of the mother and daughter, in the maternal tenderness of Rome, and the
filial obedience of Constantinople. In the synod of Florence, the Greeks
and Latins had embraced, and subscribed, and promised; but these signs
of friendship were perfidious or fruitless; [5] and the baseless fabric
of the union vanished like a dream. [6] The emperor and his prelates
returned home in the Venetian galleys; but as they touched at the Morea
and the Isles of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins complained
that the pretended union would be an instrument of oppression. No sooner
did they land on the Byzantine shore, than they were saluted, or rather
assailed, with a general murmur of zeal and discontent. During their
absence, above two years, the capital had been deprived of its civil and
ecclesiastical rulers; fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the most furious
monks reigned over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatred
of the Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion. Before
his departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the city with the
assurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succor; and the clergy,
confident in their orthodoxy and science, had promised themselves and
their flocks an easy victory over the blind shepherds of the West. The
double disappointment exasperated the Greeks; the conscience of the
subscribing prelates was awakened; the hour of temptation was past; and
they had more to dread from the public resentment, than they could hope
from the favor of the emperor or the pope. Instead of justifying their
conduct, they deplored their weakness, professed their contrition,
and cast themselves on the mercy of God and of their brethren. To
the reproachful question, what had been the event or the use of their
Italian synod? they answered with sighs and tears, "Alas! we have made
a new faith; we have exchanged piety for impiety; we have betrayed the
immaculate sacrifice; and we are become _Azymites_." (The Azymites were
those who celebrated the communion with unleavened bread; and I must
retract or qualify the praise which I have bestowed on the growing
philosophy of the times.) "Alas! we have been seduced by distress, by
fraud, and by the hopes and fears of a transitory life. The hand
that has signed the union should be cut off; and the tongue that has
pronounced the Latin creed deserves to be torn from the root." The best
proof of their repentance was an increase of zeal for the most
trivial rites and the most incomprehensible doctrines; and an absolute
separation from all, without excepting their prince, who preserved some
regard for honor and consistency. After the decease of the patriarch
Joseph, the archbishops of Heraclea and Trebizond had courage to
refuse the vacant office; and Cardinal Bessarion preferred the warm and
comfortable shelter of the Vatican. The choice of the emperor and his
clergy was confined to Metrophanes of Cyzicus: he was consecrated in
St. Sophia, but the temple was vacant. The cross-bearers abdicated
their service; the infection spread from the city to the villages; and
Metrophanes discharged, without effect, some ecclesiastical thunders
against a nation of schismatics. The eyes of the Greeks were directed to
Mark of Ephesus, the champion of his country; and the sufferings of the
holy confessor were repaid with a tribute of admiration and applause.
His example and writings propagated the flame of religious discord; age
and infirmity soon removed him from the world; but the gospel of Mark
was not a law of forgiveness; and he requested with his dying breath,
that none of the adherents of Rome might attend his obsequies or pray
for his soul.
[Footnote 5: The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus (p.
312--351) opens the schism from the first _office_ of the Greeks at
Venice to the general opposition at Constantinople, of the clergy and
people.]
[Footnote 6: On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza, (l. ii. c.
17,) Laonicus Chalcondyles, (l. vi. p. 155, 156,) and Ducas, (c. 31;)
the last of whom writes with truth and freedom. Among the moderns we
may distinguish the continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii. p. 338, &c., 401,
420, &c.,) and Spondanus, (A.D. 1440--50.) The sense of the latter
is drowned in prejudice and passion, as soon as Rome and religion are
concerned.]
The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the Byzantine
empire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the three patriarchs of
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, assembled a numerous synod; disowned
their representatives at Ferrara and Florence; condemned the creed and
council of the Latins; and threatened the emperor of Constantinople
with the censures of the Eastern church. Of the sectaries of the
Greek communion, the Russians were the most powerful, ignorant, and
superstitious. Their primate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened from
Florence to Moscow, [7] to reduce the independent nation under the Roman
yoke. But the Russian bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; and
the prince and people embraced the theology of their priests. They were
scandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the legate, the
friend of those impious men who shaved their beards, and performed the
divine office with gloves on their hands and rings on their fingers:
Isidore was condemned by a synod; his person was imprisoned in a
monastery; and it was with extreme difficulty that the cardinal could
escape from the hands of a fierce and fanatic people. [8] The Russians
refused a passage to the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convert
the Pagans beyond the Tanais; [9] and their refusal was justified by the
maxim, that the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism.
The errors of the Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for the
pope; and a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the friendship of
those sanguinary enthusiasts. [10] While Eugenius triumphed in the union
and orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was contracted to the walls, or
rather to the palace of Constantinople. The zeal of PalÊologus had been
excited by interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt to
violate the national belief might endanger his life and crown; not could
the pious rebels be destitute of foreign and domestic aid. The sword of
his brother Demetrius, who in Italy had maintained a prudent and popular
silence, was half unsheathed in the cause of religion; and Amurath, the
Turkish sultan, was displeased and alarmed by the seeming friendship of
the Greeks and Latins.
[Footnote 7: Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks subject
to Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to Lemberg, or
Leopold, (Herbestein, in Ramusio, tom. ii. p. 127.) On the other hand,
the Russians transferred their spiritual obedience to the archbishop,
who became, in 1588, the patriarch, of Moscow, (Levesque Hist. de
Russie, tom. iii. p. 188, 190, from a Greek MS. at Turin, Iter et
labores Archiepiscopi Arsenii.)]
[Footnote 8: The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom.
ii. p. 242--247) is extracted from the patriarchal archives. The scenes
of Ferrara and Florence are described by ignorance and passion; but the
Russians are credible in the account of their own prejudices.]
[Footnote 9: The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the SamanÊans and
Gymnosophists, has been driven by the more popular Bramins from India
into the northern deserts: the naked philosophers were compelled to wrap
themselves in fur; but they insensibly sunk into wizards and physicians.
The Mordvans and Tcheremisses in the European Russia adhere to this
religion, which is formed on the earthly model of one king or God,
his ministers or angels, and the rebellious spirits who oppose his
government. As these tribes of the Volga have no images, they might
more justly retort on the Latin missionaries the name of idolaters,
(Levesque, Hist. des Peuples soumis ‡ la Domination des Russes, tom. i.
p. 194--237, 423--460.)]
[Footnote 10: Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. tom ii. A.D. 1451, No. 13. The
epistle of the Greeks with a Latin version, is extant in the college
library at Prague.]
"Sultan Murad, or Amurath, lived forty-nine, and reigned thirty years,
six months, and eight days. He was a just and valiant prince, of a great
soul, patient of labors, learned, merciful, religious, charitable; a
lover and encourager of the studious, and of all who excelled in any art
or science; a good emperor and a great general. No man obtained more or
greater victories than Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his attacks. [101]
Under his reign, the soldier was ever victorious, the citizen rich and
secure. If he subdued any country, his first care was to build mosques
and caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges. Every year he gave a thousand
pieces of gold to the sons of the Prophet; and sent two thousand five
hundred to the religious persons of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem." [11]
This portrait is transcribed from the historian of the Othman empire:
but the applause of a servile and superstitious people has been lavished
on the worst of tyrants; and the virtues of a sultan are often the vices
most useful to himself, or most agreeable to his subjects. A nation
ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the
flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the
character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy,
of firmness. If the most reasonable excuse be rejected, few acts of
obedience will be found impossible; and guilt must tremble, where
innocence cannot always be secure. The tranquillity of the people, and
the discipline of the troops, were best maintained by perpetual action
in the field; war was the trade of the Janizaries; and those who
survived the peril, and divided the spoil, applauded the generous
ambition of their sovereign. To propagate the true religion, was the
duty of a faithful Mussulman: the unbelievers were _his_ enemies, and
those of the Prophet; and, in the hands of the Turks, the cimeter was
the only instrument of conversion. Under these circumstances, however,
the justice and moderation of Amurath are attested by his conduct, and
acknowledged by the Christians themselves; who consider a prosperous
reign and a peaceful death as the reward of his singular merits. In the
vigor of his age and military power, he seldom engaged in war till he
was justified by a previous and adequate provocation: the victorious
sultan was disarmed by submission; and in the observance of treaties,
his word was inviolate and sacred. [12] The Hungarians were commonly
the aggressors; he was provoked by the revolt of Scanderbeg; and the
perfidious Caramanian was twice vanquished, and twice pardoned, by the
Ottoman monarch. Before he invaded the Morea, Thebes had been surprised
by the despot: in the conquest of Thessalonica, the grandson of Bajazet
might dispute the recent purchase of the Venetians; and after the first
siege of Constantinople, the sultan was never tempted, by the distress,
the absence, or the injuries of PalÊologus, to extinguish the dying
light of the Byzantine empire.
[Footnote 101: See the siege and massacre at Thessalonica. Von Hammer vol.
i p. 433.--M.]
[Footnote 11: See Cantemir, History of the Othman Empire, p. 94. Murad,
or Morad, may be more correct: but I have preferred the popular name
to that obscure diligence which is rarely successful in translating an
Oriental, into the Roman, alphabet.]
[Footnote 12: See Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 186, 198,) Ducas, (c. 33,)
and Marinus Barletius, (in Vit. Scanderbeg, p. 145, 146.) In his good
faith towards the garrison of Sfetigrade, he was a lesson and example to
his son Mahomet.]
But the most striking feature in the life and character of Amurath is
the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were not his
motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must praise the royal
philosopher, [13] who at the age of forty could discern the vanity of
human greatness. Resigning the sceptre to his son, he retired to the
pleasant residence of Magnesia; but he retired to the society of saints
and hermits. It was not till the fourth century of the Hegira, that the
religion of Mahomet had been corrupted by an institution so adverse
to his genius; but in the age of the crusades, the various orders of
Dervises were multiplied by the example of the Christian, and even the
Latin, monks. [14] The lord of nations submitted to fast, and pray, and
turn round [141] in endless rotation with the fanatics, who mistook the
giddiness of the head for the illumination of the spirit. [15] But he was
soon awakened from his dreams of enthusiasm by the Hungarian invasion;
and his obedient son was the foremost to urge the public danger and
the wishes of the people. Under the banner of their veteran leader, the
Janizaries fought and conquered but he withdrew from the field of Varna,
again to pray, to fast, and to turn round with his Magnesian brethren.
These pious occupations were again interrupted by the danger of the
state. A victorious army disdained the inexperience of their youthful
ruler: the city of Adrianople was abandoned to rapine and slaughter;
and the unanimous divan implored his presence to appease the tumult,
and prevent the rebellion, of the Janizaries. At the well-known voice
of their master, they trembled and obeyed; and the reluctant sultan was
compelled to support his splendid servitude, till at the end of four
years, he was relieved by the angel of death. Age or disease, misfortune
or caprice, have tempted several princes to descend from the throne; and
they have had leisure to repent of their irretrievable step. But Amurath
alone, in the full liberty of choice, after the trial of empire and
solitude, has _repeated_ his preference of a private life.
[Footnote 13: Voltaire (Essai sur l'Histoire GÈnÈrale, c. 89, p. 283,
284) admires _le Philosophe Turc:_ would he have bestowed the same
praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a monastery? In his way,
Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerant bigot.]
[Footnote 14: See the articles _Dervische_, _Fakir_, _Nasser_,
_Rohbaniat_, in D'Herbelot's BibliothËque Orientale. Yet the subject is
superficially treated from the Persian and Arabian writers. It is among
the Turks that these orders have principally flourished.]
[Footnote 141: Gibbon has fallen into a remarkable error. The unmonastic
retreat of Amurath was that of an epicurean rather than of a dervis;
more like that of Sardanapalus than of Charles the Fifth. Profane, not
divine, love was its chief occupation: the only dance, that described by
Horace as belonging to the country, motus doceri gaudet Ionicos. See Von
Hammer note, p. 652.--M.]
[Footnote 15: Ricaut (in the Present State of the Ottoman Empire, p.
242--268) affords much information, which he drew from his personal
conversation with the heads of the dervises, most of whom ascribed
their origin to the time of Orchan. He does not mention the _Zichid_ of
Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 286,) among whom Amurath retired: the _Seids_
of that author are the descendants of Mahomet.]
After the departure of his Greek brethren, Eugenius had not been
unmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender regard for the
Byzantine empire was animated by a just apprehension of the Turks, who
approached, and might soon invade, the borders of Italy. But the spirit
of the crusades had expired; and the coldness of the Franks was not less
unreasonable than their headlong passion. In the eleventh century, a
fanatic monk could precipitate Europe on Asia for the recovery of the
holy sepulchre; but in the fifteenth, the most pressing motives of
religion and policy were insufficient to unite the Latins in the defence
of Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse of men and arms:
[16] but that complex and languid body required the impulse of a
vigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike impotent in his
personal character and his Imperial dignity. A long war had impaired the
strength, without satiating the animosity, of France and England: [17]
but Philip duke of Burgundy was a vain and magnificent prince; and
he enjoyed, without danger or expense, the adventurous piety of his
subjects, who sailed, in a gallant fleet, from the coast of Flanders
to the Hellespont. The maritime republics of Venice and Genoa were
less remote from the scene of action; and their hostile fleets were
associated under the standard of St. Peter. The kingdoms of Hungary and
Poland, which covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin church,
were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of the Turks. Arms
were the patrimony of the Scythians and Sarmatians; and these nations
might appear equal to the contest, could they point, against the common
foe, those swords that were so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic
quarrels. But the same spirit was adverse to concord and obedience:
a poor country and a limited monarch are incapable of maintaining a
standing force; and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were
not armed with the sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, have
given irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this side, the
designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of Cardinal Julian,
his legate, were promoted by the circumstances of the times: [18] by
the union of the two crowns on the head of Ladislaus, [19] a young and
ambitious soldier; by the valor of a hero, whose name, the name of John
Huniades, was already popular among the Christians, and formidable to
the Turks. An endless treasure of pardons and indulgences was scattered
by the legate; many private warriors of France and Germany enlisted
under the holy banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or at
least some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and Asia.
A fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress and ardor of the
Christians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to vindicate
their religion and liberty. The Greek emperor, [20] with a spirit unknown
to his fathers, engaged to guard the Bosphorus, and to sally from
Constantinople at the head of his national and mercenary troops. The
sultan of Caramania [21] announced the retreat of Amurath, and a powerful
diversion in the heart of Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West could
occupy at the same moment the Straits of the Hellespont, the Ottoman
monarchy would be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and earth must
rejoice in the perdition of the miscreants; and the legate, with prudent
ambiguity, instilled the opinion of the invisible, perhaps the visible,
aid of the Son of God, and his divine mother.
[Footnote 16: In the year 1431, Germany raised 40,000 horse,
men-at-arms, against the Hussites of Bohemia, (Lenfant, Hist. du Concile
de Basle, tom. i. p. 318.) At the siege of Nuys, on the Rhine, in 1474,
the princes, prelates, and cities, sent their respective quotas; and the
bishop of Munster (qui n'est pas des plus grands) furnished 1400 horse,
6000 foot, all in green, with 1200 wagons. The united armies of the king
of England and the duke of Burgundy scarcely equalled one third of this
German host, (MÈmoires de Philippe de Comines, l. iv. c. 2.) At present,
six or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay and
admirable discipline by the powers of Germany.]
[Footnote 17: It was not till the year 1444, that France and England
could agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer's Fdera, and the
chronicles of both nations.)]
[Footnote 18: In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. EcclÈs. A.D.
1443, 1444) has been my leading guide. He has diligently read, and
critically compared, the Greek and Turkish materials, the historians of
Hungary, Poland, and the West. His narrative is perspicuous and where
he can be free from a religious bias, the judgment of Spondanus is not
contemptible.]
[Footnote 19: I have curtailed the harsh letter (Wladislaus) which
most writers affix to his name, either in compliance with the Polish
pronunciation, or to distinguish him from his rival the infant Ladislaus
of Austria. Their competition for the crown of Hungary is described by
Callimachus, (l. i. ii. p. 447--486,) Bonfinius, (Decad. iii. l. iv.,)
Spondanus, and Lenfant.]
[Footnote 20: The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcondyles, and Ducas, do
not ascribe to their prince a very active part in this crusade, which he
seems to have promoted by his wishes, and injured by his fears.]
[Footnote 21: Cantemir (p. 88) ascribes to his policy the original plan,
and transcribes his animating epistle to the king of Hungary. But the
Mahometan powers are seldom it formed of the state of Christendom and
the situation and correspondence of the knights of Rhodes must connect
them with the sultan of Caramania.]
Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the unanimous
cry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led an army of his
confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of the Bulgarian
kingdom. In this expedition they obtained two signal victories, which
were justly ascribed to the valor and conduct of Huniades. In the first,
with a vanguard of ten thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp; in
the second, he vanquished and made prisoner the most renowned of their
generals, who possessed the double advantage of ground and numbers. The
approach of winter, and the natural and artificial obstacles of Mount
HÊmus, arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a narrow interval
of six days' march from the foot of the mountains to the hostile towers
of Adrianople, and the friendly capital of the Greek empire. The retreat
was undisturbed; and the entrance into Buda was at once a military and
religious triumph. An ecclesiastical procession was followed by the king
and his warriors on foot: he nicely balanced the merits and rewards of
the two nations; and the pride of conquest was blended with the humble
temper of Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards, and four
thousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as all were
willing to believe, and none were present to contradict, the crusaders
multiplied, with unblushing confidence, the myriads of Turks whom they
had left on the field of battle. [22] The most solid proof, and the most
salutary consequence, of victory, was a deputation from the divan
to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to ransom the prisoners, and to
evacuate the Hungarian frontier. By this treaty, the rational objects
of the war were obtained: the king, the despot, and Huniades himself, in
the diet of Segedin, were satisfied with public and private emolument;
a truce of ten years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus and
Mahomet, who swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested the word of God
as the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy. In the place of the
Gospel, the Turkish ministers had proposed to substitute the Eucharist,
the real presence of the Catholic deity; but the Christians refused to
profane their holy mysteries; and a superstitious conscience is less
forcibly bound by the spiritual energy, than by the outward and visible
symbols of an oath. [23]
[Footnote 22: In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the
Hungarians slay 80,000 Turks in one battle; but the modest Julian
reduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels, (∆neas Sylvius in
Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum.)]
[Footnote 23: See the origin of the Turkish war, and the first
expedition of Ladislaus, in the vth and vith books of the iiid decad of
Bonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy with tolerable
success Callimachus (l. ii p. 487--496) is still more pure and
authentic.]