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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of The Decline and Fall of the
+Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
+       Volume 6
+
+Author: Edward Gibbon
+
+Commentator: H. H. Milman
+
+Posting Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #895]
+Release Date: April, 1997
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Reed and Dale R. Fredrickson
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
+
+Edward Gibbon, Esq.
+
+With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
+
+Vol. 6 (complete)
+
+1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
+
+
+     Transcriber's Note
+
+     This is the sixth volume of the six volumes of Edward Gibbon's History
+     Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. If you find any errors
+     please feel free to notify me of them. I want to make this the best
+     etext edition possible for both scholars and the general public. I
+     would like to thank those who have helped in making this text better.
+     Especially Dale R. Fredrickson who has hand entered the Greek characters
+     in the footnotes and who has suggested retaining the conjoined ae
+     character in the text. Haradda@aol.com and davidr@inconnect.com are my
+     email addresses for now. Please feel free to send me your comments and I
+     hope you enjoy this.
+
+     David Reed
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LIX: The Crusades.--Part I.
+
+     Preservation Of The Greek Empire.--Numbers, Passage, And
+     Event, Of The Second And Third Crusades.--St. Bernard.--
+     Reign Of Saladin In Egypt And Syria.--His Conquest Of
+     Jerusalem.--Naval Crusades.--Richard The First Of England.--
+     Pope Innocent The Third; And The Fourth And Fifth Crusades.--
+     The Emperor Frederic The Second.--Louis The Ninth Of
+     France; And The Two Last Crusades.--Expulsion Of The Latins
+     Or Franks By The Mamelukes.
+
+In a style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps compare the
+emperor Alexius [1] to the jackal, who is said to follow the steps, and
+to devour the leavings, of the lion. Whatever had been his fears and
+toils in the passage of the first crusade, they were amply recompensed
+by the subsequent benefits which he derived from the exploits of the
+Franks. His dexterity and vigilance secured their first conquest of
+Nice; and from this threatening station the Turks were compelled to
+evacuate the neighborhood of Constantinople. While the crusaders, with
+blind valor, advanced into the midland countries of Asia, the crafty
+Greek improved the favorable occasion when the emirs of the sea-coast
+were recalled to the standard of the sultan. The Turks were driven from
+the Isles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of Ephesus and Smyrna, of
+Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were restored to the empire, which
+Alexius enlarged from the Hellespont to the banks of the Męander, and
+the rocky shores of Pamphylia. The churches resumed their splendor: the
+towns were rebuilt and fortified; and the desert country was peopled
+with colonies of Christians, who were gently removed from the more
+distant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we may forgive
+Alexius, if he forgot the deliverance of the holy sepulchre; but, by
+the Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul reproach of treason and
+desertion. They had sworn fidelity and obedience to his throne; but _he_
+had promised to assist their enterprise in person, or, at least, with
+his troops and treasures: his base retreat dissolved their obligations;
+and the sword, which had been the instrument of their victory, was the
+pledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear that
+the emperor attempted to revive his obsolete claims over the kingdom of
+Jerusalem; [2] but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were more recent in
+his possession, and more accessible to his arms. The great army of the
+crusaders was annihilated or dispersed; the principality of Antioch
+was left without a head, by the surprise and captivity of Bohemond; his
+ransom had oppressed him with a heavy debt; and his Norman followers
+were insufficient to repel the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. In
+this distress, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of leaving
+the defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful Tancred; of arming
+the West against the Byzantine empire; and of executing the design which
+he inherited from the lessons and example of his father Guiscard.
+His embarkation was clandestine: and, if we may credit a tale of the
+princess Anne, he passed the hostile sea closely secreted in a coffin.
+[3] But his reception in France was dignified by the public applause, and
+his marriage with the king's daughter: his return was glorious, since
+the bravest spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran command; and
+he repassed the Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse and forty
+thousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates of Europe. [4] The
+strength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius, the progress of famine
+and approach of winter, eluded his ambitious hopes; and the venal
+confederates were seduced from his standard. A treaty of peace [5]
+suspended the fears of the Greeks; and they were finally delivered by
+the death of an adversary, whom neither oaths could bind, nor dangers
+could appal, nor prosperity could satiate. His children succeeded to the
+principality of Antioch; but the boundaries were strictly defined, the
+homage was clearly stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus and Malmistra
+were restored to the Byzantine emperors. Of the coast of Anatolia, they
+possessed the entire circuit from Trebizond to the Syrian gates. The
+Seljukian dynasty of Roum [6] was separated on all sides from the sea
+and their Mussulman brethren; the power of the sultan was shaken by
+the victories and even the defeats of the Franks; and after the loss of
+Nice, they removed their throne to Cogni or Iconium, an obscure and in
+land town above three hundred miles from Constantinople. [7] Instead of
+trembling for their capital, the Comnenian princes waged an offensive
+war against the Turks, and the first crusade prevented the fall of the
+declining empire.
+
+[Footnote 1: Anna Comnena relates her father's conquests in Asia Minor
+Alexiad, l. xi. p. 321--325, l. xiv. p. 419; his Cilician war against
+Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328--324; the war of Epirus, with tedious
+prolixity, l. xii. xiii. p. 345--406; the death of Bohemond, l. xiv. p.
+419.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a nominal
+dependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one is still
+legible in the church of Bethlem,) they respectfully placed before
+their own the name of the reigning emperor, (Ducange, Dissertations sur
+Joinville xxvii. p. 319.)]
+
+[Footnote 3: Anna Comnena adds, that, to complete the imitation, he was
+shut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder how the Barbarian
+could endure the confinement and putrefaction. This absurd tale is
+unknown to the Latins. * Note: The Greek writers, in general, Zonaras,
+p. 2, 303, and Glycas, p. 334 agree in this story with the princess
+Anne, except in the absurd addition of the dead cock. Ducange has
+already quoted some instances where a similar stratagem had been adopted
+by _Norman_ princes. On this authority Wilken inclines to believe the
+fact. Appendix to vol. ii. p. 14.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 4: 'Apo QulhV in the Byzantine geography, must mean England;
+yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I. would not suffer
+him to levy any troops in his kingdom, (Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad. p.
+41.)]
+
+[Footnote 5: The copy of the treaty (Alexiad. l. xiii. p. 406--416) is
+an original and curious piece, which would require, and might afford, a
+good map of the principality of Antioch.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes, (tom. ii. part
+ii.,) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and Damascus,
+as far as it may be collected from the Greeks, Latins, and Arabians. The
+last are ignorant or regardless of the affairs of _Roum_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and by
+Strabo, with an ambiguous title of KwmopoliV, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p.
+121.) Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude (plhqoV) of Jews
+and Gentiles. under the corrupt name of _Kunijah_, it is described as a
+great city, with a river and garden, three leagues from the mountains,
+and decorated (I know not why) with Plato's tomb, (Abulfeda, tabul.
+xvii. p. 303 vers. Reiske; and the Index Geographicus of Schultens from
+Ibn Said.)]
+
+In the twelfth century, three great emigrations marched by land from the
+West for the relief of Palestine. The soldiers and pilgrims of Lombardy,
+France, and Germany were excited by the example and success of the
+first crusade. [8] Forty-eight years after the deliverance of the holy
+sepulchre, the emperor, and the French king, Conrad the Third and
+Louis the Seventh, undertook the second crusade to support the falling
+fortunes of the Latins. [9] A grand division of the third crusade was
+led by the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, [10] who sympathized with his
+brothers of France and England in the common loss of Jerusalem. These
+three expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of the greatness
+of numbers, their passage through the Greek empire, and the nature
+and event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief parallel may save the
+repetition of a tedious narrative. However splendid it may seem, a
+regular story of the crusades would exhibit the perpetual return of the
+same causes and effects; and the frequent attempts for the defence or
+recovery of the Holy Land would appear so many faint and unsuccessful
+copies of the original.
+
+[Footnote 8: For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anna Comnena,
+(Alexias, l. xi. p. 331, &c., and the viiith book of Albert Aquensis.)]
+
+[Footnote 9: For the second crusade, of Conrad III. and Louis VII.,
+see William of Tyre, (l. xvi. c. 18--19,) Otho of Frisingen, (l. i. c.
+34--45 59, 60,) Matthew Paris, (Hist. Major. p. 68,) Struvius, (Corpus
+Hist Germanicę, p. 372, 373,) Scriptores Rerum Francicarum ą Duchesne
+tom. iv.: Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, l. i. c. 4, 5, 6, p. 41--48, Cinnamus
+l. ii. p. 41--49.]
+
+[Footnote 10: For the third crusade, of Frederic Barbarossa, see Nicetas
+in Isaac Angel. l. ii. c. 3--8, p. 257--266. Struv. (Corpus. Hist. Germ.
+p. 414,) and two historians, who probably were spectators, Tagino, (in
+Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p. 406--416, edit Struv.,) and the Anonymus de
+Expeditione Asiaticā Fred. I. (in Canisii Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p.
+ii. p. 498--526, edit. Basnage.)]
+
+I. Of the swarms that so closely trod in the footsteps of the first
+pilgrims, the chiefs were equal in rank, though unequal in fame and
+merit, to Godfrey of Bouillon and his fellow-adventurers. At their
+head were displayed the banners of the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, and
+Aquitain; the first a descendant of Hugh Capet, the second, a father
+of the Brunswick line: the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince,
+transported, for the benefit of the Turks, the treasures and ornaments
+of his church and palace; and the veteran crusaders, Hugh the Great and
+Stephen of Chartres, returned to consummate their unfinished vow. The
+huge and disorderly bodies of their followers moved forward in two
+columns; and if the first consisted of two hundred and sixty thousand
+persons, the second might possibly amount to sixty thousand horse and
+one hundred thousand foot. [11] [111] The armies of the second crusade might
+have claimed the conquest of Asia; the nobles of France and Germany
+were animated by the presence of their sovereigns; and both the rank and
+personal character of Conrad and Louis gave a dignity to their cause,
+and a discipline to their force, which might be vainly expected from the
+feudatory chiefs. The cavalry of the emperor, and that of the king,
+was each composed of seventy thousand knights, and their immediate
+attendants in the field; [12] and if the light-armed troops, the peasant
+infantry, the women and children, the priests and monks, be rigorously
+excluded, the full account will scarcely be satisfied with four hundred
+thousand souls. The West, from Rome to Britain, was called into action;
+the kings of Poland and Bohemia obeyed the summons of Conrad; and it is
+affirmed by the Greeks and Latins, that, in the passage of a strait
+or river, the Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred thousand,
+desisted from the endless and formidable computation. [13] In the third
+crusade, as the French and English preferred the navigation of the
+Mediterranean, the host of Frederic Barbarossa was less numerous.
+Fifteen thousand knights, and as many squires, were the flower of the
+German chivalry: sixty thousand horse, and one hundred thousand foot,
+were mustered by the emperor in the plains of Hungary; and after such
+repetitions, we shall no longer be startled at the six hundred thousand
+pilgrims, which credulity has ascribed to this last emigration. [14] Such
+extravagant reckonings prove only the astonishment of contemporaries;
+but their astonishment most strongly bears testimony to the existence
+of an enormous, though indefinite, multitude. The Greeks might applaud
+their superior knowledge of the arts and stratagems of war, but they
+confessed the strength and courage of the French cavalry, and the
+infantry of the Germans; [15] and the strangers are described as an iron
+race, of gigantic stature, who darted fire from their eyes, and spilt
+blood like water on the ground. Under the banners of Conrad, a troop of
+females rode in the attitude and armor of men; and the chief of these
+Amazons, from her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of the
+Golden-footed Dame.
+
+[Footnote 11: Anne, who states these later swarms at 40,000 horse and
+100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their head two brothers
+of Flanders. The Greeks were strangely ignorant of the names, families,
+and possessions of the Latin princes.]
+
+[Footnote 111: It was this army of pilgrims, the first body of which was
+headed by the archbishop of Milan and Count Albert of Blandras, which
+set forth on the wild, yet, with a more disciplined army, not impolitic,
+enterprise of striking at the heart of the Mahometan power, by attacking
+the sultan in Bagdad. For their adventures and fate, see Wilken, vol.
+ii. p. 120, &c., Michaud, book iv.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 12: William of Tyre, and Matthew Paris, reckon 70,000 loricati
+in each of the armies.]
+
+[Footnote 13: The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus,
+(ennenhkonta muriadeV,) and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo apud Ducange ad
+Cinnamum, with the more precise sum of 900,556. Why must therefore the
+version and comment suppose the modest and insufficient reckoning of
+90,000? Does not Godfrey of Viterbo (Pantheon, p. xix. in Muratori, tom.
+vii. p. 462) exclaim?
+----Numerum si poscere quęras,
+Millia millena militis agmen erat.]
+
+[Footnote 14: This extravagant account is given by Albert of Stade,
+(apud Struvium, p. 414;) my calculation is borrowed from Godfrey of
+Viterbo, Arnold of Lubeck, apud eundem, and Bernard Thesaur. (c. 169, p.
+804.) The original writers are silent. The Mahometans gave him 200,000,
+or 260,000, men, (Bohadin, in Vit. Saladin, p. 110.)]
+
+[Footnote 15: I must observe, that, in the second and third crusades,
+the subjects of Conrad and Frederic are styled by the Greeks and
+Orientals _Alamanni_. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus are the Poles
+and Bohemians; and it is for the French that he reserves the ancient
+appellation of Germans. He likewise names the Brittioi, or Britannoi. *
+Note: * He names both--Brittioi te kai Britanoi.--M.]
+
+II. The number and character of the strangers was an object of terror
+to the effeminate Greeks, and the sentiment of fear is nearly allied
+to that of hatred. This aversion was suspended or softened by the
+apprehension of the Turkish power; and the invectives of the Latins will
+not bias our more candid belief, that the emperor Alexius dissembled
+their insolence, eluded their hostilities, counselled their rashness,
+and opened to their ardor the road of pilgrimage and conquest. But
+when the Turks had been driven from Nice and the sea-coast, when the
+Byzantine princes no longer dreaded the distant sultans of Cogni, they
+felt with purer indignation the free and frequent passage of the western
+Barbarians, who violated the majesty, and endangered the safety, of the
+empire. The second and third crusades were undertaken under the reign
+of Manuel Comnenus and Isaac Angelus. Of the former, the passions were
+always impetuous, and often malevolent; and the natural union of a
+cowardly and a mischievous temper was exemplified in the latter, who,
+without merit or mercy, could punish a tyrant, and occupy his throne. It
+was secretly, and perhaps tacitly, resolved by the prince and people to
+destroy, or at least to discourage, the pilgrims, by every species
+of injury and oppression; and their want of prudence and discipline
+continually afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The Western
+monarchs had stipulated a safe passage and fair market in the country
+of their Christian brethren; the treaty had been ratified by oaths and
+hostages; and the poorest soldier of Frederic's army was furnished with
+three marks of silver to defray his expenses on the road. But every
+engagement was violated by treachery and injustice; and the complaints
+of the Latins are attested by the honest confession of a Greek
+historian, who has dared to prefer truth to his country. [16] Instead
+of a hospitable reception, the gates of the cities, both in Europe and
+Asia, were closely barred against the crusaders; and the scanty pittance
+of food was let down in baskets from the walls. Experience or foresight
+might excuse this timid jealousy; but the common duties of humanity
+prohibited the mixture of chalk, or other poisonous ingredients, in
+the bread; and should Manuel be acquitted of any foul connivance, he
+is guilty of coining base money for the purpose of trading with the
+pilgrims. In every step of their march they were stopped or misled: the
+governors had private orders to fortify the passes and break down the
+bridges against them: the stragglers were pillaged and murdered:
+the soldiers and horses were pierced in the woods by arrows from an
+invisible hand; the sick were burnt in their beds; and the dead bodies
+were hung on gibbets along the highways. These injuries exasperated the
+champions of the cross, who were not endowed with evangelical patience;
+and the Byzantine princes, who had provoked the unequal conflict,
+promoted the embarkation and march of these formidable guests. On the
+verge of the Turkish frontier Barbarossa spared the guilty Philadelphia,
+[17] rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and deplored the hard necessity
+that had stained his sword with any drops of Christian blood. In their
+intercourse with the monarchs of Germany and France, the pride of the
+Greeks was exposed to an anxious trial. They might boast that on the
+first interview the seat of Louis was a low stool, beside the throne
+of Manuel; [18] but no sooner had the French king transported his army
+beyond the Bosphorus, than he refused the offer of a second conference,
+unless his brother would meet him on equal terms, either on the sea or
+land. With Conrad and Frederic, the ceremonial was still nicer and more
+difficult: like the successors of Constantine, they styled themselves
+emperors of the Romans; [19] and firmly maintained the purity of their
+title and dignity. The first of these representatives of Charlemagne
+would only converse with Manuel on horseback in the open field; the
+second, by passing the Hellespont rather than the Bosphorus, declined
+the view of Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor, who had
+been crowned at Rome, was reduced in the Greek epistles to the humble
+appellation of _Rex_, or prince, of the Alemanni; and the vain and
+feeble Angelus affected to be ignorant of the name of one of the
+greatest men and monarchs of the age. While they viewed with hatred and
+suspicion the Latin pilgrims the Greek emperors maintained a strict,
+though secret, alliance with the Turks and Saracens. Isaac Angelus
+complained, that by his friendship for the great Saladin he had incurred
+the enmity of the Franks; and a mosque was founded at Constantinople for
+the public exercise of the religion of Mahomet. [20]
+
+[Footnote 16: Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but in
+the third he commanded against the Franks the important post of
+Philippopolis. Cinnamus is infected with national prejudice and pride.]
+
+[Footnote 17: The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by Nicetas,
+while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his countrymen,
+(culpā nostrā.) History would be pleasant, if we were embarrassed only
+by _such_ contradictions. It is likewise from Nicetas, that we learn the
+pious and humane sorrow of Frederic.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Cqamalh edra, which Cinnamus translates into Latin by the
+word Sellion. Ducange works very hard to save his king and country from
+such ignominy, (sur Joinville, dissertat. xxvii. p. 317--320.) Louis
+afterwards insisted on a meeting in mari ex ęquo, not ex equo, according
+to the laughable readings of some MSS.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum, (Anonym
+Canis. p. 512.) The public and historical style of the Greeks was
+Rhx... _princeps_. Yet Cinnamus owns, that 'Imperatwr is synonymous to
+BasileuV.]
+
+[Footnote 20: In the Epistles of Innocent III., (xiii. p. 184,) and the
+History of Bohadin, (p. 129, 130,) see the views of a pope and a cadhi
+on this _singular_toleration.]
+
+III. The swarms that followed the first crusade were destroyed in
+Anatolia by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish arrows; and the princes
+only escaped with some squadrons of horse to accomplish their lamentable
+pilgrimage. A just opinion may be formed of their knowledge and
+humanity; of their knowledge, from the design of subduing Persia and
+Chorasan in their way to Jerusalem; [201] of their humanity, from the
+massacre of the Christian people, a friendly city, who came out to meet
+them with palms and crosses in their hands. The arms of Conrad and Louis
+were less cruel and imprudent; but the event of the second crusade was
+still more ruinous to Christendom; and the Greek Manuel is accused by
+his own subjects of giving seasonable intelligence to the sultan, and
+treacherous guides to the Latin princes. Instead of crushing the common
+foe, by a double attack at the same time but on different sides,
+the Germans were urged by emulation, and the French were retarded by
+jealousy. Louis had scarcely passed the Bosphorus when he was met by
+the returning emperor, who had lost the greater part of his army in
+glorious, but unsuccessful, actions on the banks of the Męander. The
+contrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the retreat of Conrad: [202]
+the desertion of his independent vassals reduced him to his hereditary
+troops; and he borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea the
+pilgrimage of Palestine. Without studying the lessons of experience,
+or the nature of the war, the king of France advanced through the same
+country to a similar fate. The vanguard, which bore the royal banner and
+the oriflamme of St. Denys, [21] had doubled their march with rash and
+inconsiderate speed; and the rear, which the king commanded in person,
+no longer found their companions in the evening camp. In darkness and
+disorder, they were encompassed, assaulted, and overwhelmed, by the
+innumerable host of Turks, who, in the art of war, were superior to the
+Christians of the twelfth century. [211] Louis, who climbed a tree in the
+general discomfiture, was saved by his own valor and the ignorance of
+his adversaries; and with the dawn of day he escaped alive, but
+almost alone, to the camp of the vanguard. But instead of pursuing his
+expedition by land, he was rejoiced to shelter the relics of his army
+in the friendly seaport of Satalia. From thence he embarked for Antioch;
+but so penurious was the supply of Greek vessels, that they could
+only afford room for his knights and nobles; and the plebeian crowd of
+infantry was left to perish at the foot of the Pamphylian hills. The
+emperor and the king embraced and wept at Jerusalem; their martial
+trains, the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to the Christian
+powers of Syria, and a fruitless siege of Damascus was the final effort
+of the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe with the
+personal fame of piety and courage; but the Orientals had braved these
+potent monarchs of the Franks, with whose names and military forces they
+had been so often threatened. [22] Perhaps they had still more to fear
+from the veteran genius of Frederic the First, who in his youth had
+served in Asia under his uncle Conrad. Forty campaigns in Germany and
+Italy had taught Barbarossa to command; and his soldiers, even the
+princes of the empire, were accustomed under his reign to obey. As soon
+as he lost sight of Philadelphia and Laodicea, the last cities of the
+Greek frontier, he plunged into the salt and barren desert, a land (says
+the historian) of horror and tribulation. [23] During twenty days, every
+step of his fainting and sickly march was besieged by the innumerable
+hordes of Turkmans, [24] whose numbers and fury seemed after each defeat
+to multiply and inflame. The emperor continued to struggle and to
+suffer; and such was the measure of his calamities, that when he reached
+the gates of Iconium, no more than one thousand knights were able to
+serve on horseback. By a sudden and resolute assault he defeated the
+guards, and stormed the capital of the sultan, [25] who humbly sued for
+pardon and peace. The road was now open, and Frederic advanced in a
+career of triumph, till he was unfortunately drowned in a petty torrent
+of Cilicia. [26] The remainder of his Germans was consumed by sickness
+and desertion: and the emperor's son expired with the greatest part
+of his Swabian vassals at the siege of Acre. Among the Latin heroes,
+Godfrey of Bouillon and Frederic Barbarossa could alone achieve the
+passage of the Lesser Asia; yet even their success was a warning; and
+in the last and most experienced age of the crusades, every nation
+preferred the sea to the toils and perils of an inland expedition. [27]
+
+[Footnote 201: This was the design of the pilgrims under the archbishop of
+Milan. See note, p. 102.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 202: Conrad had advanced with part of his army along a central
+road, between that on the coast and that which led to Iconium. He
+had been betrayed by the Greeks, his army destroyed without a battle.
+Wilken, vol. iii. p. 165. Michaud, vol. ii. p. 156. Conrad advanced
+again with Louis as far as Ephesus, and from thence, at the invitation
+of Manuel, returned to Constantinople. It was Louis who, at the passage
+of the Męander, was engaged in a "glorious action." Wilken, vol. iii. p.
+179. Michaud vol. ii. p. 160. Gibbon followed Nicetas.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 21: As counts of Vexin, the kings of France were the vassals
+and advocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint's peculiar
+banner, which they received from the abbot, was of a square form, and
+a red or _flaming_ color. The _oriflamme_ appeared at the head of
+the French armies from the xiith to the xvth century, (Ducange sur
+Joinville, Dissert. xviii. p. 244--253.)]
+
+[Footnote 211: They descended the heights to a beautiful valley which
+by beneath them. The Turks seized the heights which separated the two
+divisions of the army. The modern historians represent differently the
+act to which Louis owed his safety, which Gibbon has described by the
+undignified phrase, "he climbed a tree." According to Michaud, vol.
+ii. p. 164, the king got upon a rock, with his back against a tree;
+according to Wilken, vol. iii., he dragged himself up to the top of
+the rock by the roots of a tree, and continued to defend himself till
+nightfall.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 22: The original French histories of the second crusade are
+the Gesta Ludovici VII. published in the ivth volume of Duchesne's
+collection. The same volume contains many original letters of the king,
+of Suger his minister, &c., the best documents of authentic history.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Terram horroris et salsuginis, terram siccam sterilem,
+inamnam. Anonym. Canis. p. 517. The emphatic language of a sufferer.]
+
+[Footnote 24: Gens innumera, sylvestris, indomita, prędones sine
+ductore. The sultan of Cogni might sincerely rejoice in their defeat.
+Anonym. Canis. p. 517, 518.]
+
+[Footnote 25: See, in the anonymous writer in the Collection of
+Canisius, Tagino and Bohadin, (Vit. Saladin. p. 119, 120,) the ambiguous
+conduct of Kilidge Arslan, sultan of Cogni, who hated and feared both
+Saladin and Frederic.]
+
+[Footnote 26: The desire of comparing two great men has tempted many
+writers to drown Frederic in the River Cydnus, in which Alexander so
+imprudently bathed, (Q. Curt. l. iii c. 4, 5.) But, from the march of
+the emperor, I rather judge, that his Saleph is the Calycadnus, a stream
+of less fame, but of a longer course. * Note: It is now called the
+Girama: its course is described in M'Donald Kinneir's Travels.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Marinus Sanutus, A.D. 1321, lays it down as a precept,
+Quod stolus ecclesię per terram nullatenus est ducenda. He resolves,
+by the divine aid, the objection, or rather exception, of the first
+crusade, (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. pars ii. c. i. p. 37.)]
+
+The enthusiasm of the first crusade is a natural and simple event, while
+hope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise congenial to the spirit
+of the times. But the obstinate perseverance of Europe may indeed excite
+our pity and admiration; that no instruction should have been drawn from
+constant and adverse experience; that the same confidence should have
+repeatedly grown from the same failures; that six succeeding generations
+should have rushed headlong down the precipice that was open before
+them; and that men of every condition should have staked their public
+and private fortunes on the desperate adventure of possessing or
+recovering a tombstone two thousand miles from their country. In a
+period of two centuries after the council of Clermont, each spring and
+summer produced a new emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence of
+the Holy Land; but the seven great armaments or crusades were excited
+by some impending or recent calamity: the nations were moved by the
+authority of their pontiffs, and the example of their kings: their zeal
+was kindled, and their reason was silenced, by the voice of their holy
+orators; and among these, Bernard, [28] the monk, or the saint, may claim
+the most honorable place. [281] About eight years before the first conquest
+of Jerusalem, he was born of a noble family in Burgundy; at the age of
+three-and-twenty he buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux, then in
+the primitive fervor of the institution; at the end of two years he led
+forth her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux [29] in
+Champagne; and was content, till the hour of his death, with the humble
+station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age has abolished,
+with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the honors of these
+spiritual heroes. The meanest among them are distinguished by some
+energies of the mind; they were at least superior to their votaries and
+disciples; and, in the race of superstition, they attained the prize for
+which such numbers contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernard
+stood high above his rivals and contemporaries; his compositions are
+not devoid of wit and eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as much
+reason and humanity as may be reconciled with the character of a saint.
+In a secular life, he would have shared the seventh part of a private
+inheritance; by a vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes
+against the visible world, [30] by the refusal of all ecclesiastical
+dignities, the abbot of Clairvaux became the oracle of Europe, and the
+founder of one hundred and sixty convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled
+at the freedom of his apostolical censures: France, England, and Milan,
+consulted and obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church: the debt
+was repaid by the gratitude of Innocent the Second; and his successor,
+Eugenius the Third, was the friend and disciple of the holy Bernard.
+It was in the proclamation of the second crusade that he shone as the
+missionary and prophet of God, who called the nations to the defence of
+his holy sepulchre. [31] At the parliament of Vezelay he spoke before
+the king; and Louis the Seventh, with his nobles, received their crosses
+from his hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy
+conquest of the emperor Conrad: [311] a phlegmatic people, ignorant of
+his language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone and
+gestures; and his progress, from Constance to Cologne, was the
+triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own success in the
+depopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and castles were emptied of
+their inhabitants; and computes, that only one man was left behind for
+the consolation of seven widows. [32] The blind fanatics were desirous of
+electing him for their general; but the example of the hermit Peter was
+before his eyes; and while he assured the crusaders of the divine favor,
+he prudently declined a military command, in which failure and victory
+would have been almost equally disgraceful to his character. [33] Yet,
+after the calamitous event, the abbot of Clairvaux was loudly accused
+as a false prophet, the author of the public and private mourning;
+his enemies exulted, his friends blushed, and his apology was slow and
+unsatisfactory. He justifies his obedience to the commands of the pope;
+expatiates on the mysterious ways of Providence; imputes the misfortunes
+of the pilgrims to their own sins; and modestly insinuates, that his
+mission had been approved by signs and wonders. [34] Had the fact been
+certain, the argument would be decisive; and his faithful disciples,
+who enumerate twenty or thirty miracles in a day, appeal to the public
+assemblies of France and Germany, in which they were performed. [35]
+At the present hour, such prodigies will not obtain credit beyond the
+precincts of Clairvaux; but in the preternatural cures of the blind,
+the lame, and the sick, who were presented to the man of God, it is
+impossible for us to ascertain the separate shares of accident, of
+fancy, of imposture, and of fiction.
+
+[Footnote 28: The most authentic information of St. Bernard must be
+drawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition by Pčre
+Mabillon, and reprinted at Venice, 1750, in six volumes in folio.
+Whatever friendship could recollect, or superstition could add, is
+contained in the two lives, by his disciples, in the vith volume:
+whatever learning and criticism could ascertain, may be found in the
+prefaces of the Benedictine editor.]
+
+[Footnote 281: Gibbon, whose account of the crusades is perhaps the least
+accurate and satisfactory chapter in his History, has here failed in
+that lucid arrangement, which in general gives perspicuity to his most
+condensed and crowded narratives. He has unaccountably, and to the great
+perplexity of the reader, placed the preaching of St Bernard after the
+second crusade to which i led.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Clairvaux, surnamed the valley of Absynth, is situate
+among the woods near Bar sur Aube in Champagne. St. Bernard would blush
+at the pomp of the church and monastery; he would ask for the library,
+and I know not whether he would be much edified by a tun of 800 muids,
+(914 1-7 hogsheads,) which almost rivals that of Heidelberg, (Mélanges
+tirés d'une Grande Bibliothčque, tom. xlvi. p. 15--20.)]
+
+[Footnote 30: The disciples of the saint (Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 2, p.
+1232. Vit. iida, c. 16, No. 45, p. 1383) record a marvellous example
+of his pious apathy. Juxta lacum etiam Lausannensem totius diei itinere
+pergens, penitus non attendit aut se videre non vidit. Cum enim vespere
+facto de eodem lacū socii colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacus
+ille esset, et mirati sunt universi. To admire or despise St. Bernard as
+he ought, the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his
+library the beauties of that incomparable landscape.]
+
+[Footnote 31: Otho Frising. l. i. c. 4. Bernard. Epist. 363, ad Francos
+Orientales Opp. tom. i. p. 328. Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 4, tom. vi. p.
+1235.]
+
+[Footnote 311: Bernard had a nobler object in his expedition into
+Germany--to arrest the fierce and merciless persecution of the Jews,
+which was preparing, under the monk Radulph, to renew the frightful
+scenes which had preceded the first crusade, in the flourishing
+cities on the banks of the Rhine. The Jews acknowledge the Christian
+intervention of St. Bernard. See the curious extract from the History of
+Joseph ben Meir. Wilken, vol. iii. p. 1. and p. 63.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Mandastis et obedivi.... multiplicati sunt super
+numerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et _pene_ jam non inveniunt
+quem apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique viduę vivis
+remanent viris. Bernard. Epist. p. 247. We must be careful not to
+construe _pene_ as a substantive.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante facies
+armatorum, aut quid tam remotum a professione meā, si vires, si peritia,
+&c. Epist. 256, tom. i. p. 259. He speaks with contempt of the hermit
+Peter, vir quidam, Epist. 363.]
+
+[Footnote 34: Sic dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quņd a Domino sermo
+egressus sit? Quę signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est quod ad ista
+ipse respondeam; parcendum verecundię meę, responde tu pro me, et pro te
+ipso, secundum quę vidisti et audisti, et secundum quod te inspiraverit
+Deus. Consolat. l. ii. c. 1. Opp. tom. ii. p. 421--423.]
+
+[Footnote 35: See the testimonies in Vita ima, l. iv. c. 5, 6. Opp. tom.
+vi. p. 1258--1261, l. vi. c. 1--17, p. 1286--1314.]
+
+Omnipotence itself cannot escape the murmurs of its discordant votaries;
+since the same dispensation which was applauded as a deliverance in
+Europe, was deplored, and perhaps arraigned, as a calamity in Asia.
+After the loss of Jerusalem, the Syrian fugitives diffused their
+consternation and sorrow; Bagdad mourned in the dust; the cadhi
+Zeineddin of Damascus tore his beard in the caliph's presence; and the
+whole divan shed tears at his melancholy tale. [36] But the commanders of
+the faithful could only weep; they were themselves captives in the hands
+of the Turks: some temporal power was restored to the last age of the
+Abbassides; but their humble ambition was confined to Bagdad and the
+adjacent province. Their tyrants, the Seljukian sultans, had followed
+the common law of the Asiatic dynasties, the unceasing round of valor,
+greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay; their spirit and power were
+unequal to the defence of religion; and, in his distant realm of Persia,
+the Christians were strangers to the name and the arms of Sangiar, the
+last hero of his race. [37] While the sultans were involved in the silken
+web of the harem, the pious task was undertaken by their slaves, the
+Atabeks, [38] a Turkish name, which, like the Byzantine patricians, may
+be translated by Father of the Prince. Ascansar, a valiant Turk, had
+been the favorite of Malek Shaw, from whom he received the privilege of
+standing on the right hand of the throne; but, in the civil wars that
+ensued on the monarch's death, he lost his head and the government of
+Aleppo. His domestic emirs persevered in their attachment to his son
+Zenghi, who proved his first arms against the Franks in the defeat
+of Antioch: thirty campaigns in the service of the caliph and sultan
+established his military fame; and he was invested with the command of
+Mosul, as the only champion that could avenge the cause of the prophet.
+The public hope was not disappointed: after a siege of twenty-five
+days, he stormed the city of Edessa, and recovered from the Franks their
+conquests beyond the Euphrates: [39] the martial tribes of Curdistan were
+subdued by the independent sovereign of Mosul and Aleppo: his soldiers
+were taught to behold the camp as their only country; they trusted
+to his liberality for their rewards; and their absent families were
+protected by the vigilance of Zenghi. At the head of these veterans,
+his son Noureddin gradually united the Mahometan powers; [391] added the
+kingdom of Damascus to that of Aleppo, and waged a long and successful
+war against the Christians of Syria; he spread his ample reign from the
+Tigris to the Nile, and the Abbassides rewarded their faithful servant
+with all the titles and prerogatives of royalty. The Latins themselves
+were compelled to own the wisdom and courage, and even the justice and
+piety, of this implacable adversary. [40] In his life and government the
+holy warrior revived the zeal and simplicity of the first caliphs.
+Gold and silk were banished from his palace; the use of wine from his
+dominions; the public revenue was scrupulously applied to the public
+service; and the frugal household of Noureddin was maintained from
+his legitimate share of the spoil which he vested in the purchase of a
+private estate. His favorite sultana sighed for some female object of
+expense. "Alas," replied the king, "I fear God, and am no more than the
+treasurer of the Moslems. Their property I cannot alienate; but I still
+possess three shops in the city of Hems: these you may take; and these
+alone can I bestow." His chamber of justice was the terror of the great
+and the refuge of the poor. Some years after the sultan's death, an
+oppressed subject called aloud in the streets of Damascus, "O Noureddin,
+Noureddin, where art thou now? Arise, arise, to pity and protect us!" A
+tumult was apprehended, and a living tyrant blushed or trembled at the
+name of a departed monarch.
+
+[Footnote 36: Abulmahasen apud de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p.
+ii. p. 99.]
+
+[Footnote 37: See his _article_ in the Bibliothčque Orientale of
+D'Herbelot, and De Guignes, tom. ii. p. i. p. 230--261. Such was his
+valor, that he was styled the second Alexander; and such the extravagant
+love of his subjects, that they prayed for the sultan a year after his
+decease. Yet Sangiar might have been made prisoner by the Franks, as
+well as by the Uzes. He reigned near fifty years, (A.D. 1103--1152,) and
+was a munificent patron of Persian poetry.]
+
+[Footnote 38: See the Chronology of the Atabeks of Irak and Syria, in De
+Guignes, tom. i. p. 254; and the reigns of Zenghi and Noureddin in the
+same writer, (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 147--221,) who uses the Arabic text of
+Benelathir, Ben Schouna and Abulfeda; the Bibliothčque Orientale,
+under the articles _Atabeks_ and _Noureddin_, and the Dynasties of
+Abulpharagius, p. 250--267, vers. Pocock.]
+
+[Footnote 39: William of Tyre (l. xvi. c. 4, 5, 7) describes the loss
+of Edessa, and the death of Zenghi. The corruption of his name
+into _Sanguin_, afforded the Latins a comfortable allusion to his
+_sanguinary_ character and end, fit sanguine sanguinolentus.]
+
+[Footnote 391: On Noureddin's conquest of Damascus, see extracts from
+Arabian writers prefixed to the second part of the third volume of
+Wilken.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 40: Noradinus (says William of Tyre, l. xx. 33) maximus
+nominis et fidei Christianę persecutor; princeps tamen justus, vafer,
+providus' et secundum gentis suę traditiones religiosus. To this
+Catholic witness we may add the primate of the Jacobites, (Abulpharag.
+p. 267,) quo non alter erat inter reges vitę ratione magis laudabili,
+aut quę pluribus justitię experimentis abundaret. The true praise of
+kings is after their death, and from the mouth of their enemies.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LIX: The Crusades.--Part II.
+
+By the arms of the Turks and Franks, the Fatimites had been deprived
+of Syria. In Egypt the decay of their character and influence was still
+more essential. Yet they were still revered as the descendants and
+successors of the prophet; they maintained their invisible state in the
+palace of Cairo; and their person was seldom violated by the profane
+eyes of subjects or strangers. The Latin ambassadors [41] have described
+their own introduction, through a series of gloomy passages, and
+glittering porticos: the scene was enlivened by the warbling of birds
+and the murmur of fountains: it was enriched by a display of rich
+furniture and rare animals; of the Imperial treasures, something was
+shown, and much was supposed; and the long order of unfolding doors was
+guarded by black soldiers and domestic eunuchs. The sanctuary of
+the presence chamber was veiled with a curtain; and the vizier, who
+conducted the ambassadors, laid aside the cimeter, and prostrated
+himself three times on the ground; the veil was then removed; and they
+beheld the commander of the faithful, who signified his pleasure to the
+first slave of the throne. But this slave was his master: the viziers or
+sultans had usurped the supreme administration of Egypt; the claims
+of the rival candidates were decided by arms; and the name of the most
+worthy, of the strongest, was inserted in the royal patent of command.
+The factions of Dargham and Shawer alternately expelled each other from
+the capital and country; and the weaker side implored the dangerous
+protection of the sultan of Damascus, or the king of Jerusalem, the
+perpetual enemies of the sect and monarchy of the Fatimites. By his arms
+and religion the Turk was most formidable; but the Frank, in an
+easy, direct march, could advance from Gaza to the Nile; while the
+intermediate situation of his realm compelled the troops of Noureddin
+to wheel round the skirts of Arabia, a long and painful circuit, which
+exposed them to thirst, fatigue, and the burning winds of the desert.
+The secret zeal and ambition of the Turkish prince aspired to reign
+in Egypt under the name of the Abbassides; but the restoration of the
+suppliant Shawer was the ostensible motive of the first expedition; and
+the success was intrusted to the emir Shiracouh, a valiant and veteran
+commander. Dargham was oppressed and slain; but the ingratitude, the
+jealousy, the just apprehensions, of his more fortunate rival, soon
+provoked him to invite the king of Jerusalem to deliver Egypt from
+his insolent benefactors. To this union the forces of Shiracouh were
+unequal: he relinquished the premature conquest; and the evacuation of
+Belbeis or Pelusium was the condition of his safe retreat. As the Turks
+defiled before the enemy, and their general closed the rear, with a
+vigilant eye, and a battle axe in his hand, a Frank presumed to ask him
+if he were not afraid of an attack. "It is doubtless in your power to
+begin the attack," replied the intrepid emir; "but rest assured, that
+not one of my soldiers will go to paradise till he has sent an infidel
+to hell." His report of the riches of the land, the effeminacy of the
+natives, and the disorders of the government, revived the hopes
+of Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad applauded the pious design; and
+Shiracouh descended into Egypt a second time with twelve thousand Turks
+and eleven thousand Arabs. Yet his forces were still inferior to the
+confederate armies of the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern an
+unusual degree of military art, in his passage of the Nile, his retreat
+into Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the
+surprise of Alexandria, and his marches and countermarches in the
+flats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His conduct
+was seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve of action a
+Mamaluke [42] exclaimed, "If we cannot wrest Egypt from the Christian
+dogs, why do we not renounce the honors and rewards of the sultan, and
+retire to labor with the peasants, or to spin with the females of the
+harem?" Yet, after all his efforts in the field, [43] after the
+obstinate defence of Alexandria [44] by his nephew Saladin, an honorable
+capitulation and retreat [441] concluded the second enterprise of
+Shiracouh; and Noureddin reserved his abilities for a third and more
+propitious occasion. It was soon offered by the ambition and avarice
+of Amalric or Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the pernicious
+maxim, that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God. [442] A
+religious warrior, the great master of the hospital, encouraged him to
+proceed; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or promised, a
+fleet to act with the armies of Syria; and the perfidious Christian,
+unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy, aspired to the conquest of Egypt.
+In this emergency, the Moslems turned their eyes towards the sultan of
+Damascus; the vizier, whom danger encompassed on all sides, yielded to
+their unanimous wishes, and Noureddin seemed to be tempted by the
+fair offer of one third of the revenue of the kingdom. The Franks were
+already at the gates of Cairo; but the suburbs, the old city, were burnt
+on their approach; they were deceived by an insidious negotiation, and
+their vessels were unable to surmount the barriers of the Nile. They
+prudently declined a contest with the Turks in the midst of a hostile
+country; and Amaury retired into Palestine with the shame and reproach
+that always adhere to unsuccessful injustice. After this deliverance,
+Shiracouh was invested with a robe of honor, which he soon stained with
+the blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while, the Turkish emirs
+condescended to hold the office of vizier; but this foreign conquest
+precipitated the fall of the Fatimites themselves; and the bloodless
+change was accomplished by a message and a word. The caliphs had been
+degraded by their own weakness and the tyranny of the viziers: their
+subjects blushed, when the descendant and successor of the prophet
+presented his naked hand to the rude gripe of a Latin ambassador; they
+wept when he sent the hair of his women, a sad emblem of their grief and
+terror, to excite the pity of the sultan of Damascus. By the command of
+Noureddin, and the sentence of the doctors, the holy names of Abubeker,
+Omar, and Othman, were solemnly restored: the caliph Mosthadi, of
+Bagdad, was acknowledged in the public prayers as the true commander of
+the faithful; and the green livery of the sons of Ali was exchanged
+for the black color of the Abbassides. The last of his race, the caliph
+Adhed, who survived only ten days, expired in happy ignorance of his
+fate; his treasures secured the loyalty of the soldiers, and silenced
+the murmurs of the sectaries; and in all subsequent revolutions, Egypt
+has never departed from the orthodox tradition of the Moslems. [45]
+
+[Footnote 41: From the ambassador, William of Tyre (l. xix. c. 17, 18,)
+describes the palace of Cairo. In the caliph's treasure were found a
+pearl as large as a pigeon's egg, a ruby weighing seventeen Egyptian
+drams, an emerald a palm and a half in length, and many vases of crystal
+and porcelain of China, (Renaudot, p. 536.)]
+
+[Footnote 42: _Mamluc_, plur. _Mamalic_, is defined by Pocock,
+(Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 7,) and D'Herbelot, (p. 545,) servum
+emptitium, seu qui pretio numerato in domini possessionem cedit. They
+frequently occur in the wars of Saladin, (Bohadin, p. 236, &c.;) and it
+was only the _Bahartie_ Mamalukes that were first introduced into Egypt
+by his descendants.]
+
+[Footnote 43: Jacobus ą Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of Jerusalem
+no more than 374 knights. Both the Franks and the Moslems report the
+superior numbers of the enemy; a difference which may be solved by
+counting or omitting the unwarlike Egyptians.]
+
+[Footnote 44: It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term in
+extent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans, and that
+of the Turks, (Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. i. p. 25, 26.)]
+
+[Footnote 441: The treaty stipulated that both the Christians and
+the Arabs should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p.
+113.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 442: The Knights Templars, abhorring the perfidious breach of
+treaty partly, perhaps, out of jealousy of the Hospitallers, refused to
+join in this enterprise. Will. Tyre c. xx. p. 5. Wilken, vol. iii. part
+ii. p. 117.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 45: For this great revolution of Egypt, see William of Tyre,
+(l. xix. 5, 6, 7, 12--31, xx. 5--12,) Bohadin, (in Vit. Saladin, p.
+30--39,) Abulfeda, (in Excerpt. Schultens, p. 1--12,) D'Herbelot,
+(Bibliot. Orient. _Adhed_, _Fathemah_, but very incorrect,) Renaudot,
+(Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 522--525, 532--537,) Vertot, (Hist. des
+Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. p. 141--163, in 4to.,) and M. de Guignes,
+(tom. ii. p. 185--215.)]
+
+The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral tribes
+of the Curds; [46] a people hardy, strong, savage impatient of the yoke,
+addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their national
+chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seems to
+identify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks; [47] and they still
+defend against the Ottoman Porte the antique freedom which they asserted
+against the successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to
+embrace the profession of mercenary soldiers: the service of his father
+and uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin; [48] and the son of
+Job or Ayud, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree,
+which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. [49] So unconscious was
+Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house, that he constrained the
+reluctant youth to follow his uncle Shiracouh into Egypt: his military
+character was established by the defence of Alexandria; and, if we may
+believe the Latins, he solicited and obtained from the Christian general
+the _profane_honors of knighthood. [50] On the death of Shiracouh, the
+office of grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest and
+least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his father, whom he
+invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his equals,
+and attached the army to his person and interest. While Noureddin
+lived, these ambitious Curds were the most humble of his slaves; and the
+indiscreet murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who
+loudly protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead
+his sons in chains to the foot of the throne. "Such language," he added
+in private, "was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals; but
+we are now above fear and obedience; and the threats of Noureddin shall
+not extort the tribute of a sugar-cane." His seasonable death relieved
+them from the odious and doubtful conflict: his son, a minor of eleven
+years of age, was left for a while to the emirs of Damascus; and the
+new lord of Egypt was decorated by the caliph with every title [51] that
+could sanctify his usurpation in the eyes of the people. Nor was Saladin
+long content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled the Christians
+of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir: Mecca
+and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protector: his brother
+subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy Arabia; and at the
+hour of his death, his empire was spread from the African Tripoli to the
+Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia. In the
+judgment of his character, the reproaches of treason and ingratitude
+strike forcibly on _our_ minds, impressed, as they are, with the
+principle and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in
+some measure be excused by the revolutions of Asia, [52] which had erased
+every notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the
+Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his benefactor; his
+humane and generous behavior to the collateral branches; by _their_
+incapacity and _his_ merit; by the approbation of the caliph, the
+sole source of all legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishes
+and interest of the people, whose happiness is the first object of
+government. In _his_ virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired
+the singular union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin
+and Saladin are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constant
+meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and sober
+color over their lives and actions. The youth of the latter [53] was
+addicted to wine and women: but his aspiring spirit soon renounced the
+temptations of pleasure for the graver follies of fame and dominion: the
+garment of Saladin was of coarse woollen; water was his only drink;
+and, while he emulated the temperance, he surpassed the chastity, of his
+Arabian prophet. Both in faith and practice he was a rigid Mussulman:
+he ever deplored that the defence of religion had not allowed him to
+accomplish the pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times
+each day, the sultan devoutly prayed with his brethren: the involuntary
+omission of fasting was scrupulously repaid; and his perusal of the
+Koran, on horseback between the approaching armies, may be quoted as a
+proof, however ostentatious, of piety and courage. [54] The superstitious
+doctrine of the sect of Shafei was the only study that he deigned to
+encourage: the poets were safe in his contempt; but all profane science
+was the object of his aversion; and a philosopher, who had invented some
+speculative novelties, was seized and strangled by the command of the
+royal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to the meanest
+suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was only for a
+kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of equity. While the
+descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed his
+garments, he was affable and patient with the meanest of his servants.
+So boundless was his liberality, that he distributed twelve thousand
+horses at the siege of Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than
+forty-seven drams of silver and one piece of gold coin were found in the
+treasury; yet, in a martial reign, the tributes were diminished, and the
+wealthy citizens enjoyed, without fear or danger, the fruits of
+their industry. Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were adorned by the royal
+foundations of hospitals, colleges, and mosques; and Cairo was fortified
+with a wall and citadel; but his works were consecrated to public use:
+[55] nor did the sultan indulge himself in a garden or palace of private
+luxury. In a fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of
+Saladin commanded the esteem of the Christians; the emperor of Germany
+gloried in his friendship; [56] the Greek emperor solicited his alliance;
+[57] and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps magnified, his
+fame both in the East and West.
+
+[Footnote 46: For the Curds, see De Guignes, tom. ii. p. 416, 417, the
+Index Geographicus of Schultens and Tavernier, Voyages, p. i. p. 308,
+309. The Ayoubites descended from the tribe of the Rawadięi, one of
+the noblest; but as _they_ were infected with the heresy of the
+Metempsychosis, the orthodox sultans insinuated that their descent was
+only on the mother's side, and that their ancestor was a stranger who
+settled among the Curds.]
+
+[Footnote 47: See the ivth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The ten
+thousand suffered more from the arrows of the free Carduchians, than
+from the splendid weakness of the great king.]
+
+[Footnote 48: We are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd. Bat,
+1755, in folio) for the richest and most authentic materials, a life
+of Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi Bohadin, and copious
+extracts from the history of his kinsman the prince Abulfeda of Hamah.
+To these we may add, the article of _Salaheddin_ in the Bibliothčque
+Orientale, and all that may be gleaned from the Dynasties of
+Abulpharagius.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may share the
+praise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of the founder.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Hist. Hierosol. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1152. A
+similar example may be found in Joinville, (p. 42, edition du Louvre;)
+but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify infidels with the order of
+Christian knighthood, (Ducange, Observations, p 70.)]
+
+[Footnote 51: In these Arabic titles, _religionis_ must always be
+understood; _Noureddin_, lumen r.; _Ezzodin_, decus; _Amadoddin_,
+columen: our hero's proper name was Joseph, and he was styled
+_Salahoddin_, salus; _Al Malichus_, _Al Nasirus_, rex defensor; _Abu
+Modaffer_, pater victorię, Schultens, Pręfat.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin,
+observes, from many examples, that the founders of dynasties took the
+guilt for themselves, and left the reward to their innocent collaterals,
+(Excerpt p. 10.)]
+
+[Footnote 53: See his life and character in Renaudot, p. 537--548.]
+
+[Footnote 54: His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in the
+first chapter of Bohadin, (p. 4--30,) himself an eye-witness, and an
+honest bigot.]
+
+[Footnote 55: In many works, particularly Joseph's well in the castle
+of Cairo, the Sultan and the Patriarch have been confounded by the
+ignorance of natives and travellers.]
+
+[Footnote 56: Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Bohadin, p. 129, 130.]
+
+During his short existence, the kingdom of Jerusalem [58] was supported
+by the discord of the Turks and Saracens; and both the Fatimite caliphs
+and the sultans of Damascus were tempted to sacrifice the cause of their
+religion to the meaner considerations of private and present advantage.
+But the powers of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were now united by a hero,
+whom nature and fortune had armed against the Christians. All without
+now bore the most threatening aspect; and all was feeble and hollow
+in the internal state of Jerusalem. After the two first Baldwins, the
+brother and cousin of Godfrey of Bouillon, the sceptre devolved by
+female succession to Melisenda, daughter of the second Baldwin, and her
+husband Fulk, count of Anjou, the father, by a former marriage, of our
+English Plantagenets. Their two sons, Baldwin the Third, and Amaury,
+waged a strenuous, and not unsuccessful, war against the infidels; but
+the son of Amaury, Baldwin the Fourth, was deprived, by the leprosy, a
+gift of the crusades, of the faculties both of mind and body. His sister
+Sybilla, the mother of Baldwin the Fifth, was his natural heiress: after
+the suspicious death of her child, she crowned her second husband, Guy
+of Lusignan, a prince of a handsome person, but of such base renown,
+that his own brother Jeffrey was heard to exclaim, "Since they have made
+_him_ a king, surely they would have made _me_ a god!" The choice
+was generally blamed; and the most powerful vassal, Raymond count
+of Tripoli, who had been excluded from the succession and regency,
+entertained an implacable hatred against the king, and exposed his honor
+and conscience to the temptations of the sultan. Such were the guardians
+of the holy city; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward, and a traitor:
+yet its fate was delayed twelve years by some supplies from Europe,
+by the valor of the military orders, and by the distant or domestic
+avocations of their great enemy. At length, on every side, the sinking
+state was encircled and pressed by a hostile line: and the truce was
+violated by the Franks, whose existence it protected. A soldier of
+fortune, Reginald of Chatillon, had seized a fortress on the edge of
+the desert, from whence he pillaged the caravans, insulted Mahomet,
+and threatened the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin condescended
+to complain; rejoiced in the denial of justice, and at the head of
+fourscore thousand horse and foot invaded the Holy Land. The choice of
+Tiberias for his first siege was suggested by the count of Tripoli, to
+whom it belonged; and the king of Jerusalem was persuaded to drain his
+garrison, and to arm his people, for the relief of that important
+place. [59] By the advice of the perfidious Raymond, the Christians were
+betrayed into a camp destitute of water: he fled on the first onset,
+with the curses of both nations: [60] Lusignan was overthrown, with the
+loss of thirty thousand men; and the wood of the true cross (a dire
+misfortune!) was left in the power of the infidels. [601] The royal captive
+was conducted to the tent of Saladin; and as he fainted with thirst and
+terror, the generous victor presented him with a cup of sherbet, cooled
+in snow, without suffering his companion, Reginald of Chatillon, to
+partake of this pledge of hospitality and pardon. "The person and
+dignity of a king," said the sultan, "are sacred, but this impious
+robber must instantly acknowledge the prophet, whom he has blasphemed,
+or meet the death which he has so often deserved." On the proud or
+conscientious refusal of the Christian warrior, Saladin struck him on
+the head with his cimeter, and Reginald was despatched by the guards.
+[61] The trembling Lusignan was sent to Damascus, to an honorable prison
+and speedy ransom; but the victory was stained by the execution of two
+hundred and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid champions and
+martyrs of their faith. The kingdom was left without a head; and of
+the two grand masters of the military orders, the one was slain and the
+other was a prisoner. From all the cities, both of the sea-coast and the
+inland country, the garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field:
+Tyre and Tripoli alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin; and
+three months after the battle of Tiberias, he appeared in arms before
+the gates of Jerusalem. [62]
+
+[Footnote 58: For the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, see William of Tyre,
+from the ixth to the xxiid book. Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosolem l
+i., and Sanutus Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. iii. p. vi. vii. viii. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Templarii ut apes bombabant et Hospitalarii ut venti
+stridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli (the Christian
+light troops) semet ipsi in ignem injiciebant, (Ispahani de Expugnatione
+Kudsiticā, p. 18, apud Schultens;) a specimen of Arabian eloquence,
+somewhat different from the style of Xenophon!]
+
+[Footnote 60: The Latins affirm, the Arabians insinuate, the treason of
+Raymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he would have been a
+saint and a hero in the eyes of the latter.]
+
+[Footnote 601: Raymond's advice would have prevented the abandonment of a
+secure camp abounding with water near Sepphoris. The rash and insolent
+valor of the master of the order of Knights Templars, which had before
+exposed the Christians to a fatal defeat at the brook Kishon, forced the
+feeble king to annul the determination of a council of war, and advance
+to a camp in an enclosed valley among the mountains, near Hittin,
+without water. Raymond did not fly till the battle was irretrievably
+lost, and then the Saracens seem to have opened their ranks to allow
+him free passage. The charge of suggesting the siege of Tiberias appears
+ungrounded Raymond, no doubt, played a double part: he was a man of
+strong sagacity, who foresaw the desperate nature of the contest with
+Saladin, endeavored by every means to maintain the treaty, and, though
+he joined both his arms and his still more valuable counsels to the
+Christian army, yet kept up a kind of amicable correspondence with the
+Mahometans. See Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 276, et seq. Michaud, vol.
+ii. p. 278, et seq. M. Michaud is still more friendly than Wilken to the
+memory of Count Raymond, who died suddenly, shortly after the battle of
+Hittin. He quotes a letter written in the name of Saladin by the caliph
+Alfdel, to show that Raymond was considered by the Mahometans their
+most dangerous and detested enemy. "No person of distinction among the
+Christians escaped, except the count, (of Tripoli) whom God curse. God
+made him die shortly afterwards, and sent him from the kingdom of death
+to hell."--M.]
+
+[Footnote 61: Benaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is celebrated
+by the Latins in his life and death; but the circumstances of the latter
+are more distinctly related by Bohadin and Abulfeda; and Joinville
+(Hist. de St. Louis, p. 70) alludes to the practice of Saladin, of never
+putting to death a prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some of
+the companions of Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed, in
+a valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur, (Abulfeda, p. 32.)]
+
+[Footnote 62: Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom and
+city (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. ii. p. 226--278,)
+inserts two original epistles of a Knight Templar.]
+
+He might expect that the siege of a city so venerable on earth and
+in heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would rekindle the last
+sparks of enthusiasm; and that, of sixty thousand Christians, every man
+would be a soldier, and every soldier a candidate for martyrdom. But
+Queen Sybilla trembled for herself and her captive husband; and the
+barons and knights, who had escaped from the sword and chains of the
+Turks, displayed the same factious and selfish spirit in the public
+ruin. The most numerous portion of the inhabitants was composed of the
+Greek and Oriental Christians, whom experience had taught to prefer the
+Mahometan before the Latin yoke; [63] and the holy sepulchre attracted a
+base and needy crowd, without arms or courage, who subsisted only on the
+charity of the pilgrims. Some feeble and hasty efforts were made for the
+defence of Jerusalem: but in the space of fourteen days, a victorious
+army drove back the sallies of the besieged, planted their engines,
+opened the wall to the breadth of fifteen cubits, applied their
+scaling-ladders, and erected on the breach twelve banners of the prophet
+and the sultan. It was in vain that a barefoot procession of the queen,
+the women, and the monks, implored the Son of God to save his tomb and
+his inheritance from impious violation. Their sole hope was in the mercy
+of the conqueror, and to their first suppliant deputation that mercy was
+sternly denied. "He had sworn to avenge the patience and long-suffering
+of the Moslems; the hour of forgiveness was elapsed, and the moment
+was now arrived to expiate, in blood, the innocent blood which had
+been spilt by Godfrey and the first crusaders." But a desperate and
+successful struggle of the Franks admonished the sultan that his triumph
+was not yet secure; he listened with reverence to a solemn adjuration
+in the name of the common Father of mankind; and a sentiment of human
+sympathy mollified the rigor of fanaticism and conquest. He consented
+to accept the city, and to spare the inhabitants. The Greek and Oriental
+Christians were permitted to live under his dominion, but it was
+stipulated, that in forty days all the Franks and Latins should evacuate
+Jerusalem, and be safely conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt;
+that ten pieces of gold should be paid for each man, five for each
+woman, and one for every child; and that those who were unable to
+purchase their freedom should be detained in perpetual slavery. Of some
+writers it is a favorite and invidious theme to compare the humanity of
+Saladin with the massacre of the first crusade. The difference would
+be merely personal; but we should not forget that the Christians had
+offered to capitulate, and that the Mahometans of Jerusalem sustained
+the last extremities of an assault and storm. Justice is indeed due to
+the fidelity with which the Turkish conqueror fulfilled the conditions
+of the treaty; and he may be deservedly praised for the glance of pity
+which he cast on the misery of the vanquished. Instead of a rigorous
+exaction of his debt, he accepted a sum of thirty thousand byzants,
+for the ransom of seven thousand poor; two or three thousand more were
+dismissed by his gratuitous clemency; and the number of slaves was
+reduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In this interview
+with the queen, his words, and even his tears suggested the kindest
+consolations; his liberal alms were distributed among those who had been
+made orphans or widows by the fortune of war; and while the knights
+of the hospital were in arms against him, he allowed their more pious
+brethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care and service
+of the sick. In these acts of mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our
+admiration and love: he was above the necessity of dissimulation, and
+his stern fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than
+to affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. After
+Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the strangers, the
+sultan made his triumphal entry, his banners waving in the wind, and to
+the harmony of martial music. The great mosque of Omar, which had
+been converted into a church, was again consecrated to one God and his
+prophet Mahomet: the walls and pavement were purified with rose-water;
+and a pulpit, the labor of Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary.
+But when the golden cross that glittered on the dome was cast down,
+and dragged through the streets, the Christians of every sect uttered
+a lamentable groan, which was answered by the joyful shouts of the
+Moslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had collected the crosses,
+the images, the vases, and the relics of the holy place; they were
+seized by the conqueror, who was desirous of presenting the caliph
+with the trophies of Christian idolatry. He was persuaded, however,
+to intrust them to the patriarch and prince of Antioch; and the pious
+pledge was redeemed by Richard of England, at the expense of fifty-two
+thousand byzants of gold. [64]
+
+[Footnote 63: Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.]
+
+[Footnote 64: For the conquest of Jerusalem, Bohadin (p. 67--75) and
+Abulfeda (p. 40--43) are our Moslem witnesses. Of the Christian, Bernard
+Thesaurarius (c. 151--167) is the most copious and authentic; see
+likewise Matthew Paris, (p. 120--124.)]
+
+The nations might fear and hope the immediate and final expulsion of the
+Latins from Syria; which was yet delayed above a century after the death
+of Saladin. [65] In the career of victory, he was first checked by the
+resistance of Tyre; the troops and garrisons, which had capitulated,
+were imprudently conducted to the same port: their numbers were adequate
+to the defence of the place; and the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat
+inspired the disorderly crowd with confidence and union. His father, a
+venerable pilgrim, had been made prisoner in the battle of Tiberias; but
+that disaster was unknown in Italy and Greece, when the son was urged
+by ambition and piety to visit the inheritance of his royal nephew,
+the infant Baldwin. The view of the Turkish banners warned him from the
+hostile coast of Jaffa; and Conrad was unanimously hailed as the prince
+and champion of Tyre, which was already besieged by the conqueror of
+Jerusalem. The firmness of his zeal, and perhaps his knowledge of a
+generous foe, enabled him to brave the threats of the sultan, and to
+declare, that should his aged parent be exposed before the walls, he
+himself would discharge the first arrow, and glory in his descent from a
+Christian martyr. [66] The Egyptian fleet was allowed to enter the harbor
+of Tyre; but the chain was suddenly drawn, and five galleys were either
+sunk or taken: a thousand Turks were slain in a sally; and Saladin,
+after burning his engines, concluded a glorious campaign by a
+disgraceful retreat to Damascus. He was soon assailed by a more
+formidable tempest. The pathetic narratives, and even the pictures, that
+represented in lively colors the servitude and profanation of Jerusalem,
+awakened the torpid sensibility of Europe: the emperor Frederic
+Barbarossa, and the kings of France and England, assumed the cross; and
+the tardy magnitude of their armaments was anticipated by the maritime
+states of the Mediterranean and the Ocean. The skilful and provident
+Italians first embarked in the ships of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. They
+were speedily followed by the most eager pilgrims of France, Normandy,
+and the Western Isles. The powerful succor of Flanders, Frise, and
+Denmark, filled near a hundred vessels: and the Northern warriors
+were distinguished in the field by a lofty stature and a ponderous
+battle-axe. [67] Their increasing multitudes could no longer be confined
+within the walls of Tyre, or remain obedient to the voice of Conrad.
+They pitied the misfortunes, and revered the dignity, of Lusignan, who
+was released from prison, perhaps, to divide the army of the Franks. He
+proposed the recovery of Ptolemais, or Acre, thirty miles to the south
+of Tyre; and the place was first invested by two thousand horse and
+thirty thousand foot under his nominal command. I shall not expatiate
+on the story of this memorable siege; which lasted near two years, and
+consumed, in a narrow space, the forces of Europe and Asia. Never did
+the flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer and more destructive rage; nor
+could the true believers, a common appellation, who consecrated their
+own martyrs, refuse some applause to the mistaken zeal and courage of
+their adversaries. At the sound of the holy trumpet, the Moslems of
+Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the Oriental provinces, assembled under the
+servant of the prophet: [68] his camp was pitched and removed within a
+few miles of Acre; and he labored, night and day, for the relief of his
+brethren and the annoyance of the Franks. Nine battles, not unworthy
+of the name, were fought in the neighborhood of Mount Carmel, with such
+vicissitude of fortune, that in one attack, the sultan forced his way
+into the city; that in one sally, the Christians penetrated to the royal
+tent. By the means of divers and pigeons, a regular correspondence was
+maintained with the besieged; and, as often as the sea was left open,
+the exhausted garrison was withdrawn, and a fresh supply was poured
+into the place. The Latin camp was thinned by famine, the sword and the
+climate; but the tents of the dead were replenished with new pilgrims,
+who exaggerated the strength and speed of their approaching countrymen.
+The vulgar was astonished by the report, that the pope himself, with an
+innumerable crusade, was advanced as far as Constantinople. The march
+of the emperor filled the East with more serious alarms: the obstacles
+which he encountered in Asia, and perhaps in Greece, were raised by the
+policy of Saladin: his joy on the death of Barbarossa was measured by
+his esteem; and the Christians were rather dismayed than encouraged
+at the sight of the duke of Swabia and his way-worn remnant of five
+thousand Germans. At length, in the spring of the second year, the royal
+fleets of France and England cast anchor in the Bay of Acre, and the
+siege was more vigorously prosecuted by the youthful emulation of the
+two kings, Philip Augustus and Richard Plantagenet. After every resource
+had been tried, and every hope was exhausted, the defenders of Acre
+submitted to their fate; a capitulation was granted, but their lives and
+liberties were taxed at the hard conditions of a ransom of two hundred
+thousand pieces of gold, the deliverance of one hundred nobles, and
+fifteen hundred inferior captives, and the restoration of the wood of
+the holy cross. Some doubts in the agreement, and some delay in the
+execution, rekindled the fury of the Franks, and three thousand Moslems,
+almost in the sultan's view, were beheaded by the command of the
+sanguinary Richard. [69] By the conquest of Acre, the Latin powers
+acquired a strong town and a convenient harbor; but the advantage was
+most dearly purchased. The minister and historian of Saladin computes,
+from the report of the enemy, that their numbers, at different periods,
+amounted to five or six hundred thousand; that more than one hundred
+thousand Christians were slain; that a far greater number was lost by
+disease or shipwreck; and that a small portion of this mighty host could
+return in safety to their native countries. [70]
+
+[Footnote 65: The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously described
+by Bernard Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terrę Sanctę, c. 167--179,)
+the author of the Historia Hierosolymitana, (p. 1150--1172, in
+Bongarsius,) Abulfeda, (p. 43--50,) and Bohadin, (p. 75--179.)]
+
+[Footnote 66: I have followed a moderate and probable representation of
+the fact; by Vertot, who adopts without reluctance a romantic tale the
+old marquis is actually exposed to the darts of the besieged.]
+
+[Footnote 67: Northmanni et Gothi, et cęteri populi insularum quę
+inter occidentem et septentrionem sitę sunt, gentes bellicosę, corporis
+proceri mortis intrepidę, bipennibus armatę, navibus rotundis, quę
+Ysnachię dicuntur, advectę.]
+
+[Footnote 68: The historian of Jerusalem (p. 1108) adds the nations of
+the East from the Tigris to India, and the swarthy tribes of Moors and
+Getulians, so that Asia and Africa fought against Europe.]
+
+[Footnote 69: Bohadin, p. 180; and this massacre is neither denied nor
+blamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa complentes, (the
+English soldiers,) says Galfridus ą Vinesauf, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 346,) who
+fixes at 2700 the number of victims; who are multiplied to 5000 by Roger
+Hoveden, (p. 697, 698.) The humanity or avarice of Philip Augustus was
+persuaded to ransom his prisoners, (Jacob ą Vitriaco, l. i. c. 98, p.
+1122.)]
+
+[Footnote 70: Bohadin, p. 14. He quotes the judgment of Balianus, and
+the prince of Sidon, and adds, ex illo mundo quasi hominum paucissimi
+redierunt. Among the Christians who died before St. John d'Acre, I find
+the English names of De Ferrers earl of Derby, (Dugdale, Baronage, part
+i. p. 260,) Mowbray, (idem, p. 124,) De Mandevil, De Fiennes, St. John,
+Scrope, Bigot, Talbot, &c.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LIX: The Crusades.--Part III.
+
+Philip Augustus, and Richard the First, are the only kings of France and
+England who have fought under the same banners; but the holy service
+in which they were enlisted was incessantly disturbed by their national
+jealousy; and the two factions, which they protected in Palestine, were
+more averse to each other than to the common enemy. In the eyes of the
+Orientals; the French monarch was superior in dignity and power; and, in
+the emperor's absence, the Latins revered him as their temporal chief.
+[71] His exploits were not adequate to his fame. Philip was brave,
+but the statesman predominated in his character; he was soon weary of
+sacrificing his health and interest on a barren coast: the surrender
+of Acre became the signal of his departure; nor could he justify this
+unpopular desertion, by leaving the duke of Burgundy with five hundred
+knights and ten thousand foot, for the service of the Holy Land. The
+king of England, though inferior in dignity, surpassed his rival in
+wealth and military renown; [72] and if heroism be confined to brutal and
+ferocious valor, Richard Plantagenet will stand high among the heroes
+of the age. The memory of _Cur de Lion_, of the lion-hearted prince, was
+long dear and glorious to his English subjects; and, at the distance of
+sixty years, it was celebrated in proverbial sayings by the grandsons of
+the Turks and Saracens, against whom he had fought: his tremendous name
+was employed by the Syrian mothers to silence their infants; and if
+a horse suddenly started from the way, his rider was wont to exclaim,
+"Dost thou think King Richard is in that bush?" [73] His cruelty to the
+Mahometans was the effect of temper and zeal; but I cannot believe that
+a soldier, so free and fearless in the use of his lance, would have
+descended to whet a dagger against his valiant brother Conrad of
+Montferrat, who was slain at Tyre by some secret assassins. [74] After
+the surrender of Acre, and the departure of Philip, the king of England
+led the crusaders to the recovery of the sea-coast; and the cities
+of Cęsarea and Jaffa were added to the fragments of the kingdom of
+Lusignan. A march of one hundred miles from Acre to Ascalon was a great
+and perpetual battle of eleven days. In the disorder of his troops,
+Saladin remained on the field with seventeen guards, without lowering
+his standard, or suspending the sound of his brazen kettle-drum: he
+again rallied and renewed the charge; and his preachers or heralds
+called aloud on the _unitarians_, manfully to stand up against
+the Christian idolaters. But the progress of these idolaters was
+irresistible; and it was only by demolishing the walls and buildings of
+Ascalon, that the sultan could prevent them from occupying an important
+fortress on the confines of Egypt. During a severe winter, the armies
+slept; but in the spring, the Franks advanced within a day's march
+of Jerusalem, under the leading standard of the English king; and
+his active spirit intercepted a convoy, or caravan, of seven thousand
+camels. Saladin [75] had fixed his station in the holy city; but the
+city was struck with consternation and discord: he fasted; he prayed;
+he preached; he offered to share the dangers of the siege; but his
+Mamalukes, who remembered the fate of their companions at Acre, pressed
+the sultan with loyal or seditious clamors, to reserve _his_ person and
+_their_ courage for the future defence of the religion and empire.
+[76] The Moslems were delivered by the sudden, or, as they deemed, the
+miraculous, retreat of the Christians; [77] and the laurels of Richard
+were blasted by the prudence, or envy, of his companions. The hero,
+ascending a hill, and veiling his face, exclaimed with an indignant
+voice, "Those who are unwilling to rescue, are unworthy to view, the
+sepulchre of Christ!" After his return to Acre, on the news that Jaffa
+was surprised by the sultan, he sailed with some merchant vessels, and
+leaped foremost on the beach: the castle was relieved by his presence;
+and sixty thousand Turks and Saracens fled before his arms. The
+discovery of his weakness, provoked them to return in the morning; and
+they found him carelessly encamped before the gates with only seventeen
+knights and three hundred archers. Without counting their numbers, he
+sustained their charge; and we learn from the evidence of his enemies,
+that the king of England, grasping his lance, rode furiously along their
+front, from the right to the left wing, without meeting an adversary who
+dared to encounter his career. [78] Am I writing the history of Orlando
+or Amadis?
+
+[Footnote 71: Magnus hic apud eos, interque reges eorum tum virtute tum
+majestate eminens.... summus rerum arbiter, (Bohadin, p. 159.) He does
+not seem to have known the names either of Philip or Richard.]
+
+[Footnote 72: Rex Anglię, pręstrenuus.... rege Gallorum minor apud eos
+censebatur ratione regni atque dignitatis; sed tum divitiis florentior,
+tum bellicā virtute multo erat celebrior, (Bohadin, p. 161.) A stranger
+might admire those riches; the national historians will tell with what
+lawless and wasteful oppression they were collected.]
+
+[Footnote 73: Joinville, p. 17. Cuides-tu que ce soit le roi Richart?]
+
+[Footnote 74: Yet he was guilty in the opinion of the Moslems, who
+attest the confession of the assassins, that they were sent by the king
+of England, (Bohadin, p. 225;) and his only defence is an absurd and
+palpable forgery, (Hist. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. p.
+155--163,) a pretended letter from the prince of the assassins, the
+Sheich, or old man of the mountain, who justified Richard, by assuming
+to himself the guilt or merit of the murder. * Note: Von Hammer
+(Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 202) sums up against Richard, Wilken
+(vol. iv. p. 485) as strongly for acquittal. Michaud (vol. ii. p. 420)
+delivers no decided opinion. This crime was also attributed to Saladin,
+who is said, by an Oriental authority, (the continuator of Tabari,) to
+have employed the assassins to murder both Conrad and Richard. It is a
+melancholy admission, but it must be acknowledged, that such an act
+would be less inconsistent with the character of the Christian than of
+the Mahometan king.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 75: See the distress and pious firmness of Saladin, as they
+are described by Bohadin, (p. 7--9, 235--237,) who himself harangued
+the defenders of Jerusalem; their fears were not unknown to the enemy,
+(Jacob. ą Vitriaco, l. i. c. 100, p. 1123. Vinisauf, l. v. c. 50, p.
+399.)]
+
+[Footnote 76: Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince, remained
+in Jerusalem, nec Curdi Turcis, nec Turci essent obtemperaturi Curdis,
+(Bohadin, p. 236.) He draws aside a corner of the political curtain.]
+
+[Footnote 77: Bohadin, (p. 237,) and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf, (l.
+vi. c. 1--8, p. 403--409,) ascribe the retreat to Richard himself;
+and Jacobus ą Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience to depart, in
+alterum virum mutatus est, (p. 1123.) Yet Joinville, a French knight,
+accuses the envy of Hugh duke of Burgundy, (p. 116,) without supposing,
+like Matthew Paris, that he was bribed by Saladin.]
+
+[Footnote 78: The expeditions to Ascalon, Jerusalem, and Jaffa, are
+related by Bohadin (p. 184--249) and Abulfeda, (p. 51, 52.) The author
+of the Itinerary, or the monk of St. Alban's, cannot exaggerate the
+cadhi's account of the prowess of Richard, (Vinisauf, l. vi. c. 14--24,
+p. 412--421. Hist. Major, p. 137--143;) and on the whole of this war
+there is a marvellous agreement between the Christian and Mahometan
+writers, who mutually praise the virtues of their enemies.]
+
+During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation [79] between
+the Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and broken, and again
+resumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal courtesy, the gift of snow
+and fruit, the exchange of Norway hawks and Arabian horses, softened the
+asperity of religious war: from the vicissitude of success, the monarchs
+might learn to suspect that Heaven was neutral in the quarrel; nor,
+after the trial of each other, could either hope for a decisive victory.
+[80] The health both of Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a declining
+state; and they respectively suffered the evils of distant and domestic
+warfare: Plantagenet was impatient to punish a perfidious rival who
+had invaded Normandy in his absence; and the indefatigable sultan was
+subdued by the cries of the people, who was the victim, and of the
+soldiers, who were the instruments, of his martial zeal. The first
+demands of the king of England were the restitution of Jerusalem,
+Palestine, and the true cross; and he firmly declared, that himself and
+his brother pilgrims would end their lives in the pious labor, rather
+than return to Europe with ignominy and remorse. But the conscience
+of Saladin refused, without some weighty compensation, to restore the
+idols, or promote the idolatry, of the Christians; he asserted, with
+equal firmness, his religious and civil claim to the sovereignty of
+Palestine; descanted on the importance and sanctity of Jerusalem; and
+rejected all terms of the establishment, or partition of the Latins.
+The marriage which Richard proposed, of his sister with the sultan's
+brother, was defeated by the difference of faith; the princess abhorred
+the embraces of a Turk; and Adel, or Saphadin, would not easily renounce
+a plurality of wives. A personal interview was declined by Saladin,
+who alleged their mutual ignorance of each other's language; and the
+negotiation was managed with much art and delay by their interpreters
+and envoys. The final agreement was equally disapproved by the zealots
+of both parties, by the Roman pontiff and the caliph of Bagdad. It was
+stipulated that Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre should be open, without
+tribute or vexation, to the pilgrimage of the Latin Christians; that,
+after the demolition of Ascalon, they should inclusively possess the
+sea-coast from Jaffa to Tyre; that the count of Tripoli and the prince
+of Antioch should be comprised in the truce; and that, during three
+years and three months, all hostilities should cease. The principal
+chiefs of the two armies swore to the observance of the treaty; but the
+monarchs were satisfied with giving their word and their right hand; and
+the royal majesty was excused from an oath, which always implies some
+suspicion of falsehood and dishonor. Richard embarked for Europe, to
+seek a long captivity and a premature grave; and the space of a few
+months concluded the life and glories of Saladin. The Orientals describe
+his edifying death, which happened at Damascus; but they seem ignorant
+of the equal distribution of his alms among the three religions, [81] or
+of the display of a shroud, instead of a standard, to admonish the East
+of the instability of human greatness. The unity of empire was dissolved
+by his death; his sons were oppressed by the stronger arm of their uncle
+Saphadin; the hostile interests of the sultans of Egypt, Damascus,
+and Aleppo, [82] were again revived; and the Franks or Latins stood and
+breathed, and hoped, in their fortresses along the Syrian coast.
+
+[Footnote 79: See the progress of negotiation and hostility in Bohadin,
+(p. 207--260,) who was himself an actor in the treaty. Richard declared
+his intention of returning with new armies to the conquest of the Holy
+Land; and Saladin answered the menace with a civil compliment, (Vinisauf
+l. vi. c. 28, p. 423.)]
+
+[Footnote 80: The most copious and original account of this holy war is
+Galfridi ą Vinisauf, Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi et aliorum
+in Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published in the iid volume
+of Gale's Scriptores Hist. Anglicanę, (p. 247--429.) Roger Hoveden and
+Matthew Paris afford likewise many valuable materials; and the former
+describes, with accuracy, the discipline and navigation of the English
+fleet.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish notion
+of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran with his last
+breath.]
+
+[Footnote 82: See the succession of the Ayoubites, in Abulpharagius,
+(Dynast. p. 277, &c.,) and the tables of M. De Guignes, l'Art de
+Vérifier les Dates, and the Bibliothčque Orientale.]
+
+The noblest monument of a conqueror's fame, and of the terror which he
+inspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax which was imposed on the
+laity, and even the clergy, of the Latin church, for the service of the
+holy war. The practice was too lucrative to expire with the occasion:
+and this tribute became the foundation of all the tithes and tenths on
+ecclesiastical benefices, which have been granted by the Roman pontiffs
+to Catholic sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of the
+apostolic see. [83] This pecuniary emolument must have tended to increase
+the interest of the popes in the recovery of Palestine: after the death
+of Saladin, they preached the crusade, by their epistles, their legates,
+and their missionaries; and the accomplishment of the pious work might
+have been expected from the zeal and talents of Innocent the Third.
+[84] Under that young and ambitious priest, the successors of St.
+Peter attained the full meridian of their greatness: and in a reign of
+eighteen years, he exercised a despotic command over the emperors and
+kings, whom he raised and deposed; over the nations, whom an interdict
+of months or years deprived, for the offence of their rulers, of the
+exercise of Christian worship. In the council of the Lateran he acted
+as the ecclesiastical, almost as the temporal, sovereign of the East and
+West. It was at the feet of his legate that John of England surrendered
+his crown; and Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over
+sense and humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and the
+origin of the inquisition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth and
+the fifth, were undertaken; but, except a king of Hungary, the princes
+of the second order were at the head of the pilgrims: the forces were
+inadequate to the design; nor did the effects correspond with the hopes
+and wishes of the pope and the people. The fourth crusade was diverted
+from Syria to Constantinople; and the conquest of the Greek or Roman
+empire by the Latins will form the proper and important subject of the
+next chapter. In the fifth, [85] two hundred thousand Franks were landed
+at the eastern mouth of the Nile. They reasonably hoped that Palestine
+must be subdued in Egypt, the seat and storehouse of the sultan; and,
+after a siege of sixteen months, the Moslems deplored the loss of
+Damietta. But the Christian army was ruined by the pride and insolence
+of the legate Pelagius, who, in the pope's name, assumed the character
+of general: the sickly Franks were encompassed by the waters of the Nile
+and the Oriental forces; and it was by the evacuation of Damietta that
+they obtained a safe retreat, some concessions for the pilgrims, and the
+tardy restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The failure
+may in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication of the
+crusades, which were preached at the same time against the Pagans of
+Livonia, the Moors of Spain, the Albigeois of France, and the kings of
+Sicily of the Imperial family. [86] In these meritorious services, the
+volunteers might acquire at home the same spiritual indulgence, and a
+larger measure of temporal rewards; and even the popes, in their zeal
+against a domestic enemy, were sometimes tempted to forget the distress
+of their Syrian brethren. From the last age of the crusades they derived
+the occasional command of an army and revenue; and some deep reasoners
+have suspected that the whole enterprise, from the first synod of
+Placentia, was contrived and executed by the policy of Rome. The
+suspicion is not founded, either in nature or in fact. The successors
+of St. Peter appear to have followed, rather than guided, the impulse
+of manners and prejudice; without much foresight of the seasons, or
+cultivation of the soil, they gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits
+of the superstition of the times. They gathered these fruits without
+toil or personal danger: in the council of the Lateran, Innocent the
+Third declared an ambiguous resolution of animating the crusaders by his
+example; but the pilot of the sacred vessel could not abandon the helm;
+nor was Palestine ever blessed with the presence of a Roman pontiff. [87]
+
+[Footnote 83: Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. p. 311--374)
+has copiously treated of the origin, abuses, and restrictions of
+these _tenths_. A theory was started, but not pursued, that they were
+rightfully due to the pope, a tenth of the Levite's tenth to the high
+priest, (Selden on Tithes; see his Works, vol. iii. p. ii. p. 1083.)]
+
+[Footnote 84: See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Murat. Script. Rer.
+Ital., (tom. iii. p. 486--568.)]
+
+[Footnote 85: See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in Jacobus
+ą Vitriaco, (l. iii. p. 1125--1149, in the Gesta Dei of Bongarsius,) an
+eye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius, (in Script. Muratori, tom. vii. p.
+825--846, c. 190--207,) a contemporary, and Sanutus, (Secreta Fidel
+Crucis, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4--9,) a diligent compiler; and of the
+Arabians Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 294,) and the Extracts at the end of
+Joinville, (p. 533, 537, 540, 547, &c.)]
+
+[Footnote 86: To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the
+pope (A.D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem. Fideles
+mirabantur quņd tantum eis promitteret pro sanguine Christianorum
+effundendo quantum pro cruore infidelium aliquando, (Matthew Paris p.
+785.) A high flight for the reason of the xiiith century.]
+
+[Footnote 87: This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of
+Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 332,) and the fine philosophy of
+Hume, (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 330.)]
+
+The persons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims, were under the
+immediate protection of the popes; and these spiritual patrons soon
+claimed the prerogative of directing their operations, and enforcing,
+by commands and censures, the accomplishment of their vow. Frederic the
+Second, [88] the grandson of Barbarossa, was successively the pupil, the
+enemy, and the victim of the church. At the age of twenty-one years, and
+in obedience to his guardian Innocent the Third, he assumed the cross;
+the same promise was repeated at his royal and imperial coronations; and
+his marriage with the heiress of Jerusalem forever bound him to defend
+the kingdom of his son Conrad. But as Frederic advanced in age and
+authority, he repented of the rash engagements of his youth: his liberal
+sense and knowledge taught him to despise the phantoms of superstition
+and the crowns of Asia: he no longer entertained the same reverence
+for the successors of Innocent: and his ambition was occupied by the
+restoration of the Italian monarchy from Sicily to the Alps. But the
+success of this project would have reduced the popes to their primitive
+simplicity; and, after the delays and excuses of twelve years, they
+urged the emperor, with entreaties and threats, to fix the time and
+place of his departure for Palestine. In the harbors of Sicily and
+Apulia, he prepared a fleet of one hundred galleys, and of one hundred
+vessels, that were framed to transport and land two thousand five
+hundred knights, with their horses and attendants; his vassals of Naples
+and Germany formed a powerful army; and the number of English crusaders
+was magnified to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But the
+inevitable or affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed
+the strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims: the multitude
+was thinned by sickness and desertion; and the sultry summer of Calabria
+anticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian campaign. At length the emperor
+hoisted sail at Brundusium, with a fleet and army of forty thousand
+men: but he kept the sea no more than three days; and his hasty retreat,
+which was ascribed by his friends to a grievous indisposition, was
+accused by his enemies as a voluntary and obstinate disobedience. For
+suspending his vow was Frederic excommunicated by Gregory the Ninth;
+for presuming, the next year, to accomplish his vow, he was again
+excommunicated by the same pope. [89] While he served under the banner
+of the cross, a crusade was preached against him in Italy; and after
+his return he was compelled to ask pardon for the injuries which he had
+suffered. The clergy and military orders of Palestine were previously
+instructed to renounce his communion and dispute his commands; and in
+his own kingdom, the emperor was forced to consent that the orders
+of the camp should be issued in the name of God and of the Christian
+republic. Frederic entered Jerusalem in triumph; and with his own hands
+(for no priest would perform the office) he took the crown from the
+altar of the holy sepulchre. But the patriarch cast an interdict on the
+church which his presence had profaned; and the knights of the hospital
+and temple informed the sultan how easily he might be surprised and
+slain in his unguarded visit to the River Jordan. In such a state of
+fanaticism and faction, victory was hopeless, and defence was difficult;
+but the conclusion of an advantageous peace may be imputed to the
+discord of the Mahometans, and their personal esteem for the character
+of Frederic. The enemy of the church is accused of maintaining with the
+miscreants an intercourse of hospitality and friendship unworthy of a
+Christian; of despising the barrenness of the land; and of indulging a
+profane thought, that if Jehovah had seen the kingdom of Naples he never
+would have selected Palestine for the inheritance of his chosen people.
+Yet Frederic obtained from the sultan the restitution of Jerusalem,
+of Bethlem and Nazareth, of Tyre and Sidon; the Latins were allowed
+to inhabit and fortify the city; an equal code of civil and religious
+freedom was ratified for the sectaries of Jesus and those of Mahomet;
+and, while the former worshipped at the holy sepulchre, the latter might
+pray and preach in the mosque of the temple, [90] from whence the prophet
+undertook his nocturnal journey to heaven. The clergy deplored this
+scandalous toleration; and the weaker Moslems were gradually expelled;
+but every rational object of the crusades was accomplished without
+bloodshed; the churches were restored, the monasteries were replenished;
+and, in the space of fifteen years, the Latins of Jerusalem exceeded the
+number of six thousand. This peace and prosperity, for which they were
+ungrateful to their benefactor, was terminated by the irruption of the
+strange and savage hordes of Carizmians. [91] Flying from the arms of the
+Moguls, those shepherds [911] of the Caspian rolled headlong on Syria; and
+the union of the Franks with the sultans of Aleppo, Hems, and Damascus,
+was insufficient to stem the violence of the torrent. Whatever stood
+against them was cut off by the sword, or dragged into captivity: the
+military orders were almost exterminated in a single battle; and in
+the pillage of the city, in the profanation of the holy sepulchre, the
+Latins confess and regret the modesty and discipline of the Turks and
+Saracens.
+
+[Footnote 88: The original materials for the crusade of Frederic II. may
+be drawn from Richard de St. Germano (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.
+tom. vii. p. 1002--1013) and Matthew Paris, (p. 286, 291, 300, 302,
+304.) The most rational moderns are Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvi.,)
+Vertot, (Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. iii.,) Giannone, (Istoria
+Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. l. xvi.,) and Muratori, (Annali d' Italia,
+tom. x.)]
+
+[Footnote 89: Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not what to
+say: "Chino qui il capo," &c. p. 322.]
+
+[Footnote 90: The clergy artfully confounded the mosque or church of the
+temple with the holy sepulchre, and their wilful error has deceived both
+Vertot and Muratori.]
+
+[Footnote 91: The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is related
+by Matthew Paris, (p. 546, 547,) and by Joinville, Nangis, and the
+Arabians, (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530.)]
+
+[Footnote 911: They were in alliance with Eyub, sultan of Syria. Wilken
+vol. vi. p. 630.--M.]
+
+Of the seven crusades, the two last were undertaken by Louis the Ninth,
+king of France; who lost his liberty in Egypt, and his life on the coast
+of Africa. Twenty-eight years after his death, he was canonized at Rome;
+and sixty-five miracles were readily found, and solemnly attested, to
+justify the claim of the royal saint. [92] The voice of history renders a
+more honorable testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, a hero,
+and a man; that his martial spirit was tempered by the love of private
+and public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people, the
+friend of his neighbors, and the terror of the infidels. Superstition
+alone, in all the extent of her baleful influence, [93] corrupted his
+understanding and his heart: his devotion stooped to admire and imitate
+the begging friars of Francis and Dominic: he pursued with blind
+and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of kings twice
+descended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritual
+knight-errant. A monkish historian would have been content to applaud
+the most despicable part of his character; but the noble and gallant
+Joinville, [94] who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has
+traced with the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues as
+well as of his failings. From this intimate knowledge we may learn to
+suspect the political views of depressing their great vassals, which
+are so often imputed to the royal authors of the crusades. Above all
+the princes of the middle ages, Louis the Ninth successfully labored to
+restore the prerogatives of the crown; but it was at home and not in the
+East, that he acquired for himself and his posterity: his vow was the
+result of enthusiasm and sickness; and if he were the promoter, he was
+likewise the victim, of his holy madness. For the invasion of Egypt,
+France was exhausted of her troops and treasures; he covered the sea of
+Cyprus with eighteen hundred sails; the most modest enumeration amounts
+to fifty thousand men; and, if we might trust his own confession, as
+it is reported by Oriental vanity, he disembarked nine thousand five
+hundred horse, and one hundred and thirty thousand foot, who performed
+their pilgrimage under the shadow of his power. [95]
+
+[Footnote 92: Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St. Louis, by
+the confessor of Queen Margaret, (p. 291--523. Joinville, du Louvre.)]
+
+[Footnote 93: He believed all that mother church taught, (Joinville, p.
+10,) but he cautioned Joinville against disputing with infidels.
+"L'omme lay (said he in his old language) quand il ot medire de la
+loi Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loi Crestienne ne mais que de
+l'espée, dequoi il doit donner parmi le ventre dedens, tant comme elle y
+peut entrer" (p. 12.)]
+
+[Footnote 94: I have two editions of Joinville, the one (Paris, 1668)
+most valuable for the observations of Ducange; the other (Paris, au
+Louvre, 1761) most precious for the pure and authentic text, a MS. of
+which has been recently discovered. The last edition proves that the
+history of St. Louis was finished A.D. 1309, without explaining, or even
+admiring, the age of the author, which must have exceeded ninety years,
+(Preface, p. x. Observations de Ducange, p. 17.)]
+
+[Footnote 95: Joinville, p. 32. Arabic Extracts, p. 549. * Note: Compare
+Wilken, vol. vii. p. 94.--M.]
+
+In complete armor, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis leaped
+foremost on the beach; and the strong city of Damietta, which had cost
+his predecessors a siege of sixteen months, was abandoned on the first
+assault by the trembling Moslems. But Damietta was the first and the
+last of his conquests; and in the fifth and sixth crusades, the
+same causes, almost on the same ground, were productive of similar
+calamities. [96] After a ruinous delay, which introduced into the camp
+the seeds of an epidemic disease, the Franks advanced from the sea-coast
+towards the capital of Egypt, and strove to surmount the unseasonable
+inundation of the Nile, which opposed their progress. Under the eye of
+their intrepid monarch, the barons and knights of France displayed their
+invincible contempt of danger and discipline: his brother, the count of
+Artois, stormed with inconsiderate valor the town of Massoura; and the
+carrier pigeons announced to the inhabitants of Cairo that all was lost.
+But a soldier, who afterwards usurped the sceptre, rallied the flying
+troops: the main body of the Christians was far behind the vanguard; and
+Artois was overpowered and slain. A shower of Greek fire was incessantly
+poured on the invaders; the Nile was commanded by the Egyptian galleys,
+the open country by the Arabs; all provisions were intercepted; each day
+aggravated the sickness and famine; and about the same time a retreat
+was found to be necessary and impracticable. The Oriental writers
+confess, that Louis might have escaped, if he would have deserted his
+subjects; he was made prisoner, with the greatest part of his nobles;
+all who could not redeem their lives by service or ransom were inhumanly
+massacred; and the walls of Cairo were decorated with a circle of
+Christian heads. [97] The king of France was loaded with chains; but the
+generous victor, a great-grandson of the brother of Saladin, sent a robe
+of honor to his royal captive, and his deliverance, with that of his
+soldiers, was obtained by the restitution of Damietta [98] and the
+payment of four hundred thousand pieces of gold. In a soft and luxurious
+climate, the degenerate children of the companions of Noureddin and
+Saladin were incapable of resisting the flower of European chivalry:
+they triumphed by the arms of their slaves or Mamalukes, the hardy
+natives of Tartary, who at a tender age had been purchased of the Syrian
+merchants, and were educated in the camp and palace of the sultan. But
+Egypt soon afforded a new example of the danger of prętorian bands;
+and the rage of these ferocious animals, who had been let loose on the
+strangers, was provoked to devour their benefactor. In the pride
+of conquest, Touran Shaw, the last of his race, was murdered by his
+Mamalukes; and the most daring of the assassins entered the chamber of
+the captive king, with drawn cimeters, and their hands imbrued in the
+blood of their sultan. The firmness of Louis commanded their respect;
+[99] their avarice prevailed over cruelty and zeal; the treaty was
+accomplished; and the king of France, with the relics of his army, was
+permitted to embark for Palestine. He wasted four years within the walls
+of Acre, unable to visit Jerusalem, and unwilling to return without
+glory to his native country.
+
+[Footnote 96: The last editors have enriched their Joinville with large
+and curious extracts from the Arabic historians, Macrizi, Abulfeda, &c.
+See likewise Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 322--325,) who calls him by the
+corrupt name of _Redefrans_. Matthew Paris (p. 683, 684) has described
+the rival folly of the French and English who fought and fell at
+Massoura.]
+
+[Footnote 97: Savary, in his agreeable Letters sur L'Egypte, has given
+a description of Damietta, (tom. i. lettre xxiii. p. 274--290,) and a
+narrative of the exposition of St. Louis, (xxv. p. 306--350.)]
+
+[Footnote 98: For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants was
+asked and granted; but the sultan's generosity reduced that sum to
+800,000 byzants, which are valued by Joinville at 400,000 French livres
+of his own time, and expressed by Matthew Paris by 100,000 marks of
+silver, (Ducange, Dissertation xx. sur Joinville.)]
+
+[Footnote 99: The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their sultan is
+seriously attested by Joinville, (p. 77, 78,) and does not appear to me
+so absurd as to M. de Voltaire, (Hist. Générale, tom. ii. p. 386, 387.)
+The Mamalukes themselves were strangers, rebels, and equals: they had
+felt his valor, they hoped his conversion; and such a motion, which
+was not seconded, might be made, perhaps by a secret Christian in their
+tumultuous assembly. * Note: Wilken, vol. vii. p. 257, thinks the
+proposition could not have been made in earnest.--M.]
+
+The memory of his defeat excited Louis, after sixteen years of wisdom
+and repose, to undertake the seventh and last of the crusades. His
+finances were restored, his kingdom was enlarged; a new generation of
+warriors had arisen, and he advanced with fresh confidence at the head
+of six thousand horse and thirty thousand foot. The loss of Antioch
+had provoked the enterprise; a wild hope of baptizing the king of Tunis
+tempted him to steer for the African coast; and the report of an immense
+treasure reconciled his troops to the delay of their voyage to the Holy
+Land. Instead of a proselyte, he found a siege: the French panted and
+died on the burning sands: St. Louis expired in his tent; and no sooner
+had he closed his eyes, than his son and successor gave the signal of
+the retreat. [100] "It is thus," says a lively writer, "that a Christian
+king died near the ruins of Carthage, waging war against the sectaries
+of Mahomet, in a land to which Dido had introduced the deities of
+Syria." [101]
+
+[Footnote 100: See the expedition in the annals of St. Louis, by William
+de Nangis, p. 270--287; and the Arabic extracts, p. 545, 555, of the
+Louvre edition of Joinville.]
+
+[Footnote 101: Voltaire, Hist. Générale, tom. ii. p. 391.]
+
+A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that which
+condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, under the
+arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the state
+of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious sultans of the
+Baharite and Borgite dynasties [102] were themselves promoted from the
+Tartar and Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys, or military
+chiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their
+servants. They produce the great charter of their liberties, the treaty
+of Selim the First with the republic: [103] and the Othman emperor still
+accepts from Egypt a slight acknowledgment of tribute and subjection.
+With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two dynasties
+are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed: [104] but their throne,
+however shaken, reposed on the two pillars of discipline and valor:
+their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Syria: their
+Mamalukes were multiplied from eight hundred to twenty-five thousand
+horse; and their numbers were increased by a provincial militia of one
+hundred and seven thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six
+thousand Arabs. [105] Princes of such power and spirit could not long
+endure on their coast a hostile and independent nation; and if the ruin
+of the Franks was postponed about forty years, they were indebted to the
+cares of an unsettled reign, to the invasion of the Moguls, and to the
+occasional aid of some warlike pilgrims. Among these, the English reader
+will observe the name of our first Edward, who assumed the cross in the
+lifetime of his father Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers the
+future conqueror of Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege;
+marched as far as Nazareth with an army of nine thousand men; emulated
+the fame of his uncle Richard; extorted, by his valor, a ten years'
+truce; [1051] and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of a
+fanatic _assassin_. [106] [1061] Antioch, [107] whose situation had been less
+exposed to the calamities of the holy war, was finally occupied and
+ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and Syria; the Latin
+principality was extinguished; and the first seat of the Christian name
+was dispeopled by the slaughter of seventeen, and the captivity of one
+hundred, thousand of her inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea,
+Gabala, Tripoli, Berytus, Sidon, Tyre and Jaffa, and the stronger
+castles of the Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and the
+whole existence of the Franks was confined to the city and colony of St.
+John of Acre, which is sometimes described by the more classic title of
+Ptolemais.
+
+[Footnote 102: The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes, the
+Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites, Circassians, is
+given by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 6--31) and De Guignes
+(tom. i. p. 264--270;) their history from Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the
+beginning of the xvth century, by the same M. De Guignes, (tom. iv. p.
+110--328.)]
+
+[Footnote 103: Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. ii. lettre xv. p.
+189--208. I much question the authenticity of this copy; yet it is true,
+that Sultan Selim concluded a treaty with the Circassians or Mamalukes
+of Egypt, and left them in possession of arms, riches, and power. See a
+new Abrégé de l'Histoire Ottomane, composed in Egypt, and translated by
+M. Digeon, (tom. i. p. 55--58, Paris, 1781,) a curious, authentic, and
+national history.]
+
+[Footnote 104: Si totum quo regnum occupārunt tempus respicias,
+pręsertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis, injuriis,
+ac rapinis refertum, (Al Jannabi, apud Pocock, p. 31.) The reign of
+Mohammed (A.D. 1311--1341) affords a happy exception, (De Guignes, tom.
+iv. p. 208--210.)]
+
+[Footnote 105: They are now reduced to 8500: but the expense of each
+Mamaluke may be rated at a hundred louis: and Egypt groans under the
+avarice and insolence of these strangers, (Voyages de Volney, tom. i. p.
+89--187.)]
+
+[Footnote 1051: Gibbon colors rather highly the success of Edward. Wilken
+is more accurate vol. vii. p. 593, &c.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 106: See Carte's History of England, vol. ii. p. 165--175, and
+his original authors, Thomas Wikes and Walter Hemingford, (l. iii. c.
+34, 35,) in Gale's Collection, (tom. ii. p. 97, 589--592.) They are both
+ignorant of the princess Eleanor's piety in sucking the poisoned wound,
+and saving her husband at the risk of her own life.]
+
+[Footnote 1061: The sultan Bibars was concerned in this attempt at
+assassination Wilken, vol. vii. p. 602. Ptolemęus Lucensis is the
+earliest authority for the devotion of Eleanora. Ibid. 605.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 107: Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis, 1. iii. p. xii. c.
+9, and De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the Arabic
+historians.]
+
+After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre, [108] which is distant about seventy
+miles, became the metropolis of the Latin Christians, and was adorned
+with strong and stately buildings, with aqueducts, an artificial port,
+and a double wall. The population was increased by the incessant streams
+of pilgrims and fugitives: in the pauses of hostility the trade of the
+East and West was attracted to this convenient station; and the market
+could offer the produce of every clime and the interpreters of every
+tongue. But in this conflux of nations, every vice was propagated and
+practised: of all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male and
+female inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt; nor could the
+abuse of religion be corrected by the discipline of law. The city had
+many sovereigns, and no government. The kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus,
+of the house of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the counts of Tripoli
+and Sidon, the great masters of the hospital, the temple, and the
+Teutonic order, the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, the pope's
+legate, the kings of France and England, assumed an independent command:
+seventeen tribunals exercised the power of life and death; every
+criminal was protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual
+jealousy of the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood.
+Some adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensated
+their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages: nineteen
+Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith, were despoiled and
+hanged by the Christians; and the denial of satisfaction justified the
+arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched against Acre, at the head of sixty
+thousand horse and one hundred and forty thousand foot: his train of
+artillery (if I may use the word) was numerous and weighty: the separate
+timbers of a single engine were transported in one hundred wagons; and
+the royal historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, was
+himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices of the
+Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and despair; but they
+were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs, and overwhelmed on all
+sides by the powers of the sultan. After a siege of thirty three days,
+the double wall was forced by the Moslems; the principal tower yielded
+to their engines; the Mamalukes made a general assault; the city was
+stormed; and death or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians.
+The convent, or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days
+longer; but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five
+hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the victims
+of the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold, in the unjust
+and cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of Jerusalem, the
+patriarch and the great master of the hospital, effected their retreat
+to the shore; but the sea was rough, the vessels were insufficient; and
+great numbers of the fugitives were drowned before they could reach the
+Isle of Cyprus, which might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine.
+By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the
+Latin cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened
+the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a
+mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had so
+long resounded with the world's debate. [109]
+
+[Footnote 108: The state of Acre is represented in all the chronicles
+of te times, and most accurately in John Villani, l. vii. c. 144, in
+Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. 337, 338.]
+
+[Footnote 109: See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus, l.
+iii. p. xii. c. 11--22; Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., in De Guignes, tom. iv.
+p. 162, 164; and Vertot, tom. i. l. iii. p. 307--428. * Note: after
+these chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize composition, "Essai sur
+'Influence des Croisades sur l'Europe," par A H. L. Heeren: traduit de
+l'Allemand par Charles Villars, Paris, 1808,' or the original German, in
+Heeren's "Vermischte Schriften," may be read with great advantage.--M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.--Part I.
+
+     Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.--State Of Constantinople.--
+     Revolt Of The Bulgarians.--Isaac Angelus Dethroned By His
+     Brother Alexius.--Origin Of The Fourth Crusade.--Alliance Of
+     The French And Venetians With The Son Of Isaac.--Their Naval
+     Expedition To Constantinople.--The Two Sieges And Final
+     Conquest Of The City By The Latins.
+
+The restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne was speedily
+followed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches. [1]
+A religious and national animosity still divides the two largest
+communions of the Christian world; and the schism of Constantinople,
+by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most dangerous
+enemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman empire in
+the East.
+
+[Footnote 1: In the successive centuries, from the ixth to the xviiith,
+Mosheim traces the schism of the Greeks with learning, clearness, and
+impartiality; the _filioque_ (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 277,) Leo III.
+p. 303 Photius, p. 307, 308. Michael Cerularius, p. 370, 371, &c.]
+
+In the course of the present History, the aversion of the Greeks for the
+Latins has been often visible and conspicuous. It was originally derived
+from the disdain of servitude, inflamed, after the time of Constantine,
+by the pride of equality or dominion; and finally exasperated by the
+preference which their rebellious subjects had given to the alliance of
+the Franks. In every age the Greeks were proud of their superiority in
+profane and religious knowledge: they had first received the light
+of Christianity; they had pronounced the decrees of the seven general
+councils; they alone possessed the language of Scripture and philosophy;
+nor should the Barbarians, immersed in the darkness of the West, [2]
+presume to argue on the high and mysterious questions of theological
+science. Those Barbarians despised in then turn the restless and subtile
+levity of the Orientals, the authors of every heresy; and blessed their
+own simplicity, which was content to hold the tradition of the apostolic
+church. Yet in the seventh century, the synods of Spain, and afterwards
+of France, improved or corrupted the Nicene creed, on the mysterious
+subject of the third person of the Trinity. [3] In the long controversies
+of the East, the nature and generation of the Christ had been
+scrupulously defined; and the well-known relation of father and son
+seemed to convey a faint image to the human mind. The idea of birth
+was less analogous to the Holy Spirit, who, instead of a divine gift or
+attribute, was considered by the Catholics as a substance, a person, a
+god; he was not begotten, but in the orthodox style he _proceeded_.
+Did he proceed from the Father alone, perhaps _by_ the Son? or from the
+Father _and_ the Son? The first of these opinions was asserted by the
+Greeks, the second by the Latins; and the addition to the Nicene
+creed of the word _filioque_, kindled the flame of discord between the
+Oriental and the Gallic churches. In the origin of the disputes the
+Roman pontiffs affected a character of neutrality and moderation: [4]
+they condemned the innovation, but they acquiesced in the sentiment, of
+their Transalpine brethren: they seemed desirous of casting a veil
+of silence and charity over the superfluous research; and in the
+correspondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the pope assumes the
+liberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the passions
+and prejudices of a priest. [5] But the orthodoxy of Rome spontaneously
+obeyed the impulse of the temporal policy; and the _filioque_, which
+Leo wished to erase, was transcribed in the symbol and chanted in the
+liturgy of the Vatican. The Nicene and Athanasian creeds are held as the
+Catholic faith, without which none can be saved; and both Papists and
+Protestants must now sustain and return the anathemas of the Greeks, who
+deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the
+Father. Such articles of faith are not susceptible of treaty; but the
+rules of discipline will vary in remote and independent churches;
+and the reason, even of divines, might allow, that the difference is
+inevitable and harmless. The craft or superstition of Rome has imposed
+on her priests and deacons the rigid obligation of celibacy; among the
+Greeks it is confined to the bishops; the loss is compensated by dignity
+or annihilated by age; and the parochial clergy, the papas, enjoy
+the conjugal society of the wives whom they have married before their
+entrance into holy orders. A question concerning the _Azyms_ was
+fiercely debated in the eleventh century, and the essence of the
+Eucharist was supposed in the East and West to depend on the use of
+leavened or unleavened bread. Shall I mention in a serious history the
+furious reproaches that were urged against the Latins, who for a long
+while remained on the defensive? They neglected to abstain, according
+to the apostolical decree, from things strangled, and from blood: they
+fasted (a Jewish observance!) on the Saturday of each week: during the
+first week of Lent they permitted the use of milk and cheese; [6] their
+infirm monks were indulged in the taste of flesh; and animal grease was
+substituted for the want of vegetable oil: the holy chrism or unction
+in baptism was reserved to the episcopal order: the bishops, as the
+bridegrooms of their churches, were decorated with rings; their priests
+shaved their faces, and baptized by a single immersion. Such were the
+crimes which provoked the zeal of the patriarchs of Constantinople; and
+which were justified with equal zeal by the doctors of the Latin church.
+[7]
+
+[Footnote 2: ''AndreV dussebeiV kai apotropaioi, andreV ek sktouV
+anadunteV, thV gar 'Esperiou moiraV uphrcon gennhmata, (Phot. Epist.
+p. 47, edit. Montacut.) The Oriental patriarch continues to apply
+the images of thunder, earthquake, hail, wild boar, precursors of
+Antichrist, &c., &c.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The mysterious subject of the procession of the Holy Ghost
+is discussed in the historical, theological, and controversial sense, or
+nonsense, by the Jesuit Petavius. (Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii.
+p. 362--440.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: Before the shrine of St. Peter he placed two shields of the
+weight of 94 1/2 pounds of pure silver; on which he inscribed the text
+of both creeds, (utroque symbolo,) pro amore et _cautelā_ orthodoxę
+fidei, (Anastas. in Leon. III. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars. i. p. 208.)
+His language most clearly proves, that neither the _filioque_, nor the
+Athanasian creed were received at Rome about the year 830.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The Missi of Charlemagne pressed him to declare, that all
+who rejected the _filioque_, or at least the doctrine, must be damned.
+All, replies the pope, are not capable of reaching the altiora mysteria
+qui potuerit, et non voluerit, salvus esse non potest, (Collect. Concil.
+tom. ix. p. 277--286.) The _potuerit_ would leave a large loophole of
+salvation!]
+
+[Footnote 6: In France, after some harsher laws, the ecclesiastical
+discipline is now relaxed: milk, cheese, and butter, are become a
+perpetual, and eggs an annual, indulgence in Lent, (Vie privée des
+Franēois, tom. ii. p. 27--38.)]
+
+[Footnote 7: The original monuments of the schism, of the charges of
+the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles of Photius,
+(Epist Encyclica, ii. p. 47--61,) and of Michael Cerularius, (Canisii
+Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p. 281--324, edit. Basnage, with the
+prolix answer of Cardinal Humbert.)]
+
+Bigotry and national aversion are powerful magnifiers of every object
+of dispute; but the immediate cause of the schism of the Greeks may
+be traced in the emulation of the leading prelates, who maintained the
+supremacy of the old metropolis superior to all, and of the reigning
+capital, inferior to none, in the Christian world. About the middle of
+the ninth century, Photius, [8] an ambitious layman, the captain of the
+guards and principal secretary, was promoted by merit and favor to the
+more desirable office of patriarch of Constantinople. In science, even
+ecclesiastical science, he surpassed the clergy of the age; and the
+purity of his morals has never been impeached: but his ordination was
+hasty, his rise was irregular; and Ignatius, his abdicated predecessor,
+was yet supported by the public compassion and the obstinacy of his
+adherents. They appealed to the tribunal of Nicholas the First, one of
+the proudest and most aspiring of the Roman pontiffs, who embraced the
+welcome opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East.
+Their quarrel was embittered by a conflict of jurisdiction over the
+king and nation of the Bulgarians; nor was their recent conversion to
+Christianity of much avail to either prelate, unless he could number the
+proselytes among the subjects of his power. With the aid of his court
+the Greek patriarch was victorious; but in the furious contest he
+deposed in his turn the successor of St. Peter, and involved the Latin
+church in the reproach of heresy and schism. Photius sacrificed the
+peace of the world to a short and precarious reign: he fell with his
+patron, the Cęsar Bardas; and Basil the Macedonian performed an act of
+justice in the restoration of Ignatius, whose age and dignity had not
+been sufficiently respected. From his monastery, or prison, Photius
+solicited the favor of the emperor by pathetic complaints and artful
+flattery; and the eyes of his rival were scarcely closed, when he was
+again restored to the throne of Constantinople. After the death of Basil
+he experienced the vicissitudes of courts and the ingratitude of a royal
+pupil: the patriarch was again deposed, and in his last solitary hours
+he might regret the freedom of a secular and studious life. In each
+revolution, the breath, the nod, of the sovereign had been accepted by
+a submissive clergy; and a synod of three hundred bishops was always
+prepared to hail the triumph, or to stigmatize the fall, of the holy,
+or the execrable, Photius. [9] By a delusive promise of succor or reward,
+the popes were tempted to countenance these various proceedings; and the
+synods of Constantinople were ratified by their epistles or legates. But
+the court and the people, Ignatius and Photius, were equally adverse
+to their claims; their ministers were insulted or imprisoned; the
+procession of the Holy Ghost was forgotten; Bulgaria was forever annexed
+to the Byzantine throne; and the schism was prolonged by their rigid
+censure of all the multiplied ordinations of an irregular patriarch. The
+darkness and corruption of the tenth century suspended the intercourse,
+without reconciling the minds, of the two nations. But when the Norman
+sword restored the churches of Apulia to the jurisdiction of Rome,
+the departing flock was warned, by a petulant epistle of the Greek
+patriarch, to avoid and abhor the errors of the Latins. The rising
+majesty of Rome could no longer brook the insolence of a rebel; and
+Michael Cerularius was excommunicated in the heart of Constantinople by
+the pope's legates. Shaking the dust from their feet, they deposited
+on the altar of St. Sophia a direful anathema, [10] which enumerates the
+seven mortal heresies of the Greeks, and devotes the guilty teachers,
+and their unhappy sectaries, to the eternal society of the devil and his
+angels. According to the emergencies of the church and state, a friendly
+correspondence was some times resumed; the language of charity and
+concord was sometimes affected; but the Greeks have never recanted their
+errors; the popes have never repealed their sentence; and from this
+thunderbolt we may date the consummation of the schism. It was enlarged
+by each ambitious step of the Roman pontiffs: the emperors blushed and
+trembled at the ignominious fate of their royal brethren of Germany; and
+the people were scandalized by the temporal power and military life of
+the Latin clergy. [11]
+
+[Footnote 8: The xth volume of the Venice edition of the Councils
+contains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius: they are
+abridged, with a faint tinge of prejudice or prudence, by Dupin and
+Fleury.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The synod of Constantinople, held in the year 869, is the
+viiith of the general councils, the last assembly of the East which is
+recognized by the Roman church. She rejects the synods of Constantinople
+of the years 867 and 879, which were, however, equally numerous and
+noisy; but they were favorable to Photius.]
+
+[Footnote 10: See this anathema in the Councils, tom. xi. p.
+1457--1460.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Anna Comnena (Alexiad, l. i. p. 31--33) represents the
+abhorrence, not only of the church, but of the palace, for Gregory VII.,
+the popes and the Latin communion. The style of Cinnamus and Nicetas is
+still more vehement. Yet how calm is the voice of history compared with
+that of polemics!]
+
+The aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and manifested in
+the three first expeditions to the Holy Land. Alexius Comnenus contrived
+the absence at least of the formidable pilgrims: his successors, Manuel
+and Isaac Angelus, conspired with the Moslems for the ruin of the
+greatest princes of the Franks; and their crooked and malignant policy
+was seconded by the active and voluntary obedience of every order of
+their subjects. Of this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless be
+ascribed to the difference of language, dress, and manners, which
+severs and alienates the nations of the globe. The pride, as well as
+the prudence, of the sovereign was deeply wounded by the intrusion of
+foreign armies, that claimed a right of traversing his dominions, and
+passing under the walls of his capital: his subjects were insulted
+and plundered by the rude strangers of the West: and the hatred of the
+pusillanimous Greeks was sharpened by secret envy of the bold and pious
+enterprises of the Franks. But these profane causes of national enmity
+were fortified and inflamed by the venom of religious zeal. Instead of
+a kind embrace, a hospitable reception from their Christian brethren of
+the East, every tongue was taught to repeat the names of schismatic and
+heretic, more odious to an orthodox ear than those of pagan and infidel:
+instead of being loved for the general conformity of faith and worship,
+they were abhorred for some rules of discipline, some questions of
+theology, in which themselves or their teachers might differ from the
+Oriental church. In the crusade of Louis the Seventh, the Greek clergy
+washed and purified the altars which had been defiled by the sacrifice
+of a French priest. The companions of Frederic Barbarossa deplore the
+injuries which they endured, both in word and deed, from the peculiar
+rancor of the bishops and monks. Their prayers and sermons excited the
+people against the impious Barbarians; and the patriarch is accused of
+declaring, that the faithful might obtain the redemption of all their
+sins by the extirpation of the schismatics. [12] An enthusiast, named
+Dorotheus, alarmed the fears, and restored the confidence, of the
+emperor, by a prophetic assurance, that the German heretic, after
+assaulting the gate of Blachernes, would be made a signal example of
+the divine vengeance. The passage of these mighty armies were rare and
+perilous events; but the crusades introduced a frequent and familiar
+intercourse between the two nations, which enlarged their knowledge
+without abating their prejudices. The wealth and luxury of
+Constantinople demanded the productions of every climate these imports
+were balanced by the art and labor of her numerous inhabitants; her
+situation invites the commerce of the world; and, in every period of her
+existence, that commerce has been in the hands of foreigners. After the
+decline of Amalphi, the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, introduced their
+factories and settlements into the capital of the empire: their services
+were rewarded with honors and immunities; they acquired the possession
+of lands and houses; their families were multiplied by marriages with
+the natives; and, after the toleration of a Mahometan mosque, it was
+impossible to interdict the churches of the Roman rite. [13] The two
+wives of Manuel Comnenus [14] were of the race of the Franks: the first,
+a sister-in-law of the emperor Conrad; the second, a daughter of the
+prince of Antioch: he obtained for his son Alexius a daughter of Philip
+Augustus, king of France; and he bestowed his own daughter on a
+marquis of Montferrat, who was educated and dignified in the palace
+of Constantinople. The Greek encountered the arms, and aspired to the
+empire, of the West: he esteemed the valor, and trusted the fidelity, of
+the Franks; [15] their military talents were unfitly recompensed by the
+lucrative offices of judges and treasures; the policy of Manuel had
+solicited the alliance of the pope; and the popular voice accused him of
+a partial bias to the nation and religion of the Latins. [16] During
+his reign, and that of his successor Alexius, they were exposed at
+Constantinople to the reproach of foreigners, heretics, and favorites;
+and this triple guilt was severely expiated in the tumult, which
+announced the return and elevation of Andronicus. [17] The people rose
+in arms: from the Asiatic shore the tyrant despatched his troops and
+galleys to assist the national revenge; and the hopeless resistance of
+the strangers served only to justify the rage, and sharpen the daggers,
+of the assassins. Neither age, nor sex, nor the ties of friendship or
+kindred, could save the victims of national hatred, and avarice, and
+religious zeal; the Latins were slaughtered in their houses and in the
+streets; their quarter was reduced to ashes; the clergy were burnt in
+their churches, and the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate may
+be formed of the slain from the clemency which sold above four thousand
+Christians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and monks were
+the loudest and most active in the destruction of the schismatics;
+and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord, when the head of a Roman
+cardinal, the pope's legate, was severed from his body, fastened to the
+tail of a dog, and dragged, with savage mockery, through the city. The
+more diligent of the strangers had retreated, on the first alarm, to
+their vessels, and escaped through the Hellespont from the scene of
+blood. In their flight, they burnt and ravaged two hundred miles of the
+sea-coast; inflicted a severe revenge on the guiltless subjects of the
+empire; marked the priests and monks as their peculiar enemies; and
+compensated, by the accumulation of plunder, the loss of their property
+and friends. On their return, they exposed to Italy and Europe the
+wealth and weakness, the perfidy and malice, of the Greeks, whose
+vices were painted as the genuine characters of heresy and schism. The
+scruples of the first crusaders had neglected the fairest opportunities
+of securing, by the possession of Constantinople, the way to the Holy
+Land: domestic revolution invited, and almost compelled, the French and
+Venetians to achieve the conquest of the Roman empire of the East.
+
+[Footnote 12: His anonymous historian (de Expedit. Asiat. Fred. I.
+in Canisii Lection. Antiq. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 511, edit. Basnage)
+mentions the sermons of the Greek patriarch, quomodo Gręcis injunxerat
+in remissionem peccatorum peregrinos occidere et delere de terra. Tagino
+observes, (in Scriptores Freher. tom. i. p. 409, edit. Struv.,)
+Gręci hęreticos nos appellant: clerici et monachi dictis et factis
+persequuntur. We may add the declaration of the emperor Baldwin fifteen
+years afterwards: Hęc est (_gens_) quę Latinos omnes non hominum nomine,
+sed canum dignabatur; quorum sanguinem effundere penč inter merita
+reputabant, (Gesta Innocent. III., c. 92, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
+Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i. p. 536.) There may be some exaggeration,
+but it was as effectual for the action and reaction of hatred.]
+
+[Footnote 13: See Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. vi. p. 161, 162,) and a
+remarkable passage of Nicetas, (in Manuel, l. v. c. 9,) who observes
+of the Venetians, kata smhnh kai jratriaV thn Kwnstantinou polin thV
+oikeiaV hllaxanto, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 14: Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 186, 187.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Nicetas in Manuel. l. vii. c. 2. Regnante enim
+(Manuele).... apud eum tantam Latinus populus repererat gratiam ut
+neglectis Gręculis suis tanquam viris mollibus et effminatis,.... solis
+Latinis grandia committeret negotia.... erga eos profusā liberalitate
+abundabat.... ex omni orbe ad eum tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles et
+ignobiles concurrebant. Willelm. Tyr. xxii. c. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The suspicions of the Greeks would have been confirmed, if
+they had seen the political epistles of Manuel to Pope Alexander III.,
+the enemy of his enemy Frederic I., in which the emperor declares his
+wish of uniting the Greeks and Latins as one flock under one shepherd,
+&c (See Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xv. p. 187, 213, 243.)]
+
+[Footnote 17: See the Greek and Latin narratives in Nicetas (in Alexio
+Comneno, c. 10) and William of Tyre, (l. xxii. c. 10, 11, 12, 13;) the
+first soft and concise, the second loud, copious, and tragical.]
+
+In the series of the Byzantine princes, I have exhibited the hypocrisy
+and ambition, the tyranny and fall, of Andronicus, the last male of the
+Comnenian family who reigned at Constantinople. The revolution, which
+cast him headlong from the throne, saved and exalted Isaac Angelus,
+[18] who descended by the females from the same Imperial dynasty. The
+successor of a second Nero might have found it an easy task to deserve
+the esteem and affection of his subjects; they sometimes had reason to
+regret the administration of Andronicus. The sound and vigorous mind of
+the tyrant was capable of discerning the connection between his own and
+the public interest; and while he was feared by all who could inspire
+him with fear, the unsuspected people, and the remote provinces, might
+bless the inexorable justice of their master. But his successor was vain
+and jealous of the supreme power, which he wanted courage and abilities
+to exercise: his vices were pernicious, his virtues (if he possessed
+any virtues) were useless, to mankind; and the Greeks, who imputed their
+calamities to his negligence, denied him the merit of any transient or
+accidental benefits of the times. Isaac slept on the throne, and was
+awakened only by the sound of pleasure: his vacant hours were amused by
+comedians and buffoons, and even to these buffoons the emperor was an
+object of contempt: his feasts and buildings exceeded the examples of
+royal luxury: the number of his eunuchs and domestics amounted to twenty
+thousand; and a daily sum of four thousand pounds of silver would swell
+to four millions sterling the annual expense of his household and table.
+His poverty was relieved by oppression; and the public discontent was
+inflamed by equal abuses in the collection, and the application, of
+the revenue. While the Greeks numbered the days of their servitude,
+a flattering prophet, whom he rewarded with the dignity of patriarch,
+assured him of a long and victorious reign of thirty-two years; during
+which he should extend his sway to Mount Libanus, and his conquests
+beyond the Euphrates. But his only step towards the accomplishment of
+the prediction was a splendid and scandalous embassy to Saladin, [19]
+to demand the restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to propose an
+offensive and defensive league with the enemy of the Christian name. In
+these unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of the Greek
+empire crumbled into dust. The Island of Cyprus, whose name excites the
+ideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by his namesake, a Comnenian
+prince; and by a strange concatenation of events, the sword of our
+English Richard bestowed that kingdom on the house of Lusignan, a rich
+compensation for the loss of Jerusalem.
+
+[Footnote 18: The history of the reign of Isaac Angelus is composed, in
+three books, by the senator Nicetas, (p. 228--290;) and his offices
+of logothete, or principal secretary, and judge of the veil or palace,
+could not bribe the impartiality of the historian. He wrote, it is true,
+after the fall and death of his benefactor.]
+
+[Footnote 19: See Bohadin, Vit. Saladin. p. 129--131, 226, vers.
+Schultens. The ambassador of Isaac was equally versed in the Greek,
+French, and Arabic languages; a rare instance in those times. His
+embassies were received with honor, dismissed without effect, and
+reported with scandal in the West.]
+
+The honor of the monarchy and the safety of the capital were deeply
+wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Walachians. Since the
+victory of the second Basil, they had supported, above a hundred and
+seventy years, the loose dominion of the Byzantine princes; but no
+effectual measures had been adopted to impose the yoke of laws and
+manners on these savage tribes. By the command of Isaac, their sole
+means of subsistence, their flocks and herds, were driven away, to
+contribute towards the pomp of the royal nuptials; and their fierce
+warriors were exasperated by the denial of equal rank and pay in the
+military service. Peter and Asan, two powerful chiefs, of the race
+of the ancient kings, [20] asserted their own rights and the national
+freedom; their dęmoniac impostors proclaimed to the crowd, that their
+glorious patron St. Demetrius had forever deserted the cause of the
+Greeks; and the conflagration spread from the banks of the Danube to the
+hills of Macedonia and Thrace. After some faint efforts, Isaac Angelus
+and his brother acquiesced in their independence; and the Imperial
+troops were soon discouraged by the bones of their fellow-soldiers, that
+were scattered along the passes of Mount Hęmus. By the arms and
+policy of John or Joannices, the second kingdom of Bulgaria was firmly
+established. The subtle Barbarian sent an embassy to Innocent the Third,
+to acknowledge himself a genuine son of Rome in descent and religion,
+[21] and humbly received from the pope the license of coining money, the
+royal title, and a Latin archbishop or patriarch. The Vatican exulted in
+the spiritual conquest of Bulgaria, the first object of the schism; and
+if the Greeks could have preserved the prerogatives of the church, they
+would gladly have resigned the rights of the monarchy.
+
+[Footnote 20: Ducange, Familię, Dalmaticę, p. 318, 319, 320. The
+original correspondence of the Bulgarian king and the Roman pontiff is
+inscribed in the Gesta Innocent. III. c. 66--82, p. 513--525.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis Romę
+prosapiā genitores tui originem traxerunt. This tradition, and the
+strong resemblance of the Latin and Walachian idioms, is explained by M.
+D'Anville, (Etats de l'Europe, p. 258--262.) The Italian colonies of
+the Dacia of Trajan were swept away by the tide of emigration from the
+Danube to the Volga, and brought back by another wave from the Volga to
+the Danube. Possible, but strange!]
+
+The Bulgarians were malicious enough to pray for the long life of Isaac
+Angelus, the surest pledge of their freedom and prosperity. Yet their
+chiefs could involve in the same indiscriminate contempt the family and
+nation of the emperor. "In all the Greeks," said Asan to his troops,
+"the same climate, and character, and education, will be productive of
+the same fruits. Behold my lance," continued the warrior, "and the long
+streamers that float in the wind. They differ only in color; they are
+formed of the same silk, and fashioned by the same workman; nor has the
+stripe that is stained in purple any superior price or value above its
+fellows." [22] Several of these candidates for the purple successively
+rose and fell under the empire of Isaac; a general, who had repelled the
+fleets of Sicily, was driven to revolt and ruin by the ingratitude
+of the prince; and his luxurious repose was disturbed by secret
+conspiracies and popular insurrections. The emperor was saved by
+accident, or the merit of his servants: he was at length oppressed by an
+ambitious brother, who, for the hope of a precarious diadem, forgot the
+obligations of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship. [23] While Isaac
+in the Thracian valleys pursued the idle and solitary pleasures of the
+chase, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invested with the purple,
+by the unanimous suffrage of the camp; the capital and the clergy
+subscribed to their choice; and the vanity of the new sovereign rejected
+the name of his fathers for the lofty and royal appellation of the
+Comnenian race. On the despicable character of Isaac I have exhausted
+the language of contempt, and can only add, that, in a reign of eight
+years, the baser Alexius [24] was supported by the masculine vices of his
+wife Euphrosyne. The first intelligence of his fall was conveyed to the
+late emperor by the hostile aspect and pursuit of the guards, no longer
+his own: he fled before them above fifty miles, as far as Stagyra,
+in Macedonia; but the fugitive, without an object or a follower, was
+arrested, brought back to Constantinople, deprived of his eyes, and
+confined in a lonesome tower, on a scanty allowance of bread and water.
+At the moment of the revolution, his son Alexius, whom he educated
+in the hope of empire, was twelve years of age. He was spared by the
+usurper, and reduced to attend his triumph both in peace and war; but
+as the army was encamped on the sea-shore, an Italian vessel facilitated
+the escape of the royal youth; and, in the disguise of a common sailor,
+he eluded the search of his enemies, passed the Hellespont, and found a
+secure refuge in the Isle of Sicily. After saluting the threshold of
+the apostles, and imploring the protection of Pope Innocent the Third,
+Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of
+Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy,
+he heard that the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice for
+the deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled in his
+bosom, that their invincible swords might be employed in his father's
+restoration.
+
+[Footnote 22: This parable is in the best savage style; but I wish the
+Walach had not introduced the classic name of Mysians, the experiment of
+the magnet or loadstone, and the passage of an old comic poet, (Nicetas
+in Alex. Comneno, l. i. p. 299, 300.)]
+
+[Footnote 23: The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, by
+supposing that he had been released by his brother Isaac from Turkish
+captivity This pathetic tale had doubtless been repeated at Venice and
+Zara but I do not readily discover its grounds in the Greek historians.]
+
+[Footnote 24: See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in the
+three books of Nicetas, p. 291--352.]
+
+About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the nobles of
+France were again summoned to the holy war by the voice of a third
+prophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the hermit, but far below
+St. Bernard in the merit of an orator and a statesman. An illiterate
+priest of the neighborhood of Paris, Fulk of Neuilly, [25] forsook his
+parochial duty, to assume the more flattering character of a popular and
+itinerant missionary. The fame of his sanctity and miracles was spread
+over the land; he declaimed, with severity and vehemence, against the
+vices of the age; and his sermons, which he preached in the streets of
+Paris, converted the robbers, the usurers, the prostitutes, and even the
+doctors and scholars of the university. No sooner did Innocent the Third
+ascend the chair of St. Peter, than he proclaimed in Italy, Germany,
+and France, the obligation of a new crusade. [26] The eloquent pontiff
+described the ruin of Jerusalem, the triumph of the Pagans, and the
+shame of Christendom; his liberality proposed the redemption of sins, a
+plenary indulgence to all who should serve in Palestine, either a year
+in person, or two years by a substitute; [27] and among his legates and
+orators who blew the sacred trumpet, Fulk of Neuilly was the loudest and
+most successful. The situation of the principal monarchs was averse to
+the pious summons. The emperor Frederic the Second was a child; and his
+kingdom of Germany was disputed by the rival houses of Brunswick and
+Swabia, the memorable factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines. Philip
+Augustus of France had performed, and could not be persuaded to renew,
+the perilous vow; but as he was not less ambitious of praise than of
+power, he cheerfully instituted a perpetual fund for the defence of the
+Holy Land Richard of England was satiated with the glory and misfortunes
+of his first adventure; and he presumed to deride the exhortations of
+Fulk of Neuilly, who was not abashed in the presence of kings. "You
+advise me," said Plantagenet, "to dismiss my three daughters, pride,
+avarice, and incontinence: I bequeath them to the most deserving; my
+pride to the knights templars, my avarice to the monks of Cisteaux, and
+my incontinence to the prelates." But the preacher was heard and obeyed
+by the great vassals, the princes of the second order; and Theobald,
+or Thibaut, count of Champagne, was the foremost in the holy race. The
+valiant youth, at the age of twenty-two years, was encouraged by the
+domestic examples of his father, who marched in the second crusade, and
+of his elder brother, who had ended his days in Palestine with the title
+of King of Jerusalem; two thousand two hundred knights owed service and
+homage to his peerage; [28] the nobles of Champagne excelled in all the
+exercises of war; [29] and, by his marriage with the heiress of Navarre,
+Thibaut could draw a band of hardy Gascons from either side of the
+Pyrenęan mountains. His companion in arms was Louis, count of Blois
+and Chartres; like himself of regal lineage, for both the princes were
+nephews, at the same time, of the kings of France and England. In a
+crowd of prelates and barons, who imitated their zeal, I distinguish the
+birth and merit of Matthew of Montmorency; the famous Simon of
+Montfort, the scourge of the Albigeois; and a valiant noble, Jeffrey of
+Villehardouin, [30] marshal of Champagne, [31] who has condescended, in
+the rude idiom of his age and country, [32] to write or dictate [33]
+an original narrative of the councils and actions in which he bore a
+memorable part. At the same time, Baldwin, count of Flanders, who had
+married the sister of Thibaut, assumed the cross at Bruges, with his
+brother Henry, and the principal knights and citizens of that rich and
+industrious province. [34] The vow which the chiefs had pronounced in
+churches, they ratified in tournaments; the operations of the war were
+debated in full and frequent assemblies; and it was resolved to seek
+the deliverance of Palestine in Egypt, a country, since Saladin's death,
+which was almost ruined by famine and civil war. But the fate of so many
+royal armies displayed the toils and perils of a land expedition; and if
+the Flemings dwelt along the ocean, the French barons were destitute of
+ships and ignorant of navigation. They embraced the wise resolution of
+choosing six deputies or representatives, of whom Villehardouin was
+one, with a discretionary trust to direct the motions, and to pledge the
+faith, of the whole confederacy. The maritime states of Italy were alone
+possessed of the means of transporting the holy warriors with their arms
+and horses; and the six deputies proceeded to Venice, to solicit, on
+motives of piety or interest, the aid of that powerful republic.
+
+[Footnote 25: See Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 26, &c., and
+Villehardouin, No. 1, with the observations of Ducange, which I always
+mean to quote with the original text.]
+
+[Footnote 26: The contemporary life of Pope Innocent III., published by
+Baluze and Muratori, (Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i.
+p. 486--568), is most valuable for the important and original documents
+which are inserted in the text. The bull of the crusade may be read, c.
+84, 85.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Por-ce que cil pardon, fut issi gran, si s'en esmeurent
+mult li cuers des genz, et mult s'en croisierent, porce que li pardons
+ere si gran. Villehardouin, No. 1. Our philosophers may refine on the
+causes of the crusades, but such were the genuine feelings of a French
+knight.]
+
+[Footnote 28: This number of fiefs (of which 1800 owed liege homage) was
+enrolled in the church of St. Stephen at Troyes, and attested A.D. 1213,
+by the marshal and butler of Champagne, (Ducange, Observ. p. 254.)]
+
+[Footnote 29: Campania.... militię privilegio singularius excellit....
+in tyrociniis.... prolusione armorum, &c., Duncage, p. 249, from the old
+Chronicle of Jerusalem, A.D. 1177--1199.]
+
+[Footnote 30: The name of Villehardouin was taken from a village and
+castle in the diocese of Troyes, near the River Aube, between Bar
+and Arcis. The family was ancient and noble; the elder branch of our
+historian existed after the year 1400, the younger, which acquired
+the principality of Achaia, merged in the house of Savoy, (Ducange, p.
+235--245.)]
+
+[Footnote 31: This office was held by his father and his descendants;
+but Ducange has not hunted it with his usual sagacity. I find that, in
+the year 1356, it was in the family of Conflans; but these provincial
+have been long since eclipsed by the national marshals of France.]
+
+[Footnote 32: This language, of which I shall produce some specimens,
+is explained by Vigenere and Ducange, in a version and glossary. The
+president Des Brosses (Méchanisme des Langues, tom. ii. p. 83) gives
+it as the example of a language which has ceased to be French, and is
+understood only by grammarians.]
+
+[Footnote 33: His age, and his own expression, moi qui ceste uvre
+_dicta_, (No. 62, &c.,) may justify the suspicion (more probable than
+Mr. Wood's on Homer) that he could neither read nor write. Yet Champagne
+may boast of the two first historians, the noble authors of French
+prose, Villehardouin and Joinville.]
+
+[Footnote 34: The crusade and reigns of the counts of Flanders, Baldwin
+and his brother Henry, are the subject of a particular history by the
+Jesuit Doutremens, (Constantinopolis Belgica; Turnaci, 1638, in 4to.,)
+which I have only seen with the eyes of Ducange.]
+
+In the invasion of Italy by Attila, I have mentioned [35] the flight of
+the Venetians from the fallen cities of the continent, and their obscure
+shelter in the chain of islands that line the extremity of the Adriatic
+Gulf. In the midst of the waters, free, indigent, laborious, and
+inaccessible, they gradually coalesced into a republic: the first
+foundations of Venice were laid in the Island of Rialto; and the annual
+election of the twelve tribunes was superseded by the permanent office
+of a duke or doge. On the verge of the two empires, the Venetians exult
+in the belief of primitive and perpetual independence. [36] Against the
+Latins, their antique freedom has been asserted by the sword, and may
+be justified by the pen. Charlemagne himself resigned all claims of
+sovereignty to the islands of the Adriatic Gulf: his son Pepin was
+repulsed in the attacks of the _lagunas_ or canals, too deep for the
+cavalry, and too shallow for the vessels; and in every age, under the
+German Cęsars, the lands of the republic have been clearly distinguished
+from the kingdom of Italy. But the inhabitants of Venice were considered
+by themselves, by strangers, and by their sovereigns, as an inalienable
+portion of the Greek empire: [37] in the ninth and tenth centuries, the
+proofs of their subjection are numerous and unquestionable; and the
+vain titles, the servile honors, of the Byzantine court, so ambitiously
+solicited by their dukes, would have degraded the magistrates of a free
+people. But the bands of this dependence, which was never absolute or
+rigid, were imperceptibly relaxed by the ambition of Venice and the
+weakness of Constantinople. Obedience was softened into respect,
+privilege ripened into prerogative, and the freedom of domestic
+government was fortified by the independence of foreign dominion. The
+maritime cities of Istria and Dalmatia bowed to the sovereigns of
+the Adriatic; and when they armed against the Normans in the cause of
+Alexius, the emperor applied, not to the duty of his subjects, but to
+the gratitude and generosity of his faithful allies. The sea was their
+patrimony: [38] the western parts of the Mediterranean, from Tuscany to
+Gibraltar, were indeed abandoned to their rivals of Pisa and Genoa; but
+the Venetians acquired an early and lucrative share of the commerce of
+Greece and Egypt. Their riches increased with the increasing demand of
+Europe; their manufactures of silk and glass, perhaps the institution of
+their bank, are of high antiquity; and they enjoyed the fruits of their
+industry in the magnificence of public and private life. To assert her
+flag, to avenge her injuries, to protect the freedom of navigation,
+the republic could launch and man a fleet of a hundred galleys; and the
+Greeks, the Saracens, and the Normans, were encountered by her naval
+arms. The Franks of Syria were assisted by the Venetians in the
+reduction of the sea coast; but their zeal was neither blind nor
+disinterested; and in the conquest of Tyre, they shared the sovereignty
+of a city, the first seat of the commerce of the world. The policy of
+Venice was marked by the avarice of a trading, and the insolence of a
+maritime, power; yet her ambition was prudent: nor did she often forget
+that if armed galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant vessels
+were the cause and supply, of her greatness. In her religion, she
+avoided the schisms of the Greeks, without yielding a servile obedience
+to the Roman pontiff; and a free intercourse with the infidels of every
+clime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of superstition. Her
+primitive government was a loose mixture of democracy and monarchy; the
+doge was elected by the votes of the general assembly; as long as he
+was popular and successful, he reigned with the pomp and authority of a
+prince; but in the frequent revolutions of the state, he was deposed,
+or banished, or slain, by the justice or injustice of the multitude.
+The twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and jealous
+aristocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant, and the people to
+a cipher. [39]
+
+[Footnote 35: History, &c., vol. iii. p. 446, 447.]
+
+[Footnote 36: The foundation and independence of Venice, and Pepin's
+invasion, are discussed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 81, No. 4,
+&c.) and Beretti, (Dissert. Chorograph. Italię Medii Ęvi, in Muratori,
+Script. tom. x. p. 153.) The two critics have a slight bias, the
+Frenchman adverse, the Italian favorable, to the republic.]
+
+[Footnote 37: When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right of
+sovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, oti hmeiV douloi
+Jelomen einai tou 'Rwmaiwn basilewV, (Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de
+Administrat. Imperii, pars ii. c. 28, p. 85;) and the report of the
+ixth establishes the fact of the xth century, which is confirmed by the
+embassy of Liutprand of Cremona. The annual tribute, which the emperor
+allows them to pay to the king of Italy, alleviates, by doubling, their
+servitude; but the hateful word douloi must be translated, as in the
+charter of 827, (Laugier, Hist. de Venice, tom. i. p. 67, &c.,) by the
+softer appellation of _subditi_, or _fideles_.]
+
+[Footnote 38: See the xxvth and xxxth dissertations of the Antiquitates
+Medii Ęvi of Muratori. From Anderson's History of Commerce, I understand
+that the Venetians did not trade to England before the year 1323. The
+most flourishing state of their wealth and commerce, in the beginning of
+the xvth century, is agreeably described by the Abbé Dubos, (Hist. de la
+Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 443--480.)]
+
+[Footnote 39: The Venetians have been slow in writing and publishing
+their history. Their most ancient monuments are, 1. The rude Chronicle
+(perhaps) of John Sagorninus, (Venezia, 1765, in octavo,) which
+represents the state and manners of Venice in the year 1008. 2. The
+larger history of the doge, (1342--1354,) Andrew Dandolo, published for
+the first time in the xiith tom. of Muratori, A.D. 1728. The History
+of Venice by the Abbé Laugier, (Paris, 1728,) is a work of some merit,
+which I have chiefly used for the constitutional part. * Note: It is
+scarcely necessary to mention the valuable work of Count Daru, "History
+de Venise," of which I hear that an Italian translation has been
+published, with notes defensive of the ancient republic. I have not yet
+seen this work.--M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.--Part II.
+
+When the six ambassadors of the French pilgrims arrived at Venice, they
+were hospitably entertained in the palace of St. Mark, by the reigning
+duke; his name was Henry Dandolo; [40] and he shone in the last period of
+human life as one of the most illustrious characters of the times.
+Under the weight of years, and after the loss of his eyes, [41] Dandolo
+retained a sound understanding and a manly courage: the spirit of a
+hero, ambitious to signalize his reign by some memorable exploits; and
+the wisdom of a patriot, anxious to build his fame on the glory and
+advantage of his country. He praised the bold enthusiasm and liberal
+confidence of the barons and their deputies: in such a cause, and with
+such associates, he should aspire, were he a private man, to terminate
+his life; but he was the servant of the republic, and some delay was
+requisite to consult, on this arduous business, the judgment of his
+colleagues. The proposal of the French was first debated by the six
+_sages_ who had been recently appointed to control the administration of
+the doge: it was next disclosed to the forty members of the council
+of state; and finally communicated to the legislative assembly of four
+hundred and fifty representatives, who were annually chosen in the six
+quarters of the city. In peace and war, the doge was still the chief
+of the republic; his legal authority was supported by the personal
+reputation of Dandolo: his arguments of public interest were balanced
+and approved; and he was authorized to inform the ambassadors of
+the following conditions of the treaty. [42] It was proposed that the
+crusaders should assemble at Venice, on the feast of St. John of the
+ensuing year; that flat-bottomed vessels should be prepared for four
+thousand five hundred horses, and nine thousand squires, with a number
+of ships sufficient for the embarkation of four thousand five hundred
+knights, and twenty thousand foot; that during a term of nine months
+they should be supplied with provisions, and transported to whatsoever
+coast the service of God and Christendom should require; and that the
+republic should join the armament with a squadron of fifty galleys. It
+was required, that the pilgrims should pay, before their departure, a
+sum of eighty-five thousand marks of silver; and that all conquests, by
+sea and land, should be equally divided between the confederates. The
+terms were hard; but the emergency was pressing, and the French barons
+were not less profuse of money than of blood. A general assembly was
+convened to ratify the treaty: the stately chapel and place of St. Mark
+were filled with ten thousand citizens; and the noble deputies were
+taught a new lesson of humbling themselves before the majesty of the
+people. "Illustrious Venetians," said the marshal of Champagne, "we are
+sent by the greatest and most powerful barons of France to implore the
+aid of the masters of the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem. They
+have enjoined us to fall prostrate at your feet; nor will we rise from
+the ground till you have promised to avenge with us the injuries of
+Christ." The eloquence of their words and tears, [43] their martial
+aspect, and suppliant attitude, were applauded by a universal shout; as
+it were, says Jeffrey, by the sound of an earthquake. The venerable doge
+ascended the pulpit to urge their request by those motives of honor and
+virtue, which alone can be offered to a popular assembly: the treaty
+was transcribed on parchment, attested with oaths and seals, mutually
+accepted by the weeping and joyful representatives of France and Venice;
+and despatched to Rome for the approbation of Pope Innocent the Third.
+Two thousand marks were borrowed of the merchants for the first expenses
+of the armament. Of the six deputies, two repassed the Alps to announce
+their success, while their four companions made a fruitless trial of the
+zeal and emulation of the republics of Genoa and Pisa.
+
+[Footnote 40: Henry Dandolo was eighty-four at his election, (A.D.
+1192,) and ninety-seven at his death, (A.D. 1205.) See the Observations
+of Ducange sur Villehardouin, No. 204. But this _extraordinary_
+longevity is not observed by the original writers, nor does there exist
+another example of a hero near a hundred years of age. Theophrastus
+might afford an instance of a writer of ninety-nine; but instead
+of ennenhkonta, (Prom. ad Character.,)I am much inclined to read
+ebdomhkonta, with his last editor Fischer, and the first thoughts of
+Casaubon. It is scarcely possible that the powers of the mind and body
+should support themselves till such a period of life.]
+
+[Footnote 41: The modern Venetians (Laugier, tom. ii. p. 119) accuse
+the emperor Manuel; but the calumny is refuted by Villehardouin and the
+older writers, who suppose that Dandolo lost his eyes by a wound, (No.
+31, and Ducange.) * Note: The accounts differ, both as to the extent and
+the cause of his blindness According to Villehardouin and others, the
+sight was totally lost; according to the Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo.
+(Murat. tom. xii. p. 322,) he was vise debilis. See Wilken, vol. v. p.
+143.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 42: See the original treaty in the Chronicle of Andrew
+Dandolo, p. 323--326.]
+
+[Footnote 43: A reader of Villehardouin must observe the frequent tears
+of the marshal and his brother knights. Sachiez que la ot mainte lerme
+plorée de pitié, (No. 17;) mult plorant, (ibid.;) mainte lerme plorée,
+(No. 34;) si orent mult pitié et plorerent mult durement, (No. 60;) i ot
+mainte lerme plorée de pitié, (No. 202.) They weep on every occasion of
+grief, joy, or devotion.]
+
+The execution of the treaty was still opposed by unforeseen difficulties
+and delays. The marshal, on his return to Troyes, was embraced and
+approved by Thibaut count of Champagne, who had been unanimously chosen
+general of the confederates. But the health of that valiant youth
+already declined, and soon became hopeless; and he deplored the untimely
+fate, which condemned him to expire, not in a field of battle, but on
+a bed of sickness. To his brave and numerous vassals, the dying prince
+distributed his treasures: they swore in his presence to accomplish his
+vow and their own; but some there were, says the marshal, who accepted
+his gifts and forfeited their words. The more resolute champions of the
+cross held a parliament at Soissons for the election of a new general;
+but such was the incapacity, or jealousy, or reluctance, of the princes
+of France, that none could be found both able and willing to assume the
+conduct of the enterprise. They acquiesced in the choice of a stranger,
+of Boniface marquis of Montferrat, descended of a race of heroes, and
+himself of conspicuous fame in the wars and negotiations of the times;
+[44] nor could the piety or ambition of the Italian chief decline this
+honorable invitation. After visiting the French court, where he
+was received as a friend and kinsman, the marquis, in the church of
+Soissons, was invested with the cross of a pilgrim and the staff of a
+general; and immediately repassed the Alps, to prepare for the distant
+expedition of the East. About the festival of the Pentecost he displayed
+his banner, and marched towards Venice at the head of the Italians: he
+was preceded or followed by the counts of Flanders and Blois, and the
+most respectable barons of France; and their numbers were swelled by the
+pilgrims of Germany, [45] whose object and motives were similar to their
+own. The Venetians had fulfilled, and even surpassed, their engagements:
+stables were constructed for the horses, and barracks for the troops:
+the magazines were abundantly replenished with forage and provisions;
+and the fleet of transports, ships, and galleys, was ready to hoist
+sail as soon as the republic had received the price of the freight and
+armament. But that price far exceeded the wealth of the crusaders who
+were assembled at Venice. The Flemings, whose obedience to their count
+was voluntary and precarious, had embarked in their vessels for the long
+navigation of the ocean and Mediterranean; and many of the French
+and Italians had preferred a cheaper and more convenient passage from
+Marseilles and Apulia to the Holy Land. Each pilgrim might complain,
+that after he had furnished his own contribution, he was made
+responsible for the deficiency of his absent brethren: the gold and
+silver plate of the chiefs, which they freely delivered to the treasury
+of St. Marks, was a generous but inadequate sacrifice; and after all
+their efforts, thirty-four thousand marks were still wanting to
+complete the stipulated sum. The obstacle was removed by the policy and
+patriotism of the doge, who proposed to the barons, that if they would
+join their arms in reducing some revolted cities of Dalmatia, he would
+expose his person in the holy war, and obtain from the republic a
+long indulgence, till some wealthy conquest should afford the means
+of satisfying the debt. After much scruple and hesitation, they chose
+rather to accept the offer than to relinquish the enterprise; and the
+first hostilities of the fleet and army were directed against Zara,
+[46] a strong city of the Sclavonian coast, which had renounced its
+allegiance to Venice, and implored the protection of the king of
+Hungary. [47] The crusaders burst the chain or boom of the harbor;
+landed their horses, troops, and military engines; and compelled the
+inhabitants, after a defence of five days, to surrender at discretion:
+their lives were spared, but the revolt was punished by the pillage
+of their houses and the demolition of their walls. The season was far
+advanced; the French and Venetians resolved to pass the winter in a
+secure harbor and plentiful country; but their repose was disturbed
+by national and tumultuous quarrels of the soldiers and mariners. The
+conquest of Zara had scattered the seeds of discord and scandal: the
+arms of the allies had been stained in their outset with the blood, not
+of infidels, but of Christians: the king of Hungary and his new subjects
+were themselves enlisted under the banner of the cross; and the scruples
+of the devout were magnified by the fear of lassitude of the reluctant
+pilgrims. The pope had excommunicated the false crusaders who had
+pillaged and massacred their brethren, [48] and only the marquis Boniface
+and Simon of Montfort [481] escaped these spiritual thunders; the one by
+his absence from the siege, the other by his final departure from the
+camp. Innocent might absolve the simple and submissive penitents of
+France; but he was provoked by the stubborn reason of the Venetians, who
+refused to confess their guilt, to accept their pardon, or to allow, in
+their temporal concerns, the interposition of a priest.
+
+[Footnote 44: By a victory (A.D. 1191) over the citizens of Asti, by
+a crusade to Palestine, and by an embassy from the pope to the German
+princes, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. x. p. 163, 202.)]
+
+[Footnote 45: See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C. P. of
+Gunther, (Canisii Antiq. Lect. tom. iv. p. v.--viii.,) who celebrates
+the pilgrimage of his abbot Martin, one of the preaching rivals of Fulk
+of Neuilly. His monastery, of the Cistercian order, was situate in the
+diocese of Basil.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Jadera, now Zara, was a Roman colony, which acknowledged
+Augustus for its parent. It is now only two miles round, and contains
+five or six thousand inhabitants; but the fortifications are strong, and
+it is joined to the main land by a bridge. See the travels of the two
+companions, Spon and Wheeler, (Voyage de Dalmatie, de Grčce, &c., tom.
+i. p. 64--70. Journey into Greece, p. 8--14;) the last of whom, by
+mistaking _Sestertia_ for _Sestertii_, values an arch with statues and
+columns at twelve pounds. If, in his time, there were no trees
+near Zara, the cherry-trees were not yet planted which produce our
+incomparable _marasquin_.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Katona (Hist. Critica Reg. Hungarię, Stirpis Arpad. tom.
+iv. p. 536--558) collects all the facts and testimonies most adverse to
+the conquerors of Zara.]
+
+[Footnote 48: See the whole transaction, and the sentiments of the pope,
+in the Epistles of Innocent III. Gesta, c. 86, 87, 88.]
+
+[Footnote 481: Montfort protested against the siege. Guido, the abbot of
+Vaux de Sernay, in the name of the pope, interdicted the attack on a
+Christian city; and the immediate surrender of the town was thus delayed
+for five days of fruitless resistance. Wilken, vol. v. p. 167. See
+likewise, at length, the history of the interdict issued by the pope.
+Ibid.--M.]
+
+The assembly of such formidable powers by sea and land had revived the
+hopes of young [49] Alexius; and both at Venice and Zara, he solicited
+the arms of the crusaders, for his own restoration and his father's [50]
+deliverance. The royal youth was recommended by Philip king of Germany:
+his prayers and presence excited the compassion of the camp; and his
+cause was embraced and pleaded by the marquis of Montferrat and the doge
+of Venice. A double alliance, and the dignity of Cęsar, had connected
+with the Imperial family the two elder brothers of Boniface: [51] he
+expected to derive a kingdom from the important service; and the
+more generous ambition of Dandolo was eager to secure the inestimable
+benefits of trade and dominion that might accrue to his country. [52]
+Their influence procured a favorable audience for the ambassadors of
+Alexius; and if the magnitude of his offers excited some suspicion,
+the motives and rewards which he displayed might justify the delay and
+diversion of those forces which had been consecrated to the deliverance
+of Jerusalem. He promised in his own and his father's name, that as soon
+as they should be seated on the throne of Constantinople, they would
+terminate the long schism of the Greeks, and submit themselves and
+their people to the lawful supremacy of the Roman church. He engaged
+to recompense the labors and merits of the crusaders, by the immediate
+payment of two hundred thousand marks of silver; to accompany them
+in person to Egypt; or, if it should be judged more advantageous, to
+maintain, during a year, ten thousand men, and, during his life, five
+hundred knights, for the service of the Holy Land. These tempting
+conditions were accepted by the republic of Venice; and the eloquence
+of the doge and marquis persuaded the counts of Flanders, Blois, and St.
+Pol, with eight barons of France, to join in the glorious enterprise. A
+treaty of offensive and defensive alliance was confirmed by their
+oaths and seals; and each individual, according to his situation and
+character, was swayed by the hope of public or private advantage; by
+the honor of restoring an exiled monarch; or by the sincere and
+probable opinion, that their efforts in Palestine would be fruitless and
+unavailing, and that the acquisition of Constantinople must precede and
+prepare the recovery of Jerusalem. But they were the chiefs or equals
+of a valiant band of freemen and volunteers, who thought and acted
+for themselves: the soldiers and clergy were divided; and, if a large
+majority subscribed to the alliance, the numbers and arguments of the
+dissidents were strong and respectable. [53] The boldest hearts were
+appalled by the report of the naval power and impregnable strength of
+Constantinople; and their apprehensions were disguised to the world,
+and perhaps to themselves, by the more decent objections of religion
+and duty. They alleged the sanctity of a vow, which had drawn them from
+their families and homes to the rescue of the holy sepulchre; nor
+should the dark and crooked counsels of human policy divert them from
+a pursuit, the event of which was in the hands of the Almighty. Their
+first offence, the attack of Zara, had been severely punished by the
+reproach of their conscience and the censures of the pope; nor would
+they again imbrue their hands in the blood of their fellow-Christians.
+The apostle of Rome had pronounced; nor would they usurp the right
+of avenging with the sword the schism of the Greeks and the doubtful
+usurpation of the Byzantine monarch. On these principles or pretences,
+many pilgrims, the most distinguished for their valor and piety,
+withdrew from the camp; and their retreat was less pernicious than the
+open or secret opposition of a discontented party, that labored, on
+every occasion, to separate the army and disappoint the enterprise.
+
+[Footnote 49: A modern reader is surprised to hear of the valet de
+Constantinople, as applied to young Alexius, on account of his youth,
+like the _infants_ of Spain, and the _nobilissimus puer_ of the Romans.
+The pages and _valets_ of the knights were as noble as themselves,
+(Villehardouin and Ducange, No. 36.)]
+
+[Footnote 50: The emperor Isaac is styled by Villehardouin, _Sursac_,
+(No. 35, &c.,) which may be derived from the French _Sire_, or the Greek
+Kur (kurioV?) melted into his proper name; the further corruptions of
+Tursac and Conserac will instruct us what license may have been used in
+the old dynasties of Assyria and Egypt.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Reinier and Conrad: the former married Maria, daughter
+of the emperor Manuel Comnenus; the latter was the husband of Theodora
+Angela, sister of the emperors Isaac and Alexius. Conrad abandoned
+the Greek court and princess for the glory of defending Tyre against
+Saladin, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 187, 203.)]
+
+[Footnote 52: Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, l. iii. c. 9) accuses the doge
+and Venetians as the first authors of the war against Constantinople,
+and considers only as a kuma epi kumati, the arrival and shameful offers
+of the royal exile. * Note: He admits, however, that the Angeli had
+committed depredations on the Venetian trade, and the emperor himself
+had refused the payment of part of the stipulated compensation for the
+seizure of the Venetian merchandise by the emperor Manuel. Nicetas, in
+loc.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 53: Villehardouin and Gunther represent the sentiments of
+the two parties. The abbot Martin left the army at Zara, proceeded to
+Palestine, was sent ambassador to Constantinople, and became a reluctant
+witness of the second siege.]
+
+Notwithstanding this defection, the departure of the fleet and army was
+vigorously pressed by the Venetians, whose zeal for the service of the
+royal youth concealed a just resentment to his nation and family. They
+were mortified by the recent preference which had been given to Pisa,
+the rival of their trade; they had a long arrear of debt and injury to
+liquidate with the Byzantine court; and Dandolo might not discourage
+the popular tale, that he had been deprived of his eyes by the emperor
+Manuel, who perfidiously violated the sanctity of an ambassador. A
+similar armament, for ages, had not rode the Adriatic: it was composed
+of one hundred and twenty flat-bottomed vessels or _palanders_ for
+the horses; two hundred and forty transports filled with men and arms;
+seventy store-ships laden with provisions; and fifty stout galleys,
+well prepared for the encounter of an enemy. [54] While the wind was
+favorable, the sky serene, and the water smooth, every eye was fixed
+with wonder and delight on the scene of military and naval pomp which
+overspread the sea. [541] The shields of the knights and squires, at once
+an ornament and a defence, were arranged on either side of the ships;
+the banners of the nations and families were displayed from the stern;
+our modern artillery was supplied by three hundred engines for casting
+stones and darts: the fatigues of the way were cheered with the sound
+of music; and the spirits of the adventurers were raised by the mutual
+assurance, that forty thousand Christian heroes were equal to the
+conquest of the world. [55] In the navigation [56] from Venice and Zara,
+the fleet was successfully steered by the skill and experience of
+the Venetian pilots: at Durazzo, the confederates first landed on the
+territories of the Greek empire: the Isle of Corfu afforded a station
+and repose; they doubled, without accident, the perilous cape of Malea,
+the southern point of Peloponnesus or the Morea; made a descent in
+the islands of Negropont and Andros; and cast anchor at Abydus on the
+Asiatic side of the Hellespont. These preludes of conquest were easy and
+bloodless: the Greeks of the provinces, without patriotism or courage,
+were crushed by an irresistible force: the presence of the lawful heir
+might justify their obedience; and it was rewarded by the modesty and
+discipline of the Latins. As they penetrated through the Hellespont, the
+magnitude of their navy was compressed in a narrow channel, and the face
+of the waters was darkened with innumerable sails. They again expanded
+in the basin of the Propontis, and traversed that placid sea, till
+they approached the European shore, at the abbey of St. Stephen, three
+leagues to the west of Constantinople. The prudent doge dissuaded them
+from dispersing themselves in a populous and hostile land; and, as
+their stock of provisions was reduced, it was resolved, in the season
+of harvest, to replenish their store-ships in the fertile islands of
+the Propontis. With this resolution, they directed their course: but a
+strong gale, and their own impatience, drove them to the eastward; and
+so near did they run to the shore and the city, that some volleys of
+stones and darts were exchanged between the ships and the rampart. As
+they passed along, they gazed with admiration on the capital of the
+East, or, as it should seem, of the earth; rising from her seven hills,
+and towering over the continents of Europe and Asia. The swelling domes
+and lofty spires of five hundred palaces and churches were gilded by the
+sun and reflected in the waters: the walls were crowded with soldiers
+and spectators, whose numbers they beheld, of whose temper they were
+ignorant; and each heart was chilled by the reflection, that, since the
+beginning of the world, such an enterprise had never been undertaken by
+such a handful of warriors. But the momentary apprehension was dispelled
+by hope and valor; and every man, says the marshal of Champagne, glanced
+his eye on the sword or lance which he must speedily use in the glorious
+conflict. [57] The Latins cast anchor before Chalcedon; the mariners only
+were left in the vessels: the soldiers, horses, and arms, were safely
+landed; and, in the luxury of an Imperial palace, the barons tasted
+the first fruits of their success. On the third day, the fleet and
+army moved towards Scutari, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople: a
+detachment of five hundred Greek horse was surprised and defeated by
+fourscore French knights; and in a halt of nine days, the camp was
+plentifully supplied with forage and provisions.
+
+[Footnote 54: The birth and dignity of Andrew Dandolo gave him the
+motive and the means of searching in the archives of Venice the
+memorable story of his ancestor. His brevity seems to accuse the copious
+and more recent narratives of Sanudo, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum
+Italicarum, tom. xxii.,) Blondus, Sabellicus, and Rhamnusius.]
+
+[Footnote 541: This description rather belongs to the first setting sail
+of the expedition from Venice, before the siege of Zara. The armament
+did not return to Venice.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 55: Villehardouin, No. 62. His feelings and expressions are
+original: he often weeps, but he rejoices in the glories and perils of
+war with a spirit unknown to a sedentary writer.]
+
+[Footnote 56: In this voyage, almost all the geographical names are
+corrupted by the Latins. The modern appellation of Chalcis, and all
+Euba, is derived from its _Euripus_, _Evripo_, _Negri-po_, _Negropont_,
+which dishonors our maps, (D'Anville, Géographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
+263.)]
+
+[Footnote 57: Et sachiez que il ni ot si hardi cui le cuer ne fremist,
+(c. 66.).. Chascuns regardoit ses armes.... que par tems en arons
+mestier, (c. 67.) Such is the honesty of courage.]
+
+In relating the invasion of a great empire, it may seem strange that I
+have not described the obstacles which should have checked the progress
+of the strangers. The Greeks, in truth, were an unwarlike people; but
+they were rich, industrious, and subject to the will of a single man:
+had that man been capable of fear, when his enemies were at a distance,
+or of courage, when they approached his person. The first rumor of his
+nephew's alliance with the French and Venetians was despised by the
+usurper Alexius: his flatterers persuaded him, that in this contempt he
+was bold and sincere; and each evening, in the close of the banquet, he
+thrice discomfited the Barbarians of the West. These Barbarians had
+been justly terrified by the report of his naval power; and the sixteen
+hundred fishing boats of Constantinople [58] could have manned a fleet,
+to sink them in the Adriatic, or stop their entrance in the mouth of the
+Hellespont. But all force may be annihilated by the negligence of the
+prince and the venality of his ministers. The great duke, or admiral,
+made a scandalous, almost a public, auction of the sails, the masts,
+and the rigging: the royal forests were reserved for the more important
+purpose of the chase; and the trees, says Nicetas, were guarded by the
+eunuchs, like the groves of religious worship. [59] From his dream of
+pride, Alexius was awakened by the siege of Zara, and the rapid advances
+of the Latins; as soon as he saw the danger was real, he thought it
+inevitable, and his vain presumption was lost in abject despondency and
+despair. He suffered these contemptible Barbarians to pitch their camp
+in the sight of the palace; and his apprehensions were thinly disguised
+by the pomp and menace of a suppliant embassy. The sovereign of the
+Romans was astonished (his ambassadors were instructed to say) at the
+hostile appearance of the strangers. If these pilgrims were sincere in
+their vow for the deliverance of Jerusalem, his voice must applaud, and
+his treasures should assist, their pious design but should they dare to
+invade the sanctuary of empire, their numbers, were they ten times more
+considerable, should not protect them from his just resentment. The
+answer of the doge and barons was simple and magnanimous. "In the cause
+of honor and justice," they said, "we despise the usurper of Greece, his
+threats, and his offers. _Our_ friendship and _his_ allegiance are due
+to the lawful heir, to the young prince, who is seated among us, and to
+his father, the emperor Isaac, who has been deprived of his sceptre, his
+freedom, and his eyes, by the crime of an ungrateful brother. Let that
+brother confess his guilt, and implore forgiveness, and we ourselves
+will intercede, that he may be permitted to live in affluence and
+security. But let him not insult us by a second message; our reply will
+be made in arms, in the palace of Constantinople."
+
+[Footnote 58: Eandem urbem plus in solis navibus piscatorum abundare,
+quam illos in toto navigio. Habebat enim mille et sexcentas piscatorias
+naves..... Bellicas autem sive mercatorias habebant infinitę
+multitudinis et portum tutissimum. Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Kaqaper iervn alsewn, eipein de kai Jeojuteutwn paradeiswn
+ejeid?onto toutwni. Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l. iii. c. 9, p. 348.]
+
+On the tenth day of their encampment at Scutari, the crusaders prepared
+themselves, as soldiers and as Catholics, for the passage of the
+Bosphorus. Perilous indeed was the adventure; the stream was broad and
+rapid: in a calm the current of the Euxine might drive down the liquid
+and unextinguishable fires of the Greeks; and the opposite shores of
+Europe were defended by seventy thousand horse and foot in formidable
+array. On this memorable day, which happened to be bright and pleasant,
+the Latins were distributed in six battles or divisions; the first, or
+vanguard, was led by the count of Flanders, one of the most powerful of
+the Christian princes in the skill and number of his crossbows. The four
+successive battles of the French were commanded by his brother Henry,
+the counts of St. Pol and Blois, and Matthew of Montmorency; the last of
+whom was honored by the voluntary service of the marshal and nobles of
+Champagne. The sixth division, the rear-guard and reserve of the army,
+was conducted by the marquis of Montferrat, at the head of the Germans
+and Lombards. The chargers, saddled, with their long comparisons
+dragging on the ground, were embarked in the flat _palanders_; [60] and
+the knights stood by the side of their horses, in complete armor, their
+helmets laced, and their lances in their hands. The numerous train of
+sergeants [61] and archers occupied the transports; and each transport
+was towed by the strength and swiftness of a galley. The six divisions
+traversed the Bosphorus, without encountering an enemy or an obstacle:
+to land the foremost was the wish, to conquer or die was the resolution,
+of every division and of every soldier. Jealous of the preeminence of
+danger, the knights in their heavy armor leaped into the sea, when it
+rose as high as their girdle; the sergeants and archers were animated
+by their valor; and the squires, letting down the draw-bridges of the
+palanders, led the horses to the shore. Before their squadrons could
+mount, and form, and couch their Lances, the seventy thousand Greeks
+had vanished from their sight: the timid Alexius gave the example to his
+troops; and it was only by the plunder of his rich pavilions that the
+Latins were informed that they had fought against an emperor. In the
+first consternation of the flying enemy, they resolved, by a double
+attack, to open the entrance of the harbor. The tower of Galata, [62] in
+the suburb of Pera, was attacked and stormed by the French, while the
+Venetians assumed the more difficult task of forcing the boom or chain
+that was stretched from that tower to the Byzantine shore. After some
+fruitless attempts, their intrepid perseverance prevailed: twenty ships
+of war, the relics of the Grecian navy, were either sunk or taken: the
+enormous and massy links of iron were cut asunder by the shears, or
+broken by the weight, of the galleys; [63] and the Venetian fleet, safe
+and triumphant, rode at anchor in the port of Constantinople. By these
+daring achievements, a remnant of twenty thousand Latins solicited
+the license of besieging a capital which contained above four hundred
+thousand inhabitants, [64] able, though not willing, to bear arms
+in defence of their country. Such an account would indeed suppose a
+population of near two millions; but whatever abatement may be required
+in the numbers of the Greeks, the _belief_ of those numbers will equally
+exalt the fearless spirit of their assailants.
+
+[Footnote 60: From the version of Vignere I adopt the well-sounding word
+_palander_, which is still used, I believe, in the Mediterranean.
+But had I written in French, I should have preserved the original and
+expressive denomination of _vessiers_ or _huissiers_, from the _huis_ or
+door which was let down as a draw-bridge; but which, at sea, was closed
+into the side of the ship, (see Ducange au Villehardouin, No. 14, and
+Joinville. p. 27, 28, edit. du Louvre.)]
+
+[Footnote 61: To avoid the vague expressions of followers, &c., I use,
+after Villehardouin, the word _sergeants_ for all horsemen who were not
+knights. There were sergeants at arms, and sergeants at law; and if we
+visit the parade and Westminster Hall, we may observe the strange result
+of the distinction, (Ducange, Glossar. Latin, _Servientes_, &c., tom.
+vi. p. 226--231.)]
+
+[Footnote 62: It is needless to observe, that on the subject of Galata,
+the chain, &c., Ducange is accurate and full. Consult likewise the
+proper chapters of the C. P. Christiana of the same author. The
+inhabitants of Galata were so vain and ignorant, that they applied to
+themselves St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.]
+
+[Footnote 63: The vessel that broke the chain was named the Eagle,
+_Aquila_, (Dandolo, Chronicon, p. 322,) which Blondus (de Gestis Venet.)
+has changed into _Aquilo_, the north wind. Ducange (Observations, No.
+83) maintains the latter reading; but he had not seen the respectable
+text of Dandolo, nor did he enough consider the topography of the
+harbor. The south-east would have been a more effectual wind. (Note to
+Wilken, vol. v. p. 215.)]
+
+[Footnote 64: Quatre cens mil homes ou plus, (Villehardouin, No. 134,)
+must be understood of _men_ of a military age. Le Beau (Hist. du. Bas
+Empire, tom. xx. p. 417) allows Constantinople a million of inhabitants,
+of whom 60,000 horse, and an infinite number of foot-soldiers. In its
+present decay, the capital of the Ottoman empire may contain 400,000
+souls, (Bell's Travels, vol. ii. p. 401, 402;) but as the Turks keep
+no registers, and as circumstances are fallacious, it is impossible
+to ascertain (Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 18, 19) the real
+populousness of their cities.]
+
+In the choice of the attack, the French and Venetians were divided by
+their habits of life and warfare. The former affirmed with truth,
+that Constantinople was most accessible on the side of the sea and the
+harbor. The latter might assert with honor, that they had long enough
+trusted their lives and fortunes to a frail bark and a precarious
+element, and loudly demanded a trial of knighthood, a firm ground, and a
+close onset, either on foot or on horseback. After a prudent compromise,
+of employing the two nations by sea and land, in the service best suited
+to their character, the fleet covering the army, they both proceeded
+from the entrance to the extremity of the harbor: the stone bridge of
+the river was hastily repaired; and the six battles of the French formed
+their encampment against the front of the capital, the basis of the
+triangle which runs about four miles from the port to the Propontis. [65]
+On the edge of a broad ditch, at the foot of a lofty rampart, they had
+leisure to contemplate the difficulties of their enterprise. The gates
+to the right and left of their narrow camp poured forth frequent sallies
+of cavalry and light-infantry, which cut off their stragglers, swept the
+country of provisions, sounded the alarm five or six times in the
+course of each day, and compelled them to plant a palisade, and sink an
+intrenchment, for their immediate safety. In the supplies and convoys
+the Venetians had been too sparing, or the Franks too voracious: the
+usual complaints of hunger and scarcity were heard, and perhaps felt
+their stock of flour would be exhausted in three weeks; and their
+disgust of salt meat tempted them to taste the flesh of their
+horses. The trembling usurper was supported by Theodore Lascaris,
+his son-in-law, a valiant youth, who aspired to save and to rule his
+country; the Greeks, regardless of that country, were awakened to the
+defence of their religion; but their firmest hope was in the strength
+and spirit of the Varangian guards, of the Danes and English, as they
+are named in the writers of the times. [66] After ten days' incessant
+labor, the ground was levelled, the ditch filled, the approaches of
+the besiegers were regularly made, and two hundred and fifty engines of
+assault exercised their various powers to clear the rampart, to batter
+the walls, and to sap the foundations. On the first appearance of a
+breach, the scaling-ladders were applied: the numbers that defended the
+vantage ground repulsed and oppressed the adventurous Latins; but they
+admired the resolution of fifteen knights and sergeants, who had
+gained the ascent, and maintained their perilous station till they were
+precipitated or made prisoners by the Imperial guards. On the side
+of the harbor the naval attack was more successfully conducted by the
+Venetians; and that industrious people employed every resource that was
+known and practiced before the invention of gunpowder. A double line,
+three bow-shots in front, was formed by the galleys and ships; and the
+swift motion of the former was supported by the weight and loftiness of
+the latter, whose decks, and poops, and turret, were the platforms of
+military engines, that discharged their shot over the heads of the first
+line. The soldiers, who leaped from the galleys on shore, immediately
+planted and ascended their scaling-ladders, while the large ships,
+advancing more slowly into the intervals, and lowering a draw-bridge,
+opened a way through the air from their masts to the rampart. In the
+midst of the conflict, the doge, a venerable and conspicuous form, stood
+aloft in complete armor on the prow of his galley. The great standard
+of St. Mark was displayed before him; his threats, promises, and
+exhortations, urged the diligence of the rowers; his vessel was the
+first that struck; and Dandolo was the first warrior on the shore. The
+nations admired the magnanimity of the blind old man, without reflecting
+that his age and infirmities diminished the price of life, and enhanced
+the value of immortal glory. On a sudden, by an invisible hand, (for
+the standard-bearer was probably slain,) the banner of the republic was
+fixed on the rampart: twenty-five towers were rapidly occupied; and, by
+the cruel expedient of fire, the Greeks were driven from the adjacent
+quarter. The doge had despatched the intelligence of his success, when
+he was checked by the danger of his confederates. Nobly declaring that
+he would rather die with the pilgrims than gain a victory by their
+destruction, Dandolo relinquished his advantage, recalled his troops,
+and hastened to the scene of action. He found the six weary diminutive
+_battles_ of the French encompassed by sixty squadrons of the Greek
+cavalry, the least of which was more numerous than the largest of their
+divisions. Shame and despair had provoked Alexius to the last effort of
+a general sally; but he was awed by the firm order and manly aspect of
+the Latins; and, after skirmishing at a distance, withdrew his troops in
+the close of the evening. The silence or tumult of the night exasperated
+his fears; and the timid usurper, collecting a treasure of ten thousand
+pounds of gold, basely deserted his wife, his people, and his fortune;
+threw himself into a bark; stole through the Bosphorus; and landed in
+shameful safety in an obscure harbor of Thrace. As soon as they were
+apprised of his flight, the Greek nobles sought pardon and peace in
+the dungeon where the blind Isaac expected each hour the visit of the
+executioner. Again saved and exalted by the vicissitudes of fortune, the
+captive in his Imperial robes was replace on the throne, and surrounded
+with prostrate slaves, whose real terror and affected joy he was
+incapable of discerning. At the dawn of day, hostilities were suspended,
+and the Latin chiefs were surprised by a message from the lawful and
+reigning emperor, who was impatient to embrace his son, and to reward
+his generous deliverers. [67]
+
+[Footnote 65: On the most correct plans of Constantinople, I know not
+how to measure more than 4000 paces. Yet Villehardouin computes the
+space at three leagues, (No. 86.) If his eye were not deceived, he must
+reckon by the old Gallic league of 1500 paces, which might still be used
+in Champagne.]
+
+[Footnote 66: The guards, the Varangi, are styled by Villehardouin, (No.
+89, 95) Englois et Danois avec leurs haches. Whatever had been their
+origin, a French pilgrim could not be mistaken in the nations of which
+they were at that time composed.]
+
+[Footnote 67: For the first siege and conquest of Constantinople, we may
+read the original letter of the crusaders to Innocent III., Gesta, c.
+91, p. 533, 534. Villehardouin, No. 75--99. Nicetas, in Alexio Comnen.
+l. iii. c. 10, p. 349--352. Dandolo, in Chron. p. 322. Gunther, and his
+abbot Martin, were not yet returned from their obstinate pilgrim age to
+Jerusalem, or St. John d'Acre, where the greatest part of the company
+had died of the plague.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.--Part III.
+
+But these generous deliverers were unwilling to release their hostage,
+till they had obtained from his father the payment, or at least the
+promise, of their recompense. They chose four ambassadors, Matthew of
+Montmorency, our historian the marshal of Champagne, and two Venetians,
+to congratulate the emperor. The gates were thrown open on their
+approach, the streets on both sides were lined with the battle axes of
+the Danish and English guard: the presence-chamber glittered with gold
+and jewels, the false substitute of virtue and power: by the side of the
+blind Isaac his wife was seated, the sister of the king of Hungary: and
+by her appearance, the noble matrons of Greece were drawn from their
+domestic retirement, and mingled with the circle of senators and
+soldiers. The Latins, by the mouth of the marshal, spoke like men
+conscious of their merits, but who respected the work of their own
+hands; and the emperor clearly understood, that his son's engagements
+with Venice and the pilgrims must be ratified without hesitation
+or delay. Withdrawing into a private chamber with the empress, a
+chamberlain, an interpreter, and the four ambassadors, the father
+of young Alexius inquired with some anxiety into the nature of his
+stipulations. The submission of the Eastern empire to the pope, the
+succor of the Holy Land, and a present contribution of two hundred
+thousand marks of silver.--"These conditions are weighty," was his
+prudent reply: "they are hard to accept, and difficult to perform. But
+no conditions can exceed the measure of your services and deserts."
+After this satisfactory assurance, the barons mounted on horseback, and
+introduced the heir of Constantinople to the city and palace: his youth
+and marvellous adventures engaged every heart in his favor, and Alexius
+was solemnly crowned with his father in the dome of St. Sophia. In
+the first days of his reign, the people, already blessed with the
+restoration of plenty and peace, was delighted by the joyful catastrophe
+of the tragedy; and the discontent of the nobles, their regret, and
+their fears, were covered by the polished surface of pleasure and
+loyalty The mixture of two discordant nations in the same capital might
+have been pregnant with mischief and danger; and the suburb of Galata,
+or Pera, was assigned for the quarters of the French and Venetians. But
+the liberty of trade and familiar intercourse was allowed between the
+friendly nations: and each day the pilgrims were tempted by devotion
+or curiosity to visit the churches and palaces of Constantinople. Their
+rude minds, insensible perhaps of the finer arts, were astonished by the
+magnificent scenery: and the poverty of their native towns enhanced
+the populousness and riches of the first metropolis of Christendom. [68]
+Descending from his state, young Alexius was prompted by interest
+and gratitude to repeat his frequent and familiar visits to his Latin
+allies; and in the freedom of the table, the gay petulance of the French
+sometimes forgot the emperor of the East. [69] In their most serious
+conferences, it was agreed, that the reunion of the two churches must
+be the result of patience and time; but avarice was less tractable than
+zeal; and a larger sum was instantly disbursed to appease the wants, and
+silence the importunity, of the crusaders. [70] Alexius was alarmed
+by the approaching hour of their departure: their absence might
+have relieved him from the engagement which he was yet incapable of
+performing; but his friends would have left him, naked and alone, to the
+caprice and prejudice of a perfidious nation. He wished to bribe their
+stay, the delay of a year, by undertaking to defray their expense, and
+to satisfy, in their name, the freight of the Venetian vessels. The
+offer was agitated in the council of the barons; and, after a repetition
+of their debates and scruples, a majority of votes again acquiesced in
+the advice of the doge and the prayer of the young emperor. At the
+price of sixteen hundred pounds of gold, he prevailed on the marquis of
+Montferrat to lead him with an army round the provinces of Europe; to
+establish his authority, and pursue his uncle, while Constantinople
+was awed by the presence of Baldwin and his confederates of France and
+Flanders. The expedition was successful: the blind emperor exulted
+in the success of his arms, and listened to the predictions of his
+flatterers, that the same Providence which had raised him from the
+dungeon to the throne, would heal his gout, restore his sight, and watch
+over the long prosperity of his reign. Yet the mind of the suspicious
+old man was tormented by the rising glories of his son; nor could his
+pride conceal from his envy, that, while his own name was pronounced
+in faint and reluctant acclamations, the royal youth was the theme of
+spontaneous and universal praise. [71]
+
+[Footnote 68: Compare, in the rude energy of Villehardouin, (No.
+66, 100,) the inside and outside views of Constantinople, and their
+impression on the minds of the pilgrims: cette ville (says he) que
+de toutes les autres ere souveraine. See the parallel passages of
+Fulcherius Carnotensis, Hist. Hierosol. l. i. c. 4, and Will. Tyr. ii.
+3, xx. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 69: As they played at dice, the Latins took off his diadem,
+and clapped on his head a woollen or hairy cap, to megaloprepeV kai
+pagkleiston katerrupainen onoma, (Nicetas, p. 358.) If these merry
+companions were Venetians, it was the insolence of trade and a
+commonwealth.]
+
+[Footnote 70: Villehardouin, No. 101. Dandolo, p. 322. The doge affirms,
+that the Venetians were paid more slowly than the French; but he owns,
+that the histories of the two nations differed on that subject. Had he
+read Villehardouin? The Greeks complained, however, good totius Gręcię
+opes transtulisset, (Gunther, Hist. C. P. c 13) See the lamentations and
+invectives of Nicetas, (p. 355.)]
+
+[Footnote 71: The reign of Alexius Comnenus occupies three books in
+Nicetas, p. 291--352. The short restoration of Isaac and his son is
+despatched in five chapters, p. 352--362.]
+
+By the recent invasion, the Greeks were awakened from a dream of nine
+centuries; from the vain presumption that the capital of the Roman
+empire was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of the West had
+violated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of Constantine: their
+Imperial clients soon became as unpopular as themselves: the well-known
+vices of Isaac were rendered still more contemptible by his infirmities,
+and the young Alexius was hated as an apostate, who had renounced the
+manners and religion of his country. His secret covenant with the Latins
+was divulged or suspected; the people, and especially the clergy, were
+devoutly attached to their faith and superstition; and every convent,
+and every shop, resounded with the danger of the church and the tyranny
+of the pope. [72] An empty treasury could ill supply the demands of regal
+luxury and foreign extortion: the Greeks refused to avert, by a general
+tax, the impending evils of servitude and pillage; the oppression of
+the rich excited a more dangerous and personal resentment; and if the
+emperor melted the plate, and despoiled the images, of the sanctuary,
+he seemed to justify the complaints of heresy and sacrilege. During the
+absence of Marquis Boniface and his Imperial pupil, Constantinople was
+visited with a calamity which might be justly imputed to the zeal and
+indiscretion of the Flemish pilgrims. [73] In one of their visits to the
+city, they were scandalized by the aspect of a mosque or synagogue,
+in which one God was worshipped, without a partner or a son. Their
+effectual mode of controversy was to attack the infidels with the sword,
+and their habitation with fire: but the infidels, and some Christian
+neighbors, presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flames
+which bigotry had kindled, consumed the most orthodox and innocent
+structures. During eight days and nights, the conflagration spread above
+a league in front, from the harbor to the Propontis, over the thickest
+and most populous regions of the city. It is not easy to count the
+stately churches and palaces that were reduced to a smoking ruin, to
+value the merchandise that perished in the trading streets, or to number
+the families that were involved in the common destruction. By this
+outrage, which the doge and the barons in vain affected to disclaim, the
+name of the Latins became still more unpopular; and the colony of that
+nation, above fifteen thousand persons, consulted their safety in a
+hasty retreat from the city to the protection of their standard in the
+suburb of Pera. The emperor returned in triumph; but the firmest and
+most dexterous policy would have been insufficient to steer him through
+the tempest, which overwhelmed the person and government of that unhappy
+youth. His own inclination, and his father's advice, attached him to
+his benefactors; but Alexius hesitated between gratitude and patriotism,
+between the fear of his subjects and of his allies. [74] By his feeble
+and fluctuating conduct he lost the esteem and confidence of both;
+and, while he invited the marquis of Monferrat to occupy the palace,
+he suffered the nobles to conspire, and the people to arm, for the
+deliverance of their country. Regardless of his painful situation, the
+Latin chiefs repeated their demands, resented his delays, suspected his
+intentions, and exacted a decisive answer of peace or war. The haughty
+summons was delivered by three French knights and three Venetian
+deputies, who girded their swords, mounted their horses, pierced through
+the angry multitude, and entered, with a fearful countenance, the
+palace and presence of the Greek emperor. In a peremptory tone, they
+recapitulated their services and his engagements; and boldly declared,
+that unless their just claims were fully and immediately satisfied, they
+should no longer hold him either as a sovereign or a friend. After this
+defiance, the first that had ever wounded an Imperial ear, they departed
+without betraying any symptoms of fear; but their escape from a servile
+palace and a furious city astonished the ambassadors themselves; and
+their return to the camp was the signal of mutual hostility.
+
+[Footnote 72: When Nicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious league,
+he bestows the harshest names on the pope's new religion, meizon
+kai atopwtaton... parektrophn pistewV... tvn tou Papa pronomiwn
+kainismon,... metaqesin te kai metapoihsin tvn palaivn 'RwmaioiV?eqvn,
+(p. 348.) Such was the sincere language of every Greek to the last gasp
+of the empire.]
+
+[Footnote 73: Nicetas (p. 355) is positive in the charge, and specifies
+the Flemings, (FlamioneV,) though he is wrong in supposing it an ancient
+name. Villehardouin (No. 107) exculpates the barons, and is ignorant
+(perhaps affectedly ignorant) of the names of the guilty.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Compare the suspicions and complaints of Nicetas (p.
+359--362) with the blunt charges of Baldwin of Flanders, (Gesta Innocent
+III. c. 92, p. 534,) cum patriarcha et mole nobilium, nobis promises
+perjurus et mendax.]
+
+Among the Greeks, all authority and wisdom were overborne by the
+impetuous multitude, who mistook their rage for valor, their numbers
+for strength, and their fanaticism for the support and inspiration of
+Heaven. In the eyes of both nations Alexius was false and contemptible;
+the base and spurious race of the Angeli was rejected with clamorous
+disdain; and the people of Constantinople encompassed the senate,
+to demand at their hands a more worthy emperor. To every senator,
+conspicuous by his birth or dignity, they successively presented the
+purple: by each senator the deadly garment was repulsed: the contest
+lasted three days; and we may learn from the historian Nicetas, one of
+the members of the assembly, that fear and weaknesses were the guardians
+of their loyalty. A phantom, who vanished in oblivion, was forcibly
+proclaimed by the crowd: [75] but the author of the tumult, and the
+leader of the war, was a prince of the house of Ducas; and his
+common appellation of Alexius must be discriminated by the epithet of
+Mourzoufle, [76] which in the vulgar idiom expressed the close junction
+of his black and shaggy eyebrows. At once a patriot and a courtier, the
+perfidious Mourzoufle, who was not destitute of cunning and courage,
+opposed the Latins both in speech and action, inflamed the passions
+and prejudices of the Greeks, and insinuated himself into the favor
+and confidence of Alexius, who trusted him with the office of great
+chamberlain, and tinged his buskins with the colors of royalty. At the
+dead of night, he rushed into the bed-chamber with an affrighted aspect,
+exclaiming, that the palace was attacked by the people and betrayed
+by the guards. Starting from his couch, the unsuspecting prince threw
+himself into the arms of his enemy, who had contrived his escape by a
+private staircase. But that staircase terminated in a prison: Alexius
+was seized, stripped, and loaded with chains; and, after tasting some
+days the bitterness of death, he was poisoned, or strangled, or beaten
+with clubs, at the command, or in the presence, of the tyrant.
+The emperor Isaac Angelus soon followed his son to the grave; and
+Mourzoufle, perhaps, might spare the superfluous crime of hastening the
+extinction of impotence and blindness.
+
+[Footnote 75: His name was Nicholas Canabus: he deserved the praise of
+Nicetas and the vengeance of Mourzoufle, (p. 362.)]
+
+[Footnote 76: Villehardouin (No. 116) speaks of him as a favorite,
+without knowing that he was a prince of the blood, _Angelus_ and
+_Ducas_. Ducange, who pries into every corner, believes him to be the
+son of Isaac Ducas Sebastocrator, and second cousin of young Alexius.]
+
+The death of the emperors, and the usurpation of Mourzoufle, had changed
+the nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the disagreement of allies
+who overvalued their services, or neglected their obligations: the
+French and Venetians forgot their complaints against Alexius, dropped a
+tear on the untimely fate of their companion, and swore revenge against
+the perfidious nation who had crowned his assassin. Yet the prudent doge
+was still inclined to negotiate: he asked as a debt, a subsidy, or a
+fine, fifty thousand pounds of gold, about two millions sterling; nor
+would the conference have been abruptly broken, if the zeal, or policy,
+of Mourzoufle had not refused to sacrifice the Greek church to the
+safety of the state. [77] Amidst the invectives of his foreign and
+domestic enemies, we may discern, that he was not unworthy of the
+character which he had assumed, of the public champion: the second siege
+of Constantinople was far more laborious than the first; the treasury
+was replenished, and discipline was restored, by a severe inquisition
+into the abuses of the former reign; and Mourzoufle, an iron mace in
+his hand, visiting the posts, and affecting the port and aspect of a
+warrior, was an object of terror to his soldiers, at least, and to his
+kinsmen. Before and after the death of Alexius, the Greeks made two
+vigorous and well-conducted attempts to burn the navy in the harbor; but
+the skill and courage of the Venetians repulsed the fire-ships; and the
+vagrant flames wasted themselves without injury in the sea. [78] In a
+nocturnal sally the Greek emperor was vanquished by Henry, brother of
+the count of Flanders: the advantages of number and surprise aggravated
+the shame of his defeat: his buckler was found on the field of battle;
+and the Imperial standard, [79] a divine image of the Virgin, was
+presented, as a trophy and a relic to the Cistercian monks, the
+disciples of St. Bernard. Near three months, without excepting the holy
+season of Lent, were consumed in skirmishes and preparations, before
+the Latins were ready or resolved for a general assault. The land
+fortifications had been found impregnable; and the Venetian pilots
+represented, that, on the shore of the Propontis, the anchorage was
+unsafe, and the ships must be driven by the current far away to the
+straits of the Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing to the reluctant
+pilgrims, who sought every opportunity of breaking the army. From the
+harbor, therefore, the assault was determined by the assailants,
+and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his scarlet
+pavilions on a neighboring height, to direct and animate the efforts of
+his troops. A fearless spectator, whose mind could entertain the ideas
+of pomp and pleasure, might have admired the long array of two embattled
+armies, which extended above half a league, the one on the ships and
+galleys, the other on the walls and towers raised above the ordinary
+level by several stages of wooden turrets. Their first fury was spent
+in the discharge of darts, stones, and fire, from the engines; but the
+water was deep; the French were bold; the Venetians were skilful; they
+approached the walls; and a desperate conflict of swords, spears, and
+battle-axes, was fought on the trembling bridges that grappled the
+floating, to the stable, batteries. In more than a hundred places, the
+assault was urged, and the defence was sustained; till the superiority
+of ground and numbers finally prevailed, and the Latin trumpets sounded
+a retreat. On the ensuing days, the attack was renewed with equal vigor,
+and a similar event; and, in the night, the doge and the barons held a
+council, apprehensive only for the public danger: not a voice pronounced
+the words of escape or treaty; and each warrior, according to his
+temper, embraced the hope of victory, or the assurance of a glorious
+death. [80] By the experience of the former siege, the Greeks were
+instructed, but the Latins were animated; and the knowledge that
+Constantinople might be taken, was of more avail than the local
+precautions which that knowledge had inspired for its defence. In the
+third assault, two ships were linked together to double their strength;
+a strong north wind drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes and
+Soissons led the van; and the auspicious names of the _pilgrim_ and
+the _paradise_ resounded along the line. [81] The episcopal banners were
+displayed on the walls; a hundred marks of silver had been promised to
+the first adventurers; and if their reward was intercepted by death,
+their names have been immortalized by fame. [811] Four towers were scaled;
+three gates were burst open; and the French knights, who might tremble
+on the waves, felt themselves invincible on horseback on the solid
+ground. Shall I relate that the thousands who guarded the emperor's
+person fled on the approach, and before the lance, of a single warrior?
+Their ignominious flight is attested by their countryman Nicetas: an
+army of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was magnified to a
+giant in the eyes of the Greeks. [82] While the fugitives deserted their
+posts and cast away their arms, the Latins entered the city under
+the banners of their leaders: the streets and gates opened for their
+passage; and either design or accident kindled a third conflagration,
+which consumed in a few hours the measure of three of the largest cities
+of France. [83] In the close of evening, the barons checked their
+troops, and fortified their stations: They were awed by the extent and
+populousness of the capital, which might yet require the labor of a
+month, if the churches and palaces were conscious of their internal
+strength. But in the morning, a suppliant procession, with crosses and
+images, announced the submission of the Greeks, and deprecated the wrath
+of the conquerors: the usurper escaped through the golden gate: the
+palaces of Blachernę and Boucoleon were occupied by the count of
+Flanders and the marquis of Montferrat; and the empire, which still bore
+the name of Constantine, and the title of Roman, was subverted by the
+arms of the Latin pilgrims. [84]
+
+[Footnote 77: This negotiation, probable in itself, and attested by
+Nicetas, (p 65,) is omitted as scandalous by the delicacy of Dandolo and
+Villehardouin. * Note: Wilken places it before the death of Alexius, vol. v. p.
+276.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Baldwin mentions both attempts to fire the fleet, (Gest.
+c. 92, p. 534, 535;) Villehardouin, (No. 113--15) only describes the
+first. It is remarkable that neither of these warriors observe any
+peculiar properties in the Greek fire.]
+
+[Footnote 79: Ducange (No. 119) pours forth a torrent of learning on the
+_Gonfanon Imperial_. This banner of the Virgin is shown at Venice as a
+trophy and relic: if it be genuine the pious doge must have cheated the
+monks of Citeaux.]
+
+[Footnote 80: Villehardouin (No. 126) confesses, that mult ere grant
+peril; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 13) affirms, that nulla spes
+victorię arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises those who thought of
+flight, and the monk praises his countrymen who were resolved on death.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Baldwin, and all the writers, honor the names of these two
+galleys, felici auspicio.]
+
+[Footnote 811: Pietro Alberti, a Venetian noble and Andrew d'Amboise a
+French knight.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 82: With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him enneorguioV,
+nine orgyę, or eighteen yards high, a stature which would, indeed, have
+excused the terror of the Greek. On this occasion, the historian seems
+fonder of the marvellous than of his country, or perhaps of truth.
+Baldwin exclaims in the words of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex nobis
+centum alienos.]
+
+[Footnote 83: Villehardouin (No. 130) is again ignorant of the authors
+of _this_ more legitimate fire, which is ascribed by Gunther to a quidam
+comes Teutonicus, (c. 14.) They seem ashamed, the incendiaries!]
+
+[Footnote 84: For the second siege and conquest of Constantinople, see
+Villehardouin (No. 113--132,) Baldwin's iid Epistle to Innocent III.,
+(Gesta c. 92, p. 534--537,) with the whole reign of Mourzoufle, in
+Nicetas, (p 363--375;) and borrowed some hints from Dandolo (Chron.
+Venet. p. 323--330) and Gunther, (Hist. C. P. c. 14--18,) who added the
+decorations of prophecy and vision. The former produces an oracle of
+the Erythręan sibyl, of a great armament on the Adriatic, under a
+blind chief, against Byzantium, &c. Curious enough, were the prediction
+anterior to the fact.]
+
+Constantinople had been taken by storm; and no restraints, except those
+of religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by the laws of
+war. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as their general; and
+the Greeks, who revered his name as that of their future sovereign, were
+heard to exclaim in a lamentable tone, "Holy marquis-king, have mercy
+upon us!" His prudence or compassion opened the gates of the city to the
+fugitives; and he exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the lives
+of their fellow-Christians. The streams of blood that flowed down the
+pages of Nicetas may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand of his
+unresisting countrymen; [85] and the greater part was massacred, not by
+the strangers, but by the Latins, who had been driven from the city, and
+who exercised the revenge of a triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles,
+some were less mindful of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himself
+was indebted for his safety to the generosity of a Venetian merchant.
+Pope Innocent the Third accuses the pilgrims for respecting, in their
+lust, neither age nor sex, nor religious profession; and bitterly
+laments that the deeds of darkness, fornication, adultery, and incest,
+were perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons and holy nuns were
+polluted by the grooms and peasants of the Catholic camp. [86] It is
+indeed probable that the license of victory prompted and covered a
+multitude of sins: but it is certain, that the capital of the East
+contained a stock of venal or willing beauty, sufficient to satiate the
+desires of twenty thousand pilgrims; and female prisoners were no
+longer subject to the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquis
+of Montferrat was the patron of discipline and decency; the count of
+Flanders was the mirror of chastity: they had forbidden, under pain
+of death, the rape of married women, or virgins, or nuns; and the
+proclamation was sometimes invoked by the vanquished [87] and respected
+by the victors. Their cruelty and lust were moderated by the authority
+of the chiefs, and feelings of the soldiers; for we are no longer
+describing an irruption of the northern savages; and however ferocious
+they might still appear, time, policy, and religion had civilized the
+manners of the French, and still more of the Italians. But a free scope
+was allowed to their avarice, which was glutted, even in the holy week,
+by the pillage of Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled by
+any promise or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth of
+the Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, might
+lawfully execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A portable and
+universal standard of exchange was found in the coined and uncoined
+metals of gold and silver, which each captor, at home or abroad, might
+convert into the possessions most suitable to his temper and situation.
+Of the treasures, which trade and luxury had accumulated, the silks,
+velvets, furs, the gems, spices, and rich movables, were the most
+precious, as they could not be procured for money in the ruder countries
+of Europe. An order of rapine was instituted; nor was the share of
+each individual abandoned to industry or chance. Under the tremendous
+penalties of perjury, excommunication, and death, the Latins were bound
+to deliver their plunder into the common stock: three churches were
+selected for the deposit and distribution of the spoil: a single share
+was allotted to a foot-soldier; two for a sergeant on horseback; four to
+a knight; and larger proportions according to the rank and merit of
+the barons and princes. For violating this sacred engagement, a knight
+belonging to the count of St. Paul was hanged with his shield and coat
+of arms round his neck; his example might render similar offenders more
+artful and discreet; but avarice was more powerful than fear; and it
+is generally believed that the secret far exceeded the acknowledged
+plunder. Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the largest scale of
+experience or expectation. [88] After the whole had been equally divided
+between the French and Venetians, fifty thousand marks were deducted
+to satisfy the debts of the former and the demands of the latter. The
+residue of the French amounted to four hundred thousand marks of silver,
+[89] about eight hundred thousand pounds sterling; nor can I better
+appreciate the value of that sum in the public and private transactions
+of the age, than by defining it as seven times the annual revenue of the
+kingdom of England. [90]
+
+[Footnote 85: Ceciderunt tamen eā die civium quasi duo millia, &c.,
+(Gunther, c. 18.) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to try the
+amplifications of passion and rhetoric.]
+
+[Footnote 86: Quidam (says Innocent III., Gesta, c. 94, p. 538)
+nec religioni, nec ętati, nec sexui pepercerunt: sed fornicationes,
+adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium exercentes, non solūm maritatas
+et viduas, sed et matronas et virgines Deoque dicatas, exposuerunt
+spurcitiis garcionum. Villehardouin takes no notice of these common
+incidents.]
+
+[Footnote 87: Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble virgin,
+(p. 380,) whom a soldier, eti martusi polloiV onhdon epibrimwmenoV, had
+almost violated in spite of the entolai, entalmata eu gegonotwn.]
+
+[Footnote 88: Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut de
+pauperibus et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur, (Hist. C. P. c. 18;
+(Villehardouin, (No. 132,) that since the creation, ne fu tant gaaignié
+dans une ville; Baldwin, (Gesta, c. 92,) ut tantum tota non videatur
+possidere Latinitas.]
+
+[Footnote 89: Villehardouin, No. 133--135. Instead of 400,000, there
+is a various reading of 500,000. The Venetians had offered to take the
+whole booty, and to give 400 marks to each knight, 200 to each priest
+and horseman, and 100 to each foot-soldier: they would have been great
+losers, (Le Beau, Hist. du. Bas Empire tom. xx. p. 506. I know not from
+whence.)]
+
+[Footnote 90: At the council of Lyons (A.D. 1245) the English
+ambassadors stated the revenue of the crown as below that of the foreign
+clergy, which amounted to 60,000 marks a year, (Matthew Paris, p. 451
+Hume's Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 170.)]
+
+In this great revolution we enjoy the singular felicity of comparing the
+narratives of Villehardouin and Nicetas, the opposite feelings of the
+marshal of Champagne and the Byzantine senator. [91] At the first view it
+should seem that the wealth of Constantinople was only transferred from
+one nation to another; and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks is
+exactly balanced by the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the
+miserable account of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss,
+the pleasure to the pain; the smiles of the Latins were transient and
+fallacious; the Greeks forever wept over the ruins of their country;
+and their real calamities were aggravated by sacrilege and mockery.
+What benefits accrued to the conquerors from the three fires which
+annihilated so vast a portion of the buildings and riches of the city?
+What a stock of such things, as could neither be used nor transported,
+was maliciously or wantonly destroyed! How much treasure was idly wasted
+in gaming, debauchery, and riot! And what precious objects were bartered
+for a vile price by the impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whose
+reward was stolen by the base industry of the last of the Greeks!
+These alone, who had nothing to lose, might derive some profit from the
+revolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society is strongly
+painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself His stately palace
+had been reduced to ashes in the second conflagration; and the senator,
+with his family and friends, found an obscure shelter in another house
+which he possessed near the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of
+this mean habitation that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guarded
+in the disguise of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate
+flight, the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In
+a cold, wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of prosperity,
+departed on foot; his wife was with child; the desertion of their slaves
+compelled them to carry their baggage on their own shoulders; and their
+women, whom they placed in the centre, were exhorted to conceal their
+beauty with dirt, instead of adorning it with paint and jewels Every
+step was exposed to insult and danger: the threats of the strangers were
+less painful than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were
+now levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their mournful
+pilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above forty miles from the
+capital. On the way they overtook the patriarch, without attendance
+and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and reduced to a state of
+apostolical poverty, which, had it been voluntary, might perhaps have
+been meritorious. In the mean while, his desolate churches were profaned
+by the licentiousness and party zeal of the Latins. After stripping the
+gems and pearls, they converted the chalices into drinking-cups; their
+tables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the pictures
+of Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot the most
+venerable objects of the Christian worship. In the cathedral of St.
+Sophia, the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent asunder for the sake
+of the golden fringe; and the altar, a monument of art and riches, was
+broken in pieces and shared among the captors. Their mules and horses
+were laden with the wrought silver and gilt carvings, which they tore
+down from the doors and pulpit; and if the beasts stumbled under the
+burden, they were stabbed by their impatient drivers, and the holy
+pavement streamed with their impure blood. A prostitute was seated on
+the throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, as she
+is styled, sung and danced in the church, to ridicule the hymns and
+processions of the Orientals. Nor were the repositories of the royal
+dead secure from violation: in the church of the Apostles, the tombs of
+the emperors were rifled; and it is said, that after six centuries
+the corpse of Justinian was found without any signs of decay or
+putrefaction. In the streets, the French and Flemings clothed themselves
+and their horses in painted robes and flowing head-dresses of linen;
+and the coarse intemperance of their feasts [92] insulted the splendid
+sobriety of the East. To expose the arms of a people of scribes and
+scholars, they affected to display a pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet of
+paper, without discerning that the instruments of science and valor were
+_alike_ feeble and useless in the hands of the modern Greeks.
+
+[Footnote 91: The disorders of the sack of Constantinople, and his own
+adventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p. 367--369, and in the
+Status Urb. C. P. p. 375--384. His complaints, even of sacrilege, are
+justified by Innocent III., (Gesta, c. 92;) but Villehardouin does not
+betray a symptom of pity or remorse.]
+
+[Footnote 92: If I rightly apprehend the Greek of Nicetas's receipts,
+their favorite dishes were boiled buttocks of beef, salt pork and peas,
+and soup made of garlic and sharp or sour herbs, (p. 382.)]
+
+Their reputation and their language encouraged them, however, to despise
+the ignorance and to overlook the progress of the Latins. [93] In the
+love of the arts, the national difference was still more obvious and
+real; the Greeks preserved with reverence the works of their ancestors,
+which they could not imitate; and, in the destruction of the statues of
+Constantinople, we are provoked to join in the complaints and invectives
+of the Byzantine historian. [94] We have seen how the rising city was
+adorned by the vanity and despotism of the Imperial founder: in the
+ruins of paganism, some gods and heroes were saved from the axe of
+superstition; and the forum and hippodrome were dignified with the
+relics of a better age. Several of these are described by Nicetas, [95]
+in a florid and affected style; and from his descriptions I shall select
+some interesting particulars. _1._ The victorious charioteers were cast
+in bronze, at their own or the public charge, and fitly placed in the
+hippodrome: they stood aloft in their chariots, wheeling round the
+goal: the spectators could admire their attitude, and judge of the
+resemblance; and of these figures, the most perfect might have been
+transported from the Olympic stadium. _2._ The sphinx, river-horse, and
+crocodile, denote the climate and manufacture of Egypt and the spoils of
+that ancient province. _3._ The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus,
+a subject alike pleasing to the _old_ and the _new_ Romans, but which
+could really be treated before the decline of the Greek sculpture.
+_4._ An eagle holding and tearing a serpent in his talons, a domestic
+monument of the Byzantines, which they ascribed, not to a human artist,
+but to the magic power of the philosopher Apollonius, who, by this
+talisman, delivered the city from such venomous reptiles. _5._ An
+ass and his driver, which were erected by Augustus in his colony of
+Nicopolis, to commemorate a verbal omen of the victory of Actium. _6._
+An equestrian statue which passed, in the vulgar opinion, for Joshua,
+the Jewish conqueror, stretching out his hand to stop the course of the
+descending sun. A more classical tradition recognized the figures of
+Bellerophon and Pegasus; and the free attitude of the steed seemed to
+mark that he trod on air, rather than on the earth. _7._ A square
+and lofty obelisk of brass; the sides were embossed with a variety
+of picturesque and rural scenes, birds singing; rustics laboring, or
+playing on their pipes; sheep bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and a
+scene of fish and fishing; little naked cupids laughing, playing, and
+pelting each other with apples; and, on the summit, a female figure,
+turning with the slightest breath, and thence denominated _the wind's
+attendant_. _8._ The Phrygian shepherd presenting to Venus the prize
+of beauty, the apple of discord. _9._ The incomparable statue of Helen,
+which is delineated by Nicetas in the words of admiration and love: her
+well-turned feet, snowy arms, rosy lips, bewitching smiles, swimming
+eyes, arched eyebrows, the harmony of her shape, the lightness of her
+drapery, and her flowing locks that waved in the wind; a beauty that
+might have moved her Barbarian destroyers to pity and remorse. _10._ The
+manly or divine form of Hercules, [96] as he was restored to life by the
+masterhand of Lysippus; of such magnitude, that his thumb was equal to
+his waist, his leg to the stature, of a common man: [97] his chest ample,
+his shoulders broad, his limbs strong and muscular, his hair curled, his
+aspect commanding. Without his bow, or quiver, or club, his lion's skin
+carelessly thrown over him, he was seated on an osier basket, his right
+leg and arm stretched to the utmost, his left knee bent, and supporting
+his elbow, his head reclining on his left hand, his countenance
+indignant and pensive. _11._ A colossal statue of Juno, which had once
+adorned her temple of Samos, the enormous head by four yoke of oxen was
+laboriously drawn to the palace. _12._ Another colossus, of Pallas or
+Minerva, thirty feet in height, and representing with admirable spirit
+the attributes and character of the martial maid. Before we accuse the
+Latins, it is just to remark, that this Pallas was destroyed after the
+first siege, by the fear and superstition of the Greeks themselves.
+[98] The other statues of brass which I have enumerated were broken and
+melted by the unfeeling avarice of the crusaders: the cost and labor
+were consumed in a moment; the soul of genius evaporated in smoke; and
+the remnant of base metal was coined into money for the payment of the
+troops. Bronze is not the most durable of monuments: from the marble
+forms of Phidias and Praxiteles, the Latins might turn aside with stupid
+contempt; [99] but unless they were crushed by some accidental injury,
+those useless stones stood secure on their pedestals. [100] The most
+enlightened of the strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits of
+their countrymen, more piously exercised the right of conquest in the
+search and seizure of the relics of the saints. [101] Immense was the
+supply of heads and bones, crosses and images, that were scattered by
+this revolution over the churches of Europe; and such was the increase
+of pilgrimage and oblation, that no branch, perhaps, of more lucrative
+plunder was imported from the East. [102] Of the writings of antiquity,
+many that still existed in the twelfth century, are now lost. But the
+pilgrims were not solicitous to save or transport the volumes of an
+unknown tongue: the perishable substance of paper or parchment can only
+be preserved by the multiplicity of copies; the literature of the Greeks
+had almost centred in the metropolis; and, without computing the extent
+of our loss, we may drop a tear over the libraries that have perished in
+the triple fire of Constantinople. [103]
+
+[Footnote 93: Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, par agrammatoiV
+BarbaroiV, kai teleon analfabhtoiV, (Fragment, apud Fabric. Bibliot.
+Gręc. tom. vi. p. 414.) This reproach, it is true, applies most strongly
+to their ignorance of Greek and of Homer. In their own language,
+the Latins of the xiith and xiiith centuries were not destitute of
+literature. See Harris's Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 9, 10, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 94: Nicetas was of Chonę in Phrygia, (the old Colossę of St.
+Paul:) he raised himself to the honors of senator, judge of the veil,
+and great logothete; beheld the fall of the empire, retired to Nice, and
+composed an elaborate history from the death of Alexius Comnenus to the
+reign of Henry.]
+
+[Footnote 95: A manuscript of Nicetas in the Bodleian library contains
+this curious fragment on the statues of Constantinople, which fraud, or
+shame, or rather carelessness, has dropped in the common editions. It
+is published by Fabricius, (Bibliot. Gręc. tom. vi. p. 405--416,) and
+immoderately praised by the late ingenious Mr. Harris of Salisbury,
+(Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 5, p. 301--312.)]
+
+[Footnote 96: To illustrate the statue of Hercules, Mr. Harris quotes
+a Greek epigram, and engraves a beautiful gem, which does not, however,
+copy the attitude of the statue: in the latter, Hercules had not his
+club, and his right leg and arm were extended.]
+
+[Footnote 97: I transcribe these proportions, which appear to me
+inconsistent with each other; and may possibly show, that the boasted
+taste of Nicetas was no more than affectation and vanity.]
+
+[Footnote 98: Nicetas in Isaaco Angelo et Alexio, c. 3, p. 359. The
+Latin editor very properly observes, that the historian, in his bombast
+style, produces ex pulice elephantem.]
+
+[Footnote 99: In two passages of Nicetas (edit. Paris, p. 360. Fabric.
+p. 408) the Latins are branded with the lively reproach of oi tou kalou
+anerastoi barbaroi, and their avarice of brass is clearly expressed.
+Yet the Venetians had the merit of removing four bronze horses from
+Constantinople to the place of St. Mark, (Sanuto, Vite del Dogi, in
+Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxii. p. 534.)]
+
+[Footnote 100: Winckelman, Hist. de l'Art. tom. iii. p. 269, 270.]
+
+[Footnote 101: See the pious robbery of the abbot Martin, who
+transferred a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris, diocese of Basil,
+(Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 19, 23, 24.) Yet in secreting this booty, the
+saint incurred an excommunication, and perhaps broke his oath. (Compare
+Wilken vol. v. p. 308.--M.)]
+
+[Footnote 102: Fleury, Hist. Eccles tom. xvi. p. 139--145.]
+
+[Footnote 103: I shall conclude this chapter with the notice of a modern
+history, which illustrates the taking of Constantinople by the Latins;
+but which has fallen somewhat late into my hands. Paolo Ramusio, the
+son of the compiler of Voyages, was directed by the senate of Venice to
+write the history of the conquest: and this order, which he received
+in his youth, he executed in a mature age, by an elegant Latin work,
+de Bello Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis per Gallos et
+Venetos restitutis, (Venet. 1635, in folio.) Ramusio, or Rhamnusus,
+transcribes and translates, sequitur ad unguem, a MS. of Villehardouin,
+which he possessed; but he enriches his narrative with Greek and Latin
+materials, and we are indebted to him for a correct state of the fleet,
+the names of the fifty Venetian nobles who commanded the galleys of the
+republic, and the patriot opposition of Pantaleon Barbus to the choice
+of the doge for emperor.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part I.
+
+     Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians,--Five
+     Latin Emperors Of The Houses Of Flanders And Courtenay.--
+     Their Wars Against The Bulgarians And Greeks.--Weakness And
+     Poverty Of The Latin Empire.--Recovery Of Constantinople By
+     The Greeks.--General Consequences Of The Crusades.
+
+After the death of the lawful princes, the French and Venetians,
+confident of justice and victory, agreed to divide and regulate
+their future possessions. [1] It was stipulated by treaty, that twelve
+electors, six of either nation, should be nominated; that a majority
+should choose the emperor of the East; and that, if the votes were
+equal, the decision of chance should ascertain the successful candidate.
+To him, with all the titles and prerogatives of the Byzantine throne,
+they assigned the two palaces of Boucoleon and Blachernę, with a fourth
+part of the Greek monarchy. It was defined that the three remaining
+portions should be equally shared between the republic of Venice and the
+barons of France; that each feudatory, with an honorable exception
+for the doge, should acknowledge and perform the duties of homage and
+military service to the supreme head of the empire; that the nation
+which gave an emperor, should resign to their brethren the choice of a
+patriarch; and that the pilgrims, whatever might be their impatience
+to visit the Holy Land, should devote another year to the conquest and
+defence of the Greek provinces. After the conquest of Constantinople
+by the Latins, the treaty was confirmed and executed; and the first and
+most important step was the creation of an emperor. The six electors
+of the French nation were all ecclesiastics, the abbot of Loces, the
+archbishop elect of Acre in Palestine, and the bishops of Troyes,
+Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem, the last of whom exercised in the
+camp the office of pope's legate: their profession and knowledge were
+respectable; and as _they_ could not be the objects, they were best
+qualified to be the authors of the choice. The six Venetians were the
+principal servants of the state, and in this list the noble families of
+Querini and Contarini are still proud to discover their ancestors.
+The twelve assembled in the chapel of the palace; and after the solemn
+invocation of the Holy Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and vote. A
+just impulse of respect and gratitude prompted them to crown the virtues
+of the doge; his wisdom had inspired their enterprise; and the most
+youthful knights might envy and applaud the exploits of blindness and
+age. But the patriot Dandolo was devoid of all personal ambition, and
+fully satisfied that he had been judged worthy to reign. His nomination
+was overruled by the Venetians themselves: his countrymen, and perhaps
+his friends, [2] represented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefs
+that might arise to national freedom and the common cause, from the
+union of two incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of a
+republic and the emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge left
+room for the more equal merits of Boniface and Baldwin; and at their
+names all meaner candidates respectfully withdrew. The marquis of
+Montferrat was recommended by his mature age and fair reputation, by
+the choice of the adventurers, and the wishes of the Greeks; nor can
+I believe that Venice, the mistress of the sea, could be seriously
+apprehensive of a petty lord at the foot of the Alps. [3] But the count
+of Flanders was the chief of a wealthy and warlike people: he was
+valiant, pious, and chaste; in the prime of life, since he was only
+thirty-two years of age; a descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of the
+king of France, and a compeer of the prelates and barons who had yielded
+with reluctance to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel, these
+barons, with the doge and marquis at their head, expected the decision
+of the twelve electors. It was announced by the bishop of Soissons, in
+the name of his colleagues: "Ye have sworn to obey the prince whom we
+should choose: by our unanimous suffrage, Baldwin count of Flanders and
+Hainault is now your sovereign, and the emperor of the East." He was
+saluted with loud applause, and the proclamation was reechoed through
+the city by the joy of the Latins, and the trembling adulation of the
+Greeks. Boniface was the first to kiss the hand of his rival, and to
+raise him on the buckler: and Baldwin was transported to the cathedral,
+and solemnly invested with the purple buskins. At the end of three weeks
+he was crowned by the legate, in the vacancy of the patriarch; but the
+Venetian clergy soon filled the chapter of St. Sophia, seated Thomas
+Morosini on the ecclesiastical throne, and employed every art to
+perpetuate in their own nation the honors and benefices of the Greek
+church. [4] Without delay the successor of Constantine instructed
+Palestine, France, and Rome, of this memorable revolution. To Palestine
+he sent, as a trophy, the gates of Constantinople, and the chain of
+the harbor; [5] and adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws or
+customs best adapted to a French colony and conquest in the East. In his
+epistles, the natives of France are encouraged to swell that colony,
+and to secure that conquest, to people a magnificent city and a fertile
+land, which will reward the labors both of the priest and the soldier.
+He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the restoration of his authority
+in the East; invites him to extinguish the Greek schism by his presence
+in a general council; and implores his blessing and forgiveness for the
+disobedient pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended in the answer of
+Innocent. [6] In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he arraigns the
+vices of man, and adores the providence of God; the conquerors will be
+absolved or condemned by their future conduct; the validity of their
+treaty depends on the judgment of St. Peter; but he inculcates their
+most sacred duty of establishing a just subordination of obedience
+and tribute, from the Greeks to the Latins, from the magistrate to the
+clergy, and from the clergy to the pope.
+
+[Footnote 1: See the original treaty of partition, in the Venetian
+Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo, p. 326--330, and the subsequent election in
+Ville hardouin, No. 136--140, with Ducange in his Observations, and the
+book of his Histoire de Constantinople sous l'Empire des Franēois.]
+
+[Footnote 2: After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a French
+elector his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion, quidam
+Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex, usus oratione satis probabili, &c.,
+which has been embroidered by modern writers from Blondus to Le Beau.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Nicetas, (p. 384,) with the vain ignorance of a Greek,
+describes the marquis of Montferrat as a _maritime_ power. Dampardian de
+oikeisqai paralion. Was he deceived by the Byzantine theme of Lombardy
+which extended along the coast of Calabria?]
+
+[Footnote 4: They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint no
+canons of St. Sophia the lawful electors, except Venetians who had lived
+ten years at Venice, &c. But the foreign clergy was envious, the pope
+disapproved this national monopoly, and of the six Latin patriarchs of
+Constantinople, only the first and the last were Venetians.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Nicetas, p. 383.]
+
+[Footnote 6: The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for
+the ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of
+Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of which
+the collection in 2 vols. in folio is published by Stephen Baluze) are
+inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii.
+p. l. c. 94--105.]
+
+In the division of the Greek provinces, [7] the share of the Venetians
+was more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more than one fourth
+was appropriated to his domain; a clear moiety of the remainder was
+reserved for Venice; and the other moiety was distributed among the
+adventures of France and Lombardy. The venerable Dandolo was proclaimed
+despot of Romania, and invested after the Greek fashion with the purple
+buskins. He ended at Constantinople his long and glorious life; and if
+the prerogative was personal, the title was used by his successors till
+the middle of the fourteenth century, with the singular, though true,
+addition of lords of one fourth and a half of the Roman empire. [8] The
+doge, a slave of state, was seldom permitted to depart from the helm of
+the republic; but his place was supplied by the _bail_, or regent, who
+exercised a supreme jurisdiction over the colony of Venetians: they
+possessed three of the eight quarters of the city; and his independent
+tribunal was composed of six judges, four counsellors, two chamberlains
+two fiscal advocates, and a constable. Their long experience of the
+Eastern trade enabled them to select their portion with discernment:
+they had rashly accepted the dominion and defence of Adrianople; but
+it was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a chain of
+factories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast, from the
+neighborhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The labor
+and cost of such extensive conquests exhausted their treasury: they
+abandoned their maxims of government, adopted a feudal system, and
+contented themselves with the homage of their nobles, [9] for the
+possessions which these private vassals undertook to reduce and
+maintain. And thus it was that the family of Sanut acquired the duchy
+of Naxos, which involved the greatest part of the archipelago. For the
+price of ten thousand marks, the republic purchased of the marquis of
+Montferrat the fertile Island of Crete or Candia, with the ruins of a
+hundred cities; [10] but its improvement was stinted by the proud and
+narrow spirit of an aristocracy; [11] and the wisest senators would
+confess that the sea, not the land, was the treasury of St. Mark. In
+the moiety of the adventurers the marquis Boniface might claim the most
+liberal reward; and, besides the Isle of Crete, his exclusion from the
+throne was compensated by the royal title and the provinces beyond
+the Hellespont. But he prudently exchanged that distant and difficult
+conquest for the kingdom of Thessalonica Macedonia, twelve days' journey
+from the capital, where he might be supported by the neighboring powers
+of his brother-in-law the king of Hungary. His progress was hailed by
+the voluntary or reluctant acclamations of the natives; and Greece, the
+proper and ancient Greece, again received a Latin conqueror, [12] who
+trod with indifference that classic ground. He viewed with a careless
+eye the beauties of the valley of Tempe; traversed with a cautious
+step the straits of Thermopylę; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes,
+Athens, and Argos; and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth and
+Napoli, [13] which resisted his arms. The lots of the Latin pilgrims were
+regulated by chance, or choice, or subsequent exchange; and they abused,
+with intemperate joy, their triumph over the lives and fortunes of a
+great people. After a minute survey of the provinces, they weighed in
+the scales of avarice the revenue of each district, the advantage of
+the situation, and the ample on scanty supplies for the maintenance of
+soldiers and horses. Their presumption claimed and divided the long-lost
+dependencies of the Roman sceptre: the Nile and Euphrates rolled through
+their imaginary realms; and happy was the warrior who drew for his prize
+the palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium. [14] I shall not descend
+to the pedigree of families and the rent-roll of estates, but I wish
+to specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were invested with the
+duchy of Nice and the lordship of Demotica: [15] the principal fiefs were
+held by the service of constable, chamberlain, cup-bearer, butler, and
+chief cook; and our historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fair
+establishment on the banks of the Hebrus, and united the double office
+of marshal of Champagne and Romania. At the head of his knights and
+archers, each baron mounted on horseback to secure the possession of his
+share, and their first efforts were generally successful. But the public
+force was weakened by their dispersion; and a thousand quarrels must
+arise under a law, and among men, whose sole umpire was the sword.
+Within three months after the conquest of Constantinople, the emperor
+and the king of Thessalonica drew their hostile followers into the
+field; they were reconciled by the authority of the doge, the advice of
+the marshal, and the firm freedom of their peers. [16]
+
+[Footnote 7: In the treaty of partition, most of the names are corrupted
+by the scribes: they might be restored, and a good map, suited to the
+last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an improvement of geography.
+But, alas D'Anville is no more!]
+
+[Footnote 8: Their style was dominus quartę partis et dimidię imperii
+Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in the year of
+1356, (Sanuto, p. 530, 641.) For the government of Constantinople, see
+Ducange, Histoire de C. P. i. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Ducange (Hist. de C. P. ii. 6) has marked the conquests
+made by the state or nobles of Venice of the Islands of Candia, Corfu,
+Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros, Mycone, Syro, Cea, and
+Lemnos.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Boniface sold the Isle of Candia, August 12, A.D. 1204.
+See the act in Sanuto, p. 533: but I cannot understand how it could be
+his mother's portion, or how she could be the daughter of an emperor
+Alexius.]
+
+[Footnote 11: In the year 1212, the doge Peter Zani sent a colony to
+Candia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But in their savage manners
+and frequent rebellions, the Candiots may be compared to the Corsicans
+under the yoke of Genoa; and when I compare the accounts of Belon and
+Tournefort, I cannot discern much difference between the Venetian and
+the Turkish island.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Villehardouin (No. 159, 160, 173--177) and Nicetas (p.
+387--394) describe the expedition into Greece of the marquis Boniface.
+The Choniate might derive his information from his brother Michael,
+archbishop of Athens, whom he paints as an orator, a statesman, and a
+saint. His encomium of Athens, and the description of Tempe, should be
+published from the Bodleian MS. of Nicetas, (Fabric. Bibliot. Gręc. tom.
+vi. p. 405,) and would have deserved Mr. Harris's inquiries.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Napoli de Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient seaport of
+Argos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate on a
+rocky peninsula, with a good harbor, (Chandler's Travels into Greece, p.
+227.)]
+
+[Footnote 14: I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who strives
+to expose the presumption of the Franks. See the Rebus post C. P.
+expugnatam, p. 375--384.]
+
+[Footnote 15: A city surrounded by the River Hebrus, and six leagues to
+the south of Adrianople, received from its double wall the Greek name
+of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into Demotica and Dimot. I have
+preferred the more convenient and modern appellation of Demotica. This
+place was the last Turkish residence of Charles XII.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No. 146--158) with
+the spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of the marshal are so
+acknowledged by the Greek historian (p. 387) mega para touV tvn Dauinwn
+dunamenou strateumasi: unlike some modern heroes, whose exploits are
+only visible in their own memoirs. * Note: William de Champlite, brother
+of the count of Dijon, assumed the title of Prince of Achaia: on the
+death of his brother, he returned, with regret, to France, to assume his
+paternal inheritance, and left Villehardouin his "_bailli_," on
+condition that if he did not return within a year Villehardouin was to
+retain an investiture. Brosset's Add. to Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 200. M.
+Brosset adds, from the Greek chronicler edited by M. Buchon, the
+somewhat unknightly trick by which Villehardouin disembarrassed himself
+from the troublesome claim of Robert, the cousin of the count of Dijon.
+to the succession. He contrived that Robert should arrive just fifteen
+days too late; and with the general concurrence of the assembled knights
+was himself invested with the principality. Ibid. p. 283. M.]
+
+Two fugitives, who had reigned at Constantinople, still asserted the
+title of emperor; and the subjects of their fallen throne might be moved
+to pity by the misfortunes of the elder Alexius, or excited to revenge
+by the spirit of Mourzoufle. A domestic alliance, a common interest, a
+similar guilt, and the merit of extinguishing his enemies, a brother and
+a nephew, induced the more recent usurper to unite with the former the
+relics of his power. Mourzoufle was received with smiles and honors
+in the camp of his father Alexius; but the wicked can never love, and
+should rarely trust, their fellow-criminals; he was seized in the bath,
+deprived of his eyes, stripped of his troops and treasures, and turned
+out to wander an object of horror and contempt to those who with more
+propriety could hate, and with more justice could punish, the assassin
+of the emperor Isaac and his son. As the tyrant, pursued by fear or
+remorse, was stealing over to Asia, he was seized by the Latins of
+Constantinople, and condemned, after an open trial, to an ignominious
+death. His judges debated the mode of his execution, the axe, the wheel,
+or the stake; and it was resolved that Mourzoufle [17] should ascend
+the Theodosian column, a pillar of white marble of one hundred and
+forty-seven feet in height. [18] From the summit he was cast down
+headlong, and dashed in pieces on the pavement, in the presence of
+innumerable spectators, who filled the forum of Taurus, and admired
+the accomplishment of an old prediction, which was explained by this
+singular event. [19] The fate of Alexius is less tragical: he was sent
+by the marquis a captive to Italy, and a gift to the king of the
+Romans; but he had not much to applaud his fortune, if the sentence of
+imprisonment and exile were changed from a fortress in the Alps to a
+monastery in Asia. But his daughter, before the national calamity, had
+been given in marriage to a young hero who continued the succession,
+and restored the throne, of the Greek princes. [20] The valor of Theodore
+Lascaris was signalized in the two sieges of Constantinople. After
+the flight of Mourzoufle, when the Latins were already in the city, he
+offered himself as their emperor to the soldiers and people; and his
+ambition, which might be virtuous, was undoubtedly brave. Could he have
+infused a soul into the multitude, they might have crushed the strangers
+under their feet: their abject despair refused his aid; and Theodore
+retired to breathe the air of freedom in Anatolia, beyond the immediate
+view and pursuit of the conquerors. Under the title, at first of despot,
+and afterwards of emperor, he drew to his standard the bolder spirits,
+who were fortified against slavery by the contempt of life; and as every
+means was lawful for the public safety implored without scruple the
+alliance of the Turkish sultan Nice, where Theodore established his
+residence, Prusa and Philadelphia, Smyrna and Ephesus, opened their
+gates to their deliverer: he derived strength and reputation from his
+victories, and even from his defeats; and the successor of Constantine
+preserved a fragment of the empire from the banks of the Męander to the
+suburbs of Nicomedia, and at length of Constantinople. Another portion,
+distant and obscure, was possessed by the lineal heir of the Comneni,
+a son of the virtuous Manuel, a grandson of the tyrant Andronicus. His
+name was Alexius; and the epithet of great [201] was applied perhaps to his
+stature, rather than to his exploits. By the indulgence of the Angeli,
+he was appointed governor or duke of Trebizond: [21] [211] his birth gave
+him ambition, the revolution independence; and, without changing his
+title, he reigned in peace from Sinope to the Phasis, along the coast
+of the Black Sea. His nameless son and successor [212] is described as
+the vassal of the sultan, whom he served with two hundred lances: that
+Comnenian prince was no more than duke of Trebizond, and the title
+of emperor was first assumed by the pride and envy of the grandson
+of Alexius. In the West, a third fragment was saved from the common
+shipwreck by Michael, a bastard of the house of Angeli, who, before the
+revolution, had been known as a hostage, a soldier, and a rebel. His
+flight from the camp of the marquis Boniface secured his freedom; by his
+marriage with the governor's daughter, he commanded the important
+place of Durazzo, assumed the title of despot, and founded a strong and
+conspicuous principality in Epirus, Ętolia, and Thessaly, which have
+ever been peopled by a warlike race. The Greeks, who had offered their
+service to their new sovereigns, were excluded by the haughty Latins
+[22] from all civil and military honors, as a nation born to tremble and
+obey. Their resentment prompted them to show that they might have been
+useful friends, since they could be dangerous enemies: their nerves were
+braced by adversity: whatever was learned or holy, whatever was noble or
+valiant, rolled away into the independent states of Trebizond, Epirus,
+and Nice; and a single patrician is marked by the ambiguous praise of
+attachment and loyalty to the Franks. The vulgar herd of the cities and
+the country would have gladly submitted to a mild and regular servitude;
+and the transient disorders of war would have been obliterated by some
+years of industry and peace. But peace was banished, and industry was
+crushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The _Roman_ emperors
+of Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities, were armed with
+power for the protection of their subjects: their laws were wise,
+and their administration was simple. The Latin throne was filled by
+a titular prince, the chief, and often the servant, of his licentious
+confederates; the fiefs of the empire, from a kingdom to a castle, were
+held and ruled by the sword of the barons; and their discord, poverty,
+and ignorance, extended the ramifications of tyranny to the most
+sequestered villages. The Greeks were oppressed by the double weight of
+the priest, who were invested with temporal power, and of the soldier,
+who was inflamed by fanatic hatred; and the insuperable bar of religion
+and language forever separated the stranger and the native. As long
+as the crusaders were united at Constantinople, the memory of their
+conquest, and the terror of their arms, imposed silence on the captive
+land: their dispersion betrayed the smallness of their numbers and the
+defects of their discipline; and some failures and mischances revealed
+the secret, that they were not invincible. As the fears of the Greeks
+abated, their hatred increased. They murdered; they conspired; and
+before a year of slavery had elapsed, they implored, or accepted, the
+succor of a Barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose gratitude
+they trusted. [23]
+
+[Footnote 17: See the fate of Mourzoufle in Nicetas, (p. 393,)
+Villehardouin, (No. 141--145, 163,) and Guntherus, (c. 20, 21.) Neither
+the marshal nor the monk afford a grain of pity for a tyrant or rebel,
+whose punishment, however, was more unexampled than his crime.]
+
+[Footnote 18: The column of Arcadius, which represents in basso relievo
+his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is still extant at
+Constantinople. It is described and measured, Gyllius, (Topograph. iv.
+7,) Banduri, (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P. p. 507, &c.,) and Tournefort,
+(Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre xii. p. 231.) (Compare Wilken, note,
+vol. v p. 388.--M.)]
+
+[Footnote 19: The nonsense of Gunther and the modern Greeks concerning
+this _columna fatidica_, is unworthy of notice; but it is singular
+enough, that fifty years before the Latin conquest, the poet Tzetzes,
+(Chiliad, ix. 277) relates the dream of a matron, who saw an army in the
+forum, and a man sitting on the column, clapping his hands, and uttering
+a loud exclamation. * Note: We read in the "Chronicle of the Conquest of
+Constantinople, and of the Establishment of the French in the Morea,"
+translated by J A Buchon, Paris, 1825, p. 64 that Leo VI., called the
+Philosopher, had prophesied that a perfidious emperor should be
+precipitated from the top of this column. The crusaders considered
+themselves under an obligation to fulfil this prophecy. Brosset, note on
+Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 180. M Brosset announces that a complete edition
+of this work, of which the original Greek of the first book only has
+been published by M. Buchon in preparation, to form part of the new
+series of the Byzantine historian.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 20: The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of which
+Nicetas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope) are learnedly
+explored, and clearly represented, in the Familię Byzantinę of Ducange.]
+
+[Footnote 201: This was a title, not a personal appellation. Joinville
+speaks of the "Grant Comnenie, et sire de Traffezzontes." Fallmerayer,
+p. 82.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 21: Except some facts in Pachymer and Nicephorus Gregoras,
+which will hereafter be used, the Byzantine writers disdain to speak of
+the empire of Trebizond, or principality of the _Lazi_; and among the
+Latins, it is conspicuous only in the romancers of the xivth or xvth
+centuries. Yet the indefatigable Ducange has dug out (Fam. Byz. p. 192)
+two authentic passages in Vincent of Beauvais (l. xxxi. c. 144) and the
+prothonotary Ogerius, (apud Wading, A.D. 1279, No. 4.)]
+
+[Footnote 211: On the revolutions of Trebizond under the later empire
+down to this period, see Fallmerayer, Geschichte des Kaiserthums von
+Trapezunt, ch. iii. The wife of Manuel fled with her infant sons and
+her treasure from the relentless enmity of Isaac Angelus. Fallmerayer
+conjectures that her arrival enabled the Greeks of that region to make
+head against the formidable Thamar, the Georgian queen of Teflis, p. 42.
+They gradually formed a dominion on the banks of the Phasis, which
+the distracted government of the Angeli neglected or were unable to
+suppress. On the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, Alexius
+was joined by many noble fugitives from Constantinople. He had always
+retained the names of Cęsar and BasileuV. He now fixed the seat of his
+empire at Trebizond; but he had never abandoned his pretensions to the
+Byzantine throne, ch. iii. Fallmerayer appears to make out a triumphant
+case as to the assumption of the royal title by Alexius the First. Since
+the publication of M. Fallmerayer's work, (München, 1827,) M. Tafel has
+published, at the end of the opuscula of Eustathius, a curious chronicle
+of Trebizond by Michael Panaretas, (Frankfort, 1832.) It gives the
+succession of the emperors, and some other curious circumstances of
+their wars with the several Mahometan powers.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 212: The successor of Alexius was his son-in-law Andronicus I.,
+of the Comnenian family, surnamed Gidon. There were five successions
+between Alexius and John, according to Fallmerayer, p. 103. The troops
+of Trebizond fought in the army of Dschelaleddin, the Karismian, against
+Alaleddin, the Seljukian sultan of Roum, but as allies rather than
+vassals, p. 107. It was after the defeat of Dschelaleddin that they
+furnished their contingent to Alai-eddin. Fallmerayer struggles in vain
+to mitigate this mark of the subjection of the Comneni to the sultan. p.
+116.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 22: The portrait of the French Latins is drawn in Nicetas
+by the hand of prejudice and resentment: ouden tvn allwn eqnvn eiV
+''AreoV?rga parasumbeblhsqai sjisin hneiconto all' oude tiV tvn caritwn
+h tvn?mousvn para toiV barbaroiV toutoiV epexenizeto, kai para
+touto oimai thn jusin hsan anhmeroi, kai ton xolon eixon tou logou
+prstreconta. [P. 791 Ed. Bek.]
+
+[Footnote 23: I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence, the
+eight books of the Histoire de C. P. sous l'Empire des Franēois, which
+Ducange has given as a supplement to Villehardouin; and which, in a
+barbarous style, deserves the praise of an original and classic work.]
+
+The Latin conquerors had been saluted with a solemn and early embassy
+from John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the revolted chief of the
+Bulgarians and Walachians. He deemed himself their brother, as the
+votary of the Roman pontiff, from whom he had received the regal title
+and a holy banner; and in the subversion of the Greek monarchy, he might
+aspire to the name of their friend and accomplice. But Calo-John was
+astonished to find, that the Count of Flanders had assumed the pomp
+and pride of the successors of Constantine; and his ambassadors were
+dismissed with a haughty message, that the rebel must deserve a pardon,
+by touching with his forehead the footstool of the Imperial throne. His
+resentment [24] would have exhaled in acts of violence and blood: his
+cooler policy watched the rising discontent of the Greeks; affected
+a tender concern for their sufferings; and promised, that their first
+struggles for freedom should be supported by his person and kingdom.
+The conspiracy was propagated by national hatred, the firmest band of
+association and secrecy: the Greeks were impatient to sheathe their
+daggers in the breasts of the victorious strangers; but the execution
+was prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor's brother, had
+transported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellespont. Most of the
+towns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and the signal; and
+the Latins, without arms or suspicion, were slaughtered by the vile and
+merciless revenge of their slaves. From Demotica, the first scene of
+the massacre, the surviving vassals of the count of St. Pol escaped to
+Adrianople; but the French and Venetians, who occupied that city, were
+slain or expelled by the furious multitude: the garrisons that could
+effect their retreat fell back on each other towards the metropolis; and
+the fortresses, that separately stood against the rebels, were ignorant
+of each other's and of their sovereign's fate. The voice of fame and
+fear announced the revolt of the Greeks and the rapid approach of their
+Bulgarian ally; and Calo-John, not depending on the forces of his own
+kingdom, had drawn from the Scythian wilderness a body of fourteen
+thousand Comans, who drank, as it was said, the blood of their captives,
+and sacrificed the Christians on the altars of their gods. [25]
+
+[Footnote 24: In Calo-John's answer to the pope we may find his claims
+and complaints, (Gesta Innocent III. c. 108, 109:) he was cherished at
+Rome as the prodigal son.]
+
+[Footnote 25: The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which encamped
+in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of Moldavia. The greater
+part were pagans, but some were Mahometans, and the whole horde was
+converted to Christianity (A.D. 1370) by Lewis, king of Hungary.]
+
+Alarmed by this sudden and growing danger, the emperor despatched a
+swift messenger to recall Count Henry and his troops; and had Baldwin
+expected the return of his gallant brother, with a supply of twenty
+thousand Armenians, he might have encountered the invader with equal
+numbers and a decisive superiority of arms and discipline. But the
+spirit of chivalry could seldom discriminate caution from cowardice; and
+the emperor took the field with a hundred and forty knights, and their
+train of archers and sergeants. The marshal, who dissuaded and obeyed,
+led the vanguard in their march to Adrianople; the main body was
+commanded by the count of Blois; the aged doge of Venice followed with
+the rear; and their scanty numbers were increased from all sides by the
+fugitive Latins. They undertook to besiege the rebels of Adrianople; and
+such was the pious tendency of the crusades that they employed the holy
+week in pillaging the country for their subsistence, and in framing
+engines for the destruction of their fellow-Christians. But the Latins
+were soon interrupted and alarmed by the light cavalry of the Comans,
+who boldly skirmished to the edge of their imperfect lines: and
+a proclamation was issued by the marshal of Romania, that, on the
+trumpet's sound, the cavalry should mount and form; but that none, under
+pain of death, should abandon themselves to a desultory and dangerous
+pursuit. This wise injunction was first disobeyed by the count of Blois,
+who involved the emperor in his rashness and ruin. The Comans, of the
+Parthian or Tartar school, fled before their first charge; but after
+a career of two leagues, when the knights and their horses were almost
+breathless, they suddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the heavy
+squadrons of the Franks. The count was slain on the field; the emperor
+was made prisoner; and if the one disdained to fly, if the other
+refused to yield, their personal bravery made a poor atonement for their
+ignorance, or neglect, of the duties of a general. [26]
+
+[Footnote 26: Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the defeat to
+the cowardice of Dandolo, (p. 383;) but Villehardouin shares his own
+glory with his venerable friend, qui viels home ére et gote ne veoit,
+mais mult ére sages et preus et vigueros, (No. 193.) * Note: Gibbon
+appears to me to have misapprehended the passage of Nicetas. He says,
+"that principal and subtlest mischief. that primary cause of all the
+horrible miseries suffered by the _Romans_," i. e. the Byzantines. It is
+an effusion of malicious triumph against the Venetians, to whom he
+always ascribes the capture of Constantinople.--M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part II.
+
+Proud of his victory and his royal prize, the Bulgarian advanced to
+relieve Adrianople and achieve the destruction of the Latins. They
+must inevitably have been destroyed, if the marshal of Romania had not
+displayed a cool courage and consummate skill; uncommon in all ages,
+but most uncommon in those times, when war was a passion, rather than
+a science. His grief and fears were poured into the firm and faithful
+bosom of the doge; but in the camp he diffused an assurance of
+safety, which could only be realized by the general belief. All day he
+maintained his perilous station between the city and the Barbarians:
+Villehardouin decamped in silence at the dead of night; and his masterly
+retreat of three days would have deserved the praise of Xenophon and
+the ten thousand. In the rear, the marshal supported the weight of the
+pursuit; in the front, he moderated the impatience of the fugitives;
+and wherever the Comans approached, they were repelled by a line of
+impenetrable spears. On the third day, the weary troops beheld the sea,
+the solitary town of Rodosta, [27] and their friends, who had landed from
+the Asiatic shore. They embraced, they wept; but they united their arms
+and counsels; and in his brother's absence, Count Henry assumed the
+regency of the empire, at once in a state of childhood and caducity. [28]
+If the Comans withdrew from the summer heats, seven thousand Latins, in
+the hour of danger, deserted Constantinople, their brethren, and their
+vows. Some partial success was overbalanced by the loss of one hundred
+and twenty knights in the field of Rusium; and of the Imperial domain,
+no more was left than the capital, with two or three adjacent fortresses
+on the shores of Europe and Asia. The king of Bulgaria was resistless
+and inexorable; and Calo-John respectfully eluded the demands of the
+pope, who conjured his new proselyte to restore peace and the emperor to
+the afflicted Latins. The deliverance of Baldwin was no longer, he said,
+in the power of man: that prince had died in prison; and the manner of
+his death is variously related by ignorance and credulity. The lovers
+of a tragic legend will be pleased to hear, that the royal captive was
+tempted by the amorous queen of the Bulgarians; that his chaste refusal
+exposed him to the falsehood of a woman and the jealousy of a savage;
+that his hands and feet were severed from his body; that his bleeding
+trunk was cast among the carcasses of dogs and horses; and that he
+breathed three days, before he was devoured by the birds of prey. [29]
+About twenty years afterwards, in a wood of the Netherlands, a hermit
+announced himself as the true Baldwin, the emperor of Constantinople,
+and lawful sovereign of Flanders. He related the wonders of his escape,
+his adventures, and his penance, among a people prone to believe and to
+rebel; and, in the first transport, Flanders acknowledged her long-lost
+sovereign. A short examination before the French court detected the
+impostor, who was punished with an ignominious death; but the Flemings
+still adhered to the pleasing error; and the countess Jane is accused
+by the gravest historians of sacrificing to her ambition the life of an
+unfortunate father. [30]
+
+[Footnote 27: The truth of geography, and the original text of
+Villehardouin, (No. 194,) place Rodosto three days' journey (trois
+jornées) from Adrianople: but Vigenere, in his version, has most
+absurdly substituted _trois heures_; and this error, which is not
+corrected by Ducange has entrapped several moderns, whose names I shall
+spare.]
+
+[Footnote 28: The reign and end of Baldwin are related by Villehardouin
+and Nicetas, (p. 386--416;) and their omissions are supplied by Ducange
+in his Observations, and to the end of his first book.]
+
+[Footnote 29: After brushing away all doubtful and improbable
+circumstances, we may prove the death of Baldwin, 1. By the firm belief
+of the French barons, (Villehardouin, No. 230.) 2. By the declaration
+of Calo-John himself, who excuses his not releasing the captive emperor,
+quia debitum carnis exsolverat cum carcere teneretur, (Gesta Innocent
+III. c. 109.) * Note: Compare Von Raumer. Geschichte der Hohenstaufen,
+vol. ii. p. 237. Petitot, in his preface to Villehardouin in the
+Collection des Mémoires, relatifs a l'Histoire de France, tom. i. p. 85,
+expresses his belief in the first part of the "tragic legend."--M.]
+
+[Footnote 30: See the story of this impostor from the French and Flemish
+writers in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. iii. 9; and the ridiculous fables
+that were believed by the monks of St. Alban's, in Matthew Paris, Hist.
+Major, p. 271, 272.]
+
+In all civilized hostility, a treaty is established for the exchange
+or ransom of prisoners; and if their captivity be prolonged, their
+condition is known, and they are treated according to their rank with
+humanity or honor. But the savage Bulgarian was a stranger to the laws
+of war: his prisons were involved in darkness and silence; and above a
+year elapsed before the Latins could be assured of the death of Baldwin,
+before his brother, the regent Henry, would consent to assume the title
+of emperor. His moderation was applauded by the Greeks as an act of rare
+and inimitable virtue. Their light and perfidious ambition was eager to
+seize or anticipate the moment of a vacancy, while a law of succession,
+the guardian both of the prince and people, was gradually defined and
+confirmed in the hereditary monarchies of Europe. In the support of the
+Eastern empire, Henry was gradually left without an associate, as the
+heroes of the crusade retired from the world or from the war. The doge
+of Venice, the venerable Dandolo, in the fulness of years and glory,
+sunk into the grave. The marquis of Montferrat was slowly recalled
+from the Peloponnesian war to the revenge of Baldwin and the defence
+of Thessalonica. Some nice disputes of feudal homage and service were
+reconciled in a personal interview between the emperor and the king;
+they were firmly united by mutual esteem and the common danger; and
+their alliance was sealed by the nuptials of Henry with the daughter of
+the Italian prince. He soon deplored the loss of his friend and father.
+At the persuasion of some faithful Greeks, Boniface made a bold and
+successful inroad among the hills of Rhodope: the Bulgarians fled on his
+approach; they assembled to harass his retreat. On the intelligence
+that his rear was attacked, without waiting for any defensive armor,
+he leaped on horseback, couched his lance, and drove the enemies before
+him; but in the rash pursuit he was pierced with a mortal wound; and the
+head of the king of Thessalonica was presented to Calo-John, who
+enjoyed the honors, without the merit, of victory. It is here, at this
+melancholy event, that the pen or the voice of Jeffrey of Villehardouin
+seems to drop or to expire; [31] and if he still exercised his military
+office of marshal of Romania, his subsequent exploits are buried in
+oblivion. [32] The character of Henry was not unequal to his arduous
+situation: in the siege of Constantinople, and beyond the Hellespont, he
+had deserved the fame of a valiant knight and a skilful commander; and
+his courage was tempered with a degree of prudence and mildness unknown
+to his impetuous brother. In the double war against the Greeks of Asia
+and the Bulgarians of Europe, he was ever the foremost on shipboard or
+on horseback; and though he cautiously provided for the success of his
+arms, the drooping Latins were often roused by his example to save and
+to second their fearless emperor. But such efforts, and some supplies
+of men and money from France, were of less avail than the errors, the
+cruelty, and death, of their most formidable adversary. When the despair
+of the Greek subjects invited Calo-John as their deliverer, they hoped
+that he would protect their liberty and adopt their laws: they were soon
+taught to compare the degrees of national ferocity, and to execrate the
+savage conqueror, who no longer dissembled his intention of dispeopling
+Thrace, of demolishing the cities, and of transplanting the inhabitants
+beyond the Danube. Many towns and villages of Thrace were already
+evacuated: a heap of ruins marked the place of Philippopolis, and a
+similar calamity was expected at Demotica and Adrianople, by the first
+authors of the revolt. They raised a cry of grief and repentance to the
+throne of Henry; the emperor alone had the magnanimity to forgive and
+trust them. No more than four hundred knights, with their sergeants
+and archers, could be assembled under his banner; and with this
+slender force he fought [321] and repulsed the Bulgarian, who, besides his
+infantry, was at the head of forty thousand horse. In this expedition,
+Henry felt the difference between a hostile and a friendly country: the
+remaining cities were preserved by his arms; and the savage, with
+shame and loss, was compelled to relinquish his prey. The siege of
+Thessalonica was the last of the evils which Calo-John inflicted or
+suffered: he was stabbed in the night in his tent; and the general,
+perhaps the assassin, who found him weltering in his blood, ascribed the
+blow, with general applause, to the lance of St. Demetrius. [33] After
+several victories, the prudence of Henry concluded an honorable peace
+with the successor of the tyrant, and with the Greek princes of Nice and
+Epirus. If he ceded some doubtful limits, an ample kingdom was reserved
+for himself and his feudatories; and his reign, which lasted only ten
+years, afforded a short interval of prosperity and peace. Far above the
+narrow policy of Baldwin and Boniface, he freely intrusted to the Greeks
+the most important offices of the state and army; and this liberality of
+sentiment and practice was the more seasonable, as the princes of Nice
+and Epirus had already learned to seduce and employ the mercenary valor
+of the Latins. It was the aim of Henry to unite and reward his deserving
+subjects, of every nation and language; but he appeared less solicitous
+to accomplish the impracticable union of the two churches. Pelagius,
+the pope's legate, who acted as the sovereign of Constantinople, had
+interdicted the worship of the Greeks, and sternly imposed the payment
+of tithes, the double procession of the Holy Ghost, and a blind
+obedience to the Roman pontiff. As the weaker party, they pleaded
+the duties of conscience, and implored the rights of toleration: "Our
+bodies," they said, "are Cęsar's, but our souls belong only to God." The
+persecution was checked by the firmness of the emperor: [34] and if we
+can believe that the same prince was poisoned by the Greeks themselves,
+we must entertain a contemptible idea of the sense and gratitude of
+mankind. His valor was a vulgar attribute, which he shared with ten
+thousand knights; but Henry possessed the superior courage to oppose,
+in a superstitious age, the pride and avarice of the clergy. In the
+cathedral of St. Sophia he presumed to place his throne on the right
+hand of the patriarch; and this presumption excited the sharpest censure
+of Pope Innocent the Third. By a salutary edict, one of the first
+examples of the laws of mortmain, he prohibited the alienation of fiefs:
+many of the Latins, desirous of returning to Europe, resigned their
+estates to the church for a spiritual or temporal reward; these holy
+lands were immediately discharged from military service, and a colony
+of soldiers would have been gradually transformed into a college of
+priests. [35]
+
+[Footnote 31: Villehardouin, No. 257. I quote, with regret, this
+lamentable conclusion, where we lose at once the original history, and
+the rich illustrations of Ducange. The last pages may derive some light
+from Henry's two epistles to Innocent III., (Gesta, c. 106, 107.)]
+
+[Footnote 32: The marshal was alive in 1212, but he probably died soon
+afterwards, without returning to France, (Ducange, Observations sur
+Villehardouin, p. 238.) His fief of Messinople, the gift of Boniface,
+was the ancient Maximianopolis, which flourished in the time of Ammianus
+Marcellinus, among the cities of Thrace, (No. 141.)]
+
+[Footnote 321: There was no battle. On the advance of the Latins, John
+suddenly broke up his camp and retreated. The Latins considered
+this unexpected deliverance almost a miracle. Le Beau suggests the
+probability that the detection of the Comans, who usually quitted the
+camp during the heats of summer, may have caused the flight of the
+Bulgarians. Nicetas, c. 8 Villebardouin, c. 225. Le Beau, vol. xvii. p.
+242.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 33: The church of this patron of Thessalonica was served by
+the canons of the holy sepulchre, and contained a divine ointment which
+distilled daily and stupendous miracles, (Ducange, Hist. de C. P. ii.
+4.)]
+
+[Footnote 34: Acropolita (c. 17) observes the persecution of the
+legate, and the toleration of Henry, ('Erh, * as he calls him) kludwna
+katestorese. Note: Or rather 'ErrhV.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 35: See the reign of Henry, in Ducange, (Hist. de C. P. l. i.
+c. 35--41, l. ii. c. 1--22,) who is much indebted to the Epistles of the
+Popes. Le Beau (Hist. du Bas Empire, tom. xxi. p. 120--122) has found,
+perhaps in Doutreman, some laws of Henry, which determined the service
+of fiefs, and the prerogatives of the emperor.]
+
+The virtuous Henry died at Thessalonica, in the defence of that kingdom,
+and of an infant, the son of his friend Boniface. In the two first
+emperors of Constantinople the male line of the counts of Flanders was
+extinct. But their sister Yolande was the wife of a French prince,
+the mother of a numerous progeny; and one of her daughters had married
+Andrew king of Hungary, a brave and pious champion of the cross. By
+seating him on the Byzantine throne, the barons of Romania would have
+acquired the forces of a neighboring and warlike kingdom; but the
+prudent Andrew revered the laws of succession; and the princess Yolande,
+with her husband Peter of Courtenay, count of Auxerre, was invited by
+the Latins to assume the empire of the East. The royal birth of his
+father, the noble origin of his mother, recommended to the barons of
+France the first cousin of their king. His reputation was fair, his
+possessions were ample, and in the bloody crusade against the Albigeois,
+the soldiers and the priests had been abundantly satisfied of his zeal
+and valor. Vanity might applaud the elevation of a French emperor
+of Constantinople; but prudence must pity, rather than envy, his
+treacherous and imaginary greatness. To assert and adorn his title,
+he was reduced to sell or mortgage the best of his patrimony. By these
+expedients, the liberality of his royal kinsman Philip Augustus, and the
+national spirit of chivalry, he was enabled to pass the Alps at the
+head of one hundred and forty knights, and five thousand five hundred
+sergeants and archers. After some hesitation, Pope Honorius the Third
+was persuaded to crown the successor of Constantine: but he performed
+the ceremony in a church without the walls, lest he should seem to imply
+or to bestow any right of sovereignty over the ancient capital of the
+empire. The Venetians had engaged to transport Peter and his forces
+beyond the Adriatic, and the empress, with her four children, to the
+Byzantine palace; but they required, as the price of their service, that
+he should recover Durazzo from the despot of Epirus. Michael Angelus, or
+Comnenus, the first of his dynasty, had bequeathed the succession of
+his power and ambition to Theodore, his legitimate brother, who
+already threatened and invaded the establishments of the Latins. After
+discharging his debt by a fruitless assault, the emperor raised the
+siege to prosecute a long and perilous journey over land from Durazzo
+to Thessalonica. He was soon lost in the mountains of Epirus: the passes
+were fortified; his provisions exhausted; he was delayed and deceived by
+a treacherous negotiation; and, after Peter of Courtenay and the Roman
+legate had been arrested in a banquet, the French troops, without
+leaders or hopes, were eager to exchange their arms for the delusive
+promise of mercy and bread. The Vatican thundered; and the impious
+Theodore was threatened with the vengeance of earth and heaven; but the
+captive emperor and his soldiers were forgotten, and the reproaches of
+the pope are confined to the imprisonment of his legate. No sooner
+was he satisfied by the deliverance of the priests and a promise of
+spiritual obedience, than he pardoned and protected the despot of
+Epirus. His peremptory commands suspended the ardor of the Venetians and
+the king of Hungary; and it was only by a natural or untimely death [36]
+that Peter of Courtenay was released from his hopeless captivity. [37]
+
+[Footnote 36: Acropolita (c. 14) affirms, that Peter of Courtenay died
+by the sword, (ergon macairaV genesqai;) but from his dark expressions,
+I should conclude a previous captivity, wV pantaV ardhn desmwtaV poihsai
+sun pasi skeuesi. * The Chronicle of Auxerre delays the emperor's death
+till the year 1219; and Auxerre is in the neighborhood of Courtenay.
+Note: Whatever may have been the fact, this can hardly be made out
+from the expressions of Acropolita.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 37: See the reign and death of Peter of Courtenay, in Ducange,
+(Hist. de C. P. l. ii. c. 22--28,) who feebly strives to excuse the
+neglect of the emperor by Honorius III.]
+
+The long ignorance of his fate, and the presence of the lawful
+sovereign, of Yolande, his wife or widow, delayed the proclamation of
+a new emperor. Before her death, and in the midst of her grief, she was
+delivered of a son, who was named Baldwin, the last and most unfortunate
+of the Latin princes of Constantinople. His birth endeared him to the
+barons of Romania; but his childhood would have prolonged the troubles
+of a minority, and his claims were superseded by the elder claims of his
+brethren. The first of these, Philip of Courtenay, who derived from his
+mother the inheritance of Namur, had the wisdom to prefer the substance
+of a marquisate to the shadow of an empire; and on his refusal, Robert,
+the second of the sons of Peter and Yolande, was called to the throne
+of Constantinople. Warned by his father's mischance, he pursued his slow
+and secure journey through Germany and along the Danube: a passage
+was opened by his sister's marriage with the king of Hungary; and the
+emperor Robert was crowned by the patriarch in the cathedral of St.
+Sophia. But his reign was an ęra of calamity and disgrace; and the
+colony, as it was styled, of New France yielded on all sides to the
+Greeks of Nice and Epirus. After a victory, which he owed to his
+perfidy rather than his courage, Theodore Angelus entered the kingdom
+of Thessalonica, expelled the feeble Demetrius, the son of the marquis
+Boniface, erected his standard on the walls of Adrianople; and added, by
+his vanity, a third or a fourth name to the list of rival emperors.
+The relics of the Asiatic province were swept away by John Vataces, the
+son-in-law and successor of Theodore Lascaris, and who, in a triumphant
+reign of thirty-three years, displayed the virtues both of peace and
+war. Under his discipline, the swords of the French mercenaries were the
+most effectual instruments of his conquests, and their desertion from
+the service of their country was at once a symptom and a cause of the
+rising ascendant of the Greeks. By the construction of a fleet, he
+obtained the command of the Hellespont, reduced the islands of Lesbos
+and Rhodes, attacked the Venetians of Candia, and intercepted the rare
+and parsimonious succors of the West. Once, and once only, the Latin
+emperor sent an army against Vataces; and in the defeat of that army,
+the veteran knights, the last of the original conquerors, were left on
+the field of battle. But the success of a foreign enemy was less painful
+to the pusillanimous Robert than the insolence of his Latin subjects,
+who confounded the weakness of the emperor and of the empire. His
+personal misfortunes will prove the anarchy of the government and the
+ferociousness of the times. The amorous youth had neglected his Greek
+bride, the daughter of Vataces, to introduce into the palace a beautiful
+maid, of a private, though noble family of Artois; and her mother had
+been tempted by the lustre of the purple to forfeit her engagements with
+a gentleman of Burgundy. His love was converted into rage; he assembled
+his friends, forced the palace gates, threw the mother into the sea,
+and inhumanly cut off the nose and lips of the wife or concubine of
+the emperor. Instead of punishing the offender, the barons avowed and
+applauded the savage deed, [38] which, as a prince and as a man, it was
+impossible that Robert should forgive. He escaped from the guilty city
+to implore the justice or compassion of the pope: the emperor was coolly
+exhorted to return to his station; before he could obey, he sunk under
+the weight of grief, shame, and impotent resentment. [39]
+
+[Footnote 38: Marinus Sanutus (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. p. 4,
+c. 18, p. 73) is so much delighted with this bloody deed, that he has
+transcribed it in his margin as a bonum exemplum. Yet he acknowledges
+the damsel for the lawful wife of Robert.]
+
+[Footnote 39: See the reign of Robert, in Ducange, (Hist. de C. P. l.
+ii. c.--12.)]
+
+It was only in the age of chivalry, that valor could ascend from a
+private station to the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople. The
+titular kingdom of Jerusalem had devolved to Mary, the daughter of
+Isabella and Conrad of Montferrat, and the granddaughter of Almeric
+or Amaury. She was given to John of Brienne, of a noble family in
+Champagne, by the public voice, and the judgment of Philip Augustus, who
+named him as the most worthy champion of the Holy Land. [40] In the fifth
+crusade, he led a hundred thousand Latins to the conquest of Egypt: by
+him the siege of Damietta was achieved; and the subsequent failure
+was justly ascribed to the pride and avarice of the legate. After the
+marriage of his daughter with Frederic the Second, [41] he was provoked
+by the emperor's ingratitude to accept the command of the army of the
+church; and though advanced in life, and despoiled of royalty, the
+sword and spirit of John of Brienne were still ready for the service
+of Christendom. In the seven years of his brother's reign, Baldwin of
+Courtenay had not emerged from a state of childhood, and the barons of
+Romania felt the strong necessity of placing the sceptre in the hands of
+a man and a hero. The veteran king of Jerusalem might have disdained the
+name and office of regent; they agreed to invest him for his life
+with the title and prerogatives of emperor, on the sole condition that
+Baldwin should marry his second daughter, and succeed at a mature age
+to the throne of Constantinople. The expectation, both of the Greeks and
+Latins, was kindled by the renown, the choice, and the presence of John
+of Brienne; and they admired his martial aspect, his green and vigorous
+age of more than fourscore years, and his size and stature, which
+surpassed the common measure of mankind. [42] But avarice, and the love
+of ease, appear to have chilled the ardor of enterprise: [421] his troops
+were disbanded, and two years rolled away without action or honor, till
+he was awakened by the dangerous alliance of Vataces emperor of Nice,
+and of Azan king of Bulgaria. They besieged Constantinople by sea and
+land, with an army of one hundred thousand men, and a fleet of three
+hundred ships of war; while the entire force of the Latin emperor
+was reduced to one hundred and sixty knights, and a small addition of
+sergeants and archers. I tremble to relate, that instead of defending
+the city, the hero made a sally at the head of his cavalry; and that of
+forty-eight squadrons of the enemy, no more than three escaped from the
+edge of his invincible sword. Fired by his example, the infantry and
+the citizens boarded the vessels that anchored close to the walls; and
+twenty-five were dragged in triumph into the harbor of Constantinople.
+At the summons of the emperor, the vassals and allies armed in her
+defence; broke through every obstacle that opposed their passage; and,
+in the succeeding year, obtained a second victory over the same enemies.
+By the rude poets of the age, John of Brienne is compared to Hector,
+Roland, and Judas Machabęus: [43] but their credit, and his glory,
+receive some abatement from the silence of the Greeks. The empire was
+soon deprived of the last of her champions; and the dying monarch was
+ambitious to enter paradise in the habit of a Franciscan friar. [44]
+
+[Footnote 40: Rex igitur Francię, deliberatione habitā, respondit
+nuntiis, se daturum hominem Syrię partibus aptum; in armis probum
+(_preux_) in bellis securum, in agendis providum, Johannem comitem
+Brennensem. Sanut. Secret. Fidelium, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4, p. 205 Matthew
+Paris, p. 159.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 380--385)
+discusses the marriage of Frederic II. with the daughter of John of
+Brienne, and the double union of the crowns of Naples and Jerusalem.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Acropolita, c. 27. The historian was at that time a boy,
+and educated at Constantinople. In 1233, when he was eleven years old,
+his father broke the Latin chain, left a splendid fortune, and escaped
+to the Greek court of Nice, where his son was raised to the highest
+honors.]
+
+[Footnote 421: John de Brienne, elected emperor 1229, wasted two years in
+preparations, and did not arrive at Constantinople till 1231. Two years
+more glided away in inglorious inaction; he then made some ineffective
+warlike expeditions. Constantinople was not besieged till 1234.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 43: Philip Mouskes, bishop of Tournay, (A.D. 1274--1282,) has
+composed a poem, or rather string of verses, in bad old Flemish French,
+on the Latin emperors of Constantinople, which Ducange has published at
+the end of Villehardouin; see p. 38, for the prowess of John of Brienne.
+N'Aie, Ector, Roll' ne Ogiers
+Ne Judas Machabeus li fiers
+Tant ne fit d'armes en estors
+Com fist li Rois Jehans cel jors
+Et il defors et il dedans
+La paru sa force et ses sens
+Et li hardiment qu'il avoit.]
+
+[Footnote 44: See the reign of John de Brienne, in Ducange, Hist. de C.
+P. l. ii. c. 13--26.]
+
+In the double victory of John of Brienne, I cannot discover the name
+or exploits of his pupil Baldwin, who had attained the age of military
+service, and who succeeded to the imperial dignity on the decease of his
+adoptive father. [45] The royal youth was employed on a commission more
+suitable to his temper; he was sent to visit the Western courts, of the
+pope more especially, and of the king of France; to excite their pity by
+the view of his innocence and distress; and to obtain some supplies of
+men or money for the relief of the sinking empire. He thrice repeated
+these mendicant visits, in which he seemed to prolong his stay and
+postpone his return; of the five-and-twenty years of his reign, a
+greater number were spent abroad than at home; and in no place did the
+emperor deem himself less free and secure than in his native country and
+his capital. On some public occasions, his vanity might be soothed
+by the title of Augustus, and by the honors of the purple; and at the
+general council of Lyons, when Frederic the Second was excommunicated
+and deposed, his Oriental colleague was enthroned on the right hand of
+the pope. But how often was the exile, the vagrant, the Imperial beggar,
+humbled with scorn, insulted with pity, and degraded in his own eyes and
+those of the nations! In his first visit to England, he was stopped at
+Dover by a severe reprimand, that he should presume, without leave, to
+enter an independent kingdom. After some delay, Baldwin, however, was
+permitted to pursue his journey, was entertained with cold civility, and
+thankfully departed with a present of seven hundred marks. [46] From the
+avarice of Rome he could only obtain the proclamation of a crusade, and
+a treasure of indulgences; a coin whose currency was depreciated by too
+frequent and indiscriminate abuse. His birth and misfortunes recommended
+him to the generosity of his cousin Louis the Ninth; but the martial
+zeal of the saint was diverted from Constantinople to Egypt and
+Palestine; and the public and private poverty of Baldwin was alleviated,
+for a moment, by the alienation of the marquisate of Namur and the
+lordship of Courtenay, the last remains of his inheritance. [47] By such
+shameful or ruinous expedients, he once more returned to Romania, with
+an army of thirty thousand soldiers, whose numbers were doubled in the
+apprehension of the Greeks. His first despatches to France and England
+announced his victories and his hopes: he had reduced the country round
+the capital to the distance of three days' journey; and if he succeeded
+against an important, though nameless, city, (most probably Chiorli,)
+the frontier would be safe and the passage accessible. But these
+expectations (if Baldwin was sincere) quickly vanished like a dream: the
+troops and treasures of France melted away in his unskilful hands; and
+the throne of the Latin emperor was protected by a dishonorable alliance
+with the Turks and Comans. To secure the former, he consented to bestow
+his niece on the unbelieving sultan of Cogni; to please the latter, he
+complied with their Pagan rites; a dog was sacrificed between the two
+armies; and the contracting parties tasted each other's blood, as
+a pledge of their fidelity. [48] In the palace, or prison, of
+Constantinople, the successor of Augustus demolished the vacant houses
+for winter fuel, and stripped the lead from the churches for the daily
+expense of his family. Some usurious loans were dealt with a scanty hand
+by the merchants of Italy; and Philip, his son and heir, was pawned at
+Venice as the security for a debt. [49] Thirst, hunger, and nakedness,
+are positive evils: but wealth is relative; and a prince who would be
+rich in a private station, may be exposed by the increase of his wants
+to all the anxiety and bitterness of poverty.
+
+[Footnote 45: See the reign of Baldwin II. till his expulsion from
+Constantinople, in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 1--34, the end l.
+v. c. 1--33.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II. to the
+English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armatā manū, p. 407
+his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c., p. 481, (a passage which has
+escaped Ducange;) his expulsion, p. 850.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Louis IX. disapproved and stopped the alienation of
+Courtenay (Ducange, l. iv. c. 23.) It is now annexed to the
+royal demesne but granted for a term (_engagé_) to the family of
+Boulainvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in the Isle de
+France, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the remains of a castle,
+(Mélanges tirés d'une Grande Bibliothčque, tom. xlv. p. 74--77.)]
+
+[Footnote 48: Joinville, p. 104, edit. du Louvre. A Coman prince, who
+died without baptism, was buried at the gates of Constantinople with a
+live retinue of slaves and horses.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Crucis, l. ii. p. iv. c. 18, p. 73.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part III.
+
+But in this abject distress, the emperor and empire were still
+possessed of an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value from the
+superstition of the Christian world. The merit of the true cross was
+somewhat impaired by its frequent division; and a long captivity among
+the infidels might shed some suspicion on the fragments that were
+produced in the East and West. But another relic of the Passion was
+preserved in the Imperial chapel of Constantinople; and the crown of
+thorns which had been placed on the head of Christ was equally precious
+and authentic. It had formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtors
+to deposit, as a security, the mummies of their parents; and both their
+honor and religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In the
+same manner, and in the absence of the emperor, the barons of Romania
+borrowed the sum of thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty-four
+pieces of gold [50] on the credit of the holy crown: they failed in the
+performance of their contract; and a rich Venetian, Nicholas Querini,
+undertook to satisfy their impatient creditors, on condition that the
+relic should be lodged at Venice, to become his absolute property, if it
+were not redeemed within a short and definite term. The barons apprised
+their sovereign of the hard treaty and impending loss and as the empire
+could not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling, Baldwin was
+anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and to vest it with more
+honor and emolument in the hands of the most Christian king. [51] Yet the
+negotiation was attended with some delicacy. In the purchase of relics,
+the saint would have started at the guilt of simony; but if the mode of
+expression were changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept the
+gift, and acknowledge the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans,
+were despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown which had
+escaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On opening a
+wooden box, they recognized the seals of the doge and barons, which were
+applied on a shrine of silver; and within this shrine the monument
+of the Passion was enclosed in a golden vase. The reluctant Venetians
+yielded to justice and power: the emperor Frederic granted a free and
+honorable passage; the court of France advanced as far as Troyes in
+Champagne, to meet with devotion this inestimable relic: it was borne in
+triumph through Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt;
+and a free gift of ten thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to
+his loss. The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor to
+offer with the same generosity the remaining furniture of his chapel;
+[52] a large and authentic portion of the true cross; the baby-linen of
+the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the chain, of his Passion;
+the rod of Moses, and part of the skull of St. John the Baptist. For
+the reception of these spiritual treasures, twenty thousand marks were
+expended by St. Louis on a stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris,
+on which the muse of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth
+of such remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human
+testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles which
+they have performed. About the middle of the last age, an inveterate
+ulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the holy crown: [53]
+the prodigy is attested by the most pious and enlightened Christians of
+France; nor will the fact be easily disproved, except by those who are
+armed with a general antidote against religious credulity. [54]
+
+[Footnote 50: Under the words _Perparus_, _Perpera_, _Hyperperum_,
+Ducange is short and vague: Monetę genus. From a corrupt passage of
+Guntherus, (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10,) I guess that the Perpera was
+the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark of silver, or about ten
+shillings sterling in value. In lead it would be too contemptible.]
+
+[Footnote 51: For the translation of the holy crown, &c., from
+Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 11--14,
+24, 35) and Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvii. p. 201--204.)]
+
+[Footnote 52: Mélanges tirés d'une Grande Bibliothčque, tom. xliii.
+p. 201--205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the soul
+and manners of the _Sainte Chapelle_; and many facts relative to the
+institution are collected and explained by his commentators, Brosset and
+De St. Marc.]
+
+[Footnote 53: It was performed A.D. 1656, March 24, on the niece of
+Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c., were on the
+spot, to believe and attest a miracle which confounded the Jesuits,
+and saved Port Royal, (uvres de Racine, tom. vi. p. 176--187, in his
+eloquent History of Port Royal.)]
+
+[Footnote 54: Voltaire (Siécle de Louis XIV. c. 37, uvres, tom. ix. p.
+178, 179) strives to invalidate the fact: but Hume, (Essays, vol. ii.
+p. 483, 484,) with more skill and success, seizes the battery, and turns
+the cannon against his enemies.]
+
+The Latins of Constantinople [55] were on all sides encompassed and
+pressed; their sole hope, the last delay of their ruin, was in the
+division of their Greek and Bulgarian enemies; and of this hope they
+were deprived by the superior arms and policy of Vataces, emperor of
+Nice. From the Propontis to the rocky coast of Pamphylia, Asia was
+peaceful and prosperous under his reign; and the events of every
+campaign extended his influence in Europe. The strong cities of the
+hills of Macedonia and Thrace were rescued from the Bulgarians; and
+their kingdom was circumscribed by its present and proper limits, along
+the southern banks of the Danube. The sole emperor of the Romans could
+no longer brook that a lord of Epirus, a Comnenian prince of the West,
+should presume to dispute or share the honors of the purple; and the
+humble Demetrius changed the color of his buskins, and accepted with
+gratitude the appellation of despot. His own subjects were exasperated
+by his baseness and incapacity; they implored the protection of their
+supreme lord. After some resistance, the kingdom of Thessalonica was
+united to the empire of Nice; and Vataces reigned without a competitor
+from the Turkish borders to the Adriatic Gulf. The princes of Europe
+revered his merit and power; and had he subscribed an orthodox creed,
+it should seem that the pope would have abandoned without reluctance the
+Latin throne of Constantinople. But the death of Vataces, the short and
+busy reign of Theodore his son, and the helpless infancy of his grandson
+John, suspended the restoration of the Greeks. In the next chapter,
+I shall explain their domestic revolutions; in this place, it will
+be sufficient to observe, that the young prince was oppressed by
+the ambition of his guardian and colleague, Michael Palęologus, who
+displayed the virtues and vices that belong to the founder of a new
+dynasty. The emperor Baldwin had flattered himself, that he might
+recover some provinces or cities by an impotent negotiation. His
+ambassadors were dismissed from Nice with mockery and contempt. At every
+place which they named, Palęologus alleged some special reason, which
+rendered it dear and valuable in his eyes: in the one he was born; in
+another he had been first promoted to military command; and in a third
+he had enjoyed, and hoped long to enjoy, the pleasures of the chase.
+"And what then do you propose to give us?" said the astonished deputies.
+"Nothing," replied the Greek, "not a foot of land. If your master be
+desirous of peace, let him pay me, as an annual tribute, the sum which
+he receives from the trade and customs of Constantinople. On these
+terms, I may allow him to reign. If he refuses, it is war. I am not
+ignorant of the art of war, and I trust the event to God and my sword."
+[56] An expedition against the despot of Epirus was the first prelude
+of his arms. If a victory was followed by a defeat; if the race of the
+Comneni or Angeli survived in those mountains his efforts and his reign;
+the captivity of Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the Latins
+of the most active and powerful vassal of their expiring monarchy. The
+republics of Venice and Genoa disputed, in the first of their naval
+wars, the command of the sea and the commerce of the East. Pride and
+interest attached the Venetians to the defence of Constantinople; their
+rivals were tempted to promote the designs of her enemies, and the
+alliance of the Genoese with the schismatic conqueror provoked the
+indignation of the Latin church. [57]
+
+[Footnote 55: The gradual losses of the Latins may be traced in the
+third fourth, and fifth books of the compilation of Ducange: but of
+the Greek conquests he has dropped many circumstances, which may be
+recovered from the larger history of George Acropolita, and the three
+first books of Nicephorus, Gregoras, two writers of the Byzantine
+series, who have had the good fortune to meet with learned editors Leo
+Allatius at Rome, and John Boivin in the Academy of Inscriptions of
+Paris.]
+
+[Footnote 56: George Acropolita, c. 78, p. 89, 90. edit. Paris.]
+
+[Footnote 57: The Greeks, ashamed of any foreign aid, disguise the
+alliance and succor of the Genoese: but the fact is proved by the
+testimony of J Villani (Chron. l. vi. c. 71, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
+Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 202, 203) and William de Nangis, (Annales de
+St. Louis, p. 248 in the Louvre Joinville,) two impartial foreigners;
+and Urban IV threatened to deprive Genoa of her archbishop.]
+
+Intent on his great object, the emperor Michael visited in person and
+strengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The remains of
+the Latins were driven from their last possessions: he assaulted without
+success the suburb of Galata; and corresponded with a perfidious baron,
+who proved unwilling, or unable, to open the gates of the metropolis.
+The next spring, his favorite general, Alexius Strategopulus, whom he
+had decorated with the title of Cęsar, passed the Hellespont with
+eight hundred horse and some infantry, [58] on a secret expedition. His
+instructions enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not to
+risk any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city. The adjacent
+territory between the Propontis and the Black Sea was cultivated by
+a hardy race of peasants and outlaws, exercised in arms, uncertain
+in their allegiance, but inclined by language, religion, and
+present advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They were styled the
+_volunteers_; [59] and by their free service the army of Alexius, with
+the regulars of Thrace and the Coman auxiliaries, [60] was augmented
+to the number of five-and-twenty thousand men. By the ardor of the
+volunteers, and by his own ambition, the Cęsar was stimulated to disobey
+the precise orders of his master, in the just confidence that success
+would plead his pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, and
+the distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar to the observation
+of the volunteers; and they represented the present moment as the most
+propitious to surprise and conquest. A rash youth, the new governor of
+the Venetian colony, had sailed away with thirty galleys, and the best
+of the French knights, on a wild expedition to Daphnusia, a town on the
+Black Sea, at the distance of forty leagues; [601] and the remaining Latins
+were without strength or suspicion. They were informed that Alexius
+had passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were lulled by the
+smallness of his original numbers; and their imprudence had not watched
+the subsequent increase of his army. If he left his main body to second
+and support his operations, he might advance unperceived in the night
+with a chosen detachment. While some applied scaling-ladders to the
+lowest part of the walls, they were secure of an old Greek, who would
+introduce their companions through a subterraneous passage into his
+house; they could soon on the inside break an entrance through the
+golden gate, which had been long obstructed; and the conqueror would
+be in the heart of the city before the Latins were conscious of their
+danger. After some debate, the Cęsar resigned himself to the faith
+of the volunteers; they were trusty, bold, and successful; and in
+describing the plan, I have already related the execution and success.
+[61] But no sooner had Alexius passed the threshold of the golden gate,
+than he trembled at his own rashness; he paused, he deliberated; till
+the desperate volunteers urged him forwards, by the assurance that in
+retreat lay the greatest and most inevitable danger. Whilst the Cęsar
+kept his regulars in firm array, the Comans dispersed themselves on
+all sides; an alarm was sounded, and the threats of fire and pillage
+compelled the citizens to a decisive resolution. The Greeks of
+Constantinople remembered their native sovereigns; the Genoese merchants
+their recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter was in arms; and
+the air resounded with a general acclamation of "Long life and victory
+to Michael and John, the august emperors of the Romans!" Their rival,
+Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most pressing danger could
+not prompt him to draw his sword in the defence of a city which he
+deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure than regret: he fled from the
+palace to the seashore, where he descried the welcome sails of the
+fleet returning from the vain and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia.
+Constantinople was irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and the
+principal families embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steered
+for the Isle of Euba, and afterwards for Italy, where the royal fugitive
+was entertained by the pope and Sicilian king with a mixture of contempt
+and pity. From the loss of Constantinople to his death, he consumed
+thirteen years, soliciting the Catholic powers to join in his
+restoration: the lesson had been familiar to his youth; nor was his last
+exile more indigent or shameful than his three former pilgrimages to the
+courts of Europe. His son Philip was the heir of an ideal empire;
+and the pretensions of his daughter Catherine were transported by her
+marriage to Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, king of
+France. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female line by
+successive alliances, till the title of emperor of Constantinople, too
+bulky and sonorous for a private name, modestly expired in silence and
+oblivion. [62]
+
+[Footnote 58: Some precautions must be used in reconciling the
+discordant numbers; the 800 soldiers of Nicetas, the 25,000 of
+Spandugino, (apud Ducange, l. v. c. 24;) the Greeks and Scythians of
+Acropolita; and the numerous army of Michael, in the Epistles of Pope
+Urban IV. (i. 129.)]
+
+[Footnote 59: Qelhmatarioi. They are described and named by Pachymer,
+(l. ii. c. 14.)]
+
+[Footnote 60: It is needless to seek these Comans in the deserts of
+Tartary, or even of Moldavia. A part of the horde had submitted to John
+Vataces, and was probably settled as a nursery of soldiers on some waste
+lands of Thrace, (Cantacuzen. l. i. c. 2.)]
+
+[Footnote 601: According to several authorities, particularly Abulfaradj.
+Chron. Arab. p. 336, this was a stratagem on the part of the Greeks to
+weaken the garrison of Constantinople. The Greek commander offered to
+surrender the town on the appearance of the Venetians.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 61: The loss of Constantinople is briefly told by the Latins:
+the conquest is described with more satisfaction by the Greeks; by
+Acropolita, (c. 85,) Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 26, 27,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
+(l. iv. c. 1, 2) See Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 19--27.]
+
+[Footnote 62: See the three last books (l. v.--viii.) and the
+genealogical tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular emperor
+of Constantinople was James de Baux, duke of Andria in the kingdom of
+Naples, the son of Margaret, daughter of Catherine de Valois, daughter
+of Catharine, daughter of Philip, son of Baldwin II., (Ducange, l. viii.
+c. 37, 38.) It is uncertain whether he left any posterity.]
+
+After this narrative of the expeditions of the Latins to Palestine
+and Constantinople, I cannot dismiss the subject without resolving the
+general consequences on the countries that were the scene, and on the
+nations that were the actors, of these memorable crusades. [63] As soon
+as the arms of the Franks were withdrawn, the impression, though not
+the memory, was erased in the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syria. The
+faithful disciples of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desire
+to study the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity
+of their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from their
+intercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of the West. The
+Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were only vain, showed a
+disposition somewhat less inflexible. In the efforts for the recovery of
+their empire, they emulated the valor, discipline, and tactics of
+their antagonists. The modern literature of the West they might justly
+despise; but its free spirit would instruct them in the rights of man;
+and some institutions of public and private life were adopted from the
+French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused the
+knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and classics
+were at length honored with a Greek version. [64] But the national and
+religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed by persecution, and
+the reign of the Latins confirmed the separation of the two churches.
+
+[Footnote 63: Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades, speaks
+of the kingdoms of the Franks, and those of the Negroes, as equally
+unknown, (Prolegom. ad Geograph.) Had he not disdained the Latin
+language, how easily might the Syrian prince have found books and
+interpreters!]
+
+[Footnote 64: A short and superficial account of these versions from
+Latin into Greek is given by Huet, (de Interpretatione et de claris
+Interpretibus p. 131--135.) Maximus Planudes, a monk of Constantinople,
+(A.D. 1327--1353) has translated Cęsar's Commentaries, the Somnium
+Scipionis, the Metamorphoses and Heroides of Ovid, &c., (Fabric. Bib.
+Gręc. tom. x. p. 533.)]
+
+If we compare the ęra of the crusades, the Latins of Europe with the
+Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, industry,
+and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the third rank in the
+scale of nations. Their successive improvement and present superiority
+may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and
+imitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that
+time were in a stationary or retrograde state. With such a disposition,
+the Latins should have derived the most early and essential benefits
+from a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the
+world, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the
+more cultivated regions of the East. The first and most obvious progress
+was in trade and manufactures, in the arts which are strongly prompted
+by the thirst of wealth, the calls of necessity, and the gratification
+of the sense or vanity. Among the crowd of unthinking fanatics, a
+captive or a pilgrim might sometimes observe the superior refinements
+of Cairo and Constantinople: the first importer of windmills [65] was
+the benefactor of nations; and if such blessings are enjoyed without
+any grateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the more
+apparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported into Italy
+from Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of the Latins were
+more slowly felt and supplied; the ardor of studious curiosity was
+awakened in Europe by different causes and more recent events; and,
+in the age of the crusades, they viewed with careless indifference the
+literature of the Greeks and Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematical
+and medicinal knowledge might be imparted in practice and in figures;
+necessity might produce some interpreters for the grosser business
+of merchants and soldiers; but the commerce of the Orientals had not
+diffused the study and knowledge of their languages in the schools of
+Europe. [66] If a similar principle of religion repulsed the idiom of the
+Koran, it should have excited their patience and curiosity to understand
+the original text of the gospel; and the same grammar would have
+unfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties of Homer. Yet in a reign
+of sixty years, the Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech and
+learning of their subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasures
+which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle was
+indeed the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous
+Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his Latin
+votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version, from the Jews
+and Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the crusades was a savage
+fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause.
+Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics
+of Greece and Palestine; [67] and each relic was preceded and followed
+by a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was
+corrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the
+establishment of the inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and
+friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress of
+idolatry, flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war. The active
+spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion;
+and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, the
+thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity and fable.
+
+[Footnote 65: Windmills, first invented in the dry country of Asia
+Minor, were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105, (Vie privée des
+Franēois, tom. i. p. 42, 43. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iv. p. 474.)]
+
+[Footnote 66: See the complaints of Roger Bacon, (Biographia Britannica,
+vol. i. p. 418, Kippis's edition.) If Bacon himself, or Gerbert,
+understood _some_Greek, they were prodigies, and owed nothing to the
+commerce of the East.]
+
+[Footnote 67: Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz, (uvres de
+Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 458,) a master of the history of the middle ages.
+I shall only instance the pedigree of the Carmelites, and the flight of
+the house of Loretto, which were both derived from Palestine.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part IV.
+
+In the profession of Christianity, in the cultivation of a fertile land,
+the northern conquerors of the Roman empire insensibly mingled with the
+provincials, and rekindled the embers of the arts of antiquity. Their
+settlements about the age of Charlemagne had acquired some degree
+of order and stability, when they were overwhelmed by new swarms of
+invaders, the Normans, Saracens, [68] and Hungarians, who replunged
+the western countries of Europe into their former state of anarchy and
+barbarism. About the eleventh century, the second tempest had subsided
+by the expulsion or conversion of the enemies of Christendom: the tide
+of civilization, which had so long ebbed, began to flow with a steady
+and accelerated course; and a fairer prospect was opened to the hopes
+and efforts of the rising generations. Great was the increase, and rapid
+the progress, during the two hundred years of the crusades; and some
+philosophers have applauded the propitious influence of these holy wars,
+which appear to me to have checked rather than forwarded the maturity of
+Europe. [69] The lives and labors of millions, which were buried in the
+East, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement of
+their native country: the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would
+have overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have been
+enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly correspondence with
+the climates of the East. In one respect I can indeed perceive the
+accidental operation of the crusades, not so much in producing a benefit
+as in removing an evil. The larger portion of the inhabitants of Europe
+was chained to the soil, without freedom, or property, or knowledge;
+and the two orders of ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers were
+comparatively small, alone deserved the name of citizens and men. This
+oppressive system was supported by the arts of the clergy and the swords
+of the barons. The authority of the priests operated in the darker ages
+as a salutary antidote: they prevented the total extinction of
+letters, mitigated the fierceness of the times, sheltered the poor
+and defenceless, and preserved or revived the peace and order of civil
+society. But the independence, rapine, and discord of the feudal lords
+were unmixed with any semblance of good; and every hope of industry and
+improvement was crushed by the iron weight of the martial aristocracy.
+Among the causes that undermined that Gothic edifice, a conspicuous
+place must be allowed to the crusades. The estates of the barons were
+dissipated, and their race was often extinguished, in these costly and
+perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride those
+charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave, secured
+the farm of the peasant and the shop of the artificer, and gradually
+restored a substance and a soul to the most numerous and useful part
+of the community. The conflagration which destroyed the tall and barren
+trees of the forest gave air and scope to the vegetation of the smaller
+and nutritive plants of the soil. [691]
+
+[Footnote 68: If I rank the Saracens with the Barbarians, it is only
+relative to their wars, or rather inroads, in Italy and France, where
+their sole purpose was to plunder and destroy.]
+
+[Footnote 69: On this interesting subject, the progress of society in
+Europe, a strong ray of philosophical light has broke from Scotland in
+our own times; and it is with private, as well as public regard, that I
+repeat the names of Hume, Robertson, and Adam Smith.]
+
+[Footnote 691: On the consequences of the crusades, compare the valuable
+Essay of Heeren, that of M. Choiseul d'Aillecourt, and a chapter of
+Mr. Forster's "Mahometanism Unveiled." I may admire this gentleman's
+learning and industry, without pledging myself to his wild theory of
+prophets interpretation.--M.]
+
+
+_Digression On The Family Of Courtenay._
+
+The purple of three emperors, who have reigned at Constantinople, will
+authorize or excuse a digression on the origin and singular fortunes
+of the house of Courtenay, [70] in the three principal branches: I. Of
+Edessa; II. Of France; and III. Of England; of which the last only has
+survived the revolutions of eight hundred years.
+
+[Footnote 70: I have applied, but not confined, myself to _A
+genealogical History of the noble and illustrious Family of Courtenay,
+by Ezra Cleaveland, Tutor to Sir William Courtenay, and Rector of
+Honiton; Exon. 1735, in folio._ The first part is extracted from William
+of Tyre; the second from Bouchet's French history; and the third from
+various memorials, public, provincial, and private, of the Courtenays of
+Devonshire The rector of Honiton has more gratitude than industry, and
+more industry than criticism.]
+
+I. Before the introduction of trade, which scatters riches, and of
+knowledge, which dispels prejudice, the prerogative of birth is most
+strongly felt and most humbly acknowledged. In every age, the laws and
+manners of the Germans have discriminated the ranks of society; the
+dukes and counts, who shared the empire of Charlemagne, converted
+their office to an inheritance; and to his children, each feudal lord
+bequeathed his honor and his sword. The proudest families are content
+to lose, in the darkness of the middle ages, the tree of their pedigree,
+which, however deep and lofty, must ultimately rise from a plebeian
+root; and their historians must descend ten centuries below the
+Christian ęra, before they can ascertain any lineal succession by the
+evidence of surnames, of arms, and of authentic records. With the first
+rays of light, [71] we discern the nobility and opulence of Atho, a
+French knight; his nobility, in the rank and title of a nameless father;
+his opulence, in the foundation of the castle of Courtenay in the
+district of Gatinois, about fifty-six miles to the south of Paris. From
+the reign of Robert, the son of Hugh Capet, the barons of Courtenay are
+conspicuous among the immediate vassals of the crown; and Joscelin, the
+grandson of Atho and a noble dame, is enrolled among the heroes of the
+first crusade. A domestic alliance (their mothers were sisters) attached
+him to the standard of Baldwin of Bruges, the second count of Edessa;
+a princely fief, which he was worthy to receive, and able to maintain,
+announces the number of his martial followers; and after the departure
+of his cousin, Joscelin himself was invested with the county of Edessa
+on both sides of the Euphrates. By economy in peace, his territories
+were replenished with Latin and Syrian subjects; his magazines with
+corn, wine, and oil; his castles with gold and silver, with arms
+and horses. In a holy warfare of thirty years, he was alternately a
+conqueror and a captive: but he died like a soldier, in a horse litter
+at the head of his troops; and his last glance beheld the flight of the
+Turkish invaders who had presumed on his age and infirmities. His son
+and successor, of the same name, was less deficient in valor than
+in vigilance; but he sometimes forgot that dominion is acquired and
+maintained by the same arms. He challenged the hostility of the Turks,
+without securing the friendship of the prince of Antioch; and, amidst
+the peaceful luxury of Turbessel, in Syria, [72] Joscelin neglected the
+defence of the Christian frontier beyond the Euphrates. In his absence,
+Zenghi, the first of the Atabeks, besieged and stormed his capital,
+Edessa, which was feebly defended by a timorous and disloyal crowd of
+Orientals: the Franks were oppressed in a bold attempt for its recovery,
+and Courtenay ended his days in the prison of Aleppo. He still left a
+fair and ample patrimony But the victorious Turks oppressed on all sides
+the weakness of a widow and orphan; and, for the equivalent of an annual
+pension, they resigned to the Greek emperor the charge of defending,
+and the shame of losing, the last relics of the Latin conquest. The
+countess-dowager of Edessa retired to Jerusalem with her two children;
+the daughter, Agnes, became the wife and mother of a king; the son,
+Joscelin the Third, accepted the office of seneschal, the first of the
+kingdom, and held his new estates in Palestine by the service of fifty
+knights. His name appears with honor in the transactions of peace and
+war; but he finally vanishes in the fall of Jerusalem; and the name of
+Courtenay, in this branch of Edessa, was lost by the marriage of his two
+daughters with a French and German baron. [73]
+
+[Footnote 71: The primitive record of the family is a passage of the
+continuator of Aimoin, a monk of Fleury, who wrote in the xiith century.
+See his Chronicle, in the Historians of France, (tom. xi. p. 276.)]
+
+[Footnote 72: Turbessel, or, as it is now styled, Telbesher, is fixed
+by D'Anville four-and-twenty miles from the great passage over the
+Euphrates at Zeugma.]
+
+[Footnote 73: His possessions are distinguished in the Assises of
+Jerusalem (c. B26) among the feudal tenures of the kingdom, which must
+therefore have been collected between the years 1153 and 1187. His
+pedigree may be found in the Lignages d'Outremer, c. 16.]
+
+II. While Joscelin reigned beyond the Euphrates, his elder brother Milo,
+the son of Joscelin, the son of Atho, continued, near the Seine, to
+possess the castle of their fathers, which was at length inherited by
+Rainaud, or Reginald, the youngest of his three sons. Examples of genius
+or virtue must be rare in the annals of the oldest families; and, in a
+remote age their pride will embrace a deed of rapine and violence;
+such, however, as could not be perpetrated without some superiority of
+courage, or, at least, of power. A descendant of Reginald of Courtenay
+may blush for the public robber, who stripped and imprisoned several
+merchants, after they had satisfied the king's duties at Sens and
+Orleans. He will glory in the offence, since the bold offender could not
+be compelled to obedience and restitution, till the regent and the count
+of Champagne prepared to march against him at the head of an army. [74]
+Reginald bestowed his estates on his eldest daughter, and his daughter
+on the seventh son of King Louis the Fat; and their marriage was crowned
+with a numerous offspring. We might expect that a private should have
+merged in a royal name; and that the descendants of Peter of France
+and Elizabeth of Courtenay would have enjoyed the titles and honors of
+princes of the blood. But this legitimate claim was long neglected,
+and finally denied; and the causes of their disgrace will represent the
+story of this second branch. _1._ Of all the families now extant, the
+most ancient, doubtless, and the most illustrious, is the house of
+France, which has occupied the same throne above eight hundred years,
+and descends, in a clear and lineal series of males, from the middle
+of the ninth century. [75] In the age of the crusades, it was already
+revered both in the East and West. But from Hugh Capet to the marriage
+of Peter, no more than five reigns or generations had elapsed; and
+so precarious was their title, that the eldest sons, as a necessary
+precaution, were previously crowned during the lifetime of their
+fathers. The peers of France have long maintained their precedency
+before the younger branches of the royal line, nor had the princes of
+the blood, in the twelfth century, acquired that hereditary lustre which
+is now diffused over the most remote candidates for the succession. _2._
+The barons of Courtenay must have stood high in their own estimation,
+and in that of the world, since they could impose on the son of a king
+the obligation of adopting for himself and all his descendants the name
+and arms of their daughter and his wife. In the marriage of an heiress
+with her inferior or her equal, such exchange often required and
+allowed: but as they continued to diverge from the regal stem, the
+sons of Louis the Fat were insensibly confounded with their maternal
+ancestors; and the new Courtenays might deserve to forfeit the honors
+of their birth, which a motive of interest had tempted them to renounce.
+_3._ The shame was far more permanent than the reward, and a momentary
+blaze was followed by a long darkness. The eldest son of these nuptials,
+Peter of Courtenay, had married, as I have already mentioned, the sister
+of the counts of Flanders, the two first emperors of Constantinople: he
+rashly accepted the invitation of the barons of Romania; his two sons,
+Robert and Baldwin, successively held and lost the remains of the Latin
+empire in the East, and the granddaughter of Baldwin the Second again
+mingled her blood with the blood of France and of Valois. To support the
+expenses of a troubled and transitory reign, their patrimonial estates
+were mortgaged or sold: and the last emperors of Constantinople depended
+on the annual charity of Rome and Naples.
+
+[Footnote 74: The rapine and satisfaction of Reginald de Courtenay, are
+preposterously arranged in the Epistles of the abbot and regent Suger,
+(cxiv. cxvi.,) the best memorials of the age, (Duchesne, Scriptores
+Hist. Franc. tom. iv. p. 530.)]
+
+[Footnote 75: In the beginning of the xith century, after naming the
+father and grandfather of Hugh Capet, the monk Glaber is obliged to add,
+cujus genus valde in-ante reperitur obscurum. Yet we are assured that
+the great-grandfather of Hugh Capet was Robert the Strong count of
+Anjou, (A.D. 863--873,) a noble Frank of Neustria, Neustricus...
+generosę stirpis, who was slain in the defence of his country against
+the Normans, dum patrię fines tuebatur. Beyond Robert, all is conjecture
+or fable. It is a probable conjecture, that the third race descended
+from the second by Childebrand, the brother of Charles Martel. It is an
+absurd fable that the second was allied to the first by the marriage of
+Ansbert, a Roman senator and the ancestor of St. Arnoul, with Blitilde,
+a daughter of Clotaire I. The Saxon origin of the house of France is
+an ancient but incredible opinion. See a judicious memoir of M. de
+Foncemagne, (Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p.
+548--579.) He had promised to declare his own opinion in a second
+memoir, which has never appeared.]
+
+While the elder brothers dissipated their wealth in romantic adventures,
+and the castle of Courtenay was profaned by a plebeian owner, the
+younger branches of that adopted name were propagated and multiplied.
+But their splendor was clouded by poverty and time: after the decease of
+Robert, great butler of France, they descended from princes to barons;
+the next generations were confounded with the simple gentry; the
+descendants of Hugh Capet could no longer be visible in the rural lords
+of Tanlay and of Champignelles. The more adventurous embraced without
+dishonor the profession of a soldier: the least active and opulent might
+sink, like their cousins of the branch of Dreux, into the condition of
+peasants. Their royal descent, in a dark period of four hundred years,
+became each day more obsolete and ambiguous; and their pedigree, instead
+of being enrolled in the annals of the kingdom, must be painfully
+searched by the minute diligence of heralds and genealogists. It was
+not till the end of the sixteenth century, on the accession of a
+family almost as remote as their own, that the princely spirit of the
+Courtenays again revived; and the question of the nobility provoked them
+to ascertain the royalty of their blood. They appealed to the justice
+and compassion of Henry the Fourth; obtained a favorable opinion from
+twenty lawyers of Italy and Germany, and modestly compared themselves to
+the descendants of King David, whose prerogatives were not impaired by
+the lapse of ages or the trade of a carpenter. [76] But every ear was
+deaf, and every circumstance was adverse, to their lawful claims. The
+Bourbon kings were justified by the neglect of the Valois; the princes
+of the blood, more recent and lofty, disdained the alliance of his
+humble kindred: the parliament, without denying their proofs, eluded
+a dangerous precedent by an arbitrary distinction, and established
+St. Louis as the first father of the royal line. [77] A repetition of
+complaints and protests was repeatedly disregarded; and the hopeless
+pursuit was terminated in the present century by the death of the
+last male of the family. [78] Their painful and anxious situation was
+alleviated by the pride of conscious virtue: they sternly rejected
+the temptations of fortune and favor; and a dying Courtenay would have
+sacrificed his son, if the youth could have renounced, for any temporal
+interest, the right and title of a legitimate prince of the blood of
+France. [79]
+
+[Footnote 76: Of the various petitions, apologies, &c., published by the
+princes of Courtenay, I have seen the three following, all in octavo:
+1. De Stirpe et Origine Domus de Courtenay: addita sunt Responsa
+celeberrimorum Europę Jurisconsultorum; Paris, 1607. 2. Representation
+du Procedé tenū a l'instance faicte devant le Roi, par Messieurs de
+Courtenay, pour la conservation de l'Honneur et Dignité de leur Maison,
+branche de la royalle Maison de France; ą Paris, 1613. 3. Representation
+du subject qui a porté Messieurs de Salles et de Fraville, de la Maison
+de Courtenay, ą se retirer hors du Royaume, 1614. It was a homicide, for
+which the Courtenays expected to be pardoned, or tried, as princes of
+the blood.]
+
+[Footnote 77: The sense of the parliaments is thus expressed by Thuanus
+Principis nomen nusquam in Galliā tributum, nisi iis qui per mares e
+regibus nostris originem repetunt; qui nunc tantum a Ludovico none beatę
+memorię numerantur; nam _Cortini_ et Drocenses, a Ludovico crasso
+genus ducentes, hodie inter eos minime recensentur. A distinction of
+expediency rather than justice. The sanctity of Louis IX. could not
+invest him with any special prerogative, and all the descendants of Hugh
+Capet must be included in his original compact with the French nation.]
+
+[Footnote 78: The last male of the Courtenays was Charles Roger, who
+died in the year 1730, without leaving any sons. The last female was
+Helene de Courtenay, who married Louis de Beaufremont. Her title of
+Princesse du Sang Royal de France was suppressed (February 7th, 1737) by
+an _arrźt_ of the parliament of Paris.]
+
+[Footnote 79: The singular anecdote to which I allude is related in the
+Recueil des Pieces interessantes et peu connues, (Maestricht, 1786, in 4
+vols. 12mo.;) and the unknown editor quotes his author, who had received
+it from Helene de Courtenay, marquise de Beaufremont.]
+
+III. According to the old register of Ford Abbey, the Courtenays of
+Devonshire are descended from Prince _Florus_, the second son of Peter,
+and the grandson of Louis the Fat. [80] This fable of the grateful or
+venal monks was too respectfully entertained by our antiquaries, Cambden
+[81] and Dugdale: [82] but it is so clearly repugnant to truth and
+time, that the rational pride of the family now refuses to accept this
+imaginary founder. Their most faithful historians believe, that, after
+giving his daughter to the king's son, Reginald of Courtenay abandoned
+his possessions in France, and obtained from the English monarch a
+second wife and a new inheritance. It is certain, at least, that Henry
+the Second distinguished in his camps and councils a Reginald, of the
+name and arms, and, as it may be fairly presumed, of the genuine race,
+of the Courtenays of France. The right of wardship enabled a feudal lord
+to reward his vassal with the marriage and estate of a noble heiress;
+and Reginald of Courtenay acquired a fair establishment in Devonshire,
+where his posterity has been seated above six hundred years. [83] From
+a Norman baron, Baldwin de Brioniis, who had been invested by
+the Conqueror, Hawise, the wife of Reginald, derived the honor of
+Okehampton, which was held by the service of ninety-three knights; and a
+female might claim the manly offices of hereditary viscount or sheriff,
+and of captain of the royal castle of Exeter. Their son Robert married
+the sister of the earl of Devon: at the end of a century, on the failure
+of the family of Rivers, [84] his great-grandson, Hugh the Second,
+succeeded to a title which was still considered as a territorial
+dignity; and twelve earls of Devonshire, of the name of Courtenay, have
+flourished in a period of two hundred and twenty years. They were ranked
+among the chief of the barons of the realm; nor was it till after a
+strenuous dispute, that they yielded to the fief of Arundel the first
+place in the parliament of England: their alliances were contracted with
+the noblest families, the Veres, Despensers, St. Johns, Talbots, Bohuns,
+and even the Plantagenets themselves; and in a contest with John of
+Lancaster, a Courtenay, bishop of London, and afterwards archbishop of
+Canterbury, might be accused of profane confidence in the strength and
+number of his kindred. In peace, the earls of Devon resided in their
+numerous castles and manors of the west; their ample revenue was
+appropriated to devotion and hospitality; and the epitaph of Edward,
+surnamed from his misfortune, the _blind_, from his virtues, the _good_,
+earl, inculcates with much ingenuity a moral sentence, which may,
+however, be abused by thoughtless generosity. After a grateful
+commemoration of the fifty-five years of union and happiness which he
+enjoyed with Mabe his wife, the good earl thus speaks from the tomb:--
+
+     "What we gave, we have;
+     What we spent, we had;
+     What we left, we lost." [85]
+
+But their _losses_, in this sense, were far superior to their gifts and
+expenses; and their heirs, not less than the poor, were the objects
+of their paternal care. The sums which they paid for livery and seizin
+attest the greatness of their possessions; and several estates have
+remained in their family since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
+In war, the Courtenays of England fulfilled the duties, and deserved the
+honors, of chivalry. They were often intrusted to levy and command the
+militia of Devonshire and Cornwall; they often attended their supreme
+lord to the borders of Scotland; and in foreign service, for a
+stipulated price, they sometimes maintained fourscore men-at-arms and
+as many archers. By sea and land they fought under the standard of
+the Edwards and Henries: their names are conspicuous in battles, in
+tournaments, and in the original list of the Order of the Garter; three
+brothers shared the Spanish victory of the Black Prince; and in the
+lapse of six generations, the English Courtenays had learned to despise
+the nation and country from which they derived their origin. In the
+quarrel of the two roses, the earls of Devon adhered to the house of
+Lancaster; and three brothers successively died either in the field or
+on the scaffold. Their honors and estates were restored by Henry the
+Seventh; a daughter of Edward the Fourth was not disgraced by the
+nuptials of a Courtenay; their son, who was created Marquis of Exeter,
+enjoyed the favor of his cousin Henry the Eighth; and in the camp of
+Cloth of Gold, he broke a lance against the French monarch. But the
+favor of Henry was the prelude of disgrace; his disgrace was the signal
+of death; and of the victims of the jealous tyrant, the marquis of
+Exeter is one of the most noble and guiltless. His son Edward lived a
+prisoner in the Tower, and died in exile at Padua; and the secret love
+of Queen Mary, whom he slighted, perhaps for the princess Elizabeth, has
+shed a romantic color on the story of this beautiful youth. The relics
+of his patrimony were conveyed into strange families by the marriages
+of his four aunts; and his personal honors, as if they had been legally
+extinct, were revived by the patents of succeeding princes. But there
+still survived a lineal descendant of Hugh, the first earl of Devon,
+a younger branch of the Courtenays, who have been seated at Powderham
+Castle above four hundred years, from the reign of Edward the Third to
+the present hour. Their estates have been increased by the grant and
+improvement of lands in Ireland, and they have been recently restored to
+the honors of the peerage. Yet the Courtenays still retain the plaintive
+motto, which asserts the innocence, and deplores the fall, of their
+ancient house. [86] While they sigh for past greatness, they are
+doubtless sensible of present blessings: in the long series of
+the Courtenay annals, the most splendid ęra is likewise the most
+unfortunate; nor can an opulent peer of Britain be inclined to envy the
+emperors of Constantinople, who wandered over Europe to solicit alms for
+the support of their dignity and the defence of their capital.
+
+[Footnote 80: Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. i. p. 786. Yet
+this fable must have been invented before the reign of Edward III.
+The profuse devotion of the three first generations to Ford Abbey was
+followed by oppression on one side and ingratitude on the other; and in
+the sixth generation, the monks ceased to register the births, actions,
+and deaths of their patrons.]
+
+[Footnote 81: In his Britannia, in the list of the earls of Devonshire.
+His expression, e regio sanguine ortos, credunt, betrays, however, some
+doubt or suspicion.]
+
+[Footnote 82: In his Baronage, P. i. p. 634, he refers to his own
+Monasticon. Should he not have corrected the register of Ford Abbey, and
+annihilated the phantom Florus, by the unquestionable evidence of the
+French historians?]
+
+[Footnote 83: Besides the third and most valuable book of Cleaveland's
+History, I have consulted Dugdale, the father of our genealogical
+science, (Baronage, P. i. p. 634--643.)]
+
+[Footnote 84: This great family, de Ripuariis, de Redvers, de Rivers,
+ended, in Edward the Fifth's time, in Isabella de Fortibus, a famous
+and potent dowager, who long survived her brother and husband, (Dugdale,
+Baronage, P i. p. 254--257.)]
+
+[Footnote 85: Cleaveland p. 142. By some it is assigned to a Rivers
+earl of Devon; but the English denotes the xvth, rather than the xiiith
+century.]
+
+[Footnote 86: _Ubi lapsus! Quid feci?_ a motto which was probably
+adopted by the Powderham branch, after the loss of the earldom of
+Devonshire, &c. The primitive arms of the Courtenays were, _Or_, _three
+torteaux_, _Gules_, which seem to denote their affinity with Godfrey of
+Bouillon, and the ancient counts of Boulogne.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.--Part I.
+
+     The Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.--Elevation
+     And Reign Of Michael Palęologus.--His False Union With The
+     Pope And The Latin Church.--Hostile Designs Of Charles Of
+     Anjou.--Revolt Of Sicily.--War Of The Catalans In Asia And
+     Greece.--Revolutions And Present State Of Athens.
+
+The loss of Constantinople restored a momentary vigor to the Greeks.
+From their palaces, the princes and nobles were driven into the field;
+and the fragments of the falling monarchy were grasped by the hands of
+the most vigorous or the most skilful candidates. In the long and barren
+pages of the Byzantine annals, [1] it would not be an easy task to equal
+the two characters of Theodore Lascaris and John Ducas Vataces, [2]
+who replanted and upheld the Roman standard at Nice in Bithynia. The
+difference of their virtues was happily suited to the diversity of their
+situation. In his first efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded only
+three cities and two thousand soldiers: his reign was the season of
+generous and active despair: in every military operation he staked his
+life and crown; and his enemies of the Hellespont and the Męander, were
+surprised by his celerity and subdued by his boldness. A victorious
+reign of eighteen years expanded the principality of Nice to the
+magnitude of an empire. The throne of his successor and son-in-law
+Vataces was founded on a more solid basis, a larger scope, and more
+plentiful resources; and it was the temper, as well as the interest, of
+Vataces to calculate the risk, to expect the moment, and to insure the
+success, of his ambitious designs. In the decline of the Latins, I have
+briefly exposed the progress of the Greeks; the prudent and gradual
+advances of a conqueror, who, in a reign of thirty-three years, rescued
+the provinces from national and foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all
+sides the Imperial city, a leafless and sapless trunk, which must
+full at the first stroke of the axe. But his interior and peaceful
+administration is still more deserving of notice and praise. [3] The
+calamities of the times had wasted the numbers and the substance of the
+Greeks; the motives and the means of agriculture were extirpated; and
+the most fertile lands were left without cultivation or inhabitants.
+A portion of this vacant property was occupied and improved by the
+command, and for the benefit, of the emperor: a powerful hand and a
+vigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful management, the minute
+diligence of a private farmer: the royal domain became the garden and
+granary of Asia; and without impoverishing the people, the sovereign
+acquired a fund of innocent and productive wealth. According to the
+nature of the soil, his lands were sown with corn or planted with vines;
+the pastures were filled with horses and oxen, with sheep and hogs; and
+when Vataces presented to the empress a crown of diamonds and pearls, he
+informed her, with a smile, that this precious ornament arose from the
+sale of the eggs of his innumerable poultry. The produce of his domain
+was applied to the maintenance of his palace and hospitals, the calls
+of dignity and benevolence: the lesson was still more useful than the
+revenue: the plough was restored to its ancient security and honor; and
+the nobles were taught to seek a sure and independent revenue from their
+estates, instead of adorning their splendid beggary by the oppression of
+the people, or (what is almost the same) by the favors of the court. The
+superfluous stock of corn and cattle was eagerly purchased by the
+Turks, with whom Vataces preserved a strict and sincere alliance; but he
+discouraged the importation of foreign manufactures, the costly silks of
+the East, and the curious labors of the Italian looms. "The demands of
+nature and necessity," was he accustomed to say, "are indispensable; but
+the influence of fashion may rise and sink at the breath of a monarch;"
+and both his precept and example recommended simplicity of manners and
+the use of domestic industry. The education of youth and the revival
+of learning were the most serious objects of his care; and, without
+deciding the precedency, he pronounced with truth, that a prince and a
+philosopher [4] are the two most eminent characters of human society. His
+first wife was Irene, the daughter of Theodore Lascaris, a woman more
+illustrious by her personal merit, the milder virtues of her sex, than
+by the blood of the Angeli and Comneni that flowed in her veins, and
+transmitted the inheritance of the empire. After her death he was
+contracted to Anne, or Constance, a natural daughter of the emperor
+Frederic [499] the Second; but as the bride had not attained the years of
+puberty, Vataces placed in his solitary bed an Italian damsel of her
+train; and his amorous weakness bestowed on the concubine the honors,
+though not the title, of a lawful empress. His frailty was censured as
+a flagitious and damnable sin by the monks; and their rude invectives
+exercised and displayed the patience of the royal lover. A philosophic
+age may excuse a single vice, which was redeemed by a crowd of virtues;
+and in the review of his faults, and the more intemperate passions of
+Lascaris, the judgment of their contemporaries was softened by gratitude
+to the second founders of the empire. [5] The slaves of the Latins,
+without law or peace, applauded the happiness of their brethren who had
+resumed their national freedom; and Vataces employed the laudable policy
+of convincing the Greeks of every dominion that it was their interest to
+be enrolled in the number of his subjects.
+
+[Footnote 1: For the reigns of the Nicene emperors, more especially of
+John Vataces and his son, their minister, George Acropolita, is the only
+genuine contemporary; but George Pachymer returned to Constantinople
+with the Greeks at the age of nineteen, (Hanckius de Script. Byzant. c.
+33, 34, p. 564--578. Fabric. Bibliot. Gręc. tom. vi. p. 448--460.) Yet
+the history of Nicephorus Gregoras, though of the xivth century, is a
+valuable narrative from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 1) distinguishes between the
+oxeia ormh of Lascaris, and the eustaqeia of Vataces. The two portraits
+are in a very good style.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Pachymer, l. i. c. 23, 24. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6. The
+reader of the Byzantines must observe how rarely we are indulged with
+such precious details.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Monoi gar apantwn anqrwpwn onomastotatoi basileuV
+kai jilosojoV, (Greg. Acropol. c. 32.) The emperor, in a familiar
+conversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his future
+logothete.]
+
+[Footnote 499: Sister of Manfred, afterwards king of Naples. Nic. Greg. p.
+45.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Compare Acropolita, (c. 18, 52,) and the two first books of
+Nicephorus Gregoras.]
+
+A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between John Vataces and his son
+Theodore; between the founder who sustained the weight, and the heir
+who enjoyed the splendor, of the Imperial crown. [6] Yet the character of
+Theodore was not devoid of energy; he had been educated in the school of
+his father, in the exercise of war and hunting; Constantinople was
+yet spared; but in the three years of a short reign, he thrice led
+his armies into the heart of Bulgaria. His virtues were sullied by a
+choleric and suspicious temper: the first of these may be ascribed to
+the ignorance of control; and the second might naturally arise from
+a dark and imperfect view of the corruption of mankind. On a march in
+Bulgaria, he consulted on a question of policy his principal ministers;
+and the Greek logothete, George Acropolita, presumed to offend him
+by the declaration of a free and honest opinion. The emperor half
+unsheathed his cimeter; but his more deliberate rage reserved Acropolita
+for a baser punishment. One of the first officers of the empire was
+ordered to dismount, stripped of his robes, and extended on the ground
+in the presence of the prince and army. In this posture he was chastised
+with so many and such heavy blows from the clubs of two guards or
+executioners, that when Theodore commanded them to cease, the great
+logothete was scarcely able to rise and crawl away to his tent. After a
+seclusion of some days, he was recalled by a peremptory mandate to his
+seat in council; and so dead were the Greeks to the sense of honor and
+shame, that it is from the narrative of the sufferer himself that we
+acquire the knowledge of his disgrace. [7] The cruelty of the emperor was
+exasperated by the pangs of sickness, the approach of a premature end,
+and the suspicion of poison and magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyes
+and limbs, of his kinsmen and nobles, were sacrificed to each sally of
+passion; and before he died, the son of Vataces might deserve from the
+people, or at least from the court, the appellation of tyrant. A matron
+of the family of the Palęologi had provoked his anger by refusing to
+bestow her beauteous daughter on the vile plebeian who was recommended
+by his caprice. Without regard to her birth or age, her body, as high
+as the neck, was enclosed in a sack with several cats, who were
+pricked with pins to irritate their fury against their unfortunate
+fellow-captive. In his last hours the emperor testified a wish to
+forgive and be forgiven, a just anxiety for the fate of John his son and
+successor, who, at the age of eight years, was condemned to the dangers
+of a long minority. His last choice intrusted the office of guardian
+to the sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the courage of George
+Muzalon, the great domestic, who was equally distinguished by the royal
+favor and the public hatred. Since their connection with the Latins, the
+names and privileges of hereditary rank had insinuated themselves into
+the Greek monarchy; and the noble families [8] were provoked by the
+elevation of a worthless favorite, to whose influence they imputed the
+errors and calamities of the late reign. In the first council, after
+the emperor's death, Muzalon, from a lofty throne, pronounced a labored
+apology of his conduct and intentions: his modesty was subdued by a
+unanimous assurance of esteem and fidelity; and his most inveterate
+enemies were the loudest to salute him as the guardian and savior of
+the Romans. Eight days were sufficient to prepare the execution of the
+conspiracy. On the ninth, the obsequies of the deceased monarch were
+solemnized in the cathedral of Magnesia, [9] an Asiatic city, where he
+expired, on the banks of the Hermus, and at the foot of Mount Sipylus.
+The holy rites were interrupted by a sedition of the guards; Muzalon,
+his brothers, and his adherents, were massacred at the foot of the
+altar; and the absent patriarch was associated with a new colleague,
+with Michael Palęologus, the most illustrious, in birth and merit, of
+the Greek nobles. [10]
+
+[Footnote 6: A Persian saying, that Cyrus was the _father_ and Darius
+the _master_, of his subjects, was applied to Vataces and his son.
+But Pachymer (l. i. c. 23) has mistaken the mild Darius for the cruel
+Cambyses, despot or tyrant of his people. By the institution of taxes,
+Darius had incurred the less odious, but more contemptible, name of
+KaphloV, merchant or broker, (Herodotus, iii. 89.)]
+
+[Footnote 7: Acropolita (c. 63) seems to admire his own firmness in
+sustaining a beating, and not returning to council till he was called.
+He relates the exploits of Theodore, and his own services, from c. 53 to
+c. 74 of his history. See the third book of Nicephorus Gregoras.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Pachymer (l. i. c. 21) names and discriminates fifteen or
+twenty Greek families, kai osoi alloi, oiV h megalogenhV seira kai crush
+sugkekrothto. Does he mean, by this decoration, a figurative or a real
+golden chain? Perhaps, both.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The old geographers, with Cellarius and D'Anville, and
+our travellers, particularly Pocock and Chandler, will teach us to
+distinguish the two Magnesias of Asia Minor, of the Męander and of
+Sipylus. The latter, our present object, is still flourishing for a
+Turkish city, and lies eight hours, or leagues, to the north-east
+of Smyrna, (Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxii. p.
+365--370. Chandler's Travels into Asia Minor, p. 267.)]
+
+[Footnote 10: See Acropolita, (c. 75, 76, &c.,) who lived too near the
+times; Pachymer, (l. i. c. 13--25,) Gregoras, (l. iii. c. 3, 4, 5.)]
+
+Of those who are proud of their ancestors, the far greater part must be
+content with local or domestic renown; and few there are who dare trust
+the memorials of their family to the public annals of their country.
+As early as the middle of the eleventh century, the noble race of the
+Palęologi [11] stands high and conspicuous in the Byzantine history: it
+was the valiant George Palęologus who placed the father of the Comneni
+on the throne; and his kinsmen or descendants continue, in each
+generation, to lead the armies and councils of the state. The purple
+was not dishonored by their alliance, and had the law of succession, and
+female succession, been strictly observed, the wife of Theodore Lascaris
+must have yielded to her elder sister, the mother of Michael Palęologus,
+who afterwards raised his family to the throne. In his person, the
+splendor of birth was dignified by the merit of the soldier and
+statesman: in his early youth he was promoted to the office of
+_constable_ or commander of the French mercenaries; the private expense
+of a day never exceeded three pieces of gold; but his ambition was
+rapacious and profuse; and his gifts were doubled by the graces of his
+conversation and manners. The love of the soldiers and people excited
+the jealousy of the court, and Michael thrice escaped from the dangers
+in which he was involved by his own imprudence or that of his friends.
+I. Under the reign of Justice and Vataces, a dispute arose [12]
+between two officers, one of whom accused the other of maintaining the
+hereditary right of the Palęologi The cause was decided, according to
+the new jurisprudence of the Latins, by single combat; the defendant was
+overthrown; but he persisted in declaring that himself alone was guilty;
+and that he had uttered these rash or treasonable speeches without the
+approbation or knowledge of his patron Yet a cloud of suspicion hung
+over the innocence of the constable; he was still pursued by the
+whispers of malevolence; and a subtle courtier, the archbishop of
+Philadelphia, urged him to accept the judgment of God in the fiery proof
+of the ordeal. [13] Three days before the trial, the patient's arm was
+enclosed in a bag, and secured by the royal signet; and it was incumbent
+on him to bear a red-hot ball of iron three times from the altar to the
+rails of the sanctuary, without artifice and without injury. Palęologus
+eluded the dangerous experiment with sense and pleasantry. "I am a
+soldier," said he, "and will boldly enter the lists with my accusers;
+but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with the gift of
+miracles. _Your_ piety, most holy prelate, may deserve the interposition
+of Heaven, and from your hands I will receive the fiery globe, the
+pledge of my innocence." The archbishop started; the emperor smiled; and
+the absolution or pardon of Michael was approved by new rewards and
+new services. II. In the succeeding reign, as he held the government of
+Nice, he was secretly informed, that the mind of the absent prince was
+poisoned with jealousy; and that death, or blindness, would be his final
+reward. Instead of awaiting the return and sentence of Theodore, the
+constable, with some followers, escaped from the city and the empire;
+and though he was plundered by the Turkmans of the desert, he found a
+hospitable refuge in the court of the sultan. In the ambiguous state
+of an exile, Michael reconciled the duties of gratitude and loyalty:
+drawing his sword against the Tartars; admonishing the garrisons of the
+Roman limit; and promoting, by his influence, the restoration of peace,
+in which his pardon and recall were honorably included. III. While
+he guarded the West against the despot of Epirus, Michael was again
+suspected and condemned in the palace; and such was his loyalty or
+weakness, that he submitted to be led in chains above six hundred miles
+from Durazzo to Nice. The civility of the messenger alleviated his
+disgrace; the emperor's sickness dispelled his danger; and the
+last breath of Theodore, which recommended his infant son, at once
+acknowledged the innocence and the power of Palęologus.
+
+[Footnote 11: The pedigree of Palęologus is explained by Ducange,
+(Famil. Byzant. p. 230, &c.:) the events of his private life are related
+by Pachymer (l. i. c. 7--12) and Gregoras (l. ii. 8, l. iii. 2, 4, l.
+iv. 1) with visible favor to the father of the reigning dynasty.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Acropolita (c. 50) relates the circumstances of this
+curious adventure, which seem to have escaped the more recent writers.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Pachymer, (l. i. c. 12,) who speaks with proper contempt
+of this barbarous trial, affirms, that he had seen in his youth many
+person who had sustained, without injury, the fiery ordeal. As a Greek,
+he is credulous; but the ingenuity of the Greeks might furnish some
+remedies of art or fraud against their own superstition, or that of
+their tyrant.]
+
+But his innocence had been too unworthily treated, and his power was too
+strongly felt, to curb an aspiring subject in the fair field that was
+opened to his ambition. [14] In the council, after the death of Theodore,
+he was the first to pronounce, and the first to violate, the oath of
+allegiance to Muzalon; and so dexterous was his conduct, that he reaped
+the benefit, without incurring the guilt, or at least the reproach,
+of the subsequent massacre. In the choice of a regent, he balanced the
+interests and passions of the candidates; turned their envy and hatred
+from himself against each other, and forced every competitor to own,
+that after his own claims, those of Palęologus were best entitled to
+the preference. Under the title of great duke, he accepted or assumed,
+during a long minority, the active powers of government; the patriarch
+was a venerable name; and the factious nobles were seduced, or
+oppressed, by the ascendant of his genius. The fruits of the economy of
+Vataces were deposited in a strong castle on the banks of the Hermus,
+in the custody of the faithful Varangians: the constable retained his
+command or influence over the foreign troops; he employed the guards
+to possess the treasure, and the treasure to corrupt the guards; and
+whatsoever might be the abuse of the public money, his character
+was above the suspicion of private avarice. By himself, or by his
+emissaries, he strove to persuade every rank of subjects, that their
+own prosperity would rise in just proportion to the establishment of
+his authority. The weight of taxes was suspended, the perpetual theme
+of popular complaint; and he prohibited the trials by the ordeal and
+judicial combat. These Barbaric institutions were already abolished or
+undermined in France [15] and England; [16] and the appeal to the sword
+offended the sense of a civilized, [17] and the temper of an unwarlike,
+people. For the future maintenance of their wives and children, the
+veterans were grateful: the priests and the philosophers applauded his
+ardent zeal for the advancement of religion and learning; and his vague
+promise of rewarding merit was applied by every candidate to his own
+hopes. Conscious of the influence of the clergy, Michael successfully
+labored to secure the suffrage of that powerful order. Their expensive
+journey from Nice to Magnesia, afforded a decent and ample pretence: the
+leading prelates were tempted by the liberality of his nocturnal visits;
+and the incorruptible patriarch was flattered by the homage of his new
+colleague, who led his mule by the bridle into the town, and removed to
+a respectful distance the importunity of the crowd. Without renouncing
+his title by royal descent, Palęologus encouraged a free discussion into
+the advantages of elective monarchy; and his adherents asked, with
+the insolence of triumph, what patient would trust his health, or
+what merchant would abandon his vessel, to the _hereditary_ skill of
+a physician or a pilot? The youth of the emperor, and the impending
+dangers of a minority, required the support of a mature and experienced
+guardian; of an associate raised above the envy of his equals, and
+invested with the name and prerogatives of royalty. For the interest
+of the prince and people, without any selfish views for himself or
+his family, the great duke consented to guard and instruct the son of
+Theodore; but he sighed for the happy moment when he might restore to
+his firmer hands the administration of his patrimony, and enjoy the
+blessings of a private station. He was first invested with the title and
+prerogatives of _despot_, which bestowed the purple ornaments and the
+second place in the Roman monarchy. It was afterwards agreed that John
+and Michael should be proclaimed as joint emperors, and raised on the
+buckler, but that the preeminence should be reserved for the birthright
+of the former. A mutual league of amity was pledged between the royal
+partners; and in case of a rupture, the subjects were bound, by their
+oath of allegiance, to declare themselves against the aggressor; an
+ambiguous name, the seed of discord and civil war. Palęologus was
+content; but, on the day of the coronation, and in the cathedral of
+Nice, his zealous adherents most vehemently urged the just priority of
+his age and merit. The unseasonable dispute was eluded by postponing to
+a more convenient opportunity the coronation of John Lascaris; and he
+walked with a slight diadem in the train of his guardian, who alone
+received the Imperial crown from the hands of the patriarch. It was
+not without extreme reluctance that Arsenius abandoned the cause of his
+pupil; out the Varangians brandished their battle-axes; a sign of assent
+was extorted from the trembling youth; and some voices were heard,
+that the life of a child should no longer impede the settlement of the
+nation. A full harvest of honors and employments was distributed among
+his friends by the grateful Palęologus. In his own family he created a
+despot and two sebastocrators; Alexius Strategopulus was decorated
+with the title of Cęsar; and that veteran commander soon repaid the
+obligation, by restoring Constantinople to the Greek emperor.
+
+[Footnote 14: Without comparing Pachymer to Thucydides or Tacitus, I
+will praise his narrative, (l. i. c. 13--32, l. ii. c. 1--9,) which
+pursues the ascent of Palęologus with eloquence, perspicuity, and
+tolerable freedom. Acropolita is more cautious, and Gregoras more
+concise.]
+
+[Footnote 15: The judicial combat was abolished by St. Louis in his own
+territories; and his example and authority were at length prevalent in
+France, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 29.)]
+
+[Footnote 16: In civil cases Henry II. gave an option to the defendant:
+Glanville prefers the proof by evidence; and that by judicial combat
+is reprobated in the Fleta. Yet the trial by battle has never been
+abrogated in the English law, and it was ordered by the judges as late
+as the beginning of the last century. * Note : And even demanded in
+the present.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Yet an ingenious friend has urged to me in mitigation
+of this practice, 1. _That_ in nations emerging from barbarism, it
+moderates the license of private war and arbitrary revenge. 2. _That_ it
+is less absurd than the trials by the ordeal, or boiling water, or the
+cross, which it has contributed to abolish. 3. _That_ it served at least
+as a test of personal courage; a quality so seldom united with a
+base disposition, that the danger of a trial might be some check to a
+malicious prosecutor, and a useful barrier against injustice supported
+by power. The gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey might probably have
+escaped his unmerited fate, had not his demand of the combat against his
+accuser been overruled.]
+
+It was in the second year of his reign, while he resided in the palace
+and gardens of Nymphęum, [18] near Smyrna, that the first messenger
+arrived at the dead of night; and the stupendous intelligence was
+imparted to Michael, after he had been gently waked by the tender
+precaution of his sister Eulogia. The man was unknown or obscure; he
+produced no letters from the victorious Cęsar; nor could it easily
+be credited, after the defeat of Vataces and the recent failure of
+Palęologus himself, that the capital had been surprised by a detachment
+of eight hundred soldiers. As a hostage, the doubtful author was
+confined, with the assurance of death or an ample recompense; and the
+court was left some hours in the anxiety of hope and fear, till the
+messengers of Alexius arrived with the authentic intelligence, and
+displayed the trophies of the conquest, the sword and sceptre, [19] the
+buskins and bonnet, [20] of the usurper Baldwin, which he had dropped in
+his precipitate flight. A general assembly of the bishops, senators,
+and nobles, was immediately convened, and never perhaps was an event
+received with more heartfelt and universal joy. In a studied oration,
+the new sovereign of Constantinople congratulated his own and the public
+fortune. "There was a time," said he, "a far distant time, when the
+Roman empire extended to the Adriatic, the Tigris, and the confines of
+Ęthiopia. After the loss of the provinces, our capital itself, in
+these last and calamitous days, has been wrested from our hands by the
+Barbarians of the West. From the lowest ebb, the tide of prosperity has
+again returned in our favor; but our prosperity was that of fugitives
+and exiles: and when we were asked, which was the country of the Romans,
+we indicated with a blush the climate of the globe, and the quarter of
+the heavens. The divine Providence has now restored to our arms the
+city of Constantine, the sacred seat of religion and empire; and it will
+depend on our valor and conduct to render this important acquisition the
+pledge and omen of future victories." So eager was the impatience of
+the prince and people, that Michael made his triumphal entry into
+Constantinople only twenty days after the expulsion of the Latins.
+The golden gate was thrown open at his approach; the devout conqueror
+dismounted from his horse; and a miraculous image of Mary the
+Conductress was borne before him, that the divine Virgin in person might
+appear to conduct him to the temple of her Son, the cathedral of St.
+Sophia. But after the first transport of devotion and pride, he sighed
+at the dreary prospect of solitude and ruin. The palace was defiled with
+smoke and dirt, and the gross intemperance of the Franks; whole streets
+had been consumed by fire, or were decayed by the injuries of time; the
+sacred and profane edifices were stripped of their ornaments: and, as
+if they were conscious of their approaching exile, the industry of the
+Latins had been confined to the work of pillage and destruction. Trade
+had expired under the pressure of anarchy and distress, and the numbers
+of inhabitants had decreased with the opulence of the city. It was the
+first care of the Greek monarch to reinstate the nobles in the palaces
+of their fathers; and the houses or the ground which they occupied
+were restored to the families that could exhibit a legal right of
+inheritance. But the far greater part was extinct or lost; the vacant
+property had devolved to the lord; he repeopled Constantinople by a
+liberal invitation to the provinces; and the brave _volunteers_ were
+seated in the capital which had been recovered by their arms. The French
+barons and the principal families had retired with their emperor; but
+the patient and humble crowd of Latins was attached to the country, and
+indifferent to the change of masters. Instead of banishing the factories
+of the Pisans, Venetians, and Genoese, the prudent conqueror accepted
+their oaths of allegiance, encouraged their industry, confirmed their
+privileges, and allowed them to live under the jurisdiction of their
+proper magistrates. Of these nations, the Pisans and Venetians preserved
+their respective quarters in the city; but the services and power of the
+Genoese deserved at the same time the gratitude and the jealousy of the
+Greeks. Their independent colony was first planted at the seaport town
+of Heraclea in Thrace. They were speedily recalled, and settled in the
+exclusive possession of the suburb of Galata, an advantageous post,
+in which they revived the commerce, and insulted the majesty, of the
+Byzantine empire. [21]
+
+[Footnote 18: The site of Nymphęum is not clearly defined in ancient or
+modern geography. But from the last hours of Vataces, (Acropolita, c.
+52,) it is evident the palace and gardens of his favorite residence
+were in the neighborhood of Smyrna. Nymphęum might be loosely placed in
+Lydia, (Gregoras, l. vi. 6.)]
+
+[Footnote 19: This sceptre, the emblem of justice and power, was a long
+staff, such as was used by the heroes in Homer. By the latter Greeks
+it was named _Dicanice_, and the Imperial sceptre was distinguished as
+usual by the red or purple color.]
+
+[Footnote 20: Acropolita affirms (c. 87,) that this "Onnet" was after the
+French fashion; but from the ruby at the point or summit, Ducange (Hist.
+de C. P. l. v. c. 28, 29) believes that it was the high-crowned hat of
+the Greeks. Could Acropolita mistake the dress of his own court?]
+
+[Footnote 21: See Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 28--33,) Acropolita, (c. 88,)
+Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. 7,) and for the treatment of the subject
+Latins, Ducange, (l. v. c. 30, 31.)]
+
+The recovery of Constantinople was celebrated as the ęra of a new
+empire: the conqueror, alone, and by the right of the sword, renewed his
+coronation in the church of St. Sophia; and the name and honors of John
+Lascaris, his pupil and lawful sovereign, were insensibly abolished. But
+his claims still lived in the minds of the people; and the royal youth
+must speedily attain the years of manhood and ambition. By fear or
+conscience, Palęologus was restrained from dipping his hands in innocent
+and royal blood; but the anxiety of a usurper and a parent urged him to
+secure his throne by one of those imperfect crimes so familiar to the
+modern Greeks. The loss of sight incapacitated the young prince for the
+active business of the world; instead of the brutal violence of tearing
+out his eyes, the visual nerve was destroyed by the intense glare of a
+red-hot basin, [22] and John Lascaris was removed to a distant castle,
+where he spent many years in privacy and oblivion. Such cool and
+deliberate guilt may seem incompatible with remorse; but if Michael
+could trust the mercy of Heaven, he was not inaccessible to the
+reproaches and vengeance of mankind, which he had provoked by cruelty
+and treason. His cruelty imposed on a servile court the duties of
+applause or silence; but the clergy had a right to speak in the name of
+their invisible Master; and their holy legions were led by a prelate,
+whose character was above the temptations of hope or fear. After a short
+abdication of his dignity, Arsenius [23] had consented to ascend
+the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople, and to preside in the
+restoration of the church. His pious simplicity was long deceived by
+the arts of Palęologus; and his patience and submission might soothe the
+usurper, and protect the safety of the young prince. On the news of his
+inhuman treatment, the patriarch unsheathed the spiritual sword; and
+superstition, on this occasion, was enlisted in the cause of humanity
+and justice. In a synod of bishops, who were stimulated by the example
+of his zeal, the patriarch pronounced a sentence of excommunication;
+though his prudence still repeated the name of Michael in the public
+prayers. The Eastern prelates had not adopted the dangerous maxims
+of ancient Rome; nor did they presume to enforce their censures, by
+deposing princes, or absolving nations from their oaths of allegiance.
+But the Christian, who had been separated from God and the church,
+became an object of horror; and, in a turbulent and fanatic capital,
+that horror might arm the hand of an assassin, or inflame a sedition
+of the people. Palęologus felt his danger, confessed his guilt, and
+deprecated his judge: the act was irretrievable; the prize was obtained;
+and the most rigorous penance, which he solicited, would have raised the
+sinner to the reputation of a saint. The unrelenting patriarch
+refused to announce any means of atonement or any hopes of mercy; and
+condescended only to pronounce, that for so great a crime, great indeed
+must be the satisfaction. "Do you require," said Michael, "that I should
+abdicate the empire?" and at these words, he offered, or seemed to
+offer, the sword of state. Arsenius eagerly grasped this pledge of
+sovereignty; but when he perceived that the emperor was unwilling to
+purchase absolution at so dear a rate, he indignantly escaped to his
+cell, and left the royal sinner kneeling and weeping before the door.
+[24]
+
+[Footnote 22: This milder invention for extinguishing the sight was
+tried by the philosopher Democritus on himself, when he sought to
+withdraw his mind from the visible world: a foolish story! The word
+_abacinare_, in Latin and Italian, has furnished Ducange (Gloss. Lat.)
+with an opportunity to review the various modes of blinding: the more
+violent were scooping, burning with an iron, or hot vinegar, and binding
+the head with a strong cord till the eyes burst from their sockets.
+Ingenious tyrants!]
+
+[Footnote 23: See the first retreat and restoration of Arsenius, in
+Pachymer (l. ii. c. 15, l. iii. c. 1, 2) and Nicephorus Gregoras,
+(l. iii. c. 1, l. iv. c. 1.) Posterity justly accused the ajeleia and
+raqumia of Arsenius the virtues of a hermit, the vices of a minister,
+(l. xii. c. 2.)]
+
+[Footnote 24: The crime and excommunication of Michael are fairly told
+by Pachymer (l. iii. c. 10, 14, 19, &c.) and Gregoras, (l. iv. c. 4.)
+His confession and penance restored their freedom.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.--Part II.
+
+The danger and scandal of this excommunication subsisted above three
+years, till the popular clamor was assuaged by time and repentance; till
+the brethren of Arsenius condemned his inflexible spirit, so repugnant
+to the unbounded forgiveness of the gospel. The emperor had artfully
+insinuated, that, if he were still rejected at home, he might seek, in
+the Roman pontiff, a more indulgent judge; but it was far more easy and
+effectual to find or to place that judge at the head of the Byzantine
+church. Arsenius was involved in a vague rumor of conspiracy and
+disaffection; [248] some irregular steps in his ordination and government
+were liable to censure; a synod deposed him from the episcopal office;
+and he was transported under a guard of soldiers to a small island of
+the Propontis. Before his exile, he sullenly requested that a strict
+account might be taken of the treasures of the church; boasted, that his
+sole riches, three pieces of gold, had been earned by transcribing the
+psalms; continued to assert the freedom of his mind; and denied, with
+his last breath, the pardon which was implored by the royal sinner. [25]
+After some delay, Gregory, [259 bishop of Adrianople, was translated
+to the Byzantine throne; but his authority was found insufficient to
+support the absolution of the emperor; and Joseph, a reverend monk,
+was substituted to that important function. This edifying scene was
+represented in the presence of the senate and the people; at the end
+of six years the humble penitent was restored to the communion of the
+faithful; and humanity will rejoice, that a milder treatment of the
+captive Lascaris was stipulated as a proof of his remorse. But the
+spirit of Arsenius still survived in a powerful faction of the monks and
+clergy, who persevered about forty-eight years in an obstinate schism.
+Their scruples were treated with tenderness and respect by Michael and
+his son; and the reconciliation of the Arsenites was the serious labor
+of the church and state. In the confidence of fanaticism, they had
+proposed to try their cause by a miracle; and when the two papers,
+that contained their own and the adverse cause, were cast into a fiery
+brazier, they expected that the Catholic verity would be respected by
+the flames. Alas! the two papers were indiscriminately consumed, and
+this unforeseen accident produced the union of a day, and renewed the
+quarrel of an age. [26] The final treaty displayed the victory of
+the Arsenites: the clergy abstained during forty days from all
+ecclesiastical functions; a slight penance was imposed on the laity; the
+body of Arsenius was deposited in the sanctuary; and, in the name of
+the departed saint, the prince and people were released from the sins of
+their fathers. [27]
+
+[Footnote 248: Except the omission of a prayer for the emperor, the
+charges against Arsenius were of different nature: he was accused of
+having allowed the sultan of Iconium to bathe in vessels signed with the
+cross, and to have admitted him to the church, though unbaptized, during
+the service. It was pleaded, in favor of Arsenius, among other proofs of
+the sultan's Christianity, that he had offered to eat ham. Pachymer,
+l. iv. c. 4, p. 265. It was after his exile that he was involved in a
+charge of conspiracy.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Pachymer relates the exile of Arsenius, (l. iv. c. 1--16:)
+he was one of the commissaries who visited him in the desert island.
+The last testament of the unforgiving patriarch is still extant, (Dupin,
+Bibliothčque Ecclésiastique, tom. x. p. 95.)]
+
+[Footnote 259: Pachymer calls him Germanus.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Pachymer (l. vii. c. 22) relates this miraculous trial
+like a philosopher, and treats with similar contempt a plot of the
+Arsenites, to hide a revelation in the coffin of some old saint, (l.
+vii. c. 13.) He compensates this incredulity by an image that weeps,
+another that bleeds, (l. vii. c. 30,) and the miraculous cures of a deaf
+and a mute patient, (l. xi. c. 32.)]
+
+[Footnote 27: The story of the Arsenites is spread through the thirteen
+books of Pachymer. Their union and triumph are reserved for Nicephorus
+Gregoras, (l. vii. c. 9,) who neither loves nor esteems these
+sectaries.]
+
+The establishment of his family was the motive, or at least the
+pretence, of the crime of Palęologus; and he was impatient to confirm
+the succession, by sharing with his eldest son the honors of the purple.
+Andronicus, afterwards surnamed the Elder, was proclaimed and crowned
+emperor of the Romans, in the fifteenth year of his age; and, from the
+first ęra of a prolix and inglorious reign, he held that august title
+nine years as the colleague, and fifty as the successor, of his father.
+Michael himself, had he died in a private station, would have been
+thought more worthy of the empire; and the assaults of his temporal and
+spiritual enemies left him few moments to labor for his own fame or the
+happiness of his subjects. He wrested from the Franks several of the
+noblest islands of the Archipelago, Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes: his
+brother Constantine was sent to command in Malvasia and Sparta; and the
+eastern side of the Morea, from Argos and Napoli to Cape Thinners, was
+repossessed by the Greeks. This effusion of Christian blood was
+loudly condemned by the patriarch; and the insolent priest presumed to
+interpose his fears and scruples between the arms of princes. But in
+the prosecution of these western conquests, the countries beyond the
+Hellespont were left naked to the Turks; and their depredations verified
+the prophecy of a dying senator, that the recovery of Constantinople
+would be the ruin of Asia. The victories of Michael were achieved by his
+lieutenants; his sword rusted in the palace; and, in the transactions
+of the emperor with the popes and the king of Naples, his political acts
+were stained with cruelty and fraud. [28]
+
+[Footnote 28: Of the xiii books of Pachymer, the first six (as the ivth
+and vth of Nicephorus Gregoras) contain the reign of Michael, at the
+time of whose death he was forty years of age. Instead of breaking,
+like his editor the Pčre Poussin, his history into two parts, I follow
+Ducange and Cousin, who number the xiii. books in one series.]
+
+I. The Vatican was the most natural refuge of a Latin emperor, who had
+been driven from his throne; and Pope Urban the Fourth appeared to pity
+the misfortunes, and vindicate the cause, of the fugitive Baldwin. A
+crusade, with plenary indulgence, was preached by his command against
+the schismatic Greeks: he excommunicated their allies and adherents;
+solicited Louis the Ninth in favor of his kinsman; and demanded a tenth
+of the ecclesiastical revenues of France and England for the service of
+the holy war. [29] The subtle Greek, who watched the rising tempest of
+the West, attempted to suspend or soothe the hostility of the pope, by
+suppliant embassies and respectful letters; but he insinuated that the
+establishment of peace must prepare the reconciliation and obedience of
+the Eastern church. The Roman court could not be deceived by so gross
+an artifice; and Michael was admonished, that the repentance of the
+son should precede the forgiveness of the father; and that _faith_ (an
+ambiguous word) was the only basis of friendship and alliance. After a
+long and affected delay, the approach of danger, and the importunity of
+Gregory the Tenth, compelled him to enter on a more serious negotiation:
+he alleged the example of the great Vataces; and the Greek clergy, who
+understood the intentions of their prince, were not alarmed by the first
+steps of reconciliation and respect. But when he pressed the conclusion
+of the treaty, they strenuously declared, that the Latins, though not in
+name, were heretics in fact, and that they despised those strangers as
+the vilest and most despicable portion of the human race. [30] It was
+the task of the emperor to persuade, to corrupt, to intimidate the
+most popular ecclesiastics, to gain the vote of each individual, and
+alternately to urge the arguments of Christian charity and the public
+welfare. The texts of the fathers and the arms of the Franks were
+balanced in the theological and political scale; and without approving
+the addition to the Nicene creed, the most moderate were taught to
+confess, that the two hostile propositions of proceeding from the Father
+by the Son, and of proceeding from the Father and the Son, might be
+reduced to a safe and Catholic sense. [31] The supremacy of the pope was
+a doctrine more easy to conceive, but more painful to acknowledge: yet
+Michael represented to his monks and prelates, that they might submit
+to name the Roman bishop as the first of the patriarchs; and that their
+distance and discretion would guard the liberties of the Eastern church
+from the mischievous consequences of the right of appeal. He protested
+that he would sacrifice his life and empire rather than yield the
+smallest point of orthodox faith or national independence; and this
+declaration was sealed and ratified by a golden bull. The patriarch
+Joseph withdrew to a monastery, to resign or resume his throne,
+according to the event of the treaty: the letters of union and obedience
+were subscribed by the emperor, his son Andronicus, and thirty-five
+archbishops and metropolitans, with their respective synods; and the
+episcopal list was multiplied by many dioceses which were annihilated
+under the yoke of the infidels. An embassy was composed of some trusty
+ministers and prelates: they embarked for Italy, with rich ornaments
+and rare perfumes for the altar of St. Peter; and their secret orders
+authorized and recommended a boundless compliance. They were received in
+the general council of Lyons, by Pope Gregory the Tenth, at the head
+of five hundred bishops. [32] He embraced with tears his long-lost and
+repentant children; accepted the oath of the ambassadors, who abjured
+the schism in the name of the two emperors; adorned the prelates with
+the ring and mitre; chanted in Greek and Latin the Nicene creed with the
+addition of _filioque_; and rejoiced in the union of the East and West,
+which had been reserved for his reign. To consummate this pious work,
+the Byzantine deputies were speedily followed by the pope's nuncios; and
+their instruction discloses the policy of the Vatican, which could not
+be satisfied with the vain title of supremacy. After viewing the temper
+of the prince and people, they were enjoined to absolve the schismatic
+clergy, who should subscribe and swear their abjuration and obedience;
+to establish in all the churches the use of the perfect creed; to
+prepare the entrance of a cardinal legate, with the full powers and
+dignity of his office; and to instruct the emperor in the advantages
+which he might derive from the temporal protection of the Roman pontiff.
+[33]
+
+[Footnote 29: Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 33, &c., from the
+Epistles of Urban IV.]
+
+[Footnote 30: From their mercantile intercourse with the Venetians and
+Genoese, they branded the Latins as kaphloi and banausoi, (Pachymer,
+l. v. c. 10.) "Some are heretics in name; others, like the Latins,
+in fact," said the learned Veccus, (l. v. c. 12,) who soon afterwards
+became a convert (c. 15, 16) and a patriarch, (c. 24.)]
+
+[Footnote 31: In this class we may place Pachymer himself, whose copious
+and candid narrative occupies the vth and vith books of his history. Yet
+the Greek is silent on the council of Lyons, and seems to believe that
+the popes always resided in Rome and Italy, (l. v. c. 17, 21.)]
+
+[Footnote 32: See the acts of the council of Lyons in the year 1274.
+Fleury, Hist. Ecclésiastique, tom. xviii. p. 181--199. Dupin, Bibliot.
+Ecclés. tom. x. p. 135.]
+
+[Footnote 33: This curious instruction, which has been drawn with more
+or less honesty by Wading and Leo Allatius from the archives of the
+Vatican, is given in an abstract or version by Fleury, (tom. xviii. p.
+252--258.)]
+
+But they found a country without a friend, a nation in which the names
+of Rome and Union were pronounced with abhorrence. The patriarch Joseph
+was indeed removed: his place was filled by Veccus, an ecclesiastic of
+learning and moderation; and the emperor was still urged by the same
+motives, to persevere in the same professions. But in his private
+language Palęologus affected to deplore the pride, and to blame the
+innovations, of the Latins; and while he debased his character by
+this double hypocrisy, he justified and punished the opposition of
+his subjects. By the joint suffrage of the new and the ancient Rome,
+a sentence of excommunication was pronounced against the obstinate
+schismatics; the censures of the church were executed by the sword of
+Michael; on the failure of persuasion, he tried the arguments of prison
+and exile, of whipping and mutilation; those touchstones, says an
+historian, of cowards and the brave. Two Greeks still reigned in Ętolia,
+Epirus, and Thessaly, with the appellation of despots: they had yielded
+to the sovereign of Constantinople, but they rejected the chains of the
+Roman pontiff, and supported their refusal by successful arms. Under
+their protection, the fugitive monks and bishops assembled in hostile
+synods; and retorted the name of heretic with the galling addition of
+apostate: the prince of Trebizond was tempted to assume the forfeit
+title of emperor; [339] and even the Latins of Negropont, Thebes, Athens,
+and the Morea, forgot the merits of the convert, to join, with open or
+clandestine aid, the enemies of Palęologus. His favorite generals,
+of his own blood, and family, successively deserted, or betrayed, the
+sacrilegious trust. His sister Eulogia, a niece, and two female cousins,
+conspired against him; another niece, Mary queen of Bulgaria, negotiated
+his ruin with the sultan of Egypt; and, in the public eye, their treason
+was consecrated as the most sublime virtue. [34] To the pope's nuncios,
+who urged the consummation of the work, Palęologus exposed a naked
+recital of all that he had done and suffered for their sake. They were
+assured that the guilty sectaries, of both sexes and every rank, had
+been deprived of their honors, their fortunes, and their liberty; a
+spreading list of confiscation and punishment, which involved many
+persons, the dearest to the emperor, or the best deserving of his favor.
+They were conducted to the prison, to behold four princes of the royal
+blood chained in the four corners, and shaking their fetters in an agony
+of grief and rage. Two of these captives were afterwards released; the
+one by submission, the other by death: but the obstinacy of their two
+companions was chastised by the loss of their eyes; and the Greeks,
+the least adverse to the union, deplored that cruel and inauspicious
+tragedy. [35] Persecutors must expect the hatred of those whom they
+oppress; but they commonly find some consolation in the testimony of
+their conscience, the applause of their party, and, perhaps, the success
+of their undertaking. But the hypocrisy of Michael, which was prompted
+only by political motives, must have forced him to hate himself, to
+despise his followers, and to esteem and envy the rebel champions by
+whom he was detested and despised. While his violence was abhorred at
+Constantinople, at Rome his slowness was arraigned, and his sincerity
+suspected; till at length Pope Martin the Fourth excluded the Greek
+emperor from the pale of a church, into which he was striving to reduce
+a schismatic people. No sooner had the tyrant expired, than the union
+was dissolved, and abjured by unanimous consent; the churches were
+purified; the penitents were reconciled; and his son Andronicus, after
+weeping the sins and errors of his youth most piously denied his father
+the burial of a prince and a Christian. [36]
+
+[Footnote 339: According to Fallmarayer he had always maintained this
+title.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 34: This frank and authentic confession of Michael's
+distress is exhibited in barbarous Latin by Ogerius, who signs himself
+Protonotarius Interpretum, and transcribed by Wading from the MSS. of
+the Vatican, (A.D. 1278, No. 3.) His annals of the Franciscan order,
+the Fratres Minores, in xvii. volumes in folio, (Rome, 1741,) I have now
+accidentally seen among the waste paper of a bookseller.]
+
+[Footnote 35: See the vith book of Pachymer, particularly the chapters
+1, 11, 16, 18, 24--27. He is the more credible, as he speaks of this
+persecution with less anger than sorrow.]
+
+[Footnote 36: Pachymer, l. vii. c. 1--ii. 17. The speech of Andronicus
+the Elder (lib. xii. c. 2) is a curious record, which proves that if
+the Greeks were the slaves of the emperor, the emperor was not less the
+slave of superstition and the clergy.]
+
+II. In the distress of the Latins, the walls and towers of
+Constantinople had fallen to decay: they were restored and fortified by
+the policy of Michael, who deposited a plenteous store of corn and salt
+provisions, to sustain the siege which he might hourly expect from the
+resentment of the Western powers. Of these, the sovereign of the Two
+Sicilies was the most formidable neighbor: but as long as they were
+possessed by Mainfroy, the bastard of Frederic the Second, his monarchy
+was the bulwark, rather than the annoyance, of the Eastern empire. The
+usurper, though a brave and active prince, was sufficiently employed
+in the defence of his throne: his proscription by successive popes had
+separated Mainfroy from the common cause of the Latins; and the forces
+that might have besieged Constantinople were detained in a crusade
+against the domestic enemy of Rome. The prize of her avenger, the crown
+of the Two Sicilies, was won and worn by the brother of St Louis, by
+Charles count of Anjou and Provence, who led the chivalry of France on
+this holy expedition. [37] The disaffection of his Christian subjects
+compelled Mainfroy to enlist a colony of Saracens whom his father had
+planted in Apulia; and this odious succor will explain the defiance of
+the Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation. "Bear this
+message," said Charles, "to the sultan of Nocera, that God and the sword
+are umpire between us; and that he shall either send me to paradise,
+or I will send him to the pit of hell." The armies met: and though I
+am ignorant of Mainfroy's doom in the other world, in this he lost his
+friends, his kingdom, and his life, in the bloody battle of Benevento.
+Naples and Sicily were immediately peopled with a warlike race of
+French nobles; and their aspiring leader embraced the future conquest of
+Africa, Greece, and Palestine. The most specious reasons might point his
+first arms against the Byzantine empire; and Palęologus, diffident of
+his own strength, repeatedly appealed from the ambition of Charles to
+the humanity of St. Louis, who still preserved a just ascendant over the
+mind of his ferocious brother. For a while the attention of that brother
+was confined at home by the invasion of Conradin, the last heir to
+the imperial house of Swabia; but the hapless boy sunk in the unequal
+conflict; and his execution on a public scaffold taught the rivals of
+Charles to tremble for their heads as well as their dominions. A second
+respite was obtained by the last crusade of St. Louis to the African
+coast; and the double motive of interest and duty urged the king of
+Naples to assist, with his powers and his presence, the holy enterprise.
+The death of St. Louis released him from the importunity of a virtuous
+censor: the king of Tunis confessed himself the tributary and vassal of
+the crown of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights were free
+to enlist under his banner against the Greek empire. A treaty and a
+marriage united his interest with the house of Courtenay; his daughter
+Beatrice was promised to Philip, son and heir of the emperor Baldwin; a
+pension of six hundred ounces of gold was allowed for his maintenance;
+and his generous father distributed among his aliens the kingdoms and
+provinces of the East, reserving only Constantinople, and one day's
+journey round the city for the imperial domain. [38] In this perilous
+moment, Palęologus was the most eager to subscribe the creed, and
+implore the protection, of the Roman pontiff, who assumed, with
+propriety and weight, the character of an angel of peace, the common
+father of the Christians. By his voice, the sword of Charles was chained
+in the scabbard; and the Greek ambassadors beheld him, in the pope's
+antechamber, biting his ivory sceptre in a transport of fury, and deeply
+resenting the refusal to enfranchise and consecrate his arms. He appears
+to have respected the disinterested mediation of Gregory the Tenth; but
+Charles was insensibly disgusted by the pride and partiality of Nicholas
+the Third; and his attachment to his kindred, the Ursini family,
+alienated the most strenuous champion from the service of the church.
+The hostile league against the Greeks, of Philip the Latin emperor, the
+king of the Two Sicilies, and the republic of Venice, was ripened into
+execution; and the election of Martin the Fourth, a French pope, gave a
+sanction to the cause. Of the allies, Philip supplied his name; Martin,
+a bull of excommunication; the Venetians, a squadron of forty galleys;
+and the formidable powers of Charles consisted of forty counts, ten
+thousand men at arms, a numerous body of infantry, and a fleet of more
+than three hundred ships and transports. A distant day was appointed for
+assembling this mighty force in the harbor of Brindisi; and a previous
+attempt was risked with a detachment of three hundred knights, who
+invaded Albania, and besieged the fortress of Belgrade. Their defeat
+might amuse with a triumph the vanity of Constantinople; but the more
+sagacious Michael, despairing of his arms, depended on the effects of
+a conspiracy; on the secret workings of a rat, who gnawed the bowstring
+[39] of the Sicilian tyrant.
+
+[Footnote 37: The best accounts, the nearest the time, the most full
+and entertaining, of the conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou, may
+be found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano Malespina, (c.
+175--193,) and Giovanni Villani, (l. vii. c. 1--10, 25--30,) which are
+published by Muratori in the viiith and xiiith volumes of the Historians
+of Italy. In his Annals (tom. xi. p. 56--72) he has abridged these great
+events which are likewise described in the Istoria Civile of Giannone.
+tom. l. xix. tom. iii. l. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 38: Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 49--56, l. vi. c. 1--13.
+See Pachymer, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 7--10, 25 l. vi. c. 30, 32, 33, and
+Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv. 5, l. v. 1, 6.]
+
+[Footnote 39: The reader of Herodotus will recollect how miraculously
+the Assyrian host of Sennacherib was disarmed and destroyed, (l. ii. c.
+141.)]
+
+Among the proscribed adherents of the house of Swabia, John of Procida
+forfeited a small island of that name in the Bay of Naples. His birth
+was noble, but his education was learned; and in the poverty of exile,
+he was relieved by the practice of physic, which he had studied in the
+school of Salerno. Fortune had left him nothing to lose, except life;
+and to despise life is the first qualification of a rebel. Procida was
+endowed with the art of negotiation, to enforce his reasons and disguise
+his motives; and in his various transactions with nations and men, he
+could persuade each party that he labored solely for _their_ interest.
+The new kingdoms of Charles were afflicted by every species of fiscal
+and military oppression; [40] and the lives and fortunes of his Italian
+subjects were sacrificed to the greatness of their master and the
+licentiousness of his followers. The hatred of Naples was repressed by
+his presence; but the looser government of his vicegerents excited the
+contempt, as well as the aversion, of the Sicilians: the island was
+roused to a sense of freedom by the eloquence of Procida; and he
+displayed to every baron his private interest in the common cause. In
+the confidence of foreign aid, he successively visited the courts of
+the Greek emperor, and of Peter king of Arragon, [41] who possessed the
+maritime countries of Valentia and Catalonia. To the ambitious Peter a
+crown was presented, which he might justly claim by his marriage with
+the sister [419] of Mainfroy, and by the dying voice of Conradin, who from
+the scaffold had cast a ring to his heir and avenger. Palęologus was
+easily persuaded to divert his enemy from a foreign war by a rebellion
+at home; and a Greek subsidy of twenty-five thousand ounces of gold was
+most profitably applied to arm a Catalan fleet, which sailed under a
+holy banner to the specious attack of the Saracens of Africa. In the
+disguise of a monk or beggar, the indefatigable missionary of revolt
+flew from Constantinople to Rome, and from Sicily to Saragossa: the
+treaty was sealed with the signet of Pope Nicholas himself, the enemy
+of Charles; and his deed of gift transferred the fiefs of St. Peter from
+the house of Anjou to that of Arragon. So widely diffused and so freely
+circulated, the secret was preserved above two years with impenetrable
+discretion; and each of the conspirators imbibed the maxim of Peter, who
+declared that he would cut off his left hand if it were conscious of the
+intentions of his right. The mine was prepared with deep and dangerous
+artifice; but it may be questioned, whether the instant explosion of
+Palermo were the effect of accident or design.
+
+[Footnote 40: According to Sabas Malaspina, (Hist. Sicula, l. iii. c.
+16, in Muratori, tom. viii. p. 832,) a zealous Guelph, the subjects of
+Charles, who had reviled Mainfroy as a wolf, began to regret him as a
+lamb; and he justifies their discontent by the oppressions of the French
+government, (l. vi. c. 2, 7.) See the Sicilian manifesto in Nicholas
+Specialis, (l. i. c. 11, in Muratori, tom. x. p. 930.)]
+
+[Footnote 41: See the character and counsels of Peter, king of Arragon,
+in Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. xiv. c. 6, tom. ii. p. 133.) The reader
+for gives the Jesuit's defects, in favor, always of his style, and often
+of his sense.]
+
+[Footnote 419: Daughter. See Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 517.--M.]
+
+On the vigil of Easter, a procession of the disarmed citizens visited
+a church without the walls; and a noble damsel was rudely insulted by a
+French soldier. [42] The ravisher was instantly punished with death; and
+if the people was at first scattered by a military force, their numbers
+and fury prevailed: the conspirators seized the opportunity; the flame
+spread over the island; and eight thousand French were exterminated in
+a promiscuous massacre, which has obtained the name of the Sicilian
+Vespers. [43] From every city the banners of freedom and the church
+were displayed: the revolt was inspired by the presence or the soul
+of Procida and Peter of Arragon, who sailed from the African coast
+to Palermo, was saluted as the king and savior of the isle. By the
+rebellion of a people on whom he had so long trampled with impunity,
+Charles was astonished and confounded; and in the first agony of grief
+and devotion, he was heard to exclaim, "O God! if thou hast decreed
+to humble me, grant me at least a gentle and gradual descent from the
+pinnacle of greatness!" His fleet and army, which already filled the
+seaports of Italy, were hastily recalled from the service of the Grecian
+war; and the situation of Messina exposed that town to the first storm
+of his revenge. Feeble in themselves, and yet hopeless of foreign
+succor, the citizens would have repented, and submitted on the assurance
+of full pardon and their ancient privileges. But the pride of the
+monarch was already rekindled; and the most fervent entreaties of the
+legate could extort no more than a promise, that he would forgive the
+remainder, after a chosen list of eight hundred rebels had been yielded
+to his discretion. The despair of the Messinese renewed their courage:
+Peter of Arragon approached to their relief; [44] and his rival was
+driven back by the failure of provision and the terrors of the equinox
+to the Calabrian shore. At the same moment, the Catalan admiral, the
+famous Roger de Loria, swept the channel with an invincible squadron:
+the French fleet, more numerous in transports than in galleys, was
+either burnt or destroyed; and the same blow assured the independence of
+Sicily and the safety of the Greek empire. A few days before his death,
+the emperor Michael rejoiced in the fall of an enemy whom he hated and
+esteemed; and perhaps he might be content with the popular judgment,
+that had they not been matched with each other, Constantinople and Italy
+must speedily have obeyed the same master. [45] From this disastrous
+moment, the life of Charles was a series of misfortunes: his capital was
+insulted, his son was made prisoner, and he sunk into the grave without
+recovering the Isle of Sicily, which, after a war of twenty years,
+was finally severed from the throne of Naples, and transferred, as an
+independent kingdom, to a younger branch of the house of Arragon. [46]
+
+[Footnote 42: After enumerating the sufferings of his country, Nicholas
+Specialis adds, in the true spirit of Italian jealousy, Quę omnia et
+graviora quidem, ut arbitror, patienti animo Siculi tolerassent,
+nisi (quod primum cunctis dominantibus cavendum est) alienas fminas
+invasissent, (l. i. c. 2, p. 924.)]
+
+[Footnote 43: The French were long taught to remember this bloody
+lesson: "If I am provoked, (said Henry the Fourth,) I will breakfast
+at Milan, and dine at Naples." "Your majesty (replied the Spanish
+ambassador) may perhaps arrive in Sicily for vespers."]
+
+[Footnote 44: This revolt, with the subsequent victory, are related by
+two national writers, Bartholemy ą Neocastro (in Muratori, tom. xiii.,)
+and Nicholas Specialis (in Muratori, tom. x.,) the one a contemporary,
+the other of the next century. The patriot Specialis disclaims the name
+of rebellion, and all previous correspondence with Peter of Arragon,
+(nullo communicato consilio,) who _happened_ to be with a fleet and army
+on the African coast, (l. i. c. 4, 9.)]
+
+[Footnote 45: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. v. c. 6) admires the wisdom of
+Providence in this equal balance of states and princes. For the honor
+of Palęologus, I had rather this balance had been observed by an Italian
+writer.]
+
+[Footnote 46: See the Chronicle of Villani, the xith volume of the
+Annali d'Italia of Muratori, and the xxth and xxist books of the Istoria
+Civile of Giannone.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.--Part III.
+
+I shall not, I trust, be accused of superstition; but I must remark
+that, even in this world, the natural order of events will sometimes
+afford the strong appearances of moral retribution. The first Palęologus
+had saved his empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion
+and blood; and from these scenes of discord uprose a generation of iron
+men, who assaulted and endangered the empire of his son. In modern times
+our debts and taxes are the secret poison which still corrodes the bosom
+of peace: but in the weak and disorderly government of the middle ages,
+it was agitated by the present evil of the disbanded armies. Too idle
+to work, too proud to beg, the mercenaries were accustomed to a life of
+rapine: they could rob with more dignity and effect under a banner and
+a chief; and the sovereign, to whom their service was useless, and
+their presence importunate, endeavored to discharge the torrent on some
+neighboring countries. After the peace of Sicily, many thousands of
+Genoese, _Catalans_, [47] &c., who had fought, by sea and land, under
+the standard of Anjou or Arragon, were blended into one nation by the
+resemblance of their manners and interest. They heard that the Greek
+provinces of Asia were invaded by the Turks: they resolved to share the
+harvest of pay and plunder: and Frederic king of Sicily most liberally
+contributed the means of their departure. In a warfare of twenty years,
+a ship, or a camp, was become their country; arms were their sole
+profession and property; valor was the only virtue which they knew;
+their women had imbibed the fearless temper of their lovers and
+husbands: it was reported, that, with a stroke of their broadsword, the
+Catalans could cleave a horseman and a horse; and the report itself
+was a powerful weapon. Roger de Flor [477] was the most popular of their
+chiefs; and his personal merit overshadowed the dignity of his prouder
+rivals of Arragon. The offspring of a marriage between a German
+gentleman of the court of Frederic the Second and a damsel of Brindisi,
+Roger was successively a templar, an apostate, a pirate, and at length
+the richest and most powerful admiral of the Mediterranean. He sailed
+from Messina to Constantinople, with eighteen galleys, four great
+ships, and eight thousand adventurers; [478] and his previous treaty was
+faithfully accomplished by Andronicus the elder, who accepted with
+joy and terror this formidable succor. A palace was allotted for his
+reception, and a niece of the emperor was given in marriage to the
+valiant stranger, who was immediately created great duke or admiral
+of Romania. After a decent repose, he transported his troops over the
+Propontis, and boldly led them against the Turks: in two bloody battles
+thirty thousand of the Moslems were slain: he raised the siege of
+Philadelphia, and deserved the name of the deliverer of Asia. But after
+a short season of prosperity, the cloud of slavery and ruin again
+burst on that unhappy province. The inhabitants escaped (says a Greek
+historian) from the smoke into the flames; and the hostility of the
+Turks was less pernicious than the friendship of the Catalans. [479] The
+lives and fortunes which they had rescued they considered as their own:
+the willing or reluctant maid was saved from the race of circumcision
+for the embraces of a Christian soldier: the exaction of fines and
+supplies was enforced by licentious rapine and arbitrary executions;
+and, on the resistance of Magnesia, the great duke besieged a city
+of the Roman empire. [48] These disorders he excused by the wrongs and
+passions of a victorious army; nor would his own authority or person
+have been safe, had he dared to punish his faithful followers, who
+were defrauded of the just and covenanted price of their services. The
+threats and complaints of Andronicus disclosed the nakedness of the
+empire. His golden bull had invited no more than five hundred horse and
+a thousand foot soldiers; yet the crowds of volunteers, who migrated to
+the East, had been enlisted and fed by his spontaneous bounty. While his
+bravest allies were content with three byzants or pieces of gold, for
+their monthly pay, an ounce, or even two ounces, of gold were assigned
+to the Catalans, whose annual pension would thus amount to near a
+hundred pounds sterling: one of their chiefs had modestly rated at three
+hundred thousand crowns the value of his _future_ merits; and above a
+million had been issued from the treasury for the maintenance of these
+costly mercenaries. A cruel tax had been imposed on the corn of the
+husbandman: one third was retrenched from the salaries of the public
+officers; and the standard of the coin was so shamefully debased, that
+of the four-and-twenty parts only five were of pure gold. [49] At the
+summons of the emperor, Roger evacuated a province which no longer
+supplied the materials of rapine; [496] but he refused to disperse his
+troops; and while his style was respectful, his conduct was independent
+and hostile. He protested, that if the emperor should march against
+him, he would advance forty paces to kiss the ground before him; but in
+rising from this prostrate attitude Roger had a life and sword at the
+service of his friends. The great duke of Romania condescended to accept
+the title and ornaments of Cęsar; but he rejected the new proposal of
+the government of Asia with a subsidy of corn and money, [497] on condition
+that he should reduce his troops to the harmless number of three
+thousand men. Assassination is the last resource of cowards. The
+Cęsar was tempted to visit the royal residence of Adrianople; in the
+apartment, and before the eyes, of the empress he was stabbed by the
+Alani guards; and though the deed was imputed to their private revenge,
+[498] his countrymen, who dwelt at Constantinople in the security of peace,
+were involved in the same proscription by the prince or people. The loss
+of their leader intimidated the crowd of adventurers, who hoisted
+the sails of flight, and were soon scattered round the coasts of the
+Mediterranean. But a veteran band of fifteen hundred Catalans,
+or French, stood firm in the strong fortress of Gallipoli on the
+Hellespont, displayed the banners of Arragon, and offered to revenge and
+justify their chief, by an equal combat of ten or a hundred warriors.
+Instead of accepting this bold defiance, the emperor Michael, the son
+and colleague of Andronicus, resolved to oppress them with the weight
+of multitudes: every nerve was strained to form an army of thirteen
+thousand horse and thirty thousand foot; and the Propontis was covered
+with the ships of the Greeks and Genoese. In two battles by sea and
+land, these mighty forces were encountered and overthrown by the despair
+and discipline of the Catalans: the young emperor fled to the palace;
+and an insufficient guard of light-horse was left for the protection
+of the open country. Victory renewed the hopes and numbers of the
+adventures: every nation was blended under the name and standard of the
+_great company_; and three thousand Turkish proselytes deserted from the
+Imperial service to join this military association. In the possession of
+Gallipoli, [499] the Catalans intercepted the trade of Constantinople and
+the Black Sea, while they spread their devastation on either side of
+the Hellespont over the confines of Europe and Asia. To prevent their
+approach, the greatest part of the Byzantine territory was laid waste
+by the Greeks themselves: the peasants and their cattle retired into the
+city; and myriads of sheep and oxen, for which neither place nor food
+could be procured, were unprofitably slaughtered on the same day. Four
+times the emperor Andronicus sued for peace, and four times he was
+inflexibly repulsed, till the want of provisions, and the discord of the
+chiefs, compelled the Catalans to evacuate the banks of the Hellespont
+and the neighborhood of the capital. After their separation from the
+Turks, the remains of the great company pursued their march through
+Macedonia and Thessaly, to seek a new establishment in the heart of
+Greece. [50]
+
+[Footnote 47: In this motley multitude, the Catalans and Spaniards,
+the bravest of the soldiery, were styled by themselves and the Greeks
+_Amogavares_. Moncada derives their origin from the Goths, and Pachymer
+(l. xi. c. 22) from the Arabs; and in spite of national and religious
+pride, I am afraid the latter is in the right.]
+
+[Footnote 477: On Roger de Flor and his companions, see an historical
+fragment, detailed and interesting, entitled "The Spaniards of the
+Fourteenth Century," and inserted in "L'Espagne en 1808," a work
+translated from the German, vol. ii. p. 167. This narrative enables us
+to detect some slight errors which have crept into that of Gibbon.--G.]
+
+[Footnote 478: The troops of Roger de Flor, according to his companions
+Ramon de Montaner, were 1500 men at arms, 4000 Almogavares, and 1040
+other foot, besides the sailors and mariners, vol. ii. p. 137.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 479: Ramon de Montaner suppresses the cruelties and oppressions
+of the Catalans, in which, perhaps, he shared.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Some idea may be formed of the population of these cities,
+from the 36,000 inhabitants of Tralles, which, in the preceding reign,
+was rebuilt by the emperor, and ruined by the Turks. (Pachymer, l. vi.
+c. 20, 21.)]
+
+[Footnote 49: I have collected these pecuniary circumstances from
+Pachymer, (l. xi. c. 21, l. xii. c. 4, 5, 8, 14, 19,) who describes the
+progressive degradation of the gold coin. Even in the prosperous times
+of John Ducas Vataces, the byzants were composed in equal proportions
+of the pure and the baser metal. The poverty of Michael Palęologus
+compelled him to strike a new coin, with nine parts, or carats, of gold,
+and fifteen of copper alloy. After his death, the standard rose to ten
+carats, till in the public distress it was reduced to the moiety. The
+prince was relieved for a moment, while credit and commerce were forever
+blasted. In France, the gold coin is of twenty-two carats, (one twelfth
+alloy,) and the standard of England and Holland is still higher.]
+
+[Footnote 496]: Roger de Flor, according to Ramon de Montaner, was recalled
+from Natolia, on account of the war which had arisen on the death of
+Asan, king of Bulgaria. Andronicus claimed the kingdom for his nephew,
+the sons of Asan by his sister. Roger de Flor turned the tide of success
+in favor of the emperor of Constantinople and made peace.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 497: Andronicus paid the Catalans in the debased money, much to
+their indignation.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 498: According to Ramon de Montaner, he was murdered by order of
+Kyr (kurioV) Michael, son of the emperor. p. 170.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 499: Ramon de Montaner describes his sojourn at Gallipoli: Nous
+etions si riches, que nous ne semions, ni ne labourions, ni ne faisions
+enver des vins ni ne cultivions les vignes: et cependant tous les ans
+nous recucillions tour ce qu'il nous fallait, en vin, froment et avoine.
+p. 193. This lasted for five merry years. Ramon de Montaner is high
+authority, for he was "chancelier et maitre rational de l'armée,"
+(commissary of _rations_.) He was left governor; all the scribes of the
+army remained with him, and with their aid he kept the books in
+which were registered the number of horse and foot employed on each
+expedition. According to this book the plunder was shared, of which he
+had a fifth for his trouble. p. 197.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 50: The Catalan war is most copiously related by Pachymer, in
+the xith, xiith, and xiiith books, till he breaks off in the year
+1308. Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 3--6) is more concise and complete.
+Ducange, who adopts these adventurers as French, has hunted their
+footsteps with his usual diligence, (Hist. de C. P. l. vi. c. 22--46.)
+He quotes an Arragonese history, which I have read with pleasure,
+and which the Spaniards extol as a model of style and composition,
+(Expedicion de los Catalanes y Arragoneses contra Turcos y Griegos:
+Barcelona, 1623 in quarto: Madrid, 1777, in octavo.) Don Francisco de
+Moncada Conde de Ossona, may imitate Cęsar or Sallust; he may
+transcribe the Greek or Italian contemporaries: but he never quotes his
+authorities, and I cannot discern any national records of the exploits
+of his countrymen. * Note: Ramon de Montaner, one of the Catalans, who
+accompanied Roger de Flor, and who was governor of Gallipoli, has
+written, in Spanish, the history of this band of adventurers, to which
+he belonged, and from which he separated when it left the Thracian
+Chersonese to penetrate into Macedonia and Greece.--G.----The
+autobiography of Ramon de Montaner has been published in French by M.
+Buchon, in the great collection of Mémoires relatifs ą l'Histoire de
+France. I quote this edition.--M.]
+
+After some ages of oblivion, Greece was awakened to new misfortunes by
+the arms of the Latins. In the two hundred and fifty years between the
+first and the last conquest of Constantinople, that venerable land
+was disputed by a multitude of petty tyrants; without the comforts of
+freedom and genius, her ancient cities were again plunged in foreign and
+intestine war; and, if servitude be preferable to anarchy, they might
+repose with joy under the Turkish yoke. I shall not pursue the obscure
+and various dynasties, that rose and fell on the continent or in the
+isles; but our silence on the fate of Athens [51] would argue a strange
+ingratitude to the first and purest school of liberal science and
+amusement. In the partition of the empire, the principality of Athens
+and Thebes was assigned to Otho de la Roche, a noble warrior of
+Burgundy, [52] with the title of great duke, [53] which the Latins
+understood in their own sense, and the Greeks more foolishly derived
+from the age of Constantine. [54] Otho followed the standard of the
+marquis of Montferrat: the ample state which he acquired by a miracle
+of conduct or fortune, [55] was peaceably inherited by his son and two
+grandsons, till the family, though not the nation, was changed, by the
+marriage of an heiress into the elder branch of the house of Brienne.
+The son of that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy of
+Athens; and, with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he invested
+with fiefs, reduced above thirty castles of the vassal or neighboring
+lords. But when he was informed of the approach and ambition of the
+great company, he collected a force of seven hundred knights, six
+thousand four hundred horse, and eight thousand foot, and boldly met
+them on the banks of the River Cephisus in Botia. The Catalans amounted
+to no more than three thousand five hundred horse, and four thousand
+foot; but the deficiency of numbers was compensated by stratagem and
+order. They formed round their camp an artificial inundation; the duke
+and his knights advanced without fear or precaution on the verdant
+meadow; their horses plunged into the bog; and he was cut in pieces,
+with the greatest part of the French cavalry. His family and nation were
+expelled; and his son Walter de Brienne, the titular duke of Athens, the
+tyrant of Florence, and the constable of France, lost his life in the
+field of Poitiers Attica and Botia were the rewards of the victorious
+Catalans; they married the widows and daughters of the slain; and during
+fourteen years, the great company was the terror of the Grecian states.
+Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty of the house of
+Arragon; and during the remainder of the fourteenth century, Athens, as
+a government or an appanage, was successively bestowed by the kings of
+Sicily. After the French and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of
+the Accaioli, a family, plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and
+sovereign in Greece. Athens, which they embellished with new buildings,
+became the capital of a state, that extended over Thebes, Argos,
+Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly; and their reign was finally
+determined by Mahomet the Second, who strangled the last duke, and
+educated his sons in the discipline and religion of the seraglio.
+
+[Footnote 51: See the laborious history of Ducange, whose accurate table
+of the French dynasties recapitulates the thirty-five passages, in which
+he mentions the dukes of Athens.]
+
+[Footnote 52: He is twice mentioned by Villehardouin with honor, (No.
+151, 235;) and under the first passage, Ducange observes all that can be
+known of his person and family.]
+
+[Footnote 53: From these Latin princes of the xivth century, Boccace,
+Chaucer. and Shakspeare, have borrowed their Theseus _duke_ of Athens.
+An ignorant age transfers its own language and manners to the most
+distant times.]
+
+[Footnote 54: The same Constantine gave to Sicily a king, to Russia the
+_magnus dapifer_ of the empire, to Thebes the _primicerius_; and these
+absurd fables are properly lashed by Ducange, (ad Nicephor. Greg. l.
+vii. c. 5.) By the Latins, the lord of Thebes was styled, by corruption,
+the Megas Kurios, or Grand Sire!]
+
+[Footnote 55: _Quodam miraculo_, says Alberic. He was probably received
+by Michael Choniates, the archbishop who had defended Athens against the
+tyrant Leo Sgurus, (Nicetas urbs capta, p. 805, ed. Bek.) Michael was
+the brother of the historian Nicetas; and his encomium of Athens is
+still extant in MS. in the Bodleian library, (Fabric. Bibliot. Gręc tom.
+vi. p. 405.) * Note: Nicetas says expressly that Michael surrendered the Acropolis to
+the marquis.--M.]
+
+Athens, [56] though no more than the shadow of her former self, still
+contains about eight or ten thousand inhabitants; of these, three
+fourths are Greeks in religion and language; and the Turks, who compose
+the remainder, have relaxed, in their intercourse with the citizens,
+somewhat of the pride and gravity of their national character. The
+olive-tree, the gift of Minerva, flourishes in Attica; nor has the honey
+of Mount Hymettus lost any part of its exquisite flavor: [57] but the
+languid trade is monopolized by strangers, and the agriculture of a
+barren land is abandoned to the vagrant Walachians. The Athenians
+are still distinguished by the subtlety and acuteness of their
+understandings; but these qualities, unless ennobled by freedom, and
+enlightened by study, will degenerate into a low and selfish cunning:
+and it is a proverbial saying of the country, "From the Jews of
+Thessalonica, the Turks of Negropont, and the Greeks of Athens, good
+Lord deliver us!" This artful people has eluded the tyranny of the
+Turkish bashaws, by an expedient which alleviates their servitude
+and aggravates their shame. About the middle of the last century, the
+Athenians chose for their protector the Kislar Aga, or chief black
+eunuch of the seraglio. This Ęthiopian slave, who possesses the sultan's
+ear, condescends to accept the tribute of thirty thousand crowns: his
+lieutenant, the Waywode, whom he annually confirms, may reserve for
+his own about five or six thousand more; and such is the policy of
+the citizens, that they seldom fail to remove and punish an oppressive
+governor. Their private differences are decided by the archbishop,
+one of the richest prelates of the Greek church, since he possesses a
+revenue of one thousand pounds sterling; and by a tribunal of the eight
+_geronti_ or elders, chosen in the eight quarters of the city: the noble
+families cannot trace their pedigree above three hundred years; but
+their principal members are distinguished by a grave demeanor, a fur
+cap, and the lofty appellation of _archon_. By some, who delight in
+the contrast, the modern language of Athens is represented as the most
+corrupt and barbarous of the seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek: [58]
+this picture is too darkly colored: but it would not be easy, in the
+country of Plato and Demosthenes, to find a reader or a copy of their
+works. The Athenians walk with supine indifference among the glorious
+ruins of antiquity; and such is the debasement of their character, that
+they are incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors. [59]
+
+[Footnote 56: The modern account of Athens, and the Athenians, is
+extracted from Spon, (Voyage en Grece, tom. ii. p. 79--199,) and
+Wheeler, (Travels into Greece, p. 337--414,) Stuart, (Antiquities of
+Athens, passim,) and Chandler, (Travels into Greece, p. 23--172.) The
+first of these travellers visited Greece in the year 1676; the last,
+1765; and ninety years had not produced much difference in the tranquil
+scene.]
+
+[Footnote 57: The ancients, or at least the Athenians, believed that
+all the bees in the world had been propagated from Mount Hymettus.
+They taught, that health might be preserved, and life prolonged, by the
+external use of oil, and the internal use of honey, (Geoponica, l. xv. c
+7, p. 1089--1094, edit. Niclas.)]
+
+[Footnote 58: Ducange, Glossar. Gręc. Pręfat. p. 8, who quotes for his
+author Theodosius Zygomalas, a modern grammarian. Yet Spon (tom. ii.
+p. 194) and Wheeler, (p. 355,) no incompetent judges, entertain a more
+favorable opinion of the Attic dialect.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name of
+Athens, which they still call Athini. From the eiV thn 'Aqhnhn, we have
+formed our own barbarism of _Setines_. * Note: Gibbon did not foresee a
+Bavarian prince on the throne of
+Greece, with Athens as his capital.--M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.--Part I.
+
+     Civil Wars, And Ruin Of The Greek Empire.--Reigns Of
+     Andronicus, The Elder And Younger, And John Palęologus.--
+     Regency, Revolt, Reign, And Abdication Of John Cantacuzene.--
+     Establishment Of A Genoese Colony At Pera Or Galata.--Their
+     Wars With The Empire And City Of Constantinople.
+
+The long reign of Andronicus [1] the elder is chiefly memorable by the
+disputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans, and the rise
+of the Ottoman power. He is celebrated as the most learned and virtuous
+prince of the age; but such virtue, and such learning, contributed
+neither to the perfection of the individual, nor to the happiness of
+society A slave of the most abject superstition, he was surrounded on
+all sides by visible and invisible enemies; nor were the flames of hell
+less dreadful to his fancy, than those of a Catalan or Turkish war.
+Under the reign of the Palęologi, the choice of the patriarch was the
+most important business of the state; the heads of the Greek church were
+ambitious and fanatic monks; and their vices or virtues, their
+learning or ignorance, were equally mischievous or contemptible. By his
+intemperate discipline, the patriarch Athanasius [2] excited the hatred
+of the clergy and people: he was heard to declare, that the sinner
+should swallow the last dregs of the cup of penance; and the foolish
+tale was propagated of his punishing a sacrilegious ass that had tasted
+the lettuce of a convent garden. Driven from the throne by the universal
+clamor, Athanasius composed before his retreat two papers of a very
+opposite cast. His public testament was in the tone of charity and
+resignation; the private codicil breathed the direst anathemas against
+the authors of his disgrace, whom he excluded forever from the communion
+of the holy trinity, the angels, and the saints. This last paper he
+enclosed in an earthen pot, which was placed, by his order, on the top
+of one of the pillars, in the dome of St. Sophia, in the distant hope of
+discovery and revenge. At the end of four years, some youths, climbing
+by a ladder in search of pigeons' nests, detected the fatal secret; and,
+as Andronicus felt himself touched and bound by the excommunication, he
+trembled on the brink of the abyss which had been so treacherously dug
+under his feet. A synod of bishops was instantly convened to debate
+this important question: the rashness of these clandestine anathemas was
+generally condemned; but as the knot could be untied only by the same
+hand, as that hand was now deprived of the crosier, it appeared that
+this posthumous decree was irrevocable by any earthly power. Some faint
+testimonies of repentance and pardon were extorted from the author of
+the mischief; but the conscience of the emperor was still wounded, and
+he desired, with no less ardor than Athanasius himself, the restoration
+of a patriarch, by whom alone he could be healed. At the dead of night,
+a monk rudely knocked at the door of the royal bed-chamber, announcing
+a revelation of plague and famine, of inundations and earthquakes.
+Andronicus started from his bed, and spent the night in prayer, till he
+felt, or thought that he felt, a slight motion of the earth. The emperor
+on foot led the bishops and monks to the cell of Athanasius; and, after
+a proper resistance, the saint, from whom this message had been
+sent, consented to absolve the prince, and govern the church of
+Constantinople. Untamed by disgrace, and hardened by solitude, the
+shepherd was again odious to the flock, and his enemies contrived a
+singular, and as it proved, a successful, mode of revenge. In the night,
+they stole away the footstool or foot-cloth of his throne, which they
+secretly replaced with the decoration of a satirical picture. The
+emperor was painted with a bridle in his mouth, and Athanasius leading
+the tractable beast to the feet of Christ. The authors of the libel were
+detected and punished; but as their lives had been spared, the Christian
+priest in sullen indignation retired to his cell; and the eyes of
+Andronicus, which had been opened for a moment, were again closed by his
+successor.
+
+[Footnote 1: Andronicus himself will justify our freedom in the
+invective, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. i. c. i.,) which he pronounced
+against historic falsehood. It is true, that his censure is more
+pointedly urged against calumny than against adulation.]
+
+[Footnote 2: For the anathema in the pigeon's nest, see Pachymer, (l.
+ix. c. 24,) who relates the general history of Athanasius, (l. viii. c.
+13--16, 20, 24, l. x. c. 27--29, 31--36, l. xi. c. 1--3, 5, 6, l. xiii.
+c. 8, 10, 23, 35,) and is followed by Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. vi. c.
+5, 7, l. vii. c. 1, 9,) who includes the second retreat of this second
+Chrysostom.]
+
+If this transaction be one of the most curious and important of a reign
+of fifty years, I cannot at least accuse the brevity of my materials,
+since I reduce into some few pages the enormous folios of Pachymer, [3]
+Cantacuzene, [4] and Nicephorus Gregoras, [5] who have composed the prolix
+and languid story of the times. The name and situation of the emperor
+John Cantacuzene might inspire the most lively curiosity. His memorials
+of forty years extend from the revolt of the younger Andronicus to his
+own abdication of the empire; and it is observed, that, like Moses and
+Cęsar, he was the principal actor in the scenes which he describes. But
+in this eloquent work we should vainly seek the sincerity of a hero or
+a penitent. Retired in a cloister from the vices and passions of the
+world, he presents not a confession, but an apology, of the life of
+an ambitious statesman. Instead of unfolding the true counsels and
+characters of men, he displays the smooth and specious surface of
+events, highly varnished with his own praises and those of his friends.
+Their motives are always pure; their ends always legitimate: they
+conspire and rebel without any views of interest; and the violence which
+they inflict or suffer is celebrated as the spontaneous effect of reason
+and virtue.
+
+[Footnote 3: Pachymer, in seven books, 377 folio pages, describes the
+first twenty-six years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the date of
+his composition by the current news or lie of the day, (A.D. 1308.)
+Either death or disgust prevented him from resuming the pen.]
+
+[Footnote 4: After an interval of twelve years, from the conclusion of
+Pachymer, Cantacuzenus takes up the pen; and his first book (c. 1--59,
+p. 9--150) relates the civil war, and the eight last years of the elder
+Andronicus. The ingenious comparison with Moses and Cęsar is fancied by
+his French translator, the president Cousin.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Nicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire life
+and reign of Andronicus the elder, (l. vi. c. 1, p. 96--291.) This
+is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false and malicious
+representation of his conduct.]
+
+After the example of the first of the Palęologi, the elder Andronicus
+associated his son Michael to the honors of the purple; and from the age
+of eighteen to his premature death, that prince was acknowledged, above
+twenty-five years, as the second emperor of the Greeks. [6] At the head
+of an army, he excited neither the fears of the enemy, nor the jealousy
+of the court; his modesty and patience were never tempted to compute
+the years of his father; nor was that father compelled to repent of his
+liberality either by the virtues or vices of his son. The son of Michael
+was named Andronicus from his grandfather, to whose early favor he was
+introduced by that nominal resemblance. The blossoms of wit and beauty
+increased the fondness of the elder Andronicus; and, with the common
+vanity of age, he expected to realize in the second, the hope which had
+been disappointed in the first, generation. The boy was educated in the
+palace as an heir and a favorite; and in the oaths and acclamations of
+the people, the _august triad_ was formed by the names of the father,
+the son, and the grandson. But the younger Andronicus was speedily
+corrupted by his infant greatness, while he beheld with puerile
+impatience the double obstacle that hung, and might long hang, over his
+rising ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to diffuse happiness,
+that he so eagerly aspired: wealth and impunity were in his eyes the
+most precious attributes of a monarch; and his first indiscreet demand
+was the sovereignty of some rich and fertile island, where he might lead
+a life of independence and pleasure. The emperor was offended by the
+loud and frequent intemperance which disturbed his capital; the sums
+which his parsimony denied were supplied by the Genoese usurers of Pera;
+and the oppressive debt, which consolidated the interest of a faction,
+could be discharged only by a revolution. A beautiful female, a matron
+in rank, a prostitute in manners, had instructed the younger Andronicus
+in the rudiments of love; but he had reason to suspect the nocturnal
+visits of a rival; and a stranger passing through the street was pierced
+by the arrows of his guards, who were placed in ambush at her door. That
+stranger was his brother, Prince Manuel, who languished and died of his
+wound; and the emperor Michael, their common father, whose health was in
+a declining state, expired on the eighth day, lamenting the loss of
+both his children. [7] However guiltless in his intention, the younger
+Andronicus might impute a brother's and a father's death to the
+consequence of his own vices; and deep was the sigh of thinking and
+feeling men, when they perceived, instead of sorrow and repentance, his
+ill-dissembled joy on the removal of two odious competitors. By these
+melancholy events, and the increase of his disorders, the mind of
+the elder emperor was gradually alienated; and, after many fruitless
+reproofs, he transferred on another grandson [8] his hopes and affection.
+The change was announced by the new oath of allegiance to the reigning
+sovereign, and the _person_ whom he should appoint for his successor;
+and the acknowledged heir, after a repetition of insults and complaints,
+was exposed to the indignity of a public trial. Before the sentence,
+which would probably have condemned him to a dungeon or a cell, the
+emperor was informed that the palace courts were filled with the armed
+followers of his grandson; the judgment was softened to a treaty of
+reconciliation; and the triumphant escape of the prince encouraged the
+ardor of the younger faction.
+
+[Footnote 6: He was crowned May 21st, 1295, and died October 12th, 1320,
+(Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239.) His brother Theodore, by a second marriage,
+inherited the marquisate of Montferrat, apostatized to the religion
+and manners of the Latins, (oti kai gnwmh kai pistei kai schkati, kai
+geneiwn koura kai pasin eqesin DatinoV hn akraijnhV. Nic. Greg. l. ix.
+c. 1,) and founded a dynasty of Italian princes, which was extinguished
+A.D. 1533, (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 249--253.)]
+
+[Footnote 7: We are indebted to Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 1)
+for the knowledge of this tragic adventure; while Cantacuzene more
+discreetly conceals the vices of Andronicus the Younger, of which he was
+the witness and perhaps the associate, (l. i. c. 1, &c.)]
+
+[Footnote 8: His destined heir was Michael Catharus, the bastard of
+Constantine his second son. In this project of excluding his grandson
+Andronicus, Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 3) agrees with Cantacuzene,
+(l. i. c. 1, 2.)]
+
+Yet the capital, the clergy, and the senate, adhered to the person, or
+at least to the government, of the old emperor; and it was only in
+the provinces, by flight, and revolt, and foreign succor, that the
+malecontents could hope to vindicate their cause and subvert his throne.
+The soul of the enterprise was the great domestic John Cantacuzene;
+the sally from Constantinople is the first date of his actions and
+memorials; and if his own pen be most descriptive of his patriotism, an
+unfriendly historian has not refused to celebrate the zeal and ability
+which he displayed in the service of the young emperor. [89] That prince
+escaped from the capital under the pretence of hunting; erected his
+standard at Adrianople; and, in a few days, assembled fifty thousand
+horse and foot, whom neither honor nor duty could have armed against the
+Barbarians. Such a force might have saved or commanded the empire; but
+their counsels were discordant, their motions were slow and doubtful,
+and their progress was checked by intrigue and negotiation. The quarrel
+of the two Andronici was protracted, and suspended, and renewed, during
+a ruinous period of seven years. In the first treaty, the relics of
+the Greek empire were divided: Constantinople, Thessalonica, and
+the islands, were left to the elder, while the younger acquired the
+sovereignty of the greatest part of Thrace, from Philippi to the
+Byzantine limit. By the second treaty, he stipulated the payment of his
+troops, his immediate coronation, and an adequate share of the power and
+revenue of the state. The third civil war was terminated by the surprise
+of Constantinople, the final retreat of the old emperor, and the sole
+reign of his victorious grandson. The reasons of this delay may be found
+in the characters of the men and of the times. When the heir of the
+monarchy first pleaded his wrongs and his apprehensions, he was heard
+with pity and applause: and his adherents repeated on all sides the
+inconsistent promise, that he would increase the pay of the soldiers and
+alleviate the burdens of the people. The grievances of forty years were
+mingled in his revolt; and the rising generation was fatigued by the
+endless prospect of a reign, whose favorites and maxims were of other
+times. The youth of Andronicus had been without spirit, his age was
+without reverence: his taxes produced an unusual revenue of five hundred
+thousand pounds; yet the richest of the sovereigns of Christendom was
+incapable of maintaining three thousand horse and twenty galleys, to
+resist the destructive progress of the Turks. [9] "How different," said
+the younger Andronicus, "is my situation from that of the son of Philip!
+Alexander might complain, that his father would leave him nothing to
+conquer: alas! my grandsire will leave me nothing to lose." But the
+Greeks were soon admonished, that the public disorders could not be
+healed by a civil war; and that their young favorite was not destined to
+be the savior of a falling empire. On the first repulse, his party was
+broken by his own levity, their intestine discord, and the intrigues of
+the ancient court, which tempted each malecontent to desert or betray
+the cause of the rebellion. Andronicus the younger was touched with
+remorse, or fatigued with business, or deceived by negotiation: pleasure
+rather than power was his aim; and the license of maintaining a thousand
+hounds, a thousand hawks, and a thousand huntsmen, was sufficient to
+sully his fame and disarm his ambition.
+
+[Footnote 89: The conduct of Cantacuzene, by his own showing, was
+inexplicable. He was unwilling to dethrone the old emperor, and
+dissuaded the immediate march on Constantinople. The young Andronicus,
+he says, entered into his views, and wrote to warn the emperor of his
+danger when the march was determined. Cantacuzenus, in Nov. Byz. Hist.
+Collect. vol. i. p. 104, &c.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See Nicephorus Gregoras, l. viii. c. 6. The younger
+Andronicus complained, that in four years and four months a sum
+of 350,000 byzants of gold was due to him for the expenses of his
+household, (Cantacuzen l. i. c. 48.) Yet he would have remitted the
+debt, if he might have been allowed to squeeze the farmers of the
+revenue.]
+
+Let us now survey the catastrophe of this busy plot, and the final
+situation of the principal actors. [10] The age of Andronicus was
+consumed in civil discord; and, amidst the events of war and treaty, his
+power and reputation continually decayed, till the fatal night in which
+the gates of the city and palace were opened without resistance to
+his grandson. His principal commander scorned the repeated warnings
+of danger; and retiring to rest in the vain security of ignorance,
+abandoned the feeble monarch, with some priests and pages, to the
+terrors of a sleepless night. These terrors were quickly realized by the
+hostile shouts, which proclaimed the titles and victory of Andronicus
+the younger; and the aged emperor, falling prostrate before an image of
+the Virgin, despatched a suppliant message to resign the sceptre, and
+to obtain his life at the hands of the conqueror. The answer of his
+grandson was decent and pious; at the prayer of his friends, the younger
+Andronicus assumed the sole administration; but the elder still enjoyed
+the name and preeminence of the first emperor, the use of the great
+palace, and a pension of twenty-four thousand pieces of gold, one
+half of which was assigned on the royal treasury, and the other on
+the fishery of Constantinople. But his impotence was soon exposed to
+contempt and oblivion; the vast silence of the palace was disturbed
+only by the cattle and poultry of the neighborhood, [101] which roved with
+impunity through the solitary courts; and a reduced allowance of ten
+thousand pieces of gold [11] was all that he could ask, and more than he
+could hope. His calamities were imbittered by the gradual extinction of
+sight; his confinement was rendered each day more rigorous; and during
+the absence and sickness of his grandson, his inhuman keepers, by the
+threats of instant death, compelled him to exchange the purple for the
+monastic habit and profession. The monk _Antony_ had renounced the pomp
+of the world; yet he had occasion for a coarse fur in the winter season,
+and as wine was forbidden by his confessor, and water by his physician,
+the sherbet of Egypt was his common drink. It was not without difficulty
+that the late emperor could procure three or four pieces to satisfy
+these simple wants; and if he bestowed the gold to relieve the more
+painful distress of a friend, the sacrifice is of some weight in
+the scale of humanity and religion. Four years after his abdication,
+Andronicus or Antony expired in a cell, in the seventy-fourth year of
+his age: and the last strain of adulation could only promise a more
+splendid crown of glory in heaven than he had enjoyed upon earth. [12] [121]
+
+[Footnote 10: I follow the chronology of Nicephorus Gregoras, who is
+remarkably exact. It is proved that Cantacuzene has mistaken the dates
+of his own actions, or rather that his text has been corrupted by
+ignorant transcribers.]
+
+[Footnote 101: And the washerwomen, according to Nic. Gregoras, p.
+431.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 11: I have endeavored to reconcile the 24,000 pieces of
+Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1) with the 10,000 of Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.
+ix. c. 2;) the one of whom wished to soften, the other to magnify, the
+hardships of the old emperor.]
+
+[Footnote 12: See Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. ix. 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, l. x. c.
+1.) The historian had tasted of the prosperity, and shared the retreat,
+of his benefactor; and that friendship which "waits or to the scaffold
+or the cell," should not lightly be accused as "a hireling, a prostitute
+to praise." * Note: But it may be accused of unparalleled absurdity. He
+compares the extinction of the feeble old man to that of the sun: his
+coffin is to be floated like Noah's ark by a deluge of tears.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 121: Prodigies (according to Nic. Gregoras, p. 460) announced
+the departure of the old and imbecile Imperial Monk from his earthly
+prison.--M.]
+
+Nor was the reign of the younger, more glorious or fortunate than that
+of the elder, Andronicus. [13] He gathered the fruits of ambition; but
+the taste was transient and bitter: in the supreme station he lost the
+remains of his early popularity; and the defects of his character became
+still more conspicuous to the world. The public reproach urged him to
+march in person against the Turks; nor did his courage fail in the
+hour of trial; but a defeat and a wound were the only trophies of his
+expedition in Asia, which confirmed the establishment of the Ottoman
+monarchy. The abuses of the civil government attained their full
+maturity and perfection: his neglect of forms, and the confusion of
+national dresses, are deplored by the Greeks as the fatal symptoms
+of the decay of the empire. Andronicus was old before his time; the
+intemperance of youth had accelerated the infirmities of age; and after
+being rescued from a dangerous malady by nature, or physic, or the
+Virgin, he was snatched away before he had accomplished his forty-fifth
+year. He was twice married; and, as the progress of the Latins in arms
+and arts had softened the prejudices of the Byzantine court, his two
+wives were chosen in the princely houses of Germany and Italy. The
+first, Agnes at home, Irene in Greece, was daughter of the duke of
+Brunswick. Her father [14] was a petty lord [15] in the poor and savage
+regions of the north of Germany: [16] yet he derived some revenue from
+his silver mines; [17] and his family is celebrated by the Greeks as the
+most ancient and noble of the Teutonic name. [18] After the death of this
+childish princess, Andronicus sought in marriage Jane, the sister of
+the count of Savoy; [19] and his suit was preferred to that of the French
+king. [20] The count respected in his sister the superior majesty of a
+Roman empress: her retinue was composed of knights and ladies; she
+was regenerated and crowned in St. Sophia, under the more orthodox
+appellation of Anne; and, at the nuptial feast, the Greeks and Italians
+vied with each other in the martial exercises of tilts and tournaments.
+
+[Footnote 13: The sole reign of Andronicus the younger is described by
+Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1--40, p. 191--339) and Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.
+ix c. 7--l. xi. c. 11, p. 262--361.)]
+
+[Footnote 14: Agnes, or Irene, was the daughter of Duke Henry the
+Wonderful, the chief of the house of Brunswick, and the fourth in
+descent from the famous Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria,
+and conqueror of the Sclavi on the Baltic coast. Her brother Henry was
+surnamed the _Greek_, from his two journeys into the East: but these
+journeys were subsequent to his sister's marriage; and I am ignorant
+_how_ Agnes was discovered in the heart of Germany, and recommended
+to the Byzantine court. (Rimius, Memoirs of the House of Brunswick, p.
+126--137.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Henry the Wonderful was the founder of the branch of
+Grubenhagen, extinct in the year 1596, (Rimius, p. 287.) He resided in
+the castle of Wolfenbuttel, and possessed no more than a sixth part of
+the allodial estates of Brunswick and Luneburgh, which the Guelph family
+had saved from the confiscation of their great fiefs. The frequent
+partitions among brothers had almost ruined the princely houses of
+Germany, till that just, but pernicious, law was slowly superseded by
+the right of primogeniture. The principality of Grubenhagen, one of
+the last remains of the Hercynian forest, is a woody, mountainous,
+and barren tract, (Busching's Geography, vol. vi. p. 270--286, English
+translation.)]
+
+[Footnote 16: The royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburgh will teach
+us, how justly, in a much later period, the north of Germany deserved
+the epithets of poor and barbarous. (Essai sur les Murs, &c.) In the
+year 1306, in the woods of Luneburgh, some wild people of the Vened race
+were allowed to bury alive their infirm and useless parents. (Rimius, p.
+136.)]
+
+[Footnote 17: The assertion of Tacitus, that Germany was destitute of
+the precious metals, must be taken, even in his own time, with some
+limitation, (Germania, c. 5. Annal. xi. 20.) According to Spener,
+(Hist. Germanię Pragmatica, tom. i. p. 351,) _Argentifodin_ in Hercyniis
+montibus, imperante Othone magno (A.D. 968) primum apertę, largam etiam
+opes augendi dederunt copiam: but Rimius (p. 258, 259) defers till the
+year 1016 the discovery of the silver mines of Grubenhagen, or the Upper
+Hartz, which were productive in the beginning of the xivth century, and
+which still yield a considerable revenue to the house of Brunswick.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Cantacuzene has given a most honorable testimony, hn d' ek
+Germanvn auth Jugathr doukoV nti Mprouzouhk, (the modern Greeks employ
+the nt for the d, and the mp for the b, and the whole will read in the
+Italian idiom di Brunzuic,) tou par autoiV epijanestatou, kai?iamprothti
+pantaV touV omojulouV uperballontoV. The praise is just in itself, and
+pleasing to an English ear.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Anne, or Jane, was one of the four daughters of Amedée
+the Great, by a second marriage, and half-sister of his successor Edward
+count of Savoy. (Anderson's Tables, p. 650. See Cantacuzene, l. i. c.
+40--42.)]
+
+[Footnote 20: That king, if the fact be true, must have been Charles
+the Fair who in five years (1321--1326) was married to three wives,
+(Anderson, p. 628.) Anne of Savoy arrived at Constantinople in February,
+1326.]
+
+The empress Anne of Savoy survived her husband: their son, John
+Palęologus, was left an orphan and an emperor in the ninth year of his
+age; and his weakness was protected by the first and most deserving
+of the Greeks. The long and cordial friendship of his father for John
+Cantacuzene is alike honorable to the prince and the subject. It had
+been formed amidst the pleasures of their youth: their families were
+almost equally noble; [21] and the recent lustre of the purple was amply
+compensated by the energy of a private education. We have seen that
+the young emperor was saved by Cantacuzene from the power of his
+grandfather; and, after six years of civil war, the same favorite
+brought him back in triumph to the palace of Constantinople. Under the
+reign of Andronicus the younger, the great domestic ruled the emperor
+and the empire; and it was by his valor and conduct that the Isle of
+Lesbos and the principality of Ętolia were restored to their ancient
+allegiance. His enemies confess, that, among the public robbers,
+Cantacuzene alone was moderate and abstemious; and the free and
+voluntary account which he produces of his own wealth [22] may sustain
+the presumption that he was devolved by inheritance, and not accumulated
+by rapine. He does not indeed specify the value of his money, plate,
+and jewels; yet, after a voluntary gift of two hundred vases of silver,
+after much had been secreted by his friends and plundered by his foes,
+his forfeit treasures were sufficient for the equipment of a fleet of
+seventy galleys. He does not measure the size and number of his estates;
+but his granaries were heaped with an incredible store of wheat and
+barley; and the labor of a thousand yoke of oxen might cultivate,
+according to the practice of antiquity, about sixty-two thousand five
+hundred acres of arable land. [23] His pastures were stocked with two
+thousand five hundred brood mares, two hundred camels, three hundred
+mules, five hundred asses, five thousand horned cattle, fifty thousand
+hogs, and seventy thousand sheep: [24] a precious record of rural
+opulence, in the last period of the empire, and in a land, most probably
+in Thrace, so repeatedly wasted by foreign and domestic hostility.
+The favor of Cantacuzene was above his fortune. In the moments of
+familiarity, in the hour of sickness, the emperor was desirous to level
+the distance between them and pressed his friend to accept the diadem
+and purple. The virtue of the great domestic, which is attested by his
+own pen, resisted the dangerous proposal; but the last testament of
+Andronicus the younger named him the guardian of his son, and the regent
+of the empire.
+
+[Footnote 21: The noble race of the Cantacuzeni (illustrious from the
+xith century in the Byzantine annals) was drawn from the Paladins of
+France, the heroes of those romances which, in the xiiith century, were
+translated and read by the Greeks, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 258.)]
+
+[Footnote 22: See Cantacuzene, (l. iii. c. 24, 30, 36.)]
+
+[Footnote 23: Saserna, in Gaul, and Columella, in Italy or Spain, allow
+two yoke of oxen, two drivers, and six laborers, for two hundred jugera
+(125 English acres) of arable land, and three more men must be added if
+there be much underwood, (Columella de Re Rustica, l. ii. c. 13, p 441,
+edit. Gesner.)]
+
+[Footnote 24: In this enumeration (l. iii. c. 30) the French translation
+of the president Cousin is blotted with three palpable and essential
+errors. 1. He omits the 1000 yoke of working oxen. 2. He interprets the
+pentakosiai proV diaciliaiV, by the number of fifteen hundred. * 3. He
+confounds myriads with chiliads, and gives Cantacuzene no more than 5000
+hogs. Put not your trust in translations! Note: * There seems to be
+another reading, ciliaiV. Niebuhr's edit. in
+loc.--M.]
+
+Had the regent found a suitable return of obedience and gratitude,
+perhaps he would have acted with pure and zealous fidelity in the
+service of his pupil. [25] A guard of five hundred soldiers watched over
+his person and the palace; the funeral of the late emperor was decently
+performed; the capital was silent and submissive; and five hundred
+letters, which Cantacuzene despatched in the first month, informed
+the provinces of their loss and their duty. The prospect of a tranquil
+minority was blasted by the great duke or admiral Apocaucus, and to
+exaggerate _his_ perfidy, the Imperial historian is pleased to magnify
+his own imprudence, in raising him to that office against the advice of
+his more sagacious sovereign. Bold and subtle, rapacious and profuse,
+the avarice and ambition of Apocaucus were by turns subservient to each
+other; and his talents were applied to the ruin of his country.
+His arrogance was heightened by the command of a naval force and an
+impregnable castle, and under the mask of oaths and flattery he secretly
+conspired against his benefactor. The female court of the empress was
+bribed and directed; he encouraged Anne of Savoy to assert, by the law
+of nature, the tutelage of her son; the love of power was disguised by
+the anxiety of maternal tenderness: and the founder of the Palęologi had
+instructed his posterity to dread the example of a perfidious guardian.
+The patriarch John of Apri was a proud and feeble old man, encompassed
+by a numerous and hungry kindred. He produced an obsolete epistle of
+Andronicus, which bequeathed the prince and people to his pious care:
+the fate of his predecessor Arsenius prompted him to prevent, rather
+than punish, the crimes of a usurper; and Apocaucus smiled at the
+success of his own flattery, when he beheld the Byzantine priest
+assuming the state and temporal claims of the Roman pontiff. [26] Between
+three persons so different in their situation and character, a private
+league was concluded: a shadow of authority was restored to the senate;
+and the people was tempted by the name of freedom. By this powerful
+confederacy, the great domestic was assaulted at first with clandestine,
+at length with open, arms. His prerogatives were disputed; his opinions
+slighted; his friends persecuted; and his safety was threatened both in
+the camp and city. In his absence on the public service, he was
+accused of treason; proscribed as an enemy of the church and state; and
+delivered with all his adherents to the sword of justice, the
+vengeance of the people, and the power of the devil; his fortunes were
+confiscated; his aged mother was cast into prison; [261] all his past
+services were buried in oblivion; and he was driven by injustice to
+perpetrate the crime of which he was accused. [27] From the review of
+his preceding conduct, Cantacuzene appears to have been guiltless of any
+treasonable designs; and the only suspicion of his innocence must arise
+from the vehemence of his protestations, and the sublime purity which
+he ascribes to his own virtue. While the empress and the patriarch
+still affected the appearances of harmony, he repeatedly solicited the
+permission of retiring to a private, and even a monastic, life. After
+he had been declared a public enemy, it was his fervent wish to throw
+himself at the feet of the young emperor, and to receive without a
+murmur the stroke of the executioner: it was not without reluctance that
+he listened to the voice of reason, which inculcated the sacred duty of
+saving his family and friends, and proved that he could only save them
+by drawing the sword and assuming the Imperial title.
+
+[Footnote 25: See the regency and reign of John Cantacuzenus, and the
+whole progress of the civil war, in his own history, (l. iii. c. 1--100,
+p. 348--700,) and in that of Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. xii. c. 1--l. xv.
+c. 9, p. 353--492.)]
+
+[Footnote 26: He assumes the royal privilege of red shoes or buskins;
+placed on his head a mitre of silk and gold; subscribed his epistles
+with hyacinth or green ink, and claimed for the new, whatever
+Constantine had given to the ancient, Rome, (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 36.
+Nic. Gregoras, l. xiv. c. 3.)]
+
+[Footnote 261: She died there through persecution and neglect.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Nic. Gregoras (l. xii. c. 5) confesses the innocence and
+virtues of Cantacuzenus, the guilt and flagitious vices of Apocaucus;
+nor does he dissemble the motive of his personal and religious enmity
+to the former; nun de dia kakian allwn, aitioV o praotatoV thV tvn olwn
+edoxaV? eioai jqoraV. Note: The alloi were the religious enemies and
+persecutors of Nicephorus.--M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.--Part II.
+
+In the strong city of Demotica, his peculiar domain, the emperor John
+Cantacuzenus was invested with the purple buskins: his right leg was
+clothed by his noble kinsmen, the left by the Latin chiefs, on whom he
+conferred the order of knighthood. But even in this act of revolt, he
+was still studious of loyalty; and the titles of John Palęologus and
+Anne of Savoy were proclaimed before his own name and that of his wife
+Irene. Such vain ceremony is a thin disguise of rebellion, nor are there
+perhaps any personal wrongs that can authorize a subject to take arms
+against his sovereign: but the want of preparation and success may
+confirm the assurance of the usurper, that this decisive step was the
+effect of necessity rather than of choice. Constantinople adhered to
+the young emperor; the king of Bulgaria was invited to the relief of
+Adrianople: the principal cities of Thrace and Macedonia, after some
+hesitation, renounced their obedience to the great domestic; and the
+leaders of the troops and provinces were induced, by their private
+interest, to prefer the loose dominion of a woman and a priest. [271] The
+army of Cantacuzene, in sixteen divisions, was stationed on the banks
+of the Melas to tempt or to intimidate the capital: it was dispersed
+by treachery or fear; and the officers, more especially the mercenary
+Latins, accepted the bribes, and embraced the service, of the Byzantine
+court. After this loss, the rebel emperor (he fluctuated between the two
+characters) took the road of Thessalonica with a chosen remnant; but
+he failed in his enterprise on that important place; and he was closely
+pursued by the great duke, his enemy Apocaucus, at the head of a
+superior power by sea and land. Driven from the coast, in his march, or
+rather flight, into the mountains of Servia, Cantacuzene assembled his
+troops to scrutinize those who were worthy and willing to accompany his
+broken fortunes. A base majority bowed and retired; and his trusty band
+was diminished to two thousand, and at last to five hundred, volunteers.
+The _cral_, [28] or despot of the Servians received him with general
+hospitality; but the ally was insensibly degraded to a suppliant, a
+hostage, a captive; and in this miserable dependence, he waited at the
+door of the Barbarian, who could dispose of the life and liberty of a
+Roman emperor. The most tempting offers could not persuade the cral to
+violate his trust; but he soon inclined to the stronger side; and his
+friend was dismissed without injury to a new vicissitude of hopes and
+perils. Near six years the flame of discord burnt with various success
+and unabated rage: the cities were distracted by the faction of the
+nobles and the plebeians; the Cantacuzeni and Palęologi: and the
+Bulgarians, the Servians, and the Turks, were invoked on both sides
+as the instruments of private ambition and the common ruin. The regent
+deplored the calamities, of which he was the author and victim: and his
+own experience might dictate a just and lively remark on the different
+nature of foreign and civil war. "The former," said he, "is the external
+warmth of summer, always tolerable, and often beneficial; the latter is
+the deadly heat of a fever, which consumes without a remedy the vitals
+of the constitution." [29]
+
+[Footnote 271: Cantacuzene asserts, that in all the cities, the populace
+were on the side of the emperor, the aristocracy on his. The
+populace took the opportunity of rising and plundering the wealthy as
+Cantacuzenites, vol. iii. c. 29 Ages of common oppression and ruin had
+not extinguished these republican factions.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 28: The princes of Servia (Ducange, Famil. Dalmaticę, &c.,
+c. 2, 3, 4, 9) were styled Despots in Greek, and Cral in their native
+idiom, (Ducange, Gloss. Gręc. p. 751.) That title, the equivalent
+of king, appears to be of Sclavonic origin, from whence it has been
+borrowed by the Hungarians, the modern Greeks, and even by the Turks,
+(Leunclavius, Pandect. Turc. p. 422,) who reserve the name of Padishah
+for the emperor. To obtain the latter instead of the former is the
+ambition of the French at Constantinople, (Aversissement ą l'Histoire de
+Timur Bec, p. 39.)]
+
+[Footnote 29: Nic. Gregoras, l. xii. c. 14. It is surprising that
+Cantacuzene has not inserted this just and lively image in his own
+writings.]
+
+The introduction of barbarians and savages into the contests of
+civilized nations, is a measure pregnant with shame and mischief; which
+the interest of the moment may compel, but which is reprobated by the
+best principles of humanity and reason. It is the practice of both sides
+to accuse their enemies of the guilt of the first alliances; and those
+who fail in their negotiations are loudest in their censure of the
+example which they envy and would gladly imitate. The Turks of Asia were
+less barbarous perhaps than the shepherds of Bulgaria and Servia; but
+their religion rendered them implacable foes of Rome and Christianity.
+To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two factions vied with
+each other in baseness and profusion: the dexterity of Cantacuzene
+obtained the preference: but the succor and victory were dearly
+purchased by the marriage of his daughter with an infidel, the captivity
+of many thousand Christians, and the passage of the Ottomans into
+Europe, the last and fatal stroke in the fall of the Roman empire. The
+inclining scale was decided in his favor by the death of Apocaucus, the
+just though singular retribution of his crimes. A crowd of nobles or
+plebeians, whom he feared or hated, had been seized by his orders in
+the capital and the provinces; and the old palace of Constantine was
+assigned as the place of their confinement. Some alterations in raising
+the walls, and narrowing the cells, had been ingeniously contrived
+to prevent their escape, and aggravate their misery; and the work
+was incessantly pressed by the daily visits of the tyrant. His guards
+watched at the gate, and as he stood in the inner court to overlook
+the architects, without fear or suspicion, he was assaulted and
+laid breathless on the ground, by two [291] resolute prisoners of the
+Palęologian race, [30] who were armed with sticks, and animated by
+despair. On the rumor of revenge and liberty, the captive multitude
+broke their fetters, fortified their prison, and exposed from the
+battlements the tyrant's head, presuming on the favor of the people and
+the clemency of the empress. Anne of Savoy might rejoice in the fall of
+a haughty and ambitious minister, but while she delayed to resolve or
+to act, the populace, more especially the mariners, were excited by the
+widow of the great duke to a sedition, an assault, and a massacre. The
+prisoners (of whom the far greater part were guiltless or inglorious of
+the deed) escaped to a neighboring church: they were slaughtered at the
+foot of the altar; and in his death the monster was not less bloody and
+venomous than in his life. Yet his talents alone upheld the cause of the
+young emperor; and his surviving associates, suspicious of each other,
+abandoned the conduct of the war, and rejected the fairest terms of
+accommodation. In the beginning of the dispute, the empress felt, and
+complained, that she was deceived by the enemies of Cantacuzene: the
+patriarch was employed to preach against the forgiveness of injuries;
+and her promise of immortal hatred was sealed by an oath, under the
+penalty of excommunication. [31] But Anne soon learned to hate without a
+teacher: she beheld the misfortunes of the empire with the indifference
+of a stranger: her jealousy was exasperated by the competition of a
+rival empress; and on the first symptoms of a more yielding temper, she
+threatened the patriarch to convene a synod, and degrade him from
+his office. Their incapacity and discord would have afforded the most
+decisive advantage; but the civil war was protracted by the weakness
+of both parties; and the moderation of Cantacuzene has not escaped
+the reproach of timidity and indolence. He successively recovered the
+provinces and cities; and the realm of his pupil was measured by the
+walls of Constantinople; but the metropolis alone counterbalanced the
+rest of the empire; nor could he attempt that important conquest till he
+had secured in his favor the public voice and a private correspondence.
+An Italian, of the name of Facciolati, [32] had succeeded to the office
+of great duke: the ships, the guards, and the golden gate, were subject
+to his command; but his humble ambition was bribed to become the
+instrument of treachery; and the revolution was accomplished without
+danger or bloodshed. Destitute of the powers of resistance, or the hope
+of relief, the inflexible Anne would have still defended the palace,
+and have smiled to behold the capital in flames, rather than in the
+possession of a rival. She yielded to the prayers of her friends and
+enemies; and the treaty was dictated by the conqueror, who professed a
+loyal and zealous attachment to the son of his benefactor. The marriage
+of his daughter with John Palęologus was at length consummated:
+the hereditary right of the pupil was acknowledged; but the sole
+administration during ten years was vested in the guardian. Two emperors
+and three empresses were seated on the Byzantine throne; and a general
+amnesty quieted the apprehensions, and confirmed the property, of the
+most guilty subjects. The festival of the coronation and nuptials was
+celebrated with the appearances of concord and magnificence, and both
+were equally fallacious. During the late troubles, the treasures of
+the state, and even the furniture of the palace, had been alienated or
+embezzled; the royal banquet was served in pewter or earthenware; and
+such was the proud poverty of the times, that the absence of gold and
+jewels was supplied by the paltry artifices of glass and gilt-leather.
+[33]
+
+[Footnote 291: Nicephorus says four, p.734.]
+
+[Footnote 30: The two avengers were both Palęologi, who might resent,
+with royal indignation, the shame of their chains. The tragedy of
+Apocaucus may deserve a peculiar reference to Cantacuzene (l. iii. c.
+86) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xiv. c. 10.)]
+
+[Footnote 31: Cantacuzene accuses the patriarch, and spares the empress,
+the mother of his sovereign, (l. iii. 33, 34,) against whom Nic.
+Gregoras expresses a particular animosity, (l. xiv. 10, 11, xv. 5.) It
+is true that they do not speak exactly of the same time.]
+
+[Footnote 32: The traitor and treason are revealed by Nic. Gregoras,
+(l. xv. c. 8;) but the name is more discreetly suppressed by his great
+accomplice, (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 99.)]
+
+[Footnote 33: Nic. Greg. l. xv. 11. There were, however, some true
+pearls, but very thinly sprinkled. The rest of the stones had only
+pantodaphn croian proV to diaugeV.]
+
+I hasten to conclude the personal history of John Cantacuzene. [34] He
+triumphed and reigned; but his reign and triumph were clouded by the
+discontent of his own and the adverse faction. His followers might style
+the general amnesty an act of pardon for his enemies, and of oblivion
+for his friends: [35] in his cause their estates had been forfeited or
+plundered; and as they wandered naked and hungry through the streets,
+they cursed the selfish generosity of a leader, who, on the throne of
+the empire, might relinquish without merit his private inheritance. The
+adherents of the empress blushed to hold their lives and fortunes by the
+precarious favor of a usurper; and the thirst of revenge was concealed
+by a tender concern for the succession, and even the safety, of her son.
+They were justly alarmed by a petition of the friends of Cantacuzene,
+that they might be released from their oath of allegiance to the
+Palęologi, and intrusted with the defence of some cautionary towns; a
+measure supported with argument and eloquence; and which was rejected
+(says the Imperial historian) "by _my_ sublime, and almost incredible
+virtue." His repose was disturbed by the sound of plots and seditions;
+and he trembled lest the lawful prince should be stolen away by some
+foreign or domestic enemy, who would inscribe his name and his wrongs in
+the banners of rebellion. As the son of Andronicus advanced in the years
+of manhood, he began to feel and to act for himself; and his rising
+ambition was rather stimulated than checked by the imitation of his
+father's vices. If we may trust his own professions, Cantacuzene labored
+with honest industry to correct these sordid and sensual appetites, and
+to raise the mind of the young prince to a level with his fortune. In
+the Servian expedition, the two emperors showed themselves in cordial
+harmony to the troops and provinces; and the younger colleague was
+initiated by the elder in the mysteries of war and government. After the
+conclusion of the peace, Palęologus was left at Thessalonica, a royal
+residence, and a frontier station, to secure by his absence the peace
+of Constantinople, and to withdraw his youth from the temptations of a
+luxurious capital. But the distance weakened the powers of control,
+and the son of Andronicus was surrounded with artful or unthinking
+companions, who taught him to hate his guardian, to deplore his exile,
+and to vindicate his rights. A private treaty with the cral or despot
+of Servia was soon followed by an open revolt; and Cantacuzene, on
+the throne of the elder Andronicus, defended the cause of age and
+prerogative, which in his youth he had so vigorously attacked. At his
+request the empress-mother undertook the voyage of Thessalonica, and the
+office of mediation: she returned without success; and unless Anne of
+Savoy was instructed by adversity, we may doubt the sincerity, or at
+least the fervor, of her zeal. While the regent grasped the sceptre with
+a firm and vigorous hand, she had been instructed to declare, that the
+ten years of his legal administration would soon elapse; and that, after
+a full trial of the vanity of the world, the emperor Cantacuzene sighed
+for the repose of a cloister, and was ambitious only of a heavenly
+crown. Had these sentiments been genuine, his voluntary abdication would
+have restored the peace of the empire, and his conscience would have
+been relieved by an act of justice. Palęologus alone was responsible for
+his future government; and whatever might be his vices, they were
+surely less formidable than the calamities of a civil war, in which the
+Barbarians and infidels were again invited to assist the Greeks in their
+mutual destruction. By the arms of the Turks, who now struck a deep and
+everlasting root in Europe, Cantacuzene prevailed in the third contest
+in which he had been involved; and the young emperor, driven from the
+sea and land, was compelled to take shelter among the Latins of the Isle
+of Tenedos. His insolence and obstinacy provoked the victor to a step
+which must render the quarrel irreconcilable; and the association of
+his son Matthew, whom he invested with the purple, established the
+succession in the family of the Cantacuzeni. But Constantinople was
+still attached to the blood of her ancient princes; and this last
+injury accelerated the restoration of the rightful heir. A noble Genoese
+espoused the cause of Palęologus, obtained a promise of his sister, and
+achieved the revolution with two galleys and two thousand five hundred
+auxiliaries. Under the pretence of distress, they were admitted into the
+lesser port; a gate was opened, and the Latin shout of, "Long life and
+victory to the emperor, John Palęologus!" was answered by a general
+rising in his favor. A numerous and loyal party yet adhered to the
+standard of Cantacuzene: but he asserts in his history (does he hope for
+belief?) that his tender conscience rejected the assurance of conquest;
+that, in free obedience to the voice of religion and philosophy, he
+descended from the throne and embraced with pleasure the monastic habit
+and profession. [36] So soon as he ceased to be a prince, his successor
+was not unwilling that he should be a saint: the remainder of his life
+was devoted to piety and learning; in the cells of Constantinople
+and Mount Athos, the monk Joasaph was respected as the temporal and
+spiritual father of the emperor; and if he issued from his retreat, it
+was as the minister of peace, to subdue the obstinacy, and solicit the
+pardon, of his rebellious son. [37]
+
+[Footnote 34: From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene continues
+his history and that of the empire, one year beyond the abdication of
+his son Matthew, A.D. 1357, (l. iv. c. l--50, p. 705--911.) Nicephorus
+Gregoras ends with the synod of Constantinople, in the year 1351, (l.
+xxii. c. 3, p. 660; the rest, to the conclusion of the xxivth book, p.
+717, is all controversy;) and his fourteen last books are still MSS. in
+the king of France's library.]
+
+[Footnote 35: The emperor (Cantacuzen. l. iv. c. 1) represents his own
+virtues, and Nic. Gregoras (l. xv. c. 11) the complaints of his friends,
+who suffered by its effects. I have lent them the words of our poor
+cavaliers after the Restoration.]
+
+[Footnote 36: The awkward apology of Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c. 39--42,)
+who relates, with visible confusion, his own downfall, may be supplied
+by the less accurate, but more honest, narratives of Matthew Villani (l.
+iv. c. 46, in the Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xiv. p. 268) and Ducas, (c
+10, 11.)]
+
+[Footnote 37: Cantacuzene, in the year 1375, was honored with a letter
+from the pope, (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 250.) His death
+is placed by a respectable authority on the 20th of November, 1411,
+(Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 260.) But if he were of the age of his
+companion Andronicus the Younger, he must have lived 116 years; a rare
+instance of longevity, which in so illustrious a person would have
+attracted universal notice.]
+
+Yet in the cloister, the mind of Cantacuzene was still exercised by
+theological war. He sharpened a controversial pen against the Jews
+and Mahometans; [38] and in every state he defended with equal zeal the
+divine light of Mount Thabor, a memorable question which consummates the
+religious follies of the Greeks. The fakirs of India, [39] and the
+monks of the Oriental church, were alike persuaded, that in the total
+abstraction of the faculties of the mind and body, the purer spirit
+may ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion and
+practice of the monasteries of Mount Athos [40] will be best represented
+in the words of an abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. "When
+thou art alone in thy cell," says the ascetic teacher, "shut thy door,
+and seat thyself in a corner: raise thy mind above all things vain and
+transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and
+thy thoughts toward the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel;
+and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first, all
+will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night, you
+will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the
+place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light."
+This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an
+empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the
+pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly was
+confined to Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not inquisitive
+how the divine essence could be a _material_ substance, or how an
+_immaterial_ substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body. But
+in the reign of the younger Andronicus, these monasteries were visited
+by Barlaam, [41] a Calabrian monk, who was equally skilled in philosophy
+and theology; who possessed the language of the Greeks and Latins; and
+whose versatile genius could maintain their opposite creeds, according
+to the interest of the moment. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed
+to the curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer and Barlaam
+embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists, who placed the
+soul in the navel; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of heresy
+and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to renounce or
+dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren; and Gregory Palamas
+introduced a scholastic distinction between the essence and operation
+of God. His inaccessible essence dwells in the midst of an uncreated
+and eternal light; and this beatific vision of the saints had been
+manifested to the disciples on Mount Thabor, in the transfiguration
+of Christ. Yet this distinction could not escape the reproach of
+polytheism; the eternity of the light of Thabor was fiercely denied; and
+Barlaam still charged the Palamites with holding two eternal substances,
+a visible and an invisible God. From the rage of the monks of Mount
+Athos, who threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to Constantinople,
+where his smooth and specious manners introduced him to the favor of the
+great domestic and the emperor. The court and the city were involved
+in this theological dispute, which flamed amidst the civil war; but
+the doctrine of Barlaam was disgraced by his flight and apostasy: the
+Palamites triumphed; and their adversary, the patriarch John of Apri,
+was deposed by the consent of the adverse factions of the state. In the
+character of emperor and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the synod
+of the Greek church, which established, as an article of faith, the
+uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many insults, the reason
+of mankind was slightly wounded by the addition of a single absurdity.
+Many rolls of paper or parchment have been blotted; and the impenitent
+sectaries, who refused to subscribe the orthodox creed, were deprived
+of the honors of Christian burial; but in the next age the question was
+forgotten; nor can I learn that the axe or the fagot were employed for
+the extirpation of the Barlaamite heresy. [42]
+
+[Footnote 38: His four discourses, or books, were printed at Basil,
+1543, (Fabric Bibliot. Gręc. tom. vi. p. 473.) He composed them to
+satisfy a proselyte who was assaulted with letters from his friends of
+Ispahan. Cantacuzene had read the Koran; but I understand from Maracci
+that he adopts the vulgar prejudices and fables against Mahomet and his
+religion.]
+
+[Footnote 39: See the Voyage de Bernier, tom. i. p. 127.]
+
+[Footnote 40: Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 522, 523. Fleury,
+Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 22, 24, 107--114, &c. The former unfolds the
+causes with the judgment of a philosopher, the latter transcribes and
+transcribes and translates with the prejudices of a Catholic priest.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Basnage (in Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iv. p.
+363--368) has investigated the character and story of Barlaam. The
+duplicity of his opinions had inspired some doubts of the identity
+of his person. See likewise Fabricius, (Bibliot. Gręc. tom. x. p.
+427--432.)]
+
+[Footnote 42: See Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 39, 40, l. iv. c. 3, 23, 24,
+25) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xi. c. 10, l. xv. 3, 7, &c.,) whose last
+books, from the xixth to xxivth, are almost confined to a subject so
+interesting to the authors. Boivin, (in Vit. Nic. Gregorę,) from the
+unpublished books, and Fabricius, (Bibliot. Gręc. tom. x. p. 462--473,)
+or rather Montfaucon, from the MSS. of the Coislin library, have added
+some facts and documents.]
+
+For the conclusion of this chapter, I have reserved the Genoese war,
+which shook the throne of Cantacuzene, and betrayed the debility of the
+Greek empire. The Genoese, who, after the recovery of Constantinople,
+were seated in the suburb of Pera or Galata, received that honorable
+fief from the bounty of the emperor. They were indulged in the use of
+their laws and magistrates; but they submitted to the duties of vassals
+and subjects; the forcible word of _liegemen_[43] was borrowed from the
+Latin jurisprudence; and their _podesta_, or chief, before he entered
+on his office, saluted the emperor with loyal acclamations and vows of
+fidelity. Genoa sealed a firm alliance with the Greeks; and, in case of
+a defensive war, a supply of fifty empty galleys and a succor of fifty
+galleys, completely armed and manned, was promised by the republic to
+the empire. In the revival of a naval force, it was the aim of Michael
+Palęologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his vigorous
+government contained the Genoese of Galata within those limits which
+the insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to exceed. A sailor
+threatened that they should soon be masters of Constantinople, and slew
+the Greek who resented this national affront; and an armed vessel, after
+refusing to salute the palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in the
+Black Sea. Their countrymen threatened to support their cause; but the
+long and open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the Imperial
+troops; till, in the moment of the assault, the prostrate Genoese
+implored the clemency of their sovereign. The defenceless situation
+which secured their obedience exposed them to the attack of their
+Venetian rivals, who, in the reign of the elder Andronicus, presumed to
+violate the majesty of the throne. On the approach of their fleets, the
+Genoese, with their families and effects, retired into the city: their
+empty habitations were reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who had
+viewed the destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not by
+arms, but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageous
+to the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the dangerous
+license of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of introducing into
+the ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting lofty turrets; and of
+mounting a train of military engines on the rampart. The narrow bounds
+in which they had been circumscribed were insufficient for the growing
+colony; each day they acquired some addition of landed property; and the
+adjacent hills were covered with their villas and castles, which they
+joined and protected by new fortifications. [44] The navigation and trade
+of the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded the
+narrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea. In the reign
+of Michael Palęologus, their prerogative was acknowledged by the sultan
+of Egypt, who solicited and obtained the liberty of sending an annual
+ship for the purchase of slaves in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary:
+a liberty pregnant with mischief to the Christian cause; since these
+youths were transformed by education and discipline into the formidable
+Mamalukes. [45] From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged with
+superior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and their
+industry supplied the Greeks with fish and corn; two articles of food
+almost equally important to a superstitious people. The spontaneous
+bounty of nature appears to have bestowed the harvests of Ukraine, the
+produce of a rude and savage husbandry; and the endless exportation of
+salt fish and caviare is annually renewed by the enormous sturgeons that
+are caught at the mouth of the Don or Tanais, in their last station
+of the rich mud and shallow water of the Męotis. [46] The waters of the
+Oxus, the Caspian, the Volga, and the Don, opened a rare and laborious
+passage for the gems and spices of India; and after three months'
+march the caravans of Carizme met the Italian vessels in the harbors
+of Crimęa. [47] These various branches of trade were monopolized by the
+diligence and power of the Genoese. Their rivals of Venice and Pisa
+were forcibly expelled; the natives were awed by the castles and cities,
+which arose on the foundations of their humble factories; and their
+principal establishment of Caffa [48] was besieged without effect by the
+Tartar powers. Destitute of a navy, the Greeks were oppressed by these
+haughty merchants, who fed, or famished, Constantinople, according to
+their interest. They proceeded to usurp the customs, the fishery, and
+even the toll, of the Bosphorus; and while they derived from these
+objects a revenue of two hundred thousand pieces of gold, a remnant of
+thirty thousand was reluctantly allowed to the emperor. [49] The colony
+of Pera or Galata acted, in peace and war, as an independent state; and,
+as it will happen in distant settlements, the Genoese podesta too often
+forgot that he was the servant of his own masters.
+
+[Footnote 43: Pachymer (l. v. c. 10) very properly explains liziouV
+(_ligios_) by?lidiouV. The use of these words in the Greek and Latin of
+the feudal times may be amply understood from the Glossaries of Ducange,
+(Gręc. p. 811, 812. Latin. tom. iv. p. 109--111.)]
+
+[Footnote 44: The establishment and progress of the Genoese at Pera, or
+Galata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. i. p. 68, 69) from
+the Byzantine historians, Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 35, l. v. 10, 30, l. ix.
+15 l. xii. 6, 9,) Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. v. c. 4, l. vi. c. 11, l. ix.
+c. 5, l. ix. c. 1, l. xv. c. 1, 6,) and Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 12, l.
+ii. c. 29, &c.)]
+
+[Footnote 45: Both Pachymer (l. iii. c. 3, 4, 5) and Nic. Greg. (l. iv.
+c. 7) understand and deplore the effects of this dangerous indulgence.
+Bibars, sultan of Egypt, himself a Tartar, but a devout Mussulman,
+obtained from the children of Zingis the permission to build a stately
+mosque in the capital of Crimea, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii.
+p. 343.)]
+
+[Footnote 46: Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 48) was assured at
+Caffa, that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or twenty-six feet
+long, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and yielded three or
+four quintals of caviare. The corn of the Bosphorus had supplied the
+Athenians in the time of Demosthenes.]
+
+[Footnote 47: De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343, 344. Viaggi
+di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 400. But this land or water carriage could
+only be practicable when Tartary was united under a wise and powerful
+monarch.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Nic. Gregoras (l. xiii. c. 12) is judicious and well
+informed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea. Chardin describes
+the present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty days, he saw above 400
+sail employed in the corn and fish trade, (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p.
+46--48.)]
+
+[Footnote 49: See Nic. Gregoras, l. xvii. c. 1.]
+
+These usurpations were encouraged by the weakness of the elder
+Andronicus, and by the civil wars that afflicted his age and the
+minority of his grandson. The talents of Cantacuzene were employed to
+the ruin, rather than the restoration, of the empire; and after his
+domestic victory, he was condemned to an ignominious trial, whether the
+Greeks or the Genoese should reign in Constantinople. The merchants
+of Pera were offended by his refusal of some contiguous land,
+some commanding heights, which they proposed to cover with new
+fortifications; and in the absence of the emperor, who was detained at
+Demotica by sickness, they ventured to brave the debility of a female
+reign. A Byzantine vessel, which had presumed to fish at the mouth of
+the harbor, was sunk by these audacious strangers; the fishermen
+were murdered. Instead of suing for pardon, the Genoese demanded
+satisfaction; required, in a haughty strain, that the Greeks should
+renounce the exercise of navigation; and encountered with regular arms
+the first sallies of the popular indignation. They instantly occupied
+the debatable land; and by the labor of a whole people, of either sex
+and of every age, the wall was raised, and the ditch was sunk, with
+incredible speed. At the same time, they attacked and burnt two
+Byzantine galleys; while the three others, the remainder of the Imperial
+navy, escaped from their hands: the habitations without the gates,
+or along the shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the
+regent, of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of the
+city. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public consternation: the
+emperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he yielded to the obstinacy
+of his enemies, who rejected all reasonable terms, and to the ardor of
+his subjects, who threatened, in the style of Scripture, to break them
+in pieces like a potter's vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes,
+that he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses of the
+war; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the land, the
+other of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed by the evils of
+a mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who had believed that a
+few days would terminate the war, already murmured at their losses: the
+succors from their mother-country were delayed by the factions of Genoa;
+and the most cautious embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to
+remove their families and effects from the scene of hostility. In
+the spring, the Byzantine fleet, seven galleys and a train of smaller
+vessels, issued from the mouth of the harbor, and steered in a single
+line along the shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their sides to the
+beaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were composed of peasants and
+mechanics; nor was their ignorance compensated by the native courage of
+Barbarians: the wind was strong, the waves were rough; and no sooner
+did the Greeks perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leaped
+headlong into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. The
+troops that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were struck at
+the same moment with a similar panic; and the Genoese were astonished,
+and almost ashamed, at their double victory. Their triumphant vessels,
+crowned with flowers, and dragging after them the captive galleys,
+repeatedly passed and repassed before the palace: the only virtue of the
+emperor was patience; and the hope of revenge his sole consolation. Yet
+the distress of both parties interposed a temporary agreement; and the
+shame of the empire was disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power.
+Summoning the chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to despise the
+trivial object of the debate; and, after a mild reproof, most liberally
+granted the lands, which had been previously resigned to the seeming
+custody of his officers. [50]
+
+[Footnote 50: The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene (l. iv.
+c. 11 with obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras l. xvii. c.
+1--7) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest was less responsible
+than the prince for the defeat of the fleet.]
+
+But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to join
+his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa and her
+colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war, his moderation
+was provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants of Pera, who
+discharged from their rampart a large stone that fell in the midst of
+Constantinople. On his just complaint, they coldly blamed the imprudence
+of their engineer; but the next day the insult was repeated; and they
+exulted in a second proof that the royal city was not beyond the reach
+of their artillery. Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with the
+Venetians; but the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely felt in the
+balance of these opulent and powerful republics. [51] From the Straits
+of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their fleets encountered each
+other with various success; and a memorable battle was fought in the
+narrow sea, under the walls of Constantinople. It would not be an easy
+task to reconcile the accounts of the Greeks, the Venetians, and
+the Genoese; [52] and while I depend on the narrative of an impartial
+historian, [53] I shall borrow from each nation the facts that redound
+to their own disgrace, and the honor of their foes. The Venetians, with
+their allies the Catalans, had the advantage of number; and their
+fleet, with the poor addition of eight Byzantine galleys, amounted to
+seventy-five sail: the Genoese did not exceed sixty-four; but in those
+times their ships of war were distinguished by the superiority of their
+size and strength. The names and families of their naval commanders,
+Pisani and Doria, are illustrious in the annals of their country; but
+the personal merit of the former was eclipsed by the fame and abilities
+of his rival. They engaged in tempestuous weather; and the tumultuary
+conflict was continued from the dawn to the extinction of light.
+The enemies of the Genoese applaud their prowess; the friends of the
+Venetians are dissatisfied with their behavior; but all parties agree
+in praising the skill and boldness of the Catalans, [531] who, with many
+wounds, sustained the brunt of the action. On the separation of the
+fleets, the event might appear doubtful; but the thirteen Genoese
+galleys, that had been sunk or taken, were compensated by a double loss
+of the allies; of fourteen Venetians, ten Catalans, and two Greeks; [532]
+and even the grief of the conquerors expressed the assurance and habit
+of more decisive victories. Pisani confessed his defeat, by retiring
+into a fortified harbor, from whence, under the pretext of the orders of
+the senate, he steered with a broken and flying squadron for the Isle
+of Candia, and abandoned to his rivals the sovereignty of the sea. In a
+public epistle, [54] addressed to the doge and senate, Petrarch employs
+his eloquence to reconcile the maritime powers, the two luminaries of
+Italy. The orator celebrates the valor and victory of the Genoese,
+the first of men in the exercise of naval war: he drops a tear on the
+misfortunes of their Venetian brethren; but he exhorts them to pursue
+with fire and sword the base and perfidious Greeks; to purge the
+metropolis of the East from the heresy with which it was infected.
+Deserted by their friends, the Greeks were incapable of resistance; and
+three months after the battle, the emperor Cantacuzene solicited and
+subscribed a treaty, which forever banished the Venetians and Catalans,
+and granted to the Genoese a monopoly of trade, and almost a right of
+dominion. The Roman empire (I smile in transcribing the name) might soon
+have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the ambition of the republic
+had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power. A long
+contest of one hundred and thirty years was determined by the triumph
+of Venice; and the factions of the Genoese compelled them to seek for
+domestic peace under the protection of a foreign lord, the duke of
+Milan, or the French king. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of
+conquest; and the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigated
+the Euxine, till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude of
+Constantinople itself.
+
+[Footnote 51: The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c.
+18, p. 24, 25, 28--32,) who wishes to disguise what he dares not deny. I
+regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is still in MS. at Paris. * Note:
+This part of Nicephorus Gregoras has not been printed in the new
+edition of the Byzantine Historians. The editor expresses a hope that
+it may be undertaken by Hase. I should join in the regret of Gibbon,
+if these books contain any historical information: if they are but
+a continuation of the controversies which fill the last books in our
+present copies, they may as well sleep their eternal sleep in MS. as in
+print.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. xii. p. 144) refers to
+the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the continuator
+of Andrew Dandulus, tom. xii. p. 421, 422) and Genoa, (George Stella
+Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092;) both which I have
+diligently consulted in his great Collection of the Historians of
+Italy.]
+
+[Footnote 53: See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, l. ii. c.
+59, p. 145--147, c. 74, 75, p. 156, 157, in Muratori's Collection, tom.
+xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 531: Cantacuzene praises their bravery, but imputes their losses
+to their ignorance of the seas: they suffered more by the breakers than
+by the enemy, vol. iii. p. 224.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 532: Cantacuzene says that the Genoese lost twenty-eight ships
+with their crews, autandroi; the Venetians and Catalans sixteen,
+the Imperials, none Cantacuzene accuses Pisani of cowardice, in not
+following up the victory, and destroying the Genoese. But Pisani's
+conduct, and indeed Cantacuzene's account of the battle, betray the
+superiority of the Genoese.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 54: The Abbé de Sade (Mémoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom.
+iii. p. 257--263) translates this letter, which he copied from a MS.
+in the king of France's library. Though a servant of the duke of Milan,
+Petrarch pours forth his astonishment and grief at the defeat and
+despair of the Genoese in the following year, (p. 323--332.)]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part I.
+
+     Conquests Of Zingis Khan And The Moguls From China To
+     Poland.--Escape Of Constantinople And The Greeks.--Origin Of
+     The Ottoman Turks In Bithynia.--Reigns And Victories Of
+     Othman, Orchan, Amurath The First, And Bajazet The First.--
+     Foundation And Progress Of The Turkish Monarchy In Asia And
+     Europe.--Danger Of Constantinople And The Greek Empire.
+
+From the petty quarrels of a city and her suburbs, from the cowardice
+and discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend to the victorious
+Turks; whose domestic slavery was ennobled by martial discipline,
+religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the national character. The rise
+and progress of the Ottomans, the present sovereigns of Constantinople,
+are connected with the most important scenes of modern history; but they
+are founded on a previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls
+[100] and Tartars; whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive
+convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the surface of
+the globe. I have long since asserted my claim to introduce the nations,
+the immediate or remote authors of the fall of the Roman empire; nor can
+I refuse myself to those events, which, from their uncommon magnitude,
+will interest a philosophic mind in the history of blood. [1]
+
+[Footnote 100: Mongol seems to approach the nearest to the proper name
+of this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the Mondchoux, their
+neighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called themselves also Beda.
+This fact seems to have been proved by M. Schmidt against the French
+Orientalists. See De Brosset. Note on Le Beau, tom. xxii p. 402.]
+
+[Footnote 1: The reader is invited to review chapters xxii. to xxvi.,
+and xxiii. to xxxviii., the manners of pastoral nations, the conquests
+of Attila and the Huns, which were composed at a time when I entertained
+the wish, rather than the hope, of concluding my history.]
+
+From the spacious highlands between China, Siberia, and the Caspian Sea,
+the tide of emigration and war has repeatedly been poured. These ancient
+seats of the Huns and Turks were occupied in the twelfth century by many
+pastoral tribes, of the same descent and similar manners, which were
+united and led to conquest by the formidable Zingis. [101] In his ascent
+to greatness, that Barbarian (whose private appellation was Temugin) had
+trampled on the necks of his equals. His birth was noble; but it was the
+pride of victory, that the prince or people deduced his seventh ancestor
+from the immaculate conception of a virgin. His father had reigned over
+thirteen hordes, which composed about thirty or forty thousand families:
+above two thirds refused to pay tithes or obedience to his infant
+son; and at the age of thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against his
+rebellious subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was reduced to fly and
+to obey; but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth year
+he had established his fame and dominion over the circumjacent tribes.
+In a state of society, in which policy is rude and valor is universal,
+the ascendant of one man must be founded on his power and resolution to
+punish his enemies and recompense his friends. His first military league
+was ratified by the simple rites of sacrificing a horse and tasting of a
+running stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his followers the
+sweets and the bitters of life; and when he had shared among them his
+horses and apparel, he was rich in their gratitude and his own hopes.
+After his first victory, he placed seventy caldrons on the fire, and
+seventy of the most guilty rebels were cast headlong into the boiling
+water. The sphere of his attraction was continually enlarged by the
+ruin of the proud and the submission of the prudent; and the boldest
+chieftains might tremble, when they beheld, enchased in silver, the
+skull of the khan of Keraites; [2] who, under the name of Prester John,
+had corresponded with the Roman pontiff and the princes of Europe. The
+ambition of Temugin condescended to employ the arts of superstition;
+and it was from a naked prophet, who could ascend to heaven on a white
+horse, that he accepted the title of Zingis, [3] the _most great_; and
+a divine right to the conquest and dominion of the earth. In a
+general _couroultai_, or diet, he was seated on a felt, which was long
+afterwards revered as a relic, and solemnly proclaimed great khan, or
+emperor of the Moguls [4] and Tartars. [5] Of these kindred, though rival,
+names, the former had given birth to the imperial race; and the latter
+has been extended by accident or error over the spacious wilderness of
+the north.
+
+[Footnote 101: On the traditions of the early life of Zingis, see D'Ohson,
+Hist des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte
+des Ost-Mongolen, p. 66, &c., and Notes.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The khans of the Keraites were most probably incapable of
+reading the pompous epistles composed in their name by the Nestorian
+missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous wonders of an Indian
+kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the Presbyter or Priest John) had
+submitted to the rites of baptism and ordination, (Asseman, Bibliot
+Orient tom. iii. p. ii. p. 487--503.)]
+
+[Footnote 3: Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis, at least
+in French, seems to be the more fashionable spelling; but Abulghazi Khan
+must have known the true name of his ancestor. His etymology appears
+just: _Zin_, in the Mogul tongue, signifies _great_, and _gis_ is the
+superlative termination, (Hist. Généalogique des Tatars, part iii. p.
+194, 195.) From the same idea of magnitude, the appellation of _Zingis_
+is bestowed on the ocean.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The name of Moguls has prevailed among the Orientals, and
+still adheres to the titular sovereign, the Great Mogul of Hindastan. *
+Note: M. Remusat (sur les Langues Tartares, p. 233) justly observes,
+that Timour was a Turk, not a Mogul, and, p. 242, that probably there
+was not Mogul in the army of Baber, who established the Indian throne of
+the "Great Mogul."--M.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended from
+Tatar Khan, the brother of Mogul Khan, (see Abulghazi, part i. and ii.,)
+and once formed a horde of 70,000 families on the borders of Kitay, (p.
+103--112.) In the great invasion of Europe (A.D. 1238) they seem to
+have led the vanguard; and the similitude of the name of _Tartarei_,
+recommended that of Tartars to the Latins, (Matt. Paris, p. 398, &c.) *
+Note: This relationship, according to M. Klaproth, is fabulous, and
+invented by the Mahometan writers, who, from religious zeal, endeavored
+to connect the traditions of the nomads of Central Asia with those of
+the Old Testament, as preserved in the Koran. There is no trace of it in
+the Chinese writers. Tabl. de l'Asie, p. 156.--M.]
+
+The code of laws which Zingis dictated to his subjects was adapted
+to the preservation of a domestic peace, and the exercise of foreign
+hostility. The punishment of death was inflicted on the crimes of
+adultery, murder, perjury, and the capital thefts of a horse or ox; and
+the fiercest of men were mild and just in their intercourse with each
+other. The future election of the great khan was vested in the princes
+of his family and the heads of the tribes; and the regulations of the
+chase were essential to the pleasures and plenty of a Tartar camp. The
+victorious nation was held sacred from all servile labors, which were
+abandoned to slaves and strangers; and every labor was servile except
+the profession of arms. The service and discipline of the troops, who
+were armed with bows, cimeters, and iron maces, and divided by hundreds,
+thousands, and ten thousands, were the institutions of a veteran
+commander. Each officer and soldier was made responsible, under pain
+of death, for the safety and honor of his companions; and the spirit of
+conquest breathed in the law, that peace should never be granted unless
+to a vanquished and suppliant enemy. But it is the religion of Zingis
+that best deserves our wonder and applause. [501] The Catholic inquisitors
+of Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been confounded
+by the example of a Barbarian, who anticipated the lessons of
+philosophy, [6] and established by his laws a system of pure theism
+and perfect toleration. His first and only article of faith was the
+existence of one God, the Author of all good; who fills by his presence
+the heavens and earth, which he has created by his power. The Tartars
+and Moguls were addicted to the idols of their peculiar tribes; and many
+of them had been converted by the foreign missionaries to the religions
+of Moses, of Mahomet, and of Christ. These various systems in freedom
+and concord were taught and practised within the precincts of the same
+camp; and the Bonze, the Imam, the Rabbi, the Nestorian, and the Latin
+priest, enjoyed the same honorable exemption from service and tribute:
+in the mosque of Bochara, the insolent victor might trample the Koran
+under his horse's feet, but the calm legislator respected the prophets
+and pontiffs of the most hostile sects. The reason of Zingis was not
+informed by books: the khan could neither read nor write; and, except
+the tribe of the Igours, the greatest part of the Moguls and Tartars
+were as illiterate as their sovereign. [601] The memory of their exploits
+was preserved by tradition: sixty-eight years after the death of Zingis,
+these traditions were collected and transcribed; [7] the brevity of
+their domestic annals may be supplied by the Chinese, [8] Persians, [9]
+Armenians, [10] Syrians, [11] Arabians, [12] Greeks, [13] Russians, [14]
+Poles, [15] Hungarians, [16] and Latins; [17] and each nation will deserve
+credit in the relation of their own disasters and defeats. [18]
+
+[Footnote 501: Before his armies entered Thibet, he sent an embassy to
+Bogdosottnam-Dsimmo, a Lama high priest, with a letter to this effect:
+"I have chosen thee as high priest for myself and my empire. Repair then
+to me, and promote the present and future happiness of man: I will be
+thy supporter and protector: let us establish a system of religion,
+and unite it with the monarchy," &c. The high priest accepted the
+invitation; and the Mongol history literally terms this step the _period
+of the first respect for religion_; because the monarch, by his public
+profession, made it the religion of the state. Klaproth. "Travels in
+Caucasus," ch. 7, Eng. Trans. p. 92. Neither Dshingis nor his son and
+successor Oegodah had, on account of their continual wars, much leisure
+for the propagation of the religion of the Lama. By religion they
+understand a distinct, independent, sacred moral code, which has but
+one origin, one source, and one object. This notion they universally
+propagate, and even believe that the brutes, and all created beings,
+have a religion adapted to their sphere of action. The different forms
+of the various religions they ascribe to the difference of individuals,
+nations, and legislators. Never do you hear of their inveighing against
+any creed, even against the obviously absurd Schaman paganism, or of
+their persecuting others on that account. They themselves, on the
+other hand, endure every hardship, and even persecutions, with perfect
+resignation, and indulgently excuse the follies of others, nay, consider
+them as a motive for increased ardor in prayer, ch. ix. p. 109.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 6: A singular conformity may be found between the religious
+laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke, (Constitutions of Carolina, in his
+works, vol. iv. p. 535, 4to. edition, 1777.)]
+
+[Footnote 601: See the notice on Tha-tha-toung-o, the Ouogour minister of
+Tchingis, in Abel Remusat's 2d series of Recherch. Asiat. vol. ii. p.
+61. He taught the son of Tchingis to write: "He was the instructor of
+the Moguls in writing, of which they were before ignorant;" and hence
+the application of the Ouigour characters to the Mogul language cannot
+be placed earlier than the year 1204 or 1205, nor so late as the time of
+Pą-sse-pa, who lived under Khubilai. A new alphabet, approaching to that
+of Thibet, was introduced under Khubilai.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 7: In the year 1294, by the command of Cazan, khan of Persia,
+the fourth in descent from Zingis. From these traditions, his vizier
+Fadlallah composed a Mogul history in the Persian language, which has
+been used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Genghizcan, p. 537--539.) The
+Histoire Généalogique des Tatars (ą Leyde, 1726, in 12mo., 2 tomes) was
+translated by the Swedish prisoners in Siberia from the Mogul MS. of
+Abulgasi Bahadur Khan, a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over the
+Usbeks of Charasm, or Carizme, (A.D. 1644--1663.) He is of most value
+and credit for the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation. Of his
+nine parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the iid, from
+Mogul to Zingis; the iiid is the life of Zingis; the ivth, vth, vith,
+and viith, the general history of his four sons and their posterity; the
+viiith and ixth, the particular history of the descendants of Sheibani
+Khan, who reigned in Maurenahar and Charasm.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie des
+Mongous ses Successeurs, Conquerans de la Chine; tirée de l'Histoire
+de la Chine par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Société de Jesus, Missionaire
+ą Peking; ą Paris, 1739, in 4to. This translation is stamped with the
+Chinese character of domestic accuracy and foreign ignorance.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See the Histoire du Grand Genghizcan, premier Empereur des
+Moguls et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, ą Paris, 1710, in 12mo.; a
+work of ten years' labor, chiefly drawn from the Persian writers, among
+whom Nisavi, the secretary of Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and
+prejudices of a contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault
+of the originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of
+_Genghizcan_, _Mohammed_, _Gelaleddin_, &c., in the Bibliothčque
+Orientale of D'Herbelot. * Note: The preface to the Hist. des Mongols,
+(Paris, 1824) gives a catalogue of the Arabic and Persian authorities.--
+M.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Haithonus, or Aithonus, an Armenian prince, and afterwards
+a monk of Premontré, (Fabric, Bibliot. Lat. Medii Ęvi, tom. i. p.
+34,) dictated in the French language, his book _de Tartaris_, his
+old fellow-soldiers. It was immediately translated into Latin, and is
+inserted in the Novus Orbis of Simon Grynęus, (Basil, 1555, in folio.) *
+Note: A précis at the end of the new edition of Le Beau, Hist. des
+Empereurs, vol. xvii., by M. Brosset, gives large extracts from
+the accounts of the Armenian historians relating to the Mogul
+conquests.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy the
+conclusion of the ixth Dynasty of Abulpharagius, (vers. Pocock, Oxon.
+1663, in 4to.;) and his xth Dynasty is that of the Moguls of Persia.
+Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.) has extracted some facts from his
+Syriac writings, and the lives of the Jacobite maphrians, or primates of
+the East.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we may
+distinguish Abulfeda, sultan of Hamah in Syria, who fought in person,
+under the Mamaluke standard, against the Moguls.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 5, 6) has felt the
+necessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. He
+describes with truth and elegance the settlement and manners of the
+Moguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and corrupts the
+names of Zingis and his sons.]
+
+[Footnote 14: M. Levesque (Histoire de Russie, tom. ii.) has described
+the conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the patriarch Nicon, and the
+old chronicles.]
+
+[Footnote 15: For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica et
+Europęa of Matthew ą Michou, or De Michoviā, a canon and physician of
+Cracow, (A.D. 1506,) inserted in the Novus Orbis of Grynęus. Fabric
+Bibliot. Latin. Medię et Infimę Ętatis, tom. v. p. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 16: I should quote Thuroczius, the oldest general historian
+(pars ii. c. 74, p. 150) in the 1st volume of the Scriptores Rerum
+Hungaricarum, did not the same volume contain the original narrative of
+a contemporary, an eye-witness, and a sufferer, (M. Rogerii, Hungari,
+Varadiensis Capituli Canonici, Carmen miserabile, seu Historia super
+Destructione Regni Hungarię Temporibus Belę IV. Regis per Tartaros
+facta, p. 292--321;) the best picture that I have ever seen of all the
+circumstances of a Barbaric invasion.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic documents,
+the danger and distress of Europe, (consult the word _Tartari_ in his
+copious Index.) From motives of zeal and curiosity, the court of the
+great khan in the xiiith century was visited by two friars, John de
+Plano Carpini, and William Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetian
+gentleman. The Latin relations of the two former are inserted in the
+1st volume of Hackluyt; the Italian original or version of the third
+(Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ęvi, tom. ii. p. 198, tom. v. p. 25) may
+be found in the second tome of Ramusio.]
+
+[Footnote 18: In his great History of the Huns, M. de Guignes has
+most amply treated of Zingis Khan and his successors. See tom. iii. l.
+xv.--xix., and in the collateral articles of the Seljukians of Roum,
+tom. ii. l. xi., the Carizmians, l. xiv., and the Mamalukes, tom. iv. l.
+xxi.; consult likewise the tables of the 1st volume. He is ever learned
+and accurate; yet I am only indebted to him for a general view, and some
+passages of Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text. *
+Note: To this catalogue of the historians of the Moguls may be added
+D'Ohson, Histoire des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, (from Arabic and
+Persian authorities,) Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte der Ost
+Mongolen, St. Petersburgh, 1829. This curious work, by Ssanang Ssetsen
+Chungtaidschi, published in the original Mongol, was written after the
+conversion of the nation to Buddhism: it is enriched with very valuable
+notes by the editor and translator; but, unfortunately, is very barren
+of information about the European and even the western Asiatic conquests
+of the Mongols.--M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part II.
+
+The arms of Zingis and his lieutenants successively reduced the hordes
+of the desert, who pitched their tents between the wall of China and the
+Volga; and the Mogul emperor became the monarch of the pastoral world,
+the lord of many millions of shepherds and soldiers, who felt their
+united strength, and were impatient to rush on the mild and wealthy
+climates of the south. His ancestors had been the tributaries of the
+Chinese emperors; and Temugin himself had been disgraced by a title of
+honor and servitude. The court of Pekin was astonished by an embassy
+from its former vassal, who, in the tone of the king of nations, exacted
+the tribute and obedience which he had paid, and who affected to treat
+the _son of heaven_ as the most contemptible of mankind. A haughty
+answer disguised their secret apprehensions; and their fears were soon
+justified by the march of innumerable squadrons, who pierced on all
+sides the feeble rampart of the great wall. Ninety cities were stormed,
+or starved, by the Moguls; ten only escaped; and Zingis, from a
+knowledge of the filial piety of the Chinese, covered his vanguard with
+their captive parents; an unworthy, and by degrees a fruitless, abuse of
+the virtue of his enemies. His invasion was supported by the revolt of a
+hundred thousand Khitans, who guarded the frontier: yet he listened to
+a treaty; and a princess of China, three thousand horses, five hundred
+youths, and as many virgins, and a tribute of gold and silk, were the
+price of his retreat. In his second expedition, he compelled the Chinese
+emperor to retire beyond the yellow river to a more southern residence.
+The siege of Pekin [19] was long and laborious: the inhabitants were
+reduced by famine to decimate and devour their fellow-citizens; when
+their ammunition was spent, they discharged ingots of gold and silver
+from their engines; but the Moguls introduced a mine to the centre of
+the capital; and the conflagration of the palace burnt above thirty
+days. China was desolated by Tartar war and domestic faction; and the
+five northern provinces were added to the empire of Zingis.
+
+[Footnote 19: More properly _Yen-king_, an ancient city, whose ruins
+still appear some furlongs to the south-east of the modern _Pekin_,
+which was built by Cublai Khan, (Gaubel, p. 146.) Pe-king and Nan-king
+are vague titles, the courts of the north and of the south. The identity
+and change of names perplex the most skilful readers of the Chinese
+geography, (p. 177.) * Note: And likewise in Chinese history--see Abel
+Remusat, Mel. Asiat. 2d tom. ii. p. 5.--M.]
+
+In the West, he touched the dominions of Mohammed, sultan of Carizme,
+who reigned from the Persian Gulf to the borders of India and Turkestan;
+and who, in the proud imitation of Alexander the Great, forgot the
+servitude and ingratitude of his fathers to the house of Seljuk. It was
+the wish of Zingis to establish a friendly and commercial intercourse
+with the most powerful of the Moslem princes: nor could he be tempted by
+the secret solicitations of the caliph of Bagdad, who sacrificed to his
+personal wrongs the safety of the church and state. A rash and inhuman
+deed provoked and justified the Tartar arms in the invasion of the
+southern Asia. [191] A caravan of three ambassadors and one hundred and
+fifty merchants were arrested and murdered at Otrar, by the command of
+Mohammed; nor was it till after a demand and denial of justice, till he
+had prayed and fasted three nights on a mountain, that the Mogul emperor
+appealed to the judgment of God and his sword. Our European battles,
+says a philosophic writer, [20] are petty skirmishes, if compared to the
+numbers that have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. Seven hundred
+thousand Moguls and Tartars are said to have marched under the standard
+of Zingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that extend to the north
+of the Sihon or Jaxartes, they were encountered by four hundred thousand
+soldiers of the sultan; and in the first battle, which was suspended
+by the night, one hundred and sixty thousand Carizmians were slain.
+Mohammed was astonished by the multitude and valor of his enemies: he
+withdrew from the scene of danger, and distributed his troops in the
+frontier towns; trusting that the Barbarians, invincible in the field,
+would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many regular
+sieges. But the prudence of Zingis had formed a body of Chinese
+engineers, skilled in the mechanic arts; informed perhaps of the secret
+of gunpowder, and capable, under his discipline, of attacking a foreign
+country with more vigor and success than they had defended their own.
+The Persian historians will relate the sieges and reduction of Otrar,
+Cogende, Bochara, Samarcand, Carizme, Herat, Merou, Nisabour, Balch,
+and Candahar; and the conquest of the rich and populous countries of
+Transoxiana, Carizme, and Chorazan. [204 The destructive hostilities of
+Attila and the Huns have long since been elucidated by the example of
+Zingis and the Moguls; and in this more proper place I shall be content
+to observe, that, from the Caspian to the Indus, they ruined a tract of
+many hundred miles, which was adorned with the habitations and labors of
+mankind, and that five centuries have not been sufficient to repair the
+ravages of four years. The Mogul emperor encouraged or indulged the fury
+of his troops: the hope of future possession was lost in the ardor of
+rapine and slaughter; and the cause of the war exasperated their native
+fierceness by the pretence of justice and revenge. The downfall and
+death of the sultan Mohammed, who expired, unpitied and alone, in a
+desert island of the Caspian Sea, is a poor atonement for the calamities
+of which he was the author. Could the Carizmian empire have been saved
+by a single hero, it would have been saved by his son Gelaleddin, whose
+active valor repeatedly checked the Moguls in the career of victory.
+Retreating, as he fought, to the banks of the Indus, he was oppressed by
+their innumerable host, till, in the last moment of despair, Gelaleddin
+spurred his horse into the waves, swam one of the broadest and most
+rapid rivers of Asia, and extorted the admiration and applause of Zingis
+himself. It was in this camp that the Mogul conqueror yielded with
+reluctance to the murmurs of his weary and wealthy troops, who sighed
+for the enjoyment of their native land. Eucumbered with the spoils of
+Asia, he slowly measured back his footsteps, betrayed some pity for the
+misery of the vanquished, and declared his intention of rebuilding the
+cities which had been swept away by the tempest of his arms. After he
+had repassed the Oxus and Jaxartes, he was joined by two generals,
+whom he had detached with thirty thousand horse, to subdue the western
+provinces of Persia. They had trampled on the nations which opposed
+their passage, penetrated through the gates of Derbent, traversed the
+Volga and the desert, and accomplished the circuit of the Caspian Sea,
+by an expedition which had never been attempted, and has never been
+repeated. The return of Zingis was signalized by the overthrow of
+the rebellious or independent kingdoms of Tartary; and he died in
+the fulness of years and glory, with his last breath exhorting and
+instructing his sons to achieve the conquest of the Chinese empire. [205]
+
+[Footnote 191: See the particular account of this transaction, from the
+Kholauesut el Akbaur, in Price, vol. ii. p. 402.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 20: M. de Voltaire, Essai sur l'Histoire Générale, tom. iii.
+c. 60, p. 8. His account of Zingis and the Moguls contains, as usual,
+much general sense and truth, with some particular errors.]
+
+[Footnote 204: Every where they massacred all classes, except the
+artisans, whom they made slaves. Hist. des Mongols.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 205: Their first duty, which he bequeathed to them, was to
+massacre the king of Tangcoute and all the inhabitants of Ninhia, the
+surrender of the city being already agreed upon, Hist. des Mongols. vol.
+i. p. 286.--M.]
+
+The harem of Zingis was composed of five hundred wives and concubines;
+and of his numerous progeny, four sons, illustrious by their birth and
+merit, exercised under their father the principal offices of peace and
+war. Toushi was his great huntsman, Zagatai [21] his judge, Octai his
+minister, and Tuli his general; and their names and actions are often
+conspicuous in the history of his conquests. Firmly united for their
+own and the public interest, the three brothers and their families were
+content with dependent sceptres; and Octai, by general consent, was
+proclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Moguls and Tartars. He was
+succeeded by his son Gayuk, after whose death the empire devolved to
+his cousins Mangou and Cublai, the sons of Tuli, and the grandsons of
+Zingis. In the sixty-eight years of his four first successors, the
+Mogul subdued almost all Asia, and a large portion of Europe. Without
+confining myself to the order of time, without expatiating on the detail
+of events, I shall present a general picture of the progress of their
+arms; I. In the East; II. In the South; III. In the West; and IV. In the
+North.
+
+[Footnote 21: Zagatai gave his name to his dominions of Maurenahar,
+or Transoxiana; and the Moguls of Hindostan, who emigrated from that
+country, are styled Zagatais by the Persians. This certain etymology,
+and the similar example of Uzbek, Nogai, &c., may warn us not absolutely
+to reject the derivations of a national, from a personal, name. *
+Note: See a curious anecdote of Tschagatai. Hist. des Mongols, p.
+370.--M.]
+
+I. Before the invasion of Zingis, China was divided into two empires or
+dynasties of the North and South; [22] and the difference of origin and
+interest was smoothed by a general conformity of laws, language, and
+national manners. The Northern empire, which had been dismembered by
+Zingis, was finally subdued seven years after his death. After the loss
+of Pekin, the emperor had fixed his residence at Kaifong, a city many
+leagues in circumference, and which contained, according to the Chinese
+annals, fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and fugitives.
+He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and made his last stand
+in a third capital, till at length the hopeless monarch, protesting his
+innocence and accusing his fortune, ascended a funeral pile, and gave
+orders, that, as soon as he had stabbed himself, the fire should be
+kindled by his attendants. The dynasty of the _Song_, the native and
+ancient sovereigns of the whole empire, survived about forty-five years
+the fall of the Northern usurpers; and the perfect conquest was reserved
+for the arms of Cublai. During this interval, the Moguls were often
+diverted by foreign wars; and, if the Chinese seldom dared to meet
+their victors in the field, their passive courage presented and endless
+succession of cities to storm and of millions to slaughter. In the
+attack and defence of places, the engines of antiquity and the Greek
+fire were alternately employed: the use of gunpowder in cannon and bombs
+appears as a familiar practice; [23] and the sieges were conducted by the
+Mahometans and Franks, who had been liberally invited into the service
+of Cublai. After passing the great river, the troops and artillery
+were conveyed along a series of canals, till they invested the royal
+residence of Hamcheu, or Quinsay, in the country of silk, the
+most delicious climate of China. The emperor, a defenceless youth,
+surrendered his person and sceptre; and before he was sent in exile into
+Tartary, he struck nine times the ground with his forehead, to adore in
+prayer or thanksgiving the mercy of the great khan. Yet the war (it was
+now styled a rebellion) was still maintained in the southern provinces
+from Hamcheu to Canton; and the obstinate remnant of independence and
+hostility was transported from the land to the sea. But when the fleet
+of the _Song_ was surrounded and oppressed by a superior armament, their
+last champion leaped into the waves with his infant emperor in his
+arms. "It is more glorious," he cried, "to die a prince, than to live a
+slave." A hundred thousand Chinese imitated his example; and the whole
+empire, from Tonkin to the great wall, submitted to the dominion of
+Cublai. His boundless ambition aspired to the conquest of Japan: his
+fleet was twice shipwrecked; and the lives of a hundred thousand
+Moguls and Chinese were sacrificed in the fruitless expedition. But the
+circumjacent kingdoms, Corea, Tonkin, Cochinchina, Pegu, Bengal, and
+Thibet, were reduced in different degrees of tribute and obedience by
+the effort or terror of his arms. He explored the Indian Ocean with
+a fleet of a thousand ships: they sailed in sixty-eight days, most
+probably to the Isle of Borneo, under the equinoctial line; and though
+they returned not without spoil or glory, the emperor was dissatisfied
+that the savage king had escaped from their hands.
+
+[Footnote 22: In Marco Polo, and the Oriental geographers, the names of
+Cathay and Mangi distinguish the northern and southern empires, which,
+from A.D. 1234 to 1279, were those of the great khan, and of the
+Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had been found, excited and
+misled our navigators of the sixteenth century, in their attempts to
+discover the north-east passage.]
+
+[Footnote 23: I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Pčre Gaubil,
+who translates the Chinese text of the annals of the Moguls or Yuen, (p.
+71, 93, 153;) but I am ignorant at what time these annals were composed
+and published. The two uncles of Marco Polo, who served as engineers
+at the siege of Siengyangfou, * (l. ii. 61, in Ramusio, tom. ii. See
+Gaubil, p. 155, 157) must have felt and related the effects of this
+destructive powder, and their silence is a weighty, and almost decisive
+objection. I entertain a suspicion, that their recent discovery was
+carried from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century and
+falsely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival of the
+Portuguese and Jesuits in the xvith. Yet the Pčre Gaubil affirms, that
+the use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese above 1600 years. **
+Note: * Sou-houng-kian-lou. Abel Remusat.--M.
+Note: ** La poudre ą canon et d'autres compositions inflammantes,
+dont ils se servent pour construire des pičces d'artifice d'un effet
+suprenant, leur étaient connues depuis trčs long-temps, et l'on croit
+que des bombardes et des pierriers, dont ils avaient enseigné l'usage
+aux Tartares, ont pu donner en Europe l'idée d'artillerie, quoique la
+forme des fusils et des canons dont ils se servent actuellement, leur
+ait été apportée par les Francs, ainsi que l'attestent les noms mźmes
+qu'ils donnent ą ces sortes d'armes. Abel Remusat, Mélanges Asiat. 2d
+ser. tom. i. p. 23.--M.]
+
+II. The conquest of Hindostan by the Moguls was reserved in a later
+period for the house of Timour; but that of Iran, or Persia, was
+achieved by Holagou Khan, [231] the grandson of Zingis, the brother and
+lieutenant of the two successive emperors, Mangou and Cublai. I shall
+not enumerate the crowd of sultans, emirs, and atabeks, whom he trampled
+into dust; but the extirpation of the _Assassins_, or Ismaelians [24] of
+Persia, may be considered as a service to mankind. Among the hills
+to the south of the Caspian, these odious sectaries had reigned with
+impunity above a hundred and sixty years; and their prince, or Imam,
+established his lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of Mount
+Libanus, so famous and formidable in the history of the crusades. [25]
+With the fanaticism of the Koran the Ismaelians had blended the Indian
+transmigration, and the visions of their own prophets; and it was their
+first duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind obedience to the
+vicar of God. The daggers of his missionaries were felt both in the
+East and West: the Christians and the Moslems enumerate, and persons
+multiply, the illustrious victims that were sacrificed to the zeal,
+avarice, or resentment of _the old man_ (as he was corruptly styled)
+_of the mountain_. But these daggers, his only arms, were broken by the
+sword of Holagou, and not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind,
+except the word _assassin_, which, in the most odious sense, has been
+adopted in the languages of Europe. The extinction of the Abbassides
+cannot be indifferent to the spectators of their greatness and decline.
+Since the fall of their Seljukian tyrants the caliphs had recovered
+their lawful dominion of Bagdad and the Arabian Irak; but the city was
+distracted by theological factions, and the commander of the faithful
+was lost in a harem of seven hundred concubines. The invasion of the
+Moguls he encountered with feeble arms and haughty embassies. "On the
+divine decree," said the caliph Mostasem, "is founded the throne of the
+sons of Abbas: and their foes shall surely be destroyed in this world
+and in the next. Who is this Holagou that dares to rise against them?
+If he be desirous of peace, let him instantly depart from the sacred
+territory; and perhaps he may obtain from our clemency the pardon of
+his fault." This presumption was cherished by a perfidious vizier, who
+assured his master, that, even if the Barbarians had entered the city,
+the women and children, from the terraces, would be sufficient to
+overwhelm them with stones. But when Holagou touched the phantom, it
+instantly vanished into smoke. After a siege of two months, Bagdad
+was stormed and sacked by the Moguls; [* and their savage commander
+pronounced the death of the caliph Mostasem, the last of the temporal
+successors of Mahomet; whose noble kinsmen, of the race of Abbas, had
+reigned in Asia above five hundred years. Whatever might be the designs
+of the conqueror, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina [26] were protected
+by the Arabian desert; but the Moguls spread beyond the Tigris and
+Euphrates, pillaged Aleppo and Damascus, and threatened to join the
+Franks in the deliverance of Jerusalem. Egypt was lost, had she been
+defended only by her feeble offspring; but the Mamalukes had breathed in
+their infancy the keenness of a Scythian air: equal in valor, superior
+in discipline, they met the Moguls in many a well-fought field; and
+drove back the stream of hostility to the eastward of the Euphrates. [261]
+But it overflowed with resistless violence the kingdoms of Armenia [262]
+and Anatolia, of which the former was possessed by the Christians, and
+the latter by the Turks. The sultans of Iconium opposed some resistance
+to the Mogul arms, till Azzadin sought a refuge among the Greeks of
+Constantinople, and his feeble successors, the last of the Seljukian
+dynasty, were finally extirpated by the khans of Persia. [263]
+
+[Footnote 231: See the curious account of the expedition of Holagou,
+translated from the Chinese, by M. Abel Remusat, Mélanges Asiat. 2d ser.
+tom. i. p. 171.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 24: All that can be known of the Assassins of Persia and Syria
+is poured from the copious, and even profuse, erudition of M. Falconet,
+in two _Mémoires_ read before the Academy of Inscriptions, (tom. xvii.
+p. 127--170.) * Note: Von Hammer's History of the Assassins has now
+thrown Falconet's Dissertation into the shade.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 25: The Ismaelians of Syria, 40,000 Assassins, had acquired
+or founded ten castles in the hills above Tortosa. About the year 1280,
+they were extirpated by the Mamalukes.]
+
+[Footnote 251: Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 283, 307.
+Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. vii. p. 406. Price, Chronological
+Retrospect, vol. ii. p. 217--223.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 26: As a proof of the ignorance of the Chinese in foreign
+transactions, I must observe, that some of their historians extend the
+conquest of Zingis himself to Medina, the country of Mahomet, (Gaubil p.
+42.)]
+
+[Footnote 261: Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 410.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 262: On the friendly relations of the Armenians with the Mongols
+see Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. vii. p. 402. They eagerly
+desired an alliance against the Mahometan powers.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 263: Trebizond escaped, apparently by the dexterous politics of
+the sovereign, but it acknowledged the Mogul supremacy. Falmerayer, p.
+172.--M.]
+
+III. No sooner had Octai subverted the northern empire of China, than he
+resolved to visit with his arms the most remote countries of the West.
+Fifteen hundred thousand Moguls and Tartars were inscribed on the
+military roll: of these the great khan selected a third, which he
+intrusted to the command of his nephew Batou, the son of Tuli; who
+reigned over his father's conquests to the north of the Caspian Sea.
+[264] After a festival of forty days, Batou set forwards on this great
+expedition; and such was the speed and ardor of his innumerable
+squadrons, than in less than six years they had measured a line of
+ninety degrees of longitude, a fourth part of the circumference of the
+globe. The great rivers of Asia and Europe, the Volga and Kama, the Don
+and Borysthenes, the Vistula and Danube, they either swam with their
+horses or passed on the ice, or traversed in leathern boats, which
+followed the camp, and transported their wagons and artillery. By
+the first victories of Batou, the remains of national freedom were
+eradicated in the immense plains of Turkestan and Kipzak. [27] In his
+rapid progress, he overran the kingdoms, as they are now styled, of
+Astracan and Cazan; and the troops which he detached towards Mount
+Caucasus explored the most secret recesses of Georgia and Circassia. The
+civil discord of the great dukes, or princes, of Russia, betrayed their
+country to the Tartars. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea, and
+both Moscow and Kiow, the modern and the ancient capitals, were reduced
+to ashes; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and perhaps
+indelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years has imprinted on
+the character of the Russians. The Tartars ravaged with equal fury
+the countries which they hoped to possess, and those which they were
+hastening to leave. From the permanent conquest of Russia they made a
+deadly, though transient, inroad into the heart of Poland, and as far
+as the borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Cracow were
+obliterated: [271] they approached the shores of the Baltic; and in
+the battle of Lignitz they defeated the dukes of Silesia, the Polish
+palatines, and the great master of the Teutonic order, and filled nine
+sacks with the right ears of the slain. From Lignitz, the extreme point
+of their western march, they turned aside to the invasion of Hungary;
+and the presence or spirit of Batou inspired the host of five hundred
+thousand men: the Carpathian hills could not be long impervious to their
+divided columns; and their approach had been fondly disbelieved till it
+was irresistibly felt. The king, Bela the Fourth, assembled the military
+force of his counts and bishops; but he had alienated the nation by
+adopting a vagrant horde of forty thousand families of Comans, and these
+savage guests were provoked to revolt by the suspicion of treachery and
+the murder of their prince. The whole country north of the Danube was
+lost in a day, and depopulated in a summer; and the ruins of cities and
+churches were overspread with the bones of the natives, who expiated the
+sins of their Turkish ancestors. An ecclesiastic, who fled from the sack
+of Waradin, describes the calamities which he had seen, or suffered; and
+the sanguinary rage of sieges and battles is far less atrocious than the
+treatment of the fugitives, who had been allured from the woods under a
+promise of peace and pardon and who were coolly slaughtered as soon as
+they had performed the labors of the harvest and vintage. In the winter
+the Tartars passed the Danube on the ice, and advanced to Gran or
+Strigonium, a German colony, and the metropolis of the kingdom. Thirty
+engines were planted against the walls; the ditches were filled with
+sacks of earth and dead bodies; and after a promiscuous massacre, three
+hundred noble matrons were slain in the presence of the khan. Of all
+the cities and fortresses of Hungary, three alone survived the Tartar
+invasion, and the unfortunate Bata hid his head among the islands of the
+Adriatic.
+
+[Footnote 264: See the curious extracts from the Mahometan writers, Hist.
+des Mongols, p. 707.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 27: The _Dashté Kipzak_, or plain of Kipzak, extends on
+either side of the Volga, in a boundless space towards the Jaik and
+Borysthenes, and is supposed to contain the primitive name and nation of
+the Cossacks.]
+
+[Footnote 271: Olmutz was gallantly and successfully defended by Stenberg,
+Hist. des Mongols, p. 396.--M.]
+
+The Latin world was darkened by this cloud of savage hostility: a
+Russian fugitive carried the alarm to Sweden; and the remote nations of
+the Baltic and the ocean trembled at the approach of the Tartars, [28]
+whom their fear and ignorance were inclined to separate from the human
+species. Since the invasion of the Arabs in the eighth century, Europe
+had never been exposed to a similar calamity: and if the disciples
+of Mahomet would have oppressed her religion and liberty, it might be
+apprehended that the shepherds of Scythia would extinguish her cities,
+her arts, and all the institutions of civil society. The Roman pontiff
+attempted to appease and convert these invincible Pagans by a mission of
+Franciscan and Dominican friars; but he was astonished by the reply of
+the khan, that the sons of God and of Zingis were invested with a divine
+power to subdue or extirpate the nations; and that the pope would be
+involved in the universal destruction, unless he visited in person,
+and as a suppliant, the royal horde. The emperor Frederic the Second
+embraced a more generous mode of defence; and his letters to the kings
+of France and England, and the princes of Germany, represented the
+common danger, and urged them to arm their vassals in this just and
+rational crusade. [29] The Tartars themselves were awed by the fame
+and valor of the Franks; the town of Newstadt in Austria was bravely
+defended against them by fifty knights and twenty crossbows; and they
+raised the siege on the appearance of a German army. After wasting
+the adjacent kingdoms of Servia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria, Batou slowly
+retreated from the Danube to the Volga to enjoyed the rewards of victory
+in the city and palace of Serai, which started at his command from the
+midst of the desert. [291]
+
+[Footnote 28: In the year 1238, the inhabitants of Gothia (_Sweden_)
+and Frise were prevented, by their fear of the Tartars, from sending, as
+usual, their ships to the herring fishery on the coast of England; and
+as there was no exportation, forty or fifty of these fish were sold for
+a shilling, (Matthew Paris, p. 396.) It is whimsical enough, that the
+orders of a Mogul khan, who reigned on the borders of China, should have
+lowered the price of herrings in the English market.]
+
+[Footnote 29: I shall copy his characteristic or flattering epithets of
+the different countries of Europe: Furens ac fervens ad arma Germania,
+strenuę militię genitrix et alumna Francia, bellicosa et audax Hispania,
+virtuosa viris et classe munita fertilis Anglia, impetuosis bellatoribus
+referta Alemannia, navalis Dacia, indomita Italia, pacis ignara
+Burgundia, inquieta Apulia, cum maris Gręci, Adriatici et Tyrrheni
+insulis pyraticis et invictis, Cretā, Cypro, Siciliā, cum Oceano
+conterterminis insulis, et regionibus, cruenta Hybernia, cum agili
+Wallia palustris Scotia, glacialis Norwegia, suam electam militiam sub
+vexillo Crucis destinabunt, &c. (Matthew Paris, p. 498.)]
+
+[Footnote 291: He was recalled by the death of Octai.--M.]
+
+IV. Even the poor and frozen regions of the north attracted the arms of
+the Moguls: Sheibani khan, the brother of the great Batou, led a
+horde of fifteen thousand families into the wilds of Siberia; and his
+descendants reigned at Tobolskoi above three centuries, till the Russian
+conquest. The spirit of enterprise which pursued the course of the
+Oby and Yenisei must have led to the discovery of the icy sea. After
+brushing away the monstrous fables, of men with dogs' heads and cloven
+feet, we shall find, that, fifteen years after the death of Zingis, the
+Moguls were informed of the name and manners of the Samoyedes in the
+neighborhood of the polar circle, who dwelt in subterraneous huts, and
+derived their furs and their food from the sole occupation of hunting.
+[30]
+
+[Footnote 30: See Carpin's relation in Hackluyt, vol. i. p. 30. The
+pedigree of the khans of Siberia is given by Abulghazi, (part viii. p.
+485--495.) Have the Russians found no Tartar chronicles at Tobolskoi? *
+Note: * See the account of the Mongol library in Bergman, Nomadische
+Streifereyen, vol. iii. p. 185, 205, and Remusat, Hist. des
+Langues Tartares, p. 327, and preface to Schmidt, Geschichte der
+Ost-Mongolen.--M.]
+
+While China, Syria, and Poland, were invaded at the same time by the
+Moguls and Tartars, the authors of the mighty mischief were content with
+the knowledge and declaration, that their word was the sword of death.
+Like the first caliphs, the first successors of Zingis seldom appeared
+in person at the head of their victorious armies. On the banks of the
+Onon and Selinga, the royal or _golden horde_ exhibited the contrast
+of simplicity and greatness; of the roasted sheep and mare's milk
+which composed their banquets; and of a distribution in one day of five
+hundred wagons of gold and silver. The ambassadors and princes of
+Europe and Asia were compelled to undertake this distant and laborious
+pilgrimage; and the life and reign of the great dukes of Russia, the
+kings of Georgia and Armenia, the sultans of Iconium, and the emirs of
+Persia, were decided by the frown or smile of the great khan. The sons
+and grandsons of Zingis had been accustomed to the pastoral life; but
+the village of Caracorum [31] was gradually ennobled by their election
+and residence. A change of manners is implied in the removal of Octai
+and Mangou from a tent to a house; and their example was imitated by the
+princes of their family and the great officers of the empire. Instead of
+the boundless forest, the enclosure of a park afforded the more indolent
+pleasures of the chase; their new habitations were decorated with
+painting and sculpture; their superfluous treasures were cast in
+fountains, and basins, and statues of massy silver; and the artists of
+China and Paris vied with each other in the service of the great khan.
+[32] Caracorum contained two streets, the one of Chinese mechanics, the
+other of Mahometan traders; and the places of religious worship, one
+Nestorian church, two mosques, and twelve temples of various idols, may
+represent in some degree the number and division of inhabitants. Yet a
+French missionary declares, that the town of St. Denys, near Paris, was
+more considerable than the Tartar capital; and that the whole palace of
+Mangou was scarcely equal to a tenth part of that Benedictine abbey. The
+conquests of Russia and Syria might amuse the vanity of the great khans;
+but they were seated on the borders of China; the acquisition of that
+empire was the nearest and most interesting object; and they might
+learn from their pastoral economy, that it is for the advantage of the
+shepherd to protect and propagate his flock. I have already celebrated
+the wisdom and virtue of a Mandarin who prevented the desolation of
+five populous and cultivated provinces. In a spotless administration
+of thirty years, this friend of his country and of mankind continually
+labored to mitigate, or suspend, the havoc of war; to save the
+monuments, and to rekindle the flame, of science; to restrain the
+military commander by the restoration of civil magistrates; and to
+instil the love of peace and justice into the minds of the Moguls. He
+struggled with the barbarism of the first conquerors; but his salutary
+lessons produced a rich harvest in the second generation. [321] The
+northern, and by degrees the southern, empire acquiesced in the
+government of Cublai, the lieutenant, and afterwards the successor, of
+Mangou; and the nation was loyal to a prince who had been educated
+in the manners of China. He restored the forms of her venerable
+constitution; and the victors submitted to the laws, the fashions, and
+even the prejudices, of the vanquished people. This peaceful triumph,
+which has been more than once repeated, may be ascribed, in a great
+measure, to the numbers and servitude of the Chinese. The Mogul army
+was dissolved in a vast and populous country; and their emperors adopted
+with pleasure a political system, which gives to the prince the solid
+substance of despotism, and leaves to the subject the empty names of
+philosophy, freedom, and filial obedience. [322] Under the reign of Cublai,
+letters and commerce, peace and justice, were restored; the great canal,
+of five hundred miles, was opened from Nankin to the capital: he fixed
+his residence at Pekin; and displayed in his court the magnificence of
+the greatest monarch of Asia. Yet this learned prince declined from the
+pure and simple religion of his great ancestor: he sacrificed to the
+idol Fo; and his blind attachment to the lamas of Thibet and the bonzes
+of China [33] provoked the censure of the disciples of Confucius. His
+successors polluted the palace with a crowd of eunuchs, physicians, and
+astrologers, while thirteen millions of their subjects were consumed in
+the provinces by famine. One hundred and forty years after the death of
+Zingis, his degenerate race, the dynasty of the Yuen, was expelled by
+a revolt of the native Chinese; and the Mogul emperors were lost in the
+oblivion of the desert. Before this revolution, they had forfeited
+their supremacy over the dependent branches of their house, the khans of
+Kipzak and Russia, the khans of Zagatai, or Transoxiana, and the khans
+of Iran or Persia. By their distance and power, these royal lieutenants
+had soon been released from the duties of obedience; and after the death
+of Cublai, they scorned to accept a sceptre or a title from his unworthy
+successors. According to their respective situations, they maintained
+the simplicity of the pastoral life, or assumed the luxury of the cities
+of Asia; but the princes and their hordes were alike disposed for the
+reception of a foreign worship. After some hesitation between the Gospel
+and the Koran, they conformed to the religion of Mahomet; and while they
+adopted for their brethren the Arabs and Persians, they renounced all
+intercourse with the ancient Moguls, the idolaters of China.
+
+[Footnote 31: The Map of D'Anville and the Chinese Itineraries (De
+Guignes, tom. i. part ii. p. 57) seem to mark the position of Holin,
+or Caracorum, about six hundred miles to the north-west of Pekin. The
+distance between Selinginsky and Pekin is near 2000 Russian versts,
+between 1300 and 1400 English miles, (Bell's Travels, vol. ii. p. 67.)]
+
+[Footnote 32: Rubruquis found at Caracorum his _countryman Guillaume
+Boucher, orfevre de Paris_, who had executed for the khan a silver tree
+supported by four lions, and ejecting four different liquors. Abulghazi
+(part iv. p. 366) mentions the painters of Kitay or China.]
+
+[Footnote 321: See the interesting sketch of the life of this minister
+(Yelin-Thsouthsai) in the second volume of the second series of
+Recherches Asiatiques, par A Remusat, p. 64.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 322: Compare Hist. des Mongols, p. 616.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 33: The attachment of the khans, and the hatred of the
+mandarins, to the bonzes and lamas (Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine, tom. i.
+p. 502, 503) seems to represent them as the priests of the same god,
+of the Indian _Fo_, whose worship prevails among the sects of Hindostan
+Siam, Thibet, China, and Japan. But this mysterious subject is still
+lost in a cloud, which the researchers of our Asiatic Society may
+gradually dispel.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part III.
+
+In this shipwreck of nations, some surprise may be excited by the escape
+of the Roman empire, whose relics, at the time of the Mogul invasion,
+were dismembered by the Greeks and Latins. Less potent than Alexander,
+they were pressed, like the Macedonian, both in Europe and Asia, by
+the shepherds of Scythia; and had the Tartars undertaken the siege,
+Constantinople must have yielded to the fate of Pekin, Samarcand, and
+Bagdad. The glorious and voluntary retreat of Batou from the Danube
+was insulted by the vain triumph of the Franks and Greeks; [34] and in
+a second expedition death surprised him in full march to attack the
+capital of the Cęsars. His brother Borga carried the Tartar arms into
+Bulgaria and Thrace; but he was diverted from the Byzantine war by a
+visit to Novogorod, in the fifty-seventh degree of latitude, where he
+numbered the inhabitants and regulated the tributes of Russia. The
+Mogul khan formed an alliance with the Mamalukes against his brethren
+of Persia: three hundred thousand horse penetrated through the gates of
+Derbend; and the Greeks might rejoice in the first example of domestic
+war. After the recovery of Constantinople, Michael Palęologus, [35] at
+a distance from his court and army, was surprised and surrounded in a
+Thracian castle, by twenty thousand Tartars. But the object of their
+march was a private interest: they came to the deliverance of Azzadin,
+the Turkish sultan; and were content with his person and the treasure of
+the emperor. Their general Noga, whose name is perpetuated in the hordes
+of Astracan, raised a formidable rebellion against Mengo Timour, the
+third of the khans of Kipzak; obtained in marriage Maria, the natural
+daughter of Palęologus; and guarded the dominions of his friend and
+father. The subsequent invasions of a Scythian cast were those of
+outlaws and fugitives: and some thousands of Alani and Comans, who had
+been driven from their native seats, were reclaimed from a vagrant life,
+and enlisted in the service of the empire. Such was the influence in
+Europe of the invasion of the Moguls. The first terror of their arms
+secured, rather than disturbed, the peace of the Roman Asia. The sultan
+of Iconium solicited a personal interview with John Vataces; and his
+artful policy encouraged the Turks to defend their barrier against
+the common enemy. [36] That barrier indeed was soon overthrown; and
+the servitude and ruin of the Seljukians exposed the nakedness of the
+Greeks. The formidable Holagou threatened to march to Constantinople at
+the head of four hundred thousand men; and the groundless panic of
+the citizens of Nice will present an image of the terror which he had
+inspired. The accident of a procession, and the sound of a doleful
+litany, "From the fury of the Tartars, good Lord, deliver us," had
+scattered the hasty report of an assault and massacre. In the blind
+credulity of fear, the streets of Nice were crowded with thousands of
+both sexes, who knew not from what or to whom they fled; and some hours
+elapsed before the firmness of the military officers could relieve
+the city from this imaginary foe. But the ambition of Holagou and his
+successors was fortunately diverted by the conquest of Bagdad, and a
+long vicissitude of Syrian wars; their hostility to the Moslems inclined
+them to unite with the Greeks and Franks; [37] and their generosity
+or contempt had offered the kingdom of Anatolia as the reward of an
+Armenian vassal. The fragments of the Seljukian monarchy were disputed
+by the emirs who had occupied the cities or the mountains; but they all
+confessed the supremacy of the khans of Persia; and he often interposed
+his authority, and sometimes his arms, to check their depredations, and
+to preserve the peace and balance of his Turkish frontier. The death
+of Cazan, [38] one of the greatest and most accomplished princes of the
+house of Zingis, removed this salutary control; and the decline of the
+Moguls gave a free scope to the rise and progress of the Ottoman Empire.
+[39]
+
+[Footnote 34: Some repulse of the Moguls in Hungary (Matthew Paris, p.
+545, 546) might propagate and color the report of the union and victory
+of the kings of the Franks on the confines of Bulgaria. Abulpharagius
+(Dynast. p. 310) after forty years, beyond the Tigris, might be easily
+deceived.]
+
+[Footnote 35: See Pachymer, l. iii. c. 25, and l. ix. c. 26, 27; and the
+false alarm at Nice, l. iii. c. 27. Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv. c. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 36: G. Acropolita, p. 36, 37. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6, l. iv.
+c. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Abulpharagius, who wrote in the year 1284, declares that
+the Moguls, since the fabulous defeat of Batou, had not attacked either
+the Franks or Greeks; and of this he is a competent witness. Hayton
+likewise, the Armenian prince, celebrates their friendship for himself
+and his nation.]
+
+[Footnote 38: Pachymer gives a splendid character of Cazan Khan, the
+rival of Cyrus and Alexander, (l. xii. c. 1.) In the conclusion of his
+history (l. xiii. c. 36) he _hopes_ much from the arrival of 30,000
+Tochars, or Tartars, who were ordered by the successor of Cazan to
+restrain the Turks of Bithynia, A.D. 1308.]
+
+[Footnote 39: The origin of the Ottoman dynasty is illustrated by
+the critical learning of Mm. De Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p.
+329--337) and D'Anville, (Empire Turc, p. 14--22,) two inhabitants of
+Paris, from whom the Orientals may learn the history and geography of
+their own country. * Note: They may be still more enlightened by the
+Geschichte des Osman Reiches, by M. von Hammer Purgstall of Vienna.--M.]
+
+After the retreat of Zingis, the sultan Gelaleddin of Carizme had
+returned from India to the possession and defence of his Persian
+kingdoms. In the space of eleven years, than hero fought in person
+fourteen battles; and such was his activity, that he led his cavalry in
+seventeen days from Teflis to Kerman, a march of a thousand miles.
+Yet he was oppressed by the jealousy of the Moslem princes, and the
+innumerable armies of the Moguls; and after his last defeat, Gelaleddin
+perished ignobly in the mountains of Curdistan. His death dissolved
+a veteran and adventurous army, which included under the name of
+Carizmians or Corasmins many Turkman hordes, that had attached
+themselves to the sultan's fortune. The bolder and more powerful chiefs
+invaded Syria, and violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem: the more
+humble engaged in the service of Aladin, sultan of Iconium; and among
+these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They had formerly
+pitched their tents near the southern banks of the Oxus, in the plains
+of Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat remarkable, that the same spot
+should have produced the first authors of the Parthian and Turkish
+empires. At the head, or in the rear, of a Carizmian army, Soliman Shah
+was drowned in the passage of the Euphrates: his son Orthogrul became
+the soldier and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on the
+banks of the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom he
+governed fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the father
+of Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been melted into the
+appellation of the caliph Othman; and if we describe that pastoral chief
+as a shepherd and a robber, we must separate from those characters all
+idea of ignominy and baseness. Othman possessed, and perhaps surpassed,
+the ordinary virtues of a soldier; and the circumstances of time and
+place were propitious to his independence and success. The Seljukian
+dynasty was no more; and the distance and decline of the Mogul khans
+soon enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate on
+the verge of the Greek empire: the Koran sanctified his _gazi_, or
+holy war, against the infidels; and their political errors unlocked the
+passes of Mount Olympus, and invited him to descend into the plains of
+Bithynia. Till the reign of Palęologus, these passes had been vigilantly
+guarded by the militia of the country, who were repaid by their
+own safety and an exemption from taxes. The emperor abolished their
+privilege and assumed their office; but the tribute was rigorously
+collected, the custody of the passes was neglected, and the hardy
+mountaineers degenerated into a trembling crowd of peasants without
+spirit or discipline. It was on the twenty-seventh of July, in the year
+twelve hundred and ninety-nine of the Christian ęra, that Othman first
+invaded the territory of Nicomedia; [40] and the singular accuracy of
+the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive
+growth of the monster. The annals of the twenty-seven years of his
+reign would exhibit a repetition of the same inroads; and his hereditary
+troops were multiplied in each campaign by the accession of captives and
+volunteers. Instead of retreating to the hills, he maintained the most
+useful and defensive posts; fortified the towns and castles which he
+had first pillaged; and renounced the pastoral life for the baths and
+palaces of his infant capitals. But it was not till Othman was oppressed
+by age and infirmities, that he received the welcome news of the
+conquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered by famine or treachery to
+the arms of his son Orchan. The glory of Othman is chiefly founded on
+that of his descendants; but the Turks have transcribed or composed a
+royal testament of his last counsels of justice and moderation. [41]
+
+[Footnote 40: See Pachymer, l. x. c. 25, 26, l. xiii. c. 33, 34, 36;
+and concerning the guard of the mountains, l. i. c. 3--6: Nicephorus
+Gregoras, l. vii. c. l., and the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles,
+the Athenian.]
+
+[Footnote 41: I am ignorant whether the Turks have any writers older
+than Mahomet II., * nor can I reach beyond a meagre chronicle (Annales
+Turcici ad Annum 1550) translated by John Gaudier, and published by
+Leunclavius, (ad calcem Laonic. Chalcond. p. 311--350,) with copious
+pandects, or commentaries. The history of the Growth and Decay (A.D.
+1300--1683) of the Othman empire was translated into English from the
+Latin MS. of Demetrius Cantemir, prince of Moldavia, (London, 1734, in
+folio.) The author is guilty of strange blunders in Oriental history;
+but he was conversant with the language, the annals, and institutions
+of the Turks. Cantemir partly draws his materials from the Synopsis of
+Saadi Effendi of Larissa, dedicated in the year 1696 to Sultan Mustapha,
+and a valuable abridgment of the original historians. In one of the
+Ramblers, Dr. Johnson praises Knolles (a General History of the Turks to
+the present Year. London, 1603) as the first of historians, unhappy only
+in the choice of his subject. Yet I much doubt whether a partial and
+verbose compilation from Latin writers, thirteen hundred folio pages of
+speeches and battles, can either instruct or amuse an enlightened
+age, which requires from the historian some tincture of philosophy and
+criticism. Note: * We could have wished that M. von Hammer had given a
+more clear and distinct reply to this question of Gibbon. In a note,
+vol. i. p. 630. M. von Hammer shows that they had not only sheiks
+(religious writers) and learned lawyers, but poets and authors on
+medicine. But the inquiry of Gibbon obviously refers to historians. The
+oldest of their historical works, of which V. Hammer makes use, is the
+"Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade," i. e. the History of the Great Grandson of
+Aaschik Pasha, who was a dervis and celebrated ascetic poet in the reign
+of Murad (Amurath) I. Ahmed, the author of the work, lived during the
+reign of Bajazet II., but, he says, derived much information from the
+book of Scheik Jachshi, the son of Elias, who was Imaum to Sultan
+Orchan, (the second Ottoman king) and who related, from the lips of his
+father, the circumstances of the earliest Ottoman history. This book
+(having searched for it in vain for five-and-twenty years) our author
+found at length in the Vatican. All the other Turkish histories on his
+list, as indeed this, were _written_ during the reign of Mahomet II. It
+does not appear whether any of the rest cite earlier authorities of
+equal value with that claimed by the "Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade."--M.
+(in Quarterly Review, vol. xlix. p. 292.)]
+
+From the conquest of Prusa, we may date the true ęra of the Ottoman
+empire. The lives and possessions of the Christian subjects were
+redeemed by a tribute or ransom of thirty thousand crowns of gold; and
+the city, by the labors of Orchan, assumed the aspect of a Mahometan
+capital; Prusa was decorated with a mosque, a college, and a hospital,
+of royal foundation; the Seljukian coin was changed for the name and
+impression of the new dynasty: and the most skilful professors, of human
+and divine knowledge, attracted the Persian and Arabian students from
+the ancient schools of Oriental learning. The office of vizier was
+instituted for Aladin, the brother of Orchan; [411] and a different habit
+distinguished the citizens from the peasants, the Moslems from the
+infidels. All the troops of Othman had consisted of loose squadrons of
+Turkman cavalry; who served without pay and fought without discipline:
+but a regular body of infantry was first established and trained by the
+prudence of his son. A great number of volunteers was enrolled with a
+small stipend, but with the permission of living at home, unless they
+were summoned to the field: their rude manners, and seditious temper,
+disposed Orchan to educate his young captives as his soldiers and those
+of the prophet; but the Turkish peasants were still allowed to mount on
+horseback, and follow his standard, with the appellation and the hopes
+of _freebooters_. [412] By these arts he formed an army of twenty-five
+thousand Moslems: a train of battering engines was framed for the use
+of sieges; and the first successful experiment was made on the cities
+of Nice and Nicomedia. Orchan granted a safe-conduct to all who were
+desirous of departing with their families and effects; but the widows of
+the slain were given in marriage to the conquerors; and the sacrilegious
+plunder, the books, the vases, and the images, were sold or ransomed at
+Constantinople. The emperor Andronicus the Younger was vanquished and
+wounded by the son of Othman: [42] [421] he subdued the whole province
+or kingdom of Bithynia, as far as the shores of the Bosphorus and
+Hellespont; and the Christians confessed the justice and clemency of a
+reign which claimed the voluntary attachment of the Turks of Asia. Yet
+Orchan was content with the modest title of emir; and in the list of his
+compeers, the princes of Roum or Anatolia, [43] his military forces were
+surpassed by the emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, each of whom could
+bring into the field an army of forty thousand men. Their domains were
+situate in the heart of the Seljukian kingdom; but the holy warriors,
+though of inferior note, who formed new principalities on the Greek
+empire, are more conspicuous in the light of history. The maritime
+country from the Propontis to the Męander and the Isle of Rhodes,
+so long threatened and so often pillaged, was finally lost about the
+thirteenth year of Andronicus the Elder. [44] Two Turkish chieftains,
+Sarukhan and Aidin, left their names to their conquests, and their
+conquests to their posterity. The captivity or ruin of the _seven_
+churches of Asia was consummated; and the barbarous lords of Ionia and
+Lydia still trample on the monuments of classic and Christian antiquity.
+In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the fall of the first
+angel, the extinction of the first candlestick, of the Revelations; [45]
+the desolation is complete; and the temple of Diana, or the church of
+Mary, will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus
+and three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and
+foxes; Sardes is reduced to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet,
+without a rival or a son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and
+Pergamus; and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign
+trade of the Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved
+by prophecy, or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the
+emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens
+defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years; and at length
+capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies
+and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect; a column in a scene
+of ruins; a pleasing example, that the paths of honor and safety may
+sometimes be the same. The servitude of Rhodes was delayed about two
+centuries by the establishment of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem:
+[46] under the discipline of the order, that island emerged into fame and
+opulence; the noble and warlike monks were renowned by land and sea: and
+the bulwark of Christendom provoked, and repelled, the arms of the Turks
+and Saracens.
+
+[Footnote 411: Von Hammer, Osm. Geschichte, vol. i. p. 82.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 412: Ibid. p. 91.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Cantacuzene, though he relates the battle and heroic
+flight of the younger Andronicus, (l. ii. c. 6, 7, 8,) dissembles by
+his silence the loss of Prusa, Nice, and Nicomedia, which are fairly
+confessed by Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. viii. 15, ix. 9, 13, xi. 6.) It
+appears that Nice was taken by Orchan in 1330, and Nicomedia in 1339,
+which are somewhat different from the Turkish dates.]
+
+[Footnote 421: For the conquests of Orchan over the ten pachaliks, or
+kingdoms of the Seljukians, in Asia Minor. see V. Hammer, vol. i. p.
+112.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 43: The partition of the Turkish emirs is extracted from
+two contemporaries, the Greek Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 1) and
+the Arabian Marakeschi, (De Guignes, tom. ii. P. ii. p. 76, 77.) See
+likewise the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles.]
+
+[Footnote 44: Pachymer, l. xiii. c. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 45: See the Travels of Wheeler and Spon, of Pocock and
+Chandler, and more particularly Smith's Survey of the Seven Churches
+of Asia, p. 205--276. The more pious antiquaries labor to reconcile the
+promises and threats of the author of the Revelations with the _present_
+state of the seven cities. Perhaps it would be more prudent to confine
+his predictions to the characters and events of his own times.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Consult the ivth book of the Histoire de l'Ordre
+de Malthe, par l'Abbé de Vertot. That pleasing writer betrays his
+ignorance, in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the Bithynian
+hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land.]
+
+The Greeks, by their intestine divisions, were the authors of their
+final ruin. During the civil wars of the elder and younger Andronicus,
+the son of Othman achieved, almost without resistance, the conquest of
+Bithynia; and the same disorders encouraged the Turkish emirs of Lydia
+and Ionia to build a fleet, and to pillage the adjacent islands and the
+sea-coast of Europe. In the defence of his life and honor, Cantacuzene
+was tempted to prevent, or imitate, his adversaries, by calling to his
+aid the public enemies of his religion and country. Amir, the son of
+Aidin, concealed under a Turkish garb the humanity and politeness of
+a Greek; he was united with the great domestic by mutual esteem and
+reciprocal services; and their friendship is compared, in the vain
+rhetoric of the times, to the perfect union of Orestes and Pylades.
+[47] On the report of the danger of his friend, who was persecuted by
+an ungrateful court, the prince of Ionia assembled at Smyrna a fleet of
+three hundred vessels, with an army of twenty-nine thousand men; sailed
+in the depth of winter, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Hebrus. From
+thence, with a chosen band of two thousand Turks, he marched along
+the banks of the river, and rescued the empress, who was besieged in
+Demotica by the wild Bulgarians. At that disastrous moment, the life
+or death of his beloved Cantacuzene was concealed by his flight into
+Servia: but the grateful Irene, impatient to behold her deliverer,
+invited him to enter the city, and accompanied her message with a
+present of rich apparel and a hundred horses. By a peculiar strain of
+delicacy, the Gentle Barbarian refused, in the absence of an unfortunate
+friend, to visit his wife, or to taste the luxuries of the palace;
+sustained in his tent the rigor of the winter; and rejected the
+hospitable gift, that he might share the hardships of two thousand
+companions, all as deserving as himself of that honor and distinction.
+Necessity and revenge might justify his predatory excursions by sea and
+land: he left nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of his
+fleet; and persevered in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till his
+embarkation was hastened by a fictitious letter, the severity of the
+season, the clamors of his independent troops, and the weight of his
+spoil and captives. In the prosecution of the civil war, the prince
+of Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms with those of the
+emperor; besieged Thessalonica, and threatened Constantinople. Calumny
+might affix some reproach on his imperfect aid, his hasty departure,
+and a bribe of ten thousand crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantine
+court; but his friend was satisfied; and the conduct of Amir is excused
+by the more sacred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditary
+dominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope, the
+king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St. John, in a
+laudable crusade; their galleys invaded the coast of Ionia; and Amir was
+slain with an arrow, in the attempt to wrest from the Rhodian knights
+the citadel of Smyrna. [48] Before his death, he generously recommended
+another ally of his own nation; not more sincere or zealous than
+himself, but more able to afford a prompt and powerful succor, by his
+situation along the Propontis and in the front of Constantinople. By the
+prospect of a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithynia
+was detached from his engagements with Anne of Savoy; and the pride of
+Orchan dictated the most solemn protestations, that if he could obtain
+the daughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably fulfil the duties of
+a subject and a son. Parental tenderness was silenced by the voice
+of ambition: the Greek clergy connived at the marriage of a Christian
+princess with a sectary of Mahomet; and the father of Theodora
+describes, with shameful satisfaction, the dishonor of the purple. [49]
+A body of Turkish cavalry attended the ambassadors, who disembarked
+from thirty vessels, before his camp of Selybria. A stately pavilion was
+erected, in which the empress Irene passed the night with her daughters.
+In the morning, Theodora ascended a throne, which was surrounded with
+curtains of silk and gold: the troops were under arms; but the emperor
+alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were suddenly withdrawn
+to disclose the bride, or the victim, encircled by kneeling eunuchs and
+hymeneal torches: the sound of flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful
+event; and her pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song,
+which was chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without the
+rites of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord: but
+it had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in the
+harem of Bursa; and her father celebrates her charity and devotion in
+this ambiguous situation. After his peaceful establishment on the throne
+of Constantinople, the Greek emperor visited his Turkish ally, who with
+four sons, by various wives, expected him at Scutari, on the Asiatic
+shore. The two princes partook, with seeming cordiality, of the
+pleasures of the banquet and the chase; and Theodora was permitted
+to repass the Bosphorus, and to enjoy some days in the society of her
+mother. But the friendship of Orchan was subservient to his religion and
+interest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the enemies
+of Cantacuzene.
+
+[Footnote 47: Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on
+this amiable character, (l. xii. 7, xiii. 4, 10, xiv. 1, 9, xvi. 6.)
+Cantacuzene speaks with honor and esteem of his ally, (l. iii. c. 56,
+57, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 86, 89, 95, 96;) but he seems ignorant of
+his own sentimental passion for the Turks, and indirectly denies the
+possibility of such unnatural friendship, (l. iv. c. 40.)]
+
+[Footnote 48: After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the defence of
+this fortress was imposed by Pope Gregory XI. on the knights of Rhodes,
+(see Vertot, l. v.)]
+
+[Footnote 49: See Cantacuzenus, l. iii. c. 95. Nicephorus Gregoras,
+who, for the light of Mount Thabor, brands the emperor with the names
+of tyrant and Herod, excuses, rather than blames, this Turkish marriage,
+and alleges the passion and power of Orchan, eggutatoV, kai th dunamo?
+touV kat' auton hdh PersikouV (Turkish) uperairwn SatrapaV, (l. xv.
+5.) He afterwards celebrates his kingdom and armies. See his reign in
+Cantemir, p. 24--30.]
+
+In the treaty with the empress Anne, the Ottoman prince had inserted
+a singular condition, that it should be lawful for him to sell his
+prisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into Asia. A naked crowd
+of Christians of both sexes and every age, of priests and monks, of
+matrons and virgins, was exposed in the public market; the whip was
+frequently used to quicken the charity of redemption; and the indigent
+Greeks deplored the fate of their brethren, who were led away to the
+worst evils of temporal and spiritual bondage [50] Cantacuzene was
+reduced to subscribe the same terms; and their execution must have been
+still more pernicious to the empire: a body of ten thousand Turks had
+been detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the entire
+forces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his father. Yet these
+calamities were of a transient nature; as soon as the storm had passed
+away, the fugitives might return to their habitations; and at the
+conclusion of the civil and foreign wars, Europe was completely
+evacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was in his last quarrel with his
+pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the deep and deadly wound, which could
+never be healed by his successors, and which is poorly expiated by his
+theological dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own
+history, the modern Turks confound their first and their final passage
+of the Hellespont, [51] and describe the son of Orchan as a nocturnal
+robber, who, with eighty companions, explores by stratagem a hostile
+and unknown shore. Soliman, at the head of ten thousand horse, was
+transported in the vessels, and entertained as the friend, of the Greek
+emperor. In the civil wars of Romania, he performed some service and
+perpetrated more mischief; but the Chersonesus was insensibly filled
+with a Turkish colony; and the Byzantine court solicited in vain the
+restitution of the fortresses of Thrace. After some artful delays
+between the Ottoman prince and his son, their ransom was valued at sixty
+thousand crowns, and the first payment had been made when an earthquake
+shook the walls and cities of the provinces; the dismantled places were
+occupied by the Turks; and Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, was
+rebuilt and repeopled by the policy of Soliman. The abdication of
+Cantacuzene dissolved the feeble bands of domestic alliance; and his
+last advice admonished his countrymen to decline a rash contest, and to
+compare their own weakness with the numbers and valor, the discipline
+and enthusiasm, of the Moslems. His prudent counsels were despised by
+the headstrong vanity of youth, and soon justified by the victories
+of the Ottomans. But as he practised in the field the exercise of the
+_jerid_, Soliman was killed by a fall from his horse; and the aged
+Orchan wept and expired on the tomb of his valiant son. [511]
+
+[Footnote 50: The most lively and concise picture of this captivity
+may be found in the history of Ducas, (c. 8,) who fairly describes what
+Cantacuzene confesses with a guilty blush!]
+
+[Footnote 51: In this passage, and the first conquests in Europe,
+Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish guides; nor
+am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles, (l. i. p. 12, &c.)
+They forget to consult the most authentic record, the ivth book
+of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which are still
+manuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras. * Note: Von Hammer excuses the
+silence with which the Turkish historians
+pass over the earlier intercourse of the Ottomans with the European
+continent, of which he enumerates sixteen different occasions, as
+if they disdained those peaceful incursions by which they gained
+no conquest, and established no permanent footing on the Byzantine
+territory. Of the romantic account of Soliman's first expedition, he
+says, "As yet the prose of history had not asserted its right over
+the poetry of tradition." This defence would scarcely be accepted as
+satisfactory by the historian of the Decline and Fall.--M. (in Quarterly
+Review, vol. xlix. p. 293.)]
+
+[Footnote 511: In the 75th year of his age, the 35th of his reign. V.
+Hammer. M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part IV.
+
+But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their enemies;
+and the Turkish cimeter was wielded with the same spirit by Amurath the
+First, the son of Orchan, and the brother of Soliman. By the pale and
+fainting light of the Byzantine annals, [52] we can discern, that he
+subdued without resistance the whole province of Romania or Thrace, from
+the Hellespont to Mount Hęmus, and the verge of the capital; and that
+Adrianople was chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion
+in Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with her
+foundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been assaulted
+by the Barbarians of the East and West; but never till this fatal hour
+had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and Europe, by the arms
+of the same hostile monarchy. Yet the prudence or generosity of Amurath
+postponed for a while this easy conquest; and his pride was satisfied
+with the frequent and humble attendance of the emperor John Palęologus
+and his four sons, who followed at his summons the court and camp of the
+Ottoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations between
+the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians, and
+Albanians; and these warlike tribes, who had so often insulted the
+majesty of the empire, were repeatedly broken by his destructive
+inroads. Their countries did not abound either in gold or silver;
+nor were their rustic hamlets and townships enriched by commerce or
+decorated by the arts of luxury. But the natives of the soil have been
+distinguished in every age by their hardiness of mind and body; and
+they were converted by a prudent institution into the firmest and most
+faithful supporters of the Ottoman greatness. [53] The vizier of Amurath
+reminded his sovereign that, according to the Mahometan law, he was
+entitled to a fifth part of the spoil and captives; and that the
+duty might easily be levied, if vigilant officers were stationed in
+Gallipoli, to watch the passage, and to select for his use the stoutest
+and most beautiful of the Christian youth. The advice was followed:
+the edict was proclaimed; many thousands of the European captives were
+educated in religion and arms; and the new militia was consecrated and
+named by a celebrated dervis. Standing in the front of their ranks, he
+stretched the sleeve of his gown over the head of the foremost soldier,
+and his blessing was delivered in these words: "Let them be called
+Janizaries, (_Yengi cheri_, or new soldiers;) may their countenance be
+ever bright! their hand victorious! their sword keen! may their spear
+always hang over the heads of their enemies! and wheresoever they go,
+may they return with a _white face!_" [54] [541] Such was the origin of
+these haughty troops, the terror of the nations, and sometimes of
+the sultans themselves. Their valor has declined, their discipline is
+relaxed, and their tumultuary array is incapable of contending with
+the order and weapons of modern tactics; but at the time of their
+institution, they possessed a decisive superiority in war; since
+a regular body of infantry, in constant exercise and pay, was not
+maintained by any of the princes of Christendom. The Janizaries fought
+with the zeal of proselytes against their _idolatrous_ countrymen; and
+in the battle of Cossova, the league and independence of the Sclavonian
+tribes was finally crushed. As the conqueror walked over the field,
+he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted of beardless
+youths; and listened to the flattering reply of his vizier, that age and
+wisdom would have taught them not to oppose his irresistible arms. But
+the sword of his Janizaries could not defend him from the dagger of
+despair; a Servian soldier started from the crowd of dead bodies, and
+Amurath was pierced in the belly with a mortal wound. [542] The grandson
+of Othman was mild in his temper, modest in his apparel, and a lover
+of learning and virtue; but the Moslems were scandalized at his absence
+from public worship; and he was corrected by the firmness of the
+mufti, who dared to reject his testimony in a civil cause: a mixture of
+servitude and freedom not unfrequent in Oriental history. [55]
+
+[Footnote 52: After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras, there
+follows a dark interval of a hundred years. George Phranza, Michael
+Ducas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after the taking of
+Constantinople.]
+
+[Footnote 53: See Cantemir, p. 37--41, with his own large and curious
+annotations.]
+
+[Footnote 54: _White_ and _black_ face are common and proverbial
+expressions of praise and reproach in the Turkish language. Hic _niger_
+est, hunc tu Romane caveto, was likewise a Latin sentence.]
+
+[Footnote 541: According to Von Hammer. vol. i. p. 90, Gibbon and the
+European writers assign too late a date to this enrolment of the
+Janizaries. It took place not in the reign of Amurath, but in that of
+his predecessor Orchan.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 542: Ducas has related this as a deliberate act of self-devotion
+on the part of a Servian noble who pretended to desert, and stabbed
+Amurath during a conference which he had requested. The Italian
+translator of Ducas, published by Bekker in the new edition of the
+Byzantines, has still further heightened the romance. See likewise in
+Von Hammer (Osmanische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 138) the popular Servian
+account, which resembles that of Ducas, and may have been the source of
+that of his Italian translator. The Turkish account agrees more nearly
+with Gibbon; but the Servian, (Milosch Kohilovisch) while he lay
+among the heap of the dead, pretended to have some secret to impart to
+Amurath, and stabbed him while he leaned over to listen.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 55: See the life and death of Morad, or Amurath I., in
+Cantemir, (p 33--45,) the first book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales
+Turcici of Leunclavius. According to another story, the sultan was
+stabbed by a Croat in his tent; and this accident was alleged to
+Busbequius (Epist i. p. 98) as an excuse for the unworthy precaution
+of pinioning, as if were, between two attendants, an ambassador's arms,
+when he is introduced to the royal presence.]
+
+The character of Bajazet, the son and successor of Amurath, is strongly
+expressed in his surname of _Ilderim_, or the lightning; and he might
+glory in an epithet, which was drawn from the fiery energy of his soul
+and the rapidity of his destructive march. In the fourteen years of his
+reign, [56] he incessantly moved at the head of his armies, from
+Boursa to Adrianople, from the Danube to the Euphrates; and, though he
+strenuously labored for the propagation of the law, he invaded, with
+impartial ambition, the Christian and Mahometan princes of Europe
+and Asia. From Angora to Amasia and Erzeroum, the northern regions of
+Anatolia were reduced to his obedience: he stripped of their hereditary
+possessions his brother emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, of Aidin and
+Sarukhan; and after the conquest of Iconium the ancient kingdom of the
+Seljukians again revived in the Ottoman dynasty. Nor were the conquests
+of Bajazet less rapid or important in Europe. No sooner had he imposed a
+regular form of servitude on the Servians and Bulgarians, than he
+passed the Danube to seek new enemies and new subjects in the heart
+of Moldavia. [57] Whatever yet adhered to the Greek empire in Thrace,
+Macedonia, and Thessaly, acknowledged a Turkish master: an obsequious
+bishop led him through the gates of Thermopylę into Greece; and we may
+observe, as a singular fact, that the widow of a Spanish chief, who
+possessed the ancient seat of the oracle of Delphi, deserved his favor
+by the sacrifice of a beauteous daughter. The Turkish communication
+between Europe and Asia had been dangerous and doubtful, till he
+stationed at Gallipoli a fleet of galleys, to command the Hellespont
+and intercept the Latin succors of Constantinople. While the monarch
+indulged his passions in a boundless range of injustice and cruelty, he
+imposed on his soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence;
+and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of
+his camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of justice,
+he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his dominions, who
+expected that in a few moments the fire would be kindled to reduce them
+to ashes. His ministers trembled in silence: but an Ęthiopian buffoon
+presumed to insinuate the true cause of the evil; and future venality
+was left without excuse, by annexing an adequate salary to the office
+of cadhi. [58] The humble title of emir was no longer suitable to the
+Ottoman greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan
+from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the Mamalukes:
+[59] a last and frivolous homage that was yielded by force to opinion; by
+the Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas and the successors of
+the Arabian prophet. The ambition of the sultan was inflamed by the
+obligation of deserving this august title; and he turned his arms
+against the kingdom of Hungary, the perpetual theatre of the Turkish
+victories and defeats. Sigismond, the Hungarian king, was the son and
+brother of the emperors of the West: his cause was that of Europe and
+the church; and, on the report of his danger, the bravest knights of
+France and Germany were eager to march under his standard and that of
+the cross. In the battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a confederate
+army of a hundred thousand Christians, who had proudly boasted, that
+if the sky should fall, they could uphold it on their lances. The
+far greater part were slain or driven into the Danube; and Sigismond,
+escaping to Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, returned
+after a long circuit to his exhausted kingdom. [60] In the pride of
+victory, Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buda; that he would
+subdue the adjacent countries of Germany and Italy, and that he would
+feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter at Rome.
+His progress was checked, not by the miraculous interposition of the
+apostle, not by a crusade of the Christian powers, but by a long and
+painful fit of the gout. The disorders of the moral, are sometimes
+corrected by those of the physical, world; and an acrimonious humor
+falling on a single fibre of one man, may prevent or suspend the misery
+of nations.
+
+[Footnote 56: The reign of Bajazet I., or Ilderim Bayazid, is contained
+in Cantemir, (p. 46,) the iid book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales
+Turcici. The surname of Ilderim, or lightning, is an example, that the
+conquerors and poets of every age have _felt_ the truth of a system
+which derives the sublime from the principle of terror.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Cantemir, who celebrates the victories of the great
+Stephen over the Turks, (p. 47,) had composed the ancient and modern
+state of his principality of Moldavia, which has been long promised, and
+is still unpublished.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The venality of the
+cadhis has long been an object of scandal and satire; and if we distrust
+the observations of our travellers, we may consult the feeling of the
+Turks themselves, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 216, 217, 229,
+230.)]
+
+[Footnote 59: The fact, which is attested by the Arabic history of Ben
+Schounah, a contemporary Syrian, (De Guignes Hist. des Huns. tom. iv. p.
+336.) destroys the testimony of Saad Effendi and Cantemir, (p. 14, 15,)
+of the election of Othman to the dignity of sultan.]
+
+[Footnote 60: See the Decades Rerum Hungaricarum (Dec. iii. l. ii. p.
+379) of Bonfinius, an Italian, who, in the xvth century, was invited
+into Hungary to compose an eloquent history of that kingdom. Yet, if it
+be extant and accessible, I should give the preference to some homely
+chronicle of the time and country.]
+
+Such is the general idea of the Hungarian war; but the disastrous
+adventure of the French has procured us some memorials which illustrate
+the victory and character of Bajazet. [61] The duke of Burgundy,
+sovereign of Flanders, and uncle of Charles the Sixth, yielded to the
+ardor of his son, John count of Nevers; and the fearless youth was
+accompanied by four princes, his _cousins_, and those of the French
+monarch. Their inexperience was guided by the Sire de Coucy, one of the
+best and oldest captain of Christendom; [62] but the constable, admiral,
+and marshal of France [63] commanded an army which did not exceed the
+number of a thousand knights and squires. [631] These splendid names were
+the source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many might
+aspire to command, that none were willing to obey; their national spirit
+despised both their enemies and their allies; and in the persuasion that
+Bajazet _would_ fly, or _must_ fall, they began to compute how soon they
+should visit Constantinople and deliver the holy sepulchre. When their
+scouts announced the approach of the Turks, the gay and thoughtless
+youths were at table, already heated with wine; they instantly clasped
+their armor, mounted their horses, rode full speed to the vanguard,
+and resented as an affront the advice of Sigismond, which would have
+deprived them of the right and honor of the foremost attack. The battle
+of Nicopolis would not have been lost, if the French would have obeyed
+the prudence of the Hungarians; but it might have been gloriously won,
+had the Hungarians imitated the valor of the French. They dispersed
+the first line, consisting of the troops of Asia; forced a rampart
+of stakes, which had been planted against the cavalry; broke, after
+a bloody conflict, the Janizaries themselves; and were at length
+overwhelmed by the numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, and
+charged on all sides this handful of intrepid warriors. In the speed
+and secrecy of his march, in the order and evolutions of the battle, his
+enemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajazet. They accuse
+his cruelty in the use of victory. After reserving the count of Nevers,
+and four-and-twenty lords, [632] whose birth and riches were attested by
+his Latin interpreters, the remainder of the French captives, who had
+survived the slaughter of the day, were led before his throne; and, as
+they refused to abjure their faith, were successively beheaded in
+his presence. The sultan was exasperated by the loss of his bravest
+Janizaries; and if it be true, that, on the eve of the engagement, the
+French had massacred their Turkish prisoners, [64] they might impute to
+themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. [641] A knight, whose
+life had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris, that he
+might relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom of the noble
+captives. In the mean while, the count of Nevers, with the princes and
+barons of France, were dragged along in the marches of the Turkish camp,
+exposed as a grateful trophy to the Moslems of Europe and Asia, and
+strictly confined at Boursa, as often as Bajazet resided in his capital.
+The sultan was pressed each day to expiate with their blood the blood of
+his martyrs; but he had pronounced that they should live, and either for
+mercy or destruction his word was irrevocable. He was assured of their
+value and importance by the return of the messenger, and the gifts and
+intercessions of the kings of France and of Cyprus. Lusignan presented
+him with a gold saltcellar of curious workmanship, and of the price
+of ten thousand ducats; and Charles the Sixth despatched by the way of
+Hungary a cast of Norwegian hawks, and six horse-loads of scarlet cloth,
+of fine linen of Rheims, and of Arras tapestry, representing the battles
+of the great Alexander. After much delay, the effect of distance rather
+than of art, Bajazet agreed to accept a ransom of two hundred thousand
+ducats for the count of Nevers and the surviving princes and barons:
+the marshal Boucicault, a famous warrior, was of the number of the
+fortunate; but the admiral of France had been slain in battle; and the
+constable, with the Sire de Coucy, died in the prison of Boursa. This
+heavy demand, which was doubled by incidental costs, fell chiefly on the
+duke of Burgundy, or rather on his Flemish subjects, who were bound by
+the feudal laws to contribute for the knighthood and captivity of the
+eldest son of their lord. For the faithful discharge of the debt, some
+merchants of Genoa gave security to the amount of five times the sum; a
+lesson to those warlike times, that commerce and credit are the links of
+the society of nations. It had been stipulated in the treaty, that the
+French captives should swear never to bear arms against the person of
+their conqueror; but the ungenerous restraint was abolished by Bajazet
+himself. "I despise," said he to the heir of Burgundy, "thy oaths
+and thy arms. Thou art young, and mayest be ambitious of effacing the
+disgrace or misfortune of thy first chivalry. Assemble thy powers,
+proclaim thy design, and be assured that Bajazet will rejoice to meet
+thee a second time in a field of battle." Before their departure, they
+were indulged in the freedom and hospitality of the court of Boursa. The
+French princes admired the magnificence of the Ottoman, whose hunting
+and hawking equipage was composed of seven thousand huntsmen and seven
+thousand falconers. [65] In their presence, and at his command, the belly
+of one of his chamberlains was cut open, on a complaint against him for
+drinking the goat's milk of a poor woman. The strangers were astonished
+by this act of justice; but it was the justice of a sultan who disdains
+to balance the weight of evidence, or to measure the degrees of guilt.
+
+[Footnote 61: I should not complain of the labor of this work, if my
+materials were always derived from such books as the chronicle of
+honest Froissard, (vol. iv. c. 67, 72, 74, 79--83, 85, 87, 89,) who read
+little, inquired much, and believed all. The original Mémoires of the
+Maréchal de Boucicault (Partie i. c. 22--28) add some facts, but they
+are dry and deficient, if compared with the pleasant garrulity of
+Froissard.]
+
+[Footnote 62: An accurate Memoir on the Life of Enguerrand VII., Sire
+de Coucy, has been given by the Baron de Zurlauben, (Hist. de l'Académie
+des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.) His rank and possessions were equally
+considerable in France and England; and, in 1375, he led an army of
+adventurers into Switzerland, to recover a large patrimony which he
+claimed in right of his grandmother, the daughter of the emperor Albert
+I. of Austria, (Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Occidentale, tom. i. p.
+118--124.)]
+
+[Footnote 63: That military office, so respectable at present, was still
+more conspicuous when it was divided between two persons, (Daniel, Hist.
+de la Milice Franēoise, tom. ii. p. 5.) One of these, the marshal of
+the crusade, was the famous Boucicault, who afterwards defended
+Constantinople, governed Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in
+the field of Azincour.]
+
+[Footnote 631: Daru, Hist. de Venice, vol. ii. p. 104, makes the whole
+French army amount to 10,000 men, of whom 1000 were knights. The curious
+volume of Schiltberger, a German of Munich, who was taken prisoner
+in the battle, (edit. Munich, 1813,) and which V. Hammer receives as
+authentic, gives the whole number at 6000. See Schiltberger. Reise in
+dem Orient. and V. Hammer, note, p. 610.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 632: According to Schiltberger there were only twelve French
+lords granted to the prayer of the "duke of Burgundy," and "Herr Stephan
+Synther, and Johann von Bodem." Schiltberger, p. 13.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 64: For this odious fact, the Abbé de Vertot quotes the Hist.
+Anonyme de St. Denys, l. xvi. c. 10, 11. (Ordre de Malthe, tom. ii. p.
+310.)]
+
+[Footnote 641: See Schiltberger's very graphic account of the massacre.
+He was led out to be slaughtered in cold blood with the rest f
+the Christian prisoners, amounting to 10,000. He was spared at the
+intercession of the son of Bajazet, with a few others, on account of
+their extreme youth. No one under 20 years of age was put to death. The
+"duke of Burgundy" was obliged to be a spectator of this butchery which
+lasted from early in the morning till four o'clock, P. M. It ceased only
+at the supplication of the leaders of Bajazet's army. Schiltberger, p.
+14.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Sherefeddin Ali (Hist. de Timour Bec, l. v. c. 13) allows
+Bajazet a round number of 12,000 officers and servants of the chase.
+A part of his spoils was afterwards displayed in a hunting-match of
+Timour, l. hounds with satin housings; 2. leopards with collars set with
+jewels; 3. Grecian greyhounds; and 4, dogs from Europe, as strong as
+African lions, (idem, l. vi. c. 15.) Bajazet was particularly fond of
+flying his hawks at cranes, (Chalcondyles, l. ii. p. 85.)]
+
+After his enfranchisement from an oppressive guardian, John Palęologus
+remained thirty-six years, the helpless, and, as it should seem, the
+careless spectator of the public ruin. [66] Love, or rather lust, was his
+only vigorous passion; and in the embraces of the wives and virgins of
+the city, the Turkish slave forgot the dishonor of the emperor of the
+_Romans_ Andronicus, his eldest son, had formed, at Adrianople, an
+intimate and guilty friendship with Sauzes, the son of Amurath; and the
+two youths conspired against the authority and lives of their parents.
+The presence of Amurath in Europe soon discovered and dissipated their
+rash counsels; and, after depriving Sauzes of his sight, the Ottoman
+threatened his vassal with the treatment of an accomplice and an enemy,
+unless he inflicted a similar punishment on his own son. Palęologus
+trembled and obeyed; and a cruel precaution involved in the same
+sentence the childhood and innocence of John, the son of the criminal.
+But the operation was so mildly, or so unskilfully, performed, that the
+one retained the sight of an eye, and the other was afflicted only with
+the infirmity of squinting. Thus excluded from the succession, the two
+princes were confined in the tower of Anema; and the piety of Manuel,
+the second son of the reigning monarch, was rewarded with the gift of
+the Imperial crown. But at the end of two years, the turbulence of the
+Latins and the levity of the Greeks, produced a revolution; [661] and the
+two emperors were buried in the tower from whence the two prisoners were
+exalted to the throne. Another period of two years afforded Palęologus
+and Manuel the means of escape: it was contrived by the magic or
+subtlety of a monk, who was alternately named the angel or the devil:
+they fled to Scutari; their adherents armed in their cause; and the two
+Byzantine factions displayed the ambition and animosity with which Cęsar
+and Pompey had disputed the empire of the world. The Roman world was now
+contracted to a corner of Thrace, between the Propontis and the Black
+Sea, about fifty miles in length and thirty in breadth; a space of
+ground not more extensive than the lesser principalities of Germany or
+Italy, if the remains of Constantinople had not still represented the
+wealth and populousness of a kingdom. To restore the public peace, it
+was found necessary to divide this fragment of the empire; and while
+Palęologus and Manuel were left in possession of the capital, almost
+all that lay without the walls was ceded to the blind princes, who fixed
+their residence at Rhodosto and Selybria. In the tranquil slumber of
+royalty, the passions of John Palęologus survived his reason and his
+strength: he deprived his favorite and heir of a blooming princess
+of Trebizond; and while the feeble emperor labored to consummate his
+nuptials, Manuel, with a hundred of the noblest Greeks, was sent on a
+peremptory summons to the Ottoman _porte_. They served with honor in
+the wars of Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Constantinople excited
+his jealousy: he threatened their lives; the new works were instantly
+demolished; and we shall bestow a praise, perhaps above the merit of
+Palęologus, if we impute this last humiliation as the cause of his
+death.
+
+[Footnote 66: For the reigns of John Palęologus and his son Manuel, from
+1354 to 1402, see Ducas, c. 9--15, Phranza, l. i. c. 16--21, and the ist
+and iid books of Chalcondyles, whose proper subject is drowned in a sea
+of episode.]
+
+[Footnote 661: According to Von Hammer it was the power of Bajazet, vol.
+i. p. 218.]
+
+The earliest intelligence of that event was communicated to Manuel,
+who escaped with speed and secrecy from the palace of Boursa to the
+Byzantine throne. Bajazet affected a proud indifference at the loss of
+this valuable pledge; and while he pursued his conquests in Europe and
+Asia, he left the emperor to struggle with his blind cousin John of
+Selybria, who, in eight years of civil war, asserted his right of
+primogeniture. At length, the ambition of the victorious sultan pointed
+to the conquest of Constantinople; but he listened to the advice of his
+vizier, who represented that such an enterprise might unite the powers
+of Christendom in a second and more formidable crusade. His epistle to
+the emperor was conceived in these words: "By the divine clemency, our
+invincible cimeter has reduced to our obedience almost all Asia,
+with many and large countries in Europe, excepting only the city of
+Constantinople; for beyond the walls thou hast nothing left. Resign
+that city; stipulate thy reward; or tremble, for thyself and thy unhappy
+people, at the consequences of a rash refusal." But his ambassadors
+were instructed to soften their tone, and to propose a treaty, which
+was subscribed with submission and gratitude. A truce of ten years was
+purchased by an annual tribute of thirty thousand crowns of gold; the
+Greeks deplored the public toleration of the law of Mahomet, and Bajazet
+enjoyed the glory of establishing a Turkish cadhi, and founding a royal
+mosque in the metropolis of the Eastern church. [67] Yet this truce was
+soon violated by the restless sultan: in the cause of the prince of
+Selybria, the lawful emperor, an army of Ottomans again threatened
+Constantinople; and the distress of Manuel implored the protection of
+the king of France. His plaintive embassy obtained much pity and some
+relief; and the conduct of the succor was intrusted to the marshal
+Boucicault, [68] whose religious chivalry was inflamed by the desire of
+revenging his captivity on the infidels. He sailed with four ships of
+war, from Aiguesmortes to the Hellespont; forced the passage, which was
+guarded by seventeen Turkish galleys; landed at Constantinople a supply
+of six hundred men-at-arms and sixteen hundred archers; and reviewed
+them in the adjacent plain, without condescending to number or array the
+multitude of Greeks. By his presence, the blockade was raised both by
+sea and land; the flying squadrons of Bajazet were driven to a more
+respectful distance; and several castles in Europe and Asia were stormed
+by the emperor and the marshal, who fought with equal valor by each
+other's side. But the Ottomans soon returned with an increase of
+numbers; and the intrepid Boucicault, after a year's struggle, resolved
+to evacuate a country which could no longer afford either pay or
+provisions for his soldiers. The marshal offered to conduct Manuel to
+the French court, where he might solicit in person a supply of men and
+money; and advised, in the mean while, that, to extinguish all domestic
+discord, he should leave his blind competitor on the throne. The
+proposal was embraced: the prince of Selybria was introduced to the
+capital; and such was the public misery, that the lot of the exile
+seemed more fortunate than that of the sovereign. Instead of applauding
+the success of his vassal, the Turkish sultan claimed the city as his
+own; and on the refusal of the emperor John, Constantinople was more
+closely pressed by the calamities of war and famine. Against such an
+enemy prayers and resistance were alike unavailing; and the savage
+would have devoured his prey, if, in the fatal moment, he had not been
+overthrown by another savage stronger than himself. By the victory of
+Timour or Tamerlane, the fall of Constantinople was delayed about
+fifty years; and this important, though accidental, service may justly
+introduce the life and character of the Mogul conqueror.
+
+[Footnote 67: Cantemir, p. 50--53. Of the Greeks, Ducas alone (c. 13,
+15) acknowledges the Turkish cadhi at Constantinople. Yet even Ducas
+dissembles the mosque.]
+
+[Footnote 68: Mémoires du bon Messire Jean le Maingre, dit _Boucicault_,
+Maréchal de France, partie ire c. 30, 35.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.--Part I.
+
+     Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane To The Throne Of
+     Samarcand.--His Conquests In Persia, Georgia, Tartary
+     Russia, India, Syria, And Anatolia.--His Turkish War.--
+     Defeat And Captivity Of Bajazet.--Death Of Timour.--Civil
+     War Of The Sons Of Bajazet.--Restoration Of The Turkish
+     Monarchy By Mahomet The First.--Siege Of Constantinople By
+     Amurath The Second.
+
+The conquest and monarchy of the world was the first object of the
+ambition of Timour. To live in the memory and esteem of future ages was
+the second wish of his magnanimous spirit. All the civil and military
+transactions of his reign were diligently recorded in the journals of
+his secretaries: [1] the authentic narrative was revised by the persons
+best informed of each particular transaction; and it is believed in
+the empire and family of Timour, that the monarch himself composed
+the _commentaries_ [2] of his life, and the _institutions_ [3] of his
+government. [4] But these cares were ineffectual for the preservation of
+his fame, and these precious memorials in the Mogul or Persian language
+were concealed from the world, or, at least, from the knowledge of
+Europe. The nations which he vanquished exercised a base and impotent
+revenge; and ignorance has long repeated the tale of calumny, [5] which
+had disfigured the birth and character, the person, and even the name,
+of _Tamerlane_. [6] Yet his real merit would be enhanced, rather than
+debased, by the elevation of a peasant to the throne of Asia; nor can
+his lameness be a theme of reproach, unless he had the weakness to blush
+at a natural, or perhaps an honorable, infirmity. [606]
+
+[Footnote 1: These journals were communicated to Sherefeddin, or
+Cherefeddin Ali, a native of Yezd, who composed in the Persian language
+a history of Timour Beg, which has been translated into French by M.
+Petit de la Croix, (Paris, 1722, in 4 vols. 12 mo.,) and has always
+been my faithful guide. His geography and chronology are wonderfully
+accurate; and he may be trusted for public facts, though he servilely
+praises the virtue and fortune of the hero. Timour's attention to
+procure intelligence from his own and foreign countries may be seen in
+the Institutions, p. 215, 217, 349, 351.]
+
+[Footnote 2: These Commentaries are yet unknown in Europe: but Mr. White
+gives some hope that they may be imported and translated by his friend
+Major Davy, who had read in the East this "minute and faithful narrative
+of an interesting and eventful period." * Note: The manuscript of Major
+Davy has been translated by Major Stewart, and published by the Oriental
+Translation Committee of London. It contains the life of Timour, from
+his birth to his forty-first year; but the last thirty years of western
+war and conquest are wanting. Major Stewart intimates that two
+manuscripts exist in this country containing the whole work, but excuses
+himself, on account of his age, from undertaking the laborious task of
+completing the translation. It is to be hoped that the European public
+will be soon enabled to judge of the value and authenticity of the
+Commentaries of the Cęsar of the East. Major Stewart's work commences
+with the Book of Dreams and Omens--a wild, but characteristic, chronicle
+of Visions and Sortes Koranicę. Strange that a life of Timour should
+awaken a reminiscence of the diary of Archbishop Laud! The early dawn
+and the gradual expression of his not less splendid but more real
+visions of ambition are touched with the simplicity of truth and nature.
+But we long to escape from the petty feuds of the pastoral chieftain, to
+the triumphs and the legislation of the conqueror of the world.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 3: I am ignorant whether the original institution, in the
+Turki or Mogul language, be still extant. The Persic version, with an
+English translation, and most valuable index, was published (Oxford,
+1783, in 4to.) by the joint labors of Major Davy and Mr. White, the
+Arabic professor. This work has been since translated from the Persic
+into French, (Paris, 1787,) by M. Langlčs, a learned Orientalist, who
+has added the life of Timour, and many curious notes.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Shaw Allum, the present Mogul, reads, values, but cannot
+imitate, the institutions of his great ancestor. The English translator
+relies on their internal evidence; but if any suspicions should arise
+of fraud and fiction, they will not be dispelled by Major Davy's letter.
+The Orientals have never cultivated the art of criticism; the patronage
+of a prince, less honorable, perhaps, is not less lucrative than that of
+a bookseller; nor can it be deemed incredible that a Persian, the _real_
+author, should renounce the credit, to raise the value and price, of the
+work.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The original of the tale is found in the following work,
+which is much esteemed for its florid elegance of style: _Ahmedis
+Arabsiad_ (Ahmed Ebn Arabshah) _Vitę et Rerum gestarum Timuri. Arabice
+et Latine. Edidit Samuel Henricus Manger. Franequer_, 1767, 2 tom.
+in 4to. This Syrian author is ever a malicious, and often an ignorant
+enemy: the very titles of his chapters are injurious; as how the wicked,
+as how the impious, as how the viper, &c. The copious article of
+Timur, in Bibliothčque Orientale, is of a mixed nature, as D'Herbelot
+indifferently draws his materials (p. 877--888) from Khondemir Ebn
+Schounah, and the Lebtarikh.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Demir_ or _Timour_ signifies in the Turkish language,
+Iron; and it is the appellation of a lord or prince. By the change of
+a letter or accent, it is changed into _Lenc_, or Lame; and a European
+corruption confounds the two words in the name of Tamerlane. *
+Note: According to the memoirs he was so called by a Shaikh, who, when
+visited by his mother on his birth, was reading the verse of the Koran,
+'Are you sure that he who dwelleth in heaven will not cause the earth
+to swallow you up, and behold _it shall shake_, Tamūrn." The Shaikh then
+stopped and said, "We have named your son _Timūr_," p. 21.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 606: He was lamed by a wound at the siege of the capital of
+Sistan. Sherefeddin, lib. iii. c. 17. p. 136. See Von Hammer, vol. i. p.
+260.--M.]
+
+In the eyes of the Moguls, who held the indefeasible succession of the
+house of Zingis, he was doubtless a rebel subject; yet he sprang from
+the noble tribe of Berlass: his fifth ancestor, Carashar Nevian, had
+been the vizier [607] of Zagatai, in his new realm of Transoxiana; and in
+the ascent of some generations, the branch of Timour is confounded, at
+least by the females, [7] with the Imperial stem. [8] He was born forty
+miles to the south of Samarcand in the village of Sebzar, in the
+fruitful territory of Cash, of which his fathers were the hereditary
+chiefs, as well as of a toman of ten thousand horse. [9] His birth [10]
+was cast on one of those periods of anarchy, which announce the fall of
+the Asiatic dynasties, and open a new field to adventurous ambition. The
+khans of Zagatai were extinct; the emirs aspired to independence; and
+their domestic feuds could only be suspended by the conquest and tyranny
+of the khans of Kashgar, who, with an army of Getes or Calmucks, [11]
+invaded the Transoxian kingdom. From the twelfth year of his age, Timour
+had entered the field of action; in the twenty-fifth [111] he stood forth
+as the deliverer of his country; and the eyes and wishes of the people
+were turned towards a hero who suffered in their cause. The chiefs of
+the law and of the army had pledged their salvation to support him with
+their lives and fortunes; but in the hour of danger they were silent
+and afraid; and, after waiting seven days on the hills of Samarcand,
+he retreated to the desert with only sixty horsemen. The fugitives
+were overtaken by a thousand Getes, whom he repulsed with incredible
+slaughter, and his enemies were forced to exclaim, "Timour is a
+wonderful man: fortune and the divine favor are with him." But in this
+bloody action his own followers were reduced to ten, a number which was
+soon diminished by the desertion of three Carizmians. [112] He wandered
+in the desert with his wife, seven companions, and four horses; and
+sixty-two days was he plunged in a loathsome dungeon, from whence he
+escaped by his own courage and the remorse of the oppressor. After
+swimming the broad and rapid steam of the Jihoon, or Oxus, he led,
+during some months, the life of a vagrant and outlaw, on the borders
+of the adjacent states. But his fame shone brighter in adversity; he
+learned to distinguish the friends of his person, the associates of his
+fortune, and to apply the various characters of men for their advantage,
+and, above all, for his own. On his return to his native country,
+Timour was successively joined by the parties of his confederates, who
+anxiously sought him in the desert; nor can I refuse to describe, in
+his pathetic simplicity, one of their fortunate encounters. He presented
+himself as a guide to three chiefs, who were at the head of seventy
+horse. "When their eyes fell upon me," says Timour, "they were
+overwhelmed with joy; and they alighted from their horses; and they came
+and kneeled; and they kissed my stirrup. I also came down from my horse,
+and took each of them in my arms. And I put my turban on the head of
+the first chief; and my girdle, rich in jewels and wrought with gold,
+I bound on the loins of the second; and the third I clothed in my
+own coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and the hour of prayer was
+arrived, and we prayed. And we mounted our horses, and came to my
+dwelling; and I collected my people, and made a feast." His trusty bands
+were soon increased by the bravest of the tribes; he led them against a
+superior foe; and, after some vicissitudes of war the Getes were finally
+driven from the kingdom of Transoxiana. He had done much for his own
+glory; but much remained to be done, much art to be exerted, and some
+blood to be spilt, before he could teach his equals to obey him as their
+master. The birth and power of emir Houssein compelled him to accept a
+vicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister was the best beloved of his
+wives. Their union was short and jealous; but the policy of Timour, in
+their frequent quarrels, exposed his rival to the reproach of injustice
+and perfidy; and, after a final defeat, Houssein was slain by some
+sagacious friends, who presumed, for the last time, to disobey the
+commands of their lord. [113] At the age of thirty-four, [12] and in a
+general diet or _couroultai_, he was invested with _Imperial_ command,
+but he affected to revere the house of Zingis; and while the emir Timour
+reigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served as a private
+officer in the armies of his servant. A fertile kingdom, five hundred
+miles in length and in breadth, might have satisfied the ambition of a
+subject; but Timour aspired to the dominion of the world; and before his
+death, the crown of Zagatai was one of the twenty-seven crowns which
+he had placed on his head. Without expatiating on the victories of
+thirty-five campaigns; without describing the lines of march, which he
+repeatedly traced over the continent of Asia; I shall briefly represent
+his conquests in, I. Persia, II. Tartary, and, III. India, [13] and from
+thence proceed to the more interesting narrative of his Ottoman war.
+
+[Footnote 607: In the memoirs, the title Gurgān is in one place (p. 23)
+interpreted the son-in-law; in another (p. 28) as Kurkan, great prince,
+generalissimo, and prime minister of Jagtai.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 7: After relating some false and foolish tales of Timour
+_Lenc_, Arabshah is compelled to speak truth, and to own him for a
+kinsman of Zingis, per mulieres, (as he peevishly adds,) laqueos Satanę,
+(pars i. c. i. p. 25.) The testimony of Abulghazi Khan (P. ii. c. 5, P.
+v. c. 4) is clear, unquestionable, and decisive.]
+
+[Footnote 8: According to one of the pedigrees, the fourth ancestor of
+Zingis, and the ninth of Timour, were brothers; and they agreed, that
+the posterity of the elder should succeed to the dignity of khan, and
+that the descendants of the younger should fill the office of their
+minister and general. This tradition was at least convenient to justify
+the _first_ steps of Timour's ambition, (Institutions, p. 24, 25, from
+the MS. fragments of Timour's History.)]
+
+[Footnote 9: See the preface of Sherefeddin, and Abulfeda's Geography,
+(Chorasmię, &c., Descriptio, p. 60, 61,) in the iiid volume of Hudson's
+Minor Greek Geographers.]
+
+[Footnote 10: See his nativity in Dr. Hyde, (Syntagma Dissertat. tom.
+ii. p. 466,) as it was cast by the astrologers of his grandson Ulugh
+Beg. He was born, A.D. 1336, April 9, 11ŗ 57'. p. m., lat. 36. I know
+not whether they can prove the great conjunction of the planets from
+whence, like other conquerors and prophets, Timour derived the surname
+of Saheb Keran, or master of the conjunctions, (Bibliot. Orient. p.
+878.)]
+
+[Footnote 11: In the Institutions of Timour, these subjects of the khan
+of Kashgar are most improperly styled Ouzbegs, or Usbeks, a name which
+belongs to another branch and country of Tartars, (Abulghazi, P. v.
+c. v. P. vii. c. 5.) Could I be sure that this word is in the Turkish
+original, I would boldly pronounce, that the Institutions were framed a
+century after the death of Timour, since the establishment of the Usbeks
+in Transoxiana. * Note: Col. Stewart observes, that the Persian
+translator has sometimes made use of the name Uzbek by anticipation. He
+observes, likewise, that these Jits (Getes) are not to be confounded
+with the ancient Getę: they were unconverted Turks. Col. Tod (History of
+Rajasthan, vol. i. p. 166) would identify the Jits with the ancient
+race.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 111: He was twenty-seven before he served his first wars under
+the emir Houssein, who ruled over Khorasan and Mawerainnehr. Von Hammer,
+vol. i. p. 262. Neither of these statements agrees with the Memoirs. At
+twelve he was a boy. "I fancied that I perceived in myself all the signs
+of greatness and wisdom, and whoever came to visit me, I received with
+great hauteur and dignity." At seventeen he undertook the management
+of the flocks and herds of the family, (p. 24.) At nineteen he became
+religious, and "left off playing chess," made a kind of Budhist vow
+never to injure living thing and felt his foot paralyzed from having
+accidentally trod upon an ant, (p. 30.) At twenty, thoughts of rebellion
+and greatness rose in his mind; at twenty-one, he seems to have
+performed his first feat of arms. He was a practised warrior when he
+served, in his twenty-seventh year, under Emir Houssein.]
+
+[Footnote 112: Compare Memoirs, page 61. The imprisonment is there stated
+at fifty-three days. "At this time I made a vow to God that I would
+never keep any person, whether guilty or innocent, for any length of
+time, in prison or in chains." p. 63.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 113: Timour, on one occasion, sent him this message: "He who
+wishes to embrace the bride of royalty must kiss her across the edge
+of the sharp sword," p. 83. The scene of the trial of Houssein, the
+resistance of Timour gradually becoming more feeble, the vengeance
+of the chiefs becoming proportionably more determined, is strikingly
+portrayed. Mem. p 130.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 12: The ist book of Sherefeddin is employed on the private
+life of the hero: and he himself, or his secretary, (Institutions, p.
+3--77,) enlarges with pleasure on the thirteen designs and enterprises
+which most truly constitute his _personal_ merit. It even shines through
+the dark coloring of Arabshah, (P. i. c. 1--12.)]
+
+[Footnote 13: The conquests of Persia, Tartary, and India, are
+represented in the iid and iiid books of Sherefeddin, and by Arabshah,
+(c. 13--55.) Consult the excellent Indexes to the Institutions. *
+Note: Compare the seventh book of Von Hammer, Geschichte des
+Osmanischen Reiches.--M.]
+
+I. For every war, a motive of safety or revenge, of honor or zeal,
+of right or convenience, may be readily found in the jurisprudence of
+conquerors. No sooner had Timour reunited to the patrimony of Zagatai
+the dependent countries of Carizme and Candahar, than he turned his eyes
+towards the kingdoms of Iran or Persia. From the Oxus to the Tigris,
+that extensive country was left without a lawful sovereign since the
+death of Abousaid, the last of the descendants of the great Holacou.
+Peace and justice had been banished from the land above forty years;
+and the Mogul invader might seem to listen to the cries of an oppressed
+people. Their petty tyrants might have opposed him with confederate
+arms: they separately stood, and successively fell; and the difference
+of their fate was only marked by the promptitude of submission or the
+obstinacy of resistance. Ibrahim, prince of Shirwan, or Albania, kissed
+the footstool of the Imperial throne. His peace-offerings of silks,
+horses, and jewels, were composed, according to the Tartar fashion, each
+article of nine pieces; but a critical spectator observed, that there
+were only eight slaves. "I myself am the ninth," replied Ibrahim, who
+was prepared for the remark; and his flattery was rewarded by the smile
+of Timour. [14] Shah Mansour, prince of Fars, or the proper Persia, was
+one of the least powerful, but most dangerous, of his enemies. In a
+battle under the walls of Shiraz, he broke, with three or four thousand
+soldiers, the _coul_ or main body of thirty thousand horse, where
+the emperor fought in person. No more than fourteen or fifteen guards
+remained near the standard of Timour: he stood firm as a rock, and
+received on his helmet two weighty strokes of a cimeter: [15] the Moguls
+rallied; the head of Mansour was thrown at his feet; and he declared
+his esteem of the valor of a foe, by extirpating all the males of so
+intrepid a race. From Shiraz, his troops advanced to the Persian Gulf;
+and the richness and weakness of Ormuz [16] were displayed in an annual
+tribute of six hundred thousand dinars of gold. Bagdad was no longer
+the city of peace, the seat of the caliphs; but the noblest conquest of
+Holacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. The whole
+course of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the mouth to the sources of
+those rivers, was reduced to his obedience: he entered Edessa; and the
+Turkmans of the black sheep were chastised for the sacrilegious
+pillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains of Georgia, the native
+Christians still braved the law and the sword of Mahomet, by three
+expeditions he obtained the merit of the _gazie_, or holy war; and the
+prince of Teflis became his proselyte and friend.
+
+[Footnote 14: The reverence of the Tartars for the mysterious number of
+_nine_ is declared by Abulghazi Khan, who, for that reason, divides his
+Genealogical History into nine parts.]
+
+[Footnote 15: According to Arabshah, (P. i. c. 28, p. 183,) the coward
+Timour ran away to his tent, and hid himself from the pursuit of Shah
+Mansour under the women's garments. Perhaps Sherefeddin (l. iii. c. 25)
+has magnified his courage.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The history of Ormuz is not unlike that of Tyre. The old
+city, on the continent, was destroyed by the Tartars, and renewed in
+a neighboring island, without fresh water or vegetation. The kings of
+Ormuz, rich in the Indian trade and the pearl fishery, possessed large
+territories both in Persia and Arabia; but they were at first the
+tributaries of the sultans of Kerman, and at last were delivered (A.D.
+1505) by the Portuguese tyrants from the tyranny of their own viziers,
+(Marco Polo, l. i. c. 15, 16, fol. 7, 8. Abulfeda, Geograph. tabul. xi.
+p. 261, 262, an original Chronicle of Ormuz, in Texeira, or Stevens's
+History of Persia, p. 376--416, and the Itineraries inserted in the ist
+volume of Ramusio, of Ludovico Barthema, (1503,) fol. 167, of Andrea
+Corsali, (1517) fol. 202, 203, and of Odoardo Barbessa, (in 1516,) fol.
+313--318.)]
+
+II. A just retaliation might be urged for the invasion of Turkestan, or
+the Eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timour could not endure the impunity
+of the Getes: he passed the Sihoon, subdued the kingdom of Kashgar, and
+marched seven times into the heart of their country. His most distant
+camp was two months' journey, or four hundred and eighty leagues to the
+north-east of Samarcand; and his emirs, who traversed the River Irtish,
+engraved in the forests of Siberia a rude memorial of their exploits.
+The conquest of Kipzak, or the Western Tartary, [17] was founded on the
+double motive of aiding the distressed, and chastising the ungrateful.
+Toctamish, a fugitive prince, was entertained and protected in his
+court: the ambassadors of Auruss Khan were dismissed with a haughty
+denial, and followed on the same day by the armies of Zagatai; and their
+success established Toctamish in the Mogul empire of the North. But,
+after a reign of ten years, the new khan forgot the merits and the
+strength of his benefactor; the base usurper, as he deemed him, of the
+sacred rights of the house of Zingis. Through the gates of Derbend,
+he entered Persia at the head of ninety thousand horse: with the
+innumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he passed
+the Sihoon, burnt the palaces of Timour, and compelled him, amidst
+the winter snows, to contend for Samarcand and his life. After a mild
+expostulation, and a glorious victory, the emperor resolved on revenge;
+and by the east, and the west, of the Caspian, and the Volga, he
+twice invaded Kipzak with such mighty powers, that thirteen miles were
+measured from his right to his left wing. In a march of five months,
+they rarely beheld the footsteps of man; and their daily subsistence
+was often trusted to the fortune of the chase. At length the armies
+encountered each other; but the treachery of the standard-bearer,
+who, in the heat of action, reversed the Imperial standard of Kipzak,
+determined the victory of the Zagatais; and Toctamish (I peak the
+language of the Institutions) gave the tribe of Toushi to the wind
+of desolation. [18] He fled to the Christian duke of Lithuania; again
+returned to the banks of the Volga; and, after fifteen battles with a
+domestic rival, at last perished in the wilds of Siberia. The pursuit of
+a flying enemy carried Timour into the tributary provinces of Russia:
+a duke of the reigning family was made prisoner amidst the ruins of his
+capital; and Yeletz, by the pride and ignorance of the Orientals, might
+easily be confounded with the genuine metropolis of the nation. Moscow
+trembled at the approach of the Tartar, and the resistance would have
+been feeble, since the hopes of the Russians were placed in a miraculous
+image of the Virgin, to whose protection they ascribed the casual and
+voluntary retreat of the conqueror. Ambition and prudence recalled him
+to the South, the desolate country was exhausted, and the Mogul soldiers
+were enriched with an immense spoil of precious furs, of linen of
+Antioch, [19] and of ingots of gold and silver. [20] On the banks of the
+Don, or Tanais, he received an humble deputation from the consuls
+and merchants of Egypt, [21] Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay, who
+occupied the commerce and city of Tana, or Azoph, at the mouth of the
+river. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence, and trusted
+his royal word. But the peaceful visit of an emir, who explored
+the state of the magazines and harbor, was speedily followed by the
+destructive presence of the Tartars. The city was reduced to ashes; the
+Moslems were pillaged and dismissed; but all the Christians, who had
+not fled to their ships, were condemned either to death or slavery.
+[22] Revenge prompted him to burn the cities of Serai and Astrachan, the
+monuments of rising civilization; and his vanity proclaimed, that he had
+penetrated to the region of perpetual daylight, a strange phenomenon,
+which authorized his Mahometan doctors to dispense with the obligation
+of evening prayer. [23]
+
+[Footnote 17: Arabshah had travelled into Kipzak, and acquired a
+singular knowledge of the geography, cities, and revolutions, of that
+northern region, (P. i. c. 45--49.)]
+
+[Footnote 18: Institutions of Timour, p. 123, 125. Mr. White, the
+editor, bestows some animadversion on the superficial account of
+Sherefeddin, (l. iii. c. 12, 13, 14,) who was ignorant of the designs of
+Timour, and the true springs of action.]
+
+[Footnote 19: The furs of Russia are more credible than the ingots. But
+the linen of Antioch has never been famous: and Antioch was in ruins.
+I suspect that it was some manufacture of Europe, which the Hanse
+merchants had imported by the way of Novogorod.]
+
+[Footnote 20: M. Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom. ii. p. 247. Vie de
+Timour, p. 64--67, before the French version of the Institutes) has
+corrected the error of Sherefeddin, and marked the true limit of
+Timour's conquests. His arguments are superfluous; and a simple appeal
+to the Russian annals is sufficient to prove that Moscow, which six
+years before had been taken by Toctamish, escaped the arms of a more
+formidable invader.]
+
+[Footnote 21: An Egyptian consul from Grand Cairo is mentioned in
+Barbaro's voyage to Tana in 1436, after the city had been rebuilt,
+(Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 92.)]
+
+[Footnote 22: The sack of Azoph is described by Sherefeddin, (l. iii. c.
+55,) and much more particularly by the author of an Italian chronicle,
+(Andreas de Redusiis de Quero, in Chron. Tarvisiano, in Muratori,
+Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xix. p. 802--805.) He had conversed with
+the Mianis, two Venetian brothers, one of whom had been sent a deputy
+to the camp of Timour, and the other had lost at Azoph three sons and
+12,000 ducats.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Sherefeddin only says (l. iii. c. 13) that the rays of
+the setting, and those of the rising sun, were scarcely separated by any
+interval; a problem which may be solved in the latitude of Moscow, (the
+56th degree,) with the aid of the Aurora Borealis, and a long summer
+twilight. But a _day_ of forty days (Khondemir apud D'Herbelot, p. 880)
+would rigorously confine us within the polar circle.]
+
+III. When Timour first proposed to his princes and emirs the invasion of
+India or Hindostan, [24] he was answered by a murmur of discontent: "The
+rivers! and the mountains and deserts! and the soldiers clad in armor!
+and the elephants, destroyers of men!" But the displeasure of the
+emperor was more dreadful than all these terrors; and his superior
+reason was convinced, that an enterprise of such tremendous aspect was
+safe and easy in the execution. He was informed by his spies of the
+weakness and anarchy of Hindostan: the soubahs of the provinces had
+erected the standard of rebellion; and the perpetual infancy of Sultan
+Mahmoud was despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Mogul army moved
+in three great divisions; and Timour observes with pleasure, that the
+ninety-two squadrons of a thousand horse most fortunately corresponded
+with the ninety-two names or epithets of the prophet Mahomet. [241] Between
+the Jihoon and the Indus they crossed one of the ridges of mountains,
+which are styled by the Arabian geographers The Stony Girdles of the
+Earth. The highland robbers were subdued or extirpated; but great
+numbers of men and horses perished in the snow; the emperor himself was
+let down a precipice on a portable scaffold--the ropes were one hundred
+and fifty cubits in length; and before he could reach the bottom, this
+dangerous operation was five times repeated. Timour crossed the Indus
+at the ordinary passage of Attok; and successively traversed, in the
+footsteps of Alexander, the _Punjab_, or five rivers, [25] that fall into
+the master stream. From Attok to Delhi, the high road measures no
+more than six hundred miles; but the two conquerors deviated to the
+south-east; and the motive of Timour was to join his grandson, who had
+achieved by his command the conquest of Moultan. On the eastern bank of
+the Hyphasis, on the edge of the desert, the Macedonian hero halted and
+wept: the Mogul entered the desert, reduced the fortress of Batmir, and
+stood in arms before the gates of Delhi, a great and flourishing city,
+which had subsisted three centuries under the dominion of the Mahometan
+kings. [251] The siege, more especially of the castle, might have been a
+work of time; but he tempted, by the appearance of weakness, the sultan
+Mahmoud and his vizier to descend into the plain, with ten thousand
+cuirassiers, forty thousand of his foot-guards, and one hundred and
+twenty elephants, whose tusks are said to have been armed with sharp
+and poisoned daggers. Against these monsters, or rather against the
+imagination of his troops, he condescended to use some extraordinary
+precautions of fire and a ditch, of iron spikes and a rampart of
+bucklers; but the event taught the Moguls to smile at their own fears;
+and as soon as these unwieldy animals were routed, the inferior species
+(the men of India) disappeared from the field. Timour made his triumphal
+entry into the capital of Hindostan; and admired, with a view to
+imitate, the architecture of the stately mosque; but the order or
+license of a general pillage and massacre polluted the festival of
+his victory. He resolved to purify his soldiers in the blood of the
+idolaters, or Gentoos, who still surpass, in the proportion of ten to
+one, the numbers of the Moslems. [252] In this pious design, he advanced
+one hundred miles to the north-east of Delhi, passed the Ganges, fought
+several battles by land and water, and penetrated to the famous rock of
+Coupele, the statue of the cow, [253] that _seems_ to discharge the mighty
+river, whose source is far distant among the mountains of Thibet. [26]
+His return was along the skirts of the northern hills; nor could this
+rapid campaign of one year justify the strange foresight of his emirs,
+that their children in a warm climate would degenerate into a race of
+Hindoos.
+
+[Footnote 24: For the Indian war, see the Institutions, (p. 129--139,)
+the fourth book of Sherefeddin, and the history of Ferishta, (in Dow,
+vol. ii. p. 1--20,) which throws a general light on the affairs of
+Hindostan.]
+
+[Footnote 241: Gibbon (observes M. von Hammer) is mistaken in the
+correspondence of the ninety-two squadrons of his army with the
+ninety-two names of God: the names of God are ninety-nine. and Allah is
+the hundredth, p. 286, note. But Gibbon speaks of the names or epithets
+of Mahomet, not of God.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 25: The rivers of the Punjab, the five eastern branches of the
+Indus, have been laid down for the first time with truth and accuracy in
+Major Rennel's incomparable map of Hindostan. In this Critical Memoir
+he illustrates with judgment and learning the marches of Alexander and
+Timour. * Note See vol. i. ch. ii. note 1.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 251: They took, on their march, 100,000 slaves, Guebers they
+were all murdered. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 286. They are called idolaters.
+Briggs's Ferishta, vol. i. p. 491.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 252: See a curious passage on the destruction of the Hindoo
+idols, Memoirs, p. 15.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 253: Consult the very striking description of the Cow's Mouth by
+Captain Hodgson, Asiat. Res. vol. xiv. p. 117. "A most wonderful scene.
+The B'hagiratha or Ganges issues from under a very low arch at the foot
+of the grand snow bed. My guide, an illiterate mountaineer compared the
+pendent icicles to Mahodeva's hair." (Compare Poems, Quarterly Rev.
+vol. xiv. p. 37, and at the end of my translation of Nala.) "Hindoos of
+research may formerly have been here; and if so, I cannot think of any
+place to which they might more aptly give the name of a cow's mouth than
+to this extraordinary debouche."--M.]
+
+[Footnote 26: The two great rivers, the Ganges and Burrampooter, rise in
+Thibet, from the opposite ridges of the same hills, separate from each
+other to the distance of 1200 miles, and, after a winding course of
+2000 miles, again meet in one point near the Gulf of Bengal. Yet so
+capricious is Fame, that the Burrampooter is a late discovery, while his
+brother Ganges has been the theme of ancient and modern story Coupele,
+the scene of Timour's last victory, must be situate near Loldong, 1100
+miles from Calcutta; and in 1774, a British camp! (Rennel's Memoir, p.
+7, 59, 90, 91, 99.)]
+
+It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timour was informed, by his
+speedy messengers, of the disturbances which had arisen on the confines
+of Georgia and Anatolia, of the revolt of the Christians, and the
+ambitious designs of the sultan Bajazet. His vigor of mind and body was
+not impaired by sixty-three years, and innumerable fatigues; and, after
+enjoying some tranquil months in the palace of Samarcand, he proclaimed
+a new expedition of seven years into the western countries of Asia. [27]
+To the soldiers who had served in the Indian war he granted the choice
+of remaining at home, or following their prince; but the troops of
+all the provinces and kingdoms of Persia were commanded to assemble at
+Ispahan, and wait the arrival of the Imperial standard. It was first
+directed against the Christians of Georgia, who were strong only in
+their rocks, their castles, and the winter season; but these obstacles
+were overcome by the zeal and perseverance of Timour: the rebels
+submitted to the tribute or the Koran; and if both religions boasted of
+their martyrs, that name is more justly due to the Christian prisoners,
+who were offered the choice of abjuration or death. On his descent
+from the hills, the emperor gave audience to the first ambassadors
+of Bajazet, and opened the hostile correspondence of complaints and
+menaces, which fermented two years before the final explosion. Between
+two jealous and haughty neighbors, the motives of quarrel will seldom be
+wanting. The Mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in the
+neighborhood of Erzeroum, and the Euphrates; nor had the doubtful limit
+been ascertained by time and treaty. Each of these ambitious monarchs
+might accuse his rival of violating his territory, of threatening his
+vassals, and protecting his rebels; and, by the name of rebels, each
+understood the fugitive princes, whose kingdoms he had usurped,
+and whose life or liberty he implacably pursued. The resemblance of
+character was still more dangerous than the opposition of interest;
+and in their victorious career, Timour was impatient of an equal, and
+Bajazet was ignorant of a superior. The first epistle [28] of the Mogul
+emperor must have provoked, instead of reconciling, the Turkish sultan,
+whose family and nation he affected to despise. [29] "Dost thou not know,
+that the greatest part of Asia is subject to our arms and our laws?
+that our invincible forces extend from one sea to the other? that the
+potentates of the earth form a line before our gate? and that we have
+compelled Fortune herself to watch over the prosperity of our empire.
+What is the foundation of thy insolence and folly? Thou hast fought
+some battles in the woods of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Thou hast
+obtained some victories over the Christians of Europe; thy sword was
+blessed by the apostle of God; and thy obedience to the precept of the
+Koran, in waging war against the infidels, is the sole consideration
+that prevents us from destroying thy country, the frontier and bulwark
+of the Moslem world. Be wise in time; reflect; repent; and avert the
+thunder of our vengeance, which is yet suspended over thy head. Thou
+art no more than a pismire; why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants?
+Alas! they will trample thee under their feet." In his replies, Bajazet
+poured forth the indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by such
+unusual contempt. After retorting the basest reproaches on the thief and
+rebel of the desert, the Ottoman recapitulates his boasted victories in
+Iran, Touran, and the Indies; and labors to prove, that Timour had never
+triumphed unless by his own perfidy and the vices of his foes. "Thy
+armies are innumerable: be they so; but what are the arrows of the
+flying Tartar against the cimeters and battle-axes of my firm and
+invincible Janizaries? I will guard the princes who have implored my
+protection: seek them in my tents. The cities of Arzingan and Erzeroum
+are mine; and unless the tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrears
+under the walls of Tauris and Sultania." The ungovernable rage of the
+sultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more domestic kind. "If
+I fly from thy arms," said he, "may _my_ wives be thrice divorced from
+my bed: but if thou hast not courage to meet me in the field, mayest
+thou again receive _thy_ wives after they have thrice endured the
+embraces of a stranger." [30] Any violation by word or deed of the
+secrecy of the harem is an unpardonable offence among the Turkish
+nations; [31] and the political quarrel of the two monarchs was
+imbittered by private and personal resentment. Yet in his first
+expedition, Timour was satisfied with the siege and destruction of Siwas
+or Sebaste, a strong city on the borders of Anatolia; and he revenged
+the indiscretion of the Ottoman, on a garrison of four thousand
+Armenians, who were buried alive for the brave and faithful discharge of
+their duty. [311] As a Mussulman, he seemed to respect the pious occupation
+of Bajazet, who was still engaged in the blockade of Constantinople; and
+after this salutary lesson, the Mogul conqueror checked his pursuit, and
+turned aside to the invasion of Syria and Egypt. In these transactions,
+the Ottoman prince, by the Orientals, and even by Timour, is styled the
+_Kaissar of Roum_, the Cęsar of the Romans; a title which, by a small
+anticipation, might be given to a monarch who possessed the provinces,
+and threatened the city, of the successors of Constantine. [32]
+
+[Footnote 27: See the Institutions, p. 141, to the end of the 1st
+book, and Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 1--16,) to the entrance of Timour into
+Syria.]
+
+[Footnote 28: We have three copies of these hostile epistles in the
+Institutions, (p. 147,) in Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 14,) and in Arabshah,
+(tom. ii. c. 19 p. 183--201;) which agree with each other in the spirit
+and substance rather than in the style. It is probable, that they have
+been translated, with various latitude, from the Turkish original into
+the Arabic and Persian tongues. * Note: Von Hammer considers the letter
+which Gibbon inserted in the text to be spurious. On the various copies
+of these letters, see his note, p 116.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 29: The Mogul emir distinguishes himself and his countrymen by
+the name of _Turks_, and stigmatizes the race and nation of Bajazet with
+the less honorable epithet of _Turkmans_. Yet I do not understand how
+the Ottomans could be descended from a Turkman sailor; those inland
+shepherds were so remote from the sea, and all maritime affairs. *
+Note: Price translated the word pilot or boatman.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 30: According to the Koran, (c. ii. p. 27, and Sale's
+Discourses, p. 134,) Mussulman who had thrice divorced his wife, (who
+had thrice repeated the words of a divorce,) could not take her again,
+till after she had been married _to_, and repudiated _by_, another
+husband; an ignominious transaction, which it is needless to aggravate,
+by supposing that the first husband must see her enjoyed by a second
+before his face, (Rycaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, l. ii. c. 21.)]
+
+[Footnote 31: The common delicacy of the Orientals, in never speaking
+of their women, is ascribed in a much higher degree by Arabshah to the
+Turkish nations; and it is remarkable enough, that Chalcondyles (l. ii.
+p. 55) had some knowledge of the prejudice and the insult. *
+Note: See Von Hammer, p. 308, and note, p. 621.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 311: Still worse barbarities were perpetrated on these brave men.
+Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 295.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 32: For the style of the Moguls, see the Institutions, (p.
+131, 147,) and for the Persians, the Bibliothčque Orientale, (p. 882;)
+but I do not find that the title of Cęsar has been applied by the
+Arabians, or assumed by the Ottomans themselves.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.--Part II.
+
+The military republic of the Mamalukes still reigned in Egypt and Syria:
+but the dynasty of the Turks was overthrown by that of the Circassians;
+[33] and their favorite Barkok, from a slave and a prisoner, was raised
+and restored to the throne. In the midst of rebellion and discord, he
+braved the menaces, corresponded with the enemies, and detained the
+ambassadors, of the Mogul, who patiently expected his decease, to
+revenge the crimes of the father on the feeble reign of his son Farage.
+The Syrian emirs [34] were assembled at Aleppo to repel the invasion:
+they confided in the fame and discipline of the Mamalukes, in the temper
+of their swords and lances of the purest steel of Damascus, in the
+strength of their walled cities, and in the populousness of sixty
+thousand villages; and instead of sustaining a siege, they threw open
+their gates, and arrayed their forces in the plain. But these forces
+were not cemented by virtue and union; and some powerful emirs had been
+seduced to desert or betray their more loyal companions. Timour's front
+was covered with a line of Indian elephants, whose turrets were filled
+with archers and Greek fire: the rapid evolutions of his cavalry
+completed the dismay and disorder; the Syrian crowds fell back on each
+other: many thousands were stifled or slaughtered in the entrance of the
+great street; the Moguls entered with the fugitives; and after a short
+defence, the citadel, the impregnable citadel of Aleppo, was surrendered
+by cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants and captives, Timour
+distinguished the doctors of the law, whom he invited to the dangerous
+honor of a personal conference. [35] The Mogul prince was a zealous
+Mussulman; but his Persian schools had taught him to revere the memory
+of Ali and Hosein; and he had imbibed a deep prejudice against the
+Syrians, as the enemies of the son of the daughter of the apostle
+of God. To these doctors he proposed a captious question, which the
+casuists of Bochara, Samarcand, and Herat, were incapable of resolving.
+"Who are the true martyrs, of those who are slain on my side, or on that
+of my enemies?" But he was silenced, or satisfied, by the dexterity
+of one of the cadhis of Aleppo, who replied in the words of Mahomet
+himself, that the motive, not the ensign, constitutes the martyr; and
+that the Moslems of either party, who fight only for the glory of God,
+may deserve that sacred appellation. The true succession of the caliphs
+was a controversy of a still more delicate nature; and the frankness of
+a doctor, too honest for his situation, provoked the emperor to exclaim,
+"Ye are as false as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a
+tyrant, and Ali alone is the lawful successor of the prophet." A prudent
+explanation restored his tranquillity; and he passed to a more familiar
+topic of conversation. "What is your age?" said he to the cadhi.
+"Fifty years."--"It would be the age of my eldest son: you see me here
+(continued Timour) a poor lame, decrepit mortal. Yet by my arm has the
+Almighty been pleased to subdue the kingdoms of Iran, Touran, and the
+Indies. I am not a man of blood; and God is my witness, that in all my
+wars I have never been the aggressor, and that my enemies have
+always been the authors of their own calamity." During this peaceful
+conversation the streets of Aleppo streamed with blood, and reechoed
+with the cries of mothers and children, with the shrieks of violated
+virgins. The rich plunder that was abandoned to his soldiers might
+stimulate their avarice; but their cruelty was enforced by the
+peremptory command of producing an adequate number of heads, which,
+according to his custom, were curiously piled in columns and pyramids:
+the Moguls celebrated the feast of victory, while the surviving Moslems
+passed the night in tears and in chains. I shall not dwell on the
+march of the destroyer from Aleppo to Damascus, where he was rudely
+encountered, and almost overthrown, by the armies of Egypt. A retrograde
+motion was imputed to his distress and despair: one of his nephews
+deserted to the enemy; and Syria rejoiced in the tale of his defeat,
+when the sultan was driven by the revolt of the Mamalukes to escape
+with precipitation and shame to his palace of Cairo. Abandoned by their
+prince, the inhabitants of Damascus still defended their walls; and
+Timour consented to raise the siege, if they would adorn his retreat
+with a gift or ransom; each article of nine pieces. But no sooner had
+he introduced himself into the city, under color of a truce, than he
+perfidiously violated the treaty; imposed a contribution of ten millions
+of gold; and animated his troops to chastise the posterity of those
+Syrians who had executed, or approved, the murder of the grandson
+of Mahomet. A family which had given honorable burial to the head of
+Hosein, and a colony of artificers, whom he sent to labor at Samarcand,
+were alone reserved in the general massacre, and after a period of seven
+centuries, Damascus was reduced to ashes, because a Tartar was moved by
+religious zeal to avenge the blood of an Arab. The losses and fatigues
+of the campaign obliged Timour to renounce the conquest of Palestine
+and Egypt; but in his return to the Euphrates he delivered Aleppo to the
+flames; and justified his pious motive by the pardon and reward of two
+thousand sectaries of Ali, who were desirous to visit the tomb of
+his son. I have expatiated on the personal anecdotes which mark the
+character of the Mogul hero; but I shall briefly mention, [36] that he
+erected on the ruins of Bagdad a pyramid of ninety thousand heads; again
+visited Georgia; encamped on the banks of Araxes; and proclaimed his
+resolution of marching against the Ottoman emperor. Conscious of the
+importance of the war, he collected his forces from every province:
+eight hundred thousand men were enrolled on his military list; [37] but
+the splendid commands of five, and ten, thousand horse, may be rather
+expressive of the rank and pension of the chiefs, than of the genuine
+number of effective soldiers. [38] In the pillage of Syria, the Moguls
+had acquired immense riches: but the delivery of their pay and arrears
+for seven years more firmly attached them to the Imperial standard.
+
+[Footnote 33: See the reigns of Barkok and Pharadge, in M. De Guignes,
+(tom. iv. l. xxii.,) who, from the Arabic texts of Aboulmahasen, Ebn
+(Schounah, and Aintabi, has added some facts to our common stock of
+materials.)]
+
+[Footnote 34: For these recent and domestic transactions, Arabshah,
+though a partial, is a credible, witness, (tom. i. c. 64--68, tom. ii.
+c. 1--14.) Timour must have been odious to a Syrian; but the notoriety
+of facts would have obliged him, in some measure, to respect his enemy
+and himself. His bitters may correct the luscious sweets of Sherefeddin,
+(l. v. c. 17--29.)]
+
+[Footnote 35: These interesting conversations appear to have been copied
+by Arabshah (tom. i. c. 68, p. 625--645) from the cadhi and historian
+Ebn Schounah, a principal actor. Yet how could he be alive seventy-five
+years afterwards? (D'Herbelot, p. 792.)]
+
+[Footnote 36: The marches and occupations of Timour between the Syrian
+and Ottoman wars are represented by Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 29--43) and
+Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 15--18.)]
+
+[Footnote 37: This number of 800,000 was extracted by Arabshah,
+or rather by Ebn Schounah, ex rationario Timuri, on the faith of a
+Carizmian officer, (tom. i. c. 68, p. 617;) and it is remarkable enough,
+that a Greek historian (Phranza, l. i. c. 29) adds no more than 20,000
+men. Poggius reckons 1,000,000; another Latin contemporary (Chron.
+Tarvisianum, apud Muratori, tom. xix. p. 800) 1,100,000; and the
+enormous sum of 1,600,000 is attested by a German soldier, who was
+present at the battle of Angora, (Leunclav. ad Chalcondyl. l. iii.
+p. 82.) Timour, in his Institutions, has not deigned to calculate his
+troops, his subjects, or his revenues.]
+
+[Footnote 38: A wide latitude of non-effectives was allowed by the
+Great Mogul for his own pride and the benefit of his officers. Bernier's
+patron was Penge-Hazari, commander of 5000 horse; of which he maintained
+no more than 500, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 288, 289.)]
+
+During this diversion of the Mogul arms, Bajazet had two years to
+collect his forces for a more serious encounter. They consisted of four
+hundred thousand horse and foot, [39] whose merit and fidelity were of
+an unequal complexion. We may discriminate the Janizaries, who have been
+gradually raised to an establishment of forty thousand men; a national
+cavalry, the Spahis of modern times; twenty thousand cuirassiers of
+Europe, clad in black and impenetrable armor; the troops of Anatolia,
+whose princes had taken refuge in the camp of Timour, and a colony
+of Tartars, whom he had driven from Kipzak, and to whom Bajazet
+had assigned a settlement in the plains of Adrianople. The fearless
+confidence of the sultan urged him to meet his antagonist; and, as if he
+had chosen that spot for revenge, he displayed his banner near the
+ruins of the unfortunate Suvas. In the mean while, Timour moved from the
+Araxes through the countries of Armenia and Anatolia: his boldness was
+secured by the wisest precautions; his speed was guided by order
+and discipline; and the woods, the mountains, and the rivers, were
+diligently explored by the flying squadrons, who marked his road and
+preceded his standard. Firm in his plan of fighting in the heart of
+the Ottoman kingdom, he avoided their camp; dexterously inclined to the
+left; occupied Cęsarea; traversed the salt desert and the River Halys;
+and invested Angora: while the sultan, immovable and ignorant in his
+post, compared the Tartar swiftness to the crawling of a snail; [40] he
+returned on the wings of indignation to the relief of Angora: and as
+both generals were alike impatient for action, the plains round that
+city were the scene of a memorable battle, which has immortalized the
+glory of Timour and the shame of Bajazet. For this signal victory the
+Mogul emperor was indebted to himself, to the genius of the moment, and
+the discipline of thirty years. He had improved the tactics, without
+violating the manners, of his nation, [41] whose force still consisted in
+the missile weapons, and rapid evolutions, of a numerous cavalry. From
+a single troop to a great army, the mode of attack was the same: a
+foremost line first advanced to the charge, and was supported in a just
+order by the squadrons of the great vanguard. The general's eye watched
+over the field, and at his command the front and rear of the right and
+left wings successively moved forwards in their several divisions, and
+in a direct or oblique line: the enemy was pressed by eighteen or twenty
+attacks; and each attack afforded a chance of victory. If they all
+proved fruitless or unsuccessful, the occasion was worthy of the emperor
+himself, who gave the signal of advancing to the standard and main body,
+which he led in person. [42] But in the battle of Angora, the main body
+itself was supported, on the flanks and in the rear, by the bravest
+squadrons of the reserve, commanded by the sons and grandsons of Timour.
+The conqueror of Hindostan ostentatiously showed a line of elephants,
+the trophies, rather than the instruments, of victory; the use of
+the Greek fire was familiar to the Moguls and Ottomans; but had they
+borrowed from Europe the recent invention of gunpowder and cannon, the
+artificial thunder, in the hands of either nation, must have turned the
+fortune of the day. [43] In that day Bajazet displayed the qualities of
+a soldier and a chief: but his genius sunk under a stronger ascendant;
+and, from various motives, the greatest part of his troops failed him
+in the decisive moment. His rigor and avarice [431] had provoked a mutiny
+among the Turks; and even his son Soliman too hastily withdrew from the
+field. The forces of Anatolia, loyal in their revolt, were drawn away to
+the banners of their lawful princes. His Tartar allies had been tempted
+by the letters and emissaries of Timour; [44] who reproached their
+ignoble servitude under the slaves of their fathers; and offered to
+their hopes the dominion of their new, or the liberty of their ancient,
+country. In the right wing of Bajazet the cuirassiers of Europe charged,
+with faithful hearts and irresistible arms: but these men of iron
+were soon broken by an artful flight and headlong pursuit; and the
+Janizaries, alone, without cavalry or missile weapons, were encompassed
+by the circle of the Mogul hunters. Their valor was at length oppressed
+by heat, thirst, and the weight of numbers; and the unfortunate sultan,
+afflicted with the gout in his hands and feet, was transported from the
+field on the fleetest of his horses. He was pursued and taken by the
+titular khan of Zagatai; and, after his capture, and the defeat of the
+Ottoman powers, the kingdom of Anatolia submitted to the conqueror,
+who planted his standard at Kiotahia, and dispersed on all sides the
+ministers of rapine and destruction. Mirza Mehemmed Sultan, the eldest
+and best beloved of his grandsons, was despatched to Boursa, with thirty
+thousand horse; and such was his youthful ardor, that he arrived with
+only four thousand at the gates of the capital, after performing in five
+days a march of two hundred and thirty miles. Yet fear is still more
+rapid in its course; and Soliman, the son of Bajazet, had already passed
+over to Europe with the royal treasure. The spoil, however, of the
+palace and city was immense: the inhabitants had escaped; but the
+buildings, for the most part of wood, were reduced to ashes From Boursa,
+the grandson of Timour advanced to Nice, ever yet a fair and flourishing
+city; and the Mogul squadrons were only stopped by the waves of the
+Propontis. The same success attended the other mirzas and emirs in their
+excursions; and Smyrna, defended by the zeal and courage of the Rhodian
+knights, alone deserved the presence of the emperor himself. After an
+obstinate defence, the place was taken by storm: all that breathed was
+put to the sword; and the heads of the Christian heroes were launched
+from the engines, on board of two carracks, or great ships of Europe,
+that rode at anchor in the harbor. The Moslems of Asia rejoiced in their
+deliverance from a dangerous and domestic foe; and a parallel was drawn
+between the two rivals, by observing that Timour, in fourteen days,
+had reduced a fortress which had sustained seven years the siege, or at
+least the blockade, of Bajazet. [45]
+
+[Footnote 39: Timour himself fixes at 400,000 men the Ottoman army,
+(Institutions, p. 153,) which is reduced to 150,000 by Phranza, (l. i.
+c. 29,) and swelled by the German soldier to 1,400,000. It is evident
+that the Moguls were the more numerous.]
+
+[Footnote 40: It may not be useless to mark the distances between Angora
+and the neighboring cities, by the journeys of the caravans, each of
+twenty or twenty-five miles; to Smyrna xx., to Kiotahia x., to Boursa
+x., to Cęsarea, viii., to Sinope x., to Nicomedia ix., to Constantinople
+xii. or xiii., (see Tournefort, Voyage au Levant, tom. ii. lettre xxi.)]
+
+[Footnote 41: See the Systems of Tactics in the Institutions, which the
+English editors have illustrated with elaborate plans, (p. 373--407.)]
+
+[Footnote 42: The sultan himself (says Timour) must then put the foot of
+courage into the stirrup of patience. A Tartar metaphor, which is lost
+in the English, but preserved in the French, version of the Institutes,
+(p. 156, 157.)]
+
+[Footnote 43: The Greek fire, on Timour's side, is attested by
+Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 47;) but Voltaire's strange suspicion, that some
+cannon, inscribed with strange characters, must have been sent by
+that monarch to Delhi, is refuted by the universal silence of
+contemporaries.]
+
+[Footnote 431: See V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 310, for the singular hints
+which were conveyed to him of the wisdom of unlocking his hoarded
+treasures.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 44: Timour has dissembled this secret and important
+negotiation with the Tartars, which is indisputably proved by the joint
+evidence of the Arabian, (tom. i. c. 47, p. 391,) Turkish, (Annal.
+Leunclav. p. 321,) and Persian historians, (Khondemir, apud d'Herbelot,
+p. 882.)]
+
+[Footnote 45: For the war of Anatolia or Roum, I add some hints in the
+Institutions, to the copious narratives of Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 44--65)
+and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 20--35.) On this part only of Timour's
+history it is lawful to quote the Turks, (Cantemir, p. 53--55, Annal.
+Leunclav. p. 320--322,) and the Greeks, (Phranza, l. i. c. 59, Ducas, c.
+15--17, Chalcondyles, l. iii.)]
+
+The _iron cage_ in which Bajazet was imprisoned by Tamerlane, so long
+and so often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected as a fable by
+the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity. [46] They appeal
+with confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, which has
+been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I
+shall collect and abridge a more specious narrative of this memorable
+transaction. No sooner was Timour informed that the captive Ottoman was
+at the door of his tent, than he graciously stepped forwards to receive
+him, seated him by his side, and mingled with just reproaches a soothing
+pity for his rank and misfortune. "Alas!" said the emperor, "the decree
+of fate is now accomplished by your own fault; it is the web which you
+have woven, the thorns of the tree which yourself have planted. I wished
+to spare, and even to assist, the champion of the Moslems; you braved
+our threats; you despised our friendship; you forced us to enter
+your kingdom with our invincible armies. Behold the event. Had you
+vanquished, I am not ignorant of the fate which you reserved for myself
+and my troops. But I disdain to retaliate: your life and honor are
+secure; and I shall express my gratitude to God by my clemency to
+man." The royal captive showed some signs of repentance, accepted the
+humiliation of a robe of honor, and embraced with tears his son Mousa,
+who, at his request, was sought and found among the captives of the
+field. The Ottoman princes were lodged in a splendid pavilion; and the
+respect of the guards could be surpassed only by their vigilance. On the
+arrival of the harem from Boursa, Timour restored the queen Despina and
+her daughter to their father and husband; but he piously required, that
+the Servian princess, who had hitherto been indulged in the profession
+of Christianity, should embrace without delay the religion of the
+prophet. In the feast of victory, to which Bajazet was invited, the
+Mogul emperor placed a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, with
+a solemn assurance of restoring him with an increase of glory to the
+throne of his ancestors. But the effect of his promise was disappointed
+by the sultan's untimely death: amidst the care of the most skilful
+physicians, he expired of an apoplexy at Akshehr, the Antioch of
+Pisidia, about nine months after his defeat. The victor dropped a tear
+over his grave: his body, with royal pomp, was conveyed to the mausoleum
+which he had erected at Boursa; and his son Mousa, after receiving a
+rich present of gold and jewels, of horses and arms, was invested by a
+patent in red ink with the kingdom of Anatolia.
+
+[Footnote 46: The scepticism of Voltaire (Essai sur l'Histoire Générale,
+c. 88) is ready on this, as on every occasion, to reject a popular tale,
+and to diminish the magnitude of vice and virtue; and on most occasions
+his incredulity is reasonable.]
+
+Such is the portrait of a generous conqueror, which has been extracted
+from his own memorials, and dedicated to his son and grandson,
+nineteen years after his decease; [47] and, at a time when the truth
+was remembered by thousands, a manifest falsehood would have implied a
+satire on his real conduct. Weighty indeed is this evidence, adopted
+by all the Persian histories; [48] yet flattery, more especially in the
+East, is base and audacious; and the harsh and ignominious treatment
+of Bajazet is attested by a chain of witnesses, some of whom shall be
+produced in the order of their time and country. _1._ The reader has not
+forgot the garrison of French, whom the marshal Boucicault left behind
+him for the defence of Constantinople. They were on the spot to receive
+the earliest and most faithful intelligence of the overthrow of their
+great adversary; and it is more than probable, that some of them
+accompanied the Greek embassy to the camp of Tamerlane. From their
+account, the _hardships_ of the prison and death of Bajazet are affirmed
+by the marshal's servant and historian, within the distance of seven
+years. [49] _2._ The name of Poggius the Italian [50] is deservedly famous
+among the revivers of learning in the fifteenth century. His elegant
+dialogue on the vicissitudes of fortune [51] was composed in his fiftieth
+year, twenty-eight years after the Turkish victory of Tamerlane; [52]
+whom he celebrates as not inferior to the illustrious Barbarians of
+antiquity. Of his exploits and discipline Poggius was informed by
+several ocular witnesses; nor does he forget an example so apposite to
+his theme as the Ottoman monarch, whom the Scythian confined like a wild
+beast in an iron cage, and exhibited a spectacle to Asia. I might add
+the authority of two Italian chronicles, perhaps of an earlier date,
+which would prove at least that the same story, whether false or true,
+was imported into Europe with the first tidings of the revolution. [53]
+_3._ At the time when Poggius flourished at Rome, Ahmed Ebn Arabshah
+composed at Damascus the florid and malevolent history of Timour,
+for which he had collected materials in his journeys over Turkey and
+Tartary. [54] Without any possible correspondence between the Latin and
+the Arabian writer, they agree in the fact of the iron cage; and their
+agreement is a striking proof of their common veracity. Ahmed Arabshah
+likewise relates another outrage, which Bajazet endured, of a more
+domestic and tender nature. His indiscreet mention of women and divorces
+was deeply resented by the jealous Tartar: in the feast of victory the
+wine was served by female cupbearers, and the sultan beheld his own
+concubines and wives confounded among the slaves, and exposed without a
+veil to the eyes of intemperance. To escape a similar indignity, it is
+said that his successors, except in a single instance, have abstained
+from legitimate nuptials; and the Ottoman practice and belief, at least
+in the sixteenth century, is asserted by the observing Busbequius, [55]
+ambassador from the court of Vienna to the great Soliman. _4._ Such is
+the separation of language, that the testimony of a Greek is not less
+independent than that of a Latin or an Arab. I suppress the names of
+Chalcondyles and Ducas, who flourished in the latter period, and who
+speak in a less positive tone; but more attention is due to George
+Phranza, [56] protovestiare of the last emperors, and who was born a year
+before the battle of Angora. Twenty-two years after that event, he was
+sent ambassador to Amurath the Second; and the historian might converse
+with some veteran Janizaries, who had been made prisoners with the
+sultan, and had themselves seen him in his iron cage. 5. The last
+evidence, in every sense, is that of the Turkish annals, which have been
+consulted or transcribed by Leunclavius, Pocock, and Cantemir. [57] They
+unanimously deplore the captivity of the iron cage; and some credit
+may be allowed to national historians, who cannot stigmatize the Tartar
+without uncovering the shame of their king and country.
+
+[Footnote 47: See the History of Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 49, 52, 53, 59,
+60.) This work was finished at Shiraz, in the year 1424, and dedicated
+to Sultan Ibrahim, the son of Sharokh, the son of Timour, who reigned in
+Farsistan in his father's lifetime.]
+
+[Footnote 48: After the perusal of Khondemir, Ebn Schounah, &c., the
+learned D'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 882) may affirm, that this
+fable is not mentioned in the most authentic histories; but his denial
+of the visible testimony of Arabshah leaves some room to suspect his
+accuracy.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Et fut lui-mźme (Bajazet) pris, et mené en prison, en
+laquelle mourut de _dure mort!_ Mémoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 37.
+These Memoirs were composed while the marshal was still governor of
+Genoa, from whence he was expelled in the year 1409, by a popular
+insurrection, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 473, 474.)]
+
+[Footnote 50: The reader will find a satisfactory account of the life
+and writings of Poggius in the Poggiana, an entertaining work of
+M. Lenfant, and in the Bibliotheca Latina Medię et Infimę Ętatis of
+Fabricius, (tom. v. p. 305--308.) Poggius was born in the year 1380, and
+died in 1459.]
+
+[Footnote 51: The dialogue de Varietate Fortunę, (of which a complete
+and elegant edition has been published at Paris in 1723, in 4to.,) was
+composed a short time before the death of Pope Martin V., (p. 5,) and
+consequently about the end of the year 1430.]
+
+[Footnote 52: See a splendid and eloquent encomium of Tamerlane, p.
+36--39 ipse enim novi (says Poggius) qui fuere in ejus castris.... Regem
+vivum cepit, caveāque in modum ferę inclusum per omnem Asian circumtulit
+egregium admirandumque spectaculum fortunę.]
+
+[Footnote 53: The Chronicon Tarvisianum, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum
+Italicarum tom. xix. p. 800,) and the Annales Estenses, (tom. xviii.
+p. 974.) The two authors, Andrea de Redusiis de Quero, and James de
+Delayto, were both contemporaries, and both chancellors, the one of
+Trevigi, the other of Ferrara. The evidence of the former is the most
+positive.]
+
+[Footnote 54: See Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 28, 34. He travelled in regiones
+Rumęas, A. H. 839, (A.D. 1435, July 27,) tom. i. c. 2, p. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 55: Busbequius in Legatione Turcicā, epist. i. p. 52. Yet his
+respectable authority is somewhat shaken by the subsequent marriages
+of Amurath II. with a Servian, and of Mahomet II. with an Asiatic,
+princess, (Cantemir, p. 83, 93.)]
+
+[Footnote 56: See the testimony of George Phranza, (l. i. c. 29,) and
+his life in Hanckius (de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40.) Chalcondyles and
+Ducas speak in general terms of Bajazet's _chains_.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Annales Leunclav. p. 321. Pocock, Prolegomen. ad
+Abulpharag Dynast. Cantemir, p. 55. * Note: Von Hammer, p. 318,
+cites several authorities unknown to
+Gibbon.--M.]
+
+From these opposite premises, a fair and moderate conclusion may be
+deduced. I am satisfied that Sherefeddin Ali has faithfully described
+the first ostentatious interview, in which the conqueror, whose spirits
+were harmonized by success, affected the character of generosity. But
+his mind was insensibly alienated by the unseasonable arrogance of
+Bajazet; the complaints of his enemies, the Anatolian princes, were just
+and vehement; and Timour betrayed a design of leading his royal captive
+in triumph to Samarcand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging
+a mine under the tent, provoked the Mogul emperor to impose a harsher
+restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might
+be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution.
+Timour had read in some fabulous history a similar treatment of one
+of his predecessors, a king of Persia; and Bajazet was condemned to
+represent the person, and expiate the guilt, of the Roman Cęsar [58] [581]
+But the strength of his mind and body fainted under the trial, and his
+premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed to the severity
+of Timour. He warred not with the dead: a tear and a sepulchre were all
+that he could bestow on a captive who was delivered from his power; and
+if Mousa, the son of Bajazet, was permitted to reign over the ruins of
+Boursa, the greatest part of the province of Anatolia had been restored
+by the conqueror to their lawful sovereigns.
+
+[Footnote 58: Sapor, king of Persia, had been made prisoner, and
+enclosed in the figure of a cow's hide by Maximian or Galerius Cęsar.
+Such is the fable related by Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 421, vers.
+Pocock). The recollection of the true history (Decline and Fall, &c.,
+vol. ii. p 140--152) will teach us to appreciate the knowledge of the
+Orientals of the ages which precede the Hegira.]
+
+[Footnote 581: Von Hammer's explanation of this contested point is both
+simple and satisfactory. It originates in a mistake in the meaning of
+the Turkish word kafe, which means a covered litter or palanquin drawn
+by two horses, and is generally used to convey the harem of an Eastern
+monarch. In such a litter, with the lattice-work made of iron, Bajazet
+either chose or was constrained to travel. This was either mistaken
+for, or transformed by, ignorant relaters into a cage. The European
+Schiltberger, the two oldest of the Turkish historians, and the most
+valuable of the later compilers, Seadeddin, describe this litter.
+Seadeddin discusses the question with some degree of historical
+criticism, and ascribes the choice of such a vehicle to the indignant
+state of Bajazet's mind, which would not brook the sight of his Tartar
+conquerors. Von Hammer, p. 320.--M.]
+
+From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to
+Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of Timour: his armies
+were invincible, his ambition was boundless, and his zeal might aspire
+to conquer and convert the Christian kingdoms of the West, which already
+trembled at his name. He touched the utmost verge of the land; but an
+insuperable, though narrow, sea rolled between the two continents of
+Europe and Asia; [59] and the lord of so many _tomans_, or myriads,
+of horse, was not master of a single galley. The two passages of
+the Bosphorus and Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, were
+possessed, the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On this
+great occasion, they forgot the difference of religion, to act with
+union and firmness in the common cause: the double straits were
+guarded with ships and fortifications; and they separately withheld the
+transports which Timour demanded of either nation, under the pretence
+of attacking their enemy. At the same time, they soothed his pride with
+tributary gifts and suppliant embassies, and prudently tempted him
+to retreat with the honors of victory. Soliman, the son of Bajazet,
+implored his clemency for his father and himself; accepted, by a red
+patent, the investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which he already
+held by the sword; and reiterated his ardent wish, of casting himself
+in person at the feet of the king of the world. The Greek emperor [60]
+(either John or Manuel) submitted to pay the same tribute which he had
+stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the treaty by an oath
+of allegiance, from which he could absolve his conscience so soon as the
+Mogul arms had retired from Anatolia. But the fears and fancy of nations
+ascribed to the ambitious Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic
+compass; a design of subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile
+to the Atlantic Ocean, entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and,
+after imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning
+home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote, and perhaps
+imaginary, danger was averted by the submission of the sultan of Egypt:
+the honors of the prayer and the coin attested at Cairo the supremacy
+of Timour; and a rare gift of a _giraffe_, or camelopard, and nine
+ostriches, represented at Samarcand the tribute of the African world.
+Our imagination is not less astonished by the portrait of a Mogul,
+who, in his camp before Smyrna, meditates, and almost accomplishes, the
+invasion of the Chinese empire. [61] Timour was urged to this enterprise
+by national honor and religious zeal. The torrents which he had shed of
+Mussulman blood could be expiated only by an equal destruction of the
+infidels; and as he now stood at the gates of paradise, he might best
+secure his glorious entrance by demolishing the idols of China, founding
+mosques in every city, and establishing the profession of faith in
+one God, and his prophet Mahomet. The recent expulsion of the house of
+Zingis was an insult on the Mogul name; and the disorders of the empire
+afforded the fairest opportunity for revenge. The illustrious Hongvou,
+founder of the dynasty of _Ming_, died four years before the battle of
+Angora; and his grandson, a weak and unfortunate youth, was burnt in his
+palace, after a million of Chinese had perished in the civil war. [62]
+Before he evacuated Anatolia, Timour despatched beyond the Sihoon a
+numerous army, or rather colony, of his old and new subjects, to open
+the road, to subdue the Pagan Calmucks and Mungals, and to found cities
+and magazines in the desert; and, by the diligence of his lieutenant, he
+soon received a perfect map and description of the unknown regions,
+from the source of the Irtish to the wall of China. During these
+preparations, the emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia; passed
+the winter on the banks of the Araxes; appeased the troubles of Persia;
+and slowly returned to his capital, after a campaign of four years and
+nine months.
+
+[Footnote 59: Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 25) describes, like a curious
+traveller, the Straits of Gallipoli and Constantinople. To acquire a
+just idea of these events, I have compared the narratives and prejudices
+of the Moguls, Turks, Greeks, and Arabians. The Spanish ambassador
+mentions this hostile union of the Christians and Ottomans, (Vie de
+Timour, p. 96.)]
+
+[Footnote 60: Since the name of Cęsar had been transferred to the
+sultans of Roum, the Greek princes of Constantinople (Sherefeddin, l.
+v. c. 54) were confounded with the Christian _lords_ of Gallipoli,
+Thessalonica, &c. under the title of _Tekkur_, which is derived by
+corruption from the genitive tou kuriou, (Cantemir, p. 51.)]
+
+[Footnote 61: See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 4, who marks, in a just
+itinerary, the road to China, which Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 33) paints in
+vague and rhetorical colors.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Synopsis Hist. Sinicę, p. 74--76, (in the ivth part of
+the Relations de Thevenot,) Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine, (tom. i. p. 507,
+508, folio edition;) and for the Chronology of the Chinese emperors, De
+Guignes, Hist. des Huns, (tom. i. p. 71, 72.)]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.--Part III.
+
+On the throne of Samarcand, [63] he displayed, in a short repose, his
+magnificence and power; listened to the complaints of the people;
+distributed a just measure of rewards and punishments; employed his
+riches in the architecture of palaces and temples; and gave audience to
+the ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India, Tartary, Russia, and Spain, the
+last of whom presented a suit of tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of
+the Oriental artists. The marriage of six of the emperor's grandsons was
+esteemed an act of religion as well as of paternal tenderness; and the
+pomp of the ancient caliphs was revived in their nuptials. They were
+celebrated in the gardens of Canighul, decorated with innumerable tents
+and pavilions, which displayed the luxury of a great city and the spoils
+of a victorious camp. Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for the
+kitchens; the plain was spread with pyramids of meat, and vases of
+every liquor, to which thousands of guests were courteously invited: the
+orders of the state, and the nations of the earth, were marshalled at
+the royal banquet; nor were the ambassadors of Europe (says the haughty
+Persian) excluded from the feast; since even the _casses_, the smallest
+of fish, find their place in the ocean. [64] The public joy was testified
+by illuminations and masquerades; the trades of Samarcand passed in
+review; and every trade was emulous to execute some quaint device, some
+marvellous pageant, with the materials of their peculiar art. After the
+marriage contracts had been ratified by the cadhis, the bride-grooms and
+their brides retired to the nuptial chambers: nine times, according to
+the Asiatic fashion, they were dressed and undressed; and at each
+change of apparel, pearls and rubies were showered on their heads, and
+contemptuously abandoned to their attendants. A general indulgence
+was proclaimed: every law was relaxed, every pleasure was allowed; the
+people was free, the sovereign was idle; and the historian of Timour may
+remark, that, after devoting fifty years to the attainment of empire,
+the only happy period of his life were the two months in which he
+ceased to exercise his power. But he was soon awakened to the cares of
+government and war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion of China:
+the emirs made their report of two hundred thousand, the select and
+veteran soldiers of Iran and Touran: their baggage and provisions were
+transported by five hundred great wagons, and an immense train of horses
+and camels; and the troops might prepare for a long absence, since more
+than six months were employed in the tranquil journey of a caravan from
+Samarcand to Pekin. Neither age, nor the severity of the winter, could
+retard the impatience of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed the
+Sihoon on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs, three hundred miles,
+from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the neighborhood of
+Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of death. Fatigue, and the
+indiscreet use of iced water, accelerated the progress of his fever;
+and the conqueror of Asia expired in the seventieth year of his age,
+thirty-five years after he had ascended the throne of Zagatai. His
+designs were lost; his armies were disbanded; China was saved; and
+fourteen years after his decease, the most powerful of his children sent
+an embassy of friendship and commerce to the court of Pekin. [65]
+
+[Footnote 63: For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, see
+Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 1--30) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 36--47.)]
+
+[Footnote 64: Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 24) mentions the ambassadors of one
+of the most potent sovereigns of Europe. We know that it was Henry III.
+king of Castile; and the curious relation of his two embassies is still
+extant, (Mariana, Hist. Hispan. l. xix. c. 11, tom. ii. p. 329, 330.
+Avertissement ą l'Hist. de Timur Bec, p. 28--33.) There appears likewise
+to have been some correspondence between the Mogul emperor and the
+court of Charles VII. king of France, (Histoire de France, par Velly et
+Villaret, tom. xii. p. 336.)]
+
+[Footnote 65: See the translation of the Persian account of their
+embassy, a curious and original piece, (in the ivth part of the
+Relations de Thevenot.) They presented the emperor of China with an old
+horse which Timour had formerly rode. It was in the year 1419 that they
+departed from the court of Herat, to which place they returned in 1422
+from Pekin.]
+
+The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West: his posterity is
+still invested with the Imperial _title_; and the admiration of his
+subjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be justified in
+some degree by the praise or confession of his bitterest enemies. [66]
+Although he was lame of a hand and foot, his form and stature were not
+unworthy of his rank; and his vigorous health, so essential to himself
+and to the world, was corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his
+familiar discourse he was grave and modest, and if he was ignorant of
+the Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian
+and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on
+topics of history and science; and the amusement of his leisure
+hours was the game of chess, which he improved or corrupted with new
+refinements. [67] In his religion he was a zealous, though not perhaps
+an orthodox, Mussulman; [68] but his sound understanding may tempt us to
+believe, that a superstitious reverence for omens and prophecies, for
+saints and astrologers, was only affected as an instrument of policy. In
+the government of a vast empire, he stood alone and absolute, without
+a rebel to oppose his power, a favorite to seduce his affections, or
+a minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, that
+whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should never
+be disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously observed, that
+the commands of anger and destruction were more strictly executed than
+those of beneficence and favor. His sons and grandsons, of whom Timour
+left six-and-thirty at his decease, were his first and most submissive
+subjects; and whenever they deviated from their duty, they were
+corrected, according to the laws of Zingis, with the bastinade, and
+afterwards restored to honor and command. Perhaps his heart was not
+devoid of the social virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving his
+friends and pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are founded
+on the public interest; and it may be sufficient to applaud the _wisdom_
+of a monarch, for the liberality by which he is not impoverished, and
+for the justice by which he is strengthened and enriched. To maintain
+the harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to
+protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness
+from his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain
+the depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of the
+husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal and
+moderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without increasing the
+taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince; but, in the discharge of these
+duties, he finds an ample and immediate recompense. Timour might boast,
+that, at his accession to the throne, Asia was the prey of anarchy
+and rapine, whilst under his prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and
+unhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the East to the West. Such was
+his confidence of merit, that from this reformation he derived an excuse
+for his victories, and a title to universal dominion. The four following
+observations will serve to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude;
+and perhaps we shall conclude, that the Mogul emperor was rather the
+scourge than the benefactor of mankind. _1._ If some partial disorders,
+some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour, the remedy
+was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and
+discord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but
+whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. The
+ground which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked
+by his abominable trophies, by columns, or pyramids, of human heads.
+Astracan, Carizme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Boursa,
+Smyrna, and a thousand others, were sacked, or burnt, or utterly
+destroyed, in his presence, and by his troops: and perhaps his
+conscience would have been startled, if a priest or philosopher had
+dared to number the millions of victims whom he had sacrificed to the
+establishment of peace and order. [69] _2._ His most destructive wars
+were rather inroads than conquests. He invaded Turkestan, Kipzak,
+Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia, without a
+hope or a desire of preserving those distant provinces. From thence he
+departed laden with spoil; but he left behind him neither troops to awe
+the contumacious, nor magistrates to protect the obedient, natives. When
+he had broken the fabric of their ancient government, he abandoned them
+to the evils which his invasion had aggravated or caused; nor were these
+evils compensated by any present or possible benefits. _3._ The kingdoms
+of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he labored to
+cultivate and adorn, as the perpetual inheritance of his family. But his
+peaceful labors were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the
+absence of the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges,
+his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their duty. The
+public and private injuries were poorly redressed by the tardy rigor
+of inquiry and punishment; and we must be content to praise the
+_Institutions_ of Timour, as the specious idea of a perfect monarchy.
+_4._ Whatsoever might be the blessings of his administration, they
+evaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern, was the
+ambition of his children and grandchildren; [70] the enemies of each
+other and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld with some
+glory by Sharokh, his youngest son; but after _his_ decease, the scene
+was again involved in darkness and blood; and before the end of a
+century, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbeks from the
+north, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race of Timour
+would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in the fifth degree,
+had not fled before the Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His
+successors (the great Moguls [71]) extended their sway from the mountains
+of Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal.
+Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire had been dissolved; their
+treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the richest
+of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of Christian merchants,
+of a remote island in the Northern Ocean.
+
+[Footnote 66: From Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 96. The bright or softer colors
+are borrowed from Sherefeddin, D'Herbelot, and the Institutions.]
+
+[Footnote 67: His new system was multiplied from 32 pieces and 64
+squares to 56 pieces and 110 or 130 squares; but, except in his court,
+the old game has been thought sufficiently elaborate. The Mogul emperor
+was rather pleased than hurt with the victory of a subject: a chess
+player will feel the value of this encomium!]
+
+[Footnote 68: See Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 15, 25. Arabshah tom. ii. c. 96,
+p. 801, 803) approves the impiety of Timour and the Moguls, who
+almost preferred to the Koran the _Yacsa_, or Law of Zingis, (cui Deus
+maledicat;) nor will he believe that Sharokh had abolished the use and
+authority of that Pagan code.]
+
+[Footnote 69: Besides the bloody passages of this narrative, I must
+refer to an anticipation in the third volume of the Decline and Fall,
+which in a single note (p. 234, note 25) accumulates nearly 300,000
+heads of the monuments of his cruelty. Except in Rowe's play on
+the fifth of November, I did not expect to hear of Timour's amiable
+moderation (White's preface, p. 7.) Yet I can excuse a generous
+enthusiasm in the reader, and still more in the editor, of the
+_Institutions_.]
+
+[Footnote 70: Consult the last chapters of Sherefeddin and Arabshah,
+and M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. l. xx.) Fraser's History of
+Nadir Shah, (p. 1--62.) The story of Timour's descendants is imperfectly
+told; and the second and third parts of Sherefeddin are unknown.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Shah Allum, the present Mogul, is in the fourteenth degree
+from Timour, by Miran Shah, his third son. See the second volume of
+Dow's History of Hindostan.]
+
+Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy. The massy trunk was
+bent to the ground, but no sooner did the hurricane pass away, than it
+again rose with fresh vigor and more lively vegetation. When Timour,
+in every sense, had evacuated Anatolia, he left the cities without a
+palace, a treasure, or a king. The open country was overspread with
+hordes of shepherds and robbers of Tartar or Turkman origin; the recent
+conquests of Bajazet were restored to the emirs, one of whom, in base
+revenge, demolished his sepulchre; and his five sons were eager, by
+civil discord, to consume the remnant of their patrimony. I shall
+enumerate their names in the order of their age and actions. [72] _1._ It
+is doubtful, whether I relate the story of the true _Mustapha_, or of an
+impostor who personated that lost prince. He fought by his father's side
+in the battle of Angora: but when the captive sultan was permitted to
+inquire for his children, Mousa alone could be found; and the Turkish
+historians, the slaves of the triumphant faction, are persuaded that his
+brother was confounded among the slain. If Mustapha escaped from that
+disastrous field, he was concealed twelve years from his friends and
+enemies; till he emerged in Thessaly, and was hailed by a numerous
+party, as the son and successor of Bajazet. His first defeat would have
+been his last, had not the true, or false, Mustapha been saved by the
+Greeks, and restored, after the decease of his brother Mahomet, to
+liberty and empire. A degenerate mind seemed to argue his spurious
+birth; and if, on the throne of Adrianople, he was adored as the Ottoman
+sultan, his flight, his fetters, and an ignominious gibbet, delivered
+the impostor to popular contempt. A similar character and claim was
+asserted by several rival pretenders: thirty persons are said to have
+suffered under the name of Mustapha; and these frequent executions may
+perhaps insinuate, that the Turkish court was not perfectly secure of
+the death of the lawful prince. _2._ After his father's captivity, Isa
+[73] reigned for some time in the neighborhood of Angora, Sinope, and
+the Black Sea; and his ambassadors were dismissed from the presence of
+Timour with fair promises and honorable gifts. But their master was soon
+deprived of his province and life, by a jealous brother, the sovereign
+of Amasia; and the final event suggested a pious allusion, that the
+law of Moses and Jesus, of _Isa_ and _Mousa_, had been abrogated by
+the greater Mahomet. _3._ _Soliman_ is not numbered in the list of the
+Turkish emperors: yet he checked the victorious progress of the Moguls;
+and after their departure, united for a while the thrones of Adrianople
+and Boursa. In war he was brave, active, and fortunate; his courage was
+softened by clemency; but it was likewise inflamed by presumption,
+and corrupted by intemperance and idleness. He relaxed the nerves of
+discipline, in a government where either the subject or the sovereign
+must continually tremble: his vices alienated the chiefs of the army and
+the law; and his daily drunkenness, so contemptible in a prince and a
+man, was doubly odious in a disciple of the prophet. In the slumber of
+intoxication he was surprised by his brother Mousa; and as he fled from
+Adrianople towards the Byzantine capital, Soliman was overtaken and
+slain in a bath, [731] after a reign of seven years and ten months. _4._
+The investiture of Mousa degraded him as the slave of the Moguls: his
+tributary kingdom of Anatolia was confined within a narrow limit, nor
+could his broken militia and empty treasury contend with the hardy and
+veteran bands of the sovereign of Romania. Mousa fled in disguise from
+the palace of Boursa; traversed the Propontis in an open boat; wandered
+over the Walachian and Servian hills; and after some vain attempts,
+ascended the throne of Adrianople, so recently stained with the blood
+of Soliman. In a reign of three years and a half, his troops were
+victorious against the Christians of Hungary and the Morea; but Mousa
+was ruined by his timorous disposition and unseasonable clemency. After
+resigning the sovereignty of Anatolia, he fell a victim to the perfidy
+of his ministers, and the superior ascendant of his brother Mahomet.
+_5._The final victory of Mahomet was the just recompense of his prudence
+and moderation. Before his father's captivity, the royal youth had
+been intrusted with the government of Amasia, thirty days' journey
+from Constantinople, and the Turkish frontier against the Christians
+of Trebizond and Georgia. The castle, in Asiatic warfare, was esteemed
+impregnable; and the city of Amasia, [74] which is equally divided by
+the River Iris, rises on either side in the form of an amphitheatre, and
+represents on a smaller scale the image of Bagdad. In his rapid career,
+Timour appears to have overlooked this obscure and contumacious angle of
+Anatolia; and Mahomet, without provoking the conqueror, maintained his
+silent independence, and chased from the province the last stragglers of
+the Tartar host. [741] He relieved himself from the dangerous neighborhood
+of Isa; but in the contests of their more powerful brethren his firm
+neutrality was respected; till, after the triumph of Mousa, he stood
+forth the heir and avenger of the unfortunate Soliman. Mahomet obtained
+Anatolia by treaty, and Romania by arms; and the soldier who presented
+him with the head of Mousa was rewarded as the benefactor of his
+king and country. The eight years of his sole and peaceful reign were
+usefully employed in banishing the vices of civil discord, and restoring
+on a firmer basis the fabric of the Ottoman monarchy. His last care was
+the choice of two viziers, Bajazet and Ibrahim, [75] who might guide the
+youth of his son Amurath; and such was their union and prudence, that
+they concealed above forty days the emperor's death, till the arrival of
+his successor in the palace of Boursa. A new war was kindled in Europe
+by the prince, or impostor, Mustapha; the first vizier lost his army
+and his head; but the more fortunate Ibrahim, whose name and family are
+still revered, extinguished the last pretender to the throne of Bajazet,
+and closed the scene of domestic hostility.
+
+[Footnote 72: The civil wars, from the death of Bajazet to that of
+Mustapha, are related, according to the Turks, by Demetrius Cantemir,
+(p. 58--82.) Of the Greeks, Chalcondyles, (l. iv. and v.,) Phranza, (l.
+i. c. 30--32,) and Ducas, (c. 18--27,) the last is the most copious and
+best informed.]
+
+[Footnote 73: Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 26,) whose testimony on this
+occasion is weighty and valuable. The existence of Isa (unknown to the
+Turks) is likewise confirmed by Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 57.)]
+
+[Footnote 731: He escaped from the bath, and fled towards Constantinople.
+Five mothers from a village, Dugundschi, whose inhabitants had suffered
+severely from the exactions of his officers, recognized and followed
+him. Soliman shot two of them, the others discharged their arrows in
+their turn the sultan fell and his head was cut off. V. Hammer, vol. i.
+p. 349.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Arabshah, loc. citat. Abulfeda, Geograph. tab. xvii. p.
+302. Busbequius, epist. i. p. 96, 97, in Itinere C. P. et Amasiano.]
+
+[Footnote 741: See his nine battles. V. Hammer, p. 339.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 75: The virtues of Ibrahim are praised by a contemporary
+Greek, (Ducas, c. 25.) His descendants are the sole nobles in
+Turkey: they content themselves with the administration of his pious
+foundations, are excused from public offices, and receive two annual
+visits from the sultan, (Cantemir, p. 76.)]
+
+In these conflicts, the wisest Turks, and indeed the body of the nation,
+were strongly attached to the unity of the empire; and Romania and
+Anatolia, so often torn asunder by private ambition, were animated by
+a strong and invincible tendency of cohesion. Their efforts might
+have instructed the Christian powers; and had they occupied, with a
+confederate fleet, the Straits of Gallipoli, the Ottomans, at least in
+Europe, must have been speedily annihilated. But the schism of the West,
+and the factions and wars of France and England, diverted the Latins
+from this generous enterprise: they enjoyed the present respite, without
+a thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a momentary interest to
+serve the common enemy of their religion. A colony of Genoese, [76] which
+had been planted at Phocęa [77] on the Ionian coast, was enriched by
+the lucrative monopoly of alum; [78] and their tranquillity, under the
+Turkish empire, was secured by the annual payment of tribute. In the
+last civil war of the Ottomans, the Genoese governor, Adorno, a bold
+and ambitious youth, embraced the party of Amurath; and undertook, with
+seven stout galleys, to transport him from Asia to Europe. The sultan
+and five hundred guards embarked on board the admiral's ship; which was
+manned by eight hundred of the bravest Franks. His life and liberty were
+in their hands; nor can we, without reluctance, applaud the fidelity
+of Adorno, who, in the midst of the passage, knelt before him, and
+gratefully accepted a discharge of his arrears of tribute. They landed
+in sight of Mustapha and Gallipoli; two thousand Italians, armed with
+lances and battle-axes, attended Amurath to the conquest of Adrianople;
+and this venal service was soon repaid by the ruin of the commerce and
+colony of Phocęa.
+
+[Footnote 76: See Pachymer, (l. v. c. 29,) Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.
+ii. c. 1,) Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 57,) and Ducas, (c. 25.) The last of
+these, a curious and careful observer, is entitled, from his birth
+and station, to particular credit in all that concerns Ionia and the
+islands. Among the nations that resorted to New Phocęa, he mentions the
+English; ('Igglhnoi;) an early evidence of Mediterranean trade.]
+
+[Footnote 77: For the spirit of navigation, and freedom of ancient
+Phocęa, or rather the Phocęans, consult the first book of Herodotus,
+and the Geographical Index of his last and learned French translator, M.
+Larcher (tom. vii. p. 299.)]
+
+[Footnote 78: Phocęa is not enumerated by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxv. 52)
+among the places productive of alum: he reckons Egypt as the first,
+and for the second the Isle of Melos, whose alum mines are described by
+Tournefort, (tom. i. lettre iv.,) a traveller and a naturalist. After
+the loss of Phocęa, the Genoese, in 1459, found that useful mineral in
+the Isle of Ischia, (Ismael. Bouillaud, ad Ducam, c. 25.)]
+
+If Timour had generously marched at the request, and to the relief, of
+the Greek emperor, he might be entitled to the praise and gratitude of
+the Christians. [79] But a Mussulman, who carried into Georgia the sword
+of persecution, and respected the holy warfare of Bajazet, was not
+disposed to pity or succor the _idolaters_ of Europe. The Tartar
+followed the impulse of ambition; and the deliverance of Constantinople
+was the accidental consequence. When Manuel abdicated the government,
+it was his prayer, rather than his hope, that the ruin of the church
+and state might be delayed beyond his unhappy days; and after his return
+from a western pilgrimage, he expected every hour the news of the
+sad catastrophe. On a sudden, he was astonished and rejoiced by the
+intelligence of the retreat, the overthrow, and the captivity of the
+Ottoman. Manuel [80] immediately sailed from Modon in the Morea; ascended
+the throne of Constantinople, and dismissed his blind competitor to an
+easy exile in the Isle of Lesbos. The ambassadors of the son of Bajazet
+were soon introduced to his presence; but their pride was fallen, their
+tone was modest: they were awed by the just apprehension, lest the
+Greeks should open to the Moguls the gates of Europe. Soliman saluted
+the emperor by the name of father; solicited at his hands the government
+or gift of Romania; and promised to deserve his favor by inviolable
+friendship, and the restitution of Thessalonica, with the most important
+places along the Strymon, the Propontis, and the Black Sea. The alliance
+of Soliman exposed the emperor to the enmity and revenge of Mousa: the
+Turks appeared in arms before the gates of Constantinople; but they
+were repulsed by sea and land; and unless the city was guarded by some
+foreign mercenaries, the Greeks must have wondered at their own triumph.
+But, instead of prolonging the division of the Ottoman powers, the
+policy or passion of Manuel was tempted to assist the most formidable of
+the sons of Bajazet. He concluded a treaty with Mahomet, whose progress
+was checked by the insuperable barrier of Gallipoli: the sultan and
+his troops were transported over the Bosphorus; he was hospitably
+entertained in the capital; and his successful sally was the first step
+to the conquest of Romania. The ruin was suspended by the prudence
+and moderation of the conqueror: he faithfully discharged his own
+obligations and those of Soliman, respected the laws of gratitude and
+peace; and left the emperor guardian of his two younger sons, in the
+vain hope of saving them from the jealous cruelty of their brother
+Amurath. But the execution of his last testament would have offended the
+national honor and religion; and the divan unanimously pronounced, that
+the royal youths should never be abandoned to the custody and education
+of a Christian dog. On this refusal, the Byzantine councils were
+divided; but the age and caution of Manuel yielded to the presumption
+of his son John; and they unsheathed a dangerous weapon of revenge, by
+dismissing the true or false Mustapha, who had long been detained as a
+captive and hostage, and for whose maintenance they received an annual
+pension of three hundred thousand aspers. [81] At the door of his prison,
+Mustapha subscribed to every proposal; and the keys of Gallipoli, or
+rather of Europe, were stipulated as the price of his deliverance. But
+no sooner was he seated on the throne of Romania, than he dismissed the
+Greek ambassadors with a smile of contempt, declaring, in a pious tone,
+that, at the day of judgment, he would rather answer for the violation
+of an oath, than for the surrender of a Mussulman city into the hands of
+the infidels. The emperor was at once the enemy of the two rivals; from
+whom he had sustained, and to whom he had offered, an injury; and the
+victory of Amurath was followed, in the ensuing spring, by the siege of
+Constantinople. [82]
+
+[Footnote 79: The writer who has the most abused this fabulous
+generosity, is our ingenious Sir William Temple, (his Works, vol. iii.
+p. 349, 350, octavo edition,) that lover of exotic virtue. After the
+conquest of Russia, &c., and the passage of the Danube, his Tartar hero
+relieves, visits, admires, and refuses the city of Constantine. His
+flattering pencil deviates in every line from the truth of history;
+yet his pleasing fictions are more excusable than the gross errors of
+Cantemir.]
+
+[Footnote 80: For the reigns of Manuel and John, of Mahomet I. and
+Amurath II., see the Othman history of Cantemir, (p. 70--95,) and the
+three Greeks, Chalcondyles, Phranza, and Ducas, who is still superior to
+his rivals.]
+
+[Footnote 81: The Turkish asper (from the Greek asproV) is, or was, a
+piece of _white_ or silver money, at present much debased, but which was
+formerly equivalent to the 54th part, at least, of a Venetian ducat or
+sequin; and the 300,000 aspers, a princely allowance or royal tribute,
+may be computed at 2500_l_. sterling, (Leunclav. Pandect. Turc. p.
+406--408.) * Note: According to Von Hammer, this calculation is much too low. The
+asper was a century before the time of which writes, the tenth part of a
+ducat; for the same tribute which the Byzantine writers state at 300,000
+aspers the Ottomans state at 30,000 ducats, about 15000l Note, vol. p.
+636.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 82: For the siege of Constantinople in 1422, see the
+particular and contemporary narrative of John Cananus, published by Leo
+Allatius, at the end of his edition of Acropolita, (p. 188--199.)]
+
+The religious merit of subduing the city of the Cęsars attracted from
+Asia a crowd of volunteers, who aspired to the crown of martyrdom: their
+military ardor was inflamed by the promise of rich spoils and beautiful
+females; and the sultan's ambition was consecrated by the presence and
+prediction of Seid Bechar, a descendant of the prophet, [83] who
+arrived in the camp, on a mule, with a venerable train of five hundred
+disciples. But he might blush, if a fanatic could blush, at the failure
+of his assurances. The strength of the walls resisted an army of two
+hundred thousand Turks; their assaults were repelled by the sallies of
+the Greeks and their foreign mercenaries; the old resources of defence
+were opposed to the new engines of attack; and the enthusiasm of the
+dervis, who was snatched to heaven in visionary converse with Mahomet,
+was answered by the credulity of the Christians, who _beheld_ the Virgin
+Mary, in a violet garment, walking on the rampart and animating their
+courage. [84] After a siege of two months, Amurath was recalled to Boursa
+by a domestic revolt, which had been kindled by Greek treachery, and was
+soon extinguished by the death of a guiltless brother. While he led his
+Janizaries to new conquests in Europe and Asia, the Byzantine empire
+was indulged in a servile and precarious respite of thirty years. Manuel
+sank into the grave; and John Palęologus was permitted to reign, for an
+annual tribute of three hundred thousand aspers, and the dereliction of
+almost all that he held beyond the suburbs of Constantinople.
+
+[Footnote 83: Cantemir, p. 80. Cananus, who describes Seid Bechar,
+without naming him, supposes that the friend of Mahomet assumed in his
+amours the privilege of a prophet, and that the fairest of the Greek
+nuns were promised to the saint and his disciples.]
+
+[Footnote 84: For this miraculous apparition, Cananus appeals to the
+Mussulman saint; but who will bear testimony for Seid Bechar?]
+
+In the establishment and restoration of the Turkish empire, the first
+merit must doubtless be assigned to the personal qualities of the
+sultans; since, in human life, the most important scenes will depend on
+the character of a single actor. By some shades of wisdom and virtue,
+they may be discriminated from each other; but, except in a single
+instance, a period of nine reigns, and two hundred and sixty-five years,
+is occupied, from the elevation of Othman to the death of Soliman, by a
+rare series of warlike and active princes, who impressed their subjects
+with obedience and their enemies with terror. Instead of the slothful
+luxury of the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the
+council and the field: from early youth they were intrusted by their
+fathers with the command of provinces and armies; and this manly
+institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have
+essentially contributed to the discipline and vigor of the monarchy.
+The Ottomans cannot style themselves, like the Arabian caliphs, the
+descendants or successors of the apostle of God; and the kindred which
+they claim with the Tartar khans of the house of Zingis appears to be
+founded in flattery rather than in truth. [85] Their origin is obscure;
+but their sacred and indefeasible right, which no time can erase, and no
+violence can infringe, was soon and unalterably implanted in the
+minds of their subjects. A weak or vicious sultan may be deposed and
+strangled; but his inheritance devolves to an infant or an idiot: nor
+has the most daring rebel presumed to ascend the throne of his lawful
+sovereign. [86]
+
+[Footnote 85: See Ricaut, (l. i. c. 13.) The Turkish sultans assume the
+title of khan. Yet Abulghazi is ignorant of his Ottoman cousins.]
+
+[Footnote 86: The third grand vizier of the name of Kiuperli, who was
+slain at the battle of Salankanen in 1691, (Cantemir, p. 382,) presumed
+to say that all the successors of Soliman had been fools or tyrants, and
+that it was time to abolish the race, (Marsigli Stato Militaire, &c., p.
+28.) This political heretic was a good Whig, and justified against
+the French ambassador the revolution of England, (Mignot, Hist. des
+Ottomans, tom. iii. p. 434.) His presumption condemns the singular
+exception of continuing offices in the same family.]
+
+While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually subverted by
+a crafty vizier in the palace, or a victorious general in the camp, the
+Ottoman succession has been confirmed by the practice of five centuries,
+and is now incorporated with the vital principle of the Turkish nation.
+
+To the spirit and constitution of that nation, a strong and singular
+influence may, however, be ascribed. The primitive subjects of Othman
+were the four hundred families of wandering Turkmans, who had followed
+his ancestors from the Oxus to the Sangar; and the plains of Anatolia
+are still covered with the white and black tents of their rustic
+brethren. But this original drop was dissolved in the mass of voluntary
+and vanquished subjects, who, under the name of Turks, are united by
+the common ties of religion, language, and manners. In the cities, from
+Erzeroum to Belgrade, that national appellation is common to all
+the Moslems, the first and most honorable inhabitants; but they have
+abandoned, at least in Romania, the villages, and the cultivation of
+the land, to the Christian peasants. In the vigorous age of the Ottoman
+government, the Turks were themselves excluded from all civil and
+military honors; and a servile class, an artificial people, was raised
+by the discipline of education to obey, to conquer, and to command.
+[87] From the time of Orchan and the first Amurath, the sultans were
+persuaded that a government of the sword must be renewed in each
+generation with new soldiers; and that such soldiers must be sought, not
+in effeminate Asia, but among the hardy and warlike natives of Europe.
+The provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Servia,
+became the perpetual seminary of the Turkish army; and when the royal
+fifth of the captives was diminished by conquest, an inhuman tax of
+the fifth child, or of every fifth year, was rigorously levied on the
+Christian families. At the age of twelve or fourteen years, the most
+robust youths were torn from their parents; their names were enrolled in
+a book; and from that moment they were clothed, taught, and maintained,
+for the public service. According to the promise of their appearance,
+they were selected for the royal schools of Boursa, Pera, and
+Adrianople, intrusted to the care of the bashaws, or dispersed in
+the houses of the Anatolian peasantry. It was the first care of their
+masters to instruct them in the Turkish language: their bodies were
+exercised by every labor that could fortify their strength; they learned
+to wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with the bow, and afterwards with
+the musket; till they were drafted into the chambers and companies
+of the Janizaries, and severely trained in the military or monastic
+discipline of the order. The youths most conspicuous for birth, talents,
+and beauty, were admitted into the inferior class of _Agiamoglans_, or
+the more liberal rank of _Ichoglans_, of whom the former were attached
+to the palace, and the latter to the person, of the prince. In four
+successive schools, under the rod of the white eunuchs, the arts of
+horsemanship and of darting the javelin were their daily exercise, while
+those of a more studious cast applied themselves to the study of the
+Koran, and the knowledge of the Arabic and Persian tongues. As they
+advanced in seniority and merit, they were gradually dismissed to
+military, civil, and even ecclesiastical employments: the longer their
+stay, the higher was their expectation; till, at a mature period, they
+were admitted into the number of the forty agas, who stood before the
+sultan, and were promoted by his choice to the government of provinces
+and the first honors of the empire. [88] Such a mode of institution was
+admirably adapted to the form and spirit of a despotic monarchy. The
+ministers and generals were, in the strictest sense, the slaves of the
+emperor, to whose bounty they were indebted for their instruction and
+support. When they left the seraglio, and suffered their beards to grow
+as the symbol of enfranchisement, they found themselves in an important
+office, without faction or friendship, without parents and without
+heirs, dependent on the hand which had raised them from the dust, and
+which, on the slightest displeasure, could break in pieces these statues
+of glass, as they were aptly termed by the Turkish proverb. [89] In the
+slow and painful steps of education, their characters and talents were
+unfolded to a discerning eye: the _man_, naked and alone, was reduced to
+the standard of his personal merit; and, if the sovereign had wisdom to
+choose, he possessed a pure and boundless liberty of choice. The Ottoman
+candidates were trained by the virtues of abstinence to those of action;
+by the habits of submission to those of command. A similar spirit
+was diffused among the troops; and their silence and sobriety, their
+patience and modesty, have extorted the reluctant praise of their
+Christian enemies. [90] Nor can the victory appear doubtful, if we
+compare the discipline and exercise of the Janizaries with the pride of
+birth, the independence of chivalry, the ignorance of the new levies,
+the mutinous temper of the veterans, and the vices of intemperance and
+disorder, which so long contaminated the armies of Europe.
+
+[Footnote 87: Chalcondyles (l. v.) and Ducas (c. 23) exhibit the rude
+lineament of the Ottoman policy, and the transmutation of Christian
+children into Turkish soldiers.]
+
+[Footnote 88: This sketch of the Turkish education and discipline is
+chiefly borrowed from Ricaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, the Stato
+Militaire del' Imperio Ottomano of Count Marsigli, (in Haya, 1732,
+in folio,) and a description of the Seraglio, approved by Mr. Greaves
+himself, a curious traveller, and inserted in the second volume of his
+works.]
+
+[Footnote 89: From the series of cxv. viziers, till the siege of Vienna,
+(Marsigli, p. 13,) their place may be valued at three years and a half
+purchase.]
+
+[Footnote 90: See the entertaining and judicious letters of Busbequius.]
+
+The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire, and the adjacent
+kingdoms, would have been some more powerful weapon, some discovery in
+the art of war, that would give them a decisive superiority over their
+Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their hands; such a discovery had
+been made in the critical moment of their fate. The chemists of China or
+Europe had found, by casual or elaborate experiments, that a mixture
+of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, a
+tremendous explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force
+were compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be
+expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise ęra of
+the invention and application of gunpowder [91] is involved in doubtful
+traditions and equivocal language; yet we may clearly discern, that it
+was known before the middle of the fourteenth century; and that before
+the end of the same, the use of artillery in battles and sieges, by sea
+and land, was familiar to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France,
+and England. [92] The priority of nations is of small account; none could
+derive any exclusive benefit from their previous or superior knowledge;
+and in the common improvement, they stood on the same level of relative
+power and military science. Nor was it possible to circumscribe the
+secret within the pale of the church; it was disclosed to the Turks by
+the treachery of apostates and the selfish policy of rivals; and the
+sultans had sense to adopt, and wealth to reward, the talents of a
+Christian engineer. The Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe,
+must be accused as his preceptors; and it was probably by their hands
+that his cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople.
+[93] The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful; but in the general
+warfare of the age, the advantage was on _their_ side, who were most
+commonly the assailants: for a while the proportion of the attack and
+defence was suspended; and this thundering artillery was pointed against
+the walls and towers which had been erected only to resist the less
+potent engines of antiquity. By the Venetians, the use of gunpowder was
+communicated without reproach to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their
+allies against the Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to the
+extremities of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to
+his easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast the
+rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow and laborious
+advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher,
+according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind.
+
+[Footnote 91: The first and second volumes of Dr. Watson's Chemical
+Essays contain two valuable discourses on the discovery and composition
+of gunpowder.]
+
+[Footnote 92: On this subject modern testimonies cannot be trusted. The
+original passages are collected by Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. i. p.
+675, _Bombarda_.) But in the early doubtful twilight, the name, sound,
+fire, and effect, that seem to express _our_ artillery, may be fairly
+interpreted of the old engines and the Greek fire. For the English
+cannon at Crecy, the authority of John Villani (Chron. l. xii. c.
+65) must be weighed against the silence of Froissard. Yet Muratori
+(Antiquit. Italię Medii Ęvi, tom. ii. Dissert. xxvi. p. 514, 515)
+has produced a decisive passage from Petrarch, (De Remediis utriusque
+Fortunę Dialog.,) who, before the year 1344, execrates this terrestrial
+thunder, _nuper_ rara, _nunc_ communis. * Note:  Mr. Hallam makes
+the following observation on the objection
+thrown our by Gibbon: "The positive testimony of Villani, who
+died within two years afterwards, and had manifestly obtained much
+information as to the great events passing in France, cannot be
+rejected. He ascribes a material effect to the cannon of Edward, Colpi
+delle bombarde, which I suspect, from his strong expressions, had not
+been employed before, except against stone walls. It seems, he says,
+as if God thundered con grande uccisione di genti e efondamento di
+cavalli." Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 510.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 93: The Turkish cannon, which Ducas (c. 30) first introduces
+before Belgrade, (A.D. 1436,) is mentioned by Chalcondyles (l. v. p.
+123) in 1422, at the siege of Constantinople.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.--Part I.
+
+     Applications Of The Eastern Emperors To The Popes.--Visits
+     To The West, Of John The First, Manuel, And John The Second,
+     Palęologus.--Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches, Promoted
+     By The Council Of Basil, And Concluded At Ferrara And
+     Florence.--State Of Literature At Constantinople.--Its
+     Revival In Italy By The Greek Fugitives.--Curiosity And
+     Emulation Of The Latins.
+
+In the four last centuries of the Greek emperors, their friendly or
+hostile aspect towards the pope and the Latins may be observed as the
+thermometer of their prosperity or distress; as the scale of the rise
+and fall of the Barbarian dynasties. When the Turks of the house of
+Seljuk pervaded Asia, and threatened Constantinople, we have seen, at
+the council of Placentia, the suppliant ambassadors of Alexius imploring
+the protection of the common father of the Christians. No sooner had
+the arms of the French pilgrims removed the sultan from Nice to Iconium,
+than the Greek princes resumed, or avowed, their genuine hatred and
+contempt for the schismatics of the West, which precipitated the first
+downfall of their empire. The date of the Mogul invasion is marked in
+the soft and charitable language of John Vataces. After the recovery of
+Constantinople, the throne of the first Palęologus was encompassed
+by foreign and domestic enemies; as long as the sword of Charles was
+suspended over his head, he basely courted the favor of the Roman
+pontiff; and sacrificed to the present danger his faith, his virtue, and
+the affection of his subjects. On the decease of Michael, the prince
+and people asserted the independence of their church, and the purity of
+their creed: the elder Andronicus neither feared nor loved the Latins;
+in his last distress, pride was the safeguard of superstition; nor could
+he decently retract in his age the firm and orthodox declarations of
+his youth. His grandson, the younger Andronicus, was less a slave in
+his temper and situation; and the conquest of Bithynia by the Turks
+admonished him to seek a temporal and spiritual alliance with the
+Western princes. After a separation and silence of fifty years, a secret
+agent, the monk Barlaam, was despatched to Pope Benedict the Twelfth;
+and his artful instructions appear to have been drawn by the master-hand
+of the great domestic. [1] "Most holy father," was he commissioned to
+say, "the emperor is not less desirous than yourself of a union between
+the two churches: but in this delicate transaction, he is obliged to
+respect his own dignity and the prejudices of his subjects. The ways of
+union are twofold; force and persuasion. Of force, the inefficacy has
+been already tried; since the Latins have subdued the empire, without
+subduing the minds, of the Greeks. The method of persuasion, though
+slow, is sure and permanent. A deputation of thirty or forty of our
+doctors would probably agree with those of the Vatican, in the love of
+truth and the unity of belief; but on their return, what would be the
+use, the recompense, of such an agreement? the scorn of their brethren,
+and the reproaches of a blind and obstinate nation. Yet that nation
+is accustomed to reverence the general councils, which have fixed the
+articles of our faith; and if they reprobate the decrees of Lyons, it is
+because the Eastern churches were neither heard nor represented in that
+arbitrary meeting. For this salutary end, it will be expedient, and
+even necessary, that a well-chosen legate should be sent into Greece,
+to convene the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and
+Jerusalem; and, with their aid, to prepare a free and universal
+synod. But at this moment," continued the subtle agent, "the empire is
+assaulted and endangered by the Turks, who have occupied four of the
+greatest cities of Anatolia. The Christian inhabitants have expressed a
+wish of returning to their allegiance and religion; but the forces and
+revenues of the emperor are insufficient for their deliverance: and the
+Roman legate must be accompanied, or preceded, by an army of Franks,
+to expel the infidels, and open a way to the holy sepulchre." If the
+suspicious Latins should require some pledge, some previous effect of
+the sincerity of the Greeks, the answers of Barlaam were perspicuous and
+rational. "_1._ A general synod can alone consummate the union of
+the churches; nor can such a synod be held till the three Oriental
+patriarchs, and a great number of bishops, are enfranchised from the
+Mahometan yoke. _2._ The Greeks are alienated by a long series of
+oppression and injury: they must be reconciled by some act of brotherly
+love, some effectual succor, which may fortify the authority and
+arguments of the emperor, and the friends of the union. _3._ If some
+difference of faith or ceremonies should be found incurable, the Greeks,
+however, are the disciples of Christ; and the Turks are the common
+enemies of the Christian name. The Armenians, Cyprians, and Rhodians,
+are equally attacked; and it will become the piety of the French princes
+to draw their swords in the general defence of religion. _4._ Should
+the subjects of Andronicus be treated as the worst of schismatics, of
+heretics, of pagans, a judicious policy may yet instruct the powers of
+the West to embrace a useful ally, to uphold a sinking empire, to guard
+the confines of Europe; and rather to join the Greeks against the
+Turks, than to expect the union of the Turkish arms with the troops and
+treasures of captive Greece." The reasons, the offers, and the demands,
+of Andronicus were eluded with cold and stately indifference. The kings
+of France and Naples declined the dangers and glory of a crusade; the
+pope refused to call a new synod to determine old articles of faith;
+and his regard for the obsolete claims of the Latin emperor and clergy
+engaged him to use an offensive superscription,--"To the _moderator_ [2]
+of the Greeks, and the persons who style themselves the patriarchs of
+the Eastern churches." For such an embassy, a time and character less
+propitious could not easily have been found. Benedict the Twelfth [3] was
+a dull peasant, perplexed with scruples, and immersed in sloth and wine:
+his pride might enrich with a third crown the papal tiara, but he was
+alike unfit for the regal and the pastoral office.
+
+[Footnote 1: This curious instruction was transcribed (I believe) from
+the Vatican archives, by Odoricus Raynaldus, in his Continuation of the
+Annals of Baronius, (Romę, 1646--1677, in x. volumes in folio.) I have
+contented myself with the Abbé Fleury, (Hist. Ecclésiastique. tom. xx.
+p. 1--8,) whose abstracts I have always found to be clear, accurate, and
+impartial.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The ambiguity of this title is happy or ingenious; and
+_moderator_, as synonymous to _rector_, _gubernator_, is a word of
+classical, and even Ciceronian, Latinity, which may be found, not in the
+Glossary of Ducange, but in the Thesaurus of Robert Stephens.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The first epistle (sine titulo) of Petrarch exposes the
+danger of the _bark_, and the incapacity of the _pilot_. Hęc inter,
+vino madidus, ęvo gravis, ac soporifero rore perfusus, jamjam nutitat,
+dormitat, jam somno pręceps, atque (utinam solus) ruit..... Heu quanto
+felicius patrio terram sulcasset aratro, quam scalmum piscatorium
+ascendisset! This satire engages his biographer to weigh the virtues and
+vices of Benedict XII. which have been exaggerated by Guelphs and
+Ghibe lines, by Papists and Protestants, (see Mémoires sur la Vie de
+Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 259, ii. not. xv. p. 13--16.) He gave occasion to
+the saying, Bibamus papaliter.]
+
+After the decease of Andronicus, while the Greeks were distracted by
+intestine war, they could not presume to agitate a general union of
+the Christians. But as soon as Cantacuzene had subdued and pardoned
+his enemies, he was anxious to justify, or at least to extenuate, the
+introduction of the Turks into Europe, and the nuptials of his
+daughter with a Mussulman prince. Two officers of state, with a Latin
+interpreter, were sent in his name to the Roman court, which was
+transplanted to Avignon, on the banks of the Rhōne, during a period of
+seventy years: they represented the hard necessity which had urged him
+to embrace the alliance of the miscreants, and pronounced by his command
+the specious and edifying sounds of union and crusade. Pope Clement the
+Sixth, [4] the successor of Benedict, received them with hospitality
+and honor, acknowledged the innocence of their sovereign, excused his
+distress, applauded his magnanimity, and displayed a clear knowledge of
+the state and revolutions of the Greek empire, which he had imbibed
+from the honest accounts of a Savoyard lady, an attendant of the empress
+Anne. [5] If Clement was ill endowed with the virtues of a priest, he
+possessed, however, the spirit and magnificence of a prince, whose
+liberal hand distributed benefices and kingdoms with equal facility.
+Under his reign Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure: in his youth
+he had surpassed the licentiousness of a baron; and the palace, nay, the
+bed-chamber of the pope, was adorned, or polluted, by the visits of his
+female favorites. The wars of France and England were adverse to the
+holy enterprise; but his vanity was amused by the splendid idea; and the
+Greek ambassadors returned with two Latin bishops, the ministers of the
+pontiff. On their arrival at Constantinople, the emperor and the nuncios
+admired each other's piety and eloquence; and their frequent conferences
+were filled with mutual praises and promises, by which both parties were
+amused, and neither could be deceived. "I am delighted," said the devout
+Cantacuzene, "with the project of our holy war, which must redound to
+my personal glory, as well as to the public benefit of Christendom. My
+dominions will give a free passage to the armies of France: my troops,
+my galleys, my treasures, shall be consecrated to the common cause;
+and happy would be my fate, could I deserve and obtain the crown of
+martyrdom. Words are insufficient to express the ardor with which I sigh
+for the reunion of the scattered members of Christ. If my death could
+avail, I would gladly present my sword and my neck: if the spiritual
+phnix could arise from my ashes, I would erect the pile, and kindle the
+flame with my own hands." Yet the Greek emperor presumed to observe,
+that the articles of faith which divided the two churches had been
+introduced by the pride and precipitation of the Latins: he disclaimed
+the servile and arbitrary steps of the first Palęologus; and firmly
+declared, that he would never submit his conscience unless to the
+decrees of a free and universal synod. "The situation of the times,"
+continued he, "will not allow the pope and myself to meet either at Rome
+or Constantinople; but some maritime city may be chosen on the verge of
+the two empires, to unite the bishops, and to instruct the faithful, of
+the East and West." The nuncios seemed content with the proposition; and
+Cantacuzene affects to deplore the failure of his hopes, which were
+soon overthrown by the death of Clement, and the different temper of
+his successor. His own life was prolonged, but it was prolonged in a
+cloister; and, except by his prayers, the humble monk was incapable of
+directing the counsels of his pupil or the state. [6]
+
+[Footnote 4: See the original Lives of Clement VI. in Muratori, (Script.
+Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 550--589;) Matteo Villani, (Chron.
+l. iii. c. 43, in Muratori, tom. xiv. p. 186,) who styles him, molto
+cavallaresco, poco religioso; Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 126;)
+and the Vie de Pétrarque, (tom. ii. p. 42--45.) The abbé de Sade treats
+him with the most indulgence; but _he_ is a gentleman as well as a
+priest.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Her name (most probably corrupted) was Zampea. She had
+accompanied, and alone remained with her mistress at Constantinople,
+where her prudence, erudition, and politeness deserved the praises of
+the Greeks themselves, (Cantacuzen. l. i. c. 42.)]
+
+[Footnote 6: See this whole negotiation in Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c. 9,)
+who, amidst the praises and virtues which he bestows on himself, reveals
+the uneasiness of a guilty conscience.]
+
+Yet of all the Byzantine princes, that pupil, John Palęologus, was the
+best disposed to embrace, to believe, and to obey, the shepherd of the
+West. His mother, Anne of Savoy, was baptized in the bosom of the
+Latin church: her marriage with Andronicus imposed a change of name, of
+apparel, and of worship, but her heart was still faithful to her country
+and religion: she had formed the infancy of her son, and she governed
+the emperor, after his mind, or at least his stature, was enlarged to
+the size of man. In the first year of his deliverance and restoration,
+the Turks were still masters of the Hellespont; the son of Cantacuzene
+was in arms at Adrianople; and Palęologus could depend neither on
+himself nor on his people. By his mother's advice, and in the hope of
+foreign aid, he abjured the rights both of the church and state; and
+the act of slavery, [7] subscribed in purple ink, and sealed with the
+_golden_ bull, was privately intrusted to an Italian agent. The first
+article of the treaty is an oath of fidelity and obedience to Innocent
+the Sixth and his successors, the supreme pontiffs of the Roman and
+Catholic church. The emperor promises to entertain with due reverence
+their legates and nuncios; to assign a palace for their residence, and
+a temple for their worship; and to deliver his second son Manuel as
+the hostage of his faith. For these condescensions he requires a prompt
+succor of fifteen galleys, with five hundred men at arms, and a
+thousand archers, to serve against his Christian and Mussulman enemies.
+Palęologus engages to impose on his clergy and people the same spiritual
+yoke; but as the resistance of the Greeks might be justly foreseen, he
+adopts the two effectual methods of corruption and education. The legate
+was empowered to distribute the vacant benefices among the ecclesiastics
+who should subscribe the creed of the Vatican: three schools were
+instituted to instruct the youth of Constantinople in the language and
+doctrine of the Latins; and the name of Andronicus, the heir of the
+empire, was enrolled as the first student. Should he fail in the
+measures of persuasion or force, Palęologus declares himself unworthy
+to reign; transferred to the pope all regal and paternal authority; and
+invests Innocent with full power to regulate the family, the government,
+and the marriage, of his son and successor. But this treaty was neither
+executed nor published: the Roman galleys were as vain and imaginary as
+the submission of the Greeks; and it was only by the secrecy that their
+sovereign escaped the dishonor of this fruitless humiliation.
+
+[Footnote 7: See this ignominious treaty in Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. p.
+151--154,) from Raynaldus, who drew it from the Vatican archives. It was
+not worth the trouble of a pious forgery.]
+
+The tempest of the Turkish arms soon burst on his head; and after the
+loss of Adrianople and Romania, he was enclosed in his capital, the
+vassal of the haughty Amurath, with the miserable hope of being the last
+devoured by the savage. In this abject state, Palęologus embraced the
+resolution of embarking for Venice, and casting himself at the feet of
+the pope: he was the first of the Byzantine princes who had ever
+visited the unknown regions of the West, yet in them alone he could seek
+consolation or relief; and with less violation of his dignity he might
+appear in the sacred college than at the Ottoman _Porte_. After a long
+absence, the Roman pontiffs were returning from Avignon to the banks
+of the Tyber: Urban the Fifth, [8] of a mild and virtuous character,
+encouraged or allowed the pilgrimage of the Greek prince; and, within
+the same year, enjoyed the glory of receiving in the Vatican the
+two Imperial shadows who represented the majesty of Constantine and
+Charlemagne. In this suppliant visit, the emperor of Constantinople,
+whose vanity was lost in his distress, gave more than could be expected
+of empty sounds and formal submissions. A previous trial was imposed;
+and, in the presence of four cardinals, he acknowledged, as a true
+Catholic, the supremacy of the pope, and the double procession of the
+Holy Ghost. After this purification, he was introduced to a public
+audience in the church of St. Peter: Urban, in the midst of the
+cardinals, was seated on his throne; the Greek monarch, after three
+genuflections, devoutly kissed the feet, the hands, and at length the
+mouth, of the holy father, who celebrated high mass in his presence,
+allowed him to lead the bridle of his mule, and treated him with a
+sumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The entertainment of Palęologus was
+friendly and honorable; yet some difference was observed between the
+emperors of the East and West; [9] nor could the former be entitled to
+the rare privilege of chanting the gospel in the rank of a deacon. [10]
+In favor of his proselyte, Urban strove to rekindle the zeal of the
+French king and the other powers of the West; but he found them cold in
+the general cause, and active only in their domestic quarrels. The last
+hope of the emperor was in an English mercenary, John Hawkwood, [11]
+or Acuto, who, with a band of adventurers, the white brotherhood,
+had ravaged Italy from the Alps to Calabria; sold his services to the
+hostile states; and incurred a just excommunication by shooting his
+arrows against the papal residence. A special license was granted to
+negotiate with the outlaw, but the forces, or the spirit, of Hawkwood,
+were unequal to the enterprise: and it was for the advantage, perhaps,
+of Palęologus to be disappointed of succor, that must have been costly,
+that could not be effectual, and which might have been dangerous. [12]
+The disconsolate Greek [13] prepared for his return, but even his return
+was impeded by a most ignominious obstacle. On his arrival at Venice, he
+had borrowed large sums at exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty,
+his creditors were impatient, and his person was detained as the best
+security for the payment. His eldest son, Andronicus, the regent of
+Constantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource; and even
+by stripping the churches, to extricate his father from captivity and
+disgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of the disgrace, and
+secretly pleased with the captivity of the emperor: the state was poor,
+the clergy were obstinate; nor could some religious scruple be wanting
+to excuse the guilt of his indifference and delay. Such undutiful
+neglect was severely reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who
+instantly sold or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice,
+relieved his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsible
+for the debt. On his return to Constantinople, the parent and king
+distinguished his two sons with suitable rewards; but the faith and
+manners of the slothful Palęologus had not been improved by his Roman
+pilgrimage; and his apostasy or conversion, devoid of any spiritual or
+temporal effects, was speedily forgotten by the Greeks and Latins. [14]
+
+[Footnote 8: See the two first original Lives of Urban V., (in Muratori,
+Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 623, 635,) and the
+Ecclesiastical Annals of Spondanus, (tom. i. p. 573, A.D. 1369, No. 7,)
+and Raynaldus, (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 223, 224.) Yet, from
+some variations, I suspect the papal writers of slightly magnifying the
+genuflections of Palęologus.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum. Yet his
+title of Imperator Gręcorum was no longer disputed, (Vit. Urban V. p.
+623.)]
+
+[Footnote 10: It was confined to the successors of Charlemagne, and
+to them only on Christmas-day. On all other festivals these Imperial
+deacons were content to serve the pope, as he said mass, with the book
+and the _corporale_. Yet the abbé de Sade generously thinks that the
+merits of Charles IV. might have entitled him, though not on the proper
+day, (A.D. 1368, November 1,) to the whole privilege. He seems to affix
+a just value on the privilege and the man, (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii.
+p. 735.)]
+
+[Footnote 11: Through some Italian corruptions, the etymology of
+_Falcone in bosco_, (Matteo Villani, l. xi. c. 79, in Muratori, tom.
+xv. p. 746,) suggests the English word _Hawkwood_, the true name of
+our adventurous countryman, (Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Anglican. inter
+Scriptores Camdeni, p. 184.) After two-and-twenty victories, and one
+defeat, he died, in 1394, general of the Florentines, and was buried
+with such honors as the republic has not paid to Dante or Petrarch,
+(Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 212--371.)]
+
+[Footnote 12: This torrent of English (by birth or service) overflowed
+from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in 1630. Yet the
+exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197) is rather true than
+civil. "Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo essere calpestrata l'Italia
+da tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed Ungheri, venissero fin dall' Inghliterra
+nuovi _cani_ a finire di divorarla."]
+
+[Footnote 13: Chalcondyles, l. i. p. 25, 26. The Greek supposes his
+journey to the king of France, which is sufficiently refuted by the
+silence of the national historians. Nor am I much more inclined to
+believe, that Palęologus departed from Italy, valde bene consolatus et
+contentus, (Vit. Urban V. p. 623.)]
+
+[Footnote 14: His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel, Sept.
+25, 1373, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241,) leaves some intermediate ęra
+for the conspiracy and punishment of Andronicus.]
+
+Thirty years after the return of Palęologus, his son and successor,
+Manuel, from a similar motive, but on a larger scale, again visited the
+countries of the West. In a preceding chapter I have related his treaty
+with Bajazet, the violation of that treaty, the siege or blockade of
+Constantinople, and the French succor under the command of the gallant
+Boucicault. [15] By his ambassadors, Manuel had solicited the Latin
+powers; but it was thought that the presence of a distressed monarch
+would draw tears and supplies from the hardest Barbarians; [16] and the
+marshal who advised the journey prepared the reception of the Byzantine
+prince. The land was occupied by the Turks; but the navigation of Venice
+was safe and open: Italy received him as the first, or, at least, as the
+second, of the Christian princes; Manuel was pitied as the champion and
+confessor of the faith; and the dignity of his behavior prevented that
+pity from sinking into contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua and
+Pavia; and even the duke of Milan, a secret ally of Bajazet, gave him
+safe and honorable conduct to the verge of his dominions. [17] On the
+confines of France [18] the royal officers undertook the care of his
+person, journey, and expenses; and two thousand of the richest citizens,
+in arms and on horseback, came forth to meet him as far as Charenton, in
+the neighborhood of the capital. At the gates of Paris, he was saluted
+by the chancellor and the parliament; and Charles the Sixth, attended by
+his princes and nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace.
+The successor of Constantine was clothed in a robe of white silk, and
+mounted on a milk-white steed, a circumstance, in the French ceremonial,
+of singular importance: the white color is considered as the symbol of
+sovereignty; and, in a late visit, the German emperor, after a haughty
+demand and a peevish refusal, had been reduced to content himself with
+a black courser. Manuel was lodged in the Louvre; a succession of feasts
+and balls, the pleasures of the banquet and the chase, were ingeniously
+varied by the politeness of the French, to display their magnificence,
+and amuse his grief: he was indulged in the liberty of his chapel; and
+the doctors of the Sorbonne were astonished, and possibly scandalized,
+by the language, the rites, and the vestments, of his Greek clergy.
+But the slightest glance on the state of the kingdom must teach him to
+despair of any effectual assistance. The unfortunate Charles, though
+he enjoyed some lucid intervals, continually relapsed into furious or
+stupid insanity: the reins of government were alternately seized by his
+brother and uncle, the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose factious
+competition prepared the miseries of civil war. The former was a gay
+youth, dissolved in luxury and love: the latter was the father of John
+count of Nevers, who had so lately been ransomed from Turkish captivity;
+and, if the fearless son was ardent to revenge his defeat, the more
+prudent Burgundy was content with the cost and peril of the first
+experiment. When Manuel had satiated the curiosity, and perhaps fatigued
+the patience, of the French, he resolved on a visit to the adjacent
+island. In his progress from Dover, he was entertained at Canterbury
+with due reverence by the prior and monks of St. Austin; and, on
+Blackheath, King Henry the Fourth, with the English court, saluted
+the Greek hero, (I copy our old historian,) who, during many days, was
+lodged and treated in London as emperor of the East. [19] But the state
+of England was still more adverse to the design of the holy war. In the
+same year, the hereditary sovereign had been deposed and murdered: the
+reigning prince was a successful usurper, whose ambition was punished by
+jealousy and remorse: nor could Henry of Lancaster withdraw his person
+or forces from the defence of a throne incessantly shaken by conspiracy
+and rebellion. He pitied, he praised, he feasted, the emperor of
+Constantinople; but if the English monarch assumed the cross, it was
+only to appease his people, and perhaps his conscience, by the merit or
+semblance of his pious intention. [20] Satisfied, however, with gifts and
+honors, Manuel returned to Paris; and, after a residence of two years
+in the West, shaped his course through Germany and Italy, embarked at
+Venice, and patiently expected, in the Morea, the moment of his ruin or
+deliverance. Yet he had escaped the ignominious necessity of offering
+his religion to public or private sale. The Latin church was distracted
+by the great schism; the kings, the nations, the universities, of Europe
+were divided in their obedience between the popes of Rome and Avignon;
+and the emperor, anxious to conciliate the friendship of both parties,
+abstained from any correspondence with the indigent and unpopular
+rivals. His journey coincided with the year of the jubilee; but he
+passed through Italy without desiring, or deserving, the plenary
+indulgence which abolished the guilt or penance of the sins of the
+faithful. The Roman pope was offended by this neglect; accused him of
+irreverence to an image of Christ; and exhorted the princes of Italy to
+reject and abandon the obstinate schismatic. [21]
+
+[Footnote 15: Mémoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 35, 36.]
+
+[Footnote 16: His journey into the west of Europe is slightly, and I
+believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (l. ii. c. 44--50) and
+Ducas, (c. 14.)]
+
+[Footnote 17: Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 406. John Galeazzo
+was the first and most powerful duke of Milan. His connection with
+Bajazet is attested by Froissard; and he contributed to save and deliver
+the French captives of Nicopolis.]
+
+[Footnote 18: For the reception of Manuel at Paris, see Spondanus,
+(Annal. Ecclés. tom. i. p. 676, 677, A.D. 1400, No. 5,) who quotes
+Juvenal des Ursins and the monk of St. Denys; and Villaret, (Hist. de
+France, tom. xii. p. 331--334,) who quotes nobody according to the last
+fashion of the French writers.]
+
+[Footnote 19: A short note of Manuel in England is extracted by Dr. Hody
+from a MS. at Lambeth, (de Gręcis illustribus, p. 14,) C. P. Imperator,
+diu variisque et horrendis Paganorum insultibus coarctatus, ut pro
+eisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret, Anglorum Regem visitare
+decrevit, &c. Rex (says Walsingham, p. 364) nobili apparatū... suscepit
+(ut decuit) tantum Heroa, duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies
+exhibuit gloriose, pro expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respiciens
+tanto fastigio donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustrię,
+(p. 556.)]
+
+[Footnote 20: Shakspeare begins and ends the play of Henry IV. with
+that prince's vow of a crusade, and his belief that he should die in
+Jerusalem.]
+
+[Footnote 21: This fact is preserved in the Historia Politica, A.D.
+1391--1478, published by Martin Crusius, (Turco Gręcia, p. 1--43.)
+The image of Christ, which the Greek emperor refused to worship, was
+probably a work of sculpture.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.--Part II.
+
+During the period of the crusades, the Greeks beheld with astonishment
+and terror the perpetual stream of emigration that flowed, and continued
+to flow, from the unknown climates of their West. The visits of their
+last emperors removed the veil of separation, and they disclosed to
+their eyes the powerful nations of Europe, whom they no longer presumed
+to brand with the name of Barbarians. The observations of Manuel, and
+his more inquisitive followers, have been preserved by a Byzantine
+historian of the times: [22] his scattered ideas I shall collect
+and abridge; and it may be amusing enough, perhaps instructive, to
+contemplate the rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whose
+ancient and modern state are so familiar to _our_ minds. I. Germany
+(says the Greek Chalcondyles) is of ample latitude from Vienna to the
+ocean; and it stretches (a strange geography) from Prague in Bohemia to
+the River Tartessus, and the Pyrenęan Mountains. [23] The soil, except
+in figs and olives, is sufficiently fruitful; the air is salubrious; the
+bodies of the natives are robust and healthy; and these cold regions are
+seldom visited with the calamities of pestilence, or earthquakes. After
+the Scythians or Tartars, the Germans are the most numerous of nations:
+they are brave and patient; and were they united under a single head,
+their force would be irresistible. By the gift of the pope, they have
+acquired the privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; [24] nor is any
+people more devoutly attached to the faith and obedience of the Latin
+patriarch. The greatest part of the country is divided among the princes
+and prelates; but Strasburg, Cologne, Hamburgh, and more than two
+hundred free cities, are governed by sage and equal laws, according
+to the will, and for the advantage, of the whole community. The use of
+duels, or single combats on foot, prevails among them in peace and war:
+their industry excels in all the mechanic arts; and the Germans may
+boast of the invention of gunpowder and cannon, which is now diffused
+over the greatest part of the world. II. The kingdom of France is spread
+above fifteen or twenty days' journey from Germany to Spain, and from
+the Alps to the British Ocean; containing many flourishing cities, and
+among these Paris, the seat of the king, which surpasses the rest
+in riches and luxury. Many princes and lords alternately wait in his
+palace, and acknowledge him as their sovereign: the most powerful are
+the dukes of Bretagne and Burgundy; of whom the latter possesses the
+wealthy province of Flanders, whose harbors are frequented by the ships
+and merchants of our own, and the more remote, seas. The French are
+an ancient and opulent people; and their language and manners, though
+somewhat different, are not dissimilar from those of the Italians. Vain
+of the Imperial dignity of Charlemagne, of their victories over the
+Saracens, and of the exploits of their heroes, Oliver and Rowland,
+[25] they esteem themselves the first of the western nations; but this
+foolish arrogance has been recently humbled by the unfortunate events of
+their wars against the English, the inhabitants of the British island.
+III. Britain, in the ocean, and opposite to the shores of Flanders,
+may be considered either as one, or as three islands; but the whole
+is united by a common interest, by the same manners, and by a similar
+government. The measure of its circumference is five thousand stadia:
+the land is overspread with towns and villages: though destitute of
+wine, and not abounding in fruit-trees, it is fertile in wheat and
+barley; in honey and wool; and much cloth is manufactured by the
+inhabitants. In populousness and power, in richness and luxury, London,
+[26] the metropolis of the isle, may claim a preeminence over all the
+cities of the West. It is situate on the Thames, a broad and rapid
+river, which at the distance of thirty miles falls into the Gallic
+Sea; and the daily flow and ebb of the tide affords a safe entrance and
+departure to the vessels of commerce. The king is head of a powerful
+and turbulent aristocracy: his principal vassals hold their estates by
+a free and unalterable tenure; and the laws define the limits of his
+authority and their obedience. The kingdom has been often afflicted by
+foreign conquest and domestic sedition: but the natives are bold and
+hardy, renowned in arms and victorious in war. The form of their shields
+or targets is derived from the Italians, that of their swords from the
+Greeks; the use of the long bow is the peculiar and decisive advantage
+of the English. Their language bears no affinity to the idioms of
+the Continent: in the habits of domestic life, they are not easily
+distinguished from their neighbors of France: but the most singular
+circumstance of their manners is their disregard of conjugal honor
+and of female chastity. In their mutual visits, as the first act of
+hospitality, the guest is welcomed in the embraces of their wives and
+daughters: among friends they are lent and borrowed without shame; nor
+are the islanders offended at this strange commerce, and its inevitable
+consequences. [27] Informed as we are of the customs of Old England and
+assured of the virtue of our mothers, we may smile at the credulity, or
+resent the injustice, of the Greek, who must have confounded a modest
+salute [28] with a criminal embrace. But his credulity and injustice
+may teach an important lesson; to distrust the accounts of foreign and
+remote nations, and to suspend our belief of every tale that deviates
+from the laws of nature and the character of man. [29]
+
+[Footnote 22: The Greek and Turkish history of Laonicus Chalcondyles
+ends with the winter of 1463; and the abrupt conclusion seems to mark,
+that he laid down his pen in the same year. We know that he was an
+Athenian, and that some contemporaries of the same name contributed
+to the revival of the Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous
+digressions, the modest historian has never introduced himself; and his
+editor Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius, (Bibliot. Gręc. tom. vi. p.
+474,) seems ignorant of his life and character. For his descriptions of
+Germany, France, and England, see l. ii. p. 36, 37, 44--50.]
+
+[Footnote 23: I shall not animadvert on the geographical errors of
+Chalcondyles. In this instance, he perhaps followed, and mistook,
+Herodotus, (l. ii. c. 33,) whose text may be explained, (Herodote de
+Larcher, tom. ii. p. 219, 220,) or whose ignorance may be excused.
+Had these modern Greeks never read Strabo, or any of their lesser
+geographers?]
+
+[Footnote 24: A citizen of new Rome, while new Rome survived, would have
+scorned to dignify the German 'Rhx with titles of BasileuV or Autokratwr
+'Rwmaiwn: but all pride was extinct in the bosom of Chalcondyles; and he
+describes the Byzantine prince, and his subject, by the proper, though
+humble, names of ''EllhneV and BasileuV 'Ellhnwn.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Most of the old romances were translated in the xivth
+century into French prose, and soon became the favorite amusement of the
+knights and ladies in the court of Charles VI. If a Greek believed in
+the exploits of Rowland and Oliver, he may surely be excused, since the
+monks of St. Denys, the national historians, have inserted the fables of
+Archbishop Turpin in their Chronicles of France.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Londinh.... de te poliV dunamei te proecousa tvn en th
+nhsw tauth pasvn polewn, olbw te kai th allh eudaimonia oudemiaV tvn
+peoV esperan leipomenh. Even since the time of Fitzstephen, (the xiith
+century,) London appears to have maintained this preeminence of wealth
+and magnitude; and her gradual increase has, at least, kept pace with
+the general improvement of Europe.]
+
+[Footnote 27: If the double sense of the verb Kuw (osculor, and in utero
+gero) be equivocal, the context and pious horror of Chalcondyles can
+leave no doubt of his meaning and mistake, (p. 49.) *
+
+Note: * I can discover no "pious horror" in the plain manner in which
+Chalcondyles relates this strange usage. He says, oude aiscunun tovto
+feoei eautoiV kuesqai taV te gunaikaV autvn kai taV qugateraV, yet these
+are expression beyond what would be used, if the ambiguous word kuesqai
+were taken in its more innocent sense. Nor can the phrase parecontai
+taV eautvn gunaikaV en toiV epithdeioiV well bear a less coarse
+interpretation. Gibbon is possibly right as to the origin of this
+extraordinary mistake.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Erasmus (Epist. Fausto Andrelino) has a pretty passage on
+the English fashion of kissing strangers on their arrival and departure,
+from whence, however, he draws no scandalous inferences.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Perhaps we may apply this remark to the community of
+wives among the old Britons, as it is supposed by Cęsar and Dion, (Dion
+Cassius, l. lxii. tom. ii. p. 1007,) with Reimar's judicious annotation.
+The _Arreoy_ of Otaheite, so certain at first, is become less visible
+and scandalous, in proportion as we have studied the manners of that
+gentle and amorous people.]
+
+After his return, and the victory of Timour, Manuel reigned many years
+in prosperity and peace. As long as the sons of Bajazet solicited his
+friendship and spared his dominions, he was satisfied with the national
+religion; and his leisure was employed in composing twenty theological
+dialogues for its defence. The appearance of the Byzantine ambassadors
+at the council of Constance, [30] announces the restoration of the
+Turkish power, as well as of the Latin church: the conquest of the
+sultans, Mahomet and Amurath, reconciled the emperor to the Vatican;
+and the siege of Constantinople almost tempted him to acquiesce in the
+double procession of the Holy Ghost. When Martin the Fifth ascended
+without a rival the chair of St. Peter, a friendly intercourse of
+letters and embassies was revived between the East and West. Ambition on
+one side, and distress on the other, dictated the same decent language
+of charity and peace: the artful Greek expressed a desire of marrying
+his six sons to Italian princesses; and the Roman, not less artful,
+despatched the daughter of the marquis of Montferrat, with a company
+of noble virgins, to soften, by their charms, the obstinacy of the
+schismatics. Yet under this mask of zeal, a discerning eye will
+perceive that all was hollow and insincere in the court and church of
+Constantinople. According to the vicissitudes of danger and repose, the
+emperor advanced or retreated; alternately instructed and disavowed his
+ministers; and escaped from the importunate pressure by urging the duty
+of inquiry, the obligation of collecting the sense of his patriarchs
+and bishops, and the impossibility of convening them at a time when
+the Turkish arms were at the gates of his capital. From a review of the
+public transactions it will appear that the Greeks insisted on three
+successive measures, a succor, a council, and a final reunion, while
+the Latins eluded the second, and only promised the first, as a
+consequential and voluntary reward of the third. But we have an
+opportunity of unfolding the most secret intentions of Manuel, as he
+explained them in a private conversation without artifice or disguise.
+In his declining age, the emperor had associated John Palęologus, the
+second of the name, and the eldest of his sons, on whom he devolved the
+greatest part of the authority and weight of government. One day, in the
+presence only of the historian Phranza, [31] his favorite chamberlain,
+he opened to his colleague and successor the true principle of his
+negotiations with the pope. [32] "Our last resource," said Manuel,
+against the Turks, "is their fear of our union with the Latins, of the
+warlike nations of the West, who may arm for our relief and for their
+destruction. As often as you are threatened by the miscreants, present
+this danger before their eyes. Propose a council; consult on the means;
+but ever delay and avoid the convocation of an assembly, which cannot
+tend either to our spiritual or temporal emolument. The Latins are
+proud; the Greeks are obstinate; neither party will recede or retract;
+and the attempt of a perfect union will confirm the schism, alienate
+the churches, and leave us, without hope or defence, at the mercy of the
+Barbarians." Impatient of this salutary lesson, the royal youth arose
+from his seat, and departed in silence; and the wise monarch (continued
+Phranza) casting his eyes on me, thus resumed his discourse: "My son
+deems himself a great and heroic prince; but, alas! our miserable age
+does not afford scope for heroism or greatness. His daring spirit might
+have suited the happier times of our ancestors; but the present state
+requires not an emperor, but a cautious steward of the last relics of
+our fortunes. Well do I remember the lofty expectations which he built
+on our alliance with Mustapha; and much do I fear, that this rash
+courage will urge the ruin of our house, and that even religion may
+precipitate our downfall." Yet the experience and authority of Manuel
+preserved the peace, and eluded the council; till, in the seventy-eighth
+year of his age, and in the habit of a monk, he terminated his career,
+dividing his precious movables among his children and the poor, his
+physicians and his favorite servants. Of his six sons, [33] Andronicus
+the Second was invested with the principality of Thessalonica, and died
+of a leprosy soon after the sale of that city to the Venetians and
+its final conquest by the Turks. Some fortunate incidents had restored
+Peloponnesus, or the Morea, to the empire; and in his more prosperous
+days, Manuel had fortified the narrow isthmus of six miles [34] with
+a stone wall and one hundred and fifty-three towers. The wall was
+overthrown by the first blast of the Ottomans; the fertile peninsula
+might have been sufficient for the four younger brothers, Theodore and
+Constantine, Demetrius and Thomas; but they wasted in domestic contests
+the remains of their strength; and the least successful of the rivals
+were reduced to a life of dependence in the Byzantine palace.
+
+[Footnote 30: See Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom. ii.
+p. 576; and or the ecclesiastical history of the times, the Annals of
+Spondanus the Bibliothčque of Dupin, tom. xii., and xxist and xxiid
+volumes of the History, or rather the Continuation, of Fleury.]
+
+[Footnote 31: From his early youth, George Phranza, or Phranzes, was
+employed in the service of the state and palace; and Hanckius (de
+Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40) has collected his life from his own
+writings. He was no more than four-and-twenty years of age at the death
+of Manuel, who recommended him in the strongest terms to his successor:
+Imprimis vero hunc Phranzen tibi commendo, qui ministravit mihi
+fideliter et diligenter (Phranzes, l. ii. c. i.) Yet the emperor John
+was cold, and he preferred the service of the despots of Peloponnesus.]
+
+[Footnote 32: See Phranzes, l. ii. c. 13. While so many manuscripts
+of the Greek original are extant in the libraries of Rome, Milan, the
+Escurial, &c., it is a matter of shame and reproach, that we should be
+reduced to the Latin version, or abstract, of James Pontanus, (ad calcem
+Theophylact, Simocattę: Ingolstadt, 1604,) so deficient in accuracy and
+elegance, (Fabric. Bibliot. Gręc. tom. vi. p. 615--620.) *
+
+Note: * The Greek text of Phranzes was edited by F. C. Alter Vindobonę,
+1796. It has been re-edited by Bekker for the new edition of the
+Byzantines, Bonn, 1838.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 33: See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 243--248.]
+
+[Footnote 34: The exact measure of the Hexamilion, from sea to sea, was
+3800 orgyię, or _toises_, of six Greek feet, (Phranzes, l. i. c. 38,)
+which would produce a Greek mile, still smaller than that of 660 French
+_toises_, which is assigned by D'Anville, as still in use in Turkey.
+Five miles are commonly reckoned for the breadth of the isthmus. See the
+Travels of Spon, Wheeler and Chandler.]
+
+The eldest of the sons of Manuel, John Palęologus the Second, was
+acknowledged, after his father's death, as the sole emperor of the
+Greeks. He immediately proceeded to repudiate his wife, and to contract
+a new marriage with the princess of Trebizond: beauty was in his eyes
+the first qualification of an empress; and the clergy had yielded to his
+firm assurance, that unless he might be indulged in a divorce, he would
+retire to a cloister, and leave the throne to his brother Constantine.
+The first, and in truth the only, victory of Palęologus, was over a
+Jew, [35] whom, after a long and learned dispute, he converted to the
+Christian faith; and this momentous conquest is carefully recorded in
+the history of the times. But he soon resumed the design of uniting the
+East and West; and, regardless of his father's advice, listened, as it
+should seem with sincerity, to the proposal of meeting the pope in
+a general council beyond the Adriatic. This dangerous project was
+encouraged by Martin the Fifth, and coldly entertained by his successor
+Eugenius, till, after a tedious negotiation, the emperor received a
+summons from the Latin assembly of a new character, the independent
+prelates of Basil, who styled themselves the representatives and judges
+of the Catholic church.
+
+[Footnote 35: The first objection of the Jews is on the death of Christ:
+if it were voluntary, Christ was a suicide; which the emperor parries
+with a mystery. They then dispute on the conception of the Virgin,
+the sense of the prophecies, &c., (Phranzes, l. ii. c. 12, a whole
+chapter.)]
+
+The Roman pontiff had fought and conquered in the cause of
+ecclesiastical freedom; but the victorious clergy were soon exposed
+to the tyranny of their deliverer; and his sacred character was
+invulnerable to those arms which they found so keen and effectual
+against the civil magistrate. Their great charter, the right of
+election, was annihilated by appeals, evaded by trusts or commendams,
+disappointed by reversionary grants, and superseded by previous and
+arbitrary reservations. [36] A public auction was instituted in the court
+of Rome: the cardinals and favorites were enriched with the spoils of
+nations; and every country might complain that the most important
+and valuable benefices were accumulated on the heads of aliens and
+absentees. During their residence at Avignon, the ambition of the
+popes subsided in the meaner passions of avarice [37] and luxury: they
+rigorously imposed on the clergy the tributes of first-fruits and
+tenths; but they freely tolerated the impunity of vice, disorder, and
+corruption. These manifold scandals were aggravated by the great schism
+of the West, which continued above fifty years. In the furious conflicts
+of Rome and Avignon, the vices of the rivals were mutually exposed;
+and their precarious situation degraded their authority, relaxed their
+discipline, and multiplied their wants and exactions. To heal the
+wounds, and restore the monarchy, of the church, the synods of Pisa and
+Constance [38] were successively convened; but these great assemblies,
+conscious of their strength, resolved to vindicate the privileges of the
+Christian aristocracy. From a personal sentence against two pontiffs,
+whom they rejected, and a third, their acknowledged sovereign, whom they
+deposed, the fathers of Constance proceeded to examine the nature and
+limits of the Roman supremacy; nor did they separate till they had
+established the authority, above the pope, of a general council. It was
+enacted, that, for the government and reformation of the church, such
+assemblies should be held at regular intervals; and that each synod,
+before its dissolution, should appoint the time and place of the
+subsequent meeting. By the influence of the court of Rome, the next
+convocation at Sienna was easily eluded; but the bold and vigorous
+proceedings of the council of Basil [39] had almost been fatal to the
+reigning pontiff, Eugenius the Fourth. A just suspicion of his design
+prompted the fathers to hasten the promulgation of their first decree,
+that the representatives of the church-militant on earth were invested
+with a divine and spiritual jurisdiction over all Christians, without
+excepting the pope; and that a general council could not be dissolved,
+prorogued, or transferred, unless by their free deliberation and
+consent. On the notice that Eugenius had fulminated a bull for that
+purpose, they ventured to summon, to admonish, to threaten, to censure
+the contumacious successor of St. Peter. After many delays, to allow
+time for repentance, they finally declared, that, unless he submitted
+within the term of sixty days, he was suspended from the exercise of all
+temporal and ecclesiastical authority. And to mark their jurisdiction
+over the prince as well as the priest, they assumed the government of
+Avignon, annulled the alienation of the sacred patrimony, and protected
+Rome from the imposition of new taxes. Their boldness was justified, not
+only by the general opinion of the clergy, but by the support and power
+of the first monarchs of Christendom: the emperor Sigismond declared
+himself the servant and protector of the synod; Germany and France
+adhered to their cause; the duke of Milan was the enemy of Eugenius; and
+he was driven from the Vatican by an insurrection of the Roman people.
+Rejected at the same time by temporal and spiritual subjects, submission
+was his only choice: by a most humiliating bull, the pope repealed his
+own acts, and ratified those of the council; incorporated his legates
+and cardinals with that venerable body; and _seemed_ to resign himself
+to the decrees of the supreme legislature. Their fame pervaded the
+countries of the East: and it was in their presence that Sigismond
+received the ambassadors of the Turkish sultan, [40] who laid at his feet
+twelve large vases, filled with robes of silk and pieces of gold. The
+fathers of Basil aspired to the glory of reducing the Greeks, as well as
+the Bohemians, within the pale of the church; and their deputies invited
+the emperor and patriarch of Constantinople to unite with an assembly
+which possessed the confidence of the Western nations. Palęologus was
+not averse to the proposal; and his ambassadors were introduced with due
+honors into the Catholic senate. But the choice of the place appeared
+to be an insuperable obstacle, since he refused to pass the Alps, or
+the sea of Sicily, and positively required that the synod should be
+adjourned to some convenient city in Italy, or at least on the Danube.
+The other articles of this treaty were more readily stipulated: it was
+agreed to defray the travelling expenses of the emperor, with a train of
+seven hundred persons, [41] to remit an immediate sum of eight thousand
+ducats [42] for the accommodation of the Greek clergy; and in his absence
+to grant a supply of ten thousand ducats, with three hundred archers and
+some galleys, for the protection of Constantinople. The city of Avignon
+advanced the funds for the preliminary expenses; and the embarkation was
+prepared at Marseilles with some difficulty and delay.
+
+[Footnote 36: In the treatise delle Materie Beneficiarie of Fra Paolo,
+(in the ivth volume of the last, and best, edition of his works,) the
+papal system is deeply studied and freely described. Should Rome and
+her religion be annihilated, this golden volume may still survive, a
+philosophical history, and a salutary warning.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Pope John XXII. (in 1334) left behind him, at Avignon,
+eighteen millions of gold florins, and the value of seven millions more
+in plate and jewels. See the Chronicle of John Villani, (l. xi. c. 20,
+in Muratori's Collection, tom. xiii. p. 765,) whose brother received the
+account from the papal treasurers. A treasure of six or eight millions
+sterling in the xivth century is enormous, and almost incredible.]
+
+[Footnote 38: A learned and liberal Protestant, M. Lenfant, has given
+a fair history of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basil, in six
+volumes in quarto; but the last part is the most hasty and imperfect,
+except in the account of the troubles of Bohemia.]
+
+[Footnote 39: The original acts or minutes of the council of Basil are
+preserved in the public library, in twelve volumes in folio. Basil was a
+free city, conveniently situate on the Rhine, and guarded by the arms
+of the neighboring and confederate Swiss. In 1459, the university was
+founded by Pope Pius II., (Ęneas Sylvius,) who had been secretary to the
+council. But what is a council, or a university, to the presses o Froben
+and the studies of Erasmus?]
+
+[Footnote 40: This Turkish embassy, attested only by Crantzius, is
+related with some doubt by the annalist Spondanus, A.D. 1433, No. 25,
+tom. i. p. 824.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Syropulus, p. 19. In this list, the Greeks appear to
+have exceeded the real numbers of the clergy and laity which afterwards
+attended the emperor and patriarch, but which are not clearly specified
+by the great ecclesiarch. The 75,000 florins which they asked in this
+negotiation of the pope, (p. 9,) were more than they could hope or
+want.]
+
+[Footnote 42: I use indifferently the words _ducat_ and _florin_, which
+derive their names, the former from the _dukes_ of Milan, the latter
+from the republic of _Florence_. These gold pieces, the first that were
+coined in Italy, perhaps in the Latin world, may be compared in weight
+and value to one third of the English guinea.]
+
+In his distress, the friendship of Palęologus was disputed by the
+ecclesiastical powers of the West; but the dexterous activity of a
+monarch prevailed over the slow debates and inflexible temper of a
+republic. The decrees of Basil continually tended to circumscribe the
+despotism of the pope, and to erect a supreme and perpetual tribunal
+in the church. Eugenius was impatient of the yoke; and the union of the
+Greeks might afford a decent pretence for translating a rebellious synod
+from the Rhine to the Po. The independence of the fathers was lost
+if they passed the Alps: Savoy or Avignon, to which they acceded with
+reluctance, were described at Constantinople as situate far beyond the
+pillars of Hercules; [43] the emperor and his clergy were apprehensive
+of the dangers of a long navigation; they were offended by a haughty
+declaration, that after suppressing the _new_ heresy of the Bohemians,
+the council would soon eradicate the _old_ heresy of the Greeks. [44] On
+the side of Eugenius, all was smooth, and yielding, and respectful; and
+he invited the Byzantine monarch to heal by his presence the schism of
+the Latin, as well as of the Eastern, church. Ferrara, near the coast of
+the Adriatic, was proposed for their amicable interview; and with some
+indulgence of forgery and theft, a surreptitious decree was procured,
+which transferred the synod, with its own consent, to that Italian city.
+Nine galleys were equipped for the service at Venice, and in the Isle
+of Candia; their diligence anticipated the slower vessels of Basil: the
+Roman admiral was commissioned to burn, sink, and destroy; [45] and these
+priestly squadrons might have encountered each other in the same seas
+where Athens and Sparta had formerly contended for the preeminence of
+glory. Assaulted by the importunity of the factions, who were ready to
+fight for the possession of his person, Palęologus hesitated before
+he left his palace and country on a perilous experiment. His father's
+advice still dwelt on his memory; and reason must suggest, that since
+the Latins were divided among themselves, they could never unite in
+a foreign cause. Sigismond dissuaded the unreasonable adventure; his
+advice was impartial, since he adhered to the council; and it was
+enforced by the strange belief, that the German Cęsar would nominate
+a Greek his heir and successor in the empire of the West. [46] Even the
+Turkish sultan was a counsellor whom it might be unsafe to trust, but
+whom it was dangerous to offend. Amurath was unskilled in the disputes,
+but he was apprehensive of the union, of the Christians. From his own
+treasures, he offered to relieve the wants of the Byzantine court; yet
+he declared with seeming magnanimity, that Constantinople should
+be secure and inviolate, in the absence of her sovereign. [47] The
+resolution of Palęologus was decided by the most splendid gifts and the
+most specious promises: he wished to escape for a while from a scene of
+danger and distress and after dismissing with an ambiguous answer the
+messengers of the council, he declared his intention of embarking in the
+Roman galleys. The age of the patriarch Joseph was more susceptible of
+fear than of hope; he trembled at the perils of the sea, and expressed
+his apprehension, that his feeble voice, with thirty perhaps of his
+orthodox brethren, would be oppressed in a foreign land by the power
+and numbers of a Latin synod. He yielded to the royal mandate, to the
+flattering assurance, that he would be heard as the oracle of nations,
+and to the secret wish of learning from his brother of the West, to
+deliver the church from the yoke of kings. [48] The five _cross-bearers_,
+or dignitaries, of St. Sophia, were bound to attend his person; and one
+of these, the great ecclesiarch or preacher, Sylvester Syropulus, [49]
+has composed a free and curious history [50] of the _false_ union. [51]
+Of the clergy that reluctantly obeyed the summons of the emperor and the
+patriarch, submission was the first duty, and patience the most useful
+virtue. In a chosen list of twenty bishops, we discover the metropolitan
+titles of Heracleę and Cyzicus, Nice and Nicomedia, Ephesus and
+Trebizond, and the personal merit of Mark and Bessarion who, in the
+confidence of their learning and eloquence, were promoted to the
+episcopal rank. Some monks and philosophers were named to display the
+science and sanctity of the Greek church; and the service of the choir
+was performed by a select band of singers and musicians. The patriarchs
+of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, appeared by their genuine or
+fictitious deputies; the primate of Russia represented a national
+church, and the Greeks might contend with the Latins in the extent of
+their spiritual empire. The precious vases of St. Sophia were exposed
+to the winds and waves, that the patriarch might officiate with becoming
+splendor: whatever gold the emperor could procure, was expended in the
+massy ornaments of his bed and chariot; [52] and while they affected to
+maintain the prosperity of their ancient fortune, they quarrelled for
+the division of fifteen thousand ducats, the first alms of the Roman
+pontiff. After the necessary preparations, John Palęologus, with a
+numerous train, accompanied by his brother Demetrius, and the most
+respectable persons of the church and state, embarked in eight vessels
+with sails and oars which steered through the Turkish Straits of
+Gallipoli to the Archipelago, the Morea, and the Adriatic Gulf. [53]
+
+[Footnote 43: At the end of the Latin version of Phranzes, we read a
+long Greek epistle or declamation of George of Trebizond, who advises
+the emperor to prefer Eugenius and Italy. He treats with contempt the
+schismatic assembly of Basil, the Barbarians of Gaul and Germany, who
+had conspired to transport the chair of St. Peter beyond the Alps; oi
+aqlioi (says he) se kai thn meta sou sunodon exw tvn 'Hrakleiwn sthlwn
+kai pera Gadhrwn exaxousi. Was Constantinople unprovided with a map?]
+
+[Footnote 44: Syropulus (p. 26--31) attests his own indignation, and
+that of his countrymen; and the Basil deputies, who excused the rash
+declaration, could neither deny nor alter an act of the council.]
+
+[Footnote 45: Condolmieri, the pope's nephew and admiral, expressly
+declared, oti orismon eceipara tou Papa ina polemhsh opou an eurh ta
+katerga thV Sunodou, kai ei dunhqh, katadush, kai ajanish. The naval
+orders of the synod were less peremptory, and, till the hostile
+squadrons appeared, both parties tried to conceal their quarrel from the
+Greeks.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Syropulus mentions the hopes of Palęologus, (p. 36,) and
+the last advice of Sigismond,(p. 57.) At Corfu, the Greek emperor was
+informed of his friend's death; had he known it sooner, he would have
+returned home,(p. 79.)]
+
+[Footnote 47: Phranzes himself, though from different motives, was of
+the advice of Amurath, (l. ii. c. 13.) Utinam ne synodus ista unquam
+fuisset, si tantes offensiones et detrimenta paritura erat. This Turkish
+embassy is likewise mentioned by Syropulus, (p. 58;) and Amurath kept
+his word. He might threaten, (p. 125, 219,) but he never attacked, the
+city.]
+
+[Footnote 48: The reader will smile at the simplicity with which he
+imparted these hopes to his favorites: toiauthn plhrojorian schsein
+hlpize kai dia tou Papa eqarrei eleuqervdai thn ekklhsian apo thV
+apoteqeishV autou douleiaV para tou basilewV, (p. 92.) Yet it would have
+been difficult for him to have practised the lessons of Gregory VII.]
+
+[Footnote 49: The Christian name of Sylvester is borrowed from the Latin
+calendar. In modern Greek, pouloV, as a diminutive, is added to the end
+of words: nor can any reasoning of Creyghton, the editor, excuse his
+changing into S_gur_opulus, (Sguros, fuscus,) the Syropulus of his own
+manuscript, whose name is subscribed with his own hand in the acts
+of the council of Florence. Why might not the author be of Syrian
+extraction?]
+
+[Footnote 50: From the conclusion of the history, I should fix the date
+to the year 1444, four years after the synod, when great ecclesiarch
+had abdicated his office, (section xii. p. 330--350.) His passions were
+cooled by time and retirement; and, although Syropulus is often partial,
+he is never intemperate.]
+
+[Footnote 51: _Vera historia unionis non ver inter Gręcos et Latinos_,
+(_Haga Comitis_, 1660, in folio,) was first published with a loose and
+florid version, by Robert Creyghton, chaplain to Charles II. in his
+exile. The zeal of the editor has prefixed a polemic title, for the
+beginning of the original is wanting. Syropulus may be ranked with the
+best of the Byzantine writers for the merit of his narration, and even
+of his style; but he is excluded from the orthodox collections of the
+councils.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Syropulus (p. 63) simply expresses his intention in' outw
+pompawn en' 'ItaloiV megaV basileuV par ekeinvn nomizoito; and the Latin
+of Creyghton may afford a specimen of his florid paraphrase. Ut pompā
+circumductus noster Imperator Italię populis aliquis deauratus Jupiter
+crederetur, aut Crsus ex opulenta Lydia.]
+
+[Footnote 53: Although I cannot stop to quote Syropulus for every fact,
+I will observe that the navigation of the Greeks from Constantinople to
+Venice and Ferrara is contained in the ivth section, (p. 67--100,) and
+that the historian has the uncommon talent of placing each scene before
+the reader's eye.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.--Part III.
+
+After a tedious and troublesome navigation of seventy-seven days,
+this religious squadron cast anchor before Venice; and their reception
+proclaimed the joy and magnificence of that powerful republic. In the
+command of the world, the modest Augustus had never claimed such honors
+from his subjects as were paid to his feeble successor by an independent
+state. Seated on the poop on a lofty throne, he received the visit, or,
+in the Greek style, the _adoration_ of the doge and senators. [54]
+They sailed in the Bucentaur, which was accompanied by twelve stately
+galleys: the sea was overspread with innumerable gondolas of pomp and
+pleasure; the air resounded with music and acclamations; the mariners,
+and even the vessels, were dressed in silk and gold; and in all the
+emblems and pageants, the Roman eagles were blended with the lions of
+St. Mark. The triumphal procession, ascending the great canal, passed
+under the bridge of the Rialto; and the Eastern strangers gazed with
+admiration on the palaces, the churches, and the populousness of a city,
+that seems to float on the bosom of the waves. [55] They sighed to behold
+the spoils and trophies with which it had been decorated after the sack
+of Constantinople. After a hospitable entertainment of fifteen days,
+Palęologus pursued his journey by land and water from Venice to Ferrara;
+and on this occasion the pride of the Vatican was tempered by policy
+to indulge the ancient dignity of the emperor of the East. He made his
+entry on a _black_ horse; but a milk-white steed, whose trappings were
+embroidered with golden eagles, was led before him; and the canopy
+was borne over his head by the princes of Este, the sons or kinsmen
+of Nicholas, marquis of the city, and a sovereign more powerful than
+himself. [56] Palęologus did not alight till he reached the bottom of the
+staircase: the pope advanced to the door of the apartment; refused his
+proffered genuflection; and, after a paternal embrace, conducted the
+emperor to a seat on his left hand. Nor would the patriarch descend from
+his galley, till a ceremony almost equal, had been stipulated between
+the bishops of Rome and Constantinople. The latter was saluted by his
+brother with a kiss of union and charity; nor would any of the Greek
+ecclesiastics submit to kiss the feet of the Western primate. On the
+opening of the synod, the place of honor in the centre was claimed by
+the temporal and ecclesiastical chiefs; and it was only by alleging that
+his predecessors had not assisted in person at Nice or Chalcedon, that
+Eugenius could evade the ancient precedents of Constantine and Marcian.
+After much debate, it was agreed that the right and left sides of the
+church should be occupied by the two nations; that the solitary chair
+of St. Peter should be raised the first of the Latin line; and that the
+throne of the Greek emperor, at the head of his clergy, should be equal
+and opposite to the second place, the vacant seat of the emperor of the
+West. [57]
+
+[Footnote 54: At the time of the synod, Phranzes was in Peloponnesus:
+but he received from the despot Demetrius a faithful account of the
+honorable reception of the emperor and patriarch both at Venice and
+Ferrara, (Dux.... sedentem Imperatorem _adorat_,) which are more
+slightly mentioned by the Latins, (l. ii. c. 14, 15, 16.)]
+
+[Footnote 55: The astonishment of a Greek prince and a French ambassador
+(Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, l. vii. c. 18,) at the sight of
+Venice, abundantly proves that in the xvth century it was the first and
+most splendid of the Christian cities. For the spoils of Constantinople
+at Venice, see Syropulus, (p. 87.)]
+
+[Footnote 56: Nicholas III. of Este reigned forty-eight years, (A.D.
+1393--1441,) and was lord of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Rovigo,
+and Commachio. See his Life in Muratori, (Antichitą Estense, tom. ii. p.
+159--201.)]
+
+[Footnote 57: The Latin vulgar was provoked to laughter at the strange
+dresses of the Greeks, and especially the length of their garments,
+their sleeves, and their beards; nor was the emperor distinguished,
+except by the purple color, and his diadem or tiara, with a jewel on
+the top, (Hody de Gręcis Illustribus, p. 31.) Yet another spectator
+confesses that the Greek fashion was piu grave e piu degna than the
+Italian. (Vespasiano in Vit. Eugen. IV. in Muratori, tom. xxv. p. 261.)]
+
+But as soon as festivity and form had given place to a more serious
+treaty, the Greeks were dissatisfied with their journey, with
+themselves, and with the pope. The artful pencil of his emissaries
+had painted him in a prosperous state; at the head of the princes and
+prelates of Europe, obedient at his voice, to believe and to arm. The
+thin appearance of the universal synod of Ferrara betrayed his weakness:
+and the Latins opened the first session with only five archbishops,
+eighteen bishops, and ten abbots, the greatest part of whom were the
+subjects or countrymen of the Italian pontiff. Except the duke of
+Burgundy, none of the potentates of the West condescended to appear in
+person, or by their ambassadors; nor was it possible to suppress the
+judicial acts of Basil against the dignity and person of Eugenius, which
+were finally concluded by a new election. Under these circumstances, a
+truce or delay was asked and granted, till Palęologus could expect from
+the consent of the Latins some temporal reward for an unpopular union;
+and after the first session, the public proceedings were adjourned
+above six months. The emperor, with a chosen band of his favorites
+and _Janizaries_, fixed his summer residence at a pleasant, spacious
+monastery, six miles from Ferrara; forgot, in the pleasures of the
+chase, the distress of the church and state; and persisted in destroying
+the game, without listening to the just complaints of the marquis or the
+husbandman. [58] In the mean while, his unfortunate Greeks were exposed
+to all the miseries of exile and poverty; for the support of each
+stranger, a monthly allowance was assigned of three or four gold
+florins; and although the entire sum did not amount to seven hundred
+florins, a long arrear was repeatedly incurred by the indigence or
+policy of the Roman court. [59] They sighed for a speedy deliverance,
+but their escape was prevented by a triple chain: a passport from their
+superiors was required at the gates of Ferrara; the government of
+Venice had engaged to arrest and send back the fugitives; and inevitable
+punishment awaited them at Constantinople; excommunication, fines, and a
+sentence, which did not respect the sacerdotal dignity, that they
+should be stripped naked and publicly whipped. [60] It was only by the
+alternative of hunger or dispute that the Greeks could be persuaded to
+open the first conference; and they yielded with extreme reluctance to
+attend from Ferrara to Florence the rear of a flying synod. This new
+translation was urged by inevitable necessity: the city was visited
+by the plague; the fidelity of the marquis might be suspected; the
+mercenary troops of the duke of Milan were at the gates; and as they
+occupied Romagna, it was not without difficulty and danger that the
+pope, the emperor, and the bishops, explored their way through the
+unfrequented paths of the Apennine. [61]
+
+[Footnote 58: For the emperor's hunting, see Syropulus, (p. 143, 144,
+191.) The pope had sent him eleven miserable hacks; but he bought a
+strong and swift horse that came from Russia. The name of _Janizaries_
+may surprise; but the name, rather than the institution, had passed from
+the Ottoman, to the Byzantine, court, and is often used in the last age
+of the empire.]
+
+[Footnote 59: The Greeks obtained, with much difficulty, that instead of
+provisions, money should be distributed, four florins _per_ month to the
+persons of honorable rank, and three florins to their servants, with an
+addition of thirty more to the emperor, twenty-five to the patriarch,
+and twenty to the prince, or despot, Demetrius. The payment of the first
+month amounted to 691 florins, a sum which will not allow us to reckon
+above 200 Greeks of every condition. (Syropulus, p. 104, 105.) On the
+20th October, 1438, there was an arrear of four months; in April, 1439,
+of three; and of five and a half in July, at the time of the union, (p.
+172, 225, 271.)]
+
+[Footnote 60: Syropulus (p. 141, 142, 204, 221) deplores the
+imprisonment of the Greeks, and the tyranny of the emperor and
+patriarch.]
+
+[Footnote 61: The wars of Italy are most clearly represented in the
+xiiith vol. of the Annals of Muratori. The schismatic Greek, Syropulus,
+(p. 145,) appears to have exaggerated the fear and disorder of the pope
+in his retreat from Ferrara to Florence, which is proved by the acts to
+have been somewhat more decent and deliberate.]
+
+Yet all these obstacles were surmounted by time and policy. The violence
+of the fathers of Basil rather promoted than injured the cause of
+Eugenius; the nations of Europe abhorred the schism, and disowned the
+election, of Felix the Fifth, who was successively a duke of Savoy, a
+hermit, and a pope; and the great princes were gradually reclaimed by
+his competitor to a favorable neutrality and a firm attachment. The
+legates, with some respectable members, deserted to the Roman army,
+which insensibly rose in numbers and reputation; the council of Basil
+was reduced to thirty-nine bishops, and three hundred of the inferior
+clergy; [62] while the Latins of Florence could produce the subscriptions
+of the pope himself, eight cardinals, two patriarchs, eight archbishops,
+fifty two bishops, and forty-five abbots, or chiefs of religious orders.
+After the labor of nine months, and the debates of twenty-five sessions,
+they attained the advantage and glory of the reunion of the Greeks. Four
+principal questions had been agitated between the two churches; _1._
+The use of unleavened bread in the communion of Christ's body. _2._
+The nature of purgatory. _3._ The supremacy of the pope. And, _4._
+The single or double procession of the Holy Ghost. The cause of either
+nation was managed by ten theological champions: the Latins were
+supported by the inexhaustible eloquence of Cardinal Julian; and Mark
+of Ephesus and Bessarion of Nice were the bold and able leaders of the
+Greek forces. We may bestow some praise on the progress of human reason,
+by observing that the first of these questions was now treated as an
+immaterial rite, which might innocently vary with the fashion of the age
+and country. With regard to the second, both parties were agreed in the
+belief of an intermediate state of purgation for the venial sins of the
+faithful; and whether their souls were purified by elemental fire was
+a doubtful point, which in a few years might be conveniently settled on
+the spot by the disputants. The claims of supremacy appeared of a more
+weighty and substantial kind; yet by the Orientals the Roman bishop had
+ever been respected as the first of the five patriarchs; nor did they
+scruple to admit, that his jurisdiction should be exercised agreeably to
+the holy canons; a vague allowance, which might be defined or eluded by
+occasional convenience. The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father
+alone, or from the Father and the Son, was an article of faith which had
+sunk much deeper into the minds of men; and in the sessions of Ferrara
+and Florence, the Latin addition of _filioque_ was subdivided into two
+questions, whether it were legal, and whether it were orthodox. Perhaps
+it may not be necessary to boast on this subject of my own impartial
+indifference; but I must think that the Greeks were strongly supported
+by the prohibition of the council of Chalcedon, against adding any
+article whatsoever to the creed of Nice, or rather of Constantinople.
+[63] In earthly affairs, it is not easy to conceive how an assembly equal
+of legislators can bind their successors invested with powers equal
+to their own. But the dictates of inspiration must be true and
+unchangeable; nor should a private bishop, or a provincial synod, have
+presumed to innovate against the judgment of the Catholic church. On the
+substance of the doctrine, the controversy was equal and endless: reason
+is confounded by the procession of a deity: the gospel, which lay on the
+altar, was silent; the various texts of the fathers might be corrupted
+by fraud or entangled by sophistry; and the Greeks were ignorant of the
+characters and writings of the Latin saints. [64] Of this at least we may
+be sure, that neither side could be convinced by the arguments of their
+opponents. Prejudice may be enlightened by reason, and a superficial
+glance may be rectified by a clear and more perfect view of an object
+adapted to our faculties. But the bishops and monks had been taught from
+their infancy to repeat a form of mysterious words: their national and
+personal honor depended on the repetition of the same sounds; and their
+narrow minds were hardened and inflamed by the acrimony of a public
+dispute.
+
+[Footnote 62: Syropulus is pleased to reckon seven hundred prelates in
+the council of Basil. The error is manifest, and perhaps voluntary. That
+extravagant number could not be supplied by _all_ the ecclesiastics of
+every degree who were present at the council, nor by _all_ the absent
+bishops of the West, who, expressly or tacitly, might adhere to its
+decrees.]
+
+[Footnote 63: The Greeks, who disliked the union, were unwilling to
+sally from this strong fortress, (p. 178, 193, 195, 202, of Syropulus.)
+The shame of the Latins was aggravated by their producing an old MS.
+of the second council of Nice, with _filioque_ in the Nicene creed. A
+palpable forgery! (p. 173.)]
+
+[Footnote 64: 'WV egw (said an eminent Greek) otan eiV naon eiselqw
+Datinwn ou proskunv tina tvn ekeise agiwn, epei oude gnwrizw tina,
+(Syropulus, p. 109.) See the perplexity of the Greeks, (p. 217, 218,
+252, 253, 273.)]
+
+While they were most in a cloud of dust and darkness, the Pope and
+emperor were desirous of a seeming union, which could alone accomplish
+the purposes of their interview; and the obstinacy of public dispute was
+softened by the arts of private and personal negotiation. The patriarch
+Joseph had sunk under the weight of age and infirmities; his dying voice
+breathed the counsels of charity and concord, and his vacant benefice
+might tempt the hopes of the ambitious clergy. The ready and active
+obedience of the archbishops of Russia and Nice, of Isidore and
+Bessarion, was prompted and recompensed by their speedy promotion to the
+dignity of cardinals. Bessarion, in the first debates, had stood forth
+the most strenuous and eloquent champion of the Greek church; and if the
+apostate, the bastard, was reprobated by his country, [65] he appears in
+ecclesiastical story a rare example of a patriot who was recommended to
+court favor by loud opposition and well-timed compliance. With the aid
+of his two spiritual coadjutors, the emperor applied his arguments to
+the general situation and personal characters of the bishops, and each
+was successively moved by authority and example. Their revenues were
+in the hands of the Turks, their persons in those of the Latins: an
+episcopal treasure, three robes and forty ducats, was soon exhausted:
+[66] the hopes of their return still depended on the ships of Venice and
+the alms of Rome; and such was their indigence, that their arrears, the
+payment of a debt, would be accepted as a favor, and might operate as
+a bribe. [67] The danger and relief of Constantinople might excuse
+some prudent and pious dissimulation; and it was insinuated, that the
+obstinate heretics who should resist the consent of the East and West
+would be abandoned in a hostile land to the revenge or justice of the
+Roman pontiff. [68] In the first private assembly of the Greeks, the
+formulary of union was approved by twenty-four, and rejected by twelve,
+members; but the five _cross-bearers_ of St. Sophia, who aspired to
+represent the patriarch, were disqualified by ancient discipline; and
+their right of voting was transferred to the obsequious train of monks,
+grammarians, and profane laymen. The will of the monarch produced a
+false and servile unanimity, and no more than two patriots had courage
+to speak their own sentiments and those of their country. Demetrius, the
+emperor's brother, retired to Venice, that he might not be witness of
+the union; and Mark of Ephesus, mistaking perhaps his pride for his
+conscience, disclaimed all communion with the Latin heretics, and avowed
+himself the champion and confessor of the orthodox creed. [69] In the
+treaty between the two nations, several forms of consent were proposed,
+such as might satisfy the Latins, without dishonoring the Greeks; and
+they weighed the scruples of words and syllables, till the theological
+balance trembled with a slight preponderance in favor of the Vatican.
+It was agreed (I must entreat the attention of the reader) that the Holy
+Ghost proceeds from the Father _and_ the Son, as from one principle and
+one substance; that he proceeds _by_ the Son, being of the same nature
+and substance, and that he proceeds from the Father _and_ the Son, by
+one _spiration_ and production. It is less difficult to understand the
+articles of the preliminary treaty; that the pope should defray all the
+expenses of the Greeks in their return home; that he should annually
+maintain two galleys and three hundred soldiers for the defence of
+Constantinople: that all the ships which transported pilgrims to
+Jerusalem should be obliged to touch at that port; that as often as they
+were required, the pope should furnish ten galleys for a year, or twenty
+for six months; and that he should powerfully solicit the princes of
+Europe, if the emperor had occasion for land forces.
+
+[Footnote 65: See the polite altercation of Marc and Bessarion in
+Syropulus, (p. 257,) who never dissembles the vices of his own party,
+and fairly praises the virtues of the Latins.]
+
+[Footnote 66: For the poverty of the Greek bishops, see a remarkable
+passage of Ducas, (c. 31.) One had possessed, for his whole property,
+three old gowns, &c. By teaching one-and-twenty years in his monastery,
+Bessarion himself had collected forty gold florins; but of these, the
+archbishop had expended twenty-eight in his voyage from Peloponnesus,
+and the remainder at Constantinople, (Syropulus, p. 127.)]
+
+[Footnote 67: Syropulus denies that the Greeks received any money before
+they had subscribed the art of union, (p. 283:) yet he relates
+some suspicious circumstances; and their bribery and corruption are
+positively affirmed by the historian Ducas.]
+
+[Footnote 68: The Greeks most piteously express their own fears of exile
+and perpetual slavery, (Syropul. p. 196;) and they were strongly moved
+by the emperor's threats, (p. 260.)]
+
+[Footnote 69: I had forgot another popular and orthodox protester: a
+favorite bound, who usually lay quiet on the foot-cloth of the emperor's
+throne but who barked most furiously while the act of union was reading
+without being silenced by the soothing or the lashes of the royal
+attendants, (Syropul. p. 265, 266.)]
+
+The same year, and almost the same day, were marked by the deposition
+of Eugenius at Basil; and, at Florence, by his reunion of the Greeks
+and Latins. In the former synod, (which he styled indeed an assembly
+of dęmons,) the pope was branded with the guilt of simony, perjury,
+tyranny, heresy, and schism; [70] and declared to be incorrigible in
+his vices, unworthy of any title, and incapable of holding any
+ecclesiastical office. In the latter, he was revered as the true and
+holy vicar of Christ, who, after a separation of six hundred years, had
+reconciled the Catholics of the East and West in one fold, and under one
+shepherd. The act of union was subscribed by the pope, the emperor,
+and the principal members of both churches; even by those who, like
+Syropulus, [71] had been deprived of the right of voting. Two copies
+might have sufficed for the East and West; but Eugenius was not
+satisfied, unless four authentic and similar transcripts were signed and
+attested as the monuments of his victory. [72] On a memorable day, the
+sixth of July, the successors of St. Peter and Constantine ascended
+their thrones the two nations assembled in the cathedral of Florence;
+their representatives, Cardinal Julian and Bessarion archbishop of Nice,
+appeared in the pulpit, and, after reading in their respective tongues
+the act of union, they mutually embraced, in the name and the presence
+of their applauding brethren. The pope and his ministers then officiated
+according to the Roman liturgy; the creed was chanted with the addition
+of _filioque_; the acquiescence of the Greeks was poorly excused by
+their ignorance of the harmonious, but inarticulate sounds; [73] and the
+more scrupulous Latins refused any public celebration of the Byzantine
+rite. Yet the emperor and his clergy were not totally unmindful of
+national honor. The treaty was ratified by their consent: it was
+tacitly agreed that no innovation should be attempted in their creed or
+ceremonies: they spared, and secretly respected, the generous firmness
+of Mark of Ephesus; and, on the decease of the patriarch, they refused
+to elect his successor, except in the cathedral of St. Sophia. In the
+distribution of public and private rewards, the liberal pontiff exceeded
+their hopes and his promises: the Greeks, with less pomp and pride,
+returned by the same road of Ferrara and Venice; and their reception at
+Constantinople was such as will be described in the following chapter.
+[74] The success of the first trial encouraged Eugenius to repeat the
+same edifying scenes; and the deputies of the Armenians, the Maronites,
+the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the Nestorians and the Ęthiopians,
+were successively introduced, to kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff, and
+to announce the obedience and the orthodoxy of the East. These Oriental
+embassies, unknown in the countries which they presumed to represent,
+[75] diffused over the West the fame of Eugenius; and a clamor was
+artfully propagated against the remnant of a schism in Switzerland and
+Savoy, which alone impeded the harmony of the Christian world. The vigor
+of opposition was succeeded by the lassitude of despair: the council
+of Basil was silently dissolved; and Felix, renouncing the tiara, again
+withdrew to the devout or delicious hermitage of Ripaille. [76] A general
+peace was secured by mutual acts of oblivion and indemnity: all ideas
+of reformation subsided; the popes continued to exercise and abuse
+their ecclesiastical despotism; nor has Rome been since disturbed by the
+mischiefs of a contested election. [77]
+
+[Footnote 70: From the original Lives of the Popes, in Muratori's
+Collection, (tom. iii. p. ii. tom. xxv.,) the manners of Eugenius IV.
+appear to have been decent, and even exemplary. His situation, exposed
+to the world and to his enemies, was a restraint, and is a pledge.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Syropulus, rather than subscribe, would have assisted,
+as the least evil, at the ceremony of the union. He was compelled to
+do both; and the great ecclesiarch poorly excuses his submission to the
+emperor, (p. 290--292.)]
+
+[Footnote 72: None of these original acts of union can at present be
+produced. Of the ten MSS. that are preserved, (five at Rome, and the
+remainder at Florence, Bologna, Venice, Paris, and London,) nine have
+been examined by an accurate critic, (M. de Brequigny,) who condemns
+them for the variety and imperfections of the Greek signatures. Yet
+several of these may be esteemed as authentic copies, which were
+subscribed at Florence, before (26th of August, 1439) the final
+separation of the pope and emperor, (Mémoires de l'Académie des
+Inscriptions, tom. xliii. p. 287--311.)]
+
+[Footnote 73: Hmin de wV ashmoi edokoun jwnai, (Syropul. p. 297.)]
+
+[Footnote 74: In their return, the Greeks conversed at Bologna with
+the ambassadors of England: and after some questions and answers,
+these impartial strangers laughed at the pretended union of Florence,
+(Syropul. p. 307.)]
+
+[Footnote 75: So nugatory, or rather so fabulous, are these reunions
+of the Nestorians, Jacobites, &c., that I have turned over, without
+success, the Bibliotheca Orientalis of Assemannus, a faithful slave of
+the Vatican.]
+
+[Footnote 76: Ripaille is situate near Thonon in Savoy, on the southern
+side of the Lake of Geneva. It is now a Carthusian abbey; and Mr.
+Addison (Travels into Italy, vol. ii. p. 147, 148, of Baskerville's
+edition of his works) has celebrated the place and the founder. Ęneas
+Sylvius, and the fathers of Basil, applaud the austere life of the ducal
+hermit; but the French and Italian proverbs most unluckily attest the
+popular opinion of his luxury.]
+
+[Footnote 77: In this account of the councils of Basil, Ferrara, and
+Florence, I have consulted the original acts, which fill the xviith
+and xviiith tome of the edition of Venice, and are closed by the
+perspicuous, though partial, history of Augustin Patricius, an
+Italian of the xvth century. They are digested and abridged by Dupin,
+(Bibliothčque Ecclés. tom. xii.,) and the continuator of Fleury, (tom.
+xxii.;) and the respect of the Gallican church for the adverse parties
+confines their members to an awkward moderation.]
+
+The journeys of three emperors were unavailing for their temporal,
+or perhaps their spiritual, salvation; but they were productive of a
+beneficial consequence--the revival of the Greek learning in Italy, from
+whence it was propagated to the last nations of the West and North. In
+their lowest servitude and depression, the subjects of the Byzantine
+throne were still possessed of a golden key that could unlock the
+treasures of antiquity; of a musical and prolific language, that gives
+a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of
+philosophy. Since the barriers of the monarchy, and even of the capital,
+had been trampled under foot, the various Barbarians had doubtless
+corrupted the form and substance of the national dialect; and ample
+glossaries have been composed, to interpret a multitude of words, of
+Arabic, Turkish, Sclavonian, Latin, or French origin. [78] But a purer
+idiom was spoken in the court and taught in the college; and the
+flourishing state of the language is described, and perhaps embellished,
+by a learned Italian, [79] who, by a long residence and noble marriage,
+[80] was naturalized at Constantinople about thirty years before the
+Turkish conquest. "The vulgar speech," says Philelphus, [81] "has been
+depraved by the people, and infected by the multitude of strangers
+and merchants, who every day flock to the city and mingle with the
+inhabitants. It is from the disciples of such a school that the Latin
+language received the versions of Aristotle and Plato; so obscure
+in sense, and in spirit so poor. But the Greeks who have escaped the
+contagion, are those whom _we_ follow; and they alone are worthy of
+our imitation. In familiar discourse, they still speak the tongue
+of Aristophanes and Euripides, of the historians and philosophers of
+Athens; and the style of their writings is still more elaborate and
+correct. The persons who, by their birth and offices, are attached to
+the Byzantine court, are those who maintain, with the least alloy,
+the ancient standard of elegance and purity; and the native graces
+of language most conspicuously shine among the noble matrons, who are
+excluded from all intercourse with foreigners. With foreigners do I
+say? They live retired and sequestered from the eyes of their
+fellow-citizens. Seldom are they seen in the streets; and when they
+leave their houses, it is in the dusk of evening, on visits to the
+churches and their nearest kindred. On these occasions, they are on
+horseback, covered with a veil, and encompassed by their parents, their
+husbands, or their servants." [82]
+
+[Footnote 78: In the first attempt, Meursius collected 3600
+Gręco-barbarous words, to which, in a second edition, he subjoined 1800
+more; yet what plenteous gleanings did he leave to Portius, Ducange,
+Fabrotti, the Bollandists, &c.! (Fabric. Bibliot. Gręc. tom. x. p. 101,
+&c.) _Some_ Persic words may be found in Xenophon, and some Latin ones
+in Plutarch; and such is the inevitable effect of war and commerce; but
+the form and substance of the language were not affected by this slight
+alloy.]
+
+[Footnote 79: The life of Francis Philelphus, a sophist, proud,
+restless, and rapacious, has been diligently composed by Lancelot
+(Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 691--751) (Istoria
+della Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. p. 282--294,) for the most
+part from his own letters. His elaborate writings, and those of his
+contemporaries, are forgotten; but their familiar epistles still
+describe the men and the times.]
+
+[Footnote 80: He married, and had perhaps debauched, the daughter
+of John, and the granddaughter of Manuel Chrysoloras. She was young,
+beautiful, and wealthy; and her noble family was allied to the Dorias of
+Genoa and the emperors of Constantinople.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Gręci quibus lingua depravata non sit.... ita loquuntur
+vulgo hāc etiam tempestate ut Aristophanes comicus, aut Euripides
+tragicus, ut oratores omnes, ut historiographi, ut philosophi....
+litterati autem homines et doctius et emendatius.... Nam viri aulici
+veterem sermonis dignitatem atque elegantiam retinebant in primisque
+ipsę nobiles mulieres; quibus cum nullum esset omnino cum viris
+peregrinis commercium, merus ille ac purus Gręcorum sermo servabatur
+intactus, (Philelph. Epist. ad ann. 1451, apud Hodium, p. 188, 189.)
+He observes in another passage, uxor illa mea Theodora locutione erat
+admodum moderatā et suavi et maxime Atticā.]
+
+[Footnote 82: Philelphus, absurdly enough, derives this Greek or
+Oriental jealousy from the manners of ancient Rome.]
+
+Among the Greeks a numerous and opulent clergy was dedicated to
+the service of religion: their monks and bishops have ever been
+distinguished by the gravity and austerity of their manners; nor were
+they diverted, like the Latin priests, by the pursuits and pleasures of
+a secular, and even military, life. After a large deduction for the
+time and talent that were lost in the devotion, the laziness, and the
+discord, of the church and cloister, the more inquisitive and ambitious
+minds would explore the sacred and profane erudition of their native
+language. The ecclesiastics presided over the education of youth; the
+schools of philosophy and eloquence were perpetuated till the fall of
+the empire; and it may be affirmed, that more books and more knowledge
+were included within the walls of Constantinople, than could be
+dispersed over the extensive countries of the West. [83] But an important
+distinction has been already noticed: the Greeks were stationary or
+retrograde, while the Latins were advancing with a rapid and progressive
+motion. The nations were excited by the spirit of independence and
+emulation; and even the little world of the Italian states contained
+more people and industry than the decreasing circle of the Byzantine
+empire. In Europe, the lower ranks of society were relieved from the
+yoke of feudal servitude; and freedom is the first step to curiosity and
+knowledge. The use, however rude and corrupt, of the Latin tongue
+had been preserved by superstition; the universities, from Bologna to
+Oxford, [84] were peopled with thousands of scholars; and their misguided
+ardor might be directed to more liberal and manly studies. In the
+resurrection of science, Italy was the first that cast away her shroud;
+and the eloquent Petrarch, by his lessons and his example, may justly be
+applauded as the first harbinger of day. A purer style of composition,
+a more generous and rational strain of sentiment, flowed from the study
+and imitation of the writers of ancient Rome; and the disciples of
+Cicero and Virgil approached, with reverence and love, the sanctuary of
+their Grecian masters. In the sack of Constantinople, the French, and
+even the Venetians, had despised and destroyed the works of Lysippus and
+Homer: the monuments of art may be annihilated by a single blow; but the
+immortal mind is renewed and multiplied by the copies of the pen; and
+such copies it was the ambition of Petrarch and his friends to possess
+and understand. The arms of the Turks undoubtedly pressed the flight
+of the Muses; yet we may tremble at the thought, that Greece might have
+been overwhelmed, with her schools and libraries, before Europe had
+emerged from the deluge of barbarism; that the seeds of science might
+have been scattered by the winds, before the Italian soil was prepared
+for their cultivation.
+
+[Footnote 83: See the state of learning in the xiiith and xivth
+centuries, in the learned and judicious Mosheim, (Instit. Hist. Ecclés.
+p. 434--440, 490--494.)]
+
+[Footnote 84: At the end of the xvth century, there existed in Europe
+about fifty universities, and of these the foundation of ten or twelve
+is prior to the year 1300. They were crowded in proportion to their
+scarcity. Bologna contained 10,000 students, chiefly of the civil law.
+In the year 1357 the number at Oxford had decreased from 30,000 to 6000
+scholars, (Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. iv. p. 478.) Yet even
+this decrease is much superior to the present list of the members of the
+university.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.--Part IV.
+
+The most learned Italians of the fifteenth century have confessed and
+applauded the restoration of Greek literature, after a long oblivion of
+many hundred years. [85] Yet in that country, and beyond the Alps, some
+names are quoted; some profound scholars, who in the darker ages were
+honorably distinguished by their knowledge of the Greek tongue; and
+national vanity has been loud in the praise of such rare examples of
+erudition. Without scrutinizing the merit of individuals, truth must
+observe, that their science is without a cause, and without an effect;
+that it was easy for them to satisfy themselves and their more ignorant
+contemporaries; and that the idiom, which they had so marvellously
+acquired was transcribed in few manuscripts, and was not taught in any
+university of the West. In a corner of Italy, it faintly existed as
+the popular, or at least as the ecclesiastical dialect. [86] The first
+impression of the Doric and Ionic colonies has never been completely
+erased: the Calabrian churches were long attached to the throne of
+Constantinople: and the monks of St. Basil pursued their studies in
+Mount Athos and the schools of the East. Calabria was the native country
+of Barlaam, who has already appeared as a sectary and an ambassador; and
+Barlaam was the first who revived, beyond the Alps, the memory, or
+at least the writings, of Homer. [87] He is described, by Petrarch and
+Boccace, [88] as a man of diminutive stature, though truly great in the
+measure of learning and genius; of a piercing discernment, though of a
+slow and painful elocution. For many ages (as they affirm) Greece
+had not produced his equal in the knowledge of history, grammar, and
+philosophy; and his merit was celebrated in the attestations of the
+princes and doctors of Constantinople. One of these attestations
+is still extant; and the emperor Cantacuzene, the protector of his
+adversaries, is forced to allow, that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato,
+were familiar to that profound and subtle logician. [89] In the court of
+Avignon, he formed an intimate connection with Petrarch, [90] the first
+of the Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was the
+principle of their literary commerce. The Tuscan applied himself with
+eager curiosity and assiduous diligence to the study of the Greek
+language; and in a laborious struggle with the dryness and difficulty
+of the first rudiments, he began to reach the sense, and to feel the
+spirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds were congenial to his
+own. But he was soon deprived of the society and lessons of this useful
+assistant: Barlaam relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on his
+return to Greece, he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, by
+attempting to substitute the light of reason to that of their navel.
+After a separation of three years, the two friends again met in the
+court of Naples: but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasion
+of improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally settled in
+a small bishopric of his native Calabria. [91] The manifold avocations of
+Petrarch, love and friendship, his various correspondence and frequent
+journeys, the Roman laurel, and his elaborate compositions in prose and
+verse, in Latin and Italian, diverted him from a foreign idiom; and as
+he advanced in life, the attainment of the Greek language was the object
+of his wishes rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of
+age, a Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a master of both tongues,
+presented him with a copy of Homer; and the answer of Petrarch is at one
+expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After celebrating
+the generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift more precious in
+his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus proceeds: "Your present of
+the genuine and original text of the divine poet, the fountain of all
+inventions, is worthy of yourself and of me: you have fulfilled
+your promise, and satisfied my desires. Yet your liberality is still
+imperfect: with Homer you should have given me yourself; a guide, who
+could lead me into the fields of light, and disclose to my wondering
+eyes the spacious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas! Homer
+is dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the beauty which
+I possess. I have seated him by the side of Plato, the prince of
+poets near the prince of philosophers; and I glory in the sight of
+my illustrious guests. Of their immortal writings, whatever had been
+translated into the Latin idiom, I had already acquired; but, if there
+be no profit, there is some pleasure, in beholding these venerable
+Greeks in their proper and national habit. I am delighted with the
+aspect of Homer; and as often as I embrace the silent volume, I exclaim
+with a sigh, Illustrious bard! with what pleasure should I listen to thy
+song, if my sense of hearing were not obstructed and lost by the death
+of one friend, and in the much-lamented absence of another. Nor do I yet
+despair; and the example of Cato suggests some comfort and hope, since
+it was in the last period of age that he attained the knowledge of the
+Greek letters." [92]
+
+[Footnote 85: Of those writers who professedly treat of the restoration
+of the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are Hodius, Dr.
+Humphrey Hody, (de Gręcis Illustribus, Linguę Gręcę Literarumque
+humaniorum Instauratoribus; Londini, 1742, in large octavo,) and
+Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. v. p. 364--377,
+tom. vii. p. 112--143.) The Oxford professor is a laborious scholar, but
+the librarian of Modena enjoys the superiority of a modern and national
+historian.]
+
+[Footnote 86: In Calabria quę olim magna Gręcia dicebatur, coloniis
+Gręcis repleta, remansit quędam linguę veteris, cognitio, (Hodius, p.
+2.) If it were eradicated by the Romans, it was revived and perpetuated
+by the monks of St. Basil, who possessed seven convents at Rossano
+alone, (Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, tom. i. p. 520.)]
+
+[Footnote 87: Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans) vix,
+non dicam libros sed nomen Homeri audiverunt. Perhaps, in that respect,
+the xiiith century was less happy than the age of Charlemagne.]
+
+[Footnote 88: See the character of Barlaam, in Boccace de Genealog.
+Deorum, l. xv. c. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 89: Cantacuzen. l. ii. c. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 90: For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the two
+interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the excellent
+Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 406--410, tom. ii. p.
+74--77.]
+
+[Footnote 91: The bishopric to which Barlaam retired, was the old Locri,
+in the middle ages. Scta. Cyriaca, and by corruption Hieracium, Gerace,
+(Dissert. Chorographica Italię Medii Ęvi, p. 312.) The dives opum of the
+Norman times soon lapsed into poverty, since even the church was poor:
+yet the town still contains 3000 inhabitants, (Swinburne, p. 340.)]
+
+[Footnote 92: I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of Petrarch,
+(Famil. ix. 2;) Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem violento alveā??
+derivatum, sed ex ipsis Gręci eloquii scatebris, et qualis divino illi
+profluxit ingenio.... Sine tuā voce Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immo
+vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel adspectū solo, ac sępe
+illum amplexus atque suspirans dico, O magne vir, &c.]
+
+The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was obtained by the
+fortune and industry of his friend Boccace, [93] the father of the
+Tuscan prose. That popular writer, who derives his reputation from the
+Decameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may aspire to
+the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study of the Greek
+language. In the year one thousand three hundred and sixty, a disciple
+of Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius Pilatus, was detained in his
+way to Avignon by the advice and hospitality of Boccace, who lodged the
+stranger in his house, prevailed on the republic of Florence to allow
+him an annual stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greek
+professor, who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe.
+The appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager disciple, he was
+clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or a mendicant; his countenance
+was hideous; his face was overshadowed with black hair; his beard long
+an uncombed; his deportment rustic; his temper gloomy and inconstant;
+nor could he grace his discourse with the ornaments, or even the
+perspicuity, of Latin elocution. But his mind was stored with a treasure
+of Greek learning: history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were
+alike at his command; and he read the poems of Homer in the schools
+of Florence. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed [* and
+transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey, which
+satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which, perhaps, in
+the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by Laurentius Valla,
+the Latin interpreter. It was from his narratives that the same Boccace
+collected the materials for his treatise on the genealogy of the
+heathen gods, a work, in that age, of stupendous erudition, and which he
+ostentatiously sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite
+the wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers. [94] The first
+steps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten votaries of
+Homer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither Rome, nor Venice,
+nor Naples, could add a single name to this studious catalogue. But
+their numbers would have multiplied, their progress would have been
+accelerated, if the inconstant Leo, at the end of three years, had
+not relinquished an honorable and beneficial station. In his passage,
+Petrarch entertained him at Padua a short time: he enjoyed the scholar,
+but was justly offended with the gloomy and unsocial temper of the
+man. Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated his
+present enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear to
+his imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a native of
+Calabria: in the company of the Latins he disdained their language,
+religion, and manners: no sooner was he landed at Constantinople, than
+he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and the elegance of Florence.
+His Italian friends were deaf to his importunity: he depended on their
+curiosity and indulgence, and embarked on a second voyage; but on his
+entrance into the Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the
+unfortunate teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast,
+was struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped a
+tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether some
+copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the hands of the
+mariners. [95]
+
+[Footnote 93: For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born in
+1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ęvi, tom. i. p.
+248, &c.) and Tiraboschi (tom. v. p. 83, 439--451) may be consulted. The
+editions, versions, imitations of his novels, are innumerable. Yet he
+was ashamed to communicate that trifling, and perhaps scandalous, work
+to Petrarch, his respectable friend, in whose letters and memoirs he
+conspicuously appears.]
+
+[Footnote *: This translation of Homer was by Pilatus, not by Boccacio.
+See Hallam, Hist. of Lit. vol. i. p. 132.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 94: Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis causā
+Gręca carmina adscripsi.... jure utor meo; meum est hoc decus, mea
+gloria scilicet inter Etruscos Gręcis uti carminibus. Nonne ego fui qui
+Leontium Pilatum, &c., (de Genealogia Deorum, l. xv. c. 7, a work which,
+though now forgotten, has run through thirteen or fourteen editions.)]
+
+[Footnote 95: Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made known by
+Hody, (p. 2--11,) and the abbé de Sade, (Vie de Pétrarque, tom. iii. p.
+625--634, 670--673,) who has very happily caught the lively and dramatic
+manner of his original.]
+
+But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Petrarch had encouraged
+and Boccace had planted, soon withered and expired. The succeeding
+generation was content for a while with the improvement of Latin
+eloquence; nor was it before the end of the fourteenth century that a
+new and perpetual flame was rekindled in Italy. [96] Previous to his own
+journey the emperor Manuel despatched his envoys and orators to implore
+the compassion of the Western princes. Of these envoys, the most
+conspicuous, or the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras, [97] of noble
+birth, and whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have migrated with
+the great Constantine. After visiting the courts of France and England,
+where he obtained some contributions and more promises, the envoy was
+invited to assume the office of a professor; and Florence had again
+the honor of this second invitation. By his knowledge, not only of the
+Greek, but of the Latin tongue, Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, and
+surpassed the expectation, of the republic. His school was frequented
+by a crowd of disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in a
+general history, has described his motives and his success. "At that
+time," says Leonard Aretin, [98] "I was a student of the civil law;
+but my soul was inflamed with the love of letters; and I bestowed some
+application on the sciences of logic and rhetoric. On the arrival
+of Manuel, I hesitated whether I should desert my legal studies, or
+relinquish this golden opportunity; and thus, in the ardor of youth,
+I communed with my own mind--Wilt thou be wanting to thyself and thy
+fortune? Wilt thou refuse to be introduced to a familiar converse with
+Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes; with those poets, philosophers, and
+orators, of whom such wonders are related, and who are celebrated by
+every age as the great masters of human science? Of professors and
+scholars in civil law, a sufficient supply will always be found in our
+universities; but a teacher, and such a teacher, of the Greek language,
+if he once be suffered to escape, may never afterwards be retrieved.
+Convinced by these reasons, I gave myself to Chrysoloras; and so strong
+was my passion, that the lessons which I had imbibed in the day were the
+constant object of my nightly dreams." [99] At the same time and place,
+the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna, the domestic pupil
+of Petrarch; [100] the Italians, who illustrated their age and country,
+were formed in this double school; and Florence became the fruitful
+seminary of Greek and Roman erudition. [101] The presence of the emperor
+recalled Chrysoloras from the college to the court; but he afterwards
+taught at Pavia and Rome with equal industry and applause. The remainder
+of his life, about fifteen years, was divided between Italy and
+Constantinople, between embassies and lessons. In the noble office of
+enlightening a foreign nation, the grammarian was not unmindful of a
+more sacred duty to his prince and country; and Emanuel Chrysoloras died
+at Constance on a public mission from the emperor to the council.
+
+[Footnote 96: Dr. Hody (p. 54) is angry with Leonard Aretin, Guarinus,
+Paulus Jovius, &c., for affirming, that the Greek letters were restored
+in Italy _post septingentos annos_; as if, says he, they had flourished
+till the end of the viith century. These writers most probably reckoned
+from the last period of the exarchate; and the presence of the Greek
+magistrates and troops at Ravenna and Rome must have preserved, in some
+degree, the use of their native tongue.]
+
+[Footnote 97: See the article of Emanuel, or Manuel Chrysoloras, in Hody
+(p 12--54) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vii. p. 113--118.) The precise date of
+his arrival floats between the years 1390 and 1400, and is only confined
+by the reign of Boniface IX.]
+
+[Footnote 98: The name of _Aretinus_ has been assumed by five or six
+natives of _Arezzo_ in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and the most
+worthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, the
+disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator, and an historian,
+the secretary of four successive popes, and the chancellor of
+the republic of Florence, where he died A.D. 1444, at the age
+of seventy-five, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii Ęvi, tom. i. p. 190 &c.
+Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33--38.)]
+
+[Footnote 99: See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo Tempore
+in Italia gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28--30.]
+
+[Footnote 100: In this domestic discipline, Petrarch, who loved the
+youth, often complains of the eager curiosity, restless temper, and
+proud feelings, which announce the genius and glory of a riper age,
+(Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 700--709.)]
+
+[Footnote 101: Hinc Gręcę Latinęque scholę exortę sunt, Guarino
+Philelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque aliis tanquam ex
+equo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione multa ingenia deinceps ad
+laudem excitata sunt, (Platina in Bonifacio IX.) Another Italian
+writer adds the names of Paulus Petrus Vergerius, Omnibonus Vincentius,
+Poggius, Franciscus Barbarus, &c. But I question whether a rigid
+chronology would allow Chrysoloras _all_ these eminent scholars,
+(Hodius, p. 25--27, &c.)]
+
+After his example, the restoration of the Greek letters in Italy was
+prosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were destitute of fortune, and
+endowed with learning, or at least with language. From the terror
+or oppression of the Turkish arms, the natives of Thessalonica and
+Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom, curiosity, and wealth. The
+synod introduced into Florence the lights of the Greek church, and the
+oracles of the Platonic philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the
+union, had the double merit of renouncing their country, not only for
+the Christian, but for the catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrifices
+his party and conscience to the allurements of favor, may be possessed,
+however, of the private and social virtues: he no longer hears the
+reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and the consideration which
+he acquires among his new associates will restore in his own eyes
+the dignity of his character. The prudent conformity of Bessarion was
+rewarded with the Roman purple: he fixed his residence in Italy; and the
+Greek cardinal, the titular patriarch of Constantinople, was respected
+as the chief and protector of his nation: [102] his abilities were
+exercised in the legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and France;
+and his election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a moment on the
+uncertain breath of a conclave. [103] His ecclesiastical honors diffused
+a splendor and preeminence over his literary merit and service: his
+palace was a school; as often as the cardinal visited the Vatican, he
+was attended by a learned train of both nations; [104] of men applauded
+by themselves and the public; and whose writings, now overspread with
+dust, were popular and useful in their own times. I shall not attempt to
+enumerate the restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century;
+and it may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of Theodore
+Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and Demetrius
+Chalcocondyles, who taught their native language in the schools of
+Florence and Rome. Their labors were not inferior to those of Bessarion,
+whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the secret object of
+their envy. But the lives of these grammarians were humble and obscure:
+they had declined the lucrative paths of the church; their dress and
+manners secluded them from the commerce of the world; and since they
+were confined to the merit, they might be content with the rewards,
+of learning. From this character, Janus Lascaris [105] will deserve an
+exception. His eloquence, politeness, and Imperial descent, recommended
+him to the French monarch; and in the same cities he was alternately
+employed to teach and to negotiate. Duty and interest prompted them
+to cultivate the study of the Latin language; and the most successful
+attained the faculty of writing and speaking with fluency and elegance
+in a foreign idiom. But they ever retained the inveterate vanity of
+their country: their praise, or at least their esteem, was reserved for
+the national writers, to whom they owed their fame and subsistence; and
+they sometimes betrayed their contempt in licentious criticism or satire
+on Virgil's poetry, and the oratory of Tully. [106] The superiority of
+these masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; and
+their first disciples were incapable of discerning how far they
+had degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice of their
+ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, [107] which they introduced, was
+banished from the schools by the reason of the succeeding age. Of the
+power of the Greek accents they were ignorant; and those musical notes,
+which, from an Attic tongue, and to an Attic ear, must have been the
+secret soul of harmony, were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than
+minute and unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous and troublesome in
+verse. The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragments
+of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and their
+treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit,
+are still useful to the Greek student. In the shipwreck of the Byzantine
+libraries, each fugitive seized a fragment of treasure, a copy of some
+author, who without his industry might have perished: the transcripts
+were multiplied by an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant pen; and the
+text was corrected and explained by their own comments, or those of
+the elder scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek
+classics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of style
+evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza selected
+the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and their natural
+histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund of genuine and
+experimental science.
+
+[Footnote 102: See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p. 136--177.)
+Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and the rest of the Greeks whom
+I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper chapters of his
+learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st and 2d parts of the
+vith tome.]
+
+[Footnote 103: The cardinals knocked at his door, but his conclavist
+refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion: "Nicholas," said he, "thy
+respect has cost thee a hat, and me the tiara." *
+
+Note: * Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. i. p. 75) considers that
+Hody has refuted this "idle tale."--M.]
+
+[Footnote 104: Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza, Argyropulus,
+Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius, Blondus, Nicholas
+Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri (says Hody, with the pious
+zeal of a scholar) (nullo ęvo perituri, p. 156.)]
+
+[Footnote 105: He was born before the taking of Constantinople, but his
+honorable life was stretched far into the xvith century, (A.D. 1535.)
+Leo X. and Francis I. were his noblest patrons, under whose auspices he
+founded the Greek colleges of Rome and Paris, (Hody, p. 247--275.)
+He left posterity in France; but the counts de Vintimille, and their
+numerous branches, derive the name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage
+in the xiiith century with the daughter of a Greek emperor (Ducange,
+Fam. Byzant. p. 224--230.)]
+
+[Footnote 106: Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three against
+Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus, who can find no
+better names than Gręculus ineptus et impudens, (Hody, p. 274.) In our
+own times, an English critic has accused the Ęneid of containing multa
+languida, nugatoria, spiritū et majestate carminis heroici defecta; many
+such verses as he, the said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed
+of owning, (pręfat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22.)]
+
+[Footnote 107: Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are accused of
+ignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c., tom. ii. p. 235.) The modern
+Greeks pronounce the b as a V consonant, and confound three vowels, (h i
+u,) and several diphthongs. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which
+the stern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the university of
+Cambridge: but the monosyllable bh represented to an Attic ear the
+bleating of sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or
+a chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, who
+asserted a more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Sylloge
+of Havercamp, (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740:) but it is
+difficult to paint sounds by words: and in their reference to modern
+use, they can be understood only by their respective countrymen. We may
+observe, that our peculiar pronunciation of the O, th, is approved by
+Erasmus, (tom. ii. p. 130.)]
+
+Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with more curiosity
+and ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in Italy by a
+venerable Greek, [108] who taught in the house of Cosmo of Medicis.
+While the synod of Florence was involved in theological debate, some
+beneficial consequences might flow from the study of his elegant
+philosophy: his style is the purest standard of the Attic dialect, and
+his sublime thoughts are sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and
+sometimes adorned with the richest colors of poetry and eloquence. The
+dialogues of Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a
+sage; and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system
+inculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. The
+precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and liberal
+inquiry; and if the Platonists, with blind devotion, adored the visions
+and errors of their divine master, their enthusiasm might correct
+the dry, dogmatic method of the Peripatetic school. So equal, yet
+so opposite, are the merits of Plato and Aristotle, that they may
+be balanced in endless controversy; but some spark of freedom may be
+produced by the collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were
+divided between the two sects: with more fury than skill they fought
+under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was removed
+in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this philosophical
+debate soon degenerated into an angry and personal quarrel of
+grammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for Plato, protected the
+national honor, by interposing the advice and authority of a mediator.
+In the gardens of the Medici, the academical doctrine was enjoyed by the
+polite and learned: but their philosophic society was quickly dissolved;
+and if the writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, the
+more powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the oracle of the church and
+school. [109]
+
+[Footnote 108: George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous writer,
+the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the times. He visited
+Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end his days in Peloponnesus.
+See the curious Diatribe of Leo Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius.
+(Bibliot. Gręc. tom. x. p. 739--756.)]
+
+[Footnote 109: The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is
+illustrated by Boivin, (Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p.
+715--729,) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 259--288.)]
+
+I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks; yet it must
+be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed by the ardor of the
+Latins. Italy was divided into many independent states; and at that time
+it was the ambition of princes and republics to vie with each other in
+the encouragement and reward of literature. The fame of Nicholas the
+Fifth [110] has not been adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin
+he raised himself by his virtue and learning: the character of the man
+prevailed over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weapons
+which were soon pointed against the Roman church. [111] He had been the
+friend of the most eminent scholars of the age: he became their patron;
+and such was the humility of his manners, that the change was scarcely
+discernible either to them or to himself. If he pressed the acceptance
+of a liberal gift, it was not as the measure of desert, but as the proof
+of benevolence; and when modest merit declined his bounty, "Accept it,"
+would he say, with a consciousness of his own worth: "ye will not always
+have a Nicholas among you." The influence of the holy see pervaded
+Christendom; and he exerted that influence in the search, not of
+benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine libraries, from
+the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he collected the dusty
+manuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and wherever the original could
+not be removed, a faithful copy was transcribed and transmitted for
+his use. The Vatican, the old repository for bulls and legends, for
+superstition and forgery, was daily replenished with more precious
+furniture; and such was the industry of Nicholas, that in a reign
+of eight years he formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his
+munificence the Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon,
+Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo's
+Geography, of the Iliad, of the most valuable works of Plato and
+Aristotle, of Ptolemy and Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the Greek
+church. The example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or imitated by a
+Florentine merchant, who governed the republic without arms and without
+a title. Cosmo of Medicis [112] was the father of a line of princes,
+whose name and age are almost synonymous with the restoration of
+learning: his credit was ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated
+to the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and
+London: and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported
+in the same vessel. The genius and education of his grandson Lorenzo
+rendered him not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in the
+literary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief, and merit
+to reward: his leisure hours were delightfully spent in the Platonic
+academy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius Chalcocondyles and
+Angelo Politian; and his active missionary Janus Lascaris returned from
+the East with a treasure of two hundred manuscripts, fourscore of which
+were as yet unknown in the libraries of Europe. [113] The rest of Italy
+was animated by a similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid
+the liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive property
+of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece were soon capable
+of transmitting and improving the lessons which they had imbibed. After
+a short succession of foreign teachers, the tide of emigration subsided;
+but the language of Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the
+natives of France, Germany, and England, [114] imparted to their country
+the sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence and
+Rome. [115] In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the
+gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the Greek authors,
+forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been illustrated on those
+of the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or Gaza might have envied the
+superior science of the Barbarians; the accuracy of Budęus, the taste
+of Erasmus, the copiousness of Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the
+discernment of Reiske, or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the
+discovery of printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has
+been applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate and
+multiply the works of antiquity. [116] A single manuscript imported from
+Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each copy is fairer than
+the original. In this form, Homer and Plato would peruse with more
+satisfaction their own writings; and their scholiasts must resign the
+prize to the labors of our Western editors.
+
+[Footnote 110: See the Life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary authors,
+Janottus Manettus, (tom. iii. P. ii. p. 905--962,) and Vespasian of
+Florence, (tom. xxv. p. 267--290,) in the collection of Muratori; and
+consult Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 46--52, 109,) and Hody in the
+articles of Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 111: Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit, that
+the popes in this instance, were worse politicians than the muftis, and
+that the charm which had bound mankind for so many ages was broken by
+the magicians themselves, (Letters on the Study of History, l. vi. p.
+165, 166, octavo edition, 1779.)]
+
+[Footnote 112: See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of Medicis,
+in Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. l. i. c. 2,) who bestows a due measure
+of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples, the dukes of Milan,
+Ferrara Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice has deserved the least from
+the gratitude of scholars.]
+
+[Footnote 113: Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 104,) from the preface
+of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at Florence, 1494.
+Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek orators, apud Hodium,
+p. 249) in Atho Thracię monte. Eas Lascaris.... in Italiam reportavit.
+Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius ille Medices in Gręciam ad inquirendos
+simul, et quantovis emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable
+enough, that the research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.]
+
+[Footnote 114: The Greek language was introduced into the university of
+Oxford in the last years of the xvth century, by Grocyn, Linacer, and
+Latimer, who had all studied at Florence under Demetrius Chalcocondyles.
+See Dr. Knight's curious Life of Erasmus. Although a stout academical
+patriot, he is forced to acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at
+Oxford, and taught it at Cambridge.]
+
+[Footnote 115: The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a monopoly
+of Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the Greek scholiasts
+on Sophocles and Euripides, Cave, (said they,) cave hoc facias, ne
+_Barbari_ istis adjuti domi maneant, et pauciores in Italiam ventitent,
+(Dr. Knight, in his Life of Erasmus, p. 365, from Beatus Rhemanus.)]
+
+[Footnote 116: The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was established at
+Venice about the year 1494: he printed above sixty considerable works
+of Greek literature, almost all for the first time; several containing
+different treatises and authors, and of several authors, two, three, or
+four editions, (Fabric. Bibliot. Gręc. tom. xiii. p. 605, &c.) Yet
+his glory must not tempt us to forget, that the first Greek book, the
+Grammar of Constantine Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and that
+the Florence Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical
+art. See the Annales Typographical of Mattaire, and the Bibliographie
+Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.]
+
+Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in Europe were
+immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were marked with the
+rudeness and poverty of their manners. The students of the more perfect
+idioms of Rome and Greece were introduced to a new world of light and
+science; to the society of the free and polished nations of antiquity;
+and to a familiar converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime
+language of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to
+refine the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet,
+from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the
+ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind.
+However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast; and the
+first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of strangers in
+the midst of their age and country. The minute and laborious diligence
+which explored the antiquities of remote times might have improved or
+adorned the present state of society, the critic and metaphysician were
+the slaves of Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proud
+to repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works of
+nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and some
+Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of Homer and
+Plato. [117] The Italians were oppressed by the strength and number of
+their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the deaths of Petrarch and
+Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin imitators, who decently repose
+on our shelves; but in that ęra of learning it will not be easy to
+discern a real discovery of science, a work of invention or eloquence,
+in the popular language of the country. [118] But as soon as it had been
+deeply saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened into
+vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics of
+Athens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous emulation; and in
+Italy, as afterwards in France and England, the pleasing reign of poetry
+and fiction was succeeded by the light of speculative and experimental
+philosophy. Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the
+education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be
+exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor
+may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate,
+the works of his predecessors.
+
+[Footnote 117: I will select three singular examples of this classic
+enthusiasm. I. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho said, in
+familiar conversation to George of Trebizond, that in a short time
+mankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the Koran, for a
+religion similar to that of the Gentiles, (Leo Allatius, apud Fabricium,
+tom. x. p. 751.) 2. Paul II. persecuted the Roman academy, which had
+been founded by Pomponius Lętus; and the principal members were accused
+of heresy, impiety, and _paganism_, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p.
+81, 82.) 3. In the next century, some scholars and poets in France
+celebrated the success of Jodelle's tragedy of Cleopatra, by a festival
+of Bacchus, and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat, (Bayle,
+Dictionnaire, Jodelle. Fontenelle, tom. iii. p. 56--61.) Yet the spirit
+of bigotry might often discern a serious impiety in the sportive play of
+fancy and learning.]
+
+[Footnote 118: The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we cannot
+place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci
+and the Orlando Innamorato of Boyardo, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. ii. p.
+174--177.)]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.--Part I.
+
+     Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.--Reign And Character Of
+     Amurath The Second.--Crusade Of Ladislaus, King Of Hungary.--
+     His Defeat And Death.--John Huniades.--Scanderbeg.--
+     Constantine Palęologus, Last Emperor Of The East.
+
+The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are compared and
+celebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the Italian schools. [1]
+The view of the ancient capital, the seat of his ancestors, surpassed
+the most sanguine expectations of Emanuel Chrysoloras; and he no longer
+blamed the exclamation of an old sophist, that Rome was the habitation,
+not of men, but of gods. Those gods, and those men, had long since
+vanished; but to the eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin
+restored the image of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of the
+consuls and Cęsars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides
+the curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he confessed
+that in every age the arms and the religion of Rome were destined to
+reign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired the venerable beauties
+of the mother, he was not forgetful of his native country, her fairest
+daughter, her Imperial colony; and the Byzantine patriot expatiates
+with zeal and truth on the eternal advantages of nature, and the more
+transitory glories of art and dominion, which adorned, or had adorned,
+the city of Constantine. Yet the perfection of the copy still redounds
+(as he modestly observes) to the honor of the original, and parents are
+delighted to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior merit of
+their children. "Constantinople," says the orator, "is situate on a
+commanding point, between Europe and Asia, between the Archipelago and
+the Euxine. By her interposition, the two seas, and the two continents,
+are united for the common benefit of nations; and the gates of commerce
+may be shut or opened at her command. The harbor, encompassed on all
+sides by the sea, and the continent, is the most secure and capacious
+in the world. The walls and gates of Constantinople may be compared
+with those of Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and
+lofty structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be
+sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A broad
+and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the artificial
+island may be encompassed, like Athens, [2] by land or water." Two strong
+and natural causes are alleged for the perfection of the model of new
+Rome. The royal founder reigned over the most illustrious nations of the
+globe; and in the accomplishment of his designs, the power of the Romans
+was combined with the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities have
+been reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties are mingled
+with disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants, unwilling to remove
+from their natal spot, are incapable of correcting the errors of their
+ancestors, and the original vices of situation or climate. But the free
+idea of Constantinople was formed and executed by a single mind; and the
+primitive model was improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects and
+successors of the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored with
+an inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials were
+transported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; and
+the public and private buildings, the palaces, churches, aqueducts,
+cisterns, porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes, were adapted to
+the greatness of the capital of the East. The superfluity of wealth was
+spread along the shores of Europe and Asia; and the Byzantine territory,
+as far as the Euxine, the Hellespont, and the long wall, might be
+considered as a populous suburb and a perpetual garden. In this
+flattering picture, the past and the present, the times of prosperity
+and decay, are art fully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape,
+from the orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchre
+of its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced
+by Christian zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures were
+demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt for lime, or
+applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the place was marked by
+an empty pedestal; of many a column, the size was determined by a broken
+capital; the tombs of the emperors were scattered on the ground; the
+stroke of time was accelerated by storms and earthquakes; and the vacant
+space was adorned, by vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of gold
+and silver. From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, he
+distinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and colossus of
+Justinian, [3] and the church, more especially the dome, of St. Sophia;
+the best conclusion, since it could not be described according to its
+merits, and after it no other object could deserve to be mentioned. But
+he forgets that, a century before, the trembling fabrics of the colossus
+and the church had been saved and supported by the timely care of
+Andronicus the Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had fortified
+St. Sophia with two new buttresses or pyramids, the eastern hemisphere
+suddenly gave way: and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary, were
+crushed by the falling ruin. The mischief indeed was speedily repaired;
+the rubbish was cleared by the incessant labor of every rank and age;
+and the poor remains of riches and industry were consecrated by the
+Greeks to the most stately and venerable temple of the East. [4]
+
+[Footnote 1: The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor John
+Palęologus will not offend the eye or ear of a classical student, (ad
+calcem Codini de Antiquitatibus C. P. p. 107--126.) The superscription
+suggests a chronological remark, that John Palęologus II. was associated
+in the empire before the year 1414, the date of Chrysoloras's death.
+A still earlier date, at least 1408, is deduced from the age of his
+youngest sons, Demetrius and Thomas, who were both _Porphyrogeniti_
+(Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 244, 247.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Somebody observed that the city of Athens might be
+circumnavigated, (tiV eipen tin polin tvn Aqhnaiwn dunasqai kai
+paraplein kai periplein.) But what may be true in a rhetorical sense of
+Constantinople, cannot be applied to the situation of Athens, five
+miles from the sea, and not intersected or surrounded by any navigable
+streams.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Nicephorus Gregoras has described the Colossus of
+Justinian, (l. vii. 12:) but his measures are false and inconsistent.
+The editor Boivin consulted his friend Girardon; and the sculptor gave
+him the true proportions of an equestrian statue. That of Justinian was
+still visible to Peter Gyllius, not on the column, but in the outward
+court of the seraglio; and he was at Constantinople when it was melted
+down, and cast into a brass cannon, (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 17.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: See the decay and repairs of St. Sophia, in Nicephorus
+Gregoras (l. vii. 12, l. xv. 2.) The building was propped by Andronicus
+in 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in 1345. The Greeks, in their
+pompous rhetoric, exalt the beauty and holiness of the church, an
+earthly heaven the abode of angels, and of God himself, &c.]
+
+The last hope of the falling city and empire was placed in the harmony
+of the mother and daughter, in the maternal tenderness of Rome, and the
+filial obedience of Constantinople. In the synod of Florence, the Greeks
+and Latins had embraced, and subscribed, and promised; but these signs
+of friendship were perfidious or fruitless; [5] and the baseless fabric
+of the union vanished like a dream. [6] The emperor and his prelates
+returned home in the Venetian galleys; but as they touched at the Morea
+and the Isles of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins complained
+that the pretended union would be an instrument of oppression. No sooner
+did they land on the Byzantine shore, than they were saluted, or rather
+assailed, with a general murmur of zeal and discontent. During their
+absence, above two years, the capital had been deprived of its civil and
+ecclesiastical rulers; fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the most furious
+monks reigned over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatred
+of the Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion. Before
+his departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the city with the
+assurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succor; and the clergy,
+confident in their orthodoxy and science, had promised themselves and
+their flocks an easy victory over the blind shepherds of the West. The
+double disappointment exasperated the Greeks; the conscience of the
+subscribing prelates was awakened; the hour of temptation was past; and
+they had more to dread from the public resentment, than they could hope
+from the favor of the emperor or the pope. Instead of justifying their
+conduct, they deplored their weakness, professed their contrition,
+and cast themselves on the mercy of God and of their brethren. To
+the reproachful question, what had been the event or the use of their
+Italian synod? they answered with sighs and tears, "Alas! we have made
+a new faith; we have exchanged piety for impiety; we have betrayed the
+immaculate sacrifice; and we are become _Azymites_." (The Azymites were
+those who celebrated the communion with unleavened bread; and I must
+retract or qualify the praise which I have bestowed on the growing
+philosophy of the times.) "Alas! we have been seduced by distress, by
+fraud, and by the hopes and fears of a transitory life. The hand
+that has signed the union should be cut off; and the tongue that has
+pronounced the Latin creed deserves to be torn from the root." The best
+proof of their repentance was an increase of zeal for the most
+trivial rites and the most incomprehensible doctrines; and an absolute
+separation from all, without excepting their prince, who preserved some
+regard for honor and consistency. After the decease of the patriarch
+Joseph, the archbishops of Heraclea and Trebizond had courage to
+refuse the vacant office; and Cardinal Bessarion preferred the warm and
+comfortable shelter of the Vatican. The choice of the emperor and his
+clergy was confined to Metrophanes of Cyzicus: he was consecrated in
+St. Sophia, but the temple was vacant. The cross-bearers abdicated
+their service; the infection spread from the city to the villages; and
+Metrophanes discharged, without effect, some ecclesiastical thunders
+against a nation of schismatics. The eyes of the Greeks were directed to
+Mark of Ephesus, the champion of his country; and the sufferings of the
+holy confessor were repaid with a tribute of admiration and applause.
+His example and writings propagated the flame of religious discord; age
+and infirmity soon removed him from the world; but the gospel of Mark
+was not a law of forgiveness; and he requested with his dying breath,
+that none of the adherents of Rome might attend his obsequies or pray
+for his soul.
+
+[Footnote 5: The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus (p.
+312--351) opens the schism from the first _office_ of the Greeks at
+Venice to the general opposition at Constantinople, of the clergy and
+people.]
+
+[Footnote 6: On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza, (l. ii. c.
+17,) Laonicus Chalcondyles, (l. vi. p. 155, 156,) and Ducas, (c. 31;)
+the last of whom writes with truth and freedom. Among the moderns we
+may distinguish the continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii. p. 338, &c., 401,
+420, &c.,) and Spondanus, (A.D. 1440--50.) The sense of the latter
+is drowned in prejudice and passion, as soon as Rome and religion are
+concerned.]
+
+The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the Byzantine
+empire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the three patriarchs of
+Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, assembled a numerous synod; disowned
+their representatives at Ferrara and Florence; condemned the creed and
+council of the Latins; and threatened the emperor of Constantinople
+with the censures of the Eastern church. Of the sectaries of the
+Greek communion, the Russians were the most powerful, ignorant, and
+superstitious. Their primate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened from
+Florence to Moscow, [7] to reduce the independent nation under the Roman
+yoke. But the Russian bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; and
+the prince and people embraced the theology of their priests. They were
+scandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the legate, the
+friend of those impious men who shaved their beards, and performed the
+divine office with gloves on their hands and rings on their fingers:
+Isidore was condemned by a synod; his person was imprisoned in a
+monastery; and it was with extreme difficulty that the cardinal could
+escape from the hands of a fierce and fanatic people. [8] The Russians
+refused a passage to the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convert
+the Pagans beyond the Tanais; [9] and their refusal was justified by the
+maxim, that the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism.
+The errors of the Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for the
+pope; and a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the friendship of
+those sanguinary enthusiasts. [10] While Eugenius triumphed in the union
+and orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was contracted to the walls, or
+rather to the palace of Constantinople. The zeal of Palęologus had been
+excited by interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt to
+violate the national belief might endanger his life and crown; not could
+the pious rebels be destitute of foreign and domestic aid. The sword of
+his brother Demetrius, who in Italy had maintained a prudent and popular
+silence, was half unsheathed in the cause of religion; and Amurath, the
+Turkish sultan, was displeased and alarmed by the seeming friendship of
+the Greeks and Latins.
+
+[Footnote 7: Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks subject
+to Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to Lemberg, or
+Leopold, (Herbestein, in Ramusio, tom. ii. p. 127.) On the other hand,
+the Russians transferred their spiritual obedience to the archbishop,
+who became, in 1588, the patriarch, of Moscow, (Levesque Hist. de
+Russie, tom. iii. p. 188, 190, from a Greek MS. at Turin, Iter et
+labores Archiepiscopi Arsenii.)]
+
+[Footnote 8: The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom.
+ii. p. 242--247) is extracted from the patriarchal archives. The scenes
+of Ferrara and Florence are described by ignorance and passion; but the
+Russians are credible in the account of their own prejudices.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the Samanęans and
+Gymnosophists, has been driven by the more popular Bramins from India
+into the northern deserts: the naked philosophers were compelled to wrap
+themselves in fur; but they insensibly sunk into wizards and physicians.
+The Mordvans and Tcheremisses in the European Russia adhere to this
+religion, which is formed on the earthly model of one king or God,
+his ministers or angels, and the rebellious spirits who oppose his
+government. As these tribes of the Volga have no images, they might
+more justly retort on the Latin missionaries the name of idolaters,
+(Levesque, Hist. des Peuples soumis ą la Domination des Russes, tom. i.
+p. 194--237, 423--460.)]
+
+[Footnote 10: Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. tom ii. A.D. 1451, No. 13. The
+epistle of the Greeks with a Latin version, is extant in the college
+library at Prague.]
+
+"Sultan Murad, or Amurath, lived forty-nine, and reigned thirty years,
+six months, and eight days. He was a just and valiant prince, of a great
+soul, patient of labors, learned, merciful, religious, charitable; a
+lover and encourager of the studious, and of all who excelled in any art
+or science; a good emperor and a great general. No man obtained more or
+greater victories than Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his attacks. [101]
+Under his reign, the soldier was ever victorious, the citizen rich and
+secure. If he subdued any country, his first care was to build mosques
+and caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges. Every year he gave a thousand
+pieces of gold to the sons of the Prophet; and sent two thousand five
+hundred to the religious persons of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem." [11]
+This portrait is transcribed from the historian of the Othman empire:
+but the applause of a servile and superstitious people has been lavished
+on the worst of tyrants; and the virtues of a sultan are often the vices
+most useful to himself, or most agreeable to his subjects. A nation
+ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the
+flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the
+character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy,
+of firmness. If the most reasonable excuse be rejected, few acts of
+obedience will be found impossible; and guilt must tremble, where
+innocence cannot always be secure. The tranquillity of the people, and
+the discipline of the troops, were best maintained by perpetual action
+in the field; war was the trade of the Janizaries; and those who
+survived the peril, and divided the spoil, applauded the generous
+ambition of their sovereign. To propagate the true religion, was the
+duty of a faithful Mussulman: the unbelievers were _his_ enemies, and
+those of the Prophet; and, in the hands of the Turks, the cimeter was
+the only instrument of conversion. Under these circumstances, however,
+the justice and moderation of Amurath are attested by his conduct, and
+acknowledged by the Christians themselves; who consider a prosperous
+reign and a peaceful death as the reward of his singular merits. In the
+vigor of his age and military power, he seldom engaged in war till he
+was justified by a previous and adequate provocation: the victorious
+sultan was disarmed by submission; and in the observance of treaties,
+his word was inviolate and sacred. [12] The Hungarians were commonly
+the aggressors; he was provoked by the revolt of Scanderbeg; and the
+perfidious Caramanian was twice vanquished, and twice pardoned, by the
+Ottoman monarch. Before he invaded the Morea, Thebes had been surprised
+by the despot: in the conquest of Thessalonica, the grandson of Bajazet
+might dispute the recent purchase of the Venetians; and after the first
+siege of Constantinople, the sultan was never tempted, by the distress,
+the absence, or the injuries of Palęologus, to extinguish the dying
+light of the Byzantine empire.
+
+[Footnote 101: See the siege and massacre at Thessalonica. Von Hammer vol.
+i p. 433.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 11: See Cantemir, History of the Othman Empire, p. 94. Murad,
+or Morad, may be more correct: but I have preferred the popular name
+to that obscure diligence which is rarely successful in translating an
+Oriental, into the Roman, alphabet.]
+
+[Footnote 12: See Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 186, 198,) Ducas, (c. 33,)
+and Marinus Barletius, (in Vit. Scanderbeg, p. 145, 146.) In his good
+faith towards the garrison of Sfetigrade, he was a lesson and example to
+his son Mahomet.]
+
+But the most striking feature in the life and character of Amurath is
+the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were not his
+motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must praise the royal
+philosopher, [13] who at the age of forty could discern the vanity of
+human greatness. Resigning the sceptre to his son, he retired to the
+pleasant residence of Magnesia; but he retired to the society of saints
+and hermits. It was not till the fourth century of the Hegira, that the
+religion of Mahomet had been corrupted by an institution so adverse
+to his genius; but in the age of the crusades, the various orders of
+Dervises were multiplied by the example of the Christian, and even the
+Latin, monks. [14] The lord of nations submitted to fast, and pray, and
+turn round [141] in endless rotation with the fanatics, who mistook the
+giddiness of the head for the illumination of the spirit. [15] But he was
+soon awakened from his dreams of enthusiasm by the Hungarian invasion;
+and his obedient son was the foremost to urge the public danger and
+the wishes of the people. Under the banner of their veteran leader, the
+Janizaries fought and conquered but he withdrew from the field of Varna,
+again to pray, to fast, and to turn round with his Magnesian brethren.
+These pious occupations were again interrupted by the danger of the
+state. A victorious army disdained the inexperience of their youthful
+ruler: the city of Adrianople was abandoned to rapine and slaughter;
+and the unanimous divan implored his presence to appease the tumult,
+and prevent the rebellion, of the Janizaries. At the well-known voice
+of their master, they trembled and obeyed; and the reluctant sultan was
+compelled to support his splendid servitude, till at the end of four
+years, he was relieved by the angel of death. Age or disease, misfortune
+or caprice, have tempted several princes to descend from the throne; and
+they have had leisure to repent of their irretrievable step. But Amurath
+alone, in the full liberty of choice, after the trial of empire and
+solitude, has _repeated_ his preference of a private life.
+
+[Footnote 13: Voltaire (Essai sur l'Histoire Générale, c. 89, p. 283,
+284) admires _le Philosophe Turc:_ would he have bestowed the same
+praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a monastery? In his way,
+Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerant bigot.]
+
+[Footnote 14: See the articles _Dervische_, _Fakir_, _Nasser_,
+_Rohbaniat_, in D'Herbelot's Bibliothčque Orientale. Yet the subject is
+superficially treated from the Persian and Arabian writers. It is among
+the Turks that these orders have principally flourished.]
+
+[Footnote 141: Gibbon has fallen into a remarkable error. The unmonastic
+retreat of Amurath was that of an epicurean rather than of a dervis;
+more like that of Sardanapalus than of Charles the Fifth. Profane, not
+divine, love was its chief occupation: the only dance, that described by
+Horace as belonging to the country, motus doceri gaudet Ionicos. See Von
+Hammer note, p. 652.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Ricaut (in the Present State of the Ottoman Empire, p.
+242--268) affords much information, which he drew from his personal
+conversation with the heads of the dervises, most of whom ascribed
+their origin to the time of Orchan. He does not mention the _Zichid_ of
+Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 286,) among whom Amurath retired: the _Seids_
+of that author are the descendants of Mahomet.]
+
+After the departure of his Greek brethren, Eugenius had not been
+unmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender regard for the
+Byzantine empire was animated by a just apprehension of the Turks, who
+approached, and might soon invade, the borders of Italy. But the spirit
+of the crusades had expired; and the coldness of the Franks was not less
+unreasonable than their headlong passion. In the eleventh century, a
+fanatic monk could precipitate Europe on Asia for the recovery of the
+holy sepulchre; but in the fifteenth, the most pressing motives of
+religion and policy were insufficient to unite the Latins in the defence
+of Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse of men and arms:
+[16] but that complex and languid body required the impulse of a
+vigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike impotent in his
+personal character and his Imperial dignity. A long war had impaired the
+strength, without satiating the animosity, of France and England: [17]
+but Philip duke of Burgundy was a vain and magnificent prince; and
+he enjoyed, without danger or expense, the adventurous piety of his
+subjects, who sailed, in a gallant fleet, from the coast of Flanders
+to the Hellespont. The maritime republics of Venice and Genoa were
+less remote from the scene of action; and their hostile fleets were
+associated under the standard of St. Peter. The kingdoms of Hungary and
+Poland, which covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin church,
+were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of the Turks. Arms
+were the patrimony of the Scythians and Sarmatians; and these nations
+might appear equal to the contest, could they point, against the common
+foe, those swords that were so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic
+quarrels. But the same spirit was adverse to concord and obedience:
+a poor country and a limited monarch are incapable of maintaining a
+standing force; and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were
+not armed with the sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, have
+given irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this side, the
+designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of Cardinal Julian,
+his legate, were promoted by the circumstances of the times: [18] by
+the union of the two crowns on the head of Ladislaus, [19] a young and
+ambitious soldier; by the valor of a hero, whose name, the name of John
+Huniades, was already popular among the Christians, and formidable to
+the Turks. An endless treasure of pardons and indulgences was scattered
+by the legate; many private warriors of France and Germany enlisted
+under the holy banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or at
+least some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and Asia.
+A fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress and ardor of the
+Christians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to vindicate
+their religion and liberty. The Greek emperor, [20] with a spirit unknown
+to his fathers, engaged to guard the Bosphorus, and to sally from
+Constantinople at the head of his national and mercenary troops. The
+sultan of Caramania [21] announced the retreat of Amurath, and a powerful
+diversion in the heart of Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West could
+occupy at the same moment the Straits of the Hellespont, the Ottoman
+monarchy would be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and earth must
+rejoice in the perdition of the miscreants; and the legate, with prudent
+ambiguity, instilled the opinion of the invisible, perhaps the visible,
+aid of the Son of God, and his divine mother.
+
+[Footnote 16: In the year 1431, Germany raised 40,000 horse,
+men-at-arms, against the Hussites of Bohemia, (Lenfant, Hist. du Concile
+de Basle, tom. i. p. 318.) At the siege of Nuys, on the Rhine, in 1474,
+the princes, prelates, and cities, sent their respective quotas; and the
+bishop of Munster (qui n'est pas des plus grands) furnished 1400 horse,
+6000 foot, all in green, with 1200 wagons. The united armies of the king
+of England and the duke of Burgundy scarcely equalled one third of this
+German host, (Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, l. iv. c. 2.) At present,
+six or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay and
+admirable discipline by the powers of Germany.]
+
+[Footnote 17: It was not till the year 1444, that France and England
+could agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer's Fdera, and the
+chronicles of both nations.)]
+
+[Footnote 18: In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. Ecclés. A.D.
+1443, 1444) has been my leading guide. He has diligently read, and
+critically compared, the Greek and Turkish materials, the historians of
+Hungary, Poland, and the West. His narrative is perspicuous and where
+he can be free from a religious bias, the judgment of Spondanus is not
+contemptible.]
+
+[Footnote 19: I have curtailed the harsh letter (Wladislaus) which
+most writers affix to his name, either in compliance with the Polish
+pronunciation, or to distinguish him from his rival the infant Ladislaus
+of Austria. Their competition for the crown of Hungary is described by
+Callimachus, (l. i. ii. p. 447--486,) Bonfinius, (Decad. iii. l. iv.,)
+Spondanus, and Lenfant.]
+
+[Footnote 20: The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcondyles, and Ducas, do
+not ascribe to their prince a very active part in this crusade, which he
+seems to have promoted by his wishes, and injured by his fears.]
+
+[Footnote 21: Cantemir (p. 88) ascribes to his policy the original plan,
+and transcribes his animating epistle to the king of Hungary. But the
+Mahometan powers are seldom it formed of the state of Christendom and
+the situation and correspondence of the knights of Rhodes must connect
+them with the sultan of Caramania.]
+
+Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the unanimous
+cry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led an army of his
+confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of the Bulgarian
+kingdom. In this expedition they obtained two signal victories, which
+were justly ascribed to the valor and conduct of Huniades. In the first,
+with a vanguard of ten thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp; in
+the second, he vanquished and made prisoner the most renowned of their
+generals, who possessed the double advantage of ground and numbers. The
+approach of winter, and the natural and artificial obstacles of Mount
+Hęmus, arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a narrow interval
+of six days' march from the foot of the mountains to the hostile towers
+of Adrianople, and the friendly capital of the Greek empire. The retreat
+was undisturbed; and the entrance into Buda was at once a military and
+religious triumph. An ecclesiastical procession was followed by the king
+and his warriors on foot: he nicely balanced the merits and rewards of
+the two nations; and the pride of conquest was blended with the humble
+temper of Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards, and four
+thousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as all were
+willing to believe, and none were present to contradict, the crusaders
+multiplied, with unblushing confidence, the myriads of Turks whom they
+had left on the field of battle. [22] The most solid proof, and the most
+salutary consequence, of victory, was a deputation from the divan
+to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to ransom the prisoners, and to
+evacuate the Hungarian frontier. By this treaty, the rational objects
+of the war were obtained: the king, the despot, and Huniades himself, in
+the diet of Segedin, were satisfied with public and private emolument;
+a truce of ten years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus and
+Mahomet, who swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested the word of God
+as the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy. In the place of the
+Gospel, the Turkish ministers had proposed to substitute the Eucharist,
+the real presence of the Catholic deity; but the Christians refused to
+profane their holy mysteries; and a superstitious conscience is less
+forcibly bound by the spiritual energy, than by the outward and visible
+symbols of an oath. [23]
+
+[Footnote 22: In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the
+Hungarians slay 80,000 Turks in one battle; but the modest Julian
+reduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels, (Ęneas Sylvius in
+Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum.)]
+
+[Footnote 23: See the origin of the Turkish war, and the first
+expedition of Ladislaus, in the vth and vith books of the iiid decad of
+Bonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy with tolerable
+success Callimachus (l. ii p. 487--496) is still more pure and
+authentic.]
+
+During the whole transaction, the cardinal legate had observed a sullen
+silence, unwilling to approve, and unable to oppose, the consent of
+the king and people. But the diet was not dissolved before Julian was
+fortified by the welcome intelligence, that Anatolia was invaded by the
+Caramanian, and Thrace by the Greek emperor; that the fleets of Genoa,
+Venice, and Burgundy, were masters of the Hellespont; and that the
+allies, informed of the victory, and ignorant of the treaty, of
+Ladislaus, impatiently waited for the return of his victorious army.
+"And is it thus," exclaimed the cardinal, [24] "that you will desert
+their expectations and your own fortune? It is to them, to your God, and
+your fellow-Christians, that you have pledged your faith; and that prior
+obligation annihilates a rash and sacrilegious oath to the enemies of
+Christ. His vicar on earth is the Roman pontiff; without whose sanction
+you can neither promise nor perform. In his name I absolve your perjury
+and sanctify your arms: follow my footsteps in the paths of glory
+and salvation; and if still ye have scruples, devolve on my head the
+punishment and the sin." This mischievous casuistry was seconded by his
+respectable character, and the levity of popular assemblies: war was
+resolved, on the same spot where peace had so lately been sworn; and, in
+the execution of the treaty, the Turks were assaulted by the Christians;
+to whom, with some reason, they might apply the epithet of Infidels.
+The falsehood of Ladislaus to his word and oath was palliated by the
+religion of the times: the most perfect, or at least the most popular,
+excuse would have been the success of his arms and the deliverance of
+the Eastern church. But the same treaty which should have bound his
+conscience had diminished his strength. On the proclamation of the
+peace, the French and German volunteers departed with indignant murmurs:
+the Poles were exhausted by distant warfare, and perhaps disgusted with
+foreign command; and their palatines accepted the first license, and
+hastily retired to their provinces and castles. Even Hungary was divided
+by faction, or restrained by a laudable scruple; and the relics of
+the crusade that marched in the second expedition were reduced to an
+inadequate force of twenty thousand men. A Walachian chief, who joined
+the royal standard with his vassals, presumed to remark that their
+numbers did not exceed the hunting retinue that sometimes attended the
+sultan; and the gift of two horses of matchless speed might admonish
+Ladislaus of his secret foresight of the event. But the despot of
+Servia, after the restoration of his country and children, was tempted
+by the promise of new realms; and the inexperience of the king, the
+enthusiasm of the legate, and the martial presumption of Huniades
+himself, were persuaded that every obstacle must yield to the invincible
+virtue of the sword and the cross. After the passage of the Danube, two
+roads might lead to Constantinople and the Hellespont: the one direct,
+abrupt, and difficult through the mountains of Hęmus; the other more
+tedious and secure, over a level country, and along the shores of the
+Euxine; in which their flanks, according to the Scythian discipline,
+might always be covered by a movable fortification of wagons. The latter
+was judiciously preferred: the Catholics marched through the plains of
+Bulgaria, burning, with wanton cruelty, the churches and villages of
+the Christian natives; and their last station was at Warna, near the
+sea-shore; on which the defeat and death of Ladislaus have bestowed a
+memorable name. [25]
+
+[Footnote 24: I do not pretend to warrant the literal accuracy of
+Julian's speech, which is variously worded by Callimachus, (l. iii.
+p. 505--507,) Bonfinius, (dec. iii. l. vi. p. 457, 458,) and other
+historians, who might indulge their own eloquence, while they represent
+one of the orators of the age. But they all agree in the advice and
+arguments for perjury, which in the field of controversy are fiercely
+attacked by the Protestants, and feebly defended by the Catholics. The
+latter are discouraged by the misfortune of Warna.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Warna, under the Grecian name of Odessus, was a colony of
+the Milesians, which they denominated from the hero Ulysses, (Cellarius,
+tom. i. p. 374. D'Anville, tom. i. p. 312.) According to Arrian's
+Periplus of the Euxine, (p. 24, 25, in the first volume of Hudson's
+Geographers,) it was situate 1740 stadia, or furlongs, from the mouth
+of the Danube, 2140 from Byzantium, and 360 to the north of a ridge of
+promontory of Mount Hęmus, which advances into the sea.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.--Part II.
+
+It was on this fatal spot, that, instead of finding a confederate fleet
+to second their operations, they were alarmed by the approach of Amurath
+himself, who had issued from his Magnesian solitude, and transported the
+forces of Asia to the defence of Europe. According to some writers, the
+Greek emperor had been awed, or seduced, to grant the passage of the
+Bosphorus; and an indelible stain of corruption is fixed on the Genoese,
+or the pope's nephew, the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary connivance
+betrayed the guard of the Hellespont. From Adrianople, the sultan
+advanced by hasty marches, at the head of sixty thousand men; and when
+the cardinal, and Huniades, had taken a nearer survey of the numbers
+and order of the Turks, these ardent warriors proposed the tardy and
+impracticable measure of a retreat. The king alone was resolved to
+conquer or die; and his resolution had almost been crowned with a
+glorious and salutary victory. The princes were opposite to each other
+in the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or generals of Anatolia and Romania,
+commanded on the right and left, against the adverse divisions of the
+despot and Huniades. The Turkish wings were broken on the first onset:
+but the advantage was fatal; and the rash victors, in the heat of the
+pursuit, were carried away far from the annoyance of the enemy, or
+the support of their friends. When Amurath beheld the flight of his
+squadrons, he despaired of his fortune and that of the empire: a veteran
+Janizary seized his horse's bridle; and he had magnanimity to pardon
+and reward the soldier who dared to perceive the terror, and arrest
+the flight, of his sovereign. A copy of the treaty, the monument of
+Christian perfidy, had been displayed in the front of battle; and it is
+said, that the sultan in his distress, lifting his eyes and his hands to
+heaven, implored the protection of the God of truth; and called on the
+prophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery of his name and
+religion. [26] With inferior numbers and disordered ranks, the king of
+Hungary rushed forward in the confidence of victory, till his career was
+stopped by the impenetrable phalanx of the Janizaries. If we may credit
+the Ottoman annals, his horse was pierced by the javelin of Amurath;
+[27] he fell among the spears of the infantry; and a Turkish soldier
+proclaimed with a loud voice, "Hungarians, behold the head of your
+king!" The death of Ladislaus was the signal of their defeat. On his
+return from an intemperate pursuit, Huniades deplored his error, and the
+public loss; he strove to rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmed
+by the tumultuous crowd of the victors and vanquished; and the last
+efforts of his courage and conduct were exerted to save the remnant
+of his Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand Christians were slain in the
+disastrous battle of Warna: the loss of the Turks, more considerable
+in numbers, bore a smaller proportion to their total strength; yet the
+philosophic sultan was not ashamed to confess, that his ruin must be the
+consequence of a second and similar victory. [271] At his command a column
+was erected on the spot where Ladislaus had fallen; but the modest
+inscription, instead of accusing the rashness, recorded the valor, and
+bewailed the misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. [28]
+
+[Footnote 26: Some Christian writers affirm, that he drew from his bosom
+the host or wafer on which the treaty had _not_ been sworn. The Moslems
+suppose, with more simplicity, an appeal to God and his prophet Jesus,
+which is likewise insinuated by Callimachus, (l. iii. p. 516. Spondan.
+A.D. 1444, No. 8.)]
+
+[Footnote 27: A critic will always distrust these _spolia opima_ of
+a victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so easy for
+flattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91.) Callimachus (l. iii. p. 517)
+more simply and probably affirms, supervenitibus Janizaris, telorum
+multitudine, non jam confossus est, quam obrutus.]
+
+[Footnote 271: Compare Von Hammer, p. 463.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Besides some valuable hints from Ęneas Sylvius, which
+are diligently collected by Spondanus, our best authorities are three
+historians of the xvth century, Philippus Callimachus, (de Rebus a
+Vladislao Polonorum atque Hungarorum Rege gestis, libri iii. in Bel.
+Script. Rerum Hungaricarum, tom. i. p. 433--518,) Bonfinius, (decad.
+iii. l. v. p. 460--467,) and Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 165--179.) The
+two first were Italians, but they passed their lives in Poland and
+Hungary, (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimę Ętatis, tom. i. p.
+324. Vossius, de Hist. Latin. l. iii. c. 8, 11. Bayle, Dictionnaire,
+Bonfinius.) A small tract of Fęlix Petancius, chancellor of Segnia, (ad
+calcem Cuspinian. de Cęsaribus, p. 716--722,) represents the theatre of
+the war in the xvth century.]
+
+Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to pause on the
+character and story of two principal actors, the cardinal Julian and
+John Huniades. Julian [29] Cęsarini was born of a noble family of Rome:
+his studies had embraced both the Latin and Greek learning, both the
+sciences of divinity and law; and his versatile genius was equally
+adapted to the schools, the camp, and the court. No sooner had he been
+invested with the Roman purple, than he was sent into Germany to arm
+the empire against the rebels and heretics of Bohemia. The spirit of
+persecution is unworthy of a Christian; the military profession ill
+becomes a priest; but the former is excused by the times; and the latter
+was ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood dauntless and alone
+in the disgraceful flight of the German host. As the pope's legate, he
+opened the council of Basil; but the president soon appeared the most
+strenuous champion of ecclesiastical freedom; and an opposition of
+seven years was conducted by his ability and zeal. After promoting the
+strongest measures against the authority and person of Eugenius, some
+secret motive of interest or conscience engaged him to desert on a
+sudden the popular party. The cardinal withdrew himself from Basil to
+Ferrara; and, in the debates of the Greeks and Latins, the two nations
+admired the dexterity of his arguments and the depth of his theological
+erudition. [30] In his Hungarian embassy, we have already seen the
+mischievous effects of his sophistry and eloquence, of which Julian
+himself was the first victim. The cardinal, who performed the duties
+of a priest and a soldier, was lost in the defeat of Warna. The
+circumstances of his death are variously related; but it is believed,
+that a weighty encumbrance of gold impeded his flight, and tempted the
+cruel avarice of some Christian fugitives.
+
+[Footnote 29: M. Lenfant has described the origin (Hist. du Concile
+de Basle, tom. i. p. 247, &c.) and Bohemian campaign (p. 315, &c.) of
+Cardinal Julian. His services at Basil and Ferrara, and his unfortunate
+end, are occasionally related by Spondanus, and the continuator of
+Fleury.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Syropulus honorably praises the talent of an enemy, (p.
+117:) toiauta tina eipen o IoulianoV peplatusmenwV agan kai logikwV, kai
+met episthmhV kai deinothtoV 'RhtprikhV.]
+
+From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of John
+Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian armies. His father
+was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her unknown race might possibly
+ascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the claims of the
+Walachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the place of his
+nativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling his blood with the
+patricians of ancient Rome. [31] In his youth he served in the wars of
+Italy, and was retained, with twelve horsemen, by the bishop of Zagrab:
+the valor of the _white knight_ [32] was soon conspicuous; he increased
+his fortunes by a noble and wealthy marriage; and in the defence of
+the Hungarian borders he won in the same year three battles against
+the Turks. By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of
+Hungary; and the important service was rewarded by the title and office
+of Waivod of Transylvania. The first of Julian's crusades added two
+Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress the fatal errors
+of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and minority of Ladislaus
+of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was elected supreme captain and
+governor of Hungary; and if envy at first was silenced by terror, a
+reign of twelve years supposes the arts of policy as well as of war. Yet
+the idea of a consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; the
+white knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as the chief of
+desultory Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without shame; and
+his military life is composed of a romantic alternative of victories and
+escapes. By the Turks, who employed his name to frighten their perverse
+children, he was corruptly denominated _Jancus Lain_, or the Wicked:
+their hatred is the proof of their esteem; the kingdom which he guarded
+was inaccessible to their arms; and they felt him most daring and
+formidable, when they fondly believed the captain and his country
+irrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive war,
+four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated into the heart
+of Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova, sustained, till the third day,
+the shock of the Ottoman army, four times more numerous than his own. As
+he fled alone through the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by
+two robbers; but while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck,
+he recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other, and, after
+new perils of captivity or death, consoled by his presence an afflicted
+kingdom. But the last and most glorious action of his life was the
+defence of Belgrade against the powers of Mahomet the Second in person.
+After a siege of forty days, the Turks, who had already entered the
+town, were compelled to retreat; and the joyful nations celebrated
+Huniades and Belgrade as the bulwarks of Christendom. [33] About a
+month after this great deliverance, the champion expired; and his most
+splendid epitaph is the regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that he
+could no longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who had
+triumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the throne, Matthias
+Corvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age, was elected and crowned by
+the grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous and long: Matthias
+aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a saint: but his purest merit is
+the encouragement of learning; and the Latin orators and historians,
+who were invited from Italy by the son, have shed the lustre of their
+eloquence on the father's character. [34]
+
+[Footnote 31: See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. iv. p. 423. Could the
+Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without a
+blush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of a Walachian
+village with the casual, though glorious, epithet of a single branch of
+the Valerian family at Rome?]
+
+[Footnote 32: Philip de Comines, (Mémoires, l. vi. c. 13,) from the
+tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but under the
+whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne, (Valachia.) The Greek
+Chalcondyles, and the Turkish annals of Leunclavius, presume to accuse
+his fidelity or valor.]
+
+[Footnote 33: See Bonfinius (decad. iii. l. viii. p. 492) and Spondanus,
+(A.D. 456, No. 1--7.) Huniades shared the glory of the defence of
+Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in their respective
+narratives, neither the saint nor the hero condescend to take notice of
+his rival's merit.]
+
+[Footnote 34: See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. viii.--decad. iv. l. viii.
+The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of Matthias
+Corvinus are curious and critical, (A.D. 1464, No. 1, 1475, No. 6, 1476,
+No. 14--16, 1490, No. 4, 5.) Italian fame was the object of his vanity.
+His actions are celebrated in the Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p.
+322--412) of Peter Ranzanus, a Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings
+are registered by Galestus Martius of Narni, (528--568,) and we have a
+particular narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three
+tracts are all contained in the first vol. of Bel's Scriptores Rerum
+Hungaricarum.]
+
+In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are commonly
+associated; [35] and they are both entitled to our notice, since their
+occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the Greek empire.
+John Castriot, the father of Scanderbeg, [36] was the hereditary prince
+of a small district of Epirus or Albania, between the mountains and
+the Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend with the sultan's power, Castriot
+submitted to the hard conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered
+his four sons as the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths,
+after receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the
+Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish policy.
+[37] The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd of slaves;
+and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed cannot be verified
+or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the suspicion is in a great
+measure removed by the kind and paternal treatment of George Castriot,
+the fourth brother, who, from his tender youth, displayed the strength
+and spirit of a soldier. The successive overthrow of a Tartar and two
+Persians, who carried a proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended
+him to the favor of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg,
+(_Iskender beg_,) or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of
+his glory and servitude. His father's principality was reduced into a
+province; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title of
+Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the prospect of the first
+dignities of the empire. He served with honor in the wars of Europe and
+Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity of the historian, who
+supposes, that in every encounter he spared the Christians, while he
+fell with a thundering arm on his Mussulman foes. The glory of Huniades
+is without reproach: he fought in the defence of his religion and
+country; but the enemies who applaud the patriot, have branded his rival
+with the name of traitor and apostate. In the eyes of the Christian,
+the rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father's wrongs, the
+ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and the
+slavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though tardy, zeal,
+with which he asserted the faith and independence of his ancestors. But
+he had imbibed from his ninth year the doctrines of the Koran; he was
+ignorant of the Gospel; the religion of a soldier is determined by
+authority and habit; nor is it easy to conceive what new illumination at
+the age of forty [38] could be poured into his soul. His motives would be
+less exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken his
+chain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but a long
+oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every year of
+obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the sultan and his
+subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the belief of Christianity
+and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind must condemn the base
+dissimulation, that could serve only to betray, that could promise only
+to be forsworn, that could actively join in the temporal and spiritual
+perdition of so many thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise
+a secret correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard
+of the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard, a
+treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the enemies of
+his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye of Scanderbeg was
+fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal secretary: with the dagger at his
+breast, he extorted a firman or patent for the government of Albania;
+and the murder of the guiltless scribe and his train prevented the
+consequences of an immediate discovery. With some bold companions,
+to whom he had revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapid
+marches, from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gates
+of Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he command
+the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of dissimulation;
+abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed himself the avenger
+of his family and country. The names of religion and liberty provoked
+a general revolt: the Albanians, a martial race, were unanimous to live
+and die with their hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were
+indulged in the choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the
+states of Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and
+each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion of men
+and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial estate, and
+from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an annual revenue of two
+hundred thousand ducats; [39] and the entire sum, exempt from the demands
+of luxury, was strictly appropriated to the public use. His manners were
+popular; but his discipline was severe; and every superfluous vice was
+banished from his camp: his example strengthened his command; and under
+his conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and that
+of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and Germany were
+allured by his fame and retained in his service: his standing militia
+consisted of eight thousand horse and seven thousand foot; the horses
+were small, the men were active; but he viewed with a discerning eye the
+difficulties and resources of the mountains; and, at the blaze of the
+beacons, the whole nation was distributed in the strongest posts. With
+such unequal arms Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powers
+of the Ottoman empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his
+greater son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued
+with seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty
+thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered Albania:
+he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless towns, convert
+the churches into mosques, circumcise the Christian youths, and punish
+with death his adult and obstinate captives: but the conquests of
+the sultan were confined to the petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the
+garrison, invincible to his arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and
+a superstitious scruple. [40] Amurath retired with shame and loss from
+the walls of Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the
+march, the siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost
+invisible, adversary; [41] and the disappointment might tend to imbitter,
+perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. [42] In the fulness
+of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his bosom this domestic
+thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to negotiate a truce; and the
+Albanian prince may justly be praised as a firm and able champion of
+his national independence. The enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has
+ranked him with the names of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush
+to acknowledge their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and
+slender powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes
+of antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions. His
+splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the armies
+that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were slain by
+his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of suspicious criticism.
+Against an illiterate enemy, and in the dark solitude of Epirus, his
+partial biographers may safely indulge the latitude of romance: but
+their fictions are exposed by the light of Italian history; and they
+afford a strong presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale
+of his exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to
+the succor of the king of Naples. [43] Without disparagement to his fame,
+they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by the Ottoman
+powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the Second for
+a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his resources were almost
+exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive at Lissus, on the
+Venetian territory. [44] His sepulchre was soon violated by the Turkish
+conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore his bones enchased in a
+bracelet, declared by this superstitious amulet their involuntary
+reverence for his valor. The instant ruin of his country may redound to
+the hero's glory; yet, had he balanced the consequences of submission
+and resistance, a patriot perhaps would have declined the unequal
+contest which must depend on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg
+might indeed be supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that
+the pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join in
+the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the sea-coast
+of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to Italy. His
+infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the Castriots [45] were
+invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their blood continues to flow
+in the noblest families of the realm. A colony of Albanian fugitives
+obtained a settlement in Calabria, and they preserve at this day the
+language and manners of their ancestors. [46]
+
+[Footnote 35: They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his pleasing
+Essay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. iii. p. 385,) among the seven
+chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal crown; Belisarius,
+Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first prince of Orange, Alexander
+duke of Parma, John Huniades, and George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]
+
+[Footnote 36: I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a friend
+of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the time, and the
+place. In the old and national history of Marinus Barletius, a priest of
+Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri
+xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersome robes
+are stuck with many false jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p.
+185, l. viii. p. 229.]
+
+[Footnote 37: His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by Marinus
+with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]
+
+[Footnote 38: Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year of his
+age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403; since he was torn
+from his parents by the Turks, when he was _novennis_, (Marinus, l. i.
+p. 1, 6,) that event must have happened in 1412, nine years before the
+accession of Amurath II., who must have inherited, not acquired the
+Albanian slave. Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431,
+No. 31, 1443, No. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 39: His revenue and forces are luckily given by Marinus, (l.
+ii. p. 44.)]
+
+[Footnote 40: There were two Dibras, the upper and lower, the Bulgarian
+and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. i. p. 17,) was
+contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose inhabitants refused to
+drink from a well into which a dead dog had traitorously been cast, (l.
+v. p. 139, 140.) We want a good map of Epirus.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92) with the
+pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and vith books of
+the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the tribe of strangers and
+moderns.]
+
+[Footnote 42: In honor of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188--192)
+kills the sultan by disease indeed, under the walls of Croya. But this
+audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who agree in the
+time and manner of Amurath's death at Adrianople.]
+
+[Footnote 43: See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the ixth
+and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified by the
+testimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom. xiii. p. 291,)
+and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus Francisci Sfortię, in
+Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p. 728, et alios.) The Albanian
+cavalry, under the name of _Stradiots_, soon became famous in the wars
+of Italy, (Mémoires de Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]
+
+[Footnote 44: Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most rational
+criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human size, (A.D.
+1461, No. 20, 1463, No. 9, 1465, No. 12, 13, 1467, No. 1.) His own
+letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza, (l. iii. c. 28,) a
+refugee in the neighboring isle of Corfu, demonstrate his last distress,
+which is awkwardly concealed by Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]
+
+[Footnote 45: See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam.
+Dalmaticę, &c, xviii. p. 348--350.)]
+
+[Footnote 46: This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr. Swinburne,
+(Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350--354.)]
+
+In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I have
+reached at length the last reign of the princes of Constantinople, who
+so feebly sustained the name and majesty of the Cęsars. On the decease
+of John Palęologus, who survived about four years the Hungarian crusade,
+[47] the royal family, by the death of Andronicus and the monastic
+profession of Isidore, was reduced to three princes, Constantine,
+Demetrius, and Thomas, the surviving sons of the emperor Manuel.
+Of these the first and the last were far distant in the Morea; but
+Demetrius, who possessed the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs,
+at the head of a party: his ambition was not chilled by the public
+distress; and his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had
+already disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late
+emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste: the
+claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a trite and
+flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the eldest son of his
+father's reign. But the empress-mother, the senate and soldiers, the
+clergy and people, were unanimous in the cause of the lawful successor:
+and the despot Thomas, who, ignorant of the change, accidentally
+returned to the capital, asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his
+absent brother. An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately
+despatched to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor
+and dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the
+Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching downfall
+of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious deputies, the
+Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of Constantine. In the
+spring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the encounter of a Turkish
+squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his subjects, celebrated the
+festival of a new reign, and exhausted by his donatives the treasure, or
+rather the indigence, of the state. The emperor immediately resigned to
+his brothers the possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of
+the two princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother's
+presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next
+occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge of
+Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected the distance
+between an hereditary monarch and an elective magistrate; and in
+their subsequent distress, the chief of that powerful republic was not
+unmindful of the affront. Constantine afterwards hesitated between the
+royal families of Trebizond and Georgia; and the embassy of Phranza
+represents in his public and private life the last days of the Byzantine
+empire. [48]
+
+[Footnote 47: The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic; but
+instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A.D. 1445, No. 7,)
+assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last Constantine
+which he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius IV. to the king of
+Ęthiopia.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Phranza (l. iii. c. 1--6) deserves credit and esteem.]
+
+The _protovestiare_, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from
+Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of wealth
+and luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His numerous retinue
+consisted of nobles and guards, of physicians and monks: he was attended
+by a band of music; and the term of his costly embassy was protracted
+above two years. On his arrival in Georgia or Iberia, the natives from
+the towns and villages flocked around the strangers; and such was
+their simplicity, that they were delighted with the effects, without
+understanding the cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was an old
+man, above a hundred years of age, who had formerly been carried away a
+captive by the Barbarians, [49] and who amused his hearers with a tale of
+the wonders of India, [50] from whence he had returned to Portugal by
+an unknown sea. [51] From this hospitable land, Phranza proceeded to the
+court of Trebizond, where he was informed by the Greek prince of the
+recent decease of Amurath. Instead of rejoicing in the deliverance,
+the experienced statesman expressed his apprehension, that an ambitious
+youth would not long adhere to the sage and pacific system of his
+father. After the sultan's decease, his Christian wife, Maria, [52]
+the daughter of the Servian despot, had been honorably restored to her
+parents; on the fame of her beauty and merit, she was recommended by the
+ambassador as the most worthy object of the royal choice; and Phranza
+recapitulates and refutes the specious objections that might be raised
+against the proposal. The majesty of the purple would ennoble an unequal
+alliance; the bar of affinity might be removed by liberal alms and the
+dispensation of the church; the disgrace of Turkish nuptials had been
+repeatedly overlooked; and, though the fair Maria was nearly fifty years
+of age, she might yet hope to give an heir to the empire. Constantine
+listened to the advice, which was transmitted in the first ship that
+sailed from Trebizond; but the factions of the court opposed his
+marriage; and it was finally prevented by the pious vow of the sultana,
+who ended her days in the monastic profession. Reduced to the first
+alternative, the choice of Phranza was decided in favor of a Georgian
+princess; and the vanity of her father was dazzled by the glorious
+alliance. Instead of demanding, according to the primitive and national
+custom, a price for his daughter, [53] he offered a portion of fifty-six
+thousand, with an annual pension of five thousand, ducats; and the
+services of the ambassador were repaid by an assurance, that, as his
+son had been adopted in baptism by the emperor, the establishment of his
+daughter should be the peculiar care of the empress of Constantinople.
+On the return of Phranza, the treaty was ratified by the Greek monarch,
+who with his own hand impressed three vermilion crosses on the golden
+bull, and assured the Georgian envoy that in the spring his galleys
+should conduct the bride to her Imperial palace. But Constantine
+embraced his faithful servant, not with the cold approbation of a
+sovereign, but with the warm confidence of a friend, who, after a long
+absence, is impatient to pour his secrets into the bosom of his friend.
+"Since the death of my mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone advised me
+without interest or passion, [54] I am surrounded," said the emperor,
+"by men whom I can neither love nor trust, nor esteem. You are not a
+stranger to Lucas Notaras, the great admiral; obstinately attached to
+his own sentiments, he declares, both in private and public, that his
+sentiments are the absolute measure of my thoughts and actions. The rest
+of the courtiers are swayed by their personal or factious views; and how
+can I consult the monks on questions of policy and marriage? I have yet
+much employment for your diligence and fidelity. In the spring you shall
+engage one of my brothers to solicit the succor of the Western powers;
+from the Morea you shall sail to Cyprus on a particular commission;
+and from thence proceed to Georgia to receive and conduct the future
+empress."--"Your commands," replied Phranza, "are irresistible; but
+deign, great sir," he added, with a serious smile, "to consider, that
+if I am thus perpetually absent from my family, my wife may be tempted
+either to seek another husband, or to throw herself into a monastery."
+After laughing at his apprehensions, the emperor more gravely consoled
+him by the pleasing assurance that _this_ should be his last service
+abroad, and that he destined for his son a wealthy and noble heiress;
+for himself, the important office of great logothete, or principal
+minister of state. The marriage was immediately stipulated: but the
+office, however incompatible with his own, had been usurped by the
+ambition of the admiral. Some delay was requisite to negotiate a consent
+and an equivalent; and the nomination of Phranza was half declared,
+and half suppressed, lest it might be displeasing to an insolent and
+powerful favorite. The winter was spent in the preparations of his
+embassy; and Phranza had resolved, that the youth his son should embrace
+this opportunity of foreign travel, and be left, on the appearance of
+danger, with his maternal kindred of the Morea. Such were the private
+and public designs, which were interrupted by a Turkish war, and finally
+buried in the ruins of the empire.
+
+[Footnote 49: Suppose him to have been captured in 1394, in Timour's
+first war in Georgia, (Sherefeddin, l. iii. c. 50;) he might follow his
+Tartar master into Hindostan in 1398, and from thence sail to the spice
+islands.]
+
+[Footnote 50: The happy and pious Indians lived a hundred and fifty
+years, and enjoyed the most perfect productions of the vegetable and
+mineral kingdoms. The animals were on a large scale: dragons seventy
+cubits, ants (the _formica Indica_) nine inches long, sheep like
+elephants, elephants like sheep. Quidlibet audendi, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 51: He sailed in a country vessel from the spice islands
+to one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque navem grandem
+_Ibericam_ quā in _Portugalliam_ est delatus. This passage, composed in
+1477, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 30,) twenty years before the discovery of the
+Cape of Good Hope, is spurious or wonderful. But this new geography is
+sullied by the old and incompatible error which places the source of the
+Nile in India.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Cantemir, (p. 83,) who styles her the daughter of Lazarus
+Ogli, and the Helen of the Servians, places her marriage with Amurath
+in the year 1424. It will not easily be believed, that in six-and-twenty
+years' cohabitation, the sultan corpus ejus non tetigit. After the
+taking of Constantinople, she fled to Mahomet II., (Phranza, l. iii. c.
+22.)]
+
+[Footnote 53: The classical reader will recollect the offers of
+Agamemnon, (Iliad, c. v. 144,) and the general practice of antiquity.]
+
+[Footnote 54: Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the emperor
+of that name) was great domestic, a firm assertor of the Greek creed,
+and a brother of the queen of Servia, whom he visited with the character
+of ambassador, (Syropulus, p. 37, 38, 45.)]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
+Empire.--Part I.
+
+     Reign And Character Of Mahomet The Second.--Siege, Assault,
+     And Final Conquest, Of Constantinople By The Turks.--Death
+     Of Constantine Palęologus.--Servitude Of The Greeks.--
+     Extinction Of The Roman Empire In The East.--Consternation
+     Of Europe.--Conquests And Death Of Mahomet The Second.
+
+The siege of Constantinople by the Turks attracts our first attention to
+the person and character of the great destroyer. Mahomet the Second
+[1] was the son of the second Amurath; and though his mother has been
+decorated with the titles of Christian and princess, she is more
+probably confounded with the numerous concubines who peopled from every
+climate the harem of the sultan. His first education and sentiments
+were those of a devout Mussulman; and as often as he conversed with an
+infidel, he purified his hands and face by the legal rites of ablution.
+Age and empire appear to have relaxed this narrow bigotry: his aspiring
+genius disdained to acknowledge a power above his own; and in his looser
+hours he presumed (it is said) to brand the prophet of Mecca as a robber
+and impostor. Yet the sultan persevered in a decent reverence for the
+doctrine and discipline of the Koran: [2] his private indiscretion
+must have been sacred from the vulgar ear; and we should suspect the
+credulity of strangers and sectaries, so prone to believe that a mind
+which is hardened against truth must be armed with superior contempt
+for absurdity and error. Under the tuition of the most skilful masters,
+Mahomet advanced with an early and rapid progress in the paths of
+knowledge; and besides his native tongue it is affirmed that he spoke or
+understood five languages, [3] the Arabic, the Persian, the Chaldęan or
+Hebrew, the Latin, and the Greek. The Persian might indeed contribute to
+his amusement, and the Arabic to his edification; and such studies are
+familiar to the Oriental youth. In the intercourse of the Greeks and
+Turks, a conqueror might wish to converse with the people over which he
+was ambitious to reign: his own praises in Latin poetry [4] or prose
+[5] might find a passage to the royal ear; but what use or merit could
+recommend to the statesman or the scholar the uncouth dialect of his
+Hebrew slaves? The history and geography of the world were familiar to
+his memory: the lives of the heroes of the East, perhaps of the West, [6]
+excited his emulation: his skill in astrology is excused by the folly
+of the times, and supposes some rudiments of mathematical science; and
+a profane taste for the arts is betrayed in his liberal invitation and
+reward of the painters of Italy. [7] But the influence of religion and
+learning were employed without effect on his savage and licentious
+nature. I will not transcribe, nor do I firmly believe, the stories of
+his fourteen pages, whose bellies were ripped open in search of a stolen
+melon; or of the beauteous slave, whose head he severed from her body,
+to convince the Janizaries that their master was not the votary of love.
+[701] His sobriety is attested by the silence of the Turkish annals,
+which accuse three, and three only, of the Ottoman line of the vice of
+drunkenness. [8] But it cannot be denied that his passions were at once
+furious and inexorable; that in the palace, as in the field, a torrent
+of blood was spilt on the slightest provocation; and that the noblest
+of the captive youth were often dishonored by his unnatural lust. In the
+Albanian war he studied the lessons, and soon surpassed the example, of
+his father; and the conquest of two empires, twelve kingdoms, and
+two hundred cities, a vain and flattering account, is ascribed to his
+invincible sword. He was doubtless a soldier, and possibly a general;
+Constantinople has sealed his glory; but if we compare the means,
+the obstacles, and the achievements, Mahomet the Second must blush to
+sustain a parallel with Alexander or Timour. Under his command, the
+Ottoman forces were always more numerous than their enemies; yet their
+progress was bounded by the Euphrates and the Adriatic; and his arms
+were checked by Huniades and Scanderbeg, by the Rhodian knights and by
+the Persian king.
+
+[Footnote 1: For the character of Mahomet II. it is dangerous to trust
+either the Turks or the Christians. The most moderate picture appears to
+be drawn by Phranza, (l. i. c. 33,) whose resentment had cooled in
+age and solitude; see likewise Spondanus, (A.D. 1451, No. 11,) and
+the continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii. p. 552,) the _Elogia_ of Paulus
+Jovius, (l. iii. p. 164--166,) and the Dictionnaire de Bayle, (tom. iii.
+p. 273--279.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cantemir, (p. 115.) and the mosques which he founded,
+attest his public regard for religion. Mahomet freely disputed with the
+Gennadius on the two religions, (Spond. A.D. 1453, No. 22.)]
+
+[Footnote 3: Quinque linguas pręter suam noverat, Gręcam, Latinam,
+Chaldaicam, Persicam. The Latin translator of Phranza has dropped the
+Arabic, which the Koran must recommend to every Mussulman. *
+Note: It appears in the original Greek text, p. 95, edit. Bonn.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Philelphus, by a Latin ode, requested and obtained
+the liberty of his wife's mother and sisters from the conqueror of
+Constantinople. It was delivered into the sultan's hands by the envoys
+of the duke of Milan. Philelphus himself was suspected of a design of
+retiring to Constantinople; yet the orator often sounded the trumpet of
+holy war, (see his Life by M. Lancelot, in the Mémoires de l'Académie
+des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718, 724, &c.)]
+
+[Footnote 5: Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his xii.
+books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of bombs. By
+his patron Sigismund Malatesta, prince of Rimini, it had been addressed
+with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.]
+
+[Footnote 6: According to Phranza, he assiduously studied the lives and
+actions of Alexander, Augustus, Constantine, and Theodosius. I have read
+somewhere, that Plutarch's Lives were translated by his orders into the
+Turkish language. If the sultan himself understood Greek, it must have
+been for the benefit of his subjects. Yet these lives are a school of
+freedom as well as of valor. *
+Note: Von Hammer disdainfully rejects this fable of Mahomet's knowledge
+of languages. Knolles adds, that he delighted in reading the history of
+Alexander the Great, and of Julius Cęsar. The former, no doubt, was the
+Persian legend, which, it is remarkable, came back to Europe, and was
+popular throughout the middle ages as the "Romaunt of Alexander." The
+founder of the Imperial dynasty of Rome, according to M. Von Hammer, is
+altogether unknown in the East. Mahomet was a great patron of Turkish
+literature: the romantic poems of Persia were translated, or imitated,
+under his patronage. Von Hammer vol ii. p. 268.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The famous Gentile Bellino, whom he had invited from
+Venice, was dismissed with a chain and collar of gold, and a purse
+of 3000 ducats. With Voltaire I laugh at the foolish story of a
+slave purposely beheaded to instruct the painter in the action of the
+muscles.]
+
+[Footnote 701: This story, the subject of Johnson's Irene, is rejected by
+M. Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 208. The German historian's general
+estimate of Mahomet's character agrees in its more marked features with
+Gibbon's.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 8: These Imperial drunkards were Soliman I., Selim II., and
+Amurath IV., (Cantemir, p. 61.) The sophis of Persia can produce a more
+regular succession; and in the last age, our European travellers were
+the witnesses and companions of their revels.]
+
+In the reign of Amurath, he twice tasted of royalty, and twice descended
+from the throne: his tender age was incapable of opposing his father's
+restoration, but never could he forgive the viziers who had recommended
+that salutary measure. His nuptials were celebrated with the daughter
+of a Turkman emir; and, after a festival of two months, he departed
+from Adrianople with his bride, to reside in the government of Magnesia.
+Before the end of six weeks, he was recalled by a sudden message from
+the divan, which announced the decease of Amurath, and the mutinous
+spirit of the Janizaries. His speed and vigor commanded their obedience:
+he passed the Hellespont with a chosen guard: and at the distance of a
+mile from Adrianople, the viziers and emirs, the imams and cadhis, the
+soldiers and the people, fell prostrate before the new sultan. They
+affected to weep, they affected to rejoice: he ascended the throne at
+the age of twenty-one years, and removed the cause of sedition by
+the death, the inevitable death, of his infant brothers. [9] [901] The
+ambassadors of Europe and Asia soon appeared to congratulate his
+accession and solicit his friendship; and to all he spoke the language
+of moderation and peace. The confidence of the Greek emperor was
+revived by the solemn oaths and fair assurances with which he sealed
+the ratification of the treaty: and a rich domain on the banks of the
+Strymon was assigned for the annual payment of three hundred thousand
+aspers, the pension of an Ottoman prince, who was detained at his
+request in the Byzantine court. Yet the neighbors of Mahomet might
+tremble at the severity with which a youthful monarch reformed the pomp
+of his father's household: the expenses of luxury were applied to those
+of ambition, and a useless train of seven thousand falconers was either
+dismissed from his service, or enlisted in his troops. [902] In the first
+summer of his reign, he visited with an army the Asiatic provinces;
+but after humbling the pride, Mahomet accepted the submission, of the
+Caramanian, that he might not be diverted by the smallest obstacle from
+the execution of his great design. [10]
+
+[Footnote 9: Calapin, one of these royal infants, was saved from
+his cruel brother, and baptized at Rome under the name of Callistus
+Othomannus. The emperor Frederic III. presented him with an estate
+in Austria, where he ended his life; and Cuspinian, who in his youth
+conversed with the aged prince at Vienna, applauds his piety and wisdom,
+(de Cęsaribus, p. 672, 673.)]
+
+[Footnote 901: Ahmed, the son of a Greek princess, was the object of his
+especial jealousy. Von Hammer, p. 501.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 902: The Janizaries obtained, for the first time, a gift on the
+accession of a new sovereign, p. 504.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 10: See the accession of Mahomet II. in Ducas, (c. 33,)
+Phranza, (l. i. c. 33, l. iii. c. 2,) Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 199,)
+and Cantemir, (p. 96.)]
+
+The Mahometan, and more especially the Turkish casuists, have pronounced
+that no promise can bind the faithful against the interest and duty of
+their religion; and that the sultan may abrogate his own treaties and
+those of his predecessors. The justice and magnanimity of Amurath had
+scorned this immoral privilege; but his son, though the proudest of
+men, could stoop from ambition to the basest arts of dissimulation
+and deceit. Peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart: he
+incessantly sighed for the possession of Constantinople; and the Greeks,
+by their own indiscretion, afforded the first pretence of the fatal
+rupture. [11] Instead of laboring to be forgotten, their ambassadors
+pursued his camp, to demand the payment, and even the increase, of their
+annual stipend: the divan was importuned by their complaints, and the
+vizier, a secret friend of the Christians, was constrained to deliver
+the sense of his brethren. "Ye foolish and miserable Romans," said
+Calil, "we know your devices, and ye are ignorant of your own danger!
+The scrupulous Amurath is no more; his throne is occupied by a young
+conqueror, whom no laws can bind, and no obstacles can resist: and if
+you escape from his hands, give praise to the divine clemency, which yet
+delays the chastisement of your sins. Why do ye seek to affright us by
+vain and indirect menaces? Release the fugitive Orchan, crown him sultan
+of Romania; call the Hungarians from beyond the Danube; arm against us
+the nations of the West; and be assured, that you will only provoke and
+precipitate your ruin." But if the fears of the ambassadors were alarmed
+by the stern language of the vizier, they were soothed by the courteous
+audience and friendly speeches of the Ottoman prince; and Mahomet
+assured them that on his return to Adrianople he would redress the
+grievances, and consult the true interests, of the Greeks. No sooner had
+he repassed the Hellespont, than he issued a mandate to suppress their
+pension, and to expel their officers from the banks of the Strymon: in
+this measure he betrayed a hostile mind; and the second order announced,
+and in some degree commenced, the siege of Constantinople. In the narrow
+pass of the Bosphorus, an Asiatic fortress had formerly been raised by
+his grandfather; in the opposite situation, on the European side, he
+resolved to erect a more formidable castle; and a thousand masons were
+commanded to assemble in the spring on a spot named Asomaton, about five
+miles from the Greek metropolis. [12] Persuasion is the resource of
+the feeble; and the feeble can seldom persuade: the ambassadors of the
+emperor attempted, without success, to divert Mahomet from the execution
+of his design. They represented, that his grandfather had solicited the
+permission of Manuel to build a castle on his own territories; but that
+this double fortification, which would command the strait, could only
+tend to violate the alliance of the nations; to intercept the Latins who
+traded in the Black Sea, and perhaps to annihilate the subsistence
+of the city. "I form the enterprise," replied the perfidious sultan,
+"against the city; but the empire of Constantinople is measured by her
+walls. Have you forgot the distress to which my father was reduced when
+you formed a league with the Hungarians; when they invaded our country
+by land, and the Hellespont was occupied by the French galleys? Amurath
+was compelled to force the passage of the Bosphorus; and your strength
+was not equal to your malevolence. I was then a child at Adrianople;
+the Moslems trembled; and, for a while, the _Gabours_ [13] insulted our
+disgrace. But when my father had triumphed in the field of Warna, he
+vowed to erect a fort on the western shore, and that vow it is my duty
+to accomplish. Have ye the right, have ye the power, to control my
+actions on my own ground? For that ground is my own: as far as the
+shores of the Bosphorus, Asia is inhabited by the Turks, and Europe is
+deserted by the Romans. Return, and inform your king, that the present
+Ottoman is far different from his predecessors; that _his_ resolutions
+surpass _their_ wishes; and that _he_ performs more _than_ they could
+resolve. Return in safety--but the next who delivers a similar message
+may expect to be flayed alive." After this declaration, Constantine,
+the first of the Greeks in spirit as in rank, [14] had determined to
+unsheathe the sword, and to resist the approach and establishment of the
+Turks on the Bosphorus. He was disarmed by the advice of his civil and
+ecclesiastical ministers, who recommended a system less generous,
+and even less prudent, than his own, to approve their patience and
+long-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt of an
+aggressor, and to depend on chance and time for their own safety, and
+the destruction of a fort which could not long be maintained in the
+neighborhood of a great and populous city. Amidst hope and fear, the
+fears of the wise, and the hopes of the credulous, the winter rolled
+away; the proper business of each man, and each hour, was postponed;
+and the Greeks shut their eyes against the impending danger, till the
+arrival of the spring and the sultan decide the assurance of their ruin.
+
+[Footnote 11: Before I enter on the siege of Constantinople, I shall
+observe, that except the short hints of Cantemir and Leunclavius, I have
+not been able to obtain any Turkish account of this conquest; such an
+account as we possess of the siege of Rhodes by Soliman II., (Mémoires
+de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxvi. p. 723--769.) I must
+therefore depend on the Greeks, whose prejudices, in some degree, are
+subdued by their distress. Our standard texts ar those of Ducas,
+(c. 34--42,) Phranza, (l. iii. c. 7--20,) Chalcondyles, (l. viii. p.
+201--214,) and Leonardus Chiensis, (Historia C. P. a Turco expugnatę.
+Norimberghę, 1544, in 4to., 20 leaves.) The last of these narratives is
+the earliest in date, since it was composed in the Isle of Chios, the
+16th of August, 1453, only seventy-nine days after the loss of the city,
+and in the first confusion of ideas and passions. Some hints may
+be added from an epistle of Cardinal Isidore (in Farragine Rerum
+Turcicarum, ad calcem Chalcondyl. Clauseri, Basil, 1556) to Pope
+Nicholas V., and a tract of Theodosius Zygomala, which he addressed in
+the year 1581 to Martin Crucius, (Turco-Gręcia, l. i. p. 74--98, Basil,
+1584.) The various facts and materials are briefly, though critically,
+reviewed by Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 1--27.) The hearsay relations of
+Monstrelet and the distant Latins I shall take leave to disregard. *
+Note: M. Von Hammer has added little new information on the siege of
+Constantinople, and, by his general agreement, has borne an honorable
+testimony to the truth, and by his close imitation to the graphic spirit
+and boldness, of Gibbon.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 12: The situation of the fortress, and the topography of the
+Bosphorus, are best learned from Peter Gyllius, (de Bosphoro Thracio, l.
+ii. c. 13,) Leunclavius, (Pandect. p. 445,) and Tournefort, (Voyage dans
+le Levant, tom. ii. lettre xv. p. 443, 444;) but I must regret the map
+or plan which Tournefort sent to the French minister of the marine. The
+reader may turn back to chap. xvii. of this History.]
+
+[Footnote 13: The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on the
+infidels, is expressed Kabour by Ducas, and _Giaour_ by Leunclavius and
+the moderns. The former term is derived by Ducange (Gloss. Gręc tom.
+i. p. 530) from Kabouron, in vulgar Greek, a tortoise, as denoting a
+retrograde motion from the faith. But alas! _Gabour_ is no more
+than _Gheber_, which was transferred from the Persian to the Turkish
+language, from the worshippers of fire to those of the crucifix,
+(D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 375.)]
+
+[Footnote 14: Phranza does justice to his master's sense and courage.
+Calliditatem hominis non ignorans Imperator prior arma movere
+constituit, and stigmatizes the folly of the cum sacri tum profani
+proceres, which he had heard, amentes spe vanā pasci. Ducas was not a
+privy-counsellor.]
+
+Of a master who never forgives, the orders are seldom disobeyed. On the
+twenty-sixth of March, the appointed spot of Asomaton was covered with
+an active swarm of Turkish artificers; and the materials by sea and land
+were diligently transported from Europe and Asia. [15] The lime had been
+burnt in Cataphrygia; the timber was cut down in the woods of Heraclea
+and Nicomedia; and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each
+of the thousand masons was assisted by two workmen; and a measure of two
+cubits was marked for their daily task. The fortress [16] was built in a
+triangular form; each angle was flanked by a strong and massy tower; one
+on the declivity of the hill, two along the sea-shore: a thickness of
+twenty-two feet was assigned for the walls, thirty for the towers; and
+the whole building was covered with a solid platform of lead. Mahomet
+himself pressed and directed the work with indefatigable ardor: his
+three viziers claimed the honor of finishing their respective towers;
+the zeal of the cadhis emulated that of the Janizaries; the meanest
+labor was ennobled by the service of God and the sultan; and the
+diligence of the multitude was quickened by the eye of a despot, whose
+smile was the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the messenger of
+death. The Greek emperor beheld with terror the irresistible progress
+of the work; and vainly strove, by flattery and gifts, to assuage
+an implacable foe, who sought, and secretly fomented, the slightest
+occasion of a quarrel. Such occasions must soon and inevitably be found.
+The ruins of stately churches, and even the marble columns which had
+been consecrated to Saint Michael the archangel, were employed without
+scruple by the profane and rapacious Moslems; and some Christians, who
+presumed to oppose the removal, received from their hands the crown
+of martyrdom. Constantine had solicited a Turkish guard to protect the
+fields and harvests of his subjects: the guard was fixed; but their
+first order was to allow free pasture to the mules and horses of the
+camp, and to defend their brethren if they should be molested by the
+natives. The retinue of an Ottoman chief had left their horses to pass
+the night among the ripe corn; the damage was felt; the insult was
+resented; and several of both nations were slain in a tumultuous
+conflict. Mahomet listened with joy to the complaint; and a detachment
+was commanded to exterminate the guilty village: the guilty had fled;
+but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were massacred by the
+soldiers. Till this provocation, Constantinople had been opened to the
+visits of commerce and curiosity: on the first alarm, the gates were
+shut; but the emperor, still anxious for peace, released on the third
+day his Turkish captives; [17] and expressed, in a last message, the
+firm resignation of a Christian and a soldier. "Since neither oaths, nor
+treaty, nor submission, can secure peace, pursue," said he to Mahomet,
+"your impious warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it should please
+him to mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if he
+delivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to his holy
+will. But until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce between us, it
+is my duty to live and die in the defence of my people." The sultan's
+answer was hostile and decisive: his fortifications were completed; and
+before his departure for Adrianople, he stationed a vigilant Aga and
+four hundred Janizaries, to levy a tribute on the ships of every nation
+that should pass within the reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel,
+refusing obedience to the new lords of the Bosphorus, was sunk with a
+single bullet. [171] The master and thirty sailors escaped in the boat; but
+they were dragged in chains to the _Porte_: the chief was impaled;
+his companions were beheaded; and the historian Ducas [18] beheld,
+at Demotica, their bodies exposed to the wild beasts. The siege of
+Constantinople was deferred till the ensuing spring; but an Ottoman
+army marched into the Morea to divert the force of the brothers of
+Constantine. At this ęra of calamity, one of these princes, the despot
+Thomas, was blessed or afflicted with the birth of a son; "the last
+heir," says the plaintive Phranza, "of the last spark of the Roman
+empire." [19]
+
+[Footnote 15: Instead of this clear and consistent account, the Turkish
+Annals (Cantemir, p. 97) revived the foolish tale of the ox's hide, and
+Dido's stratagem in the foundation of Carthage. These annals (unless we
+are swayed by an anti-Christian prejudice) are far less valuable than
+the Greek historians.]
+
+[Footnote 16: In the dimensions of this fortress, the old castle
+of Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with Chalcondyles, whose
+description has been verified on the spot by his editor Leunclavius.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Among these were some pages of Mahomet, so conscious of
+his inexorable rigor, that they begged to lose their heads in the city
+unless they could return before sunset.]
+
+[Footnote 171: This was from a model cannon cast by Urban the Hungarian.
+See p. 291. Von Hammer. p. 510.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Ducas, c. 35. Phranza, (l. iii. c. 3,) who had sailed in
+his vessel, commemorates the Venetian pilot as a martyr.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Auctum est Palęologorum genus, et Imperii successor,
+parvęque Romanorum scintillę hęres natus, Andreas, &c., (Phranza, l.
+iii. c. 7.) The strong expression was inspired by his feelings.]
+
+The Greeks and the Turks passed an anxious and sleepless winter: the
+former were kept awake by their fears, the latter by their hopes; both
+by the preparations of defence and attack; and the two emperors, who
+had the most to lose or to gain, were the most deeply affected by the
+national sentiment. In Mahomet, that sentiment was inflamed by the
+ardor of his youth and temper: he amused his leisure with building at
+Adrianople [20] the lofty palace of Jehan Numa, (the watchtower of the
+world;) but his serious thoughts were irrevocably bent on the conquest
+of the city of Cęsar. At the dead of night, about the second watch, he
+started from his bed, and commanded the instant attendance of his
+prime vizier. The message, the hour, the prince, and his own situation,
+alarmed the guilty conscience of Calil Basha; who had possessed the
+confidence, and advised the restoration, of Amurath. On the accession of
+the son, the vizier was confirmed in his office and the appearances of
+favor; but the veteran statesman was not insensible that he trod on a
+thin and slippery ice, which might break under his footsteps, and plunge
+him in the abyss. His friendship for the Christians, which might be
+innocent under the late reign, had stigmatized him with the name of
+Gabour Ortachi, or foster-brother of the infidels; [21] and his avarice
+entertained a venal and treasonable correspondence, which was detected
+and punished after the conclusion of the war. On receiving the royal
+mandate, he embraced, perhaps for the last time, his wife and children;
+filled a cup with pieces of gold, hastened to the palace, adored the
+sultan, and offered, according to the Oriental custom, the slight
+tribute of his duty and gratitude. [22] "It is not my wish," said
+Mahomet, "to resume my gifts, but rather to heap and multiply them
+on thy head. In my turn, I ask a present far more valuable and
+important;--Constantinople." As soon as the vizier had recovered from
+his surprise, "The same God," said he, "who has already given thee so
+large a portion of the Roman empire, will not deny the remnant, and the
+capital. His providence, and thy power, assure thy success; and myself,
+with the rest of thy faithful slaves, will sacrifice our lives and
+fortunes."--"Lala," [23] (or preceptor,) continued the sultan, "do you
+see this pillow? All the night, in my agitation, I have pulled it on one
+side and the other; I have risen from my bed, again have I lain down;
+yet sleep has not visited these weary eyes. Beware of the gold and
+silver of the Romans: in arms we are superior; and with the aid of God,
+and the prayers of the prophet, we shall speedily become masters of
+Constantinople." To sound the disposition of his soldiers, he often
+wandered through the streets alone, and in disguise; and it was fatal to
+discover the sultan, when he wished to escape from the vulgar eye.
+His hours were spent in delineating the plan of the hostile city; in
+debating with his generals and engineers, on what spot he should erect
+his batteries; on which side he should assault the walls; where
+he should spring his mines; to what place he should apply his
+scaling-ladders: and the exercises of the day repeated and proved the
+lucubrations of the night.
+
+[Footnote 20: Cantemir, p. 97, 98. The sultan was either doubtful of his
+conquest, or ignorant of the superior merits of Constantinople. A city
+or a kingdom may sometimes be ruined by the Imperial fortune of their
+sovereign.]
+
+[Footnote 21: SuntrojoV, by the president Cousin, is translated _pčre_
+nourricier, most correctly indeed from the Latin version; but in his
+haste he has overlooked the note by which Ishmael Boillaud (ad Ducam, c.
+35) acknowledges and rectifies his own error.]
+
+[Footnote 22: The Oriental custom of never appearing without gifts
+before a sovereign or a superior is of high antiquity, and seems
+analogous with the idea of sacrifice, still more ancient and universal.
+See the examples of such Persian gifts, Ęlian, Hist. Var. l. i. c. 31,
+32, 33.]
+
+[Footnote 23: The _Lala_ of the Turks (Cantemir, p. 34) and the _Tata_
+of the Greeks (Ducas, c. 35) are derived from the natural language of
+children; and it may be observed, that all such primitive words which
+denote their parents, are the simple repetition of one syllable,
+composed of a labial or a dental consonant and an open vowel, (Des
+Brosses, Méchanisme des Langues, tom. i. p. 231--247.)]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern Empire.--Part II.
+
+Among the implements of destruction, he studied with peculiar care
+the recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins; and his artillery
+surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world. A founder of cannon, a
+Dane [231] or Hungarian, who had been almost starved in the Greek service,
+deserted to the Moslems, and was liberally entertained by the Turkish
+sultan. Mahomet was satisfied with the answer to his first question,
+which he eagerly pressed on the artist. "Am I able to cast a cannon
+capable of throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the
+walls of Constantinople? I am not ignorant of their strength; but were
+they more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine of
+superior power: the position and management of that engine must be left
+to your engineers." On this assurance, a foundry was established at
+Adrianople: the metal was prepared; and at the end of three months,
+Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of stupendous, and almost
+incredible magnitude; a measure of twelve palms is assigned to the bore;
+and the stone bullet weighed above six hundred pounds. [24] [241] A vacant
+place before the new palace was chosen for the first experiment; but to
+prevent the sudden and mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, a
+proclamation was issued, that the cannon would be discharged the ensuing
+day. The explosion was felt or heard in a circuit of a hundred furlongs:
+the ball, by the force of gunpowder, was driven above a mile; and on the
+spot where it fell, it buried itself a fathom deep in the ground. For
+the conveyance of this destructive engine, a frame or carriage of thirty
+wagons was linked together and drawn along by a team of sixty oxen:
+two hundred men on both sides were stationed, to poise and support the
+rolling weight; two hundred and fifty workmen marched before to smooth
+the way and repair the bridges; and near two months were employed in a
+laborious journey of one hundred and fifty miles. A lively philosopher
+[25] derides on this occasion the credulity of the Greeks, and observes,
+with much reason, that we should always distrust the exaggerations of
+a vanquished people. He calculates, that a ball, even o two hundred
+pounds, would require a charge of one hundred and fifty pounds of
+powder; and that the stroke would be feeble and impotent, since not
+a fifteenth part of the mass could be inflamed at the same moment.
+A stranger as I am to the art of destruction, I can discern that the
+modern improvements of artillery prefer the number of pieces to the
+weight of metal; the quickness of the fire to the sound, or even the
+consequence, of a single explosion. Yet I dare not reject the positive
+and unanimous evidence of contemporary writers; nor can it seem
+improbable, that the first artists, in their rude and ambitious efforts,
+should have transgressed the standard of moderation. A Turkish cannon,
+more enormous than that of Mahomet, still guards the entrance of the
+Dardanelles; and if the use be inconvenient, it has been found on a
+late trial that the effect was far from contemptible. A stone bullet of
+_eleven_ hundred pounds' weight was once discharged with three hundred
+and thirty pounds of powder: at the distance of six hundred yards it
+shivered into three rocky fragments; traversed the strait; and leaving
+the waters in a foam, again rose and bounded against the opposite hill.
+[26]
+
+[Footnote 231: Gibbon has written Dane by mistake for Dace, or Dacian. Lax
+ti kinoV?. Chalcondyles, Von Hammer, p. 510.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 24: The Attic talent weighed about sixty minę, or avoirdupois
+pounds (see Hooper on Ancient Weights, Measures, &c.;) but among the
+modern Greeks, that classic appellation was extended to a weight of one
+hundred, or one hundred and twenty-five pounds, (Ducange, talanton.)
+Leonardus Chiensis measured the ball or stone of the _second_ cannon
+Lapidem, qui palmis undecim ex meis ambibat in gyro.]
+
+[Footnote 241: 1200, according to Leonardus Chiensis. Von Hammer states
+that he had himself seen the great cannon of the Dardanelles, in which
+a tailor who had run away from his creditors, had concealed himself
+several days Von Hammer had measured balls twelve spans round. Note. p.
+666.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 25: See Voltaire, (Hist. Générale, c. xci. p. 294, 295.) He
+was ambitious of universal monarchy; and the poet frequently aspires to
+the name and style of an astronomer, a chemist, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 26: The Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 85--89,) who fortified
+the Dardanelles against the Russians, describes in a lively, and even
+comic, strain his own prowess, and the consternation of the Turks.
+But that adventurous traveller does not possess the art of gaining our
+confidence.]
+
+While Mahomet threatened the capital of the East, the Greek emperor
+implored with fervent prayers the assistance of earth and heaven. But
+the invisible powers were deaf to his supplications; and Christendom
+beheld with indifference the fall of Constantinople, while she derived
+at least some promise of supply from the jealous and temporal policy of
+the sultan of Egypt. Some states were too weak, and others too remote;
+by some the danger was considered as imaginary by others as inevitable:
+the Western princes were involved in their endless and domestic
+quarrels; and the Roman pontiff was exasperated by the falsehood or
+obstinacy of the Greeks. Instead of employing in their favor the
+arms and treasures of Italy, Nicholas the Fifth had foretold their
+approaching ruin; and his honor was engaged in the accomplishment of
+his prophecy. [261] Perhaps he was softened by the last extremity o their
+distress; but his compassion was tardy; his efforts were faint and
+unavailing; and Constantinople had fallen, before the squadrons of Genoa
+and Venice could sail from their harbors. [27] Even the princes of the
+Morea and of the Greek islands affected a cold neutrality: the Genoese
+colony of Galata negotiated a private treaty; and the sultan indulged
+them in the delusive hope, that by his clemency they might survive the
+ruin of the empire. A plebeian crowd, and some Byzantine nobles basely
+withdrew from the danger of their country; and the avarice of the rich
+denied the emperor, and reserved for the Turks, the secret treasures
+which might have raised in their defence whole armies of mercenaries.
+[28] The indigent and solitary prince prepared, however, to sustain his
+formidable adversary; but if his courage were equal to the peril, his
+strength was inadequate to the contest. In the beginning of the spring,
+the Turkish vanguard swept the towns and villages as far as the gates of
+Constantinople: submission was spared and protected; whatever presumed
+to resist was exterminated with fire and sword. The Greek places on
+the Black Sea, Mesembria, Acheloum, and Bizon, surrendered on the first
+summons; Selybria alone deserved the honors of a siege or blockade; and
+the bold inhabitants, while they were invested by land, launched their
+boats, pillaged the opposite coast of Cyzicus, and sold their captives
+in the public market. But on the approach of Mahomet himself all was
+silent and prostrate: he first halted at the distance of five miles; and
+from thence advancing in battle array, planted before the gates of St.
+Romanus the Imperial standard; and on the sixth day of April formed the
+memorable siege of Constantinople.
+
+[Footnote 261: See the curious Christian and Mahometan predictions of the
+fall of Constantinople, Von Hammer, p. 518.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Non audivit, indignum ducens, says the honest Antoninus;
+but as the Roman court was afterwards grieved and ashamed, we find the
+more courtly expression of Platina, in animo fuisse pontifici juvare
+Gręcos, and the positive assertion of Ęneas Sylvius, structam classem
+&c. (Spond. A.D. 1453, No. 3.)]
+
+[Footnote 28: Antonin. in Proem.--Epist. Cardinal. Isidor. apud
+Spondanum and Dr. Johnson, in the tragedy of Irene, has happily seized
+this characteristic circumstance:--
+     The groaning Greeks dig up the golden caverns.
+     The accumulated wealth of hoarding ages;
+     That wealth which, granted to their weeping prince,
+     Had ranged embattled nations at their gates.]
+
+The troops of Asia and Europe extended on the right and left from the
+Propontis to the harbor; the Janizaries in the front were stationed
+before the sultan's tent; the Ottoman line was covered by a deep
+intrenchment; and a subordinate army enclosed the suburb of Galata, and
+watched the doubtful faith of the Genoese. The inquisitive Philelphus,
+who resided in Greece about thirty years before the siege, is confident,
+that all the Turkish forces of any name or value could not exceed the
+number of sixty thousand horse and twenty thousand foot; and he upbraids
+the pusillanimity of the nations, who had tamely yielded to a handful
+of Barbarians. Such indeed might be the regular establishment of the
+_Capiculi_, [29] the troops of the Porte who marched with the prince, and
+were paid from his royal treasury. But the bashaws, in their respective
+governments, maintained or levied a provincial militia; many lands were
+held by a military tenure; many volunteers were attracted by the hope
+of spoil and the sound of the holy trumpet invited a swarm of hungry
+and fearless fanatics, who might contribute at least to multiply the
+terrors, and in a first attack to blunt the swords, of the Christians.
+The whole mass of the Turkish powers is magnified by Ducas,
+Chalcondyles, and Leonard of Chios, to the amount of three or four
+hundred thousand men; but Phranza was a less remote and more accurate
+judge; and his precise definition of two hundred and fifty-eight
+thousand does not exceed the measure of experience and probability.
+[30] The navy of the besiegers was less formidable: the Propontis was
+overspread with three hundred and twenty sail; but of these no more than
+eighteen could be rated as galleys of war; and the far greater part must
+be degraded to the condition of store-ships and transports, which poured
+into the camp fresh supplies of men, ammunition, and provisions. In her
+last decay, Constantinople was still peopled with more than a hundred
+thousand inhabitants; but these numbers are found in the accounts, not
+of war, but of captivity; and they mostly consisted of mechanics, of
+priests, of women, and of men devoid of that spirit which even women
+have sometimes exerted for the common safety. I can suppose, I could
+almost excuse, the reluctance of subjects to serve on a distant
+frontier, at the will of a tyrant; but the man who dares not expose
+his life in the defence of his children and his property, has lost in
+society the first and most active energies of nature. By the emperor's
+command, a particular inquiry had been made through the streets and
+houses, how many of the citizens, or even of the monks, were able and
+willing to bear arms for their country. The lists were intrusted to
+Phranza; [31] and, after a diligent addition, he informed his master,
+with grief and surprise, that the national defence was reduced to four
+thousand nine hundred and seventy _Romans_. Between Constantine and
+his faithful minister this comfortless secret was preserved; and
+a sufficient proportion of shields, cross-bows, and muskets, were
+distributed from the arsenal to the city bands. They derived some
+accession from a body of two thousand strangers, under the command of
+John Justiniani, a noble Genoese; a liberal donative was advanced to
+these auxiliaries; and a princely recompense, the Isle of Lemnos, was
+promised to the valor and victory of their chief. A strong chain was
+drawn across the mouth of the harbor: it was supported by some Greek and
+Italian vessels of war and merchandise; and the ships of every Christian
+nation, that successively arrived from Candia and the Black Sea, were
+detained for the public service. Against the powers of the Ottoman
+empire, a city of the extent of thirteen, perhaps of sixteen, miles
+was defended by a scanty garrison of seven or eight thousand soldiers.
+Europe and Asia were open to the besiegers; but the strength and
+provisions of the Greeks must sustain a daily decrease; nor could they
+indulge the expectation of any foreign succor or supply.
+
+[Footnote 29: The palatine troops are styled _Capiculi_, the
+provincials, _Seratculi_; and most of the names and institutions of the
+Turkish militia existed before the _Canon Nameh_ of Soliman II, from
+which, and his own experience, Count Marsigli has composed his military
+state of the Ottoman empire.]
+
+[Footnote 30: The observation of Philelphus is approved by Cuspinian in
+the year 1508, (de Cęsaribus, in Epilog. de Militiā Turcicā, p. 697.)
+Marsigli proves, that the effective armies of the Turks are much less
+numerous than they appear. In the army that besieged Constantinople
+Leonardus Chiensis reckons no more than 15,000 Janizaries.]
+
+[Footnote 31: Ego, eidem (Imp.) tabellas extribui non absque dolore et
+mstitia, mansitque apud nos duos aliis occultus numerus, (Phranza, l.
+iii. c. 8.) With some indulgence for national prejudices, we cannot
+desire a more authentic witness, not only of public facts, but of
+private counsels.]
+
+The primitive Romans would have drawn their swords in the resolution
+of death or conquest. The primitive Christians might have embraced each
+other, and awaited in patience and charity the stroke of martyrdom.
+But the Greeks of Constantinople were animated only by the spirit of
+religion, and that spirit was productive only of animosity and discord.
+Before his death, the emperor John Palęologus had renounced the
+unpopular measure of a union with the Latins; nor was the idea revived,
+till the distress of his brother Constantine imposed a last trial of
+flattery and dissimulation. [32] With the demand of temporal aid,
+his ambassadors were instructed to mingle the assurance of spiritual
+obedience: his neglect of the church was excused by the urgent cares
+of the state; and his orthodox wishes solicited the presence of a
+Roman legate. The Vatican had been too often deluded; yet the signs of
+repentance could not decently be overlooked; a legate was more easily
+granted than an army; and about six months before the final destruction,
+the cardinal Isidore of Russia appeared in that character with a retinue
+of priests and soldiers. The emperor saluted him as a friend and father;
+respectfully listened to his public and private sermons; and with the
+most obsequious of the clergy and laymen subscribed the act of union,
+as it had been ratified in the council of Florence. On the twelfth of
+December, the two nations, in the church of St. Sophia, joined in the
+communion of sacrifice and prayer; and the names of the two pontiffs
+were solemnly commemorated; the names of Nicholas the Fifth, the vicar
+of Christ, and of the patriarch Gregory, who had been driven into exile
+by a rebellious people.
+
+[Footnote 32: In Spondanus, the narrative of the union is not only
+partial, but imperfect. The bishop of Pamiers died in 1642, and the
+history of Ducas, which represents these scenes (c. 36, 37) with such
+truth and spirit, was not printed till the year 1649.]
+
+But the dress and language of the Latin priest who officiated at the
+altar were an object of scandal; and it was observed with horror, that
+he consecrated a cake or wafer of _unleavened_ bread, and poured cold
+water into the cup of the sacrament. A national historian acknowledges
+with a blush, that none of his countrymen, not the emperor himself, were
+sincere in this occasional conformity. [33] Their hasty and unconditional
+submission was palliated by a promise of future revisal; but the best,
+or the worst, of their excuses was the confession of their own perjury.
+When they were pressed by the reproaches of their honest brethren, "Have
+patience," they whispered, "have patience till God shall have delivered
+the city from the great dragon who seeks to devour us. You shall
+then perceive whether we are truly reconciled with the Azymites." But
+patience is not the attribute of zeal; nor can the arts of a court be
+adapted to the freedom and violence of popular enthusiasm. From the dome
+of St. Sophia the inhabitants of either sex, and of every degree, rushed
+in crowds to the cell of the monk Gennadius, [34] to consult the oracle
+of the church. The holy man was invisible; entranced, as it should seem,
+in deep meditation, or divine rapture: but he had exposed on the door
+of his cell a speaking tablet; and they successively withdrew, after
+reading those tremendous words: "O miserable Romans, why will ye abandon
+the truth? and why, instead of confiding in God, will ye put your trust
+in the Italians? In losing your faith you will lose your city. Have
+mercy on me, O Lord! I protest in thy presence that I am innocent of
+the crime. O miserable Romans, consider, pause, and repent. At the same
+moment that you renounce the religion of your fathers, by embracing
+impiety, you submit to a foreign servitude." According to the advice
+of Gennadius, the religious virgins, as pure as angels, and as proud as
+dęmons, rejected the act of union, and abjured all communion with the
+present and future associates of the Latins; and their example was
+applauded and imitated by the greatest part of the clergy and people.
+From the monastery, the devout Greeks dispersed themselves in the
+taverns; drank confusion to the slaves of the pope; emptied their
+glasses in honor of the image of the holy Virgin; and besought her
+to defend against Mahomet the city which she had formerly saved from
+Chosroes and the Chagan. In the double intoxication of zeal and wine,
+they valiantly exclaimed, "What occasion have we for succor, or union,
+or Latins? Far from us be the worship of the Azymites!" During the
+winter that preceded the Turkish conquest, the nation was distracted by
+this epidemical frenzy; and the season of Lent, the approach of Easter,
+instead of breathing charity and love, served only to fortify the
+obstinacy and influence of the zealots. The confessors scrutinized and
+alarmed the conscience of their votaries, and a rigorous penance was
+imposed on those who had received the communion from a priest who had
+given an express or tacit consent to the union. His service at the
+altar propagated the infection to the mute and simple spectators of the
+ceremony: they forfeited, by the impure spectacle, the virtue of the
+sacerdotal character; nor was it lawful, even in danger of sudden death,
+to invoke the assistance of their prayers or absolution. No sooner had
+the church of St. Sophia been polluted by the Latin sacrifice, than it
+was deserted as a Jewish synagogue, or a heathen temple, by the clergy
+and people; and a vast and gloomy silence prevailed in that venerable
+dome, which had so often smoked with a cloud of incense, blazed
+with innumerable lights, and resounded with the voice of prayer and
+thanksgiving. The Latins were the most odious of heretics and infidels;
+and the first minister of the empire, the great duke, was heard to
+declare, that he had rather behold in Constantinople the turban of
+Mahomet, than the pope's tiara or a cardinal's hat. [35] A sentiment
+so unworthy of Christians and patriots was familiar and fatal to the
+Greeks: the emperor was deprived of the affection and support of his
+subjects; and their native cowardice was sanctified by resignation to
+the divine decree, or the visionary hope of a miraculous deliverance.
+
+[Footnote 33: Phranza, one of the conforming Greeks, acknowledges that
+the measure was adopted only propter spem auxilii; he affirms with
+pleasure, that those who refused to perform their devotions in St.
+Sophia, extra culpam et in pace essent, (l. iii. c. 20.)]
+
+[Footnote 34: His primitive and secular name was George Scholarius,
+which he changed for that of Gennadius, either when he became a monk or
+a patriarch. His defence, at Florence, of the same union, which he so
+furiously attacked at Constantinople, has tempted Leo Allatius (Diatrib.
+de Georgiis, in Fabric. Bibliot. Gręc. tom. x. p. 760--786) to divide
+him into two men; but Renaudot (p. 343--383) has restored the identity
+of his person and the duplicity of his character.]
+
+[Footnote 35: Fakiolion, kaluptra, may be fairly translated a cardinal's
+hat. The difference of the Greek and Latin habits imbittered the
+schism.]
+
+Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople, the two
+sides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy; the Propontis by
+nature, and the harbor by art. Between the two waters, the basis of the
+triangle, the land side was protected by a double wall, and a deep ditch
+of the depth of one hundred feet. Against this line of fortification,
+which Phranza, an eye-witness, prolongs to the measure of six miles,
+[36] the Ottomans directed their principal attack; and the emperor, after
+distributing the service and command of the most perilous stations,
+undertook the defence of the external wall. In the first days of the
+siege the Greek soldiers descended into the ditch, or sallied into
+the field; but they soon discovered, that, in the proportion of their
+numbers, one Christian was of more value than twenty Turks: and, after
+these bold preludes, they were prudently content to maintain the rampart
+with their missile weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused of
+pusillanimity. The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; but
+the last Constantine deserves the name of a hero: his noble band of
+volunteers was inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign auxiliaries
+supported the honor of the Western chivalry. The incessant volleys of
+lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and the
+fire, of their musketry and cannon. Their small arms discharged at the
+same time either five, or even ten, balls of lead, of the size of a
+walnut; and, according to the closeness of the ranks and the force of
+the powder, several breastplates and bodies were transpierced by the
+same shot. But the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches, or
+covered with ruins. Each day added to the science of the Christians; but
+their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations of each
+day. Their ordnance was not powerful, either in size or number; and
+if they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to plant them on the
+walls, lest the aged structure should be shaken and overthrown by the
+explosion. [37] The same destructive secret had been revealed to the
+Moslems; by whom it was employed with the superior energy of zeal,
+riches, and despotism. The great cannon of Mahomet has been separately
+noticed; an important and visible object in the history of the times:
+but that enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal
+magnitude: [38] the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed
+against the walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most
+accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed, that
+it was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns, or that it discharged
+one hundred and thirty bullets. Yet in the power and activity of the
+sultan, we may discern the infancy of the new science. Under a master
+who counted the moments, the great cannon could be loaded and fired no
+more than seven times in one day. [39] The heated metal unfortunately
+burst; several workmen were destroyed; and the skill of an artist [391] was
+admired who bethought himself of preventing the danger and the accident,
+by pouring oil, after each explosion, into the mouth of the cannon.
+
+[Footnote 36: We are obliged to reduce the Greek miles to the smallest
+measure which is preserved in the wersts of Russia, of 547 French
+_toises_, and of 104 2/5 to a degree. The six miles of Phranza do not
+exceed four English miles, (D'Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 61, 123,
+&c.)]
+
+[Footnote 37: At indies doctiores nostri facti paravere contra hostes
+machinamenta, quę tamen avare dabantur. Pulvis erat nitri modica exigua;
+tela modica; bombardę, si aderant incommoditate loci primum hostes
+offendere, maceriebus alveisque tectos, non poterant. Nam si quę magnę
+erant, ne murus concuteretur noster, quiescebant. This passage of
+Leonardus Chiensis is curious and important.]
+
+[Footnote 38: According to Chalcondyles and Phranza, the great cannon
+burst; an incident which, according to Ducas, was prevented by the
+artist's skill. It is evident that they do not speak of the same gun. *
+Note: They speak, one of a Byzantine, one of a Turkish, gun. Von
+Hammer note, p. 669.]
+
+[Footnote 39: Near a hundred years after the siege of Constantinople,
+the French and English fleets in the Channel were proud of firing 300
+shot in an engagement of two hours, (Mémoires de Martin du Bellay, l.
+x., in the Collection Générale, tom. xxi. p. 239.)]
+
+[Footnote 391: The founder of the gun. Von Hammer, p. 526.]
+
+The first random shots were productive of more sound than effect; and
+it was by the advice of a Christian, that the engineers were taught to
+level their aim against the two opposite sides of the salient angles of
+a bastion. However imperfect, the weight and repetition of the fire made
+some impression on the walls; and the Turks, pushing their approaches
+to the edge of the ditch, attempted to fill the enormous chasm, and to
+build a road to the assault. [40] Innumerable fascines, and hogsheads,
+and trunks of trees, were heaped on each other; and such was the
+impetuosity of the throng, that the foremost and the weakest were pushed
+headlong down the precipice, and instantly buried under the accumulated
+mass. To fill the ditch was the toil of the besiegers; to clear away
+the rubbish was the safety of the besieged; and after a long and bloody
+conflict, the web that had been woven in the day was still unravelled in
+the night. The next resource of Mahomet was the practice of mines; but
+the soil was rocky; in every attempt he was stopped and undermined
+by the Christian engineers; nor had the art been yet invented of
+replenishing those subterraneous passages with gunpowder, and
+blowing whole towers and cities into the air. [41] A circumstance that
+distinguishes the siege of Constantinople is the reunion of the ancient
+and modern artillery. The cannon were intermingled with the mechanical
+engines for casting stones and darts; the bullet and the battering-ram
+[411] were directed against the same walls: nor had the discovery of
+gunpowder superseded the use of the liquid and unextinguishable fire. A
+wooden turret of the largest size was advanced on rollers this portable
+magazine of ammunition and fascines was protected by a threefold
+covering of bulls' hides: incessant volleys were securely discharged
+from the loop-holes; in the front, three doors were contrived for the
+alternate sally and retreat of the soldiers and workmen. They ascended
+by a staircase to the upper platform, and, as high as the level of that
+platform, a scaling-ladder could be raised by pulleys to form a
+bridge, and grapple with the adverse rampart. By these various arts of
+annoyance, some as new as they were pernicious to the Greeks, the tower
+of St. Romanus was at length overturned: after a severe struggle, the
+Turks were repulsed from the breach, and interrupted by darkness; but
+they trusted that with the return of light they should renew the attack
+with fresh vigor and decisive success. Of this pause of action, this
+interval of hope, each moment was improved, by the activity of the
+emperor and Justiniani, who passed the night on the spot, and urged the
+labors which involved the safety of the church and city. At the dawn of
+day, the impatient sultan perceived, with astonishment and grief, that
+his wooden turret had been reduced to ashes: the ditch was cleared and
+restored; and the tower of St. Romanus was again strong and entire. He
+deplored the failure of his design; and uttered a profane exclamation,
+that the word of the thirty-seven thousand prophets should not have
+compelled him to believe that such a work, in so short a time, could
+have been accomplished by the infidels.
+
+[Footnote 40: I have selected some curious facts, without striving to
+emulate the bloody and obstinate eloquence of the abbé de Vertot, in
+his prolix descriptions of the sieges of Rhodes, Malta, &c. But that
+agreeable historian had a turn for romance; and as he wrote to please
+the order he had adopted the same spirit of enthusiasm and chivalry.]
+
+[Footnote 41: The first theory of mines with gunpowder appears in 1480
+in a MS. of George of Sienna, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p. 324.)
+They were first practised by Sarzanella, in 1487; but the honor and
+improvement in 1503 is ascribed to Peter of Navarre, who used them with
+success in the wars of Italy, (Hist. de la Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p.
+93--97.)]
+
+[Footnote 411: The battering-ram according to Von Hammer, (p. 670,) was
+not used.--M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern Empire.--Part III.
+
+The generosity of the Christian princes was cold and tardy; but in the
+first apprehension of a siege, Constantine had negotiated, in the
+isles of the Archipelago, the Morea, and Sicily, the most indispensable
+supplies. As early as the beginning of April, five [42] great ships,
+equipped for merchandise and war, would have sailed from the harbor of
+Chios, had not the wind blown obstinately from the north. [43] One of
+these ships bore the Imperial flag; the remaining four belonged to the
+Genoese; and they were laden with wheat and barley, with wine, oil, and
+vegetables, and, above all, with soldiers and mariners for the service
+of the capital. After a tedious delay, a gentle breeze, and, on the
+second day, a strong gale from the south, carried them through the
+Hellespont and the Propontis: but the city was already invested by sea
+and land; and the Turkish fleet, at the entrance of the Bosphorus, was
+stretched from shore to shore, in the form of a crescent, to intercept,
+or at least to repel, these bold auxiliaries. The reader who has present
+to his mind the geographical picture of Constantinople, will conceive
+and admire the greatness of the spectacle. The five Christian ships
+continued to advance with joyful shouts, and a full press both of sails
+and oars, against a hostile fleet of three hundred vessels; and the
+rampart, the camp, the coasts of Europe and Asia, were lined with
+innumerable spectators, who anxiously awaited the event of this
+momentous succor. At the first view that event could not appear
+doubtful; the superiority of the Moslems was beyond all measure or
+account: and, in a calm, their numbers and valor must inevitably have
+prevailed. But their hasty and imperfect navy had been created, not by
+the genius of the people, but by the will of the sultan: in the height
+of their prosperity, the Turks have acknowledged, that if God had given
+them the earth, he had left the sea to the infidels; [44] and a series of
+defeats, a rapid progress of decay, has established the truth of their
+modest confession. Except eighteen galleys of some force, the rest of
+their fleet consisted of open boats, rudely constructed and awkwardly
+managed, crowded with troops, and destitute of cannon; and since courage
+arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength, the
+bravest of the Janizaries might tremble on a new element. In the
+Christian squadron, five stout and lofty ships were guided by skilful
+pilots, and manned with the veterans of Italy and Greece, long practised
+in the arts and perils of the sea. Their weight was directed to sink or
+scatter the weak obstacles that impeded their passage: their artillery
+swept the waters: their liquid fire was poured on the heads of the
+adversaries, who, with the design of boarding, presumed to approach
+them; and the winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest
+navigators. In this conflict, the Imperial vessel, which had been almost
+overpowered, was rescued by the Genoese; but the Turks, in a distant
+and closer attack, were twice repulsed with considerable loss. Mahomet
+himself sat on horseback on the beach to encourage their valor by his
+voice and presence, by the promise of reward, and by fear more potent
+than the fear of the enemy. The passions of his soul, and even
+the gestures of his body, [45] seemed to imitate the actions of the
+combatants; and, as if he had been the lord of nature, he spurred
+his horse with a fearless and impotent effort into the sea. His loud
+reproaches, and the clamors of the camp, urged the Ottomans to a third
+attack, more fatal and bloody than the two former; and I must repeat,
+though I cannot credit, the evidence of Phranza, who affirms, from their
+own mouth, that they lost above twelve thousand men in the slaughter of
+the day. They fled in disorder to the shores of Europe and Asia,
+while the Christian squadron, triumphant and unhurt, steered along the
+Bosphorus, and securely anchored within the chain of the harbor. In the
+confidence of victory, they boasted that the whole Turkish power must
+have yielded to their arms; but the admiral, or captain bashaw, found
+some consolation for a painful wound in his eye, by representing that
+accident as the cause of his defeat. Balthi Ogli was a renegade of the
+race of the Bulgarian princes: his military character was tainted with
+the unpopular vice of avarice; and under the despotism of the prince or
+people, misfortune is a sufficient evidence of guilt. [451] His rank and
+services were annihilated by the displeasure of Mahomet. In the royal
+presence, the captain bashaw was extended on the ground by four slaves,
+and received one hundred strokes with a golden rod: [46] his death had
+been pronounced; and he adored the clemency of the sultan, who was
+satisfied with the milder punishment of confiscation and exile. The
+introduction of this supply revived the hopes of the Greeks, and accused
+the supineness of their Western allies. Amidst the deserts of Anatolia
+and the rocks of Palestine, the millions of the crusades had buried
+themselves in a voluntary and inevitable grave; but the situation of
+the Imperial city was strong against her enemies, and accessible to her
+friends; and a rational and moderate armament of the marine states might
+have saved the relics of the Roman name, and maintained a Christian
+fortress in the heart of the Ottoman empire. Yet this was the sole and
+feeble attempt for the deliverance of Constantinople: the more distant
+powers were insensible of its danger; and the ambassador of Hungary, or
+at least of Huniades, resided in the Turkish camp, to remove the fears,
+and to direct the operations, of the sultan. [47]
+
+[Footnote 42: It is singular that the Greeks should not agree in the
+number of these illustrious vessels; the _five_ of Ducas, the _four_of
+Phranza and Leonardus, and the _two_ of Chalcondyles, must be extended
+to the smaller, or confined to the larger, size. Voltaire, in giving one
+of these ships to Frederic III., confounds the emperors of the East and
+West.]
+
+[Footnote 43: In bold defiance, or rather in gross ignorance, of
+language and geography, the president Cousin detains them in Chios with
+a south, and wafts them to Constantinople with a north, wind.]
+
+[Footnote 44: The perpetual decay and weakness of the Turkish navy
+may be observed in Ricaut, (State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 372--378,)
+Thevenot, (Voyages, P. i. p. 229--242, and Tott), (Mémoires, tom. iii;)
+the last of whom is always solicitous to amuse and amaze his reader.]
+
+[Footnote 45: I must confess that I have before my eyes the living
+picture which Thucydides (l. vii. c. 71) has drawn of the passions and
+gestures of the Athenians in a naval engagement in the great harbor of
+Syracuse.]
+
+[Footnote 451: According to Ducas, one of the Afabi beat out his eye with
+a stone Compare Von Hammer.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 46: According to the exaggeration or corrupt text of Ducas,
+(c. 38,) this golden bar was of the enormous or incredible weight of 500
+librę, or pounds. Bouillaud's reading of 500 drachms, or five pounds,
+is sufficient to exercise the arm of Mahomet, and bruise the back of his
+admiral.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Ducas, who confesses himself ill informed of the affairs
+of Hungary assigns a motive of superstition, a fatal belief that
+Constantinople would be the term of the Turkish conquests. See Phranza
+(l. iii. c. 20) and Spondanus.]
+
+It was difficult for the Greeks to penetrate the secret of the divan;
+yet the Greeks are persuaded, that a resistance so obstinate and
+surprising, had fatigued the perseverance of Mahomet. He began to
+meditate a retreat; and the siege would have been speedily raised,
+if the ambition and jealousy of the second vizier had not opposed
+the perfidious advice of Calil Bashaw, who still maintained a secret
+correspondence with the Byzantine court. The reduction of the city
+appeared to be hopeless, unless a double attack could be made from the
+harbor as well as from the land; but the harbor was inaccessible: an
+impenetrable chain was now defended by eight large ships, more than
+twenty of a smaller size, with several galleys and sloops; and, instead
+of forcing this barrier, the Turks might apprehend a naval sally, and
+a second encounter in the open sea. In this perplexity, the genius of
+Mahomet conceived and executed a plan of a bold and marvellous cast, of
+transporting by land his lighter vessels and military stores from the
+Bosphorus into the higher part of the harbor. The distance is about ten
+[471] miles; the ground is uneven, and was overspread with thickets; and,
+as the road must be opened behind the suburb of Galata, their free
+passage or total destruction must depend on the option of the Genoese.
+But these selfish merchants were ambitious of the favor of being the
+last devoured; and the deficiency of art was supplied by the strength
+of obedient myriads. A level way was covered with a broad platform of
+strong and solid planks; and to render them more slippery and smooth,
+they were anointed with the fat of sheep and oxen. Fourscore light
+galleys and brigantines, of fifty and thirty oars, were disembarked
+on the Bosphorus shore; arranged successively on rollers; and drawn
+forwards by the power of men and pulleys. Two guides or pilots were
+stationed at the helm, and the prow, of each vessel: the sails
+were unfurled to the winds; and the labor was cheered by song and
+acclamation. In the course of a single night, this Turkish fleet
+painfully climbed the hill, steered over the plain, and was launched
+from the declivity into the shallow waters of the harbor, far above the
+molestation of the deeper vessels of the Greeks. The real importance of
+this operation was magnified by the consternation and confidence which
+it inspired: but the notorious, unquestionable fact was displayed before
+the eyes, and is recorded by the pens, of the two nations. [48] A similar
+stratagem had been repeatedly practised by the ancients; [49] the Ottoman
+galleys (I must again repeat) should be considered as large boats; and,
+if we compare the magnitude and the distance, the obstacles and the
+means, the boasted miracle [50] has perhaps been equalled by the industry
+of our own times. [51] As soon as Mahomet had occupied the upper harbor
+with a fleet and army, he constructed, in the narrowest part, a bridge,
+or rather mole, of fifty cubits in breadth, and one hundred in length:
+it was formed of casks and hogsheads; joined with rafters, linked
+with iron, and covered with a solid floor. On this floating battery he
+planted one of his largest cannon, while the fourscore galleys, with
+troops and scaling ladders, approached the most accessible side, which
+had formerly been stormed by the Latin conquerors. The indolence of the
+Christians has been accused for not destroying these unfinished works;
+[511] but their fire, by a superior fire, was controlled and silenced; nor
+were they wanting in a nocturnal attempt to burn the vessels as well as
+the bridge of the sultan. His vigilance prevented their approach; their
+foremost galiots were sunk or taken; forty youths, the bravest of Italy
+and Greece, were inhumanly massacred at his command; nor could the
+emperor's grief be assuaged by the just though cruel retaliation, of
+exposing from the walls the heads of two hundred and sixty Mussulman
+captives. After a siege of forty days, the fate of Constantinople could
+no longer be averted. The diminutive garrison was exhausted by a double
+attack: the fortifications, which had stood for ages against hostile
+violence, were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon: many
+breaches were opened; and near the gate of St. Romanus, four towers
+had been levelled with the ground. For the payment of his feeble and
+mutinous troops, Constantine was compelled to despoil the churches with
+the promise of a fourfold restitution; and his sacrilege offered a new
+reproach to the enemies of the union. A spirit of discord impaired the
+remnant of the Christian strength; the Genoese and Venetian auxiliaries
+asserted the preeminence of their respective service; and Justiniani
+and the great duke, whose ambition was not extinguished by the common
+danger, accused each other of treachery and cowardice.
+
+[Footnote 471: Six miles. Von Hammer.--M.]?
+
+[Footnote 48: The unanimous testimony of the four Greeks is confirmed by
+Cantemir (p. 96) from the Turkish annals; but I could wish to contract
+the distance of _ten_ * miles, and to prolong the term of _one_ night.
+Note: Six miles. Von Hammer.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Phranza relates two examples of a similar transportation
+over the six miles of the Isthmus of Corinth; the one fabulous, of
+Augustus after the battle of Actium; the other true, of Nicetas, a
+Greek general in the xth century. To these he might have added a bold
+enterprise of Hannibal, to introduce his vessels into the harbor of
+Tarentum, (Polybius, l. viii. p. 749, edit. Gronov. *
+Note: Von Hammer gives a longer list of such transportations, p. 533.
+Dion Cassius distinctly relates the occurrence treated as fabulous by
+Gibbon.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 50: A Greek of Candia, who had served the Venetians in a
+similar undertaking, (Spond. A.D. 1438, No. 37,) might possibly be the
+adviser and agent of Mahomet.]
+
+[Footnote 51: I particularly allude to our own embarkations on the
+lakes of Canada in the years 1776 and 1777, so great in the labor, so
+fruitless in the event.]
+
+[Footnote 511: They were betrayed, according to some accounts, by the
+Genoese of Galata. Von Hammer, p. 536.--M.]
+
+During the siege of Constantinople, the words of peace and capitulation
+had been sometimes pronounced; and several embassies had passed between
+the camp and the city. [52] The Greek emperor was humbled by adversity;
+and would have yielded to any terms compatible with religion and
+royalty. The Turkish sultan was desirous of sparing the blood of his
+soldiers; still more desirous of securing for his own use the Byzantine
+treasures: and he accomplished a sacred duty in presenting to the
+_Gabours_ the choice of circumcision, of tribute, or of death. The
+avarice of Mahomet might have been satisfied with an annual sum of one
+hundred thousand ducats; but his ambition grasped the capital of the
+East: to the prince he offered a rich equivalent, to the people a free
+toleration, or a safe departure: but after some fruitless treaty, he
+declared his resolution of finding either a throne, or a grave, under
+the walls of Constantinople. A sense of honor, and the fear of universal
+reproach, forbade Palęologus to resign the city into the hands of
+the Ottomans; and he determined to abide the last extremities of war.
+Several days were employed by the sultan in the preparations of the
+assault; and a respite was granted by his favorite science of astrology,
+which had fixed on the twenty-ninth of May, as the fortunate and fatal
+hour. On the evening of the twenty-seventh, he issued his final orders;
+assembled in his presence the military chiefs, and dispersed his heralds
+through the camp to proclaim the duty, and the motives, of the perilous
+enterprise. Fear is the first principle of a despotic government; and
+his menaces were expressed in the Oriental style, that the fugitives and
+deserters, had they the wings of a bird, [53] should not escape from his
+inexorable justice. The greatest part of his bashaws and Janizaries were
+the offspring of Christian parents: but the glories of the Turkish name
+were perpetuated by successive adoption; and in the gradual change of
+individuals, the spirit of a legion, a regiment, or an _oda_, is kept
+alive by imitation and discipline. In this holy warfare, the Moslems
+were exhorted to purify their minds with prayer, their bodies with seven
+ablutions; and to abstain from food till the close of the ensuing day. A
+crowd of dervises visited the tents, to instil the desire of martyrdom,
+and the assurance of spending an immortal youth amidst the rivers and
+gardens of paradise, and in the embraces of the black-eyed virgins.
+Yet Mahomet principally trusted to the efficacy of temporal and visible
+rewards. A double pay was promised to the victorious troops: "The city
+and the buildings," said Mahomet, "are mine; but I resign to your valor
+the captives and the spoil, the treasures of gold and beauty; be rich
+and be happy. Many are the provinces of my empire: the intrepid soldier
+who first ascends the walls of Constantinople shall be rewarded with
+the government of the fairest and most wealthy; and my gratitude shall
+accumulate his honors and fortunes above the measure of his own hopes."
+Such various and potent motives diffused among the Turks a general
+ardor, regardless of life and impatient for action: the camp reechoed
+with the Moslem shouts of "God is God: there is but one God, and Mahomet
+is the apostle of God;" [54] and the sea and land, from Galata to the
+seven towers, were illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires. [541]
+
+[Footnote 52: Chalcondyles and Ducas differ in the time and
+circumstances of the negotiation; and as it was neither glorious nor
+salutary, the faithful Phranza spares his prince even the thought of a
+surrender.]
+
+[Footnote 53: These wings (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 208) are no more
+than an Oriental figure: but in the tragedy of Irene, Mahomet's passion
+soars above sense and reason:--
+     Should the fierce North, upon his frozen wings.
+     Bear him aloft above the wondering clouds,
+     And seat him in the Pleiads' golden chariot--
+     Then should my fury drag him down to tortures.
+
+Besides the extravagance of the rant, I must observe, 1. That the
+operation of the winds must be confined to the _lower_ region of the
+air. 2. That the name, etymology, and fable of the Pleiads are purely
+Greek, (Scholiast ad Homer, S. 686. Eudocia in Ioniā, p. 399. Apollodor.
+l. iii. c. 10. Heyne, p. 229, Not. 682,) and had no affinity with the
+astronomy of the East, (Hyde ad Ulugbeg, Tabul. in Syntagma Dissert.
+tom. i. p. 40, 42. Goguet, Origine des Arts, &c., tom. vi. p. 73--78.
+Gebelin, Hist. du Calendrier, p. 73,) which Mahomet had studied. 3. The
+golden chariot does not exist either in science or fiction; but I much
+fear Dr. Johnson has confounded the Pleiads with the great bear or
+wagon, the zodiac with a northern constellation:--
+     ''Ark-on q' hn kai amaxan epiklhsin kaleouein. Il. S. 487.]
+
+[Footnote 54: Phranza quarrels with these Moslem acclamations, not for
+the name of God, but for that of the prophet: the pious zeal of Voltaire
+is excessive, and even ridiculous.]
+
+[Footnote 541: The picture is heightened by the addition of the wailing
+cries of Kyris, which were heard from the dark interior of the city. Von
+Hammer p. 539.--M.]
+
+Far different was the state of the Christians; who, with loud and
+impotent complaints, deplored the guilt, or the punishment, of their
+sins. The celestial image of the Virgin had been exposed in solemn
+procession; but their divine patroness was deaf to their entreaties:
+they accused the obstinacy of the emperor for refusing a timely
+surrender; anticipated the horrors of their fate; and sighed for the
+repose and security of Turkish servitude. The noblest of the Greeks, and
+the bravest of the allies, were summoned to the palace, to prepare them,
+on the evening of the twenty-eighth, for the duties and dangers of the
+general assault. The last speech of Palęologus was the funeral oration
+of the Roman empire: [55] he promised, he conjured, and he vainly
+attempted to infuse the hope which was extinguished in his own mind. In
+this world all was comfortless and gloomy; and neither the gospel nor
+the church have proposed any conspicuous recompense to the heroes who
+fall in the service of their country. But the example of their prince,
+and the confinement of a siege, had armed these warriors with the
+courage of despair, and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings
+of the historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournful
+assembly. They wept, they embraced; regardless of their families and
+fortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander, departing to
+his station, maintained all night a vigilant and anxious watch on the
+rampart. The emperor, and some faithful companions, entered the dome of
+St. Sophia, which in a few hours was to be converted into a mosque; and
+devoutly received, with tears and prayers, the sacrament of the holy
+communion. He reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with
+cries and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all whom he might have
+injured; [56] and mounted on horseback to visit the guards, and explore
+the motions of the enemy. The distress and fall of the last Constantine
+are more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Cęsars. [561]
+
+[Footnote 55: I am afraid that this discourse was composed by Phranza
+himself; and it smells so grossly of the sermon and the convent, that I
+almost doubt whether it was pronounced by Constantine. Leonardus assigns
+him another speech, in which he addresses himself more respectfully to
+the Latin auxiliaries.]
+
+[Footnote 56: This abasement, which devotion has sometimes extorted
+from dying princes, is an improvement of the gospel doctrine of the
+forgiveness of injuries: it is more easy to forgive 490 times, than once
+to ask pardon of an inferior.]
+
+[Footnote 561: Compare the very curious Armenian elegy on the fall of
+Constantinople, translated by M. Boré, in the Journal Asiatique for
+March, 1835; and by M. Brosset, in the new edition of Le Beau, (tom.
+xxi. p. 308.) The author thus ends his poem: "I, Abraham, loaded with
+sins, have composed this elegy with the most lively sorrow; for I have
+seen Constantinople in the days of its glory."--M.]
+
+In the confusion of darkness, an assailant may sometimes succeed; out
+in this great and general attack, the military judgment and astrological
+knowledge of Mahomet advised him to expect the morning, the memorable
+twenty-ninth of May, in the fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the
+Christian ęra. The preceding night had been strenuously employed: the
+troops, the cannons, and the fascines, were advanced to the edge of the
+ditch, which in many parts presented a smooth and level passage to the
+breach; and his fourscore galleys almost touched, with the prows and
+their scaling-ladders, the less defensible walls of the harbor. Under
+pain of death, silence was enjoined: but the physical laws of motion
+and sound are not obedient to discipline or fear; each individual might
+suppress his voice and measure his footsteps; but the march and labor
+of thousands must inevitably produce a strange confusion of dissonant
+clamors, which reached the ears of the watchmen of the towers. At
+daybreak, without the customary signal of the morning gun, the Turks
+assaulted the city by sea and land; and the similitude of a twined or
+twisted thread has been applied to the closeness and continuity of their
+line of attack. [57] The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the
+host, a voluntary crowd who fought without order or command; of the
+feebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and of all
+who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. The
+common impulse drove them onwards to the wall; the most audacious to
+climb were instantly precipitated; and not a dart, not a bullet, of
+the Christians, was idly wasted on the accumulated throng. But their
+strength and ammunition were exhausted in this laborious defence:
+the ditch was filled with the bodies of the slain; they supported the
+footsteps of their companions; and of this devoted vanguard the death
+was more serviceable than the life. Under their respective bashaws and
+sanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and Romania were successively led to the
+charge: their progress was various and doubtful; but, after a conflict
+of two hours, the Greeks still maintained, and improved their advantage;
+and the voice of the emperor was heard, encouraging his soldiers to
+achieve, by a last effort, the deliverance of their country. In that
+fatal moment, the Janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible.
+The sultan himself on horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was the
+spectator and judge of their valor: he was surrounded by ten thousand of
+his domestic troops, whom he reserved for the decisive occasion; and
+the tide of battle was directed and impelled by his voice and eye. His
+numerous ministers of justice were posted behind the line, to urge,
+to restrain, and to punish; and if danger was in the front, shame and
+inevitable death were in the rear, of the fugitives. The cries of fear
+and of pain were drowned in the martial music of drums, trumpets, and
+attaballs; and experience has proved, that the mechanical operation of
+sounds, by quickening the circulation of the blood and spirits, will
+act on the human machine more forcibly than the eloquence of reason
+and honor. From the lines, the galleys, and the bridge, the Ottoman
+artillery thundered on all sides; and the camp and city, the Greeks
+and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke which could only be
+dispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire.
+The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy
+and engage our affections: the skilful evolutions of war may inform the
+mind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the
+uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, and
+horror, and confusion nor shall I strive, at the distance of three
+centuries, and a thousand miles, to delineate a scene of which there
+could be no spectators, and of which the actors themselves were
+incapable of forming any just or adequate idea.
+
+[Footnote 57: Besides the 10,000 guards, and the sailors and the
+marines, Ducas numbers in this general assault 250,000 Turks, both horse
+and foot.]
+
+The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the bullet, or
+arrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani. The sight of his
+blood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the courage of the chief, whose
+arms and counsels were the firmest rampart of the city. As he withdrew
+from his station in quest of a surgeon, his flight was perceived
+and stopped by the indefatigable emperor. "Your wound," exclaimed
+Palęologus, "is slight; the danger is pressing: your presence is
+necessary; and whither will you retire?"--"I will retire," said the
+trembling Genoese, "by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;"
+and at these words he hastily passed through one of the breaches of
+the inner wall. By this pusillanimous act he stained the honors of a
+military life; and the few days which he survived in Galata, or the Isle
+of Chios, were embittered by his own and the public reproach. [58] His
+example was imitated by the greatest part of the Latin auxiliaries, and
+the defence began to slacken when the attack was pressed with redoubled
+vigor. The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, times
+superior to that of the Christians; the double walls were reduced by the
+cannon to a heap of ruins: in a circuit of several miles, some places
+must be found more easy of access, or more feebly guarded; and if
+the besiegers could penetrate in a single point, the whole city was
+irrecoverably lost. The first who deserved the sultan's reward was
+Hassan the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With his cimeter
+in one hand and his buckler in the other, he ascended the outward
+fortification: of the thirty Janizaries, who were emulous of his
+valor, eighteen perished in the bold adventure. Hassan and his twelve
+companions had reached the summit: the giant was precipitated from the
+rampart: he rose on one knee, and was again oppressed by a shower of
+darts and stones. But his success had proved that the achievement was
+possible: the walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm
+of Turks; and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were
+overwhelmed by increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, the
+emperor, [59] who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier,
+was long seen and finally lost. The nobles, who fought round his person,
+sustained, till their last breath, the honorable names of Palęologus and
+Cantacuzene: his mournful exclamation was heard, "Cannot there be found
+a Christian to cut off my head?" [60] and his last fear was that of
+falling alive into the hands of the infidels. [61] The prudent despair
+of Constantine cast away the purple: amidst the tumult he fell by an
+unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain.
+After his death, resistance and order were no more: the Greeks fled
+towards the city; and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow pass
+of the gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through the
+breaches of the inner wall; and as they advanced into the streets, they
+were soon joined by their brethren, who had forced the gate Phenar on
+the side of the harbor. [62] In the first heat of the pursuit, about two
+thousand Christians were put to the sword; but avarice soon prevailed
+over cruelty; and the victors acknowledged, that they should immediately
+have given quarter if the valor of the emperor and his chosen bands had
+not prepared them for a similar opposition in every part of the capital.
+It was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople,
+which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the caliphs, was
+irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the Second. Her empire only
+had been subverted by the Latins: her religion was trampled in the dust
+by the Moslem conquerors. [63]
+
+[Footnote 58: In the severe censure of the flight of Justiniani, Phranza
+expresses his own feelings and those of the public. For some private
+reasons, he is treated with more lenity and respect by Ducas; but the
+words of Leonardus Chiensis express his strong and recent indignation,
+glorię salutis suique oblitus. In the whole series of their Eastern
+policy, his countrymen, the Genoese, were always suspected, and often
+guilty. * Note: M. Brosset has given some extracts from the Georgian account
+of the siege of Constantinople, in which Justiniani's wound in the
+left foot is represented as more serious. With charitable ambiguity the
+chronicler adds that his soldiers carried him away with them in their
+vessel.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Ducas kills him with two blows of Turkish soldiers;
+Chalcondyles wounds him in the shoulder, and then tramples him in the
+gate. The grief of Phranza, carrying him among the enemy, escapes from
+the precise image of his death; but we may, without flattery, apply
+these noble lines of Dryden:--
+     As to Sebastian, let them search the field;
+     And where they find a mountain of the slain,
+     Send one to climb, and looking down beneath,
+     There they will find him at his manly length,
+     With his face up to heaven, in that red monument
+     Which his good sword had digged.]
+
+[Footnote 60: Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 10,) who has hopes of his
+salvation, wishes to absolve this demand from the guilt of suicide.]
+
+[Footnote 61: Leonardus Chiensis very properly observes, that the Turks,
+had they known the emperor, would have labored to save and secure a
+captive so acceptable to the sultan.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Cantemir, p. 96. The Christian ships in the mouth of the
+harbor had flanked and retarded this naval attack.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Chalcondyles most absurdly supposes, that Constantinople
+was sacked by the Asiatics in revenge for the ancient calamities of
+Troy; and the grammarians of the xvth century are happy to melt down the
+uncouth appellation of Turks into the more classical name of _Teucri_.]
+
+The tidings of misfortune fly with a rapid wing; yet such was the extent
+of Constantinople, that the more distant quarters might prolong, some
+moments, the happy ignorance of their ruin. [64] But in the general
+consternation, in the feelings of selfish or social anxiety, in the
+tumult and thunder of the assault, a _sleepless_ night and morning
+[641] must have elapsed; nor can I believe that many Grecian ladies were
+awakened by the Janizaries from a sound and tranquil slumber. On the
+assurance of the public calamity, the houses and convents were instantly
+deserted; and the trembling inhabitants flocked together in the streets,
+like a herd of timid animals, as if accumulated weakness could be
+productive of strength, or in the vain hope, that amid the crowd each
+individual might be safe and invisible. From every part of the capital,
+they flowed into the church of St. Sophia: in the space of an hour,
+the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the upper and lower galleries,
+were filled with the multitudes of fathers and husbands, of women and
+children, of priests, monks, and religious virgins: the doors were
+barred on the inside, and they sought protection from the sacred dome,
+which they had so lately abhorred as a profane and polluted edifice.
+Their confidence was founded on the prophecy of an enthusiast or
+impostor; that one day the Turks would enter Constantinople, and pursue
+the Romans as far as the column of Constantine in the square before St.
+Sophia: but that this would be the term of their calamities: that an
+angel would descend from heaven, with a sword in his hand, and would
+deliver the empire, with that celestial weapon, to a poor man seated at
+the foot of the column. "Take this sword," would he say, "and avenge the
+people of the Lord." At these animating words, the Turks would instantly
+fly, and the victorious Romans would drive them from the West, and from
+all Anatolia as far as the frontiers of Persia. It is on this occasion
+that Ducas, with some fancy and much truth, upbraids the discord
+and obstinacy of the Greeks. "Had that angel appeared," exclaims the
+historian, "had he offered to exterminate your foes if you would consent
+to the union of the church, even event then, in that fatal moment, you
+would have rejected your safety, or have deceived your God." [65]
+
+[Footnote 64: When Cyrus suppressed Babylon during the celebration of
+a festival, so vast was the city, and so careless were the inhabitants,
+that much time elapsed before the distant quarters knew that they were
+captives. Herodotus, (l. i. c. 191,) and Usher, (Annal. p. 78,) who has
+quoted from the prophet Jeremiah a passage of similar import.]
+
+[Footnote 641: This refers to an expression in Ducas, who, to heighten the
+effect of his description, speaks of the "sweet morning sleep resting on
+the eyes of youths and maidens," p. 288. Edit. Bekker.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 65: This lively description is extracted from Ducas, (c. 39,)
+who two years afterwards was sent ambassador from the prince of Lesbos
+to the sultan, (c. 44.) Till Lesbos was subdued in 1463, (Phranza,
+l. iii. c. 27,) that island must have been full of the fugitives of
+Constantinople, who delighted to repeat, perhaps to adorn, the tale of
+their misery.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern Empire.--Part IV.
+
+While they expected the descent of the tardy angel, the doors were
+broken with axes; and as the Turks encountered no resistance, their
+bloodless hands were employed in selecting and securing the multitude of
+their prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the appearance of wealth, attracted
+their choice; and the right of property was decided among themselves by
+a prior seizure, by personal strength, and by the authority of command.
+In the space of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, the
+females with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked with
+their slaves; the prelates, with the porters of the church; and young
+men of the plebeian class, with noble maids, whose faces had been
+invisible to the sun and their nearest kindred. In this common
+captivity, the ranks of society were confounded; the ties of nature were
+cut asunder; and the inexorable soldier was careless of the father's
+groans, the tears of the mother, and the lamentations of the children.
+The loudest in their wailings were the nuns, who were torn from the
+altar with naked bosoms, outstretched hands, and dishevelled hair; and
+we should piously believe that few could be tempted to prefer the vigils
+of the harem to those of the monastery. Of these unfortunate Greeks,
+of these domestic animals, whole strings were rudely driven through the
+streets; and as the conquerors were eager to return for more prey, their
+trembling pace was quickened with menaces and blows. At the same hour, a
+similar rapine was exercised in all the churches and monasteries, in
+all the palaces and habitations, of the capital; nor could any place,
+however sacred or sequestered, protect the persons or the property of
+the Greeks. Above sixty thousand of this devoted people were transported
+from the city to the camp and fleet; exchanged or sold according to the
+caprice or interest of their masters, and dispersed in remote servitude
+through the provinces of the Ottoman empire. Among these we may notice
+some remarkable characters. The historian Phranza, first chamberlain
+and principal secretary, was involved with his family in the common lot.
+After suffering four months the hardships of slavery, he recovered his
+freedom: in the ensuing winter he ventured to Adrianople, and ransomed
+his wife from the _mir bashi_, or master of the horse; but his two
+children, in the flower of youth and beauty, had been seized for the
+use of Mahomet himself. The daughter of Phranza died in the seraglio,
+perhaps a virgin: his son, in the fifteenth year of his age, preferred
+death to infamy, and was stabbed by the hand of the royal lover. [66] A
+deed thus inhuman cannot surely be expiated by the taste and liberality
+with which he released a Grecian matron and her two daughters, on
+receiving a Latin doe From ode from Philelphus, who had chosen a wife in
+that noble family. [67] The pride or cruelty of Mahomet would have
+been most sensibly gratified by the capture of a Roman legate; but the
+dexterity of Cardinal Isidore eluded the search, and he escaped from
+Galata in a plebeian habit. [68] The chain and entrance of the outward
+harbor was still occupied by the Italian ships of merchandise and war.
+They had signalized their valor in the siege: they embraced the moment
+of retreat, while the Turkish mariners were dissipated in the pillage of
+the city. When they hoisted sail, the beach was covered with a suppliant
+and lamentable crowd; but the means of transportation were scanty: the
+Venetians and Genoese selected their countrymen; and, notwithstanding
+the fairest promises of the sultan, the inhabitants of Galata evacuated
+their houses, and embarked with their most precious effects.
+
+[Footnote 66: See Phranza, l. iii. c. 20, 21. His expressions are
+positive: Ameras suā manū jugulavit.... volebat enim eo turpiter et
+nefarie abuti. Me miserum et infelicem! Yet he could only learn from
+report the bloody or impure scenes that were acted in the dark recesses
+of the seraglio.]
+
+[Footnote 67: See Tiraboschi (tom. vi. P. i. p. 290) and Lancelot, (Mém.
+de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718.) I should be curious to
+learn how he could praise the public enemy, whom he so often reviles as
+the most corrupt and inhuman of tyrants.]
+
+[Footnote 68: The commentaries of Pius II. suppose that he craftily
+placed his cardinal's hat on the head of a corpse which was cut off and
+exposed in triumph, while the legate himself was bought and delivered as
+a captive of no value. The great Belgic Chronicle adorns his escape with
+new adventures, which he suppressed (says Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No.
+15) in his own letters, lest he should lose the merit and reward of
+suffering for Christ. * Note: He was sold as a slave in Galata, according to Von Hammer, p.
+175. See the somewhat vague and declamatory letter of Cardinal Isidore,
+in the appendix to Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 653.--M.]
+
+In the fall and the sack of great cities, an historian is condemned to
+repeat the tale of uniform calamity: the same effects must be produced
+by the same passions; and when those passions may be indulged without
+control, small, alas! is the difference between civilized and savage
+man. Amidst the vague exclamations of bigotry and hatred, the Turks are
+not accused of a wanton or immoderate effusion of Christian blood: but
+according to their maxims, (the maxims of antiquity,) the lives of the
+vanquished were forfeited; and the legitimate reward of the conqueror
+was derived from the service, the sale, or the ransom, of his captives
+of both sexes. [69] The wealth of Constantinople had been granted by
+the sultan to his victorious troops; and the rapine of an hour is more
+productive than the industry of years. But as no regular division was
+attempted of the spoil, the respective shares were not determined by
+merit; and the rewards of valor were stolen away by the followers of the
+camp, who had declined the toil and danger of the battle. The narrative
+of their depredations could not afford either amusement or instruction:
+the total amount, in the last poverty of the empire, has been valued
+at four millions of ducats; [70] and of this sum a small part was
+the property of the Venetians, the Genoese, the Florentines, and the
+merchants of Ancona. Of these foreigners, the stock was improved in
+quick and perpetual circulation: but the riches of the Greeks were
+displayed in the idle ostentation of palaces and wardrobes, or deeply
+buried in treasures of ingots and old coin, lest it should be demanded
+at their hands for the defence of their country. The profanation
+and plunder of the monasteries and churches excited the most tragic
+complaints. The dome of St. Sophia itself, the earthly heaven, the
+second firmament, the vehicle of the cherubim, the throne of the glory
+of God, [71] was despoiled of the oblation of ages; and the gold and
+silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal ornaments, were
+most wickedly converted to the service of mankind. After the divine
+images had been stripped of all that could be valuable to a profane eye,
+the canvas, or the wood, was torn, or broken, or burnt, or trod under
+foot, or applied, in the stables or the kitchen, to the vilest uses. The
+example of sacrilege was imitated, however, from the Latin conquerors
+of Constantinople; and the treatment which Christ, the Virgin, and the
+saints, had sustained from the guilty Catholic, might be inflicted by
+the zealous Mussulman on the monuments of idolatry. Perhaps, instead
+of joining the public clamor, a philosopher will observe, that in the
+decline of the arts the workmanship could not be more valuable than the
+work, and that a fresh supply of visions and miracles would speedily be
+renewed by the craft of the priests and the credulity of the people. He
+will more seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which
+were destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred
+and twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; [72] ten
+volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same ignominious
+price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology, included the whole
+works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest productions of the science
+and literature of ancient Greece. We may reflect with pleasure that an
+inestimable portion of our classic treasures was safely deposited in
+Italy; and that the mechanics of a German town had invented an art which
+derides the havoc of time and barbarism.
+
+[Footnote 69: Busbequius expatiates with pleasure and applause on the
+rights of war, and the use of slavery, among the ancients and the Turks,
+(de Legat. Turcicā, epist. iii. p. 161.)]
+
+[Footnote 70: This sum is specified in a marginal note of Leunclavius,
+(Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 211,) but in the distribution to Venice,
+Genoa, Florence, and Ancona, of 50, 20, and 15,000 ducats, I suspect
+that a figure has been dropped. Even with the restitution, the foreign
+property would scarcely exceed one fourth.]
+
+[Footnote 71: See the enthusiastic praises and lamentations of Phranza,
+(l. iii. c. 17.)]
+
+[Footnote 72: See Ducas, (c. 43,) and an epistle, July 15th, 1453, from
+Laurus Quirinus to Pope Nicholas V., (Hody de Gręcis, p. 192, from a MS.
+in the Cotton library.)]
+
+From the first hour [73] of the memorable twenty-ninth of May, disorder
+and rapine prevailed in Constantinople, till the eighth hour of the same
+day; when the sultan himself passed in triumph through the gate of St.
+Romanus. He was attended by his viziers, bashaws, and guards, each of
+whom (says a Byzantine historian) was robust as Hercules, dexterous as
+Apollo, and equal in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals.
+The conqueror [74] gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange,
+though splendid, appearance of the domes and palaces, so dissimilar from
+the style of Oriental architecture. In the hippodrome, or _atmeidan_,
+his eye was attracted by the twisted column of the three serpents;
+and, as a trial of his strength, he shattered with his iron mace or
+battle-axe the under jaw of one of these monsters, [75] which in the
+eyes of the Turks were the idols or talismans of the city. [751] At the
+principal door of St. Sophia, he alighted from his horse, and entered
+the dome; and such was his jealous regard for that monument of his
+glory, that on observing a zealous Mussulman in the act of breaking the
+marble pavement, he admonished him with his cimeter, that, if the
+spoil and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public and
+private buildings had been reserved for the prince. By his command the
+metropolis of the Eastern church was transformed into a mosque: the rich
+and portable instruments of superstition had been removed; the crosses
+were thrown down; and the walls, which were covered with images and
+mosaics, were washed and purified, and restored to a state of naked
+simplicity. On the same day, or on the ensuing Friday, the _muezin_,
+or crier, ascended the most lofty turret, and proclaimed the _ezan_, or
+public invitation in the name of God and his prophet; the imam preached;
+and Mahomet and Second performed the _namaz_ of prayer and thanksgiving
+on the great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been
+celebrated before the last of the Cęsars. [76] From St. Sophia he
+proceeded to the august, but desolate mansion of a hundred successors of
+the great Constantine, but which in a few hours had been stripped of the
+pomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of human
+greatness forced itself on his mind; and he repeated an elegant distich
+of Persian poetry: "The spider has wove his web in the Imperial palace;
+and the owl hath sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab." [77]
+
+[Footnote 73: The Julian Calendar, which reckons the days and hours from
+midnight, was used at Constantinople. But Ducas seems to understand the
+natural hours from sunrise.]
+
+[Footnote 74: See the Turkish Annals, p. 329, and the Pandects of
+Leunclavius, p. 448.]
+
+[Footnote 75: I have had occasion (vol. ii. p. 100) to mention this
+curious relic of Grecian antiquity.]
+
+[Footnote 751: Von Hammer passes over this circumstance, which is treated
+by Dr. Clarke (Travels, vol. ii. p. 58, 4to. edit,) as a fiction
+of Thevenot. Chishull states that the monument was broken by some
+attendants of the Polish ambassador.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 76: We are obliged to Cantemir (p. 102) for the Turkish
+account of the conversion of St. Sophia, so bitterly deplored by Phranza
+and Ducas. It is amusing enough to observe, in what opposite lights the
+same object appears to a Mussulman and a Christian eye.]
+
+[Footnote 77: This distich, which Cantemir gives in the original,
+derives new beauties from the application. It was thus that Scipio
+repeated, in the sack of Carthage, the famous prophecy of Homer. The
+same generous feeling carried the mind of the conqueror to the past or
+the future.]
+
+Yet his mind was not satisfied, nor did the victory seem complete, till
+he was informed of the fate of Constantine; whether he had escaped, or
+been made prisoner, or had fallen in the battle. Two Janizaries claimed
+the honor and reward of his death: the body, under a heap of slain, was
+discovered by the golden eagles embroidered on his shoes; the Greeks
+acknowledged, with tears, the head of their late emperor; and, after
+exposing the bloody trophy, [78] Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honors
+of a decent funeral. After his decease, Lucas Notaras, great duke, [79]
+and first minister of the empire, was the most important prisoner. When
+he offered his person and his treasures at the foot of the throne, "And
+why," said the indignant sultan, "did you not employ these treasures in
+the defence of your prince and country?"--"They were yours," answered
+the slave; "God had reserved them for your hands."--"If he reserved them
+for me," replied the despot, "how have you presumed to withhold them so
+long by a fruitless and fatal resistance?" The great duke alleged the
+obstinacy of the strangers, and some secret encouragement from the
+Turkish vizier; and from this perilous interview he was at length
+dismissed with the assurance of pardon and protection. Mahomet
+condescended to visit his wife, a venerable princess oppressed with
+sickness and grief; and his consolation for her misfortunes was in the
+most tender strain of humanity and filial reverence. A similar clemency
+was extended to the principal officers of state, of whom several were
+ransomed at his expense; and during some days he declared himself the
+friend and father of the vanquished people. But the scene was soon
+changed; and before his departure, the hippodrome streamed with the
+blood of his noblest captives. His perfidious cruelty is execrated
+by the Christians: they adorn with the colors of heroic martyrdom the
+execution of the great duke and his two sons; and his death is ascribed
+to the generous refusal of delivering his children to the tyrant's
+lust. [791] Yet a Byzantine historian has dropped an unguarded word
+of conspiracy, deliverance, and Italian succor: such treason may be
+glorious; but the rebel who bravely ventures, has justly forfeited his
+life; nor should we blame a conqueror for destroying the enemies whom
+he can no longer trust. On the eighteenth of June the victorious sultan
+returned to Adrianople; and smiled at the base and hollow embassies of
+the Christian princes, who viewed their approaching ruin in the fall of
+the Eastern empire.
+
+[Footnote 78: I cannot believe with Ducas (see Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No.
+13) that Mahomet sent round Persia, Arabia, &c., the head of the Greek
+emperor: he would surely content himself with a trophy less inhuman.]
+
+[Footnote 79: Phranza was the personal enemy of the great duke; nor
+could time, or death, or his own retreat to a monastery, extort a
+feeling of sympathy or forgiveness. Ducas is inclined to praise and pity
+the martyr; Chalcondyles is neuter, but we are indebted to him for the
+hint of the Greek conspiracy.]
+
+[Footnote 791: Von Hammer relates this undoubtingly, apparently on good
+authority, p. 559.--M.]
+
+Constantinople had been left naked and desolate, without a prince or
+a people. But she could not be despoiled of the incomparable situation
+which marks her for the metropolis of a great empire; and the genius
+of the place will ever triumph over the accidents of time and fortune.
+Boursa and Adrianople, the ancient seats of the Ottomans, sunk into
+provincial towns; and Mahomet the Second established his own residence,
+and that of his successors, on the same commanding spot which had been
+chosen by Constantine. [80] The fortifications of Galata, which might
+afford a shelter to the Latins, were prudently destroyed; but the damage
+of the Turkish cannon was soon repaired; and before the month of August,
+great quantities of lime had been burnt for the restoration of the
+walls of the capital. As the entire property of the soil and buildings,
+whether public or private, or profane or sacred, was now transferred
+to the conqueror, he first separated a space of eight furlongs from the
+point of the triangle for the establishment of his seraglio or palace.
+It is here, in the bosom of luxury, that the _Grand Signor_ (as he has
+been emphatically named by the Italians) appears to reign over Europe
+and Asia; but his person on the shores of the Bosphorus may not always
+be secure from the insults of a hostile navy. In the new character of a
+mosque, the cathedral of St. Sophia was endowed with an ample revenue,
+crowned with lofty minarets, and surrounded with groves and fountains,
+for the devotion and refreshment of the Moslems. The same model was
+imitated in the _jami_, or royal mosques; and the first of these was
+built, by Mahomet himself, on the ruins of the church of the holy
+apostles, and the tombs of the Greek emperors. On the third day after
+the conquest, the grave of Abu Ayub, or Job, who had fallen in the
+first siege of the Arabs, was revealed in a vision; and it is before the
+sepulchre of the martyr that the new sultans are girded with the
+sword of empire. [81] Constantinople no longer appertains to the Roman
+historian; nor shall I enumerate the civil and religious edifices that
+were profaned or erected by its Turkish masters: the population was
+speedily renewed; and before the end of September, five thousand
+families of Anatolia and Romania had obeyed the royal mandate, which
+enjoined them, under pain of death, to occupy their new habitations
+in the capital. The throne of Mahomet was guarded by the numbers and
+fidelity of his Moslem subjects: but his rational policy aspired to
+collect the remnant of the Greeks; and they returned in crowds, as
+soon as they were assured of their lives, their liberties, and the
+free exercise of their religion. In the election and investiture of
+a patriarch, the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived and
+imitated. With a mixture of satisfaction and horror, they beheld the
+sultan on his throne; who delivered into the hands of Gennadius the
+crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his ecclesiastical office; who
+conducted the patriarch to the gate of the seraglio, presented him with
+a horse richly caparisoned, and directed the viziers and bashaws to lead
+him to the palace which had been allotted for his residence. [82] The
+churches of Constantinople were shared between the two religions: their
+limits were marked; and, till it was infringed by Selim, the grandson
+of Mahomet, the Greeks [83] enjoyed above sixty years the benefit of this
+equal partition. Encouraged by the ministers of the divan, who wished to
+elude the fanaticism of the sultan, the Christian advocates presumed
+to allege that this division had been an act, not of generosity, but of
+justice; not a concession, but a compact; and that if one half of the
+city had been taken by storm, the other moiety had surrendered on the
+faith of a sacred capitulation. The original grant had indeed been
+consumed by fire: but the loss was supplied by the testimony of three
+aged Janizaries who remembered the transaction; and their venal oaths
+are of more weight in the opinion of Cantemir, than the positive and
+unanimous consent of the history of the times. [84]
+
+[Footnote 80: For the restitution of Constantinople and the Turkish
+foundations, see Cantemir, (p. 102--109,) Ducas, (c. 42,) with Thevenot,
+Tournefort, and the rest of our modern travellers. From a gigantic
+picture of the greatness, population, &c., of Constantinople and the
+Ottoman empire, (Abrégé de l'Histoire Ottomane, tom. i. p. 16--21,) we
+may learn, that in the year 1586 the Moslems were less numerous in the
+capital than the Christians, or even the Jews.]
+
+[Footnote 81: The _Turbé_, or sepulchral monument of Abu Ayub, is
+described and engraved in the Tableau Générale de l'Empire Ottoman,
+(Paris 1787, in large folio,) a work of less use, perhaps, than
+magnificence, (tom. i. p. 305, 306.)]
+
+[Footnote 82: Phranza (l. iii. c. 19) relates the ceremony, which has
+possibly been adorned in the Greek reports to each other, and to the
+Latins. The fact is confirmed by Emanuel Malaxus, who wrote, in vulgar
+Greek, the History of the Patriarchs after the taking of Constantinople,
+inserted in the Turco-Gręcia of Crusius, (l. v. p. 106--184.) But the
+most patient reader will not believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholic
+form, "Sancta Trinitas quę mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham novę
+Romę deligit."]
+
+[Footnote 83: From the Turco-Gręcia of Crusius, &c. Spondanus (A.D.
+1453, No. 21, 1458, No. 16) describes the slavery and domestic quarrels
+of the Greek church. The patriarch who succeeded Gennadius threw himself
+in despair into a well.]
+
+[Footnote 84: Cantemir (p. 101--105) insists on the unanimous consent of
+the Turkish historians, ancient as well as modern, and argues, that
+they would not have violated the truth to diminish their national glory,
+since it is esteemed more honorable to take a city by force than by
+composition. But, 1. I doubt this consent, since he quotes no particular
+historian, and the Turkish Annals of Leunclavius affirm, without
+exception, that Mahomet took Constantinople _per vim_, (p. 329.) 2 The
+same argument may be turned in favor of the Greeks of the times, who
+would not have forgotten this honorable and salutary treaty. Voltaire,
+as usual, prefers the Turks to the Christians.]
+
+The remaining fragments of the Greek kingdom in Europe and Asia I shall
+abandon to the Turkish arms; but the final extinction of the two last
+dynasties [85] which have reigned in Constantinople should terminate the
+decline and fall of the Roman empire in the East. The despots of the
+Morea, Demetrius and Thomas, [86] the two surviving brothers of the name
+of Palęologus, were astonished by the death of the emperor Constantine,
+and the ruin of the monarchy. Hopeless of defence, they prepared, with
+the noble Greeks who adhered to their fortune, to seek a refuge
+in Italy, beyond the reach of the Ottoman thunder. Their first
+apprehensions were dispelled by the victorious sultan, who contented
+himself with a tribute of twelve thousand ducats; and while his ambition
+explored the continent and the islands, in search of prey, he indulged
+the Morea in a respite of seven years. But this respite was a period
+of grief, discord, and misery. The _hexamilion_, the rampart of the
+Isthmus, so often raised and so often subverted, could not long be
+defended by three hundred Italian archers: the keys of Corinth were
+seized by the Turks: they returned from their summer excursions with a
+train of captives and spoil; and the complaints of the injured Greeks
+were heard with indifference and disdain. The Albanians, a vagrant tribe
+of shepherds and robbers, filled the peninsula with rapine and murder:
+the two despots implored the dangerous and humiliating aid of a
+neighboring bashaw; and when he had quelled the revolt, his lessons
+inculcated the rule of their future conduct. Neither the ties of blood,
+nor the oaths which they repeatedly pledged in the communion and before
+the altar, nor the stronger pressure of necessity, could reconcile or
+suspend their domestic quarrels. They ravaged each other's patrimony
+with fire and sword: the alms and succors of the West were consumed
+in civil hostility; and their power was only exerted in savage and
+arbitrary executions. The distress and revenge of the weaker rival
+invoked their supreme lord; and, in the season of maturity and revenge,
+Mahomet declared himself the friend of Demetrius, and marched into
+the Morea with an irresistible force. When he had taken possession of
+Sparta, "You are too weak," said the sultan, "to control this turbulent
+province: I will take your daughter to my bed; and you shall pass the
+remainder of your life in security and honor." Demetrius sighed and
+obeyed; surrendered his daughter and his castles; followed to Adrianople
+his sovereign and his son; and received for his own maintenance, and
+that of his followers, a city in Thrace and the adjacent isles of
+Imbros, Lemnos, and Samothrace. He was joined the next year by a
+companion [861] of misfortune, the last of the Comnenian race, who, after
+the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, had founded a new empire
+on the coast of the Black Sea. [87] In the progress of his Anatolian
+conquest, Mahomet invested with a fleet and army the capital of
+David, who presumed to style himself emperor of Trebizond; [88] and the
+negotiation was comprised in a short and peremptory question, "Will you
+secure your life and treasures by resigning your kingdom? or had you
+rather forfeit your kingdom, your treasures, and your life?" The feeble
+Comnenus was subdued by his own fears, [881] and the example of a Mussulman
+neighbor, the prince of Sinope, [89] who, on a similar summons, had
+yielded a fortified city, with four hundred cannon and ten or twelve
+thousand soldiers. The capitulation of Trebizond was faithfully
+performed: [891] and the emperor, with his family, was transported to a
+castle in Romania; but on a slight suspicion of corresponding with the
+Persian king, David, and the whole Comnenian race, were sacrificed to
+the jealousy or avarice of the conqueror. [892] Nor could the name
+of father long protect the unfortunate Demetrius from exile and
+confiscation; his abject submission moved the pity and contempt of
+the sultan; his followers were transplanted to Constantinople; and his
+poverty was alleviated by a pension of fifty thousand aspers, till a
+monastic habit and a tardy death released Palęologus from an earthly
+master. It is not easy to pronounce whether the servitude of Demetrius,
+or the exile of his brother Thomas, [90] be the most inglorious. On the
+conquest of the Morea, the despot escaped to Corfu, and from thence to
+Italy, with some naked adherents: his name, his sufferings, and the
+head of the apostle St. Andrew, entitled him to the hospitality of
+the Vatican; and his misery was prolonged by a pension of six thousand
+ducats from the pope and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel,
+were educated in Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies and
+burdensome to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of his life
+and marriage. A title was his sole inheritance; and that inheritance
+he successively sold to the kings of France and Arragon. [91] During his
+transient prosperity, Charles the Eighth was ambitious of joining the
+empire of the East with the kingdom of Naples: in a public festival,
+he assumed the appellation and the purple of _Augustus_: the Greeks
+rejoiced and the Ottoman already trembled, at the approach of the French
+chivalry. [92] Manuel Palęologus, the second son, was tempted to revisit
+his native country: his return might be grateful, and could not be
+dangerous, to the Porte: he was maintained at Constantinople in safety
+and ease; and an honorable train of Christians and Moslems attended him
+to the grave. If there be some animals of so generous a nature that they
+refuse to propagate in a domestic state, the last of the Imperial race
+must be ascribed to an inferior kind: he accepted from the sultan's
+liberality two beautiful females; and his surviving son was lost in the
+habit and religion of a Turkish slave.
+
+[Footnote 85: For the genealogy and fall of the Comneni of Trebizond,
+see Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 195;) for the last Palęologi, the same
+accurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248.) The Palęologi of Montferrat
+were not extinct till the next century; but they had forgotten their
+Greek origin and kindred.]
+
+[Footnote 86: In the worthless story of the disputes and misfortunes of
+the two brothers, Phranza (l. iii. c. 21--30) is too partial on the side
+of Thomas Ducas (c. 44, 45) is too brief, and Chalcondyles (l. viii. ix.
+x.) too diffuse and digressive.]
+
+[Footnote 861]: Kalo-Johannes, the predecessor of David his brother, the
+last emperor of Trebizond, had attempted to organize a confederacy
+against Mahomet it comprehended Hassan Bei, sultan of Mesopotamia, the
+Christian princes of Georgia and Iberia, the emir of Sinope, and the
+sultan of Caramania. The negotiations were interrupted by his sudden
+death, A.D. 1458. Fallmerayer, p. 257--260.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 87: See the loss or conquest of Trebizond in Chalcondyles,
+(l. ix. p. 263--266,) Ducas, (c. 45,) Phranza, (l. iii. c. 27,) and
+Cantemir, (p. 107.)]
+
+[Footnote 88: Though Tournefort (tom. iii. lettre xvii. p. 179) speaks
+of Trebizond as mal peuplée, Peysonnel, the latest and most accurate
+observer, can find 100,000 inhabitants, (Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom.
+ii. p. 72, and for the province, p. 53--90.) Its prosperity and trade
+are perpetually disturbed by the factious quarrels of two _odas_ of
+Janizaries, in one which 30,000 Lazi are commonly enrolled, (Mémoires de
+Tott, tom. iii. p. 16, 17.)]
+
+[Footnote 881: According to the Georgian account of these transactions,
+(translated by M. Brosset, additions to Le Beau, vol. xxi. p. 325,) the
+emperor of Trebizond humbly entreated the sultan to have the goodness to
+marry one of his daughters.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 89: Ismael Beg, prince of Sinope or Sinople, was possessed
+(chiefly from his copper mines) of a revenue of 200,000 ducats,
+(Chalcond. l. ix. p. 258, 259.) Peysonnel (Commerce de la Mer Noire,
+tom. ii. p. 100) ascribes to the modern city 60,000 inhabitants. This
+account seems enormous; yet it is by trading with people that we become
+acquainted with their wealth and numbers.]
+
+[Footnote 891: M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume of his
+Anecdota Gręca (p. 387, 401.) a very interesting letter from George
+Amiroutzes, protovestiarius of Trebizond, to Bessarion, describing the
+surrender of Trebizond, and the fate of its chief inhabitants.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 892: See in Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 60, the striking account of
+the mother, the empress Helena the Cantacuzene, who, in defiance of the
+edict, like that of Creon in the Greek tragedy, dug the grave for her
+murdered children with her own hand, and sank into it herself.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 90: Spondanus (from Gobelin Comment. Pii II. l. v.) relates
+the arrival and reception of the despot Thomas at Rome,. (A.D. 1461 No.
+NO. 3.)]
+
+[Footnote 91: By an act dated A.D. 1494, Sept. 6, and lately transmitted
+from the archives of the Capitol to the royal library of Paris, the
+despot Andrew Palęologus, reserving the Morea, and stipulating some
+private advantages, conveys to Charles VIII., king of France, the
+empires of Constantinople and Trebizond, (Spondanus, A.D. 1495, No. 2.)
+M. D. Foncemagne (Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p.
+539--578) has bestowed a dissertation on his national title, of which he
+had obtained a copy from Rome.]
+
+[Footnote 92: See Philippe de Comines, (l. vii. c. 14,) who reckons with
+pleasure the number of Greeks who were prepared to rise, 60 miles of an
+easy navigation, eighteen days' journey from Valona to Constantinople,
+&c. On this occasion the Turkish empire was saved by the policy of
+Venice.]
+
+The importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in its loss: the
+pontificate of Nicholas the Fifth, however peaceful and prosperous, was
+dishonored by the fall of the Eastern empire; and the grief and terror
+of the Latins revived, or seemed to revive, the old enthusiasm of the
+crusades. In one of the most distant countries of the West, Philip
+duke of Burgundy entertained, at Lisle in Flanders, an assembly of his
+nobles; and the pompous pageants of the feast were skilfully adapted
+to their fancy and feelings. [93] In the midst of the banquet a gigantic
+Saracen entered the hall, leading a fictitious elephant with a castle on
+his back: a matron in a mourning robe, the symbol of religion, was seen
+to issue from the castle: she deplored her oppression, and accused the
+slowness of her champions: the principal herald of the golden fleece
+advanced, bearing on his fist a live pheasant, which, according to
+the rites of chivalry, he presented to the duke. At this extraordinary
+summons, Philip, a wise and aged prince, engaged his person and powers
+in the holy war against the Turks: his example was imitated by the
+barons and knights of the assembly: they swore to God, the Virgin,
+the ladies and the _pheasant_; and their particular vows were not less
+extravagant than the general sanction of their oath. But the performance
+was made to depend on some future and foreign contingency; and during
+twelve years, till the last hour of his life, the duke of Burgundy might
+be scrupulously, and perhaps sincerely, on the eve of his departure. Had
+every breast glowed with the same ardor; had the union of the Christians
+corresponded with their bravery; had every country, from Sweden [94] to
+Naples, supplied a just proportion of cavalry and infantry, of men
+and money, it is indeed probable that Constantinople would have
+been delivered, and that the Turks might have been chased beyond the
+Hellespont or the Euphrates. But the secretary of the emperor, who
+composed every epistle, and attended every meeting, Ęneas Sylvius, [95]
+a statesman and orator, describes from his own experience the repugnant
+state and spirit of Christendom. "It is a body," says he, "without a
+head; a republic without laws or magistrates. The pope and the emperor
+may shine as lofty titles, as splendid images; but _they_ are unable
+to command, and none are willing to obey: every state has a separate
+prince, and every prince has a separate interest. What eloquence could
+unite so many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard?
+Could they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume the office of
+general? What order could be maintained?--what military discipline? Who
+would undertake to feed such an enormous multitude? Who would understand
+their various languages, or direct their stranger and incompatible
+manners? What mortal could reconcile the English with the French, Genoa
+with Arragon the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia? If a
+small number enlisted in the holy war, they must be overthrown by the
+infidels; if many, by their own weight and confusion." Yet the same
+Ęneas, when he was raised to the papal throne, under the name of Pius
+the Second, devoted his life to the prosecution of the Turkish war.
+In the council of Mantua he excited some sparks of a false or feeble
+enthusiasm; but when the pontiff appeared at Ancona, to embark in person
+with the troops, engagements vanished in excuses; a precise day was
+adjourned to an indefinite term; and his effective army consisted of
+some German pilgrims, whom he was obliged to disband with indulgences
+and arms. Regardless of futurity, his successors and the powers of Italy
+were involved in the schemes of present and domestic ambition; and
+the distance or proximity of each object determined in their eyes its
+apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would have
+taught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the common
+enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg and his brave Albanians might have
+prevented the subsequent invasion of the kingdom of Naples. The siege
+and sack of Otranto by the Turks diffused a general consternation; and
+Pope Sixtus was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, when the storm
+was instantly dispelled by the death of Mahomet the Second, in the
+fifty-first year of his age. [96] His lofty genius aspired to the
+conquest of Italy: he was possessed of a strong city and a capacious
+harbor; and the same reign might have been decorated with the trophies
+of the New and the Ancient Rome. [97]
+
+[Footnote 93: See the original feast in Olivier de la Marche, (Mémoires,
+P. i. c. 29, 30,) with the abstract and observations of M. de Ste.
+Palaye, (Mémoires sur la Chevalerie, tom. i. P. iii. p. 182--185.) The
+peacock and the pheasant were distinguished as royal birds.]
+
+[Footnote 94: It was found by an actual enumeration, that Sweden,
+Gothland, and Finland, contained 1,800,000 fighting men, and
+consequently were far more populous than at present.]
+
+[Footnote 95: In the year 1454, Spondanus has given, from Ęneas Sylvius,
+a view of the state of Europe, enriched with his own observations. That
+valuable annalist, and the Italian Muratori, will continue the series
+of events from the year 1453 to 1481, the end of Mahomet's life, and of
+this chapter.]
+
+[Footnote 96: Besides the two annalists, the reader may consult Giannone
+(Istoria Civile, tom. iii. p. 449--455) for the Turkish invasion of the
+kingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquests of Mahomet II., I
+have occasionally used the Memorie Istoriche de Monarchi Ottomanni di
+Giovanni Sagredo, (Venezia, 1677, in 4to.) In peace and war, the Turks
+have ever engaged the attention of the republic of Venice. All her
+despatches and archives were open to a procurator of St. Mark, and
+Sagredo is not contemptible either in sense or style. Yet he too
+bitterly hates the infidels: he is ignorant of their language and
+manners; and his narrative, which allows only 70 pages to Mahomet II.,
+(p. 69--140,) becomes more copious and authentic as he approaches the
+years 1640 and 1644, the term of the historic labors of John Sagredo.]
+
+[Footnote 97: As I am now taking an everlasting farewell of the Greek
+empire, I shall briefly mention the great collection of Byzantine
+writers whose names and testimonies have been successively repeated in
+this work. The Greeks presses of Aldus and the Italians were confined to
+the classics of a better age; and the first rude editions of Procopius,
+Agathias, Cedrenus, Zonaras, &c., were published by the learned
+diligence of the Germans. The whole Byzantine series (xxxvi. volumes in
+folio) has gradually issued (A.D. 1648, &c.) from the royal press of the
+Louvre, with some collateral aid from Rome and Leipsic; but the Venetian
+edition, (A.D. 1729,) though cheaper and more copious, is not less
+inferior in correctness than in magnificence to that of Paris. The
+merits of the French editors are various; but the value of Anna Comnena,
+Cinnamus, Villehardouin, &c., is enhanced by the historical notes of
+Charles de Fresne du Cange. His supplemental works, the Greek Glossary,
+the Constantinopolis Christiana, the Familię Byzantinę, diffuse a steady
+light over the darkness of the Lower Empire. * Note: The new edition of
+the Byzantines, projected by Niebuhr, and continued under the patronage
+of the Prussian government, is the most convenient in size, and contains
+some authors (Leo Diaconus, Johannes Lydus, Corippus, the new fragment
+of Dexippus, Eunapius, &c., discovered by Mai) which could not be
+comprised in the former collections; but the names of such editors as
+Bekker, the Dindorfs, &c., raised hopes of something more than the mere
+republication of the text, and the notes of former editors. Little, I
+regret to say, has been added of annotation, and in some cases, the old
+incorrect versions have been retained.--M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.--Part I.
+
+     State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.--Temporal Dominion
+     Of The Popes.--Seditions Of The City.--Political Heresy Of
+     Arnold Of Brescia.--Restoration Of The Republic.--The
+     Senators.--Pride Of The Romans.--Their Wars.--They Are
+     Deprived Of The Election And Presence Of The Popes, Who
+     Retire To Avignon.--The Jubilee.--Noble Families Of Rome.--
+     Feud Of The Colonna And Ursini.
+
+In the first ages of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, our
+eye is invariably fixed on the royal city, which had given laws to the
+fairest portion of the globe. We contemplate her fortunes, at first with
+admiration, at length with pity, always with attention, and when that
+attention is diverted from the capital to the provinces, they are
+considered as so many branches which have been successively severed from
+the Imperial trunk. The foundation of a second Rome, on the shores of
+the Bosphorus, has compelled the historian to follow the successors of
+Constantine; and our curiosity has been tempted to visit the most remote
+countries of Europe and Asia, to explore the causes and the authors of
+the long decay of the Byzantine monarchy. By the conquest of Justinian,
+we have been recalled to the banks of the Tyber, to the deliverance of
+the ancient metropolis; but that deliverance was a change, or perhaps
+an aggravation, of servitude. Rome had been already stripped of her
+trophies, her gods, and her Cęsars; nor was the Gothic dominion more
+inglorious and oppressive than the tyranny of the Greeks. In the eighth
+century of the Christian ęra, a religious quarrel, the worship of
+images, provoked the Romans to assert their independence: their bishop
+became the temporal, as well as the spiritual, father of a free people;
+and of the Western empire, which was restored by Charlemagne, the title
+and image still decorate the singular constitution of modern Germany.
+The name of Rome must yet command our involuntary respect: the climate
+(whatsoever may be its influence) was no longer the same: [1] the purity
+of blood had been contaminated through a thousand channels; but the
+venerable aspect of her ruins, and the memory of past greatness,
+rekindled a spark of the national character. The darkness of the middle
+ages exhibits some scenes not unworthy of our notice. Nor shall I
+dismiss the present work till I have reviewed the state and revolutions
+of the Roman City, which acquiesced under the absolute dominion of
+the popes, about the same time that Constantinople was enslaved by the
+Turkish arms.
+
+[Footnote 1: The abbé Dubos, who, with less genius than his successor
+Montesquieu, has asserted and magnified the influence of climate,
+objects to himself the degeneracy of the Romans and Batavians. To the
+first of these examples he replies, 1. That the change is less real than
+apparent, and that the modern Romans prudently conceal in themselves the
+virtues of their ancestors. 2. That the air, the soil, and the climate
+of Rome have suffered a great and visible alteration, (Réflexions sur la
+Poėsie et sur la Peinture, part ii. sect. 16.) * Note: This question is
+discussed at considerable length in Dr. Arnold's History of Rome, ch.
+xxiii. See likewise Bunsen's Dissertation on the Aria Cattiva Roms
+Beschreibung, pp. 82, 108.--M.]
+
+In the beginning of the twelfth century, [2] the ęra of the first
+crusade, Rome was revered by the Latins, as the metropolis of the world,
+as the throne of the pope and the emperor, who, from the eternal city,
+derived their title, their honors, and the right or exercise of temporal
+dominion. After so long an interruption, it may not be useless to repeat
+that the successors of Charlemagne and the Othos were chosen beyond the
+Rhine in a national diet; but that these princes were content with the
+humble names of kings of Germany and Italy, till they had passed the
+Alps and the Apennine, to seek their Imperial crown on the banks of the
+Tyber. [3] At some distance from the city, their approach was saluted by
+a long procession of the clergy and people with palms and crosses; and
+the terrific emblems of wolves and lions, of dragons and eagles, that
+floated in the military banners, represented the departed legions and
+cohorts of the republic. The royal path to maintain the liberties of
+Rome was thrice reiterated, at the bridge, the gate, and on the stairs
+of the Vatican; and the distribution of a customary donative feebly
+imitated the magnificence of the first Cęsars. In the church of St.
+Peter, the coronation was performed by his successor: the voice of
+God was confounded with that of the people; and the public consent was
+declared in the acclamations of "Long life and victory to our lord
+the pope! long life and victory to our lord the emperor! long life and
+victory to the Roman and Teutonic armies!" [4] The names of Cęsar
+and Augustus, the laws of Constantine and Justinian, the example of
+Charlemagne and Otho, established the supreme dominion of the emperors:
+their title and image was engraved on the papal coins; [5] and their
+jurisdiction was marked by the sword of justice, which they delivered to
+the pręfect of the city. But every Roman prejudice was awakened by the
+name, the language, and the manners, of a Barbarian lord. The Cęsars of
+Saxony or Franconia were the chiefs of a feudal aristocracy; nor could
+they exercise the discipline of civil and military power, which alone
+secures the obedience of a distant people, impatient of servitude,
+though perhaps incapable of freedom. Once, and once only, in his life,
+each emperor, with an army of Teutonic vassals, descended from the Alps.
+I have described the peaceful order of his entry and coronation; but
+that order was commonly disturbed by the clamor and sedition of the
+Romans, who encountered their sovereign as a foreign invader: his
+departure was always speedy, and often shameful; and, in the absence of
+a long reign, his authority was insulted, and his name was forgotten.
+The progress of independence in Germany and Italy undermined the
+foundations of the Imperial sovereignty, and the triumph of the popes
+was the deliverance of Rome.
+
+[Footnote 2: The reader has been so long absent from Rome, that I would
+advise him to recollect or review the xlixth chapter of this History.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The coronation of the German emperors at Rome, more
+especially in the xith century, is best represented from the original
+monuments by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italię Medii Ęvi, tom. i. dissertat.
+ii. p. 99, &c.) and Cenni, (Monument. Domin. Pontif. tom. ii. diss.
+vi. p. 261,) the latter of whom I only know from the copious extract of
+Schmidt, (Hist. des Allemands tom. iii. p. 255--266.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: Exercitui Romano et Teutonico! The latter was both seen and
+felt; but the former was no more than magni nominis umbra.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Muratori has given the series of the papal coins,
+(Antiquitat. tom. ii. diss. xxvii. p. 548--554.) He finds only two more
+early than the year 800: fifty are still extant from Leo III. to Leo
+IX., with the addition of the reigning emperor none remain of Gregory
+VII. or Urban II.; but in those of Paschal II. he seems to have
+renounced this badge of dependence.]
+
+Of her two sovereigns, the emperor had precariously reigned by the right
+of conquest; but the authority of the pope was founded on the soft,
+though more solid, basis of opinion and habit. The removal of a foreign
+influence restored and endeared the shepherd to his flock. Instead of
+the arbitrary or venal nomination of a German court, the vicar of Christ
+was freely chosen by the college of cardinals, most of whom were either
+natives or inhabitants of the city. The applause of the magistrates and
+people confirmed his election, and the ecclesiastical power that was
+obeyed in Sweden and Britain had been ultimately derived from the
+suffrage of the Romans. The same suffrage gave a prince, as well as a
+pontiff, to the capital. It was universally believed, that Constantine
+had invested the popes with the temporal dominion of Rome; and the
+boldest civilians, the most profane skeptics, were satisfied with
+disputing the right of the emperor and the validity of his gift. The
+truth of the fact, the authenticity of his donation, was deeply rooted
+in the ignorance and tradition of four centuries; and the fabulous
+origin was lost in the real and permanent effects. The name of _Dominus_
+or Lord was inscribed on the coin of the bishops: their title was
+acknowledged by acclamations and oaths of allegiance, and with the free,
+or reluctant, consent of the German Cęsars, they had long exercised a
+supreme or subordinate jurisdiction over the city and patrimony of St.
+Peter. The reign of the popes, which gratified the prejudices, was not
+incompatible with the liberties, of Rome; and a more critical inquiry
+would have revealed a still nobler source of their power; the gratitude
+of a nation, whom they had rescued from the heresy and oppression of the
+Greek tyrant. In an age of superstition, it should seem that the union
+of the royal and sacerdotal characters would mutually fortify each
+other; and that the keys of Paradise would be the surest pledge of
+earthly obedience. The sanctity of the office might indeed be degraded
+by the personal vices of the man. But the scandals of the tenth century
+were obliterated by the austere and more dangerous virtues of Gregory
+the Seventh and his successors; and in the ambitious contests which
+they maintained for the rights of the church, their sufferings or their
+success must equally tend to increase the popular veneration. They
+sometimes wandered in poverty and exile, the victims of persecution; and
+the apostolic zeal with which they offered themselves to martyrdom must
+engage the favor and sympathy of every Catholic breast. And sometimes,
+thundering from the Vatican, they created, judged, and deposed the kings
+of the world; nor could the proudest Roman be disgraced by submitting
+to a priest, whose feet were kissed, and whose stirrup was held, by the
+successors of Charlemagne. [6] Even the temporal interest of the city
+should have protected in peace and honor the residence of the popes;
+from whence a vain and lazy people derived the greatest part of their
+subsistence and riches. The fixed revenue of the popes was probably
+impaired; many of the old patrimonial estates, both in Italy and the
+provinces, had been invaded by sacrilegious hands; nor could the loss be
+compensated by the claim, rather than the possession, of the more ample
+gifts of Pepin and his descendants. But the Vatican and Capitol were
+nourished by the incessant and increasing swarms of pilgrims and
+suppliants: the pale of Christianity was enlarged, and the pope and
+cardinals were overwhelmed by the judgment of ecclesiastical and secular
+causes. A new jurisprudence had established in the Latin church the
+right and practice of appeals; [7] and from the North and West the
+bishops and abbots were invited or summoned to solicit, to complain,
+to accuse, or to justify, before the threshold of the apostles. A rare
+prodigy is once recorded, that two horses, belonging to the archbishops
+of Mentz and Cologne, repassed the Alps, yet laden with gold and silver:
+[8] but it was soon understood, that the success, both of the pilgrims
+and clients, depended much less on the justice of their cause than on
+the value of their offering. The wealth and piety of these strangers
+were ostentatiously displayed; and their expenses, sacred or profane,
+circulated in various channels for the emolument of the Romans.
+
+[Footnote 6: See Ducange, Gloss. medię et infimę Latinitat. tom. vi. p.
+364, 365, Staffa. This homage was paid by kings to archbishops, and
+by vassals to their lords, (Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 262;) and it was the
+nicest policy of Rome to confound the marks of filial and of feudal
+subjection.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The appeals from all the churches to the Roman pontiff are
+deplored by the zeal of St. Bernard (de Consideratione, l. iii. tom. ii.
+p. 431--442, edit. Mabillon, Venet. 1750) and the judgment of Fleury,
+(Discours sur l'Hist. Ecclésiastique, iv. et vii.) But the saint,
+who believed in the false decretals condemns only the abuse of these
+appeals; the more enlightened historian investigates the origin, and
+rejects the principles, of this new jurisprudence.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Germanici.... summarii non levatis sarcinis onusti
+nihilominus repatriant inviti. Nova res! quando hactenus aurum Roma
+refudit? Et nunc Romanorum consilio id usurpatum non credimus, (Bernard,
+de Consideratione, l. iii. c. 3, p. 437.) The first words of the passage
+are obscure, and probably corrupt.]
+
+Such powerful motives should have firmly attached the voluntary and
+pious obedience of the Roman people to their spiritual and temporal
+father. But the operation of prejudice and interest is often disturbed
+by the sallies of ungovernable passion. The Indian who fells the tree,
+that he may gather the fruit, [9] and the Arab who plunders the caravans
+of commerce, are actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, which
+overlooks the future in the present, and relinquishes for momentary
+rapine the long and secure possession of the most important blessings.
+And it was thus, that the shrine of St. Peter was profaned by the
+thoughtless Romans; who pillaged the offerings, and wounded the
+pilgrims, without computing the number and value of similar visits,
+which they prevented by their inhospitable sacrilege. Even the influence
+of superstition is fluctuating and precarious; and the slave, whose
+reason is subdued, will often be delivered by his avarice or pride. A
+credulous devotion for the fables and oracles of the priesthood most
+powerfully acts on the mind of a Barbarian; yet such a mind is the least
+capable of preferring imagination to sense, of sacrificing to a distant
+motive, to an invisible, perhaps an ideal, object, the appetites and
+interests of the present world. In the vigor of health and youth, his
+practice will perpetually contradict his belief; till the pressure of
+age, or sickness, or calamity, awakens his terrors, and compels him to
+satisfy the double debt of piety and remorse. I have already observed,
+that the modern times of religious indifference are the most
+favorable to the peace and security of the clergy. Under the reign of
+superstition, they had much to hope from the ignorance, and much to fear
+from the violence, of mankind. The wealth, whose constant increase must
+have rendered them the sole proprietors of the earth, was alternately
+bestowed by the repentant father and plundered by the rapacious son:
+their persons were adored or violated; and the same idol, by the hands
+of the same votaries, was placed on the altar, or trampled in the dust.
+In the feudal system of Europe, arms were the title of distinction and
+the measure of allegiance; and amidst their tumult, the still voice
+of law and reason was seldom heard or obeyed. The turbulent Romans
+disdained the yoke, and insulted the impotence, of their bishop: [10] nor
+would his education or character allow him to exercise, with decency
+or effect, the power of the sword. The motives of his election and the
+frailties of his life were exposed to their familiar observation; and
+proximity must diminish the reverence which his name and his decrees
+impressed on a barbarous world. This difference has not escaped the
+notice of our philosophic historian: "Though the name and authority of
+the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote countries of Europe,
+which were sunk in profound ignorance, and were entirely unacquainted
+with its character and conduct, the pope was so little revered at home,
+that his inveterate enemies surrounded the gates of Rome itself, and
+even controlled his government in that city; and the ambassadors, who,
+from a distant extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble, or rather
+abject, submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found the
+utmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw themselves at
+his feet." [11]
+
+[Footnote 9: Quand les sauvages de la Louisiane veulent avoir du fruit,
+ils coupent l'arbre au pied et cueillent le fruit. Voila le gouvernement
+despotique, (Esprit des Loix, l. v. c. 13;) and passion and ignorance
+are always despotic.]
+
+[Footnote 10: In a free conversation with his countryman Adrian
+IV., John of Salisbury accuses the avarice of the pope and clergy:
+Provinciarum diripiunt spolia, ac si thesauros Crsi studeant reparare.
+Sed recte cum eis agit Altissimus, quoniam et ipsi aliis et sępe
+vilissimis hominibus dati sunt in direptionem, (de Nugis Curialium,
+l. vi. c. 24, p. 387.) In the next page, he blames the rashness and
+infidelity of the Romans, whom their bishops vainly strove to conciliate
+by gifts, instead of virtues. It is pity that this miscellaneous writer
+has not given us less morality and erudition, and more pictures of
+himself and the times.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Hume's History of England, vol. i. p. 419. The same writer
+has given us, from Fitz-Stephen, a singular act of cruelty perpetrated
+on the clergy by Geoffrey, the father of Henry II. "When he was master
+of Normandy, the chapter of Seez presumed, without his consent, to
+proceed to the election of a bishop: upon which he ordered all of them,
+with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their testicles
+be brought him in a platter." Of the pain and danger they might justly
+complain; yet since they had vowed chastity he deprived them of a
+superfluous treasure.]
+
+Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to envy,
+their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence. But the long
+hostility of the mitre and the crown increased the numbers, and inflamed
+the passions, of their enemies. The deadly factions of the Guelphs and
+Ghibelines, so fatal to Italy, could never be embraced with truth or
+constancy by the Romans, the subjects and adversaries both of the bishop
+and emperor; but their support was solicited by both parties, and they
+alternately displayed in their banners the keys of St. Peter and the
+German eagle. Gregory the Seventh, who may be adored or detested as the
+founder of the papal monarchy, was driven from Rome, and died in exile
+at Salerno. Six-and-thirty of his successors, [12] till their retreat to
+Avignon, maintained an unequal contest with the Romans: their age and
+dignity were often violated; and the churches, in the solemn rites of
+religion, were polluted with sedition and murder. A repetition [13]
+of such capricious brutality, without connection or design, would be
+tedious and disgusting; and I shall content myself with some events
+of the twelfth century, which represent the state of the popes and the
+city. On Holy Thursday, while Paschal officiated before the altar,
+he was interrupted by the clamors of the multitude, who imperiously
+demanded the confirmation of a favorite magistrate. His silence
+exasperated their fury; his pious refusal to mingle the affairs of earth
+and heaven was encountered with menaces, and oaths, that he should be
+the cause and the witness of the public ruin. During the festival of
+Easter, while the bishop and the clergy, barefooted and in procession,
+visited the tombs of the martyrs, they were twice assaulted, at the
+bridge of St. Angelo, and before the Capitol, with volleys of stones
+and darts. The houses of his adherents were levelled with the ground:
+Paschal escaped with difficulty and danger; he levied an army in the
+patrimony of St. Peter; and his last days were embittered by suffering
+and inflicting the calamities of civil war. The scenes that followed the
+election of his successor Gelasius the Second were still more scandalous
+to the church and city. Cencio Frangipani, [14] a potent and factious
+baron, burst into the assembly furious and in arms: the cardinals were
+stripped, beaten, and trampled under foot; and he seized, without pity
+or respect, the vicar of Christ by the throat. Gelasius was dragged by
+the hair along the ground, buffeted with blows, wounded with spurs,
+and bound with an iron chain in the house of his brutal tyrant. An
+insurrection of the people delivered their bishop: the rival families
+opposed the violence of the Frangipani; and Cencio, who sued for pardon,
+repented of the failure, rather than of the guilt, of his enterprise.
+Not many days had elapsed, when the pope was again assaulted at the
+altar. While his friends and enemies were engaged in a bloody contest,
+he escaped in his sacerdotal garments. In this unworthy flight, which
+excited the compassion of the Roman matrons, his attendants were
+scattered or unhorsed; and, in the fields behind the church of St.
+Peter, his successor was found alone and half dead with fear and
+fatigue. Shaking the dust from his feet, the _apostle_ withdrew from a
+city in which his dignity was insulted and his person was endangered;
+and the vanity of sacerdotal ambition is revealed in the involuntary
+confession, that one emperor was more tolerable than twenty. [15] These
+examples might suffice; but I cannot forget the sufferings of two
+pontiffs of the same age, the second and third of the name of Lucius.
+The former, as he ascended in battle array to assault the Capitol, was
+struck on the temple by a stone, and expired in a few days. The
+latter was severely wounded in the person of his servants. In a civil
+commotion, several of his priests had been made prisoners; and the
+inhuman Romans, reserving one as a guide for his brethren, put out their
+eyes, crowned them with ludicrous mitres, mounted them on asses with
+their faces towards the tail, and extorted an oath, that, in this
+wretched condition, they should offer themselves as a lesson to the head
+of the church. Hope or fear, lassitude or remorse, the characters of
+the men, and the circumstances of the times, might sometimes obtain an
+interval of peace and obedience; and the pope was restored with joyful
+acclamations to the Lateran or Vatican, from whence he had been driven
+with threats and violence. But the root of mischief was deep and
+perennial; and a momentary calm was preceded and followed by such
+tempests as had almost sunk the bark of St. Peter. Rome continually
+presented the aspect of war and discord: the churches and palaces were
+fortified and assaulted by the factions and families; and, after giving
+peace to Europe, Calistus the Second alone had resolution and power to
+prohibit the use of private arms in the metropolis. Among the nations
+who revered the apostolic throne, the tumults of Rome provoked a general
+indignation; and in a letter to his disciple Eugenius the Third, St.
+Bernard, with the sharpness of his wit and zeal, has stigmatized the
+vices of the rebellious people. [16] "Who is ignorant," says the monk of
+Clairvaux, "of the vanity and arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursed
+in sedition, untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too
+feeble to resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; if
+they swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet they
+vent their discontent in loud clamors, if your doors, or your counsels,
+are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief, they have never learned
+the science of doing good. Odious to earth and heaven, impious to God,
+seditious among themselves, jealous of their neighbors, inhuman to
+strangers, they love no one, by no one are they beloved; and while they
+wish to inspire fear, they live in base and continual apprehension.
+They will not submit; they know not how to govern faithless to their
+superiors, intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their benefactors,
+and alike impudent in their demands and their refusals. Lofty in
+promise, poor in execution; adulation and calumny, perfidy and treason,
+are the familiar arts of their policy." Surely this dark portrait is
+not colored by the pencil of Christian charity; [17] yet the features,
+however harsh or ugly, express a lively resemblance of the Roman of the
+twelfth century. [18]
+
+[Footnote 12: From Leo IX. and Gregory VII. an authentic and
+contemporary series of the lives of the popes by the cardinal of
+Arragon, Pandulphus Pisanus, Bernard Guido, &c., is inserted in the
+Italian Historians of Muratori, (tom. iii. P. i. p. 277--685,) and has
+been always before my eyes.]
+
+[Footnote 13: The dates of years in the contents may throughout his this
+chapter be understood as tacit references to the Annals of Muratori,
+my ordinary and excellent guide. He uses, and indeed quotes, with the
+freedom of a master, his great collection of the Italian Historians, in
+xxviii. volumes; and as that treasure is in my library, I have thought
+it an amusement, if not a duty, to consult the originals.]
+
+[Footnote 14: I cannot refrain from transcribing the high-colored
+words of Pandulphus Pisanus, (p. 384.) Hoc audiens inimicus pacis
+atque turbator jam fatus Centius Frajapane, more draconis immanissimi
+sibilans, et ab imis pectoribus trahens longa suspiria, accinctus
+retro gladio sine more cucurrit, valvas ac fores confregit. Ecclesiam
+furibundus introiit, inde custode remoto papam per gulam accepit,
+distraxit pugnis calcibusque percussit, et tanquam brutum animal intra
+limen ecclesię acriter calcaribus cruentavit; et latro tantum dominum
+per capillos et brachia, Jesū bono interim dormiente, detraxit, ad domum
+usque deduxit, inibi catenavit et inclusit.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Ego coram Deo et Ecclesiā dico, si unquam possibile esset,
+mallem unum imperatorem quam tot dominos, (Vit. Gelas. II. p. 398.)]
+
+[Footnote 16: Quid tam notum seculis quam protervia et cervicositas
+Romanorum? Gens insueta paci, tumultui assueta, gens immitis et
+intractabilis usque adhuc, subdi nescia, nisi cum non valet resistere,
+(de Considerat. l. iv. c. 2, p. 441.) The saint takes breath, and then
+begins again: Hi, invisi terrę et clo, utrique injecere manus, &c., (p.
+443.)]
+
+[Footnote 17: As a Roman citizen, Petrarch takes leave to observe,
+that Bernard, though a saint, was a man; that he might be provoked by
+resentment, and possibly repent of his hasty passion, &c. (Mémoires sur
+la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 330.)]
+
+[Footnote 18: Baronius, in his index to the xiith volume of his
+Annals, has found a fair and easy excuse. He makes two heads, of Romani
+_Catholici_ and _Schismatici_: to the former he applies all the good, to
+the latter all the evil, that is told of the city.]
+
+The Jews had rejected the Christ when he appeared among them in a
+plebeian character; and the Romans might plead their ignorance of his
+vicar when he assumed the pomp and pride of a temporal sovereign. In
+the busy age of the crusades, some sparks of curiosity and reason were
+rekindled in the Western world: the heresy of Bulgaria, the Paulician
+sect, was successfully transplanted into the soil of Italy and France;
+the Gnostic visions were mingled with the simplicity of the gospel;
+and the enemies of the clergy reconciled their passions with their
+conscience, the desire of freedom with the profession of piety. [19] The
+trumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded by Arnold of Brescia, [20]
+whose promotion in the church was confined to the lowest rank, and who
+wore the monastic habit rather as a garb of poverty than as a uniform
+of obedience. His adversaries could not deny the wit and eloquence which
+they severely felt; they confess with reluctance the specious purity of
+his morals; and his errors were recommended to the public by a mixture
+of important and beneficial truths. In his theological studies, he had
+been the disciple of the famous and unfortunate Abelard, [21] who was
+likewise involved in the suspicion of heresy: but the lover of Eloisa
+was of a soft and flexible nature; and his ecclesiastic judges were
+edified and disarmed by the humility of his repentance. From this
+master, Arnold most probably imbibed some metaphysical definitions of
+the Trinity, repugnant to the taste of the times: his ideas of baptism
+and the eucharist are loosely censured; but a political heresy was the
+source of his fame and misfortunes. He presumed to quote the declaration
+of Christ, that his kingdom is not of this world: he boldly maintained,
+that the sword and the sceptre were intrusted to the civil magistrate;
+that temporal honors and possessions were lawfully vested in secular
+persons; that the abbots, the bishops, and the pope himself, must
+renounce either their state or their salvation; and that after the loss
+of their revenues, the voluntary tithes and oblations of the faithful
+would suffice, not indeed for luxury and avarice, but for a frugal life
+in the exercise of spiritual labors. During a short time, the preacher
+was revered as a patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of Brescia
+against her bishop, was the first fruits of his dangerous lessons. But
+the favor of the people is less permanent than the resentment of the
+priest; and after the heresy of Arnold had been condemned by Innocent
+the Second, [22] in the general council of the Lateran, the magistrates
+themselves were urged by prejudice and fear to execute the sentence of
+the church. Italy could no longer afford a refuge; and the disciple of
+Abelard escaped beyond the Alps, till he found a safe and hospitable
+shelter in Zurich, now the first of the Swiss cantons. From a Roman
+station, [23] a royal villa, a chapter of noble virgins, Zurich had
+gradually increased to a free and flourishing city; where the appeals of
+the Milanese were sometimes tried by the Imperial commissaries. [24] In
+an age less ripe for reformation, the precursor of Zuinglius was heard
+with applause: a brave and simple people imbibed, and long retained,
+the color of his opinions; and his art, or merit, seduced the bishop
+of Constance, and even the pope's legate, who forgot, for his sake, the
+interest of their master and their order. Their tardy zeal was quickened
+by the fierce exhortations of St. Bernard; [25] and the enemy of the
+church was driven by persecution to the desperate measures of erecting
+his standard in Rome itself, in the face of the successor of St. Peter.
+
+[Footnote 19: The heresies of the xiith century may be found in Mosheim,
+(Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 419--427,) who entertains a favorable
+opinion of Arnold of Brescia. In the vth volume I have described the
+sect of the Paulicians, and followed their migration from Armenia to
+Thrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France.]
+
+[Footnote 20: The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are drawn by
+Otho, bishop of Frisingen, (Chron. l. vii. c. 31, de Gestis Frederici
+I. l. i. c. 27, l. ii. c. 21,) and in the iiid book of the Ligurinus,
+a poem of Gunthur, who flourished A.D. 1200, in the monastery of Paris
+near Basil, (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimę Ętatis, tom. iii.
+p. 174, 175.) The long passage that relates to Arnold is produced by
+Guilliman, (de Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p. 108.) *
+Note: Compare Franke, Arnold von Brescia und seine Zeit. Zurich,
+1828.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The wicked wit of Bayle was amused in composing, with much
+levity and learning, the articles of Abelard, Foulkes, Heloise, in
+his Dictionnaire Critique. The dispute of Abelard and St. Bernard,
+of scholastic and positive divinity, is well understood by Mosheim,
+(Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 412--415.)]
+
+[Footnote 22:
+     ----Damnatus ab illo
+     Pręsule, qui numeros vetitum contingere nostros
+     Nomen ad _innocuā_ ducit laudabile vitā.
+
+We may applaud the dexterity and correctness of Ligurinus, who turns the
+unpoetical name of Innocent II. into a compliment.]
+
+[Footnote 23: A Roman inscription of Statio Turicensis has been found at
+Zurich, (D'Anville, Notice de l'ancienne Gaul, p. 642--644;) but it is
+without sufficient warrant, that the city and canton have usurped, and
+even monopolized, the names of Tigurum and Pagus Tigurinus.]
+
+[Footnote 24: Guilliman (de Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p. 106)
+recapitulates the donation (A.D. 833) of the emperor Lewis the Pious to
+his daughter the abbess Hildegardis. Curtim nostram Turegum in ducatū
+Alamannię in pago Durgaugensi, with villages, woods, meadows, waters,
+slaves, churches, &c.; a noble gift. Charles the Bald gave the jus
+monetę, the city was walled under Otho I., and the line of the bishop of
+Frisingen,
+     Nobile Turegum multarum copia rerum,
+is repeated with pleasure by the antiquaries of Zurich.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Bernard, Epistol. cxcv. tom. i. p. 187--190. Amidst his
+invectives he drops a precious acknowledgment, qui, utinam quam sanę
+esset doctrinę quam districtę est vitę. He owns that Arnold would be a
+valuable acquisition for the church.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.--Part II.
+
+Yet the courage of Arnold was not devoid of discretion: he was
+protected, and had perhaps been invited, by the nobles and people; and
+in the service of freedom, his eloquence thundered over the seven hills.
+Blending in the same discourse the texts of Livy and St. Paul, uniting
+the motives of gospel, and of classic, enthusiasm, he admonished the
+Romans, how strangely their patience and the vices of the clergy had
+degenerated from the primitive times of the church and the city. He
+exhorted them to assert the inalienable rights of men and Christians; to
+restore the laws and magistrates of the republic; to respect the
+_name_ of the emperor; but to confine their shepherd to the spiritual
+government of his flock. [26] Nor could his spiritual government escape
+the censure and control of the reformer; and the inferior clergy
+were taught by his lessons to resist the cardinals, who had usurped a
+despotic command over the twenty-eight regions or parishes of Rome. [27]
+The revolution was not accomplished without rapine and violence, the
+diffusion of blood and the demolition of houses: the victorious faction
+was enriched with the spoils of the clergy and the adverse nobles.
+Arnold of Brescia enjoyed, or deplored, the effects of his mission: his
+reign continued above ten years, while two popes, Innocent the Second
+and Anastasius the Fourth, either trembled in the Vatican, or wandered
+as exiles in the adjacent cities. They were succeeded by a more vigorous
+and fortunate pontiff. Adrian the Fourth, [28] the only Englishman who
+has ascended the throne of St. Peter; and whose merit emerged from the
+mean condition of a monk, and almost a beggar, in the monastery of St.
+Albans. On the first provocation, of a cardinal killed or wounded in the
+streets, he cast an interdict on the guilty people; and from Christmas
+to Easter, Rome was deprived of the real or imaginary comforts of
+religious worship. The Romans had despised their temporal prince: they
+submitted with grief and terror to the censures of their spiritual
+father: their guilt was expiated by penance, and the banishment of the
+seditious preacher was the price of their absolution. But the revenge of
+Adrian was yet unsatisfied, and the approaching coronation of Frederic
+Barbarossa was fatal to the bold reformer, who had offended, though
+not in an equal degree, the heads of the church and state. In their
+interview at Viterbo, the pope represented to the emperor the furious,
+ungovernable spirit of the Romans; the insults, the injuries, the fears,
+to which his person and his clergy were continually exposed; and the
+pernicious tendency of the heresy of Arnold, which must subvert the
+principles of civil, as well as ecclesiastical, subordination. Frederic
+was convinced by these arguments, or tempted by the desire of the
+Imperial crown: in the balance of ambition, the innocence or life of an
+individual is of small account; and their common enemy was sacrificed to
+a moment of political concord. After his retreat from Rome, Arnold had
+been protected by the viscounts of Campania, from whom he was extorted
+by the power of Cęsar: the pręfect of the city pronounced his sentence:
+the martyr of freedom was burned alive in the presence of a careless
+and ungrateful people; and his ashes were cast into the Tyber, lest the
+heretics should collect and worship the relics of their master. [29] The
+clergy triumphed in his death: with his ashes, his sect was dispersed;
+his memory still lived in the minds of the Romans. From his school they
+had probably derived a new article of faith, that the metropolis of
+the Catholic church is exempt from the penalties of excommunication and
+interdict. Their bishops might argue, that the supreme jurisdiction,
+which they exercised over kings and nations, more especially embraced
+the city and diocese of the prince of the apostles. But they preached to
+the winds, and the same principle that weakened the effect, must temper
+the abuse, of the thunders of the Vatican.
+
+[Footnote 26: He advised the Romans,
+     Consiliis armisque sua moderamina summa
+     Arbitrio tractare suo: nil juris in hāc re
+     Pontifici summo, modicum concedere regi
+     Suadebat populo. Sic lęsā stultus utrāque
+     Majestate, reum geminę se fecerat aulę.
+Nor is the poetry of Gunther different from the prose of Otho.]
+
+[Footnote 27: See Baronius (A.D. 1148, No. 38, 39) from the Vatican
+MSS. He loudly condemns Arnold (A.D. 1141, No. 3) as the father of the
+political heretics, whose influence then hurt him in France.]
+
+[Footnote 28: The English reader may consult the Biographia Britannica,
+Adrian IV.; but our own writers have added nothing to the fame or merits
+of their countrymen.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Besides the historian and poet already quoted, the
+last adventures of Arnold are related by the biographer of Adrian IV.
+(Muratori. Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 441, 442.)]
+
+The love of ancient freedom has encouraged a belief that as early as
+the tenth century, in their first struggles against the Saxon Othos,
+the commonwealth was vindicated and restored by the senate and people of
+Rome; that two consuls were annually elected among the nobles, and that
+ten or twelve plebeian magistrates revived the name and office of the
+tribunes of the commons. [30] But this venerable structure disappears
+before the light of criticism. In the darkness of the middle ages,
+the appellations of senators, of consuls, of the sons of consuls, may
+sometimes be discovered. [31] They were bestowed by the emperors, or
+assumed by the most powerful citizens, to denote their rank, their
+honors, [32] and perhaps the claim of a pure and patrician descent: but
+they float on the surface, without a series or a substance, the titles
+of men, not the orders of government; [33] and it is only from the year
+of Christ one thousand one hundred and forty-four that the establishment
+of the senate is dated, as a glorious ęra, in the acts of the city.
+A new constitution was hastily framed by private ambition or popular
+enthusiasm; nor could Rome, in the twelfth century, produce an antiquary
+to explain, or a legislator to restore, the harmony and proportions of
+the ancient model. The assembly of a free, of an armed, people,
+will ever speak in loud and weighty acclamations. But the regular
+distribution of the thirty-five tribes, the nice balance of the wealth
+and numbers of the centuries, the debates of the adverse orators, and
+the slow operations of votes and ballots, could not easily be adapted by
+a blind multitude, ignorant of the arts, and insensible of the
+benefits, of legal government. It was proposed by Arnold to revive
+and discriminate the equestrian order; but what could be the motive
+or measure of such distinction? [34] The pecuniary qualification of the
+knights must have been reduced to the poverty of the times: those times
+no longer required their civil functions of judges and farmers of the
+revenue; and their primitive duty, their military service on horseback,
+was more nobly supplied by feudal tenures and the spirit of chivalry.
+The jurisprudence of the republic was useless and unknown: the nations
+and families of Italy who lived under the Roman and Barbaric laws were
+insensibly mingled in a common mass; and some faint tradition, some
+imperfect fragments, preserved the memory of the Code and Pandects of
+Justinian. With their liberty the Romans might doubtless have restored
+the appellation and office of consuls; had they not disdained a title so
+promiscuously adopted in the Italian cities, that it has finally settled
+on the humble station of the agents of commerce in a foreign land. But
+the rights of the tribunes, the formidable word that arrested the
+public counsels, suppose or must produce a legitimate democracy. The
+old patricians were the subjects, the modern barons the tyrants, of the
+state; nor would the enemies of peace and order, who insulted the
+vicar of Christ, have long respected the unarmed sanctity of a plebeian
+magistrate. [35]
+
+[Footnote 30: Ducange (Gloss. Latinitatis Medię et Infimę Ętatis,
+Decarchones, tom. ii. p. 726) gives me a quotation from Blondus, (Decad.
+ii. l. ii.:) Duo consules ex nobilitate quotannis fiebant, qui ad
+vetustum consulum exemplar summęrerum pręessent. And in Sigonius (de
+Regno Italię, l. v. Opp. tom. ii. p. 400) I read of the consuls and
+tribunes of the xth century. Both Blondus, and even Sigonius, too
+freely copied the classic method of supplying from reason or fancy the
+deficiency of records.]
+
+[Footnote 31: In the panegyric of Berengarius (Muratori, Script. Rer.
+Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 408) a Roman is mentioned as consulis natus in
+the beginning of the xth century. Muratori (Dissert. v.) discovers, in
+the years 952 and 956, Gratianus in Dei nomine consul et dux, Georgius
+consul et dux; and in 1015, Romanus, brother of Gregory VIII., proudly,
+but vaguely, styles himself consul et dux et omnium Roma norum senator.]
+
+[Footnote 32: As late as the xth century, the Greek emperors conferred
+on the dukes of Venice, Naples, Amalphi, &c., the title of upatoV
+or consuls, (see Chron. Sagornini, passim;) and the successors of
+Charlemagne would not abdicate any of their prerogative. But in general
+the names of _consul_ and _senator_, which may be found among the French
+and Germans, signify no more than count and lord, (_Signeur_, Ducange
+Glossar.) The monkish writers are often ambitious of fine classic
+words.]
+
+[Footnote 33: The most constitutional form is a diploma of Otho III.,
+(A. D 998,) consulibus senatūs populique Romani; but the act is probably
+spurious. At the coronation of Henry I., A.D. 1014, the historian
+Dithmar (apud Muratori, Dissert. xxiii.) describes him, a senatoribus
+duodecim vallatum, quorum sex rasi barbā, alii prolixā, mystice
+incedebant cum baculis. The senate is mentioned in the panegyric of
+Berengarius, (p. 406.)]
+
+[Footnote 34: In ancient Rome the equestrian order was not ranked
+with the senate and people as a third branch of the republic till the
+consulship of Cicero, who assumes the merit of the establishment,
+(Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 3. Beaufort, République Romaine, tom. i. p.
+144--155.)]
+
+[Footnote 35: The republican plan of Arnold of Brescia is thus stated by
+Gunther:--
+     Quin etiam titulos urbis renovare vetustos;
+     Nomine plebeio secernere nomen equestre,
+     Jura tribunorum, sanctum reparare senatum,
+     Et senio fessas mutasque reponere leges.
+     Lapsa ruinosis, et adhuc pendentia muris
+     Reddere primęvo Capitolia prisca nitori.
+But of these reformations, some were no more than ideas, others no more
+than words.]
+
+In the revolution of the twelfth century, which gave a new existence and
+ęra to Rome, we may observe the real and important events that marked or
+confirmed her political independence. I. The Capitoline hill, one of
+her seven eminences, [36] is about four hundred yards in length, and two
+hundred in breadth. A flight of a hundred steps led to the summit of the
+Tarpeian rock; and far steeper was the ascent before the declivities had
+been smoothed and the precipices filled by the ruins of fallen edifices.
+From the earliest ages, the Capitol had been used as a temple in peace,
+a fortress in war: after the loss of the city, it maintained a siege
+against the victorious Gauls, and the sanctuary of the empire was
+occupied, assaulted, and burnt, in the civil wars of Vitellius and
+Vespasian. [37] The temples of Jupiter and his kindred deities had
+crumbled into dust; their place was supplied by monasteries and houses;
+and the solid walls, the long and shelving porticos, were decayed or
+ruined by the lapse of time. It was the first act of the Romans, an
+act of freedom, to restore the strength, though not the beauty, of the
+Capitol; to fortify the seat of their arms and counsels; and as often
+as they ascended the hill, the coldest minds must have glowed with the
+remembrance of their ancestors. II. The first Cęsars had been invested
+with the exclusive coinage of the gold and silver; to the senate they
+abandoned the baser metal of bronze or copper: [38] the emblems and
+legends were inscribed on a more ample field by the genius of flattery;
+and the prince was relieved from the care of celebrating his own
+virtues. The successors of Diocletian despised even the flattery of the
+senate: their royal officers at Rome, and in the provinces, assumed the
+sole direction of the mint; and the same prerogative was inherited by
+the Gothic kings of Italy, and the long series of the Greek, the French,
+and the German dynasties. After an abdication of eight hundred years,
+the Roman senate asserted this honorable and lucrative privilege; which
+was tacitly renounced by the popes, from Paschal the Second to the
+establishment of their residence beyond the Alps. Some of these
+republican coins of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are shown in
+the cabinets of the curious. On one of these, a gold medal, Christ is
+depictured holding in his left hand a book with this inscription: "The
+vow of the Roman senate and people: Rome the capital of the world;" on
+the reverse, St. Peter delivering a banner to a kneeling senator in
+his cap and gown, with the name and arms of his family impressed on a
+shield. [39] III. With the empire, the pręfect of the city had declined
+to a municipal officer; yet he still exercised in the last appeal the
+civil and criminal jurisdiction; and a drawn sword, which he received
+from the successors of Otho, was the mode of his investiture and the
+emblem of his functions. [40] The dignity was confined to the noble
+families of Rome: the choice of the people was ratified by the pope; but
+a triple oath of fidelity must have often embarrassed the pręfect in the
+conflict of adverse duties. [41] A servant, in whom they possessed but a
+third share, was dismissed by the independent Romans: in his place
+they elected a patrician; but this title, which Charlemagne had not
+disdained, was too lofty for a citizen or a subject; and, after the
+first fervor of rebellion, they consented without reluctance to the
+restoration of the pręfect. About fifty years after this event, Innocent
+the Third, the most ambitious, or at least the most fortunate, of the
+Pontiffs, delivered the Romans and himself from this badge of foreign
+dominion: he invested the pręfect with a banner instead of a sword,
+and absolved him from all dependence of oaths or service to the
+German emperors. [42] In his place an ecclesiastic, a present or future
+cardinal, was named by the pope to the civil government of Rome; but his
+jurisdiction has been reduced to a narrow compass; and in the days of
+freedom, the right or exercise was derived from the senate and people.
+IV. After the revival of the senate, [43] the conscript fathers (if I
+may use the expression) were invested with the legislative and executive
+power; but their views seldom reached beyond the present day; and that
+day was most frequently disturbed by violence and tumult. In its utmost
+plenitude, the order or assembly consisted of fifty-six senators, [44]
+the most eminent of whom were distinguished by the title of counsellors:
+they were nominated, perhaps annually, by the people; and a previous
+choice of their electors, ten persons in each region, or parish, might
+afford a basis for a free and permanent constitution. The popes, who in
+this tempest submitted rather to bend than to break, confirmed by treaty
+the establishment and privileges of the senate, and expected from time,
+peace, and religion, the restoration of their government. The motives
+of public and private interest might sometimes draw from the Romans an
+occasional and temporary sacrifice of their claims; and they renewed
+their oath of allegiance to the successor of St. Peter and Constantine,
+the lawful head of the church and the republic. [45]
+
+[Footnote 36: After many disputes among the antiquaries of Rome, it
+seems determined, that the summit of the Capitoline hill next the river
+is strictly the Mons Tarpeius, the Arx; and that on the other summit,
+the church and convent of Araceli, the barefoot friars of St. Francis
+occupy the temple of Jupiter, (Nardini, Roma Antica, l. v. c. 11--16. *
+Note: The authority of Nardini is now vigorously impugned, and
+the question of the Arx and the Temple of Jupiter revived, with new
+arguments by Niebuhr and his accomplished follower, M. Bunsen. Roms
+Beschreibung, vol. iii. p. 12, et seqq.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Tacit. Hist. iii. 69, 70.]
+
+[Footnote 38: This partition of the noble and baser metals between the
+emperor and senate must, however, be adopted, not as a positive fact,
+but as the probable opinion of the best antiquaries, * (see the Science
+des Medailles of the Pčre Joubert, tom. ii. p. 208--211, in the improved
+and scarce edition of the Baron de la Bastie. *
+Note: Dr. Cardwell (Lecture on Ancient Coins, p. 70, et seq.) assigns
+convincing reasons in support of this opinion.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 39: In his xxviith dissertation on the Antiquities of Italy,
+(tom. ii. p. 559--569,) Muratori exhibits a series of the senatorian
+coins, which bore the obscure names of _Affortiati_, _Infortiati_,
+_Provisini_, _Paparini_. During this period, all the popes, without
+excepting Boniface VIII, abstained from the right of coining, which was
+resumed by his successor Benedict XI., and regularly exercised in the
+court of Avignon.]
+
+[Footnote 40: A German historian, Gerard of Reicherspeg (in Baluz.
+Miscell. tom. v. p. 64, apud Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. iii.
+p. 265) thus describes the constitution of Rome in the xith century:
+Grandiora urbis et orbis negotia spectant ad Romanum pontificem itemque
+ad Romanum Imperatorem, sive illius vicarium urbis pręfectum, qui de suā
+dignitate respicit utrumque, videlicet dominum papam cui facit hominum,
+et dominum imperatorem a quo accipit suę potestatis insigne, scilicet
+gladium exertum.]
+
+[Footnote 41: The words of a contemporary writer (Pandulph. Pisan. in
+Vit. Paschal. II. p. 357, 358) describe the election and oath of the
+pręfect in 1118, inconsultis patribus.... loca pręfectoria.... Laudes
+pręfectorię.... comitiorum applausum.... juraturum populo in ambonem
+sublevant.... confirmari eum in urbe pręfectum petunt.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Urbis pręfectum ad ligiam fidelitatem recepit, et per
+mantum quod illi donavit de pręfecturā eum publice investivit, qui usque
+ad id tempus juramento fidelitatis imperatori fuit obligatus et ab eo
+pręfecturę tenuit honorem, (Gesta Innocent. III. in Muratori, tom. iii.
+P. i. p. 487.)]
+
+[Footnote 43: See Otho Frising. Chron. vii. 31, de Gest. Frederic. I.,
+l. i. c. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 44: Cur countryman, Roger Hoveden, speaks of the single
+senators, of the _Capuzzi_ family, &c., quorum temporibus melius
+regebatur Roma quam nunc (A.D. 1194) est temporibus lvi. senatorum,
+(Ducange, Gloss. tom. vi. p. 191, Senatores.)]
+
+[Footnote 45: Muratori (dissert. xlii. tom. iii. p. 785--788) has
+published an original treaty: Concordia inter D. nostrum papam Clementem
+III. et senatores populi Romani super regalibus et aliis dignitatibus
+urbis, &c., anno 44ŗ senatūs. The senate speaks, and speaks with
+authority: Reddimus ad pręsens.... habebimus.... dabitis presbetria....
+jurabimus pacem et fidelitatem, &c. A chartula de Tenementis Tusculani,
+dated in the 47th year of the same ęra, and confirmed decreto amplissimi
+ordinis senatūs, acclamatione P. R. publice Capitolio consistentis.
+It is there we find the difference of senatores consiliarii and simple
+senators, (Muratori, dissert. xlii. tom. iii. p. 787--789.)]
+
+The union and vigor of a public council was dissolved in a lawless
+city; and the Romans soon adopted a more strong and simple mode of
+administration. They condensed the name and authority of the senate in
+a single magistrate, or two colleagues; and as they were changed at
+the end of a year, or of six months, the greatness of the trust was
+compensated by the shortness of the term. But in this transient reign,
+the senators of Rome indulged their avarice and ambition: their justice
+was perverted by the interest of their family and faction; and as they
+punished only their enemies, they were obeyed only by their adherents.
+Anarchy, no longer tempered by the pastoral care of their bishop,
+admonished the Romans that they were incapable of governing themselves;
+and they sought abroad those blessings which they were hopeless of
+finding at home. In the same age, and from the same motives, most of
+the Italian republics were prompted to embrace a measure, which, however
+strange it may seem, was adapted to their situation, and productive of
+the most salutary effects. [46] They chose, in some foreign but friendly
+city, an impartial magistrate of noble birth and unblemished character,
+a soldier and a statesman, recommended by the voice of fame and his
+country, to whom they delegated for a time the supreme administration
+of peace and war. The compact between the governor and the governed was
+sealed with oaths and subscriptions; and the duration of his power, the
+measure of his stipend, the nature of their mutual obligations, were
+defined with scrupulous precision. They swore to obey him as their
+lawful superior: he pledged his faith to unite the indifference of a
+stranger with the zeal of a patriot. At his choice, four or six
+knights and civilians, his assessors in arms and justice, attended the
+_Podesta_, [47] who maintained at his own expense a decent retinue of
+servants and horses: his wife, his son, his brother, who might bias the
+affections of the judge, were left behind: during the exercise of his
+office he was not permitted to purchase land, to contract an alliance,
+or even to accept an invitation in the house of a citizen; nor could
+he honorably depart till he had satisfied the complaints that might be
+urged against his government.
+
+[Footnote 46: Muratori (dissert. xlv. tom. iv. p. 64--92) has fully
+explained this mode of government; and the _Occulus Pastoralis_, which
+he has given at the end, is a treatise or sermon on the duties of these
+foreign magistrates.]
+
+[Footnote 47: In the Latin writers, at least of the silver age, the
+title of _Potestas_ was transferred from the office to the magistrate:--
+     Hujus qui trahitur prętextam sumere mavis;
+     An Fidenarum Gabiorumque esse _Potestas_.
+     Juvenal. Satir. x. 99.11]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.--Part III.
+
+It was thus, about the middle of the thirteenth century, that the Romans
+called from Bologna the senator Brancaleone, [48] whose fame and merit
+have been rescued from oblivion by the pen of an English historian. A
+just anxiety for his reputation, a clear foresight of the difficulties
+of the task, had engaged him to refuse the honor of their choice: the
+statutes of Rome were suspended, and his office prolonged to the term
+of three years. By the guilty and licentious he was accused as cruel;
+by the clergy he was suspected as partial; but the friends of peace and
+order applauded the firm and upright magistrate by whom those blessings
+were restored. No criminals were so powerful as to brave, so obscure as
+to elude, the justice of the senator. By his sentence two nobles of
+the Annibaldi family were executed on a gibbet; and he inexorably
+demolished, in the city and neighborhood, one hundred and forty towers,
+the strong shelters of rapine and mischief. The bishop, as a simple
+bishop, was compelled to reside in his diocese; and the standard of
+Brancaleone was displayed in the field with terror and effect. His
+services were repaid by the ingratitude of a people unworthy of the
+happiness which they enjoyed. By the public robbers, whom he had
+provoked for their sake, the Romans were excited to depose and imprison
+their benefactor; nor would his life have been spared, if Bologna had
+not possessed a pledge for his safety. Before his departure, the prudent
+senator had required the exchange of thirty hostages of the noblest
+families of Rome: on the news of his danger, and at the prayer of his
+wife, they were more strictly guarded; and Bologna, in the cause of
+honor, sustained the thunders of a papal interdict. This generous
+resistance allowed the Romans to compare the present with the past;
+and Brancaleone was conducted from the prison to the Capitol amidst the
+acclamations of a repentant people. The remainder of his government was
+firm and fortunate; and as soon as envy was appeased by death, his head,
+enclosed in a precious vase, was deposited on a lofty column of marble.
+[49]
+
+[Footnote 48: See the life and death of Brancaleone, in the Historia
+Major of Matthew Paris, p. 741, 757, 792, 797, 799, 810, 823, 833,
+836, 840. The multitude of pilgrims and suitors connected Rome and
+St. Albans, and the resentment of the English clergy prompted them to
+rejoice when ever the popes were humbled and oppressed.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Matthew Paris thus ends his account: Caput vero ipsius
+Brancaleonis in vase pretioso super marmoream columnam collocatum, in
+signum sui valoris et probitatis, quasi reliquias, superstitiose nimis
+et pompose sustulerunt. Fuerat enim superborum potentum et malefactorum
+urbis malleus et extirpator, et populi protector et defensor veritatis
+et justitię imitator et amator, (p. 840.) A biographer of Innocent IV.
+(Muratori, Script. tom. iii. P. i. p. 591, 592) draws a less favorable
+portrait of this Ghibeline senator.]
+
+The impotence of reason and virtue recommended in Italy a more effectual
+choice: instead of a private citizen, to whom they yielded a voluntary
+and precarious obedience, the Romans elected for their senator some
+prince of independent power, who could defend them from their enemies
+and themselves. Charles of Anjou and Provence, the most ambitious and
+warlike monarch of the age, accepted at the same time the kingdom of
+Naples from the pope, and the office of senator from the Roman people.
+[50] As he passed through the city, in his road to victory, he received
+their oath of allegiance, lodged in the Lateran palace, and smoothed
+in a short visit the harsh features of his despotic character. Yet even
+Charles was exposed to the inconstancy of the people, who saluted
+with the same acclamations the passage of his rival, the unfortunate
+Conradin; and a powerful avenger, who reigned in the Capitol, alarmed
+the fears and jealousy of the popes. The absolute term of his life was
+superseded by a renewal every third year; and the enmity of Nicholas the
+Third obliged the Sicilian king to abdicate the government of Rome.
+In his bull, a perpetual law, the imperious pontiff asserts the truth,
+validity, and use of the donation of Constantine, not less essential
+to the peace of the city than to the independence of the church;
+establishes the annual election of the senator; and formally
+disqualifies all emperors, kings, princes, and persons of an eminent and
+conspicuous rank. [51] This prohibitory clause was repealed in his own
+behalf by Martin the Fourth, who humbly solicited the suffrage of
+the Romans. In the presence, and by the authority, of the people, two
+electors conferred, not on the pope, but on the noble and faithful
+Martin, the dignity of senator, and the supreme administration of
+the republic, [52] to hold during his natural life, and to exercise at
+pleasure by himself or his deputies. About fifty years afterwards, the
+same title was granted to the emperor Lewis of Bavaria; and the liberty
+of Rome was acknowledged by her two sovereigns, who accepted a municipal
+office in the government of their own metropolis.
+
+[Footnote 50: The election of Charles of Anjou to the office of
+perpetual senator of Rome is mentioned by the historians in the viiith
+volume of the Collection of Muratori, by Nicholas de Jamsilla, (p. 592,)
+the monk of Padua, (p. 724,) Sabas Malaspina, (l. ii. c. 9, p. 308,) and
+Ricordano Malespini, (c. 177, p. 999.)]
+
+[Footnote 51: The high-sounding bull of Nicholas III., which founds his
+temporal sovereignty on the donation of Constantine, is still extant;
+and as it has been inserted by Boniface VIII. in the _Sexte_ of the
+Decretals, it must be received by the Catholics, or at least by the
+Papists, as a sacred and perpetual law.]
+
+[Footnote 52: I am indebted to Fleury (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xviii. p.
+306) for an extract of this Roman act, which he has taken from the
+Ecclesiastical Annals of Odericus Raynaldus, A.D. 1281, No. 14, 15.]
+
+In the first moments of rebellion, when Arnold of Brescia had inflamed
+their minds against the church, the Romans artfully labored to
+conciliate the favor of the empire, and to recommend their merit and
+services in the cause of Cęsar. The style of their ambassadors to Conrad
+the Third and Frederic the First is a mixture of flattery and pride,
+the tradition and the ignorance of their own history. [53] After some
+complaint of his silence and neglect, they exhort the former of these
+princes to pass the Alps, and assume from their hands the Imperial
+crown. "We beseech your majesty not to disdain the humility of your sons
+and vassals, not to listen to the accusations of our common enemies; who
+calumniate the senate as hostile to your throne, who sow the seeds of
+discord, that they may reap the harvest of destruction. The pope and the
+_Sicilian_ are united in an impious league to oppose _our_ liberty and
+_your_ coronation. With the blessing of God, our zeal and courage
+has hitherto defeated their attempts. Of their powerful and factious
+adherents, more especially the Frangipani, we have taken by assault the
+houses and turrets: some of these are occupied by our troops, and some
+are levelled with the ground. The Milvian bridge, which they had broken,
+is restored and fortified for your safe passage; and your army may enter
+the city without being annoyed from the castle of St. Angelo. All that
+we have done, and all that we design, is for your honor and service, in
+the loyal hope, that you will speedily appear in person, to vindicate
+those rights which have been invaded by the clergy, to revive the
+dignity of the empire, and to surpass the fame and glory of your
+predecessors. May you fix your residence in Rome, the capital of the
+world; give laws to Italy, and the Teutonic kingdom; and imitate the
+example of Constantine and Justinian, [54] who, by the vigor of the
+senate and people, obtained the sceptre of the earth." [55] But these
+splendid and fallacious wishes were not cherished by Conrad the
+Franconian, whose eyes were fixed on the Holy Land, and who died without
+visiting Rome soon after his return from the Holy Land.
+
+[Footnote 53: These letters and speeches are preserved by Otho bishop of
+Frisingen, (Fabric. Bibliot. Lat. Med. et Infim. tom. v. p. 186, 187,)
+perhaps the noblest of historians: he was son of Leopold marquis of
+Austria; his mother, Agnes, was daughter of the emperor Henry IV., and
+he was half-brother and uncle to Conrad III. and Frederic I. He has
+left, in seven books, a Chronicle of the Times; in two, the Gesta
+Frederici I., the last of which is inserted in the vith volume of
+Muratori's historians.]
+
+[Footnote 54: We desire (said the ignorant Romans) to restore the empire
+in um statum, quo fuit tempore Constantini et Justiniani, qui totum
+orbem vigore senatūs et populi Romani suis tenuere manibus.]
+
+[Footnote 55: Otho Frising. de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 28, p.
+662--664.]
+
+His nephew and successor, Frederic Barbarossa, was more ambitious of
+the Imperial crown; nor had any of the successors of Otho acquired
+such absolute sway over the kingdom of Italy. Surrounded by his
+ecclesiastical and secular princes, he gave audience in his camp at
+Sutri to the ambassadors of Rome, who thus addressed him in a free and
+florid oration: "Incline your ear to the queen of cities; approach with
+a peaceful and friendly mind the precincts of Rome, which has cast
+away the yoke of the clergy, and is impatient to crown her legitimate
+emperor. Under your auspicious influence, may the primitive times be
+restored. Assert the prerogatives of the eternal city, and reduce under
+her monarchy the insolence of the world. You are not ignorant, that, in
+former ages, by the wisdom of the senate, by the valor and discipline of
+the equestrian order, she extended her victorious arms to the East and
+West, beyond the Alps, and over the islands of the ocean. By our sins,
+in the absence of our princes, the noble institution of the senate
+has sunk in oblivion; and with our prudence, our strength has likewise
+decreased. We have revived the senate, and the equestrian order: the
+counsels of the one, the arms of the other, will be devoted to your
+person and the service of the empire. Do you not hear the language of
+the Roman matron? You were a guest, I have adopted you as a citizen; a
+Transalpine stranger, I have elected you for my sovereign; [56] and given
+you myself, and all that is mine. Your first and most sacred duty is
+to swear and subscribe, that you will shed your blood for the republic;
+that you will maintain in peace and justice the laws of the city and
+the charters of your predecessors; and that you will reward with five
+thousand pounds of silver the faithful senators who shall proclaim
+your titles in the Capitol. With the name, assume the character, of
+Augustus." The flowers of Latin rhetoric were not yet exhausted; but
+Frederic, impatient of their vanity, interrupted the orators in the high
+tone of royalty and conquest. "Famous indeed have been the fortitude
+and wisdom of the ancient Romans; but your speech is not seasoned
+with wisdom, and I could wish that fortitude were conspicuous in your
+actions. Like all sublunary things, Rome has felt the vicissitudes of
+time and fortune. Your noblest families were translated to the East,
+to the royal city of Constantine; and the remains of your strength and
+freedom have long since been exhausted by the Greeks and Franks. Are
+you desirous of beholding the ancient glory of Rome, the gravity of the
+senate, the spirit of the knights, the discipline of the camp, the valor
+of the legions? you will find them in the German republic. It is not
+empire, naked and alone, the ornaments and virtues of empire have
+likewise migrated beyond the Alps to a more deserving people: [57] they
+will be employed in your defence, but they claim your obedience. You
+pretend that myself or my predecessors have been invited by the Romans:
+you mistake the word; they were not invited, they were implored. From
+its foreign and domestic tyrants, the city was rescued by Charlemagne
+and Otho, whose ashes repose in our country; and their dominion was the
+price of your deliverance. Under that dominion your ancestors lived and
+died. I claim by the right of inheritance and possession, and who shall
+dare to extort you from my hands? Is the hand of the Franks [58] and
+Germans enfeebled by age? Am I vanquished? Am I a captive? Am I not
+encompassed with the banners of a potent and invincible army? You impose
+conditions on your master; you require oaths: if the conditions are
+just, an oath is superfluous; if unjust, it is criminal. Can you doubt
+my equity? It is extended to the meanest of my subjects. Will not my
+sword be unsheathed in the defence of the Capitol? By that sword the
+northern kingdom of Denmark has been restored to the Roman empire. You
+prescribe the measure and the objects of my bounty, which flows in a
+copious but a voluntary stream. All will be given to patient merit; all
+will be denied to rude importunity." [59] Neither the emperor nor the
+senate could maintain these lofty pretensions of dominion and liberty.
+United with the pope, and suspicious of the Romans, Frederic continued
+his march to the Vatican; his coronation was disturbed by a sally from
+the Capitol; and if the numbers and valor of the Germans prevailed in
+the bloody conflict, he could not safely encamp in the presence of
+a city of which he styled himself the sovereign. About twelve years
+afterwards, he besieged Rome, to seat an antipope in the chair of St.
+Peter; and twelve Pisan galleys were introduced into the Tyber: but the
+senate and people were saved by the arts of negotiation and the progress
+of disease; nor did Frederic or his successors reiterate the hostile
+attempt. Their laborious reigns were exercised by the popes, the
+crusades, and the independence of Lombardy and Germany: they courted the
+alliance of the Romans; and Frederic the Second offered in the Capitol
+the great standard, the _Caroccio_ of Milan. [60] After the extinction of
+the house of Swabia, they were banished beyond the Alps: and their last
+coronations betrayed the impotence and poverty of the Teutonic Cęsars.
+[61]
+
+[Footnote 56: Hospes eras, civem feci. Advena fuisti ex Transalpinis
+partibus principem constitui.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Non cessit nobis nudum imperium, virtute sua amictum
+venit, ornamenta sua secum traxit. Penes nos sunt consules tui, &c.
+Cicero or Livy would not have rejected these images, the eloquence of a
+Barbarian born and educated in the Hercynian forest.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Otho of Frisingen, who surely understood the language of
+the court and diet of Germany, speaks of the Franks in the xiith
+century as the reigning nation, (Proceres Franci, equites Franci, manus
+Francorum:) he adds, however, the epithet of _Teutonici_.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Otho Frising. de Gestis Frederici I., l. ii. c. 22,
+p. 720--733. These original and authentic acts I have translated and
+abridged with freedom, yet with fidelity.]
+
+[Footnote 60: From the Chronicles of Ricobaldo and Francis Pipin,
+Muratori (dissert. xxvi. tom. ii. p. 492) has translated this curious
+fact with the doggerel verses that accompanied the gift:--
+     Ave decus orbis, ave! victus tibi destinor, ave!
+     Currus ab Augusto Frederico Cęsare justo.
+     Vę Mediolanum! jam sentis spernere vanum
+     Imperii vires, proprias tibi tollere vires.
+     Ergo triumphorum urbs potes memor esse priorum
+     Quos tibi mittebant reges qui bella gerebant.
+Ne si dee tacere (I now use the Italian Dissertations, tom. i. p. 444)
+che nell' anno 1727, una copia desso Caroccio in marmo dianzi ignoto si
+scopri, nel campidoglio, presso alle carcere di quel luogo, dove Sisto
+V. l'avea falto rinchiudere. Stava esso posto sopra quatro colonne di
+marmo fino colla sequente inscrizione, &c.; to the same purpose as the
+old inscription.]
+
+[Footnote 61: The decline of the Imperial arms and authority in Italy is
+related with impartial learning in the Annals of Muratori, (tom. x. xi.
+xii.;) and the reader may compare his narrative with the Histoires des
+Allemands (tom. iii. iv.) by Schmidt, who has deserved the esteem of his
+countrymen.]
+
+Under the reign of Adrian, when the empire extended from the Euphrates
+to the ocean, from Mount Atlas to the Grampian hills, a fanciful
+historian [62] amused the Romans with the picture of their ancient wars.
+"There was a time," says Florus, "when Tibur and Pręneste, our summer
+retreats, were the objects of hostile vows in the Capitol, when we
+dreaded the shades of the Arician groves, when we could triumph without
+a blush over the nameless villages of the Sabines and Latins, and even
+Corioli could afford a title not unworthy of a victorious general." The
+pride of his contemporaries was gratified by the contrast of the
+past and the present: they would have been humbled by the prospect
+of futurity; by the prediction, that after a thousand years, Rome,
+despoiled of empire, and contracted to her primęval limits, would renew
+the same hostilities, on the same ground which was then decorated with
+her villas and gardens. The adjacent territory on either side of the
+Tyber was always claimed, and sometimes possessed, as the patrimony of
+St. Peter; but the barons assumed a lawless independence, and the cities
+too faithfully copied the revolt and discord of the metropolis. In
+the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Romans incessantly labored to
+reduce or destroy the contumacious vassals of the church and senate; and
+if their headstrong and selfish ambition was moderated by the pope, he
+often encouraged their zeal by the alliance of his spiritual arms. Their
+warfare was that of the first consuls and dictators, who were taken from
+the plough. The assembled in arms at the foot of the Capitol; sallied
+from the gates, plundered or burnt the harvests of their neighbors,
+engaged in tumultuary conflict, and returned home after an expedition of
+fifteen or twenty days. Their sieges were tedious and unskilful: in
+the use of victory, they indulged the meaner passions of jealousy
+and revenge; and instead of adopting the valor, they trampled on the
+misfortunes, of their adversaries. The captives, in their shirts, with a
+rope round their necks, solicited their pardon: the fortifications,
+and even the buildings, of the rival cities, were demolished, and the
+inhabitants were scattered in the adjacent villages. It was thus that
+the seats of the cardinal bishops, Porto, Ostia, Albanum, Tusculum,
+Pręneste, and Tibur or Tivoli, were successively overthrown by the
+ferocious hostility of the Romans. [63] Of these, [64] Porto and Ostia,
+the two keys of the Tyber, are still vacant and desolate: the marshy and
+unwholesome banks are peopled with herds of buffaloes, and the river is
+lost to every purpose of navigation and trade. The hills, which afford
+a shady retirement from the autumnal heats, have again smiled with the
+blessings of peace; Frescati has arisen near the ruins of Tusculum;
+Tibur or Tivoli has resumed the honors of a city, [65] and the meaner
+towns of Albano and Palestrina are decorated with the villas of the
+cardinals and princes of Rome. In the work of destruction, the ambition
+of the Romans was often checked and repulsed by the neighboring cities
+and their allies: in the first siege of Tibur, they were driven from
+their camp; and the battles of Tusculum [66] and Viterbo [67] might be
+compared in their relative state to the memorable fields of Thrasymene
+and Cannę. In the first of these petty wars, thirty thousand Romans
+were overthrown by a thousand German horse, whom Frederic Barbarossa had
+detached to the relief of Tusculum: and if we number the slain at three,
+the prisoners at two, thousand, we shall embrace the most authentic
+and moderate account. Sixty-eight years afterwards they marched against
+Viterbo in the ecclesiastical state with the whole force of the city; by
+a rare coalition the Teutonic eagle was blended, in the adverse banners,
+with the keys of St. Peter; and the pope's auxiliaries were commanded
+by a count of Thoulouse and a bishop of Winchester. The Romans were
+discomfited with shame and slaughter: but the English prelate must have
+indulged the vanity of a pilgrim, if he multiplied their numbers to one
+hundred, and their loss in the field to thirty, thousand men. Had the
+policy of the senate and the discipline of the legions been restored
+with the Capitol, the divided condition of Italy would have offered the
+fairest opportunity of a second conquest. But in arms, the modern Romans
+were not _above_, and in arts, they were far _below_, the common level
+of the neighboring republics. Nor was their warlike spirit of any long
+continuance; after some irregular sallies, they subsided in the national
+apathy, in the neglect of military institutions, and in the disgraceful
+and dangerous use of foreign mercenaries.
+
+[Footnote 62: Tibur nunc suburbanum, et ęstivę Pręneste delicię,
+nuncupatis in Capitolio votis petebantur. The whole passage of Florus
+(l. i. c. 11) may be read with pleasure, and has deserved the praise of
+a man of genius, (uvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 634, 635, quarto
+edition.)]
+
+[Footnote 63: Ne a feritate Romanorum, sicut fuerant Hostienses,
+Portuenses, Tusculanenses, Albanenses, Labicenses, et nuper Tiburtini
+destruerentur, (Matthew Paris, p. 757.) These events are marked in the
+Annals and Index (the xviiith volume) of Muratori.]
+
+[Footnote 64: For the state or ruin of these suburban cities, the banks
+of the Tyber, &c., see the lively picture of the P. Labat, (Voyage en
+Espagne et en Italię,) who had long resided in the neighborhood of Rome,
+and the more accurate description of which P. Eschinard (Roma, 1750, in
+octavo) has added to the topographical map of Cingolani.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Labat (tom. iii. p. 233) mentions a recent decree of the
+Roman government, which has severely mortified the pride and poverty of
+Tivoli: in civitate Tiburtinā non vivitur civiliter.]
+
+[Footnote 66: I depart from my usual method, of quoting only by the
+date the Annals of Muratori, in consideration of the critical balance in
+which he has weighed nine contemporary writers who mention the battle of
+Tusculum, (tom. x. p. 42--44.)]
+
+[Footnote 67: Matthew Paris, p. 345. This bishop of Winchester was Peter
+de Rupibus, who occupied the see thirty-two years, (A.D. 1206--1238.)
+and is described, by the English historian, as a soldier and a
+statesman. (p. 178, 399.)]
+
+Ambition is a weed of quick and early vegetation in the vineyard of
+Christ. Under the first Christian princes, the chair of St. Peter
+was disputed by the votes, the venality, the violence, of a popular
+election: the sanctuaries of Rome were polluted with blood; and, from
+the third to the twelfth century, the church was distracted by the
+mischief of frequent schisms. As long as the final appeal was determined
+by the civil magistrate, these mischiefs were transient and local:
+the merits were tried by equity or favor; nor could the unsuccessful
+competitor long disturb the triumph of his rival. But after the
+emperors had been divested of their prerogatives, after a maxim had been
+established that the vicar of Christ is amenable to no earthly tribunal,
+each vacancy of the holy see might involve Christendom in controversy
+and war. The claims of the cardinals and inferior clergy, of the
+nobles and people, were vague and litigious: the freedom of choice was
+overruled by the tumults of a city that no longer owned or obeyed a
+superior. On the decease of a pope, two factions proceeded in different
+churches to a double election: the number and weight of votes, the
+priority of time, the merit of the candidates, might balance each
+other: the most respectable of the clergy were divided; and the distant
+princes, who bowed before the spiritual throne, could not distinguish
+the spurious, from the legitimate, idol. The emperors were often the
+authors of the schism, from the political motive of opposing a friendly
+to a hostile pontiff; and each of the competitors was reduced to suffer
+the insults of his enemies, who were not awed by conscience, and to
+purchase the support of his adherents, who were instigated by avarice
+or ambition a peaceful and perpetual succession was ascertained by
+Alexander the Third, [68] who finally abolished the tumultuary votes of
+the clergy and people, and defined the right of election in the sole
+college of cardinals. [69] The three orders of bishops, priests, and
+deacons, were assimilated to each other by this important privilege; the
+parochial clergy of Rome obtained the first rank in the hierarchy: they
+were indifferently chosen among the nations of Christendom; and the
+possession of the richest benefices, of the most important bishoprics,
+was not incompatible with their title and office. The senators of the
+Catholic church, the coadjutors and legates of the supreme pontiff,
+were robed in purple, the symbol of martyrdom or royalty; they claimed
+a proud equality with kings; and their dignity was enhanced by the
+smallness of their number, which, till the reign of Leo the Tenth,
+seldom exceeded twenty or twenty-five persons. By this wise regulation,
+all doubt and scandal were removed, and the root of schism was so
+effectually destroyed, that in a period of six hundred years a double
+choice has only once divided the unity of the sacred college. But as
+the concurrence of two thirds of the votes had been made necessary, the
+election was often delayed by the private interest and passions of
+the cardinals; and while they prolonged their independent reign, the
+Christian world was left destitute of a head. A vacancy of almost three
+years had preceded the elevation of George the Tenth, who resolved to
+prevent the future abuse; and his bull, after some opposition, has been
+consecrated in the code of the canon law. [70] Nine days are allowed
+for the obsequies of the deceased pope, and the arrival of the absent
+cardinals; on the tenth, they are imprisoned, each with one domestic,
+in a common apartment or _conclave_, without any separation of walls
+or curtains: a small window is reserved for the introduction of
+necessaries; but the door is locked on both sides and guarded by the
+magistrates of the city, to seclude them from all correspondence with
+the world. If the election be not consummated in three days, the luxury
+of their table is contracted to a single dish at dinner and supper; and
+after the eighth day, they are reduced to a scanty allowance of bread,
+water, and wine. During the vacancy of the holy see, the cardinals are
+prohibited from touching the revenues, or assuming, unless in some rare
+emergency, the government of the church: all agreements and promises
+among the electors are formally annulled; and their integrity is
+fortified by their solemn oath and the prayers of the Catholics. Some
+articles of inconvenient or superfluous rigor have been gradually
+relaxed, but the principle of confinement is vigorous and entire: they
+are still urged, by the personal motives of health and freedom, to
+accelerate the moment of their deliverance; and the improvement of
+ballot or secret votes has wrapped the struggles of the conclave [71] in
+the silky veil of charity and politeness. [72] By these institutions the
+Romans were excluded from the election of their prince and bishop; and
+in the fever of wild and precarious liberty, they seemed insensible of
+the loss of this inestimable privilege. The emperor Lewis of Bavaria
+revived the example of the great Otho. After some negotiation with the
+magistrates, the Roman people were assembled [73] in the square before
+St. Peter's: the pope of Avignon, John the Twenty-second, was deposed:
+the choice of his successor was ratified by their consent and applause.
+They freely voted for a new law, that their bishop should never be
+absent more than three months in the year, and two days' journey from
+the city; and that if he neglected to return on the third summons, the
+public servant should be degraded and dismissed. [74] But Lewis forgot
+his own debility and the prejudices of the times: beyond the precincts
+of a German camp, his useless phantom was rejected; the Romans despised
+their own workmanship; the antipope implored the mercy of his lawful
+sovereign; [75] and the exclusive right of the cardinals was more firmly
+established by this unseasonable attack.
+
+[Footnote 68: See Mosheim, Institut. Histor. Ecclesiast. p. 401, 403.
+Alexander himself had nearly been the victim of a contested election;
+and the doubtful merits of Innocent had only preponderated by the weight
+of genius and learning which St. Bernard cast into the scale, (see his
+life and writings.)]
+
+[Footnote 69: The origin, titles, importance, dress, precedency, &c., of
+the Roman cardinals, are very ably discussed by Thomassin, (Discipline
+de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1262--1287;) but their purple is now much faded.
+The sacred college was raised to the definite number of seventy-two, to
+represent, under his vicar, the disciples of Christ.]
+
+[Footnote 70: See the bull of Gregory X. approbante sacro concilio, in
+the _Sexts_ of the Canon Law, (l. i. tit. 6, c. 3,) a supplement to
+the Decretals, which Boniface VIII. promulgated at Rome in 1298, and
+addressed in all the universities of Europe.]
+
+[Footnote 71: The genius of Cardinal de Retz had a right to paint
+a conclave, (of 1665,) in which he was a spectator and an actor,
+(Mémoires, tom. iv. p. 15--57;) but I am at a loss to appreciate the
+knowledge or authority of an anonymous Italian, whose history (Conclavi
+de' Pontifici Romani, in 4to. 1667) has been continued since the reign
+of Alexander VII. The accidental form of the work furnishes a lesson,
+though not an antidote, to ambition. From a labyrinth of intrigues, we
+emerge to the adoration of the successful candidate; but the next page
+opens with his funeral.]
+
+[Footnote 72: The expressions of Cardinal de Retz are positive and
+picturesque: On y vecut toujours ensemble avec le mźme respect, et la
+mźme civilité que l'on observe dans le cabinet des rois, avec la
+mźme politesse qu'on avoit dans la cour de Henri III., avec la mźme
+familiarité que l'on voit dans les colleges; avec la mźme modestie, qui
+se remarque dans les noviciats; et avec la mźme charité, du moins en
+apparence, qui pourroit čtre entre des frčres parfaitement unis.]
+
+[Footnote 73: Richiesti per bando (says John Villani) sanatori di Roma,
+e 52 del popolo, et capitani de' 25, e consoli, (_consoli?_) et 13 buone
+huomini, uno per rione. Our knowledge is too imperfect to pronounce
+how much of this constitution was temporary, and how much ordinary and
+permanent. Yet it is faintly illustrated by the ancient statutes of
+Rome.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Villani (l. x. c. 68--71, in Muratori, Script. tom. xiii.
+p. 641--645) relates this law, and the whole transaction, with much less
+abhorrence than the prudent Muratori. Any one conversant with the darker
+ages must have observed how much the sense (I mean the nonsense) of
+superstition is fluctuating and inconsistent.]
+
+[Footnote 75: In the first volume of the Popes of Avignon, see the
+second original Life of John XXII. p. 142--145, the confession of the
+antipope p. 145--152, and the laborious notes of Baluze, p. 714, 715.]
+
+Had the election been always held in the Vatican, the rights of the
+senate and people would not have been violated with impunity. But the
+Romans forgot, and were forgotten. in the absence of the successors of
+Gregory the Seventh, who did not keep as a divine precept their ordinary
+residence in the city and diocese. The care of that diocese was less
+important than the government of the universal church; nor could the
+popes delight in a city in which their authority was always opposed, and
+their person was often endangered. From the persecution of the emperors,
+and the wars of Italy, they escaped beyond the Alps into the hospitable
+bosom of France; from the tumults of Rome they prudently withdrew to
+live and die in the more tranquil stations of Anagni, Perugia, Viterbo,
+and the adjacent cities. When the flock was offended or impoverished by
+the absence of the shepherd, they were recalled by a stern admonition,
+that St. Peter had fixed his chair, not in an obscure village, but in
+the capital of the world; by a ferocious menace, that the Romans would
+march in arms to destroy the place and people that should dare to afford
+them a retreat. They returned with timorous obedience; and were
+saluted with the account of a heavy debt, of all the losses which their
+desertion had occasioned, the hire of lodgings, the sale of provisions,
+and the various expenses of servants and strangers who attended the
+court. [76] After a short interval of peace, and perhaps of authority,
+they were again banished by new tumults, and again summoned by the
+imperious or respectful invitation of the senate. In these occasional
+retreats, the exiles and fugitives of the Vatican were seldom long, or
+far, distant from the metropolis; but in the beginning of the fourteenth
+century, the apostolic throne was transported, as it might seem forever,
+from the Tyber to the Rhōne; and the cause of the transmigration may
+be deduced from the furious contest between Boniface the Eighth and the
+king of France. [77] The spiritual arms of excommunication and interdict
+were repulsed by the union of the three estates, and the privileges of
+the Gallican church; but the pope was not prepared against the carnal
+weapons which Philip the Fair had courage to employ. As the pope resided
+at Anagni, without the suspicion of danger, his palace and person
+were assaulted by three hundred horse, who had been secretly levied by
+William of Nogaret, a French minister, and Sciarra Colonna, of a noble
+but hostile family of Rome. The cardinals fled; the inhabitants of
+Anagni were seduced from their allegiance and gratitude; but the
+dauntless Boniface, unarmed and alone, seated himself in his chair, and
+awaited, like the conscript fathers of old, the swords of the Gauls.
+Nogaret, a foreign adversary, was content to execute the orders of his
+master: by the domestic enmity of Colonna, he was insulted with
+words and blows; and during a confinement of three days his life was
+threatened by the hardships which they inflicted on the obstinacy
+which they provoked. Their strange delay gave time and courage to the
+adherents of the church, who rescued him from sacrilegious violence; but
+his imperious soul was wounded in the vital part; and Boniface expired
+at Rome in a frenzy of rage and revenge. His memory is stained with
+the glaring vices of avarice and pride; nor has the courage of a martyr
+promoted this ecclesiastical champion to the honors of a saint; a
+magnanimous sinner, (say the chronicles of the times,) who entered like
+a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog. He was succeeded by
+Benedict the Eleventh, the mildest of mankind. Yet he excommunicated the
+impious emissaries of Philip, and devoted the city and people of Anagni
+by a tremendous curse, whose effects are still visible to the eyes of
+superstition. [78]
+
+[Footnote 76: Romani autem non valentes nec volentes ultra suam celare
+cupiditatem gravissimam, contra papam movere cperunt questionem,
+exigentes ab eo urgentissime omnia quę subierant per ejus absentiam
+damna et jacturas, videlicet in hispitiis locandis, in mercimoniis,
+in usuris, in redditibus, in provisionibus, et in aliis modis
+innumerabilibus. Quņd cum audisset papa, pręcordialiter ingemuit, et se
+comperiens _muscipulatum_, &c., Matt. Paris, p. 757. For the ordinary
+history of the popes, their life and death, their residence and absence,
+it is enough to refer to the ecclesiastical annalists, Spondanus and
+Fleury.]
+
+[Footnote 77: Besides the general historians of the church of Italy and
+of France, we possess a valuable treatise composed by a learned friend
+of Thuanus, which his last and best editors have published in the
+appendix (Histoire particuličre du grand Différend entre Boniface VIII
+et Philippe le Bel, par Pierre du Puis, tom. vii. P. xi. p. 61--82.)]
+
+[Footnote 78: It is difficult to know whether Labat (tom. iv. p. 53--57)
+be in jest or in earnest, when he supposes that Anagni still feels
+the weight of this curse, and that the cornfields, or vineyards, or
+olive-trees, are annually blasted by Nature, the obsequious handmaid of
+the popes.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.--Part IV.
+
+After his decease, the tedious and equal suspense of the conclave was
+fixed by the dexterity of the French faction. A specious offer was made
+and accepted, that, in the term of forty days, they would elect one
+of the three candidates who should be named by their opponents. The
+archbishop of Bourdeaux, a furious enemy of his king and country, was
+the first on the list; but his ambition was known; and his conscience
+obeyed the calls of fortune and the commands of a benefactor, who had
+been informed by a swift messenger that the choice of a pope was now
+in his hands. The terms were regulated in a private interview; and with
+such speed and secrecy was the business transacted, that the unanimous
+conclave applauded the elevation of Clement the Fifth. [79] The cardinals
+of both parties were soon astonished by a summons to attend him beyond
+the Alps; from whence, as they soon discovered, they must never hope
+to return. He was engaged, by promise and affection, to prefer the
+residence of France; and, after dragging his court through Poitou and
+Gascony, and devouring, by his expense, the cities and convents on the
+road, he finally reposed at Avignon, [80] which flourished above
+seventy years [81] the seat of the Roman pontiff and the metropolis of
+Christendom. By land, by sea, by the Rhōne, the position of Avignon was
+on all sides accessible; the southern provinces of France do not yield
+to Italy itself; new palaces arose for the accommodation of the pope and
+cardinals; and the arts of luxury were soon attracted by the treasures
+of the church. They were already possessed of the adjacent territory,
+the Venaissin county, [82] a populous and fertile spot; and the
+sovereignty of Avignon was afterwards purchased from the youth and
+distress of Jane, the first queen of Naples and countess of Provence,
+for the inadequate price of fourscore thousand florins. [83] Under
+the shadow of a French monarchy, amidst an obedient people, the popes
+enjoyed an honorable and tranquil state, to which they long had been
+strangers: but Italy deplored their absence; and Rome, in solitude and
+poverty, might repent of the ungovernable freedom which had driven from
+the Vatican the successor of St. Peter. Her repentance was tardy and
+fruitless: after the death of the old members, the sacred college
+was filled with French cardinals, [84] who beheld Rome and Italy with
+abhorrence and contempt, and perpetuated a series of national, and
+even provincial, popes, attached by the most indissoluble ties to their
+native country.
+
+[Footnote 79: See, in the Chronicle of Giovanni Villani, (l. viii.
+c. 63, 64, 80, in Muratori, tom. xiii.,) the imprisonment of Boniface
+VIII., and the election of Clement V., the last of which, like most
+anecdotes, is embarrassed with some difficulties.]
+
+[Footnote 80: The original lives of the eight popes of Avignon, Clement
+V., John XXII., Benedict XI., Clement VI., Innocent VI., Urban V.,
+Gregory XI., and Clement VII., are published by Stephen Baluze, (Vitę
+Paparum Avenionensium; Paris, 1693, 2 vols. in 4to.,) with copious and
+elaborate notes, and a second volume of acts and documents. With the
+true zeal of an editor and a patriot, he devoutly justifies or excuses
+the characters of his countrymen.]
+
+[Footnote 81: The exile of Avignon is compared by the Italians with
+Babylon, and the Babylonish captivity. Such furious metaphors, more
+suitable to the ardor of Petrarch than to the judgment of Muratori,
+are gravely refuted in Baluze's preface. The abbé de Sade is distracted
+between the love of Petrarch and of his country. Yet he modestly pleads,
+that many of the local inconveniences of Avignon are now removed; and
+many of the vices against which the poet declaims, had been imported
+with the Roman court by the strangers of Italy, (tom. i. p. 23--28.)]
+
+[Footnote 82: The comtat Venaissin was ceded to the popes in 1273 by
+Philip III. king of France, after he had inherited the dominions of the
+count of Thoulouse. Forty years before, the heresy of Count Raymond had
+given them a pretence of seizure, and they derived some obscure claim
+from the xith century to some lands citra Rhodanum, (Valesii Notitia
+Galliarum, p. 495, 610. Longuerue, Description de la France, tom. i. p.
+376--381.)]
+
+[Footnote 83: If a possession of four centuries were not itself a title,
+such objections might annul the bargain; but the purchase money must
+be refunded, for indeed it was paid. Civitatem Avenionem emit.... per
+ejusmodi venditionem pecuniā redundates, &c., (iida Vita Clement. VI. in
+Baluz. tom. i. p. 272. Muratori, Script. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 565.) The
+only temptation for Jane and her second husband was ready money, and
+without it they could not have returned to the throne of Naples.]
+
+[Footnote 84: Clement V immediately promoted ten cardinals, nine French
+and one English, (Vita ivta, p. 63, et Baluz. p. 625, &c.) In 1331, the
+pope refused two candidates recommended by the king of France, quod xx.
+Cardinales, de quibus xvii. de regno Francię originem traxisse noscuntur
+in memorato collegio existant, (Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom.
+i. p. 1281.)]
+
+The progress of industry had produced and enriched the Italian
+republics: the ęra of their liberty is the most flourishing period of
+population and agriculture, of manufactures and commerce; and their
+mechanic labors were gradually refined into the arts of elegance and
+genius. But the position of Rome was less favorable, the territory less
+fruitful: the character of the inhabitants was debased by indolence and
+elated by pride; and they fondly conceived that the tribute of subjects
+must forever nourish the metropolis of the church and empire. This
+prejudice was encouraged in some degree by the resort of pilgrims to
+the shrines of the apostles; and the last legacy of the popes, the
+institution of the holy year, [85] was not less beneficial to the people
+than to the clergy. Since the loss of Palestine, the gift of plenary
+indulgences, which had been applied to the crusades, remained without
+an object; and the most valuable treasure of the church was sequestered
+above eight years from public circulation. A new channel was opened
+by the diligence of Boniface the Eighth, who reconciled the vices of
+ambition and avarice; and the pope had sufficient learning to recollect
+and revive the secular games which were celebrated in Rome at the
+conclusion of every century. To sound without danger the depth of
+popular credulity, a sermon was seasonably pronounced, a report was
+artfully scattered, some aged witnesses were produced; and on the first
+of January of the year thirteen hundred, the church of St. Peter was
+crowded with the faithful, who demanded the customary indulgence of
+the holy time. The pontiff, who watched and irritated their devout
+impatience, was soon persuaded by ancient testimony of the justice of
+their claim; and he proclaimed a plenary absolution to all Catholics
+who, in the course of that year, and at every similar period, should
+respectfully visit the apostolic churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. The
+welcome sound was propagated through Christendom; and at first from the
+nearest provinces of Italy, and at length from the remote kingdoms of
+Hungary and Britain, the highways were thronged with a swarm of pilgrims
+who sought to expiate their sins in a journey, however costly or
+laborious, which was exempt from the perils of military service. All
+exceptions of rank or sex, of age or infirmity, were forgotten in the
+common transport; and in the streets and churches many persons were
+trampled to death by the eagerness of devotion. The calculation of their
+numbers could not be easy nor accurate; and they have probably been
+magnified by a dexterous clergy, well apprised of the contagion of
+example: yet we are assured by a judicious historian, who assisted at
+the ceremony, that Rome was never replenished with less than two hundred
+thousand strangers; and another spectator has fixed at two millions the
+total concourse of the year. A trifling oblation from each individual
+would accumulate a royal treasure; and two priests stood night and day,
+with rakes in their hands, to collect, without counting, the heaps of
+gold and silver that were poured on the altar of St. Paul. [86] It was
+fortunately a season of peace and plenty; and if forage was scarce, if
+inns and lodgings were extravagantly dear, an inexhaustible supply of
+bread and wine, of meat and fish, was provided by the policy of Boniface
+and the venal hospitality of the Romans. From a city without trade or
+industry, all casual riches will speedily evaporate: but the avarice
+and envy of the next generation solicited Clement the Sixth [87] to
+anticipate the distant period of the century. The gracious pontiff
+complied with their wishes; afforded Rome this poor consolation for his
+loss; and justified the change by the name and practice of the
+Mosaic Jubilee. [88] His summons was obeyed; and the number, zeal, and
+liberality of the pilgrims did not yield to the primitive festival. But
+they encountered the triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine:
+many wives and virgins were violated in the castles of Italy; and many
+strangers were pillaged or murdered by the savage Romans, no longer
+moderated by the presence of their bishops. [89] To the impatience of the
+popes we may ascribe the successive reduction to fifty, thirty-three,
+and twenty-five years; although the second of these terms is
+commensurate with the life of Christ. The profusion of indulgences, the
+revolt of the Protestants, and the decline of superstition, have much
+diminished the value of the jubilee; yet even the nineteenth and
+last festival was a year of pleasure and profit to the Romans; and a
+philosophic smile will not disturb the triumph of the priest or the
+happiness of the people. [90]
+
+[Footnote 85: Our primitive account is from Cardinal James Caietan,
+(Maxima Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xxv.;) and I am at a loss to determine
+whether the nephew of Boniface VIII. be a fool or a knave: the uncle is
+a much clearer character.]
+
+[Footnote 86: See John Villani (l. viii. c. 36) in the xiith, and
+the Chronicon Astense, in the xith volume (p. 191, 192) of Muratori's
+Collection Papa innumerabilem pecuniam ab eisdem accepit, nam duo
+clerici, cum rastris, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 87: The two bulls of Boniface VIII. and Clement VI. are
+inserted on the Corpus Juris Canonici, Extravagant. (Commun. l. v. tit.
+ix c 1, 2.)]
+
+[Footnote 88: The sabbatic years and jubilees of the Mosaic law, (Car.
+Sigon. de Republica Hebręorum, Opp. tom. iv. l. iii. c. 14, 14, p. 151,
+152,) the suspension of all care and labor, the periodical release of
+lands, debts, servitude, &c., may seem a noble idea, but the execution
+would be impracticable in a _profane_ republic; and I should be glad to
+learn that this ruinous festival was observed by the Jewish people.]
+
+[Footnote 89: See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani, (l. i. c. 56,) in the
+xivth vol. of Muratori, and the Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom.
+iii. p. 75--89.]
+
+[Footnote 90: The subject is exhausted by M. Chais, a French minister at
+the Hague, in his Lettres Historiques et Dogmatiques, sur les Jubilés
+et es Indulgences; la Haye, 1751, 3 vols. in 12mo.; an elaborate and
+pleasing work, had not the author preferred the character of a polemic
+to that of a philosopher.]
+
+In the beginning of the eleventh century, Italy was exposed to the
+feudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and the people. The
+rights of human nature were vindicated by her numerous republics, who
+soon extended their liberty and dominion from the city to the adjacent
+country. The sword of the nobles was broken; their slaves were
+enfranchised; their castles were demolished; they assumed the habits of
+society and obedience; their ambition was confined to municipal honors,
+and in the proudest aristocracy of Venice on Genoa, each patrician was
+subject to the laws. [91] But the feeble and disorderly government of
+Rome was unequal to the task of curbing her rebellious sons, who scorned
+the authority of the magistrate within and without the walls. It was
+no longer a civil contention between the nobles and plebeians for the
+government of the state: the barons asserted in arms their personal
+independence; their palaces and castles were fortified against a siege;
+and their private quarrels were maintained by the numbers of their
+vassals and retainers. In origin and affection, they were aliens to
+their country: [92] and a genuine Roman, could such have been produced,
+might have renounced these haughty strangers, who disdained the
+appellation of citizens, and proudly styled themselves the princes, of
+Rome. [93] After a dark series of revolutions, all records of pedigree
+were lost; the distinction of surnames was abolished; the blood of the
+nations was mingled in a thousand channels; and the Goths and Lombards,
+the Greeks and Franks, the Germans and Normans, had obtained the fairest
+possessions by royal bounty, or the prerogative of valor. These examples
+might be readily presumed; but the elevation of a Hebrew race to the
+rank of senators and consuls is an event without a parallel in the long
+captivity of these miserable exiles. [94] In the time of Leo the Ninth,
+a wealthy and learned Jew was converted to Christianity, and honored at
+his baptism with the name of his godfather, the reigning Pope. The zeal
+and courage of Peter the son of Leo were signalized in the cause of
+Gregory the Seventh, who intrusted his faithful adherent with the
+government of Adrian's mole, the tower of Crescentius, or, as it is now
+called, the castle of St. Angelo. Both the father and the son were the
+parents of a numerous progeny: their riches, the fruits of usury, were
+shared with the noblest families of the city; and so extensive was their
+alliance, that the grandson of the proselyte was exalted by the weight
+of his kindred to the throne of St. Peter. A majority of the clergy and
+people supported his cause: he reigned several years in the Vatican;
+and it is only the eloquence of St. Bernard, and the final triumph of
+Innocence the Second, that has branded Anacletus with the epithet of
+antipope. After his defeat and death, the posterity of Leo is no longer
+conspicuous; and none will be found of the modern nobles ambitious of
+descending from a Jewish stock. It is not my design to enumerate the
+Roman families which have failed at different periods, or those which
+are continued in different degrees of splendor to the present time. [95]
+The old consular line of the _Frangipani_ discover their name in the
+generous act of _breaking_ or dividing bread in a time of famine; and
+such benevolence is more truly glorious than to have enclosed, with
+their allies the _Corsi_, a spacious quarter of the city in the chains
+of their fortifications; the _Savelli_, as it should seem a Sabine race,
+have maintained their original dignity; the obsolete surname of the
+_Capizucchi_ is inscribed on the coins of the first senators; the
+_Conti_ preserve the honor, without the estate, of the counts of Signia;
+and the _Annibaldi_ must have been very ignorant, or very modest, if
+they had not descended from the Carthaginian hero. [96]
+
+[Footnote 91: Muratori (Dissert. xlvii.) alleges the Annals of Florence,
+Padua, Genoa, &c., the analogy of the rest, the evidence of Otho of
+Frisingen, (de Gest. Fred. I. l. ii. c. 13,) and the submission of the
+marquis of Este.]
+
+[Footnote 92: As early as the year 824, the emperor Lothaire I. found it
+expedient to interrogate the Roman people, to learn from each individual
+by what national law he chose to be governed. (Muratori, Dissertat
+xxii.)]
+
+[Footnote 93: Petrarch attacks these foreigners, the tyrants of Rome,
+in a declamation or epistle, full of bold truths and absurd pedantry, in
+which he applies the maxims, and even prejudices, of the old republic to
+the state of the xivth century, (Mémoires, tom. iii. p. 157--169.)]
+
+[Footnote 94: The origin and adventures of the Jewish family are noticed
+by Pagi, (Critica, tom. iv. p. 435, A.D. 1124, No. 3, 4,) who draws
+his information from the Chronographus Maurigniacensis, and Arnulphus
+Sagiensis de Schismate, (in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p.
+423--432.) The fact must in some degree be true; yet I could wish that
+it had been coolly related, before it was turned into a reproach against
+the antipope.]
+
+[Footnote 95: Muratori has given two dissertations (xli. and xlii.) to
+the names, surnames, and families of Italy. Some nobles, who glory
+in their domestic fables, may be offended with his firm and temperate
+criticism; yet surely some ounces of pure gold are of more value than
+many pounds of base metal.]
+
+[Footnote 96: The cardinal of St. George, in his poetical, or rather
+metrical history of the election and coronation of Boniface VIII.,
+(Muratori Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 641, &c.,) describes the
+state and families of Rome at the coronation of Boniface VIII., (A.D.
+1295.)
+     Interea titulis redimiti sanguine et armis
+     Illustresque viri Romanā a stirpe trahentes
+     Nomen in emeritos tantę virtutis honores
+     Insulerant sese medios festumque colebant
+     Aurata fulgente togā, sociante catervā.
+     Ex ipsis devota domus pręstantis ab _Ursā_
+     Ecclesię, vultumque gerens demissius altum
+     Festa _Columna_ jocis, necnon _Sabellia_ mitis;
+     Stephanides senior, _Comites_, _Annibalica_ proles,
+     Pręfectusque urbis magnum sine viribus nomen.
+     (l. ii. c. 5, 100, p. 647, 648.)
+The ancient statutes of Rome (l. iii. c. 59, p. 174, 175) distinguish
+eleven families of barons, who are obliged to swear in concilio
+communi, before the senator, that they would not harbor or protect any
+malefactors, outlaws, &c.--a feeble security!]
+
+But among, perhaps above, the peers and princes of the city, I
+distinguish the rival houses of Colonna and Ursini, whose private story
+is an essential part of the annals of modern Rome. I. The name and arms
+of Colonna [97] have been the theme of much doubtful etymology; nor have
+the orators and antiquarians overlooked either Trajan's pillar, or the
+columns of Hercules, or the pillar of Christ's flagellation, or the
+luminous column that guided the Israelites in the desert. Their first
+historical appearance in the year eleven hundred and four attests the
+power and antiquity, while it explains the simple meaning, of the name.
+By the usurpation of Cavę, the Colonna provoked the arms of Paschal the
+Second; but they lawfully held in the Campagna of Rome the hereditary
+fiefs of Zagarola and _Colonna_; and the latter of these towns was
+probably adorned with some lofty pillar, the relic of a villa or temple.
+[98] They likewise possessed one moiety of the neighboring city of
+Tusculum, a strong presumption of their descent from the counts of
+Tusculum, who in the tenth century were the tyrants of the apostolic
+see. According to their own and the public opinion, the primitive and
+remote source was derived from the banks of the Rhine; [99] and the
+sovereigns of Germany were not ashamed of a real or fabulous affinity
+with a noble race, which in the revolutions of seven hundred years has
+been often illustrated by merit and always by fortune. [100] About the
+end of the thirteenth century, the most powerful branch was composed of
+an uncle and six bothers, all conspicuous in arms, or in the honors of
+the church. Of these, Peter was elected senator of Rome, introduced to
+the Capitol in a triumphal car, and hailed in some vain acclamations
+with the title of Cęsar; while John and Stephen were declared marquis of
+Ancona and count of Romagna, by Nicholas the Fourth, a patron so partial
+to their family, that he has been delineated in satirical portraits,
+imprisoned as it were in a hollow pillar. [101] After his decease their
+haughty behavior provoked the displeasure of the most implacable
+of mankind. The two cardinals, the uncle and the nephew, denied the
+election of Boniface the Eighth; and the Colonna were oppressed for a
+moment by his temporal and spiritual arms. [102] He proclaimed a crusade
+against his personal enemies; their estates were confiscated; their
+fortresses on either side of the Tyber were besieged by the troops
+of St. Peter and those of the rival nobles; and after the ruin of
+Palestrina or Pręneste, their principal seat, the ground was marked with
+a ploughshare, the emblem of perpetual desolation. Degraded, banished,
+proscribed, the six brothers, in disguise and danger, wandered over
+Europe without renouncing the hope of deliverance and revenge. In this
+double hope, the French court was their surest asylum; they prompted
+and directed the enterprise of Philip; and I should praise their
+magnanimity, had they respected the misfortune and courage of the
+captive tyrant. His civil acts were annulled by the Roman people, who
+restored the honors and possessions of the Colonna; and some estimate
+may be formed of their wealth by their losses, of their losses by the
+damages of one hundred thousand gold florins which were granted
+them against the accomplices and heirs of the deceased pope. All the
+spiritual censures and disqualifications were abolished [103] by his
+prudent successors; and the fortune of the house was more firmly
+established by this transient hurricane. The boldness of Sciarra Colonna
+was signalized in the captivity of Boniface, and long afterwards in the
+coronation of Lewis of Bavaria; and by the gratitude of the emperor, the
+pillar in their arms was encircled with a royal crown. But the first of
+the family in fame and merit was the elder Stephen, whom Petrarch loved
+and esteemed as a hero superior to his own times, and not unworthy
+of ancient Rome. Persecution and exile displayed to the nations his
+abilities in peace and war; in his distress he was an object, not of
+pity, but of reverence; the aspect of danger provoked him to avow his
+name and country; and when he was asked, "Where is now your fortress?"
+he laid his hand on his heart, and answered, "Here." He supported with
+the same virtue the return of prosperity; and, till the ruin of his
+declining age, the ancestors, the character, and the children of Stephen
+Colonna, exalted his dignity in the Roman republic, and at the court of
+Avignon. II. The Ursini migrated from Spoleto; [104] the sons of Ursus,
+as they are styled in the twelfth century, from some eminent person,
+who is only known as the father of their race. But they were soon
+distinguished among the nobles of Rome, by the number and bravery of
+their kinsmen, the strength of their towers, the honors of the senate
+and sacred college, and the elevation of two popes, Celestin the Third
+and Nicholas the Third, of their name and lineage. [105] Their riches may
+be accused as an early abuse of nepotism: the estates of St. Peter were
+alienated in their favor by the liberal Celestin; [106] and Nicholas was
+ambitious for their sake to solicit the alliance of monarchs; to found
+new kingdoms in Lombardy and Tuscany; and to invest them with the
+perpetual office of senators of Rome. All that has been observed of
+the greatness of the Colonna will likewise redeemed to the glory of
+the Ursini, their constant and equal antagonists in the long
+hereditary feud, which distracted above two hundred and fifty years the
+ecclesiastical state. The jealously of preeminence and power was the
+true ground of their quarrel; but as a specious badge of distinction,
+the Colonna embraced the name of Ghibelines and the party of the empire;
+the Ursini espoused the title of Guelphs and the cause of the church.
+The eagle and the keys were displayed in their adverse banners; and the
+two factions of Italy most furiously raged when the origin and nature
+of the dispute were long since forgotten. [107] After the retreat of
+the popes to Avignon they disputed in arms the vacant republic; and
+the mischiefs of discord were perpetuated by the wretched compromise of
+electing each year two rival senators. By their private hostilities the
+city and country were desolated, and the fluctuating balance inclined
+with their alternate success. But none of either family had fallen by
+the sword, till the most renowned champion of the Ursini was surprised
+and slain by the younger Stephen Colonna. [108] His triumph is stained
+with the reproach of violating the truce; their defeat was basely
+avenged by the assassination, before the church door, of an innocent
+boy and his two servants. Yet the victorious Colonna, with an annual
+colleague, was declared senator of Rome during the term of five years.
+And the muse of Petrarch inspired a wish, a hope, a prediction, that the
+generous youth, the son of his venerable hero, would restore Rome and
+Italy to their pristine glory; that his justice would extirpate the
+wolves and lions, the serpents and _bears_, who labored to subvert the
+eternal basis of the marble column. [109]
+
+[Footnote 97: It is pity that the Colonna themselves have not favored
+the world with a complete and critical history of their illustrious
+house. I adhere to Muratori, (Dissert. xlii. tom. iii. p. 647, 648.)]
+
+[Footnote 98: Pandulph. Pisan. in Vit. Paschal. II. in Muratori, Script.
+Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 335. The family has still great possessions in
+the Campagna of Rome; but they have alienated to the Rospigliosi this
+original fief of _Colonna_, (Eschinard, p. 258, 259.)]
+
+[Footnote 99:
+     Te longinqua dedit tellus et pascua Rheni,
+says Petrarch; and, in 1417, a duke of Guelders and Juliers acknowledges
+(Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom. ii. p. 539) his descent
+from the ancestors of Martin V., (Otho Colonna:) but the royal author
+of the Memoirs of Brandenburg observes, that the sceptre in his arms
+has been confounded with the column. To maintain the Roman origin of
+the Colonna, it was ingeniously supposed (Diario di Monaldeschi, in
+the Script. Ital. tom. xii. p. 533) that a cousin of the emperor Nero
+escaped from the city, and founded Mentz in Germany.]
+
+[Footnote 100: I cannot overlook the Roman triumph of ovation on Marce
+Antonio Colonna, who had commanded the pope's galleys at the naval
+victory of Lepanto, (Thuan. Hist. l. 7, tom. iii. p. 55, 56. Muret.
+Oratio x. Opp. tom. i. p. 180--190.)]
+
+[Footnote 101: Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. x. p. 216, 220.]
+
+[Footnote 102: Petrarch's attachment to the Colonna has authorized the
+abbé de Sade to expatiate on the state of the family in the fourteenth
+century, the persecution of Boniface VIII., the character of Stephen and
+his sons, their quarrels with the Ursini, &c., (Mémoires sur Pétrarque,
+tom. i. p. 98--110, 146--148, 174--176, 222--230, 275--280.) His
+criticism often rectifies the hearsay stories of Villani, and the errors
+of the less diligent moderns. I understand the branch of Stephen to be
+now extinct.]
+
+[Footnote 103: Alexander III. had declared the Colonna who adhered
+to the emperor Frederic I. incapable of holding any ecclesiastical
+benefice, (Villani, l. v. c. 1;) and the last stains of annual
+excommunication were purified by Sixtus V., (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii.
+p. 416.) Treason, sacrilege, and proscription are often the best titles
+of ancient nobility.]
+
+[Footnote 104:
+     --------Vallis te proxima misit,
+     Appenninigenę qua prata virentia sylvę
+     Spoletana metunt armenta gregesque protervi.
+Monaldeschi (tom. xii. Script. Ital. p. 533) gives the Ursini a French
+origin, which may be remotely true.]
+
+[Footnote 105: In the metrical life of Celestine V. by the cardinal of
+St. George (Muratori, tom. iii. P. i. p. 613, &c.,) we find a luminous,
+and not inelegant, passage, (l. i. c. 3, p. 203 &c.:)--
+     --------genuit quem nobilis Ursę (_Ursi?_)
+     Progenies, Romana domus, veterataque magnis
+     Fascibus in clero, pompasque experta senatūs,
+     Bellorumque manū grandi stipata parentum
+     Cardineos apices necnon fastigia dudum
+     Papatūs _iterata_ tenens.
+Muratori (Dissert. xlii. tom. iii.) observes, that the first Ursini
+pontificate of Celestine III. was unknown: he is inclined to read _Ursi_
+progenies.]
+
+[Footnote 106: Filii Ursi, quondam Clestini papę nepotes, de bonis
+ecclesię Romanę ditati, (Vit. Innocent. III. in Muratori, Script. tom.
+iii. P. i.) The partial prodigality of Nicholas III. is more conspicuous
+in Villani and Muratori. Yet the Ursini would disdain the nephews of a
+_modern_ pope.]
+
+[Footnote 107: In his fifty-first Dissertation on the Italian
+Antiquities, Muratori explains the factions of the Guelphs and
+Ghibelines.]
+
+[Footnote 108: Petrarch (tom. i. p. 222--230) has celebrated this
+victory according to the Colonna; but two contemporaries, a Florentine
+(Giovanni Villani, l. x. c. 220) and a Roman, (Ludovico Monaldeschi, p.
+532--534,) are less favorable to their arms.]
+
+[Footnote 109: The abbé de Sade (tom. i. Notes, p. 61--66) has applied
+the vith Canzone of Petrarch, _Spirto Gentil_, &c., to Stephen Colonna
+the younger:
+     Orsi, lupi, leoni, aquile e serpi
+     Al una gran marmorea _colexna_
+     Fanno noja sovente e ą se danno. 11]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.--Part I.
+
+     Character And Coronation Of Petrarch.--Restoration Of The
+     Freedom And Government Of Rome By The Tribune Rienzi.--His
+     Virtues And Vices, His Expulsion And Death.--Return Of The
+     Popes From Avignon.--Great Schism Of The West.--Reunion Of
+     The Latin Church.--Last Struggles Of Roman Liberty.--
+     Statutes Of Rome.--Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical
+     State.
+
+In the apprehension of modern times, Petrarch [1] is the Italian songster
+of Laura and love. In the harmony of his Tuscan rhymes, Italy applauds,
+or rather adores, the father of her lyric poetry; and his verse, or
+at least his name, is repeated by the enthusiasm, or affectation, of
+amorous sensibility. Whatever may be the private taste of a stranger,
+his slight and superficial knowledge should humbly acquiesce in the
+judgment of a learned nation; yet I may hope or presume, that the
+Italians do not compare the tedious uniformity of sonnets and elegies
+with the sublime compositions of their epic muse, the original wildness
+of Dante, the regular beauties of Tasso, and the boundless variety
+of the incomparable Ariosto. The merits of the lover I am still less
+qualified to appreciate: nor am I deeply interested in a metaphysical
+passion for a nymph so shadowy, that her existence has been questioned;
+[2] for a matron so prolific, [3] that she was delivered of eleven
+legitimate children, [4] while her amorous swain sighed and sung at the
+fountain of Vaucluse. [5] But in the eyes of Petrarch, and those of his
+graver contemporaries, his love was a sin, and Italian verse a frivolous
+amusement. His Latin works of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence,
+established his serious reputation, which was soon diffused from Avignon
+over France and Italy: his friends and disciples were multiplied in
+every city; and if the ponderous volume of his writings [6] be now
+abandoned to a long repose, our gratitude must applaud the man, who by
+precept and example revived the spirit and study of the Augustan age.
+From his earliest youth, Petrarch aspired to the poetic crown. The
+academical honors of the three faculties had introduced a royal
+degree of master or doctor in the art of poetry; [7] and the title of
+poet-laureate, which custom, rather than vanity, perpetuates in the
+English court, [8] was first invented by the Cęsars of Germany. In the
+musical games of antiquity, a prize was bestowed on the victor: [9] the
+belief that Virgil and Horace had been crowned in the Capitol inflamed
+the emulation of a Latin bard; [10] and the laurel [11] was endeared to
+the lover by a verbal resemblance with the name of his mistress. The
+value of either object was enhanced by the difficulties of the pursuit;
+and if the virtue or prudence of Laura was inexorable, [12] he enjoyed,
+and might boast of enjoying, the nymph of poetry. His vanity was not
+of the most delicate kind, since he applauds the success of his own
+_labors_; his name was popular; his friends were active; the open or
+secret opposition of envy and prejudice was surmounted by the dexterity
+of patient merit. In the thirty-sixth year of his age, he was solicited
+to accept the object of his wishes; and on the same day, in the solitude
+of Vaucluse, he received a similar and solemn invitation from the senate
+of Rome and the university of Paris. The learning of a theological
+school, and the ignorance of a lawless city, were alike unqualified to
+bestow the ideal though immortal wreath which genius may obtain from
+the free applause of the public and of posterity: but the candidate
+dismissed this troublesome reflection; and after some moments of
+complacency and suspense, preferred the summons of the metropolis of the
+world.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Mémoires sur la Vie de Franēois Pétrarque, (Amsterdam,
+1764, 1767, 3 vols. in 4to.,) form a copious, original, and entertaining
+work, a labor of love, composed from the accurate study of Petrarch
+and his contemporaries; but the hero is too often lost in the general
+history of the age, and the author too often languishes in the
+affectation of politeness and gallantry. In the preface to his first
+volume, he enumerates and weighs twenty Italian biographers, who have
+professedly treated of the same subject.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The allegorical interpretation prevailed in the xvth
+century; but the wise commentators were not agreed whether they should
+understand by Laura, religion, or virtue, or the blessed virgin,
+or--------. See the prefaces to the first and second volume.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Laure de Noves, born about the year 1307, was married
+in January 1325, to Hugues de Sade, a noble citizen of Avignon, whose
+jealousy was not the effect of love, since he married a second wife
+within seven months of her death, which happened the 6th of April, 1348,
+precisely one-and-twenty years after Petrarch had seen and loved her.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Corpus crebris partubus exhaustum: from one of these is
+issued, in the tenth degree, the abbé de Sade, the fond and grateful
+biographer of Petrarch; and this domestic motive most probably suggested
+the idea of his work, and urged him to inquire into every circumstance
+that could affect the history and character of his grandmother, (see
+particularly tom. i. p. 122--133, notes, p. 7--58, tom. ii. p. 455--495
+not. p. 76--82.)]
+
+[Footnote 5: Vaucluse, so familiar to our English travellers, is
+described from the writings of Petrarch, and the local knowledge of
+his biographer, (Mémoires, tom. i. p. 340--359.) It was, in truth, the
+retreat of a hermit; and the moderns are much mistaken, if they place
+Laura and a happy lover in the grotto.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Of 1250 pages, in a close print, at Basil in the xvith
+century, but without the date of the year. The abbé de Sade calls aloud
+for a new edition of Petrarch's Latin works; but I much doubt whether it
+would redound to the profit of the bookseller, or the amusement of the
+public.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Consult Selden's Titles of Honor, in his works, (vol. iii.
+p. 457--466.) A hundred years before Petrarch, St. Francis received
+the visit of a poet, qui ab imperatore fuerat coronatus et exinde rex
+versuum dictus.]
+
+[Footnote 8: From Augustus to Louis, the muse has too often been false
+and venal: but I much doubt whether any age or court can produce a
+similar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who in every reign, and
+at all events, is bound to furnish twice a year a measure of praise
+and verse, such as may be sung in the chapel, and, I believe, in the
+presence, of the sovereign. I speak the more freely, as the best time
+for abolishing this ridiculous custom is while the prince is a man of
+virtue and the poet a man of genius.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Isocrates (in Panegyrico, tom. i. p. 116, 117, edit.
+Battie, Cantab. 1729) claims for his native Athens the glory of first
+instituting and recommending the alwnaV--kai ta aqla megista--mh
+monon tacouV kai rwmhV, alla kai logwn kai gnwmhV. The example of the
+Panathenęa was imitated at Delphi; but the Olympic games were ignorant
+of a musical crown, till it was extorted by the vain tyranny of Nero,
+(Sueton. in Nerone, c. 23; Philostrat. apud Casaubon ad locum;
+Dion Cassius, or Xiphilin, l. lxiii. p. 1032, 1041. Potter's Greek
+Antiquities, vol. i. p. 445, 450.)]
+
+[Footnote 10: The Capitoline games (certamen quinquenale, _musicum_,
+equestre, gymnicum) were instituted by Domitian (Sueton. c. 4) in
+the year of Christ 86, (Censorin. de Die Natali, c. 18, p. 100, edit.
+Havercamp.) and were not abolished in the ivth century, (Ausonius de
+Professoribus Burdegal. V.) If the crown were given to superior merit,
+the exclusion of Statius (Capitolia nostrę inficiata lyrę, Sylv. l. iii.
+v. 31) may do honor to the games of the Capitol; but the Latin poets who
+lived before Domitian were crowned only in the public opinion.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Petrarch and the senators of Rome were ignorant that the
+laurel was not the Capitoline, but the Delphic crown, (Plin. Hist.
+Natur p. 39. Hist. Critique de la République des Lettres, tom. i. p.
+150--220.) The victors in the Capitol were crowned with a garland of oak
+leaves, (Martial, l. iv. epigram 54.)]
+
+[Footnote 12: The pious grandson of Laura has labored, and not without
+success, to vindicate her immaculate chastity against the censures of
+the grave and the sneers of the profane, (tom. ii. notes, p. 76--82.)]
+
+The ceremony of his coronation [13] was performed in the Capitol, by
+his friend and patron the supreme magistrate of the republic. Twelve
+patrician youths were arrayed in scarlet; six representatives of the
+most illustrious families, in green robes, with garlands of flowers,
+accompanied the procession; in the midst of the princes and nobles,
+the senator, count of Anguillara, a kinsman of the Colonna, assumed his
+throne; and at the voice of a herald Petrarch arose. After discoursing
+on a text of Virgil, and thrice repeating his vows for the prosperity of
+Rome, he knelt before the throne, and received from the senator a laurel
+crown, with a more precious declaration, "This is the reward of merit."
+The people shouted, "Long life to the Capitol and the poet!" A sonnet in
+praise of Rome was accepted as the effusion of genius and gratitude; and
+after the whole procession had visited the Vatican, the profane wreath
+was suspended before the shrine of St. Peter. In the act or diploma
+[14] which was presented to Petrarch, the title and prerogatives of
+poet-laureate are revived in the Capitol, after the lapse of thirteen
+hundred years; and he receives the perpetual privilege of wearing, at
+his choice, a crown of laurel, ivy, or myrtle, of assuming the poetic
+habit, and of teaching, disputing, interpreting, and composing, in all
+places whatsoever, and on all subjects of literature. The grant was
+ratified by the authority of the senate and people; and the character of
+citizen was the recompense of his affection for the Roman name. They did
+him honor, but they did him justice. In the familiar society of Cicero
+and Livy, he had imbibed the ideas of an ancient patriot; and his
+ardent fancy kindled every idea to a sentiment, and every sentiment to
+a passion. The aspect of the seven hills and their majestic ruins
+confirmed these lively impressions; and he loved a country by whose
+liberal spirit he had been crowned and adopted. The poverty and
+debasement of Rome excited the indignation and pity of her grateful son;
+he dissembled the faults of his fellow-citizens; applauded with partial
+fondness the last of their heroes and matrons; and in the remembrance of
+the past, in the hopes of the future, was pleased to forget the miseries
+of the present time. Rome was still the lawful mistress of the world:
+the pope and the emperor, the bishop and general, had abdicated their
+station by an inglorious retreat to the Rhōne and the Danube; but if she
+could resume her virtue, the republic might again vindicate her liberty
+and dominion. Amidst the indulgence of enthusiasm and eloquence, [15]
+Petrarch, Italy, and Europe, were astonished by a revolution which
+realized for a moment his most splendid visions. The rise and fall of
+the tribune Rienzi will occupy the following pages: [16] the subject is
+interesting, the materials are rich, and the glance of a patriot bard
+[17] will sometimes vivify the copious, but simple, narrative of the
+Florentine, [18] and more especially of the Roman, historian. [19]
+
+[Footnote 13: The whole process of Petrarch's coronation is accurately
+described by the abbé de Sade, (tom. i. p. 425--435, tom. ii. p.
+1--6, notes, p. 1--13,) from his own writings, and the Roman diary of
+Ludovico Monaldeschi, without mixing in this authentic narrative the
+more recent fables of Sannuccio Delbene.]
+
+[Footnote 14: The original act is printed among the Pieces
+Justificatives in the Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 50--53.]
+
+[Footnote 15: To find the proofs of his enthusiasm for Rome, I need only
+request that the reader would open, by chance, either Petrarch, or his
+French biographer. The latter has described the poet's first visit to
+Rome, (tom. i. p. 323--335.) But in the place of much idle rhetoric and
+morality, Petrarch might have amused the present and future age with an
+original account of the city and his coronation.]
+
+[Footnote 16: It has been treated by the pen of a Jesuit, the P. de
+Cerceau whose posthumous work (Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini, dit de
+Rienzi, Tyran de Rome, en 1347) was published at Paris, 1748, in 12mo. I
+am indebted to him for some facts and documents in John Hocsemius, canon
+of Liege, a contemporary historian, (Fabricius Bibliot. Lat. Med. Ęvi,
+tom. iii. p. 273, tom. iv. p. 85.)]
+
+[Footnote 17: The abbé de Sade, who so freely expatiates on the history
+of the xivth century, might treat, as his proper subject, a revolution
+in which the heart of Petrarch was so deeply engaged, (Mémoires, tom.
+ii. p. 50, 51, 320--417, notes, p. 70--76, tom. iii. p. 221--243,
+366--375.) Not an idea or a fact in the writings of Petrarch has
+probably escaped him.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Giovanni Villani, l. xii. c. 89, 104, in Muratori, Rerum
+Italicarum Scriptores, tom. xiii. p. 969, 970, 981--983.]
+
+[Footnote 19: In his third volume of Italian antiquities, (p. 249--548,)
+Muratori has inserted the Fragmenta Historię Romanę ab Anno 1327 usque
+ad Annum 1354, in the original dialect of Rome or Naples in the xivth
+century, and a Latin version for the benefit of strangers. It contains
+the most particular and authentic life of Cola (Nicholas) di Rienzi;
+which had been printed at Bracciano, 1627, in 4to., under the name of
+Tomaso Fortifiocca, who is only mentioned in this work as having been
+punished by the tribune for forgery. Human nature is scarcely capable
+of such sublime or stupid impartiality: but whosoever in the author
+of these Fragments, he wrote on the spot and at the time, and paints,
+without design or art, the manners of Rome and the character of the
+tribune. * Note: Since the publication of my first edition of Gibbon,
+some new and very remarkable documents have been brought to light in a
+life of Nicolas Rienzi,--Cola di Rienzo und seine Zeit,--by Dr. Felix
+Papencordt. The most important of these documents are letters from
+Rienzi to Charles the Fourth, emperor and king of Bohemia, and to the
+archbishop of Prague; they enter into the whole history of his
+adventurous career during its first period, and throw a strong light
+upon his extraordinary character. These documents were first discovered
+and made use of, to a certain extent, by Pelzel, the historian of
+Bohemia. The originals have disappeared, but a copy made by Pelzel for
+his own use is now in the library of Count Thun at Teschen. There seems
+no doubt of their authenticity. Dr. Papencordt has printed the whole in
+his Urkunden, with the exception of one long theological paper.--M.
+1845.]
+
+In a quarter of the city which was inhabited only by mechanics and Jews,
+the marriage of an innkeeper and a washer woman produced the future
+deliverer of Rome. [20] [201] From such parents Nicholas Rienzi Gabrini
+could inherit neither dignity nor fortune; and the gift of a liberal
+education, which they painfully bestowed, was the cause of his glory
+and untimely end. The study of history and eloquence, the writings of
+Cicero, Seneca, Livy, Cęsar, and Valerius Maximus, elevated above his
+equals and contemporaries the genius of the young plebeian: he perused
+with indefatigable diligence the manuscripts and marbles of antiquity;
+loved to dispense his knowledge in familiar language; and was often
+provoked to exclaim, "Where are now these Romans? their virtue, their
+justice, their power? why was I not born in those happy times?" [21] When
+the republic addressed to the throne of Avignon an embassy of the three
+orders, the spirit and eloquence of Rienzi recommended him to a place
+among the thirteen deputies of the commons. The orator had the honor of
+haranguing Pope Clement the Sixth, and the satisfaction of conversing
+with Petrarch, a congenial mind: but his aspiring hopes were chilled by
+disgrace and poverty and the patriot was reduced to a single garment and
+the charity of the hospital. [211] From this misery he was relieved by the
+sense of merit or the smile of favor; and the employment of apostolic
+notary afforded him a daily stipend of five gold florins, a more
+honorable and extensive connection, and the right of contrasting, both
+in words and actions, his own integrity with the vices of the state. The
+eloquence of Rienzi was prompt and persuasive: the multitude is always
+prone to envy and censure: he was stimulated by the loss of a brother
+and the impunity of the assassins; nor was it possible to excuse or
+exaggerate the public calamities. The blessings of peace and justice,
+for which civil society has been instituted, were banished from Rome:
+the jealous citizens, who might have endured every personal or pecuniary
+injury, were most deeply wounded in the dishonor of their wives and
+daughters: [22] they were equally oppressed by the arrogance of the
+nobles and the corruption of the magistrates; [221] and the abuse of arms
+or of laws was the only circumstance that distinguished the lions from
+the dogs and serpents of the Capitol. These allegorical emblems were
+variously repeated in the pictures which Rienzi exhibited in the streets
+and churches; and while the spectators gazed with curious wonder, the
+bold and ready orator unfolded the meaning, applied the satire, inflamed
+their passions, and announced a distant hope of comfort and deliverance.
+The privileges of Rome, her eternal sovereignty over her princes and
+provinces, was the theme of his public and private discourse; and a
+monument of servitude became in his hands a title and incentive
+of liberty. The decree of the senate, which granted the most ample
+prerogatives to the emperor Vespasian, had been inscribed on a copper
+plate still extant in the choir of the church of St. John Lateran. [23] A
+numerous assembly of nobles and plebeians was invited to this political
+lecture, and a convenient theatre was erected for their reception. The
+notary appeared in a magnificent and mysterious habit, explained
+the inscription by a version and commentary, [24] and descanted with
+eloquence and zeal on the ancient glories of the senate and people, from
+whom all legal authority was derived. The supine ignorance of the
+nobles was incapable of discerning the serious tendency of such
+representations: they might sometimes chastise with words and blows the
+plebeian reformer; but he was often suffered in the Colonna palace
+to amuse the company with his threats and predictions; and the modern
+Brutus [25] was concealed under the mask of folly and the character of
+a buffoon. While they indulged their contempt, the restoration of the
+_good estate_, his favorite expression, was entertained among the people
+as a desirable, a possible, and at length as an approaching, event;
+and while all had the disposition to applaud, some had the courage to
+assist, their promised deliverer.
+
+[Footnote 20: The first and splendid period of Rienzi, his tribunitian
+government, is contained in the xviiith chapter of the Fragments, (p.
+399--479,) which, in the new division, forms the iid book of the history
+in xxxviii. smaller chapters or sections.]
+
+[Footnote 201: But see in Dr. Papencordt's work, and in Rienzi's own words,
+his claim to be a bastard son of the emperor Henry the Seventh,
+whose intrigue with his mother Rienzi relates with a sort of proud
+shamelessness. Compare account by the editor of Dr. Papencordt's work in
+Quarterly Review vol. lxix.--M. 1845.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The reader may be pleased with a specimen of the original
+idiom: Fņ da soa juventutine nutricato di latte de eloquentia, bono
+gramatico, megliore rettuorico, autorista bravo. Deh como et quanto era
+veloce leitore! moito usava Tito Livio, Seneca, et Tullio, et Balerio
+Massimo, moito li dilettava le magnificentie di Julio Cesare raccontare.
+Tutta la die se speculava negl' intagli di marmo lequali iaccio intorno
+Roma. Non era altri che esso, che sapesse lejere li antichi pataffii.
+Tutte scritture antiche vulgarizzava; quesse fiure di marmo justamente
+interpretava. On come spesso diceva, "Dove suono quelli buoni Romani?
+dove ene loro somma justitia? poleramme trovare in tempo che quessi
+fiuriano!"]
+
+[Footnote 211: Sir J. Hobhouse published (in his Illustrations of Childe
+Harold) Rienzi's joyful letter to the people of Rome on the apparently
+favorable termination of this mission.--M. 1845.]
+
+[Footnote 22: Petrarch compares the jealousy of the Romans with the easy
+temper of the husbands of Avignon, (Mémoires, tom. i. p. 330.)]
+
+[Footnote 221: All this Rienzi, writing at a later period to the archbishop
+of Prague, attributed to the criminal abandonment of his flock by the
+supreme pontiff. See Urkunde apud Papencordt, p. xliv. Quarterly Review,
+p. 255.--M. 1845.]
+
+[Footnote 23: The fragments of the _Lex regia_ may be found in the
+Inscriptions of Gruter, tom. i. p. 242, and at the end of the Tacitus of
+Ernesti, with some learned notes of the editor, tom. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 24: I cannot overlook a stupendous and laughable blunder of
+Rienzi. The Lex regia empowers Vespasian to enlarge the Pomrium, a word
+familiar to every antiquary. It was not so to the tribune; he confounds
+it with pom_a_rium, an orchard, translates lo Jardino de Roma cioene
+Italia, and is copied by the less excusable ignorance of the Latin
+translator (p. 406) and the French historian, (p. 33.) Even the learning
+of Muratori has slumbered over the passage.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Priori (_Bruto_) tamen similior, juvenis uterque, longe
+ingenio quam cujus simulationem induerat, ut sub hoc obtentū liberator
+ille P R. aperiretur tempore suo.... Ille regibus, hic tyrannis
+contemptus, (Opp. p. 536.) * Note: Fatcor attamen quod-nunc fatuum. nunc
+hystrionem, nunc gravem nunc simplicem, nunc astutum, nunc fervidum,
+nunc timidum simulatorem, et dissimulatorem ad hunc caritativum finem,
+quem dixi, constitusepius memet ipsum. Writing to an archbishop, (of
+Prague,) Rienzi alleges scriptural examples. Saltator coram archa David
+et insanus apparuit coram Rege; blanda, astuta, et tecta Judith astitit
+Holoferni; et astute Jacob meruit benedici, Urkunde xlix.--M. 1845.]
+
+A prophecy, or rather a summons, affixed on the church door of St.
+George, was the first public evidence of his designs; a nocturnal
+assembly of a hundred citizens on Mount Aventine, the first step to
+their execution. After an oath of secrecy and aid, he represented to the
+conspirators the importance and facility of their enterprise; that the
+nobles, without union or resources, were strong only in the fear
+of their imaginary strength; that all power, as well as right, was in
+the hands of the people; that the revenues of the apostolical chamber
+might relieve the public distress; and that the pope himself would
+approve their victory over the common enemies of government and freedom.
+After securing a faithful band to protect his first declaration, he
+proclaimed through the city, by sound of trumpet, that on the evening of
+the following day, all persons should assemble without arms before the
+church of St. Angelo, to provide for the reestablishment of the good
+estate. The whole night was employed in the celebration of thirty
+masses of the Holy Ghost; and in the morning, Rienzi, bareheaded, but
+in complete armor, issued from the church, encompassed by the hundred
+conspirators. The pope's vicar, the simple bishop of Orvieto, who had
+been persuaded to sustain a part in this singular ceremony, marched
+on his right hand; and three great standards were borne aloft as the
+emblems of their design. In the first, the banner of _liberty_, Rome was
+seated on two lions, with a palm in one hand and a globe in the other;
+St. Paul, with a drawn sword, was delineated in the banner of _justice_;
+and in the third, St. Peter held the keys of _concord_ and _peace_.
+Rienzi was encouraged by the presence and applause of an innumerable
+crowd, who understood little, and hoped much; and the procession slowly
+rolled forwards from the castle of St. Angelo to the Capitol. His
+triumph was disturbed by some secret emotions which he labored to
+suppress: he ascended without opposition, and with seeming confidence,
+the citadel of the republic; harangued the people from the balcony;
+and received the most flattering confirmation of his acts and laws.
+The nobles, as if destitute of arms and counsels, beheld in silent
+consternation this strange revolution; and the moment had been prudently
+chosen, when the most formidable, Stephen Colonna, was absent from the
+city. On the first rumor, he returned to his palace, affected to despise
+this plebeian tumult, and declared to the messenger of Rienzi, that at
+his leisure he would cast the madman from the windows of the Capitol.
+The great bell instantly rang an alarm, and so rapid was the tide, so
+urgent was the danger, that Colonna escaped with precipitation to the
+suburb of St. Laurence: from thence, after a moment's refreshment, he
+continued the same speedy career till he reached in safety his castle
+of Palestrina; lamenting his own imprudence, which had not trampled the
+spark of this mighty conflagration. A general and peremptory order was
+issued from the Capitol to all the nobles, that they should peaceably
+retire to their estates: they obeyed; and their departure secured the
+tranquillity of the free and obedient citizens of Rome.
+
+But such voluntary obedience evaporates with the first transports of
+zeal; and Rienzi felt the importance of justifying his usurpation by
+a regular form and a legal title. At his own choice, the Roman people
+would have displayed their attachment and authority, by lavishing on his
+head the names of senator or consul, of king or emperor: he preferred
+the ancient and modest appellation of tribune; [251] the protection of the
+commons was the essence of that sacred office; and they were ignorant,
+that it had never been invested with any share in the legislative
+or executive powers of the republic. In this character, and with the
+consent of the Roman, the tribune enacted the most salutary laws for the
+restoration and maintenance of the good estate. By the first he fulfils
+the wish of honesty and inexperience, that no civil suit should be
+protracted beyond the term of fifteen days. The danger of frequent
+perjury might justify the pronouncing against a false accuser the same
+penalty which his evidence would have inflicted: the disorders of the
+times might compel the legislator to punish every homicide with death,
+and every injury with equal retaliation. But the execution of justice
+was hopeless till he had previously abolished the tyranny of the nobles.
+It was formally provided, that none, except the supreme magistrate,
+should possess or command the gates, bridges, or towers of the state;
+that no private garrisons should be introduced into the towns or castles
+of the Roman territory; that none should bear arms, or presume to
+fortify their houses in the city or country; that the barons should
+be responsible for the safety of the highways, and the free passage of
+provisions; and that the protection of malefactors and robbers should be
+expiated by a fine of a thousand marks of silver. But these regulations
+would have been impotent and nugatory, had not the licentious nobles
+been awed by the sword of the civil power. A sudden alarm from the bell
+of the Capitol could still summon to the standard above twenty thousand
+volunteers: the support of the tribune and the laws required a more
+regular and permanent force. In each harbor of the coast a vessel was
+stationed for the assurance of commerce; a standing militia of three
+hundred and sixty horse and thirteen hundred foot was levied, clothed,
+and paid in the thirteen quarters of the city: and the spirit of a
+commonwealth may be traced in the grateful allowance of one hundred
+florins, or pounds, to the heirs of every soldier who lost his life in
+the service of his country. For the maintenance of the public defence,
+for the establishment of granaries, for the relief of widows, orphans,
+and indigent convents, Rienzi applied, without fear of sacrilege, the
+revenues of the apostolic chamber: the three branches of hearth-money,
+the salt-duty, and the customs, were each of the annual produce of one
+hundred thousand florins; [26] and scandalous were the abuses, if in
+four or five months the amount of the salt-duty could be trebled by his
+judicious economy. After thus restoring the forces and finances of
+the republic, the tribune recalled the nobles from their solitary
+independence; required their personal appearance in the Capitol; and
+imposed an oath of allegiance to the new government, and of submission
+to the laws of the good estate. Apprehensive for their safety, but still
+more apprehensive of the danger of a refusal, the princes and barons
+returned to their houses at Rome in the garb of simple and peaceful
+citizens: the Colonna and Ursini, the Savelli and Frangipani, were
+confounded before the tribunal of a plebeian, of the vile buffoon whom
+they had so often derided, and their disgrace was aggravated by the
+indignation which they vainly struggled to disguise. The same oath was
+successively pronounced by the several orders of society, the clergy and
+gentlemen, the judges and notaries, the merchants and artisans, and the
+gradual descent was marked by the increase of sincerity and zeal. They
+swore to live and die with the republic and the church, whose interest
+was artfully united by the nominal association of the bishop of Orvieto,
+the pope's vicar, to the office of tribune. It was the boast of Rienzi,
+that he had delivered the throne and patrimony of St. Peter from a
+rebellious aristocracy; and Clement the Sixth, who rejoiced in its
+fall, affected to believe the professions, to applaud the merits, and to
+confirm the title, of his trusty servant. The speech, perhaps the mind,
+of the tribune, was inspired with a lively regard for the purity of the
+faith: he insinuated his claim to a supernatural mission from the Holy
+Ghost; enforced by a heavy forfeiture the annual duty of confession
+and communion; and strictly guarded the spiritual as well as temporal
+welfare of his faithful people. [27]
+
+[Footnote 251: Et ego, Deo semper auctore, ipsa die pristinā (leg. primā)
+Tribunatus, quę quidem dignitas a tempore deflorati Imperii, et per
+annos Vo et ultra sub tyrannicą occupatione vacavit, ipsos omnes
+potentes indifferenter Deum at justitiam odientes, a meā, ymo a Dei
+facie fugiendo vehementi Spiritu dissipavi, et nullo effuso cruore
+trementes expuli, sine ictu remanente Romane terre facie renovatā.
+Libellus Tribuni ad Cęsarem, p. xxxiv.--M. 1845.]
+
+[Footnote 26: In one MS. I read (l. ii. c. 4, p. 409) perfumante quatro
+_solli_, in another, quatro _florini_, an important variety, since the
+florin was worth ten Roman _solidi_, (Muratori, dissert. xxviii.) The
+former reading would give us a population of 25,000, the latter of
+250,000 families; and I much fear, that the former is more consistent
+with the decay of Rome and her territory.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Hocsemius, p. 498, apud du Cerēeau, Hist. de Rienzi, p.
+194. The fifteen tribunitian laws may be found in the Roman historian
+(whom for brevity I shall name) Fortifiocca, l. ii. c. 4.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.--Part II.
+
+Never perhaps has the energy and effect of a single mind been more
+remarkably felt than in the sudden, though transient, reformation
+of Rome by the tribune Rienzi. A den of robbers was converted to the
+discipline of a camp or convent: patient to hear, swift to redress,
+inexorable to punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor and
+stranger; nor could birth, or dignity, or the immunities of the church,
+protect the offender or his accomplices. The privileged houses, the
+private sanctuaries in Rome, on which no officer of justice would
+presume to trespass, were abolished; and he applied the timber and iron
+of their barricades in the fortifications of the Capitol. The venerable
+father of the Colonna was exposed in his own palace to the double shame
+of being desirous, and of being unable, to protect a criminal. A mule,
+with a jar of oil, had been stolen near Capranica; and the lord of the
+Ursini family was condemned to restore the damage, and to discharge
+a fine of four hundred florins for his negligence in guarding the
+highways. Nor were the persons of the barons more inviolate than their
+lands or houses; and, either from accident or design, the same impartial
+rigor was exercised against the heads of the adverse factions. Peter
+Agapet Colonna, who had himself been senator of Rome, was arrested in
+the street for injury or debt; and justice was appeased by the tardy
+execution of Martin Ursini, who, among his various acts of violence and
+rapine, had pillaged a shipwrecked vessel at the mouth of the Tyber. [28]
+His name, the purple of two cardinals, his uncles, a recent marriage,
+and a mortal disease were disregarded by the inflexible tribune, who had
+chosen his victim. The public officers dragged him from his palace
+and nuptial bed: his trial was short and satisfactory: the bell of the
+Capitol convened the people: stripped of his mantle, on his knees, with
+his hands bound behind his back, he heard the sentence of death; and
+after a brief confession, Ursini was led away to the gallows. After such
+an example, none who were conscious of guilt could hope for impunity,
+and the flight of the wicked, the licentious, and the idle, soon
+purified the city and territory of Rome. In this time (says the
+historian,) the woods began to rejoice that they were no longer infested
+with robbers; the oxen began to plough; the pilgrims visited the
+sanctuaries; the roads and inns were replenished with travellers; trade,
+plenty, and good faith, were restored in the markets; and a purse of
+gold might be exposed without danger in the midst of the highway. As
+soon as the life and property of the subject are secure, the labors and
+rewards of industry spontaneously revive: Rome was still the metropolis
+of the Christian world; and the fame and fortunes of the tribune were
+diffused in every country by the strangers who had enjoyed the blessings
+of his government.
+
+[Footnote 28: Fortifiocca, l. ii. c. 11. From the account of this
+shipwreck, we learn some circumstances of the trade and navigation of
+the age. 1. The ship was built and freighted at Naples for the ports of
+Marseilles and Avignon. 2. The sailors were of Naples and the Isle of
+Oenaria, less skilful than those of Sicily and Genoa. 3. The navigation
+from Marseilles was a coasting voyage to the mouth of the Tyber, where
+they took shelter in a storm; but, instead of finding the current,
+unfortunately ran on a shoal: the vessel was stranded, the mariners
+escaped. 4. The cargo, which was pillaged, consisted of the revenue of
+Provence for the royal treasury, many bags of pepper and cinnamon, and
+bales of French cloth, to the value of 20,000 florins; a rich prize.]
+
+The deliverance of his country inspired Rienzi with a vast, and perhaps
+visionary, idea of uniting Italy in a great federative republic, of
+which Rome should be the ancient and lawful head, and the free cities
+and princes the members and associates. His pen was not less eloquent
+than his tongue; and his numerous epistles were delivered to swift
+and trusty messengers. On foot, with a white wand in their hand, they
+traversed the forests and mountains; enjoyed, in the most hostile
+states, the sacred security of ambassadors; and reported, in the style
+of flattery or truth, that the highways along their passage were lined
+with kneeling multitudes, who implored Heaven for the success of their
+undertaking. Could passion have listened to reason; could private
+interest have yielded to the public welfare; the supreme tribunal
+and confederate union of the Italian republic might have healed their
+intestine discord, and closed the Alps against the Barbarians of the
+North. But the propitious season had elapsed; and if Venice, Florence,
+Sienna, Perugia, and many inferior cities offered their lives and
+fortunes to the good estate, the tyrants of Lombardy and Tuscany must
+despise, or hate, the plebeian author of a free constitution. From them,
+however, and from every part of Italy, the tribune received the most
+friendly and respectful answers: they were followed by the ambassadors
+of the princes and republics; and in this foreign conflux, on all the
+occasions of pleasure or business, the low born notary could assume
+the familiar or majestic courtesy of a sovereign. [29] The most glorious
+circumstance of his reign was an appeal to his justice from Lewis, king
+of Hungary, who complained, that his brother and her husband had been
+perfidiously strangled by Jane, queen of Naples: [30] her guilt or
+innocence was pleaded in a solemn trial at Rome; but after hearing the
+advocates, [31] the tribune adjourned this weighty and invidious cause,
+which was soon determined by the sword of the Hungarian. Beyond the
+Alps, more especially at Avignon, the revolution was the theme of
+curiosity, wonder, and applause. [311] Petrarch had been the private
+friend, perhaps the secret counsellor, of Rienzi: his writings breathe
+the most ardent spirit of patriotism and joy; and all respect for the
+pope, all gratitude for the Colonna, was lost in the superior duties
+of a Roman citizen. The poet-laureate of the Capitol maintains the act,
+applauds the hero, and mingles with some apprehension and advice, the
+most lofty hopes of the permanent and rising greatness of the republic.
+[32]
+
+[Footnote 29: It was thus that Oliver Cromwell's old acquaintance, who
+remembered his vulgar and ungracious entrance into the House of Commons,
+were astonished at the ease and majesty of the protector on his throne,
+(See Harris's Life of Cromwell, p. 27--34, from Clarendon Warwick,
+Whitelocke, Waller, &c.) The consciousness of merit and power will
+sometimes elevate the manners to the station.]
+
+[Footnote 30: See the causes, circumstances, and effects of the death of
+Andrew in Giannone, (tom. iii. l. xxiii. p. 220--229,) and the Life of
+Petrarch (Mémoires, tom. ii. p. 143--148, 245--250, 375--379, notes, p.
+21--37.) The abbé de Sade _wishes_ to extenuate her guilt.]
+
+[Footnote 31: The advocate who pleaded against Jane could add nothing
+to the logical force and brevity of his master's epistle. Johanna!
+inordinata vita pręcedens, retentio potestatis in regno, neglecta
+vindicta, vir alter susceptus, et excusatio subsequens, necis viri tui
+te probant fuisse participem et consortem. Jane of Naples, and Mary of
+Scotland, have a singular conformity.]
+
+[Footnote 311]: In his letter to the archbishop of Prague, Rienzi thus
+describes the effect of his elevation on Italy and on the world: "Did
+I not restore real peace among the cities which were distracted by
+factions? did I not cause all the citizens, exiled by party violence,
+with their wretched wives and children, to be readmitted? had I not
+begun to extinguish the factious names (scismatica nomina) of Guelf and
+Ghibelline, for which countless thousands had perished body and soul,
+under the eyes of their pastors, by the reduction of the city of Rome
+and all Italy into one amicable, peaceful, holy, and united confederacy?
+the consecrated standards and banners having been by me collected and
+blended together, and, in witness to our holy association and perfect
+union, offered up in the presence of the ambassadors of all the cities
+of Italy, on the day of the assumption of our Blessed Lady." p. xlvii.
+----In the Libellus ad Cęsarem: "I received the homage and submission of
+all the sovereigns of Apulia, the barons and counts, and almost all the
+people of Italy. I was honored by solemn embassies and letters by the
+emperor of Constantinople and the king of England. The queen of Naples
+submitted herself and her kingdom to the protection of the tribune. The
+king of Hungary, by two solemn embassies, brought his cause against his
+queen and his nobles before my tribunal; and I venture to say further,
+that the fame of the tribune alarmed the soldan of Babylon. When the
+Christian pilgrims to the sepulchre of our Lord related to the Christian
+and Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem all the yet unheard-of and wonderful
+circumstances of the reformation in Rome, both Jews and Christians
+celebrated the event with unusual festivities. When the soldan inquired
+the cause of these rejoicings, and received this intelligence about
+Rome, he ordered all the havens and cities on the coast to be fortified,
+and put in a state of defence," p. xxxv.--M. 1845.]
+
+[Footnote 32: See the Epistola Hortatoria de Capessenda Republica, from
+Petrarch to Nicholas Rienzi, (Opp. p. 535--540,) and the vth eclogue or
+pastoral, a perpetual and obscure allegory.]
+
+While Petrarch indulged these prophetic visions, the Roman hero was fast
+declining from the meridian of fame and power; and the people, who
+had gazed with astonishment on the ascending meteor, began to mark the
+irregularity of its course, and the vicissitudes of light and obscurity.
+More eloquent than judicious, more enterprising than resolute, the
+faculties of Rienzi were not balanced by cool and commanding reason:
+he magnified in a tenfold proportion the objects of hope and fear; and
+prudence, which could not have erected, did not presume to fortify,
+his throne. In the blaze of prosperity, his virtues were insensibly
+tinctured with the adjacent vices; justice with cruelly, cruelty,
+liberality with profusion, and the desire of fame with puerile and
+ostentatious vanity. [321] He might have learned, that the ancient
+tribunes, so strong and sacred in the public opinion, were not
+distinguished in style, habit, or appearance, from an ordinary plebeian;
+[33] and that as often as they visited the city on foot, a single viator,
+or beadle, attended the exercise of their office. The Gracchi would have
+frowned or smiled, could they have read the sonorous titles and epithets
+of their successor, "Nicholas, severe and merciful; deliverer of Rome;
+defender of Italy; [34] friend of mankind, and of liberty, peace, and
+justice; tribune august:" his theatrical pageants had prepared the
+revolution; but Rienzi abused, in luxury and pride, the political maxim
+of speaking to the eyes, as well as the understanding, of the multitude.
+From nature he had received the gift of a handsome person, [35] till
+it was swelled and disfigured by intemperance: and his propensity to
+laughter was corrected in the magistrate by the affectation of gravity
+and sternness. He was clothed, at least on public occasions, in a
+party-colored robe of velvet or satin, lined with fur, and embroidered
+with gold: the rod of justice, which he carried in his hand, was a
+sceptre of polished steel, crowned with a globe and cross of gold, and
+enclosing a small fragment of the true and holy wood. In his civil and
+religious processions through the city, he rode on a white steed, the
+symbol of royalty: the great banner of the republic, a sun with a circle
+of stars, a dove with an olive branch, was displayed over his head; a
+shower of gold and silver was scattered among the populace, fifty guards
+with halberds encompassed his person; a troop of horse preceded his
+march; and their tymbals and trumpets were of massy silver.
+
+[Footnote 321: An illustrious female writer has drawn, with a single
+stroke, the character of Rienzi, Crescentius, and Arnold of Brescia, the
+fond restorers of Roman liberty: 'Qui ont pris les souvenirs pour les
+espérances.' Corinne, tom. i. p. 159. "Could Tacitus have excelled this?"
+Hallam, vol i p. 418.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 33: In his Roman Questions, Plutarch (Opuscul. tom. i. p.
+505, 506, edit. Gręc. Hen. Steph.) states, on the most constitutional
+principles, the simple greatness of the tribunes, who were not properly
+magistrates, but a check on magistracy. It was their duty and interest
+omoiousqai schmati, kai stolh kai diaithtoiV epitugcanousi tvn
+politvn.... katapateisqai dei (a saying of C. Curio) kai mh semnon
+einai th oyei mhde dusprosodon... osw de mallon ektapeinoutai tv swmati,
+tosoutw mallon auxetai th dunamei, &c. Rienzi, and Petrarch himself,
+were incapable perhaps of reading a Greek philosopher; but they might
+have imbibed the same modest doctrines from their favorite Latins, Livy
+and Valerius Maximus.]
+
+[Footnote 34: I could not express in English the forcible, though
+barbarous, title of _Zelator_ Italię, which Rienzi assumed.]
+
+[Footnote 35: Era bell' homo, (l. ii. c. l. p. 399.) It is remarkable,
+that the riso sarcastico of the Bracciano edition is wanting in the
+Roman MS., from which Muratori has given the text. In his second reign,
+when he is painted almost as a monster, Rienzi travea una ventresca
+tonna trionfale, a modo de uno Abbate Asiano, or Asinino, (l. iii. c.
+18, p. 523.)]
+
+The ambition of the honors of chivalry [36] betrayed the meanness of his
+birth, and degraded the importance of his office; and the equestrian
+tribune was not less odious to the nobles, whom he adopted, than to
+the plebeians, whom he deserted. All that yet remained of treasure,
+or luxury, or art, was exhausted on that solemn day. Rienzi led the
+procession from the Capitol to the Lateran; the tediousness of the way
+was relieved with decorations and games; the ecclesiastical, civil, and
+military orders marched under their various banners; the Roman ladies
+attended his wife; and the ambassadors of Italy might loudly applaud or
+secretly deride the novelty of the pomp. In the evening, which they had
+reached the church and palace of Constantine, he thanked and dismissed
+the numerous assembly, with an invitation to the festival of the ensuing
+day. From the hands of a venerable knight he received the order of the
+Holy Ghost; the purification of the bath was a previous ceremony; but in
+no step of his life did Rienzi excite such scandal and censure as by
+the profane use of the porphyry vase, in which Constantine (a foolish
+legend) had been healed of his leprosy by Pope Sylvester. [37] With
+equal presumption the tribune watched or reposed within the consecrated
+precincts of the baptistery; and the failure of his state-bed was
+interpreted as an omen of his approaching downfall. At the hour of
+worship, he showed himself to the returning crowds in a majestic
+attitude, with a robe of purple, his sword, and gilt spurs; but the holy
+rites were soon interrupted by his levity and insolence. Rising from his
+throne, and advancing towards the congregation, he proclaimed in a
+loud voice: "We summon to our tribunal Pope Clement: and command him
+to reside in his diocese of Rome: we also summon the sacred college of
+cardinals. [38] We again summon the two pretenders, Charles of Bohemia
+and Lewis of Bavaria, who style themselves emperors: we likewise summon
+all the electors of Germany, to inform us on what pretence they have
+usurped the inalienable right of the Roman people, the ancient and
+lawful sovereigns of the empire." [39] Unsheathing his maiden sword,
+he thrice brandished it to the three parts of the world, and thrice
+repeated the extravagant declaration, "And this too is mine!" The pope's
+vicar, the bishop of Orvieto, attempted to check this career of folly;
+but his feeble protest was silenced by martial music; and instead of
+withdrawing from the assembly, he consented to dine with his brother
+tribune, at a table which had hitherto been reserved for the supreme
+pontiff. A banquet, such as the Cęsars had given, was prepared for the
+Romans. The apartments, porticos, and courts of the Lateran were spread
+with innumerable tables for either sex, and every condition; a stream
+of wine flowed from the nostrils of Constantine's brazen horse; no
+complaint, except of the scarcity of water, could be heard; and the
+licentiousness of the multitude was curbed by discipline and fear. A
+subsequent day was appointed for the coronation of Rienzi; [40] seven
+crowns of different leaves or metals were successively placed on his
+head by the most eminent of the Roman clergy; they represented the seven
+gifts of the Holy Ghost; and he still professed to imitate the example
+of the ancient tribunes. [401] These extraordinary spectacles might deceive
+or flatter the people; and their own vanity was gratified in the vanity
+of their leader. But in his private life he soon deviated from the
+strict rule of frugality and abstinence; and the plebeians, who were
+awed by the splendor of the nobles, were provoked by the luxury of their
+equal. His wife, his son, his uncle, (a barber in name and profession,)
+exposed the contrast of vulgar manners and princely expense; and without
+acquiring the majesty, Rienzi degenerated into the vices, of a king.
+
+[Footnote 36: Strange as it may seem, this festival was not without a
+precedent. In the year 1327, two barons, a Colonna and an Ursini, the
+usual balance, were created knights by the Roman people: their bath was
+of rose-water, their beds were decked with royal magnificence, and they
+were served at St. Maria of Araceli in the Capitol, by the twenty-eight
+_buoni huomini_. They afterwards received from Robert, king of Naples,
+the sword of chivalry, (Hist. Rom. l. i. c. 2, p. 259.)]
+
+[Footnote 37: All parties believed in the leprosy and bath of
+Constantine (Petrarch. Epist. Famil. vi. 2,) and Rienzi justified his
+own conduct by observing to the court of Avignon, that a vase which had
+been used by a Pagan could not be profaned by a pious Christian. Yet
+this crime is specified in the bull of excommunication, (Hocsemius, apud
+du Cerēeau, p. 189, 190.)]
+
+[Footnote 38: This _verbal_ summons of Pope Clement VI., which rests on
+the authority of the Roman historian and a Vatican MS., is disputed by
+the biographer of Petrarch, (tom. ii. not. p. 70--76), with arguments
+rather of decency than of weight. The court of Avignon might not choose
+to agitate this delicate question.]
+
+[Footnote 39: The summons of the two rival emperors, a monument of
+freedom and folly, is extant in Hocsemius, (Cerēeau, p. 163--166.)]
+
+[Footnote 40: It is singular, that the Roman historian should have
+overlooked this sevenfold coronation, which is sufficiently proved by
+internal evidence, and the testimony of Hocsemius, and even of Rienzi,
+(Cercean p. 167--170, 229.)]
+
+[Footnote 401: It was on this occasion that he made the profane comparison
+between himself and our Lord; and the striking circumstance took place
+which he relates in his letter to the archbishop of Prague. In the midst
+of all the wild and joyous exultation of the people, one of his most
+zealous supporters, a monk, who was in high repute for his sanctity,
+stood apart in a corner of the church and wept bitterly! A domestic
+chaplain of Rienzi's inquired the cause of his grief. "Now," replied
+the man of God, "is thy master cast down from heaven--never saw I man so
+proud. By the aid of the Holy Ghost he has driven the tyrants from the
+city without drawing a sword; the cities and the sovereigns of Italy
+have submitted to his power. Why is he so arrogant and ungrateful
+towards the Most High? Why does he seek earthly and transitory rewards
+for his labors, and in his wanton speech liken himself to the Creator?
+Tell thy master that he can only atone for this offence by tears of
+penitence." In the evening the chaplain communicated this solemn rebuke
+to the tribune: it appalled him for the time, but was soon forgotten in
+the tumult and hurry of business.--M. 1845.]
+
+A simple citizen describes with pity, or perhaps with pleasure, the
+humiliation of the barons of Rome. "Bareheaded, their hands crossed
+on their breast, they stood with downcast looks in the presence of the
+tribune; and they trembled, good God, how they trembled!" [41] As long
+as the yoke of Rienzi was that of justice and their country, their
+conscience forced them to esteem the man, whom pride and interest
+provoked them to hate: his extravagant conduct soon fortified their
+hatred by contempt; and they conceived the hope of subverting a power
+which was no longer so deeply rooted in the public confidence. The old
+animosity of the Colonna and Ursini was suspended for a moment by
+their common disgrace: they associated their wishes, and perhaps their
+designs; an assassin was seized and tortured; he accused the nobles;
+and as soon as Rienzi deserved the fate, he adopted the suspicions
+and maxims, of a tyrant. On the same day, under various pretences,
+he invited to the Capitol his principal enemies, among whom were five
+members of the Ursini and three of the Colonna name. But instead of a
+council or a banquet, they found themselves prisoners under the sword of
+despotism or justice; and the consciousness of innocence or guilt might
+inspire them with equal apprehensions of danger. At the sound of the
+great bell the people assembled; they were arraigned for a conspiracy
+against the tribune's life; and though some might sympathize in their
+distress, not a hand, nor a voice, was raised to rescue the first of the
+nobility from their impending doom. Their apparent boldness was prompted
+by despair; they passed in separate chambers a sleepless and painful
+night; and the venerable hero, Stephen Colonna, striking against the
+door of his prison, repeatedly urged his guards to deliver him by
+a speedy death from such ignominious servitude. In the morning they
+understood their sentence from the visit of a confessor and the tolling
+of the bell. The great hall of the Capitol had been decorated for the
+bloody scene with red and white hangings: the countenance of the tribune
+was dark and severe; the swords of the executioners were unsheathed;
+and the barons were interrupted in their dying speeches by the sound of
+trumpets. But in this decisive moment, Rienzi was not less anxious or
+apprehensive than his captives: he dreaded the splendor of their names,
+their surviving kinsmen, the inconstancy of the people the reproaches
+of the world, and, after rashly offering a mortal injury, he vainly
+presumed that, if he could forgive, he might himself be forgiven. His
+elaborate oration was that of a Christian and a suppliant; and, as the
+humble minister of the commons, he entreated his masters to pardon these
+noble criminals, for whose repentance and future service he pledged
+his faith and authority. "If you are spared," said the tribune, "by the
+mercy of the Romans, will you not promise to support the good estate
+with your lives and fortunes?" Astonished by this marvellous clemency,
+the barons bowed their heads; and while they devoutly repeated the oath
+of allegiance, might whisper a secret, and more sincere, assurance
+of revenge. A priest, in the name of the people, pronounced their
+absolution: they received the communion with the tribune, assisted at
+the banquet, followed the procession; and, after every spiritual and
+temporal sign of reconciliation, were dismissed in safety to their
+respective homes, with the new honors and titles of generals, consuls,
+and patricians. [42]
+
+[Footnote 41: Puoi se faceva stare denante a se, mentre sedeva, li
+baroni tutti in piedi ritti co le vraccia piecate, e co li capucci
+tratti. Deh como stavano paurosi! (Hist. Rom. l. ii. c. 20, p. 439.) He
+saw them, and we see them.]
+
+[Footnote 42: The original letter, in which Rienzi justifies his
+treatment of the Colonna, (Hocsemius, apud du Cerēeau, p. 222--229,)
+displays, in genuine colors, the mixture of the knave and the madman.]
+
+During some weeks they were checked by the memory of their danger,
+rather than of their deliverance, till the most powerful of the Ursini,
+escaping with the Colonna from the city, erected at Marino the standard
+of rebellion. The fortifications of the castle were instantly restored;
+the vassals attended their lord; the outlaws armed against the
+magistrate; the flocks and herds, the harvests and vineyards, from
+Marino to the gates of Rome, were swept away or destroyed; and the
+people arraigned Rienzi as the author of the calamities which his
+government had taught them to forget. In the camp, Rienzi appeared to
+less advantage than in the rostrum; and he neglected the progress of
+the rebel barons till their numbers were strong, and their castles
+impregnable. From the pages of Livy he had not imbibed the art, or even
+the courage, of a general: an army of twenty thousand Romans returned
+without honor or effect from the attack of Marino; and his vengeance was
+amused by painting his enemies, their heads downwards, and drowning two
+dogs (at least they should have been bears) as the representatives of
+the Ursini. The belief of his incapacity encouraged their operations:
+they were invited by their secret adherents; and the barons attempted,
+with four thousand foot, and sixteen hundred horse, to enter Rome
+by force or surprise. The city was prepared for their reception;
+the alarm-bell rung all night; the gates were strictly guarded, or
+insolently open; and after some hesitation they sounded a retreat. The
+two first divisions had passed along the walls, but the prospect of a
+free entrance tempted the headstrong valor of the nobles in the rear;
+and after a successful skirmish, they were overthrown and massacred
+without quarter by the crowds of the Roman people. Stephen Colonna the
+younger, the noble spirit to whom Petrarch ascribed the restoration of
+Italy, was preceded or accompanied in death by his son John, a gallant
+youth, by his brother Peter, who might regret the ease and honors of
+the church, by a nephew of legitimate birth, and by two bastards of
+the Colonna race; and the number of seven, the seven crowns, as Rienzi
+styled them, of the Holy Ghost, was completed by the agony of the
+deplorable parent, and the veteran chief, who had survived the hope and
+fortune of his house. The vision and prophecies of St. Martin and Pope
+Boniface had been used by the tribune to animate his troops: [43] he
+displayed, at least in the pursuit, the spirit of a hero; but he forgot
+the maxims of the ancient Romans, who abhorred the triumphs of civil
+war. The conqueror ascended the Capitol; deposited his crown and sceptre
+on the altar; and boasted, with some truth, that he had cut off an ear,
+which neither pope nor emperor had been able to amputate. [44] His base
+and implacable revenge denied the honors of burial; and the bodies of
+the Colonna, which he threatened to expose with those of the vilest
+malefactors, were secretly interred by the holy virgins of their name
+and family. [45] The people sympathized in their grief, repented of their
+own fury, and detested the indecent joy of Rienzi, who visited the spot
+where these illustrious victims had fallen. It was on that fatal spot
+that he conferred on his son the honor of knighthood: and the ceremony
+was accomplished by a slight blow from each of the horsemen of the
+guard, and by a ridiculous and inhuman ablution from a pool of water,
+which was yet polluted with patrician blood. [46]
+
+[Footnote 43: Rienzi, in the above-mentioned letter, ascribes to St.
+Martin the tribune, Boniface VIII. the enemy of Colonna, himself, and
+the Roman people, the glory of the day, which Villani likewise (l. 12,
+c. 104) describes as a regular battle. The disorderly skirmish, the
+flight of the Romans, and the cowardice of Rienzi, are painted in the
+simple and minute narrative of Fortifiocca, or the anonymous citizen,
+(l. i. c. 34--37.)]
+
+[Footnote 44: In describing the fall of the Colonna, I speak only of
+the family of Stephen the elder, who is often confounded by the P. du
+Cerēeau with his son. That family was extinguished, but the house has
+been perpetuated in the collateral branches, of which I have not a very
+accurate knowledge. Circumspice (says Petrarch) familię tuę statum,
+Columniensium _domos_: solito pauciores habeat columnas. Quid ad rem
+modo fundamentum stabile, solidumque permaneat.]
+
+[Footnote 45: The convent of St. Silvester was founded, endowed, and
+protected by the Colonna cardinals, for the daughters of the family
+who embraced a monastic life, and who, in the year 1318, were twelve
+in number. The others were allowed to marry with their kinsmen in the
+fourth degree, and the dispensation was justified by the small number
+and close alliances of the noble families of Rome, (Mémoires sur
+Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 110, tom. ii. p. 401.)]
+
+[Footnote 46: Petrarch wrote a stiff and pedantic letter of consolation,
+(Fam. l. vii. epist. 13, p. 682, 683.) The friend was lost in the
+patriot. Nulla toto orbe principum familia carior; carior tamen
+respublica, carior Roma, carior Italia.
+----Je rends graces aux Dieux de n'źtre pas Romain.]
+
+A short delay would have saved the Colonna, the delay of a single month,
+which elapsed between the triumph and the exile of Rienzi. In the pride
+of victory, he forfeited what yet remained of his civil virtues, without
+acquiring the fame of military prowess. A free and vigorous opposition
+was formed in the city; and when the tribune proposed in the public
+council [47] to impose a new tax, and to regulate the government of
+Perugia, thirty-nine members voted against his measures; repelled the
+injurious charge of treachery and corruption; and urged him to prove, by
+their forcible exclusion, that if the populace adhered to his cause, it
+was already disclaimed by the most respectable citizens. The pope and
+the sacred college had never been dazzled by his specious professions;
+they were justly offended by the insolence of his conduct; a cardinal
+legate was sent to Italy, and after some fruitless treaty, and two
+personal interviews, he fulminated a bull of excommunication, in which
+the tribune is degraded from his office, and branded with the guilt of
+rebellion, sacrilege, and heresy. [48] The surviving barons of Rome were
+now humbled to a sense of allegiance; their interest and revenge engaged
+them in the service of the church; but as the fate of the Colonna was
+before their eyes, they abandoned to a private adventurer the peril
+and glory of the revolution. John Pepin, count of Minorbino, [49] in the
+kingdom of Naples, had been condemned for his crimes, or his riches,
+to perpetual imprisonment; and Petrarch, by soliciting his release,
+indirectly contributed to the ruin of his friend. At the head of one
+hundred and fifty soldiers, the count of Minorbino introduced himself
+into Rome; barricaded the quarter of the Colonna: and found the
+enterprise as easy as it had seemed impossible. From the first alarm,
+the bell of the Capitol incessantly tolled; but, instead of repairing
+to the well-known sound, the people were silent and inactive; and the
+pusillanimous Rienzi, deploring their ingratitude with sighs and tears,
+abdicated the government and palace of the republic.
+
+[Footnote 47: This council and opposition is obscurely mentioned by
+Pollistore, a contemporary writer, who has preserved some curious and
+original facts, (Rer. Italicarum, tom. xxv. c. 31, p. 798--804.)]
+
+[Footnote 48: The briefs and bulls of Clement VI. against Rienzi are
+translated by the P. du Cerēeau, (p. 196, 232,) from the Ecclesiastical
+Annals of Odericus Raynaldus, (A.D. 1347, No. 15, 17, 21, &c.,) who
+found them in the archives of the Vatican.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Matteo Villani describes the origin, character, and death
+of this count of Minorbino, a man da natura inconstante e senza fede,
+whose grandfather, a crafty notary, was enriched and ennobled by
+the spoils of the Saracens of Nocera, (l. vii. c. 102, 103.) See his
+imprisonment, and the efforts of Petrarch, (tom. ii. p. 149--151.)]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.--Part III.
+
+Without drawing his sword, count Pepin restored the aristocracy and the
+church; three senators were chosen, and the legate, assuming the first
+rank, accepted his two colleagues from the rival families of Colonna and
+Ursini. The acts of the tribune were abolished, his head was proscribed;
+yet such was the terror of his name, that the barons hesitated three
+days before they would trust themselves in the city, and Rienzi was
+left above a month in the castle of St. Angelo, from whence he peaceably
+withdrew, after laboring, without effect, to revive the affection and
+courage of the Romans. The vision of freedom and empire had vanished:
+their fallen spirit would have acquiesced in servitude, had it been
+smoothed by tranquillity and order; and it was scarcely observed, that
+the new senators derived their authority from the Apostolic See; that
+four cardinals were appointed to reform, with dictatorial power, the
+state of the republic. Rome was again agitated by the bloody feuds of
+the barons, who detested each other, and despised the commons: their
+hostile fortresses, both in town and country, again rose, and were again
+demolished: and the peaceful citizens, a flock of sheep, were devoured,
+says the Florentine historian, by these rapacious wolves. But when
+their pride and avarice had exhausted the patience of the Romans, a
+confraternity of the Virgin Mary protected or avenged the republic: the
+bell of the Capitol was again tolled, the nobles in arms trembled in
+the presence of an unarmed multitude; and of the two senators, Colonna
+escaped from the window of the palace, and Ursini was stoned at the foot
+of the altar. The dangerous office of tribune was successively occupied
+by two plebeians, Cerroni and Baroncelli. The mildness of Cerroni was
+unequal to the times; and after a faint struggle, he retired with a fair
+reputation and a decent fortune to the comforts of rural life. Devoid of
+eloquence or genius, Baroncelli was distinguished by a resolute spirit:
+he spoke the language of a patriot, and trod in the footsteps of
+tyrants; his suspicion was a sentence of death, and his own death was
+the reward of his cruelties. Amidst the public misfortunes, the faults
+of Rienzi were forgotten; and the Romans sighed for the peace and
+prosperity of their good estate. [50]
+
+[Footnote 50: The troubles of Rome, from the departure to the return of
+Rienzi, are related by Matteo Villani (l. ii. c. 47, l. iii. c. 33, 57,
+78) and Thomas Fortifiocca, (l. iii. c. 1--4.) I have slightly passed
+over these secondary characters, who imitated the original tribune.]
+
+After an exile of seven years, the first deliverer was again restored to
+his country. In the disguise of a monk or a pilgrim, he escaped from the
+castle of St. Angelo, implored the friendship of the king of Hungary at
+Naples, tempted the ambition of every bold adventurer, mingled at Rome
+with the pilgrims of the jubilee, lay concealed among the hermits of
+the Apennine, and wandered through the cities of Italy, Germany, and
+Bohemia. His person was invisible, his name was yet formidable; and
+the anxiety of the court of Avignon supposes, and even magnifies,
+his personal merit. The emperor Charles the Fourth gave audience to a
+stranger, who frankly revealed himself as the tribune of the republic;
+and astonished an assembly of ambassadors and princes, by the eloquence
+of a patriot and the visions of a prophet, the downfall of tyranny and
+the kingdom of the Holy Ghost. [51] Whatever had been his hopes, Rienzi
+found himself a captive; but he supported a character of independence
+and dignity, and obeyed, as his own choice, the irresistible summons of
+the supreme pontiff. The zeal of Petrarch, which had been cooled by the
+unworthy conduct, was rekindled by the sufferings and the presence, of
+his friend; and he boldly complains of the times, in which the savior of
+Rome was delivered by her emperor into the hands of her bishop. Rienzi
+was transported slowly, but in safe custody, from Prague to Avignon: his
+entrance into the city was that of a malefactor; in his prison he was
+chained by the leg; and four cardinals were named to inquire into the
+crimes of heresy and rebellion. But his trial and condemnation would
+have involved some questions, which it was more prudent to leave under
+the veil of mystery: the temporal supremacy of the popes; the duty of
+residence; the civil and ecclesiastical privileges of the clergy and
+people of Rome. The reigning pontiff well deserved the appellation
+of _Clement_: the strange vicissitudes and magnanimous spirit of the
+captive excited his pity and esteem; and Petrarch believes that he
+respected in the hero the name and sacred character of a poet. [52]
+Rienzi was indulged with an easy confinement and the use of books; and
+in the assiduous study of Livy and the Bible, he sought the cause and
+the consolation of his misfortunes.
+
+[Footnote 51: These visions, of which the friends and enemies of Rienzi
+seem alike ignorant, are surely magnified by the zeal of Pollistore,
+a Dominican inquisitor, (Rer. Ital. tom. xxv. c. 36, p. 819.) Had the
+tribune taught, that Christ was succeeded by the Holy Ghost, that the
+tyranny of the pope would be abolished, he might have been convicted of
+heresy and treason, without offending the Roman people. * Note:
+So far from having magnified these visions, Pollistore is more
+than confirmed by the documents published by Papencordt. The adoption of
+all the wild doctrines of the Fratricelli, the Spirituals, in which,
+for the time at least, Rienzi appears to have been in earnest; his
+magnificent offers to the emperor, and the whole history of his life,
+from his first escape from Rome to his imprisonment at Avignon, are
+among the most curious chapters of his eventful life.--M. 1845.]
+
+[Footnote 52: The astonishment, the envy almost, of Petrarch is a
+proof, if not of the truth of this incredible fact, at least of his own
+veracity. The abbé de Sade (Mémoires, tom. iii. p. 242) quotes the vith
+epistle of the xiiith book of Petrarch, but it is of the royal MS.,
+which he consulted, and not of the ordinary Basil edition, (p. 920.)]
+
+The succeeding pontificate of Innocent the Sixth opened a new prospect
+of his deliverance and restoration; and the court of Avignon was
+persuaded, that the successful rebel could alone appease and reform the
+anarchy of the metropolis. After a solemn profession of fidelity, the
+Roman tribune was sent into Italy, with the title of senator; but the
+death of Baroncelli appeared to supersede the use of his mission; and
+the legate, Cardinal Albornoz, [53] a consummate statesman, allowed him
+with reluctance, and without aid, to undertake the perilous experiment.
+His first reception was equal to his wishes: the day of his entrance was
+a public festival; and his eloquence and authority revived the laws of
+the good estate. But this momentary sunshine was soon clouded by his own
+vices and those of the people: in the Capitol, he might often regret
+the prison of Avignon; and after a second administration of four months,
+Rienzi was massacred in a tumult which had been fomented by the Roman
+barons. In the society of the Germans and Bohemians, he is said to have
+contracted the habits of intemperance and cruelty: adversity had chilled
+his enthusiasm, without fortifying his reason or virtue; and that
+youthful hope, that lively assurance, which is the pledge of success,
+was now succeeded by the cold impotence of distrust and despair. The
+tribune had reigned with absolute dominion, by the choice, and in the
+hearts, of the Romans: the senator was the servile minister of a foreign
+court; and while he was suspected by the people, he was abandoned by the
+prince. The legate Albornoz, who seemed desirous of his ruin, inflexibly
+refused all supplies of men and money; a faithful subject could no
+longer presume to touch the revenues of the apostolical chamber; and
+the first idea of a tax was the signal of clamor and sedition. Even his
+justice was tainted with the guilt or reproach of selfish cruelty: the
+most virtuous citizen of Rome was sacrificed to his jealousy; and in the
+execution of a public robber, from whose purse he had been assisted, the
+magistrate too much forgot, or too much remembered, the obligations of
+the debtor. [54] A civil war exhausted his treasures, and the patience
+of the city: the Colonna maintained their hostile station at Palestrina;
+and his mercenaries soon despised a leader whose ignorance and fear
+were envious of all subordinate merit. In the death, as in the life, of
+Rienzi, the hero and the coward were strangely mingled. When the Capitol
+was invested by a furious multitude, when he was basely deserted by his
+civil and military servants, the intrepid senator, waving the banner of
+liberty, presented himself on the balcony, addressed his eloquence to
+the various passions of the Romans, and labored to persuade them, that
+in the same cause himself and the republic must either stand or fall.
+His oration was interrupted by a volley of imprecations and stones; and
+after an arrow had transpierced his hand, he sunk into abject despair,
+and fled weeping to the inner chambers, from whence he was let down by a
+sheet before the windows of the prison. Destitute of aid or hope, he was
+besieged till the evening: the doors of the Capitol were destroyed with
+axes and fire; and while the senator attempted to escape in a plebeian
+habit, he was discovered and dragged to the platform of the palace, the
+fatal scene of his judgments and executions. A whole hour, without voice
+or motion, he stood amidst the multitude half naked and half dead:
+their rage was hushed into curiosity and wonder: the last feelings of
+reverence and compassion yet struggled in his favor; and they might have
+prevailed, if a bold assassin had not plunged a dagger in his breast.
+He fell senseless with the first stroke: the impotent revenge of
+his enemies inflicted a thousand wounds: and the senator's body was
+abandoned to the dogs, to the Jews, and to the flames. Posterity will
+compare the virtues and failings of this extraordinary man; but in a
+long period of anarchy and servitude, the name of Rienzi has often been
+celebrated as the deliverer of his country, and the last of the Roman
+patriots. [55]
+
+[Footnote 53: Ęgidius, or Giles Albornoz, a noble Spaniard, archbishop
+of Toledo, and cardinal legate in Italy, (A.D. 1353--1367,) restored, by
+his arms and counsels, the temporal dominion of the popes. His life has
+been separately written by Sepulveda; but Dryden could not reasonably
+suppose, that his name, or that of Wolsey, had reached the ears of the
+Mufti in Don Sebastian.]
+
+[Footnote 54: From Matteo Villani and Fortifiocca, the P. du Cerēeau (p.
+344--394) has extracted the life and death of the chevalier Montreal,
+the life of a robber and the death of a hero. At the head of a free
+company, the first that desolated Italy, he became rich and formidable
+be had money in all the banks,--60,000 ducats in Padua alone.]
+
+[Footnote 55: The exile, second government, and death of Rienzi, are
+minutely related by the anonymous Roman, who appears neither his friend
+nor his enemy, (l. iii. c. 12--25.) Petrarch, who loved the _tribune_,
+was indifferent to the fate of the _senator_.]
+
+The first and most generous wish of Petrarch was the restoration of a
+free republic; but after the exile and death of his plebeian hero,
+he turned his eyes from the tribune, to the king, of the Romans. The
+Capitol was yet stained with the blood of Rienzi, when Charles the
+Fourth descended from the Alps to obtain the Italian and Imperial
+crowns. In his passage through Milan he received the visit, and repaid
+the flattery, of the poet-laureate; accepted a medal of Augustus; and
+promised, without a smile, to imitate the founder of the Roman monarchy.
+A false application of the name and maxims of antiquity was the source
+of the hopes and disappointments of Petrarch; yet he could not overlook
+the difference of times and characters; the immeasurable distance
+between the first Cęsars and a Bohemian prince, who by the favor of
+the clergy had been elected the titular head of the German aristocracy.
+Instead of restoring to Rome her glory and her provinces, he had bound
+himself by a secret treaty with the pope, to evacuate the city on the
+day of his coronation; and his shameful retreat was pursued by the
+reproaches of the patriot bard. [56]
+
+[Footnote 56: The hopes and the disappointment of Petrarch are agreeably
+described in his own words by the French biographer, (Mémoires, tom.
+iii. p. 375--413;) but the deep, though secret, wound was the coronation
+of Zanubi, the poet-laureate, by Charles IV.]
+
+After the loss of liberty and empire, his third and more humble wish was
+to reconcile the shepherd with his flock; to recall the Roman bishop
+to his ancient and peculiar diocese. In the fervor of youth, with the
+authority of age, Petrarch addressed his exhortations to five successive
+popes, and his eloquence was always inspired by the enthusiasm of
+sentiment and the freedom of language. [57] The son of a citizen of
+Florence invariably preferred the country of his birth to that of his
+education; and Italy, in his eyes, was the queen and garden of the
+world. Amidst her domestic factions, she was doubtless superior to
+France both in art and science, in wealth and politeness; but the
+difference could scarcely support the epithet of barbarous, which he
+promiscuously bestows on the countries beyond the Alps. Avignon, the
+mystic Babylon, the sink of vice and corruption, was the object of his
+hatred and contempt; but he forgets that her scandalous vices were not
+the growth of the soil, and that in every residence they would adhere to
+the power and luxury of the papal court. He confesses that the successor
+of St. Peter is the bishop of the universal church; yet it was not on
+the banks of the Rhōne, but of the Tyber, that the apostle had fixed
+his everlasting throne; and while every city in the Christian world was
+blessed with a bishop, the metropolis alone was desolate and forlorn.
+Since the removal of the Holy See, the sacred buildings of the Lateran
+and the Vatican, their altars and their saints, were left in a state
+of poverty and decay; and Rome was often painted under the image of a
+disconsolate matron, as if the wandering husband could be reclaimed by
+the homely portrait of the age and infirmities of his weeping spouse.
+[58] But the cloud which hung over the seven hills would be dispelled by
+the presence of their lawful sovereign: eternal fame, the prosperity of
+Rome, and the peace of Italy, would be the recompense of the pope
+who should dare to embrace this generous resolution. Of the five whom
+Petrarch exhorted, the three first, John the Twenty-second, Benedict
+the Twelfth, and Clement the Sixth, were importuned or amused by
+the boldness of the orator; but the memorable change which had been
+attempted by Urban the Fifth was finally accomplished by Gregory the
+Eleventh. The execution of their design was opposed by weighty and
+almost insuperable obstacles. A king of France, who has deserved the
+epithet of wise, was unwilling to release them from a local dependence:
+the cardinals, for the most part his subjects, were attached to the
+language, manners, and climate of Avignon; to their stately palaces;
+above all, to the wines of Burgundy. In their eyes, Italy was foreign
+or hostile; and they reluctantly embarked at Marseilles, as if they had
+been sold or banished into the land of the Saracens. Urban the Fifth
+resided three years in the Vatican with safety and honor: his sanctity
+was protected by a guard of two thousand horse; and the king of Cyprus,
+the queen of Naples, and the emperors of the East and West, devoutly
+saluted their common father in the chair of St. Peter. But the joy of
+Petrarch and the Italians was soon turned into grief and indignation.
+Some reasons of public or private moment, his own impatience or the
+prayers of the cardinals, recalled Urban to France; and the approaching
+election was saved from the tyrannic patriotism of the Romans. The
+powers of heaven were interested in their cause: Bridget of Sweden, a
+saint and pilgrim, disapproved the return, and foretold the death, of
+Urban the Fifth: the migration of Gregory the Eleventh was encouraged
+by St. Catharine of Sienna, the spouse of Christ and ambassadress of
+the Florentines; and the popes themselves, the great masters of human
+credulity, appear to have listened to these visionary females. [59] Yet
+those celestial admonitions were supported by some arguments of temporal
+policy. The residents of Avignon had been invaded by hostile violence:
+at the head of thirty thousand robbers, a hero had extorted ransom and
+absolution from the vicar of Christ and the sacred college; and the
+maxim of the French warriors, to spare the people and plunder the
+church, was a new heresy of the most dangerous import. [60] While the
+pope was driven from Avignon, he was strenuously invited to Rome. The
+senate and people acknowledged him as their lawful sovereign, and laid
+at his feet the keys of the gates, the bridges, and the fortresses;
+of the quarter at least beyond the Tyber. [61] But this loyal offer
+was accompanied by a declaration, that they could no longer suffer
+the scandal and calamity of his absence; and that his obstinacy would
+finally provoke them to revive and assert the primitive right of
+election. The abbot of Mount Cassin had been consulted, whether he would
+accept the triple crown [62] from the clergy and people: "I am a citizen
+of Rome," [63] replied that venerable ecclesiastic, "and my first law is,
+the voice of my country." [64]
+
+[Footnote 57: See, in his accurate and amusing biographer, the
+application of Petrarch and Rome to Benedict XII. in the year 1334,
+(Mémoires, tom. i. p. 261--265,) to Clement VI. in 1342, (tom. ii. p.
+45--47,) and to Urban V. in 1366, (tom. iii. p. 677--691:) his praise
+(p. 711--715) and excuse (p. 771) of the last of these pontiffs. His
+angry controversy on the respective merits of France and Italy may be
+found, Opp. p. 1068--1085.]
+
+[Footnote 58:
+     Squalida sed quoniam facies, neglectaque cultū
+     Cęsaries; multisque malis lassata senectus
+     Eripuit solitam effigiem: vetus accipe nomen;
+     Roma vocor. (Carm. l. 2, p. 77.)
+He spins this allegory beyond all measure or patience. The Epistles to
+Urban V in prose are more simple and persuasive, (Senilium, l. vii. p.
+811--827 l. ix. epist. i. p. 844--854.)]
+
+[Footnote 59: I have not leisure to expatiate on the legends of St.
+Bridget or St. Catharine, the last of which might furnish some amusing
+stories. Their effect on the mind of Gregory XI. is attested by the
+last solemn words of the dying pope, who admonished the assistants,
+ut caverent ab hominibus, sive viris, sive mulieribus, sub specie
+religionis loquentibus visiones sui capitis, quia per tales ipse
+seductus, &c., (Baluz. Not ad Vit. Pap. Avenionensium, tom. i. p.
+1224.)]
+
+[Footnote 60: This predatory expedition is related by Froissard,
+(Chronique, tom. i. p. 230,) and in the life of Du Guesclin, (Collection
+Générale des Mémoires Historiques, tom. iv. c. 16, p. 107--113.) As
+early as the year 1361, the court of Avignon had been molested by
+similar freebooters, who afterwards passed the Alps, (Mémoires sur
+Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 563--569.)]
+
+[Footnote 61: Fleury alleges, from the annals of Odericus Raynaldus,
+the original treaty which was signed the 21st of December, 1376, between
+Gregory XI. and the Romans, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 275.)]
+
+[Footnote 62: The first crown or regnum (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. v.
+p. 702) on the episcopal mitre of the popes, is ascribed to the gift of
+Constantine, or Clovis. The second was added by Boniface VIII., as the
+emblem not only of a spiritual, but of a temporal, kingdom. The three
+states of the church are represented by the triple crown which was
+introduced by John XXII. or Benedict XII., (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom.
+i. p. 258, 259.)]
+
+[Footnote 63: Baluze (Not. ad Pap. Avenion. tom. i. p. 1194, 1195)
+produces the original evidence which attests the threats of the Roman
+ambassadors, and the resignation of the abbot of Mount Cassin, qui,
+ultro se offerens, respondit se civem Romanum esse, et illud velle quod
+ipsi vellent.]
+
+[Footnote 64: The return of the popes from Avignon to Rome, and their
+reception by the people, are related in the original lives of Urban
+V. and Gregory XI., in Baluze (Vit. Paparum Avenionensium, tom. i. p.
+363--486) and Muratori, (Script. Rer. Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i.
+p. 613--712.) In the disputes of the schism, every circumstance was
+severely, though partially, scrutinized; more especially in the great
+inquest, which decided the obedience of Castile, and to which Baluze,
+in his notes, so often and so largely appeals from a MS. volume in the
+Harley library, (p. 1281, &c.)]
+
+If superstition will interpret an untimely death, [65] if the merit of
+counsels be judged from the event, the heavens may seem to frown on a
+measure of such apparent season and propriety. Gregory the Eleventh did
+not survive above fourteen months his return to the Vatican; and his
+decease was followed by the great schism of the West, which distracted
+the Latin church above forty years. The sacred college was then composed
+of twenty-two cardinals: six of these had remained at Avignon; eleven
+Frenchmen, one Spaniard, and four Italians, entered the conclave in the
+usual form. Their choice was not yet limited to the purple; and their
+unanimous votes acquiesced in the archbishop of Bari, a subject of
+Naples, conspicuous for his zeal and learning, who ascended the throne
+of St. Peter under the name of Urban the Sixth. The epistle of the
+sacred college affirms his free, and regular, election; which had been
+inspired, as usual, by the Holy Ghost; he was adored, invested, and
+crowned, with the customary rites; his temporal authority was obeyed at
+Rome and Avignon, and his ecclesiastical supremacy was acknowledged in
+the Latin world. During several weeks, the cardinals attended their new
+master with the fairest professions of attachment and loyalty; till the
+summer heats permitted a decent escape from the city. But as soon as
+they were united at Anagni and Fundi, in a place of security, they
+cast aside the mask, accused their own falsehood and hypocrisy,
+excommunicated the apostate and antichrist of Rome, and proceeded to
+a new election of Robert of Geneva, Clement the Seventh, whom they
+announced to the nations as the true and rightful vicar of Christ. Their
+first choice, an involuntary and illegal act, was annulled by fear of
+death and the menaces of the Romans; and their complaint is justified
+by the strong evidence of probability and fact. The twelve French
+cardinals, above two thirds of the votes, were masters of the election;
+and whatever might be their provincial jealousies, it cannot fairly be
+presumed that they would have sacrificed their right and interest to a
+foreign candidate, who would never restore them to their native country.
+In the various, and often inconsistent, narratives, [66] the shades
+of popular violence are more darkly or faintly colored: but the
+licentiousness of the seditious Romans was inflamed by a sense of their
+privileges, and the danger of a second emigration. The conclave was
+intimidated by the shouts, and encompassed by the arms, of thirty
+thousand rebels; the bells of the Capitol and St. Peter's rang an alarm:
+"Death, or an Italian pope!" was the universal cry; the same threat was
+repeated by the twelve bannerets or chiefs of the quarters, in the
+form of charitable advice; some preparations were made for burning the
+obstinate cardinals; and had they chosen a Transalpine subject, it is
+probable that they would never have departed alive from the Vatican. The
+same constraint imposed the necessity of dissembling in the eyes of
+Rome and of the world; the pride and cruelty of Urban presented a more
+inevitable danger; and they soon discovered the features of the tyrant,
+who could walk in his garden and recite his breviary, while he heard
+from an adjacent chamber six cardinals groaning on the rack. His
+inflexible zeal, which loudly censured their luxury and vice, would have
+attached them to the stations and duties of their parishes at Rome; and
+had he not fatally delayed a new promotion, the French cardinals would
+have been reduced to a helpless minority in the sacred college. For
+these reasons, and the hope of repassing the Alps, they rashly violated
+the peace and unity of the church; and the merits of their double choice
+are yet agitated in the Catholic schools. [67] The vanity, rather than
+the interest, of the nation determined the court and clergy of France.
+[68] The states of Savoy, Sicily, Cyprus, Arragon, Castille, Navarre, and
+Scotland were inclined by their example and authority to the obedience
+of Clement the Seventh, and after his decease, of Benedict the
+Thirteenth. Rome and the principal states of Italy, Germany, Portugal,
+England, [69] the Low Countries, and the kingdoms of the North, adhered
+to the prior election of Urban the Sixth, who was succeeded by Boniface
+the Ninth, Innocent the Seventh, and Gregory the Twelfth.
+
+[Footnote 65: Can the death of a good man be esteemed a punishment
+by those who believe in the immortality of the soul? They betray the
+instability of their faith. Yet as a mere philosopher, I cannot agree
+with the Greeks, on oi Jeoi jilousin apoqnhskei neoV, (Brunck, Poetę
+Gnomici, p. 231.) See in Herodotus (l. i. c. 31) the moral and pleasing
+tale of the Argive youths.]
+
+[Footnote 66: In the first book of the Histoire du Concile de Pise,
+M. Lenfant has abridged and compared the original narratives of the
+adherents of Urban and Clement, of the Italians and Germans, the French
+and Spaniards. The latter appear to be the most active and loquacious,
+and every fact and word in the original lives of Gregory XI. and Clement
+VII. are supported in the notes of their editor Baluze.]
+
+[Footnote 67: The ordinal numbers of the popes seems to decide the
+question against Clement VII. and Benedict XIII., who are boldly
+stigmatized as antipopes by the Italians, while the French are content
+with authorities and reasons to plead the cause of doubt and toleration,
+(Baluz. in Pręfat.) It is singular, or rather it is not singular, that
+saints, visions and miracles should be common to both parties.]
+
+[Footnote 68: Baluze strenuously labors (Not. p. 1271--1280) to justify
+the pure and pious motives of Charles V. king of France: he refused to
+hear the arguments of Urban; but were not the Urbanists equally deaf to
+the reasons of Clement, &c.?]
+
+[Footnote 69: An epistle, or declamation, in the name of Edward III.,
+(Baluz. Vit. Pap. Avenion. tom. i. p. 553,) displays the zeal of the
+English nation against the Clementines. Nor was their zeal confined to
+words: the bishop of Norwich led a crusade of 60,000 bigots beyond sea,
+(Hume's History, vol. iii. p. 57, 58.)]
+
+From the banks of the Tyber and the Rhōne, the hostile pontiffs
+encountered each other with the pen and the sword: the civil and
+ecclesiastical order of society was disturbed; and the Romans had
+their full share of the mischiefs of which they may be arraigned as the
+primary authors. [70] They had vainly flattered themselves with the hope
+of restoring the seat of the ecclesiastical monarchy, and of relieving
+their poverty with the tributes and offerings of the nations; but
+the separation of France and Spain diverted the stream of lucrative
+devotion; nor could the loss be compensated by the two jubilees which
+were crowded into the space of ten years. By the avocations of the
+schism, by foreign arms, and popular tumults, Urban the Sixth and his
+three successors were often compelled to interrupt their residence in
+the Vatican. The Colonna and Ursini still exercised their deadly feuds:
+the bannerets of Rome asserted and abused the privileges of a republic:
+the vicars of Christ, who had levied a military force, chastised their
+rebellion with the gibbet, the sword, and the dagger; and, in a friendly
+conference, eleven deputies of the people were perfidiously murdered
+and cast into the street. Since the invasion of Robert the Norman,
+the Romans had pursued their domestic quarrels without the dangerous
+interposition of a stranger. But in the disorders of the schism, an
+aspiring neighbor, Ladislaus king of Naples, alternately supported
+and betrayed the pope and the people; by the former he was declared
+_gonfalonier_, or general, of the church, while the latter submitted to
+his choice the nomination of their magistrates. Besieging Rome by
+land and water, he thrice entered the gates as a Barbarian conqueror;
+profaned the altars, violated the virgins, pillaged the merchants,
+performed his devotions at St. Peter's, and left a garrison in the
+castle of St. Angelo. His arms were sometimes unfortunate, and to
+a delay of three days he was indebted for his life and crown: but
+Ladislaus triumphed in his turn; and it was only his premature death
+that could save the metropolis and the ecclesiastical state from the
+ambitious conqueror, who had assumed the title, or at least the powers,
+of king of Rome. [71]
+
+[Footnote 70: Besides the general historians, the Diaries of Delphinus
+Gentilia Peter Antonius, and Stephen Infessura, in the great collection
+of Muratori, represented the state and misfortunes of Rome.]
+
+[Footnote 71: It is supposed by Giannone (tom. iii. p. 292) that
+he styled himself Rex Romę, a title unknown to the world since the
+expulsion of Tarquin. But a nearer inspection has justified the reading
+of Rex R_a_mę, of Rama, an obscure kingdom annexed to the crown of
+Hungary.]
+
+I have not undertaken the ecclesiastical history of the schism; but
+Rome, the object of these last chapters, is deeply interested in the
+disputed succession of her sovereigns. The first counsels for the peace
+and union of Christendom arose from the university of Paris, from the
+faculty of the Sorbonne, whose doctors were esteemed, at least in the
+Gallican church, as the most consummate masters of theological science.
+[72] Prudently waiving all invidious inquiry into the origin and merits
+of the dispute, they proposed, as a healing measure, that the two
+pretenders of Rome and Avignon should abdicate at the same time, after
+qualifying the cardinals of the adverse factions to join in a legitimate
+election; and that the nations should _subtract_ [73] their obedience,
+if either of the competitor preferred his own interest to that of the
+public. At each vacancy, these physicians of the church deprecated the
+mischiefs of a hasty choice; but the policy of the conclave and
+the ambition of its members were deaf to reason and entreaties; and
+whatsoever promises were made, the pope could never be bound by the
+oaths of the cardinal. During fifteen years, the pacific designs of the
+university were eluded by the arts of the rival pontiffs, the scruples
+or passions of their adherents, and the vicissitudes of French factions,
+that ruled the insanity of Charles the Sixth. At length a vigorous
+resolution was embraced; and a solemn embassy, of the titular patriarch
+of Alexandria, two archbishops, five bishops, five abbots, three
+knights, and twenty doctors, was sent to the courts of Avignon and Rome,
+to require, in the name of the church and king, the abdication of
+the two pretenders, of Peter de Luna, who styled himself Benedict the
+Thirteenth, and of Angelo Corrario, who assumed the name of Gregory
+the Twelfth. For the ancient honor of Rome, and the success of their
+commission, the ambassadors solicited a conference with the magistrates
+of the city, whom they gratified by a positive declaration, that the
+most Christian king did not entertain a wish of transporting the holy
+see from the Vatican, which he considered as the genuine and proper seat
+of the successor of St. Peter. In the name of the senate and people, an
+eloquent Roman asserted their desire to cooperate in the union of the
+church, deplored the temporal and spiritual calamities of the long
+schism, and requested the protection of France against the arms of the
+king of Naples. The answers of Benedict and Gregory were alike edifying
+and alike deceitful; and, in evading the demand of their abdication,
+the two rivals were animated by a common spirit. They agreed on the
+necessity of a previous interview; but the time, the place, and the
+manner, could never be ascertained by mutual consent. "If the one
+advances," says a servant of Gregory, "the other retreats; the one
+appears an animal fearful of the land, the other a creature apprehensive
+of the water. And thus, for a short remnant of life and power, will
+these aged priests endanger the peace and salvation of the Christian
+world." [74]
+
+[Footnote 72: The leading and decisive part which France assumed in the
+schism is stated by Peter du Puis in a separate history, extracted from
+authentic records, and inserted in the seventh volume of the last and
+best edition of his friend Thuanus, (P. xi. p. 110--184.)]
+
+[Footnote 73: Of this measure, John Gerson, a stout doctor, was the
+author of the champion. The proceedings of the university of Paris and
+the Gallican church were often prompted by his advice, and are copiously
+displayed in his theological writings, of which Le Clerc (Bibliothčque
+Choisie, tom. x. p. 1--78) has given a valuable extract. John Gerson
+acted an important part in the councils of Pisa and Constance.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, one of the revivers of classic
+learning in Italy, who, after serving many years as secretary in the
+Roman court, retired to the honorable office of chancellor of the
+republic of Florence, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii Ęvi, tom. i. p. 290.)
+Lenfant has given the version of this curious epistle, (Concile de Pise,
+tom. i. p. 192--195.)]
+
+The Christian world was at length provoked by their obstinacy and
+fraud: they were deserted by their cardinals, who embraced each other
+as friends and colleagues; and their revolt was supported by a numerous
+assembly of prelates and ambassadors. With equal justice, the council of
+Pisa deposed the popes of Rome and Avignon; the conclave was unanimous
+in the choice of Alexander the Fifth, and his vacant seat was soon
+filled by a similar election of John the Twenty-third, the most
+profligate of mankind. But instead of extinguishing the schism, the
+rashness of the French and Italians had given a third pretender to
+the chair of St. Peter. Such new claims of the synod and conclave were
+disputed; three kings, of Germany, Hungary, and Naples, adhered to the
+cause of Gregory the Twelfth; and Benedict the Thirteenth, himself
+a Spaniard, was acknowledged by the devotion and patriotism of that
+powerful nation. The rash proceedings of Pisa were corrected by the
+council of Constance; the emperor Sigismond acted a conspicuous part
+as the advocate or protector of the Catholic church; and the number and
+weight of civil and ecclesiastical members might seem to constitute the
+states-general of Europe. Of the three popes, John the Twenty-third
+was the first victim: he fled and was brought back a prisoner: the most
+scandalous charges were suppressed; the vicar of Christ was only accused
+of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and incest; and after subscribing his
+own condemnation, he expiated in prison the imprudence of trusting
+his person to a free city beyond the Alps. Gregory the Twelfth, whose
+obedience was reduced to the narrow precincts of Rimini, descended with
+more honor from the throne; and his ambassador convened the session, in
+which he renounced the title and authority of lawful pope. To vanquish
+the obstinacy of Benedict the Thirteenth or his adherents, the emperor
+in person undertook a journey from Constance to Perpignan. The kings of
+Castile, Arragon, Navarre, and Scotland, obtained an equal and honorable
+treaty; with the concurrence of the Spaniards, Benedict was deposed by
+the council; but the harmless old man was left in a solitary castle to
+excommunicate twice each day the rebel kingdoms which had deserted his
+cause. After thus eradicating the remains of the schism, the synod of
+Constance proceeded with slow and cautious steps to elect the sovereign
+of Rome and the head of the church. On this momentous occasion, the
+college of twenty-three cardinals was fortified with thirty deputies;
+six of whom were chosen in each of the five great nations of
+Christendom,--the Italian, the German, the French, the Spanish, and
+the _English_: [75] the interference of strangers was softened by their
+generous preference of an Italian and a Roman; and the hereditary, as
+well as personal, merit of Otho Colonna recommended him to the conclave.
+Rome accepted with joy and obedience the noblest of her sons; the
+ecclesiastical state was defended by his powerful family; and the
+elevation of Martin the Fifth is the ęra of the restoration and
+establishment of the popes in the Vatican. [76]
+
+[Footnote 75: I cannot overlook this great national cause, which was
+vigorously maintained by the English ambassadors against those
+of France. The latter contended, that Christendom was essentially
+distributed into the four great nations and votes, of Italy, Germany,
+France, and Spain, and that the lesser kingdoms (such as England,
+Denmark, Portugal, &c.) were comprehended under one or other of these
+great divisions. The English asserted, that the British islands, of
+which they were the head, should be considered as a fifth and coördinate
+nation, with an equal vote; and every argument of truth or fable was
+introduced to exalt the dignity of their country. Including England,
+Scotland, Wales, the four kingdoms of Ireland, and the Orkneys, the
+British Islands are decorated with eight royal crowns, and discriminated
+by four or five languages, English, Welsh, Cornish, Scotch, Irish, &c.
+The greater island from north to south measures 800 miles, or 40 days'
+journey; and England alone contains 32 counties and 52,000 parish
+churches, (a bold account!) besides cathedrals, colleges, priories, and
+hospitals. They celebrate the mission of St. Joseph of Arimathea, the
+birth of Constantine, and the legatine powers of the two primates,
+without forgetting the testimony of Bartholomey de Glanville, (A.D.
+1360,) who reckons only four Christian kingdoms, 1. of Rome, 2. of
+Constantinople, 3. of Ireland, which had been transferred to the English
+monarchs, and 4, of Spain. Our countrymen prevailed in the council,
+but the victories of Henry V. added much weight to their arguments.
+The adverse pleadings were found at Constance by Sir Robert Wingfield,
+ambassador of Henry VIII. to the emperor Maximilian I., and by him
+printed in 1517 at Louvain. From a Leipsic MS. they are more correctly
+published in the collection of Von der Hardt, tom. v.; but I have only
+seen Lenfant's abstract of these acts, (Concile de Constance, tom. ii.
+p. 447, 453, &c.)]
+
+[Footnote 76: The histories of the three successive councils, Pisa,
+Constance, and Basil, have been written with a tolerable degree of
+candor, industry, and elegance, by a Protestant minister, M. Lenfant,
+who retired from France to Berlin. They form six volumes in quarto;
+and as Basil is the worst, so Constance is the best, part of the
+Collection.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.--Part IV.
+
+The royal prerogative of coining money, which had been exercised near
+three hundred years by the senate, was _first_ resumed by Martin the
+Fifth, [77] and his image and superscription introduce the series of the
+papal medals. Of his two immediate successors, Eugenius the Fourth was
+the _last_ pope expelled by the tumults of the Roman people, [78] and
+Nicholas the Fifth, the _last_ who was importuned by the presence of
+a Roman emperor. [79] I. The conflict of Eugenius with the fathers of
+Basil, and the weight or apprehension of a new excise, emboldened and
+provoked the Romans to usurp the temporal government of the city. They
+rose in arms, elected seven governors of the republic, and a constable
+of the Capitol; imprisoned the pope's nephew; besieged his person in the
+palace; and shot volleys of arrows into his bark as he escaped down the
+Tyber in the habit of a monk. But he still possessed in the castle of
+St. Angelo a faithful garrison and a train of artillery: their batteries
+incessantly thundered on the city, and a bullet more dexterously pointed
+broke down the barricade of the bridge, and scattered with a single shot
+the heroes of the republic. Their constancy was exhausted by a rebellion
+of five months. Under the tyranny of the Ghibeline nobles, the wisest
+patriots regretted the dominion of the church; and their repentance
+was unanimous and effectual. The troops of St. Peter again occupied the
+Capitol; the magistrates departed to their homes; the most guilty were
+executed or exiled; and the legate, at the head of two thousand foot and
+four thousand horse, was saluted as the father of the city. The synods
+of Ferrara and Florence, the fear or resentment of Eugenius, prolonged
+his absence: he was received by a submissive people; but the pontiff
+understood from the acclamations of his triumphal entry, that to secure
+their loyalty and his own repose, he must grant without delay the
+abolition of the odious excise. II. Rome was restored, adorned, and
+enlightened, by the peaceful reign of Nicholas the Fifth. In the midst
+of these laudable occupations, the pope was alarmed by the approach of
+Frederic the Third of Austria; though his fears could not be justified
+by the character or the power of the Imperial candidate. After drawing
+his military force to the metropolis, and imposing the best security of
+oaths [80] and treaties, Nicholas received with a smiling countenance the
+faithful advocate and vassal of the church. So tame were the times,
+so feeble was the Austrian, that the pomp of his coronation was
+accomplished with order and harmony: but the superfluous honor was so
+disgraceful to an independent nation, that his successors have excused
+themselves from the toilsome pilgrimage to the Vatican; and rest their
+Imperial title on the choice of the electors of Germany.
+
+[Footnote 77: See the xxviith Dissertation of the Antiquities of
+Muratori, and the 1st Instruction of the Science des Medailles of the
+Pčre Joubert and the Baron de la Bastie. The Metallic History of Martin
+V. and his successors has been composed by two monks, Moulinet, a
+Frenchman, and Bonanni, an Italian: but I understand, that the first
+part of the series is restored from more recent coins.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Besides the Lives of Eugenius IV., (Rerum Italic. tom.
+iii. P. i. p. 869, and tom. xxv. p. 256,) the Diaries of Paul Petroni
+and Stephen Infessura are the best original evidence for the revolt of
+the Romans against Eugenius IV. The former, who lived at the time and on
+the spot, speaks the language of a citizen, equally afraid of priestly
+and popular tyranny.]
+
+[Footnote 79: The coronation of Frederic III. is described by Lenfant,
+(Concile de Basle, tom. ii. p. 276--288,) from Ęneas Sylvius, a
+spectator and actor in that splendid scene.]
+
+[Footnote 80: The oath of fidelity imposed on the emperor by the pope is
+recorded and sanctified in the Clementines, (l. ii. tit. ix.;) and Ęneas
+Sylvius, who objects to this new demand, could not foresee, that in
+a few years he should ascend the throne, and imbibe the maxims, of
+Boniface VIII.]
+
+A citizen has remarked, with pride and pleasure, that the king of the
+Romans, after passing with a slight salute the cardinals and prelates
+who met him at the gate, distinguished the dress and person of the
+senator of Rome; and in this last farewell, the pageants of the empire
+and the republic were clasped in a friendly embrace. [81] According to
+the laws of Rome, [82] her first magistrate was required to be a doctor
+of laws, an alien, of a place at least forty miles from the city; with
+whose inhabitants he must not be connected in the third canonical degree
+of blood or alliance. The election was annual: a severe scrutiny was
+instituted into the conduct of the departing senator; nor could he be
+recalled to the same office till after the expiration of two years. A
+liberal salary of three thousand florins was assigned for his expense
+and reward; and his public appearance represented the majesty of the
+republic. His robes were of gold brocade or crimson velvet, or in the
+summer season of a lighter silk: he bore in his hand an ivory sceptre;
+the sound of trumpets announced his approach; and his solemn steps were
+preceded at least by four lictors or attendants, whose red wands were
+enveloped with bands or streamers of the golden color or livery of the
+city. His oath in the Capitol proclaims his right and duty to observe
+and assert the laws, to control the proud, to protect the poor, and to
+exercise justice and mercy within the extent of his jurisdiction. In
+these useful functions he was assisted by three learned strangers; the
+two _collaterals_, and the judge of criminal appeals: their frequent
+trials of robberies, rapes, and murders, are attested by the laws; and
+the weakness of these laws connives at the licentiousness of private
+feuds and armed associations for mutual defence. But the senator was
+confined to the administration of justice: the Capitol, the treasury,
+and the government of the city and its territory, were intrusted to
+the three _conservators_, who were changed four times in each year: the
+militia of the thirteen regions assembled under the banners of
+their respective chiefs, or _caporioni_; and the first of these was
+distinguished by the name and dignity of the _prior_. The popular
+legislature consisted of the secret and the common councils of the
+Romans. The former was composed of the magistrates and their immediate
+predecessors, with some fiscal and legal officers, and three classes of
+thirteen, twenty-six, and forty, counsellors: amounting in the whole
+to about one hundred and twenty persons. In the common council all
+male citizens had a right to vote; and the value of their privilege
+was enhanced by the care with which any foreigners were prevented from
+usurping the title and character of Romans. The tumult of a democracy
+was checked by wise and jealous precautions: except the magistrates,
+none could propose a question; none were permitted to speak, except from
+an open pulpit or tribunal; all disorderly acclamations were suppressed;
+the sense of the majority was decided by a secret ballot; and their
+decrees were promulgated in the venerable name of the Roman senate and
+people. It would not be easy to assign a period in which this theory of
+government has been reduced to accurate and constant practice, since the
+establishment of order has been gradually connected with the decay
+of liberty. But in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty the
+ancient statutes were collected, methodized in three books, and adapted
+to present use, under the pontificate, and with the approbation, of
+Gregory the Thirteenth: [83] this civil and criminal code is the modern
+law of the city; and, if the popular assemblies have been abolished,
+a foreign senator, with the three conservators, still resides in the
+palace of the Capitol. [84] The policy of the Cęsars has been repeated
+by the popes; and the bishop of Rome affected to maintain the form of
+a republic, while he reigned with the absolute powers of a temporal, as
+well as a spiritual, monarch.
+
+[Footnote 81: Lo senatore di Roma, vestito di brocarto con quella
+beretta, e con quelle maniche, et ornamenti di pelle, co' quali va alle
+feste di Testaccio e Nagone, might escape the eye of Ęneas Sylvius,
+but he is viewed with admiration and complacency by the Roman citizen,
+(Diario di Stephano Infessura, p. 1133.)]
+
+[Footnote 82: See, in the statutes of Rome, the _senator and three
+judges_, (l. i. c. 3--14,) the _conservators_, (l. i. c. 15, 16, 17,
+l. iii. c. 4,) the _caporioni_ (l. i. c. 18, l. iii. c. 8,) the _secret
+council_, (l. iii. c. 2,) the _common council_, (l. iii. c. 3.) The
+title of _feuds_, _defiances_, _acts of violence_, &c., is spread
+through many a chapter (c. 14--40) of the second book.]
+
+[Footnote 83: _Statuta alm Urbis Rom Auctoritate S. D. N. Gregorii XIII
+Pont. Max. a Senatu Populoque Rom. reformata et edita. Rom, 1580, in
+folio_. The obsolete, repugnant statutes of antiquity were confounded in
+five books, and Lucas Pętus, a lawyer and antiquarian, was appointed to
+act as the modern Tribonian. Yet I regret the old code, with the rugged
+crust of freedom and barbarism.]
+
+[Footnote 84: In my time (1765) and in M. Grosley's, (Observations sur
+l'Italie torn. ii. p. 361,) the senator of Rome was M. Bielke, a noble
+Swede and a proselyte to the Catholic faith. The pope's right to appoint
+the senator and the conservator is implied, rather than affirmed, in the
+statutes.]
+
+It is an obvious truth, that the times must be suited to extraordinary
+characters, and that the genius of Cromwell or Retz might now expire
+in obscurity. The political enthusiasm of Rienzi had exalted him to a
+throne; the same enthusiasm, in the next century, conducted his imitator
+to the gallows. The birth of Stephen Porcaro was noble, his reputation
+spotless: his tongue was armed with eloquence, his mind was enlightened
+with learning; and he aspired, beyond the aim of vulgar ambition, to
+free his country and immortalize his name. The dominion of priests is
+most odious to a liberal spirit: every scruple was removed by the recent
+knowledge of the fable and forgery of Constantine's donation; Petrarch
+was now the oracle of the Italians; and as often as Porcaro revolved the
+ode which describes the patriot and hero of Rome, he applied to himself
+the visions of the prophetic bard. His first trial of the popular
+feelings was at the funeral of Eugenius the Fourth: in an elaborate
+speech he called the Romans to liberty and arms; and they listened with
+apparent pleasure, till Porcaro was interrupted and answered by a
+grave advocate, who pleaded for the church and state. By every law the
+seditious orator was guilty of treason; but the benevolence of the new
+pontiff, who viewed his character with pity and esteem, attempted by an
+honorable office to convert the patriot into a friend. The inflexible
+Roman returned from Anagni with an increase of reputation and zeal; and,
+on the first opportunity, the games of the place Navona, he tried to
+inflame the casual dispute of some boys and mechanics into a general
+rising of the people. Yet the humane Nicholas was still averse to accept
+the forfeit of his life; and the traitor was removed from the scene of
+temptation to Bologna, with a liberal allowance for his support, and the
+easy obligation of presenting himself each day before the governor of
+the city. But Porcaro had learned from the younger Brutus, that with
+tyrants no faith or gratitude should be observed: the exile declaimed
+against the arbitrary sentence; a party and a conspiracy were gradually
+formed: his nephew, a daring youth, assembled a band of volunteers;
+and on the appointed evening a feast was prepared at his house for the
+friends of the republic. Their leader, who had escaped from Bologna,
+appeared among them in a robe of purple and gold: his voice, his
+countenance, his gestures, bespoke the man who had devoted his life or
+death to the glorious cause. In a studied oration, he expiated on the
+motives and the means of their enterprise; the name and liberties of
+Rome; the sloth and pride of their ecclesiastical tyrants; the active
+or passive consent of their fellow-citizens; three hundred soldiers, and
+four hundred exiles, long exercised in arms or in wrongs; the license
+of revenge to edge their swords, and a million of ducats to reward their
+victory. It would be easy, (he said,) on the next day, the festival of
+the Epiphany, to seize the pope and his cardinals, before the doors, or
+at the altar, of St. Peter's; to lead them in chains under the walls of
+St. Angelo; to extort by the threat of their instant death a surrender
+of the castle; to ascend the vacant Capitol; to ring the alarm bell; and
+to restore in a popular assembly the ancient republic of Rome. While he
+triumphed, he was already betrayed. The senator, with a strong guard,
+invested the house: the nephew of Porcaro cut his way through the crowd;
+but the unfortunate Stephen was drawn from a chest, lamenting that his
+enemies had anticipated by three hours the execution of his design.
+After such manifest and repeated guilt, even the mercy of Nicholas was
+silent. Porcaro, and nine of his accomplices, were hanged without the
+benefit of the sacraments; and, amidst the fears and invectives of the
+papal court, the Romans pitied, and almost applauded, these martyrs of
+their country. [85] But their applause was mute, their pity ineffectual,
+their liberty forever extinct; and, if they have since risen in a
+vacancy of the throne or a scarcity of bread, such accidental tumults
+may be found in the bosom of the most abject servitude.
+
+[Footnote 85: Besides the curious, though concise, narrative of
+Machiavel, (Istoria Florentina, l. vi. Opere, tom. i. p. 210, 211, edit.
+Londra, 1747, in 4to.) the Porcarian conspiracy is related in the Diary
+of Stephen Infessura, (Rer. Ital. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 1134, 1135,) and
+in a separate tract by Leo Baptista Alberti, (Rer. Ital. tom. xxv. p.
+609--614.) It is amusing to compare the style and sentiments of
+the courtier and citizen. Facinus profecto quo.... neque periculo
+horribilius, neque audaciā detestabilius, neque crudelitate tetrius, a
+quoquam perditissimo uspiam excogitatum sit.... Perdette la vita quell'
+huomo da bene, e amatore dello bene e libertą di Roma.]
+
+But the independence of the nobles, which was fomented by discord,
+survived the freedom of the commons, which must be founded in union. A
+privilege of rapine and oppression was long maintained by the barons of
+Rome; their houses were a fortress and a sanctuary: and the ferocious
+train of banditti and criminals whom they protected from the law repaid
+the hospitality with the service of their swords and daggers. The
+private interest of the pontiffs, or their nephews, sometimes involved
+them in these domestic feuds. Under the reign of Sixtus the Fourth, Rome
+was distracted by the battles and sieges of the rival houses: after the
+conflagration of his palace, the prothonotary Colonna was tortured and
+beheaded; and Savelli, his captive friend, was murdered on the spot, for
+refusing to join in the acclamations of the victorious Ursini. [86]
+But the popes no longer trembled in the Vatican: they had strength
+to command, if they had resolution to claim, the obedience of their
+subjects; and the strangers, who observed these partial disorders,
+admired the easy taxes and wise administration of the ecclesiastical
+state. [87]
+
+[Footnote 86: The disorders of Rome, which were much inflamed by the
+partiality of Sixtus IV. are exposed in the Diaries of two spectators,
+Stephen Infessura, and an anonymous citizen. See the troubles of the
+year 1484, and the death of the prothonotary Colonna, in tom. iii. P.
+ii. p. 1083, 1158.]
+
+[Footnote 87: Est toute la terre de l'église troublée pour cette
+partialité (des Colonnes et des Ursins) come nous dirions Luce et
+Grammont, ou en Hollande Houc et Caballan; et quand ce ne seroit ce
+différend la terre de l'église seroit la plus heureuse habitation pour
+les sujets qui soit dans toute le monde (car ils ne payent ni tailles ni
+gučres autres choses,) et seroient toujours bien conduits, (car toujours
+les papes sont sages et bien consellies;) mais trčs souvent en advient
+de grands et cruels meurtres et pilleries.]
+
+The spiritual thunders of the Vatican depend on the force of opinion;
+and if that opinion be supplanted by reason or passion, the sound may
+idly waste itself in the air; and the helpless priest is exposed to
+the brutal violence of a noble or a plebeian adversary. But after their
+return from Avignon, the keys of St. Peter were guarded by the sword
+of St. Paul. Rome was commanded by an impregnable citadel: the use of
+cannon is a powerful engine against popular seditions: a regular force
+of cavalry and infantry was enlisted under the banners of the pope: his
+ample revenues supplied the resources of war: and, from the extent of
+his domain, he could bring down on a rebellious city an army of hostile
+neighbors and loyal subjects. [88] Since the union of the duchies
+of Ferrara and Urbino, the ecclesiastical state extends from the
+Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and from the confines of Naples to the
+banks of the Po; and as early as the sixteenth century, the greater part
+of that spacious and fruitful country acknowledged the lawful claims and
+temporal sovereignty of the Roman pontiffs. Their claims were readily
+deduced from the genuine, or fabulous, donations of the darker ages: the
+successive steps of their final settlement would engage us too far in
+the transactions of Italy, and even of Europe; the crimes of Alexander
+the Sixth, the martial operations of Julius the Second, and the liberal
+policy of Leo the Tenth, a theme which has been adorned by the pens of
+the noblest historians of the times. [89] In the first period of their
+conquests, till the expedition of Charles the Eighth, the popes might
+successfully wrestle with the adjacent princes and states, whose
+military force was equal, or inferior, to their own. But as soon as the
+monarchs of France, Germany and Spain, contended with gigantic arms
+for the dominion of Italy, they supplied with art the deficiency of
+strength; and concealed, in a labyrinth of wars and treaties, their
+aspiring views, and the immortal hope of chasing the Barbarians beyond
+the Alps. The nice balance of the Vatican was often subverted by the
+soldiers of the North and West, who were united under the standard of
+Charles the Fifth: the feeble and fluctuating policy of Clement the
+Seventh exposed his person and dominions to the conqueror; and Rome was
+abandoned seven months to a lawless army, more cruel and rapacious
+than the Goths and Vandals. [90] After this severe lesson, the popes
+contracted their ambition, which was almost satisfied, resumed
+the character of a common parent, and abstained from all offensive
+hostilities, except in a hasty quarrel, when the vicar of Christ and
+the Turkish sultan were armed at the same time against the kingdom of
+Naples. [91] The French and Germans at length withdrew from the field of
+battle: Milan, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and the sea-coast of Tuscany,
+were firmly possessed by the Spaniards; and it became their interest
+to maintain the peace and dependence of Italy, which continued almost
+without disturbance from the middle of the sixteenth to the opening
+of the eighteenth century. The Vatican was swayed and protected by
+the religious policy of the Catholic king: his prejudice and interest
+disposed him in every dispute to support the prince against the people;
+and instead of the encouragement, the aid, and the asylum, which they
+obtained from the adjacent states, the friends of liberty, or the
+enemies of law, were enclosed on all sides within the iron circle
+of despotism. The long habits of obedience and education subdued the
+turbulent spirit of the nobles and commons of Rome. The barons forgot
+the arms and factions of their ancestors, and insensibly became the
+servants of luxury and government. Instead of maintaining a crowd of
+tenants and followers, the produce of their estates was consumed in the
+private expenses which multiply the pleasures, and diminish the power,
+of the lord. [92] The Colonna and Ursini vied with each other in the
+decoration of their palaces and chapels; and their antique splendor was
+rivalled or surpassed by the sudden opulence of the papal families. In
+Rome the voice of freedom and discord is no longer heard; and, instead
+of the foaming torrent, a smooth and stagnant lake reflects the image of
+idleness and servitude.
+
+[Footnote 88: By the conomy of Sixtus V. the revenue of the
+ecclesiastical state was raised to two millions and a half of Roman
+crowns, (Vita, tom. ii. p. 291--296;) and so regular was the military
+establishment, that in one month Clement VIII. could invade the duchy of
+Ferrara with three thousand horse and twenty thousand foot, (tom. iii.
+p. 64) Since that time (A.D. 1597) the papal arms are happily rusted:
+but the revenue must have gained some nominal increase. * Note:
+On the financial measures of Sixtus V. see Ranke, Dio Römischen
+Päpste, i. p. 459.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 89: More especially by Guicciardini and Machiavel; in the
+general history of the former, in the Florentine history, the Prince,
+and the political discourses of the latter. These, with their worthy
+successors, Fra Paolo and Davila, were justly esteemed the first
+historians of modern languages, till, in the present age, Scotland
+arose, to dispute the prize with Italy herself.]
+
+[Footnote 90: In the history of the Gothic siege, I have compared the
+Barbarians with the subjects of Charles V., (vol. iii. p. 289, 290;) an
+anticipation, which, like that of the Tartar conquests, I indulged with
+the less scruple, as I could scarcely hope to reach the conclusion of my
+work.]
+
+[Footnote 91: The ambitious and feeble hostilities of the Caraffa pope,
+Paul IV. may be seen in Thuanus (l. xvi.--xviii.) and Giannone, (tom.
+iv p. 149--163.) Those Catholic bigots, Philip II. and the duke of Alva,
+presumed to separate the Roman prince from the vicar of Christ, yet the
+holy character, which would have sanctified his victory was decently
+applied to protect his defeat. * Note: But compare Ranke, Die Römischen
+Päpste, i. p. 289.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 92: This gradual change of manners and expense is admirably
+explained by Dr. Adam Smith, (Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 495--504,)
+who proves, perhaps too severely, that the most salutary effects have
+flowed from the meanest and most selfish causes.]
+
+A Christian, a philosopher, [93] and a patriot, will be equally
+scandalized by the temporal kingdom of the clergy; and the local majesty
+of Rome, the remembrance of her consuls and triumphs, may seem to
+imbitter the sense, and aggravate the shame, of her slavery. If we
+calmly weigh the merits and defects of the ecclesiastical government,
+it may be praised in its present state, as a mild, decent, and tranquil
+system, exempt from the dangers of a minority, the sallies of youth, the
+expenses of luxury, and the calamities of war. But these advantages
+are overbalanced by a frequent, perhaps a septennial, election of a
+sovereign, who is seldom a native of the country; the reign of a _young_
+statesman of threescore, in the decline of his life and abilities,
+without hope to accomplish, and without children to inherit, the labors
+of his transitory reign. The successful candidate is drawn from the
+church, and even the convent; from the mode of education and life
+the most adverse to reason, humanity, and freedom. In the trammels of
+servile faith, he has learned to believe because it is absurd, to revere
+all that is contemptible, and to despise whatever might deserve the
+esteem of a rational being; to punish error as a crime, to reward
+mortification and celibacy as the first of virtues; to place the saints
+of the calendar [94] above the heroes of Rome and the sages of Athens;
+and to consider the missal, or the crucifix, as more useful instruments
+than the plough or the loom. In the office of nuncio, or the rank of
+cardinal, he may acquire some knowledge of the world, but the primitive
+stain will adhere to his mind and manners: from study and experience
+he may suspect the mystery of his profession; but the sacerdotal artist
+will imbibe some portion of the bigotry which he inculcates. The genius
+of Sixtus the Fifth [95] burst from the gloom of a Franciscan cloister.
+In a reign of five years, he exterminated the outlaws and banditti,
+abolished the _profane_ sanctuaries of Rome, [96] formed a naval and
+military force, restored and emulated the monuments of antiquity,
+and after a liberal use and large increase of the revenue, left five
+millions of crowns in the castle of St. Angelo. But his justice was
+sullied with cruelty, his activity was prompted by the ambition of
+conquest: after his decease the abuses revived; the treasure was
+dissipated; he entailed on posterity thirty-five new taxes and the
+venality of offices; and, after his death, his statue was demolished
+by an ungrateful, or an injured, people. [97] The wild and original
+character of Sixtus the Fifth stands alone in the series of the
+pontiffs; the maxims and effects of their temporal government may
+be collected from the positive and comparative view of the arts and
+philosophy, the agriculture and trade, the wealth and population, of
+the ecclesiastical state. For myself, it is my wish to depart in charity
+with all mankind, nor am I willing, in these last moments, to offend
+even the pope and clergy of Rome. [98]
+
+[Footnote 93: Mr. Hume (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 389) too hastily
+conclude that if the civil and ecclesiastical powers be united in the
+same person, it is of little moment whether he be styled prince or
+prelate since the temporal character will always predominate.]
+
+[Footnote 94: A Protestant may disdain the unworthy preference of St.
+Francis or St. Dominic, but he will not rashly condemn the zeal or
+judgment of Sixtus V., who placed the statues of the apostles St. Peter
+and St. Paul on the vacant columns of Trajan and Antonine.]
+
+[Footnote 95: A wandering Italian, Gregorio Leti, has given the Vita di
+Sisto-Quinto, (Amstel. 1721, 3 vols. in 12mo.,) a copious and amusing
+work, but which does not command our absolute confidence. Yet the
+character of the man, and the principal facts, are supported by
+the annals of Spondanus and Muratori, (A.D. 1585--1590,) and the
+contemporary history of the great Thuanus, (l. lxxxii. c. 1, 2, l.
+lxxxiv. c. 10, l. c. c. 8.) * Note: The industry of M. Ranke has
+discovered the document, a kind of scandalous chronicle of the time,
+from which Leti wrought up his amusing romances. See also M. Ranke's
+observations on the Life of Sixtus. by Tempesti, b. iii. p. 317, 324.--
+M.]
+
+[Footnote 96: These privileged places, the _quartieri_ or _franchises_,
+were adopted from the Roman nobles by the foreign ministers. Julius
+II. had once abolished the abominandum et detestandum franchitiarum
+hujusmodi nomen: and after Sixtus V. they again revived. I cannot
+discern either the justice or magnanimity of Louis XIV., who, in 1687,
+sent his ambassador, the marquis de Lavardin, to Rome, with an armed
+force of a thousand officers, guards, and domestics, to maintain this
+iniquitous claim, and insult Pope Innocent XI. in the heart of his
+capital, (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 260--278. Muratori, Annali
+d'Italia, tom. xv. p. 494--496, and Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. tom.
+i. c. 14, p. 58, 59.)]
+
+[Footnote 97: This outrage produced a decree, which was inscribed on
+marble, and placed in the Capitol. It is expressed in a style of manly
+simplicity and freedom: Si quis, sive privatus, sive magistratum gerens
+de collocandā _vivo_ pontifici statuā mentionem facere ausit, legitimo
+S. P. Q. R. decreto in perpetuum infamis et publicorum munerum expers
+esto. MDXC. mense Augusto, (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 469.) I
+believe that this decree is still observed, and I know that every
+monarch who deserves a statue should himself impose the prohibition.]
+
+[Footnote 98: The histories of the church, Italy, and Christendom, have
+contributed to the chapter which I now conclude. In the original Lives
+of the Popes, we often discover the city and republic of Rome: and the
+events of the xivth and xvth centuries are preserved in the rude
+and domestic chronicles which I have carefully inspected, and shall
+recapitulate in the order of time.
+
+1. Monaldeschi (Ludovici Boncomitis) Fragmenta Annalium Roman. A.D.
+1328, in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. xii. p.
+525. N. B. The credit of this fragment is somewhat hurt by a singular
+interpolation, in which the author relates his own death at the age of
+115 years.
+
+2. Fragmenta Historię Romanę (vulgo Thomas Fortifioccę) in Romana
+Dialecto vulgari, (A.D. 1327--1354, in Muratori, Antiquitat. Medii Ęvi
+Italię, tom. iii. p. 247--548;) the authentic groundwork of the history
+of Rienzi.
+
+3. Delphini (Gentilis) Diarium Romanum, (A.D. 1370--1410,) in the Rerum
+Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 846.
+
+4. Antonii (Petri) Diarium Rom., (A.D. 1404--1417,) tom. xxiv. p. 699.
+
+5. Petroni (Pauli) Miscellanea Historica Romana, (A.D. 1433--1446,) tom.
+xxiv. p. 1101.
+
+6. Volaterrani (Jacob.) Diarium Rom., (A.D. 1472--1484,) tom. xxiii p.
+81.
+
+7. Anonymi Diarium Urbis Romę, (A.D. 1481--1492,) tom. iii. P. ii. p.
+1069.
+
+8. Infessurę (Stephani) Diarium Romanum, (A.D. 1294, or 1378--1494,)
+tom. iii. P. ii. p. 1109.
+
+9. Historia Arcana Alexandri VI. sive Excerpta ex Diario Joh. Burcardi,
+(A.D. 1492--1503,) edita a Godefr. Gulielm. Leibnizio, Hanover, 697, in
+14to. The large and valuable Journal of Burcard might be completed from
+the MSS. in different libraries of Italy and France, (M. de Foncemagne,
+in the Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscrip. tom. xvii. p. 597--606.)
+
+Except the last, all these fragments and diaries are inserted in the
+Collections of Muratori, my guide and master in the history of Italy.
+His country, and the public, are indebted to him for the following works
+on that subject: 1. _Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_, (A.D. 500--1500,)
+_quorum potissima pars nunc primum in lucem prodit_, &c., xxviii.
+vols. in folio, Milan, 1723--1738, 1751. A volume of chronological and
+alphabetical tables is still wanting as a key to this great work, which
+is yet in a disorderly and defective state. 2. _Antiquitates Italię
+Medii Ęvi_, vi. vols. in folio, Milan, 1738--1743, in lxxv. curious
+dissertations, on the manners, government, religion, &c., of the
+Italians of the darker ages, with a large supplement of charters,
+chronicles, &c. 3. _Dissertazioni sopra le Antiquita Italiane_, iii.
+vols. in 4to., Milano, 1751, a free version by the author, which may be
+quoted with the same confidence as the Latin text of the Antiquities.
+_Annali d' Italia_, xviii. vols. in octavo, Milan, 1753--1756, a dry,
+though accurate and useful, abridgment of the history of Italy, from
+the birth of Christ to the middle of the xviiith century. 5. _Dell'
+Antichita Estense ed Italiane_, ii. vols. in folio, Modena, 1717, 1740.
+In the history of this illustrious race, the parent of our Brunswick
+kings, the critic is not seduced by the loyalty or gratitude of the
+subject. In all his works, Muratori approves himself a diligent and
+laborious writer, who aspires above the prejudices of a Catholic priest.
+He was born in the year 1672, and died in the year 1750, after passing
+near 60 years in the libraries of Milan and Modena, (Vita del Proposto
+Ludovico Antonio Muratori, by his nephew and successor Gian. Francesco
+Soli Muratori Venezia, 1756 m 4to.)]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth
+Century.--Part I.
+
+     Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth Century.--
+     Four Causes Of Decay And Destruction.--Example Of The
+     Coliseum.--Renovation Of The City.--Conclusion Of The Whole
+     Work.
+
+In the last days of Pope Eugenius the Fourth, [101] two of his servants,
+the learned Poggius [1] and a friend, ascended the Capitoline hill;
+reposed themselves among the ruins of columns and temples; and viewed
+from that commanding spot the wide and various prospect of desolation.
+[2] The place and the object gave ample scope for moralizing on the
+vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of
+his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave; and it was
+agreed, that in proportion to her former greatness, the fall of Rome was
+the more awful and deplorable. "Her primeval state, such as she might
+appear in a remote age, when Evander entertained the stranger of Troy,
+[3] has been delineated by the fancy of Virgil. This Tarpeian rock was
+then a savage and solitary thicket: in the time of the poet, it was
+crowned with the golden roofs of a temple; the temple is overthrown,
+the gold has been pillaged, the wheel of fortune has accomplished her
+revolution, and the sacred ground is again disfigured with thorns and
+brambles. The hill of the Capitol, on which we sit, was formerly the
+head of the Roman empire, the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings;
+illustrated by the footsteps of so many triumphs, enriched with the
+spoils and tributes of so many nations. This spectacle of the world,
+how is it fallen! how changed! how defaced! The path of victory is
+obliterated by vines, and the benches of the senators are concealed by
+a dunghill. Cast your eyes on the Palatine hill, and seek among the
+shapeless and enormous fragments the marble theatre, the obelisks, the
+colossal statues, the porticos of Nero's palace: survey the other hills
+of the city, the vacant space is interrupted only by ruins and gardens.
+The forum of the Roman people, where they assembled to enact their laws
+and elect their magistrates, is now enclosed for the cultivation of
+pot-herbs, or thrown open for the reception of swine and buffaloes.
+The public and private edifices, that were founded for eternity, lie
+prostrate, naked, and broken, like the limbs of a mighty giant; and the
+ruin is the more visible, from the stupendous relics that have survived
+the injuries of time and fortune." [4]
+
+[Footnote 101: It should be Pope Martin the Fifth. See Gibbon's own
+note, ch. lxv, note 51 and Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe Harold, p.
+155.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 1: I have already (notes 50, 51, on chap. lxv.) mentioned the
+age, character, and writings of Poggius; and particularly noticed the
+date of this elegant moral lecture on the varieties of fortune.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Consedimus in ipsis Tarpeię arcis ruinis, pone ingens
+portę cujusdam, ut puto, templi, marmoreum limen, plurimasque passim
+confractas columnas, unde magnā ex parte prospectus urbis patet, (p.
+5.)]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ęneid viii. 97--369. This ancient picture, so artfully
+introduced, and so exquisitely finished, must have been highly
+interesting to an inhabitant of Rome; and our early studies allow us to
+sympathize in the feelings of a Roman.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Capitolium adeo.... immutatum ut vineę in senatorum
+subsellia successerint, stercorum ac purgamentorum receptaculum factum.
+Respice ad Palatinum montem..... vasta rudera.... cęteros colles
+perlustra omnia vacua ędificiis, ruinis vineisque oppleta conspicies,
+(Poggius, de Varietat. Fortunę p. 21.)]
+
+These relics are minutely described by Poggius, one of the first who
+raised his eyes from the monuments of legendary, to those of classic,
+superstition. [5] _1._Besides a bridge, an arch, a sepulchre, and the
+pyramid of Cestius, he could discern, of the age of the republic, a
+double row of vaults, in the salt-office of the Capitol, which were
+inscribed with the name and munificence of Catulus. _2._ Eleven temples
+were visible in some degree, from the perfect form of the Pantheon,
+to the three arches and a marble column of the temple of Peace, which
+Vespasian erected after the civil wars and the Jewish triumph. _3._ Of
+the number, which he rashly defines, of seven _therm_, or public baths,
+none were sufficiently entire to represent the use and distribution of
+the several parts: but those of Diocletian and Antoninus Caracalla
+still retained the titles of the founders, and astonished the curious
+spectator, who, in observing their solidity and extent, the variety of
+marbles, the size and multitude of the columns, compared the labor and
+expense with the use and importance. Of the baths of Constantine, of
+Alexander, of Domitian, or rather of Titus, some vestige might yet be
+found. _4._ The triumphal arches of Titus, Severus, and Constantine,
+were entire, both the structure and the inscriptions; a falling fragment
+was honored with the name of Trajan; and two arches, then extant, in the
+Flaminian way, have been ascribed to the baser memory of Faustina and
+Gallienus. [501] _5._ After the wonder of the Coliseum, Poggius might have
+overlooked small amphitheatre of brick, most probably for the use of the
+prętorian camp: the theatres of Marcellus and Pompey were occupied in
+a great measure by public and private buildings; and in the Circus,
+Agonalis and Maximus, little more than the situation and the form could
+be investigated. _6._ The columns of Trajan and Antonine were still
+erect; but the Egyptian obelisks were broken or buried. A people of gods
+and heroes, the workmanship of art, was reduced to one equestrian figure
+of gilt brass, and to five marble statues, of which the most conspicuous
+were the two horses of Phidias and Praxiteles. _7._ The two mausoleums
+or sepulchres of Augustus and Hadrian could not totally be lost: but the
+former was only visible as a mound of earth; and the latter, the
+castle of St. Angelo, had acquired the name and appearance of a modern
+fortress. With the addition of some separate and nameless columns, such
+were the remains of the ancient city; for the marks of a more recent
+structure might be detected in the walls, which formed a circumference
+of ten miles, included three hundred and seventy-nine turrets, and
+opened into the country by thirteen gates.
+
+[Footnote 5: See Poggius, p. 8--22.]
+
+[Footnote 501: One was in the Via Nomentana; est alter pręterea Gallieno
+principi dicatus, ut superscriptio indicat, _Viā Nomentana_. Hobhouse,
+p. 154. Poggio likewise mentions the building which Gibbon ambiguously
+says be "might have overlooked."--M.]
+
+This melancholy picture was drawn above nine hundred years after the
+fall of the Western empire, and even of the Gothic kingdom of Italy.
+A long period of distress and anarchy, in which empire, and arts,
+and riches had migrated from the banks of the Tyber, was incapable
+of restoring or adorning the city; and, as all that is human must
+retrograde if it do not advance, every successive age must have hastened
+the ruin of the works of antiquity. To measure the progress of decay,
+and to ascertain, at each ęra, the state of each edifice, would be
+an endless and a useless labor; and I shall content myself with two
+observations, which will introduce a short inquiry into the general
+causes and effects. _1._ Two hundred years before the eloquent complaint
+of Poggius, an anonymous writer composed a description of Rome. [6] His
+ignorance may repeat the same objects under strange and fabulous names.
+Yet this barbarous topographer had eyes and ears; he could observe the
+visible remains; he could listen to the tradition of the people; and he
+distinctly enumerates seven theatres, eleven baths, twelve arches,
+and eighteen palaces, of which many had disappeared before the time
+of Poggius. It is apparent, that many stately monuments of antiquity
+survived till a late period, [7] and that the principles of destruction
+acted with vigorous and increasing energy in the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries. _2._ The same reflection must be applied to the
+three last ages; and we should vainly seek the Septizonium of Severus;
+[8] which is celebrated by Petrarch and the antiquarians of the sixteenth
+century. While the Roman edifices were still entire, the first blows,
+however weighty and impetuous, were resisted by the solidity of the mass
+and the harmony of the parts; but the slightest touch would precipitate
+the fragments of arches and columns, that already nodded to their fall.
+
+[Footnote 6: Liber de Mirabilibus Romę ex Registro Nicolai Cardinalis de
+Arragoniā in Bibliothecā St. Isidori Armario IV., No. 69. This treatise,
+with some short but pertinent notes, has been published by Montfaucon,
+(Diarium Italicum, p. 283--301,) who thus delivers his own critical
+opinion: Scriptor xiiimi. circiter sęculi, ut ibidem notatur; antiquarię
+rei imperitus et, ut ab illo ęvo, nugis et anilibus fabellis refertus:
+sed, quia monumenta, quę iis temporibus Romę supererant pro modulo
+recenset, non parum inde lucis mutuabitur qui Romanis antiquitatibus
+indagandis operam navabit, (p. 283.)]
+
+[Footnote 7: The Pčre Mabillon (Analecta, tom. iv. p. 502) has published
+an anonymous pilgrim of the ixth century, who, in his visit round
+the churches and holy places at Rome, touches on several buildings,
+especially porticos, which had disappeared before the xiiith century.]
+
+[Footnote 8: On the Septizonium, see the Mémoires sur Pétrarque, (tom.
+i. p. 325,) Donatus, (p. 338,) and Nardini, (p. 117, 414.)]
+
+After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the
+ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a
+thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile
+attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the
+materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.
+
+I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more permanent than
+the narrow span of his own existence; yet these monuments, like himself,
+are perishable and frail; and in the boundless annals of time, his
+life and his labors must equally be measured as a fleeting moment. Of a
+simple and solid edifice, it is not easy, however, to circumscribe the
+duration. As the wonders of ancient days, the pyramids [9] attracted the
+curiosity of the ancients: a hundred generations, the leaves of autumn,
+have dropped [10] into the grave; and after the fall of the Pharaohs and
+Ptolemies, the Cęsars and caliphs, the same pyramids stand erect and
+unshaken above the floods of the Nile. A complex figure of various and
+minute parts to more accessible to injury and decay; and the silent
+lapse of time is often accelerated by hurricanes and earthquakes, by
+fires and inundations. The air and earth have doubtless been shaken; and
+the lofty turrets of Rome have tottered from their foundations; but
+the seven hills do not appear to be placed on the great cavities of the
+globe; nor has the city, in any age, been exposed to the convulsions of
+nature, which, in the climate of Antioch, Lisbon, or Lima, have crumbled
+in a few moments the works of ages into dust. Fire is the most
+powerful agent of life and death: the rapid mischief may be kindled and
+propagated by the industry or negligence of mankind; and every period
+of the Roman annals is marked by the repetition of similar calamities.
+A memorable conflagration, the guilt or misfortune of Nero's reign,
+continued, though with unequal fury, either six or nine days. [11]
+Innumerable buildings, crowded in close and crooked streets, supplied
+perpetual fuel for the flames; and when they ceased, four only of the
+fourteen regions were left entire; three were totally destroyed, and
+seven were deformed by the relics of smoking and lacerated edifices. [12]
+In the full meridian of empire, the metropolis arose with fresh beauty
+from her ashes; yet the memory of the old deplored their irreparable
+losses, the arts of Greece, the trophies of victory, the monuments of
+primitive or fabulous antiquity. In the days of distress and anarchy,
+every wound is mortal, every fall irretrievable; nor can the damage be
+restored either by the public care of government, or the activity
+of private interest. Yet two causes may be alleged, which render the
+calamity of fire more destructive to a flourishing than a decayed city.
+_1._ The more combustible materials of brick, timber, and metals, are
+first melted or consumed; but the flames may play without injury or
+effect on the naked walls, and massy arches, that have been despoiled of
+their ornaments. _2._ It is among the common and plebeian habitations,
+that a mischievous spark is most easily blown to a conflagration; but as
+soon as they are devoured, the greater edifices, which have resisted or
+escaped, are left as so many islands in a state of solitude and
+safety. From her situation, Rome is exposed to the danger of frequent
+inundations. Without excepting the Tyber, the rivers that descend from
+either side of the Apennine have a short and irregular course; a shallow
+stream in the summer heats; an impetuous torrent, when it is swelled in
+the spring or winter, by the fall of rain, and the melting of the snows.
+When the current is repelled from the sea by adverse winds, when the
+ordinary bed is inadequate to the weight of waters, they rise above the
+banks, and overspread, without limits or control, the plains and cities
+of the adjacent country. Soon after the triumph of the first Punic war,
+the Tyber was increased by unusual rains; and the inundation, surpassing
+all former measure of time and place, destroyed all the buildings that
+were situated below the hills of Rome. According to the variety of
+ground, the same mischief was produced by different means; and the
+edifices were either swept away by the sudden impulse, or dissolved and
+undermined by the long continuance, of the flood. [13] Under the reign
+of Augustus, the same calamity was renewed: the lawless river overturned
+the palaces and temples on its banks; [14] and, after the labors of
+the emperor in cleansing and widening the bed that was encumbered with
+ruins, [15] the vigilance of his successors was exercised by similar
+dangers and designs. The project of diverting into new channels the
+Tyber itself, or some of the dependent streams, was long opposed by
+superstition and local interests; [16] nor did the use compensate the
+toil and cost of the tardy and imperfect execution. The servitude of
+rivers is the noblest and most important victory which man has obtained
+over the licentiousness of nature; [17] and if such were the ravages of
+the Tyber under a firm and active government, what could oppose, or who
+can enumerate, the injuries of the city, after the fall of the Western
+empire? A remedy was at length produced by the evil itself: the
+accumulation of rubbish and the earth, that has been washed down from
+the hills, is supposed to have elevated the plain of Rome, fourteen or
+fifteen feet, perhaps, above the ancient level; [18] and the modern city
+is less accessible to the attacks of the river. [19]
+
+[Footnote 9: The age of the pyramids is remote and unknown, since
+Diodorus Siculus (tom. i l. i. c. 44, p. 72) is unable to decide whether
+they were constructed 1000, or 3400, years before the clxxxth Olympiad.
+Sir John Marsham's contracted scale of the Egyptian dynasties would fix
+them about 2000 years before Christ, (Canon. Chronicus, p. 47.)]
+
+[Footnote 10: See the speech of Glaucus in the Iliad, (Z. 146.) This
+natural but melancholy image is peculiar to Homer.]
+
+[Footnote 11: The learning and criticism of M. des Vignoles (Histoire
+Critique de la République des Lettres, tom. viii. p. 47--118, ix.
+p. 172--187) dates the fire of Rome from A.D. 64, July 19, and the
+subsequent persecution of the Christians from November 15 of the same
+year.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Quippe in regiones quatuordecim Roma dividitur, quarum
+quatuor integrę manebant, tres solo tenus dejectę: septem reliquis pauca
+testorum vestigia supererant, lacera et semiusta. Among the old relics
+that were irreparably lost, Tacitus enumerates the temple of the moon
+of Servius Tullius; the fane and altar consecrated by Evander pręsenti
+Herculi; the temple of Jupiter Stator, a vow of Romulus; the palace of
+Numa; the temple of Vesta cum Penatibus populi Romani. He then deplores
+the opes tot victoriis quęsitę et Gręcarum artium decora.... multa quę
+seniores meminerant, quę reparari nequibant, (Annal. xv. 40, 41.)]
+
+[Footnote 13: A. U. C. 507, repentina subversio ipsius Romę pręvenit
+triumphum Romanorum.... diversę ignium aquarumque clades pene absumsere
+urbem Nam Tiberis insolitis auctus imbribus et ultra opinionem, vel
+diuturnitate vel maguitudine redundans, _omnia_ Romę ędificia in plano
+posita delevit. Diversę qualitates locorum ad unam convenere perniciem:
+quoniam et quę segnior inundatio tenuit madefacta dissolvit, et quę
+cursus torrentis invenit impulsa dejecit, (Orosius, Hist. l. iv. c. 11,
+p. 244, edit. Havercamp.) Yet we may observe, that it is the plan and
+study of the Christian apologist to magnify the calamities of the Pagan
+world.]
+
+[Footnote 14:
+
+     Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis
+     Littore Etrusco violenter undis,
+     Ire dejectum monumenta Regis
+     Templaque Vestę. (Horat. Carm. I. 2.)
+
+If the palace of Numa and temple of Vesta were thrown down in Horace's
+time, what was consumed of those buildings by Nero's fire could hardly
+deserve the epithets of vetustissima or incorrupta.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Ad coercendas inundationes alveum Tiberis laxavit, ac
+repurgavit, completum olim ruderibus, et ędificiorum prolapsionibus
+coarctatum, (Suetonius in Augusto, c. 30.)]
+
+[Footnote 16: Tacitus (Annal. i. 79) reports the petitions of the
+different towns of Italy to the senate against the measure; and we may
+applaud the progress of reason. On a similar occasion, local interests
+would undoubtedly be consulted: but an English House of Commons would
+reject with contempt the arguments of superstition, "that nature had
+assigned to the rivers their proper course," &c.]
+
+[Footnote 17: See the Epoques de la Nature of the eloquent and
+philosophic Buffon. His picture of Guyana, in South America, is that of
+a new and savage land, in which the waters are abandoned to themselves
+without being regulated by human industry, (p. 212, 561, quarto
+edition.)]
+
+[Footnote 18: In his travels in Italy, Mr. Addison (his works, vol.
+ii. p. 98, Baskerville's edition) has observed this curious and
+unquestionable fact.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Yet in modern times, the Tyber has sometimes damaged the
+city, and in the years 1530, 1557, 1598, the annals of Muratori record
+three mischievous and memorable inundations, (tom. xiv. p. 268, 429,
+tom. xv. p. 99, &c.) * Note: The level of the Tyber was at one time
+supposed to be considerably raised: recent investigations seem to be
+conclusive against this supposition. See a brief, but satisfactory
+statement of the question in Bunsen and Platner, Roms Beschreibung. vol.
+i. p. 29.--M.]
+
+II. The crowd of writers of every nation, who impute the destruction of
+the Roman monuments to the Goths and the Christians, have neglected to
+inquire how far they were animated by a hostile principle, and how far
+they possessed the means and the leisure to satiate their enmity. In
+the preceding volumes of this History, I have described the triumph of
+barbarism and religion; and I can only resume, in a few words, their
+real or imaginary connection with the ruin of ancient Rome. Our fancy
+may create, or adopt, a pleasing romance, that the Goths and Vandals
+sallied from Scandinavia, ardent to avenge the flight of Odin; [20] to
+break the chains, and to chastise the oppressors, of mankind; that they
+wished to burn the records of classic literature, and to found their
+national architecture on the broken members of the Tuscan and Corinthian
+orders. But in simple truth, the northern conquerors were neither
+sufficiently savage, nor sufficiently refined, to entertain such
+aspiring ideas of destruction and revenge. The shepherds of Scythia and
+Germany had been educated in the armies of the empire, whose discipline
+they acquired, and whose weakness they invaded: with the familiar use of
+the Latin tongue, they had learned to reverence the name and titles of
+Rome; and, though incapable of emulating, they were more inclined to
+admire, than to abolish, the arts and studies of a brighter period. In
+the transient possession of a rich and unresisting capital, the soldiers
+of Alaric and Genseric were stimulated by the passions of a victorious
+army; amidst the wanton indulgence of lust or cruelty, portable wealth
+was the object of their search; nor could they derive either pride or
+pleasure from the unprofitable reflection, that they had battered to the
+ground the works of the consuls and Cęsars. Their moments were indeed
+precious; the Goths evacuated Rome on the sixth, [21] the Vandals on the
+fifteenth, day: [22] and, though it be far more difficult to build than
+to destroy, their hasty assault would have made a slight impression
+on the solid piles of antiquity. We may remember, that both Alaric
+and Genseric affected to spare the buildings of the city; that they
+subsisted in strength and beauty under the auspicious government of
+Theodoric; [23] and that the momentary resentment of Totila [24] was
+disarmed by his own temper and the advice of his friends and enemies.
+From these innocent Barbarians, the reproach may be transferred to the
+Catholics of Rome. The statues, altars, and houses, of the dęmons, were
+an abomination in their eyes; and in the absolute command of the city,
+they might labor with zeal and perseverance to erase the idolatry of
+their ancestors. The demolition of the temples in the East [25] affords
+to _them_ an example of conduct, and to _us_ an argument of belief;
+and it is probable that a portion of guilt or merit may be imputed with
+justice to the Roman proselytes. Yet their abhorrence was confined to
+the monuments of heathen superstition; and the civil structures that
+were dedicated to the business or pleasure of society might be preserved
+without injury or scandal. The change of religion was accomplished, not
+by a popular tumult, but by the decrees of the emperors, of the senate,
+and of time. Of the Christian hierarchy, the bishops of Rome were
+commonly the most prudent and least fanatic; nor can any positive charge
+be opposed to the meritorious act of saving or converting the majestic
+structure of the Pantheon. [26] [261]
+
+[Footnote 20: I take this opportunity of declaring, that in the course
+of twelve years, I have forgotten, or renounced, the flight of Odin
+from Azoph to Sweden, which I never very seriously believed, (vol. i. p.
+283.) The Goths are apparently Germans: but all beyond Cęsar and Tacitus
+is darkness or fable, in the antiquities of Germany.]
+
+[Footnote 21: History of the Decline, &c., vol. iii. p. 291.]
+
+[Footnote 22:----------------------vol. iii. p. 464.]
+
+[Footnote 23:----------------------vol. iv. p. 23--25.]
+
+[Footnote 24:----------------------vol. iv. p. 258.]
+
+[Footnote 25:----------------------vol. iii. c. xxviii. p. 139--148.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Eodem tempore petiit a Phocate principe templum, quod
+appellatur _Pantheon_, in quo fecit ecclesiam Sanctę Marię semper
+Virginis, et omnium martyrum; in quā ecclesię princeps multa bona
+obtulit, (Anastasius vel potius Liber Pontificalis in Bonifacio IV., in
+Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i. p. 135.) According
+to the anonymous writer in Montfaucon, the Pantheon had been vowed by
+Agrippa to Cybele and Neptune, and was dedicated by Boniface IV., on the
+calends of November, to the Virgin, quę est mater omnium sanctorum, (p.
+297, 298.)]
+
+[Footnote 261: The popes, under the dominion of the emperor and of the
+exarchs, according to Feas's just observation, did not possess the power
+of disposing of the buildings and monuments of the city according to
+their own will. Bunsen and Platner, vol. i. p. 241.--M.]
+
+III. The value of any object that supplies the wants or pleasures of
+mankind is compounded of its substance and its form, of the materials
+and the manufacture. Its price must depend on the number of persons
+by whom it may be acquired and used; on the extent of the market; and
+consequently on the ease or difficulty of remote exportation, according
+to the nature of the commodity, its local situation, and the temporary
+circumstances of the world. The Barbarian conquerors of Rome usurped
+in a moment the toil and treasure of successive ages; but, except the
+luxuries of immediate consumption, they must view without desire all
+that could not be removed from the city in the Gothic wagons or the
+fleet of the Vandals. [27] Gold and silver were the first objects of
+their avarice; as in every country, and in the smallest compass, they
+represent the most ample command of the industry and possessions of
+mankind. A vase or a statue of those precious metals might tempt the
+vanity of some Barbarian chief; but the grosser multitude, regardless
+of the form, was tenacious only of the substance; and the melted ingots
+might be readily divided and stamped into the current coin of the
+empire. The less active or less fortunate robbers were reduced to the
+baser plunder of brass, lead, iron, and copper: whatever had escaped
+the Goths and Vandals was pillaged by the Greek tyrants; and the emperor
+Constans, in his rapacious visit, stripped the bronze tiles from the
+roof of the Pantheon. [28] The edifices of Rome might be considered as a
+vast and various mine; the first labor of extracting the materials was
+already performed; the metals were purified and cast; the marbles
+were hewn and polished; and after foreign and domestic rapine had been
+satiated, the remains of the city, could a purchaser have been found,
+were still venal. The monuments of antiquity had been left naked of
+their precious ornaments; but the Romans would demolish with their own
+hands the arches and walls, if the hope of profit could surpass the cost
+of the labor and exportation. If Charlemagne had fixed in Italy the seat
+of the Western empire, his genius would have aspired to restore, rather
+than to violate, the works of the Cęsars; but policy confined the French
+monarch to the forests of Germany; his taste could be gratified only by
+destruction; and the new palace of Aix la Chapelle was decorated with
+the marbles of Ravenna [29] and Rome. [30] Five hundred years after
+Charlemagne, a king of Sicily, Robert, the wisest and most liberal
+sovereign of the age, was supplied with the same materials by the easy
+navigation of the Tyber and the sea; and Petrarch sighs an indignant
+complaint, that the ancient capital of the world should adorn from her
+own bowels the slothful luxury of Naples. [31] But these examples of
+plunder or purchase were rare in the darker ages; and the Romans, alone
+and unenvied, might have applied to their private or public use
+the remaining structures of antiquity, if in their present form and
+situation they had not been useless in a great measure to the city and
+its inhabitants. The walls still described the old circumference, but
+the city had descended from the seven hills into the Campus Martius; and
+some of the noblest monuments which had braved the injuries of time
+were left in a desert, far remote from the habitations of mankind.
+The palaces of the senators were no longer adapted to the manners or
+fortunes of their indigent successors: the use of baths [32] and
+porticos was forgotten: in the sixth century, the games of the theatre,
+amphitheatre, and circus, had been interrupted: some temples were
+devoted to the prevailing worship; but the Christian churches preferred
+the holy figure of the cross; and fashion, or reason, had distributed
+after a peculiar model the cells and offices of the cloister. Under
+the ecclesiastical reign, the number of these pious foundations was
+enormously multiplied; and the city was crowded with forty monasteries
+of men, twenty of women, and sixty chapters and colleges of canons and
+priests, [33] who aggravated, instead of relieving, the depopulation
+of the tenth century. But if the forms of ancient architecture were
+disregarded by a people insensible of their use and beauty, the
+plentiful materials were applied to every call of necessity or
+superstition; till the fairest columns of the Ionic and Corinthian
+orders, the richest marbles of Paros and Numidia, were degraded, perhaps
+to the support of a convent or a stable. The daily havoc which is
+perpetrated by the Turks in the cities of Greece and Asia may afford a
+melancholy example; and in the gradual destruction of the monuments of
+Rome, Sixtus the Fifth may alone be excused for employing the stones of
+the Septizonium in the glorious edifice of St. Peter's. [34] A fragment,
+a ruin, howsoever mangled or profaned, may be viewed with pleasure and
+regret; but the greater part of the marble was deprived of substance, as
+well as of place and proportion; it was burnt to lime for the purpose of
+cement. [341] Since the arrival of Poggius, the temple of Concord, [35] and
+many capital structures, had vanished from his eyes; and an epigram of
+the same age expresses a just and pious fear, that the continuance of
+this practice would finally annihilate all the monuments of antiquity.
+[36] The smallness of their numbers was the sole check on the demands and
+depredations of the Romans. The imagination of Petrarch might create the
+presence of a mighty people; [37] and I hesitate to believe, that, even
+in the fourteenth century, they could be reduced to a contemptible list
+of thirty-three thousand inhabitants. From that period to the reign of
+Leo the Tenth, if they multiplied to the amount of eighty-five thousand,
+[38] the increase of citizens was in some degree pernicious to the
+ancient city.
+
+[Footnote 27: Flaminius Vacca (apud Montfaucon, p. 155, 156. His memoir
+is likewise printed, p. 21, at the end of the Roman Antica of Nardini)
+and several Romans, doctrinā graves, were persuaded that the Goths
+buried their treasures at Rome, and bequeathed the secret marks filiis
+nepotibusque. He relates some anecdotes to prove, that in his own time,
+these places were visited and rifled by the Transalpine pilgrims, the
+heirs of the Gothic conquerors.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Omnia quę erant in ęre ad ornatum civitatis deposuit,
+sed e ecclesiam B. Marię ad martyres quę de tegulis ęreis cooperta
+discooperuit, (Anast. in Vitalian. p. 141.) The base and sacrilegious
+Greek had not even the poor pretence of plundering a heathen temple, the
+Pantheon was already a Catholic church.]
+
+[Footnote 29: For the spoils of Ravenna (musiva atque marmora) see the
+original grant of Pope Adrian I. to Charlemagne, (Codex Carolin. epist.
+lxvii. in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 223.)]
+
+[Footnote 30: I shall quote the authentic testimony of the Saxon poet,
+(A.D. 887--899,) de Rebus gestis Caroli magni, l. v. 437--440, in the
+Historians of France, (tom. v. p. 180:)
+
+     Ad quę marmoreas pręstabat Roma columnas,
+     Quasdam pręcipuas pulchra Ravenna dedit.
+     De tam longinquā poterit regione vetustas
+     Illius ornatum, Francia, ferre tibi.
+
+And I shall add from the Chronicle of Sigebert, (Historians of
+France, tom. v. p. 378,) extruxit etiam Aquisgrani basilicam plurimę
+pulchritudinis, ad cujus structuram a Roma et Ravenna columnas et
+marmora devehi fecit.]
+
+[Footnote 31: I cannot refuse to transcribe a long passage of Petrarch
+(Opp. p. 536, 537) in Epistolā hortatoriā ad Nicolaum Laurentium; it is
+so strong and full to the point: Nec pudor aut pietas continuit quominus
+impii spoliata Dei templa, occupatas arces, opes publicas, regiones
+urbis, atque honores magistratūum inter se divisos; (_habeant?_) quam
+unā in re, turbulenti ac seditiosi homines et totius reliquę vitę
+consiliis et rationibus discordes, inhumani fderis stupendą societate
+convenirent, in pontes et mnia atque immeritos lapides desęvirent.
+Denique post vi vel senio collapsa palatia, quę quondam ingentes
+tenuerunt viri, post diruptos arcus triumphales, (unde majores horum
+forsitan corruerunt,) de ipsius vetustatis ac proprię impietatis
+fragminibus vilem quęstum turpi mercimonio captare non puduit. Itaque
+nunc, heu dolor! heu scelus indignum! de vestris marmoreis columnis, de
+liminibus templorum, (ad quę nuper ex orbe toto concursus devotissimus
+fiebat,) de imaginibus sepulchrorum sub quibus patrum vestrorum
+venerabilis civis (_cinis?_) erat, ut reliquas sileam, desidiosa
+Neapolis adornatur. Sic paullatim ruinę ipsę deficiunt. Yet King Robert
+was the friend of Petrarch.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Yet Charlemagne washed and swam at Aix la Chapelle with a
+hundred of his courtiers, (Eginhart, c. 22, p. 108, 109,) and Muratori
+describes, as late as the year 814, the public baths which were built at
+Spoleto in Italy, (Annali, tom. vi. p. 416.)]
+
+[Footnote 33: See the Annals of Italy, A.D. 988. For this and the
+preceding fact, Muratori himself is indebted to the Benedictine history
+of Pčre Mabillon.]
+
+[Footnote 34: Vita di Sisto Quinto, da Gregorio Leti, tom. iii. p. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 341: From the quotations in Bunsen's Dissertation, it may be
+suspected that this slow but continual process of destruction was the
+most fatal. Ancient Rome eas considered a quarry from which the church,
+the castle of the baron, or even the hovel of the peasant, might be
+repaired.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 35: Porticus ędis Concordię, quam cum primum ad urbem accessi
+vidi fere integram opere marmoreo admodum specioso: Romani postmodum ad
+calcem ędem totam et porticūs partem disjectis columnis sunt demoliti,
+(p. 12.) The temple of Concord was therefore _not_ destroyed by a
+sedition in the xiiith century, as I have read in a MS. treatise del'
+Governo civile di Rome, lent me formerly at Rome, and ascribed (I
+believe falsely) to the celebrated Gravina. Poggius likewise affirms
+that the sepulchre of Cęcilia Metella was burnt for lime, (p. 19, 20.)]
+
+[Footnote 36: Composed by Ęneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II.,
+and published by Mabillon, from a MS. of the queen of Sweden, (Musęum
+Italicum, tom. i. p. 97.)
+
+     Oblectat me, Roma, tuas spectare ruinas:
+     Ex cujus lapsū gloria prisca patet.
+     Sed tuus hic populus muris defossa vetustis
+     Calcis in obsequium marmora dura coquit.
+     Impia tercentum si sic gens egerit annos
+     Nullum hinc indicium nobilitatis erit.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Vagabamur pariter in illā urbe tam magnā; quę, cum propter
+spatium vacua videretur, populum habet immensum, (Opp p. 605 Epist.
+Familiares, ii. 14.)]
+
+[Footnote 38: These states of the population of Rome at different
+periods are derived from an ingenious treatise of the physician Lancisi,
+de Romani Cli Qualitatibus, (p. 122.)]
+
+IV. I have reserved for the last, the most potent and forcible cause of
+destruction, the domestic hostilities of the Romans themselves. Under
+the dominion of the Greek and French emperors, the peace of the city
+was disturbed by accidental, though frequent, seditions: it is from the
+decline of the latter, from the beginning of the tenth century, that we
+may date the licentiousness of private war, which violated with impunity
+the laws of the Code and the Gospel, without respecting the majesty of
+the absent sovereign, or the presence and person of the vicar of Christ.
+In a dark period of five hundred years, Rome was perpetually afflicted
+by the sanguinary quarrels of the nobles and the people, the Guelphs
+and Ghibelines, the Colonna and Ursini; and if much has escaped the
+knowledge, and much is unworthy of the notice, of history, I have
+exposed in the two preceding chapters the causes and effects of the
+public disorders. At such a time, when every quarrel was decided by the
+sword, and none could trust their lives or properties to the impotence
+of law, the powerful citizens were armed for safety, or offence, against
+the domestic enemies whom they feared or hated. Except Venice alone, the
+same dangers and designs were common to all the free republics of Italy;
+and the nobles usurped the prerogative of fortifying their houses, and
+erecting strong towers, [39] that were capable of resisting a sudden
+attack. The cities were filled with these hostile edifices; and the
+example of Lucca, which contained three hundred towers; her law, which
+confined their height to the measure of fourscore feet, may be extended
+with suitable latitude to the more opulent and populous states. The
+first step of the senator Brancaleone in the establishment of peace and
+justice, was to demolish (as we have already seen) one hundred and forty
+of the towers of Rome; and, in the last days of anarchy and discord, as
+late as the reign of Martin the Fifth, forty-four still stood in one
+of the thirteen or fourteen regions of the city. To this mischievous
+purpose the remains of antiquity were most readily adapted: the temples
+and arches afforded a broad and solid basis for the new structures of
+brick and stone; and we can name the modern turrets that were raised on
+the triumphal monuments of Julius Cęsar, Titus, and the Antonines. [40]
+With some slight alterations, a theatre, an amphitheatre, a mausoleum,
+was transformed into a strong and spacious citadel. I need not repeat,
+that the mole of Adrian has assumed the title and form of the castle
+of St. Angelo; [41] the Septizonium of Severus was capable of standing
+against a royal army; [42] the sepulchre of Metella has sunk under its
+outworks; [43] [431] the theatres of Pompey and Marcellus were occupied by
+the Savelli and Ursini families; [44] and the rough fortress has been
+gradually softened to the splendor and elegance of an Italian palace.
+Even the churches were encompassed with arms and bulwarks, and the
+military engines on the roof of St. Peter's were the terror of the
+Vatican and the scandal of the Christian world. Whatever is fortified
+will be attacked; and whatever is attacked may be destroyed. Could the
+Romans have wrested from the popes the castle of St. Angelo, they had
+resolved by a public decree to annihilate that monument of servitude.
+Every building of defence was exposed to a siege; and in every siege
+the arts and engines of destruction were laboriously employed. After the
+death of Nicholas the Fourth, Rome, without a sovereign or a senate,
+was abandoned six months to the fury of civil war. "The houses," says
+a cardinal and poet of the times, [45] "were crushed by the weight
+and velocity of enormous stones; [46] the walls were perforated by the
+strokes of the battering-ram; the towers were involved in fire and
+smoke; and the assailants were stimulated by rapine and revenge." The
+work was consummated by the tyranny of the laws; and the factions of
+Italy alternately exercised a blind and thoughtless vengeance on their
+adversaries, whose houses and castles they razed to the ground. [47] In
+comparing the _days_ of foreign, with the _ages_ of domestic, hostility,
+we must pronounce, that the latter have been far more ruinous to
+the city; and our opinion is confirmed by the evidence of Petrarch.
+"Behold," says the laureate, "the relics of Rome, the image of her
+pristine greatness! neither time nor the Barbarian can boast the merit
+of this stupendous destruction: it was perpetrated by her own citizens,
+by the most illustrious of her sons; and your ancestors (he writes to
+a noble Annabaldi) have done with the battering-ram what the Punic hero
+could not accomplish with the sword." [48] The influence of the two last
+principles of decay must in some degree be multiplied by each other;
+since the houses and towers, which were subverted by civil war, required
+by a new and perpetual supply from the monuments of antiquity. [481]
+
+[Footnote 39: All the facts that relate to the towers at Rome, and
+in other free cities of Italy, may be found in the laborious and
+entertaining compilation of Muratori, Antiquitates Italię Medii Ęvi,
+dissertat. xxvi., (tom. ii. p. 493--496, of the Latin, tom.. p. 446, of
+the Italian work.)]
+
+[Footnote 40: As for instance, templum Jani nunc dicitur, turris Centii
+Frangipanis; et sane Jano impositę turris lateritię conspicua hodieque
+vestigia supersunt, (Montfaucon Diarium Italicum, p. 186.) The anonymous
+writer (p. 285) enumerates, arcus Titi, turris Cartularia; arcus Julii
+Cęsaris et Senatorum, turres de Bratis; arcus Antonini, turris de
+Cosectis, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Hadriani molem.... magna ex parte Romanorum injuria....
+disturbavit; quod certe funditus evertissent, si eorum manibus pervia,
+absumptis grandibus saxis, reliqua moles exstisset, (Poggius de
+Varietate Fortunę, p. 12.)]
+
+[Footnote 42: Against the emperor Henry IV., (Muratori, Annali d'
+Italia, tom. ix. p. 147.)]
+
+[Footnote 43: I must copy an important passage of Montfaucon: Turris
+ingens rotunda.... Cęcilię Metellę.... sepulchrum erat, cujus muri tam
+solidi, ut spatium perquam minimum intus vacuum supersit; et _Torre
+di Bove_ dicitur, a boum capitibus muro inscriptis. Huic sequiori ęvo,
+tempore intestinorum bellorum, ceu urbecula adjuncta fuit, cujus mnia et
+turres etiamnum visuntur; ita ut sepulchrum Metellę quasi arx oppiduli
+fuerit. Ferventibus in urbe partibus, cum Ursini atque Columnenses
+mutuis cladibus perniciem inferrent civitati, in utriusve partis
+ditionem cederet magni momenti erat, (p. 142.)]
+
+[Footnote 431: This is inaccurately expressed. The sepulchre is still
+standing See Hobhouse, p. 204.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 44: See the testimonies of Donatus, Nardini, and Montfaucon.
+In the Savelli palace, the remains of the theatre of Marcellus are still
+great and conspicuous.]
+
+[Footnote 45: James, cardinal of St. George, ad velum aureum, in his
+metrical life of Pope Celestin V., (Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. i. P.
+iii. p. 621, l. i. c. l. ver. 132, &c.)
+
+     Hoc dixisse sat est, Romam caruisee Senatū
+     Mensibus exactis heu sex; belloque vocatum (_vocatos_)
+     In scelus, in socios fraternaque vulnera patres;
+     Tormentis jecisse viros immania saxa;
+     Perfodisse domus trabibus, fecisse ruinas
+     Ignibus; incensas turres, obscuraque fumo
+     Lumina vicino, quo sit spoliata supellex.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Muratori (Dissertazione sopra le Antiquitą Italiane, tom.
+i. p. 427--431) finds that stone bullets of two or three hundred pounds'
+weight were not uncommon; and they are sometimes computed at xii. or
+xviii _cantari_ of Genoa, each _cantaro_ weighing 150 pounds.]
+
+[Footnote 47: The vith law of the Visconti prohibits this common and
+mischievous practice; and strictly enjoins, that the houses of banished
+citizens should be preserved pro communi utilitate, (Gualvancus de la
+Flamma in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 1041.)]
+
+[Footnote 48: Petrarch thus addresses his friend, who, with shame
+and tears had shown him the mnia, lacerę specimen miserable Romę, and
+declared his own intention of restoring them, (Carmina Latina, l. ii.
+epist. Paulo Annibalensi, xii. p. 97, 98.)
+
+     Nec te parva manet servatis fama ruinis
+     Quanta quod integrę fuit olim gloria Romę
+     Reliquię testantur adhuc; quas longior ętas
+     Frangere non valuit; non vis aut ira cruenti Hostis,
+     ab egregiis franguntur civibus, heu! heu'
+     --------Quod _ille_ nequivit (_Hannibal_.)
+     Perficit hic aries.]
+
+[Footnote 481: Bunsen has shown that the hostile attacks of the emperor
+Henry the Fourth, but more particularly that of Robert Guiscard, who
+burned down whole districts, inflicted the worst damage on the ancient
+city Vol. i. p. 247.--M.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth Century.--Part II
+
+These general observations may be separately applied to the amphitheatre
+of Titus, which has obtained the name of the Coliseum, [49] either from
+its magnitude, or from Nero's colossal statue; an edifice, had it been
+left to time and nature, which might perhaps have claimed an eternal
+duration. The curious antiquaries, who have computed the numbers and
+seats, are disposed to believe, that above the upper row of stone steps
+the amphitheatre was encircled and elevated with several stages of
+wooden galleries, which were repeatedly consumed by fire, and restored
+by the emperors. Whatever was precious, or portable, or profane, the
+statues of gods and heroes, and the costly ornaments of sculpture which
+were cast in brass, or overspread with leaves of silver and gold,
+became the first prey of conquest or fanaticism, of the avarice of the
+Barbarians or the Christians. In the massy stones of the Coliseum, many
+holes are discerned; and the two most probable conjectures represent
+the various accidents of its decay. These stones were connected by solid
+links of brass or iron, nor had the eye of rapine overlooked the value
+of the baser metals; [50] the vacant space was converted into a fair or
+market; the artisans of the Coliseum are mentioned in an ancient survey;
+and the chasms were perforated or enlarged to receive the poles that
+supported the shops or tents of the mechanic trades. [51] Reduced to its
+naked majesty, the Flavian amphitheatre was contemplated with awe and
+admiration by the pilgrims of the North; and their rude enthusiasm
+broke forth in a sublime proverbial expression, which is recorded in the
+eighth century, in the fragments of the venerable Bede: "As long as the
+Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Coliseum falls, Rome will
+fall; when Rome falls, the world will fall." [52] In the modern system
+of war, a situation commanded by three hills would not be chosen for
+a fortress; but the strength of the walls and arches could resist
+the engines of assault; a numerous garrison might be lodged in the
+enclosure; and while one faction occupied the Vatican and the Capitol,
+the other was intrenched in the Lateran and the Coliseum. [53]
+
+[Footnote 49: The fourth part of the Verona Illustrata of the marquis
+Maffei professedly treats of amphitheatres, particularly those of
+Rome and Verona, of their dimensions, wooden galleries, &c. It is from
+magnitude that he derives the name of _Colosseum_, or _Coliseum_; since
+the same appellation was applied to the amphitheatre of Capua, without
+the aid of a colossal statue; since that of Nero was erected in the
+court (_in atrio_) of his palace, and not in the Coliseum, (P. iv. p.
+15--19, l. i. c. 4.)]
+
+[Footnote 50: Joseph Maria Suarés, a learned bishop, and the author of
+a history of Pręneste, has composed a separate dissertation on the seven
+or eight probable causes of these holes, which has been since reprinted
+in the Roman Thesaurus of Sallengre. Montfaucon (Diarium, p. 233)
+pronounces the rapine of the Barbarians to be the unam germanamque
+causam foraminum. * Note: The improbability of this theory is shown
+by Bunsen, vol. i. p. 239.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Donatus, Roma Vetus et Nova, p. 285.
+Note: Gibbon has followed Donatus, who supposes that a silk manufactory
+was established in the xiith century in the Coliseum. The Bandonarii,
+or Bandererii, were the officers who carried the standards of their
+_school_ before the pope. Hobhouse, p. 269.--M.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Quamdiu stabit Colyseus, stabit et Roma; quando cadet Coly
+seus, cadet Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus, (Beda in Excerptis
+seu Collectaneis apud Ducange Glossar. Med. et Infimę Latinitatis,
+tom. ii. p. 407, edit. Basil.) This saying must be ascribed to the
+Anglo-Saxon pilgrims who visited Rome before the year 735 the ęra of
+Bede's death; for I do not believe that our venerable monk ever passed
+the sea.]
+
+[Footnote 53: I cannot recover, in Muratori's original Lives of the
+Popes, (Script Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i.,) the passage that
+attests this hostile partition, which must be applied to the end of the
+xiith or the beginning of the xiith century. * Note: "The division is
+mentioned in Vit. Innocent. Pap. II. ex Cardinale Aragonio, (Script.
+Rer. Ital. vol. iii. P. i. p. 435,) and Gibbon might have found frequent
+other records of it at other dates." Hobhouse's Illustrations of Childe
+Harold. p. 130.--M.]
+
+The abolition at Rome of the ancient games must be understood with some
+latitude; and the carnival sports, of the Testacean mount and the Circus
+Agonalis, [54] were regulated by the law [55] or custom of the city. The
+senator presided with dignity and pomp to adjudge and distribute the
+prizes, the gold ring, or the _pallium_, [56] as it was styled, of cloth
+or silk. A tribute on the Jews supplied the annual expense; [57] and the
+races, on foot, on horseback, or in chariots, were ennobled by a tilt
+and tournament of seventy-two of the Roman youth. In the year one
+thousand three hundred and thirty-two, a bull-feast, after the fashion
+of the Moors and Spaniards, was celebrated in the Coliseum itself; and
+the living manners are painted in a diary of the times. [58] A convenient
+order of benches was restored; and a general proclamation, as far as
+Rimini and Ravenna, invited the nobles to exercise their skill and
+courage in this perilous adventure. The Roman ladies were marshalled in
+three squadrons, and seated in three balconies, which, on this day, the
+third of September, were lined with scarlet cloth. The fair Jacova di
+Rovere led the matrons from beyond the Tyber, a pure and native race,
+who still represent the features and character of antiquity. The
+remainder of the city was divided as usual between the Colonna and
+Ursini: the two factions were proud of the number and beauty of their
+female bands: the charms of Savella Ursini are mentioned with praise;
+and the Colonna regretted the absence of the youngest of their house,
+who had sprained her ankle in the garden of Nero's tower. The lots of
+the champions were drawn by an old and respectable citizen; and they
+descended into the arena, or pit, to encounter the wild bulls, on foot
+as it should seem, with a single spear. Amidst the crowd, our annalist
+has selected the names, colors, and devices, of twenty of the most
+conspicuous knights. Several of the names are the most illustrious of
+Rome and the ecclesiastical state: Malatesta, Polenta, della Valle,
+Cafarello, Savelli, Capoccio, Conti, Annibaldi, Altieri, Corsi: the
+colors were adapted to their taste and situation; the devices are
+expressive of hope or despair, and breathe the spirit of gallantry and
+arms. "I am alone, like the youngest of the Horatii," the confidence of
+an intrepid stranger: "I live disconsolate," a weeping widower: "I burn
+under the ashes," a discreet lover: "I adore Lavinia, or Lucretia," the
+ambiguous declaration of a modern passion: "My faith is as pure," the
+motto of a white livery: "Who is stronger than myself?" of a lion's
+hide: "If am drowned in blood, what a pleasant death!" the wish of
+ferocious courage. The pride or prudence of the Ursini restrained them
+from the field, which was occupied by three of their hereditary rivals,
+whose inscriptions denoted the lofty greatness of the Colonna name:
+"Though sad, I am strong:" "Strong as I am great:" "If I fall,"
+addressing himself to the spectators, "you fall with me;"--intimating
+(says the contemporary writer) that while the other families were the
+subjects of the Vatican, they alone were the supporters of the Capitol.
+The combats of the amphitheatre were dangerous and bloody. Every
+champion successively encountered a wild bull; and the victory may be
+ascribed to the quadrupeds, since no more than eleven were left on the
+field, with the loss of nine wounded and eighteen killed on the side
+of their adversaries. Some of the noblest families might mourn, but the
+pomp of the funerals, in the churches of St. John Lateran and St. Maria
+Maggiore, afforded a second holiday to the people. Doubtless it was not
+in such conflicts that the blood of the Romans should have been shed;
+yet, in blaming their rashness, we are compelled to applaud their
+gallantry; and the noble volunteers, who display their magnificence,
+and risk their lives, under the balconies of the fair, excite a more
+generous sympathy than the thousands of captives and malefactors who
+were reluctantly dragged to the scene of slaughter. [59]
+
+[Footnote 54: Although the structure of the circus Agonalis be
+destroyed, it still retains its form and name, (Agona, Nagona, Navona;)
+and the interior space affords a sufficient level for the purpose of
+racing. But the Monte Testaceo, that strange pile of broken pottery,
+seems only adapted for the annual practice of hurling from top to
+bottom some wagon-loads of live hogs for the diversion of the populace,
+(Statuta Urbis Romę, p. 186.)]
+
+[Footnote 55: See the Statuta Urbis Romę, l. iii. c. 87, 88, 89, p. 185,
+186. I have already given an idea of this municipal code. The races of
+Nagona and Monte Testaceo are likewise mentioned in the Diary of Peter
+Antonius from 1404 to 1417, (Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom.
+xxiv. p. 1124.)]
+
+[Footnote 56: The _Pallium_, which Menage so foolishly derives from
+_Palmarius_, is an easy extension of the idea and the words, from the
+robe or cloak, to the materials, and from thence to their application as
+a prize, (Muratori, dissert. xxxiii.)]
+
+[Footnote 57: For these expenses, the Jews of Rome paid each year 1130
+florins, of which the odd thirty represented the pieces of silver for
+which Judas had betrayed his Master to their ancestors. There was a
+foot-race of Jewish as well as of Christian youths, (Statuta Urbis,
+ibidem.)]
+
+[Footnote 58: This extraordinary bull-feast in the Coliseum is
+described, from tradition rather than memory, by Ludovico Buonconte
+Monaldesco, on the most ancient fragments of Roman annals, (Muratori,
+Script Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 535, 536;) and however fanciful
+they may seem, they are deeply marked with the colors of truth and
+nature.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Muratori has given a separate dissertation (the xxixth) to
+the games of the Italians in the Middle Ages.]
+
+This use of the amphitheatre was a rare, perhaps a singular, festival:
+the demand for the materials was a daily and continual want which the
+citizens could gratify without restraint or remorse. In the fourteenth
+century, a scandalous act of concord secured to both factions the
+privilege of extracting stones from the free and common quarry of the
+Coliseum; [60] and Poggius laments, that the greater part of these stones
+had been burnt to lime by the folly of the Romans. [61] To check this
+abuse, and to prevent the nocturnal crimes that might be perpetrated
+in the vast and gloomy recess, Eugenius the Fourth surrounded it with a
+wall; and, by a charter long extant, granted both the ground and edifice
+to the monks of an adjacent convent. [62] After his death, the wall was
+overthrown in a tumult of the people; and had they themselves respected
+the noblest monument of their fathers, they might have justified the
+resolve that it should never be degraded to private property. The inside
+was damaged: but in the middle of the sixteenth century, an ęra of taste
+and learning, the exterior circumference of one thousand six hundred
+and twelve feet was still entire and inviolate; a triple elevation of
+fourscore arches, which rose to the height of one hundred and eight
+feet. Of the present ruin, the nephews of Paul the Third are the guilty
+agents; and every traveller who views the Farnese palace may curse the
+sacrilege and luxury of these upstart princes. [63] A similar reproach is
+applied to the Barberini; and the repetition of injury might be dreaded
+from every reign, till the Coliseum was placed under the safeguard of
+religion by the most liberal of the pontiffs, Benedict the Fourteenth,
+who consecrated a spot which persecution and fable had stained with the
+blood of so many Christian martyrs. [64]
+
+[Footnote 60: In a concise but instructive memoir, the abbé Barthelemy
+(Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 585) has
+mentioned this agreement of the factions of the xivth century de
+Tiburtino faciendo in the Coliseum, from an original act in the archives
+of Rome.]
+
+[Footnote 61: Coliseum.... ob stultitiam Romanorum _majori ex parte_ ad
+calcem deletum, says the indignant Poggius, (p. 17:) but his expression
+too strong for the present age, must be very tenderly applied to the
+xvth century.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Of the Olivetan monks. Montfaucon (p. 142) affirms this
+fact from the memorials of Flaminius Vacca, (No. 72.) They still hoped
+on some future occasion, to revive and vindicate their grant.]
+
+[Footnote 63: After measuring the priscus amphitheatri gyrus, Montfaucon
+(p. 142) only adds that it was entire under Paul III.; tacendo clamat.
+Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. xiv. p. 371) more freely reports the
+guilt of the Farnese pope, and the indignation of the Roman people.
+Against the nephews of Urban VIII. I have no other evidence than the
+vulgar saying, "Quod non fecerunt Barbari, fecere Barberini," which was
+perhaps suggested by the resemblance of the words.]
+
+[Footnote 64: As an antiquarian and a priest, Montfaucon thus deprecates
+the ruin of the Coliseum: Quņd si non suopte merito atque pulchritudine
+dignum fuisset quod improbas arceret manus, indigna res utique in locum
+tot martyrum cruore sacrum tantopere sęvitum esse.]
+
+When Petrarch first gratified his eyes with a view of those monuments,
+whose scattered fragments so far surpass the most eloquent descriptions,
+he was astonished at the supine indifference [65] of the Romans
+themselves; [66] he was humbled rather than elated by the discovery,
+that, except his friend Rienzi, and one of the Colonna, a stranger of
+the Rhōne was more conversant with these antiquities than the nobles and
+natives of the metropolis. [67] The ignorance and credulity of the
+Romans are elaborately displayed in the old survey of the city which
+was composed about the beginning of the thirteenth century; and, without
+dwelling on the manifold errors of name and place, the legend of the
+Capitol [68] may provoke a smile of contempt and indignation. "The
+Capitol," says the anonymous writer, "is so named as being the head
+of the world; where the consuls and senators formerly resided for the
+government of the city and the globe. The strong and lofty walls were
+covered with glass and gold, and crowned with a roof of the richest and
+most curious carving. Below the citadel stood a palace, of gold for the
+greatest part, decorated with precious stones, and whose value might
+be esteemed at one third of the world itself. The statues of all the
+provinces were arranged in order, each with a small bell suspended from
+its neck; and such was the contrivance of art magic, [69] that if the
+province rebelled against Rome, the statue turned round to that quarter
+of the heavens, the bell rang, the prophet of the Capitol repeated
+the prodigy, and the senate was admonished of the impending danger." A
+second example, of less importance, though of equal absurdity, may be
+drawn from the two marble horses, led by two naked youths, who have
+since been transported from the baths of Constantine to the Quirinal
+hill. The groundless application of the names of Phidias and Praxiteles
+may perhaps be excused; but these Grecian sculptors should not have been
+removed above four hundred years from the age of Pericles to that of
+Tiberius; they should not have been transferred into two philosophers
+or magicians, whose nakedness was the symbol of truth or knowledge, who
+revealed to the emperor his most secret actions; and, after refusing
+all pecuniary recompense, solicited the honor of leaving this eternal
+monument of themselves. [70] Thus awake to the power of magic, the Romans
+were insensible to the beauties of art: no more than five statues were
+visible to the eyes of Poggius; and of the multitudes which chance or
+design had buried under the ruins, the resurrection was fortunately
+delayed till a safer and more enlightened age. [71] The Nile which now
+adorns the Vatican, had been explored by some laborers in digging a
+vineyard near the temple, or convent, of the Minerva; but the impatient
+proprietor, who was tormented by some visits of curiosity, restored the
+unprofitable marble to its former grave. [72] The discovery of a statue
+of Pompey, ten feet in length, was the occasion of a lawsuit. It had
+been found under a partition wall: the equitable judge had pronounced,
+that the head should be separated from the body to satisfy the claims of
+the contiguous owners; and the sentence would have been executed, if
+the intercession of a cardinal, and the liberality of a pope, had not
+rescued the Roman hero from the hands of his barbarous countrymen. [73]
+
+[Footnote 65: Yet the statutes of Rome (l. iii. c. 81, p. 182) impose a
+fine of 500 _aurei_ on whosoever shall demolish any ancient edifice, ne
+ruinis civitas deformetur, et ut antiqua ędificia decorem urbis perpetuo
+representent.]
+
+[Footnote 66: In his first visit to Rome (A.D. 1337. See Mémoires sur
+Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 322, &c.) Petrarch is struck mute miraculo rerum
+tantarum, et stuporis mole obrutus.... Pręsentia vero, mirum dictū nihil
+imminuit: vere major fuit Roma majoresque sunt reliquię quam rebar. Jam
+non orbem ab hāc urbe domitum, sed tam sero domitum, miror, (Opp. p.
+605, Familiares, ii. 14, Joanni Columnę.)]
+
+[Footnote 67: He excepts and praises the _rare_ knowledge of John
+Colonna. Qui enim hodie magis ignari rerum Romanarum, quam Romani cives!
+Invitus dico, nusquam minus Roma cognoscitur quam Romę.]
+
+[Footnote 68: After the description of the Capitol, he adds, statuę
+erant quot sunt mundi provincię; et habebat quęlibet tintinnabulum ad
+collum. Et erant ita per magicam artem dispositę, ut quando aliqua regio
+Romano Imperio rebellis erat, statim imago illius provincię vertebat
+se contra illam; unde tintinnabulum resonabat quod pendebat ad collum;
+tuncque vates Capitolii qui erant custodes senatui, &c. He mentions an
+example of the Saxons and Suevi, who, after they had been subdued by
+Agrippa, again rebelled: tintinnabulum sonuit; sacerdos qui erat in
+speculo in hebdomada senatoribus nuntiavit: Agrippa marched back and
+reduced the--Persians, (Anonym. in Montfaucon, p. 297, 298.)]
+
+[Footnote 69: The same writer affirms, that Virgil captus a Romanis
+invisibiliter exiit, ivitque Neapolim. A Roman magician, in the xith
+century, is introduced by William of Malmsbury, (de Gestis Regum
+Anglorum, l. ii. p. 86;) and in the time of Flaminius Vacca (No. 81,
+103) it was the vulgar belief that the strangers (the _Goths_) invoked
+the dęmons for the discovery of hidden treasures.]
+
+[Footnote 70: Anonym. p. 289. Montfaucon (p. 191) justly observes, that
+if Alexander be represented, these statues cannot be the work of Phidias
+(Olympiad lxxxiii.) or Praxiteles, (Olympiad civ.,) who lived before
+that conqueror (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 19.)]
+
+[Footnote 71: William of Malmsbury (l. ii. p. 86, 87) relates a
+marvellous discovery (A.D. 1046) of Pallas the son of Evander, who had
+been slain by Turnus; the perpetual light in his sepulchre, a Latin
+epitaph, the corpse, yet entire, of a young giant, the enormous wound
+in his breast, (pectus perforat ingens,) &c. If this fable rests on the
+slightest foundation, we may pity the bodies, as well as the statues,
+that were exposed to the air in a barbarous age.]
+
+[Footnote 72: Prope porticum Minervę, statua est recubantis, cujus caput
+integrā effigie tantę magnitudinis, ut signa omnia excedat. Quidam ad
+plantandas arbores scrobes faciens detexit. Ad hoc visendum cum plures
+in dies magis concurrerent, strepitum adeuentium fastidiumque pertęsus,
+horti patronus congestā humo texit, (Poggius de Varietate Fortunę, p.
+12.)]
+
+[Footnote 73: See the Memorials of Flaminius Vacca, No. 57, p. 11, 12,
+at the end of the Roma Antica of Nardini, (1704, in 4to.)]
+
+But the clouds of barbarism were gradually dispelled; and the peaceful
+authority of Martin the Fifth and his successors restored the ornaments
+of the city as well as the order of the ecclesiastical state. The
+improvements of Rome, since the fifteenth century, have not been the
+spontaneous produce of freedom and industry. The first and most natural
+root of a great city is the labor and populousness of the adjacent
+country, which supplies the materials of subsistence, of manufactures,
+and of foreign trade. But the greater part of the Campagna of Rome is
+reduced to a dreary and desolate wilderness: the overgrown estates of
+the princes and the clergy are cultivated by the lazy hands of indigent
+and hopeless vassals; and the scanty harvests are confined or exported
+for the benefit of a monopoly. A second and more artificial cause of the
+growth of a metropolis is the residence of a monarch, the expense of
+a luxurious court, and the tributes of dependent provinces. Those
+provinces and tributes had been lost in the fall of the empire; and
+if some streams of the silver of Peru and the gold of Brazil have been
+attracted by the Vatican, the revenues of the cardinals, the fees
+of office, the oblations of pilgrims and clients, and the remnant
+of ecclesiastical taxes, afford a poor and precarious supply, which
+maintains, however, the idleness of the court and city. The population
+of Rome, far below the measure of the great capitals of Europe, does not
+exceed one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants; [74] and within the
+spacious enclosure of the walls, the largest portion of the seven hills
+is overspread with vineyards and ruins. The beauty and splendor of the
+modern city may be ascribed to the abuses of the government, to the
+influence of superstition. Each reign (the exceptions are rare) has been
+marked by the rapid elevation of a new family, enriched by the childish
+pontiff at the expense of the church and country. The palaces of
+these fortunate nephews are the most costly monuments of elegance and
+servitude: the perfect arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting,
+have been prostituted in their service; and their galleries and gardens
+are decorated with the most precious works of antiquity, which taste or
+vanity has prompted them to collect. The ecclesiastical revenues were
+more decently employed by the popes themselves in the pomp of the
+Catholic worship; but it is superfluous to enumerate their pious
+foundations of altars, chapels, and churches, since these lesser stars
+are eclipsed by the sun of the Vatican, by the dome of St. Peter,
+the most glorious structure that ever has been applied to the use of
+religion. The fame of Julius the Second, Leo the Tenth, and Sixtus the
+Fifth, is accompanied by the superior merit of Bramante and Fontana,
+of Raphael and Michael Angelo; and the same munificence which had been
+displayed in palaces and temples was directed with equal zeal to revive
+and emulate the labors of antiquity. Prostrate obelisks were raised from
+the ground, and erected in the most conspicuous places; of the eleven
+aqueducts of the Cęsars and consuls, three were restored; the artificial
+rivers were conducted over a long series of old, or of new arches,
+to discharge into marble basins a flood of salubrious and refreshing
+waters: and the spectator, impatient to ascend the steps of St. Peter's,
+is detained by a column of Egyptian granite, which rises between two
+lofty and perpetual fountains, to the height of one hundred and twenty
+feet. The map, the description, the monuments of ancient Rome, have been
+elucidated by the diligence of the antiquarian and the student: [75] and
+the footsteps of heroes, the relics, not of superstition, but of empire,
+are devoutly visited by a new race of pilgrims from the remote, and once
+savage countries of the North.
+
+[Footnote 74: In the year 1709, the inhabitants of Rome (without
+including eight or ten thousand Jews,) amounted to 138,568 souls, (Labat
+Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom. iii. p. 217, 218.) In 1740, they
+had increased to 146,080; and in 1765, I left them, without the
+Jews 161,899. I am ignorant whether they have since continued in a
+progressive state.]
+
+[Footnote 75: The Pčre Montfaucon distributes his own observations into
+twenty days; he should have styled them weeks, or months, of his visits
+to the different parts of the city, (Diarium Italicum, c. 8--20, p.
+104--301.) That learned Benedictine reviews the topographers of ancient
+Rome; the first efforts of Blondus, Fulvius, Martianus, and Faunus, the
+superior labors of Pyrrhus Ligorius, had his learning been equal to his
+labors; the writings of Onuphrius Panvinius, qui omnes obscuravit, and
+the recent but imperfect books of Donatus and Nardini. Yet Montfaucon
+still sighs for a more complete plan and description of the old
+city, which must be attained by the three following methods: 1. The
+measurement of the space and intervals of the ruins. 2. The study of
+inscriptions, and the places where they were found. 3. The investigation
+of all the acts, charters, diaries of the middle ages, which name
+any spot or building of Rome. The laborious work, such as Montfaucon
+desired, must be promoted by princely or public munificence: but
+the great modern plan of Nolli (A.D. 1748) would furnish a solid and
+accurate basis for the ancient topography of Rome.]
+
+Of these pilgrims, and of every reader, the attention will be excited
+by a History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; the greatest,
+perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of mankind. The various
+causes and progressive effects are connected with many of the events
+most interesting in human annals: the artful policy of the Cęsars, who
+long maintained the name and image of a free republic; the disorders of
+military despotism; the rise, establishment, and sects of Christianity;
+the foundation of Constantinople; the division of the monarchy; the
+invasion and settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia; the
+institutions of the civil law; the character and religion of Mahomet;
+the temporal sovereignty of the popes; the restoration and decay of the
+Western empire of Charlemagne; the crusades of the Latins in the East:
+the conquests of the Saracens and Turks; the ruin of the Greek empire;
+the state and revolutions of Rome in the middle age. The historian
+may applaud the importance and variety of his subject; but while he is
+conscious of his own imperfections, he must often accuse the deficiency
+of his materials. It was among the ruins of the Capitol that I first
+conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised near twenty
+years of my life, and which, however inadequate to my own wishes, I
+finally deliver to the curiosity and candor of the public.
+
+Lausanne, June 27 1787
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of The Decline and Fall of
+the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon
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