Venetians.—Part III.
But in this abject distress, the emperor and empire were still
possessed of an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value
from the superstition of the Christian world. The merit of the
true cross was somewhat impaired by its frequent division; and a
long captivity among the infidels might shed some suspicion on
the fragments that were produced in the East and West. But
another relic of the Passion was preserved in the Imperial chapel
of Constantinople; and the crown of thorns which had been placed
on the head of Christ was equally precious and authentic. It had
formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtors to deposit, as
a security, the mummies of their parents; and both their honor
and religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In the
same manner, and in the absence of the emperor, the barons of
Romania borrowed the sum of thirteen thousand one hundred and
thirty-four pieces of gold 50 on the credit of the holy crown:
they failed in the performance of their contract; and a rich
Venetian, Nicholas Querini, undertook to satisfy their impatient
creditors, on condition that the relic should be lodged at
Venice, to become his absolute property, if it were not redeemed
within a short and definite term. The barons apprised their
sovereign of the hard treaty and impending loss and as the empire
could not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling,
Baldwin was anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and
to vest it with more honor and emolument in the hands of the most
Christian king. 51 Yet the negotiation was attended with some
delicacy. In the purchase of relics, the saint would have started
at the guilt of simony; but if the mode of expression were
changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept the gift, and
acknowledge the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans, were
despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown which
had escaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On
opening a wooden box, they recognized the seals of the doge and
barons, which were applied on a shrine of silver; and within this
shrine the monument of the Passion was enclosed in a golden vase.
The reluctant Venetians yielded to justice and power: the emperor
Frederic granted a free and honorable passage; the court of
France advanced as far as Troyes in Champagne, to meet with
devotion this inestimable relic: it was borne in triumph through
Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt; and a free
gift of ten thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to his
loss. The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor
to offer with the same generosity the remaining furniture of his
chapel; 52 a large and authentic portion of the true cross; the
baby-linen of the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the
chain, of his Passion; the rod of Moses, and part of the skull of
St. John the Baptist. For the reception of these spiritual
treasures, twenty thousand marks were expended by St. Louis on a
stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris, on which the muse
of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth of such
remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human
testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles
which they have performed. About the middle of the last age, an
inveterate ulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the
holy crown: 53 the prodigy is attested by the most pious and
enlightened Christians of France; nor will the fact be easily
disproved, except by those who are armed with a general antidote
against religious credulity. 54
50 (return) [ Under the words _Perparus_, _Perpera_,
_Hyperperum_, Ducange is short and vague: Monetæ genus. From a
corrupt passage of Guntherus, (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10,) I guess
that the Perpera was the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark
of silver, or about ten shillings sterling in value. In lead it
would be too contemptible.]
51 (return) [ For the translation of the holy crown, &c., from
Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c.
11—14, 24, 35) and Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvii. p.
201—204.)]
52 (return) [ Mélanges tirés d’une Grande Bibliothèque, tom.
xliii. p. 201—205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the
soul and manners of the _Sainte Chapelle_; and many facts
relative to the institution are collected and explained by his
commentators, Brosset and De St. Marc.]
53 (return) [ It was performed A.D. 1656, March 24, on the niece
of Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c.,
were on the spot, to believe and attest a miracle which
confounded the Jesuits, and saved Port Royal, (uvres de Racine,
tom. vi. p. 176—187, in his eloquent History of Port Royal.)]
54 (return) [ Voltaire (Siécle de Louis XIV. c. 37, uvres, tom.
ix. p. 178, 179) strives to invalidate the fact: but Hume,
(Essays, vol. ii. p. 483, 484,) with more skill and success,
seizes the battery, and turns the cannon against his enemies.]
The Latins of Constantinople 55 were on all sides encompassed and
pressed; their sole hope, the last delay of their ruin, was in
the division of their Greek and Bulgarian enemies; and of this
hope they were deprived by the superior arms and policy of
Vataces, emperor of Nice. From the Propontis to the rocky coast
of Pamphylia, Asia was peaceful and prosperous under his reign;
and the events of every campaign extended his influence in
Europe. The strong cities of the hills of Macedonia and Thrace
were rescued from the Bulgarians; and their kingdom was
circumscribed by its present and proper limits, along the
southern banks of the Danube. The sole emperor of the Romans
could no longer brook that a lord of Epirus, a Comnenian prince
of the West, should presume to dispute or share the honors of the
purple; and the humble Demetrius changed the color of his
buskins, and accepted with gratitude the appellation of despot.
His own subjects were exasperated by his baseness and incapacity;
they implored the protection of their supreme lord. After some
resistance, the kingdom of Thessalonica was united to the empire
of Nice; and Vataces reigned without a competitor from the
Turkish borders to the Adriatic Gulf. The princes of Europe
revered his merit and power; and had he subscribed an orthodox
creed, it should seem that the pope would have abandoned without
reluctance the Latin throne of Constantinople. But the death of
Vataces, the short and busy reign of Theodore his son, and the
helpless infancy of his grandson John, suspended the restoration
of the Greeks. In the next chapter, I shall explain their
domestic revolutions; in this place, it will be sufficient to
observe, that the young prince was oppressed by the ambition of
his guardian and colleague, Michael Palæologus, who displayed the
virtues and vices that belong to the founder of a new dynasty.
The emperor Baldwin had flattered himself, that he might recover
some provinces or cities by an impotent negotiation. His
ambassadors were dismissed from Nice with mockery and contempt.
At every place which they named, Palæologus alleged some special
reason, which rendered it dear and valuable in his eyes: in the
one he was born; in another he had been first promoted to
military command; and in a third he had enjoyed, and hoped long
to enjoy, the pleasures of the chase. “And what then do you
propose to give us?” said the astonished deputies. “Nothing,”
replied the Greek, “not a foot of land. If your master be
desirous of peace, let him pay me, as an annual tribute, the sum
which he receives from the trade and customs of Constantinople.
On these terms, I may allow him to reign. If he refuses, it is
war. I am not ignorant of the art of war, and I trust the event
to God and my sword.” 56 An expedition against the despot of
Epirus was the first prelude of his arms. If a victory was
followed by a defeat; if the race of the Comneni or Angeli
survived in those mountains his efforts and his reign; the
captivity of Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the Latins
of the most active and powerful vassal of their expiring
monarchy. The republics of Venice and Genoa disputed, in the
first of their naval wars, the command of the sea and the
commerce of the East. Pride and interest attached the Venetians
to the defence of Constantinople; their rivals were tempted to
promote the designs of her enemies, and the alliance of the
Genoese with the schismatic conqueror provoked the indignation of
the Latin church. 57
55 (return) [ The gradual losses of the Latins may be traced in
the third fourth, and fifth books of the compilation of Ducange:
but of the Greek conquests he has dropped many circumstances,
which may be recovered from the larger history of George
Acropolita, and the three first books of Nicephorus, Gregoras,
two writers of the Byzantine series, who have had the good
fortune to meet with learned editors Leo Allatius at Rome, and
John Boivin in the Academy of Inscriptions of Paris.]
56 (return) [ George Acropolita, c. 78, p. 89, 90. edit. Paris.]
57 (return) [ The Greeks, ashamed of any foreign aid, disguise
the alliance and succor of the Genoese: but the fact is proved by
the testimony of J Villani (Chron. l. vi. c. 71, in Muratori,
Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 202, 203) and William de
Nangis, (Annales de St. Louis, p. 248 in the Louvre Joinville,)
two impartial foreigners; and Urban IV threatened to deprive
Genoa of her archbishop.]
Intent on his great object, the emperor Michael visited in person
and strengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The
remains of the Latins were driven from their last possessions: he
assaulted without success the suburb of Galata; and corresponded
with a perfidious baron, who proved unwilling, or unable, to open
the gates of the metropolis. The next spring, his favorite
general, Alexius Strategopulus, whom he had decorated with the
title of Cæsar, passed the Hellespont with eight hundred horse
and some infantry, 58 on a secret expedition. His instructions
enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not to risk
any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city. The
adjacent territory between the Propontis and the Black Sea was
cultivated by a hardy race of peasants and outlaws, exercised in
arms, uncertain in their allegiance, but inclined by language,
religion, and present advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They
were styled the _volunteers_; 59 and by their free service the
army of Alexius, with the regulars of Thrace and the Coman
auxiliaries, 60 was augmented to the number of five-and-twenty
thousand men. By the ardor of the volunteers, and by his own
ambition, the Cæsar was stimulated to disobey the precise orders
of his master, in the just confidence that success would plead
his pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, and the
distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar to the
observation of the volunteers; and they represented the present
moment as the most propitious to surprise and conquest. A rash
youth, the new governor of the Venetian colony, had sailed away
with thirty galleys, and the best of the French knights, on a
wild expedition to Daphnusia, a town on the Black Sea, at the
distance of forty leagues; 601 and the remaining Latins were
without strength or suspicion. They were informed that Alexius
had passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were lulled by
the smallness of his original numbers; and their imprudence had
not watched the subsequent increase of his army. If he left his
main body to second and support his operations, he might advance
unperceived in the night with a chosen detachment. While some
applied scaling-ladders to the lowest part of the walls, they
were secure of an old Greek, who would introduce their companions
through a subterraneous passage into his house; they could soon
on the inside break an entrance through the golden gate, which
had been long obstructed; and the conqueror would be in the heart
of the city before the Latins were conscious of their danger.
After some debate, the Cæsar resigned himself to the faith of the
volunteers; they were trusty, bold, and successful; and in
describing the plan, I have already related the execution and
success. 61 But no sooner had Alexius passed the threshold of the
golden gate, than he trembled at his own rashness; he paused, he
deliberated; till the desperate volunteers urged him forwards, by
the assurance that in retreat lay the greatest and most
inevitable danger. Whilst the Cæsar kept his regulars in firm
array, the Comans dispersed themselves on all sides; an alarm was
sounded, and the threats of fire and pillage compelled the
citizens to a decisive resolution. The Greeks of Constantinople
remembered their native sovereigns; the Genoese merchants their
recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter was in arms; and
the air resounded with a general acclamation of “Long life and
victory to Michael and John, the august emperors of the Romans!”
Their rival, Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most
pressing danger could not prompt him to draw his sword in the
defence of a city which he deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure
than regret: he fled from the palace to the seashore, where he
descried the welcome sails of the fleet returning from the vain
and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia. Constantinople was
irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and the principal
families embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steered for
the Isle of Euba, and afterwards for Italy, where the royal
fugitive was entertained by the pope and Sicilian king with a
mixture of contempt and pity. From the loss of Constantinople to
his death, he consumed thirteen years, soliciting the Catholic
powers to join in his restoration: the lesson had been familiar
to his youth; nor was his last exile more indigent or shameful
than his three former pilgrimages to the courts of Europe. His
son Philip was the heir of an ideal empire; and the pretensions
of his daughter Catherine were transported by her marriage to
Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, king of
France. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female line
by successive alliances, till the title of emperor of
Constantinople, too bulky and sonorous for a private name,
modestly expired in silence and oblivion. 62
58 (return) [ Some precautions must be used in reconciling the
discordant numbers; the 800 soldiers of Nicetas, the 25,000 of
Spandugino, (apud Ducange, l. v. c. 24;) the Greeks and Scythians
of Acropolita; and the numerous army of Michael, in the Epistles
of Pope Urban IV. (i. 129.)]
59 (return) [ Qelhmatarioi. They are described and named by
Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 14.)]
60 (return) [ It is needless to seek these Comans in the deserts
of Tartary, or even of Moldavia. A part of the horde had
submitted to John Vataces, and was probably settled as a nursery
of soldiers on some waste lands of Thrace, (Cantacuzen. l. i. c.
2.)]
601 (return) [ According to several authorities, particularly
Abulfaradj. Chron. Arab. p. 336, this was a stratagem on the part
of the Greeks to weaken the garrison of Constantinople. The Greek
commander offered to surrender the town on the appearance of the
Venetians.—M.]
61 (return) [ The loss of Constantinople is briefly told by the
Latins: the conquest is described with more satisfaction by the
Greeks; by Acropolita, (c. 85,) Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 26, 27,)
Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. c. 1, 2) See Ducange, Hist. de C. P.
l. v. c. 19—27.]
62 (return) [ See the three last books (l. v.—viii.) and the
genealogical tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular
emperor of Constantinople was James de Baux, duke of Andria in
the kingdom of Naples, the son of Margaret, daughter of Catherine
de Valois, daughter of Catharine, daughter of Philip, son of
Baldwin II., (Ducange, l. viii. c. 37, 38.) It is uncertain
whether he left any posterity.]
After this narrative of the expeditions of the Latins to
Palestine and Constantinople, I cannot dismiss the subject
without resolving the general consequences on the countries that
were the scene, and on the nations that were the actors, of these
memorable crusades. 63 As soon as the arms of the Franks were
withdrawn, the impression, though not the memory, was erased in
the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syria. The faithful disciples
of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desire to study
the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity of
their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from
their intercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of
the West. The Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were
only vain, showed a disposition somewhat less inflexible. In the
efforts for the recovery of their empire, they emulated the
valor, discipline, and tactics of their antagonists. The modern
literature of the West they might justly despise; but its free
spirit would instruct them in the rights of man; and some
institutions of public and private life were adopted from the
French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused
the knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and
classics were at length honored with a Greek version. 64 But the
national and religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed
by persecution, and the reign of the Latins confirmed the
separation of the two churches.
63 (return) [ Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades,
speaks of the kingdoms of the Franks, and those of the Negroes,
as equally unknown, (Prolegom. ad Geograph.) Had he not disdained
the Latin language, how easily might the Syrian prince have found
books and interpreters!]
64 (return) [ A short and superficial account of these versions
from Latin into Greek is given by Huet, (de Interpretatione et de
claris Interpretibus p. 131—135.) Maximus Planudes, a monk of
Constantinople, (A.D. 1327—1353) has translated Cæsar’s
Commentaries, the Somnium Scipionis, the Metamorphoses and
Heroides of Ovid, &c., (Fabric. Bib. Græc. tom. x. p. 533.)]
If we compare the æra of the crusades, the Latins of Europe with
the Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge,
industry, and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the
third rank in the scale of nations. Their successive improvement
and present superiority may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of
character, to an active and imitative spirit, unknown to their
more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary or
retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have
derived the most early and essential benefits from a series of
events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the world, and
introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the more
cultivated regions of the East. The first and most obvious
progress was in trade and manufactures, in the arts which are
strongly prompted by the thirst of wealth, the calls of
necessity, and the gratification of the sense or vanity. Among
the crowd of unthinking fanatics, a captive or a pilgrim might
sometimes observe the superior refinements of Cairo and
Constantinople: the first importer of windmills 65 was the
benefactor of nations; and if such blessings are enjoyed without
any grateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the
more apparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported
into Italy from Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of
the Latins were more slowly felt and supplied; the ardor of
studious curiosity was awakened in Europe by different causes and
more recent events; and, in the age of the crusades, they viewed
with careless indifference the literature of the Greeks and
Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematical and medicinal knowledge
might be imparted in practice and in figures; necessity might
produce some interpreters for the grosser business of merchants
and soldiers; but the commerce of the Orientals had not diffused
the study and knowledge of their languages in the schools of
Europe. 66 If a similar principle of religion repulsed the idiom
of the Koran, it should have excited their patience and curiosity
to understand the original text of the gospel; and the same
grammar would have unfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties
of Homer. Yet in a reign of sixty years, the Latins of
Constantinople disdained the speech and learning of their
subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasures which the
natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle was indeed
the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous
Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his
Latin votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version, from
the Jews and Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the crusades
was a savage fanaticism; and the most important effects were
analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with
his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine; 67 and
each relic was preceded and followed by a train of miracles and
visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new
legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the
establishment of the inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks
and friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress
of idolatry, flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war.
The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their
reason and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were
the times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age
of absurdity and fable.
65 (return) [ Windmills, first invented in the dry country of
Asia Minor, were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105, (Vie
privée des François, tom. i. p. 42, 43. Ducange, Gloss. Latin.
tom. iv. p. 474.)]
66 (return) [ See the complaints of Roger Bacon, (Biographia
Britannica, vol. i. p. 418, Kippis’s edition.) If Bacon himself,
or Gerbert, understood _some_Greek, they were prodigies, and owed
nothing to the commerce of the East.]
67 (return) [ Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz, (uvres
de Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 458,) a master of the history of the
middle ages. I shall only instance the pedigree of the
Carmelites, and the flight of the house of Loretto, which were
both derived from Palestine.]