The danger and scandal of this excommunication subsisted above three years, till the popular clamor was assuaged by time and repentance; till the brethren of Arsenius condemned his inflexible spirit, so repugnant to the unbounded forgiveness of the gospel. The emperor had artfully insinuated, that, if he were still rejected at home, he might seek, in the Roman pontiff, a more indulgent judge; but it was far more easy and effectual to find or to place that judge at the head of the Byzantine church. Arsenius was involved in a vague rumor of conspiracy and disaffection; 248 some irregular steps in his ordination and government were liable to censure; a synod deposed him from the episcopal office; and he was transported under a guard of soldiers to a small island of the Propontis. Before his exile, he sullenly requested that a strict account might be taken of the treasures of the church; boasted, that his sole riches, three pieces of gold, had been earned by transcribing the psalms; continued to assert the freedom of his mind; and denied, with his last breath, the pardon which was implored by the royal sinner. 25 After some delay, Gregory, 259 bishop of Adrianople, was translated to the Byzantine throne; but his authority was found insufficient to support the absolution of the emperor; and Joseph, a reverend monk, was substituted to that important function. This edifying scene was represented in the presence of the senate and the people; at the end of six years the humble penitent was restored to the communion of the faithful; and humanity will rejoice, that a milder treatment of the captive Lascaris was stipulated as a proof of his remorse. But the spirit of Arsenius still survived in a powerful faction of the monks and clergy, who persevered about forty-eight years in an obstinate schism. Their scruples were treated with tenderness and respect by Michael and his son; and the reconciliation of the Arsenites was the serious labor of the church and state. In the confidence of fanaticism, they had proposed to try their cause by a miracle; and when the two papers, that contained their own and the adverse cause, were cast into a fiery brazier, they expected that the Catholic verity would be respected by the flames. Alas! the two papers were indiscriminately consumed, and this unforeseen accident produced the union of a day, and renewed the quarrel of an age. 26 The final treaty displayed the victory of the Arsenites: the clergy abstained during forty days from all ecclesiastical functions; a slight penance was imposed on the laity; the body of Arsenius was deposited in the sanctuary; and, in the name of the departed saint, the prince and people were released from the sins of their fathers. 27
248 (return)
[ Except the omission of
a prayer for the emperor, the charges against Arsenius were of different
nature: he was accused of having allowed the sultan of Iconium to bathe in
vessels signed with the cross, and to have admitted him to the church,
though unbaptized, during the service. It was pleaded, in favor of
Arsenius, among other proofs of the sultan's Christianity, that he had
offered to eat ham. Pachymer, l. iv. c. 4, p. 265. It was after his exile
that he was involved in a charge of conspiracy.—M.]
25 (return)
[ Pachymer relates the
exile of Arsenius, (l. iv. c. 1—16:) he was one of the commissaries
who visited him in the desert island. The last testament of the
unforgiving patriarch is still extant, (Dupin, Bibliothèque
Ecclésiastique, tom. x. p. 95.)]
259 (return)
[ Pachymer calls him
Germanus.—M.]
26 (return)
[ Pachymer (l. vii. c. 22)
relates this miraculous trial like a philosopher, and treats with similar
contempt a plot of the Arsenites, to hide a revelation in the coffin of
some old saint, (l. vii. c. 13.) He compensates this incredulity by an
image that weeps, another that bleeds, (l. vii. c. 30,) and the miraculous
cures of a deaf and a mute patient, (l. xi. c. 32.)]
27 (return)
[ The story of the
Arsenites is spread through the thirteen books of Pachymer. Their union
and triumph are reserved for Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. vii. c. 9,) who
neither loves nor esteems these sectaries.]
The establishment of his family was the motive, or at least the pretence, of the crime of Palæologus; and he was impatient to confirm the succession, by sharing with his eldest son the honors of the purple. Andronicus, afterwards surnamed the Elder, was proclaimed and crowned emperor of the Romans, in the fifteenth year of his age; and, from the first æra of a prolix and inglorious reign, he held that august title nine years as the colleague, and fifty as the successor, of his father. Michael himself, had he died in a private station, would have been thought more worthy of the empire; and the assaults of his temporal and spiritual enemies left him few moments to labor for his own fame or the happiness of his subjects. He wrested from the Franks several of the noblest islands of the Archipelago, Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes: his brother Constantine was sent to command in Malvasia and Sparta; and the eastern side of the Morea, from Argos and Napoli to Cape Thinners, was repossessed by the Greeks. This effusion of Christian blood was loudly condemned by the patriarch; and the insolent priest presumed to interpose his fears and scruples between the arms of princes. But in the prosecution of these western conquests, the countries beyond the Hellespont were left naked to the Turks; and their depredations verified the prophecy of a dying senator, that the recovery of Constantinople would be the ruin of Asia. The victories of Michael were achieved by his lieutenants; his sword rusted in the palace; and, in the transactions of the emperor with the popes and the king of Naples, his political acts were stained with cruelty and fraud. 28
28 (return)
[ Of the xiii books of
Pachymer, the first six (as the ivth and vth of Nicephorus Gregoras)
contain the reign of Michael, at the time of whose death he was forty
years of age. Instead of breaking, like his editor the Père Poussin, his
history into two parts, I follow Ducange and Cousin, who number the xiii.
books in one series.]
I. The Vatican was the most natural refuge of a Latin emperor, who had been driven from his throne; and Pope Urban the Fourth appeared to pity the misfortunes, and vindicate the cause, of the fugitive Baldwin. A crusade, with plenary indulgence, was preached by his command against the schismatic Greeks: he excommunicated their allies and adherents; solicited Louis the Ninth in favor of his kinsman; and demanded a tenth of the ecclesiastical revenues of France and England for the service of the holy war. 29 The subtle Greek, who watched the rising tempest of the West, attempted to suspend or soothe the hostility of the pope, by suppliant embassies and respectful letters; but he insinuated that the establishment of peace must prepare the reconciliation and obedience of the Eastern church. The Roman court could not be deceived by so gross an artifice; and Michael was admonished, that the repentance of the son should precede the forgiveness of the father; and that faith (an ambiguous word) was the only basis of friendship and alliance. After a long and affected delay, the approach of danger, and the importunity of Gregory the Tenth, compelled him to enter on a more serious negotiation: he alleged the example of the great Vataces; and the Greek clergy, who understood the intentions of their prince, were not alarmed by the first steps of reconciliation and respect. But when he pressed the conclusion of the treaty, they strenuously declared, that the Latins, though not in name, were heretics in fact, and that they despised those strangers as the vilest and most despicable portion of the human race. 30 It was the task of the emperor to persuade, to corrupt, to intimidate the most popular ecclesiastics, to gain the vote of each individual, and alternately to urge the arguments of Christian charity and the public welfare. The texts of the fathers and the arms of the Franks were balanced in the theological and political scale; and without approving the addition to the Nicene creed, the most moderate were taught to confess, that the two hostile propositions of proceeding from the Father by the Son, and of proceeding from the Father and the Son, might be reduced to a safe and Catholic sense. 31 The supremacy of the pope was a doctrine more easy to conceive, but more painful to acknowledge: yet Michael represented to his monks and prelates, that they might submit to name the Roman bishop as the first of the patriarchs; and that their distance and discretion would guard the liberties of the Eastern church from the mischievous consequences of the right of appeal. He protested that he would sacrifice his life and empire rather than yield the smallest point of orthodox faith or national independence; and this declaration was sealed and ratified by a golden bull. The patriarch Joseph withdrew to a monastery, to resign or resume his throne, according to the event of the treaty: the letters of union and obedience were subscribed by the emperor, his son Andronicus, and thirty-five archbishops and metropolitans, with their respective synods; and the episcopal list was multiplied by many dioceses which were annihilated under the yoke of the infidels. An embassy was composed of some trusty ministers and prelates: they embarked for Italy, with rich ornaments and rare perfumes for the altar of St. Peter; and their secret orders authorized and recommended a boundless compliance. They were received in the general council of Lyons, by Pope Gregory the Tenth, at the head of five hundred bishops. 32 He embraced with tears his long-lost and repentant children; accepted the oath of the ambassadors, who abjured the schism in the name of the two emperors; adorned the prelates with the ring and mitre; chanted in Greek and Latin the Nicene creed with the addition of filioque; and rejoiced in the union of the East and West, which had been reserved for his reign. To consummate this pious work, the Byzantine deputies were speedily followed by the pope's nuncios; and their instruction discloses the policy of the Vatican, which could not be satisfied with the vain title of supremacy. After viewing the temper of the prince and people, they were enjoined to absolve the schismatic clergy, who should subscribe and swear their abjuration and obedience; to establish in all the churches the use of the perfect creed; to prepare the entrance of a cardinal legate, with the full powers and dignity of his office; and to instruct the emperor in the advantages which he might derive from the temporal protection of the Roman pontiff. 33
29 (return)
[ Ducange, Hist. de C. P.
l. v. c. 33, &c., from the Epistles of Urban IV.]
30 (return)
[ From their mercantile
intercourse with the Venetians and Genoese, they branded the Latins as
kaphloi and banausoi, (Pachymer, l. v. c. 10.) "Some are heretics in name;
others, like the Latins, in fact," said the learned Veccus, (l. v. c. 12,)
who soon afterwards became a convert (c. 15, 16) and a patriarch, (c.
24.)]
31 (return)
[ In this class we may
place Pachymer himself, whose copious and candid narrative occupies the
vth and vith books of his history. Yet the Greek is silent on the council
of Lyons, and seems to believe that the popes always resided in Rome and
Italy, (l. v. c. 17, 21.)]
32 (return)
[ See the acts of the
council of Lyons in the year 1274. Fleury, Hist. Ecclésiastique, tom.
xviii. p. 181—199. Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclés. tom. x. p. 135.]
33 (return)
[ This curious
instruction, which has been drawn with more or less honesty by Wading and
Leo Allatius from the archives of the Vatican, is given in an abstract or
version by Fleury, (tom. xviii. p. 252—258.)]
But they found a country without a friend, a nation in which the names of Rome and Union were pronounced with abhorrence. The patriarch Joseph was indeed removed: his place was filled by Veccus, an ecclesiastic of learning and moderation; and the emperor was still urged by the same motives, to persevere in the same professions. But in his private language Palæologus affected to deplore the pride, and to blame the innovations, of the Latins; and while he debased his character by this double hypocrisy, he justified and punished the opposition of his subjects. By the joint suffrage of the new and the ancient Rome, a sentence of excommunication was pronounced against the obstinate schismatics; the censures of the church were executed by the sword of Michael; on the failure of persuasion, he tried the arguments of prison and exile, of whipping and mutilation; those touchstones, says an historian, of cowards and the brave. Two Greeks still reigned in Ætolia, Epirus, and Thessaly, with the appellation of despots: they had yielded to the sovereign of Constantinople, but they rejected the chains of the Roman pontiff, and supported their refusal by successful arms. Under their protection, the fugitive monks and bishops assembled in hostile synods; and retorted the name of heretic with the galling addition of apostate: the prince of Trebizond was tempted to assume the forfeit title of emperor; 339 and even the Latins of Negropont, Thebes, Athens, and the Morea, forgot the merits of the convert, to join, with open or clandestine aid, the enemies of Palæologus. His favorite generals, of his own blood, and family, successively deserted, or betrayed, the sacrilegious trust. His sister Eulogia, a niece, and two female cousins, conspired against him; another niece, Mary queen of Bulgaria, negotiated his ruin with the sultan of Egypt; and, in the public eye, their treason was consecrated as the most sublime virtue. 34 To the pope's nuncios, who urged the consummation of the work, Palæologus exposed a naked recital of all that he had done and suffered for their sake. They were assured that the guilty sectaries, of both sexes and every rank, had been deprived of their honors, their fortunes, and their liberty; a spreading list of confiscation and punishment, which involved many persons, the dearest to the emperor, or the best deserving of his favor. They were conducted to the prison, to behold four princes of the royal blood chained in the four corners, and shaking their fetters in an agony of grief and rage. Two of these captives were afterwards released; the one by submission, the other by death: but the obstinacy of their two companions was chastised by the loss of their eyes; and the Greeks, the least adverse to the union, deplored that cruel and inauspicious tragedy. 35 Persecutors must expect the hatred of those whom they oppress; but they commonly find some consolation in the testimony of their conscience, the applause of their party, and, perhaps, the success of their undertaking. But the hypocrisy of Michael, which was prompted only by political motives, must have forced him to hate himself, to despise his followers, and to esteem and envy the rebel champions by whom he was detested and despised. While his violence was abhorred at Constantinople, at Rome his slowness was arraigned, and his sincerity suspected; till at length Pope Martin the Fourth excluded the Greek emperor from the pale of a church, into which he was striving to reduce a schismatic people. No sooner had the tyrant expired, than the union was dissolved, and abjured by unanimous consent; the churches were purified; the penitents were reconciled; and his son Andronicus, after weeping the sins and errors of his youth most piously denied his father the burial of a prince and a Christian. 36
339 (return)
[ According to
Fallmarayer he had always maintained this title.—M.]
34 (return)
[ This frank and authentic
confession of Michael's distress is exhibited in barbarous Latin by
Ogerius, who signs himself Protonotarius Interpretum, and transcribed by
Wading from the MSS. of the Vatican, (A.D. 1278, No. 3.) His annals of the
Franciscan order, the Fratres Minores, in xvii. volumes in folio, (Rome,
1741,) I have now accidentally seen among the waste paper of a
bookseller.]
35 (return)
[ See the vith book of
Pachymer, particularly the chapters 1, 11, 16, 18, 24—27. He is the
more credible, as he speaks of this persecution with less anger than
sorrow.]
36 (return)
[ Pachymer, l. vii. c. 1—ii.
17. The speech of Andronicus the Elder (lib. xii. c. 2) is a curious
record, which proves that if the Greeks were the slaves of the emperor,
the emperor was not less the slave of superstition and the clergy.]
II. In the distress of the Latins, the walls and towers of Constantinople had fallen to decay: they were restored and fortified by the policy of Michael, who deposited a plenteous store of corn and salt provisions, to sustain the siege which he might hourly expect from the resentment of the Western powers. Of these, the sovereign of the Two Sicilies was the most formidable neighbor: but as long as they were possessed by Mainfroy, the bastard of Frederic the Second, his monarchy was the bulwark, rather than the annoyance, of the Eastern empire. The usurper, though a brave and active prince, was sufficiently employed in the defence of his throne: his proscription by successive popes had separated Mainfroy from the common cause of the Latins; and the forces that might have besieged Constantinople were detained in a crusade against the domestic enemy of Rome. The prize of her avenger, the crown of the Two Sicilies, was won and worn by the brother of St Louis, by Charles count of Anjou and Provence, who led the chivalry of France on this holy expedition. 37 The disaffection of his Christian subjects compelled Mainfroy to enlist a colony of Saracens whom his father had planted in Apulia; and this odious succor will explain the defiance of the Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation. "Bear this message," said Charles, "to the sultan of Nocera, that God and the sword are umpire between us; and that he shall either send me to paradise, or I will send him to the pit of hell." The armies met: and though I am ignorant of Mainfroy's doom in the other world, in this he lost his friends, his kingdom, and his life, in the bloody battle of Benevento. Naples and Sicily were immediately peopled with a warlike race of French nobles; and their aspiring leader embraced the future conquest of Africa, Greece, and Palestine. The most specious reasons might point his first arms against the Byzantine empire; and Palæologus, diffident of his own strength, repeatedly appealed from the ambition of Charles to the humanity of St. Louis, who still preserved a just ascendant over the mind of his ferocious brother. For a while the attention of that brother was confined at home by the invasion of Conradin, the last heir to the imperial house of Swabia; but the hapless boy sunk in the unequal conflict; and his execution on a public scaffold taught the rivals of Charles to tremble for their heads as well as their dominions. A second respite was obtained by the last crusade of St. Louis to the African coast; and the double motive of interest and duty urged the king of Naples to assist, with his powers and his presence, the holy enterprise. The death of St. Louis released him from the importunity of a virtuous censor: the king of Tunis confessed himself the tributary and vassal of the crown of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights were free to enlist under his banner against the Greek empire. A treaty and a marriage united his interest with the house of Courtenay; his daughter Beatrice was promised to Philip, son and heir of the emperor Baldwin; a pension of six hundred ounces of gold was allowed for his maintenance; and his generous father distributed among his aliens the kingdoms and provinces of the East, reserving only Constantinople, and one day's journey round the city for the imperial domain. 38 In this perilous moment, Palæologus was the most eager to subscribe the creed, and implore the protection, of the Roman pontiff, who assumed, with propriety and weight, the character of an angel of peace, the common father of the Christians. By his voice, the sword of Charles was chained in the scabbard; and the Greek ambassadors beheld him, in the pope's antechamber, biting his ivory sceptre in a transport of fury, and deeply resenting the refusal to enfranchise and consecrate his arms. He appears to have respected the disinterested mediation of Gregory the Tenth; but Charles was insensibly disgusted by the pride and partiality of Nicholas the Third; and his attachment to his kindred, the Ursini family, alienated the most strenuous champion from the service of the church. The hostile league against the Greeks, of Philip the Latin emperor, the king of the Two Sicilies, and the republic of Venice, was ripened into execution; and the election of Martin the Fourth, a French pope, gave a sanction to the cause. Of the allies, Philip supplied his name; Martin, a bull of excommunication; the Venetians, a squadron of forty galleys; and the formidable powers of Charles consisted of forty counts, ten thousand men at arms, a numerous body of infantry, and a fleet of more than three hundred ships and transports. A distant day was appointed for assembling this mighty force in the harbor of Brindisi; and a previous attempt was risked with a detachment of three hundred knights, who invaded Albania, and besieged the fortress of Belgrade. Their defeat might amuse with a triumph the vanity of Constantinople; but the more sagacious Michael, despairing of his arms, depended on the effects of a conspiracy; on the secret workings of a rat, who gnawed the bowstring 39 of the Sicilian tyrant.
37 (return)
[ The best accounts, the
nearest the time, the most full and entertaining, of the conquest of
Naples by Charles of Anjou, may be found in the Florentine Chronicles of
Ricordano Malespina, (c. 175—193,) and Giovanni Villani, (l. vii. c.
1—10, 25—30,) which are published by Muratori in the viiith
and xiiith volumes of the Historians of Italy. In his Annals (tom. xi. p.
56—72) he has abridged these great events which are likewise
described in the Istoria Civile of Giannone. tom. l. xix. tom. iii. l.
xx.]
38 (return)
[ Ducange, Hist. de C. P.
l. v. c. 49—56, l. vi. c. 1—13. See Pachymer, l. iv. c. 29, l.
v. c. 7—10, 25 l. vi. c. 30, 32, 33, and Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv.
5, l. v. 1, 6.]
39 (return)
[ The reader of Herodotus
will recollect how miraculously the Assyrian host of Sennacherib was
disarmed and destroyed, (l. ii. c. 141.)]
Among the proscribed adherents of the house of Swabia, John of Procida forfeited a small island of that name in the Bay of Naples. His birth was noble, but his education was learned; and in the poverty of exile, he was relieved by the practice of physic, which he had studied in the school of Salerno. Fortune had left him nothing to lose, except life; and to despise life is the first qualification of a rebel. Procida was endowed with the art of negotiation, to enforce his reasons and disguise his motives; and in his various transactions with nations and men, he could persuade each party that he labored solely for their interest. The new kingdoms of Charles were afflicted by every species of fiscal and military oppression; 40 and the lives and fortunes of his Italian subjects were sacrificed to the greatness of their master and the licentiousness of his followers. The hatred of Naples was repressed by his presence; but the looser government of his vicegerents excited the contempt, as well as the aversion, of the Sicilians: the island was roused to a sense of freedom by the eloquence of Procida; and he displayed to every baron his private interest in the common cause. In the confidence of foreign aid, he successively visited the courts of the Greek emperor, and of Peter king of Arragon, 41 who possessed the maritime countries of Valentia and Catalonia. To the ambitious Peter a crown was presented, which he might justly claim by his marriage with the sister 419 of Mainfroy, and by the dying voice of Conradin, who from the scaffold had cast a ring to his heir and avenger. Palæologus was easily persuaded to divert his enemy from a foreign war by a rebellion at home; and a Greek subsidy of twenty-five thousand ounces of gold was most profitably applied to arm a Catalan fleet, which sailed under a holy banner to the specious attack of the Saracens of Africa. In the disguise of a monk or beggar, the indefatigable missionary of revolt flew from Constantinople to Rome, and from Sicily to Saragossa: the treaty was sealed with the signet of Pope Nicholas himself, the enemy of Charles; and his deed of gift transferred the fiefs of St. Peter from the house of Anjou to that of Arragon. So widely diffused and so freely circulated, the secret was preserved above two years with impenetrable discretion; and each of the conspirators imbibed the maxim of Peter, who declared that he would cut off his left hand if it were conscious of the intentions of his right. The mine was prepared with deep and dangerous artifice; but it may be questioned, whether the instant explosion of Palermo were the effect of accident or design.
40 (return)
[ According to Sabas
Malaspina, (Hist. Sicula, l. iii. c. 16, in Muratori, tom. viii. p. 832,)
a zealous Guelph, the subjects of Charles, who had reviled Mainfroy as a
wolf, began to regret him as a lamb; and he justifies their discontent by
the oppressions of the French government, (l. vi. c. 2, 7.) See the
Sicilian manifesto in Nicholas Specialis, (l. i. c. 11, in Muratori, tom.
x. p. 930.)]
41 (return)
[ See the character and
counsels of Peter, king of Arragon, in Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. xiv. c.
6, tom. ii. p. 133.) The reader for gives the Jesuit's defects, in favor,
always of his style, and often of his sense.]
419 (return)
[ Daughter. See Hallam's
Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 517.—M.]
On the vigil of Easter, a procession of the disarmed citizens visited a church without the walls; and a noble damsel was rudely insulted by a French soldier. 42 The ravisher was instantly punished with death; and if the people was at first scattered by a military force, their numbers and fury prevailed: the conspirators seized the opportunity; the flame spread over the island; and eight thousand French were exterminated in a promiscuous massacre, which has obtained the name of the Sicilian Vespers. 43 From every city the banners of freedom and the church were displayed: the revolt was inspired by the presence or the soul of Procida and Peter of Arragon, who sailed from the African coast to Palermo, was saluted as the king and savior of the isle. By the rebellion of a people on whom he had so long trampled with impunity, Charles was astonished and confounded; and in the first agony of grief and devotion, he was heard to exclaim, "O God! if thou hast decreed to humble me, grant me at least a gentle and gradual descent from the pinnacle of greatness!" His fleet and army, which already filled the seaports of Italy, were hastily recalled from the service of the Grecian war; and the situation of Messina exposed that town to the first storm of his revenge. Feeble in themselves, and yet hopeless of foreign succor, the citizens would have repented, and submitted on the assurance of full pardon and their ancient privileges. But the pride of the monarch was already rekindled; and the most fervent entreaties of the legate could extort no more than a promise, that he would forgive the remainder, after a chosen list of eight hundred rebels had been yielded to his discretion. The despair of the Messinese renewed their courage: Peter of Arragon approached to their relief; 44 and his rival was driven back by the failure of provision and the terrors of the equinox to the Calabrian shore. At the same moment, the Catalan admiral, the famous Roger de Loria, swept the channel with an invincible squadron: the French fleet, more numerous in transports than in galleys, was either burnt or destroyed; and the same blow assured the independence of Sicily and the safety of the Greek empire. A few days before his death, the emperor Michael rejoiced in the fall of an enemy whom he hated and esteemed; and perhaps he might be content with the popular judgment, that had they not been matched with each other, Constantinople and Italy must speedily have obeyed the same master. 45 From this disastrous moment, the life of Charles was a series of misfortunes: his capital was insulted, his son was made prisoner, and he sunk into the grave without recovering the Isle of Sicily, which, after a war of twenty years, was finally severed from the throne of Naples, and transferred, as an independent kingdom, to a younger branch of the house of Arragon. 46
42 (return)
[ After enumerating the
sufferings of his country, Nicholas Specialis adds, in the true spirit of
Italian jealousy, Quæ omnia et graviora quidem, ut arbitror, patienti
animo Siculi tolerassent, nisi (quod primum cunctis dominantibus cavendum
est) alienas fminas invasissent, (l. i. c. 2, p. 924.)]
43 (return)
[ The French were long
taught to remember this bloody lesson: "If I am provoked, (said Henry the
Fourth,) I will breakfast at Milan, and dine at Naples." "Your majesty
(replied the Spanish ambassador) may perhaps arrive in Sicily for
vespers."]
44 (return)
[ This revolt, with the
subsequent victory, are related by two national writers, Bartholemy à
Neocastro (in Muratori, tom. xiii.,) and Nicholas Specialis (in Muratori,
tom. x.,) the one a contemporary, the other of the next century. The
patriot Specialis disclaims the name of rebellion, and all previous
correspondence with Peter of Arragon, (nullo communicato consilio,) who happened
to be with a fleet and army on the African coast, (l. i. c. 4, 9.)]
45 (return)
[ Nicephorus Gregoras (l.
v. c. 6) admires the wisdom of Providence in this equal balance of states
and princes. For the honor of Palæologus, I had rather this balance had
been observed by an Italian writer.]
46 (return)
[ See the Chronicle of
Villani, the xith volume of the Annali d'Italia of Muratori, and the xxth
and xxist books of the Istoria Civile of Giannone.]
I shall not, I trust, be accused of superstition; but I must remark that, even in this world, the natural order of events will sometimes afford the strong appearances of moral retribution. The first Palæologus had saved his empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion and blood; and from these scenes of discord uprose a generation of iron men, who assaulted and endangered the empire of his son. In modern times our debts and taxes are the secret poison which still corrodes the bosom of peace: but in the weak and disorderly government of the middle ages, it was agitated by the present evil of the disbanded armies. Too idle to work, too proud to beg, the mercenaries were accustomed to a life of rapine: they could rob with more dignity and effect under a banner and a chief; and the sovereign, to whom their service was useless, and their presence importunate, endeavored to discharge the torrent on some neighboring countries. After the peace of Sicily, many thousands of Genoese, Catalans, 47 &c., who had fought, by sea and land, under the standard of Anjou or Arragon, were blended into one nation by the resemblance of their manners and interest. They heard that the Greek provinces of Asia were invaded by the Turks: they resolved to share the harvest of pay and plunder: and Frederic king of Sicily most liberally contributed the means of their departure. In a warfare of twenty years, a ship, or a camp, was become their country; arms were their sole profession and property; valor was the only virtue which they knew; their women had imbibed the fearless temper of their lovers and husbands: it was reported, that, with a stroke of their broadsword, the Catalans could cleave a horseman and a horse; and the report itself was a powerful weapon. Roger de Flor 477 was the most popular of their chiefs; and his personal merit overshadowed the dignity of his prouder rivals of Arragon. The offspring of a marriage between a German gentleman of the court of Frederic the Second and a damsel of Brindisi, Roger was successively a templar, an apostate, a pirate, and at length the richest and most powerful admiral of the Mediterranean. He sailed from Messina to Constantinople, with eighteen galleys, four great ships, and eight thousand adventurers; 478 and his previous treaty was faithfully accomplished by Andronicus the elder, who accepted with joy and terror this formidable succor. A palace was allotted for his reception, and a niece of the emperor was given in marriage to the valiant stranger, who was immediately created great duke or admiral of Romania. After a decent repose, he transported his troops over the Propontis, and boldly led them against the Turks: in two bloody battles thirty thousand of the Moslems were slain: he raised the siege of Philadelphia, and deserved the name of the deliverer of Asia. But after a short season of prosperity, the cloud of slavery and ruin again burst on that unhappy province. The inhabitants escaped (says a Greek historian) from the smoke into the flames; and the hostility of the Turks was less pernicious than the friendship of the Catalans. 479 The lives and fortunes which they had rescued they considered as their own: the willing or reluctant maid was saved from the race of circumcision for the embraces of a Christian soldier: the exaction of fines and supplies was enforced by licentious rapine and arbitrary executions; and, on the resistance of Magnesia, the great duke besieged a city of the Roman empire. 48 These disorders he excused by the wrongs and passions of a victorious army; nor would his own authority or person have been safe, had he dared to punish his faithful followers, who were defrauded of the just and covenanted price of their services. The threats and complaints of Andronicus disclosed the nakedness of the empire. His golden bull had invited no more than five hundred horse and a thousand foot soldiers; yet the crowds of volunteers, who migrated to the East, had been enlisted and fed by his spontaneous bounty. While his bravest allies were content with three byzants or pieces of gold, for their monthly pay, an ounce, or even two ounces, of gold were assigned to the Catalans, whose annual pension would thus amount to near a hundred pounds sterling: one of their chiefs had modestly rated at three hundred thousand crowns the value of his future merits; and above a million had been issued from the treasury for the maintenance of these costly mercenaries. A cruel tax had been imposed on the corn of the husbandman: one third was retrenched from the salaries of the public officers; and the standard of the coin was so shamefully debased, that of the four-and-twenty parts only five were of pure gold. 49 At the summons of the emperor, Roger evacuated a province which no longer supplied the materials of rapine; 496 but he refused to disperse his troops; and while his style was respectful, his conduct was independent and hostile. He protested, that if the emperor should march against him, he would advance forty paces to kiss the ground before him; but in rising from this prostrate attitude Roger had a life and sword at the service of his friends. The great duke of Romania condescended to accept the title and ornaments of Cæsar; but he rejected the new proposal of the government of Asia with a subsidy of corn and money, 497 on condition that he should reduce his troops to the harmless number of three thousand men. Assassination is the last resource of cowards. The Cæsar was tempted to visit the royal residence of Adrianople; in the apartment, and before the eyes, of the empress he was stabbed by the Alani guards; and though the deed was imputed to their private revenge, 498 his countrymen, who dwelt at Constantinople in the security of peace, were involved in the same proscription by the prince or people. The loss of their leader intimidated the crowd of adventurers, who hoisted the sails of flight, and were soon scattered round the coasts of the Mediterranean. But a veteran band of fifteen hundred Catalans, or French, stood firm in the strong fortress of Gallipoli on the Hellespont, displayed the banners of Arragon, and offered to revenge and justify their chief, by an equal combat of ten or a hundred warriors. Instead of accepting this bold defiance, the emperor Michael, the son and colleague of Andronicus, resolved to oppress them with the weight of multitudes: every nerve was strained to form an army of thirteen thousand horse and thirty thousand foot; and the Propontis was covered with the ships of the Greeks and Genoese. In two battles by sea and land, these mighty forces were encountered and overthrown by the despair and discipline of the Catalans: the young emperor fled to the palace; and an insufficient guard of light-horse was left for the protection of the open country. Victory renewed the hopes and numbers of the adventures: every nation was blended under the name and standard of the great company; and three thousand Turkish proselytes deserted from the Imperial service to join this military association. In the possession of Gallipoli, 509 the Catalans intercepted the trade of Constantinople and the Black Sea, while they spread their devastation on either side of the Hellespont over the confines of Europe and Asia. To prevent their approach, the greatest part of the Byzantine territory was laid waste by the Greeks themselves: the peasants and their cattle retired into the city; and myriads of sheep and oxen, for which neither place nor food could be procured, were unprofitably slaughtered on the same day. Four times the emperor Andronicus sued for peace, and four times he was inflexibly repulsed, till the want of provisions, and the discord of the chiefs, compelled the Catalans to evacuate the banks of the Hellespont and the neighborhood of the capital. After their separation from the Turks, the remains of the great company pursued their march through Macedonia and Thessaly, to seek a new establishment in the heart of Greece. 50
47 (return)
[ In this motley
multitude, the Catalans and Spaniards, the bravest of the soldiery, were
styled by themselves and the Greeks Amogavares. Moncada derives
their origin from the Goths, and Pachymer (l. xi. c. 22) from the Arabs;
and in spite of national and religious pride, I am afraid the latter is in
the right.]
477 (return)
[ On Roger de Flor and
his companions, see an historical fragment, detailed and interesting,
entitled "The Spaniards of the Fourteenth Century," and inserted in
"L'Espagne en 1808," a work translated from the German, vol. ii. p. 167.
This narrative enables us to detect some slight errors which have crept
into that of Gibbon.—G.]
478 (return)
[ The troops of Roger de
Flor, according to his companions Ramon de Montaner, were 1500 men at
arms, 4000 Almogavares, and 1040 other foot, besides the sailors and
mariners, vol. ii. p. 137.—M.]
479 (return)
[ Ramon de Montaner
suppresses the cruelties and oppressions of the Catalans, in which,
perhaps, he shared.—M.]
48 (return)
[ Some idea may be formed
of the population of these cities, from the 36,000 inhabitants of Tralles,
which, in the preceding reign, was rebuilt by the emperor, and ruined by
the Turks. (Pachymer, l. vi. c. 20, 21.)]
49 (return)
[ I have collected these
pecuniary circumstances from Pachymer, (l. xi. c. 21, l. xii. c. 4, 5, 8,
14, 19,) who describes the progressive degradation of the gold coin. Even
in the prosperous times of John Ducas Vataces, the byzants were composed
in equal proportions of the pure and the baser metal. The poverty of
Michael Palæologus compelled him to strike a new coin, with nine parts, or
carats, of gold, and fifteen of copper alloy. After his death, the
standard rose to ten carats, till in the public distress it was reduced to
the moiety. The prince was relieved for a moment, while credit and
commerce were forever blasted. In France, the gold coin is of twenty-two
carats, (one twelfth alloy,) and the standard of England and Holland is
still higher.]
496 (return)
[ Roger de Flor,
according to Ramon de Montaner, was recalled from Natolia, on account of
the war which had arisen on the death of Asan, king of Bulgaria.
Andronicus claimed the kingdom for his nephew, the sons of Asan by his
sister. Roger de Flor turned the tide of success in favor of the emperor
of Constantinople and made peace.—M.]
497 (return)
[ Andronicus paid the
Catalans in the debased money, much to their indignation.—M.]
498 (return)
[ According to Ramon de
Montaner, he was murdered by order of Kyr (kurioV) Michael, son of the
emperor. p. 170.—M.]
509 (return)
[ Ramon de Montaner
describes his sojourn at Gallipoli: Nous etions si riches, que nous ne
semions, ni ne labourions, ni ne faisions enver des vins ni ne cultivions
les vignes: et cependant tous les ans nous recucillions tour ce qu'il nous
fallait, en vin, froment et avoine. p. 193. This lasted for five merry
years. Ramon de Montaner is high authority, for he was "chancelier et
maitre rational de l'armée," (commissary of rations.) He was left
governor; all the scribes of the army remained with him, and with their
aid he kept the books in which were registered the number of horse and
foot employed on each expedition. According to this book the plunder was
shared, of which he had a fifth for his trouble. p. 197.—M.]
50 (return)
[ The Catalan war is most
copiously related by Pachymer, in the xith, xiith, and xiiith books, till
he breaks off in the year 1308. Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 3—6) is
more concise and complete. Ducange, who adopts these adventurers as
French, has hunted their footsteps with his usual diligence, (Hist. de C.
P. l. vi. c. 22—46.) He quotes an Arragonese history, which I have
read with pleasure, and which the Spaniards extol as a model of style and
composition, (Expedicion de los Catalanes y Arragoneses contra Turcos y
Griegos: Barcelona, 1623 in quarto: Madrid, 1777, in octavo.) Don
Francisco de Moncada Conde de Ossona, may imitate Cæsar or Sallust; he may
transcribe the Greek or Italian contemporaries: but he never quotes his
authorities, and I cannot discern any national records of the exploits of
his countrymen. * Note: Ramon de Montaner, one of the Catalans, who
accompanied Roger de Flor, and who was governor of Gallipoli, has written,
in Spanish, the history of this band of adventurers, to which he belonged,
and from which he separated when it left the Thracian Chersonese to
penetrate into Macedonia and Greece.—G.——The
autobiography of Ramon de Montaner has been published in French by M.
Buchon, in the great collection of Mémoires relatifs à l'Histoire de
France. I quote this edition.—M.]
After some ages of oblivion, Greece was awakened to new misfortunes by the arms of the Latins. In the two hundred and fifty years between the first and the last conquest of Constantinople, that venerable land was disputed by a multitude of petty tyrants; without the comforts of freedom and genius, her ancient cities were again plunged in foreign and intestine war; and, if servitude be preferable to anarchy, they might repose with joy under the Turkish yoke. I shall not pursue the obscure and various dynasties, that rose and fell on the continent or in the isles; but our silence on the fate of Athens 51 would argue a strange ingratitude to the first and purest school of liberal science and amusement. In the partition of the empire, the principality of Athens and Thebes was assigned to Otho de la Roche, a noble warrior of Burgundy, 52 with the title of great duke, 53 which the Latins understood in their own sense, and the Greeks more foolishly derived from the age of Constantine. 54 Otho followed the standard of the marquis of Montferrat: the ample state which he acquired by a miracle of conduct or fortune, 55 was peaceably inherited by his son and two grandsons, till the family, though not the nation, was changed, by the marriage of an heiress into the elder branch of the house of Brienne. The son of that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy of Athens; and, with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he invested with fiefs, reduced above thirty castles of the vassal or neighboring lords. But when he was informed of the approach and ambition of the great company, he collected a force of seven hundred knights, six thousand four hundred horse, and eight thousand foot, and boldly met them on the banks of the River Cephisus in Botia. 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 Botia were the rewards of the victorious Catalans; they married the widows and daughters of the slain; and during fourteen years, the great company was the terror of the Grecian states. Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty of the house of Arragon; and during the remainder of the fourteenth century, Athens, as a government or an appanage, was successively bestowed by the kings of Sicily. After the French and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of the Accaioli, a family, plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and sovereign in Greece. Athens, which they embellished with new buildings, became the capital of a state, that extended over Thebes, Argos, Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly; and their reign was finally determined by Mahomet the Second, who strangled the last duke, and educated his sons in the discipline and religion of the seraglio.
51 (return)
[ See the laborious
history of Ducange, whose accurate table of the French dynasties
recapitulates the thirty-five passages, in which he mentions the dukes of
Athens.]
52 (return)
[ He is twice mentioned by
Villehardouin with honor, (No. 151, 235;) and under the first passage,
Ducange observes all that can be known of his person and family.]
53 (return)
[ From these Latin princes
of the xivth century, Boccace, Chaucer. and Shakspeare, have borrowed
their Theseus duke of Athens. An ignorant age transfers its own
language and manners to the most distant times.]
54 (return)
[ The same Constantine
gave to Sicily a king, to Russia the magnus dapifer of the empire,
to Thebes the primicerius; and these absurd fables are properly
lashed by Ducange, (ad Nicephor. Greg. l. vii. c. 5.) By the Latins, the
lord of Thebes was styled, by corruption, the Megas Kurios, or Grand
Sire!]
55 (return)
[ Quodam miraculo,
says Alberic. He was probably received by Michael Choniates, the
archbishop who had defended Athens against the tyrant Leo Sgurus, (Nicetas
urbs capta, p. 805, ed. Bek.) Michael was the brother of the historian
Nicetas; and his encomium of Athens is still extant in MS. in the Bodleian
library, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc tom. vi. p. 405.) * Note: Nicetas says
expressly that Michael surrendered the Acropolis to the marquis.—M.]
Athens, 56 though no more than the shadow of her former self, still contains about eight or ten thousand inhabitants; of these, three fourths are Greeks in religion and language; and the Turks, who compose the remainder, have relaxed, in their intercourse with the citizens, somewhat of the pride and gravity of their national character. The olive-tree, the gift of Minerva, flourishes in Attica; nor has the honey of Mount Hymettus lost any part of its exquisite flavor: 57 but the languid trade is monopolized by strangers, and the agriculture of a barren land is abandoned to the vagrant Walachians. The Athenians are still distinguished by the subtlety and acuteness of their understandings; but these qualities, unless ennobled by freedom, and enlightened by study, will degenerate into a low and selfish cunning: and it is a proverbial saying of the country, "From the Jews of Thessalonica, the Turks of Negropont, and the Greeks of Athens, good Lord deliver us!" This artful people has eluded the tyranny of the Turkish bashaws, by an expedient which alleviates their servitude and aggravates their shame. About the middle of the last century, the Athenians chose for their protector the Kislar Aga, or chief black eunuch of the seraglio. This Æthiopian slave, who possesses the sultan's ear, condescends to accept the tribute of thirty thousand crowns: his lieutenant, the Waywode, whom he annually confirms, may reserve for his own about five or six thousand more; and such is the policy of the citizens, that they seldom fail to remove and punish an oppressive governor. Their private differences are decided by the archbishop, one of the richest prelates of the Greek church, since he possesses a revenue of one thousand pounds sterling; and by a tribunal of the eight geronti or elders, chosen in the eight quarters of the city: the noble families cannot trace their pedigree above three hundred years; but their principal members are distinguished by a grave demeanor, a fur cap, and the lofty appellation of archon. By some, who delight in the contrast, the modern language of Athens is represented as the most corrupt and barbarous of the seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek: 58 this picture is too darkly colored: but it would not be easy, in the country of Plato and Demosthenes, to find a reader or a copy of their works. The Athenians walk with supine indifference among the glorious ruins of antiquity; and such is the debasement of their character, that they are incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors. 59
56 (return)
[ The modern account of
Athens, and the Athenians, is extracted from Spon, (Voyage en Grece, tom.
ii. p. 79—199,) and Wheeler, (Travels into Greece, p. 337—414,)
Stuart, (Antiquities of Athens, passim,) and Chandler, (Travels into
Greece, p. 23—172.) The first of these travellers visited Greece in
the year 1676; the last, 1765; and ninety years had not produced much
difference in the tranquil scene.]
57 (return)
[ The ancients, or at
least the Athenians, believed that all the bees in the world had been
propagated from Mount Hymettus. They taught, that health might be
preserved, and life prolonged, by the external use of oil, and the
internal use of honey, (Geoponica, l. xv. c 7, p. 1089—1094, edit.
Niclas.)]
58 (return)
[ Ducange, Glossar. Græc.
Præfat. p. 8, who quotes for his author Theodosius Zygomalas, a modern
grammarian. Yet Spon (tom. ii. p. 194) and Wheeler, (p. 355,) no
incompetent judges, entertain a more favorable opinion of the Attic
dialect.]
59 (return)
[ Yet we must not accuse
them of corrupting the name of Athens, which they still call Athini. From
the eiV thn 'Aqhnhn, we have formed our own barbarism of Setines. *
Note: Gibbon did not foresee a Bavarian prince on the throne of Greece,
with Athens as his capital.—M.]