with her chief supporter. She had a violent quarrel with the patriarch.
Her prime minister Apocaucus was assassinated. Through the aid of his
Turkish ally Cantacuzenus was successful. The empress-regent showed a
determination to defend herself in the palace, but her partisans were
less courageous than she, and she was compelled to submit. But
Cantacuzenus was as wily as he was ambitious. Recognizing the strength
of his opponents, after he himself had been crowned emperor, he
determined on the marriage of his daughter Helena with the young
heir-apparent, and agreed to associate John V. with him on the throne
when he reached the age of twenty-five. The children, for John was only
fifteen and Helena thirteen, were betrothed and wedded with great
ceremony, and then received the crown, and the courtiers and people were
entertained by the rare spectacle of two emperors and three empresses
seated on their thrones.
"The strange spectacle delighted the gazers; but it was not viewed
without some feeling of contempt, for it was generally known that the
imperial crowns were bright with false pearls and diamonds; that the
robes were stiffened with tinsel; that the vases were of brass, not
gold; and instead of the rich brocade of Thebes, the hangings were of
gilded leather."
Cantacuzenus deserves to rank with the two Angeli as the third of the
great destroyers of the Eastern Empire. Through civil wars he depleted
its resources; and by introducing the Turk into his dominions, he paved
the way for the final downfall. Fortunately, John V. asserted himself at
the age of twenty-four; Cantacuzenus was tonsured and placed in a
monastery where he passed the rest of his days in literary labors. In
native gifts and force of character, and in her checkered history, the
Empress Anne of Savoy deserves a place by the side of the earlier
self-asserting empresses of Constantinople.
The tale of the last hundred years of the Byzantine Empire is a mere bit
of local history, and no longer forms an important warp in the woof of
the annals of Christendom. Women there were who were deserving of a
better destiny, but they are naturally obscured in the general
demoralization. The Mussulman might have taken Constantinople
seventy-five years earlier. The end came on May 29,1453. The city was
captured by Mohammed II., and Constantine XIII., the last of the Cæsars,
the worthy scion of degenerate sires, fell in the breach. Mohammed
proceeded quickly to convert Constantinople from a Christian into a
Turkish capital. The city was sacked. The Byzantine women were sold into
slavery, or became wives or concubines of the conquerors and passed the
rest of their days in a Turkish harem. And, from this date, for
centuries the life of Greek womanhood under Turkish domination was
passed in oppression and obscurity.
The fragment of the Greek Empire known in the history of the Middle Ages
as the Empire of Trebizond was the creation of accident. A young man
descended from the worst tyrant of Constantinople, but of an illustrious
name which retained the glamour inspired by the founder of the Comneni
dynasty, grasped the sovereignty of a most important commercial centre,
and his descendants continued to hold it until overwhelmed by the
all-conquering power of the Turk. The Empire of Trebizond possesses
unique grandeur in the romances of the West: the beauty of its
princesses was a theme of universal praise; its reputed wealth and
splendor excited the cupidity of Venetian and Genoese merchants. But it
was, after all, an insignificant kingdom, which owed its strength merely
to the weakness of surrounding peoples; and whose ostentatious court
ceremonials were but an attempt to keep up the traditions of the
Byzantine Empire and of the Comneni family in more prosperous days.
Shortly after the assassination of Andronicus by Isaac II.,
--Angelus,--his son Manuel, with other members of his family, met a
similar fate. Manuel was survived by two sons, Alexius and David, the
former a little lad of four. The boys were concealed for a time, and
were brought up in obscurity in Constantinople, where faithful friends
gave them an education worthy of their station. At the time when the
Crusaders captured the city, Alexius escaped, raised an army, and took
possession of Trebizond, then one of the most important commercial seats
on the borders of the Black Sea. The surrounding province gladly
recognized him as the lawful sovereign of the Roman Empire, and the
Comneni dynasty was continued through him for two and a half centuries
or more. To mark the legitimacy of his claim, and to prevent confusion
with the rival family of Alexius III.,--Angelus,--Alexius assumed the
designation of "Grand-Comnenus," and by this title the family was known
until its extermination.
The earlier years of the Empire of Trebizond were notable chiefly for
the efforts of its rulers to retain and extend their power, which was
circumscribed by the stronger empire of Nicæa. After the latter had been
merged into the restored Byzantine Empire with Constantinople as its
capital, Trebizond was still strong enough to maintain an independent
existence. A league was formed between the reigning sovereigns, Michael
VIII.,--Palæologus,--of Constantinople, and John II., then Emperor of
Trebizond, through the espousal of the latter to Michael's youngest
daughter, Eudocia, who was destined to show herself one of the best and
most capable of the Palæologi princesses.
The ceremony was solemnized with great ostentation on September 12,
1282. The question of precedence was an important one, as the Trebizond
government had considered itself the direct successor of the Empire of
the Cæsars. But through this marriage the wily monarch of Constantinople
gained the advantage; for John on this occasion laid aside the title of
"Emperor of the Romans," to be henceforth reserved exclusively for the
sovereign of the city of the Golden Horn, while that of Trebizond
assumed the title of "Emperor of all the East, Iberia, and Perateia."
Furthermore, the inhabitants of the city saw in the respective marriage
robes a certain inferiority of the Trebizontine monarch to the family of
his wife; for while the robes of John were embellished with
single-headed eagles, the bride appeared in a dress covered with
double-headed eagles to mark her rank in the Empire of the East and West
as a princess of the Palæologi, born in the purple chamber.
John and his royal bride had not been long settled on the throne when he
experienced a sudden and unexpected discomfiture at the hands of an
aspiring sister. Theodora, the oldest child of Manuel I. by his marriage
with Roussadan, an Iberian princess, jealous of the popularity of her
sister-in-law, and proud of the superiority of Comneni traditions to
those of the usurper of Constantinople, availed herself of the party
intrigues of the nobles, and the popular dissensions in the capital, to
assemble an army, surprise her imperial brother, and mount the throne.
Her glory was of brief duration, but the existence of coins bearing her
name and effigy demonstrates that her power was stable and that she was
fully recognized as a sovereign of the Empire. No clue exists which
enables us to determine how Theodora obtained the throne or how she was
at length driven from power, but John appears to have finally recovered
his throne and capital and to have expelled the ambitious princess.
During succeeding years the influence of Byzantine womanhood and the
relations between the two kingdoms continued prominent. John died in
1297, leaving two sons, Alexius II. and Michael. The former succeeded
his father at the age of fifteen, and was placed under the guardianship
of his mother Eudocia's brother, the Byzantine emperor Andronicus II.
Andronicus ordered his ward, the young emperor of Trebizond, though an
independent sovereign prince, to marry Irene, the daughter of a
Byzantine subject, Choumnus, one of his favorite ministers. But the idea
of a Comnenus marrying below his station was offensive both to Alexius
and his people. In obedience to the blood within his veins, and in
contempt of his guardian's command, Alexius rejected the proposed
mesalliance, and married the daughter of an Iberian prince.
The young married couple presented a beautiful example of conjugal
tenderness and devotion, but this did not soften the hard heart of the
guardian. Andronicus even went so far as to endeavor, to make the Greek
Church declare the marriage null and void on the ground that it had been
contracted by a union without the consent of his guardian. But the
patriarch and clergy, sympathizing with the lovers, and alarmed at the
ludicrous position in which they would be placed, took advantage of the
interesting condition of the bride to refuse to gratify the spleen of
the chagrined emperor.
At this time also, Eudocia, the mother of Alexius, who was in partial
durance in the imperial palace at Constantinople, saw an opportunity of
obtaining her freedom and of returning to her dominions. Her brother
Andronicus was offended with her because she had rejected his proposal
to form a second marriage with the Krai of Servia.
She persuaded her brother that her influence over her son, who was
devotedly attached to her, would have far more weight in making the
young emperor agree to a divorce than the sentence of an ecclesiastical
tribunal whose authority he was able to decline; and to this end she
obtained her brother's permission to return to Trebizond. Upon arriving
at her son's court Eudocia was so much impressed with the conjugal
fidelity of her son Alexius that she at once approved of his conduct,
and supported him in his determination to resist the tyrannical
pretensions of his guardian. Eudocia is an excellent example of the
superiority of the Palæologi women over their weaker and more selfish
brothers. In every situation, even in her months of exile from her
dominions, she maintained herself with dignity, and in her careful
rearing of her son and regard for his interests she exhibited motherly
traits of a high order.
In the next generation there was also an alliance between the royal
families of the two kingdoms. The emperor Basilius, second son of
Alexius II., married Irene Palæologina, the natural daughter of
Andronicus III. of Constantinople. Basilius had no legitimate issue, but
falling in love with a beautiful lady of Trebizond, also named Irene, he
made her his mistress and conferred on her every possible honor. She
bore him four children. To insure the succession of one of his natural
sons, Basilius in 1339 persuaded or forced the clergy to celebrate a
public marriage with his Trebizontine mistress, though there is no
evidence that he obtained a divorce from his lawful wife Irene, beyond
his own decree. He died suddenly in the April following his marriage to
his mistress.
Irene Palæologina, who was, in spite of his second nuptials, universally
regarded as the lawful wife of Basilius, was suspected of having
hastened his end; and her unfaithful husband had certainly tried the
soul of the proud lady. At any rate she was prepared for the sad event,
and had already organized a faction which placed her on the throne, as
the second independent Empress of Trebizond.
This promptitude in profiting by her husband's death, was worthy of the
first Empress Irene in Byzantine history, and gave just ground for
suspicion. But in considering an age when it was usual for people to
circulate calumnious reports against their rulers, the evidence should
be strong before we condemn the Palæologi princess. However, the
flagrant immorality of the court circles, and the lightness of character
of Irene herself, as well as her conduct after the event, tended to give
credibility to the rumor.
Irene, as soon as she was safely established on the throne, sent off her
rival of Trebizond and the two sons of Basilius to Constantinople where
her father Andronicus detained them as hostages for the tranquillity of
her empire. A strong party of the nobility, however, who had hoped to
gain wealth and power through the favor of the Trebizontine Irene, whom
they purposed to make regent during the minority of her children, were
chagrined at the success of the schemes of the Palæologi princess, and
at once began to plan her downfall. Two great parties arose, and the
little empire was once more disturbed by the turmoil of civil war.
Irene, with all her daring, was, like her father, of a gay and
thoughtless disposition, and did not fully realize the danger of her
situation. She recognized, however, that a second husband would
strengthen her cause; and she urged her father Andronicus to send her a
husband chosen from among the Byzantine nobles, who could aid her in
repressing the factions which threatened her throne. Andronicus gave a
favorable reception to Irene's ambassadors, but died before he had time
seriously to attend to her request. The light-minded Irene consoled
herself during the delay by falling in love with the grand domesticos of
her palace. But this bit of favoritism only divided her own court into
factions and strengthened the cause of her enemies.
A new storm now burst over the head of the thoughtless empress. Another
woman, whose title to rule was far stronger than that of Irene, appeared
to claim the throne. Anna, called Anachoutlon, was the eldest daughter
of the Emperor Alexius II. She had in early womanhood taken the veil,
and until this time had lived in seclusion. The opposition party
searched out her retreat and persuaded her to quit her monastic dress
and escape to Lazia, where she was proclaimed Empress of Trebizond, as
the nearest legitimate heir of her brother Basilius. All the provincials
united in demanding the sovereignty of a member of the house of
Grand-Comnenus in preference to the usurpation of a Palæologi princess,
who was planning to marry a foreigner. The popular demand for the rule
of a scion of the house of Grand-Comnenus gave Anna a triumphal march to
the capital, and with but little opposition she was admitted within the
citadel and universally recognized as the lawful empress. Irene was
dethroned after a troubled reign of one year and four months. Three
weeks later Michael Grand-Comnenus, second son of John II. and Eudocia,
who had been selected at Constantinople as a suitable husband of Irene,
arrived on the scene, to find the change of sovereignty. The Empress
Anna was surrounded by a cabal of powerful chiefs, who determined to
keep the reins of power in their hands. She graciously received her
kinsman, but he was later treacherously seized and imprisoned by Anna's
partisans. Irene was sent on, under suitable escort, to Constantinople,
to pass the rest of her life in retirement. The treatment of Michael
aroused the fury of many adherents of the house of Grand-Comnenus.
Another upheaval followed. John III., son of Michael, was brought over
from Constantinople, and proclaimed emperor by a constantly growing
faction. The hapless Anna, who had doubtless ofttimes regretted giving
up the peaceful life of the monastery for the troubles and cares of a
crown, was taken prisoner in the palace, and was immediately strangled.
She had occupied the throne hardly more than a year.
The next period of importance in our study of Trebizontine princesses is
that covered by the long reign--1349-1390--of Alexius III., the second
son of Basilius by Irene of Trebizond. His wife was also a Byzantine
princess, Theodora, the daughter of Nicephorus Cantacuzenus, brother of
the emperor John V., Cantacuzenus, whose stormy career of opposition to
Anne of Savoy we have already noticed. Theodora bore to Alexius a number
of beautiful daughters, whom he utilized when they became of
marriageable age to form alliances with his powerful neighbors, both
Mohammedan and Christian. His eldest daughter, Eudocia, Alexius first
wedded to the Emir Tadjeddin, who had gained possession of the important
district of Limnia; after Tadjeddin was slain in a quarrel with a
neighboring emir, the beautiful and accomplished princess became the
wife of the Byzantine emperor, John V. That aged monarch had chosen her
to be the bride of his son, the emperor Manuel II.,--Palæologus; but
when she arrived at Constantinople for the celebration of the nuptials,
her beauty and grace so powerfully captivated the decrepit old debauchee
that he set aside the inclinations of his son, who was also enamored of
his prospective bride, and married the young widow himself.
Anna, another daughter of Alexius, was married to Bagrat VI., King of
Georgia; and a third daughter was bestowed on Taharten, Emir of
Erdsendjan. Alexius's sisters met a similar fate. His sister Maria was
married to Koutloubeg, the chief of the great Turkoman horde of the
White Sheep; and his sister Theodora, to Hadji Omer, Emir of Chalybia.
These marriages with Mohammedan nobles, though one revolts at the
immolation of Christian maidens on the altar of selfish expedience, are
yet the strongest proof how the Christian state was being surrounded by
powerful Mohammedan chieftains, who must be conciliated to ward off the
evil day of extinction. Such alliances, too, may account in part for the
moral degradation which henceforth characterizes the house of
Grand-Comnenus.
In the next generation, Alexius IV. wedded Theodora Cantacuzenus, of the
celebrated Byzantine family of that name. Neglected by her husband, the
princess consoled herself with too close an intimacy with one of the
chamberlains of the palace; her son John, indignant at his mother's
disgrace, assassinated her lover with his own hands. He later murdered
his own father, and ascended the throne as John IV.
Under this cruel and intriguing ruler and his successors, the Christian
population of the country regarded the dynasty of Grand-Comnenus as a
dynasty of pagan or foreign tyrants, so little of religion or morality
survived in Trebizond. His alliances with the Turkoman plunderers of the
frontiers increased the popular aversion. John early recognized the
growing strength of the Turks, and sought to prepare to meet the coming
invasion by forming an alliance with Ouzoun Hassan, chief of the
Turkomans of the White Horde, whose daring courage and rapid career of
conquest made him, in the general estimation, a formidable rival of
Mohammed II.
When invited to join in the league against Mohammed, Hassan demanded as
the price of his assistance the hand of the emperor's daughter
Katherine, renowned throughout the Orient as the most beautiful virgin
in the East. John IV. was highly pleased at the prospect of purchasing
so powerful an alliance on such easy terms, and readily agreed,
doubtless without consulting the fair Katherine. Yet, in order to save
his credit as a Christian emperor, and perhaps as a balm to his own
conscience in sacrificing his daughter to an infidel, he stipulated in
the treaty that Katherine should be permitted always the exercise of her
own religion, and should have the privilege of keeping a certain number
of Christian ladies as her attendants, and of Greek priests in her
suite, to serve a private chapel in the harem. It is to the honor of a
Mussulman to observe that Hassan strictly kept his promises, even after
the empire of Trebizond and the house of Grand-Comnenus were no more.
Before this matrimonial alliance was fulfilled, John came to his end;
but his brother David, who displaced the heir and usurped the throne,--a
fit agent for consummating the ruin of an empire,--completed the
arrangement. The beautiful Katherine was sent with suitable pomp to the
court of her bridegroom, Hassan, and readily adapted herself to the
changed conditions of her life. She soon acquired great influence over
her infidel husband, who was the soul of honor and good faith, and in
every phase of her life which is known to us she showed herself the most
attractive character of the whole house of Comnenus.
But no matrimonial alliance could save the doomed empire. Constantinople
had fallen in 1453, and it was merely a matter of time when the last
surviving Greek kingdom should succumb to the Mohammedan yoke. Mohammed
II., by the exercise of intrigue, gradually detached from the emperor
his infidel allies. When finally the Mohammedan forces came against the
city, David showed that he possessed nothing of the heroic spirit of the
last Constantine. He offered but a feeble resistance, and readily
sacrificed the city to outrage and plunder on an assurance of safety for
himself and his family. David basely deserted his empire and embarked on
board one of the Turkish galleys, with his family and his treasures, to
enjoy for a brief period luxurious ease in the European appanage
assigned him by Mohammed.
David's family consisted of seven sons and a daughter borne him by
Helena Cantacuzena, his second wife, who, through her devotion to
husband and children, deserves to rank among the noblest of mothers in
the chronicles of history.
The dethroned emperor was not long permitted to enjoy the repose he had
purchased with so much infamy. Mohammed at length suspected him of
carrying on secret communications with Ouzoun Hassan, his niece's
husband, and plotting to reestablish the Empire of Trebizond. He was
suddenly arrested on his luxurious estate, and conveyed with his whole
family to Constantinople. While they were on the way a letter from
Despina Katon--the popular designation of the fair Katherine--to her
uncle David was intercepted by the Ottoman emissaries. In this the
amiable spouse of Hassan, requested David to send her brother, or one of
her cousins, to be educated at her husband's court. This letter afforded
convincing proof to the suspicious Sultan that David was plotting with
Ouzoun Hassan and other enemies of the Porte for the restoration of his
empire.
The bare suspicion of Mohammed was a sentence of death to the whole race
of Grand-Comnenus. As soon as the unfortunate prisoners reached
Constantinople, David was ordered to embrace Islam under pain of death.
His life had been ignoble, but in his death David showed that he still
possessed something of the nobility of the Comneni, and he chose death
rather than dishonor his name by renouncing his religion. David, his
seven sons and his nephew Alexius were all slaughtered in one day, in
the year 1470: the daughter was lost in a Turkish harem.
The bodies of the princes were thrown out unburied beyond the walls. No
one ventured to approach them for fear of the vengeance of the Sultan.
They would have been abandoned to the dogs, the usual scavengers of
Christian flesh, had not the Empress Helena, the wife and mother,
repaired to the spot where they lay. She was clad in a peasant's garb,
to escape detection, and carried a spade in her hand. The day was spent
in guarding the remains of husband and children from the ravenous dogs,
and in digging a grave to receive their bodies. In the darkness of the
night a few faithful souls came to her relief and assisted her in
committing the bodies to the dust. The widowed and childless empress,
who had seen the last of her race, the last of the glories of the
Byzantine kingdom, then retired to a convent to pass the remainder of
her days in prayers for the repose of the souls of her loved ones. Grief
soon brought her to a refuge from all earthly sorrows in the grave.
The story of womanhood in the Byzantine Empire of the decadence is an
extremely sad one. The times were out of joint; corruption and
immorality prevailed; the emperors were almost without exception
extremely selfish, cruel, and unprincipled. It was impossible for
womanhood in such a period not to be tainted by the general ruin, yet we
have found many noble characters, and whatever may have been their
feminine weaknesses and foibles, however much their lots may have been
circumscribed by the caprices of sovereigns and the ceremonials of
courts, the princesses of the Comneni, the Palæologi and the Cantacuzeni
have, as a rule, shown themselves in virtue and in capability the
superiors of their brothers.
The rest of our story of Christian women of Greek or Byzantine
traditions is soon told. During all the period we have covered in this
chapter there was a flourishing mediæval life further south under Greek
skies, in Athens, under a Frankish and, later, a Florentine duchy, and
in the Peloponnesus, or the Morea, under Frankish or Venetian princes.
But this was the feudal life of mediæval times transferred to Greek
soil, the life of foreigners among a conquered people, and does not
concern us here.