THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY, THE FOURTH CRUSADE, AND THE
LATIN EMPIRE IN THE EAST (1095–1261)[27]
The Comnenian dynasty and Alexius I.—Decay of the Empire—The end of
the Comneni—The Angeli—The mustering of the Fourth Crusade—The
Conquest of Zara—The First and Second Captures of Constantinople—The
Partition and Organisation of the Latin Empire—The Greek
Revival—Rivalry of Constantinople and Thessalonica—The Latin
Emperors—Michael Palæologus and the Fall of the Latin Empire—The
Franks in the Peloponnesus.
[Sidenote: The Comnenian dynasty.]
The Comnenian dynasty, finally established by Alexius I. [see chapter
vii.], ruled for more than a century over the Roman Empire in the East.
We have already noticed the most stirring episodes of its external
history, in tracing the dealings of the Comnenian Emperors with the
Seljukian Turks, with the passing Crusaders, with the permanent Latin
garrison in Syria, and with the Norman rulers of Apulia and Sicily, who
strove to make southern Italy the starting-point for a Norman conquest
of the Balkan Peninsula. It remains now to describe briefly the internal
history of the Eastern Empire during the twelfth century, as a necessary
preliminary to the understanding of the collapse of the Greek power in
1204.
[Sidenote: Alexius I., 1081–1118.]
The combination of strength and duplicity, which constituted the
practical ability of Alexius Comnenus, had saved the Byzantine state
from the ruin with which it had been threatened. But the rescue of the
Empire had been accomplished at no small cost. The Crusaders had allowed
Alexius to resume possession of a large share of Asia Minor, but the
constant presence of Latins in the East was a permanent danger to him,
both from their superior military capacity and their fierce Catholicism.
The Eastern Empire sank into the condition of stagnation, which it was
to retain for the rest of its existence. The low cunning and trickery of
Alexius are glorified by his literary daughter Anna as the highest
resources of civilisation when face to face with the barbarian Franks.
Such methods might save the state, but they could hardly adapt it to
meet the new conditions which Western activity in the East had brought
about.
[Sidenote: Internal decay of the Eastern Empire.]
The military danger of the Frankish powers was not the worst result of
the Crusades on the Byzantine Empire. Even more important was the
sapping of its sources of wealth and the decay of its commercial
prosperity, as the consequence of the development of the trade of the
Italian republics, like Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, who really reaped
nearly the whole material advantages of the Crusades. Acre and other
Syrian ports began to supersede Constantinople as the great
meeting-places of Eastern and Western trade. The skill and energy of the
Italian merchants transferred the commerce of the Levant from Greek to
Western hands. Since the loss of the rich agricultural districts of Asia
Minor, the commerce of Constantinople was the one really solid source of
Byzantine prosperity. The revenue of the imperial exchequer now began to
fall off, and the disastrous expedients of Alexius to restore it made
permanent ruin more certain. In the hope of making the Bosporus and
Golden Horn as attractive to the Italian traders as the waters of the
Levant, Alexius sought to entice the Venetians back to his ports by
giving them exemption from customs dues (1082). The Venetians were
established in a special quarter of Constantinople, exempt from the
jurisdiction of the Greek authorities, with its Catholic church, its
walls, and its magistrates. The Pisans had privileges less extensive but
still considerable. Such concessions made the Italians easily able to
undersell the native merchants and to establish their factories on an
almost independent basis. But it was unlikely that the shrewd Venetians
would be content with what they had got. Their settlement within the
Empire as traders only paved the way to the time when they aspired to
establish themselves as rulers. It was a strange turn to make arbiters
of the destiny of the Empire those Venetians who had in former times
protected themselves from Western Cæsars by parading their dependence on
the Emperor at Constantinople, and whose city bears to this day the
abiding impress of Byzantine art. The strong Comnenian Emperors
postponed the danger for a time, but when the Empire was again divided
between rival claimants, it was as natural to the Venetians as it was to
the English and French in India to take advantage of the decay of an
ancient but stagnant civilisation to turn from their factories and
counting-houses to play the part of conquerors and rulers.
It is one of the innumerable proofs of the vitality of the East Roman
system that this result came so slowly and succeeded so imperfectly. The
latter part of the reign of Alexius seemed to revive the former glories
of the Eastern Empire. The dynasty was firmly settled on the throne; the
foreign enemies driven away or reduced to insignificance; the internal
decay was too gradual to be readily perceived. On his death in 1118
Alexius handed on to his son an empire enlarged and peaceful. [Sidenote:
John II., 1118–1143.] John II. Comnenus (1118–1143), called John the
Good, was one of the best of Byzantine rulers. As vigorous a ruler and a
better soldier than his father, his private character, stainless in its
morals, was marked by qualities, such as frankness, generosity, and
mercy, which rarely adorned the throne of the Eastern Cæsars. He reigned
undisturbed by revolts or conspiracies, save those of his sister Anna,
the historian, and his brother Isaac, and these foes within his
household received from him a generous forgiveness that they did nothing
to deserve. John was mostly occupied in his constant campaigns on the
frontiers, fighting the Patzinaks of the lower Danube, the Hungarians
and the Servians in Europe, and the Seljukian Turks and the Armenians in
Asia. Master of Cilicia, he forced Raymond of Antioch to acknowledge his
supremacy. Only his death in Cilicia, due to an accident in the hunting
field, prevented his invasion of the Latin kingdom of Syria. Had he
seriously grappled with the reform of administration and the finances,
he might have inaugurated a new period of prosperity. But his effort to
shake off the commercial supremacy of Venice involved him in a long and
unsuccessful war with the rulers of the sea, which he was glad to end by
restoring the Venetians to their former privileges, and by recognising
them as lords of some of the Greek islands. Even as it was, John the
Good did much to arrest decay.
[Sidenote: Manuel I., 1143–1180.]
Manuel I. Comnenus (1143–1180), John’s son and successor, was a worthy
heir to the military talents of his father. But his violent passions
sullied his private life, and his extravagance, ostentation, and vanity
took away from the lustre of his domestic administration. He was one of
the most Western in temperament of all the Greek sovereigns. He was
proud of his prodigious personal strength, of his handsome person, and
of his skill in all chivalrous exercises. He was the only Greek Emperor
who could surpass the most famous knights of the West in the mimic war
of the tournament. He had the spirit of a knight-errant, suggesting
Richard Cœur de Lion rather than the sly and demure Oriental. When he
had safely extricated himself from the perils of the Second Crusade [see
page 192], he plunged into a series of wars in which he sought personal
glory rather than the welfare of his Empire. There were strange tales of
his wonderful personal adventures and hairbreadth escapes from Patzinaks
and Turks. He introduced Western tournaments into Constantinople, had a
truly Frankish ardour for crusading, re-armed his troops after the
Western fashion with ponderous shields and heavy lances, and eagerly
sought to connect himself by marriage with the great royal houses of the
West. His first wife Bertha—called Irene to satisfy Greek
susceptibilities—was a sister-in-law of the Emperor Conrad III., and his
second wife was a princess of Antioch. His daughter married in
succession the brother of the King of Hungary and the son of the Marquis
of Montferrat. His son, Alexius, was wedded to the daughter of Louis
VII. of France. His influence extended over all the Danubian states as
far as the German frontier. His wars, if not always politic, were often
successful. He defeated the strenuous attempts of King Roger of Sicily
and his son William the Bad [see page 236] to invade his Empire. He
waged a long and not inglorious war with Venice, and even when unable to
destroy her privileges did something to counterbalance them by calling
in rival Italian traders, such as the Genoese. When beaten by the
Seljuks, he was able to negotiate an honourable peace. But his
wastefulness brought the financial disorders to a crisis, and his utter
neglect of routine threw the obsolete administrative system into
confusion. Yet with all his faults he was a brilliant personality, and
with his death the good fortune of the Comnenian dynasty came to an end.
[Sidenote: Alexius II., 1180–1183.]
Alexius II. (1180–1183), the son of Manuel, was a boy twelve years old,
and his mother, Mary of Antioch, strove to carry on the government in
his name. Her incapacity gave an opening for intrigues of the members of
the royal house, and, two years later, Andronicus Comnenus, cousin of
Manuel, displaced the Empress and became the guardian of Alexius with
the title of Cæsar. [Sidenote: Usurpation of Andronicus, 1183–1185.] As
soon as he was secure of power, Andronicus murdered his ward, married
his widow, Agnes of France, and made himself sole Basileus. Andronicus
was a strong and brave soldier, but overweeningly ambitious, wantonly
cruel, and already infamous by a long career of brutality and treachery.
His success in gaining power was greater than his success in retaining
it. Rebellions broke out in the provinces. Cyprus shook itself free from
his rule under the local Emperor Isaac Comnenus, who finally succumbed
to Richard of England [see page 301]. Even the reign of terror which
marked his rule did not check the plots of the angry nobles. The Normans
again invaded Macedonia, and captured Thessalonica. So hateful did
Andronicus become that a very small incident sufficed to bring his power
to an end. During his absence from Constantinople, one of his ministers
ordered the arrest of an incapable and cowardly noble named Isaac
Angelus. Driven to despair at the prospect of the torments meted out for
Andronicus’ victims, Isaac plucked up courage to resist, and took refuge
in St. Sophia’s. The mob of Constantinople arose in revolt, declaring
that it would have ‘no more old men or men with forked beards as
Emperors.’ [Sidenote: End of the Comneni.] Andronicus hurried back, but
all classes deserted him. He was tortured to death by the mob, and Isaac
Angelus was declared his successor. With him the glorious house of
Comnenus ingloriously expired (1185).
[Sidenote: Isaac II., 1185–1195.]
The reign of Isaac Angelus ushered in a worse period of degradation.
Even the brutality of Andronicus had been in some measure redeemed by
its strength, but under his weak and contemptible successor the Empire
suffered from the worst results of incompetence. The Emperor lavished
his revenues in building churches and palaces, in collecting relics and
sacred icons, in ministering to the luxury and vanity of a crowd of
parasites and dependants. He put the administrative offices up for sale,
and allowed their purchasers to recoup themselves by oppressing the
provincials. His ten years’ rule was full of military disasters. The
imposition of a new tax was followed by the revolt of the Bulgarians,
who had lived as peaceful subjects of the Empire since their conquest,
two hundred years previously, by Basil II. [see pages 163–165]. In a
short time the whole of Bulgaria had shaken off the yoke of
Constantinople, and the mercenary arms of Conrad of Montferrat. The
efforts of Isaac, who took the field in person against the rebels, were
powerless to win back a warlike and united people. The loss of Bulgaria
was not the only humiliation of Isaac’s reign. We have already seen how
the Third Crusade dealt roughly with his power, how Frederick
Barbarossa, provoked by his treachery, forced him to make an abject
submission, and how Richard of England permanently turned Cyprus into a
feudal Frankish kingdom, utterly unconnected with the Empire. Isaac had
also to buy off the attacks of the Sultan of Roum by the payment of
tribute. In the midst of all these disasters his wretched government was
abruptly ended by a palace conspiracy, formed against him by his elder
brother Alexius, while he was absent engaged in the Bulgarian war. Isaac
hurried back to Constantinople, only to be deposed, blinded, and immured
in a monastery (1195).
[Sidenote: Alexius III., 1195–1203.]
Alexius III. Angelus (1195–1203), was as wasteful, as profligate, and as
incompetent as his brother, pillaging his subjects to reward the
conspirators who had helped him to the throne. Rebellions broke out in
the provinces, and the Venetians and Pisans fought out their feuds in
the streets of the capital. The efforts to reconquer Bulgaria proved
abortive, and the Turks of Roum again threatened the heart of the
Empire. The utter feebleness of the Byzantine power tempted the Emperor
Henry VI. to re-enact the part of Robert Guiscard and Roger. His death
postponed, without averting, the danger of Western conquest. Philip of
Swabia was the brother-in-law of the deposed Isaac, and welcomed his son
Alexius, when he escaped in a Pisan ship from his ill-guarded prison.
The Venetians, though loaded with privileges, clamoured for more. It was
just at the moment when the anarchy of Constantinople had reached its
height that the army of Crusaders, collected from all Europe by the zeal
of Innocent III. and the preaching of Fulk of Neuilly, appeared at
Venice, waiting to take ship thence in the vessels of the republic for
the Holy Land.
The golden age of the Crusades was now over. The difficulties that
limited the success of the Third Crusade now prevented even the
undertaking of a new one on the same grand lines. The long efforts of
Celestine III. to start a new Crusade had borne little fruit. [Sidenote:
The mustering of the Fourth Crusade, 1198–1202.] Fulk of Neuilly began
his preaching very soon after Innocent III.’s accession to the Papacy,
and the new Pope warmly supported him. But none of the great princes of
Europe responded to his call. It was not until 1201 that the beginnings
of a crusading army was gathered together under leaders more of the
status of the heroes of the First Crusade than of those of the Second or
Third. Theobald III., Count of Champagne, was not deterred by his
brother Henry’s death from striving to redeem his brother’s lost
kingdom. Among the lords of Champagne that attended him was his marshal,
Geoffrey of Villehardouin, who has left us a famous account of the
expedition. Among Theobald’s companions of high rank were his kinsman
Louis, Count of Blois, and his sister Mary, who accompanied her husband,
Baldwin IX., Count of Flanders, Baldwin’s brothers Eustace and Henry,
and Simon of Montfort, soon to become famous as the leader of the
Albigensian Crusade. Theobald of Champagne was appointed
general-in-chief, and it was resolved to attack Egypt, as the real
centre of the Ayoubite power. Early in 1201, ambassadors of the
Crusaders, conspicuous among whom was Villehardouin, appeared at Venice
to negotiate with the Republic as to their means of transport. After
lengthened negotiations a treaty was concluded between them and Henry
Dandolo, the blind and aged, but still ardent, subtle, and active Doge.
It was agreed that the Venetians should provide the necessary
transports, with provisions for a year, and a convoy of fifty galleys.
But in return, the Frankish Crusaders agreed to pay Venice the vast sum
of 85,000 marks of silver, and to divide all conquests and booty equally
between themselves and the Venetians. It was characteristic of the
Italian seafaring republics to drive hard bargains with the Crusaders,
and Dandolo had little concern for the Holy War, though he had infinite
zeal for the interests of Venice. As soon as the Crusaders began to
collect by the lagoons to embark for Egypt, he aspired to use them as
soldiers of the Republic rather than of the Church. The appearance of
the fugitive Alexius in Italy already suggested the idea of diverting
the expedition against Constantinople.
There were still long delays. The death of the Count of Champagne left
vacant the supreme command, and, after several attempts to fill it up,
the Crusaders appointed as their chief the North Italian Boniface of
Montferrat, brother of Conrad of Montferrat, and a scheming and
unscrupulous adventurer. He was soon approached by King Philip of
Swabia, who urged upon him the claims of the young Alexius, his kinsman.
The Hohenstaufen monarch and the Doge of Venice now combined to
recommend the Crusaders to undertake the restoration of Isaac Comnenus,
as a preliminary to their attack on the infidels. Even at this early
stage it is more than likely that the Venetians had formed a deliberate
design to divert the Crusade, and had perhaps even an understanding with
the Saracens to that effect.
[Sidenote: The capture of Zara, 1202.]
When the spring of 1202 came, the passage from Venice was still
unaccountably delayed. Many of the Crusaders had spent all their
resources during their long stay, and the leaders were quite unable to
pay the Venetians the huge sum they had promised. Dandolo now proposed
that they should acquit themselves of part of their debt by helping
Venice to conquer the maritime town of Zara, an old enemy of the
Republic, and the haunt of pirates that preyed on its trade. Zara
belonged to the King of Hungary, who had also taken the cross. But the
spirit of adventure and love of booty was stronger among the Franks than
zeal for the Holy War. Despite the protests of Simon of Montfort against
the turning aside of a crusading army to fight a Catholic and crusading
prince, it was agreed to accept Dandolo’s suggestion. In October, the
Crusaders at last left the Lido. In November Zara fell, after a short
siege, into the hands of the united Venetian and Frankish host. The Pope
vigorously denounced the forsworn soldiers of the Cross. But the
Venetians paid no heed, and the Franks very little, to his fulminations.
The season was now too late to make a start, and the army took up winter
quarters in Dalmatia. Alexius now appeared in person in the crusading
camp, and his glittering offers were greedily accepted. [Sidenote: The
Crusade turned against Constantinople, 1203.] Boniface of Montferrat
thought more of his own advantage than of the sacred cause. The pious
scruples of the Count of Flanders were finally allayed. In the early
summer of 1203, the Crusaders made sail for the Ægean. The fatal results
of the decay of the Greek marine now made themselves clearly manifest.
Alexius III. was the first ruler of Constantinople who had to defend his
capital, without having the command of the sea. With next to no
resistance, the Venetians and Franks passed through the Dardanelles, and
encamped at Scutari. The land-attack on Constantinople was beaten off,
but the Venetians, headed by the blind old Doge, stormed the sea-wall,
and burnt the adjacent ports of the city. The incapable and cowardly
Emperor fled in alarm to Thrace, whereupon the army took the blind Isaac
out of prison, and restored him to his throne, but invited his son
Alexius to share it with him (July 1203).
[Sidenote: First capture of Constantinople. Restoration of Isaac Angelus
and Alexius IV., July 1203.]
The Crusaders had made an easy conquest, but their main feeling was one
of disgust that the premature surrender of the city had deprived them of
a chance of a richer plunder than their imaginations had ever conceived
before they saw the wonders of the New Rome. They settled down for the
next winter in the suburbs of the capital, while Isaac and Alexius IV.
left no stone unturned to satisfy their clamour for their pay. When the
Emperors were reduced, in their efforts to appease the Latins, to
plunder the churches of their jewels and reliquaries, and impose odious
taxes on their subjects, the mob of Constantinople, taught by the
success of recent revolutions to regard itself as all-powerful, rose in
revolt against them, and murdered all the Latins within reach. Isaac,
unnerved by captivity, died suddenly, it was said, of fright. [Sidenote:
Revolution in Constantinople. Alexius V., Feb. 1204.] Alexius IV. was
strangled. A strong and daring adventurer, Alexius Ducas, surnamed
Murzuphlus from his shaggy eyebrows, was proclaimed the Emperor Alexius
V. (February 1204). The house of Angelus thus quitted history even less
gloriously than the house of Comnenus.
[Sidenote: Second capture and sack of Constantinople, April 1204.]
It was but a revolution in the capital, and the provinces hardly
recognised the usurper. But Alexius V. threw a new energy into the
defences of Constantinople, and the Crusaders found that they must
either retire discomfited, or capture the city for a second time. After
two months of preparations, they advanced in April to the final assault.
This time they limited their attack to the sea-wall. The first effort
was a failure, but a few days later a second onslaught admitted them
into a corner of the city. There was still a chance for the Greeks, if
they had had courage to stubbornly defend the city street by street. But
the mercenary soldiers would not fight, and Alexius V., despairing of
further resistance, fled from the capital, though he soon fell into the
hands of the Crusaders, who put him to death. Constantinople now
belonged to the Franks, and a hideous three days of plunder, murder,
lust, and sacrilege, at last satisfied them for the moderation they had
been forced to show upon the occasion of the first conquest. The
priceless relics of ancient art were barbarously destroyed: the very
churches were ruthlessly pillaged, and the city of Constantine was
robbed for ever of that unique splendour that had made it for ages the
wonder of the world.
[Illustration: THE LATIN EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE]
The cry of indignation, that had already broken out when the Crusaders
turned aside to besiege Zara, was renewed on their abandoning their
campaign against the infidel to conquer a Christian city. But the
feebleness of the opposition showed that the crusading spirit was dying,
and even Innocent III., who was bitterly grieved at the failure of the
Crusade, found consolation in the hoped-for collapse of the Greek
schism, and made his peace with the Latin conquerors of Constantinople.
[Sidenote: The partition and organisation of the Latin Empire,
1204–1261.] The victorious Westerns now proceeded to the division of the
spoil. The Venetians and the Franks still stood apart, jealously
watching over their respective interests. There was no longer any talk
of appointing a new Greek Emperor. It was agreed to elect from the
crusading host a Latin Emperor and Patriarch, and it was further
determined that the party that furnished the Emperor should yield to the
other the choice of the Patriarch. A college of six French prelates and
six Venetian nobles was set up to elect the Emperor. There was keen
rivalry for the post. Boniface of Montferrat, as general, seemed to have
an obvious claim, but the Venetians were unwilling to support the
candidature of an Italian prince, an ally of the Hohenstaufen. Refusing
the dangerous honour for their own duke, the Venetians declared for
Count Baldwin of Flanders, who was duly elected Emperor in May. The
papal legate crowned him in St. Sophia’s, and he was invested with the
purple buskins and all the other trappings of the Basileus of the
Romans. Thomas Morosini, a Venetian, was chosen Patriarch. But the
election of the heads of the Church and State was an easier business
than the division of the spoils amidst a whole swarm of greedy
claimants.
Like the conquerors of Jerusalem after the First Crusade, the conquerors
of Constantinople set up a feudal state on the ruins of the Oriental
system that they had destroyed. The Emperor Baldwin was to be overlord
of all the Crusading chieftains, and was moreover to have as his domains
the capital, saving the Venetian quarter, the greater part of Thrace
with Adrianople, and the eastern islands of the Ægean, Samothrace, Cos,
Lesbos, Samos and Chios. Boniface of Montferrat was consoled for his
disappointment with the title of King of Thessalonica. He was still
strong enough to reject the offer of a patrimony in Asia which the
Latins had still to conquer, and to profess that he held Thessalonica in
his own right, independently of the Emperor of Romania. He established
himself in Macedonia and Thessaly. The Venetians had the lion’s share of
the plunder. They had henceforth a large slice of Constantinople with
the practical monopoly of the trade of the Empire. They also were
recognised as lords of most of the islands and coast lands, including
the Ionian islands, Eubœa, most of the Cyclades and some of the
Sporades, numerous settlements on the coasts of the Peloponnesus, and a
large domain north of the Corinthian Gulf, along Acarnania, Ætolia,
Epirus and Albania, where, however, they were not strong enough to
penetrate far into the interior. Crete they purchased from Boniface of
Montferrat. Dandolo, who assumed the title of _Despotes_, now styled
himself ‘lord of a quarter and half-a-quarter’ of the Empire. The minor
Frankish chiefs also received great fiefs. Louis of Blois became Duke of
Nicæa and of Nicomedia: Villehardouin became Prince of Achaia: Odo of La
Roche Lord of Athens, and there were counts of Thebes, dukes of
Philippopolis, and marquises of Corinth. Each feudatory had still his
fief to conquer as best he could, and the lords, to whom lands in Asia
were assigned, never obtained effective possession of their territories.
The more fortunate European barons could only enjoy their grants by
calling in the help of vassal chieftains, whose immunities left them
little more than a show of power outside their own domains. No feudal
state was ever strong, but no feudal state was ever so weak as the Latin
Empire in the East. It had to contend against all the characteristic
evils of feudalism, the infinite multiplication of the sovereign power,
the constant feuds of rival chieftains, the permanent jealousy of every
vassal of the power of his overlord. But it had special difficulties of
its own of a kind impossible to be got over. The magnates of the
expedition had cleverly manipulated the division of the spoils to their
own advantage, and the poorer Crusaders were bitterly discontented. A
comparison of the famous history of Villehardouin with the less well
known account of the Crusade by the simple Picard knight, Robert of
Clari, shows how bitterly the ‘poor knights’ resented the overbearing
conduct of the ‘great men,’ whose standpoint is represented by the
Marshal of Champagne. Moreover, Germans fought with Champenois and
Burgundians, North Italians with Flemings, and all with the Venetians.
Even if the Crusaders had been united, they were a mere handful of
adventurers. The Venetians, who had got for themselves the richest and
most accessible parts of the Empire, thought little of colonisation and
much of trade. Yet even the Venetians drew wealth from the richly
cultivated islands which now became the appanage, and were soon a chief
source of wealth, to the noblest houses of the island city. The Ionian
islands and Crete remained Venetian for many centuries; the interior
uplands were hardly Latin for two generations. It speaks well for the
prowess of the Frankish lords that they held their position so long as
this.
There was no attempt at mixing between Latins and Greeks. The quick
sympathy that had made the Normans Italians in Sicily, English in
England, and Irish in Ireland, no longer remained with the Frankish
hosts. Their civilisation was too stereotyped, their ideas too stiff,
their contempt for their conquered subjects too profound. It was even
less possible for the Greeks to assimilate themselves with their
conquerors. The old-world civilisation of the Byzantine realm was
infinitely more hide-bound than the feudal system of the Franks. It was
impossible to combine French feudalism with Byzantine officialism. The
Greek despised the rude and uncultivated ‘barbarians’ who now ruled the
heritage of Rome. The Latin scorned the cunning and effeminate Eastern
who had succumbed so readily to his sword. It had been hard enough for
the Comneni to keep together the decaying fortunes of the Eastern
Empire. It was quite impossible for the French and Flemings to succeed
where they had failed.
[Sidenote: The Greek revival.]
The barrier of religion would have kept the Latins and Greeks asunder,
even if differences of nationality and civilisation had not proved
effective causes of separation. Despite the rejoicings of Innocent III.,
Orthodox and Catholic were more divided than ever, when the Filioque was
chanted by azymites in the choir of St. Sophia, and beardless Latins,
who regarded the Pope as the source of all ecclesiastical power, took
into their hands every Church dignity and possession, and branded their
rightful owners as schismatics. Orthodoxy and the pressure of the Latin
invaders united Greek national feeling as it had never been united
before. In the mountains of Albania and Epirus, the bolder Greeks fled
from the yoke of the conqueror, and maintained their independence
against any force that the Latins could bring to bear against them. A
bastard of the house of Angelus became Despot of Epirus. Even in Thrace
and in the Peloponnesus there were independent Greek States. Into Asia
the Crusaders hardly penetrated at all. Two brothers of the house of
Comnenus established the independence of distant Trebizond, and
dignified themselves, like Isaac in Cyprus, with the title of Emperor.
[Sidenote: Theodore I. Lascaris, 1204–1222.] Theodore Lascaris, a brave
soldier who escaped from the sack of Constantinople, proclaimed himself
Emperor at Nicæa, and ruled over the western parts of Asia Minor. It was
well for Greeks and Latins alike that the dissension and decay of the
Seljukians of Roum, and the pressure of Tartar invasion, deprived Islam
of its power of aggression. In Europe the Wallachio-Bulgarian kingdom
easily maintained its independence and enlarged its boundaries at the
expense of the crusading state. Nothing but the secure possession of the
great military position of Constantinople, and the command of the sea,
which the Venetian galleys still kept open for them, allowed the Latin
Empire to keep up a feeble existence for nearly sixty years.
[Sidenote: Rivalry of Constantinople and Thessalonica.]
From the very beginning the Latin settlers had to contend against
dissension within and invasion from without. Boniface of Thessalonica
married the widow of Isaac Angelus, Margaret of Hungary (called by the
Greeks Irene), and posed as an independent prince and the protector of
the Greek population. He refused homage to the Emperor, and war broke
out between the Flemings of Constantinople and the Lombards of
Thessalonica. No sooner were his pretensions rudely shattered than the
Emperor was called away to meet the danger of Bulgarian invasion.
Johanitsa, the tsar of the Bulgarians, turned his arms against the
Crusaders, and invaded Thrace. In April 1205, a decisive battle was
fought at Adrianople, when the simulated flight of the wild Bulgar
hordes drew the chivalry of the West to break up their solid ranks.
[Sidenote: Baldwin I., 1204–1205.] Thereupon the Bulgarians rallied, and
took advantage of the enemy’s disorder to inflict on them a complete
defeat. Louis of Blois was among the slain. Baldwin was taken prisoner
and murdered. The Marshal of Champagne, and Henry of Flanders, Baldwin’s
brother, almost alone survived of the Latin chieftains.
[Sidenote: Henry, 1206–1216.]
Henry of Flanders had already made some progress in the conquest of
Greek Asia, when the news of the Bulgarian invasion called him to defend
his brother’s throne. He was now recognised as Emperor. He was politic
as well as brave, and the Greeks themselves admitted that he ‘treated
the Romans as if they were his own people.’ But he could neither conquer
Asia, defeat the Bulgarians, nor even permanently conciliate his Greek
subjects; though his zeal for shielding them from Catholic persecution
drew upon him the thunders of the Vatican. He made a treaty with
Theodore Lascaris, which gave him at least a little corner of Asia. He
was the strongest of the Latin Emperors. But he profited by the even
greater weakness of the kingdom of Thessalonica. In 1207, Boniface of
Montferrat perished, like Baldwin, at the hands of the Bulgarians. The
Despot of Epirus took advantage of the minority of his infant son,
Demetrius, to extend his conquests. The Frankish lords of the kingdom
called in the Emperor Henry, who found some consolation for his
disappointments in the North, when he gave the law to the Peloponnesus
and the islands in a great Diet held in 1210, compelled the regent of
the young king to do him homage, and received the submission even of the
Venetian lords of the Archipelago, conferring on the great house of
Sanudo the Duchy of the Archipelago or the Cyclades. Even the Despot of
Epirus formally acknowledged his sovereignty. Henry died in 1216, and
with him perished the best hopes of the Latins in Greece.
[Sidenote: Peter of Courtenay, 1216–1219.]
Peter of Courtenay, Count of Auxerre, a grandson of Louis VI. of France,
and the husband of Iolande, sister of Baldwin and Henry, was now chosen
Emperor. He was in Europe at the time of his election, and hastened to
Constantinople to take possession of the Empire. He rashly chose to
disembark at Durazzo and follow the ancient Via Egnatia over the hills
to Macedonia and Thrace. When amongst the mountains, his little army was
overwhelmed by the Despot of Epirus, and he himself was captured, and
died in captivity. His wife, who had more prudently proceeded to
Constantinople by sea, now acted as regent for her young son Robert, the
next Emperor.
[Sidenote: Robert, 1219–1228.]
The reign of Robert of Courtenay marked the rapid decline of the Eastern
Empire. It witnessed the complete destruction of the Kingdom of
Thessalonica. In 1223, when King Demetrius was abroad, seeking in vain
Western help, Theodore Angelus took possession of his capital, and
henceforth ruled without a rival from the Adriatic to the Ægean; and,
like the lords of Nicæa and Trebizond, assumed the pompous style of
Emperor of the Romans. [Sidenote: Fall of Thessalonica, 1223.] John
Vatatzes, the successor of Theodore Lascaris at Nicæa, renewed the war
with the Latins of Constantinople. It seemed almost a race between the
two Theodores, as to which should first drive out the Latins. The domain
of Robert was reduced to Constantinople and its suburbs. He went to
implore help from the West, and died during his journey in 1228.
[Sidenote: Baldwin II., 1228–1261.]
Baldwin II. (1228–1261), the youngest of Peter of Courtenay’s sons, a
boy of eleven, was now proclaimed Emperor. John de Brienne, the ex-king
of Jerusalem [see chapter xix], was soon called in to hold the regency.
He married his daughter to Baldwin, was crowned joint-Emperor, and saved
his ward’s throne from the Greeks and Bulgarians. On John’s death in
1237, new perils beset the young Baldwin. The Latin state had had a few
years of breathing time through the rivalry of the Angeli of
Thessalonica and the house of Ducas, to which, after the death of
Theodore Lascaris, had passed the Empire of Nicæa. [Sidenote: Union of
Thessalonica and Nicæa.] John III. Ducas ended the strife in his own
favour by the conquest of Thessalonica in 1241. Henceforth, the Angeli
had to be contented with the title of Despot of Epirus, and were
confined to the uplands of the west. A single strong Greek power now
threatened Constantinople, both from the side of Asia and the side of
Europe. [Sidenote: John III. Ducas, 1222–1254.] Moreover, John III. was
a competent administrator, a good warrior, and an able financier.
Nothing but the mighty walls of Constantinople, which the Greeks had
vainly attempted to assault, and the Venetian command of the sea, now
saved the Latin Empire from immediate extinction. Baldwin II. spent most
of his long reign in the vain quest of Frankish assistance. He left his
son as a pledge to Western bankers, and sold the most precious relics of
Constantinople to St. Louis. He had to sell the lead of his palace-roof
to buy food, and warm himself by burning the wood of his outhouses. But
the death of John III. in 1254 prolonged the long agony of the Latin
Empire. Michael Palæologus, an ambitious and unscrupulous soldier,
became regent for the infant grandson of John III., and soon associated
himself with his ward as joint ruler. [Sidenote: Michael VIII.
Palæologus, 1259–1282.] In 1259 Michael was crowned Emperor at Nicæa,
and the rights of his little colleague were soon forgotten. But Michael
VIII. showed vigour and military capacity which went some way to justify
his usurpation. In 1261, he profited by the absence of the Venetian
fleet to make a sudden attack on Constantinople. [Sidenote: Conquest of
Constantinople, 1261.] The unlucky Baldwin could offer no effective
resistance. On 15th August, Michael entered in triumph the ancient
capital, and the Latin Empire perished, unwept and unhonoured.
[Sidenote: The revived Greek Empire, 1261–1453.]
The Venetians, alarmed to find that Michael had transferred their
privileges to their Genoese rivals, joined with the Franks of the
Peloponnesus in raising a cry for a Crusade against the victorious
Greeks, which was further preached by Pope Urban IV. Charles of Anjou,
who became King of Naples and Sicily in 1265, was willing, and seemed
eminently fitted, to carry out the old aggressive policy of the
Guiscards. But, though the proposal that he should lead a new Crusade
against the Orthodox frightened Michael into insincere proposals to buy
off Western opposition by ending the Greek schism, his submission had no
permanent result when the fear of a Crusade was removed. Michael never
ruled with the authority of the Macedonians or the Comneni, but his
careful measures of reforms, and his warlike capacity, started the Greek
Empire on the last stage of its career, which gave it nearly two
centuries more of existence before it succumbed to the Ottoman Turks.
[Sidenote: The Latins in Peloponnesus.]
The Latin power still partly continued in the islands and in the
Peloponnesus. Not only did the Venetians retain their grip on the
Archipelago and the coast, but the proximity of the sea enabled some of
the Franks of Southern Greece to continue to rule their principalities,
after Baldwin II. had been driven from his throne. They had as their
code of law the Assizes of Romania, a free adaptation of the famous
Assizes of Jerusalem. They even effected some sort of partial
amalgamation with their native subjects. Their churches and fortresses
long remained, as in Cyprus and Syria, the strongest witnesses of their
power. It was not till 1310 that the Dukes of Athens, of the house of
Brienne, succumbed, not to the Greeks, but to their own Catalan
mercenaries. The Princes of Achaia reigned even longer. The Venetians
saved both the Ionian islands and Crete alike from the Greeks and from
the Turks. To the end of the Middle Ages, titular dukes, princes, and
emperors of the Eastern world kept up the memory of one of the strangest
and most daring of Western conquests, but one which was useless to the
West, and only weakened the Christian East, at a time when the rise of
the Ottoman Turks required every effort to be made to stem the tide of
that barbarian conquest which was soon to prove fatal to Latin and Greek
alike.
GENEALOGY OF THE COMNENI AND ANGELI.
+---------+
| |
ISAAC I., John.
1057–1059. |
|
ALEXIUS I.,
1081–1118,
_m._ Irene.
|
+-------------------------+-----+------------------+------------+
| | | |
Anna, JOHN II., Isaac. Theodora.
_m._ Nicephorus Bryennius. 1118–1143, | |
_m._ Irene of | |
Hungary. | |
| | |
+---------------+------------+ | |
| | | |
Isaac, MANUEL I., | |
grandfather of 1143–1180, | |
Isaac, _m._ 1. Bertha of | |
Emperor of Sulzbach, Louis VII. | |
Cyprus. 2. Mary of of France. | |
Antioch. | | |
| | | |
ALEXIUS II., _m._ 1. Agnes _m._ 2. ANDRONICUS I., |
1180–1183. of France. 1183–1185. |
| |
Manuel. |
| |
Alexius, |
founder of line |
of Emperors of |
Trebizond. |
|
+------------+-----------------+---------------------+
| | |
Andronicus. John. Michael,
| | Despot of Epirus,
| Theodore, founder of line
| Emperor of of Despots of
| Thessalonica, Epirus.
| 1214–1230.
+---------------+---+
| |
ALEXIUS III., ISAAC II., _m._ 1. Margaret _m._ 2. Boniface of Montferrat,
1195–1203. 1185–1195, of | King of Thessalonica,
1203–1204. Hungary. | _d._ 1207.
| |
+-----------------+ |
| | |
ALEXIUS IV., Irene, Demetrius,
murdered _m._ Philip King of Thessalonica,
1204. of Swabia. dep. 1222.
GENEALOGY OF THE LATIN EMPERORS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Louis VI. of France.
|
|
Peter,
Baldwin VIII., Count of Flanders. _m._ heiress of Courtenay.
| |
+--------------+--+-----------+ |
| | | |
BALDWIN I. HENRY, Iolande _m._ PETER of Courtenay,
(IX. of Flanders), 1206–1216. | 1216–1217,
1204–1205. | ob. 1218.
|
+-------------+----------+
| |
ROBERT, BALDWIN II.,
1218–1228. 1228–1261,
ob. 1273,
_m._ Mary, daughter of
JOHN OF BRIENNE,
Co-Emperor,
1231–1237.