History Of The Decline And Fall Of The
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 6
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
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
Naval Crusades. - Richard The First Of
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
valor, advanced into the midland countries of
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
Ephesu and
restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the
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
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
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
Tancred; of arming the West against the
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
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
and forty thousand foot, assembled from the most remote
climates
of
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
defined, the homage was clearly stipulated, and the
cities of
the coast of
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
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
Minor Alexiad, l. xi. p. 321 - 325, l. xiv. p. 419; his
Cilician
war against Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328 - 324; the war
of
death of Bohemond, l. xiv. p. 419.]
[Footnote 2: The kings of
nominal dependence, and in the dates of their
inscriptions, (one
is still legible in the
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
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
[Footnote 6: See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes,
(tom. ii.
part ii.,) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium,
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
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
pilgrims of
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
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
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.
edit. Basnage.)]
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
descendant of Hugh Capet, the second, a father of the
line: the archbishop of
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
the nobles 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
to
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
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
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
two brothers 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
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
For their adventures and fate, see Wilken, vol. ii. p.
120, &c.,
Wichaud, book iv. - M.]
[Footnote 12: William of
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
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
rewarded the hospitable
that had stained his sword with any drops of Christian
blood. In
their intercourse with the monarchs of
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
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
crowned at
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