as how the wicked, as how the impious, as
how the viper, &c. The copious article of Timur, in Bibliotheque
Orientale, is of a mixed nature, as D'Herbelot indifferently
draws his materials (p. 877 - 888) from Khondemir Ebn Schounah,
and the Lebtarikh.]
[Footnote 6: Demir or Timour signifies in the Turkish language,
Iron; and it is the appellation of a lord or prince. By the
change of a letter or accent, it is changed into Lenc, or Lame;
and a European corruption confounds the two words in the name of
Tamerlane.
Note: According to the memoirs he was so called by a Shaikh,
who, when visited by his mother on his birth, was reading the
verse of the Koran, 'Are you sure that he who dwelleth in heaven
will not cause the earth to swallow you up, and behold it shall
shake, Tamurn." The Shaikh then stopped and said, "We have named
your son Timur," p. 21. - M.]
[Footnote *: He was lamed by a wound at the siege of the capital
of Sistan. Sherefeddin, lib. iii. c. 17. p. 136. See Von Hammer,
vol. i. p. 260. - M.]
In the eyes of the Moguls, who held the indefeasible
succession of the house of Zingis, he was doubtless a rebel
subject; yet he sprang from the noble tribe of Berlass: his fifth
ancestor, Carashar Nevian, had been the vizier ^! of Zagatai, in
his new realm of Transoxiana; and in the ascent of some
generations, the branch of Timour is confounded, at least by the
females, ^7 with the Imperial stem. ^8 He was born forty miles to
the south of Samarcand in the village of Sebzar, in the fruitful
territory of Cash, of which his fathers were the hereditary
chiefs, as well as of a toman of ten thousand horse. ^9 His birth
^10 was cast on one of those periods of anarchy, which announce
the fall of the Asiatic dynasties, and open a new field to
adventurous ambition. The khans of Zagatai were extinct; the
emirs aspired to independence; and their domestic feuds could
only be suspended by the conquest and tyranny of the khans of
Kashgar, who, with an army of Getes or Calmucks, ^11 invaded the
Transoxian kingdom. From the twelfth year of his age, Timour had
entered the field of action; in the twenty-fifth ^!! he stood
forth as the deliverer of his country; and the eyes and wishes of
the people were turned towards a hero who suffered in their
cause. The chiefs of the law and of the army had pledged their
salvation to support him with their lives and fortunes; but in
the hour of danger they were silent and afraid; and, after
waiting seven days on the hills of Samarcand, he retreated to the
desert with only sixty horsemen. The fugitives were overtaken by
a thousand Getes, whom he repulsed with incredible slaughter, and
his enemies were forced to exclaim, "Timour is a wonderful man:
fortune and the divine favor are with him." But in this bloody
action his own followers were reduced to ten, a number which was
soon diminished by the desertion of three Carizmians. ^!!! He
wandered in the desert with his wife, seven companions, and four
horses; and sixty-two days was he plunged in a loathsome dungeon,
from whence he escaped by his own courage and the remorse of the
oppressor. After swimming the broad and rapid steam of the
Jihoon, or Oxus, he led, during some months, the life of a
vagrant and outlaw, on the borders of the adjacent states. But
his fame shone brighter in adversity; he learned to distinguish
the friends of his person, the associates of his fortune, and to
apply the various characters of men for their advantage, and,
above all, for his own. On his return to his native country,
Timour was successively joined by the parties of his
confederates, who anxiously sought him in the desert; nor can I
refuse to describe, in his pathetic simplicity, one of their
fortunate encounters. He presented himself as a guide to three
chiefs, who were at the head of seventy horse. "When their eyes
fell upon me," says Timour, "they were overwhelmed with joy; and
they alighted from their horses; and they came and kneeled; and
they kissed my stirrup. I also came down from my horse, and took
each of them in my arms. And I put my turban on the head of the
first chief; and my girdle, rich in jewels and wrought with gold,
I bound on the loins of the second; and the third I clothed in my
own coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and the hour of prayer
was arrived, and we prayed. And we mounted our horses, and came
to my dwelling; and I collected my people, and made a feast." His
trusty bands were soon increased by the bravest of the tribes; he
led them against a superior foe; and, after some vicissitudes of
war the Getes were finally driven from the kingdom of
Transoxiana. He had done much for his own glory; but much
remained to be done, much art to be exerted, and some blood to be
spilt, before he could teach his equals to obey him as their
master. The birth and power of emir Houssein compelled him to
accept a vicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister was the
best beloved of his wives. Their union was short and jealous;
but the policy of Timour, in their frequent quarrels, exposed his
rival to the reproach of injustice and perfidy; and, after a
final defeat, Houssein was slain by some sagacious friends, who
presumed, for the last time, to disobey the commands of their
lord. ^* At the age of thirty-four, ^12 and in a general diet or
couroultai, he was invested with Imperial command, but he
affected to revere the house of Zingis; and while the emir Timour
reigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served as a
private officer in the armies of his servant. A fertile kingdom,
five hundred miles in length and in breadth, might have satisfied
the ambition of a subject; but Timour aspired to the dominion of
the world; and before his death, the crown of Zagatai was one of
the twenty- seven crowns which he had placed on his head.
Without expatiating on the victories of thirty-five campaigns;
without describing the lines of march, which he repeatedly traced
over the continent of Asia; I shall briefly represent his
conquests in, I. Persia, II. Tartary, and, III. India, ^13 and
from thence proceed to the more interesting narrative of his
Ottoman war.
[Footnote !: In the memoirs, the title Gurgan is in one place (p.
23) interpreted the son-in-law; in another (p. 28) as Kurkan,
great prince, generalissimo, and prime minister of Jagtai. - M.]
[Footnote 7: After relating some false and foolish tales of
Timour Lenc, Arabshah is compelled to speak truth, and to own him
for a kinsman of Zingis, per mulieres, (as he peevishly adds,)
laqueos Satanae, (pars i. c. i. p. 25.) The testimony of
Abulghazi Khan (P. ii. c. 5, P. v. c. 4) is clear,
unquestionable, and decisive.]
[Footnote 8: According to one of the pedigrees, the fourth
ancestor of Zingis, and the ninth of timour, were brothers; and
they agreed, that the posterity of the elder should succeed to
the dignity of khan, and that the descendants of the younger
should fill the office of their minister and general. This
tradition was at least convenient to justify the first steps of
Timour's ambition, (Institutions, p. 24, 25, from the MS.
fragments of Timour's History.)]
[Footnote 9: See the preface of Sherefeddin, and Abulfeda's
Geography, (Chorasmiae, &c., Descriptio, p. 60, 61,) in the iiid
volume of Hudson's Minor Greek Geographers.]
[Footnote 10: See his nativity in Dr. Hyde, (Syntagma Dissertat.
tom. ii. p. 466,) as it was cast by the astrologers of his
grandson Ulugh Beg. He was born, A.D. 1336, April 9, 11 degrees
57 minutes. P. M., lat. 36. I know not whether they can prove
the great conjunction of the planets from whence, like other
conquerors and prophets, Timour derived the surname of Saheb
Keran, or master of the conjunctions, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 878.)]
[Footnote 11: In the Institutions of Timour, these subjects of
the khan of Kashgar are most improperly styled Ouzbegs, or
Usbeks, a name which belongs to another branch and country of
Tartars, (Abulghazi, P. v. c. v. P. vii. c. 5.) Could I be sure
that this word is in the Turkish original, I would boldly
pronounce, that the Institutions were framed a century after the
death of Timour, since the establishment of the Usbeks in
Transoxiana.
Note: Col. Stewart observes, that the Persian translator has
sometimes made use of the name Uzbek by anticipation. He
observes, likewise, that these Jits (Getes) are not to be
confounded with the ancient Getae: they were unconverted Turks.
Col. Tod (History of Rajasthan, vol. i. p. 166) would identify
the Jits with the ancient race. - M.]
[Footnote !!: He was twenty-seven before he served his first wars
under the emir Houssein, who ruled over Khorasan and
Mawerainnehr. Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 262. Neither of these
statements agrees with the Memoirs. At twelve he was a boy. "I
fancied that I perceived in myself all the signs of greatness and
wisdom, and whoever came to visit me, I received with great
hauteur and dignity." At seventeen he undertook the management of
the flocks and herds of the family, (p. 24.) At nineteen he
became religious, and "left off playing chess," made a kind of
Budhist vow never to injure living thing and felt his foot
paralyzed from having accidentally trod upon an ant, (p. 30.) At
twenty, thoughts of rebellion and greatness rose in his mind; at
twenty-one, he seems to have performed his first feat of arms.
He was a practised warrior when he served, in his twenty-seventh
year, under Emir Houssein.]
[Footnote !!!: Compare Memoirs, page 61. The imprisonment is
there stated at fifty-three days. "At this time I made a vow to
God that I would never keep any person, whether guilty or
innocent, for any length of time, in prison or in chains." p. 63.
- M.]
[Footnote *: Timour, on one occasion, sent him this message: "He
who wishes to embrace the bride of royalty must kiss her across
the edge of the sharp sword," p. 83. The scene of the trial of
Houssein, the resistance of Timour gradually becoming more
feeble, the vengeance of the chiefs becoming proportionably more
determined, is strikingly portrayed. Mem. p 130 - M.]
[Footnote 12: The ist book of Sherefeddin is employed on the
private life of the hero: and he himself, or his secretary,
(Institutions, p. 3 - 77,) enlarges with pleasure on the thirteen
designs and enterprises which most truly constitute his personal
merit. It even shines through the dark coloring of Arabshah, (P.
i. c. 1 - 12.)]
[Footnote 13: The conquests of Persia, Tartary, and India, are
represented in the iid and iiid books of Sherefeddin, and by
Arabshah, (c. 13 - 55.) Consult the excellent Indexes to the
Institutions.
Note: Compare the seventh book of Von Hammer, Geschichte des
Osman ischen Reiches. - M.]
I. For every war, a motive of safety or revenge, of honor
or zeal, of right or convenience, may be readily found in the
jurisprudence of conquerors. No sooner had Timour reunited to the
patrimony of Zagatai the dependent countries of Carizme and
Candahar, than he turned his eyes towards the kingdoms of Iran or
Persia. From the Oxus to the Tigris, that extensive country was
left without a lawful sovereign since the death of Abousaid, the
last of the descendants of the great Holacou. Peace and justice
had been banished from the land above forty years; and the Mogul
invader might seem to listen to the cries of an oppressed people.
Their petty tyrants might have opposed him with confederate arms:
they separately stood, and successively fell; and the difference
of their fate was only marked by the promptitude of submission or
the obstinacy of resistance. Ibrahim, prince of Shirwan, or
Albania, kissed the footstool of the Imperial throne. His
peace-offerings of silks, horses, and jewels, were composed,
according to the Tartar fashion, each article of nine pieces; but
a critical spectator observed, that there were only eight slaves.
"I myself am the ninth," replied Ibrahim, who was prepared for
the remark; and his flattery was rewarded by the smile of Timour.
^14 Shah Mansour, prince of Fars, or the proper Persia, was one
of the least powerful, but most dangerous, of his enemies. In a
battle under the walls of Shiraz, he broke, with three or four
thousand soldiers, the coul or main body of thirty thousand
horse, where the emperor fought in person. No more than fourteen
or fifteen guards remained near the standard of Timour: he stood
firm as a rock, and received on his helmet two weighty strokes of
a cimeter: ^15 the Moguls rallied; the head of Mansour was thrown
at his feet; and he declared his esteem of the valor of a foe, by
extirpating all the males of so intrepid a race. From Shiraz,
his troops advanced to the Persian Gulf; and the richness and
weakness of Ormuz ^16 were displayed in an annual tribute of six
hundred thousand dinars of gold. Bagdad was no longer the city
of peace, the seat of the caliphs; but the noblest conquest of
Holacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. The
whole course of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the mouth to the
sources of those rivers, was reduced to his obedience: he entered
Edessa; and the Turkmans of the black sheep were chastised for
the sacrilegious pillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains
of Georgia, the native Christians still braved the law and the
sword of Mahomet, by three expeditions he obtained the merit of
the gazie, or holy war; and the prince of Teflis became his
proselyte and friend.
[Footnote 14: The reverence of the Tartars for the mysterious
number of nine is declared by Abulghazi Khan, who, for that
reason, divides his Genealogical History into nine parts.]
[Footnote 15: According to Arabshah, (P. i. c. 28, p. 183,) the
coward Timour ran away to his tent, and hid himself from the
pursuit of Shah Mansour under the women's garments. Perhaps
Sherefeddin (l. iii. c. 25) has magnified his courage.]
[Footnote 16: The history of Ormuz is not unlike that of Tyre.
The old city, on the continent, was destroyed by the Tartars, and
renewed in a neighboring island, without fresh water or
vegetation. The kings of Ormuz, rich in the Indian trade and the
pearl fishery, possessed large territories both in Persia and
Arabia; but they were at first the tributaries of the sultans of
Kerman, and at last were delivered (A.D. 1505) by the Portuguese
tyrants from the tyranny of their own viziers, (Marco Polo, l. i.
c. 15, 16, fol. 7, 8. Abulfeda, Geograph. tabul. xi. p. 261, 262,
an original Chronicle of Ormuz, in Texeira, or Stevens's History
of Persia, p. 376 - 416, and the Itineraries inserted in the ist
volume of Ramusio, of Ludovico Barthema, (1503,) fol. 167, of
Andrea Corsali, (1517) fol. 202, 203, and of Odoardo Barbessa,
(in 1516,) fol 313 - 318.)]
II. A just retaliation might be urged for the invasion of
Turkestan, or the Eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timour could
not endure the impunity of the Getes: he passed the Sihoon,
subdued the kingdom of Kashgar, and marched seven times into the
heart of their country. His most distant camp was two months'
journey, or four hundred and eighty leagues to the north-east of
Samarcand; and his emirs, who traversed the River Irtish,
engraved in the forests of Siberia a rude memorial of their
exploits. The conquest of Kipzak, or the Western Tartary, ^17
was founded on the double motive of aiding the distressed, and
chastising the ungrateful. Toctamish, a fugitive prince, was
entertained and protected in his court: the ambassadors of Auruss
Khan were dismissed with a haughty denial, and followed on the
same day by the armies of Zagatai; and their success established
Toctamish in the Mogul empire of the North. But, after a reign
of ten years, the new khan forgot the merits and the strength of
his benefactor; the base usurper, as he deemed him, of the sacred
rights of the house of Zingis. Through the gates of Derbend, he
entered Persia at the head of ninety thousand horse: with the
innumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he
passed the Sihoon, burnt the palaces of Timour, and compelled
him, amidst the winter snows, to contend for Samarcand and his
life. After a mild expostulation, and a glorious victory, the
emperor resolved on revenge; and by the east, and the west, of
the Caspian, and the Volga, he twice invaded Kipzak with such
mighty powers, that thirteen miles were measured from his right
to his left wing. In a march of five months, they rarely beheld
the footsteps of man; and their daily subsistence was often
trusted to the fortune of the chase. At length the armies
encountered each other; but the treachery of the standard-bearer,
who, in the heat of action, reversed the Imperial standard of
Kipzak, determined the victory of the Zagatais; and Toctamish (I
peak the language of the Institutions) gave the tribe of Toushi
to the wind of desolation. ^18 He fled to the Christian duke of
Lithuania; again returned to the banks of the Volga; and, after
fifteen battles with a domestic rival, at last perished in the
wilds of Siberia. The pursuit of a flying enemy carried Timour
into the tributary provinces of Russia: a duke of the reigning
family was made prisoner amidst the ruins of his capital; and
Yeletz, by the pride and ignorance of the Orientals, might easily
be confounded with the genuine metropolis of the nation. Moscow
trembled at the approach of the Tartar, and the resistance would
have been feeble, since the hopes of the Russians were placed in
a miraculous image of the Virgin, to whose protection they
ascribed the casual and voluntary retreat of the conqueror.
Ambition and prudence recalled him to the South, the desolate
country was exhausted, and the Mogul soldiers were enriched with
an immense spoil of precious furs, of linen of Antioch, ^19 and
of ingots of gold and silver. ^20 On the banks of the Don, or
Tanais, he received an humble deputation from the consuls and
merchants of Egypt, ^21 Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay, who
occupied the commerce and city of Tana, or Azoph, at the mouth of
the river. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence,
and trusted his royal word. But the peaceful visit of an emir,
who explored the state of the magazines and harbor, was speedily
followed by the destructive presence of the Tartars. The city was
reduced to ashes; the Moslems were pillaged and dismissed; but
all the Christians, who had not fled to their ships, were
condemned either to death or slavery. ^22 Revenge prompted him to
burn the cities of Serai and Astrachan, the monuments of rising
civilization; and his vanity proclaimed, that he had penetrated
to the region of perpetual daylight, a strange phenomenon, which
authorized his Mahometan doctors to dispense with the obligation
of evening prayer. ^23
[Footnote 17: Arabshah had travelled into Kipzak, and acquired a
singular knowledge of the geography, cities, and revolutions, of
that northern region, (P. i. c. 45 - 49.)]
[Footnote 18: Institutions of Timour, p. 123, 125. Mr. White,
the editor, bestows some animadversion on the superficial account
of Sherefeddin, (l. iii. c. 12, 13, 14,) who was ignorant of the
designs of Timour, and the true springs of action.]
[Footnote 19: The furs of Russia are more credible than the
ingots. But the linen of Antioch has never been famous: and
Antioch was in ruins. I suspect that it was some manufacture of
Europe, which the Hanse merchants had imported by the way of
Novogorod.]
[Footnote 20: M. Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom. ii. p. 247. Vie
de Timour, p. 64 - 67, before the French version of the
Institutes) has corrected the error of Sherefeddin, and marked
the true limit of Timour's conquests. His arguments are
superfluous; and a simple appeal to the Russian annals is
sufficient to prove that Moscow, which six years before had been
taken by Toctamish, escaped the arms of a more formidable
invader.]
[Footnote 21: An Egyptian consul from Grand Cairo is mentioned in
Barbaro's voyage to Tana in 1436, after the city had been
rebuilt, (Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 92.)]
[Footnote 22: The sack of Azoph is described by Sherefeddin, (l.
iii. c. 55,) and much more particularly by the author of an
Italian chronicle, (Andreas de Redusiis de Quero, in Chron.
Tarvisiano, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xix. p.
802 - 805.) He had conversed with the Mianis, two Venetian
brothers, one of whom had been sent a deputy to the camp of
Timour, and the other had lost at Azoph three sons and 12,000
ducats.]
[Footnote 23: Sherefeddin only says (l. iii. c. 13) that the rays
of the setting, and those of the rising sun, were scarcely
separated by any interval; a problem which may be solved in the
latitude of Moscow, (the 56th degree,) with the aid of the Aurora
Borealis, and a long summer twilight. But a day of forty days
(Khondemir apud D'Herbelot, p. 880) would rigorously confine us
within the polar circle.]
III. When Timour first proposed to his princes and emirs
the invasion of India or Hindostan, ^24 he was answered by a
murmur of discontent: "The rivers! and the mountains and
deserts! and the soldiers clad in armor! and the elephants,
destroyers of men!" But the displeasure of the emperor was more
dreadful than all these terrors; and his superior reason was
convinced, that an enterprise of such tremendous aspect was safe
and easy in the execution. He was informed by his spies of the
weakness and anarchy of Hindostan: the soubahs of the provinces
had erected the standard of rebellion; and the perpetual infancy
of Sultan Mahmoud was despised even in the harem of Delhi. The
Mogul army moved in three great divisions; and Timour observes
with pleasure, that the ninety-two squadrons of a thousand horse
most fortunately corresponded with the ninety-two names or
epithets of the prophet Mahomet. ^* Between the Jihoon and the
Indus they crossed one of the ridges of mountains, which are
styled by the Arabian geographers The Stony Girdles of the Earth.
The highland robbers were subdued or extirpated; but great
numbers of men and horses perished in the snow; the emperor
himself was let down a precipice on a portable scaffold - the
ropes were one hundred and fifty cubits in length; and before he
could reach the bottom, this dangerous operation was five times
repeated. Timour crossed the Indus at the ordinary passage of
Attok; and successively traversed, in the footsteps of Alexander,
the Punjab, or five rivers, ^25 that fall into the master stream.
From Attok to Delhi, the high road measures no more than six
hundred miles; but the two conquerors deviated to the south-east;
and the motive of Timour was to join his grandson, who had
achieved by his command the conquest of Moultan. On the eastern
bank of the Hyphasis, on the edge of the desert, the Macedonian
hero halted and wept: the Mogul entered the desert, reduced the
fortress of Batmir, and stood in arms before the gates of Delhi,
a great and flourishing city, which had subsisted three centuries
under the dominion of the Mahometan kings. ^! The siege, more
especially of the castle, might have been a work of time; but he
tempted, by the appearance of weakness, the sultan Mahmoud and
his vizier to descend into the plain, with ten thousand
cuirassiers, forty thousand of his foot-guards, and one hundred
and twenty elephants, whose tusks are said to have been armed
with sharp and poisoned daggers. Against these monsters, or
rather against the imagination of his troops, he condescended to
use some extraordinary precautions of fire and a ditch, of iron
spikes and a rampart of bucklers; but the event taught the Moguls
to smile at their own fears; and as soon as these unwieldy
animals were routed, the inferior species (the men of India)
disappeared from the field. Timour made his triumphal entry into
the capital of Hindostan; and admired, with a view to imitate,
the architecture of the stately mosque; but the order or license
of a general pillage and massacre polluted the festival of his
victory. He resolved to purify his soldiers in the blood of the
idolaters, or Gentoos, who still surpass, in the proportion of
ten to one, the numbers of the Moslems. ^* In this pious design,
he advanced one hundred miles to the north-east of Delhi, passed
the Ganges, fought several battles by land and water, and
penetrated to the famous rock of Coupele, the statue of the cow,
^!! that seems to discharge the mighty river, whose source is far
distant among the mountains of Thibet. ^26 His return was along
the skirts of the northern hills; nor could this rapid campaign
of one year justify the strange foresight of his emirs, that
their children in a warm climate would degenerate into a race of
Hindoos.
[Footnote 24: For the Indian war, see the Institutions, (p. 129 -
139,) the fourth book of Sherefeddin, and the history of
Ferishta, (in Dow, vol. ii. p. 1 - 20,) which throws a general
light on the affairs of Hindostan.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon (observes M. von Hammer) is mistaken in the
correspondence of the ninety-two squadrons of his army with the
ninety-two names of God: the names of God are ninety-nine. and
Allah is the hundredth, p. 286, note. But Gibbon speaks of the
names or epithets of Mahomet, not of God. - M]
[Footnote 25: The rivers of the Punjab, the five eastern branches
of the Indus, have been laid down for the first time with truth
and accuracy in Major Rennel's incomparable map of Hindostan. In
this Critical Memoir he illustrates with judgment and learning
the marches of Alexander and Timour.
Note *: See vol. i. ch. ii. note 1. - M.]
[Footnote !: They took, on their march, 100,000 slaves, Guebers
they were all murdered. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 286. They are
called idolaters. Briggs's Ferishta, vol. i. p. 491. - M]
[Footnote *: See a curious passage on the destruction of the
Hindoo idols, Memoirs, p. 15. - M.]
[Footnote !!: Consult the very striking description of the Cow's
Mouth by Captain Hodgson, Asiat. Res. vol. xiv. p. 117. "A most
wonderful scene. The B'hagiratha or Ganges issues from under a
very low arch at the foot of the grand snow bed. My guide, an
illiterate mountaineer compared the pendent icicles to Mahodeva's
hair." (Compare Poems, Quarterly Rev. vol. xiv. p. 37, and at the
end of my translation of Nala.) "Hindoos of research may formerly
have been here; and f so. I cannot think of any place to which
they might more aptly give the name of a cow's mouth than to this
extraordinary debouche - M.]
[Footnote 26: The two great rivers, the Ganges and Burrampooter,
rise in Thibet, from the opposite ridges of the same hills,
separate from each other to the distance of 1200 miles, and,
after a winding course of 2000 miles, again meet in one point
near the Gulf of Bengal. Yet so capricious is Fame, that the
Burrampooter is a late discovery, while his brother Ganges has
been the theme of ancient and modern story Coupele, the scene of
Timour's last victory, must be situate near Loldong, 1100 miles
from Calcutta; and in 1774, a British camp! (Rennel's Memoir, p.
7, 59, 90, 91, 99.)]
It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timour was informed,
by his speedy messengers, of the disturbances which had arisen on
the confines of Georgia and Anatolia, of the revolt of the
Christians, and the ambitious designs of the sultan Bajazet. His
vigor of mind and body was not impaired by sixty-three years, and
innumerable fatigues; and, after enjoying some tranquil months in
the palace of Samarcand, he proclaimed a new expedition of seven
years into the western countries of Asia. ^27 To the soldiers who
had served in the Indian war he granted the choice of remaining
at home, or following their prince; but the troops of all the
provinces and kingdoms of Persia were commanded to assemble at
Ispahan, and wait the arrival of the Imperial standard. It was
first directed against the Christians of Georgia, who were strong
only in their rocks, their castles, and the winter season; but
these obstacles were overcome by the zeal and perseverance of
Timour: the rebels submitted to the tribute or the Koran; and if
both religions boasted of their martyrs, that name is more justly
due to the Christian prisoners, who were offered the choice of
abjuration or death. On his descent from the hills, the emperor
gave audience to the first ambassadors of Bajazet, and opened the
hostile correspondence of complaints and menaces, which fermented
two years before the final explosion. Between two jealous and
haughty neighbors, the motives of quarrel will seldom be wanting.
The Mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in the
neighborhood of Erzerum, and the Euphrates; nor had the doubtful
limit been ascertained by time and treaty. Each of these
ambitious monarchs might accuse his rival of violating his
territory, of threatening his vassals, and protecting his rebels;
and, by the name of rebels, each understood the fugitive princes,
whose kingdoms he had usurped, and whose life or liberty he
implacably pursued. The resemblance of character was still more
dangerous than the opposition of interest; and in their
victorious career, Timour was impatient of an equal, and Bajazet
was ignorant of a superior. The first epistle ^28 of the Mogul
emperor must have provoked, instead of reconciling, the Turkish
sultan, whose family and nation he affected to despise. ^29 "Dost
thou not know, that the greatest part of Asia is subject to our
arms and our laws? that our invincible forces extend from one
sea to the other? that the potentates of the earth form a line
before our gate? and that we have compelled Fortune herself to
watch over the prosperity of our empire. What is the foundation
of thy insolence and folly? Thou hast fought some battles in the
woods of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Thou hast obtained
some victories over the Christians of Europe; thy sword was
blessed by the apostle of God; and thy obedience to the precept
of the Koran, in waging war against the infidels, is the sole
consideration that prevents us from destroying thy country, the
frontier and bulwark of the Moslem world. Be wise in time;
reflect; repent; and avert the thunder of our vengeance, which is
yet suspended over thy head. Thou art no more than a pismire; why
wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants? Alas! they will trample
thee under their feet." In his replies, Bajazet poured forth the
indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by such unusual
contempt. After retorting the basest reproaches on the thief and
rebel of the desert, the Ottoman recapitulates his boasted
victories in Iran, Touran, and the Indies; and labors to prove,
that Timour had never triumphed unless by his own perfidy and the
vices of his foes. "Thy armies are innumerable: be they so; but
what are the arrows of the flying Tartar against the cimeters and
battle-axes of my firm and invincible Janizaries? I will guard
the princes who have implored my protection: seek them in my
tents. The cities of Arzingan and Erzeroum are mine; and unless
the tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrears under the
walls of Tauris and Sultania." The ungovernable rage of the
sultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more domestic
kind. "If I fly from thy arms," said he, "may my wives be thrice
divorced from my bed: but if thou hast not courage to meet me in
the field, mayest thou again receive thy wives after they have
thrice endured the embraces of a stranger." ^30 Any violation by
word or deed of the secrecy of the harem is an unpardonable
offence among the Turkish nations; ^31 and the political quarrel
of the two monarchs was imbittered by private and personal
resentment. Yet in his first expedition, Timour was satisfied
with the siege and destruction of Siwas or Sebaste, a strong city
on the borders of Anatolia; and he revenged the indiscretion of
the Ottoman, on a garrison of four thousand Armenians, who were
buried alive for the brave and faithful discharge of their duty.
^! As a Mussulman, he seemed to respect the pious occupation of
Bajazet, who was still engaged in the blockade of Constantinople;
and after this salutary lesson, the Mogul conqueror checked his
pursuit, and turned aside to the invasion of Syria and Egypt. In
these transactions, the Ottoman prince, by the Orientals, and
even by Timour, is styled the Kaissar of Roum, the Caesar of the
Romans; a title which, by a small anticipation, might be given to
a monarch who possessed the provinces, and threatened the city,
of the successors of Constantine. ^32
[Footnote 27: See the Institutions, p. 141, to the end of the 1st
book, and Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 1 - 16,) to the entrance of
Timour into Syria.]
[Footnote 28: We have three copies of these hostile epistles in
the Institutions, (p. 147,) in Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 14,) and in
Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 19 p. 183 - 201;) which agree with each
other in the spirit and substance rather than in the style. It
is probable, that they have been translated, with various
latitude, from the Turkish original into the Arabic and Persian
tongues.
Note: Von Hammer considers the letter which Gibbon inserted
in the text to be spurious. On the various copies of these
letters, see his note, p 11 - 16. - M.]
[Footnote 29: The Mogul emir distinguishes himself and his
countrymen by the name of Turks, and stigmatizes the race and
nation of Bajazet with the less honorable epithet of Turkmans.
Yet I do not understand how the Ottomans could be descended from
a Turkman sailor; those inland shepherds were so remote from the
sea, and all maritime affairs.
Note: Price translated the word pilot or boatman. - M.]
[Footnote 30: According to the Koran, (c. ii. p. 27, and Sale's
Discourses, p. 134,) Mussulman who had thrice divorced his wife,
(who had thrice repeated the words of a divorce,) could not take
her again, till after she had been married to, and repudiated by,
another husband; an ignominious transaction, which it is needless
to aggravate, by supposing that the first husband must see her
enjoyed by a second before his face, (Rycaut's State of the
Ottoman Empire, l. ii. c. 21.)]
[Footnote 31: The common delicacy of the Orientals, in never
speaking of their women, is ascribed in a much higher degree by
Arabshah to the Turkish nations; and it is remarkable enough,
that Chalcondyles (l. ii. p. 55) had some knowledge of the
prejudice and the insult.
Note: See Von Hammer, p. 308, and note, p. 621. - M.]
[Footnote !: Still worse barbarities were perpetrated on these
brave men. Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 295. - M.]
[Footnote 32: For the style of the Moguls, see the Institutions,
(p. 131, 147,) and for the Persians, the Bibliotheque Orientale,
(p. 882;) but I do not find that the title of Caesar has been
applied by the Arabians, or assumed by the Ottomans themselves.]
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death
Part II.
The military republic of the Mamalukes still reigned in
Egypt and Syria: but the dynasty of the Turks was overthrown by
that of the Circassians; ^33 and their favorite Barkok, from a
slave and a prisoner, was raised and restored to the throne. In
the midst of rebellion and discord, he braved the menaces,
corresponded with the enemies, and detained the ambassadors, of
the Mogul, who patiently expected his decease, to revenge the
crimes of the father on the feeble reign of his son Farage. The
Syrian emirs ^34 were assembled at Aleppo to repel the invasion:
they confided in the fame and discipline of the Mamalukes, in the
temper of their swords and lances of the purest steel of
Damascus, in the strength of their walled cities, and in the
populousness of sixty thousand villages; and instead of
sustaining a siege, they threw open their gates, and arrayed
their forces in the plain. But these forces were not cemented by
virtue and union; and some powerful emirs had been seduced to
desert or betray their more loyal companions. Timour's front was
covered with a line of Indian elephants, whose turrets were
filled with archers and Greek fire: the rapid evolutions of his
cavalry completed the dismay and disorder; the Syrian crowds fell
back on each other: many thousands were stifled or slaughtered in
the entrance of the great street; the Moguls entered with the
fugitives; and after a short defence, the citadel, the
impregnable citadel of Aleppo, was surrendered by cowardice or
treachery. Among the suppliants and captives, Timour
distinguished the doctors of the law, whom he invited to the
dangerous honor of a personal conference. ^35 The Mogul prince
was a zealous Mussulman; but his Persian schools had taught him
to revere the memory of Ali and Hosein; and he had imbibed a deep
prejudice against the Syrians, as the enemies of the son of the
daughter of the apostle of God. To these doctors he proposed a
captious question, which the casuists of Bochara, Samarcand, and
Herat, were incapable of resolving. "Who are the true martyrs,
of those who are slain on my side, or on that of my enemies?" But
he was silenced, or satisfied, by the dexterity of one of the
cadhis of Aleppo, who replied in the words of Mahomet himself,
that the motive, not the ensign, constitutes the martyr; and that
the Moslems of either party, who fight only for the glory of God,
may deserve that sacred appellation. The true succession of the
caliphs was a controversy of a still more delicate nature; and
the frankness of a doctor, too honest for his situation, provoked
the emperor to exclaim, "Ye are as false as those of Damascus:
Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a tyrant, and Ali alone is the
lawful successor of the prophet." A prudent explanation restored
his tranquillity; and he passed to a more familiar topic of
conversation. "What is your age?" said he to the cadhi. "Fifty
years." - "It would be the age of my eldest son: you see me here
(continued Timour) a poor lame, decrepit mortal. Yet by my arm
has the Almighty been pleased to subdue the kingdoms of Iran,
Touran, and the Indies. I am not a man of blood; and God is my
witness, that in all my wars I have never been the aggressor, and
that my enemies have always been the authors of their own
calamity." During this peaceful conversation the streets of
Aleppo streamed with blood, and reechoed with the cries of
mothers and children, with the shrieks of violated virgins. The
rich plunder that was abandoned to his soldiers might stimulate
their avarice; but their cruelty was enforced by the peremptory
command of producing an adequate number of heads, which,
according to his custom, were curiously piled in columns and
pyramids: the Moguls celebrated the feast of victory, while the
surviving Moslems passed the night in tears and in chains. I
shall not dwell on the march of the destroyer from Aleppo to
Damascus, where he was rudely encountered, and almost overthrown,
by the armies of Egypt. A retrograde motion was imputed to his
distress and despair: one of his nephews deserted to the enemy;
and Syria rejoiced in the tale of his defeat, when the sultan was
driven by the revolt of the Mamalukes to escape with
precipitation and shame to his palace of Cairo. Abandoned by
their prince, the inhabitants of Damascus still defended their
walls; and Timour consented to raise the siege, if they would
adorn his retreat with a gift or ransom; each article of nine
pieces. But no sooner had he introduced himself into the city,
under color of a truce, than he perfidiously violated the treaty;
imposed a contribution of ten millions of gold; and animated his
troops to chastise the posterity of those Syrians who had
executed, or approved, the murder of the grandson of Mahomet. A
family which had given honorable burial to the head of Hosein,
and a colony of artificers, whom he sent to labor at Samarcand,
were alone reserved in the general massacre, and after a period
of seven centuries, Damascus was reduced to ashes, because a
Tartar was moved by religious zeal to avenge the blood of an
Arab. The losses and fatigues of the campaign obliged Timour to
renounce the conquest of Palestine and Egypt; but in his return
to the Euphrates he delivered Aleppo to the flames; and justified
his pious motive by the pardon and reward of two thousand
sectaries of Ali, who were desirous to visit the tomb of his son.
I have expatiated on the personal anecdotes which mark the
character of the Mogul hero; but I shall briefly mention, ^36
that he erected on the ruins of Bagdad a pyramid of ninety
thousand heads; again visited Georgia; encamped on the banks of
Araxes; and proclaimed his resolution of marching against the
Ottoman emperor. Conscious of the importance of the war, he
collected his forces from every province: eight hundred thousand
men were enrolled on his military list; ^37 but the splendid
commands of five, and ten, thousand horse, may be rather
expressive of the rank and pension of the chiefs, than of the
genuine number of effective soldiers. ^38 In the pillage of
Syria, the Moguls had acquired immense riches: but the delivery
of their pay and arrears for seven years more firmly attached
them to the Imperial standard.
[Footnote 33: See the reigns of Barkok and Pharadge, in M. De
Guignes, (tom. iv. l. xxii.,) who, from the Arabic texts of
Aboulmahasen, Ebn (Schounah, and Aintabi, has added some facts to
our common stock of materials.]
[Footnote 34: For these recent and domestic transactions,
Arabshah, though a partial, is a credible, witness, (tom. i. c.
64 - 68, tom. ii. c. 1 - 14.) Timour must have been odious to a
Syrian; but the notoriety of facts would have obliged him, in
some measure, to respect his enemy and himself. His bitters may
correct the luscious sweets of Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 17 - 29)]
[Footnote 35: These interesting conversations appear to have been
copied by Arabshah (tom. i. c. 68, p. 625 - 645) from the cadhi
and historian Ebn Schounah, a principal actor. Yet how could he
be alive seventy-five years afterwards? (D'Herbelot, p. 792.)]
[Footnote 36: The marches and occupations of Timour between the
Syrian and Ottoman wars are represented by Sherefeddin (l. v. c.
29 - 43) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 15 - 18.)]
[Footnote 37: This number of 800,000 was extracted by Arabshah,
or rather by Ebn Schounah, ex rationario Timuri, on the faith of
a Carizmian officer, (tom. i. c. 68, p. 617;) and it is
remarkable enough, that a Greek historian (Phranza, l. i. c. 29)
adds no more than 20,000 men. Poggius reckons 1,000,000; another
Latin contemporary (Chron. Tarvisianum, apud Muratori, tom. xix.
p. 800) 1,100,000; and the enormous sum of 1,600,000 is attested
by a German soldier, who was present at the battle of Angora,
(Leunclay. ad Chalcondyl. l. iii. p. 82.) Timour, in his
Institutions, has not deigned to calculate his troops, his
subjects, or his revenues.]
[Footnote 38: A wide latitude of non-effectives was allowed by
the Great Mogul for his own pride and the benefit of his
officers. Bernier's patron was Penge-Hazari, commander of 5000
horse; of which he maintained no more than 500, (Voyages, tom. i.
p. 288, 289.)]
During this diversion of the Mogul arms, Bajazet had two
years to collect his forces for a more serious encounter. They
consisted of four hundred thousand horse and foot, ^39 whose
merit and fidelity were of an unequal complexion. We may
discriminate the Janizaries, who have been gradually raised to an
establishment of forty thousand men; a national cavalry, the
Spahis of modern times; twenty thousand cuirassiers of Europe,
clad in black and impenetrable armor; the troops of Anatolia,
whose princes had taken refuge in the camp of Timour, and a
colony of Tartars, whom he had driven from Kipzak, and to whom
Bajazet had assigned a settlement in the plains of Adrianople.
The fearless confidence of the sultan urged him to meet his
antagonist; and, as if he had chosen that spot for revenge, he
displayed his banner near the ruins of the unfortunate Suvas. In
the mean while, Timour moved from the Araxes through the
countries of Armenia and Anatolia: his boldness was secured by
the wisest precautions; his speed was guided by order and
discipline; and the woods, the mountains, and the rivers, were
diligently explored by the flying squadrons, who marked his road
and preceded his standard. Firm in his plan of fighting in the
heart of the Ottoman kingdom, he avoided their camp; dexterously
inclined to the left; occupied Caesarea; traversed the salt
desert and the River Halys; and invested Angora: while the
sultan, immovable and ignorant in his post, compared the Tartar
swiftness to the crawling of a snail; ^40 he returned on the
wings of indignation to the relief of Angora: and as both
generals were alike impatient for action, the plains round that
city were the scene of a memorable battle, which has immortalized
the glory of Timour and the shame of Bajazet. For this signal
victory the Mogul emperor was indebted to himself, to the genius
of the moment, and the discipline of thirty years. He had
improved the tactics, without violating the manners, of his
nation, ^41 whose force still consisted in the missile weapons,
and rapid evolutions, of a numerous cavalry. From a single troop
to a great army, the mode of attack was the same: a foremost line
first advanced to the charge, and was supported in a just order
by the squadrons of the great vanguard. The general's eye
watched over the field, and at his command the front and rear of
the right and left wings successively moved forwards in their
several divisions, and in a direct or oblique line: the enemy was
pressed by eighteen or twenty attacks; and each attack afforded a
chance of victory. If they all proved fruitless or unsuccessful,
the occasion was worthy of the emperor himself, who gave the
signal of advancing to the standard and main body, which he led
in person. ^42 But in the battle of Angora, the main body itself
was supported, on the flanks and in the rear, by the bravest
squadrons of the reserve, commanded by the sons and grandsons of
Timour. The conqueror of Hindostan ostentatiously showed a line
of elephants, the trophies, rather than the instruments, of
victory; the use of the Greek fire was familiar to the Moguls and
Ottomans; but had they borrowed from Europe the recent invention
of gunpowder and cannon, the artificial thunder, in the hands of
either nation, must have turned the fortune of the day. ^43 In
that day Bajazet displayed the qualities of a soldier and a
chief: but his genius sunk under a stronger ascendant; and, from
various motives, the greatest part of his troops failed him in
the decisive moment. His rigor and avarice ^* had provoked a
mutiny among the Turks; and even his son Soliman too hastily
withdrew from the field. The forces of Anatolia, loyal in their
revolt, were drawn away to the banners of their lawful princes.
His Tartar allies had been tempted by the letters and emissaries
of Timour; ^44 who reproached their ignoble servitude under the
slaves of their fathers; and offered to their hopes the dominion
of their new, or the liberty of their ancient, country. In the
right wing of Bajazet the cuirassiers of Europe charged, with
faithful hearts and irresistible arms: but these men of iron were
soon broken by an artful flight and headlong pursuit; and the
Janizaries, alone, without cavalry or missile weapons, were
encompassed by the circle of the Mogul hunters. Their valor was
at length oppressed by heat, thirst, and the weight of numbers;
and the unfortunate sultan, afflicted with the gout in his hands
and feet, was transported from the field on the fleetest of his
horses. He was pursued and taken by the titular khan of Zagatai;
and, after his capture, and the defeat of the Ottoman powers, the
kingdom of Anatolia submitted to the conqueror, who planted his
standard at Kiotahia, and dispersed on all sides the ministers of
rapine and destruction. Mirza Mehemmed Sultan, the eldest and
best beloved of his grandsons, was despatched to Boursa, with
thirty thousand horse; and such was his youthful ardor, that he
arrived with only four thousand at the gates of the capital,
after performing in five days a march of two hundred and thirty
miles. Yet fear is still more rapid in its course; and Soliman,
the son of Bajazet, had already passed over to Europe with the
royal treasure. The spoil, however, of the palace and city was
immense: the inhabitants had escaped; but the buildings, for the
most part of wood, were reduced to ashes From Boursa, the
grandson of Timour advanced to Nice, ever yet a fair and
flourishing city; and the Mogul squadrons were only stopped by
the waves of the Propontis. The same success attended the other
mirzas and emirs in their excursions; and Smyrna, defended by the
zeal and courage of the Rhodian knights, alone deserved the
presence of the emperor himself. After an obstinate defence, the
place was taken by storm: all that breathed was put to the sword;
and the heads of the Christian heroes were launched from the
engines, on board of two carracks, or great ships of Europe, that
rode at anchor in the harbor. The Moslems of Asia rejoiced in
their deliverance from a dangerous and domestic foe; and a
parallel was drawn between the two rivals, by observing that
Timour, in fourteen days, had reduced a fortress which had
sustained seven years the siege, or at least the blockade, of
Bajazet. ^45
[Footnote 39: Timour himself fixes at 400,000 men the Ottoman
army, (Institutions, p. 153,) which is reduced to 150,000 by
Phranza, (l. i. c. 29,) and swelled by the German soldier to
1,400,000. It is evident that the Moguls were the more
numerous.]
[Footnote 40: It may not be useless to mark the distances between
Angora and the neighboring cities, by the journeys of the
caravans, each of twenty or twenty-five miles; to Smyrna xx., to
Kiotahia x., to Boursa x., to Caesarea, viii., to Sinope x., to
Nicomed a ix., to Constantinople xii. or xiii., (see Tournefort,
Voyage au Levant, tom. ii. lettre xxi.)]
[Footnote 41: See the Systems of Tactics in the Institutions,
which the English editors have illustrated with elaborate plans,
(p. 373 - 407.)]
[Footnote 42: The sultan himself (says Timour) must then put the
foot of courage into the stirrup of patience. A Tartar metaphor,
which is lost in the English, but preserved in the French,
version of the Institutes, (p. 156, 157.)]
[Footnote 43: The Greek fire, on Timour's side, is attested by
Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 47;) but Voltaire's strange suspicion,
that some cannon, inscribed with strange characters, must have
been sent by that monarch to Delhi, is refuted by the universal
silence of contemporaries.]
[Footnote *: See V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 310, for the singular
hints which were conveyed to him of the wisdom of unlocking his
hoarded treasures. - M.]
[Footnote 44: Timour has dissembled this secret and important
negotiation with the Tartars, which is indisputably proved by the
joint evidence of the Arabian, (tom. i. c. 47, p. 391,) Turkish,
(Annal. Leunclav. p. 321,) and Persian historians, (Khondemir,
apud d'Herbelot, p. 882.)]
[Footnote 45: For the war of Anatolia or Roum, I add some hints
in the Institutions, to the copious narratives of Sherefeddin (l.
v. c. 44 - 65) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 20 - 35.) On this part
only of Timour's history it is lawful to quote the Turks,
(Cantemir, p. 53 - 55, Annal. Leunclav. p. 320 - 322,) and the
Greeks, (Phranza, l. i. c. 59, Ducas, c. 15 - 17, Chalcondyles,
l. iii.)]
The iron cage in which Bajazet was imprisoned by Tamerlane,
so long and so often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected
as a fable by the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar
credulity. ^46 They appeal with confidence to the Persian history
of Sherefeddin Ali, which has been given to our curiosity in a
French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge a more
specious narrative of this memorable transaction. No sooner was
Timour informed that the captive Ottoman was at the door of his
tent, than he graciously stepped forwards to receive him, seated
him by his side, and mingled with just reproaches a soothing pity
for his rank and misfortune. "Alas!" said the emperor, "the
decree of fate is now accomplished by your own fault; it is the
web which you have woven, the thorns of the tree which yourself
have planted. I wished to spare, and even to assist, the
champion of the Moslems; you braved our threats; you despised our
friendship; you forced us to enter your kingdom with our
invincible armies. Behold the event. Had you vanquished, I am
not ignorant of the fate which you reserved for myself and my
troops. But I disdain to retaliate: your life and honor are
secure; and I shall express my gratitude to God by my clemency to
man." The royal captive showed some signs of repentance, accepted
the humiliation of a robe of honor, and embraced with tears his
son Mousa, who, at his request, was sought and found among the
captives of the field. The Ottoman princes were lodged in a
splendid pavilion; and the respect of the guards could be
surpassed only by their vigilance. On the arrival of the harem
from Boursa, Timour restored the queen Despina and her daughter
to their father and husband; but he piously required, that the
Servian princess, who had hitherto been indulged in the
profession of Christianity, should embrace without delay the
religion of the prophet. In the feast of victory, to which
Bajazet was invited, the Mogul emperor placed a crown on his head
and a sceptre in his hand, with a solemn assurance of restoring
him with an increase of glory to the throne of his ancestors.
But the effect of his promise was disappointed by the sultan's
untimely death: amidst the care of the most skilful physicians,
he expired of an apoplexy at Akshehr, the Antioch of Pisidia,
about nine months after his defeat. The victor dropped a tear
over his grave: his body, with royal pomp, was conveyed to the
mausoleum which he had erected at Boursa; and his son Mousa,
after receiving a rich present of gold and jewels, of horses and
arms, was invested by a patent in red ink with the kingdom of
Anatolia.
[Footnote 46: The scepticism of Voltaire (Essai sur l'Histoire
Generale, c. 88) is ready on this, as on every occasion, to
reject a popular tale, and to diminish the magnitude of vice and
virtue; and on most occasions his incredulity is reasonable.]
Such is the portrait of a generous conqueror, which has been
extracted from his own memorials, and dedicated to his son and
grandson, nineteen years after his decease; ^47 and, at a time
when the truth was remembered by thousands, a manifest falsehood
would have implied a satire on his real conduct. Weighty indeed
is this evidence, adopted by all the Persian histories; ^48 yet
flattery, more especially in the East, is base and audacious; and
the harsh and ignominious treatment of Bajazet is attested by a
chain of witnesses, some of whom shall be produced in the order
of their time and country. 1. The reader has not forgot the
garrison of French, whom the marshal Boucicault left behind him
for the defence of Constantinople. They were on the spot to
receive the earliest and most faithful intelligence of the
overthrow of their great adversary; and it is more than probable,
that some of them accompanied the Greek embassy to the camp of
Tamerlane. From their account, the hardships of the prison and
death of Bajazet are affirmed by the marshal's servant and
historian, within the distance of seven years. ^49 2. The name of
Poggius the Italian ^50 is deservedly famous among the revivers
of learning in the fifteenth century. His elegant dialogue on
the vicissitudes of fortune ^51 was composed in his fiftieth
year, twenty-eight years after the Turkish victory of Tamerlane;
^52 whom he celebrates as not inferior to the illustrious
Barbarians of antiquity. Of his exploits and discipline Poggius
was informed by several ocular witnesses; nor does he forget an
example so apposite to his theme as the Ottoman monarch, whom the
Scythian confined like a wild beast in an iron cage, and
exhibited a spectacle to Asia. I might add the authority of two
Italian chronicles, perhaps of an earlier date, which would prove
at least that the same story, whether false or true, was imported
into Europe with the first tidings of the revolution. ^53 3. At
the time when Poggius flourished at Rome, Ahmed Ebn Arabshah
composed at Damascus the florid and malevolent history of Timour,
for which he had collected materials in his journeys over Turkey
and Tartary. ^54 Without any possible correspondence between the
Latin and the Arabian writer, they agree in the fact of the iron
cage; and their agreement is a striking proof of their common
veracity. Ahmed Arabshah likewise relates another outrage, which
Bajazet endured, of a more domestic and tender nature. His
indiscreet mention of women and divorces was deeply resented by
the jealous Tartar: in the feast of victory the wine was served
by female cupbearers, and the sultan beheld his own concubines
and wives confounded among the slaves, and exposed without a veil
to the eyes of intemperance. To escape a similar indignity, it
is said that his successors, except in a single instance, have
abstained from legitimate nuptials; and the Ottoman practice and
belief, at least in the sixteenth century, is asserted by the
observing Busbequius, ^55 ambassador from the court of Vienna to
the great Soliman. 4. Such is the separation of language, that
the testimony of a Greek is not less independent than that of a
Latin or an Arab. I suppress the names of Chalcondyles and
Ducas, who flourished in the latter period, and who speak in a
less positive tone; but more attention is due to George Phranza,
^56 protovestiare of the last emperors, and who was born a year
before the battle of Angora. Twenty-two years after that event,
he was sent ambassador to Amurath the Second; and the historian
might converse with some veteran Janizaries, who had been made
prisoners with the sultan, and had themselves seen him in his
iron cage. 5. The last evidence, in every sense, is that of the
Turkish annals, which have been consulted or transcribed by
Leunclavius, Pocock, and Cantemir. ^57 They unanimously deplore
the captivity of the iron cage; and some credit may be allowed to
national historians, who cannot stigmatize the Tartar without
uncovering the shame of their king and country.
[Footnote 47: See the History of Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 49, 52,
53, 59, 60.) This work was finished at Shiraz, in the year 1424,
and dedicated to Sultan Ibrahim, the son of Sharokh, the son of
Timour, who reigned in Farsistan in his father's lifetime.]
[Footnote 48: After the perusal of Khondemir, Ebn Schounah, &c.,
the learned D'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 882) may affirm,
that this fable is not mentioned in the most authentic histories;
but his denial of the visible testimony of Arabshah leaves some
room to suspect his accuracy.]
[Footnote 49: Et fut lui-meme (Bajazet) pris, et mene en prison,
en laquelle mourut de dure mort! Memoires de Boucicault, P. i.
c. 37. These Memoirs were composed while the marshal was still
governor of Genoa, from whence he was expelled in the year 1409,
by a popular insurrection, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii.
p. 473, 474.)]
[Footnote 50: The reader will find a satisfactory account of the
life and writings of Poggius in the Poggiana, an entertaining
work of M. Lenfant, and in the Bibliotheca Latina Mediae et
Infimae Aetatis of Fabricius, (tom. v. p. 305 - 308.) Poggius was
born in the year 1380, and died in 1459.]
[Footnote 51: The dialogue de Varietate Fortunae, (of which a
complete and elegant edition has been published at Paris in 1723,
in 4to.,) was composed a short time before the death of Pope
Martin V., (p. 5,) and consequently about the end of the year
1430.]
[Footnote 52: See a splendid and eloquent encomium of Tamerlane,
p. 36 - 39 ipse enim novi (says Poggius) qui fuere in ejus
castris . . . . Regen vivum cepit, caveaque in modum ferae
inclusum per omnem Asian circumtulit egregium admirandumque
spectaculum fortunae.]
[Footnote 53: The Chronicon Tarvisianum, (in Muratori, Script.
Rerum Italicarum tom. xix. p. 800,) and the Annales Estenses,
(tom. xviii. p. 974.) The two authors, Andrea de Redusiis de
Quero, and James de Delayto, were both contemporaries, and both
chancellors, the one of Trevigi, the other of Ferrara. The
evidence of the former is the most positive.]
[Footnote 54: See Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 28, 34. He travelled in
regiones Romaeas, A. H. 839, (A.D. 1435, July 27,) tom. i. c. 2,
p. 13.]
[Footnote 55: Busbequius in Legatione Turcica, epist. i. p. 52.
Yet his respectable authority is somewhat shaken by the
subsequent marriages of Amurath II. with a Servian, and of
Mahomet II. with an Asiatic, princess, (Cantemir, p. 83, 93.)]
[Footnote 56: See the testimony of George Phranza, (l. i. c. 29,)
and his life in Hanckius (de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40.)
Chalcondyles and Ducas speak in general terms of Bajazet's
chains.]
[Footnote 57: Annales Leunclav. p. 321. Pocock, Prolegomen. ad
Abulpharag Dynast. Cantemir, p. 55.
Note: Von Hammer, p. 318, cites several authorities unknown
to Gibbon - M]
From these opposite premises, a fair and moderate conclusion
may be deduced. I am satisfied that Sherefeddin Ali has
faithfully described the first ostentatious interview, in which
the conqueror, whose spirits were harmonized by success, affected
the character of generosity. But his mind was insensibly
alienated by the unseasonable arrogance of Bajazet; the
complaints of his enemies, the Anatolian princes, were just and
vehement; and Timour betrayed a design of leading his royal
captive in triumph to Samarcand. An attempt to facilitate his
escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mogul
emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual
marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a
wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. Timour had read in
some fabulous history a similar treatment of one of his
predecessors, a king of Persia; and Bajazet was condemned to
represent the person, and expiate the guilt, of the Roman Caesar
^58 ^* But the strength of his mind and body fainted under the
trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be
ascribed to the severity of Timour. He warred not with the dead:
a tear and a sepulchre were all that he could bestow on a captive
who was delivered from his power; and if Mousa, the son of
Bajazet, was permitted to reign over the ruins of Boursa, the
greatest part of the province of Anatolia had been restored by
the conqueror to their lawful sovereigns.
[Footnote 58: Sapor, king of Persia, had been made prisoner, and
enclosed in the figure of a cow's hide by Maximian or Galerius
Caesar. Such is the fable related by Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i.
p. 421, vers. Pocock. The recollection of the true history
(Decline and Fall, &c., vol. ii. p 140 - 152) will teach us to
appreciate the knowledge of the Orientals of the ages which
precede the Hegira.]
[Footnote *: Von Hammer's explanation of this contested point is
both simple and satisfactory. It originates in a mistake in the
meaning of the Turkish word kafe, which means a covered litter or
palanquin drawn by two horses, and is generally used to convey
the harem of an Eastern monarch. In such a litter, with the
lattice-work made of iron, Bajazet either chose or was
constrained to travel. This was either mistaken for, or
transformed by, ignorant relaters into a cage. The European
Schiltberger, the two oldest of the Turkish historians, and the
most valuable of the later compilers, Seadeddin, describe this
litter. Seadeddin discusses the question with some degree of
historical criticism, and ascribes the choice of such a vehicle
to the indignant state of Bajazet's mind, which would not brook
the sight of his Tartar conquerors. Von Hammer, p. 320. - M.]
From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the
Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of
Timour: his armies were invincible, his ambition was boundless,
and his zeal might aspire to conquer and convert the Christian
kingdoms of the West, which already trembled at his name. He
touched the utmost verge of the land; but an insuperable, though
narrow, sea rolled between the two continents of Europe and Asia;
^59 and the lord of so many tomans, or myriads, of horse, was not
master of a single galley. The two passages of the Bosphorus and
Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, were possessed, the
one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On this great
occasion, they forgot the difference of religion, to act with
union and firmness in the common cause: the double straits were
guarded with ships and fortifications; and they separately
withheld the transports which Timour demanded of either nation,
under the pretence of attacking their enemy. At the same time,
they soothed his pride with tributary gifts and suppliant
embassies, and prudently tempted him to retreat with the honors
of victory. Soliman, the son of Bajazet, implored his clemency
for his father and himself; accepted, by a red patent, the
investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which he already held by
the sword; and reiterated his ardent wish, of casting himself in
person at the feet of the king of the world. The Greek emperor
^60 (either John or Manuel) submitted to pay the same tribute
which he had stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the
treaty by an oath of allegiance, from which he could absolve his
conscience so soon as the Mogul arms had retired from Anatolia.
But the fears and fancy of nations ascribed to the ambitious
Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic compass; a design of
subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile to the Atlantic
Ocean, entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after
imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning
home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote, and
perhaps imaginary, danger was averted by the submission of the
sultan of Egypt: the honors of the prayer and the coin attested
at Cairo the supremacy of Timour; and a rare gift of a giraffe,
or camelopard, and nine ostriches, represented at Samarcand the
tribute of the African world. Our imagination is not less
astonished by the portrait of a Mogul, who, in his camp before
Smyrna, meditates, and almost accomplishes, the invasion of the
Chinese empire. ^61 Timour was urged to this enterprise by
national honor and religious zeal. The torrents which he had
shed of Mussulman blood could be expiated only by an equal
destruction of the infidels; and as he now stood at the gates of
paradise, he might best secure his glorious entrance by
demolishing the idols of China, founding mosques in every city,
and establishing the profession of faith in one God, and his
prophet Mahomet. The recent expulsion of the house of Zingis was
an insult on the Mogul name; and the disorders of the empire
afforded the fairest opportunity for revenge. The illustrious
Hongvou, founder of the dynasty of Ming, died four years before
the battle of Angora; and his grandson, a weak and unfortunate
youth, was burnt in his palace, after a million of Chinese had
perished in the civil war. ^62 Before he evacuated Anatolia,
Timour despatched beyond the Sihoon a numerous army, or rather
colony, of his old and new subjects, to open the road, to subdue
the Pagan Calmucks and Mungals, and to found cities and magazines
in the desert; and, by the diligence of his lieutenant, he soon
received a perfect map and description of the unknown regions,
from the source of the Irtish to the wall of China. During these
preparations, the emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia;
passed the winter on the banks of the Araxes; appeased the
troubles of Persia; and slowly returned to his capital, after a
campaign of four years and nine months.
[Footnote 59: Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 25) describes, like a curious
traveller, the Straits of Gallipoli and Constantinople. To
acquire a just idea of these events, I have compared the
narratives and prejudices of the Moguls, Turks, Greeks, and
Arabians. The Spanish ambassador mentions this hostile union of
the Christians and Ottomans, (Vie de Timour, p. 96.)]
[Footnote 60: Since the name of Caesar had been transferred to
the sultans of Roum, the Greek princes of Constantinople
(Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 54 were confounded with the Christian
lords of Gallipoli, Thessalonica, &c. under the title of Tekkur,
which is derived by corruption from the genitive, (Cantemir, p.
51.)]
[Footnote 61: See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 4, who marks, in a just
itinerary, the road to China, which Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 33)
paints in vague and rhetorical colors.]
[Footnote 62: Synopsis Hist. Sinicae, p. 74 - 76, (in the ivth
part of the Relations de Thevenot,) Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine,
(tom. i. p. 507, 508, folio edition;) and for the Chronology of
the Chinese emperors, De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, (tom. i. p. 71,
72.)]
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death
Part III.
On the throne of Samarcand, ^63 he displayed, in a short
repose, his magnificence and power; listened to the complaints of
the people; distributed a just measure of rewards and
punishments; employed his riches in the architecture of palaces
and temples; and gave audience to the ambassadors of Egypt,
Arabia, India, Tartary, Russia, and Spain, the last of whom
presented a suit of tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of the
Oriental artists. The marriage of six of the emperor's grandsons
was esteemed an act of religion as well as of paternal
tenderness; and the pomp of the ancient caliphs was revived in
their nuptials. They were celebrated in the gardens of Canighul,
decorated with innumerable tents and pavilions, which displayed
the luxury of a great city and the spoils of a victorious camp.
Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for the kitchens; the
plain was spread with pyramids of meat, and vases of every
liquor, to which thousands of guests were courteously invited:
the orders of the state, and the nations of the earth, were
marshalled at the royal banquet; nor were the ambassadors of
Europe (says the haughty Persian) excluded from the feast; since
even the casses, the smallest of fish, find their place in the
ocean. ^64 The public joy was testified by illuminations and
masquerades; the trades of Samarcand passed in review; and every
trade was emulous to execute some quaint device, some marvellous
pageant, with the materials of their peculiar art. After the
marriage contracts had been ratified by the cadhis, the
bride-grooms and their brides retired to the nuptial chambers:
nine times, according to the Asiatic fashion, they were dressed
and undressed; and at each change of apparel, pearls and rubies
were showered on their heads, and contemptuously abandoned to
their attendants. A general indulgence was proclaimed: every law
was relaxed, every pleasure was allowed; the people was free, the
sovereign was idle; and the historian of Timour may remark, that,
after devoting fifty years to the attainment of empire, the only
happy period of his life were the two months in which he ceased
to exercise his power. But he was soon awakened to the cares of
government and war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion
of China: the emirs made their report of two hundred thousand,
the select and veteran soldiers of Iran and Touran: their baggage
and provisions were transported by five hundred great wagons, and
an immense train of horses and camels; and the troops might
prepare for a long absence, since more than six months were
employed in the tranquil journey of a caravan from Samarcand to
Pekin. Neither age, nor the severity of the winter, could retard
the impatience of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed the
Sihoon on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs, three hundred
miles, from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the
neighborhood of Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of
death. Fatigue, and the indiscreet use of iced water,
accelerated the progress of his fever; and the conqueror of Asia
expired in the seventieth year of his age, thirty-five years
after he had ascended the throne of Zagatai. His designs were
lost; his armies were disbanded; China was saved; and fourteen
years after his decease, the most powerful of his children sent
an embassy of friendship and commerce to the court of Pekin. ^65
[Footnote 63: For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, see
Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 1 - 30) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 36 -
47.)]
[Footnote 64: Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 24) mentions the ambassadors
of one of the most potent sovereigns of Europe. We know that it
was Henry III. king of Castile; and the curious relation of his
two embassies is still extant, (Mariana, Hist. Hispan. l. xix. c.
11, tom. ii. p. 329, 330. Avertissement a l'Hist. de Timur Bec,
p. 28 - 33.) There appears likewise to have been some
correspondence between the Mogul emperor and the court of Charles
VII. king of France, (Histoire de France, par Velly et Villaret,
tom. xii. p. 336.)]
[Footnote 65: See the translation of the Persian account of their
embassy, a curious and original piece, (in the ivth part of the
Relations de Thevenot.) They presented the emperor of China with
an old horse which Timour had formerly rode. It was in the year
1419 that they departed from the court of Herat, to which place
they returned in 1422 from Pekin.]
The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West: his
posterity is still invested with the Imperial title; and the
admiration of his subjects, who revered him almost as a deity,
may be justified in some degree by the praise or confession of
his bitterest enemies. ^66 Although he was lame of a hand and
foot, his form and stature were not unworthy of his rank; and his
vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the world, was
corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar
discourse he was grave and modest, and if he was ignorant of the
Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian
and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the
learned on topics of history and science; and the amusement of
his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or
corrupted with new refinements. ^67 In his religion he was a
zealous, though not perhaps an orthodox, Mussulman; ^68 but his
sound understanding may tempt us to believe, that a superstitious
reverence for omens and prophecies, for saints and astrologers,
was only affected as an instrument of policy. In the government
of a vast empire, he stood alone and absolute, without a rebel to
oppose his power, a favorite to seduce his affections, or a
minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, that
whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should
never be disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously
observed, that the commands of anger and destruction were more
strictly executed than those of beneficence and favor. His sons
and grandsons, of whom Timour left six-and-thirty at his decease,
were his first and most submissive subjects; and whenever they
deviated from their duty, they were corrected, according to the
laws of Zingis, with the bastinade, and afterwards restored to
honor and command. Perhaps his heart was not devoid of the
social virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving his
friends and pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are
founded on the public interest; and it may be sufficient to
applaud the wisdom of a monarch, for the liberality by which he
is not impoverished, and for the justice by which he is
strengthened and enriched. To maintain the harmony of authority
and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to
reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness from his
dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain the
depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of the
husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal
and moderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without
increasing the taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince; but, in
the discharge of these duties, he finds an ample and immediate
recompense. Timour might boast, that, at his accession to the
throne, Asia was the prey of anarchy and rapine, whilst under his
prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and unhurt, might carry a
purse of gold from the East to the West. Such was his confidence
of merit, that from this reformation he derived an excuse for his
victories, and a title to universal dominion. The four following
observations will serve to appreciate his claim to the public
gratitude; and perhaps we shall conclude, that the Mogul emperor
was rather the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. 1. If
some partial disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by
the sword of Timour, the remedy was far more pernicious than the
disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and discord, the petty
tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but whole nations
were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. The ground
which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by
his abominable trophies, by columns, or pyramids, of human heads.
Astracan, Carizme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus,
Boursa, Smyrna, and a thousand others, were sacked, or burnt, or
utterly destroyed, in his presence, and by his troops: and
perhaps his conscience would have been startled, if a priest or
philosopher had dared to number the millions of victims whom he
had sacrificed to the establishment of peace and order. ^69 2.
His most destructive wars were rather inroads than conquests. He
invaded Turkestan, Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia,
Armenia, and Georgia, without a hope or a desire of preserving
those distant provinces. From thence he departed laden with
spoil; but he left behind him neither troops to awe the
contumacious, nor magistrates to protect the obedient, natives.
When he had broken the fabric of their ancient government, he
abandoned them to the evils which his invasion had aggravated or
caused; nor were these evils compensated by any present or
possible benefits. 3. The kingdoms of Transoxiana and Persia
were the proper field which he labored to cultivate and adorn, as
the perpetual inheritance of his family. But his peaceful labors
were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the absence of
the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges,
his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their
duty. The public and private injuries were poorly redressed by
the tardy rigor of inquiry and punishment; and we must be content
to praise the Institutions of Timour, as the specious idea of a
perfect monarchy. 4. Whatsoever might be the blessings of his
administration, they evaporated with his life. To reign, rather
than to govern, was the ambition of his children and
grandchildren; ^70 the enemies of each other and of the people.
A fragment of the empire was upheld with some glory by Sharokh,
his youngest son; but after his decease, the scene was again
involved in darkness and blood; and before the end of a century,
Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbeks from the
north, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race
of Timour would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in
the fifth degree, had not fled before the Uzbek arms to the
conquest of Hindostan. His successors (the great Moguls ^71)
extended their sway from the mountains of Cashmir to Cape
Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the
reign of Aurungzebe, their empire had been dissolved; their
treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the
richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of
Christian merchants, of a remote island in the Northern Ocean.
[Footnote 66: From Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 96. The bright or
softer colors are borrowed from Sherefeddin, D'Herbelot, and the
Institutions.]
[Footnote 67: His new system was multiplied from 32 pieces and 64
squares to 56 pieces and 110 or 130 squares; but, except in his
court, the old game has been thought sufficiently elaborate. The
Mogul emperor was rather pleased than hurt with the victory of a
subject: a chess player will feel the value of this encomium!]
[Footnote 68: See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 15, 25. Arabshah tom.
ii. c. 96, p. 801, 803) approves the impiety of Timour and the
Moguls, who almost preferred to the Koran the Yacsa, or Law of
Zingis, (cui Deus male dicat;) nor will he believe that Sharokh
had abolished the use and authority of that Pagan code.]
[Footnote 69: Besides the bloody passages of this narrative, I
must refer to an anticipation in the third volume of the Decline
and Fall, which in a single note (p. 234, note 25) accumulates
nearly 300,000 heads of the monuments of his cruelty. Except in
Rowe's play on the fifth of November, I did not expect to hear of
Timour's amiable moderation (White's preface, p. 7.) Yet I can
excuse a generous enthusiasm in the reader, and still more in the
editor, of the Institutions.]
[Footnote 70: Consult the last chapters of Sherefeddin and
Arabshah, and M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. l. xx.)
Fraser's History of Nadir Shah, (p. 1 - 62.) The story of
Timour's descendants is imperfectly told; and the second and
third parts of Sherefeddin are unknown.]
[Footnote 71: Shah Allum, the present Mogul, is in the fourteenth
degree from Timour, by Miran Shah, his third son. See the second
volume of Dow's History of Hindostan.]
Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy. The
massy trunk was bent to the ground, but no sooner did the
hurricane pass away, than it again rose with fresh vigor and more
lively vegetation. When Timour, in every sense, had evacuated
Anatolia, he left the cities without a palace, a treasure, or a
king. The open country was overspread with hordes of shepherds
and robbers of Tartar or Turkman origin; the recent conquests of
Bajazet were restored to the emirs, one of whom, in base revenge,
demolished his sepulchre; and his five sons were eager, by civil
discord, to consume the remnant of their patrimony. I shall
enumerate their names in the order of their age and actions. ^72
1. It is doubtful, whether I relate the story of the true
Mustapha, or of an impostor who personated that lost prince. He
fought by his father's side in the battle of Angora: but when the
captive sultan was permitted to inquire for his children, Mousa
alone could be found; and the Turkish historians, the slaves of
the triumphant faction, are persuaded that his brother was
confounded among the slain. If Mustapha escaped from that
disastrous field, he was concealed twelve years from his friends
and enemies; till he emerged in Thessaly, and was hailed by a
numerous party, as the son and successor of Bajazet. His first
defeat would have been his last, had not the true, or false,
Mustapha been saved by the Greeks, and restored, after the
decease of his brother Mahomet, to liberty and empire. A
degenerate mind seemed to argue his spurious birth; and if, on
the throne of Adrianople, he was adored as the Ottoman sultan,
his flight, his fetters, and an ignominious gibbet, delivered the
impostor to popular contempt. A similar character and claim was
asserted by several rival pretenders: thirty persons are said to
have suffered under the name of Mustapha; and these frequent
executions may perhaps insinuate, that the Turkish court was not
perfectly secure of the death of the lawful prince. 2. After his
father's captivity, Isa ^73 reigned for some time in the
neighborhood of Angora, Sinope, and the Black Sea; and his
ambassadors were dismissed from the presence of Timour with fair
promises and honorable gifts. But their master was soon deprived
of his province and life, by a jealous brother, the sovereign of
Amasia; and the final event suggested a pious allusion, that the
law of Moses and Jesus, of Isa and Mousa, had been abrogated by
the greater Mahomet. 3. Soliman is not numbered in the list of
the Turkish emperors: yet he checked the victorious progress of
the Moguls; and after their departure, united for a while the
thrones of Adrianople and Boursa. In war he was brave, active,
and fortuntae; his courage was softened by clemency; but it was
likewise inflamed by presumption, and corrupted by intemperance
and idleness. He relaxed the nerves of discipline, in a
government where either the subject or the sovereign must
continually tremble: his vices alienated the chiefs of the army
and the law; and his daily drunkenness, so contemptible in a
prince and a man, was doubly odious in a disciple of the prophet.
In the slumber of intoxication he was surprised by his brother
Mousa; and as he fled from Adrianople towards the Byzantine
capital, Soliman was overtaken and slain in a bath, ^* after a
reign of seven years and ten months. 4. The investiture of Mousa
degraded him as the slave of the Moguls: his tributary kingdom of
Anatolia was confined within a narrow limit, nor could his broken
militia and empty treasury contend with the hardy and veteran
bands of the sovereign of Romania. Mousa fled in disguise from
the palace of Boursa; traversed the Propontis in an open boat;
wandered over the Walachian and Servian hills; and after some
vain attempts, ascended the throne of Adrianople, so recently
stained with the blood of Soliman. In a reign of three years and
a half, his troops were victorious against the Christians of
Hungary and the Morea; but Mousa was ruined by his timorous
disposition and unseasonable clemency. After resigning the
sovereignty of Anatolia, he fell a victim to the perfidy of his
ministers, and the superior ascendant of his brother Mahomet. 5.
The final victory of Mahomet was the just recompense of his
prudence and moderation. Before his father's captivity, the
royal youth had been intrusted with the government of Amasia,
thirty days' journey from Constantinople, and the Turkish
frontier against the Christians of Trebizond and Georgia. The
castle, in Asiatic warfare, was esteemed impregnable; and the
city of Amasia, ^74 which is equally divided by the River Iris,
rises on either side in the form of an amphitheatre, and
represents on a smaller scale the image of Bagdad. In his rapid
career, Timour appears to have overlooked this obscure and
contumacious angle of Anatolia; and Mahomet, without provoking
the conqueror, maintained his silent independence, and chased
from the province the last stragglers of the Tartar host. ^! He
relieved himself from the dangerous neighborhood of Isa; but in
the contests of their more powerful brethren his firm neutrality
was respected; till, after the triumph of Mousa, he stood forth
the heir and avenger of the unfortunate Soliman. Mahomet
obtained Anatolia by treaty, and Romania by arms; and the soldier
who presented him with the head of Mousa was rewarded as the
benefactor of his king and country. The eight years of his sole
and peaceful reign were usefully employed in banishing the vices
of civil discord, and restoring on a firmer basis the fabric of
the Ottoman monarchy. His last care was the choice of two
viziers, Bajazet and Ibrahim, ^75 who might guide the youth of
his son Amurath; and such was their union and prudence, that they
concealed above forty days the emperor's death, till the arrival
of his successor in the palace of Boursa. A new war was kindled
in Europe by the prince, or impostor, Mustapha; the first vizier
lost his army and his head; but the more fortunate Ibrahim, whose
name and family are still revered, extinguished the last
pretender to the throne of Bajazet, and closed the scene of
domestic hostility.
[Footnote 72: The civil wars, from the death of Bajazet to that
of Mustapha, are related, according to the Turks, by Demetrius
Cantemir, (p. 58 - 82.) Of the Greeks, Chalcondyles, (l. iv. and
v.,) Phranza, (l. i. c. 30 - 32,) and Ducas, (c. 18 - 27, the
last is the most copious and best informed.]
[Footnote 73: Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 26,) whose testimony on this
occasion is weighty and valuable. The existence of Isa (unknown
to the Turks) is likewise confirmed by Sherefeddin, (l. v. c.
57.)]
[Footnote *: He escaped from the bath, and fled towards
Constantinople. Five mothers from a village, Dugundschi, whose
inhabitants had suffered severely from the exactions of his
officers, recognized and followed him. Soliman shot two of them,
the others discharged their arrows in their turn the sultan fell
and his head was cut off. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 349. - M]
[Footnote 74: Arabshah, loc. citat. Abulfeda, Geograph. tab.
xvii. p. 302. Busbequius, epist. i. p. 96, 97, in Itinere C. P.
et Amasiano.]
[Footnote !: See his nine battles. V. Hammer, p. 339. - M.]
[Footnote 75: The virtues of Ibrahim are praised by a
contemporary Greek, (Ducas, c. 25.) His descendants are the sole
nobles in Turkey: they content themselves with the administration
of his pious foundations, are excused from public offices, and
receive two annual visits from the sultan, (Cantemir, p. 76.)]
In these conflicts, the wisest Turks, and indeed the body of
the nation, were strongly attached to the unity of the empire;
and Romania and Anatolia, so often torn asunder by private
ambition, were animated by a strong and invincible tendency of
cohesion. Their efforts might have instructed the Christian
powers; and had they occupied, with a confederate fleet, the
Straits of Gallipoli, the Ottomans, at least in Europe, must have
been speedily annihilated. But the schism of the West, and the
factions and wars of France and England, diverted the Latins from
this generous enterprise: they enjoyed the present respite,
without a thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a
momentary interest to serve the common enemy of their religion.
A colony of Genoese, ^76 which had been planted at Phocaea ^77 on
the Ionian coast, was enriched by the lucrative monopoly of alum;
^78 and their tranquillity, under the Turkish empire, was secured
by the annual payment of tribute. In the last civil war of the
Ottomans, the Genoese governor, Adorno, a bold and ambitious
youth, embraced the party of Amurath; and undertook, with seven
stout galleys, to transport him from Asia to Europe. The sultan
and five hundred guards embarked on board the admiral's ship;
which was manned by eight hundred of the bravest Franks. His
life and liberty were in their hands; nor can we, without
reluctance, applaud the fidelity of Adorno, who, in the midst of
the passage, knelt before him, and gratefully accepted a
discharge of his arrears of tribute. They landed in sight of
Mustapha and Gallipoli; two thousand Italians, armed with lances
and battle-axes, attended Amurath to the conquest of Adrianople;
and this venal service was soon repaid by the ruin of the
commerce and colony of Phocaea.
[Footnote 76: See Pachymer, (l. v. c. 29,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. ii. c. 1,) Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 57,) and Ducas, (c. 25.)
The last of these, a curious and careful observer, is entitled,
from his birth and station, to particular credit in all that
concerns Ionia and the islands. Among the nations that resorted
to New Phocaea, he mentions the English; an early evidence of
Mediterranean trade.]
[Footnote 77: For the spirit of navigation, and freedom of
ancient Phocaea, or rather the Phocaeans, consult the first book
of Herodotus, and the Geographical Index of his last and learned
French translator, M. Larcher (tom. vii. p. 299.)]
[Footnote 78: Phocaea is not enumerated by Pliny (Hist. Nat.
xxxv. 52) among the places productive of alum: he reckons Egypt
as the first, and for the second the Isle of Melos, whose alum
mines are described by Tournefort, (tom. i. lettre iv.,) a
traveller and a naturalist. After the loss of Phocaea, the
Genoese, in 1459, found that useful mineral in the Isle of
Ischia, (Ismael. Bouillaud, ad Ducam, c. 25.)]
If Timour had generously marched at the request, and to the
relief, of the Greek emperor, he might be entitled to the praise
and gratitude of the Christians. ^79 But a Mussulman, who carried
into Georgia the sword of persecution, and respected the holy
warfare of Bajazet, was not disposed to pity or succor the
idolaters of Europe. The Tartar followed the impulse of
ambition; and the deliverance of Constantinople was the
accidental consequence. When Manuel abdicated the government, it
was his prayer, rather than his hope, that the ruin of the church
and state might be delayed beyond his unhappy days; and after his
return from a western pilgrimage, he expected every hour the news
of the sad catastrophe. On a sudden, he was astonished and
rejoiced by the intelligence of the retreat, the overthrow, and
the captivity of the Ottoman. Manuel ^80 immediately sailed from
Modon in the Morea; ascended the throne of Constantinople, and
dismissed his blind competitor to an easy exile in the Isle of
Lesbos. The ambassadors of the son of Bajazet were soon
introduced to his presence; but their pride was fallen, their
tone was modest: they were awed by the just apprehension, lest
the Greeks should open to the Moguls the gates of Europe.
Soliman saluted the emperor by the name of father; solicited at
his hands the government or gift of Romania; and promised to
deserve his favor by inviolable friendship, and the restitution
of Thessalonica, with the most important places along the
Strymon, the Propontis, and the Black Sea. The alliance of
Soliman exposed the emperor to the enmity and revenge of Mousa:
the Turks appeared in arms before the gates of Constantinople;
but they were repulsed by sea and land; and unless the city was
guarded by some foreign mercenaries, the Greeks must have
wondered at their own triumph. But, instead of prolonging the
division of the Ottoman powers, the policy or passion of Manuel
was tempted to assist the most formidable of the sons of Bajazet.
He concluded a treaty with Mahomet, whose progress was checked by
the insuperable barrier of Gallipoli: the sultan and his troops
were transported over the Bosphorus; he was hospitably
entertained in the capital; and his successful sally was the
first step to the conquest of Romania. The ruin was suspended by
the prudence and moderation of the conqueror: he faithfully
discharged his own obligations and those of Soliman, respected
the laws of gratitude and peace; and left the emperor guardian of
his two younger sons, in the vain hope of saving them from the
jealous cruelty of their brother Amurath. But the execution of
his last testament would have offended the national honor and
religion; and the divan unanimously pronounced, that the royal
youths should never be abandoned to the custody and education of
a Christian dog. On this refusal, the Byzantine councils were
divided; but the age and caution of Manuel yielded to the
presumption of his son John; and they unsheathed a dangerous
weapon of revenge, by dismissing the true or false Mustapha, who
had long been detained as a captive and hostage, and for whose
maintenance they received an annual pension of three hundred
thousand aspers. ^81 At the door of his prison, Mustapha
subscribed to every proposal; and the keys of Gallipoli, or
rather of Europe, were stipulated as the price of his
deliverance. But no sooner was he seated on the throne of
Romania, than he dismissed the Greek ambassadors with a smile of
contempt, declaring, in a pious tone, that, at the day of
judgment, he would rather answer for the violation of an oath,
than for the surrender of a Mussulman city into the hands of the
infidels. The emperor was at once the enemy of the two rivals;
from whom he had sustained, and to whom he had offered, an
injury; and the victory of Amurath was followed, in the ensuing
spring, by the siege of Constantinople. ^82
[Footnote 79: The writer who has the most abused this fabulous
generosity, is our ingenious Sir William Temple, (his Works, vol.
iii. p. 349, 350, octavo edition,) that lover of exotic virtue.
After the conquest of Russia, &c., and the passage of the Danube,
his Tartar hero relieves, visits, admires, and refuses the city
of Constantine. His flattering pencil deviates in every line
from the truth of history; yet his pleasing fictions are more
excusable than the gross errors of Cantemir.]
[Footnote 80: For the reigns of Manuel and John, of Mahomet I.
and Amurath II., see the Othman history of Cantemir, (p. 70 -
95,) and the three Greeks, Chalcondyles, Phranza, and Ducas, who
is still superior to his rivals.]
[Footnote 81: The Turkish asper is, or was, a piece of white or
silver money, at present much debased, but which was formerly
equivalent to the 54th part, at least, of a Venetian ducat or
sequin; and the 300,000 aspers, a princely allowance or royal
tribute, may be computed at 2500l. sterling, (Leunclav. Pandect.
Turc. p. 406 - 408.)
Note: According to Von Hammer, this calculation is much too
low. The asper was a century before the time of which writes, the
tenth part of a ducat; for the same tribute which the Byzantine
writers state at 300,000 aspers the Ottomans state at 30,000
ducats, about 15000l Note, vol. p. 636. - M]
[Footnote 82: For the siege of Constantinople in 1422, see the
particular and contemporary narrative of John Cananus, published
by Leo Allatius, at the end of his edition of Acropolita, (p. 188
- 199.)]
The religious merit of subduing the city of the Caesars
attracted from Asia a crowd of volunteers, who aspired to the
crown of martyrdom: their military ardor was inflamed by the
promise of rich spoils and beautiful females; and the sultan's
ambition was consecrated by the presence and prediction of Seid
Bechar, a descendant of the prophet, ^83 who arrived in the camp,
on a mule, with a venerable train of five hundred disciples. But
he might blush, if a fanatic could blush, at the failure of his
assurances. The strength of the walls resisted an army of two
hundred thousand Turks; their assaults were repelled by the
sallies of the Greeks and their foreign mercenaries; the old
resources of defence were opposed to the new engines of attack;
and the enthusiasm of the dervis, who was snatched to heaven in
visionary converse with Mahomet, was answered by the credulity of
the Christians, who beheld the Virgin Mary, in a violet garment,
walking on the rampart and animating their courage. ^84 After a
siege of two months, Amurath was recalled to Boursa by a domestic
revolt, which had been kindled by Greek treachery, and was soon
extinguished by the death of a guiltless brother. While he led
his Janizaries to new conquests in Europe and Asia, the Byzantine
empire was indulged in a servile and precarious respite of thirty
years. Manuel sank into the grave; and John Palaeologus was
permitted to reign, for an annual tribute of three hundred
thousand aspers, and the dereliction of almost all that he held
beyond the suburbs of Constantinople.
[Footnote 83: Cantemir, p. 80. Cananus, who describes Seid
Bechar, without naming him, supposes that the friend of Mahomet
assumed in his amours the privilege of a prophet, and that the
fairest of the Greek nuns were promised to the saint and his
disciples.]
[Footnote 84: For this miraculous apparition, Cananus appeals to
the Mussulman saint; but who will bear testimony for Seid
Bechar?]
In the establishment and restoration of the Turkish empire,
the first merit must doubtless be assigned to the personal
qualities of the sultans; since, in human life, the most
important scenes will depend on the character of a single actor.
By some shades of wisdom and virtue, they may be discriminated
from each other; but, except in a single instance, a period of
nine reigns, and two hundred and sixty-five years, is occupied,
from the elevation of Othman to the death of Soliman, by a rare
series of warlike and active princes, who impressed their
subjects with obedience and their enemies with terror. Instead
of the slothful luxury of the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were
educated in the council and the field: from early youth they were
intrusted by their fathers with the command of provinces and
armies; and this manly institution, which was often productive of
civil war, must have essentially contributed to the discipline
and vigor of the monarchy. The Ottomans cannot style themselves,
like the Arabian caliphs, the descendants or successors of the
apostle of God; and the kindred which they claim with the Tartar
khans of the house of Zingis appears to be founded in flattery
rather than in truth. ^85 Their origin is obscure; but their
sacred and indefeasible right, which no time can erase, and no
violence can infringe, was soon and unalterably implanted in the
minds of their subjects. A weak or vicious sultan may be deposed
and strangled; but his inheritance devolves to an infant or an
idiot: nor has the most daring rebel presumed to ascend the
throne of his lawful sovereign. ^86
[Footnote 85: See Ricaut, (l. i. c. 13.) The Turkish sultans
assume the title of khan. Yet Abulghazi is ignorant of his
Ottoman cousins.]
[Footnote 86: The third grand vizier of the name of Kiuperli, who
was slain at the battle of Salankanen in 1691, (Cantemir, p.
382,) presumed to say that all the successors of Soliman had been
fools or tyrants, and that it was time to abolish the race,
(Marsigli Stato Militaire, &c., p. 28.) This political heretic
was a good Whig, and justified against the French ambassador the
revolution of England, (Mignot, Hist. des Ottomans, tom. iii. p.
434.) His presumption condemns the singular exception of
continuing offices in the same family.]
While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually
subverted by a crafty vizier in the palace, or a victorious
general in the camp, the Ottoman succession has been confirmed by
the practice of five centuries, and is now incorporated with the
vital principle of the Turkish nation.
To the spirit and constitution of that nation, a strong and
singular influence may, however, be ascribed. The primitive
subjects of Othman were the four hundred families of wandering
Turkmans, who had followed his ancestors from the Oxus to the
Sangar; and the plains of Anatolia are still covered with the
white and black tents of their rustic brethren. But this
original drop was dissolved in the mass of voluntary and
vanquished subjects, who, under the name of Turks, are united by
the common ties of religion, language, and manners. In the
cities, from Erzeroum to Belgrade, that national appellation is
common to all the Moslems, the first and most honorable
inhabitants; but they have abandoned, at least in Romania, the
villages, and the cultivation of the land, to the Christian
peasants. In the vigorous age of the Ottoman government, the
Turks were themselves excluded from all civil and military
honors; and a servile class, an artificial people, was raised by
the discipline of education to obey, to conquer, and to command.
^87 From the time of Orchan and the first Amurath, the sultans
were persuaded that a government of the sword must be renewed in
each generation with new soldiers; and that such soldiers must be
sought, not in effeminate Asia, but among the hardy and warlike
natives of Europe. The provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, Albania,
Bulgaria, and Servia, became the perpetual seminary of the
Turkish army; and when the royal fifth of the captives was
diminished by conquest, an inhuman tax of the fifth child, or of
every fifth year, was rigorously levied on the Christian
families. At the age of twelve or fourteen years, the most
robust youths were torn from their parents; their names were
enrolled in a book; and from that moment they were clothed,
taught, and maintained, for the public service. According to the
promise of their appearance, they were selected for the royal
schools of Boursa, Pera, and Adrianople, intrusted to the care of
the bashaws, or dispersed in the houses of the Anatolian
peasantry. It was the first care of their masters to instruct
them in the Turkish language: their bodies were exercised by
every labor that could fortify their strength; they learned to
wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with the bow, and afterwards
with the musket; till they were drafted into the chambers and
companies of the Janizaries, and severely trained in the military
or monastic discipline of the order. The youths most conspicuous
for birth, talents, and beauty, were admitted into the inferior
class of Agiamoglans, or the more liberal rank of Ichoglans, of
whom the former were attached to the palace, and the latter to
the person, of the prince. In four successive schools, under the
rod of the white eunuchs, the arts of horsemanship and of darting
the javelin were their daily exercise, while those of a more
studious cast applied themselves to the study of the Koran, and
the knowledge of the Arabic and Persian tongues. As they
advanced in seniority and merit, they were gradually dismissed to
military, civil, and even ecclesiastical employments: the longer
their stay, the higher was their expectation; till, at a mature
period, they were admitted into the number of the forty agas, who
stood before the sultan, and were promoted by his choice to the
government of provinces and the first honors of the empire. ^88
Such a mode of institution was admirably adapted to the form and
spirit of a despotic monarchy. The ministers and generals were,
in the strictest sense, the slaves of the emperor, to whose
bounty they were indebted for their instruction and support.
When they left the seraglio, and suffered their beards to grow as
the symbol of enfranchisement, they found themselves in an
important office, without faction or friendship, without parents
and without heirs, dependent on the hand which had raised them
from the dust, and which, on the slightest displeasure, could
break in pieces these statues of glass, as they were aptly termed
by the Turkish proverb. ^89 In the slow and painful steps of
education, their characters and talents were unfolded to a
discerning eye: the man, naked and alone, was reduced to the
standard of his personal merit; and, if the sovereign had wisdom
to choose, he possessed a pure and boundless liberty of choice.
The Ottoman candidates were trained by the virtues of abstinence
to those of action; by the habits of submission to those of
command. A similar spirit was diffused among the troops; and
their silence and sobriety, their patience and modesty, have
extorted the reluctant praise of their Christian enemies. ^90 Nor
can the victory appear doubtful, if we compare the discipline and
exercise of the Janizaries with the pride of birth, the
independence of chivalry, the ignorance of the new levies, the
mutinous temper of the veterans, and the vices of intemperance
and disorder, which so long contaminated the armies of Europe.
[Footnote 87: Chalcondyles (l. v.) and Ducas (c. 23) exhibit the
rude lineament of the Ottoman policy, and the transmutation of
Christian children into Turkish soldiers.]
[Footnote 88: This sketch of the Turkish education and discipline
is chiefly borrowed from Ricaut's State of the Ottoman Empire,
the Stato Militaire del' Imperio Ottomano of Count Marsigli, (in
Hava, 1732, in folio,) and a description of the Seraglio,
approved by Mr. Greaves himself, a curious traveller, and
inserted in the second volume of his works.]
[Footnote 89: From the series of cxv. viziers, till the siege of
Vienna, (Marsigli, p. 13,) their place may be valued at three
years and a half purchase.]
[Footnote 90: See the entertaining and judicious letters of
Busbequius.]
The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire, and the
adjacent kingdoms, would have been some more powerful weapon,
some discovery in the art of war, that would give them a decisive
superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their
hands; such a discovery had been made in the critical moment of
their fate. The chemists of China or Europe had found, by casual
or elaborate experiments, that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur,
and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, a tremendous
explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force were
compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be
expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise
aera of the invention and application of gunpowder ^91 is
involved in doubtful traditions and equivocal language; yet we
may clearly discern, that it was known before the middle of the
fourteenth century; and that before the end of the same, the use
of artillery in battles and sieges, by sea and land, was familiar
to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and England. ^92
The priority of nations is of small account; none could derive
any exclusive benefit from their previous or superior knowledge;
and in the common improvement, they stood on the same level of
relative power and military science. Nor was it possible to
circumscribe the secret within the pale of the church; it was
disclosed to the Turks by the treachery of apostates and the
selfish policy of rivals; and the sultans had sense to adopt, and
wealth to reward, the talents of a Christian engineer. The
Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as
his preceptors; and it was probably by their hands that his
cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople. ^93
The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful; but in the general
warfare of the age, the advantage was on their side, who were
most commonly the assailants: for a while the proportion of the
attack and defence was suspended; and this thundering artillery
was pointed against the walls and towers which had been erected
only to resist the less potent engines of antiquity. By the
Venetians, the use of gunpowder was communicated without reproach
to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their allies against the
Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities
of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to his
easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast
the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow
and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace,
a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the
folly of mankind.
[Footnote 91: The first and second volumes of Dr. Watson's
Chemical Essays contain two valuable discourses on the discovery
and composition of gunpowder.]
[Footnote 92: On this subject modern testimonies cannot be
trusted. The original passages are collected by Ducange, (Gloss.
Latin. tom. i. p. 675, Bombarda.) But in the early doubtful
twilight, the name, sound, fire, and effect, that seem to express
our artillery, may be fairly interpreted of the old engines and
the Greek fire. For the English cannon at Crecy, the authority
of John Villani (Chron. l. xii. c. 65) must be weighed against
the silence of Froissard. Yet Muratori (Antiquit. Italiae Medii
Aevi, tom. ii. Dissert. xxvi. p. 514, 515) has produced a
decisive passage from Petrarch, (De Remediis utriusque Fortunae
Dialog.,) who, before the year 1344, execrates this terrestrial
thunder, nuper rara, nunc communis.
Note: Mr. Hallam makes the following observation on the
objection thrown our by Gibbon: "The positive testimony of
Villani, who died within two years afterwards, and had manifestly
obtained much information as to the great events passing in
France, cannot be rejected. He ascribes a material effect to the
cannon of Edward, Colpi delle bombarde, which I suspect, from his
strong expressions, had not been employed before, except against
stone walls. It seems, he says, as if God thundered con grande
uccisione di genti e efondamento di cavalli." Middle Ages, vol.
i. p. 510. - M.]
[Footnote 93: The Turkish cannon, which Ducas (c. 30) first
introduces before Belgrade, (A.D. 1436,) is mentioned by
Chalcondyles (l. v. p. 123) in 1422, at the siege of
Constantinople.]
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.
Part I.
Applications Of The Eastern Emperors To The Popes. - Visits
To The West, Of John The First, Manuel, And John The Second,
Palaeologus. - Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches, Promoted By
The Council Of Basil, And Concluded At Ferrara And Florence. -
State Of Literature At Constantinople. - Its Revival In Italy By
The Greek Fugitives. - Curiosity And Emulation Of The Latins.
In the four last centuries of the Greek emperors, their
friendly or hostile aspect towards the pope and the Latins may be
observed as the thermometer of their prosperity or distress; as
the scale of the rise and fall of the Barbarian dynasties. When
the Turks of the house of Seljuk pervaded Asia, and threatened
Constantinople, we have seen, at the council of Placentia, the
suppliant ambassadors of Alexius imploring the protection of the
common father of the Christians. No sooner had the arms of the
French pilgrims removed the sultan from Nice to Iconium, than the
Greek princes resumed, or avowed, their genuine hatred and
contempt for the schismatics of the West, which precipitated the
first downfall of their empire. The date of the Mogul invasion
is marked in the soft and charitable language of John Vataces.
After the recovery of Constantinople, the throne of the first
Palaeologus was encompassed by foreign and domestic enemies; as
long as the sword of Charles was suspended over his head, he
basely courted the favor of the Roman pontiff; and sacrificed to
the present danger his faith, his virtue, and the affection of
his subjects. On the decease of Michael, the prince and people
asserted the independence of their church, and the purity of
their creed: the elder Andronicus neither feared nor loved the
Latins; in his last distress, pride was the safeguard of
superstition; nor could he decently retract in his age the firm
and orthodox declarations of his youth. His grandson, the younger
Andronicus, was less a slave in his temper and situation; and the
conquest of Bithynia by the Turks admonished him to seek a
temporal and spiritual alliance with the Western princes. After
a separation and silence of fifty years, a secret agent, the monk
Barlaam, was despatched to Pope Benedict the Twelfth; and his
artful instructions appear to have been drawn by the master-hand
of the great domestic. ^1 "Most holy father," was he commissioned
to say, "the emperor is not less desirous than yourself of a
union between the two churches: but in this delicate transaction,
he is obliged to respect his own dignity and the prejudices of
his subjects. The ways of union are twofold; force and
persuasion. Of force, the inefficacy has been already tried;
since the Latins have subdued the empire, without subduing the
minds, of the Greeks. The method of persuasion, though slow, is
sure and permanent. A deputation of thirty or forty of our
doctors would probably agree with those of the Vatican, in the
love of truth and the unity of belief; but on their return, what
would be the use, the recompense, of such an agreement? the
scorn of their brethren, and the reproaches of a blind and
obstinate nation. Yet that nation is accustomed to reverence the
general councils, which have fixed the articles of our faith; and
if they reprobate the decrees of Lyons, it is because the Eastern
churches were neither heard nor represented in that arbitrary
meeting. For this salutary end, it will be expedient, and even
necessary, that a well-chosen legate should be sent into Greece,
to convene the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch,
and Jerusalem; and, with their aid, to prepare a free and
universal synod. But at this moment," continued the subtle
agent, "the empire is assaulted and endangered by the Turks, who
have occupied four of the greatest cities of Anatolia. The
Christian inhabitants have expressed a wish of returning to their
allegiance and religion; but the forces and revenues of the
emperor are insufficient for their deliverance: and the Roman
legate must be accompanied, or preceded, by an army of Franks, to
expel the infidels, and open a way to the holy sepulchre." If the
suspicious Latins should require some pledge, some previous
effect of the sincerity of the Greeks, the answers of Barlaam
were perspicuous and rational. "1. A general synod can alone
consummate the union of the churches; nor can such a synod be
held till the three Oriental patriarchs, and a great number of
bishops, are enfranchised from the Mahometan yoke. 2. The Greeks
are alienated by a long series of oppression and injury: they
must be reconciled by some act of brotherly love, some effectual
succor, which may fortify the authority and arguments of the
emperor, and the friends of the union. 3. If some difference of
faith or ceremonies should be found incurable, the Greeks,
however, are the disciples of Christ; and the Turks are the
common enemies of the Christian name. The Armenians, Cyprians,
and Rhodians, are equally attacked; and it will become the piety
of the French princes to draw their swords in the general defence
of religion. 4. Should the subjects of Andronicus be treated as
the worst of schismatics, of heretics, of pagans, a judicious
policy may yet instruct the powers of the West to embrace a
useful ally, to uphold a sinking empire, to guard the confines of
Europe; and rather to join the Greeks against the Turks, than to
expect the union of the Turkish arms with the troops and
treasures of captive Greece." The reasons, the offers, and the
demands, of Andronicus were eluded with cold and stately
indifference. The kings of France and Naples declined the
dangers and glory of a crusade; the pope refused to call a new
synod to determine old articles of faith; and his regard for the
obsolete claims of the Latin emperor and clergy engaged him to
use an offensive superscription, - "To the moderator ^2 of the
Greeks, and the persons who style themselves the patriarchs of
the Eastern churches." For such an embassy, a time and character
less propitious could not easily have been found. Benedict the
Twelfth ^3 was a dull peasant, perplexed with scruples, and
immersed in sloth and wine: his pride might enrich with a third
crown the papal tiara, but he was alike unfit for the regal and
the pastoral office.
[Footnote 1: This curious instruction was transcribed (I believe)
from the Vatican archives, by Odoricus Raynaldus, in his
Continuation of the Annals of Baronius, (Romae, 1646 - 1677, in
x. volumes in folio.) I have contented myself with the Abbe
Fleury, (Hist. Ecclesiastique. tom. xx. p. 1 - 8,) whose
abstracts I have always found to be clear, accurate, and
impartial.]
[Footnote 2: The ambiguity of this title is happy or ingenious;
and moderator, as synonymous to rector, gubernator, is a word of
classical, and even Ciceronian, Latinity, which may be found, not
in the Glossary of Ducange, but in the Thesaurus of Robert
Stephens.]
[Footnote 3: The first epistle (sine titulo) of Petrarch exposes
the danger of the bark, and the incapacity of the pilot. Haec
inter, vino madidus, aeve gravis, ac soporifero rore perfusus,
jamjam nutitat, dormitat, jam somno praeceps, atque (utinam
solus) ruit . . . . . Heu quanto felicius patrio terram sulcasset
aratro, quam scalmum piscatorium ascendisset! This satire
engages his biographer to weigh the virtues and vices of Benedict
XII. which have been exaggerated by Guelphs and Ghibe lines, by
Papists and Protestants, (see Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque,
tom. i. p. 259, ii. not. xv. p. 13 - 16.) He gave occasion to the
saying, Bibamus papaliter.]
After the decease of Andronicus, while the Greeks were
distracted by intestine war, they could not presume to agitate a
general union of the Christians. But as soon as Cantacuzene had
subdued and pardoned his enemies, he was anxious to justify, or
at least to extenuate, the introduction of the Turks into Europe,
and the nuptials of his daughter with a Mussulman prince. Two
officers of state, with a Latin interpreter, were sent in his
name to the Roman court, which was transplanted to Avignon, on
the banks of the Rhone, during a period of seventy years: they
represented the hard necessity which had urged him to embrace the
alliance of the miscreants, and pronounced by his command the
specious and edifying sounds of union and crusade. Pope Clement
the Sixth, ^4 the successor of Benedict, received them with
hospitality and honor, acknowledged the innocence of their
sovereign, excused his distress, applauded his magnanimity, and
displayed a clear knowledge of the state and revolutions of the
Greek empire, which he had imbibed from the honest accounts of a
Savoyard lady, an attendant of the empress Anne. ^5 If Clement
was ill endowed with the virtues of a priest, he possessed,
however, the spirit and magnificence of a prince, whose liberal
hand distributed benefices and kingdoms with equal facility.
Under his reign Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure: in his
youth he had surpassed the licentiousness of a baron; and the
palace, nay, the bed-chamber of the pope, was adorned, or
polluted, by the visits of his female favorites. The wars of
France and England were adverse to the holy enterprise; but his
vanity was amused by the splendid idea; and the Greek ambassadors
returned with two Latin bishops, the ministers of the pontiff.
On their arrival at Constantinople, the emperor and the nuncios
admired each other's piety and eloquence; and their frequent
conferences were filled with mutual praises and promises, by
which both parties were amused, and neither could be deceived.
"I am delighted," said the devout Cantacuzene, "with the project
of our holy war, which must redound to my personal glory, as well
as to the public benefit of Christendom. My dominions will give
a free passage to the armies of France: my troops, my galleys, my
treasures, shall be consecrated to the common cause; and happy
would be my fate, could I deserve and obtain the crown of
martyrdom. Words are insufficient to express the ardor with
which I sigh for the reunion of the scattered members of Christ.
If my death could avail, I would gladly present my sword and my
neck: if the spiritual phoenix could arise from my ashes, I would
erect the pile, and kindle the flame with my own hands." Yet the
Greek emperor presumed to observe, that the articles of faith
which divided the two churches had been introduced by the pride
and precipitation of the Latins: he disclaimed the servile and
arbitrary steps of the first Palaeologus; and firmly declared,
that he would never submit his conscience unless to the decrees
of a free and universal synod. "The situation of the times,"
continued he, "will not allow the pope and myself to meet either
at Rome or Constantinople; but some maritime city may be chosen
on the verge of the two empires, to unite the bishops, and to
instruct the faithful, of the East and West." The nuncios seemed
content with the proposition; and Cantacuzene affects to deplore
the failure of his hopes, which were soon overthrown by the death
of Clement, and the different temper of his successor. His own
life was prolonged, but it was prolonged in a cloister; and,
except by his prayers, the humble monk was incapable of directing
the counsels of his pupil or the state. ^6
[Footnote 4: See the original Lives of Clement VI. in Muratori,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 550 - 589;) Matteo
Villani, (Chron. l. iii. c. 43, in Muratori, tom. xiv. p. 186,)
who styles him, molto cavallaresco, poco religioso; Fleury,
(Hist. Eccles. tom. xx. p. 126;) and the Vie de Petrarque, (tom.
ii. p. 42 - 45.) The abbe de Sade treats him with the most
indulgence; but he is a gentleman as well as a priest.]
[Footnote 5: Her name (most probably corrupted) was Zampea. She
had accompanied, and alone remained with her mistress at
Constantinople, where her prudence, erudition, and politeness
deserved the praises of the Greeks themselves, (Cantacuzen. l. i.
c. 42.)]
[Footnote 6: See this whole negotiation in Cantacuzene, (l. iv.
c. 9,) who, amidst the praises and virtues which he bestows on
himself, reveals the uneasiness of a guilty conscience.]
Yet of all the Byzantine princes, that pupil, John
Palaeologus, was the best disposed to embrace, to believe, and to
obey, the shepherd of the West. His mother, Anne of Savoy, was
baptized in the bosom of the Latin church: her marriage with
Andronicus imposed a change of name, of apparel, and of worship,
but her heart was still faithful to her country and religion: she
had formed the infancy of her son, and she governed the emperor,
after his mind, or at least his stature, was enlarged to the size
of man. In the first year of his deliverance and restoration,
the Turks were still masters of the Hellespont; the son of
Cantacuzene was in arms at Adrianople; and Palaeologus could
depend neither on himself nor on his people. By his mother's
advice, and in the hope of foreign aid, he abjured the rights
both of the church and state; and the act of slavery, ^7
subscribed in purple ink, and sealed with the golden bull, was
privately intrusted to an Italian agent. The first article of
the treaty is an oath of fidelity and obedience to Innocent the
Sixth and his successors, the supreme pontiffs of the Roman and
Catholic church. The emperor promises to entertain with due
reverence their legates and nuncios; to assign a palace for their
residence, and a temple for their worship; and to deliver his
second son Manuel as the hostage of his faith. For these
condescensions he requires a prompt succor of fifteen galleys,
with five hundred men at arms, and a thousand archers, to serve
against his Christian and Mussulman enemies. Palaeologus engages
to impose on his clergy and people the same spiritual yoke; but
as the resistance of the Greeks might be justly foreseen, he
adopts the two effectual methods of corruption and education.
The legate was empowered to distribute the vacant benefices among
the ecclesiastics who should subscribe the creed of the Vatican:
three schools were instituted to instruct the youth of
Constantinople in the language and doctrine of the Latins; and
the name of Andronicus, the heir of the empire, was enrolled as
the first student. Should he fail in the measures of persuasion
or force, Palaeologus declares himself unworthy to reign;
transferred to the pope all regal and paternal authority; and
invests Innocent with full power to regulate the family, the
government, and the marriage, of his son and successor. But this
treaty was neither executed nor published: the Roman galleys were
as vain and imaginary as the submission of the Greeks; and it was
only by the secrecy that their sovereign escaped the dishonor of
this fruitless humiliation.
[Footnote 7: See this ignominious treaty in Fleury, (Hist.
Eccles. p. 151 - 154,) from Raynaldus, who drew it from the
Vatican archives. It was not worth the trouble of a pious
forgery.]
The tempest of the Turkish arms soon burst on his head; and
after the loss of Adrianople and Romania, he was enclosed in his
capital, the vassal of the haughty Amurath, with the miserable
hope of being the last devoured by the savage. In this abject
state, Palaeologus embraced the resolution of embarking for
Venice, and casting himself at the feet of the pope: he was the
first of the Byzantine princes who had ever visited the unknown
regions of the West, yet in them alone he could seek consolation
or relief; and with less violation of his dignity he might appear
in the sacred college than at the Ottoman Porte. After a long
absence, the Roman pontiffs were returning from Avignon to the
banks of the Tyber: Urban the Fifth, ^8 of a mild and virtuous
character, encouraged or allowed the pilgrimage of the Greek
prince; and, within the same year, enjoyed the glory of receiving
in the Vatican the two Imperial shadows who represented the
majesty of Constantine and Charlemagne. In this suppliant visit,
the emperor of Constantinople, whose vanity was lost in his
distress, gave more than could be expected of empty sounds and
formal submissions. A previous trial was imposed; and, in the
presence of four cardinals, he acknowledged, as a true Catholic,
the supremacy of the pope, and the double procession of the Holy
Ghost. After this purification, he was introduced to a public
audience in the church of St. Peter: Urban, in the midst of the
cardinals, was seated on his throne; the Greek monarch, after
three genuflections, devoutly kissed the feet, the hands, and at
length the mouth, of the holy father, who celebrated high mass in
his presence, allowed him to lead the bridle of his mule, and
treated him with a sumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The
entertainment of Palaeologus was friendly and honorable; yet some
difference was observed between the emperors of the East and
West; ^9 nor could the former be entitled to the rare privilege
of chanting the gospel in the rank of a deacon. ^10 In favor of
his proselyte, Urban strove to rekindle the zeal of the French
king and the other powers of the West; but he found them cold in
the general cause, and active only in their domestic quarrels.
The last hope of the emperor was in an English mercenary, John
Hawkwood, ^11 or Acuto, who, with a band of adventurers, the
white brotherhood, had ravaged Italy from the Alps to Calabria;
sold his services to the hostile states; and incurred a just
excommunication by shooting his arrows against the papal
residence. A special license was granted to negotiate with the
outlaw, but the forces, or the spirit, of Hawkwood, were unequal
to the enterprise: and it was for the advantage, perhaps, of
Palaeologus to be disappointed of succor, that must have been
costly, that could not be effectual, and which might have been
dangerous. ^12 The disconsolate Greek ^13 prepared for his
return, but even his return was impeded by a most ignominious
obstacle. On his arrival at Venice, he had borrowed large sums
at exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty, his creditors
were impatient, and his person was detained as the best security
for the payment. His eldest son, Andronicus, the regent of
Constantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource;
and even by stripping the churches, to extricate his father from
captivity and disgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of
the disgrace, and secretly pleased with the captivity of the
emperor: the state was poor, the clergy were obstinate; nor could
some religious scruple be wanting to excuse the guilt of his
indifference and delay. Such undutiful neglect was severely
reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who instantly sold
or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice, relieved
his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsible for the
debt. On his return to Constantinople, the parent and king
distinguished his two sons with suitable rewards; but the faith
and manners of the slothful Palaeologus had not been improved by
his Roman pilgrimage; and his apostasy or conversion, devoid of
any spiritual or temporal effects, was speedily forgotten by the
Greeks and Latins. ^14
[Footnote 8: See the two first original Lives of Urban V., (in
Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 623,
635,) and the Ecclesiastical Annals of Spondanus, (tom. i. p.
573, A.D. 1369, No. 7,) and Raynaldus, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles.
tom. xx. p. 223, 224.) Yet, from some variations, I suspect the
papal writers of slightly magnifying the genuflections of
Palaeologus.]
[Footnote 9: Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum.
Yet his title of Imperator Graecorum was no longer disputed,
(Vit. Urban V. p. 623.)]
[Footnote 10: It was confined to the successors of Charlemagne,
and to them only on Christmas-day. On all other festivals these
Imperial deacons were content to serve the pope, as he said mass,
with the book and the corporale. Yet the abbe de Sade generously
thinks that the merits of Charles IV. might have entitled him,
though not on the proper day, (A.D. 1368, November 1,) to the
whole privilege. He seems to affix a just value on the privilege
and the man, (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 735.)]
[Footnote 11: Through some Italian corruptions, the etymology of
Falcone in bosco, (Matteo Villani, l. xi. c. 79, in Muratori,
tom. xv. p. 746,) suggests the English word Hawkwood, the true
name of our adventurous countryman, (Thomas Walsingham, Hist.
Anglican. inter Scriptores Cambdeni, p. 184.) After
two-and-twenty victories, and one defeat, he died, in 1394,
general of the Florentines, and was buried with such honors as
the republic has not paid to Dante or Petrarch, (Muratori, Annali
d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 212 - 371.)]
[Footnote 12: This torrent of English (by birth or service)
overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in
1630. Yet the exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197)
is rather true than civil. "Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo
essere calpestrata l'Italia da tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed
Ungheri, venissero fin dall' Inghliterra nuovi cani a finire di
divorarla."]
[Footnote 13: Chalcondyles, l. i. p. 25, 26. The Greek supposes
his journey to the king of France, which is sufficiently refuted
by the silence of the national historians. Nor am I much more
inclined to believe, that Palaeologus departed from Italy, valde
bene consolatus et contentus, (Vit. Urban V. p. 623.)]
[Footnote 14: His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel,
Sept. 25, 1373, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241,) leaves some
intermediate aera for the conspiracy and punishment of
Andronicus.]
Thirty years after the return of Palaeologus, his son and
successor, Manuel, from a similar motive, but on a larger scale,
again visited the countries of the West. In a preceding chapter
I have related his treaty with Bajazet, the violation of that
treaty, the siege or blockade of Constantinople, and the French
succor under the command of the gallant Boucicault. ^15 By his
ambassadors, Manuel had solicited the Latin powers; but it was
thought that the presence of a distressed monarch would draw
tears and supplies from the hardest Barbarians; ^16 and the
marshal who advised the journey prepared the reception of the
Byzantine prince. The land was occupied by the Turks; but the
navigation of Venice was safe and open: Italy received him as the
first, or, at least, as the second, of the Christian princes;
Manuel was pitied as the champion and confessor of the faith; and
the dignity of his behavior prevented that pity from sinking into
contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua and Pavia; and even
the duke of Milan, a secret ally of Bajazet, gave him safe and
honorable conduct to the verge of his dominions. ^17 On the
confines of France ^18 the royal officers undertook the care of
his person, journey, and expenses; and two thousand of the
richest citizens, in arms and on horseback, came forth to meet
him as far as Charenton, in the neighborhood of the capital. At
the gates of Paris, he was saluted by the chancellor and the
parliament; and Charles the Sixth, attended by his princes and
nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace. The
successor of Constantine was clothed in a robe of white silk, and
mounted on a milk-white steed, a circumstance, in the French
ceremonial, of singular importance: the white color is considered
as the symbol of sovereignty; and, in a late visit, the German
emperor, after a haughty demand and a peevish refusal, had been
reduced to content himself with a black courser. Manuel was
lodged in the Louvre; a succession of feasts and balls, the
pleasures of the banquet and the chase, were ingeniously varied
by the politeness of the French, to display their magnificence,
and amuse his grief: he was indulged in the liberty of his
chapel; and the doctors of the Sorbonne were astonished, and
possibly scandalized, by the language, the rites, and the
vestments, of his Greek clergy. But the slightest glance on the
state of the kingdom must teach him to despair of any effectual
assistance. The unfortunate Charles, though he enjoyed some
lucid intervals, continually relapsed into furious or stupid
insanity: the reins of government were alternately seized by his
brother and uncle, the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose
factious competition prepared the miseries of civil war. The
former was a gay youth, dissolved in luxury and love: the latter
was the father of John count of Nevers, who had so lately been
ransomed from Turkish captivity; and, if the fearless son was
ardent to revenge his defeat, the more prudent Burgundy was
content with the cost and peril of the first experiment. When
Manuel had satiated the curiosity, and perhaps fatigued the
patience, of the French, he resolved on a visit to the adjacent
island. In his progress from Dover, he was entertained at
Canterbury with due reverence by the prior and monks of St.
Austin; and, on Blackheath, King Henry the Fourth, with the
English court, saluted the Greek hero, (I copy our old
historian,) who, during many days, was lodged and treated in
London as emperor of the East. ^19 But the state of England was
still more adverse to the design of the holy war. In the same
year, the hereditary sovereign had been deposed and murdered: the
reigning prince was a successful usurper, whose ambition was
punished by jealousy and remorse: nor could Henry of Lancaster
withdraw his person or forces from the defence of a throne
incessantly shaken by conspiracy and rebellion. He pitied, he
praised, he feasted, the emperor of Constantinople; but if the
English monarch assumed the cross, it was only to appease his
people, and perhaps his conscience, by the merit or semblance of
his pious intention. ^20 Satisfied, however, with gifts and
honors, Manuel returned to Paris; and, after a residence of two
years in the West, shaped his course through Germany and Italy,
embarked at Venice, and patiently expected, in the Morea, the
moment of his ruin or deliverance. Yet he had escaped the
ignominious necessity of offering his religion to public or
private sale. The Latin church was distracted by the great
schism; the kings, the nations, the universities, of Europe were
divided in their obedience between the popes of Rome and Avignon;
and the emperor, anxious to conciliate the friendship of both
parties, abstained from any correspondence with the indigent and
unpopular rivals. His journey coincided with the year of the
jubilee; but he passed through Italy without desiring, or
deserving, the plenary indulgence which abolished the guilt or
penance of the sins of the faithful. The Roman pope was offended
by this neglect; accused him of irreverence to an image of
Christ; and exhorted the princes of Italy to reject and abandon
the obstinate schismatic. ^21
[Footnote 15: Memoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 35, 36.]
[Footnote 16: His journey into the west of Europe is slightly,
and I believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (l. ii. c. 44
- 50) and Ducas, (c. 14.)]
[Footnote 17: Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 406. John
Galeazzo was the first and most powerful duke of Milan. His
connection with Bajazet is attested by Froissard; and he
contributed to save and deliver the French captives of
Nicopolis.]
[Footnote 18: For the reception of Manuel at Paris, see
Spondanus, (Annal. Eccles. tom. i. p. 676, 677, A.D. 1400, No.
5,) who quotes Juvenal des Ursins and the monk of St. Denys; and
Villaret, (Hist. de France, tom. xii. p. 331 - 334,) who quotes
nobody according to the last fashion of the French writers.]
[Footnote 19: A short note of Manuel in England is extracted by
Dr. Hody from a Ms. at Lambeth, (de Graecis illustribus, p. 14,)
C. P. Imperator, diu variisque et horrendis Paganorum insultibus
coarctatus, ut pro eisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret,
Anglorum Regem visitare decrevit, &c. Rex (says Walsingham, p.
364) nobili apparatu . . . suscepit (ut decuit) tantum Heroa,
duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies exhibuit gloriose, pro
expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respiciens tanto fastigio
donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustriae, (p.
556.)]
[Footnote 20: Shakspeare begins and ends the play of Henry IV.
with that prince's vow of a crusade, and his belief that he
should die in Jerusalem.]
[Footnote 21: This fact is preserved in the Historia Politica,
A.D. 1391 - 1478, published by Martin Crusius, (Turco Graecia, p.
1 - 43.) The image of Christ, which the Greek emperor refused to
worship, was probably a work of sculpture.]
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.
Part II.
During the period of the crusades, the Greeks beheld with
astonishment and terror the perpetual stream of emigration that
flowed, and continued to flow, from the unknown climates of their
West. The visits of their last emperors removed the veil of
separation, and they disclosed to their eyes the powerful nations
of Europe, whom they no longer presumed to brand with the name of
Barbarians. The observations of Manuel, and his more inquisitive
followers, have been preserved by a Byzantine historian of the
times: ^22 his scattered ideas I shall collect and abridge; and
it may be amusing enough, perhaps instructive, to contemplate the
rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whose ancient and
modern state are so familiar to our minds. I. Germany (says the
Greek Chalcondyles) is of ample latitude from Vienna to the
ocean; and it stretches (a strange geography) from Prague in
Bohemia to the River Tartessus, and the Pyrenaean Mountains. ^23
The soil, except in figs and olives, is sufficiently fruitful;
the air is salubrious; the bodies of the natives are robust and
healthy; and these cold regions are seldom visited with the
calamities of pestilence, or earthquakes. After the Scythians or
Tartars, the Germans are the most numerous of nations: they are
brave and patient; and were they united under a single head,
their force would be irresistible. By the gift of the pope, they
have acquired the privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; ^24
nor is any people more devoutly attached to the faith and
obedience of the Latin patriarch. The greatest part of the
country is divided among the princes and prelates; but Strasburg,
Cologne, Hamburgh, and more than two hundred free cities, are
governed by sage and equal laws, according to the will, and for
the advantage, of the whole community. The use of duels, or
single combats on foot, prevails among them in peace and war:
their industry excels in all the mechanic arts; and the Germans
may boast of the invention of gunpowder and cannon, which is now
diffused over the greatest part of the world. II. The kingdom
of France is spread above fifteen or twenty days' journey from
Germany to Spain, and from the Alps to the British Ocean;
containing many flourishing cities, and among these Paris, the
seat of the king, which surpasses the rest in riches and luxury.
Many princes and lords alternately wait in his palace, and
acknowledge him as their sovereign: the most powerful are the
dukes of Bretagne and Burgundy; of whom the latter possesses the
wealthy province of Flanders, whose harbors are frequented by the
ships and merchants of our own, and the more remote, seas. The
French are an ancient and opulent people; and their language and
manners, though somewhat different, are not dissimilar from those
of the Italians. Vain of the Imperial dignity of Charlemagne, of
their victories over the Saracens, and of the exploits of their
heroes, Oliver and Rowland, ^25 they esteem themselves the first
of the western nations; but this foolish arrogance has been
recently humbled by the unfortunate events of their wars against
the English, the inhabitants of the British island. III.
Britain, in the ocean, and opposite to the shores of Flanders,
may be considered either as one, or as three islands; but the
whole is united by a common interest, by the same manners, and by
a similar government. The measure of its circumference is five
thousand stadia: the land is overspread with towns and villages:
though destitute of wine, and not abounding in fruit-trees, it is
fertile in wheat and barley; in honey and wool; and much cloth is
manufactured by the inhabitants. In populousness and power, in
richness and luxury, London, ^26 the metropolis of the isle, may
claim a preeminence over all the cities of the West. It is
situate on the Thames, a broad and rapid river, which at the
distance of thirty miles falls into the Gallic Sea; and the daily
flow and ebb of the tide affords a safe entrance and departure to
the vessels of commerce. The king is head of a powerful and
turbulent aristocracy: his principal vassals hold their estates
by a free and unalterable tenure; and the laws define the limits
of his authority and their obedience. The kingdom has been often
afflicted by foreign conquest and domestic sedition: but the
natives are bold and hardy, renowned in arms and victorious in
war. The form of their shields or targets is derived from the
Italians, that of their swords from the Greeks; the use of the
long bow is the peculiar and decisive advantage of the English.
Their language bears no affinity to the idioms of the Continent:
in the habits of domestic life, they are not easily distinguished
from their neighbors of France: but the most singular
circumstance of their manners is their disregard of conjugal
honor and of female chastity. In their mutual visits, as the
first act of hospitality, the guest is welcomed in the embraces
of their wives and daughters: among friends they are lent and
borrowed without shame; nor are the islanders offended at this
strange commerce, and its inevitable consequences. ^27 Informed
as we are of the customs of Old England and assured of the virtue
of our mothers, we may smile at the credulity, or resent the
injustice, of the Greek, who must have confounded a modest salute
^28 with a criminal embrace. But his credulity and injustice may
teach an important lesson; to distrust the accounts of foreign
and remote nations, and to suspend our belief of every tale that
deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man. ^29
[Footnote 22: The Greek and Turkish history of Laonicus
Chalcondyles ends with the winter of 1463; and the abrupt
conclusion seems to mark, that he laid down his pen in the same
year. We know that he was an Athenian, and that some
contemporaries of the same name contributed to the revival of the
Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous digressions, the
modest historian has never introduced himself; and his editor
Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p.
474,) seems ignorant of his life and character. For his
descriptions of Germany, France, and England, see l. ii. p. 36,
37, 44 - 50.]
[Footnote 23: I shall not animadvert on the geographical errors
of Chalcondyles. In this instance, he perhaps followed, and
mistook, Herodotus, (l. ii. c. 33,) whose text may be explained,
(Herodote de Larcher, tom. ii. p. 219, 220,) or whose ignorance
may be excused. Had these modern Greeks never read Strabo, or
any of their lesser geographers?]
[Footnote 24: A citizen of new Rome, while new Rome survived,
would have scorned to dignify the German with titles: but all
pride was extinct in the bosom of Chalcondyles; and he describes
the Byzantine prince, and his subject, by the proper, though
humble, names.]
[Footnote 25: Most of the old romances were translated in the
xivth century into French prose, and soon became the favorite
amusement of the knights and ladies in the court of Charles VI.
If a Greek believed in the exploits of Rowland and Oliver, he may
surely be excused, since the monks of St. Denys, the national
historians, have inserted the fables of Archbishop Turpin in
their Chronicles of France.]
[Footnote 26: Even since the time of Fitzstephen, (the xiith
century,) London appears to have maintained this preeminence of
wealth and magnitude; and her gradual increase has, at least,
kept pace with the general improvement of Europe.]
[Footnote 27: If the double sense of the verb (osculor, and in
utero gero) be equivocal, the context and pious horror of
Chalcondyles can leave no doubt of his meaning and mistake, (p.
49.)
Note: I can discover no "pious horror" in the plain manner
in which Chalcondyles relates this strange usage. Gibbon is
possibly right as to the origin of this extraordinary mistake. -
M.]
[Footnote 28: Erasmus (Epist. Fausto Andrelino) has a pretty
passage on the English fashion of kissing strangers on their
arrival and departure, from whence, however, he draws no
scandalous inferences.]
[Footnote 29: Perhaps we may apply this remark to the community
of wives among the old Britons, as it is supposed by Caesar and
Dion, (Dion Cassius, l. lxii. tom. ii. p. 1007,) with Reimar's
judicious annotation. The Arreoy of Otaheite, so certain at
first, is become less visible and scandalous, in proportion as we
have studied the manners of that gentle and amorous people.]
After his return, and the victory of Timour, Manuel reigned
many years in prosperity and peace. As long as the sons of
Bajazet solicited his friendship and spared his dominions, he was
satisfied with the national religion; and his leisure was
employed in composing twenty theological dialogues for its
defence. The appearance of the Byzantine ambassadors at the
council of Constance, ^30 announces the restoration of the
Turkish power, as well as of the Latin church: the conquest of
the sultans, Mahomet and Amurath, reconciled the emperor to the
Vatican; and the siege of Constantinople almost tempted him to
acquiesce in the double procession of the Holy Ghost. When
Martin the Fifth ascended without a rival the chair of St. Peter,
a friendly intercourse of letters and embassies was revived
between the East and West. Ambition on one side, and distress on
the other, dictated the same decent language of charity and
peace: the artful Greek expressed a desire of marrying his six
sons to Italian princesses; and the Roman, not less artful,
despatched the daughter of the marquis of Montferrat, with a
company of noble virgins, to soften, by their charms, the
obstinacy of the schismatics. Yet under this mask of zeal, a
discerning eye will perceive that all was hollow and insincere in
the court and church of Constantinople. According to the
vicissitudes of danger and repose, the emperor advanced or
retreated; alternately instructed and disavowed his ministers;
and escaped from the importunate pressure by urging the duty of
inquiry, the obligation of collecting the sense of his patriarchs
and bishops, and the impossibility of convening them at a time
when the Turkish arms were at the gates of his capital. From a
review of the public transactions it will appear that the Greeks
insisted on three successive measures, a succor, a council, and a
final reunion, while the Latins eluded the second, and only
promised the first, as a consequential and voluntary reward of
the third. But we have an opportunity of unfolding the most
secret intentions of Manuel, as he explained them in a private
conversation without artifice or disguise. In his declining age,
the emperor had associated John Palaeologus, the second of the
name, and the eldest of his sons, on whom he devolved the
greatest part of the authority and weight of government. One
day, in the presence only of the historian Phranza, ^31 his
favorite chamberlain, he opened to his colleague and successor
the true principle of his negotiations with the pope. ^32 "Our
last resource," said Manuel, against the Turks, "is their fear of
our union with the Latins, of the warlike nations of the West,
who may arm for our relief and for their destruction. As often as
you are threatened by the miscreants, present this danger before
their eyes. Propose a council; consult on the means; but ever
delay and avoid the convocation of an assembly, which cannot tend
either to our spiritual or temporal emolument. The Latins are
proud; the Greeks are obstinate; neither party will recede or
retract; and the attempt of a perfect union will confirm the
schism, alienate the churches, and leave us, without hope or
defence, at the mercy of the Barbarians." Impatient of this
salutary lesson, the royal youth arose from his seat, and
departed in silence; and the wise monarch (continued Phranza)
casting his eyes on me, thus resumed his discourse: "My son deems
himself a great and heroic prince; but, alas! our miserable age
does not afford scope for heroism or greatness. His daring
spirit might have suited the happier times of our ancestors; but
the present state requires not an emperor, but a cautious steward
of the last relics of our fortunes. Well do I remember the lofty
expectations which he built on our alliance with Mustapha; and
much do I fear, that this rash courage will urge the ruin of our
house, and that even religion may precipitate our downfall." Yet
the experience and authority of Manuel preserved the peace, and
eluded the council; till, in the seventy-eighth year of his age,
and in the habit of a monk, he terminated his career, dividing
his precious movables among his children and the poor, his
physicians and his favorite servants. Of his six sons, ^33
Andronicus the Second was invested with the principality of
Thessalonica, and died of a leprosy soon after the sale of that
city to the Venetians and its final conquest by the Turks. Some
fortunate incidents had restored Peloponnesus, or the Morea, to
the empire; and in his more prosperous days, Manuel had fortified
the narrow isthmus of six miles ^34 with a stone wall and one
hundred and fifty-three towers. The wall was overthrown by the
first blast of the Ottomans; the fertile peninsula might have
been sufficient for the four younger brothers, Theodore and
Constantine, Demetrius and Thomas; but they wasted in domestic
contests the remains of their strength; and the least successful
of the rivals were reduced to a life of dependence in the
Byzantine palace.
[Footnote 30: See Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom.
ii. p. 576; and or the ecclesiastical history of the times, the
Annals of Spondanus the Bibliotheque of Dupin, tom. xii., and
xxist and xxiid volumes of the History, or rather the
Continuation, of Fleury.]
[Footnote 31: From his early youth, George Phranza, or Phranzes,
was employed in the service of the state and palace; and Hanckius
(de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40) has collected his life from his
own writings. He was no more than four-and-twenty years of age
at the death of Manuel, who recommended him in the strongest
terms to his successor: Imprimis vero hunc Phranzen tibi
commendo, qui ministravit mihi fideliter et diligenter (Phranzes,
l. ii. c. i.) Yet the emperor John was cold, and he preferred the
service of the despots of Peloponnesus.]
[Footnote 32: See Phranzes, l. ii. c. 13. While so many
manuscripts of the Greek original are extant in the libraries of
Rome, Milan, the Escurial, &c., it is a matter of shame and
reproach, that we should be reduced to the Latin version, or
abstract, of James Pontanus, (ad calcem Theophylact, Simocattae:
Ingolstadt, 1604,) so deficient in accuracy and elegance,
(Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 615 - 620.)
Note: The Greek text of Phranzes was edited by F. C. Alter
Vindobonae. It has been re-edited by Bekker for the new edition
of the Byzantines, Bonn, 1838 - M.]
[Footnote 33: See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 243 - 248.]
[Footnote 34: The exact measure of the Hexamilion, from sea to
sea, was 3800 orgyiae, or toises, of six Greek feet, (Phranzes,
l. i. c. 38,) which would produce a Greek mile, still smaller
than that of 660 French toises, which is assigned by D'Anville,
as still in use in Turkey. Five miles are commonly reckoned for
the breadth of the isthmus. See the Travels of Spon, Wheeler and
Chandler.]
The eldest of the sons of Manuel, John Palaeologus the
Second, was acknowledged, after his father's death, as the sole
emperor of the Greeks. He immediately proceeded to repudiate his
wife, and to contract a new marriage with the princess of
Trebizond: beauty was in his eyes the first qualification of an
empress; and the clergy had yielded to his firm assurance, that
unless he might be indulged in a divorce, he would retire to a
cloister, and leave the throne to his brother Constantine. The
first, and in truth the only, victory of Palaeologus, was over a
Jew, ^35 whom, after a long and learned dispute, he converted to
the Christian faith; and this momentous conquest is carefully
recorded in the history of the times. But he soon resumed the
design of uniting the East and West; and, regardless of his
father's advice, listened, as it should seem with sincerity, to
the proposal of meeting the pope in a general council beyond the
Adriatic. This dangerous project was encouraged by Martin the
Fifth, and coldly entertained by his successor Eugenius, till,
after a tedious negotiation, the emperor received a summons from
the Latin assembly of a new character, the independent prelates
of Basil, who styled themselves the representatives and judges of
the Catholic church.
[Footnote 35: The first objection of the Jews is on the death of
Christ: if it were voluntary, Christ was a suicide; which the
emperor parries with a mystery. They then dispute on the
conception of the Virgin, the sense of the prophecies, &c.,
(Phranzes, l. ii. c. 12, a whole chapter.)]
The Roman pontiff had fought and conquered in the cause of
ecclesiastical freedom; but the victorious clergy were soon
exposed to the tyranny of their deliverer; and his sacred
character was invulnerable to those arms which they found so keen
and effectual against the civil magistrate. Their great charter,
the right of election, was annihilated by appeals, evaded by
trusts or commendams, disappointed by reversionary grants, and
superseded by previous and arbitrary reservations. ^36 A public
auction was instituted in the court of Rome: the cardinals and
favorites were enriched with the spoils of nations; and every
country might complain that the most important and valuable
benefices were accumulated on the heads of aliens and absentees.
During their residence at Avignon, the ambition of the popes
subsided in the meaner passions of avarice ^37 and luxury: they
rigorously imposed on the clergy the tributes of first-fruits and
tenths; but they freely tolerated the impunity of vice, disorder,
and corruption. These manifold scandals were aggravated by the
great schism of the West, which continued above fifty years. In
the furious conflicts of Rome and Avignon, the vices of the
rivals were mutually exposed; and their precarious situation
degraded their authority, relaxed their discipline, and
multiplied their wants and exactions. To heal the wounds, and
restore the monarchy, of the church, the synods of Pisa and
Constance ^38 were successively convened; but these great
assemblies, conscious of their strength, resolved to vindicate
the privileges of the Christian aristocracy. From a personal
sentence against two pontiffs, whom they rejected, and a third,
their acknowledged sovereign, whom they deposed, the fathers of
Constance proceeded to examine the nature and limits of the Roman
supremacy; nor did they separate till they had established the
authority, above the pope, of a general council. It was enacted,
that, for the government and reformation of the church, such
assemblies should be held at regular intervals; and that each
synod, before its dissolution, should appoint the time and place
of the subsequent meeting. By the influence of the court of Rome,
the next convocation at Sienna was easily eluded; but the bold
and vigorous proceedings of the council of Basil ^39 had almost
been fatal to the reigning pontiff, Eugenius the Fourth. A just
suspicion of his design prompted the fathers to hasten the
promulgation of their first decree, that the representatives of
the church-militant on earth were invested with a divine and
spiritual jurisdiction over all Christians, without excepting the
pope; and that a general council could not be dissolved,
prorogued, or transferred, unless by their free deliberation and
consent. On the notice that Eugenius had fulminated a bull for
that purpose, they ventured to summon, to admonish, to threaten,
to censure the contumacious successor of St. Peter. After many
delays, to allow time for repentance, they finally declared,
that, unless he submitted within the term of sixty days, he was
suspended from the exercise of all temporal and ecclesiastical
authority. And to mark their jurisdiction over the prince as
well as the priest, they assumed the government of Avignon,
annulled the alienation of the sacred patrimony, and protected
Rome from the imposition of new taxes. Their boldness was
justified, not only by the general opinion of the clergy, but by
the support and power of the first monarchs of Christendom: the
emperor Sigismond declared himself the servant and protector of
the synod; Germany and France adhered to their cause; the duke of
Milan was the enemy of Eugenius; and he was driven from the
Vatican by an insurrection of the Roman people. Rejected at the
same time by temporal and spiritual subjects, submission was his
only choice: by a most humiliating bull, the pope repealed his
own acts, and ratified those of the council; incorporated his
legates and cardinals with that venerable body; and seemed to
resign himself to the decrees of the supreme legislature. Their
fame pervaded the countries of the East: and it was in their
presence that Sigismond received the ambassadors of the Turkish
sultan, ^40 who laid at his feet twelve large vases, filled with
robes of silk and pieces of gold. The fathers of Basil aspired
to the glory of reducing the Greeks, as well as the Bohemians,
within the pale of the church; and their deputies invited the
emperor and patriarch of Constantinople to unite with an assembly
which possessed the confidence of the Western nations.
Palaeologus was not averse to the proposal; and his ambassadors
were introduced with due honors into the Catholic senate. But
the choice of the place appeared to be an insuperable obstacle,
since he refused to pass the Alps, or the sea of Sicily, and
positively required that the synod should be adjourned to some
convenient city in Italy, or at least on the Danube. The other
articles of this treaty were more readily stipulated: it was
agreed to defray the travelling expenses of the emperor, with a
train of seven hundred persons, ^41 to remit an immediate sum of
eight thousand ducats ^42 for the accommodation of the Greek
clergy; and in his absence to grant a supply of ten thousand
ducats, with three hundred archers and some galleys, for the
protection of Constantinople. The city of Avignon advanced the
funds for the preliminary expenses; and the embarkation was
prepared at Marseilles with some difficulty and delay.
[Footnote 36: In the treatise delle Materie Beneficiarie of Fra
Paolo, (in the ivth volume of the last, and best, edition of his
works,) the papal system is deeply studied and freely described.
Should Rome and her religion be annihilated, this golden volume
may still survive, a philosophical history, and a salutary
warning.]
[Footnote 37: Pope John XXII. (in 1334) left behind him, at
Avignon, eighteen millions of gold florins, and the value of
seven millions more in plate and jewels. See the Chronicle of
John Villani, (l. xi. c. 20, in Muratori's Collection, tom. xiii.
p. 765,) whose brother received the account from the papal
treasurers. A treasure of six or eight millions sterling in the
xivth century is enormous, and almost incredible.]
[Footnote 38: A learned and liberal Protestant, M. Lenfant, has
given a fair history of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and
Basil, in six volumes in quarto; but the last part is the most
hasty and imperfect, except in the account of the troubles of
Bohemia.]
[Footnote 39: The original acts or minutes of the council of
Basil are preserved in the public library, in twelve volumes in
folio. Basil was a free city, conveniently situate on the Rhine,
and guarded by the arms of the neighboring and confederate Swiss.
In 1459, the university was founded by Pope Pius II., (Aeneas
Sylvius,) who had been secretary to the council. But what is a
council, or a university, to the presses o Froben and the studies
of Erasmus?]
[Footnote 40: This Turkish embassy, attested only by Crantzius,
is related with some doubt by the annalist Spondanus, A.D. 1433,
No. 25, tom. i. p. 824]
[Footnote 41: Syropulus, p. 19. In this list, the Greeks appear
to have exceeded the real numbers of the clergy and laity which
afterwards attended the emperor and patriarch, but which are not
clearly specified by the great ecclesiarch. The 75,000 florins
which they asked in this negotiation of the pope, (p. 9,) were
more than they could hope or want.]
[Footnote 42: I use indifferently the words ducat and florin,
which derive their names, the former from the dukes of Milan, the
latter from the republic of Florence. These gold pieces, the
first that were coined in Italy, perhaps in the Latin world, may
be compared in weight and value to one third of the English
guinea.]
In his distress, the friendship of Palaeologus was disputed
by the ecclesiastical powers of the West; but the dexterous
activity of a monarch prevailed over the slow debates and
inflexible temper of a republic. The decrees of Basil
continually tended to circumscribe the despotism of the pope, and
to erect a supreme and perpetual tribunal in the church.
Eugenius was impatient of the yoke; and the union of the Greeks
might afford a decent pretence for translating a rebellious synod
from the Rhine to the Po. The independence of the fathers was
lost if they passed the Alps: Savoy or Avignon, to which they
acceded with reluctance, were described at Constantinople as
situate far beyond the pillars of Hercules; ^43 the emperor and
his clergy were apprehensive of the dangers of a long navigation;
they were offended by a haughty declaration, that after
suppressing the new heresy of the Bohemians, the council would
soon eradicate the old heresy of the Greeks. ^44 On the side of
Eugenius, all was smooth, and yielding, and respectful; and he
invited the Byzantine monarch to heal by his presence the schism
of the Latin, as well as of the Eastern, church. Ferrara, near
the coast of the Adriatic, was proposed for their amicable
interview; and with some indulgence of forgery and theft, a
surreptitious decree was procured, which transferred the synod,
with its own consent, to that Italian city. Nine galleys were
equipped for the service at Venice, and in the Isle of Candia;
their diligence anticipated the slower vessels of Basil: the
Roman admiral was commissioned to burn, sink, and destroy; ^45
and these priestly squadrons might have encountered each other in
the same seas where Athens and Sparta had formerly contended for
the preeminence of glory. Assaulted by the importunity of the
factions, who were ready to fight for the possession of his
person, Palaeologus hesitated before he left his palace and
country on a perilous experiment. His father's advice still
dwelt on his memory; and reason must suggest, that since the
Latins were divided among themselves, they could never unite in a
foreign cause. Sigismond dissuaded the unreasonable adventure;
his advice was impartial, since he adhered to the council; and it
was enforced by the strange belief, that the German Caesar would
nominate a Greek his heir and successor in the empire of the
West. ^46 Even the Turkish sultan was a counsellor whom it might
be unsafe to trust, but whom it was dangerous to offend. Amurath
was unskilled in the disputes, but he was apprehensive of the
union, of the Christians. From his own treasures, he offered to
relieve the wants of the Byzantine court; yet he declared with
seeming magnanimity, that Constantinople should be secure and
inviolate, in the absence of her sovereign. ^47 The resolution of
Palaeologus was decided by the most splendid gifts and the most
specious promises: he wished to escape for a while from a scene
of danger and distress and after dismissing with an ambiguous
answer the messengers of the council, he declared his intention
of embarking in the Roman galleys. The age of the patriarch
Joseph was more susceptible of fear than of hope; he trembled at
the perils of the sea, and expressed his apprehension, that his
feeble voice, with thirty perhaps of his orthodox brethren, would
be oppressed in a foreign land by the power and numbers of a
Latin synod. He yielded to the royal mandate, to the flattering
assurance, that he would be heard as the oracle of nations, and
to the secret wish of learning from his brother of the West, to
deliver the church from the yoke of kings. ^48 The five
cross-bearers, or dignitaries, of St.Sophia, were bound to attend
his person; and one of these, the great ecclesiarch or preacher,
Sylvester Syropulus, ^49 has composed a free and curious history
^50 of the false union. ^51 Of the clergy that reluctantly obeyed
the summons of the emperor and the patriarch, submission was the
first duty, and patience the most useful virtue. In a chosen list
of twenty bishops, we discover the metropolitan titles of
Heracleae and Cyzicus, Nice and Nicomedia, Ephesus and Trebizond,
and the personal merit of Mark and Bessarion who, in the
confidence of their learning and eloquence, were promoted to the
episcopal rank. Some monks and philosophers were named to
display the science and sanctity of the Greek church; and the
service of the choir was performed by a select band of singers
and musicians. The patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and
Jerusalem, appeared by their genuine or fictitious deputies; the
primate of Russia represented a national church, and the Greeks
might contend with the Latins in the extent of their spiritual
empire. The precious vases of St. Sophia were exposed to the
winds and waves, that the patriarch might officiate with becoming
splendor: whatever gold the emperor could procure, was expended
in the massy ornaments of his bed and chariot; ^52 and while they
affected to maintain the prosperity of their ancient fortune,
they quarrelled for the division of fifteen thousand ducats, the
first alms of the Roman pontiff. After the necessary
preparations, John Palaeologus, with a numerous train,
accompanied by his brother Demetrius, and the most respectable
persons of the church and state, embarked in eight vessels with
sails and oars which steered through the Turkish Straits of
Gallipoli to the Archipelago, the Morea, and the Adriatic Gulf.
^53
[Footnote 43: At the end of the Latin version of Phranzes, we
read a long Greek epistle or declamation of George of Trebizond,
who advises the emperor to prefer Eugenius and Italy. He treats
with contempt the schismatic assembly of Basil, the Barbarians of
Gaul and Germany, who had conspired to transport the chair of St.
Peter beyond the Alps. Was Constantinople unprovided with a map?]
[Footnote 44: Syropulus (p. 26 - 31) attests his own indignation,
and that of his countrymen; and the Basil deputies, who excused
the rash declaration, could neither deny nor alter an act of the
council.]
[Footnote 45: The naval orders of the synod were less peremptory,
and, till the hostile squadrons appeared, both parties tried to
conceal their quarrel from the Greeks.]
[Footnote 46: Syropulus mentions the hopes of Palaeologus, (p.
36,) and the last advice of Sigismond,(p. 57.) At Corfu, the
Greek emperor was informed of his friend's death; had he known it
sooner, he would have returned home,(p. 79.)]
[Footnote 47: Phranzes himself, though from different motives,
was of the advice of Amurath, (l. ii. c. 13.) Utinam ne synodus
ista unquam fuisset, si tantes offensiones et detrimenta paritura
erat. This Turkish embassy is likewise mentioned by Syropulus,
(p. 58;) and Amurath kept his word. He might threaten, (p. 125,
219,) but he never attacked, the city.]
[Footnote 48: The reader will smile at the simplicity with which
he imparted these hopes to his favorites (p. 92.) Yet it would
have been difficult for him to have practised the lessons of
Gregory VII.]
[Footnote 49: The Christian name of Sylvester is borrowed from
the Latin calendar. In modern Greek, as a diminutive, is added
to the end of words: nor can any reasoning of Creyghton, the
editor, excuse his changing into Sguropulus, (Sguros, fuscus,)
the Syropulus of his own manuscript, whose name is subscribed
with his own hand in the acts of the council of Florence. Why
might not the author be of Syrian extraction?]
[Footnote 50: From the conclusion of the history, I should fix
the date to the year 1444, four years after the synod, when great
ecclesiarch had abdicated his office, (section xii. p. 330 -
350.) His passions were cooled by time and retirement; and,
although Syropulus is often partial, he is never intemperate.]
[Footnote 51: Vera historia unionis non veroe inter Graecos et
Latinos, (Hagae Comitis, 1660, in folio,) was first published
with a loose and florid version, by Robert Creyghton, chaplain to
Charles II. in his exile. The zeal of the editor has prefixed a
polemic title, for the beginning of the original is wanting.
Syropulus may be ranked with the best of the Byzantine writers
for the merit of his narration, and even of his style; but he is
excluded from the orthodox collections of the councils.]
[Footnote 52: Syropulus (p. 63) simply expresses his intention;
and the Latin of Creyghton may afford a specimen of his florid
paraphrase. Ut pompa circumductus noster Imperator Italiae
populis aliquis deauratus Jupiter crederetur, aut Croesus ex
opulenta Lydia.]
[Footnote 53: Although I cannot stop to quote Syropulus for every
fact, I will observe that the navigation of the Greeks from
Constantinople to Venice and Ferrara is contained in the ivth
section, (p. 67 - 100,) and that the historian has the uncommon
talent of placing each scene before the reader's eye.]
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.
Part III.
After a tedious and troublesome navigation of seventy-seven
days, this religious squadron cast anchor before Venice; and
their reception proclaimed the joy and magnificence of that
powerful republic. In the command of the world, the modest
Augustus had never claimed such honors from his subjects as were
paid to his feeble successor by an independent state. Seated on
the poop on a lofty throne, he received the visit, or, in the
Greek style, the adoration of the doge and senators. ^54 They
sailed in the Bucentaur, which was accompanied by twelve stately
galleys: the sea was overspread with innumerable gondolas of pomp
and pleasure; the air resounded with music and acclamations; the
mariners, and even the vessels, were dressed in silk and gold;
and in all the emblems and pageants, the Roman eagles were
blended with the lions of St. Mark. The triumphal procession,
ascending the great canal, passed under the bridge of the Rialto;
and the Eastern strangers gazed with admiration on the palaces,
the churches, and the populousness of a city, that seems to float
on the bosom of the waves. ^55 They sighed to behold the spoils
and trophies with which it had been decorated after the sack of
Constantinople. After a hospitable entertainment of fifteen
days, Palaeologus pursued his journey by land and water from
Venice to Ferrara; and on this occasion the pride of the Vatican
was tempered by policy to indulge the ancient dignity of the
emperor of the East. He made his entry on a black horse; but a
milk-white steed, whose trappings were embroidered with golden
eagles, was led before him; and the canopy was borne over his
head by the princes of Este, the sons or kinsmen of Nicholas,
marquis of the city, and a sovereign more powerful than himself.
^56 Palaeologus did not alight till he reached the bottom of the
staircase: the pope advanced to the door of the apartment;
refused his proffered genuflection; and, after a paternal
embrace, conducted the emperor to a seat on his left hand. Nor
would the patriarch descend from his galley, till a ceremony
almost equal, had been stipulated between the bishops of Rome and
Constantinople. The latter was saluted by his brother with a
kiss of union and charity; nor would any of the Greek
ecclesiastics submit to kiss the feet of the Western primate. On
the opening of the synod, the place of honor in the centre was
claimed by the temporal and ecclesiastical chiefs; and it was
only by alleging that his predecessors had not assisted in person
at Nice or Chalcedon, that Eugenius could evade the ancient
precedents of Constantine and Marcian. After much debate, it was
agreed that the right and left sides of the church should be
occupied by the two nations; that the solitary chair of St. Peter
should be raised the first of the Latin line; and that the throne
of the Greek emperor, at the head of his clergy, should be equal
and opposite to the second place, the vacant seat of the emperor
of the West. ^57
[Footnote 54: At the time of the synod, Phranzes was in
Peloponnesus: but he received from the despot Demetrius a
faithful account of the honorable reception of the emperor and
patriarch both at Venice and Ferrara, (Dux . . . . sedentem
Imperatorem adorat,) which are more slightly mentioned by the
Latins, (l. ii. c. 14, 15, 16.)]
[Footnote 55: The astonishment of a Greek prince and a French
ambassador (Memoires de Philippe de Comines, l. vii. c. 18,) at
the sight of Venice, abundantly proves that in the xvth century
it was the first and most splendid of the Christian cities. For
the spoils of Constantinople at Venice, see Syropulus, (p. 87.)]
[Footnote 56: Nicholas III. of Este reigned forty-eight years,
(A.D. 1393 - 1441,) and was lord of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio,
Parma, Rovigo, and Commachio. See his Life in Muratori,
(Antichita Estense, tom. ii. p. 159 - 201.)]
[Footnote 57: The Latin vulgar was provoked to laughter at the
strange dresses of the Greeks, and especially the length of their
garments, their sleeves, and their beards; nor was the emperor
distinguished, except by the purple color, and his diadem or
tiara, with a jewel on the top, (Hody de Graecis Illustribus, p.
31.) Yet another spectator confesses that the Greek fashion was
piu grave e piu degna than the Italian. (Vespasiano in Vit.
Eugen. IV. in Muratori, tom. xxv. p. 261.)]
But as soon as festivity and form had given place to a more
serious treaty, the Greeks were dissatisfied with their journey,
with themselves, and with the pope. The artful pencil of his
emissaries had painted him in a prosperous state; at the head of
the princes and prelates of Europe, obedient at his voice, to
believe and to arm. The thin appearance of the universal synod
of Ferrara betrayed his weakness: and the Latins opened the first
session with only five archbishops, eighteen bishops, and ten
abbots, the greatest part of whom were the subjects or countrymen
of the Italian pontiff. Except the duke of Burgundy, none of the
potentates of the West condescended to appear in person, or by
their ambassadors; nor was it possible to suppress the judicial
acts of Basil against the dignity and person of Eugenius, which
were finally concluded by a new election. Under these
circumstances, a truce or delay was asked and granted, till
Palaeologus could expect from the consent of the Latins some
temporal reward for an unpopular union; and after the first
session, the public proceedings were adjourned above six months.
The emperor, with a chosen band of his favorites and Janizaries,
fixed his summer residence at a pleasant, spacious monastery, six
miles from Ferrara; forgot, in the pleasures of the chase, the
distress of the church and state; and persisted in destroying the
game, without listening to the just complaints of the marquis or
the husbandman. ^58 In the mean while, his unfortunate Greeks
were exposed to all the miseries of exile and poverty; for the
support of each stranger, a monthly allowance was assigned of
three or four gold florins; and although the entire sum did not
amount to seven hundred florins, a long arrear was repeatedly
incurred by the indigence or policy of the Roman court. ^59 They
sighed for a speedy deliverance, but their escape was prevented
by a triple chain: a passport from their superiors was required
at the gates of Ferrara; the government of Venice had engaged to
arrest and send back the fugitives; and inevitable punishment
awaited them at Constantinople; excommunication, fines, and a
sentence, which did not respect the sacerdotal dignity, that they
should be stripped naked and publicly whipped. ^60 It was only by
the alternative of hunger or dispute that the Greeks could be
persuaded to open the first conference; and they yielded with
extreme reluctance to attend from Ferrara to Florence the rear of
a flying synod. This new translation was urged by inevitable
necessity: the city was visited by the plague; the fidelity of
the marquis might be suspected; the mercenary troops of the duke
of Milan were at the gates; and as they occupied Romagna, it was
not without difficulty and danger that the pope, the emperor, and
the bishops, explored their way through the unfrequented paths of
the Apennine. ^61
[Footnote 58: For the emperor's hunting, see Syropulus, (p. 143,
144, 191.) The pope had sent him eleven miserable hacks; but he
bought a strong and swift horse that came from Russia. The name
of Janizaries may surprise; but the name, rather than the
institution, had passed from the Ottoman, to the Byzantine,
court, and is often used in the last age of the empire.]
[Footnote 59: The Greeks obtained, with much difficulty, that
instead of provisions, money should be distributed, four florins
per month to the persons of honorable rank, and three florins to
their servants, with an addition of thirty more to the emperor,
twenty-five to the patriarch, and twenty to the prince, or
despot, Demetrius. The payment of the first month amounted to
691 florins, a sum which will not allow us to reckon above 200
Greeks of every condition. (Syropulus, p. 104, 105.) On the 20th
October, 1438, there was an arrear of four months; in April,
1439, of three; and of five and a half in July, at the time of
the union, (p. 172, 225, 271.)]
[Footnote 60: Syropulus (p. 141, 142, 204, 221) deplores the
imprisonment of the Greeks, and the tyranny of the emperor and
patriarch.]
[Footnote 61: The wars of Italy are most clearly represented in
the xiiith vol. of the Annals of Muratori. The schismatic Greek,
Syropulus, (p. 145,) appears to have exaggerated the fear and
disorder of the pope in his his retreat from Ferrara to Florence,
which is proved by the acts to have been somewhat more decent and
deliberate.]
Yet all these obstacles were surmounted by time and policy.
The violence of the fathers of Basil rather promoted than injured
the cause of Eugenius; the nations of Europe abhorred the schism,
and disowned the election, of Felix the Fifth, who was
successively a duke of Savoy, a hermit, and a pope; and the great
princes were gradually reclaimed by his competitor to a favorable
neutrality and a firm attachment. The legates, with some
respectable members, deserted to the Roman army, which insensibly
rose in numbers and reputation; the council of Basil was reduced
to thirty-nine bishops, and three hundred of the inferior clergy;
^62 while the Latins of Florence could produce the subscriptions
of the pope himself, eight cardinals, two patriarchs, eight
archbishops, fifty two bishops, and forty- five abbots, or chiefs
of religious orders. After the labor of nine months, and the
debates of twenty-five sessions, they attained the advantage and
glory of the reunion of the Greeks. Four principal questions had
been agitated between the two churches; 1. The use of unleaven
bread in the communion of Christ's body. 2. The nature of
purgatory. 3. The supremacy of the pope. And, 4. The single or
double procession of the Holy Ghost. The cause of either nation
was managed by ten theological champions: the Latins were
supported by the inexhaustible eloquence of Cardinal Julian; and
Mark of Ephesus and Bessarion of Nice were the bold and able
leaders of the Greek forces. We may bestow some praise on the
progress of human reason, by observing that the first of these
questions was now treated as an immaterial rite, which might
innocently vary with the fashion of the age and country. With
regard to the second, both parties were agreed in the belief of
an intermediate state of purgation for the venial sins of the
faithful; and whether their souls were purified by elemental fire
was a doubtful point, which in a few years might be conveniently
settled on the spot by the disputants. The claims of supremacy
appeared of a more weighty and substantial kind; yet by the
Orientals the Roman bishop had ever been respected as the first
of the five patriarchs; nor did they scruple to admit, that his
jurisdiction should be exercised agreeably to the holy canons; a
vague allowance, which might be defined or eluded by occasional
convenience. The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father
alone, or from the Father and the Son, was an article of faith
which had sunk much deeper into the minds of men; and in the
sessions of Ferrara and Florence, the Latin addition of filioque
was subdivided into two questions, whether it were legal, and
whether it were orthodox. Perhaps it may not be necessary to
boast on this subject of my own impartial indifference; but I
must think that the Greeks were strongly supported by the
prohibition of the council of Chalcedon, against adding any
article whatsoever to the creed of Nice, or rather of
Constantinople. ^63 In earthly affairs, it is not easy to
conceive how an assembly equal of legislators can bind their
successors invested with powers equal to their own. But the
dictates of inspiration must be true and unchangeable; nor should
a private bishop, or a provincial synod, have presumed to
innovate against the judgment of the Catholic church. On the
substance of the doctrine, the controversy was equal and endless:
reason is confounded by the procession of a deity: the gospel,
which lay on the altar, was silent; the various texts of the
fathers might be corrupted by fraud or entangled by sophistry;
and the Greeks were ignorant of the characters and writings of
the Latin saints. ^64 Of this at least we may be sure, that
neither side could be convinced by the arguments of their
opponents. Prejudice may be enlightened by reason, and a
superficial glance may be rectified by a clear and more perfect
view of an object adapted to our faculties. But the bishops and
monks had been taught from their infancy to repeat a form of
mysterious words: their national and personal honor depended on
the repetition of the same sounds; and their narrow minds were
hardened and inflamed by the acrimony of a public dispute.
[Footnote 62: Syropulus is pleased to reckon seven hundred
prelates in the council of Basil. The error is manifest, and
perhaps voluntary. That extravagant number could not be supplied
by all the ecclesiastics of every degree who were present at the
council, nor by all the absent bishops of the West, who,
expressly or tacitly, might adhere to its decrees.]
[Footnote 63: The Greeks, who disliked the union, were unwilling
to sally from this strong fortress, (p. 178, 193, 195, 202, of
Syropulus.) The shame of the Latins was aggravated by their
producing an old MS. of the second council of Nice, with filioque
in the Nicene creed. A palpable forgery! (p. 173.)]
[Footnote 64: (Syropulus, p. 109.) See the perplexity of the
Greeks, (p. 217, 218, 252, 253, 273.)]
While they were most in a cloud of dust and darkness, the
Pope and emperor were desirous of a seeming union, which could
alone accomplish the purposes of their interview; and the
obstinacy of public dispute was softened by the arts of private
and personal negotiation. The patriarch Joseph had sunk under
the weight of age and infirmities; his dying voice breathed the
counsels of charity and concord, and his vacant benefice might
tempt the hopes of the ambitious clergy. The ready and active
obedience of the archbishops of Russia and Nice, of Isidore and
Bessarion, was prompted and recompensed by their speedy promotion
to the dignity of cardinals. Bessarion, in the first debates, had
stood forth the most strenuous and eloquent champion of the Greek
church; and if the apostate, the bastard, was reprobated by his
country, ^65 he appears in ecclesiastical story a rare example of
a patriot who was recommended to court favor by loud opposition
and well-timed compliance. With the aid of his two spiritual
coadjutors, the emperor applied his arguments to the general
situation and personal characters of the bishops, and each was
successively moved by authority and example. Their revenues were
in the hands of the Turks, their persons in those of the Latins:
an episcopal treasure, three robes and forty ducats, was soon
exhausted: ^66 the hopes of their return still depended on the
ships of Venice and the alms of Rome; and such was their
indigence, that their arrears, the payment of a debt, would be
accepted as a favor, and might operate as a bribe. ^67 The danger
and relief of Constantinople might excuse some prudent and pious
dissimulation; and it was insinuated, that the obstinate heretics
who should resist the consent of the East and West would be
abandoned in a hostile land to the revenge or justice of the
Roman pontiff. ^68 In the first private assembly of the Greeks,
the formulary of union was approved by twenty-four, and rejected
by twelve, members; but the five cross-bearers of St. Sophia, who
aspired to represent the patriarch, were disqualified by ancient
discipline; and their right of voting was transferred to the
obsequious train of monks, grammarians, and profane laymen. The
will of the monarch produced a false and servile unanimity, and
no more than two patriots had courage to speak their own
sentiments and those of their country. Demetrius, the emperor's
brother, retired to Venice, that he might not be witness of the
union; and Mark of Ephesus, mistaking perhaps his pride for his
conscience, disclaimed all communion with the Latin heretics, and
avowed himself the champion and confessor of the orthodox creed.
^69 In the treaty between the two nations, several forms of
consent were proposed, such as might satisfy the Latins, without
dishonoring the Greeks; and they weighed the scruples of words
and syllables, till the theological balance trembled with a
slight preponderance in favor of the Vatican. It was agreed (I
must entreat the attention of the reader) that the Holy Ghost
proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from one principle and
one substance; that he proceeds by the Son, being of the same
nature and substance, and that he proceeds from the Father and
the Son, by one spiration and production. It is less difficult
to understand the articles of the preliminary treaty; that the
pope should defray all the expenses of the Greeks in their return
home; that he should annually maintain two galleys and three
hundred soldiers for the defence of Constantinople: that all the
ships which transported pilgrims to Jerusalem should be obliged
to touch at that port; that as often as they were required, the
pope should furnish ten galleys for a year, or twenty for six
months; and that he should powerfully solicit the princes of
Europe, if the emperor had occasion for land forces.
[Footnote 65: See the polite altercation of Marc and Bessarion in
Syropulus, (p. 257,) who never dissembles the vices of his own
party, and fairly praises the virtues of the Latins.]
[Footnote 66: For the poverty of the Greek bishops, see a
remarkable passage of Ducas, (c. 31.) One had possessed, for his
whole property, three old gowns, &c. By teaching one-and-twenty
years in his monastery, Bessarion himself had collected forty
gold florins; but of these, the archbishop had expended
twenty-eight in his voyage from Peloponnesus, and the remainder
at Constantinople, (Syropulus, p. 127.)]
[Footnote 67: Syropulus denies that the Greeks received any money
before they had subscribed the art of union, (p. 283:) yet he
relates some suspicious circumstances; and their bribery and
corruption are positively affirmed by the historian Ducas.]
[Footnote 68: The Greeks most piteously express their own fears
of exile and perpetual slavery, (Syropul. p. 196;) and they were
strongly moved by the emperor's threats, (p. 260.)]
[Footnote 69: I had forgot another popular and orthodox
protester: a favorite bound, who usually lay quiet on the
foot-cloth of the emperor's throne but who barked most furiously
while the act of union was reading without being silenced by the
soothing or the lashes of the royal attendants, (Syropul. p. 265,
266.)]
The same year, and almost the same day, were marked by the
deposition of Eugenius at Basil; and, at Florence, by his reunion
of the Greeks and Latins. In the former synod, (which he styled
indeed an assembly of daemons,) the pope was branded with the
guilt of simony, perjury, tyranny, heresy, and schism; ^70 and
declared to be incorrigible in his vices, unworthy of any title,
and incapable of holding any ecclesiastical office. In the
latter, he was revered as the true and holy vicar of Christ, who,
after a separation of six hundred years, had reconciled the
Catholics of the East and West in one fold, and under one
shepherd. The act of union was subscribed by the pope, the
emperor, and the principal members of both churches; even by
those who, like Syropulus, ^71 had been deprived of the right of
voting. Two copies might have sufficed for the East and West;
but Eugenius was not satisfied, unless four authentic and similar
transcripts were signed and attested as the monuments of his
victory. ^72 On a memorable day, the sixth of July, the
successors of St. Peter and Constantine ascended their thrones
the two nations assembled in the cathedral of Florence; their
representatives, Cardinal Julian and Bessarion archbishop of
Nice, appeared in the pulpit, and, after reading in their
respective tongues the act of union, they mutually embraced, in
the name and the presence of their applauding brethren. The pope
and his ministers then officiated according to the Roman liturgy;
the creed was chanted with the addition of filioque; the
acquiescence of the Greeks was poorly excused by their ignorance
of the harmonious, but inarticulate sounds; ^73 and the more
scrupulous Latins refused any public celebration of the Byzantine
rite. Yet the emperor and his clergy were not totally unmindful
of national honor. The treaty was ratified by their consent: it
was tacitly agreed that no innovation should be attempted in
their creed or ceremonies: they spared, and secretly respected,
the generous firmness of Mark of Ephesus; and, on the decease of
the patriarch, they refused to elect his successor, except in the
cathedral of St. Sophia. In the distribution of public and
private rewards, the liberal pontiff exceeded their hopes and his
promises: the Greeks, with less pomp and pride, returned by the
same road of Ferrara and Venice; and their reception at
Constantinople was such as will be described in the following
chapter. ^74 The success of the first trial encouraged Eugenius
to repeat the same edifying scenes; and the deputies of the
Armenians, the Maronites, the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the
Nestorians and the Aethiopians, were successively introduced, to
kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff, and to announce the obedience
and the orthodoxy of the East. These Oriental embassies, unknown
in the countries which they presumed to represent, ^75 diffused
over the West the fame of Eugenius; and a clamor was artfully
propagated against the remnant of a schism in Switzerland and
Savoy, which alone impeded the harmony of the Christian world.
The vigor of opposition was succeeded by the lassitude of
despair: the council of Basil was silently dissolved; and Felix,
renouncing the tiara, again withdrew to the devout or delicious
hermitage of Ripaille. ^76 A general peace was secured by mutual
acts of oblivion and indemnity: all ideas of reformation
subsided; the popes continued to exercise and abuse their
ecclesiastical despotism; nor has Rome been since disturbed by
the mischiefs of a contested election. ^77
[Footnote 70: From the original Lives of the Popes, in Muratori's
Collection, (tom. iii. p. ii. tom. xxv.,) the manners of Eugenius
IV. appear to have been decent, and even exemplary. His
situation, exposed to the world and to his enemies, was a
restraint, and is a pledge.]
[Footnote 71: Syropulus, rather than subscribe, would have
assisted, as the least evil, at the ceremony of the union. He
was compelled to do both; and the great ecclesiarch poorly
excuses his submission to the emperor, (p. 290 - 292.)]
[Footnote 72: None of these original acts of union can at present
be produced. Of the ten MSS. that are preserved, (five at Rome,
and the remainder at Florence, Bologna, Venice, Paris, and
London,) nine have been examined by an accurate critic, (M. de
Brequigny,) who condemns them for the variety and imperfections
of the Greek signatures. Yet several of these may be esteemed as
authentic copies, which were subscribed at Florence, before (26th
of August, 1439) the final separation of the pope and emperor,
(Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xliii. p. 287 -
311.)]
[Footnote 73: (Syropul. p. 297.)]
[Footnote 74: In their return, the Greeks conversed at Bologna
with the ambassadors of England: and after some questions and
answers, these impartial strangers laughed at the pretended union
of Florence, (Syropul. p. 307.)]
[Footnote 75: So nugatory, or rather so fabulous, are these
reunions of the Nestorians, Jacobites, &c., that I have turned
over, without success, the Bibliotheca Orientalis of Assemannus,
a faithful slave of the Vatican.]
[Footnote 76: Ripaille is situate near Thonon in Savoy, on the
southern side of the Lake of Geneva. It is now a Carthusian
abbey; and Mr. Addison (Travels into Italy, vol. ii. p. 147, 148,
of Baskerville's edition of his works) has celebrated the place
and the founder. Aeneas Sylvius, and the fathers of Basil,
applaud the austere life of the ducal hermit; but the French and
Italian proverbs most unluckily attest the popular opinion of his
luxury.]
[Footnote 77: In this account of the councils of Basil, Ferrara,
and Florence, I have consulted the original acts, which fill the
xviith and xviiith tome of the edition of Venice, and are closed
by the perspicuous, though partial, history of Augustin
Patricius, an Italian of the xvth century. They are digested and
abridged by Dupin, (Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. xii.,) and the
continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii.;) and the respect of the
Gallican church for the adverse parties confines their members to
an awkward moderation.]
The journeys of three emperors were unavailing for their
temporal, or perhaps their spiritual, salvation; but they were
productive of a beneficial consequence - the revival of the Greek
learning in Italy, from whence it was propagated to the last
nations of the West and North. In their lowest servitude and
depression, the subjects of the Byzantine throne were still
possessed of a golden key that could unlock the treasures of
antiquity; of a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul
to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of
philosophy. Since the barriers of the monarchy, and even of the
capital, had been trampled under foot, the various Barbarians had
doubtless corrupted the form and substance of the national
dialect; and ample glossaries have been composed, to interpret a
multitude of words, of Arabic, Turkish, Sclavonian, Latin, or
French origin. ^78 But a purer idiom was spoken in the court and
taught in the college; and the flourishing state of the language
is described, and perhaps embellished, by a learned Italian, ^79
who, by a long residence and noble marriage, ^80 was naturalized
at Constantinople about thirty years before the Turkish conquest.
"The vulgar speech," says Philelphus, ^81 "has been depraved by
the people, and infected by the multitude of strangers and
merchants, who every day flock to the city and mingle with the
inhabitants. It is from the disciples of such a school that the
Latin language received the versions of Aristotle and Plato; so
obscure in sense, and in spirit so poor. But the Greeks who have
escaped the contagion, are those whom we follow; and they alone
are worthy of our imitation. In familiar discourse, they still
speak the tongue of Aristophanes and Euripides, of the historians
and philosophers of Athens; and the style of their writings is
still more elaborate and correct. The persons who, by their
birth and offices, are attached to the Byzantine court, are those
who maintain, with the least alloy, the ancient standard of
elegance and purity; and the native graces of language most
conspicuously shine among the noble matrons, who are excluded
from all intercourse with foreigners. With foreigners do I say?
They live retired and sequestered from the eyes of their
fellow-citizens. Seldom are they seen in the streets; and when
they leave their houses, it is in the dusk of evening, on visits
to the churches and their nearest kindred. On these occasions,
they are on horseback, covered with a veil, and encompassed by
their parents, their husbands, or their servants." ^82
[Footnote 78: In the first attempt, Meursius collected 3600
Graeco-barbarous words, to which, in a second edition, he
subjoined 1800 more; yet what plenteous gleanings did he leave to
Portius, Ducange, Fabrotti, the Bollandists, &c.! (Fabric.
Bibliot. Graec. tom. x. p. 101, &c.) Some Persic words may be
found in Xenophon, and some Latin ones in Plutarch; and such is
the inevitable effect of war and commerce; but the form and
substance of the language were not affected by this slight
alloy.]
[Footnote 79: The life of Francis Philelphus, a sophist, proud,
restless, and rapacious, has been diligently composed by Lancelot
(Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 691 - 751)
(Istoria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. p. 282 - 294,) for
the most part from his own letters. His elaborate writings, and
those of his contemporaries, are forgotten; but their familiar
epistles still describe the men and the times.]
[Footnote 80: He married, and had perhaps debauched, the daughter
of John, and the granddaughter of Manuel Chrysoloras. She was
young, beautiful, and wealthy; and her noble family was allied to
the Dorias of Genoa and the emperors of Constantinople.]
[Footnote 81: Graeci quibus lingua depravata non sit . . . . ita
loquuntur vulgo hac etiam tempestate ut Aristophanes comicus, aut
Euripides tragicus, ut oratores omnes, ut historiographi, ut
philosophi . . . . litterati autem homines et doctius et
emendatius . . . . Nam viri aulici veterem sermonis dignitatem
atque elegantiam retinebant in primisque ipsae nobiles mulieres;
quibus cum nullum esset omnino cum viris peregrinis commercium,
merus ille ac purus Graecorum sermo servabatur intactus,
(Philelph. Epist. ad ann. 1451, apud Hodium, p. 188, 189.) He
observes in another passage, uxor illa mea Theodora locutione
erat admodum moderata et suavi et maxime Attica.]
[Footnote 82: Philelphus, absurdly enough, derives this Greek or
Oriental jealousy from the manners of ancient Rome.]
Among the Greeks a numerous and opulent clergy was dedicated
to the service of religion: their monks and bishops have ever
been distinguished by the gravity and austerity of their manners;
nor were they diverted, like the Latin priests, by the pursuits
and pleasures of a secular, and even military, life. After a
large deduction for the time and talent that were lost in the
devotion, the laziness, and the discord, of the church and
cloister, the more inquisitive and ambitious minds would explore
the sacred and profane erudition of their native language. The
ecclesiastics presided over the education of youth; the schools
of philosophy and eloquence were perpetuated till the fall of the
empire; and it may be affirmed, that more books and more
knowledge were included within the walls of Constantinople, than
could be dispersed over the extensive countries of the West. ^83
But an important distinction has been already noticed: the Greeks
were stationary or retrograde, while the Latins were advancing
with a rapid and progressive motion. The nations were excited by
the spirit of independence and emulation; and even the little
world of the Italian states contained more people and industry
than the decreasing circle of the Byzantine empire. In Europe,
the lower ranks of society were relieved from the yoke of feudal
servitude; and freedom is the first step to curiosity and
knowledge. The use, however rude and corrupt, of the Latin
tongue had been preserved by superstition; the universities, from
Bologna to Oxford, ^84 were peopled with thousands of scholars;
and their misguided ardor might be directed to more liberal and
manly studies. In the resurrection of science, Italy was the
first that cast away her shroud; and the eloquent Petrarch, by
his lessons and his example, may justly be applauded as the first
harbinger of day. A purer style of composition, a more generous
and rational strain of sentiment, flowed from the study and
imitation of the writers of ancient Rome; and the disciples of
Cicero and Virgil approached, with reverence and love, the
sanctuary of their Grecian masters. In the sack of
Constantinople, the French, and even the Venetians, had despised
and destroyed the works of Lysippus and Homer: the monuments of
art may be annihilated by a single blow; but the immortal mind is
renewed and multiplied by the copies of the pen; and such copies
it was the ambition of Petrarch and his friends to possess and
understand. The arms of the Turks undoubtedly pressed the flight
of the Muses; yet we may tremble at the thought, that Greece
might have been overwhelmed, with her schools and libraries,
before Europe had emerged from the deluge of barbarism; that the
seeds of science might have been scattered by the winds, before
the Italian soil was prepared for their cultivation.
[Footnote 83: See the state of learning in the xiiith and xivth
centuries, in the learned and judicious Mosheim, (Instit. Hist.
Eccles. p. 434 - 440, 490 - 494.)]
[Footnote 84: At the end of the xvth century, there existed in
Europe about fifty universities, and of these the foundation of
ten or twelve is prior to the year 1300. They were crowded in
proportion to their scarcity. Bologna contained 10,000 students,
chiefly of the civil law. In the year 1357 the number at Oxford
had decreased from 30,000 to 6000 scholars, (Henry's History of
Great Britain, vol. iv. p. 478.) Yet even this decrease is much
superior to the present list of the members of the university.]
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.
Part IV.
The most learned Italians of the fifteenth century have
confessed and applauded the restoration of Greek literature,
after a long oblivion of many hundred years. ^85 Yet in that
country, and beyond the Alps, some names are quoted; some
profound scholars, who in the darker ages were honorably
distinguished by their knowledge of the Greek tongue; and
national vanity has been loud in the praise of such rare examples
of erudition. Without scrutinizing the merit of individuals,
truth must observe, that their science is without a cause, and
without an effect; that it was easy for them to satisfy
themselves and their more ignorant contemporaries; and that the
idiom, which they had so marvellously acquired was transcribed in
few manuscripts, and was not taught in any university of the
West. In a corner of Italy, it faintly existed as the popular,
or at least as the ecclesiastical dialect. ^86 The first
impression of the Doric and Ionic colonies has never been
completely erased: the Calabrian churches were long attached to
the throne of Constantinople: and the monks of St. Basil pursued
their studies in Mount Athos and the schools of the East.
Calabria was the native country of Barlaam, who has already
appeared as a sectary and an ambassador; and Barlaam was the
first who revived, beyond the Alps, the memory, or at least the
writings, of Homer. ^87 He is described, by Petrarch and Boccace,
^88 as a man of diminutive stature, though truly great in the
measure of learning and genius; of a piercing discernment, though
of a slow and painful elocution. For many ages (as they affirm)
Greece had not produced his equal in the knowledge of history,
grammar, and philosophy; and his merit was celebrated in the
attestations of the princes and doctors of Constantinople. One
of these attestations is still extant; and the emperor
Cantacuzene, the protector of his adversaries, is forced to
allow, that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato, were familiar to that
profound and subtle logician. ^89 In the court of Avignon, he
formed an intimate connection with Petrarch, ^90 the first of the
Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was the
principle of their literary commerce. The Tuscan applied himself
with eager curiosity and assiduous diligence to the study of the
Greek language; and in a laborious struggle with the dryness and
difficulty of the first rudiments, he began to reach the sense,
and to feel the spirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds
were congenial to his own. But he was soon deprived of the
society and lessons of this useful assistant: Barlaam
relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on his return to Greece,
he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, by attempting to
substitute the light of reason to that of their navel. After a
separation of three years, the two friends again met in the court
of Naples: but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasion
of improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally
settled in a small bishopric of his native Calabria. ^91 The
manifold avocations of Petrarch, love and friendship, his various
correspondence and frequent journeys, the Roman laurel, and his
elaborate compositions in prose and verse, in Latin and Italian,
diverted him from a foreign idiom; and as he advanced in life,
the attainment of the Greek language was the object of his wishes
rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of age,
a Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a master of both tongues,
presented him with a copy of Homer; and the answer of Petrarch is
at one expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After
celebrating the generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift
more precious in his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus
proceeds: "Your present of the genuine and original text of the
divine poet, the fountain of all inventions, is worthy of
yourself and of me: you have fulfilled your promise, and
satisfied my desires. Yet your liberality is still imperfect:
with Homer you should have given me yourself; a guide, who could
lead me into the fields of light, and disclose to my wondering
eyes the spacious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas!
Homer is dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the
beauty which I possess. I have seated him by the side of Plato,
the prince of poets near the prince of philosophers; and I glory
in the sight of my illustrious guests. Of their immortal
writings, whatever had been translated into the Latin idiom, I
had already acquired; but, if there be no profit, there is some
pleasure, in beholding these venerable Greeks in their proper and
national habit. I am delighted with the aspect of Homer; and as
often as I embrace the silent volume, I exclaim with a sigh,
Illustrious bard! with what pleasure should I listen to thy song,
if my sense of hearing were not obstructed and lost by the death
of one friend, and in the much-lamented absence of another. Nor
do I yet despair; and the example of Cato suggests some comfort
and hope, since it was in the last period of age that he attained
the knowledge of the Greek letters." ^92
[Footnote 85: Of those writers who professedly treat of the
restoration of the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are
Hodius, Dr. Humphrey Hody, (de Graecis Illustribus, Linguae
Graecae Literarumque humaniorum Instauratoribus; Londini, 1742,
in large octavo,) and Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura
Italiana, tom. v. p. 364 - 377, tom. vii. p. 112 - 143.) The
Oxford professor is a laborious scholar, but the librarian of
Modema enjoys the superiority of a modern and national
historian.]
[Footnote 86: In Calabria quae olim magna Graecia dicebatur,
coloniis Graecis repleta, remansit quaedam linguae veteris,
cognitio, (Hodius, p. 2.) If it were eradicated by the Romans, it
was revived and perpetuated by the monks of St. Basil, who
possessed seven convents at Rossano alone, (Giannone, Istoria di
Napoli, tom. i. p. 520.)]
[Footnote 87: Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans)
vix, non dicam libros sed nomen Homeri audiverunt. Perhaps, in
that respect, the xiiith century was less happy than the age of
Charlemagne.]
[Footnote 88: See the character of Barlaam, in Boccace de
Genealog. Deorum, l. xv. c. 6.]
[Footnote 89: Cantacuzen. l. ii. c. 36.]
[Footnote 90: For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the
two interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the
excellent Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 406 - 410,
tom. ii. p. 74 - 77.]
[Footnote 91: The bishopric to which Barlaam retired, was the old
Locri, in the middle ages. Scta. Cyriaca, and by corruption
Hieracium, Gerace, (Dissert. Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi, p.
312.) The dives opum of the Norman times soon lapsed into
poverty, since even the church was poor: yet the town still
contains 3000 inhabitants, (Swinburne, p. 340.)]
[Footnote 92: I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of
Petrarch, (Famil. ix. 2;) Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem
Alienum sermonen violento alveo derivatum, sed ex ipsis Graeci
eloquii scatebris, et qualis divino illi profluxit ingenio . . .
. Sine tua voce Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immo vero ego apud
illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel adspectu solo, ac saepe illum
amplexus atque suspirans dico, O magne vir, &c.]
The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was obtained
by the fortune and industry of his friend Boccace, the father of
the Tuscan prose. That popular writer, who derives his reputation
from the Decameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may
aspire to the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study
of the Greek language. In the year one thousand three hundred
and sixty, a disciple of Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius
Pilatus, was detained in his way to Avignon by the advice and
hospitality of Boccace, who lodged the stranger in his house,
prevailed on the republic of Florence to allow him an annual
stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greek professor,
who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe. The
appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager disciple, he was
clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or a mendicant; his
countenance was hideous; his face was overshadowed with black
hair; his beard long an uncombed; his deportment rustic; his
temper gloomy and inconstant; nor could he grace his discourse
with the ornaments, or even the perspicuity, of Latin elocution.
But his mind was stored with a treasure of Greek learning:
history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were alike at his
command; and he read the poems of Homer in the schools of
Florence. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed ^*
and transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey,
which satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which,
perhaps, in the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by
Laurentius Valla, the Latin interpreter. It was from his
narratives that the same Boccace collected the materials for his
treatise on the genealogy of the heathen gods, a work, in that
age, of stupendous erudition, and which he ostentatiously
sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite the
wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers. ^94 The first
steps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten
votaries of Homer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither
Rome, nor Venice, nor Naples, could add a single name to this
studious catalogue. But their numbers would have multiplied,
their progress would have been accelerated, if the inconstant
Leo, at the end of three years, had not relinquished an honorable
and beneficial station. In his passage, Petrarch entertained him
at Padua a short time: he enjoyed the scholar, but was justly
offended with the gloomy and unsocial temper of the man.
Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated his
present enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear to
his imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a
native of Calabria: in the company of the Latins he disdained
their language, religion, and manners: no sooner was he landed at
Constantinople, than he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and
the elegance of Florence. His Italian friends were deaf to his
importunity: he depended on their curiosity and indulgence, and
embarked on a second voyage; but on his entrance into the
Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the unfortunate
teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast, was
struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped
a tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether
some copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the
hands of the mariners. ^95
[Footnote 93: For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born
in 1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. Medii Aevi,
tom. i. p. 248, &c.) and Tiraboschi (tom. v. p. 83, 439 - 451)
may be consulted. The editions, versions, imitations of his
novels, are innumerable. Yet he was ashamed to communicate that
trifling, and perhaps scandalous, work to Petrarch, his
respectable friend, in whose letters and memoirs he conspicuously
appears.]
[Footnote *: This translation of Homer was by Pilatus, not by
Boccacio. See Halleza, Hist. of Lit. vol. i. p. 132. - M.]
[Footnote 94: Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis
causa Graeca carmina adscripsi . . . . jure utor meo; meum est
hoc decus, mea gloria scilicet inter Etruscos Graecis uti
carminibus. Nonne ego fui qui Leontium Pilatum, &c., (de
Genealogia Deorum, l. xv. c. 7, a work which, though now
forgotten, has run through thirteen or fourteen editions.)]
[Footnote 95: Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made
known by Hody, (p. 2 - 11,) and the abbe de Sade, (Vie de
Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 625 - 634, 670 - 673,) who has very
happily caught the lively and dramatic manner of his original.]
But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Petrarch
had encouraged and Boccace had planted, soon withered and
expired. The succeeding generation was content for a while with
the improvement of Latin eloquence; nor was it before the end of
the fourteenth century that a new and perpetual flame was
rekindled in Italy. ^96 Previous to his own journey the emperor
Manuel despatched his envoys and orators to implore the
compassion of the Western princes. Of these envoys, the most
conspicuous, or the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras, ^97 of
noble birth, and whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have
migrated with the great Constantine. After visiting the courts
of France and England, where he obtained some contributions and
more promises, the envoy was invited to assume the office of a
professor; and Florence had again the honor of this second
invitation. By his knowledge, not only of the Greek, but of the
Latin tongue, Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, and surpassed the
expectation, of the republic. His school was frequented by a
crowd of disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in a
general history, has described his motives and his success. "At
that time," says Leonard Aretin, ^98 "I was a student of the
civil law; but my soul was inflamed with the love of letters; and
I bestowed some application on the sciences of logic and
rhetoric. On the arrival of Manuel, I hesitated whether I should
desert my legal studies, or relinquish this golden opportunity;
and thus, in the ardor of youth, I communed with my own mind -
Wilt thou be wanting to thyself and thy fortune? Wilt thou
refuse to be introduced to a familiar converse with Homer, Plato,
and Demosthenes; with those poets, philosophers, and orators, of
whom such wonders are related, and who are celebrated by every
age as the great masters of human science? Of professors and
scholars in civil law, a sufficient supply will always be found
in our universities; but a teacher, and such a teacher, of the
Greek language, if he once be suffered to escape, may never
afterwards be retrieved. Convinced by these reasons, I gave
myself to Chrysoloras; and so strong was my passion, that the
lessons which I had imbibed in the day were the constant object
of my nightly dreams." ^99 At the same time and place, the Latin
classics were explained by John of Ravenna, the domestic pupil of
Petrarch; ^100 the Italians, who illustrated their age and
country, were formed in this double school; and Florence became
the fruitful seminary of Greek and Roman erudition. ^101 The
presence of the emperor recalled Chrysoloras from the college to
the court; but he afterwards taught at Pavia and Rome with equal
industry and applause. The remainder of his life, about fifteen
years, was divided between Italy and Constantinople, between
embassies and lessons. In the noble office of enlightening a
foreign nation, the grammarian was not unmindful of a more sacred
duty to his prince and country; and Emanuel Chrysoloras died at
Constance on a public mission from the emperor to the council.
[Footnote 96: Dr. Hody (p. 54) is angry with Leonard Aretin,
Guarinus, Paulus Jovius, &c., for affirming, that the Greek
letters were restored in Italy post septingentos annos; as if,
says he, they had flourished till the end of the viith century.
These writers most probably reckoned from the last period of the
exarchate; and the presence of the Greek magistrates and troops
at Ravenna and Rome must have preserved, in some degree, the use
of their native tongue.]
[Footnote 97: See the article of Emanuel, or Manuel Chrysoloras,
in Hody (p 12 - 54) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vii. p. 113 - 118.) The
precise date of his arrival floats between the years 1390 and
1400, and is only confined by the reign of Boniface IX.]
[Footnote 98: The name of Aretinus has been assumed by five or
six natives of Arezzo in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and the
most worthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus
Aretinus, the disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator,
and an historian, the secretary of four successive popes, and the
chancellor of the republic of Florence, where he died A.D. 1444,
at the age of seventy-five, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii Aevi, tom. i.
p. 190 &c. Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33 - 38)]
[Footnote 99: See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo
Tempore in Italia gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28 - 30.]
[Footnote 100: In this domestic discipline, Petrarch, who loved
the youth, often complains of the eager curiosity, restless
temper, and proud feelings, which announce the genius and glory
of a riper age, (Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 700 -
709.)]
[Footnote 101: Hinc Graecae Latinaeque scholae exortae sunt,
Guarino Philelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque
aliis tanquam ex equo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione
multa ingenia deinceps ad laudem excitata sunt, (Platina in
Bonifacio IX.) Another Italian writer adds the names of Paulus
Petrus Vergerius, Omnibonus Vincentius, Poggius, Franciscus
Barbarus, &c. But I question whether a rigid chronology would
allow Chrysoloras all these eminent scholars, (Hodius, p. 25 -
27, &c.)]
After his example, the restoration of the Greek letters in
Italy was prosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were destitute
of fortune, and endowed with learning, or at least with language.
From the terror or oppression of the Turkish arms, the natives of
Thessalonica and Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom,
curiosity, and wealth. The synod introduced into Florence the
lights of the Greek church, and the oracles of the Platonic
philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the union, had the
double merit of renouncing their country, not only for the
Christian, but for the catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrifices
his party and conscience to the allurements of favor, may be
possessed, however, of the private and social virtues: he no
longer hears the reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and
the consideration which he acquires among his new associates will
restore in his own eyes the dignity of his character. The
prudent conformity of Bessarion was rewarded with the Roman
purple: he fixed his residence in Italy; and the Greek cardinal,
the titular patriarch of Constantinople, was respected as the
chief and protector of his nation: ^102 his abilities were
exercised in the legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and
France; and his election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a
moment on the uncertain breath of a conclave. ^103 His
ecclesiastical honors diffused a splendor and preeminence over
his literary merit and service: his palace was a school; as often
as the cardinal visited the Vatican, he was attended by a learned
train of both nations; ^104 of men applauded by themselves and
the public; and whose writings, now overspread with dust, were
popular and useful in their own times. I shall not attempt to
enumerate the restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth
century; and it may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the
names of Theodore Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John
Argyropulus, and Demetrius Chalcocondyles, who taught their
native language in the schools of Florence and Rome. Their
labors were not inferior to those of Bessarion, whose purple they
revered, and whose fortune was the secret object of their envy.
But the lives of these grammarians were humble and obscure: they
had declined the lucrative paths of the church; their dress and
manners secluded them from the commerce of the world; and since
they were confined to the merit, they might be content with the
rewards, of learning. From this character, Janus Lascaris ^105
will deserve an exception. His eloquence, politeness, and
Imperial descent, recommended him to the French monarch; and in
the same cities he was alternately employed to teach and to
negotiate. Duty and interest prompted them to cultivate the
study of the Latin language; and the most successful attained the
faculty of writing and speaking with fluency and elegance in a
foreign idiom. But they ever retained the inveterate vanity of
their country: their praise, or at least their esteem, was
reserved for the national writers, to whom they owed their fame
and subsistence; and they sometimes betrayed their contempt in
licentious criticism or satire on Virgil's poetry, and the
oratory of Tully. ^106 The superiority of these masters arose
from the familiar use of a living language; and their first
disciples were incapable of discerning how far they had
degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice of their
ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, ^107 which they introduced,
was banished from the schools by the reason of the succeeding
age. Of the power of the Greek accents they were ignorant; and
those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue, and to an Attic
ear, must have been the secret soul of harmony, were to their
eyes, as to our own, no more than minute and unmeaning marks, in
prose superfluous and troublesome in verse. The art of grammar
they truly possessed; the valuable fragments of Apollonius and
Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and their treatises
of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit, are
still useful to the Greek student. In the shipwreck of the
Byzantine libraries, each fugitive seized a fragment of treasure,
a copy of some author, who without his industry might have
perished: the transcripts were multiplied by an assiduous, and
sometimes an elegant pen; and the text was corrected and
explained by their own comments, or those of the elder
scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek
classics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of
style evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza
selected the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and
their natural histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund
of genuine and experimental science.
[Footnote 102: See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p. 136 -
177.) Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, aud the rest of the
Greeks whom I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper
chapters of his learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the
1st and 2d parts of the vith tome.]
[Footnote 103: The cardinals knocked at his door, but his
conclavist refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion:
"Nicholas," said he, "thy respect has cost thee a hat, and me the
tiara."
Note: Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. i. p. 75)
considers that Hody has refuted this "idle tale." - M.]
[Footnote 104: Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza,
Argyropulus, Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius,
Blondus, Nicholas Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri
(says Hody, with the pious zeal of a scholar) nullo aevo
perituri, p. 156.)]
[Footnote 105: He was born before the taking of Constantinople,
but his honorable life was stretched far into the xvith century,
(A.D. 1535.) Leo X. and Francis I. were his noblest patrons,
under whose auspices he founded the Greek colleges of Rome and
Paris, (Hody, p. 247 - 275.) He left posterity in France; but the
counts de Vintimille, and their numerous branches, derive the
name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage in the xiiith century
with the daughter of a Greek emperor (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
224 - 230.)]
[Footnote 106: Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three
against Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus,
who can find no better names than Graeculus ineptus et impudens,
(Hody, p. 274.) In our own times, an English critic has accused
the Aeneid of containing multa languida, nugatoria, spiritu et
majestate carminis heroici defecta; many such verses as he, the
said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed of owning,
(praefat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22.)]
[Footnote 107: Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are
accused of ignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c., tom. ii.
p. 235.) The modern Greeks pronounce it as a V consonant, and
confound three vowels, and several diphthongs. Such was the
vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by penal
statutes in the university of Cambridge: but the monosyllable
represented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep, and a
bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or a chancellor. The
treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, who asserted a
more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Sylloge of
Havercamp, (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740:) but it is
difficult to paint sounds by words: and in their reference to
modern use, they can be understood only by their respective
countrymen. We may observe, that our peculiar pronunciation of
the O, th, is approved by Erasmus, (tom. ii. p. 130.)]
Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with
more curiosity and ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was
revived in Italy by a venerable Greek, ^108 who taught in the
house of Cosmo of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was
involved in theological debate, some beneficial consequences
might flow from the study of his elegant philosophy: his style is
the purest standard of the Attic dialect, and his sublime
thoughts are sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and
sometimes adorned with the richest colors of poetry and
eloquence. The dialogues of Plato are a dramatic picture of the
life and death of a sage; and, as often as he descends from the
clouds, his moral system inculcates the love of truth, of our
country, and of mankind. The precept and example of Socrates
recommended a modest doubt and liberal inquiry; and if the
Platonists, with blind devotion, adored the visions and errors of
their divine master, their enthusiasm might correct the dry,
dogmatic method of the Peripatetic school. So equal, yet so
opposite, are the merits of Plato and Aristotle, that they may be
balanced in endless controversy; but some spark of freedom may be
produced by the collision of adverse servitude. The modern
Greeks were divided between the two sects: with more fury than
skill they fought under the banner of their leaders; and the
field of battle was removed in their flight from Constantinople
to Rome. But this philosophical debate soon degenerated into an
angry and personal quarrel of grammarians; and Bessarion, though
an advocate for Plato, protected the national honor, by
interposing the advice and authority of a mediator. In the
gardens of the Medici, the academical doctrine was enjoyed by the
polite and learned: but their philosophic society was quickly
dissolved; and if the writings of the Attic sage were perused in
the closet, the more powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the
oracle of the church and school. ^109
[Footnote 108: George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous
writer, the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the
times. He visited Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end
his days in Peloponnesus. See the curious Diatribe of Leo
Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius. (Bibliot. Graec. tom. x. p.
739 - 756.)]
[Footnote 109: The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is
illustrated by Boivin, (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.
ii. p. 715 - 729,) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 259 -
288.)]
I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks;
yet it must be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed
by the ardor of the Latins. Italy was divided into many
independent states; and at that time it was the ambition of
princes and republics to vie with each other in the encouragement
and reward of literature. The fame of Nicholas the Fifth ^110
has not been adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin he
raised himself by his virtue and learning: the character of the
man prevailed over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened
those weapons which were soon pointed against the Roman church.
^111 He had been the friend of the most eminent scholars of the
age: he became their patron; and such was the humility of his
manners, that the change was scarcely discernible either to them
or to himself. If he pressed the acceptance of a liberal gift,
it was not as the measure of desert, but as the proof of
benevolence; and when modest merit declined his bounty, "Accept
it," would he say, with a consciousness of his own worth: "ye
will not always have a Nicholas among you." The influence of the
holy see pervaded Christendom; and he exerted that influence in
the search, not of benefices, but of books. From the ruins of
the Byzantine libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany
and Britain, he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of
antiquity; and wherever the original could not be removed, a
faithful copy was transcribed and transmitted for his use. The
Vatican, the old repository for bulls and legends, for
superstition and forgery, was daily replenished with more
precious furniture; and such was the industry of Nicholas, that
in a reign of eight years he formed a library of five thousand
volumes. To his munificence the Latin world was indebted for the
versions of Xenophon, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus,
and Appian; of Strabo's Geography, of the Iliad, of the most
valuable works of Plato and Aristotle, of Ptolemy and
Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the Greek church. The
example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or imitated by a
Florentine merchant, who governed the republic without arms and
without a title. Cosmo of Medicis ^112 was the father of a line
of princes, whose name and age are almost synonymous with the
restoration of learning: his credit was ennobled into fame; his
riches were dedicated to the service of mankind; he corresponded
at once with Cairo and London: and a cargo of Indian spices and
Greek books was often imported in the same vessel. The genius
and education of his grandson Lorenzo rendered him not only a
patron, but a judge and candidate, in the literary race. In his
pallace, distress was entitled to relief, and merit to reward:
his leisure hours were delightfully spent in the Platonic
academy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius Chalcocondyles
and Angelo Politian; and his active missionary Janus Lascaris
returned from the East with a treasure of two hundred
manuscripts, fourscore of which were as yet unknown in the
libraries of Europe. ^113 The rest of Italy was animated by a
similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid the
liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive
property of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece
were soon capable of transmitting and improving the lessons which
they had imbibed. After a short succession of foreign teachers,
the tide of emigration subsided; but the language of
Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the natives of
France, Germany, and England, ^114 imparted to their country the
sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence and
Rome. ^115 In the productions of the mind, as in those of the
soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the
Greek authors, forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been
illustrated on those of the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or
Gaza might have envied the superior science of the Barbarians;
the accuracy of Budaeus, the taste of Erasmus, the copiousness of
Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the discernment of Reiske,
or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the discovery of
printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has been
applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate
and multiply the works of antiquity. ^116 A single manuscript
imported from Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each
copy is fairer than the original. In this form, Homer and Plato
would peruse with more satisfaction their own writings; and their
scholiasts must resign the prize to the labors of our Western
editors.
[Footnote 110: See the Life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary
authors, Janottus Manettus, (tom. iii. P. ii. p. 905 - 962,) and
Vespasian of Florence, (tom. xxv. p. 267 - 290,) in the
collection of Muratori; and consult Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i.
p. 46 - 52, 109,) and Hody in the articles of Theodore Gaza,
George of Trebizond, &c.]
[Footnote 111: Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit,
that the popes in this instance, were worse politicians than the
muftis, and that the charm which had bound mankind for so many
ages was broken by the magicians themselves, (Letters on the
Study of History, l. vi. p. 165, 166, octavo edition, 1779.)]
[Footnote 112: See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of
Medicis, in Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. l. i. c. 2,) who bestows
a due measure of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples,
the dukes of Milan, Ferrara Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice
has deserved the least from the gratitude of scholars.]
[Footnote 113: Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 104,) from the
preface of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at
Florence, 1494. Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek
orators, apud Hodium, p. 249) in Atho Thraciae monte. Eas
Larcaris . . . . in Italiam reportavit. Miserat enim ipsum
Laurentius ille Medices in Graeciam ad inquirendos simul, et
quantovis emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable enough,
that the research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.]
[Footnote 114: The Greek language was introduced into the
university of Oxford in the last years of the xvth century, by
Grocyn, Linacer, and Latimer, who had all studied at Florence
under Demetrius Chalcocondyles. See Dr. Knight's curious Life of
Erasmus. Although a stout academical patriot, he is forced to
acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at Oxford, and taught it
at Cambridge.]
[Footnote 115: The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a
monopoly of Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the
Greek scholiasts on Sophocles and Euripides, Cave, (said they,)
cave hoc facias, ne Barbari istis adjuti domi maneant, et
pauciores in Italiam ventitent, (Dr. Knight, in his Life of
Erasmus, p. 365, from Beatus Rhemanus.)]
[Footnote 116: The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was
established at Venice about the year 1494: he printed above sixty
considerable works of Greek literature, almost all for the first
time; several containing different treatises and authors, and of
several authors, two, three, or four editions, (Fabric. Bibliot.
Graec. tom. xiii. p. 605, &c.) Yet his glory must not tempt us to
forget, that the first Greek book, the Grammar of Constantine
Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and that the Florence
Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical art.
See the Annales Typographical of Mattaire, and the Bibliographie
Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.]
Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in
Europe were immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were
marked with the rudeness and poverty of their manners. The
students of the more perfect idioms of Rome and Greece were
introduced to a new world of light and science; to the society of
the free and polished nations of antiquity; and to a familiar
converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime language
of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to refine
the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet,
from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the
ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind.
However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast;
and the first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of
strangers in the midst of their age and country. The minute and
laborious diligence which explored the antiquities of remote
times might have improved or adorned the present state of
society, the critic and metaphysician were the slaves of
Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proud to
repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works of
nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and
some Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of
Homer and Plato. ^117 The Italians were oppressed by the strength
and number of their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the
deaths of Petrarch and Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin
imitators, who decently repose on our shelves; but in that aera
of learning it will not be easy to discern a real discovery of
science, a work of invention or eloquence, in the popular
language of the country. ^118 But as soon as it had been deeply
saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened into
vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics
of Athens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous
emulation; and in Italy, as afterwards in France and England, the
pleasing reign of poetry and fiction was succeeded by the light
of speculative and experimental philosophy. Genius may
anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a
people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised,
before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may
the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to
imitate, the works of his predecessors.
[Footnote 117: I will select three singular examples of this
classic enthusiasm. I. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus
Pletho said, in familiar conversation to George of Trebizond,
that in a short time mankind would unanimously renounce the
Gospel and the Koran, for a religion similar to that of the
Gentiles, (Leo Allatius, apud Fabricium, tom. x. p. 751.) 2. Paul
II. persecuted the Roman academy, which had been founded by
Pomponius Laetus; and the principal members were accused of
heresy, impiety, and paganism, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p. 81,
82.) 3. In the next century, some scholars and poets in France
celebrated the success of Jodelle's tragedy of Cleopatra, by a
festival of Bacchus, and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a
goat, (Bayle, Dictionnaire, Jodelle. Fontenelle, tom. iii. p. 56
- 61.) Yet the spirit of bigotry might often discern a serious
impiety in the sportive play of fancy and learning.]
[Footnote 118: The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we
cannot place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore
of Pulo and the Orlando Innamorato of Boyardo, (Tiraboschi, tom.
vi. P. ii. p. 174 - 177.)]
Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.
Part I.
Schism Of The Greeks And Latins. - Reign And Character Of
Amurath The Second. - Crusade Of Ladislaus, King Of Hungary. -
His Defeat And Death. - John Huniades. - Scanderbeg. -
Constantine Palaeologus, Last Emperor Of The East.
The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are
compared and celebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the
Italian schools. ^1 The view of the ancient capital, the seat of
his ancestors, surpassed the most sanguine expectations of
Emanuel Chrysoloras; and he no longer blamed the exclamation of
an old sophist, that Rome was the habitation, not of men, but of
gods. Those gods, and those men, had long since vanished; but to
the eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin restored the
image of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of the consuls
and Caesars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides
the curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he
confessed that in every age the arms and the religion of Rome
were destined to reign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired
the venerable beauties of the mother, he was not forgetful of his
native country, her fairest daughter, her Imperial colony; and
the Byzantine patriot expatiates with zeal and truth on the
eternal advantages of nature, and the more transitory glories of
art and dominion, which adorned, or had adorned, the city of
Constantine. Yet the perfection of the copy still redounds (as
he modestly observes) to the honor of the original, and parents
are delighted to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior
merit of their children. "Constantinople," says the orator, "is
situate on a commanding point, between Europe and Asia, between
the Archipelago and the Euxine. By her interposition, the two
seas, and the two continents, are united for the common benefit
of nations; and the gates of commerce may be shut or opened at
her command. The harbor, encompassed on all sides by the sea,
and the continent, is the most secure and capacious in the world.
The walls and gates of Constantinople may be compared with those
of Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and lofty
structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be
sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A
broad and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the
artificial island may be encompassed, like Athens, by land or
water." Two strong and natural causes are alleged for the
perfection of the model of new Rome. The royal founder reigned
over the most illustrious nations of the globe; and in the
accomplishment of his designs, the power of the Romans was
combined with the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities
have been reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties
are mingled with disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants,
unwilling to remove from their natal spot, are incapable of
correcting the errors of their ancestors, and the original vices
of situation or climate. But the free idea of Constantinople was
formed and executed by a single mind; and the primitive model was
improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects and successors of
the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored with an
inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials were
transported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; and
the public and private buildings, the palaces, churches,
aqueducts, cisterns, porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes,
were adapted to the greatness of the capital of the East. The
superfluity of wealth was spread along the shores of Europe and
Asia; and the Byzantine territory, as far as the Euxine, the
Hellespont, and the long wall, might be considered as a populous
suburb and a perpetual garden. In this flattering picture, the
past and the present, the times of prosperity and decay, are art
fully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape, from the
orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchre of
its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced
by Christian zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures
were demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt
for lime, or applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the
place was marked by an empty pedestal; of many a column, the size
was determined by a broken capital; the tombs of the emperors
were scattered on the ground; the stroke of time was accelerated
by storms and earthquakes; and the vacant space was adorned, by
vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of gold and silver.
From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, he
distinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and
colossus of Justinian, ^3 and the church, more especially the
dome, of St. Sophia; the best conclusion, since it could not be
described according to its merits, and after it no other object
could deserve to be mentioned. But he forgets that, a century
before, the trembling fabrics of the colossus and the church had
been saved and supported by the timely care of Andronicus the
Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had fortified St. Sophia
with two new buttresses or pyramids, the eastern hemisphere
suddenly gave way: and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary,
were crushed by the falling ruin. The mischief indeed was
speedily repaired; the rubbish was cleared by the incessant labor
of every rank and age; and the poor remains of riches and
industry were consecrated by the Greeks to the most stately and
venerable temple of the East. ^4
[Footnote 1: The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor
John Palaeologus will not offend the eye or ear of a classical
student, (ad calcem Codini de Antiquitatibus C. P. p. 107 - 126.)
The superscription suggests a chronological remark, that John
Palaeologus II. was associated in the empire before the year
1414, the date of Chrysoloras's death. A still earlier date, at
least 1408, is deduced from the age of his youngest sons,
Demetrius and Thomas, who were both Porphyrogeniti (Ducange, Fam.
Byzant. p. 244, 247.)]
[Footnote 2: Somebody observed that the city of Athens might be
circumnavigated. But what may be true in a rhetorical sense of
Constantinople, cannot be applied to the situation of Athens,
five miles from the sea, and not intersected or surrounded by any
navigable streams.]
[Footnote 3: Nicephorus Gregoras has described the Colossus of
Justinian, (l. vii. 12:) but his measures are false and
inconsistent. The editor Boivin consulted his friend Girardon;
and the sculptor gave him the true proportions of an equestrian
statue. That of Justinian was still visible to Peter Gyllius,
not on the column, but in the outward court of the seraglio; and
he was at Constantinople when it was melted down, and cast into a
brass cannon, (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 17.)]
[Footnote 4: See the decay and repairs of St. Sophia, in
Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 12, l. xv. 2.) The building was
propped by Andronicus in 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in
1345. The Greeks, in their pompous rhetoric, exalt the beauty
and holiness of the church, an earthly heaven the abode of
angels, and of God himself, &c.]
The last hope of the falling city and empire was placed in
the harmony of the mother and daughter, in the maternal
tenderness of Rome, and the filial obedience of Constantinople.
In the synod of Florence, the Greeks and Latins had embraced, and
subscribed, and promised; but these signs of friendship were
perfidious or fruitless; ^5 and the baseless fabric of the union
vanished like a dream. ^6 The emperor and his prelates returned
home in the Venetian galleys; but as they touched at the Morea
and the Isles of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins
complained that the pretended union would be an instrument of
oppression. No sooner did they land on the Byzantine shore, than
they were saluted, or rather assailed, with a general murmur of
zeal and discontent. During their absence, above two years, the
capital had been deprived of its civil and ecclesiastical rulers;
fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the most furious monks reigned
over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatred of the
Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion.
Before his departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the
city with the assurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succor;
and the clergy, confident in their orthodoxy and science, had
promised themselves and their flocks an easy victory over the
blind shepherds of the West. The double disappointment
exasperated the Greeks; the conscience of the subscribing
prelates was awakened; the hour of temptation was past; and they
had more to dread from the public resentment, than they could
hope from the favor of the emperor or the pope. Instead of
justifying their conduct, they deplored their weakness, professed
their contrition, and cast themselves on the mercy of God and of
their brethren. To the reproachful question, what had been the
event or the use of their Italian synod? they answered with
sighs and tears, "Alas! we have made a new faith; we have
exchanged piety for impiety; we have betrayed the immaculate
sacrifice; and we are become Azymites." (The Azymites were those
who celebrated the communion with unleavened bread; and I must
retract or qualify the praise which I have bestowed on the
growing philosophy of the times.) "Alas! we have been seduced by
distress, by fraud, and by the hopes and fears of a transitory
life. The hand that has signed the union should be cut off; and
the tongue that has pronounced the Latin creed deserves to be
torn from the root." The best proof of their repentance was an
increase of zeal for the most trivial rites and the most
incomprehensible doctrines; and an absolute separation from all,
without excepting their prince, who preserved some regard for
honor and consistency. After the decease of the patriarch
Joseph, the archbishops of Heraclea and Trebizond had courage to
refuse the vacant office; and Cardinal Bessarion preferred the
warm and comfortable shelter of the Vatican. The choice of the
emperor and his clergy was confined to Metrophanes of Cyzicus: he
was consecrated in St. Sophia, but the temple was vacant. The
cross-bearers abdicated their service; the infection spread from
the city to the villages; and Metrophanes discharged, without
effect, some ecclesiastical thunders against a nation of
schismatics. The eyes of the Greeks were directed to Mark of
Ephesus, the champion of his country; and the sufferings of the
holy confessor were repaid with a tribute of admiration and
applause. His example and writings propagated the flame of
religious discord; age and infirmity soon removed him from the
world; but the gospel of Mark was not a law of forgiveness; and
he requested with his dying breath, that none of the adherents of
Rome might attend his obsequies or pray for his soul.
[Footnote 5: The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus (p.
312 - 351) opens the schism from the first office of the Greeks
at Venice to the general opposition at Constantinople, of the
clergy and people.]
[Footnote 6: On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza, (l.
ii. c. 17,) Laonicus Chalcondyles, (l. vi. p. 155, 156,) and
Ducas, (c. 31;) the last of whom writes with truth and freedom.
Among the moderns we may distinguish the continuator of Fleury,
(tom. xxii. p. 338, &c., 401, 420, &c.,) and Spondanus, (A.D.
1440 - 50.) The sense of the latter is drowned in prejudice and
passion, as soon as Rome and religion are concerned.]
The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the
Byzantine empire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the three
patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, assembled a
numerous synod; disowned their representatives at Ferrara and
Florence; condemned the creed and council of the Latins; and
threatened the emperor of Constantinople with the censures of the
Eastern church. Of the sectaries of the Greek communion, the
Russians were the most powerful, ignorant, and superstitious.
Their primate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened from Florence to
Moscow, ^7 to reduce the independent nation under the Roman yoke.
But the Russian bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; and the
prince and people embraced the theology of their priests. They
were scandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the
legate, the friend of those impious men who shaved their beards,
and performed the divine office with gloves on their hands and
rings on their fingers: Isidore was condemned by a synod; his
person was imprisoned in a monastery; and it was with extreme
difficulty that the cardinal could escape from the hands of a
fierce and fanatic people. ^8 The Russians refused a passage to
the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convert the Pagans beyond
the Tanais; ^9 and their refusal was justified by the maxim, that
the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism. The
errors of the Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for the
pope; and a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the
friendship of those sanguinary enthusiasts. ^10 While Eugenius
triumphed in the union and orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was
contracted to the walls, or rather to the palace of
Constantinople. The zeal of Palaeologus had been excited by
interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt to violate
the national belief might endanger his life and crown; not could
the pious rebels be destitute of foreign and domestic aid. The
sword of his brother Demetrius, who in Italy had maintained a
prudent and popular silence, was half unsheathed in the cause of
religion; and Amurath, the Turkish sultan, was displeased and
alarmed by the seeming friendship of the Greeks and Latins.
[Footnote 7: Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks
subject to Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to
Lemberg, or Leopold, (Herbestein, in Ramusio, tom. ii. p. 127.)
On the other hand, the Russians transferred their spiritual
obedience to the archbishop, who became, in 1588, the patriarch,
of Moscow, (Levesque Hist. de Russie, tom. iii. p. 188, 190, from
a Greek Ms. at Turin, Iter et labores Archiepiscopi Arsenii.)]
[Footnote 8: The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist. de Russie,
tom. ii. p. 242 - 247) is extracted from the patriarchal
archives. The scenes of Ferrara and Florence are described by
ignorance and passion; but the Russians are credible in the
account of their own prejudices.]
[Footnote 9: The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the
Samanaeans and Gymnosophists, has been driven by the more popular
Bramins from India into the northern deserts: the naked
philosophers were compelled to wrap themselves in fur; but they
insensibly sunk into wizards and physicians. The Mordvans and
Tcheremisses in the European Russia adhere to this religion,
which is formed on the earthly model of one king or God, his
ministers or angels, and the rebellious spirits who oppose his
government. As these tribes of the Volga have no images, they
might more justly retort on the Latin missionaries the name of
idolaters, (Levesque, Hist. des Peuples soumis a la Domination
des Russes, tom. i. p. 194 - 237, 423 - 460.)]
[Footnote 10: Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. tom ii. A.D. 1451, No.
13. The epistle of the Greeks with a Latin version, is extant in
the college library at Prague.]
"Sultan Murad, or Amurath, lived forty-nine, and reigned
thirty years, six months, and eight days. He was a just and
valiant prince, of a great soul, patient of labors, learned,
merciful, religious, charitable; a lover and encourager of the
studious, and of all who excelled in any art or science; a good
emperor and a great general. No man obtained more or greater
victories than Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his attacks. ^*
Under his reign, the soldier was ever victorious, the citizen
rich and secure. If he subdued any country, his first care was
to build mosques and caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges.
Every year he gave a thousand pieces of gold to the sons of the
Prophet; and sent two thousand five hundred to the religious
persons of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem." ^11 This portrait is
transcribed from the historian of the Othman empire: but the
applause of a servile and superstitious people has been lavished
on the worst of tyrants; and the virtues of a sultan are often
the vices most useful to himself, or most agreeable to his
subjects. A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and
law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty
of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion,
of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness. If the most
reasonable excuse be rejected, few acts of obedience will be
found impossible; and guilt must tremble, where innocence cannot
always be secure. The tranquillity of the people, and the
discipline of the troops, were best maintained by perpetual
action in the field; war was the trade of the Janizaries; and
those who survived the peril, and divided the spoil, applauded
the generous ambition of their sovereign. To propagate the true
religion, was the duty of a faithful Mussulman: the unbelievers
were his enemies, and those of the Prophet; and, in the hands of
the Turks, the scimeter was the only instrument of conversion.
Under these circumstances, however, the justice and moderation of
Amurath are attested by his conduct, and acknowledged by the
Christians themselves; who consider a prosperous reign and a
peaceful death as the reward of his singular merits. In the
vigor of his age and military power, he seldom engaged in war
till he was justified by a previous and adequate provocation: the
victorious sultan was disarmed by submission; and in the
observance of treaties, his word was inviolate and sacred. ^12
The Hungarians were commonly the aggressors; he was provoked by
the revolt of Scanderbeg; and the perfidious Caramanian was twice
vanquished, and twice pardoned, by the Ottoman monarch. Before
he invaded the Morea, Thebes had been surprised by the despot: in
the conquest of Thessalonica, the grandson of Bajazet might
dispute the recent purchase of the Venetians; and after the first
siege of Constantinople, the sultan was never tempted, by the
distress, the absence, or the injuries of Palaeologus, to
extinguish the dying light of the Byzantine empire.
[Footnote *: See the siege and massacre at Thessalonica. Von
Hammer vol. i p. 433 - M.]
[Footnote 11: See Cantemir, History of the Othman Empire, p. 94.
Muraq, or Morad, may be more correct: but I have preferred the
popular name to that obscure diligence which is rarely successful
in translating an Oriental, into the Roman, alphabet.]
[Footnote 12: See Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 186, 198,) Ducas, (c.
33,) and Marinus Barletius, (in Vit. Scanderbeg, p. 145, 146.) In
his good faith towards the garrison of Sfetigrade, he was a
lesson and example to his son Mahomet.]
But the most striking feature in the life and character of
Amurath is the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were
not his motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must
praise the royal philosopher, ^13 who at the age of forty could
discern the vanity of human greatness. Resigning the sceptre to
his son, he retired to the pleasant residence of Magnesia; but he
retired to the society of saints and hermits. It was not till
the fourth century of the Hegira, that the religion of Mahomet
had been corrupted by an institution so adverse to his genius;
but in the age of the crusades, the various orders of Dervises
were multiplied by the example of the Christian, and even the
Latin, monks. ^14 The lord of nations submitted to fast, and
pray, and turn round ^* in endless rotation with the fanatics,
who mistook the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the
spirit. ^15 But he was soon awakened from his dreams of
enthusiasm by the Hungarian invasion; and his obedient son was
the foremost to urge the public danger and the wishes of the
people. Under the banner of their veteran leader, the Janizaries
fought and conquered but he withdrew from the field of Varna,
again to pray, to fast, and to turn round with his Magnesian
brethren. These pious occupations were again interrupted by the
danger of the state. A victorious army disdained the
inexperience of their youthful ruler: the city of Adrianople was
abandoned to rapine and slaughter; and the unanimous divan
implored his presence to appease the tumult, and prevent the
rebellion, of the Janizaries. At the well-known voice of their
master, they trembled and obeyed; and the reluctant sultan was
compelled to support his splendid servitude, till at the end of
four years, he was relieved by the angel of death. Age or
disease, misfortune or caprice, have tempted several princes to
descend from the throne; and they have had leisure to repent of
their irretrievable step. But Amurath alone, in the full liberty
of choice, after the trial of empire and solitude, has repeated
his preference of a private life.
[Footnote 13: Voltaire (Essai sur l'Histoire Generale, c. 89, p.
283, 284) admires le Philosophe Turc: would he have bestowed the
same praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a monastery?
In his way, Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerant bigot.]
[Footnote 14: See the articles Dervische, Fakir, Nasser,
Rohbaniat, in D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale. Yet the
subject is superficially treated from the Persian and Arabian
writers. It is among the Turks that these orders have
principally flourished.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon has fallen into a remarkable error. The
unmonastic retreat of Amurath was that of an epicurean rather
than of a dervis; more like that of Sardanapalus than of Charles
the Fifth. Profane, not divine, love was its chief occupation:
the only dance, that described by Horace as belonging to the
country, motus doceri gaudet Ionicos. See Von Hammer note, p.
652. - M]
[Footnote 15: Ricaut (in the Present State of the Ottoman Empire,
p. 242 - 268) affords much information, which he drew from his
personal conversation with the heads of the dervises, most of
whom ascribed their origin to the time of Orchan. He does not
mention the Zichidae of Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 286,) among
whom Amurath retired: the Seids of that author are the
descendants of Mahomet.]
After the departure of his Greek brethren, Eugenius had not
been unmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender regard
for the Byzantine empire was animated by a just apprehension of
the Turks, who approached, and might soon invade, the borders of
Italy. But the spirit of the crusades had expired; and the
coldness of the Franks was not less unreasonable than their
headlong passion. In the eleventh century, a fanatic monk could
precipitate Europe on Asia for the recovery of the holy
sepulchre; but in the fifteenth, the most pressing motives of
religion and policy were insufficient to unite the Latins in the
defence of Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse
of men and arms: ^16 but that complex and languid body required
the impulse of a vigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike
impotent in his personal character and his Imperial dignity. A
long war had impaired the strength, without satiating the
animosity, of France and England: ^17 but Philip duke of Burgundy
was a vain and magnificent prince; and he enjoyed, without danger
or expense, the adventurous piety of his subjects, who sailed, in
a gallant fleet, from the coast of Flanders to the Hellespont.
The maritime republics of Venice and Genoa were less remote from
the scene of action; and their hostile fleets were associated
under the standard of St. Peter. The kingdoms of Hungary and
Poland, which covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin
church, were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of
the Turks. Arms were the patrimony of the Scythians and
Sarmatians; and these nations might appear equal to the contest,
could they point, against the common foe, those swords that were
so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic quarrels. But the same
spirit was adverse to concord and obedience: a poor country and a
limited monarch are incapable of maintaining a standing force;
and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were not armed
with the sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, have
given irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this
side, the designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of
Cardinal Julian, his legate, were promoted by the circumstances
of the times: ^18 by the union of the two crowns on the head of
Ladislaus, ^19 a young and ambitious soldier; by the valor of a
hero, whose name, the name of John Huniades, was already popular
among the Christians, and formidable to the Turks. An endless
treasure of pardons and indulgences was scattered by the legate;
many private warriors of France and Germany enlisted under the
holy banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or at least
some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and Asia. A
fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress and ardor of
the Christians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to
vindicate their religion and liberty. The Greek emperor, ^20
with a spirit unknown to his fathers, engaged to guard the
Bosphorus, and to sally from Constantinople at the head of his
national and mercenary troops. The sultan of Caramania ^21
announced the retreat of Amurath, and a powerful diversion in the
heart of Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West could occupy at
the same moment the Straits of the Hellespont, the Ottoman
monarchy would be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and earth
must rejoice in the perdition of the miscreants; and the legate,
with prudent ambiguity, instilled the opinion of the invisible,
perhaps the visible, aid of the Son of God, and his divine
mother.
[Footnote 16: In the year 1431, Germany raised 40,000 horse,
men-at-arms, against the Hussites of Bohemia, (Lenfant, Hist. du
Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 318.) At the siege of Nuys, on the
Rhine, in 1474, the princes, prelates, and cities, sent their
respective quotas; and the bishop of Munster (qui n'est pas des
plus grands) furnished 1400 horse, 6000 foot, all in green, with
1200 wagons. The united armies of the king of England and the
duke of Burgundy scarcely equalled one third of this German host,
(Memoires de Philippe de Comines, l. iv. c. 2.) At present, six
or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay and
admirable discipline by the powers of Germany.]
[Footnote 17: It was not till the year 1444, that France and
England could agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer's
Foedera, and the chronicles of both nations.)]
[Footnote 18: In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. Eccles.
A.D. 1443, 1444) has been my leading guide. He has diligently
read, and critically compared, the Greek and Turkish materials,
the historians of Hungary, Poland, and the West. His narrative
is perspicuous and where he can be free from a religious bias,
the judgment of Spondanus is not contemptible.]
[Footnote 19: I have curtailed the harsh letter (Wladislaus)
which most writers affix to his name, either in compliance with
the Polish pronunciation, or to distinguish him from his rival
the infant Ladislaus of Austria. Their competition for the crown
of Hungary is described by Callimachus, (l. i. ii. p. 447 - 486,)
Bonfinius, (Decad. iii. l. iv.,) Spondanus, and Lenfant.]
[Footnote 20: The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcondyles, and
Ducas, do not ascribe to their prince a very active part in this
crusade, which he seems to have promoted by his wishes, and
injured by his fears.]
[Footnote 21: Cantemir (p. 88) ascribes to his policy the
original plan, and transcribes his animating epistle to the king
of Hungary. But the Mahometan powers are seldom it formed of the
state of Christendom and the situation and correspondence of the
knights of Rhodes must connect them with the sultan of
Caramania.]
Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the
unanimous cry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led an
army of his confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of
the Bulgarian kingdom. In this expedition they obtained two
signal victories, which were justly ascribed to the valor and
conduct of Huniades. In the first, with a vanguard of ten
thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp; in the second, he
vanquished and made prisoner the most renowned of their generals,
who possessed the double advantage of ground and numbers. The
approach of winter, and the natural and artificial obstacles of
Mount Haemus, arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a
narrow interval of six days' march from the foot of the mountains
to the hostile towers of Adrianople, and the friendly capital of
the Greek empire. The retreat was undisturbed; and the entrance
into Buda was at once a military and religious triumph. An
ecclesiastical procession was followed by the king and his
warriors on foot: he nicely balanced the merits and rewards of
the two nations; and the pride of conquest was blended with the
humble temper of Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards,
and four thousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as
all were willing to believe, and none were present to contradict,
the crusaders multiplied, with unblushing confidence, the myriads
of Turks whom they had left on the field of battle. ^22 The most
solid proof, and the most salutary consequence, of victory, was a
deputation from the divan to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to
ransom the prisoners, and to evacuate the Hungarian frontier. By
this treaty, the rational objects of the war were obtained: the
king, the despot, and Huniades himself, in the diet of Segedin,
were satisfied with public and private emolument; a truce of ten
years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus and Mahomet, who
swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested the word of God as
the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy. In the place
of the Gospel, the Turkish ministers had proposed to substitute
the Eucharist, the real presence of the Catholic deity; but the
Christians refused to profane their holy mysteries; and a
superstitious conscience is less forcibly bound by the spiritual
energy, than by the outward and visible symbols of an oath. ^23
[Footnote 22: In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the
Hungarians slay 80,000 Turks in one battle; but the modest Julian
reduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels, (Aeneas
Sylvius in Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum.)]
[Footnote 23: See the origin of the Turkish war, and the first
expedition of Ladislaus, in the vth and vith books of the iiid
decad of Bonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy
with tolerable success Callimachus (l. ii p. 487 - 496) is still
more pure and authentic.]
During the whole transaction, the cardinal legate had
observed a sullen silence, unwilling to approve, and unable to
oppose, the consent of the king and people. But the diet was not
dissolved before Julian was fortified by the welcome
intelligence, that Anatolia was invaded by the Caramanian, and
Thrace by the Greek emperor; that the fleets of Genoa, Venice,
and Burgundy, were masters of the Hellespont; and that the
allies, informed of the victory, and ignorant of the treaty, of
Ladislaus, impatiently waited for the return of his victorious
army. "And is it thus," exclaimed the cardinal, ^24 "that you
will desert their expectations and your own fortune? It is to
them, to your God, and your fellow-Christians, that you have
pledged your faith; and that prior obligation annihilates a rash
and sacrilegious oath to the enemies of Christ. His vicar on
earth is the Roman pontiff; without whose sanction you can
neither promise nor perform. In his name I absolve your perjury
and sanctify your arms: follow my footsteps in the paths of glory
and salvation; and if still ye have scruples, devolve on my head
the punishment and the sin." This mischievous casuistry was
seconded by his respectable character, and the levity of popular
assemblies: war was resolved, on the same spot where peace had so
lately been sworn; and, in the execution of the treaty, the Turks
were assaulted by the Christians; to whom, with some reason, they
might apply the epithet of Infidels. The falsehood of Ladislaus
to his word and oath was palliated by the religion of the times:
the most perfect, or at least the most popular, excuse would have
been the success of his arms and the deliverance of the Eastern
church. But the same treaty which should have bound his
conscience had diminished his strength. On the proclamation of
the peace, the French and German volunteers departed with
indignant murmurs: the Poles were exhausted by distant warfare,
and perhaps disgusted with foreign command; and their palatines
accepted the first license, and hastily retired to their
provinces and castles. Even Hungary was divided by faction, or
restrained by a laudable scruple; and the relics of the crusade
that marched in the second expedition were reduced to an
inadequate force of twenty thousand men. A Walachian chief, who
joined the royal standard with his vassals, presumed to remark
that their numbers did not exceed the hunting retinue that
sometimes attended the sultan; and the gift of two horses of
matchless speed might admonish Ladislaus of his secret foresight
of the event. But the despot of Servia, after the restoration of
his country and children, was tempted by the promise of new
realms; and the inexperience of the king, the enthusiasm of the
legate, and the martial presumption of Huniades himself, were
persuaded that every obstacle must yield to the invincible virtue
of the sword and the cross. After the passage of the Danube, two
roads might lead to Constantinople and the Hellespont: the one
direct, abrupt, and difficult through the mountains of Haemus;
the other more tedious and secure, over a level country, and
along the shores of the Euxine; in which their flanks, according
to the Scythian discipline, might always be covered by a movable
fortification of wagons. The latter was judiciously preferred:
the Catholics marched through the plains of Bulgaria, burning,
with wanton cruelty, the churches and villages of the Christian
natives; and their last station was at Warna, near the sea-shore;
on which the defeat and death of Ladislaus have bestowed a
memorable name. ^25
[Footnote 24: I do not pretend to warrant the literal accuracy of
Julian's speech, which is variously worded by Callimachus, (l.
iii. p. 505 - 507,) Bonfinius, (dec. iii. l. vi. p. 457, 458,)
and other historians, who might indulge their own eloquence,
while they represent one of the orators of the age. But they all
agree in the advice and arguments for perjury, which in the field
of controversy are fiercely attacked by the Protestants, and
feebly defended by the Catholics. The latter are discouraged by
the misfortune of Warna]
[Footnote 25: Warna, under the Grecian name of Odessus, was a
colony of the Milesians, which they denominated from the hero
Ulysses, (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 374. D'Anville, tom. i. p. 312.)
According to Arrian's Periplus of the Euxine, (p. 24, 25, in the
first volume of Hudson's Geographers,) it was situate 1740
stadia, or furlongs, from the mouth of the Danube, 2140 from
Byzantium, and 360 to the north of a ridge of promontory of Mount
Haemus, which advances into the sea.]
Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.
Part II.
It was on this fatal spot, that, instead of finding a
confederate fleet to second their operations, they were alarmed
by the approach of Amurath himself, who had issued from his
Magnesian solitude, and transported the forces of Asia to the
defence of Europe. According to some writers, the Greek emperor
had been awed, or seduced, to grant the passage of the Bosphorus;
and an indelible stain of corruption is fixed on the Genoese, or
the pope's nephew, the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary
connivance betrayed the guard of the Hellespont. From
Adrianople, the sultan advanced by hasty marches, at the head of
sixty thousand men; and when the cardinal, and Huniades, had
taken a nearer survey of the numbers and order of the Turks,
these ardent warriors proposed the tardy and impracticable
measure of a retreat. The king alone was resolved to conquer or
die; and his resolution had almost been crowned with a glorious
and salutary victory. The princes were opposite to each other in
the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or generals of Anatolia and
Romania, commanded on the right and left, against the adverse
divisions of the despot and Huniades. The Turkish wings were
broken on the first onset: but the advantage was fatal; and the
rash victors, in the heat of the pursuit, were carried away far
from the annoyance of the enemy, or the support of their friends.
When Amurath beheld the flight of his squadrons, he despaired of
his fortune and that of the empire: a veteran Janizary seized his
horse's bridle; and he had magnanimity to pardon and reward the
soldier who dared to perceive the terror, and arrest the flight,
of his sovereign. A copy of the treaty, the monument of Christian
perfidy, had been displayed in the front of battle; and it is
said, that the sultan in his distress, lifting his eyes and his
hands to heaven, implored the protection of the God of truth; and
called on the prophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery
of his name and religion. ^26 With inferior numbers and
disordered ranks, the king of Hungary rushed forward in the
confidence of victory, till his career was stopped by the
impenetrable phalanx of the Janizaries. If we may credit the
Ottoman annals, his horse was pierced by the javelin of Amurath;
^27 he fell among the spears of the infantry; and a Turkish
soldier proclaimed with a loud voice, "Hungarians, behold the
head of your king!" The death of Ladislaus was the signal of
their defeat. On his return from an intemperate pursuit,
Huniades deplored his error, and the public loss; he strove to
rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmed by the tumultuous
crowd of the victors and vanquished; and the last efforts of his
courage and conduct were exerted to save the remnant of his
Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand Christians were slain in the
disastrous battle of Warna: the loss of the Turks, more
considerable in numbers, bore a smaller proportion to their total
strength; yet the philosophic sultan was not ashamed to confess,
that his ruin must be the consequence of a second and similar
victory. ^* At his command a column was erected on the spot where
Ladislaus had fallen; but the modest inscription, instead of
accusing the rashness, recorded the valor, and bewailed the
misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. ^28
[Footnote 26: Some Christian writers affirm, that he drew from
his bosom the host or wafer on which the treaty had not been
sworn. The Moslems suppose, with more simplicity, an appeal to
God and his prophet Jesus, which is likewise insinuated by
Callimachus, (l. iii. p. 516. Spondan. A.D. 1444, No. 8.)]
[Footnote 27: A critic will always distrust these spolia opima of
a victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so easy
for flattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91.) Callimachus (l.
iii. p. 517) more simply and probably affirms, supervenitibus
Janizaris, telorum multitudine, non jam confossus est, quam
obrutus.]
[Footnote *: Compare Von Hammer, p. 463. - M.]
[Footnote 28: Besides some valuable hints from Aeneas Sylvius,
which are diligently collected by Spondanus, our best authorities
are three historians of the xvth century, Philippus Callimachus,
(de Rebus a Vladislao Polonorum atque Hungarorum Rege gestis,
libri iii. in Bel. Script. Rerum Hungaricarum, tom. i. p. 433 -
518,) Bonfinius, (decad. iii. l. v. p. 460 - 467,) and
Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 165 - 179.) The two first were
Italians, but they passed their lives in Poland and Hungary,
(Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimae Aetatis, tom. i. p. 324.
Vossius, de Hist. Latin. l. iii. c. 8, 11. Bayle, Dictionnaire,
Bonfinius.) A small tract of Faelix Petancius, chancellor of
Segnia, (ad calcem Cuspinian. de Caesaribus, p. 716 - 722,)
represents the theatre of the war in the xvth century.]
Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to
pause on the character and story of two principal actors, the
cardinal Julian and John Huniades. Julian ^29 Caesarini was born
of a noble family of Rome: his studies had embraced both the
Latin and Greek learning, both the sciences of divinity and law;
and his versatile genius was equally adapted to the schools, the
camp, and the court. No sooner had he been invested with the
Roman purple, than he was sent into Germany to arm the empire
against the rebels and heretics of Bohemia. The spirit of
persecution is unworthy of a Christian; the military profession
ill becomes a priest; but the former is excused by the times; and
the latter was ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood
dauntless and alone in the disgraceful flight of the German host.
As the pope's legate, he opened the council of Basil; but the
president soon appeared the most strenuous champion of
ecclesiastical freedom; and an opposition of seven years was
conducted by his ability and zeal. After promoting the strongest
measures against the authority and person of Eugenius, some
secret motive of interest or conscience engaged him to desert on
a sudden the popular party. The cardinal withdrew himself from
Basil to Ferrara; and, in the debates of the Greeks and Latins,
the two nations admired the dexterity of his arguments and the
depth of his theological erudition. ^30 In his Hungarian embassy,
we have already seen the mischievous effects of his sophistry and
eloquence, of which Julian himself was the first victim. The
cardinal, who performed the duties of a priest and a soldier, was
lost in the defeat of Warna. The circumstances of his death are
variously related; but it is believed, that a weighty encumbrance
of gold impeded his flight, and tempted the cruel avarice of some
Christian fugitives.
[Footnote 29: M. Lenfant has described the origin (Hist. du
Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 247, &c.) and Bohemian campaign (p.
315, &c.) of Cardinal Julian. His services at Basil and Ferrara,
and his unfortunate end, are occasionally related by Spondanus,
and the continuator of Fleury]
[Footnote 30: Syropulus honorably praises the talent of an enemy,
(p. 117:).]
From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of
John Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian
armies. His father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her
unknown race might possibly ascend to the emperors of
Constantinople; and the claims of the Walachians, with the
surname of Corvinus, from the place of his nativity, might
suggest a thin pretence for mingling his blood with the
patricians of ancient Rome. ^31 In his youth he served in the
wars of Italy, and was retained, with twelve horsemen, by the
bishop of Zagrab: the valor of the white knight ^32 was soon
conspicuous; he increased his fortunes by a noble and wealthy
marriage; and in the defence of the Hungarian borders he won in
the same year three battles against the Turks. By his influence,
Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of Hungary; and the
important service was rewarded by the title and office of Waivod
of Transylvania. The first of Julian's crusades added two
Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress the fatal
errors of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and minority
of Ladislaus of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was elected
supreme captain and governor of Hungary; and if envy at first was
silenced by terror, a reign of twelve years supposes the arts of
policy as well as of war. Yet the idea of a consummate general
is not delineated in his campaigns; the white knight fought with
the hand rather than the head, as the chief of desultory
Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without shame; and
his military life is composed of a romantic alternative of
victories and escapes. By the Turks, who employed his name to
frighten their perverse children, he was corruptly denominated
Jancus Lain, or the Wicked: their hatred is the proof of their
esteem; the kingdom which he guarded was inaccessible to their
arms; and they felt him most daring and formidable, when they
fondly believed the captain and his country irrecoverably lost.
Instead of confining himself to a defensive war, four years after
the defeat of Warna he again penetrated into the heart of
Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova, sustained, till the third
day, the shock of the Ottoman army, four times more numerous than
his own. As he fled alone through the woods of Walachia, the
hero was surprised by two robbers; but while they disputed a gold
chain that hung at his neck, he recovered his sword, slew the
one, terrified the other, and, after new perils of captivity or
death, consoled by his presence an afflicted kingdom. But the
last and most glorious action of his life was the defence of
Belgrade against the powers of Mahomet the Second in person.
After a siege of forty days, the Turks, who had already entered
the town, were compelled to retreat; and the joyful nations
celebrated Huniades and Belgrade as the bulwarks of Christendom.
^33 About a month after this great deliverance, the champion
expired; and his most splendid epitaph is the regret of the
Ottoman prince, who sighed that he could no longer hope for
revenge against the single antagonist who had triumphed over his
arms. On the first vacancy of the throne, Matthias Corvinus, a
youth of eighteen years of age, was elected and crowned by the
grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous and long: Matthias
aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a saint: but his purest
merit is the encouragement of learning; and the Latin orators and
historians, who were invited from Italy by the son, have shed the
iustre of their eloquence on the father's character. ^34
[Footnote 31: See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. iv. p. 423. Could
the Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear,
without a blush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of
a Walachian village with the casual, though glorious, epithet of
a single branch of the Valerian family at Rome?]
[Footnote 32: Philip de Comines, (Memoires, l. vi. c. 13,) from
the tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but
under the whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne,
(Valachia.) The Greek Chalcondyles, and the Turkish annals of
Leunclavius, presume to accuse his fidelity or valor.]
[Footnote 33: See Bonfinius (decad. iii. l. viii. p. 492) and
Spondanus, (A.D. 456, No. 1 - 7.) Huniades shared the glory of
the defence of Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and
in their respective narratives, neither the saint nor the hero
condescend to take notice of his rival's merit.]
[Footnote 34: See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. viii. - decad. iv. l.
viii. The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of
Matthias Corvinus are curious and critical, (A.D. 1464, No. 1,
1475, No. 6, 1476, No. 14 - 16, 1490, No. 4, 5.) Italian fame was
the object of his vanity. His actions are celebrated in the
Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p. 322 - 412) of Peter Ranzanus, a
Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings are registered by
Galestus Martius of Narni, (528 - 568,) and we have a particular
narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three tracts are
all contained in the first vol. of Bel's Scriptores Rerum
Hungaricarum.]
In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are
commonly associated; ^35 and they are both entitled to our
notice, since their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the
ruin of the Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of
Scanderbeg, ^36 was the hereditary prince of a small district of
Epirus or Albania, between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea.
Unable to contend with the sultan's power, Castriot submitted to
the hard conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered his four
sons as the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths,
after receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the
Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish
policy. ^37 The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd
of slaves; and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed
cannot be verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet
the suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and
paternal treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who,
from his tender youth, displayed the strength and spirit of a
soldier. The successive overthrow of a Tartar and two Persians,
who carried a proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended
him to the favor of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of
Scanderbeg, (Iskender beg,) or the lord Alexander, is an
indelible memorial of his glory and servitude. His father's
principality was reduced into a province; but the loss was
compensated by the rank and title of Sanjiak, a command of five
thousand horse, and the prospect of the first dignities of the
empire. He served with honor in the wars of Europe and Asia; and
we may smile at the art or credulity of the historian, who
supposes, that in every encounter he spared the Christians, while
he fell with a thundering arm on his Mussulman foes. The glory of
Huniades is without reproach: he fought in the defence of his
religion and country; but the enemies who applaud the patriot,
have branded his rival with the name of traitor and apostate. In
the eyes of the Christian, the rebellion of Scanderberg is
justified by his father's wrongs, the ambiguous death of his
three brothers, his own degradation, and the slavery of his
country; and they adore the generous, though tardy, zeal, with
which he asserted the faith and independence of his ancestors.
But he had imbibed from his ninth year the doctrines of the
Koran; he was ignorant of the Gospel; the religion of a soldier
is determined by authority and habit; nor is it easy to conceive
what new illumination at the age of forty ^38 could be poured
into his soul. His motives would be less exposed to the
suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken his chain from
the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but a long
oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every year
of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the
sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the
belief of Christianity and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind
must condemn the base dissimulation, that could serve only to
betray, that could promise only to be forsworn, that could
actively join in the temporal and spiritual perdition of so many
thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise a secret
correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of
the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard,
a treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the
enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye
of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal
secretary: with the dagger at his breast, he extorted a firman or
patent for the government of Albania; and the murder of the
guiltless scribe and his train prevented the consequences of an
immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had
revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapid marches,
from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gates of
Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he
command the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of
dissimulation; abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed
himself the avenger of his family and country. The names of
religion and liberty provoked a general revolt: the Albanians, a
martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their
hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were indulged in the
choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the states of
Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and
each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion
of men and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial
estate, and from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an
annual revenue of two hundred thousand ducats; ^39 and the entire
sum, exempt from the demands of luxury, was strictly appropriated
to the public use. His manners were popular; but his discipline
was severe; and every superfluous vice was banished from his
camp: his example strengthened his command; and under his
conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and
that of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and
Germany were allured by his fame and retained in his service: his
standing militia consisted of eight thousand horse and seven
thousand foot; the horses were small, the men were active; but he
viewed with a discerning eye the difficulties and resources of
the mountains; and, at the blaze of the beacons, the whole nation
was distributed in the strongest posts. With such unequal arms
Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powers of the Ottoman
empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his greater
son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued with
seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty
thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered
Albania: he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless
towns, convert the churches into mosques, circumcise the
Christian youths, and punish with death his adult and obstinate
captives: but the conquests of the sultan were confined to the
petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the garrison, invincible to his
arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and a superstitious
scruple. ^40 Amurath retired with shame and loss from the walls
of Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the march,
the siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost
invisible, adversary; ^41 and the disappointment might tend to
imbitter, perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. ^42 In
the fulness of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his
bosom this domestic thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to
negotiate a truce; and the Albanian prince may justly be praised
as a firm and able champion of his national independence. The
enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the names
of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush to acknowledge
their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and slender
powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes of
antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions.
His splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the
armies that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were
slain by his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of
suspicious criticism. Against an illiterate enemy, and in the
dark solitude of Epirus, his partial biographers may safely
indulge the latitude of romance: but their fictions are exposed
by the light of Italian history; and they afford a strong
presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale of his
exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to
the succor of the king of Naples. ^43 Without disparagement to
his fame, they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by
the Ottoman powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius
the Second for a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his
resources were almost exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive
at Lissus, on the Venetian territory. ^44 His sepulchre was soon
violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore
his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious
amulet their involuntary reverence for his valor. The instant
ruin of his country may redound to the hero's glory; yet, had he
balanced the consequences of submission and resistance, a patriot
perhaps would have declined the unequal contest which must depend
on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg might indeed be
supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that the
pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join
in the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the
sea-coast of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to
Italy. His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the
Castriots ^45 were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their
blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm. A
colony of Albanian fugitives obtained a settlement in Calabria,
and they preserve at this day the language and manners of their
ancestors. ^46
[Footnote 35: They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his
pleasing Essay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. iii. p. 385,) among
the seven chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal
crown; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first
prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and
George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]
[Footnote 36: I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a
friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the
time, and the place. In the old and national history of Marinus
Barletius, a priest of Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis
Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in
fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersoms robes are stuck with many false
jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. p.
229.]
[Footnote 37: His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by
Marinus with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]
[Footnote 38: Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year
of his age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403;
since he was torn from his parents by the Turks, when he was
novennis, (Marinus, l. i. p. 1, 6,) that event must have happened
in 1412, nine years before the accession of Amurath II., who must
have inherited, not acquired the Albanian slave. Spondanus has
remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431, No. 31, 1443, No. 14.]
[Footnote 39: His revenue and forces are luckily given by
Marinus, (l. ii. p. 44.)]
[Footnote 40: There were two Dibras, the upper aud lower, the
Bulgarian and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. i.
p. 17,) was contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose
inhabitants refused to drink from a well into which a dead dog
had traitorously been cast, (l. v. p. 139, 140.) We want a good
map of Epirus.]
[Footnote 41: Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92)
with the pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and
vith books of the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the
tribe of strangers and moderns.]
[Footnote 42: In honor of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188 -
192) kills the sultan by disease indeed, under the walls of
Croya. But this audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and
Turks, who agree in the time and manner of Amurath's death at
Adrianople.]
[Footnote 43: See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the
ixth and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified
by the testimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom.
xiii. p. 291,) and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus
Francisci Sfortiae, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p.
728, et alios.) The Albanian cavalry, under the name of
Stradiots, soon became famous in the wars of Italy, (Memoires de
Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]
[Footnote 44: Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most
rational criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human
size, (A.D. 1461, No. 20, 1463, No. 9, 1465, No. 12, 13, 1467,
No. 1.) His own letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza,
(l. iii. c. 28,) a refugee in the neighboring isle of Corfu,
demonstrate his last distress, which is awkwardly concealed by
Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]
[Footnote 45: See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam.
Dalmaticae, &c, xviii. p. 348 - 350.)]
[Footnote 46: This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr.
Swinburne, (Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350 -
354.)]
In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman
empire, I have reached at length the last reign of the princes of
Constantinople, who so feebly sustained the name and majesty of
the Caesars. On the decease of John Palaeologus, who survived
about four years the Hungarian crusade, ^47 the royal family, by
the death of Andronicus and the monastic profession of Isidore,
was reduced to three princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas,
the surviving sons of the emperor Manuel. Of these the first and
the last were far distant in the Morea; but Demetrius, who
possessed the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs, at the head
of a party: his ambition was not chilled by the public distress;
and his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had already
disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late
emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste:
the claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a
trite and flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the
eldest son of his father's reign. But the empress-mother, the
senate and soldiers, the clergy and people, were unanimous in the
cause of the lawful successor: and the despot Thomas, who,
ignorant of the change, accidentally returned to the capital,
asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his absent brother.
An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately despatched
to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor and
dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the
Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching
downfall of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious
deputies, the Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of
Constantine. In the spring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the
encounter of a Turkish squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his
subjects, celebrated the festival of a new reign, and exhausted
by his donatives the treasure, or rather the indigence, of the
state. The emperor immediately resigned to his brothers the
possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of the two
princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother's
presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next
occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge
of Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected
the distance between an hereditary monarch and an elective
magistrate; and in their subsequent distress, the chief of that
powerful republic was not unmindful of the affront. Constantine
afterwards hesitated between the royal families of Trebizond and
Georgia; and the embassy of Phranza represents in his public and
private life the last days of the Byzantine empire. ^48
[Footnote 47: The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic;
but instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A.D. 1445,
No. 7,) assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last
Constantine which he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius
IV. to the king of Aethiopia.]
[Footnote 48: Phranza (l. iii. c. 1 - 6) deserves credit and
esteem.]
The protovestiare, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from
Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of
wealth and luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His
numerous retinue consisted of nobles and guards, of physicians
and monks: he was attended by a band of music; and the term of
his costly embassy was protracted above two years. On his
arrival in Georgia or Iberia, the natives from the towns and
villages flocked around the strangers; and such was their
simplicity, that they were delighted with the effects, without
understanding the cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was
an old man, above a hundred years of age, who had formerly been
carried away a captive by the Barbarians, ^49 and who amused his
hearers with a tale of the wonders of India, ^50 from whence he
had returned to Portugal by an unknown sea. ^51 From this
hospitable land, Phranza proceeded to the court of Trebizond,
where he was informed by the Greek prince of the recent decease
of Amurath. Instead of rejoicing in the deliverance, the
experienced statesman expressed his apprehension, that an
ambitious youth would not long adhere to the sage and pacific
system of his father. After the sultan's decease, his Christian
wife, Maria, ^52 the daughter of the Servian despot, had been
honorably restored to her parents; on the fame of her beauty and
merit, she was recommended by the ambassador as the most worthy
object of the royal choice; and Phranza recapitulates and refutes
the specious objections that might be raised against the
proposal. The majesty of the purple would ennoble an unequal
alliance; the bar of affinity might be removed by liberal alms
and the dispensation of the church; the disgrace of Turkish
nuptials had been repeatedly overlooked; and, though the fair
Maria was nearly fifty years of age, she might yet hope to give
an heir to the empire. Constantine listened to the advice, which
was transmitted in the first ship that sailed from Trebizond; but
the factions of the court opposed his marriage; and it was
finally prevented by the pious vow of the sultana, who ended her
days in the monastic profession. Reduced to the first
alternative, the choice of Phranza was decided in favor of a
Georgian princess; and the vanity of her father was dazzled by
the glorious alliance. Instead of demanding, according to the
primitive and national custom, a price for his daughter, ^53 he
offered a portion of fifty-six thousand, with an annual pension
of five thousand, ducats; and the services of the ambassador were
repaid by an assurance, that, as his son had been adopted in
baptism by the emperor, the establishment of his daughter should
be the peculiar care of the empress of Constantinople. On the
return of Phranza, the treaty was ratified by the Greek monarch,
who with his own hand impressed three vermilion crosses on the
golden bull, and assured the Georgian envoy that in the spring
his galleys should conduct the bride to her Imperial palace. But
Constantine embraced his faithful servant, not with the cold
approbation of a sovereign, but with the warm confidence of a
friend, who, after a long absence, is impatient to pour his
secrets into the bosom of his friend. "Since the death of my
mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone advised me without interest
or passion, ^54 I am surrounded," said the emperor, "by men whom
I can neither love nor trust, nor esteem. You are not a stranger
to Lucas Notaras, the great admiral; obstinately attached to his
own sentiments, he declares, both in private and public, that his
sentiments are the absolute measure of my thoughts and actions.
The rest of the courtiers are swayed by their personal or
factious views; and how can I consult the monks on questions of
policy and marriage? I have yet much employment for your
diligence and fidelity. In the spring you shall engage one of my
brothers to solicit the succor of the Western powers; from the
Morea you shall sail to Cyprus on a particular commission; and
from thence proceed to Georgia to receive and conduct the future
empress." - "Your commands," replied Phranza, "are irresistible;
but deign, great sir," he added, with a serious smile, "to
consider, that if I am thus perpetually absent from my family, my
wife may be tempted either to seek another husband, or to throw
herself into a monastery." After laughing at his apprehensions,
the emperor more gravely consoled him by the pleasing assurance
that this should be his last service abroad, and that he destined
for his son a wealthy and noble heiress; for himself, the
important office of great logothete, or principal minister of
state. The marriage was immediately stipulated: but the office,
however incompatible with his own, had been usurped by the
ambition of the admiral. Some delay was requisite to negotiate a
consent and an equivalent; and the nomination of Phranza was half
declared, and half suppressed, lest it might be displeasing to an
insolent and powerful favorite. The winter was spent in the
preparations of his embassy; and Phranza had resolved, that the
youth his son should embrace this opportunity of foreign travel,
and be left, on the appearance of danger, with his maternal
kindred of the Morea. Such were the private and public designs,
which were interrupted by a Turkish war, and finally buried in
the ruins of the empire.
[Footnote 49: Suppose him to have been captured in 1394, in
Timour's first war in Georgia, (Sherefeddin, l. iii. c. 50;) he
might follow his Tartar master into Hindostan in 1398, and from
thence sail to the spice islands.]
[Footnote 50: The happy and pious Indians lived a hundred and
fifty years, and enjoyed the most perfect productions of the
vegetable and mineral kingdoms. The animals were on a large
scale: dragons seventy cubits, ants (the formica Indica) nine
inches long, sheep like elephants, elephants like sheep.
Quidlibet audendi, &c.]
[Footnote 51: He sailed in a country vessel from the spice
islands to one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque
navem grandem Ibericam qua in Portugalliam est delatus. This
passage, composed in 1477, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 30,) twenty years
before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, is spurious or
wonderful. But this new geography is sullied by the old and
incompatible error which places the source of the Nile in India.]
[Footnote 52: Cantemir, (p. 83,) who styles her the daughter of
Lazarus Ogli, and the Helen of the Servians, places her marriage
with Amurath in the year 1424. It will not easily be believed,
that in six-and-twenty years' cohabitation, the sultan corpus
ejus non tetigit. After the taking of Constantinople, she fled
to Mahomet II., (Phranza, l. iii. c. 22.)]
[Footnote 53: The classical reader will recollect the offers of
Agamemnon, (Iliad, c. v. 144,) and the general practice of
antiquity.]
[Footnote 54: Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the
emperor of that name) was great domestic, a firm assertor of the
Greek creed, and a brother of the queen of Servia, whom he
visited with the character of ambassador, (Syropulus, p. 37, 38,
45.)]
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
Eastern Empire
Part I.
Reign And Character Of Mahomet The Second. - Siege, Assault,
And Final Conquest, Of Constantinople By The Turks. - Death Of
Constantine Palaeologus. - Servitude Of The Greeks. - Extinction
Of The Roman Empire In The East. - Consternation Of Europe. -
Conquests And Death Of Mahomet The Second.
The siege of Constantinople by the Turks attracts our first
attention to the person and character of the great destroyer.
Mahomet the Second ^1 was the son of the second Amurath; and
though his mother has been decorated with the titles of Christian
and princess, she is more probably confounded with the numerous
concubines who peopled from every climate the harem of the
sultan. His first education and sentiments were those of a devout
Mussulman; and as often as he conversed with an infidel, he
purified his hands and face by the legal rites of ablution. Age
and empire appear to have relaxed this narrow bigotry: his
aspiring genius disdained to acknowledge a power above his own;
and in his looser hours he presumed (it is said) to brand the
prophet of Mecca as a robber and impostor. Yet the sultan
persevered in a decent reverence for the doctrine and discipline
of the Koran: ^2 his private indiscretion must have been sacred
from the vulgar ear; and we should suspect the credulity of
strangers and sectaries, so prone to believe that a mind which is
hardened against truth must be armed with superior contempt for
absurdity and error. Under the tuition of the most skilful
masters, Mahomet advanced with an early and rapid progress in the
paths of knowledge; and besides his native tongue it is affirmed
that he spoke or understood five languages, ^3 the Arabic, the
Persian, the Chaldaean or Hebrew, the Latin, and the Greek. The
Persian might indeed contribute to his amusement, and the Arabic
to his edification; and such studies are familiar to the Oriental
youth. In the intercourse of the Greeks and Turks, a conqueror
might wish to converse with the people over which he was
ambitious to reign: his own praises in Latin poetry ^4 or prose
^5 might find a passage to the royal ear; but what use or merit
could recommend to the statesman or the scholar the uncouth
dialect of his Hebrew slaves? The history and geography of the
world were familiar to his memory: the lives of the heroes of the
East, perhaps of the West, ^6 excited his emulation: his skill in
astrology is excused by the folly of the times, and supposes some
rudiments of mathematical science; and a profane taste for the
arts is betrayed in his liberal invitation and reward of the
painters of Italy. ^7 But the influence of religion and learning
were employed without effect on his savage and licentious nature.
I will not transcribe, nor do I firmly believe, the stories of
his fourteen pages, whose bellies were ripped open in search of a
stolen melon; or of the beauteous slave, whose head he severed
from her body, to convince the Janizaries that their master was
not the votary of love. ^* His sobriety is attested by the
silence of the Turkish annals, which accuse three, and three
only, of the Ottoman line of the vice of drunkenness. ^8 But it
cannot be denied that his passions were at once furious and
inexorable; that in the palace, as in the field, a torrent of
blood was spilt on the slightest provocation; and that the
noblest of the captive youth were often dishonored by his
unnatural lust. In the Albanian war he studied the lessons, and
soon surpassed the example, of his father; and the conquest of
two empires, twelve kingdoms, and two hundred cities, a vain and
flattering account, is ascribed to his invincible sword. He was
doubtless a soldier, and possibly a general; Constantinople has
sealed his glory; but if we compare the means, the obstacles, and
the achievements, Mahomet the Second must blush to sustain a
parallel with Alexander or Timour. Under his command, the
Ottoman forces were always more numerous than their enemies; yet
their progress was bounded by the Euphrates and the Adriatic; and
his arms were checked by Huniades and Scanderbeg, by the Rhodian
knights and by the Persian king.
[Footnote 1: For the character of Mahomet II. it is dangerous to
trust either the Turks or the Christians. The most moderate
picture appears to be drawn by Phranza, (l. i. c. 33,) whose
resentment had cooled in age and solitude; see likewise
Spondanus, (A.D. 1451, No. 11,) and the continuator of Fleury,
(tom. xxii. p. 552,) the Elogia of Paulus Jovius, (l. iii. p. 164
- 166,) and the Dictionnaire de Bayle, (tom. iii. p. 273 - 279.)]
[Footnote 2: Cantemir, (p. 115.) and the mosques which he
founded, attest his public regard for religion. Mahomet freely
disputed with the Gennadius on the two religions, (Spond. A.D.
1453, No. 22.)]
[Footnote 3: Quinque linguas praeter suam noverat, Graecam,
Latinam, Chaldaicam, Persicam. The Latin translator of Phranza
has dropped the Arabic, which the Koran must recommend to every
Mussulman.
Note: It appears in the original Greek text, p. 95, edit.
Bonn. - M.]
[Footnote 4: Philelphus, by a Latin ode, requested and obtained
the liberty of his wife's mother and sisters from the conqueror
of Constantinople. It was delivered into the sultan's hands by
the envoys of the duke of Milan. Philelphus himself was suspected
of a design of retiring to Constantinople; yet the orator often
sounded the trumpet of holy war, (see his Life by M. Lancelot, in
the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718, 724,
&c.)]
[Footnote 5: Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his
xii. books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of
bombs. By his patron Sigismund Malatesta, prince of Rimini, it
had been addressed with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.]
[Footnote 6: According to Phranza, he assiduously studied the
lives and actions of Alexander, Augustus, Constantine, and
Theodosius. I have read somewhere, that Plutarch's Lives were
translated by his orders into the Turkish language. If the
sultan himself understood Greek, it must have been for the
benefit of his subjects. Yet these lives are a school of freedom
as well as of valor.
Note: Von Hammer disdainfully rejects this fable of
Mahomet's knowledge of languages. Knolles adds, that he
delighted in reading the history of Alexander the Great, and of
Julius Caesar. The former, no doubt, was the Persian legend,
which, it is remarkable, came back to Europe, and was popular
throughout the middle ages as the "Romaunt of Alexander." The
founder of the Imperial dynasty of Rome, according to M. Von
Hammer, is altogether unknown in the East. Mahomet was a great
patron of Turkish literature: the romantic poems of Persia were
translated, or imitated, under his patronage. Von Hammer vol ii.
p. 268. - M.]
[Footnote 7: The famous Gentile Bellino, whom he had invited from
Venice, was dismissed with a chain and collar of gold, and a
purse of 3000 ducats. With Voltaire I laugh at the foolish story
of a slave purposely beheaded to instruct the painter in the
action of the muscles.]
[Footnote *: This story, the subject of Johnson's Irene, is
rejected by M. Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 208. The German
historian's general estimate of Mahomet's character agrees in its
more marked features with Gibbon's. - M.]
[Footnote 8: These Imperial drunkards were Soliman I., Selim II.,
and Amurath IV., (Cantemir, p. 61.) The sophis of Persia can
produce a more regular succession; and in the last age, our
European travellers were the witnesses and companions of their
revels.]
In the reign of Amurath, he twice tasted of royalty, and
twice descended from the throne: his tender age was incapable of
opposing his father's restoration, but never could he forgive the
viziers who had recommended that salutary measure. His nuptials
were celebrated with the daughter of a Turkman emir; and, after a
festival of two months, he departed from Adrianople with his
bride, to reside in the government of Magnesia. Before the end
of six weeks, he was recalled by a sudden message from the divan,
which announced the decease of Amurath, and the mutinous spirit
of the Janizaries. His speed and vigor commanded their
obedience: he passed the Hellespont with a chosen guard: and at
the distance of a mile from Adrianople, the viziers and emirs,
the imams and candhis, the soldiers and the people, fell
prostrate before the new sultan. They affected to weep, they
affected to rejoice: he ascended the throne at the age of
twenty-one years, and removed the cause of sedition by the death,
the inevitable death, of his infant brothers. ^9 ^* The
ambassadors of Europe and Asia soon appeared to congratulate his
accession and solicit his friendship; and to all he spoke the
language of moderation and peace. The confidence of the Greek
emperor was revived by the solemn oaths and fair assurances with
which he sealed the ratification of the treaty: and a rich domain
on the banks of the Strymon was assigned for the annual payment
of three hundred thousand aspers, the pension of an Ottoman
prince, who was detained at his request in the Byzantine court.
Yet the neighbors of Mahomet might tremble at the severity with
which a youthful monarch reformed the pomp of his father's
household: the expenses of luxury were applied to those of
ambition, and a useless train of seven thousand falconers was
either dismissed from his service, or enlisted in his troops. ^!
In the first summer of his reign, he visited with an army the
Asiatic provinces; but after humbling the pride, Mahomet accepted
the submission, of the Caramanian, that he might not be diverted
by the smallest obstacle from the execution of his great design.
^10
[Footnote 9: Calapin, one of these royal infants, was saved from
his cruel brother, and baptized at Rome under the name of
Callistus Othomannus. The emperor Frederic III. presented him
with an estate in Austria, where he ended his life; and
Cuspinian, who in his youth conversed with the aged prince at
Vienna, applauds his piety and wisdom, (de Caesaribus, p. 672,
673.)]
[Footnote *: Ahmed, the son of a Greek princess, was the object
of his especial jealousy. Von Hammer, p. 501. - M.]
[Footnote !: The Janizaries obtained, for the first time, a gift
on the accession of a new sovereign, p. 504. - M.]
[Footnote 10: See the accession of Mahomet II. in Ducas, (c. 33,)
Phranza, (l. i. c. 33, l. iii. c. 2,) Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p.
199,) and Cantemir, (p. 96.)]
The Mahometan, and more especially the Turkish casuists,
have pronounced that no promise can bind the faithful against the
interest and duty of their religion; and that the sultan may
abrogate his own treaties and those of his predecessors. The
justice and magnanimity of Amurath had scorned this immoral
privilege; but his son, though the proudest of men, could stoop
from ambition to the basest arts of dissimulation and deceit.
Peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart: he incessantly
sighed for the possession of Constantinople; and the Greeks, by
their own indiscretion, afforded the first pretence of the fatal
rupture. ^11 Instead of laboring to be forgotten, their
ambassadors pursued his camp, to demand the payment, and even the
increase, of their annual stipend: the divan was importuned by
their complaints, and the vizier, a secret friend of the
Christians, was constrained to deliver the sense of his brethren.
"Ye foolish and miserable Romans," said Calil, "we know your
devices, and ye are ignorant of your own danger! The scrupulous
Amurath is no more; his throne is occupied by a young conqueror,
whom no laws can bind, and no obstacles can resist: and if you
escape from his hands, give praise to the divine clemency, which
yet delays the chastisement of your sins. Why do ye seek to
affright us by vain and indirect menaces? Release the fugitive
Orchan, crown him sultan of Romania; call the Hungarians from
beyond the Danube; arm against us the nations of the West; and be
assured, that you will only provoke and precipitate your ruin."
But if the fears of the ambassadors were alarmed by the stern
language of the vizier, they were soothed by the courteous
audience and friendly speeches of the Ottoman prince; and Mahomet
assured them that on his return to Adrianople he would redress
the grievances, and consult the true interests, of the Greeks.
No sooner had he repassed the Hellespont, than he issued a
mandate to suppress their pension, and to expel their officers
from the banks of the Strymon: in this measure he betrayed a
hostile mind; and the second order announced, and in some degree
commenced, the siege of Constantinople. In the narrow pass of
the Bosphorus, an Asiatic fortress had formerly been raised by
his grandfather; in the opposite situation, on the European side,
he resolved to erect a more formidable castle; and a thousand
masons were commanded to assemble in the spring on a spot named
Asomaton, about five miles from the Greek metropolis. ^12
Persuasion is the resource of the feeble; and the feeble can
seldom persuade: the ambassadors of the emperor attempted,
without success, to divert Mahomet from the execution of his
design. They represented, that his grandfather had solicited the
permission of Manuel to build a castle on his own territories;
but that this double fortification, which would command the
strait, could only tend to violate the alliance of the nations;
to intercept the Latins who traded in the Black Sea, and perhaps
to annihilate the subsistence of the city. "I form the
enterprise," replied the perfidious sultan, "against the city;
but the empire of Constantinople is measured by her walls. Have
you forgot the distress to which my father was reduced when you
formed a league with the Hungarians; when they invaded our
country by land, and the Hellespont was occupied by the French
galleys? Amurath was compelled to force the passage of the
Bosphorus; and your strength was not equal to your malevolence.
I was then a child at Adrianople; the Moslems trembled; and, for
a while, the Gabours ^13 insulted our disgrace. But when my
father had triumphed in the field of Warna, he vowed to erect a
fort on the western shore, and that vow it is my duty to
accomplish. Have ye the right, have ye the power, to control my
actions on my own ground? For that ground is my own: as far as
the shores of the Bosphorus, Asia is inhabited by the Turks, and
Europe is deserted by the Romans. Return, and inform your king,
that the present Ottoman is far different from his predecessors;
that his resolutions surpass their wishes; and that he performs
more than they could resolve. Return in safety - but the next who
delivers a similar message may expect to be flayed alive." After
this declaration, Constantine, the first of the Greeks in spirit
as in rank, ^14 had determined to unsheathe the sword, and to
resist the approach and establishment of the Turks on the
Bosphorus. He was disarmed by the advice of his civil and
ecclesiastical ministers, who recommended a system less generous,
and even less prudent, than his own, to approve their patience
and long-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt
of an aggressor, and to depend on chance and time for their own
safety, and the destruction of a fort which could not long be
maintained in the neighborhood of a great and populous city.
Amidst hope and fear, the fears of the wise, and the hopes of the
credulous, the winter rolled away; the proper business of each
man, and each hour, was postponed; and the Greeks shut their eyes
against the impending danger, till the arrival of the spring and
the sultan decide the assurance of their ruin.
[Footnote 11: Before I enter on the siege of Constantinople, I
shall observe, that except the short hints of Cantemir and
Leunclavius, I have not been able to obtain any Turkish account
of this conquest; such an account as we possess of the siege of
Rhodes by Soliman II., (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions,
tom. xxvi. p. 723 - 769.) I must therefore depend on the Greeks,
whose prejudices, in some degree, are subdued by their distress.
Our standard texts ar those of Ducas, (c. 34 - 42,) Phranza, (l.
iii. c. 7 - 20,) Chalcondyles, (l. viii. p. 201 - 214,) and
Leonardus Chiensis, (Historia C. P. a Turco expugnatae.
Norimberghae, 1544, in 4to., 20 leaves.) The last of these
narratives is the earliest in date, since it was composed in the
Isle of Chios, the 16th of August, 1453, only seventy-nine days
after the loss of the city, and in the first confusion of ideas
and passions. Some hints may be added from an epistle of
Cardinal Isidore (in Farragine Rerum Turcicarum, ad calcem
Chalcondyl. Clauseri, Basil, 1556) to Pope Nicholas V., and a
tract of Theodosius Zygomala, which he addressed in the year 1581
to Martin Crucius, (Turco-Graecia, l. i. p. 74 - 98, Basil,
1584.) The various facts and materials are briefly, though
critically, reviewed by Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 1 - 27.) The
hearsay relations of Monstrelet and the distant Latins I shall
take leave to disregard.
Note: M. Von Hammer has added little new information on the
siege of Constantinople, and, by his general agreement, has borne
an honorable testimony to the truth, and by his close imitation
to the graphic spirit and boldness, of Gibbon. - M.]
[Footnote 12: The situation of the fortress, and the topography
of the Bosphorus, are best learned from Peter Gyllius, (de
Bosphoro Thracio, l. ii. c. 13,) Leunclavius, (Pandect. p. 445,)
and Tournefort, (Voyage dans le Levant, tom. ii. lettre xv. p.
443, 444;) but I must regret the map or plan which Tournefort
sent to the French minister of the marine. The reader may turn
back to chap. xvii. of this History.]
[Footnote 13: The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on the
infidels, is expressed by Ducas, and Giaour by Leunclavius and
the moderns. The former term is derived by Ducange (Gloss. Graec
tom. i. p. 530), in vulgar Greek, a tortoise, as denoting a
retrograde motion from the faith. But alas! Gabour is no more
than Gheber, which was transferred from the Persian to the
Turkish language, from the worshippers of fire to those of the
crucifix, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 375.)]
[Footnote 14: Phranza does justice to his master's sense and
courage. Calliditatem hominis non ignorans Imperator prior arma
movere constituit, and stigmatizes the folly of the cum sacri tum
profani proceres, which he had heard, amentes spe vana pasci.
Ducas was not a privy-counsellor.]
Of a master who never forgives, the orders are seldom
disobeyed. On the twenty-sixth of March, the appointed spot of
Asomaton was covered with an active swarm of Turkish artificers;
and the materials by sea and land were diligently transported
from Europe and Asia. ^15 The lime had been burnt in Cataphrygia;
the timber was cut down in the woods of Heraclea and Nicomedia;
and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each of the
thousand masons was assisted by two workmen; and a measure of two
cubits was marked for their daily task. The fortress ^16 was
built in a triangular form; each angle was flanked by a strong
and massy tower; one on the declivity of the hill, two along the
sea-shore: a thickness of twenty-two feet was assigned for the
walls, thirty for the towers; and the whole building was covered
with a solid platform of lead. Mahomet himself pressed and
directed the work with indefatigable ardor: his three viziers
claimed the honor of finishing their respective towers; the zeal
of the cadhis emulated that of the Janizaries; the meanest labor
was ennobled by the service of God and the sultan; and the
diligence of the multitude was quickened by the eye of a despot,
whose smile was the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the
messenger of death. The Greek emperor beheld with terror the
irresistible progress of the work; and vainly strove, by flattery
and gifts, to assuage an implacable foe, who sought, and secretly
fomented, the slightest occasion of a quarrel. Such occasions
must soon and inevitably be found. The ruins of stately
churches, and even the marble columns which had been consecrated
to Saint Michael the archangel, were employed without scruple by
the profane and rapacious Moslems; and some Christians, who
presumed to oppose the removal, received from their hands the
crown of martyrdom. Constantine had solicited a Turkish guard to
protect the fields and harvests of his subjects: the guard was
fixed; but their first order was to allow free pasture to the
mules and horses of the camp, and to defend their brethren if
they should be molested by the natives. The retinue of an Ottoman
chief had left their horses to pass the night among the ripe
corn; the damage was felt; the insult was resented; and several
of both nations were slain in a tumultuous conflict. Mahomet
listened with joy to the complaint; and a detachment was
commanded to exterminate the guilty village: the guilty had fled;
but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were massacred by the
soldiers. Till this provocation, Constantinople had been opened
to the visits of commerce and curiosity: on the first alarm, the
gates were shut; but the emperor, still anxious for peace,
released on the third day his Turkish captives; ^17 and
expressed, in a last message, the firm resignation of a Christian
and a soldier. "Since neither oaths, nor treaty, nor submission,
can secure peace, pursue," said he to Mahomet, "your impious
warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it should please him to
mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if he
delivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to
his holy will. But until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce
between us, it is my duty to live and die in the defence of my
people." The sultan's answer was hostile and decisive: his
fortifications were completed; and before his departure for
Adrianople, he stationed a vigilant Aga and four hundred
Janizaries, to levy a tribute on the ships of every nation that
should pass within the reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel,
refusing obedience to the new lords of the Bosphorus, was sunk
with a single bullet. ^* The master and thirty sailors escaped in
the boat; but they were dragged in chains to the Porte: the chief
was impaled; his companions were beheaded; and the historian
Ducas ^18 beheld, at Demotica, their bodies exposed to the wild
beasts. The siege of Constantinople was deferred till the
ensuing spring; but an Ottoman army marched into the Morea to
divert the force of the brothers of Constantine. At this aera of
calamity, one of these princes, the despot Thomas, was blessed or
afflicted with the birth of a son; "the last heir," says the
plaintive Phranza, "of the last spark of the Roman empire." ^19
[Footnote 15: Instead of this clear and consistent account, the
Turkish Annals (Cantemir, p. 97) revived the foolish tale of the
ox's hide, and Dido's stratagem in the foundation of Carthage.
These annals (unless we are swayed by an anti-Christian
prejudice) are far less valuable than the Greek historians.]
[Footnote 16: In the dimensions of this fortress, the old castle
of Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with Chalcondyles,
whose description has been verified on the spot by his editor
Leunclavius.]
[Footnote 17: Among these were some pages of Mahomet, so
conscious of his inexorable rigor, that they begged to lose their
heads in the city unless they could return before sunset.]
[Footnote *: This was from a model cannon cast by Urban the
Hungarian. See p. 291. Von Hammer. p. 510. - M.]
[Footnote 18: Ducas, c. 35. Phranza, (l. iii. c. 3,) who had
sailed in his vessel, commemorates the Venetian pilot as a
martyr.]
[Footnote 19: Auctum est Palaeologorum genus, et Imperii
successor, parvaeque Romanorum scintillae haeres natus, Andreas,
&c., (Phranza, l. iii. c. 7.) The strong expression was inspired
by his feelings.]
The Greeks and the Turks passed an anxious and sleepless
winter: the former were kept awake by their fears, the latter by
their hopes; both by the preparations of defence and attack; and
the two emperors, who had the most to lose or to gain, were the
most deeply affected by the national sentiment. In Mahomet, that
sentiment was inflamed by the ardor of his youth and temper: he
amused his leisure with building at Adrianople ^20 the lofty
palace of Jehan Numa, (the watchtower of the world;) but his
serious thoughts were irrevocably bent on the conquest of the
city of Caesar. At the dead of night, about the second watch, he
started from his bed, and commanded the instant attendance of his
prime vizier. The message, the hour, the prince, and his own
situation, alarmed the guilty conscience of Calil Basha; who had
possessed the confidence, and advised the restoration, of
Amurath. On the accession of the son, the vizier was confirmed
in his office and the appearances of favor; but the veteran
statesman was not insensible that he trod on a thin and slippery
ice, which might break under his footsteps, and plunge him in the
abyss. His friendship for the Christians, which might be
innocent under the late reign, had stigmatized him with the name
of Gabour Ortachi, or foster-brother of the infidels; ^21 and his
avarice entertained a venal and treasonable correspondence, which
was detected and punished after the conclusion of the war. On
receiving the royal mandate, he embraced, perhaps for the last
time, his wife and children; filled a cup with pieces of gold,
hastened to the palace, adored the sultan, and offered, according
to the Oriental custom, the slight tribute of his duty and
gratitude. ^22 "It is not my wish," said Mahomet, "to resume my
gifts, but rather to heap and multiply them on thy head. In my
turn, I ask a present far more valuable and important; -
Constantinople." As soon as the vizier had recovered from his
surprise, "The same God," said he, "who has already given thee so
large a portion of the Roman empire, will not deny the remnant,
and the capital. His providence, and thy power, assure thy
success; and myself, with the rest of thy faithful slaves, will
sacrifice our lives and fortunes." - "Lala," ^23 (or preceptor,)
continued the sultan, "do you see this pillow? All the night, in
my agitation, I have pulled it on one side and the other; I have
risen from my bed, again have I lain down; yet sleep has not
visited these weary eyes. Beware of the gold and silver of the
Romans: in arms we are superior; and with the aid of God, and the
prayers of the prophet, we shall speedily become masters of
Constantinople." To sound the disposition of his soldiers, he
often wandered through the streets alone, and in disguise; and it
was fatal to discover the sultan, when he wished to escape from
the vulgar eye. His hours were spent in delineating the plan of
the hostile city; in debating with his generals and engineers, on
what spot he should erect his batteries; on which side he should
assault the walls; where he should spring his mines; to what
place he should apply his scaling-ladders: and the exercises of
the day repeated and proved the lucubrations of the night.
[Footnote 20: Cantemir, p. 97, 98. The sultan was either
doubtful of his conquest, or ignorant of the superior merits of
Constantinople. A city or a kingdom may sometimes be ruined by
the Imperial fortune of their sovereign.]
[Footnote 21: It, by the president Cousin, is translated pere
nourricier, most correctly indeed from the Latin version; but in
his haste he has overlooked the note by which Ishmael Boillaud
(ad Ducam, c. 35) acknowledges and rectifies his own error.]
[Footnote 22: The Oriental custom of never appearing without
gifts before a sovereign or a superior is of high antiquity, and
seems analogous with the idea of sacrifice, still more ancient
and universal. See the examples of such Persian gifts, Aelian,
Hist. Var. l. i. c. 31, 32, 33.]
[Footnote 23: The Lala of the Turks (Cantemir, p. 34) and the
Tata of the Greeks (Ducas, c. 35) are derived from the natural
language of children; and it may be observed, that all such
primitive words which denote their parents, are the simple
repetition of one syllable, composed of a labial or a dental
consonant and an open vowel, (Des Brosses, Mechanisme des
Langues, tom. i. p. 231 - 247.)]
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
Eastern Empire
Part II.
Among the implements of destruction, he studied with
peculiar care the recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins;
and his artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the
world. A founder of cannon, a Dane ^* or Hungarian, who had been
almost starved in the Greek service, deserted to the Moslems, and
was liberally entertained by the Turkish sultan. Mahomet was
satisfied with the answer to his first question, which he eagerly
pressed on the artist. "Am I able to cast a cannon capable of
throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the walls
of Constantinople? I am not ignorant of their strength; but were
they more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine
of superior power: the position and management of that engine
must be left to your engineers." On this assurance, a foundry was
established at Adrianople: the metal was prepared; and at the end
of three months, Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of
stupendous, and almost incredible magnitude; a measure of twelve
palms is assigned to the bore; and the stone bullet weighed above
six hundred pounds. ^24 ^* A vacant place before the new palace
was chosen for the first experiment; but to prevent the sudden
and mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, a proclamation
was issued, that the cannon would be discharged the ensuing day.
The explosion was felt or heard in a circuit of a hundred
furlongs: the ball, by the force of gunpowder, was driven above a
mile; and on the spot where it fell, it buried itself a fathom
deep in the ground. For the conveyance of this destructive
engine, a frame or carriage of thirty wagons was linked together
and drawn along by a team of sixty oxen: two hundred men on both
sides were stationed, to poise and support the rolling weight;
two hundred and fifty workmen marched before to smooth the way
and repair the bridges; and near two months were employed in a
laborious journey of one hundred and fifty miles. A lively
philosopher ^25 derides on this occasion the credulity of the
Greeks, and observes, with much reason, that we should always
distrust the exaggerations of a vanquished people. He
calculates, that a ball, even o two hundred pounds, would require
a charge of one hundred and fifty pounds of powder; and that the
stroke would be feeble and impotent, since not a fifteenth part
of the mass could be inflamed at the same moment. A stranger as
I am to the art of destruction, I can discern that the modern
improvements of artillery prefer the number of pieces to the
weight of metal; the quickness of the fire to the sound, or even
the consequence, of a single explosion. Yet I dare not reject
the positive and unanimous evidence of contemporary writers; nor
can it seem improbable, that the first artists, in their rude and
ambitious efforts, should have transgressed the standard of
moderation. A Turkish cannon, more enormous than that of
Mahomet, still guards the entrance of the Dardanelles; and if the
use be inconvenient, it has been found on a late trial that the
effect was far from contemptible. A stone bullet of eleven
hundred pounds' weight was once discharged with three hundred and
thirty pounds of powder: at the distance of six hundred yards it
shivered into three rocky fragments; traversed the strait; and
leaving the waters in a foam, again rose and bounded against the
opposite hill. ^26
[Footnote *: Gibbon has written Dane by mistake for Dace, or
Dacian. Chalcondyles, Von Hammer, p. 510. - M.]
[Footnote 24: The Attic talent weighed about sixty minae, or
avoirdupois pounds (see Hooper on Ancient Weights, Measures,
&c.;) but among the modern Greeks, that classic appellation was
extended to a weight of one hundred, or one hundred and
twenty-five pounds, (Ducange.) Leonardus Chiensis measured the
ball or stone of the second cannon Lapidem, qui palmis undecim ex
meis ambibat in gyro.]
[Footnote *: 1200, according to Leonardus Chiensis. Von Hammer
states that he had himself seen the great cannon of the
Dardanelles, in which a tailor who had run away from his
creditors, had concealed himself several days Von Hammer had
measured balls twelve spans round. Note. p. 666. - M.]
[Footnote 25: See Voltaire, (Hist. Generale, c. xci. p. 294,
295.) He was ambitious of universal monarchy; and the poet
frequently aspires to the name and style of an astronomer, a
chemist, &c.]
[Footnote 26: The Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 85 - 89,) who
fortified the Dardanelles against the Russians, describes in a
lively, and even comic, strain his own prowess, and the
consternation of the Turks. But that adventurous traveller does
not possess the art of gaining our confidence.]
While Mahomet threatened the capital of the East, the Greek
emperor implored with fervent prayers the assistance of earth and
heaven. But the invisible powers were deaf to his supplications;
and Christendom beheld with indifference the fall of
Constantinople, while she derived at least some promise of supply
from the jealous and temporal policy of the sultan of Egypt. Some
states were too weak, and others too remote; by some the danger
was considered as imaginary by others as inevitable: the Western
princes were involved in their endless and domestic quarrels; and
the Roman pontiff was exasperated by the falsehood or obstinacy
of the Greeks. Instead of employing in their favor the arms and
treasures of Italy, Nicholas the Fifth had foretold their
approaching ruin; and his honor was engaged in the accomplishment
of his prophecy. ^* Perhaps he was softened by the last extremity
o their distress; but his compassion was tardy; his efforts were
faint and unavailing; and Constantinople had fallen, before the
squadrons of Genoa and Venice could sail from their harbors. ^27
Even the princes of the Morea and of the Greek islands affected a
cold neutrality: the Genoese colony of Galata negotiated a
private treaty; and the sultan indulged them in the delusive
hope, that by his clemency they might survive the ruin of the
empire. A plebeian crowd, and some Byzantine nobles basely
withdrew from the danger of their country; and the avarice of the
rich denied the emperor, and reserved for the Turks, the secret
treasures which might have raised in their defence whole armies
of mercenaries. ^28 The indigent and solitary prince prepared,
however, to sustain his formidable adversary; but if his courage
were equal to the peril, his strength was inadequate to the
contest. In the beginning of the spring, the Turkish vanguard
swept the towns and villages as far as the gates of
Constantinople: submission was spared and protected; whatever
presumed to resist was exterminated with fire and sword. The
Greek places on the Black Sea, Mesembria, Acheloum, and Bizon,
surrendered on the first summons; Selybria alone deserved the
honors of a siege or blockade; and the bold inhabitants, while
they were invested by land, launched their boats, pillaged the
opposite coast of Cyzicus, and sold their captives in the public
market. But on the approach of Mahomet himself all was silent
and prostrate: he first halted at the distance of five miles; and
from thence advancing in battle array, planted before the gates
of St. Romanus the Imperial standard; and on the sixth day of
April formed the memorable siege of Constantinople.
[Footnote *: See the curious Christian and Mahometan predictions
of the fall of Constantinople, Von Hammer, p. 518. - M.]
[Footnote 27: Non audivit, indignum ducens, says the honest
Antoninus; but as the Roman court was afterwards grieved and
ashamed, we find the more courtly expression of Platina, in animo
fuisse pontifici juvare Graecos, and the positive assertion of
Aeneas Sylvius, structam classem &c. (Spond. A.D. 1453, No. 3.)]
[Footnote 28: Antonin. in Proem. - Epist. Cardinal. Isidor. apud
Spondanum and Dr. Johnson, in the tragedy of Irene, has happily
seized this characteristic circumstance: -
The groaning Greeks dig up the golden caverns. The accumulated
wealth of hoarding ages; That wealth which, granted to their
weeping prince, Had ranged embattled nations at their gates.]
The troops of Asia and Europe extended on the right and left
from the Propontis to the harbor; the Janizaries in the front
were stationed before the sultan's tent; the Ottoman line was
covered by a deep intrenchment; and a subordinate army enclosed
the suburb of Galata, and watched the doubtful faith of the
Genoese. The inquisitive Philelphus, who resided in Greece about
thirty years before the siege, is confident, that all the Turkish
forces of any name or value could not exceed the number of sixty
thousand horse and twenty thousand foot; and he upbraids the
pusillanimity of the nations, who had tamely yielded to a handful
of Barbarians. Such indeed might be the regular establishment of
the Capiculi, ^29 the troops of the Porte who marched with the
prince, and were paid from his royal treasury. But the bashaws,
in their respective governments, maintained or levied a
provincial militia; many lands were held by a military tenure;
many volunteers were attracted by the hope of spoil and the sound
of the holy trumpet invited a swarm of hungry and fearless
fanatics, who might contribute at least to multiply the terrors,
and in a first attack to blunt the swords, of the Christians.
The whole mass of the Turkish powers is magnified by Ducas,
Chalcondyles, and Leonard of Chios, to the amount of three or
four hundred thousand men; but Phranza was a less remote and more
accurate judge; and his precise definition of two hundred and
fifty-eight thousand does not exceed the measure of experience
and probability. ^30 The navy of the besiegers was less
formidable: the Propontis was overspread with three hundred and
twenty sail; but of these no more than eighteen could be rated as
galleys of war; and the far greater part must be degraded to the
condition of store-ships and transports, which poured into the
camp fresh supplies of men, ammunition, and provisions. In her
last decay, Constantinople was still peopled with more than a
hundred thousand inhabitants; but these numbers are found in the
accounts, not of war, but of captivity; and they mostly consisted
of mechanics, of priests, of women, and of men devoid of that
spirit which even women have sometimes exerted for the common
safety. I can suppose, I could almost excuse, the reluctance of
subjects to serve on a distant frontier, at the will of a tyrant;
but the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his
children and his property, has lost in society the first and most
active energies of nature. By the emperor's command, a
particular inquiry had been made through the streets and houses,
how many of the citizens, or even of the monks, were able and
willing to bear arms for their country. The lists were intrusted
to Phranza; ^31 and, after a diligent addition, he informed his
master, with grief and surprise, that the national defence was
reduced to four thousand nine hundred and seventy Romans.
Between Constantine and his faithful minister this comfortless
secret was preserved; and a sufficient proportion of shields,
cross-bows, and muskets, were distributed from the arsenal to the
city bands. They derived some accession from a body of two
thousand strangers, under the command of John Justiniani, a noble
Genoese; a liberal donative was advanced to these auxiliaries;
and a princely recompense, the Isle of Lemnos, was promised to
the valor and victory of their chief. A strong chain was drawn
across the mouth of the harbor: it was supported by some Greek
and Italian vessels of war and merchandise; and the ships of
every Christian nation, that successively arrived from Candia and
the Black Sea, were detained for the public service. Against the
powers of the Ottoman empire, a city of the extent of thirteen,
perhaps of sixteen, miles was defended by a scanty garrison of
seven or eight thousand soldiers. Europe and Asia were open to
the besiegers; but the strength and provisions of the Greeks must
sustain a daily decrease; nor could they indulge the expectation
of any foreign succor or supply.
[Footnote 29: The palatine troops are styled Capiculi, the
provincials, Seratculi; and most of the names and institutions of
the Turkish militia existed before the Canon Nameh of Soliman II,
from which, and his own experience, Count Marsigli has composed
his military state of the Ottoman empire.]
[Footnote 30: The observation of Philelphus is approved by
Cuspinian in the year 1508, (de Caesaribus, in Epilog. de Militia
Turcica, p. 697.) Marsigli proves, that the effective armies of
the Turks are much less numerous than they appear. In the army
that besieged Constantinople Leonardus Chiensis reckons no more
than 15,000 Janizaries.]
[Footnote 31: Ego, eidem (Imp.) tabellas extribui non absque
dolore et moestitia, mansitque apud nos duos aliis occultus
numerus, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 8.) With some indulgence for
national prejudices, we cannot desire a more authentic witness,
not only of public facts, but of private counsels.]
The primitive Romans would have drawn their swords in the
resolution of death or conquest. The primitive Christians might
have embraced each other, and awaited in patience and charity the
stroke of martyrdom. But the Greeks of Constantinople were
animated only by the spirit of religion, and that spirit was
productive only of animosity and discord. Before his death, the
emperor John Palaeologus had renounced the unpopular measure of a
union with the Latins; nor was the idea revived, till the
distress of his brother Constantine imposed a last trial of
flattery and dissimulation. ^32 With the demand of temporal aid,
his ambassadors were instructed to mingle the assurance of
spiritual obedience: his neglect of the church was excused by the
urgent cares of the state; and his orthodox wishes solicited the
presence of a Roman legate. The Vatican had been too often
deluded; yet the signs of repentance could not decently be
overlooked; a legate was more easily granted than an army; and
about six months before the final destruction, the cardinal
Isidore of Russia appeared in that character with a retinue of
priests and soldiers. The emperor saluted him as a friend and
father; respectfully listened to his public and private sermons;
and with the most obsequious of the clergy and laymen subscribed
the act of union, as it had been ratified in the council of
Florence. On the twelfth of December, the two nations, in the
church of St. Sophia, joined in the communion of sacrifice and
prayer; and the names of the two pontiffs were solemnly
commemorated; the names of Nicholas the Fifth, the vicar of
Christ, and of the patriarch Gregory, who had been driven into
exile by a rebellious people.
[Footnote 32: In Spondanus, the narrative of the union is not
only partial, but imperfect. The bishop of Pamiers died in 1642,
and the history of Ducas, which represents these scenes (c. 36,
37) with such truth and spirit, was not printed till the year
1649.]
But the dress and language of the Latin priest who
officiated at the altar were an object of scandal; and it was
observed with horror, that he consecrated a cake or wafer of
unleavened bread, and poured cold water into the cup of the
sacrament. A national historian acknowledges with a blush, that
none of his countrymen, not the emperor himself, were sincere in
this occasional conformity. ^33 Their hasty and unconditional
submission was palliated by a promise of future revisal; but the
best, or the worst, of their excuses was the confession of their
own perjury. When they were pressed by the reproaches of their
honest brethren, "Have patience," they whispered, "have patience
till God shall have delivered the city from the great dragon who
seeks to devour us. You shall then perceive whether we are truly
reconciled with the Azymites." But patience is not the attribute
of zeal; nor can the arts of a court be adapted to the freedom
and violence of popular enthusiasm. From the dome of St. Sophia
the inhabitants of either sex, and of every degree, rushed in
crowds to the cell of the monk Gennadius, ^34 to consult the
oracle of the church. The holy man was invisible; entranced, as
it should seem, in deep meditation, or divine rapture: but he had
exposed on the door of his cell a speaking tablet; and they
successively withdrew, after reading those tremendous words: "O
miserable Romans, why will ye abandon the truth? and why,
instead of confiding in God, will ye put your trust in the
Italians? In losing your faith you will lose your city. Have
mercy on me, O Lord! I protest in thy presence that I am
innocent of the crime. O miserable Romans, consider, pause, and
repent. At the same moment that you renounce the religion of
your fathers, by embracing impiety, you submit to a foreign
servitude." According to the advice of Gennadius, the religious
virgins, as pure as angels, and as proud as daemons, rejected the
act of union, and abjured all communion with the present and
future associates of the Latins; and their example was applauded
and imitated by the greatest part of the clergy and people. From
the monastery, the devout Greeks dispersed themselves in the
taverns; drank confusion to the slaves of the pope; emptied their
glasses in honor of the image of the holy Virgin; and besought
her to defend against Mahomet the city which she had formerly
saved from Chosroes and the Chagan. In the double intoxication
of zeal and wine, they valiantly exclaimed, "What occasion have
we for succor, or union, or Latins? Far from us be the worship
of the Azymites!" During the winter that preceded the Turkish
conquest, the nation was distracted by this epidemical frenzy;
and the season of Lent, the approach of Easter, instead of
breathing charity and love, served only to fortify the obstinacy
and influence of the zealots. The confessors scrutinized and
alarmed the conscience of their votaries, and a rigorous penance
was imposed on those who had received the communion from a priest
who had given an express or tacit consent to the union. His
service at the altar propagated the infection to the mute and
simple spectators of the ceremony: they forfeited, by the impure
spectacle, the virtue of the sacerdotal character; nor was it
lawful, even in danger of sudden death, to invoke the assistance
of their prayers or absolution. No sooner had the church of St.
Sophia been polluted by the Latin sacrifice, than it was deserted
as a Jewish synagogue, or a heathen temple, by the clergy and
people; and a vast and gloomy silence prevailed in that venerable
dome, which had so often smoked with a cloud of incense, blazed
with innumerable lights, and resounded with the voice of prayer
and thanksgiving. The Latins were the most odious of heretics and
infidels; and the first minister of the empire, the great duke,
was heard to declare, that he had rather behold in Constantinople
the turban of Mahomet, than the pope's tiara or a cardinal's hat.
^35 A sentiment so unworthy of Christians and patriots was
familiar and fatal to the Greeks: the emperor was deprived of the
affection and support of his subjects; and their native cowardice
was sanctified by resignation to the divine decree, or the
visionary hope of a miraculous deliverance.
[Footnote 33: Phranza, one of the conforming Greeks, acknowledges
that the measure was adopted only propter spem auxilii; he
affirms with pleasure, that those who refused to perform their
devotions in St. Sophia, extra culpam et in pace essent, (l. iii.
c. 20.)]
[Footnote 34: His primitive and secular name was George
Scholarius, which he changed for that of Gennadius, either when
he became a monk or a patriarch. His defence, at Florence, of the
same union, which he so furiously attacked at Constantinople, has
tempted Leo Allatius (Diatrib. de Georgiis, in Fabric. Bibliot.
Graec. tom. x. p. 760 - 786) to divide him into two men; but
Renaudot (p. 343 - 383) has restored the identity of his person
and the duplicity of his character.]
[Footnote 35: It, may be fairly translated a cardinal's hat. The
difference of the Greek and Latin habits imbittered the schism.]
Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople,
the two sides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy;
the Propontis by nature, and the harbor by art. Between the two
waters, the basis of the triangle, the land side was protected by
a double wall, and a deep ditch of the depth of one hundred feet.
Against this line of fortification, which Phranza, an
eye-witness, prolongs to the measure of six miles, ^36 the
Ottomans directed their principal attack; and the emperor, after
distributing the service and command of the most perilous
stations, undertook the defence of the external wall. In the
first days of the siege the Greek soldiers descended into the
ditch, or sallied into the field; but they soon discovered, that,
in the proportion of their numbers, one Christian was of more
value than twenty Turks: and, after these bold preludes, they
were prudently content to maintain the rampart with their missile
weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused of pusillanimity.
The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; but the last
Constantine deserves the name of a hero: his noble band of
volunteers was inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign
auxiliaries supported the honor of the Western chivalry. The
incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the
smoke, the sound, and the fire, of their musketry and cannon.
Their small arms discharged at the same time either five, or even
ten, balls of lead, of the size of a walnut; and, according to
the closeness of the ranks and the force of the powder, several
breastplates and bodies were transpierced by the same shot. But
the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches, or covered
with ruins. Each day added to the science of the Christians; but
their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations
of each day. Their ordnance was not powerful, either in size or
number; and if they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to
plant them on the walls, lest the aged structure should be shaken
and overthrown by the explosion. ^37 The same destructive secret
had been revealed to the Moslems; by whom it was employed with
the superior energy of zeal, riches, and despotism. The great
cannon of Mahomet has been separately noticed; an important and
visible object in the history of the times: but that enormous
engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude: ^38
the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the
walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most
accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously
expressed, that it was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns,
or that it discharged one hundred and thirty bullets. Yet in the
power and activity of the sultan, we may discern the infancy of
the new science. Under a master who counted the moments, the
great cannon could be loaded and fired no more than seven times
in one day. ^39 The heated metal unfortunately burst; several
workmen were destroyed; and the skill of an artist ^* was admired
who bethought himself of preventing the danger and the accident,
by pouring oil, after each explosion, into the mouth of the
cannon.
[Footnote 36: We are obliged to reduce the Greek miles to the
smallest measure which is preserved in the wersts of Russia, of
547 French toises, and of 104 2/5 to a degree. The six miles of
Phranza do not exceed four English miles, (D'Anville, Mesures
Itineraires, p. 61, 123, &c.)]
[Footnote 37: At indies doctiores nostri facti paravere contra
hostes machina menta, quae tamen avare dabantur. Pulvis erat
nitri modica exigua; tela modica; bombardae, si aderant
incommoditate loci primum hostes offendere, maceriebus alveisque
tectos, non poterant. Nam si quae magnae erant, ne murus
concuteretur noster, quiescebant. This passage of Leonardus
Chiensis is curious and important.]
[Footnote 38: According to Chalcondyles and Phranza, the great
cannon burst; an incident which, according to Ducas, was
prevented by the artist's skill. It is evident that they do not
speak of the same gun.
Note: They speak, one of a Byzantine, one of a Turkish, gun.
Von Hammer note, p. 669]
[Footnote 39: Near a hundred years after the siege of
Constantinople, the French and English fleets in the Channel were
proud of firing 300 shot in an engagement of two hours, (Memoires
de Martin du Bellay, l. x., in the Collection Generale, tom. xxi.
p. 239.)]
[Footnote *: The founder of the gun. Von Hammer, p. 526.]
The first random shots were productive of more sound than
effect; and it was by the advice of a Christian, that the
engineers were taught to level their aim against the two opposite
sides of the salient angles of a bastion. However imperfect, the
weight and repetition of the fire made some impression on the
walls; and the Turks, pushing their approaches to the edge of the
ditch, attempted to fill the enormous chasm, and to build a road
to the assault. ^40 Innumerable fascines, and hogsheads, and
trunks of trees, were heaped on each other; and such was the
impetuosity of the throng, that the foremost and the weakest were
pushed headlong down the precipice, and instantly buried under
the accumulated mass. To fill the ditch was the toil of the
besiegers; to clear away the rubbish was the safety of the
besieged; and after a long and bloody conflict, the web that had
been woven in the day was still unravelled in the night. The
next resource of Mahomet was the practice of mines; but the soil
was rocky; in every attempt he was stopped and undermined by the
Christian engineers; nor had the art been yet invented of
replenishing those subterraneous passages with gunpowder, and
blowing whole towers and cities into the air. ^41 A circumstance
that distinguishes the siege of Constantinople is the reunion of
the ancient and modern artillery. The cannon were intermingled
with the mechanical engines for casting stones and darts; the
bullet and the battering-ram ^* were directed against the same
walls: nor had the discovery of gunpowder superseded the use of
the liquid and unextinguishable fire. A wooden turret of the
largest size was advanced on rollers this portable magazine of
ammunition and fascines was protected by a threefold covering of
bulls' hides: incessant volleys were securely discharged from the
loop-holes; in the front, three doors were contrived for the
alternate sally and retreat of the soldiers and workmen. They
ascended by a staircase to the upper platform, and, as high as
the level of that platform, a scaling-ladder could be raised by
pulleys to form a bridge, and grapple with the adverse rampart.
By these various arts of annoyance, some as new as they were
pernicious to the Greeks, the tower of St. Romanus was at length
overturned: after a severe struggle, the Turks were repulsed from
the breach, and interrupted by darkness; but they trusted that
with the return of light they should renew the attack with fresh
vigor and decisive success. Of this pause of action, this
interval of hope, each moment was improved, by the activity of
the emperor and Justiniani, who passed the night on the spot, and
urged the labors which involved the safety of the church and
city. At the dawn of day, the impatient sultan perceived, with
astonishment and grief, that his wooden turret had been reduced
to ashes: the ditch was cleared and restored; and the tower of
St. Romanus was again strong and entire. He deplored the failure
of his design; and uttered a profane exclamation, that the word
of the thirty-seven thousand prophets should not have compelled
him to believe that such a work, in so short a time, could have
been accomplished by the infidels.
[Footnote 40: I have selected some curious facts, without
striving to emulate the bloody and obstinate eloquence of the
abbe de Vertot, in his prolix descriptions of the sieges of
Rhodes, Malta, &c. But that agreeable historian had a turn for
romance; and as he wrote to please the order he had adopted the
same spirit of enthusiasm and chivalry.]
[Footnote 41: The first theory of mines with gunpowder appears in
1480 in a Ms. of George of Sienna, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p.
324.) They were first practised by Sarzanella, in 1487; but the
honor and improvement in 1503 is ascribed to Peter of Navarre,
who used them with success in the wars of Italy, (Hist. de la
Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 93 - 97.)]
[Footnote *: The battering-ram according to Von Hammer, (p. 670,)
was not used - M.]
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
Eastern Empire
Part III.
The generosity of the Christian princes was cold and tardy;
but in the first apprehension of a siege, Constantine had
negotiated, in the isles of the Archipelago, the Morea, and
Sicily, the most indispensable supplies. As early as the
beginning of April, five ^42 great ships, equipped for
merchandise and war, would have sailed from the harbor of Chios,
had not the wind blown obstinately from the north. ^43 One of
these ships bore the Imperial flag; the remaining four belonged
to the Genoese; and they were laden with wheat and barley, with
wine, oil, and vegetables, and, above all, with soldiers and
mariners for the service of the capital. After a tedious delay,
a gentle breeze, and, on the second day, a strong gale from the
south, carried them through the Hellespont and the Propontis: but
the city was already invested by sea and land; and the Turkish
fleet, at the entrance of the Bosphorus, was stretched from shore
to shore, in the form of a crescent, to intercept, or at least to
repel, these bold auxiliaries. The reader who has present to his
mind the geographical picture of Constantinople, will conceive
and admire the greatness of the spectacle. The five Christian
ships continued to advance with joyful shouts, and a full press
both of sails and oars, against a hostile fleet of three hundred
vessels; and the rampart, the camp, the coasts of Europe and
Asia, were lined with innumerable spectators, who anxiously
awaited the event of this momentous succor. At the first view
that event could not appear doubtful; the superiority of the
Moslems was beyond all measure or account: and, in a calm, their
numbers and valor must inevitably have prevailed. But their
hasty and imperfect navy had been created, not by the genius of
the people, but by the will of the sultan: in the height of their
prosperity, the Turks have acknowledged, that if God had given
them the earth, he had left the sea to the infidels; ^44 and a
series of defeats, a rapid progress of decay, has established the
truth of their modest confession. Except eighteen galleys of some
force, the rest of their fleet consisted of open boats, rudely
constructed and awkwardly managed, crowded with troops, and
destitute of cannon; and since courage arises in a great measure
from the consciousness of strength, the bravest of the Janizaries
might tremble on a new element. In the Christian squadron, five
stout and lofty ships were guided by skilful pilots, and manned
with the veterans of Italy and Greece, long practised in the arts
and perils of the sea. Their weight was directed to sink or
scatter the weak obstacles that impeded their passage: their
artillery swept the waters: their liquid fire was poured on the
heads of the adversaries, who, with the design of boarding,
presumed to approach them; and the winds and waves are always on
the side of the ablest navigators. In this conflict, the
Imperial vessel, which had been almost overpowered, was rescued
by the Genoese; but the Turks, in a distant and closer attack,
were twice repulsed with considerable loss. Mahomet himself sat
on horseback on the beach to encourage their valor by his voice
and presence, by the promise of reward, and by fear more potent
than the fear of the enemy. The passions of his soul, and even
the gestures of his body, ^45 seemed to imitate the actions of
the combatants; and, as if he had been the lord of nature, he
spurred his horse with a fearless and impotent effort into the
sea. His loud reproaches, and the clamors of the camp, urged the
Ottomans to a third attack, more fatal and bloody than the two
former; and I must repeat, though I cannot credit, the evidence
of Phranza, who affirms, from their own mouth, that they lost
above twelve thousand men in the slaughter of the day. They fled
in disorder to the shores of Europe and Asia, while the Christian
squadron, triumphant and unhurt, steered along the Bosphorus, and
securely anchored within the chain of the harbor. In the
confidence of victory, they boasted that the whole Turkish power
must have yielded to their arms; but the admiral, or captain
bashaw, found some consolation for a painful wound in his eye, by
representing that accident as the cause of his defeat. Balthi
Ogli was a renegade of the race of the Bulgarian princes: his
military character was tainted with the unpopular vice of
avarice; and under the despotism of the prince or people,
misfortune is a sufficient evidence of guilt. ^* His rank and
services were annihilated by the displeasure of Mahomet. In the
royal presence, the captain bashaw was extended on the ground by
four slaves, and received one hundred strokes with a golden rod:
^46 his death had been pronounced; and he adored the clemency of
the sultan, who was satisfied with the milder punishment of
confiscation and exile. The introduction of this supply revived
the hopes of the Greeks, and accused the supineness of their
Western allies. Amidst the deserts of Anatolia and the rocks of
Palestine, the millions of the crusades had buried themselves in
a voluntary and inevitable grave; but the situation of the
Imperial city was strong against her enemies, and accessible to
her friends; and a rational and moderate armament of the marine
states might have saved the relics of the Roman name, and
maintained a Christian fortress in the heart of the Ottoman
empire. Yet this was the sole and feeble attempt for the
deliverance of Constantinople: the more distant powers were
insensible of its danger; and the ambassador of Hungary, or at
least of Huniades, resided in the Turkish camp, to remove the
fears, and to direct the operations, of the sultan. ^47
[Footnote 42: It is singular that the Greeks should not agree in
the number of these illustrious vessels; the five of Ducas, the
four of Phranza and Leonardus, and the two of Chalcondyles, must
be extended to the smaller, or confined to the larger, size.
Voltaire, in giving one of these ships to Frederic III.,
confounds the emperors of the East and West.]
[Footnote 43: In bold defiance, or rather in gross ignorance, of
language and geography, the president Cousin detains them in
Chios with a south, and wafts them to Constantinople with a
north, wind.]
[Footnote 44: The perpetual decay and weakness of the Turkish
navy may be observed in Ricaut, (State of the Ottoman Empire, p.
372 - 378,) Thevenot, (Voyages, P. i. p. 229 - 242, and Tott,
(Memoires, tom. iii;) the last of whom is always solicitous to
amuse and amaze his reader]
[Footnote 45: I must confess that I have before my eyes the
living picture which Thucydides (l. vii. c. 71) has drawn of the
passions and gestures of the Athenians in a naval engagement in
the great harbor of Syracuse.]
[Footnote *: According to Ducas, one of the Afabi beat out his
eye with a stone Compare Von Hammer. - M.]
[Footnote 46: According to the exaggeration or corrupt text of
Ducas, (c. 38,) this golden bar was of the enormous or incredible
weight of 500 librae, or pounds. Bouillaud's reading of 500
drachms, or five pounds, is sufficient to exercise the arm of
Mahomet, and bruise the back of his admiral.]
[Footnote 47: Ducas, who confesses himself ill informed of the
affairs of Hungary assigns a motive of superstition, a fatal
belief that Constantinople would be the term of the Turkish
conquests. See Phranza (l. iii. c. 20) and Spondanus.]
It was difficult for the Greeks to penetrate the secret of
the divan; yet the Greeks are persuaded, that a resistance so
obstinate and surprising, had fatigued the perseverance of
Mahomet. He began to meditate a retreat; and the siege would
have been speedily raised, if the ambition and jealousy of the
second vizier had not opposed the perfidious advice of Calil
Bashaw, who still maintained a secret correspondence with the
Byzantine court. The reduction of the city appeared to be
hopeless, unless a double attack could be made from the harbor as
well as from the land; but the harbor was inaccessible: an
impenetrable chain was now defended by eight large ships, more
than twenty of a smaller size, with several galleys and sloops;
and, instead of forcing this barrier, the Turks might apprehend a
naval sally, and a second encounter in the open sea. In this
perplexity, the genius of Mahomet conceived and executed a plan
of a bold and marvellous cast, of transporting by land his
lighter vessels and military stores from the Bosphorus into the
higher part of the harbor. The distance is about ten ^* miles;
the ground is uneven, and was overspread with thickets; and, as
the road must be opened behind the suburb of Galata, their free
passage or total destruction must depend on the option of the
Genoese. But these selfish merchants were ambitious of the favor
of being the last devoured; and the deficiency of art was
supplied by the strength of obedient myraids. A level way was
covered with a broad platform of strong and solid planks; and to
render them more slippery and smooth, they were anointed with the
fat of sheep and oxen. Fourscore light galleys and brigantines,
of fifty and thirty oars, were disembarked on the Bosphorus
shore; arranged successively on rollers; and drawn forwards by
the power of men and pulleys. Two guides or pilots were stationed
at the helm, and the prow, of each vessel: the sails were
unfurled to the winds; and the labor was cheered by song and
acclamation. In the course of a single night, this Turkish fleet
painfully climbed the hill, steered over the plain, and was
launched from the declivity into the shallow waters of the
harbor, far above the molestation of the deeper vessels of the
Greeks. The real importance of this operation was magnified by
the consternation and confidence which it inspired: but the
notorious, unquestionable fact was displayed before the eyes, and
is recorded by the pens, of the two nations. ^48 A similar
stratagem had been repeatedly practised by the ancients; ^49 the
Ottoman galleys (I must again repeat) should be considered as
large boats; and, if we compare the magnitude and the distance,
the obstacles and the means, the boasted miracle ^50 has perhaps
been equalled by the industry of our own times. ^51 As soon as
Mahomet had occupied the upper harbor with a fleet and army, he
constructed, in the narrowest part, a bridge, or rather mole, of
fifty cubits in breadth, and one hundred in length: it was formed
of casks and hogsheads; joined with rafters, linked with iron,
and covered with a solid floor. On this floating battery he
planted one of his largest cannon, while the fourscore galleys,
with troops and scaling ladders, approached the most accessible
side, which had formerly been stormed by the Latin conquerors.
The indolence of the Christians has been accused for not
destroying these unfinished works; ^! but their fire, by a
superior fire, was controlled and silenced; nor were they wanting
in a nocturnal attempt to burn the vessels as well as the bridge
of the sultan. His vigilance prevented their approach; their
foremost galiots were sunk or taken; forty youths, the bravest of
Italy and Greece, were inhumanly massacred at his command; nor
could the emperor's grief be assuaged by the just though cruel
retaliation, of exposing from the walls the heads of two hundred
and sixty Mussulman captives. After a siege of forty days, the
fate of Constantinople could no longer be averted. The
diminutive garrison was exhausted by a double attack: the
fortifications, which had stood for ages against hostile
violence, were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon:
many breaches were opened; and near the gate of St. Romanus, four
towers had been levelled with the ground. For the payment of his
feeble and mutinous troops, Constantine was compelled to despoil
the churches with the promise of a fourfold restitution; and his
sacrilege offered a new reproach to the enemies of the union. A
spirit of discord impaired the remnant of the Christian strength;
the Genoese and Venetian auxiliaries asserted the preeminence of
their respective service; and Justiniani and the great duke,
whose ambition was not extinguished by the common danger, accused
each other of treachery and cowardice.
[Footnote 48: The unanimous testimony of the four Greeks is
confirmed by Cantemir (p. 96) from the Turkish annals; but I
could wish to contract the distance of ten miles, and to prolong
the term of one night.
Note: Six miles, not ten. Von Hammer. - M]
[Footnote 49: Phranza relates two examples of a similar
transportation over the six miles of the Isthmus of Corinth; the
one fabulous, of Augustus after the battle of Actium; the other
true, of Nicetas, a Greek general in the xth century. To these
he might have added a bold enterprise of Hannibal, to introduce
his vessels into the harbor of Tarentum, (Polybius, l. viii. p.
749, edit. Gronov.)
Note: Von Hammer gives a longer list of such
transportations, p. 533. Dion Cassius distinctly relates the
occurrence treated as fabulous by Gibbon. - M.]
[Footnote 50: A Greek of Candia, who had served the Venetians in
a similar undertaking, (Spond. A.D. 1438, No. 37,) might possibly
be the adviser and agent of Mahomet.]
[Footnote 51: I particularly allude to our own embarkations on
the lakes of Canada in the years 1776 and 1777, so great in the
labor, so fruitless in the event.]
[Footnote !: They were betrayed, according to some accounts, by
the Genoese of Galata. Von Hammer, p. 536. - M.]
During the siege of Constantinople, the words of peace and
capitulation had been sometimes pronounced; and several embassies
had passed between the camp and the city. ^52 The Greek emperor
was humbled by adversity; and would have yielded to any terms
compatible with religion and royalty. The Turkish sultan was
desirous of sparing the blood of his soldiers; still more
desirous of securing for his own use the Byzantine treasures: and
he accomplished a sacred duty in presenting to the Gabours the
choice of circumcision, of tribute, or of death. The avarice of
Mahomet might have been satisfied with an annual sum of one
hundred thousand ducats; but his ambition grasped the capital of
the East: to the prince he offered a rich equivalent, to the
people a free toleration, or a safe departure: but after some
fruitless treaty, he declared his resolution of finding either a
throne, or a grave, under the walls of Constantinople. A sense
of honor, and the fear of universal reproach, forbade Palaeologus
to resign the city into the hands of the Ottomans; and he
determined to abide the last extremities of war. Several days
were employed by the sultan in the preparations of the assault;
and a respite was granted by his favorite science of astrology,
which had fixed on the twenty-ninth of May, as the fortunate and
fatal hour. On the evening of the twenty-seventh, he issued his
final orders; assembled in his presence the military chiefs, and
dispersed his heralds through the camp to proclaim the duty, and
the motives, of the perilous enterprise. Fear is the first
principle of a despotic government; and his menaces were
expressed in the Oriental style, that the fugitives and
deserters, had they the wings of a bird, ^53 should not escape
from his inexorable justice. The greatest part of his bashaws
and Janizaries were the offspring of Christian parents: but the
glories of the Turkish name were perpetuated by successive
adoption; and in the gradual change of individuals, the spirit of
a legion, a regiment, or an oda, is kept alive by imitation and
discipline. In this holy warfare, the Moslems were exhorted to
purify their minds with prayer, their bodies with seven
ablutions; and to abstain from food till the close of the ensuing
day. A crowd of dervises visited the tents, to instil the desire
of martyrdom, and the assurance of spending an immortal youth
amidst the rivers and gardens of paradise, and in the embraces of
the black-eyed virgins. Yet Mahomet principally trusted to the
efficacy of temporal and visible rewards. A double pay was
promised to the victorious troops: "The city and the buildings,"
said Mahomet, "are mine; but I resign to your valor the captives
and the spoil, the treasures of gold and beauty; be rich and be
happy. Many are the provinces of my empire: the intrepid soldier
who first ascends the walls of Constantinople shall be rewarded
with the government of the fairest and most wealthy; and my
gratitude shall accumulate his honors and fortunes above the
measure of his own hopes." Such various and potent motives
diffused among the Turks a general ardor, regardless of life and
impatient for action: the camp reechoed with the Moslem shouts of
"God is God: there is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of
God;" ^54 and the sea and land, from Galata to the seven towers,
were illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires. ^*
[Footnote 52: Chalcondyles and Ducas differ in the time and
circumstances of the negotiation; and as it was neither glorious
nor salutory, the faithful Phranza spares his prince even the
thought of a surrender.]
[Footnote 53: These wings (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 208) are no
more than an Oriental figure: but in the tragedy of Irene,
Mahomet's passion soars above sense and reason: -
Should the fierce North, upon his frozen wings.
Bear him aloft above the wondering clouds,
And seat him in the Pleiads' golden chariot -
Then should my fury drag him down to tortures.
Besides the extravagance of the rant, I must observe, 1. That the
operation of the winds must be confined to the lower region of
the air. 2. That the name, etymology, and fable of the Pleiads
are purely Greek, (Scholiast ad Homer, Sigma 686. Eudocia in
Ionia, p. 399. Apollodor. l. iii. c. 10. Heyne, p. 229, Not.
682,) and had no affinity with the astronomy of the East, (Hyde
ad Ulugbeg, Tabul. in Syntagma Dissert. tom. i. p. 40, 42.
Goguet, Origine des Arts, &c., tom. vi. p. 73 - 78. Gebelin,
Hist. du Calendrier, p. 73,) which Mahomet had studied. 3. The
golden chariot does not exist either in science or fiction; but I
much fear Dr. Johnson has confounded the Pleiades with the great
bear or wagon, the zodiac with a northern constalation.]
[Footnote 54: Phranza quarrels with these Moslem acclamations,
not for the name of God, but for that of the prophet: the pious
zeal of Voltaire is excessive, and even ridiculous.]
[Footnote *: The picture is heightened by the addition of the
wailing cries of Kyris, which were heard from the dark interior
of the city. Von Hammer p. 539. - M.]
Far different was the state of the Christians; who, with
loud and impotent complaints, deplored the guilt, or the
punishment, of their sins. The celestial image of the Virgin had
been exposed in solemn procession; but their divine patroness was
deaf to their entreaties: they accused the obstinacy of the
emperor for refusing a timely surrender; anticipated the horrors
of their fate; and sighed for the repose and security of Turkish
servitude. The noblest of the Greeks, and the bravest of the
allies, were summoned to the palace, to prepare them, on the
evening of the twenty-eighth, for the duties and dangers of the
general assault. The last speech of Palaeologus was the funeral
oration of the Roman empire: ^55 he promised, he conjured, and he
vainly attempted to infuse the hope which was extinguished in his
own mind. In this world all was comfortless and gloomy; and
neither the gospel nor the church have proposed any conspicuous
recompense to the heroes who fall in the service of their
country. But the example of their prince, and the confinement of
a siege, had armed these warriors with the courage of despair,
and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings of the
historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournful
assembly. They wept, they embraced; regardless of their families
and fortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander,
departing to his station, maintained all night a vigilant and
anxious watch on the rampart. The emperor, and some faithful
companions, entered the dome of St. Sophia, which in a few hours
was to be converted into a mosque; and devoutly received, with
tears and prayers, the sacrament of the holy communion. He
reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with cries
and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all whom he might have
injured; ^56 and mounted on horseback to visit the guards, and
explore the motions of the enemy. The distress and fall of the
last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of
the Byzantine Caesars. ^*
[Footnote 55: I am afraid that this discourse was composed by
Phranza himself; and it smells so grossly of the sermon and the
convent, that I almost doubt whether it was pronounced by
Constantine. Leonardus assigns him another speech, in which he
addresses himself more respectfully to the Latin auxiliaries.]
[Footnote 56: This abasement, which devotion has sometimes
extorted from dying princes, is an improvement of the gospel
doctrine of the forgiveness of injuries: it is more easy to
forgive 490 times, than once to ask pardon of an inferior.]
[Footnote *: Compare the very curious Armenian elegy on the fall
of Constantinople, translated by M. Bore, in the Journal
Asiatique for March, 1835; and by M. Brosset, in the new edition
of Le Beau, (tom. xxi. p. 308.) The author thus ends his poem:
"I, Abraham, loaded with sins, have composed this elegy with the
most lively sorrow; for I have seen Constantinople in the days of
its glory." - M.]
In the confusion of darkness, an assailant may sometimes
succeed; out in this great and general attack, the military
judgment and astrological knowledge of Mahomet advised him to
expect the morning, the memorable twenty- ninth of May, in the
fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the Christian aera. The
preceding night had been strenuously employed: the troops, the
cannons, and the fascines, were advanced to the edge of the
ditch, which in many parts presented a smooth and level passage
to the breach; and his fourscore galleys almost touched, with the
prows and their scaling-ladders, the less defensible walls of the
harbor. Under pain of death, silence was enjoined: but the
physical laws of motion and sound are not obedient to discipline
or fear; each individual might suppress his voice and measure his
footsteps; but the march and labor of thousands must inevitably
produce a strange confusion of dissonant clamors, which reached
the ears of the watchmen of the towers. At daybreak, without the
customary signal of the morning gun, the Turks assaulted the city
by sea and land; and the similitude of a twined or twisted thread
has been applied to the closeness and continuity of their line of
attack. ^57 The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the
host, a voluntary crowd who fought without order or command; of
the feebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and
of all who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and
martyrdom. The common impulse drove them onwards to the wall;
the most audacious to climb were instantly precipitated; and not
a dart, not a bullet, of the Christians, was idly wasted on the
accumulated throng. But their strength and ammunition were
exhausted in this laborious defence: the ditch was filled with
the bodies of the slain; they supported the footsteps of their
companions; and of this devoted vanguard the death was more
serviceable than the life. Under their respective bashaws and
sanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and Romania were successively led
to the charge: their progress was various and doubtful; but,
after a conflict of two hours, the Greeks still maintained, and
improved their advantage; and the voice of the emperor was heard,
encouraging his soldiers to achieve, by a last effort, the
deliverance of their country. In that fatal moment, the
Janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible. The sultan
himself on horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was the
spectator and judge of their valor: he was surrounded by ten
thousand of his domestic troops, whom he reserved for the
decisive occasion; and the tide of battle was directed and
impelled by his voice and eye. His numerous ministers of justice
were posted behind the line, to urge, to restrain, and to punish;
and if danger was in the front, shame and inevitable death were
in the rear, of the fugitives. The cries of fear and of pain
were drowned in the martial music of drums, trumpets, and
attaballs; and experience has proved, that the mechanical
operation of sounds, by quickening the circulation of the blood
and spirits, will act on the human machine more forcibly than the
eloquence of reason and honor. From the lines, the galleys, and
the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides; and the
camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud
of smoke which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance
or destruction of the Roman empire. The single combats of the
heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our
affections: the skilful evolutions of war may inform the mind,
and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the
uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood,
and horror, and confusion nor shall I strive, at the distance of
three centuries, and a thousand miles, to delineate a scene of
which there could be no spectators, and of which the actors
themselves were incapable of forming any just or adequate idea.
[Footnote 57: Besides the 10,000 guards, and the sailors and the
marines, Ducas numbers in this general assault 250,000 Turks,
both horse and foot.]
The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the
bullet, or arrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani.
The sight of his blood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the
courage of the chief, whose arms and counsels were the firmest
rampart of the city. As he withdrew from his station in quest of
a surgeon, his flight was perceived and stopped by the
indefatigable emperor. "Your wound," exclaimed Palaeologus, "is
slight; the danger is pressing: your presence is necessary; and
whither will you retire?" - "I will retire," said the trembling
Genoese, "by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;"
and at these words he hastily passed through one of the breaches
of the inner wall. By this pusillanimous act he stained the
honors of a military life; and the few days which he survived in
Galata, or the Isle of Chios, were embittered by his own and the
public reproach. ^58 His example was imitated by the greatest
part of the Latin auxiliaries, and the defence began to slacken
when the attack was pressed with redoubled vigor. The number of
the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, times superior to that
of the Christians; the double walls were reduced by the cannon to
a heap of ruins: in a circuit of several miles, some places must
be found more easy of access, or more feebly guarded; and if the
besiegers could penetrate in a single point, the whole city was
irrecoverably lost. The first who deserved the sultan's reward
was Hassan the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With
his cimeter in one hand and his buckler in the other, he ascended
the outward fortification: of the thirty Janizaries, who were
emulous of his valor, eighteen perished in the bold adventure.
Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the summit: the
giant was precipitated from the rampart: he rose on one knee, and
was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his
success had proved that the achievement was possible: the walls
and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks; and the
Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by
increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, ^59
who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was
long seen and finally lost. The nobles, who fought round his
person, sustained, till their last breath, the honorable names of
Palaeologus and Cantacuzene: his mournful exclamation was heard,
"Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" ^60 and
his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the
infidels. ^61 The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the
purple: amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his
body was buried under a mountain of the slain. After his death,
resistance and order were no more: the Greeks fled towards the
city; and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow pass of the
gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through the
breaches of the inner wall; and as they advanced into the
streets, they were soon joined by their brethren, who had forced
the gate Phenar on the side of the harbor. ^62 In the first heat
of the pursuit, about two thousand Christians were put to the
sword; but avarice soon prevailed over cruelty; and the victors
acknowledged, that they should immediately have given quarter if
the valor of the emperor and his chosen bands had not prepared
them for a similar opposition in every part of the capital. It
was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople,
which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the
caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the
Second. Her empire only had been subverted by the Latins: her
religion was trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors. ^63
[Footnote 58: In the severe censure of the flight of Justiniani,
Phranza expresses his own feelings and those of the public. For
some private reasons, he is treated with more lenity and respect
by Ducas; but the words of Leonardus Chiensis express his strong
and recent indignation, gloriae salutis suique oblitus. In the
whole series of their Eastern policy, his countrymen, the
Genoese, were always suspected, and often guilty.
Note: M. Brosset has given some extracts from the Georgian
account of the siege of Constantinople, in which Justiniani's
wound in the left foot is represented as more serious. With
charitable ambiguity the chronicler adds that his soldiers
carried him away with them in their vessel. - M.]
[Footnote 59: Ducas kills him with two blows of Turkish soldiers;
Chalcondyles wounds him in the shoulder, and then tramples him in
the gate. The grief of Phranza, carrying him among the enemy,
escapes from the precise image of his death; but we may, without
flattery, apply these noble lines of Dryden: -
As to Sebastian, let them search the field;
And where they find a mountain of the slain,
Send one to climb, and looking down beneath,
There they will find him at his manly length,
With his face up to heaven, in that red monument
Which his good sword had digged.]
[Footnote 60: Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 10,) who has hopes of
his salvation, wishes to absolve this demand from the guilt of
suicide.]
[Footnote 61: Leonardus Chiensis very properly observes, that the
Turks, had they known the emperor, would have labored to save and
secure a captive so acceptable to the sultan.]
[Footnote 62: Cantemir, p. 96. The Christian ships in the mouth
of the harbor had flanked and retarded this naval attack.]
[Footnote 63: Chalcondyles most absurdly supposes, that
Constantinople was sacked by the Asiatics in revenge for the
ancient calamities of Troy; and the grammarians of the xvth
century are happy to melt down the uncouth appellation of Turks
into the more classical name of Teucri.]
The tidings of misfortune fly with a rapid wing; yet such
was the extent of Constantinople, that the more distant quarters
might prolong, some moments, the happy ignorance of their ruin.
^64 But in the general consternation, in the feelings of selfish
or social anxiety, in the tumult and thunder of the assault, a
sleepless night and morning ^* must have elapsed; nor can I
believe that many Grecian ladies were awakened by the Janizaries
from a sound and tranquil slumber. On the assurance of the
public calamity, the houses and convents were instantly deserted;
and the trembling inhabitants flocked together in the streets,
like a herd of timid animals, as if accumulated weakness could be
productive of strength, or in the vain hope, that amid the crowd
each individual might be safe and invisible. From every part of
the capital, they flowed into the church of St. Sophia: in the
space of an hour, the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the upper
and lower galleries, were filled with the multitudes of fathers
and husbands, of women and children, of priests, monks, and
religious virgins: the doors were barred on the inside, and they
sought protection from the sacred dome, which they had so lately
abhorred as a profane and polluted edifice. Their confidence was
founded on the prophecy of an enthusiast or impostor; that one
day the Turks would enter Constantinople, and pursue the Romans
as far as the column of Constantine in the square before St.
Sophia: but that this would be the term of their calamities: that
an angel would descend from heaven, with a sword in his hand, and
would deliver the empire, with that celestial weapon, to a poor
man seated at the foot of the column. "Take this sword," would
he say, "and avenge the people of the Lord." At these animating
words, the Turks would instantly fly, and the victorious Romans
would drive them from the West, and from all Anatolia as far as
the frontiers of Persia. It is on this occasion that Ducas, with
some fancy and much truth, upbraids the discord and obstinacy of
the Greeks. "Had that angel appeared," exclaims the historian,
"had he offered to exterminate your foes if you would consent to
the union of the church, even event then, in that fatal moment,
you would have rejected your safety, or have deceived your God."
^65
[Footnote 64: When Cyrus suppressed Babylon during the
celebration of a festival, so vast was the city, and so careless
were the inhabitants, that much time elapsed before the distant
quarters knew that they were captives. Herodotus, (l. i. c. 191,)
and Usher, (Annal. p. 78,) who has quoted from the prophet
Jeremiah a passage of similar import.]
[Footnote *: This refers to an expression in Ducas, who, to
heighten the effect of his description, speaks of the "sweet
morning sleep resting on the eyes of youths and maidens," p. 288.
Edit. Bekker. - M.]
[Footnote 65: This lively description is extracted from Ducas,
(c. 39,) who two years afterwards was sent ambassador from the
prince of Lesbos to the sultan, (c. 44.) Till Lesbos was subdued
in 1463, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 27,) that island must have been
full of the fugitives of Constantinople, who delighted to repeat,
perhaps to adorn, the tale of their misery.]
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
Eastern Empire
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.
Part I.
State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century. - Temporal Dominion
Of The Popes. - Seditions Of The City. - Political Heresy Of
Arnold Of Brescia. - Restoration Of The Republic. - The Senators.
- Pride Of The Romans. - Their Wars. - They Are Deprived Of The
Election And Presence Of The Popes, Who Retire To Avignon. - The
Jubilee. - Noble Families Of Rome. - Feud Of The Colonna And
Ursini.
In the first ages of the decline and fall of the Roman
empire, our eye is invariably fixed on the royal city, which had
given laws to the fairest portion of the globe. We contemplate
her fortunes, at first with admiration, at length with pity,
always with attention, and when that attention is diverted from
the capital to the provinces, they are considered as so many
branches which have been successively severed from the Imperial
trunk. The foundation of a second Rome, on the shores of the
Bosphorus, has compelled the historian to follow the successors
of Constantine; and our curiosity has been tempted to visit the
most remote countries of Europe and Asia, to explore the causes
and the authors of the long decay of the Byzantine monarchy. By
the conquest of Justinian, we have been recalled to the banks of
the Tyber, to the deliverance of the ancient metropolis; but that
deliverance was a change, or perhaps an aggravation, of
servitude. Rome had been already stripped of her trophies, her
gods, and her Caesars; nor was the Gothic dominion more
inglorious and oppressive than the tyranny of the Greeks. In the
eighth century of the Christian aera, a religious quarrel, the
worship of images, provoked the Romans to assert their
independence: their bishop became the temporal, as well as the
spiritual, father of a free people; and of the Western empire,
which was restored by Charlemagne, the title and image still
decorate the singular constitution of modern Germany. The name of
Rome must yet command our involuntary respect: the climate
(whatsoever may be its influence) was no longer the same: ^1 the
purity of blood had been contaminated through a thousand
channels; but the venerable aspect of her ruins, and the memory
of past greatness, rekindled a spark of the national character.
The darkness of the middle ages exhibits some scenes not unworthy
of our notice. Nor shall I dismiss the present work till I have
reviewed the state and revolutions of the Roman City, which
acquiesced under the absolute dominion of the popes, about the
same time that Constantinople was enslaved by the Turkish arms.
[Footnote 1: The abbe Dubos, who, with less genius than his
successor Montesquieu, has asserted and magnified the influence
of climate, objects to himself the degeneracy of the Romans and
Batavians. To the first of these examples he replies, 1. That
the change is less real than apparent, and that the modern Romans
prudently conceal in themselves the virtues of their ancestors.
2. That the air, the soil, and the climate of Rome have suffered
a great and visible alteration, (Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur
la Peinture, part ii. sect. 16.)
Note: This question is discussed at considerable length in
Dr. Arnold's History of Rome, ch. xxiii. See likewise Bunsen's
Dissertation on the Aria Cattiva Roms Beschreibung, pp. 82, 108.
- M.]
In the beginning of the twelfth century, ^2 the aera of the
first crusade, Rome was revered by the Latins, as the metropolis
of the world, as the throne of the pope and the emperor, who,
from the eternal city, derived their title, their honors, and the
right or exercise of temporal dominion. After so long an
interruption, it may not be useless to repeat that the successors
of Charlemagne and the Othos were chosen beyond the Rhine in a
national diet; but that these princes were content with the
humble names of kings of Germany and Italy, till they had passed
the Alps and the Apennine, to seek their Imperial crown on the
banks of the Tyber. ^3 At some distance from the city, their
approach was saluted by a long procession of the clergy and
people with palms and crosses; and the terrific emblems of wolves
and lions, of dragons and eagles, that floated in the military
banners, represented the departed legions and cohorts of the
republic. The royal path to maintain the liberties of Rome was
thrice reiterated, at the bridge, the gate, and on the stairs of
the Vatican; and the distribution of a customary donative feebly
imitated the magnificence of the first Caesars. In the church of
St. Peter, the coronation was performed by his successor: the
voice of God was confounded with that of the people; and the
public consent was declared in the acclamations of "Long life and
victory to our lord the pope! long life and victory to our lord
the emperor! long life and victory to the Roman and Teutonic
armies!" ^4 The names of Caesar and Augustus, the laws of
Constantine and Justinian, the example of Charlemagne and Otho,
established the supreme dominion of the emperors: their title and
image was engraved on the papal coins; ^5 and their jurisdiction
was marked by the sword of justice, which they delivered to the
praefect of the city. But every Roman prejudice was awakened by
the name, the language, and the manners, of a Barbarian lord.
The Caesars of Saxony or Franconia were the chiefs of a feudal
aristocracy; nor could they exercise the discipline of civil and
military power, which alone secures the obedience of a distant
people, impatient of servitude, though perhaps incapable of
freedom. Once, and once only, in his life, each emperor, with an
army of Teutonic vassals, descended from the Alps. I have
described the peaceful order of his entry and coronation; but
that order was commonly disturbed by the clamor and sedition of
the Romans, who encountered their sovereign as a foreign invader:
his departure was always speedy, and often shameful; and, in the
absence of a long reign, his authority was insulted, and his name
was forgotten. The progress of independence in Germany and Italy
undermined the foundations of the Imperial sovereignty, and the
triumph of the popes was the deliverance of Rome.
[Footnote 2: The reader has been so long absent from Rome, that I
would advise him to recollect or review the xlixth chapter of
this History.]
[Footnote 3: The coronation of the German emperors at Rome, more
especially in the xith century, is best represented from the
original monuments by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom. i. dissertat. ii. p. 99, &c.) and Cenni, (Monument. Domin.
Pontif. tom. ii. diss. vi. p. 261,) the latter of whom I only
know from the copious extract of Schmidt, (Hist. des Allemands
tom. iii. p. 255 - 266.)]
[Footnote 4: Exercitui Romano et Teutonico! The latter was both
seen and felt; but the former was no more than magni nominis
umbra.]
[Footnote 5: Muratori has given the series of the papal coins,
(Antiquitat. tom. ii. diss. xxvii. p. 548 - 554.) He finds only
two more early than the year 800: fifty are still extant from Leo
III. to Leo IX., with the addition of the reigning emperor none
remain of Gregory VII. or Urban II.; but in those of Paschal II.
he seems to have renounced this badge of dependence.]
Of her two sovereigns, the emperor had precariously reigned
by the right of conquest; but the authority of the pope was
founded on the soft, though more solid, basis of opinion and
habit. The removal of a foreign influence restored and endeared
the shepherd to his flock. Instead of the arbitrary or venal
nomination of a German court, the vicar of Christ was freely
chosen by the college of cardinals, most of whom were either
natives or inhabitants of the city. The applause of the
magistrates and people confirmed his election, and the
ecclesiastical power that was obeyed in Sweden and Britain had
been ultimately derived from the suffrage of the Romans. The
same suffrage gave a prince, as well as a pontiff, to the
capital. It was universally believed, that Constantine had
invested the popes with the temporal dominion of Rome; and the
boldest civilians, the most profane skeptics, were satisfied with
disputing the right of the emperor and the validity of his gift.
The truth of the fact, the authenticity of his donation, was
deeply rooted in the ignorance and tradition of four centuries;
and the fabulous origin was lost in the real and permanent
effects. The name of Dominus or Lord was inscribed on the coin
of the bishops: their title was acknowledged by acclamations and
oaths of allegiance, and with the free, or reluctant, consent of
the German Caesars, they had long exercised a supreme or
subordinate jurisdiction over the city and patrimony of St.
Peter. The reign of the popes, which gratified the prejudices,
was not incompatible with the liberties, of Rome; and a more
critical inquiry would have revealed a still nobler source of
their power; the gratitude of a nation, whom they had rescued
from the heresy and oppression of the Greek tyrant. In an age of
superstition, it should seem that the union of the royal and
sacerdotal characters would mutually fortify each other; and that
the keys of Paradise would be the surest pledge of earthly
obedience. The sanctity of the office might indeed be degraded by
the personal vices of the man. But the scandals of the tenth
century were obliterated by the austere and more dangerous
virtues of Gregory the Seventh and his successors; and in the
ambitious contests which they maintained for the rights of the
church, their sufferings or their success must equally tend to
increase the popular veneration. They sometimes wandered in
poverty and exile, the victims of persecution; and the apostolic
zeal with which they offered themselves to martyrdom must engage
the favor and sympathy of every Catholic breast. And sometimes,
thundering from the Vatican, they created, judged, and deposed
the kings of the world; nor could the proudest Roman be disgraced
by submitting to a priest, whose feet were kissed, and whose
stirrup was held, by the successors of Charlemagne. ^6 Even the
temporal interest of the city should have protected in peace and
honor the residence of the popes; from whence a vain and lazy
people derived the greatest part of their subsistence and riches.
The fixed revenue of the popes was probably impaired; many of the
old patrimonial estates, both in Italy and the provinces, had
been invaded by sacrilegious hands; nor could the loss be
compensated by the claim, rather than the possession, of the more
ample gifts of Pepin and his descendants. But the Vatican and
Capitol were nourished by the incessant and increasing swarms of
pilgrims and suppliants: the pale of Christianity was enlarged,
and the pope and cardinals were overwhelmed by the judgment of
ecclesiastical and secular causes. A new jurisprudence had
established in the Latin church the right and practice of
appeals; ^7 and from the North and West the bishops and abbots
were invited or summoned to solicit, to complain, to accuse, or
to justify, before the threshold of the apostles. A rare prodigy
is once recorded, that two horses, belonging to the archbishops
of Mentz and Cologne, repassed the Alps, yet laden with gold and
silver: ^8 but it was soon understood, that the success, both of
the pilgrims and clients, depended much less on the justice of
their cause than on the value of their offering. The wealth and
piety of these strangers were ostentatiously displayed; and their
expenses, sacred or profane, circulated in various channels for
the emolument of the Romans.
[Footnote 6: See Ducange, Gloss. mediae et infimae Latinitat.
tom. vi. p. 364, 365, Staffa. This homage was paid by kings to
archbishops, and by vassals to their lords, (Schmidt, tom. iii.
p. 262;) and it was the nicest policy of Rome to confound the
marks of filial and of feudal subjection]
[Footnote 7: The appeals from all the churches to the Roman
pontiff are deplored by the zeal of St. Bernard (de
Consideratione, l. iii. tom. ii. p. 431 - 442, edit. Mabillon,
Venet. 1750) and the judgment of Fleury, (Discours sur l'Hist.
Ecclesiastique, iv. et vii.) But the saint, who believed in the
false decretals condemns only the abuse of these appeals; the
more enlightened historian investigates the origin, and rejects
the principles, of this new jurisprudence.]
[Footnote 8: Germanici . . . . summarii non levatis sarcinis
onusti nihilominus repatriant inviti. Nova res! quando hactenus
aurum Roma refudit? Et nunc Romanorum consilio id usurpatum non
credimus, (Bernard, de Consideratione, l. iii. c. 3, p. 437.) The
first words of the passage are obscure, and probably corrupt.]
Such powerful motives should have firmly attached the
voluntary and pious obedience of the Roman people to their
spiritual and temporal father. But the operation of prejudice and
interest is often disturbed by the sallies of ungovernable
passion. The Indian who fells the tree, that he may gather the
fruit, ^9 and the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce, are
actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, which overlooks
the future in the present, and relinquishes for momentary rapine
the long and secure possession of the most important blessings.
And it was thus, that the shrine of St. Peter was profaned by the
thoughtless Romans; who pillaged the offerings, and wounded the
pilgrims, without computing the number and value of similar
visits, which they prevented by their inhospitable sacrilege.
Even the influence of superstition is fluctuating and precarious;
and the slave, whose reason is subdued, will often be delivered
by his avarice or pride. A credulous devotion for the fables and
oracles of the priesthood most powerfully acts on the mind of a
Barbarian; yet such a mind is the least capable of preferring
imagination to sense, of sacrificing to a distant motive, to an
invisible, perhaps an ideal, object, the appetites and interests
of the present world. In the vigor of health and youth, his
practice will perpetually contradict his belief; till the
pressure of age, or sickness, or calamity, awakens his terrors,
and compels him to satisfy the double debt of piety and remorse.
I have already observed, that the modern times of religious
indifference are the most favorable to the peace and security of
the clergy. Under the reign of superstition, they had much to
hope from the ignorance, and much to fear from the violence, of
mankind. The wealth, whose constant increase must have rendered
them the sole proprietors of the earth, was alternately bestowed
by the repentant father and plundered by the rapacious son: their
persons were adored or violated; and the same idol, by the hands
of the same votaries, was placed on the altar, or trampled in the
dust. In the feudal system of Europe, arms were the title of
distinction and the measure of allegiance; and amidst their
tumult, the still voice of law and reason was seldom heard or
obeyed. The turbulent Romans disdained the yoke, and insulted the
impotence, of their bishop: ^10 nor would his education or
character allow him to exercise, with decency or effect, the
power of the sword. The motives of his election and the
frailties of his life were exposed to their familiar observation;
and proximity must diminish the reverence which his name and his
decrees impressed on a barbarous world. This difference has not
escaped the notice of our philosophic historian: "Though the name
and authority of the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote
countries of Europe, which were sunk in profound ignorance, and
were entirely unacquainted with its character and conduct, the
pope was so little revered at home, that his inveterate enemies
surrounded the gates of Rome itself, and even controlled his
government in that city; and the ambassadors, who, from a distant
extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble, or rather abject,
submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found the
utmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw
themselves at his feet." ^11
[Footnote 9: Quand les sauvages de la Louisiane veulent avoir du
fruit, ils coupent l'arbre au pied et cueillent le fruit. Voila
le gouvernement despotique, (Esprit des Loix, l. v. c. 13;) and
passion and ignorance are always despotic.]
[Footnote 10: In a free conversation with his countryman Adrian
IV., John of Salisbury accuses the avarice of the pope and
clergy: Provinciarum diripiunt spolia, ac si thesauros Croesi
studeant reparare. Sed recte cum eis agit Altissimus, quoniam et
ipsi aliis et saepe vilissimis hominibus dati sunt in
direptionem, (de Nugis Curialium, l. vi. c. 24, p. 387.) In the
next page, he blames the rashness and infidelity of the Romans,
whom their bishops vainly strove to conciliate by gifts, instead
of virtues. It is pity that this miscellaneous writer has not
given us less morality and erudition, and more pictures of
himself and the times.]
[Footnote 11: Hume's History of England, vol. i. p. 419. The
same writer has given us, from Fitz-Stephen, a singular act of
cruelty perpetrated on the clergy by Geoffrey, the father of
Henry II. "When he was master of Normandy, the chapter of Seez
presumed, without his consent, to proceed to the election of a
bishop: upon which he ordered all of them, with the bishop elect,
to be castrated, and made all their testicles be brought him in a
platter." Of the pain and danger they might justly complain; yet
since they had vowed chastity he deprived them of a superfluous
treasure.]
Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was
exposed to envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to
violence. But the long hostility of the mitre and the crown
increased the numbers, and inflamed the passions, of their
enemies. The deadly factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, so
fatal to Italy, could never be embraced with truth or constancy
by the Romans, the subjects and adversaries both of the bishop
and emperor; but their support was solicited by both parties, and
they alternately displayed in their banners the keys of St. Peter
and the German eagle. Gregory the Seventh, who may be adored or
detested as the founder of the papal monarchy, was driven from
Rome, and died in exile at Salerno. Six- and-thirty of his
successors, ^12 till their retreat to Avignon, maintained an
unequal contest with the Romans: their age and dignity were often
violated; and the churches, in the solemn rites of religion, were
polluted with sedition and murder. A repetition ^13 of such
capricious brutality, without connection or design, would be
tedious and disgusting; and I shall content myself with some
events of the twelfth century, which represent the state of the
popes and the city. On Holy Thursday, while Paschal officiated
before the altar, he was interrupted by the clamors of the
multitude, who imperiously demanded the confirmation of a
favorite magistrate. His silence exasperated their fury; his
pious refusal to mingle the affairs of earth and heaven was
encountered with menaces, and oaths, that he should be the cause
and the witness of the public ruin. During the festival of
Easter, while the bishop and the clergy, barefooted and in
procession, visited the tombs of the martyrs, they were twice
assaulted, at the bridge of St. Angelo, and before the Capitol,
with volleys of stones and darts. The houses of his adherents
were levelled with the ground: Paschal escaped with difficulty
and danger; he levied an army in the patrimony of St. Peter; and
his last days were embittered by suffering and inflicting the
calamities of civil war. The scenes that followed the election
of his successor Gelasius the Second were still more scandalous
to the church and city. Cencio Frangipani, ^14 a potent and
factious baron, burst into the assembly furious and in arms: the
cardinals were stripped, beaten, and trampled under foot; and he
seized, without pity or respect, the vicar of Christ by the
throat. Gelasius was dragged by the hair along the ground,
buffeted with blows, wounded with spurs, and bound with an iron
chain in the house of his brutal tyrant. An insurrection of the
people delivered their bishop: the rival families opposed the
violence of the Frangipani; and Cencio, who sued for pardon,
repented of the failure, rather than of the guilt, of his
enterprise. Not many days had elapsed, when the pope was again
assaulted at the altar. While his friends and enemies were
engaged in a bloody contest, he escaped in his sacerdotal
garments. In this unworthy flight, which excited the compassion
of the Roman matrons, his attendants were scattered or unhorsed;
and, in the fields behind the church of St. Peter, his successor
was found alone and half dead with fear and fatigue. Shaking the
dust from his feet, the apostle withdrew from a city in which his
dignity was insulted and his person was endangered; and the
vanity of sacerdotal ambition is revealed in the involuntary
confession, that one emperor was more tolerable than twenty. ^15
These examples might suffice; but I cannot forget the sufferings
of two pontiffs of the same age, the second and third of the name
of Lucius. The former, as he ascended in battle array to assault
the Capitol, was struck on the temple by a stone, and expired in
a few days. The latter was severely wounded in the person of his
servants. In a civil commotion, several of his priests had been
made prisoners; and the inhuman Romans, reserving one as a guide
for his brethren, put out their eyes, crowned them with ludicrous
mitres, mounted them on asses with their faces towards the tail,
and extorted an oath, that, in this wretched condition, they
should offer themselves as a lesson to the head of the church.
Hope or fear, lassitude or remorse, the characters of the men,
and the circumstances of the times, might sometimes obtain an
interval of peace and obedience; and the pope was restored with
joyful acclamations to the Lateran or Vatican, from whence he had
been driven with threats and violence. But the root of mischief
was deep and perennial; and a momentary calm was preceded and
followed by such tempests as had almost sunk the bark of St.
Peter. Rome continually presented the aspect of war and discord:
the churches and palaces were fortified and assaulted by the
factions and families; and, after giving peace to Europe,
Calistus the Second alone had resolution and power to prohibit
the use of private arms in the metropolis. Among the nations who
revered the apostolic throne, the tumults of Rome provoked a
general indignation; and in a letter to his disciple Eugenius the
Third, St. Bernard, with the sharpness of his wit and zeal, has
stigmatized the vices of the rebellious people. ^16 "Who is
ignorant," says the monk of Clairvaux, "of the vanity and
arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursed in sedition,
untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too feeble to
resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; if
they swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet
they vent their discontent in loud clamors, if your doors, or
your counsels, are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief,
they have never learned the science of doing good. Odious to
earth and heaven, impious to God, seditious among themselves,
jealous of their neighbors, inhuman to strangers, they love no
one, by no one are they beloved; and while they wish to inspire
fear, they live in base and continual apprehension. They will
not submit; they know not how to govern faithless to their
superiors, intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their
benefactors, and alike impudent in their demands and their
refusals. Lofty in promise, poor in execution; adulation and
calumny, perfidy and treason, are the familiar arts of their
policy." Surely this dark portrait is not colored by the pencil
of Christian charity; ^17 yet the features, however harsh or
ugly, express a lively resemblance of the Roman of the twelfth
century. ^18
[Footnote 12: From Leo IX. and Gregory VII. an authentic and
contemporary series of the lives of the popes by the cardinal of
Arragon, Pandulphus Pisanus, Bernard Guido, &c., is inserted in
the Italian Historians of Muratori, (tom. iii. P. i. p. 277 -
685,) and has been always before my eyes.]
[Footnote 13: The dates of years int he in the contents may
throughout his this chapter be understood as tacit references to
the Annals of Muratori, my ordinary and excellent guide. He
uses, and indeed quotes, with the freedom of a master, his great
collection of the Italian Historians, in xxviii. volumes; and as
that treasure is in my library, I have thought it an amusement,
if not a duty, to consult the originals.]
[Footnote 14: I cannot refrain from transcribing the high-colored
words of Pandulphus Pisanus, (p. 384.) Hoc audiens inimicus pacis
atque turbator jam fatus Centius Frajapane, more draconis
immanissimi sibilans, et ab imis pectoribus trahens longa
suspiria, accinctus retro gladio sine more cucurrit, valvas ac
fores confregit. Ecclesiam furibundus introiit, inde custode
remoto papam per gulam accepit, distraxit pugnis calcibusque
percussit, et tanquam brutum animal intra limen ecclesiae acriter
calcaribus cruentavit; et latro tantum dominum per capillos et
brachia, Jesu bono interim dormiente, detraxit, ad domum usque
deduxit, inibi catenavit et inclusit.]
[Footnote 15: Ego coram Deo et Ecclesia dico, si unquam possibile
esset, mallem unum imperatorem quam tot dominos, (Vit. Gelas. II.
p. 398.)]
[Footnote 16: Quid tam notum seculis quam protervia et
cervicositas Romanorum? Gens insueta paci, tumultui assueta, gens
immitis et intractabilis usque adhuc, subdi nescia, nisi cum non
valet resistere, (de Considerat. l. iv. c. 2, p. 441.) The saint
takes breath, and then begins again: Hi, invisi terrae et coelo,
utrique injecere manus, &c., (p. 443.)]
[Footnote 17: As a Roman citizen, Petrarch takes leave to
observe, that Bernard, though a saint, was a man; that he might
be provoked by resentment, and possibly repent of his hasty
passion, &c. (Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p.
330.)]
[Footnote 18: Baronius, in his index to the xiith volume of his
Annals, has found a fair and easy excuse. He makes two heads, of
Romani Catholici and Schismatici: to the former he applies all
the good, to the latter all the evil, that is told of the city.]
The Jews had rejected the Christ when he appeared among them
in a plebeian character; and the Romans might plead their
ignorance of his vicar when he assumed the pomp and pride of a
temporal sovereign. In the busy age of the crusades, some sparks
of curiosity and reason were rekindled in the Western world: the
heresy of Bulgaria, the Paulician sect, was successfully
transplanted into the soil of Italy and France; the Gnostic
visions were mingled with the simplicity of the gospel; and the
enemies of the clergy reconciled their passions with their
conscience, the desire of freedom with the profession of piety.
^19 The trumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded by Arnold of
Brescia, ^20 whose promotion in the church was confined to the
lowest rank, and who wore the monastic habit rather as a garb of
poverty than as a uniform of obedience. His adversaries could
not deny the wit and eloquence which they severely felt; they
confess with reluctance the specious purity of his morals; and
his errors were recommended to the public by a mixture of
important and beneficial truths. In his theological studies, he
had been the disciple of the famous and unfortunate Abelard, ^21
who was likewise involved in the suspicion of heresy: but the
lover of Eloisa was of a soft and flexible nature; and his
ecclesiastic judges were edified and disarmed by the humility of
his repentance. From this master, Arnold most probably imbibed
some metaphysical definitions of the Trinity, repugnant to the
taste of the times: his ideas of baptism and the eucharist are
loosely censured; but a political heresy was the source of his
fame and misfortunes. He presumed to quote the declaration of
Christ, that his kingdom is not of this world: he boldly
maintained, that the sword and the sceptre were intrusted to the
civil magistrate; that temporal honors and possessions were
lawfully vested in secular persons; that the abbots, the bishops,
and the pope himself, must renounce either their state or their
salvation; and that after the loss of their revenues, the
voluntary tithes and oblations of the faithful would suffice, not
indeed for luxury and avarice, but for a frugal life in the
exercise of spiritual labors. During a short time, the preacher
was revered as a patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of
Brescia against her bishop, was the first fruits of his dangerous
lessons. But the favor of the people is less permanent than the
resentment of the priest; and after the heresy of Arnold had been
condemned by Innocent the Second, ^22 in the general council of
the Lateran, the magistrates themselves were urged by prejudice
and fear to execute the sentence of the church. Italy could no
longer afford a refuge; and the disciple of Abelard escaped
beyond the Alps, till he found a safe and hospitable shelter in
Zurich, now the first of the Swiss cantons. From a Roman
station, ^23 a royal villa, a chapter of noble virgins, Zurich
had gradually increased to a free and flourishing city; where the
appeals of the Milanese were sometimes tried by the Imperial
commissaries. ^24 In an age less ripe for reformation, the
precursor of Zuinglius was heard with applause: a brave and
simple people imbibed, and long retained, the color of his
opinions; and his art, or merit, seduced the bishop of Constance,
and even the pope's legate, who forgot, for his sake, the
interest of their master and their order. Their tardy zeal was
quickened by the fierce exhortations of St. Bernard; ^25 and the
enemy of the church was driven by persecution to the desperate
measures of erecting his standard in Rome itself, in the face of
the successor of St. Peter.
[Footnote 19: The heresies of the xiith century may be found in
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 419 - 427,) who entertains a
favorable opinion of Arnold of Brescia. In the vth volume I have
described the sect of the Paulicians, and followed their
migration from Armenia to Thrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France.]
[Footnote 20: The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are
drawn by Otho, bishop of Frisingen, (Chron. l. vii. c. 31, de
Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 27, l. ii. c. 21,) and in the iiid
book of the Ligurinus, a poem of Gunthur, who flourished A.D.
1200, in the monastery of Paris near Basil, (Fabric. Bibliot.
Latin. Med. et Infimae Aetatis, tom. iii. p. 174, 175.) The long
passage that relates to Arnold is produced by Guilliman, (de
Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p. 108.)
Note: Compare Franke, Arnold von Brescia und seine Zeit.
Zarich, 1828 - M.]
[Footnote 21: The wicked wit of Bayle was amused in composing,
with much levity and learning, the articles of Abelard, Foulkes,
Heloise, in his Dictionnaire Critique. The dispute of Abelard
and St. Bernard, of scholastic and positive divinity, is well
understood by Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 412 - 415.)]
[Footnote 22: - Damnatus ab illo Praesule,
qui numeros vetitum contingere
nostros Nomen ad innocua ducit laudabile
vita.
We may applaud the dexterity and correctness of Ligurinus, who
turns the unpoetical name of Innocent II. into a compliment.]
[Footnote 23: A Roman inscription of Statio Turicensis has been
found at Zurich, (D'Anville, Notice de l'ancienne Gaul, p. 642 -
644;) but it is without sufficient warrant, that the city and
canton have usurped, and even monopolized, the names of Tigurum
and Pagus Tigurinus.]
[Footnote 24: Guilliman (de Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p.
106) recapitulates the donation (A.D. 833) of the emperor Lewis
the Pious to his daughter the abbess Hildegardis. Curtim nostram
Turegum in ducatu Alamanniae in pago Durgaugensi, with villages,
woods, meadows, waters, slaves, churches, &c.; a noble gift.
Charles the Bald gave the jus monetae, the city was walled under
Otho I., and the line of the bishop of Frisingen,
Nobile Turegum multarum copia rerum,
is repeated with pleasure by the antiquaries of Zurich.]
[Footnote 25: Bernard, Epistol. cxcv. tom. i. p. 187 - 190.
Amidst his invectives he drops a precious acknowledgment, qui,
utinam quam sanae esset doctrinae quam districtae est vitae. He
owns that Arnold would be a valuable acquisition for the church.]
Part III.
While they expected the descent of the tardy angel, the
doors were broken with axes; and as the Turks encountered no
resistance, their bloodless hands were employed in selecting and
securing the multitude of their prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the
appearance of wealth, attracted their choice; and the right of
property was decided among themselves by a prior seizure, by
personal strength, and by the authority of command. In the space
of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, the females
with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked with
their slaves; the prelates, with the porters of the church; and
young men of the plebeian class, with noble maids, whose faces
had been invisible to the sun and their nearest kindred. In this
common captivity, the ranks of society were confounded; the ties
of nature were cut asunder; and the inexorable soldier was
careless of the father's groans, the tears of the mother, and the
lamentations of the children. The loudest in their wailings were
the nuns, who were torn from the altar with naked bosoms,
outstretched hands, and dishevelled hair; and we should piously
believe that few could be tempted to prefer the vigils of the
harem to those of the monastery. Of these unfortunate Greeks, of
these domestic animals, whole strings were rudely driven through
the streets; and as the conquerors were eager to return for more
prey, their trembling pace was quickened with menaces and blows.
At the same hour, a similar rapine was exercised in all the
churches and monasteries, in all the palaces and habitations, of
the capital; nor could any place, however sacred or sequestered,
protect the persons or the property of the Greeks. Above sixty
thousand of this devoted people were transported from the city to
the camp and fleet; exchanged or sold according to the caprice or
interest of their masters, and dispersed in remote servitude
through the provinces of the Ottoman empire. Among these we may
notice some remarkable characters. The historian Phranza, first
chamberlain and principal secretary, was involved with his family
in the common lot. After suffering four months the hardships of
slavery, he recovered his freedom: in the ensuing winter he
ventured to Adrianople, and ransomed his wife from the mir bashi,
or master of the horse; but his two children, in the flower of
youth and beauty, had been seized for the use of Mahomet himself.
The daughter of Phranza died in the seraglio, perhaps a virgin:
his son, in the fifteenth year of his age, preferred death to
infamy, and was stabbed by the hand of the royal lover. ^66 A
deed thus inhuman cannot surely be expiated by the taste and
liberality with which he released a Grecian matron and her two
daughters, on receiving a Latin doe From ode from Philelphus, who
had chosen a wife in that noble family. ^67 The pride or cruelty
of Mahomet would have been most sensibly gratified by the capture
of a Roman legate; but the dexterity of Cardinal Isidore eluded
the search, and he escaped from Galata in a plebeian habit. ^68
The chain and entrance of the outward harbor was still occupied
by the Italian ships of merchandise and war. They had signalized
their valor in the siege: they embraced the moment of retreat,
while the Turkish mariners were dissipated in the pillage of the
city. When they hoisted sail, the beach was covered with a
suppliant and lamentable crowd; but the means of transportation
were scanty: the Venetians and Genoese selected their countrymen;
and, notwithstanding the fairest promises of the sultan, the
inhabitants of Galata evacuated their houses, and embarked with
their most precious effects.
[Footnote 66: See Phranza, l. iii. c. 20, 21. His expressions
are positive: Ameras sua manu jugulavit . . . . volebat enim eo
turpiter et nefarie abuti. Me miserum et infelicem! Yet he could
only learn from report the bloody or impure scenes that were
acted in the dark recesses of the seraglio.]
[Footnote 67: See Tiraboschi (tom. vi. P. i. p. 290) and
Lancelot, (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718.)
I should be curious to learn how he could praise the public
enemy, whom he so often reviles as the most corrupt and inhuman
of tyrants.]
[Footnote 68: The commentaries of Pius II. suppose that he
craftily placed his cardinal's hat on the head of a corpse which
was cut off and exposed in triumph, while the legate himself was
bought and delivered as a captive of no value. The great Belgic
Chronicle adorns his escape with new adventures, which he
suppressed (says Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No. 15) in his own
letters, lest he should lose the merit and reward of suffering
for Christ.
Note: He was sold as a slave in Galata, according to Von
Hammer, p. 175. See the somewhat vague and declamatory letter of
Cardinal Isidore, in the appendix to Clarke's Travels, vol. ii.
p. 653. - M.]
In the fall and the sack of great cities, an historian is
condemned to repeat the tale of uniform calamity: the same
effects must be produced by the same passions; and when those
passions may be indulged without control, small, alas! is the
difference between civilized and savage man. Amidst the vague
exclamations of bigotry and hatred, the Turks are not accused of
a wanton or immoderate effusion of Christian blood: but according
to their maxims, (the maxims of antiquity,) the lives of the
vanquished were forfeited; and the legitimate reward of the
conqueror was derived from the service, the sale, or the ransom,
of his captives of both sexes. ^69 The wealth of Constantinople
had been granted by the sultan to his victorious troops; and the
rapine of an hour is more productive than the industry of years.
But as no regular division was attempted of the spoil, the
respective shares were not determined by merit; and the rewards
of valor were stolen away by the followers of the camp, who had
declined the toil and danger of the battle. The narrative of
their depredations could not afford either amusement or
instruction: the total amount, in the last poverty of the empire,
has been valued at four millions of ducats; ^70 and of this sum a
small part was the property of the Venetians, the Genoese, the
Florentines, and the merchants of Ancona. Of these foreigners,
the stock was improved in quick and perpetual circulation: but
the riches of the Greeks were displayed in the idle ostentation
of palaces and wardrobes, or deeply buried in treasures of ingots
and old coin, lest it should be demanded at their hands for the
defence of their country. The profanation and plunder of the
monasteries and churches excited the most tragic complaints. The
dome of St. Sophia itself, the earthly heaven, the second
firmament, the vehicle of the cherubim, the throne of the glory
of God, ^71 was despoiled of the oblation of ages; and the gold
and silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal
ornaments, were most wickedly converted to the service of
mankind. After the divine images had been stripped of all that
could be valuable to a profane eye, the canvas, or the wood, was
torn, or broken, or burnt, or trod under foot, or applied, in the
stables or the kitchen, to the vilest uses. The example of
sacrilege was imitated, however, from the Latin conquerors of
Constantinople; and the treatment which Christ, the Virgin, and
the saints, had sustained from the guilty Catholic, might be
inflicted by the zealous Mussulman on the monuments of idolatry.
Perhaps, instead of joining the public clamor, a philosopher will
observe, that in the decline of the arts the workmanship could
not be more valuable than the work, and that a fresh supply of
visions and miracles would speedily be renewed by the craft of
the priests and the credulity of the people. He will more
seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which were
destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred and
twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; ^72 ten
volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same
ignominious price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology,
included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest
productions of the science and literature of ancient Greece. We
may reflect with pleasure that an inestimable portion of our
classic treasures was safely deposited in Italy; and that the
mechanics of a German town had invented an art which derides the
havoc of time and barbarism.
[Footnote 69: Busbequius expatiates with pleasure and applause on
the rights of war, and the use of slavery, among the ancients and
the Turks, (de Legat. Turcica, epist. iii. p. 161.)]
[Footnote 70: This sum is specified in a marginal note of
Leunclavius, (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 211,) but in the
distribution to Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Ancona, of 50, 20,
and 15,000 ducats, I suspect that a figure has been dropped.
Even with the restitution, the foreign property would scarcely
exceed one fourth.]
[Footnote 71: See the enthusiastic praises and lamentations of
Phranza, (l. iii. c. 17.)]
[Footnote 72: See Ducas, (c. 43,) and an epistle, July 15th,
1453, from Laurus Quirinus to Pope Nicholas V., (Hody de Graecis,
p. 192, from a MS. in the Cotton library.)]
From the first hour ^73 of the memorable twenty-ninth of
May, disorder and rapine prevailed in Constantinople, till the
eighth hour of the same day; when the sultan himself passed in
triumph through the gate of St. Romanus. He was attended by his
viziers, bashaws, and guards, each of whom (says a Byzantine
historian) was robust as Hercules, dexterous as Apollo, and equal
in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals. The
conqueror ^74 gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange,
though splendid, appearance of the domes and palaces, so
dissimilar from the style of Oriental architecture. In the
hippodrome, or atmeidan, his eye was attracted by the twisted
column of the three serpents; and, as a trial of his strength, he
shattered with his iron mace or battle-axe the under jaw of one
of these monsters, ^75 which in the eyes of the Turks were the
idols or talismans of the city. ^* At the principal door of St.
Sophia, he alighted from his horse, and entered the dome; and
such was his jealous regard for that monument of his glory, that
on observing a zealous Mussulman in the act of breaking the
marble pavement, he admonished him with his cimeter, that, if the
spoil and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public and
private buildings had been reserved for the prince. By his
command the metropolis of the Eastern church was transformed into
a mosque: the rich and portable instruments of superstition had
been removed; the crosses were thrown down; and the walls, which
were covered with images and mosaics, were washed and purified,
and restored to a state of naked simplicity. On the same day, or
on the ensuing Friday, the muezin, or crier, ascended the most
lofty turret, and proclaimed the ezan, or public invitation in
the name of God and his prophet; the imam preached; and Mahomet
and Second performed the namaz of prayer and thanksgiving on the
great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been
celebrated before the last of the Caesars. ^76 From St. Sophia he
proceeded to the august, but desolate mansion of a hundred
successors of the great Constantine, but which in a few hours had
been stripped of the pomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on
the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on his mind;
and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry: "The spider
has wove his web in the Imperial palace; and the owl hath sung
her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab." ^77
[Footnote 73: The Julian Calendar, which reckons the days and
hours from midnight, was used at Constantinople. But Ducas seems
to understand the natural hours from sunrise.]
[Footnote 74: See the Turkish Annals, p. 329, and the Pandects of
Leunclarius, p. 448.]
[Footnote 75: I have had occasion (vol. ii. p. 100) to mention
this curious relic of Grecian antiquity.]
[Footnote *: Von Hammer passes over this circumstance, which is
treated by Dr. Clarke (Travels, vol. ii. p. 58, 4to. edit,) as a
fiction of Thevenot. Chishull states that the monument was broken
by some attendants of the Polish ambassador. - M.]
[Footnote 76: We are obliged to Cantemir (p. 102) for the Turkish
account of the conversion of St. Sophia, so bitterly deplored by
Phranza and Ducas. It is amusing enough to observe, in what
opposite lights the same object appears to a Mussulman and a
Christian eye.]
[Footnote 77: This distich, which Cantemir gives in the original,
derives new beauties from the application. It was thus that
Scipio repeated, in the sack of Carthage, the famous prophecy of
Homer. The same generous feeling carried the mind of the
conqueror to the past or the future.]
Yet his mind was not satisfied, nor did the victory seem
complete, till he was informed of the fate of Constantine;
whether he had escaped, or been made prisoner, or had fallen in
the battle. Two Janizaries claimed the honor and reward of his
death: the body, under a heap of slain, was discovered by the
golden eagles embroidered on his shoes; the Greeks acknowledged,
with tears, the head of their late emperor; and, after exposing
the bloody trophy, ^78 Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honors
of a decent funeral. After his decease, Lucas Notaras, great
duke, ^79 and first minister of the empire, was the most
important prisoner. When he offered his person and his treasures
at the foot of the throne, "And why," said the indignant sultan,
"did you not employ these treasures in the defence of your prince
and country?" - "They were yours," answered the slave; "God had
reserved them for your hands." - "If he reserved them for me,"
replied the despot, "how have you presumed to withhold them so
long by a fruitless and fatal resistance?" The great duke alleged
the obstinacy of the strangers, and some secret encouragement
from the Turkish vizier; and from this perilous interview he was
at length dismissed with the assurance of pardon and protection.
Mahomet condescended to visit his wife, a venerable princess
oppressed with sickness and grief; and his consolation for her
misfortunes was in the most tender strain of humanity and filial
reverence. A similar clemency was extended to the principal
officers of state, of whom several were ransomed at his expense;
and during some days he declared himself the friend and father of
the vanquished people. But the scene was soon changed; and
before his departure, the hippodrome streamed with the blood of
his noblest captives. His perfidious cruelty is execrated by the
Christians: they adorn with the colors of heroic martyrdom the
execution of the great duke and his two sons; and his death is
ascribed to the generous refusal of delivering his children to
the tyrant's lust. ^* Yet a Byzantine historian has dropped an
unguarded word of conspiracy, deliverance, and Italian succor:
such treason may be glorious; but the rebel who bravely ventures,
has justly forfeited his life; nor should we blame a conqueror
for destroying the enemies whom he can no longer trust. On the
eighteenth of June the victorious sultan returned to Adrianople;
and smiled at the base and hollow embassies of the Christian
princes, who viewed their approaching ruin in the fall of the
Eastern empire.
[Footnote 78: I cannot believe with Ducas (see Spondanus, A.D.
1453, No. 13) that Mahomet sent round Persia, Arabia, &c., the
head of the Greek emperor: he would surely content himself with a
trophy less inhuman.]
[Footnote 79: Phranza was the personal enemy of the great duke;
nor could time, or death, or his own retreat to a monastery,
extort a feeling of sympathy or forgiveness. Ducas is inclined
to praise and pity the martyr; Chalcondyles is neuter, but we are
indebted to him for the hint of the Greek conspiracy.]
[Footnote *: Von Hammer relates this undoubtingly, apparently on
good authority, p. 559. - M.]
Constantinople had been left naked and desolate, without a
prince or a people. But she could not be despoiled of the
incomparable situation which marks her for the metropolis of a
great empire; and the genius of the place will ever triumph over
the accidents of time and fortune. Boursa and Adrianople, the
ancient seats of the Ottomans, sunk into provincial towns; and
Mahomet the Second established his own residence, and that of his
successors, on the same commanding spot which had been chosen by
Constantine. ^80 The fortifications of Galata, which might afford
a shelter to the Latins, were prudently destroyed; but the damage
of the Turkish cannon was soon repaired; and before the month of
August, great quantities of lime had been burnt for the
restoration of the walls of the capital. As the entire property
of the soil and buildings, whether public or private, or profane
or sacred, was now transferred to the conqueror, he first
separated a space of eight furlongs from the point of the
triangle for the establishment of his seraglio or palace. It is
here, in the bosom of luxury, that the Grand Signor (as he has
been emphatically named by the Italians) appears to reign over
Europe and Asia; but his person on the shores of the Bosphorus
may not always be secure from the insults of a hostile navy. In
the new character of a mosque, the cathedral of St. Sophia was
endowed with an ample revenue, crowned with lofty minarets, and
surrounded with groves and fountains, for the devotion and
refreshment of the Moslems. The same model was imitated in the
jami, or royal mosques; and the first of these was built, by
Mahomet himself, on the ruins of the church of the holy apostles,
and the tombs of the Greek emperors. On the third day after the
conquest, the grave of Abu Ayub, or Job, who had fallen in the
first siege of the Arabs, was revealed in a vision; and it is
before the sepulchre of the martyr that the new sultans are
girded with the sword of empire. ^81 Constantinople no longer
appertains to the Roman historian; nor shall I enumerate the
civil and religious edifices that were profaned or erected by its
Turkish masters: the population was speedily renewed; and before
the end of September, five thousand families of Anatolia and
Romania had obeyed the royal mandate, which enjoined them, under
pain of death, to occupy their new habitations in the capital.
The throne of Mahomet was guarded by the numbers and fidelity of
his Moslem subjects: but his rational policy aspired to collect
the remnant of the Greeks; and they returned in crowds, as soon
as they were assured of their lives, their liberties, and the
free exercise of their religion. In the election and investiture
of a patriarch, the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived
and imitated. With a mixture of satisfaction and horror, they
beheld the sultan on his throne; who delivered into the hands of
Gennadius the crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his
ecclesiastical office; who conducted the patriarch to the gate of
the seraglio, presented him with a horse richly caparisoned, and
directed the viziers and bashaws to lead him to the palace which
had been allotted for his residence. ^82 The churches of
Constantinople were shared between the two religions: their
limits were marked; and, till it was infringed by Selim, the
grandson of Mahomet, the Greeks ^83 enjoyed above sixty years the
benefit of this equal partition. Encouraged by the ministers of
the divan, who wished to elude the fanaticism of the sultan, the
Christian advocates presumed to allege that this division had
been an act, not of generosity, but of justice; not a concession,
but a compact; and that if one half of the city had been taken by
storm, the other moiety had surrendered on the faith of a sacred
capitulation. The original grant had indeed been consumed by
fire: but the loss was supplied by the testimony of three aged
Janizaries who remembered the transaction; and their venal oaths
are of more weight in the opinion of Cantemir, than the positive
and unanimous consent of the history of the times. ^84
[Footnote 80: For the restitution of Constantinople and the
Turkish foundations, see Cantemir, (p. 102 - 109,) Ducas, (c.
42,) with Thevenot, Tournefort, and the rest of our modern
travellers. From a gigantic picture of the greatness,
population, &c., of Constantinople and the Ottoman empire,
(Abrege de l'Histoire Ottomane, tom. i. p. 16 - 21,) we may
learn, that in the year 1586 the Moslems were less numerous in
the capital than the Christians, or even the Jews.]
[Footnote 81: The Turbe, or sepulchral monument of Abu Ayub, is
described and engraved in the Tableau Generale de l'Empire
Ottoman, (Paris 1787, in large folio,) a work of less use,
perhaps, than magnificence, (tom. i. p. 305, 306.)]
[Footnote 82: Phranza (l. iii. c. 19) relates the ceremony, which
has possibly been adorned in the Greek reports to each other, and
to the Latins. The fact is confirmed by Emanuel Malaxus, who
wrote, in vulgar Greek, the History of the Patriarchs after the
taking of Constantinople, inserted in the Turco-Graecia of
Crusius, (l. v. p. 106 - 184.) But the most patient reader will
not believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholic form, "Sancta
Trinitas quae mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham novae Romae
deligit."]
[Footnote 83: From the Turco-Graecia of Crusius, &c. Spondanus
(A.D. 1453, No. 21, 1458, No. 16) describes the slavery and
domestic quarrels of the Greek church. The patriarch who
succeeded Gennadius threw himself in despair into a well.]
[Footnote 84: Cantemir (p. 101 - 105) insists on the unanimous
consent of the Turkish historians, ancient as well as modern, and
argues, that they would not have violated the truth to diminish
their national glory, since it is esteemed more honorable to take
a city by force than by composition. But, 1. I doubt this
consent, since he quotes no particular historian, and the Turkish
Annals of Leunclavius affirm, without exception, that Mahomet
took Constantinople per vim, (p. 329.) 2 The same argument may be
turned in favor of the Greeks of the times, who would not have
forgotten this honorable and salutary treaty. Voltaire, as usual,
prefers the Turks to the Christians.]
The remaining fragments of the Greek kingdom in Europe and
Asia I shall abandon to the Turkish arms; but the final
extinction of the two last dynasties ^85 which have reigned in
Constantinople should terminate the decline and fall of the Roman
empire in the East. The despots of the Morea, Demetrius and
Thomas, ^86 the two surviving brothers of the name of
Palaeologus, were astonished by the death of the emperor
Constantine, and the ruin of the monarchy. Hopeless of defence,
they prepared, with the noble Greeks who adhered to their
fortune, to seek a refuge in Italy, beyond the reach of the
Ottoman thunder. Their first apprehensions were dispelled by the
victorious sultan, who contented himself with a tribute of twelve
thousand ducats; and while his ambition explored the continent
and the islands, in search of prey, he indulged the Morea in a
respite of seven years. But this respite was a period of grief,
discord, and misery. The hexamilion, the rampart of the Isthmus,
so often raised and so often subverted, could not long be
defended by three hundred Italian archers: the keys of Corinth
were seized by the Turks: they returned from their summer
excursions with a train of captives and spoil; and the complaints
of the injured Greeks were heard with indifference and disdain.
The Albanians, a vagrant tribe of shepherds and robbers, filled
the peninsula with rapine and murder: the two despots implored
the dangerous and humiliating aid of a neighboring bashaw; and
when he had quelled the revolt, his lessons inculcated the rule
of their future conduct. Neither the ties of blood, nor the oaths
which they repeatedly pledged in the communion and before the
altar, nor the stronger pressure of necessity, could reconcile or
suspend their domestic quarrels. They ravaged each other's
patrimony with fire and sword: the alms and succors of the West
were consumed in civil hostility; and their power was only
exerted in savage and arbitrary executions. The distress and
revenge of the weaker rival invoked their supreme lord; and, in
the season of maturity and revenge, Mahomet declared himself the
friend of Demetrius, and marched into the Morea with an
irresistible force. When he had taken possession of Sparta, "You
are too weak," said the sultan, "to control this turbulent
province: I will take your daughter to my bed; and you shall pass
the remainder of your life in security and honor." Demetrius
sighed and obeyed; surrendered his daughter and his castles;
followed to Adrianople his sovereign and his son; and received
for his own maintenance, and that of his followers, a city in
Thrace and the adjacent isles of Imbros, Lemnos, and Samothrace.
He was joined the next year by a companion ^* of misfortune, the
last of the Comnenian race, who, after the taking of
Constantinople by the Latins, had founded a new empire on the
coast of the Black Sea. ^87 In the progress of his Anatolian
conquest, Mahomet invested with a fleet and army the capital of
David, who presumed to style himself emperor of Trebizond; ^88
and the negotiation was comprised in a short and peremptory
question, "Will you secure your life and treasures by resigning
your kingdom? or had you rather forfeit your kingdom, your
treasures, and your life?" The feeble Comnenus was subdued by his
own fears, ^! and the example of a Mussulman neighbor, the prince
of Sinope, ^89 who, on a similar summons, had yielded a fortified
city, with four hundred cannon and ten or twelve thousand
soldiers. The capitulation of Trebizond was faithfully
performed: ^* and the emperor, with his family, was transported
to a castle in Romania; but on a slight suspicion of
corresponding with the Persian king, David, and the whole
Comnenian race, were sacrificed to the jealousy or avarice of the
conqueror. ^!! Nor could the name of father long protect the
unfortunate Demetrius from exile and confiscation; his abject
submission moved the pity and contempt of the sultan; his
followers were transplanted to Constantinople; and his poverty
was alleviated by a pension of fifty thousand aspers, till a
monastic habit and a tardy death released Palaeologus from an
earthly master. It is not easy to pronounce whether the
servitude of Demetrius, or the exile of his brother Thomas, ^90
be the most inglorious. On the conquest of the Morea, the despot
escaped to Corfu, and from thence to Italy, with some naked
adherents: his name, his sufferings, and the head of the apostle
St. Andrew, entitled him to the hospitality of the Vatican; and
his misery was prolonged by a pension of six thousand ducats from
the pope and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel, were
educated in Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies
and burdensome to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of
his life and marriage. A title was his sole inheritance; and
that inheritance he successively sold to the kings of France and
Arragon. ^91 During his transient prosperity, Charles the Eighth
was ambitious of joining the empire of the East with the kingdom
of Naples: in a public festival, he assumed the appellation and
the purple of Augustus: the Greeks rejoiced and the Ottoman
already trembled, at the approach of the French chivalry. ^92
Manuel Palaeologus, the second son, was tempted to revisit his
native country: his return might be grateful, and could not be
dangerous, to the Porte: he was maintained at Constantinople in
safety and ease; and an honorable train of Christians and Moslems
attended him to the grave. If there be some animals of so
generous a nature that they refuse to propagate in a domestic
state, the last of the Imperial race must be ascribed to an
inferior kind: he accepted from the sultan's liberality two
beautiful females; and his surviving son was lost in the habit
and religion of a Turkish slave.
[Footnote 85: For the genealogy and fall of the Comneni of
Trebizond, see Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 195;) for the last
Palaeologi, the same accurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248.)
The Palaeologi of Montferrat were not extinct till the next
century; but they had forgotten their Greek origin and kindred.]
[Footnote 86: In the worthless story of the disputes and
misfortunes of the two brothers, Phranza (l. iii. c. 21 - 30) is
too partial on the side of Thomas Ducas (c. 44, 45) is too brief,
and Chalcondyles (l. viii. ix. x.) too diffuse and digressive.]
[Footnote *: Kalo-Johannes, the predecessor of David his brother,
the last emperor of Trebizond, had attempted to organize a
confederacy against Mahomet it comprehended Hassan Bei, sultan of
Mesopotamia, the Christian princes of Georgia and Iberia, the
emir of Sinope, and the sultan of Caramania. The negotiations
were interrupted by his sudden death, A.D. 1458. Fallmerayer, p.
257 - 260. - M.]
[Footnote 87: See the loss or conquest of Trebizond in
Chalcondyles, (l. ix. p. 263 - 266,) Ducas, (c. 45,) Phranza, (l.
iii. c. 27,) and Cantemir, (p. 107.)]
[Footnote 88: Though Tournefort (tom. iii. lettre xvii. p. 179)
speaks of Trebizond as mal peuplee, Peysonnel, the latest and
most accurate observer, can find 100,000 inhabitants, (Commerce
de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 72, and for the province, p. 53 -
90.) Its prosperity and trade are perpetually disturbed by the
factious quarrels of two odas of Janizaries, in one which 30,000
Lazi are commonly enrolled, (Memoires de Tott, tom. iii. p. 16,
17.)]
[Footnote !: According to the Georgian account of these
transactions, (translated by M. Brosset, additions to Le Beau,
vol. xxi. p. 325,) the emperor of Trebizond humbly entreated the
sultan to have the goodness to marry one of his daughters. - M.]
[Footnote 89: Ismael Beg, prince of Sinope or Sinople, was
possessed (chiefly from his copper mines) of a revenure of
200,000 ducats, (Chalcond. l. ix. p. 258, 259.) Peysonnel
(Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 100) ascribes to the
modern city 60,000 inhabitants. This account seems enormous; yet
it is by trading with people that we become acquainted with their
wealth and numbers.]
[Footnote *: M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume of
his Anecdota Graeca (p. 387, 401.) a very interesting letter from
George Amiroutzes, protovestia rius of Trebizond, to Bessarion,
describing the surrender of Trebizond, and the fate of its chief
inhabitants. - M.]
[Footnote !!: See in Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 60, the striking
account of the mother, the empress Helena the Cantacuzene, who,
in defiance of the edict, like that of Creon in the Greek
tragedy, dug the grave for her murdered children with her own
hand, and sank into it herself. - M.]
[Footnote 90: Spondanus (from Gobelin Comment. Pii II. l. v.)
relates the arrival and reception of of the despot Thomas at
Rome,. (A.D. 1461 No. NO. 3.)]
[Footnote 91: By an act dated A.D. 1494, Sept. 6, and lately
transmitted from the archives of the Capitol to the royal library
of Paris, the despot Andrew Palaeologus, reserving the Morea, and
stipulating some private advantages, conveys to Charles VIII.,
king of France, the empires of Constantinople and Trebizond,
(Spondanus, A.D. 1495, No. 2.) M. D. Foncemagne (Mem. de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p. 539 - 578) has
bestowed a dissertation on his national title, of which he had
obtained a copy from Rome.]
[Footnote 92: See Philippe de Comines, (l. vii. c. 14,) who
reckons with pleasure the number of Greeks who were prepared to
rise, 60 miles of an easy navigation, eighteen days' journey from
Valona to Constantinople, &c. On this occasion the Turkish
empire was saved by the policy of Venice.]
The importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in
its loss: the pontificate of Nicholas the Fifth, however peaceful
and prosperous, was dishonored by the fall of the Eastern empire;
and the grief and terror of the Latins revived, or seemed to
revive, the old enthusiasm of the crusades. In one of the most
distant countries of the West, Philip duke of Burgundy
entertained, at Lisle in Flanders, an assembly of his nobles; and
the pompous pageants of the feast were skilfully adapted to their
fancy and feelings. ^93 In the midst of the banquet a gigantic
Saracen entered the hall, leading a fictitious elephant with a
castle on his back: a matron in a mourning robe, the symbol of
religion, was seen to issue from the castle: she deplored her
oppression, and accused the slowness of her champions: the
principal herald of the golden fleece advanced, bearing on his
fist a live pheasant, which, according to the rites of chivalry,
he presented to the duke. At this extraordinary summons, Philip,
a wise and aged prince, engaged his person and powers in the holy
war against the Turks: his example was imitated by the barons and
knights of the assembly: they swore to God, the Virgin, the
ladies and the pheasant; and their particular vows were not less
extravagant than the general sanction of their oath. But the
performance was made to depend on some future and foreign
contingency; and during twelve years, till the last hour of his
life, the duke of Burgundy might be scrupulously, and perhaps
sincerely, on the eve of his departure. Had every breast glowed
with the same ardor; had the union of the Christians corresponded
with their bravery; had every country, from Sweden ^94 to Naples,
supplied a just proportion of cavalry and infantry, of men and
money, it is indeed probable that Constantinople would have been
delivered, and that the Turks might have been chased beyond the
Hellespont or the Euphrates. But the secretary of the emperor,
who composed every epistle, and attended every meeting, Aeneas
Sylvius, ^95 a statesman and orator, describes from his own
experience the repugnant state and spirit of Christendom. "It is
a body," says he, "without a head; a republic without laws or
magistrates. The pope and the emperor may shine as lofty titles,
as splendid images; but they are unable to command, and none are
willing to obey: every state has a separate prince, and every
prince has a separate interest. What eloquence could unite so
many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard?
Could they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume the
office of general? What order could be maintained? - what
military discipline? Who would undertake to feed such an
enormous multitude? Who would understand their various
languages, or direct their stranger and incompatible manners?
What mortal could reconcile the English with the French, Genoa
with Arragon the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia?
If a small number enlisted in the holy war, they must be
overthrown by the infidels; if many, by their own weight and
confusion." Yet the same Aeneas, when he was raised to the papal
throne, under the name of Pius the Second, devoted his life to
the prosecution of the Turkish war. In the council of Mantua he
excited some sparks of a false or feeble enthusiasm; but when the
pontiff appeared at Ancona, to embark in person with the troops,
engagements vanished in excuses; a precise day was adjourned to
an indefinite term; and his effective army consisted of some
German pilgrims, whom he was obliged to disband with indulgences
and arms. Regardless of futurity, his successors and the powers
of Italy were involved in the schemes of present and domestic
ambition; and the distance or proximity of each object determined
in their eyes its apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of
their interest would have taught them to maintain a defensive and
naval war against the common enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg
and his brave Albanians might have prevented the subsequent
invasion of the kingdom of Naples. The siege and sack of Otranto
by the Turks diffused a general consternation; and Pope Sixtus
was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, when the storm was
instantly dispelled by the death of Mahomet the Second, in the
fifty-first year of his age. ^96 His lofty genius aspired to the
conquest of Italy: he was possessed of a strong city and a
capacious harbor; and the same reign might have been decorated
with the trophies of the New and the Ancient Rome. ^97
[Footnote 93: See the original feast in Olivier de la Marche,
(Memoires, P. i. c. 29, 30,) with the abstract and observations
of M. de Ste. Palaye, (Memoires sur la Chevalerie, tom. i. P.
iii. p. 182 - 185.) The peacock and the pheasant were
distinguished as royal birds.]
[Footnote 94: It was found by an actual enumeration, that Sweden,
Gothland, and Finland, contained 1,800,000 fighting men, and
consequently were far more populous than at present.]
[Footnote 95: In the year 1454, Spondanus has given, from Aeneas
Sylvius, a view of the state of Europe, enriched with his own
observations. That valuable annalist, and the Italian Muratori,
will continue the series of events from the year 1453 to 1481,
the end of Mahomet's life, and of this chapter.]
[Footnote 96: Besides the two annalists, the reader may consult
Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. iii. p. 449 - 455) for the Turkish
invasion of the kingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquests
of Mahomet II., I have occasionally used the Memorie Istoriche de
Monarchi Ottomanni di Giovanni Sagredo, (Venezia, 1677, in 4to.)
In peace and war, the Turks have ever engaged the attention of
the republic of Venice. All her despatches and archives were
open to a procurator of St. Mark, and Sagredo is not contemptible
either in sense or style. Yet he too bitterly hates the
infidels: he is ignorant of their language and manners; and his
narrative, which allows only 70 pages to Mahomet II., (p. 69 -
140,) becomes more copious and authentic as he approaches the
years 1640 and 1644, the term of the historic labors of John
Sagredo.]
[Footnote 97: As I am now taking an everlasting farewell of the
Greek empire, I shall briefly mention the great collection of
Byzantine writers whose names and testimonies have been
successively repeated in this work. The Greeks presses of Aldus
and the Italians were confined to the classics of a better age;
and the first rude editions of Procopius, Agathias, Cedrenus,
Zonaras, &c., were published by the learned diligence of the
Germans. The whole Byzantine series (xxxvi. volumes in folio)
has gradually issued (A.D. 1648, &c.) from the royal press of the
Louvre, with some collateral aid from Rome and Leipsic; but the
Venetian edition, (A.D. 1729,) though cheaper and more copious,
is not less inferior in correctness than in magnificence to that
of Paris. The merits of the French editors are various; but the
value of Anna Comnena, Cinnamus, Villehardouin, &c., is enhanced
by the historical notes of Charles de Fresne du Cange. His
supplemental works, the Greek Glossary, the Constantinopolis
Christiana, the Familiae Byzantinae, diffuse a steady light over
the darkness of the Lower Empire.
Note: The new edition of the Byzantines, projected by
Niebuhr, and continued under the patronage of the Prussian
government, is the most convenient in size, and contains some
authors (Leo Diaconus, Johannes Lydus, Corippus, the new fragment
of Dexippus, Eunapius, &c., discovered by Mai) which could not be
comprised in the former collections; but the names of such
editors as Bekker, the Dindorfs, &c., raised hopes of something
more than the mere republication of the text, and the notes of
former editors. Little, I regret to say, has been added of
annotation, and in some cases, the old incorrect versions have
been retained. - M.]
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.
Part II.
Yet the courage of Arnold was not devoid of discretion: he
was protected, and had perhaps been invited, by the nobles and
people; and in the service of freedom, his eloquence thundered
over the seven hills. Blending in the same discourse the texts
of Livy and St. Paul, uniting the motives of gospel, and of
classic, enthusiasm, he admonished the Romans, how strangely
their patience and the vices of the clergy had degenerated from
the primitive times of the church and the city. He exhorted them
to assert the inalienable rights of men and Christians; to
restore the laws and magistrates of the republic; to respect the
name of the emperor; but to confine their shepherd to the
spiritual government of his flock. ^26 Nor could his spiritual
government escape the censure and control of the reformer; and
the inferior clergy were taught by his lessons to resist the
cardinals, who had usurped a despotic command over the
twenty-eight regions or parishes of Rome. ^27 The revolution was
not accomplished without rapine and violence, the diffusion of
blood and the demolition of houses: the victorious faction was
enriched with the spoils of the clergy and the adverse nobles.
Arnold of Brescia enjoyed, or deplored, the effects of his
mission: his reign continued above ten years, while two popes,
Innocent the Second and Anastasius the Fourth, either trembled in
the Vatican, or wandered as exiles in the adjacent cities. They
were succeeded by a more vigorous and fortunate pontiff. Adrian
the Fourth, ^28 the only Englishman who has ascended the throne
of St. Peter; and whose merit emerged from the mean condition of
a monk, and almost a beggar, in the monastery of St. Albans. On
the first provocation, of a cardinal killed or wounded in the
streets, he cast an interdict on the guilty people; and from
Christmas to Easter, Rome was deprived of the real or imaginary
comforts of religious worship. The Romans had despised their
temporal prince: they submitted with grief and terror to the
censures of their spiritual father: their guilt was expiated by
penance, and the banishment of the seditious preacher was the
price of their absolution. But the revenge of Adrian was yet
unsatisfied, and the approaching coronation of Frederic
Barbarossa was fatal to the bold reformer, who had offended,
though not in an equal degree, the heads of the church and state.
In their interview at Viterbo, the pope represented to the
emperor the furious, ungovernable spirit of the Romans; the
insults, the injuries, the fears, to which his person and his
clergy were continually exposed; and the pernicious tendency of
the heresy of Arnold, which must subvert the principles of civil,
as well as ecclesiastical, subordination. Frederic was convinced
by these arguments, or tempted by the desire of the Imperial
crown: in the balance of ambition, the innocence or life of an
individual is of small account; and their common enemy was
sacrificed to a moment of political concord. After his retreat
from Rome, Arnold had been protected by the viscounts of
Campania, from whom he was extorted by the power of Caesar: the
praefect of the city pronounced his sentence: the martyr of
freedom was burned alive in the presence of a careless and
ungrateful people; and his ashes were cast into the Tyber, lest
the heretics should collect and worship the relics of their
master. ^29 The clergy triumphed in his death: with his ashes,
his sect was dispersed; his memory still lived in the minds of
the Romans. From his school they had probably derived a new
article of faith, that the metropolis of the Catholic church is
exempt from the penalties of excommunication and interdict.
Their bishops might argue, that the supreme jurisdiction, which
they exercised over kings and nations, more especially embraced
the city and diocese of the prince of the apostles. But they
preached to the winds, and the same principle that weakened the
effect, must temper the abuse, of the thunders of the Vatican.
[Footnote 26: He advised the Romans,
Consiliis armisque sua moderamina summa
Arbitrio tractare suo: nil juris in hac re
Pontifici summo, modicum concedere regi
Suadebat populo. Sic laesa stultus utraque
Majestate, reum geminae se fecerat aulae.
Nor is the poetry of Gunther different from the prose of Otho.]
[Footnote 27: See Baronius (A.D. 1148, No. 38, 39) from the
Vatican MSS. He loudly condemns Arnold (A.D. 1141, No. 3) as the
father of the political heretics, whose influence then hurt him
in France.]
[Footnote 28: The English reader may consult the Biographia
Britannica, Adrian IV.; but our own writers have added nothing to
the fame or merits of their countrymen.]
[Footnote 29: Besides the historian and poet already quoted, the
last adventures of Arnold are related by the biographer of Adrian
IV. (Muratori. Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 441, 442.)]
The love of ancient freedom has encouraged a belief that as
early as the tenth century, in their first struggles against the
Saxon Othos, the commonwealth was vindicated and restored by the
senate and people of Rome; that two consuls were annually elected
among the nobles, and that ten or twelve plebeian magistrates
revived the name and office of the tribunes of the commons. ^30
But this venerable structure disappears before the light of
criticism. In the darkness of the middle ages, the appellations
of senators, of consuls, of the sons of consuls, may sometimes be
discovered. ^31 They were bestowed by the emperors, or assumed by
the most powerful citizens, to denote their rank, their honors,
^32 and perhaps the claim of a pure and patrician descent: but
they float on the surface, without a series or a substance, the
titles of men, not the orders of government; ^33 and it is only
from the year of Christ one thousand one hundred and forty-four
that the establishment of the senate is dated, as a glorious
aera, in the acts of the city. A new constitution was hastily
framed by private ambition or popular enthusiasm; nor could Rome,
in the twelfth century, produce an antiquary to explain, or a
legislator to restore, the harmony and proportions of the ancient
model. The assembly of a free, of an armed, people, will ever
speak in loud and weighty acclamations. But the regular
distribution of the thirty-five tribes, the nice balance of the
wealth and numbers of the centuries, the debates of the adverse
orators, and the slow operations of votes and ballots, could not
easily be adapted by a blind multitude, ignorant of the arts, and
insensible of the benefits, of legal government. It was proposed
by Arnold to revive and discriminate the equestrian order; but
what could be the motive or measure of such distinction? ^34 The
pecuniary qualification of the knights must have been reduced to
the poverty of the times: those times no longer required their
civil functions of judges and farmers of the revenue; and their
primitive duty, their military service on horseback, was more
nobly supplied by feudal tenures and the spirit of chivalry. The
jurisprudence of the republic was useless and unknown: the
nations and families of Italy who lived under the Roman and
Barbaric laws were insensibly mingled in a common mass; and some
faint tradition, some imperfect fragments, preserved the memory
of the Code and Pandects of Justinian. With their liberty the
Romans might doubtless have restored the appellation and office
of consuls; had they not disdained a title so promiscuously
adopted in the Italian cities, that it has finally settled on the
humble station of the agents of commerce in a foreign land. But
the rights of the tribunes, the formidable word that arrested the
public counsels, suppose or must produce a legitimate democracy.
The old patricians were the subjects, the modern barons the
tyrants, of the state; nor would the enemies of peace and order,
who insulted the vicar of Christ, have long respected the unarmed
sanctity of a plebeian magistrate. ^35
[Footnote 30: Ducange (Gloss. Latinitatis Mediae et Infimae
Aetatis, Decarchones, tom. ii. p. 726) gives me a quotation from
Blondus, (Decad. ii. l. ii.:) Duo consules ex nobilitate
quotannis fiebant, qui ad vetustum consulum exemplar summaererum
praeessent. And in Sigonius (de Regno Italiae, l. v. Opp. tom.
ii. p. 400) I read of the consuls and tribunes of the xth
century. Both Blondus, and even Sigonius, too freely copied the
classic method of supplying from reason or fancy the deficiency
of records.]
[Footnote 31: In the panegyric of Berengarius (Muratori, Script.
Rer. Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 408) a Roman is mentioned as
consulis natus in the beginning of the xth century. Muratori
(Dissert. v.) discovers, in the years 952 and 956, Gratianus in
Dei nomine consul et dux, Georgius consul et dux; and in 1015,
Romanus, brother of Gregory VIII., proudly, but vaguely, styles
himself consul et dux et omnium Roma norum senator.]
[Footnote 32: As late as the xth century, the Greek emperors
conferred on the dukes of Venice, Naples, Amalphi, &c., the title
of consuls, (see Chron. Sagornini, passim;) and the successors of
Charlemagne would not abdicate any of their prerogative. But in
general the names of consul and senator, which may be found among
the French and Germans, signify no more than count and lord,
(Signeur, Ducange Glossar.) The monkish writers are often
ambitious of fine classic words.]
[Footnote 33: The most constitutional form is a diploma of Otho
III., (A. D 998,) consulibus senatus populique Romani; but the
act is probably spurious. At the coronation of Henry I., A.D.
1014, the historian Dithmar (apud Muratori, Dissert. xxiii.)
describes him, a senatoribus duodecem vallatum, quorum sex rasi
barba, alii prolixa, mystice incedebant cum baculis. The senate
is mentioned in the panegyric of Berengarius, (p. 406.)]
[Footnote 34: In ancient Rome the equestrian order was not ranked
with the senate and people as a third branch of the republic till
the consulship of Cicero, who assumes the merit of the
establishment, (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 3. Beaufort,
Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 144 - 155.)]
[Footnote 35: The republican plan of Arnold of Brescia is thus
stated by Gunther: -
Quin etiam titulos urbis renovare vetustos;
Nomine plebeio secernere nomen equestre,
Jura tribunorum, sanctum reparare senatum,
Et senio fessas mutasque reponere leges.
Lapsa ruinosis, et adhuc pendentia muris
Reddere primaevo Capitolia prisca nitori.
But of these reformations, some were no more than ideas, others
no more than words.]
In the revolution of the twelfth century, which gave a new
existence and aera to Rome, we may observe the real and important
events that marked or confirmed her political independence. I.
The Capitoline hill, one of her seven eminences, ^36 is about
four hundred yards in length, and two hundred in breadth. A
flight of a hundred steps led to the summit of the Tarpeian rock;
and far steeper was the ascent before the declivities had been
smoothed and the precipices filled by the ruins of fallen
edifices. From the earliest ages, the Capitol had been used as a
temple in peace, a fortress in war: after the loss of the city,
it maintained a siege against the victorious Gauls, and the
sanctuary of the empire was occupied, assaulted, and burnt, in
the civil wars of Vitellius and Vespasian. ^37 The temples of
Jupiter and his kindred deities had crumbled into dust; their
place was supplied by monasteries and houses; and the solid
walls, the long and shelving porticos, were decayed or ruined by
the lapse of time. It was the first act of the Romans, an act of
freedom, to restore the strength, though not the beauty, of the
Capitol; to fortify the seat of their arms and counsels; and as
often as they ascended the hill, the coldest minds must have
glowed with the remembrance of their ancestors. II. The first
Caesars had been invested with the exclusive coinage of the gold
and silver; to the senate they abandoned the baser metal of
bronze or copper: ^38 the emblems and legends were inscribed on a
more ample field by the genius of flattery; and the prince was
relieved from the care of celebrating his own virtues. The
successors of Diocletian despised even the flattery of the
senate: their royal officers at Rome, and in the provinces,
assumed the sole direction of the mint; and the same prerogative
was inherited by the Gothic kings of Italy, and the long series
of the Greek, the French, and the German dynasties. After an
abdication of eight hundred years, the Roman senate asserted this
honorable and lucrative privilege; which was tacitly renounced by
the popes, from Paschal the Second to the establishment of their
residence beyond the Alps. Some of these republican coins of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries are shown in the cabinets of the
curious. On one of these, a gold medal, Christ is depictured
holding in his left hand a book with this inscription: "The vow
of the Roman senate and people: Rome the capital of the world;"
on the reverse, St. Peter delivering a banner to a kneeling
senator in his cap and gown, with the name and arms of his family
impressed on a shield. ^39 III. With the empire, the praefect of
the city had declined to a municipal officer; yet he still
exercised in the last appeal the civil and criminal jurisdiction;
and a drawn sword, which he received from the successors of Otho,
was the mode of his investiture and the emblem of his functions.
^40 The dignity was confined to the noble families of Rome: the
choice of the people was ratified by the pope; but a triple oath
of fidelity must have often embarrassed the praefect in the
conflict of adverse duties. ^41 A servant, in whom they possessed
but a third share, was dismissed by the independent Romans: in
his place they elected a patrician; but this title, which
Charlemagne had not disdained, was too lofty for a citizen or a
subject; and, after the first fervor of rebellion, they consented
without reluctance to the restoration of the praefect. About
fifty years after this event, Innocent the Third, the most
ambitious, or at least the most fortunate, of the Pontiffs,
delivered the Romans and himself from this badge of foreign
dominion: he invested the praefect with a banner instead of a
sword, and absolved him from all dependence of oaths or service
to the German emperors. ^42 In his place an ecclesiastic, a
present or future cardinal, was named by the pope to the civil
government of Rome; but his jurisdiction has been reduced to a
narrow compass; and in the days of freedom, the right or exercise
was derived from the senate and people. IV. After the revival of
the senate, ^43 the conscript fathers (if I may use the
expression) were invested with the legislative and executive
power; but their views seldom reached beyond the present day; and
that day was most frequently disturbed by violence and tumult.
In its utmost plenitude, the order or assembly consisted of
fifty-six senators, ^44 the most eminent of whom were
distinguished by the title of counsellors: they were nominated,
perhaps annually, by the people; and a previous choice of their
electors, ten persons in each region, or parish, might afford a
basis for a free and permanent constitution. The popes, who in
this tempest submitted rather to bend than to break, confirmed by
treaty the establishment and privileges of the senate, and
expected from time, peace, and religion, the restoration of their
government. The motives of public and private interest might
sometimes draw from the Romans an occasional and temporary
sacrifice of their claims; and they renewed their oath of
allegiance to the successor of St. Peter and Constantine, the
lawful head of the church and the republic. ^45
[Footnote 36: After many disputes among the antiquaries of Rome,
it seems determined, that the summit of the Capitoline hill next
the river is strictly the Mons Tarpeius, the Arx; and that on the
other summit, the church and convent of Araceli, the barefoot
friars of St. Francis occupy the temple of Jupiter, (Nardini,
Roma Antica, l. v. c. 11 - 16.)
Note: The authority of Nardini is now vigorously impugned,
and the question of the Arx and the Temple of Jupiter revived,
with new arguments by Niebuhr and his accomplished follower, M.
Bunsen. Roms Beschreibung, vol. iii. p. 12, et seqq - M.]
[Footnote 37: Tacit. Hist. iii. 69, 70.]
[Footnote 38: This partition of the noble and baser metals
between the emperor and senate must, however, be adopted, not as
a positive fact, but as the probable opinion of the best
antiquaries, (see the Science des Medailles of the Pere Joubert,
tom. ii. p. 208 - 211, in the improved and scarce edition of the
Baron de la Bastie.)
Note: Dr Cardwell (Lecture on Ancient Coins, p. 70, et seq.)
assigns convincing reasons in support of this opinion. - M.]
[Footnote 39: In his xxviith dissertation on the Antiquities of
Italy, (tom. ii. p. 559 - 569,) Muratori exhibits a series of the
senatorian coins, which bore the obscure names of Affortiati,
Infortiati, Provisini, Paparini. During this period, all the
popes, without excepting Boniface VIII, abstained from the right
of coining, which was resumed by his successor Benedict XI., and
regularly exercised in the court of Avignon.]
[Footnote 40: A German historian, Gerard of Reicherspeg (in
Baluz. Miscell. tom. v. p. 64, apud Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands,
tom. iii. p. 265) thus describes the constitution of Rome in the
xith century: Grandiora urbis et orbis negotia spectant ad
Romanum pontificem itemque ad Romanum Imperatorem, sive illius
vicarium urbis praefectum, qui de sua dignitate respicit
utrumque, videlicet dominum papam cui facit hominum, et dominum
imperatorem a quo accipit suae potestatis insigne, scilicet
gladium exertum.]
[Footnote 41: The words of a contemporary writer (Pandulph.
Pisan. in Vit. Paschal. II. p. 357, 358) describe the election
and oath of the praefect in 1118, inconsultis patribus .... loca
praefectoria .... Laudes praefectoriae .... comitiorum applausum
.... juraturum populo in ambonem sublevant .... confirmari eum in
urbe praefectum petunt.]
[Footnote 42: Urbis praefectum ad ligiam fidelitatem recepit, et
per mantum quod illi donavit de praefectura eum publice
investivit, qui usque ad id tempus juramento fidelitatis
imperatori fuit obligatus et ab eo praefecturae tenuit honorem,
(Gesta Innocent. III. in Muratori, tom. iii. P. i. p. 487.)]
[Footnote 43: See Otho Frising. Chron. vii. 31, de Gest.
Frederic. I., l. i. c. 27]
[Footnote 44: Cur countryman, Roger Hoveden, speaks of the single
senators, of the Capuzzi family, &c., quorum temporibus melius
regebatur Roma quam nunc (A.D. 1194) est temporibus lvi.
senatorum, (Ducange, Gloss. tom. vi. p. 191, Senatores.)]
[Footnote 45: Muratori (dissert. xlii. tom. iii. p. 785 - 788)
has published an original treaty: Concordia inter D. nostrum
papam Clementem III. et senatores populi Romani super regalibus
et aliis dignitatibus urbis, &c., anno 44 Degrees senatus. The
senate speaks, and speaks with authority: Reddimus ad praesens
.... habebimus .... dabitis presbyteria .... jurabimus pacem et
fidelitatem, &c. A chartula de Tenementis Tusculani, dated in
the 47th year of the same aera, and confirmed decreto amplissimi
ordinis senatus, acclamatione P. R. publice Capitolio
consistentis. It is there we find the difference of senatores
consiliarii and simple senators, (Muratori, dissert. xlii. tom.
iii. p. 787 - 789.)]
The union and vigor of a public council was dissolved in a
lawless city; and the Romans soon adopted a more strong and
simple mode of administration. They condensed the name and
authority of the senate in a single magistrate, or two
colleagues; and as they were changed at the end of a year, or of
six months, the greatness of the trust was compensated by the
shortness of the term. But in this transient reign, the senators
of Rome indulged their avarice and ambition: their justice was
perverted by the interest of their family and faction; and as
they punished only their enemies, they were obeyed only by their
adherents. Anarchy, no longer tempered by the pastoral care of
their bishop, admonished the Romans that they were incapable of
governing themselves; and they sought abroad those blessings
which they were hopeless of finding at home. In the same age,
and from the same motives, most of the Italian republics were
prompted to embrace a measure, which, however strange it may
seem, was adapted to their situation, and productive of the most
salutary effects. ^46 They chose, in some foreign but friendly
city, an impartial magistrate of noble birth and unblemished
character, a soldier and a statesman, recommended by the voice of
fame and his country, to whom they delegated for a time the
supreme administration of peace and war. The compact between the
governor and the governed was sealed with oaths and
subscriptions; and the duration of his power, the measure of his
stipend, the nature of their mutual obligations, were defined
with scrupulous precision. They swore to obey him as their lawful
superior: he pledged his faith to unite the indifference of a
stranger with the zeal of a patriot. At his choice, four or six
knights and civilians, his assessors in arms and justice,
attended the Podesta, ^47 who maintained at his own expense a
decent retinue of servants and horses: his wife, his son, his
brother, who might bias the affections of the judge, were left
behind: during the exercise of his office he was not permitted to
purchase land, to contract an alliance, or even to accept an
invitation in the house of a citizen; nor could he honorably
depart till he had satisfied the complaints that might be urged
against his government.
[Footnote 46: Muratori (dissert. xlv. tom. iv. p. 64 - 92) has
fully explained this mode of government; and the Occulus
Pastoralis, which he has given at the end, is a treatise or
sermon on the duties of these foreign magistrates.]
[Footnote 47: In the Latin writers, at least of the silver age,
the title of Potestas was transferred from the office to the
magistrate: -
Hujus qui trahitur praetextam sumere mavis;
An Fidenarum Gabiorumque esse Potestas.
Juvenal. Satir. x. 99.]
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.
Part III.
It was thus, about the middle of the thirteenth century,
that the Romans called from Bologna the senator Brancaleone, ^48
whose fame and merit have been rescued from oblivion by the pen
of an English historian. A just anxiety for his reputation, a
clear foresight of the difficulties of the task, had engaged him
to refuse the honor of their choice: the statutes of Rome were
suspended, and his office prolonged to the term of three years.
By the guilty and licentious he was accused as cruel; by the
clergy he was suspected as partial; but the friends of peace and
order applauded the firm and upright magistrate by whom those
blessings were restored. No criminals were so powerful as to
brave, so obscure as to elude, the justice of the senator. By
his sentence two nobles of the Annibaldi family were executed on
a gibbet; and he inexorably demolished, in the city and
neighborhood, one hundred and forty towers, the strong shelters
of rapine and mischief. The bishop, as a simple bishop, was
compelled to reside in his diocese; and the standard of
Brancaleone was displayed in the field with terror and effect.
His services were repaid by the ingratitude of a people unworthy
of the happiness which they enjoyed. By the public robbers, whom
he had provoked for their sake, the Romans were excited to depose
and imprison their benefactor; nor would his life have been
spared, if Bologna had not possessed a pledge for his safety.
Before his departure, the prudent senator had required the
exchange of thirty hostages of the noblest families of Rome: on
the news of his danger, and at the prayer of his wife, they were
more strictly guarded; and Bologna, in the cause of honor,
sustained the thunders of a papal interdict. This generous
resistance allowed the Romans to compare the present with the
past; and Brancaleone was conducted from the prison to the
Capitol amidst the acclamations of a repentant people. The
remainder of his government was firm and fortunate; and as soon
as envy was appeased by death, his head, enclosed in a precious
vase, was deposited on a lofty column of marble. ^49
[Footnote 48: See the life and death of Brancaleone, in the
Historia Major of Matthew Paris, p. 741, 757, 792, 797, 799, 810,
823, 833, 836, 840. The multitude of pilgrims and suitors
connected Rome and St. Albans, and the resentment of the English
clergy prompted them to rejoice when ever the popes were humbled
and oppressed.]
[Footnote 49: Matthew Paris thus ends his account: Caput vero
ipsius Branca leonis in vase pretioso super marmoream columnam
collocatum, in signum sui valoris et probitatis, quasi reliquias,
superstitiose nimis et pompose sustulerunt. Fuerat enim
superborum potentum et malefactorum urbis malleus et extirpator,
et populi protector et defensor veritatis et justitiae imitator
et amator, (p. 840.) A biographer of Innocent IV. (Muratori,
Script. tom. iii. P. i. p. 591, 592) draws a less favorable
portrait of this Ghibeline senator.]
The impotence of reason and virtue recommended in Italy a
more effectual choice: instead of a private citizen, to whom they
yielded a voluntary and precarious obedience, the Romans elected
for their senator some prince of independent power, who could
defend them from their enemies and themselves. Charles of Anjou
and Provence, the most ambitious and warlike monarch of the age,
accepted at the same time the kingdom of Naples from the pope,
and the office of senator from the Roman people. ^50 As he passed
through the city, in his road to victory, he received their oath
of allegiance, lodged in the Lateran palace, and smoothed in a
short visit the harsh features of his despotic character. Yet
even Charles was exposed to the inconstancy of the people, who
saluted with the same acclamations the passage of his rival, the
unfortunate Conradin; and a powerful avenger, who reigned in the
Capitol, alarmed the fears and jealousy of the popes. The
absolute term of his life was superseded by a renewal every third
year; and the enmity of Nicholas the Third obliged the Sicilian
king to abdicate the government of Rome. In his bull, a
perpetual law, the imperious pontiff asserts the truth, validity,
and use of the donation of Constantine, not less essential to the
peace of the city than to the independence of the church;
establishes the annual election of the senator; and formally
disqualifies all emperors, kings, princes, and persons of an
eminent and conspicuous rank. ^51 This prohibitory clause was
repealed in his own behalf by Martin the Fourth, who humbly
solicited the suffrage of the Romans. In the presence, and by
the authority, of the people, two electors conferred, not on the
pope, but on the noble and faithful Martin, the dignity of
senator, and the supreme administration of the republic, ^52 to
hold during his natural life, and to exercise at pleasure by
himself or his deputies. About fifty years afterwards, the same
title was granted to the emperor Lewis of Bavaria; and the
liberty of Rome was acknowledged by her two sovereigns, who
accepted a municipal office in the government of their own
metropolis.
[Footnote 50: The election of Charles of Anjou to the office of
perpetual senator of Rome is mentioned by the historians in the
viiith volume of the Collection of Muratori, by Nicholas de
Jamsilla, (p. 592,) the monk of Padua, (p. 724,) Sabas Malaspina,
(l. ii. c. 9, p. 308,) and Ricordano Malespini, (c. 177, p.
999.)]
[Footnote 51: The high-sounding bull of Nicholas III., which
founds his temporal sovereignty on the donation of Constantine,
is still extant; and as it has been inserted by Boniface VIII. in
the Sexte of the Decretals, it must be received by the Catholics,
or at least by the Papists, as a sacred and perpetual law.]
[Footnote 52: I am indebted to Fleury (Hist. Eccles. tom. xviii.
p. 306) for an extract of this Roman act, which he has taken from
the Ecclesiastical Annals of Odericus Raynaldus, A.D. 1281, No.
14, 15]
In the first moments of rebellion, when Arnold of Brescia
had inflamed their minds against the church, the Romans artfully
labored to conciliate the favor of the empire, and to recommend
their merit and services in the cause of Caesar. The style of
their ambassadors to Conrad the Third and Frederic the First is a
mixture of flattery and pride, the tradition and the ignorance of
their own history. ^53 After some complaint of his silence and
neglect, they exhort the former of these princes to pass the
Alps, and assume from their hands the Imperial crown. "We
beseech your majesty not to disdain the humility of your sons and
vassals, not to listen to the accusations of our common enemies;
who calumniate the senate as hostile to your throne, who sow the
seeds of discord, that they may reap the harvest of destruction.
The pope and the Sicilian are united in an impious league to
oppose our liberty and your coronation. With the blessing of
God, our zeal and courage has hitherto defeated their attempts.
Of their powerful and factious adherents, more especially the
Frangipani, we have taken by assault the houses and turrets: some
of these are occupied by our troops, and some are levelled with
the ground. The Milvian bridge, which they had broken, is
restored and fortified for your safe passage; and your army may
enter the city without being annoyed from the castle of St.
Angelo. All that we have done, and all that we design, is for
your honor and service, in the loyal hope, that you will speedily
appear in person, to vindicate those rights which have been
invaded by the clergy, to revive the dignity of the empire, and
to surpass the fame and glory of your predecessors. May you fix
your residence in Rome, the capital of the world; give laws to
Italy, and the Teutonic kingdom; and imitate the example of
Constantine and Justinian, ^54 who, by the vigor of the senate
and people, obtained the sceptre of the earth." ^55 But these
splendid and fallacious wishes were not cherished by Conrad the
Franconian, whose eyes were fixed on the Holy Land, and who died
without visiting Rome soon after his return from the Holy Land.
[Footnote 53: These letters and speeches are preserved by Otho
bishop of Frisingen, (Fabric. Bibliot. Lat. Med. et Infim. tom.
v. p. 186, 187,) perhaps the noblest of historians: he was son of
Leopold marquis of Austria; his mother, Agnes, was daughter of
the emperor Henry IV., and he was half- brother and uncle to
Conrad III. and Frederic I. He has left, in seven books, a
Chronicle of the Times; in two, the Gesta Frederici I., the last
of which is inserted in the vith volume of Muratori's
historians.]
[Footnote 54: We desire (said the ignorant Romans) to restore the
empire in um statum, quo fuit tempore Constantini et Justiniani,
qui totum orbem vigore senatus et populi Romani suis tenuere
manibus.]
[Footnote 55: Otho Frising. de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 28,
p. 662 - 664.]
His nephew and successor, Frederic Barbarossa, was more
ambitious of the Imperial crown; nor had any of the successors of
Otho acquired such absolute sway over the kingdom of Italy.
Surrounded by his ecclesiastical and secular princes, he gave
audience in his camp at Sutri to the ambassadors of Rome, who
thus addressed him in a free and florid oration: "Incline your
ear to the queen of cities; approach with a peaceful and friendly
mind the precincts of Rome, which has cast away the yoke of the
clergy, and is impatient to crown her legitimate emperor. Under
your auspicious influence, may the primitive times be restored.
Assert the prerogatives of the eternal city, and reduce under her
monarchy the insolence of the world. You are not ignorant, that,
in former ages, by the wisdom of the senate, by the valor and
discipline of the equestrian order, she extended her victorious
arms to the East and West, beyond the Alps, and over the islands
of the ocean. By our sins, in the absence of our princes, the
noble institution of the senate has sunk in oblivion; and with
our prudence, our strength has likewise decreased. We have
revived the senate, and the equestrian order: the counsels of the
one, the arms of the other, will be devoted to your person and
the service of the empire. Do you not hear the language of the
Roman matron? You were a guest, I have adopted you as a citizen;
a Transalpine stranger, I have elected you for my sovereign; ^56
and given you myself, and all that is mine. Your first and most
sacred duty is to swear and subscribe, that you will shed your
blood for the republic; that you will maintain in peace and
justice the laws of the city and the charters of your
predecessors; and that you will reward with five thousand pounds
of silver the faithful senators who shall proclaim your titles in
the Capitol. With the name, assume the character, of Augustus."
The flowers of Latin rhetoric were not yet exhausted; but
Frederic, impatient of their vanity, interrupted the orators in
the high tone of royalty and conquest. "Famous indeed have been
the fortitude and wisdom of the ancient Romans; but your speech
is not seasoned with wisdom, and I could wish that fortitude were
conspicuous in your actions. Like all sublunary things, Rome has
felt the vicissitudes of time and fortune. Your noblest families
were translated to the East, to the royal city of Constantine;
and the remains of your strength and freedom have long since been
exhausted by the Greeks and Franks. Are you desirous of
beholding the ancient glory of Rome, the gravity of the senate,
the spirit of the knights, the discipline of the camp, the valor
of the legions? you will find them in the German republic. It
is not empire, naked and alone, the ornaments and virtues of
empire have likewise migrated beyond the Alps to a more deserving
people: ^57 they will be employed in your defence, but they claim
your obedience. You pretend that myself or my predecessors have
been invited by the Romans: you mistake the word; they were not
invited, they were implored. From its foreign and domestic
tyrants, the city was rescued by Charlemagne and Otho, whose
ashes repose in our country; and their dominion was the price of
your deliverance. Under that dominion your ancestors lived and
died. I claim by the right of inheritance and possession, and
who shall dare to extort you from my hands? Is the hand of the
Franks ^58 and Germans enfeebled by age? Am I vanquished? Am I a
captive? Am I not encompassed with the banners of a potent and
invincible army? You impose conditions on your master; you
require oaths: if the conditions are just, an oath is
superfluous; if unjust, it is criminal. Can you doubt my equity?
It is extended to the meanest of my subjects. Will not my sword
be unsheathed in the defence of the Capitol? By that sword the
northern kingdom of Denmark has been restored to the Roman
empire. You prescribe the measure and the objects of my bounty,
which flows in a copious but a voluntary stream. All will be
given to patient merit; all will be denied to rude importunity."
^59 Neither the emperor nor the senate could maintain these lofty
pretensions of dominion and liberty. United with the pope, and
suspicious of the Romans, Frederic continued his march to the
Vatican; his coronation was disturbed by a sally from the
Capitol; and if the numbers and valor of the Germans prevailed in
the bloody conflict, he could not safely encamp in the presence
of a city of which he styled himself the sovereign. About twelve
years afterwards, he besieged Rome, to seat an antipope in the
chair of St. Peter; and twelve Pisan galleys were introduced into
the Tyber: but the senate and people were saved by the arts of
negotiation and the progress of disease; nor did Frederic or his
successors reiterate the hostile attempt. Their laborious reigns
were exercised by the popes, the crusades, and the independence
of Lombardy and Germany: they courted the alliance of the Romans;
and Frederic the Second offered in the Capitol the great
standard, the Caroccio of Milan. ^60 After the extinction of the
house of Swabia, they were banished beyond the Alps: and their
last coronations betrayed the impotence and poverty of the
Teutonic Caesars. ^61
[Footnote 56: Hospes eras, civem feci. Advena fuisti ex
Transalpinis partibus principem constitui.]
[Footnote 57: Non cessit nobis nudum imperium, virtute sua
amictum venit, ornamenta sua secum traxit. Penes nos sunt
consules tui, &c. Cicero or Livy would not have rejected these
images, the eloquence of a Barbarian born and educated in the
Hercynian forest.]
[Footnote 58: Otho of Frisingen, who surely understood the
language of the court and diet of Germany, speaks of the Franks
in the xiith century as the reigning nation, (Proceres Franci,
equites Franci, manus Francorum:) he adds, however, the epithet
of Teutonici.]
[Footnote 59: Otho Frising. de Gestis Frederici I., l. ii. c. 22,
p. 720 - 733. These original and authentic acts I have
translated and abridged with freedom, yet with fidelity.]
[Footnote 60: From the Chronicles of Ricobaldo and Francis Pipin,
Muratori (dissert. xxvi. tom. ii. p. 492) has translated this
curious fact with the doggerel verses that accompanied the gift:
-
Ave decus orbis, ave! victus tibi destinor, ave!
Currus ab Augusto Frederico Caesare justo.
Vae Mediolanum! jam sentis spernere vanum
Imperii vires, proprias tibi tollere vires.
Ergo triumphorum urbs potes memor esse priorum
Quos tibi mittebant reges qui bella gerebant.
Ne si dee tacere (I now use the Italian Dissertations, tom.
i. p. 444) che nell' anno 1727, una copia desso Caroccio in marmo
dianzi ignoto si scopri, nel campidoglio, presso alle carcere di
quel luogo, dove Sisto V. l'avea falto rinchiudere. Stava esso
posto sopra quatro colonne di marmo fino colla sequente
inscrizione, &c.; to the same purpose as the old inscription.]
[Footnote 61: The decline of the Imperial arms and authority in
Italy is related with impartial learning in the Annals of
Muratori, (tom. x. xi. xii.;) and the reader may compare his
narrative with the Histoires des Allemands (tom. iii. iv.) by
Schmidt, who has deserved the esteem of his countrymen.]
Under the reign of Adrian, when the empire extended from the
Euphrates to the ocean, from Mount Atlas to the Grampian hills, a
fanciful historian ^62 amused the Romans with the picture of
their ancient wars. "There was a time," says Florus, "when Tibur
and Praeneste, our summer retreats, were the objects of hostile
vows in the Capitol, when we dreaded the shades of the Arician
groves, when we could triumph without a blush over the nameless
villages of the Sabines and Latins, and even Corioli could afford
a title not unworthy of a victorious general." The pride of his
contemporaries was gratified by the contrast of the past and the
present: they would have been humbled by the prospect of
futurity; by the prediction, that after a thousand years, Rome,
despoiled of empire, and contracted to her primaeval limits,
would renew the same hostilities, on the same ground which was
then decorated with her villas and gardens. The adjacent
territory on either side of the Tyber was always claimed, and
sometimes possessed, as the patrimony of St. Peter; but the
barons assumed a lawless independence, and the cities too
faithfully copied the revolt and discord of the metropolis. In
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Romans incessantly
labored to reduce or destroy the contumacious vassals of the
church and senate; and if their headstrong and selfish ambition
was moderated by the pope, he often encouraged their zeal by the
alliance of his spiritual arms. Their warfare was that of the
first consuls and dictators, who were taken from the plough. The
assembled in arms at the foot of the Capitol; sallied from the
gates, plundered or burnt the harvests of their neighbors,
engaged in tumultuary conflict, and returned home after an
expedition of fifteen or twenty days. Their sieges were tedious
and unskilful: in the use of victory, they indulged the meaner
passions of jealousy and revenge; and instead of adopting the
valor, they trampled on the misfortunes, of their adversaries.
The captives, in their shirts, with a rope round their necks,
solicited their pardon: the fortifications, and even the
buildings, of the rival cities, were demolished, and the
inhabitants were scattered in the adjacent villages. It was thus
that the seats of the cardinal bishops, Porto, Ostia, Albanum,
Tusculum, Praeneste, and Tibur or Tivoli, were successively
overthrown by the ferocious hostility of the Romans. ^63 Of
these, ^64 Porto and Ostia, the two keys of the Tyber, are still
vacant and desolate: the marshy and unwholesome banks are peopled
with herds of buffaloes, and the river is lost to every purpose
of navigation and trade. The hills, which afford a shady
retirement from the autumnal heats, have again smiled with the
blessings of peace; Frescati has arisen near the ruins of
Tusculum; Tibur or Tivoli has resumed the honors of a city, ^65
and the meaner towns of Albano and Palestrina are decorated with
the villas of the cardinals and princes of Rome. In the work of
destruction, the ambition of the Romans was often checked and
repulsed by the neighboring cities and their allies: in the first
siege of Tibur, they were driven from their camp; and the battles
of Tusculum ^66 and Viterbo ^67 might be compared in their
relative state to the memorable fields of Thrasymene and Cannae.
In the first of these petty wars, thirty thousand Romans were
overthrown by a thousand German horse, whom Frederic Barbarossa
had detached to the relief of Tusculum: and if we number the
slain at three, the prisoners at two, thousand, we shall embrace
the most authentic and moderate account. Sixty- eight years
afterwards they marched against Viterbo in the ecclesiastical
state with the whole force of the city; by a rare coalition the
Teutonic eagle was blended, in the adverse banners, with the keys
of St. Peter; and the pope's auxiliaries were commanded by a
count of Thoulouse and a bishop of Winchester. The Romans were
discomfited with shame and slaughter: but the English prelate
must have indulged the vanity of a pilgrim, if he multiplied
their numbers to one hundred, and their loss in the field to
thirty, thousand men. Had the policy of the senate and the
discipline of the legions been restored with the Capitol, the
divided condition of Italy would have offered the fairest
opportunity of a second conquest. But in arms, the modern Romans
were not above, and in arts, they were far below, the common
level of the neighboring republics. Nor was their warlike spirit
of any long continuance; after some irregular sallies, they
subsided in the national apathy, in the neglect of military
institutions, and in the disgraceful and dangerous use of foreign
mercenaries.
[Footnote 62: Tibur nunc suburbanum, et aestivae Praeneste
deliciae, nuncupatia in Capitolio votis petebantur. The whole
passage of Florus (l. i. c. 11) may be read with pleasure, and
has deserved the praise of a man of genius, (Oeuvres de
Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 634, 635, quarto edition)]
[Footnote 63: Ne a feritate Romanorum, sicut fuerant Hostienses,
Portuenses, Tusculanenses, Albanenses, Labicenses, et nuper
Tiburtini destruerentur, (Matthew Paris, p. 757.) These events
are marked in the Annals and Index (the xviiith volume) of
Muratori.]
[Footnote 64: For the state or ruin of these suburban cities, the
banks of the Tyber, &c., see the lively picture of the P. Labat,
(Voyage en Espagne et en Italiae,) who had long resided in the
neighborhood of Rome, and the more accurate description of which
P. Eschinard (Roma, 1750, in octavo) has added to the
topographical map of Cingolani.]
[Footnote 65: Labat (tom. iii. p. 233) mentions a recent decree
of the Roman government, which has severely mortified the pride
and poverty of Tivoli: in civitate Tiburtina non vivitur
civiliter.]
[Footnote 66: I depart from my usual method, of quoting only by
the date the Annals of Muratori, in consideration of the critical
balance in which he has weighed nine contemporary writers who
mention the battle of Tusculum, (tom. x. p. 42 - 44.)]
[Footnote 67: Matthew Paris, p. 345. This bishop of Winchester
was Peter de Rupibus, who occupied the see thirty-two years,
(A.D. 1206 - 1238.) and is described, by the English historian,
as a soldier and a statesman. (p. 178, 399.)]
Ambition is a weed of quick and early vegetation in the
vineyard of Christ. Under the first Christian princes, the chair
of St. Peter was disputed by the votes, the venality, the
violence, of a popular election: the sanctuaries of Rome were
polluted with blood; and, from the third to the twelfth century,
the church was distracted by the mischief of frequent schisms.
As long as the final appeal was determined by the civil
magistrate, these mischiefs were transient and local: the merits
were tried by equity or favor; nor could the unsuccessful
competitor long disturb the triumph of his rival. But after the
emperors had been divested of their prerogatives, after a maxim
had been established that the vicar of Christ is amenable to no
earthly tribunal, each vacancy of the holy see might involve
Christendom in controversy and war. The claims of the cardinals
and inferior clergy, of the nobles and people, were vague and
litigious: the freedom of choice was overruled by the tumults of
a city that no longer owned or obeyed a superior. On the decease
of a pope, two factions proceeded in different churches to a
double election: the number and weight of votes, the priority of
time, the merit of the candidates, might balance each other: the
most respectable of the clergy were divided; and the distant
princes, who bowed before the spiritual throne, could not
distinguish the spurious, from the legitimate, idol. The
emperors were often the authors of the schism, from the political
motive of opposing a friendly to a hostile pontiff; and each of
the competitors was reduced to suffer the insults of his enemies,
who were not awed by conscience, and to purchase the support of
his adherents, who were instigated by avarice or ambition a
peaceful and perpetual succession was ascertained by Alexander
the Third, ^68 who finally abolished the tumultuary votes of the
clergy and people, and defined the right of election in the sole
college of cardinals. ^69 The three orders of bishops, priests,
and deacons, were assimilated to each other by this important
privilege; the parochial clergy of Rome obtained the first rank
in the hierarchy: they were indifferently chosen among the
nations of Christendom; and the possession of the richest
benefices, of the most important bishoprics, was not incompatible
with their title and office. The senators of the Catholic church,
the coadjutors and legates of the supreme pontiff, were robed in
purple, the symbol of martyrdom or royalty; they claimed a proud
equality with kings; and their dignity was enhanced by the
smallness of their number, which, till the reign of Leo the
Tenth, seldom exceeded twenty or twenty-five persons. By this
wise regulation, all doubt and scandal were removed, and the root
of schism was so effectually destroyed, that in a period of six
hundred years a double choice has only once divided the unity of
the sacred college. But as the concurrence of two thirds of the
votes had been made necessary, the election was often delayed by
the private interest and passions of the cardinals; and while
they prolonged their independent reign, the Christian world was
left destitute of a head. A vacancy of almost three years had
preceded the elevation of George the Tenth, who resolved to
prevent the future abuse; and his bull, after some opposition,
has been consecrated in the code of the canon law. ^70 Nine days
are allowed for the obsequies of the deceased pope, and the
arrival of the absent cardinals; on the tenth, they are
imprisoned, each with one domestic, in a common apartment or
conclave, without any separation of walls or curtains: a small
window is reserved for the introduction of necessaries; but the
door is locked on both sides and guarded by the magistrates of
the city, to seclude them from all correspondence with the world.
If the election be not consummated in three days, the luxury of
their table is contracted to a single dish at dinner and supper;
and after the eighth day, they are reduced to a scanty allowance
of bread, water, and wine. During the vacancy of the holy see,
the cardinals are prohibited from touching the revenues, or
assuming, unless in some rare emergency, the government of the
church: all agreements and promises among the electors are
formally annulled; and their integrity is fortified by their
solemn oath and the prayers of the Catholics. Some articles of
inconvenient or superfluous rigor have been gradually relaxed,
but the principle of confinement is vigorous and entire: they are
still urged, by the personal motives of health and freedom, to
accelerate the moment of their deliverance; and the improvement
of ballot or secret votes has wrapped the struggles of the
conclave ^71 in the silky veil of charity and politeness. ^72 By
these institutions the Romans were excluded from the election of
their prince and bishop; and in the fever of wild and precarious
liberty, they seemed insensible of the loss of this inestimable
privilege. The emperor Lewis of Bavaria revived the example of
the great Otho. After some negotiation with the magistrates, the
Roman people were assembled ^73 in the square before St. Peter's:
the pope of Avignon, John the Twenty-second, was deposed: the
choice of his successor was ratified by their consent and
applause. They freely voted for a new law, that their bishop
should never be absent more than three months in the year, and
two days' journey from the city; and that if he neglected to
return on the third summons, the public servant should be
degraded and dismissed. ^74 But Lewis forgot his own debility and
the prejudices of the times: beyond the precincts of a German
camp, his useless phantom was rejected; the Romans despised their
own workmanship; the antipope implored the mercy of his lawful
sovereign; ^75 and the exclusive right of the cardinals was more
firmly established by this unseasonable attack.
[Footnote 68: See Mosheim, Institut. Histor. Ecclesiast. p. 401,
403. Alexander himself had nearly been the victim of a contested
election; and the doubtful merits of Innocent had only
preponderated by the weight of genius and learning which St.
Bernard cast into the scale, (see his life and writings.)]
[Footnote 69: The origin, titles, importance, dress, precedency,
&c., of the Roman cardinals, are very ably discussed by
Thomassin, (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1262 - 1287;) but
their purple is now much faded. The sacred college was raised to
the definite number of seventy-two, to represent, under his
vicar, the disciples of Christ.]
[Footnote 70: See the bull of Gregory X. approbante sacro
concilio, in the Sexts of the Canon Law, (l. i. tit. 6, c. 3,) a
supplement to the Decretals, which Boniface VIII. promulgated at
Rome in 1298, and addressed in all the universities of Europe.]
[Footnote 71: The genius of Cardinal de Retz had a right to paint
a conclave, (of 1665,) in which he was a spectator and an actor,
(Memoires, tom. iv. p. 15 - 57;) but I am at a loss to appreciate
the knowledge or authority of an anonymous Italian, whose history
(Conclavi de' Pontifici Romani, in 4to. 1667) has been continued
since the reign of Alexander VII. The accidental form of the
work furnishes a lesson, though not an antidote, to ambition.
From a labyrinth of intrigues, we emerge to the adoration of the
successful candidate; but the next page opens with his funeral.]
[Footnote 72: The expressions of Cardinal de Retz are positive
and picturesque: On y vecut toujours ensemble avec le meme
respect, et la meme civilite que l'on observe dans le cabinet des
rois, avec la meme politesse qu'on avoit dans la cour de Henri
III., avec la meme familiarite que l'on voit dans les colleges;
avec la meme modestie, qui se remarque dans les noviciats; et
avec la meme charite, du moins en apparence, qui pourroit otre
entre des freres parfaitement unis.]
[Footnote 73: Richiesti per bando (says John Villani) sanatori di
Roma, e 52 del popolo, et capitani de' 25, e consoli, (consoli?)
et 13 buone huomini, uno per rione. Our knowledge is too
imperfect to pronounce how much of this constitution was
temporary, and how much ordinary and permanent. Yet it is faintly
illustrated by the ancient statutes of Rome.]
[Footnote 74: Villani (l. x. c. 68 - 71, in Muratori, Script.
tom. xiii. p. 641 - 645) relates this law, and the whole
transaction, with much less abhorrence than the prudent Muratori.
Any one conversant with the darker ages must have observed how
much the sense (I mean the nonsense) of superstition is
fluctuating and inconsistent.]
[Footnote 75: In the first volume of the Popes of Avignon, see
the second original Life of John XXII. p. 142 - 145, the
confession of the antipope p. 145 - 152, and the laborious notes
of Baluze, p. 714, 715.]
Had the election been always held in the Vatican, the rights
of the senate and people would not have been violated with
impunity. But the Romans forgot, and were forgotten. in the
absence of the successors of Gregory the Seventh, who did not
keep as a divine precept their ordinary residence in the city and
diocese. The care of that diocese was less important than the
government of the universal church; nor could the popes delight
in a city in which their authority was always opposed, and their
person was often endangered. From the persecution of the
emperors, and the wars of Italy, they escaped beyond the Alps
into the hospitable bosom of France; from the tumults of Rome
they prudently withdrew to live and die in the more tranquil
stations of Anagni, Perugia, Viterbo, and the adjacent cities.
When the flock was offended or impoverished by the absence of the
shepherd, they were recalled by a stern admonition, that St.
Peter had fixed his chair, not in an obscure village, but in the
capital of the world; by a ferocious menace, that the Romans
would march in arms to destroy the place and people that should
dare to afford them a retreat. They returned with timorous
obedience; and were saluted with the account of a heavy debt, of
all the losses which their desertion had occasioned, the hire of
lodgings, the sale of provisions, and the various expenses of
servants and strangers who attended the court. ^76 After a short
interval of peace, and perhaps of authority, they were again
banished by new tumults, and again summoned by the imperious or
respectful invitation of the senate. In these occasional
retreats, the exiles and fugitives of the Vatican were seldom
long, or far, distant from the metropolis; but in the beginning
of the fourteenth century, the apostolic throne was transported,
as it might seem forever, from the Tyber to the Rhone; and the
cause of the transmigration may be deduced from the furious
contest between Boniface the Eighth and the king of France. ^77
The spiritual arms of excommunication and interdict were repulsed
by the union of the three estates, and the privileges of the
Gallican church; but the pope was not prepared against the carnal
weapons which Philip the Fair had courage to employ. As the pope
resided at Anagni, without the suspicion of danger, his palace
and person were assaulted by three hundred horse, who had been
secretly levied by William of Nogaret, a French minister, and
Sciarra Colonna, of a noble but hostile family of Rome. The
cardinals fled; the inhabitants of Anagni were seduced from their
allegiance and gratitude; but the dauntless Boniface, unarmed and
alone, seated himself in his chair, and awaited, like the
conscript fathers of old, the swords of the Gauls. Nogaret, a
foreign adversary, was content to execute the orders of his
master: by the domestic enmity of Colonna, he was insulted with
words and blows; and during a confinement of three days his life
was threatened by the hardships which they inflicted on the
obstinacy which they provoked. Their strange delay gave time and
courage to the adherents of the church, who rescued him from
sacrilegious violence; but his imperious soul was wounded in the
vital part; and Boniface expired at Rome in a frenzy of rage and
revenge. His memory is stained with the glaring vices of avarice
and pride; nor has the courage of a martyr promoted this
ecclesiastical champion to the honors of a saint; a magnanimous
sinner, (say the chronicles of the times,) who entered like a
fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog. He was succeeded
by Benedict the Eleventh, the mildest of mankind. Yet he
excommunicated the impious emissaries of Philip, and devoted the
city and people of Anagni by a tremendous curse, whose effects
are still visible to the eyes of superstition. ^78
[Footnote 76: Romani autem non valentes nec volentes ultra suam
celare cupiditatem gravissimam, contra papam movere coeperunt
questionem, exigentes ab eo urgentissime omnia quae subierant per
ejus absentiam damna et jacturas, videlicet in hispitiis
locandis, in mercimoniis, in usuris, in redditibus, in
provisionibus, et in aliis modis innumerabilibus. Quod cum
audisset papa, praecordialiter ingemuit, et se comperiens
muscipulatum, &c., Matt. Paris, p. 757. For the ordinary history
of the popes, their life and death, their residence and absence,
it is enough to refer to the ecclesiastical annalists, Spondanus
and Fleury.]
[Footnote 77: Besides the general historians of the church of
Italy and of France, we possess a valuable treatise composed by a
learned friend of Thuanus, which his last and best editors have
published in the appendix (Histoire particuliere du grand
Differend entre Boniface VIII et Philippe le Bel, par Pierre du
Puis, tom. vii. P. xi. p. 61 - 82.)]
[Footnote 78: It is difficult to know whether Labat (tom. iv. p.
53 - 57) be in jest or in earnest, when he supposes that Anagni
still feels the weight of this curse, and that the cornfields, or
vineyards, or olive-trees, are annually blasted by Nature, the
obsequious handmaid of the popes.]
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.
Part IV.
After his decease, the tedious and equal suspense of the
conclave was fixed by the dexterity of the French faction. A
specious offer was made and accepted, that, in the term of forty
days, they would elect one of the three candidates who should be
named by their opponents. The archbishop of Bourdeaux, a furious
enemy of his king and country, was the first on the list; but his
ambition was known; and his conscience obeyed the calls of
fortune and the commands of a benefactor, who had been informed
by a swift messenger that the choice of a pope was now in his
hands. The terms were regulated in a private interview; and with
such speed and secrecy was the business transacted, that the
unanimous conclave applauded the elevation of Clement the Fifth.
^79 The cardinals of both parties were soon astonished by a
summons to attend him beyond the Alps; from whence, as they soon
discovered, they must never hope to return. He was engaged, by
promise and affection, to prefer the residence of France; and,
after dragging his court through Poitou and Gascony, and
devouring, by his expense, the cities and convents on the road,
he finally reposed at Avignon, ^80 which flourished above seventy
years ^81 the seat of the Roman pontiff and the metropolis of
Christendom. By land, by sea, by the Rhone, the position of
Avignon was on all sides accessible; the southern provinces of
France do not yield to Italy itself; new palaces arose for the
accommodation of the pope and cardinals; and the arts of luxury
were soon attracted by the treasures of the church. They were
already possessed of the adjacent territory, the Venaissin
county, ^82 a populous and fertile spot; and the sovereignty of
Avignon was afterwards purchased from the youth and distress of
Jane, the first queen of Naples and countess of Provence, for the
inadequate price of fourscore thousand florins. ^83 Under the
shadow of a French monarchy, amidst an obedient people, the popes
enjoyed an honorable and tranquil state, to which they long had
been strangers: but Italy deplored their absence; and Rome, in
solitude and poverty, might repent of the ungovernable freedom
which had driven from the Vatican the successor of St. Peter.
Her repentance was tardy and fruitless: after the death of the
old members, the sacred college was filled with French cardinals,
^84 who beheld Rome and Italy with abhorrence and contempt, and
perpetuated a series of national, and even provincial, popes,
attached by the most indissoluble ties to their native country.
[Footnote 79: See, in the Chronicle of Giovanni Villani, (l.
viii. c. 63, 64, 80, in Muratori, tom. xiii.,) the imprisonment
of Boniface VIII., and the election of Clement V., the last of
which, like most anecdotes, is embarrassed with some
difficulties.]
[Footnote 80: The original lives of the eight popes of Avignon,
Clement V., John XXII., Benedict XI., Clement VI., Innocent VI.,
Urban V., Gregory XI., and Clement VII., are published by Stephen
Baluze, (Vitae Paparum Avenionensium; Paris, 1693, 2 vols. in
4to.,) with copious and elaborate notes, and a second volume of
acts and documents. With the true zeal of an editor and a
patriot, he devoutly justifies or excuses the characters of his
countrymen.]
[Footnote 81: The exile of Avignon is compared by the Italians
with Babylon, and the Babylonish captivity. Such furious
metaphors, more suitable to the ardor of Petrarch than to the
judgment of Muratori, are gravely refuted in Baluze's preface.
The abbe de Sade is distracted between the love of Petrarch and
of his country. Yet he modestly pleads, that many of the local
inconveniences of Avignon are now removed; and many of the vices
against which the poet declaims, had been imported with the Roman
court by the strangers of Italy, (tom. i. p. 23 - 28.)]
[Footnote 82: The comtat Venaissin was ceded to the popes in 1273
by Philip III. king of France, after he had inherited the
dominions of the count of Thoulouse. Forty years before, the
heresy of Count Raymond had given them a pretence of seizure, and
they derived some obscure claim from the xith century to some
lands citra Rhodanum, (Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 495, 610.
Longuerue, Description de la France, tom. i. p. 376 - 381.)]
[Footnote 83: If a possession of four centuries were not itself a
title, such objections might annul the bargain; but the purchase
money must be refunded, for indeed it was paid. Civitatem
Avenionem emit . . . per ejusmodi venditionem pecunia redundates,
&c., (iida Vita Clement. VI. in Baluz. tom. i. p. 272. Muratori,
Script. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 565.) The only temptation for Jane
and her second husband was ready money, and without it they could
not have returned to the throne of Naples.]
[Footnote 84: Clement V immediately promoted ten cardinals, nine
French and one English, (Vita ivta, p. 63, et Baluz. p. 625, &c.)
In 1331, the pope refused two candidates recommended by the king
of France, quod xx. Cardinales, de quibus xvii. de regno Fraciae
originem traxisse noscuntur in memorato collegio existant,
(Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1281.)]
The progress of industry had produced and enriched the
Italian republics: the aera of their liberty is the most
flourishing period of population and agriculture, of manufactures
and commerce; and their mechanic labors were gradually refined
into the arts of elegance and genius. But the position of Rome
was less favorable, the territory less fruitful: the character of
the inhabitants was debased by indolence and elated by pride; and
they fondly conceived that the tribute of subjects must forever
nourish the metropolis of the church and empire. This prejudice
was encouraged in some degree by the resort of pilgrims to the
shrines of the apostles; and the last legacy of the popes, the
institution of the holy year, ^85 was not less beneficial to the
people than to the clergy. Since the loss of Palestine, the gift
of plenary indulgences, which had been applied to the crusades,
remained without an object; and the most valuable treasure of the
church was sequestered above eight years from public circulation.
A new channel was opened by the diligence of Boniface the Eighth,
who reconciled the vices of ambition and avarice; and the pope
had sufficient learning to recollect and revive the secular games
which were celebrated in Rome at the conclusion of every century.
To sound without danger the depth of popular credulity, a sermon
was seasonably pronounced, a report was artfully scattered, some
aged witnesses were produced; and on the first of January of the
year thirteen hundred, the church of St. Peter was crowded with
the faithful, who demanded the customary indulgence of the holy
time. The pontiff, who watched and irritated their devout
impatience, was soon persuaded by ancient testimony of the
justice of their claim; and he proclaimed a plenary absolution to
all Catholics who, in the course of that year, and at every
similar period, should respectfully visit the apostolic churches
of St. Peter and St. Paul. The welcome sound was propagated
through Christendom; and at first from the nearest provinces of
Italy, and at length from the remote kingdoms of Hungary and
Britain, the highways were thronged with a swarm of pilgrims who
sought to expiate their sins in a journey, however costly or
laborious, which was exempt from the perils of military service.
All exceptions of rank or sex, of age or infirmity, were
forgotten in the common transport; and in the streets and
churches many persons were trampled to death by the eagerness of
devotion. The calculation of their numbers could not be easy nor
accurate; and they have probably been magnified by a dexterous
clergy, well apprised of the contagion of example: yet we are
assured by a judicious historian, who assisted at the ceremony,
that Rome was never replenished with less than two hundred
thousand strangers; and another spectator has fixed at two
millions the total concourse of the year. A trifling oblation
from each individual would accumulate a royal treasure; and two
priests stood night and day, with rakes in their hands, to
collect, without counting, the heaps of gold and silver that were
poured on the altar of St. Paul. ^86 It was fortunately a season
of peace and plenty; and if forage was scarce, if inns and
lodgings were extravagantly dear, an inexhaustible supply of
bread and wine, of meat and fish, was provided by the policy of
Boniface and the venal hospitality of the Romans. From a city
without trade or industry, all casual riches will speedily
evaporate: but the avarice and envy of the next generation
solicited Clement the Sixth ^87 to anticipate the distant period
of the century. The gracious pontiff complied with their wishes;
afforded Rome this poor consolation for his loss; and justified
the change by the name and practice of the Mosaic Jubilee. ^88
His summons was obeyed; and the number, zeal, and liberality of
the pilgrims did not yield to the primitive festival. But they
encountered the triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine:
many wives and virgins were violated in the castles of Italy; and
many strangers were pillaged or murdered by the savage Romans, no
longer moderated by the presence of their bishops. ^89 To the
impatience of the popes we may ascribe the successive reduction
to fifty, thirty-three, and twenty-five years; although the
second of these terms is commensurate with the life of Christ.
The profusion of indulgences, the revolt of the Protestants, and
the decline of superstition, have much diminished the value of
the jubilee; yet even the nineteenth and last festival was a year
of pleasure and profit to the Romans; and a philosophic smile
will not disturb the triumph of the priest or the happiness of
the people. ^90
[Footnote 85: Our primitive account is from Cardinal James
Caietan, (Maxima Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xxv.;) and I am at a loss
to determine whether the nephew of Boniface VIII. be a fool or a
knave: the uncle is a much clearer character.]
[Footnote 86: See John Villani (l. viii. c. 36) in the xiith, and
the Chronicon Astense, in the xith volume (p. 191, 192) of
Muratori's Collection Papa innumerabilem pecuniam abeisdem
accepit, nam duo clerici, cum rastris, &c.]
[Footnote 87: The two bulls of Boniface VIII. and Clement VI. are
inserted on the Corpus Juris Canonici, Extravagant. Commun. l. v.
tit. ix c 1, 2.)]
[Footnote 88: The sabbatic years and jubilees of the Mosaic law,
(Car. Sigon. de Republica Hebraeorum, Opp. tom. iv. l. iii. c.
14, 14, p. 151, 152,) the suspension of all care and labor, the
periodical release of lands, debts, servitude, &c., may seem a
noble idea, but the execution would be impracticable in a profane
republic; and I should be glad to learn that this ruinous
festival was observed by the Jewish people.]
[Footnote 89: See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani, (l. i. c. 56,)
in the xivth vol. of Muratori, and the Memoires sur la Vie de
Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 75 - 89.]
[Footnote 90: The subject is exhausted by M. Chais, a French
minister at the Hague, in his Lettres Historiques et Dogmatiques,
sur les Jubiles et es Indulgences; la Haye, 1751, 3 vols. in
12mo.; an elaborate and pleasing work, had not the author
preferred the character of a polemic to that of a philosopher.]
In the beginning of the eleventh century, Italy was exposed
to the feudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and the
people. The rights of human nature were vindicated by her
numerous republics, who soon extended their liberty and dominion
from the city to the adjacent country. The sword of the nobles
was broken; their slaves were enfranchised; their castles were
demolished; they assumed the habits of society and obedience;
their ambition was confined to municipal honors, and in the
proudest aristocracy of Venice on Genoa, each patrician was
subject to the laws. ^91 But the feeble and disorderly government
of Rome was unequal to the task of curbing her rebellious sons,
who scorned the authority of the magistrate within and without
the walls. It was no longer a civil contention between the
nobles and plebeians for the government of the state: the barons
asserted in arms their personal independence; their palaces and
castles were fortified against a siege; and their private
quarrels were maintained by the numbers of their vassals and
retainers. In origin and affection, they were aliens to their
country: ^92 and a genuine Roman, could such have been produced,
might have renounced these haughty strangers, who disdained the
appellation of citizens, and proudly styled themselves the
princes, of Rome. ^93 After a dark series of revolutions, all
records of pedigree were lost; the distinction of surnames was
abolished; the blood of the nations was mingled in a thousand
channels; and the Goths and Lombards, the Greeks and Franks, the
Germans and Normans, had obtained the fairest possessions by
royal bounty, or the prerogative of valor. These examples might
be readily presumed; but the elevation of a Hebrew race to the
rank of senators and consuls is an event without a parallel in
the long captivity of these miserable exiles. ^94 In the time of
Leo the Ninth, a wealthy and learned Jew was converted to
Christianity, and honored at his baptism with the name of his
godfather, the reigning Pope. The zeal and courage of Peter the
son of Leo were signalized in the cause of Gregory the Seventh,
who intrusted his faithful adherent with the government of
Adrian's mole, the tower of Crescentius, or, as it is now called,
the castle of St. Angelo. Both the father and the son were the
parents of a numerous progeny: their riches, the fruits of usury,
were shared with the noblest families of the city; and so
extensive was their alliance, that the grandson of the proselyte
was exalted by the weight of his kindred to the throne of St.
Peter. A majority of the clergy and people supported his cause:
he reigned several years in the Vatican; and it is only the
eloquence of St. Bernard, and the final triumph of Innocence the
Second, that has branded Anacletus with the epithet of antipope.
After his defeat and death, the posterity of Leo is no longer
conspicuous; and none will be found of the modern nobles
ambitious of descending from a Jewish stock. It is not my design
to enumerate the Roman families which have failed at different
periods, or those which are continued in different degrees of
splendor to the present time. ^95 The old consular line of the
Frangipani discover their name in the generous act of breaking or
dividing bread in a time of famine; and such benevolence is more
truly glorious than to have enclosed, with their allies the
Corsi, a spacious quarter of the city in the chains of their
fortifications; the Savelli, as it should seem a Sabine race,
have maintained their original dignity; the obsolete surname of
the Capizucchi is inscribed on the coins of the first senators;
the Conti preserve the honor, without the estate, of the counts
of Signia; and the Annibaldi must have been very ignorant, or
very modest, if they had not descended from the Carthaginian
hero. ^96
[Footnote 91: Muratori (Dissert. xlvii.) alleges the Annals of
Florence, Padua, Genoa, &c., the analogy of the rest, the
evidence of Otho of Frisingen, (de Gest. Fred. I. l. ii. c. 13,)
and the submission of the marouis of Este.]
[Footnote 92: As early as the year 824, the emperor Lothaire I.
found it expedient to interrogate the Roman people, to learn from
each individual by what national law he chose to be governed.
(Muratori, Dissertat xxii.)]
[Footnote 93: Petrarch attacks these foreigners, the tyrants of
Rome, in a declamation or epistle, full of bold truths and absurd
pedantry, in which he applies the maxims, and even prejudices, of
the old republic to the state of the xivth century, (Memoires,
tom. iii. p. 157 - 169.)]
[Footnote 94: The origin and adventures of the Jewish family are
noticed by Pagi, (Critica, tom. iv. p. 435, A.D. 1124, No. 3, 4,)
who draws his information from the Chronographus Maurigniacensis,
and Arnulphus Sagiensis de Schismate, (in Muratori, Script. Ital.
tom. iii. P. i. p. 423 - 432.) The fact must in some degree be
true; yet I could wish that it had been coolly related, before it
was turned into a reproach against the antipope.]
[Footnote 95: Muratori has given two dissertations (xli. and
xlii.) to the names, surnames, and families of Italy. Some
nobles, who glory in their domestic fables, may be offended with
his firm and temperate criticism; yet surely some ounces of pure
gold are of more value than many pounds of base metal.]
[Footnote 96: The cardinal of St. George, in his poetical, or
rather metrical history of the election and coronation of
Boniface VIII., (Muratori Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 641,
&c.,) describes the state and families of Rome at the coronation
of Boniface VIII., (A.D. 1295.)
Interea titulis redimiti sanguine et armis Illustresque viri
Romana a stirpe trahentes Nomen in emeritos tantae virtutis
honores Insulerant sese medios festumque colebant Aurata fulgente
toga, sociante caterva. Ex ipsis devota domus praestantis ab Ursa
Ecclesiae, vultumque gerens demissius altum Festa Columna jocis,
necnon Sabellia mitis; Stephanides senior, Comites Annibalica
proles, Praefectusque urbis magnum sine viribus nomen.
(l. ii. c. 5, 100, p. 647, 648.)
The ancient statutes of Rome (l. iii. c. 59, p. 174, 175)
distinguish eleven families of barons, who are obliged to swear
in concilio communi, before the senator, that they would not
harbor or protect any malefactors, outlaws, &c. - a feeble
security!]
But among, perhaps above, the peers and princes of the city,
I distinguish the rival houses of Colonna and Ursini, whose
private story is an essential part of the annals of modern Rome.
I. The name and arms of Colonna ^97 have been the theme of much
doubtful etymology; nor have the orators and antiquarians
overlooked either Trajan's pillar, or the columns of Hercules, or
the pillar of Christ's flagellation, or the luminous column that
guided the Israelites in the desert. Their first historical
appearance in the year eleven hundred and four attests the power
and antiquity, while it explains the simple meaning, of the name.
By the usurpation of Cavae, the Colonna provoked the arms of
Paschal the Second; but they lawfully held in the Campagna of
Rome the hereditary fiefs of Zagarola and Colonna; and the latter
of these towns was probably adorned with some lofty pillar, the
relic of a villa or temple. ^98 They likewise possessed one
moiety of the neighboring city of Tusculum, a strong presumption
of their descent from the counts of Tusculum, who in the tenth
century were the tyrants of the apostolic see. According to
their own and the public opinion, the primitive and remote source
was derived from the banks of the Rhine; ^99 and the sovereigns
of Germany were not ashamed of a real or fabulous affinity with a
noble race, which in the revolutions of seven hundred years has
been often illustrated by merit and always by fortune. ^100 About
the end of the thirteenth century, the most powerful branch was
composed of an uncle and six bothers, all conspicuous in arms, or
in the honors of the church. Of these, Peter was elected senator
of Rome, introduced to the Capitol in a triumphal car, and hailed
in some vain acclamations with the title of Caesar; while John
and Stephen were declared marquis of Ancona and count of Romagna,
by Nicholas the Fourth, a patron so partial to their family, that
he has been delineated in satirical portraits, imprisoned as it
were in a hollow pillar. ^101 After his decease their haughty
behavior provoked the displeasure of the most implacable of
mankind. The two cardinals, the uncle and the nephew, denied the
election of Boniface the Eighth; and the Colonna were oppressed
for a moment by his temporal and spiritual arms. ^102 He
proclaimed a crusade against his personal enemies; their estates
were confiscated; their fortresses on either side of the Tyber
were besieged by the troops of St. Peter and those of the rival
nobles; and after the ruin of Palestrina or Praeneste, their
principal seat, the ground was marked with a ploughshare, the
emblem of perpetual desolation. Degraded, banished, proscribed,
the six brothers, in disguise and danger, wandered over Europe
without renouncing the hope of deliverance and revenge. In this
double hope, the French court was their surest asylum; they
prompted and directed the enterprise of Philip; and I should
praise their magnanimity, had they respected the misfortune and
courage of the captive tyrant. His civil acts were annulled by
the Roman people, who restored the honors and possessions of the
Colonna; and some estimate may be formed of their wealth by their
losses, of their losses by the damages of one hundred thousand
gold florins which were granted them against the accomplices and
heirs of the deceased pope. All the spiritual censures and
disqualifications were abolished ^103 by his prudent successors;
and the fortune of the house was more firmly established by this
transient hurricane. The boldness of Sciarra Colonna was
signalized in the captivity of Boniface, and long afterwards in
the coronation of Lewis of Bavaria; and by the gratitude of the
emperor, the pillar in their arms was encircled with a royal
crown. But the first of the family in fame and merit was the
elder Stephen, whom Petrarch loved and esteemed as a hero
superior to his own times, and not unworthy of ancient Rome.
Persecution and exile displayed to the nations his abilities in
peace and war; in his distress he was an object, not of pity, but
of reverence; the aspect of danger provoked him to avow his name
and country; and when he was asked, "Where is now your fortress?"
he laid his hand on his heart, and answered, "Here." He supported
with the same virtue the return of prosperity; and, till the ruin
of his declining age, the ancestors, the character, and the
children of Stephen Colonna, exalted his dignity in the Roman
republic, and at the court of Avignon. II. The Ursini migrated
from Spoleto; ^104 the sons of Ursus, as they are styled in the
twelfth century, from some eminent person, who is only known as
the father of their race. But they were soon distinguished among
the nobles of Rome, by the number and bravery of their kinsmen,
the strength of their towers, the honors of the senate and sacred
college, and the elevation of two popes, Celestin the Third and
Nicholas the Third, of their name and lineage. ^105 Their riches
may be accused as an early abuse of nepotism: the estates of St.
Peter were alienated in their favor by the liberal Celestin; ^106
and Nicholas was ambitious for their sake to solicit the alliance
of monarchs; to found new kingdoms in Lombardy and Tuscany; and
to invest them with the perpetual office of senators of Rome.
All that has been observed of the greatness of the Colonna will
likewise redeemed to the glory of the Ursini, their constant and
equal antagonists in the long hereditary feud, which distracted
above two hundred and fifty years the ecclesiastical state. The
jealously of preeminence and power was the true ground of their
quarrel; but as a specious badge of distinction, the Colonna
embraced the name of Ghibelines and the party of the empire; the
Ursini espoused the title of Guelphs and the cause of the church.
The eagle and the keys were displayed in their adverse banners;
and the two factions of Italy most furiously raged when the
origin and nature of the dispute were long since forgotten. ^107
After the retreat of the popes to Avignon they disputed in arms
the vacant republic; and the mischiefs of discord were
perpetuated by the wretched compromise of electing each year two
rival senators. By their private hostilities the city and
country were desolated, and the fluctuating balance inclined with
their alternate success. But none of either family had fallen by
the sword, till the most renowned champion of the Ursini was
surprised and slain by the younger Stephen Colonna. ^108 His
triumph is stained with the reproach of violating the truce;
their defeat was basely avenged by the assassination, before the
church door, of an innocent boy and his two servants. Yet the
victorious Colonna, with an annual colleague, was declared
senator of Rome during the term of five years. And the muse of
Petrarch inspired a wish, a hope, a prediction, that the generous
youth, the son of his venerable hero, would restore Rome and
Italy to their pristine glory; that his justice would extirpate
the wolves and lions, the serpents and bears, who labored to
subvert the eternal basis of the marble column. ^109
[Footnote 97: It is pity that the Colonna themselves have not
favored the world with a complete and critical history of their
illustrious house. I adhere to Muratori, (Dissert. xlii. tom.
iii. p. 647, 648.)]
[Footnote 98: Pandulph. Pisan. in Vit. Paschal. II. in Muratori,
Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 335. The family has still great
possessions in the Campagna of Rome; but they have alienated to
the Rospigliosi this original fief of Colonna, Eschinard, p. 258,
259.)]
[Footnote 99: Te longinqua dedit tellus et pascua Rheni, says
Petrarch; and, in 1417, a duke of Guelders and Juliers
acknowledges (Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom. ii. p.
539) his descent from the ancestors of Martin V., (Otho Colonna:)
but the royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburg observes, that
the sceptre in his arms has been confounded with the column. To
maintain the Roman origin of the Colonna, it was ingeniously
supposed (Diario di Monaldeschi, in the Script. Ital. tom. xii.
p. 533) that a cousin of the emperor Nero escaped from the city,
and founded Mentz in Germany]
[Footnote 100: I cannot overlook the Roman triumph of ovation on
Marce Antonio Colonna, who had commanded the pope's galleys at
the naval victory of Lepanto, (Thuan. Hist. l. 7, tom. iii. p.
55, 56. Muret. Oratio x. Opp. tom. i. p. 180 - 190.)]
[Footnote 101: Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. x. p. 216, 220.]
[Footnote 102: Petrarch's attachment to the Colonna has
authorized the abbe de Sade to expatiate on the state of the
family in the fourteenth century, the persecution of Boniface
VIII., the character of Stephen and his sons, their quarrels with
the Ursini, &c., (Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 98 - 110,
146 - 148, 174 - 176, 222 - 230, 275 - 280.) His criticism often
rectifies the hearsay stories of Villani, and the errors of the
less diligent moderns. I understand the branch of Stephen to be
now extinct.]
[Footnote 103: Alexander III. had declared the Colonna who
adhered to the emperor Frederic I. incapable of holding any
ecclesiastical benefice, (Villani, l. v. c. 1;) and the last
stains of annual excommunication were purified by Sixtus V.,
(Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 416.) Treason, sacrilege, and
proscription are often the best titles of ancient nobility.]
[Footnote 104: - Vallis te proxima misit,
Appenninigenae qua prata virentia sylvae
Spoletana metunt armenta gregesque protervi.
Monaldeschi (tom. xii. Script. Ital. p. 533) gives the Ursini a
French origin, which may be remotely true.]
[Footnote 105: In the metrical life of Celestine V. by the
cardinal of St. George (Muratori, tom. iii. P. i. p. 613, &c.,)
we find a luminous, and not inelegant, passage, (l. i. c. 3, p.
203 &c.:) -
- genuit quem nobilis Ursae (Ursi?)
Progenies, Romana domus, veterataque magnis
Fascibus in clero, pompasque experta senatus,
Bellorumque manu grandi stipata parentum
Cardineos apices necnon fastigia dudum
Papatus iterata tenens.
Muratori (Dissert. xlii. tom. iii.) observes, that the first
Ursini pontificate of Celestine III. was unknown: he is inclined
to read Ursi progenies.]
[Footnote 106: Filii Ursi, quondam Coelestini papae nepotes, de
bonis ecclesiae Romanae ditati, (Vit. Innocent. III. in Muratori,
Script. tom. iii. P. i.) The partial prodigality of Nicholas III.
is more conspicuous in Villani and Muratori. Yet the Ursini
would disdain the nephews of a modern pope.]
[Footnote 107: In his fifty-first Dissertation on the Italian
Antiquities, Muratori explains the factions of the Guelphs and
Ghibelines.]
[Footnote 108: Petrarch (tom. i. p. 222 - 230) has celebrated
this victory according to the Colonna; but two contemporaries, a
Florentine (Giovanni Villani, l. x. c. 220) and a Roman,
(Ludovico Monaldeschi, p. 532 - 534,) are less favorable to their
arms.]
[Footnote 109: The abbe de Sade (tom. i. Notes, p. 61 - 66) has
applied the vith Canzone of Petrarch, Spirto Gentil, &c., to
Stephen Colonna the younger:
Orsi, lupi, leoni, aquile e serpi
Al una gran marmorea colonna
Fanno noja sovente e a se danno]
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.
Part I.
Character And Coronation Of Petrarch. - Restoration Of The
Freedom And Government Of Rome By The Tribune Rienzi. - His
Virtues And Vices, His Expulsion And Death. - Return Of The Popes
From Avignon. - Great Schism Of The West. - Reunion Of The Latin
Church. - Last Struggles Of Roman Liberty. - Statutes Of Rome. -
Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.
In the apprehension of modern times, Petrarch ^1 is the
Italian songster of Laura and love. In the harmony of his Tuscan
rhymes, Italy applauds, or rather adores, the father of her lyric
poetry; and his verse, or at least his name, is repeated by the
enthusiasm, or affectation, of amorous sensibility. Whatever may
be the private taste of a stranger, his slight and superficial
knowledge should humbly acquiesce in the judgment of a learned
nation; yet I may hope or presume, that the Italians do not
compare the tedious uniformity of sonnets and elegies with the
sublime compositions of their epic muse, the original wildness of
Dante, the regular beauties of Tasso, and the boundless variety
of the incomparable Ariosto. The merits of the lover I am still
less qualified to appreciate: nor am I deeply interested in a
metaphysical passion for a nymph so shadowy, that her existence
has been questioned; ^2 for a matron so prolific, ^3 that she was
delivered of eleven legitimate children, ^4 while her amorous
swain sighed and sung at the fountain of Vaucluse. ^5 But in the
eyes of Petrarch, and those of his graver contemporaries, his
love was a sin, and Italian verse a frivolous amusement. His
Latin works of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, established his
serious reputation, which was soon diffused from Avignon over
France and Italy: his friends and disciples were multiplied in
every city; and if the ponderous volume of his writings ^6 be now
abandoned to a long repose, our gratitude must applaud the man,
who by precept and example revived the spirit and study of the
Augustan age. From his earliest youth, Petrarch aspired to the
poetic crown. The academical honors of the three faculties had
introduced a royal degree of master or doctor in the art of
poetry; ^7 and the title of poet- laureate, which custom, rather
than vanity, perpetuates in the English court, ^8 was first
invented by the Caesars of Germany. In the musical games of
antiquity, a prize was bestowed on the victor: ^9 the belief that
Virgil and Horace had been crowned in the Capitol inflamed the
emulation of a Latin bard; ^10 and the laurel ^11 was endeared to
the lover by a verbal resemblance with the name of his mistress.
The value of either object was enhanced by the difficulties of
the pursuit; and if the virtue or prudence of Laura was
inexorable, ^12 he enjoyed, and might boast of enjoying, the
nymph of poetry. His vanity was not of the most delicate kind,
since he applauds the success of his own labors; his name was
popular; his friends were active; the open or secret opposition
of envy and prejudice was surmounted by the dexterity of patient
merit. In the thirty-sixth year of his age, he was solicited to
accept the object of his wishes; and on the same day, in the
solitude of Vaucluse, he received a similar and solemn invitation
from the senate of Rome and the university of Paris. The
learning of a theological school, and the ignorance of a lawless
city, were alike unqualified to bestow the ideal though immortal
wreath which genius may obtain from the free applause of the
public and of posterity: but the candidate dismissed this
troublesome reflection; and after some moments of complacency and
suspense, preferred the summons of the metropolis of the world.
[Footnote 1: The Memoires sur la Vie de Francois Petrarque,
(Amsterdam, 1764, 1767, 3 vols. in 4to.,) form a copious,
original, and entertaining work, a labor of love, composed from
the accurate study of Petrarch and his contemporaries; but the
hero is too often lost in the general history of the age, and the
author too often languishes in the affectation of politeness and
gallantry. In the preface to his first volume, he enumerates and
weighs twenty Italian biographers, who have professedly treated
of the same subject.]
[Footnote 2: The allegorical interpretation prevailed in the xvth
century; but the wise commentators were not agreed whether they
should understand by Laura, religion, or virtue, or the blessed
virgin, or - see the prefaces to the first and second volume.]
[Footnote 3: Laure de Noves, born about the year 1307, was
married in January 1325, to Hugues de Sade, a noble citizen of
Avignon, whose jealousy was not the effect of love, since he
married a second wife within seven months of her death, which
happened the 6th of April, 1348, precisely one-and-twenty years
after Petrarch had seen and loved her.]
[Footnote 4: Corpus crebris partubus exhaustum: from one of these
is issued, in the tenth degree, the abbe de Sade, the fond and
grateful biographer of Petrarch; and this domestic motive most
probably suggested the idea of his work, and urged him to inquire
into every circumstance that could affect the history and
character of his grandmother, (see particularly tom. i. p. 122 -
133, notes, p. 7 - 58, tom. ii. p. 455 - 495 not. p. 76 - 82.)]
[Footnote 5: Vaucluse, so familiar to our English travellers, is
described from the writings of Petrarch, and the local knowledge
of his biographer, (Memoires, tom. i. p. 340 - 359.) It was, in
truth, the retreat of a hermit; and the moderns are much
mistaken, if they place Laura and a happy lover in the grotto.]
[Footnote 6: Of 1250 pages, in a close print, at Basil in the
xvith century, but without the date of the year. The abbe de
Sade calls aloud for a new edition of Petrarch's Latin works; but
I much doubt whether it would redound to the profit of the
bookseller, or the amusement of the public.]
[Footnote 7: Consult Selden's Titles of Honor, in his works,
(vol. iii. p. 457 - 466.) A hundred years before Petrarch, St.
Francis received the visit of a poet, qui ab imperatore fuerat
coronatus et exinde rex versuum dictus.]
[Footnote 8: From Augustus to Louis, the muse has too often been
false and venal: but I much doubt whether any age or court can
produce a similar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who in
every reign, and at all events, is bound to furnish twice a year
a measure of praise and verse, such as may be sung in the chapel,
and, I believe, in the presence, of the sovereign. I speak the
more freely, as the best time for abolishing this ridiculous
custom is while the prince is a man of virtue and the poet a man
of genius.]
[Footnote 9: Isocrates (in Panegyrico, tom. i. p. 116, 117, edit.
Battie, Cantab. 1729) claims for his native Athens the glory of
first instituting and recommending. The example of the
Panathenaea was imitated at Delphi; but the Olympic games were
ignorant of a musical crown, till it was extorted by the vain
tyranny of Nero, (Sueton. in Nerone, c. 23; Philostrat. apud
Casaubon ad locum; Dion Cassius, or Xiphilin, l. lxiii. p. 1032,
1041. Potter's Greek Antiquities, vol. i. p. 445, 450.)]
[Footnote 10: The Capitoline games (certamen quinquenale,
musicum, equestre, gymnicum) were instituted by Domitian (Sueton.
c. 4) in the year of Christ 86, (Censorin. de Die Natali, c. 18,
p. 100, edit. Havercamp.) and were not abolished in the ivth
century, (Ausonius de Professoribus Burdegal. V.) If the crown
were given to superior merit, the exclusion of Statius (Capitolia
nostrae inficiata lyrae, Sylv. l. iii. v. 31) may do honor to the
games of the Capitol; but the Latin poets who lived before
Domitian were crowned only in the public opinion.]
[Footnote 11: Petrarch and the senators of Rome were ignorant
that the laurel was not the Capitoline, but the Delphic crown,
(Plin. Hist. Natur p. 39. Hist. Critique de la Republique des
Lettres, tom. i. p. 150 - 220.) The victors in the Capitol were
crowned with a garland of oak eaves, (Martial, l. iv. epigram
54.)]
[Footnote 12: The pious grandson of Laura has labored, and not
without success, to vindicate her immaculate chastity against the
censures of the grave and the sneers of the profane, (tom. ii.
notes, p. 76 - 82.)]
The ceremony of his coronation ^13 was performed in the
Capitol, by his friend and patron the supreme magistrate of the
republic. Twelve patrician youths were arrayed in scarlet; six
representatives of the most illustrious families, in green robes,
with garlands of flowers, accompanied the procession; in the
midst of the princes and nobles, the senator, count of
Anguillara, a kinsman of the Colonna, assumed his throne; and at
the voice of a herald Petrarch arose. After discoursing on a
text of Virgil, and thrice repeating his vows for the prosperity
of Rome, he knelt before the throne, and received from the
senator a laurel crown, with a more precious declaration, "This
is the reward of merit." The people shouted, "Long life to the
Capitol and the poet!" A sonnet in praise of Rome was accepted as
the effusion of genius and gratitude; and after the whole
procession had visited the Vatican, the profane wreath was
suspended before the shrine of St. Peter. In the act or diploma
^14 which was presented to Petrarch, the title and prerogatives
of poet-laureate are revived in the Capitol, after the lapse of
thirteen hundred years; and he receives the perpetual privilege
of wearing, at his choice, a crown of laurel, ivy, or myrtle, of
assuming the poetic habit, and of teaching, disputing,
interpreting, and composing, in all places whatsoever, and on all
subjects of literature. The grant was ratified by the authority
of the senate and people; and the character of citizen was the
recompense of his affection for the Roman name. They did him
honor, but they did him justice. In the familiar society of
Cicero and Livy, he had imbibed the ideas of an ancient patriot;
and his ardent fancy kindled every idea to a sentiment, and every
sentiment to a passion. The aspect of the seven hills and their
majestic ruins confirmed these lively impressions; and he loved a
country by whose liberal spirit he had been crowned and adopted.
The poverty and debasement of Rome excited the indignation and
pity of her grateful son; he dissembled the faults of his
fellow-citizens; applauded with partial fondness the last of
their heroes and matrons; and in the remembrance of the past, in
the hopes of the future, was pleased to forget the miseries of
the present time. Rome was still the lawful mistress of the
world: the pope and the emperor, the bishop and general, had
abdicated their station by an inglorious retreat to the Rhone and
the Danube; but if she could resume her virtue, the republic
might again vindicate her liberty and dominion. Amidst the
indulgence of enthusiasm and eloquence, ^15 Petrarch, Italy, and
Europe, were astonished by a revolution which realized for a
moment his most splendid visions. The rise and fall of the
tribune Rienzi will occupy the following pages: ^16 the subject
is interesting, the materials are rich, and the glance of a
patriot bard ^17 will sometimes vivify the copious, but simple,
narrative of the Florentine, ^18 and more especially of the
Roman, historian. ^19
[Footnote 13: The whole process of Petrarch's coronation is
accurately described by the abbe de Sade, (tom. i. p. 425 - 435,
tom. ii. p. 1 - 6, notes, p. 1 - 13,) from his own writings, and
the Roman diary of Ludovico, Monaldeschi, without mixing in this
authentic narrative the more recent fables of Sannuccio Delbene.]
[Footnote 14: The original act is printed among the Pieces
Justificatives in the Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 50 -
53.]
[Footnote 15: To find the proofs of his enthusiasm for Rome, I
need only request that the reader would open, by chance, either
Petrarch, or his French biographer. The latter has described the
poet's first visit to Rome, (tom. i. p. 323 - 335.) But in the
place of much idle rhetoric and morality, Petrarch might have
amused the present and future age with an original account of the
city and his coronation.]
[Footnote 16: It has been treated by the pen of a Jesuit, the P.
de Cerceau whose posthumous work (Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini,
dit de Rienzi, Tyran de Rome, en 1347) was published at Paris,
1748, in 12mo. I am indebted to him for some facts and documents
in John Hocsemius, canon of Liege, a contemporary historian,
(Fabricius Bibliot. Lat. Med. Aevi, tom. iii. p. 273, tom. iv. p.
85.)]
[Footnote 17: The abbe de Sade, who so freely expatiates on the
history of the xivth century, might treat, as his proper subject,
a revolution in which the heart of Petrarch was so deeply
engaged, (Memoires, tom. ii. p. 50, 51, 320 - 417, notes, p. 70 -
76, tom. iii. p. 221 - 243, 366 - 375.) Not an idea or a fact in
the writings of Petrarch has probably escaped him.]
[Footnote 18: Giovanni Villani, l. xii. c. 89, 104, in Muratori,
Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, tom. xiii. p. 969, 970, 981 - 983.]
[Footnote 19: In his third volume of Italian antiquities, (p. 249
- 548,) Muratori has inserted the Fragmenta Historiae Romanae ab
Anno 1327 usque ad Annum 1354, in the original dialect of Rome or
Naples in the xivth century, and a Latin version for the benefit
of strangers. It contains the most particular and authentic life
of Cola (Nicholas) di Rienzi; which had been printed at
Bracciano, 1627, in 4to., under the name of Tomaso Fortifiocca,
who is only mentioned in this work as having been punished by the
tribune for forgery. Human nature is scarcely capable of such
sublime or stupid impartiality: but whosoever in the author of
these Fragments, he wrote on the spot and at the time, and
paints, without design or art, the manners of Rome and the
character of the tribune.
Note: Since the publication of my first edition of Gibbon,
some new and very remarkable documents have been brought to light
in a life of Nicolas Rienzi, - Cola di Rienzo und seine Zeit, -
by Dr. Felix Papencordt. The most important of these documents
are letters from Rienzi to Charles the Fourth, emperor and king
of Bohemia, and to the archbishop of Praque; they enter into the
whole history of his adventurous career during its first period,
and throw a strong light upon his extraordinary character. These
documents were first discovered and made use of, to a certain
extent, by Pelzel, the historian of Bohemia. The originals have
disappeared, but a copy made by Pelzel for his own use is now in
the library of Count Thun at Teschen. There seems no doubt of
their authenticity. Dr. Papencordt has printed the whole in his
i:Urkunden, with the exception of one long theological paper. -
M. 1845.]
In a quarter of the city which was inhabited only by
mechanics and Jews, the marriage of an innkeeper and a washer
woman produced the future deliverer of Rome. ^20 ^! From such
parents Nicholas Rienzi Gabrini could inherit neither dignity nor
fortune; and the gift of a liberal education, which they
painfully bestowed, was the cause of his glory and untimely end.
The study of history and eloquence, the writings of Cicero,
Seneca, Livy, Caesar, and Valerius Maximus, elevated above his
equals and contemporaries the genius of the young plebeian: he
perused with indefatigable diligence the manuscripts and marbles
of antiquity; loved to dispense his knowledge in familiar
language; and was often provoked to exclaim, "Where are now these
Romans? their virtue, their justice, their power? why was I not
born in those happy times?" ^21 When the republic addressed to
the throne of Avignon an embassy of the three orders, the spirit
and eloquence of Rienzi recommended him to a place among the
thirteen deputies of the commons. The orator had the honor of
haranguing Pope Clement the Sixth, and the satisfaction of
conversing with Petrarch, a congenial mind: but his aspiring
hopes were chilled by disgrace and poverty and the patriot was
reduced to a single garment and the charity of the hospital. ^*
From this misery he was relieved by the sense of merit or the
smile of favor; and the employment of apostolic notary afforded
him a daily stipend of five gold florins, a more honorable and
extensive connection, and the right of contrasting, both in words
and actions, his own integrity with the vices of the state. The
eloquence of Rienzi was prompt and persuasive: the multitude is
always prone to envy and censure: he was stimulated by the loss
of a brother and the impunity of the assassins; nor was it
possible to excuse or exaggerate the public calamities. The
blessings of peace and justice, for which civil society has been
instituted, were banished from Rome: the jealous citizens, who
might have endured every personal or pecuniary injury, were most
deeply wounded in the dishonor of their wives and daughters: ^22
they were equally oppressed by the arrogance of the nobles and
the corruption of the magistrates; ^!! and the abuse of arms or
of laws was the only circumstance that distinguished the lions
from the dogs and serpents of the Capitol. These allegorical
emblems were variously repeated in the pictures which Rienzi
exhibited in the streets and churches; and while the spectators
gazed with curious wonder, the bold and ready orator unfolded the
meaning, applied the satire, inflamed their passions, and
announced a distant hope of comfort and deliverance. The
privileges of Rome, her eternal sovereignty over her princes and
provinces, was the theme of his public and private discourse; and
a monument of servitude became in his hands a title and incentive
of liberty. The decree of the senate, which granted the most
ample prerogatives to the emperor Vespasian, had been inscribed
on a copper plate still extant in the choir of the church of St.
John Lateran. ^23 A numerous assembly of nobles and plebeians was
invited to this political lecture, and a convenient theatre was
erected for their reception. The notary appeared in a
magnificent and mysterious habit, explained the inscription by a
version and commentary, ^24 and descanted with eloquence and zeal
on the ancient glories of the senate and people, from whom all
legal authority was derived. The supine ignorance of the nobles
was incapable of discerning the serious tendency of such
representations: they might sometimes chastise with words and
blows the plebeian reformer; but he was often suffered in the
Colonna palace to amuse the company with his threats and
predictions; and the modern Brutus ^25 was concealed under the
mask of folly and the character of a buffoon. While they indulged
their contempt, the restoration of the good estate, his favorite
expression, was entertained among the people as a desirable, a
possible, and at length as an approaching, event; and while all
had the disposition to applaud, some had the courage to assist,
their promised deliverer.
[Footnote 20: The first and splendid period of Rienzi, his
tribunitian government, is contained in the xviiith chapter of
the Fragments, (p. 399 - 479,) which, in the new division, forms
the iid book of the history in xxxviii. smaller chapters or
sections.]
[Footnote !: But see in Dr. Papencordt's work, and in Rienzi's
own words, his claim to be a bastard son of the emperor Henry the
Seventh, whose intrigue with his mother Rienzi relates with a
sort of proud shamelessness. Compare account by the editor of Dr.
Papencordt's work in Quarterly Review vol. lxix. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 21: The reader may be pleased with a specimen of the
original idiom: Fo da soa juventutine nutricato di latte de
eloquentia, bono gramatico, megliore rettuorico, autorista bravo.
Deh como et quanto era veloce leitore! moito usava Tito Livio,
Seneca, et Tullio, et Balerio Massimo, moito li dilettava le
magnificentie di Julio Cesare raccontare. Tutta la die se
speculava negl' intagli di marmo lequali iaccio intorno Roma. Non
era altri che esso, che sapesse lejere li antichi pataffii.
Tutte scritture antiche vulgarizzava; quesse fiure di marmo
justamente interpretava. On come spesso diceva, "Dove suono
quelli buoni Romani? dove ene loro somma justitia? poleramme
trovare in tempo che quessi fiuriano!"]
[Footnote *: Sir J. Hobhouse published (in his Illustrations of
Childe Harold) Rienzi's joyful letter to the people of Rome on
the apparently favorable termination of this mission. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 22: Petrarch compares the jealousy of the Romans with
the easy temper of the husbands of Avignon, (Memoires, tom. i. p.
330.)]
[Footnote !!: All this Rienzi, writing at a later period to the
archbishop of Prague, attributed to the criminal abandonment of
his flock by the supreme pontiff. See Urkunde apud Papencordt,
p. xliv. Quarterly Review, p. 255. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 23: The fragments of the Lex regia may be found in the
Inscriptions of Gruter, tom. i. p. 242, and at the end of the
Tacitus of Ernesti, with some learned notes of the editor, tom.
ii.]
[Footnote 24: I cannot overlook a stupendous and laughable
blunder of Rienzi. The Lex regia empowers Vespasian to enlarge
the Pomoerium, a word familiar to every antiquary. It was not so
to the tribune; he confounds it with pomarium, an orchard,
translates lo Jardino de Roma cioene Italia, and is copied by the
less excusable ignorance of the Latin translator (p. 406) and the
French historian, (p. 33.) Even the learning of Muratori has
slumbered over the passage.]
[Footnote 25: Priori (Bruto) tamen similior, juvenis uterque,
longe ingenic quam cujus simulationem induerat, ut sub hoc
obtentu liberator ille P R. aperiretur tempore suo .... Ille
regibus, hic tyrannis contemptus, (Opp (Opp. p. 536.)
Note: Fatcor attamen quod - nunc fatuum. nunc hystrionem,
nunc gravem nunc simplicem, nunc astutum, nunc fervidum, nunc
timidum simulato rem, et dissimulatorem ad hunc caritativum
finem, quem dixi, constitusepius memet ipsum. Writing to an
archbishop, (of Prague,) Rienzi alleges scriptural examples.
Saltator coram archa David et insanus apparuit coram Rege;
blanda, astuta, et tecta Judith astitit Holoferni; et astate
Jacob meruit benedici, Urkunde xlix. - M. 1845.]
A prophecy, or rather a summons, affixed on the church door
of St. George, was the first public evidence of his designs; a
nocturnal assembly of a hundred citizens on Mount Aventine, the
first step to their execution. After an oath of secrecy and aid,
he represented to the conspirators the importance and facility of
their enterprise; that the nobles, without union or resources,
were strong only in the fear nobles, of their imaginary strength;
that all power, as well as right, was in the hands of the people;
that the revenues of the apostolical chamber might relieve the
public distress; and that the pope himself would approve their
victory over the common enemies of government and freedom. After
securing a faithful band to protect his first declaration, he
proclaimed through the city, by sound of trumpet, that on the
evening of the following day, all persons should assemble without
arms before the church of St. Angelo, to provide for the
reestablishment of the good estate. The whole night was employed
in the celebration of thirty masses of the Holy Ghost; and in the
morning, Rienzi, bareheaded, but in complete armor, issued from
the church, encompassed by the hundred conspirators. The pope's
vicar, the simple bishop of Orvieto, who had been persuaded to
sustain a part in this singular ceremony, marched on his right
hand; and three great standards were borne aloft as the emblems
of their design. In the first, the banner of liberty, Rome was
seated on two lions, with a palm in one hand and a globe in the
other; St. Paul, with a drawn sword, was delineated in the banner
of justice; and in the third, St. Peter held the keys of concord
and peace. Rienzi was encouraged by the presence and applause of
an innumerable crowd, who understood little, and hoped much; and
the procession slowly rolled forwards from the castle of St.
Angelo to the Capitol. His triumph was disturbed by some secret
emotions which he labored to suppress: he ascended without
opposition, and with seeming confidence, the citadel of the
republic; harangued the people from the balcony; and received the
most flattering confirmation of his acts and laws. The nobles,
as if destitute of arms and counsels, beheld in silent
consternation this strange revolution; and the moment had been
prudently chosen, when the most formidable, Stephen Colonna, was
absent from the city. On the first rumor, he returned to his
palace, affected to despise this plebeian tumult, and declared to
the messenger of Rienzi, that at his leisure he would cast the
madman from the windows of the Capitol. The great bell instantly
rang an alarm, and so rapid was the tide, so urgent was the
danger, that Colonna escaped with precipitation to the suburb of
St. Laurence: from thence, after a moment's refreshment, he
continued the same speedy career till he reached in safety his
castle of Palestrina; lamenting his own imprudence, which had not
trampled the spark of this mighty conflagration. A general and
peremptory order was issued from the Capitol to all the nobles,
that they should peaceably retire to their estates: they obeyed;
and their departure secured the tranquillity of the free and
obedient citizens of Rome.
But such voluntary obedience evaporates with the first
transports of zeal; and Rienzi felt the importance of justifying
his usurpation by a regular form and a legal title. At his own
choice, the Roman people would have displayed their attachment
and authority, by lavishing on his head the names of senator or
consul, of king or emperor: he preferred the ancient and modest
appellation of tribune; ^* the protection of the commons was the
essence of that sacred office; and they were ignorant, that it
had never been invested with any share in the legislative or
executive powers of the republic. In this character, and with
the consent of the Roman, the tribune enacted the most salutary
laws for the restoration and maintenance of the good estate. By
the first he fulfils the wish of honesty and inexperience, that
no civil suit should be protracted beyond the term of fifteen
days. The danger of frequent perjury might justify the
pronouncing against a false accuser the same penalty which his
evidence would have inflicted: the disorders of the times might
compel the legislator to punish every homicide with death, and
every injury with equal retaliation. But the execution of
justice was hopeless till he had previously abolished the tyranny
of the nobles. It was formally provided, that none, except the
supreme magistrate, should possess or command the gates, bridges,
or towers of the state; that no private garrisons should be
introduced into the towns or castles of the Roman territory; that
none should bear arms, or presume to fortify their houses in the
city or country; that the barons should be responsible for the
safety of the highways, and the free passage of provisions; and
that the protection of malefactors and robbers should be expiated
by a fine of a thousand marks of silver. But these regulations
would have been impotent and nugatory, had not the licentious
nobles been awed by the sword of the civil power. A sudden alarm
from the bell of the Capitol could still summon to the standard
above twenty thousand volunteers: the support of the tribune and
the laws required a more regular and permanent force. In each
harbor of the coast a vessel was stationed for the assurance of
commerce; a standing militia of three hundred and sixty horse and
thirteen hundred foot was levied, clothed, and paid in the
thirteen quarters of the city: and the spirit of a commonwealth
may be traced in the grateful allowance of one hundred florins,
or pounds, to the heirs of every soldier who lost his life in the
service of his country. For the maintenance of the public
defence, for the establishment of granaries, for the relief of
widows, orphans, and indigent convents, Rienzi applied, without
fear of sacrilege, the revenues of the apostolic chamber: the
three branches of hearth-money, the salt-duty, and the customs,
were each of the annual produce of one hundred thousand florins;
^26 and scandalous were the abuses, if in four or five months the
amount of the salt-duty could be trebled by his judicious
economy. After thus restoring the forces and finances of the
republic, the tribune recalled the nobles from their solitary
independence; required their personal appearance in the Capitol;
and imposed an oath of allegiance to the new government, and of
submission to the laws of the good estate. Apprehensive for
their safety, but still more apprehensive of the danger of a
refusal, the princes and barons returned to their houses at Rome
in the garb of simple and peaceful citizens: the Colonna and
Ursini, the Savelli and Frangipani, were confounded before the
tribunal of a plebeian, of the vile buffoon whom they had so
often derided, and their disgrace was aggravated by the
indignation which they vainly struggled to disguise. The same
oath was successively pronounced by the several orders of
society, the clergy and gentlemen, the judges and notaries, the
merchants and artisans, and the gradual descent was marked by the
increase of sincerity and zeal. They swore to live and die with
the republic and the church, whose interest was artfully united
by the nominal association of the bishop of Orvieto, the pope's
vicar, to the office of tribune. It was the boast of Rienzi,
that he had delivered the throne and patrimony of St. Peter from
a rebellious aristocracy; and Clement the Sixth, who rejoiced in
its fall, affected to believe the professions, to applaud the
merits, and to confirm the title, of his trusty servant. The
speech, perhaps the mind, of the tribune, was inspired with a
lively regard for the purity of the faith: he insinuated his
claim to a supernatural mission from the Holy Ghost; enforced by
a heavy forfeiture the annual duty of confession and communion;
and strictly guarded the spiritual as well as temporal welfare of
his faithful people. ^27
[Footnote *: Et ego, Deo semper auctore, ipsa die pristina (leg.
prima) Tribunatus, quae quidem dignitas a tempore deflorati
Imperii, et per annos Vo et ultra sub tyrannica occupatione
vacavit, ipsos omnes potentes indifferenter Deum at justitiam
odientes, a mea, ymo a Dei facie fugiendo vehementi Spiritu
dissipavi, et nullo effuso cruore trementes expuli, sine ictu
remanents Romane terre facie renovata. Libellus Tribuni ad
Caesarem, p. xxxiv - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 26: In one MS. I read (l. ii. c. 4, p. 409) perfumante
quatro solli, in another, quatro florini, an important variety,
since the florin was worth ten Roman solidi, (Muratori, dissert.
xxviii.) The former reading would give us a population of 25,000,
the latter of 250,000 families; and I much fear, that the former
is more consistent with the decay of Rome and her territory.]
[Footnote 27: Hocsemius, p. 498, apud du Cerceau, Hist. de
Rienzi, p. 194. The fifteen tribunitian laws may be found in the
Roman historian (whom for brevity I shall name) Fortifiocca, l.
ii. c. 4]
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.
Part II.
Never perhaps has the energy and effect of a single mind
been more remarkably felt than in the sudden, though transient,
reformation of Rome by the tribune Rienzi. A den of robbers was
converted to the discipline of a camp or convent: patient to
hear, swift to redress, inexorable to punish, his tribunal was
always accessible to the poor and stranger; nor could birth, or
dignity, or the immunities of the church, protect the offender or
his accomplices. The privileged houses, the private sanctuaries
in Rome, on which no officer of justice would presume to
trespass, were abolished; and he applied the timber and iron of
their barricades in the fortifications of the Capitol. The
venerable father of the Colonna was exposed in his own palace to
the double shame of being desirous, and of being unable, to
protect a criminal. A mule, with a jar of oil, had been stolen
near Capranica; and the lord of the Ursini family was condemned
to restore the damage, and to discharge a fine of four hundred
florins for his negligence in guarding the highways. Nor were
the persons of the barons more inviolate than their lands or
houses; and, either from accident or design, the same impartial
rigor was exercised against the heads of the adverse factions.
Peter Agapet Colonna, who had himself been senator of Rome, was
arrested in the street for injury or debt; and justice was
appeased by the tardy execution of Martin Ursini, who, among his
various acts of violence and rapine, had pillaged a shipwrecked
vessel at the mouth of the Tyber. ^28 His name, the purple of two
cardinals, his uncles, a recent marriage, and a mortal disease
were disregarded by the inflexible tribune, who had chosen his
victim. The public officers dragged him from his palace and
nuptial bed: his trial was short and satisfactory: the bell of
the Capitol convened the people: stripped of his mantle, on his
knees, with his hands bound behind his back, he heard the
sentence of death; and after a brief confession, Ursini was led
away to the gallows. After such an example, none who were
conscious of guilt could hope for impunity, and the flight of the
wicked, the licentious, and the idle, soon purified the city and
territory of Rome. In this time (says the historian,) the woods
began to rejoice that they were no longer infested with robbers;
the oxen began to plough; the pilgrims visited the sanctuaries;
the roads and inns were replenished with travellers; trade,
plenty, and good faith, were restored in the markets; and a purse
of gold might be exposed without danger in the midst of the
highway. As soon as the life and property of the subject are
secure, the labors and rewards of industry spontaneously revive:
Rome was still the metropolis of the Christian world; and the
fame and fortunes of the tribune were diffused in every country
by the strangers who had enjoyed the blessings of his government.
[Footnote 28: Fortifiocca, l. ii. c. 11. From the account of
this shipwreck, we learn some circumstances of the trade and
navigation of the age. 1. The ship was built and freighted at
Naples for the ports of Marseilles and Avignon. 2. The sailors
were of Naples and the Isle of Oenaria less skilful than those of
Sicily and Genoa. 3. The navigation from Marseilles was a
coasting voyage to the mouth of the Tyber, where they took
shelter in a storm; but, instead of finding the current,
unfortunately ran on a shoal: the vessel was stranded, the
mariners escaped. 4. The cargo, which was pillaged, consisted of
the revenue of Provence for the royal treasury, many bags of
pepper and cinnamon, and bales of French cloth, to the value of
20,000 florins; a rich prize.]
The deliverance of his country inspired Rienzi with a vast,
and perhaps visionary, idea of uniting Italy in a great
federative republic, of which Rome should be the ancient and
lawful head, and the free cities and princes the members and
associates. His pen was not less eloquent than his tongue; and
his numerous epistles were delivered to swift and trusty
messengers. On foot, with a white wand in their hand, they
traversed the forests and mountains; enjoyed, in the most hostile
states, the sacred security of ambassadors; and reported, in the
style of flattery or truth, that the highways along their passage
were lined with kneeling multitudes, who implored Heaven for the
success of their undertaking. Could passion have listened to
reason; could private interest have yielded to the public
welfare; the supreme tribunal and confederate union of the
Italian republic might have healed their intestine discord, and
closed the Alps against the Barbarians of the North. But the
propitious season had elapsed; and if Venice, Florence, Sienna,
Perugia, and many inferior cities offered their lives and
fortunes to the good estate, the tyrants of Lombardy and Tuscany
must despise, or hate, the plebeian author of a free
constitution. From them, however, and from every part of Italy,
the tribune received the most friendly and respectful answers:
they were followed by the ambassadors of the princes and
republics; and in this foreign conflux, on all the occasions of
pleasure or business, the low born notary could assume the
familiar or majestic courtesy of a sovereign. ^29 The most
glorious circumstance of his reign was an appeal to his justice
from Lewis, king of Hungary, who complained, that his brother and
her husband had been perfidiously strangled by Jane, queen of
Naples: ^30 her guilt or innocence was pleaded in a solemn trial
at Rome; but after hearing the advocates, ^31 the tribune
adjourned this weighty and invidious cause, which was soon
determined by the sword of the Hungarian. Beyond the Alps, more
especially at Avignon, the revolution was the theme of curiosity,
wonder, and applause. ^* Petrarch had been the private friend,
perhaps the secret counsellor, of Rienzi: his writings breathe
the most ardent spirit of patriotism and joy; and all respect for
the pope, all gratitude for the Colonna, was lost in the superior
duties of a Roman citizen. The poet-laureate of the Capitol
maintains the act, applauds the hero, and mingles with some
apprehension and advice, the most lofty hopes of the permanent
and rising greatness of the republic. ^32
[Footnote 29: It was thus that Oliver Cromwell's old
acquaintance, who remembered his vulgar and ungracious entrance
into the House of Commons, were astonished at the ease and
majesty of the protector on his throne, (See Harris's Life of
Cromwell, p. 27 - 34, from Clarendon Warwick, Whitelocke, Waller,
&c.) The consciousness of merit and power will sometimes elevate
the manners to the station.]
[Footnote 30: See the causes, circumstances, and effects of the
death of Andrew in Giannone, (tom. iii. l. xxiii. p. 220 - 229,)
and the Life of Petrarch (Memoires, tom. ii. p. 143 - 148, 245 -
250, 375 - 379, notes, p. 21 - 37.) The abbe de Sade wishes to
extenuate her guilt.]
[Footnote 31: The advocate who pleaded against Jane could add
nothing to the logical force and brevity of his master's epistle.
Johanna! inordinata vita praecedens, retentio potestatis in
regno, neglecta vindicta, vir alter susceptus, et excusatio
subsequens, necis viri tui te probant fuisse participem et
consortem. Jane of Naples, and Mary of Scotland, have a singular
conformity.]
[Footnote *: In his letter to the archbishop of Prague, Rienzi
thus describes the effect of his elevation on Italy and on the
world: "Did I not restore real peace among the cities which were
distracted by factions? did I not cause all the citizens, exiled
by party violence, with their wretched wives and children, to be
readmitted? had I not begun to extinguish the factious names
(scismatica nomina) of Guelf and Ghibelline, for which countless
thousands had perished body and soul, under the eyes of their
pastors, by the reduction of the city of Rome and all Italy into
one amicable, peaceful, holy, and united confederacy? the
consecrated standards and banners having been by me collected and
blended together, and, in witness to our holy association and
perfect union, offered up in the presence of the ambassadors of
all the cities of Italy, on the day of the assumption of our
Blessed Lady." p. xlvii.
In the Libellus ad Caesarem: "I received the homage and
submission of all the sovereigns of Apulia, the barons and
counts, and almost all the people of Italy. I was honored by
solemn embassies and letters by the emperor of Constantinople and
the king of England. The queen of Naples submitted herself and
her kingdom to the protection of the tribune. The king of
Hungary, by two solemn embassies, brought his cause against his
queen and his nobles before my tribunal; and I venture to say
further, that the fame of the tribune alarmed the soldan of
Babylon. When the Christian pilgrims to the sepulchre of our
Lord related to the Christian and Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem
all the yet unheard-of and wonderful circumstances of the
reformation in Rome, both Jews and Christians celebrated the
event with unusual festivities. When the soldan inquired the
cause of these rejoicings, and received this intelligence about
Rome, he ordered all the havens and cities on the coast to be
fortified, and put in a state of defence," p. xxxv. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 32: See the Epistola Hortatoria de Capessenda
Republica, from Petrarch to Nicholas Rienzi, (Opp. p. 535 - 540,)
and the vth eclogue or pastoral, a perpetual and obscure
allegory.]
While Petrarch indulged these prophetic visions, the Roman
hero was fast declining from the meridian of fame and power; and
the people, who had gazed with astonishment on the ascending
meteor, began to mark the irregularity of its course, and the
vicissitudes of light and obscurity. More eloquent than
judicious, more enterprising than resolute, the faculties of
Rienzi were not balanced by cool and commanding reason: he
magnified in a tenfold proportion the objects of hope and fear;
and prudence, which could not have erected, did not presume to
fortify, his throne. In the blaze of prosperity, his virtues
were insensibly tinctured with the adjacent vices; justice with
cruelly, cruelty, liberality with profusion, and the desire of
fame with puerile and ostentatious vanity. ^* He might have
learned, that the ancient tribunes, so strong and sacred in the
public opinion, were not distinguished in style, habit, or
appearance, from an ordinary plebeian; ^33 and that as often as
they visited the city on foot, a single viator, or meadle,
attended the exercise of their office. The Gracchi would have
frowned or smiled, could they have read the sonorous titles and
epithets of their successor, "Nicholas, severe and merciful;
deliverer of Rome; defender of Italy; ^34 friend of mankind, and
of liberty, peace, and justice; tribune august:" his theatrical
pageants had prepared the revolution; but Rienzi abused, in
luxury and pride, the political maxim of speaking to the eyes, as
well as the understanding, of the multitude. From nature he had
received the gift of a handsome person, ^35 till it was swelled
and disfigured by intemperance: and his propensity to laughter
was corrected in the magistrate by the affectation of gravity and
sternness. He was clothed, at least on public occasions, in a
party-colored robe of velvet or satin, lined with fur, and
embroidered with gold: the rod of justice, which he carried in
his hand, was a sceptre of polished steel, crowned with a globe
and cross of gold, and enclosing a small fragment of the true and
holy wood. In his civil and religious processions through the
city, he rode on a white steed, the symbol of royalty: the great
banner of the republic, a sun with a circle of stars, a dove with
an olive branch, was displayed over his head; a shower of gold
and silver was scattered among the populace, fifty guards with
halberds encompassed his person; a troop of horse preceded his
march; and their tymbals and trumpets were of massy silver.
[Footnote *: An illustrious female writer has drawn, with a
single stroke, the character of Rienzi, Crescentius, and Arnold
of Brescia, the fond restorers of Roman liberty: 'Qui ont pris
les souvenirs pour les esperances.' Corinne, tom. i. p. 159.
Could Tacitus have excelled this?" Hallam, vol i p. 418. - M.]
[Footnote 33: In his Roman Questions, Plutarch (Opuscul. tom. i.
p. 505, 506, edit. Graec. Hen. Steph.) states, on the most
constitutional principles, the simple greatness of the tribunes,
who were not properly magistrates, but a check on magistracy. It
was their duty and interest. Rienzi, and Petrarch himself, were
incapable perhaps of reading a Greek philosopher; but they might
have imbibed the same modest doctrines from their favorite
Latins, Livy and Valerius Maximus.]
[Footnote 34: I could not express in English the forcible, though
barbarous, title of Zelator Italiae, which Rienzi assumed.]
[Footnote 35: Era bell' homo, (l. ii. c. l. p. 399.) It is
remarkable, that the riso sarcastico of the Bracciano edition is
wanting in the Roman MS., from which Muratori has given the text.
In his second reign, when he is painted almost as a monster,
Rienzi travea una ventresca tonna trionfale, a modo de uno Abbate
Asiano, or Asinino, (l. iii. c. 18, p. 523.)]
The ambition of the honors of chivalry ^36 betrayed the
meanness of his birth, and degraded the importance of his office;
and the equestrian tribune was not less odious to the nobles,
whom he adopted, than to the plebeians, whom he deserted. All
that yet remained of treasure, or luxury, or art, was exhausted
on that solemn day. Rienzi led the procession from the Capitol
to the Lateran; the tediousness of the way was relieved with
decorations and games; the ecclesiastical, civil, and military
orders marched under their various banners; the Roman ladies
attended his wife; and the ambassadors of Italy might loudly
applaud or secretly deride the novelty of the pomp. In the
evening, which they had reached the church and palace of
Constantine, he thanked and dismissed the numerous assembly, with
an invitation to the festival of the ensuing day. From the hands
of a venerable knight he received the order of the Holy Ghost;
the purification of the bath was a previous ceremony; but in no
step of his life did Rienzi excite such scandal and censure as by
the profane use of the porphyry vase, in which Constantine (a
foolish legend) had been healed of his leprosy by Pope Sylvester.
^37 With equal presumption the tribune watched or reposed within
the consecrated precincts of the baptistery; and the failure of
his state-bed was interpreted as an omen of his approaching
downfall. At the hour of worship, he showed himself to the
returning crowds in a majestic attitude, with a robe of purple,
his sword, and gilt spurs; but the holy rites were soon
interrupted by his levity and insolence. Rising from his throne,
and advancing towards the congregation, he proclaimed in a loud
voice: "We summon to our tribunal Pope Clement: and command him
to reside in his diocese of Rome: we also summon the sacred
college of cardinals. ^38 We again summon the two pretenders,
Charles of Bohemia and Lewis of Bavaria, who style themselves
emperors: we likewise summon all the electors of Germany, to
inform us on what pretence they have usurped the inalienable
right of the Roman people, the ancient and lawful sovereigns of
the empire." ^39 Unsheathing his maiden sword, he thrice
brandished it to the three parts of the world, and thrice
repeated the extravagant declaration, "And this too is mine!" The
pope's vicar, the bishop of Orvieto, attempted to check this
career of folly; but his feeble protest was silenced by martial
music; and instead of withdrawing from the assembly, he consented
to dine with his brother tribune, at a table which had hitherto
been reserved for the supreme pontiff. A banquet, such as the
Caesars had given, was prepared for the Romans. The apartments,
porticos, and courts of the Lateran were spread with innumerable
tables for either sex, and every condition; a stream of wine
flowed from the nostrils of Constantine's brazen horse; no
complaint, except of the scarcity of water, could be heard; and
the licentiousness of the multitude was curbed by discipline and
fear. A subsequent day was appointed for the coronation of
Rienzi; ^40 seven crowns of different leaves or metals were
successively placed on his head by the most eminent of the Roman
clergy; they represented the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost; and
he still professed to imitate the example of the ancient
tribunes. ^* These extraordinary spectacles might deceive or
flatter the people; and their own vanity was gratified in the
vanity of their leader. But in his private life he soon deviated
from the strict rule of frugality and abstinence; and the
plebeians, who were awed by the splendor of the nobles, were
provoked by the luxury of their equal. His wife, his son, his
uncle, (a barber in name and profession,) exposed the contrast of
vulgar manners and princely expense; and without acquiring the
majesty, Rienzi degenerated into the vices, of a king.
[Footnote 36: Strange as it may seem, this festival was not
without a precedent. In the year 1327, two barons, a Colonna and
an Ursini, the usual balance, were created knights by the Roman
people: their bath was of rose- water, their beds were decked
with royal magnificence, and they were served at St. Maria of
Araceli in the Capitol, by the twenty-eight buoni huomini. They
afterwards received from Robert, king of Naples, the sword of
chivalry, (Hist. Rom. l. i. c. 2, p. 259.)]
[Footnote 37: All parties believed in the leprosy and bath of
Constantine (Petrarch. Epist. Famil. vi. 2,) and Rienzi justified
his own conduct by observing to the court of Avignon, that a vase
which had been used by a Pagan could not be profaned by a pious
Christian. Yet this crime is specified in the bull of
excommunication, (Hocsemius, apud du Cerceau, p. 189, 190.)]
[Footnote 38: This verbal summons of Pope Clement VI., which
rests on the authority of the Roman historian and a Vatican Ms.,
is disputed by the biographer of Petrarch, (tom. ii. not. p. 70 -
76, with arguments rather of decency than of weight. The court
of Avignon might not choose to agitate this delicate question.]
[Footnote 39: The summons of the two rival emperors, a monument
of freedom and folly, is extant in Hocsemius, (Cerceau, p. 163 -
166.)]
[Footnote 40: It is singular, that the Roman historian should
have overlooked this sevenfold coronation, which is sufficiently
proved by internal evidence, and the testimony of Hocsemius, and
even of Rienzi, (Cercean p. 167 - 170, 229.)]
[Footnote *: It was on this occasion that he made the profane
comparison between himself and our Lord; and the striking
circumstance took place which he relates in his letter to the
archbishop of Prague. In the midst of all the wild and joyous
exultation of the people, one of his most zealous supporters, a
monk, who was in high repute for his sanctity, stood apart in a
corner of the church and wept bitterly! A domestic chaplain of
Rienzi's inquired the cause of his grief. "Now," replied the man
of God, "is thy master cast down from heaven - never saw I man so
proud. By the aid of the Holy Ghost he has driven the tyrants
from the city without drawing a sword; the cities and the
sovereigns of Italy have submitted to his power. Why is he so
arrogant and ungrateful towards the Most High? Why does he seek
earthly and transitory rewards for his labors, and in his wanton
speech liken himself to the Creator? Tell thy master that he can
only atone for this offence by tears of penitence." In the
evening the chaplain communicated this solemn rebuke to the
tribune: it appalled him for the time, but was soon forgotten in
the tumult and hurry of business. - M. 1845.]
A simple citizen describes with pity, or perhaps with
pleasure, the humiliation of the barons of Rome. "Bareheaded,
their hands crossed on their breast, they stood with downcast
looks in the presence of the tribune; and they trembled, good
God, how they trembled!" ^41 As long as the yoke of Rienzi was
that of justice and their country, their conscience forced them
to esteem the man, whom pride and interest provoked them to hate:
his extravagant conduct soon fortified their hatred by contempt;
and they conceived the hope of subverting a power which was no
longer so deeply rooted in the public confidence. The old
animosity of the Colonna and Ursini was suspended for a moment by
their common disgrace: they associated their wishes, and perhaps
their designs; an assassin was seized and tortured; he accused
the nobles; and as soon as Rienzi deserved the fate, he adopted
the suspicions and maxims, of a tyrant. On the same day, under
various pretences, he invited to the Capitol his principal
enemies, among whom were five members of the Ursini and three of
the Colonna name. But instead of a council or a banquet, they
found themselves prisoners under the sword of despotism or
justice; and the consciousness of innocence or guilt might
inspire them with equal apprehensions of danger. At the sound of
the great bell the people assembled; they were arraigned for a
conspiracy against the tribune's life; and though some might
sympathize in their distress, not a hand, nor a voice, was raised
to rescue the first of the nobility from their impending doom.
Their apparent boldness was prompted by despair; they passed in
separate chambers a sleepless and painful night; and the
venerable hero, Stephen Colonna, striking against the door of his
prison, repeatedly urged his guards to deliver him by a speedy
death from such ignominious servitude. In the morning they
understood their sentence from the visit of a confessor and the
tolling of the bell. The great hall of the Capitol had been
decorated for the bloody scene with red and white hangings: the
countenance of the tribune was dark and severe; the swords of the
executioners were unsheathed; and the barons were interrupted in
their dying speeches by the sound of trumpets. But in this
decisive moment, Rienzi was not less anxious or apprehensive than
his captives: he dreaded the splendor of their names, their
surviving kinsmen, the inconstancy of the people the reproaches
of the world, and, after rashly offering a mortal injury, he
vainly presumed that, if he could forgive, he might himself be
forgiven. His elaborate oration was that of a Christian and a
suppliant; and, as the humble minister of the commons, he
entreated his masters to pardon these noble criminals, for whose
repentance and future service he pledged his faith and authority.
"If you are spared," said the tribune, "by the mercy of the
Romans, will you not promise to support the good estate with your
lives and fortunes?" Astonished by this marvellous clemency, the
barons bowed their heads; and while they devoutly repeated the
oath of allegiance, might whisper a secret, and more sincere,
assurance of revenge. A priest, in the name of the people,
pronounced their absolution: they received the communion with the
tribune, assisted at the banquet, followed the procession; and,
after every spiritual and temporal sign of reconciliation, were
dismissed in safety to their respective homes, with the new
honors and titles of generals, consuls, and patricians. ^42
[Footnote 41: Puoi se faceva stare denante a se, mentre sedeva,
li baroni tutti in piedi ritti co le vraccia piecate, e co li
capucci tratti. Deh como stavano paurosi! (Hist. Rom. l. ii. c.
20, p. 439.) He saw them, and we see them.]
[Footnote 42: The original letter, in which Rienzi justifies his
treatment of the Colonna, (Hocsemius, apud du Cerceau, p. 222 -
229,) displays, in genuine colors, the mixture of the knave and
the madman.]
During some weeks they were checked by the memory of their
danger, rather than of their deliverance, till the most powerful
of the Ursini, escaping with the Colonna from the city, erected
at Marino the standard of rebellion. The fortifications of the
castle were instantly restored; the vassals attended their lord;
the outlaws armed against the magistrate; the flocks and herds,
the harvests and vineyards, from Marino to the gates of Rome,
were swept away or destroyed; and the people arraigned Rienzi as
the author of the calamities which his government had taught them
to forget. In the camp, Rienzi appeared to less advantage than
in the rostrum; and he neglected the progress of the rebel barons
till their numbers were strong, and their castles impregnable.
From the pages of Livy he had not imbibed the art, or even the
courage, of a general: an army of twenty thousand Romans returned
without honor or effect from the attack of Marino; and his
vengeance was amused by painting his enemies, their heads
downwards, and drowning two dogs (at least they should have been
bears) as the representatives of the Ursini. The belief of his
incapacity encouraged their operations: they were invited by
their secret adherents; and the barons attempted, with four
thousand foot, and sixteen hundred horse, to enter Rome by force
or surprise. The city was prepared for their reception; the
alarm-bell rung all night; the gates were strictly guarded, or
insolently open; and after some hesitation they sounded a
retreat. The two first divisions had passed along the walls, but
the prospect of a free entrance tempted the headstrong valor of
the nobles in the rear; and after a successful skirmish, they
were overthrown and massacred without quarter by the crowds of
the Roman people. Stephen Colonna the younger, the noble spirit
to whom Petrarch ascribed the restoration of Italy, was preceded
or accompanied in death by his son John, a gallant youth, by his
brother Peter, who might regret the ease and honors of the
church, by a nephew of legitimate birth, and by two bastards of
the Colonna race; and the number of seven, the seven crowns, as
Rienzi styled them, of the Holy Ghost, was completed by the agony
of the deplorable parent, and the veteran chief, who had survived
the hope and fortune of his house. The vision and prophecies of
St. Martin and Pope Boniface had been used by the tribune to
animate his troops: ^43 he displayed, at least in the pursuit,
the spirit of a hero; but he forgot the maxims of the ancient
Romans, who abhorred the triumphs of civil war. The conqueror
ascended the Capitol; deposited his crown and sceptre on the
altar; and boasted, with some truth, that he had cut off an ear,
which neither pope nor emperor had been able to amputate. ^44 His
base and implacable revenge denied the honors of burial; and the
bodies of the Colonna, which he threatened to expose with those
of the vilest malefactors, were secretly interred by the holy
virgins of their name and family. ^45 The people sympathized in
their grief, repented of their own fury, and detested the
indecent joy of Rienzi, who visited the spot where these
illustrious victims had fallen. It was on that fatal spot that
he conferred on his son the honor of knighthood: and the ceremony
was accomplished by a slight blow from each of the horsemen of
the guard, and by a ridiculous and inhuman ablution from a pool
of water, which was yet polluted with patrician blood. ^46
[Footnote 43: Rienzi, in the above-mentioned letter, ascribes to
St. Martin the tribune, Boniface VIII. the enemy of Colonna,
himself, and the Roman people, the glory of the day, which
Villani likewise (l. 12, c. 104) describes as a regular battle.
The disorderly skirmish, the flight of the Romans, and the
cowardice of Rienzi, are painted in the simple and minute
narrative of Fortifiocca, or the anonymous citizen, (l. i. c. 34
- 37.)]
[Footnote 44: In describing the fall of the Colonna, I speak only
of the family of Stephen the elder, who is often confounded by
the P. du Cerceau with his son. That family was extinguished,
but the house has been perpetuated in the collateral branches, of
which I have not a very accurate knowledge. Circumspice (says
Petrarch) familiae tuae statum, Columniensium domos: solito
pauciores habeat columnas. Quid ad rem modo fundamentum stabile,
solidumque permaneat.]
[Footnote 45: The convent of St. Silvester was founded, endowed,
and protected by the Colonna cardinals, for the daughters of the
family who embraced a monastic life, and who, in the year 1318,
were twelve in number. The others were allowed to marry with
their kinsmen in the fourth degree, and the dispensation was
justified by the small number and close alliances of the noble
families of Rome, (Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 110, tom.
ii. p. 401.)]
[Footnote 46: Petrarch wrote a stiff and pedantic letter of
consolation, (Fam. l. vii. epist. 13, p. 682, 683.) The friend
was lost in the patriot. Nulla toto orbe principum familia
carior; carior tamen respublica, carior Roma, carior Italia.
Je rends graces aux Dieux de n'etre pas Romain.]
A short delay would have saved the Colonna, the delay of a
single month, which elapsed between the triumph and the exile of
Rienzi. In the pride of victory, he forfeited what yet remained
of his civil virtues, without acquiring the fame of military
prowess. A free and vigorous opposition was formed in the city;
and when the tribune proposed in the public council ^47 to impose
a new tax, and to regulate the government of Perugia, thirty-nine
members voted against his measures; repelled the injurious charge
of treachery and corruption; and urged him to prove, by their
forcible exclusion, that if the populace adhered to his cause, it
was already disclaimed by the most respectable citizens. The
pope and the sacred college had never been dazzled by his
specious professions; they were justly offended by the insolence
of his conduct; a cardinal legate was sent to Italy, and after
some fruitless treaty, and two personal interviews, he fulminated
a bull of excommunication, in which the tribune is degraded from
his office, and branded with the guilt of rebellion, sacrilege,
and heresy. ^48 The surviving barons of Rome were now humbled to
a sense of allegiance; their interest and revenge engaged them in
the service of the church; but as the fate of the Colonna was
before their eyes, they abandoned to a private adventurer the
peril and glory of the revolution. John Pepin, count of
Minorbino, ^49 in the kingdom of Naples, had been condemned for
his crimes, or his riches, to perpetual imprisonment; and
Petrarch, by soliciting his release, indirectly contributed to
the ruin of his friend. At the head of one hundred and fifty
soldiers, the count of Minorbino introduced himself into Rome;
barricaded the quarter of the Colonna: and found the enterprise
as easy as it had seemed impossible. From the first alarm, the
bell of the Capitol incessantly tolled; but, instead of repairing
to the well-known sound, the people were silent and inactive; and
the pusillanimous Rienzi, deploring their ingratitude with sighs
and tears, abdicated the government and palace of the republic.
[Footnote 47: This council and opposition is obscurely mentioned
by Pollistore, a contemporary writer, who has preserved some
curious and original facts, (Rer. Italicarum, tom. xxv. c. 31, p.
798 - 804.)]
[Footnote 48: The briefs and bulls of Clement VI. against Rienzi
are translated by the P. du Cerceau, (p. 196, 232,) from the
Ecclesiastical Annals of Odericus Raynaldus, (A.D. 1347, No. 15,
17, 21, &c.,) who found them in the archives of the Vatican.]
[Footnote 49: Matteo Villani describes the origin, character, and
death of this count of Minorbino, a man da natura inconstante e
senza fede, whose grandfather, a crafty notary, was enriched and
ennobled by the spoils of the Saracens of Nocera, (l. vii. c.
102, 103.) See his imprisonment, and the efforts of Petrarch,
tom. ii. p. 149 - 151)]
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.
Part III.
Without drawing his sword, count Pepin restored the
aristocracy and the church; three senators were chosen, and the
legate, assuming the first rank, accepted his two colleagues from
the rival families of Colonna and Ursini. The acts of the tribune
were abolished, his head was proscribed; yet such was the terror
of his name, that the barons hesitated three days before they
would trust themselves in the city, and Rienzi was left above a
month in the castle of St. Angelo, from whence he peaceably
withdrew, after laboring, without effect, to revive the affection
and courage of the Romans. The vision of freedom and empire had
vanished: their fallen spirit would have acquiesced in servitude,
had it been smoothed by tranquillity and order; and it was
scarcely observed, that the new senators derived their authority
from the Apostolic See; that four cardinals were appointed to
reform, with dictatorial power, the state of the republic. Rome
was again agitated by the bloody feuds of the barons, who
detested each other, and despised the commons: their hostile
fortresses, both in town and country, again rose, and were again
demolished: and the peaceful citizens, a flock of sheep, were
devoured, says the Florentine historian, by these rapacious
wolves. But when their pride and avarice had exhausted the
patience of the Romans, a confraternity of the Virgin Mary
protected or avenged the republic: the bell of the Capitol was
again tolled, the nobles in arms trembled in the presence of an
unarmed multitude; and of the two senators, Colonna escaped from
the window of the palace, and Ursini was stoned at the foot of
the altar. The dangerous office of tribune was successively
occupied by two plebeians, Cerroni and Baroncelli. The mildness
of Cerroni was unequal to the times; and after a faint struggle,
he retired with a fair reputation and a decent fortune to the
comforts of rural life. Devoid of eloquence or genius,
Baroncelli was distinguished by a resolute spirit: he spoke the
language of a patriot, and trod in the footsteps of tyrants; his
suspicion was a sentence of death, and his own death was the
reward of his cruelties. Amidst the public misfortunes, the
faults of Rienzi were forgotten; and the Romans sighed for the
peace and prosperity of their good estate. ^50
[Footnote 50: The troubles of Rome, from the departure to the
return of Rienzi, are related by Matteo Villani (l. ii. c. 47, l.
iii. c. 33, 57, 78) and Thomas Fortifiocca, (l. iii. c. 1 - 4.) I
have slightly passed over these secondary characters, who
imitated the original tribune.]
After an exile of seven years, the first deliverer was again
restored to his country. In the disguise of a monk or a pilgrim,
he escaped from the castle of St. Angelo, implored the friendship
of the king of Hungary at Naples, tempted the ambition of every
bold adventurer, mingled at Rome with the pilgrims of the
jubilee, lay concealed among the hermits of the Apennine, and
wandered through the cities of Italy, Germany, and Bohemia. His
person was invisible, his name was yet formidable; and the
anxiety of the court of Avignon supposes, and even magnifies, his
personal merit. The emperor Charles the Fourth gave audience to
a stranger, who frankly revealed himself as the tribune of the
republic; and astonished an assembly of ambassadors and princes,
by the eloquence of a patriot and the visions of a prophet, the
downfall of tyranny and the kingdom of the Holy Ghost. ^51
Whatever had been his hopes, Rienzi found himself a captive; but
he supported a character of independence and dignity, and obeyed,
as his own choice, the irresistible summons of the supreme
pontiff. The zeal of Petrarch, which had been cooled by the
unworthy conduct, was rekindled by the sufferings and the
presence, of his friend; and he boldly complains of the times, in
which the savior of Rome was delivered by her emperor into the
hands of her bishop. Rienzi was transported slowly, but in safe
custody, from Prague to Avignon: his entrance into the city was
that of a malefactor; in his prison he was chained by the leg;
and four cardinals were named to inquire into the crimes of
heresy and rebellion. But his trial and condemnation would have
involved some questions, which it was more prudent to leave under
the veil of mystery: the temporal supremacy of the popes; the
duty of residence; the civil and ecclesiastical privileges of the
clergy and people of Rome. The reigning pontiff well deserved
the appellation of Clement: the strange vicissitudes and
magnanimous spirit of the captive excited his pity and esteem;
and Petrarch believes that he respected in the hero the name and
sacred character of a poet. ^52 Rienzi was indulged with an easy
confinement and the use of books; and in the assiduous study of
Livy and the Bible, he sought the cause and the consolation of
his misfortunes.
[Footnote 51: These visions, of which the friends and enemies of
Rienzi seem alike ignorant, are surely magnified by the zeal of
Pollistore, a Dominican inquisitor, (Rer. Ital. tom. xxv. c. 36,
p. 819.) Had the tribune taught, that Christ was succeeded by the
Holy Ghost, that the tyranny of the pope would be abolished, he
might have been convicted of heresy and treason, without
offending the Roman people.
Note: So far from having magnified these visions, Pollistore
is more than confirmed by the documents published by Papencordt.
The adoption of all the wild doctrines of the Fratricelli, the
Spirituals, in which, for the time at least, Rienzi appears to
have been in earnest; his magnificent offers to the emperor, and
the whole history of his life, from his first escape from Rome to
his imprisonment at Avignon, are among the most curious chapters
of his eventful life. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 52: The astonishment, the envy almost, of Petrarch is a
proof, if not of the truth of this incredible fact, at least of
his own veracity. The abbe de Sade (Memoires, tom. iii. p. 242)
quotes the vith epistle of the xiiith book of Petrarch, but it is
of the royal Ms., which he consulted, and not of the ordinary
Basil edition, (p. 920.)]
The succeeding pontificate of Innocent the Sixth opened a
new prospect of his deliverance and restoration; and the court of
Avignon was persuaded, that the successful rebel could alone
appease and reform the anarchy of the metropolis. After a solemn
profession of fidelity, the Roman tribune was sent into Italy,
with the title of senator; but the death of Baroncelli appeared
to supersede the use of his mission; and the legate, Cardinal
Albornoz, ^53 a consummate statesman, allowed him with
reluctance, and without aid, to undertake the perilous
experiment. His first reception was equal to his wishes: the day
of his entrance was a public festival; and his eloquence and
authority revived the laws of the good estate. But this
momentary sunshine was soon clouded by his own vices and those of
the people: in the Capitol, he might often regret the prison of
Avignon; and after a second administration of four months, Rienzi
was massacred in a tumult which had been fomented by the Roman
barons. In the society of the Germans and Bohemians, he is said
to have contracted the habits of intemperance and cruelty:
adversity had chilled his enthusiasm, without fortifying his
reason or virtue; and that youthful hope, that lively assurance,
which is the pledge of success, was now succeeded by the cold
impotence of distrust and despair. The tribune had reigned with
absolute dominion, by the choice, and in the hearts, of the
Romans: the senator was the servile minister of a foreign court;
and while he was suspected by the people, he was abandoned by the
prince. The legate Albornoz, who seemed desirous of his ruin,
inflexibly refused all supplies of men and money; a faithful
subject could no longer presume to touch the revenues of the
apostolical chamber; and the first idea of a tax was the signal
of clamor and sedition. Even his justice was tainted with the
guilt or reproach of selfish cruelty: the most virtuous citizen
of Rome was sacrificed to his jealousy; and in the execution of a
public robber, from whose purse he had been assisted, the
magistrate too much forgot, or too much remembered, the
obligations of the debtor. ^54 A civil war exhausted his
treasures, and the patience of the city: the Colonna maintained
their hostile station at Palestrina; and his mercenaries soon
despised a leader whose ignorance and fear were envious of all
subordinate merit. In the death, as in the life, of Rienzi, the
hero and the coward were strangely mingled. When the Capitol was
invested by a furious multitude, when he was basely deserted by
his civil and military servants, the intrepid senator, waving the
banner of liberty, presented himself on the balcony, addressed
his eloquence to the various passions of the Romans, and labored
to persuade them, that in the same cause himself and the republic
must either stand or fall. His oration was interrupted by a
volley of imprecations and stones; and after an arrow had
transpierced his hand, he sunk into abject despair, and fled
weeping to the inner chambers, from whence he was let down by a
sheet before the windows of the prison. Destitute of aid or
hope, he was besieged till the evening: the doors of the Capitol
were destroyed with axes and fire; and while the senator
attempted to escape in a plebeian habit, he was discovered and
dragged to the platform of the palace, the fatal scene of his
judgments and executions. A whole hour, without voice or motion,
he stood amidst the multitude half naked and half dead: their
rage was hushed into curiosity and wonder: the last feelings of
reverence and compassion yet struggled in his favor; and they
might have prevailed, if a bold assassin had not plunged a dagger
in his breast. He fell senseless with the first stroke: the
impotent revenge of his enemies inflicted a thousand wounds: and
the senator's body was abandoned to the dogs, to the Jews, and to
the flames. Posterity will compare the virtues and failings of
this extraordinary man; but in a long period of anarchy and
servitude, the name of Rienzi has often been celebrated as the
deliverer of his country, and the last of the Roman patriots. ^55
[Footnote 53: Aegidius, or Giles Albornoz, a noble Spaniard,
archbishop of Toledo, and cardinal legate in Italy, (A.D. 1353
-1367,) restored, by his arms and counsels, the temporal dominion
of the popes. His life has been separately written by Sepulveda;
but Dryden could not reasonably suppose, that his name, or that
of Wolsey, had reached the ears of the Mufti in Don Sebastian.]
[Footnote 54: From Matteo Villani and Fortifiocca, the P. du
Cerceau (p. 344 - 394) has extracted the life and death of the
chevalier Montreal, the life of a robber and the death of a hero.
At the head of a free company, the first that desolated Italy, he
became rich and formidable be had money in all the banks, -
60,000 ducats in Padua alone.]
[Footnote 55: The exile, second government, and death of Rienzi,
are minutely related by the anonymous Roman, who appears neither
his friend nor his enemy, (l. iii. c. 12 - 25.) Petrarch, who
loved the tribune, was indifferent to the fate of the senator.]
The first and most generous wish of Petrarch was the
restoration of a free republic; but after the exile and death of
his plebeian hero, he turned his eyes from the tribune, to the
king, of the Romans. The Capitol was yet stained with the blood
of Rienzi, when Charles the Fourth descended from the Alps to
obtain the Italian and Imperial crowns. In his passage through
Milan he received the visit, and repaid the flattery, of the
poet-laureate; accepted a medal of Augustus; and promised,
without a smile, to imitate the founder of the Roman monarchy. A
false application of the name and maxims of antiquity was the
source of the hopes and disappointments of Petrarch; yet he could
not overlook the difference of times and characters; the
immeasurable distance between the first Caesars and a Bohemian
prince, who by the favor of the clergy had been elected the
titular head of the German aristocracy. Instead of restoring to
Rome her glory and her provinces, he had bound himself by a
secret treaty with the pope, to evacuate the city on the day of
his coronation; and his shameful retreat was pursued by the
reproaches of the patriot bard. ^56
[Footnote 56: The hopes and the disappointment of Petrarch are
agreeably described in his own words by the French biographer,
(Memoires, tom. iii. p. 375 - 413;) but the deep, though secret,
wound was the coronation of Zanubi, the poet-laureate, by Charles
IV.]
After the loss of liberty and empire, his third and more
humble wish was to reconcile the shepherd with his flock; to
recall the Roman bishop to his ancient and peculiar diocese. In
the fervor of youth, with the authority of age, Petrarch
addressed his exhortations to five successive popes, and his
eloquence was always inspired by the enthusiasm of sentiment and
the freedom of language. ^57 The son of a citizen of Florence
invariably preferred the country of his birth to that of his
education; and Italy, in his eyes, was the queen and garden of
the world. Amidst her domestic factions, she was doubtless
superior to France both in art and science, in wealth and
politeness; but the difference could scarcely support the epithet
of barbarous, which he promiscuously bestows on the countries
beyond the Alps. Avignon, the mystic Babylon, the sink of vice
and corruption, was the object of his hatred and contempt; but he
forgets that her scandalous vices were not the growth of the
soil, and that in every residence they would adhere to the power
and luxury of the papal court. He confesses that the successor
of St. Peter is the bishop of the universal church; yet it was
not on the banks of the Rhone, but of the Tyber, that the apostle
had fixed his everlasting throne; and while every city in the
Christian world was blessed with a bishop, the metropolis alone
was desolate and forlorn. Since the removal of the Holy See, the
sacred buildings of the Lateran and the Vatican, their altars and
their saints, were left in a state of poverty and decay; and Rome
was often painted under the image of a disconsolate matron, as if
the wandering husband could be reclaimed by the homely portrait
of the age and infirmities of his weeping spouse. ^58 But the
cloud which hung over the seven hills would be dispelled by the
presence of their lawful sovereign: eternal fame, the prosperity
of Rome, and the peace of Italy, would be the recompense of the
pope who should dare to embrace this generous resolution. Of the
five whom Petrarch exhorted, the three first, John the
Twenty-second, Benedict the Twelfth, and Clement the Sixth, were
importuned or amused by the boldness of the orator; but the
memorable change which had been attempted by Urban the Fifth was
finally accomplished by Gregory the Eleventh. The execution of
their design was opposed by weighty and almost insuperable
obstacles. A king of France, who has deserved the epithet of
wise, was unwilling to release them from a local dependence: the
cardinals, for the most part his subjects, were attached to the
language, manners, and climate of Avignon; to their stately
palaces; above all, to the wines of Burgundy. In their eyes,
Italy was foreign or hostile; and they reluctantly embarked at
Marseilles, as if they had been sold or banished into the land of
the Saracens. Urban the Fifth resided three years in the Vatican
with safety and honor: his sanctity was protected by a guard of
two thousand horse; and the king of Cyprus, the queen of Naples,
and the emperors of the East and West, devoutly saluted their
common father in the chair of St. Peter. But the joy of Petrarch
and the Italians was soon turned into grief and indignation. Some
reasons of public or private moment, his own impatience or the
prayers of the cardinals, recalled Urban to France; and the
approaching election was saved from the tyrannic patriotism of
the Romans. The powers of heaven were interested in their cause:
Bridget of Sweden, a saint and pilgrim, disapproved the return,
and foretold the death, of Urban the Fifth: the migration of
Gregory the Eleventh was encouraged by St. Catharine of Sienna,
the spouse of Christ and ambassadress of the Florentines; and the
popes themselves, the great masters of human credulity, appear to
have listened to these visionary females. ^59 Yet those celestial
admonitions were supported by some arguments of temporal policy.
The residents of Avignon had been invaded by hostile violence: at
the head of thirty thousand robbers, a hero had extorted ransom
and absolution from the vicar of Christ and the sacred college;
and the maxim of the French warriors, to spare the people and
plunder the church, was a new heresy of the most dangerous
import. ^60 While the pope was driven from Avignon, he was
strenuously invited to Rome. The senate and people acknowledged
him as their lawful sovereign, and laid at his feet the keys of
the gates, the bridges, and the fortresses; of the quarter at
least beyond the Tyber. ^61 But this loyal offer was accompanied
by a declaration, that they could no longer suffer the scandal
and calamity of his absence; and that his obstinacy would finally
provoke them to revive and assert the primitive right of
election. The abbot of Mount Cassin had been consulted, whether
he would accept the triple crown ^62 from the clergy and people:
"I am a citizen of Rome," ^63 replied that venerable
ecclesiastic, "and my first law is, the voice of my country." ^64
[Footnote 57: See, in his accurate and amusing biographer, the
application of Petrarch and Rome to Benedict XII. in the year
1334, (Memoires, tom. i. p. 261 - 265,) to Clement VI. in 1342,
(tom. ii. p. 45 - 47,) and to Urban V. in 1366, (tom. iii. p. 677
- 691:) his praise (p. 711 - 715) and excuse (p. 771) of the last
of these pontiffs. His angry controversy on the respective
merits of France and Italy may be found, Opp. p. 1068 - 1085.]
[Footnote 58: Squalida sed quoniam facies, neglectaque cultu
Caesaries; multisque malis lassata senectus
Eripuit solitam effigiem: vetus accipe nomen;
Roma vocor.
(Carm. l. 2, p. 77.)
He spins this allegory beyond all measure or patience. The
Epistles to Urban V in prose are more simple and persuasive,
(Senilium, l. vii. p. 811 - 827 l. ix. epist. i. p. 844 - 854.)]
[Footnote 59: I have not leisure to expatiate on the legends of
St. Bridget or St. Catharine, the last of which might furnish
some amusing stories. Their effect on the mind of Gregory XI. is
attested by the last solemn words of the dying pope, who
admonished the assistants, ut caverent ab hominibus, sive viris,
sive mulieribus, sub specie religionis loquentibus visiones sui
capitis, quia per tales ipse seductus, &c., (Baluz. Not ad Vit.
Pap. Avenionensium, tom. i. p. 1224.)]
[Footnote 60: This predatory expedition is related by Froissard,
(Chronique, tom. i. p. 230,) and in the life of Du Guesclin,
(Collection Generale des Memoires Historiques, tom. iv. c. 16, p.
107 - 113.) As early as the year 1361, the court of Avignon had
been molested by similar freebooters, who afterwards passed the
Alps, (Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 563 - 569.)]
[Footnote 61: Fleury alleges, from the annals of Odericus
Raynaldus, the original treaty which was signed the 21st of
December, 1376, between Gregory XI. and the Romans, (Hist.
Eccles. tom. xx. p. 275.)]
[Footnote 62: The first crown or regnum (Ducange, Gloss. Latin.
tom. v. p. 702) on the episcopal mitre of the popes, is ascribed
to the gift of Constantine, or Clovis. The second was added by
Boniface VIII., as the emblem not only of a spiritual, but of a
temporal, kingdom. The three states of the church are
represented by the triple crown which was introduced by John
XXII. or Benedict XII., (Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 258,
259.)]
[Footnote 63: Baluze (Not. ad Pap. Avenion. tom. i. p. 1194,
1195) produces the original evidence which attests the threats of
the Roman ambassadors, and the resignation of the abbot of Mount
Cassin, qui, ultro se offerens, respondit se civem Romanum esse,
et illud velle quod ipsi vellent.]
[Footnote 64: The return of the popes from Avignon to Rome, and
their reception by the people, are related in the original lives
of Urban V. and Gregory XI., in Baluze (Vit. Paparum
Avenionensium, tom. i. p. 363 - 486) and Muratori, (Script. Rer.
Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i. p. 613 - 712.) In the disputes of the
schism, every circumstance was severely, though partially,
scrutinized; more especially in the great inquest, which decided
the obedience of Castile, and to which Baluze, in his notes, so
often and so largely appeals from a Ms. volume in the Harley
library, (p. 1281, &c.)]
If superstition will interpret an untimely death, ^65 if the
merit of counsels be judged from the event, the heavens may seem
to frown on a measure of such apparent season and propriety.
Gregory the Eleventh did not survive above fourteen months his
return to the Vatican; and his decease was followed by the great
schism of the West, which distracted the Latin church above forty
years. The sacred college was then composed of twenty-two
cardinals: six of these had remained at Avignon; eleven
Frenchmen, one Spaniard, and four Italians, entered the conclave
in the usual form. Their choice was not yet limited to the
purple; and their unanimous votes acquiesced in the archbishop of
Bari, a subject of Naples, conspicuous for his zeal and learning,
who ascended the throne of St. Peter under the name of Urban the
Sixth. The epistle of the sacred college affirms his free, and
regular, election; which had been inspired, as usual, by the Holy
Ghost; he was adored, invested, and crowned, with the customary
rites; his temporal authority was obeyed at Rome and Avignon, and
his ecclesiastical supremacy was acknowledged in the Latin world.
During several weeks, the cardinals attended their new master
with the fairest professions of attachment and loyalty; till the
summer heats permitted a decent escape from the city. But as
soon as they were united at Anagni and Fundi, in a place of
security, they cast aside the mask, accused their own falsehood
and hypocrisy, excommunicated the apostate and antichrist of
Rome, and proceeded to a new election of Robert of Geneva,
Clement the Seventh, whom they announced to the nations as the
true and rightful vicar of Christ. Their first choice, an
involuntary and illegal act, was annulled by fear of death and
the menaces of the Romans; and their complaint is justified by
the strong evidence of probability and fact. The twelve French
cardinals, above two thirds of the votes, were masters of the
election; and whatever might be their provincial jealousies, it
cannot fairly be presumed that they would have sacrificed their
right and interest to a foreign candidate, who would never
restore them to their native country. In the various, and often
inconsistent, narratives, ^66 the shades of popular violence are
more darkly or faintly colored: but the licentiousness of the
seditious Romans was inflamed by a sense of their privileges, and
the danger of a second emigration. The conclave was intimidated
by the shouts, and encompassed by the arms, of thirty thousand
rebels; the bells of the Capitol and St. Peter's rang an alarm:
"Death, or an Italian pope!" was the universal cry; the same
threat was repeated by the twelve bannerets or chiefs of the
quarters, in the form of charitable advice; some preparations
were made for burning the obstinate cardinals; and had they
chosen a Transalpine subject, it is probable that they would
never have departed alive from the Vatican. The same constraint
imposed the necessity of dissembling in the eyes of Rome and of
the world; the pride and cruelty of Urban presented a more
inevitable danger; and they soon discovered the features of the
tyrant, who could walk in his garden and recite his breviary,
while he heard from an adjacent chamber six cardinals groaning on
the rack. His inflexible zeal, which loudly censured their luxury
and vice, would have attached them to the stations and duties of
their parishes at Rome; and had he not fatally delayed a new
promotion, the French cardinals would have been reduced to a
helpless minority in the sacred college. For these reasons, and
the hope of repassing the Alps, they rashly violated the peace
and unity of the church; and the merits of their double choice
are yet agitated in the Catholic schools. ^67 The vanity, rather
than the interest, of the nation determined the court and clergy
of France. ^68 The states of Savoy, Sicily, Cyprus, Arragon,
Castille, Navarre, and Scotland were inclined by their example
and authority to the obedience of Clement the Seventh, and after
his decease, of Benedict the Thirteenth. Rome and the principal
states of Italy, Germany, Portugal, England, ^69 the Low
Countries, and the kingdoms of the North, adhered to the prior
election of Urban the Sixth, who was succeeded by Boniface the
Ninth, Innocent the Seventh, and Gregory the Twelfth.
[Footnote 65: Can the death of a good man be esteemed a
punishment by those who believe in the immortality of the soul?
They betray the instability of their faith. Yet as a mere
philosopher, I cannot agree with the Greeks (Brunck, Poetae
Gnomici, p. 231.) See in Herodotus (l. i. c. 31) the moral and
pleasing tale of the Argive youths.]
[Footnote 66: In the first book of the Histoire du Concile de
Pise, M. Lenfant has abridged and compared the original
narratives of the adherents of Urban and Clement, of the Italians
and Germans, the French and Spaniards. The latter appear to be
the most active and loquacious, and every fact and word in the
original lives of Gregory XI. and Clement VII. are supported in
the notes of their editor Baluze.]
[Footnote 67: The ordinal numbers of the popes seems to decide
the question against Clement VII. and Benedict XIII., who are
boldly stigmatized as antipopes by the Italians, while the French
are content with authorities and reasons to plead the cause of
doubt and toleration, (Baluz. in Praefat.) It is singular, or
rather it is not singular, that saints, visions and miracles
should be common to both parties.]
[Footnote 68: Baluze strenuously labors (Not. p. 1271 - 1280) to
justify the pure and pious motives of Charles V. king of France:
he refused to hear the arguments of Urban; but were not the
Urbanists equally deaf to the reasons of Clement, &c.?]
[Footnote 69: An epistle, or declamation, in the name of Edward
III., (Baluz. Vit. Pap. Avenion. tom. i. p. 553,) displays the
zeal of the English nation against the Clementines. Nor was
their zeal confined to words: the bishop of Norwich led a crusade
of 60,000 bigots beyond sea, (Hume's History, vol. iii. p. 57,
58.)]
From the banks of the Tyber and the Rhone, the hostile
pontiffs encountered each other with the pen and the sword: the
civil and ecclesiastical order of society was disturbed; and the
Romans had their full share of the mischiefs of which they may be
arraigned as the primary authors. ^70 They had vainly flattered
themselves with the hope of restoring the seat of the
ecclesiastical monarchy, and of relieving their poverty with the
tributes and offerings of the nations; but the separation of
France and Spain diverted the stream of lucrative devotion; nor
could the loss be compensated by the two jubilees which were
crowded into the space of ten years. By the avocations of the
schism, by foreign arms, and popular tumults, Urban the Sixth and
his three successors were often compelled to interrupt their
residence in the Vatican. The Colonna and Ursini still exercised
their deadly feuds: the bannerets of Rome asserted and abused the
privileges of a republic: the vicars of Christ, who had levied a
military force, chastised their rebellion with the gibbet, the
sword, and the dagger; and, in a friendly conference, eleven
deputies of the people were perfidiously murdered and cast into
the street. Since the invasion of Robert the Norman, the Romans
had pursued their domestic quarrels without the dangerous
interposition of a stranger. But in the disorders of the schism,
an aspiring neighbor, Ladislaus king of Naples, alternately
supported and betrayed the pope and the people; by the former he
was declared gonfalonier, or general, of the church, while the
latter submitted to his choice the nomination of their
magistrates. Besieging Rome by land and water, he thrice entered
the gates as a Barbarian conqueror; profaned the altars, violated
the virgins, pillaged the merchants, performed his devotions at
St. Peter's, and left a garrison in the castle of St. Angelo. His
arms were sometimes unfortunate, and to a delay of three days he
was indebted for his life and crown: but Ladislaus triumphed in
his turn; and it was only his premature death that could save the
metropolis and the ecclesiastical state from the ambitious
conqueror, who had assumed the title, or at least the powers, of
king of Rome. ^71
[Footnote 70: Besides the general historians, the Diaries of
Delphinus Gentilia Peter Antonius, and Stephen Infessura, in the
great collection of Muratori, represented the state and
misfortunes of Rome.]
[Footnote 71: It is supposed by Giannone (tom. iii. p. 292) that
he styled himself Rex Romae, a title unknown to the world since
the expulsion of Tarquin. But a nearer inspection has justified
the reading of Rex Ramae, of Rama, an obscure kingdom annexed to
the crown of Hungary.]
I have not undertaken the ecclesiastical history of the
schism; but Rome, the object of these last chapters, is deeply
interested in the disputed succession of her sovereigns. The
first counsels for the peace and union of Christendom arose from
the university of Paris, from the faculty of the Sorbonne, whose
doctors were esteemed, at least in the Gallican church, as the
most consummate masters of theological science. ^72 Prudently
waiving all invidious inquiry into the origin and merits of the
dispute, they proposed, as a healing measure, that the two
pretenders of Rome and Avignon should abdicate at the same time,
after qualifying the cardinals of the adverse factions to join in
a legitimate election; and that the nations should subtract ^73
their obedience, if either of the competitor preferred his own
interest to that of the public. At each vacancy, these
physicians of the church deprecated the mischiefs of a hasty
choice; but the policy of the conclave and the ambition of its
members were deaf to reason and entreaties; and whatsoever
promises were made, the pope could never be bound by the oaths of
the cardinal. During fifteen years, the pacific designs of the
university were eluded by the arts of the rival pontiffs, the
scruples or passions of their adherents, and the vicissitudes of
French factions, that ruled the insanity of Charles the Sixth. At
length a vigorous resolution was embraced; and a solemn embassy,
of the titular patriarch of Alexandria, two archbishops, five
bishops, five abbots, three knights, and twenty doctors, was sent
to the courts of Avignon and Rome, to require, in the name of the
church and king, the abdication of the two pretenders, of Peter
de Luna, who styled himself Benedict the Thirteenth, and of
Angelo Corrario, who assumed the name of Gregory the Twelfth.
For the ancient honor of Rome, and the success of their
commission, the ambassadors solicited a conference with the
magistrates of the city, whom they gratified by a positive
declaration, that the most Christian king did not entertain a
wish of transporting the holy see from the Vatican, which he
considered as the genuine and proper seat of the successor of St.
Peter. In the name of the senate and people, an eloquent Roman
asserted their desire to cooperate in the union of the church,
deplored the temporal and spiritual calamities of the long
schism, and requested the protection of France against the arms
of the king of Naples. The answers of Benedict and Gregory were
alike edifying and alike deceitful; and, in evading the demand of
their abdication, the two rivals were animated by a common
spirit. They agreed on the necessity of a previous interview;
but the time, the place, and the manner, could never be
ascertained by mutual consent. "If the one advances," says a
servant of Gregory, "the other retreats; the one appears an
animal fearful of the land, the other a creature apprehensive of
the water. And thus, for a short remnant of life and power, will
these aged priests endanger the peace and salvation of the
Christian world." ^74
[Footnote 72: The leading and decisive part which France assumed
in the schism is stated by Peter du Puis in a separate history,
extracted from authentic records, and inserted in the seventh
volume of the last and best edition of his friend Thuanus, (P.
xi. p. 110 - 184.)]
[Footnote 73: Of this measure, John Gerson, a stout doctor, was
the author of the champion. The proceedings of the university of
Paris and the Gallican church were often prompted by his advice,
and are copiously displayed in his theological writings, of which
Le Clerc (Bibliotheque Choisie, tom. x. p. 1 - 78) has given a
valuable extract. John Gerson acted an important part in the
councils of Pisa and Constance.]
[Footnote 74: Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, one of the revivers of
classic learning in Italy, who, after serving many years as
secretary in the Roman court, retired to the honorable office of
chancellor of the republic of Florence, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii
Aevi, tom. i. p. 290.) Lenfant has given the version of this
curious epistle, (Concile de Pise, tom. i. p. 192 - 195.)]
The Christian world was at length provoked by their
obstinacy and fraud: they were deserted by their cardinals, who
embraced each other as friends and colleagues; and their revolt
was supported by a numerous assembly of prelates and ambassadors.
With equal justice, the council of Pisa deposed the popes of Rome
and Avignon; the conclave was unanimous in the choice of
Alexander the Fifth, and his vacant seat was soon filled by a
similar election of John the Twenty-third, the most profligate of
mankind. But instead of extinguishing the schism, the rashness
of the French and Italians had given a third pretender to the
chair of St. Peter. Such new claims of the synod and conclave
were disputed; three kings, of Germany, Hungary, and Naples,
adhered to the cause of Gregory the Twelfth; and Benedict the
Thirteenth, himself a Spaniard, was acknowledged by the devotion
and patriotism of that powerful nation. The rash proceedings of
Pisa were corrected by the council of Constance; the emperor
Sigismond acted a conspicuous part as the advocate or protector
of the Catholic church; and the number and weight of civil and
ecclesiastical members might seem to constitute the
states-general of Europe. Of the three popes, John the
Twenty-third was the first victim: he fled and was brought back a
prisoner: the most scandalous charges were suppressed; the vicar
of Christ was only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and
incest; and after subscribing his own condemnation, he expiated
in prison the imprudence of trusting his person to a free city
beyond the Alps. Gregory the Twelfth, whose obedience was
reduced to the narrow precincts of Rimini, descended with more
honor from the throne; and his ambassador convened the session,
in which he renounced the title and authority of lawful pope. To
vanquish the obstinacy of Benedict the Thirteenth or his
adherents, the emperor in person undertook a journey from
Constance to Perpignan. The kings of Castile, Arragon, Navarre,
and Scotland, obtained an equal and honorable treaty; with the
concurrence of the Spaniards, Benedict was deposed by the
council; but the harmless old man was left in a solitary castle
to excommunicate twice each day the rebel kingdoms which had
deserted his cause. After thus eradicating the remains of the
schism, the synod of Constance proceeded with slow and cautious
steps to elect the sovereign of Rome and the head of the church.
On this momentous occasion, the college of twenty-three cardinals
was fortified with thirty deputies; six of whom were chosen in
each of the five great nations of Christendom, - the Italian, the
German, the French, the Spanish, and the English: ^75 the
interference of strangers was softened by their generous
preference of an Italian and a Roman; and the hereditary, as well
as personal, merit of Otho Colonna recommended him to the
conclave. Rome accepted with joy and obedience the noblest of
her sons; the ecclesiastical state was defended by his powerful
family; and the elevation of Martin the Fifth is the aera of the
restoration and establishment of the popes in the Vatican. ^76
[Footnote 75: I cannot overlook this great national cause, which
was vigorously maintained by the English ambassadors against
those of France. The latter contended, that Christendom was
essentially distributed into the four great nations and votes, of
Italy, Germany, France, and Spain, and that the lesser kingdoms
(such as England, Denmark, Portugal, &c.) were comprehended under
one or other of these great divisions. The English asserted,
that the British islands, of which they were the head, should be
considered as a fifth and coordinate nation, with an equal vote;
and every argument of truth or fable was introduced to exalt the
dignity of their country. Including England, Scotland, Wales,
the four kingdoms of Ireland, and the Orkneys, the British
Islands are decorated with eight royal crowns, and discriminated
by four or five languages, English, Welsh, Cornish, Scotch,
Irish, &c. The greater island from north to south measures 800
miles, or 40 days' journey; and England alone contains 32
counties and 52,000 parish churches, (a bold account!) besides
cathedrals, colleges, priories, and hospitals. They celebrate
the mission of St. Joseph of Arimathea, the birth of Constantine,
and the legatine powers of the two primates, without forgetting
the testimony of Bartholomey de Glanville, (A.D. 1360,) who
reckons only four Christian kingdoms, 1. of Rome, 2. of
Constantinople, 3. of Ireland, which had been transferred to the
English monarchs, and 4, of Spain. Our countrymen prevailed in
the council, but the victories of Henry V. added much weight to
their arguments. The adverse pleadings were found at Constance
by Sir Robert Wingfield, ambassador of Henry VIII. to the emperor
Maximilian I., and by him printed in 1517 at Louvain. From a
Leipsic Ms. they are more correctly published in the collection
of Von der Hardt, tom. v.; but I have only seen Lenfant's
abstract of these acts, (Concile de Constance, tom. ii. p. 447,
453, &c.)]
[Footnote 76: The histories of the three successive councils,
Pisa, Constance, and Basil, have been written with a tolerable
degree of candor, industry, and elegance, by a Protestant
minister, M. Lenfant, who retired from France to Berlin. They
form six volumes in quarto; and as Basil is the worst, so
Constance is the best, part of the Collection.]
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.
Part IV.
The royal prerogative of coining money, which had been
exercised near three hundred years by the senate, was first
resumed by Martin the Fifth, ^77 and his image and superscription
introduce the series of the papal medals. Of his two immediate
successors, Eugenius the Fourth was the last pope expelled by the
tumults of the Roman people, ^78 and Nicholas the Fifth, the last
who was importuned by the presence of a Roman emperor. ^79 I. The
conflict of Eugenius with the fathers of Basil, and the weight or
apprehension of a new excise, emboldened and provoked the Romans
to usurp the temporal government of the city. They rose in arms,
elected seven governors of the republic, and a constable of the
Capitol; imprisoned the pope's nephew; besieged his person in the
palace; and shot volleys of arrows into his bark as he escaped
down the Tyber in the habit of a monk. But he still possessed in
the castle of St. Angelo a faithful garrison and a train of
artillery: their batteries incessantly thundered on the city, and
a bullet more dexterously pointed broke down the barricade of the
bridge, and scattered with a single shot the heroes of the
republic. Their constancy was exhausted by a rebellion of five
months. Under the tyranny of the Ghibeline nobles, the wisest
patriots regretted the dominion of the church; and their
repentance was unanimous and effectual. The troops of St. Peter
again occupied the Capitol; the magistrates departed to their
homes; the most guilty were executed or exiled; and the legate,
at the head of two thousand foot and four thousand horse, was
saluted as the father of the city. The synods of Ferrara and
Florence, the fear or resentment of Eugenius, prolonged his
absence: he was received by a submissive people; but the pontiff
understood from the acclamations of his triumphal entry, that to
secure their loyalty and his own repose, he must grant without
delay the abolition of the odious excise. II. Rome was restored,
adorned, and enlightened, by the peaceful reign of Nicholas the
Fifth. In the midst of these laudable occupations, the pope was
alarmed by the approach of Frederic the Third of Austria; though
his fears could not be justified by the character or the power of
the Imperial candidate. After drawing his military force to the
metropolis, and imposing the best security of oaths ^80 and
treaties, Nicholas received with a smiling countenance the
faithful advocate and vassal of the church. So tame were the
times, so feeble was the Austrian, that the pomp of his
coronation was accomplished with order and harmony: but the
superfluous honor was so disgraceful to an independent nation,
that his successors have excused themselves from the toilsome
pilgrimage to the Vatican; and rest their Imperial title on the
choice of the electors of Germany.
[Footnote 77: See the xxviith Dissertation of the Antiquities of
Muratori, and the 1st Instruction of the Science des Medailles of
the Pere Joubert and the Baron de la Bastie. The Metallic
History of Martin V. and his successors has been composed by two
monks, Moulinet, a Frenchman, and Bonanni, an Italian: but I
understand, that the first part of the series is restored from
more recent coins.]
[Footnote 78: Besides the Lives of Eugenius IV., (Rerum Italic.
tom. iii. P. i. p. 869, and tom. xxv. p. 256,) the Diaries of
Paul Petroni and Stephen Infessura are the best original evidence
for the revolt of the Romans against Eugenius IV. The former,
who lived at the time and on the spot, speaks the language of a
citizen, equally afraid of priestly and popular tyranny.]
[Footnote 79: The coronation of Frederic III. is described by
Lenfant, (Concile de Basle, tom. ii. p. 276 - 288,) from Aeneas
Sylvius, a spectator and actor in that splendid scene.]
[Footnote 80: The oath of fidelity imposed on the emperor by the
pope is recorded and sanctified in the Clementines, (l. ii. tit.
ix.;) and Aeneas Sylvius, who objects to this new demand, could
not foresee, that in a few years he should ascend the throne, and
imbibe the maxims, of Boniface VIII.] A citizen has remarked,
with pride and pleasure, that the king of the Romans, after
passing with a slight salute the cardinals and prelates who met
him at the gate, distinguished the dress and person of the
senator of Rome; and in this last farewell, the pageants of the
empire and the republic were clasped in a friendly embrace. ^81
According to the laws of Rome, ^82 her first magistrate was
required to be a doctor of laws, an alien, of a place at least
forty miles from the city; with whose inhabitants he must not be
connected in the third canonical degree of blood or alliance.
The election was annual: a severe scrutiny was instituted into
the conduct of the departing senator; nor could he be recalled to
the same office till after the expiration of two years. A
liberal salary of three thousand florins was assigned for his
expense and reward; and his public appearance represented the
majesty of the republic. His robes were of gold brocade or
crimson velvet, or in the summer season of a lighter silk: he
bore in his hand an ivory sceptre; the sound of trumpets
announced his approach; and his solemn steps were preceded at
least by four lictors or attendants, whose red wands were
enveloped with bands or streamers of the golden color or livery
of the city. His oath in the Capitol proclaims his right and
duty to observe and assert the laws, to control the proud, to
protect the poor, and to exercise justice and mercy within the
extent of his jurisdiction. In these useful functions he was
assisted by three learned strangers; the two collaterals, and the
judge of criminal appeals: their frequent trials of robberies,
rapes, and murders, are attested by the laws; and the weakness of
these laws connives at the licentiousness of private feuds and
armed associations for mutual defence. But the senator was
confined to the administration of justice: the Capitol, the
treasury, and the government of the city and its territory, were
intrusted to the three conservators, who were changed four times
in each year: the militia of the thirteen regions assembled under
the banners of their respective chiefs, or caporioni; and the
first of these was distinguished by the name and dignity of the
prior. The popular legislature consisted of the secret and the
common councils of the Romans. The former was composed of the
magistrates and their immediate predecessors, with some fiscal
and legal officers, and three classes of thirteen, twenty-six,
and forty, counsellors: amounting in the whole to about one
hundred and twenty persons. In the common council all male
citizens had a right to vote; and the value of their privilege
was enhanced by the care with which any foreigners were prevented
from usurping the title and character of Romans. The tumult of a
democracy was checked by wise and jealous precautions: except the
magistrates, none could propose a question; none were permitted
to speak, except from an open pulpit or tribunal; all disorderly
acclamations were suppressed; the sense of the majority was
decided by a secret ballot; and their decrees were promulgated in
the venerable name of the Roman senate and people. It would not
be easy to assign a period in which this theory of government has
been reduced to accurate and constant practice, since the
establishment of order has been gradually connected with the
decay of liberty. But in the year one thousand five hundred and
eighty the ancient statutes were collected, methodized in three
books, and adapted to present use, under the pontificate, and
with the approbation, of Gregory the Thirteenth: ^83 this civil
and criminal code is the modern law of the city; and, if the
popular assemblies have been abolished, a foreign senator, with
the three conservators, still resides in the palace of the
Capitol. ^84 The policy of the Caesars has been repeated by the
popes; and the bishop of Rome affected to maintain the form of a
republic, while he reigned with the absolute powers of a
temporal, as well as a spiritual, monarch.
[Footnote 81: Lo senatore di Roma, vestito di brocarto con quella
beretta, e con quelle maniche, et ornamenti di pelle, co' quali
va alle feste di Testaccio e Nagone, might escape the eye of
Aeneas Sylvius, but he is viewed with admiration and complacency
by the Roman citizen, (Diario di Stephano Infessura, p. 1133.)]
[Footnote 82: See, in the statutes of Rome, the senator and three
judges, (l. i. c. 3 - 14,) the conservators, (l. i. c. 15, 16,
17, l. iii. c. 4,) the caporioni (l. i. c. 18, l. iii. c. 8,) the
secret council, (l. iii. c. 2,) the common council, (l. iii. c.
3.) The title of feuds, defiances, acts of violence, &c., is
spread through many a chapter (c. 14 - 40) of the second book.]
[Footnote 83: Statuta almoe Urbis Romoe Auctoritate S. D. N.
Gregorii XIII Pont. Max. a Senatu Populoque Rom. reformata et
edita. Romoe, 1580, in folio. The obsolete, repugnant statutes
of antiquity were confounded in five books, and Lucas Paetus, a
lawyer and antiquarian, was appointed to act as the modern
Tribonian. Yet I regret the old code, with the rugged crust of
freedom and barbarism.]
[Footnote 84: In my time (1765) and in M. Grosley's,
(Observations sur l'Italie torn. ii. p. 361,) the senator of Rome
was M. Bielke, a noble Swede and a proselyte to the Catholic
faith. The pope's right to appoint the senator and the
conservator is implied, rather than affirmed, in the statutes.]
It is an obvious truth, that the times must be suited to
extraordinary characters, and that the genius of Cromwell or Retz
might now expire in obscurity. The political enthusiasm of
Rienzi had exalted him to a throne; the same enthusiasm, in the
next century, conducted his imitator to the gallows. The birth
of Stephen Porcaro was noble, his reputation spotless: his tongue
was armed with eloquence, his mind was enlightened with learning;
and he aspired, beyond the aim of vulgar ambition, to free his
country and immortalize his name. The dominion of priests is
most odious to a liberal spirit: every scruple was removed by the
recent knowledge of the fable and forgery of Constantine's
donation; Petrarch was now the oracle of the Italians; and as
often as Porcaro revolved the ode which describes the patriot and
hero of Rome, he applied to himself the visions of the prophetic
bard. His first trial of the popular feelings was at the funeral
of Eugenius the Fourth: in an elaborate speech he called the
Romans to liberty and arms; and they listened with apparent
pleasure, till Porcaro was interrupted and answered by a grave
advocate, who pleaded for the church and state. By every law the
seditious orator was guilty of treason; but the benevolence of
the new pontiff, who viewed his character with pity and esteem,
attempted by an honorable office to convert the patriot into a
friend. The inflexible Roman returned from Anagni with an
increase of reputation and zeal; and, on the first opportunity,
the games of the place Navona, he tried to inflame the casual
dispute of some boys and mechanics into a general rising of the
people. Yet the humane Nicholas was still averse to accept the
forfeit of his life; and the traitor was removed from the scene
of temptation to Bologna, with a liberal allowance for his
support, and the easy obligation of presenting himself each day
before the governor of the city. But Porcaro had learned from
the younger Brutus, that with tyrants no faith or gratitude
should be observed: the exile declaimed against the arbitrary
sentence; a party and a conspiracy were gradually formed: his
nephew, a daring youth, assembled a band of volunteers; and on
the appointed evening a feast was prepared at his house for the
friends of the republic. Their leader, who had escaped from
Bologna, appeared among them in a robe of purple and gold: his
voice, his countenance, his gestures, bespoke the man who had
devoted his life or death to the glorious cause. In a studied
oration, he expiated on the motives and the means of their
enterprise; the name and liberties of Rome; the sloth and pride
of their ecclesiastical tyrants; the active or passive consent of
their fellow-citizens; three hundred soldiers, and four hundred
exiles, long exercised in arms or in wrongs; the license of
revenge to edge their swords, and a million of ducats to reward
their victory. It would be easy, (he said,) on the next day, the
festival of the Epiphany, to seize the pope and his cardinals,
before the doors, or at the altar, of St. Peter's; to lead them
in chains under the walls of St. Angelo; to extort by the threat
of their instant death a surrender of the castle; to ascend the
vacant Capitol; to ring the alarm bell; and to restore in a
popular assembly the ancient republic of Rome. While he
triumphed, he was already betrayed. The senator, with a strong
guard, invested the house: the nephew of Porcaro cut his way
through the crowd; but the unfortunate Stephen was drawn from a
chest, lamenting that his enemies had anticipated by three hours
the execution of his design. After such manifest and repeated
guilt, even the mercy of Nicholas was silent. Porcaro, and nine
of his accomplices, were hanged without the benefit of the
sacraments; and, amidst the fears and invectives of the papal
court, the Romans pitied, and almost applauded, these martyrs of
their country. ^85 But their applause was mute, their pity
ineffectual, their liberty forever extinct; and, if they have
since risen in a vacancy of the throne or a scarcity of bread,
such accidental tumults may be found in the bosom of the most
abject servitude.
[Footnote 85: Besides the curious, though concise, narrative of
Machiavel, (Istoria Florentina, l. vi. Opere, tom. i. p. 210,
211, edit. Londra, 1747, in 4to.) the Porcarian conspiracy is
related in the Diary of Stephen Infessura, (Rer. Ital. tom. iii.
P. ii. p. 1134, 1135,) and in a separate tract by Leo Baptista
Alberti, (Rer. Ital. tom. xxv. p. 609 - 614.) It is amusing to
compare the style and sentiments of the courtier and citizen.
Facinus profecto quo .... neque periculo horribilius, neque
audacia detestabilius, neque crudelitate tetrius, a quoquam
perditissimo uspiam excogitatum sit .... Perdette la vita quell'
huomo da bene, e amatore dello bene e liberta di Roma.]
But the independence of the nobles, which was fomented by
discord, survived the freedom of the commons, which must be
founded in union. A privilege of rapine and oppression was long
maintained by the barons of Rome; their houses were a fortress
and a sanctuary: and the ferocious train of banditti and
criminals whom they protected from the law repaid the hospitality
with the service of their swords and daggers. The private
interest of the pontiffs, or their nephews, sometimes involved
them in these domestic feuds. Under the reign of Sixtus the
Fourth, Rome was distracted by the battles and sieges of the
rival houses: after the conflagration of his palace, the
prothonotary Colonna was tortured and beheaded; and Savelli, his
captive friend, was murdered on the spot, for refusing to join in
the acclamations of the victorious Ursini. ^86 But the popes no
longer trembled in the Vatican: they had strength to command, if
they had resolution to claim, the obedience of their subjects;
and the strangers, who observed these partial disorders, admired
the easy taxes and wise administration of the ecclesiastical
state. ^87
[Footnote 86: The disorders of Rome, which were much inflamed by
the partiality of Sixtus IV. are exposed in the Diaries of two
spectators, Stephen Infessura, and an anonymous citizen. See the
troubles of the year 1484, and the death of the prothonotary
Colonna, in tom. iii. P. ii. p. 1083, 1158.]
[Footnote 87: Est toute la terre de l'eglise troublee pour cette
partialite (des Colonnes et des Ursins) come nous dirions Luce et
Grammont, ou en Hollande Houc et Caballan; et quand ce ne seroit
ce differend la terre de l'eglise seroit la plus heureuse
habitation pour les sujets qui soit dans toute le monde (car ils
ne payent ni tailles ni gueres autres choses,) et seroient
toujours bien conduits, (car toujours les papes sont sages et
bien consellies;) mais tres souvent en advient de grands et
cruels meurtres et pilleries.]
The spiritual thunders of the Vatican depend on the force of
opinion; and if that opinion be supplanted by reason or passion,
the sound may idly waste itself in the air; and the helpless
priest is exposed to the brutal violence of a noble or a plebeian
adversary. But after their return from Avignon, the keys of St.
Peter were guarded by the sword of St. Paul. Rome was commanded
by an impregnable citadel: the use of cannon is a powerful engine
against popular seditions: a regular force of cavalry and
infantry was enlisted under the banners of the pope: his ample
revenues supplied the resources of war: and, from the extent of
his domain, he could bring down on a rebellious city an army of
hostile neighbors and loyal subjects. ^88 Since the union of the
duchies of Ferrara and Urbino, the ecclesiastical state extends
from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and from the confines of
Naples to the banks of the Po; and as early as the sixteenth
century, the greater part of that spacious and fruitful country
acknowledged the lawful claims and temporal sovereignty of the
Roman pontiffs. Their claims were readily deduced from the
genuine, or fabulous, donations of the darker ages: the
successive steps of their final settlement would engage us too
far in the transactions of Italy, and even of Europe; the crimes
of Alexander the Sixth, the martial operations of Julius the
Second, and the liberal policy of Leo the Tenth, a theme which
has been adorned by the pens of the noblest historians of the
times. ^89 In the first period of their conquests, till the
expedition of Charles the Eighth, the popes might successfully
wrestle with the adjacent princes and states, whose military
force was equal, or inferior, to their own. But as soon as the
monarchs of France, Germany and Spain, contended with gigantic
arms for the dominion of Italy, they supplied with art the
deficiency of strength; and concealed, in a labyrinth of wars and
treaties, their aspiring views, and the immortal hope of chasing
the Barbarians beyond the Alps. The nice balance of the Vatican
was often subverted by the soldiers of the North and West, who
were united under the standard of Charles the Fifth: the feeble
and fluctuating policy of Clement the Seventh exposed his person
and dominions to the conqueror; and Rome was abandoned seven
months to a lawless army, more cruel and rapacious than the Goths
and Vandals. ^90 After this severe lesson, the popes contracted
their ambition, which was almost satisfied, resumed the character
of a common parent, and abstained from all offensive hostilities,
except in a hasty quarrel, when the vicar of Christ and the
Turkish sultan were armed at the same time against the kingdom of
Naples. ^91 The French and Germans at length withdrew from the
field of battle: Milan, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and the
sea-coast of Tuscany, were firmly possessed by the Spaniards; and
it became their interest to maintain the peace and dependence of
Italy, which continued almost without disturbance from the middle
of the sixteenth to the opening of the eighteenth century. The
Vatican was swayed and protected by the religious policy of the
Catholic king: his prejudice and interest disposed him in every
dispute to support the prince against the people; and instead of
the encouragement, the aid, and the asylum, which they obtained
from the adjacent states, the friends of liberty, or the enemies
of law, were enclosed on all sides within the iron circle of
despotism. The long habits of obedience and education subdued
the turbulent spirit of the nobles and commons of Rome. The
barons forgot the arms and factions of their ancestors, and
insensibly became the servants of luxury and government. Instead
of maintaining a crowd of tenants and followers, the produce of
their estates was consumed in the private expenses which multiply
the pleasures, and diminish the power, of the lord. ^92 The
Colonna and Ursini vied with each other in the decoration of
their palaces and chapels; and their antique splendor was
rivalled or surpassed by the sudden opulence of the papal
families. In Rome the voice of freedom and discord is no longer
heard; and, instead of the foaming torrent, a smooth and stagnant
lake reflects the image of idleness and servitude.
[Footnote 88: By the oeconomy of Sixtus V. the revenue of the
ecclesiastical state was raised to two millions and a half of
Roman crowns, (Vita, tom. ii. p. 291 - 296;) and so regular was
the military establishment, that in one month Clement VIII. could
invade the duchy of Ferrara with three thousand horse and twenty
thousand foot, (tom. iii. p. 64) Since that time (A.D. 1597) the
papal arms are happily rusted: but the revenue must have gained
some nominal increase.
Note: On the financial measures of Sixtus V. see Ranke, Dio
Romischen Papste, i. p. 459. - M.]
[Footnote 89: More especially by Guicciardini and Machiavel; in
the general history of the former, in the Florentine history, the
Prince, and the political discourses of the latter. These, with
their worthy successors, Fra Paolo and Davila, were justly
esteemed the first historians of modern languages, till, in the
present age, Scotland arose, to dispute the prize with Italy
herself.]
[Footnote 90: In the history of the Gothic siege, I have compared
the Barbarians with the subjects of Charles V., (vol. iii. p.
289, 290;) an anticipation, which, like that of the Tartar
conquests, I indulged with the less scruple, as I could scarcely
hope to reach the conclusion of my work.]
[Footnote 91: The ambitious and feeble hostilities of the Caraffa
pope, Paul IV. may be seen in Thuanus (l. xvi. - xviii.) and
Giannone, (tom. iv p. 149 - 163.) Those Catholic bigots, Philip
II. and the duke of Alva, presumed to separate the Roman prince
from the vicar of Christ, yet the holy character, which would
have sanctified his victory was decently applied to protect his
defeat.
Note: But compare Ranke, Die Romischen Papste, i. p. 289. -
M]
[Footnote 92: This gradual change of manners and expense is
admirably explained by Dr. Adam Smith, (Wealth of Nations, vol.
i. p. 495 - 504,) who proves, perhaps too severely, that the most
salutary effects have flowed from the meanest and most selfish
causes.]
A Christian, a philosopher, ^93 and a patriot, will be
equally scandalized by the temporal kingdom of the clergy; and
the local majesty of Rome, the remembrance of her consuls and
triumphs, may seem to imbitter the sense, and aggravate the
shame, of her slavery. If we calmly weigh the merits and defects
of the ecclesiastical government, it may be praised in its
present state, as a mild, decent, and tranquil system, exempt
from the dangers of a minority, the sallies of youth, the
expenses of luxury, and the calamities of war. But these
advantages are overbalanced by a frequent, perhaps a septennial,
election of a sovereign, who is seldom a native of the country;
the reign of a young statesman of threescore, in the decline of
his life and abilities, without hope to accomplish, and without
children to inherit, the labors of his transitory reign. The
successful candidate is drawn from the church, and even the
convent; from the mode of education and life the most adverse to
reason, humanity, and freedom. In the trammels of servile faith,
he has learned to believe because it is absurd, to revere all
that is contemptible, and to despise whatever might deserve the
esteem of a rational being; to punish error as a crime, to reward
mortification and celibacy as the first of virtues; to place the
saints of the calendar ^94 above the heroes of Rome and the sages
of Athens; and to consider the missal, or the crucifix, as more
useful instruments than the plough or the loom. In the office of
nuncio, or the rank of cardinal, he may acquire some knowledge of
the world, but the primitive stain will adhere to his mind and
manners: from study and experience he may suspect the mystery of
his profession; but the sacerdotal artist will imbibe some
portion of the bigotry which he inculcates. The genius of Sixtus
the Fifth ^95 burst from the gloom of a Franciscan cloister. In
a reign of five years, he exterminated the outlaws and banditti,
abolished the profane sanctuaries of Rome, ^96 formed a naval and
military force, restored and emulated the monuments of antiquity,
and after a liberal use and large increase of the revenue, left
five millions of crowns in the castle of St. Angelo. But his
justice was sullied with cruelty, his activity was prompted by
the ambition of conquest: after his decease the abuses revived;
the treasure was dissipated; he entailed on posterity thirty-five
new taxes and the venality of offices; and, after his death, his
statue was demolished by an ungrateful, or an injured, people.
^97 The wild and original character of Sixtus the Fifth stands
alone in the series of the pontiffs; the maxims and effects of
their temporal government may be collected from the positive and
comparative view of the arts and philosophy, the agriculture and
trade, the wealth and population, of the ecclesiastical state.
For myself, it is my wish to depart in charity with all mankind,
nor am I willing, in these last moments, to offend even the pope
and clergy of Rome. ^98
[Footnote 93: Mr. Hume (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 389) too
hastily conclude that if the civil and ecclesiastical powers be
united in the same person, it is of little moment whether he be
styled prince or prelate since the temporal character will always
predominate.]
[Footnote 94: A Protestant may disdain the unworthy preference of
St. Francis or St. Dominic, but he will not rashly condemn the
zeal or judgment of Sixtus V., who placed the statues of the
apostles St. Peter and St. Paul on the vacant columns of Trajan
and Antonine.]
[Footnote 95: A wandering Italian, Gregorio Leti, has given the
Vita di Sisto-Quinto, (Amstel. 1721, 3 vols. in 12mo.,) a copious
and amusing work, but which does not command our absolute
confidence. Yet the character of the man, and the principal
facts, are supported by the annals of Spondanus and Muratori,
(A.D. 1585 - 1590,) and the contemporary history of the great
Thuanus, (l. lxxxii. c. 1, 2, l. lxxxiv c. 10, l. c. c. 8.)
Note: The industry of M. Ranke has discovered the document,
a kind of scandalous chronicle of the time, from which Leti
wrought up his amusing romances. See also M. Ranke's
observations on the Life of Sixtus. by Tempesti, b. iii. p. 317,
324. - M.]
[Footnote 96: These privileged places, the quartieri or
franchises, were adopted from the Roman nobles by the foreign
ministers. Julius II. had once abolished the abominandum et
detestandum franchitiarum hujusmodi nomen: and after Sixtus V.
they again revived. I cannot discern either the justice or
magnanimity of Louis XIV., who, in 1687, sent his ambassador, the
marquis de Lavardin, to Rome, with an armed force of a thousand
officers, guards, and domestics, to maintain this iniquitous
claim, and insult Pope Innocent XI. in the heart of his capital,
(Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 260 - 278. Muratori, Annali
d'Italia, tom. xv. p. 494 - 496, and Voltaire, Siccle de Louis
XIV. tom. i. c. 14, p. 58, 59.)]
[Footnote 97: This outrage produced a decree, which was inscribed
on marble, and placed in the Capitol. It is expressed in a style
of manly simplicity and freedom: Si quis, sive privatus, sive
magistratum gerens de collocanda vivo pontifici statua mentionem
facere ausit, legitimo S. P. Q. R. decreto in perpetuum infamis
et publicorum munerum expers esto. MDXC. mense Augusto, (Vita di
Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 469.) I believe that this decree is still
observed, and I know that every monarch who deserves a statue
should himself impose the prohibition.]
[Footnote 98: The histories of the church, Italy, and
Christendom, have contributed to the chapter which I now
conclude. In the original Lives of the Popes, we often discover
the city and republic of Rome: and the events of the xivth and
xvth centuries are preserved in the rude and domestic chronicles
which I have carefully inspected, and shall recapitulate in the
order of time.
1. Monaldeschi (Ludovici Boncomitis) Fragmenta Annalium
Roman. A.D. 1328, in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of
Muratori, tom. xii. p. 525. N. B. The credit of this fragment is
somewhat hurt by a singular interpolation, in which the author
relates his own death at the age of 115 years.
2. Fragmenta Historiae Romanae (vulgo Thomas Fortifioccae)
in Romana Dialecto vulgari, (A.D. 1327 - 1354, in Muratori,
Antiquitat. Medii Aevi Italiae, tom. iii. p. 247 - 548;) the
authentic groundwork of the history of Rienzi.
3. Delphini (Gentilis) Diarium Romanum, (A.D. 1370 - 1410,)
in the Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 846. 4. Antonii
(Petri) Diarium Rom, (A.D. 1404 - 1417,) tom. xxiv. p. 699.
5. Petroni (Pauli) Miscellanea Historica Romana, (A.D. 1433
- 1446,) tom. xxiv. p. 1101.
6. Volaterrani (Jacob.) Diarium Rom., (A.D. 1472 - 1484,)
tom. xxiii p. 81.
7. Anonymi Diarium Urbis Romae, (A.D. 1481 - 1492,) tom.
iii. P. ii. p. 1069.
8. Infessurae (Stephani) Diarium Romanum, (A.D. 1294, or
1378 - 1494,) tom. iii. P. ii. p. 1109.
9. Historia Arcana Alexandri VI. sive Excerpta ex Diario
Joh. Burcardi, (A.D. 1492 - 1503,) edita a Godefr. Gulielm.
Leibnizio, Hanover, 697, in 4to. The large and valuable Journal
of Burcard might be completed from the MSS. in different
libraries of Italy and France, (M. de Foncemagne, in the Memoires
de l'Acad. des Inscrip. tom. xvii. p. 597 - 606.)
Except the last, all these fragments and diaries are inserted in
the Collections of Muratori, my guide and master in the history
of Italy. His country, and the public, are indebted to him for
the following works on that subject: 1. Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores, (A.D. 500 - 1500,) quorum potissima pars nunc primum
in lucem prodit, &c., xxviii. vols. in folio, Milan, 1723 - 1738,
1751. A volume of chronological and alphabetical tables is still
wanting as a key to this great work, which is yet in a disorderly
and defective state. 2. Antiquitates Italiae Medii Aevi, vi.
vols. in folio, Milan, 1738 - 1743, in lxxv. curious
dissertations, on the manners, government, religion, &c., of the
Italians of the darker ages, with a large supplement of charters,
chronicles, &c. 3. Dissertazioni sopra le Antiquita Italiane,
iii. vols. in 4to., Milano, 1751, a free version by the author,
which may be quoted with the same confidence as the Latin text of
the Antiquities. Annali d' Italia, xviii. vols. in octavo,
Milan, 1753 - 1756, a dry, though accurate and useful, abridgment
of the history of Italy, from the birth of Christ to the middle
of the xviiith century. 5. Dell' Antichita Estense ed Italiane,
ii. vols, in folio, Modena, 1717, 1740. In the history of this
illustrious race, the parent of our Brunswick kings, the critic
is not seduced by the loyalty or gratitude of the subject. In
all his works, Muratori approves himself a diligent and laborious
writer, who aspires above the prejudices of a Catholic priest.
He was born in the year 1672, and died in the year 1750, after
passing near 60 years in the libraries of Milan and Modena, (Vita
del Proposto Ludovico Antonio Muratori, by his nephew and
successor Gian. Francesco Soli Muratori Venezia, 1756 m 4to.)]
Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth
Century.
Part I.
Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth Century. -
Four Causes Of Decay And Destruction. - Example Of The Coliseum.
- Renovation Of The City. - Conclusion Of The Whole Work.
In the last days of Pope Eugenius the Fourth, ^* two of his
servants, the learned Poggius ^1 and a friend, ascended the
Capitoline hill; reposed themselves among the ruins of columns
and temples; and viewed from that commanding spot the wide and
various prospect of desolation. ^2 The place and the object gave
ample scope for moralizing on the vicissitudes of fortune, which
spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries
empires and cities in a common grave; and it was agreed, that in
proportion to her former greatness, the fall of Rome was the more
awful and deplorable. "Her primeval state, such as she might
appear in a remote age, when Evander entertained the stranger of
Troy, ^3 has been delineated by the fancy of Virgil. This
Tarpeian rock was then a savage and solitary thicket: in the time
of the poet, it was crowned with the golden roofs of a temple;
the temple is overthrown, the gold has been pillaged, the wheel
of fortune has accomplished her revolution, and the sacred ground
is again disfigured with thorns and brambles. The hill of the
Capitol, on which we sit, was formerly the head of the Roman
empire, the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings;
illustrated by the footsteps of so many triumphs, enriched with
the spoils and tributes of so many nations. This spectacle of
the world, how is it fallen! how changed! how defaced! The path
of victory is obliterated by vines, and the benches of the
senators are concealed by a dunghill. Cast your eyes on the
Palatine hill, and seek among the shapeless and enormous
fragments the marble theatre, the obelisks, the colossal statues,
the porticos of Nero's palace: survey the other hills of the
city, the vacant space is interrupted only by ruins and gardens.
The forum of the Roman people, where they assembled to enact
their laws and elect their magistrates, is now enclosed for the
cultivation of pot-herbs, or thrown open for the reception of
swine and buffaloes. The public and private edifices, that were
founded for eternity, lie prostrate, naked, and broken, like the
limbs of a mighty giant; and the ruin is the more visible, from
the stupendous relics that have survived the injuries of time and
fortune." ^4
[Footnote *: It should be Pope Martin the Fifth. See Gibbon's
own note, ch. lxv, note 51 and Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe
Harold, p. 155. - M.]
[Footnote 1: I have already (notes 50, 51, on chap. lxv.)
mentioned the age, character, and writings of Poggius; and
particularly noticed the date of this elegant moral lecture on
the varieties of fortune.]
[Footnote 2: Consedimus in ipsis Tarpeiae arcis ruinis, pone
ingens portae cujusdam, ut puto, templi, marmoreum limen,
plurimasque passim confractas columnas, unde magna ex parte
prospectus urbis patet, (p. 5.)]
[Footnote 3: Aeneid viii. 97 - 369. This ancient picture, so
artfully introduced, and so exquisitely finished, must have been
highly interesting to an inhabitant of Rome; and our early
studies allow us to sympathize in the feelings of a Roman.]
[Footnote 4: Capitolium adeo . . . . immutatum ut vineae in
senatorum subellia successerint, stercorum ac purgamentorum
receptaculum factum. Respice ad Palatinum montem . . . . . vasta
rudera . . . . caeteroscolles perlustra omnia vacua aedificiis,
ruinis vineisque oppleta conspicies, (Poggius, de Varietat.
Fortunae p. 21.)]
These relics are minutely described by Poggius, one of the
first who raised his eyes from the monuments of legendary, to
those of classic, superstition. ^5 1. Besides a bridge, an arch,
a sepulchre, and the pyramid of Cestius, he could discern, of the
age of the republic, a double row of vaults, in the salt-office
of the Capitol, which were inscribed with the name and
munificence of Catulus. 2. Eleven temples were visible in some
degree, from the perfect form of the Pantheon, to the three
arches and a marble column of the temple of Peace, which
Vespasian erected after the civil wars and the Jewish triumph.
3. Of the number, which he rashly defines, of seven thermoe, or
public baths, none were sufficiently entire to represent the use
and distribution of the several parts: but those of Diocletian
and Antoninus Caracalla still retained the titles of the
founders, and astonished the curious spectator, who, in observing
their solidity and extent, the variety of marbles, the size and
multitude of the columns, compared the labor and expense with the
use and importance. Of the baths of Constantine, of Alexander,
of Domitian, or rather of Titus, some vestige might yet be found.
4. The triumphal arches of Titus, Severus, and Constantine, were
entire, both the structure and the inscriptions; a falling
fragment was honored with the name of Trajan; and two arches,
then extant, in the Flaminian way, have been ascribed to the
baser memory of Faustina and Gallienus. ^* 5. After the wonder of
the Coliseum, Poggius might have overlooked small amphitheatre of
brick, most probably for the use of the praetorian camp: the
theatres of Marcellus and Pompey were occupied in a great measure
by public and private buildings; and in the Circus, Agonalis and
Maximus, little more than the situation and the form could be
investigated. 6. The columns of Trajan and Antonine were still
erect; but the Egyptian obelisks were broken or buried. A people
of gods and heroes, the workmanship of art, was reduced to one
equestrian figure of gilt brass, and to five marble statues, of
which the most conspicuous were the two horses of Phidias and
Praxiteles. 7. The two mausoleums or sepulchres of Augustus and
Hadrian could not totally be lost: but the former was only
visible as a mound of earth; and the latter, the castle of St.
Angelo, had acquired the name and appearance of a modern
fortress. With the addition of some separate and nameless
columns, such were the remains of the ancient city; for the marks
of a more recent structure might be detected in the walls, which
formed a circumference of ten miles, included three hundred and
seventy-nine turrets, and opened into the country by thirteen
gates.
[Footnote 5: See Poggius, p. 8 - 22.]
[Footnote *: One was in the Via Nomentana; est alter praetevea
Gallieno principi dicatus, ut superscriptio indicat, Via
Nomentana. Hobhouse, p. 154. Poggio likewise mentions the
building which Gibbon ambiguously says be "might have
overlooked." - M.]
This melancholy picture was drawn above nine hundred years
after the fall of the Western empire, and even of the Gothic
kingdom of Italy. A long period of distress and anarchy, in
which empire, and arts, and riches had migrated from the banks of
the Tyber, was incapable of restoring or adorning the city; and,
as all that is human must retrograde if it do not advance, every
successive age must have hastened the ruin of the works of
antiquity. To measure the progress of decay, and to ascertain, at
each aera, the state of each edifice, would be an endless and a
useless labor; and I shall content myself with two observations,
which will introduce a short inquiry into the general causes and
effects. 1. Two hundred years before the eloquent complaint of
Poggius, an anonymous writer composed a description of Rome. ^6
His ignorance may repeat the same objects under strange and
fabulous names. Yet this barbarous topographer had eyes and ears;
he could observe the visible remains; he could listen to the
tradition of the people; and he distinctly enumerates seven
theatres, eleven baths, twelve arches, and eighteen palaces, of
which many had disappeared before the time of Poggius. It is
apparent, that many stately monuments of antiquity survived till
a late period, ^7 and that the principles of destruction acted
with vigorous and increasing energy in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. 2. The same reflection must be applied to
the three last ages; and we should vainly seek the Septizonium of
Severus; ^8 which is celebrated by Petrarch and the antiquarians
of the sixteenth century. While the Roman edifices were still
entire, the first blows, however weighty and impetuous, were
resisted by the solidity of the mass and the harmony of the
parts; but the slightest touch would precipitate the fragments of
arches and columns, that already nodded to their fall.
[Footnote 6: Liber de Mirabilibus Romae ex Registro Nicolai
Cardinalis de Amagonia in Bibliotheca St. Isidori Armario IV.,
No. 69. This treatise, with some short but pertinent notes, has
been published by Montfaucon, (Diarium Italicum, p. 283 - 301,)
who thus delivers his own critical opinion: Scriptor xiiimi.
circiter saeculi, ut ibidem notatur; antiquariae rei imperitus
et, ut ab illo aevo, nugis et anilibus fabellis refertus: sed,
quia monumenta, quae iis temporibus Romae supererant pro modulo
recenset, non parum inde lucis mutuabitur qu Romanis
antiquitatibus indagandis operam navabit, (p. 283.)]
[Footnote 7: The Pere Mabillon (Analecta, tom. iv. p. 502) has
published an anonymous pilgrim of the ixth century, who, in his
visit round the churches and holy places at Rome, touches on
several buildings, especially porticos, which had disappeared
before the xiiith century.]
[Footnote 8: On the Septizonium, see the Memoires sur Petrarque,
(tom. i. p. 325,) Donatus, (p. 338,) and Nardini, (p. 117, 414.)]
After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal
causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a
period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and
nature. II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and
Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV.
The domestic quarrels of the Romans.
I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more
permanent than the narrow span of his own existence; yet these
monuments, like himself, are perishable and frail; and in the
boundless annals of time, his life and his labors must equally be
measured as a fleeting moment. Of a simple and solid edifice, it
is not easy, however, to circumscribe the duration. As the
wonders of ancient days, the pyramids ^9 attracted the curiosity
of the ancients: a hundred generations, the leaves of autumn,
have dropped ^10 into the grave; and after the fall of the
Pharaohs and Ptolemies, the Caesars and caliphs, the same
pyramids stand erect and unshaken above the floods of the Nile.
A complex figure of various and minute parts to more accessible
to injury and decay; and the silent lapse of time is often
accelerated by hurricanes and earthquakes, by fires and
inundations. The air and earth have doubtless been shaken; and
the lofty turrets of Rome have tottered from their foundations;
but the seven hills do not appear to be placed on the great
cavities of the globe; nor has the city, in any age, been exposed
to the convulsions of nature, which, in the climate of Antioch,
Lisbon, or Lima, have crumbled in a few moments the works of ages
into dust. Fire is the most powerful agent of life and death:
the rapid mischief may be kindled and propagated by the industry
or negligence of mankind; and every period of the Roman annals is
marked by the repetition of similar calamities. A memorable
conflagration, the guilt or misfortune of Nero's reign,
continued, though with unequal fury, either six or nine days. ^11
Innumerable buildings, crowded in close and crooked streets,
supplied perpetual fuel for the flames; and when they ceased,
four only of the fourteen regions were left entire; three were
totally destroyed, and seven were deformed by the relics of
smoking and lacerated edifices. ^12 In the full meridian of
empire, the metropolis arose with fresh beauty from her ashes;
yet the memory of the old deplored their irreparable losses, the
arts of Greece, the trophies of victory, the monuments of
primitive or fabulous antiquity. In the days of distress and
anarchy, every wound is mortal, every fall irretrievable; nor can
the damage be restored either by the public care of government,
or the activity of private interest. Yet two causes may be
alleged, which render the calamity of fire more destructive to a
flourishing than a decayed city. 1. The more combustible
materials of brick, timber, and metals, are first melted or
consumed; but the flames may play without injury or effect on the
naked walls, and massy arches, that have been despoiled of their
ornaments. 2. It is among the common and plebeian habitations,
that a mischievous spark is most easily blown to a conflagration;
but as soon as they are devoured, the greater edifices, which
have resisted or escaped, are left as so many islands in a state
of solitude and safety. From her situation, Rome is exposed to
the danger of frequent inundations. Without excepting the Tyber,
the rivers that descend from either side of the Apennine have a
short and irregular course; a shallow stream in the summer heats;
an impetuous torrent, when it is swelled in the spring or winter,
by the fall of rain, and the melting of the snows. When the
current is repelled from the sea by adverse winds, when the
ordinary bed is inadequate to the weight of waters, they rise
above the banks, and overspread, without limits or control, the
plains and cities of the adjacent country. Soon after the
triumph of the first Punic war, the Tyber was increased by
unusual rains; and the inundation, surpassing all former measure
of time and place, destroyed all the buildings that were situated
below the hills of Rome. According to the variety of ground, the
same mischief was produced by different means; and the edifices
were either swept away by the sudden impulse, or dissolved and
undermined by the long continuance, of the flood. ^13 Under the
reign of Augustus, the same calamity was renewed: the lawless
river overturned the palaces and temples on its banks; ^14 and,
after the labors of the emperor in cleansing and widening the bed
that was encumbered with ruins, ^15 the vigilance of his
successors was exercised by similar dangers and designs. The
project of diverting into new channels the Tyber itself, or some
of the dependent streams, was long opposed by superstition and
local interests; ^16 nor did the use compensate the toil and cost
of the tardy and imperfect execution. The servitude of rivers is
the noblest and most important victory which man has obtained
over the licentiousness of nature; ^17 and if such were the
ravages of the Tyber under a firm and active government, what
could oppose, or who can enumerate, the injuries of the city,
after the fall of the Western empire? A remedy was at length
produced by the evil itself: the accumulation of rubbish and the
earth, that has been washed down from the hills, is supposed to
have elevated the plain of Rome, fourteen or fifteen feet,
perhaps, above the ancient level; ^18 and the modern city is less
accessible to the attacks of the river. ^19
[Footnote 9: The age of the pyramids is remote and unknown, since
Diodorus Siculus (tom. i l. i. c. 44, p. 72) is unable to decide
whether they were constructed 1000, or 3400, years before the
clxxxth Olympiad. Sir John Marsham's contracted scale of the
Egyptian dynasties would fix them about 2000 years before Christ,
(Canon. Chronicus, p. 47.)]
[Footnote 10: See the speech of Glaucus in the Iliad, (Z. 146.)
This natural but melancholy image is peculiar to Homer.]
[Footnote 11: The learning and criticism of M. des Vignoles
(Histoire Critique de la Republique des Lettres, tom. viii. p. 47
- 118, ix. p. 172 - 187) dates the fire of Rome from A.D. 64,
July 19, and the subsequent persecution of the Christians from
November 15 of the same year.]
[Footnote 12: Quippe in regiones quatuordecim Roma dividitur,
quarum quatuor integrae manebant, tres solo tenus dejectae:
septem reliquis pauca testorum vestigia supererant, lacera et
semiusta. Among the old relics that were irreparably lost,
Tacitus enumerates the temple of the moon of Servius Tullius; the
fane and altar consecrated by Evander praesenti Herculi; the
temple of Jupiter Stator, a vow of Romulus; the palace of Numa;
the temple of Vesta cum Penatibus populi Romani. He then
deplores the opes tot victoriis quaesitae et Graecarum artium
decora . . . . multa quae seniores meminerant, quae reparari
nequibant, (Annal. xv. 40, 41.)]
[Footnote 13: A. U. C. 507, repentina subversio ipsius Romae
praevenit triumphum Romanorum. . . . . diversae ignium aquarumque
cladespene absumsere urbem Nam Tiberis insolitis auctus imbribus
et ultra opinionem, vel diuturnitate vel maguitudine redundans
omnia Romae aedificia in plano posita delevit. Diversae
qualitate locorum ad unam convenere perniciem: quoniam et quae
segniori inundatio tenuit madefacta dissolvit, et quae cursus
torrentis invenit impulsa dejecit, (Orosius, Hist. l. iv. c. 11,
p. 244, edit. Havercamp.) Yet we may observe, that it is the plan
and study of the Christian apologist to magnify the calamities of
the Pagan world.]
[Footnote 14: Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis
Littore Etrusco violenter undis,
Ire dejectum monumenta Regis
Templaque Vestae.
(Horat. Carm. I. 2.)
If the palace of Numa and temple of Vesta were thrown down in
Horace's time, what was consumed of those buildings by Nero's
fire could hardly deserve the epithets of vetustissima or
incorrupta.]
[Footnote 15: Ad coercendas inundationes alveum Tiberis laxavit,
ac repurgavit, completum olim ruderibus, et aedificiorum
prolapsionibus coarctatum, (Suetonius in Augusto, c. 30.)]
[Footnote 16: Tacitus (Annal. i. 79) reports the petitions of the
different towns of Italy to the senate against the measure; and
we may applaud the progress of reason. On a similar occasion,
local interests would undoubtedly be consulted: but an English
House of Commons would reject with contempt the arguments of
superstition, "that nature had assigned to the rivers their
proper course," &c.]
[Footnote 17: See the Epoques de la Nature of the eloquent and
philosophic Buffon. His picture of Guyana, in South America, is
that of a new and savage land, in which the waters are abandoned
to themselves without being regulated by human industry, (p. 212,
561, quarto edition.)]
[Footnote 18: In his travels in Italy, Mr. Addison (his works,
vol. ii. p. 98, Baskerville's edition) has observed this curious
and unquestionable fact.]
[Footnote 19: Yet in modern times, the Tyber has sometimes
damaged the city, and in the years 1530, 1557, 1598, the annals
of Muratori record three mischievous and memorable inundations,
(tom. xiv. p. 268, 429, tom. xv. p. 99, &c.)
Note: The level of the Tyber was at one time supposed to be
considerably raised: recent investigations seem to be conclusive
against this supposition. See a brief, but satisfactory statement
of the question in Bunsen and Platner, Roms Beschreibung. vol. i.
p. 29. - M.]
II. The crowd of writers of every nation, who impute the
destruction of the Roman monuments to the Goths and the
Christians, have neglected to inquire how far they were animated
by a hostile principle, and how far they possessed the means and
the leisure to satiate their enmity. In the preceding volumes of
this History, I have described the triumph of barbarism and
religion; and I can only resume, in a few words, their real or
imaginary connection with the ruin of ancient Rome. Our fancy
may create, or adopt, a pleasing romance, that the Goths and
Vandals sallied from Scandinavia, ardent to avenge the flight of
Odin; ^20 to break the chains, and to chastise the oppressors, of
mankind; that they wished to burn the records of classic
literature, and to found their national architecture on the
broken members of the Tuscan and Corinthian orders. But in
simple truth, the northern conquerors were neither sufficiently
savage, nor sufficiently refined, to entertain such aspiring
ideas of destruction and revenge. The shepherds of Scythia and
Germany had been educated in the armies of the empire, whose
discipline they acquired, and whose weakness they invaded: with
the familiar use of the Latin tongue, they had learned to
reverence the name and titles of Rome; and, though incapable of
emulating, they were more inclined to admire, than to abolish,
the arts and studies of a brighter period. In the transient
possession of a rich and unresisting capital, the soldiers of
Alaric and Genseric were stimulated by the passions of a
victorious army; amidst the wanton indulgence of lust or cruelty,
portable wealth was the object of their search; nor could they
derive either pride or pleasure from the unprofitable reflection,
that they had battered to the ground the works of the consuls and
Caesars. Their moments were indeed precious; the Goths evacuated
Rome on the sixth, ^21 the Vandals on the fifteenth, day: ^22
and, though it be far more difficult to build than to destroy,
their hasty assault would have made a slight impression on the
solid piles of antiquity. We may remember, that both Alaric and
Genseric affected to spare the buildings of the city; that they
subsisted in strength and beauty under the auspicious government
of Theodoric; ^23 and that the momentary resentment of Totila ^24
was disarmed by his own temper and the advice of his friends and
enemies. From these innocent Barbarians, the reproach may be
transferred to the Catholics of Rome. The statues, altars, and
houses, of the daemons, were an abomination in their eyes; and in
the absolute command of the city, they might labor with zeal and
perseverance to erase the idolatry of their ancestors. The
demolition of the temples in the East ^25 affords to them an
example of conduct, and to us an argument of belief; and it is
probable that a portion of guilt or merit may be imputed with
justice to the Roman proselytes. Yet their abhorrence was
confined to the monuments of heathen superstition; and the civil
structures that were dedicated to the business or pleasure of
society might be preserved without injury or scandal. The change
of religion was accomplished, not by a popular tumult, but by the
decrees of the emperors, of the senate, and of time. Of the
Christian hierarchy, the bishops of Rome were commonly the most
prudent and least fanatic; nor can any positive charge be opposed
to the meritorious act of saving or converting the majestic
structure of the Pantheon. ^26 ^*
[Footnote 20: I take this opportunity of declaring, that in the
course of twelve years, I have forgotten, or renounced, the
flight of Odin from Azoph to Sweden, which I never very seriously
believed, (vol. i. p. 283.) The Goths are apparently Germans: but
all beyond Caesar and Tacitus is darkness or fable, in the
antiquities of Germany.]
[Footnote 21: History of the Decline, &c., vol. iii. p. 291.]
[Footnote 22: - vol. iii. p. 464.]
[Footnote 23: - vol. iv. p. 23 - 25.]
[Footnote 24: - vol. iv. p. 258.]
[Footnote 25: - vol. iii. c. xxviii. p. 139 - 148.]
[Footnote 26: Eodem tempore petiit a Phocate principe templum,
quod appellatur Pantheon, in quo fecit ecclesiam Sanctae Mariae
semper Virginis, et omnium martyrum; in qua ecclesiae princeps
multa bona obtulit, (Anastasius vel potius Liber Pontificalis in
Bonifacio IV., in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii.
P. i. p. 135.) According to the anonymous writer in Montfaucon,
the Pantheon had been vowed by Agrippa to Cybele and Neptune, and
was dedicated by Boniface IV., on the calends of November, to the
Virgin, quae est mater omnium sanctorum, (p. 297, 298.)]
[Footnote *: The popes, under the dominion of the emperor and of
the exarcha, according to Feas's just observation, did not
possess the power of disposing of the buildings and monuments of
the city according to their own will. Bunsen and Platner, vol. i.
p. 241. - M.]
III. The value of any object that supplies the wants or
pleasures of mankind is compounded of its substance and its form,
of the materials and the manufacture. Its price must depend on
the number of persons by whom it may be acquired and used; on the
extent of the market; and consequently on the ease or difficulty
of remote exportation, according to the nature of the commodity,
its local situation, and the temporary circumstances of the
world. The Barbarian conquerors of Rome usurped in a moment the
toil and treasure of successive ages; but, except the luxuries of
immediate consumption, they must view without desire all that
could not be removed from the city in the Gothic wagons or the
fleet of the Vandals. ^27 Gold and silver were the first objects
of their avarice; as in every country, and in the smallest
compass, they represent the most ample command of the industry
and possessions of mankind. A vase or a statue of those precious
metals might tempt the vanity of some Barbarian chief; but the
grosser multitude, regardless of the form, was tenacious only of
the substance; and the melted ingots might be readily divided and
stamped into the current coin of the empire. The less active or
less fortunate robbers were reduced to the baser plunder of
brass, lead, iron, and copper: whatever had escaped the Goths and
Vandals was pillaged by the Greek tyrants; and the emperor
Constans, in his rapacious visit, stripped the bronze tiles from
the roof of the Pantheon. ^28 The edifices of Rome might be
considered as a vast and various mine; the first labor of
extracting the materials was already performed; the metals were
purified and cast; the marbles were hewn and polished; and after
foreign and domestic rapine had been satiated, the remains of the
city, could a purchaser have been found, were still venal. The
monuments of antiquity had been left naked of their precious
ornaments; but the Romans would demolish with their own hands the
arches and walls, if the hope of profit could surpass the cost of
the labor and exportation. If Charlemagne had fixed in Italy the
seat of the Western empire, his genius would have aspired to
restore, rather than to violate, the works of the Caesars; but
policy confined the French monarch to the forests of Germany; his
taste could be gratified only by destruction; and the new palace
of Aix la Chapelle was decorated with the marbles of Ravenna ^29
and Rome. ^30 Five hundred years after Charlemagne, a king of
Sicily, Robert, the wisest and most liberal sovereign of the age,
was supplied with the same materials by the easy navigation of
the Tyber and the sea; and Petrarch sighs an indignant complaint,
that the ancient capital of the world should adorn from her own
bowels the slothful luxury of Naples. ^31 But these examples of
plunder or purchase were rare in the darker ages; and the Romans,
alone and unenvied, might have applied to their private or public
use the remaining structures of antiquity, if in their present
form and situation they had not been useless in a great measure
to the city and its inhabitants. The walls still described the
old circumference, but the city had descended from the seven
hills into the Campus Martius; and some of the noblest monuments
which had braved the injuries of time were left in a desert, far
remote from the habitations of mankind. The palaces of the
senators were no longer adapted to the manners or fortunes of
their indigent successors: the use of baths ^32 and porticos was
forgotten: in the sixth century, the games of the theatre,
amphitheatre, and circus, had been interrupted: some temples were
devoted to the prevailing worship; but the Christian churches
preferred the holy figure of the cross; and fashion, or reason,
had distributed after a peculiar model the cells and offices of
the cloister. Under the ecclesiastical reign, the number of
these pious foundations was enormously multiplied; and the city
was crowded with forty monasteries of men, twenty of women, and
sixty chapters and colleges of canons and priests, ^33 who
aggravated, instead of relieving, the depopulation of the tenth
century. But if the forms of ancient architecture were
disregarded by a people insensible of their use and beauty, the
plentiful materials were applied to every call of necessity or
superstition; till the fairest columns of the Ionic and
Corinthian orders, the richest marbles of Paros and Numidia, were
degraded, perhaps to the support of a convent or a stable. The
daily havoc which is perpetrated by the Turks in the cities of
Greece and Asia may afford a melancholy example; and in the
gradual destruction of the monuments of Rome, Sixtus the Fifth
may alone be excused for employing the stones of the Septizonium
in the glorious edifice of St. Peter's. ^34 A fragment, a ruin,
howsoever mangled or profaned, may be viewed with pleasure and
regret; but the greater part of the marble was deprived of
substance, as well as of place and proportion; it was burnt to
lime for the purpose of cement. ^* Since the arrival of Poggius,
the temple of Concord, ^35 and many capital structures, had
vanished from his eyes; and an epigram of the same age expresses
a just and pious fear, that the continuance of this practice
would finally annihilate all the monuments of antiquity. ^36 The
smallness of their numbers was the sole check on the demands and
depredations of the Romans. The imagination of Petrarch might
create the presence of a mighty people; ^37 and I hesitate to
believe, that, even in the fourteenth century, they could be
reduced to a contemptible list of thirty-three thousand
inhabitants. From that period to the reign of Leo the Tenth, if
they multiplied to the amount of eighty-five thousand, ^38 the
increase of citizens was in some degree pernicious to the ancient
city.
[Footnote 27: Flaminius Vacca (apud Montfaucon, p. 155, 156. His
memoir is likewise printed, p. 21, at the end of the Roman Antica
of Nardini) and several Romans, doctrina graves, were persuaded
that the Goths buried their treasures at Rome, and bequeathed the
secret marks filiis nepotibusque. He relates some anedotes to
prove, that in his own time, these places were visited and rifled
by the Transalpine pilgrims, the heirs of the Gothic conquerors.]
[Footnote 28: Omnia quae erant in aere ad ornatum civitatis
deposuit, sed e ecclesiam B. Mariae ad martyres quae de tegulis
aereis cooperta discooperuit, (Anast. in Vitalian. p. 141.) The
base and sacrilegious Greek had not even the poor pretence of
plundering a heathen temple, the Pantheon was already a Catholic
church.]
[Footnote 29: For the spoils of Ravenna (musiva atque marmora)
see the original grant of Pope Adrian I. to Charlemagne, (Codex
Carolin. epist. lxvii. in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. P.
ii. p. 223.)]
[Footnote 30: I shall quote the authentic testimony of the Saxon
poet, (A.D. 887 - 899,) de Rebus gestis Caroli magni, l. v. 437 -
440, in the Historians of France, (tom. v. p. 180:)
Ad quae marmoreas praestabat Roma columnas,
Quasdam praecipuas pul hra Ravenna dedit.
De tam longinqua poterit regiona vetustas
Illius ornatum, Francia, ferre tibi.
And I shall add from the Chronicle of Sigebert, (Historians of
France, tom. v. p. 378,) extruxit etiam Aquisgrani basilicam
plurimae pulchritudinis, ad cujus structuram a Roma et Ravenna
columnas et marmora devehi fecit.]
[Footnote 31: I cannot refuse to transcribe a long passage of
Petrarch (Opp. p. 536, 537) in Epistola hortatoria ad Nicolaum
Laurentium; it is so strong and full to the point: Nec pudor aut
pietas continuit quominus impii spoliata Dei templa, occupatas
arces, opes publicas, regiones urbis, atque honores magistratuum
inter se divisos; (habeant?) quam una in re, turbulenti ac
seditiosi homines et totius reliquae vitae consiliis et
rationibus discordes, inhumani foederis stupenda societate
convenirent, in pontes et moenia atque immeritos lapides
desaevirent. Denique post vi vel senio collapsa palatia, quae
quondam ingentes tenuerunt viri, post diruptos arcus triumphales,
(unde majores horum forsitan corruerunt,) de ipsius vetustatis ac
propriae impietatis fragminibus vilem quaestum turpi mercimonio
captare non puduit. Itaque nunc, heu dolor! heu scelus indignum!
de vestris marmoreis columnis, de liminibus templorum, (ad quae
nuper ex orbe toto concursus devotissimus fiebat,) de imaginibus
sepulchrorum sub quibus patrum vestrorum venerabilis civis
(cinis?) erat, ut reliquas sileam, desidiosa Neapolis adornatur.
Sic paullatim ruinae ipsae deficiunt. Yet King Robert was the
friend of Petrarch.]
[Footnote 32: Yet Charlemagne washed and swam at Aix la Chapelle
with a hundred of his courtiers, (Eginhart, c. 22, p. 108, 109,)
and Muratori describes, as late as the year 814, the public baths
which were built at Spoleto in Italy, (Annali, tom. vi. p. 416.)]
[Footnote 33: See the Annals of Italy, A.D. 988. For this and
the preceding fact, Muratori himself is indebted to the
Benedictine history of Pere Mabillon.]
[Footnote 34: Vita di Sisto Quinto, da Gregorio Leti, tom. iii.
p. 50.]
[Footnote *: From the quotations in Bunsen's Dissertation, it may
be suspected that this slow but continual process of destruction
was the most fatal. - M]
[Footnote 35: Porticus aedis Concordiae, quam cum primum ad urbem
accessi vidi fere integram opere marmoreo admodum specioso:
Romani postmodum ad calcem aedem totam et porticus partem
disjectis columnis sunt demoliti, (p. 12.) The temple of Concord
was therefore not destroyed by a sedition in the xiiith century,
as I have read in a MS. treatise del' Governo civile di Rome,
lent me formerly at Rome, and ascribed (I believe falsely) to the
celebrated Gravina. Poggius likewise affirms that the sepulchre
of Caecilia Metella was burnt for lime, (p. 19, 20.)]
[Footnote 36: Composed by Aeneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius
II., and published by Mabillon, from a Ms. of the queen of
Sweden, (Musaeum Italicum, tom. i. p. 97.)
Oblectat me, Roma, tuas spectare ruinas:
Ex cujus lapsu gloria prisca patet.
Sed tuus hic populus muris defossa vetustis
Calcis in obsequium marmora dura coquit.
Impia tercentum si sic gens egerit annos
Nullum hinc indicium nobilitatis erit.]
[Footnote 37: Vagabamur pariter in illa urbe tam magna; quae, cum
propter spatium vacua videretur, populum habet immensum, (Opp p.
605 Epist. Familiares, ii. 14.)]
[Footnote 38: These states of the population of Rome at different
periods are derived from an ingenious treatise of the physician
Lancisi, de Romani Coeli Qualitatibus, (p. 122.)]
IV. I have reserved for the last, the most potent and
forcible cause of destruction, the domestic hostilities of the
Romans themselves. Under the dominion of the Greek and French
emperors, the peace of the city was disturbed by accidental,
though frequent, seditions: it is from the decline of the latter,
from the beginning of the tenth century, that we may date the
licentiousness of private war, which violated with impunity the
laws of the Code and the Gospel, without respecting the majesty
of the absent sovereign, or the presence and person of the vicar
of Christ. In a dark period of five hundred years, Rome was
perpetually afflicted by the sanguinary quarrels of the nobles
and the people, the Guelphs and Ghibelines, the Colonna and
Ursini; and if much has escaped the knowledge, and much is
unworthy of the notice, of history, I have exposed in the two
preceding chapters the causes and effects of the public
disorders. At such a time, when every quarrel was decided by the
sword, and none could trust their lives or properties to the
impotence of law, the powerful citizens were armed for safety, or
offence, against the domestic enemies whom they feared or hated.
Except Venice alone, the same dangers and designs were common to
all the free republics of Italy; and the nobles usurped the
prerogative of fortifying their houses, and erecting strong
towers, ^39 that were capable of resisting a sudden attack. The
cities were filled with these hostile edifices; and the example
of Lucca, which contained three hundred towers; her law, which
confined their height to the measure of fourscore feet, may be
extended with suitable latitude to the more opulent and populous
states. The first step of the senator Brancaleone in the
establishment of peace and justice, was to demolish (as we have
already seen) one hundred and forty of the towers of Rome; and,
in the last days of anarchy and discord, as late as the reign of
Martin the Fifth, forty-four still stood in one of the thirteen
or fourteen regions of the city. To this mischievous purpose the
remains of antiquity were most readily adapted: the temples and
arches afforded a broad and solid basis for the new structures of
brick and stone; and we can name the modern turrets that were
raised on the triumphal monuments of Julius Caesar, Titus, and
the Antonines. ^40 With some slight alterations, a theatre, an
amphitheatre, a mausoleum, was transformed into a strong and
spacious citadel. I need not repeat, that the mole of Adrian has
assumed the title and form of the castle of St. Angelo; ^41 the
Septizonium of Severus was capable of standing against a royal
army; ^42 the sepulchre of Metella has sunk under its outworks;
^43 ^* the theatres of Pompey and Marcellus were occupied by the
Savelli and Ursini families; ^44 and the rough fortress has been
gradually softened to the splendor and elegance of an Italian
palace. Even the churches were encompassed with arms and
bulwarks, and the military engines on the roof of St. Peter's
were the terror of the Vatican and the scandal of the Christian
world. Whatever is fortified will be attacked; and whatever is
attacked may be destroyed. Could the Romans have wrested from
the popes the castle of St. Angelo, they had resolved by a public
decree to annihilate that monument of servitude. Every building
of defence was exposed to a siege; and in every siege the arts
and engines of destruction were laboriously employed. After the
death of Nicholas the Fourth, Rome, without a sovereign or a
senate, was abandoned six months to the fury of civil war. "The
houses," says a cardinal and poet of the times, ^45 "were crushed
by the weight and velocity of enormous stones; ^46 the walls were
perforated by the strokes of the battering-ram; the towers were
involved in fire and smoke; and the assailants were stimulated by
rapine and revenge." The work was consummated by the tyranny of
the laws; and the factions of Italy alternately exercised a blind
and thoughtless vengeance on their adversaries, whose houses and
castles they razed to the ground. ^47 In comparing the days of
foreign, with the ages of domestic, hostility, we must pronounce,
that the latter have been far more ruinous to the city; and our
opinion is confirmed by the evidence of Petrarch. "Behold," says
the laureate, "the relics of Rome, the image of her pristine
greatness! neither time nor the Barbarian can boast the merit of
this stupendous destruction: it was perpetrated by her own
citizens, by the most illustrious of her sons; and your ancestors
(he writes to a noble Annabaldi) have done with the battering-ram
what the Punic hero could not accomplish with the sword." ^48 The
influence of the two last principles of decay must in some degree
be multiplied by each other; since the houses and towers, which
were subverted by civil war, required by a new and perpetual
supply from the monuments of antiquity. ^*
[Footnote 39: All the facts that relate to the towers at Rome,
and in other free cities of Italy, may be found in the laborious
and entertaining compilation of Muratori, Antiquitates Italiae
Medii Aevi, dissertat. xxvi., (tom. ii. p. 493 - 496, of the
Latin, tom. . p. 446, of the Italian work.)]
[Footnote 40: As for instance, templum Jani nunc dicitur, turris
Centii Frangipanis; et sane Jano impositae turris lateritiae
conspicua hodieque vestigia supersunt, (Montfaucon Diarium
Italicum, p. 186.) The anonymous writer (p. 285) enumerates,
arcus Titi, turris Cartularia; arcus Julii Caesaris et Senatorum,
turres de Bratis; arcus Antonini, turris de Cosectis, &c.]
[Footnote 41: Hadriani molem . . . . magna ex parte Romanorum
injuria . . disturbavit; quod certe funditus evertissent, si
eorum manibus pervia, absumptis grandibus saxis, reliqua moles
exstisset, (Poggius de Varietate Fortunae, p. 12.)]
[Footnote 42: Against the emperor Henry IV., (Muratori, Annali d'
Italia, tom. ix. p. 147.)]
[Footnote 43: I must copy an important passage of Montfaucon:
Turris ingens rotunda . . . . Caeciliae Metellae . . . .
sepulchrum erat, cujus muri tam solidi, ut spatium perquam
minimum intus vacuum supersit; et Torre di Bove dicitur, a boum
capitibus muro inscriptis. Huic sequiori aevo, tempore
intestinorum bellorum, ceu urbecula adjuncta fuit, cujus moenia
et turres etiamnum visuntur; ita ut sepulchrum Metellae quasi arx
oppiduli fuerit. Ferventibus in urbe partibus, cum Ursini atque
Colum nenses mutuis cladibus perniciem inferrent civitati, in
utriusve partia ditionem cederet magni momenti erat, (p. 142.)]
[Footnote *: This is inaccurately expressed. The sepulchre is
still standing See Hobhouse, p. 204. - M.]
[Footnote 44: See the testimonies of Donatus, Nardini, and
Montfaucon. In the Savelli palace, the remains of the theatre of
Marcellus are still great and conspicuous.]
[Footnote 45: James, cardinal of St. George, ad velum aureum, in
his metrical life of Pope Celestin V., (Muratori, Script. Ital.
tom. i. P. iii. p. 621, l. i. c. l. ver. 132, &c.)
Hoc dixisse sat est, Romam caruisee Senatu Mensibus exactis heu
sex; belloque vocatum (vocatos) In scelus, in socios fraternaque
vulnera patres; Tormentis jecisse viros immania saxa; Perfodisse
domus trabibus, fecisse ruinas Ignibus; incensas turres,
obscuraque fumo Lumina vicino, quo sit spoliata supellex.]
[Footnote 46: Muratori (Dissertazione sopra le Antiquita
Italiane, tom. i. p. 427 - 431) finds that stone bullets of two
or three hundred pounds' weight were not uncommon; and they are
sometimes computed at xii. or xviii cantari of Genoa, each
cantaro weighing 150 pounds.]
[Footnote 47: The vith law of the Visconti prohibits this common
and mischievous practice; and strictly enjoins, that the houses
of banished citizens should be preserved pro communi utilitate,
(Gualvancus de la Flamma in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum,
tom. xii. p. 1041.)]
[Footnote 48: Petrarch thus addresses his friend, who, with shame
and tears had shown him the moenia, lacerae specimen miserable
Romae, and declared his own intention of restoring them, (Carmina
Latina, l. ii. epist. Paulo Annibalensi, xii. p. 97, 98.)
Nec te parva manet servatis fama ruinis Quanta quod integrae fuit
olim gloria Romae Reliquiae testantur adhuc; quas longior aetas
Frangere non valuit; non vis aut ira cruenti Hostis, ab egregiis
franguntur civibus, heu! heu' - Quod ille nequivit (Hannibal.)
Perficit hic aries.]
[Footnote *: Bunsen has shown that the hostile attacks of the
emperor Henry the Fourth, but more particularly that of Robert
Guiscard, who burned down whole districts, inflicted the worst
damage on the ancient city Vol. i. p. 247. - M.]
Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth
Century.
Part II.
These general observations may be separately applied to the
amphitheatre of Titus, which has obtained the name of the
Coliseum, ^49 either from its magnitude, or from Nero's colossal
statue; an edifice, had it been left to time and nature, which
might perhaps have claimed an eternal duration. The curious
antiquaries, who have computed the numbers and seats, are
disposed to believe, that above the upper row of stone steps the
amphitheatre was encircled and elevated with several stages of
wooden galleries, which were repeatedly consumed by fire, and
restored by the emperors. Whatever was precious, or portable, or
profane, the statues of gods and heroes, and the costly ornaments
of sculpture which were cast in brass, or overspread with leaves
of silver and gold, became the first prey of conquest or
fanaticism, of the avarice of the Barbarians or the Christians.
In the massy stones of the Coliseum, many holes are discerned;
and the two most probable conjectures represent the various
accidents of its decay. These stones were connected by solid
links of brass or iron, nor had the eye of rapine overlooked the
value of the baser metals; ^50 the vacant space was converted
into a fair or market; the artisans of the Coliseum are mentioned
in an ancient survey; and the chasms were perforated or enlarged
to receive the poles that supported the shops or tents of the
mechanic trades. ^51 Reduced to its naked majesty, the Flavian
amphitheatre was contemplated with awe and admiration by the
pilgrims of the North; and their rude enthusiasm broke forth in a
sublime proverbial expression, which is recorded in the eighth
century, in the fragments of the venerable Bede: "As long as the
Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Coliseum falls, Rome
will fall; when Rome falls, the world will fall." ^52 In the
modern system of war, a situation commanded by three hills would
not be chosen for a fortress; but the strength of the walls and
arches could resist the engines of assault; a numerous garrison
might be lodged in the enclosure; and while one faction occupied
the Vatican and the Capitol, the other was intrenched in the
Lateran and the Coliseum. ^53
[Footnote 49: The fourth part of the Verona Illustrata of the
marquis Maffei professedly treats of amphitheatres, particularly
those of Rome and Verona, of their dimensions, wooden galleries,
&c. It is from magnitude that he derives the name of Colosseum,
or Coliseum; since the same appellation was applied to the
amphitheatre of Capua, without the aid of a colossal statue;
since that of Nero was erected in the court (in atrio) of his
palace, and not in the Coliseum, (P. iv. p. 15 - 19, l. i. c.
4.)]
[Footnote 50: Joseph Maria Suares, a learned bishop, and the
author of a history of Praeneste, has composed a separate
dissertation on the seven or eight probable causes of these
holes, which has been since reprinted in the Roman Thesaurus of
Sallengre. Montfaucon (Diarium, p. 233) pronounces the rapine of
the Barbarians to be the unam germanamque causam foraminum.
Note: The improbability of this theory is shown by Bunsen,
vol. i. p. 239 - M.]
[Footnote 51: Donatus, Roma Vetus et Nova, p. 285.
Note: Gibbon has followed Donatus, who supposes that a silk
manufactory was established in the xiith century in the Coliseum.
The Bandonarii, or Bandererii, were the officers who carried the
standards of their school before the pope. Hobhouse, p. 269. -
M.]
[Footnote 52: Quamdiu stabit Colyseus, stabit et Roma; quando
cadet Coly seus, cadet Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus,
(Beda in Excerptis seu Collectaneis apud Ducange Glossar. Med. et
Infimae Latinitatis, tom. ii. p. 407, edit. Basil.) This saying
must be ascribed to the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims who visited Rome
before the year 735 the aera of Bede's death; for I do not
believe that our venerable monk ever passed the sea.]
[Footnote 53: I cannot recover, in Muratori's original Lives of
the Popes, (Script Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i.,) the
passage that attests this hostile partition, which must be
applied to the end of the xiith or the beginning of the xiith
century.
Note: "The division is mentioned in Vit. Innocent. Pap. II.
ex Cardinale Aragonio, (Script. Rer. Ital. vol. iii. P. i. p.
435,) and Gibbon might have found frequent other records of it at
other dates." Hobhouse's Illustrations of Childe Harold. p. 130.
- M.]
The abolition at Rome of the ancient games must be
understood with some latitude; and the carnival sports, of the
Testacean mount and the Circus Agonalis, ^54 were regulated by
the law ^55 or custom of the city. The senator presided with
dignity and pomp to adjudge and distribute the prizes, the gold
ring, or the pallium, ^56 as it was styled, of cloth or silk. A
tribute on the Jews supplied the annual expense; ^57 and the
races, on foot, on horseback, or in chariots, were ennobled by a
tilt and tournament of seventy-two of the Roman youth. In the
year one thousand three hundred and thirty-two, a bull-feast,
after the fashion of the Moors and Spaniards, was celebrated in
the Coliseum itself; and the living manners are painted in a
diary of the times. ^58 A convenient order of benches was
restored; and a general proclamation, as far as Rimini and
Ravenna, invited the nobles to exercise their skill and courage
in this perilous adventure. The Roman ladies were marshalled in
three squadrons, and seated in three balconies, which, on this
day, the third of September, were lined with scarlet cloth. The
fair Jacova di Rovere led the matrons from beyond the Tyber, a
pure and native race, who still represent the features and
character of antiquity. The remainder of the city was divided as
usual between the Colonna and Ursini: the two factions were proud
of the number and beauty of their female bands: the charms of
Savella Ursini are mentioned with praise; and the Colonna
regretted the absence of the youngest of their house, who had
sprained her ankle in the garden of Nero's tower. The lots of
the champions were drawn by an old and respectable citizen; and
they descended into the arena, or pit, to encounter the wild
bulls, on foot as it should seem, with a single spear. Amidst
the crowd, our annalist has selected the names, colors, and
devices, of twenty of the most conspicuous knights. Several of
the names are the most illustrious of Rome and the ecclesiastical
state: Malatesta, Polenta, della Valle, Cafarello, Savelli,
Capoccio, Conti, Annibaldi, Altieri, Corsi: the colors were
adapted to their taste and situation; the devices are expressive
of hope or despair, and breathe the spirit of gallantry and arms.
"I am alone, like the youngest of the Horatii," the confidence of
an intrepid stranger: "I live disconsolate," a weeping widower:
"I burn under the ashes," a discreet lover: "I adore Lavinia, or
Lucretia," the ambiguous declaration of a modern passion: "My
faith is as pure," the motto of a white livery: "Who is stronger
than myself?" of a lion's hide: "If am drowned in blood, what a
pleasant death!" the wish of ferocious courage. The pride or
prudence of the Ursini restrained them from the field, which was
occupied by three of their hereditary rivals, whose inscriptions
denoted the lofty greatness of the Colonna name: "Though sad, I
am strong:" "Strong as I am great:" "If I fall," addressing
himself to the spectators, "you fall with me;" - intimating (says
the contemporary writer) that while the other families were the
subjects of the Vatican, they alone were the supporters of the
Capitol. The combats of the amphitheatre were dangerous and
bloody. Every champion successively encountered a wild bull; and
the victory may be ascribed to the quadrupeds, since no more than
eleven were left on the field, with the loss of nine wounded and
eighteen killed on the side of their adversaries. Some of the
noblest families might mourn, but the pomp of the funerals, in
the churches of St. John Lateran and St. Maria Maggiore, afforded
a second holiday to the people. Doubtless it was not in such
conflicts that the blood of the Romans should have been shed;
yet, in blaming their rashness, we are compelled to applaud their
gallantry; and the noble volunteers, who display their
magnificence, and risk their lives, under the balconies of the
fair, excite a more generous sympathy than the thousands of
captives and malefactors who were reluctantly dragged to the
scene of slaughter. ^59
[Footnote 54: Although the structure of the circus Agonalis be
destroyed, it still retains its form and name, (Agona, Nagona,
Navona;) and the interior space affords a sufficient level for
the purpose of racing. But the Monte Testaceo, that strange pile
of broken pottery, seems only adapted for the annual practice of
hurling from top to bottom some wagon-loads of live hogs for the
diversion of the populace, (Statuta Urbis Romae, p. 186.)]
[Footnote 55: See the Statuta Urbis Romae, l. iii. c. 87, 88, 89,
p. 185, 186. I have already given an idea of this municipal code.
The races of Nagona and Monte Testaceo are likewise mentioned in
the Diary of Peter Antonius from 1404 to 1417, (Muratori, Script.
Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxiv. p. 1124.)]
[Footnote 56: The Pallium, which Menage so foolishly derives from
Palmarius, is an easy extension of the idea and the words, from
the robe or cloak, to the materials, and from thence to their
application as a prize, (Muratori, dissert. xxxiii.)]
[Footnote 57: For these expenses, the Jews of Rome paid each year
1130 florins, of which the odd thirty represented the pieces of
silver for which Judas had betrayed his Master to their
ancestors. There was a foot-race of Jewish as well as of
Christian youths, (Statuta Urbis, ibidem.)]
[Footnote 58: This extraordinary bull-feast in the Coliseum is
described, from tradition rather than memory, by Ludovico
Buonconte Monaldesco, on the most ancient fragments of Roman
annals, (Muratori, Script Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 535,
536;) and however fanciful they may seem, they are deeply marked
with the colors of truth and nature.]
[Footnote 59: Muratori has given a separate dissertation (the
xxixth) to the games of the Italians in the Middle Ages.]
This use of the amphitheatre was a rare, perhaps a singular,
festival: the demand for the materials was a daily and continual
want which the citizens could gratify without restraint or
remorse. In the fourteenth century, a scandalous act of concord
secured to both factions the privilege of extracting stones from
the free and common quarry of the Coliseum; ^60 and Poggius
laments, that the greater part of these stones had been burnt to
lime by the folly of the Romans. ^61 To check this abuse, and to
prevent the nocturnal crimes that might be perpetrated in the
vast and gloomy recess, Eugenius the Fourth surrounded it with a
wall; and, by a charter long extant, granted both the ground and
edifice to the monks of an adjacent convent. ^62 After his death,
the wall was overthrown in a tumult of the people; and had they
themselves respected the noblest monument of their fathers, they
might have justified the resolve that it should never be degraded
to private property. The inside was damaged: but in the middle of
the sixteenth century, an aera of taste and learning, the
exterior circumference of one thousand six hundred and twelve
feet was still entire and inviolate; a triple elevation of
fourscore arches, which rose to the height of one hundred and
eight feet. Of the present ruin, the nephews of Paul the Third
are the guilty agents; and every traveller who views the Farnese
palace may curse the sacrilege and luxury of these upstart
princes. ^63 A similar reproach is applied to the Barberini; and
the repetition of injury might be dreaded from every reign, till
the Coliseum was placed under the safeguard of religion by the
most liberal of the pontiffs, Benedict the Fourteenth, who
consecrated a spot which persecution and fable had stained with
the blood of so many Christian martyrs. ^64
[Footnote 60: In a concise but instructive memoir, the abbe
Barthelemy (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii.
p. 585) has mentioned this agreement of the factions of the xivth
century de Tiburtino faciendo in the Coliseum, from an original
act in the archives of Rome.]
[Footnote 61: Coliseum . . . . ob stultitiam Romanorum majori ex
parte ad cal cem deletum, says the indignant Poggius, (p. 17:)
but his expression too strong for the present age, must be very
tenderly applied to the xvth century.]
[Footnote 62: Of the Olivetan monks. Montfaucon (p. 142) affirms
this fact from the memorials of Flaminius Vacca, (No. 72.) They
still hoped on some future occasion, to revive and vindicate
their grant.]
[Footnote 63: After measuring the priscus amphitheatri gyrus,
Montfaucon (p. 142) only adds that it was entire under Paul III.;
tacendo clamat. Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. xiv. p. 371)
more freely reports the guilt of the Farnese pope, and the
indignation of the Roman people. Against the nephews of Urban
VIII. I have no other evidence than the vulgar saying, "Quod non
fecerunt Barbari, fecere Barberini," which was perhaps suggested
by the resemblance of the words.]
[Footnote 64: As an antiquarian and a priest, Montfaucon thus
deprecates the ruin of the Coliseum: Quod si non suopte merito
atque pulchritudine dignum fuisset quod improbas arceret manus,
indigna res utique in locum tot martyrum cruore sacrum tantopere
saevitum esse.]
When Petrarch first gratified his eyes with a view of those
monuments, whose scattered fragments so far surpass the most
eloquent descriptions, he was astonished at the supine
indifference ^65 of the Romans themselves; ^66 he was humbled
rather than elated by the discovery, that, except his friend
Rienzi, and one of the Colonna, a stranger of the Rhone was more
conversant with these antiquities than the nobles and natives of
the metropolis. ^67 The ignorance and credulity of the Romans are
elaborately displayed in the old survey of the city which was
composed about the beginning of the thirteenth century; and,
without dwelling on the manifold errors of name and place, the
legend of the Capitol ^68 may provoke a smile of contempt and
indignation. "The Capitol," says the anonymous writer, "is so
named as being the head of the world; where the consuls and
senators formerly resided for the government of the city and the
globe. The strong and lofty walls were covered with glass and
gold, and crowned with a roof of the richest and most curious
carving. Below the citadel stood a palace, of gold for the
greatest part, decorated with precious stones, and whose value
might be esteemed at one third of the world itself. The statues
of all the provinces were arranged in order, each with a small
bell suspended from its neck; and such was the contrivance of art
magic, ^69 that if the province rebelled against Rome, the statue
turned round to that quarter of the heavens, the bell rang, the
prophet of the Capitol repeated the prodigy, and the senate was
admonished of the impending danger." A second example, of less
importance, though of equal absurdity, may be drawn from the two
marble horses, led by two naked youths, who have since been
transported from the baths of Constantine to the Quirinal hill.
The groundless application of the names of Phidias and Praxiteles
may perhaps be excused; but these Grecian sculptors should not
have been removed above four hundred years from the age of
Pericles to that of Tiberius; they should not have been
transferred into two philosophers or magicians, whose nakedness
was the symbol of truth or knowledge, who revealed to the emperor
his most secret actions; and, after refusing all pecuniary
recompense, solicited the honor of leaving this eternal monument
of themselves. ^70 Thus awake to the power of magic, the Romans
were insensible to the beauties of art: no more than five statues
were visible to the eyes of Poggius; and of the multitudes which
chance or design had buried under the ruins, the resurrection was
fortunately delayed till a safer and more enlightened age. ^71
The Nile which now adorns the Vatican, had been explored by some
laborers in digging a vineyard near the temple, or convent, of
the Minerva; but the impatient proprietor, who was tormented by
some visits of curiosity, restored the unprofitable marble to its
former grave. ^72 The discovery of a statue of Pompey, ten feet
in length, was the occasion of a lawsuit. It had been found
under a partition wall: the equitable judge had pronounced, that
the head should be separated from the body to satisfy the claims
of the contiguous owners; and the sentence would have been
executed, if the intercession of a cardinal, and the liberality
of a pope, had not rescued the Roman hero from the hands of his
barbarous countrymen. ^73
[Footnote 65: Yet the statutes of Rome (l. iii. c. 81, p. 182)
impose a fine of 500 aurei on whosoever shall demolish any
ancient edifice, ne ruinis civitas deformetur, et ut antiqua
aedificia decorem urbis perpetuo representent.]
[Footnote 66: In his first visit to Rome (A.D. 1337. See
Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 322, &c.) Petrarch is struck
mute miraculo rerumtantarum, et stuporis mole obrutus . . . .
Praesentia vero, mirum dictu nihil imminuit: vere major fuit Roma
majoresque sunt reliquiae quam rebar. Jam non orbem ab hac urbe
domitum, sed tam sero domitum, miror, (Opp. p. 605, Familiares,
ii. 14, Joanni Columnae.)]
[Footnote 67: He excepts and praises the rare knowledge of John
Colonna. Qui enim hodie magis ignari rerum Romanarum, quam
Romani cives! Invitus dico, nusquam minus Roma cognoscitur quam
Romae.]
[Footnote 68: After the description of the Capitol, he adds,
statuae erant quot sunt mundi provinciae; et habebat quaelibet
tintinnabulum ad collum. Et erant ita per magicam artem
dispositae, ut quando aliqua regio Romano Imperio rebellis erat,
statim imago illius provinciae vertebat se contra illam; unde
tintinnabulum resonabat quod pendebat ad collum; tuncque vates
Capitolii qui erant custodes senatui, &c. He mentions an example
of the Saxons and Suevi, who, after they had been subdued by
Agrippa, again rebelled: tintinnabulum sonuit; sacerdos qui erat
in speculo in hebdomada senatoribus nuntiavit: Agrippa marched
back and reduced the - Persians, (Anonym. in Montfaucon, p. 297,
298.)]
[Footnote 69: The same writer affirms, that Virgil captus a
Romanis invisibiliter exiit, ivitque Neapolim. A Roman magician,
in the xith century, is introduced by William of Malmsbury, (de
Gestis Regum Anglorum, l. ii. p. 86;) and in the time of
Flaminius Vacca (No. 81, 103) it was the vulgar belief that the
strangers (the Goths) invoked the daemons for the discovery of
hidden treasures.]
[Footnote 70: Anonym. p. 289. Montfaucon (p. 191) justly
observes, that if Alexander be represented, these statues cannot
be the work of Phidias (Olympiad lxxxiii.) or Praxiteles,
(Olympiad civ.,) who lived before that conqueror (Plin. Hist.
Natur. xxxiv. 19.)]
[Footnote 71: William of Malmsbury (l. ii. p. 86, 87) relates a
marvellous discovery (A.D. 1046) of Pallas the son of Evander,
who had been slain by Turnus; the perpetual light in his
sepulchre, a Latin epitaph, the corpse, yet entire, of a young
giant, the enormous wound in his breast, (pectus perforat
ingens,) &c. If this fable rests on the slightest foundation, we
may pity the bodies, as well as the statues, that were exposed to
the air in a barbarous age.]
[Footnote 72: Prope porticum Minervae, statua est recubantis,
cujus caput integra effigie tantae magnitudinis, ut signa omnia
excedat. Quidam ad plantandas arbores scrobes faciens detexit.
Ad hoc visendum cum plures in dies magis concurrerent, strepitum
adeuentium fastidiumque vertaesus, horti patronus congesta humo
texit, (Poggius de Varietate Fortunae, p. 12.)]
[Footnote 73: See the Memorials of Flaminius Vacca, No. 57, p.
11, 12, at the end of the Roma Antica of Nardini, (1704, in
4to).]
But the clouds of barbarism were gradually dispelled; and
the peaceful authority of Martin the Fifth and his successors
restored the ornaments of the city as well as the order of the
ecclesiastical state. The improvements of Rome, since the
fifteenth century, have not been the spontaneous produce of
freedom and industry. The first and most natural root of a great
city is the labor and populousness of the adjacent country, which
supplies the materials of subsistence, of manufactures, and of
foreign trade. But the greater part of the Campagna of Rome is
reduced to a dreary and desolate wilderness: the overgrown
estates of the princes and the clergy are cultivated by the lazy
hands of indigent and hopeless vassals; and the scanty harvests
are confined or exported for the benefit of a monopoly. A second
and more artificial cause of the growth of a metropolis is the
residence of a monarch, the expense of a luxurious court, and the
tributes of dependent provinces. Those provinces and tributes
had been lost in the fall of the empire; and if some streams of
the silver of Peru and the gold of Brazil have been attracted by
the Vatican, the revenues of the cardinals, the fees of office,
the oblations of pilgrims and clients, and the remnant of
ecclesiastical taxes, afford a poor and precarious supply, which
maintains, however, the idleness of the court and city. The
population of Rome, far below the measure of the great capitals
of Europe, does not exceed one hundred and seventy thousand
inhabitants; ^74 and within the spacious enclosure of the walls,
the largest portion of the seven hills is overspread with
vineyards and ruins. The beauty and splendor of the modern city
may be ascribed to the abuses of the government, to the influence
of superstition. Each reign (the exceptions are rare) has been
marked by the rapid elevation of a new family, enriched by the
childish pontiff at the expense of the church and country. The
palaces of these fortunate nephews are the most costly monuments
of elegance and servitude: the perfect arts of architecture,
sculpture, and painting, have been prostituted in their service;
and their galleries and gardens are decorated with the most
precious works of antiquity, which taste or vanity has prompted
them to collect. The ecclesiastical revenues were more decently
employed by the popes themselves in the pomp of the Catholic
worship; but it is superfluous to enumerate their pious
foundations of altars, chapels, and churches, since these lesser
stars are eclipsed by the sun of the Vatican, by the dome of St.
Peter, the most glorious structure that ever has been applied to
the use of religion. The fame of Julius the Second, Leo the
Tenth, and Sixtus the Fifth, is accompanied by the superior merit
of Bramante and Fontana, of Raphael and Michael Angelo; and the
same munificence which had been displayed in palaces and temples
was directed with equal zeal to revive and emulate the labors of
antiquity. Prostrate obelisks were raised from the ground, and
erected in the most conspicuous places; of the eleven aqueducts
of the Caesars and consuls, three were restored; the artificial
rivers were conducted over a long series of old, or of new
arches, to discharge into marble basins a flood of salubrious and
refreshing waters: and the spectator, impatient to ascend the
steps of St. Peter's, is detained by a column of Egyptian
granite, which rises between two lofty and perpetual fountains,
to the height of one hundred and twenty feet. The map, the
description, the monuments of ancient Rome, have been elucidated
by the diligence of the antiquarian and the student: ^75 and the
footsteps of heroes, the relics, not of superstition, but of
empire, are devoutly visited by a new race of pilgrims from the
remote, and once savage countries of the North.
[Footnote 74: In the year 1709, the inhabitants of Rome (without
including eight or ten thousand Jews,) amounted to 138,568 souls,
(Labat Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom. iii. p. 217, 218.)
In 1740, they had increased to 146,080; and in 1765, I left them,
without the Jews 161,899. I am ignorant whether they have since
continued in a progressive state.]
[Footnote 75: The Pere Montfaucon distributes his own
observations into twenty days; he should have styled them weeks,
or months, of his visits to the different parts of the city,
(Diarium Italicum, c. 8 - 20, p. 104 - 301.) That learned
Benedictine reviews the topographers of ancient Rome; the first
efforts of Blondus, Fulvius, Martianus, and Faunus, the superior
labors of Pyrrhus Ligorius, had his learning been equal to his
labors; the writings of Onuphrius Panvinius, qui omnes
obscuravit, and the recent but imperfect books of Donatus and
Nardini. Yet Montfaucon still sighs for a more complete plan and
description of the old city, which must be attained by the three
following methods: 1. The measurement of the space and intervals
of the ruins. 2. The study of inscriptions, and the places where
they were found. 3. The investigation of all the acts, charters,
diaries of the middle ages, which name any spot or building of
Rome. The laborious work, such as Montfaucon desired, must be
promoted by princely or public munificence: but the great modern
plan of Nolli (A.D. 1748) would furnish a solid and accurate
basis for the ancient topography of Rome.]
Of these pilgrims, and of every reader, the attention will
be excited by a History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire; the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the
history of mankind. The various causes and progressive effects
are connected with many of the events most interesting in human
annals: the artful policy of the Caesars, who long maintained the
name and image of a free republic; the disorders of military
despotism; the rise, establishment, and sects of Christianity;
the foundation of Constantinople; the division of the monarchy;
the invasion and settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and
Scythia; the institutions of the civil law; the character and
religion of Mahomet; the temporal sovereignty of the popes; the
restoration and decay of the Western empire of Charlemagne; the
crusades of the Latins in the East: the conquests of the Saracens
and Turks; the ruin of the Greek empire; the state and
revolutions of Rome in the middle age. The historian may applaud
the importance and variety of his subject; but while he is
conscious of his own imperfections, he must often accuse the
deficiency of his materials. It was among the ruins of the
Capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has
amused and exercised near twenty years of my life, and which,
however inadequate to my own wishes, I finally delivere to the
curiosity and candor of the public.
Lausanne, June 27 1787
End of
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Volume 6:
The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire