Constantinople, in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 1--34, the end l.
v. c. 1--33.]
[Footnote 46: Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II. to the
English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armat‚ man˚, p. 407
his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c., p. 481, (a passage which has
escaped Ducange;) his expulsion, p. 850.]
[Footnote 47: Louis IX. disapproved and stopped the alienation of
Courtenay (Ducange, l. iv. c. 23.) It is now annexed to the
royal demesne but granted for a term (_engagÈ_) to the family of
Boulainvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in the Isle de
France, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the remains of a castle,
(MÈlanges tirÈs d'une Grande BibliothËque, tom. xlv. p. 74--77.)]
[Footnote 48: Joinville, p. 104, edit. du Louvre. A Coman prince, who
died without baptism, was buried at the gates of Constantinople with a
live retinue of slaves and horses.]
[Footnote 49: Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Crucis, l. ii. p. iv. c. 18, p. 73.]
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part III.
But in this abject distress, the emperor and empire were still
possessed of an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value from the
superstition of the Christian world. The merit of the true cross was
somewhat impaired by its frequent division; and a long captivity among
the infidels might shed some suspicion on the fragments that were
produced in the East and West. But another relic of the Passion was
preserved in the Imperial chapel of Constantinople; and the crown of
thorns which had been placed on the head of Christ was equally precious
and authentic. It had formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtors
to deposit, as a security, the mummies of their parents; and both their
honor and religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In the
same manner, and in the absence of the emperor, the barons of Romania
borrowed the sum of thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty-four
pieces of gold [50] on the credit of the holy crown: they failed in the
performance of their contract; and a rich Venetian, Nicholas Querini,
undertook to satisfy their impatient creditors, on condition that the
relic should be lodged at Venice, to become his absolute property, if it
were not redeemed within a short and definite term. The barons apprised
their sovereign of the hard treaty and impending loss and as the empire
could not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling, Baldwin was
anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and to vest it with more
honor and emolument in the hands of the most Christian king. [51] Yet the
negotiation was attended with some delicacy. In the purchase of relics,
the saint would have started at the guilt of simony; but if the mode of
expression were changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept the
gift, and acknowledge the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans,
were despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown which had
escaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On opening a
wooden box, they recognized the seals of the doge and barons, which were
applied on a shrine of silver; and within this shrine the monument
of the Passion was enclosed in a golden vase. The reluctant Venetians
yielded to justice and power: the emperor Frederic granted a free and
honorable passage; the court of France advanced as far as Troyes in
Champagne, to meet with devotion this inestimable relic: it was borne in
triumph through Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt;
and a free gift of ten thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to
his loss. The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor to
offer with the same generosity the remaining furniture of his chapel;
[52] a large and authentic portion of the true cross; the baby-linen of
the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the chain, of his Passion;
the rod of Moses, and part of the skull of St. John the Baptist. For
the reception of these spiritual treasures, twenty thousand marks were
expended by St. Louis on a stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris,
on which the muse of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth
of such remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human
testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles which
they have performed. About the middle of the last age, an inveterate
ulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the holy crown: [53]
the prodigy is attested by the most pious and enlightened Christians of
France; nor will the fact be easily disproved, except by those who are
armed with a general antidote against religious credulity. [54]
[Footnote 50: Under the words _Perparus_, _Perpera_, _Hyperperum_,
Ducange is short and vague: MonetÊ genus. From a corrupt passage of
Guntherus, (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10,) I guess that the Perpera was
the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark of silver, or about ten
shillings sterling in value. In lead it would be too contemptible.]
[Footnote 51: For the translation of the holy crown, &c., from
Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 11--14,
24, 35) and Fleury, (Hist. EcclÈs. tom. xvii. p. 201--204.)]
[Footnote 52: MÈlanges tirÈs d'une Grande BibliothËque, tom. xliii.
p. 201--205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the soul
and manners of the _Sainte Chapelle_; and many facts relative to the
institution are collected and explained by his commentators, Brosset and
De St. Marc.]
[Footnote 53: It was performed A.D. 1656, March 24, on the niece of
Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c., were on the
spot, to believe and attest a miracle which confounded the Jesuits,
and saved Port Royal, (uvres de Racine, tom. vi. p. 176--187, in his
eloquent History of Port Royal.)]
[Footnote 54: Voltaire (SiÈcle de Louis XIV. c. 37, uvres, tom. ix. p.
178, 179) strives to invalidate the fact: but Hume, (Essays, vol. ii.
p. 483, 484,) with more skill and success, seizes the battery, and turns
the cannon against his enemies.]
The Latins of Constantinople [55] were on all sides encompassed and
pressed; their sole hope, the last delay of their ruin, was in the
division of their Greek and Bulgarian enemies; and of this hope they
were deprived by the superior arms and policy of Vataces, emperor of
Nice. From the Propontis to the rocky coast of Pamphylia, Asia was
peaceful and prosperous under his reign; and the events of every
campaign extended his influence in Europe. The strong cities of the
hills of Macedonia and Thrace were rescued from the Bulgarians; and
their kingdom was circumscribed by its present and proper limits, along
the southern banks of the Danube. The sole emperor of the Romans could
no longer brook that a lord of Epirus, a Comnenian prince of the West,
should presume to dispute or share the honors of the purple; and the
humble Demetrius changed the color of his buskins, and accepted with
gratitude the appellation of despot. His own subjects were exasperated
by his baseness and incapacity; they implored the protection of their
supreme lord. After some resistance, the kingdom of Thessalonica was
united to the empire of Nice; and Vataces reigned without a competitor
from the Turkish borders to the Adriatic Gulf. The princes of Europe
revered his merit and power; and had he subscribed an orthodox creed,
it should seem that the pope would have abandoned without reluctance the
Latin throne of Constantinople. But the death of Vataces, the short and
busy reign of Theodore his son, and the helpless infancy of his grandson
John, suspended the restoration of the Greeks. In the next chapter,
I shall explain their domestic revolutions; in this place, it will
be sufficient to observe, that the young prince was oppressed by
the ambition of his guardian and colleague, Michael PalÊologus, who
displayed the virtues and vices that belong to the founder of a new
dynasty. The emperor Baldwin had flattered himself, that he might
recover some provinces or cities by an impotent negotiation. His
ambassadors were dismissed from Nice with mockery and contempt. At every
place which they named, PalÊologus alleged some special reason, which
rendered it dear and valuable in his eyes: in the one he was born; in
another he had been first promoted to military command; and in a third
he had enjoyed, and hoped long to enjoy, the pleasures of the chase.
"And what then do you propose to give us?" said the astonished deputies.
"Nothing," replied the Greek, "not a foot of land. If your master be
desirous of peace, let him pay me, as an annual tribute, the sum which
he receives from the trade and customs of Constantinople. On these
terms, I may allow him to reign. If he refuses, it is war. I am not
ignorant of the art of war, and I trust the event to God and my sword."
[56] An expedition against the despot of Epirus was the first prelude
of his arms. If a victory was followed by a defeat; if the race of the
Comneni or Angeli survived in those mountains his efforts and his reign;
the captivity of Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the Latins
of the most active and powerful vassal of their expiring monarchy. The
republics of Venice and Genoa disputed, in the first of their naval
wars, the command of the sea and the commerce of the East. Pride and
interest attached the Venetians to the defence of Constantinople; their
rivals were tempted to promote the designs of her enemies, and the
alliance of the Genoese with the schismatic conqueror provoked the
indignation of the Latin church. [57]
[Footnote 55: The gradual losses of the Latins may be traced in the
third fourth, and fifth books of the compilation of Ducange: but of
the Greek conquests he has dropped many circumstances, which may be
recovered from the larger history of George Acropolita, and the three
first books of Nicephorus, Gregoras, two writers of the Byzantine
series, who have had the good fortune to meet with learned editors Leo
Allatius at Rome, and John Boivin in the Academy of Inscriptions of
Paris.]
[Footnote 56: George Acropolita, c. 78, p. 89, 90. edit. Paris.]
[Footnote 57: The Greeks, ashamed of any foreign aid, disguise the
alliance and succor of the Genoese: but the fact is proved by the
testimony of J Villani (Chron. l. vi. c. 71, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 202, 203) and William de Nangis, (Annales de
St. Louis, p. 248 in the Louvre Joinville,) two impartial foreigners;
and Urban IV threatened to deprive Genoa of her archbishop.]
Intent on his great object, the emperor Michael visited in person and
strengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The remains of
the Latins were driven from their last possessions: he assaulted without
success the suburb of Galata; and corresponded with a perfidious baron,
who proved unwilling, or unable, to open the gates of the metropolis.
The next spring, his favorite general, Alexius Strategopulus, whom he
had decorated with the title of CÊsar, passed the Hellespont with
eight hundred horse and some infantry, [58] on a secret expedition. His
instructions enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not to
risk any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city. The adjacent
territory between the Propontis and the Black Sea was cultivated by
a hardy race of peasants and outlaws, exercised in arms, uncertain
in their allegiance, but inclined by language, religion, and
present advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They were styled the
_volunteers_; [59] and by their free service the army of Alexius, with
the regulars of Thrace and the Coman auxiliaries, [60] was augmented
to the number of five-and-twenty thousand men. By the ardor of the
volunteers, and by his own ambition, the CÊsar was stimulated to disobey
the precise orders of his master, in the just confidence that success
would plead his pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, and
the distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar to the observation
of the volunteers; and they represented the present moment as the most
propitious to surprise and conquest. A rash youth, the new governor of
the Venetian colony, had sailed away with thirty galleys, and the best
of the French knights, on a wild expedition to Daphnusia, a town on the
Black Sea, at the distance of forty leagues; [601] and the remaining Latins
were without strength or suspicion. They were informed that Alexius
had passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were lulled by the
smallness of his original numbers; and their imprudence had not watched
the subsequent increase of his army. If he left his main body to second
and support his operations, he might advance unperceived in the night
with a chosen detachment. While some applied scaling-ladders to the
lowest part of the walls, they were secure of an old Greek, who would
introduce their companions through a subterraneous passage into his
house; they could soon on the inside break an entrance through the
golden gate, which had been long obstructed; and the conqueror would
be in the heart of the city before the Latins were conscious of their
danger. After some debate, the CÊsar resigned himself to the faith
of the volunteers; they were trusty, bold, and successful; and in
describing the plan, I have already related the execution and success.
[61] But no sooner had Alexius passed the threshold of the golden gate,
than he trembled at his own rashness; he paused, he deliberated; till
the desperate volunteers urged him forwards, by the assurance that in
retreat lay the greatest and most inevitable danger. Whilst the CÊsar
kept his regulars in firm array, the Comans dispersed themselves on
all sides; an alarm was sounded, and the threats of fire and pillage
compelled the citizens to a decisive resolution. The Greeks of
Constantinople remembered their native sovereigns; the Genoese merchants
their recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter was in arms; and
the air resounded with a general acclamation of "Long life and victory
to Michael and John, the august emperors of the Romans!" Their rival,
Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most pressing danger could
not prompt him to draw his sword in the defence of a city which he
deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure than regret: he fled from the
palace to the seashore, where he descried the welcome sails of the
fleet returning from the vain and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia.
Constantinople was irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and the
principal families embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steered
for the Isle of Euba, and afterwards for Italy, where the royal fugitive
was entertained by the pope and Sicilian king with a mixture of contempt
and pity. From the loss of Constantinople to his death, he consumed
thirteen years, soliciting the Catholic powers to join in his
restoration: the lesson had been familiar to his youth; nor was his last
exile more indigent or shameful than his three former pilgrimages to the
courts of Europe. His son Philip was the heir of an ideal empire;
and the pretensions of his daughter Catherine were transported by her
marriage to Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, king of
France. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female line by
successive alliances, till the title of emperor of Constantinople, too
bulky and sonorous for a private name, modestly expired in silence and
oblivion. [62]
[Footnote 58: Some precautions must be used in reconciling the
discordant numbers; the 800 soldiers of Nicetas, the 25,000 of
Spandugino, (apud Ducange, l. v. c. 24;) the Greeks and Scythians of
Acropolita; and the numerous army of Michael, in the Epistles of Pope
Urban IV. (i. 129.)]
[Footnote 59: Qelhmatarioi. They are described and named by Pachymer,
(l. ii. c. 14.)]
[Footnote 60: It is needless to seek these Comans in the deserts of
Tartary, or even of Moldavia. A part of the horde had submitted to John
Vataces, and was probably settled as a nursery of soldiers on some waste
lands of Thrace, (Cantacuzen. l. i. c. 2.)]
[Footnote 601: According to several authorities, particularly Abulfaradj.
Chron. Arab. p. 336, this was a stratagem on the part of the Greeks to
weaken the garrison of Constantinople. The Greek commander offered to
surrender the town on the appearance of the Venetians.--M.]
[Footnote 61: The loss of Constantinople is briefly told by the Latins:
the conquest is described with more satisfaction by the Greeks; by
Acropolita, (c. 85,) Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 26, 27,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. iv. c. 1, 2) See Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 19--27.]
[Footnote 62: See the three last books (l. v.--viii.) and the
genealogical tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular emperor
of Constantinople was James de Baux, duke of Andria in the kingdom of
Naples, the son of Margaret, daughter of Catherine de Valois, daughter
of Catharine, daughter of Philip, son of Baldwin II., (Ducange, l. viii.
c. 37, 38.) It is uncertain whether he left any posterity.]
After this narrative of the expeditions of the Latins to Palestine
and Constantinople, I cannot dismiss the subject without resolving the
general consequences on the countries that were the scene, and on the
nations that were the actors, of these memorable crusades. [63] As soon
as the arms of the Franks were withdrawn, the impression, though not
the memory, was erased in the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syria. The
faithful disciples of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desire
to study the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity
of their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from their
intercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of the West. The
Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were only vain, showed a
disposition somewhat less inflexible. In the efforts for the recovery of
their empire, they emulated the valor, discipline, and tactics of
their antagonists. The modern literature of the West they might justly
despise; but its free spirit would instruct them in the rights of man;
and some institutions of public and private life were adopted from the
French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused the
knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and classics
were at length honored with a Greek version. [64] But the national and
religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed by persecution, and
the reign of the Latins confirmed the separation of the two churches.
[Footnote 63: Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades, speaks
of the kingdoms of the Franks, and those of the Negroes, as equally
unknown, (Prolegom. ad Geograph.) Had he not disdained the Latin
language, how easily might the Syrian prince have found books and
interpreters!]
[Footnote 64: A short and superficial account of these versions from
Latin into Greek is given by Huet, (de Interpretatione et de claris
Interpretibus p. 131--135.) Maximus Planudes, a monk of Constantinople,
(A.D. 1327--1353) has translated CÊsar's Commentaries, the Somnium
Scipionis, the Metamorphoses and Heroides of Ovid, &c., (Fabric. Bib.
GrÊc. tom. x. p. 533.)]
If we compare the Êra of the crusades, the Latins of Europe with the
Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, industry,
and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the third rank in the
scale of nations. Their successive improvement and present superiority
may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and
imitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that
time were in a stationary or retrograde state. With such a disposition,
the Latins should have derived the most early and essential benefits
from a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the
world, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the
more cultivated regions of the East. The first and most obvious progress
was in trade and manufactures, in the arts which are strongly prompted
by the thirst of wealth, the calls of necessity, and the gratification
of the sense or vanity. Among the crowd of unthinking fanatics, a
captive or a pilgrim might sometimes observe the superior refinements
of Cairo and Constantinople: the first importer of windmills [65] was
the benefactor of nations; and if such blessings are enjoyed without
any grateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the more
apparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported into Italy
from Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of the Latins were
more slowly felt and supplied; the ardor of studious curiosity was
awakened in Europe by different causes and more recent events; and,
in the age of the crusades, they viewed with careless indifference the
literature of the Greeks and Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematical
and medicinal knowledge might be imparted in practice and in figures;
necessity might produce some interpreters for the grosser business
of merchants and soldiers; but the commerce of the Orientals had not
diffused the study and knowledge of their languages in the schools of
Europe. [66] If a similar principle of religion repulsed the idiom of the
Koran, it should have excited their patience and curiosity to understand
the original text of the gospel; and the same grammar would have
unfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties of Homer. Yet in a reign
of sixty years, the Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech and
learning of their subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasures
which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle was
indeed the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous
Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his Latin
votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version, from the Jews
and Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the crusades was a savage
fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause.
Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics
of Greece and Palestine; [67] and each relic was preceded and followed
by a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was
corrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the
establishment of the inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and
friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress of
idolatry, flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war. The active
spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion;
and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, the
thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity and fable.
[Footnote 65: Windmills, first invented in the dry country of Asia
Minor, were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105, (Vie privÈe des
FranÁois, tom. i. p. 42, 43. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iv. p. 474.)]
[Footnote 66: See the complaints of Roger Bacon, (Biographia Britannica,
vol. i. p. 418, Kippis's edition.) If Bacon himself, or Gerbert,
understood _some_Greek, they were prodigies, and owed nothing to the
commerce of the East.]
[Footnote 67: Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz, (uvres de
Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 458,) a master of the history of the middle ages.
I shall only instance the pedigree of the Carmelites, and the flight of
the house of Loretto, which were both derived from Palestine.]
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part IV.