THE LAST BYZANTINE EMPRESSES
A hundred years of life still awaited the Eastern Empire from the time
when John IV. returned to the throne, and half-a-dozen Empresses were
yet to play their varied parts on the imperial stage. Had any impartial
and sagacious observer reflected on the condition of the Empire at
the time, as we have described it, he would hardly have promised it
a new lease of one hundred years’ tenancy of its stricken domain. At
Constantinople, of course, no one foresaw the end. It is usually in
fairly robust, not in really dying, civilizations that we find an
apprehension of impending ruin: as in France and England to-day. But
the Byzantine Empire had shrunk to such proportions, the Turks were
closing round its capital with such steady advance, and there was so
little enlightenment in its mind, or real patriotism in its heart,
that it seemed to be very near the end. No miracle was wrought in its
favour, but it was saved for a time by one of the accidents of human
history. The Tartars or Moguls attained the height of their power under
the famous Timour, and the ambition of the Turk was distracted and
enfeebled.
There should be a peculiar interest in studying the features of the
Empresses who occupy the familiar palaces during this hundred years’
grace of the doomed civilization. We are so accustomed to finding the
character of a period reflected in the character of the Empresses that
the last representatives of the imperial line should afford us an
instructive insight into the final life-phase of a civilization. The
idea has become somewhat popular that nations grow old, as individuals
do, and die of loss of vitality; and that in their last years they pass
into singular convulsions or eccentricities. We shall, unfortunately,
be impeded in this interesting study by the scantiness of the records.
The ample chronicles of Cantacuzenus and his theological rival close,
and two or three confused and ill-proportioned writers alone preserve
for us a fragmentary record of the last hundred years. As in all such
meagre records, the story of the women suffers most. Still, enough is
said to give us an adequate idea of the remaining Empresses and their
times; and it may be said in a word that we find no convulsions, or
eccentricities, or increasing debility of individuals, but the familiar
and unfortunate Byzantine character pursuing its selfish ambitions
and passions until the great broom of the Turk sweeps the degenerate
successors of the Romans for ever out of the East.
John IV., now a young man of twenty-five, occupies the throne for
nearly forty years out of the remaining century, but this reign is
almost barren of interest for us, and must be treated only as an
introduction of his children. Helena had brought with her from Tenedos
a young boy named Andronicus, and two brothers, Manuel and Theodore,
were added in the course of time to the family. That is all that we
find recorded of the Empress Helena. She may have died early in her
husband’s reign, though the fact that he does not marry again until old
age, suggests, in the case of such a man, that she lived to witness
his amours and his political ineptitude. The interest passes to her
children.
Andronicus, a pretty and spoiled boy, was betrothed in his tenth
year to Maria, daughter of Alexander of Trebizond, who was about the
same age when she became the Empress-elect. However, the character
of Andronicus was to defraud her of the promise of the crown. We do
not know in what year they were married, but it must have been before
1369, when John went to Italy, leaving Constantinople in charge of
Andronicus. The Turks were again advancing, and John could see no
escape except with the assistance of the Latins. He first visited
Venice, and received a most flattering welcome, but no material help.
Borrowing a sum of money from Venetian bankers, he went on to Rome
and opened negotiations with the Vatican. It seemed to the Vatican
an excellent opportunity to convince the Greeks that the Holy Ghost
did proceed from _both_ the Father and the Son--the chief dogmatical
point at issue between the two Churches--and John hurriedly embraced
that dogma, and would have embraced any number of dogmas, in the hope
of being rewarded with an army. The reward was very meagre, however,
and, after trying a few more princes with no more success, he returned
to Venice to re-embark for the East. Then the Venetian moneylenders
detained his imperial person as a common debtor, and he appealed to
Andronicus to seize sufficient Church treasure to pay the debt.
Andronicus was enjoying his short spell of power over the shrunken
treasury during his father’s absence, and the demand was irksome. He
sent word to Venice that the clergy declined to allow him to seize
their chalices and reliquaries, and that, to his regret, he saw no
way of delivering his father from the debtors’ prison. He was a true
Paleologus: a selfish voluptuary, eager only to have the sole right
to the keys of the treasury. His younger brother Manuel, however,
professed indignation, zealously gathered funds to meet the debt, and
hastened to Venice to release his father. He _may_ have been prompted
by a sincere piety; but the natural effect of his action was that,
when John returned dolefully to the city, Manuel began to wear purple
boots, and the chances of Andronicus and Maria occupying the throne
became slender. It appeared that, the less the Empire became, the
fiercer was the struggle for it. The Turks had already reached and
taken Adrianople, and Thessalonica was now the only large town in
the possession of the Empire besides the capital. A few years later
Thessalonica went. Manuel, who governed it, and was a youth of spirit
and ambition, made a futile effort to break loose of the Turks. He was
pardoned by the Sultan Murad, but he lost Thessalonica.
After the return of John the pressure of the Turks had been evaded
by a voluntary subjection, and the Emperor of Constantinople was now
a vassal of the Sultan, holding, under his sovereign lord the Turk,
the city itself and a few thousand square miles of poverty-stricken
territory to the west of the capital. He was compelled to do homage,
and to supply a hundred soldiers, captained by one of his sons,
whenever the Sultan pleased. There was, however, still a fair revenue
from such sources as trade and port duties, and John contrived to
excite the envy of his elder son by the luxurious dinners, the choice
wines and the pretty dancing-girls, which he could still afford to
enjoy. It is enough to say that John IV., in his desolate little
Empire, contracted a very severe gout, and Andronicus was not unwilling
to run the same risk.
When, therefore, John was summoned to join the Sultan’s army in Asia,
and Andronicus was once more left in charge, the foolish and egoistical
youth made another effort to secure his father’s income. Sultan Murad
had left his son Saudgi in charge of his European possessions, and
the two princes became close friends. In 1376 the news reached the
Sultan that they had disowned their fathers and proclaimed themselves
independent sovereigns. The unhappy John was at once suspected of
collusion, though the Sultan came in time to realize that John was not
at all willing to leave the palace to his son until he was compelled
to do so. The conspiracy was soon settled. As the Sultan’s troops
approached, the two youths threw themselves in Didymoteichus, but
they were compelled to surrender. Murad put out the eyes of Saudgi,
and sent Andronicus to his father with orders to inflict the same
punishment on him, under pain of war. John directed that his sight
should be destroyed by boiling vinegar, and Andronicus was confined in
a tower near the Blachernæ palace. His son, a boy of tender years, was
punished in the same way, and Maria sadly joined them in the dreary
tower.
For two years Andronicus and Maria lamented their evil fortune in
the tower of Anemas. In the course of time it had appeared that the
blinding was not complete; Andronicus recovered the use of one eye, and
his son was merely afflicted with a squint. The Sultan Murad, moreover,
died, and Constantinople was not at all extravagantly devoted to the
ruling monarch. Andronicus therefore found a means of communicating
with the Genoese at Galata, and, with their aid, the family were
stealthily delivered from the tower and taken across the water. During
his brief rebellion Andronicus had promised the island of Tenedos to
the Genoese in return for their help, and they had, of course, no
hope of getting it from John. From Galata Andronicus made his way to
the camp of the new Sultan, and promised him several hundred pounds
of gold a year if he would lend him an army with which to attack his
father. The Turk had, as we may see presently, a large and expensive
establishment to maintain, and he accepted the bargain. Of moral or
decent feeling there seemed to be a complete absence at the time in
all parties. The troops were put under the command of the one-eyed
fugitive, and he drew cautiously near the city.
He had the good fortune to find John and Manuel, quite unsuspicious
of his approach, in a suburban palace, and the two, together with the
younger brother Theodore, were promptly lodged in the tower of Anemas,
from which Andronicus had escaped. The more thoroughgoing Sultan urged
Andronicus to put them to death, but such conduct did not become a
Christian monarch. They were entrusted to the care of a corps of
Bulgarian guards, and Andronicus and Maria mounted the gilded thrones.
But their tenure did not last more than two or three years, and we may
close the series of petty revolutions in a few words.
John and Manuel communicated with the Venetians and offered _them_ the
island of Tenedos--one of the few fragments of Empire that a Byzantine
ruler might still sell for a tawdry crown--if they would displace
Andronicus. The plot was detected in time, and the Venetians were
repulsed; though they consoled themselves with taking Tenedos. In the
third year of imprisonment, however, the Bulgarian guards were duped by
a half-witted servant named Angel, and nicknamed Devil or Devilangel,
and John and his sons escaped to Scutari and opened in their turn
a deal with the Sultan. They offered him twice the sum offered by
Andronicus. He genially sent an officer to learn _which_ monarch the
people really did prefer, and would defend, and was informed that
Manuel was the favourite. Lest one should be disposed to think Manuel
much better than the rest of the family, I may emphasize that Manuel
had offered a vast sum of money out of the poor revenue of the city,
and had promised to lead out two thousand troops every spring in the
service of the Turk, if the crown were conferred on him. It was a
sordid squabble for the last coppers of the beggared city, and it
ended in a compromise. John was to occupy the throne; Andronicus and
his son to be his heirs. A more or less royal residence was found for
Andronicus and Maria at Selymbria, and on the revenues of that and a
few other towns they contrived to maintain a tolerable state.
As soon as Andronicus had gone John crowned Manuel, in defiance of
the treaty, and sought a fitting wife for him; and his search had the
effect of bringing one more pathetic young Empress upon the scene.
John was now in his sixth decade of life, a prematurely aged and very
gouty man, hardly able to stand erect, but his sensuous nature was
not extinct. He sent to Trebizond to ask Manuel for the daughter of
the Emperor Alexis, and Eudocia Comnena, the young widow of a Turkish
noble, proved to be so beautiful that the veteran libertine decided to
marry her himself. He was not an old man; Du Cange puts the marriage,
with some reason, about the year 1380, when John would be fifty-one
years old. But he is described by the indignant chronicler as worn with
debauch and tottering with gout, and we must think lightly of the lady
who could accept his hand in order to share his crown--the crown of
imitation diamonds. We have, however, no direct knowledge of Eudocia.
She shared John’s imperial poverty for ten years, and disappeared at
his death. We are disposed to suspect her influence when we find John,
in his old age, beginning to restore the fortifications of the city in
order to prepare for the last conflict with the Turk. Sultan Bayezid
suddenly called on Manuel to appear at his Court, and then ordered John
to destroy the two marble towers he had built beside the Golden Gate,
or he would put out the eyes of Manuel. The old Emperor obeyed, and
wearily lay down to die (1391).
Andronicus had died before his father, and, by the treaty of 1381,
the crown should pass to his son John. But Manuel had been crowned
in 1384, and he determined to seize the purple. He was still in the
Court of Bayezid when the news of his father’s death came. The Turkish
monarchs now had their capital at Brusa (originally Prusa), a town
about sixty miles from Constantinople across the Sea of Marmora, which
had been famed for some centuries as a pleasure and health resort on
account of its warm springs. Here the later sultans had gathered all
the luxury which would in an earlier age have passed to Constantinople.
No imitation stones flashed from the turban or the scimitar of the
Sultan and his nobles, for he had great stores of emeralds, rubies and
diamonds; a large park sheltered curious beasts and birds from all
parts of the known world; and the quiet gardens and gorgeous halls were
enlivened by the forced song of the most beautiful boys and women that
Greece, Servia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and even more distant Christian
countries could supply. On this sybaritic paradise the dreaded Timour
was to fall in a few years, but in 1391 the Tartars still lingered in
the wilds, and the Turk dreamed of world-dominion. Manuel was one
mean vassal among a crowd, the captain of a hundred feudal soldiers,
in this glittering Court, and he decided to fly to Constantinople and
shut himself behind its still formidable walls. They proved worthy of
his trust, and for several years, though to the great suffering of the
inhabitants, Manuel defied the Sultan.
During the siege, apparently, Manuel married, so that an Empress shared
the straits of the long and terrible siege. She was Irene (or Helene),
the daughter of Constantine Dragases, who governed a part of Macedonia.
Irene is rarely mentioned in the scrappy and contradictory chronicles
of the time, but she is one of the few of whom we have a pictorial
representation. The miniature--found in a manuscript of the works of
Denis, the so-called Areopagite--is a very quaint, though not very
instructive, picture of Irene and Manuel and their two sons, but he
would be a bold physiognomist who would venture to make a text of the
flat and conventional features of a Byzantine portrait. Her experience
of Byzantine life was dreary. During nearly seven or eight years
(including the brief respite) the Turks swarmed round the walls of
Constantinople, and were only prevented by their lack of powerful rams
and slings--to say nothing of that new implement called a cannon, which
was just entering European warfare--from penetrating. The great areas
of desolation within the walls became more desolate, and the scanty
supplies of food sold at appalling prices. With the Sultan outside
could be seen John, the son of Andronicus, whom Bayezid affected to
consider the lawful Emperor, and, although Manuel was a brave and
humane ruler, the weary citizens were ready to acclaim John. But Manuel
received the aid of Marshal de Boucicault and two thousand men, as well
as a fleet of Venetians and Genoese, and held out stoutly until, at the
close of 1399, the appearance of Timour the Tartar in the rear of the
Sultan persuaded him to make peace. John was admitted as co-Emperor,
and an effort was made to restore the stricken city.[35]
Manuel was the finest of the later Paleologi, and, although we cannot
admire many of the steps he took to attain power, he made an excellent
effort to use it for the restoration of the Empire. It seemed to him
that his hope lay in enlisting the interest of the West against the
infidel, and he set out at once with Irene and her two children.
He left Irene in Greece, however, with his brother Theodore and
Bartholomæa, and thus no Byzantine Empress was ever seen farther west
than Greece. Manuel took ship to Italy, where very little was to be
obtained, went to Paris, where he found Charles VI. insane, and even
crossed the sea to the little island which had once sent so many
Varangians to Constantinople. This visit to England induces one of
the later Byzantine chroniclers (Chalcocondylas) to tell his readers
something of that country, and we are interested to learn that, in
the days of Henry IV., Englishmen shared their wives in common when
they travelled, and held it their first duty to offer their wives to
visitors; but he adds that London is already the greatest city of the
West, though the strange island produces no wine and its inhabitants
speak a most peculiar language.
Manuel obtained little money and few volunteers, and was returning
in dejection when he heard that Timour had routed the Turks. Only
a few years before Bayezid had received legates from Timour in his
palace at Brusa. He had disdainfully shaved them and sent them back
to their barbaric master. Then the Tartars had swept over Asia Minor,
scattered all the pretty boys and ladies of the Brusa pleasance,
and compelled John of Constantinople to transfer his alliance from
Bayezid to himself. Manuel confirmed the vassalage on his return, but
he sent John into exile and set about restoring his Empire while
the giants wore down each other’s strength. But I pass over the next
decade, during which the internal troubles of the Turks gave Manuel an
opportunity to reform and reconstruct. Our historian, Finlay, speaks
somewhat contemptuously of his work, and, able and well-intentioned as
Manuel was, it may be admitted that the work was too vast for him. In
any case we lose sight of Irene for several decades, after the return
of Manuel in 1405, and will pass at once to the next and, as far as we
know, last Empress of Constantinople.
The introduction of Maria of Trebizond is preceded by some romantic
adventures in the private life of the Court, of which the chroniclers
give us a fairly ample account. Irene had six sons, of whom the eldest,
John, married the daughter of the Grand Duke of Moscow in the year
1414. He was already twenty-four years old, and of irregular life, but
the hands of the princesses and princes of Byzantium were no longer
sought in the Courts of the world. Anna was a child of eleven years,
and we may assume that John remained with his mistresses until, three
years later, Anna was carried off by the plague. Again there seems
to have been some difficulty in finding a wife for the heir to the
throne, but in or about the year 1420 legates were sent to Italy, and
they returned with two eligible young ladies. Cleope, the beautiful
and gifted daughter of Count Malatesta of Rimini, was married to
Irene’s second son, Theodore, and went to spend an unhappy life with
that restless prince in Lacedæmonia. For John the legates had brought
Sophia, daughter of the Marquis of Montferrat, and she and her husband
at once received the imperial title.
The appearance of Sophia of Montferrat on the imperial stage was brief
and eventful. She was a tall and very graceful young woman, with
golden hair that fell to her feet, a beautiful neck and broad round
shoulders, fine arms, and hands and fingers “like crystal,” says the
chronicler. But nature had spoiled these many perfections by misshaping
her nose and giving a very careless finish to her eyes and eyebrows.
John disliked her, kept himself coldly aloof from her, and pressed
his father to send her back to Montferrat. A more chatty chronicler,
however, gives a more serious reason for John’s dislike. Sophia had
been as virtuous as she was beautiful until she came to Constantinople,
but, whether it was the taint in the atmosphere of the Court (most of
the Paleologi have natural children) or the example of her husband,
she quickly lapsed. There was a natural son of her husband about the
Court, and this youth she incited into a most unnatural relation. A
maid of the Court caught them _in flagrante delicto_ and told her
lover; and the lover informed John. By making a hole in the wall of the
bedroom John convinced himself of the truth of the story and was very
indignant. It may be stated on behalf of Sophia that, when John spoke
of the indignity to one of the Court jesters, he was reminded that he
had himself some time before stolen his son’s mistress; it is therefore
not impossible that the seduction was on the side of the youth and had
a vindictive character.
Such was the kind of life witnessed in the last ruins of the Eastern
Empire. John insisted that Sophia must go home; Manuel, possibly
conscious of the difficulty of finding alliances, was reluctant to send
her. Sophia found her position intolerable, however, and decided to run
away, with the aid of the Genoese of Galata. They moored a galley at
the foot of the imperial gardens, and Sophia, pretending to go for a
stroll in the garden with her Italian maids and young courtiers, walked
to the quay and was shipped over the water to Pera before her flight
became known. It was published in the city the next day, and there
was much buckling of arms and preparing of boats to avenge this last
outrage of the hated Genoese. Manuel was, however, now overshadowed by
his son, and Sophia was permitted to depart quietly for her home. The
chronicler adds that she was received with great honour and rejoicing
at Montferrat, and ended her days in a nunnery.
The date of Sophia’s flight and of John’s third marriage is difficult
to determine. The plainest reading of the contradictory chronicles is
that the trouble occurred in the last year of Manuel’s reign and the
flight took place a month after his death, but this is inconsistent
with the express declaration that the old Emperor intervened in the
dispute. Manuel died on 25th July 1425. For some years the ambition
of the Turk, who had quickly recovered from the heavy blows dealt
by Timour, had fully revived and had given him great anxiety. A
young Sultan, Murad II., had succeeded to the throne, and Manuel had
imprudently recognized a pretender to the succession. When the young
Sultan vigorously took the field, hanged the pretender, and drew up
under the walls of Constantinople, Manuel, now a feeble old man of
seventy-five, left the direction of affairs to John, and retired to
pursue that ardent study of the Scriptures which absorbed him in his
later years.
John abjectly apologized, but the angry Sultan ranged his machines
against the walls and proceeded to batter them. He was drawn off for
a time by the strategy of John, who had the Sultan’s brother conveyed
to Brusa and set up as Sultan, but Murad returned more angry than
ever, and one of the last earthly sounds to catch the ear of the aged
Manuel was the roar of the first cannons that seem to have appeared at
Constantinople. The diffusion of knowledge at the time may be gathered
from the fact that one of the most learned of the chroniclers, in
discussing these “bombards,” observes that he does not think they are
of very ancient origin. Before the end of the siege Manuel was warned
by an attack of apoplexy that his death was near. He donned the black
robe, became plain Brother Matthew, and died two days--not two years,
as Finlay says--afterwards, at the age of seventy-seven. Irene also
then retired from the world and became the nun Hypomene, whom we shall
later find endeavouring to settle the quarrels of her selfish children.
She remained “mistress” (_despoine_) of the Empire and watched its slow
decay with concern.
John was able, after the death of his father, to obtain peace from the
Sultan at the price of a heavy annual subsidy, and the Empire entered
upon its last quarter of a century of melancholy decay. Long years
of effort had taught the sultans that their siege engines were not
powerful enough to crack the heavy shell in which earlier Emperors had
enclosed the city, and they were content to hold it in vassalage and
draw a large tribute from its sinking revenue. The time had gone by for
the last serious effort to save the Empire. Its trade had passed to
the Italians, and of the provinces from which it had so long extorted
its rich supply of gold there now remained only a few towns to the
west of Constantinople, a part of the Peloponnesus, and Thessalonica
(which would soon be sold to Venice for fifty thousand gold coins). The
metropolis, therefore, continued to shrink within its eighteen-mile
enclosure, and, as a severe pestilence fell on the inhabitants for the
last time in 1431, they were reduced to something like one hundred
thousand, instead of the million they had once been.
It was over this dismal little Empire that the last Empress, Maria
of Trebizond, was called to preside. Whether the flight of Sophia
came before or after the death of Manuel, John V., who succeeded
his father, soon found it necessary to seek a bride. He married,
in 1427, the daughter of Alexis of Trebizond, a handsome woman of
excellent character, and we are fortunate enough to have a short
description, from the pen of a French knight, of Maria and her desolate
surroundings. Bertrandon de la Brocquière made a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land, and returned through Constantinople in the year 1432. The plague
had ravaged it in the previous year, and Bertrandon sympathetically
refers to the broad spaces of ruin that half filled the enclosure
within the walls. He notes that the Greeks are still busy with their
processions, religious and imperial, and that they still cherish in
their churches such important relics as the pillar at which Christ was
scourged, the board on which his body was laid out, the gridiron on
which St Lawrence had been martyred, and the stone on which Abraham had
offered food to his angel visitors. Apparently the credentials of these
relics had not been imposing enough to convince Western purchasers,
indulgent as they were.[36]
When the knight heard that the Empress was about to proceed to St
Sophia, and on to the Blachernæ palace, he went to the square to see
the procession. We know what the spectacle would have been at an
earlier date. First would come a corps of Excubitors or Varangians,
with shining axes and gold accoutrements, clearing a way through the
crowd. Then a regiment of pale-faced eunuchs, their leaders dressed
in white silk and glittering with jewels, would precede a large body
of maids and dames, from foreign slaves to the greatest ladies of the
Empire, more superbly dressed than most of the queens of Europe. And
lastly would come the gold-plated, gem-encrusted litter, drawn by four
white horses, possibly with one of the highest nobles in Europe at the
rein of each, the Empress sitting stiffly in her gold-cloth tunic,
over which spread the mantle of purple silk with deep embroidered
edges, and, if it were a solemn occasion, a massive domed crown on her
head, from which large diamonds and pearls fell in long chains to her
shoulders. Very different was the spectacle witnessed by Bertrandon de
la Brocquière. Maria’s suite consisted of two ladies, three eunuchs,
and three aged ministers. With this poor escort she was to drive the
several miles of road to the Blachernæ palace. She wore a high hat
(probably a silk-covered mitre) with three golden plumes, and she had
broad flat rings, set with a few jewels, in her ears. She was young
and fair; “I should not,” says the pilgrim, “have had a fault to find
with her had she not been painted, and assuredly she had not any need
of it.” The paint seems to have been the one surviving portion of the
luxurious inheritance of the Empresses of Constantinople.
Maria was a woman of tame and mediocre, if faultless, character, and,
as her husband was weak and incompetent, the miserable Empire lay
helplessly awaiting the end. Patriotism was an extinct virtue. “The
absence of truth, honour and patriotism,” says Finlay, “among the
Greek aristocracy during the last century of the Eastern Empire is
almost without a parallel in history.” The Western Empire had, even in
its last years, had its Symmachus, its Prætextatus and its Flavianus.
Irene’s sons could do no more than quarrel for their selfish interests
in the ruins. Andronicus, who had charge of Thessalonica, which was
restored to the Greeks for a time, sold it to Venice, and went to enjoy
his fortune in the Peloponnesus. In that last fragment of the Empire
Theodore and Constantine were on the verge of civil war owing to the
clash of their petty ambitions. There seemed to be no resource in the
East, and John, leaving the city in charge of his wife and mother, went
to make a last appeal to his fellow-Christians of the West to stem the
Mohammedan tide. It was now clear that the Greek Church would, as the
price of assistance, have to surrender its independence to the papacy,
and John took with him the patriarch and his bishops.
It may be read in history how, at the Councils of Ferrara (1438) and
Florence (1439), the Greek bishops abandoned the positions they had
fiercely maintained for so many centuries against the Western Church
and, with one exception, signed the Roman claims. I will add from
the Byzantine writers only that, whatever arguments were discussed
in open Council, and however pressing the need of the Empire, it was
a secret and generous payment of gold to the Byzantine bishops which
finally convinced them. They bargained, like Syrian pedlars, for their
signature. It may also be read in history how John returned in deep
dejection to his mother. Instead of the promised fleet, the Pope had
given him only two galleys and three hundred men and a very moderate
sum of money. His wife, Maria, had died during his absence; the Sultan
was pressing for an explanation of this visit to Italy; and the people
and lower clergy of Constantinople were infuriated at the surrender of
their spiritual independence, and were now treacherously joined by the
corrupt bishops, who had signed the decrees. John wearily sustained the
attack, assuring the Sultan that he had visited Italy only in order to
discuss certain details of the Christian faith, and secretly pressing
the Pope and the Western monarchs to fulfil their promises.
Hypomene, now an aged and venerable lady, sadly watched the struggle of
her sons, and endeavoured to curb their selfish tempers. Demetrius, her
youngest son, recollected that he, unlike John, had been “born in the
Porphyra,” and disputed the shaking throne of his brother. He gathered
about him a ragged army of Turks and looted whatever was left of the
suburbs beyond the walls, until his force melted away on account of the
poverty of the plunder, and he consented to be reconciled. Theodore,
the second son, complained that he had not enough income to maintain
his state in the town of Selymbria, which he governed, and he demanded
a share of John’s. It was refused, and he in turn was about to lead
troops against the capital when John, in his fifty-eighth year, was
removed by a greater power (31st October 1448) from the scene of his
troubles.
No one even now suspected that the next Emperor would be the last--that
in five years the crescent would glitter over the imperial palaces--and
the struggle for the throne broke out afresh. Demetrius alone was
in the city when John died, and he noisily renewed his claim to the
purple, but his character was too well known for him to find serious
adherents. His mother united with the citizens in preventing him
from succeeding, and they sent legates to ask the Sultan to allow
Constantine, the ablest of the brothers, to be crowned. He had
lately been opposed to the Sultan, but permission was given, and to
his “despotate” at Sparta the legates were sent with the imperial
ensigns. Constantinople did not even enjoy a last coronation, as the
new Emperor was crowned at Sparta (6th January 1449) and would not
have the ceremony repeated. He favoured the union of the Churches. He
reached Constantinople in March, and the royal brothers gathered in
the presence of Hypomene and such nobles as Constantinople could still
boast to swear resonant oaths of peace and loyalty.
Constantine had been twice married and widowed when, in his early
forties, he ascended the throne. His first wife, Theodora, daughter
of the Count of Tocco, had died in 1429; his second wife, Catharine,
daughter of Notaras Paleologus, had died in 1443, two years after her
marriage. There were no children of either marriage, and Constantine
made it one of his first duties to provide a third wife and an heir to
the throne. The historian Phrantzes was entrusted with this delicate
mission, and he set out from Constantinople with an escort which,
it was thought, would impress the King of Iberia and the Emperor of
Trebizond, to whom he was sent. It was, as he describes it, a weird
mixture of monks, musicians and medical men; their baggage consisted
mainly of musical instruments, instead of the superb robes and plate
that an earlier escort might have taken, and Phrantzes says that
they did impress and astonish the foreign Courts. But they were
unfortunately wrecked on the way to Iberia, a country between the
Black Sea and the Caspian, and seem to have been detained for nearly
two years by lack of funds; and they then discovered that the King of
Iberia expected a gift _for_ his daughter, instead of presenting one
_with_ her, and returned unsuccessful to Constantinople.
In the meantime--apparently on 23rd March 1450--Hypomene had brought
to a close her long and troubled life. With her death the series of
Empresses of Constantinople comes to an end, but their story cannot be
intelligibly concluded without a glance at the great catastrophe which,
three years later, swept away the tottering thrones and made an end of
Christian Byzantium.
The Sultan Murad II., who had so long looked with indulgent eye on the
remnant of the Byzantine Empire, died in 1451. His son and successor,
Mohammed II., was a young man of twenty-one years: a very able, highly
cultivated and extremely ambitious young prince. To him the existence
of this Christian island, the city of Constantinople, in the ocean of
Mohammedan conquest was an intolerable anomaly. The Turks had long
since carried the crescent over what we now call Turkey in Europe, and
it was only by sea that Constantinople could communicate directly with
the other Christian powers. To put an end to this Christian avenue into
the heart of his dominion and make the great city the capital of the
Mohammedan world was the early ambition of Mohammed II. Probably every
sultan for a hundred years or more had desired this, but their siege
machinery had hitherto proved incapable of shattering the stout old
walls of that city.
Constantine XI. underrated the young Sultan, and very soon gave him a
pretext for an attack. Mohammed had signed a truce with the Hungarians,
and gone to settle certain disturbances in his Asiatic dominions, when
he received a most insolent and offensive message from Constantinople.
He must at once increase the pension of Prince Orkhan (the nephew of
Suleiman, then living in retirement at Constantinople), or else the
Greeks will consider Orkhan’s claim to the Turkish throne. It was the
last blunder of the Paleologi. Mohammed courteously heard and dismissed
the legates, and proceeded to pacify his Asiatic province. Constantine
had grossly failed to appreciate the young Sultan’s character. After
his coronation at Adrianople his Christian vassals--the Emperors of
Trebizond and Constantinople, the Duke of Athens, etc.--had hastened
to do homage, and had seen only an accomplished, amiable and, in
private life, vicious young man, from whom they had little to fear.
Shortly afterwards the Court at Constantinople was alarmed to hear that
a large army of Turkish workmen had arrived at a spot on the Asiatic
coast only five miles from the city, and were, with great rapidity,
building a powerful fort which would command the entrance to the Black
Sea. Constantine sent a protest; Mohammed disdainfully replied that he
would do as he liked in his own dominions. In time the Turkish soldiers
of the district fell to quarrels with Constantine’s subjects, and the
Emperor, ordering the gates of the city to be closed, demanded some
recompense. Mohammed at once declared war, and went to Adrianople to
concentrate his forces and gather a more powerful armament than his
predecessors had used. The value of powder was now realized, and,
although they were crude objects of only moderate effectiveness,
immense cannons, which could throw stone balls weighing more than a
hundred pounds, were associated with the old rams and slings and towers.
Constantine quickly realized the gravity of his position, and
made every effort to patch the fortifications, enlist troops and
provision the town. An urgent appeal was sent to Italy, and hundreds
of volunteers and adventurers were attracted; though the Pope was
still mainly concerned about the recognition of his supremacy, and
sent a cardinal who distracted the doomed city with fierce religious
controversy. When the hour came, Constantine found that barely six
thousand Greeks could be induced to enlist in the last defence of their
city, and these, with other two or three thousand Italians, had to hold
fifteen miles of wall, with many gates, against seventy thousand Turks
and three hundred vessels.
On 12th December 1452 the church of St Sophia rang with its last
great Christian celebration, the solemn union of the Latin and Greek
Churches, the price of that secular aid which was destined never to
arrive. Four months later the vanguard of the Turks was descried from
the walls, and day by day the endless regiments and engines of attack
and the monstrous cannons came from the line of the horizon and took up
their stations. For a time the spirits of the besieged were maintained
by those little successes which so often precede a great catastrophe.
Four large Italian ships had fought their way through the Turkish
fleet and brought provisions: Mohammed’s biggest gun had burst: a
general attack of the enemy had been repulsed. But the incessant rain
of projectiles made at last a ghastly breach in the stout wall, and
on 29th May, before dawn, the dreaded Janissaries flung themselves at
the defenders. The last of the Paleologi died like a man. Later in the
day the victorious Turks swept over his body and the bodies of some
thousands of his people, and the last remnant of the Byzantine Empire
was swallowed up in the Mohammedan tide. And the relics of its culture
passed westward and, meeting and blending with the humanism of the
later Middle Ages, begot the new man and new woman of the Renaissance,
the heralds of modern times.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Readers of Professor Bury’s incomplete “History of the Later
Roman Empire” may wonder that I continue to use the phrase “Byzantine
Empire” after Bury’s protest against that phrase. But it seems to me
that if “Roman Empire” means an Empire centred in Rome, “Byzantine
Empire” is the most congruous name for a dominion that centres in
ancient Byzantium and has, during the far greater part of its story, no
connexion whatever with Rome. Most historians continue to speak of it
as Byzantine.
[2] See, especially, J. Ebersolt, “Le Grand Palais de Constantinople.”
1910.
[3] There was no hereditary right to the throne in the Roman Empire,
though a father generally contrived to secure it for his son. “Born in
the purple” is, by the way, an inaccurate description of the imperial
children, though not uncommon. They were “born in the Porphyra,” or
porphyry-lined palace; but, as the Greek word _porphura_ properly means
“purple,” it is mistranslated at times. There are those who maintain
that the imperial colour was rather red than what we know as purple.
[4] The date of the marriage is much disputed. Chroniclers assign it to
various years, and, when the son of Ariadne and Zeno mounts the throne,
he is variously described as an infant, a boy of seven, and a youth of
seventeen. Professor Bury puts the marriage in 458 or 459. I prefer
the estimate of Tillemont, that it took place in 468, the year of the
disgrace of Basiliscus.
[5] It is a popular fallacy, as we shall frequently see, that the
Romans had abandoned these bloody spectacles in the days of Honorius.
[6] See, especially, the work of Débidour, “L’Impératrice Théodora,”
and a summary and approval of Débidour’s arguments in an article by
Mr Mallett in _The English Historical Review_, January 1887. Mr W. G.
Holmes’s learned work, “The Age of Justinian and Theodora” (2 vols.,
1907), is much too meagre in its references to Theodora.
[7] See the Latin translation (“Commentarii de Beatis Orientalibus”) by
Douwen and Land of this Syriac work (Amsterdam, 1889). John also speaks
of her as “a most astute woman,” and, although his work teems with the
immense services done to his Church by Theodora, he never mentions her
with more than stiff and formal respect.
[8] It is necessary to explain to the unfamiliar the “factions”
of the Hippodrome. In the chariot contests the rival drivers were
distinguished by their colours: white, red, blue and green. The white
and red were of little account, but the blue and green divided the
populace of Constantinople into bitterly hostile parties or “factions.”
These parties were almost in the nature of sporting clubs: they were
publicly recognized, and had their own premises, chariots, beasts,
officers, etc. We shall find the fate of dynasties almost turning at
times on the struggle of the “blues” and “greens.”
[9] This conversation (preserved in Theophanes) is sometimes described
as a free discharge of invectives against Justinian, and surprise is
expressed that the character of his wife is not included. The dialogue
is not at all a general attack on Justinian. It is, for the most part,
a sober and earnest demand of justice, and contains only one insulting
line--possibly an isolated cry of some more impetuous member of the
party.
[10] I have passed in silence an earlier charge against Theodora
in the “Anecdotes.” The Gothic queen Amalasuntha had appealed to
Justinian, and Theodora is said to have sent an officer to cause her
to be assassinated, lest her great beauty should seduce the Emperor.
Procopius gives a different version of the murder of Amalasuntha in his
“Gothic War,” and we have no serious reason to involve Theodora.
[11] Shorthand (_notatio_) was, of course, familiar to the Romans and
daily practised. It may not be superfluous to add that the dignity of
Cæsar was a semi-imperial rank conferred usually on sons or possible
successors of the Emperor, or King (_basileus_), as the eastern Romans
came to call their monarch.
[12] It should be noted that the organized factions were not nearly
so large as these incidents suggest. When Maurice had wished to arm
them against the usurper, he found that the blues numbered only nine
hundred, and the greens fifteen hundred. The entire population was
about a million.
[13] See Pernice’s “L’Imperatore Eraclio,” 1905, p. 25.
[14] Professor Bury gives his age as twenty-three, and assumes that
he was born in 615, but Nicephorus places his birth in the second
Persian campaign (623). The first son of Martina had died. His name (or
nickname) is spelt either Heraclonas or Heracleonas.
[15] The readers of Gibbon may often notice that words or speeches
quoted here differ materially from corresponding quotations in the
great historian. The reason is that Gibbon invariably paraphrases such
quotations. They are in this work translated literally from the Greek
chroniclers.
[16] I have not been able to consult this interesting “Life of
St Philaretus,” and am quoting Diehl’s admirable work, “Figures
Byzantines.”
[17] A monk of this monastery, Theodore of Studium, has left us a
number of letters and works, though they give little satisfaction
to the profane historian. One letter, however, is addressed to the
ex-Empress Maria, and we learn from it that her daughter, or one of her
daughters (Euphrosyne and Irene), pressed her to come and live in her
palace. Theodore sternly forbids her to return to that world of sin.
[18] Finlay rejects the story on the ground that Theodora could not
possibly have made her husband believe that sacred images were dolls
for her children. But that is not the story; Theodora denied that she
had any dolls at all.
[19] The mystery of the children of Theophilus is yet unsolved. Michael
was born, of Theodora, about 828, and we know that another boy, named
Constantine, was born. But the five daughters--Thecla, Anna, Anastasia,
Pulcheria and Maria--are a puzzle, to which the wretched Byzantine
chroniclers give us no clue. They make Thecla, the eldest, a gay and
dissolute woman thirty years afterwards, and they marry Maria, the
youngest, about 832; while they speak of the whole of them as young
girls, playing with their grandmother’s dolls, about the time when the
youngest of them marries Alexius. It is frequently suggested that they
were the daughters of an earlier wife of Theophilus, but this is hardly
consistent with the later gaiety of Thecla (down to 868) or the doll
story; nor, although we do not know the exact age of Theophilus, can
we easily admit that he had been married for twenty years--which is
necessary to make Maria fifteen in 832--before he chose Theodora under
the guidance of his stepmother.
[20] “Zwei Griechische Texte über die H. Theophano,” edited by E.
Kurtz, in the “Mémoires de l’Academie Impériale de St Petersbourg,”
viii. series, vol 3. Unfortunately, the legendary and partisan
character of the essays compels us to use them with discretion. I have
also taken much from the Greek life of the patriarch Euthymius, and
have been much helped by the notes of its editor, de Boor.
[21] The mixture of palaces and monasteries may cause some perplexity.
The explanation is that for a long time it was a pious and very common
custom of wealthy Constantinopolitans to ensure prayers for their soul
by leaving their palaces to the monks, and even converting them into
monasteries before they died, so as to die in the ranks of the monks.
We shall find the next Emperor checking this practice, to the great
anger of the monks.
[22] G. Schlumherger. “Un Empereur Byzantin au Dixième Siècle.” (1890);
a very fine and ample study of Byzantine life.
[23] Basil was a natural son of Romanus I. and a Russian (or else
Bulgarian) slave. It is a curious mistake on the part of Gibbon, and
even of Schlumberger, to confuse the Basil whom she belaboured with her
own son Basil.
[24] In point of fact, a writer of the time, Michael Atteliates, says
that he had no wife. Flach (“Die Kaiserin Eudokia,” 1876) seems to have
overlooked this authority.
[25] Until recent years Eudocia was, as one reads in Gibbon, reputed to
have been the authoress of “Ionia,” but later writers have shown that
this was an error. She undoubtedly wandered in the fields of letters
and philosophy under the guidance of Psellus, and seems to have written
a little.
[26] _Sebastos_ is the Greek equivalent of the Latin _Augustus_. It
must not be forgotten that, while I continue to use the words “Emperor”
and “Empress,” they were now more commonly called “King” and “Queen,”
“Lord” and “Lady,” or “Master” and “Mistress.”
[27] Since the princess, or Cæsaress, has her apologists, if not
admirers, this may seem a hasty judgment. It is based simply on her
narrative, controlled by the accounts of other chroniclers. The last
pages of her history are superb in their mendacity, and she commonly
suppresses or perverts the facts. For the difficulties of her father’s
position, and the great services he rendered to the Empire, which must
be put in the scale against his duplicity and fraud, I must send the
reader to historians.
[28] One or two remarks on the novel may not be without interest. It is
far the weakest of Scott’s historical romances. Byzantine antiquities
were little known in England at the time when it was written, and the
great novelist is reduced to a meagreness or inaccuracy of detail which
places the story in unfavourable contrast to his Scottish romances,
and he is forced to admit countless anachronisms. Anna Comnena was
only thirteen years old at the time, and did not begin to write her
“Alexiad” until twenty or thirty years later. The golden birds and
lions, also, which Scott puts beside the imperial throne, had been
melted down by Michael the Drunkard two hundred years before. I mention
these features only because Scott is usually so conscientious, even in
romance.
[29] It may be well to repeat that the neater phrase in Gibbon is an
artistic paraphrase, not a translation, of the original Greek.
[30] “Typicum, sive Regula, Irenes Augustæ,” published by the
Benedictines of St Maur in their “Analecta Græca” (1688).
[31] The marriage of Alexis is placed by Finlay in 1178, but William of
Tyre, who was in Constantinople at the time, says that it took place in
the year of the death of Louis VII. and of Manuel. Nicetas also says
that Anna was “not quite eleven” when she married Andronicus (in 1183)
and “not quite eight” when she married Alexis.
[32] Finlay, following Nicephorus Gregoras, wrongly says that Theodore
had left “no son” to inherit the purple. George Acropolites, the better
authority, says that he left “no mature son.” The son of Philippa
was eight years old, and seems to have lived under the cloud of his
mother’s disgrace.
[33] This lady is sometimes named Markesina, but the term is merely a
Greek attempt to speak of her as “the Marchioness.” Her real name is
unknown.
[34] Finlay declines to regard the dominion which was re-established by
the Greeks in 1261 as “the Byzantine Empire.” But as there had never
been any dynastic continuity, and as “Byzantine Empire” merely means an
empire which has its seat in Constantinople, or ancient Byzantium (the
name still commonly given to the city by its own writers), I see no
reason to discard the phrase.
[35] Manuel’s younger brother, Theodore, was never crowned and had
been crushed by the Sultan, so that his beautiful wife, Bartholomæa,
daughter of the Duke of Athens, does not enter our list; and as
Bartholomæa had no children (though her husband had several) there was
no complication of the new arrangement to be feared from that side.
[36] Bertrandon’s interesting narrative may be read in English in T.
Wright’s “Early Travels in Palestine.”
INDEX
A
Acacius, 25
Æcatherina, 181
Aetius, 98
Agapetus, 40
Agnes, wife of Henry of Flanders, 257
“Alexiad,” the, 208, 216
Alexis II., 226, 233
Alexis III., 246, 248, 250
Alexis Angelus, 240–249, 251, 253
Alexis Comnenus, 198, 199, 200, 202–215
Alexius, 93, 94
Amalasuntha, 43
Amantius, 21, 22
Anastasia (Ino), 57, 60, 62, 63
Anastasia, wife of Constantine IV., 81, 83
Anastasius, 19, 21
Andronicus, 220, 227, 228–236
Andronicus II., 272–274, 276–295, 297
Andronicus III., 290, 292, 295–301
Andronicus IV., 318, 319, 320–322
Andronicus Paleogogus, 259
Anna Comnena, the elder, 197, 198, 199, 200–206
Anna Comnena, the younger, 192, 198, 199, 200, 207, 213, 216
Anna of Hungary, 276
Anna of Moscow, 326
Anna of Savoy, 298–316
Anna, wife of Alexis II., 224, 234, 236, 249
Anna, wife of Theodore Lascaris, 255, 256, 258
Anna, wife of Vatatzes, 261, 268
Anthemius, 11, 15
Anthimus, 40, 46
Antonina, 31, 41, 43, 45, 49
Apocaucus, 291, 301, 302, 305, 306
Ariadne, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18–20
Arsenius, 33
Arsenius the Patriarch, 269
Artabanes, 50
Asper, 1, 2, 9
Athalaric, 75
Augusteum, the, 4
B
Baldwin of Flanders, 248, 252, 257
Bardas, 111, 113, 115, 117
Bardas, brother of Xiphilin, 184
Basil the Chamberlain, 155, 156
Basil the Macedonian, 117, 118, 120–123
Basil, son of Romanus I., 115
Basil II., 158
Basiliscus, 9, 12, 13, 14
Bassus, 48
Bayezid, Sultan, 323, 324
Belisarius, 28, 31, 40, 49
Bertha, wife of Romanus II., 139
Bertrandon de la Brocquière, 329
Bigleniza, 22
Blachernæ Palace, the, 110
Blues, the, 26, 36
Bogomilians, the, 211
Bohemund, 209, 211
Boniface of Montferrat, 252, 255
Bucoleon Palace, the, 150, 151
Buza, 49
C
Candidates, the, 5
Casia, 107
Cathara, 290
Catherine Paleologina, 333
Chalcedon, Council of, 92
Chalke, the, 5
Charito, 58, 61
Charlemagne, 90, 92, 98
Christopher, 137, 138
Cleope of Rimini, 326
Comitona, 26, 31
Consistorium, the, 5
Constans II., 81
Constantina, 58, 62, 65, 66
Constantine, brother of Andronicus II., 273, 274, 275, 296
Constantine Catepano, 175
Constantine Copronymus, 83, 85, 86
Constantine Delassenus, 160, 168, 175
Constantine Ducas, 182, 183
Constantine the Paphlagonian, 130, 133
Constantine IV., 81
Constantine VI., 87, 89, 93, 95, 96, 97
Constantine, brother of Michael IV., 171, 173, 174
Constantine Monomachos, 176–180
Constantine Porphyrogenitus (VII)., 129, 131, 138, 141
Constantine XI., 333, 334–336
Constantinople, 3
Constantinople captured by Latins, 251
Constantinople captured by Turks, 336
Constantinople recovered by Greeks, 267
Corippus, 53
Crusaders, the, 208, 210, 218, 221, 247
D
Daphne, 6, 8
Demetrius, 284
Demetrius, son of John VI., 332
Denderis, 109
Drizibion, 150
E
Eclipses, Greek view of, 260
Elpidius, 90
Epiphania Eudocia, 75
Eudocia Comnena, 322
Eudocia, daughter of Constantine VIII., 158
Eudocia Decopolitana, 114
Eudocia Ingerina, 114, 116, 118, 119, 120
Eudocia Macrembolitissa, 182, 183–194, 199
Eudocia, mistress of Andronicus, 220, 227, 228
Eudocia, sister of Andronicus II., 280
Eudocia, wife of Constantine V., 84
Eudocia, wife of Heraclius, 69, 70
Eudocia, wife of Leo VI., 127
Eudocia, wife of Murtzuphlus, 250–251, 253–254
Eudocia, wife of Theodosius, viii
Eudoxia, viii
Eulogia, 263, 265, 266, 271, 272
Euphemia, 21, 22, 29
Euphrosyne Ducæna, 240, 244–255
Euphrosyne, wife of Michael II., 106, 107
Euthymius, 127, 128, 130
Evagrius, 47, 53
Excubitors, the, 5
F
Fabia, 68
G
George Paleologus, 202, 204
George of Pisidia, 72
Germanus, 49, 55
Greens, the, 26, 36
Gregoria Anastasia, 78
Gryllus, 118
H
Harmatius, 13, 14, 15
Hecebolus, 27
Helen of Bulgaria, 261, 262
Helen, wife of John V., 305, 309, 312–315, 318
Helena, daughter of Constantine VIII., 158
Helena, wife of Constantine VII., 134, 137, 138, 141
Heraclius, 67, 68, 69, 70–76
Heraclius Constantine, 69, 72, 73, 76, 78
Heraclonas, 73, 75, 76, 79
Hieria Palace, the, 30
Hippodrome, the, 3, 25, 26
Hormisdas Palace, the, 30, 33, 34
Hypatius, 38
Hypomene, 328, 332, 333
I
Iconoclasts, the, 85, 86, 90, 91, 111
Illus, 14, 16, 17, 18
Ino, 57, 58, 59, 60
“Ionia,” the, 186
Irene of Brunswick, 288, 297
Irene of Montferrat, 276–286
Irene Paleologina, 313, 314
Irene, wife of Alexis Comnenus, 198, 202, 203, 204, 207–215
Irene, wife of Cantacuzenus, 304, 309, 310, 311–316
Irene, wife of John, 283
Irene, wife of John Comnenus, 216
Irene, wife of Leo IV., 84, 85–100
Irene, wife of Manuel I., 220, 221
Irene, wife of Manuel III., 324, 325, 328
Irene, wife of Vatatzes, 259–261
Isaac Angelus (II.), 235, 238, 246, 249
Isaac Comnenus, 181, 197
J
Joannina, 50
John Camateros, 221
John Cantacuzenus, 291, 296, 301–318
John Comnenus, 213, 214, 215–219
John Ducas, 187, 189, 191, 197
John of Cappodocia, 42, 43, 44
John of Constantinople, 112, 113
John of Ephesus, 24, 29
John the Eunuch, 162, 164, 166, 168, 171
John the Fat, 246
John Vatatzes, 259–262
John Zimiskes, 145, 152
John V., 305, 309, 310–315, 318–323
John VI., 265, 267, 268, 269, 326, 328, 329
Joseph Bringas, 143, 144, 145, 146
Joseph the Patriarch, 270
Julius Nepos, 11
Justin, 22, 28, 29
Justin II., 52, 54, 56–59
Justina, 49
Justinian, 23, 24, 25, 28–29, 37, 38, 43, 48, 53
Justinian II., 81, 82, 83
K
Kathisma, the, 4, 54
L
Leo Phocas, 133, 134
Leo the Armenian, 104, 106
Leo Sgurus, 253
Leo the Deacon, 143
Leo the Isaurian, 2, 6, 10
Leo IV., 84, 85, 86, 88
Leo VI., 120, 121, 123–131
Leontia, wife of Marcian, 11, 15, 16
Leontia, wife of Phocas, 64, 65, 67, 68
Leontius, 17, 18
Liberatus, 24, 40
M
Magnaura Palace, the, 6, 109
Manuel I., 219, 220, 222–225
Manuel Paleologus, 288, 289
Manuel, uncle of St Theodora, 111, 115
Manuel III., 319, 321, 322, 323–328
Maria, daughter of Eulogia, 271
Maria, daughter of Manuel I., 225, 226, 227, 231, 232
Maria of Armenia, 280, 287–297
Maria of Trebizond, 318, 320, 321, 322, 326, 329–332
Maria, wife of Constantine VI., 93, 95, 96
Maria, wife of Isaac Angelus, 238, 239, 248, 252, 255
Maria, wife of Leo, 83, 84
Maria, wife of Manuel I., 223
Maria, wife of Michael VI., 192, 193, 194, 199, 200, 203, 204
Maria, wife of Theodore Lascaris, 259
Maraptica, 236
Marcian, 1, 2
Martha Paleologina, 264, 265, 271
Martina, 70–80
Martinacius, 121, 125
Mary, wife of Baldwin, 257
Maurice, 62, 63, 64
Melisend, 222, 223
Mese, the, 4
Methodius, 112
Michael I., 102, 103
Michael II., 104, 105
Michael III., the Drunkard, 110, 111, 113–118
Michael IV., 164, 165, 166–170
Michael V., the Caulker, 170, 171, 173, 174
Michael VI., 188, 189, 191, 193, 199
Michael Angelus, 254
Michael Cathara, 290, 291
Michael Paleologus, 263–272
Michael Psellus, 159, 163, 165, 177, 186
Mohammed II., 334
Monophysites, the, 13, 20, 32, 40, 79
Morality of the Eastern Empire, 136–137
Murad, Sultan, 320, 321
Murad II., 328, 334
Muzalon, 264
Murtzuphlus, 250–252
N
Nicephoritzes, 191, 192, 194
Nicephorus Blemmydas, 262
Nicephorus Botaneiates, 194, 195, 196, 200
Nicephorus Bryennius, 179, 181, 213
Nicephorus Diogenes, 208
Nicephorus Melissenus, 205
Nicephorus Phocas, 143, 144, 145, 146–153
Nicephorus, son of Eudocia, 87, 95
Nicholas the Patriarch, 127, 128, 130
Nikin, Bishop of, 79
O
Oath, the, at Constantinople, 168, 169
P
Palace, the Imperial, 4
Palamism, 307, 311
Patricius, 11, 13
Paul, 9
Pepin the Frank, 84
Peter Barsymes, 48
Philagrius, 28, 79
Philaretus, St., 92
Philippa of Antioch, 230, 233
Phocas, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68
Photius, son of Antonina, 45
Phrantzes, 333
Polyeuctes, 144, 146, 147, 148
Porphyra, the, 8
Porphyrogenitus, 8
Priscus, 67, 69
Procopia, wife of Michael, 102, 103
Procopius, 23, 24, 25
Pulcheria, viii, 1
Pyrrhus, 77, 79
R
Raymond of Tripoli, 222
Relics at Constantinople, 169, 170, 258
Robert Guiscard, 207
Romanus I., 132, 133, 134, 137
Romanus II., 139, 141, 142, 143
Romanus Argyrus (III.), 161, 163, 165, 166
Romanus Diogenes, 184–191
S
Samonas, 127, 129, 130
Saudgi, 320
Scholarians, the, 5
Scott, Sir Walter, 208
Sclerena, 176, 177, 178
Sergius, 70, 76
Shorthand in ancient times, 56
Silverius, 40, 41
Simonides, 277, 280, 281, 284, 285
Sir Janni, 291, 293, 297, 300
Solomon’s Throne, 109
Sophia, 52–63
Sophia of Montferrat, 326–328
Stauracius, 88, 89, 91, 94, 98
St Daniel Stylites, 8
Strategopulina, 274
St Simeon, 33
St Sophia, church of, 4, 38, 39, 47
St Stephen, church of, 6
Stylianus Zautzes, 122, 123
Synadenus, 200
T
Tarasius, 91, 96
Tartars, the, 324, 325
Thecla, daughter of Theophilus, 110, 117, 119
Thecla, wife of Michael II., 106
Theoclistos, 110, 115
Theodora, daughter of Constantine VIII., 158, 199–162, 173–180
Theodora, mistress of Manuel I., 220, 223
Theodora Paleologina, 301, 305
Theodora, St, 101, 106–119
Theodora of Tocco, 333
Theodora, wife of Baldwin III., 230, 231
Theodora, wife of Justinian, 8, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28–51
Theodora, wife of Justinian II., 82, 83
Theodora, wife of Michael Paleologus, 263, 265, 268, 269–275
Theodora, wife of Romanus, 137
Theodora, wife of Zimiskes, 155
Theodore, Abbot, 122, 123, 124
Theodore Guniazitza, 126
Theodore Lascaris, 256, 258
Theodore Synadenus, 291
Theodosia, wife of Leo, 104, 105
Theodosius, 41
Theodosius, son of Maurice, 62, 63, 64, 65
Theodote, 95, 96, 97, 98
Theophanes, 113
Theophano, St, 121, 122, 123
Theophano, wife of Romanus II., 140–157
Theophano, wife of Stauracius, 102
Theophilus, 106–110
Theophobos, 110
Tiberius, 56, 58, 61, 62
Trascallisseus, 9
Tribonian, 52
Triclinon, the, 7
Tzantzes, 125
V
Valentine, 28, 79
Verina, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12–18
Vigilius, 40, 42
X
Xene, 289, 294
Xiphilin, 183, 184
Y
Yolande, 258
Z
Zeno, 10, 12, 14, 15, 19
Zenonis, 12, 13, 14
Zoe Carbonopsina, 128–135
Zoe, daughter of Constantine VIII., 158, 159–178
Zoe, daughter of Zautzes, 122, 124, 126
Zonarus, 24
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unpaired quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unpaired.
Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been collected and
moved to precede the Index.
The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.
Page 106: A duplicate image was removed; the correct one remains,
following page 138.
Page 116: The appearance of the transcription of Greek in the
illustration will vary according to the fonts installed on your reading
device.
Page 315: “Two large triremes (galleys with two banks of oars)” was
printed that way; should be either “biremes” or “three banks”.
Footnote 22 (originally on page 143): “G. Schlumherger” should be
“G. Schlumberger”.