THE EASTERN EMPIRE.
♦Contrast between the Eastern and Western Empires.♦
The geographical, like the political, history of the Eastern Empire is
wholly unlike that of the Western. ♦The Western Empire fell to pieces.♦
The Western Empire, in the strictest sense, fell asunder. Some of its
parts fell away formally, others practically. The tie that held the
rest snapped at the first touch of a vigorous invader. But that invader
was an European power whose territories had once formed part of the
Empire itself. From the invasions of nations beyond the European pale
the Western Empire, as such, suffered but little. The Western Empire
again, long before its fall, had become, so far as it was a power at
all, a national power, the _Roman Empire of the German nation_. Its
fall was the half voluntary parting asunder of a nation as well as of
an Empire. ♦Position of the Western Emperors;♦ The Western Emperors
again had, as Emperors, practically ceased to be territorial princes.
No lands of any account directly obeyed the Emperor, as such, as their
immediate sovereign. When the Empire fell, the Emperor withdrew to
his hereditary states, taking the Imperial title with him. In the
Eastern Empire all is different. It did to some extent fall asunder
from within, but its overthrow was mainly owing to its being broken in
pieces from without. ♦of the Eastern.♦ But, throughout its history, the
Emperor remained the immediate sovereign of all that still clave to
the Empire, and, when the Empire fell, the Emperor fell with it. ♦The
Eastern Empire fell mainly through foreign invasion.♦ The overthrow of
the Empire was mainly owing to foreign invasion in the strictest sense.
It was weakened and dismembered by the Christian powers of Europe,
and at last swallowed up by the barbarians of Asia. ♦Tendencies to
separation.♦ At the same time the tendency to break in pieces after
the Western fashion did exist and must always be borne in mind. But it
existed only in particular parts and under special conditions. It is
found mainly in possessions of the Empire which had become isolated, in
lands which had been lost and won again, and in lands which came under
the influence of Western ideas. The importance of these tendencies is
shown by the fact that three powers which had been cut off in various
ways from the body of the Empire, Bulgaria, Venice, and Sicily, became
three of its most dangerous enemies. But the actual destruction of the
Empire came from those barbarian attacks from which the West suffered
but little.
Speaking generally then, the Western Empire fell asunder from within;
the Eastern Empire was broken in pieces from without. Of the many
causes of this difference, perhaps only one concerns geography. At the
time of the separation of the Empires, the Western Empire was really
only another name for the dominions of the King of the Franks, whether
within or without the elder Empire. ♦Closer connexion of the East with
Roman political traditions.♦ The Eastern Empire, on the other hand,
kept the political tradition of the elder Empire unbroken. ♦Disuse of
the Roman name in the West.♦ No common geographical or national name
took in the three Imperial kingdoms of the West and their inhabitants.
♦Its retention in the East.♦ But all the inhabitants of the Eastern
Empire, down to the end, knew themselves by no national name but that
of _Romans_, and the land gradually received the geographical name
of _Romania_. But the Western Empire was not _Romania_, nor were its
people _Romans_. The only _Romania_ in the West, the Italian land so
called, took its name from its long adhesion to the Eastern Empire.
♦Importance of distinctions of race in the East.♦
In the East again differences of race are far more important than
they ever were in the West. In the West nations have been formed by a
certain commingling of elements; in the East the elements remain apart.
All the nations of the south-eastern peninsula, whether older than the
Roman conquest or settlers of later times, are there still as distinct
nations.
♦The original nations.♦
First among them come three nations whose settlement in the peninsula
is older than the Roman conquest. One of these has kept its name and
its language. One has kept its language, but has taken up its name
afresh only in modern times. The third has for ages lost both its
name and its language. ♦Albanians.♦ The most unchanged people in the
peninsula must be the _Albanians_, called by themselves _Skipetar_, the
representatives of the old Illyrians. ♦Greeks.♦ Next come the Greeks,
who keep their language, but whose name of _Hellênes_ went out of
ordinary use till its revival in modern times. ♦Vlachs.♦ Lastly there
are the _Vlachs_, representing those inhabitants of Thrace, Mœsia, and
other parts of the peninsula, who, like the Western nations, exchanged
their own speech for Latin. They must mainly represent the Thracian
race in its widest sense. ♦Use of the Roman name.♦ Both Greeks and
Vlachs kept on the Roman name in different forms, and the Vlachs, the
_Roumans_ of our own day, keep it still. Of the invading races, the
Goths passed through the Empire without making any lasting settlements
in it. ♦Slavonic settlers.♦ The last Aryan settlers, setting aside mere
colonists in later times, were the _Slaves_. ♦Turanian settlers.♦
Then came the Turanian settlers, Finnish, Turkish, or any other. Of
these the first wave, the _Bulgarians_, were presently assimilated by
the Slaves, and the Bulgarian power must be looked at historically as
Slavonic. ♦Turanian neighbours.♦ Then come Avars, Chazars, Magyars,
Patzinaks, Cumans, all settling on or near the borders of the Empire.
♦The Magyars.♦ Of these the Magyars alone grew into a lasting European
state, and alone established a lasting power over lands which had
formed part of the Empire. All these invaders came by the way of the
lands north of the Euxine. Lastly, there are the non-Aryan invaders who
came by way of Asia Minor or of the Mediterranean sea. ♦The Saracens.♦
The Semitic Saracens, after their first conquests in Syria, Egypt, and
Africa, made no lasting conquests. They occupied for a while several
of the great islands; but on the mainland of the Empire, European and
Asiatic, they were mere plunderers. ♦The Seljuk and Ottoman Turks.♦
In their wake came the most terrible enemies of all, the Turks, first
the Seljuk, then the Ottoman. Ethnologically they must be grouped with
the nations which came in by the north of the Euxine. Historically,
as Mahometans, coming in by the southern route, they rank with the
Saracens, and they did the work which the Saracens tried to do. Most
of these invading races have passed away from history; three still
remain in three different stages. ♦Comparison of Bulgarians, Magyars
and Ottomans.♦ The Bulgarian is lost among the Aryan people who have
taken his name. The Magyar abides, keeping his non-Aryan language,
but adopted into the European commonwealth by his acceptance of
Christianity. The Ottoman Turk still abides on European soil, unchanged
because Mahometan, still an alien alike to the creed and to the tongues
of Europe.
♦The Eastern Empire becomes Greek.♦
Among all these nations one holds a special place in the history of
the Eastern Empire. The loss of the Oriental and Latin provinces of
the Empire brought into practical working, though not into any formal
notice, the fact that, as the Western Empire was fast becoming German,
so the Eastern Empire was fast becoming Greek. ♦Loss of the Oriental
provinces,♦ To a state which had both a Roman and a Greek side the loss
of provinces which were neither Roman nor Greek was not a loss but a
source of strength. ♦of the Latin provinces.♦ And if the loss of the
Latin provinces was not a source of strength, it at least did much to
bring the Greek element in the Empire into predominance. ♦Dying out
of Roman ideas.♦ Meanwhile, within the lands which were left to the
Empire, first the Latin language, and then Roman ideas and traditions
generally, gradually died out. Before the end of the eleventh century,
the Empire was far more Greek than anything else. Before the end
of the twelfth century, it had become nearly conterminous with the
Greek nation, as defined by the combined use of the Greek language
and profession of the Orthodox faith. The name _Roman_, in its Greek
form, was coming to mean _Greek_. And, about the same time, the other
primitive nations of the peninsula, hitherto merged in the common mass
of Roman subjects, began to show themselves more distinctly alongside
of the Greeks. ♦Appearance of Albanians and Vlachs.♦ We now first
hear of _Albanians_ and _Vlachs_ by those names, and the importance
of the nations which have thus come again to light increases as we go
on. ♦The Latin Conquest, 1204.♦ Then the Greek remnant of the Empire
was broken in pieces by the great Latin invasion, and, instead of
a single power, Roman or Greek, we see a crowd of separate states,
Greek and Frank. ♦The revived Byzantine Empire.♦ The reunion of some
of these fragments formed the revived Empire of the Palaiologoi. But
at no moment since the twelfth century has the whole Greek nation
been united under a single power, native or foreign. ♦1461-1821.♦ And
from the Ottoman conquest of Trebizond to the beginning of the Greek
War of Independence, the whole of the Greek nation was under foreign
masters.[24]
* * * * *
We have now first to trace out the steps by which the Empire was broken
in pieces, and then to trace out severally the geographical history
of the states which rose out of its fragments. And with these last
we may class certain powers which do not strictly come under that
definition, but which come within the same geographical range and which
absorbed parts of the Imperial territory. Beginning in the West, the
territory which the Empire at the final separation still held west of
the Hadriatic, was gradually lost through the attacks, first of the
Saracens, then of the Normans. ♦Sicily.♦ These lands grew into the
kingdom of _Sicily_, which has its proper place here as an offshoot
from the Eastern Empire. ♦Venice.♦ At the other end of the Italian
peninsula, _Venice_ gradually detached itself from the Empire, to
become foremost in its partition: here then comes the place of Venice
as a maritime power. ♦Slavonic powers. | Bulgaria.♦ Then come the
powers which arose on the north and north-west of the Empire, powers
chiefly Slavonic, reckoning as Slavonic the great Bulgarian kingdom.
♦Hungary.♦ Here too will come the kingdom of Hungary, which, as a
non-Aryan power in the heart of Europe, has much both of likeness and
of contrast with Bulgaria. The kingdom of Hungary itself lay beyond the
bounds of the Empire, but a large part of its dependent territory had
been Imperial soil. ♦Albanians. | Roumans.♦ Here also we must speak
of the states which arose out of the new developement of the Albanian
and Rouman races, and of the states, Greek and Frank, which arose just
before and at the time of the Latin Conquest. ♦Asiatic powers.♦ Then
there are the powers, both Christian and Mahometan, which arose within
the Imperial dominions in Asia. Here we have to speak alike of the
states founded by the Crusaders and of the growth of the Ottoman Turks.
Lastly, we come to the work of our own days, to the new European states
which have been formed by the deliverance of old Imperial lands from
Ottoman bondage.
♦800-1204.♦
We will therefore first trace the geographical changes in the frontier
of the Empire itself down to the Latin Conquest. ♦1204-1453.♦ The
Latin Empire of _Romania_, the Greek Empire of _Nikaia_, the revived
Greek Empire of Constantinople, will follow, as continuing, at least
geographically, the true Eastern Roman Empire. Then will come the
powers which have fallen off from the Empire or grown up within the
Empire, from Sicily to free Bulgaria. But it must be remembered that it
is not always easy to mark, either chronologically or on the map, when
this or that territory was finally lost to the Empire. This is true
both on the Slavonic border and also in southern Italy. ♦Distinction
between conquest and settlement.♦ On the former above all it is often
hard to distinguish between conquest at the cost of the Empire and
settlement within the Empire. In either case the frontier within which
the Emperors exercised direct authority was always falling back and
advancing again. Beyond this there was a zone which could not be said
to be under the Emperor’s direct rule, but in which his overlordship
was more or less fully acknowledged, according to the relative
strength of the Empire and of its real or nominal vassals.
§ 1. _Changes in the Frontier of the Empire._
♦Power of revival in the Empire.♦
In tracing the fluctuations of the frontier of the Eastern Empire from
the beginning of the ninth century, we are struck by the wonderful
power of revival and reconquest which is shown throughout the whole
history. Except the lands which were won by the first Saracens, hardly
a province was finally lost till it had been once or twice won back.
No one could have dreamed that the Empire of the seventh century, cut
short by the Slavonic settlements to a mere fringe on its European
coasts, could ever have become the Empire of the eleventh century,
holding a solid mass of territory from Tainaros to the Danube. But
before this great revival, the borders of the Empire had both advanced
and fallen back in the farther West. ♦Sardinia, Sicily, Southern
Italy.♦ At the time of the separation of the Empires, the New Rome
still held Sardinia, Sicily, and a small part of southern Italy. The
heel of the boot still formed the theme of _Lombardy_,[25] while the
toe took the name of _Calabria_ which had once belonged to the heel.
_Naples_, _Gaeta_, and _Amalfi_ were outlying Italian cities of the
Empire; so was _Venice_, which can hardly be called an Italian city.
♦Loss of the islands. | Advance on the continent.♦ In the course of the
ninth century the power of the Empire was cut short in the islands, but
advanced on the mainland. ♦Loss of Sardinia.♦ The history of Sardinia
is utterly obscure; but it seems to have passed away from the Empire
by the beginning of the ninth century. ♦Loss of Sicily, 827-965.♦
Sicily was now conquered bit by bit by the Saracens of Africa during
a struggle of one hundred and forty years. ♦Loss of Agrigentum, 827;
| of Palermo, 831;♦ _Agrigentum_, opposite to the African coast, fell
first; _Palermo_, once the seat of Phœnician rule, became four years
later the new Semitic capital. ♦Messina, 842;♦ _Messina_ on the strait
soon followed; but the eastern side of the island, its most thoroughly
Greek side, held out much longer. ♦Malta, 869;♦ Before the conquest
of this region, _Malta_, the natural appendage to Sicily, passed into
Saracen hands. ♦Syracuse, 878.♦ _Syracuse_, the Christian capital,
did not fall till fifty years after the first invasion, and in the
north-western corner of the island a remnant still held out for nearly
ninety years. ♦Tauromenion, 902-963. | Rametta, 965.♦ _Tauromenion_ or
_Taormina_, on its height, had to be twice taken in the course of the
tenth century, and the single fort of _Rametta_, the last stronghold
of Eastern Christendom in the West, held out longer still. By this
time Eastern Christendom was fast advancing on Islam in Asia; but the
greatest of Mediterranean islands passed from Christendom to Islam,
from Europe to Africa, and a Greek-speaking people was cut off from the
Empire which was fast becoming Greek. ♦Partial recovery and final loss
of Sicily, 1038-1042.♦ But the complete and uninterrupted Mussulman
dominion in Sicily was short. The Imperial claims were never forgotten,
and in the eleventh century they were again enforced. By the arms of
George Maniakês, Messina and Syracuse, with a part of the island which
at the least took in the whole of its eastern side, was, if only for a
few years, restored to the Imperial rule.
♦Advance of the Empire in Italy.♦
While Sicily was thus lost bit by bit, the power of the Empire was
advancing in the neighbouring mainland of Italy. ♦Taking of Bari, 871.♦
_Bari_ was won back for Christendom from the Saracen by the combined
powers of both Empires; but the lasting possession of the prize fell
to the Cæsar of the East. At the end of the ninth century, the Eastern
Empire claimed either the direct possession or the superiority of all
southern Italy from Gaeta downwards. ♦Fluctuations of the Imperial
power in Italy.♦ The extent of the Imperial dominion was always
fluctuating; there was perhaps no moment when the power of the Emperors
was really extended over this whole region; but there was perhaps no
spot within it which did not at some time or other admit at least the
Imperial overlordship. The eastern coast, with the heel and the toe in
a wider sense than before, became a real and steady possession, while
the allegiance of _Beneventum_, _Capua_, and _Salerno_ was always very
precarious. ♦Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi.♦ But _Naples_, _Gaeta_, and
_Amalfi_, however nominal their allegiance might be, never formally
cast it aside.
Thus, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Eastern Emperors
held all Sicily, with some patches of territory on the neighbouring
mainland. At the beginning of the eleventh century, the island had
been wholly lost, while the dominion on the mainland had been greatly
enlarged. ♦The Normans in Italy and Sicily.♦ In the course of the
eleventh century a new power, the Normans of Apulia, conquered the
Italian possessions of the Empire, won Sicily from the Mussulman, and
even made conquests from the Empire east of the Hadriatic. Thus arose
the Sicilian kingdom, the growth of which will best be traced when we
come to the powers which arose out of the breaking-up of the Empire.
* * * * *
The great islands of the Eastern Mediterranean also fluctuated between
Byzantine and Saracen dominion. ♦Loss of Crete, 823.♦ _Crete_ was won
by a band of Mussulman adventurers from Spain nearly at the time
when the conquest of Sicily began. ♦Its recovery, 963.♦ It was won
back in the great revival of the Imperial power one hundred and forty
years later. ♦Cyprus lost, 708; recovered and lost again c. 881-888;
recovered again, 965.♦ _Cyprus_ was lost sooner; but it went through
many fluctuations and divisions, a recovery and a second loss, before
its final recovery at the same time as the recovery of Crete and the
complete loss of Sicily. ♦Loss and gain among the great islands.♦
Looking at the Empire simply as a power, there can be no doubt that the
loss of Sicily was altogether overbalanced by the recovery of Crete
and Cyprus. Geographically Sicily was an outlying Greek island; Crete
and Cyprus lay close to the body of the Empire, essential parts of a
Greek state. But Crete and Cyprus, as lands which had been lost and
won back, were among the lands where the tendency to fall away from
within showed itself earliest. Crete never actually separated from the
Empire. ♦Separation of Cyprus, 1182-1185. | Conquered by Richard of
Poitou, 1191.♦ Cyprus fell away under a rebel Emperor, to be presently
conquered by Richard, Count of Poitou and King of England, and to pass
away from the Empire for ever.
♦Fluctuations in the possession of the great islands, 801.♦
We may thus sum up the fluctuations in the possession of the great
islands. At the beginning of the ninth century, the Eastern Empire
still took in Sardinia, Sicily, and Crete; Cyprus was in the hands of
the Saracens. ♦901.♦ At the beginning of the tenth century, the Empire
held nothing in any of the four except the north-eastern corner of
Sicily. ♦1001.♦ At the beginning of the eleventh, Crete and Cyprus had
been won back; Sicily was wholly lost. ♦1101.♦ At the beginning of the
twelfth, Crete and Cyprus were still Imperial possessions; a great part
of Sicily had been won and lost again. ♦1201.♦ At the beginning of the
thirteenth, Cyprus, like Sicily, had passed to a Western master; Crete
was still held by the Empire, but only by a very feeble tie. Thus they
stood at the fall of the old Roman Empire of the East; of the revived
Empire of the Palaiologoi none of them ever formed a part.
* * * * *
♦Relations of the Empire towards the Slavonic powers.♦
In the islands the enemies with whom the Empire had to strive were,
first the Saracens, and then the Latins or Franks, the nations of
Western Europe. On the mainland the part of the Saracen was taken
by the Slave. During the four hundred years between the division of
the Empires and the Frank conquest of the East, the geographical
history of the Eastern Empire has mainly to deal with the shiftings
of its frontier towards the Slavonic powers. ♦Three Slavonic groups.♦
These fall into three main groups. ♦Servia and Croatia.♦ First, in
the north-western corner of the Empire, are the Croatian and Servian
settlements, whose history is closely connected with that of the
kingdom of Hungary and the commonwealth of Venice. ♦Macedonia and
Greece.♦ Secondly, there are the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and
Greece. ♦Bulgaria.♦ Thirdly, the great Bulgarian kingdom comes between
the two. These two last ranges gradually merge into one; the first
remains distinct throughout. Servia, Croatia, and Dalmatia, will be
best treated of in another section, remembering that, amidst all
fluctuations, the claims of the Empire over them were never denied
or forgotten, and were from time to time enforced. It was towards
the Bulgarian kingdom that the greatest fluctuations of the Imperial
frontier took place.
* * * * *
♦The Bulgarian kingdom.♦
The original Finnish Bulgarians were the vanguard of Turanian invasion
in the lands with which we have to do. Earlier, it would seem, in their
coming than the Avars, they were slower to settle down into actual
occupation of European territory. But when they did settle, it was
not on the outskirts of the Empire, but in one of its acknowledged
provinces. ♦Settlement south of the Danube, 679.♦ Late in the seventh
century, the first Bulgarian kingdom was established between Danube
and Hæmus. It must be remembered that another migration in quite
another direction founded another Bulgarian power on the Volga and the
Kama. ♦White Bulgaria.♦ This settlement, _Great_ or _White Bulgaria_,
remained Turanian and became Mahometan; _Black Bulgaria_ on the Danube
became Christian and Slavonic. ♦Use of the Bulgarian name.♦ The
modern Bulgarians bear the Bulgarian name only in the way in which
the Romanized Celts of Gaul bear the name of their Frankish masters
from Germany, in which the Slaves of Kief and Moscow bear the name of
their Russian masters from Scandinavia. In all three cases, the power
formed by the union of conquerors and conquered has taken the name of
the conquerors and has kept the speech of the conquered. But though
the Bulgarian power became essentially Slavonic, it took quite another
character from the less fully organized Slavonic settlements to the
west and south of it. ♦The Empire and the Macedonian Slaves.♦ Towards
the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, it cannot be said that the
Empire had any definite frontier. Settled within the Empire, they were
its tributaries or its enemies, according to the strength of the Empire
at any particular moment. Up to the coming of the Bulgarians, we might,
from different points of view, place the Imperial border either at the
Danube or at no great distance from the Ægæan. ♦The Empire and the
Bulgarian kingdom.♦ But from the Bulgarian conquest onwards, there was
on the Bulgarian side a real frontier, a frontier which often shifted,
but which was often fixed by treaty, and which, wherever it was fixed,
marked off lands which were, for the time, wholly lost to the Empire.
♦Loss of the Danubian frontier.♦ With the first Bulgarian settlement,
the Imperial frontier definitely withdrew for three hundred years from
the lower Danube to the line of Hæmus or Balkan. ♦Bulgarians south of
Hæmus.♦ As the Bulgarian power pushed to the south and west the two
fields of warfare, against the Bulgarians to the north and against the
half-independent Slaves to the west, gradually melted into one. But
as long as the Isaurian Emperors reigned, the two fields were kept
distinct. ♦Extent of Bulgaria in the eighth century.♦ They kept the
Balkan range against the Bulgarians, whose kingdom, stretching to the
north-west over lands which are now Servian, had not, at the end of the
eighth century, passed the mountain barrier of the Empire.
♦Recovery of the Slavonic settlements in Macedonia and Greece.♦
Meanwhile, as a wholly distinct work, the Imperial power was restored
over the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. In the middle of
the eighth, century the inland parts of Greece were chiefly occupied
by Slavonic immigrants, while the coast and the cities remained
Greek. ♦775-784. | 807.♦ Before the end of the century, the Slaves of
Macedonia were reduced to tribute, and early in the ninth, those of
Greece wholly failed to recover their independence. ♦Recovery of Greece
from the Slaves. | Slaves on Ta getos.♦ The land was gradually settled
afresh by Greek colonists, and by the middle of the tenth, only two
Slavonic tribes, _Melings_ and _Ezerites_ (_Melinci_ and _Jezerci_),
remained, distinct, though tributary, on the range of Ta getos or
Pentedaktylos. From this time to the Frankish conquest, Greece, as a
whole, was held by the Empire. But, as a recovered land, it was one
of those parts of the Empire in which a tendency to separate began to
show itself. In the course of these changes, the name _Hellênes_, as a
national name, quite died out. ♦Hellênes of Maina.♦ It had long meant
_pagan_, and it was confined to the people of _Maina_, who remained
pagan till near the end of the ninth century. The Greeks now knew no
name but that of _Romans_. The local, perhaps contemptuous, name of the
inhabitants of Hellas was _Helladikoi_.
Thus, at the division of the Empires, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece had
been more or less thoroughly recovered by the Eastern Empire, while
the lands between Hæmus and Danube were wholly lost. ♦Romania.♦ The
Imperial dominion from the Hadriatic to the Euxine formed, together
with the Asiatic provinces, _Romania_, the land of the Romans of the
East. ♦Dalmatia, Servia, and Croatia.♦ The Emperors also kept the
cities on the Dalmatian coast, and the precarious allegiance of the
Servian and Croatian principalities. These lands were bound to the
Empire by a common dread of the encroaching Bulgarian. ♦Greatness of
the first Bulgarian kingdom.♦ The ninth century and the early years of
the tenth was a great time of Bulgarian advance. ♦Attempt on Pannonia,
818-829.♦ The Bulgarians seem to have failed in establishing any
lasting dominion to the north-west in Pannonia;[26] at the expense of
the Empire they were more successful. ♦Advance against the Empire.♦
At the end of the eighth century _Anchialos_ and _Sardica_—afterwards
called _Triaditza_ and _Sofia_—were border cities of the Empire. The
conquest of Sardica early in the ninth marks a stage of Bulgarian
advance. At the end of the century, after the conversion of the nation
to Christianity, comes the great era of the first Bulgarian kingdom,
the kingdom of _Peristhlava_. ♦Conquests of Simeon, 923-934.♦ The
Tzar Simeon established the Bulgarian supremacy over Servia, and
carried his conquests deep into the lands of the Empire. In Macedonia
and Epeiros the Empire kept only the sea-coast, Ægæan and Hadriatic;
Sardica, Philippopolis, Ochrida, were all cities of the Bulgarian
realm. Hadrianople, a frontier city of the Empire, passed more than
once into Bulgarian hands. Nowhere in Europe, save in old Hellas, did
the Imperial dominion stretch from sea to sea.
♦Revival of the Imperial power.♦
So stood matters in the middle of the tenth century. Then came that
greatest of all revivals of the Imperial power which won back Crete
and Cyprus, and which was no less successful on the mainland of Europe
and Asia. ♦Conquest of Bulgaria.♦ Bulgaria was conquered and lost and
conquered again. But the first time it was conquered, not from the
Bulgarian but from the Russian. ♦The Russians and Bulgarians. 968-971.♦
The Russians, long dangerous to Constantinople, now suddenly appear as
a land power. Their prince Sviatoslaf overthrew the first Bulgarian
kingdom, and Philippopolis became for a moment a Russian outpost.
But John Tzimiskês restored the power of the Empire over the whole
Bulgarian dominions. The Danube was once more the frontier of the
Eastern Rome.
♦The second Bulgarian kingdom.♦
It remained so for more than two hundred years during the lower part
of its course. But in the inland regions the Imperial power fell back
almost at once, to advance again further than ever. A large part of
the conquered land soon revolted, and a second Bulgarian kingdom,
Macedonian rather than Mœsian, arose. The kingdom of _Ochrida_, the
kingdom of Samuel, left to the Empire the eastern part of the old
Bulgaria between Danube and Hæmus, together with all Thrace and the
Macedonian coast. But it took in all the inland region of Macedonia;
it stretched down into Thessaly and Epeiros; and, while it nowhere
touched the Euxine or the Ægæan, it had a small seaboard on the
Hadriatic. Now came the great struggle between Romania and Bulgaria
which fills the last years of the tenth century and the opening years
of the eleventh. ♦Second conquest of Bulgaria, 1018.♦ At last all
Bulgaria, and with it for a while Servia, was restored to the Empire.
♦Croatia.♦ Croatia continued its vassalage, and its princes were
presently raised to royal rank by Imperial authority.
Thus the Eastern Empire again took in the whole south-eastern
peninsula. Of its outlying European possessions, southern Italy was
still untouched. ♦Venice.♦ At what moment Venice ceased to be a
dependency of the Empire, it would be hard to say. Its dukes still
received the Imperial investiture, and Venetian ships often joined
the Imperial fleet. This state of things seems never to have been
formally abolished, but rather to have dropped out of sight as Venice
and Constantinople became practically hostile. In the other outlying
city north of the Euxine the ninth and tenth centuries change places.
Through all changes the Empire kept its maritime province in the Tauric
Chersonêsos. ♦Cherson annexed, 829-842; | taken by Vladimir, 988.♦
There the allied city of _Cherson_, more formally annexed to the Empire
in the ninth century, was taken by the Russian Vladimir in the interval
between the two great Bulgarian wars.
♦The Empire in Asia.♦
In Asia the Imperial frontier had changed but little since the first
Saracen conquests. The solid peninsula of Asia Minor was often
plundered by the Mussulmans, but it was never conquered. Now, in
Asia as in Europe, came a time of advance. For eighty years, with
some fluctuations, the Empire grew on its eastern side. The Bagdad
caliphate was now broken up, and the smaller emirates were more
easily overcome. ♦Asiatic conquests of Nikêphoros and John, 963-976;♦
The wars of Nikêphoros Phôkas and John Tzimiskês restored _Kilikia_
and _Syria_ to the list of Roman provinces, _Tarsos_, _Antioch_,
and _Edessa_ to the list of Christian cities. ♦of Basil the Second,
991-1022. | Beginning of the annexation of Armenia 1021; Ani, 1045;
of Kars, 1064.♦ Basil the Second extended the Imperial power over the
_Iberian_ and _Abasgian_ lands east of the Euxine, and began a series
of transactions by which, in the space of forty years, all _Armenia_
was added to the Empire on the very eve of the downfall of the Imperial
power in Asia.
* * * * *
♦New enemies.♦
For the great extension of the Empire laid it open to new enemies in
both continents. ♦Turks. | Magyars.♦ In Asia it became the neighbour of
the Seljuk _Turks_, in Europe of the Magyars or Hungarians, who bear
the name of _Turks_ in the Byzantine writers of the tenth century.
Hungary had now settled down into a Christian kingdom. ♦Revolt of
Servia, 1040. | Loss of Belgrade, 1064.♦ A Servian revolt presently
placed a new independent state between Hungary and Romania, but
Belgrade remained an Imperial possession till it passed under Magyar
rule twenty-four years later. ♦Advance of the Turks.♦ By this time the
Empire had begun to be cut short in a far more terrible way in Asia.
The Seljuk Turks now reached the new Roman frontier. ♦Loss of Ani,
1064.♦ Plunder grew into conquest, and the first Turkish conquest, that
of _Ani_, happened in the same year as the last Imperial acquisition of
_Kars_. The Emperors now tried to strengthen this dangerous frontier
by the erection of vassal principalities. The very name of _Armenia_
now changes its place. ♦Lesser Armenia, 1080.♦ The new or _Lesser
Armenia_ arose in the Kilikian mountains, and was ruled by princes of
the old Armenian dynasty, whose allegiance to the Empire gradually died
out. But before this time the Turkish power was fully established in
the peninsula of Asia Minor. The plunderers had become conquerors.
♦1071.♦ The battle of Manzikert led to formal cessions and further
advances. ♦1074.♦ Throughout Asia Minor the Empire at most kept the
coast; the mass of the inland country became Turkish. ♦The Sultans of
_Roum_. | 1081.♦ But the Roman name did not pass away; the invaders
took the name of Sultans of _Roum_. Their capital was at _Nikaia_, a
threatening position indeed for Constantinople. But distant positions
like Trebizond and Antioch were still held as dependencies. ♦Loss of
Antioch, 1081.♦ Antioch was before long betrayed to the Turks.
By this time the Empire was attacked by a new enemy in its European
peninsula. ♦Normans in Corfu and Epeiros. 1081-1085.♦ The Norman
conquerors of Apulia and Sicily crossed the Hadriatic, and occupied
various points, both insular and continental, especially _Dyrrhachion_
or _Durazzo_ and the island of _Korkyra_, now called by a new Greek
name, _Koryphô_ or _Corfu_. At every point of its frontier the Empire
had, towards the end of the eleventh century, altogether fallen
back from the splendid position which it held at its beginning.
♦Geographical aspect of the Empire.♦ The geographical aspect of the
Empire was now the exact opposite of what it had been in the eighth
and ninth centuries. Then its main strength seemed to lie in Asia. Its
European dominion had been cut down to the coasts and islands; but its
Asiatic peninsula was firmly held, touched only by passing ravages.
Now the Asiatic dominion was cut down to the coasts and islands, while
the great European peninsula was, in the greater part of its extent,
still firmly held. Never before had the main power of the Empire been
so thoroughly European. No wonder that in Western eyes the Empire of
Romania began to look like a kingdom of Greece.
* * * * *
The states founded by the Crusaders will be dealt with elsewhere.
♦Recovery of Asiatic territory, 1097.♦ The crusades concern us here
only as helping towards the next revival of the Imperial power under
the house of Komnênos. Alexios himself won back Nikaia and the other
great cities of western Asia Minor. Some of these, as _Laodikeia_, were
received rather as free cities of the Empire than as mere subjects.
♦Reigns of John and Manuel.♦ The conquering reigns of John and Manuel
again extended the Empire in both continents. ♦1097.♦ The Turk still
ruled in the inland regions of Asia, but his capital was driven back
from Nikaia to _Ikonion_. ♦1137.♦ The superiority of the Empire was
restored over Antioch and Kilikian Armenia at the one end, over Servia
at the other. ♦1148.♦ Hungary itself had to yield _Zeugmin_, _Sirmium_,
and all Dalmatia. ♦1163-1168.♦ For a moment the Empire again took in
the whole eastern coast of the Hadriatic and its islands; even on
its western shore _Ancona_ became something like a dependency of the
Eastern Cæsar.
♦Falling of distant possessions.♦
The conquests of Manuel were clearly too great for the real strength
of the Empire. Some lands fell away at once. ♦Dalmatia, 1181.♦
Dalmatia was left to be struggled for between Venice and Hungary.
And the tendency to fall away within the Empire became strengthened
by increased intercourse with the feudal ideas of the West. Cyprus,
Trebizond, old Greece itself, came into the hands of rulers who were
rather feudal vassals than Roman governors. We have seen how Cyprus
fell away. Its Poitevin conqueror presently gave it to Guy of Lusignan.
♦Latin kingdom of Cyprus, 1192.♦ Thus, before the Latin conquest of
Constantinople, a province had been torn from the Eastern Empire to
become a Latin kingdom. The Greek-speaking lands were now beginning
largely to pass under Latin rule. In Sicily the Frank might pass for a
deliverer; in Corfu and Cyprus he was a mere foreign invader.
♦The third Bulgarian kingdom, 1187.♦
Meanwhile the Empire was again cut short to the north by a new
Bulgarian revolt, which established a third Bulgarian kingdom, but a
kingdom which seems to have been as much Vlach or Rouman as strictly
Bulgarian. The new kingdom took in the old Bulgarian land between
Danube and Hæmus, and it presently spread both to the west and to the
south. ♦Other Slavonic revolts.♦ The Bulgarian revolt was followed by
other movements among the Thracian and Macedonian Slaves, which did not
lead to the foundation of any new states, but which had their share in
the general break-up of the Imperial power. ♦Increased Greek character
of the Empire.♦ The work of Basil and Manuel was now undone, but its
undoing had the effect of making the Empire more nearly a Greek state
than ever. It did not wholly coincide with the Greek-speaking lands:
the Empire had subjects who were not Greeks, and there were Greeks who
were not subjects of the Empire. But the Greek speech and the new Greek
nationality were dominant within the lands which were still left to the
Empire. The Roman name was now merely a name: Roman and Greek meant
the same thing. Whatever was not Greek in European Romania was mainly
Albanian and Vlach. The dominion of the Empire in the peninsula was
mainly confined to the primitive races of the peninsula. ♦The Slavonic
states.♦ The great element of later times, the Slavonic settlers, had
almost wholly separated themselves from the Empire, establishing their
independence, but not their unity. They formed a group of independent
powers which had simply fallen away from the Empire; it was by the
powers of the West that the Empire itself was to be broken in pieces.
* * * * *
♦Latin conquest of Constantinople, 1204.♦
The taking of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade was the work of an
alliance between the now independent commonwealth of Venice and a body
of Western crusaders who, along with the states which they founded, may
be indifferently called _Latins_ or _Franks_. ♦Act of Partition.♦ A
regular act of partition was drawn out, by which the Empire was to be
divided into three parts. One was to be assigned to a Latin _Emperor
of Romania_, another of the pilgrims as his feudatories, a third to
the commonwealth of Venice. But the partition was never carried out. A
large part of the Empire was never conquered; another large part was
not assigned by the act of partition. In fact the scheme of partition
is hardly a geographical fact at all. The real partition to which the
Latin conquest led was one of quite another kind, a partition of the
Empire among a crowd of powers, Greek, Frank, and Venetian, more than
one of which had some claim to represent the Empire itself.
♦Latin Empire of Romania.♦
These were the Latin Empire of _Romania_, and the Greek Empire which
maintained itself at _Nikaia_, and which, after nearly sixty years of
banishment, won back the Imperial city. In the crusading scheme the
Latin Emperor was to be the feudal superior of the lesser princes who
were to establish themselves within the Empire. For his own Imperial
domain he was to have the whole of the Imperial possessions in Asia,
with a Thracian dominion stretching as far north as _Agathopolis_.
Hadrianople, with a narrow strip of territory stretching down to the
Propontis, was to be Venetian. The actual result was very different.
♦Its extent.♦ The Latin Emperors never got any footing in Asia
beyond parts of the themes bordering on the Propontis, reaching from
Adramyttion to the mouth of the Sangarios. In Europe they held the
eastern part of Thrace, with a fluctuating border towards Bulgaria on
the north, and to the new Latin and Greek states which arose to the
west. Their dominion also took in _Lêmnos_, _Lesbos_, _Chios_, and some
others of the Ægæan islands.
But the Latin Empire of Romania was not the only Empire which arose
out of the break-up of the old East-Roman power. Two, for a time
three, Greek princes bore the Imperial title; there was also a Latin
king. It will be convenient for a while to leave out of sight both
Asia and southern Greece, and to look to the revolutions of Thrace,
Macedonia, northern Greece, and what we may now begin to call
_Albania_. The immediate result of the Latin conquest was to divide
these lands between three powers, two Latin and one Greek. ♦Kingdom of
Thessalonikê. 1204-1222. | Despotat of Epeiros.♦ Besides the Empire of
Romania, there was the Latin kingdom of _Thessalonikê_, and the Greek
_despotat_[27] of _Epeiros_ held by the house of Angelos. Of these the
Thessalonian kingdom was the most short-lived, and there can be little
doubt that its creation was the ruin of the Latin Empire. It cut off
the Emperor from his distant vassals in Greece, whose vassalage soon
became nominal. It gave him, in successive reigns, a powerful neighbour
who knew his own power, and a weak neighbour, who fell before the Greek
advance sooner than himself. But the beginnings of the kingdom, under
its first king Boniface, were promising. His power stretched over
Thessaly, now known as _Great Vlachia_, and he received the homage of
the Frank princes further to the south. But within twenty years from
its foundation, Frank rule had ceased in Macedonia. ♦Thessalonikê again
Greek.♦ Thessalonikê was again a Greek and an Imperial city, and its
recovery by the Greeks split the Latin Empire asunder.
♦The Epeirot despotat.♦
This blow came from the west. It was the Nicene Empire which did in
the end win back the Imperial city; but, for some years after the
Latin conquest, things looked as if the restoration of the Greek power
in Europe was designed for Epeiros. The first despot Michael paid a
nominal homage to all the neighbouring powers, Greek and Frank, in
turn; but in truth he was the lord of an independent and growing state.
His power began in the Epeirot land west of Pindos. ♦1208-1210.♦ For
a moment he held in Peloponnêsos Corinth, Nauplia, and Argos. Durazzo
and Corfu were won from Venice. ♦1215.♦ The Epeirot power advanced also
to the east. ♦1222. | 1225.♦ Thessalonikê was taken; its ruler took
the Imperial title; Hadrianople followed, and the new Empire stretched
across the peninsula from sea to sea, and took in Thessaly to the
south. But the Thessalonian Empire was hardly more long-lived than the
Thessalonian kingdom. It was first dismembered among the princes of
the ruling house. ♦Separation of Epeiros and Thessalonia. 1237.♦ The
original Epeirot despotat, along with Corfu, parted away from the new
Macedonian power, to survive it by many years. But by this time the
championship of the Greek speech and faith against the Latin lords of
Constantinople had passed to the foremost of the Greek powers which
had grown up in Asia, to the Empire of Nikaia.
These Greek powers were two, which arose at the same time, but
by different processes and with different destinies. ♦The Empire
of Trebizond, 1204-1461.♦ The Empire of _Nikaia_ was the truer
continuation of the old East-Roman power; the Empire of _Trapezous_ or
_Trebizond_ was the last independent fragment of Roman dominion and
Greek culture. The Trapezuntine Empire was not in strictness one of the
states which arose out of the Latin partition. One of the parts of the
Empire which showed most disposition to fall away was independently
seized by a rival Emperor, at the very moment of the Latin conquest.
Alexios Komnênos occupied Trebizond, an occupation largely wrought by
Iberian help, as if the Empire, already dismembered by the Christians
of the West, was to be further dismembered by the Christians of the
further East. ♦Extent of the Komnenian dominion.♦ The dominions of
Alexios, enlarged by his brother David to the west, at first took in
the whole south coast of the Euxine from the Sangarios eastward, broken
by the city of _Amisos_, which contrived to make itself virtually
independent, and by the neighbouring Turkish settlement at _Samsoun_.
But this dominion was only momentary. The eastern part alone survived
to form the later Empire of Trebizond; the western part, the government
of David, soon passed to the rising power of Nikaia.
♦Empire of Nikaia. 1206-1261.♦
The founder of that power was Theodore Laskaris, in whom the succession
of the Eastern Empire was held to be continued. ♦1214.♦ Ten years
after the taking of Constantinople, a treaty fixed his border towards
the small Latin dominion in Asia. ♦1220. | 1240.♦ Six years later the
Latins kept only the lands north of the gulf of Nikomêdeia; sixteen
years later they held only the Asiatic coast of the Bosporos. ♦1247.♦
Seven years later Chios, Lêmnos, Samos, Kôs, and other islands were
won back by the growing Greek state. ♦The Nicene Empire in Europe.
1235.♦ But, long before this, the Nicene Empire had become an European
power. The Thracian Chersonêsos was first won, the work beginning
at _Kallipolis_. ♦1242. | 1246.♦ Presently the Thessalonian Emperor
sank to the rank of a despot under him of Nikaia; four years later
Thessalonikê was incorporated with the Nicene dominions. ♦1245-1256.♦
A series of Bulgarian campaigns carried the Imperial frontier, first
to the Hebros—already the Slavonic _Maritza_—and then to the foot of
Hæmus. ♦1254-1259.♦ A series of Epeirot campaigns won a Hadriatic
seaboard, and made _Durazzo_ for a while again a city of the Empire.
♦1259.♦ The Nicene power in these regions was confirmed by the victory
of Pelagonia, won over the combined forces of Epeiros, Achaia, and
Sicily. ♦1260.♦ The next year _Selymbria_ was won from the Latins, and
the Frank Empire was cut down to so much territory as could be guarded
from the walls of Constantinople. ♦Recovery of Constantinople, 1261.♦
At last the recovery of Constantinople changed the Empire of Nikaia
into the revived Byzantine Empire of the Palaiologoi.
That Empire still lasted a hundred and ninety years, and we must
carefully distinguish between its European and its Asiatic history.
The Asiatic border fell back almost as soon as the seat of rule was
restored to Europe. ♦Advance of the Empire in Europe.♦ In Europe the
revived Empire kept the character of an advancing power till just
before the entrance of the Ottoman into Europe, in some parts till just
before the fall of Constantinople. Many events helped to weaken the
real power of the Empire, which did not affect its geography. ♦1302.♦
Such were the earlier Turkish inroads and the destroying visit of
the Catalans. ♦Advance in Peloponnêsos.♦ The land in which advance
was most steady was Peloponnêsos, where, at the time of the recovery
of Constantinople, the Empire did not hold a foot of ground. ♦1262.♦
_Misithra_, _Monembasia_, and _Maina_ were the fruits of the day of
Pelagonia. For a while the Imperial frontier was stationary, but from
the beginning of the fourteenth century it steadily advanced. It
advanced perhaps all the more after Peloponnêsos became an Imperial
dependency, or an appanage for princes of the Imperial house, rather
than an immediate possession of the Empire. ♦1404.♦ Early in the
fifteenth century the greater part of the peninsula, including Corinth,
was again in Greek hands. ♦1430.♦ At last, twenty-three years only
before the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, all Peloponnêsos, except
the points held by Venice, was under the superiority of the Empire.
♦Advance in Macedonia and Epeiros.♦
In more northern parts the advance of the Empire, though chequered
by more reverses, went on steadily till the growth of the Servian
power in the middle of the fourteenth century. ♦1308.♦ The frontier
varied towards Servia, Bulgaria, Epeiros, and the Angevin power which
established itself on the Hadriatic coast. Even under Andronikos the
Second the Imperial dominion was extended over the greater part of
Thessaly or _Great Vlachia_. ♦1318-1339.♦ Later still, all Epeiros,
_Jôannina_ and _Arta_—once _Ambrakia_—were won. At the moment of the
great Servian advance, the Empire held the uninterrupted seaboard from
the Euxine to the Pagasaian Gulf, as well as its Hadriatic seaboard
from the Ambrakian gulf northward. But the Frank principalities
still cut off the main body of the Empire from its possessions in
Peloponnêsos.
♦Losses of the Empire in Asia.♦
In Asia there is another tale to tell. There the frontier of the Empire
steadily went back from the recovery of Constantinople. A few points
gained or lost to European powers go for little. ♦1260.♦ _Smyrna_
passed for a while to Genoa. ♦The Knights of Saint John, 1309-1315.♦
The Knights of Saint John won _Rhodes_, _Kôs_, and other islands, but
they did not become a power on the mainland of Asia till the Empire
had almost withdrawn from that continent. ♦Advance of the Turks.♦ The
Imperial power steadily crumbled away before the advance of the Turk,
first the Seljuk and then the Ottoman. The small Turkish powers into
which the Sultanate of Roum had now split up began to encroach on the
Greek dominion in Asia as soon as its centre was transferred to Europe.
By the end of the thirteenth century, the Imperial possessions in Asia
had again shrunk up to a narrow strip on the Propontis, from the Ægæan
to the Euxine. Losses followed more speedily when the Turkish power
passed from the Seljuk to the Ottoman. ♦1326-1338.♦ _Brusa_, _Nikaia_,
_Nikomêdeia_, were all lost within twelve years. By the middle of the
fourteenth century, the Emperors kept nothing in Asia, save a strip
of land just opposite Constantinople, and the outlying cities of
_Philadelphia_ and _Phôkaia_, their allies rather than their subjects.
The Ottoman was now all but ready to pass into Europe, and the way
was made easier for him by the rise and fall of an European power
which again cut short the Empire in its western provinces. ♦The Empire
falls back towards Servia and Bulgaria. | 1331.♦ While the Imperial
frontier was advancing in Epeiros and Thessaly, it fell back towards
Servia, and advanced towards Bulgaria only to fall back again. ♦Loss
of Philippopolis, 1344.♦ _Philippopolis_, so often lost and won, now
passed away for ever. ♦Conquest. Stephen Dushan.♦ And now came the
great momentary advance of _Servia_ under Stephen Dushan, which wrested
from the Empire a large part of its Thracian, Macedonian, Albanian,
and Greek possessions. ♦Extent of the Empire.♦ At the middle of the
fourteenth century, the Empire, all but banished from Asia, kept no
unbroken European dominion out of Thrace. Its other possessions were
isolated. It kept Thessalonikê and Chalkidikê, with a small strip of
Macedonia as far as _Berrhoia_ and _Vodena_. It kept a small Thessalian
territory about _Lamia_ or _Zeitouni_. There was the Peloponnesian
province, fast growing into importance; there was _Lesbos_ and a few
other islands. ♦1355.♦ On Stephen’s death his dominion broke in pieces,
but the Empire did not win back its lost lands. For the Ottoman was
already in Europe, ready, in the space of the next hundred years, to
swallow up all that was left.
♦1336.♦
As in the recovery of Romania by the Greeks of Nikaia, so in the final
conquest of Romania by the Turks of Brusa, Constantinople itself
was—with the exception of the Peloponnesian appanage—the last point
of the Empire to fall. The Turk, like the Greek, made his way in by
Kallipolis; like the Greek, he hemmed in the Imperial city for years
before it fell into his hands. ♦Loss of Hadrianople, 1361. | 1366.♦
In seven years from his first landing, Hadrianople had become the
European capital of the Turk; the Empire was his tributary, keeping,
besides its outlying possessions, only the land just round the city.
The romantic expedition of Amadeo of Savoy gave back to the Empire its
Euxine coast as far as _Mesêmbria_. ♦Loss of Philadelphia, 1374-1391.♦
Before the end of the century Philadelphia was lost in Asia, and the
Imperial dominion in Europe hardly reached beyond the city itself and
the Peloponnesian province. Thessalonikê and the Thessalian province
were both lost for a while. ♦Effects of Timour’s invasion, 1401.♦
Bajazet was on the point of doing the work of Mahomet, when the Empire
was saved for another half-century by the invasion of Timour and the
consequent break-up of the Ottoman power. During the Ottoman civil
wars, the outlying points of the Empire were restored and seized again
more than once. ♦1424.♦ At last the boundaries of the Empire were fixed
by treaty between Sultan Mahomet and the Emperor Manuel, much as they
had stood sixty years before. The coast of the Propontis to Selymbria,
the coast of the Euxine to Mesêmbria, Thessalonikê and Chalkidikê,
the Peloponnesian province, the smaller Thessalian province, the
overlordship of Lesbos, Ainos, and Thasos, was all that was left.
Further losses soon followed. ♦1426.♦ Thessalonikê passed from the
Empire within two years. ♦1453.♦ At last, as all the world knows, the
Imperial city itself fell, and the name of the Eastern Roman Empire was
blotted out of European geography. ♦1460.♦ Six years later came the
conquest of Peloponnêsos, and the whole of European Greece passed into
the hands of foreign masters.
* * * * *
♦States growing out of the Empire.♦
Having thus sketched the changes in the extent of the Eastern Roman
Empire during a period of six hundred and fifty years, we have now to
trace the geography of the states which, within that time, grew up
within its borders or upon its frontiers. These fall naturally into
four groups. ♦The Slavonic states.♦ First come the national states
which were formed by throwing off the dominion of the Empire. These are
mainly the Slavonic powers to the north, Bulgaria, Servia, Croatia, and
the later states which arose out of their divisions and combinations.
♦Hungary. | Rouman states.♦ And with these, different as was their
origin, we must, for our purposes, place both the _Hungarian_ kingdom
which annexed so many of the Slavonic lands, and the _Rouman_ states,
so closely connected with Hungarian history, which arose by migrations
out of the Empire. ♦The Greek states.♦ Another group consists of the
Greek states which split off from the Empire before or at the Latin
conquest, and which were not recovered by the Greek Emperors of Nikaia
and Constantinople. Both these classes of states belong strictly to
Eastern Christendom. Catholic Hungary ruling over Orthodox Slaves
forms a link between the East and the West; so do those Slaves who
themselves belong to the Latin Church. ♦Latin states with the Empire.♦
Another link is supplied by a third group of states, namely, those
parts of the Empire which, either at or before the Latin conquest,
came under Latin rule. This class is not confined to the Frank powers
in Romania or to the Eastern settlements of Venice and Genoa. ♦Kingdom
of Sicily. | Kingdom of Jerusalem.♦ From our point of view it takes in
the Norman kingdom of Sicily and the crusading kingdom of Jerusalem
with its fiefs. In all these cases, territory which had formed part
of the Eastern Empire came under Latin rule. And in all these cases,
Latin masters bore rule over alien subjects, Greek, Slave, Syrian,
or any other. None of the Latin powers were national states, like
the Slavonic or even like the Greek powers. But the foreign masters
of these lands were at least European and Christian. The last class
consists of powers which lie beyond the range of European and Christian
civilization. ♦Turkish dynasties.♦ These are the Turkish dynasties
which arose within the Empire. ♦The Ottomans.♦ Of these only the last
and greatest, the dynasty of _Othman_, became geographically European,
and swallowed up nearly all the lands which had belonged to the Empire
in Europe, together with much which lay beyond its bounds. Here we
have, not only the absence of national being, but the rule of the
Asiatic over the European, of the Mussulman over the Christian. ♦The
New States.♦ Lastly, we come to the partial redressing of this wrong by
the re-establishment of independent Greek and Slavonic states in our
own century.
These seem to make four natural groups, and it is needful to bear
in mind their nature and relations to each other. But it will be
more convenient to speak of the several states thus formed in an
order approaching more nearly to the order of their separation from
the Empire. And first comes a power which parted off so early, and
which became so thoroughly a part of Western Europe, that it needs
an effort to grasp the fact that its right place is among the powers
which had their beginning in separation from the Imperial throne of
Constantinople.
§ 2. _The Kingdom of Sicily._
♦The Norman power in Italy and Sicily.♦
This is the power which, in the course of the eleventh century, was
formed by the Norman adventurers in southern Italy and in Sicily. It
was not wholly formed at the expense of the Eastern Empire. But all
its insular, and the greater part of its continental, territory, was
either won from the Eastern Empire and its vassals, or else had once
formed part of that Empire. Its kings also more than once established
their power, for a longer or shorter time, in the Imperial lands east
of the Hadriatic. With the Western Empire and the Kingdom of Italy the
Sicilian kingdom had in its beginnings nothing to do, though it was
afterwards somewhat enlarged at their expense.
♦Possessions of the Empire in Italy.♦
When the Norman conquests in Italy began, early in the eleventh
century, the Eastern Empire still kept the coast of both seas from the
further side of the peninsula of _Gargano_ to the head of the gulf
of _Policastro_. The Imperial duchies of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi,
lying to the north of this point, were cut off by the duchies of
_Benevento_, _Capua_, and _Salerno_, over which the Empire had at the
most a very precarious superiority. ♦Advance of the Normans.♦ Within
a hundred years, all these lands, together with the island of Sicily,
were brought under Norman rule. Thus grew up a new European power,
sometimes forming one kingdom, sometimes two, sometimes held alone,
sometimes together with other kingdoms. This power supplanted alike
the Eastern Empire, the Saracen powers of Sicily, and the Lombard
princes of southern Italy. It started from two points, two distinct
Norman settlements, of which the later outshone the earlier. ♦County
of Aversa, 1021.♦ The earliest Norman territorial settlement was the
county of _Aversa_, held in vassalage of the Imperial duchy of Naples.
♦Principality of Capua, 1062-1068.♦ Forty years later its counts became
possessed of the principality of _Capua_, of which they received a
papal confirmation which implied a denial of all dependence on either
Empire. The more lasting duchy of _Apulia_ began later under the
adventurers of the house of Hauteville. ♦County of Apulia, 1042.♦ Their
first stage is marked by the foundation of the county of Apulia, with
_Melfi_ as its capital, under William of-the-Iron-arm. This took in
the peninsula of Gargano and the lands immediately to the south of it.
♦Investiture by Pope Leo, 1053.♦ The next stage is when Leo the Ninth
invested Count Humfrey, or rather the Normans as a body, with all that
they could conquer in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. ♦Robert Wiscard
Duke, 1059. | Completion of the Apulian duchy, 1077.♦ The first of
several takings of _Tarentum_, and the assumption of the ducal title by
Robert Wiscard, mark another stage. Less than twenty years later the
Eastern Empire kept nothing but the duchy of Naples; _Benevento_ had
passed to the Popes. The rest of the lands both of the Empire and of
the Lombard princes were now very unequally divided between two Norman
lords, the Duke of Apulia and the Prince of Capua. ♦Robert Wiscard in
Epeiros, 1081-1085.♦ The Byzantine power west of the Hadriatic being
thus overthrown, Robert Wiscard for the first time pushed the Norman
arms into the Eastern peninsula itself. For the last few years of
his life he held the islands of Corfu and Kephallênia, with Durazzo
and the coast to the south, and even inland as far as _Kastoria_ and
_Trikkala_. ♦1147-1150.♦ His power was renewed for a moment by his son
Bohemond, and in the middle of the next century Corfu was again for a
short time held by King Roger.
♦Norman Conquest of Sicily, 1060-1093.♦
For by that time the island of Sicily was a kingdom of Western
Christendom. The second time of Mussulman rule over the whole island
was short. In the space of thirty years Count Roger won the great
island alike from Islam and from Eastern Christendom. ♦Taking of
Messina, 1061; | of Palermo, 1072; | of Syracuse, 1086; | of Noto,
1091;♦ Greek Messina was first won; after a while Saracen Palermo
followed; Syracuse was won much later; the last Saracen post in the
island to hold out was _Noto_ in the south-eastern corner. ♦of Malta,
1091.♦ _Malta_, the natural appendage of Sicily, was soon added. The
first Norman capital was _Messina_. Duke Robert, as overlord of his
brother Count Roger, kept Palermo and the surrounding district in his
own hands. It was not till the next century that the Count of Sicily
won full possession of the city. ♦Palermo capital of Sicily.♦ Palermo
then became again, as it had been under the Saracens, the head of
Sicily.
The ruler of Sicily also became a potentate on the Italian mainland.
First the half, then the whole, of Calabria formed part of his
dominions. ♦Roger the Second, 1105-1154. | King, 1130.♦ The third Great
Count, the first King, of Sicily, Roger the Second, gradually won the
whole possessions of his family on the mainland. ♦Capua, 1132-1136.♦
To these he presently added the Norman principality of Capua, first as
a dependent territory, then as fully incorporated with his dominions.
♦Naples, 1138.♦ He next won the last possession in the West which was
still held by the Eastern Empire, the city of Naples. ♦The Abruzzi,
1140.♦ He then pressed beyond the bounds both of the Eastern Empire
and of the early Norman conquests by the annexation of the _Abruzzi_.
He then, as we have seen, extended his power for a moment east of the
Hadriatic. Meanwhile he was more successful against the common enemies
of Eastern and Western Christendom. ♦Conquests in Africa, 1135-1137.♦
As Sicily had twice been conquered from Africa, Africa now began to be
conquered from Sicily. ♦1160.♦ Roger held a considerable dominion on
the African coast including _Mehadia_, _Bona_, and other points, which
were lost under his son William.
Thus was founded a kingdom which has, perhaps oftener than any other
European state, been divided and united and handed over from one
dynasty of strangers to another, but whose boundaries, strictly so
called, have hardly changed at all. For the only immediate neighbour
of the Sicilian king was his ecclesiastical overlord. The question was
whether the king of the mainland should be also king of the island.
But the successive dynasties which reigned both over the whole kingdom
and over its divided parts were for a long time eager to carry out the
policy of their first founder, by conquests east of the Hadriatic.
♦Epeirot conquests of William the Good, 1185.♦ Before the fall of the
old Empire, William the Good began again to establish an Epeirot and
insular dominion by the conquest of Durazzo, Corfu, Kephallênia, and
Zakynthos. ♦Kingdom of Margarito, 1186. | 1338.♦ But these outlying
dominions were granted in fief to the Sicilian Admiral Margarito,[28]
who, himself bearing the strange title of _King of the Epeirots_,
founded a dynasty which, with the title of Count Palatine, held
_Kephallênia_, _Zakynthos_, and _Ithakê_ into the fourteenth century.
Thus these lands, like Cyprus and Trebizond, were cut off from the
Empire just before its fall, and the revolutions of Sicily cut them off
equally from the Sicilian kingdom. ♦Epeirot dominion of Manfred, 1258.♦
A more lasting power in these regions began under Manfred, who received
with his Greek wife Corfu, Durazzo, and a strip of the Albanian coast,
with the title of _Lord of Romania_. ♦Of Charles of Anjou, 1266-69.
| 1272-1276.♦ This dominion passed to his conqueror Charles of Anjou,
who further established a feudal superiority over the Epeirot despotat.
♦1282.♦ But his plans were cut short by the revolution of the Vespers.
♦History of Durazzo, 1322. | Duchy of Durazzo, 1333-1360. | 1378.♦
Durazzo was lost and won more than once; but it came back to the
Angevin house, to become a separate Angevin duchy, till it fell before
the growth of the Albanian powers. Another branch held _Lepanto_—once
_Naupaktos_—which lasted longer. ♦1373-1386.♦ Corfu and Butrinto became
immediate possessions of the Neapolitan crown till they found more
lasting masters at Venice.
This Eastern dominion of the two Sicilian crowns, besides their
influence of which we shall have presently to speak in southern Greece,
tends to keep up the connexion of the Sicilian kingdoms with the Empire
out of which they sprang. But it can hardly be called a geographical
enlargement of the kingdoms themselves. ♦Acre occupied by Charles of
Anjou.♦ Still less can that name be given to the short occupation of
_Acre_ by Charles of Anjou in his character of one of the many Kings of
Jerusalem. ♦Malta granted to the Knights, 1530.♦ The Sicilian kingdoms
themselves cannot be said to have gained or lost territory till Charles
the Fifth granted Malta to the Knights of Saint John, till Philip the
Second added the _Stati degli Presidi_ to the Two Sicilies. The great
revolution of all has taken place in our own day. The name of Sicily
has for the first time been wiped from the European map. The island of
Hierôn and Roger has sunk to form seven provinces of a prince who has
not deigned to take the crown or the title of that illustrious realm.
§ 3. _The Crusading States._
♦Comparison between Sicily and the crusading states.♦
The Sicilian kingdom has much in common with the states formed by
the crusaders in Asia and Eastern Europe. Both grew out of lands won
by Western conquerors, partly from the Eastern Empire itself, partly
from Mussulman holders of lands which had belonged to the Eastern
Empire. But the order of the two processes is different. The Sicilian
Normans began by conquering lands of the Empire, and then went on
to win the island which the Saracens had torn from the Empire. The
successive crusades first founded Christian states in the lands which
the Mussulmans had won from the Empire, and then partitioned the Empire
itself. The first crusaders undertook to hold their conquest as fiefs
of the Eastern Empire. This condition was only very partially carried
out; but the mere theory marks a stage in the relations between the
Eastern Empire and the Latin powers of Palestine which has nothing
answering to it in the case of Sicily.
♦Kingdom of Jerusalem and Frank principalities in Syria.♦
First among these powers come the _Kingdom of Jerusalem_ and the other
Frank principalities which arose out of the first crusade. ♦Cyprus.♦
The kingdom of _Cyprus_, which in some sort continued the Kingdom of
Jerusalem, forms a link between the true crusading states and those
which arose out of the partition of the Empire in the fourth crusade.
♦Armenia.♦ And closely connected with this was the kingdom of _Kilikian
Armenia_ whose foundation we have already mentioned.[29] This last was
an Eastern state which became to some extent Latinized. But the Syrian
states, Cyprus, and the Latin powers which arose out of the partition
of the Empire, all agree in being colonies of Western Europe in Eastern
lands, states where the Latin settlers appear as a dominant race over
the natives, of whatever blood or creed.
♦The Crusaders cut off the Mussulmans from the sea.♦
The great geographical result of the first crusade was to cut off the
Mussulman powers from the seas of Asia and Eastern Europe. In the first
years of the twelfth century the Christian powers, Byzantine, Armenian,
and Latin, held the whole coast of Asia Minor and Syria. ♦Extent of
the Kingdom of Jerusalem.♦ The Kingdom of Jerusalem, at its greatest
extent, stretched along the coast from _Berytos_ to _Gaza_. To the
east it reached some way beyond Jordan and the Dead Sea, with a strip
of territory reaching southward to the eastern gulf of the Red Sea. To
the north lay two Latin states which, in the days of Komnenian revival,
acknowledged the superiority of the Eastern Emperor. ♦Tripolis.
| Antioch.♦ These were the county of _Tripolis_, reaching northwards
to the Syrian _Alexandretta_, and the more famous principality of
_Antioch_. ♦640. | 968. | 1081. | 1098. | 1268.♦ That great city, lost
to Christendom in the first days of Saracen conquest, won back to
the Empire in the Macedonian revival, lost to the Turk, won back by
the Frank, remained a Christian principality long after the fall of
Jerusalem, and did not pass again under Mussulman rule till late in the
thirteenth century. ♦Edessa.♦ North-east of Antioch lay the furthest
of the Latin possessions, the inland county of _Edessa_. ♦1128-1173.♦
This was the first to be lost; it fell under the power of the Turkish
Attabegs of Syria. ♦Loss of the lands beyond Jordan.♦ They cut short
the kingdom of Jerusalem, taking away the territory east of Jordan. On
their ruin arose the mightier power of Saladin, lord alike of Egypt
and Syria. ♦Jerusalem taken by Saladin, 1187.♦ He took Jerusalem, and
the kingdom which still bore that name was cut down to the lands just
round Tyre. ♦Jerusalem recovered by Frederick the Second, 1228.♦ The
crusades which followed won back _Acre_ and various points, and at
last the diplomacy of Frederick the Second won back from the Egyptian
Sultan Tyre, Sidon, and the Holy City itself. A strip of coast running
inland at two points, so as to take in Tiberias and Nazareth at one
end, Jerusalem and Bethlehem at the other, formed the Eastern realm of
the lord of Rome and Sicily. ♦1239-1243. | Final loss of Jerusalem,
1244.♦ Lost and won again by the Christians, Jerusalem was finally won
for Islam by the invasion of the Chorasmians from the shores of the
Caspian. But for nearly fifty years longer the points on the coast
were lost and won, as the Mussulman powers or fresh crusaders from
Europe had the upper hand. ♦Fall of Acre, 1291.♦ With the fall of
_Acre_, the Latin dominion on the Syrian mainland came to an end. The
land won by the Western Christians from the Mussulman went back to the
disciples of the Prophet. The land won by the Western Christian from
the Eastern, and the land where the Eastern Christian still maintained
his independence, held out longer.
♦Cyprus.♦
These were the kingdoms of _Cyprus_ and _Armenia_. ♦Famagosta Genoese.♦
The frontier of Cyprus hardly admitted of geographical change, unless
it were when, for a part of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
the city and haven of _Famagosta_ passed to Genoa. ♦Connexion between
Cyprus and Jerusalem.♦ The kings of Cyprus however claimed the crown of
Jerusalem, and sometimes, before the whole Syrian coast was lost, they
really held this or that piece of territory on the mainland. ♦Armenia
acknowledges the Western Emperor, 1190.♦ Meanwhile the Armenian kingdom
in some sort entered the Western world, when its king, after receiving
one confirmation from the Eastern Emperor, thought it wise to receive
another from the Western Emperor also. ♦1342.♦ The kingdom, though
sadly cut short by its Mussulman neighbours, lived on under native
princes till the middle of the fourteenth century. ♦Connexion between
Armenia and Cyprus, 1393.♦ Then the fragments of the kingdom passed,
first to a branch of the Cypriot royal family, and then to the reigning
king of Cyprus. But the first joint reign was the last. ♦End of Armenia
and Cyprus, 1489.♦ The remnant of independent Armenia was swallowed up
by the Mameluke lords of Syria, while Cyprus lingered on till Saint
Mark and his commonwealth became the heirs of its last king.
* * * * *
The kingdom of Cyprus forms a link between the Latin states in Syria
and those which arose in Romania after the crusading capture of
Constantinople. And these last again fall into two classes. ♦Frank
principalities in Greece. | Possessions of the maritime commonwealths.♦
There are the Frank principalities on the mainland of Greece, and
there are the lands, chiefly insular, which fell to the lot of the
maritime commonwealths of the West and of their citizens. Among these
the first place belongs to the great commonwealth which had now cast
off all traces of allegiance to the Empire. ♦Genoa.♦ _Genoa_, which had
no share in the original partition of the Empire, obtained several
points of Imperial territory, both for the commonwealth itself and for
particular Genoese citizens. ♦Venice.♦ But the part played by Genoa
in the East is small beside the great and abiding dominion of Venice.
No result of the partition was greater than the field which it gave
to Venetian growth. ♦Comparison between the two.♦ The position of the
two commonwealths is different. Genoa was a mere stranger in the East;
Venice was in a manner at home. Once an outlying possession of the
Empire, her really great historical position is due to her share in its
overthrow.
§ 4. _The Eastern Dominion of Venice and Genoa._
We have already seen the origin of the Venetian state, and the
beginning of Venetian rule over the Slavonic coasts of the Hadriatic.
♦Connexion of the Dalmatian and Greek dominion of Venice.♦ The Eastern
dominion of Venice now began, and, in a strictly geographical view, her
Istrian and Dalmatian dominion cannot be separated from her Albanian
and purely Greek dominion. But Venice did not become a great European
power till she passed from the Slavonic lands whose connexion with the
Empire was nominal or precarious into the Albanian and Greek lands
which were among its immediate possessions. ♦Effect of the partition
on Venice.♦ The greatness of Venice dates from that partition of the
Empire which was the surest proof that she had wholly cast aside her
Byzantine allegiance. ♦Comparison between Venice and Sicily.♦ In this
point of view the history of Venice may be compared and contrasted
with the history of Sicily. In each case, a part of the dominions of
the Eastern Rome grew into a separate power; that power passed, so
to speak, from Eastern Europe to Western, and, in its new Western
character, it appeared as a conqueror in the Eastern lands. But, as
Venice and Sicily parted from the Empire in different ways, so their
later relations to the Empire were widely different. The Sicilian state
began in actual conquests made by foreign invaders at the expense of
the Empire. Venice was a dependency of the Empire which gradually
drifted into independence. Thus Sicily became more thoroughly Western
than Venice. The attempts of the kings, both of the whole Sicilian
kingdom and of its divided parts, to establish an Eastern dominion were
attacks from without, and were not really lasting. ♦Venice inherits
the position of the Empire.♦ But Venice, whose princes were lords of
one fourth and one eighth of the Empire of Romania,[30] took up in
some sort the position of the Empire itself. If she destroyed one
bulwark against the Mussulman, she set up another. As long as Venice
was really a great power, her main interests lay east of the Hadriatic.
♦Importance of the fourth crusade in Venetian history.♦ The fourth
crusade was her turning point. It was at once the beginning of her
Greek dominion and the recovery of her Dalmatian dominion.
♦Territory assigned to Venice by the Act of Partition.♦
The scheme of partition gave to Venice a vast dominion, insular and
continental. She was to be mistress of the Hadriatic and Ionian seas.
To her were assigned, not only the islands off the west coast of the
Empire, but the whole western coast itself, from the north of Albania
to the southern point of Peloponnêsos. She was to have some points
in the Ægæan, among them _Oreos_ and _Karystos_ at the two ends of
Euboia. She was to have her quarter of the capital, with a Thracian
and an Asiatic dominion, including, according to some versions, the
strange allotment of _Lazia_ at the east of the Euxine[31]. ♦Her actual
possessions.♦ The actual possessions of Venice in the East have a
very different look. Much of the territory which was assigned to the
republic never became hers, while she obtained large possessions which
were not assigned to her. ♦Her dominion primarily Hadriatic.♦ But the
main point, the dominion of the Hadriatic, was never forgotten, though
some both of her earliest and of her latest conquests lay beyond its
necessary range.
♦Possessions not assigned by the partition. | Crete. 1206-1669.♦
Among those possessions of Venice which were not assigned to her in the
act of partition was her greatest and most lasting possession of all,
the island of _Crete_. ♦1645-1669.♦ This she won almost at the first
moment of the conquest, and she kept it for more than four centuries
and a half, till the war of _Candia_ handed over all Crete, save two
fortresses, to the Ottoman. ♦Acquisition of Cyprus. 1489.♦ Before
this loss, Saint Mark had won and lost another great island which lay
altogether beyond the scheme of the Latin conquerors of Constantinople.
Late in the fifteenth century the republic succeeded the Latin kings
in the possession of _Cyprus_. ♦Loss of Cyprus, 1571.♦ But this was
held for less than a century. Cyprus, like Crete and Sicily, was a
special scene of struggle between European and barbarian powers. But it
shared the fate, not of Sicily but of Crete, and became the solid prize
of the Ottoman, when Christendom won the barren laurels of Lepanto.
♦Occupation of Thessalonikê, 1426-1430.♦ Another possession which lay
out of the usual course of Venetian dominion was the short occupation
of _Thessalonikê_. Bought of a Greek despot, it was after four years
taken by the Turk. Had Thessalonikê been kept, it might have passed as
a late compensation to the republic for the early loss of Hadrianople
and her other Thracian territory.
♦Venetian power both Dalmatian and Greek.♦
But the true scene of Venetian enterprise in the East is primarily
the Hadriatic, and next to that, the coasts and islands of the Ægæan.
She remained both a Dalmatian and a Greek power down to the moment of
her overthrow, and, at the moment of her overthrow, it was not eighty
years since she had ceased to be a Peloponnesian and an Ægæan power.
The Greek dominion of Venice was an enlargement of her Dalmatian
dominion. ♦Taking of Zara, 1202.♦ It is significant that Zara was
taken—not for the first or the last time—on the way to the taking of
Constantinople. ♦Hadriatic dominion of Venice.♦ Already mistress, or
striving to be mistress, of the northern part of the eastern coast of
the Hadriatic, the partition of the Empire opened to Venice the hope
of becoming mistress of the southern part. Mistress of the whole coast
she never was at any one moment; one point was gained and another lost.
But extension in those lands was steadily aimed at for more than seven
hundred years, and the greater part of the eastern Hadriatic coast has
been, at one time or another, under Venetian rule.
The story of Venetian dominion in these parts cannot be kept apart
from the story of the neighbouring Slavonic lands. The states of
Servia and Croatia were from the beginning the inland neighbours
of the Dalmatian coast cities. ♦Servian districts on the coast.♦
The river Tzettina may pass as the boundary between the Servian and
Croatian states. _Pagania_ on the Narenta, _Zachloumia_ between the
Narenta and Ragusa, _Terbounia_, represented by the modern _Trebinje_,
the coast district of the _Canali_, _Dioklea_, taking in the modern
Montenegro with the coast as far as the Drin—_Skodra_ or _Scutari_ on
its lake, the harbours of _Spizza_, _Antivari_, and _Dulcigno_, were
all originally Servian. ♦The Dalmatian cities.♦ The Dalmatian coast
cities, _Dekatera_ or _Cattaro_, _Raousion_ or _Ragusa_, _Tragourion_
or _Traü_, _Diadora_, _Jadera_, or _Zara_, formed a Roman fringe
on what had become a Slavonic body. It was not even a continuous
fringe, as the Slaves came down to the sea at more than one point.
♦Pagania.♦ _Pagania_ above all, the land of the heathen Narentines,
cut Roman Dalmatia into two marked parts. ♦The Islands.♦ It even took
in most of the great islands, _Curzola_—once _Black Korkyra_—_Meleda_,
_Lesina_—once _Pharos_—and others. At the separation of the two Empires
the Croatian power was strongest in those lands. ♦Croatia under Charles
the Great, 806-810.♦ The wars of Charles the Great left the coast
cities to the Eastern Empire, while inland Dalmatia and Croatia passed
under Frankish rule. ♦825-830.♦ Presently Croatia won its independence
of the Western Empire, while the coast cities were practically lost by
the Eastern. ♦Settlement under Basil the Macedonian, 868-878.♦ Under
Basil the Macedonian the Imperial authority was admitted, in name at
least, both by the cities and by the Croatian prince. ♦First Venetian
Conquest, 995-997.♦ More than a century later came the first Venetian
conquest, which was looked on at Venice as a deliverance of the cities
from Croatian rule. The pagan power on the Narenta was destroyed,
and the Duke of Venice took the title of _Duke of Dalmatia_. But all
this involved no formal separation from the Empire.[32] ♦The cities
under Croatia, 1052. | Dalmatian Kingdom, 1062.♦ Such a separation
may be held to have taken place in the middle of the next century,
when the cities again passed under Croatian rule, and when the taking
of the title of _King of Dalmatia_ by Croatian Kresimir may pass for
an assertion of complete independence. ♦Magyar Kingdom of Croatia,
1091; | of Dalmatia, 1102.♦ But the kingdoms, first of Croatia, then
of Dalmatia, were presently swallowed up by the growing power of the
Magyar. Then comes a time in which this city and that passes to and
fro between Venice and Hungary. ♦Croatia and Dalmatia restored to the
Empire, 1171. | Dalmatia passes to Hungary.♦ Under Manuel Komnênos the
whole of Croatia and Dalmatia was fully restored to the Empire; but ten
years later the cities again passed to Hungary. This was their final
separation from the Empire, and by this time Venice had thrown off all
Byzantine allegiance.
♦Struggle for the dominion of Dalmatia.♦
From this time the history of Croatia forms part of the history of
the Hungarian kingdom. The history of Dalmatia becomes part of the
long struggle of Venice for Hadriatic dominion. For five hundred years
the cities and islands of the whole Hadriatic coast were lost and won
over and over again in the strifes of the powers of the mainland.
These were in Dalmatia the Hungarian and Bosnian Kings; more to the
south they were the endless powers which rose and fell in Albania and
northern Greece. In after times the Ottoman took the place of all.
And many of the cities were able, amid the disputes of their stronger
neighbours, to make themselves independent commonwealths for a longer
or shorter time. ♦Independence of Ragusa;♦ _Ragusa_, above all, kept
her independence during the whole time, modified in later times by a
certain external dependence on the Turk. ♦of Polizza.♦ And the almost
invisible inland commonwealth of _Polizza_—a Slavonic San Marino—kept
its separate being into the present century.
♦Fluctuations between Venice and Hungary, 1315.♦
The crusading conquest of Zara was the beginning of this long
struggle. The frontier fluctuated during the whole of the thirteenth
century; early in the fourteenth the whole coast was again Venetian.
Meanwhile the republic was striving to make good her position further
south. The Epeirot despotat long hindered her establishment either
on the coasts or the islands of northern Greece. ♦Final conquest of
Durazzo and Corfu, 1206. | 1216.♦ Durazzo, the central point between
the older and the newer Venetian range, was won, along with Corfu, in
the earliest days of the conquest; but they were presently lost, to
come back again in after times. ♦History of Corfu.♦ The famous island
of Korkyra or Corfu has a special history of its own. No part of Greece
has been so often cut off from the Greek body. Under Pyrrhos and
Agathoklês, no less than under Michael Angelos and Roger, it obeyed an
Epeirot or a Sicilian master. It was among the first parts of Greece to
pass permanently under Roman dependence. ♦Second Venetian conquest of
Corfu, 1386-1797.♦ At last, after yet another turn of Sicilian rule, it
passed for four hundred years to the great commonwealth. In our own day
Corfu was not added to free Greece till long after the deliverance of
Attica and Peloponnêsos. But, under so many changes of foreign masters,
the island has always remained part of Europe and of Christendom.
Alone among the Greek lands, Corfu has never passed under barbarian
rule. ♦1716. | 1800.♦ It has seen the Turk only, for one moment as an
invader, for another moment as a nominal overlord.
♦Greek advance of Venice.♦
The second Venetian occupation of Corfu was the beginning of a great
advance among the neighbouring islands. But, during the hundred
and eighty years between the two occupations, the main fields of
Venetian action lay more to the north and more to the south. The Greek
acquisitions of the republic at this time were in Peloponnêsos and the
Ægæan islands. ♦Modon and Coron, 1206.♦ On the mainland she won, at
the very beginning of Latin settlement in the East, the south-western
peninsula of Peloponnêsos, with the towns of _Methônê_ and
_Kôrônê_—otherwise _Modon_ and _Coron_—which she held for nearly three
hundred years. ♦History of Euboia.♦ Among the Ægæan islands Venice
began very early to win an influence in the greatest of their number,
that of _Euboia_, often disguised under the specially barbarous name
of _Negropont_.[33] The history of that island, the endless shiftings
between its Latin lords and the neighbouring powers of all kinds, is
the most perplexed part of the perplexed Greek history of the time.
♦Complete occupation of Euboia, 1390.♦ Venice, mixed up in its affairs
throughout, obtained in the end complete possession, but not till after
the second occupation of Corfu. ♦Turkish conquest of Euboia, 1470.♦ The
island was kept till the Turkish conquest eighty years later. Several
other islands were held by the republic at different times. ♦Loss of
the Ægæan islands, 1718.♦ Of these _Tênos_ and _Mykonos_ were not
finally lost till Venice was in the eighteenth century confined to the
western seas.
Between the first and the second occupation of Corfu, the Venetian
power in Dalmatia had risen and fallen again. ♦Peace of Zara, 1358.
| Dalmatia Hungarian.♦ By the peace of Zara, Lewis the Great of Hungary
shut out Venice altogether from the Dalmatian coasts, and, as Dalmatian
King, he required the Venetian Duke to give up his Dalmatian title.
♦New advance of Venice.♦ Later in the century Venice again gained
ground, and her Dalmatian, Albanian, and Greek possessions began to
draw near together, and to form one whole, though never a continuous
whole. ♦1378-1455. | Recovery of Dalmatia.♦ In the space of about
eighty years, amid many fluctuations towards Hungary, Bosnia, and
Genoa—a new claimant called into rivalry by the war of Chioggia—Venice
again became mistress of the greater part of Dalmatia. Some districts
however formed part of the Duchy of _Saint Sava_, and Hungary kept part
of the inland territory, with the fortress of _Clissa_. The point where
the Hadriatic coast turns nearly due south may be taken as the boundary
of the lasting and nearly continuous dominion of the Republic; but for
the present the Venetian power went on spreading far south of that
point. ♦Advance in Albania and Greece, 1392.♦ On the second occupation
of Corfu followed the acquisition of _Durazzo_, _Alessio_, and of the
Albanian _Skodra_ or _Scutari_. ♦1401. | 1407.♦ _Butrinto_ and the
ever memorable _Parga_ put themselves under Venetian protection, and
_Lepanto_ was ceded by a Prince of Achaia. ♦1388.♦ In Peloponnêsos the
Messenian towns were still held, and to them were now added _Argos_
and its port of _Nauplia_, known in Italian as _Napoli di Romania_.
♦1408-1415. | 1419. | 1423.♦ _Patras_ was held for a few years,
_Monembasia_ was won, and the isle of _Aigina_, which might almost pass
for part of Peloponnêsos. On the other side of Greece, the possession
of Corfu led to the acquisition of the other so-called Ionian
Islands. ♦The Western Islands. 1449.♦ The prince of _Kephallênia_, of
_Zakynthos_ or _Zante_, and of _Leukadia_ or _Santa Maura_, found it to
his interest, for fear of the advancing Ottoman, to put his dominions
under the overlordship of Saint Mark.
♦Venice the champion against the Turk.♦
This marks an epoch in the history of Venice and of Europe. The
championship of Christendom against the Turk now passes from the New
Rome to the hardly less Byzantine city in the Lagoons. The short
occupation of Thessalonikê may pass for the beginning of the struggle.
Later in the fifteenth century, Venice and the Turk were meeting at
every point. ♦Loss of Argos, 1463.♦ In Peloponnêsos, _Argos_ was first
lost to the Turk; at the same moment he appeared far to the north, and
gradually occupied the Bosnian and Hungarian districts of Dalmatia.
♦1505-1699.♦ Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
the inland districts and the smaller towns were lost over and over
again, but the Republic always kept the chief coast cities, _Zara_,
_Sebenico_, and _Spalato_. ♦Losses of Venice.♦ Meanwhile, to the south
of Dalmatia, the Venetian power went back everywhere, except in the
western islands. ♦1474-1478.♦ On the mainland _Croja_, the city of
Scanderbeg, was held for a while. ♦1479.♦ But both Croja and Skodra
were won by Mahomet the Conqueror, and the treaty which ended this
war left to the Republic nothing on the coast of Albania and Northern
Greece, save _Durazzo_, _Antivari_, and _Butrinto_. ♦1500.♦ The treaty
which followed the next war took away _Durazzo_, _Butrinto_, and
_Lepanto_. ♦The Western Islands, 1481-1483.♦ A series of revolutions
in the islands of which the Republic already held the overlordship
placed them under her immediate dominion, to be struggled for against
the Turk. ♦1485. | 1502.♦ By the next peace _Zakynthos_ was kept, on
payment of a tribute to the Sultan; _Kephallênia_ passed to the Turk,
to be won back seventeen years later, and then to be permanently kept.
♦1502-1504.♦ _Leukadia_ was at the same time won for a moment and
lost again. ♦Loss of the Peloponnesian fortresses, 1502. | 1540.♦ In
Peloponnêsos _Modon_ and _Koron_ were lost along with _Durazzo_ and
_Lepanto_, and the great naval war with Suleiman cost the Republic her
last Peloponnesian possessions, _Nauplia_ and _Monembasia_, together
with all her Ægæan islands, except _Tênos_ and _Mykonos_. The strictly
Greek dominion of Venice was now for a hundred and forty years confined
to the islands, and, after the loss of Cyprus and Crete, almost wholly
to the Western islands. But after the loss of Crete came a revival
of the Venetian power, like one of the old revivals of the Empire.
♦Venetian conquest of Peloponnêsos, 1685-1699.♦ The great campaigns
of Francesco Morosini, confirmed by the peace of Carlowitz, freed all
Peloponnêsos from the Turk, and added it to the dominion of Saint Mark.
The same treaty confirmed Venice in the possession of the greater part
of Dalmatia. ♦Loss of Peloponnêsos, 1715-1718.♦ The next war cost her
the whole of Peloponnêsos, her two Cretan fortresses, and her two
remaining Ægæan islands. She now withdrew wholly to the western side
of Greece, where she had again won _Leukadia_ and _Butrinto_, and
had enlarged her dominion by the acquisition of _Prevesa_. ♦Extent
of Venetian dominion in Greece in the last century.♦ During the last
century the Venetian possessions in Greece consisted of the seven
so-called Ionian islands, with the continental posts of _Butrinto_,
_Prevesa_, and _Parga_.
♦Venetian territory in Dalmatia.♦
The Dalmatian territory of the Republic during the same time consisted
of a considerable inland district in the north-east, and of the whole
coast down to _Budua_, except where the territory of independent
Ragusa broke the continuity of her rule. ♦Ragusan frontier.♦ Ragusa
was so jealous of the mightier commonwealth that she preferred the
Turk as a neighbour. At two points of the coast, at _Klek_ at the
bottom of the gulf formed by the long peninsula of Sabbioncello, and
again at _Sutorina_ on the _Bocche_, the Ottoman territory came down
to the sea, so as to isolate the dominion of Ragusa from the Venetian
possessions on either side. Such was the frontier of the two Hadriatic
commonwealths down to the days when, first Venice and then Ragusa,
passed away.
♦Possession of Venetian cities.♦