centuries; from the vain presumption that the capital of the Roman
empire was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of the West had
violated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of Constantine: their
Imperial clients soon became as unpopular as themselves: the well-known
vices of Isaac were rendered still more contemptible by his infirmities,
and the young Alexius was hated as an apostate, who had renounced the
manners and religion of his country. His secret covenant with the Latins
was divulged or suspected; the people, and especially the clergy, were
devoutly attached to their faith and superstition; and every convent,
and every shop, resounded with the danger of the church and the tyranny
of the pope. [72] An empty treasury could ill supply the demands of regal
luxury and foreign extortion: the Greeks refused to avert, by a general
tax, the impending evils of servitude and pillage; the oppression of
the rich excited a more dangerous and personal resentment; and if the
emperor melted the plate, and despoiled the images, of the sanctuary,
he seemed to justify the complaints of heresy and sacrilege. During the
absence of Marquis Boniface and his Imperial pupil, Constantinople was
visited with a calamity which might be justly imputed to the zeal and
indiscretion of the Flemish pilgrims. [73] In one of their visits to the
city, they were scandalized by the aspect of a mosque or synagogue,
in which one God was worshipped, without a partner or a son. Their
effectual mode of controversy was to attack the infidels with the sword,
and their habitation with fire: but the infidels, and some Christian
neighbors, presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flames
which bigotry had kindled, consumed the most orthodox and innocent
structures. During eight days and nights, the conflagration spread above
a league in front, from the harbor to the Propontis, over the thickest
and most populous regions of the city. It is not easy to count the
stately churches and palaces that were reduced to a smoking ruin, to
value the merchandise that perished in the trading streets, or to number
the families that were involved in the common destruction. By this
outrage, which the doge and the barons in vain affected to disclaim, the
name of the Latins became still more unpopular; and the colony of that
nation, above fifteen thousand persons, consulted their safety in a
hasty retreat from the city to the protection of their standard in the
suburb of Pera. The emperor returned in triumph; but the firmest and
most dexterous policy would have been insufficient to steer him through
the tempest, which overwhelmed the person and government of that unhappy
youth. His own inclination, and his father's advice, attached him to
his benefactors; but Alexius hesitated between gratitude and patriotism,
between the fear of his subjects and of his allies. [74] By his feeble
and fluctuating conduct he lost the esteem and confidence of both;
and, while he invited the marquis of Monferrat to occupy the palace,
he suffered the nobles to conspire, and the people to arm, for the
deliverance of their country. Regardless of his painful situation, the
Latin chiefs repeated their demands, resented his delays, suspected his
intentions, and exacted a decisive answer of peace or war. The haughty
summons was delivered by three French knights and three Venetian
deputies, who girded their swords, mounted their horses, pierced through
the angry multitude, and entered, with a fearful countenance, the
palace and presence of the Greek emperor. In a peremptory tone, they
recapitulated their services and his engagements; and boldly declared,
that unless their just claims were fully and immediately satisfied, they
should no longer hold him either as a sovereign or a friend. After this
defiance, the first that had ever wounded an Imperial ear, they departed
without betraying any symptoms of fear; but their escape from a servile
palace and a furious city astonished the ambassadors themselves; and
their return to the camp was the signal of mutual hostility.
[Footnote 72: When Nicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious league,
he bestows the harshest names on the pope's new religion, meizon
kai atopwtaton... parektrophn pistewV... tvn tou Papa pronomiwn
kainismon,... metaqesin te kai metapoihsin tvn palaivn 'RwmaioiV?eqvn,
(p. 348.) Such was the sincere language of every Greek to the last gasp
of the empire.]
[Footnote 73: Nicetas (p. 355) is positive in the charge, and specifies
the Flemings, (FlamioneV,) though he is wrong in supposing it an ancient
name. Villehardouin (No. 107) exculpates the barons, and is ignorant
(perhaps affectedly ignorant) of the names of the guilty.]
[Footnote 74: Compare the suspicions and complaints of Nicetas (p.
359--362) with the blunt charges of Baldwin of Flanders, (Gesta Innocent
III. c. 92, p. 534,) cum patriarcha et mole nobilium, nobis promises
perjurus et mendax.]
Among the Greeks, all authority and wisdom were overborne by the
impetuous multitude, who mistook their rage for valor, their numbers
for strength, and their fanaticism for the support and inspiration of
Heaven. In the eyes of both nations Alexius was false and contemptible;
the base and spurious race of the Angeli was rejected with clamorous
disdain; and the people of Constantinople encompassed the senate,
to demand at their hands a more worthy emperor. To every senator,
conspicuous by his birth or dignity, they successively presented the
purple: by each senator the deadly garment was repulsed: the contest
lasted three days; and we may learn from the historian Nicetas, one of
the members of the assembly, that fear and weaknesses were the guardians
of their loyalty. A phantom, who vanished in oblivion, was forcibly
proclaimed by the crowd: [75] but the author of the tumult, and the
leader of the war, was a prince of the house of Ducas; and his
common appellation of Alexius must be discriminated by the epithet of
Mourzoufle, [76] which in the vulgar idiom expressed the close junction
of his black and shaggy eyebrows. At once a patriot and a courtier, the
perfidious Mourzoufle, who was not destitute of cunning and courage,
opposed the Latins both in speech and action, inflamed the passions
and prejudices of the Greeks, and insinuated himself into the favor
and confidence of Alexius, who trusted him with the office of great
chamberlain, and tinged his buskins with the colors of royalty. At the
dead of night, he rushed into the bed-chamber with an affrighted aspect,
exclaiming, that the palace was attacked by the people and betrayed
by the guards. Starting from his couch, the unsuspecting prince threw
himself into the arms of his enemy, who had contrived his escape by a
private staircase. But that staircase terminated in a prison: Alexius
was seized, stripped, and loaded with chains; and, after tasting some
days the bitterness of death, he was poisoned, or strangled, or beaten
with clubs, at the command, or in the presence, of the tyrant.
The emperor Isaac Angelus soon followed his son to the grave; and
Mourzoufle, perhaps, might spare the superfluous crime of hastening the
extinction of impotence and blindness.
[Footnote 75: His name was Nicholas Canabus: he deserved the praise of
Nicetas and the vengeance of Mourzoufle, (p. 362.)]
[Footnote 76: Villehardouin (No. 116) speaks of him as a favorite,
without knowing that he was a prince of the blood, _Angelus_ and
_Ducas_. Ducange, who pries into every corner, believes him to be the
son of Isaac Ducas Sebastocrator, and second cousin of young Alexius.]
The death of the emperors, and the usurpation of Mourzoufle, had changed
the nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the disagreement of allies
who overvalued their services, or neglected their obligations: the
French and Venetians forgot their complaints against Alexius, dropped a
tear on the untimely fate of their companion, and swore revenge against
the perfidious nation who had crowned his assassin. Yet the prudent doge
was still inclined to negotiate: he asked as a debt, a subsidy, or a
fine, fifty thousand pounds of gold, about two millions sterling; nor
would the conference have been abruptly broken, if the zeal, or policy,
of Mourzoufle had not refused to sacrifice the Greek church to the
safety of the state. [77] Amidst the invectives of his foreign and
domestic enemies, we may discern, that he was not unworthy of the
character which he had assumed, of the public champion: the second siege
of Constantinople was far more laborious than the first; the treasury
was replenished, and discipline was restored, by a severe inquisition
into the abuses of the former reign; and Mourzoufle, an iron mace in
his hand, visiting the posts, and affecting the port and aspect of a
warrior, was an object of terror to his soldiers, at least, and to his
kinsmen. Before and after the death of Alexius, the Greeks made two
vigorous and well-conducted attempts to burn the navy in the harbor; but
the skill and courage of the Venetians repulsed the fire-ships; and the
vagrant flames wasted themselves without injury in the sea. [78] In a
nocturnal sally the Greek emperor was vanquished by Henry, brother of
the count of Flanders: the advantages of number and surprise aggravated
the shame of his defeat: his buckler was found on the field of battle;
and the Imperial standard, [79] a divine image of the Virgin, was
presented, as a trophy and a relic to the Cistercian monks, the
disciples of St. Bernard. Near three months, without excepting the holy
season of Lent, were consumed in skirmishes and preparations, before
the Latins were ready or resolved for a general assault. The land
fortifications had been found impregnable; and the Venetian pilots
represented, that, on the shore of the Propontis, the anchorage was
unsafe, and the ships must be driven by the current far away to the
straits of the Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing to the reluctant
pilgrims, who sought every opportunity of breaking the army. From the
harbor, therefore, the assault was determined by the assailants,
and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his scarlet
pavilions on a neighboring height, to direct and animate the efforts of
his troops. A fearless spectator, whose mind could entertain the ideas
of pomp and pleasure, might have admired the long array of two embattled
armies, which extended above half a league, the one on the ships and
galleys, the other on the walls and towers raised above the ordinary
level by several stages of wooden turrets. Their first fury was spent
in the discharge of darts, stones, and fire, from the engines; but the
water was deep; the French were bold; the Venetians were skilful; they
approached the walls; and a desperate conflict of swords, spears, and
battle-axes, was fought on the trembling bridges that grappled the
floating, to the stable, batteries. In more than a hundred places, the
assault was urged, and the defence was sustained; till the superiority
of ground and numbers finally prevailed, and the Latin trumpets sounded
a retreat. On the ensuing days, the attack was renewed with equal vigor,
and a similar event; and, in the night, the doge and the barons held a
council, apprehensive only for the public danger: not a voice pronounced
the words of escape or treaty; and each warrior, according to his
temper, embraced the hope of victory, or the assurance of a glorious
death. [80] By the experience of the former siege, the Greeks were
instructed, but the Latins were animated; and the knowledge that
Constantinople might be taken, was of more avail than the local
precautions which that knowledge had inspired for its defence. In the
third assault, two ships were linked together to double their strength;
a strong north wind drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes and
Soissons led the van; and the auspicious names of the _pilgrim_ and
the _paradise_ resounded along the line. [81] The episcopal banners were
displayed on the walls; a hundred marks of silver had been promised to
the first adventurers; and if their reward was intercepted by death,
their names have been immortalized by fame. [811] Four towers were scaled;
three gates were burst open; and the French knights, who might tremble
on the waves, felt themselves invincible on horseback on the solid
ground. Shall I relate that the thousands who guarded the emperor's
person fled on the approach, and before the lance, of a single warrior?
Their ignominious flight is attested by their countryman Nicetas: an
army of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was magnified to a
giant in the eyes of the Greeks. [82] While the fugitives deserted their
posts and cast away their arms, the Latins entered the city under
the banners of their leaders: the streets and gates opened for their
passage; and either design or accident kindled a third conflagration,
which consumed in a few hours the measure of three of the largest cities
of France. [83] In the close of evening, the barons checked their
troops, and fortified their stations: They were awed by the extent and
populousness of the capital, which might yet require the labor of a
month, if the churches and palaces were conscious of their internal
strength. But in the morning, a suppliant procession, with crosses and
images, announced the submission of the Greeks, and deprecated the wrath
of the conquerors: the usurper escaped through the golden gate: the
palaces of BlachernÊ and Boucoleon were occupied by the count of
Flanders and the marquis of Montferrat; and the empire, which still bore
the name of Constantine, and the title of Roman, was subverted by the
arms of the Latin pilgrims. [84]
[Footnote 77: This negotiation, probable in itself, and attested by
Nicetas, (p 65,) is omitted as scandalous by the delicacy of Dandolo and
Villehardouin. * Note: Wilken places it before the death of Alexius, vol. v. p.
276.--M.]
[Footnote 78: Baldwin mentions both attempts to fire the fleet, (Gest.
c. 92, p. 534, 535;) Villehardouin, (No. 113--15) only describes the
first. It is remarkable that neither of these warriors observe any
peculiar properties in the Greek fire.]
[Footnote 79: Ducange (No. 119) pours forth a torrent of learning on the
_Gonfanon Imperial_. This banner of the Virgin is shown at Venice as a
trophy and relic: if it be genuine the pious doge must have cheated the
monks of Citeaux.]
[Footnote 80: Villehardouin (No. 126) confesses, that mult ere grant
peril; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 13) affirms, that nulla spes
victoriÊ arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises those who thought of
flight, and the monk praises his countrymen who were resolved on death.]
[Footnote 81: Baldwin, and all the writers, honor the names of these two
galleys, felici auspicio.]
[Footnote 811: Pietro Alberti, a Venetian noble and Andrew d'Amboise a
French knight.--M.]
[Footnote 82: With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him enneorguioV,
nine orgyÊ, or eighteen yards high, a stature which would, indeed, have
excused the terror of the Greek. On this occasion, the historian seems
fonder of the marvellous than of his country, or perhaps of truth.
Baldwin exclaims in the words of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex nobis
centum alienos.]
[Footnote 83: Villehardouin (No. 130) is again ignorant of the authors
of _this_ more legitimate fire, which is ascribed by Gunther to a quidam
comes Teutonicus, (c. 14.) They seem ashamed, the incendiaries!]
[Footnote 84: For the second siege and conquest of Constantinople, see
Villehardouin (No. 113--132,) Baldwin's iid Epistle to Innocent III.,
(Gesta c. 92, p. 534--537,) with the whole reign of Mourzoufle, in
Nicetas, (p 363--375;) and borrowed some hints from Dandolo (Chron.
Venet. p. 323--330) and Gunther, (Hist. C. P. c. 14--18,) who added the
decorations of prophecy and vision. The former produces an oracle of
the ErythrÊan sibyl, of a great armament on the Adriatic, under a
blind chief, against Byzantium, &c. Curious enough, were the prediction
anterior to the fact.]
Constantinople had been taken by storm; and no restraints, except those
of religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by the laws of
war. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as their general; and
the Greeks, who revered his name as that of their future sovereign, were
heard to exclaim in a lamentable tone, "Holy marquis-king, have mercy
upon us!" His prudence or compassion opened the gates of the city to the
fugitives; and he exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the lives
of their fellow-Christians. The streams of blood that flowed down the
pages of Nicetas may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand of his
unresisting countrymen; [85] and the greater part was massacred, not by
the strangers, but by the Latins, who had been driven from the city, and
who exercised the revenge of a triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles,
some were less mindful of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himself
was indebted for his safety to the generosity of a Venetian merchant.
Pope Innocent the Third accuses the pilgrims for respecting, in their
lust, neither age nor sex, nor religious profession; and bitterly
laments that the deeds of darkness, fornication, adultery, and incest,
were perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons and holy nuns were
polluted by the grooms and peasants of the Catholic camp. [86] It is
indeed probable that the license of victory prompted and covered a
multitude of sins: but it is certain, that the capital of the East
contained a stock of venal or willing beauty, sufficient to satiate the
desires of twenty thousand pilgrims; and female prisoners were no
longer subject to the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquis
of Montferrat was the patron of discipline and decency; the count of
Flanders was the mirror of chastity: they had forbidden, under pain
of death, the rape of married women, or virgins, or nuns; and the
proclamation was sometimes invoked by the vanquished [87] and respected
by the victors. Their cruelty and lust were moderated by the authority
of the chiefs, and feelings of the soldiers; for we are no longer
describing an irruption of the northern savages; and however ferocious
they might still appear, time, policy, and religion had civilized the
manners of the French, and still more of the Italians. But a free scope
was allowed to their avarice, which was glutted, even in the holy week,
by the pillage of Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled by
any promise or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth of
the Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, might
lawfully execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A portable and
universal standard of exchange was found in the coined and uncoined
metals of gold and silver, which each captor, at home or abroad, might
convert into the possessions most suitable to his temper and situation.
Of the treasures, which trade and luxury had accumulated, the silks,
velvets, furs, the gems, spices, and rich movables, were the most
precious, as they could not be procured for money in the ruder countries
of Europe. An order of rapine was instituted; nor was the share of
each individual abandoned to industry or chance. Under the tremendous
penalties of perjury, excommunication, and death, the Latins were bound
to deliver their plunder into the common stock: three churches were
selected for the deposit and distribution of the spoil: a single share
was allotted to a foot-soldier; two for a sergeant on horseback; four to
a knight; and larger proportions according to the rank and merit of
the barons and princes. For violating this sacred engagement, a knight
belonging to the count of St. Paul was hanged with his shield and coat
of arms round his neck; his example might render similar offenders more
artful and discreet; but avarice was more powerful than fear; and it
is generally believed that the secret far exceeded the acknowledged
plunder. Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the largest scale of
experience or expectation. [88] After the whole had been equally divided
between the French and Venetians, fifty thousand marks were deducted
to satisfy the debts of the former and the demands of the latter. The
residue of the French amounted to four hundred thousand marks of silver,
[89] about eight hundred thousand pounds sterling; nor can I better
appreciate the value of that sum in the public and private transactions
of the age, than by defining it as seven times the annual revenue of the
kingdom of England. [90]
[Footnote 85: Ceciderunt tamen e‚ die civium quasi duo millia, &c.,
(Gunther, c. 18.) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to try the
amplifications of passion and rhetoric.]
[Footnote 86: Quidam (says Innocent III., Gesta, c. 94, p. 538)
nec religioni, nec Êtati, nec sexui pepercerunt: sed fornicationes,
adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium exercentes, non sol˚m maritatas
et viduas, sed et matronas et virgines Deoque dicatas, exposuerunt
spurcitiis garcionum. Villehardouin takes no notice of these common
incidents.]
[Footnote 87: Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble virgin,
(p. 380,) whom a soldier, eti martusi polloiV onhdon epibrimwmenoV, had
almost violated in spite of the entolai, entalmata eu gegonotwn.]
[Footnote 88: Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut de
pauperibus et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur, (Hist. C. P. c. 18;
(Villehardouin, (No. 132,) that since the creation, ne fu tant gaaigniÈ
dans une ville; Baldwin, (Gesta, c. 92,) ut tantum tota non videatur
possidere Latinitas.]
[Footnote 89: Villehardouin, No. 133--135. Instead of 400,000, there
is a various reading of 500,000. The Venetians had offered to take the
whole booty, and to give 400 marks to each knight, 200 to each priest
and horseman, and 100 to each foot-soldier: they would have been great
losers, (Le Beau, Hist. du. Bas Empire tom. xx. p. 506. I know not from
whence.)]
[Footnote 90: At the council of Lyons (A.D. 1245) the English
ambassadors stated the revenue of the crown as below that of the foreign
clergy, which amounted to 60,000 marks a year, (Matthew Paris, p. 451
Hume's Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 170.)]
In this great revolution we enjoy the singular felicity of comparing the
narratives of Villehardouin and Nicetas, the opposite feelings of the
marshal of Champagne and the Byzantine senator. [91] At the first view it
should seem that the wealth of Constantinople was only transferred from
one nation to another; and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks is
exactly balanced by the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the
miserable account of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss,
the pleasure to the pain; the smiles of the Latins were transient and
fallacious; the Greeks forever wept over the ruins of their country;
and their real calamities were aggravated by sacrilege and mockery.
What benefits accrued to the conquerors from the three fires which
annihilated so vast a portion of the buildings and riches of the city?
What a stock of such things, as could neither be used nor transported,
was maliciously or wantonly destroyed! How much treasure was idly wasted
in gaming, debauchery, and riot! And what precious objects were bartered
for a vile price by the impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whose
reward was stolen by the base industry of the last of the Greeks!
These alone, who had nothing to lose, might derive some profit from the
revolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society is strongly
painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself His stately palace
had been reduced to ashes in the second conflagration; and the senator,
with his family and friends, found an obscure shelter in another house
which he possessed near the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of
this mean habitation that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guarded
in the disguise of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate
flight, the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In
a cold, wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of prosperity,
departed on foot; his wife was with child; the desertion of their slaves
compelled them to carry their baggage on their own shoulders; and their
women, whom they placed in the centre, were exhorted to conceal their
beauty with dirt, instead of adorning it with paint and jewels Every
step was exposed to insult and danger: the threats of the strangers were
less painful than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were
now levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their mournful
pilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above forty miles from the
capital. On the way they overtook the patriarch, without attendance
and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and reduced to a state of
apostolical poverty, which, had it been voluntary, might perhaps have
been meritorious. In the mean while, his desolate churches were profaned
by the licentiousness and party zeal of the Latins. After stripping the
gems and pearls, they converted the chalices into drinking-cups; their
tables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the pictures
of Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot the most
venerable objects of the Christian worship. In the cathedral of St.
Sophia, the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent asunder for the sake
of the golden fringe; and the altar, a monument of art and riches, was
broken in pieces and shared among the captors. Their mules and horses
were laden with the wrought silver and gilt carvings, which they tore
down from the doors and pulpit; and if the beasts stumbled under the
burden, they were stabbed by their impatient drivers, and the holy
pavement streamed with their impure blood. A prostitute was seated on
the throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, as she
is styled, sung and danced in the church, to ridicule the hymns and
processions of the Orientals. Nor were the repositories of the royal
dead secure from violation: in the church of the Apostles, the tombs of
the emperors were rifled; and it is said, that after six centuries
the corpse of Justinian was found without any signs of decay or
putrefaction. In the streets, the French and Flemings clothed themselves
and their horses in painted robes and flowing head-dresses of linen;
and the coarse intemperance of their feasts [92] insulted the splendid
sobriety of the East. To expose the arms of a people of scribes and
scholars, they affected to display a pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet of
paper, without discerning that the instruments of science and valor were
_alike_ feeble and useless in the hands of the modern Greeks.
[Footnote 91: The disorders of the sack of Constantinople, and his own
adventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p. 367--369, and in the
Status Urb. C. P. p. 375--384. His complaints, even of sacrilege, are
justified by Innocent III., (Gesta, c. 92;) but Villehardouin does not
betray a symptom of pity or remorse.]
[Footnote 92: If I rightly apprehend the Greek of Nicetas's receipts,
their favorite dishes were boiled buttocks of beef, salt pork and peas,
and soup made of garlic and sharp or sour herbs, (p. 382.)]