THE LATIN EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
[Sidenote: Contrast between the Greeks and the Latins.]
We have already (p. 55) marked the broad contrast between the character
of the Greeks and that of the Latin and Teutonic nations of Western
Europe; between the centralized and legal government of the one and the
feudalism of the other; between the restlessness and ambition which in
the West ran out into constant private war, and the habit of almost
unreflecting obedience which had left the subjects of the Eastern Cæsars
unable to cope with rougher and ruder spirits except with the weapons
supplied by cunning, fraud, and treachery. The crusaders had come to
a people which to a large extent might be described as in a state of
decrepitude, but to a land nevertheless which was not less Christian
than Italy or France, nay, which boasted churches of an antiquity more
venerable than those of Milan, Ravenna, and Rome itself,—to a land ruled
by a system of law which has affected the legislation of every nation
in Europe,—to a land where Antony and Basil had reared the fabric of
monachism long before the days of the Nursian Benedict or the Scottish
Columba,—to a land where the ritual of the Church had taken root while
Christianity was in its cradle, and had moulded the life, the thoughts,
the very being of all its members.
[Sidenote: Attempt to upset the civilization of the old empire.]
This time-honoured civilization the Western champions of the cross now
fancied that they could crush or sweep away. Not one of them cared to
think that he was dealing with Christians or with the subjects of the
ancient empire of Octavius or of Constantine. For them the land, not
less than Syria and Egypt, was a part of heathendom; the people savages
to be brought under a yoke as heavy as that of the Western serfs; their
patriarchs, their bishops, their priests, and their monks were ministers
of a false faith beyond the pale of charity or mercy. Wiser conquerors
might have mingled with the people, and through intermarriage might have
infused new vigour into the feeble mass. By Baldwin and his allies a
rigid line was drawn separating the present from the past. All dignities,
offices, and lands were forfeited; all were shared exclusively among
the conquerors. If they were still under an emperor, this emperor was
not the autocrat who represented the majesty of Rome, but a mere feudal
chief whose barons, although owing him homage, regarded themselves as
practically his peers. In short, Baldwin and his comrades held that
they might do at Constantinople what Godfrey and his allies had done in
Palestine. The code of Justinian gave place to the Assize of Jerusalem
(p. 78), and not a single Greek was permitted to take part in the
administration of this law.
[Sidenote: Conduct of the pope towards the Greek clergy.]
As it was with the secular order of things, so was it with the spiritual.
The pope annulled without scruple the election of Morosini by self-chosen
or state-appointed canons: but he did so only because his own authority
was imperilled, not at all because they were invading the jurisdiction
of a patriarch whose throne was as ancient as that of Innocent himself.
Just as though they had been mere priests of Baal or Mahomedan Imams,
the Greek clergy were all driven from their churches (p. 163), and
the people compelled to abandon their venerable liturgy for that of
the Church of Rome. The emperor besought the pope to send out bands
of priests as though for the conversion of a heathen country, and to
furnish Dominican and Cistercian monks for the purposes of reforming
the stereotyped monachism of the East. Innocent was indeed full of
exultation. His letters everywhere called on the faithful to succour the
devoted missionaries who were preaching the Gospel in the churches of
Constantinople and bringing home to the people the enormity of the heresy
which denied the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son as well as
from the Father. ‘Samaria,’ he said, ‘had now returned to Jerusalem; God
had transferred the empire of the Greeks from the proud to the lowly,
from the superstitious to the religious, from the schismatics to the
Catholics, from the disobedient to the devoted servants of God.’ He was
impressed with the needfulness of sending young men from the schools
of Paris to strengthen themselves by the learning of the East: Philip
Augustus summoned young Greeks to Paris to receive instruction in the
creed and ritual of the West. Both were playing with edged tools. The
pope and the king were both encouraging that intercourse of thought which
was in the end to scatter to the winds the theory of the divine right of
temporal despots and the infallibility of spiritual rulers.
[Sidenote: Opposition of the French clergy to the new patriarch.]
The order of things so set up lasted a little longer than the Latin
principality of Edessa (p. 59). It was essentially the piece of new cloth
patched into the old garment, the new wine poured into old leathern
bottles only to burst them. In its relation to the conquered race it had
no more stability than the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem (p. 111); and in
itself gave play to all the jealousies and quarrels which disgraced the
feudal states of Western Europe. The strife began before the landing
of Morosini. While yet at Rome, he had been warned by the pope to have
nothing to do with the schemes of Venetian statesmen, and to show no
preference in his new home for men of Venetian birth. In Venice he was
compelled to abjure this promise, to swear that Venetians alone should be
canons of Sancta Sophia, and that, so far as his power might extend, he
would strive to secure to a Venetian the succession to his patriarchate.
Nothing more would be needed beyond the rumours of these intrigues to
rouse the suspicions of the French clergy; and accordingly, when Morosini
approached the shore, not one obeyed his summons. To the Greeks the sleek
and beardless prelate and his coarse-looking and beardless priests were
alike repulsive. Morosini was left almost alone. He threatened with
excommunication the clergy who would not admit his authority; his menaces
were treated with indifference or contempt.
[Sidenote: Partition of the empire among the crusading chiefs.]
The conquerors had indeed won for themselves a domain almost appalling
in its extent; and the sharing of the prize was soon followed by the
quarrelling of robbers over their booty. Not three months after the fall
of Constantinople the emperor led his forces against his vassal Boniface
of Montferrat, now the lord of Thessalonica: and the quarrel which was
for the time made up was a significant token of the future history of
his empire. The time was come for carrying out the compact made before
the conquest. The aged Dandolo became despot of Romania, and in his new
sovereignty he died, leaving to his countrymen the task of strengthening
and extending their commercial empire by means of a chain of factories
along the mainland and in the islands of the Adriatic and the
Archipelago. The task was too costly even for the resources of Venice:
and the commercial republic was constrained to govern her possessions by
that feudal system to which her constitution was utterly opposed. For
Boniface, the chivalrous rival of Baldwin, the lordship of Crete had
less attractions than the kingdom of the Macedonian Thessalonica: but
his wanderings did not end here. Thebes, Athens, Argos, received his
followers within their gates; and the resistance of Corinth and Napoli
was speedily overpowered. The count of Blois received the dukedom of
Nicæa (Nikaia, Nice), the count of St. Pol the lordship of Demetria, a
city about twenty miles to the south of Adrianople, while Geoffrey of
Villehardouin, now marshal of Romania as well as of Champagne, found a
splendid home on the banks of the Hebros.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1204. Rise of new empires at Nice, Trebizond, and
Durazzo.]
But the power of the old Byzantine Cæsars was rather divided than
crushed by the Latin crusaders. The wretched Mourzoufle, caught by the
Latins, was hurled from the Theodosian column; but Theodore Lascaris,
the son-in-law of the Alexios who dethroned Isaac Angelus, established
himself at Nicæa first as despot then as emperor, and in no long time had
extended his power from the Bosporos to the banks of the Meander. Other
parts of the empire were likewise in revolt against the new Cæsars. The
governors of Trebizond, without changing their titles at first, became
sovereigns of their province, and laid the foundations of their later
empire. A power not less formidable sprung up in Epirus (Epeiros) and had
its centre within the walls of that city of Durazzo which is especially
associated with the history of Bohemond. The conquerors were now to feel
the effects of feudal subordination, which was only another name for real
anarchy. The terror which they had inspired when their combined forces
assailed the walls of Constantinople was rapidly lessened when their
dispersal betrayed their scanty powers of cohesion, and when encounters
in the field proved to be not always irresistible.
[Sidenote: Massacre of the Latins in Thrace by order of the Bulgarian
Calo-John.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1205. April. Captivity of the emperor Baldwin.]
[Sidenote: Death of Baldwin.]
The storm burst on the Latins from a quarter in which they had not looked
for it. The chief of the Bulgarians, John or Calo-John, had at first
greeted Baldwin with the freedom of an equal as well as the heartiness of
a friend; but the retort that in the count of Flanders he must recognize
his emperor roused a resentment which led him to make common cause with
the insurgent Greeks. Waiting until Baldwin’s brother Henry had with a
large force crossed the Hellespont, he gave the signal for slaughter, and
the Latins were forthwith cut down in the towns and villages of Thrace.
Baldwin at once sent a messenger to recall his brother; but before he
could return, he set out with 140 knights and their retinues, followed
by the aged Dandolo. The force was perilously small; but good order
and discipline might have more than compensated this disadvantage. All
desultory action was forbidden; the order was disregarded by the count
of Blois who was himself surprised and slain, while the emperor Baldwin
became a prisoner. The army was saved by the wisdom, fortitude, and
heroism of Villehardouin, whose masterly retreat is perhaps the only
piece of true generalship in the whole military history of the crusades.
But the empire was already little more than the shadow of its former
self. A few fortresses on the shore of the Propontis now formed with the
capital the imperial domain of the Latins. Calo-John was in the full tide
of success. The pope, for whom he had but a little while ago professed a
deep devotion, entreated him to have mercy on his enemies and to release
the emperor. This last request was, he said, beyond mortal power to
grant. Baldwin had already died in prison. How, no one ever knew. Stories
grew up which told of horrible barbarities practised on the defenceless
captive; and the common belief that great men cannot die brought forward
twenty years later in Flanders a man who gave himself out as the true
sovereign of the country, and won from thousands a faith not to be
shaken by the discovery of his imposture and the ignominious death which
followed it.
[Sidenote: Henry, (brother of Baldwin,) emperor of Constantinople.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1205.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1207.]
The career of Alexander the Great and of Baldwin was cut short at the
same early age. The reign of Baldwin’s younger brother Henry was extended
over ten years, and closed when he was forty-four years old. It began in
darkness and gloom, it was followed by a time of overwhelming disasters:
but in itself it is the only period in the history of the Latin empire on
which our thoughts may rest with anything approaching to satisfaction.
Twelve months had passed while he acted as regent for his brother before
he could be brought to believe that Baldwin no longer lived, and to
assume the imperial title. Dandolo had already ended his long life at
Constantinople. Boniface of Montferrat was soon to follow him, after his
disputes with the emperor on points of homage had been settled by the
marriage of Henry to his daughter Agnes. Boniface died in a war with
Calo-John; and with him his friend Geoffrey of Villehardouin disappears
from history.
[Sidenote: Assassination of Calo-John.]
[Sidenote: Wise government of the emperor Henry.]
But the tide was now to turn against the Bulgarian chief. The Greeks, who
had looked to Calo-John as to one who would restore to them their freedom
and their laws, found that they were dealing with a savage whose mind
ran on massacre and on those wholesale deportations of conquered tribes
which have in all ages delighted the hearts of Eastern despots. The
cruelties of the tyrant taught them that in the Latin emperor they might
perhaps find a friend. At their prayer for help Henry took the field with
a dangerously scanty force; and the retreat of Calo-John was probably
caused less through fear of the Latin army than by the desertion of his
Comans. Not long afterwards the Bulgarian chief was killed in his tent,
while besieging Thessalonica. With his successor Vorylas Henry made an
honourable peace; a treaty with the Greek sovereigns of Nice and Epirus
(Epeiros) left to him undisturbed possession of an ample territory; and
the rest of his life was spent in conscientious efforts for its just and
orderly government. Clearly seeing the fatal folly of that exclusive
system which was so dear to the hearts of crusaders generally, Henry
resolved to govern Greeks through Greeks. The great offices of the state
were thrown open to them, in great part filled by them. To the tyranny
which repressed the use of the Eastern liturgy and thrust on the people a
theological dogma he opposed a passive resistance: to the theory of papal
supremacy he gave a significant answer by having his throne placed on the
right hand of the patriarch’s chair in the church of Sancta Sophia. His
presumption was rebuked by Innocent III.; but Henry was none the more
deterred from prohibiting the alienation of fiefs which was adding only
to the wealth and power of the clergy.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1207. Death of Henry.]
[Sidenote: Peter of Courtenay emperor of Constantinople.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1218. Captivity and death of Peter of Courtenay.]
Henry died at Thessalonica; and with him the male line of the counts of
Flanders came to an end. But the daughter of Henry’s sister Yolande was
married to Andrew, king of Hungary; and to the Latins it seemed that the
choice of a powerful sovereign as their emperor might be the salvation
of their dynasty. The prize had no attractions for Andrew: and the offer
of the crown was in a fatal hour accepted by Peter of Courtenay, count
of Auxerre, the husband of Yolande herself, who had won his spurs in a
crusade, not against Turks and Saracens, but against the Albigensian
heretics of Provence. To raise a decent force which might guard him on
the march to his capital Peter was compelled to sell or mortgage the best
part of his territories; and when he reached Rome, the pope, Honorius
III., careful to avoid anything which might seem to recognize his
authority over the old imperial city, crowned him in a church without the
walls. The means of transport across the sea he had been obliged to seek
from the Venetians. They were granted, but under conditions similar to
those which had been imposed on Baldwin and his allies. He must recover
Durazzo for the republic, as for her they had conquered Zara. His success
was not greater than that of Bohemond, and his miserable march from
Durazzo led him into trackless mountains, amongst which he fell into the
hands of his enemies. With him the papal legate became a captive.
At once the pope threatened to place the Epirot sovereign under his ban;
but it soon became evident that his anxiety was for the legate, not for
the emperor. The former was released; the latter was probably murdered in
prison; and the successor of Henry died without seeing the city of which
he was the Cæsar.
[Sidenote: Robert, emperor of Constantinople.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1219.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1224.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1228.]
While Peter of Courtenay pined in his dungeon, his wife Yolande, in the
midst of her grief, anxiety, and apprehension, gave birth to Baldwin, the
luckless child with whom the Latin dynasty was to reach its close. Death
soon brought relief from her sorrows; and the barons had again before
them the task of choosing an emperor. Namur, the inheritance of Yolande,
had passed to her eldest son Philip, who was too prudent to change the
substance of his principality for the shadow of an empire. The crown was
offered to her second son Robert, who set out on his journey, by way of
Germany and the Danube, through the territories of his brother-in-law,
the king of Hungary. He was crowned by the patriarch in Justinian’s
church; but the pageant preceded an endless line of disasters. Demetrius,
the son and successor of the marquis Boniface, was expelled from his
kingdom of Thessalonica: and the remains of Asiatic territory still in
the hands of the Latins were seized by the Nicæan emperor, John Vataces,
the son-in-law of Theodore Lascaris. Still more ominous was the fact
that these conquests were achieved by the aid of French mercenaries. The
house was indeed divided against itself; and the champions of the cross
had learnt the art of turning their arms to profit in the service of the
highest bidder or the most successful general. To disaster in the field
was added vice, with its issue crime, in the palace: and Robert, in an
agony of grief and rage at the mutilation of a woman for whom he had
wished to thrust aside his wife, the daughter of Vataces, sought comfort
and redress at the feet of the Roman pontiff. He was told to go back to
his capital and there do his duty. The weight of his humiliation was a
burden beyond his strength. Death relieved him from the duty of obedience
to the papal order.
[Sidenote: John of Brienne, emperor of Constantinople.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1235. Siege of Constantinople by Vataces.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1237-1261. Baldwin II., emperor of Constantinople.]
[Sidenote: Efforts to raise money.]
[Sidenote: Sale of relics.]
Baldwin, the youngest son of Yolande, was a child only seven years old
when Robert died; and the barons of the Latin empire felt that the
imperial power, shadowy though it had become, could not yet be entrusted
to his hands. They resolved to offer it in the mean season to John of
Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem, by right of his wife Mary, daughter
of Isabella (p. 144) and Conrad of Montferrat, and grand-daughter of king
Almeric. This veteran warrior, now more than eighty years of age, whom
in his earlier years we shall meet in the crusade of Frederick II., was
induced to accept the title of emperor on condition that Baldwin should
marry his second daughter and succeed him on the throne. But his energy
was impaired, whether by age or by desire for rest. He did not reach
Constantinople till 1231, two years after his election: and the Greek
traditions are silent about the exploits which he is said by the Latins
to have performed during a siege of the city by the forces of Vataces
and the Bulgarian chief Azan. On his death began the ignominious reign
of the second Baldwin, a reign of twenty-five years, most of which were
spent in foreign lands for the purpose of exciting pity for his sorrows
and raising alms to relieve his needs. His success was not equal to his
importunities. If at the council of Lyons which excommunicated Frederick
II. he was placed on the right hand of the pope, at Dover he was asked
how he could presume without leave to enter an independent territory.
In England he received 700 marks: at Rome the pontiff loaded him with
indulgences and proclaimed a crusade in his favour. The sainted Louis
of France was moved to tears of sympathy by the story of his wrongs:
but his arms were directed to Egypt, not to Constantinople. Still, by
alienating his marquisate of Namur and his lordship of Courtenay, he
contrived to return to the East with an army of 30,000 men. But the next
scene of his history exhibits him as the ally of the sultan of Iconium,
on whom he bestowed his niece, and of the Comans, in whose pagan rites
he did not hesitate to take part. His needs became more pressing, and he
bethought him of the sacred relics which still remained in the churches
of Constantinople. Of these the most precious was the crown of thorns
which had circled the brow of the Redeemer, and for which he received
from Louis IX. 10,000 marks of silver. At smaller prices he disposed
of the baby linen used by the Virgin Mary in the cave of Bethlehem, the
lance and sponge used in the Passion on Calvary, and the rod of Moses,
all of which, with some others, were transferred to the exquisite chapel
in Paris which still attests the munificence and perfect taste of the
sainted king of France.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1255. Death of Vataces.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1259. The envoys of Baldwin repelled by Michael
Paleologos.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1261. July. Recovery of Constantinople by the Greeks.]
Meanwhile the power of Vataces was being extended on every side: and
only his submission to the Roman doctrine respecting the procession of
the Holy Spirit was needed to secure a papal declaration in his favour.
That submission was not made; and his death brought a respite to the
Latin emperor. But when Baldwin sent his envoys to see what territorial
concessions could be obtained from Michael Paleologos, the colleague
and guardian of John, the grandson of Vataces, they were curtly told
that he would yield them not a foot of land. By the payment of an
annual tribute amounting to the whole sum received from the customs
and excise of Constantinople the Latin Cæsar might secure peace: if he
refused these terms, he must prepare for war. The great quarrel was soon
decided. Michael had bestowed the title of Cæsar on his general Alexios
Strategopoulos; and by his orders this general went to keep close watch
on the capital, under the pledge that he would run no dangerous risks.
He failed to keep his promise, and when with a scanty band of followers
he clambered over the unguarded walls, he began to tremble at his own
rashness. But his volunteers (for so they were termed) would listen to
no arguments for retreat. The die was cast, and the result was victory.
The Greeks rose on all hands at the cry which called them to the rescue
of their ancient empire; the Genoese were not unwilling to take revenge
upon their Venetian enemies; and the Latin emperor with his chief
vassals, embarking on board the Venetian fleet, sailed first to Euboia
and thence to Italy. The capital of the Eastern empire was freed from
the presence and the yoke of its Western conquerors; but for thirteen
years longer Baldwin bore about with him an empty title which won for him
the commiseration or the contempt of thousands who could not be brought
to stir hand or foot in his service. His pretensions were maintained by
his son Philip, and through his grand-daughter Catharine passed to her
husband Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the Fair of France.
[Sidenote: Permanent alienation of the East from the West.]
Next after, perhaps even before, the deliverance of the Holy Land and
the restoration of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, the wish dearest to
the heart of Innocent III. was the recovery of the Greek communion to
the unity of the Church. He was also statesman enough to see that his
wishes would best be realized by a closer union between the subjects of
the Eastern and the Western empires. The death-blow to these hopes and
yearnings was dealt by his own crusade. In itself, and in the events
which followed it, not a single thing was lacking which could exaggerate
suspicion into vehement jealousy, and intensify dislike into burning
hatred. There was the merciless intolerance which regarded Christian
patriarchs with their clergy and their laity as heathens because they
questioned the supremacy of the pope and refused to add one word to one
proposition in the Nicene creed. There was the cruelty which intruded
strangers into the places of those who had taught and ministered to the
people, and which suppressed a ritual hallowed by the associations of
ages. There was the gross injustice which thrust Greeks out of every
high, or responsible, or lucrative office, and which imposed on them a
system of law utterly alien to their wishes, thoughts, and habits. There
was the savage fury which had made the streets of the capital run with
blood, and defiled its sanctuaries with blasphemy and massacre. Last, but
perhaps not least, was the brutality which had shattered or committed to
the flames all that was beautiful in art, costly in materials, exquisite
in workmanship, precious from its rarity or the absolute impossibility of
restoring it. The tombs of the emperors were burst open and rifled: the
masterpieces of ancient sculptors were thrown down and shattered. In the
Venetians alone the impulse to destroy was weaker than the temptation to
theft, and the horses of Lysippos, borne across the sea to Venice, still
stand above the gorgeous portals of the basilica of St. Mark. The Greeks
were left with a bitter hatred of the laws, the customs, the government
of Latin Christendom; and an impassable gulf remained yawning between the
churches of the East and the West, which no efforts have thus far been
able to close or to bridge over.