HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq. 

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Vol. 6

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 theemperor Alexius [1] to the jackal, who is said to follow the steps, andto devour the leavings, of the lion. Whatever had been his fears andtoils in the passage of the first crusade, they were amply recompensedby the subsequent benefits which he derived from the exploits of theFranks. His dexterity and vigilance secured their first conquest ofNice; and from this threatening station the Turks were compelled toevacuate the neighborhood of Constantinople. While the crusaders, withblind valor, advanced into the midland countries of Asia, the craftyGreek improved the favorable occasion when the emirs of the sea-coastwere recalled to the standard of the sultan. The Turks were driven fromthe Isles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of Ephesus and Smyrna, ofSardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were restored to the empire, whichAlexius enlarged from the Hellespont to the banks of the Mæander, andthe rocky shores of Pamphylia. The churches resumed their splendor: thetowns were rebuilt and fortified; and the desert country was peopledwith colonies of Christians, who were gently removed from the moredistant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we may forgiveAlexius, if he forgot the deliverance of the holy sepulchre; but, bythe Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul reproach of treason anddesertion. They had sworn fidelity and obedience to his throne; but _he_had promised to assist their enterprise in person, or, at least, withhis troops and treasures: his base retreat dissolved their obligations;and the sword, which had been the instrument of their victory, was thepledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear thatthe emperor attempted to revive his obsolete claims over the kingdom ofJerusalem; [2] but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were more recent inhis possession, and more accessible to his arms. The great army of thecrusaders was annihilated or dispersed; the principality of Antiochwas left without a head, by the surprise and captivity of Bohemond; hisransom had oppressed him with a heavy debt; and his Norman followerswere insufficient to repel the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. Inthis distress, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of leavingthe defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful Tancred; of armingthe West against the Byzantine empire; and of executing the design whichhe inherited from the lessons and example of his father Guiscard. His embarkation was clandestine: and, if we may credit a tale of theprincess Anne, he passed the hostile sea closely secreted in a coffin. [3] But his reception in France was dignified by the public applause, andhis marriage with the king's daughter: his return was glorious, sincethe bravest spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran command; andhe repassed the Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse and fortythousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates of Europe. [4] Thestrength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius, the progress of famineand approach of winter, eluded his ambitious hopes; and the venalconfederates were seduced from his standard. A treaty of peace [5]suspended the fears of the Greeks; and they were finally delivered bythe death of an adversary, whom neither oaths could bind, nor dangerscould appal, nor prosperity could satiate. His children succeeded to theprincipality of Antioch; but the boundaries were strictly defined, thehomage was clearly stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus and Malmistrawere restored to the Byzantine emperors. Of the coast of Anatolia, theypossessed the entire circuit from Trebizond to the Syrian gates. TheSeljukian dynasty of Roum [6] was separated on all sides from the seaand their Mussulman brethren; the power of the sultan was shaken bythe victories and even the defeats of the Franks; and after the loss ofNice, they removed their throne to Cogni or Iconium, an obscure and inland town above three hundred miles from Constantinople. [7] Instead oftrembling for their capital, the Comnenian princes waged an offensivewar against the Turks, and the first crusade prevented the fall of thedeclining empire. 

[Footnote 1: Anna Comnena relates her father's conquests in Asia MinorAlexiad, l. Xi. P. 321--325, l. Xiv. P. 419; his Cilician war againstTancred and Bohemond, p. 328--324; the war of Epirus, with tediousprolixity, l. Xii. Xiii. P. 345--406; the death of Bohemond, l. Xiv. P. 419. ]

[Footnote 2: The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a nominaldependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one is stilllegible in the church of Bethlem, ) they respectfully placed beforetheir own the name of the reigning emperor, (Ducange, Dissertations surJoinville xxvii. P. 319. )]

[Footnote 3: Anna Comnena adds, that, to complete the imitation, he wasshut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder how the Barbariancould endure the confinement and putrefaction. This absurd tale isunknown to the Latins. * Note: The Greek writers, in general, Zonaras, p. 2, 303, and Glycas, p. 334 agree in this story with the princessAnne, except in the absurd addition of the dead cock. Ducange hasalready quoted some instances where a similar stratagem had been adoptedby _Norman_ princes. On this authority Wilken inclines to believe thefact. 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 sufferhim 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) isan original and curious piece, which would require, and might afford, agood map of the principality of Antioch. ]

[Footnote 6: See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes, (tom. Ii. Partii. , ) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and Damascus, as far as it may be collected from the Greeks, Latins, and Arabians. Thelast are ignorant or regardless of the affairs of _Roum_. ]

[Footnote 7: Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and byStrabo, with an ambiguous title of KwmopoliV, (Cellarius, tom. Ii. P. 121. ) Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude (plhqoV) of Jewsand Gentiles. Under the corrupt name of _Kunijah_, it is described as agreat 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 fromIbn Said. )]

In the twelfth century, three great emigrations marched by land from theWest for the relief of Palestine. The soldiers and pilgrims of Lombardy, France, and Germany were excited by the example and success of thefirst crusade. [8] Forty-eight years after the deliverance of the holysepulchre, the emperor, and the French king, Conrad the Third andLouis the Seventh, undertook the second crusade to support the fallingfortunes of the Latins. [9] A grand division of the third crusade wasled by the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, [10] who sympathized with hisbrothers of France and England in the common loss of Jerusalem. Thesethree expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of the greatnessof numbers, their passage through the Greek empire, and the natureand event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief parallel may save therepetition of a tedious narrative. However splendid it may seem, aregular story of the crusades would exhibit the perpetual return of thesame causes and effects; and the frequent attempts for the defence orrecovery of the Holy Land would appear so many faint and unsuccessfulcopies 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, (CorpusHist Germanicæ, p. 372, 373, ) Scriptores Rerum Francicarum à Duchesnetom. Iv. : Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, l. I. C. 4, 5, 6, p. 41--48, Cinnamusl. Ii. P. 41--49. ]

[Footnote 10: For the third crusade, of Frederic Barbarossa, see Nicetasin Isaac Angel. L. Ii. C. 3--8, p. 257--266. Struv. (Corpus. Hist. Germ. P. 414, ) and two historians, who probably were spectators, Tagino, (inScriptor. Freher. Tom. I. P. 406--416, edit Struv. , ) and the Anonymus deExpeditione Asiaticâ 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 firstpilgrims, the chiefs were equal in rank, though unequal in fame andmerit, to Godfrey of Bouillon and his fellow-adventurers. At theirhead were displayed the banners of the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, andAquitain; the first a descendant of Hugh Capet, the second, a fatherof the Brunswick line: the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince, transported, for the benefit of the Turks, the treasures and ornamentsof his church and palace; and the veteran crusaders, Hugh the Great andStephen of Chartres, returned to consummate their unfinished vow. Thehuge and disorderly bodies of their followers moved forward in twocolumns; and if the first consisted of two hundred and sixty thousandpersons, the second might possibly amount to sixty thousand horse andone hundred thousand foot. [11] [111] The armies of the second crusade mighthave claimed the conquest of Asia; the nobles of France and Germanywere animated by the presence of their sovereigns; and both the rank andpersonal character of Conrad and Louis gave a dignity to their cause, and a discipline to their force, which might be vainly expected from thefeudatory chiefs. The cavalry of the emperor, and that of the king, was each composed of seventy thousand knights, and their immediateattendants in the field; [12] and if the light-armed troops, the peasantinfantry, the women and children, the priests and monks, be rigorouslyexcluded, the full account will scarcely be satisfied with four hundredthousand souls. The West, from Rome to Britain, was called into action;the kings of Poland and Bohemia obeyed the summons of Conrad; and it isaffirmed by the Greeks and Latins, that, in the passage of a straitor river, the Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred thousand, desisted from the endless and formidable computation. [13] In the thirdcrusade, as the French and English preferred the navigation of theMediterranean, the host of Frederic Barbarossa was less numerous. Fifteen thousand knights, and as many squires, were the flower of theGerman chivalry: sixty thousand horse, and one hundred thousand foot, were mustered by the emperor in the plains of Hungary; and after suchrepetitions, we shall no longer be startled at the six hundred thousandpilgrims, which credulity has ascribed to this last emigration. [14] Suchextravagant reckonings prove only the astonishment of contemporaries;but their astonishment most strongly bears testimony to the existenceof an enormous, though indefinite, multitude. The Greeks might applaudtheir superior knowledge of the arts and stratagems of war, but theyconfessed the strength and courage of the French cavalry, and theinfantry of the Germans; [15] and the strangers are described as an ironrace, of gigantic stature, who darted fire from their eyes, and spiltblood like water on the ground. Under the banners of Conrad, a troop offemales rode in the attitude and armor of men; and the chief of theseAmazons, from her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of theGolden-footed Dame. 

[Footnote 11: Anne, who states these later swarms at 40, 000 horse and100, 000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their head two brothersof 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 washeaded by the archbishop of Milan and Count Albert of Blandras, whichset forth on the wild, yet, with a more disciplined army, not impolitic, enterprise of striking at the heart of the Mahometan power, by attackingthe 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 loricatiin each of the armies. ]

[Footnote 13: The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus, (ennenhkonta muriadeV, ) and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo apud Ducange adCinnamum, with the more precise sum of 900, 556. Why must therefore theversion and comment suppose the modest and insufficient reckoning of90, 000? Does not Godfrey of Viterbo (Pantheon, p. Xix. In Muratori, tom. Vii. P. 462) exclaim?----Numerum si poscere quæras, 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 ofViterbo, 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 andOrientals _Alamanni_. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus are the Polesand Bohemians; and it is for the French that he reserves the ancientappellation 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 terrorto the effeminate Greeks, and the sentiment of fear is nearly alliedto that of hatred. This aversion was suspended or softened by theapprehension of the Turkish power; and the invectives of the Latins willnot bias our more candid belief, that the emperor Alexius dissembledtheir insolence, eluded their hostilities, counselled their rashness, and opened to their ardor the road of pilgrimage and conquest. Butwhen the Turks had been driven from Nice and the sea-coast, when theByzantine princes no longer dreaded the distant sultans of Cogni, theyfelt with purer indignation the free and frequent passage of the westernBarbarians, who violated the majesty, and endangered the safety, of theempire. The second and third crusades were undertaken under the reignof Manuel Comnenus and Isaac Angelus. Of the former, the passions werealways impetuous, and often malevolent; and the natural union of acowardly and a mischievous temper was exemplified in the latter, who, without merit or mercy, could punish a tyrant, and occupy his throne. Itwas secretly, and perhaps tacitly, resolved by the prince and people todestroy, or at least to discourage, the pilgrims, by every speciesof injury and oppression; and their want of prudence and disciplinecontinually afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The Westernmonarchs had stipulated a safe passage and fair market in the countryof their Christian brethren; the treaty had been ratified by oaths andhostages; and the poorest soldier of Frederic's army was furnished withthree marks of silver to defray his expenses on the road. But everyengagement was violated by treachery and injustice; and the complaintsof the Latins are attested by the honest confession of a Greekhistorian, who has dared to prefer truth to his country. [16] Insteadof a hospitable reception, the gates of the cities, both in Europe andAsia, were closely barred against the crusaders; and the scanty pittanceof food was let down in baskets from the walls. Experience or foresightmight excuse this timid jealousy; but the common duties of humanityprohibited the mixture of chalk, or other poisonous ingredients, inthe bread; and should Manuel be acquitted of any foul connivance, heis guilty of coining base money for the purpose of trading with thepilgrims. In every step of their march they were stopped or misled: thegovernors had private orders to fortify the passes and break down thebridges against them: the stragglers were pillaged and murdered:the soldiers and horses were pierced in the woods by arrows from aninvisible hand; the sick were burnt in their beds; and the dead bodieswere hung on gibbets along the highways. These injuries exasperated thechampions 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 theverge of the Turkish frontier Barbarossa spared the guilty Philadelphia, [17] rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and deplored the hard necessitythat had stained his sword with any drops of Christian blood. In theirintercourse with the monarchs of Germany and France, the pride of theGreeks was exposed to an anxious trial. They might boast that on thefirst interview the seat of Louis was a low stool, beside the throneof Manuel; [18] but no sooner had the French king transported his armybeyond the Bosphorus, than he refused the offer of a second conference, unless his brother would meet him on equal terms, either on the sea orland. With Conrad and Frederic, the ceremonial was still nicer and moredifficult: like the successors of Constantine, they styled themselvesemperors of the Romans; [19] and firmly maintained the purity of theirtitle and dignity. The first of these representatives of Charlemagnewould only converse with Manuel on horseback in the open field; thesecond, by passing the Hellespont rather than the Bosphorus, declinedthe view of Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor, who hadbeen crowned at Rome, was reduced in the Greek epistles to the humbleappellation of _Rex_, or prince, of the Alemanni; and the vain andfeeble Angelus affected to be ignorant of the name of one of thegreatest men and monarchs of the age. While they viewed with hatred andsuspicion the Latin pilgrims the Greek emperors maintained a strict, though secret, alliance with the Turks and Saracens. Isaac Angeluscomplained, that by his friendship for the great Saladin he had incurredthe enmity of the Franks; and a mosque was founded at Constantinople forthe public exercise of the religion of Mahomet. [20]

[Footnote 16: Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but inthe third he commanded against the Franks the important post ofPhilippopolis. 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, (culpâ nostrâ. ) History would be pleasant, if we were embarrassed onlyby _such_ contradictions. It is likewise from Nicetas, that we learn thepious and humane sorrow of Frederic. ]

[Footnote 18: Cqamalh edra, which Cinnamus translates into Latin by theword Sellion. Ducange works very hard to save his king and country fromsuch ignominy, (sur Joinville, dissertat. Xxvii. P. 317--320. ) Louisafterwards insisted on a meeting in mari ex æquo, not ex equo, accordingto the laughable readings of some MSS. ]

[Footnote 19: Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum, (AnonymCanis. P. 512. ) The public and historical style of the Greeks wasRhx. .. _princeps_. Yet Cinnamus owns, that 'Imperatwr is synonymous toBasileuV. ]

[Footnote 20: In the Epistles of Innocent III. , (xiii. P. 184, ) and theHistory of Bohadin, (p. 129, 130, ) see the views of a pope and a cadhion this _singular_toleration. ]

III. The swarms that followed the first crusade were destroyed inAnatolia by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish arrows; and the princesonly escaped with some squadrons of horse to accomplish their lamentablepilgrimage. A just opinion may be formed of their knowledge andhumanity; of their knowledge, from the design of subduing Persia andChorasan in their way to Jerusalem; [201] of their humanity, from themassacre of the Christian people, a friendly city, who came out to meetthem with palms and crosses in their hands. The arms of Conrad and Louiswere less cruel and imprudent; but the event of the second crusade wasstill more ruinous to Christendom; and the Greek Manuel is accused byhis own subjects of giving seasonable intelligence to the sultan, andtreacherous guides to the Latin princes. Instead of crushing the commonfoe, by a double attack at the same time but on different sides, the Germans were urged by emulation, and the French were retarded byjealousy. Louis had scarcely passed the Bosphorus when he was met bythe returning emperor, who had lost the greater part of his army inglorious, but unsuccessful, actions on the banks of the Mæander. Thecontrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the retreat of Conrad: [202]the desertion of his independent vassals reduced him to his hereditarytroops; and he borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea thepilgrimage of Palestine. Without studying the lessons of experience, or the nature of the war, the king of France advanced through the samecountry to a similar fate. The vanguard, which bore the royal banner andthe oriflamme of St. Denys, [21] had doubled their march with rash andinconsiderate speed; and the rear, which the king commanded in person, no longer found their companions in the evening camp. In darkness anddisorder, they were encompassed, assaulted, and overwhelmed, by theinnumerable host of Turks, who, in the art of war, were superior to theChristians of the twelfth century. [211] Louis, who climbed a tree in thegeneral discomfiture, was saved by his own valor and the ignorance ofhis adversaries; and with the dawn of day he escaped alive, butalmost alone, to the camp of the vanguard. But instead of pursuing hisexpedition by land, he was rejoiced to shelter the relics of his armyin the friendly seaport of Satalia. From thence he embarked for Antioch;but so penurious was the supply of Greek vessels, that they couldonly afford room for his knights and nobles; and the plebeian crowd ofinfantry was left to perish at the foot of the Pamphylian hills. Theemperor and the king embraced and wept at Jerusalem; their martialtrains, the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to the Christianpowers of Syria, and a fruitless siege of Damascus was the final effortof the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe with thepersonal fame of piety and courage; but the Orientals had braved thesepotent monarchs of the Franks, with whose names and military forces theyhad been so often threatened. [22] Perhaps they had still more to fearfrom the veteran genius of Frederic the First, who in his youth hadserved in Asia under his uncle Conrad. Forty campaigns in Germany andItaly had taught Barbarossa to command; and his soldiers, even theprinces of the empire, were accustomed under his reign to obey. As soonas he lost sight of Philadelphia and Laodicea, the last cities of theGreek frontier, he plunged into the salt and barren desert, a land (saysthe historian) of horror and tribulation. [23] During twenty days, everystep of his fainting and sickly march was besieged by the innumerablehordes of Turkmans, [24] whose numbers and fury seemed after each defeatto multiply and inflame. The emperor continued to struggle and tosuffer; and such was the measure of his calamities, that when he reachedthe gates of Iconium, no more than one thousand knights were able toserve on horseback. By a sudden and resolute assault he defeated theguards, and stormed the capital of the sultan, [25] who humbly sued forpardon and peace. The road was now open, and Frederic advanced in acareer of triumph, till he was unfortunately drowned in a petty torrentof Cilicia. [26] The remainder of his Germans was consumed by sicknessand desertion: and the emperor's son expired with the greatest partof his Swabian vassals at the siege of Acre. Among the Latin heroes, Godfrey of Bouillon and Frederic Barbarossa could alone achieve thepassage of the Lesser Asia; yet even their success was a warning; andin the last and most experienced age of the crusades, every nationpreferred the sea to the toils and perils of an inland expedition. [27]

[Footnote 201: This was the design of the pilgrims under the archbishop ofMilan. See note, p. 102. --M. ]

[Footnote 202: Conrad had advanced with part of his army along a centralroad, between that on the coast and that which led to Iconium. Hehad been betrayed by the Greeks, his army destroyed without a battle. Wilken, vol. Iii. P. 165. Michaud, vol. Ii. P. 156. Conrad advancedagain with Louis as far as Ephesus, and from thence, at the invitationof Manuel, returned to Constantinople. It was Louis who, at the passageof the Mæander, 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 vassalsand advocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint's peculiarbanner, which they received from the abbot, was of a square form, anda red or _flaming_ color. The _oriflamme_ appeared at the head ofthe French armies from the xiith to the xvth century, (Ducange surJoinville, Dissert. Xviii. P. 244--253. )]

[Footnote 211: They descended the heights to a beautiful valley whichby beneath them. The Turks seized the heights which separated the twodivisions of the army. The modern historians represent differently theact to which Louis owed his safety, which Gibbon has described by theundignified 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 ofthe rock by the roots of a tree, and continued to defend himself tillnightfall. --M. ]

[Footnote 22: The original French histories of the second crusade arethe Gesta Ludovici VII. Published in the ivth volume of Duchesne'scollection. 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, prædones sineductore. 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 ofCanisius, Tagino and Bohadin, (Vit. Saladin. P. 119, 120, ) the ambiguousconduct of Kilidge Arslan, sultan of Cogni, who hated and feared bothSaladin and Frederic. ]

[Footnote 26: The desire of comparing two great men has tempted manywriters to drown Frederic in the River Cydnus, in which Alexander soimprudently bathed, (Q. Curt. L. Iii c. 4, 5. ) But, from the march ofthe emperor, I rather judge, that his Saleph is the Calycadnus, a streamof less fame, but of a longer course. * Note: It is now called theGirama: 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 ecclesiæ per terram nullatenus est ducenda. He resolves, by the divine aid, the objection, or rather exception, of the firstcrusade, (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. Ii. Pars ii. C. I. P. 37. )]

The enthusiasm of the first crusade is a natural and simple event, whilehope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise congenial to the spiritof the times. But the obstinate perseverance of Europe may indeed exciteour pity and admiration; that no instruction should have been drawn fromconstant and adverse experience; that the same confidence should haverepeatedly grown from the same failures; that six succeeding generationsshould have rushed headlong down the precipice that was open beforethem; and that men of every condition should have staked their publicand private fortunes on the desperate adventure of possessing orrecovering a tombstone two thousand miles from their country. In aperiod of two centuries after the council of Clermont, each spring andsummer produced a new emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence ofthe Holy Land; but the seven great armaments or crusades were excitedby some impending or recent calamity: the nations were moved by theauthority of their pontiffs, and the example of their kings: their zealwas kindled, and their reason was silenced, by the voice of their holyorators; and among these, Bernard, [28] the monk, or the saint, may claimthe most honorable place. [281] About eight years before the first conquestof Jerusalem, he was born of a noble family in Burgundy; at the age ofthree-and-twenty he buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux, then inthe primitive fervor of the institution; at the end of two years he ledforth her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux [29] inChampagne; and was content, till the hour of his death, with the humblestation of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age has abolished, with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the honors of thesespiritual heroes. The meanest among them are distinguished by someenergies of the mind; they were at least superior to their votaries anddisciples; and, in the race of superstition, they attained the prize forwhich such numbers contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernardstood high above his rivals and contemporaries; his compositions arenot devoid of wit and eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as muchreason 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 privateinheritance; by a vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyesagainst the visible world, [30] by the refusal of all ecclesiasticaldignities, the abbot of Clairvaux became the oracle of Europe, and thefounder of one hundred and sixty convents. Princes and pontiffs trembledat the freedom of his apostolical censures: France, England, and Milan, consulted and obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church: the debtwas 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 themissionary and prophet of God, who called the nations to the defence ofhis holy sepulchre. [31] At the parliament of Vezelay he spoke beforethe king; and Louis the Seventh, with his nobles, received their crossesfrom his hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easyconquest of the emperor Conrad: [311] a phlegmatic people, ignorant ofhis language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone andgestures; and his progress, from Constance to Cologne, was thetriumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own success in thedepopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and castles were emptied oftheir inhabitants; and computes, that only one man was left behind forthe consolation of seven widows. [32] The blind fanatics were desirous ofelecting him for their general; but the example of the hermit Peter wasbefore his eyes; and while he assured the crusaders of the divine favor, he prudently declined a military command, in which failure and victorywould have been almost equally disgraceful to his character. [33] Yet, after the calamitous event, the abbot of Clairvaux was loudly accusedas a false prophet, the author of the public and private mourning;his enemies exulted, his friends blushed, and his apology was slow andunsatisfactory. He justifies his obedience to the commands of the pope;expatiates on the mysterious ways of Providence; imputes the misfortunesof the pilgrims to their own sins; and modestly insinuates, that hismission had been approved by signs and wonders. [34] Had the fact beencertain, the argument would be decisive; and his faithful disciples, who enumerate twenty or thirty miracles in a day, appeal to the publicassemblies of France and Germany, in which they were performed. [35]At the present hour, such prodigies will not obtain credit beyond theprecincts of Clairvaux; but in the preternatural cures of the blind, the lame, and the sick, who were presented to the man of God, it isimpossible for us to ascertain the separate shares of accident, offancy, of imposture, and of fiction. 

[Footnote 28: The most authentic information of St. Bernard must bedrawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition by PèreMabillon, and reprinted at Venice, 1750, in six volumes in folio. Whatever friendship could recollect, or superstition could add, iscontained in the two lives, by his disciples, in the vith volume:whatever learning and criticism could ascertain, may be found in theprefaces of the Benedictine editor. ]

[Footnote 281: Gibbon, whose account of the crusades is perhaps the leastaccurate and satisfactory chapter in his History, has here failed inthat lucid arrangement, which in general gives perspicuity to his mostcondensed and crowded narratives. He has unaccountably, and to the greatperplexity of the reader, placed the preaching of St Bernard after thesecond crusade to which i led. --M. ]

[Footnote 29: Clairvaux, surnamed the valley of Absynth, is situateamong the woods near Bar sur Aube in Champagne. St. Bernard would blushat 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, (Mélangestirés d'une Grande Bibliothèque, 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 exampleof his pious apathy. Juxta lacum etiam Lausannensem totius diei itinerepergens, penitus non attendit aut se videre non vidit. Cum enim vesperefacto de eodem lacû socii colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacusille esset, et mirati sunt universi. To admire or despise St. Bernard ashe ought, the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of hislibrary the beauties of that incomparable landscape. ]

[Footnote 31: Otho Frising. L. I. C. 4. Bernard. Epist. 363, ad FrancosOrientales 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 intoGermany--to arrest the fierce and merciless persecution of the Jews, which was preparing, under the monk Radulph, to renew the frightfulscenes which had preceded the first crusade, in the flourishingcities on the banks of the Rhine. The Jews acknowledge the Christianintervention of St. Bernard. See the curious extract from the History ofJoseph ben Meir. Wilken, vol. Iii. P. 1. And p. 63. --M. ]

[Footnote 32: Mandastis et obedivi. .. . Multiplicati sunt supernumerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et _pene_ jam non inveniuntquem apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique viduæ vivisremanent viris. Bernard. Epist. P. 247. We must be careful not toconstrue _pene_ as a substantive. ]

[Footnote 33: Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante faciesarmatorum, aut quid tam remotum a professione meâ, si vires, si peritia, &c. Epist. 256, tom. I. P. 259. He speaks with contempt of the hermitPeter, vir quidam, Epist. 363. ]

[Footnote 34: Sic dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quòd a Domino sermoegressus sit? Quæ signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est quod ad istaipse respondeam; parcendum verecundiæ meæ, responde tu pro me, et pro teipso, secundum quæ vidisti et audisti, et secundum quod te inspiraveritDeus. 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 inEurope, was deplored, and perhaps arraigned, as a calamity in Asia. After the loss of Jerusalem, the Syrian fugitives diffused theirconsternation and sorrow; Bagdad mourned in the dust; the cadhiZeineddin of Damascus tore his beard in the caliph's presence; and thewhole divan shed tears at his melancholy tale. [36] But the commanders ofthe faithful could only weep; they were themselves captives in the handsof the Turks: some temporal power was restored to the last age of theAbbassides; but their humble ambition was confined to Bagdad and theadjacent province. Their tyrants, the Seljukian sultans, had followedthe common law of the Asiatic dynasties, the unceasing round of valor, greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay; their spirit and power wereunequal to the defence of religion; and, in his distant realm of Persia, the Christians were strangers to the name and the arms of Sangiar, thelast hero of his race. [37] While the sultans were involved in the silkenweb of the harem, the pious task was undertaken by their slaves, theAtabeks, [38] a Turkish name, which, like the Byzantine patricians, maybe translated by Father of the Prince. Ascansar, a valiant Turk, hadbeen the favorite of Malek Shaw, from whom he received the privilege ofstanding on the right hand of the throne; but, in the civil wars thatensued on the monarch's death, he lost his head and the government ofAleppo. His domestic emirs persevered in their attachment to his sonZenghi, who proved his first arms against the Franks in the defeatof Antioch: thirty campaigns in the service of the caliph and sultanestablished his military fame; and he was invested with the command ofMosul, as the only champion that could avenge the cause of the prophet. The public hope was not disappointed: after a siege of twenty-fivedays, he stormed the city of Edessa, and recovered from the Franks theirconquests beyond the Euphrates: [39] the martial tribes of Curdistan weresubdued by the independent sovereign of Mosul and Aleppo: his soldierswere taught to behold the camp as their only country; they trustedto his liberality for their rewards; and their absent families wereprotected by the vigilance of Zenghi. At the head of these veterans, his son Noureddin gradually united the Mahometan powers; [391] added thekingdom of Damascus to that of Aleppo, and waged a long and successfulwar against the Christians of Syria; he spread his ample reign from theTigris to the Nile, and the Abbassides rewarded their faithful servantwith all the titles and prerogatives of royalty. The Latins themselveswere compelled to own the wisdom and courage, and even the justice andpiety, of this implacable adversary. [40] In his life and government theholy warrior revived the zeal and simplicity of the first caliphs. Gold and silk were banished from his palace; the use of wine from hisdominions; the public revenue was scrupulously applied to the publicservice; and the frugal household of Noureddin was maintained fromhis legitimate share of the spoil which he vested in the purchase of aprivate estate. His favorite sultana sighed for some female object ofexpense. "Alas, " replied the king, "I fear God, and am no more than thetreasurer of the Moslems. Their property I cannot alienate; but I stillpossess three shops in the city of Hems: these you may take; and thesealone can I bestow. " His chamber of justice was the terror of the greatand the refuge of the poor. Some years after the sultan's death, anoppressed subject called aloud in the streets of Damascus, "O Noureddin, Noureddin, where art thou now? Arise, arise, to pity and protect us!" Atumult was apprehended, and a living tyrant blushed or trembled at thename 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 Bibliothèque Orientale ofD'Herbelot, and De Guignes, tom. Ii. P. I. P. 230--261. Such was hisvalor, that he was styled the second Alexander; and such the extravagantlove of his subjects, that they prayed for the sultan a year after hisdecease. Yet Sangiar might have been made prisoner by the Franks, aswell as by the Uzes. He reigned near fifty years, (A. D. 1103--1152, ) andwas a munificent patron of Persian poetry. ]

[Footnote 38: See the Chronology of the Atabeks of Irak and Syria, in DeGuignes, tom. I. P. 254; and the reigns of Zenghi and Noureddin in thesame writer, (tom. Ii. P. Ii. P. 147--221, ) who uses the Arabic text ofBenelathir, Ben Schouna and Abulfeda; the Bibliothèque Orientale, under the articles _Atabeks_ and _Noureddin_, and the Dynasties ofAbulpharagius, p. 250--267, vers. Pocock. ]

[Footnote 39: William of Tyre (l. Xvi. C. 4, 5, 7) describes the lossof Edessa, and the death of Zenghi. The corruption of his nameinto _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 fromArabian writers prefixed to the second part of the third volume ofWilken. --M. ]

[Footnote 40: Noradinus (says William of Tyre, l. Xx. 33) maximusnominis et fidei Christianæ persecutor; princeps tamen justus, vafer, providus' et secundum gentis suæ traditiones religiosus. To thisCatholic witness we may add the primate of the Jacobites, (Abulpharag. P. 267, ) quo non alter erat inter reges vitæ ratione magis laudabili, aut quæ pluribus justitiæ experimentis abundaret. The true praise ofkings 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 deprivedof Syria. In Egypt the decay of their character and influence was stillmore essential. Yet they were still revered as the descendants andsuccessors of the prophet; they maintained their invisible state in thepalace of Cairo; and their person was seldom violated by the profaneeyes of subjects or strangers. The Latin ambassadors [41] have describedtheir own introduction, through a series of gloomy passages, andglittering porticos: the scene was enlivened by the warbling of birdsand the murmur of fountains: it was enriched by a display of richfurniture and rare animals; of the Imperial treasures, something wasshown, and much was supposed; and the long order of unfolding doors wasguarded by black soldiers and domestic eunuchs. The sanctuary ofthe presence chamber was veiled with a curtain; and the vizier, whoconducted the ambassadors, laid aside the cimeter, and prostratedhimself three times on the ground; the veil was then removed; and theybeheld the commander of the faithful, who signified his pleasure to thefirst slave of the throne. But this slave was his master: the viziers orsultans had usurped the supreme administration of Egypt; the claimsof the rival candidates were decided by arms; and the name of the mostworthy, of the strongest, was inserted in the royal patent of command. The factions of Dargham and Shawer alternately expelled each other fromthe capital and country; and the weaker side implored the dangerousprotection of the sultan of Damascus, or the king of Jerusalem, theperpetual enemies of the sect and monarchy of the Fatimites. By his armsand religion the Turk was most formidable; but the Frank, in aneasy, direct march, could advance from Gaza to the Nile; while theintermediate situation of his realm compelled the troops of Noureddinto wheel round the skirts of Arabia, a long and painful circuit, whichexposed them to thirst, fatigue, and the burning winds of the desert. The secret zeal and ambition of the Turkish prince aspired to reignin Egypt under the name of the Abbassides; but the restoration of thesuppliant Shawer was the ostensible motive of the first expedition; andthe success was intrusted to the emir Shiracouh, a valiant and veterancommander. Dargham was oppressed and slain; but the ingratitude, thejealousy, the just apprehensions, of his more fortunate rival, soonprovoked him to invite the king of Jerusalem to deliver Egypt fromhis insolent benefactors. To this union the forces of Shiracouh wereunequal: he relinquished the premature conquest; and the evacuation ofBelbeis or Pelusium was the condition of his safe retreat. As the Turksdefiled before the enemy, and their general closed the rear, with avigilant eye, and a battle axe in his hand, a Frank presumed to ask himif he were not afraid of an attack. "It is doubtless in your power tobegin the attack, " replied the intrepid emir; "but rest assured, thatnot one of my soldiers will go to paradise till he has sent an infidelto hell. " His report of the riches of the land, the effeminacy of thenatives, and the disorders of the government, revived the hopesof Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad applauded the pious design; andShiracouh descended into Egypt a second time with twelve thousand Turksand eleven thousand Arabs. Yet his forces were still inferior to theconfederate armies of the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern anunusual degree of military art, in his passage of the Nile, his retreatinto Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, thesurprise of Alexandria, and his marches and countermarches in theflats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His conductwas seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve of action aMamaluke [42] exclaimed, "If we cannot wrest Egypt from the Christiandogs, why do we not renounce the honors and rewards of the sultan, andretire to labor with the peasants, or to spin with the females of theharem?" Yet, after all his efforts in the field, [43] after theobstinate defence of Alexandria [44] by his nephew Saladin, an honorablecapitulation and retreat [441] concluded the second enterprise ofShiracouh; and Noureddin reserved his abilities for a third and morepropitious occasion. It was soon offered by the ambition and avariceof Amalric or Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the perniciousmaxim, that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God. [442] Areligious warrior, the great master of the hospital, encouraged him toproceed; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or promised, afleet 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 ofDamascus; the vizier, whom danger encompassed on all sides, yielded totheir unanimous wishes, and Noureddin seemed to be tempted by thefair offer of one third of the revenue of the kingdom. The Franks werealready at the gates of Cairo; but the suburbs, the old city, were burnton their approach; they were deceived by an insidious negotiation, andtheir vessels were unable to surmount the barriers of the Nile. Theyprudently declined a contest with the Turks in the midst of a hostilecountry; and Amaury retired into Palestine with the shame and reproachthat always adhere to unsuccessful injustice. After this deliverance, Shiracouh was invested with a robe of honor, which he soon stained withthe blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while, the Turkish emirscondescended to hold the office of vizier; but this foreign conquestprecipitated the fall of the Fatimites themselves; and the bloodlesschange was accomplished by a message and a word. The caliphs had beendegraded by their own weakness and the tyranny of the viziers: theirsubjects blushed, when the descendant and successor of the prophetpresented his naked hand to the rude gripe of a Latin ambassador; theywept when he sent the hair of his women, a sad emblem of their grief andterror, to excite the pity of the sultan of Damascus. By the command ofNoureddin, and the sentence of the doctors, the holy names of Abubeker, Omar, and Othman, were solemnly restored: the caliph Mosthadi, ofBagdad, was acknowledged in the public prayers as the true commander ofthe faithful; and the green livery of the sons of Ali was exchangedfor the black color of the Abbassides. The last of his race, the caliphAdhed, who survived only ten days, expired in happy ignorance of hisfate; his treasures secured the loyalty of the soldiers, and silencedthe murmurs of the sectaries; and in all subsequent revolutions, Egypthas 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 apearl as large as a pigeon's egg, a ruby weighing seventeen Egyptiandrams, an emerald a palm and a half in length, and many vases of crystaland 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, ) servumemptitium, seu qui pretio numerato in domini possessionem cedit. Theyfrequently occur in the wars of Saladin, (Bohadin, p. 236, &c. ;) and itwas only the _Bahartie_ Mamalukes that were first introduced into Egyptby his descendants. ]

[Footnote 43: Jacobus à Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of Jerusalemno more than 374 knights. Both the Franks and the Moslems report thesuperior numbers of the enemy; a difference which may be solved bycounting or omitting the unwarlike Egyptians. ]

[Footnote 44: It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term inextent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans, and thatof the Turks, (Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. I. P. 25, 26. )]

[Footnote 441: The treaty stipulated that both the Christians andthe Arabs should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. Iii. Part ii. P. 113. --M. ]

[Footnote 442: The Knights Templars, abhorring the perfidious breach oftreaty partly, perhaps, out of jealousy of the Hospitallers, refused tojoin in this enterprise. Will. Tyre c. Xx. P. 5. Wilken, vol. Iii. Partii. 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. DesChevaliers 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 tribesof the Curds; [46] a people hardy, strong, savage impatient of the yoke, addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their nationalchiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seems toidentify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks; [47] and they stilldefend against the Ottoman Porte the antique freedom which they assertedagainst the successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them toembrace the profession of mercenary soldiers: the service of his fatherand uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin; [48] and the son ofJob or Ayud, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree, which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. [49] So unconscious wasNoureddin of the impending ruin of his house, that he constrained thereluctant youth to follow his uncle Shiracouh into Egypt: his militarycharacter was established by the defence of Alexandria; and, if we maybelieve the Latins, he solicited and obtained from the Christian generalthe _profane_honors of knighthood. [50] On the death of Shiracouh, theoffice of grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest andleast powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his father, whom heinvited to Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his equals, and attached the army to his person and interest. While Noureddinlived, these ambitious Curds were the most humble of his slaves; and theindiscreet murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, wholoudly protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would leadhis sons in chains to the foot of the throne. "Such language, " he addedin private, "was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals; butwe are now above fear and obedience; and the threats of Noureddin shallnot extort the tribute of a sugar-cane. " His seasonable death relievedthem from the odious and doubtful conflict: his son, a minor of elevenyears of age, was left for a while to the emirs of Damascus; and thenew lord of Egypt was decorated by the caliph with every title [51] thatcould sanctify his usurpation in the eyes of the people. Nor was Saladinlong content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled the Christiansof Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir: Meccaand Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protector: his brothersubdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy Arabia; and at thehour of his death, his empire was spread from the African Tripoli to theTigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia. In thejudgment of his character, the reproaches of treason and ingratitudestrike forcibly on _our_ minds, impressed, as they are, with theprinciple and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition may insome measure be excused by the revolutions of Asia, [52] which had erasedevery notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of theAtabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his benefactor; hishumane and generous behavior to the collateral branches; by _their_incapacity and _his_ merit; by the approbation of the caliph, thesole source of all legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishesand interest of the people, whose happiness is the first object ofgovernment. In _his_ virtues, and in those of his patron, they admiredthe singular union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddinand Saladin are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constantmeditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and sobercolor over their lives and actions. The youth of the latter [53] wasaddicted to wine and women: but his aspiring spirit soon renounced thetemptations of pleasure for the graver follies of fame and dominion: thegarment of Saladin was of coarse woollen; water was his only drink;and, while he emulated the temperance, he surpassed the chastity, of hisArabian prophet. Both in faith and practice he was a rigid Mussulman:he ever deplored that the defence of religion had not allowed him toaccomplish the pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five timeseach day, the sultan devoutly prayed with his brethren: the involuntaryomission of fasting was scrupulously repaid; and his perusal of theKoran, on horseback between the approaching armies, may be quoted as aproof, however ostentatious, of piety and courage. [54] The superstitiousdoctrine of the sect of Shafei was the only study that he deigned toencourage: the poets were safe in his contempt; but all profane sciencewas the object of his aversion; and a philosopher, who had invented somespeculative novelties, was seized and strangled by the command of theroyal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to the meanestsuppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was only for akingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of equity. While thedescendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed hisgarments, he was affable and patient with the meanest of his servants. So boundless was his liberality, that he distributed twelve thousandhorses at the siege of Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more thanforty-seven drams of silver and one piece of gold coin were found in thetreasury; yet, in a martial reign, the tributes were diminished, and thewealthy citizens enjoyed, without fear or danger, the fruits oftheir industry. Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were adorned by the royalfoundations of hospitals, colleges, and mosques; and Cairo was fortifiedwith 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 privateluxury. In a fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues ofSaladin commanded the esteem of the Christians; the emperor of Germanygloried in his friendship; [56] the Greek emperor solicited his alliance;[57] and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps magnified, hisfame both in the East and West. 

[Footnote 46: For the Curds, see De Guignes, tom. Ii. P. 416, 417, theIndex Geographicus of Schultens and Tavernier, Voyages, p. I. P. 308, 309. The Ayoubites descended from the tribe of the Rawadiæi, one ofthe noblest; but as _they_ were infected with the heresy of theMetempsychosis, the orthodox sultans insinuated that their descent wasonly on the mother's side, and that their ancestor was a stranger whosettled among the Curds. ]

[Footnote 47: See the ivth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The tenthousand suffered more from the arrows of the free Carduchians, thanfrom 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 lifeof Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi Bohadin, and copiousextracts from the history of his kinsman the prince Abulfeda of Hamah. To these we may add, the article of _Salaheddin_ in the BibliothèqueOrientale, and all that may be gleaned from the Dynasties ofAbulpharagius. ]

[Footnote 49: Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may share thepraise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of the founder. ]

[Footnote 50: Hist. Hierosol. In the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1152. Asimilar example may be found in Joinville, (p. 42, edition du Louvre;)but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify infidels with the order ofChristian knighthood, (Ducange, Observations, p 70. )]

[Footnote 51: In these Arabic titles, _religionis_ must always beunderstood; _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; _AbuModaffer_, pater victoriæ, Schultens, Præfat. ]

[Footnote 52: Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin, observes, from many examples, that the founders of dynasties took theguilt 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 thefirst chapter of Bohadin, (p. 4--30, ) himself an eye-witness, and anhonest bigot. ]

[Footnote 55: In many works, particularly Joseph's well in the castleof Cairo, the Sultan and the Patriarch have been confounded by theignorance 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 supportedby the discord of the Turks and Saracens; and both the Fatimite caliphsand the sultans of Damascus were tempted to sacrifice the cause of theirreligion 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 withoutnow bore the most threatening aspect; and all was feeble and hollowin the internal state of Jerusalem. After the two first Baldwins, thebrother and cousin of Godfrey of Bouillon, the sceptre devolved byfemale succession to Melisenda, daughter of the second Baldwin, and herhusband Fulk, count of Anjou, the father, by a former marriage, of ourEnglish Plantagenets. Their two sons, Baldwin the Third, and Amaury, waged a strenuous, and not unsuccessful, war against the infidels; butthe son of Amaury, Baldwin the Fourth, was deprived, by the leprosy, agift of the crusades, of the faculties both of mind and body. His sisterSybilla, the mother of Baldwin the Fifth, was his natural heiress: afterthe suspicious death of her child, she crowned her second husband, Guyof 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 choicewas generally blamed; and the most powerful vassal, Raymond countof Tripoli, who had been excluded from the succession and regency, entertained an implacable hatred against the king, and exposed his honorand conscience to the temptations of the sultan. Such were the guardiansof 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 domesticavocations of their great enemy. At length, on every side, the sinkingstate was encircled and pressed by a hostile line: and the truce wasviolated by the Franks, whose existence it protected. A soldier offortune, Reginald of Chatillon, had seized a fortress on the edge ofthe desert, from whence he pillaged the caravans, insulted Mahomet, and threatened the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin condescendedto complain; rejoiced in the denial of justice, and at the head offourscore thousand horse and foot invaded the Holy Land. The choice ofTiberias for his first siege was suggested by the count of Tripoli, towhom it belonged; and the king of Jerusalem was persuaded to drain hisgarrison, and to arm his people, for the relief of that importantplace. [59] By the advice of the perfidious Raymond, the Christians werebetrayed into a camp destitute of water: he fled on the first onset, with the curses of both nations: [60] Lusignan was overthrown, with theloss of thirty thousand men; and the wood of the true cross (a diremisfortune!) was left in the power of the infidels. [601] The royal captivewas conducted to the tent of Saladin; and as he fainted with thirst andterror, the generous victor presented him with a cup of sherbet, cooledin snow, without suffering his companion, Reginald of Chatillon, topartake of this pledge of hospitality and pardon. "The person anddignity of a king, " said the sultan, "are sacred, but this impiousrobber must instantly acknowledge the prophet, whom he has blasphemed, or meet the death which he has so often deserved. " On the proud orconscientious refusal of the Christian warrior, Saladin struck him onthe head with his cimeter, and Reginald was despatched by the guards. [61] The trembling Lusignan was sent to Damascus, to an honorable prisonand speedy ransom; but the victory was stained by the execution of twohundred and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid champions andmartyrs of their faith. The kingdom was left without a head; and ofthe two grand masters of the military orders, the one was slain and theother was a prisoner. From all the cities, both of the sea-coast and theinland country, the garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field:Tyre and Tripoli alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin; andthree months after the battle of Tiberias, he appeared in arms beforethe 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 li. , and Sanutus Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. Iii. P. Vi. Vii. Viii. Ix. ]

[Footnote 59: Templarii ut apes bombabant et Hospitalarii ut ventistridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli (the Christianlight troops) semet ipsi in ignem injiciebant, (Ispahani de ExpugnationeKudsiticâ, 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 ofRaymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he would have been asaint and a hero in the eyes of the latter. ]

[Footnote 601: Raymond's advice would have prevented the abandonment of asecure camp abounding with water near Sepphoris. The rash and insolentvalor of the master of the order of Knights Templars, which had beforeexposed the Christians to a fatal defeat at the brook Kishon, forced thefeeble king to annul the determination of a council of war, and advanceto a camp in an enclosed valley among the mountains, near Hittin, without water. Raymond did not fly till the battle was irretrievablylost, and then the Saracens seem to have opened their ranks to allowhim free passage. The charge of suggesting the siege of Tiberias appearsungrounded Raymond, no doubt, played a double part: he was a man ofstrong sagacity, who foresaw the desperate nature of the contest withSaladin, endeavored by every means to maintain the treaty, and, thoughhe joined both his arms and his still more valuable counsels to theChristian army, yet kept up a kind of amicable correspondence with theMahometans. 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 thememory of Count Raymond, who died suddenly, shortly after the battle ofHittin. He quotes a letter written in the name of Saladin by the caliphAlfdel, to show that Raymond was considered by the Mahometans theirmost dangerous and detested enemy. "No person of distinction among theChristians escaped, except the count, (of Tripoli) whom God curse. Godmade him die shortly afterwards, and sent him from the kingdom of deathto hell. "--M. ]

[Footnote 61: Benaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is celebratedby the Latins in his life and death; but the circumstances of the latterare more distinctly related by Bohadin and Abulfeda; and Joinville(Hist. De St. Louis, p. 70) alludes to the practice of Saladin, of neverputting to death a prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some ofthe companions of Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed, ina valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur, (Abulfeda, p. 32. )]

[Footnote 62: Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom andcity (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 andin heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would rekindle the lastsparks of enthusiasm; and that, of sixty thousand Christians, every manwould be a soldier, and every soldier a candidate for martyrdom. ButQueen Sybilla trembled for herself and her captive husband; and thebarons and knights, who had escaped from the sword and chains of theTurks, displayed the same factious and selfish spirit in the publicruin. The most numerous portion of the inhabitants was composed of theGreek and Oriental Christians, whom experience had taught to prefer theMahometan before the Latin yoke; [63] and the holy sepulchre attracted abase and needy crowd, without arms or courage, who subsisted only on thecharity of the pilgrims. Some feeble and hasty efforts were made for thedefence of Jerusalem: but in the space of fourteen days, a victoriousarmy drove back the sallies of the besieged, planted their engines, opened the wall to the breadth of fifteen cubits, applied theirscaling-ladders, and erected on the breach twelve banners of the prophetand 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 andhis inheritance from impious violation. Their sole hope was in the mercyof the conqueror, and to their first suppliant deputation that mercy wassternly denied. "He had sworn to avenge the patience and long-sufferingof the Moslems; the hour of forgiveness was elapsed, and the momentwas now arrived to expiate, in blood, the innocent blood which hadbeen spilt by Godfrey and the first crusaders. " But a desperate andsuccessful struggle of the Franks admonished the sultan that his triumphwas not yet secure; he listened with reverence to a solemn adjurationin the name of the common Father of mankind; and a sentiment of humansympathy mollified the rigor of fanaticism and conquest. He consentedto accept the city, and to spare the inhabitants. The Greek and OrientalChristians were permitted to live under his dominion, but it wasstipulated, that in forty days all the Franks and Latins should evacuateJerusalem, and be safely conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt;that ten pieces of gold should be paid for each man, five for eachwoman, and one for every child; and that those who were unable topurchase their freedom should be detained in perpetual slavery. Of somewriters it is a favorite and invidious theme to compare the humanity ofSaladin with the massacre of the first crusade. The difference wouldbe merely personal; but we should not forget that the Christians hadoffered to capitulate, and that the Mahometans of Jerusalem sustainedthe last extremities of an assault and storm. Justice is indeed due tothe fidelity with which the Turkish conqueror fulfilled the conditionsof the treaty; and he may be deservedly praised for the glance of pitywhich he cast on the misery of the vanquished. Instead of a rigorousexaction of his debt, he accepted a sum of thirty thousand byzants, for the ransom of seven thousand poor; two or three thousand more weredismissed by his gratuitous clemency; and the number of slaves wasreduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In this interviewwith the queen, his words, and even his tears suggested the kindestconsolations; his liberal alms were distributed among those who had beenmade orphans or widows by the fortune of war; and while the knightsof the hospital were in arms against him, he allowed their more piousbrethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care and serviceof the sick. In these acts of mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves ouradmiration and love: he was above the necessity of dissimulation, andhis stern fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather thanto affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. AfterJerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the strangers, thesultan made his triumphal entry, his banners waving in the wind, and tothe harmony of martial music. The great mosque of Omar, which hadbeen converted into a church, was again consecrated to one God and hisprophet 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 uttereda lamentable groan, which was answered by the joyful shouts of theMoslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had collected the crosses, the images, the vases, and the relics of the holy place; they wereseized by the conqueror, who was desirous of presenting the caliphwith the trophies of Christian idolatry. He was persuaded, however, to intrust them to the patriarch and prince of Antioch; and the piouspledge was redeemed by Richard of England, at the expense of fifty-twothousand byzants of gold. [64]

[Footnote 63: Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. P. 545. ]

[Footnote 64: For the conquest of Jerusalem, Bohadin (p. 67--75) andAbulfeda (p. 40--43) are our Moslem witnesses. Of the Christian, BernardThesaurarius (c. 151--167) is the most copious and authentic; seelikewise Matthew Paris, (p. 120--124. )]

The nations might fear and hope the immediate and final expulsion of theLatins from Syria; which was yet delayed above a century after the deathof Saladin. [65] In the career of victory, he was first checked by theresistance of Tyre; the troops and garrisons, which had capitulated, were imprudently conducted to the same port: their numbers were adequateto the defence of the place; and the arrival of Conrad of Montferratinspired the disorderly crowd with confidence and union. His father, avenerable pilgrim, had been made prisoner in the battle of Tiberias; butthat disaster was unknown in Italy and Greece, when the son was urgedby ambition and piety to visit the inheritance of his royal nephew, the infant Baldwin. The view of the Turkish banners warned him from thehostile coast of Jaffa; and Conrad was unanimously hailed as the princeand champion of Tyre, which was already besieged by the conqueror ofJerusalem. The firmness of his zeal, and perhaps his knowledge of agenerous foe, enabled him to brave the threats of the sultan, and todeclare, that should his aged parent be exposed before the walls, hehimself would discharge the first arrow, and glory in his descent from aChristian martyr. [66] The Egyptian fleet was allowed to enter the harborof Tyre; but the chain was suddenly drawn, and five galleys were eithersunk or taken: a thousand Turks were slain in a sally; and Saladin, after burning his engines, concluded a glorious campaign by adisgraceful retreat to Damascus. He was soon assailed by a moreformidable tempest. The pathetic narratives, and even the pictures, thatrepresented in lively colors the servitude and profanation of Jerusalem, awakened the torpid sensibility of Europe: the emperor FredericBarbarossa, and the kings of France and England, assumed the cross; andthe tardy magnitude of their armaments was anticipated by the maritimestates of the Mediterranean and the Ocean. The skilful and providentItalians first embarked in the ships of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Theywere speedily followed by the most eager pilgrims of France, Normandy, and the Western Isles. The powerful succor of Flanders, Frise, andDenmark, filled near a hundred vessels: and the Northern warriorswere distinguished in the field by a lofty stature and a ponderousbattle-axe. [67] Their increasing multitudes could no longer be confinedwithin the walls of Tyre, or remain obedient to the voice of Conrad. They pitied the misfortunes, and revered the dignity, of Lusignan, whowas released from prison, perhaps, to divide the army of the Franks. Heproposed the recovery of Ptolemais, or Acre, thirty miles to the southof Tyre; and the place was first invested by two thousand horse andthirty thousand foot under his nominal command. I shall not expatiateon the story of this memorable siege; which lasted near two years, andconsumed, in a narrow space, the forces of Europe and Asia. Never didthe flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer and more destructive rage; norcould the true believers, a common appellation, who consecrated theirown martyrs, refuse some applause to the mistaken zeal and courage oftheir adversaries. At the sound of the holy trumpet, the Moslems ofEgypt, Syria, Arabia, and the Oriental provinces, assembled under theservant of the prophet: [68] his camp was pitched and removed within afew miles of Acre; and he labored, night and day, for the relief of hisbrethren and the annoyance of the Franks. Nine battles, not unworthyof the name, were fought in the neighborhood of Mount Carmel, with suchvicissitude of fortune, that in one attack, the sultan forced his wayinto the city; that in one sally, the Christians penetrated to the royaltent. By the means of divers and pigeons, a regular correspondence wasmaintained with the besieged; and, as often as the sea was left open, the exhausted garrison was withdrawn, and a fresh supply was pouredinto the place. The Latin camp was thinned by famine, the sword and theclimate; 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 aninnumerable crusade, was advanced as far as Constantinople. The marchof the emperor filled the East with more serious alarms: the obstacleswhich he encountered in Asia, and perhaps in Greece, were raised by thepolicy of Saladin: his joy on the death of Barbarossa was measured byhis esteem; and the Christians were rather dismayed than encouragedat the sight of the duke of Swabia and his way-worn remnant of fivethousand Germans. At length, in the spring of the second year, the royalfleets of France and England cast anchor in the Bay of Acre, and thesiege was more vigorously prosecuted by the youthful emulation of thetwo kings, Philip Augustus and Richard Plantagenet. After every resourcehad been tried, and every hope was exhausted, the defenders of Acresubmitted to their fate; a capitulation was granted, but their lives andliberties were taxed at the hard conditions of a ransom of two hundredthousand pieces of gold, the deliverance of one hundred nobles, andfifteen hundred inferior captives, and the restoration of the wood ofthe holy cross. Some doubts in the agreement, and some delay in theexecution, rekindled the fury of the Franks, and three thousand Moslems, almost in the sultan's view, were beheaded by the command of thesanguinary Richard. [69] By the conquest of Acre, the Latin powersacquired a strong town and a convenient harbor; but the advantage wasmost 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 hundredthousand Christians were slain; that a far greater number was lost bydisease or shipwreck; and that a small portion of this mighty host couldreturn in safety to their native countries. [70]

[Footnote 65: The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously describedby Bernard Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terræ Sanctæ, c. 167--179, )the author of the Historia Hierosolymitana, (p. 1150--1172, inBongarsius, ) Abulfeda, (p. 43--50, ) and Bohadin, (p. 75--179. )]

[Footnote 66: I have followed a moderate and probable representation ofthe fact; by Vertot, who adopts without reluctance a romantic tale theold marquis is actually exposed to the darts of the besieged. ]

[Footnote 67: Northmanni et Gothi, et cæteri populi insularum quæinter occidentem et septentrionem sitæ sunt, gentes bellicosæ, corporisproceri mortis intrepidæ, bipennibus armatæ, navibus rotundis, quæYsnachiæ dicuntur, advectæ. ]

[Footnote 68: The historian of Jerusalem (p. 1108) adds the nations ofthe East from the Tigris to India, and the swarthy tribes of Moors andGetulians, so that Asia and Africa fought against Europe. ]

[Footnote 69: Bohadin, p. 180; and this massacre is neither denied norblamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa complentes, (theEnglish soldiers, ) says Galfridus à Vinesauf, (l. Iv. C. 4, p. 346, ) whofixes at 2700 the number of victims; who are multiplied to 5000 by RogerHoveden, (p. 697, 698. ) The humanity or avarice of Philip Augustus waspersuaded to ransom his prisoners, (Jacob à Vitriaco, l. I. C. 98, p. 1122. )]

[Footnote 70: Bohadin, p. 14. He quotes the judgment of Balianus, andthe prince of Sidon, and adds, ex illo mundo quasi hominum paucissimiredierunt. Among the Christians who died before St. John d'Acre, I findthe English names of De Ferrers earl of Derby, (Dugdale, Baronage, parti. 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 andEngland who have fought under the same banners; but the holy servicein which they were enlisted was incessantly disturbed by their nationaljealousy; and the two factions, which they protected in Palestine, weremore averse to each other than to the common enemy. In the eyes of theOrientals; the French monarch was superior in dignity and power; and, inthe 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 ofsacrificing his health and interest on a barren coast: the surrenderof Acre became the signal of his departure; nor could he justify thisunpopular desertion, by leaving the duke of Burgundy with five hundredknights and ten thousand foot, for the service of the Holy Land. Theking of England, though inferior in dignity, surpassed his rival inwealth and military renown; [72] and if heroism be confined to brutal andferocious valor, Richard Plantagenet will stand high among the heroesof the age. The memory of _Cur de Lion_, of the lion-hearted prince, waslong dear and glorious to his English subjects; and, at the distance ofsixty years, it was celebrated in proverbial sayings by the grandsons ofthe Turks and Saracens, against whom he had fought: his tremendous namewas employed by the Syrian mothers to silence their infants; and ifa 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 theMahometans was the effect of temper and zeal; but I cannot believe thata soldier, so free and fearless in the use of his lance, would havedescended to whet a dagger against his valiant brother Conrad ofMontferrat, who was slain at Tyre by some secret assassins. [74] Afterthe surrender of Acre, and the departure of Philip, the king of Englandled the crusaders to the recovery of the sea-coast; and the citiesof Cæsarea and Jaffa were added to the fragments of the kingdom ofLusignan. A march of one hundred miles from Acre to Ascalon was a greatand perpetual battle of eleven days. In the disorder of his troops, Saladin remained on the field with seventeen guards, without loweringhis standard, or suspending the sound of his brazen kettle-drum: heagain rallied and renewed the charge; and his preachers or heraldscalled aloud on the _unitarians_, manfully to stand up againstthe Christian idolaters. But the progress of these idolaters wasirresistible; and it was only by demolishing the walls and buildings ofAscalon, that the sultan could prevent them from occupying an importantfortress on the confines of Egypt. During a severe winter, the armiesslept; but in the spring, the Franks advanced within a day's marchof Jerusalem, under the leading standard of the English king; andhis active spirit intercepted a convoy, or caravan, of seven thousandcamels. Saladin [75] had fixed his station in the holy city; but thecity was struck with consternation and discord: he fasted; he prayed;he preached; he offered to share the dangers of the siege; but hisMamalukes, who remembered the fate of their companions at Acre, pressedthe 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, themiraculous, retreat of the Christians; [77] and the laurels of Richardwere blasted by the prudence, or envy, of his companions. The hero, ascending a hill, and veiling his face, exclaimed with an indignantvoice, "Those who are unwilling to rescue, are unworthy to view, thesepulchre of Christ!" After his return to Acre, on the news that Jaffawas surprised by the sultan, he sailed with some merchant vessels, andleaped foremost on the beach: the castle was relieved by his presence;and sixty thousand Turks and Saracens fled before his arms. Thediscovery of his weakness, provoked them to return in the morning; andthey found him carelessly encamped before the gates with only seventeenknights and three hundred archers. Without counting their numbers, hesustained their charge; and we learn from the evidence of his enemies, that the king of England, grasping his lance, rode furiously along theirfront, from the right to the left wing, without meeting an adversary whodared to encounter his career. [78] Am I writing the history of Orlandoor Amadis?

[Footnote 71: Magnus hic apud eos, interque reges eorum tum virtute tummajestate eminens. .. . Summus rerum arbiter, (Bohadin, p. 159. ) He doesnot seem to have known the names either of Philip or Richard. ]

[Footnote 72: Rex Angliæ, præstrenuus. .. . Rege Gallorum minor apud eoscensebatur ratione regni atque dignitatis; sed tum divitiis florentior, tum bellicâ virtute multo erat celebrior, (Bohadin, p. 161. ) A strangermight admire those riches; the national historians will tell with whatlawless 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, whoattest the confession of the assassins, that they were sent by the kingof England, (Bohadin, p. 225;) and his only defence is an absurd andpalpable forgery, (Hist. De l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. Xv. P. 155--163, ) a pretended letter from the prince of the assassins, theSheich, or old man of the mountain, who justified Richard, by assumingto 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, ) tohave employed the assassins to murder both Conrad and Richard. It is amelancholy admission, but it must be acknowledged, that such an actwould be less inconsistent with the character of the Christian than ofthe Mahometan king. --M. ]

[Footnote 75: See the distress and pious firmness of Saladin, as theyare described by Bohadin, (p. 7--9, 235--237, ) who himself haranguedthe defenders of Jerusalem; their fears were not unknown to the enemy, (Jacob. à Vitriaco, l. I. C. 100, p. 1123. Vinisauf, l. V. C. 50, p. 399. )]

[Footnote 76: Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince, remainedin 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 à Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience to depart, inalterum 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, arerelated by Bohadin (p. 184--249) and Abulfeda, (p. 51, 52. ) The authorof the Itinerary, or the monk of St. Alban's, cannot exaggerate thecadhi'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 warthere is a marvellous agreement between the Christian and Mahometanwriters, who mutually praise the virtues of their enemies. ]

During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation [79] betweenthe Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and broken, and againresumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal courtesy, the gift of snowand fruit, the exchange of Norway hawks and Arabian horses, softened theasperity of religious war: from the vicissitude of success, the monarchsmight 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 decliningstate; and they respectively suffered the evils of distant and domesticwarfare: Plantagenet was impatient to punish a perfidious rival whohad invaded Normandy in his absence; and the indefatigable sultan wassubdued by the cries of the people, who was the victim, and of thesoldiers, who were the instruments, of his martial zeal. The firstdemands of the king of England were the restitution of Jerusalem, Palestine, and the true cross; and he firmly declared, that himself andhis brother pilgrims would end their lives in the pious labor, ratherthan return to Europe with ignominy and remorse. But the conscienceof Saladin refused, without some weighty compensation, to restore theidols, or promote the idolatry, of the Christians; he asserted, withequal firmness, his religious and civil claim to the sovereignty ofPalestine; descanted on the importance and sanctity of Jerusalem; andrejected all terms of the establishment, or partition of the Latins. The marriage which Richard proposed, of his sister with the sultan'sbrother, was defeated by the difference of faith; the princess abhorredthe embraces of a Turk; and Adel, or Saphadin, would not easily renouncea plurality of wives. A personal interview was declined by Saladin, who alleged their mutual ignorance of each other's language; and thenegotiation was managed with much art and delay by their interpretersand envoys. The final agreement was equally disapproved by the zealotsof both parties, by the Roman pontiff and the caliph of Bagdad. It wasstipulated that Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre should be open, withouttribute or vexation, to the pilgrimage of the Latin Christians; that, after the demolition of Ascalon, they should inclusively possess thesea-coast from Jaffa to Tyre; that the count of Tripoli and the princeof Antioch should be comprised in the truce; and that, during threeyears and three months, all hostilities should cease. The principalchiefs of the two armies swore to the observance of the treaty; but themonarchs were satisfied with giving their word and their right hand; andthe royal majesty was excused from an oath, which always implies somesuspicion of falsehood and dishonor. Richard embarked for Europe, toseek a long captivity and a premature grave; and the space of a fewmonths concluded the life and glories of Saladin. The Orientals describehis edifying death, which happened at Damascus; but they seem ignorantof the equal distribution of his alms among the three religions, [81] orof the display of a shroud, instead of a standard, to admonish the Eastof the instability of human greatness. The unity of empire was dissolvedby his death; his sons were oppressed by the stronger arm of their uncleSaphadin; the hostile interests of the sultans of Egypt, Damascus, and Aleppo, [82] were again revived; and the Franks or Latins stood andbreathed, 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 declaredhis intention of returning with new armies to the conquest of the HolyLand; and Saladin answered the menace with a civil compliment, (Vinisaufl. Vi. C. 28, p. 423. )]

[Footnote 80: The most copious and original account of this holy war isGalfridi à Vinisauf, Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi et aliorumin Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published in the iid volumeof Gale's Scriptores Hist. Anglicanæ, (p. 247--429. ) Roger Hoveden andMatthew Paris afford likewise many valuable materials; and the formerdescribes, with accuracy, the discipline and navigation of the Englishfleet. ]

[Footnote 81: Even Vertot (tom. I. P. 251) adopts the foolish notionof the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran with his lastbreath. ]

[Footnote 82: See the succession of the Ayoubites, in Abulpharagius, (Dynast. P. 277, &c. , ) and the tables of M. De Guignes, l'Art deVérifier les Dates, and the Bibliothèque Orientale. ]

The noblest monument of a conqueror's fame, and of the terror which heinspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax which was imposed on thelaity, and even the clergy, of the Latin church, for the service of theholy war. The practice was too lucrative to expire with the occasion:and this tribute became the foundation of all the tithes and tenths onecclesiastical benefices, which have been granted by the Roman pontiffsto Catholic sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of theapostolic see. [83] This pecuniary emolument must have tended to increasethe interest of the popes in the recovery of Palestine: after the deathof Saladin, they preached the crusade, by their epistles, their legates, and their missionaries; and the accomplishment of the pious work mighthave 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 ofeighteen years, he exercised a despotic command over the emperors andkings, whom he raised and deposed; over the nations, whom an interdictof months or years deprived, for the offence of their rulers, of theexercise of Christian worship. In the council of the Lateran he actedas the ecclesiastical, almost as the temporal, sovereign of the East andWest. It was at the feet of his legate that John of England surrenderedhis crown; and Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs oversense and humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and theorigin of the inquisition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth andthe fifth, were undertaken; but, except a king of Hungary, the princesof the second order were at the head of the pilgrims: the forces wereinadequate to the design; nor did the effects correspond with the hopesand wishes of the pope and the people. The fourth crusade was divertedfrom Syria to Constantinople; and the conquest of the Greek or Romanempire by the Latins will form the proper and important subject of thenext chapter. In the fifth, [85] two hundred thousand Franks were landedat the eastern mouth of the Nile. They reasonably hoped that Palestinemust be subdued in Egypt, the seat and storehouse of the sultan; and, after a siege of sixteen months, the Moslems deplored the loss ofDamietta. But the Christian army was ruined by the pride and insolenceof the legate Pelagius, who, in the pope's name, assumed the characterof general: the sickly Franks were encompassed by the waters of the Nileand the Oriental forces; and it was by the evacuation of Damietta thatthey obtained a safe retreat, some concessions for the pilgrims, and thetardy restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The failuremay in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication of thecrusades, which were preached at the same time against the Pagans ofLivonia, the Moors of Spain, the Albigeois of France, and the kings ofSicily of the Imperial family. [86] In these meritorious services, thevolunteers might acquire at home the same spiritual indulgence, and alarger measure of temporal rewards; and even the popes, in their zealagainst a domestic enemy, were sometimes tempted to forget the distressof their Syrian brethren. From the last age of the crusades they derivedthe occasional command of an army and revenue; and some deep reasonershave suspected that the whole enterprise, from the first synod ofPlacentia, was contrived and executed by the policy of Rome. Thesuspicion is not founded, either in nature or in fact. The successorsof St. Peter appear to have followed, rather than guided, the impulseof manners and prejudice; without much foresight of the seasons, orcultivation of the soil, they gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruitsof the superstition of the times. They gathered these fruits withouttoil or personal danger: in the council of the Lateran, Innocent theThird declared an ambiguous resolution of animating the crusaders by hisexample; 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 ofthese _tenths_. A theory was started, but not pursued, that they wererightfully due to the pope, a tenth of the Levite's tenth to the highpriest, (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 Jacobusà Vitriaco, (l. Iii. P. 1125--1149, in the Gesta Dei of Bongarsius, ) aneye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius, (in Script. Muratori, tom. Vii. P. 825--846, c. 190--207, ) a contemporary, and Sanutus, (Secreta FidelCrucis, l. Iii. P. Xi. C. 4--9, ) a diligent compiler; and of theArabians Abulpharagius, (Dynast. P. 294, ) and the Extracts at the end ofJoinville, (p. 533, 537, 540, 547, &c. )]

[Footnote 86: To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, thepope (A. D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem. Fidelesmirabantur quòd tantum eis promitteret pro sanguine Christianorumeffundendo 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 ofMosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. P. 332, ) and the fine philosophy ofHume, (Hist. Of England, vol. I. P. 330. )]

The persons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims, were under theimmediate protection of the popes; and these spiritual patrons soonclaimed the prerogative of directing their operations, and enforcing, by commands and censures, the accomplishment of their vow. Frederic theSecond, [88] the grandson of Barbarossa, was successively the pupil, theenemy, and the victim of the church. At the age of twenty-one years, andin obedience to his guardian Innocent the Third, he assumed the cross;the same promise was repeated at his royal and imperial coronations; andhis marriage with the heiress of Jerusalem forever bound him to defendthe kingdom of his son Conrad. But as Frederic advanced in age andauthority, he repented of the rash engagements of his youth: his liberalsense and knowledge taught him to despise the phantoms of superstitionand the crowns of Asia: he no longer entertained the same reverencefor the successors of Innocent: and his ambition was occupied by therestoration of the Italian monarchy from Sicily to the Alps. But thesuccess of this project would have reduced the popes to their primitivesimplicity; and, after the delays and excuses of twelve years, theyurged the emperor, with entreaties and threats, to fix the time andplace of his departure for Palestine. In the harbors of Sicily andApulia, he prepared a fleet of one hundred galleys, and of one hundredvessels, that were framed to transport and land two thousand fivehundred knights, with their horses and attendants; his vassals of Naplesand Germany formed a powerful army; and the number of English crusaderswas magnified to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But theinevitable or affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumedthe strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims: the multitudewas thinned by sickness and desertion; and the sultry summer of Calabriaanticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian campaign. At length the emperorhoisted sail at Brundusium, with a fleet and army of forty thousandmen: but he kept the sea no more than three days; and his hasty retreat, which was ascribed by his friends to a grievous indisposition, wasaccused by his enemies as a voluntary and obstinate disobedience. Forsuspending his vow was Frederic excommunicated by Gregory the Ninth;for presuming, the next year, to accomplish his vow, he was againexcommunicated by the same pope. [89] While he served under the bannerof the cross, a crusade was preached against him in Italy; and afterhis return he was compelled to ask pardon for the injuries which he hadsuffered. The clergy and military orders of Palestine were previouslyinstructed to renounce his communion and dispute his commands; and inhis own kingdom, the emperor was forced to consent that the ordersof the camp should be issued in the name of God and of the Christianrepublic. Frederic entered Jerusalem in triumph; and with his own hands(for no priest would perform the office) he took the crown from thealtar of the holy sepulchre. But the patriarch cast an interdict on thechurch which his presence had profaned; and the knights of the hospitaland temple informed the sultan how easily he might be surprised andslain in his unguarded visit to the River Jordan. In such a state offanaticism and faction, victory was hopeless, and defence was difficult;but the conclusion of an advantageous peace may be imputed to thediscord of the Mahometans, and their personal esteem for the characterof Frederic. The enemy of the church is accused of maintaining with themiscreants an intercourse of hospitality and friendship unworthy of aChristian; of despising the barrenness of the land; and of indulging aprofane thought, that if Jehovah had seen the kingdom of Naples he neverwould 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 allowedto inhabit and fortify the city; an equal code of civil and religiousfreedom was ratified for the sectaries of Jesus and those of Mahomet;and, while the former worshipped at the holy sepulchre, the latter mightpray and preach in the mosque of the temple, [90] from whence the prophetundertook his nocturnal journey to heaven. The clergy deplored thisscandalous toleration; and the weaker Moslems were gradually expelled;but every rational object of the crusades was accomplished withoutbloodshed; the churches were restored, the monasteries were replenished;and, in the space of fifteen years, the Latins of Jerusalem exceeded thenumber of six thousand. This peace and prosperity, for which they wereungrateful to their benefactor, was terminated by the irruption of thestrange and savage hordes of Carizmians. [91] Flying from the arms of theMoguls, those shepherds [911] of the Caspian rolled headlong on Syria; andthe union of the Franks with the sultans of Aleppo, Hems, and Damascus, was insufficient to stem the violence of the torrent. Whatever stoodagainst them was cut off by the sword, or dragged into captivity: themilitary orders were almost exterminated in a single battle; and inthe pillage of the city, in the profanation of the holy sepulchre, theLatins confess and regret the modesty and discipline of the Turks andSaracens. 

[Footnote 88: The original materials for the crusade of Frederic II. Maybe 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, (IstoriaCivile 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 tosay: "Chino qui il capo, " &c. P. 322. ]

[Footnote 90: The clergy artfully confounded the mosque or church of thetemple with the holy sepulchre, and their wilful error has deceived bothVertot and Muratori. ]

[Footnote 91: The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is relatedby Matthew Paris, (p. 546, 547, ) and by Joinville, Nangis, and theArabians, (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530. )]

[Footnote 911: They were in alliance with Eyub, sultan of Syria. Wilkenvol. 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 coastof Africa. Twenty-eight years after his death, he was canonized at Rome;and sixty-five miracles were readily found, and solemnly attested, tojustify the claim of the royal saint. [92] The voice of history renders amore 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 privateand public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people, thefriend of his neighbors, and the terror of the infidels. Superstitionalone, in all the extent of her baleful influence, [93] corrupted hisunderstanding and his heart: his devotion stooped to admire and imitatethe begging friars of Francis and Dominic: he pursued with blindand cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of kings twicedescended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritualknight-errant. A monkish historian would have been content to applaudthe most despicable part of his character; but the noble and gallantJoinville, [94] who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, hastraced with the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues aswell as of his failings. From this intimate knowledge we may learn tosuspect the political views of depressing their great vassals, whichare so often imputed to the royal authors of the crusades. Above allthe princes of the middle ages, Louis the Ninth successfully labored torestore the prerogatives of the crown; but it was at home and not in theEast, that he acquired for himself and his posterity: his vow was theresult of enthusiasm and sickness; and if he were the promoter, he waslikewise the victim, of his holy madness. For the invasion of Egypt, France was exhausted of her troops and treasures; he covered the sea ofCyprus with eighteen hundred sails; the most modest enumeration amountsto fifty thousand men; and, if we might trust his own confession, asit is reported by Oriental vanity, he disembarked nine thousand fivehundred horse, and one hundred and thirty thousand foot, who performedtheir pilgrimage under the shadow of his power. [95]

[Footnote 92: Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St. Louis, bythe 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 laloi Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loi Crestienne ne mais que del'espée, dequoi il doit donner parmi le ventre dedens, tant comme elle ypeut 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, auLouvre, 1761) most precious for the pure and authentic text, a MS. Ofwhich has been recently discovered. The last edition proves that thehistory of St. Louis was finished A. D. 1309, without explaining, or evenadmiring, 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: CompareWilken, vol. Vii. P. 94. --M. ]

In complete armor, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis leapedforemost on the beach; and the strong city of Damietta, which had costhis predecessors a siege of sixteen months, was abandoned on the firstassault by the trembling Moslems. But Damietta was the first and thelast of his conquests; and in the fifth and sixth crusades, thesame causes, almost on the same ground, were productive of similarcalamities. [96] After a ruinous delay, which introduced into the campthe seeds of an epidemic disease, the Franks advanced from the sea-coasttowards the capital of Egypt, and strove to surmount the unseasonableinundation of the Nile, which opposed their progress. Under the eye oftheir intrepid monarch, the barons and knights of France displayed theirinvincible contempt of danger and discipline: his brother, the count ofArtois, stormed with inconsiderate valor the town of Massoura; and thecarrier pigeons announced to the inhabitants of Cairo that all was lost. But a soldier, who afterwards usurped the sceptre, rallied the flyingtroops: the main body of the Christians was far behind the vanguard; andArtois was overpowered and slain. A shower of Greek fire was incessantlypoured on the invaders; the Nile was commanded by the Egyptian galleys, the open country by the Arabs; all provisions were intercepted; each dayaggravated the sickness and famine; and about the same time a retreatwas found to be necessary and impracticable. The Oriental writersconfess, that Louis might have escaped, if he would have deserted hissubjects; he was made prisoner, with the greatest part of his nobles;all who could not redeem their lives by service or ransom were inhumanlymassacred; and the walls of Cairo were decorated with a circle ofChristian heads. [97] The king of France was loaded with chains; but thegenerous victor, a great-grandson of the brother of Saladin, sent a robeof honor to his royal captive, and his deliverance, with that of hissoldiers, was obtained by the restitution of Damietta [98] and thepayment of four hundred thousand pieces of gold. In a soft and luxuriousclimate, the degenerate children of the companions of Noureddin andSaladin were incapable of resisting the flower of European chivalry:they triumphed by the arms of their slaves or Mamalukes, the hardynatives of Tartary, who at a tender age had been purchased of the Syrianmerchants, and were educated in the camp and palace of the sultan. ButEgypt soon afforded a new example of the danger of prætorian bands;and the rage of these ferocious animals, who had been let loose on thestrangers, was provoked to devour their benefactor. In the prideof conquest, Touran Shaw, the last of his race, was murdered by hisMamalukes; and the most daring of the assassins entered the chamber ofthe captive king, with drawn cimeters, and their hands imbrued in theblood of their sultan. The firmness of Louis commanded their respect;[99] their avarice prevailed over cruelty and zeal; the treaty wasaccomplished; and the king of France, with the relics of his army, waspermitted to embark for Palestine. He wasted four years within the wallsof Acre, unable to visit Jerusalem, and unwilling to return withoutglory to his native country. 

[Footnote 96: The last editors have enriched their Joinville with largeand curious extracts from the Arabic historians, Macrizi, Abulfeda, &c. See likewise Abulpharagius, (Dynast. P. 322--325, ) who calls him by thecorrupt name of _Redefrans_. Matthew Paris (p. 683, 684) has describedthe rival folly of the French and English who fought and fell atMassoura. ]

[Footnote 97: Savary, in his agreeable Letters sur L'Egypte, has givena description of Damietta, (tom. I. Lettre xxiii. P. 274--290, ) and anarrative of the exposition of St. Louis, (xxv. P. 306--350. )]

[Footnote 98: For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants wasasked and granted; but the sultan's generosity reduced that sum to800, 000 byzants, which are valued by Joinville at 400, 000 French livresof his own time, and expressed by Matthew Paris by 100, 000 marks ofsilver, (Ducange, Dissertation xx. Sur Joinville. )]

[Footnote 99: The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their sultan isseriously attested by Joinville, (p. 77, 78, ) and does not appear to meso absurd as to M. De Voltaire, (Hist. Générale, tom. Ii. P. 386, 387. )The Mamalukes themselves were strangers, rebels, and equals: they hadfelt his valor, they hoped his conversion; and such a motion, whichwas not seconded, might be made, perhaps by a secret Christian in theirtumultuous assembly. * Note: Wilken, vol. Vii. P. 257, thinks theproposition could not have been made in earnest. --M. ]

The memory of his defeat excited Louis, after sixteen years of wisdomand repose, to undertake the seventh and last of the crusades. Hisfinances were restored, his kingdom was enlarged; a new generation ofwarriors had arisen, and he advanced with fresh confidence at the headof six thousand horse and thirty thousand foot. The loss of Antiochhad provoked the enterprise; a wild hope of baptizing the king of Tunistempted him to steer for the African coast; and the report of an immensetreasure reconciled his troops to the delay of their voyage to the HolyLand. Instead of a proselyte, he found a siege: the French panted anddied on the burning sands: St. Louis expired in his tent; and no soonerhad he closed his eyes, than his son and successor gave the signal ofthe retreat. [100] "It is thus, " says a lively writer, "that a Christianking died near the ruins of Carthage, waging war against the sectariesof Mahomet, in a land to which Dido had introduced the deities ofSyria. " [101]

[Footnote 100: See the expedition in the annals of St. Louis, by Williamde Nangis, p. 270--287; and the Arabic extracts, p. 545, 555, of theLouvre edition of Joinville. ]

[Footnote 101: Voltaire, Hist. Générale, tom. Ii. P. 391. ]

A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that whichcondemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, under thearbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the stateof Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious sultans of theBaharite and Borgite dynasties [102] were themselves promoted from theTartar and Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys, or militarychiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by theirservants. They produce the great charter of their liberties, the treatyof Selim the First with the republic: [103] and the Othman emperor stillaccepts from Egypt a slight acknowledgment of tribute and subjection. With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two dynastiesare 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: theirMamalukes were multiplied from eight hundred to twenty-five thousandhorse; and their numbers were increased by a provincial militia of onehundred and seven thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-sixthousand Arabs. [105] Princes of such power and spirit could not longendure on their coast a hostile and independent nation; and if the ruinof the Franks was postponed about forty years, they were indebted to thecares of an unsettled reign, to the invasion of the Moguls, and to theoccasional aid of some warlike pilgrims. Among these, the English readerwill observe the name of our first Edward, who assumed the cross in thelifetime of his father Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers thefuture conqueror of Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege;marched as far as Nazareth with an army of nine thousand men; emulatedthe fame of his uncle Richard; extorted, by his valor, a ten years'truce; [1051] and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of afanatic _assassin_. [106] [1061] Antioch, [107] whose situation had been lessexposed to the calamities of the holy war, was finally occupied andruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and Syria; the Latinprincipality was extinguished; and the first seat of the Christian namewas dispeopled by the slaughter of seventeen, and the captivity of onehundred, thousand of her inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea, Gabala, Tripoli, Berytus, Sidon, Tyre and Jaffa, and the strongercastles of the Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and thewhole 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 ofPtolemais. 

[Footnote 102: The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes, theBaharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites, Circassians, isgiven by Pocock (Prolegom. Ad Abulpharag. P. 6--31) and De Guignes(tom. I. P. 264--270;) their history from Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c. , to thebeginning 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 Mamalukesof Egypt, and left them in possession of arms, riches, and power. See anew Abrégé de l'Histoire Ottomane, composed in Egypt, and translated byM. Digeon, (tom. I. P. 55--58, Paris, 1781, ) a curious, authentic, andnational history. ]

[Footnote 104: Si totum quo regnum occupârunt tempus respicias, præsertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis, injuriis, ac rapinis refertum, (Al Jannabi, apud Pocock, p. 31. ) The reign ofMohammed (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 eachMamaluke may be rated at a hundred louis: and Egypt groans under theavarice and insolence of these strangers, (Voyages de Volney, tom. I. P. 89--187. )]

[Footnote 1051: Gibbon colors rather highly the success of Edward. Wilkenis more accurate vol. Vii. P. 593, &c. --M. ]

[Footnote 106: See Carte's History of England, vol. Ii. P. 165--175, andhis original authors, Thomas Wikes and Walter Hemingford, (l. Iii. C. 34, 35, ) in Gale's Collection, (tom. Ii. P. 97, 589--592. ) They are bothignorant 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 atassassination Wilken, vol. Vii. P. 602. Ptolemæus Lucensis is theearliest 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 Arabichistorians. ]

After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre, [108] which is distant about seventymiles, became the metropolis of the Latin Christians, and was adornedwith strong and stately buildings, with aqueducts, an artificial port, and a double wall. The population was increased by the incessant streamsof pilgrims and fugitives: in the pauses of hostility the trade of theEast and West was attracted to this convenient station; and the marketcould offer the produce of every clime and the interpreters of everytongue. But in this conflux of nations, every vice was propagated andpractised: of all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male andfemale inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt; nor could theabuse of religion be corrected by the discipline of law. The city hadmany sovereigns, and no government. The kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus, of the house of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the counts of Tripoliand Sidon, the great masters of the hospital, the temple, and theTeutonic order, the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, the pope'slegate, the kings of France and England, assumed an independent command:seventeen tribunals exercised the power of life and death; everycriminal was protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetualjealousy of the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood. Some adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensatedtheir want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages: nineteenSyrian merchants, who traded under the public faith, were despoiled andhanged by the Christians; and the denial of satisfaction justified thearms of the sultan Khalil. He marched against Acre, at the head of sixtythousand horse and one hundred and forty thousand foot: his train ofartillery (if I may use the word) was numerous and weighty: the separatetimbers of a single engine were transported in one hundred wagons; andthe royal historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, washimself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices of theFranks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and despair; but theywere torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs, and overwhelmed on allsides by the powers of the sultan. After a siege of thirty three days, the double wall was forced by the Moslems; the principal tower yieldedto their engines; the Mamalukes made a general assault; the city wasstormed; and death or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. The convent, or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three dayslonger; but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of fivehundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the victimsof the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold, in the unjustand cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of Jerusalem, thepatriarch and the great master of the hospital, effected their retreatto the shore; but the sea was rough, the vessels were insufficient; andgreat numbers of the fugitives were drowned before they could reach theIsle of Cyprus, which might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine. By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of theLatin cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still openedthe holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and amournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had solong resounded with the world's debate. [109]

[Footnote 108: The state of Acre is represented in all the chroniclesof te times, and most accurately in John Villani, l. Vii. C. 144, inMuratori, 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: afterthese chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize composition, "Essai sur'Influence des Croisades sur l'Europe, " par A H. L. Heeren: traduit del'Allemand par Charles Villars, Paris, 1808, ' or the original German, inHeeren'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 speedilyfollowed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches. [1]A religious and national animosity still divides the two largestcommunions of the Christian world; and the schism of Constantinople, by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most dangerousenemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman empire inthe East. 

[Footnote 1: In the successive centuries, from the ixth to the xviiith, Mosheim traces the schism of the Greeks with learning, clearness, andimpartiality; 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 theLatins has been often visible and conspicuous. It was originally derivedfrom the disdain of servitude, inflamed, after the time of Constantine, by the pride of equality or dominion; and finally exasperated by thepreference which their rebellious subjects had given to the alliance ofthe Franks. In every age the Greeks were proud of their superiority inprofane and religious knowledge: they had first received the lightof Christianity; they had pronounced the decrees of the seven generalcouncils; 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 theologicalscience. Those Barbarians despised in then turn the restless and subtilelevity of the Orientals, the authors of every heresy; and blessed theirown simplicity, which was content to hold the tradition of the apostolicchurch. Yet in the seventh century, the synods of Spain, and afterwardsof France, improved or corrupted the Nicene creed, on the mysterioussubject of the third person of the Trinity. [3] In the long controversiesof the East, the nature and generation of the Christ had beenscrupulously defined; and the well-known relation of father and sonseemed to convey a faint image to the human mind. The idea of birthwas less analogous to the Holy Spirit, who, instead of a divine gift orattribute, was considered by the Catholics as a substance, a person, agod; he was not begotten, but in the orthodox style he _proceeded_. Did he proceed from the Father alone, perhaps _by_ the Son? or from theFather _and_ the Son? The first of these opinions was asserted by theGreeks, the second by the Latins; and the addition to the Nicenecreed of the word _filioque_, kindled the flame of discord between theOriental and the Gallic churches. In the origin of the disputes theRoman pontiffs affected a character of neutrality and moderation: [4]they condemned the innovation, but they acquiesced in the sentiment, oftheir Transalpine brethren: they seemed desirous of casting a veilof silence and charity over the superfluous research; and in thecorrespondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the pope assumes theliberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the passionsand prejudices of a priest. [5] But the orthodoxy of Rome spontaneouslyobeyed the impulse of the temporal policy; and the _filioque_, whichLeo wished to erase, was transcribed in the symbol and chanted in theliturgy of the Vatican. The Nicene and Athanasian creeds are held as theCatholic faith, without which none can be saved; and both Papists andProtestants must now sustain and return the anathemas of the Greeks, whodeny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from theFather. Such articles of faith are not susceptible of treaty; but therules of discipline will vary in remote and independent churches;and the reason, even of divines, might allow, that the difference isinevitable and harmless. The craft or superstition of Rome has imposedon her priests and deacons the rigid obligation of celibacy; among theGreeks it is confined to the bishops; the loss is compensated by dignityor annihilated by age; and the parochial clergy, the papas, enjoythe conjugal society of the wives whom they have married before theirentrance into holy orders. A question concerning the _Azyms_ wasfiercely debated in the eleventh century, and the essence of theEucharist was supposed in the East and West to depend on the use ofleavened or unleavened bread. Shall I mention in a serious history thefurious reproaches that were urged against the Latins, who for a longwhile remained on the defensive? They neglected to abstain, accordingto the apostolical decree, from things strangled, and from blood: theyfasted (a Jewish observance!) on the Saturday of each week: during thefirst week of Lent they permitted the use of milk and cheese; [6] theirinfirm monks were indulged in the taste of flesh; and animal grease wassubstituted for the want of vegetable oil: the holy chrism or unctionin baptism was reserved to the episcopal order: the bishops, as thebridegrooms of their churches, were decorated with rings; their priestsshaved their faces, and baptized by a single immersion. Such were thecrimes which provoked the zeal of the patriarchs of Constantinople; andwhich were justified with equal zeal by the doctors of the Latin church. [7]

[Footnote 2: ''AndreV dussebeiV kai apotropaioi, andreV ek sktouVanadunteV, thV gar 'Esperiou moiraV uphrcon gennhmata, (Phot. Epist. P. 47, edit. Montacut. ) The Oriental patriarch continues to applythe images of thunder, earthquake, hail, wild boar, precursors ofAntichrist, &c. , &c. ]

[Footnote 3: The mysterious subject of the procession of the Holy Ghostis discussed in the historical, theological, and controversial sense, ornonsense, 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 theweight of 94 1/2 pounds of pure silver; on which he inscribed the textof both creeds, (utroque symbolo, ) pro amore et _cautelâ_ orthodoxæfidei, (Anastas. In Leon. III. In Muratori, tom. Iii. Pars. I. P. 208. )His language most clearly proves, that neither the _filioque_, nor theAthanasian creed were received at Rome about the year 830. ]

[Footnote 5: The Missi of Charlemagne pressed him to declare, that allwho rejected the _filioque_, or at least the doctrine, must be damned. All, replies the pope, are not capable of reaching the altiora mysteriaqui potuerit, et non voluerit, salvus esse non potest, (Collect. Concil. Tom. Ix. P. 277--286. ) The _potuerit_ would leave a large loophole ofsalvation!]

[Footnote 6: In France, after some harsher laws, the ecclesiasticaldiscipline is now relaxed: milk, cheese, and butter, are become aperpetual, and eggs an annual, indulgence in Lent, (Vie privée desFrançois, tom. Ii. P. 27--38. )]

[Footnote 7: The original monuments of the schism, of the charges ofthe Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles of Photius, (Epist Encyclica, ii. P. 47--61, ) and of Michael Cerularius, (CanisiiAntiq. Lectiones, tom. Iii. P. I. P. 281--324, edit. Basnage, with theprolix answer of Cardinal Humbert. )]

Bigotry and national aversion are powerful magnifiers of every objectof dispute; but the immediate cause of the schism of the Greeks maybe traced in the emulation of the leading prelates, who maintained thesupremacy of the old metropolis superior to all, and of the reigningcapital, inferior to none, in the Christian world. About the middle ofthe ninth century, Photius, [8] an ambitious layman, the captain of theguards and principal secretary, was promoted by merit and favor to themore desirable office of patriarch of Constantinople. In science, evenecclesiastical science, he surpassed the clergy of the age; and thepurity of his morals has never been impeached: but his ordination washasty, his rise was irregular; and Ignatius, his abdicated predecessor, was yet supported by the public compassion and the obstinacy of hisadherents. They appealed to the tribunal of Nicholas the First, one ofthe proudest and most aspiring of the Roman pontiffs, who embraced thewelcome opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East. Their quarrel was embittered by a conflict of jurisdiction over theking and nation of the Bulgarians; nor was their recent conversion toChristianity of much avail to either prelate, unless he could number theproselytes among the subjects of his power. With the aid of his courtthe Greek patriarch was victorious; but in the furious contest hedeposed in his turn the successor of St. Peter, and involved the Latinchurch in the reproach of heresy and schism. Photius sacrificed thepeace of the world to a short and precarious reign: he fell with hispatron, the Cæsar Bardas; and Basil the Macedonian performed an act ofjustice in the restoration of Ignatius, whose age and dignity had notbeen sufficiently respected. From his monastery, or prison, Photiussolicited the favor of the emperor by pathetic complaints and artfulflattery; and the eyes of his rival were scarcely closed, when he wasagain restored to the throne of Constantinople. After the death of Basilhe experienced the vicissitudes of courts and the ingratitude of a royalpupil: the patriarch was again deposed, and in his last solitary hourshe might regret the freedom of a secular and studious life. In eachrevolution, the breath, the nod, of the sovereign had been accepted bya submissive clergy; and a synod of three hundred bishops was alwaysprepared 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 thesynods of Constantinople were ratified by their epistles or legates. Butthe court and the people, Ignatius and Photius, were equally adverseto their claims; their ministers were insulted or imprisoned; theprocession of the Holy Ghost was forgotten; Bulgaria was forever annexedto the Byzantine throne; and the schism was prolonged by their rigidcensure of all the multiplied ordinations of an irregular patriarch. Thedarkness and corruption of the tenth century suspended the intercourse, without reconciling the minds, of the two nations. But when the Normansword restored the churches of Apulia to the jurisdiction of Rome, the departing flock was warned, by a petulant epistle of the Greekpatriarch, to avoid and abhor the errors of the Latins. The risingmajesty of Rome could no longer brook the insolence of a rebel; andMichael Cerularius was excommunicated in the heart of Constantinople bythe pope's legates. Shaking the dust from their feet, they depositedon the altar of St. Sophia a direful anathema, [10] which enumerates theseven mortal heresies of the Greeks, and devotes the guilty teachers, and their unhappy sectaries, to the eternal society of the devil and hisangels. According to the emergencies of the church and state, a friendlycorrespondence was some times resumed; the language of charity andconcord was sometimes affected; but the Greeks have never recanted theirerrors; the popes have never repealed their sentence; and from thisthunderbolt we may date the consummation of the schism. It was enlargedby each ambitious step of the Roman pontiffs: the emperors blushed andtrembled at the ignominious fate of their royal brethren of Germany; andthe people were scandalized by the temporal power and military life ofthe Latin clergy. [11]

[Footnote 8: The xth volume of the Venice edition of the Councilscontains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius: they areabridged, with a faint tinge of prejudice or prudence, by Dupin andFleury. ]

[Footnote 9: The synod of Constantinople, held in the year 869, is theviiith of the general councils, the last assembly of the East which isrecognized by the Roman church. She rejects the synods of Constantinopleof the years 867 and 879, which were, however, equally numerous andnoisy; 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 theabhorrence, not only of the church, but of the palace, for Gregory VII. , the popes and the Latin communion. The style of Cinnamus and Nicetas isstill more vehement. Yet how calm is the voice of history compared withthat of polemics!]

The aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and manifested inthe three first expeditions to the Holy Land. Alexius Comnenus contrivedthe absence at least of the formidable pilgrims: his successors, Manueland Isaac Angelus, conspired with the Moslems for the ruin of thegreatest princes of the Franks; and their crooked and malignant policywas seconded by the active and voluntary obedience of every order oftheir subjects. Of this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless beascribed to the difference of language, dress, and manners, whichsevers and alienates the nations of the globe. The pride, as well asthe prudence, of the sovereign was deeply wounded by the intrusion offoreign armies, that claimed a right of traversing his dominions, andpassing under the walls of his capital: his subjects were insultedand plundered by the rude strangers of the West: and the hatred of thepusillanimous Greeks was sharpened by secret envy of the bold and piousenterprises of the Franks. But these profane causes of national enmitywere fortified and inflamed by the venom of religious zeal. Instead ofa kind embrace, a hospitable reception from their Christian brethren ofthe East, every tongue was taught to repeat the names of schismatic andheretic, 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 oftheology, in which themselves or their teachers might differ from theOriental church. In the crusade of Louis the Seventh, the Greek clergywashed and purified the altars which had been defiled by the sacrificeof a French priest. The companions of Frederic Barbarossa deplore theinjuries which they endured, both in word and deed, from the peculiarrancor of the bishops and monks. Their prayers and sermons excited thepeople against the impious Barbarians; and the patriarch is accused ofdeclaring, that the faithful might obtain the redemption of all theirsins by the extirpation of the schismatics. [12] An enthusiast, namedDorotheus, alarmed the fears, and restored the confidence, of theemperor, by a prophetic assurance, that the German heretic, afterassaulting the gate of Blachernes, would be made a signal example ofthe divine vengeance. The passage of these mighty armies were rare andperilous events; but the crusades introduced a frequent and familiarintercourse between the two nations, which enlarged their knowledgewithout abating their prejudices. The wealth and luxury ofConstantinople demanded the productions of every climate these importswere balanced by the art and labor of her numerous inhabitants; hersituation invites the commerce of the world; and, in every period of herexistence, that commerce has been in the hands of foreigners. After thedecline of Amalphi, the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, introduced theirfactories and settlements into the capital of the empire: their serviceswere rewarded with honors and immunities; they acquired the possessionof lands and houses; their families were multiplied by marriages withthe natives; and, after the toleration of a Mahometan mosque, it wasimpossible to interdict the churches of the Roman rite. [13] The twowives 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 theprince of Antioch: he obtained for his son Alexius a daughter of PhilipAugustus, king of France; and he bestowed his own daughter on amarquis of Montferrat, who was educated and dignified in the palaceof Constantinople. The Greek encountered the arms, and aspired to theempire, of the West: he esteemed the valor, and trusted the fidelity, ofthe Franks; [15] their military talents were unfitly recompensed by thelucrative offices of judges and treasures; the policy of Manuel hadsolicited the alliance of the pope; and the popular voice accused him ofa partial bias to the nation and religion of the Latins. [16] Duringhis reign, and that of his successor Alexius, they were exposed atConstantinople to the reproach of foreigners, heretics, and favorites;and this triple guilt was severely expiated in the tumult, whichannounced the return and elevation of Andronicus. [17] The people rosein arms: from the Asiatic shore the tyrant despatched his troops andgalleys to assist the national revenge; and the hopeless resistance ofthe strangers served only to justify the rage, and sharpen the daggers, of the assassins. Neither age, nor sex, nor the ties of friendship orkindred, could save the victims of national hatred, and avarice, andreligious zeal; the Latins were slaughtered in their houses and in thestreets; their quarter was reduced to ashes; the clergy were burnt intheir churches, and the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate maybe formed of the slain from the clemency which sold above four thousandChristians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and monks werethe loudest and most active in the destruction of the schismatics;and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord, when the head of a Romancardinal, the pope's legate, was severed from his body, fastened to thetail of a dog, and dragged, with savage mockery, through the city. Themore diligent of the strangers had retreated, on the first alarm, totheir vessels, and escaped through the Hellespont from the scene ofblood. In their flight, they burnt and ravaged two hundred miles of thesea-coast; inflicted a severe revenge on the guiltless subjects of theempire; marked the priests and monks as their peculiar enemies; andcompensated, by the accumulation of plunder, the loss of their propertyand friends. On their return, they exposed to Italy and Europe thewealth and weakness, the perfidy and malice, of the Greeks, whosevices were painted as the genuine characters of heresy and schism. Thescruples of the first crusaders had neglected the fairest opportunitiesof securing, by the possession of Constantinople, the way to the HolyLand: domestic revolution invited, and almost compelled, the French andVenetians 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 Græcis injunxeratin remissionem peccatorum peregrinos occidere et delere de terra. Taginoobserves, (in Scriptores Freher. Tom. I. P. 409, edit. Struv. , )Græci hæreticos nos appellant: clerici et monachi dictis et factispersequuntur. We may add the declaration of the emperor Baldwin fifteenyears afterwards: Hæc est (_gens_) quæ Latinos omnes non hominum nomine, sed canum dignabatur; quorum sanguinem effundere penè inter meritareputabant, (Gesta Innocent. III. , c. 92, in Muratori, Script. RerumItalicarum, 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 aremarkable passage of Nicetas, (in Manuel, l. V. C. 9, ) who observesof the Venetians, kata smhnh kai jratriaV thn Kwnstantinou polin thVoikeiaV 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 utneglectis Græculis suis tanquam viris mollibus et effminatis, . .. . SolisLatinis grandia committeret negotia. .. . Erga eos profusâ liberalitateabundabat. .. . Ex omni orbe ad eum tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles etignobiles concurrebant. Willelm. Tyr. Xxii. C. 10. ]

[Footnote 16: The suspicions of the Greeks would have been confirmed, ifthey had seen the political epistles of Manuel to Pope Alexander III. , the enemy of his enemy Frederic I. , in which the emperor declares hiswish 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 AlexioComneno, c. 10) and William of Tyre, (l. Xxii. C. 10, 11, 12, 13;) thefirst soft and concise, the second loud, copious, and tragical. ]

In the series of the Byzantine princes, I have exhibited the hypocrisyand ambition, the tyranny and fall, of Andronicus, the last male of theComnenian family who reigned at Constantinople. The revolution, whichcast him headlong from the throne, saved and exalted Isaac Angelus, [18] who descended by the females from the same Imperial dynasty. Thesuccessor of a second Nero might have found it an easy task to deservethe esteem and affection of his subjects; they sometimes had reason toregret the administration of Andronicus. The sound and vigorous mind ofthe tyrant was capable of discerning the connection between his own andthe public interest; and while he was feared by all who could inspirehim with fear, the unsuspected people, and the remote provinces, mightbless the inexorable justice of their master. But his successor was vainand jealous of the supreme power, which he wanted courage and abilitiesto exercise: his vices were pernicious, his virtues (if he possessedany virtues) were useless, to mankind; and the Greeks, who imputed theircalamities to his negligence, denied him the merit of any transient oraccidental benefits of the times. Isaac slept on the throne, and wasawakened only by the sound of pleasure: his vacant hours were amused bycomedians and buffoons, and even to these buffoons the emperor was anobject of contempt: his feasts and buildings exceeded the examples ofroyal luxury: the number of his eunuchs and domestics amounted to twentythousand; and a daily sum of four thousand pounds of silver would swellto four millions sterling the annual expense of his household and table. His poverty was relieved by oppression; and the public discontent wasinflamed by equal abuses in the collection, and the application, ofthe 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; duringwhich he should extend his sway to Mount Libanus, and his conquestsbeyond the Euphrates. But his only step towards the accomplishment ofthe prediction was a splendid and scandalous embassy to Saladin, [19]to demand the restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to propose anoffensive and defensive league with the enemy of the Christian name. Inthese unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of the Greekempire crumbled into dust. The Island of Cyprus, whose name excites theideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by his namesake, a Comnenianprince; and by a strange concatenation of events, the sword of ourEnglish Richard bestowed that kingdom on the house of Lusignan, a richcompensation for the loss of Jerusalem. 

[Footnote 18: The history of the reign of Isaac Angelus is composed, inthree books, by the senator Nicetas, (p. 228--290;) and his officesof 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. Hisembassies were received with honor, dismissed without effect, andreported with scandal in the West. ]

The honor of the monarchy and the safety of the capital were deeplywounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Walachians. Since thevictory of the second Basil, they had supported, above a hundred andseventy years, the loose dominion of the Byzantine princes; but noeffectual measures had been adopted to impose the yoke of laws andmanners on these savage tribes. By the command of Isaac, their solemeans of subsistence, their flocks and herds, were driven away, tocontribute towards the pomp of the royal nuptials; and their fiercewarriors were exasperated by the denial of equal rank and pay in themilitary service. Peter and Asan, two powerful chiefs, of the raceof the ancient kings, [20] asserted their own rights and the nationalfreedom; their dæmoniac impostors proclaimed to the crowd, that theirglorious patron St. Demetrius had forever deserted the cause of theGreeks; and the conflagration spread from the banks of the Danube to thehills of Macedonia and Thrace. After some faint efforts, Isaac Angelusand his brother acquiesced in their independence; and the Imperialtroops were soon discouraged by the bones of their fellow-soldiers, thatwere scattered along the passes of Mount Hæmus. By the arms andpolicy of John or Joannices, the second kingdom of Bulgaria was firmlyestablished. 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, theroyal title, and a Latin archbishop or patriarch. The Vatican exulted inthe spiritual conquest of Bulgaria, the first object of the schism; andif the Greeks could have preserved the prerogatives of the church, theywould gladly have resigned the rights of the monarchy. 

[Footnote 20: Ducange, Familiæ, Dalmaticæ, p. 318, 319, 320. Theoriginal correspondence of the Bulgarian king and the Roman pontiff isinscribed in the Gesta Innocent. III. C. 66--82, p. 513--525. ]

[Footnote 21: The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis Romæprosapiâ genitores tui originem traxerunt. This tradition, and thestrong resemblance of the Latin and Walachian idioms, is explained by M. D'Anville, (Etats de l'Europe, p. 258--262. ) The Italian colonies ofthe Dacia of Trajan were swept away by the tide of emigration from theDanube to the Volga, and brought back by another wave from the Volga tothe Danube. Possible, but strange!]

The Bulgarians were malicious enough to pray for the long life of IsaacAngelus, the surest pledge of their freedom and prosperity. Yet theirchiefs could involve in the same indiscriminate contempt the family andnation of the emperor. "In all the Greeks, " said Asan to his troops, "the same climate, and character, and education, will be productive ofthe same fruits. Behold my lance, " continued the warrior, "and the longstreamers that float in the wind. They differ only in color; they areformed of the same silk, and fashioned by the same workman; nor has thestripe that is stained in purple any superior price or value above itsfellows. " [22] Several of these candidates for the purple successivelyrose and fell under the empire of Isaac; a general, who had repelled thefleets of Sicily, was driven to revolt and ruin by the ingratitudeof the prince; and his luxurious repose was disturbed by secretconspiracies and popular insurrections. The emperor was saved byaccident, or the merit of his servants: he was at length oppressed by anambitious brother, who, for the hope of a precarious diadem, forgot theobligations of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship. [23] While Isaacin the Thracian valleys pursued the idle and solitary pleasures of thechase, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invested with the purple, by the unanimous suffrage of the camp; the capital and the clergysubscribed to their choice; and the vanity of the new sovereign rejectedthe name of his fathers for the lofty and royal appellation of theComnenian race. On the despicable character of Isaac I have exhaustedthe language of contempt, and can only add, that, in a reign of eightyears, the baser Alexius [24] was supported by the masculine vices of hiswife Euphrosyne. The first intelligence of his fall was conveyed to thelate emperor by the hostile aspect and pursuit of the guards, no longerhis own: he fled before them above fifty miles, as far as Stagyra, in Macedonia; but the fugitive, without an object or a follower, wasarrested, brought back to Constantinople, deprived of his eyes, andconfined in a lonesome tower, on a scanty allowance of bread and water. At the moment of the revolution, his son Alexius, whom he educatedin the hope of empire, was twelve years of age. He was spared by theusurper, and reduced to attend his triumph both in peace and war; butas the army was encamped on the sea-shore, an Italian vessel facilitatedthe 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 asecure refuge in the Isle of Sicily. After saluting the threshold ofthe apostles, and imploring the protection of Pope Innocent the Third, Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his sister Irene, the wife ofPhilip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy, he heard that the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice forthe deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled in hisbosom, that their invincible swords might be employed in his father'srestoration. 

[Footnote 22: This parable is in the best savage style; but I wish theWalach had not introduced the classic name of Mysians, the experiment ofthe magnet or loadstone, and the passage of an old comic poet, (Nicetasin Alex. Comneno, l. I. P. 299, 300. )]

[Footnote 23: The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, bysupposing that he had been released by his brother Isaac from Turkishcaptivity This pathetic tale had doubtless been repeated at Venice andZara but I do not readily discover its grounds in the Greek historians. ]

[Footnote 24: See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in thethree books of Nicetas, p. 291--352. ]

About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the nobles ofFrance were again summoned to the holy war by the voice of a thirdprophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the hermit, but far belowSt. Bernard in the merit of an orator and a statesman. An illiteratepriest of the neighborhood of Paris, Fulk of Neuilly, [25] forsook hisparochial duty, to assume the more flattering character of a popular anditinerant missionary. The fame of his sanctity and miracles was spreadover the land; he declaimed, with severity and vehemence, against thevices of the age; and his sermons, which he preached in the streets ofParis, converted the robbers, the usurers, the prostitutes, and even thedoctors and scholars of the university. No sooner did Innocent the Thirdascend the chair of St. Peter, than he proclaimed in Italy, Germany, and France, the obligation of a new crusade. [26] The eloquent pontiffdescribed the ruin of Jerusalem, the triumph of the Pagans, and theshame of Christendom; his liberality proposed the redemption of sins, aplenary indulgence to all who should serve in Palestine, either a yearin person, or two years by a substitute; [27] and among his legates andorators who blew the sacred trumpet, Fulk of Neuilly was the loudest andmost successful. The situation of the principal monarchs was averse tothe pious summons. The emperor Frederic the Second was a child; and hiskingdom of Germany was disputed by the rival houses of Brunswick andSwabia, the memorable factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines. PhilipAugustus of France had performed, and could not be persuaded to renew, the perilous vow; but as he was not less ambitious of praise than ofpower, he cheerfully instituted a perpetual fund for the defence of theHoly Land Richard of England was satiated with the glory and misfortunesof his first adventure; and he presumed to deride the exhortations ofFulk of Neuilly, who was not abashed in the presence of kings. "Youadvise me, " said Plantagenet, "to dismiss my three daughters, pride, avarice, and incontinence: I bequeath them to the most deserving; mypride to the knights templars, my avarice to the monks of Cisteaux, andmy incontinence to the prelates. " But the preacher was heard and obeyedby the great vassals, the princes of the second order; and Theobald, or Thibaut, count of Champagne, was the foremost in the holy race. Thevaliant youth, at the age of twenty-two years, was encouraged by thedomestic examples of his father, who marched in the second crusade, andof his elder brother, who had ended his days in Palestine with the titleof King of Jerusalem; two thousand two hundred knights owed service andhomage to his peerage; [28] the nobles of Champagne excelled in all theexercises of war; [29] and, by his marriage with the heiress of Navarre, Thibaut could draw a band of hardy Gascons from either side of thePyrenæan mountains. His companion in arms was Louis, count of Bloisand Chartres; like himself of regal lineage, for both the princes werenephews, at the same time, of the kings of France and England. In acrowd of prelates and barons, who imitated their zeal, I distinguish thebirth and merit of Matthew of Montmorency; the famous Simon ofMontfort, the scourge of the Albigeois; and a valiant noble, Jeffrey ofVillehardouin, [30] marshal of Champagne, [31] who has condescended, inthe 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 amemorable part. At the same time, Baldwin, count of Flanders, who hadmarried the sister of Thibaut, assumed the cross at Bruges, with hisbrother Henry, and the principal knights and citizens of that rich andindustrious province. [34] The vow which the chiefs had pronounced inchurches, they ratified in tournaments; the operations of the war weredebated in full and frequent assemblies; and it was resolved to seekthe 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 manyroyal armies displayed the toils and perils of a land expedition; and ifthe Flemings dwelt along the ocean, the French barons were destitute ofships and ignorant of navigation. They embraced the wise resolution ofchoosing six deputies or representatives, of whom Villehardouin wasone, with a discretionary trust to direct the motions, and to pledge thefaith, of the whole confederacy. The maritime states of Italy were alonepossessed of the means of transporting the holy warriors with their armsand horses; and the six deputies proceeded to Venice, to solicit, onmotives of piety or interest, the aid of that powerful republic. 

[Footnote 25: See Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. Tom. Xvi. P. 26, &c. , andVillehardouin, No. 1, with the observations of Ducange, which I alwaysmean to quote with the original text. ]

[Footnote 26: The contemporary life of Pope Innocent III. , published byBaluze and Muratori, (Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. Iii. Pars i. P. 486--568), is most valuable for the important and original documentswhich 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 esmeurentmult li cuers des genz, et mult s'en croisierent, porce que li pardonsere si gran. Villehardouin, No. 1. Our philosophers may refine on thecauses of the crusades, but such were the genuine feelings of a Frenchknight. ]

[Footnote 28: This number of fiefs (of which 1800 owed liege homage) wasenrolled 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. .. . Militiæ privilegio singularius excellit. .. . In tyrociniis. .. . Prolusione armorum, &c. , Duncage, p. 249, from the oldChronicle of Jerusalem, A. D. 1177--1199. ]

[Footnote 30: The name of Villehardouin was taken from a village andcastle in the diocese of Troyes, near the River Aube, between Barand Arcis. The family was ancient and noble; the elder branch of ourhistorian existed after the year 1400, the younger, which acquiredthe 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, inthe year 1356, it was in the family of Conflans; but these provincialhave 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. Thepresident Des Brosses (Méchanisme des Langues, tom. Ii. P. 83) givesit as the example of a language which has ceased to be French, and isunderstood 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 thanMr. Wood's on Homer) that he could neither read nor write. Yet Champagnemay boast of the two first historians, the noble authors of Frenchprose, Villehardouin and Joinville. ]

[Footnote 34: The crusade and reigns of the counts of Flanders, Baldwinand his brother Henry, are the subject of a particular history by theJesuit 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 ofthe Venetians from the fallen cities of the continent, and their obscureshelter in the chain of islands that line the extremity of the AdriaticGulf. In the midst of the waters, free, indigent, laborious, andinaccessible, they gradually coalesced into a republic: the firstfoundations of Venice were laid in the Island of Rialto; and the annualelection of the twelve tribunes was superseded by the permanent officeof a duke or doge. On the verge of the two empires, the Venetians exultin the belief of primitive and perpetual independence. [36] Against theLatins, their antique freedom has been asserted by the sword, and maybe justified by the pen. Charlemagne himself resigned all claims ofsovereignty to the islands of the Adriatic Gulf: his son Pepin wasrepulsed in the attacks of the _lagunas_ or canals, too deep for thecavalry, and too shallow for the vessels; and in every age, under theGerman Cæsars, the lands of the republic have been clearly distinguishedfrom the kingdom of Italy. But the inhabitants of Venice were consideredby themselves, by strangers, and by their sovereigns, as an inalienableportion of the Greek empire: [37] in the ninth and tenth centuries, theproofs of their subjection are numerous and unquestionable; and thevain titles, the servile honors, of the Byzantine court, so ambitiouslysolicited by their dukes, would have degraded the magistrates of a freepeople. But the bands of this dependence, which was never absolute orrigid, were imperceptibly relaxed by the ambition of Venice and theweakness of Constantinople. Obedience was softened into respect, privilege ripened into prerogative, and the freedom of domesticgovernment was fortified by the independence of foreign dominion. Themaritime cities of Istria and Dalmatia bowed to the sovereigns ofthe Adriatic; and when they armed against the Normans in the cause ofAlexius, the emperor applied, not to the duty of his subjects, but tothe gratitude and generosity of his faithful allies. The sea was theirpatrimony: [38] the western parts of the Mediterranean, from Tuscany toGibraltar, were indeed abandoned to their rivals of Pisa and Genoa; butthe Venetians acquired an early and lucrative share of the commerce ofGreece and Egypt. Their riches increased with the increasing demand ofEurope; their manufactures of silk and glass, perhaps the institution oftheir bank, are of high antiquity; and they enjoyed the fruits of theirindustry in the magnificence of public and private life. To assert herflag, to avenge her injuries, to protect the freedom of navigation, the republic could launch and man a fleet of a hundred galleys; and theGreeks, the Saracens, and the Normans, were encountered by her navalarms. The Franks of Syria were assisted by the Venetians in thereduction of the sea coast; but their zeal was neither blind nordisinterested; and in the conquest of Tyre, they shared the sovereigntyof a city, the first seat of the commerce of the world. The policy ofVenice was marked by the avarice of a trading, and the insolence of amaritime, power; yet her ambition was prudent: nor did she often forgetthat if armed galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant vesselswere the cause and supply, of her greatness. In her religion, sheavoided the schisms of the Greeks, without yielding a servile obedienceto the Roman pontiff; and a free intercourse with the infidels of everyclime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of superstition. Herprimitive government was a loose mixture of democracy and monarchy; thedoge was elected by the votes of the general assembly; as long as hewas popular and successful, he reigned with the pomp and authority of aprince; 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 jealousaristocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant, and the people toa cipher. [39]

[Footnote 35: History, &c. , vol. Iii. P. 446, 447. ]

[Footnote 36: The foundation and independence of Venice, and Pepin'sinvasion, are discussed by Pagi (Critica, tom. Iii. A. D. 81, No. 4, &c. ) and Beretti, (Dissert. Chorograph. Italiæ Medii Ævi, in Muratori, Script. Tom. X. P. 153. ) The two critics have a slight bias, theFrenchman adverse, the Italian favorable, to the republic. ]

[Footnote 37: When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right ofsovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, oti hmeiV douloiJelomen einai tou 'Rwmaiwn basilewV, (Constantin. Porphyrogenit. DeAdministrat. Imperii, pars ii. C. 28, p. 85;) and the report of theixth establishes the fact of the xth century, which is confirmed by theembassy of Liutprand of Cremona. The annual tribute, which the emperorallows them to pay to the king of Italy, alleviates, by doubling, theirservitude; but the hateful word douloi must be translated, as in thecharter of 827, (Laugier, Hist. De Venice, tom. I. P. 67, &c. , ) by thesofter appellation of _subditi_, or _fideles_. ]

[Footnote 38: See the xxvth and xxxth dissertations of the AntiquitatesMedii Ævi of Muratori. From Anderson's History of Commerce, I understandthat the Venetians did not trade to England before the year 1323. Themost flourishing state of their wealth and commerce, in the beginning ofthe xvth century, is agreeably described by the Abbé Dubos, (Hist. De laLigue de Cambray, tom. Ii. P. 443--480. )]

[Footnote 39: The Venetians have been slow in writing and publishingtheir history. Their most ancient monuments are, 1. The rude Chronicle(perhaps) of John Sagorninus, (Venezia, 1765, in octavo, ) whichrepresents the state and manners of Venice in the year 1008. 2. Thelarger history of the doge, (1342--1354, ) Andrew Dandolo, published forthe first time in the xiith tom. Of Muratori, A. D. 1728. The Historyof Venice by the Abbé Laugier, (Paris, 1728, ) is a work of some merit, which I have chiefly used for the constitutional part. * Note: It isscarcely necessary to mention the valuable work of Count Daru, "Historyde Venise, " of which I hear that an Italian translation has beenpublished, with notes defensive of the ancient republic. I have not yetseen this work. --M. ]

Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade. --Part II. 

When the six ambassadors of the French pilgrims arrived at Venice, theywere hospitably entertained in the palace of St. Mark, by the reigningduke; his name was Henry Dandolo; [40] and he shone in the last period ofhuman life as one of the most illustrious characters of the times. Under the weight of years, and after the loss of his eyes, [41] Dandoloretained a sound understanding and a manly courage: the spirit of ahero, ambitious to signalize his reign by some memorable exploits; andthe wisdom of a patriot, anxious to build his fame on the glory andadvantage of his country. He praised the bold enthusiasm and liberalconfidence of the barons and their deputies: in such a cause, and withsuch associates, he should aspire, were he a private man, to terminatehis life; but he was the servant of the republic, and some delay wasrequisite to consult, on this arduous business, the judgment of hiscolleagues. The proposal of the French was first debated by the six_sages_ who had been recently appointed to control the administration ofthe doge: it was next disclosed to the forty members of the councilof state; and finally communicated to the legislative assembly of fourhundred and fifty representatives, who were annually chosen in the sixquarters of the city. In peace and war, the doge was still the chiefof the republic; his legal authority was supported by the personalreputation of Dandolo: his arguments of public interest were balancedand approved; and he was authorized to inform the ambassadors ofthe following conditions of the treaty. [42] It was proposed that thecrusaders should assemble at Venice, on the feast of St. John of theensuing year; that flat-bottomed vessels should be prepared for fourthousand five hundred horses, and nine thousand squires, with a numberof ships sufficient for the embarkation of four thousand five hundredknights, and twenty thousand foot; that during a term of nine monthsthey should be supplied with provisions, and transported to whatsoevercoast the service of God and Christendom should require; and that therepublic should join the armament with a squadron of fifty galleys. Itwas required, that the pilgrims should pay, before their departure, asum of eighty-five thousand marks of silver; and that all conquests, bysea and land, should be equally divided between the confederates. Theterms were hard; but the emergency was pressing, and the French baronswere not less profuse of money than of blood. A general assembly wasconvened to ratify the treaty: the stately chapel and place of St. Markwere filled with ten thousand citizens; and the noble deputies weretaught a new lesson of humbling themselves before the majesty of thepeople. "Illustrious Venetians, " said the marshal of Champagne, "we aresent by the greatest and most powerful barons of France to implore theaid of the masters of the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem. Theyhave enjoined us to fall prostrate at your feet; nor will we rise fromthe ground till you have promised to avenge with us the injuries ofChrist. " The eloquence of their words and tears, [43] their martialaspect, and suppliant attitude, were applauded by a universal shout; asit were, says Jeffrey, by the sound of an earthquake. The venerable dogeascended the pulpit to urge their request by those motives of honor andvirtue, which alone can be offered to a popular assembly: the treatywas transcribed on parchment, attested with oaths and seals, mutuallyaccepted 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 expensesof the armament. Of the six deputies, two repassed the Alps to announcetheir success, while their four companions made a fruitless trial of thezeal 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 Observationsof Ducange sur Villehardouin, No. 204. But this _extraordinary_longevity is not observed by the original writers, nor does there existanother example of a hero near a hundred years of age. Theophrastusmight afford an instance of a writer of ninety-nine; but insteadof ennenhkonta, (Prom. Ad Character. , )I am much inclined to readebdomhkonta, with his last editor Fischer, and the first thoughts ofCasaubon. It is scarcely possible that the powers of the mind and bodyshould support themselves till such a period of life. ]

[Footnote 41: The modern Venetians (Laugier, tom. Ii. P. 119) accusethe emperor Manuel; but the calumny is refuted by Villehardouin and theolder writers, who suppose that Dandolo lost his eyes by a wound, (No. 31, and Ducange. ) * Note: The accounts differ, both as to the extent andthe cause of his blindness According to Villehardouin and others, thesight 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 AndrewDandolo, p. 323--326. ]

[Footnote 43: A reader of Villehardouin must observe the frequent tearsof the marshal and his brother knights. Sachiez que la ot mainte lermeplorée de pitié, (No. 17;) mult plorant, (ibid. ;) mainte lerme plorée, (No. 34;) si orent mult pitié et plorerent mult durement, (No. 60;) i otmainte lerme plorée de pitié, (No. 202. ) They weep on every occasion ofgrief, joy, or devotion. ]

The execution of the treaty was still opposed by unforeseen difficultiesand delays. The marshal, on his return to Troyes, was embraced andapproved by Thibaut count of Champagne, who had been unanimously chosengeneral of the confederates. But the health of that valiant youthalready declined, and soon became hopeless; and he deplored the untimelyfate, which condemned him to expire, not in a field of battle, but ona bed of sickness. To his brave and numerous vassals, the dying princedistributed his treasures: they swore in his presence to accomplish hisvow and their own; but some there were, says the marshal, who acceptedhis gifts and forfeited their words. The more resolute champions of thecross held a parliament at Soissons for the election of a new general;but such was the incapacity, or jealousy, or reluctance, of the princesof France, that none could be found both able and willing to assume theconduct of the enterprise. They acquiesced in the choice of a stranger, of Boniface marquis of Montferrat, descended of a race of heroes, andhimself of conspicuous fame in the wars and negotiations of the times;[44] nor could the piety or ambition of the Italian chief decline thishonorable invitation. After visiting the French court, where hewas received as a friend and kinsman, the marquis, in the church ofSoissons, was invested with the cross of a pilgrim and the staff of ageneral; and immediately repassed the Alps, to prepare for the distantexpedition of the East. About the festival of the Pentecost he displayedhis banner, and marched towards Venice at the head of the Italians: hewas preceded or followed by the counts of Flanders and Blois, and themost respectable barons of France; and their numbers were swelled by thepilgrims of Germany, [45] whose object and motives were similar to theirown. 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 hoistsail as soon as the republic had received the price of the freight andarmament. But that price far exceeded the wealth of the crusaders whowere assembled at Venice. The Flemings, whose obedience to their countwas voluntary and precarious, had embarked in their vessels for the longnavigation of the ocean and Mediterranean; and many of the Frenchand Italians had preferred a cheaper and more convenient passage fromMarseilles and Apulia to the Holy Land. Each pilgrim might complain, that after he had furnished his own contribution, he was maderesponsible for the deficiency of his absent brethren: the gold andsilver plate of the chiefs, which they freely delivered to the treasuryof St. Marks, was a generous but inadequate sacrifice; and after alltheir efforts, thirty-four thousand marks were still wanting tocomplete the stipulated sum. The obstacle was removed by the policy andpatriotism of the doge, who proposed to the barons, that if they wouldjoin their arms in reducing some revolted cities of Dalmatia, he wouldexpose his person in the holy war, and obtain from the republic along indulgence, till some wealthy conquest should afford the meansof satisfying the debt. After much scruple and hesitation, they choserather to accept the offer than to relinquish the enterprise; and thefirst hostilities of the fleet and army were directed against Zara, [46] a strong city of the Sclavonian coast, which had renounced itsallegiance to Venice, and implored the protection of the king ofHungary. [47] The crusaders burst the chain or boom of the harbor;landed their horses, troops, and military engines; and compelled theinhabitants, after a defence of five days, to surrender at discretion:their lives were spared, but the revolt was punished by the pillageof their houses and the demolition of their walls. The season was faradvanced; the French and Venetians resolved to pass the winter in asecure harbor and plentiful country; but their repose was disturbedby national and tumultuous quarrels of the soldiers and mariners. Theconquest of Zara had scattered the seeds of discord and scandal: thearms of the allies had been stained in their outset with the blood, notof infidels, but of Christians: the king of Hungary and his new subjectswere themselves enlisted under the banner of the cross; and the scruplesof the devout were magnified by the fear of lassitude of the reluctantpilgrims. The pope had excommunicated the false crusaders who hadpillaged and massacred their brethren, [48] and only the marquis Bonifaceand Simon of Montfort [481] escaped these spiritual thunders; the one byhis absence from the siege, the other by his final departure from thecamp. Innocent might absolve the simple and submissive penitents ofFrance; but he was provoked by the stubborn reason of the Venetians, whorefused to confess their guilt, to accept their pardon, or to allow, intheir temporal concerns, the interposition of a priest. 

[Footnote 44: By a victory (A. D. 1191) over the citizens of Asti, bya crusade to Palestine, and by an embassy from the pope to the Germanprinces, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. X. P. 163, 202. )]

[Footnote 45: See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C. P. OfGunther, (Canisii Antiq. Lect. Tom. Iv. P. V. --viii. , ) who celebratesthe pilgrimage of his abbot Martin, one of the preaching rivals of Fulkof Neuilly. His monastery, of the Cistercian order, was situate in thediocese of Basil. ]

[Footnote 46: Jadera, now Zara, was a Roman colony, which acknowledgedAugustus for its parent. It is now only two miles round, and containsfive or six thousand inhabitants; but the fortifications are strong, andit is joined to the main land by a bridge. See the travels of the twocompanions, Spon and Wheeler, (Voyage de Dalmatie, de Grèce, &c. , tom. I. P. 64--70. Journey into Greece, p. 8--14;) the last of whom, bymistaking _Sestertia_ for _Sestertii_, values an arch with statues andcolumns at twelve pounds. If, in his time, there were no treesnear Zara, the cherry-trees were not yet planted which produce ourincomparable _marasquin_. ]

[Footnote 47: Katona (Hist. Critica Reg. Hungariæ, Stirpis Arpad. Tom. Iv. P. 536--558) collects all the facts and testimonies most adverse tothe 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 ofVaux de Sernay, in the name of the pope, interdicted the attack on aChristian city; and the immediate surrender of the town was thus delayedfor five days of fruitless resistance. Wilken, vol. V. P. 167. Seelikewise, 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 thehopes of young [49] Alexius; and both at Venice and Zara, he solicitedthe 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 hiscause was embraced and pleaded by the marquis of Montferrat and the dogeof Venice. A double alliance, and the dignity of Cæsar, had connectedwith the Imperial family the two elder brothers of Boniface: [51] heexpected to derive a kingdom from the important service; and themore generous ambition of Dandolo was eager to secure the inestimablebenefits of trade and dominion that might accrue to his country. [52]Their influence procured a favorable audience for the ambassadors ofAlexius; and if the magnitude of his offers excited some suspicion, the motives and rewards which he displayed might justify the delay anddiversion of those forces which had been consecrated to the deliveranceof Jerusalem. He promised in his own and his father's name, that as soonas they should be seated on the throne of Constantinople, they wouldterminate the long schism of the Greeks, and submit themselves andtheir people to the lawful supremacy of the Roman church. He engagedto recompense the labors and merits of the crusaders, by the immediatepayment of two hundred thousand marks of silver; to accompany themin person to Egypt; or, if it should be judged more advantageous, tomaintain, during a year, ten thousand men, and, during his life, fivehundred knights, for the service of the Holy Land. These temptingconditions were accepted by the republic of Venice; and the eloquenceof the doge and marquis persuaded the counts of Flanders, Blois, and St. Pol, with eight barons of France, to join in the glorious enterprise. Atreaty of offensive and defensive alliance was confirmed by theiroaths and seals; and each individual, according to his situation andcharacter, was swayed by the hope of public or private advantage; bythe honor of restoring an exiled monarch; or by the sincere andprobable opinion, that their efforts in Palestine would be fruitless andunavailing, and that the acquisition of Constantinople must precede andprepare the recovery of Jerusalem. But they were the chiefs or equalsof a valiant band of freemen and volunteers, who thought and actedfor themselves: the soldiers and clergy were divided; and, if a largemajority subscribed to the alliance, the numbers and arguments of thedissidents were strong and respectable. [53] The boldest hearts wereappalled by the report of the naval power and impregnable strength ofConstantinople; and their apprehensions were disguised to the world, and perhaps to themselves, by the more decent objections of religionand duty. They alleged the sanctity of a vow, which had drawn them fromtheir families and homes to the rescue of the holy sepulchre; norshould the dark and crooked counsels of human policy divert them froma pursuit, the event of which was in the hands of the Almighty. Theirfirst offence, the attack of Zara, had been severely punished by thereproach of their conscience and the censures of the pope; nor wouldthey again imbrue their hands in the blood of their fellow-Christians. The apostle of Rome had pronounced; nor would they usurp the rightof avenging with the sword the schism of the Greeks and the doubtfulusurpation 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 theopen or secret opposition of a discontented party, that labored, onevery occasion, to separate the army and disappoint the enterprise. 

[Footnote 49: A modern reader is surprised to hear of the valet deConstantinople, 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 GreekKur (kurioV?) melted into his proper name; the further corruptions ofTursac and Conserac will instruct us what license may have been used inthe old dynasties of Assyria and Egypt. ]

[Footnote 51: Reinier and Conrad: the former married Maria, daughterof the emperor Manuel Comnenus; the latter was the husband of TheodoraAngela, sister of the emperors Isaac and Alexius. Conrad abandonedthe Greek court and princess for the glory of defending Tyre againstSaladin, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. P. 187, 203. )]

[Footnote 52: Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, l. Iii. C. 9) accuses the dogeand Venetians as the first authors of the war against Constantinople, and considers only as a kuma epi kumati, the arrival and shameful offersof the royal exile. * Note: He admits, however, that the Angeli hadcommitted depredations on the Venetian trade, and the emperor himselfhad refused the payment of part of the stipulated compensation for theseizure of the Venetian merchandise by the emperor Manuel. Nicetas, inloc. --M. ]

[Footnote 53: Villehardouin and Gunther represent the sentiments ofthe two parties. The abbot Martin left the army at Zara, proceeded toPalestine, was sent ambassador to Constantinople, and became a reluctantwitness of the second siege. ]

Notwithstanding this defection, the departure of the fleet and army wasvigorously pressed by the Venetians, whose zeal for the service of theroyal youth concealed a just resentment to his nation and family. Theywere 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 toliquidate with the Byzantine court; and Dandolo might not discouragethe popular tale, that he had been deprived of his eyes by the emperorManuel, who perfidiously violated the sanctity of an ambassador. Asimilar armament, for ages, had not rode the Adriatic: it was composedof one hundred and twenty flat-bottomed vessels or _palanders_ forthe 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 wasfavorable, the sky serene, and the water smooth, every eye was fixedwith wonder and delight on the scene of military and naval pomp whichoverspread the sea. [541] The shields of the knights and squires, at oncean 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 castingstones and darts: the fatigues of the way were cheered with the soundof music; and the spirits of the adventurers were raised by the mutualassurance, that forty thousand Christian heroes were equal to theconquest of the world. [55] In the navigation [56] from Venice and Zara, the fleet was successfully steered by the skill and experience ofthe Venetian pilots: at Durazzo, the confederates first landed on theterritories of the Greek empire: the Isle of Corfu afforded a stationand repose; they doubled, without accident, the perilous cape of Malea, the southern point of Peloponnesus or the Morea; made a descent inthe islands of Negropont and Andros; and cast anchor at Abydus on theAsiatic side of the Hellespont. These preludes of conquest were easy andbloodless: the Greeks of the provinces, without patriotism or courage, were crushed by an irresistible force: the presence of the lawful heirmight justify their obedience; and it was rewarded by the modesty anddiscipline of the Latins. As they penetrated through the Hellespont, themagnitude of their navy was compressed in a narrow channel, and the faceof the waters was darkened with innumerable sails. They again expandedin the basin of the Propontis, and traversed that placid sea, tillthey approached the European shore, at the abbey of St. Stephen, threeleagues to the west of Constantinople. The prudent doge dissuaded themfrom dispersing themselves in a populous and hostile land; and, astheir stock of provisions was reduced, it was resolved, in the seasonof harvest, to replenish their store-ships in the fertile islands ofthe Propontis. With this resolution, they directed their course: but astrong gale, and their own impatience, drove them to the eastward; andso near did they run to the shore and the city, that some volleys ofstones and darts were exchanged between the ships and the rampart. Asthey passed along, they gazed with admiration on the capital of theEast, or, as it should seem, of the earth; rising from her seven hills, and towering over the continents of Europe and Asia. The swelling domesand lofty spires of five hundred palaces and churches were gilded by thesun and reflected in the waters: the walls were crowded with soldiersand spectators, whose numbers they beheld, of whose temper they wereignorant; and each heart was chilled by the reflection, that, since thebeginning of the world, such an enterprise had never been undertaken bysuch a handful of warriors. But the momentary apprehension was dispelledby hope and valor; and every man, says the marshal of Champagne, glancedhis eye on the sword or lance which he must speedily use in the gloriousconflict. [57] The Latins cast anchor before Chalcedon; the mariners onlywere left in the vessels: the soldiers, horses, and arms, were safelylanded; and, in the luxury of an Imperial palace, the barons tastedthe first fruits of their success. On the third day, the fleet andarmy moved towards Scutari, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople: adetachment of five hundred Greek horse was surprised and defeated byfourscore French knights; and in a halt of nine days, the camp wasplentifully supplied with forage and provisions. 

[Footnote 54: The birth and dignity of Andrew Dandolo gave him themotive and the means of searching in the archives of Venice thememorable story of his ancestor. His brevity seems to accuse the copiousand more recent narratives of Sanudo, (in Muratori, Script. RerumItalicarum, tom. Xxii. , ) Blondus, Sabellicus, and Rhamnusius. ]

[Footnote 541: This description rather belongs to the first setting sailof the expedition from Venice, before the siege of Zara. The armamentdid not return to Venice. --M. ]

[Footnote 55: Villehardouin, No. 62. His feelings and expressions areoriginal: he often weeps, but he rejoices in the glories and perils ofwar with a spirit unknown to a sedentary writer. ]

[Footnote 56: In this voyage, almost all the geographical names arecorrupted by the Latins. The modern appellation of Chalcis, and allEuba, 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 aronsmestier, (c. 67. ) Such is the honesty of courage. ]

In relating the invasion of a great empire, it may seem strange that Ihave not described the obstacles which should have checked the progressof the strangers. The Greeks, in truth, were an unwarlike people; butthey 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 hisnephew's alliance with the French and Venetians was despised by theusurper Alexius: his flatterers persuaded him, that in this contempt hewas bold and sincere; and each evening, in the close of the banquet, hethrice discomfited the Barbarians of the West. These Barbarians hadbeen justly terrified by the report of his naval power; and the sixteenhundred fishing boats of Constantinople [58] could have manned a fleet, to sink them in the Adriatic, or stop their entrance in the mouth of theHellespont. But all force may be annihilated by the negligence of theprince 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 importantpurpose of the chase; and the trees, says Nicetas, were guarded by theeunuchs, like the groves of religious worship. [59] From his dream ofpride, Alexius was awakened by the siege of Zara, and the rapid advancesof the Latins; as soon as he saw the danger was real, he thought itinevitable, and his vain presumption was lost in abject despondency anddespair. He suffered these contemptible Barbarians to pitch their campin the sight of the palace; and his apprehensions were thinly disguisedby the pomp and menace of a suppliant embassy. The sovereign of theRomans was astonished (his ambassadors were instructed to say) at thehostile appearance of the strangers. If these pilgrims were sincere intheir vow for the deliverance of Jerusalem, his voice must applaud, andhis treasures should assist, their pious design but should they dare toinvade the sanctuary of empire, their numbers, were they ten times moreconsiderable, should not protect them from his just resentment. Theanswer of the doge and barons was simple and magnanimous. "In the causeof honor and justice, " they said, "we despise the usurper of Greece, histhreats, and his offers. _Our_ friendship and _his_ allegiance are dueto the lawful heir, to the young prince, who is seated among us, and tohis father, the emperor Isaac, who has been deprived of his sceptre, hisfreedom, and his eyes, by the crime of an ungrateful brother. Let thatbrother confess his guilt, and implore forgiveness, and we ourselveswill intercede, that he may be permitted to live in affluence andsecurity. But let him not insult us by a second message; our reply willbe 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 piscatoriasnaves. .. .. Bellicas autem sive mercatorias habebant infinitæmultitudinis et portum tutissimum. Gunther, Hist. C. P. C. 8, p. 10. ]

[Footnote 59: Kaqaper iervn alsewn, eipein de kai Jeojuteutwn paradeiswnejeid?onto toutwni. Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l. Iii. C. 9, p. 348. ]

On the tenth day of their encampment at Scutari, the crusaders preparedthemselves, as soldiers and as Catholics, for the passage of theBosphorus. Perilous indeed was the adventure; the stream was broad andrapid: in a calm the current of the Euxine might drive down the liquidand unextinguishable fires of the Greeks; and the opposite shores ofEurope were defended by seventy thousand horse and foot in formidablearray. On this memorable day, which happened to be bright and pleasant, the Latins were distributed in six battles or divisions; the first, orvanguard, was led by the count of Flanders, one of the most powerful ofthe Christian princes in the skill and number of his crossbows. The foursuccessive battles of the French were commanded by his brother Henry, the counts of St. Pol and Blois, and Matthew of Montmorency; the last ofwhom was honored by the voluntary service of the marshal and nobles ofChampagne. The sixth division, the rear-guard and reserve of the army, was conducted by the marquis of Montferrat, at the head of the Germansand Lombards. The chargers, saddled, with their long comparisonsdragging on the ground, were embarked in the flat _palanders_; [60] andthe knights stood by the side of their horses, in complete armor, theirhelmets laced, and their lances in their hands. The numerous train ofsergeants [61] and archers occupied the transports; and each transportwas towed by the strength and swiftness of a galley. The six divisionstraversed 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 ofdanger, the knights in their heavy armor leaped into the sea, when itrose as high as their girdle; the sergeants and archers were animatedby their valor; and the squires, letting down the draw-bridges of thepalanders, led the horses to the shore. Before their squadrons couldmount, and form, and couch their Lances, the seventy thousand Greekshad vanished from their sight: the timid Alexius gave the example to histroops; and it was only by the plunder of his rich pavilions that theLatins were informed that they had fought against an emperor. In thefirst consternation of the flying enemy, they resolved, by a doubleattack, to open the entrance of the harbor. The tower of Galata, [62] inthe suburb of Pera, was attacked and stormed by the French, while theVenetians assumed the more difficult task of forcing the boom or chainthat was stretched from that tower to the Byzantine shore. After somefruitless attempts, their intrepid perseverance prevailed: twenty shipsof war, the relics of the Grecian navy, were either sunk or taken: theenormous and massy links of iron were cut asunder by the shears, orbroken by the weight, of the galleys; [63] and the Venetian fleet, safeand triumphant, rode at anchor in the port of Constantinople. By thesedaring achievements, a remnant of twenty thousand Latins solicitedthe license of besieging a capital which contained above four hundredthousand inhabitants, [64] able, though not willing, to bear armsin defence of their country. Such an account would indeed suppose apopulation of near two millions; but whatever abatement may be requiredin the numbers of the Greeks, the _belief_ of those numbers will equallyexalt 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 andexpressive denomination of _vessiers_ or _huissiers_, from the _huis_ ordoor which was let down as a draw-bridge; but which, at sea, was closedinto the side of the ship, (see Ducange au Villehardouin, No. 14, andJoinville. 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 notknights. There were sergeants at arms, and sergeants at law; and if wevisit the parade and Westminster Hall, we may observe the strange resultof 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 theproper chapters of the C. P. Christiana of the same author. Theinhabitants of Galata were so vain and ignorant, that they applied tothemselves 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 respectabletext of Dandolo, nor did he enough consider the topography of theharbor. The south-east would have been a more effectual wind. (Note toWilken, 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. BasEmpire, tom. Xx. P. 417) allows Constantinople a million of inhabitants, of whom 60, 000 horse, and an infinite number of foot-soldiers. In itspresent decay, the capital of the Ottoman empire may contain 400, 000souls, (Bell's Travels, vol. Ii. P. 401, 402;) but as the Turks keepno registers, and as circumstances are fallacious, it is impossibleto ascertain (Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, tom. I. P. 18, 19) the realpopulousness of their cities. ]

In the choice of the attack, the French and Venetians were divided bytheir habits of life and warfare. The former affirmed with truth, that Constantinople was most accessible on the side of the sea and theharbor. The latter might assert with honor, that they had long enoughtrusted their lives and fortunes to a frail bark and a precariouselement, and loudly demanded a trial of knighthood, a firm ground, and aclose onset, either on foot or on horseback. After a prudent compromise, of employing the two nations by sea and land, in the service best suitedto their character, the fleet covering the army, they both proceededfrom the entrance to the extremity of the harbor: the stone bridge ofthe river was hastily repaired; and the six battles of the French formedtheir encampment against the front of the capital, the basis of thetriangle 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 hadleisure to contemplate the difficulties of their enterprise. The gatesto the right and left of their narrow camp poured forth frequent salliesof cavalry and light-infantry, which cut off their stragglers, swept thecountry of provisions, sounded the alarm five or six times in thecourse of each day, and compelled them to plant a palisade, and sink anintrenchment, for their immediate safety. In the supplies and convoysthe Venetians had been too sparing, or the Franks too voracious: theusual complaints of hunger and scarcity were heard, and perhaps felttheir stock of flour would be exhausted in three weeks; and theirdisgust of salt meat tempted them to taste the flesh of theirhorses. The trembling usurper was supported by Theodore Lascaris, his son-in-law, a valiant youth, who aspired to save and to rule hiscountry; the Greeks, regardless of that country, were awakened to thedefence of their religion; but their firmest hope was in the strengthand spirit of the Varangian guards, of the Danes and English, as theyare named in the writers of the times. [66] After ten days' incessantlabor, the ground was levelled, the ditch filled, the approaches ofthe besiegers were regularly made, and two hundred and fifty engines ofassault exercised their various powers to clear the rampart, to batterthe walls, and to sap the foundations. On the first appearance of abreach, the scaling-ladders were applied: the numbers that defended thevantage ground repulsed and oppressed the adventurous Latins; but theyadmired the resolution of fifteen knights and sergeants, who hadgained the ascent, and maintained their perilous station till they wereprecipitated or made prisoners by the Imperial guards. On the sideof the harbor the naval attack was more successfully conducted by theVenetians; and that industrious people employed every resource that wasknown and practiced before the invention of gunpowder. A double line, three bow-shots in front, was formed by the galleys and ships; and theswift motion of the former was supported by the weight and loftiness ofthe latter, whose decks, and poops, and turret, were the platforms ofmilitary engines, that discharged their shot over the heads of the firstline. The soldiers, who leaped from the galleys on shore, immediatelyplanted 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 themidst of the conflict, the doge, a venerable and conspicuous form, stoodaloft in complete armor on the prow of his galley. The great standardof St. Mark was displayed before him; his threats, promises, andexhortations, urged the diligence of the rowers; his vessel was thefirst that struck; and Dandolo was the first warrior on the shore. Thenations admired the magnanimity of the blind old man, without reflectingthat his age and infirmities diminished the price of life, and enhancedthe value of immortal glory. On a sudden, by an invisible hand, (forthe standard-bearer was probably slain, ) the banner of the republic wasfixed on the rampart: twenty-five towers were rapidly occupied; and, bythe cruel expedient of fire, the Greeks were driven from the adjacentquarter. The doge had despatched the intelligence of his success, whenhe was checked by the danger of his confederates. Nobly declaring thathe would rather die with the pilgrims than gain a victory by theirdestruction, 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 Greekcavalry, the least of which was more numerous than the largest of theirdivisions. Shame and despair had provoked Alexius to the last effort ofa general sally; but he was awed by the firm order and manly aspect ofthe Latins; and, after skirmishing at a distance, withdrew his troops inthe close of the evening. The silence or tumult of the night exasperatedhis fears; and the timid usurper, collecting a treasure of ten thousandpounds of gold, basely deserted his wife, his people, and his fortune;threw himself into a bark; stole through the Bosphorus; and landed inshameful safety in an obscure harbor of Thrace. As soon as they wereapprised of his flight, the Greek nobles sought pardon and peace inthe dungeon where the blind Isaac expected each hour the visit of theexecutioner. Again saved and exalted by the vicissitudes of fortune, thecaptive in his Imperial robes was replace on the throne, and surroundedwith prostrate slaves, whose real terror and affected joy he wasincapable of discerning. At the dawn of day, hostilities were suspended, and the Latin chiefs were surprised by a message from the lawful andreigning emperor, who was impatient to embrace his son, and to rewardhis generous deliverers. [67]

[Footnote 65: On the most correct plans of Constantinople, I know nothow to measure more than 4000 paces. Yet Villehardouin computes thespace at three leagues, (No. 86. ) If his eye were not deceived, he mustreckon by the old Gallic league of 1500 paces, which might still be usedin Champagne. ]

[Footnote 66: The guards, the Varangi, are styled by Villehardouin, (No. 89, 95) Englois et Danois avec leurs haches. Whatever had been theirorigin, a French pilgrim could not be mistaken in the nations of whichthey were at that time composed. ]

[Footnote 67: For the first siege and conquest of Constantinople, we mayread 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 hisabbot Martin, were not yet returned from their obstinate pilgrim age toJerusalem, or St. John d'Acre, where the greatest part of the companyhad 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 thepromise, of their recompense. They chose four ambassadors, Matthew ofMontmorency, our historian the marshal of Champagne, and two Venetians, to congratulate the emperor. The gates were thrown open on theirapproach, the streets on both sides were lined with the battle axes ofthe Danish and English guard: the presence-chamber glittered with goldand jewels, the false substitute of virtue and power: by the side of theblind Isaac his wife was seated, the sister of the king of Hungary: andby her appearance, the noble matrons of Greece were drawn from theirdomestic retirement, and mingled with the circle of senators andsoldiers. The Latins, by the mouth of the marshal, spoke like menconscious of their merits, but who respected the work of their ownhands; and the emperor clearly understood, that his son's engagementswith Venice and the pilgrims must be ratified without hesitationor delay. Withdrawing into a private chamber with the empress, achamberlain, an interpreter, and the four ambassadors, the fatherof young Alexius inquired with some anxiety into the nature of hisstipulations. The submission of the Eastern empire to the pope, thesuccor of the Holy Land, and a present contribution of two hundredthousand marks of silver. --"These conditions are weighty, " was hisprudent reply: "they are hard to accept, and difficult to perform. Butno conditions can exceed the measure of your services and deserts. "After this satisfactory assurance, the barons mounted on horseback, andintroduced the heir of Constantinople to the city and palace: his youthand marvellous adventures engaged every heart in his favor, and Alexiuswas solemnly crowned with his father in the dome of St. Sophia. Inthe first days of his reign, the people, already blessed with therestoration of plenty and peace, was delighted by the joyful catastropheof the tragedy; and the discontent of the nobles, their regret, andtheir fears, were covered by the polished surface of pleasure andloyalty The mixture of two discordant nations in the same capital mighthave been pregnant with mischief and danger; and the suburb of Galata, or Pera, was assigned for the quarters of the French and Venetians. Butthe liberty of trade and familiar intercourse was allowed between thefriendly nations: and each day the pilgrims were tempted by devotionor curiosity to visit the churches and palaces of Constantinople. Theirrude minds, insensible perhaps of the finer arts, were astonished by themagnificent scenery: and the poverty of their native towns enhancedthe populousness and riches of the first metropolis of Christendom. [68]Descending from his state, young Alexius was prompted by interestand gratitude to repeat his frequent and familiar visits to his Latinallies; and in the freedom of the table, the gay petulance of the Frenchsometimes forgot the emperor of the East. [69] In their most seriousconferences, it was agreed, that the reunion of the two churches mustbe the result of patience and time; but avarice was less tractable thanzeal; and a larger sum was instantly disbursed to appease the wants, andsilence the importunity, of the crusaders. [70] Alexius was alarmedby the approaching hour of their departure: their absence mighthave relieved him from the engagement which he was yet incapable ofperforming; but his friends would have left him, naked and alone, to thecaprice and prejudice of a perfidious nation. He wished to bribe theirstay, the delay of a year, by undertaking to defray their expense, andto satisfy, in their name, the freight of the Venetian vessels. Theoffer was agitated in the council of the barons; and, after a repetitionof their debates and scruples, a majority of votes again acquiesced inthe advice of the doge and the prayer of the young emperor. At theprice of sixteen hundred pounds of gold, he prevailed on the marquis ofMontferrat to lead him with an army round the provinces of Europe; toestablish his authority, and pursue his uncle, while Constantinoplewas awed by the presence of Baldwin and his confederates of France andFlanders. The expedition was successful: the blind emperor exultedin the success of his arms, and listened to the predictions of hisflatterers, that the same Providence which had raised him from thedungeon to the throne, would heal his gout, restore his sight, and watchover the long prosperity of his reign. Yet the mind of the suspiciousold man was tormented by the rising glories of his son; nor could hispride conceal from his envy, that, while his own name was pronouncedin faint and reluctant acclamations, the royal youth was the theme ofspontaneous and universal praise. [71]

[Footnote 68: Compare, in the rude energy of Villehardouin, (No. 66, 100, ) the inside and outside views of Constantinople, and theirimpression on the minds of the pilgrims: cette ville (says he) quede toutes les autres ere souveraine. See the parallel passages ofFulcherius 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 kaipagkleiston katerrupainen onoma, (Nicetas, p. 358. ) If these merrycompanions were Venetians, it was the insolence of trade and acommonwealth. ]

[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 heread Villehardouin? The Greeks complained, however, good totius Græciæopes transtulisset, (Gunther, Hist. C. P. C 13) See the lamentations andinvectives of Nicetas, (p. 355. )]

[Footnote 71: The reign of Alexius Comnenus occupies three books inNicetas, p. 291--352. The short restoration of Isaac and his son isdespatched in five chapters, p. 352--362. ]

By the recent invasion, the Greeks were awakened from a dream of ninecenturies; from the vain presumption that the capital of the Romanempire was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of the West hadviolated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of Constantine: theirImperial clients soon became as unpopular as themselves: the well-knownvices of Isaac were rendered still more contemptible by his infirmities, and the young Alexius was hated as an apostate, who had renounced themanners and religion of his country. His secret covenant with the Latinswas divulged or suspected; the people, and especially the clergy, weredevoutly attached to their faith and superstition; and every convent, and every shop, resounded with the danger of the church and the tyrannyof the pope. [72] An empty treasury could ill supply the demands of regalluxury and foreign extortion: the Greeks refused to avert, by a generaltax, the impending evils of servitude and pillage; the oppression ofthe rich excited a more dangerous and personal resentment; and if theemperor melted the plate, and despoiled the images, of the sanctuary, he seemed to justify the complaints of heresy and sacrilege. During theabsence of Marquis Boniface and his Imperial pupil, Constantinople wasvisited with a calamity which might be justly imputed to the zeal andindiscretion of the Flemish pilgrims. [73] In one of their visits to thecity, they were scandalized by the aspect of a mosque or synagogue, in which one God was worshipped, without a partner or a son. Theireffectual mode of controversy was to attack the infidels with the sword, and their habitation with fire: but the infidels, and some Christianneighbors, presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flameswhich bigotry had kindled, consumed the most orthodox and innocentstructures. During eight days and nights, the conflagration spread abovea league in front, from the harbor to the Propontis, over the thickestand most populous regions of the city. It is not easy to count thestately churches and palaces that were reduced to a smoking ruin, tovalue the merchandise that perished in the trading streets, or to numberthe families that were involved in the common destruction. By thisoutrage, which the doge and the barons in vain affected to disclaim, thename of the Latins became still more unpopular; and the colony of thatnation, above fifteen thousand persons, consulted their safety in ahasty retreat from the city to the protection of their standard in thesuburb of Pera. The emperor returned in triumph; but the firmest andmost dexterous policy would have been insufficient to steer him throughthe tempest, which overwhelmed the person and government of that unhappyyouth. His own inclination, and his father's advice, attached him tohis benefactors; but Alexius hesitated between gratitude and patriotism, between the fear of his subjects and of his allies. [74] By his feebleand 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 thedeliverance of their country. Regardless of his painful situation, theLatin chiefs repeated their demands, resented his delays, suspected hisintentions, and exacted a decisive answer of peace or war. The haughtysummons was delivered by three French knights and three Venetiandeputies, who girded their swords, mounted their horses, pierced throughthe angry multitude, and entered, with a fearful countenance, thepalace and presence of the Greek emperor. In a peremptory tone, theyrecapitulated their services and his engagements; and boldly declared, that unless their just claims were fully and immediately satisfied, theyshould no longer hold him either as a sovereign or a friend. After thisdefiance, the first that had ever wounded an Imperial ear, they departedwithout betraying any symptoms of fear; but their escape from a servilepalace and a furious city astonished the ambassadors themselves; andtheir 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, meizonkai atopwtaton. .. Parektrophn pistewV. .. Tvn tou Papa pronomiwnkainismon, . .. Metaqesin te kai metapoihsin tvn palaivn 'RwmaioiV?eqvn, (p. 348. ) Such was the sincere language of every Greek to the last gaspof the empire. ]

[Footnote 73: Nicetas (p. 355) is positive in the charge, and specifiesthe Flemings, (FlamioneV, ) though he is wrong in supposing it an ancientname. 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 InnocentIII. C. 92, p. 534, ) cum patriarcha et mole nobilium, nobis promisesperjurus et mendax. ]

Among the Greeks, all authority and wisdom were overborne by theimpetuous multitude, who mistook their rage for valor, their numbersfor strength, and their fanaticism for the support and inspiration ofHeaven. In the eyes of both nations Alexius was false and contemptible;the base and spurious race of the Angeli was rejected with clamorousdisdain; 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 thepurple: by each senator the deadly garment was repulsed: the contestlasted three days; and we may learn from the historian Nicetas, one ofthe members of the assembly, that fear and weaknesses were the guardiansof their loyalty. A phantom, who vanished in oblivion, was forciblyproclaimed by the crowd: [75] but the author of the tumult, and theleader of the war, was a prince of the house of Ducas; and hiscommon appellation of Alexius must be discriminated by the epithet ofMourzoufle, [76] which in the vulgar idiom expressed the close junctionof his black and shaggy eyebrows. At once a patriot and a courtier, theperfidious Mourzoufle, who was not destitute of cunning and courage, opposed the Latins both in speech and action, inflamed the passionsand prejudices of the Greeks, and insinuated himself into the favorand confidence of Alexius, who trusted him with the office of greatchamberlain, and tinged his buskins with the colors of royalty. At thedead of night, he rushed into the bed-chamber with an affrighted aspect, exclaiming, that the palace was attacked by the people and betrayedby the guards. Starting from his couch, the unsuspecting prince threwhimself into the arms of his enemy, who had contrived his escape by aprivate staircase. But that staircase terminated in a prison: Alexiuswas seized, stripped, and loaded with chains; and, after tasting somedays the bitterness of death, he was poisoned, or strangled, or beatenwith clubs, at the command, or in the presence, of the tyrant. The emperor Isaac Angelus soon followed his son to the grave; andMourzoufle, perhaps, might spare the superfluous crime of hastening theextinction of impotence and blindness. 

[Footnote 75: His name was Nicholas Canabus: he deserved the praise ofNicetas 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 theson of Isaac Ducas Sebastocrator, and second cousin of young Alexius. ]

The death of the emperors, and the usurpation of Mourzoufle, had changedthe nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the disagreement of allieswho overvalued their services, or neglected their obligations: theFrench and Venetians forgot their complaints against Alexius, dropped atear on the untimely fate of their companion, and swore revenge againstthe perfidious nation who had crowned his assassin. Yet the prudent dogewas still inclined to negotiate: he asked as a debt, a subsidy, or afine, fifty thousand pounds of gold, about two millions sterling; norwould the conference have been abruptly broken, if the zeal, or policy, of Mourzoufle had not refused to sacrifice the Greek church to thesafety of the state. [77] Amidst the invectives of his foreign anddomestic enemies, we may discern, that he was not unworthy of thecharacter which he had assumed, of the public champion: the second siegeof Constantinople was far more laborious than the first; the treasurywas replenished, and discipline was restored, by a severe inquisitioninto the abuses of the former reign; and Mourzoufle, an iron mace inhis hand, visiting the posts, and affecting the port and aspect of awarrior, was an object of terror to his soldiers, at least, and to hiskinsmen. Before and after the death of Alexius, the Greeks made twovigorous and well-conducted attempts to burn the navy in the harbor; butthe skill and courage of the Venetians repulsed the fire-ships; and thevagrant flames wasted themselves without injury in the sea. [78] In anocturnal sally the Greek emperor was vanquished by Henry, brother ofthe count of Flanders: the advantages of number and surprise aggravatedthe shame of his defeat: his buckler was found on the field of battle;and the Imperial standard, [79] a divine image of the Virgin, waspresented, as a trophy and a relic to the Cistercian monks, thedisciples of St. Bernard. Near three months, without excepting the holyseason of Lent, were consumed in skirmishes and preparations, beforethe Latins were ready or resolved for a general assault. The landfortifications had been found impregnable; and the Venetian pilotsrepresented, that, on the shore of the Propontis, the anchorage wasunsafe, and the ships must be driven by the current far away to thestraits of the Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing to the reluctantpilgrims, who sought every opportunity of breaking the army. From theharbor, therefore, the assault was determined by the assailants, and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his scarletpavilions on a neighboring height, to direct and animate the efforts ofhis troops. A fearless spectator, whose mind could entertain the ideasof pomp and pleasure, might have admired the long array of two embattledarmies, which extended above half a league, the one on the ships andgalleys, the other on the walls and towers raised above the ordinarylevel by several stages of wooden turrets. Their first fury was spentin the discharge of darts, stones, and fire, from the engines; but thewater was deep; the French were bold; the Venetians were skilful; theyapproached the walls; and a desperate conflict of swords, spears, andbattle-axes, was fought on the trembling bridges that grappled thefloating, to the stable, batteries. In more than a hundred places, theassault was urged, and the defence was sustained; till the superiorityof ground and numbers finally prevailed, and the Latin trumpets soundeda 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 acouncil, apprehensive only for the public danger: not a voice pronouncedthe words of escape or treaty; and each warrior, according to histemper, embraced the hope of victory, or the assurance of a gloriousdeath. [80] By the experience of the former siege, the Greeks wereinstructed, but the Latins were animated; and the knowledge thatConstantinople might be taken, was of more avail than the localprecautions which that knowledge had inspired for its defence. In thethird assault, two ships were linked together to double their strength;a strong north wind drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes andSoissons led the van; and the auspicious names of the _pilgrim_ andthe _paradise_ resounded along the line. [81] The episcopal banners weredisplayed on the walls; a hundred marks of silver had been promised tothe 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 trembleon the waves, felt themselves invincible on horseback on the solidground. Shall I relate that the thousands who guarded the emperor'sperson fled on the approach, and before the lance, of a single warrior?Their ignominious flight is attested by their countryman Nicetas: anarmy of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was magnified to agiant in the eyes of the Greeks. [82] While the fugitives deserted theirposts and cast away their arms, the Latins entered the city underthe banners of their leaders: the streets and gates opened for theirpassage; and either design or accident kindled a third conflagration, which consumed in a few hours the measure of three of the largest citiesof France. [83] In the close of evening, the barons checked theirtroops, and fortified their stations: They were awed by the extent andpopulousness of the capital, which might yet require the labor of amonth, if the churches and palaces were conscious of their internalstrength. But in the morning, a suppliant procession, with crosses andimages, announced the submission of the Greeks, and deprecated the wrathof the conquerors: the usurper escaped through the golden gate: thepalaces of Blachernæ and Boucoleon were occupied by the count ofFlanders and the marquis of Montferrat; and the empire, which still borethe name of Constantine, and the title of Roman, was subverted by thearms of the Latin pilgrims. [84]

[Footnote 77: This negotiation, probable in itself, and attested byNicetas, (p 65, ) is omitted as scandalous by the delicacy of Dandolo andVillehardouin. * 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 thefirst. It is remarkable that neither of these warriors observe anypeculiar 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 atrophy and relic: if it be genuine the pious doge must have cheated themonks of Citeaux. ]

[Footnote 80: Villehardouin (No. 126) confesses, that mult ere grantperil; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. C. 13) affirms, that nulla spesvictoriæ arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises those who thought offlight, and the monk praises his countrymen who were resolved on death. ]

[Footnote 81: Baldwin, and all the writers, honor the names of these twogalleys, felici auspicio. ]

[Footnote 811: Pietro Alberti, a Venetian noble and Andrew d'Amboise aFrench knight. --M. ]

[Footnote 82: With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him enneorguioV, nine orgyæ, or eighteen yards high, a stature which would, indeed, haveexcused the terror of the Greek. On this occasion, the historian seemsfonder of the marvellous than of his country, or perhaps of truth. Baldwin exclaims in the words of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex nobiscentum alienos. ]

[Footnote 83: Villehardouin (No. 130) is again ignorant of the authorsof _this_ more legitimate fire, which is ascribed by Gunther to a quidamcomes Teutonicus, (c. 14. ) They seem ashamed, the incendiaries!]

[Footnote 84: For the second siege and conquest of Constantinople, seeVillehardouin (No. 113--132, ) Baldwin's iid Epistle to Innocent III. , (Gesta c. 92, p. 534--537, ) with the whole reign of Mourzoufle, inNicetas, (p 363--375;) and borrowed some hints from Dandolo (Chron. Venet. P. 323--330) and Gunther, (Hist. C. P. C. 14--18, ) who added thedecorations of prophecy and vision. The former produces an oracle ofthe Erythræan sibyl, of a great armament on the Adriatic, under ablind chief, against Byzantium, &c. Curious enough, were the predictionanterior to the fact. ]

Constantinople had been taken by storm; and no restraints, except thoseof religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by the laws ofwar. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as their general; andthe Greeks, who revered his name as that of their future sovereign, wereheard to exclaim in a lamentable tone, "Holy marquis-king, have mercyupon us!" His prudence or compassion opened the gates of the city to thefugitives; and he exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the livesof their fellow-Christians. The streams of blood that flowed down thepages of Nicetas may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand of hisunresisting countrymen; [85] and the greater part was massacred, not bythe strangers, but by the Latins, who had been driven from the city, andwho exercised the revenge of a triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles, some were less mindful of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himselfwas indebted for his safety to the generosity of a Venetian merchant. Pope Innocent the Third accuses the pilgrims for respecting, in theirlust, neither age nor sex, nor religious profession; and bitterlylaments that the deeds of darkness, fornication, adultery, and incest, were perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons and holy nuns werepolluted by the grooms and peasants of the Catholic camp. [86] It isindeed probable that the license of victory prompted and covered amultitude of sins: but it is certain, that the capital of the Eastcontained a stock of venal or willing beauty, sufficient to satiate thedesires of twenty thousand pilgrims; and female prisoners were nolonger subject to the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquisof Montferrat was the patron of discipline and decency; the count ofFlanders was the mirror of chastity: they had forbidden, under painof death, the rape of married women, or virgins, or nuns; and theproclamation was sometimes invoked by the vanquished [87] and respectedby the victors. Their cruelty and lust were moderated by the authorityof the chiefs, and feelings of the soldiers; for we are no longerdescribing an irruption of the northern savages; and however ferociousthey might still appear, time, policy, and religion had civilized themanners of the French, and still more of the Italians. But a free scopewas allowed to their avarice, which was glutted, even in the holy week, by the pillage of Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled byany promise or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth ofthe Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, mightlawfully execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A portable anduniversal standard of exchange was found in the coined and uncoinedmetals of gold and silver, which each captor, at home or abroad, mightconvert 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 mostprecious, as they could not be procured for money in the ruder countriesof Europe. An order of rapine was instituted; nor was the share ofeach individual abandoned to industry or chance. Under the tremendouspenalties of perjury, excommunication, and death, the Latins were boundto deliver their plunder into the common stock: three churches wereselected for the deposit and distribution of the spoil: a single sharewas allotted to a foot-soldier; two for a sergeant on horseback; four toa knight; and larger proportions according to the rank and merit ofthe barons and princes. For violating this sacred engagement, a knightbelonging to the count of St. Paul was hanged with his shield and coatof arms round his neck; his example might render similar offenders moreartful and discreet; but avarice was more powerful than fear; and itis generally believed that the secret far exceeded the acknowledgedplunder. Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the largest scale ofexperience or expectation. [88] After the whole had been equally dividedbetween the French and Venetians, fifty thousand marks were deductedto satisfy the debts of the former and the demands of the latter. Theresidue of the French amounted to four hundred thousand marks of silver, [89] about eight hundred thousand pounds sterling; nor can I betterappreciate the value of that sum in the public and private transactionsof the age, than by defining it as seven times the annual revenue of thekingdom of England. [90]

[Footnote 85: Ceciderunt tamen eâ die civium quasi duo millia, &c. , (Gunther, c. 18. ) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to try theamplifications of passion and rhetoric. ]

[Footnote 86: Quidam (says Innocent III. , Gesta, c. 94, p. 538)nec religioni, nec ætati, nec sexui pepercerunt: sed fornicationes, adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium exercentes, non solûm maritataset viduas, sed et matronas et virgines Deoque dicatas, exposueruntspurcitiis garcionum. Villehardouin takes no notice of these commonincidents. ]

[Footnote 87: Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble virgin, (p. 380, ) whom a soldier, eti martusi polloiV onhdon epibrimwmenoV, hadalmost violated in spite of the entolai, entalmata eu gegonotwn. ]

[Footnote 88: Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut depauperibus et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur, (Hist. C. P. C. 18;(Villehardouin, (No. 132, ) that since the creation, ne fu tant gaaigniédans une ville; Baldwin, (Gesta, c. 92, ) ut tantum tota non videaturpossidere Latinitas. ]

[Footnote 89: Villehardouin, No. 133--135. Instead of 400, 000, thereis a various reading of 500, 000. The Venetians had offered to take thewhole booty, and to give 400 marks to each knight, 200 to each priestand horseman, and 100 to each foot-soldier: they would have been greatlosers, (Le Beau, Hist. Du. Bas Empire tom. Xx. P. 506. I know not fromwhence. )]

[Footnote 90: At the council of Lyons (A. D. 1245) the Englishambassadors stated the revenue of the crown as below that of the foreignclergy, which amounted to 60, 000 marks a year, (Matthew Paris, p. 451Hume's Hist. Of England, vol. Ii. P. 170. )]

In this great revolution we enjoy the singular felicity of comparing thenarratives of Villehardouin and Nicetas, the opposite feelings of themarshal of Champagne and the Byzantine senator. [91] At the first view itshould seem that the wealth of Constantinople was only transferred fromone nation to another; and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks isexactly balanced by the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in themiserable account of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss, the pleasure to the pain; the smiles of the Latins were transient andfallacious; 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 whichannihilated 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 wastedin gaming, debauchery, and riot! And what precious objects were barteredfor a vile price by the impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whosereward was stolen by the base industry of the last of the Greeks!These alone, who had nothing to lose, might derive some profit from therevolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society is stronglypainted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself His stately palacehad been reduced to ashes in the second conflagration; and the senator, with his family and friends, found an obscure shelter in another housewhich he possessed near the church of St. Sophia. It was the door ofthis mean habitation that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guardedin the disguise of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitateflight, the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. Ina cold, wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of prosperity, departed on foot; his wife was with child; the desertion of their slavescompelled them to carry their baggage on their own shoulders; and theirwomen, whom they placed in the centre, were exhorted to conceal theirbeauty with dirt, instead of adorning it with paint and jewels Everystep was exposed to insult and danger: the threats of the strangers wereless painful than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they werenow levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their mournfulpilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above forty miles from thecapital. On the way they overtook the patriarch, without attendanceand almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and reduced to a state ofapostolical poverty, which, had it been voluntary, might perhaps havebeen meritorious. In the mean while, his desolate churches were profanedby the licentiousness and party zeal of the Latins. After stripping thegems and pearls, they converted the chalices into drinking-cups; theirtables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the picturesof Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot the mostvenerable objects of the Christian worship. In the cathedral of St. Sophia, the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent asunder for the sakeof the golden fringe; and the altar, a monument of art and riches, wasbroken in pieces and shared among the captors. Their mules and horseswere laden with the wrought silver and gilt carvings, which they toredown from the doors and pulpit; and if the beasts stumbled under theburden, they were stabbed by their impatient drivers, and the holypavement streamed with their impure blood. A prostitute was seated onthe throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, as sheis styled, sung and danced in the church, to ridicule the hymns andprocessions of the Orientals. Nor were the repositories of the royaldead secure from violation: in the church of the Apostles, the tombs ofthe emperors were rifled; and it is said, that after six centuriesthe corpse of Justinian was found without any signs of decay orputrefaction. In the streets, the French and Flemings clothed themselvesand their horses in painted robes and flowing head-dresses of linen;and the coarse intemperance of their feasts [92] insulted the splendidsobriety of the East. To expose the arms of a people of scribes andscholars, they affected to display a pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet ofpaper, 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 ownadventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p. 367--369, and in theStatus Urb. C. P. P. 375--384. His complaints, even of sacrilege, arejustified by Innocent III. , (Gesta, c. 92;) but Villehardouin does notbetray 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 despisethe ignorance and to overlook the progress of the Latins. [93] In thelove of the arts, the national difference was still more obvious andreal; the Greeks preserved with reverence the works of their ancestors, which they could not imitate; and, in the destruction of the statues ofConstantinople, we are provoked to join in the complaints and invectivesof the Byzantine historian. [94] We have seen how the rising city wasadorned by the vanity and despotism of the Imperial founder: in theruins of paganism, some gods and heroes were saved from the axe ofsuperstition; and the forum and hippodrome were dignified with therelics of a better age. Several of these are described by Nicetas, [95]in a florid and affected style; and from his descriptions I shall selectsome interesting particulars. _1. _ The victorious charioteers were castin bronze, at their own or the public charge, and fitly placed in thehippodrome: they stood aloft in their chariots, wheeling round thegoal: the spectators could admire their attitude, and judge of theresemblance; and of these figures, the most perfect might have beentransported from the Olympic stadium. _2. _ The sphinx, river-horse, andcrocodile, denote the climate and manufacture of Egypt and the spoils ofthat ancient province. _3. _ The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, a subject alike pleasing to the _old_ and the _new_ Romans, but whichcould really be treated before the decline of the Greek sculpture. _4. _ An eagle holding and tearing a serpent in his talons, a domesticmonument of the Byzantines, which they ascribed, not to a human artist, but to the magic power of the philosopher Apollonius, who, by thistalisman, delivered the city from such venomous reptiles. _5. _ Anass and his driver, which were erected by Augustus in his colony ofNicopolis, 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 thedescending sun. A more classical tradition recognized the figures ofBellerophon and Pegasus; and the free attitude of the steed seemed tomark that he trod on air, rather than on the earth. _7. _ A squareand lofty obelisk of brass; the sides were embossed with a varietyof picturesque and rural scenes, birds singing; rustics laboring, orplaying on their pipes; sheep bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and ascene of fish and fishing; little naked cupids laughing, playing, andpelting each other with apples; and, on the summit, a female figure, turning with the slightest breath, and thence denominated _the wind'sattendant_. _8. _ The Phrygian shepherd presenting to Venus the prizeof beauty, the apple of discord. _9. _ The incomparable statue of Helen, which is delineated by Nicetas in the words of admiration and love: herwell-turned feet, snowy arms, rosy lips, bewitching smiles, swimmingeyes, arched eyebrows, the harmony of her shape, the lightness of herdrapery, and her flowing locks that waved in the wind; a beauty thatmight have moved her Barbarian destroyers to pity and remorse. _10. _ Themanly or divine form of Hercules, [96] as he was restored to life by themasterhand of Lysippus; of such magnitude, that his thumb was equal tohis 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, hisaspect commanding. Without his bow, or quiver, or club, his lion's skincarelessly thrown over him, he was seated on an osier basket, his rightleg and arm stretched to the utmost, his left knee bent, and supportinghis elbow, his head reclining on his left hand, his countenanceindignant and pensive. _11. _ A colossal statue of Juno, which had onceadorned her temple of Samos, the enormous head by four yoke of oxen waslaboriously drawn to the palace. _12. _ Another colossus, of Pallas orMinerva, thirty feet in height, and representing with admirable spiritthe attributes and character of the martial maid. Before we accuse theLatins, it is just to remark, that this Pallas was destroyed after thefirst siege, by the fear and superstition of the Greeks themselves. [98] The other statues of brass which I have enumerated were broken andmelted by the unfeeling avarice of the crusaders: the cost and laborwere consumed in a moment; the soul of genius evaporated in smoke; andthe remnant of base metal was coined into money for the payment of thetroops. Bronze is not the most durable of monuments: from the marbleforms of Phidias and Praxiteles, the Latins might turn aside with stupidcontempt; [99] but unless they were crushed by some accidental injury, those useless stones stood secure on their pedestals. [100] The mostenlightened of the strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits oftheir countrymen, more piously exercised the right of conquest in thesearch and seizure of the relics of the saints. [101] Immense was thesupply of heads and bones, crosses and images, that were scattered bythis revolution over the churches of Europe; and such was the increaseof pilgrimage and oblation, that no branch, perhaps, of more lucrativeplunder was imported from the East. [102] Of the writings of antiquity, many that still existed in the twelfth century, are now lost. But thepilgrims were not solicitous to save or transport the volumes of anunknown tongue: the perishable substance of paper or parchment can onlybe preserved by the multiplicity of copies; the literature of the Greekshad almost centred in the metropolis; and, without computing the extentof our loss, we may drop a tear over the libraries that have perished inthe triple fire of Constantinople. [103]

[Footnote 93: Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, par agrammatoiVBarbaroiV, kai teleon analfabhtoiV, (Fragment, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. Tom. Vi. P. 414. ) This reproach, it is true, applies most stronglyto their ignorance of Greek and of Homer. In their own language, the Latins of the xiith and xiiith centuries were not destitute ofliterature. See Harris's Philological Inquiries, p. Iii. C. 9, 10, 11. ]

[Footnote 94: Nicetas was of Chonæ in Phrygia, (the old Colossæ 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, andcomposed an elaborate history from the death of Alexius Comnenus to thereign of Henry. ]

[Footnote 95: A manuscript of Nicetas in the Bodleian library containsthis curious fragment on the statues of Constantinople, which fraud, orshame, or rather carelessness, has dropped in the common editions. Itis published by Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. Tom. Vi. P. 405--416, ) andimmoderately 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 quotesa Greek epigram, and engraves a beautiful gem, which does not, however, copy the attitude of the statue: in the latter, Hercules had not hisclub, and his right leg and arm were extended. ]

[Footnote 97: I transcribe these proportions, which appear to meinconsistent with each other; and may possibly show, that the boastedtaste of Nicetas was no more than affectation and vanity. ]

[Footnote 98: Nicetas in Isaaco Angelo et Alexio, c. 3, p. 359. TheLatin editor very properly observes, that the historian, in his bombaststyle, 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 kalouanerastoi barbaroi, and their avarice of brass is clearly expressed. Yet the Venetians had the merit of removing four bronze horses fromConstantinople to the place of St. Mark, (Sanuto, Vite del Dogi, inMuratori, 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, whotransferred a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris, diocese of Basil, (Gunther, Hist. C. P. C. 19, 23, 24. ) Yet in secreting this booty, thesaint incurred an excommunication, and perhaps broke his oath. (CompareWilken 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 modernhistory, which illustrates the taking of Constantinople by the Latins;but which has fallen somewhat late into my hands. Paolo Ramusio, theson of the compiler of Voyages, was directed by the senate of Venice towrite the history of the conquest: and this order, which he receivedin his youth, he executed in a mature age, by an elegant Latin work, de Bello Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis per Gallos etVenetos 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 Latinmaterials, 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 therepublic, and the patriot opposition of Pantaleon Barbus to the choiceof 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 regulatetheir future possessions. [1] It was stipulated by treaty, that twelveelectors, six of either nation, should be nominated; that a majorityshould choose the emperor of the East; and that, if the votes wereequal, 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 Blachernæ, with a fourthpart of the Greek monarchy. It was defined that the three remainingportions should be equally shared between the republic of Venice and thebarons of France; that each feudatory, with an honorable exceptionfor the doge, should acknowledge and perform the duties of homage andmilitary service to the supreme head of the empire; that the nationwhich gave an emperor, should resign to their brethren the choice of apatriarch; and that the pilgrims, whatever might be their impatienceto visit the Holy Land, should devote another year to the conquest anddefence of the Greek provinces. After the conquest of Constantinopleby the Latins, the treaty was confirmed and executed; and the first andmost important step was the creation of an emperor. The six electorsof the French nation were all ecclesiastics, the abbot of Loces, thearchbishop elect of Acre in Palestine, and the bishops of Troyes, Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem, the last of whom exercised in thecamp the office of pope's legate: their profession and knowledge wererespectable; and as _they_ could not be the objects, they were bestqualified to be the authors of the choice. The six Venetians were theprincipal servants of the state, and in this list the noble families ofQuerini and Contarini are still proud to discover their ancestors. The twelve assembled in the chapel of the palace; and after the solemninvocation of the Holy Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and vote. Ajust impulse of respect and gratitude prompted them to crown the virtuesof the doge; his wisdom had inspired their enterprise; and the mostyouthful knights might envy and applaud the exploits of blindness andage. But the patriot Dandolo was devoid of all personal ambition, andfully satisfied that he had been judged worthy to reign. His nominationwas overruled by the Venetians themselves: his countrymen, and perhapshis friends, [2] represented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefsthat might arise to national freedom and the common cause, from theunion of two incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of arepublic and the emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge leftroom for the more equal merits of Boniface and Baldwin; and at theirnames all meaner candidates respectfully withdrew. The marquis ofMontferrat was recommended by his mature age and fair reputation, bythe choice of the adventurers, and the wishes of the Greeks; nor canI believe that Venice, the mistress of the sea, could be seriouslyapprehensive of a petty lord at the foot of the Alps. [3] But the countof Flanders was the chief of a wealthy and warlike people: he wasvaliant, pious, and chaste; in the prime of life, since he was onlythirty-two years of age; a descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of theking of France, and a compeer of the prelates and barons who had yieldedwith reluctance to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel, thesebarons, with the doge and marquis at their head, expected the decisionof the twelve electors. It was announced by the bishop of Soissons, inthe name of his colleagues: "Ye have sworn to obey the prince whom weshould choose: by our unanimous suffrage, Baldwin count of Flanders andHainault is now your sovereign, and the emperor of the East. " He wassaluted with loud applause, and the proclamation was reechoed throughthe city by the joy of the Latins, and the trembling adulation of theGreeks. Boniface was the first to kiss the hand of his rival, and toraise him on the buckler: and Baldwin was transported to the cathedral, and solemnly invested with the purple buskins. At the end of three weekshe was crowned by the legate, in the vacancy of the patriarch; but theVenetian clergy soon filled the chapter of St. Sophia, seated ThomasMorosini on the ecclesiastical throne, and employed every art toperpetuate in their own nation the honors and benefices of the Greekchurch. [4] Without delay the successor of Constantine instructedPalestine, France, and Rome, of this memorable revolution. To Palestinehe sent, as a trophy, the gates of Constantinople, and the chain ofthe harbor; [5] and adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws orcustoms best adapted to a French colony and conquest in the East. In hisepistles, the natives of France are encouraged to swell that colony, and to secure that conquest, to people a magnificent city and a fertileland, which will reward the labors both of the priest and the soldier. He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the restoration of his authorityin the East; invites him to extinguish the Greek schism by his presencein a general council; and implores his blessing and forgiveness for thedisobedient pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended in the answer ofInnocent. [6] In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he arraigns thevices of man, and adores the providence of God; the conquerors will beabsolved or condemned by their future conduct; the validity of theirtreaty depends on the judgment of St. Peter; but he inculcates theirmost sacred duty of establishing a just subordination of obedienceand tribute, from the Greeks to the Latins, from the magistrate to theclergy, and from the clergy to the pope. 

[Footnote 1: See the original treaty of partition, in the VenetianChronicle of Andrew Dandolo, p. 326--330, and the subsequent election inVille hardouin, No. 136--140, with Ducange in his Observations, and thebook of his Histoire de Constantinople sous l'Empire des François. ]

[Footnote 2: After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a Frenchelector his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion, quidamVenetorum 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 deoikeisqai paralion. Was he deceived by the Byzantine theme of Lombardywhich extended along the coast of Calabria?]

[Footnote 4: They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint nocanons of St. Sophia the lawful electors, except Venetians who had livedten years at Venice, &c. But the foreign clergy was envious, the popedisapproved this national monopoly, and of the six Latin patriarchs ofConstantinople, only the first and the last were Venetians. ]

[Footnote 5: Nicetas, p. 383. ]

[Footnote 6: The Epistles of Innocent III. Are a rich fund forthe ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire ofConstantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of whichthe collection in 2 vols. In folio is published by Stephen Baluze) areinserted 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 Venetianswas more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more than one fourthwas appropriated to his domain; a clear moiety of the remainder wasreserved for Venice; and the other moiety was distributed among theadventures of France and Lombardy. The venerable Dandolo was proclaimeddespot of Romania, and invested after the Greek fashion with the purplebuskins. He ended at Constantinople his long and glorious life; and ifthe prerogative was personal, the title was used by his successors tillthe middle of the fourteenth century, with the singular, though true, addition of lords of one fourth and a half of the Roman empire. [8] Thedoge, a slave of state, was seldom permitted to depart from the helm ofthe republic; but his place was supplied by the _bail_, or regent, whoexercised a supreme jurisdiction over the colony of Venetians: theypossessed three of the eight quarters of the city; and his independenttribunal was composed of six judges, four counsellors, two chamberlainstwo fiscal advocates, and a constable. Their long experience of theEastern trade enabled them to select their portion with discernment:they had rashly accepted the dominion and defence of Adrianople; butit was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a chain offactories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast, from theneighborhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The laborand cost of such extensive conquests exhausted their treasury: theyabandoned their maxims of government, adopted a feudal system, andcontented themselves with the homage of their nobles, [9] for thepossessions which these private vassals undertook to reduce andmaintain. And thus it was that the family of Sanut acquired the duchyof Naxos, which involved the greatest part of the archipelago. For theprice of ten thousand marks, the republic purchased of the marquis ofMontferrat the fertile Island of Crete or Candia, with the ruins of ahundred cities; [10] but its improvement was stinted by the proud andnarrow spirit of an aristocracy; [11] and the wisest senators wouldconfess that the sea, not the land, was the treasury of St. Mark. Inthe moiety of the adventurers the marquis Boniface might claim the mostliberal reward; and, besides the Isle of Crete, his exclusion from thethrone was compensated by the royal title and the provinces beyondthe Hellespont. But he prudently exchanged that distant and difficultconquest for the kingdom of Thessalonica Macedonia, twelve days' journeyfrom the capital, where he might be supported by the neighboring powersof his brother-in-law the king of Hungary. His progress was hailed bythe voluntary or reluctant acclamations of the natives; and Greece, theproper and ancient Greece, again received a Latin conqueror, [12] whotrod with indifference that classic ground. He viewed with a carelesseye the beauties of the valley of Tempe; traversed with a cautiousstep the straits of Thermopylæ; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes, Athens, and Argos; and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth andNapoli, [13] which resisted his arms. The lots of the Latin pilgrims wereregulated by chance, or choice, or subsequent exchange; and they abused, with intemperate joy, their triumph over the lives and fortunes of agreat people. After a minute survey of the provinces, they weighed inthe scales of avarice the revenue of each district, the advantage ofthe situation, and the ample on scanty supplies for the maintenance ofsoldiers and horses. Their presumption claimed and divided the long-lostdependencies of the Roman sceptre: the Nile and Euphrates rolled throughtheir imaginary realms; and happy was the warrior who drew for his prizethe palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium. [14] I shall not descendto the pedigree of families and the rent-roll of estates, but I wishto specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were invested with theduchy of Nice and the lordship of Demotica: [15] the principal fiefs wereheld by the service of constable, chamberlain, cup-bearer, butler, andchief cook; and our historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fairestablishment on the banks of the Hebrus, and united the double officeof marshal of Champagne and Romania. At the head of his knights andarchers, each baron mounted on horseback to secure the possession of hisshare, and their first efforts were generally successful. But the publicforce was weakened by their dispersion; and a thousand quarrels mustarise under a law, and among men, whose sole umpire was the sword. Within three months after the conquest of Constantinople, the emperorand the king of Thessalonica drew their hostile followers into thefield; they were reconciled by the authority of the doge, the advice ofthe marshal, and the firm freedom of their peers. [16]

[Footnote 7: In the treaty of partition, most of the names are corruptedby the scribes: they might be restored, and a good map, suited to thelast age of the Byzantine empire, would be an improvement of geography. But, alas D'Anville is no more!]

[Footnote 8: Their style was dominus quartæ partis et dimidiæ imperiiRomani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in the year of1356, (Sanuto, p. 530, 641. ) For the government of Constantinople, seeDucange, Histoire de C. P. I. 37. ]

[Footnote 9: Ducange (Hist. De C. P. Ii. 6) has marked the conquestsmade by the state or nobles of Venice of the Islands of Candia, Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros, Mycone, Syro, Cea, andLemnos. ]

[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 behis mother's portion, or how she could be the daughter of an emperorAlexius. ]

[Footnote 11: In the year 1212, the doge Peter Zani sent a colony toCandia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But in their savage mannersand frequent rebellions, the Candiots may be compared to the Corsicansunder the yoke of Genoa; and when I compare the accounts of Belon andTournefort, I cannot discern much difference between the Venetian andthe 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 asaint. His encomium of Athens, and the description of Tempe, should bepublished from the Bodleian MS. Of Nicetas, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. Tom. Vi. P. 405, ) and would have deserved Mr. Harris's inquiries. ]

[Footnote 13: Napoli de Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient seaport ofArgos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate on arocky peninsula, with a good harbor, (Chandler's Travels into Greece, p. 227. )]

[Footnote 14: I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who strivesto 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 tothe south of Adrianople, received from its double wall the Greek nameof Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into Demotica and Dimot. I havepreferred the more convenient and modern appellation of Demotica. Thisplace was the last Turkish residence of Charles XII. ]

[Footnote 16: Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No. 146--158) withthe spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of the marshal are soacknowledged by the Greek historian (p. 387) mega para touV tvn Dauinwndunamenou strateumasi: unlike some modern heroes, whose exploits areonly visible in their own memoirs. * Note: William de Champlite, brotherof the count of Dijon, assumed the title of Prince of Achaia: on thedeath of his brother, he returned, with regret, to France, to assume hispaternal inheritance, and left Villehardouin his "_bailli_, " oncondition that if he did not return within a year Villehardouin was toretain an investiture. Brosset's Add. To Le Beau, vol. Xvii. P. 200. M. Brosset adds, from the Greek chronicler edited by M. Buchon, thesomewhat unknightly trick by which Villehardouin disembarrassed himselffrom the troublesome claim of Robert, the cousin of the count of Dijon. To the succession. He contrived that Robert should arrive just fifteendays too late; and with the general concurrence of the assembled knightswas himself invested with the principality. Ibid. P. 283. M. ]

Two fugitives, who had reigned at Constantinople, still asserted thetitle of emperor; and the subjects of their fallen throne might be movedto pity by the misfortunes of the elder Alexius, or excited to revengeby the spirit of Mourzoufle. A domestic alliance, a common interest, asimilar guilt, and the merit of extinguishing his enemies, a brother anda nephew, induced the more recent usurper to unite with the former therelics of his power. Mourzoufle was received with smiles and honorsin the camp of his father Alexius; but the wicked can never love, andshould rarely trust, their fellow-criminals; he was seized in the bath, deprived of his eyes, stripped of his troops and treasures, and turnedout to wander an object of horror and contempt to those who with morepropriety could hate, and with more justice could punish, the assassinof the emperor Isaac and his son. As the tyrant, pursued by fear orremorse, was stealing over to Asia, he was seized by the Latins ofConstantinople, and condemned, after an open trial, to an ignominiousdeath. His judges debated the mode of his execution, the axe, the wheel, or the stake; and it was resolved that Mourzoufle [17] should ascendthe Theodosian column, a pillar of white marble of one hundred andforty-seven feet in height. [18] From the summit he was cast downheadlong, and dashed in pieces on the pavement, in the presence ofinnumerable spectators, who filled the forum of Taurus, and admiredthe accomplishment of an old prediction, which was explained by thissingular event. [19] The fate of Alexius is less tragical: he was sentby the marquis a captive to Italy, and a gift to the king of theRomans; but he had not much to applaud his fortune, if the sentence ofimprisonment and exile were changed from a fortress in the Alps to amonastery in Asia. But his daughter, before the national calamity, hadbeen given in marriage to a young hero who continued the succession, and restored the throne, of the Greek princes. [20] The valor of TheodoreLascaris was signalized in the two sieges of Constantinople. Afterthe flight of Mourzoufle, when the Latins were already in the city, heoffered himself as their emperor to the soldiers and people; and hisambition, which might be virtuous, was undoubtedly brave. Could he haveinfused a soul into the multitude, they might have crushed the strangersunder their feet: their abject despair refused his aid; and Theodoreretired to breathe the air of freedom in Anatolia, beyond the immediateview 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 everymeans was lawful for the public safety implored without scruple thealliance of the Turkish sultan Nice, where Theodore established hisresidence, Prusa and Philadelphia, Smyrna and Ephesus, opened theirgates to their deliverer: he derived strength and reputation from hisvictories, and even from his defeats; and the successor of Constantinepreserved a fragment of the empire from the banks of the Mæander to thesuburbs 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. Hisname was Alexius; and the epithet of great [201] was applied perhaps to hisstature, rather than to his exploits. By the indulgence of the Angeli, he was appointed governor or duke of Trebizond: [21] [211] his birth gavehim ambition, the revolution independence; and, without changing histitle, he reigned in peace from Sinope to the Phasis, along the coastof the Black Sea. His nameless son and successor [212] is described asthe vassal of the sultan, whom he served with two hundred lances: thatComnenian prince was no more than duke of Trebizond, and the titleof emperor was first assumed by the pride and envy of the grandsonof Alexius. In the West, a third fragment was saved from the commonshipwreck by Michael, a bastard of the house of Angeli, who, before therevolution, had been known as a hostage, a soldier, and a rebel. Hisflight from the camp of the marquis Boniface secured his freedom; by hismarriage with the governor's daughter, he commanded the importantplace of Durazzo, assumed the title of despot, and founded a strong andconspicuous principality in Epirus, Ætolia, and Thessaly, which haveever been peopled by a warlike race. The Greeks, who had offered theirservice to their new sovereigns, were excluded by the haughty Latins[22] from all civil and military honors, as a nation born to tremble andobey. Their resentment prompted them to show that they might have beenuseful friends, since they could be dangerous enemies: their nerves werebraced by adversity: whatever was learned or holy, whatever was noble orvaliant, rolled away into the independent states of Trebizond, Epirus, and Nice; and a single patrician is marked by the ambiguous praise ofattachment and loyalty to the Franks. The vulgar herd of the cities andthe country would have gladly submitted to a mild and regular servitude;and the transient disorders of war would have been obliterated by someyears of industry and peace. But peace was banished, and industry wascrushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The _Roman_ emperorsof Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities, were armed withpower for the protection of their subjects: their laws were wise, and their administration was simple. The Latin throne was filled bya titular prince, the chief, and often the servant, of his licentiousconfederates; the fiefs of the empire, from a kingdom to a castle, wereheld and ruled by the sword of the barons; and their discord, poverty, and ignorance, extended the ramifications of tyranny to the mostsequestered villages. The Greeks were oppressed by the double weight ofthe priest, who were invested with temporal power, and of the soldier, who was inflamed by fanatic hatred; and the insuperable bar of religionand language forever separated the stranger and the native. As longas the crusaders were united at Constantinople, the memory of theirconquest, and the terror of their arms, imposed silence on the captiveland: their dispersion betrayed the smallness of their numbers and thedefects of their discipline; and some failures and mischances revealedthe secret, that they were not invincible. As the fears of the Greeksabated, their hatred increased. They murdered; they conspired; andbefore a year of slavery had elapsed, they implored, or accepted, thesuccor of a Barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose gratitudethey trusted. [23]

[Footnote 17: See the fate of Mourzoufle in Nicetas, (p. 393, )Villehardouin, (No. 141--145, 163, ) and Guntherus, (c. 20, 21. ) Neitherthe 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 relievohis victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is still extant atConstantinople. 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 concerningthis _columna fatidica_, is unworthy of notice; but it is singularenough, that fifty years before the Latin conquest, the poet Tzetzes, (Chiliad, ix. 277) relates the dream of a matron, who saw an army in theforum, and a man sitting on the column, clapping his hands, and utteringa loud exclamation. * Note: We read in the "Chronicle of the Conquest ofConstantinople, and of the Establishment of the French in the Morea, "translated by J A Buchon, Paris, 1825, p. 64 that Leo VI. , called thePhilosopher, had prophesied that a perfidious emperor should beprecipitated from the top of this column. The crusaders consideredthemselves under an obligation to fulfil this prophecy. Brosset, note onLe Beau, vol. Xvii. P. 180. M Brosset announces that a complete editionof this work, of which the original Greek of the first book only hasbeen published by M. Buchon in preparation, to form part of the newseries of the Byzantine historian. --M. ]

[Footnote 20: The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of whichNicetas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope) are learnedlyexplored, and clearly represented, in the Familiæ Byzantinæ of Ducange. ]

[Footnote 201: This was a title, not a personal appellation. Joinvillespeaks 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 ofthe empire of Trebizond, or principality of the _Lazi_; and among theLatins, it is conspicuous only in the romancers of the xivth or xvthcenturies. Yet the indefatigable Ducange has dug out (Fam. Byz. P. 192)two authentic passages in Vincent of Beauvais (l. Xxxi. C. 144) and theprothonotary Ogerius, (apud Wading, A. D. 1279, No. 4. )]

[Footnote 211: On the revolutions of Trebizond under the later empiredown to this period, see Fallmerayer, Geschichte des Kaiserthums vonTrapezunt, ch. Iii. The wife of Manuel fled with her infant sons andher treasure from the relentless enmity of Isaac Angelus. Fallmerayerconjectures that her arrival enabled the Greeks of that region to makehead against the formidable Thamar, the Georgian queen of Teflis, p. 42. They gradually formed a dominion on the banks of the Phasis, whichthe distracted government of the Angeli neglected or were unable tosuppress. On the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, Alexiuswas joined by many noble fugitives from Constantinople. He had alwaysretained the names of Cæsar and BasileuV. He now fixed the seat of hisempire at Trebizond; but he had never abandoned his pretensions to theByzantine throne, ch. Iii. Fallmerayer appears to make out a triumphantcase as to the assumption of the royal title by Alexius the First. Sincethe publication of M. Fallmerayer's work, (München, 1827, ) M. Tafel haspublished, at the end of the opuscula of Eustathius, a curious chronicleof Trebizond by Michael Panaretas, (Frankfort, 1832. ) It gives thesuccession of the emperors, and some other curious circumstances oftheir 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 successionsbetween Alexius and John, according to Fallmerayer, p. 103. The troopsof Trebizond fought in the army of Dschelaleddin, the Karismian, againstAlaleddin, the Seljukian sultan of Roum, but as allies rather thanvassals, p. 107. It was after the defeat of Dschelaleddin that theyfurnished their contingent to Alai-eddin. Fallmerayer struggles in vainto 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 Nicetasby the hand of prejudice and resentment: ouden tvn allwn eqnvn eiV''AreoV?rga parasumbeblhsqai sjisin hneiconto all' oude tiV tvn caritwnh tvn?mousvn para toiV barbaroiV toutoiV epexenizeto, kai paratouto oimai thn jusin hsan anhmeroi, kai ton xolon eixon tou logouprstreconta. [P. 791 Ed. Bek. ]

[Footnote 23: I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence, theeight books of the Histoire de C. P. Sous l'Empire des François, whichDucange has given as a supplement to Villehardouin; and which, in abarbarous style, deserves the praise of an original and classic work. ]

The Latin conquerors had been saluted with a solemn and early embassyfrom John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the revolted chief of theBulgarians and Walachians. He deemed himself their brother, as thevotary of the Roman pontiff, from whom he had received the regal titleand a holy banner; and in the subversion of the Greek monarchy, he mightaspire to the name of their friend and accomplice. But Calo-John wasastonished to find, that the Count of Flanders had assumed the pompand pride of the successors of Constantine; and his ambassadors weredismissed with a haughty message, that the rebel must deserve a pardon, by touching with his forehead the footstool of the Imperial throne. Hisresentment [24] would have exhaled in acts of violence and blood: hiscooler policy watched the rising discontent of the Greeks; affecteda tender concern for their sufferings; and promised, that their firststruggles for freedom should be supported by his person and kingdom. The conspiracy was propagated by national hatred, the firmest band ofassociation and secrecy: the Greeks were impatient to sheathe theirdaggers in the breasts of the victorious strangers; but the executionwas prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor's brother, hadtransported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellespont. Most of thetowns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and the signal; andthe Latins, without arms or suspicion, were slaughtered by the vile andmerciless revenge of their slaves. From Demotica, the first scene ofthe massacre, the surviving vassals of the count of St. Pol escaped toAdrianople; but the French and Venetians, who occupied that city, wereslain or expelled by the furious multitude: the garrisons that couldeffect their retreat fell back on each other towards the metropolis; andthe fortresses, that separately stood against the rebels, were ignorantof each other's and of their sovereign's fate. The voice of fame andfear announced the revolt of the Greeks and the rapid approach of theirBulgarian ally; and Calo-John, not depending on the forces of his ownkingdom, had drawn from the Scythian wilderness a body of fourteenthousand 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 claimsand complaints, (Gesta Innocent III. C. 108, 109:) he was cherished atRome as the prodigal son. ]

[Footnote 25: The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which encampedin the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of Moldavia. The greaterpart were pagans, but some were Mahometans, and the whole horde wasconverted to Christianity (A. D. 1370) by Lewis, king of Hungary. ]

Alarmed by this sudden and growing danger, the emperor despatched aswift messenger to recall Count Henry and his troops; and had Baldwinexpected the return of his gallant brother, with a supply of twentythousand Armenians, he might have encountered the invader with equalnumbers and a decisive superiority of arms and discipline. But thespirit of chivalry could seldom discriminate caution from cowardice; andthe emperor took the field with a hundred and forty knights, and theirtrain of archers and sergeants. The marshal, who dissuaded and obeyed, led the vanguard in their march to Adrianople; the main body wascommanded by the count of Blois; the aged doge of Venice followed withthe rear; and their scanty numbers were increased from all sides by thefugitive Latins. They undertook to besiege the rebels of Adrianople; andsuch was the pious tendency of the crusades that they employed the holyweek in pillaging the country for their subsistence, and in framingengines for the destruction of their fellow-Christians. But the Latinswere soon interrupted and alarmed by the light cavalry of the Comans, who boldly skirmished to the edge of their imperfect lines: anda proclamation was issued by the marshal of Romania, that, on thetrumpet's sound, the cavalry should mount and form; but that none, underpain of death, should abandon themselves to a desultory and dangerouspursuit. This wise injunction was first disobeyed by the count of Blois, who involved the emperor in his rashness and ruin. The Comans, of theParthian or Tartar school, fled before their first charge; but aftera career of two leagues, when the knights and their horses were almostbreathless, they suddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the heavysquadrons of the Franks. The count was slain on the field; the emperorwas made prisoner; and if the one disdained to fly, if the otherrefused to yield, their personal bravery made a poor atonement for theirignorance, or neglect, of the duties of a general. [26]

[Footnote 26: Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the defeat tothe cowardice of Dandolo, (p. 383;) but Villehardouin shares his ownglory with his venerable friend, qui viels home ére et gote ne veoit, mais mult ére sages et preus et vigueros, (No. 193. ) * Note: Gibbonappears to me to have misapprehended the passage of Nicetas. He says, "that principal and subtlest mischief. That primary cause of all thehorrible miseries suffered by the _Romans_, " i. E. The Byzantines. It isan effusion of malicious triumph against the Venetians, to whom healways 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 torelieve Adrianople and achieve the destruction of the Latins. Theymust inevitably have been destroyed, if the marshal of Romania had notdisplayed a cool courage and consummate skill; uncommon in all ages, but most uncommon in those times, when war was a passion, rather thana science. His grief and fears were poured into the firm and faithfulbosom of the doge; but in the camp he diffused an assurance ofsafety, which could only be realized by the general belief. All day hemaintained his perilous station between the city and the Barbarians:Villehardouin decamped in silence at the dead of night; and his masterlyretreat of three days would have deserved the praise of Xenophon andthe ten thousand. In the rear, the marshal supported the weight of thepursuit; in the front, he moderated the impatience of the fugitives;and wherever the Comans approached, they were repelled by a line ofimpenetrable spears. On the third day, the weary troops beheld the sea, the solitary town of Rodosta, [27] and their friends, who had landed fromthe Asiatic shore. They embraced, they wept; but they united their armsand counsels; and in his brother's absence, Count Henry assumed theregency of the empire, at once in a state of childhood and caducity. [28]If the Comans withdrew from the summer heats, seven thousand Latins, inthe hour of danger, deserted Constantinople, their brethren, and theirvows. Some partial success was overbalanced by the loss of one hundredand twenty knights in the field of Rusium; and of the Imperial domain, no more was left than the capital, with two or three adjacent fortresseson the shores of Europe and Asia. The king of Bulgaria was resistlessand inexorable; and Calo-John respectfully eluded the demands of thepope, who conjured his new proselyte to restore peace and the emperor tothe 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 ofhis death is variously related by ignorance and credulity. The loversof a tragic legend will be pleased to hear, that the royal captive wastempted by the amorous queen of the Bulgarians; that his chaste refusalexposed 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 bleedingtrunk was cast among the carcasses of dogs and horses; and that hebreathed three days, before he was devoured by the birds of prey. [29]About twenty years afterwards, in a wood of the Netherlands, a hermitannounced 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 torebel; and, in the first transport, Flanders acknowledged her long-lostsovereign. A short examination before the French court detected theimpostor, who was punished with an ignominious death; but the Flemingsstill adhered to the pleasing error; and the countess Jane is accusedby the gravest historians of sacrificing to her ambition the life of anunfortunate father. [30]

[Footnote 27: The truth of geography, and the original text ofVillehardouin, (No. 194, ) place Rodosto three days' journey (troisjornées) from Adrianople: but Vigenere, in his version, has mostabsurdly substituted _trois heures_; and this error, which is notcorrected by Ducange has entrapped several moderns, whose names I shallspare. ]

[Footnote 28: The reign and end of Baldwin are related by Villehardouinand Nicetas, (p. 386--416;) and their omissions are supplied by Ducangein his Observations, and to the end of his first book. ]

[Footnote 29: After brushing away all doubtful and improbablecircumstances, we may prove the death of Baldwin, 1. By the firm beliefof the French barons, (Villehardouin, No. 230. ) 2. By the declarationof Calo-John himself, who excuses his not releasing the captive emperor, quia debitum carnis exsolverat cum carcere teneretur, (Gesta InnocentIII. C. 109. ) * Note: Compare Von Raumer. Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, vol. Ii. P. 237. Petitot, in his preface to Villehardouin in theCollection 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 Flemishwriters in Ducange, Hist. De C. P. Iii. 9; and the ridiculous fablesthat 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 exchangeor ransom of prisoners; and if their captivity be prolonged, theircondition is known, and they are treated according to their rank withhumanity or honor. But the savage Bulgarian was a stranger to the lawsof war: his prisons were involved in darkness and silence; and above ayear elapsed before the Latins could be assured of the death of Baldwin, before his brother, the regent Henry, would consent to assume the titleof emperor. His moderation was applauded by the Greeks as an act of rareand inimitable virtue. Their light and perfidious ambition was eager toseize or anticipate the moment of a vacancy, while a law of succession, the guardian both of the prince and people, was gradually defined andconfirmed in the hereditary monarchies of Europe. In the support of theEastern empire, Henry was gradually left without an associate, as theheroes of the crusade retired from the world or from the war. The dogeof Venice, the venerable Dandolo, in the fulness of years and glory, sunk into the grave. The marquis of Montferrat was slowly recalledfrom the Peloponnesian war to the revenge of Baldwin and the defenceof Thessalonica. Some nice disputes of feudal homage and service werereconciled in a personal interview between the emperor and the king;they were firmly united by mutual esteem and the common danger; andtheir alliance was sealed by the nuptials of Henry with the daughter ofthe Italian prince. He soon deplored the loss of his friend and father. At the persuasion of some faithful Greeks, Boniface made a bold andsuccessful inroad among the hills of Rhodope: the Bulgarians fled on hisapproach; they assembled to harass his retreat. On the intelligencethat his rear was attacked, without waiting for any defensive armor, he leaped on horseback, couched his lance, and drove the enemies beforehim; but in the rash pursuit he was pierced with a mortal wound; and thehead of the king of Thessalonica was presented to Calo-John, whoenjoyed the honors, without the merit, of victory. It is here, at thismelancholy event, that the pen or the voice of Jeffrey of Villehardouinseems to drop or to expire; [31] and if he still exercised his militaryoffice of marshal of Romania, his subsequent exploits are buried inoblivion. [32] The character of Henry was not unequal to his arduoussituation: in the siege of Constantinople, and beyond the Hellespont, hehad deserved the fame of a valiant knight and a skilful commander; andhis courage was tempered with a degree of prudence and mildness unknownto his impetuous brother. In the double war against the Greeks of Asiaand the Bulgarians of Europe, he was ever the foremost on shipboard oron horseback; and though he cautiously provided for the success of hisarms, the drooping Latins were often roused by his example to save andto second their fearless emperor. But such efforts, and some suppliesof men and money from France, were of less avail than the errors, thecruelty, and death, of their most formidable adversary. When the despairof the Greek subjects invited Calo-John as their deliverer, they hopedthat he would protect their liberty and adopt their laws: they were soontaught to compare the degrees of national ferocity, and to execrate thesavage conqueror, who no longer dissembled his intention of dispeoplingThrace, of demolishing the cities, and of transplanting the inhabitantsbeyond the Danube. Many towns and villages of Thrace were alreadyevacuated: a heap of ruins marked the place of Philippopolis, and asimilar calamity was expected at Demotica and Adrianople, by the firstauthors of the revolt. They raised a cry of grief and repentance to thethrone of Henry; the emperor alone had the magnanimity to forgive andtrust them. No more than four hundred knights, with their sergeantsand archers, could be assembled under his banner; and with thisslender force he fought [321] and repulsed the Bulgarian, who, besides hisinfantry, was at the head of forty thousand horse. In this expedition, Henry felt the difference between a hostile and a friendly country: theremaining cities were preserved by his arms; and the savage, withshame and loss, was compelled to relinquish his prey. The siege ofThessalonica was the last of the evils which Calo-John inflicted orsuffered: he was stabbed in the night in his tent; and the general, perhaps the assassin, who found him weltering in his blood, ascribed theblow, with general applause, to the lance of St. Demetrius. [33] Afterseveral victories, the prudence of Henry concluded an honorable peacewith the successor of the tyrant, and with the Greek princes of Nice andEpirus. If he ceded some doubtful limits, an ample kingdom was reservedfor himself and his feudatories; and his reign, which lasted only tenyears, afforded a short interval of prosperity and peace. Far above thenarrow policy of Baldwin and Boniface, he freely intrusted to the Greeksthe most important offices of the state and army; and this liberality ofsentiment and practice was the more seasonable, as the princes of Niceand Epirus had already learned to seduce and employ the mercenary valorof the Latins. It was the aim of Henry to unite and reward his deservingsubjects, of every nation and language; but he appeared less solicitousto accomplish the impracticable union of the two churches. Pelagius, the pope's legate, who acted as the sovereign of Constantinople, hadinterdicted the worship of the Greeks, and sternly imposed the paymentof tithes, the double procession of the Holy Ghost, and a blindobedience to the Roman pontiff. As the weaker party, they pleadedthe duties of conscience, and implored the rights of toleration: "Ourbodies, " they said, "are Cæsar's, but our souls belong only to God. " Thepersecution was checked by the firmness of the emperor: [34] and if wecan believe that the same prince was poisoned by the Greeks themselves, we must entertain a contemptible idea of the sense and gratitude ofmankind. His valor was a vulgar attribute, which he shared with tenthousand knights; but Henry possessed the superior courage to oppose, in a superstitious age, the pride and avarice of the clergy. In thecathedral of St. Sophia he presumed to place his throne on the righthand of the patriarch; and this presumption excited the sharpest censureof Pope Innocent the Third. By a salutary edict, one of the firstexamples of the laws of mortmain, he prohibited the alienation of fiefs:many of the Latins, desirous of returning to Europe, resigned theirestates to the church for a spiritual or temporal reward; these holylands were immediately discharged from military service, and a colonyof soldiers would have been gradually transformed into a college ofpriests. [35]

[Footnote 31: Villehardouin, No. 257. I quote, with regret, thislamentable conclusion, where we lose at once the original history, andthe rich illustrations of Ducange. The last pages may derive some lightfrom Henry's two epistles to Innocent III. , (Gesta, c. 106, 107. )]

[Footnote 32: The marshal was alive in 1212, but he probably died soonafterwards, without returning to France, (Ducange, Observations surVillehardouin, p. 238. ) His fief of Messinople, the gift of Boniface, was the ancient Maximianopolis, which flourished in the time of AmmianusMarcellinus, among the cities of Thrace, (No. 141. )]

[Footnote 321: There was no battle. On the advance of the Latins, Johnsuddenly broke up his camp and retreated. The Latins consideredthis unexpected deliverance almost a miracle. Le Beau suggests theprobability that the detection of the Comans, who usually quitted thecamp during the heats of summer, may have caused the flight of theBulgarians. Nicetas, c. 8 Villebardouin, c. 225. Le Beau, vol. Xvii. P. 242. --M. ]

[Footnote 33: The church of this patron of Thessalonica was served bythe canons of the holy sepulchre, and contained a divine ointment whichdistilled daily and stupendous miracles, (Ducange, Hist. De C. P. Ii. 4. )]

[Footnote 34: Acropolita (c. 17) observes the persecution of thelegate, and the toleration of Henry, ('Erh, * as he calls him) kludwnakatestorese. 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 thePopes. Le Beau (Hist. Du Bas Empire, tom. Xxi. P. 120--122) has found, perhaps in Doutreman, some laws of Henry, which determined the serviceof 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 firstemperors of Constantinople the male line of the counts of Flanders wasextinct. But their sister Yolande was the wife of a French prince, the mother of a numerous progeny; and one of her daughters had marriedAndrew king of Hungary, a brave and pious champion of the cross. Byseating him on the Byzantine throne, the barons of Romania would haveacquired the forces of a neighboring and warlike kingdom; but theprudent Andrew revered the laws of succession; and the princess Yolande, with her husband Peter of Courtenay, count of Auxerre, was invited bythe Latins to assume the empire of the East. The royal birth of hisfather, the noble origin of his mother, recommended to the barons ofFrance the first cousin of their king. His reputation was fair, hispossessions were ample, and in the bloody crusade against the Albigeois, the soldiers and the priests had been abundantly satisfied of his zealand valor. Vanity might applaud the elevation of a French emperorof Constantinople; but prudence must pity, rather than envy, histreacherous and imaginary greatness. To assert and adorn his title, he was reduced to sell or mortgage the best of his patrimony. By theseexpedients, the liberality of his royal kinsman Philip Augustus, and thenational spirit of chivalry, he was enabled to pass the Alps at thehead of one hundred and forty knights, and five thousand five hundredsergeants and archers. After some hesitation, Pope Honorius the Thirdwas persuaded to crown the successor of Constantine: but he performedthe ceremony in a church without the walls, lest he should seem to implyor to bestow any right of sovereignty over the ancient capital of theempire. The Venetians had engaged to transport Peter and his forcesbeyond the Adriatic, and the empress, with her four children, to theByzantine palace; but they required, as the price of their service, thathe should recover Durazzo from the despot of Epirus. Michael Angelus, orComnenus, the first of his dynasty, had bequeathed the succession ofhis power and ambition to Theodore, his legitimate brother, whoalready threatened and invaded the establishments of the Latins. Afterdischarging his debt by a fruitless assault, the emperor raised thesiege to prosecute a long and perilous journey over land from Durazzoto Thessalonica. He was soon lost in the mountains of Epirus: the passeswere fortified; his provisions exhausted; he was delayed and deceived bya treacherous negotiation; and, after Peter of Courtenay and the Romanlegate had been arrested in a banquet, the French troops, withoutleaders or hopes, were eager to exchange their arms for the delusivepromise of mercy and bread. The Vatican thundered; and the impiousTheodore was threatened with the vengeance of earth and heaven; but thecaptive emperor and his soldiers were forgotten, and the reproaches ofthe pope are confined to the imprisonment of his legate. No soonerwas he satisfied by the deliverance of the priests and a promise ofspiritual obedience, than he pardoned and protected the despot ofEpirus. His peremptory commands suspended the ardor of the Venetians andthe 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 diedby the sword, (ergon macairaV genesqai;) but from his dark expressions, I should conclude a previous captivity, wV pantaV ardhn desmwtaV poihsaisun pasi skeuesi. * The Chronicle of Auxerre delays the emperor's deathtill the year 1219; and Auxerre is in the neighborhood of Courtenay. Note: Whatever may have been the fact, this can hardly be made outfrom 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 theneglect of the emperor by Honorius III. ]

The long ignorance of his fate, and the presence of the lawfulsovereign, of Yolande, his wife or widow, delayed the proclamation ofa new emperor. Before her death, and in the midst of her grief, she wasdelivered of a son, who was named Baldwin, the last and most unfortunateof the Latin princes of Constantinople. His birth endeared him to thebarons of Romania; but his childhood would have prolonged the troublesof a minority, and his claims were superseded by the elder claims of hisbrethren. The first of these, Philip of Courtenay, who derived from hismother the inheritance of Namur, had the wisdom to prefer the substanceof 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 throneof Constantinople. Warned by his father's mischance, he pursued his slowand secure journey through Germany and along the Danube: a passagewas opened by his sister's marriage with the king of Hungary; and theemperor Robert was crowned by the patriarch in the cathedral of St. Sophia. But his reign was an æra of calamity and disgrace; and thecolony, as it was styled, of New France yielded on all sides to theGreeks of Nice and Epirus. After a victory, which he owed to hisperfidy rather than his courage, Theodore Angelus entered the kingdomof Thessalonica, expelled the feeble Demetrius, the son of the marquisBoniface, erected his standard on the walls of Adrianople; and added, byhis 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, theson-in-law and successor of Theodore Lascaris, and who, in a triumphantreign of thirty-three years, displayed the virtues both of peace andwar. Under his discipline, the swords of the French mercenaries were themost effectual instruments of his conquests, and their desertion fromthe service of their country was at once a symptom and a cause of therising ascendant of the Greeks. By the construction of a fleet, heobtained the command of the Hellespont, reduced the islands of Lesbosand Rhodes, attacked the Venetians of Candia, and intercepted the rareand parsimonious succors of the West. Once, and once only, the Latinemperor sent an army against Vataces; and in the defeat of that army, the veteran knights, the last of the original conquerors, were left onthe field of battle. But the success of a foreign enemy was less painfulto the pusillanimous Robert than the insolence of his Latin subjects, who confounded the weakness of the emperor and of the empire. Hispersonal misfortunes will prove the anarchy of the government and theferociousness of the times. The amorous youth had neglected his Greekbride, the daughter of Vataces, to introduce into the palace a beautifulmaid, of a private, though noble family of Artois; and her mother hadbeen tempted by the lustre of the purple to forfeit her engagements witha gentleman of Burgundy. His love was converted into rage; he assembledhis friends, forced the palace gates, threw the mother into the sea, and inhumanly cut off the nose and lips of the wife or concubine ofthe emperor. Instead of punishing the offender, the barons avowed andapplauded the savage deed, [38] which, as a prince and as a man, it wasimpossible that Robert should forgive. He escaped from the guilty cityto implore the justice or compassion of the pope: the emperor was coollyexhorted to return to his station; before he could obey, he sunk underthe 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 hastranscribed it in his margin as a bonum exemplum. Yet he acknowledgesthe 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 aprivate station to the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople. Thetitular kingdom of Jerusalem had devolved to Mary, the daughter ofIsabella and Conrad of Montferrat, and the granddaughter of Almericor Amaury. She was given to John of Brienne, of a noble family inChampagne, by the public voice, and the judgment of Philip Augustus, whonamed him as the most worthy champion of the Holy Land. [40] In the fifthcrusade, he led a hundred thousand Latins to the conquest of Egypt: byhim the siege of Damietta was achieved; and the subsequent failurewas justly ascribed to the pride and avarice of the legate. After themarriage of his daughter with Frederic the Second, [41] he was provokedby the emperor's ingratitude to accept the command of the army of thechurch; and though advanced in life, and despoiled of royalty, thesword and spirit of John of Brienne were still ready for the serviceof Christendom. In the seven years of his brother's reign, Baldwin ofCourtenay had not emerged from a state of childhood, and the barons ofRomania felt the strong necessity of placing the sceptre in the hands ofa man and a hero. The veteran king of Jerusalem might have disdained thename and office of regent; they agreed to invest him for his lifewith the title and prerogatives of emperor, on the sole condition thatBaldwin should marry his second daughter, and succeed at a mature ageto the throne of Constantinople. The expectation, both of the Greeks andLatins, was kindled by the renown, the choice, and the presence of Johnof Brienne; and they admired his martial aspect, his green and vigorousage of more than fourscore years, and his size and stature, whichsurpassed the common measure of mankind. [42] But avarice, and the loveof ease, appear to have chilled the ardor of enterprise: [421] his troopswere disbanded, and two years rolled away without action or honor, tillhe was awakened by the dangerous alliance of Vataces emperor of Nice, and of Azan king of Bulgaria. They besieged Constantinople by sea andland, with an army of one hundred thousand men, and a fleet of threehundred ships of war; while the entire force of the Latin emperorwas reduced to one hundred and sixty knights, and a small addition ofsergeants and archers. I tremble to relate, that instead of defendingthe city, the hero made a sally at the head of his cavalry; and that offorty-eight squadrons of the enemy, no more than three escaped from theedge of his invincible sword. Fired by his example, the infantry andthe citizens boarded the vessels that anchored close to the walls; andtwenty-five were dragged in triumph into the harbor of Constantinople. At the summons of the emperor, the vassals and allies armed in herdefence; 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 Machabæus: [43] but their credit, and his glory, receive some abatement from the silence of the Greeks. The empire wassoon deprived of the last of her champions; and the dying monarch wasambitious to enter paradise in the habit of a Franciscan friar. [44]

[Footnote 40: Rex igitur Franciæ, deliberatione habitâ, responditnuntiis, se daturum hominem Syriæ partibus aptum; in armis probum(_preux_) in bellis securum, in agendis providum, Johannem comitemBrennensem. Sanut. Secret. Fidelium, l. Iii. P. Xi. C. 4, p. 205 MatthewParis, 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 ofBrienne, 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 escapedto the Greek court of Nice, where his son was raised to the highesthonors. ]

[Footnote 421: John de Brienne, elected emperor 1229, wasted two years inpreparations, and did not arrive at Constantinople till 1231. Two yearsmore glided away in inglorious inaction; he then made some ineffectivewarlike expeditions. Constantinople was not besieged till 1234. --M. ]

[Footnote 43: Philip Mouskes, bishop of Tournay, (A. D. 1274--1282, ) hascomposed a poem, or rather string of verses, in bad old Flemish French, on the Latin emperors of Constantinople, which Ducange has published atthe end of Villehardouin; see p. 38, for the prowess of John of Brienne. N'Aie, Ector, Roll' ne OgiersNe Judas Machabeus li fiersTant ne fit d'armes en estorsCom fist li Rois Jehans cel jorsEt il defors et il dedansLa paru sa force et ses sensEt 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 nameor exploits of his pupil Baldwin, who had attained the age of militaryservice, and who succeeded to the imperial dignity on the decease of hisadoptive father. [45] The royal youth was employed on a commission moresuitable to his temper; he was sent to visit the Western courts, of thepope more especially, and of the king of France; to excite their pity bythe view of his innocence and distress; and to obtain some supplies ofmen or money for the relief of the sinking empire. He thrice repeatedthese mendicant visits, in which he seemed to prolong his stay andpostpone his return; of the five-and-twenty years of his reign, agreater number were spent abroad than at home; and in no place did theemperor deem himself less free and secure than in his native country andhis capital. On some public occasions, his vanity might be soothedby the title of Augustus, and by the honors of the purple; and at thegeneral council of Lyons, when Frederic the Second was excommunicatedand deposed, his Oriental colleague was enthroned on the right hand ofthe pope. But how often was the exile, the vagrant, the Imperial beggar, humbled with scorn, insulted with pity, and degraded in his own eyes andthose of the nations! In his first visit to England, he was stopped atDover by a severe reprimand, that he should presume, without leave, toenter an independent kingdom. After some delay, Baldwin, however, waspermitted to pursue his journey, was entertained with cold civility, andthankfully departed with a present of seven hundred marks. [46] From theavarice of Rome he could only obtain the proclamation of a crusade, anda treasure of indulgences; a coin whose currency was depreciated by toofrequent and indiscriminate abuse. His birth and misfortunes recommendedhim to the generosity of his cousin Louis the Ninth; but the martialzeal of the saint was diverted from Constantinople to Egypt andPalestine; and the public and private poverty of Baldwin was alleviated, for a moment, by the alienation of the marquisate of Namur and thelordship of Courtenay, the last remains of his inheritance. [47] By suchshameful or ruinous expedients, he once more returned to Romania, withan army of thirty thousand soldiers, whose numbers were doubled in theapprehension of the Greeks. His first despatches to France and Englandannounced his victories and his hopes: he had reduced the country roundthe capital to the distance of three days' journey; and if he succeededagainst an important, though nameless, city, (most probably Chiorli, )the frontier would be safe and the passage accessible. But theseexpectations (if Baldwin was sincere) quickly vanished like a dream: thetroops and treasures of France melted away in his unskilful hands; andthe throne of the Latin emperor was protected by a dishonorable alliancewith the Turks and Comans. To secure the former, he consented to bestowhis niece on the unbelieving sultan of Cogni; to please the latter, hecomplied with their Pagan rites; a dog was sacrificed between the twoarmies; and the contracting parties tasted each other's blood, asa pledge of their fidelity. [48] In the palace, or prison, ofConstantinople, the successor of Augustus demolished the vacant housesfor winter fuel, and stripped the lead from the churches for the dailyexpense of his family. Some usurious loans were dealt with a scanty handby the merchants of Italy; and Philip, his son and heir, was pawned atVenice as the security for a debt. [49] Thirst, hunger, and nakedness, are positive evils: but wealth is relative; and a prince who would berich in a private station, may be exposed by the increase of his wantsto all the anxiety and bitterness of poverty. 

[Footnote 45: See the reign of Baldwin II. Till his expulsion fromConstantinople, 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 theEnglish court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armatâ manû, p. 407his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c. , p. 481, (a passage which hasescaped Ducange;) his expulsion, p. 850. ]

[Footnote 47: Louis IX. Disapproved and stopped the alienation ofCourtenay (Ducange, l. Iv. C. 23. ) It is now annexed to theroyal demesne but granted for a term (_engagé_) to the family ofBoulainvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in the Isle deFrance, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the remains of a castle, (Mélanges tirés d'une Grande Bibliothèque, tom. Xlv. P. 74--77. )]

[Footnote 48: Joinville, p. 104, edit. Du Louvre. A Coman prince, whodied without baptism, was buried at the gates of Constantinople with alive 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 stillpossessed of an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value from thesuperstition of the Christian world. The merit of the true cross wassomewhat impaired by its frequent division; and a long captivity amongthe infidels might shed some suspicion on the fragments that wereproduced in the East and West. But another relic of the Passion waspreserved in the Imperial chapel of Constantinople; and the crown ofthorns which had been placed on the head of Christ was equally preciousand authentic. It had formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtorsto deposit, as a security, the mummies of their parents; and both theirhonor and religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In thesame manner, and in the absence of the emperor, the barons of Romaniaborrowed the sum of thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty-fourpieces of gold [50] on the credit of the holy crown: they failed in theperformance of their contract; and a rich Venetian, Nicholas Querini, undertook to satisfy their impatient creditors, on condition that therelic should be lodged at Venice, to become his absolute property, if itwere not redeemed within a short and definite term. The barons apprisedtheir sovereign of the hard treaty and impending loss and as the empirecould not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling, Baldwin wasanxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and to vest it with morehonor and emolument in the hands of the most Christian king. [51] Yet thenegotiation was attended with some delicacy. In the purchase of relics, the saint would have started at the guilt of simony; but if the mode ofexpression were changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept thegift, and acknowledge the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans, were despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown which hadescaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On opening awooden box, they recognized the seals of the doge and barons, which wereapplied on a shrine of silver; and within this shrine the monumentof the Passion was enclosed in a golden vase. The reluctant Venetiansyielded to justice and power: the emperor Frederic granted a free andhonorable passage; the court of France advanced as far as Troyes inChampagne, to meet with devotion this inestimable relic: it was borne intriumph through Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt;and a free gift of ten thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin tohis loss. The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor tooffer with the same generosity the remaining furniture of his chapel;[52] a large and authentic portion of the true cross; the baby-linen ofthe 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. Forthe reception of these spiritual treasures, twenty thousand marks wereexpended by St. Louis on a stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris, on which the muse of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truthof such remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any humantestimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles whichthey have performed. About the middle of the last age, an inveterateulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the holy crown: [53]the prodigy is attested by the most pious and enlightened Christians ofFrance; nor will the fact be easily disproved, except by those who arearmed with a general antidote against religious credulity. [54]

[Footnote 50: Under the words _Perparus_, _Perpera_, _Hyperperum_, Ducange is short and vague: Monetæ genus. From a corrupt passage ofGuntherus, (Hist. C. P. C. 8, p. 10, ) I guess that the Perpera wasthe nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark of silver, or about tenshillings sterling in value. In lead it would be too contemptible. ]

[Footnote 51: For the translation of the holy crown, &c. , fromConstantinople 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 Bibliothèque, tom. Xliii. P. 201--205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the souland manners of the _Sainte Chapelle_; and many facts relative to theinstitution are collected and explained by his commentators, Brosset andDe St. Marc. ]

[Footnote 53: It was performed A. D. 1656, March 24, on the niece ofPascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c. , were on thespot, to believe and attest a miracle which confounded the Jesuits, and saved Port Royal, (uvres de Racine, tom. Vi. P. 176--187, in hiseloquent 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 turnsthe cannon against his enemies. ]

The Latins of Constantinople [55] were on all sides encompassed andpressed; their sole hope, the last delay of their ruin, was in thedivision of their Greek and Bulgarian enemies; and of this hope theywere deprived by the superior arms and policy of Vataces, emperor ofNice. From the Propontis to the rocky coast of Pamphylia, Asia waspeaceful and prosperous under his reign; and the events of everycampaign extended his influence in Europe. The strong cities of thehills of Macedonia and Thrace were rescued from the Bulgarians; andtheir kingdom was circumscribed by its present and proper limits, alongthe southern banks of the Danube. The sole emperor of the Romans couldno 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 thehumble Demetrius changed the color of his buskins, and accepted withgratitude the appellation of despot. His own subjects were exasperatedby his baseness and incapacity; they implored the protection of theirsupreme lord. After some resistance, the kingdom of Thessalonica wasunited to the empire of Nice; and Vataces reigned without a competitorfrom the Turkish borders to the Adriatic Gulf. The princes of Europerevered his merit and power; and had he subscribed an orthodox creed, it should seem that the pope would have abandoned without reluctance theLatin throne of Constantinople. But the death of Vataces, the short andbusy reign of Theodore his son, and the helpless infancy of his grandsonJohn, suspended the restoration of the Greeks. In the next chapter, I shall explain their domestic revolutions; in this place, it willbe sufficient to observe, that the young prince was oppressed bythe ambition of his guardian and colleague, Michael Palæologus, whodisplayed the virtues and vices that belong to the founder of a newdynasty. The emperor Baldwin had flattered himself, that he mightrecover some provinces or cities by an impotent negotiation. Hisambassadors were dismissed from Nice with mockery and contempt. At everyplace which they named, Palæologus alleged some special reason, whichrendered it dear and valuable in his eyes: in the one he was born; inanother he had been first promoted to military command; and in a thirdhe 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 bedesirous of peace, let him pay me, as an annual tribute, the sum whichhe receives from the trade and customs of Constantinople. On theseterms, I may allow him to reign. If he refuses, it is war. I am notignorant 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 preludeof his arms. If a victory was followed by a defeat; if the race of theComneni or Angeli survived in those mountains his efforts and his reign;the captivity of Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the Latinsof the most active and powerful vassal of their expiring monarchy. Therepublics of Venice and Genoa disputed, in the first of their navalwars, the command of the sea and the commerce of the East. Pride andinterest attached the Venetians to the defence of Constantinople; theirrivals were tempted to promote the designs of her enemies, and thealliance of the Genoese with the schismatic conqueror provoked theindignation of the Latin church. [57]

[Footnote 55: The gradual losses of the Latins may be traced in thethird fourth, and fifth books of the compilation of Ducange: but ofthe Greek conquests he has dropped many circumstances, which may berecovered from the larger history of George Acropolita, and the threefirst books of Nicephorus, Gregoras, two writers of the Byzantineseries, who have had the good fortune to meet with learned editors LeoAllatius at Rome, and John Boivin in the Academy of Inscriptions ofParis. ]

[Footnote 56: George Acropolita, c. 78, p. 89, 90. Edit. Paris. ]

[Footnote 57: The Greeks, ashamed of any foreign aid, disguise thealliance and succor of the Genoese: but the fact is proved by thetestimony of J Villani (Chron. L. Vi. C. 71, in Muratori, Script. RerumItalicarum, tom. Xiii. P. 202, 203) and William de Nangis, (Annales deSt. 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 andstrengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The remains ofthe Latins were driven from their last possessions: he assaulted withoutsuccess 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 hehad decorated with the title of Cæsar, passed the Hellespont witheight hundred horse and some infantry, [58] on a secret expedition. Hisinstructions enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not torisk any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city. The adjacentterritory between the Propontis and the Black Sea was cultivated bya hardy race of peasants and outlaws, exercised in arms, uncertainin their allegiance, but inclined by language, religion, andpresent advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They were styled the_volunteers_; [59] and by their free service the army of Alexius, withthe regulars of Thrace and the Coman auxiliaries, [60] was augmentedto the number of five-and-twenty thousand men. By the ardor of thevolunteers, and by his own ambition, the Cæsar was stimulated to disobeythe precise orders of his master, in the just confidence that successwould plead his pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, andthe distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar to the observationof the volunteers; and they represented the present moment as the mostpropitious to surprise and conquest. A rash youth, the new governor ofthe Venetian colony, had sailed away with thirty galleys, and the bestof the French knights, on a wild expedition to Daphnusia, a town on theBlack Sea, at the distance of forty leagues; [601] and the remaining Latinswere without strength or suspicion. They were informed that Alexiushad passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were lulled by thesmallness of his original numbers; and their imprudence had not watchedthe subsequent increase of his army. If he left his main body to secondand support his operations, he might advance unperceived in the nightwith a chosen detachment. While some applied scaling-ladders to thelowest part of the walls, they were secure of an old Greek, who wouldintroduce their companions through a subterraneous passage into hishouse; they could soon on the inside break an entrance through thegolden gate, which had been long obstructed; and the conqueror wouldbe in the heart of the city before the Latins were conscious of theirdanger. After some debate, the Cæsar resigned himself to the faithof the volunteers; they were trusty, bold, and successful; and indescribing 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; tillthe desperate volunteers urged him forwards, by the assurance that inretreat lay the greatest and most inevitable danger. Whilst the Cæsarkept his regulars in firm array, the Comans dispersed themselves onall sides; an alarm was sounded, and the threats of fire and pillagecompelled the citizens to a decisive resolution. The Greeks ofConstantinople remembered their native sovereigns; the Genoese merchantstheir recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter was in arms; andthe air resounded with a general acclamation of "Long life and victoryto Michael and John, the august emperors of the Romans!" Their rival, Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most pressing danger couldnot prompt him to draw his sword in the defence of a city which hedeserted, perhaps, with more pleasure than regret: he fled from thepalace to the seashore, where he descried the welcome sails of thefleet returning from the vain and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia. Constantinople was irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and theprincipal families embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steeredfor the Isle of Euba, and afterwards for Italy, where the royal fugitivewas entertained by the pope and Sicilian king with a mixture of contemptand pity. From the loss of Constantinople to his death, he consumedthirteen years, soliciting the Catholic powers to join in hisrestoration: the lesson had been familiar to his youth; nor was his lastexile more indigent or shameful than his three former pilgrimages to thecourts of Europe. His son Philip was the heir of an ideal empire;and the pretensions of his daughter Catherine were transported by hermarriage to Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, king ofFrance. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female line bysuccessive alliances, till the title of emperor of Constantinople, toobulky and sonorous for a private name, modestly expired in silence andoblivion. [62]

[Footnote 58: Some precautions must be used in reconciling thediscordant numbers; the 800 soldiers of Nicetas, the 25, 000 ofSpandugino, (apud Ducange, l. V. C. 24;) the Greeks and Scythians ofAcropolita; and the numerous army of Michael, in the Epistles of PopeUrban 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 ofTartary, or even of Moldavia. A part of the horde had submitted to JohnVataces, and was probably settled as a nursery of soldiers on some wastelands 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 toweaken the garrison of Constantinople. The Greek commander offered tosurrender 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; byAcropolita, (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 thegenealogical tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular emperorof Constantinople was James de Baux, duke of Andria in the kingdom ofNaples, the son of Margaret, daughter of Catherine de Valois, daughterof 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 Palestineand Constantinople, I cannot dismiss the subject without resolving thegeneral consequences on the countries that were the scene, and on thenations that were the actors, of these memorable crusades. [63] As soonas the arms of the Franks were withdrawn, the impression, though notthe memory, was erased in the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syria. Thefaithful disciples of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desireto study the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicityof their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from theirintercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of the West. TheGreeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were only vain, showed adisposition somewhat less inflexible. In the efforts for the recovery oftheir empire, they emulated the valor, discipline, and tactics oftheir antagonists. The modern literature of the West they might justlydespise; but its free spirit would instruct them in the rights of man;and some institutions of public and private life were adopted from theFrench. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused theknowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and classicswere at length honored with a Greek version. [64] But the national andreligious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed by persecution, andthe reign of the Latins confirmed the separation of the two churches. 

[Footnote 63: Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades, speaksof the kingdoms of the Franks, and those of the Negroes, as equallyunknown, (Prolegom. Ad Geograph. ) Had he not disdained the Latinlanguage, how easily might the Syrian prince have found books andinterpreters!]

[Footnote 64: A short and superficial account of these versions fromLatin into Greek is given by Huet, (de Interpretatione et de clarisInterpretibus p. 131--135. ) Maximus Planudes, a monk of Constantinople, (A. D. 1327--1353) has translated Cæsar's Commentaries, the SomniumScipionis, the Metamorphoses and Heroides of Ovid, &c. , (Fabric. Bib. Græc. Tom. X. P. 533. )]

If we compare the æra of the crusades, the Latins of Europe with theGreeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, industry, and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the third rank in thescale of nations. Their successive improvement and present superioritymay be ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active andimitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at thattime were in a stationary or retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have derived the most early and essential benefitsfrom a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of theworld, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with themore cultivated regions of the East. The first and most obvious progresswas in trade and manufactures, in the arts which are strongly promptedby the thirst of wealth, the calls of necessity, and the gratificationof the sense or vanity. Among the crowd of unthinking fanatics, acaptive or a pilgrim might sometimes observe the superior refinementsof Cairo and Constantinople: the first importer of windmills [65] wasthe benefactor of nations; and if such blessings are enjoyed withoutany grateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the moreapparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported into Italyfrom Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of the Latins weremore slowly felt and supplied; the ardor of studious curiosity wasawakened in Europe by different causes and more recent events; and, in the age of the crusades, they viewed with careless indifference theliterature of the Greeks and Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematicaland medicinal knowledge might be imparted in practice and in figures;necessity might produce some interpreters for the grosser businessof merchants and soldiers; but the commerce of the Orientals had notdiffused the study and knowledge of their languages in the schools ofEurope. [66] If a similar principle of religion repulsed the idiom of theKoran, it should have excited their patience and curiosity to understandthe original text of the gospel; and the same grammar would haveunfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties of Homer. Yet in a reignof sixty years, the Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech andlearning of their subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasureswhich the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle wasindeed the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarousAristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his Latinvotaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version, from the Jewsand Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the crusades was a savagefanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relicsof Greece and Palestine; [67] and each relic was preceded and followedby a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics wascorrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions; and theestablishment of the inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks andfriars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress ofidolatry, flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war. The activespirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion;and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, thethirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity and fable. 

[Footnote 65: Windmills, first invented in the dry country of AsiaMinor, were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105, (Vie privée desFrançois, 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 thecommerce of the East. ]

[Footnote 67: Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz, (uvres deFontenelle, 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 ofthe 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 theprovincials, and rekindled the embers of the arts of antiquity. Theirsettlements about the age of Charlemagne had acquired some degreeof order and stability, when they were overwhelmed by new swarms ofinvaders, the Normans, Saracens, [68] and Hungarians, who replungedthe western countries of Europe into their former state of anarchy andbarbarism. About the eleventh century, the second tempest had subsidedby the expulsion or conversion of the enemies of Christendom: the tideof civilization, which had so long ebbed, began to flow with a steadyand accelerated course; and a fairer prospect was opened to the hopesand efforts of the rising generations. Great was the increase, and rapidthe progress, during the two hundred years of the crusades; and somephilosophers have applauded the propitious influence of these holy wars, which appear to me to have checked rather than forwarded the maturity ofEurope. [69] The lives and labors of millions, which were buried in theEast, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement oftheir native country: the accumulated stock of industry and wealth wouldhave overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have beenenriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly correspondence withthe climates of the East. In one respect I can indeed perceive theaccidental operation of the crusades, not so much in producing a benefitas in removing an evil. The larger portion of the inhabitants of Europewas chained to the soil, without freedom, or property, or knowledge;and the two orders of ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers werecomparatively small, alone deserved the name of citizens and men. Thisoppressive system was supported by the arts of the clergy and the swordsof the barons. The authority of the priests operated in the darker agesas a salutary antidote: they prevented the total extinction ofletters, mitigated the fierceness of the times, sheltered the poorand defenceless, and preserved or revived the peace and order of civilsociety. But the independence, rapine, and discord of the feudal lordswere unmixed with any semblance of good; and every hope of industry andimprovement was crushed by the iron weight of the martial aristocracy. Among the causes that undermined that Gothic edifice, a conspicuousplace must be allowed to the crusades. The estates of the barons weredissipated, and their race was often extinguished, in these costly andperilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride thosecharters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave, securedthe farm of the peasant and the shop of the artificer, and graduallyrestored a substance and a soul to the most numerous and useful partof the community. The conflagration which destroyed the tall and barrentrees of the forest gave air and scope to the vegetation of the smallerand nutritive plants of the soil. [691]

[Footnote 68: If I rank the Saracens with the Barbarians, it is onlyrelative to their wars, or rather inroads, in Italy and France, wheretheir sole purpose was to plunder and destroy. ]

[Footnote 69: On this interesting subject, the progress of society inEurope, a strong ray of philosophical light has broke from Scotland inour own times; and it is with private, as well as public regard, that Irepeat the names of Hume, Robertson, and Adam Smith. ]

[Footnote 691: On the consequences of the crusades, compare the valuableEssay of Heeren, that of M. Choiseul d'Aillecourt, and a chapter ofMr. Forster's "Mahometanism Unveiled. " I may admire this gentleman'slearning and industry, without pledging myself to his wild theory ofprophets interpretation. --M. ]

_Digression On The Family Of Courtenay. _

The purple of three emperors, who have reigned at Constantinople, willauthorize or excuse a digression on the origin and singular fortunesof the house of Courtenay, [70] in the three principal branches: I. OfEdessa; II. Of France; and III. Of England; of which the last only hassurvived the revolutions of eight hundred years. 

[Footnote 70: I have applied, but not confined, myself to _Agenealogical History of the noble and illustrious Family of Courtenay, by Ezra Cleaveland, Tutor to Sir William Courtenay, and Rector ofHoniton; Exon. 1735, in folio. _ The first part is extracted from Williamof Tyre; the second from Bouchet's French history; and the third fromvarious memorials, public, provincial, and private, of the Courtenays ofDevonshire The rector of Honiton has more gratitude than industry, andmore industry than criticism. ]

I. Before the introduction of trade, which scatters riches, and ofknowledge, which dispels prejudice, the prerogative of birth is moststrongly felt and most humbly acknowledged. In every age, the laws andmanners of the Germans have discriminated the ranks of society; thedukes and counts, who shared the empire of Charlemagne, convertedtheir office to an inheritance; and to his children, each feudal lordbequeathed his honor and his sword. The proudest families are contentto lose, in the darkness of the middle ages, the tree of their pedigree, which, however deep and lofty, must ultimately rise from a plebeianroot; and their historians must descend ten centuries below theChristian æra, before they can ascertain any lineal succession by theevidence of surnames, of arms, and of authentic records. With the firstrays of light, [71] we discern the nobility and opulence of Atho, aFrench knight; his nobility, in the rank and title of a nameless father;his opulence, in the foundation of the castle of Courtenay in thedistrict of Gatinois, about fifty-six miles to the south of Paris. Fromthe reign of Robert, the son of Hugh Capet, the barons of Courtenay areconspicuous among the immediate vassals of the crown; and Joscelin, thegrandson of Atho and a noble dame, is enrolled among the heroes of thefirst crusade. A domestic alliance (their mothers were sisters) attachedhim 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 departureof his cousin, Joscelin himself was invested with the county of Edessaon both sides of the Euphrates. By economy in peace, his territorieswere replenished with Latin and Syrian subjects; his magazines withcorn, wine, and oil; his castles with gold and silver, with armsand horses. In a holy warfare of thirty years, he was alternately aconqueror and a captive: but he died like a soldier, in a horse litterat the head of his troops; and his last glance beheld the flight of theTurkish invaders who had presumed on his age and infirmities. His sonand successor, of the same name, was less deficient in valor thanin vigilance; but he sometimes forgot that dominion is acquired andmaintained by the same arms. He challenged the hostility of the Turks, without securing the friendship of the prince of Antioch; and, amidstthe peaceful luxury of Turbessel, in Syria, [72] Joscelin neglected thedefence 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 ofOrientals: the Franks were oppressed in a bold attempt for its recovery, and Courtenay ended his days in the prison of Aleppo. He still left afair and ample patrimony But the victorious Turks oppressed on all sidesthe weakness of a widow and orphan; and, for the equivalent of an annualpension, they resigned to the Greek emperor the charge of defending, and the shame of losing, the last relics of the Latin conquest. Thecountess-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 thekingdom, and held his new estates in Palestine by the service of fiftyknights. His name appears with honor in the transactions of peace andwar; but he finally vanishes in the fall of Jerusalem; and the name ofCourtenay, in this branch of Edessa, was lost by the marriage of his twodaughters with a French and German baron. [73]

[Footnote 71: The primitive record of the family is a passage of thecontinuator 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 fixedby D'Anville four-and-twenty miles from the great passage over theEuphrates at Zeugma. ]

[Footnote 73: His possessions are distinguished in the Assises ofJerusalem (c. B26) among the feudal tenures of the kingdom, which musttherefore have been collected between the years 1153 and 1187. Hispedigree 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, topossess the castle of their fathers, which was at length inherited byRainaud, or Reginald, the youngest of his three sons. Examples of geniusor virtue must be rare in the annals of the oldest families; and, in aremote age their pride will embrace a deed of rapine and violence;such, however, as could not be perpetrated without some superiority ofcourage, or, at least, of power. A descendant of Reginald of Courtenaymay blush for the public robber, who stripped and imprisoned severalmerchants, after they had satisfied the king's duties at Sens andOrleans. He will glory in the offence, since the bold offender could notbe compelled to obedience and restitution, till the regent and the countof Champagne prepared to march against him at the head of an army. [74]Reginald bestowed his estates on his eldest daughter, and his daughteron the seventh son of King Louis the Fat; and their marriage was crownedwith a numerous offspring. We might expect that a private should havemerged in a royal name; and that the descendants of Peter of Franceand Elizabeth of Courtenay would have enjoyed the titles and honors ofprinces of the blood. But this legitimate claim was long neglected, and finally denied; and the causes of their disgrace will represent thestory of this second branch. _1. _ Of all the families now extant, themost ancient, doubtless, and the most illustrious, is the house ofFrance, which has occupied the same throne above eight hundred years, and descends, in a clear and lineal series of males, from the middleof the ninth century. [75] In the age of the crusades, it was alreadyrevered both in the East and West. But from Hugh Capet to the marriageof Peter, no more than five reigns or generations had elapsed; andso precarious was their title, that the eldest sons, as a necessaryprecaution, were previously crowned during the lifetime of theirfathers. The peers of France have long maintained their precedencybefore the younger branches of the royal line, nor had the princes ofthe blood, in the twelfth century, acquired that hereditary lustre whichis 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 kingthe obligation of adopting for himself and all his descendants the nameand arms of their daughter and his wife. In the marriage of an heiresswith her inferior or her equal, such exchange often required andallowed: but as they continued to diverge from the regal stem, thesons of Louis the Fat were insensibly confounded with their maternalancestors; and the new Courtenays might deserve to forfeit the honorsof their birth, which a motive of interest had tempted them to renounce. _3. _ The shame was far more permanent than the reward, and a momentaryblaze was followed by a long darkness. The eldest son of these nuptials, Peter of Courtenay, had married, as I have already mentioned, the sisterof the counts of Flanders, the two first emperors of Constantinople: herashly accepted the invitation of the barons of Romania; his two sons, Robert and Baldwin, successively held and lost the remains of the Latinempire in the East, and the granddaughter of Baldwin the Second againmingled her blood with the blood of France and of Valois. To support theexpenses of a troubled and transitory reign, their patrimonial estateswere mortgaged or sold: and the last emperors of Constantinople dependedon the annual charity of Rome and Naples. 

[Footnote 74: The rapine and satisfaction of Reginald de Courtenay, arepreposterously arranged in the Epistles of the abbot and regent Suger, (cxiv. Cxvi. , ) the best memorials of the age, (Duchesne, ScriptoresHist. Franc. Tom. Iv. P. 530. )]

[Footnote 75: In the beginning of the xith century, after naming thefather and grandfather of Hugh Capet, the monk Glaber is obliged to add, cujus genus valde in-ante reperitur obscurum. Yet we are assured thatthe great-grandfather of Hugh Capet was Robert the Strong count ofAnjou, (A. D. 863--873, ) a noble Frank of Neustria, Neustricus. .. Generosæ stirpis, who was slain in the defence of his country againstthe Normans, dum patriæ fines tuebatur. Beyond Robert, all is conjectureor fable. It is a probable conjecture, that the third race descendedfrom the second by Childebrand, the brother of Charles Martel. It is anabsurd fable that the second was allied to the first by the marriage ofAnsbert, a Roman senator and the ancestor of St. Arnoul, with Blitilde, a daughter of Clotaire I. The Saxon origin of the house of France isan ancient but incredible opinion. See a judicious memoir of M. DeFoncemagne, (Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. Xx. P. 548--579. ) He had promised to declare his own opinion in a secondmemoir, 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, theyounger branches of that adopted name were propagated and multiplied. But their splendor was clouded by poverty and time: after the decease ofRobert, great butler of France, they descended from princes to barons;the next generations were confounded with the simple gentry; thedescendants of Hugh Capet could no longer be visible in the rural lordsof Tanlay and of Champignelles. The more adventurous embraced withoutdishonor the profession of a soldier: the least active and opulent mightsink, like their cousins of the branch of Dreux, into the condition ofpeasants. Their royal descent, in a dark period of four hundred years, became each day more obsolete and ambiguous; and their pedigree, insteadof being enrolled in the annals of the kingdom, must be painfullysearched by the minute diligence of heralds and genealogists. It wasnot till the end of the sixteenth century, on the accession of afamily almost as remote as their own, that the princely spirit of theCourtenays again revived; and the question of the nobility provoked themto ascertain the royalty of their blood. They appealed to the justiceand compassion of Henry the Fourth; obtained a favorable opinion fromtwenty lawyers of Italy and Germany, and modestly compared themselves tothe descendants of King David, whose prerogatives were not impaired bythe lapse of ages or the trade of a carpenter. [76] But every ear wasdeaf, and every circumstance was adverse, to their lawful claims. TheBourbon kings were justified by the neglect of the Valois; the princesof the blood, more recent and lofty, disdained the alliance of hishumble kindred: the parliament, without denying their proofs, eludeda dangerous precedent by an arbitrary distinction, and establishedSt. Louis as the first father of the royal line. [77] A repetition ofcomplaints and protests was repeatedly disregarded; and the hopelesspursuit was terminated in the present century by the death of thelast male of the family. [78] Their painful and anxious situation wasalleviated by the pride of conscious virtue: they sternly rejectedthe temptations of fortune and favor; and a dying Courtenay would havesacrificed his son, if the youth could have renounced, for any temporalinterest, the right and title of a legitimate prince of the blood ofFrance. [79]

[Footnote 76: Of the various petitions, apologies, &c. , published by theprinces of Courtenay, I have seen the three following, all in octavo:1. De Stirpe et Origine Domus de Courtenay: addita sunt Responsaceleberrimorum Europæ Jurisconsultorum; Paris, 1607. 2. Representationdu Procedé tenû a l'instance faicte devant le Roi, par Messieurs deCourtenay, pour la conservation de l'Honneur et Dignité de leur Maison, branche de la royalle Maison de France; à Paris, 1613. 3. Representationdu subject qui a porté Messieurs de Salles et de Fraville, de la Maisonde Courtenay, à se retirer hors du Royaume, 1614. It was a homicide, forwhich the Courtenays expected to be pardoned, or tried, as princes ofthe blood. ]

[Footnote 77: The sense of the parliaments is thus expressed by ThuanusPrincipis nomen nusquam in Galliâ tributum, nisi iis qui per mares eregibus nostris originem repetunt; qui nunc tantum a Ludovico none beatæmemoriæ numerantur; nam _Cortini_ et Drocenses, a Ludovico crassogenus ducentes, hodie inter eos minime recensentur. A distinction ofexpediency rather than justice. The sanctity of Louis IX. Could notinvest him with any special prerogative, and all the descendants of HughCapet must be included in his original compact with the French nation. ]

[Footnote 78: The last male of the Courtenays was Charles Roger, whodied in the year 1730, without leaving any sons. The last female wasHelene de Courtenay, who married Louis de Beaufremont. Her title ofPrincesse du Sang Royal de France was suppressed (February 7th, 1737) byan _arrêt_ of the parliament of Paris. ]

[Footnote 79: The singular anecdote to which I allude is related in theRecueil des Pieces interessantes et peu connues, (Maestricht, 1786, in 4vols. 12mo. ;) and the unknown editor quotes his author, who had receivedit from Helene de Courtenay, marquise de Beaufremont. ]

III. According to the old register of Ford Abbey, the Courtenays ofDevonshire are descended from Prince _Florus_, the second son of Peter, and the grandson of Louis the Fat. [80] This fable of the grateful orvenal monks was too respectfully entertained by our antiquaries, Cambden[81] and Dugdale: [82] but it is so clearly repugnant to truth andtime, that the rational pride of the family now refuses to accept thisimaginary founder. Their most faithful historians believe, that, aftergiving his daughter to the king's son, Reginald of Courtenay abandonedhis possessions in France, and obtained from the English monarch asecond wife and a new inheritance. It is certain, at least, that Henrythe Second distinguished in his camps and councils a Reginald, of thename 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 lordto 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] Froma Norman baron, Baldwin de Brioniis, who had been invested bythe Conqueror, Hawise, the wife of Reginald, derived the honor ofOkehampton, which was held by the service of ninety-three knights; and afemale might claim the manly offices of hereditary viscount or sheriff, and of captain of the royal castle of Exeter. Their son Robert marriedthe sister of the earl of Devon: at the end of a century, on the failureof the family of Rivers, [84] his great-grandson, Hugh the Second, succeeded to a title which was still considered as a territorialdignity; and twelve earls of Devonshire, of the name of Courtenay, haveflourished in a period of two hundred and twenty years. They were rankedamong the chief of the barons of the realm; nor was it till after astrenuous dispute, that they yielded to the fief of Arundel the firstplace in the parliament of England: their alliances were contracted withthe noblest families, the Veres, Despensers, St. Johns, Talbots, Bohuns, and even the Plantagenets themselves; and in a contest with John ofLancaster, a Courtenay, bishop of London, and afterwards archbishop ofCanterbury, might be accused of profane confidence in the strength andnumber of his kindred. In peace, the earls of Devon resided in theirnumerous castles and manors of the west; their ample revenue wasappropriated 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 gratefulcommemoration of the fifty-five years of union and happiness which heenjoyed 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 andexpenses; and their heirs, not less than the poor, were the objectsof their paternal care. The sums which they paid for livery and seizinattest the greatness of their possessions; and several estates haveremained in their family since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In war, the Courtenays of England fulfilled the duties, and deserved thehonors, of chivalry. They were often intrusted to levy and command themilitia of Devonshire and Cornwall; they often attended their supremelord to the borders of Scotland; and in foreign service, for astipulated price, they sometimes maintained fourscore men-at-arms andas many archers. By sea and land they fought under the standard ofthe Edwards and Henries: their names are conspicuous in battles, intournaments, and in the original list of the Order of the Garter; threebrothers shared the Spanish victory of the Black Prince; and in thelapse of six generations, the English Courtenays had learned to despisethe nation and country from which they derived their origin. In thequarrel of the two roses, the earls of Devon adhered to the house ofLancaster; and three brothers successively died either in the field oron the scaffold. Their honors and estates were restored by Henry theSeventh; a daughter of Edward the Fourth was not disgraced by thenuptials of a Courtenay; their son, who was created Marquis of Exeter, enjoyed the favor of his cousin Henry the Eighth; and in the camp ofCloth of Gold, he broke a lance against the French monarch. But thefavor of Henry was the prelude of disgrace; his disgrace was the signalof death; and of the victims of the jealous tyrant, the marquis ofExeter is one of the most noble and guiltless. His son Edward lived aprisoner in the Tower, and died in exile at Padua; and the secret loveof Queen Mary, whom he slighted, perhaps for the princess Elizabeth, hasshed a romantic color on the story of this beautiful youth. The relicsof his patrimony were conveyed into strange families by the marriagesof his four aunts; and his personal honors, as if they had been legallyextinct, were revived by the patents of succeeding princes. But therestill survived a lineal descendant of Hugh, the first earl of Devon, a younger branch of the Courtenays, who have been seated at PowderhamCastle above four hundred years, from the reign of Edward the Third tothe present hour. Their estates have been increased by the grant andimprovement of lands in Ireland, and they have been recently restored tothe honors of the peerage. Yet the Courtenays still retain the plaintivemotto, which asserts the innocence, and deplores the fall, of theirancient house. [86] While they sigh for past greatness, they aredoubtless sensible of present blessings: in the long series ofthe Courtenay annals, the most splendid æra is likewise the mostunfortunate; nor can an opulent peer of Britain be inclined to envy theemperors of Constantinople, who wandered over Europe to solicit alms forthe support of their dignity and the defence of their capital. 

[Footnote 80: Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. I. P. 786. Yetthis fable must have been invented before the reign of Edward III. The profuse devotion of the three first generations to Ford Abbey wasfollowed by oppression on one side and ingratitude on the other; and inthe 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, somedoubt or suspicion. ]

[Footnote 82: In his Baronage, P. I. P. 634, he refers to his ownMonasticon. Should he not have corrected the register of Ford Abbey, andannihilated the phantom Florus, by the unquestionable evidence of theFrench historians?]

[Footnote 83: Besides the third and most valuable book of Cleaveland'sHistory, I have consulted Dugdale, the father of our genealogicalscience, (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 famousand 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 Riversearl of Devon; but the English denotes the xvth, rather than the xiiithcentury. ]

[Footnote 86: _Ubi lapsus! Quid feci?_ a motto which was probablyadopted by the Powderham branch, after the loss of the earldom ofDevonshire, &c. The primitive arms of the Courtenays were, _Or_, _threetorteaux_, _Gules_, which seem to denote their affinity with Godfrey ofBouillon, 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 Palæologus. --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 ofthe most vigorous or the most skilful candidates. In the long and barrenpages of the Byzantine annals, [1] it would not be an easy task to equalthe two characters of Theodore Lascaris and John Ducas Vataces, [2]who replanted and upheld the Roman standard at Nice in Bithynia. Thedifference of their virtues was happily suited to the diversity of theirsituation. In his first efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded onlythree cities and two thousand soldiers: his reign was the season ofgenerous and active despair: in every military operation he staked hislife and crown; and his enemies of the Hellespont and the Mæander, weresurprised by his celerity and subdued by his boldness. A victoriousreign of eighteen years expanded the principality of Nice to themagnitude of an empire. The throne of his successor and son-in-lawVataces was founded on a more solid basis, a larger scope, and moreplentiful resources; and it was the temper, as well as the interest, ofVataces to calculate the risk, to expect the moment, and to insure thesuccess, of his ambitious designs. In the decline of the Latins, I havebriefly exposed the progress of the Greeks; the prudent and gradualadvances of a conqueror, who, in a reign of thirty-three years, rescuedthe provinces from national and foreign usurpers, till he pressed on allsides the Imperial city, a leafless and sapless trunk, which mustfull at the first stroke of the axe. But his interior and peacefuladministration is still more deserving of notice and praise. [3] Thecalamities of the times had wasted the numbers and the substance of theGreeks; the motives and the means of agriculture were extirpated; andthe most fertile lands were left without cultivation or inhabitants. A portion of this vacant property was occupied and improved by thecommand, and for the benefit, of the emperor: a powerful hand and avigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful management, the minutediligence of a private farmer: the royal domain became the garden andgranary of Asia; and without impoverishing the people, the sovereignacquired a fund of innocent and productive wealth. According to thenature 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; andwhen Vataces presented to the empress a crown of diamonds and pearls, heinformed her, with a smile, that this precious ornament arose from thesale of the eggs of his innumerable poultry. The produce of his domainwas applied to the maintenance of his palace and hospitals, the callsof dignity and benevolence: the lesson was still more useful than therevenue: the plough was restored to its ancient security and honor; andthe nobles were taught to seek a sure and independent revenue from theirestates, instead of adorning their splendid beggary by the oppression ofthe people, or (what is almost the same) by the favors of the court. Thesuperfluous stock of corn and cattle was eagerly purchased by theTurks, with whom Vataces preserved a strict and sincere alliance; but hediscouraged the importation of foreign manufactures, the costly silks ofthe East, and the curious labors of the Italian looms. "The demands ofnature and necessity, " was he accustomed to say, "are indispensable; butthe influence of fashion may rise and sink at the breath of a monarch;"and both his precept and example recommended simplicity of manners andthe use of domestic industry. The education of youth and the revivalof learning were the most serious objects of his care; and, withoutdeciding the precedency, he pronounced with truth, that a prince and aphilosopher [4] are the two most eminent characters of human society. Hisfirst wife was Irene, the daughter of Theodore Lascaris, a woman moreillustrious by her personal merit, the milder virtues of her sex, thanby the blood of the Angeli and Comneni that flowed in her veins, andtransmitted the inheritance of the empire. After her death he wascontracted to Anne, or Constance, a natural daughter of the emperorFrederic [499] the Second; but as the bride had not attained the years ofpuberty, Vataces placed in his solitary bed an Italian damsel of hertrain; and his amorous weakness bestowed on the concubine the honors, though not the title, of a lawful empress. His frailty was censured asa flagitious and damnable sin by the monks; and their rude invectivesexercised and displayed the patience of the royal lover. A philosophicage 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 ofLascaris, the judgment of their contemporaries was softened by gratitudeto the second founders of the empire. [5] The slaves of the Latins, without law or peace, applauded the happiness of their brethren who hadresumed their national freedom; and Vataces employed the laudable policyof convincing the Greeks of every dominion that it was their interest tobe enrolled in the number of his subjects. 

[Footnote 1: For the reigns of the Nicene emperors, more especially ofJohn Vataces and his son, their minister, George Acropolita, is the onlygenuine contemporary; but George Pachymer returned to Constantinoplewith the Greeks at the age of nineteen, (Hanckius de Script. Byzant. C. 33, 34, p. 564--578. Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. Tom. Vi. P. 448--460. ) Yetthe history of Nicephorus Gregoras, though of the xivth century, is avaluable narrative from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins. ]

[Footnote 2: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. Ii. C. 1) distinguishes between theoxeia ormh of Lascaris, and the eustaqeia of Vataces. The two portraitsare in a very good style. ]

[Footnote 3: Pachymer, l. I. C. 23, 24. Nic. Greg. L. Ii. C. 6. Thereader of the Byzantines must observe how rarely we are indulged withsuch precious details. ]

[Footnote 4: Monoi gar apantwn anqrwpwn onomastotatoi basileuVkai jilosojoV, (Greg. Acropol. C. 32. ) The emperor, in a familiarconversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his futurelogothete. ]

[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 ofNicephorus Gregoras. ]

A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between John Vataces and his sonTheodore; between the founder who sustained the weight, and the heirwho enjoyed the splendor, of the Imperial crown. [6] Yet the character ofTheodore was not devoid of energy; he had been educated in the school ofhis father, in the exercise of war and hunting; Constantinople wasyet spared; but in the three years of a short reign, he thrice ledhis armies into the heart of Bulgaria. His virtues were sullied by acholeric and suspicious temper: the first of these may be ascribed tothe ignorance of control; and the second might naturally arise froma dark and imperfect view of the corruption of mankind. On a march inBulgaria, he consulted on a question of policy his principal ministers;and the Greek logothete, George Acropolita, presumed to offend himby the declaration of a free and honest opinion. The emperor halfunsheathed his cimeter; but his more deliberate rage reserved Acropolitafor a baser punishment. One of the first officers of the empire wasordered to dismount, stripped of his robes, and extended on the groundin the presence of the prince and army. In this posture he was chastisedwith so many and such heavy blows from the clubs of two guards orexecutioners, that when Theodore commanded them to cease, the greatlogothete was scarcely able to rise and crawl away to his tent. After aseclusion of some days, he was recalled by a peremptory mandate to hisseat in council; and so dead were the Greeks to the sense of honor andshame, that it is from the narrative of the sufferer himself that weacquire the knowledge of his disgrace. [7] The cruelty of the emperor wasexasperated by the pangs of sickness, the approach of a premature end, and the suspicion of poison and magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyesand limbs, of his kinsmen and nobles, were sacrificed to each sally ofpassion; and before he died, the son of Vataces might deserve from thepeople, or at least from the court, the appellation of tyrant. A matronof the family of the Palæologi had provoked his anger by refusing tobestow her beauteous daughter on the vile plebeian who was recommendedby his caprice. Without regard to her birth or age, her body, as highas the neck, was enclosed in a sack with several cats, who werepricked with pins to irritate their fury against their unfortunatefellow-captive. In his last hours the emperor testified a wish toforgive and be forgiven, a just anxiety for the fate of John his son andsuccessor, who, at the age of eight years, was condemned to the dangersof a long minority. His last choice intrusted the office of guardianto the sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the courage of GeorgeMuzalon, the great domestic, who was equally distinguished by the royalfavor and the public hatred. Since their connection with the Latins, thenames and privileges of hereditary rank had insinuated themselves intothe Greek monarchy; and the noble families [8] were provoked by theelevation of a worthless favorite, to whose influence they imputed theerrors and calamities of the late reign. In the first council, afterthe emperor's death, Muzalon, from a lofty throne, pronounced a laboredapology of his conduct and intentions: his modesty was subdued by aunanimous assurance of esteem and fidelity; and his most inveterateenemies were the loudest to salute him as the guardian and savior ofthe Romans. Eight days were sufficient to prepare the execution of theconspiracy. On the ninth, the obsequies of the deceased monarch weresolemnized in the cathedral of Magnesia, [9] an Asiatic city, where heexpired, 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 thealtar; and the absent patriarch was associated with a new colleague, with Michael Palæologus, the most illustrious, in birth and merit, ofthe Greek nobles. [10]

[Footnote 6: A Persian saying, that Cyrus was the _father_ and Dariusthe _master_, of his subjects, was applied to Vataces and his son. But Pachymer (l. I. C. 23) has mistaken the mild Darius for the cruelCambyses, despot or tyrant of his people. By the institution of taxes, Darius had incurred the less odious, but more contemptible, name ofKaphloV, merchant or broker, (Herodotus, iii. 89. )]

[Footnote 7: Acropolita (c. 63) seems to admire his own firmness insustaining a beating, and not returning to council till he was called. He relates the exploits of Theodore, and his own services, from c. 53 toc. 74 of his history. See the third book of Nicephorus Gregoras. ]

[Footnote 8: Pachymer (l. I. C. 21) names and discriminates fifteen ortwenty Greek families, kai osoi alloi, oiV h megalogenhV seira kai crushsugkekrothto. Does he mean, by this decoration, a figurative or a realgolden chain? Perhaps, both. ]

[Footnote 9: The old geographers, with Cellarius and D'Anville, andour travellers, particularly Pocock and Chandler, will teach us todistinguish the two Magnesias of Asia Minor, of the Mæander and ofSipylus. The latter, our present object, is still flourishing for aTurkish city, and lies eight hours, or leagues, to the north-eastof 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 thetimes; 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 becontent with local or domestic renown; and few there are who dare trustthe memorials of their family to the public annals of their country. As early as the middle of the eleventh century, the noble race of thePalæologi [11] stands high and conspicuous in the Byzantine history: itwas the valiant George Palæologus who placed the father of the Comnenion the throne; and his kinsmen or descendants continue, in eachgeneration, to lead the armies and councils of the state. The purplewas not dishonored by their alliance, and had the law of succession, andfemale succession, been strictly observed, the wife of Theodore Lascarismust have yielded to her elder sister, the mother of Michael Palæologus, who afterwards raised his family to the throne. In his person, thesplendor of birth was dignified by the merit of the soldier andstatesman: in his early youth he was promoted to the office of_constable_ or commander of the French mercenaries; the private expenseof a day never exceeded three pieces of gold; but his ambition wasrapacious and profuse; and his gifts were doubled by the graces of hisconversation and manners. The love of the soldiers and people excitedthe jealousy of the court, and Michael thrice escaped from the dangersin 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 thehereditary right of the Palæologi The cause was decided, according tothe new jurisprudence of the Latins, by single combat; the defendant wasoverthrown; but he persisted in declaring that himself alone was guilty;and that he had uttered these rash or treasonable speeches without theapprobation or knowledge of his patron Yet a cloud of suspicion hungover the innocence of the constable; he was still pursued by thewhispers of malevolence; and a subtle courtier, the archbishop ofPhiladelphia, urged him to accept the judgment of God in the fiery proofof the ordeal. [13] Three days before the trial, the patient's arm wasenclosed in a bag, and secured by the royal signet; and it was incumbenton him to bear a red-hot ball of iron three times from the altar to therails of the sanctuary, without artifice and without injury. Palæologuseluded the dangerous experiment with sense and pleasantry. "I am asoldier, " said he, "and will boldly enter the lists with my accusers;but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with the gift ofmiracles. _Your_ piety, most holy prelate, may deserve the interpositionof Heaven, and from your hands I will receive the fiery globe, thepledge of my innocence. " The archbishop started; the emperor smiled; andthe absolution or pardon of Michael was approved by new rewards andnew services. II. In the succeeding reign, as he held the government ofNice, he was secretly informed, that the mind of the absent prince waspoisoned with jealousy; and that death, or blindness, would be his finalreward. Instead of awaiting the return and sentence of Theodore, theconstable, with some followers, escaped from the city and the empire;and though he was plundered by the Turkmans of the desert, he found ahospitable refuge in the court of the sultan. In the ambiguous stateof an exile, Michael reconciled the duties of gratitude and loyalty:drawing his sword against the Tartars; admonishing the garrisons of theRoman limit; and promoting, by his influence, the restoration of peace, in which his pardon and recall were honorably included. III. Whilehe guarded the West against the despot of Epirus, Michael was againsuspected and condemned in the palace; and such was his loyalty orweakness, that he submitted to be led in chains above six hundred milesfrom Durazzo to Nice. The civility of the messenger alleviated hisdisgrace; the emperor's sickness dispelled his danger; and thelast breath of Theodore, which recommended his infant son, at onceacknowledged the innocence and the power of Palæologus. 

[Footnote 11: The pedigree of Palæologus is explained by Ducange, (Famil. Byzant. P. 230, &c. :) the events of his private life are relatedby 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 thiscurious adventure, which seem to have escaped the more recent writers. ]

[Footnote 13: Pachymer, (l. I. C. 12, ) who speaks with proper contemptof this barbarous trial, affirms, that he had seen in his youth manyperson who had sustained, without injury, the fiery ordeal. As a Greek, he is credulous; but the ingenuity of the Greeks might furnish someremedies of art or fraud against their own superstition, or that oftheir tyrant. ]

But his innocence had been too unworthily treated, and his power was toostrongly felt, to curb an aspiring subject in the fair field that wasopened 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 ofallegiance to Muzalon; and so dexterous was his conduct, that he reapedthe benefit, without incurring the guilt, or at least the reproach, of the subsequent massacre. In the choice of a regent, he balanced theinterests and passions of the candidates; turned their envy and hatredfrom himself against each other, and forced every competitor to own, that after his own claims, those of Palæologus were best entitled tothe preference. Under the title of great duke, he accepted or assumed, during a long minority, the active powers of government; the patriarchwas a venerable name; and the factious nobles were seduced, oroppressed, by the ascendant of his genius. The fruits of the economy ofVataces were deposited in a strong castle on the banks of the Hermus, in the custody of the faithful Varangians: the constable retained hiscommand or influence over the foreign troops; he employed the guardsto possess the treasure, and the treasure to corrupt the guards; andwhatsoever might be the abuse of the public money, his characterwas above the suspicion of private avarice. By himself, or by hisemissaries, he strove to persuade every rank of subjects, that theirown prosperity would rise in just proportion to the establishment ofhis authority. The weight of taxes was suspended, the perpetual themeof popular complaint; and he prohibited the trials by the ordeal andjudicial combat. These Barbaric institutions were already abolished orundermined in France [15] and England; [16] and the appeal to the swordoffended the sense of a civilized, [17] and the temper of an unwarlike, people. For the future maintenance of their wives and children, theveterans were grateful: the priests and the philosophers applauded hisardent zeal for the advancement of religion and learning; and his vaguepromise of rewarding merit was applied by every candidate to his ownhopes. Conscious of the influence of the clergy, Michael successfullylabored to secure the suffrage of that powerful order. Their expensivejourney from Nice to Magnesia, afforded a decent and ample pretence: theleading prelates were tempted by the liberality of his nocturnal visits;and the incorruptible patriarch was flattered by the homage of his newcolleague, who led his mule by the bridle into the town, and removed toa respectful distance the importunity of the crowd. Without renouncinghis title by royal descent, Palæologus encouraged a free discussion intothe advantages of elective monarchy; and his adherents asked, withthe insolence of triumph, what patient would trust his health, orwhat merchant would abandon his vessel, to the _hereditary_ skill ofa physician or a pilot? The youth of the emperor, and the impendingdangers of a minority, required the support of a mature and experiencedguardian; of an associate raised above the envy of his equals, andinvested with the name and prerogatives of royalty. For the interestof the prince and people, without any selfish views for himself orhis family, the great duke consented to guard and instruct the son ofTheodore; but he sighed for the happy moment when he might restore tohis firmer hands the administration of his patrimony, and enjoy theblessings of a private station. He was first invested with the title andprerogatives of _despot_, which bestowed the purple ornaments and thesecond place in the Roman monarchy. It was afterwards agreed that Johnand Michael should be proclaimed as joint emperors, and raised on thebuckler, but that the preeminence should be reserved for the birthrightof the former. A mutual league of amity was pledged between the royalpartners; and in case of a rupture, the subjects were bound, by theiroath of allegiance, to declare themselves against the aggressor; anambiguous name, the seed of discord and civil war. Palæologus wascontent; but, on the day of the coronation, and in the cathedral ofNice, his zealous adherents most vehemently urged the just priority ofhis age and merit. The unseasonable dispute was eluded by postponing toa more convenient opportunity the coronation of John Lascaris; and hewalked with a slight diadem in the train of his guardian, who alonereceived the Imperial crown from the hands of the patriarch. It wasnot without extreme reluctance that Arsenius abandoned the cause of hispupil; out the Varangians brandished their battle-axes; a sign of assentwas extorted from the trembling youth; and some voices were heard, that the life of a child should no longer impede the settlement of thenation. A full harvest of honors and employments was distributed amonghis friends by the grateful Palæologus. In his own family he created adespot and two sebastocrators; Alexius Strategopulus was decoratedwith the title of Cæsar; and that veteran commander soon repaid theobligation, by restoring Constantinople to the Greek emperor. 

[Footnote 14: Without comparing Pachymer to Thucydides or Tacitus, Iwill praise his narrative, (l. I. C. 13--32, l. Ii. C. 1--9, ) whichpursues the ascent of Palæologus with eloquence, perspicuity, andtolerable freedom. Acropolita is more cautious, and Gregoras moreconcise. ]

[Footnote 15: The judicial combat was abolished by St. Louis in his ownterritories; and his example and authority were at length prevalent inFrance, (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 combatis reprobated in the Fleta. Yet the trial by battle has never beenabrogated in the English law, and it was ordered by the judges as lateas the beginning of the last century. * Note : And even demanded inthe present. --M. ]

[Footnote 17: Yet an ingenious friend has urged to me in mitigationof this practice, 1. _That_ in nations emerging from barbarism, itmoderates the license of private war and arbitrary revenge. 2. _That_ itis less absurd than the trials by the ordeal, or boiling water, or thecross, which it has contributed to abolish. 3. _That_ it served at leastas a test of personal courage; a quality so seldom united with abase disposition, that the danger of a trial might be some check to amalicious prosecutor, and a useful barrier against injustice supportedby power. The gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey might probably haveescaped his unmerited fate, had not his demand of the combat against hisaccuser been overruled. ]

It was in the second year of his reign, while he resided in the palaceand gardens of Nymphæum, [18] near Smyrna, that the first messengerarrived at the dead of night; and the stupendous intelligence wasimparted to Michael, after he had been gently waked by the tenderprecaution of his sister Eulogia. The man was unknown or obscure; heproduced no letters from the victorious Cæsar; nor could it easilybe credited, after the defeat of Vataces and the recent failure ofPalæologus himself, that the capital had been surprised by a detachmentof eight hundred soldiers. As a hostage, the doubtful author wasconfined, with the assurance of death or an ample recompense; and thecourt was left some hours in the anxiety of hope and fear, till themessengers of Alexius arrived with the authentic intelligence, anddisplayed the trophies of the conquest, the sword and sceptre, [19] thebuskins and bonnet, [20] of the usurper Baldwin, which he had dropped inhis precipitate flight. A general assembly of the bishops, senators, and nobles, was immediately convened, and never perhaps was an eventreceived with more heartfelt and universal joy. In a studied oration, the new sovereign of Constantinople congratulated his own and the publicfortune. "There was a time, " said he, "a far distant time, when theRoman empire extended to the Adriatic, the Tigris, and the confines ofÆthiopia. After the loss of the provinces, our capital itself, inthese last and calamitous days, has been wrested from our hands by theBarbarians of the West. From the lowest ebb, the tide of prosperity hasagain returned in our favor; but our prosperity was that of fugitivesand 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 ofthe heavens. The divine Providence has now restored to our arms thecity of Constantine, the sacred seat of religion and empire; and it willdepend on our valor and conduct to render this important acquisition thepledge and omen of future victories. " So eager was the impatience ofthe prince and people, that Michael made his triumphal entry intoConstantinople only twenty days after the expulsion of the Latins. The golden gate was thrown open at his approach; the devout conquerordismounted from his horse; and a miraculous image of Mary theConductress was borne before him, that the divine Virgin in person mightappear to conduct him to the temple of her Son, the cathedral of St. Sophia. But after the first transport of devotion and pride, he sighedat the dreary prospect of solitude and ruin. The palace was defiled withsmoke and dirt, and the gross intemperance of the Franks; whole streetshad been consumed by fire, or were decayed by the injuries of time; thesacred and profane edifices were stripped of their ornaments: and, asif they were conscious of their approaching exile, the industry of theLatins had been confined to the work of pillage and destruction. Tradehad expired under the pressure of anarchy and distress, and the numbersof inhabitants had decreased with the opulence of the city. It was thefirst care of the Greek monarch to reinstate the nobles in the palacesof their fathers; and the houses or the ground which they occupiedwere restored to the families that could exhibit a legal right ofinheritance. But the far greater part was extinct or lost; the vacantproperty had devolved to the lord; he repeopled Constantinople by aliberal invitation to the provinces; and the brave _volunteers_ wereseated in the capital which had been recovered by their arms. The Frenchbarons and the principal families had retired with their emperor; butthe patient and humble crowd of Latins was attached to the country, andindifferent to the change of masters. Instead of banishing the factoriesof the Pisans, Venetians, and Genoese, the prudent conqueror acceptedtheir oaths of allegiance, encouraged their industry, confirmed theirprivileges, and allowed them to live under the jurisdiction of theirproper magistrates. Of these nations, the Pisans and Venetians preservedtheir respective quarters in the city; but the services and power of theGenoese deserved at the same time the gratitude and the jealousy of theGreeks. Their independent colony was first planted at the seaport townof Heraclea in Thrace. They were speedily recalled, and settled in theexclusive possession of the suburb of Galata, an advantageous post, in which they revived the commerce, and insulted the majesty, of theByzantine empire. [21]

[Footnote 18: The site of Nymphæum is not clearly defined in ancient ormodern geography. But from the last hours of Vataces, (Acropolita, c. 52, ) it is evident the palace and gardens of his favorite residencewere in the neighborhood of Smyrna. Nymphæum might be loosely placed inLydia, (Gregoras, l. Vi. 6. )]

[Footnote 19: This sceptre, the emblem of justice and power, was a longstaff, such as was used by the heroes in Homer. By the latter Greeksit was named _Dicanice_, and the Imperial sceptre was distinguished asusual by the red or purple color. ]

[Footnote 20: Acropolita affirms (c. 87, ) that this "Onnet" was after theFrench 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 ofthe 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 subjectLatins, Ducange, (l. V. C. 30, 31. )]

The recovery of Constantinople was celebrated as the æra of a newempire: the conqueror, alone, and by the right of the sword, renewed hiscoronation in the church of St. Sophia; and the name and honors of JohnLascaris, his pupil and lawful sovereign, were insensibly abolished. Buthis claims still lived in the minds of the people; and the royal youthmust speedily attain the years of manhood and ambition. By fear orconscience, Palæologus was restrained from dipping his hands in innocentand royal blood; but the anxiety of a usurper and a parent urged him tosecure his throne by one of those imperfect crimes so familiar to themodern Greeks. The loss of sight incapacitated the young prince for theactive business of the world; instead of the brutal violence of tearingout his eyes, the visual nerve was destroyed by the intense glare of ared-hot basin, [22] and John Lascaris was removed to a distant castle, where he spent many years in privacy and oblivion. Such cool anddeliberate guilt may seem incompatible with remorse; but if Michaelcould trust the mercy of Heaven, he was not inaccessible to thereproaches and vengeance of mankind, which he had provoked by crueltyand treason. His cruelty imposed on a servile court the duties ofapplause or silence; but the clergy had a right to speak in the name oftheir invisible Master; and their holy legions were led by a prelate, whose character was above the temptations of hope or fear. After a shortabdication of his dignity, Arsenius [23] had consented to ascendthe ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople, and to preside in therestoration of the church. His pious simplicity was long deceived bythe arts of Palæologus; and his patience and submission might soothe theusurper, and protect the safety of the young prince. On the news of hisinhuman treatment, the patriarch unsheathed the spiritual sword; andsuperstition, on this occasion, was enlisted in the cause of humanityand justice. In a synod of bishops, who were stimulated by the exampleof his zeal, the patriarch pronounced a sentence of excommunication;though his prudence still repeated the name of Michael in the publicprayers. The Eastern prelates had not adopted the dangerous maximsof ancient Rome; nor did they presume to enforce their censures, bydeposing 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 seditionof the people. Palæologus felt his danger, confessed his guilt, anddeprecated his judge: the act was irretrievable; the prize was obtained;and the most rigorous penance, which he solicited, would have raised thesinner to the reputation of a saint. The unrelenting patriarchrefused to announce any means of atonement or any hopes of mercy; andcondescended only to pronounce, that for so great a crime, great indeedmust be the satisfaction. "Do you require, " said Michael, "that I shouldabdicate the empire?" and at these words, he offered, or seemed tooffer, the sword of state. Arsenius eagerly grasped this pledge ofsovereignty; but when he perceived that the emperor was unwilling topurchase absolution at so dear a rate, he indignantly escaped to hiscell, and left the royal sinner kneeling and weeping before the door. [24]

[Footnote 22: This milder invention for extinguishing the sight wastried by the philosopher Democritus on himself, when he sought towithdraw 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 moreviolent were scooping, burning with an iron, or hot vinegar, and bindingthe head with a strong cord till the eyes burst from their sockets. Ingenious tyrants!]

[Footnote 23: See the first retreat and restoration of Arsenius, inPachymer (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 andraqumia 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 toldby 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 threeyears, till the popular clamor was assuaged by time and repentance; tillthe brethren of Arsenius condemned his inflexible spirit, so repugnantto the unbounded forgiveness of the gospel. The emperor had artfullyinsinuated, that, if he were still rejected at home, he might seek, inthe Roman pontiff, a more indulgent judge; but it was far more easy andeffectual to find or to place that judge at the head of the Byzantinechurch. Arsenius was involved in a vague rumor of conspiracy anddisaffection; [248] some irregular steps in his ordination and governmentwere liable to censure; a synod deposed him from the episcopal office;and he was transported under a guard of soldiers to a small island ofthe Propontis. Before his exile, he sullenly requested that a strictaccount might be taken of the treasures of the church; boasted, that hissole riches, three pieces of gold, had been earned by transcribing thepsalms; continued to assert the freedom of his mind; and denied, withhis last breath, the pardon which was implored by the royal sinner. [25]After some delay, Gregory, [259 bishop of Adrianople, was translatedto the Byzantine throne; but his authority was found insufficient tosupport the absolution of the emperor; and Joseph, a reverend monk, was substituted to that important function. This edifying scene wasrepresented in the presence of the senate and the people; at the endof six years the humble penitent was restored to the communion of thefaithful; and humanity will rejoice, that a milder treatment of thecaptive Lascaris was stipulated as a proof of his remorse. But thespirit of Arsenius still survived in a powerful faction of the monks andclergy, who persevered about forty-eight years in an obstinate schism. Their scruples were treated with tenderness and respect by Michael andhis son; and the reconciliation of the Arsenites was the serious laborof the church and state. In the confidence of fanaticism, they hadproposed to try their cause by a miracle; and when the two papers, that contained their own and the adverse cause, were cast into a fierybrazier, they expected that the Catholic verity would be respected bythe flames. Alas! the two papers were indiscriminately consumed, andthis unforeseen accident produced the union of a day, and renewed thequarrel of an age. [26] The final treaty displayed the victory ofthe Arsenites: the clergy abstained during forty days from allecclesiastical functions; a slight penance was imposed on the laity; thebody of Arsenius was deposited in the sanctuary; and, in the name ofthe departed saint, the prince and people were released from the sins oftheir fathers. [27]

[Footnote 248: Except the omission of a prayer for the emperor, thecharges against Arsenius were of different nature: he was accused ofhaving allowed the sultan of Iconium to bathe in vessels signed with thecross, and to have admitted him to the church, though unbaptized, duringthe service. It was pleaded, in favor of Arsenius, among other proofs ofthe 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 acharge 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, Bibliothèque Ecclésiastique, tom. X. P. 95. )]

[Footnote 259: Pachymer calls him Germanus. --M. ]

[Footnote 26: Pachymer (l. Vii. C. 22) relates this miraculous triallike a philosopher, and treats with similar contempt a plot of theArsenites, 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 deafand a mute patient, (l. Xi. C. 32. )]

[Footnote 27: The story of the Arsenites is spread through the thirteenbooks of Pachymer. Their union and triumph are reserved for NicephorusGregoras, (l. Vii. C. 9, ) who neither loves nor esteems thesesectaries. ]

The establishment of his family was the motive, or at least thepretence, of the crime of Palæologus; and he was impatient to confirmthe succession, by sharing with his eldest son the honors of the purple. Andronicus, afterwards surnamed the Elder, was proclaimed and crownedemperor of the Romans, in the fifteenth year of his age; and, from thefirst æra of a prolix and inglorious reign, he held that august titlenine years as the colleague, and fifty as the successor, of his father. Michael himself, had he died in a private station, would have beenthought more worthy of the empire; and the assaults of his temporal andspiritual enemies left him few moments to labor for his own fame or thehappiness of his subjects. He wrested from the Franks several of thenoblest islands of the Archipelago, Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes: hisbrother Constantine was sent to command in Malvasia and Sparta; and theeastern side of the Morea, from Argos and Napoli to Cape Thinners, wasrepossessed by the Greeks. This effusion of Christian blood wasloudly condemned by the patriarch; and the insolent priest presumed tointerpose his fears and scruples between the arms of princes. But inthe prosecution of these western conquests, the countries beyond theHellespont were left naked to the Turks; and their depredations verifiedthe prophecy of a dying senator, that the recovery of Constantinoplewould be the ruin of Asia. The victories of Michael were achieved by hislieutenants; his sword rusted in the palace; and, in the transactionsof the emperor with the popes and the king of Naples, his political actswere stained with cruelty and fraud. [28]

[Footnote 28: Of the xiii books of Pachymer, the first six (as the ivthand vth of Nicephorus Gregoras) contain the reign of Michael, at thetime of whose death he was forty years of age. Instead of breaking, like his editor the Père Poussin, his history into two parts, I followDucange and Cousin, who number the xiii. Books in one series. ]

I. The Vatican was the most natural refuge of a Latin emperor, who hadbeen driven from his throne; and Pope Urban the Fourth appeared to pitythe misfortunes, and vindicate the cause, of the fugitive Baldwin. Acrusade, with plenary indulgence, was preached by his command againstthe schismatic Greeks: he excommunicated their allies and adherents;solicited Louis the Ninth in favor of his kinsman; and demanded a tenthof the ecclesiastical revenues of France and England for the service ofthe holy war. [29] The subtle Greek, who watched the rising tempest ofthe West, attempted to suspend or soothe the hostility of the pope, bysuppliant embassies and respectful letters; but he insinuated that theestablishment of peace must prepare the reconciliation and obedience ofthe Eastern church. The Roman court could not be deceived by so grossan artifice; and Michael was admonished, that the repentance of theson should precede the forgiveness of the father; and that _faith_ (anambiguous word) was the only basis of friendship and alliance. After along and affected delay, the approach of danger, and the importunity ofGregory the Tenth, compelled him to enter on a more serious negotiation:he alleged the example of the great Vataces; and the Greek clergy, whounderstood the intentions of their prince, were not alarmed by the firststeps of reconciliation and respect. But when he pressed the conclusionof the treaty, they strenuously declared, that the Latins, though not inname, were heretics in fact, and that they despised those strangers asthe vilest and most despicable portion of the human race. [30] It wasthe task of the emperor to persuade, to corrupt, to intimidate themost popular ecclesiastics, to gain the vote of each individual, andalternately to urge the arguments of Christian charity and the publicwelfare. The texts of the fathers and the arms of the Franks werebalanced in the theological and political scale; and without approvingthe addition to the Nicene creed, the most moderate were taught toconfess, that the two hostile propositions of proceeding from the Fatherby the Son, and of proceeding from the Father and the Son, might bereduced to a safe and Catholic sense. [31] The supremacy of the pope wasa doctrine more easy to conceive, but more painful to acknowledge: yetMichael represented to his monks and prelates, that they might submitto name the Roman bishop as the first of the patriarchs; and that theirdistance and discretion would guard the liberties of the Eastern churchfrom the mischievous consequences of the right of appeal. He protestedthat he would sacrifice his life and empire rather than yield thesmallest point of orthodox faith or national independence; and thisdeclaration was sealed and ratified by a golden bull. The patriarchJoseph withdrew to a monastery, to resign or resume his throne, according to the event of the treaty: the letters of union and obediencewere subscribed by the emperor, his son Andronicus, and thirty-fivearchbishops and metropolitans, with their respective synods; and theepiscopal list was multiplied by many dioceses which were annihilatedunder the yoke of the infidels. An embassy was composed of some trustyministers and prelates: they embarked for Italy, with rich ornamentsand rare perfumes for the altar of St. Peter; and their secret ordersauthorized and recommended a boundless compliance. They were received inthe general council of Lyons, by Pope Gregory the Tenth, at the headof five hundred bishops. [32] He embraced with tears his long-lost andrepentant children; accepted the oath of the ambassadors, who abjuredthe schism in the name of the two emperors; adorned the prelates withthe ring and mitre; chanted in Greek and Latin the Nicene creed with theaddition 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; andtheir instruction discloses the policy of the Vatican, which could notbe satisfied with the vain title of supremacy. After viewing the temperof the prince and people, they were enjoined to absolve the schismaticclergy, who should subscribe and swear their abjuration and obedience;to establish in all the churches the use of the perfect creed; toprepare the entrance of a cardinal legate, with the full powers anddignity of his office; and to instruct the emperor in the advantageswhich 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 theEpistles of Urban IV. ]

[Footnote 30: From their mercantile intercourse with the Venetians andGenoese, 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 afterwardsbecame a convert (c. 15, 16) and a patriarch, (c. 24. )]

[Footnote 31: In this class we may place Pachymer himself, whose copiousand candid narrative occupies the vth and vith books of his history. Yetthe Greek is silent on the council of Lyons, and seems to believe thatthe 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 moreor less honesty by Wading and Leo Allatius from the archives of theVatican, 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 namesof Rome and Union were pronounced with abhorrence. The patriarch Josephwas indeed removed: his place was filled by Veccus, an ecclesiastic oflearning and moderation; and the emperor was still urged by the samemotives, to persevere in the same professions. But in his privatelanguage Palæologus affected to deplore the pride, and to blame theinnovations, of the Latins; and while he debased his character bythis double hypocrisy, he justified and punished the opposition ofhis subjects. By the joint suffrage of the new and the ancient Rome, a sentence of excommunication was pronounced against the obstinateschismatics; the censures of the church were executed by the sword ofMichael; on the failure of persuasion, he tried the arguments of prisonand exile, of whipping and mutilation; those touchstones, says anhistorian, of cowards and the brave. Two Greeks still reigned in Ætolia, Epirus, and Thessaly, with the appellation of despots: they had yieldedto the sovereign of Constantinople, but they rejected the chains of theRoman pontiff, and supported their refusal by successful arms. Undertheir protection, the fugitive monks and bishops assembled in hostilesynods; and retorted the name of heretic with the galling addition ofapostate: the prince of Trebizond was tempted to assume the forfeittitle of emperor; [339] and even the Latins of Negropont, Thebes, Athens, and the Morea, forgot the merits of the convert, to join, with open orclandestine aid, the enemies of Palæologus. His favorite generals, of his own blood, and family, successively deserted, or betrayed, thesacrilegious trust. His sister Eulogia, a niece, and two female cousins, conspired against him; another niece, Mary queen of Bulgaria, negotiatedhis ruin with the sultan of Egypt; and, in the public eye, their treasonwas consecrated as the most sublime virtue. [34] To the pope's nuncios, who urged the consummation of the work, Palæologus exposed a nakedrecital of all that he had done and suffered for their sake. They wereassured that the guilty sectaries, of both sexes and every rank, hadbeen deprived of their honors, their fortunes, and their liberty; aspreading list of confiscation and punishment, which involved manypersons, the dearest to the emperor, or the best deserving of his favor. They were conducted to the prison, to behold four princes of the royalblood chained in the four corners, and shaking their fetters in an agonyof grief and rage. Two of these captives were afterwards released; theone by submission, the other by death: but the obstinacy of their twocompanions was chastised by the loss of their eyes; and the Greeks, the least adverse to the union, deplored that cruel and inauspicioustragedy. [35] Persecutors must expect the hatred of those whom theyoppress; but they commonly find some consolation in the testimony oftheir conscience, the applause of their party, and, perhaps, the successof their undertaking. But the hypocrisy of Michael, which was promptedonly by political motives, must have forced him to hate himself, todespise his followers, and to esteem and envy the rebel champions bywhom he was detested and despised. While his violence was abhorred atConstantinople, at Rome his slowness was arraigned, and his sinceritysuspected; till at length Pope Martin the Fourth excluded the Greekemperor from the pale of a church, into which he was striving to reducea schismatic people. No sooner had the tyrant expired, than the unionwas dissolved, and abjured by unanimous consent; the churches werepurified; the penitents were reconciled; and his son Andronicus, afterweeping the sins and errors of his youth most piously denied his fatherthe burial of a prince and a Christian. [36]

[Footnote 339: According to Fallmarayer he had always maintained thistitle. --M. ]

[Footnote 34: This frank and authentic confession of Michael'sdistress is exhibited in barbarous Latin by Ogerius, who signs himselfProtonotarius Interpretum, and transcribed by Wading from the MSS. Ofthe Vatican, (A. D. 1278, No. 3. ) His annals of the Franciscan order, the Fratres Minores, in xvii. Volumes in folio, (Rome, 1741, ) I have nowaccidentally seen among the waste paper of a bookseller. ]

[Footnote 35: See the vith book of Pachymer, particularly the chapters1, 11, 16, 18, 24--27. He is the more credible, as he speaks of thispersecution with less anger than sorrow. ]

[Footnote 36: Pachymer, l. Vii. C. 1--ii. 17. The speech of Andronicusthe Elder (lib. Xii. C. 2) is a curious record, which proves that ifthe Greeks were the slaves of the emperor, the emperor was not less theslave of superstition and the clergy. ]

II. In the distress of the Latins, the walls and towers ofConstantinople had fallen to decay: they were restored and fortified bythe policy of Michael, who deposited a plenteous store of corn and saltprovisions, to sustain the siege which he might hourly expect from theresentment of the Western powers. Of these, the sovereign of the TwoSicilies was the most formidable neighbor: but as long as they werepossessed by Mainfroy, the bastard of Frederic the Second, his monarchywas the bulwark, rather than the annoyance, of the Eastern empire. Theusurper, though a brave and active prince, was sufficiently employedin the defence of his throne: his proscription by successive popes hadseparated Mainfroy from the common cause of the Latins; and the forcesthat might have besieged Constantinople were detained in a crusadeagainst the domestic enemy of Rome. The prize of her avenger, the crownof the Two Sicilies, was won and worn by the brother of St Louis, byCharles count of Anjou and Provence, who led the chivalry of France onthis holy expedition. [37] The disaffection of his Christian subjectscompelled Mainfroy to enlist a colony of Saracens whom his father hadplanted in Apulia; and this odious succor will explain the defiance ofthe Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation. "Bear thismessage, " said Charles, "to the sultan of Nocera, that God and the swordare 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 Iam ignorant of Mainfroy's doom in the other world, in this he lost hisfriends, his kingdom, and his life, in the bloody battle of Benevento. Naples and Sicily were immediately peopled with a warlike race ofFrench nobles; and their aspiring leader embraced the future conquest ofAfrica, Greece, and Palestine. The most specious reasons might point hisfirst arms against the Byzantine empire; and Palæologus, diffident ofhis own strength, repeatedly appealed from the ambition of Charles tothe humanity of St. Louis, who still preserved a just ascendant over themind of his ferocious brother. For a while the attention of that brotherwas confined at home by the invasion of Conradin, the last heir tothe imperial house of Swabia; but the hapless boy sunk in the unequalconflict; and his execution on a public scaffold taught the rivals ofCharles to tremble for their heads as well as their dominions. A secondrespite was obtained by the last crusade of St. Louis to the Africancoast; and the double motive of interest and duty urged the king ofNaples to assist, with his powers and his presence, the holy enterprise. The death of St. Louis released him from the importunity of a virtuouscensor: the king of Tunis confessed himself the tributary and vassal ofthe crown of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights were freeto enlist under his banner against the Greek empire. A treaty and amarriage united his interest with the house of Courtenay; his daughterBeatrice was promised to Philip, son and heir of the emperor Baldwin; apension of six hundred ounces of gold was allowed for his maintenance;and his generous father distributed among his aliens the kingdoms andprovinces of the East, reserving only Constantinople, and one day'sjourney round the city for the imperial domain. [38] In this perilousmoment, Palæologus was the most eager to subscribe the creed, andimplore the protection, of the Roman pontiff, who assumed, withpropriety and weight, the character of an angel of peace, the commonfather of the Christians. By his voice, the sword of Charles was chainedin the scabbard; and the Greek ambassadors beheld him, in the pope'santechamber, biting his ivory sceptre in a transport of fury, and deeplyresenting the refusal to enfranchise and consecrate his arms. He appearsto have respected the disinterested mediation of Gregory the Tenth; butCharles was insensibly disgusted by the pride and partiality of Nicholasthe 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, theking of the Two Sicilies, and the republic of Venice, was ripened intoexecution; and the election of Martin the Fourth, a French pope, gave asanction 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, tenthousand men at arms, a numerous body of infantry, and a fleet of morethan three hundred ships and transports. A distant day was appointed forassembling this mighty force in the harbor of Brindisi; and a previousattempt was risked with a detachment of three hundred knights, whoinvaded Albania, and besieged the fortress of Belgrade. Their defeatmight amuse with a triumph the vanity of Constantinople; but the moresagacious Michael, despairing of his arms, depended on the effects ofa 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 fulland entertaining, of the conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou, maybe found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano Malespina, (c. 175--193, ) and Giovanni Villani, (l. Vii. C. 1--10, 25--30, ) which arepublished by Muratori in the viiith and xiiith volumes of the Historiansof Italy. In his Annals (tom. Xi. P. 56--72) he has abridged these greatevents 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, andNicephorus Gregoras, l. Iv. 5, l. V. 1, 6. ]

[Footnote 39: The reader of Herodotus will recollect how miraculouslythe Assyrian host of Sennacherib was disarmed and destroyed, (l. Ii. C. 141. )]

Among the proscribed adherents of the house of Swabia, John of Procidaforfeited a small island of that name in the Bay of Naples. His birthwas 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 theschool of Salerno. Fortune had left him nothing to lose, except life;and to despise life is the first qualification of a rebel. Procida wasendowed with the art of negotiation, to enforce his reasons and disguisehis motives; and in his various transactions with nations and men, hecould persuade each party that he labored solely for _their_ interest. The new kingdoms of Charles were afflicted by every species of fiscaland military oppression; [40] and the lives and fortunes of his Italiansubjects were sacrificed to the greatness of their master and thelicentiousness of his followers. The hatred of Naples was repressed byhis presence; but the looser government of his vicegerents excited thecontempt, as well as the aversion, of the Sicilians: the island wasroused to a sense of freedom by the eloquence of Procida; and hedisplayed to every baron his private interest in the common cause. Inthe confidence of foreign aid, he successively visited the courts ofthe Greek emperor, and of Peter king of Arragon, [41] who possessed themaritime countries of Valentia and Catalonia. To the ambitious Peter acrown was presented, which he might justly claim by his marriage withthe sister [419] of Mainfroy, and by the dying voice of Conradin, who fromthe scaffold had cast a ring to his heir and avenger. Palæologus waseasily persuaded to divert his enemy from a foreign war by a rebellionat home; and a Greek subsidy of twenty-five thousand ounces of gold wasmost profitably applied to arm a Catalan fleet, which sailed under aholy banner to the specious attack of the Saracens of Africa. In thedisguise of a monk or beggar, the indefatigable missionary of revoltflew from Constantinople to Rome, and from Sicily to Saragossa: thetreaty was sealed with the signet of Pope Nicholas himself, the enemyof Charles; and his deed of gift transferred the fiefs of St. Peter fromthe house of Anjou to that of Arragon. So widely diffused and so freelycirculated, the secret was preserved above two years with impenetrablediscretion; and each of the conspirators imbibed the maxim of Peter, whodeclared that he would cut off his left hand if it were conscious of theintentions of his right. The mine was prepared with deep and dangerousartifice; but it may be questioned, whether the instant explosion ofPalermo 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 ofCharles, who had reviled Mainfroy as a wolf, began to regret him as alamb; and he justifies their discontent by the oppressions of the Frenchgovernment, (l. Vi. C. 2, 7. ) See the Sicilian manifesto in NicholasSpecialis, (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 readerfor gives the Jesuit's defects, in favor, always of his style, and oftenof 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 visiteda church without the walls; and a noble damsel was rudely insulted by aFrench soldier. [42] The ravisher was instantly punished with death; andif the people was at first scattered by a military force, their numbersand fury prevailed: the conspirators seized the opportunity; the flamespread over the island; and eight thousand French were exterminated ina promiscuous massacre, which has obtained the name of the SicilianVespers. [43] From every city the banners of freedom and the churchwere displayed: the revolt was inspired by the presence or the soulof Procida and Peter of Arragon, who sailed from the African coastto Palermo, was saluted as the king and savior of the isle. By therebellion of a people on whom he had so long trampled with impunity, Charles was astonished and confounded; and in the first agony of griefand devotion, he was heard to exclaim, "O God! if thou hast decreedto humble me, grant me at least a gentle and gradual descent from thepinnacle of greatness!" His fleet and army, which already filled theseaports of Italy, were hastily recalled from the service of the Grecianwar; and the situation of Messina exposed that town to the first stormof his revenge. Feeble in themselves, and yet hopeless of foreignsuccor, the citizens would have repented, and submitted on the assuranceof full pardon and their ancient privileges. But the pride of themonarch was already rekindled; and the most fervent entreaties of thelegate could extort no more than a promise, that he would forgive theremainder, after a chosen list of eight hundred rebels had been yieldedto his discretion. The despair of the Messinese renewed their courage:Peter of Arragon approached to their relief; [44] and his rival wasdriven back by the failure of provision and the terrors of the equinoxto the Calabrian shore. At the same moment, the Catalan admiral, thefamous Roger de Loria, swept the channel with an invincible squadron:the French fleet, more numerous in transports than in galleys, waseither burnt or destroyed; and the same blow assured the independence ofSicily 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 andesteemed; and perhaps he might be content with the popular judgment, that had they not been matched with each other, Constantinople and Italymust speedily have obeyed the same master. [45] From this disastrousmoment, the life of Charles was a series of misfortunes: his capital wasinsulted, his son was made prisoner, and he sunk into the grave withoutrecovering the Isle of Sicily, which, after a war of twenty years, was finally severed from the throne of Naples, and transferred, as anindependent kingdom, to a younger branch of the house of Arragon. [46]

[Footnote 42: After enumerating the sufferings of his country, NicholasSpecialis adds, in the true spirit of Italian jealousy, Quæ omnia etgraviora quidem, ut arbitror, patienti animo Siculi tolerassent, nisi (quod primum cunctis dominantibus cavendum est) alienas fminasinvasissent, (l. I. C. 2, p. 924. )]

[Footnote 43: The French were long taught to remember this bloodylesson: "If I am provoked, (said Henry the Fourth, ) I will breakfastat Milan, and dine at Naples. " "Your majesty (replied the Spanishambassador) may perhaps arrive in Sicily for vespers. "]

[Footnote 44: This revolt, with the subsequent victory, are related bytwo national writers, Bartholemy à 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 nameof rebellion, and all previous correspondence with Peter of Arragon, (nullo communicato consilio, ) who _happened_ to be with a fleet and armyon the African coast, (l. I. C. 4, 9. )]

[Footnote 45: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. V. C. 6) admires the wisdom ofProvidence in this equal balance of states and princes. For the honorof Palæologus, I had rather this balance had been observed by an Italianwriter. ]

[Footnote 46: See the Chronicle of Villani, the xith volume of theAnnali d'Italia of Muratori, and the xxth and xxist books of the IstoriaCivile of Giannone. ]

Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople. --Part III. 

I shall not, I trust, be accused of superstition; but I must remarkthat, even in this world, the natural order of events will sometimesafford the strong appearances of moral retribution. The first Palæologushad saved his empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellionand blood; and from these scenes of discord uprose a generation of ironmen, who assaulted and endangered the empire of his son. In modern timesour debts and taxes are the secret poison which still corrodes the bosomof peace: but in the weak and disorderly government of the middle ages, it was agitated by the present evil of the disbanded armies. Too idleto work, too proud to beg, the mercenaries were accustomed to a life ofrapine: they could rob with more dignity and effect under a banner anda chief; and the sovereign, to whom their service was useless, andtheir presence importunate, endeavored to discharge the torrent on someneighboring countries. After the peace of Sicily, many thousands ofGenoese, _Catalans_, [47] &c. , who had fought, by sea and land, underthe standard of Anjou or Arragon, were blended into one nation by theresemblance of their manners and interest. They heard that the Greekprovinces of Asia were invaded by the Turks: they resolved to share theharvest of pay and plunder: and Frederic king of Sicily most liberallycontributed the means of their departure. In a warfare of twenty years, a ship, or a camp, was become their country; arms were their soleprofession and property; valor was the only virtue which they knew;their women had imbibed the fearless temper of their lovers andhusbands: it was reported, that, with a stroke of their broadsword, theCatalans could cleave a horseman and a horse; and the report itselfwas a powerful weapon. Roger de Flor [477] was the most popular of theirchiefs; and his personal merit overshadowed the dignity of his prouderrivals of Arragon. The offspring of a marriage between a Germangentleman of the court of Frederic the Second and a damsel of Brindisi, Roger was successively a templar, an apostate, a pirate, and at lengththe richest and most powerful admiral of the Mediterranean. He sailedfrom Messina to Constantinople, with eighteen galleys, four greatships, and eight thousand adventurers; [478] and his previous treaty wasfaithfully accomplished by Andronicus the elder, who accepted withjoy and terror this formidable succor. A palace was allotted for hisreception, and a niece of the emperor was given in marriage to thevaliant stranger, who was immediately created great duke or admiralof Romania. After a decent repose, he transported his troops over thePropontis, and boldly led them against the Turks: in two bloody battlesthirty thousand of the Moslems were slain: he raised the siege ofPhiladelphia, and deserved the name of the deliverer of Asia. But aftera short season of prosperity, the cloud of slavery and ruin againburst on that unhappy province. The inhabitants escaped (says a Greekhistorian) from the smoke into the flames; and the hostility of theTurks was less pernicious than the friendship of the Catalans. [479] Thelives and fortunes which they had rescued they considered as their own:the willing or reluctant maid was saved from the race of circumcisionfor the embraces of a Christian soldier: the exaction of fines andsupplies was enforced by licentious rapine and arbitrary executions;and, on the resistance of Magnesia, the great duke besieged a cityof the Roman empire. [48] These disorders he excused by the wrongs andpassions of a victorious army; nor would his own authority or personhave been safe, had he dared to punish his faithful followers, whowere defrauded of the just and covenanted price of their services. Thethreats and complaints of Andronicus disclosed the nakedness of theempire. His golden bull had invited no more than five hundred horse anda thousand foot soldiers; yet the crowds of volunteers, who migrated tothe East, had been enlisted and fed by his spontaneous bounty. While hisbravest allies were content with three byzants or pieces of gold, fortheir monthly pay, an ounce, or even two ounces, of gold were assignedto the Catalans, whose annual pension would thus amount to near ahundred pounds sterling: one of their chiefs had modestly rated at threehundred thousand crowns the value of his _future_ merits; and above amillion had been issued from the treasury for the maintenance of thesecostly mercenaries. A cruel tax had been imposed on the corn of thehusbandman: one third was retrenched from the salaries of the publicofficers; and the standard of the coin was so shamefully debased, thatof the four-and-twenty parts only five were of pure gold. [49] At thesummons of the emperor, Roger evacuated a province which no longersupplied the materials of rapine; [496] but he refused to disperse histroops; and while his style was respectful, his conduct was independentand hostile. He protested, that if the emperor should march againsthim, he would advance forty paces to kiss the ground before him; but inrising from this prostrate attitude Roger had a life and sword at theservice of his friends. The great duke of Romania condescended to acceptthe title and ornaments of Cæsar; but he rejected the new proposal ofthe government of Asia with a subsidy of corn and money, [497] on conditionthat he should reduce his troops to the harmless number of threethousand men. Assassination is the last resource of cowards. TheCæsar was tempted to visit the royal residence of Adrianople; in theapartment, and before the eyes, of the empress he was stabbed by theAlani 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 lossof their leader intimidated the crowd of adventurers, who hoistedthe sails of flight, and were soon scattered round the coasts of theMediterranean. But a veteran band of fifteen hundred Catalans, or French, stood firm in the strong fortress of Gallipoli on theHellespont, displayed the banners of Arragon, and offered to revenge andjustify their chief, by an equal combat of ten or a hundred warriors. Instead of accepting this bold defiance, the emperor Michael, the sonand colleague of Andronicus, resolved to oppress them with the weightof multitudes: every nerve was strained to form an army of thirteenthousand horse and thirty thousand foot; and the Propontis was coveredwith the ships of the Greeks and Genoese. In two battles by sea andland, these mighty forces were encountered and overthrown by the despairand discipline of the Catalans: the young emperor fled to the palace;and an insufficient guard of light-horse was left for the protectionof the open country. Victory renewed the hopes and numbers of theadventures: every nation was blended under the name and standard of the_great company_; and three thousand Turkish proselytes deserted from theImperial service to join this military association. In the possession ofGallipoli, [499] the Catalans intercepted the trade of Constantinople andthe Black Sea, while they spread their devastation on either side ofthe Hellespont over the confines of Europe and Asia. To prevent theirapproach, the greatest part of the Byzantine territory was laid wasteby the Greeks themselves: the peasants and their cattle retired into thecity; and myriads of sheep and oxen, for which neither place nor foodcould be procured, were unprofitably slaughtered on the same day. Fourtimes the emperor Andronicus sued for peace, and four times he wasinflexibly repulsed, till the want of provisions, and the discord of thechiefs, compelled the Catalans to evacuate the banks of the Hellespontand the neighborhood of the capital. After their separation from theTurks, the remains of the great company pursued their march throughMacedonia and Thessaly, to seek a new establishment in the heart ofGreece. [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 religiouspride, I am afraid the latter is in the right. ]

[Footnote 477: On Roger de Flor and his companions, see an historicalfragment, detailed and interesting, entitled "The Spaniards of theFourteenth Century, " and inserted in "L'Espagne en 1808, " a worktranslated from the German, vol. Ii. P. 167. This narrative enables usto detect some slight errors which have crept into that of Gibbon. --G. ]

[Footnote 478: The troops of Roger de Flor, according to his companionsRamon de Montaner, were 1500 men at arms, 4000 Almogavares, and 1040other foot, besides the sailors and mariners, vol. Ii. P. 137. --M. ]

[Footnote 479: Ramon de Montaner suppresses the cruelties and oppressionsof 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 fromPachymer, (l. Xi. C. 21, l. Xii. C. 4, 5, 8, 14, 19, ) who describes theprogressive degradation of the gold coin. Even in the prosperous timesof John Ducas Vataces, the byzants were composed in equal proportionsof the pure and the baser metal. The poverty of Michael Palæologuscompelled 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 tencarats, till in the public distress it was reduced to the moiety. Theprince was relieved for a moment, while credit and commerce were foreverblasted. In France, the gold coin is of twenty-two carats, (one twelfthalloy, ) and the standard of England and Holland is still higher. ]

[Footnote 496]: Roger de Flor, according to Ramon de Montaner, was recalledfrom Natolia, on account of the war which had arisen on the death ofAsan, king of Bulgaria. Andronicus claimed the kingdom for his nephew, the sons of Asan by his sister. Roger de Flor turned the tide of successin favor of the emperor of Constantinople and made peace. --M. ]

[Footnote 497: Andronicus paid the Catalans in the debased money, much totheir indignation. --M. ]

[Footnote 498: According to Ramon de Montaner, he was murdered by order ofKyr (kurioV) Michael, son of the emperor. P. 170. --M. ]

[Footnote 499: Ramon de Montaner describes his sojourn at Gallipoli: Nousetions si riches, que nous ne semions, ni ne labourions, ni ne faisionsenver des vins ni ne cultivions les vignes: et cependant tous les ansnous recucillions tour ce qu'il nous fallait, en vin, froment et avoine. P. 193. This lasted for five merry years. Ramon de Montaner is highauthority, for he was "chancelier et maitre rational de l'armée, "(commissary of _rations_. ) He was left governor; all the scribes of thearmy remained with him, and with their aid he kept the books inwhich were registered the number of horse and foot employed on eachexpedition. According to this book the plunder was shared, of which hehad a fifth for his trouble. P. 197. --M. ]

[Footnote 50: The Catalan war is most copiously related by Pachymer, inthe xith, xiith, and xiiith books, till he breaks off in the year1308. Nicephorus Gregoras (l. Vii. 3--6) is more concise and complete. Ducange, who adopts these adventurers as French, has hunted theirfootsteps 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 deMoncada Conde de Ossona, may imitate Cæsar or Sallust; he maytranscribe the Greek or Italian contemporaries: but he never quotes hisauthorities, and I cannot discern any national records of the exploitsof his countrymen. * Note: Ramon de Montaner, one of the Catalans, whoaccompanied Roger de Flor, and who was governor of Gallipoli, haswritten, in Spanish, the history of this band of adventurers, to whichhe belonged, and from which he separated when it left the ThracianChersonese to penetrate into Macedonia and Greece. --G. ----Theautobiography of Ramon de Montaner has been published in French by M. Buchon, in the great collection of Mémoires relatifs à l'Histoire deFrance. I quote this edition. --M. ]

After some ages of oblivion, Greece was awakened to new misfortunes bythe arms of the Latins. In the two hundred and fifty years between thefirst and the last conquest of Constantinople, that venerable landwas disputed by a multitude of petty tyrants; without the comforts offreedom and genius, her ancient cities were again plunged in foreign andintestine war; and, if servitude be preferable to anarchy, they mightrepose with joy under the Turkish yoke. I shall not pursue the obscureand various dynasties, that rose and fell on the continent or in theisles; but our silence on the fate of Athens [51] would argue a strangeingratitude to the first and purest school of liberal science andamusement. In the partition of the empire, the principality of Athensand Thebes was assigned to Otho de la Roche, a noble warrior ofBurgundy, [52] with the title of great duke, [53] which the Latinsunderstood in their own sense, and the Greeks more foolishly derivedfrom the age of Constantine. [54] Otho followed the standard of themarquis of Montferrat: the ample state which he acquired by a miracleof conduct or fortune, [55] was peaceably inherited by his son and twograndsons, till the family, though not the nation, was changed, by themarriage of an heiress into the elder branch of the house of Brienne. The son of that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy ofAthens; and, with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he investedwith fiefs, reduced above thirty castles of the vassal or neighboringlords. But when he was informed of the approach and ambition of thegreat company, he collected a force of seven hundred knights, sixthousand four hundred horse, and eight thousand foot, and boldly metthem on the banks of the River Cephisus in Botia. The Catalans amountedto no more than three thousand five hundred horse, and four thousandfoot; but the deficiency of numbers was compensated by stratagem andorder. They formed round their camp an artificial inundation; the dukeand his knights advanced without fear or precaution on the verdantmeadow; their horses plunged into the bog; and he was cut in pieces, with the greatest part of the French cavalry. His family and nation wereexpelled; and his son Walter de Brienne, the titular duke of Athens, thetyrant of Florence, and the constable of France, lost his life in thefield of Poitiers Attica and Botia were the rewards of the victoriousCatalans; they married the widows and daughters of the slain; and duringfourteen years, the great company was the terror of the Grecian states. Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty of the house ofArragon; and during the remainder of the fourteenth century, Athens, asa government or an appanage, was successively bestowed by the kings ofSicily. After the French and Catalans, the third dynasty was that ofthe Accaioli, a family, plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, andsovereign 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 finallydetermined by Mahomet the Second, who strangled the last duke, andeducated his sons in the discipline and religion of the seraglio. 

[Footnote 51: See the laborious history of Ducange, whose accurate tableof the French dynasties recapitulates the thirty-five passages, in whichhe 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 beknown 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 mostdistant times. ]

[Footnote 54: The same Constantine gave to Sicily a king, to Russia the_magnus dapifer_ of the empire, to Thebes the _primicerius_; and theseabsurd 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 receivedby Michael Choniates, the archbishop who had defended Athens against thetyrant Leo Sgurus, (Nicetas urbs capta, p. 805, ed. Bek. ) Michael wasthe brother of the historian Nicetas; and his encomium of Athens isstill extant in MS. In the Bodleian library, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc tom. Vi. P. 405. ) * Note: Nicetas says expressly that Michael surrendered the Acropolis tothe marquis. --M. ]

Athens, [56] though no more than the shadow of her former self, stillcontains about eight or ten thousand inhabitants; of these, threefourths are Greeks in religion and language; and the Turks, who composethe remainder, have relaxed, in their intercourse with the citizens, somewhat of the pride and gravity of their national character. Theolive-tree, the gift of Minerva, flourishes in Attica; nor has the honeyof Mount Hymettus lost any part of its exquisite flavor: [57] but thelanguid trade is monopolized by strangers, and the agriculture of abarren land is abandoned to the vagrant Walachians. The Atheniansare still distinguished by the subtlety and acuteness of theirunderstandings; but these qualities, unless ennobled by freedom, andenlightened by study, will degenerate into a low and selfish cunning:and it is a proverbial saying of the country, "From the Jews ofThessalonica, the Turks of Negropont, and the Greeks of Athens, goodLord deliver us!" This artful people has eluded the tyranny of theTurkish bashaws, by an expedient which alleviates their servitudeand aggravates their shame. About the middle of the last century, theAthenians chose for their protector the Kislar Aga, or chief blackeunuch of the seraglio. This Æthiopian slave, who possesses the sultan'sear, condescends to accept the tribute of thirty thousand crowns: hislieutenant, the Waywode, whom he annually confirms, may reserve forhis own about five or six thousand more; and such is the policy ofthe citizens, that they seldom fail to remove and punish an oppressivegovernor. Their private differences are decided by the archbishop, one of the richest prelates of the Greek church, since he possesses arevenue of one thousand pounds sterling; and by a tribunal of the eight_geronti_ or elders, chosen in the eight quarters of the city: the noblefamilies cannot trace their pedigree above three hundred years; buttheir principal members are distinguished by a grave demeanor, a furcap, and the lofty appellation of _archon_. By some, who delight inthe contrast, the modern language of Athens is represented as the mostcorrupt and barbarous of the seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek: [58]this picture is too darkly colored: but it would not be easy, in thecountry of Plato and Demosthenes, to find a reader or a copy of theirworks. The Athenians walk with supine indifference among the gloriousruins of antiquity; and such is the debasement of their character, thatthey are incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors. [59]

[Footnote 56: The modern account of Athens, and the Athenians, isextracted from Spon, (Voyage en Grece, tom. Ii. P. 79--199, ) andWheeler, (Travels into Greece, p. 337--414, ) Stuart, (Antiquities ofAthens, passim, ) and Chandler, (Travels into Greece, p. 23--172. ) Thefirst of these travellers visited Greece in the year 1676; the last, 1765; and ninety years had not produced much difference in the tranquilscene. ]

[Footnote 57: The ancients, or at least the Athenians, believed thatall the bees in the world had been propagated from Mount Hymettus. They taught, that health might be preserved, and life prolonged, by theexternal use of oil, and the internal use of honey, (Geoponica, l. Xv. C7, p. 1089--1094, edit. Niclas. )]

[Footnote 58: Ducange, Glossar. Græc. Præfat. P. 8, who quotes for hisauthor Theodosius Zygomalas, a modern grammarian. Yet Spon (tom. Ii. P. 194) and Wheeler, (p. 355, ) no incompetent judges, entertain a morefavorable opinion of the Attic dialect. ]

[Footnote 59: Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name ofAthens, which they still call Athini. From the eiV thn 'Aqhnhn, we haveformed our own barbarism of _Setines_. * Note: Gibbon did not foresee aBavarian prince on the throne ofGreece, 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 Palæologus. -- 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 thedisputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans, and the riseof the Ottoman power. He is celebrated as the most learned and virtuousprince of the age; but such virtue, and such learning, contributedneither to the perfection of the individual, nor to the happiness ofsociety A slave of the most abject superstition, he was surrounded onall sides by visible and invisible enemies; nor were the flames of hellless dreadful to his fancy, than those of a Catalan or Turkish war. Under the reign of the Palæologi, the choice of the patriarch was themost important business of the state; the heads of the Greek church wereambitious and fanatic monks; and their vices or virtues, theirlearning or ignorance, were equally mischievous or contemptible. By hisintemperate discipline, the patriarch Athanasius [2] excited the hatredof the clergy and people: he was heard to declare, that the sinnershould swallow the last dregs of the cup of penance; and the foolishtale was propagated of his punishing a sacrilegious ass that had tastedthe lettuce of a convent garden. Driven from the throne by the universalclamor, Athanasius composed before his retreat two papers of a veryopposite cast. His public testament was in the tone of charity andresignation; the private codicil breathed the direst anathemas againstthe authors of his disgrace, whom he excluded forever from the communionof the holy trinity, the angels, and the saints. This last paper heenclosed in an earthen pot, which was placed, by his order, on the topof one of the pillars, in the dome of St. Sophia, in the distant hope ofdiscovery and revenge. At the end of four years, some youths, climbingby a ladder in search of pigeons' nests, detected the fatal secret; and, as Andronicus felt himself touched and bound by the excommunication, hetrembled on the brink of the abyss which had been so treacherously dugunder his feet. A synod of bishops was instantly convened to debatethis important question: the rashness of these clandestine anathemas wasgenerally condemned; but as the knot could be untied only by the samehand, as that hand was now deprived of the crosier, it appeared thatthis posthumous decree was irrevocable by any earthly power. Some fainttestimonies of repentance and pardon were extorted from the author ofthe mischief; but the conscience of the emperor was still wounded, andhe desired, with no less ardor than Athanasius himself, the restorationof 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, announcinga revelation of plague and famine, of inundations and earthquakes. Andronicus started from his bed, and spent the night in prayer, till hefelt, or thought that he felt, a slight motion of the earth. The emperoron foot led the bishops and monks to the cell of Athanasius; and, aftera proper resistance, the saint, from whom this message had beensent, consented to absolve the prince, and govern the church ofConstantinople. Untamed by disgrace, and hardened by solitude, theshepherd was again odious to the flock, and his enemies contrived asingular, and as it proved, a successful, mode of revenge. In the night, they stole away the footstool or foot-cloth of his throne, which theysecretly replaced with the decoration of a satirical picture. Theemperor was painted with a bridle in his mouth, and Athanasius leadingthe tractable beast to the feet of Christ. The authors of the libel weredetected and punished; but as their lives had been spared, the Christianpriest in sullen indignation retired to his cell; and the eyes ofAndronicus, which had been opened for a moment, were again closed by hissuccessor. 

[Footnote 1: Andronicus himself will justify our freedom in theinvective, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. I. C. I. , ) which he pronouncedagainst historic falsehood. It is true, that his censure is morepointedly 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 secondChrysostom. ]

If this transaction be one of the most curious and important of a reignof 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 prolixand languid story of the times. The name and situation of the emperorJohn Cantacuzene might inspire the most lively curiosity. His memorialsof forty years extend from the revolt of the younger Andronicus to hisown abdication of the empire; and it is observed, that, like Moses andCæsar, he was the principal actor in the scenes which he describes. Butin this eloquent work we should vainly seek the sincerity of a hero ora penitent. Retired in a cloister from the vices and passions of theworld, he presents not a confession, but an apology, of the life ofan ambitious statesman. Instead of unfolding the true counsels andcharacters of men, he displays the smooth and specious surface ofevents, highly varnished with his own praises and those of his friends. Their motives are always pure; their ends always legitimate: theyconspire and rebel without any views of interest; and the violence whichthey inflict or suffer is celebrated as the spontaneous effect of reasonand virtue. 

[Footnote 3: Pachymer, in seven books, 377 folio pages, describes thefirst twenty-six years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the date ofhis 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 ofPachymer, 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 elderAndronicus. The ingenious comparison with Moses and Cæsar is fancied byhis French translator, the president Cousin. ]

[Footnote 5: Nicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire lifeand reign of Andronicus the elder, (l. Vi. C. 1, p. 96--291. ) Thisis the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false and maliciousrepresentation of his conduct. ]

After the example of the first of the Palæologi, the elder Andronicusassociated his son Michael to the honors of the purple; and from the ageof eighteen to his premature death, that prince was acknowledged, abovetwenty-five years, as the second emperor of the Greeks. [6] At the headof an army, he excited neither the fears of the enemy, nor the jealousyof the court; his modesty and patience were never tempted to computethe years of his father; nor was that father compelled to repent of hisliberality either by the virtues or vices of his son. The son of Michaelwas named Andronicus from his grandfather, to whose early favor he wasintroduced by that nominal resemblance. The blossoms of wit and beautyincreased the fondness of the elder Andronicus; and, with the commonvanity of age, he expected to realize in the second, the hope which hadbeen disappointed in the first, generation. The boy was educated in thepalace as an heir and a favorite; and in the oaths and acclamations ofthe people, the _august triad_ was formed by the names of the father, the son, and the grandson. But the younger Andronicus was speedilycorrupted by his infant greatness, while he beheld with puerileimpatience the double obstacle that hung, and might long hang, over hisrising ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to diffuse happiness, that he so eagerly aspired: wealth and impunity were in his eyes themost precious attributes of a monarch; and his first indiscreet demandwas the sovereignty of some rich and fertile island, where he might leada life of independence and pleasure. The emperor was offended by theloud and frequent intemperance which disturbed his capital; the sumswhich 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 matronin rank, a prostitute in manners, had instructed the younger Andronicusin the rudiments of love; but he had reason to suspect the nocturnalvisits of a rival; and a stranger passing through the street was piercedby the arrows of his guards, who were placed in ambush at her door. Thatstranger was his brother, Prince Manuel, who languished and died of hiswound; and the emperor Michael, their common father, whose health was ina declining state, expired on the eighth day, lamenting the loss ofboth his children. [7] However guiltless in his intention, the youngerAndronicus might impute a brother's and a father's death to theconsequence of his own vices; and deep was the sigh of thinking andfeeling men, when they perceived, instead of sorrow and repentance, hisill-dissembled joy on the removal of two odious competitors. By thesemelancholy events, and the increase of his disorders, the mind ofthe elder emperor was gradually alienated; and, after many fruitlessreproofs, he transferred on another grandson [8] his hopes and affection. The change was announced by the new oath of allegiance to the reigningsovereign, 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, theemperor was informed that the palace courts were filled with the armedfollowers of his grandson; the judgment was softened to a treaty ofreconciliation; and the triumphant escape of the prince encouraged theardor 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 religionand manners of the Latins, (oti kai gnwmh kai pistei kai schkati, kaigeneiwn koura kai pasin eqesin DatinoV hn akraijnhV. Nic. Greg. L. Ix. C. 1, ) and founded a dynasty of Italian princes, which was extinguishedA. 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 morediscreetly conceals the vices of Andronicus the Younger, of which he wasthe witness and perhaps the associate, (l. I. C. 1, &c. )]

[Footnote 8: His destined heir was Michael Catharus, the bastard ofConstantine his second son. In this project of excluding his grandsonAndronicus, 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, orat least to the government, of the old emperor; and it was only inthe provinces, by flight, and revolt, and foreign succor, that themalecontents 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 andmemorials; and if his own pen be most descriptive of his patriotism, anunfriendly historian has not refused to celebrate the zeal and abilitywhich he displayed in the service of the young emperor. [89] That princeescaped from the capital under the pretence of hunting; erected hisstandard at Adrianople; and, in a few days, assembled fifty thousandhorse and foot, whom neither honor nor duty could have armed against theBarbarians. Such a force might have saved or commanded the empire; buttheir counsels were discordant, their motions were slow and doubtful, and their progress was checked by intrigue and negotiation. The quarrelof the two Andronici was protracted, and suspended, and renewed, duringa ruinous period of seven years. In the first treaty, the relics ofthe Greek empire were divided: Constantinople, Thessalonica, andthe islands, were left to the elder, while the younger acquired thesovereignty of the greatest part of Thrace, from Philippi to theByzantine limit. By the second treaty, he stipulated the payment of histroops, his immediate coronation, and an adequate share of the power andrevenue of the state. The third civil war was terminated by the surpriseof Constantinople, the final retreat of the old emperor, and the solereign of his victorious grandson. The reasons of this delay may be foundin the characters of the men and of the times. When the heir of themonarchy first pleaded his wrongs and his apprehensions, he was heardwith pity and applause: and his adherents repeated on all sides theinconsistent promise, that he would increase the pay of the soldiers andalleviate the burdens of the people. The grievances of forty years weremingled in his revolt; and the rising generation was fatigued by theendless prospect of a reign, whose favorites and maxims were of othertimes. The youth of Andronicus had been without spirit, his age waswithout reverence: his taxes produced an unusual revenue of five hundredthousand pounds; yet the richest of the sovereigns of Christendom wasincapable of maintaining three thousand horse and twenty galleys, toresist the destructive progress of the Turks. [9] "How different, " saidthe younger Andronicus, "is my situation from that of the son of Philip!Alexander might complain, that his father would leave him nothing toconquer: alas! my grandsire will leave me nothing to lose. " But theGreeks were soon admonished, that the public disorders could not behealed by a civil war; and that their young favorite was not destined tobe the savior of a falling empire. On the first repulse, his party wasbroken by his own levity, their intestine discord, and the intrigues ofthe ancient court, which tempted each malecontent to desert or betraythe cause of the rebellion. Andronicus the younger was touched withremorse, or fatigued with business, or deceived by negotiation: pleasurerather than power was his aim; and the license of maintaining a thousandhounds, a thousand hawks, and a thousand huntsmen, was sufficient tosully his fame and disarm his ambition. 

[Footnote 89: The conduct of Cantacuzene, by his own showing, wasinexplicable. He was unwilling to dethrone the old emperor, anddissuaded the immediate march on Constantinople. The young Andronicus, he says, entered into his views, and wrote to warn the emperor of hisdanger 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 youngerAndronicus complained, that in four years and four months a sumof 350, 000 byzants of gold was due to him for the expenses of hishousehold, (Cantacuzen l. I. C. 48. ) Yet he would have remitted thedebt, if he might have been allowed to squeeze the farmers of therevenue. ]

Let us now survey the catastrophe of this busy plot, and the finalsituation of the principal actors. [10] The age of Andronicus wasconsumed in civil discord; and, amidst the events of war and treaty, hispower and reputation continually decayed, till the fatal night in whichthe gates of the city and palace were opened without resistance tohis grandson. His principal commander scorned the repeated warningsof danger; and retiring to rest in the vain security of ignorance, abandoned the feeble monarch, with some priests and pages, to theterrors of a sleepless night. These terrors were quickly realized by thehostile shouts, which proclaimed the titles and victory of Andronicusthe younger; and the aged emperor, falling prostrate before an image ofthe Virgin, despatched a suppliant message to resign the sceptre, andto obtain his life at the hands of the conqueror. The answer of hisgrandson was decent and pious; at the prayer of his friends, the youngerAndronicus assumed the sole administration; but the elder still enjoyedthe name and preeminence of the first emperor, the use of the greatpalace, and a pension of twenty-four thousand pieces of gold, onehalf of which was assigned on the royal treasury, and the other onthe fishery of Constantinople. But his impotence was soon exposed tocontempt and oblivion; the vast silence of the palace was disturbedonly by the cattle and poultry of the neighborhood, [101] which roved withimpunity through the solitary courts; and a reduced allowance of tenthousand pieces of gold [11] was all that he could ask, and more than hecould hope. His calamities were imbittered by the gradual extinction ofsight; his confinement was rendered each day more rigorous; and duringthe absence and sickness of his grandson, his inhuman keepers, by thethreats of instant death, compelled him to exchange the purple for themonastic habit and profession. The monk _Antony_ had renounced the pompof 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 difficultythat the late emperor could procure three or four pieces to satisfythese simple wants; and if he bestowed the gold to relieve the morepainful distress of a friend, the sacrifice is of some weight inthe scale of humanity and religion. Four years after his abdication, Andronicus or Antony expired in a cell, in the seventy-fourth year ofhis age: and the last strain of adulation could only promise a moresplendid crown of glory in heaven than he had enjoyed upon earth. [12] [121]

[Footnote 10: I follow the chronology of Nicephorus Gregoras, who isremarkably exact. It is proved that Cantacuzene has mistaken the datesof his own actions, or rather that his text has been corrupted byignorant transcribers. ]

[Footnote 101: And the washerwomen, according to Nic. Gregoras, p. 431. --M. ]

[Footnote 11: I have endeavored to reconcile the 24, 000 pieces ofCantacuzene (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, thehardships 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 scaffoldor the cell, " should not lightly be accused as "a hireling, a prostituteto praise. " * Note: But it may be accused of unparalleled absurdity. Hecompares the extinction of the feeble old man to that of the sun: hiscoffin is to be floated like Noah's ark by a deluge of tears. --M. ]

[Footnote 121: Prodigies (according to Nic. Gregoras, p. 460) announcedthe departure of the old and imbecile Imperial Monk from his earthlyprison. --M. ]

Nor was the reign of the younger, more glorious or fortunate than thatof the elder, Andronicus. [13] He gathered the fruits of ambition; butthe taste was transient and bitter: in the supreme station he lost theremains of his early popularity; and the defects of his character becamestill more conspicuous to the world. The public reproach urged him tomarch in person against the Turks; nor did his courage fail in thehour of trial; but a defeat and a wound were the only trophies of hisexpedition in Asia, which confirmed the establishment of the Ottomanmonarchy. The abuses of the civil government attained their fullmaturity and perfection: his neglect of forms, and the confusion ofnational dresses, are deplored by the Greeks as the fatal symptomsof the decay of the empire. Andronicus was old before his time; theintemperance of youth had accelerated the infirmities of age; and afterbeing rescued from a dangerous malady by nature, or physic, or theVirgin, he was snatched away before he had accomplished his forty-fifthyear. He was twice married; and, as the progress of the Latins in armsand arts had softened the prejudices of the Byzantine court, his twowives were chosen in the princely houses of Germany and Italy. Thefirst, Agnes at home, Irene in Greece, was daughter of the duke ofBrunswick. Her father [14] was a petty lord [15] in the poor and savageregions of the north of Germany: [16] yet he derived some revenue fromhis silver mines; [17] and his family is celebrated by the Greeks as themost ancient and noble of the Teutonic name. [18] After the death of thischildish princess, Andronicus sought in marriage Jane, the sister ofthe count of Savoy; [19] and his suit was preferred to that of the Frenchking. [20] The count respected in his sister the superior majesty of aRoman empress: her retinue was composed of knights and ladies; shewas regenerated and crowned in St. Sophia, under the more orthodoxappellation of Anne; and, at the nuptial feast, the Greeks and Italiansvied with each other in the martial exercises of tilts and tournaments. 

[Footnote 13: The sole reign of Andronicus the younger is described byCantacuzene (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 theWonderful, the chief of the house of Brunswick, and the fourth indescent from the famous Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, and conqueror of the Sclavi on the Baltic coast. Her brother Henry wassurnamed the _Greek_, from his two journeys into the East: but thesejourneys were subsequent to his sister's marriage; and I am ignorant_how_ Agnes was discovered in the heart of Germany, and recommendedto the Byzantine court. (Rimius, Memoirs of the House of Brunswick, p. 126--137. ]

[Footnote 15: Henry the Wonderful was the founder of the branch ofGrubenhagen, extinct in the year 1596, (Rimius, p. 287. ) He resided inthe castle of Wolfenbuttel, and possessed no more than a sixth part ofthe allodial estates of Brunswick and Luneburgh, which the Guelph familyhad saved from the confiscation of their great fiefs. The frequentpartitions among brothers had almost ruined the princely houses ofGermany, till that just, but pernicious, law was slowly superseded bythe right of primogeniture. The principality of Grubenhagen, one ofthe last remains of the Hercynian forest, is a woody, mountainous, and barren tract, (Busching's Geography, vol. Vi. P. 270--286, Englishtranslation. )]

[Footnote 16: The royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburgh will teachus, how justly, in a much later period, the north of Germany deservedthe epithets of poor and barbarous. (Essai sur les Murs, &c. ) In theyear 1306, in the woods of Luneburgh, some wild people of the Vened racewere allowed to bury alive their infirm and useless parents. (Rimius, p. 136. )]

[Footnote 17: The assertion of Tacitus, that Germany was destitute ofthe precious metals, must be taken, even in his own time, with somelimitation, (Germania, c. 5. Annal. Xi. 20. ) According to Spener, (Hist. Germaniæ Pragmatica, tom. I. P. 351, ) _Argentifodin_ in Hercyniismontibus, imperante Othone magno (A. D. 968) primum apertæ, largam etiamopes augendi dederunt copiam: but Rimius (p. 258, 259) defers till theyear 1016 the discovery of the silver mines of Grubenhagen, or the UpperHartz, which were productive in the beginning of the xivth century, andwhich still yield a considerable revenue to the house of Brunswick. ]

[Footnote 18: Cantacuzene has given a most honorable testimony, hn d' ekGermanvn auth Jugathr doukoV nti Mprouzouhk, (the modern Greeks employthe nt for the d, and the mp for the b, and the whole will read in theItalian idiom di Brunzuic, ) tou par autoiV epijanestatou, kai?iamprothtipantaV touV omojulouV uperballontoV. The praise is just in itself, andpleasing to an English ear. ]

[Footnote 19: Anne, or Jane, was one of the four daughters of Amedéethe Great, by a second marriage, and half-sister of his successor Edwardcount 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 Charlesthe 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, JohnPalæologus, was left an orphan and an emperor in the ninth year of hisage; and his weakness was protected by the first and most deservingof the Greeks. The long and cordial friendship of his father for JohnCantacuzene is alike honorable to the prince and the subject. It hadbeen formed amidst the pleasures of their youth: their families werealmost equally noble; [21] and the recent lustre of the purple was amplycompensated by the energy of a private education. We have seen thatthe young emperor was saved by Cantacuzene from the power of hisgrandfather; and, after six years of civil war, the same favoritebrought him back in triumph to the palace of Constantinople. Under thereign of Andronicus the younger, the great domestic ruled the emperorand the empire; and it was by his valor and conduct that the Isle ofLesbos and the principality of Ætolia were restored to their ancientallegiance. His enemies confess, that, among the public robbers, Cantacuzene alone was moderate and abstemious; and the free andvoluntary account which he produces of his own wealth [22] may sustainthe presumption that he was devolved by inheritance, and not accumulatedby 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 ofseventy galleys. He does not measure the size and number of his estates;but his granaries were heaped with an incredible store of wheat andbarley; and the labor of a thousand yoke of oxen might cultivate, according to the practice of antiquity, about sixty-two thousand fivehundred acres of arable land. [23] His pastures were stocked with twothousand five hundred brood mares, two hundred camels, three hundredmules, five hundred asses, five thousand horned cattle, fifty thousandhogs, and seventy thousand sheep: [24] a precious record of ruralopulence, in the last period of the empire, and in a land, most probablyin Thrace, so repeatedly wasted by foreign and domestic hostility. The favor of Cantacuzene was above his fortune. In the moments offamiliarity, in the hour of sickness, the emperor was desirous to levelthe distance between them and pressed his friend to accept the diademand purple. The virtue of the great domestic, which is attested by hisown pen, resisted the dangerous proposal; but the last testament ofAndronicus the younger named him the guardian of his son, and the regentof the empire. 

[Footnote 21: The noble race of the Cantacuzeni (illustrious from thexith century in the Byzantine annals) was drawn from the Paladins ofFrance, the heroes of those romances which, in the xiiith century, weretranslated 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, allowtwo 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 ifthere 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 translationof the president Cousin is blotted with three palpable and essentialerrors. 1. He omits the 1000 yoke of working oxen. 2. He interprets thepentakosiai proV diaciliaiV, by the number of fifteen hundred. * 3. Heconfounds myriads with chiliads, and gives Cantacuzene no more than 5000hogs. Put not your trust in translations! Note: * There seems to beanother reading, ciliaiV. Niebuhr's edit. Inloc. --M. ]

Had the regent found a suitable return of obedience and gratitude, perhaps he would have acted with pure and zealous fidelity in theservice of his pupil. [25] A guard of five hundred soldiers watched overhis person and the palace; the funeral of the late emperor was decentlyperformed; the capital was silent and submissive; and five hundredletters, which Cantacuzene despatched in the first month, informedthe provinces of their loss and their duty. The prospect of a tranquilminority was blasted by the great duke or admiral Apocaucus, and toexaggerate _his_ perfidy, the Imperial historian is pleased to magnifyhis own imprudence, in raising him to that office against the advice ofhis more sagacious sovereign. Bold and subtle, rapacious and profuse, the avarice and ambition of Apocaucus were by turns subservient to eachother; and his talents were applied to the ruin of his country. His arrogance was heightened by the command of a naval force and animpregnable castle, and under the mask of oaths and flattery he secretlyconspired against his benefactor. The female court of the empress wasbribed and directed; he encouraged Anne of Savoy to assert, by the lawof nature, the tutelage of her son; the love of power was disguised bythe anxiety of maternal tenderness: and the founder of the Palæologi hadinstructed his posterity to dread the example of a perfidious guardian. The patriarch John of Apri was a proud and feeble old man, encompassedby a numerous and hungry kindred. He produced an obsolete epistle ofAndronicus, which bequeathed the prince and people to his pious care:the fate of his predecessor Arsenius prompted him to prevent, ratherthan punish, the crimes of a usurper; and Apocaucus smiled at thesuccess of his own flattery, when he beheld the Byzantine priestassuming the state and temporal claims of the Roman pontiff. [26] Betweenthree persons so different in their situation and character, a privateleague was concluded: a shadow of authority was restored to the senate;and the people was tempted by the name of freedom. By this powerfulconfederacy, the great domestic was assaulted at first with clandestine, at length with open, arms. His prerogatives were disputed; his opinionsslighted; his friends persecuted; and his safety was threatened both inthe camp and city. In his absence on the public service, he wasaccused of treason; proscribed as an enemy of the church and state; anddelivered with all his adherents to the sword of justice, thevengeance of the people, and the power of the devil; his fortunes wereconfiscated; his aged mother was cast into prison; [261] all his pastservices were buried in oblivion; and he was driven by injustice toperpetrate the crime of which he was accused. [27] From the review ofhis preceding conduct, Cantacuzene appears to have been guiltless of anytreasonable designs; and the only suspicion of his innocence must arisefrom the vehemence of his protestations, and the sublime purity whichhe ascribes to his own virtue. While the empress and the patriarchstill affected the appearances of harmony, he repeatedly solicited thepermission of retiring to a private, and even a monastic, life. Afterhe had been declared a public enemy, it was his fervent wish to throwhimself at the feet of the young emperor, and to receive without amurmur the stroke of the executioner: it was not without reluctance thathe listened to the voice of reason, which inculcated the sacred duty ofsaving his family and friends, and proved that he could only save themby drawing the sword and assuming the Imperial title. 

[Footnote 25: See the regency and reign of John Cantacuzenus, and thewhole 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 epistleswith hyacinth or green ink, and claimed for the new, whateverConstantine 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 andvirtues of Cantacuzenus, the guilt and flagitious vices of Apocaucus;nor does he dissemble the motive of his personal and religious enmityto the former; nun de dia kakian allwn, aitioV o praotatoV thV tvn olwnedoxaV? eioai jqoraV. Note: The alloi were the religious enemies andpersecutors 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 JohnCantacuzenus was invested with the purple buskins: his right leg wasclothed by his noble kinsmen, the left by the Latin chiefs, on whom heconferred the order of knighthood. But even in this act of revolt, hewas still studious of loyalty; and the titles of John Palæologus andAnne of Savoy were proclaimed before his own name and that of his wifeIrene. Such vain ceremony is a thin disguise of rebellion, nor are thereperhaps any personal wrongs that can authorize a subject to take armsagainst his sovereign: but the want of preparation and success mayconfirm the assurance of the usurper, that this decisive step was theeffect of necessity rather than of choice. Constantinople adhered tothe young emperor; the king of Bulgaria was invited to the relief ofAdrianople: the principal cities of Thrace and Macedonia, after somehesitation, renounced their obedience to the great domestic; and theleaders of the troops and provinces were induced, by their privateinterest, to prefer the loose dominion of a woman and a priest. [271] Thearmy of Cantacuzene, in sixteen divisions, was stationed on the banksof the Melas to tempt or to intimidate the capital: it was dispersedby treachery or fear; and the officers, more especially the mercenaryLatins, accepted the bribes, and embraced the service, of the Byzantinecourt. After this loss, the rebel emperor (he fluctuated between the twocharacters) took the road of Thessalonica with a chosen remnant; buthe failed in his enterprise on that important place; and he was closelypursued by the great duke, his enemy Apocaucus, at the head of asuperior power by sea and land. Driven from the coast, in his march, orrather flight, into the mountains of Servia, Cantacuzene assembled histroops to scrutinize those who were worthy and willing to accompany hisbroken fortunes. A base majority bowed and retired; and his trusty bandwas diminished to two thousand, and at last to five hundred, volunteers. The _cral_, [28] or despot of the Servians received him with generalhospitality; but the ally was insensibly degraded to a suppliant, ahostage, a captive; and in this miserable dependence, he waited at thedoor of the Barbarian, who could dispose of the life and liberty of aRoman emperor. The most tempting offers could not persuade the cral toviolate his trust; but he soon inclined to the stronger side; and hisfriend was dismissed without injury to a new vicissitude of hopes andperils. Near six years the flame of discord burnt with various successand unabated rage: the cities were distracted by the faction of thenobles and the plebeians; the Cantacuzeni and Palæologi: and theBulgarians, the Servians, and the Turks, were invoked on both sidesas the instruments of private ambition and the common ruin. The regentdeplored the calamities, of which he was the author and victim: and hisown experience might dictate a just and lively remark on the differentnature of foreign and civil war. "The former, " said he, "is the externalwarmth of summer, always tolerable, and often beneficial; the latter isthe deadly heat of a fever, which consumes without a remedy the vitalsof the constitution. " [29]

[Footnote 271: Cantacuzene asserts, that in all the cities, the populacewere on the side of the emperor, the aristocracy on his. Thepopulace took the opportunity of rising and plundering the wealthy asCantacuzenites, vol. Iii. C. 29 Ages of common oppression and ruin hadnot extinguished these republican factions. --M. ]

[Footnote 28: The princes of Servia (Ducange, Famil. Dalmaticæ, &c. , c. 2, 3, 4, 9) were styled Despots in Greek, and Cral in their nativeidiom, (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. P. 751. ) That title, the equivalentof king, appears to be of Sclavonic origin, from whence it has beenborrowed by the Hungarians, the modern Greeks, and even by the Turks, (Leunclavius, Pandect. Turc. P. 422, ) who reserve the name of Padishahfor the emperor. To obtain the latter instead of the former is theambition of the French at Constantinople, (Aversissement à l'Histoire deTimur Bec, p. 39. )]

[Footnote 29: Nic. Gregoras, l. Xii. C. 14. It is surprising thatCantacuzene has not inserted this just and lively image in his ownwritings. ]

The introduction of barbarians and savages into the contests ofcivilized nations, is a measure pregnant with shame and mischief; whichthe interest of the moment may compel, but which is reprobated by thebest principles of humanity and reason. It is the practice of both sidesto accuse their enemies of the guilt of the first alliances; and thosewho fail in their negotiations are loudest in their censure of theexample which they envy and would gladly imitate. The Turks of Asia wereless barbarous perhaps than the shepherds of Bulgaria and Servia; buttheir religion rendered them implacable foes of Rome and Christianity. To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two factions vied witheach other in baseness and profusion: the dexterity of Cantacuzeneobtained the preference: but the succor and victory were dearlypurchased by the marriage of his daughter with an infidel, the captivityof many thousand Christians, and the passage of the Ottomans intoEurope, the last and fatal stroke in the fall of the Roman empire. Theinclining scale was decided in his favor by the death of Apocaucus, thejust though singular retribution of his crimes. A crowd of nobles orplebeians, whom he feared or hated, had been seized by his orders inthe capital and the provinces; and the old palace of Constantine wasassigned as the place of their confinement. Some alterations in raisingthe walls, and narrowing the cells, had been ingeniously contrivedto prevent their escape, and aggravate their misery; and the workwas incessantly pressed by the daily visits of the tyrant. His guardswatched at the gate, and as he stood in the inner court to overlookthe architects, without fear or suspicion, he was assaulted andlaid breathless on the ground, by two [291] resolute prisoners of thePalæologian race, [30] who were armed with sticks, and animated bydespair. On the rumor of revenge and liberty, the captive multitudebroke their fetters, fortified their prison, and exposed from thebattlements the tyrant's head, presuming on the favor of the people andthe clemency of the empress. Anne of Savoy might rejoice in the fall ofa haughty and ambitious minister, but while she delayed to resolve orto act, the populace, more especially the mariners, were excited by thewidow of the great duke to a sedition, an assault, and a massacre. Theprisoners (of whom the far greater part were guiltless or inglorious ofthe deed) escaped to a neighboring church: they were slaughtered at thefoot of the altar; and in his death the monster was not less bloody andvenomous than in his life. Yet his talents alone upheld the cause of theyoung emperor; and his surviving associates, suspicious of each other, abandoned the conduct of the war, and rejected the fairest terms ofaccommodation. In the beginning of the dispute, the empress felt, andcomplained, that she was deceived by the enemies of Cantacuzene: thepatriarch was employed to preach against the forgiveness of injuries;and her promise of immortal hatred was sealed by an oath, under thepenalty of excommunication. [31] But Anne soon learned to hate without ateacher: she beheld the misfortunes of the empire with the indifferenceof a stranger: her jealousy was exasperated by the competition of arival empress; and on the first symptoms of a more yielding temper, shethreatened the patriarch to convene a synod, and degrade him fromhis office. Their incapacity and discord would have afforded the mostdecisive advantage; but the civil war was protracted by the weaknessof both parties; and the moderation of Cantacuzene has not escapedthe reproach of timidity and indolence. He successively recovered theprovinces and cities; and the realm of his pupil was measured by thewalls of Constantinople; but the metropolis alone counterbalanced therest of the empire; nor could he attempt that important conquest till hehad secured in his favor the public voice and a private correspondence. An Italian, of the name of Facciolati, [32] had succeeded to the officeof great duke: the ships, the guards, and the golden gate, were subjectto his command; but his humble ambition was bribed to become theinstrument of treachery; and the revolution was accomplished withoutdanger or bloodshed. Destitute of the powers of resistance, or the hopeof relief, the inflexible Anne would have still defended the palace, and have smiled to behold the capital in flames, rather than in thepossession of a rival. She yielded to the prayers of her friends andenemies; and the treaty was dictated by the conqueror, who professed aloyal and zealous attachment to the son of his benefactor. The marriageof his daughter with John Palæologus was at length consummated:the hereditary right of the pupil was acknowledged; but the soleadministration during ten years was vested in the guardian. Two emperorsand three empresses were seated on the Byzantine throne; and a generalamnesty quieted the apprehensions, and confirmed the property, of themost guilty subjects. The festival of the coronation and nuptials wascelebrated with the appearances of concord and magnificence, and bothwere equally fallacious. During the late troubles, the treasures ofthe state, and even the furniture of the palace, had been alienated orembezzled; the royal banquet was served in pewter or earthenware; andsuch was the proud poverty of the times, that the absence of gold andjewels 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 Palæologi, who might resent, with royal indignation, the shame of their chains. The tragedy ofApocaucus 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. ) Itis 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 greataccomplice, (Cantacuzen. L. Iii. C. 99. )]

[Footnote 33: Nic. Greg. L. Xv. 11. There were, however, some truepearls, but very thinly sprinkled. The rest of the stones had onlypantodaphn croian proV to diaugeV. ]

I hasten to conclude the personal history of John Cantacuzene. [34] Hetriumphed and reigned; but his reign and triumph were clouded by thediscontent of his own and the adverse faction. His followers might stylethe general amnesty an act of pardon for his enemies, and of oblivionfor his friends: [35] in his cause their estates had been forfeited orplundered; and as they wandered naked and hungry through the streets, they cursed the selfish generosity of a leader, who, on the throne ofthe empire, might relinquish without merit his private inheritance. Theadherents of the empress blushed to hold their lives and fortunes by theprecarious favor of a usurper; and the thirst of revenge was concealedby 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 thePalæologi, and intrusted with the defence of some cautionary towns; ameasure supported with argument and eloquence; and which was rejected(says the Imperial historian) "by _my_ sublime, and almost incrediblevirtue. " His repose was disturbed by the sound of plots and seditions;and he trembled lest the lawful prince should be stolen away by someforeign or domestic enemy, who would inscribe his name and his wrongs inthe banners of rebellion. As the son of Andronicus advanced in the yearsof manhood, he began to feel and to act for himself; and his risingambition was rather stimulated than checked by the imitation of hisfather's vices. If we may trust his own professions, Cantacuzene laboredwith honest industry to correct these sordid and sensual appetites, andto raise the mind of the young prince to a level with his fortune. Inthe Servian expedition, the two emperors showed themselves in cordialharmony to the troops and provinces; and the younger colleague wasinitiated by the elder in the mysteries of war and government. After theconclusion of the peace, Palæologus was left at Thessalonica, a royalresidence, and a frontier station, to secure by his absence the peaceof Constantinople, and to withdraw his youth from the temptations of aluxurious capital. But the distance weakened the powers of control, and the son of Andronicus was surrounded with artful or unthinkingcompanions, who taught him to hate his guardian, to deplore his exile, and to vindicate his rights. A private treaty with the cral or despotof Servia was soon followed by an open revolt; and Cantacuzene, onthe throne of the elder Andronicus, defended the cause of age andprerogative, which in his youth he had so vigorously attacked. At hisrequest the empress-mother undertook the voyage of Thessalonica, and theoffice of mediation: she returned without success; and unless Anne ofSavoy was instructed by adversity, we may doubt the sincerity, or atleast the fervor, of her zeal. While the regent grasped the sceptre witha firm and vigorous hand, she had been instructed to declare, that theten years of his legal administration would soon elapse; and that, aftera full trial of the vanity of the world, the emperor Cantacuzene sighedfor the repose of a cloister, and was ambitious only of a heavenlycrown. Had these sentiments been genuine, his voluntary abdication wouldhave restored the peace of the empire, and his conscience would havebeen relieved by an act of justice. Palæologus alone was responsible forhis future government; and whatever might be his vices, they weresurely less formidable than the calamities of a civil war, in which theBarbarians and infidels were again invited to assist the Greeks in theirmutual destruction. By the arms of the Turks, who now struck a deep andeverlasting root in Europe, Cantacuzene prevailed in the third contestin which he had been involved; and the young emperor, driven from thesea and land, was compelled to take shelter among the Latins of the Isleof Tenedos. His insolence and obstinacy provoked the victor to a stepwhich must render the quarrel irreconcilable; and the association ofhis son Matthew, whom he invested with the purple, established thesuccession in the family of the Cantacuzeni. But Constantinople wasstill attached to the blood of her ancient princes; and this lastinjury accelerated the restoration of the rightful heir. A noble Genoeseespoused the cause of Palæologus, obtained a promise of his sister, andachieved the revolution with two galleys and two thousand five hundredauxiliaries. Under the pretence of distress, they were admitted into thelesser port; a gate was opened, and the Latin shout of, "Long life andvictory to the emperor, John Palæologus!" was answered by a generalrising in his favor. A numerous and loyal party yet adhered to thestandard of Cantacuzene: but he asserts in his history (does he hope forbelief?) that his tender conscience rejected the assurance of conquest;that, in free obedience to the voice of religion and philosophy, hedescended from the throne and embraced with pleasure the monastic habitand profession. [36] So soon as he ceased to be a prince, his successorwas not unwilling that he should be a saint: the remainder of his lifewas devoted to piety and learning; in the cells of Constantinopleand Mount Athos, the monk Joasaph was respected as the temporal andspiritual father of the emperor; and if he issued from his retreat, itwas as the minister of peace, to subdue the obstinacy, and solicit thepardon, of his rebellious son. [37]

[Footnote 34: From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene continueshis history and that of the empire, one year beyond the abdication ofhis son Matthew, A. D. 1357, (l. Iv. C. L--50, p. 705--911. ) NicephorusGregoras 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. Inthe king of France's library. ]

[Footnote 35: The emperor (Cantacuzen. L. Iv. C. 1) represents his ownvirtues, 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 poorcavaliers 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 suppliedby 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, (c10, 11. )]

[Footnote 37: Cantacuzene, in the year 1375, was honored with a letterfrom the pope, (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. Tom. Xx. P. 250. ) His deathis placed by a respectable authority on the 20th of November, 1411, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. P. 260. ) But if he were of the age of hiscompanion Andronicus the Younger, he must have lived 116 years; a rareinstance of longevity, which in so illustrious a person would haveattracted universal notice. ]

Yet in the cloister, the mind of Cantacuzene was still exercised bytheological war. He sharpened a controversial pen against the Jewsand Mahometans; [38] and in every state he defended with equal zeal thedivine light of Mount Thabor, a memorable question which consummates thereligious follies of the Greeks. The fakirs of India, [39] and themonks of the Oriental church, were alike persuaded, that in the totalabstraction of the faculties of the mind and body, the purer spiritmay ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion andpractice of the monasteries of Mount Athos [40] will be best representedin the words of an abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. "Whenthou 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 andtransitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes andthy 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, allwill be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night, youwill feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered theplace of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light. "This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature of anempty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as thepure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly wasconfined to Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not inquisitivehow the divine essence could be a _material_ substance, or how an_immaterial_ substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body. Butin the reign of the younger Andronicus, these monasteries were visitedby Barlaam, [41] a Calabrian monk, who was equally skilled in philosophyand theology; who possessed the language of the Greeks and Latins; andwhose versatile genius could maintain their opposite creeds, accordingto the interest of the moment. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealedto the curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer and Barlaamembraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists, who placed thesoul in the navel; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of heresyand blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to renounce ordissemble the simple devotion of their brethren; and Gregory Palamasintroduced a scholastic distinction between the essence and operationof God. His inaccessible essence dwells in the midst of an uncreatedand eternal light; and this beatific vision of the saints had beenmanifested to the disciples on Mount Thabor, in the transfigurationof Christ. Yet this distinction could not escape the reproach ofpolytheism; the eternity of the light of Thabor was fiercely denied; andBarlaam still charged the Palamites with holding two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God. From the rage of the monks of MountAthos, who threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to Constantinople, where his smooth and specious manners introduced him to the favor of thegreat domestic and the emperor. The court and the city were involvedin this theological dispute, which flamed amidst the civil war; butthe doctrine of Barlaam was disgraced by his flight and apostasy: thePalamites triumphed; and their adversary, the patriarch John of Apri, was deposed by the consent of the adverse factions of the state. In thecharacter of emperor and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the synodof the Greek church, which established, as an article of faith, theuncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many insults, the reasonof mankind was slightly wounded by the addition of a single absurdity. Many rolls of paper or parchment have been blotted; and the impenitentsectaries, who refused to subscribe the orthodox creed, were deprivedof the honors of Christian burial; but in the next age the question wasforgotten; nor can I learn that the axe or the fagot were employed forthe extirpation of the Barlaamite heresy. [42]

[Footnote 38: His four discourses, or books, were printed at Basil, 1543, (Fabric Bibliot. Græc. Tom. Vi. P. 473. ) He composed them tosatisfy a proselyte who was assaulted with letters from his friends ofIspahan. Cantacuzene had read the Koran; but I understand from Maraccithat he adopts the vulgar prejudices and fables against Mahomet and hisreligion. ]

[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 thecauses with the judgment of a philosopher, the latter transcribes andtranscribes 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. Theduplicity of his opinions had inspired some doubts of the identityof his person. See likewise Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. 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 lastbooks, from the xixth to xxivth, are almost confined to a subject sointeresting to the authors. Boivin, (in Vit. Nic. Gregoræ, ) from theunpublished books, and Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. Tom. X. P. 462--473, )or rather Montfaucon, from the MSS. Of the Coislin library, have addedsome 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 theGreek empire. The Genoese, who, after the recovery of Constantinople, were seated in the suburb of Pera or Galata, received that honorablefief from the bounty of the emperor. They were indulged in the use oftheir laws and magistrates; but they submitted to the duties of vassalsand subjects; the forcible word of _liegemen_[43] was borrowed from theLatin jurisprudence; and their _podesta_, or chief, before he enteredon his office, saluted the emperor with loyal acclamations and vows offidelity. Genoa sealed a firm alliance with the Greeks; and, in case ofa defensive war, a supply of fifty empty galleys and a succor of fiftygalleys, completely armed and manned, was promised by the republic tothe empire. In the revival of a naval force, it was the aim of MichaelPalæologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his vigorousgovernment contained the Genoese of Galata within those limits whichthe insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to exceed. A sailorthreatened that they should soon be masters of Constantinople, and slewthe Greek who resented this national affront; and an armed vessel, afterrefusing to salute the palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in theBlack Sea. Their countrymen threatened to support their cause; but thelong and open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the Imperialtroops; till, in the moment of the assault, the prostrate Genoeseimplored the clemency of their sovereign. The defenceless situationwhich secured their obedience exposed them to the attack of theirVenetian rivals, who, in the reign of the elder Andronicus, presumed toviolate the majesty of the throne. On the approach of their fleets, theGenoese, with their families and effects, retired into the city: theirempty habitations were reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who hadviewed the destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not byarms, but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageousto the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the dangerouslicense of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of introducing intothe ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting lofty turrets; and ofmounting a train of military engines on the rampart. The narrow boundsin which they had been circumscribed were insufficient for the growingcolony; each day they acquired some addition of landed property; and theadjacent hills were covered with their villas and castles, which theyjoined and protected by new fortifications. [44] The navigation and tradeof the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded thenarrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea. In the reignof Michael Palæologus, their prerogative was acknowledged by the sultanof Egypt, who solicited and obtained the liberty of sending an annualship for the purchase of slaves in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary:a liberty pregnant with mischief to the Christian cause; since theseyouths were transformed by education and discipline into the formidableMamalukes. [45] From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged withsuperior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and theirindustry supplied the Greeks with fish and corn; two articles of foodalmost equally important to a superstitious people. The spontaneousbounty of nature appears to have bestowed the harvests of Ukraine, theproduce of a rude and savage husbandry; and the endless exportation ofsalt fish and caviare is annually renewed by the enormous sturgeons thatare caught at the mouth of the Don or Tanais, in their last stationof the rich mud and shallow water of the Mæotis. [46] The waters of theOxus, the Caspian, the Volga, and the Don, opened a rare and laboriouspassage for the gems and spices of India; and after three months'march the caravans of Carizme met the Italian vessels in the harborsof Crimæa. [47] These various branches of trade were monopolized by thediligence and power of the Genoese. Their rivals of Venice and Pisawere forcibly expelled; the natives were awed by the castles and cities, which arose on the foundations of their humble factories; and theirprincipal establishment of Caffa [48] was besieged without effect by theTartar powers. Destitute of a navy, the Greeks were oppressed by thesehaughty merchants, who fed, or famished, Constantinople, according totheir interest. They proceeded to usurp the customs, the fishery, andeven the toll, of the Bosphorus; and while they derived from theseobjects a revenue of two hundred thousand pieces of gold, a remnant ofthirty thousand was reluctantly allowed to the emperor. [49] The colonyof Pera or Galata acted, in peace and war, as an independent state; and, as it will happen in distant settlements, the Genoese podesta too oftenforgot 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 ofthe feudal times may be amply understood from the Glossaries of Ducange, (Græc. P. 811, 812. Latin. Tom. Iv. P. 109--111. )]

[Footnote 44: The establishment and progress of the Genoese at Pera, orGalata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. I. P. 68, 69) fromthe 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 statelymosque 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 atCaffa, that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or twenty-six feetlong, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and yielded three orfour quintals of caviare. The corn of the Bosphorus had supplied theAthenians in the time of Demosthenes. ]

[Footnote 47: De Guignes, Hist. Des Huns, tom. Iii. P. 343, 344. Viaggidi Ramusio, tom. I. Fol. 400. But this land or water carriage couldonly be practicable when Tartary was united under a wise and powerfulmonarch. ]

[Footnote 48: Nic. Gregoras (l. Xiii. C. 12) is judicious and wellinformed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea. Chardin describesthe present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty days, he saw above 400sail 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 elderAndronicus, and by the civil wars that afflicted his age and theminority of his grandson. The talents of Cantacuzene were employed tothe ruin, rather than the restoration, of the empire; and after hisdomestic victory, he was condemned to an ignominious trial, whether theGreeks or the Genoese should reign in Constantinople. The merchantsof Pera were offended by his refusal of some contiguous land, some commanding heights, which they proposed to cover with newfortifications; and in the absence of the emperor, who was detained atDemotica by sickness, they ventured to brave the debility of a femalereign. A Byzantine vessel, which had presumed to fish at the mouth ofthe harbor, was sunk by these audacious strangers; the fishermenwere murdered. Instead of suing for pardon, the Genoese demandedsatisfaction; required, in a haughty strain, that the Greeks shouldrenounce the exercise of navigation; and encountered with regular armsthe first sallies of the popular indignation. They instantly occupiedthe debatable land; and by the labor of a whole people, of either sexand of every age, the wall was raised, and the ditch was sunk, withincredible speed. At the same time, they attacked and burnt twoByzantine galleys; while the three others, the remainder of the Imperialnavy, escaped from their hands: the habitations without the gates, or along the shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of theregent, of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of thecity. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public consternation: theemperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he yielded to the obstinacyof his enemies, who rejected all reasonable terms, and to the ardor ofhis subjects, who threatened, in the style of Scripture, to break themin pieces like a potter's vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes, that he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses of thewar; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the land, theother of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed by the evils ofa mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who had believed that afew days would terminate the war, already murmured at their losses: thesuccors from their mother-country were delayed by the factions of Genoa;and the most cautious embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel toremove their families and effects from the scene of hostility. Inthe spring, the Byzantine fleet, seven galleys and a train of smallervessels, issued from the mouth of the harbor, and steered in a singleline along the shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their sides to thebeaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were composed of peasants andmechanics; nor was their ignorance compensated by the native courage ofBarbarians: the wind was strong, the waves were rough; and no soonerdid the Greeks perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leapedheadlong into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. Thetroops that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were struck atthe 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 theemperor was patience; and the hope of revenge his sole consolation. Yetthe distress of both parties interposed a temporary agreement; and theshame of the empire was disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power. Summoning the chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to despise thetrivial object of the debate; and, after a mild reproof, most liberallygranted the lands, which had been previously resigned to the seemingcustody 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 responsiblethan the prince for the defeat of the fleet. ]

But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to joinhis arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa and hercolonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war, his moderationwas provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants of Pera, whodischarged from their rampart a large stone that fell in the midst ofConstantinople. On his just complaint, they coldly blamed the imprudenceof their engineer; but the next day the insult was repeated; and theyexulted in a second proof that the royal city was not beyond the reachof their artillery. Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with theVenetians; but the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely felt in thebalance of these opulent and powerful republics. [51] From the Straitsof Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their fleets encountered eachother with various success; and a memorable battle was fought in thenarrow sea, under the walls of Constantinople. It would not be an easytask to reconcile the accounts of the Greeks, the Venetians, andthe Genoese; [52] and while I depend on the narrative of an impartialhistorian, [53] I shall borrow from each nation the facts that redoundto their own disgrace, and the honor of their foes. The Venetians, withtheir allies the Catalans, had the advantage of number; and theirfleet, with the poor addition of eight Byzantine galleys, amounted toseventy-five sail: the Genoese did not exceed sixty-four; but in thosetimes their ships of war were distinguished by the superiority of theirsize and strength. The names and families of their naval commanders, Pisani and Doria, are illustrious in the annals of their country; butthe personal merit of the former was eclipsed by the fame and abilitiesof his rival. They engaged in tempestuous weather; and the tumultuaryconflict was continued from the dawn to the extinction of light. The enemies of the Genoese applaud their prowess; the friends of theVenetians are dissatisfied with their behavior; but all parties agreein praising the skill and boldness of the Catalans, [531] who, with manywounds, sustained the brunt of the action. On the separation of thefleets, the event might appear doubtful; but the thirteen Genoesegalleys, that had been sunk or taken, were compensated by a double lossof the allies; of fourteen Venetians, ten Catalans, and two Greeks; [532]and even the grief of the conquerors expressed the assurance and habitof more decisive victories. Pisani confessed his defeat, by retiringinto a fortified harbor, from whence, under the pretext of the orders ofthe senate, he steered with a broken and flying squadron for the Isleof Candia, and abandoned to his rivals the sovereignty of the sea. In apublic epistle, [54] addressed to the doge and senate, Petrarch employshis eloquence to reconcile the maritime powers, the two luminaries ofItaly. 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 themisfortunes of their Venetian brethren; but he exhorts them to pursuewith fire and sword the base and perfidious Greeks; to purge themetropolis of the East from the heresy with which it was infected. Deserted by their friends, the Greeks were incapable of resistance; andthree months after the battle, the emperor Cantacuzene solicited andsubscribed a treaty, which forever banished the Venetians and Catalans, and granted to the Genoese a monopoly of trade, and almost a right ofdominion. The Roman empire (I smile in transcribing the name) might soonhave sunk into a province of Genoa, if the ambition of the republichad not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power. A longcontest of one hundred and thirty years was determined by the triumphof Venice; and the factions of the Genoese compelled them to seek fordomestic peace under the protection of a foreign lord, the duke ofMilan, or the French king. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that ofconquest; and the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigatedthe Euxine, till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude ofConstantinople 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. Iregret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is still in MS. At Paris. * Note:This part of Nicephorus Gregoras has not been printed in the newedition of the Byzantine Historians. The editor expresses a hope thatit may be undertaken by Hase. I should join in the regret of Gibbon, if these books contain any historical information: if they are buta continuation of the controversies which fill the last books in ourpresent copies, they may as well sleep their eternal sleep in MS. As inprint. --M. ]

[Footnote 52: Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. Xii. P. 144) refers tothe most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the continuatorof Andrew Dandulus, tom. Xii. P. 421, 422) and Genoa, (George StellaAnnales Genuenses, tom. Xvii. P. 1091, 1092;) both which I havediligently consulted in his great Collection of the Historians ofItaly. ]

[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 lossesto their ignorance of the seas: they suffered more by the breakers thanby the enemy, vol. Iii. P. 224. --M. ]

[Footnote 532: Cantacuzene says that the Genoese lost twenty-eight shipswith their crews, autandroi; the Venetians and Catalans sixteen, the Imperials, none Cantacuzene accuses Pisani of cowardice, in notfollowing up the victory, and destroying the Genoese. But Pisani'sconduct, and indeed Cantacuzene's account of the battle, betray thesuperiority 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 anddespair 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 cowardiceand discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend to the victoriousTurks; whose domestic slavery was ennobled by martial discipline, religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the national character. The riseand progress of the Ottomans, the present sovereigns of Constantinople, are connected with the most important scenes of modern history; but theyare founded on a previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls[100] and Tartars; whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitiveconvulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the surface ofthe 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 canI 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 nameof this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the Mondchoux, theirneighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called themselves also Beda. This fact seems to have been proved by M. Schmidt against the FrenchOrientalists. 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 conquestsof Attila and the Huns, which were composed at a time when I entertainedthe 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 ancientseats of the Huns and Turks were occupied in the twelfth century by manypastoral tribes, of the same descent and similar manners, which wereunited and led to conquest by the formidable Zingis. [101] In his ascentto greatness, that Barbarian (whose private appellation was Temugin) hadtrampled on the necks of his equals. His birth was noble; but it was thepride of victory, that the prince or people deduced his seventh ancestorfrom the immaculate conception of a virgin. His father had reigned overthirteen hordes, which composed about thirty or forty thousand families:above two thirds refused to pay tithes or obedience to his infantson; and at the age of thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against hisrebellious subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was reduced to fly andto obey; but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth yearhe 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 topunish his enemies and recompense his friends. His first military leaguewas ratified by the simple rites of sacrificing a horse and tasting of arunning stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his followers thesweets and the bitters of life; and when he had shared among them hishorses and apparel, he was rich in their gratitude and his own hopes. After his first victory, he placed seventy caldrons on the fire, andseventy of the most guilty rebels were cast headlong into the boilingwater. The sphere of his attraction was continually enlarged by theruin of the proud and the submission of the prudent; and the boldestchieftains might tremble, when they beheld, enchased in silver, theskull of the khan of Keraites; [2] who, under the name of Prester John, had corresponded with the Roman pontiff and the princes of Europe. Theambition of Temugin condescended to employ the arts of superstition;and it was from a naked prophet, who could ascend to heaven on a whitehorse, that he accepted the title of Zingis, [3] the _most great_; anda divine right to the conquest and dominion of the earth. In ageneral _couroultai_, or diet, he was seated on a felt, which was longafterwards revered as a relic, and solemnly proclaimed great khan, oremperor of the Moguls [4] and Tartars. [5] Of these kindred, though rival, names, the former had given birth to the imperial race; and the latterhas been extended by accident or error over the spacious wilderness ofthe north. 

[Footnote 101: On the traditions of the early life of Zingis, see D'Ohson, Hist des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichtedes Ost-Mongolen, p. 66, &c. , and Notes. --M. ]

[Footnote 2: The khans of the Keraites were most probably incapable ofreading the pompous epistles composed in their name by the Nestorianmissionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous wonders of an Indiankingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the Presbyter or Priest John) hadsubmitted to the rites of baptism and ordination, (Asseman, BibliotOrient tom. Iii. P. Ii. P. 487--503. )]

[Footnote 3: Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis, at leastin French, seems to be the more fashionable spelling; but Abulghazi Khanmust have known the true name of his ancestor. His etymology appearsjust: _Zin_, in the Mogul tongue, signifies _great_, and _gis_ is thesuperlative 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, andstill 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 therewas not Mogul in the army of Baber, who established the Indian throne ofthe "Great Mogul. "--M. ]

[Footnote 5: The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended fromTatar 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 tohave 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, andinvented by the Mahometan writers, who, from religious zeal, endeavoredto connect the traditions of the nomads of Central Asia with those ofthe Old Testament, as preserved in the Koran. There is no trace of it inthe Chinese writers. Tabl. De l'Asie, p. 156. --M. ]

The code of laws which Zingis dictated to his subjects was adaptedto the preservation of a domestic peace, and the exercise of foreignhostility. The punishment of death was inflicted on the crimes ofadultery, murder, perjury, and the capital thefts of a horse or ox; andthe fiercest of men were mild and just in their intercourse with eachother. The future election of the great khan was vested in the princesof his family and the heads of the tribes; and the regulations of thechase were essential to the pleasures and plenty of a Tartar camp. Thevictorious nation was held sacred from all servile labors, which wereabandoned to slaves and strangers; and every labor was servile exceptthe profession of arms. The service and discipline of the troops, whowere armed with bows, cimeters, and iron maces, and divided by hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands, were the institutions of a veterancommander. Each officer and soldier was made responsible, under painof death, for the safety and honor of his companions; and the spirit ofconquest breathed in the law, that peace should never be granted unlessto a vanquished and suppliant enemy. But it is the religion of Zingisthat best deserves our wonder and applause. [501] The Catholic inquisitorsof Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been confoundedby the example of a Barbarian, who anticipated the lessons ofphilosophy, [6] and established by his laws a system of pure theismand perfect toleration. His first and only article of faith was theexistence of one God, the Author of all good; who fills by his presencethe heavens and earth, which he has created by his power. The Tartarsand Moguls were addicted to the idols of their peculiar tribes; and manyof them had been converted by the foreign missionaries to the religionsof Moses, of Mahomet, and of Christ. These various systems in freedomand concord were taught and practised within the precincts of the samecamp; and the Bonze, the Imam, the Rabbi, the Nestorian, and the Latinpriest, enjoyed the same honorable exemption from service and tribute:in the mosque of Bochara, the insolent victor might trample the Koranunder his horse's feet, but the calm legislator respected the prophetsand pontiffs of the most hostile sects. The reason of Zingis was notinformed by books: the khan could neither read nor write; and, exceptthe tribe of the Igours, the greatest part of the Moguls and Tartarswere as illiterate as their sovereign. [601] The memory of their exploitswas preserved by tradition: sixty-eight years after the death of Zingis, these traditions were collected and transcribed; [7] the brevity oftheir 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 deservecredit in the relation of their own disasters and defeats. [18]

[Footnote 501: Before his armies entered Thibet, he sent an embassy toBogdosottnam-Dsimmo, a Lama high priest, with a letter to this effect:"I have chosen thee as high priest for myself and my empire. Repair thento me, and promote the present and future happiness of man: I will bethy supporter and protector: let us establish a system of religion, and unite it with the monarchy, " &c. The high priest accepted theinvitation; and the Mongol history literally terms this step the _periodof the first respect for religion_; because the monarch, by his publicprofession, made it the religion of the state. Klaproth. "Travels inCaucasus, " ch. 7, Eng. Trans. P. 92. Neither Dshingis nor his son andsuccessor Oegodah had, on account of their continual wars, much leisurefor the propagation of the religion of the Lama. By religion theyunderstand a distinct, independent, sacred moral code, which has butone origin, one source, and one object. This notion they universallypropagate, and even believe that the brutes, and all created beings, have a religion adapted to their sphere of action. The different formsof the various religions they ascribe to the difference of individuals, nations, and legislators. Never do you hear of their inveighing againstany creed, even against the obviously absurd Schaman paganism, or oftheir persecuting others on that account. They themselves, on theother hand, endure every hardship, and even persecutions, with perfectresignation, and indulgently excuse the follies of others, nay, considerthem as a motive for increased ardor in prayer, ch. Ix. P. 109. --M. ]

[Footnote 6: A singular conformity may be found between the religiouslaws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke, (Constitutions of Carolina, in hisworks, vol. Iv. P. 535, 4to. Edition, 1777. )]

[Footnote 601: See the notice on Tha-tha-toung-o, the Ouogour minister ofTchingis, 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 ofthe Moguls in writing, of which they were before ignorant;" and hencethe application of the Ouigour characters to the Mogul language cannotbe placed earlier than the year 1204 or 1205, nor so late as the time ofPà-sse-pa, who lived under Khubilai. A new alphabet, approaching to thatof 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 vizierFadlallah composed a Mogul history in the Persian language, which hasbeen used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. De Genghizcan, p. 537--539. ) TheHistoire Généalogique des Tatars (à Leyde, 1726, in 12mo. , 2 tomes) wastranslated by the Swedish prisoners in Siberia from the Mogul MS. OfAbulgasi Bahadur Khan, a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over theUsbeks of Charasm, or Carizme, (A. D. 1644--1663. ) He is of most valueand credit for the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation. Of hisnine parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the iid, fromMogul 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; theviiith and ixth, the particular history of the descendants of SheibaniKhan, who reigned in Maurenahar and Charasm. ]

[Footnote 8: Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie desMongous ses Successeurs, Conquerans de la Chine; tirée de l'Histoirede la Chine par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Société de Jesus, Missionaireà Peking; à Paris, 1739, in 4to. This translation is stamped with theChinese character of domestic accuracy and foreign ignorance. ]

[Footnote 9: See the Histoire du Grand Genghizcan, premier Empereur desMoguls et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, à Paris, 1710, in 12mo. ; awork of ten years' labor, chiefly drawn from the Persian writers, amongwhom Nisavi, the secretary of Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit andprejudices of a contemporary. A slight air of romance is the faultof the originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of_Genghizcan_, _Mohammed_, _Gelaleddin_, &c. , in the BibliothèqueOrientale 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 afterwardsa monk of Premontré, (Fabric, Bibliot. Lat. Medii Ævi, tom. I. P. 34, ) dictated in the French language, his book _de Tartaris_, hisold fellow-soldiers. It was immediately translated into Latin, and isinserted in the Novus Orbis of Simon Grynæus, (Basil, 1555, in folio. ) *Note: A précis at the end of the new edition of Le Beau, Hist. DesEmpereurs, vol. Xvii. , by M. Brosset, gives large extracts fromthe accounts of the Armenian historians relating to the Mogulconquests. --M. ]

[Footnote 11: Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy theconclusion 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 hisSyriac writings, and the lives of the Jacobite maphrians, or primates ofthe East. ]

[Footnote 12: Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we maydistinguish 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 thenecessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. Hedescribes with truth and elegance the settlement and manners of theMoguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and corrupts thenames of Zingis and his sons. ]

[Footnote 14: M. Levesque (Histoire de Russie, tom. Ii. ) has describedthe conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the patriarch Nicon, and theold chronicles. ]

[Footnote 15: For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica etEuropæa of Matthew à Michou, or De Michoviâ, a canon and physician ofCracow, (A. D. 1506, ) inserted in the Novus Orbis of Grynæus. FabricBibliot. Latin. Mediæ et Infimæ Ætatis, 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 RerumHungaricarum, did not the same volume contain the original narrative ofa contemporary, an eye-witness, and a sufferer, (M. Rogerii, Hungari, Varadiensis Capituli Canonici, Carmen miserabile, seu Historia superDestructione Regni Hungariæ Temporibus Belæ IV. Regis per Tartarosfacta, p. 292--321;) the best picture that I have ever seen of all thecircumstances of a Barbaric invasion. ]

[Footnote 17: Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic documents, the danger and distress of Europe, (consult the word _Tartari_ in hiscopious Index. ) From motives of zeal and curiosity, the court of thegreat khan in the xiiith century was visited by two friars, John dePlano Carpini, and William Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetiangentleman. The Latin relations of the two former are inserted in the1st volume of Hackluyt; the Italian original or version of the third(Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ævi, tom. Ii. P. 198, tom. V. P. 25) maybe found in the second tome of Ramusio. ]

[Footnote 18: In his great History of the Huns, M. De Guignes hasmost 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 learnedand accurate; yet I am only indebted to him for a general view, and somepassages of Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text. *Note: To this catalogue of the historians of the Moguls may be addedD'Ohson, Histoire des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, (from Arabic andPersian authorities, ) Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte der OstMongolen, St. Petersburgh, 1829. This curious work, by Ssanang SsetsenChungtaidschi, published in the original Mongol, was written after theconversion of the nation to Buddhism: it is enriched with very valuablenotes by the editor and translator; but, unfortunately, is very barrenof information about the European and even the western Asiatic conquestsof the Mongols. --M. ]

Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks. --Part II. 

The arms of Zingis and his lieutenants successively reduced the hordesof the desert, who pitched their tents between the wall of China and theVolga; and the Mogul emperor became the monarch of the pastoral world, the lord of many millions of shepherds and soldiers, who felt theirunited strength, and were impatient to rush on the mild and wealthyclimates of the south. His ancestors had been the tributaries of theChinese emperors; and Temugin himself had been disgraced by a title ofhonor and servitude. The court of Pekin was astonished by an embassyfrom its former vassal, who, in the tone of the king of nations, exactedthe tribute and obedience which he had paid, and who affected to treatthe _son of heaven_ as the most contemptible of mankind. A haughtyanswer disguised their secret apprehensions; and their fears were soonjustified by the march of innumerable squadrons, who pierced on allsides the feeble rampart of the great wall. Ninety cities were stormed, or starved, by the Moguls; ten only escaped; and Zingis, from aknowledge of the filial piety of the Chinese, covered his vanguard withtheir captive parents; an unworthy, and by degrees a fruitless, abuse ofthe virtue of his enemies. His invasion was supported by the revolt of ahundred thousand Khitans, who guarded the frontier: yet he listened toa treaty; and a princess of China, three thousand horses, five hundredyouths, and as many virgins, and a tribute of gold and silk, were theprice of his retreat. In his second expedition, he compelled the Chineseemperor to retire beyond the yellow river to a more southern residence. The siege of Pekin [19] was long and laborious: the inhabitants werereduced by famine to decimate and devour their fellow-citizens; whentheir ammunition was spent, they discharged ingots of gold and silverfrom their engines; but the Moguls introduced a mine to the centre ofthe capital; and the conflagration of the palace burnt above thirtydays. China was desolated by Tartar war and domestic faction; and thefive northern provinces were added to the empire of Zingis. 

[Footnote 19: More properly _Yen-king_, an ancient city, whose ruinsstill appear some furlongs to the south-east of the modern _Pekin_, which was built by Cublai Khan, (Gaubel, p. 146. ) Pe-king and Nan-kingare vague titles, the courts of the north and of the south. The identityand change of names perplex the most skilful readers of the Chinesegeography, (p. 177. ) * Note: And likewise in Chinese history--see AbelRemusat, 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 theservitude and ingratitude of his fathers to the house of Seljuk. It wasthe wish of Zingis to establish a friendly and commercial intercoursewith the most powerful of the Moslem princes: nor could he be tempted bythe secret solicitations of the caliph of Bagdad, who sacrificed to hispersonal wrongs the safety of the church and state. A rash and inhumandeed provoked and justified the Tartar arms in the invasion of thesouthern Asia. [191] A caravan of three ambassadors and one hundred andfifty merchants were arrested and murdered at Otrar, by the command ofMohammed; nor was it till after a demand and denial of justice, till hehad prayed and fasted three nights on a mountain, that the Mogul emperorappealed to the judgment of God and his sword. Our European battles, says a philosophic writer, [20] are petty skirmishes, if compared to thenumbers that have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. Seven hundredthousand Moguls and Tartars are said to have marched under the standardof Zingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that extend to the northof the Sihon or Jaxartes, they were encountered by four hundred thousandsoldiers of the sultan; and in the first battle, which was suspendedby the night, one hundred and sixty thousand Carizmians were slain. Mohammed was astonished by the multitude and valor of his enemies: hewithdrew from the scene of danger, and distributed his troops in thefrontier towns; trusting that the Barbarians, invincible in the field, would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many regularsieges. But the prudence of Zingis had formed a body of Chineseengineers, skilled in the mechanic arts; informed perhaps of the secretof gunpowder, and capable, under his discipline, of attacking a foreigncountry 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 ofTransoxiana, Carizme, and Chorazan. [204 The destructive hostilities ofAttila and the Huns have long since been elucidated by the example ofZingis and the Moguls; and in this more proper place I shall be contentto observe, that, from the Caspian to the Indus, they ruined a tract ofmany hundred miles, which was adorned with the habitations and labors ofmankind, and that five centuries have not been sufficient to repair theravages of four years. The Mogul emperor encouraged or indulged the furyof his troops: the hope of future possession was lost in the ardor ofrapine and slaughter; and the cause of the war exasperated their nativefierceness by the pretence of justice and revenge. The downfall anddeath of the sultan Mohammed, who expired, unpitied and alone, in adesert island of the Caspian Sea, is a poor atonement for the calamitiesof which he was the author. Could the Carizmian empire have been savedby a single hero, it would have been saved by his son Gelaleddin, whoseactive valor repeatedly checked the Moguls in the career of victory. Retreating, as he fought, to the banks of the Indus, he was oppressed bytheir innumerable host, till, in the last moment of despair, Gelaleddinspurred his horse into the waves, swam one of the broadest and mostrapid rivers of Asia, and extorted the admiration and applause of Zingishimself. It was in this camp that the Mogul conqueror yielded withreluctance to the murmurs of his weary and wealthy troops, who sighedfor the enjoyment of their native land. Eucumbered with the spoils ofAsia, he slowly measured back his footsteps, betrayed some pity for themisery of the vanquished, and declared his intention of rebuilding thecities which had been swept away by the tempest of his arms. After hehad repassed the Oxus and Jaxartes, he was joined by two generals, whom he had detached with thirty thousand horse, to subdue the westernprovinces of Persia. They had trampled on the nations which opposedtheir passage, penetrated through the gates of Derbent, traversed theVolga and the desert, and accomplished the circuit of the Caspian Sea, by an expedition which had never been attempted, and has never beenrepeated. The return of Zingis was signalized by the overthrow ofthe rebellious or independent kingdoms of Tartary; and he died inthe fulness of years and glory, with his last breath exhorting andinstructing his sons to achieve the conquest of the Chinese empire. [205]

[Footnote 191: See the particular account of this transaction, from theKholauesut 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 theartisans, whom they made slaves. Hist. Des Mongols. --M. ]

[Footnote 205: Their first duty, which he bequeathed to them, was tomassacre the king of Tangcoute and all the inhabitants of Ninhia, thesurrender 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 andmerit, exercised under their father the principal offices of peace andwar. Toushi was his great huntsman, Zagatai [21] his judge, Octai hisminister, and Tuli his general; and their names and actions are oftenconspicuous in the history of his conquests. Firmly united for theirown and the public interest, the three brothers and their families werecontent with dependent sceptres; and Octai, by general consent, wasproclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Moguls and Tartars. He wassucceeded by his son Gayuk, after whose death the empire devolved tohis cousins Mangou and Cublai, the sons of Tuli, and the grandsons ofZingis. In the sixty-eight years of his four first successors, theMogul subdued almost all Asia, and a large portion of Europe. Withoutconfining myself to the order of time, without expatiating on the detailof events, I shall present a general picture of the progress of theirarms; I. In the East; II. In the South; III. In the West; and IV. In theNorth. 

[Footnote 21: Zagatai gave his name to his dominions of Maurenahar, or Transoxiana; and the Moguls of Hindostan, who emigrated from thatcountry, are styled Zagatais by the Persians. This certain etymology, and the similar example of Uzbek, Nogai, &c. , may warn us not absolutelyto 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 ordynasties of the North and South; [22] and the difference of origin andinterest was smoothed by a general conformity of laws, language, andnational manners. The Northern empire, which had been dismembered byZingis, was finally subdued seven years after his death. After the lossof Pekin, the emperor had fixed his residence at Kaifong, a city manyleagues in circumference, and which contained, according to the Chineseannals, fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and fugitives. He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and made his last standin a third capital, till at length the hopeless monarch, protesting hisinnocence and accusing his fortune, ascended a funeral pile, and gaveorders, that, as soon as he had stabbed himself, the fire should bekindled by his attendants. The dynasty of the _Song_, the native andancient sovereigns of the whole empire, survived about forty-five yearsthe fall of the Northern usurpers; and the perfect conquest was reservedfor the arms of Cublai. During this interval, the Moguls were oftendiverted by foreign wars; and, if the Chinese seldom dared to meettheir victors in the field, their passive courage presented and endlesssuccession of cities to storm and of millions to slaughter. In theattack and defence of places, the engines of antiquity and the Greekfire were alternately employed: the use of gunpowder in cannon and bombsappears as a familiar practice; [23] and the sieges were conducted by theMahometans and Franks, who had been liberally invited into the serviceof Cublai. After passing the great river, the troops and artillerywere conveyed along a series of canals, till they invested the royalresidence of Hamcheu, or Quinsay, in the country of silk, themost delicious climate of China. The emperor, a defenceless youth, surrendered his person and sceptre; and before he was sent in exile intoTartary, he struck nine times the ground with his forehead, to adore inprayer or thanksgiving the mercy of the great khan. Yet the war (it wasnow styled a rebellion) was still maintained in the southern provincesfrom Hamcheu to Canton; and the obstinate remnant of independence andhostility was transported from the land to the sea. But when the fleetof the _Song_ was surrounded and oppressed by a superior armament, theirlast champion leaped into the waves with his infant emperor in hisarms. "It is more glorious, " he cried, "to die a prince, than to live aslave. " A hundred thousand Chinese imitated his example; and the wholeempire, from Tonkin to the great wall, submitted to the dominion ofCublai. His boundless ambition aspired to the conquest of Japan: hisfleet was twice shipwrecked; and the lives of a hundred thousandMoguls and Chinese were sacrificed in the fruitless expedition. But thecircumjacent kingdoms, Corea, Tonkin, Cochinchina, Pegu, Bengal, andThibet, were reduced in different degrees of tribute and obedience bythe effort or terror of his arms. He explored the Indian Ocean witha fleet of a thousand ships: they sailed in sixty-eight days, mostprobably to the Isle of Borneo, under the equinoctial line; and thoughthey returned not without spoil or glory, the emperor was dissatisfiedthat the savage king had escaped from their hands. 

[Footnote 22: In Marco Polo, and the Oriental geographers, the names ofCathay and Mangi distinguish the northern and southern empires, which, from A. D. 1234 to 1279, were those of the great khan, and of theChinese. The search of Cathay, after China had been found, excited andmisled our navigators of the sixteenth century, in their attempts todiscover the north-east passage. ]

[Footnote 23: I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Père 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 composedand published. The two uncles of Marco Polo, who served as engineersat the siege of Siengyangfou, * (l. Ii. 61, in Ramusio, tom. Ii. SeeGaubil, p. 155, 157) must have felt and related the effects of thisdestructive powder, and their silence is a weighty, and almost decisiveobjection. I entertain a suspicion, that their recent discovery wascarried from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century andfalsely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival of thePortuguese and Jesuits in the xvith. Yet the Père Gaubil affirms, thatthe use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese above 1600 years. **Note: * Sou-houng-kian-lou. Abel Remusat. --M. Note: ** La poudre à canon et d'autres compositions inflammantes, dont ils se servent pour construire des pièces d'artifice d'un effetsuprenant, leur étaient connues depuis très long-temps, et l'on croitque des bombardes et des pierriers, dont ils avaient enseigné l'usageaux Tartares, ont pu donner en Europe l'idée d'artillerie, quoique laforme des fusils et des canons dont ils se servent actuellement, leurait été apportée par les Francs, ainsi que l'attestent les noms mêmesqu'ils donnent à ces sortes d'armes. Abel Remusat, Mélanges Asiat. 2dser. Tom. I. P. 23. --M. ]

II. The conquest of Hindostan by the Moguls was reserved in a laterperiod for the house of Timour; but that of Iran, or Persia, wasachieved by Holagou Khan, [231] the grandson of Zingis, the brother andlieutenant of the two successive emperors, Mangou and Cublai. I shallnot enumerate the crowd of sultans, emirs, and atabeks, whom he trampledinto dust; but the extirpation of the _Assassins_, or Ismaelians [24] ofPersia, may be considered as a service to mankind. Among the hillsto the south of the Caspian, these odious sectaries had reigned withimpunity above a hundred and sixty years; and their prince, or Imam, established his lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of MountLibanus, so famous and formidable in the history of the crusades. [25]With the fanaticism of the Koran the Ismaelians had blended the Indiantransmigration, and the visions of their own prophets; and it was theirfirst duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind obedience to thevicar of God. The daggers of his missionaries were felt both in theEast and West: the Christians and the Moslems enumerate, and personsmultiply, 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 thesword of Holagou, and not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind, except the word _assassin_, which, in the most odious sense, has beenadopted in the languages of Europe. The extinction of the Abbassidescannot be indifferent to the spectators of their greatness and decline. Since the fall of their Seljukian tyrants the caliphs had recoveredtheir lawful dominion of Bagdad and the Arabian Irak; but the city wasdistracted by theological factions, and the commander of the faithfulwas lost in a harem of seven hundred concubines. The invasion of theMoguls he encountered with feeble arms and haughty embassies. "On thedivine decree, " said the caliph Mostasem, "is founded the throne of thesons of Abbas: and their foes shall surely be destroyed in this worldand 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 sacredterritory; and perhaps he may obtain from our clemency the pardon ofhis fault. " This presumption was cherished by a perfidious vizier, whoassured his master, that, even if the Barbarians had entered the city, the women and children, from the terraces, would be sufficient tooverwhelm them with stones. But when Holagou touched the phantom, itinstantly vanished into smoke. After a siege of two months, Bagdadwas stormed and sacked by the Moguls; [* and their savage commanderpronounced the death of the caliph Mostasem, the last of the temporalsuccessors of Mahomet; whose noble kinsmen, of the race of Abbas, hadreigned in Asia above five hundred years. Whatever might be the designsof the conqueror, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina [26] were protectedby the Arabian desert; but the Moguls spread beyond the Tigris andEuphrates, pillaged Aleppo and Damascus, and threatened to join theFranks in the deliverance of Jerusalem. Egypt was lost, had she beendefended only by her feeble offspring; but the Mamalukes had breathed intheir infancy the keenness of a Scythian air: equal in valor, superiorin discipline, they met the Moguls in many a well-fought field; anddrove 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, andthe latter by the Turks. The sultans of Iconium opposed some resistanceto the Mogul arms, till Azzadin sought a refuge among the Greeks ofConstantinople, and his feeble successors, the last of the Seljukiandynasty, 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 Syriais 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 nowthrown Falconet's Dissertation into the shade. --M. ]

[Footnote 25: The Ismaelians of Syria, 40, 000 Assassins, had acquiredor 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, ChronologicalRetrospect, vol. Ii. P. 217--223. --M. ]

[Footnote 26: As a proof of the ignorance of the Chinese in foreigntransactions, I must observe, that some of their historians extend theconquest 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 Mongolssee Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. Vii. P. 402. They eagerlydesired an alliance against the Mahometan powers. --M. ]

[Footnote 263: Trebizond escaped, apparently by the dexterous politics ofthe sovereign, but it acknowledged the Mogul supremacy. Falmerayer, p. 172. --M. ]

III. No sooner had Octai subverted the northern empire of China, than heresolved to visit with his arms the most remote countries of the West. Fifteen hundred thousand Moguls and Tartars were inscribed on themilitary roll: of these the great khan selected a third, which heintrusted to the command of his nephew Batou, the son of Tuli; whoreigned over his father's conquests to the north of the Caspian Sea. [264] After a festival of forty days, Batou set forwards on this greatexpedition; and such was the speed and ardor of his innumerablesquadrons, than in less than six years they had measured a line ofninety degrees of longitude, a fourth part of the circumference of theglobe. The great rivers of Asia and Europe, the Volga and Kama, the Donand Borysthenes, the Vistula and Danube, they either swam with theirhorses or passed on the ice, or traversed in leathern boats, whichfollowed the camp, and transported their wagons and artillery. Bythe first victories of Batou, the remains of national freedom wereeradicated in the immense plains of Turkestan and Kipzak. [27] In hisrapid progress, he overran the kingdoms, as they are now styled, ofAstracan and Cazan; and the troops which he detached towards MountCaucasus explored the most secret recesses of Georgia and Circassia. Thecivil discord of the great dukes, or princes, of Russia, betrayed theircountry to the Tartars. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea, andboth Moscow and Kiow, the modern and the ancient capitals, were reducedto ashes; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and perhapsindelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years has imprinted onthe character of the Russians. The Tartars ravaged with equal furythe countries which they hoped to possess, and those which they werehastening to leave. From the permanent conquest of Russia they made adeadly, though transient, inroad into the heart of Poland, and as faras the borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Cracow wereobliterated: [271] they approached the shores of the Baltic; and inthe battle of Lignitz they defeated the dukes of Silesia, the Polishpalatines, and the great master of the Teutonic order, and filled ninesacks with the right ears of the slain. From Lignitz, the extreme pointof their western march, they turned aside to the invasion of Hungary;and the presence or spirit of Batou inspired the host of five hundredthousand men: the Carpathian hills could not be long impervious to theirdivided columns; and their approach had been fondly disbelieved till itwas irresistibly felt. The king, Bela the Fourth, assembled the militaryforce of his counts and bishops; but he had alienated the nation byadopting a vagrant horde of forty thousand families of Comans, and thesesavage guests were provoked to revolt by the suspicion of treachery andthe murder of their prince. The whole country north of the Danube waslost in a day, and depopulated in a summer; and the ruins of cities andchurches were overspread with the bones of the natives, who expiated thesins of their Turkish ancestors. An ecclesiastic, who fled from the sackof Waradin, describes the calamities which he had seen, or suffered; andthe sanguinary rage of sieges and battles is far less atrocious than thetreatment of the fugitives, who had been allured from the woods under apromise of peace and pardon and who were coolly slaughtered as soon asthey had performed the labors of the harvest and vintage. In the winterthe Tartars passed the Danube on the ice, and advanced to Gran orStrigonium, a German colony, and the metropolis of the kingdom. Thirtyengines were planted against the walls; the ditches were filled withsacks of earth and dead bodies; and after a promiscuous massacre, threehundred noble matrons were slain in the presence of the khan. Of allthe cities and fortresses of Hungary, three alone survived the Tartarinvasion, and the unfortunate Bata hid his head among the islands of theAdriatic. 

[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 oneither side of the Volga, in a boundless space towards the Jaik andBorysthenes, and is supposed to contain the primitive name and nation ofthe 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: aRussian fugitive carried the alarm to Sweden; and the remote nations ofthe Baltic and the ocean trembled at the approach of the Tartars, [28]whom their fear and ignorance were inclined to separate from the humanspecies. Since the invasion of the Arabs in the eighth century, Europehad never been exposed to a similar calamity: and if the disciplesof Mahomet would have oppressed her religion and liberty, it might beapprehended that the shepherds of Scythia would extinguish her cities, her arts, and all the institutions of civil society. The Roman pontiffattempted to appease and convert these invincible Pagans by a mission ofFranciscan and Dominican friars; but he was astonished by the reply ofthe khan, that the sons of God and of Zingis were invested with a divinepower to subdue or extirpate the nations; and that the pope would beinvolved in the universal destruction, unless he visited in person, and as a suppliant, the royal horde. The emperor Frederic the Secondembraced a more generous mode of defence; and his letters to the kingsof France and England, and the princes of Germany, represented thecommon danger, and urged them to arm their vassals in this just andrational crusade. [29] The Tartars themselves were awed by the fameand valor of the Franks; the town of Newstadt in Austria was bravelydefended against them by fifty knights and twenty crossbows; and theyraised the siege on the appearance of a German army. After wastingthe adjacent kingdoms of Servia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria, Batou slowlyretreated from the Danube to the Volga to enjoyed the rewards of victoryin the city and palace of Serai, which started at his command from themidst 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, asusual, their ships to the herring fishery on the coast of England; andas there was no exportation, forty or fifty of these fish were sold fora shilling, (Matthew Paris, p. 396. ) It is whimsical enough, that theorders of a Mogul khan, who reigned on the borders of China, should havelowered the price of herrings in the English market. ]

[Footnote 29: I shall copy his characteristic or flattering epithets ofthe different countries of Europe: Furens ac fervens ad arma Germania, strenuæ militiæ genitrix et alumna Francia, bellicosa et audax Hispania, virtuosa viris et classe munita fertilis Anglia, impetuosis bellatoribusreferta Alemannia, navalis Dacia, indomita Italia, pacis ignaraBurgundia, inquieta Apulia, cum maris Græci, Adriatici et Tyrrheniinsulis pyraticis et invictis, Cretâ, Cypro, Siciliâ, cum Oceanoconterterminis insulis, et regionibus, cruenta Hybernia, cum agiliWallia palustris Scotia, glacialis Norwegia, suam electam militiam subvexillo 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 ofthe Moguls: Sheibani khan, the brother of the great Batou, led ahorde of fifteen thousand families into the wilds of Siberia; and hisdescendants reigned at Tobolskoi above three centuries, till the Russianconquest. The spirit of enterprise which pursued the course of theOby and Yenisei must have led to the discovery of the icy sea. Afterbrushing away the monstrous fables, of men with dogs' heads and clovenfeet, we shall find, that, fifteen years after the death of Zingis, theMoguls were informed of the name and manners of the Samoyedes in theneighborhood of the polar circle, who dwelt in subterraneous huts, andderived their furs and their food from the sole occupation of hunting. [30]

[Footnote 30: See Carpin's relation in Hackluyt, vol. I. P. 30. Thepedigree 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, NomadischeStreifereyen, vol. Iii. P. 185, 205, and Remusat, Hist. DesLangues Tartares, p. 327, and preface to Schmidt, Geschichte derOst-Mongolen. --M. ]

While China, Syria, and Poland, were invaded at the same time by theMoguls and Tartars, the authors of the mighty mischief were content withthe knowledge and declaration, that their word was the sword of death. Like the first caliphs, the first successors of Zingis seldom appearedin person at the head of their victorious armies. On the banks of theOnon and Selinga, the royal or _golden horde_ exhibited the contrastof simplicity and greatness; of the roasted sheep and mare's milkwhich composed their banquets; and of a distribution in one day of fivehundred wagons of gold and silver. The ambassadors and princes ofEurope and Asia were compelled to undertake this distant and laboriouspilgrimage; and the life and reign of the great dukes of Russia, thekings of Georgia and Armenia, the sultans of Iconium, and the emirs ofPersia, were decided by the frown or smile of the great khan. The sonsand grandsons of Zingis had been accustomed to the pastoral life; butthe village of Caracorum [31] was gradually ennobled by their electionand residence. A change of manners is implied in the removal of Octaiand Mangou from a tent to a house; and their example was imitated by theprinces of their family and the great officers of the empire. Instead ofthe boundless forest, the enclosure of a park afforded the more indolentpleasures of the chase; their new habitations were decorated withpainting and sculpture; their superfluous treasures were cast infountains, and basins, and statues of massy silver; and the artists ofChina and Paris vied with each other in the service of the great khan. [32] Caracorum contained two streets, the one of Chinese mechanics, theother of Mahometan traders; and the places of religious worship, oneNestorian church, two mosques, and twelve temples of various idols, mayrepresent in some degree the number and division of inhabitants. Yet aFrench missionary declares, that the town of St. Denys, near Paris, wasmore considerable than the Tartar capital; and that the whole palace ofMangou was scarcely equal to a tenth part of that Benedictine abbey. Theconquests of Russia and Syria might amuse the vanity of the great khans;but they were seated on the borders of China; the acquisition of thatempire was the nearest and most interesting object; and they mightlearn from their pastoral economy, that it is for the advantage of theshepherd to protect and propagate his flock. I have already celebratedthe wisdom and virtue of a Mandarin who prevented the desolation offive populous and cultivated provinces. In a spotless administrationof thirty years, this friend of his country and of mankind continuallylabored to mitigate, or suspend, the havoc of war; to save themonuments, and to rekindle the flame, of science; to restrain themilitary commander by the restoration of civil magistrates; and toinstil the love of peace and justice into the minds of the Moguls. Hestruggled with the barbarism of the first conquerors; but his salutarylessons produced a rich harvest in the second generation. [321] Thenorthern, and by degrees the southern, empire acquiesced in thegovernment of Cublai, the lieutenant, and afterwards the successor, ofMangou; and the nation was loyal to a prince who had been educatedin the manners of China. He restored the forms of her venerableconstitution; and the victors submitted to the laws, the fashions, andeven the prejudices, of the vanquished people. This peaceful triumph, which has been more than once repeated, may be ascribed, in a greatmeasure, to the numbers and servitude of the Chinese. The Mogul armywas dissolved in a vast and populous country; and their emperors adoptedwith pleasure a political system, which gives to the prince the solidsubstance of despotism, and leaves to the subject the empty names ofphilosophy, 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 fixedhis residence at Pekin; and displayed in his court the magnificence ofthe greatest monarch of Asia. Yet this learned prince declined from thepure and simple religion of his great ancestor: he sacrificed to theidol Fo; and his blind attachment to the lamas of Thibet and the bonzesof China [33] provoked the censure of the disciples of Confucius. Hissuccessors polluted the palace with a crowd of eunuchs, physicians, andastrologers, while thirteen millions of their subjects were consumed inthe provinces by famine. One hundred and forty years after the death ofZingis, his degenerate race, the dynasty of the Yuen, was expelled bya revolt of the native Chinese; and the Mogul emperors were lost in theoblivion of the desert. Before this revolution, they had forfeitedtheir supremacy over the dependent branches of their house, the khans ofKipzak and Russia, the khans of Zagatai, or Transoxiana, and the khansof Iran or Persia. By their distance and power, these royal lieutenantshad soon been released from the duties of obedience; and after the deathof Cublai, they scorned to accept a sceptre or a title from his unworthysuccessors. According to their respective situations, they maintainedthe simplicity of the pastoral life, or assumed the luxury of the citiesof Asia; but the princes and their hordes were alike disposed for thereception of a foreign worship. After some hesitation between the Gospeland the Koran, they conformed to the religion of Mahomet; and while theyadopted for their brethren the Arabs and Persians, they renounced allintercourse with the ancient Moguls, the idolaters of China. 

[Footnote 31: The Map of D'Anville and the Chinese Itineraries (DeGuignes, 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. Thedistance 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 GuillaumeBoucher, orfevre de Paris_, who had executed for the khan a silver treesupported 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 ofRecherches 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 themandarins, 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 HindostanSiam, Thibet, China, and Japan. But this mysterious subject is stilllost in a cloud, which the researchers of our Asiatic Society maygradually dispel. ]

Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks. --Part III. 

In this shipwreck of nations, some surprise may be excited by the escapeof 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, bythe shepherds of Scythia; and had the Tartars undertaken the siege, Constantinople must have yielded to the fate of Pekin, Samarcand, andBagdad. The glorious and voluntary retreat of Batou from the Danubewas insulted by the vain triumph of the Franks and Greeks; [34] and ina second expedition death surprised him in full march to attack thecapital of the Cæsars. His brother Borga carried the Tartar arms intoBulgaria and Thrace; but he was diverted from the Byzantine war by avisit to Novogorod, in the fifty-seventh degree of latitude, where henumbered the inhabitants and regulated the tributes of Russia. TheMogul khan formed an alliance with the Mamalukes against his brethrenof Persia: three hundred thousand horse penetrated through the gates ofDerbend; and the Greeks might rejoice in the first example of domesticwar. After the recovery of Constantinople, Michael Palæologus, [35] ata distance from his court and army, was surprised and surrounded in aThracian castle, by twenty thousand Tartars. But the object of theirmarch was a private interest: they came to the deliverance of Azzadin, the Turkish sultan; and were content with his person and the treasure ofthe emperor. Their general Noga, whose name is perpetuated in the hordesof Astracan, raised a formidable rebellion against Mengo Timour, thethird of the khans of Kipzak; obtained in marriage Maria, the naturaldaughter of Palæologus; and guarded the dominions of his friend andfather. The subsequent invasions of a Scythian cast were those ofoutlaws and fugitives: and some thousands of Alani and Comans, who hadbeen driven from their native seats, were reclaimed from a vagrant life, and enlisted in the service of the empire. Such was the influence inEurope of the invasion of the Moguls. The first terror of their armssecured, rather than disturbed, the peace of the Roman Asia. The sultanof Iconium solicited a personal interview with John Vataces; and hisartful policy encouraged the Turks to defend their barrier againstthe common enemy. [36] That barrier indeed was soon overthrown; andthe servitude and ruin of the Seljukians exposed the nakedness of theGreeks. The formidable Holagou threatened to march to Constantinople atthe head of four hundred thousand men; and the groundless panic ofthe citizens of Nice will present an image of the terror which he hadinspired. The accident of a procession, and the sound of a dolefullitany, "From the fury of the Tartars, good Lord, deliver us, " hadscattered the hasty report of an assault and massacre. In the blindcredulity of fear, the streets of Nice were crowded with thousands ofboth sexes, who knew not from what or to whom they fled; and some hourselapsed before the firmness of the military officers could relievethe city from this imaginary foe. But the ambition of Holagou and hissuccessors was fortunately diverted by the conquest of Bagdad, and along vicissitude of Syrian wars; their hostility to the Moslems inclinedthem to unite with the Greeks and Franks; [37] and their generosityor contempt had offered the kingdom of Anatolia as the reward of anArmenian vassal. The fragments of the Seljukian monarchy were disputedby the emirs who had occupied the cities or the mountains; but they allconfessed the supremacy of the khans of Persia; and he often interposedhis authority, and sometimes his arms, to check their depredations, andto preserve the peace and balance of his Turkish frontier. The deathof Cazan, [38] one of the greatest and most accomplished princes of thehouse of Zingis, removed this salutary control; and the decline of theMoguls 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 victoryof the kings of the Franks on the confines of Bulgaria. Abulpharagius(Dynast. P. 310) after forty years, beyond the Tigris, might be easilydeceived. ]

[Footnote 35: See Pachymer, l. Iii. C. 25, and l. Ix. C. 26, 27; and thefalse 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 thatthe Moguls, since the fabulous defeat of Batou, had not attacked eitherthe Franks or Greeks; and of this he is a competent witness. Haytonlikewise, the Armenian prince, celebrates their friendship for himselfand his nation. ]

[Footnote 38: Pachymer gives a splendid character of Cazan Khan, therival of Cyrus and Alexander, (l. Xii. C. 1. ) In the conclusion of hishistory (l. Xiii. C. 36) he _hopes_ much from the arrival of 30, 000Tochars, or Tartars, who were ordered by the successor of Cazan torestrain the Turks of Bithynia, A. D. 1308. ]

[Footnote 39: The origin of the Ottoman dynasty is illustrated bythe critical learning of Mm. De Guignes (Hist. Des Huns, tom. Iv. P. 329--337) and D'Anville, (Empire Turc, p. 14--22, ) two inhabitants ofParis, from whom the Orientals may learn the history and geography oftheir own country. * Note: They may be still more enlightened by theGeschichte des Osman Reiches, by M. Von Hammer Purgstall of Vienna. --M. ]

After the retreat of Zingis, the sultan Gelaleddin of Carizme hadreturned from India to the possession and defence of his Persiankingdoms. In the space of eleven years, than hero fought in personfourteen battles; and such was his activity, that he led his cavalry inseventeen days from Teflis to Kerman, a march of a thousand miles. Yet he was oppressed by the jealousy of the Moslem princes, and theinnumerable armies of the Moguls; and after his last defeat, Gelaleddinperished ignobly in the mountains of Curdistan. His death dissolveda veteran and adventurous army, which included under the name ofCarizmians or Corasmins many Turkman hordes, that had attachedthemselves to the sultan's fortune. The bolder and more powerful chiefsinvaded Syria, and violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem: the morehumble engaged in the service of Aladin, sultan of Iconium; and amongthese were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They had formerlypitched their tents near the southern banks of the Oxus, in the plainsof Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat remarkable, that the same spotshould have produced the first authors of the Parthian and Turkishempires. At the head, or in the rear, of a Carizmian army, Soliman Shahwas drowned in the passage of the Euphrates: his son Orthogrul becamethe soldier and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on thebanks of the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom hegoverned fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the fatherof Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been melted into theappellation of the caliph Othman; and if we describe that pastoral chiefas a shepherd and a robber, we must separate from those characters allidea of ignominy and baseness. Othman possessed, and perhaps surpassed, the ordinary virtues of a soldier; and the circumstances of time andplace were propitious to his independence and success. The Seljukiandynasty was no more; and the distance and decline of the Mogul khanssoon enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate onthe verge of the Greek empire: the Koran sanctified his _gazi_, orholy war, against the infidels; and their political errors unlocked thepasses of Mount Olympus, and invited him to descend into the plains ofBithynia. Till the reign of Palæologus, these passes had been vigilantlyguarded by the militia of the country, who were repaid by theirown safety and an exemption from taxes. The emperor abolished theirprivilege and assumed their office; but the tribute was rigorouslycollected, the custody of the passes was neglected, and the hardymountaineers degenerated into a trembling crowd of peasants withoutspirit or discipline. It was on the twenty-seventh of July, in the yeartwelve hundred and ninety-nine of the Christian æra, that Othman firstinvaded the territory of Nicomedia; [40] and the singular accuracy ofthe date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructivegrowth of the monster. The annals of the twenty-seven years of hisreign would exhibit a repetition of the same inroads; and his hereditarytroops were multiplied in each campaign by the accession of captives andvolunteers. Instead of retreating to the hills, he maintained the mostuseful and defensive posts; fortified the towns and castles which hehad first pillaged; and renounced the pastoral life for the baths andpalaces of his infant capitals. But it was not till Othman was oppressedby age and infirmities, that he received the welcome news of theconquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered by famine or treachery tothe arms of his son Orchan. The glory of Othman is chiefly founded onthat of his descendants; but the Turks have transcribed or composed aroyal 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: NicephorusGregoras, l. Vii. C. L. , and the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles, the Athenian. ]

[Footnote 41: I am ignorant whether the Turks have any writers olderthan Mahomet II. , * nor can I reach beyond a meagre chronicle (AnnalesTurcici ad Annum 1550) translated by John Gaudier, and published byLeunclavius, (ad calcem Laonic. Chalcond. P. 311--350, ) with copiouspandects, or commentaries. The history of the Growth and Decay (A. D. 1300--1683) of the Othman empire was translated into English from theLatin MS. Of Demetrius Cantemir, prince of Moldavia, (London, 1734, infolio. ) The author is guilty of strange blunders in Oriental history;but he was conversant with the language, the annals, and institutionsof the Turks. Cantemir partly draws his materials from the Synopsis ofSaadi Effendi of Larissa, dedicated in the year 1696 to Sultan Mustapha, and a valuable abridgment of the original historians. In one of theRamblers, Dr. Johnson praises Knolles (a General History of the Turks tothe present Year. London, 1603) as the first of historians, unhappy onlyin the choice of his subject. Yet I much doubt whether a partial andverbose compilation from Latin writers, thirteen hundred folio pages ofspeeches and battles, can either instruct or amuse an enlightenedage, which requires from the historian some tincture of philosophy andcriticism. Note: * We could have wished that M. Von Hammer had given amore 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 onmedicine. But the inquiry of Gibbon obviously refers to historians. Theoldest of their historical works, of which V. Hammer makes use, is the"Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade, " i. E. The History of the Great Grandson ofAaschik Pasha, who was a dervis and celebrated ascetic poet in the reignof Murad (Amurath) I. Ahmed, the author of the work, lived during thereign of Bajazet II. , but, he says, derived much information from thebook of Scheik Jachshi, the son of Elias, who was Imaum to SultanOrchan, (the second Ottoman king) and who related, from the lips of hisfather, the circumstances of the earliest Ottoman history. This book(having searched for it in vain for five-and-twenty years) our authorfound at length in the Vatican. All the other Turkish histories on hislist, as indeed this, were _written_ during the reign of Mahomet II. Itdoes not appear whether any of the rest cite earlier authorities ofequal 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 æra of the Ottomanempire. The lives and possessions of the Christian subjects wereredeemed by a tribute or ransom of thirty thousand crowns of gold; andthe city, by the labors of Orchan, assumed the aspect of a Mahometancapital; Prusa was decorated with a mosque, a college, and a hospital, of royal foundation; the Seljukian coin was changed for the name andimpression of the new dynasty: and the most skilful professors, of humanand divine knowledge, attracted the Persian and Arabian students fromthe ancient schools of Oriental learning. The office of vizier wasinstituted for Aladin, the brother of Orchan; [411] and a different habitdistinguished the citizens from the peasants, the Moslems from theinfidels. All the troops of Othman had consisted of loose squadrons ofTurkman cavalry; who served without pay and fought without discipline:but a regular body of infantry was first established and trained by theprudence of his son. A great number of volunteers was enrolled with asmall stipend, but with the permission of living at home, unless theywere summoned to the field: their rude manners, and seditious temper, disposed Orchan to educate his young captives as his soldiers and thoseof the prophet; but the Turkish peasants were still allowed to mount onhorseback, and follow his standard, with the appellation and the hopesof _freebooters_. [412] By these arts he formed an army of twenty-fivethousand Moslems: a train of battering engines was framed for the useof sieges; and the first successful experiment was made on the citiesof Nice and Nicomedia. Orchan granted a safe-conduct to all who weredesirous of departing with their families and effects; but the widows ofthe slain were given in marriage to the conquerors; and the sacrilegiousplunder, the books, the vases, and the images, were sold or ransomed atConstantinople. The emperor Andronicus the Younger was vanquished andwounded by the son of Othman: [42] [421] he subdued the whole provinceor kingdom of Bithynia, as far as the shores of the Bosphorus andHellespont; and the Christians confessed the justice and clemency of areign which claimed the voluntary attachment of the Turks of Asia. YetOrchan was content with the modest title of emir; and in the list of hiscompeers, the princes of Roum or Anatolia, [43] his military forces weresurpassed by the emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, each of whom couldbring into the field an army of forty thousand men. Their domains weresituate in the heart of the Seljukian kingdom; but the holy warriors, though of inferior note, who formed new principalities on the Greekempire, are more conspicuous in the light of history. The maritimecountry from the Propontis to the Mæander and the Isle of Rhodes, so long threatened and so often pillaged, was finally lost about thethirteenth year of Andronicus the Elder. [44] Two Turkish chieftains, Sarukhan and Aidin, left their names to their conquests, and theirconquests to their posterity. The captivity or ruin of the _seven_churches of Asia was consummated; and the barbarous lords of Ionia andLydia still trample on the monuments of classic and Christian antiquity. In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the fall of the firstangel, the extinction of the first candlestick, of the Revelations; [45]the desolation is complete; and the temple of Diana, or the church ofMary, will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circusand three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves andfoxes; Sardes is reduced to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet, without a rival or a son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira andPergamus; and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreigntrade of the Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been savedby prophecy, or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by theemperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizensdefended their religion and freedom above fourscore years; and at lengthcapitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek coloniesand churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect; a column in a sceneof ruins; a pleasing example, that the paths of honor and safety maysometimes be the same. The servitude of Rhodes was delayed about twocenturies by the establishment of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem:[46] under the discipline of the order, that island emerged into fame andopulence; the noble and warlike monks were renowned by land and sea: andthe bulwark of Christendom provoked, and repelled, the arms of the Turksand 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 heroicflight of the younger Andronicus, (l. Ii. C. 6, 7, 8, ) dissembles byhis silence the loss of Prusa, Nice, and Nicomedia, which are fairlyconfessed by Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. Viii. 15, ix. 9, 13, xi. 6. ) Itappears 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, orkingdoms of the Seljukians, in Asia Minor. See V. Hammer, vol. I. P. 112. --M. ]

[Footnote 43: The partition of the Turkish emirs is extracted fromtwo contemporaries, the Greek Nicephorus Gregoras (l. Vii. 1) andthe Arabian Marakeschi, (De Guignes, tom. Ii. P. Ii. P. 76, 77. ) Seelikewise the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles. ]

[Footnote 44: Pachymer, l. Xiii. C. 13. ]

[Footnote 45: See the Travels of Wheeler and Spon, of Pocock andChandler, and more particularly Smith's Survey of the Seven Churchesof Asia, p. 205--276. The more pious antiquaries labor to reconcile thepromises and threats of the author of the Revelations with the _present_state of the seven cities. Perhaps it would be more prudent to confinehis predictions to the characters and events of his own times. ]

[Footnote 46: Consult the ivth book of the Histoire de l'Ordrede Malthe, par l'Abbé de Vertot. That pleasing writer betrays hisignorance, in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the Bithynianhills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land. ]

The Greeks, by their intestine divisions, were the authors of theirfinal ruin. During the civil wars of the elder and younger Andronicus, the son of Othman achieved, almost without resistance, the conquest ofBithynia; and the same disorders encouraged the Turkish emirs of Lydiaand Ionia to build a fleet, and to pillage the adjacent islands and thesea-coast of Europe. In the defence of his life and honor, Cantacuzenewas tempted to prevent, or imitate, his adversaries, by calling to hisaid the public enemies of his religion and country. Amir, the son ofAidin, concealed under a Turkish garb the humanity and politeness ofa Greek; he was united with the great domestic by mutual esteem andreciprocal services; and their friendship is compared, in the vainrhetoric of the times, to the perfect union of Orestes and Pylades. [47] On the report of the danger of his friend, who was persecuted byan ungrateful court, the prince of Ionia assembled at Smyrna a fleet ofthree hundred vessels, with an army of twenty-nine thousand men; sailedin the depth of winter, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Hebrus. Fromthence, with a chosen band of two thousand Turks, he marched alongthe banks of the river, and rescued the empress, who was besieged inDemotica by the wild Bulgarians. At that disastrous moment, the lifeor death of his beloved Cantacuzene was concealed by his flight intoServia: but the grateful Irene, impatient to behold her deliverer, invited him to enter the city, and accompanied her message with apresent of rich apparel and a hundred horses. By a peculiar strain ofdelicacy, the Gentle Barbarian refused, in the absence of an unfortunatefriend, to visit his wife, or to taste the luxuries of the palace;sustained in his tent the rigor of the winter; and rejected thehospitable gift, that he might share the hardships of two thousandcompanions, all as deserving as himself of that honor and distinction. Necessity and revenge might justify his predatory excursions by sea andland: he left nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of hisfleet; and persevered in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till hisembarkation was hastened by a fictitious letter, the severity of theseason, the clamors of his independent troops, and the weight of hisspoil and captives. In the prosecution of the civil war, the princeof Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms with those of theemperor; besieged Thessalonica, and threatened Constantinople. Calumnymight affix some reproach on his imperfect aid, his hasty departure, and a bribe of ten thousand crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantinecourt; but his friend was satisfied; and the conduct of Amir is excusedby the more sacred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditarydominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope, theking of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St. John, in alaudable crusade; their galleys invaded the coast of Ionia; and Amir wasslain with an arrow, in the attempt to wrest from the Rhodian knightsthe citadel of Smyrna. [48] Before his death, he generously recommendedanother ally of his own nation; not more sincere or zealous thanhimself, but more able to afford a prompt and powerful succor, by hissituation along the Propontis and in the front of Constantinople. By theprospect of a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithyniawas detached from his engagements with Anne of Savoy; and the pride ofOrchan dictated the most solemn protestations, that if he could obtainthe daughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably fulfil the duties ofa subject and a son. Parental tenderness was silenced by the voiceof ambition: the Greek clergy connived at the marriage of a Christianprincess with a sectary of Mahomet; and the father of Theodoradescribes, with shameful satisfaction, the dishonor of the purple. [49]A body of Turkish cavalry attended the ambassadors, who disembarkedfrom thirty vessels, before his camp of Selybria. A stately pavilion waserected, in which the empress Irene passed the night with her daughters. In the morning, Theodora ascended a throne, which was surrounded withcurtains of silk and gold: the troops were under arms; but the emperoralone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were suddenly withdrawnto disclose the bride, or the victim, encircled by kneeling eunuchs andhymeneal torches: the sound of flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyfulevent; and her pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song, which was chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without therites of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord: butit had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in theharem of Bursa; and her father celebrates her charity and devotion inthis ambiguous situation. After his peaceful establishment on the throneof Constantinople, the Greek emperor visited his Turkish ally, who withfour sons, by various wives, expected him at Scutari, on the Asiaticshore. The two princes partook, with seeming cordiality, of thepleasures of the banquet and the chase; and Theodora was permittedto repass the Bosphorus, and to enjoy some days in the society of hermother. But the friendship of Orchan was subservient to his religion andinterest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the enemiesof Cantacuzene. 

[Footnote 47: Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure onthis 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 ofhis own sentimental passion for the Turks, and indirectly denies thepossibility of such unnatural friendship, (l. Iv. C. 40. )]

[Footnote 48: After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the defence ofthis 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 namesof 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 inCantemir, p. 24--30. ]

In the treaty with the empress Anne, the Ottoman prince had inserteda singular condition, that it should be lawful for him to sell hisprisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into Asia. A naked crowdof Christians of both sexes and every age, of priests and monks, ofmatrons and virgins, was exposed in the public market; the whip wasfrequently used to quicken the charity of redemption; and the indigentGreeks deplored the fate of their brethren, who were led away to theworst evils of temporal and spiritual bondage [50] Cantacuzene wasreduced to subscribe the same terms; and their execution must have beenstill more pernicious to the empire: a body of ten thousand Turks hadbeen detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the entireforces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his father. Yet thesecalamities were of a transient nature; as soon as the storm had passedaway, the fugitives might return to their habitations; and at theconclusion of the civil and foreign wars, Europe was completelyevacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was in his last quarrel with hispupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the deep and deadly wound, which couldnever be healed by his successors, and which is poorly expiated by histheological dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their ownhistory, the modern Turks confound their first and their final passageof the Hellespont, [51] and describe the son of Orchan as a nocturnalrobber, who, with eighty companions, explores by stratagem a hostileand unknown shore. Soliman, at the head of ten thousand horse, wastransported in the vessels, and entertained as the friend, of the Greekemperor. In the civil wars of Romania, he performed some service andperpetrated more mischief; but the Chersonesus was insensibly filledwith a Turkish colony; and the Byzantine court solicited in vain therestitution of the fortresses of Thrace. After some artful delaysbetween the Ottoman prince and his son, their ransom was valued at sixtythousand crowns, and the first payment had been made when an earthquakeshook the walls and cities of the provinces; the dismantled places wereoccupied by the Turks; and Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, wasrebuilt and repeopled by the policy of Soliman. The abdication ofCantacuzene dissolved the feeble bands of domestic alliance; and hislast advice admonished his countrymen to decline a rash contest, and tocompare their own weakness with the numbers and valor, the disciplineand enthusiasm, of the Moslems. His prudent counsels were despised bythe headstrong vanity of youth, and soon justified by the victoriesof 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 agedOrchan wept and expired on the tomb of his valiant son. [511]

[Footnote 50: The most lively and concise picture of this captivitymay be found in the history of Ducas, (c. 8, ) who fairly describes whatCantacuzene 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; noram I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles, (l. I. P. 12, &c. )They forget to consult the most authentic record, the ivth bookof Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which are stillmanuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras. * Note: Von Hammer excuses thesilence with which the Turkish historianspass over the earlier intercourse of the Ottomans with the Europeancontinent, of which he enumerates sixteen different occasions, asif they disdained those peaceful incursions by which they gainedno conquest, and established no permanent footing on the Byzantineterritory. Of the romantic account of Soliman's first expedition, hesays, "As yet the prose of history had not asserted its right overthe poetry of tradition. " This defence would scarcely be accepted assatisfactory by the historian of the Decline and Fall. --M. (in QuarterlyReview, 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 theFirst, the son of Orchan, and the brother of Soliman. By the pale andfainting light of the Byzantine annals, [52] we can discern, that hesubdued without resistance the whole province of Romania or Thrace, fromthe Hellespont to Mount Hæmus, and the verge of the capital; and thatAdrianople was chosen for the royal seat of his government and religionin Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with herfoundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been assaultedby the Barbarians of the East and West; but never till this fatal hourhad the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and Europe, by the armsof the same hostile monarchy. Yet the prudence or generosity of Amurathpostponed for a while this easy conquest; and his pride was satisfiedwith the frequent and humble attendance of the emperor John Palæologusand his four sons, who followed at his summons the court and camp of theOttoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations betweenthe Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians, andAlbanians; and these warlike tribes, who had so often insulted themajesty of the empire, were repeatedly broken by his destructiveinroads. Their countries did not abound either in gold or silver;nor were their rustic hamlets and townships enriched by commerce ordecorated by the arts of luxury. But the natives of the soil have beendistinguished in every age by their hardiness of mind and body; andthey were converted by a prudent institution into the firmest and mostfaithful supporters of the Ottoman greatness. [53] The vizier of Amurathreminded his sovereign that, according to the Mahometan law, he wasentitled to a fifth part of the spoil and captives; and that theduty might easily be levied, if vigilant officers were stationed inGallipoli, to watch the passage, and to select for his use the stoutestand most beautiful of the Christian youth. The advice was followed:the edict was proclaimed; many thousands of the European captives wereeducated in religion and arms; and the new militia was consecrated andnamed by a celebrated dervis. Standing in the front of their ranks, hestretched the sleeve of his gown over the head of the foremost soldier, and his blessing was delivered in these words: "Let them be calledJanizaries, (_Yengi cheri_, or new soldiers;) may their countenance beever bright! their hand victorious! their sword keen! may their spearalways hang over the heads of their enemies! and wheresoever they go, may they return with a _white face!_" [54] [541] Such was the origin ofthese haughty troops, the terror of the nations, and sometimes ofthe sultans themselves. Their valor has declined, their discipline isrelaxed, and their tumultuary array is incapable of contending withthe order and weapons of modern tactics; but at the time of theirinstitution, they possessed a decisive superiority in war; sincea regular body of infantry, in constant exercise and pay, was notmaintained by any of the princes of Christendom. The Janizaries foughtwith the zeal of proselytes against their _idolatrous_ countrymen; andin the battle of Cossova, the league and independence of the Sclavoniantribes was finally crushed. As the conqueror walked over the field, he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted of beardlessyouths; and listened to the flattering reply of his vizier, that age andwisdom would have taught them not to oppose his irresistible arms. Butthe sword of his Janizaries could not defend him from the dagger ofdespair; a Servian soldier started from the crowd of dead bodies, andAmurath was pierced in the belly with a mortal wound. [542] The grandsonof Othman was mild in his temper, modest in his apparel, and a loverof learning and virtue; but the Moslems were scandalized at his absencefrom public worship; and he was corrected by the firmness of themufti, who dared to reject his testimony in a civil cause: a mixture ofservitude and freedom not unfrequent in Oriental history. [55]

[Footnote 52: After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras, therefollows a dark interval of a hundred years. George Phranza, MichaelDucas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after the taking ofConstantinople. ]

[Footnote 53: See Cantemir, p. 37--41, with his own large and curiousannotations. ]

[Footnote 54: _White_ and _black_ face are common and proverbialexpressions 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 theEuropean writers assign too late a date to this enrolment of theJanizaries. It took place not in the reign of Amurath, but in that ofhis predecessor Orchan. --M. ]

[Footnote 542: Ducas has related this as a deliberate act of self-devotionon the part of a Servian noble who pretended to desert, and stabbedAmurath during a conference which he had requested. The Italiantranslator of Ducas, published by Bekker in the new edition of theByzantines, has still further heightened the romance. See likewise inVon Hammer (Osmanische Geschichte, vol. I. P. 138) the popular Servianaccount, which resembles that of Ducas, and may have been the source ofthat of his Italian translator. The Turkish account agrees more nearlywith Gibbon; but the Servian, (Milosch Kohilovisch) while he layamong the heap of the dead, pretended to have some secret to impart toAmurath, and stabbed him while he leaned over to listen. --M. ]

[Footnote 55: See the life and death of Morad, or Amurath I. , inCantemir, (p 33--45, ) the first book of Chalcondyles, and the AnnalesTurcici of Leunclavius. According to another story, the sultan wasstabbed by a Croat in his tent; and this accident was alleged toBusbequius (Epist i. P. 98) as an excuse for the unworthy precautionof 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 stronglyexpressed in his surname of _Ilderim_, or the lightning; and he mightglory in an epithet, which was drawn from the fiery energy of his souland the rapidity of his destructive march. In the fourteen years of hisreign, [56] he incessantly moved at the head of his armies, fromBoursa to Adrianople, from the Danube to the Euphrates; and, though hestrenuously labored for the propagation of the law, he invaded, withimpartial ambition, the Christian and Mahometan princes of Europeand Asia. From Angora to Amasia and Erzeroum, the northern regions ofAnatolia were reduced to his obedience: he stripped of their hereditarypossessions his brother emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, of Aidin andSarukhan; and after the conquest of Iconium the ancient kingdom of theSeljukians again revived in the Ottoman dynasty. Nor were the conquestsof Bajazet less rapid or important in Europe. No sooner had he imposed aregular form of servitude on the Servians and Bulgarians, than hepassed the Danube to seek new enemies and new subjects in the heartof Moldavia. [57] Whatever yet adhered to the Greek empire in Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, acknowledged a Turkish master: an obsequiousbishop led him through the gates of Thermopylæ into Greece; and we mayobserve, as a singular fact, that the widow of a Spanish chief, whopossessed the ancient seat of the oracle of Delphi, deserved his favorby the sacrifice of a beauteous daughter. The Turkish communicationbetween Europe and Asia had been dangerous and doubtful, till hestationed at Gallipoli a fleet of galleys, to command the Hellespontand intercept the Latin succors of Constantinople. While the monarchindulged his passions in a boundless range of injustice and cruelty, heimposed on his soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence;and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts ofhis camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of justice, he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his dominions, whoexpected that in a few moments the fire would be kindled to reduce themto ashes. His ministers trembled in silence: but an Æthiopian buffoonpresumed to insinuate the true cause of the evil; and future venalitywas left without excuse, by annexing an adequate salary to the officeof cadhi. [58] The humble title of emir was no longer suitable to theOttoman greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultanfrom 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; bythe Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas and the successors ofthe Arabian prophet. The ambition of the sultan was inflamed by theobligation of deserving this august title; and he turned his armsagainst the kingdom of Hungary, the perpetual theatre of the Turkishvictories and defeats. Sigismond, the Hungarian king, was the son andbrother of the emperors of the West: his cause was that of Europe andthe church; and, on the report of his danger, the bravest knights ofFrance and Germany were eager to march under his standard and that ofthe cross. In the battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a confederatearmy of a hundred thousand Christians, who had proudly boasted, thatif the sky should fall, they could uphold it on their lances. Thefar greater part were slain or driven into the Danube; and Sigismond, escaping to Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, returnedafter a long circuit to his exhausted kingdom. [60] In the pride ofvictory, Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buda; that he wouldsubdue the adjacent countries of Germany and Italy, and that he wouldfeed 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 theapostle, not by a crusade of the Christian powers, but by a long andpainful fit of the gout. The disorders of the moral, are sometimescorrected by those of the physical, world; and an acrimonious humorfalling on a single fibre of one man, may prevent or suspend the miseryof nations. 

[Footnote 56: The reign of Bajazet I. , or Ilderim Bayazid, is containedin Cantemir, (p. 46, ) the iid book of Chalcondyles, and the AnnalesTurcici. The surname of Ilderim, or lightning, is an example, that theconquerors and poets of every age have _felt_ the truth of a systemwhich derives the sublime from the principle of terror. ]

[Footnote 57: Cantemir, who celebrates the victories of the greatStephen over the Turks, (p. 47, ) had composed the ancient and modernstate of his principality of Moldavia, which has been long promised, andis still unpublished. ]

[Footnote 58: Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The venality of thecadhis has long been an object of scandal and satire; and if we distrustthe observations of our travellers, we may consult the feeling of theTurks themselves, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 216, 217, 229, 230. )]

[Footnote 59: The fact, which is attested by the Arabic history of BenSchounah, 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 invitedinto Hungary to compose an eloquent history of that kingdom. Yet, if itbe extant and accessible, I should give the preference to some homelychronicle of the time and country. ]

Such is the general idea of the Hungarian war; but the disastrousadventure of the French has procured us some memorials which illustratethe victory and character of Bajazet. [61] The duke of Burgundy, sovereign of Flanders, and uncle of Charles the Sixth, yielded to theardor of his son, John count of Nevers; and the fearless youth wasaccompanied by four princes, his _cousins_, and those of the Frenchmonarch. Their inexperience was guided by the Sire de Coucy, one of thebest and oldest captain of Christendom; [62] but the constable, admiral, and marshal of France [63] commanded an army which did not exceed thenumber of a thousand knights and squires. [631] These splendid names werethe source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many mightaspire to command, that none were willing to obey; their national spiritdespised both their enemies and their allies; and in the persuasion thatBajazet _would_ fly, or _must_ fall, they began to compute how soon theyshould visit Constantinople and deliver the holy sepulchre. When theirscouts announced the approach of the Turks, the gay and thoughtlessyouths were at table, already heated with wine; they instantly claspedtheir armor, mounted their horses, rode full speed to the vanguard, and resented as an affront the advice of Sigismond, which would havedeprived them of the right and honor of the foremost attack. The battleof Nicopolis would not have been lost, if the French would have obeyedthe prudence of the Hungarians; but it might have been gloriously won, had the Hungarians imitated the valor of the French. They dispersedthe first line, consisting of the troops of Asia; forced a rampartof stakes, which had been planted against the cavalry; broke, aftera bloody conflict, the Janizaries themselves; and were at lengthoverwhelmed by the numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, andcharged on all sides this handful of intrepid warriors. In the speedand secrecy of his march, in the order and evolutions of the battle, hisenemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajazet. They accusehis cruelty in the use of victory. After reserving the count of Nevers, and four-and-twenty lords, [632] whose birth and riches were attested byhis Latin interpreters, the remainder of the French captives, who hadsurvived the slaughter of the day, were led before his throne; and, asthey refused to abjure their faith, were successively beheaded inhis presence. The sultan was exasperated by the loss of his bravestJanizaries; and if it be true, that, on the eve of the engagement, theFrench had massacred their Turkish prisoners, [64] they might impute tothemselves the consequences of a just retaliation. [641] A knight, whoselife had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris, that hemight relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom of the noblecaptives. In the mean while, the count of Nevers, with the princes andbarons of France, were dragged along in the marches of the Turkish camp, exposed as a grateful trophy to the Moslems of Europe and Asia, andstrictly confined at Boursa, as often as Bajazet resided in his capital. The sultan was pressed each day to expiate with their blood the blood ofhis martyrs; but he had pronounced that they should live, and either formercy or destruction his word was irrevocable. He was assured of theirvalue and importance by the return of the messenger, and the gifts andintercessions of the kings of France and of Cyprus. Lusignan presentedhim with a gold saltcellar of curious workmanship, and of the priceof ten thousand ducats; and Charles the Sixth despatched by the way ofHungary a cast of Norwegian hawks, and six horse-loads of scarlet cloth, of fine linen of Rheims, and of Arras tapestry, representing the battlesof the great Alexander. After much delay, the effect of distance ratherthan of art, Bajazet agreed to accept a ransom of two hundred thousandducats for the count of Nevers and the surviving princes and barons:the marshal Boucicault, a famous warrior, was of the number of thefortunate; but the admiral of France had been slain in battle; and theconstable, with the Sire de Coucy, died in the prison of Boursa. Thisheavy demand, which was doubled by incidental costs, fell chiefly on theduke of Burgundy, or rather on his Flemish subjects, who were bound bythe feudal laws to contribute for the knighthood and captivity of theeldest son of their lord. For the faithful discharge of the debt, somemerchants of Genoa gave security to the amount of five times the sum; alesson to those warlike times, that commerce and credit are the links ofthe society of nations. It had been stipulated in the treaty, that theFrench captives should swear never to bear arms against the person oftheir conqueror; but the ungenerous restraint was abolished by Bajazethimself. "I despise, " said he to the heir of Burgundy, "thy oathsand thy arms. Thou art young, and mayest be ambitious of effacing thedisgrace or misfortune of thy first chivalry. Assemble thy powers, proclaim thy design, and be assured that Bajazet will rejoice to meetthee a second time in a field of battle. " Before their departure, theywere indulged in the freedom and hospitality of the court of Boursa. TheFrench princes admired the magnificence of the Ottoman, whose huntingand hawking equipage was composed of seven thousand huntsmen and seventhousand falconers. [65] In their presence, and at his command, the bellyof one of his chamberlains was cut open, on a complaint against him fordrinking the goat's milk of a poor woman. The strangers were astonishedby this act of justice; but it was the justice of a sultan who disdainsto 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 mymaterials were always derived from such books as the chronicle ofhonest Froissard, (vol. Iv. C. 67, 72, 74, 79--83, 85, 87, 89, ) who readlittle, inquired much, and believed all. The original Mémoires of theMaréchal de Boucicault (Partie i. C. 22--28) add some facts, but theyare dry and deficient, if compared with the pleasant garrulity ofFroissard. ]

[Footnote 62: An accurate Memoir on the Life of Enguerrand VII. , Sirede Coucy, has been given by the Baron de Zurlauben, (Hist. De l'Académiedes Inscriptions, tom. Xxv. ) His rank and possessions were equallyconsiderable in France and England; and, in 1375, he led an army ofadventurers into Switzerland, to recover a large patrimony which heclaimed in right of his grandmother, the daughter of the emperor AlbertI. Of Austria, (Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Occidentale, tom. I. P. 118--124. )]

[Footnote 63: That military office, so respectable at present, was stillmore conspicuous when it was divided between two persons, (Daniel, Hist. De la Milice Françoise, tom. Ii. P. 5. ) One of these, the marshal ofthe crusade, was the famous Boucicault, who afterwards defendedConstantinople, governed Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died inthe field of Azincour. ]

[Footnote 631: Daru, Hist. De Venice, vol. Ii. P. 104, makes the wholeFrench army amount to 10, 000 men, of whom 1000 were knights. The curiousvolume of Schiltberger, a German of Munich, who was taken prisonerin the battle, (edit. Munich, 1813, ) and which V. Hammer receives asauthentic, gives the whole number at 6000. See Schiltberger. Reise indem Orient. And V. Hammer, note, p. 610. --M. ]

[Footnote 632: According to Schiltberger there were only twelve Frenchlords granted to the prayer of the "duke of Burgundy, " and "Herr StephanSynther, 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 fthe Christian prisoners, amounting to 10, 000. He was spared at theintercession of the son of Bajazet, with a few others, on account oftheir 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 whichlasted from early in the morning till four o'clock, P. M. It ceased onlyat 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) allowsBajazet a round number of 12, 000 officers and servants of the chase. A part of his spoils was afterwards displayed in a hunting-match ofTimour, l. Hounds with satin housings; 2. Leopards with collars set withjewels; 3. Grecian greyhounds; and 4, dogs from Europe, as strong asAfrican lions, (idem, l. Vi. C. 15. ) Bajazet was particularly fond offlying his hawks at cranes, (Chalcondyles, l. Ii. P. 85. )]

After his enfranchisement from an oppressive guardian, John Palæologusremained thirty-six years, the helpless, and, as it should seem, thecareless spectator of the public ruin. [66] Love, or rather lust, was hisonly vigorous passion; and in the embraces of the wives and virgins ofthe city, the Turkish slave forgot the dishonor of the emperor of the_Romans_ Andronicus, his eldest son, had formed, at Adrianople, anintimate and guilty friendship with Sauzes, the son of Amurath; and thetwo youths conspired against the authority and lives of their parents. The presence of Amurath in Europe soon discovered and dissipated theirrash counsels; and, after depriving Sauzes of his sight, the Ottomanthreatened his vassal with the treatment of an accomplice and an enemy, unless he inflicted a similar punishment on his own son. Palæologustrembled and obeyed; and a cruel precaution involved in the samesentence the childhood and innocence of John, the son of the criminal. But the operation was so mildly, or so unskilfully, performed, that theone retained the sight of an eye, and the other was afflicted only withthe infirmity of squinting. Thus excluded from the succession, the twoprinces were confined in the tower of Anema; and the piety of Manuel, the second son of the reigning monarch, was rewarded with the gift ofthe Imperial crown. But at the end of two years, the turbulence of theLatins and the levity of the Greeks, produced a revolution; [661] and thetwo emperors were buried in the tower from whence the two prisoners wereexalted to the throne. Another period of two years afforded Palæologusand Manuel the means of escape: it was contrived by the magic orsubtlety of a monk, who was alternately named the angel or the devil:they fled to Scutari; their adherents armed in their cause; and the twoByzantine factions displayed the ambition and animosity with which Cæsarand Pompey had disputed the empire of the world. The Roman world was nowcontracted to a corner of Thrace, between the Propontis and the BlackSea, about fifty miles in length and thirty in breadth; a space ofground not more extensive than the lesser principalities of Germany orItaly, if the remains of Constantinople had not still represented thewealth and populousness of a kingdom. To restore the public peace, itwas found necessary to divide this fragment of the empire; and whilePalæologus and Manuel were left in possession of the capital, almostall that lay without the walls was ceded to the blind princes, who fixedtheir residence at Rhodosto and Selybria. In the tranquil slumber ofroyalty, the passions of John Palæologus survived his reason and hisstrength: he deprived his favorite and heir of a blooming princessof Trebizond; and while the feeble emperor labored to consummate hisnuptials, Manuel, with a hundred of the noblest Greeks, was sent on aperemptory summons to the Ottoman _porte_. They served with honor inthe wars of Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Constantinople excitedhis jealousy: he threatened their lives; the new works were instantlydemolished; and we shall bestow a praise, perhaps above the merit ofPalæologus, if we impute this last humiliation as the cause of hisdeath. 

[Footnote 66: For the reigns of John Palæologus and his son Manuel, from1354 to 1402, see Ducas, c. 9--15, Phranza, l. I. C. 16--21, and the istand iid books of Chalcondyles, whose proper subject is drowned in a seaof 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 theByzantine throne. Bajazet affected a proud indifference at the loss ofthis valuable pledge; and while he pursued his conquests in Europe andAsia, he left the emperor to struggle with his blind cousin John ofSelybria, who, in eight years of civil war, asserted his right ofprimogeniture. At length, the ambition of the victorious sultan pointedto the conquest of Constantinople; but he listened to the advice of hisvizier, who represented that such an enterprise might unite the powersof Christendom in a second and more formidable crusade. His epistle tothe emperor was conceived in these words: "By the divine clemency, ourinvincible cimeter has reduced to our obedience almost all Asia, with many and large countries in Europe, excepting only the city ofConstantinople; for beyond the walls thou hast nothing left. Resignthat city; stipulate thy reward; or tremble, for thyself and thy unhappypeople, at the consequences of a rash refusal. " But his ambassadorswere instructed to soften their tone, and to propose a treaty, whichwas subscribed with submission and gratitude. A truce of ten years waspurchased by an annual tribute of thirty thousand crowns of gold; theGreeks deplored the public toleration of the law of Mahomet, and Bajazetenjoyed the glory of establishing a Turkish cadhi, and founding a royalmosque in the metropolis of the Eastern church. [67] Yet this truce wassoon violated by the restless sultan: in the cause of the prince ofSelybria, the lawful emperor, an army of Ottomans again threatenedConstantinople; and the distress of Manuel implored the protection ofthe king of France. His plaintive embassy obtained much pity and somerelief; and the conduct of the succor was intrusted to the marshalBoucicault, [68] whose religious chivalry was inflamed by the desire ofrevenging his captivity on the infidels. He sailed with four ships ofwar, from Aiguesmortes to the Hellespont; forced the passage, which wasguarded by seventeen Turkish galleys; landed at Constantinople a supplyof six hundred men-at-arms and sixteen hundred archers; and reviewedthem in the adjacent plain, without condescending to number or array themultitude of Greeks. By his presence, the blockade was raised both bysea and land; the flying squadrons of Bajazet were driven to a morerespectful distance; and several castles in Europe and Asia were stormedby the emperor and the marshal, who fought with equal valor by eachother's side. But the Ottomans soon returned with an increase ofnumbers; and the intrepid Boucicault, after a year's struggle, resolvedto evacuate a country which could no longer afford either pay orprovisions for his soldiers. The marshal offered to conduct Manuel tothe French court, where he might solicit in person a supply of men andmoney; and advised, in the mean while, that, to extinguish all domesticdiscord, he should leave his blind competitor on the throne. Theproposal was embraced: the prince of Selybria was introduced to thecapital; and such was the public misery, that the lot of the exileseemed more fortunate than that of the sovereign. Instead of applaudingthe success of his vassal, the Turkish sultan claimed the city as hisown; and on the refusal of the emperor John, Constantinople was moreclosely pressed by the calamities of war and famine. Against such anenemy prayers and resistance were alike unavailing; and the savagewould have devoured his prey, if, in the fatal moment, he had not beenoverthrown by another savage stronger than himself. By the victory ofTimour or Tamerlane, the fall of Constantinople was delayed aboutfifty years; and this important, though accidental, service may justlyintroduce 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 Ducasdissembles 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 theambition of Timour. To live in the memory and esteem of future ages wasthe second wish of his magnanimous spirit. All the civil and militarytransactions of his reign were diligently recorded in the journals ofhis secretaries: [1] the authentic narrative was revised by the personsbest informed of each particular transaction; and it is believed inthe empire and family of Timour, that the monarch himself composedthe _commentaries_ [2] of his life, and the _institutions_ [3] of hisgovernment. [4] But these cares were ineffectual for the preservation ofhis fame, and these precious memorials in the Mogul or Persian languagewere concealed from the world, or, at least, from the knowledge ofEurope. The nations which he vanquished exercised a base and impotentrevenge; and ignorance has long repeated the tale of calumny, [5] whichhad disfigured the birth and character, the person, and even the name, of _Tamerlane_. [6] Yet his real merit would be enhanced, rather thandebased, by the elevation of a peasant to the throne of Asia; nor canhis lameness be a theme of reproach, unless he had the weakness to blushat a natural, or perhaps an honorable, infirmity. [606]

[Footnote 1: These journals were communicated to Sherefeddin, orCherefeddin Ali, a native of Yezd, who composed in the Persian languagea 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 alwaysbeen my faithful guide. His geography and chronology are wonderfullyaccurate; and he may be trusted for public facts, though he servilelypraises the virtue and fortune of the hero. Timour's attention toprocure intelligence from his own and foreign countries may be seen inthe Institutions, p. 215, 217, 349, 351. ]

[Footnote 2: These Commentaries are yet unknown in Europe: but Mr. Whitegives some hope that they may be imported and translated by his friendMajor Davy, who had read in the East this "minute and faithful narrativeof an interesting and eventful period. " * Note: The manuscript of MajorDavy has been translated by Major Stewart, and published by the OrientalTranslation Committee of London. It contains the life of Timour, fromhis birth to his forty-first year; but the last thirty years of westernwar and conquest are wanting. Major Stewart intimates that twomanuscripts exist in this country containing the whole work, but excuseshimself, on account of his age, from undertaking the laborious task ofcompleting the translation. It is to be hoped that the European publicwill be soon enabled to judge of the value and authenticity of theCommentaries of the Cæsar of the East. Major Stewart's work commenceswith the Book of Dreams and Omens--a wild, but characteristic, chronicleof Visions and Sortes Koranicæ. Strange that a life of Timour shouldawaken a reminiscence of the diary of Archbishop Laud! The early dawnand the gradual expression of his not less splendid but more realvisions of ambition are touched with the simplicity of truth and nature. But we long to escape from the petty feuds of the pastoral chieftain, tothe triumphs and the legislation of the conqueror of the world. --M. ]

[Footnote 3: I am ignorant whether the original institution, in theTurki or Mogul language, be still extant. The Persic version, with anEnglish translation, and most valuable index, was published (Oxford, 1783, in 4to. ) by the joint labors of Major Davy and Mr. White, theArabic professor. This work has been since translated from the Persicinto French, (Paris, 1787, ) by M. Langlès, a learned Orientalist, whohas added the life of Timour, and many curious notes. ]

[Footnote 4: Shaw Allum, the present Mogul, reads, values, but cannotimitate, the institutions of his great ancestor. The English translatorrelies on their internal evidence; but if any suspicions should ariseof fraud and fiction, they will not be dispelled by Major Davy's letter. The Orientals have never cultivated the art of criticism; the patronageof a prince, less honorable, perhaps, is not less lucrative than that ofa bookseller; nor can it be deemed incredible that a Persian, the _real_author, should renounce the credit, to raise the value and price, of thework. ]

[Footnote 5: The original of the tale is found in the following work, which is much esteemed for its florid elegance of style: _AhmedisArabsiad_ (Ahmed Ebn Arabshah) _Vitæ et Rerum gestarum Timuri. Arabiceet Latine. Edidit Samuel Henricus Manger. Franequer_, 1767, 2 tom. In 4to. This Syrian author is ever a malicious, and often an ignorantenemy: the very titles of his chapters are injurious; as how the wicked, as how the impious, as how the viper, &c. The copious article ofTimur, in Bibliothèque Orientale, is of a mixed nature, as D'Herbelotindifferently draws his materials (p. 877--888) from Khondemir EbnSchounah, 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 ofa letter or accent, it is changed into _Lenc_, or Lame; and a Europeancorruption confounds the two words in the name of Tamerlane. *Note: According to the memoirs he was so called by a Shaikh, who, whenvisited 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 earthto swallow you up, and behold _it shall shake_, Tamûrn. " The Shaikh thenstopped and said, "We have named your son _Timûr_, " p. 21. --M. ]

[Footnote 606: He was lamed by a wound at the siege of the capital ofSistan. 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 thehouse of Zingis, he was doubtless a rebel subject; yet he sprang fromthe noble tribe of Berlass: his fifth ancestor, Carashar Nevian, hadbeen the vizier [607] of Zagatai, in his new realm of Transoxiana; and inthe ascent of some generations, the branch of Timour is confounded, atleast by the females, [7] with the Imperial stem. [8] He was born fortymiles to the south of Samarcand in the village of Sebzar, in thefruitful territory of Cash, of which his fathers were the hereditarychiefs, 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 ofthe Asiatic dynasties, and open a new field to adventurous ambition. Thekhans of Zagatai were extinct; the emirs aspired to independence; andtheir domestic feuds could only be suspended by the conquest and tyrannyof the khans of Kashgar, who, with an army of Getes or Calmucks, [11]invaded the Transoxian kingdom. From the twelfth year of his age, Timourhad entered the field of action; in the twenty-fifth [111] he stood forthas the deliverer of his country; and the eyes and wishes of the peoplewere turned towards a hero who suffered in their cause. The chiefs ofthe law and of the army had pledged their salvation to support him withtheir lives and fortunes; but in the hour of danger they were silentand afraid; and, after waiting seven days on the hills of Samarcand, he retreated to the desert with only sixty horsemen. The fugitiveswere overtaken by a thousand Getes, whom he repulsed with incredibleslaughter, and his enemies were forced to exclaim, "Timour is awonderful man: fortune and the divine favor are with him. " But in thisbloody action his own followers were reduced to ten, a number which wassoon diminished by the desertion of three Carizmians. [112] He wanderedin the desert with his wife, seven companions, and four horses; andsixty-two days was he plunged in a loathsome dungeon, from whence heescaped by his own courage and the remorse of the oppressor. Afterswimming the broad and rapid steam of the Jihoon, or Oxus, he led, during some months, the life of a vagrant and outlaw, on the bordersof the adjacent states. But his fame shone brighter in adversity; helearned to distinguish the friends of his person, the associates of hisfortune, 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, whoanxiously sought him in the desert; nor can I refuse to describe, inhis pathetic simplicity, one of their fortunate encounters. He presentedhimself as a guide to three chiefs, who were at the head of seventyhorse. "When their eyes fell upon me, " says Timour, "they wereoverwhelmed with joy; and they alighted from their horses; and they cameand 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 ofthe 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 myown coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and the hour of prayer wasarrived, and we prayed. And we mounted our horses, and came to mydwelling; and I collected my people, and made a feast. " His trusty bandswere soon increased by the bravest of the tribes; he led them against asuperior foe; and, after some vicissitudes of war the Getes were finallydriven from the kingdom of Transoxiana. He had done much for his ownglory; but much remained to be done, much art to be exerted, and someblood to be spilt, before he could teach his equals to obey him as theirmaster. The birth and power of emir Houssein compelled him to accept avicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister was the best beloved of hiswives. Their union was short and jealous; but the policy of Timour, intheir frequent quarrels, exposed his rival to the reproach of injusticeand perfidy; and, after a final defeat, Houssein was slain by somesagacious friends, who presumed, for the last time, to disobey thecommands of their lord. [113] At the age of thirty-four, [12] and in ageneral diet or _couroultai_, he was invested with _Imperial_ command, but he affected to revere the house of Zingis; and while the emir Timourreigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served as a privateofficer in the armies of his servant. A fertile kingdom, five hundredmiles in length and in breadth, might have satisfied the ambition of asubject; but Timour aspired to the dominion of the world; and before hisdeath, the crown of Zagatai was one of the twenty-seven crowns whichhe had placed on his head. Without expatiating on the victories ofthirty-five campaigns; without describing the lines of march, which herepeatedly traced over the continent of Asia; I shall briefly representhis conquests in, I. Persia, II. Tartary, and, III. India, [13] and fromthence proceed to the more interesting narrative of his Ottoman war. 

[Footnote 607: In the memoirs, the title Gurgân 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 akinsman of Zingis, per mulieres, (as he peevishly adds, ) laqueos Satanæ, (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 ofZingis, and the ninth of Timour, were brothers; and they agreed, thatthe posterity of the elder should succeed to the dignity of khan, andthat the descendants of the younger should fill the office of theirminister and general. This tradition was at least convenient to justifythe _first_ steps of Timour's ambition, (Institutions, p. 24, 25, fromthe MS. Fragments of Timour's History. )]

[Footnote 9: See the preface of Sherefeddin, and Abulfeda's Geography, (Chorasmiæ, &c. , Descriptio, p. 60, 61, ) in the iiid volume of Hudson'sMinor 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 UlughBeg. He was born, A. D. 1336, April 9, 11º 57'. P. M. , lat. 36. I knownot whether they can prove the great conjunction of the planets fromwhence, like other conquerors and prophets, Timour derived the surnameof Saheb Keran, or master of the conjunctions, (Bibliot. Orient. P. 878. )]

[Footnote 11: In the Institutions of Timour, these subjects of the khanof Kashgar are most improperly styled Ouzbegs, or Usbeks, a name whichbelongs 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 Turkishoriginal, I would boldly pronounce, that the Institutions were framed acentury after the death of Timour, since the establishment of the Usbeksin Transoxiana. * Note: Col. Stewart observes, that the Persiantranslator has sometimes made use of the name Uzbek by anticipation. Heobserves, likewise, that these Jits (Getes) are not to be confoundedwith the ancient Getæ: they were unconverted Turks. Col. Tod (History ofRajasthan, vol. I. P. 166) would identify the Jits with the ancientrace. --M. ]

[Footnote 111: He was twenty-seven before he served his first wars underthe emir Houssein, who ruled over Khorasan and Mawerainnehr. Von Hammer, vol. I. P. 262. Neither of these statements agrees with the Memoirs. Attwelve he was a boy. "I fancied that I perceived in myself all the signsof greatness and wisdom, and whoever came to visit me, I received withgreat hauteur and dignity. " At seventeen he undertook the managementof the flocks and herds of the family, (p. 24. ) At nineteen he becamereligious, and "left off playing chess, " made a kind of Budhist vownever to injure living thing and felt his foot paralyzed from havingaccidentally trod upon an ant, (p. 30. ) At twenty, thoughts of rebellionand greatness rose in his mind; at twenty-one, he seems to haveperformed his first feat of arms. He was a practised warrior when heserved, in his twenty-seventh year, under Emir Houssein. ]

[Footnote 112: Compare Memoirs, page 61. The imprisonment is there statedat fifty-three days. "At this time I made a vow to God that I wouldnever keep any person, whether guilty or innocent, for any length oftime, in prison or in chains. " p. 63. --M. ]

[Footnote 113: Timour, on one occasion, sent him this message: "He whowishes to embrace the bride of royalty must kiss her across the edgeof the sharp sword, " p. 83. The scene of the trial of Houssein, theresistance of Timour gradually becoming more feeble, the vengeanceof the chiefs becoming proportionably more determined, is strikinglyportrayed. Mem. P 130. --M. ]

[Footnote 12: The ist book of Sherefeddin is employed on the privatelife of the hero: and he himself, or his secretary, (Institutions, p. 3--77, ) enlarges with pleasure on the thirteen designs and enterpriseswhich most truly constitute his _personal_ merit. It even shines throughthe dark coloring of Arabshah, (P. I. C. 1--12. )]

[Footnote 13: The conquests of Persia, Tartary, and India, arerepresented 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 desOsmanischen 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 ofconquerors. No sooner had Timour reunited to the patrimony of Zagataithe dependent countries of Carizme and Candahar, than he turned his eyestowards the kingdoms of Iran or Persia. From the Oxus to the Tigris, that extensive country was left without a lawful sovereign since thedeath 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 oppressedpeople. Their petty tyrants might have opposed him with confederatearms: they separately stood, and successively fell; and the differenceof their fate was only marked by the promptitude of submission or theobstinacy of resistance. Ibrahim, prince of Shirwan, or Albania, kissedthe footstool of the Imperial throne. His peace-offerings of silks, horses, and jewels, were composed, according to the Tartar fashion, eacharticle of nine pieces; but a critical spectator observed, that therewere only eight slaves. "I myself am the ninth, " replied Ibrahim, whowas prepared for the remark; and his flattery was rewarded by the smileof Timour. [14] Shah Mansour, prince of Fars, or the proper Persia, wasone of the least powerful, but most dangerous, of his enemies. In abattle under the walls of Shiraz, he broke, with three or four thousandsoldiers, the _coul_ or main body of thirty thousand horse, wherethe emperor fought in person. No more than fourteen or fifteen guardsremained near the standard of Timour: he stood firm as a rock, andreceived on his helmet two weighty strokes of a cimeter: [15] the Mogulsrallied; the head of Mansour was thrown at his feet; and he declaredhis esteem of the valor of a foe, by extirpating all the males of sointrepid a race. From Shiraz, his troops advanced to the Persian Gulf;and the richness and weakness of Ormuz [16] were displayed in an annualtribute of six hundred thousand dinars of gold. Bagdad was no longerthe city of peace, the seat of the caliphs; but the noblest conquest ofHolacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. The wholecourse of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the mouth to the sources ofthose rivers, was reduced to his obedience: he entered Edessa; and theTurkmans of the black sheep were chastised for the sacrilegiouspillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains of Georgia, the nativeChristians still braved the law and the sword of Mahomet, by threeexpeditions he obtained the merit of the _gazie_, or holy war; and theprince 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 hisGenealogical History into nine parts. ]

[Footnote 15: According to Arabshah, (P. I. C. 28, p. 183, ) the cowardTimour ran away to his tent, and hid himself from the pursuit of ShahMansour 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 oldcity, on the continent, was destroyed by the Tartars, and renewed ina neighboring island, without fresh water or vegetation. The kings ofOrmuz, rich in the Indian trade and the pearl fishery, possessed largeterritories both in Persia and Arabia; but they were at first thetributaries 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'sHistory of Persia, p. 376--416, and the Itineraries inserted in the istvolume of Ramusio, of Ludovico Barthema, (1503, ) fol. 167, of AndreaCorsali, (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, orthe Eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timour could not endure the impunityof the Getes: he passed the Sihoon, subdued the kingdom of Kashgar, andmarched seven times into the heart of their country. His most distantcamp was two months' journey, or four hundred and eighty leagues to thenorth-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 thedouble motive of aiding the distressed, and chastising the ungrateful. Toctamish, a fugitive prince, was entertained and protected in hiscourt: the ambassadors of Auruss Khan were dismissed with a haughtydenial, and followed on the same day by the armies of Zagatai; and theirsuccess established Toctamish in the Mogul empire of the North. But, after a reign of ten years, the new khan forgot the merits and thestrength of his benefactor; the base usurper, as he deemed him, of thesacred rights of the house of Zingis. Through the gates of Derbend, he entered Persia at the head of ninety thousand horse: with theinnumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he passedthe Sihoon, burnt the palaces of Timour, and compelled him, amidstthe winter snows, to contend for Samarcand and his life. After a mildexpostulation, and a glorious victory, the emperor resolved on revenge;and by the east, and the west, of the Caspian, and the Volga, hetwice invaded Kipzak with such mighty powers, that thirteen miles weremeasured from his right to his left wing. In a march of five months, they rarely beheld the footsteps of man; and their daily subsistencewas often trusted to the fortune of the chase. At length the armiesencountered 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 thelanguage of the Institutions) gave the tribe of Toushi to the windof desolation. [18] He fled to the Christian duke of Lithuania; againreturned to the banks of the Volga; and, after fifteen battles with adomestic rival, at last perished in the wilds of Siberia. The pursuit ofa flying enemy carried Timour into the tributary provinces of Russia:a duke of the reigning family was made prisoner amidst the ruins of hiscapital; and Yeletz, by the pride and ignorance of the Orientals, mighteasily be confounded with the genuine metropolis of the nation. Moscowtrembled at the approach of the Tartar, and the resistance would havebeen feeble, since the hopes of the Russians were placed in a miraculousimage of the Virgin, to whose protection they ascribed the casual andvoluntary retreat of the conqueror. Ambition and prudence recalled himto the South, the desolate country was exhausted, and the Mogul soldierswere enriched with an immense spoil of precious furs, of linen ofAntioch, [19] and of ingots of gold and silver. [20] On the banks of theDon, or Tanais, he received an humble deputation from the consulsand merchants of Egypt, [21] Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay, whooccupied the commerce and city of Tana, or Azoph, at the mouth of theriver. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence, and trustedhis royal word. But the peaceful visit of an emir, who exploredthe state of the magazines and harbor, was speedily followed by thedestructive presence of the Tartars. The city was reduced to ashes; theMoslems were pillaged and dismissed; but all the Christians, who hadnot fled to their ships, were condemned either to death or slavery. [22] Revenge prompted him to burn the cities of Serai and Astrachan, themonuments of rising civilization; and his vanity proclaimed, that he hadpenetrated to the region of perpetual daylight, a strange phenomenon, which authorized his Mahometan doctors to dispense with the obligationof evening prayer. [23]

[Footnote 17: Arabshah had travelled into Kipzak, and acquired asingular knowledge of the geography, cities, and revolutions, of thatnorthern region, (P. I. C. 45--49. )]

[Footnote 18: Institutions of Timour, p. 123, 125. Mr. White, theeditor, bestows some animadversion on the superficial account ofSherefeddin, (l. Iii. C. 12, 13, 14, ) who was ignorant of the designs ofTimour, and the true springs of action. ]

[Footnote 19: The furs of Russia are more credible than the ingots. Butthe linen of Antioch has never been famous: and Antioch was in ruins. I suspect that it was some manufacture of Europe, which the Hansemerchants had imported by the way of Novogorod. ]

[Footnote 20: M. Levesque (Hist. De Russie, tom. Ii. P. 247. Vie deTimour, p. 64--67, before the French version of the Institutes) hascorrected the error of Sherefeddin, and marked the true limit ofTimour's conquests. His arguments are superfluous; and a simple appealto the Russian annals is sufficient to prove that Moscow, which sixyears before had been taken by Toctamish, escaped the arms of a moreformidable invader. ]

[Footnote 21: An Egyptian consul from Grand Cairo is mentioned inBarbaro'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 withthe Mianis, two Venetian brothers, one of whom had been sent a deputyto the camp of Timour, and the other had lost at Azoph three sons and12, 000 ducats. ]

[Footnote 23: Sherefeddin only says (l. Iii. C. 13) that the rays ofthe setting, and those of the rising sun, were scarcely separated by anyinterval; a problem which may be solved in the latitude of Moscow, (the56th degree, ) with the aid of the Aurora Borealis, and a long summertwilight. 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 ofIndia or Hindostan, [24] he was answered by a murmur of discontent: "Therivers! and the mountains and deserts! and the soldiers clad in armor!and the elephants, destroyers of men!" But the displeasure of theemperor was more dreadful than all these terrors; and his superiorreason was convinced, that an enterprise of such tremendous aspect wassafe and easy in the execution. He was informed by his spies of theweakness and anarchy of Hindostan: the soubahs of the provinces haderected the standard of rebellion; and the perpetual infancy of SultanMahmoud was despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Mogul army movedin three great divisions; and Timour observes with pleasure, that theninety-two squadrons of a thousand horse most fortunately correspondedwith the ninety-two names or epithets of the prophet Mahomet. [241] Betweenthe Jihoon and the Indus they crossed one of the ridges of mountains, which are styled by the Arabian geographers The Stony Girdles of theEarth. The highland robbers were subdued or extirpated; but greatnumbers of men and horses perished in the snow; the emperor himself waslet down a precipice on a portable scaffold--the ropes were one hundredand fifty cubits in length; and before he could reach the bottom, thisdangerous operation was five times repeated. Timour crossed the Indusat the ordinary passage of Attok; and successively traversed, in thefootsteps of Alexander, the _Punjab_, or five rivers, [25] that fall intothe master stream. From Attok to Delhi, the high road measures nomore than six hundred miles; but the two conquerors deviated to thesouth-east; and the motive of Timour was to join his grandson, who hadachieved by his command the conquest of Moultan. On the eastern bank ofthe Hyphasis, on the edge of the desert, the Macedonian hero halted andwept: the Mogul entered the desert, reduced the fortress of Batmir, andstood in arms before the gates of Delhi, a great and flourishing city, which had subsisted three centuries under the dominion of the Mahometankings. [251] The siege, more especially of the castle, might have been awork of time; but he tempted, by the appearance of weakness, the sultanMahmoud and his vizier to descend into the plain, with ten thousandcuirassiers, forty thousand of his foot-guards, and one hundred andtwenty elephants, whose tusks are said to have been armed with sharpand poisoned daggers. Against these monsters, or rather against theimagination of his troops, he condescended to use some extraordinaryprecautions of fire and a ditch, of iron spikes and a rampart ofbucklers; 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 triumphalentry into the capital of Hindostan; and admired, with a view toimitate, the architecture of the stately mosque; but the order orlicense of a general pillage and massacre polluted the festival ofhis victory. He resolved to purify his soldiers in the blood of theidolaters, or Gentoos, who still surpass, in the proportion of ten toone, the numbers of the Moslems. [252] In this pious design, he advancedone hundred miles to the north-east of Delhi, passed the Ganges, foughtseveral battles by land and water, and penetrated to the famous rock ofCoupele, the statue of the cow, [253] that _seems_ to discharge the mightyriver, whose source is far distant among the mountains of Thibet. [26]His return was along the skirts of the northern hills; nor could thisrapid campaign of one year justify the strange foresight of his emirs, that their children in a warm climate would degenerate into a race ofHindoos. 

[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 ofHindostan. ]

[Footnote 241: Gibbon (observes M. Von Hammer) is mistaken in thecorrespondence of the ninety-two squadrons of his army with theninety-two names of God: the names of God are ninety-nine. And Allah isthe hundredth, p. 286, note. But Gibbon speaks of the names or epithetsof Mahomet, not of God. --M. ]

[Footnote 25: The rivers of the Punjab, the five eastern branches of theIndus, have been laid down for the first time with truth and accuracy inMajor Rennel's incomparable map of Hindostan. In this Critical Memoirhe illustrates with judgment and learning the marches of Alexander andTimour. * Note See vol. I. Ch. Ii. Note 1. --M. ]

[Footnote 251: They took, on their march, 100, 000 slaves, Guebers theywere 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 Hindooidols, Memoirs, p. 15. --M. ]

[Footnote 253: Consult the very striking description of the Cow's Mouth byCaptain 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 footof the grand snow bed. My guide, an illiterate mountaineer compared thependent icicles to Mahodeva's hair. " (Compare Poems, Quarterly Rev. Vol. Xiv. P. 37, and at the end of my translation of Nala. ) "Hindoos ofresearch may formerly have been here; and if so, I cannot think of anyplace to which they might more aptly give the name of a cow's mouth thanto this extraordinary debouche. "--M. ]

[Footnote 26: The two great rivers, the Ganges and Burrampooter, rise inThibet, from the opposite ridges of the same hills, separate from eachother to the distance of 1200 miles, and, after a winding course of2000 miles, again meet in one point near the Gulf of Bengal. Yet socapricious is Fame, that the Burrampooter is a late discovery, while hisbrother Ganges has been the theme of ancient and modern story Coupele, the scene of Timour's last victory, must be situate near Loldong, 1100miles 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 hisspeedy messengers, of the disturbances which had arisen on the confinesof Georgia and Anatolia, of the revolt of the Christians, and theambitious designs of the sultan Bajazet. His vigor of mind and body wasnot impaired by sixty-three years, and innumerable fatigues; and, afterenjoying some tranquil months in the palace of Samarcand, he proclaimeda 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 choiceof remaining at home, or following their prince; but the troops ofall the provinces and kingdoms of Persia were commanded to assemble atIspahan, and wait the arrival of the Imperial standard. It was firstdirected against the Christians of Georgia, who were strong only intheir rocks, their castles, and the winter season; but these obstacleswere overcome by the zeal and perseverance of Timour: the rebelssubmitted to the tribute or the Koran; and if both religions boasted oftheir martyrs, that name is more justly due to the Christian prisoners, who were offered the choice of abjuration or death. On his descentfrom the hills, the emperor gave audience to the first ambassadorsof Bajazet, and opened the hostile correspondence of complaints andmenaces, which fermented two years before the final explosion. Betweentwo jealous and haughty neighbors, the motives of quarrel will seldom bewanting. The Mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in theneighborhood of Erzeroum, and the Euphrates; nor had the doubtful limitbeen ascertained by time and treaty. Each of these ambitious monarchsmight accuse his rival of violating his territory, of threatening hisvassals, and protecting his rebels; and, by the name of rebels, eachunderstood the fugitive princes, whose kingdoms he had usurped, and whose life or liberty he implacably pursued. The resemblance ofcharacter was still more dangerous than the opposition of interest;and in their victorious career, Timour was impatient of an equal, andBajazet was ignorant of a superior. The first epistle [28] of the Mogulemperor 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 thepotentates of the earth form a line before our gate? and that we havecompelled Fortune herself to watch over the prosperity of our empire. What is the foundation of thy insolence and folly? Thou hast foughtsome battles in the woods of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Thou hastobtained some victories over the Christians of Europe; thy sword wasblessed by the apostle of God; and thy obedience to the precept of theKoran, in waging war against the infidels, is the sole considerationthat prevents us from destroying thy country, the frontier and bulwarkof the Moslem world. Be wise in time; reflect; repent; and avert thethunder of our vengeance, which is yet suspended over thy head. Thouart no more than a pismire; why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants?Alas! they will trample thee under their feet. " In his replies, Bajazetpoured forth the indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by suchunusual contempt. After retorting the basest reproaches on the thief andrebel of the desert, the Ottoman recapitulates his boasted victories inIran, Touran, and the Indies; and labors to prove, that Timour had nevertriumphed unless by his own perfidy and the vices of his foes. "Thyarmies are innumerable: be they so; but what are the arrows of theflying Tartar against the cimeters and battle-axes of my firm andinvincible Janizaries? I will guard the princes who have implored myprotection: seek them in my tents. The cities of Arzingan and Erzeroumare mine; and unless the tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrearsunder the walls of Tauris and Sultania. " The ungovernable rage of thesultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more domestic kind. "IfI fly from thy arms, " said he, "may _my_ wives be thrice divorced frommy bed: but if thou hast not courage to meet me in the field, mayestthou again receive _thy_ wives after they have thrice endured theembraces of a stranger. " [30] Any violation by word or deed of thesecrecy of the harem is an unpardonable offence among the Turkishnations; [31] and the political quarrel of the two monarchs wasimbittered by private and personal resentment. Yet in his firstexpedition, Timour was satisfied with the siege and destruction of Siwasor Sebaste, a strong city on the borders of Anatolia; and he revengedthe indiscretion of the Ottoman, on a garrison of four thousandArmenians, who were buried alive for the brave and faithful discharge oftheir duty. [311] As a Mussulman, he seemed to respect the pious occupationof Bajazet, who was still engaged in the blockade of Constantinople; andafter this salutary lesson, the Mogul conqueror checked his pursuit, andturned 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 Cæsar of the Romans; a title which, by a smallanticipation, 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 1stbook, and Sherefeddin, (l. V. C. 1--16, ) to the entrance of Timour intoSyria. ]

[Footnote 28: We have three copies of these hostile epistles in theInstitutions, (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 spiritand substance rather than in the style. It is probable, that they havebeen translated, with various latitude, from the Turkish original intothe Arabic and Persian tongues. * Note: Von Hammer considers the letterwhich Gibbon inserted in the text to be spurious. On the various copiesof these letters, see his note, p 116. --M. ]

[Footnote 29: The Mogul emir distinguishes himself and his countrymen bythe name of _Turks_, and stigmatizes the race and nation of Bajazet withthe less honorable epithet of _Turkmans_. Yet I do not understand howthe Ottomans could be descended from a Turkman sailor; those inlandshepherds 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'sDiscourses, p. 134, ) Mussulman who had thrice divorced his wife, (whohad thrice repeated the words of a divorce, ) could not take her again, till after she had been married _to_, and repudiated _by_, anotherhusband; an ignominious transaction, which it is needless to aggravate, by supposing that the first husband must see her enjoyed by a secondbefore his face, (Rycaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, l. Ii. C. 21. )]

[Footnote 31: The common delicacy of the Orientals, in never speakingof their women, is ascribed in a much higher degree by Arabshah to theTurkish 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 Bibliothèque Orientale, (p. 882;)but I do not find that the title of Cæsar has been applied by theArabians, 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 raisedand restored to the throne. In the midst of rebellion and discord, hebraved the menaces, corresponded with the enemies, and detained theambassadors, of the Mogul, who patiently expected his decease, torevenge 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 temperof their swords and lances of the purest steel of Damascus, in thestrength of their walled cities, and in the populousness of sixtythousand villages; and instead of sustaining a siege, they threw opentheir gates, and arrayed their forces in the plain. But these forceswere not cemented by virtue and union; and some powerful emirs had beenseduced to desert or betray their more loyal companions. Timour's frontwas covered with a line of Indian elephants, whose turrets were filledwith archers and Greek fire: the rapid evolutions of his cavalrycompleted the dismay and disorder; the Syrian crowds fell back on eachother: many thousands were stifled or slaughtered in the entrance of thegreat street; the Moguls entered with the fugitives; and after a shortdefence, the citadel, the impregnable citadel of Aleppo, was surrenderedby cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants and captives, Timourdistinguished the doctors of the law, whom he invited to the dangeroushonor of a personal conference. [35] The Mogul prince was a zealousMussulman; but his Persian schools had taught him to revere the memoryof Ali and Hosein; and he had imbibed a deep prejudice against theSyrians, as the enemies of the son of the daughter of the apostleof God. To these doctors he proposed a captious question, which thecasuists of Bochara, Samarcand, and Herat, were incapable of resolving. "Who are the true martyrs, of those who are slain on my side, or on thatof my enemies?" But he was silenced, or satisfied, by the dexterityof one of the cadhis of Aleppo, who replied in the words of Mahomethimself, that the motive, not the ensign, constitutes the martyr; andthat the Moslems of either party, who fight only for the glory of God, may deserve that sacred appellation. The true succession of the caliphswas a controversy of a still more delicate nature; and the frankness ofa doctor, too honest for his situation, provoked the emperor to exclaim, "Ye are as false as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid atyrant, and Ali alone is the lawful successor of the prophet. " A prudentexplanation restored his tranquillity; and he passed to a more familiartopic 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 theAlmighty been pleased to subdue the kingdoms of Iran, Touran, and theIndies. I am not a man of blood; and God is my witness, that in all mywars I have never been the aggressor, and that my enemies havealways been the authors of their own calamity. " During this peacefulconversation the streets of Aleppo streamed with blood, and reechoedwith the cries of mothers and children, with the shrieks of violatedvirgins. The rich plunder that was abandoned to his soldiers mightstimulate their avarice; but their cruelty was enforced by theperemptory 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 Moslemspassed the night in tears and in chains. I shall not dwell on themarch of the destroyer from Aleppo to Damascus, where he was rudelyencountered, and almost overthrown, by the armies of Egypt. A retrogrademotion was imputed to his distress and despair: one of his nephewsdeserted to the enemy; and Syria rejoiced in the tale of his defeat, when the sultan was driven by the revolt of the Mamalukes to escapewith precipitation and shame to his palace of Cairo. Abandoned by theirprince, the inhabitants of Damascus still defended their walls; andTimour consented to raise the siege, if they would adorn his retreatwith a gift or ransom; each article of nine pieces. But no sooner hadhe introduced himself into the city, under color of a truce, than heperfidiously violated the treaty; imposed a contribution of ten millionsof gold; and animated his troops to chastise the posterity of thoseSyrians who had executed, or approved, the murder of the grandsonof Mahomet. A family which had given honorable burial to the head ofHosein, and a colony of artificers, whom he sent to labor at Samarcand, were alone reserved in the general massacre, and after a period of sevencenturies, Damascus was reduced to ashes, because a Tartar was moved byreligious zeal to avenge the blood of an Arab. The losses and fatiguesof the campaign obliged Timour to renounce the conquest of Palestineand Egypt; but in his return to the Euphrates he delivered Aleppo to theflames; and justified his pious motive by the pardon and reward of twothousand sectaries of Ali, who were desirous to visit the tomb ofhis son. I have expatiated on the personal anecdotes which mark thecharacter of the Mogul hero; but I shall briefly mention, [36] that heerected on the ruins of Bagdad a pyramid of ninety thousand heads; againvisited Georgia; encamped on the banks of Araxes; and proclaimed hisresolution of marching against the Ottoman emperor. Conscious of theimportance of the war, he collected his forces from every province:eight hundred thousand men were enrolled on his military list; [37] butthe splendid commands of five, and ten, thousand horse, may be ratherexpressive of the rank and pension of the chiefs, than of the genuinenumber of effective soldiers. [38] In the pillage of Syria, the Mogulshad acquired immense riches: but the delivery of their pay and arrearsfor 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 ofmaterials. )]

[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 notorietyof facts would have obliged him, in some measure, to respect his enemyand himself. His bitters may correct the luscious sweets of Sherefeddin, (l. V. C. 17--29. )]

[Footnote 35: These interesting conversations appear to have been copiedby Arabshah (tom. I. C. 68, p. 625--645) from the cadhi and historianEbn Schounah, a principal actor. Yet how could he be alive seventy-fiveyears afterwards? (D'Herbelot, p. 792. )]

[Footnote 36: The marches and occupations of Timour between the Syrianand Ottoman wars are represented by Sherefeddin (l. V. C. 29--43) andArabshah, (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 aCarizmian 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, 000men. Poggius reckons 1, 000, 000; another Latin contemporary (Chron. Tarvisianum, apud Muratori, tom. Xix. P. 800) 1, 100, 000; and theenormous sum of 1, 600, 000 is attested by a German soldier, who waspresent at the battle of Angora, (Leunclav. Ad Chalcondyl. L. Iii. P. 82. ) Timour, in his Institutions, has not deigned to calculate histroops, his subjects, or his revenues. ]

[Footnote 38: A wide latitude of non-effectives was allowed by theGreat Mogul for his own pride and the benefit of his officers. Bernier'spatron was Penge-Hazari, commander of 5000 horse; of which he maintainedno more than 500, (Voyages, tom. I. P. 288, 289. )]

During this diversion of the Mogul arms, Bajazet had two years tocollect his forces for a more serious encounter. They consisted of fourhundred thousand horse and foot, [39] whose merit and fidelity were ofan unequal complexion. We may discriminate the Janizaries, who have beengradually raised to an establishment of forty thousand men; a nationalcavalry, the Spahis of modern times; twenty thousand cuirassiers ofEurope, clad in black and impenetrable armor; the troops of Anatolia, whose princes had taken refuge in the camp of Timour, and a colonyof Tartars, whom he had driven from Kipzak, and to whom Bajazethad assigned a settlement in the plains of Adrianople. The fearlessconfidence of the sultan urged him to meet his antagonist; and, as if hehad chosen that spot for revenge, he displayed his banner near theruins of the unfortunate Suvas. In the mean while, Timour moved from theAraxes through the countries of Armenia and Anatolia: his boldness wassecured by the wisest precautions; his speed was guided by orderand discipline; and the woods, the mountains, and the rivers, werediligently explored by the flying squadrons, who marked his road andpreceded his standard. Firm in his plan of fighting in the heart ofthe Ottoman kingdom, he avoided their camp; dexterously inclined to theleft; occupied Cæsarea; traversed the salt desert and the River Halys;and invested Angora: while the sultan, immovable and ignorant in hispost, compared the Tartar swiftness to the crawling of a snail; [40] hereturned on the wings of indignation to the relief of Angora: and asboth generals were alike impatient for action, the plains round thatcity were the scene of a memorable battle, which has immortalized theglory of Timour and the shame of Bajazet. For this signal victory theMogul emperor was indebted to himself, to the genius of the moment, andthe discipline of thirty years. He had improved the tactics, withoutviolating the manners, of his nation, [41] whose force still consisted inthe missile weapons, and rapid evolutions, of a numerous cavalry. Froma single troop to a great army, the mode of attack was the same: aforemost line first advanced to the charge, and was supported in a justorder by the squadrons of the great vanguard. The general's eye watchedover the field, and at his command the front and rear of the right andleft wings successively moved forwards in their several divisions, andin a direct or oblique line: the enemy was pressed by eighteen or twentyattacks; and each attack afforded a chance of victory. If they allproved fruitless or unsuccessful, the occasion was worthy of the emperorhimself, 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 bodyitself was supported, on the flanks and in the rear, by the bravestsquadrons 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 ofthe Greek fire was familiar to the Moguls and Ottomans; but had theyborrowed from Europe the recent invention of gunpowder and cannon, theartificial thunder, in the hands of either nation, must have turned thefortune of the day. [43] In that day Bajazet displayed the qualities ofa soldier and a chief: but his genius sunk under a stronger ascendant;and, from various motives, the greatest part of his troops failed himin the decisive moment. His rigor and avarice [431] had provoked a mutinyamong the Turks; and even his son Soliman too hastily withdrew from thefield. The forces of Anatolia, loyal in their revolt, were drawn away tothe banners of their lawful princes. His Tartar allies had been temptedby the letters and emissaries of Timour; [44] who reproached theirignoble servitude under the slaves of their fathers; and offered totheir 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 ironwere soon broken by an artful flight and headlong pursuit; and theJanizaries, alone, without cavalry or missile weapons, were encompassedby the circle of the Mogul hunters. Their valor was at length oppressedby heat, thirst, and the weight of numbers; and the unfortunate sultan, afflicted with the gout in his hands and feet, was transported from thefield on the fleetest of his horses. He was pursued and taken by thetitular khan of Zagatai; and, after his capture, and the defeat of theOttoman powers, the kingdom of Anatolia submitted to the conqueror, who planted his standard at Kiotahia, and dispersed on all sides theministers of rapine and destruction. Mirza Mehemmed Sultan, the eldestand best beloved of his grandsons, was despatched to Boursa, with thirtythousand horse; and such was his youthful ardor, that he arrived withonly four thousand at the gates of the capital, after performing in fivedays a march of two hundred and thirty miles. Yet fear is still morerapid in its course; and Soliman, the son of Bajazet, had already passedover to Europe with the royal treasure. The spoil, however, of thepalace and city was immense: the inhabitants had escaped; but thebuildings, for the most part of wood, were reduced to ashes From Boursa, the grandson of Timour advanced to Nice, ever yet a fair and flourishingcity; and the Mogul squadrons were only stopped by the waves of thePropontis. The same success attended the other mirzas and emirs in theirexcursions; and Smyrna, defended by the zeal and courage of the Rhodianknights, alone deserved the presence of the emperor himself. After anobstinate defence, the place was taken by storm: all that breathed wasput to the sword; and the heads of the Christian heroes were launchedfrom 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 theirdeliverance from a dangerous and domestic foe; and a parallel was drawnbetween the two rivals, by observing that Timour, in fourteen days, had reduced a fortress which had sustained seven years the siege, or atleast 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 evidentthat the Moguls were the more numerous. ]

[Footnote 40: It may not be useless to mark the distances between Angoraand the neighboring cities, by the journeys of the caravans, each oftwenty or twenty-five miles; to Smyrna xx. , to Kiotahia x. , to Boursax. , to Cæsarea, viii. , to Sinope x. , to Nicomedia ix. , to Constantinoplexii. Or xiii. , (see Tournefort, Voyage au Levant, tom. Ii. Lettre xxi. )]

[Footnote 41: See the Systems of Tactics in the Institutions, which theEnglish editors have illustrated with elaborate plans, (p. 373--407. )]

[Footnote 42: The sultan himself (says Timour) must then put the foot ofcourage into the stirrup of patience. A Tartar metaphor, which is lostin 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 bySherefeddin, (l. V. C. 47;) but Voltaire's strange suspicion, that somecannon, inscribed with strange characters, must have been sent bythat monarch to Delhi, is refuted by the universal silence ofcontemporaries. ]

[Footnote 431: See V. Hammer, vol. I. P. 310, for the singular hintswhich were conveyed to him of the wisdom of unlocking his hoardedtreasures. --M. ]

[Footnote 44: Timour has dissembled this secret and importantnegotiation with the Tartars, which is indisputably proved by the jointevidence 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 theInstitutions, to the copious narratives of Sherefeddin (l. V. C. 44--65)and Arabshah, (tom. Ii. C. 20--35. ) On this part only of Timour'shistory 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 longand so often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected as a fable bythe modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity. [46] They appealwith confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, which hasbeen given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which Ishall collect and abridge a more specious narrative of this memorabletransaction. No sooner was Timour informed that the captive Ottoman wasat the door of his tent, than he graciously stepped forwards to receivehim, seated him by his side, and mingled with just reproaches a soothingpity for his rank and misfortune. "Alas!" said the emperor, "the decreeof fate is now accomplished by your own fault; it is the web which youhave woven, the thorns of the tree which yourself have planted. I wishedto spare, and even to assist, the champion of the Moslems; you bravedour threats; you despised our friendship; you forced us to enteryour kingdom with our invincible armies. Behold the event. Had youvanquished, I am not ignorant of the fate which you reserved for myselfand my troops. But I disdain to retaliate: your life and honor aresecure; and I shall express my gratitude to God by my clemency toman. " The royal captive showed some signs of repentance, accepted thehumiliation of a robe of honor, and embraced with tears his son Mousa, who, at his request, was sought and found among the captives of thefield. The Ottoman princes were lodged in a splendid pavilion; and therespect of the guards could be surpassed only by their vigilance. On thearrival of the harem from Boursa, Timour restored the queen Despina andher daughter to their father and husband; but he piously required, thatthe Servian princess, who had hitherto been indulged in the professionof Christianity, should embrace without delay the religion of theprophet. In the feast of victory, to which Bajazet was invited, theMogul emperor placed a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, witha solemn assurance of restoring him with an increase of glory to thethrone of his ancestors. But the effect of his promise was disappointedby the sultan's untimely death: amidst the care of the most skilfulphysicians, he expired of an apoplexy at Akshehr, the Antioch ofPisidia, about nine months after his defeat. The victor dropped a tearover his grave: his body, with royal pomp, was conveyed to the mausoleumwhich he had erected at Boursa; and his son Mousa, after receiving arich present of gold and jewels, of horses and arms, was invested by apatent 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 occasionshis incredulity is reasonable. ]

Such is the portrait of a generous conqueror, which has been extractedfrom his own memorials, and dedicated to his son and grandson, nineteen years after his decease; [47] and, at a time when the truthwas remembered by thousands, a manifest falsehood would have implied asatire on his real conduct. Weighty indeed is this evidence, adoptedby all the Persian histories; [48] yet flattery, more especially in theEast, is base and audacious; and the harsh and ignominious treatmentof Bajazet is attested by a chain of witnesses, some of whom shall beproduced in the order of their time and country. _1. _ The reader has notforgot the garrison of French, whom the marshal Boucicault left behindhim for the defence of Constantinople. They were on the spot to receivethe earliest and most faithful intelligence of the overthrow of theirgreat adversary; and it is more than probable, that some of themaccompanied the Greek embassy to the camp of Tamerlane. From theiraccount, the _hardships_ of the prison and death of Bajazet are affirmedby the marshal's servant and historian, within the distance of sevenyears. [49] _2. _ The name of Poggius the Italian [50] is deservedly famousamong the revivers of learning in the fifteenth century. His elegantdialogue on the vicissitudes of fortune [51] was composed in his fiftiethyear, twenty-eight years after the Turkish victory of Tamerlane; [52]whom he celebrates as not inferior to the illustrious Barbarians ofantiquity. Of his exploits and discipline Poggius was informed byseveral ocular witnesses; nor does he forget an example so apposite tohis theme as the Ottoman monarch, whom the Scythian confined like a wildbeast in an iron cage, and exhibited a spectacle to Asia. I might addthe 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 Arabshahcomposed at Damascus the florid and malevolent history of Timour, for which he had collected materials in his journeys over Turkey andTartary. [54] Without any possible correspondence between the Latin andthe Arabian writer, they agree in the fact of the iron cage; and theiragreement is a striking proof of their common veracity. Ahmed Arabshahlikewise relates another outrage, which Bajazet endured, of a moredomestic and tender nature. His indiscreet mention of women and divorceswas deeply resented by the jealous Tartar: in the feast of victory thewine was served by female cupbearers, and the sultan beheld his ownconcubines and wives confounded among the slaves, and exposed without aveil to the eyes of intemperance. To escape a similar indignity, it issaid that his successors, except in a single instance, have abstainedfrom legitimate nuptials; and the Ottoman practice and belief, at leastin the sixteenth century, is asserted by the observing Busbequius, [55]ambassador from the court of Vienna to the great Soliman. _4. _ Such isthe separation of language, that the testimony of a Greek is not lessindependent than that of a Latin or an Arab. I suppress the names ofChalcondyles and Ducas, who flourished in the latter period, and whospeak in a less positive tone; but more attention is due to GeorgePhranza, [56] protovestiare of the last emperors, and who was born a yearbefore the battle of Angora. Twenty-two years after that event, he wassent ambassador to Amurath the Second; and the historian might conversewith some veteran Janizaries, who had been made prisoners with thesultan, and had themselves seen him in his iron cage. 5. The lastevidence, in every sense, is that of the Turkish annals, which have beenconsulted or transcribed by Leunclavius, Pocock, and Cantemir. [57] Theyunanimously deplore the captivity of the iron cage; and some creditmay be allowed to national historians, who cannot stigmatize the Tartarwithout 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 dedicatedto Sultan Ibrahim, the son of Sharokh, the son of Timour, who reigned inFarsistan in his father's lifetime. ]

[Footnote 48: After the perusal of Khondemir, Ebn Schounah, &c. , thelearned D'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 882) may affirm, that thisfable is not mentioned in the most authentic histories; but his denialof the visible testimony of Arabshah leaves some room to suspect hisaccuracy. ]

[Footnote 49: Et fut lui-même (Bajazet) pris, et mené en prison, enlaquelle mourut de _dure mort!_ Mémoires de Boucicault, P. I. C. 37. These Memoirs were composed while the marshal was still governor ofGenoa, from whence he was expelled in the year 1409, by a popularinsurrection, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. Xii. P. 473, 474. )]

[Footnote 50: The reader will find a satisfactory account of the lifeand writings of Poggius in the Poggiana, an entertaining work ofM. Lenfant, and in the Bibliotheca Latina Mediæ et Infimæ Ætatis ofFabricius, (tom. V. P. 305--308. ) Poggius was born in the year 1380, anddied in 1459. ]

[Footnote 51: The dialogue de Varietate Fortunæ, (of which a completeand elegant edition has been published at Paris in 1723, in 4to. , ) wascomposed a short time before the death of Pope Martin V. , (p. 5, ) andconsequently 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. .. . Regemvivum cepit, caveâque in modum feræ inclusum per omnem Asian circumtulitegregium admirandumque spectaculum fortunæ. ]

[Footnote 53: The Chronicon Tarvisianum, (in Muratori, Script. RerumItalicarum tom. Xix. P. 800, ) and the Annales Estenses, (tom. Xviii. P. 974. ) The two authors, Andrea de Redusiis de Quero, and James deDelayto, were both contemporaries, and both chancellors, the one ofTrevigi, the other of Ferrara. The evidence of the former is the mostpositive. ]

[Footnote 54: See Arabshah, tom. Ii. C. 28, 34. He travelled in regionesRumæas, A. H. 839, (A. D. 1435, July 27, ) tom. I. C. 2, p. 13. ]

[Footnote 55: Busbequius in Legatione Turcicâ, epist. I. P. 52. Yet hisrespectable authority is somewhat shaken by the subsequent marriagesof 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, ) andhis life in Hanckius (de Script. Byzant. P. I. C. 40. ) Chalcondyles andDucas speak in general terms of Bajazet's _chains_. ]

[Footnote 57: Annales Leunclav. P. 321. Pocock, Prolegomen. AdAbulpharag Dynast. Cantemir, p. 55. * Note: Von Hammer, p. 318, cites several authorities unknown toGibbon. --M. ]

From these opposite premises, a fair and moderate conclusion may bededuced. I am satisfied that Sherefeddin Ali has faithfully describedthe first ostentatious interview, in which the conqueror, whose spiritswere harmonized by success, affected the character of generosity. Buthis mind was insensibly alienated by the unseasonable arrogance ofBajazet; the complaints of his enemies, the Anatolian princes, were justand vehement; and Timour betrayed a design of leading his royal captivein triumph to Samarcand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digginga mine under the tent, provoked the Mogul emperor to impose a harsherrestraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon mightbe invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. Timour had read in some fabulous history a similar treatment of oneof his predecessors, a king of Persia; and Bajazet was condemned torepresent the person, and expiate the guilt, of the Roman Cæsar [58] [581]But the strength of his mind and body fainted under the trial, and hispremature death might, without injustice, be ascribed to the severityof Timour. He warred not with the dead: a tear and a sepulchre were allthat he could bestow on a captive who was delivered from his power; andif Mousa, the son of Bajazet, was permitted to reign over the ruins ofBoursa, the greatest part of the province of Anatolia had been restoredby the conqueror to their lawful sovereigns. 

[Footnote 58: Sapor, king of Persia, had been made prisoner, andenclosed in the figure of a cow's hide by Maximian or Galerius Cæsar. 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 theOrientals of the ages which precede the Hegira. ]

[Footnote 581: Von Hammer's explanation of this contested point is bothsimple and satisfactory. It originates in a mistake in the meaning ofthe Turkish word kafe, which means a covered litter or palanquin drawnby two horses, and is generally used to convey the harem of an Easternmonarch. In such a litter, with the lattice-work made of iron, Bajazeteither chose or was constrained to travel. This was either mistakenfor, or transformed by, ignorant relaters into a cage. The EuropeanSchiltberger, the two oldest of the Turkish historians, and the mostvaluable of the later compilers, Seadeddin, describe this litter. Seadeddin discusses the question with some degree of historicalcriticism, and ascribes the choice of such a vehicle to the indignantstate of Bajazet's mind, which would not brook the sight of his Tartarconquerors. Von Hammer, p. 320. --M. ]

From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges toDamascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of Timour: his armieswere invincible, his ambition was boundless, and his zeal might aspireto conquer and convert the Christian kingdoms of the West, which alreadytrembled at his name. He touched the utmost verge of the land; but aninsuperable, though narrow, sea rolled between the two continents ofEurope and Asia; [59] and the lord of so many _tomans_, or myriads, of horse, was not master of a single galley. The two passages ofthe Bosphorus and Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, werepossessed, the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On thisgreat occasion, they forgot the difference of religion, to act withunion and firmness in the common cause: the double straits wereguarded with ships and fortifications; and they separately withheld thetransports which Timour demanded of either nation, under the pretenceof attacking their enemy. At the same time, they soothed his pride withtributary gifts and suppliant embassies, and prudently tempted himto retreat with the honors of victory. Soliman, the son of Bajazet, implored his clemency for his father and himself; accepted, by a redpatent, the investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which he alreadyheld by the sword; and reiterated his ardent wish, of casting himselfin 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 hadstipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the treaty by an oathof allegiance, from which he could absolve his conscience so soon as theMogul arms had retired from Anatolia. But the fears and fancy of nationsascribed to the ambitious Tamerlane a new design of vast and romanticcompass; a design of subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nileto the Atlantic Ocean, entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returninghome by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote, and perhapsimaginary, danger was averted by the submission of the sultan of Egypt:the honors of the prayer and the coin attested at Cairo the supremacyof Timour; and a rare gift of a _giraffe_, or camelopard, and nineostriches, 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, theinvasion of the Chinese empire. [61] Timour was urged to this enterpriseby national honor and religious zeal. The torrents which he had shed ofMussulman blood could be expiated only by an equal destruction of theinfidels; and as he now stood at the gates of paradise, he might bestsecure his glorious entrance by demolishing the idols of China, foundingmosques in every city, and establishing the profession of faith inone God, and his prophet Mahomet. The recent expulsion of the house ofZingis was an insult on the Mogul name; and the disorders of the empireafforded the fairest opportunity for revenge. The illustrious Hongvou, founder of the dynasty of _Ming_, died four years before the battle ofAngora; and his grandson, a weak and unfortunate youth, was burnt in hispalace, after a million of Chinese had perished in the civil war. [62]Before he evacuated Anatolia, Timour despatched beyond the Sihoon anumerous army, or rather colony, of his old and new subjects, to openthe road, to subdue the Pagan Calmucks and Mungals, and to found citiesand magazines in the desert; and, by the diligence of his lieutenant, hesoon received a perfect map and description of the unknown regions, from the source of the Irtish to the wall of China. During thesepreparations, the emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia; passedthe winter on the banks of the Araxes; appeased the troubles of Persia;and slowly returned to his capital, after a campaign of four years andnine months. 

[Footnote 59: Arabshah (tom. Ii. C. 25) describes, like a curioustraveller, the Straits of Gallipoli and Constantinople. To acquire ajust idea of these events, I have compared the narratives and prejudicesof the Moguls, Turks, Greeks, and Arabians. The Spanish ambassadormentions this hostile union of the Christians and Ottomans, (Vie deTimour, p. 96. )]

[Footnote 60: Since the name of Cæsar had been transferred to thesultans 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 bycorruption from the genitive tou kuriou, (Cantemir, p. 51. )]

[Footnote 61: See Sherefeddin, l. V. C. 4, who marks, in a justitinerary, the road to China, which Arabshah (tom. Ii. C. 33) paints invague and rhetorical colors. ]

[Footnote 62: Synopsis Hist. Sinicæ, p. 74--76, (in the ivth part ofthe Relations de Thevenot, ) Duhalde, Hist. De la Chine, (tom. I. P. 507, 508, folio edition;) and for the Chronology of the Chinese emperors, DeGuignes, 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, hismagnificence and power; listened to the complaints of the people;distributed a just measure of rewards and punishments; employed hisriches in the architecture of palaces and temples; and gave audience tothe ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India, Tartary, Russia, and Spain, thelast of whom presented a suit of tapestry which eclipsed the pencil ofthe Oriental artists. The marriage of six of the emperor's grandsons wasesteemed an act of religion as well as of paternal tenderness; and thepomp of the ancient caliphs was revived in their nuptials. They werecelebrated in the gardens of Canighul, decorated with innumerable tentsand pavilions, which displayed the luxury of a great city and the spoilsof a victorious camp. Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for thekitchens; the plain was spread with pyramids of meat, and vases ofevery liquor, to which thousands of guests were courteously invited: theorders of the state, and the nations of the earth, were marshalled atthe royal banquet; nor were the ambassadors of Europe (says the haughtyPersian) excluded from the feast; since even the _casses_, the smallestof fish, find their place in the ocean. [64] The public joy was testifiedby illuminations and masquerades; the trades of Samarcand passed inreview; and every trade was emulous to execute some quaint device, somemarvellous pageant, with the materials of their peculiar art. After themarriage contracts had been ratified by the cadhis, the bride-grooms andtheir brides retired to the nuptial chambers: nine times, according tothe Asiatic fashion, they were dressed and undressed; and at eachchange of apparel, pearls and rubies were showered on their heads, andcontemptuously abandoned to their attendants. A general indulgencewas proclaimed: every law was relaxed, every pleasure was allowed; thepeople was free, the sovereign was idle; and the historian of Timour mayremark, that, after devoting fifty years to the attainment of empire, the only happy period of his life were the two months in which heceased to exercise his power. But he was soon awakened to the cares ofgovernment and war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion of China:the emirs made their report of two hundred thousand, the select andveteran soldiers of Iran and Touran: their baggage and provisions weretransported by five hundred great wagons, and an immense train of horsesand camels; and the troops might prepare for a long absence, since morethan six months were employed in the tranquil journey of a caravan fromSamarcand to Pekin. Neither age, nor the severity of the winter, couldretard the impatience of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed theSihoon on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs, three hundred miles, from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the neighborhood ofOtrar, where he was expected by the angel of death. Fatigue, and theindiscreet 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. Hisdesigns were lost; his armies were disbanded; China was saved; andfourteen years after his decease, the most powerful of his children sentan embassy of friendship and commerce to the court of Pekin. [65]

[Footnote 63: For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, seeSherefeddin (l. Vi. C. 1--30) and Arabshah, (tom. Ii. C. 36--47. )]

[Footnote 64: Sherefeddin (l. Vi. C. 24) mentions the ambassadors of oneof 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 stillextant, (Mariana, Hist. Hispan. L. Xix. C. 11, tom. Ii. P. 329, 330. Avertissement à l'Hist. De Timur Bec, p. 28--33. ) There appears likewiseto have been some correspondence between the Mogul emperor and thecourt of Charles VII. King of France, (Histoire de France, par Velly etVillaret, tom. Xii. P. 336. )]

[Footnote 65: See the translation of the Persian account of theirembassy, a curious and original piece, (in the ivth part of theRelations de Thevenot. ) They presented the emperor of China with an oldhorse which Timour had formerly rode. It was in the year 1419 that theydeparted from the court of Herat, to which place they returned in 1422from Pekin. ]

The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West: his posterity isstill invested with the Imperial _title_; and the admiration of hissubjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be justified insome 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 notunworthy of his rank; and his vigorous health, so essential to himselfand to the world, was corroborated by temperance and exercise. In hisfamiliar discourse he was grave and modest, and if he was ignorant ofthe Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persianand Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned ontopics of history and science; and the amusement of his leisurehours was the game of chess, which he improved or corrupted with newrefinements. [67] In his religion he was a zealous, though not perhapsan orthodox, Mussulman; [68] but his sound understanding may tempt us tobelieve, that a superstitious reverence for omens and prophecies, forsaints and astrologers, was only affected as an instrument of policy. Inthe government of a vast empire, he stood alone and absolute, withouta rebel to oppose his power, a favorite to seduce his affections, ora minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, thatwhatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should neverbe disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously observed, thatthe commands of anger and destruction were more strictly executed thanthose of beneficence and favor. His sons and grandsons, of whom Timourleft six-and-thirty at his decease, were his first and most submissivesubjects; and whenever they deviated from their duty, they werecorrected, according to the laws of Zingis, with the bastinade, andafterwards restored to honor and command. Perhaps his heart was notdevoid of the social virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving hisfriends and pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are foundedon the public interest; and it may be sufficient to applaud the _wisdom_of a monarch, for the liberality by which he is not impoverished, andfor the justice by which he is strengthened and enriched. To maintainthe harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, toprotect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idlenessfrom his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrainthe depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of thehusbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal andmoderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without increasing thetaxes, are indeed the duties of a prince; but, in the discharge of theseduties, he finds an ample and immediate recompense. Timour might boast, that, at his accession to the throne, Asia was the prey of anarchyand rapine, whilst under his prosperous monarchy a child, fearless andunhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the East to the West. Such washis confidence of merit, that from this reformation he derived an excusefor his victories, and a title to universal dominion. The four followingobservations will serve to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude;and perhaps we shall conclude, that the Mogul emperor was rather thescourge than the benefactor of mankind. _1. _ If some partial disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour, the remedywas far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine, cruelty, anddiscord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; butwhole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. Theground which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often markedby 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 utterlydestroyed, in his presence, and by his troops: and perhaps hisconscience would have been startled, if a priest or philosopher haddared to number the millions of victims whom he had sacrificed to theestablishment of peace and order. [69] _2. _ His most destructive warswere rather inroads than conquests. He invaded Turkestan, Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia, without ahope or a desire of preserving those distant provinces. From thence hedeparted laden with spoil; but he left behind him neither troops to awethe contumacious, nor magistrates to protect the obedient, natives. Whenhe had broken the fabric of their ancient government, he abandoned themto the evils which his invasion had aggravated or caused; nor were theseevils compensated by any present or possible benefits. _3. _ The kingdomsof Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he labored tocultivate and adorn, as the perpetual inheritance of his family. But hispeaceful labors were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by theabsence of the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges, his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their duty. Thepublic and private injuries were poorly redressed by the tardy rigorof 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, theyevaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern, was theambition of his children and grandchildren; [70] the enemies of eachother and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld with someglory by Sharokh, his youngest son; but after _his_ decease, the scenewas again involved in darkness and blood; and before the end of acentury, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbeks from thenorth, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race of Timourwould have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in the fifth degree, had not fled before the Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. Hissuccessors (the great Moguls [71]) extended their sway from the mountainsof Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire had been dissolved; theirtreasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the richestof 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 colorsare borrowed from Sherefeddin, D'Herbelot, and the Institutions. ]

[Footnote 67: His new system was multiplied from 32 pieces and 64squares to 56 pieces and 110 or 130 squares; but, except in his court, the old game has been thought sufficiently elaborate. The Mogul emperorwas rather pleased than hurt with the victory of a subject: a chessplayer 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, whoalmost preferred to the Koran the _Yacsa_, or Law of Zingis, (cui Deusmaledicat;) nor will he believe that Sharokh had abolished the use andauthority of that Pagan code. ]

[Footnote 69: Besides the bloody passages of this narrative, I mustrefer to an anticipation in the third volume of the Decline and Fall, which in a single note (p. 234, note 25) accumulates nearly 300, 000heads of the monuments of his cruelty. Except in Rowe's play onthe fifth of November, I did not expect to hear of Timour's amiablemoderation (White's preface, p. 7. ) Yet I can excuse a generousenthusiasm 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 ofNadir Shah, (p. 1--62. ) The story of Timour's descendants is imperfectlytold; and the second and third parts of Sherefeddin are unknown. ]

[Footnote 71: Shah Allum, the present Mogul, is in the fourteenth degreefrom Timour, by Miran Shah, his third son. See the second volume ofDow's History of Hindostan. ]

Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy. The massy trunk wasbent to the ground, but no sooner did the hurricane pass away, than itagain rose with fresh vigor and more lively vegetation. When Timour, in every sense, had evacuated Anatolia, he left the cities without apalace, a treasure, or a king. The open country was overspread withhordes of shepherds and robbers of Tartar or Turkman origin; the recentconquests of Bajazet were restored to the emirs, one of whom, in baserevenge, demolished his sepulchre; and his five sons were eager, bycivil discord, to consume the remnant of their patrimony. I shallenumerate their names in the order of their age and actions. [72] _1. _ Itis doubtful, whether I relate the story of the true _Mustapha_, or of animpostor who personated that lost prince. He fought by his father's sidein the battle of Angora: but when the captive sultan was permitted toinquire for his children, Mousa alone could be found; and the Turkishhistorians, the slaves of the triumphant faction, are persuaded that hisbrother was confounded among the slain. If Mustapha escaped from thatdisastrous field, he was concealed twelve years from his friends andenemies; till he emerged in Thessaly, and was hailed by a numerousparty, as the son and successor of Bajazet. His first defeat would havebeen his last, had not the true, or false, Mustapha been saved by theGreeks, and restored, after the decease of his brother Mahomet, toliberty and empire. A degenerate mind seemed to argue his spuriousbirth; and if, on the throne of Adrianople, he was adored as the Ottomansultan, his flight, his fetters, and an ignominious gibbet, deliveredthe impostor to popular contempt. A similar character and claim wasasserted by several rival pretenders: thirty persons are said to havesuffered under the name of Mustapha; and these frequent executions mayperhaps insinuate, that the Turkish court was not perfectly secure ofthe death of the lawful prince. _2. _ After his father's captivity, Isa[73] reigned for some time in the neighborhood of Angora, Sinope, andthe Black Sea; and his ambassadors were dismissed from the presence ofTimour with fair promises and honorable gifts. But their master was soondeprived of his province and life, by a jealous brother, the sovereignof Amasia; and the final event suggested a pious allusion, that thelaw of Moses and Jesus, of _Isa_ and _Mousa_, had been abrogated bythe greater Mahomet. _3. _ _Soliman_ is not numbered in the list of theTurkish emperors: yet he checked the victorious progress of the Moguls;and after their departure, united for a while the thrones of Adrianopleand Boursa. In war he was brave, active, and fortunate; his courage wassoftened by clemency; but it was likewise inflamed by presumption, and corrupted by intemperance and idleness. He relaxed the nerves ofdiscipline, in a government where either the subject or the sovereignmust continually tremble: his vices alienated the chiefs of the army andthe law; and his daily drunkenness, so contemptible in a prince and aman, was doubly odious in a disciple of the prophet. In the slumber ofintoxication he was surprised by his brother Mousa; and as he fled fromAdrianople towards the Byzantine capital, Soliman was overtaken andslain 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: histributary kingdom of Anatolia was confined within a narrow limit, norcould his broken militia and empty treasury contend with the hardy andveteran bands of the sovereign of Romania. Mousa fled in disguise fromthe palace of Boursa; traversed the Propontis in an open boat; wanderedover the Walachian and Servian hills; and after some vain attempts, ascended the throne of Adrianople, so recently stained with the bloodof Soliman. In a reign of three years and a half, his troops werevictorious against the Christians of Hungary and the Morea; but Mousawas ruined by his timorous disposition and unseasonable clemency. Afterresigning the sovereignty of Anatolia, he fell a victim to the perfidyof his ministers, and the superior ascendant of his brother Mahomet. _5. _The final victory of Mahomet was the just recompense of his prudenceand moderation. Before his father's captivity, the royal youth hadbeen intrusted with the government of Amasia, thirty days' journeyfrom Constantinople, and the Turkish frontier against the Christiansof Trebizond and Georgia. The castle, in Asiatic warfare, was esteemedimpregnable; and the city of Amasia, [74] which is equally divided bythe River Iris, rises on either side in the form of an amphitheatre, andrepresents on a smaller scale the image of Bagdad. In his rapid career, Timour appears to have overlooked this obscure and contumacious angle ofAnatolia; and Mahomet, without provoking the conqueror, maintained hissilent independence, and chased from the province the last stragglers ofthe Tartar host. [741] He relieved himself from the dangerous neighborhoodof Isa; but in the contests of their more powerful brethren his firmneutrality was respected; till, after the triumph of Mousa, he stoodforth the heir and avenger of the unfortunate Soliman. Mahomet obtainedAnatolia by treaty, and Romania by arms; and the soldier who presentedhim with the head of Mousa was rewarded as the benefactor of hisking and country. The eight years of his sole and peaceful reign wereusefully employed in banishing the vices of civil discord, and restoringon a firmer basis the fabric of the Ottoman monarchy. His last care wasthe choice of two viziers, Bajazet and Ibrahim, [75] who might guide theyouth of his son Amurath; and such was their union and prudence, thatthey concealed above forty days the emperor's death, till the arrival ofhis successor in the palace of Boursa. A new war was kindled in Europeby the prince, or impostor, Mustapha; the first vizier lost his armyand his head; but the more fortunate Ibrahim, whose name and family arestill 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 ofMustapha, 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 andbest informed. ]

[Footnote 73: Arabshah, (tom. Ii. C. 26, ) whose testimony on thisoccasion is weighty and valuable. The existence of Isa (unknown to theTurks) 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 sufferedseverely from the exactions of his officers, recognized and followedhim. Soliman shot two of them, the others discharged their arrows intheir 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 contemporaryGreek, (Ducas, c. 25. ) His descendants are the sole nobles inTurkey: they content themselves with the administration of his piousfoundations, are excused from public offices, and receive two annualvisits 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 andAnatolia, so often torn asunder by private ambition, were animated bya strong and invincible tendency of cohesion. Their efforts mighthave instructed the Christian powers; and had they occupied, with aconfederate fleet, the Straits of Gallipoli, the Ottomans, at least inEurope, must have been speedily annihilated. But the schism of the West, and the factions and wars of France and England, diverted the Latinsfrom this generous enterprise: they enjoyed the present respite, withouta thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a momentary interest toserve the common enemy of their religion. A colony of Genoese, [76] whichhad been planted at Phocæa [77] on the Ionian coast, was enriched bythe lucrative monopoly of alum; [78] and their tranquillity, under theTurkish empire, was secured by the annual payment of tribute. In thelast civil war of the Ottomans, the Genoese governor, Adorno, a boldand ambitious youth, embraced the party of Amurath; and undertook, withseven stout galleys, to transport him from Asia to Europe. The sultanand five hundred guards embarked on board the admiral's ship; which wasmanned by eight hundred of the bravest Franks. His life and liberty werein their hands; nor can we, without reluctance, applaud the fidelityof Adorno, who, in the midst of the passage, knelt before him, andgratefully accepted a discharge of his arrears of tribute. They landedin sight of Mustapha and Gallipoli; two thousand Italians, armed withlances and battle-axes, attended Amurath to the conquest of Adrianople;and this venal service was soon repaid by the ruin of the commerce andcolony of Phocæa. 

[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 ofthese, a curious and careful observer, is entitled, from his birthand station, to particular credit in all that concerns Ionia and theislands. Among the nations that resorted to New Phocæa, he mentions theEnglish; ('Igglhnoi;) an early evidence of Mediterranean trade. ]

[Footnote 77: For the spirit of navigation, and freedom of ancientPhocæa, or rather the Phocæans, 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: Phocæa 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 byTournefort, (tom. I. Lettre iv. , ) a traveller and a naturalist. Afterthe loss of Phocæa, the Genoese, in 1459, found that useful mineral inthe Isle of Ischia, (Ismael. Bouillaud, ad Ducam, c. 25. )]

If Timour had generously marched at the request, and to the relief, ofthe Greek emperor, he might be entitled to the praise and gratitude ofthe Christians. [79] But a Mussulman, who carried into Georgia the swordof persecution, and respected the holy warfare of Bajazet, was notdisposed to pity or succor the _idolaters_ of Europe. The Tartarfollowed the impulse of ambition; and the deliverance of Constantinoplewas the accidental consequence. When Manuel abdicated the government, it was his prayer, rather than his hope, that the ruin of the churchand state might be delayed beyond his unhappy days; and after his returnfrom a western pilgrimage, he expected every hour the news of thesad catastrophe. On a sudden, he was astonished and rejoiced by theintelligence of the retreat, the overthrow, and the captivity of theOttoman. Manuel [80] immediately sailed from Modon in the Morea; ascendedthe throne of Constantinople, and dismissed his blind competitor to aneasy exile in the Isle of Lesbos. The ambassadors of the son of Bajazetwere soon introduced to his presence; but their pride was fallen, theirtone was modest: they were awed by the just apprehension, lest theGreeks should open to the Moguls the gates of Europe. Soliman salutedthe emperor by the name of father; solicited at his hands the governmentor gift of Romania; and promised to deserve his favor by inviolablefriendship, and the restitution of Thessalonica, with the most importantplaces along the Strymon, the Propontis, and the Black Sea. The allianceof Soliman exposed the emperor to the enmity and revenge of Mousa: theTurks appeared in arms before the gates of Constantinople; but theywere repulsed by sea and land; and unless the city was guarded by someforeign mercenaries, the Greeks must have wondered at their own triumph. But, instead of prolonging the division of the Ottoman powers, thepolicy or passion of Manuel was tempted to assist the most formidable ofthe sons of Bajazet. He concluded a treaty with Mahomet, whose progresswas checked by the insuperable barrier of Gallipoli: the sultan andhis troops were transported over the Bosphorus; he was hospitablyentertained in the capital; and his successful sally was the first stepto the conquest of Romania. The ruin was suspended by the prudenceand moderation of the conqueror: he faithfully discharged his ownobligations and those of Soliman, respected the laws of gratitude andpeace; and left the emperor guardian of his two younger sons, in thevain hope of saving them from the jealous cruelty of their brotherAmurath. But the execution of his last testament would have offended thenational honor and religion; and the divan unanimously pronounced, thatthe royal youths should never be abandoned to the custody and educationof a Christian dog. On this refusal, the Byzantine councils weredivided; but the age and caution of Manuel yielded to the presumptionof his son John; and they unsheathed a dangerous weapon of revenge, bydismissing the true or false Mustapha, who had long been detained as acaptive and hostage, and for whose maintenance they received an annualpension of three hundred thousand aspers. [81] At the door of his prison, Mustapha subscribed to every proposal; and the keys of Gallipoli, orrather of Europe, were stipulated as the price of his deliverance. Butno sooner was he seated on the throne of Romania, than he dismissed theGreek ambassadors with a smile of contempt, declaring, in a pious tone, that, at the day of judgment, he would rather answer for the violationof an oath, than for the surrender of a Mussulman city into the hands ofthe infidels. The emperor was at once the enemy of the two rivals; fromwhom he had sustained, and to whom he had offered, an injury; and thevictory of Amurath was followed, in the ensuing spring, by the siege ofConstantinople. [82]

[Footnote 79: The writer who has the most abused this fabulousgenerosity, is our ingenious Sir William Temple, (his Works, vol. Iii. P. 349, 350, octavo edition, ) that lover of exotic virtue. After theconquest of Russia, &c. , and the passage of the Danube, his Tartar herorelieves, visits, admires, and refuses the city of Constantine. Hisflattering pencil deviates in every line from the truth of history;yet his pleasing fictions are more excusable than the gross errors ofCantemir. ]

[Footnote 80: For the reigns of Manuel and John, of Mahomet I. AndAmurath II. , see the Othman history of Cantemir, (p. 70--95, ) and thethree Greeks, Chalcondyles, Phranza, and Ducas, who is still superior tohis rivals. ]

[Footnote 81: The Turkish asper (from the Greek asproV) is, or was, apiece of _white_ or silver money, at present much debased, but which wasformerly equivalent to the 54th part, at least, of a Venetian ducat orsequin; 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. Theasper was a century before the time of which writes, the tenth part of aducat; for the same tribute which the Byzantine writers state at 300, 000aspers the Ottomans state at 30, 000 ducats, about 15000l Note, vol. P. 636. --M. ]

[Footnote 82: For the siege of Constantinople in 1422, see theparticular and contemporary narrative of John Cananus, published by LeoAllatius, at the end of his edition of Acropolita, (p. 188--199. )]

The religious merit of subduing the city of the Cæsars attracted fromAsia a crowd of volunteers, who aspired to the crown of martyrdom: theirmilitary ardor was inflamed by the promise of rich spoils and beautifulfemales; and the sultan's ambition was consecrated by the presence andprediction of Seid Bechar, a descendant of the prophet, [83] whoarrived in the camp, on a mule, with a venerable train of five hundreddisciples. But he might blush, if a fanatic could blush, at the failureof his assurances. The strength of the walls resisted an army of twohundred thousand Turks; their assaults were repelled by the sallies ofthe Greeks and their foreign mercenaries; the old resources of defencewere opposed to the new engines of attack; and the enthusiasm of thedervis, who was snatched to heaven in visionary converse with Mahomet, was answered by the credulity of the Christians, who _beheld_ the VirginMary, in a violet garment, walking on the rampart and animating theircourage. [84] After a siege of two months, Amurath was recalled to Boursaby a domestic revolt, which had been kindled by Greek treachery, and wassoon extinguished by the death of a guiltless brother. While he led hisJanizaries to new conquests in Europe and Asia, the Byzantine empirewas indulged in a servile and precarious respite of thirty years. Manuelsank into the grave; and John Palæologus was permitted to reign, for anannual tribute of three hundred thousand aspers, and the dereliction ofalmost 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 hisamours the privilege of a prophet, and that the fairest of the Greeknuns were promised to the saint and his disciples. ]

[Footnote 84: For this miraculous apparition, Cananus appeals to theMussulman saint; but who will bear testimony for Seid Bechar?]

In the establishment and restoration of the Turkish empire, the firstmerit must doubtless be assigned to the personal qualities of thesultans; since, in human life, the most important scenes will depend onthe character of a single actor. By some shades of wisdom and virtue, they may be discriminated from each other; but, except in a singleinstance, 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 arare series of warlike and active princes, who impressed their subjectswith obedience and their enemies with terror. Instead of the slothfulluxury of the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in thecouncil and the field: from early youth they were intrusted by theirfathers with the command of provinces and armies; and this manlyinstitution, which was often productive of civil war, must haveessentially contributed to the discipline and vigor of the monarchy. The Ottomans cannot style themselves, like the Arabian caliphs, thedescendants or successors of the apostle of God; and the kindred whichthey claim with the Tartar khans of the house of Zingis appears to befounded in flattery rather than in truth. [85] Their origin is obscure;but their sacred and indefeasible right, which no time can erase, and noviolence can infringe, was soon and unalterably implanted in theminds of their subjects. A weak or vicious sultan may be deposed andstrangled; but his inheritance devolves to an infant or an idiot: norhas the most daring rebel presumed to ascend the throne of his lawfulsovereign. [86]

[Footnote 85: See Ricaut, (l. I. C. 13. ) The Turkish sultans assume thetitle of khan. Yet Abulghazi is ignorant of his Ottoman cousins. ]

[Footnote 86: The third grand vizier of the name of Kiuperli, who wasslain at the battle of Salankanen in 1691, (Cantemir, p. 382, ) presumedto say that all the successors of Soliman had been fools or tyrants, andthat it was time to abolish the race, (Marsigli Stato Militaire, &c. , p. 28. ) This political heretic was a good Whig, and justified againstthe French ambassador the revolution of England, (Mignot, Hist. DesOttomans, tom. Iii. P. 434. ) His presumption condemns the singularexception of continuing offices in the same family. ]

While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually subverted bya crafty vizier in the palace, or a victorious general in the camp, theOttoman 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 singularinfluence may, however, be ascribed. The primitive subjects of Othmanwere the four hundred families of wandering Turkmans, who had followedhis ancestors from the Oxus to the Sangar; and the plains of Anatoliaare still covered with the white and black tents of their rusticbrethren. But this original drop was dissolved in the mass of voluntaryand vanquished subjects, who, under the name of Turks, are united bythe common ties of religion, language, and manners. In the cities, fromErzeroum to Belgrade, that national appellation is common to allthe Moslems, the first and most honorable inhabitants; but they haveabandoned, at least in Romania, the villages, and the cultivation ofthe land, to the Christian peasants. In the vigorous age of the Ottomangovernment, the Turks were themselves excluded from all civil andmilitary honors; and a servile class, an artificial people, was raisedby the discipline of education to obey, to conquer, and to command. [87] From the time of Orchan and the first Amurath, the sultans werepersuaded that a government of the sword must be renewed in eachgeneration with new soldiers; and that such soldiers must be sought, notin 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 royalfifth of the captives was diminished by conquest, an inhuman tax ofthe fifth child, or of every fifth year, was rigorously levied on theChristian families. At the age of twelve or fourteen years, the mostrobust youths were torn from their parents; their names were enrolled ina 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, andAdrianople, intrusted to the care of the bashaws, or dispersed inthe houses of the Anatolian peasantry. It was the first care of theirmasters to instruct them in the Turkish language: their bodies wereexercised by every labor that could fortify their strength; they learnedto wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with the bow, and afterwards withthe musket; till they were drafted into the chambers and companiesof the Janizaries, and severely trained in the military or monasticdiscipline of the order. The youths most conspicuous for birth, talents, and beauty, were admitted into the inferior class of _Agiamoglans_, orthe more liberal rank of _Ichoglans_, of whom the former were attachedto the palace, and the latter to the person, of the prince. In foursuccessive schools, under the rod of the white eunuchs, the arts ofhorsemanship and of darting the javelin were their daily exercise, whilethose of a more studious cast applied themselves to the study of theKoran, and the knowledge of the Arabic and Persian tongues. As theyadvanced in seniority and merit, they were gradually dismissed tomilitary, civil, and even ecclesiastical employments: the longer theirstay, the higher was their expectation; till, at a mature period, theywere admitted into the number of the forty agas, who stood before thesultan, and were promoted by his choice to the government of provincesand the first honors of the empire. [88] Such a mode of institution wasadmirably adapted to the form and spirit of a despotic monarchy. Theministers and generals were, in the strictest sense, the slaves of theemperor, to whose bounty they were indebted for their instruction andsupport. When they left the seraglio, and suffered their beards to growas the symbol of enfranchisement, they found themselves in an importantoffice, without faction or friendship, without parents and withoutheirs, dependent on the hand which had raised them from the dust, andwhich, on the slightest displeasure, could break in pieces these statuesof glass, as they were aptly termed by the Turkish proverb. [89] In theslow and painful steps of education, their characters and talents wereunfolded to a discerning eye: the _man_, naked and alone, was reduced tothe standard of his personal merit; and, if the sovereign had wisdom tochoose, he possessed a pure and boundless liberty of choice. The Ottomancandidates were trained by the virtues of abstinence to those of action;by the habits of submission to those of command. A similar spiritwas diffused among the troops; and their silence and sobriety, theirpatience and modesty, have extorted the reluctant praise of theirChristian enemies. [90] Nor can the victory appear doubtful, if wecompare the discipline and exercise of the Janizaries with the pride ofbirth, the independence of chivalry, the ignorance of the new levies, the mutinous temper of the veterans, and the vices of intemperance anddisorder, which so long contaminated the armies of Europe. 

[Footnote 87: Chalcondyles (l. V. ) and Ducas (c. 23) exhibit the rudelineament of the Ottoman policy, and the transmutation of Christianchildren into Turkish soldiers. ]

[Footnote 88: This sketch of the Turkish education and discipline ischiefly borrowed from Ricaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, the StatoMilitaire del' Imperio Ottomano of Count Marsigli, (in Haya, 1732, in folio, ) and a description of the Seraglio, approved by Mr. Greaveshimself, a curious traveller, and inserted in the second volume of hisworks. ]

[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 halfpurchase. ]

[Footnote 90: See the entertaining and judicious letters of Busbequius. ]

The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire, and the adjacentkingdoms, would have been some more powerful weapon, some discovery inthe art of war, that would give them a decisive superiority over theirTurkish foes. Such a weapon was in their hands; such a discovery hadbeen made in the critical moment of their fate. The chemists of China orEurope had found, by casual or elaborate experiments, that a mixtureof saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, atremendous explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive forcewere compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might beexpelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise æra ofthe invention and application of gunpowder [91] is involved in doubtfultraditions and equivocal language; yet we may clearly discern, that itwas known before the middle of the fourteenth century; and that beforethe end of the same, the use of artillery in battles and sieges, by seaand land, was familiar to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and England. [92] The priority of nations is of small account; none couldderive any exclusive benefit from their previous or superior knowledge;and in the common improvement, they stood on the same level of relativepower and military science. Nor was it possible to circumscribe thesecret within the pale of the church; it was disclosed to the Turks bythe treachery of apostates and the selfish policy of rivals; and thesultans had sense to adopt, and wealth to reward, the talents of aChristian engineer. The Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as his preceptors; and it was probably by their handsthat his cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople. [93] The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful; but in the generalwarfare of the age, the advantage was on _their_ side, who were mostcommonly the assailants: for a while the proportion of the attack anddefence was suspended; and this thundering artillery was pointed againstthe walls and towers which had been erected only to resist the lesspotent engines of antiquity. By the Venetians, the use of gunpowder wascommunicated without reproach to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, theirallies against the Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to theextremities of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined tohis easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast therapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow and laboriousadvances 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 ChemicalEssays contain two valuable discourses on the discovery and compositionof gunpowder. ]

[Footnote 92: On this subject modern testimonies cannot be trusted. Theoriginal 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 fairlyinterpreted of the old engines and the Greek fire. For the Englishcannon at Crecy, the authority of John Villani (Chron. L. Xii. C. 65) must be weighed against the silence of Froissard. Yet Muratori(Antiquit. Italiæ Medii Ævi, tom. Ii. Dissert. Xxvi. P. 514, 515)has produced a decisive passage from Petrarch, (De Remediis utriusqueFortunæ Dialog. , ) who, before the year 1344, execrates this terrestrialthunder, _nuper_ rara, _nunc_ communis. * Note: Mr. Hallam makesthe following observation on the objectionthrown our by Gibbon: "The positive testimony of Villani, whodied within two years afterwards, and had manifestly obtained muchinformation as to the great events passing in France, cannot berejected. He ascribes a material effect to the cannon of Edward, Colpidelle bombarde, which I suspect, from his strong expressions, had notbeen employed before, except against stone walls. It seems, he says, as if God thundered con grande uccisione di genti e efondamento dicavalli. " Middle Ages, vol. I. P. 510. --M. ]

[Footnote 93: The Turkish cannon, which Ducas (c. 30) first introducesbefore 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, Palæologus. --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 orhostile aspect towards the pope and the Latins may be observed as thethermometer of their prosperity or distress; as the scale of the riseand fall of the Barbarian dynasties. When the Turks of the house ofSeljuk pervaded Asia, and threatened Constantinople, we have seen, atthe council of Placentia, the suppliant ambassadors of Alexius imploringthe protection of the common father of the Christians. No sooner hadthe arms of the French pilgrims removed the sultan from Nice to Iconium, than the Greek princes resumed, or avowed, their genuine hatred andcontempt for the schismatics of the West, which precipitated the firstdownfall of their empire. The date of the Mogul invasion is marked inthe soft and charitable language of John Vataces. After the recovery ofConstantinople, the throne of the first Palæologus was encompassedby foreign and domestic enemies; as long as the sword of Charles wassuspended over his head, he basely courted the favor of the Romanpontiff; and sacrificed to the present danger his faith, his virtue, andthe affection of his subjects. On the decease of Michael, the princeand people asserted the independence of their church, and the purity oftheir creed: the elder Andronicus neither feared nor loved the Latins;in his last distress, pride was the safeguard of superstition; nor couldhe decently retract in his age the firm and orthodox declarations ofhis youth. His grandson, the younger Andronicus, was less a slave inhis temper and situation; and the conquest of Bithynia by the Turksadmonished him to seek a temporal and spiritual alliance with theWestern princes. After a separation and silence of fifty years, a secretagent, the monk Barlaam, was despatched to Pope Benedict the Twelfth;and his artful instructions appear to have been drawn by the master-handof the great domestic. [1] "Most holy father, " was he commissioned tosay, "the emperor is not less desirous than yourself of a union betweenthe two churches: but in this delicate transaction, he is obliged torespect his own dignity and the prejudices of his subjects. The ways ofunion are twofold; force and persuasion. Of force, the inefficacy hasbeen already tried; since the Latins have subdued the empire, withoutsubduing the minds, of the Greeks. The method of persuasion, thoughslow, is sure and permanent. A deputation of thirty or forty of ourdoctors would probably agree with those of the Vatican, in the love oftruth and the unity of belief; but on their return, what would be theuse, the recompense, of such an agreement? the scorn of their brethren, and the reproaches of a blind and obstinate nation. Yet that nationis accustomed to reverence the general councils, which have fixed thearticles of our faith; and if they reprobate the decrees of Lyons, it isbecause the Eastern churches were neither heard nor represented in thatarbitrary meeting. For this salutary end, it will be expedient, andeven necessary, that a well-chosen legate should be sent into Greece, to convene the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, andJerusalem; and, with their aid, to prepare a free and universalsynod. But at this moment, " continued the subtle agent, "the empire isassaulted and endangered by the Turks, who have occupied four of thegreatest cities of Anatolia. The Christian inhabitants have expressed awish of returning to their allegiance and religion; but the forces andrevenues of the emperor are insufficient for their deliverance: and theRoman legate must be accompanied, or preceded, by an army of Franks, to expel the infidels, and open a way to the holy sepulchre. " If thesuspicious Latins should require some pledge, some previous effect ofthe sincerity of the Greeks, the answers of Barlaam were perspicuous andrational. "_1. _ A general synod can alone consummate the union ofthe churches; nor can such a synod be held till the three Orientalpatriarchs, and a great number of bishops, are enfranchised from theMahometan yoke. _2. _ The Greeks are alienated by a long series ofoppression and injury: they must be reconciled by some act of brotherlylove, some effectual succor, which may fortify the authority andarguments of the emperor, and the friends of the union. _3. _ If somedifference of faith or ceremonies should be found incurable, the Greeks, however, are the disciples of Christ; and the Turks are the commonenemies of the Christian name. The Armenians, Cyprians, and Rhodians, are equally attacked; and it will become the piety of the French princesto draw their swords in the general defence of religion. _4. _ Shouldthe subjects of Andronicus be treated as the worst of schismatics, ofheretics, of pagans, a judicious policy may yet instruct the powers ofthe West to embrace a useful ally, to uphold a sinking empire, to guardthe confines of Europe; and rather to join the Greeks against theTurks, than to expect the union of the Turkish arms with the troops andtreasures of captive Greece. " The reasons, the offers, and the demands, of Andronicus were eluded with cold and stately indifference. The kingsof France and Naples declined the dangers and glory of a crusade; thepope refused to call a new synod to determine old articles of faith;and his regard for the obsolete claims of the Latin emperor and clergyengaged him to use an offensive superscription, --"To the _moderator_ [2]of the Greeks, and the persons who style themselves the patriarchs ofthe Eastern churches. " For such an embassy, a time and character lesspropitious could not easily have been found. Benedict the Twelfth [3] wasa dull peasant, perplexed with scruples, and immersed in sloth and wine:his pride might enrich with a third crown the papal tiara, but he wasalike unfit for the regal and the pastoral office. 

[Footnote 1: This curious instruction was transcribed (I believe) fromthe Vatican archives, by Odoricus Raynaldus, in his Continuation of theAnnals of Baronius, (Romæ, 1646--1677, in x. Volumes in folio. ) I havecontented myself with the Abbé Fleury, (Hist. Ecclésiastique. Tom. Xx. P. 1--8, ) whose abstracts I have always found to be clear, accurate, andimpartial. ]

[Footnote 2: The ambiguity of this title is happy or ingenious; and_moderator_, as synonymous to _rector_, _gubernator_, is a word ofclassical, and even Ciceronian, Latinity, which may be found, not in theGlossary of Ducange, but in the Thesaurus of Robert Stephens. ]

[Footnote 3: The first epistle (sine titulo) of Petrarch exposes thedanger of the _bark_, and the incapacity of the _pilot_. Hæc inter, vino madidus, ævo gravis, ac soporifero rore perfusus, jamjam nutitat, dormitat, jam somno præceps, atque (utinam solus) ruit. .. .. Heu quantofelicius patrio terram sulcasset aratro, quam scalmum piscatoriumascendisset! This satire engages his biographer to weigh the virtues andvices of Benedict XII. Which have been exaggerated by Guelphs andGhibe lines, by Papists and Protestants, (see Mémoires sur la Vie dePétrarque, tom. I. P. 259, ii. Not. Xv. P. 13--16. ) He gave occasion tothe saying, Bibamus papaliter. ]

After the decease of Andronicus, while the Greeks were distracted byintestine war, they could not presume to agitate a general union ofthe Christians. But as soon as Cantacuzene had subdued and pardonedhis enemies, he was anxious to justify, or at least to extenuate, theintroduction of the Turks into Europe, and the nuptials of hisdaughter with a Mussulman prince. Two officers of state, with a Latininterpreter, were sent in his name to the Roman court, which wastransplanted to Avignon, on the banks of the Rhône, during a period ofseventy years: they represented the hard necessity which had urged himto embrace the alliance of the miscreants, and pronounced by his commandthe specious and edifying sounds of union and crusade. Pope Clement theSixth, [4] the successor of Benedict, received them with hospitalityand honor, acknowledged the innocence of their sovereign, excused hisdistress, applauded his magnanimity, and displayed a clear knowledge ofthe state and revolutions of the Greek empire, which he had imbibedfrom the honest accounts of a Savoyard lady, an attendant of the empressAnne. [5] If Clement was ill endowed with the virtues of a priest, hepossessed, however, the spirit and magnificence of a prince, whoseliberal hand distributed benefices and kingdoms with equal facility. Under his reign Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure: in his youthhe had surpassed the licentiousness of a baron; and the palace, nay, thebed-chamber of the pope, was adorned, or polluted, by the visits of hisfemale favorites. The wars of France and England were adverse to theholy enterprise; but his vanity was amused by the splendid idea; and theGreek ambassadors returned with two Latin bishops, the ministers of thepontiff. On their arrival at Constantinople, the emperor and the nunciosadmired each other's piety and eloquence; and their frequent conferenceswere filled with mutual praises and promises, by which both parties wereamused, and neither could be deceived. "I am delighted, " said the devoutCantacuzene, "with the project of our holy war, which must redound tomy personal glory, as well as to the public benefit of Christendom. Mydominions 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 ofmartyrdom. Words are insufficient to express the ardor with which I sighfor the reunion of the scattered members of Christ. If my death couldavail, I would gladly present my sword and my neck: if the spiritualphnix could arise from my ashes, I would erect the pile, and kindle theflame with my own hands. " Yet the Greek emperor presumed to observe, that the articles of faith which divided the two churches had beenintroduced by the pride and precipitation of the Latins: he disclaimedthe servile and arbitrary steps of the first Palæologus; and firmlydeclared, that he would never submit his conscience unless to thedecrees of a free and universal synod. "The situation of the times, "continued he, "will not allow the pope and myself to meet either at Romeor Constantinople; but some maritime city may be chosen on the verge ofthe two empires, to unite the bishops, and to instruct the faithful, ofthe East and West. " The nuncios seemed content with the proposition; andCantacuzene affects to deplore the failure of his hopes, which weresoon overthrown by the death of Clement, and the different temper ofhis successor. His own life was prolonged, but it was prolonged in acloister; and, except by his prayers, the humble monk was incapable ofdirecting 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, moltocavallaresco, poco religioso; Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. Tom. Xx. P. 126;)and the Vie de Pétrarque, (tom. Ii. P. 42--45. ) The abbé de Sade treatshim with the most indulgence; but _he_ is a gentleman as well as apriest. ]

[Footnote 5: Her name (most probably corrupted) was Zampea. She hadaccompanied, and alone remained with her mistress at Constantinople, where her prudence, erudition, and politeness deserved the praises ofthe 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, revealsthe uneasiness of a guilty conscience. ]

Yet of all the Byzantine princes, that pupil, John Palæologus, was thebest disposed to embrace, to believe, and to obey, the shepherd of theWest. His mother, Anne of Savoy, was baptized in the bosom of theLatin church: her marriage with Andronicus imposed a change of name, ofapparel, and of worship, but her heart was still faithful to her countryand religion: she had formed the infancy of her son, and she governedthe emperor, after his mind, or at least his stature, was enlarged tothe size of man. In the first year of his deliverance and restoration, the Turks were still masters of the Hellespont; the son of Cantacuzenewas in arms at Adrianople; and Palæologus could depend neither onhimself nor on his people. By his mother's advice, and in the hope offoreign aid, he abjured the rights both of the church and state; andthe act of slavery, [7] subscribed in purple ink, and sealed with the_golden_ bull, was privately intrusted to an Italian agent. The firstarticle of the treaty is an oath of fidelity and obedience to Innocentthe Sixth and his successors, the supreme pontiffs of the Roman andCatholic church. The emperor promises to entertain with due reverencetheir legates and nuncios; to assign a palace for their residence, anda temple for their worship; and to deliver his second son Manuel asthe hostage of his faith. For these condescensions he requires a promptsuccor of fifteen galleys, with five hundred men at arms, and athousand archers, to serve against his Christian and Mussulman enemies. Palæologus engages to impose on his clergy and people the same spiritualyoke; but as the resistance of the Greeks might be justly foreseen, headopts the two effectual methods of corruption and education. The legatewas empowered to distribute the vacant benefices among the ecclesiasticswho should subscribe the creed of the Vatican: three schools wereinstituted to instruct the youth of Constantinople in the language anddoctrine of the Latins; and the name of Andronicus, the heir of theempire, was enrolled as the first student. Should he fail in themeasures of persuasion or force, Palæologus declares himself unworthyto reign; transferred to the pope all regal and paternal authority; andinvests Innocent with full power to regulate the family, the government, and the marriage, of his son and successor. But this treaty was neitherexecuted nor published: the Roman galleys were as vain and imaginary asthe submission of the Greeks; and it was only by the secrecy that theirsovereign 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 wasnot worth the trouble of a pious forgery. ]

The tempest of the Turkish arms soon burst on his head; and after theloss of Adrianople and Romania, he was enclosed in his capital, thevassal of the haughty Amurath, with the miserable hope of being the lastdevoured by the savage. In this abject state, Palæologus embraced theresolution of embarking for Venice, and casting himself at the feet ofthe pope: he was the first of the Byzantine princes who had evervisited the unknown regions of the West, yet in them alone he could seekconsolation or relief; and with less violation of his dignity he mightappear in the sacred college than at the Ottoman _Porte_. After a longabsence, the Roman pontiffs were returning from Avignon to the banksof the Tyber: Urban the Fifth, [8] of a mild and virtuous character, encouraged or allowed the pilgrimage of the Greek prince; and, withinthe same year, enjoyed the glory of receiving in the Vatican thetwo Imperial shadows who represented the majesty of Constantine andCharlemagne. In this suppliant visit, the emperor of Constantinople, whose vanity was lost in his distress, gave more than could be expectedof empty sounds and formal submissions. A previous trial was imposed;and, in the presence of four cardinals, he acknowledged, as a trueCatholic, the supremacy of the pope, and the double procession of theHoly Ghost. After this purification, he was introduced to a publicaudience in the church of St. Peter: Urban, in the midst of thecardinals, was seated on his throne; the Greek monarch, after threegenuflections, devoutly kissed the feet, the hands, and at length themouth, of the holy father, who celebrated high mass in his presence, allowed him to lead the bridle of his mule, and treated him with asumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The entertainment of Palæologus wasfriendly and honorable; yet some difference was observed between theemperors of the East and West; [9] nor could the former be entitled tothe 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 theFrench king and the other powers of the West; but he found them cold inthe general cause, and active only in their domestic quarrels. The lasthope 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 thehostile states; and incurred a just excommunication by shooting hisarrows against the papal residence. A special license was granted tonegotiate with the outlaw, but the forces, or the spirit, of Hawkwood, were unequal to the enterprise: and it was for the advantage, perhaps, of Palæologus 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 returnwas impeded by a most ignominious obstacle. On his arrival at Venice, hehad borrowed large sums at exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty, his creditors were impatient, and his person was detained as the bestsecurity for the payment. His eldest son, Andronicus, the regent ofConstantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource; and evenby stripping the churches, to extricate his father from captivity anddisgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of the disgrace, andsecretly pleased with the captivity of the emperor: the state was poor, the clergy were obstinate; nor could some religious scruple be wantingto excuse the guilt of his indifference and delay. Such undutifulneglect was severely reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, whoinstantly sold or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice, relieved his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsiblefor the debt. On his return to Constantinople, the parent and kingdistinguished his two sons with suitable rewards; but the faith andmanners of the slothful Palæologus had not been improved by his Romanpilgrimage; and his apostasy or conversion, devoid of any spiritual ortemporal 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 theEcclesiastical Annals of Spondanus, (tom. I. P. 573, A. D. 1369, No. 7, )and Raynaldus, (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. Tom. Xx. P. 223, 224. ) Yet, fromsome variations, I suspect the papal writers of slightly magnifying thegenuflections of Palæologus. ]

[Footnote 9: Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum. Yet histitle of Imperator Græcorum was no longer disputed, (Vit. Urban V. P. 623. )]

[Footnote 10: It was confined to the successors of Charlemagne, andto them only on Christmas-day. On all other festivals these Imperialdeacons were content to serve the pope, as he said mass, with the bookand the _corporale_. Yet the abbé de Sade generously thinks that themerits of Charles IV. Might have entitled him, though not on the properday, (A. D. 1368, November 1, ) to the whole privilege. He seems to affixa 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 ofour adventurous countryman, (Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Anglican. InterScriptores Camdeni, p. 184. ) After two-and-twenty victories, and onedefeat, he died, in 1394, general of the Florentines, and was buriedwith 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) overflowedfrom France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in 1630. Yet theexclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. Xii. P. 197) is rather true thancivil. "Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo essere calpestrata l'Italiada tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed Ungheri, venissero fin dall' Inghliterranuovi _cani_ a finire di divorarla. "]

[Footnote 13: Chalcondyles, l. I. P. 25, 26. The Greek supposes hisjourney to the king of France, which is sufficiently refuted by thesilence of the national historians. Nor am I much more inclined tobelieve, that Palæologus departed from Italy, valde bene consolatus etcontentus, (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 ærafor the conspiracy and punishment of Andronicus. ]

Thirty years after the return of Palæologus, his son and successor, Manuel, from a similar motive, but on a larger scale, again visited thecountries of the West. In a preceding chapter I have related his treatywith Bajazet, the violation of that treaty, the siege or blockade ofConstantinople, and the French succor under the command of the gallantBoucicault. [15] By his ambassadors, Manuel had solicited the Latinpowers; but it was thought that the presence of a distressed monarchwould draw tears and supplies from the hardest Barbarians; [16] and themarshal who advised the journey prepared the reception of the Byzantineprince. The land was occupied by the Turks; but the navigation of Venicewas safe and open: Italy received him as the first, or, at least, as thesecond, of the Christian princes; Manuel was pitied as the champion andconfessor of the faith; and the dignity of his behavior prevented thatpity from sinking into contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua andPavia; and even the duke of Milan, a secret ally of Bajazet, gave himsafe and honorable conduct to the verge of his dominions. [17] On theconfines of France [18] the royal officers undertook the care of hisperson, journey, and expenses; and two thousand of the richest citizens, in arms and on horseback, came forth to meet him as far as Charenton, inthe neighborhood of the capital. At the gates of Paris, he was salutedby the chancellor and the parliament; and Charles the Sixth, attended byhis princes and nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace. The successor of Constantine was clothed in a robe of white silk, andmounted on a milk-white steed, a circumstance, in the French ceremonial, of singular importance: the white color is considered as the symbol ofsovereignty; and, in a late visit, the German emperor, after a haughtydemand and a peevish refusal, had been reduced to content himself witha black courser. Manuel was lodged in the Louvre; a succession of feastsand balls, the pleasures of the banquet and the chase, were ingeniouslyvaried by the politeness of the French, to display their magnificence, and amuse his grief: he was indulged in the liberty of his chapel; andthe 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 todespair of any effectual assistance. The unfortunate Charles, thoughhe enjoyed some lucid intervals, continually relapsed into furious orstupid insanity: the reins of government were alternately seized by hisbrother and uncle, the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose factiouscompetition prepared the miseries of civil war. The former was a gayyouth, dissolved in luxury and love: the latter was the father of Johncount of Nevers, who had so lately been ransomed from Turkish captivity;and, if the fearless son was ardent to revenge his defeat, the moreprudent Burgundy was content with the cost and peril of the firstexperiment. When Manuel had satiated the curiosity, and perhaps fatiguedthe patience, of the French, he resolved on a visit to the adjacentisland. In his progress from Dover, he was entertained at Canterburywith due reverence by the prior and monks of St. Austin; and, onBlackheath, King Henry the Fourth, with the English court, salutedthe Greek hero, (I copy our old historian, ) who, during many days, waslodged and treated in London as emperor of the East. [19] But the stateof England was still more adverse to the design of the holy war. In thesame year, the hereditary sovereign had been deposed and murdered: thereigning prince was a successful usurper, whose ambition was punished byjealousy and remorse: nor could Henry of Lancaster withdraw his personor forces from the defence of a throne incessantly shaken by conspiracyand rebellion. He pitied, he praised, he feasted, the emperor ofConstantinople; but if the English monarch assumed the cross, it wasonly to appease his people, and perhaps his conscience, by the merit orsemblance of his pious intention. [20] Satisfied, however, with gifts andhonors, Manuel returned to Paris; and, after a residence of two yearsin the West, shaped his course through Germany and Italy, embarked atVenice, and patiently expected, in the Morea, the moment of his ruin ordeliverance. Yet he had escaped the ignominious necessity of offeringhis religion to public or private sale. The Latin church was distractedby the great schism; the kings, the nations, the universities, of Europewere 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 unpopularrivals. His journey coincided with the year of the jubilee; but hepassed through Italy without desiring, or deserving, the plenaryindulgence which abolished the guilt or penance of the sins of thefaithful. The Roman pope was offended by this neglect; accused him ofirreverence to an image of Christ; and exhorted the princes of Italy toreject 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 Ibelieve reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (l. Ii. C. 44--50) andDucas, (c. 14. )]

[Footnote 17: Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. Xii. P. 406. John Galeazzowas the first and most powerful duke of Milan. His connection withBajazet is attested by Froissard; and he contributed to save and deliverthe 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 quotesJuvenal des Ursins and the monk of St. Denys; and Villaret, (Hist. DeFrance, tom. Xii. P. 331--334, ) who quotes nobody according to the lastfashion of the French writers. ]

[Footnote 19: A short note of Manuel in England is extracted by Dr. Hodyfrom a MS. At Lambeth, (de Græcis illustribus, p. 14, ) C. P. Imperator, diu variisque et horrendis Paganorum insultibus coarctatus, ut proeisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret, Anglorum Regem visitaredecrevit, &c. Rex (says Walsingham, p. 364) nobili apparatû. .. Suscepit(ut decuit) tantum Heroa, duxitque Londonias, et per multos diesexhibuit gloriose, pro expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respicienstanto fastigio donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustriæ, (p. 556. )]

[Footnote 20: Shakspeare begins and ends the play of Henry IV. Withthat prince's vow of a crusade, and his belief that he should die inJerusalem. ]

[Footnote 21: This fact is preserved in the Historia Politica, A. D. 1391--1478, published by Martin Crusius, (Turco Græcia, p. 1--43. )The image of Christ, which the Greek emperor refused to worship, wasprobably 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 astonishmentand terror the perpetual stream of emigration that flowed, and continuedto flow, from the unknown climates of their West. The visits of theirlast emperors removed the veil of separation, and they disclosed totheir eyes the powerful nations of Europe, whom they no longer presumedto brand with the name of Barbarians. The observations of Manuel, andhis more inquisitive followers, have been preserved by a Byzantinehistorian of the times: [22] his scattered ideas I shall collectand abridge; and it may be amusing enough, perhaps instructive, tocontemplate the rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whoseancient and modern state are so familiar to _our_ minds. I. Germany(says the Greek Chalcondyles) is of ample latitude from Vienna to theocean; and it stretches (a strange geography) from Prague in Bohemia tothe River Tartessus, and the Pyrenæan Mountains. [23] The soil, exceptin figs and olives, is sufficiently fruitful; the air is salubrious; thebodies of the natives are robust and healthy; and these cold regions areseldom visited with the calamities of pestilence, or earthquakes. Afterthe 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 haveacquired the privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; [24] nor is anypeople more devoutly attached to the faith and obedience of the Latinpatriarch. The greatest part of the country is divided among the princesand prelates; but Strasburg, Cologne, Hamburgh, and more than twohundred free cities, are governed by sage and equal laws, accordingto the will, and for the advantage, of the whole community. The use ofduels, or single combats on foot, prevails among them in peace and war:their industry excels in all the mechanic arts; and the Germans mayboast of the invention of gunpowder and cannon, which is now diffusedover the greatest part of the world. II. The kingdom of France is spreadabove fifteen or twenty days' journey from Germany to Spain, and fromthe Alps to the British Ocean; containing many flourishing cities, andamong these Paris, the seat of the king, which surpasses the restin riches and luxury. Many princes and lords alternately wait in hispalace, and acknowledge him as their sovereign: the most powerful arethe dukes of Bretagne and Burgundy; of whom the latter possesses thewealthy province of Flanders, whose harbors are frequented by the shipsand merchants of our own, and the more remote, seas. The French arean ancient and opulent people; and their language and manners, thoughsomewhat different, are not dissimilar from those of the Italians. Vainof the Imperial dignity of Charlemagne, of their victories over theSaracens, and of the exploits of their heroes, Oliver and Rowland, [25] they esteem themselves the first of the western nations; but thisfoolish arrogance has been recently humbled by the unfortunate events oftheir 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 wholeis united by a common interest, by the same manners, and by a similargovernment. The measure of its circumference is five thousand stadia:the land is overspread with towns and villages: though destitute ofwine, and not abounding in fruit-trees, it is fertile in wheat andbarley; in honey and wool; and much cloth is manufactured by theinhabitants. In populousness and power, in richness and luxury, London, [26] the metropolis of the isle, may claim a preeminence over all thecities of the West. It is situate on the Thames, a broad and rapidriver, which at the distance of thirty miles falls into the GallicSea; and the daily flow and ebb of the tide affords a safe entrance anddeparture to the vessels of commerce. The king is head of a powerfuland turbulent aristocracy: his principal vassals hold their estates bya free and unalterable tenure; and the laws define the limits of hisauthority and their obedience. The kingdom has been often afflicted byforeign conquest and domestic sedition: but the natives are bold andhardy, renowned in arms and victorious in war. The form of their shieldsor targets is derived from the Italians, that of their swords from theGreeks; the use of the long bow is the peculiar and decisive advantageof the English. Their language bears no affinity to the idioms ofthe Continent: in the habits of domestic life, they are not easilydistinguished from their neighbors of France: but the most singularcircumstance of their manners is their disregard of conjugal honorand of female chastity. In their mutual visits, as the first act ofhospitality, the guest is welcomed in the embraces of their wives anddaughters: among friends they are lent and borrowed without shame; norare the islanders offended at this strange commerce, and its inevitableconsequences. [27] Informed as we are of the customs of Old England andassured of the virtue of our mothers, we may smile at the credulity, orresent the injustice, of the Greek, who must have confounded a modestsalute [28] with a criminal embrace. But his credulity and injusticemay teach an important lesson; to distrust the accounts of foreign andremote nations, and to suspend our belief of every tale that deviatesfrom the laws of nature and the character of man. [29]

[Footnote 22: The Greek and Turkish history of Laonicus Chalcondylesends 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 anAthenian, and that some contemporaries of the same name contributedto the revival of the Greek language in Italy. But in his numerousdigressions, the modest historian has never introduced himself; and hiseditor Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. Tom. Vi. P. 474, ) seems ignorant of his life and character. For his descriptions ofGermany, France, and England, see l. Ii. P. 36, 37, 44--50. ]

[Footnote 23: I shall not animadvert on the geographical errors ofChalcondyles. In this instance, he perhaps followed, and mistook, Herodotus, (l. Ii. C. 33, ) whose text may be explained, (Herodote deLarcher, tom. Ii. P. 219, 220, ) or whose ignorance may be excused. Had these modern Greeks never read Strabo, or any of their lessergeographers?]

[Footnote 24: A citizen of new Rome, while new Rome survived, would havescorned to dignify the German 'Rhx with titles of BasileuV or Autokratwr'Rwmaiwn: but all pride was extinct in the bosom of Chalcondyles; and hedescribes the Byzantine prince, and his subject, by the proper, thoughhumble, names of ''EllhneV and BasileuV 'Ellhnwn. ]

[Footnote 25: Most of the old romances were translated in the xivthcentury into French prose, and soon became the favorite amusement of theknights and ladies in the court of Charles VI. If a Greek believed inthe exploits of Rowland and Oliver, he may surely be excused, since themonks of St. Denys, the national historians, have inserted the fables ofArchbishop Turpin in their Chronicles of France. ]

[Footnote 26: Londinh. .. . De te poliV dunamei te proecousa tvn en thnhsw tauth pasvn polewn, olbw te kai th allh eudaimonia oudemiaV tvnpeoV esperan leipomenh. Even since the time of Fitzstephen, (the xiithcentury, ) London appears to have maintained this preeminence of wealthand magnitude; and her gradual increase has, at least, kept pace withthe general improvement of Europe. ]

[Footnote 27: If the double sense of the verb Kuw (osculor, and in uterogero) be equivocal, the context and pious horror of Chalcondyles canleave no doubt of his meaning and mistake, (p. 49. ) *

Note: * I can discover no "pious horror" in the plain manner in whichChalcondyles relates this strange usage. He says, oude aiscunun tovtofeoei eautoiV kuesqai taV te gunaikaV autvn kai taV qugateraV, yet theseare expression beyond what would be used, if the ambiguous word kuesqaiwere taken in its more innocent sense. Nor can the phrase parecontaitaV eautvn gunaikaV en toiV epithdeioiV well bear a less coarseinterpretation. Gibbon is possibly right as to the origin of thisextraordinary mistake. --M. ]

[Footnote 28: Erasmus (Epist. Fausto Andrelino) has a pretty passage onthe 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 ofwives among the old Britons, as it is supposed by Cæsar and Dion, (DionCassius, l. Lxii. Tom. Ii. P. 1007, ) with Reimar's judicious annotation. The _Arreoy_ of Otaheite, so certain at first, is become less visibleand scandalous, in proportion as we have studied the manners of thatgentle and amorous people. ]

After his return, and the victory of Timour, Manuel reigned many yearsin prosperity and peace. As long as the sons of Bajazet solicited hisfriendship and spared his dominions, he was satisfied with the nationalreligion; and his leisure was employed in composing twenty theologicaldialogues for its defence. The appearance of the Byzantine ambassadorsat the council of Constance, [30] announces the restoration of theTurkish power, as well as of the Latin church: the conquest of thesultans, Mahomet and Amurath, reconciled the emperor to the Vatican;and the siege of Constantinople almost tempted him to acquiesce in thedouble procession of the Holy Ghost. When Martin the Fifth ascendedwithout a rival the chair of St. Peter, a friendly intercourse ofletters and embassies was revived between the East and West. Ambition onone side, and distress on the other, dictated the same decent languageof charity and peace: the artful Greek expressed a desire of marryinghis six sons to Italian princesses; and the Roman, not less artful, despatched the daughter of the marquis of Montferrat, with a companyof noble virgins, to soften, by their charms, the obstinacy of theschismatics. Yet under this mask of zeal, a discerning eye willperceive that all was hollow and insincere in the court and church ofConstantinople. According to the vicissitudes of danger and repose, theemperor advanced or retreated; alternately instructed and disavowed hisministers; and escaped from the importunate pressure by urging the dutyof inquiry, the obligation of collecting the sense of his patriarchsand bishops, and the impossibility of convening them at a time whenthe Turkish arms were at the gates of his capital. From a review of thepublic transactions it will appear that the Greeks insisted on threesuccessive measures, a succor, a council, and a final reunion, whilethe Latins eluded the second, and only promised the first, as aconsequential and voluntary reward of the third. But we have anopportunity of unfolding the most secret intentions of Manuel, as heexplained them in a private conversation without artifice or disguise. In his declining age, the emperor had associated John Palæologus, thesecond of the name, and the eldest of his sons, on whom he devolved thegreatest part of the authority and weight of government. One day, in thepresence only of the historian Phranza, [31] his favorite chamberlain, he opened to his colleague and successor the true principle of hisnegotiations with the pope. [32] "Our last resource, " said Manuel, against the Turks, "is their fear of our union with the Latins, of thewarlike nations of the West, who may arm for our relief and for theirdestruction. As often as you are threatened by the miscreants, presentthis danger before their eyes. Propose a council; consult on the means;but ever delay and avoid the convocation of an assembly, which cannottend either to our spiritual or temporal emolument. The Latins areproud; the Greeks are obstinate; neither party will recede or retract;and the attempt of a perfect union will confirm the schism, alienatethe churches, and leave us, without hope or defence, at the mercy of theBarbarians. " Impatient of this salutary lesson, the royal youth arosefrom his seat, and departed in silence; and the wise monarch (continuedPhranza) casting his eyes on me, thus resumed his discourse: "My sondeems himself a great and heroic prince; but, alas! our miserable agedoes not afford scope for heroism or greatness. His daring spirit mighthave suited the happier times of our ancestors; but the present staterequires not an emperor, but a cautious steward of the last relics ofour fortunes. Well do I remember the lofty expectations which he builton our alliance with Mustapha; and much do I fear, that this rashcourage will urge the ruin of our house, and that even religion mayprecipitate our downfall. " Yet the experience and authority of Manuelpreserved the peace, and eluded the council; till, in the seventy-eighthyear of his age, and in the habit of a monk, he terminated his career, dividing his precious movables among his children and the poor, hisphysicians and his favorite servants. Of his six sons, [33] Andronicusthe Second was invested with the principality of Thessalonica, and diedof a leprosy soon after the sale of that city to the Venetians andits final conquest by the Turks. Some fortunate incidents had restoredPeloponnesus, or the Morea, to the empire; and in his more prosperousdays, Manuel had fortified the narrow isthmus of six miles [34] witha stone wall and one hundred and fifty-three towers. The wall wasoverthrown by the first blast of the Ottomans; the fertile peninsulamight have been sufficient for the four younger brothers, Theodore andConstantine, Demetrius and Thomas; but they wasted in domestic conteststhe remains of their strength; and the least successful of the rivalswere 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 ofSpondanus the Bibliothèque of Dupin, tom. Xii. , and xxist and xxiidvolumes of the History, or rather the Continuation, of Fleury. ]

[Footnote 31: From his early youth, George Phranza, or Phranzes, wasemployed in the service of the state and palace; and Hanckius (deScript. Byzant. P. I. C. 40) has collected his life from his ownwritings. He was no more than four-and-twenty years of age at the deathof Manuel, who recommended him in the strongest terms to his successor:Imprimis vero hunc Phranzen tibi commendo, qui ministravit mihifideliter et diligenter (Phranzes, l. Ii. C. I. ) Yet the emperor Johnwas cold, and he preferred the service of the despots of Peloponnesus. ]

[Footnote 32: See Phranzes, l. Ii. C. 13. While so many manuscriptsof the Greek original are extant in the libraries of Rome, Milan, theEscurial, &c. , it is a matter of shame and reproach, that we should bereduced to the Latin version, or abstract, of James Pontanus, (ad calcemTheophylact, Simocattæ: Ingolstadt, 1604, ) so deficient in accuracy andelegance, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. Tom. Vi. P. 615--620. ) *

Note: * The Greek text of Phranzes was edited by F. C. Alter Vindobonæ, 1796. It has been re-edited by Bekker for the new edition of theByzantines, Bonn, 1838. --M. ]

[Footnote 33: See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. P. 243--248. ]

[Footnote 34: The exact measure of the Hexamilion, from sea to sea, was3800 orgyiæ, 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 theTravels of Spon, Wheeler and Chandler. ]

The eldest of the sons of Manuel, John Palæologus the Second, wasacknowledged, after his father's death, as the sole emperor of theGreeks. He immediately proceeded to repudiate his wife, and to contracta new marriage with the princess of Trebizond: beauty was in his eyesthe first qualification of an empress; and the clergy had yielded to hisfirm assurance, that unless he might be indulged in a divorce, he wouldretire to a cloister, and leave the throne to his brother Constantine. The first, and in truth the only, victory of Palæologus, was over aJew, [35] whom, after a long and learned dispute, he converted to theChristian faith; and this momentous conquest is carefully recorded inthe history of the times. But he soon resumed the design of uniting theEast and West; and, regardless of his father's advice, listened, as itshould seem with sincerity, to the proposal of meeting the pope ina general council beyond the Adriatic. This dangerous project wasencouraged by Martin the Fifth, and coldly entertained by his successorEugenius, till, after a tedious negotiation, the emperor received asummons from the Latin assembly of a new character, the independentprelates of Basil, who styled themselves the representatives and judgesof 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 parrieswith a mystery. They then dispute on the conception of the Virgin, the sense of the prophecies, &c. , (Phranzes, l. Ii. C. 12, a wholechapter. )]

The Roman pontiff had fought and conquered in the cause ofecclesiastical freedom; but the victorious clergy were soon exposedto the tyranny of their deliverer; and his sacred character wasinvulnerable to those arms which they found so keen and effectualagainst the civil magistrate. Their great charter, the right ofelection, was annihilated by appeals, evaded by trusts or commendams, disappointed by reversionary grants, and superseded by previous andarbitrary reservations. [36] A public auction was instituted in the courtof Rome: the cardinals and favorites were enriched with the spoils ofnations; and every country might complain that the most importantand valuable benefices were accumulated on the heads of aliens andabsentees. During their residence at Avignon, the ambition of thepopes subsided in the meaner passions of avarice [37] and luxury: theyrigorously imposed on the clergy the tributes of first-fruits andtenths; but they freely tolerated the impunity of vice, disorder, andcorruption. These manifold scandals were aggravated by the great schismof the West, which continued above fifty years. In the furious conflictsof Rome and Avignon, the vices of the rivals were mutually exposed;and their precarious situation degraded their authority, relaxed theirdiscipline, and multiplied their wants and exactions. To heal thewounds, and restore the monarchy, of the church, the synods of Pisa andConstance [38] were successively convened; but these great assemblies, conscious of their strength, resolved to vindicate the privileges of theChristian aristocracy. From a personal sentence against two pontiffs, whom they rejected, and a third, their acknowledged sovereign, whom theydeposed, the fathers of Constance proceeded to examine the nature andlimits of the Roman supremacy; nor did they separate till they hadestablished the authority, above the pope, of a general council. It wasenacted, that, for the government and reformation of the church, suchassemblies should be held at regular intervals; and that each synod, before its dissolution, should appoint the time and place of thesubsequent meeting. By the influence of the court of Rome, the nextconvocation at Sienna was easily eluded; but the bold and vigorousproceedings of the council of Basil [39] had almost been fatal to thereigning pontiff, Eugenius the Fourth. A just suspicion of his designprompted the fathers to hasten the promulgation of their first decree, that the representatives of the church-militant on earth were investedwith a divine and spiritual jurisdiction over all Christians, withoutexcepting the pope; and that a general council could not be dissolved, prorogued, or transferred, unless by their free deliberation andconsent. On the notice that Eugenius had fulminated a bull for thatpurpose, they ventured to summon, to admonish, to threaten, to censurethe contumacious successor of St. Peter. After many delays, to allowtime for repentance, they finally declared, that, unless he submittedwithin the term of sixty days, he was suspended from the exercise of alltemporal and ecclesiastical authority. And to mark their jurisdictionover the prince as well as the priest, they assumed the government ofAvignon, annulled the alienation of the sacred patrimony, and protectedRome from the imposition of new taxes. Their boldness was justified, notonly by the general opinion of the clergy, but by the support and powerof the first monarchs of Christendom: the emperor Sigismond declaredhimself the servant and protector of the synod; Germany and Franceadhered to their cause; the duke of Milan was the enemy of Eugenius; andhe was driven from the Vatican by an insurrection of the Roman people. Rejected at the same time by temporal and spiritual subjects, submissionwas his only choice: by a most humiliating bull, the pope repealed hisown acts, and ratified those of the council; incorporated his legatesand cardinals with that venerable body; and _seemed_ to resign himselfto the decrees of the supreme legislature. Their fame pervaded thecountries of the East: and it was in their presence that Sigismondreceived the ambassadors of the Turkish sultan, [40] who laid at his feettwelve large vases, filled with robes of silk and pieces of gold. Thefathers of Basil aspired to the glory of reducing the Greeks, as well asthe Bohemians, within the pale of the church; and their deputies invitedthe emperor and patriarch of Constantinople to unite with an assemblywhich possessed the confidence of the Western nations. Palæologus wasnot averse to the proposal; and his ambassadors were introduced with duehonors into the Catholic senate. But the choice of the place appearedto be an insuperable obstacle, since he refused to pass the Alps, orthe sea of Sicily, and positively required that the synod should beadjourned to some convenient city in Italy, or at least on the Danube. The other articles of this treaty were more readily stipulated: it wasagreed to defray the travelling expenses of the emperor, with a train ofseven hundred persons, [41] to remit an immediate sum of eight thousandducats [42] for the accommodation of the Greek clergy; and in his absenceto grant a supply of ten thousand ducats, with three hundred archers andsome galleys, for the protection of Constantinople. The city of Avignonadvanced the funds for the preliminary expenses; and the embarkation wasprepared 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, ) thepapal system is deeply studied and freely described. Should Rome andher religion be annihilated, this golden volume may still survive, aphilosophical 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 morein plate and jewels. See the Chronicle of John Villani, (l. Xi. C. 20, in Muratori's Collection, tom. Xiii. P. 765, ) whose brother received theaccount from the papal treasurers. A treasure of six or eight millionssterling in the xivth century is enormous, and almost incredible. ]

[Footnote 38: A learned and liberal Protestant, M. Lenfant, has givena fair history of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basil, in sixvolumes 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 arepreserved in the public library, in twelve volumes in folio. Basil was afree city, conveniently situate on the Rhine, and guarded by the armsof the neighboring and confederate Swiss. In 1459, the university wasfounded by Pope Pius II. , (Æneas Sylvius, ) who had been secretary to thecouncil. But what is a council, or a university, to the presses o Frobenand the studies of Erasmus?]

[Footnote 40: This Turkish embassy, attested only by Crantzius, isrelated 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 tohave exceeded the real numbers of the clergy and laity which afterwardsattended the emperor and patriarch, but which are not clearly specifiedby the great ecclesiarch. The 75, 000 florins which they asked in thisnegotiation of the pope, (p. 9, ) were more than they could hope orwant. ]

[Footnote 42: I use indifferently the words _ducat_ and _florin_, whichderive their names, the former from the _dukes_ of Milan, the latterfrom the republic of _Florence_. These gold pieces, the first that werecoined in Italy, perhaps in the Latin world, may be compared in weightand value to one third of the English guinea. ]

In his distress, the friendship of Palæologus was disputed by theecclesiastical powers of the West; but the dexterous activity of amonarch prevailed over the slow debates and inflexible temper of arepublic. The decrees of Basil continually tended to circumscribe thedespotism of the pope, and to erect a supreme and perpetual tribunalin the church. Eugenius was impatient of the yoke; and the union of theGreeks might afford a decent pretence for translating a rebellious synodfrom the Rhine to the Po. The independence of the fathers was lostif they passed the Alps: Savoy or Avignon, to which they acceded withreluctance, were described at Constantinople as situate far beyond thepillars of Hercules; [43] the emperor and his clergy were apprehensiveof the dangers of a long navigation; they were offended by a haughtydeclaration, that after suppressing the _new_ heresy of the Bohemians, the council would soon eradicate the _old_ heresy of the Greeks. [44] Onthe side of Eugenius, all was smooth, and yielding, and respectful; andhe invited the Byzantine monarch to heal by his presence the schism ofthe Latin, as well as of the Eastern, church. Ferrara, near the coast ofthe Adriatic, was proposed for their amicable interview; and with someindulgence 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 Isleof Candia; their diligence anticipated the slower vessels of Basil: theRoman admiral was commissioned to burn, sink, and destroy; [45] and thesepriestly squadrons might have encountered each other in the same seaswhere Athens and Sparta had formerly contended for the preeminence ofglory. Assaulted by the importunity of the factions, who were ready tofight for the possession of his person, Palæologus hesitated beforehe left his palace and country on a perilous experiment. His father'sadvice still dwelt on his memory; and reason must suggest, that sincethe Latins were divided among themselves, they could never unite ina foreign cause. Sigismond dissuaded the unreasonable adventure; hisadvice was impartial, since he adhered to the council; and it wasenforced by the strange belief, that the German Cæsar would nominatea Greek his heir and successor in the empire of the West. [46] Even theTurkish sultan was a counsellor whom it might be unsafe to trust, butwhom it was dangerous to offend. Amurath was unskilled in the disputes, but he was apprehensive of the union, of the Christians. From his owntreasures, he offered to relieve the wants of the Byzantine court; yethe declared with seeming magnanimity, that Constantinople shouldbe secure and inviolate, in the absence of her sovereign. [47] Theresolution of Palæologus was decided by the most splendid gifts and themost specious promises: he wished to escape for a while from a scene ofdanger and distress and after dismissing with an ambiguous answer themessengers of the council, he declared his intention of embarking in theRoman galleys. The age of the patriarch Joseph was more susceptible offear than of hope; he trembled at the perils of the sea, and expressedhis apprehension, that his feeble voice, with thirty perhaps of hisorthodox brethren, would be oppressed in a foreign land by the powerand numbers of a Latin synod. He yielded to the royal mandate, to theflattering assurance, that he would be heard as the oracle of nations, and to the secret wish of learning from his brother of the West, todeliver the church from the yoke of kings. [48] The five _cross-bearers_, or dignitaries, of St. Sophia, were bound to attend his person; and oneof 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 thepatriarch, submission was the first duty, and patience the most usefulvirtue. In a chosen list of twenty bishops, we discover the metropolitantitles of Heracleæ and Cyzicus, Nice and Nicomedia, Ephesus andTrebizond, and the personal merit of Mark and Bessarion who, in theconfidence of their learning and eloquence, were promoted to theepiscopal rank. Some monks and philosophers were named to display thescience and sanctity of the Greek church; and the service of the choirwas performed by a select band of singers and musicians. The patriarchsof Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, appeared by their genuine orfictitious deputies; the primate of Russia represented a nationalchurch, and the Greeks might contend with the Latins in the extent oftheir spiritual empire. The precious vases of St. Sophia were exposedto the winds and waves, that the patriarch might officiate with becomingsplendor: whatever gold the emperor could procure, was expended in themassy ornaments of his bed and chariot; [52] and while they affected tomaintain the prosperity of their ancient fortune, they quarrelled forthe division of fifteen thousand ducats, the first alms of the Romanpontiff. After the necessary preparations, John Palæologus, with anumerous train, accompanied by his brother Demetrius, and the mostrespectable persons of the church and state, embarked in eight vesselswith sails and oars which steered through the Turkish Straits ofGallipoli to the Archipelago, the Morea, and the Adriatic Gulf. [53]

[Footnote 43: At the end of the Latin version of Phranzes, we read along Greek epistle or declamation of George of Trebizond, who advisesthe emperor to prefer Eugenius and Italy. He treats with contempt theschismatic assembly of Basil, the Barbarians of Gaul and Germany, whohad conspired to transport the chair of St. Peter beyond the Alps; oiaqlioi (says he) se kai thn meta sou sunodon exw tvn 'Hrakleiwn sthlwnkai pera Gadhrwn exaxousi. Was Constantinople unprovided with a map?]

[Footnote 44: Syropulus (p. 26--31) attests his own indignation, andthat of his countrymen; and the Basil deputies, who excused the rashdeclaration, could neither deny nor alter an act of the council. ]

[Footnote 45: Condolmieri, the pope's nephew and admiral, expresslydeclared, oti orismon eceipara tou Papa ina polemhsh opou an eurh takaterga thV Sunodou, kai ei dunhqh, katadush, kai ajanish. The navalorders of the synod were less peremptory, and, till the hostilesquadrons appeared, both parties tried to conceal their quarrel from theGreeks. ]

[Footnote 46: Syropulus mentions the hopes of Palæologus, (p. 36, ) andthe last advice of Sigismond, (p. 57. ) At Corfu, the Greek emperor wasinformed of his friend's death; had he known it sooner, he would havereturned home, (p. 79. )]

[Footnote 47: Phranzes himself, though from different motives, was ofthe advice of Amurath, (l. Ii. C. 13. ) Utinam ne synodus ista unquamfuisset, si tantes offensiones et detrimenta paritura erat. This Turkishembassy is likewise mentioned by Syropulus, (p. 58;) and Amurath kepthis word. He might threaten, (p. 125, 219, ) but he never attacked, thecity. ]

[Footnote 48: The reader will smile at the simplicity with which heimparted these hopes to his favorites: toiauthn plhrojorian schseinhlpize kai dia tou Papa eqarrei eleuqervdai thn ekklhsian apo thVapoteqeishV autou douleiaV para tou basilewV, (p. 92. ) Yet it would havebeen difficult for him to have practised the lessons of Gregory VII. ]

[Footnote 49: The Christian name of Sylvester is borrowed from the Latincalendar. In modern Greek, pouloV, as a diminutive, is added to the endof words: nor can any reasoning of Creyghton, the editor, excuse hischanging into S_gur_opulus, (Sguros, fuscus, ) the Syropulus of his ownmanuscript, whose name is subscribed with his own hand in the actsof the council of Florence. Why might not the author be of Syrianextraction?]

[Footnote 50: From the conclusion of the history, I should fix the dateto the year 1444, four years after the synod, when great ecclesiarchhad abdicated his office, (section xii. P. 330--350. ) His passions werecooled by time and retirement; and, although Syropulus is often partial, he is never intemperate. ]

[Footnote 51: _Vera historia unionis non ver inter Græcos et Latinos_, (_Haga Comitis_, 1660, in folio, ) was first published with a loose andflorid version, by Robert Creyghton, chaplain to Charles II. In hisexile. The zeal of the editor has prefixed a polemic title, for thebeginning of the original is wanting. Syropulus may be ranked with thebest of the Byzantine writers for the merit of his narration, and evenof his style; but he is excluded from the orthodox collections of thecouncils. ]

[Footnote 52: Syropulus (p. 63) simply expresses his intention in' outwpompawn en' 'ItaloiV megaV basileuV par ekeinvn nomizoito; and the Latinof Creyghton may afford a specimen of his florid paraphrase. Ut pompâcircumductus noster Imperator Italiæ populis aliquis deauratus Jupitercrederetur, 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 toVenice and Ferrara is contained in the ivth section, (p. 67--100, ) andthat the historian has the uncommon talent of placing each scene beforethe 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 receptionproclaimed the joy and magnificence of that powerful republic. In thecommand of the world, the modest Augustus had never claimed such honorsfrom his subjects as were paid to his feeble successor by an independentstate. 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 statelygalleys: the sea was overspread with innumerable gondolas of pomp andpleasure; the air resounded with music and acclamations; the mariners, and even the vessels, were dressed in silk and gold; and in all theemblems and pageants, the Roman eagles were blended with the lions ofSt. Mark. The triumphal procession, ascending the great canal, passedunder the bridge of the Rialto; and the Eastern strangers gazed withadmiration 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 beholdthe spoils and trophies with which it had been decorated after the sackof Constantinople. After a hospitable entertainment of fifteen days, Palæologus pursued his journey by land and water from Venice to Ferrara;and on this occasion the pride of the Vatican was tempered by policyto indulge the ancient dignity of the emperor of the East. He made hisentry on a _black_ horse; but a milk-white steed, whose trappings wereembroidered with golden eagles, was led before him; and the canopywas borne over his head by the princes of Este, the sons or kinsmenof Nicholas, marquis of the city, and a sovereign more powerful thanhimself. [56] Palæologus did not alight till he reached the bottom of thestaircase: the pope advanced to the door of the apartment; refused hisproffered genuflection; and, after a paternal embrace, conducted theemperor to a seat on his left hand. Nor would the patriarch descend fromhis galley, till a ceremony almost equal, had been stipulated betweenthe bishops of Rome and Constantinople. The latter was saluted by hisbrother with a kiss of union and charity; nor would any of the Greekecclesiastics submit to kiss the feet of the Western primate. On theopening of the synod, the place of honor in the centre was claimed bythe temporal and ecclesiastical chiefs; and it was only by alleging thathis predecessors had not assisted in person at Nice or Chalcedon, thatEugenius could evade the ancient precedents of Constantine and Marcian. After much debate, it was agreed that the right and left sides of thechurch should be occupied by the two nations; that the solitary chairof St. Peter should be raised the first of the Latin line; and that thethrone of the Greek emperor, at the head of his clergy, should be equaland opposite to the second place, the vacant seat of the emperor of theWest. [57]

[Footnote 54: At the time of the synod, Phranzes was in Peloponnesus:but he received from the despot Demetrius a faithful account of thehonorable reception of the emperor and patriarch both at Venice andFerrara, (Dux. .. . Sedentem Imperatorem _adorat_, ) which are moreslightly 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 ofVenice, abundantly proves that in the xvth century it was the first andmost splendid of the Christian cities. For the spoils of Constantinopleat 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, (Antichità Estense, tom. Ii. P. 159--201. )]

[Footnote 57: The Latin vulgar was provoked to laughter at the strangedresses 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 onthe top, (Hody de Græcis Illustribus, p. 31. ) Yet another spectatorconfesses that the Greek fashion was piu grave e piu degna than theItalian. (Vespasiano in Vit. Eugen. IV. In Muratori, tom. Xxv. P. 261. )]

But as soon as festivity and form had given place to a more serioustreaty, the Greeks were dissatisfied with their journey, withthemselves, and with the pope. The artful pencil of his emissarieshad painted him in a prosperous state; at the head of the princes andprelates of Europe, obedient at his voice, to believe and to arm. Thethin 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 thesubjects or countrymen of the Italian pontiff. Except the duke ofBurgundy, none of the potentates of the West condescended to appear inperson, or by their ambassadors; nor was it possible to suppress thejudicial acts of Basil against the dignity and person of Eugenius, whichwere finally concluded by a new election. Under these circumstances, atruce or delay was asked and granted, till Palæologus could expect fromthe consent of the Latins some temporal reward for an unpopular union;and after the first session, the public proceedings were adjournedabove six months. The emperor, with a chosen band of his favoritesand _Janizaries_, fixed his summer residence at a pleasant, spaciousmonastery, six miles from Ferrara; forgot, in the pleasures of thechase, the distress of the church and state; and persisted in destroyingthe game, without listening to the just complaints of the marquis or thehusbandman. [58] In the mean while, his unfortunate Greeks were exposedto all the miseries of exile and poverty; for the support of eachstranger, a monthly allowance was assigned of three or four goldflorins; and although the entire sum did not amount to seven hundredflorins, a long arrear was repeatedly incurred by the indigence orpolicy of the Roman court. [59] They sighed for a speedy deliverance, but their escape was prevented by a triple chain: a passport from theirsuperiors was required at the gates of Ferrara; the government ofVenice had engaged to arrest and send back the fugitives; and inevitablepunishment awaited them at Constantinople; excommunication, fines, and asentence, which did not respect the sacerdotal dignity, that theyshould be stripped naked and publicly whipped. [60] It was only by thealternative of hunger or dispute that the Greeks could be persuaded toopen the first conference; and they yielded with extreme reluctance toattend from Ferrara to Florence the rear of a flying synod. This newtranslation was urged by inevitable necessity: the city was visitedby the plague; the fidelity of the marquis might be suspected; themercenary troops of the duke of Milan were at the gates; and as theyoccupied Romagna, it was not without difficulty and danger that thepope, the emperor, and the bishops, explored their way through theunfrequented 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 astrong and swift horse that came from Russia. The name of _Janizaries_may surprise; but the name, rather than the institution, had passed fromthe Ottoman, to the Byzantine, court, and is often used in the last ageof the empire. ]

[Footnote 59: The Greeks obtained, with much difficulty, that instead ofprovisions, money should be distributed, four florins _per_ month to thepersons of honorable rank, and three florins to their servants, with anaddition of thirty more to the emperor, twenty-five to the patriarch, and twenty to the prince, or despot, Demetrius. The payment of the firstmonth amounted to 691 florins, a sum which will not allow us to reckonabove 200 Greeks of every condition. (Syropulus, p. 104, 105. ) On the20th 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 theimprisonment of the Greeks, and the tyranny of the emperor andpatriarch. ]

[Footnote 61: The wars of Italy are most clearly represented in thexiiith vol. Of the Annals of Muratori. The schismatic Greek, Syropulus, (p. 145, ) appears to have exaggerated the fear and disorder of the popein his retreat from Ferrara to Florence, which is proved by the acts tohave been somewhat more decent and deliberate. ]

Yet all these obstacles were surmounted by time and policy. The violenceof the fathers of Basil rather promoted than injured the cause ofEugenius; the nations of Europe abhorred the schism, and disowned theelection, of Felix the Fifth, who was successively a duke of Savoy, ahermit, and a pope; and the great princes were gradually reclaimed byhis competitor to a favorable neutrality and a firm attachment. Thelegates, with some respectable members, deserted to the Roman army, which insensibly rose in numbers and reputation; the council of Basilwas reduced to thirty-nine bishops, and three hundred of the inferiorclergy; [62] while the Latins of Florence could produce the subscriptionsof 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. Fourprincipal 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 eithernation was managed by ten theological champions: the Latins weresupported by the inexhaustible eloquence of Cardinal Julian; and Markof Ephesus and Bessarion of Nice were the bold and able leaders of theGreek forces. We may bestow some praise on the progress of human reason, by observing that the first of these questions was now treated as animmaterial rite, which might innocently vary with the fashion of the ageand country. With regard to the second, both parties were agreed in thebelief of an intermediate state of purgation for the venial sins of thefaithful; and whether their souls were purified by elemental fire wasa doubtful point, which in a few years might be conveniently settled onthe spot by the disputants. The claims of supremacy appeared of a moreweighty and substantial kind; yet by the Orientals the Roman bishop hadever been respected as the first of the five patriarchs; nor did theyscruple to admit, that his jurisdiction should be exercised agreeably tothe holy canons; a vague allowance, which might be defined or eluded byoccasional convenience. The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Fatheralone, or from the Father and the Son, was an article of faith which hadsunk much deeper into the minds of men; and in the sessions of Ferraraand Florence, the Latin addition of _filioque_ was subdivided into twoquestions, whether it were legal, and whether it were orthodox. Perhapsit may not be necessary to boast on this subject of my own impartialindifference; but I must think that the Greeks were strongly supportedby the prohibition of the council of Chalcedon, against adding anyarticle whatsoever to the creed of Nice, or rather of Constantinople. [63] In earthly affairs, it is not easy to conceive how an assembly equalof legislators can bind their successors invested with powers equalto their own. But the dictates of inspiration must be true andunchangeable; nor should a private bishop, or a provincial synod, havepresumed to innovate against the judgment of the Catholic church. On thesubstance of the doctrine, the controversy was equal and endless: reasonis confounded by the procession of a deity: the gospel, which lay on thealtar, was silent; the various texts of the fathers might be corruptedby fraud or entangled by sophistry; and the Greeks were ignorant of thecharacters and writings of the Latin saints. [64] Of this at least we maybe sure, that neither side could be convinced by the arguments of theiropponents. Prejudice may be enlightened by reason, and a superficialglance may be rectified by a clear and more perfect view of an objectadapted to our faculties. But the bishops and monks had been taught fromtheir infancy to repeat a form of mysterious words: their national andpersonal honor depended on the repetition of the same sounds; and theirnarrow minds were hardened and inflamed by the acrimony of a publicdispute. 

[Footnote 62: Syropulus is pleased to reckon seven hundred prelates inthe council of Basil. The error is manifest, and perhaps voluntary. Thatextravagant number could not be supplied by _all_ the ecclesiastics ofevery degree who were present at the council, nor by _all_ the absentbishops of the West, who, expressly or tacitly, might adhere to itsdecrees. ]

[Footnote 63: The Greeks, who disliked the union, were unwilling tosally 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. Apalpable forgery! (p. 173. )]

[Footnote 64: 'WV egw (said an eminent Greek) otan eiV naon eiselqwDatinwn 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 andemperor were desirous of a seeming union, which could alone accomplishthe purposes of their interview; and the obstinacy of public dispute wassoftened by the arts of private and personal negotiation. The patriarchJoseph had sunk under the weight of age and infirmities; his dying voicebreathed the counsels of charity and concord, and his vacant beneficemight tempt the hopes of the ambitious clergy. The ready and activeobedience of the archbishops of Russia and Nice, of Isidore andBessarion, was prompted and recompensed by their speedy promotion to thedignity of cardinals. Bessarion, in the first debates, had stood forththe most strenuous and eloquent champion of the Greek church; and if theapostate, the bastard, was reprobated by his country, [65] he appears inecclesiastical story a rare example of a patriot who was recommended tocourt favor by loud opposition and well-timed compliance. With the aidof his two spiritual coadjutors, the emperor applied his arguments tothe general situation and personal characters of the bishops, and eachwas successively moved by authority and example. Their revenues werein the hands of the Turks, their persons in those of the Latins: anepiscopal treasure, three robes and forty ducats, was soon exhausted:[66] the hopes of their return still depended on the ships of Venice andthe alms of Rome; and such was their indigence, that their arrears, thepayment of a debt, would be accepted as a favor, and might operate asa bribe. [67] The danger and relief of Constantinople might excusesome prudent and pious dissimulation; and it was insinuated, that theobstinate heretics who should resist the consent of the East and Westwould be abandoned in a hostile land to the revenge or justice of theRoman pontiff. [68] In the first private assembly of the Greeks, theformulary of union was approved by twenty-four, and rejected by twelve, members; but the five _cross-bearers_ of St. Sophia, who aspired torepresent the patriarch, were disqualified by ancient discipline; andtheir right of voting was transferred to the obsequious train of monks, grammarians, and profane laymen. The will of the monarch produced afalse and servile unanimity, and no more than two patriots had courageto speak their own sentiments and those of their country. Demetrius, theemperor's brother, retired to Venice, that he might not be witness ofthe union; and Mark of Ephesus, mistaking perhaps his pride for hisconscience, disclaimed all communion with the Latin heretics, and avowedhimself the champion and confessor of the orthodox creed. [69] In thetreaty between the two nations, several forms of consent were proposed, such as might satisfy the Latins, without dishonoring the Greeks; andthey weighed the scruples of words and syllables, till the theologicalbalance trembled with a slight preponderance in favor of the Vatican. It was agreed (I must entreat the attention of the reader) that the HolyGhost proceeds from the Father _and_ the Son, as from one principle andone substance; that he proceeds _by_ the Son, being of the same natureand substance, and that he proceeds from the Father _and_ the Son, byone _spiration_ and production. It is less difficult to understand thearticles of the preliminary treaty; that the pope should defray all theexpenses of the Greeks in their return home; that he should annuallymaintain two galleys and three hundred soldiers for the defence ofConstantinople: that all the ships which transported pilgrims toJerusalem should be obliged to touch at that port; that as often as theywere required, the pope should furnish ten galleys for a year, or twentyfor six months; and that he should powerfully solicit the princes ofEurope, if the emperor had occasion for land forces. 

[Footnote 65: See the polite altercation of Marc and Bessarion inSyropulus, (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 remarkablepassage 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, thearchbishop 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 beforethey had subscribed the art of union, (p. 283:) yet he relatessome suspicious circumstances; and their bribery and corruption arepositively affirmed by the historian Ducas. ]

[Footnote 68: The Greeks most piteously express their own fears of exileand perpetual slavery, (Syropul. P. 196;) and they were strongly movedby the emperor's threats, (p. 260. )]

[Footnote 69: I had forgot another popular and orthodox protester: afavorite bound, who usually lay quiet on the foot-cloth of the emperor'sthrone but who barked most furiously while the act of union was readingwithout being silenced by the soothing or the lashes of the royalattendants, (Syropul. P. 265, 266. )]

The same year, and almost the same day, were marked by the depositionof Eugenius at Basil; and, at Florence, by his reunion of the Greeksand Latins. In the former synod, (which he styled indeed an assemblyof dæmons, ) the pope was branded with the guilt of simony, perjury, tyranny, heresy, and schism; [70] and declared to be incorrigible inhis vices, unworthy of any title, and incapable of holding anyecclesiastical office. In the latter, he was revered as the true andholy vicar of Christ, who, after a separation of six hundred years, hadreconciled the Catholics of the East and West in one fold, and under oneshepherd. The act of union was subscribed by the pope, the emperor, and the principal members of both churches; even by those who, likeSyropulus, [71] had been deprived of the right of voting. Two copiesmight have sufficed for the East and West; but Eugenius was notsatisfied, unless four authentic and similar transcripts were signed andattested as the monuments of his victory. [72] On a memorable day, thesixth of July, the successors of St. Peter and Constantine ascendedtheir 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 tonguesthe act of union, they mutually embraced, in the name and the presenceof their applauding brethren. The pope and his ministers then officiatedaccording to the Roman liturgy; the creed was chanted with the additionof _filioque_; the acquiescence of the Greeks was poorly excused bytheir ignorance of the harmonious, but inarticulate sounds; [73] and themore scrupulous Latins refused any public celebration of the Byzantinerite. Yet the emperor and his clergy were not totally unmindful ofnational honor. The treaty was ratified by their consent: it wastacitly agreed that no innovation should be attempted in their creed orceremonies: they spared, and secretly respected, the generous firmnessof Mark of Ephesus; and, on the decease of the patriarch, they refusedto elect his successor, except in the cathedral of St. Sophia. In thedistribution of public and private rewards, the liberal pontiff exceededtheir hopes and his promises: the Greeks, with less pomp and pride, returned by the same road of Ferrara and Venice; and their reception atConstantinople was such as will be described in the following chapter. [74] The success of the first trial encouraged Eugenius to repeat thesame edifying scenes; and the deputies of the Armenians, the Maronites, the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the Nestorians and the Æthiopians, were successively introduced, to kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff, andto announce the obedience and the orthodoxy of the East. These Orientalembassies, unknown in the countries which they presumed to represent, [75] diffused over the West the fame of Eugenius; and a clamor wasartfully propagated against the remnant of a schism in Switzerland andSavoy, which alone impeded the harmony of the Christian world. The vigorof opposition was succeeded by the lassitude of despair: the councilof Basil was silently dissolved; and Felix, renouncing the tiara, againwithdrew to the devout or delicious hermitage of Ripaille. [76] A generalpeace was secured by mutual acts of oblivion and indemnity: all ideasof reformation subsided; the popes continued to exercise and abusetheir ecclesiastical despotism; nor has Rome been since disturbed by themischiefs of a contested election. [77]

[Footnote 70: From the original Lives of the Popes, in Muratori'sCollection, (tom. Iii. P. Ii. Tom. Xxv. , ) the manners of Eugenius IV. Appear to have been decent, and even exemplary. His situation, exposedto 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 todo both; and the great ecclesiarch poorly excuses his submission to theemperor, (p. 290--292. )]

[Footnote 72: None of these original acts of union can at present beproduced. Of the ten MSS. That are preserved, (five at Rome, and theremainder at Florence, Bologna, Venice, Paris, and London, ) nine havebeen examined by an accurate critic, (M. De Brequigny, ) who condemnsthem for the variety and imperfections of the Greek signatures. Yetseveral of these may be esteemed as authentic copies, which weresubscribed at Florence, before (26th of August, 1439) the finalseparation of the pope and emperor, (Mémoires de l'Académie desInscriptions, 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 withthe 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 reunionsof the Nestorians, Jacobites, &c. , that I have turned over, withoutsuccess, the Bibliotheca Orientalis of Assemannus, a faithful slave ofthe Vatican. ]

[Footnote 76: Ripaille is situate near Thonon in Savoy, on the southernside of the Lake of Geneva. It is now a Carthusian abbey; and Mr. Addison (Travels into Italy, vol. Ii. P. 147, 148, of Baskerville'sedition of his works) has celebrated the place and the founder. ÆneasSylvius, and the fathers of Basil, applaud the austere life of the ducalhermit; but the French and Italian proverbs most unluckily attest thepopular opinion of his luxury. ]

[Footnote 77: In this account of the councils of Basil, Ferrara, andFlorence, I have consulted the original acts, which fill the xviithand xviiith tome of the edition of Venice, and are closed by theperspicuous, though partial, history of Augustin Patricius, anItalian of the xvth century. They are digested and abridged by Dupin, (Bibliothèque Ecclés. Tom. Xii. , ) and the continuator of Fleury, (tom. Xxii. ;) and the respect of the Gallican church for the adverse partiesconfines 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 abeneficial consequence--the revival of the Greek learning in Italy, fromwhence it was propagated to the last nations of the West and North. Intheir lowest servitude and depression, the subjects of the Byzantinethrone were still possessed of a golden key that could unlock thetreasures of antiquity; of a musical and prolific language, that givesa soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions ofphilosophy. Since the barriers of the monarchy, and even of the capital, had been trampled under foot, the various Barbarians had doubtlesscorrupted the form and substance of the national dialect; and ampleglossaries have been composed, to interpret a multitude of words, ofArabic, Turkish, Sclavonian, Latin, or French origin. [78] But a pureridiom was spoken in the court and taught in the college; and theflourishing 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 theTurkish conquest. "The vulgar speech, " says Philelphus, [81] "has beendepraved by the people, and infected by the multitude of strangersand merchants, who every day flock to the city and mingle with theinhabitants. It is from the disciples of such a school that the Latinlanguage received the versions of Aristotle and Plato; so obscurein sense, and in spirit so poor. But the Greeks who have escaped thecontagion, are those whom _we_ follow; and they alone are worthy ofour imitation. In familiar discourse, they still speak the tongueof Aristophanes and Euripides, of the historians and philosophers ofAthens; and the style of their writings is still more elaborate andcorrect. The persons who, by their birth and offices, are attached tothe Byzantine court, are those who maintain, with the least alloy, the ancient standard of elegance and purity; and the native gracesof language most conspicuously shine among the noble matrons, who areexcluded from all intercourse with foreigners. With foreigners do Isay? They live retired and sequestered from the eyes of theirfellow-citizens. Seldom are they seen in the streets; and when theyleave their houses, it is in the dusk of evening, on visits to thechurches and their nearest kindred. On these occasions, they are onhorseback, covered with a veil, and encompassed by their parents, theirhusbands, or their servants. " [82]

[Footnote 78: In the first attempt, Meursius collected 3600Græco-barbarous words, to which, in a second edition, he subjoined 1800more; yet what plenteous gleanings did he leave to Portius, Ducange, Fabrotti, the Bollandists, &c. ! (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. Tom. X. P. 101, &c. ) _Some_ Persic words may be found in Xenophon, and some Latin onesin Plutarch; and such is the inevitable effect of war and commerce; butthe form and substance of the language were not affected by this slightalloy. ]

[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) (Istoriadella Letteratura Italiana, tom. Vii. P. 282--294, ) for the mostpart from his own letters. His elaborate writings, and those of hiscontemporaries, are forgotten; but their familiar epistles stilldescribe the men and the times. ]

[Footnote 80: He married, and had perhaps debauched, the daughterof John, and the granddaughter of Manuel Chrysoloras. She was young, beautiful, and wealthy; and her noble family was allied to the Dorias ofGenoa and the emperors of Constantinople. ]

[Footnote 81: Græci quibus lingua depravata non sit. .. . Ita loquunturvulgo hâc etiam tempestate ut Aristophanes comicus, aut Euripidestragicus, ut oratores omnes, ut historiographi, ut philosophi. .. . Litterati autem homines et doctius et emendatius. .. . Nam viri auliciveterem sermonis dignitatem atque elegantiam retinebant in primisqueipsæ nobiles mulieres; quibus cum nullum esset omnino cum virisperegrinis commercium, merus ille ac purus Græcorum sermo servabaturintactus, (Philelph. Epist. Ad ann. 1451, apud Hodium, p. 188, 189. )He observes in another passage, uxor illa mea Theodora locutione eratadmodum moderatâ et suavi et maxime Atticâ. ]

[Footnote 82: Philelphus, absurdly enough, derives this Greek orOriental jealousy from the manners of ancient Rome. ]

Among the Greeks a numerous and opulent clergy was dedicated tothe service of religion: their monks and bishops have ever beendistinguished by the gravity and austerity of their manners; nor werethey diverted, like the Latin priests, by the pursuits and pleasures ofa secular, and even military, life. After a large deduction for thetime and talent that were lost in the devotion, the laziness, and thediscord, of the church and cloister, the more inquisitive and ambitiousminds would explore the sacred and profane erudition of their nativelanguage. The ecclesiastics presided over the education of youth; theschools of philosophy and eloquence were perpetuated till the fall ofthe empire; and it may be affirmed, that more books and more knowledgewere included within the walls of Constantinople, than could bedispersed over the extensive countries of the West. [83] But an importantdistinction has been already noticed: the Greeks were stationary orretrograde, while the Latins were advancing with a rapid and progressivemotion. The nations were excited by the spirit of independence andemulation; and even the little world of the Italian states containedmore people and industry than the decreasing circle of the Byzantineempire. In Europe, the lower ranks of society were relieved from theyoke of feudal servitude; and freedom is the first step to curiosity andknowledge. The use, however rude and corrupt, of the Latin tonguehad been preserved by superstition; the universities, from Bologna toOxford, [84] were peopled with thousands of scholars; and their misguidedardor might be directed to more liberal and manly studies. In theresurrection of science, Italy was the first that cast away her shroud;and the eloquent Petrarch, by his lessons and his example, may justly beapplauded as the first harbinger of day. A purer style of composition, a more generous and rational strain of sentiment, flowed from the studyand imitation of the writers of ancient Rome; and the disciples ofCicero and Virgil approached, with reverence and love, the sanctuary oftheir Grecian masters. In the sack of Constantinople, the French, andeven the Venetians, had despised and destroyed the works of Lysippus andHomer: the monuments of art may be annihilated by a single blow; but theimmortal mind is renewed and multiplied by the copies of the pen; andsuch copies it was the ambition of Petrarch and his friends to possessand understand. The arms of the Turks undoubtedly pressed the flightof the Muses; yet we may tremble at the thought, that Greece might havebeen overwhelmed, with her schools and libraries, before Europe hademerged from the deluge of barbarism; that the seeds of science mighthave been scattered by the winds, before the Italian soil was preparedfor their cultivation. 

[Footnote 83: See the state of learning in the xiiith and xivthcenturies, 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 Europeabout fifty universities, and of these the foundation of ten or twelveis prior to the year 1300. They were crowded in proportion to theirscarcity. Bologna contained 10, 000 students, chiefly of the civil law. In the year 1357 the number at Oxford had decreased from 30, 000 to 6000scholars, (Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. Iv. P. 478. ) Yet eventhis decrease is much superior to the present list of the members of theuniversity. ]

Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches. --Part IV. 

The most learned Italians of the fifteenth century have confessed andapplauded the restoration of Greek literature, after a long oblivion ofmany hundred years. [85] Yet in that country, and beyond the Alps, somenames are quoted; some profound scholars, who in the darker ages werehonorably distinguished by their knowledge of the Greek tongue; andnational vanity has been loud in the praise of such rare examples oferudition. Without scrutinizing the merit of individuals, truth mustobserve, that their science is without a cause, and without an effect;that it was easy for them to satisfy themselves and their more ignorantcontemporaries; and that the idiom, which they had so marvellouslyacquired was transcribed in few manuscripts, and was not taught in anyuniversity of the West. In a corner of Italy, it faintly existed asthe popular, or at least as the ecclesiastical dialect. [86] The firstimpression of the Doric and Ionic colonies has never been completelyerased: the Calabrian churches were long attached to the throne ofConstantinople: and the monks of St. Basil pursued their studies inMount Athos and the schools of the East. Calabria was the native countryof Barlaam, who has already appeared as a sectary and an ambassador; andBarlaam was the first who revived, beyond the Alps, the memory, orat least the writings, of Homer. [87] He is described, by Petrarch andBoccace, [88] as a man of diminutive stature, though truly great in themeasure of learning and genius; of a piercing discernment, though of aslow and painful elocution. For many ages (as they affirm) Greecehad not produced his equal in the knowledge of history, grammar, andphilosophy; and his merit was celebrated in the attestations of theprinces and doctors of Constantinople. One of these attestationsis still extant; and the emperor Cantacuzene, the protector of hisadversaries, is forced to allow, that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato, were familiar to that profound and subtle logician. [89] In the court ofAvignon, he formed an intimate connection with Petrarch, [90] the firstof the Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was theprinciple of their literary commerce. The Tuscan applied himself witheager curiosity and assiduous diligence to the study of the Greeklanguage; and in a laborious struggle with the dryness and difficultyof the first rudiments, he began to reach the sense, and to feel thespirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds were congenial to hisown. But he was soon deprived of the society and lessons of this usefulassistant: Barlaam relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on hisreturn to Greece, he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, byattempting to substitute the light of reason to that of their navel. After a separation of three years, the two friends again met in thecourt of Naples: but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasionof improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally settled ina small bishopric of his native Calabria. [91] The manifold avocations ofPetrarch, love and friendship, his various correspondence and frequentjourneys, the Roman laurel, and his elaborate compositions in prose andverse, in Latin and Italian, diverted him from a foreign idiom; and ashe advanced in life, the attainment of the Greek language was the objectof his wishes rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years ofage, 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 oneexpressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After celebratingthe generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift more precious inhis estimation than gold or rubies, he thus proceeds: "Your present ofthe genuine and original text of the divine poet, the fountain of allinventions, is worthy of yourself and of me: you have fulfilledyour promise, and satisfied my desires. Yet your liberality is stillimperfect: with Homer you should have given me yourself; a guide, whocould lead me into the fields of light, and disclose to my wonderingeyes the spacious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas! Homeris dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the beauty whichI possess. I have seated him by the side of Plato, the prince ofpoets near the prince of philosophers; and I glory in the sight ofmy illustrious guests. Of their immortal writings, whatever had beentranslated into the Latin idiom, I had already acquired; but, if therebe no profit, there is some pleasure, in beholding these venerableGreeks in their proper and national habit. I am delighted with theaspect of Homer; and as often as I embrace the silent volume, I exclaimwith a sigh, Illustrious bard! with what pleasure should I listen to thysong, if my sense of hearing were not obstructed and lost by the deathof one friend, and in the much-lamented absence of another. Nor do I yetdespair; and the example of Cato suggests some comfort and hope, sinceit was in the last period of age that he attained the knowledge of theGreek letters. " [92]

[Footnote 85: Of those writers who professedly treat of the restorationof the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are Hodius, Dr. Humphrey Hody, (de Græcis Illustribus, Linguæ Græcæ Literarumquehumaniorum Instauratoribus; Londini, 1742, in large octavo, ) andTiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. V. P. 364--377, tom. Vii. P. 112--143. ) The Oxford professor is a laborious scholar, butthe librarian of Modena enjoys the superiority of a modern and nationalhistorian. ]

[Footnote 86: In Calabria quæ olim magna Græcia dicebatur, coloniisGræcis repleta, remansit quædam linguæ veteris, cognitio, (Hodius, p. 2. ) If it were eradicated by the Romans, it was revived and perpetuatedby the monks of St. Basil, who possessed seven convents at Rossanoalone, (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 twointerviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the excellentMémoires 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 Italiæ Medii Ævi, p. 312. ) The dives opum of theNorman 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 alveâ??derivatum, sed ex ipsis Græci eloquii scatebris, et qualis divino illiprofluxit ingenio. .. . Sine tuâ voce Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immovero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel adspectû solo, ac sæpeillum amplexus atque suspirans dico, O magne vir, &c. ]

The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was obtained by thefortune and industry of his friend Boccace, [93] the father of theTuscan prose. That popular writer, who derives his reputation from theDecameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may aspire tothe more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study of the Greeklanguage. In the year one thousand three hundred and sixty, a discipleof Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius Pilatus, was detained in hisway to Avignon by the advice and hospitality of Boccace, who lodged thestranger in his house, prevailed on the republic of Florence to allowhim an annual stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greekprofessor, who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe. The appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager disciple, he wasclothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or a mendicant; his countenancewas hideous; his face was overshadowed with black hair; his beard longan uncombed; his deportment rustic; his temper gloomy and inconstant;nor could he grace his discourse with the ornaments, or even theperspicuity, of Latin elocution. But his mind was stored with a treasureof Greek learning: history and fable, philosophy and grammar, werealike at his command; and he read the poems of Homer in the schoolsof Florence. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed [* andtranscribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey, whichsatisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which, perhaps, inthe succeeding century, was clandestinely used by Laurentius Valla, the Latin interpreter. It was from his narratives that the same Boccacecollected the materials for his treatise on the genealogy of theheathen gods, a work, in that age, of stupendous erudition, and which heostentatiously sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excitethe wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers. [94] The firststeps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten votaries ofHomer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither Rome, nor Venice, nor Naples, could add a single name to this studious catalogue. Buttheir numbers would have multiplied, their progress would have beenaccelerated, if the inconstant Leo, at the end of three years, hadnot 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 theman. Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated hispresent enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear tohis imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a native ofCalabria: in the company of the Latins he disdained their language, religion, and manners: no sooner was he landed at Constantinople, thanhe again sighed for the wealth of Venice and the elegance of Florence. His Italian friends were deaf to his importunity: he depended on theircuriosity and indulgence, and embarked on a second voyage; but on hisentrance into the Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and theunfortunate teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast, was struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped atear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether somecopy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the hands of themariners. [95]

[Footnote 93: For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born in1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ævi, tom. I. P. 248, &c. ) and Tiraboschi (tom. V. P. 83, 439--451) may be consulted. Theeditions, versions, imitations of his novels, are innumerable. Yet hewas ashamed to communicate that trifling, and perhaps scandalous, workto Petrarch, his respectable friend, in whose letters and memoirs heconspicuously 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 causâGræca carmina adscripsi. .. . Jure utor meo; meum est hoc decus, meagloria scilicet inter Etruscos Græcis uti carminibus. Nonne ego fui quiLeontium 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 byHody, (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 dramaticmanner of his original. ]

But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Petrarch had encouragedand Boccace had planted, soon withered and expired. The succeedinggeneration was content for a while with the improvement of Latineloquence; nor was it before the end of the fourteenth century that anew and perpetual flame was rekindled in Italy. [96] Previous to his ownjourney the emperor Manuel despatched his envoys and orators to implorethe compassion of the Western princes. Of these envoys, the mostconspicuous, or the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras, [97] of noblebirth, and whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have migrated withthe great Constantine. After visiting the courts of France and England, where he obtained some contributions and more promises, the envoy wasinvited to assume the office of a professor; and Florence had againthe honor of this second invitation. By his knowledge, not only of theGreek, but of the Latin tongue, Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, andsurpassed the expectation, of the republic. His school was frequentedby a crowd of disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in ageneral history, has described his motives and his success. "At thattime, " 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 someapplication on the sciences of logic and rhetoric. On the arrivalof Manuel, I hesitated whether I should desert my legal studies, orrelinquish this golden opportunity; and thus, in the ardor of youth, I communed with my own mind--Wilt thou be wanting to thyself and thyfortune? Wilt thou refuse to be introduced to a familiar converse withHomer, Plato, and Demosthenes; with those poets, philosophers, andorators, of whom such wonders are related, and who are celebrated byevery age as the great masters of human science? Of professors andscholars in civil law, a sufficient supply will always be found in ouruniversities; 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 strongwas my passion, that the lessons which I had imbibed in the day were theconstant object of my nightly dreams. " [99] At the same time and place, the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna, the domestic pupilof Petrarch; [100] the Italians, who illustrated their age and country, were formed in this double school; and Florence became the fruitfulseminary of Greek and Roman erudition. [101] The presence of the emperorrecalled Chrysoloras from the college to the court; but he afterwardstaught at Pavia and Rome with equal industry and applause. The remainderof his life, about fifteen years, was divided between Italy andConstantinople, between embassies and lessons. In the noble office ofenlightening a foreign nation, the grammarian was not unmindful of amore sacred duty to his prince and country; and Emanuel Chrysoloras diedat 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 restoredin Italy _post septingentos annos_; as if, says he, they had flourishedtill the end of the viith century. These writers most probably reckonedfrom the last period of the exarchate; and the presence of the Greekmagistrates and troops at Ravenna and Rome must have preserved, in somedegree, 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 ofhis arrival floats between the years 1390 and 1400, and is only confinedby the reign of Boniface IX. ]

[Footnote 98: The name of _Aretinus_ has been assumed by five or sixnatives of _Arezzo_ in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and the mostworthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, thedisciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator, and an historian, the secretary of four successive popes, and the chancellor ofthe republic of Florence, where he died A. D. 1444, at the ageof seventy-five, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii Ævi, tom. I. P. 190 &c. Tiraboschi, tom. Vii. P. 33--38. )]

[Footnote 99: See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo Temporein Italia gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28--30. ]

[Footnote 100: In this domestic discipline, Petrarch, who loved theyouth, often complains of the eager curiosity, restless temper, andproud feelings, which announce the genius and glory of a riper age, (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. Iii. P. 700--709. )]

[Footnote 101: Hinc Græcæ Latinæque scholæ exortæ sunt, GuarinoPhilelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque aliis tanquam exequo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione multa ingenia deinceps adlaudem excitata sunt, (Platina in Bonifacio IX. ) Another Italianwriter adds the names of Paulus Petrus Vergerius, Omnibonus Vincentius, Poggius, Franciscus Barbarus, &c. But I question whether a rigidchronology would allow Chrysoloras _all_ these eminent scholars, (Hodius, p. 25--27, &c. )]

After his example, the restoration of the Greek letters in Italy wasprosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were destitute of fortune, andendowed with learning, or at least with language. From the terroror oppression of the Turkish arms, the natives of Thessalonica andConstantinople escaped to a land of freedom, curiosity, and wealth. Thesynod introduced into Florence the lights of the Greek church, and theoracles of the Platonic philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to theunion, had the double merit of renouncing their country, not only forthe Christian, but for the catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrificeshis party and conscience to the allurements of favor, may be possessed, however, of the private and social virtues: he no longer hears thereproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and the consideration whichhe acquires among his new associates will restore in his own eyesthe dignity of his character. The prudent conformity of Bessarion wasrewarded with the Roman purple: he fixed his residence in Italy; and theGreek cardinal, the titular patriarch of Constantinople, was respectedas the chief and protector of his nation: [102] his abilities wereexercised in the legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and France;and his election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a moment on theuncertain breath of a conclave. [103] His ecclesiastical honors diffuseda splendor and preeminence over his literary merit and service: hispalace was a school; as often as the cardinal visited the Vatican, hewas attended by a learned train of both nations; [104] of men applaudedby themselves and the public; and whose writings, now overspread withdust, were popular and useful in their own times. I shall not attempt toenumerate the restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century;and it may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of TheodoreGaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and DemetriusChalcocondyles, who taught their native language in the schools ofFlorence and Rome. Their labors were not inferior to those of Bessarion, whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the secret object oftheir envy. But the lives of these grammarians were humble and obscure:they had declined the lucrative paths of the church; their dress andmanners secluded them from the commerce of the world; and since theywere confined to the merit, they might be content with the rewards, of learning. From this character, Janus Lascaris [105] will deserve anexception. His eloquence, politeness, and Imperial descent, recommendedhim to the French monarch; and in the same cities he was alternatelyemployed to teach and to negotiate. Duty and interest prompted themto cultivate the study of the Latin language; and the most successfulattained the faculty of writing and speaking with fluency and elegancein a foreign idiom. But they ever retained the inveterate vanity oftheir country: their praise, or at least their esteem, was reserved forthe national writers, to whom they owed their fame and subsistence; andthey sometimes betrayed their contempt in licentious criticism or satireon Virgil's poetry, and the oratory of Tully. [106] The superiority ofthese masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; andtheir first disciples were incapable of discerning how far theyhad degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice of theirancestors. A vicious pronunciation, [107] which they introduced, wasbanished from the schools by the reason of the succeeding age. Of thepower of the Greek accents they were ignorant; and those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue, and to an Attic ear, must have been thesecret soul of harmony, were to their eyes, as to our own, no more thanminute and unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous and troublesome inverse. The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragmentsof Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and theirtreatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit, are still useful to the Greek student. In the shipwreck of the Byzantinelibraries, each fugitive seized a fragment of treasure, a copy of someauthor, who without his industry might have perished: the transcriptswere multiplied by an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant pen; and thetext was corrected and explained by their own comments, or those ofthe elder scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greekclassics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of styleevaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza selectedthe more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and their naturalhistories of animals and plants opened a rich fund of genuine andexperimental science. 

[Footnote 102: See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p. 136--177. )Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and the rest of the Greeks whomI have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper chapters of hislearned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st and 2d parts of thevith tome. ]

[Footnote 103: The cardinals knocked at his door, but his conclavistrefused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion: "Nicholas, " said he, "thyrespect has cost thee a hat, and me the tiara. " *

Note: * Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. I. P. 75) considers thatHody has refuted this "idle tale. "--M. ]

[Footnote 104: Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza, Argyropulus, Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius, Blondus, NicholasPerrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri (says Hody, with the piouszeal of a scholar) (nullo ævo perituri, p. 156. )]

[Footnote 105: He was born before the taking of Constantinople, but hishonorable life was stretched far into the xvith century, (A. D. 1535. )Leo X. And Francis I. Were his noblest patrons, under whose auspices hefounded the Greek colleges of Rome and Paris, (Hody, p. 247--275. )He left posterity in France; but the counts de Vintimille, and theirnumerous branches, derive the name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriagein 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 againstTully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus, who can find nobetter names than Græculus ineptus et impudens, (Hody, p. 274. ) In ourown times, an English critic has accused the Æneid of containing multalanguida, nugatoria, spiritû et majestate carminis heroici defecta; manysuch verses as he, the said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamedof owning, (præfat. Ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22. )]

[Footnote 107: Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are accused ofignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c. , tom. Ii. P. 235. ) The modernGreeks pronounce the b as a V consonant, and confound three vowels, (h iu, ) and several diphthongs. Such was the vulgar pronunciation whichthe stern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the university ofCambridge: but the monosyllable bh represented to an Attic ear thebleating of sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop ora chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, whoasserted a more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Syllogeof Havercamp, (2 vols. In octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740:) but it isdifficult to paint sounds by words: and in their reference to modernuse, they can be understood only by their respective countrymen. We mayobserve, that our peculiar pronunciation of the O, th, is approved byErasmus, (tom. Ii. P. 130. )]

Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with more curiosityand ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in Italy by avenerable Greek, [108] who taught in the house of Cosmo of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was involved in theological debate, somebeneficial consequences might flow from the study of his elegantphilosophy: his style is the purest standard of the Attic dialect, andhis sublime thoughts are sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, andsometimes adorned with the richest colors of poetry and eloquence. Thedialogues of Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of asage; and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral systeminculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. Theprecept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and liberalinquiry; and if the Platonists, with blind devotion, adored the visionsand errors of their divine master, their enthusiasm might correctthe dry, dogmatic method of the Peripatetic school. So equal, yetso opposite, are the merits of Plato and Aristotle, that they maybe balanced in endless controversy; but some spark of freedom may beproduced by the collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks weredivided between the two sects: with more fury than skill they foughtunder the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was removedin their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this philosophicaldebate soon degenerated into an angry and personal quarrel ofgrammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for Plato, protected thenational honor, by interposing the advice and authority of a mediator. In the gardens of the Medici, the academical doctrine was enjoyed by thepolite and learned: but their philosophic society was quickly dissolved;and if the writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, themore powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the oracle of the church andschool. [109]

[Footnote 108: George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous writer, the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the times. He visitedItaly 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. Græc. Tom. X. P. 739--756. )]

[Footnote 109: The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy isillustrated 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 mustbe confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed by the ardor of theLatins. Italy was divided into many independent states; and at that timeit was the ambition of princes and republics to vie with each other inthe encouragement and reward of literature. The fame of Nicholas theFifth [110] has not been adequate to his merits. From a plebeian originhe raised himself by his virtue and learning: the character of the manprevailed over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weaponswhich were soon pointed against the Roman church. [111] He had been thefriend of the most eminent scholars of the age: he became their patron;and such was the humility of his manners, that the change was scarcelydiscernible either to them or to himself. If he pressed the acceptanceof a liberal gift, it was not as the measure of desert, but as the proofof benevolence; and when modest merit declined his bounty, "Accept it, "would he say, with a consciousness of his own worth: "ye will not alwayshave a Nicholas among you. " The influence of the holy see pervadedChristendom; and he exerted that influence in the search, not ofbenefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine libraries, fromthe darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he collected the dustymanuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and wherever the original couldnot be removed, a faithful copy was transcribed and transmitted forhis use. The Vatican, the old repository for bulls and legends, forsuperstition and forgery, was daily replenished with more preciousfurniture; and such was the industry of Nicholas, that in a reignof eight years he formed a library of five thousand volumes. To hismunificence the Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo'sGeography, of the Iliad, of the most valuable works of Plato andAristotle, of Ptolemy and Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the Greekchurch. The example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or imitated by aFlorentine merchant, who governed the republic without arms and withouta title. Cosmo of Medicis [112] was the father of a line of princes, whose name and age are almost synonymous with the restoration oflearning: his credit was ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicatedto the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo andLondon: and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often importedin the same vessel. The genius and education of his grandson Lorenzorendered him not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in theliterary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief, and meritto reward: his leisure hours were delightfully spent in the Platonicacademy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius Chalcocondyles andAngelo Politian; and his active missionary Janus Lascaris returned fromthe East with a treasure of two hundred manuscripts, fourscore of whichwere as yet unknown in the libraries of Europe. [113] The rest of Italywas animated by a similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaidthe liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive propertyof their own literature; and these disciples of Greece were soon capableof transmitting and improving the lessons which they had imbibed. Aftera short succession of foreign teachers, the tide of emigration subsided;but the language of Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and thenatives of France, Germany, and England, [114] imparted to their countrythe sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence andRome. [115] In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, thegifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the Greek authors, forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been illustrated on thoseof the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or Gaza might have envied thesuperior science of the Barbarians; the accuracy of Budæus, the tasteof Erasmus, the copiousness of Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, thediscernment of Reiske, or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, thediscovery of printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art hasbeen applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate andmultiply the works of antiquity. [116] A single manuscript imported fromGreece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each copy is fairer thanthe original. In this form, Homer and Plato would peruse with moresatisfaction their own writings; and their scholiasts must resign theprize 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 ofFlorence, (tom. Xxv. P. 267--290, ) in the collection of Muratori; andconsult Tiraboschi, (tom. Vi. P. I. P. 46--52, 109, ) and Hody in thearticles of Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, &c. ]

[Footnote 111: Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit, thatthe popes in this instance, were worse politicians than the muftis, andthat the charm which had bound mankind for so many ages was broken bythe 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 measureof praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples, the dukes of Milan, Ferrara Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice has deserved the least fromthe gratitude of scholars. ]

[Footnote 113: Tiraboschi, (tom. Vi. P. I. P. 104, ) from the prefaceof 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 Thraciæ monte. Eas Lascaris. .. . In Italiam reportavit. Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius ille Medices in Græciam ad inquirendossimul, et quantovis emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkableenough, that the research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II. ]

[Footnote 114: The Greek language was introduced into the university ofOxford in the last years of the xvth century, by Grocyn, Linacer, andLatimer, who had all studied at Florence under Demetrius Chalcocondyles. See Dr. Knight's curious Life of Erasmus. Although a stout academicalpatriot, he is forced to acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek atOxford, and taught it at Cambridge. ]

[Footnote 115: The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a monopolyof Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the Greek scholiastson 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 atVenice about the year 1494: he printed above sixty considerable worksof Greek literature, almost all for the first time; several containingdifferent treatises and authors, and of several authors, two, three, orfour editions, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. Tom. Xiii. P. 605, &c. ) Yethis glory must not tempt us to forget, that the first Greek book, theGrammar of Constantine Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and thatthe Florence Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographicalart. See the Annales Typographical of Mattaire, and the BibliographieInstructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris. ]

Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in Europe wereimmersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were marked with therudeness and poverty of their manners. The students of the more perfectidioms of Rome and Greece were introduced to a new world of light andscience; to the society of the free and polished nations of antiquity;and to a familiar converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublimelanguage of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend torefine the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet, from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of theancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind. However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast; and thefirst disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of strangers inthe midst of their age and country. The minute and laborious diligencewhich explored the antiquities of remote times might have improved oradorned the present state of society, the critic and metaphysician werethe slaves of Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proudto repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works ofnature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and somePagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of Homer andPlato. [117] The Italians were oppressed by the strength and number oftheir ancient auxiliaries: the century after the deaths of Petrarch andBoccace was filled with a crowd of Latin imitators, who decently reposeon our shelves; but in that æra of learning it will not be easy todiscern 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 beendeeply saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened intovegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics ofAthens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous emulation; and inItaly, as afterwards in France and England, the pleasing reign of poetryand fiction was succeeded by the light of speculative and experimentalphilosophy. Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in theeducation of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must beexercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: normay 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 classicenthusiasm. I. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho said, infamiliar conversation to George of Trebizond, that in a short timemankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the Koran, for areligion similar to that of the Gentiles, (Leo Allatius, apud Fabricium, tom. X. P. 751. ) 2. Paul II. Persecuted the Roman academy, which hadbeen founded by Pomponius Lætus; and the principal members were accusedof heresy, impiety, and _paganism_, (Tiraboschi, tom. Vi. P. I. P. 81, 82. ) 3. In the next century, some scholars and poets in Francecelebrated the success of Jodelle's tragedy of Cleopatra, by a festivalof Bacchus, and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat, (Bayle, Dictionnaire, Jodelle. Fontenelle, tom. Iii. P. 56--61. ) Yet the spiritof bigotry might often discern a serious impiety in the sportive play offancy and learning. ]

[Footnote 118: The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we cannotplace before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore of Pulciand 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 Palæologus, Last Emperor Of The East. 

The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are compared andcelebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the Italian schools. [1]The view of the ancient capital, the seat of his ancestors, surpassedthe most sanguine expectations of Emanuel Chrysoloras; and he no longerblamed the exclamation of an old sophist, that Rome was the habitation, not of men, but of gods. Those gods, and those men, had long sincevanished; but to the eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruinrestored the image of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of theconsuls and Cæsars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sidesthe curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he confessedthat in every age the arms and the religion of Rome were destined toreign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired the venerable beautiesof the mother, he was not forgetful of his native country, her fairestdaughter, her Imperial colony; and the Byzantine patriot expatiateswith zeal and truth on the eternal advantages of nature, and the moretransitory 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 aredelighted to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior merit oftheir children. "Constantinople, " says the orator, "is situate on acommanding point, between Europe and Asia, between the Archipelago andthe Euxine. By her interposition, the two seas, and the two continents, are united for the common benefit of nations; and the gates of commercemay be shut or opened at her command. The harbor, encompassed on allsides by the sea, and the continent, is the most secure and capaciousin the world. The walls and gates of Constantinople may be comparedwith those of Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid andlofty structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would besufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A broadand rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the artificialisland may be encompassed, like Athens, [2] by land or water. " Two strongand natural causes are alleged for the perfection of the model of newRome. The royal founder reigned over the most illustrious nations of theglobe; and in the accomplishment of his designs, the power of the Romanswas combined with the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities havebeen reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties are mingledwith disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants, unwilling to removefrom their natal spot, are incapable of correcting the errors of theirancestors, and the original vices of situation or climate. But the freeidea of Constantinople was formed and executed by a single mind; and theprimitive model was improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects andsuccessors of the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored withan inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials weretransported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; andthe public and private buildings, the palaces, churches, aqueducts, cisterns, porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes, were adapted tothe greatness of the capital of the East. The superfluity of wealth wasspread along the shores of Europe and Asia; and the Byzantine territory, as far as the Euxine, the Hellespont, and the long wall, might beconsidered as a populous suburb and a perpetual garden. In thisflattering picture, the past and the present, the times of prosperityand decay, are art fully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape, from the orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchreof its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defacedby Christian zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures weredemolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt for lime, orapplied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the place was marked byan empty pedestal; of many a column, the size was determined by a brokencapital; the tombs of the emperors were scattered on the ground; thestroke of time was accelerated by storms and earthquakes; and the vacantspace was adorned, by vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of goldand silver. From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, hedistinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and colossus ofJustinian, [3] and the church, more especially the dome, of St. Sophia;the best conclusion, since it could not be described according to itsmerits, and after it no other object could deserve to be mentioned. Buthe forgets that, a century before, the trembling fabrics of the colossusand the church had been saved and supported by the timely care ofAndronicus the Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had fortifiedSt. Sophia with two new buttresses or pyramids, the eastern hemispheresuddenly gave way: and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary, werecrushed 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 theGreeks to the most stately and venerable temple of the East. [4]

[Footnote 1: The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor JohnPalæologus will not offend the eye or ear of a classical student, (adcalcem Codini de Antiquitatibus C. P. P. 107--126. ) The superscriptionsuggests a chronological remark, that John Palæologus II. Was associatedin 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 hisyoungest sons, Demetrius and Thomas, who were both _Porphyrogeniti_(Ducange, Fam. Byzant. P. 244, 247. )]

[Footnote 2: Somebody observed that the city of Athens might becircumnavigated, (tiV eipen tin polin tvn Aqhnaiwn dunasqai kaiparaplein kai periplein. ) But what may be true in a rhetorical sense ofConstantinople, cannot be applied to the situation of Athens, fivemiles from the sea, and not intersected or surrounded by any navigablestreams. ]

[Footnote 3: Nicephorus Gregoras has described the Colossus ofJustinian, (l. Vii. 12:) but his measures are false and inconsistent. The editor Boivin consulted his friend Girardon; and the sculptor gavehim the true proportions of an equestrian statue. That of Justinian wasstill visible to Peter Gyllius, not on the column, but in the outwardcourt of the seraglio; and he was at Constantinople when it was melteddown, 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 NicephorusGregoras (l. Vii. 12, l. Xv. 2. ) The building was propped by Andronicusin 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in 1345. The Greeks, in theirpompous rhetoric, exalt the beauty and holiness of the church, anearthly heaven the abode of angels, and of God himself, &c. ]

The last hope of the falling city and empire was placed in the harmonyof the mother and daughter, in the maternal tenderness of Rome, and thefilial obedience of Constantinople. In the synod of Florence, the Greeksand Latins had embraced, and subscribed, and promised; but these signsof friendship were perfidious or fruitless; [5] and the baseless fabricof the union vanished like a dream. [6] The emperor and his prelatesreturned home in the Venetian galleys; but as they touched at the Moreaand the Isles of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins complainedthat the pretended union would be an instrument of oppression. No soonerdid they land on the Byzantine shore, than they were saluted, or ratherassailed, with a general murmur of zeal and discontent. During theirabsence, above two years, the capital had been deprived of its civil andecclesiastical rulers; fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the most furiousmonks reigned over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatredof the Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion. Beforehis departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the city with theassurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succor; and the clergy, confident in their orthodoxy and science, had promised themselves andtheir flocks an easy victory over the blind shepherds of the West. Thedouble disappointment exasperated the Greeks; the conscience of thesubscribing prelates was awakened; the hour of temptation was past; andthey had more to dread from the public resentment, than they could hopefrom the favor of the emperor or the pope. Instead of justifying theirconduct, they deplored their weakness, professed their contrition, and cast themselves on the mercy of God and of their brethren. Tothe reproachful question, what had been the event or the use of theirItalian synod? they answered with sighs and tears, "Alas! we have madea new faith; we have exchanged piety for impiety; we have betrayed theimmaculate sacrifice; and we are become _Azymites_. " (The Azymites werethose who celebrated the communion with unleavened bread; and I mustretract or qualify the praise which I have bestowed on the growingphilosophy of the times. ) "Alas! we have been seduced by distress, byfraud, and by the hopes and fears of a transitory life. The handthat has signed the union should be cut off; and the tongue that haspronounced the Latin creed deserves to be torn from the root. " The bestproof of their repentance was an increase of zeal for the mosttrivial rites and the most incomprehensible doctrines; and an absoluteseparation from all, without excepting their prince, who preserved someregard for honor and consistency. After the decease of the patriarchJoseph, the archbishops of Heraclea and Trebizond had courage torefuse the vacant office; and Cardinal Bessarion preferred the warm andcomfortable shelter of the Vatican. The choice of the emperor and hisclergy was confined to Metrophanes of Cyzicus: he was consecrated inSt. Sophia, but the temple was vacant. The cross-bearers abdicatedtheir service; the infection spread from the city to the villages; andMetrophanes discharged, without effect, some ecclesiastical thundersagainst a nation of schismatics. The eyes of the Greeks were directed toMark of Ephesus, the champion of his country; and the sufferings of theholy confessor were repaid with a tribute of admiration and applause. His example and writings propagated the flame of religious discord; ageand infirmity soon removed him from the world; but the gospel of Markwas not a law of forgiveness; and he requested with his dying breath, that none of the adherents of Rome might attend his obsequies or prayfor his soul. 

[Footnote 5: The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus (p. 312--351) opens the schism from the first _office_ of the Greeks atVenice to the general opposition at Constantinople, of the clergy andpeople. ]

[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 wemay distinguish the continuator of Fleury, (tom. Xxii. P. 338, &c. , 401, 420, &c. , ) and Spondanus, (A. D. 1440--50. ) The sense of the latteris drowned in prejudice and passion, as soon as Rome and religion areconcerned. ]

The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the Byzantineempire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the three patriarchs ofAlexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, assembled a numerous synod; disownedtheir representatives at Ferrara and Florence; condemned the creed andcouncil of the Latins; and threatened the emperor of Constantinoplewith the censures of the Eastern church. Of the sectaries of theGreek communion, the Russians were the most powerful, ignorant, andsuperstitious. Their primate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened fromFlorence to Moscow, [7] to reduce the independent nation under the Romanyoke. But the Russian bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; andthe prince and people embraced the theology of their priests. They werescandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the legate, thefriend of those impious men who shaved their beards, and performed thedivine office with gloves on their hands and rings on their fingers:Isidore was condemned by a synod; his person was imprisoned in amonastery; and it was with extreme difficulty that the cardinal couldescape from the hands of a fierce and fanatic people. [8] The Russiansrefused a passage to the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convertthe Pagans beyond the Tanais; [9] and their refusal was justified by themaxim, that the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism. The errors of the Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for thepope; and a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the friendship ofthose sanguinary enthusiasts. [10] While Eugenius triumphed in the unionand orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was contracted to the walls, orrather to the palace of Constantinople. The zeal of Palæologus had beenexcited by interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt toviolate the national belief might endanger his life and crown; not couldthe pious rebels be destitute of foreign and domestic aid. The sword ofhis brother Demetrius, who in Italy had maintained a prudent and popularsilence, was half unsheathed in the cause of religion; and Amurath, theTurkish sultan, was displeased and alarmed by the seeming friendship ofthe Greeks and Latins. 

[Footnote 7: Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks subjectto Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to Lemberg, orLeopold, (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. DeRussie, tom. Iii. P. 188, 190, from a Greek MS. At Turin, Iter etlabores Archiepiscopi Arsenii. )]

[Footnote 8: The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist. De Russie, tom. Ii. P. 242--247) is extracted from the patriarchal archives. The scenesof Ferrara and Florence are described by ignorance and passion; but theRussians are credible in the account of their own prejudices. ]

[Footnote 9: The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the Samanæans andGymnosophists, has been driven by the more popular Bramins from Indiainto the northern deserts: the naked philosophers were compelled to wrapthemselves in fur; but they insensibly sunk into wizards and physicians. The Mordvans and Tcheremisses in the European Russia adhere to thisreligion, which is formed on the earthly model of one king or God, his ministers or angels, and the rebellious spirits who oppose hisgovernment. As these tribes of the Volga have no images, they mightmore justly retort on the Latin missionaries the name of idolaters, (Levesque, Hist. Des Peuples soumis à la Domination des Russes, tom. I. P. 194--237, 423--460. )]

[Footnote 10: Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. Tom ii. A. D. 1451, No. 13. Theepistle of the Greeks with a Latin version, is extant in the collegelibrary 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 greatsoul, patient of labors, learned, merciful, religious, charitable; alover and encourager of the studious, and of all who excelled in any artor science; a good emperor and a great general. No man obtained more orgreater victories than Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his attacks. [101]Under his reign, the soldier was ever victorious, the citizen rich andsecure. If he subdued any country, his first care was to build mosquesand caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges. Every year he gave a thousandpieces of gold to the sons of the Prophet; and sent two thousand fivehundred 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 lavishedon the worst of tyrants; and the virtues of a sultan are often the vicesmost useful to himself, or most agreeable to his subjects. A nationignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by theflashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume thecharacter of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness. If the most reasonable excuse be rejected, few acts ofobedience will be found impossible; and guilt must tremble, whereinnocence cannot always be secure. The tranquillity of the people, andthe discipline of the troops, were best maintained by perpetual actionin the field; war was the trade of the Janizaries; and those whosurvived the peril, and divided the spoil, applauded the generousambition of their sovereign. To propagate the true religion, was theduty of a faithful Mussulman: the unbelievers were _his_ enemies, andthose of the Prophet; and, in the hands of the Turks, the cimeter wasthe only instrument of conversion. Under these circumstances, however, the justice and moderation of Amurath are attested by his conduct, andacknowledged by the Christians themselves; who consider a prosperousreign and a peaceful death as the reward of his singular merits. In thevigor of his age and military power, he seldom engaged in war till hewas justified by a previous and adequate provocation: the victorioussultan was disarmed by submission; and in the observance of treaties, his word was inviolate and sacred. [12] The Hungarians were commonlythe aggressors; he was provoked by the revolt of Scanderbeg; and theperfidious Caramanian was twice vanquished, and twice pardoned, by theOttoman monarch. Before he invaded the Morea, Thebes had been surprisedby the despot: in the conquest of Thessalonica, the grandson of Bajazetmight dispute the recent purchase of the Venetians; and after the firstsiege of Constantinople, the sultan was never tempted, by the distress, the absence, or the injuries of Palæologus, to extinguish the dyinglight 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 nameto that obscure diligence which is rarely successful in translating anOriental, 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 goodfaith towards the garrison of Sfetigrade, he was a lesson and example tohis son Mahomet. ]

But the most striking feature in the life and character of Amurath isthe double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were not hismotives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must praise the royalphilosopher, [13] who at the age of forty could discern the vanity ofhuman greatness. Resigning the sceptre to his son, he retired to thepleasant residence of Magnesia; but he retired to the society of saintsand hermits. It was not till the fourth century of the Hegira, that thereligion of Mahomet had been corrupted by an institution so adverseto his genius; but in the age of the crusades, the various orders ofDervises were multiplied by the example of the Christian, and even theLatin, monks. [14] The lord of nations submitted to fast, and pray, andturn round [141] in endless rotation with the fanatics, who mistook thegiddiness of the head for the illumination of the spirit. [15] But he wassoon awakened from his dreams of enthusiasm by the Hungarian invasion;and his obedient son was the foremost to urge the public danger andthe wishes of the people. Under the banner of their veteran leader, theJanizaries 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 thestate. A victorious army disdained the inexperience of their youthfulruler: 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 voiceof their master, they trembled and obeyed; and the reluctant sultan wascompelled to support his splendid servitude, till at the end of fouryears, he was relieved by the angel of death. Age or disease, misfortuneor caprice, have tempted several princes to descend from the throne; andthey have had leisure to repent of their irretrievable step. But Amurathalone, in the full liberty of choice, after the trial of empire andsolitude, 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 samepraise 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 Bibliothèque Orientale. Yet the subject issuperficially treated from the Persian and Arabian writers. It is amongthe Turks that these orders have principally flourished. ]

[Footnote 141: Gibbon has fallen into a remarkable error. The unmonasticretreat of Amurath was that of an epicurean rather than of a dervis;more like that of Sardanapalus than of Charles the Fifth. Profane, notdivine, love was its chief occupation: the only dance, that described byHorace as belonging to the country, motus doceri gaudet Ionicos. See VonHammer 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 personalconversation with the heads of the dervises, most of whom ascribedtheir origin to the time of Orchan. He does not mention the _Zichid_ ofChalcondyles, (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 beenunmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender regard for theByzantine empire was animated by a just apprehension of the Turks, whoapproached, and might soon invade, the borders of Italy. But the spiritof the crusades had expired; and the coldness of the Franks was not lessunreasonable than their headlong passion. In the eleventh century, afanatic monk could precipitate Europe on Asia for the recovery of theholy sepulchre; but in the fifteenth, the most pressing motives ofreligion and policy were insufficient to unite the Latins in the defenceof Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse of men and arms:[16] but that complex and languid body required the impulse of avigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike impotent in hispersonal character and his Imperial dignity. A long war had impaired thestrength, without satiating the animosity, of France and England: [17]but Philip duke of Burgundy was a vain and magnificent prince; andhe enjoyed, without danger or expense, the adventurous piety of hissubjects, who sailed, in a gallant fleet, from the coast of Flandersto the Hellespont. The maritime republics of Venice and Genoa wereless remote from the scene of action; and their hostile fleets wereassociated under the standard of St. Peter. The kingdoms of Hungary andPoland, which covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin church, were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of the Turks. Armswere the patrimony of the Scythians and Sarmatians; and these nationsmight appear equal to the contest, could they point, against the commonfoe, those swords that were so wantonly drawn in bloody and domesticquarrels. But the same spirit was adverse to concord and obedience:a poor country and a limited monarch are incapable of maintaining astanding force; and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse werenot armed with the sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, havegiven irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this side, thedesigns of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of Cardinal Julian, his legate, were promoted by the circumstances of the times: [18] bythe union of the two crowns on the head of Ladislaus, [19] a young andambitious soldier; by the valor of a hero, whose name, the name of JohnHuniades, was already popular among the Christians, and formidable tothe Turks. An endless treasure of pardons and indulgences was scatteredby the legate; many private warriors of France and Germany enlistedunder the holy banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or atleast some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and Asia. A fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress and ardor of theChristians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to vindicatetheir religion and liberty. The Greek emperor, [20] with a spirit unknownto his fathers, engaged to guard the Bosphorus, and to sally fromConstantinople at the head of his national and mercenary troops. Thesultan of Caramania [21] announced the retreat of Amurath, and a powerfuldiversion in the heart of Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West couldoccupy at the same moment the Straits of the Hellespont, the Ottomanmonarchy would be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and earth mustrejoice in the perdition of the miscreants; and the legate, with prudentambiguity, 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 Concilede 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 thebishop 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 kingof England and the duke of Burgundy scarcely equalled one third of thisGerman host, (Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, l. Iv. C. 2. ) At present, six or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay andadmirable discipline by the powers of Germany. ]

[Footnote 17: It was not till the year 1444, that France and Englandcould agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer's Fdera, and thechronicles 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, andcritically compared, the Greek and Turkish materials, the historians ofHungary, Poland, and the West. His narrative is perspicuous and wherehe can be free from a religious bias, the judgment of Spondanus is notcontemptible. ]

[Footnote 19: I have curtailed the harsh letter (Wladislaus) whichmost writers affix to his name, either in compliance with the Polishpronunciation, or to distinguish him from his rival the infant Ladislausof Austria. Their competition for the crown of Hungary is described byCallimachus, (l. I. Ii. P. 447--486, ) Bonfinius, (Decad. Iii. L. Iv. , )Spondanus, and Lenfant. ]

[Footnote 20: The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcondyles, and Ducas, donot ascribe to their prince a very active part in this crusade, which heseems 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 theMahometan powers are seldom it formed of the state of Christendom andthe situation and correspondence of the knights of Rhodes must connectthem with the sultan of Caramania. ]

Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the unanimouscry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led an army of hisconfederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of the Bulgariankingdom. In this expedition they obtained two signal victories, whichwere justly ascribed to the valor and conduct of Huniades. In the first, with a vanguard of ten thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp; inthe second, he vanquished and made prisoner the most renowned of theirgenerals, who possessed the double advantage of ground and numbers. Theapproach of winter, and the natural and artificial obstacles of MountHæmus, arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a narrow intervalof six days' march from the foot of the mountains to the hostile towersof Adrianople, and the friendly capital of the Greek empire. The retreatwas undisturbed; and the entrance into Buda was at once a military andreligious triumph. An ecclesiastical procession was followed by the kingand his warriors on foot: he nicely balanced the merits and rewards ofthe two nations; and the pride of conquest was blended with the humbletemper of Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards, and fourthousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as all werewilling to believe, and none were present to contradict, the crusadersmultiplied, with unblushing confidence, the myriads of Turks whom theyhad left on the field of battle. [22] The most solid proof, and the mostsalutary consequence, of victory, was a deputation from the divanto solicit peace, to restore Servia, to ransom the prisoners, and toevacuate the Hungarian frontier. By this treaty, the rational objectsof the war were obtained: the king, the despot, and Huniades himself, inthe diet of Segedin, were satisfied with public and private emolument;a truce of ten years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus andMahomet, who swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested the word of Godas the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy. In the place of theGospel, the Turkish ministers had proposed to substitute the Eucharist, the real presence of the Catholic deity; but the Christians refused toprofane their holy mysteries; and a superstitious conscience is lessforcibly bound by the spiritual energy, than by the outward and visiblesymbols of an oath. [23]

[Footnote 22: In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. TheHungarians slay 80, 000 Turks in one battle; but the modest Julianreduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels, (Æneas Sylvius inEurop. C. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum. )]

[Footnote 23: See the origin of the Turkish war, and the firstexpedition of Ladislaus, in the vth and vith books of the iiid decad ofBonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy with tolerablesuccess Callimachus (l. Ii p. 487--496) is still more pure andauthentic. ]

During the whole transaction, the cardinal legate had observed a sullensilence, unwilling to approve, and unable to oppose, the consent ofthe king and people. But the diet was not dissolved before Julian wasfortified by the welcome intelligence, that Anatolia was invaded by theCaramanian, and Thrace by the Greek emperor; that the fleets of Genoa, Venice, and Burgundy, were masters of the Hellespont; and that theallies, informed of the victory, and ignorant of the treaty, ofLadislaus, impatiently waited for the return of his victorious army. "And is it thus, " exclaimed the cardinal, [24] "that you will deserttheir expectations and your own fortune? It is to them, to your God, andyour fellow-Christians, that you have pledged your faith; and that priorobligation annihilates a rash and sacrilegious oath to the enemies ofChrist. His vicar on earth is the Roman pontiff; without whose sanctionyou can neither promise nor perform. In his name I absolve your perjuryand sanctify your arms: follow my footsteps in the paths of gloryand salvation; and if still ye have scruples, devolve on my head thepunishment and the sin. " This mischievous casuistry was seconded by hisrespectable character, and the levity of popular assemblies: war wasresolved, on the same spot where peace had so lately been sworn; and, inthe 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 thereligion of the times: the most perfect, or at least the most popular, excuse would have been the success of his arms and the deliverance ofthe Eastern church. But the same treaty which should have bound hisconscience had diminished his strength. On the proclamation of thepeace, the French and German volunteers departed with indignant murmurs:the Poles were exhausted by distant warfare, and perhaps disgusted withforeign command; and their palatines accepted the first license, andhastily retired to their provinces and castles. Even Hungary was dividedby faction, or restrained by a laudable scruple; and the relics ofthe crusade that marched in the second expedition were reduced to aninadequate force of twenty thousand men. A Walachian chief, who joinedthe royal standard with his vassals, presumed to remark that theirnumbers did not exceed the hunting retinue that sometimes attended thesultan; and the gift of two horses of matchless speed might admonishLadislaus of his secret foresight of the event. But the despot ofServia, after the restoration of his country and children, was temptedby the promise of new realms; and the inexperience of the king, theenthusiasm of the legate, and the martial presumption of Huniadeshimself, were persuaded that every obstacle must yield to the invinciblevirtue of the sword and the cross. After the passage of the Danube, tworoads might lead to Constantinople and the Hellespont: the one direct, abrupt, and difficult through the mountains of Hæmus; the other moretedious and secure, over a level country, and along the shores of theEuxine; in which their flanks, according to the Scythian discipline, might always be covered by a movable fortification of wagons. The latterwas judiciously preferred: the Catholics marched through the plains ofBulgaria, burning, with wanton cruelty, the churches and villages ofthe Christian natives; and their last station was at Warna, near thesea-shore; on which the defeat and death of Ladislaus have bestowed amemorable name. [25]

[Footnote 24: I do not pretend to warrant the literal accuracy ofJulian's speech, which is variously worded by Callimachus, (l. Iii. P. 505--507, ) Bonfinius, (dec. Iii. L. Vi. P. 457, 458, ) and otherhistorians, who might indulge their own eloquence, while they representone of the orators of the age. But they all agree in the advice andarguments for perjury, which in the field of controversy are fiercelyattacked by the Protestants, and feebly defended by the Catholics. Thelatter are discouraged by the misfortune of Warna. ]

[Footnote 25: Warna, under the Grecian name of Odessus, was a colony ofthe Milesians, which they denominated from the hero Ulysses, (Cellarius, tom. I. P. 374. D'Anville, tom. I. P. 312. ) According to Arrian'sPeriplus of the Euxine, (p. 24, 25, in the first volume of Hudson'sGeographers, ) it was situate 1740 stadia, or furlongs, from the mouthof the Danube, 2140 from Byzantium, and 360 to the north of a ridge ofpromontory of Mount Hæmus, 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 fleetto second their operations, they were alarmed by the approach of Amurathhimself, who had issued from his Magnesian solitude, and transported theforces of Asia to the defence of Europe. According to some writers, theGreek emperor had been awed, or seduced, to grant the passage of theBosphorus; and an indelible stain of corruption is fixed on the Genoese, or the pope's nephew, the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary connivancebetrayed the guard of the Hellespont. From Adrianople, the sultanadvanced by hasty marches, at the head of sixty thousand men; and whenthe cardinal, and Huniades, had taken a nearer survey of the numbersand order of the Turks, these ardent warriors proposed the tardy andimpracticable measure of a retreat. The king alone was resolved toconquer or die; and his resolution had almost been crowned with aglorious and salutary victory. The princes were opposite to each otherin the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or generals of Anatolia and Romania, commanded on the right and left, against the adverse divisions of thedespot and Huniades. The Turkish wings were broken on the first onset:but the advantage was fatal; and the rash victors, in the heat of thepursuit, were carried away far from the annoyance of the enemy, orthe support of their friends. When Amurath beheld the flight of hissquadrons, he despaired of his fortune and that of the empire: a veteranJanizary seized his horse's bridle; and he had magnanimity to pardonand reward the soldier who dared to perceive the terror, and arrestthe flight, of his sovereign. A copy of the treaty, the monument ofChristian perfidy, had been displayed in the front of battle; and it issaid, that the sultan in his distress, lifting his eyes and his hands toheaven, implored the protection of the God of truth; and called on theprophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery of his name andreligion. [26] With inferior numbers and disordered ranks, the king ofHungary rushed forward in the confidence of victory, till his career wasstopped by the impenetrable phalanx of the Janizaries. If we may creditthe Ottoman annals, his horse was pierced by the javelin of Amurath;[27] he fell among the spears of the infantry; and a Turkish soldierproclaimed with a loud voice, "Hungarians, behold the head of yourking!" The death of Ladislaus was the signal of their defeat. On hisreturn from an intemperate pursuit, Huniades deplored his error, and thepublic loss; he strove to rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmedby the tumultuous crowd of the victors and vanquished; and the lastefforts of his courage and conduct were exerted to save the remnantof his Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand Christians were slain in thedisastrous battle of Warna: the loss of the Turks, more considerablein numbers, bore a smaller proportion to their total strength; yet thephilosophic sultan was not ashamed to confess, that his ruin must be theconsequence of a second and similar victory. [271] At his command a columnwas erected on the spot where Ladislaus had fallen; but the modestinscription, instead of accusing the rashness, recorded the valor, andbewailed the misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. [28]

[Footnote 26: Some Christian writers affirm, that he drew from his bosomthe host or wafer on which the treaty had _not_ been sworn. The Moslemssuppose, 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_ ofa victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so easy forflattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91. ) Callimachus (l. Iii. P. 517)more simply and probably affirms, supervenitibus Janizaris, telorummultitudine, non jam confossus est, quam obrutus. ]

[Footnote 271: Compare Von Hammer, p. 463. --M. ]

[Footnote 28: Besides some valuable hints from Æneas Sylvius, whichare diligently collected by Spondanus, our best authorities are threehistorians of the xvth century, Philippus Callimachus, (de Rebus aVladislao 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. ) Thetwo first were Italians, but they passed their lives in Poland andHungary, (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Med. Et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. I. P. 324. Vossius, de Hist. Latin. L. Iii. C. 8, 11. Bayle, Dictionnaire, Bonfinius. ) A small tract of Fælix Petancius, chancellor of Segnia, (adcalcem Cuspinian. De Cæsaribus, p. 716--722, ) represents the theatre ofthe war in the xvth century. ]

Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to pause on thecharacter and story of two principal actors, the cardinal Julian andJohn Huniades. Julian [29] Cæsarini was born of a noble family of Rome:his studies had embraced both the Latin and Greek learning, both thesciences of divinity and law; and his versatile genius was equallyadapted to the schools, the camp, and the court. No sooner had he beeninvested with the Roman purple, than he was sent into Germany to armthe empire against the rebels and heretics of Bohemia. The spirit ofpersecution is unworthy of a Christian; the military profession illbecomes a priest; but the former is excused by the times; and the latterwas ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood dauntless and alonein the disgraceful flight of the German host. As the pope's legate, heopened the council of Basil; but the president soon appeared the moststrenuous champion of ecclesiastical freedom; and an opposition ofseven years was conducted by his ability and zeal. After promoting thestrongest measures against the authority and person of Eugenius, somesecret motive of interest or conscience engaged him to desert on asudden the popular party. The cardinal withdrew himself from Basil toFerrara; and, in the debates of the Greeks and Latins, the two nationsadmired the dexterity of his arguments and the depth of his theologicalerudition. [30] In his Hungarian embassy, we have already seen themischievous effects of his sophistry and eloquence, of which Julianhimself was the first victim. The cardinal, who performed the dutiesof a priest and a soldier, was lost in the defeat of Warna. Thecircumstances of his death are variously related; but it is believed, that a weighty encumbrance of gold impeded his flight, and tempted thecruel avarice of some Christian fugitives. 

[Footnote 29: M. Lenfant has described the origin (Hist. Du Concilede Basle, tom. I. P. 247, &c. ) and Bohemian campaign (p. 315, &c. ) ofCardinal Julian. His services at Basil and Ferrara, and his unfortunateend, are occasionally related by Spondanus, and the continuator ofFleury. ]

[Footnote 30: Syropulus honorably praises the talent of an enemy, (p. 117:) toiauta tina eipen o IoulianoV peplatusmenwV agan kai logikwV, kaimet episthmhV kai deinothtoV 'RhtprikhV. ]

From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of JohnHuniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian armies. His fatherwas a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her unknown race might possiblyascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the claims of theWalachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the place of hisnativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling his blood with thepatricians of ancient Rome. [31] In his youth he served in the wars ofItaly, and was retained, with twelve horsemen, by the bishop of Zagrab:the valor of the _white knight_ [32] was soon conspicuous; he increasedhis fortunes by a noble and wealthy marriage; and in the defence ofthe Hungarian borders he won in the same year three battles againstthe Turks. By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown ofHungary; and the important service was rewarded by the title and officeof Waivod of Transylvania. The first of Julian's crusades added twoTurkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress the fatal errorsof Warna were forgotten. During the absence and minority of Ladislausof Austria, the titular king, Huniades was elected supreme captain andgovernor of Hungary; and if envy at first was silenced by terror, areign of twelve years supposes the arts of policy as well as of war. Yetthe idea of a consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; thewhite knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as the chief ofdesultory Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without shame; andhis military life is composed of a romantic alternative of victories andescapes. By the Turks, who employed his name to frighten their perversechildren, he was corruptly denominated _Jancus Lain_, or the Wicked:their hatred is the proof of their esteem; the kingdom which he guardedwas inaccessible to their arms; and they felt him most daring andformidable, when they fondly believed the captain and his countryirrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive war, four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated into the heartof 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. Ashe fled alone through the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised bytwo robbers; but while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck, he recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other, and, afternew perils of captivity or death, consoled by his presence an afflictedkingdom. But the last and most glorious action of his life was thedefence of Belgrade against the powers of Mahomet the Second in person. After a siege of forty days, the Turks, who had already entered thetown, were compelled to retreat; and the joyful nations celebratedHuniades and Belgrade as the bulwarks of Christendom. [33] About amonth after this great deliverance, the champion expired; and his mostsplendid epitaph is the regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that hecould no longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who hadtriumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the throne, MatthiasCorvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age, was elected and crowned bythe grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous and long: Matthiasaspired to the glory of a conqueror and a saint: but his purest merit isthe encouragement of learning; and the Latin orators and historians, who were invited from Italy by the son, have shed the lustre of theireloquence on the father's character. [34]

[Footnote 31: See Bonfinius, decad. Iii. L. Iv. P. 423. Could theItalian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without ablush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of a Walachianvillage with the casual, though glorious, epithet of a single branch ofthe Valerian family at Rome?]

[Footnote 32: Philip de Comines, (Mémoires, l. Vi. C. 13, ) from thetradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but under thewhimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne, (Valachia. ) The GreekChalcondyles, and the Turkish annals of Leunclavius, presume to accusehis 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 ofBelgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in their respectivenarratives, neither the saint nor the hero condescend to take notice ofhis 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 MatthiasCorvinus 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 sayingsare registered by Galestus Martius of Narni, (528--568, ) and we have aparticular narrative of his wedding and coronation. These threetracts are all contained in the first vol. Of Bel's Scriptores RerumHungaricarum. ]

In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are commonlyassociated; [35] and they are both entitled to our notice, since theiroccupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of Scanderbeg, [36] was the hereditary princeof a small district of Epirus or Albania, between the mountains andthe Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend with the sultan's power, Castriotsubmitted to the hard conditions of peace and tribute: he deliveredhis four sons as the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths, after receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in theMahometan 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 verifiedor disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the suspicion is in a greatmeasure removed by the kind and paternal treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who, from his tender youth, displayed the strengthand spirit of a soldier. The successive overthrow of a Tartar and twoPersians, who carried a proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommendedhim to the favor of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg, (_Iskender beg_, ) or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial ofhis glory and servitude. His father's principality was reduced into aprovince; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title ofSanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the prospect of the firstdignities of the empire. He served with honor in the wars of Europe andAsia; and we may smile at the art or credulity of the historian, whosupposes, that in every encounter he spared the Christians, while hefell with a thundering arm on his Mussulman foes. The glory of Huniadesis without reproach: he fought in the defence of his religion andcountry; but the enemies who applaud the patriot, have branded his rivalwith the name of traitor and apostate. In the eyes of the Christian, the rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father's wrongs, theambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and theslavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though tardy, zeal, with which he asserted the faith and independence of his ancestors. Buthe had imbibed from his ninth year the doctrines of the Koran; he wasignorant of the Gospel; the religion of a soldier is determined byauthority and habit; nor is it easy to conceive what new illumination atthe age of forty [38] could be poured into his soul. His motives would beless exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken hischain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but a longoblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every year ofobedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the sultan and hissubject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the belief of Christianityand the intention of revolt, a worthy mind must condemn the basedissimulation, that could serve only to betray, that could promise onlyto be forsworn, that could actively join in the temporal and spiritualperdition of so many thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praisea secret correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguardof the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard, atreacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the enemies ofhis benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye of Scanderbeg wasfixed on the Reis Effendi or principal secretary: with the dagger at hisbreast, he extorted a firman or patent for the government of Albania;and the murder of the guiltless scribe and his train prevented theconsequences of an immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapidmarches, from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gatesof Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he commandthe fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of dissimulation;abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed himself the avengerof his family and country. The names of religion and liberty provokeda general revolt: the Albanians, a martial race, were unanimous to liveand die with their hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons wereindulged in the choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of thestates of Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; andeach of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion of menand money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial estate, andfrom the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an annual revenue of twohundred thousand ducats; [39] and the entire sum, exempt from the demandsof luxury, was strictly appropriated to the public use. His manners werepopular; but his discipline was severe; and every superfluous vice wasbanished from his camp: his example strengthened his command; and underhis conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and thatof their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and Germany wereallured by his fame and retained in his service: his standing militiaconsisted of eight thousand horse and seven thousand foot; the horseswere small, the men were active; but he viewed with a discerning eye thedifficulties and resources of the mountains; and, at the blaze of thebeacons, the whole nation was distributed in the strongest posts. Withsuch unequal arms Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powersof the Ottoman empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and hisgreater son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursuedwith seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixtythousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered Albania:he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless towns, convertthe churches into mosques, circumcise the Christian youths, and punishwith death his adult and obstinate captives: but the conquests ofthe sultan were confined to the petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and thegarrison, invincible to his arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice anda superstitious scruple. [40] Amurath retired with shame and loss fromthe walls of Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; themarch, the siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almostinvisible, adversary; [41] and the disappointment might tend to imbitter, perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. [42] In the fulnessof conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his bosom this domesticthorn: his lieutenants were permitted to negotiate a truce; and theAlbanian prince may justly be praised as a firm and able champion ofhis national independence. The enthusiasm of chivalry and religion hasranked him with the names of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blushto acknowledge their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, andslender powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroesof antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions. Hissplendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the armiesthat he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were slain byhis single hand, must be weighed in the scales of suspicious criticism. Against an illiterate enemy, and in the dark solitude of Epirus, hispartial biographers may safely indulge the latitude of romance: buttheir fictions are exposed by the light of Italian history; and theyafford a strong presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous taleof his exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse tothe succor of the king of Naples. [43] Without disparagement to his fame, they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by the Ottomanpowers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the Second fora refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his resources were almostexhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive at Lissus, on theVenetian territory. [44] His sepulchre was soon violated by the Turkishconquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore his bones enchased in abracelet, declared by this superstitious amulet their involuntaryreverence for his valor. The instant ruin of his country may redound tothe hero's glory; yet, had he balanced the consequences of submissionand resistance, a patriot perhaps would have declined the unequalcontest which must depend on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbegmight indeed be supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, thatthe pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join inthe defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the sea-coastof the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to Italy. Hisinfant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the Castriots [45] wereinvested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their blood continues to flowin the noblest families of the realm. A colony of Albanian fugitivesobtained a settlement in Calabria, and they preserve at this day thelanguage and manners of their ancestors. [46]

[Footnote 35: They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his pleasingEssay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. Iii. P. 385, ) among the sevenchiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal crown; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first prince of Orange, Alexanderduke of Parma, John Huniades, and George Castriot, or Scanderbeg. ]

[Footnote 36: I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a friendof Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the time, and theplace. In the old and national history of Marinus Barletius, a priest ofScodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis Georgii Castrioti, &c. Librixiii. P. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in fol. , ) his gaudy and cumbersome robesare 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 Marinuswith brevity and reluctance, (l. I. P. 6, 7. )]

[Footnote 38: Since Scanderbeg died A. D. 1466, in the lxiiid year of hisage, (Marinus, l. Xiii. P. 370, ) he was born in 1403; since he was tornfrom 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 theaccession of Amurath II. , who must have inherited, not acquired theAlbanian 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 Bulgarianand Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. I. P. 17, ) wascontiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose inhabitants refused todrink 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 thepompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and vith books ofthe Albanian priest, who has been copied by the tribe of strangers andmoderns. ]

[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 thisaudacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who agree in thetime and manner of Amurath's death at Adrianople. ]

[Footnote 43: See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the ixthand xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified by thetestimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom. Xiii. P. 291, )and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus Francisci Sfortiæ, inMuratori, Script. Rerum Ital. Tom. Xxi. P. 728, et alios. ) The Albaniancavalry, under the name of _Stradiots_, soon became famous in the warsof Italy, (Mémoires de Comines, l. Viii. C. 5. )]

[Footnote 44: Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most rationalcriticism, 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 ownletter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza, (l. Iii. C. 28, ) arefugee 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. Dalmaticæ, &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 havereached at length the last reign of the princes of Constantinople, whoso feebly sustained the name and majesty of the Cæsars. On the deceaseof John Palæologus, who survived about four years the Hungarian crusade, [47] the royal family, by the death of Andronicus and the monasticprofession 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; butDemetrius, who possessed the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs, at the head of a party: his ambition was not chilled by the publicdistress; and his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics hadalready disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the lateemperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste: theclaim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a trite andflimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the eldest son of hisfather's reign. But the empress-mother, the senate and soldiers, theclergy and people, were unanimous in the cause of the lawful successor:and the despot Thomas, who, ignorant of the change, accidentallyreturned to the capital, asserted with becoming zeal the interest of hisabsent brother. An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediatelydespatched to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honorand dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of theTurkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching downfallof the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious deputies, theImperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of Constantine. In thespring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the encounter of a Turkishsquadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his subjects, celebrated thefestival of a new reign, and exhausted by his donatives the treasure, orrather the indigence, of the state. The emperor immediately resigned tohis brothers the possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship ofthe two princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother'spresence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His nextoccupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge ofVenice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected the distancebetween an hereditary monarch and an elective magistrate; and intheir subsequent distress, the chief of that powerful republic was notunmindful of the affront. Constantine afterwards hesitated between theroyal families of Trebizond and Georgia; and the embassy of Phranzarepresents in his public and private life the last days of the Byzantineempire. [48]

[Footnote 47: The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic; butinstead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A. D. 1445, No. 7, )assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last Constantinewhich he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius IV. To the king ofÆthiopia. ]

[Footnote 48: Phranza (l. Iii. C. 1--6) deserves credit and esteem. ]

The _protovestiare_, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed fromConstantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of wealthand luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His numerous retinueconsisted of nobles and guards, of physicians and monks: he was attendedby a band of music; and the term of his costly embassy was protractedabove two years. On his arrival in Georgia or Iberia, the natives fromthe towns and villages flocked around the strangers; and such wastheir simplicity, that they were delighted with the effects, withoutunderstanding the cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was an oldman, above a hundred years of age, who had formerly been carried away acaptive by the Barbarians, [49] and who amused his hearers with a tale ofthe wonders of India, [50] from whence he had returned to Portugal byan unknown sea. [51] From this hospitable land, Phranza proceeded to thecourt of Trebizond, where he was informed by the Greek prince of therecent decease of Amurath. Instead of rejoicing in the deliverance, the experienced statesman expressed his apprehension, that an ambitiousyouth would not long adhere to the sage and pacific system of hisfather. After the sultan's decease, his Christian wife, Maria, [52]the daughter of the Servian despot, had been honorably restored to herparents; on the fame of her beauty and merit, she was recommended by theambassador as the most worthy object of the royal choice; and Phranzarecapitulates and refutes the specious objections that might be raisedagainst the proposal. The majesty of the purple would ennoble an unequalalliance; the bar of affinity might be removed by liberal alms and thedispensation of the church; the disgrace of Turkish nuptials had beenrepeatedly overlooked; and, though the fair Maria was nearly fifty yearsof age, she might yet hope to give an heir to the empire. Constantinelistened to the advice, which was transmitted in the first ship thatsailed from Trebizond; but the factions of the court opposed hismarriage; and it was finally prevented by the pious vow of the sultana, who ended her days in the monastic profession. Reduced to the firstalternative, the choice of Phranza was decided in favor of a Georgianprincess; and the vanity of her father was dazzled by the gloriousalliance. Instead of demanding, according to the primitive and nationalcustom, a price for his daughter, [53] he offered a portion of fifty-sixthousand, with an annual pension of five thousand, ducats; and theservices of the ambassador were repaid by an assurance, that, as hisson had been adopted in baptism by the emperor, the establishment of hisdaughter 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 goldenbull, and assured the Georgian envoy that in the spring his galleysshould conduct the bride to her Imperial palace. But Constantineembraced his faithful servant, not with the cold approbation of asovereign, but with the warm confidence of a friend, who, after a longabsence, is impatient to pour his secrets into the bosom of his friend. "Since the death of my mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone advised mewithout interest or passion, [54] I am surrounded, " said the emperor, "by men whom I can neither love nor trust, nor esteem. You are not astranger to Lucas Notaras, the great admiral; obstinately attached tohis own sentiments, he declares, both in private and public, that hissentiments are the absolute measure of my thoughts and actions. The restof the courtiers are swayed by their personal or factious views; and howcan I consult the monks on questions of policy and marriage? I have yetmuch employment for your diligence and fidelity. In the spring you shallengage 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 futureempress. "--"Your commands, " replied Phranza, "are irresistible; butdeign, great sir, " he added, with a serious smile, "to consider, thatif I am thus perpetually absent from my family, my wife may be temptedeither to seek another husband, or to throw herself into a monastery. "After laughing at his apprehensions, the emperor more gravely consoledhim by the pleasing assurance that _this_ should be his last serviceabroad, and that he destined for his son a wealthy and noble heiress;for himself, the important office of great logothete, or principalminister of state. The marriage was immediately stipulated: but theoffice, however incompatible with his own, had been usurped by theambition of the admiral. Some delay was requisite to negotiate a consentand an equivalent; and the nomination of Phranza was half declared, and half suppressed, lest it might be displeasing to an insolent andpowerful favorite. The winter was spent in the preparations of hisembassy; and Phranza had resolved, that the youth his son should embracethis opportunity of foreign travel, and be left, on the appearance ofdanger, with his maternal kindred of the Morea. Such were the privateand public designs, which were interrupted by a Turkish war, and finallyburied in the ruins of the empire. 

[Footnote 49: Suppose him to have been captured in 1394, in Timour'sfirst war in Georgia, (Sherefeddin, l. Iii. C. 50;) he might follow hisTartar master into Hindostan in 1398, and from thence sail to the spiceislands. ]

[Footnote 50: The happy and pious Indians lived a hundred and fiftyyears, and enjoyed the most perfect productions of the vegetable andmineral kingdoms. The animals were on a large scale: dragons seventycubits, ants (the _formica Indica_) nine inches long, sheep likeelephants, elephants like sheep. Quidlibet audendi, &c. ]

[Footnote 51: He sailed in a country vessel from the spice islandsto one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque navem grandem_Ibericam_ quâ in _Portugalliam_ est delatus. This passage, composed in1477, (Phranza, l. Iii. C. 30, ) twenty years before the discovery of theCape of Good Hope, is spurious or wonderful. But this new geography issullied by the old and incompatible error which places the source of theNile in India. ]

[Footnote 52: Cantemir, (p. 83, ) who styles her the daughter of LazarusOgli, and the Helen of the Servians, places her marriage with Amurathin the year 1424. It will not easily be believed, that in six-and-twentyyears' cohabitation, the sultan corpus ejus non tetigit. After thetaking of Constantinople, she fled to Mahomet II. , (Phranza, l. Iii. C. 22. )]

[Footnote 53: The classical reader will recollect the offers ofAgamemnon, (Iliad, c. V. 144, ) and the general practice of antiquity. ]

[Footnote 54: Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the emperorof 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 characterof ambassador, (Syropulus, p. 37, 38, 45. )]

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of EasternEmpire. --Part I. 

 Reign And Character Of Mahomet The Second. --Siege, Assault, And Final Conquest, Of Constantinople By The Turks. --Death Of Constantine Palæologus. --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 tothe person and character of the great destroyer. Mahomet the Second[1] was the son of the second Amurath; and though his mother has beendecorated with the titles of Christian and princess, she is moreprobably confounded with the numerous concubines who peopled from everyclimate the harem of the sultan. His first education and sentimentswere those of a devout Mussulman; and as often as he conversed with aninfidel, he purified his hands and face by the legal rites of ablution. Age and empire appear to have relaxed this narrow bigotry: his aspiringgenius disdained to acknowledge a power above his own; and in his looserhours he presumed (it is said) to brand the prophet of Mecca as a robberand impostor. Yet the sultan persevered in a decent reverence for thedoctrine and discipline of the Koran: [2] his private indiscretionmust have been sacred from the vulgar ear; and we should suspect thecredulity of strangers and sectaries, so prone to believe that a mindwhich is hardened against truth must be armed with superior contemptfor absurdity and error. Under the tuition of the most skilful masters, Mahomet advanced with an early and rapid progress in the paths ofknowledge; and besides his native tongue it is affirmed that he spoke orunderstood five languages, [3] the Arabic, the Persian, the Chaldæan orHebrew, the Latin, and the Greek. The Persian might indeed contribute tohis amusement, and the Arabic to his edification; and such studies arefamiliar to the Oriental youth. In the intercourse of the Greeks andTurks, a conqueror might wish to converse with the people over which hewas 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 couldrecommend to the statesman or the scholar the uncouth dialect of hisHebrew slaves? The history and geography of the world were familiar tohis 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 follyof the times, and supposes some rudiments of mathematical science; anda profane taste for the arts is betrayed in his liberal invitation andreward of the painters of Italy. [7] But the influence of religion andlearning were employed without effect on his savage and licentiousnature. I will not transcribe, nor do I firmly believe, the stories ofhis fourteen pages, whose bellies were ripped open in search of a stolenmelon; 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 ofdrunkenness. [8] But it cannot be denied that his passions were at oncefurious and inexorable; that in the palace, as in the field, a torrentof blood was spilt on the slightest provocation; and that the noblestof the captive youth were often dishonored by his unnatural lust. In theAlbanian war he studied the lessons, and soon surpassed the example, ofhis father; and the conquest of two empires, twelve kingdoms, andtwo hundred cities, a vain and flattering account, is ascribed to hisinvincible 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 tosustain a parallel with Alexander or Timour. Under his command, theOttoman forces were always more numerous than their enemies; yet theirprogress was bounded by the Euphrates and the Adriatic; and his armswere checked by Huniades and Scanderbeg, by the Rhodian knights and bythe Persian king. 

[Footnote 1: For the character of Mahomet II. It is dangerous to trusteither the Turks or the Christians. The most moderate picture appears tobe drawn by Phranza, (l. I. C. 33, ) whose resentment had cooled inage and solitude; see likewise Spondanus, (A. D. 1451, No. 11, ) andthe continuator of Fleury, (tom. Xxii. P. 552, ) the _Elogia_ of PaulusJovius, (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 theGennadius on the two religions, (Spond. A. D. 1453, No. 22. )]

[Footnote 3: Quinque linguas præter suam noverat, Græcam, Latinam, Chaldaicam, Persicam. The Latin translator of Phranza has dropped theArabic, 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 obtainedthe liberty of his wife's mother and sisters from the conqueror ofConstantinople. It was delivered into the sultan's hands by the envoysof the duke of Milan. Philelphus himself was suspected of a design ofretiring to Constantinople; yet the orator often sounded the trumpet ofholy war, (see his Life by M. Lancelot, in the Mémoires de l'Académiedes 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. Byhis patron Sigismund Malatesta, prince of Rimini, it had been addressedwith a Latin epistle to Mahomet II. ]

[Footnote 6: According to Phranza, he assiduously studied the lives andactions of Alexander, Augustus, Constantine, and Theodosius. I have readsomewhere, that Plutarch's Lives were translated by his orders into theTurkish language. If the sultan himself understood Greek, it must havebeen for the benefit of his subjects. Yet these lives are a school offreedom as well as of valor. *Note: Von Hammer disdainfully rejects this fable of Mahomet's knowledgeof languages. Knolles adds, that he delighted in reading the history ofAlexander the Great, and of Julius Cæsar. The former, no doubt, was thePersian legend, which, it is remarkable, came back to Europe, and waspopular throughout the middle ages as the "Romaunt of Alexander. " Thefounder of the Imperial dynasty of Rome, according to M. Von Hammer, isaltogether unknown in the East. Mahomet was a great patron of Turkishliterature: 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 fromVenice, was dismissed with a chain and collar of gold, and a purseof 3000 ducats. With Voltaire I laugh at the foolish story of aslave purposely beheaded to instruct the painter in the action of themuscles. ]

[Footnote 701: This story, the subject of Johnson's Irene, is rejected byM. Von Hammer, vol. Ii. P. 208. The German historian's generalestimate of Mahomet's character agrees in its more marked features withGibbon's. --M. ]

[Footnote 8: These Imperial drunkards were Soliman I. , Selim II. , andAmurath IV. , (Cantemir, p. 61. ) The sophis of Persia can produce a moreregular succession; and in the last age, our European travellers werethe witnesses and companions of their revels. ]

In the reign of Amurath, he twice tasted of royalty, and twice descendedfrom the throne: his tender age was incapable of opposing his father'srestoration, but never could he forgive the viziers who had recommendedthat salutary measure. His nuptials were celebrated with the daughterof a Turkman emir; and, after a festival of two months, he departedfrom Adrianople with his bride, to reside in the government of Magnesia. Before the end of six weeks, he was recalled by a sudden message fromthe divan, which announced the decease of Amurath, and the mutinousspirit of the Janizaries. His speed and vigor commanded their obedience:he passed the Hellespont with a chosen guard: and at the distance of amile from Adrianople, the viziers and emirs, the imams and cadhis, thesoldiers and the people, fell prostrate before the new sultan. Theyaffected to weep, they affected to rejoice: he ascended the throne atthe age of twenty-one years, and removed the cause of sedition bythe death, the inevitable death, of his infant brothers. [9] [901] Theambassadors of Europe and Asia soon appeared to congratulate hisaccession and solicit his friendship; and to all he spoke the languageof moderation and peace. The confidence of the Greek emperor wasrevived by the solemn oaths and fair assurances with which he sealedthe ratification of the treaty: and a rich domain on the banks of theStrymon was assigned for the annual payment of three hundred thousandaspers, the pension of an Ottoman prince, who was detained at hisrequest in the Byzantine court. Yet the neighbors of Mahomet mighttremble at the severity with which a youthful monarch reformed the pompof his father's household: the expenses of luxury were applied to thoseof ambition, and a useless train of seven thousand falconers was eitherdismissed from his service, or enlisted in his troops. [902] In the firstsummer of his reign, he visited with an army the Asiatic provinces;but after humbling the pride, Mahomet accepted the submission, of theCaramanian, that he might not be diverted by the smallest obstacle fromthe execution of his great design. [10]

[Footnote 9: Calapin, one of these royal infants, was saved fromhis cruel brother, and baptized at Rome under the name of CallistusOthomannus. The emperor Frederic III. Presented him with an estatein Austria, where he ended his life; and Cuspinian, who in his youthconversed with the aged prince at Vienna, applauds his piety and wisdom, (de Cæsaribus, p. 672, 673. )]

[Footnote 901: Ahmed, the son of a Greek princess, was the object of hisespecial jealousy. Von Hammer, p. 501. --M. ]

[Footnote 902: The Janizaries obtained, for the first time, a gift on theaccession 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 pronouncedthat no promise can bind the faithful against the interest and duty oftheir religion; and that the sultan may abrogate his own treaties andthose of his predecessors. The justice and magnanimity of Amurath hadscorned this immoral privilege; but his son, though the proudest ofmen, could stoop from ambition to the basest arts of dissimulationand deceit. Peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart: heincessantly sighed for the possession of Constantinople; and the Greeks, by their own indiscretion, afforded the first pretence of the fatalrupture. [11] Instead of laboring to be forgotten, their ambassadorspursued his camp, to demand the payment, and even the increase, of theirannual stipend: the divan was importuned by their complaints, and thevizier, a secret friend of the Christians, was constrained to deliverthe sense of his brethren. "Ye foolish and miserable Romans, " saidCalil, "we know your devices, and ye are ignorant of your own danger!The scrupulous Amurath is no more; his throne is occupied by a youngconqueror, whom no laws can bind, and no obstacles can resist: and ifyou escape from his hands, give praise to the divine clemency, which yetdelays the chastisement of your sins. Why do ye seek to affright us byvain and indirect menaces? Release the fugitive Orchan, crown him sultanof Romania; call the Hungarians from beyond the Danube; arm against usthe nations of the West; and be assured, that you will only provoke andprecipitate your ruin. " But if the fears of the ambassadors were alarmedby the stern language of the vizier, they were soothed by the courteousaudience and friendly speeches of the Ottoman prince; and Mahometassured them that on his return to Adrianople he would redress thegrievances, and consult the true interests, of the Greeks. No sooner hadhe repassed the Hellespont, than he issued a mandate to suppress theirpension, and to expel their officers from the banks of the Strymon: inthis measure he betrayed a hostile mind; and the second order announced, and in some degree commenced, the siege of Constantinople. In the narrowpass of the Bosphorus, an Asiatic fortress had formerly been raised byhis grandfather; in the opposite situation, on the European side, heresolved to erect a more formidable castle; and a thousand masons werecommanded to assemble in the spring on a spot named Asomaton, about fivemiles from the Greek metropolis. [12] Persuasion is the resource ofthe feeble; and the feeble can seldom persuade: the ambassadors of theemperor attempted, without success, to divert Mahomet from the executionof his design. They represented, that his grandfather had solicited thepermission of Manuel to build a castle on his own territories; but thatthis double fortification, which would command the strait, could onlytend to violate the alliance of the nations; to intercept the Latins whotraded in the Black Sea, and perhaps to annihilate the subsistenceof the city. "I form the enterprise, " replied the perfidious sultan, "against the city; but the empire of Constantinople is measured by herwalls. Have you forgot the distress to which my father was reduced whenyou formed a league with the Hungarians; when they invaded our countryby land, and the Hellespont was occupied by the French galleys? Amurathwas compelled to force the passage of the Bosphorus; and your strengthwas not equal to your malevolence. I was then a child at Adrianople;the Moslems trembled; and, for a while, the _Gabours_ [13] insulted ourdisgrace. But when my father had triumphed in the field of Warna, hevowed to erect a fort on the western shore, and that vow it is my dutyto accomplish. Have ye the right, have ye the power, to control myactions on my own ground? For that ground is my own: as far as theshores of the Bosphorus, Asia is inhabited by the Turks, and Europe isdeserted by the Romans. Return, and inform your king, that the presentOttoman is far different from his predecessors; that _his_ resolutionssurpass _their_ wishes; and that _he_ performs more _than_ they couldresolve. Return in safety--but the next who delivers a similar messagemay expect to be flayed alive. " After this declaration, Constantine, the first of the Greeks in spirit as in rank, [14] had determined tounsheathe the sword, and to resist the approach and establishment of theTurks on the Bosphorus. He was disarmed by the advice of his civil andecclesiastical ministers, who recommended a system less generous, and even less prudent, than his own, to approve their patience andlong-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt of anaggressor, and to depend on chance and time for their own safety, andthe destruction of a fort which could not long be maintained in theneighborhood of a great and populous city. Amidst hope and fear, thefears of the wise, and the hopes of the credulous, the winter rolledaway; the proper business of each man, and each hour, was postponed;and the Greeks shut their eyes against the impending danger, till thearrival of the spring and the sultan decide the assurance of their ruin. 

[Footnote 11: Before I enter on the siege of Constantinople, I shallobserve, that except the short hints of Cantemir and Leunclavius, I havenot been able to obtain any Turkish account of this conquest; such anaccount as we possess of the siege of Rhodes by Soliman II. , (Mémoiresde l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. Xxvi. P. 723--769. ) I musttherefore depend on the Greeks, whose prejudices, in some degree, aresubdued 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 expugnatæ. Norimberghæ, 1544, in 4to. , 20 leaves. ) The last of these narratives isthe earliest in date, since it was composed in the Isle of Chios, the16th of August, 1453, only seventy-nine days after the loss of the city, and in the first confusion of ideas and passions. Some hints maybe added from an epistle of Cardinal Isidore (in Farragine RerumTurcicarum, ad calcem Chalcondyl. Clauseri, Basil, 1556) to PopeNicholas V. , and a tract of Theodosius Zygomala, which he addressed inthe year 1581 to Martin Crucius, (Turco-Græcia, 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 ofMonstrelet and the distant Latins I shall take leave to disregard. *Note: M. Von Hammer has added little new information on the siege ofConstantinople, and, by his general agreement, has borne an honorabletestimony to the truth, and by his close imitation to the graphic spiritand boldness, of Gibbon. --M. ]

[Footnote 12: The situation of the fortress, and the topography of theBosphorus, are best learned from Peter Gyllius, (de Bosphoro Thracio, l. Ii. C. 13, ) Leunclavius, (Pandect. P. 445, ) and Tournefort, (Voyage dansle Levant, tom. Ii. Lettre xv. P. 443, 444;) but I must regret the mapor plan which Tournefort sent to the French minister of the marine. Thereader may turn back to chap. Xvii. Of this History. ]

[Footnote 13: The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on theinfidels, is expressed Kabour by Ducas, and _Giaour_ by Leunclavius andthe moderns. The former term is derived by Ducange (Gloss. Græc tom. I. P. 530) from Kabouron, in vulgar Greek, a tortoise, as denoting aretrograde motion from the faith. But alas! _Gabour_ is no morethan _Gheber_, which was transferred from the Persian to the Turkishlanguage, 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 movereconstituit, and stigmatizes the folly of the cum sacri tum profaniproceres, which he had heard, amentes spe vanâ pasci. Ducas was not aprivy-counsellor. ]

Of a master who never forgives, the orders are seldom disobeyed. On thetwenty-sixth of March, the appointed spot of Asomaton was covered withan active swarm of Turkish artificers; and the materials by sea and landwere diligently transported from Europe and Asia. [15] The lime had beenburnt in Cataphrygia; the timber was cut down in the woods of Heracleaand Nicomedia; and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Eachof the thousand masons was assisted by two workmen; and a measure of twocubits was marked for their daily task. The fortress [16] was built in atriangular form; each angle was flanked by a strong and massy tower; oneon the declivity of the hill, two along the sea-shore: a thickness oftwenty-two feet was assigned for the walls, thirty for the towers; andthe whole building was covered with a solid platform of lead. Mahomethimself pressed and directed the work with indefatigable ardor: histhree viziers claimed the honor of finishing their respective towers;the zeal of the cadhis emulated that of the Janizaries; the meanestlabor was ennobled by the service of God and the sultan; and thediligence of the multitude was quickened by the eye of a despot, whosesmile was the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the messenger ofdeath. The Greek emperor beheld with terror the irresistible progressof the work; and vainly strove, by flattery and gifts, to assuagean implacable foe, who sought, and secretly fomented, the slightestoccasion of a quarrel. Such occasions must soon and inevitably be found. The ruins of stately churches, and even the marble columns which hadbeen consecrated to Saint Michael the archangel, were employed withoutscruple by the profane and rapacious Moslems; and some Christians, whopresumed to oppose the removal, received from their hands the crownof martyrdom. Constantine had solicited a Turkish guard to protect thefields and harvests of his subjects: the guard was fixed; but theirfirst order was to allow free pasture to the mules and horses of thecamp, and to defend their brethren if they should be molested by thenatives. The retinue of an Ottoman chief had left their horses to passthe night among the ripe corn; the damage was felt; the insult wasresented; and several of both nations were slain in a tumultuousconflict. Mahomet listened with joy to the complaint; and a detachmentwas commanded to exterminate the guilty village: the guilty had fled;but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were massacred by thesoldiers. Till this provocation, Constantinople had been opened to thevisits of commerce and curiosity: on the first alarm, the gates wereshut; but the emperor, still anxious for peace, released on the thirdday his Turkish captives; [17] and expressed, in a last message, thefirm resignation of a Christian and a soldier. "Since neither oaths, nortreaty, nor submission, can secure peace, pursue, " said he to Mahomet, "your impious warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it should pleasehim to mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if hedelivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to his holywill. But until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce between us, itis my duty to live and die in the defence of my people. " The sultan'sanswer was hostile and decisive: his fortifications were completed; andbefore his departure for Adrianople, he stationed a vigilant Aga andfour hundred Janizaries, to levy a tribute on the ships of every nationthat should pass within the reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel, refusing obedience to the new lords of the Bosphorus, was sunk with asingle bullet. [171] The master and thirty sailors escaped in the boat; butthey 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 ofConstantinople was deferred till the ensuing spring; but an Ottomanarmy marched into the Morea to divert the force of the brothers ofConstantine. At this æra of calamity, one of these princes, the despotThomas, was blessed or afflicted with the birth of a son; "the lastheir, " says the plaintive Phranza, "of the last spark of the Romanempire. " [19]

[Footnote 15: Instead of this clear and consistent account, the TurkishAnnals (Cantemir, p. 97) revived the foolish tale of the ox's hide, andDido's stratagem in the foundation of Carthage. These annals (unless weare swayed by an anti-Christian prejudice) are far less valuable thanthe Greek historians. ]

[Footnote 16: In the dimensions of this fortress, the old castleof Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with Chalcondyles, whosedescription has been verified on the spot by his editor Leunclavius. ]

[Footnote 17: Among these were some pages of Mahomet, so conscious ofhis inexorable rigor, that they begged to lose their heads in the cityunless 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 inhis vessel, commemorates the Venetian pilot as a martyr. ]

[Footnote 19: Auctum est Palæologorum genus, et Imperii successor, parvæque Romanorum scintillæ hæres 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: theformer were kept awake by their fears, the latter by their hopes; bothby the preparations of defence and attack; and the two emperors, whohad the most to lose or to gain, were the most deeply affected by thenational sentiment. In Mahomet, that sentiment was inflamed by theardor of his youth and temper: he amused his leisure with building atAdrianople [20] the lofty palace of Jehan Numa, (the watchtower of theworld;) but his serious thoughts were irrevocably bent on the conquestof the city of Cæsar. At the dead of night, about the second watch, hestarted from his bed, and commanded the instant attendance of hisprime vizier. The message, the hour, the prince, and his own situation, alarmed the guilty conscience of Calil Basha; who had possessed theconfidence, and advised the restoration, of Amurath. On the accession ofthe son, the vizier was confirmed in his office and the appearances offavor; but the veteran statesman was not insensible that he trod on athin and slippery ice, which might break under his footsteps, and plungehim in the abyss. His friendship for the Christians, which might beinnocent under the late reign, had stigmatized him with the name ofGabour Ortachi, or foster-brother of the infidels; [21] and his avariceentertained a venal and treasonable correspondence, which was detectedand punished after the conclusion of the war. On receiving the royalmandate, he embraced, perhaps for the last time, his wife and children;filled a cup with pieces of gold, hastened to the palace, adored thesultan, and offered, according to the Oriental custom, the slighttribute of his duty and gratitude. [22] "It is not my wish, " saidMahomet, "to resume my gifts, but rather to heap and multiply themon thy head. In my turn, I ask a present far more valuable andimportant;--Constantinople. " As soon as the vizier had recovered fromhis surprise, "The same God, " said he, "who has already given thee solarge a portion of the Roman empire, will not deny the remnant, and thecapital. His providence, and thy power, assure thy success; and myself, with the rest of thy faithful slaves, will sacrifice our lives andfortunes. "--"Lala, " [23] (or preceptor, ) continued the sultan, "do yousee this pillow? All the night, in my agitation, I have pulled it on oneside 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 andsilver 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 ofConstantinople. " To sound the disposition of his soldiers, he oftenwandered through the streets alone, and in disguise; and it was fatal todiscover the sultan, when he wished to escape from the vulgar eye. His hours were spent in delineating the plan of the hostile city; indebating with his generals and engineers, on what spot he should erecthis batteries; on which side he should assault the walls; wherehe should spring his mines; to what place he should apply hisscaling-ladders: and the exercises of the day repeated and proved thelucubrations of the night. 

[Footnote 20: Cantemir, p. 97, 98. The sultan was either doubtful of hisconquest, or ignorant of the superior merits of Constantinople. A cityor a kingdom may sometimes be ruined by the Imperial fortune of theirsovereign. ]

[Footnote 21: SuntrojoV, by the president Cousin, is translated _père_nourricier, most correctly indeed from the Latin version; but in hishaste 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 giftsbefore a sovereign or a superior is of high antiquity, and seemsanalogous with the idea of sacrifice, still more ancient and universal. See the examples of such Persian gifts, Ælian, 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 ofchildren; and it may be observed, that all such primitive words whichdenote their parents, are the simple repetition of one syllable, composed of a labial or a dental consonant and an open vowel, (DesBrosses, 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 carethe recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins; and his artillerysurpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world. A founder of cannon, aDane [231] or Hungarian, who had been almost starved in the Greek service, deserted to the Moslems, and was liberally entertained by the Turkishsultan. Mahomet was satisfied with the answer to his first question, which he eagerly pressed on the artist. "Am I able to cast a cannoncapable of throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter thewalls of Constantinople? I am not ignorant of their strength; but werethey more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine ofsuperior power: the position and management of that engine must be leftto your engineers. " On this assurance, a foundry was established atAdrianople: the metal was prepared; and at the end of three months, Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of stupendous, and almostincredible magnitude; a measure of twelve palms is assigned to the bore;and the stone bullet weighed above six hundred pounds. [24] [241] A vacantplace before the new palace was chosen for the first experiment; but toprevent the sudden and mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, aproclamation was issued, that the cannon would be discharged the ensuingday. 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 thespot where it fell, it buried itself a fathom deep in the ground. Forthe conveyance of this destructive engine, a frame or carriage of thirtywagons was linked together and drawn along by a team of sixty oxen:two hundred men on both sides were stationed, to poise and support therolling weight; two hundred and fifty workmen marched before to smooththe way and repair the bridges; and near two months were employed in alaborious 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 ofa vanquished people. He calculates, that a ball, even o two hundredpounds, would require a charge of one hundred and fifty pounds ofpowder; and that the stroke would be feeble and impotent, since nota 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 themodern improvements of artillery prefer the number of pieces to theweight of metal; the quickness of the fire to the sound, or even theconsequence, of a single explosion. Yet I dare not reject the positiveand unanimous evidence of contemporary writers; nor can it seemimprobable, 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 theDardanelles; and if the use be inconvenient, it has been found on alate trial that the effect was far from contemptible. A stone bullet of_eleven_ hundred pounds' weight was once discharged with three hundredand thirty pounds of powder: at the distance of six hundred yards itshivered into three rocky fragments; traversed the strait; and leavingthe 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. Laxti kinoV?. Chalcondyles, Von Hammer, p. 510. --M. ]

[Footnote 24: The Attic talent weighed about sixty minæ, or avoirdupoispounds (see Hooper on Ancient Weights, Measures, &c. ;) but among themodern Greeks, that classic appellation was extended to a weight of onehundred, or one hundred and twenty-five pounds, (Ducange, talanton. )Leonardus Chiensis measured the ball or stone of the _second_ cannonLapidem, qui palmis undecim ex meis ambibat in gyro. ]

[Footnote 241: 1200, according to Leonardus Chiensis. Von Hammer statesthat he had himself seen the great cannon of the Dardanelles, in whicha tailor who had run away from his creditors, had concealed himselfseveral days Von Hammer had measured balls twelve spans round. Note. P. 666. --M. ]

[Footnote 25: See Voltaire, (Hist. Générale, c. Xci. P. 294, 295. ) Hewas ambitious of universal monarchy; and the poet frequently aspires tothe name and style of an astronomer, a chemist, &c. ]

[Footnote 26: The Baron de Tott, (tom. Iii. P. 85--89, ) who fortifiedthe Dardanelles against the Russians, describes in a lively, and evencomic, strain his own prowess, and the consternation of the Turks. But that adventurous traveller does not possess the art of gaining ourconfidence. ]

While Mahomet threatened the capital of the East, the Greek emperorimplored with fervent prayers the assistance of earth and heaven. Butthe invisible powers were deaf to his supplications; and Christendombeheld with indifference the fall of Constantinople, while she derivedat least some promise of supply from the jealous and temporal policy ofthe 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 domesticquarrels; and the Roman pontiff was exasperated by the falsehood orobstinacy of the Greeks. Instead of employing in their favor thearms and treasures of Italy, Nicholas the Fifth had foretold theirapproaching ruin; and his honor was engaged in the accomplishment ofhis prophecy. [261] Perhaps he was softened by the last extremity o theirdistress; but his compassion was tardy; his efforts were faint andunavailing; and Constantinople had fallen, before the squadrons of Genoaand Venice could sail from their harbors. [27] Even the princes of theMorea and of the Greek islands affected a cold neutrality: the Genoesecolony of Galata negotiated a private treaty; and the sultan indulgedthem in the delusive hope, that by his clemency they might survive theruin of the empire. A plebeian crowd, and some Byzantine nobles baselywithdrew from the danger of their country; and the avarice of the richdenied the emperor, and reserved for the Turks, the secret treasureswhich might have raised in their defence whole armies of mercenaries. [28] The indigent and solitary prince prepared, however, to sustain hisformidable adversary; but if his courage were equal to the peril, hisstrength was inadequate to the contest. In the beginning of the spring, the Turkish vanguard swept the towns and villages as far as the gates ofConstantinople: submission was spared and protected; whatever presumedto resist was exterminated with fire and sword. The Greek places onthe Black Sea, Mesembria, Acheloum, and Bizon, surrendered on the firstsummons; Selybria alone deserved the honors of a siege or blockade; andthe bold inhabitants, while they were invested by land, launched theirboats, pillaged the opposite coast of Cyzicus, and sold their captivesin the public market. But on the approach of Mahomet himself all wassilent and prostrate: he first halted at the distance of five miles; andfrom thence advancing in battle array, planted before the gates of St. Romanus the Imperial standard; and on the sixth day of April formed thememorable siege of Constantinople. 

[Footnote 261: See the curious Christian and Mahometan predictions of thefall 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 themore courtly expression of Platina, in animo fuisse pontifici juvareGræcos, and the positive assertion of Æneas Sylvius, structam classem&c. (Spond. A. D. 1453, No. 3. )]

[Footnote 28: Antonin. In Proem. --Epist. Cardinal. Isidor. ApudSpondanum and Dr. Johnson, in the tragedy of Irene, has happily seizedthis 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 thePropontis to the harbor; the Janizaries in the front were stationedbefore the sultan's tent; the Ottoman line was covered by a deepintrenchment; and a subordinate army enclosed the suburb of Galata, andwatched 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 thenumber of sixty thousand horse and twenty thousand foot; and he upbraidsthe pusillanimity of the nations, who had tamely yielded to a handfulof Barbarians. Such indeed might be the regular establishment of the_Capiculi_, [29] the troops of the Porte who marched with the prince, andwere paid from his royal treasury. But the bashaws, in their respectivegovernments, maintained or levied a provincial militia; many lands wereheld by a military tenure; many volunteers were attracted by the hopeof spoil and the sound of the holy trumpet invited a swarm of hungryand fearless fanatics, who might contribute at least to multiply theterrors, 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 fourhundred thousand men; but Phranza was a less remote and more accuratejudge; and his precise definition of two hundred and fifty-eightthousand does not exceed the measure of experience and probability. [30] The navy of the besiegers was less formidable: the Propontis wasoverspread with three hundred and twenty sail; but of these no more thaneighteen could be rated as galleys of war; and the far greater part mustbe degraded to the condition of store-ships and transports, which pouredinto the camp fresh supplies of men, ammunition, and provisions. In herlast decay, Constantinople was still peopled with more than a hundredthousand inhabitants; but these numbers are found in the accounts, notof war, but of captivity; and they mostly consisted of mechanics, ofpriests, of women, and of men devoid of that spirit which even womenhave sometimes exerted for the common safety. I can suppose, I couldalmost excuse, the reluctance of subjects to serve on a distantfrontier, at the will of a tyrant; but the man who dares not exposehis life in the defence of his children and his property, has lost insociety the first and most active energies of nature. By the emperor'scommand, a particular inquiry had been made through the streets andhouses, how many of the citizens, or even of the monks, were able andwilling to bear arms for their country. The lists were intrusted toPhranza; [31] and, after a diligent addition, he informed his master, with grief and surprise, that the national defence was reduced to fourthousand nine hundred and seventy _Romans_. Between Constantine andhis faithful minister this comfortless secret was preserved; anda sufficient proportion of shields, cross-bows, and muskets, weredistributed from the arsenal to the city bands. They derived someaccession from a body of two thousand strangers, under the command ofJohn Justiniani, a noble Genoese; a liberal donative was advanced tothese auxiliaries; and a princely recompense, the Isle of Lemnos, waspromised to the valor and victory of their chief. A strong chain wasdrawn across the mouth of the harbor: it was supported by some Greek andItalian vessels of war and merchandise; and the ships of every Christiannation, that successively arrived from Candia and the Black Sea, weredetained for the public service. Against the powers of the Ottomanempire, a city of the extent of thirteen, perhaps of sixteen, mileswas defended by a scanty garrison of seven or eight thousand soldiers. Europe and Asia were open to the besiegers; but the strength andprovisions of the Greeks must sustain a daily decrease; nor could theyindulge the expectation of any foreign succor or supply. 

[Footnote 29: The palatine troops are styled _Capiculi_, theprovincials, _Seratculi_; and most of the names and institutions of theTurkish militia existed before the _Canon Nameh_ of Soliman II, fromwhich, and his own experience, Count Marsigli has composed his militarystate of the Ottoman empire. ]

[Footnote 30: The observation of Philelphus is approved by Cuspinian inthe year 1508, (de Cæsaribus, in Epilog. De Militiâ Turcicâ, p. 697. )Marsigli proves, that the effective armies of the Turks are much lessnumerous than they appear. In the army that besieged ConstantinopleLeonardus Chiensis reckons no more than 15, 000 Janizaries. ]

[Footnote 31: Ego, eidem (Imp. ) tabellas extribui non absque dolore etmstitia, mansitque apud nos duos aliis occultus numerus, (Phranza, l. Iii. C. 8. ) With some indulgence for national prejudices, we cannotdesire a more authentic witness, not only of public facts, but ofprivate counsels. ]

The primitive Romans would have drawn their swords in the resolutionof death or conquest. The primitive Christians might have embraced eachother, and awaited in patience and charity the stroke of martyrdom. But the Greeks of Constantinople were animated only by the spirit ofreligion, and that spirit was productive only of animosity and discord. Before his death, the emperor John Palæologus had renounced theunpopular measure of a union with the Latins; nor was the idea revived, till the distress of his brother Constantine imposed a last trial offlattery and dissimulation. [32] With the demand of temporal aid, his ambassadors were instructed to mingle the assurance of spiritualobedience: his neglect of the church was excused by the urgent caresof the state; and his orthodox wishes solicited the presence of aRoman legate. The Vatican had been too often deluded; yet the signs ofrepentance could not decently be overlooked; a legate was more easilygranted than an army; and about six months before the final destruction, the cardinal Isidore of Russia appeared in that character with a retinueof priests and soldiers. The emperor saluted him as a friend and father;respectfully listened to his public and private sermons; and with themost obsequious of the clergy and laymen subscribed the act of union, as it had been ratified in the council of Florence. On the twelfth ofDecember, the two nations, in the church of St. Sophia, joined in thecommunion of sacrifice and prayer; and the names of the two pontiffswere solemnly commemorated; the names of Nicholas the Fifth, the vicarof Christ, and of the patriarch Gregory, who had been driven into exileby a rebellious people. 

[Footnote 32: In Spondanus, the narrative of the union is not onlypartial, but imperfect. The bishop of Pamiers died in 1642, and thehistory of Ducas, which represents these scenes (c. 36, 37) with suchtruth and spirit, was not printed till the year 1649. ]

But the dress and language of the Latin priest who officiated at thealtar were an object of scandal; and it was observed with horror, thathe consecrated a cake or wafer of _unleavened_ bread, and poured coldwater into the cup of the sacrament. A national historian acknowledgeswith a blush, that none of his countrymen, not the emperor himself, weresincere in this occasional conformity. [33] Their hasty and unconditionalsubmission 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, "Havepatience, " they whispered, "have patience till God shall have deliveredthe city from the great dragon who seeks to devour us. You shallthen perceive whether we are truly reconciled with the Azymites. " Butpatience is not the attribute of zeal; nor can the arts of a court beadapted to the freedom and violence of popular enthusiasm. From the domeof St. Sophia the inhabitants of either sex, and of every degree, rushedin crowds to the cell of the monk Gennadius, [34] to consult the oracleof the church. The holy man was invisible; entranced, as it should seem, in deep meditation, or divine rapture: but he had exposed on the doorof his cell a speaking tablet; and they successively withdrew, afterreading those tremendous words: "O miserable Romans, why will ye abandonthe truth? and why, instead of confiding in God, will ye put your trustin the Italians? In losing your faith you will lose your city. Havemercy on me, O Lord! I protest in thy presence that I am innocent ofthe crime. O miserable Romans, consider, pause, and repent. At the samemoment that you renounce the religion of your fathers, by embracingimpiety, you submit to a foreign servitude. " According to the adviceof Gennadius, the religious virgins, as pure as angels, and as proud asdæmons, rejected the act of union, and abjured all communion with thepresent and future associates of the Latins; and their example wasapplauded and imitated by the greatest part of the clergy and people. From the monastery, the devout Greeks dispersed themselves in thetaverns; drank confusion to the slaves of the pope; emptied theirglasses in honor of the image of the holy Virgin; and besought herto defend against Mahomet the city which she had formerly saved fromChosroes 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 thewinter that preceded the Turkish conquest, the nation was distracted bythis epidemical frenzy; and the season of Lent, the approach of Easter, instead of breathing charity and love, served only to fortify theobstinacy and influence of the zealots. The confessors scrutinized andalarmed the conscience of their votaries, and a rigorous penance wasimposed on those who had received the communion from a priest who hadgiven an express or tacit consent to the union. His service at thealtar propagated the infection to the mute and simple spectators of theceremony: they forfeited, by the impure spectacle, the virtue of thesacerdotal character; nor was it lawful, even in danger of sudden death, to invoke the assistance of their prayers or absolution. No sooner hadthe church of St. Sophia been polluted by the Latin sacrifice, than itwas deserted as a Jewish synagogue, or a heathen temple, by the clergyand people; and a vast and gloomy silence prevailed in that venerabledome, which had so often smoked with a cloud of incense, blazedwith innumerable lights, and resounded with the voice of prayer andthanksgiving. The Latins were the most odious of heretics and infidels;and the first minister of the empire, the great duke, was heard todeclare, that he had rather behold in Constantinople the turban ofMahomet, than the pope's tiara or a cardinal's hat. [35] A sentimentso unworthy of Christians and patriots was familiar and fatal to theGreeks: the emperor was deprived of the affection and support of hissubjects; and their native cowardice was sanctified by resignation tothe divine decree, or the visionary hope of a miraculous deliverance. 

[Footnote 33: Phranza, one of the conforming Greeks, acknowledges thatthe measure was adopted only propter spem auxilii; he affirms withpleasure, 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 ora patriarch. His defence, at Florence, of the same union, which he sofuriously attacked at Constantinople, has tempted Leo Allatius (Diatrib. De Georgiis, in Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. Tom. X. P. 760--786) to dividehim into two men; but Renaudot (p. 343--383) has restored the identityof his person and the duplicity of his character. ]

[Footnote 35: Fakiolion, kaluptra, may be fairly translated a cardinal'shat. The difference of the Greek and Latin habits imbittered theschism. ]

Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople, the twosides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy; the Propontis bynature, and the harbor by art. Between the two waters, the basis of thetriangle, the land side was protected by a double wall, and a deep ditchof 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, afterdistributing the service and command of the most perilous stations, undertook the defence of the external wall. In the first days of thesiege the Greek soldiers descended into the ditch, or sallied intothe field; but they soon discovered, that, in the proportion of theirnumbers, one Christian was of more value than twenty Turks: and, afterthese bold preludes, they were prudently content to maintain the rampartwith their missile weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused ofpusillanimity. The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; butthe last Constantine deserves the name of a hero: his noble band ofvolunteers was inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign auxiliariessupported the honor of the Western chivalry. The incessant volleys oflances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and thefire, of their musketry and cannon. Their small arms discharged at thesame time either five, or even ten, balls of lead, of the size of awalnut; and, according to the closeness of the ranks and the force ofthe powder, several breastplates and bodies were transpierced by thesame shot. But the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches, orcovered with ruins. Each day added to the science of the Christians; buttheir inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations of eachday. Their ordnance was not powerful, either in size or number; andif they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to plant them on thewalls, lest the aged structure should be shaken and overthrown by theexplosion. [37] The same destructive secret had been revealed to theMoslems; by whom it was employed with the superior energy of zeal, riches, and despotism. The great cannon of Mahomet has been separatelynoticed; an important and visible object in the history of the times:but that enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equalmagnitude: [38] the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointedagainst the walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the mostaccessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed, thatit was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns, or that it dischargedone hundred and thirty bullets. Yet in the power and activity of thesultan, we may discern the infancy of the new science. Under a masterwho counted the moments, the great cannon could be loaded and fired nomore than seven times in one day. [39] The heated metal unfortunatelyburst; several workmen were destroyed; and the skill of an artist [391] wasadmired 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 smallestmeasure 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 notexceed four English miles, (D'Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 61, 123, &c. )]

[Footnote 37: At indies doctiores nostri facti paravere contra hostesmachinamenta, quæ tamen avare dabantur. Pulvis erat nitri modica exigua;tela modica; bombardæ, si aderant incommoditate loci primum hostesoffendere, maceriebus alveisque tectos, non poterant. Nam si quæ magnæerant, ne murus concuteretur noster, quiescebant. This passage ofLeonardus Chiensis is curious and important. ]

[Footnote 38: According to Chalcondyles and Phranza, the great cannonburst; an incident which, according to Ducas, was prevented by theartist'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. VonHammer 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 300shot 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; andit was by the advice of a Christian, that the engineers were taught tolevel their aim against the two opposite sides of the salient angles ofa bastion. However imperfect, the weight and repetition of the fire madesome impression on the walls; and the Turks, pushing their approachesto the edge of the ditch, attempted to fill the enormous chasm, and tobuild a road to the assault. [40] Innumerable fascines, and hogsheads, and trunks of trees, were heaped on each other; and such was theimpetuosity of the throng, that the foremost and the weakest were pushedheadlong down the precipice, and instantly buried under the accumulatedmass. To fill the ditch was the toil of the besiegers; to clear awaythe rubbish was the safety of the besieged; and after a long and bloodyconflict, the web that had been woven in the day was still unravelled inthe night. The next resource of Mahomet was the practice of mines; butthe soil was rocky; in every attempt he was stopped and underminedby the Christian engineers; nor had the art been yet invented ofreplenishing those subterraneous passages with gunpowder, andblowing whole towers and cities into the air. [41] A circumstance thatdistinguishes the siege of Constantinople is the reunion of the ancientand modern artillery. The cannon were intermingled with the mechanicalengines for casting stones and darts; the bullet and the battering-ram[411] were directed against the same walls: nor had the discovery ofgunpowder superseded the use of the liquid and unextinguishable fire. Awooden turret of the largest size was advanced on rollers this portablemagazine of ammunition and fascines was protected by a threefoldcovering of bulls' hides: incessant volleys were securely dischargedfrom the loop-holes; in the front, three doors were contrived for thealternate sally and retreat of the soldiers and workmen. They ascendedby a staircase to the upper platform, and, as high as the level of thatplatform, a scaling-ladder could be raised by pulleys to form abridge, and grapple with the adverse rampart. By these various arts ofannoyance, some as new as they were pernicious to the Greeks, the towerof St. Romanus was at length overturned: after a severe struggle, theTurks were repulsed from the breach, and interrupted by darkness; butthey trusted that with the return of light they should renew the attackwith fresh vigor and decisive success. Of this pause of action, thisinterval of hope, each moment was improved, by the activity of theemperor and Justiniani, who passed the night on the spot, and urged thelabors which involved the safety of the church and city. At the dawn ofday, the impatient sultan perceived, with astonishment and grief, thathis wooden turret had been reduced to ashes: the ditch was cleared andrestored; and the tower of St. Romanus was again strong and entire. Hedeplored the failure of his design; and uttered a profane exclamation, that the word of the thirty-seven thousand prophets should not havecompelled him to believe that such a work, in so short a time, couldhave been accomplished by the infidels. 

[Footnote 40: I have selected some curious facts, without striving toemulate the bloody and obstinate eloquence of the abbé de Vertot, inhis prolix descriptions of the sieges of Rhodes, Malta, &c. But thatagreeable historian had a turn for romance; and as he wrote to pleasethe order he had adopted the same spirit of enthusiasm and chivalry. ]

[Footnote 41: The first theory of mines with gunpowder appears in 1480in a MS. Of George of Sienna, (Tiraboschi, tom. Vi. P. I. P. 324. )They were first practised by Sarzanella, in 1487; but the honor andimprovement in 1503 is ascribed to Peter of Navarre, who used them withsuccess 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, ) wasnot 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 thefirst apprehension of a siege, Constantine had negotiated, in theisles of the Archipelago, the Morea, and Sicily, the most indispensablesupplies. As early as the beginning of April, five [42] great ships, equipped for merchandise and war, would have sailed from the harbor ofChios, had not the wind blown obstinately from the north. [43] One ofthese ships bore the Imperial flag; the remaining four belonged to theGenoese; and they were laden with wheat and barley, with wine, oil, andvegetables, and, above all, with soldiers and mariners for the serviceof the capital. After a tedious delay, a gentle breeze, and, on thesecond day, a strong gale from the south, carried them through theHellespont and the Propontis: but the city was already invested by seaand land; and the Turkish fleet, at the entrance of the Bosphorus, wasstretched from shore to shore, in the form of a crescent, to intercept, or at least to repel, these bold auxiliaries. The reader who has presentto his mind the geographical picture of Constantinople, will conceiveand admire the greatness of the spectacle. The five Christian shipscontinued to advance with joyful shouts, and a full press both of sailsand oars, against a hostile fleet of three hundred vessels; and therampart, the camp, the coasts of Europe and Asia, were lined withinnumerable spectators, who anxiously awaited the event of thismomentous succor. At the first view that event could not appeardoubtful; the superiority of the Moslems was beyond all measure oraccount: and, in a calm, their numbers and valor must inevitably haveprevailed. But their hasty and imperfect navy had been created, not bythe genius of the people, but by the will of the sultan: in the heightof their prosperity, the Turks have acknowledged, that if God had giventhem the earth, he had left the sea to the infidels; [44] and a series ofdefeats, a rapid progress of decay, has established the truth of theirmodest confession. Except eighteen galleys of some force, the rest oftheir fleet consisted of open boats, rudely constructed and awkwardlymanaged, crowded with troops, and destitute of cannon; and since couragearises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength, thebravest of the Janizaries might tremble on a new element. In theChristian squadron, five stout and lofty ships were guided by skilfulpilots, and manned with the veterans of Italy and Greece, long practisedin the arts and perils of the sea. Their weight was directed to sink orscatter the weak obstacles that impeded their passage: their artilleryswept the waters: their liquid fire was poured on the heads of theadversaries, who, with the design of boarding, presumed to approachthem; and the winds and waves are always on the side of the ablestnavigators. In this conflict, the Imperial vessel, which had been almostoverpowered, was rescued by the Genoese; but the Turks, in a distantand closer attack, were twice repulsed with considerable loss. Mahomethimself sat on horseback on the beach to encourage their valor by hisvoice and presence, by the promise of reward, and by fear more potentthan the fear of the enemy. The passions of his soul, and eventhe gestures of his body, [45] seemed to imitate the actions of thecombatants; and, as if he had been the lord of nature, he spurredhis horse with a fearless and impotent effort into the sea. His loudreproaches, and the clamors of the camp, urged the Ottomans to a thirdattack, more fatal and bloody than the two former; and I must repeat, though I cannot credit, the evidence of Phranza, who affirms, from theirown mouth, that they lost above twelve thousand men in the slaughter ofthe day. They fled in disorder to the shores of Europe and Asia, while the Christian squadron, triumphant and unhurt, steered along theBosphorus, and securely anchored within the chain of the harbor. In theconfidence of victory, they boasted that the whole Turkish power musthave yielded to their arms; but the admiral, or captain bashaw, foundsome consolation for a painful wound in his eye, by representing thataccident as the cause of his defeat. Balthi Ogli was a renegade of therace of the Bulgarian princes: his military character was tainted withthe unpopular vice of avarice; and under the despotism of the prince orpeople, misfortune is a sufficient evidence of guilt. [451] His rank andservices were annihilated by the displeasure of Mahomet. In the royalpresence, the captain bashaw was extended on the ground by four slaves, and received one hundred strokes with a golden rod: [46] his death hadbeen pronounced; and he adored the clemency of the sultan, who wassatisfied with the milder punishment of confiscation and exile. Theintroduction of this supply revived the hopes of the Greeks, and accusedthe supineness of their Western allies. Amidst the deserts of Anatoliaand the rocks of Palestine, the millions of the crusades had buriedthemselves in a voluntary and inevitable grave; but the situation ofthe Imperial city was strong against her enemies, and accessible to herfriends; and a rational and moderate armament of the marine states mighthave saved the relics of the Roman name, and maintained a Christianfortress in the heart of the Ottoman empire. Yet this was the sole andfeeble attempt for the deliverance of Constantinople: the more distantpowers were insensible of its danger; and the ambassador of Hungary, orat 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 thenumber of these illustrious vessels; the _five_ of Ducas, the _four_ofPhranza and Leonardus, and the _two_ of Chalcondyles, must be extendedto the smaller, or confined to the larger, size. Voltaire, in giving oneof these ships to Frederic III. , confounds the emperors of the East andWest. ]

[Footnote 43: In bold defiance, or rather in gross ignorance, oflanguage and geography, the president Cousin detains them in Chios witha south, and wafts them to Constantinople with a north, wind. ]

[Footnote 44: The perpetual decay and weakness of the Turkish navymay 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 livingpicture which Thucydides (l. Vii. C. 71) has drawn of the passions andgestures of the Athenians in a naval engagement in the great harbor ofSyracuse. ]

[Footnote 451: According to Ducas, one of the Afabi beat out his eye witha 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 500libræ, or pounds. Bouillaud's reading of 500 drachms, or five pounds, is sufficient to exercise the arm of Mahomet, and bruise the back of hisadmiral. ]

[Footnote 47: Ducas, who confesses himself ill informed of the affairsof Hungary assigns a motive of superstition, a fatal belief thatConstantinople 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 andsurprising, had fatigued the perseverance of Mahomet. He began tomeditate a retreat; and the siege would have been speedily raised, if the ambition and jealousy of the second vizier had not opposedthe perfidious advice of Calil Bashaw, who still maintained a secretcorrespondence with the Byzantine court. The reduction of the cityappeared to be hopeless, unless a double attack could be made from theharbor as well as from the land; but the harbor was inaccessible: animpenetrable chain was now defended by eight large ships, more thantwenty of a smaller size, with several galleys and sloops; and, insteadof forcing this barrier, the Turks might apprehend a naval sally, anda second encounter in the open sea. In this perplexity, the genius ofMahomet conceived and executed a plan of a bold and marvellous cast, oftransporting by land his lighter vessels and military stores from theBosphorus 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 freepassage or total destruction must depend on the option of the Genoese. But these selfish merchants were ambitious of the favor of being thelast devoured; and the deficiency of art was supplied by the strengthof obedient myriads. A level way was covered with a broad platform ofstrong and solid planks; and to render them more slippery and smooth, they were anointed with the fat of sheep and oxen. Fourscore lightgalleys and brigantines, of fifty and thirty oars, were disembarkedon the Bosphorus shore; arranged successively on rollers; and drawnforwards by the power of men and pulleys. Two guides or pilots werestationed at the helm, and the prow, of each vessel: the sailswere unfurled to the winds; and the labor was cheered by song andacclamation. In the course of a single night, this Turkish fleetpainfully climbed the hill, steered over the plain, and was launchedfrom the declivity into the shallow waters of the harbor, far above themolestation of the deeper vessels of the Greeks. The real importance ofthis operation was magnified by the consternation and confidence whichit inspired: but the notorious, unquestionable fact was displayed beforethe eyes, and is recorded by the pens, of the two nations. [48] A similarstratagem had been repeatedly practised by the ancients; [49] the Ottomangalleys (I must again repeat) should be considered as large boats; and, if we compare the magnitude and the distance, the obstacles and themeans, the boasted miracle [50] has perhaps been equalled by the industryof our own times. [51] As soon as Mahomet had occupied the upper harborwith 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, linkedwith iron, and covered with a solid floor. On this floating battery heplanted one of his largest cannon, while the fourscore galleys, withtroops and scaling ladders, approached the most accessible side, whichhad formerly been stormed by the Latin conquerors. The indolence of theChristians has been accused for not destroying these unfinished works;[511] but their fire, by a superior fire, was controlled and silenced; norwere they wanting in a nocturnal attempt to burn the vessels as well asthe bridge of the sultan. His vigilance prevented their approach; theirforemost galiots were sunk or taken; forty youths, the bravest of Italyand Greece, were inhumanly massacred at his command; nor could theemperor's grief be assuaged by the just though cruel retaliation, ofexposing from the walls the heads of two hundred and sixty Mussulmancaptives. After a siege of forty days, the fate of Constantinople couldno longer be averted. The diminutive garrison was exhausted by a doubleattack: the fortifications, which had stood for ages against hostileviolence, were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon: manybreaches were opened; and near the gate of St. Romanus, four towershad been levelled with the ground. For the payment of his feeble andmutinous troops, Constantine was compelled to despoil the churches withthe promise of a fourfold restitution; and his sacrilege offered a newreproach to the enemies of the union. A spirit of discord impaired theremnant of the Christian strength; the Genoese and Venetian auxiliariesasserted the preeminence of their respective service; and Justinianiand the great duke, whose ambition was not extinguished by the commondanger, 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 byCantemir (p. 96) from the Turkish annals; but I could wish to contractthe 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 transportationover the six miles of the Isthmus of Corinth; the one fabulous, ofAugustus after the battle of Actium; the other true, of Nicetas, aGreek general in the xth century. To these he might have added a boldenterprise of Hannibal, to introduce his vessels into the harbor ofTarentum, (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 byGibbon. --M. ]

[Footnote 50: A Greek of Candia, who had served the Venetians in asimilar undertaking, (Spond. A. D. 1438, No. 37, ) might possibly be theadviser and agent of Mahomet. ]

[Footnote 51: I particularly allude to our own embarkations on thelakes of Canada in the years 1776 and 1777, so great in the labor, sofruitless in the event. ]

[Footnote 511: They were betrayed, according to some accounts, by theGenoese of Galata. Von Hammer, p. 536. --M. ]

During the siege of Constantinople, the words of peace and capitulationhad been sometimes pronounced; and several embassies had passed betweenthe camp and the city. [52] The Greek emperor was humbled by adversity;and would have yielded to any terms compatible with religion androyalty. The Turkish sultan was desirous of sparing the blood of hissoldiers; still more desirous of securing for his own use the Byzantinetreasures: and he accomplished a sacred duty in presenting to the_Gabours_ the choice of circumcision, of tribute, or of death. Theavarice of Mahomet might have been satisfied with an annual sum of onehundred thousand ducats; but his ambition grasped the capital of theEast: to the prince he offered a rich equivalent, to the people a freetoleration, or a safe departure: but after some fruitless treaty, hedeclared his resolution of finding either a throne, or a grave, underthe walls of Constantinople. A sense of honor, and the fear of universalreproach, forbade Palæologus to resign the city into the hands ofthe Ottomans; and he determined to abide the last extremities of war. Several days were employed by the sultan in the preparations of theassault; and a respite was granted by his favorite science of astrology, which had fixed on the twenty-ninth of May, as the fortunate and fatalhour. On the evening of the twenty-seventh, he issued his final orders;assembled in his presence the military chiefs, and dispersed his heraldsthrough the camp to proclaim the duty, and the motives, of the perilousenterprise. Fear is the first principle of a despotic government; andhis menaces were expressed in the Oriental style, that the fugitives anddeserters, had they the wings of a bird, [53] should not escape from hisinexorable justice. The greatest part of his bashaws and Janizaries werethe offspring of Christian parents: but the glories of the Turkish namewere perpetuated by successive adoption; and in the gradual change ofindividuals, the spirit of a legion, a regiment, or an _oda_, is keptalive by imitation and discipline. In this holy warfare, the Moslemswere exhorted to purify their minds with prayer, their bodies with sevenablutions; and to abstain from food till the close of the ensuing day. Acrowd of dervises visited the tents, to instil the desire of martyrdom, and the assurance of spending an immortal youth amidst the rivers andgardens of paradise, and in the embraces of the black-eyed virgins. Yet Mahomet principally trusted to the efficacy of temporal and visiblerewards. A double pay was promised to the victorious troops: "The cityand the buildings, " said Mahomet, "are mine; but I resign to your valorthe captives and the spoil, the treasures of gold and beauty; be richand be happy. Many are the provinces of my empire: the intrepid soldierwho first ascends the walls of Constantinople shall be rewarded withthe government of the fairest and most wealthy; and my gratitude shallaccumulate his honors and fortunes above the measure of his own hopes. "Such various and potent motives diffused among the Turks a generalardor, regardless of life and impatient for action: the camp reechoedwith the Moslem shouts of "God is God: there is but one God, and Mahometis the apostle of God;" [54] and the sea and land, from Galata to theseven towers, were illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires. [541]

[Footnote 52: Chalcondyles and Ducas differ in the time andcircumstances of the negotiation; and as it was neither glorious norsalutary, the faithful Phranza spares his prince even the thought of asurrender. ]

[Footnote 53: These wings (Chalcondyles, l. Viii. P. 208) are no morethan an Oriental figure: but in the tragedy of Irene, Mahomet's passionsoars 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 theoperation of the winds must be confined to the _lower_ region of theair. 2. That the name, etymology, and fable of the Pleiads are purelyGreek, (Scholiast ad Homer, S. 686. Eudocia in Ioniâ, p. 399. Apollodor. L. Iii. C. 10. Heyne, p. 229, Not. 682, ) and had no affinity with theastronomy 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. Thegolden chariot does not exist either in science or fiction; but I muchfear Dr. Johnson has confounded the Pleiads with the great bear orwagon, 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 forthe name of God, but for that of the prophet: the pious zeal of Voltaireis excessive, and even ridiculous. ]

[Footnote 541: The picture is heightened by the addition of the wailingcries of Kyris, which were heard from the dark interior of the city. VonHammer p. 539. --M. ]

Far different was the state of the Christians; who, with loud andimpotent complaints, deplored the guilt, or the punishment, of theirsins. The celestial image of the Virgin had been exposed in solemnprocession; but their divine patroness was deaf to their entreaties:they accused the obstinacy of the emperor for refusing a timelysurrender; anticipated the horrors of their fate; and sighed for therepose and security of Turkish servitude. The noblest of the Greeks, andthe 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 thegeneral assault. The last speech of Palæologus was the funeral orationof the Roman empire: [55] he promised, he conjured, and he vainlyattempted to infuse the hope which was extinguished in his own mind. Inthis world all was comfortless and gloomy; and neither the gospel northe church have proposed any conspicuous recompense to the heroes whofall in the service of their country. But the example of their prince, and the confinement of a siege, had armed these warriors with thecourage of despair, and the pathetic scene is described by the feelingsof the historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournfulassembly. They wept, they embraced; regardless of their families andfortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander, departing tohis station, maintained all night a vigilant and anxious watch on therampart. The emperor, and some faithful companions, entered the dome ofSt. Sophia, which in a few hours was to be converted into a mosque; anddevoutly received, with tears and prayers, the sacrament of the holycommunion. He reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded withcries and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all whom he might haveinjured; [56] and mounted on horseback to visit the guards, and explorethe motions of the enemy. The distress and fall of the last Constantineare more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Cæsars. [561]

[Footnote 55: I am afraid that this discourse was composed by Phranzahimself; and it smells so grossly of the sermon and the convent, that Ialmost doubt whether it was pronounced by Constantine. Leonardus assignshim another speech, in which he addresses himself more respectfully tothe Latin auxiliaries. ]

[Footnote 56: This abasement, which devotion has sometimes extortedfrom dying princes, is an improvement of the gospel doctrine of theforgiveness of injuries: it is more easy to forgive 490 times, than onceto ask pardon of an inferior. ]

[Footnote 561: Compare the very curious Armenian elegy on the fall ofConstantinople, translated by M. Boré, in the Journal Asiatique forMarch, 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 withsins, have composed this elegy with the most lively sorrow; for I haveseen Constantinople in the days of its glory. "--M. ]

In the confusion of darkness, an assailant may sometimes succeed; outin this great and general attack, the military judgment and astrologicalknowledge of Mahomet advised him to expect the morning, the memorabletwenty-ninth of May, in the fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of theChristian æra. The preceding night had been strenuously employed: thetroops, the cannons, and the fascines, were advanced to the edge of theditch, which in many parts presented a smooth and level passage to thebreach; and his fourscore galleys almost touched, with the prows andtheir scaling-ladders, the less defensible walls of the harbor. Underpain of death, silence was enjoined: but the physical laws of motionand sound are not obedient to discipline or fear; each individual mightsuppress his voice and measure his footsteps; but the march and laborof thousands must inevitably produce a strange confusion of dissonantclamors, which reached the ears of the watchmen of the towers. Atdaybreak, without the customary signal of the morning gun, the Turksassaulted the city by sea and land; and the similitude of a twined ortwisted thread has been applied to the closeness and continuity of theirline of attack. [57] The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of thehost, a voluntary crowd who fought without order or command; of thefeebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and of allwho had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. Thecommon impulse drove them onwards to the wall; the most audacious toclimb were instantly precipitated; and not a dart, not a bullet, ofthe Christians, was idly wasted on the accumulated throng. But theirstrength and ammunition were exhausted in this laborious defence:the ditch was filled with the bodies of the slain; they supported thefootsteps of their companions; and of this devoted vanguard the deathwas more serviceable than the life. Under their respective bashaws andsanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and Romania were successively led to thecharge: their progress was various and doubtful; but, after a conflictof two hours, the Greeks still maintained, and improved their advantage;and the voice of the emperor was heard, encouraging his soldiers toachieve, by a last effort, the deliverance of their country. In thatfatal moment, the Janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible. The sultan himself on horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was thespectator and judge of their valor: he was surrounded by ten thousand ofhis domestic troops, whom he reserved for the decisive occasion; andthe tide of battle was directed and impelled by his voice and eye. Hisnumerous ministers of justice were posted behind the line, to urge, to restrain, and to punish; and if danger was in the front, shame andinevitable death were in the rear, of the fugitives. The cries of fearand of pain were drowned in the martial music of drums, trumpets, andattaballs; and experience has proved, that the mechanical operation ofsounds, by quickening the circulation of the blood and spirits, willact on the human machine more forcibly than the eloquence of reasonand honor. From the lines, the galleys, and the bridge, the Ottomanartillery thundered on all sides; and the camp and city, the Greeksand the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke which could only bedispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire. The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancyand engage our affections: the skilful evolutions of war may inform themind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in theuniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, andhorror, and confusion nor shall I strive, at the distance of threecenturies, and a thousand miles, to delineate a scene of which therecould be no spectators, and of which the actors themselves wereincapable of forming any just or adequate idea. 

[Footnote 57: Besides the 10, 000 guards, and the sailors and themarines, Ducas numbers in this general assault 250, 000 Turks, both horseand foot. ]

The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the bullet, orarrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani. The sight of hisblood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the courage of the chief, whosearms and counsels were the firmest rampart of the city. As he withdrewfrom his station in quest of a surgeon, his flight was perceivedand stopped by the indefatigable emperor. "Your wound, " exclaimedPalæologus, "is slight; the danger is pressing: your presence isnecessary; and whither will you retire?"--"I will retire, " said thetrembling Genoese, "by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;"and at these words he hastily passed through one of the breaches ofthe inner wall. By this pusillanimous act he stained the honors of amilitary life; and the few days which he survived in Galata, or the Isleof Chios, were embittered by his own and the public reproach. [58] Hisexample was imitated by the greatest part of the Latin auxiliaries, andthe defence began to slacken when the attack was pressed with redoubledvigor. The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, timessuperior to that of the Christians; the double walls were reduced by thecannon to a heap of ruins: in a circuit of several miles, some placesmust be found more easy of access, or more feebly guarded; and ifthe besiegers could penetrate in a single point, the whole city wasirrecoverably lost. The first who deserved the sultan's reward wasHassan the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With his cimeterin one hand and his buckler in the other, he ascended the outwardfortification: of the thirty Janizaries, who were emulous of hisvalor, eighteen perished in the bold adventure. Hassan and his twelvecompanions had reached the summit: the giant was precipitated from therampart: he rose on one knee, and was again oppressed by a shower ofdarts and stones. But his success had proved that the achievement waspossible: the walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarmof Turks; and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, wereoverwhelmed by increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, theemperor, [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 Palæologus andCantacuzene: his mournful exclamation was heard, "Cannot there be founda Christian to cut off my head?" [60] and his last fear was that offalling alive into the hands of the infidels. [61] The prudent despairof Constantine cast away the purple: amidst the tumult he fell by anunknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain. After his death, resistance and order were no more: the Greeks fledtowards the city; and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow passof the gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through thebreaches of the inner wall; and as they advanced into the streets, theywere soon joined by their brethren, who had forced the gate Phenar onthe side of the harbor. [62] In the first heat of the pursuit, about twothousand Christians were put to the sword; but avarice soon prevailedover cruelty; and the victors acknowledged, that they should immediatelyhave given quarter if the valor of the emperor and his chosen bands hadnot 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, wasirretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the Second. Her empire onlyhad been subverted by the Latins: her religion was trampled in the dustby the Moslem conquerors. [63]

[Footnote 58: In the severe censure of the flight of Justiniani, Phranzaexpresses his own feelings and those of the public. For some privatereasons, he is treated with more lenity and respect by Ducas; but thewords of Leonardus Chiensis express his strong and recent indignation, gloriæ salutis suique oblitus. In the whole series of their Easternpolicy, his countrymen, the Genoese, were always suspected, and oftenguilty. * Note: M. Brosset has given some extracts from the Georgian accountof the siege of Constantinople, in which Justiniani's wound in theleft foot is represented as more serious. With charitable ambiguity thechronicler adds that his soldiers carried him away with them in theirvessel. --M. ]

[Footnote 59: Ducas kills him with two blows of Turkish soldiers;Chalcondyles wounds him in the shoulder, and then tramples him in thegate. The grief of Phranza, carrying him among the enemy, escapes fromthe precise image of his death; but we may, without flattery, applythese 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 hissalvation, 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 acaptive so acceptable to the sultan. ]

[Footnote 62: Cantemir, p. 96. The Christian ships in the mouth of theharbor had flanked and retarded this naval attack. ]

[Footnote 63: Chalcondyles most absurdly supposes, that Constantinoplewas sacked by the Asiatics in revenge for the ancient calamities ofTroy; and the grammarians of the xvth century are happy to melt down theuncouth appellation of Turks into the more classical name of _Teucri_. ]

The tidings of misfortune fly with a rapid wing; yet such was the extentof Constantinople, that the more distant quarters might prolong, somemoments, the happy ignorance of their ruin. [64] But in the generalconsternation, in the feelings of selfish or social anxiety, in thetumult and thunder of the assault, a _sleepless_ night and morning[641] must have elapsed; nor can I believe that many Grecian ladies wereawakened by the Janizaries from a sound and tranquil slumber. On theassurance of the public calamity, the houses and convents were instantlydeserted; and the trembling inhabitants flocked together in the streets, like a herd of timid animals, as if accumulated weakness could beproductive of strength, or in the vain hope, that amid the crowd eachindividual 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 andchildren, of priests, monks, and religious virgins: the doors werebarred 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 orimpostor; that one day the Turks would enter Constantinople, and pursuethe 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 anangel would descend from heaven, with a sword in his hand, and woulddeliver the empire, with that celestial weapon, to a poor man seated atthe foot of the column. "Take this sword, " would he say, "and avenge thepeople of the Lord. " At these animating words, the Turks would instantlyfly, and the victorious Romans would drive them from the West, and fromall Anatolia as far as the frontiers of Persia. It is on this occasionthat Ducas, with some fancy and much truth, upbraids the discordand obstinacy of the Greeks. "Had that angel appeared, " exclaims thehistorian, "had he offered to exterminate your foes if you would consentto the union of the church, even event then, in that fatal moment, youwould have rejected your safety, or have deceived your God. " [65]

[Footnote 64: When Cyrus suppressed Babylon during the celebration ofa festival, so vast was the city, and so careless were the inhabitants, that much time elapsed before the distant quarters knew that they werecaptives. Herodotus, (l. I. C. 191, ) and Usher, (Annal. P. 78, ) who hasquoted from the prophet Jeremiah a passage of similar import. ]

[Footnote 641: This refers to an expression in Ducas, who, to heighten theeffect of his description, speaks of the "sweet morning sleep resting onthe 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 Lesbosto the sultan, (c. 44. ) Till Lesbos was subdued in 1463, (Phranza, l. Iii. C. 27, ) that island must have been full of the fugitives ofConstantinople, who delighted to repeat, perhaps to adorn, the tale oftheir 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 werebroken with axes; and as the Turks encountered no resistance, theirbloodless hands were employed in selecting and securing the multitude oftheir prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the appearance of wealth, attractedtheir choice; and the right of property was decided among themselves bya prior seizure, by personal strength, and by the authority of command. In the space of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, thefemales with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked withtheir slaves; the prelates, with the porters of the church; and youngmen of the plebeian class, with noble maids, whose faces had beeninvisible to the sun and their nearest kindred. In this commoncaptivity, the ranks of society were confounded; the ties of nature werecut asunder; and the inexorable soldier was careless of the father'sgroans, the tears of the mother, and the lamentations of the children. The loudest in their wailings were the nuns, who were torn from thealtar with naked bosoms, outstretched hands, and dishevelled hair; andwe should piously believe that few could be tempted to prefer the vigilsof the harem to those of the monastery. Of these unfortunate Greeks, of these domestic animals, whole strings were rudely driven through thestreets; and as the conquerors were eager to return for more prey, theirtrembling pace was quickened with menaces and blows. At the same hour, asimilar rapine was exercised in all the churches and monasteries, inall the palaces and habitations, of the capital; nor could any place, however sacred or sequestered, protect the persons or the property ofthe Greeks. Above sixty thousand of this devoted people were transportedfrom the city to the camp and fleet; exchanged or sold according to thecaprice or interest of their masters, and dispersed in remote servitudethrough the provinces of the Ottoman empire. Among these we may noticesome remarkable characters. The historian Phranza, first chamberlainand principal secretary, was involved with his family in the common lot. After suffering four months the hardships of slavery, he recovered hisfreedom: in the ensuing winter he ventured to Adrianople, and ransomedhis wife from the _mir bashi_, or master of the horse; but his twochildren, in the flower of youth and beauty, had been seized for theuse of Mahomet himself. The daughter of Phranza died in the seraglio, perhaps a virgin: his son, in the fifteenth year of his age, preferreddeath to infamy, and was stabbed by the hand of the royal lover. [66] Adeed thus inhuman cannot surely be expiated by the taste and liberalitywith which he released a Grecian matron and her two daughters, onreceiving a Latin doe From ode from Philelphus, who had chosen a wife inthat noble family. [67] The pride or cruelty of Mahomet would havebeen most sensibly gratified by the capture of a Roman legate; but thedexterity of Cardinal Isidore eluded the search, and he escaped fromGalata in a plebeian habit. [68] The chain and entrance of the outwardharbor was still occupied by the Italian ships of merchandise and war. They had signalized their valor in the siege: they embraced the momentof retreat, while the Turkish mariners were dissipated in the pillage ofthe city. When they hoisted sail, the beach was covered with a suppliantand lamentable crowd; but the means of transportation were scanty: theVenetians and Genoese selected their countrymen; and, notwithstandingthe fairest promises of the sultan, the inhabitants of Galata evacuatedtheir houses, and embarked with their most precious effects. 

[Footnote 66: See Phranza, l. Iii. C. 20, 21. His expressions arepositive: Ameras suâ manû jugulavit. .. . Volebat enim eo turpiter etnefarie abuti. Me miserum et infelicem! Yet he could only learn fromreport the bloody or impure scenes that were acted in the dark recessesof 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 tolearn how he could praise the public enemy, whom he so often reviles asthe most corrupt and inhuman of tyrants. ]

[Footnote 68: The commentaries of Pius II. Suppose that he craftilyplaced his cardinal's hat on the head of a corpse which was cut off andexposed in triumph, while the legate himself was bought and delivered asa captive of no value. The great Belgic Chronicle adorns his escape withnew adventures, which he suppressed (says Spondanus, A. D. 1453, No. 15) in his own letters, lest he should lose the merit and reward ofsuffering 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 torepeat the tale of uniform calamity: the same effects must be producedby the same passions; and when those passions may be indulged withoutcontrol, small, alas! is the difference between civilized and savageman. Amidst the vague exclamations of bigotry and hatred, the Turks arenot accused of a wanton or immoderate effusion of Christian blood: butaccording to their maxims, (the maxims of antiquity, ) the lives of thevanquished were forfeited; and the legitimate reward of the conquerorwas derived from the service, the sale, or the ransom, of his captivesof both sexes. [69] The wealth of Constantinople had been granted bythe sultan to his victorious troops; and the rapine of an hour is moreproductive than the industry of years. But as no regular division wasattempted of the spoil, the respective shares were not determined bymerit; and the rewards of valor were stolen away by the followers of thecamp, who had declined the toil and danger of the battle. The narrativeof their depredations could not afford either amusement or instruction:the total amount, in the last poverty of the empire, has been valuedat four millions of ducats; [70] and of this sum a small part wasthe property of the Venetians, the Genoese, the Florentines, and themerchants of Ancona. Of these foreigners, the stock was improved inquick and perpetual circulation: but the riches of the Greeks weredisplayed in the idle ostentation of palaces and wardrobes, or deeplyburied in treasures of ingots and old coin, lest it should be demandedat their hands for the defence of their country. The profanationand plunder of the monasteries and churches excited the most tragiccomplaints. The dome of St. Sophia itself, the earthly heaven, thesecond firmament, the vehicle of the cherubim, the throne of the gloryof God, [71] was despoiled of the oblation of ages; and the gold andsilver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal ornaments, weremost wickedly converted to the service of mankind. After the divineimages 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 underfoot, or applied, in the stables or the kitchen, to the vilest uses. Theexample of sacrilege was imitated, however, from the Latin conquerorsof Constantinople; and the treatment which Christ, the Virgin, and thesaints, had sustained from the guilty Catholic, might be inflicted bythe zealous Mussulman on the monuments of idolatry. Perhaps, insteadof joining the public clamor, a philosopher will observe, that in thedecline of the arts the workmanship could not be more valuable than thework, and that a fresh supply of visions and miracles would speedily berenewed by the craft of the priests and the credulity of the people. Hewill more seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, whichwere destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundredand twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; [72] tenvolumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same ignominiousprice, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology, included the wholeworks of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest productions of the scienceand literature of ancient Greece. We may reflect with pleasure that aninestimable portion of our classic treasures was safely deposited inItaly; and that the mechanics of a German town had invented an art whichderides the havoc of time and barbarism. 

[Footnote 69: Busbequius expatiates with pleasure and applause on therights of war, and the use of slavery, among the ancients and the Turks, (de Legat. Turcicâ, 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 suspectthat a figure has been dropped. Even with the restitution, the foreignproperty 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, fromLaurus Quirinus to Pope Nicholas V. , (Hody de Græcis, p. 192, from a MS. In the Cotton library. )]

From the first hour [73] of the memorable twenty-ninth of May, disorderand rapine prevailed in Constantinople, till the eighth hour of the sameday; when the sultan himself passed in triumph through the gate of St. Romanus. He was attended by his viziers, bashaws, and guards, each ofwhom (says a Byzantine historian) was robust as Hercules, dexterous asApollo, 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 fromthe 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 orbattle-axe the under jaw of one of these monsters, [75] which in theeyes of the Turks were the idols or talismans of the city. [751] At theprincipal door of St. Sophia, he alighted from his horse, and enteredthe dome; and such was his jealous regard for that monument of hisglory, that on observing a zealous Mussulman in the act of breaking themarble pavement, he admonished him with his cimeter, that, if thespoil and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public andprivate buildings had been reserved for the prince. By his command themetropolis of the Eastern church was transformed into a mosque: the richand portable instruments of superstition had been removed; the crosseswere thrown down; and the walls, which were covered with images andmosaics, were washed and purified, and restored to a state of nakedsimplicity. On the same day, or on the ensuing Friday, the _muezin_, or crier, ascended the most lofty turret, and proclaimed the _ezan_, orpublic invitation in the name of God and his prophet; the imam preached;and Mahomet and Second performed the _namaz_ of prayer and thanksgivingon the great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately beencelebrated before the last of the Cæsars. [76] From St. Sophia heproceeded to the august, but desolate mansion of a hundred successors ofthe great Constantine, but which in a few hours had been stripped of thepomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of humangreatness forced itself on his mind; and he repeated an elegant distichof 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 frommidnight, was used at Constantinople. But Ducas seems to understand thenatural hours from sunrise. ]

[Footnote 74: See the Turkish Annals, p. 329, and the Pandects ofLeunclavius, p. 448. ]

[Footnote 75: I have had occasion (vol. Ii. P. 100) to mention thiscurious relic of Grecian antiquity. ]

[Footnote 751: Von Hammer passes over this circumstance, which is treatedby Dr. Clarke (Travels, vol. Ii. P. 58, 4to. Edit, ) as a fictionof Thevenot. Chishull states that the monument was broken by someattendants of the Polish ambassador. --M. ]

[Footnote 76: We are obliged to Cantemir (p. 102) for the Turkishaccount of the conversion of St. Sophia, so bitterly deplored by Phranzaand Ducas. It is amusing enough to observe, in what opposite lights thesame 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 Scipiorepeated, in the sack of Carthage, the famous prophecy of Homer. Thesame generous feeling carried the mind of the conqueror to the past orthe future. ]

Yet his mind was not satisfied, nor did the victory seem complete, tillhe was informed of the fate of Constantine; whether he had escaped, orbeen made prisoner, or had fallen in the battle. Two Janizaries claimedthe honor and reward of his death: the body, under a heap of slain, wasdiscovered by the golden eagles embroidered on his shoes; the Greeksacknowledged, with tears, the head of their late emperor; and, afterexposing the bloody trophy, [78] Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honorsof a decent funeral. After his decease, Lucas Notaras, great duke, [79]and first minister of the empire, was the most important prisoner. Whenhe offered his person and his treasures at the foot of the throne, "Andwhy, " said the indignant sultan, "did you not employ these treasures inthe defence of your prince and country?"--"They were yours, " answeredthe slave; "God had reserved them for your hands. "--"If he reserved themfor me, " replied the despot, "how have you presumed to withhold them solong by a fruitless and fatal resistance?" The great duke alleged theobstinacy of the strangers, and some secret encouragement from theTurkish vizier; and from this perilous interview he was at lengthdismissed with the assurance of pardon and protection. Mahometcondescended to visit his wife, a venerable princess oppressed withsickness and grief; and his consolation for her misfortunes was in themost tender strain of humanity and filial reverence. A similar clemencywas extended to the principal officers of state, of whom several wereransomed at his expense; and during some days he declared himself thefriend and father of the vanquished people. But the scene was soonchanged; and before his departure, the hippodrome streamed with theblood of his noblest captives. His perfidious cruelty is execratedby the Christians: they adorn with the colors of heroic martyrdom theexecution of the great duke and his two sons; and his death is ascribedto the generous refusal of delivering his children to the tyrant'slust. [791] Yet a Byzantine historian has dropped an unguarded wordof conspiracy, deliverance, and Italian succor: such treason may beglorious; but the rebel who bravely ventures, has justly forfeited hislife; nor should we blame a conqueror for destroying the enemies whomhe can no longer trust. On the eighteenth of June the victorious sultanreturned to Adrianople; and smiled at the base and hollow embassies ofthe Christian princes, who viewed their approaching ruin in the fall ofthe 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 Greekemperor: he would surely content himself with a trophy less inhuman. ]

[Footnote 79: Phranza was the personal enemy of the great duke; norcould time, or death, or his own retreat to a monastery, extort afeeling of sympathy or forgiveness. Ducas is inclined to praise and pitythe martyr; Chalcondyles is neuter, but we are indebted to him for thehint of the Greek conspiracy. ]

[Footnote 791: Von Hammer relates this undoubtingly, apparently on goodauthority, p. 559. --M. ]

Constantinople had been left naked and desolate, without a prince ora people. But she could not be despoiled of the incomparable situationwhich marks her for the metropolis of a great empire; and the geniusof the place will ever triumph over the accidents of time and fortune. Boursa and Adrianople, the ancient seats of the Ottomans, sunk intoprovincial towns; and Mahomet the Second established his own residence, and that of his successors, on the same commanding spot which had beenchosen by Constantine. [80] The fortifications of Galata, which mightafford a shelter to the Latins, were prudently destroyed; but the damageof the Turkish cannon was soon repaired; and before the month of August, great quantities of lime had been burnt for the restoration of thewalls of the capital. As the entire property of the soil and buildings, whether public or private, or profane or sacred, was now transferredto the conqueror, he first separated a space of eight furlongs from thepoint 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 hasbeen emphatically named by the Italians) appears to reign over Europeand Asia; but his person on the shores of the Bosphorus may not alwaysbe secure from the insults of a hostile navy. In the new character of amosque, 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 wasimitated in the _jami_, or royal mosques; and the first of these wasbuilt, by Mahomet himself, on the ruins of the church of the holyapostles, and the tombs of the Greek emperors. On the third day afterthe conquest, the grave of Abu Ayub, or Job, who had fallen in thefirst siege of the Arabs, was revealed in a vision; and it is before thesepulchre of the martyr that the new sultans are girded with thesword of empire. [81] Constantinople no longer appertains to the Romanhistorian; nor shall I enumerate the civil and religious edifices thatwere profaned or erected by its Turkish masters: the population wasspeedily renewed; and before the end of September, five thousandfamilies of Anatolia and Romania had obeyed the royal mandate, whichenjoined them, under pain of death, to occupy their new habitationsin the capital. The throne of Mahomet was guarded by the numbers andfidelity of his Moslem subjects: but his rational policy aspired tocollect the remnant of the Greeks; and they returned in crowds, assoon as they were assured of their lives, their liberties, and thefree exercise of their religion. In the election and investiture ofa patriarch, the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived andimitated. With a mixture of satisfaction and horror, they beheld thesultan on his throne; who delivered into the hands of Gennadius thecrosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his ecclesiastical office; whoconducted the patriarch to the gate of the seraglio, presented him witha horse richly caparisoned, and directed the viziers and bashaws to leadhim to the palace which had been allotted for his residence. [82] Thechurches of Constantinople were shared between the two religions: theirlimits were marked; and, till it was infringed by Selim, the grandsonof Mahomet, the Greeks [83] enjoyed above sixty years the benefit of thisequal partition. Encouraged by the ministers of the divan, who wished toelude the fanaticism of the sultan, the Christian advocates presumedto allege that this division had been an act, not of generosity, but ofjustice; not a concession, but a compact; and that if one half of thecity had been taken by storm, the other moiety had surrendered on thefaith of a sacred capitulation. The original grant had indeed beenconsumed by fire: but the loss was supplied by the testimony of threeaged Janizaries who remembered the transaction; and their venal oathsare of more weight in the opinion of Cantemir, than the positive andunanimous consent of the history of the times. [84]

[Footnote 80: For the restitution of Constantinople and the Turkishfoundations, see Cantemir, (p. 102--109, ) Ducas, (c. 42, ) with Thevenot, Tournefort, and the rest of our modern travellers. From a giganticpicture of the greatness, population, &c. , of Constantinople and theOttoman empire, (Abrégé de l'Histoire Ottomane, tom. I. P. 16--21, ) wemay learn, that in the year 1586 the Moslems were less numerous in thecapital than the Christians, or even the Jews. ]

[Footnote 81: The _Turbé_, or sepulchral monument of Abu Ayub, isdescribed and engraved in the Tableau Générale de l'Empire Ottoman, (Paris 1787, in large folio, ) a work of less use, perhaps, thanmagnificence, (tom. I. P. 305, 306. )]

[Footnote 82: Phranza (l. Iii. C. 19) relates the ceremony, which haspossibly been adorned in the Greek reports to each other, and to theLatins. The fact is confirmed by Emanuel Malaxus, who wrote, in vulgarGreek, the History of the Patriarchs after the taking of Constantinople, inserted in the Turco-Græcia of Crusius, (l. V. P. 106--184. ) But themost patient reader will not believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholicform, "Sancta Trinitas quæ mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham novæRomæ deligit. "]

[Footnote 83: From the Turco-Græcia of Crusius, &c. Spondanus (A. D. 1453, No. 21, 1458, No. 16) describes the slavery and domestic quarrelsof the Greek church. The patriarch who succeeded Gennadius threw himselfin despair into a well. ]

[Footnote 84: Cantemir (p. 101--105) insists on the unanimous consent ofthe Turkish historians, ancient as well as modern, and argues, thatthey would not have violated the truth to diminish their national glory, since it is esteemed more honorable to take a city by force than bycomposition. But, 1. I doubt this consent, since he quotes no particularhistorian, and the Turkish Annals of Leunclavius affirm, withoutexception, that Mahomet took Constantinople _per vim_, (p. 329. ) 2 Thesame argument may be turned in favor of the Greeks of the times, whowould 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 shallabandon to the Turkish arms; but the final extinction of the two lastdynasties [85] which have reigned in Constantinople should terminate thedecline and fall of the Roman empire in the East. The despots of theMorea, Demetrius and Thomas, [86] the two surviving brothers of the nameof Palæologus, were astonished by the death of the emperor Constantine, and the ruin of the monarchy. Hopeless of defence, they prepared, withthe noble Greeks who adhered to their fortune, to seek a refugein Italy, beyond the reach of the Ottoman thunder. Their firstapprehensions were dispelled by the victorious sultan, who contentedhimself with a tribute of twelve thousand ducats; and while his ambitionexplored the continent and the islands, in search of prey, he indulgedthe Morea in a respite of seven years. But this respite was a periodof grief, discord, and misery. The _hexamilion_, the rampart of theIsthmus, so often raised and so often subverted, could not long bedefended by three hundred Italian archers: the keys of Corinth wereseized by the Turks: they returned from their summer excursions with atrain of captives and spoil; and the complaints of the injured Greekswere heard with indifference and disdain. The Albanians, a vagrant tribeof shepherds and robbers, filled the peninsula with rapine and murder:the two despots implored the dangerous and humiliating aid of aneighboring bashaw; and when he had quelled the revolt, his lessonsinculcated the rule of their future conduct. Neither the ties of blood, nor the oaths which they repeatedly pledged in the communion and beforethe altar, nor the stronger pressure of necessity, could reconcile orsuspend their domestic quarrels. They ravaged each other's patrimonywith fire and sword: the alms and succors of the West were consumedin civil hostility; and their power was only exerted in savage andarbitrary executions. The distress and revenge of the weaker rivalinvoked their supreme lord; and, in the season of maturity and revenge, Mahomet declared himself the friend of Demetrius, and marched intothe Morea with an irresistible force. When he had taken possession ofSparta, "You are too weak, " said the sultan, "to control this turbulentprovince: I will take your daughter to my bed; and you shall pass theremainder of your life in security and honor. " Demetrius sighed andobeyed; surrendered his daughter and his castles; followed to Adrianoplehis sovereign and his son; and received for his own maintenance, andthat of his followers, a city in Thrace and the adjacent isles ofImbros, Lemnos, and Samothrace. He was joined the next year by acompanion [861] of misfortune, the last of the Comnenian race, who, afterthe taking of Constantinople by the Latins, had founded a new empireon the coast of the Black Sea. [87] In the progress of his Anatolianconquest, Mahomet invested with a fleet and army the capital ofDavid, who presumed to style himself emperor of Trebizond; [88] and thenegotiation was comprised in a short and peremptory question, "Will yousecure your life and treasures by resigning your kingdom? or had yourather forfeit your kingdom, your treasures, and your life?" The feebleComnenus was subdued by his own fears, [881] and the example of a Mussulmanneighbor, the prince of Sinope, [89] who, on a similar summons, hadyielded a fortified city, with four hundred cannon and ten or twelvethousand soldiers. The capitulation of Trebizond was faithfullyperformed: [891] and the emperor, with his family, was transported to acastle in Romania; but on a slight suspicion of corresponding with thePersian king, David, and the whole Comnenian race, were sacrificed tothe jealousy or avarice of the conqueror. [892] Nor could the nameof father long protect the unfortunate Demetrius from exile andconfiscation; his abject submission moved the pity and contempt ofthe sultan; his followers were transplanted to Constantinople; and hispoverty was alleviated by a pension of fifty thousand aspers, till amonastic habit and a tardy death released Palæologus from an earthlymaster. It is not easy to pronounce whether the servitude of Demetrius, or the exile of his brother Thomas, [90] be the most inglorious. On theconquest of the Morea, the despot escaped to Corfu, and from thence toItaly, with some naked adherents: his name, his sufferings, and thehead of the apostle St. Andrew, entitled him to the hospitality ofthe Vatican; and his misery was prolonged by a pension of six thousandducats from the pope and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel, were educated in Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies andburdensome to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of his lifeand marriage. A title was his sole inheritance; and that inheritancehe successively sold to the kings of France and Arragon. [91] During histransient prosperity, Charles the Eighth was ambitious of joining theempire of the East with the kingdom of Naples: in a public festival, he assumed the appellation and the purple of _Augustus_: the Greeksrejoiced and the Ottoman already trembled, at the approach of the Frenchchivalry. [92] Manuel Palæologus, the second son, was tempted to revisithis native country: his return might be grateful, and could not bedangerous, to the Porte: he was maintained at Constantinople in safetyand ease; and an honorable train of Christians and Moslems attended himto the grave. If there be some animals of so generous a nature that theyrefuse to propagate in a domestic state, the last of the Imperial racemust be ascribed to an inferior kind: he accepted from the sultan'sliberality two beautiful females; and his surviving son was lost in thehabit 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 Palæologi, the sameaccurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248. ) The Palæologi of Montferratwere not extinct till the next century; but they had forgotten theirGreek origin and kindred. ]

[Footnote 86: In the worthless story of the disputes and misfortunes ofthe two brothers, Phranza (l. Iii. C. 21--30) is too partial on the sideof 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, thelast emperor of Trebizond, had attempted to organize a confederacyagainst Mahomet it comprehended Hassan Bei, sultan of Mesopotamia, theChristian princes of Georgia and Iberia, the emir of Sinope, and thesultan of Caramania. The negotiations were interrupted by his suddendeath, 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, ) andCantemir, (p. 107. )]

[Footnote 88: Though Tournefort (tom. Iii. Lettre xvii. P. 179) speaksof Trebizond as mal peuplée, Peysonnel, the latest and most accurateobserver, can find 100, 000 inhabitants, (Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. Ii. P. 72, and for the province, p. 53--90. ) Its prosperity and tradeare perpetually disturbed by the factious quarrels of two _odas_ ofJanizaries, in one which 30, 000 Lazi are commonly enrolled, (Mémoires deTott, 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, ) theemperor of Trebizond humbly entreated the sultan to have the goodness tomarry 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. Thisaccount seems enormous; yet it is by trading with people that we becomeacquainted with their wealth and numbers. ]

[Footnote 891: M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume of hisAnecdota Græca (p. 387, 401. ) a very interesting letter from GeorgeAmiroutzes, protovestiarius of Trebizond, to Bessarion, describing thesurrender of Trebizond, and the fate of its chief inhabitants. --M. ]

[Footnote 892: See in Von Hammer, vol. Ii. P. 60, the striking account ofthe mother, the empress Helena the Cantacuzene, who, in defiance of theedict, like that of Creon in the Greek tragedy, dug the grave for hermurdered children with her own hand, and sank into it herself. --M. ]

[Footnote 90: Spondanus (from Gobelin Comment. Pii II. L. V. ) relatesthe 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 transmittedfrom the archives of the Capitol to the royal library of Paris, thedespot Andrew Palæologus, reserving the Morea, and stipulating someprivate advantages, conveys to Charles VIII. , king of France, theempires 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 hehad obtained a copy from Rome. ]

[Footnote 92: See Philippe de Comines, (l. Vii. C. 14, ) who reckons withpleasure the number of Greeks who were prepared to rise, 60 miles of aneasy navigation, eighteen days' journey from Valona to Constantinople, &c. On this occasion the Turkish empire was saved by the policy ofVenice. ]

The importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in its loss: thepontificate of Nicholas the Fifth, however peaceful and prosperous, wasdishonored by the fall of the Eastern empire; and the grief and terrorof the Latins revived, or seemed to revive, the old enthusiasm of thecrusades. In one of the most distant countries of the West, Philipduke of Burgundy entertained, at Lisle in Flanders, an assembly of hisnobles; and the pompous pageants of the feast were skilfully adaptedto their fancy and feelings. [93] In the midst of the banquet a giganticSaracen entered the hall, leading a fictitious elephant with a castle onhis back: a matron in a mourning robe, the symbol of religion, was seento issue from the castle: she deplored her oppression, and accused theslowness of her champions: the principal herald of the golden fleeceadvanced, bearing on his fist a live pheasant, which, according tothe rites of chivalry, he presented to the duke. At this extraordinarysummons, Philip, a wise and aged prince, engaged his person and powersin the holy war against the Turks: his example was imitated by thebarons and knights of the assembly: they swore to God, the Virgin, the ladies and the _pheasant_; and their particular vows were not lessextravagant than the general sanction of their oath. But the performancewas made to depend on some future and foreign contingency; and duringtwelve years, till the last hour of his life, the duke of Burgundy mightbe scrupulously, and perhaps sincerely, on the eve of his departure. Hadevery breast glowed with the same ardor; had the union of the Christianscorresponded with their bravery; had every country, from Sweden [94] toNaples, supplied a just proportion of cavalry and infantry, of menand money, it is indeed probable that Constantinople would havebeen delivered, and that the Turks might have been chased beyond theHellespont or the Euphrates. But the secretary of the emperor, whocomposed every epistle, and attended every meeting, Æneas Sylvius, [95]a statesman and orator, describes from his own experience the repugnantstate and spirit of Christendom. "It is a body, " says he, "without ahead; a republic without laws or magistrates. The pope and the emperormay shine as lofty titles, as splendid images; but _they_ are unableto command, and none are willing to obey: every state has a separateprince, and every prince has a separate interest. What eloquence couldunite so many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard?Could they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume the office ofgeneral? What order could be maintained?--what military discipline? Whowould undertake to feed such an enormous multitude? Who would understandtheir various languages, or direct their stranger and incompatiblemanners? What mortal could reconcile the English with the French, Genoawith Arragon the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia? If asmall number enlisted in the holy war, they must be overthrown by theinfidels; if many, by their own weight and confusion. " Yet the sameÆneas, when he was raised to the papal throne, under the name of Piusthe Second, devoted his life to the prosecution of the Turkish war. In the council of Mantua he excited some sparks of a false or feebleenthusiasm; but when the pontiff appeared at Ancona, to embark in personwith the troops, engagements vanished in excuses; a precise day wasadjourned to an indefinite term; and his effective army consisted ofsome German pilgrims, whom he was obliged to disband with indulgencesand arms. Regardless of futurity, his successors and the powers of Italywere involved in the schemes of present and domestic ambition; andthe distance or proximity of each object determined in their eyes itsapparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would havetaught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the commonenemy; and the support of Scanderbeg and his brave Albanians might haveprevented the subsequent invasion of the kingdom of Naples. The siegeand sack of Otranto by the Turks diffused a general consternation; andPope Sixtus was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, when the stormwas instantly dispelled by the death of Mahomet the Second, in thefifty-first year of his age. [96] His lofty genius aspired to theconquest of Italy: he was possessed of a strong city and a capaciousharbor; and the same reign might have been decorated with the trophiesof 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. ) Thepeacock 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, andconsequently were far more populous than at present. ]

[Footnote 95: In the year 1454, Spondanus has given, from Æneas Sylvius, a view of the state of Europe, enriched with his own observations. Thatvaluable annalist, and the Italian Muratori, will continue the seriesof events from the year 1453 to 1481, the end of Mahomet's life, and ofthis chapter. ]

[Footnote 96: Besides the two annalists, the reader may consult Giannone(Istoria Civile, tom. Iii. P. 449--455) for the Turkish invasion of thekingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquests of Mahomet II. , Ihave occasionally used the Memorie Istoriche de Monarchi Ottomanni diGiovanni Sagredo, (Venezia, 1677, in 4to. ) In peace and war, the Turkshave ever engaged the attention of the republic of Venice. All herdespatches and archives were open to a procurator of St. Mark, andSagredo is not contemptible either in sense or style. Yet he toobitterly hates the infidels: he is ignorant of their language andmanners; and his narrative, which allows only 70 pages to Mahomet II. , (p. 69--140, ) becomes more copious and authentic as he approaches theyears 1640 and 1644, the term of the historic labors of John Sagredo. ]

[Footnote 97: As I am now taking an everlasting farewell of the Greekempire, I shall briefly mention the great collection of Byzantinewriters whose names and testimonies have been successively repeated inthis work. The Greeks presses of Aldus and the Italians were confined tothe classics of a better age; and the first rude editions of Procopius, Agathias, Cedrenus, Zonaras, &c. , were published by the learneddiligence of the Germans. The whole Byzantine series (xxxvi. Volumes infolio) has gradually issued (A. D. 1648, &c. ) from the royal press of theLouvre, with some collateral aid from Rome and Leipsic; but the Venetianedition, (A. D. 1729, ) though cheaper and more copious, is not lessinferior in correctness than in magnificence to that of Paris. Themerits of the French editors are various; but the value of Anna Comnena, Cinnamus, Villehardouin, &c. , is enhanced by the historical notes ofCharles de Fresne du Cange. His supplemental works, the Greek Glossary, the Constantinopolis Christiana, the Familiæ Byzantinæ, diffuse a steadylight over the darkness of the Lower Empire. * Note: The new edition ofthe Byzantines, projected by Niebuhr, and continued under the patronageof the Prussian government, is the most convenient in size, and containssome authors (Leo Diaconus, Johannes Lydus, Corippus, the new fragmentof Dexippus, Eunapius, &c. , discovered by Mai) which could not becomprised in the former collections; but the names of such editors asBekker, the Dindorfs, &c. , raised hopes of something more than the mererepublication of the text, and the notes of former editors. Little, Iregret to say, has been added of annotation, and in some cases, the oldincorrect 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, oureye is invariably fixed on the royal city, which had given laws to thefairest portion of the globe. We contemplate her fortunes, at first withadmiration, at length with pity, always with attention, and when thatattention is diverted from the capital to the provinces, they areconsidered as so many branches which have been successively severed fromthe Imperial trunk. The foundation of a second Rome, on the shores ofthe Bosphorus, has compelled the historian to follow the successors ofConstantine; and our curiosity has been tempted to visit the most remotecountries of Europe and Asia, to explore the causes and the authors ofthe long decay of the Byzantine monarchy. By the conquest of Justinian, we have been recalled to the banks of the Tyber, to the deliverance ofthe ancient metropolis; but that deliverance was a change, or perhapsan aggravation, of servitude. Rome had been already stripped of hertrophies, her gods, and her Cæsars; nor was the Gothic dominion moreinglorious and oppressive than the tyranny of the Greeks. In the eighthcentury of the Christian æra, a religious quarrel, the worship ofimages, provoked the Romans to assert their independence: their bishopbecame the temporal, as well as the spiritual, father of a free people;and of the Western empire, which was restored by Charlemagne, the titleand 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 purityof blood had been contaminated through a thousand channels; but thevenerable aspect of her ruins, and the memory of past greatness, rekindled a spark of the national character. The darkness of the middleages exhibits some scenes not unworthy of our notice. Nor shall Idismiss the present work till I have reviewed the state and revolutionsof the Roman City, which acquiesced under the absolute dominion ofthe popes, about the same time that Constantinople was enslaved by theTurkish arms. 

[Footnote 1: The abbé Dubos, who, with less genius than his successorMontesquieu, has asserted and magnified the influence of climate, objects to himself the degeneracy of the Romans and Batavians. To thefirst of these examples he replies, 1. That the change is less real thanapparent, and that the modern Romans prudently conceal in themselves thevirtues of their ancestors. 2. That the air, the soil, and the climateof Rome have suffered a great and visible alteration, (Réflexions sur laPoësie et sur la Peinture, part ii. Sect. 16. ) * Note: This question isdiscussed at considerable length in Dr. Arnold's History of Rome, ch. Xxiii. See likewise Bunsen's Dissertation on the Aria Cattiva RomsBeschreibung, pp. 82, 108. --M. ]

In the beginning of the twelfth century, [2] the æra of the firstcrusade, 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 temporaldominion. After so long an interruption, it may not be useless to repeatthat the successors of Charlemagne and the Othos were chosen beyond theRhine in a national diet; but that these princes were content with thehumble names of kings of Germany and Italy, till they had passed theAlps and the Apennine, to seek their Imperial crown on the banks of theTyber. [3] At some distance from the city, their approach was saluted bya long procession of the clergy and people with palms and crosses; andthe terrific emblems of wolves and lions, of dragons and eagles, thatfloated in the military banners, represented the departed legions andcohorts of the republic. The royal path to maintain the liberties ofRome was thrice reiterated, at the bridge, the gate, and on the stairsof the Vatican; and the distribution of a customary donative feeblyimitated the magnificence of the first Cæsars. In the church of St. Peter, the coronation was performed by his successor: the voice ofGod was confounded with that of the people; and the public consent wasdeclared in the acclamations of "Long life and victory to our lordthe pope! long life and victory to our lord the emperor! long life andvictory to the Roman and Teutonic armies!" [4] The names of Cæsarand Augustus, the laws of Constantine and Justinian, the example ofCharlemagne and Otho, established the supreme dominion of the emperors:their title and image was engraved on the papal coins; [5] and theirjurisdiction was marked by the sword of justice, which they delivered tothe præfect of the city. But every Roman prejudice was awakened by thename, the language, and the manners, of a Barbarian lord. The Cæsars ofSaxony or Franconia were the chiefs of a feudal aristocracy; nor couldthey exercise the discipline of civil and military power, which alonesecures 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; butthat order was commonly disturbed by the clamor and sedition of theRomans, who encountered their sovereign as a foreign invader: hisdeparture was always speedy, and often shameful; and, in the absence ofa long reign, his authority was insulted, and his name was forgotten. The progress of independence in Germany and Italy undermined thefoundations of the Imperial sovereignty, and the triumph of the popeswas the deliverance of Rome. 

[Footnote 2: The reader has been so long absent from Rome, that I wouldadvise him to recollect or review the xlixth chapter of this History. ]

[Footnote 3: The coronation of the German emperors at Rome, moreespecially in the xith century, is best represented from the originalmonuments by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiæ Medii Ævi, 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 ofSchmidt, (Hist. Des Allemands tom. Iii. P. 255--266. )]

[Footnote 4: Exercitui Romano et Teutonico! The latter was both seen andfelt; 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 moreearly than the year 800: fifty are still extant from Leo III. To LeoIX. , with the addition of the reigning emperor none remain of GregoryVII. Or Urban II. ; but in those of Paschal II. He seems to haverenounced this badge of dependence. ]

Of her two sovereigns, the emperor had precariously reigned by the rightof conquest; but the authority of the pope was founded on the soft, though more solid, basis of opinion and habit. The removal of a foreigninfluence restored and endeared the shepherd to his flock. Instead ofthe arbitrary or venal nomination of a German court, the vicar of Christwas freely chosen by the college of cardinals, most of whom were eithernatives or inhabitants of the city. The applause of the magistrates andpeople confirmed his election, and the ecclesiastical power that wasobeyed in Sweden and Britain had been ultimately derived from thesuffrage of the Romans. The same suffrage gave a prince, as well as apontiff, to the capital. It was universally believed, that Constantinehad invested the popes with the temporal dominion of Rome; and theboldest civilians, the most profane skeptics, were satisfied withdisputing the right of the emperor and the validity of his gift. Thetruth of the fact, the authenticity of his donation, was deeply rootedin the ignorance and tradition of four centuries; and the fabulousorigin was lost in the real and permanent effects. The name of _Dominus_or Lord was inscribed on the coin of the bishops: their title wasacknowledged by acclamations and oaths of allegiance, and with the free, or reluctant, consent of the German Cæsars, they had long exercised asupreme or subordinate jurisdiction over the city and patrimony of St. Peter. The reign of the popes, which gratified the prejudices, was notincompatible with the liberties, of Rome; and a more critical inquirywould have revealed a still nobler source of their power; the gratitudeof a nation, whom they had rescued from the heresy and oppression of theGreek tyrant. In an age of superstition, it should seem that the unionof the royal and sacerdotal characters would mutually fortify eachother; and that the keys of Paradise would be the surest pledge ofearthly obedience. The sanctity of the office might indeed be degradedby the personal vices of the man. But the scandals of the tenth centurywere obliterated by the austere and more dangerous virtues of Gregorythe Seventh and his successors; and in the ambitious contests whichthey maintained for the rights of the church, their sufferings or theirsuccess must equally tend to increase the popular veneration. Theysometimes wandered in poverty and exile, the victims of persecution; andthe apostolic zeal with which they offered themselves to martyrdom mustengage the favor and sympathy of every Catholic breast. And sometimes, thundering from the Vatican, they created, judged, and deposed the kingsof the world; nor could the proudest Roman be disgraced by submittingto a priest, whose feet were kissed, and whose stirrup was held, by thesuccessors of Charlemagne. [6] Even the temporal interest of the cityshould have protected in peace and honor the residence of the popes;from whence a vain and lazy people derived the greatest part of theirsubsistence and riches. The fixed revenue of the popes was probablyimpaired; many of the old patrimonial estates, both in Italy and theprovinces, had been invaded by sacrilegious hands; nor could the loss becompensated by the claim, rather than the possession, of the more amplegifts of Pepin and his descendants. But the Vatican and Capitol werenourished by the incessant and increasing swarms of pilgrims andsuppliants: the pale of Christianity was enlarged, and the pope andcardinals were overwhelmed by the judgment of ecclesiastical and secularcauses. A new jurisprudence had established in the Latin church theright and practice of appeals; [7] and from the North and West thebishops and abbots were invited or summoned to solicit, to complain, to accuse, or to justify, before the threshold of the apostles. A rareprodigy is once recorded, that two horses, belonging to the archbishopsof Mentz and Cologne, repassed the Alps, yet laden with gold and silver:[8] but it was soon understood, that the success, both of the pilgrimsand clients, depended much less on the justice of their cause than onthe value of their offering. The wealth and piety of these strangerswere ostentatiously displayed; and their expenses, sacred or profane, circulated in various channels for the emolument of the Romans. 

[Footnote 6: See Ducange, Gloss. Mediæ et infimæ Latinitat. Tom. Vi. P. 364, 365, Staffa. This homage was paid by kings to archbishops, andby vassals to their lords, (Schmidt, tom. Iii. P. 262;) and it was thenicest policy of Rome to confound the marks of filial and of feudalsubjection. ]

[Footnote 7: The appeals from all the churches to the Roman pontiff aredeplored 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 theseappeals; the more enlightened historian investigates the origin, andrejects the principles, of this new jurisprudence. ]

[Footnote 8: Germanici. .. . Summarii non levatis sarcinis onustinihilominus repatriant inviti. Nova res! quando hactenus aurum Romarefudit? Et nunc Romanorum consilio id usurpatum non credimus, (Bernard, de Consideratione, l. Iii. C. 3, p. 437. ) The first words of the passageare obscure, and probably corrupt. ]

Such powerful motives should have firmly attached the voluntary andpious obedience of the Roman people to their spiritual and temporalfather. But the operation of prejudice and interest is often disturbedby the sallies of ungovernable passion. The Indian who fells the tree, that he may gather the fruit, [9] and the Arab who plunders the caravansof commerce, are actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, whichoverlooks the future in the present, and relinquishes for momentaryrapine the long and secure possession of the most important blessings. And it was thus, that the shrine of St. Peter was profaned by thethoughtless Romans; who pillaged the offerings, and wounded thepilgrims, without computing the number and value of similar visits, which they prevented by their inhospitable sacrilege. Even the influenceof superstition is fluctuating and precarious; and the slave, whosereason is subdued, will often be delivered by his avarice or pride. Acredulous devotion for the fables and oracles of the priesthood mostpowerfully acts on the mind of a Barbarian; yet such a mind is the leastcapable of preferring imagination to sense, of sacrificing to a distantmotive, to an invisible, perhaps an ideal, object, the appetites andinterests of the present world. In the vigor of health and youth, hispractice will perpetually contradict his belief; till the pressure ofage, or sickness, or calamity, awakens his terrors, and compels him tosatisfy the double debt of piety and remorse. I have already observed, that the modern times of religious indifference are the mostfavorable to the peace and security of the clergy. Under the reign ofsuperstition, they had much to hope from the ignorance, and much to fearfrom the violence, of mankind. The wealth, whose constant increase musthave rendered them the sole proprietors of the earth, was alternatelybestowed by the repentant father and plundered by the rapacious son:their persons were adored or violated; and the same idol, by the handsof 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 andthe measure of allegiance; and amidst their tumult, the still voiceof law and reason was seldom heard or obeyed. The turbulent Romansdisdained the yoke, and insulted the impotence, of their bishop: [10] norwould his education or character allow him to exercise, with decencyor effect, the power of the sword. The motives of his election and thefrailties of his life were exposed to their familiar observation; andproximity must diminish the reverence which his name and his decreesimpressed on a barbarous world. This difference has not escaped thenotice of our philosophic historian: "Though the name and authority ofthe court of Rome were so terrible in the remote countries of Europe, which were sunk in profound ignorance, and were entirely unacquaintedwith its character and conduct, the pope was so little revered at home, that his inveterate enemies surrounded the gates of Rome itself, andeven controlled his government in that city; and the ambassadors, who, from a distant extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble, or ratherabject, submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found theutmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw themselves athis 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 gouvernementdespotique, (Esprit des Loix, l. V. C. 13;) and passion and ignoranceare always despotic. ]

[Footnote 10: In a free conversation with his countryman AdrianIV. , 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 sæpevilissimis hominibus dati sunt in direptionem, (de Nugis Curialium, l. Vi. C. 24, p. 387. ) In the next page, he blames the rashness andinfidelity of the Romans, whom their bishops vainly strove to conciliateby gifts, instead of virtues. It is pity that this miscellaneous writerhas not given us less morality and erudition, and more pictures ofhimself and the times. ]

[Footnote 11: Hume's History of England, vol. I. P. 419. The same writerhas given us, from Fitz-Stephen, a singular act of cruelty perpetratedon the clergy by Geoffrey, the father of Henry II. "When he was masterof Normandy, the chapter of Seez presumed, without his consent, toproceed to the election of a bishop: upon which he ordered all of them, with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their testiclesbe brought him in a platter. " Of the pain and danger they might justlycomplain; yet since they had vowed chastity he deprived them of asuperfluous 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 longhostility of the mitre and the crown increased the numbers, and inflamedthe passions, of their enemies. The deadly factions of the Guelphs andGhibelines, so fatal to Italy, could never be embraced with truth orconstancy by the Romans, the subjects and adversaries both of the bishopand emperor; but their support was solicited by both parties, and theyalternately displayed in their banners the keys of St. Peter and theGerman eagle. Gregory the Seventh, who may be adored or detested as thefounder of the papal monarchy, was driven from Rome, and died in exileat Salerno. Six-and-thirty of his successors, [12] till their retreat toAvignon, maintained an unequal contest with the Romans: their age anddignity were often violated; and the churches, in the solemn rites ofreligion, were polluted with sedition and murder. A repetition [13]of such capricious brutality, without connection or design, would betedious and disgusting; and I shall content myself with some eventsof the twelfth century, which represent the state of the popes and thecity. On Holy Thursday, while Paschal officiated before the altar, he was interrupted by the clamors of the multitude, who imperiouslydemanded the confirmation of a favorite magistrate. His silenceexasperated their fury; his pious refusal to mingle the affairs of earthand heaven was encountered with menaces, and oaths, that he should bethe cause and the witness of the public ruin. During the festival ofEaster, while the bishop and the clergy, barefooted and in procession, visited the tombs of the martyrs, they were twice assaulted, at thebridge of St. Angelo, and before the Capitol, with volleys of stonesand darts. The houses of his adherents were levelled with the ground:Paschal escaped with difficulty and danger; he levied an army in thepatrimony of St. Peter; and his last days were embittered by sufferingand inflicting the calamities of civil war. The scenes that followed theelection of his successor Gelasius the Second were still more scandalousto the church and city. Cencio Frangipani, [14] a potent and factiousbaron, burst into the assembly furious and in arms: the cardinals werestripped, beaten, and trampled under foot; and he seized, without pityor respect, the vicar of Christ by the throat. Gelasius was dragged bythe hair along the ground, buffeted with blows, wounded with spurs, and bound with an iron chain in the house of his brutal tyrant. Aninsurrection of the people delivered their bishop: the rival familiesopposed 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 thealtar. While his friends and enemies were engaged in a bloody contest, he escaped in his sacerdotal garments. In this unworthy flight, whichexcited the compassion of the Roman matrons, his attendants werescattered or unhorsed; and, in the fields behind the church of St. Peter, his successor was found alone and half dead with fear andfatigue. Shaking the dust from his feet, the _apostle_ withdrew from acity in which his dignity was insulted and his person was endangered;and the vanity of sacerdotal ambition is revealed in the involuntaryconfession, that one emperor was more tolerable than twenty. [15] Theseexamples might suffice; but I cannot forget the sufferings of twopontiffs 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, wasstruck on the temple by a stone, and expired in a few days. Thelatter was severely wounded in the person of his servants. In a civilcommotion, several of his priests had been made prisoners; and theinhuman Romans, reserving one as a guide for his brethren, put out theireyes, crowned them with ludicrous mitres, mounted them on asses withtheir faces towards the tail, and extorted an oath, that, in thiswretched condition, they should offer themselves as a lesson to the headof the church. Hope or fear, lassitude or remorse, the characters ofthe men, and the circumstances of the times, might sometimes obtain aninterval of peace and obedience; and the pope was restored with joyfulacclamations to the Lateran or Vatican, from whence he had been drivenwith threats and violence. But the root of mischief was deep andperennial; and a momentary calm was preceded and followed by suchtempests as had almost sunk the bark of St. Peter. Rome continuallypresented the aspect of war and discord: the churches and palaces werefortified and assaulted by the factions and families; and, after givingpeace to Europe, Calistus the Second alone had resolution and power toprohibit the use of private arms in the metropolis. Among the nationswho revered the apostolic throne, the tumults of Rome provoked a generalindignation; and in a letter to his disciple Eugenius the Third, St. Bernard, with the sharpness of his wit and zeal, has stigmatized thevices of the rebellious people. [16] "Who is ignorant, " says the monk ofClairvaux, "of the vanity and arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursedin sedition, untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are toofeeble to resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; ifthey swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet theyvent their discontent in loud clamors, if your doors, or your counsels, are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief, they have never learnedthe science of doing good. Odious to earth and heaven, impious to God, seditious among themselves, jealous of their neighbors, inhuman tostrangers, they love no one, by no one are they beloved; and while theywish to inspire fear, they live in base and continual apprehension. They will not submit; they know not how to govern faithless to theirsuperiors, intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their benefactors, and alike impudent in their demands and their refusals. Lofty inpromise, poor in execution; adulation and calumny, perfidy and treason, are the familiar arts of their policy. " Surely this dark portrait isnot colored by the pencil of Christian charity; [17] yet the features, however harsh or ugly, express a lively resemblance of the Roman of thetwelfth century. [18]

[Footnote 12: From Leo IX. And Gregory VII. An authentic andcontemporary series of the lives of the popes by the cardinal ofArragon, Pandulphus Pisanus, Bernard Guido, &c. , is inserted in theItalian Historians of Muratori, (tom. Iii. P. I. P. 277--685, ) and hasbeen always before my eyes. ]

[Footnote 13: The dates of years in the contents may throughout his thischapter be understood as tacit references to the Annals of Muratori, my ordinary and excellent guide. He uses, and indeed quotes, with thefreedom of a master, his great collection of the Italian Historians, inxxviii. Volumes; and as that treasure is in my library, I have thoughtit an amusement, if not a duty, to consult the originals. ]

[Footnote 14: I cannot refrain from transcribing the high-coloredwords of Pandulphus Pisanus, (p. 384. ) Hoc audiens inimicus pacisatque turbator jam fatus Centius Frajapane, more draconis immanissimisibilans, et ab imis pectoribus trahens longa suspiria, accinctusretro gladio sine more cucurrit, valvas ac fores confregit. Ecclesiamfuribundus introiit, inde custode remoto papam per gulam accepit, distraxit pugnis calcibusque percussit, et tanquam brutum animal intralimen ecclesiæ acriter calcaribus cruentavit; et latro tantum dominumper capillos et brachia, Jesû bono interim dormiente, detraxit, ad domumusque deduxit, inibi catenavit et inclusit. ]

[Footnote 15: Ego coram Deo et Ecclesiâ 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 cervicositasRomanorum? Gens insueta paci, tumultui assueta, gens immitis etintractabilis usque adhuc, subdi nescia, nisi cum non valet resistere, (de Considerat. L. Iv. C. 2, p. 441. ) The saint takes breath, and thenbegins again: Hi, invisi terræ 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 byresentment, and possibly repent of his hasty passion, &c. (Mémoires surla Vie de Pétrarque, tom. I. P. 330. )]

[Footnote 18: Baronius, in his index to the xiith volume of hisAnnals, has found a fair and easy excuse. He makes two heads, of Romani_Catholici_ and _Schismatici_: to the former he applies all the good, tothe latter all the evil, that is told of the city. ]

The Jews had rejected the Christ when he appeared among them in aplebeian character; and the Romans might plead their ignorance of hisvicar when he assumed the pomp and pride of a temporal sovereign. Inthe busy age of the crusades, some sparks of curiosity and reason wererekindled in the Western world: the heresy of Bulgaria, the Pauliciansect, 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 theirconscience, the desire of freedom with the profession of piety. [19] Thetrumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded by Arnold of Brescia, [20]whose promotion in the church was confined to the lowest rank, and whowore the monastic habit rather as a garb of poverty than as a uniformof obedience. His adversaries could not deny the wit and eloquence whichthey severely felt; they confess with reluctance the specious purity ofhis morals; and his errors were recommended to the public by a mixtureof important and beneficial truths. In his theological studies, he hadbeen the disciple of the famous and unfortunate Abelard, [21] who waslikewise involved in the suspicion of heresy: but the lover of Eloisawas of a soft and flexible nature; and his ecclesiastic judges wereedified and disarmed by the humility of his repentance. From thismaster, Arnold most probably imbibed some metaphysical definitions ofthe Trinity, repugnant to the taste of the times: his ideas of baptismand the eucharist are loosely censured; but a political heresy was thesource of his fame and misfortunes. He presumed to quote the declarationof 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 secularpersons; that the abbots, the bishops, and the pope himself, mustrenounce either their state or their salvation; and that after the lossof their revenues, the voluntary tithes and oblations of the faithfulwould suffice, not indeed for luxury and avarice, but for a frugal lifein the exercise of spiritual labors. During a short time, the preacherwas revered as a patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of Bresciaagainst her bishop, was the first fruits of his dangerous lessons. Butthe favor of the people is less permanent than the resentment of thepriest; and after the heresy of Arnold had been condemned by Innocentthe Second, [22] in the general council of the Lateran, the magistratesthemselves were urged by prejudice and fear to execute the sentence ofthe church. Italy could no longer afford a refuge; and the disciple ofAbelard escaped beyond the Alps, till he found a safe and hospitableshelter in Zurich, now the first of the Swiss cantons. From a Romanstation, [23] a royal villa, a chapter of noble virgins, Zurich hadgradually increased to a free and flourishing city; where the appeals ofthe Milanese were sometimes tried by the Imperial commissaries. [24] Inan age less ripe for reformation, the precursor of Zuinglius was heardwith applause: a brave and simple people imbibed, and long retained, the color of his opinions; and his art, or merit, seduced the bishopof Constance, and even the pope's legate, who forgot, for his sake, theinterest of their master and their order. Their tardy zeal was quickenedby the fierce exhortations of St. Bernard; [25] and the enemy of thechurch was driven by persecution to the desperate measures of erectinghis 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 favorableopinion of Arnold of Brescia. In the vth volume I have described thesect of the Paulicians, and followed their migration from Armenia toThrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France. ]

[Footnote 20: The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are drawn byOtho, bishop of Frisingen, (Chron. L. Vii. C. 31, de Gestis FredericiI. 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 Parisnear Basil, (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Med. Et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. Iii. P. 174, 175. ) The long passage that relates to Arnold is produced byGuilliman, (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 muchlevity and learning, the articles of Abelard, Foulkes, Heloise, inhis 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 Præsule, qui numeros vetitum contingere nostros Nomen ad _innocuâ_ ducit laudabile vitâ. 

We may applaud the dexterity and correctness of Ligurinus, who turns theunpoetical name of Innocent II. Into a compliment. ]

[Footnote 23: A Roman inscription of Statio Turicensis has been found atZurich, (D'Anville, Notice de l'ancienne Gaul, p. 642--644;) but it iswithout sufficient warrant, that the city and canton have usurped, andeven 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 tohis daughter the abbess Hildegardis. Curtim nostram Turegum in ducatûAlamanniæ in pago Durgaugensi, with villages, woods, meadows, waters, slaves, churches, &c. ; a noble gift. Charles the Bald gave the jusmonetæ, the city was walled under Otho I. , and the line of the bishop ofFrisingen, 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 hisinvectives he drops a precious acknowledgment, qui, utinam quam sanæesset doctrinæ quam districtæ est vitæ. He owns that Arnold would be avaluable 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 wasprotected, and had perhaps been invited, by the nobles and people; andin the service of freedom, his eloquence thundered over the seven hills. Blending in the same discourse the texts of Livy and St. Paul, unitingthe motives of gospel, and of classic, enthusiasm, he admonished theRomans, how strangely their patience and the vices of the clergy haddegenerated from the primitive times of the church and the city. Heexhorted them to assert the inalienable rights of men and Christians; torestore the laws and magistrates of the republic; to respect the_name_ of the emperor; but to confine their shepherd to the spiritualgovernment of his flock. [26] Nor could his spiritual government escapethe censure and control of the reformer; and the inferior clergywere taught by his lessons to resist the cardinals, who had usurped adespotic command over the twenty-eight regions or parishes of Rome. [27]The revolution was not accomplished without rapine and violence, thediffusion of blood and the demolition of houses: the victorious factionwas enriched with the spoils of the clergy and the adverse nobles. Arnold of Brescia enjoyed, or deplored, the effects of his mission: hisreign continued above ten years, while two popes, Innocent the Secondand Anastasius the Fourth, either trembled in the Vatican, or wanderedas exiles in the adjacent cities. They were succeeded by a more vigorousand fortunate pontiff. Adrian the Fourth, [28] the only Englishman whohas ascended the throne of St. Peter; and whose merit emerged from themean 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 thestreets, he cast an interdict on the guilty people; and from Christmasto Easter, Rome was deprived of the real or imaginary comforts ofreligious worship. The Romans had despised their temporal prince: theysubmitted with grief and terror to the censures of their spiritualfather: their guilt was expiated by penance, and the banishment of theseditious preacher was the price of their absolution. But the revenge ofAdrian was yet unsatisfied, and the approaching coronation of FredericBarbarossa was fatal to the bold reformer, who had offended, thoughnot in an equal degree, the heads of the church and state. In theirinterview 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 thepernicious tendency of the heresy of Arnold, which must subvert theprinciples of civil, as well as ecclesiastical, subordination. Fredericwas convinced by these arguments, or tempted by the desire of theImperial crown: in the balance of ambition, the innocence or life of anindividual is of small account; and their common enemy was sacrificed toa moment of political concord. After his retreat from Rome, Arnold hadbeen protected by the viscounts of Campania, from whom he was extortedby the power of Cæsar: the præfect of the city pronounced his sentence:the martyr of freedom was burned alive in the presence of a carelessand ungrateful people; and his ashes were cast into the Tyber, lest theheretics should collect and worship the relics of their master. [29] Theclergy triumphed in his death: with his ashes, his sect was dispersed;his memory still lived in the minds of the Romans. From his school theyhad probably derived a new article of faith, that the metropolis ofthe Catholic church is exempt from the penalties of excommunication andinterdict. Their bishops might argue, that the supreme jurisdiction, which they exercised over kings and nations, more especially embracedthe city and diocese of the prince of the apostles. But they preached tothe winds, and the same principle that weakened the effect, must temperthe abuse, of the thunders of the Vatican. 

[Footnote 26: He advised the Romans, Consiliis armisque sua moderamina summa Arbitrio tractare suo: nil juris in hâc re Pontifici summo, modicum concedere regi Suadebat populo. Sic læsâ stultus utrâque Majestate, reum geminæ se fecerat aulæ. Nor is the poetry of Gunther different from the prose of Otho. ]

[Footnote 27: See Baronius (A. D. 1148, No. 38, 39) from the VaticanMSS. He loudly condemns Arnold (A. D. 1141, No. 3) as the father of thepolitical 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 meritsof their countrymen. ]

[Footnote 29: Besides the historian and poet already quoted, thelast 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 asthe tenth century, in their first struggles against the Saxon Othos, the commonwealth was vindicated and restored by the senate and people ofRome; that two consuls were annually elected among the nobles, and thatten or twelve plebeian magistrates revived the name and office of thetribunes of the commons. [30] But this venerable structure disappearsbefore the light of criticism. In the darkness of the middle ages, the appellations of senators, of consuls, of the sons of consuls, maysometimes be discovered. [31] They were bestowed by the emperors, orassumed by the most powerful citizens, to denote their rank, theirhonors, [32] and perhaps the claim of a pure and patrician descent: butthey float on the surface, without a series or a substance, the titlesof men, not the orders of government; [33] and it is only from the yearof Christ one thousand one hundred and forty-four that the establishmentof the senate is dated, as a glorious æra, in the acts of the city. A new constitution was hastily framed by private ambition or popularenthusiasm; nor could Rome, in the twelfth century, produce an antiquaryto explain, or a legislator to restore, the harmony and proportions ofthe ancient model. The assembly of a free, of an armed, people, will ever speak in loud and weighty acclamations. But the regulardistribution of the thirty-five tribes, the nice balance of the wealthand numbers of the centuries, the debates of the adverse orators, andthe slow operations of votes and ballots, could not easily be adapted bya blind multitude, ignorant of the arts, and insensible of thebenefits, of legal government. It was proposed by Arnold to reviveand discriminate the equestrian order; but what could be the motiveor measure of such distinction? [34] The pecuniary qualification of theknights must have been reduced to the poverty of the times: those timesno longer required their civil functions of judges and farmers of therevenue; 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 nationsand families of Italy who lived under the Roman and Barbaric laws wereinsensibly mingled in a common mass; and some faint tradition, someimperfect fragments, preserved the memory of the Code and Pandects ofJustinian. With their liberty the Romans might doubtless have restoredthe appellation and office of consuls; had they not disdained a title sopromiscuously adopted in the Italian cities, that it has finally settledon the humble station of the agents of commerce in a foreign land. Butthe rights of the tribunes, the formidable word that arrested thepublic counsels, suppose or must produce a legitimate democracy. Theold patricians were the subjects, the modern barons the tyrants, of thestate; nor would the enemies of peace and order, who insulted thevicar of Christ, have long respected the unarmed sanctity of a plebeianmagistrate. [35]

[Footnote 30: Ducange (Gloss. Latinitatis Mediæ et Infimæ Ætatis, Decarchones, tom. Ii. P. 726) gives me a quotation from Blondus, (Decad. Ii. L. Ii. :) Duo consules ex nobilitate quotannis fiebant, qui advetustum consulum exemplar summærerum præessent. And in Sigonius (deRegno Italiæ, l. V. Opp. Tom. Ii. P. 400) I read of the consuls andtribunes of the xth century. Both Blondus, and even Sigonius, toofreely copied the classic method of supplying from reason or fancy thedeficiency 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 inthe beginning of the xth century. Muratori (Dissert. V. ) discovers, inthe years 952 and 956, Gratianus in Dei nomine consul et dux, Georgiusconsul 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 conferredon the dukes of Venice, Naples, Amalphi, &c. , the title of upatoVor consuls, (see Chron. Sagornini, passim;) and the successors ofCharlemagne would not abdicate any of their prerogative. But in generalthe names of _consul_ and _senator_, which may be found among the Frenchand Germans, signify no more than count and lord, (_Signeur_, DucangeGlossar. ) The monkish writers are often ambitious of fine classicwords. ]

[Footnote 33: The most constitutional form is a diploma of Otho III. , (A. D 998, ) consulibus senatûs populique Romani; but the act is probablyspurious. At the coronation of Henry I. , A. D. 1014, the historianDithmar (apud Muratori, Dissert. Xxiii. ) describes him, a senatoribusduodecim vallatum, quorum sex rasi barbâ, alii prolixâ, mysticeincedebant cum baculis. The senate is mentioned in the panegyric ofBerengarius, (p. 406. )]

[Footnote 34: In ancient Rome the equestrian order was not rankedwith the senate and people as a third branch of the republic till theconsulship 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 byGunther:-- 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 primævo Capitolia prisca nitori. But of these reformations, some were no more than ideas, others no morethan words. ]

In the revolution of the twelfth century, which gave a new existence andæra to Rome, we may observe the real and important events that marked orconfirmed her political independence. I. The Capitoline hill, one ofher seven eminences, [36] is about four hundred yards in length, and twohundred in breadth. A flight of a hundred steps led to the summit of theTarpeian rock; and far steeper was the ascent before the declivities hadbeen 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 siegeagainst the victorious Gauls, and the sanctuary of the empire wasoccupied, assaulted, and burnt, in the civil wars of Vitellius andVespasian. [37] The temples of Jupiter and his kindred deities hadcrumbled into dust; their place was supplied by monasteries and houses;and the solid walls, the long and shelving porticos, were decayed orruined by the lapse of time. It was the first act of the Romans, anact of freedom, to restore the strength, though not the beauty, of theCapitol; to fortify the seat of their arms and counsels; and as oftenas they ascended the hill, the coldest minds must have glowed with theremembrance of their ancestors. II. The first Cæsars had been investedwith the exclusive coinage of the gold and silver; to the senate theyabandoned the baser metal of bronze or copper: [38] the emblems andlegends were inscribed on a more ample field by the genius of flattery;and the prince was relieved from the care of celebrating his ownvirtues. The successors of Diocletian despised even the flattery of thesenate: their royal officers at Rome, and in the provinces, assumed thesole direction of the mint; and the same prerogative was inherited bythe 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; whichwas tacitly renounced by the popes, from Paschal the Second to theestablishment of their residence beyond the Alps. Some of theserepublican coins of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are shown inthe cabinets of the curious. On one of these, a gold medal, Christ isdepictured holding in his left hand a book with this inscription: "Thevow of the Roman senate and people: Rome the capital of the world;" onthe reverse, St. Peter delivering a banner to a kneeling senator inhis cap and gown, with the name and arms of his family impressed on ashield. [39] III. With the empire, the præfect of the city had declinedto a municipal officer; yet he still exercised in the last appeal thecivil and criminal jurisdiction; and a drawn sword, which he receivedfrom the successors of Otho, was the mode of his investiture and theemblem of his functions. [40] The dignity was confined to the noblefamilies of Rome: the choice of the people was ratified by the pope; buta triple oath of fidelity must have often embarrassed the præfect in theconflict of adverse duties. [41] A servant, in whom they possessed but athird share, was dismissed by the independent Romans: in his placethey elected a patrician; but this title, which Charlemagne had notdisdained, was too lofty for a citizen or a subject; and, after thefirst fervor of rebellion, they consented without reluctance to therestoration of the præfect. About fifty years after this event, Innocentthe Third, the most ambitious, or at least the most fortunate, of thePontiffs, delivered the Romans and himself from this badge of foreigndominion: he invested the præfect with a banner instead of a sword, and absolved him from all dependence of oaths or service to theGerman emperors. [42] In his place an ecclesiastic, a present or futurecardinal, was named by the pope to the civil government of Rome; but hisjurisdiction has been reduced to a narrow compass; and in the days offreedom, the right or exercise was derived from the senate and people. IV. After the revival of the senate, [43] the conscript fathers (if Imay use the expression) were invested with the legislative and executivepower; but their views seldom reached beyond the present day; and thatday was most frequently disturbed by violence and tumult. In its utmostplenitude, 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 previouschoice of their electors, ten persons in each region, or parish, mightafford a basis for a free and permanent constitution. The popes, who inthis tempest submitted rather to bend than to break, confirmed by treatythe establishment and privileges of the senate, and expected from time, peace, and religion, the restoration of their government. The motivesof public and private interest might sometimes draw from the Romans anoccasional and temporary sacrifice of their claims; and they renewedtheir 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, itseems determined, that the summit of the Capitoline hill next the riveris strictly the Mons Tarpeius, the Arx; and that on the other summit, the church and convent of Araceli, the barefoot friars of St. Francisoccupy the temple of Jupiter, (Nardini, Roma Antica, l. V. C. 11--16. *Note: The authority of Nardini is now vigorously impugned, andthe question of the Arx and the Temple of Jupiter revived, with newarguments by Niebuhr and his accomplished follower, M. Bunsen. RomsBeschreibung, 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 theemperor and senate must, however, be adopted, not as a positive fact, but as the probable opinion of the best antiquaries, * (see the Sciencedes Medailles of the Père Joubert, tom. Ii. P. 208--211, in the improvedand scarce edition of the Baron de la Bastie. *Note: Dr. Cardwell (Lecture on Ancient Coins, p. 70, et seq. ) assignsconvincing 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 senatoriancoins, which bore the obscure names of _Affortiati_, _Infortiati_, _Provisini_, _Paparini_. During this period, all the popes, withoutexcepting Boniface VIII, abstained from the right of coining, which wasresumed by his successor Benedict XI. , and regularly exercised in thecourt 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 itemquead Romanum Imperatorem, sive illius vicarium urbis præfectum, qui de suâdignitate respicit utrumque, videlicet dominum papam cui facit hominum, et dominum imperatorem a quo accipit suæ potestatis insigne, scilicetgladium exertum. ]

[Footnote 41: The words of a contemporary writer (Pandulph. Pisan. InVit. Paschal. II. P. 357, 358) describe the election and oath of thepræfect in 1118, inconsultis patribus. .. . Loca præfectoria. .. . Laudespræfectoriæ. .. . Comitiorum applausum. .. . Juraturum populo in ambonemsublevant. .. . Confirmari eum in urbe præfectum petunt. ]

[Footnote 42: Urbis præfectum ad ligiam fidelitatem recepit, et permantum quod illi donavit de præfecturâ eum publice investivit, qui usquead id tempus juramento fidelitatis imperatori fuit obligatus et ab eopræfecturæ 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 singlesenators, of the _Capuzzi_ family, &c. , quorum temporibus meliusregebatur 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) haspublished an original treaty: Concordia inter D. Nostrum papam ClementemIII. Et senatores populi Romani super regalibus et aliis dignitatibusurbis, &c. , anno 44º senatûs. The senate speaks, and speaks withauthority: Reddimus ad præsens. .. . Habebimus. .. . Dabitis presbetria. .. . Jurabimus pacem et fidelitatem, &c. A chartula de Tenementis Tusculani, dated in the 47th year of the same æra, and confirmed decreto amplissimiordinis senatûs, acclamatione P. R. Publice Capitolio consistentis. It is there we find the difference of senatores consiliarii and simplesenators, (Muratori, dissert. Xlii. Tom. Iii. P. 787--789. )]

The union and vigor of a public council was dissolved in a lawlesscity; and the Romans soon adopted a more strong and simple mode ofadministration. They condensed the name and authority of the senate ina single magistrate, or two colleagues; and as they were changed atthe end of a year, or of six months, the greatness of the trust wascompensated by the shortness of the term. But in this transient reign, the senators of Rome indulged their avarice and ambition: their justicewas perverted by the interest of their family and faction; and as theypunished 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 offinding at home. In the same age, and from the same motives, most ofthe Italian republics were prompted to embrace a measure, which, howeverstrange it may seem, was adapted to their situation, and productive ofthe most salutary effects. [46] They chose, in some foreign but friendlycity, an impartial magistrate of noble birth and unblemished character, a soldier and a statesman, recommended by the voice of fame and hiscountry, to whom they delegated for a time the supreme administrationof peace and war. The compact between the governor and the governed wassealed with oaths and subscriptions; and the duration of his power, themeasure of his stipend, the nature of their mutual obligations, weredefined with scrupulous precision. They swore to obey him as theirlawful superior: he pledged his faith to unite the indifference of astranger with the zeal of a patriot. At his choice, four or sixknights and civilians, his assessors in arms and justice, attended the_Podesta_, [47] who maintained at his own expense a decent retinue ofservants and horses: his wife, his son, his brother, who might bias theaffections of the judge, were left behind: during the exercise of hisoffice he was not permitted to purchase land, to contract an alliance, or even to accept an invitation in the house of a citizen; nor couldhe honorably depart till he had satisfied the complaints that might beurged against his government. 

[Footnote 46: Muratori (dissert. Xlv. Tom. Iv. P. 64--92) has fullyexplained this mode of government; and the _Occulus Pastoralis_, whichhe has given at the end, is a treatise or sermon on the duties of theseforeign magistrates. ]

[Footnote 47: In the Latin writers, at least of the silver age, thetitle of _Potestas_ was transferred from the office to the magistrate:-- Hujus qui trahitur prætextam 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 Romanscalled from Bologna the senator Brancaleone, [48] whose fame and merithave been rescued from oblivion by the pen of an English historian. Ajust anxiety for his reputation, a clear foresight of the difficultiesof the task, had engaged him to refuse the honor of their choice: thestatutes of Rome were suspended, and his office prolonged to the termof 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 andorder applauded the firm and upright magistrate by whom those blessingswere restored. No criminals were so powerful as to brave, so obscure asto elude, the justice of the senator. By his sentence two nobles ofthe Annibaldi family were executed on a gibbet; and he inexorablydemolished, in the city and neighborhood, one hundred and forty towers, the strong shelters of rapine and mischief. The bishop, as a simplebishop, was compelled to reside in his diocese; and the standard ofBrancaleone was displayed in the field with terror and effect. Hisservices were repaid by the ingratitude of a people unworthy of thehappiness which they enjoyed. By the public robbers, whom he hadprovoked for their sake, the Romans were excited to depose and imprisontheir benefactor; nor would his life have been spared, if Bologna hadnot possessed a pledge for his safety. Before his departure, the prudentsenator had required the exchange of thirty hostages of the noblestfamilies of Rome: on the news of his danger, and at the prayer of hiswife, they were more strictly guarded; and Bologna, in the cause ofhonor, sustained the thunders of a papal interdict. This generousresistance allowed the Romans to compare the present with the past;and Brancaleone was conducted from the prison to the Capitol amidst theacclamations of a repentant people. The remainder of his government wasfirm 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 HistoriaMajor of Matthew Paris, p. 741, 757, 792, 797, 799, 810, 823, 833, 836, 840. The multitude of pilgrims and suitors connected Rome andSt. Albans, and the resentment of the English clergy prompted them torejoice when ever the popes were humbled and oppressed. ]

[Footnote 49: Matthew Paris thus ends his account: Caput vero ipsiusBrancaleonis in vase pretioso super marmoream columnam collocatum, insignum sui valoris et probitatis, quasi reliquias, superstitiose nimiset pompose sustulerunt. Fuerat enim superborum potentum et malefactorumurbis malleus et extirpator, et populi protector et defensor veritatiset justitiæ imitator et amator, (p. 840. ) A biographer of Innocent IV. (Muratori, Script. Tom. Iii. P. I. P. 591, 592) draws a less favorableportrait of this Ghibeline senator. ]

The impotence of reason and virtue recommended in Italy a more effectualchoice: instead of a private citizen, to whom they yielded a voluntaryand precarious obedience, the Romans elected for their senator someprince of independent power, who could defend them from their enemiesand themselves. Charles of Anjou and Provence, the most ambitious andwarlike monarch of the age, accepted at the same time the kingdom ofNaples 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 receivedtheir oath of allegiance, lodged in the Lateran palace, and smoothedin a short visit the harsh features of his despotic character. Yet evenCharles was exposed to the inconstancy of the people, who salutedwith the same acclamations the passage of his rival, the unfortunateConradin; and a powerful avenger, who reigned in the Capitol, alarmedthe fears and jealousy of the popes. The absolute term of his life wassuperseded by a renewal every third year; and the enmity of Nicholas theThird 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 essentialto the peace of the city than to the independence of the church;establishes the annual election of the senator; and formallydisqualifies all emperors, kings, princes, and persons of an eminent andconspicuous rank. [51] This prohibitory clause was repealed in his ownbehalf by Martin the Fourth, who humbly solicited the suffrage ofthe Romans. In the presence, and by the authority, of the people, twoelectors conferred, not on the pope, but on the noble and faithfulMartin, the dignity of senator, and the supreme administration ofthe republic, [52] to hold during his natural life, and to exercise atpleasure by himself or his deputies. About fifty years afterwards, thesame title was granted to the emperor Lewis of Bavaria; and the libertyof Rome was acknowledged by her two sovereigns, who accepted a municipaloffice in the government of their own metropolis. 

[Footnote 50: The election of Charles of Anjou to the office ofperpetual senator of Rome is mentioned by the historians in the viiithvolume 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, ) andRicordano Malespini, (c. 177, p. 999. )]

[Footnote 51: The high-sounding bull of Nicholas III. , which founds histemporal sovereignty on the donation of Constantine, is still extant;and as it has been inserted by Boniface VIII. In the _Sexte_ of theDecretals, it must be received by the Catholics, or at least by thePapists, 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 theEcclesiastical Annals of Odericus Raynaldus, A. D. 1281, No. 14, 15. ]

In the first moments of rebellion, when Arnold of Brescia had inflamedtheir minds against the church, the Romans artfully labored toconciliate the favor of the empire, and to recommend their merit andservices in the cause of Cæsar. The style of their ambassadors to Conradthe Third and Frederic the First is a mixture of flattery and pride, the tradition and the ignorance of their own history. [53] After somecomplaint of his silence and neglect, they exhort the former of theseprinces to pass the Alps, and assume from their hands the Imperialcrown. "We beseech your majesty not to disdain the humility of your sonsand vassals, not to listen to the accusations of our common enemies; whocalumniate the senate as hostile to your throne, who sow the seeds ofdiscord, 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 couragehas hitherto defeated their attempts. Of their powerful and factiousadherents, more especially the Frangipani, we have taken by assault thehouses and turrets: some of these are occupied by our troops, and someare levelled with the ground. The Milvian bridge, which they had broken, is restored and fortified for your safe passage; and your army may enterthe city without being annoyed from the castle of St. Angelo. All thatwe have done, and all that we design, is for your honor and service, inthe loyal hope, that you will speedily appear in person, to vindicatethose rights which have been invaded by the clergy, to revive thedignity of the empire, and to surpass the fame and glory of yourpredecessors. May you fix your residence in Rome, the capital of theworld; give laws to Italy, and the Teutonic kingdom; and imitate theexample of Constantine and Justinian, [54] who, by the vigor of thesenate and people, obtained the sceptre of the earth. " [55] But thesesplendid and fallacious wishes were not cherished by Conrad theFranconian, whose eyes were fixed on the Holy Land, and who died withoutvisiting Rome soon after his return from the Holy Land. 

[Footnote 53: These letters and speeches are preserved by Otho bishop ofFrisingen, (Fabric. Bibliot. Lat. Med. Et Infim. Tom. V. P. 186, 187, )perhaps the noblest of historians: he was son of Leopold marquis ofAustria; his mother, Agnes, was daughter of the emperor Henry IV. , andhe was half-brother and uncle to Conrad III. And Frederic I. He hasleft, in seven books, a Chronicle of the Times; in two, the GestaFrederici I. , the last of which is inserted in the vith volume ofMuratori's historians. ]

[Footnote 54: We desire (said the ignorant Romans) to restore the empirein um statum, quo fuit tempore Constantini et Justiniani, qui totumorbem vigore senatûs 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 ofthe Imperial crown; nor had any of the successors of Otho acquiredsuch absolute sway over the kingdom of Italy. Surrounded by hisecclesiastical and secular princes, he gave audience in his camp atSutri to the ambassadors of Rome, who thus addressed him in a free andflorid oration: "Incline your ear to the queen of cities; approach witha peaceful and friendly mind the precincts of Rome, which has castaway the yoke of the clergy, and is impatient to crown her legitimateemperor. Under your auspicious influence, may the primitive times berestored. Assert the prerogatives of the eternal city, and reduce underher monarchy the insolence of the world. You are not ignorant, that, informer ages, by the wisdom of the senate, by the valor and discipline ofthe equestrian order, she extended her victorious arms to the East andWest, beyond the Alps, and over the islands of the ocean. By our sins, in the absence of our princes, the noble institution of the senatehas sunk in oblivion; and with our prudence, our strength has likewisedecreased. We have revived the senate, and the equestrian order: thecounsels of the one, the arms of the other, will be devoted to yourperson and the service of the empire. Do you not hear the language ofthe Roman matron? You were a guest, I have adopted you as a citizen; aTransalpine stranger, I have elected you for my sovereign; [56] and givenyou myself, and all that is mine. Your first and most sacred duty isto 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 andthe charters of your predecessors; and that you will reward with fivethousand pounds of silver the faithful senators who shall proclaimyour titles in the Capitol. With the name, assume the character, ofAugustus. " The flowers of Latin rhetoric were not yet exhausted; butFrederic, impatient of their vanity, interrupted the orators in the hightone of royalty and conquest. "Famous indeed have been the fortitudeand wisdom of the ancient Romans; but your speech is not seasonedwith wisdom, and I could wish that fortitude were conspicuous in youractions. Like all sublunary things, Rome has felt the vicissitudes oftime and fortune. Your noblest families were translated to the East, to the royal city of Constantine; and the remains of your strength andfreedom have long since been exhausted by the Greeks and Franks. Areyou desirous of beholding the ancient glory of Rome, the gravity of thesenate, the spirit of the knights, the discipline of the camp, the valorof the legions? you will find them in the German republic. It is notempire, naked and alone, the ornaments and virtues of empire havelikewise migrated beyond the Alps to a more deserving people: [57] theywill be employed in your defence, but they claim your obedience. Youpretend that myself or my predecessors have been invited by the Romans:you mistake the word; they were not invited, they were implored. Fromits foreign and domestic tyrants, the city was rescued by Charlemagneand Otho, whose ashes repose in our country; and their dominion was theprice of your deliverance. Under that dominion your ancestors lived anddied. I claim by the right of inheritance and possession, and who shalldare to extort you from my hands? Is the hand of the Franks [58] andGermans enfeebled by age? Am I vanquished? Am I a captive? Am I notencompassed with the banners of a potent and invincible army? You imposeconditions on your master; you require oaths: if the conditions arejust, an oath is superfluous; if unjust, it is criminal. Can you doubtmy equity? It is extended to the meanest of my subjects. Will not mysword be unsheathed in the defence of the Capitol? By that sword thenorthern kingdom of Denmark has been restored to the Roman empire. Youprescribe the measure and the objects of my bounty, which flows in acopious but a voluntary stream. All will be given to patient merit; allwill be denied to rude importunity. " [59] Neither the emperor nor thesenate could maintain these lofty pretensions of dominion and liberty. United with the pope, and suspicious of the Romans, Frederic continuedhis march to the Vatican; his coronation was disturbed by a sally fromthe Capitol; and if the numbers and valor of the Germans prevailed inthe bloody conflict, he could not safely encamp in the presence ofa city of which he styled himself the sovereign. About twelve yearsafterwards, he besieged Rome, to seat an antipope in the chair of St. Peter; and twelve Pisan galleys were introduced into the Tyber: but thesenate and people were saved by the arts of negotiation and the progressof disease; nor did Frederic or his successors reiterate the hostileattempt. Their laborious reigns were exercised by the popes, thecrusades, and the independence of Lombardy and Germany: they courted thealliance of the Romans; and Frederic the Second offered in the Capitolthe great standard, the _Caroccio_ of Milan. [60] After the extinction ofthe house of Swabia, they were banished beyond the Alps: and their lastcoronations betrayed the impotence and poverty of the Teutonic Cæsars. [61]

[Footnote 56: Hospes eras, civem feci. Advena fuisti ex Transalpinispartibus principem constitui. ]

[Footnote 57: Non cessit nobis nudum imperium, virtute sua amictumvenit, ornamenta sua secum traxit. Penes nos sunt consules tui, &c. Cicero or Livy would not have rejected these images, the eloquence of aBarbarian born and educated in the Hercynian forest. ]

[Footnote 58: Otho of Frisingen, who surely understood the language ofthe court and diet of Germany, speaks of the Franks in the xiithcentury as the reigning nation, (Proceres Franci, equites Franci, manusFrancorum:) 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 andabridged 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 curiousfact with the doggerel verses that accompanied the gift:-- Ave decus orbis, ave! victus tibi destinor, ave! Currus ab Augusto Frederico Cæsare justo. Væ 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 siscopri, nel campidoglio, presso alle carcere di quel luogo, dove SistoV. L'avea falto rinchiudere. Stava esso posto sopra quatro colonne dimarmo fino colla sequente inscrizione, &c. ; to the same purpose as theold inscription. ]

[Footnote 61: The decline of the Imperial arms and authority in Italy isrelated with impartial learning in the Annals of Muratori, (tom. X. Xi. Xii. ;) and the reader may compare his narrative with the Histoires desAllemands (tom. Iii. Iv. ) by Schmidt, who has deserved the esteem of hiscountrymen. ]

Under the reign of Adrian, when the empire extended from the Euphratesto the ocean, from Mount Atlas to the Grampian hills, a fancifulhistorian [62] amused the Romans with the picture of their ancient wars. "There was a time, " says Florus, "when Tibur and Præneste, our summerretreats, were the objects of hostile vows in the Capitol, when wedreaded the shades of the Arician groves, when we could triumph withouta blush over the nameless villages of the Sabines and Latins, and evenCorioli could afford a title not unworthy of a victorious general. " Thepride of his contemporaries was gratified by the contrast of thepast and the present: they would have been humbled by the prospectof futurity; by the prediction, that after a thousand years, Rome, despoiled of empire, and contracted to her primæval limits, would renewthe same hostilities, on the same ground which was then decorated withher villas and gardens. The adjacent territory on either side of theTyber was always claimed, and sometimes possessed, as the patrimony ofSt. Peter; but the barons assumed a lawless independence, and the citiestoo faithfully copied the revolt and discord of the metropolis. Inthe twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Romans incessantly labored toreduce or destroy the contumacious vassals of the church and senate; andif their headstrong and selfish ambition was moderated by the pope, heoften encouraged their zeal by the alliance of his spiritual arms. Theirwarfare was that of the first consuls and dictators, who were taken fromthe plough. The assembled in arms at the foot of the Capitol; salliedfrom the gates, plundered or burnt the harvests of their neighbors, engaged in tumultuary conflict, and returned home after an expedition offifteen or twenty days. Their sieges were tedious and unskilful: inthe use of victory, they indulged the meaner passions of jealousyand revenge; and instead of adopting the valor, they trampled on themisfortunes, of their adversaries. The captives, in their shirts, with arope round their necks, solicited their pardon: the fortifications, and even the buildings, of the rival cities, were demolished, and theinhabitants were scattered in the adjacent villages. It was thus thatthe seats of the cardinal bishops, Porto, Ostia, Albanum, Tusculum, Præneste, and Tibur or Tivoli, were successively overthrown by theferocious hostility of the Romans. [63] Of these, [64] Porto and Ostia, the two keys of the Tyber, are still vacant and desolate: the marshy andunwholesome banks are peopled with herds of buffaloes, and the river islost to every purpose of navigation and trade. The hills, which afforda shady retirement from the autumnal heats, have again smiled with theblessings of peace; Frescati has arisen near the ruins of Tusculum;Tibur or Tivoli has resumed the honors of a city, [65] and the meanertowns of Albano and Palestrina are decorated with the villas of thecardinals and princes of Rome. In the work of destruction, the ambitionof the Romans was often checked and repulsed by the neighboring citiesand their allies: in the first siege of Tibur, they were driven fromtheir camp; and the battles of Tusculum [66] and Viterbo [67] might becompared in their relative state to the memorable fields of Thrasymeneand Cannæ. In the first of these petty wars, thirty thousand Romanswere overthrown by a thousand German horse, whom Frederic Barbarossa haddetached to the relief of Tusculum: and if we number the slain at three, the prisoners at two, thousand, we shall embrace the most authenticand moderate account. Sixty-eight years afterwards they marched againstViterbo in the ecclesiastical state with the whole force of the city; bya rare coalition the Teutonic eagle was blended, in the adverse banners, with the keys of St. Peter; and the pope's auxiliaries were commandedby a count of Thoulouse and a bishop of Winchester. The Romans werediscomfited with shame and slaughter: but the English prelate must haveindulged the vanity of a pilgrim, if he multiplied their numbers to onehundred, and their loss in the field to thirty, thousand men. Had thepolicy of the senate and the discipline of the legions been restoredwith the Capitol, the divided condition of Italy would have offered thefairest opportunity of a second conquest. But in arms, the modern Romanswere not _above_, and in arts, they were far _below_, the common levelof the neighboring republics. Nor was their warlike spirit of any longcontinuance; after some irregular sallies, they subsided in the nationalapathy, in the neglect of military institutions, and in the disgracefuland dangerous use of foreign mercenaries. 

[Footnote 62: Tibur nunc suburbanum, et æstivæ Præneste deliciæ, nuncupatis in Capitolio votis petebantur. The whole passage of Florus(l. I. C. 11) may be read with pleasure, and has deserved the praise ofa man of genius, (uvres de Montesquieu, tom. Iii. P. 634, 635, quartoedition. )]

[Footnote 63: Ne a feritate Romanorum, sicut fuerant Hostienses, Portuenses, Tusculanenses, Albanenses, Labicenses, et nuper Tiburtinidestruerentur, (Matthew Paris, p. 757. ) These events are marked in theAnnals and Index (the xviiith volume) of Muratori. ]

[Footnote 64: For the state or ruin of these suburban cities, the banksof the Tyber, &c. , see the lively picture of the P. Labat, (Voyage enEspagne et en Italiæ, ) who had long resided in the neighborhood of Rome, and the more accurate description of which P. Eschinard (Roma, 1750, inoctavo) has added to the topographical map of Cingolani. ]

[Footnote 65: Labat (tom. Iii. P. 233) mentions a recent decree of theRoman government, which has severely mortified the pride and poverty ofTivoli: in civitate Tiburtinâ non vivitur civiliter. ]

[Footnote 66: I depart from my usual method, of quoting only by thedate the Annals of Muratori, in consideration of the critical balance inwhich he has weighed nine contemporary writers who mention the battle ofTusculum, (tom. X. P. 42--44. )]

[Footnote 67: Matthew Paris, p. 345. This bishop of Winchester was Peterde Rupibus, who occupied the see thirty-two years, (A. D. 1206--1238. )and is described, by the English historian, as a soldier and astatesman. (p. 178, 399. )]

Ambition is a weed of quick and early vegetation in the vineyard ofChrist. Under the first Christian princes, the chair of St. Peterwas disputed by the votes, the venality, the violence, of a popularelection: the sanctuaries of Rome were polluted with blood; and, fromthe third to the twelfth century, the church was distracted by themischief of frequent schisms. As long as the final appeal was determinedby the civil magistrate, these mischiefs were transient and local:the merits were tried by equity or favor; nor could the unsuccessfulcompetitor long disturb the triumph of his rival. But after theemperors had been divested of their prerogatives, after a maxim had beenestablished that the vicar of Christ is amenable to no earthly tribunal, each vacancy of the holy see might involve Christendom in controversyand war. The claims of the cardinals and inferior clergy, of thenobles and people, were vague and litigious: the freedom of choice wasoverruled by the tumults of a city that no longer owned or obeyed asuperior. On the decease of a pope, two factions proceeded in differentchurches to a double election: the number and weight of votes, thepriority of time, the merit of the candidates, might balance eachother: the most respectable of the clergy were divided; and the distantprinces, who bowed before the spiritual throne, could not distinguishthe spurious, from the legitimate, idol. The emperors were often theauthors of the schism, from the political motive of opposing a friendlyto a hostile pontiff; and each of the competitors was reduced to sufferthe insults of his enemies, who were not awed by conscience, and topurchase the support of his adherents, who were instigated by avariceor ambition a peaceful and perpetual succession was ascertained byAlexander the Third, [68] who finally abolished the tumultuary votes ofthe clergy and people, and defined the right of election in the solecollege of cardinals. [69] The three orders of bishops, priests, anddeacons, were assimilated to each other by this important privilege; theparochial clergy of Rome obtained the first rank in the hierarchy: theywere indifferently chosen among the nations of Christendom; and thepossession of the richest benefices, of the most important bishoprics, was not incompatible with their title and office. The senators of theCatholic church, the coadjutors and legates of the supreme pontiff, were robed in purple, the symbol of martyrdom or royalty; they claimeda proud equality with kings; and their dignity was enhanced by thesmallness 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 soeffectually destroyed, that in a period of six hundred years a doublechoice has only once divided the unity of the sacred college. But asthe concurrence of two thirds of the votes had been made necessary, theelection was often delayed by the private interest and passions ofthe cardinals; and while they prolonged their independent reign, theChristian world was left destitute of a head. A vacancy of almost threeyears had preceded the elevation of George the Tenth, who resolved toprevent the future abuse; and his bull, after some opposition, has beenconsecrated in the code of the canon law. [70] Nine days are allowedfor the obsequies of the deceased pope, and the arrival of the absentcardinals; on the tenth, they are imprisoned, each with one domestic, in a common apartment or _conclave_, without any separation of wallsor curtains: a small window is reserved for the introduction ofnecessaries; but the door is locked on both sides and guarded by themagistrates of the city, to seclude them from all correspondence withthe world. If the election be not consummated in three days, the luxuryof their table is contracted to a single dish at dinner and supper; andafter the eighth day, they are reduced to a scanty allowance of bread, water, and wine. During the vacancy of the holy see, the cardinals areprohibited from touching the revenues, or assuming, unless in some rareemergency, the government of the church: all agreements and promisesamong the electors are formally annulled; and their integrity isfortified by their solemn oath and the prayers of the Catholics. Somearticles of inconvenient or superfluous rigor have been graduallyrelaxed, but the principle of confinement is vigorous and entire: theyare still urged, by the personal motives of health and freedom, toaccelerate the moment of their deliverance; and the improvement ofballot or secret votes has wrapped the struggles of the conclave [71] inthe silky veil of charity and politeness. [72] By these institutions theRomans were excluded from the election of their prince and bishop; andin the fever of wild and precarious liberty, they seemed insensible ofthe loss of this inestimable privilege. The emperor Lewis of Bavariarevived the example of the great Otho. After some negotiation with themagistrates, the Roman people were assembled [73] in the square beforeSt. 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 beabsent more than three months in the year, and two days' journey fromthe city; and that if he neglected to return on the third summons, thepublic servant should be degraded and dismissed. [74] But Lewis forgothis own debility and the prejudices of the times: beyond the precinctsof a German camp, his useless phantom was rejected; the Romans despisedtheir own workmanship; the antipope implored the mercy of his lawfulsovereign; [75] and the exclusive right of the cardinals was more firmlyestablished 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 weightof genius and learning which St. Bernard cast into the scale, (see hislife and writings. )]

[Footnote 69: The origin, titles, importance, dress, precedency, &c. , ofthe Roman cardinals, are very ably discussed by Thomassin, (Disciplinede 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, torepresent, under his vicar, the disciples of Christ. ]

[Footnote 70: See the bull of Gregory X. Approbante sacro concilio, inthe _Sexts_ of the Canon Law, (l. I. Tit. 6, c. 3, ) a supplement tothe Decretals, which Boniface VIII. Promulgated at Rome in 1298, andaddressed in all the universities of Europe. ]

[Footnote 71: The genius of Cardinal de Retz had a right to painta 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 theknowledge or authority of an anonymous Italian, whose history (Conclavide' Pontifici Romani, in 4to. 1667) has been continued since the reignof Alexander VII. The accidental form of the work furnishes a lesson, though not an antidote, to ambition. From a labyrinth of intrigues, weemerge to the adoration of the successful candidate; but the next pageopens with his funeral. ]

[Footnote 72: The expressions of Cardinal de Retz are positive andpicturesque: On y vecut toujours ensemble avec le même respect, et lamême civilité que l'on observe dans le cabinet des rois, avec lamême politesse qu'on avoit dans la cour de Henri III. , avec la mêmefamiliarité que l'on voit dans les colleges; avec la même modestie, quise remarque dans les noviciats; et avec la même charité, du moins enapparence, qui pourroit ètre entre des frères 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 buonehuomini, uno per rione. Our knowledge is too imperfect to pronouncehow much of this constitution was temporary, and how much ordinary andpermanent. Yet it is faintly illustrated by the ancient statutes ofRome. ]

[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 lessabhorrence than the prudent Muratori. Any one conversant with the darkerages must have observed how much the sense (I mean the nonsense) ofsuperstition is fluctuating and inconsistent. ]

[Footnote 75: In the first volume of the Popes of Avignon, see thesecond original Life of John XXII. P. 142--145, the confession of theantipope p. 145--152, and the laborious notes of Baluze, p. 714, 715. ]

Had the election been always held in the Vatican, the rights of thesenate and people would not have been violated with impunity. But theRomans forgot, and were forgotten. In the absence of the successors ofGregory the Seventh, who did not keep as a divine precept their ordinaryresidence in the city and diocese. The care of that diocese was lessimportant than the government of the universal church; nor could thepopes delight in a city in which their authority was always opposed, andtheir person was often endangered. From the persecution of the emperors, and the wars of Italy, they escaped beyond the Alps into the hospitablebosom of France; from the tumults of Rome they prudently withdrew tolive and die in the more tranquil stations of Anagni, Perugia, Viterbo, and the adjacent cities. When the flock was offended or impoverished bythe absence of the shepherd, they were recalled by a stern admonition, that St. Peter had fixed his chair, not in an obscure village, but inthe capital of the world; by a ferocious menace, that the Romans wouldmarch in arms to destroy the place and people that should dare to affordthem a retreat. They returned with timorous obedience; and weresaluted with the account of a heavy debt, of all the losses which theirdesertion had occasioned, the hire of lodgings, the sale of provisions, and the various expenses of servants and strangers who attended thecourt. [76] After a short interval of peace, and perhaps of authority, they were again banished by new tumults, and again summoned by theimperious or respectful invitation of the senate. In these occasionalretreats, the exiles and fugitives of the Vatican were seldom long, orfar, distant from the metropolis; but in the beginning of the fourteenthcentury, the apostolic throne was transported, as it might seem forever, from the Tyber to the Rhône; and the cause of the transmigration maybe deduced from the furious contest between Boniface the Eighth and theking of France. [77] The spiritual arms of excommunication and interdictwere repulsed by the union of the three estates, and the privileges ofthe Gallican church; but the pope was not prepared against the carnalweapons which Philip the Fair had courage to employ. As the pope residedat Anagni, without the suspicion of danger, his palace and personwere assaulted by three hundred horse, who had been secretly levied byWilliam of Nogaret, a French minister, and Sciarra Colonna, of a noblebut hostile family of Rome. The cardinals fled; the inhabitants ofAnagni were seduced from their allegiance and gratitude; but thedauntless Boniface, unarmed and alone, seated himself in his chair, andawaited, like the conscript fathers of old, the swords of the Gauls. Nogaret, a foreign adversary, was content to execute the orders of hismaster: by the domestic enmity of Colonna, he was insulted withwords and blows; and during a confinement of three days his life wasthreatened by the hardships which they inflicted on the obstinacywhich they provoked. Their strange delay gave time and courage to theadherents of the church, who rescued him from sacrilegious violence; buthis imperious soul was wounded in the vital part; and Boniface expiredat Rome in a frenzy of rage and revenge. His memory is stained withthe glaring vices of avarice and pride; nor has the courage of a martyrpromoted this ecclesiastical champion to the honors of a saint; amagnanimous sinner, (say the chronicles of the times, ) who entered likea fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog. He was succeeded byBenedict the Eleventh, the mildest of mankind. Yet he excommunicated theimpious emissaries of Philip, and devoted the city and people of Anagniby a tremendous curse, whose effects are still visible to the eyes ofsuperstition. [78]

[Footnote 76: Romani autem non valentes nec volentes ultra suam celarecupiditatem gravissimam, contra papam movere cperunt questionem, exigentes ab eo urgentissime omnia quæ subierant per ejus absentiamdamna et jacturas, videlicet in hispitiis locandis, in mercimoniis, in usuris, in redditibus, in provisionibus, et in aliis modisinnumerabilibus. Quòd cum audisset papa, præcordialiter ingemuit, et secomperiens _muscipulatum_, &c. , Matt. Paris, p. 757. For the ordinaryhistory of the popes, their life and death, their residence and absence, it is enough to refer to the ecclesiastical annalists, Spondanus andFleury. ]

[Footnote 77: Besides the general historians of the church of Italy andof France, we possess a valuable treatise composed by a learned friendof Thuanus, which his last and best editors have published in theappendix (Histoire particulière du grand Différend entre Boniface VIIIet 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 feelsthe weight of this curse, and that the cornfields, or vineyards, orolive-trees, are annually blasted by Nature, the obsequious handmaid ofthe popes. ]

Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century. --Part IV. 

After his decease, the tedious and equal suspense of the conclave wasfixed by the dexterity of the French faction. A specious offer was madeand accepted, that, in the term of forty days, they would elect oneof the three candidates who should be named by their opponents. Thearchbishop of Bourdeaux, a furious enemy of his king and country, wasthe first on the list; but his ambition was known; and his conscienceobeyed the calls of fortune and the commands of a benefactor, who hadbeen informed by a swift messenger that the choice of a pope was nowin his hands. The terms were regulated in a private interview; and withsuch speed and secrecy was the business transacted, that the unanimousconclave applauded the elevation of Clement the Fifth. [79] The cardinalsof both parties were soon astonished by a summons to attend him beyondthe Alps; from whence, as they soon discovered, they must never hopeto return. He was engaged, by promise and affection, to prefer theresidence of France; and, after dragging his court through Poitou andGascony, and devouring, by his expense, the cities and convents on theroad, he finally reposed at Avignon, [80] which flourished aboveseventy years [81] the seat of the Roman pontiff and the metropolis ofChristendom. By land, by sea, by the Rhône, the position of Avignon wason all sides accessible; the southern provinces of France do not yieldto Italy itself; new palaces arose for the accommodation of the pope andcardinals; and the arts of luxury were soon attracted by the treasuresof the church. They were already possessed of the adjacent territory, the Venaissin county, [82] a populous and fertile spot; and thesovereignty of Avignon was afterwards purchased from the youth anddistress of Jane, the first queen of Naples and countess of Provence, for the inadequate price of fourscore thousand florins. [83] Underthe shadow of a French monarchy, amidst an obedient people, the popesenjoyed an honorable and tranquil state, to which they long had beenstrangers: but Italy deplored their absence; and Rome, in solitude andpoverty, might repent of the ungovernable freedom which had driven fromthe Vatican the successor of St. Peter. Her repentance was tardy andfruitless: after the death of the old members, the sacred collegewas filled with French cardinals, [84] who beheld Rome and Italy withabhorrence and contempt, and perpetuated a series of national, andeven provincial, popes, attached by the most indissoluble ties to theirnative country. 

[Footnote 79: See, in the Chronicle of Giovanni Villani, (l. Viii. C. 63, 64, 80, in Muratori, tom. Xiii. , ) the imprisonment of BonifaceVIII. , and the election of Clement V. , the last of which, like mostanecdotes, is embarrassed with some difficulties. ]

[Footnote 80: The original lives of the eight popes of Avignon, ClementV. , John XXII. , Benedict XI. , Clement VI. , Innocent VI. , Urban V. , Gregory XI. , and Clement VII. , are published by Stephen Baluze, (VitæPaparum Avenionensium; Paris, 1693, 2 vols. In 4to. , ) with copious andelaborate notes, and a second volume of acts and documents. With thetrue zeal of an editor and a patriot, he devoutly justifies or excusesthe characters of his countrymen. ]

[Footnote 81: The exile of Avignon is compared by the Italians withBabylon, and the Babylonish captivity. Such furious metaphors, moresuitable to the ardor of Petrarch than to the judgment of Muratori, are gravely refuted in Baluze's preface. The abbé de Sade is distractedbetween the love of Petrarch and of his country. Yet he modestly pleads, that many of the local inconveniences of Avignon are now removed; andmany of the vices against which the poet declaims, had been importedwith 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 byPhilip III. King of France, after he had inherited the dominions of thecount of Thoulouse. Forty years before, the heresy of Count Raymond hadgiven them a pretence of seizure, and they derived some obscure claimfrom the xith century to some lands citra Rhodanum, (Valesii NotitiaGalliarum, 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 mustbe refunded, for indeed it was paid. Civitatem Avenionem emit. .. . Perejusmodi venditionem pecuniâ redundates, &c. , (iida Vita Clement. VI. InBaluz. Tom. I. P. 272. Muratori, Script. Tom. Iii. P. Ii. P. 565. ) Theonly temptation for Jane and her second husband was ready money, andwithout it they could not have returned to the throne of Naples. ]

[Footnote 84: Clement V immediately promoted ten cardinals, nine Frenchand one English, (Vita ivta, p. 63, et Baluz. P. 625, &c. ) In 1331, thepope refused two candidates recommended by the king of France, quod xx. Cardinales, de quibus xvii. De regno Franciæ originem traxisse noscunturin memorato collegio existant, (Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. I. P. 1281. )]

The progress of industry had produced and enriched the Italianrepublics: the æra of their liberty is the most flourishing period ofpopulation and agriculture, of manufactures and commerce; and theirmechanic labors were gradually refined into the arts of elegance andgenius. But the position of Rome was less favorable, the territory lessfruitful: the character of the inhabitants was debased by indolence andelated by pride; and they fondly conceived that the tribute of subjectsmust forever nourish the metropolis of the church and empire. Thisprejudice was encouraged in some degree by the resort of pilgrims tothe shrines of the apostles; and the last legacy of the popes, theinstitution of the holy year, [85] was not less beneficial to the peoplethan to the clergy. Since the loss of Palestine, the gift of plenaryindulgences, which had been applied to the crusades, remained withoutan object; and the most valuable treasure of the church was sequesteredabove eight years from public circulation. A new channel was openedby the diligence of Boniface the Eighth, who reconciled the vices ofambition and avarice; and the pope had sufficient learning to recollectand revive the secular games which were celebrated in Rome at theconclusion of every century. To sound without danger the depth ofpopular credulity, a sermon was seasonably pronounced, a report wasartfully scattered, some aged witnesses were produced; and on the firstof January of the year thirteen hundred, the church of St. Peter wascrowded with the faithful, who demanded the customary indulgence ofthe holy time. The pontiff, who watched and irritated their devoutimpatience, was soon persuaded by ancient testimony of the justice oftheir claim; and he proclaimed a plenary absolution to all Catholicswho, in the course of that year, and at every similar period, shouldrespectfully visit the apostolic churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Thewelcome sound was propagated through Christendom; and at first from thenearest provinces of Italy, and at length from the remote kingdoms ofHungary and Britain, the highways were thronged with a swarm of pilgrimswho sought to expiate their sins in a journey, however costly orlaborious, which was exempt from the perils of military service. Allexceptions of rank or sex, of age or infirmity, were forgotten in thecommon transport; and in the streets and churches many persons weretrampled to death by the eagerness of devotion. The calculation of theirnumbers could not be easy nor accurate; and they have probably beenmagnified by a dexterous clergy, well apprised of the contagion ofexample: yet we are assured by a judicious historian, who assisted atthe ceremony, that Rome was never replenished with less than two hundredthousand strangers; and another spectator has fixed at two millions thetotal concourse of the year. A trifling oblation from each individualwould accumulate a royal treasure; and two priests stood night and day, with rakes in their hands, to collect, without counting, the heaps ofgold and silver that were poured on the altar of St. Paul. [86] It wasfortunately a season of peace and plenty; and if forage was scarce, ifinns and lodgings were extravagantly dear, an inexhaustible supply ofbread and wine, of meat and fish, was provided by the policy of Bonifaceand the venal hospitality of the Romans. From a city without trade orindustry, all casual riches will speedily evaporate: but the avariceand envy of the next generation solicited Clement the Sixth [87] toanticipate the distant period of the century. The gracious pontiffcomplied with their wishes; afforded Rome this poor consolation for hisloss; and justified the change by the name and practice of theMosaic Jubilee. [88] His summons was obeyed; and the number, zeal, andliberality of the pilgrims did not yield to the primitive festival. Butthey encountered the triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine:many wives and virgins were violated in the castles of Italy; and manystrangers were pillaged or murdered by the savage Romans, no longermoderated by the presence of their bishops. [89] To the impatience of thepopes we may ascribe the successive reduction to fifty, thirty-three, and twenty-five years; although the second of these terms iscommensurate with the life of Christ. The profusion of indulgences, therevolt of the Protestants, and the decline of superstition, have muchdiminished the value of the jubilee; yet even the nineteenth andlast festival was a year of pleasure and profit to the Romans; and aphilosophic smile will not disturb the triumph of the priest or thehappiness 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 determinewhether the nephew of Boniface VIII. Be a fool or a knave: the uncle isa much clearer character. ]

[Footnote 86: See John Villani (l. Viii. C. 36) in the xiith, andthe Chronicon Astense, in the xith volume (p. 191, 192) of Muratori'sCollection Papa innumerabilem pecuniam ab eisdem accepit, nam duoclerici, cum rastris, &c. ]

[Footnote 87: The two bulls of Boniface VIII. And Clement VI. Areinserted 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 Hebræorum, Opp. Tom. Iv. L. Iii. C. 14, 14, p. 151, 152, ) the suspension of all care and labor, the periodical release oflands, debts, servitude, &c. , may seem a noble idea, but the executionwould be impracticable in a _profane_ republic; and I should be glad tolearn that this ruinous festival was observed by the Jewish people. ]

[Footnote 89: See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani, (l. I. C. 56, ) in thexivth 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 atthe Hague, in his Lettres Historiques et Dogmatiques, sur les Jubiléset es Indulgences; la Haye, 1751, 3 vols. In 12mo. ; an elaborate andpleasing work, had not the author preferred the character of a polemicto that of a philosopher. ]

In the beginning of the eleventh century, Italy was exposed to thefeudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and the people. Therights of human nature were vindicated by her numerous republics, whosoon extended their liberty and dominion from the city to the adjacentcountry. The sword of the nobles was broken; their slaves wereenfranchised; their castles were demolished; they assumed the habits ofsociety and obedience; their ambition was confined to municipal honors, and in the proudest aristocracy of Venice on Genoa, each patrician wassubject to the laws. [91] But the feeble and disorderly government ofRome was unequal to the task of curbing her rebellious sons, who scornedthe authority of the magistrate within and without the walls. It wasno longer a civil contention between the nobles and plebeians for thegovernment of the state: the barons asserted in arms their personalindependence; their palaces and castles were fortified against a siege;and their private quarrels were maintained by the numbers of theirvassals and retainers. In origin and affection, they were aliens totheir country: [92] and a genuine Roman, could such have been produced, might have renounced these haughty strangers, who disdained theappellation of citizens, and proudly styled themselves the princes, ofRome. [93] After a dark series of revolutions, all records of pedigreewere lost; the distinction of surnames was abolished; the blood of thenations was mingled in a thousand channels; and the Goths and Lombards, the Greeks and Franks, the Germans and Normans, had obtained the fairestpossessions by royal bounty, or the prerogative of valor. These examplesmight be readily presumed; but the elevation of a Hebrew race to therank of senators and consuls is an event without a parallel in the longcaptivity of these miserable exiles. [94] In the time of Leo the Ninth, a wealthy and learned Jew was converted to Christianity, and honored athis baptism with the name of his godfather, the reigning Pope. The zealand courage of Peter the son of Leo were signalized in the cause ofGregory the Seventh, who intrusted his faithful adherent with thegovernment of Adrian's mole, the tower of Crescentius, or, as it is nowcalled, the castle of St. Angelo. Both the father and the son were theparents of a numerous progeny: their riches, the fruits of usury, wereshared with the noblest families of the city; and so extensive was theiralliance, that the grandson of the proselyte was exalted by the weightof his kindred to the throne of St. Peter. A majority of the clergy andpeople supported his cause: he reigned several years in the Vatican;and it is only the eloquence of St. Bernard, and the final triumph ofInnocence the Second, that has branded Anacletus with the epithet ofantipope. After his defeat and death, the posterity of Leo is no longerconspicuous; and none will be found of the modern nobles ambitious ofdescending from a Jewish stock. It is not my design to enumerate theRoman families which have failed at different periods, or those whichare continued in different degrees of splendor to the present time. [95]The old consular line of the _Frangipani_ discover their name in thegenerous act of _breaking_ or dividing bread in a time of famine; andsuch benevolence is more truly glorious than to have enclosed, withtheir allies the _Corsi_, a spacious quarter of the city in the chainsof 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, ifthey 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 ofFrisingen, (de Gest. Fred. I. L. Ii. C. 13, ) and the submission of themarquis of Este. ]

[Footnote 92: As early as the year 824, the emperor Lothaire I. Found itexpedient to interrogate the Roman people, to learn from each individualby what national law he chose to be governed. (Muratori, Dissertatxxii. )]

[Footnote 93: Petrarch attacks these foreigners, the tyrants of Rome, in a declamation or epistle, full of bold truths and absurd pedantry, inwhich he applies the maxims, and even prejudices, of the old republic tothe state of the xivth century, (Mémoires, tom. Iii. P. 157--169. )]

[Footnote 94: The origin and adventures of the Jewish family are noticedby Pagi, (Critica, tom. Iv. P. 435, A. D. 1124, No. 3, 4, ) who drawshis information from the Chronographus Maurigniacensis, and ArnulphusSagiensis 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 thatit had been coolly related, before it was turned into a reproach againstthe antipope. ]

[Footnote 95: Muratori has given two dissertations (xli. And xlii. ) tothe names, surnames, and families of Italy. Some nobles, who gloryin their domestic fables, may be offended with his firm and temperatecriticism; yet surely some ounces of pure gold are of more value thanmany pounds of base metal. ]

[Footnote 96: The cardinal of St. George, in his poetical, or rathermetrical history of the election and coronation of Boniface VIII. , (Muratori Script. Ital. Tom. Iii. P. I. P. 641, &c. , ) describes thestate and families of Rome at the coronation of Boniface VIII. , (A. D. 1295. ) Interea titulis redimiti sanguine et armis Illustresque viri Romanâ a stirpe trahentes Nomen in emeritos tantæ virtutis honores Insulerant sese medios festumque colebant Aurata fulgente togâ, sociante catervâ. Ex ipsis devota domus præstantis ab _Ursâ_ Ecclesiæ, vultumque gerens demissius altum Festa _Columna_ jocis, necnon _Sabellia_ mitis; Stephanides senior, _Comites_, _Annibalica_ proles, Præfectusque 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) distinguisheleven families of barons, who are obliged to swear in conciliocommuni, before the senator, that they would not harbor or protect anymalefactors, outlaws, &c. --a feeble security!]

But among, perhaps above, the peers and princes of the city, Idistinguish the rival houses of Colonna and Ursini, whose private storyis an essential part of the annals of modern Rome. I. The name and armsof Colonna [97] have been the theme of much doubtful etymology; nor havethe orators and antiquarians overlooked either Trajan's pillar, or thecolumns of Hercules, or the pillar of Christ's flagellation, or theluminous column that guided the Israelites in the desert. Their firsthistorical appearance in the year eleven hundred and four attests thepower and antiquity, while it explains the simple meaning, of the name. By the usurpation of Cavæ, the Colonna provoked the arms of Paschal theSecond; but they lawfully held in the Campagna of Rome the hereditaryfiefs of Zagarola and _Colonna_; and the latter of these towns wasprobably adorned with some lofty pillar, the relic of a villa or temple. [98] They likewise possessed one moiety of the neighboring city ofTusculum, a strong presumption of their descent from the counts ofTusculum, who in the tenth century were the tyrants of the apostolicsee. According to their own and the public opinion, the primitive andremote source was derived from the banks of the Rhine; [99] and thesovereigns of Germany were not ashamed of a real or fabulous affinitywith a noble race, which in the revolutions of seven hundred years hasbeen often illustrated by merit and always by fortune. [100] About theend of the thirteenth century, the most powerful branch was composed ofan uncle and six bothers, all conspicuous in arms, or in the honors ofthe church. Of these, Peter was elected senator of Rome, introduced tothe Capitol in a triumphal car, and hailed in some vain acclamationswith the title of Cæsar; while John and Stephen were declared marquis ofAncona and count of Romagna, by Nicholas the Fourth, a patron so partialto their family, that he has been delineated in satirical portraits, imprisoned as it were in a hollow pillar. [101] After his decease theirhaughty behavior provoked the displeasure of the most implacableof mankind. The two cardinals, the uncle and the nephew, denied theelection of Boniface the Eighth; and the Colonna were oppressed for amoment by his temporal and spiritual arms. [102] He proclaimed a crusadeagainst his personal enemies; their estates were confiscated; theirfortresses on either side of the Tyber were besieged by the troopsof St. Peter and those of the rival nobles; and after the ruin ofPalestrina or Præneste, their principal seat, the ground was marked witha ploughshare, the emblem of perpetual desolation. Degraded, banished, proscribed, the six brothers, in disguise and danger, wandered overEurope without renouncing the hope of deliverance and revenge. In thisdouble hope, the French court was their surest asylum; they promptedand directed the enterprise of Philip; and I should praise theirmagnanimity, had they respected the misfortune and courage of thecaptive tyrant. His civil acts were annulled by the Roman people, whorestored the honors and possessions of the Colonna; and some estimatemay be formed of their wealth by their losses, of their losses by thedamages of one hundred thousand gold florins which were grantedthem against the accomplices and heirs of the deceased pope. All thespiritual censures and disqualifications were abolished [103] by hisprudent successors; and the fortune of the house was more firmlyestablished by this transient hurricane. The boldness of Sciarra Colonnawas signalized in the captivity of Boniface, and long afterwards in thecoronation of Lewis of Bavaria; and by the gratitude of the emperor, thepillar in their arms was encircled with a royal crown. But the first ofthe family in fame and merit was the elder Stephen, whom Petrarch lovedand esteemed as a hero superior to his own times, and not unworthyof ancient Rome. Persecution and exile displayed to the nations hisabilities in peace and war; in his distress he was an object, not ofpity, but of reverence; the aspect of danger provoked him to avow hisname and country; and when he was asked, "Where is now your fortress?"he laid his hand on his heart, and answered, "Here. " He supported withthe same virtue the return of prosperity; and, till the ruin of hisdeclining age, the ancestors, the character, and the children of StephenColonna, exalted his dignity in the Roman republic, and at the court ofAvignon. 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 soondistinguished among the nobles of Rome, by the number and bravery oftheir kinsmen, the strength of their towers, the honors of the senateand sacred college, and the elevation of two popes, Celestin the Thirdand Nicholas the Third, of their name and lineage. [105] Their riches maybe accused as an early abuse of nepotism: the estates of St. Peter werealienated in their favor by the liberal Celestin; [106] and Nicholas wasambitious for their sake to solicit the alliance of monarchs; to foundnew kingdoms in Lombardy and Tuscany; and to invest them with theperpetual office of senators of Rome. All that has been observed ofthe greatness of the Colonna will likewise redeemed to the glory ofthe Ursini, their constant and equal antagonists in the longhereditary feud, which distracted above two hundred and fifty years theecclesiastical state. The jealously of preeminence and power was thetrue 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 thetwo factions of Italy most furiously raged when the origin and natureof the dispute were long since forgotten. [107] After the retreat ofthe popes to Avignon they disputed in arms the vacant republic; andthe mischiefs of discord were perpetuated by the wretched compromise ofelecting each year two rival senators. By their private hostilities thecity and country were desolated, and the fluctuating balance inclinedwith their alternate success. But none of either family had fallen bythe sword, till the most renowned champion of the Ursini was surprisedand slain by the younger Stephen Colonna. [108] His triumph is stainedwith the reproach of violating the truce; their defeat was baselyavenged by the assassination, before the church door, of an innocentboy and his two servants. Yet the victorious Colonna, with an annualcolleague, was declared senator of Rome during the term of five years. And the muse of Petrarch inspired a wish, a hope, a prediction, that thegenerous youth, the son of his venerable hero, would restore Rome andItaly to their pristine glory; that his justice would extirpate thewolves and lions, the serpents and _bears_, who labored to subvert theeternal basis of the marble column. [109]

[Footnote 97: It is pity that the Colonna themselves have not favoredthe world with a complete and critical history of their illustrioushouse. 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 inthe Campagna of Rome; but they have alienated to the Rospigliosi thisoriginal 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 descentfrom the ancestors of Martin V. , (Otho Colonna:) but the royal authorof the Memoirs of Brandenburg observes, that the sceptre in his armshas been confounded with the column. To maintain the Roman origin ofthe Colonna, it was ingeniously supposed (Diario di Monaldeschi, inthe Script. Ital. Tom. Xii. P. 533) that a cousin of the emperor Neroescaped from the city, and founded Mentz in Germany. ]

[Footnote 100: I cannot overlook the Roman triumph of ovation on MarceAntonio Colonna, who had commanded the pope's galleys at the navalvictory 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 theabbé de Sade to expatiate on the state of the family in the fourteenthcentury, the persecution of Boniface VIII. , the character of Stephen andhis sons, their quarrels with the Ursini, &c. , (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. I. P. 98--110, 146--148, 174--176, 222--230, 275--280. ) Hiscriticism often rectifies the hearsay stories of Villani, and the errorsof the less diligent moderns. I understand the branch of Stephen to benow extinct. ]

[Footnote 103: Alexander III. Had declared the Colonna who adheredto the emperor Frederic I. Incapable of holding any ecclesiasticalbenefice, (Villani, l. V. C. 1;) and the last stains of annualexcommunication were purified by Sixtus V. , (Vita di Sisto V. Tom. Iii. P. 416. ) Treason, sacrilege, and proscription are often the best titlesof ancient nobility. ]

[Footnote 104: --------Vallis te proxima misit, Appenninigenæ qua prata virentia sylvæ Spoletana metunt armenta gregesque protervi. Monaldeschi (tom. Xii. Script. Ital. P. 533) gives the Ursini a Frenchorigin, which may be remotely true. ]

[Footnote 105: In the metrical life of Celestine V. By the cardinal ofSt. 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 Ursæ (_Ursi?_) Progenies, Romana domus, veterataque magnis Fascibus in clero, pompasque experta senatûs, Bellorumque manû grandi stipata parentum Cardineos apices necnon fastigia dudum Papatûs _iterata_ tenens. Muratori (Dissert. Xlii. Tom. Iii. ) observes, that the first Ursinipontificate of Celestine III. Was unknown: he is inclined to read _Ursi_progenies. ]

[Footnote 106: Filii Ursi, quondam Clestini papæ nepotes, de bonisecclesiæ Romanæ ditati, (Vit. Innocent. III. In Muratori, Script. Tom. Iii. P. I. ) The partial prodigality of Nicholas III. Is more conspicuousin Villani and Muratori. Yet the Ursini would disdain the nephews of a_modern_ pope. ]

[Footnote 107: In his fifty-first Dissertation on the ItalianAntiquities, Muratori explains the factions of the Guelphs andGhibelines. ]

[Footnote 108: Petrarch (tom. I. P. 222--230) has celebrated thisvictory 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 appliedthe vith Canzone of Petrarch, _Spirto Gentil_, &c. , to Stephen Colonnathe younger: Orsi, lupi, leoni, aquile e serpi Al una gran marmorea _colexna_ Fanno noja sovente e à 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 songsterof Laura and love. In the harmony of his Tuscan rhymes, Italy applauds, or rather adores, the father of her lyric poetry; and his verse, orat least his name, is repeated by the enthusiasm, or affectation, ofamorous sensibility. Whatever may be the private taste of a stranger, his slight and superficial knowledge should humbly acquiesce in thejudgment of a learned nation; yet I may hope or presume, that theItalians do not compare the tedious uniformity of sonnets and elegieswith the sublime compositions of their epic muse, the original wildnessof Dante, the regular beauties of Tasso, and the boundless varietyof the incomparable Ariosto. The merits of the lover I am still lessqualified to appreciate: nor am I deeply interested in a metaphysicalpassion for a nymph so shadowy, that her existence has been questioned;[2] for a matron so prolific, [3] that she was delivered of elevenlegitimate children, [4] while her amorous swain sighed and sung at thefountain of Vaucluse. [5] But in the eyes of Petrarch, and those of hisgraver contemporaries, his love was a sin, and Italian verse a frivolousamusement. His Latin works of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, established his serious reputation, which was soon diffused from Avignonover France and Italy: his friends and disciples were multiplied inevery city; and if the ponderous volume of his writings [6] be nowabandoned to a long repose, our gratitude must applaud the man, who byprecept and example revived the spirit and study of the Augustan age. From his earliest youth, Petrarch aspired to the poetic crown. Theacademical honors of the three faculties had introduced a royaldegree of master or doctor in the art of poetry; [7] and the title ofpoet-laureate, which custom, rather than vanity, perpetuates in theEnglish court, [8] was first invented by the Cæsars of Germany. In themusical games of antiquity, a prize was bestowed on the victor: [9] thebelief that Virgil and Horace had been crowned in the Capitol inflamedthe emulation of a Latin bard; [10] and the laurel [11] was endeared tothe lover by a verbal resemblance with the name of his mistress. Thevalue 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 notof the most delicate kind, since he applauds the success of his own_labors_; his name was popular; his friends were active; the open orsecret opposition of envy and prejudice was surmounted by the dexterityof patient merit. In the thirty-sixth year of his age, he was solicitedto accept the object of his wishes; and on the same day, in the solitudeof Vaucluse, he received a similar and solemn invitation from the senateof Rome and the university of Paris. The learning of a theologicalschool, and the ignorance of a lawless city, were alike unqualified tobestow the ideal though immortal wreath which genius may obtain fromthe free applause of the public and of posterity: but the candidatedismissed this troublesome reflection; and after some moments ofcomplacency and suspense, preferred the summons of the metropolis of theworld. 

[Footnote 1: The Mémoires sur la Vie de François Pétrarque, (Amsterdam, 1764, 1767, 3 vols. In 4to. , ) form a copious, original, and entertainingwork, a labor of love, composed from the accurate study of Petrarchand his contemporaries; but the hero is too often lost in the generalhistory of the age, and the author too often languishes in theaffectation of politeness and gallantry. In the preface to his firstvolume, he enumerates and weighs twenty Italian biographers, who haveprofessedly treated of the same subject. ]

[Footnote 2: The allegorical interpretation prevailed in the xvthcentury; but the wise commentators were not agreed whether they shouldunderstand 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 marriedin January 1325, to Hugues de Sade, a noble citizen of Avignon, whosejealousy was not the effect of love, since he married a second wifewithin 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 isissued, in the tenth degree, the abbé de Sade, the fond and gratefulbiographer of Petrarch; and this domestic motive most probably suggestedthe idea of his work, and urged him to inquire into every circumstancethat could affect the history and character of his grandmother, (seeparticularly tom. I. P. 122--133, notes, p. 7--58, tom. Ii. P. 455--495not. P. 76--82. )]

[Footnote 5: Vaucluse, so familiar to our English travellers, isdescribed from the writings of Petrarch, and the local knowledge ofhis biographer, (Mémoires, tom. I. P. 340--359. ) It was, in truth, theretreat of a hermit; and the moderns are much mistaken, if they placeLaura and a happy lover in the grotto. ]

[Footnote 6: Of 1250 pages, in a close print, at Basil in the xvithcentury, but without the date of the year. The abbé de Sade calls aloudfor a new edition of Petrarch's Latin works; but I much doubt whether itwould redound to the profit of the bookseller, or the amusement of thepublic. ]

[Footnote 7: Consult Selden's Titles of Honor, in his works, (vol. Iii. P. 457--466. ) A hundred years before Petrarch, St. Francis receivedthe visit of a poet, qui ab imperatore fuerat coronatus et exinde rexversuum dictus. ]

[Footnote 8: From Augustus to Louis, the muse has too often been falseand venal: but I much doubt whether any age or court can produce asimilar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who in every reign, andat all events, is bound to furnish twice a year a measure of praiseand verse, such as may be sung in the chapel, and, I believe, in thepresence, of the sovereign. I speak the more freely, as the best timefor abolishing this ridiculous custom is while the prince is a man ofvirtue 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 firstinstituting and recommending the alwnaV--kai ta aqla megista--mhmonon tacouV kai rwmhV, alla kai logwn kai gnwmhV. The example of thePanathenæa was imitated at Delphi; but the Olympic games were ignorantof 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 GreekAntiquities, vol. I. P. 445, 450. )]

[Footnote 10: The Capitoline games (certamen quinquenale, _musicum_, equestre, gymnicum) were instituted by Domitian (Sueton. C. 4) inthe year of Christ 86, (Censorin. De Die Natali, c. 18, p. 100, edit. Havercamp. ) and were not abolished in the ivth century, (Ausonius deProfessoribus Burdegal. V. ) If the crown were given to superior merit, the exclusion of Statius (Capitolia nostræ inficiata lyræ, Sylv. L. Iii. V. 31) may do honor to the games of the Capitol; but the Latin poets wholived before Domitian were crowned only in the public opinion. ]

[Footnote 11: Petrarch and the senators of Rome were ignorant that thelaurel 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 oakeaves, (Martial, l. Iv. Epigram 54. )]

[Footnote 12: The pious grandson of Laura has labored, and not withoutsuccess, to vindicate her immaculate chastity against the censures ofthe grave and the sneers of the profane, (tom. Ii. Notes, p. 76--82. )]

The ceremony of his coronation [13] was performed in the Capitol, byhis friend and patron the supreme magistrate of the republic. Twelvepatrician youths were arrayed in scarlet; six representatives of themost 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 histhrone; and at the voice of a herald Petrarch arose. After discoursingon a text of Virgil, and thrice repeating his vows for the prosperity ofRome, he knelt before the throne, and received from the senator a laurelcrown, with a more precious declaration, "This is the reward of merit. "The people shouted, "Long life to the Capitol and the poet!" A sonnet inpraise of Rome was accepted as the effusion of genius and gratitude; andafter the whole procession had visited the Vatican, the profane wreathwas suspended before the shrine of St. Peter. In the act or diploma[14] which was presented to Petrarch, the title and prerogatives ofpoet-laureate are revived in the Capitol, after the lapse of thirteenhundred years; and he receives the perpetual privilege of wearing, athis choice, a crown of laurel, ivy, or myrtle, of assuming the poetichabit, and of teaching, disputing, interpreting, and composing, in allplaces whatsoever, and on all subjects of literature. The grant wasratified by the authority of the senate and people; and the character ofcitizen was the recompense of his affection for the Roman name. They didhim honor, but they did him justice. In the familiar society of Ciceroand Livy, he had imbibed the ideas of an ancient patriot; and hisardent fancy kindled every idea to a sentiment, and every sentiment toa passion. The aspect of the seven hills and their majestic ruinsconfirmed these lively impressions; and he loved a country by whoseliberal spirit he had been crowned and adopted. The poverty anddebasement of Rome excited the indignation and pity of her grateful son;he dissembled the faults of his fellow-citizens; applauded with partialfondness the last of their heroes and matrons; and in the remembrance ofthe past, in the hopes of the future, was pleased to forget the miseriesof the present time. Rome was still the lawful mistress of the world:the pope and the emperor, the bishop and general, had abdicated theirstation by an inglorious retreat to the Rhône and the Danube; but if shecould resume her virtue, the republic might again vindicate her libertyand dominion. Amidst the indulgence of enthusiasm and eloquence, [15]Petrarch, Italy, and Europe, were astonished by a revolution whichrealized for a moment his most splendid visions. The rise and fall ofthe tribune Rienzi will occupy the following pages: [16] the subject isinteresting, the materials are rich, and the glance of a patriot bard[17] will sometimes vivify the copious, but simple, narrative of theFlorentine, [18] and more especially of the Roman, historian. [19]

[Footnote 13: The whole process of Petrarch's coronation is accuratelydescribed 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 ofLudovico, Monaldeschi, without mixing in this authentic narrative themore recent fables of Sannuccio Delbene. ]

[Footnote 14: The original act is printed among the PiecesJustificatives in the Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. Iii. P. 50--53. ]

[Footnote 15: To find the proofs of his enthusiasm for Rome, I need onlyrequest that the reader would open, by chance, either Petrarch, or hisFrench biographer. The latter has described the poet's first visit toRome, (tom. I. P. 323--335. ) But in the place of much idle rhetoric andmorality, Petrarch might have amused the present and future age with anoriginal account of the city and his coronation. ]

[Footnote 16: It has been treated by the pen of a Jesuit, the P. DeCerceau whose posthumous work (Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini, dit deRienzi, Tyran de Rome, en 1347) was published at Paris, 1748, in 12mo. Iam indebted to him for some facts and documents in John Hocsemius, canonof Liege, a contemporary historian, (Fabricius Bibliot. Lat. Med. Ævi, tom. Iii. P. 273, tom. Iv. P. 85. )]

[Footnote 17: The abbé de Sade, who so freely expatiates on the historyof the xivth century, might treat, as his proper subject, a revolutionin 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 hasprobably escaped him. ]

[Footnote 18: Giovanni Villani, l. Xii. C. 89, 104, in Muratori, RerumItalicarum 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 Historiæ Romanæ ab Anno 1327 usquead Annum 1354, in the original dialect of Rome or Naples in the xivthcentury, and a Latin version for the benefit of strangers. It containsthe most particular and authentic life of Cola (Nicholas) di Rienzi;which had been printed at Bracciano, 1627, in 4to. , under the name ofTomaso Fortifiocca, who is only mentioned in this work as having beenpunished by the tribune for forgery. Human nature is scarcely capableof such sublime or stupid impartiality: but whosoever in the authorof 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 thetribune. * Note: Since the publication of my first edition of Gibbon, some new and very remarkable documents have been brought to light in alife of Nicolas Rienzi, --Cola di Rienzo und seine Zeit, --by Dr. FelixPapencordt. The most important of these documents are letters fromRienzi to Charles the Fourth, emperor and king of Bohemia, and to thearchbishop of Praque; they enter into the whole history of hisadventurous career during its first period, and throw a strong lightupon his extraordinary character. These documents were first discoveredand made use of, to a certain extent, by Pelzel, the historian ofBohemia. The originals have disappeared, but a copy made by Pelzel forhis own use is now in the library of Count Thun at Teschen. There seemsno doubt of their authenticity. Dr. Papencordt has printed the whole inhis 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 futuredeliverer of Rome. [20] [201] From such parents Nicholas Rienzi Gabrinicould inherit neither dignity nor fortune; and the gift of a liberaleducation, which they painfully bestowed, was the cause of his gloryand untimely end. The study of history and eloquence, the writings ofCicero, Seneca, Livy, Cæsar, and Valerius Maximus, elevated above hisequals and contemporaries the genius of the young plebeian: he perusedwith indefatigable diligence the manuscripts and marbles of antiquity;loved to dispense his knowledge in familiar language; and was oftenprovoked to exclaim, "Where are now these Romans? their virtue, theirjustice, their power? why was I not born in those happy times?" [21] Whenthe republic addressed to the throne of Avignon an embassy of the threeorders, the spirit and eloquence of Rienzi recommended him to a placeamong the thirteen deputies of the commons. The orator had the honor ofharanguing Pope Clement the Sixth, and the satisfaction of conversingwith Petrarch, a congenial mind: but his aspiring hopes were chilled bydisgrace and poverty and the patriot was reduced to a single garment andthe charity of the hospital. [211] From this misery he was relieved by thesense of merit or the smile of favor; and the employment of apostolicnotary afforded him a daily stipend of five gold florins, a morehonorable and extensive connection, and the right of contrasting, bothin words and actions, his own integrity with the vices of the state. Theeloquence of Rienzi was prompt and persuasive: the multitude is alwaysprone to envy and censure: he was stimulated by the loss of a brotherand the impunity of the assassins; nor was it possible to excuse orexaggerate 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 pecuniaryinjury, were most deeply wounded in the dishonor of their wives anddaughters: [22] they were equally oppressed by the arrogance of thenobles and the corruption of the magistrates; [221] and the abuse of armsor of laws was the only circumstance that distinguished the lions fromthe dogs and serpents of the Capitol. These allegorical emblems werevariously repeated in the pictures which Rienzi exhibited in the streetsand churches; and while the spectators gazed with curious wonder, thebold and ready orator unfolded the meaning, applied the satire, inflamedtheir passions, and announced a distant hope of comfort and deliverance. The privileges of Rome, her eternal sovereignty over her princes andprovinces, was the theme of his public and private discourse; and amonument of servitude became in his hands a title and incentiveof liberty. The decree of the senate, which granted the most ampleprerogatives to the emperor Vespasian, had been inscribed on a copperplate still extant in the choir of the church of St. John Lateran. [23] Anumerous assembly of nobles and plebeians was invited to this politicallecture, and a convenient theatre was erected for their reception. Thenotary appeared in a magnificent and mysterious habit, explainedthe inscription by a version and commentary, [24] and descanted witheloquence and zeal on the ancient glories of the senate and people, fromwhom all legal authority was derived. The supine ignorance of thenobles was incapable of discerning the serious tendency of suchrepresentations: they might sometimes chastise with words and blows theplebeian reformer; but he was often suffered in the Colonna palaceto amuse the company with his threats and predictions; and the modernBrutus [25] was concealed under the mask of folly and the character ofa buffoon. While they indulged their contempt, the restoration of the_good estate_, his favorite expression, was entertained among the peopleas a desirable, a possible, and at length as an approaching, event;and while all had the disposition to applaud, some had the courage toassist, their promised deliverer. 

[Footnote 20: The first and splendid period of Rienzi, his tribunitiangovernment, is contained in the xviiith chapter of the Fragments, (p. 399--479, ) which, in the new division, forms the iid book of the historyin 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 proudshamelessness. Compare account by the editor of Dr. Papencordt's work inQuarterly Review vol. Lxix. --M. 1845. ]

[Footnote 21: The reader may be pleased with a specimen of the originalidiom: Fò da soa juventutine nutricato di latte de eloquentia, bonogramatico, megliore rettuorico, autorista bravo. Deh como et quanto eraveloce leitore! moito usava Tito Livio, Seneca, et Tullio, et BalerioMassimo, moito li dilettava le magnificentie di Julio Cesare raccontare. Tutta la die se speculava negl' intagli di marmo lequali iaccio intornoRoma. Non era altri che esso, che sapesse lejere li antichi pataffii. Tutte scritture antiche vulgarizzava; quesse fiure di marmo justamenteinterpretava. On come spesso diceva, "Dove suono quelli buoni Romani?dove ene loro somma justitia? poleramme trovare in tempo che quessifiuriano!"]

[Footnote 211: Sir J. Hobhouse published (in his Illustrations of ChildeHarold) Rienzi's joyful letter to the people of Rome on the apparentlyfavorable termination of this mission. --M. 1845. ]

[Footnote 22: Petrarch compares the jealousy of the Romans with the easytemper of the husbands of Avignon, (Mémoires, tom. I. P. 330. )]

[Footnote 221: All this Rienzi, writing at a later period to the archbishopof Prague, attributed to the criminal abandonment of his flock by thesupreme 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 theInscriptions of Gruter, tom. I. P. 242, and at the end of the Tacitus ofErnesti, with some learned notes of the editor, tom. Ii. ]

[Footnote 24: I cannot overlook a stupendous and laughable blunder ofRienzi. The Lex regia empowers Vespasian to enlarge the Pomrium, a wordfamiliar to every antiquary. It was not so to the tribune; he confoundsit with pom_a_rium, an orchard, translates lo Jardino de Roma cioeneItalia, and is copied by the less excusable ignorance of the Latintranslator (p. 406) and the French historian, (p. 33. ) Even the learningof Muratori has slumbered over the passage. ]

[Footnote 25: Priori (_Bruto_) tamen similior, juvenis uterque, longeingenio quam cujus simulationem induerat, ut sub hoc obtentû liberatorille P R. Aperiretur tempore suo. .. . Ille regibus, hic tyranniscontemptus, (Opp. P. 536. ) * Note: Fatcor attamen quod-nunc fatuum. Nunchystrionem, 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, (ofPrague, ) Rienzi alleges scriptural examples. Saltator coram archa Davidet insanus apparuit coram Rege; blanda, astuta, et tecta Judith astititHoloferni; 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 nocturnalassembly of a hundred citizens on Mount Aventine, the first step totheir execution. After an oath of secrecy and aid, he represented to theconspirators the importance and facility of their enterprise; that thenobles, without union or resources, were strong only in the fear nobles, of their imaginary strength; that all power, as well as right, was inthe hands of the people; that the revenues of the apostolical chambermight relieve the public distress; and that the pope himself wouldapprove their victory over the common enemies of government and freedom. After securing a faithful band to protect his first declaration, heproclaimed through the city, by sound of trumpet, that on the evening ofthe following day, all persons should assemble without arms before thechurch of St. Angelo, to provide for the reestablishment of the goodestate. The whole night was employed in the celebration of thirtymasses of the Holy Ghost; and in the morning, Rienzi, bareheaded, butin complete armor, issued from the church, encompassed by the hundredconspirators. The pope's vicar, the simple bishop of Orvieto, who hadbeen persuaded to sustain a part in this singular ceremony, marchedon his right hand; and three great standards were borne aloft as theemblems of their design. In the first, the banner of _liberty_, Rome wasseated 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 innumerablecrowd, who understood little, and hoped much; and the procession slowlyrolled forwards from the castle of St. Angelo to the Capitol. Histriumph was disturbed by some secret emotions which he labored tosuppress: 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 silentconsternation this strange revolution; and the moment had been prudentlychosen, when the most formidable, Stephen Colonna, was absent from thecity. On the first rumor, he returned to his palace, affected to despisethis plebeian tumult, and declared to the messenger of Rienzi, that athis 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, sourgent was the danger, that Colonna escaped with precipitation to thesuburb of St. Laurence: from thence, after a moment's refreshment, hecontinued the same speedy career till he reached in safety his castleof Palestrina; lamenting his own imprudence, which had not trampled thespark of this mighty conflagration. A general and peremptory order wasissued from the Capitol to all the nobles, that they should peaceablyretire to their estates: they obeyed; and their departure secured thetranquillity of the free and obedient citizens of Rome. 

But such voluntary obedience evaporates with the first transports ofzeal; and Rienzi felt the importance of justifying his usurpation bya regular form and a legal title. At his own choice, the Roman peoplewould have displayed their attachment and authority, by lavishing on hishead the names of senator or consul, of king or emperor: he preferredthe ancient and modest appellation of tribune; [251] the protection of thecommons was the essence of that sacred office; and they were ignorant, that it had never been invested with any share in the legislativeor executive powers of the republic. In this character, and with theconsent of the Roman, the tribune enacted the most salutary laws for therestoration and maintenance of the good estate. By the first he fulfilsthe wish of honesty and inexperience, that no civil suit should beprotracted beyond the term of fifteen days. The danger of frequentperjury might justify the pronouncing against a false accuser the samepenalty which his evidence would have inflicted: the disorders of thetimes might compel the legislator to punish every homicide with death, and every injury with equal retaliation. But the execution of justicewas 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 castlesof the Roman territory; that none should bear arms, or presume tofortify their houses in the city or country; that the barons shouldbe responsible for the safety of the highways, and the free passage ofprovisions; and that the protection of malefactors and robbers should beexpiated by a fine of a thousand marks of silver. But these regulationswould have been impotent and nugatory, had not the licentious noblesbeen awed by the sword of the civil power. A sudden alarm from the bellof the Capitol could still summon to the standard above twenty thousandvolunteers: the support of the tribune and the laws required a moreregular and permanent force. In each harbor of the coast a vessel wasstationed for the assurance of commerce; a standing militia of threehundred and sixty horse and thirteen hundred foot was levied, clothed, and paid in the thirteen quarters of the city: and the spirit of acommonwealth may be traced in the grateful allowance of one hundredflorins, or pounds, to the heirs of every soldier who lost his life inthe 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, therevenues of the apostolic chamber: the three branches of hearth-money, the salt-duty, and the customs, were each of the annual produce of onehundred thousand florins; [26] and scandalous were the abuses, if infour or five months the amount of the salt-duty could be trebled by hisjudicious economy. After thus restoring the forces and finances ofthe republic, the tribune recalled the nobles from their solitaryindependence; required their personal appearance in the Capitol; andimposed an oath of allegiance to the new government, and of submissionto the laws of the good estate. Apprehensive for their safety, but stillmore apprehensive of the danger of a refusal, the princes and baronsreturned to their houses at Rome in the garb of simple and peacefulcitizens: the Colonna and Ursini, the Savelli and Frangipani, wereconfounded before the tribunal of a plebeian, of the vile buffoon whomthey had so often derided, and their disgrace was aggravated by theindignation which they vainly struggled to disguise. The same oath wassuccessively pronounced by the several orders of society, the clergy andgentlemen, the judges and notaries, the merchants and artisans, and thegradual descent was marked by the increase of sincerity and zeal. Theyswore to live and die with the republic and the church, whose interestwas 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 arebellious aristocracy; and Clement the Sixth, who rejoiced in itsfall, affected to believe the professions, to applaud the merits, and toconfirm the title, of his trusty servant. The speech, perhaps the mind, of the tribune, was inspired with a lively regard for the purity of thefaith: he insinuated his claim to a supernatural mission from the HolyGhost; enforced by a heavy forfeiture the annual duty of confessionand communion; and strictly guarded the spiritual as well as temporalwelfare of his faithful people. [27]

[Footnote 251: Et ego, Deo semper auctore, ipsa die pristinâ (leg. Primâ)Tribunatus, quæ quidem dignitas a tempore deflorati Imperii, et perannos Vo et ultra sub tyrannicà occupatione vacavit, ipsos omnespotentes indifferenter Deum at justitiam odientes, a meâ, ymo a Deifacie fugiendo vehementi Spiritu dissipavi, et nullo effuso cruoretrementes expuli, sine ictu remanente Romane terre facie renovatâ. Libellus Tribuni ad Cæsarem, 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 theflorin was worth ten Roman _solidi_, (Muratori, dissert. Xxviii. ) Theformer reading would give us a population of 25, 000, the latter of250, 000 families; and I much fear, that the former is more consistentwith the decay of Rome and her territory. ]

[Footnote 27: Hocsemius, p. 498, apud du Cerçeau, 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 moreremarkably felt than in the sudden, though transient, reformationof Rome by the tribune Rienzi. A den of robbers was converted to thediscipline of a camp or convent: patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor andstranger; nor could birth, or dignity, or the immunities of the church, protect the offender or his accomplices. The privileged houses, theprivate sanctuaries in Rome, on which no officer of justice wouldpresume to trespass, were abolished; and he applied the timber and ironof their barricades in the fortifications of the Capitol. The venerablefather of the Colonna was exposed in his own palace to the double shameof 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 theUrsini family was condemned to restore the damage, and to dischargea fine of four hundred florins for his negligence in guarding thehighways. Nor were the persons of the barons more inviolate than theirlands or houses; and, either from accident or design, the same impartialrigor was exercised against the heads of the adverse factions. PeterAgapet Colonna, who had himself been senator of Rome, was arrested inthe street for injury or debt; and justice was appeased by the tardyexecution of Martin Ursini, who, among his various acts of violence andrapine, 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 hadchosen his victim. The public officers dragged him from his palaceand nuptial bed: his trial was short and satisfactory: the bell of theCapitol convened the people: stripped of his mantle, on his knees, withhis hands bound behind his back, he heard the sentence of death; andafter a brief confession, Ursini was led away to the gallows. After suchan example, none who were conscious of guilt could hope for impunity, and the flight of the wicked, the licentious, and the idle, soonpurified the city and territory of Rome. In this time (says thehistorian, ) the woods began to rejoice that they were no longer infestedwith robbers; the oxen began to plough; the pilgrims visited thesanctuaries; the roads and inns were replenished with travellers; trade, plenty, and good faith, were restored in the markets; and a purse ofgold might be exposed without danger in the midst of the highway. Assoon as the life and property of the subject are secure, the labors andrewards of industry spontaneously revive: Rome was still the metropolisof the Christian world; and the fame and fortunes of the tribune werediffused in every country by the strangers who had enjoyed the blessingsof his government. 

[Footnote 28: Fortifiocca, l. Ii. C. 11. From the account of thisshipwreck, we learn some circumstances of the trade and navigation ofthe age. 1. The ship was built and freighted at Naples for the ports ofMarseilles and Avignon. 2. The sailors were of Naples and the Isle ofnaria less skilful than those of Sicily and Genoa. 3. The navigationfrom Marseilles was a coasting voyage to the mouth of the Tyber, wherethey took shelter in a storm; but, instead of finding the current, unfortunately ran on a shoal: the vessel was stranded, the marinersescaped. 4. The cargo, which was pillaged, consisted of the revenue ofProvence for the royal treasury, many bags of pepper and cinnamon, andbales of French cloth, to the value of 20, 000 florins; a rich prize. ]

The deliverance of his country inspired Rienzi with a vast, and perhapsvisionary, idea of uniting Italy in a great federative republic, ofwhich Rome should be the ancient and lawful head, and the free citiesand princes the members and associates. His pen was not less eloquentthan his tongue; and his numerous epistles were delivered to swiftand trusty messengers. On foot, with a white wand in their hand, theytraversed the forests and mountains; enjoyed, in the most hostilestates, the sacred security of ambassadors; and reported, in the styleof flattery or truth, that the highways along their passage were linedwith kneeling multitudes, who implored Heaven for the success of theirundertaking. Could passion have listened to reason; could privateinterest have yielded to the public welfare; the supreme tribunaland confederate union of the Italian republic might have healed theirintestine discord, and closed the Alps against the Barbarians of theNorth. But the propitious season had elapsed; and if Venice, Florence, Sienna, Perugia, and many inferior cities offered their lives andfortunes to the good estate, the tyrants of Lombardy and Tuscany mustdespise, or hate, the plebeian author of a free constitution. From them, however, and from every part of Italy, the tribune received the mostfriendly and respectful answers: they were followed by the ambassadorsof the princes and republics; and in this foreign conflux, on all theoccasions of pleasure or business, the low born notary could assumethe familiar or majestic courtesy of a sovereign. [29] The most gloriouscircumstance of his reign was an appeal to his justice from Lewis, kingof Hungary, who complained, that his brother and her husband had beenperfidiously strangled by Jane, queen of Naples: [30] her guilt orinnocence was pleaded in a solemn trial at Rome; but after hearing theadvocates, [31] the tribune adjourned this weighty and invidious cause, which was soon determined by the sword of the Hungarian. Beyond theAlps, more especially at Avignon, the revolution was the theme ofcuriosity, wonder, and applause. [311] Petrarch had been the privatefriend, perhaps the secret counsellor, of Rienzi: his writings breathethe most ardent spirit of patriotism and joy; and all respect for thepope, all gratitude for the Colonna, was lost in the superior dutiesof a Roman citizen. The poet-laureate of the Capitol maintains the act, applauds the hero, and mingles with some apprehension and advice, themost lofty hopes of the permanent and rising greatness of the republic. [32]

[Footnote 29: It was thus that Oliver Cromwell's old acquaintance, whoremembered 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 willsometimes elevate the manners to the station. ]

[Footnote 30: See the causes, circumstances, and effects of the death ofAndrew in Giannone, (tom. Iii. L. Xxiii. P. 220--229, ) and the Life ofPetrarch (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 nothingto the logical force and brevity of his master's epistle. Johanna!inordinata vita præcedens, retentio potestatis in regno, neglectavindicta, vir alter susceptus, et excusatio subsequens, necis viri tuite probant fuisse participem et consortem. Jane of Naples, and Mary ofScotland, have a singular conformity. ]

[Footnote 311]: In his letter to the archbishop of Prague, Rienzi thusdescribes the effect of his elevation on Italy and on the world: "DidI not restore real peace among the cities which were distracted byfactions? did I not cause all the citizens, exiled by party violence, with their wretched wives and children, to be readmitted? had I notbegun to extinguish the factious names (scismatica nomina) of Guelf andGhibelline, for which countless thousands had perished body and soul, under the eyes of their pastors, by the reduction of the city of Romeand all Italy into one amicable, peaceful, holy, and united confederacy?the consecrated standards and banners having been by me collected andblended together, and, in witness to our holy association and perfectunion, offered up in the presence of the ambassadors of all the citiesof Italy, on the day of the assumption of our Blessed Lady. " p. Xlvii. ----In the Libellus ad Cæsarem: "I received the homage and submission ofall the sovereigns of Apulia, the barons and counts, and almost all thepeople of Italy. I was honored by solemn embassies and letters by theemperor of Constantinople and the king of England. The queen of Naplessubmitted herself and her kingdom to the protection of the tribune. Theking of Hungary, by two solemn embassies, brought his cause against hisqueen and his nobles before my tribunal; and I venture to say further, that the fame of the tribune alarmed the soldan of Babylon. When theChristian pilgrims to the sepulchre of our Lord related to the Christianand Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem all the yet unheard-of and wonderfulcircumstances of the reformation in Rome, both Jews and Christianscelebrated the event with unusual festivities. When the soldan inquiredthe cause of these rejoicings, and received this intelligence aboutRome, 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, fromPetrarch to Nicholas Rienzi, (Opp. P. 535--540, ) and the vth eclogue orpastoral, a perpetual and obscure allegory. ]

While Petrarch indulged these prophetic visions, the Roman hero was fastdeclining from the meridian of fame and power; and the people, whohad gazed with astonishment on the ascending meteor, began to mark theirregularity of its course, and the vicissitudes of light and obscurity. More eloquent than judicious, more enterprising than resolute, thefaculties of Rienzi were not balanced by cool and commanding reason:he magnified in a tenfold proportion the objects of hope and fear; andprudence, which could not have erected, did not presume to fortify, his throne. In the blaze of prosperity, his virtues were insensiblytinctured with the adjacent vices; justice with cruelly, cruelty, liberality with profusion, and the desire of fame with puerile andostentatious vanity. [321] He might have learned, that the ancienttribunes, so strong and sacred in the public opinion, were notdistinguished 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 havefrowned or smiled, could they have read the sonorous titles and epithetsof their successor, "Nicholas, severe and merciful; deliverer of Rome;defender of Italy; [34] friend of mankind, and of liberty, peace, andjustice; tribune august:" his theatrical pageants had prepared therevolution; but Rienzi abused, in luxury and pride, the political maximof speaking to the eyes, as well as the understanding, of the multitude. From nature he had received the gift of a handsome person, [35] tillit was swelled and disfigured by intemperance: and his propensity tolaughter was corrected in the magistrate by the affectation of gravityand sternness. He was clothed, at least on public occasions, in aparty-colored robe of velvet or satin, lined with fur, and embroideredwith gold: the rod of justice, which he carried in his hand, was asceptre of polished steel, crowned with a globe and cross of gold, andenclosing a small fragment of the true and holy wood. In his civil andreligious processions through the city, he rode on a white steed, thesymbol of royalty: the great banner of the republic, a sun with a circleof stars, a dove with an olive branch, was displayed over his head; ashower of gold and silver was scattered among the populace, fifty guardswith halberds encompassed his person; a troop of horse preceded hismarch; and their tymbals and trumpets were of massy silver. 

[Footnote 321: An illustrious female writer has drawn, with a singlestroke, the character of Rienzi, Crescentius, and Arnold of Brescia, thefond restorers of Roman liberty: 'Qui ont pris les souvenirs pour lesespérances. ' 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. Græc. Hen. Steph. ) states, on the most constitutionalprinciples, the simple greatness of the tribunes, who were not properlymagistrates, but a check on magistracy. It was their duty and interestomoiousqai schmati, kai stolh kai diaithtoiV epitugcanousi tvnpolitvn. .. . Katapateisqai dei (a saying of C. Curio) kai mh semnoneinai 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 mighthave imbibed the same modest doctrines from their favorite Latins, Livyand Valerius Maximus. ]

[Footnote 34: I could not express in English the forcible, thoughbarbarous, title of _Zelator_ Italiæ, 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 theRoman MS. , from which Muratori has given the text. In his second reign, when he is painted almost as a monster, Rienzi travea una ventrescatonna 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 hisbirth, and degraded the importance of his office; and the equestriantribune was not less odious to the nobles, whom he adopted, than tothe plebeians, whom he deserted. All that yet remained of treasure, or luxury, or art, was exhausted on that solemn day. Rienzi led theprocession from the Capitol to the Lateran; the tediousness of the waywas relieved with decorations and games; the ecclesiastical, civil, andmilitary orders marched under their various banners; the Roman ladiesattended his wife; and the ambassadors of Italy might loudly applaud orsecretly deride the novelty of the pomp. In the evening, which they hadreached the church and palace of Constantine, he thanked and dismissedthe numerous assembly, with an invitation to the festival of the ensuingday. From the hands of a venerable knight he received the order of theHoly Ghost; the purification of the bath was a previous ceremony; but inno step of his life did Rienzi excite such scandal and censure as bythe profane use of the porphyry vase, in which Constantine (a foolishlegend) had been healed of his leprosy by Pope Sylvester. [37] Withequal presumption the tribune watched or reposed within the consecratedprecincts of the baptistery; and the failure of his state-bed wasinterpreted as an omen of his approaching downfall. At the hour ofworship, he showed himself to the returning crowds in a majesticattitude, with a robe of purple, his sword, and gilt spurs; but the holyrites were soon interrupted by his levity and insolence. Rising from histhrone, and advancing towards the congregation, he proclaimed in aloud voice: "We summon to our tribunal Pope Clement: and command himto reside in his diocese of Rome: we also summon the sacred college ofcardinals. [38] We again summon the two pretenders, Charles of Bohemiaand Lewis of Bavaria, who style themselves emperors: we likewise summonall the electors of Germany, to inform us on what pretence they haveusurped the inalienable right of the Roman people, the ancient andlawful sovereigns of the empire. " [39] Unsheathing his maiden sword, he thrice brandished it to the three parts of the world, and thricerepeated the extravagant declaration, "And this too is mine!" The pope'svicar, the bishop of Orvieto, attempted to check this career of folly;but his feeble protest was silenced by martial music; and instead ofwithdrawing from the assembly, he consented to dine with his brothertribune, at a table which had hitherto been reserved for the supremepontiff. A banquet, such as the Cæsars had given, was prepared for theRomans. The apartments, porticos, and courts of the Lateran were spreadwith innumerable tables for either sex, and every condition; a streamof wine flowed from the nostrils of Constantine's brazen horse; nocomplaint, except of the scarcity of water, could be heard; and thelicentiousness of the multitude was curbed by discipline and fear. Asubsequent day was appointed for the coronation of Rienzi; [40] sevencrowns of different leaves or metals were successively placed on hishead by the most eminent of the Roman clergy; they represented the sevengifts of the Holy Ghost; and he still professed to imitate the exampleof the ancient tribunes. [401] These extraordinary spectacles might deceiveor flatter the people; and their own vanity was gratified in the vanityof their leader. But in his private life he soon deviated from thestrict rule of frugality and abstinence; and the plebeians, who wereawed by the splendor of the nobles, were provoked by the luxury of theirequal. His wife, his son, his uncle, (a barber in name and profession, )exposed the contrast of vulgar manners and princely expense; and withoutacquiring the majesty, Rienzi degenerated into the vices, of a king. 

[Footnote 36: Strange as it may seem, this festival was not without aprecedent. In the year 1327, two barons, a Colonna and an Ursini, theusual balance, were created knights by the Roman people: their bath wasof rose-water, their beds were decked with royal magnificence, and theywere 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 ofConstantine (Petrarch. Epist. Famil. Vi. 2, ) and Rienzi justified hisown conduct by observing to the court of Avignon, that a vase which hadbeen used by a Pagan could not be profaned by a pious Christian. Yetthis crime is specified in the bull of excommunication, (Hocsemius, apuddu Cerçeau, p. 189, 190. )]

[Footnote 38: This _verbal_ summons of Pope Clement VI. , which rests onthe authority of the Roman historian and a Vatican MS. , is disputed bythe biographer of Petrarch, (tom. Ii. Not. P. 70--76), with argumentsrather of decency than of weight. The court of Avignon might not chooseto agitate this delicate question. ]

[Footnote 39: The summons of the two rival emperors, a monument offreedom and folly, is extant in Hocsemius, (Cerçeau, p. 163--166. )]

[Footnote 40: It is singular, that the Roman historian should haveoverlooked this sevenfold coronation, which is sufficiently proved byinternal 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 comparisonbetween himself and our Lord; and the striking circumstance took placewhich he relates in his letter to the archbishop of Prague. In the midstof all the wild and joyous exultation of the people, one of his mostzealous supporters, a monk, who was in high repute for his sanctity, stood apart in a corner of the church and wept bitterly! A domesticchaplain of Rienzi's inquired the cause of his grief. "Now, " repliedthe man of God, "is thy master cast down from heaven--never saw I man soproud. By the aid of the Holy Ghost he has driven the tyrants from thecity without drawing a sword; the cities and the sovereigns of Italyhave submitted to his power. Why is he so arrogant and ungratefultowards the Most High? Why does he seek earthly and transitory rewardsfor 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 ofpenitence. " In the evening the chaplain communicated this solemn rebuketo the tribune: it appalled him for the time, but was soon forgotten inthe tumult and hurry of business. --M. 1845. ]

A simple citizen describes with pity, or perhaps with pleasure, thehumiliation of the barons of Rome. "Bareheaded, their hands crossedon their breast, they stood with downcast looks in the presence of thetribune; and they trembled, good God, how they trembled!" [41] As longas the yoke of Rienzi was that of justice and their country, theirconscience forced them to esteem the man, whom pride and interestprovoked them to hate: his extravagant conduct soon fortified theirhatred by contempt; and they conceived the hope of subverting a powerwhich was no longer so deeply rooted in the public confidence. The oldanimosity of the Colonna and Ursini was suspended for a moment bytheir common disgrace: they associated their wishes, and perhaps theirdesigns; an assassin was seized and tortured; he accused the nobles;and as soon as Rienzi deserved the fate, he adopted the suspicionsand maxims, of a tyrant. On the same day, under various pretences, he invited to the Capitol his principal enemies, among whom were fivemembers of the Ursini and three of the Colonna name. But instead of acouncil or a banquet, they found themselves prisoners under the sword ofdespotism or justice; and the consciousness of innocence or guilt mightinspire them with equal apprehensions of danger. At the sound of thegreat bell the people assembled; they were arraigned for a conspiracyagainst the tribune's life; and though some might sympathize in theirdistress, not a hand, nor a voice, was raised to rescue the first of thenobility from their impending doom. Their apparent boldness was promptedby despair; they passed in separate chambers a sleepless and painfulnight; and the venerable hero, Stephen Colonna, striking against thedoor of his prison, repeatedly urged his guards to deliver him bya speedy death from such ignominious servitude. In the morning theyunderstood their sentence from the visit of a confessor and the tollingof the bell. The great hall of the Capitol had been decorated for thebloody scene with red and white hangings: the countenance of the tribunewas dark and severe; the swords of the executioners were unsheathed;and the barons were interrupted in their dying speeches by the sound oftrumpets. But in this decisive moment, Rienzi was not less anxious orapprehensive than his captives: he dreaded the splendor of their names, their surviving kinsmen, the inconstancy of the people the reproachesof the world, and, after rashly offering a mortal injury, he vainlypresumed that, if he could forgive, he might himself be forgiven. Hiselaborate oration was that of a Christian and a suppliant; and, as thehumble minister of the commons, he entreated his masters to pardon thesenoble criminals, for whose repentance and future service he pledgedhis faith and authority. "If you are spared, " said the tribune, "by themercy of the Romans, will you not promise to support the good estatewith your lives and fortunes?" Astonished by this marvellous clemency, the barons bowed their heads; and while they devoutly repeated the oathof allegiance, might whisper a secret, and more sincere, assuranceof revenge. A priest, in the name of the people, pronounced theirabsolution: they received the communion with the tribune, assisted atthe banquet, followed the procession; and, after every spiritual andtemporal sign of reconciliation, were dismissed in safety to theirrespective homes, with the new honors and titles of generals, consuls, and patricians. [42]

[Footnote 41: Puoi se faceva stare denante a se, mentre sedeva, libaroni tutti in piedi ritti co le vraccia piecate, e co li capuccitratti. Deh como stavano paurosi! (Hist. Rom. L. Ii. C. 20, p. 439. ) Hesaw them, and we see them. ]

[Footnote 42: The original letter, in which Rienzi justifies histreatment of the Colonna, (Hocsemius, apud du Cerçeau, 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 standardof rebellion. The fortifications of the castle were instantly restored;the vassals attended their lord; the outlaws armed against themagistrate; the flocks and herds, the harvests and vineyards, fromMarino to the gates of Rome, were swept away or destroyed; and thepeople arraigned Rienzi as the author of the calamities which hisgovernment had taught them to forget. In the camp, Rienzi appeared toless advantage than in the rostrum; and he neglected the progress ofthe rebel barons till their numbers were strong, and their castlesimpregnable. From the pages of Livy he had not imbibed the art, or eventhe courage, of a general: an army of twenty thousand Romans returnedwithout honor or effect from the attack of Marino; and his vengeance wasamused by painting his enemies, their heads downwards, and drowning twodogs (at least they should have been bears) as the representatives ofthe 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 Romeby force or surprise. The city was prepared for their reception;the alarm-bell rung all night; the gates were strictly guarded, orinsolently open; and after some hesitation they sounded a retreat. Thetwo first divisions had passed along the walls, but the prospect of afree entrance tempted the headstrong valor of the nobles in the rear;and after a successful skirmish, they were overthrown and massacredwithout quarter by the crowds of the Roman people. Stephen Colonna theyounger, the noble spirit to whom Petrarch ascribed the restoration ofItaly, was preceded or accompanied in death by his son John, a gallantyouth, by his brother Peter, who might regret the ease and honors ofthe church, by a nephew of legitimate birth, and by two bastards ofthe Colonna race; and the number of seven, the seven crowns, as Rienzistyled them, of the Holy Ghost, was completed by the agony of thedeplorable parent, and the veteran chief, who had survived the hope andfortune of his house. The vision and prophecies of St. Martin and PopeBoniface had been used by the tribune to animate his troops: [43] hedisplayed, at least in the pursuit, the spirit of a hero; but he forgotthe maxims of the ancient Romans, who abhorred the triumphs of civilwar. The conqueror ascended the Capitol; deposited his crown and sceptreon 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 baseand implacable revenge denied the honors of burial; and the bodies ofthe Colonna, which he threatened to expose with those of the vilestmalefactors, were secretly interred by the holy virgins of their nameand family. [45] The people sympathized in their grief, repented of theirown fury, and detested the indecent joy of Rienzi, who visited the spotwhere these illustrious victims had fallen. It was on that fatal spotthat he conferred on his son the honor of knighthood: and the ceremonywas accomplished by a slight blow from each of the horsemen of theguard, 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, andthe Roman people, the glory of the day, which Villani likewise (l. 12, c. 104) describes as a regular battle. The disorderly skirmish, theflight of the Romans, and the cowardice of Rienzi, are painted in thesimple 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 ofthe family of Stephen the elder, who is often confounded by the P. DuCerçeau with his son. That family was extinguished, but the house hasbeen perpetuated in the collateral branches, of which I have not a veryaccurate knowledge. Circumspice (says Petrarch) familiæ tuæ statum, Columniensium _domos_: solito pauciores habeat columnas. Quid ad remmodo fundamentum stabile, solidumque permaneat. ]

[Footnote 45: The convent of St. Silvester was founded, endowed, andprotected by the Colonna cardinals, for the daughters of the familywho embraced a monastic life, and who, in the year 1318, were twelvein number. The others were allowed to marry with their kinsmen in thefourth degree, and the dispensation was justified by the small numberand close alliances of the noble families of Rome, (Mémoires surPétrarque, 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 thepatriot. Nulla toto orbe principum familia carior; carior tamenrespublica, carior Roma, carior Italia. ----Je rends graces aux Dieux de n'être 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 prideof victory, he forfeited what yet remained of his civil virtues, withoutacquiring the fame of military prowess. A free and vigorous oppositionwas formed in the city; and when the tribune proposed in the publiccouncil [47] to impose a new tax, and to regulate the government ofPerugia, thirty-nine members voted against his measures; repelled theinjurious charge of treachery and corruption; and urged him to prove, bytheir forcible exclusion, that if the populace adhered to his cause, itwas already disclaimed by the most respectable citizens. The pope andthe sacred college had never been dazzled by his specious professions;they were justly offended by the insolence of his conduct; a cardinallegate was sent to Italy, and after some fruitless treaty, and twopersonal interviews, he fulminated a bull of excommunication, in whichthe tribune is degraded from his office, and branded with the guilt ofrebellion, sacrilege, and heresy. [48] The surviving barons of Rome werenow humbled to a sense of allegiance; their interest and revenge engagedthem in the service of the church; but as the fate of the Colonna wasbefore their eyes, they abandoned to a private adventurer the periland glory of the revolution. John Pepin, count of Minorbino, [49] in thekingdom 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 onehundred and fifty soldiers, the count of Minorbino introduced himselfinto Rome; barricaded the quarter of the Colonna: and found theenterprise as easy as it had seemed impossible. From the first alarm, the bell of the Capitol incessantly tolled; but, instead of repairingto the well-known sound, the people were silent and inactive; and thepusillanimous 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 byPollistore, a contemporary writer, who has preserved some curious andoriginal facts, (Rer. Italicarum, tom. Xxv. C. 31, p. 798--804. )]

[Footnote 48: The briefs and bulls of Clement VI. Against Rienzi aretranslated by the P. Du Cerçeau, (p. 196, 232, ) from the EcclesiasticalAnnals of Odericus Raynaldus, (A. D. 1347, No. 15, 17, 21, &c. , ) whofound them in the archives of the Vatican. ]

[Footnote 49: Matteo Villani describes the origin, character, and deathof this count of Minorbino, a man da natura inconstante e senza fede, whose grandfather, a crafty notary, was enriched and ennobled bythe spoils of the Saracens of Nocera, (l. Vii. C. 102, 103. ) See hisimprisonment, 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 thechurch; three senators were chosen, and the legate, assuming the firstrank, accepted his two colleagues from the rival families of Colonna andUrsini. The acts of the tribune were abolished, his head was proscribed;yet such was the terror of his name, that the barons hesitated threedays before they would trust themselves in the city, and Rienzi wasleft above a month in the castle of St. Angelo, from whence he peaceablywithdrew, after laboring, without effect, to revive the affection andcourage of the Romans. The vision of freedom and empire had vanished:their fallen spirit would have acquiesced in servitude, had it beensmoothed by tranquillity and order; and it was scarcely observed, thatthe new senators derived their authority from the Apostolic See; thatfour cardinals were appointed to reform, with dictatorial power, thestate of the republic. Rome was again agitated by the bloody feuds ofthe barons, who detested each other, and despised the commons: theirhostile fortresses, both in town and country, again rose, and were againdemolished: and the peaceful citizens, a flock of sheep, were devoured, says the Florentine historian, by these rapacious wolves. But whentheir pride and avarice had exhausted the patience of the Romans, aconfraternity of the Virgin Mary protected or avenged the republic: thebell of the Capitol was again tolled, the nobles in arms trembled inthe presence of an unarmed multitude; and of the two senators, Colonnaescaped from the window of the palace, and Ursini was stoned at the footof the altar. The dangerous office of tribune was successively occupiedby two plebeians, Cerroni and Baroncelli. The mildness of Cerroni wasunequal to the times; and after a faint struggle, he retired with a fairreputation and a decent fortune to the comforts of rural life. Devoid ofeloquence or genius, Baroncelli was distinguished by a resolute spirit:he spoke the language of a patriot, and trod in the footsteps oftyrants; his suspicion was a sentence of death, and his own death wasthe reward of his cruelties. Amidst the public misfortunes, the faultsof Rienzi were forgotten; and the Romans sighed for the peace andprosperity of their good estate. [50]

[Footnote 50: The troubles of Rome, from the departure to the return ofRienzi, 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 passedover these secondary characters, who imitated the original tribune. ]

After an exile of seven years, the first deliverer was again restored tohis country. In the disguise of a monk or a pilgrim, he escaped from thecastle of St. Angelo, implored the friendship of the king of Hungary atNaples, tempted the ambition of every bold adventurer, mingled at Romewith the pilgrims of the jubilee, lay concealed among the hermits ofthe Apennine, and wandered through the cities of Italy, Germany, andBohemia. His person was invisible, his name was yet formidable; andthe anxiety of the court of Avignon supposes, and even magnifies, his personal merit. The emperor Charles the Fourth gave audience to astranger, who frankly revealed himself as the tribune of the republic;and astonished an assembly of ambassadors and princes, by the eloquenceof a patriot and the visions of a prophet, the downfall of tyranny andthe kingdom of the Holy Ghost. [51] Whatever had been his hopes, Rienzifound himself a captive; but he supported a character of independenceand dignity, and obeyed, as his own choice, the irresistible summons ofthe supreme pontiff. The zeal of Petrarch, which had been cooled by theunworthy conduct, was rekindled by the sufferings and the presence, ofhis friend; and he boldly complains of the times, in which the savior ofRome was delivered by her emperor into the hands of her bishop. Rienziwas transported slowly, but in safe custody, from Prague to Avignon: hisentrance into the city was that of a malefactor; in his prison he waschained by the leg; and four cardinals were named to inquire into thecrimes of heresy and rebellion. But his trial and condemnation wouldhave involved some questions, which it was more prudent to leave underthe veil of mystery: the temporal supremacy of the popes; the duty ofresidence; the civil and ecclesiastical privileges of the clergy andpeople of Rome. The reigning pontiff well deserved the appellationof _Clement_: the strange vicissitudes and magnanimous spirit of thecaptive excited his pity and esteem; and Petrarch believes that herespected in the hero the name and sacred character of a poet. [52]Rienzi was indulged with an easy confinement and the use of books; andin the assiduous study of Livy and the Bible, he sought the cause andthe consolation of his misfortunes. 

[Footnote 51: These visions, of which the friends and enemies of Rienziseem alike ignorant, are surely magnified by the zeal of Pollistore, a Dominican inquisitor, (Rer. Ital. Tom. Xxv. C. 36, p. 819. ) Had thetribune taught, that Christ was succeeded by the Holy Ghost, that thetyranny of the pope would be abolished, he might have been convicted ofheresy and treason, without offending the Roman people. * Note:So far from having magnified these visions, Pollistore is morethan confirmed by the documents published by Papencordt. The adoption ofall the wild doctrines of the Fratricelli, the Spirituals, in which, for the time at least, Rienzi appears to have been in earnest; hismagnificent offers to the emperor, and the whole history of his life, from his first escape from Rome to his imprisonment at Avignon, areamong the most curious chapters of his eventful life. --M. 1845. ]

[Footnote 52: The astonishment, the envy almost, of Petrarch is aproof, if not of the truth of this incredible fact, at least of his ownveracity. The abbé de Sade (Mémoires, tom. Iii. P. 242) quotes the vithepistle 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 prospectof his deliverance and restoration; and the court of Avignon waspersuaded, that the successful rebel could alone appease and reform theanarchy of the metropolis. After a solemn profession of fidelity, theRoman tribune was sent into Italy, with the title of senator; but thedeath of Baroncelli appeared to supersede the use of his mission; andthe legate, Cardinal Albornoz, [53] a consummate statesman, allowed himwith reluctance, and without aid, to undertake the perilous experiment. His first reception was equal to his wishes: the day of his entrance wasa public festival; and his eloquence and authority revived the laws ofthe good estate. But this momentary sunshine was soon clouded by his ownvices and those of the people: in the Capitol, he might often regretthe prison of Avignon; and after a second administration of four months, Rienzi was massacred in a tumult which had been fomented by the Romanbarons. In the society of the Germans and Bohemians, he is said to havecontracted the habits of intemperance and cruelty: adversity had chilledhis enthusiasm, without fortifying his reason or virtue; and thatyouthful hope, that lively assurance, which is the pledge of success, was now succeeded by the cold impotence of distrust and despair. Thetribune had reigned with absolute dominion, by the choice, and in thehearts, of the Romans: the senator was the servile minister of a foreigncourt; and while he was suspected by the people, he was abandoned by theprince. The legate Albornoz, who seemed desirous of his ruin, inflexiblyrefused all supplies of men and money; a faithful subject could nolonger presume to touch the revenues of the apostolical chamber; andthe first idea of a tax was the signal of clamor and sedition. Even hisjustice was tainted with the guilt or reproach of selfish cruelty: themost virtuous citizen of Rome was sacrificed to his jealousy; and in theexecution of a public robber, from whose purse he had been assisted, themagistrate too much forgot, or too much remembered, the obligations ofthe debtor. [54] A civil war exhausted his treasures, and the patienceof the city: the Colonna maintained their hostile station at Palestrina;and his mercenaries soon despised a leader whose ignorance and fearwere envious of all subordinate merit. In the death, as in the life, ofRienzi, the hero and the coward were strangely mingled. When the Capitolwas invested by a furious multitude, when he was basely deserted by hiscivil and military servants, the intrepid senator, waving the banner ofliberty, presented himself on the balcony, addressed his eloquence tothe various passions of the Romans, and labored to persuade them, thatin the same cause himself and the republic must either stand or fall. His oration was interrupted by a volley of imprecations and stones; andafter 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 asheet before the windows of the prison. Destitute of aid or hope, he wasbesieged till the evening: the doors of the Capitol were destroyed withaxes and fire; and while the senator attempted to escape in a plebeianhabit, he was discovered and dragged to the platform of the palace, thefatal scene of his judgments and executions. A whole hour, without voiceor motion, he stood amidst the multitude half naked and half dead:their rage was hushed into curiosity and wonder: the last feelings ofreverence and compassion yet struggled in his favor; and they might haveprevailed, if a bold assassin had not plunged a dagger in his breast. He fell senseless with the first stroke: the impotent revenge ofhis enemies inflicted a thousand wounds: and the senator's body wasabandoned to the dogs, to the Jews, and to the flames. Posterity willcompare the virtues and failings of this extraordinary man; but in along period of anarchy and servitude, the name of Rienzi has often beencelebrated as the deliverer of his country, and the last of the Romanpatriots. [55]

[Footnote 53: Ægidius, or Giles Albornoz, a noble Spaniard, archbishopof Toledo, and cardinal legate in Italy, (A. D. 1353--1367, ) restored, byhis arms and counsels, the temporal dominion of the popes. His life hasbeen separately written by Sepulveda; but Dryden could not reasonablysuppose, that his name, or that of Wolsey, had reached the ears of theMufti in Don Sebastian. ]

[Footnote 54: From Matteo Villani and Fortifiocca, the P. Du Cerçeau (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 freecompany, the first that desolated Italy, he became rich and formidablebe had money in all the banks, --60, 000 ducats in Padua alone. ]

[Footnote 55: The exile, second government, and death of Rienzi, areminutely related by the anonymous Roman, who appears neither his friendnor 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 afree republic; but after the exile and death of his plebeian hero, he turned his eyes from the tribune, to the king, of the Romans. TheCapitol was yet stained with the blood of Rienzi, when Charles theFourth descended from the Alps to obtain the Italian and Imperialcrowns. In his passage through Milan he received the visit, and repaidthe flattery, of the poet-laureate; accepted a medal of Augustus; andpromised, without a smile, to imitate the founder of the Roman monarchy. A false application of the name and maxims of antiquity was the sourceof the hopes and disappointments of Petrarch; yet he could not overlookthe difference of times and characters; the immeasurable distancebetween the first Cæsars and a Bohemian prince, who by the favor ofthe clergy had been elected the titular head of the German aristocracy. Instead of restoring to Rome her glory and her provinces, he had boundhimself by a secret treaty with the pope, to evacuate the city on theday of his coronation; and his shameful retreat was pursued by thereproaches of the patriot bard. [56]

[Footnote 56: The hopes and the disappointment of Petrarch are agreeablydescribed in his own words by the French biographer, (Mémoires, tom. Iii. P. 375--413;) but the deep, though secret, wound was the coronationof Zanubi, the poet-laureate, by Charles IV. ]

After the loss of liberty and empire, his third and more humble wish wasto reconcile the shepherd with his flock; to recall the Roman bishopto his ancient and peculiar diocese. In the fervor of youth, with theauthority of age, Petrarch addressed his exhortations to five successivepopes, and his eloquence was always inspired by the enthusiasm ofsentiment and the freedom of language. [57] The son of a citizen ofFlorence invariably preferred the country of his birth to that of hiseducation; and Italy, in his eyes, was the queen and garden of theworld. Amidst her domestic factions, she was doubtless superior toFrance both in art and science, in wealth and politeness; but thedifference could scarcely support the epithet of barbarous, which hepromiscuously bestows on the countries beyond the Alps. Avignon, themystic Babylon, the sink of vice and corruption, was the object of hishatred and contempt; but he forgets that her scandalous vices were notthe growth of the soil, and that in every residence they would adhere tothe power and luxury of the papal court. He confesses that the successorof St. Peter is the bishop of the universal church; yet it was not onthe banks of the Rhône, but of the Tyber, that the apostle had fixedhis everlasting throne; and while every city in the Christian world wasblessed with a bishop, the metropolis alone was desolate and forlorn. Since the removal of the Holy See, the sacred buildings of the Lateranand the Vatican, their altars and their saints, were left in a stateof poverty and decay; and Rome was often painted under the image of adisconsolate matron, as if the wandering husband could be reclaimed bythe homely portrait of the age and infirmities of his weeping spouse. [58] But the cloud which hung over the seven hills would be dispelled bythe presence of their lawful sovereign: eternal fame, the prosperity ofRome, and the peace of Italy, would be the recompense of the popewho should dare to embrace this generous resolution. Of the five whomPetrarch exhorted, the three first, John the Twenty-second, Benedictthe Twelfth, and Clement the Sixth, were importuned or amused bythe boldness of the orator; but the memorable change which had beenattempted by Urban the Fifth was finally accomplished by Gregory theEleventh. The execution of their design was opposed by weighty andalmost insuperable obstacles. A king of France, who has deserved theepithet of wise, was unwilling to release them from a local dependence:the cardinals, for the most part his subjects, were attached to thelanguage, manners, and climate of Avignon; to their stately palaces;above all, to the wines of Burgundy. In their eyes, Italy was foreignor hostile; and they reluctantly embarked at Marseilles, as if they hadbeen sold or banished into the land of the Saracens. Urban the Fifthresided three years in the Vatican with safety and honor: his sanctitywas 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, devoutlysaluted their common father in the chair of St. Peter. But the joy ofPetrarch and the Italians was soon turned into grief and indignation. Some reasons of public or private moment, his own impatience or theprayers of the cardinals, recalled Urban to France; and the approachingelection was saved from the tyrannic patriotism of the Romans. Thepowers of heaven were interested in their cause: Bridget of Sweden, asaint and pilgrim, disapproved the return, and foretold the death, ofUrban the Fifth: the migration of Gregory the Eleventh was encouragedby St. Catharine of Sienna, the spouse of Christ and ambassadress ofthe Florentines; and the popes themselves, the great masters of humancredulity, appear to have listened to these visionary females. [59] Yetthose celestial admonitions were supported by some arguments of temporalpolicy. The residents of Avignon had been invaded by hostile violence:at the head of thirty thousand robbers, a hero had extorted ransom andabsolution from the vicar of Christ and the sacred college; and themaxim of the French warriors, to spare the people and plunder thechurch, was a new heresy of the most dangerous import. [60] While thepope was driven from Avignon, he was strenuously invited to Rome. Thesenate and people acknowledged him as their lawful sovereign, and laidat his feet the keys of the gates, the bridges, and the fortresses;of the quarter at least beyond the Tyber. [61] But this loyal offerwas accompanied by a declaration, that they could no longer sufferthe scandal and calamity of his absence; and that his obstinacy wouldfinally provoke them to revive and assert the primitive right ofelection. The abbot of Mount Cassin had been consulted, whether he wouldaccept the triple crown [62] from the clergy and people: "I am a citizenof 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, theapplication 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. Hisangry controversy on the respective merits of France and Italy may befound, Opp. P. 1068--1085. ]

[Footnote 58: Squalida sed quoniam facies, neglectaque cultû Cæsaries; 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 toUrban 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 amusingstories. Their effect on the mind of Gregory XI. Is attested by thelast solemn words of the dying pope, who admonished the assistants, ut caverent ab hominibus, sive viris, sive mulieribus, sub speciereligionis loquentibus visiones sui capitis, quia per tales ipseseductus, &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, (CollectionGénérale des Mémoires Historiques, tom. Iv. C. 16, p. 107--113. ) Asearly as the year 1361, the court of Avignon had been molested bysimilar freebooters, who afterwards passed the Alps, (Mémoires surPétrarque, 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, betweenGregory 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 ofConstantine, or Clovis. The second was added by Boniface VIII. , as theemblem not only of a spiritual, but of a temporal, kingdom. The threestates of the church are represented by the triple crown which wasintroduced 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 Romanambassadors, and the resignation of the abbot of Mount Cassin, qui, ultro se offerens, respondit se civem Romanum esse, et illud velle quodipsi vellent. ]

[Footnote 64: The return of the popes from Avignon to Rome, and theirreception by the people, are related in the original lives of UrbanV. 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 wasseverely, though partially, scrutinized; more especially in the greatinquest, which decided the obedience of Castile, and to which Baluze, in his notes, so often and so largely appeals from a MS. Volume in theHarley library, (p. 1281, &c. )]

If superstition will interpret an untimely death, [65] if the merit ofcounsels be judged from the event, the heavens may seem to frown on ameasure of such apparent season and propriety. Gregory the Eleventh didnot survive above fourteen months his return to the Vatican; and hisdecease was followed by the great schism of the West, which distractedthe Latin church above forty years. The sacred college was then composedof twenty-two cardinals: six of these had remained at Avignon; elevenFrenchmen, one Spaniard, and four Italians, entered the conclave in theusual form. Their choice was not yet limited to the purple; and theirunanimous votes acquiesced in the archbishop of Bari, a subject ofNaples, conspicuous for his zeal and learning, who ascended the throneof St. Peter under the name of Urban the Sixth. The epistle of thesacred college affirms his free, and regular, election; which had beeninspired, as usual, by the Holy Ghost; he was adored, invested, andcrowned, with the customary rites; his temporal authority was obeyed atRome and Avignon, and his ecclesiastical supremacy was acknowledged inthe Latin world. During several weeks, the cardinals attended their newmaster with the fairest professions of attachment and loyalty; till thesummer heats permitted a decent escape from the city. But as soon asthey were united at Anagni and Fundi, in a place of security, theycast aside the mask, accused their own falsehood and hypocrisy, excommunicated the apostate and antichrist of Rome, and proceeded toa new election of Robert of Geneva, Clement the Seventh, whom theyannounced to the nations as the true and rightful vicar of Christ. Theirfirst choice, an involuntary and illegal act, was annulled by fear ofdeath and the menaces of the Romans; and their complaint is justifiedby the strong evidence of probability and fact. The twelve Frenchcardinals, above two thirds of the votes, were masters of the election;and whatever might be their provincial jealousies, it cannot fairly bepresumed that they would have sacrificed their right and interest to aforeign candidate, who would never restore them to their native country. In the various, and often inconsistent, narratives, [66] the shadesof popular violence are more darkly or faintly colored: but thelicentiousness of the seditious Romans was inflamed by a sense of theirprivileges, and the danger of a second emigration. The conclave wasintimidated by the shouts, and encompassed by the arms, of thirtythousand 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 wasrepeated by the twelve bannerets or chiefs of the quarters, in theform of charitable advice; some preparations were made for burning theobstinate cardinals; and had they chosen a Transalpine subject, it isprobable that they would never have departed alive from the Vatican. Thesame constraint imposed the necessity of dissembling in the eyes ofRome and of the world; the pride and cruelty of Urban presented a moreinevitable danger; and they soon discovered the features of the tyrant, who could walk in his garden and recite his breviary, while he heardfrom an adjacent chamber six cardinals groaning on the rack. Hisinflexible zeal, which loudly censured their luxury and vice, would haveattached them to the stations and duties of their parishes at Rome; andhad he not fatally delayed a new promotion, the French cardinals wouldhave been reduced to a helpless minority in the sacred college. Forthese reasons, and the hope of repassing the Alps, they rashly violatedthe peace and unity of the church; and the merits of their double choiceare yet agitated in the Catholic schools. [67] The vanity, rather thanthe interest, of the nation determined the court and clergy of France. [68] The states of Savoy, Sicily, Cyprus, Arragon, Castille, Navarre, andScotland were inclined by their example and authority to the obedienceof Clement the Seventh, and after his decease, of Benedict theThirteenth. Rome and the principal states of Italy, Germany, Portugal, England, [69] the Low Countries, and the kingdoms of the North, adheredto the prior election of Urban the Sixth, who was succeeded by Bonifacethe Ninth, Innocent the Seventh, and Gregory the Twelfth. 

[Footnote 65: Can the death of a good man be esteemed a punishmentby those who believe in the immortality of the soul? They betray theinstability of their faith. Yet as a mere philosopher, I cannot agreewith the Greeks, on oi Jeoi jilousin apoqnhskei neoV, (Brunck, PoetæGnomici, p. 231. ) See in Herodotus (l. I. C. 31) the moral and pleasingtale 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 theadherents of Urban and Clement, of the Italians and Germans, the Frenchand Spaniards. The latter appear to be the most active and loquacious, and every fact and word in the original lives of Gregory XI. And ClementVII. Are supported in the notes of their editor Baluze. ]

[Footnote 67: The ordinal numbers of the popes seems to decide thequestion against Clement VII. And Benedict XIII. , who are boldlystigmatized as antipopes by the Italians, while the French are contentwith authorities and reasons to plead the cause of doubt and toleration, (Baluz. In Præfat. ) It is singular, or rather it is not singular, thatsaints, visions and miracles should be common to both parties. ]

[Footnote 68: Baluze strenuously labors (Not. P. 1271--1280) to justifythe pure and pious motives of Charles V. King of France: he refused tohear the arguments of Urban; but were not the Urbanists equally deaf tothe 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 theEnglish nation against the Clementines. Nor was their zeal confined towords: 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 Rhône, the hostile pontiffsencountered each other with the pen and the sword: the civil andecclesiastical order of society was disturbed; and the Romans hadtheir full share of the mischiefs of which they may be arraigned as theprimary authors. [70] They had vainly flattered themselves with the hopeof restoring the seat of the ecclesiastical monarchy, and of relievingtheir poverty with the tributes and offerings of the nations; butthe separation of France and Spain diverted the stream of lucrativedevotion; nor could the loss be compensated by the two jubilees whichwere crowded into the space of ten years. By the avocations of theschism, by foreign arms, and popular tumults, Urban the Sixth and histhree successors were often compelled to interrupt their residence inthe 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 theirrebellion with the gibbet, the sword, and the dagger; and, in a friendlyconference, eleven deputies of the people were perfidiously murderedand cast into the street. Since the invasion of Robert the Norman, the Romans had pursued their domestic quarrels without the dangerousinterposition of a stranger. But in the disorders of the schism, anaspiring neighbor, Ladislaus king of Naples, alternately supportedand betrayed the pope and the people; by the former he was declared_gonfalonier_, or general, of the church, while the latter submitted tohis choice the nomination of their magistrates. Besieging Rome byland 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 thecastle of St. Angelo. His arms were sometimes unfortunate, and toa delay of three days he was indebted for his life and crown: butLadislaus triumphed in his turn; and it was only his premature deaththat could save the metropolis and the ecclesiastical state from theambitious 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 DelphinusGentilia Peter Antonius, and Stephen Infessura, in the great collectionof Muratori, represented the state and misfortunes of Rome. ]

[Footnote 71: It is supposed by Giannone (tom. Iii. P. 292) thathe styled himself Rex Romæ, a title unknown to the world since theexpulsion of Tarquin. But a nearer inspection has justified the readingof Rex R_a_mæ, of Rama, an obscure kingdom annexed to the crown ofHungary. ]

I have not undertaken the ecclesiastical history of the schism; butRome, the object of these last chapters, is deeply interested in thedisputed succession of her sovereigns. The first counsels for the peaceand union of Christendom arose from the university of Paris, from thefaculty of the Sorbonne, whose doctors were esteemed, at least in theGallican church, as the most consummate masters of theological science. [72] Prudently waiving all invidious inquiry into the origin and meritsof the dispute, they proposed, as a healing measure, that the twopretenders of Rome and Avignon should abdicate at the same time, afterqualifying the cardinals of the adverse factions to join in a legitimateelection; and that the nations should _subtract_ [73] their obedience, if either of the competitor preferred his own interest to that of thepublic. At each vacancy, these physicians of the church deprecated themischiefs of a hasty choice; but the policy of the conclave andthe ambition of its members were deaf to reason and entreaties; andwhatsoever promises were made, the pope could never be bound by theoaths of the cardinal. During fifteen years, the pacific designs of theuniversity were eluded by the arts of the rival pontiffs, the scruplesor passions of their adherents, and the vicissitudes of French factions, that ruled the insanity of Charles the Sixth. At length a vigorousresolution was embraced; and a solemn embassy, of the titular patriarchof Alexandria, two archbishops, five bishops, five abbots, threeknights, and twenty doctors, was sent to the courts of Avignon and Rome, to require, in the name of the church and king, the abdication ofthe two pretenders, of Peter de Luna, who styled himself Benedict theThirteenth, and of Angelo Corrario, who assumed the name of Gregorythe Twelfth. For the ancient honor of Rome, and the success of theircommission, the ambassadors solicited a conference with the magistratesof the city, whom they gratified by a positive declaration, that themost Christian king did not entertain a wish of transporting the holysee from the Vatican, which he considered as the genuine and proper seatof the successor of St. Peter. In the name of the senate and people, aneloquent Roman asserted their desire to cooperate in the union of thechurch, deplored the temporal and spiritual calamities of the longschism, and requested the protection of France against the arms of theking of Naples. The answers of Benedict and Gregory were alike edifyingand alike deceitful; and, in evading the demand of their abdication, the two rivals were animated by a common spirit. They agreed on thenecessity of a previous interview; but the time, the place, and themanner, could never be ascertained by mutual consent. "If the oneadvances, " says a servant of Gregory, "the other retreats; the oneappears an animal fearful of the land, the other a creature apprehensiveof the water. And thus, for a short remnant of life and power, willthese aged priests endanger the peace and salvation of the Christianworld. " [74]

[Footnote 72: The leading and decisive part which France assumed in theschism is stated by Peter du Puis in a separate history, extracted fromauthentic records, and inserted in the seventh volume of the last andbest edition of his friend Thuanus, (P. Xi. P. 110--184. )]

[Footnote 73: Of this measure, John Gerson, a stout doctor, was theauthor of the champion. The proceedings of the university of Paris andthe Gallican church were often prompted by his advice, and are copiouslydisplayed in his theological writings, of which Le Clerc (BibliothèqueChoisie, tom. X. P. 1--78) has given a valuable extract. John Gersonacted an important part in the councils of Pisa and Constance. ]

[Footnote 74: Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, one of the revivers of classiclearning in Italy, who, after serving many years as secretary in theRoman court, retired to the honorable office of chancellor of therepublic of Florence, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii Ævi, 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 andfraud: they were deserted by their cardinals, who embraced each otheras friends and colleagues; and their revolt was supported by a numerousassembly of prelates and ambassadors. With equal justice, the council ofPisa deposed the popes of Rome and Avignon; the conclave was unanimousin the choice of Alexander the Fifth, and his vacant seat was soonfilled by a similar election of John the Twenty-third, the mostprofligate of mankind. But instead of extinguishing the schism, therashness of the French and Italians had given a third pretender tothe chair of St. Peter. Such new claims of the synod and conclave weredisputed; three kings, of Germany, Hungary, and Naples, adhered to thecause of Gregory the Twelfth; and Benedict the Thirteenth, himselfa Spaniard, was acknowledged by the devotion and patriotism of thatpowerful nation. The rash proceedings of Pisa were corrected by thecouncil of Constance; the emperor Sigismond acted a conspicuous partas the advocate or protector of the Catholic church; and the number andweight of civil and ecclesiastical members might seem to constitute thestates-general of Europe. Of the three popes, John the Twenty-thirdwas the first victim: he fled and was brought back a prisoner: the mostscandalous charges were suppressed; the vicar of Christ was only accusedof piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and incest; and after subscribing hisown condemnation, he expiated in prison the imprudence of trustinghis person to a free city beyond the Alps. Gregory the Twelfth, whoseobedience was reduced to the narrow precincts of Rimini, descended withmore honor from the throne; and his ambassador convened the session, inwhich he renounced the title and authority of lawful pope. To vanquishthe obstinacy of Benedict the Thirteenth or his adherents, the emperorin person undertook a journey from Constance to Perpignan. The kings ofCastile, Arragon, Navarre, and Scotland, obtained an equal and honorabletreaty; with the concurrence of the Spaniards, Benedict was deposed bythe council; but the harmless old man was left in a solitary castle toexcommunicate twice each day the rebel kingdoms which had deserted hiscause. After thus eradicating the remains of the schism, the synod ofConstance proceeded with slow and cautious steps to elect the sovereignof Rome and the head of the church. On this momentous occasion, thecollege of twenty-three cardinals was fortified with thirty deputies;six of whom were chosen in each of the five great nations ofChristendom, --the Italian, the German, the French, the Spanish, andthe _English_: [75] the interference of strangers was softened by theirgenerous preference of an Italian and a Roman; and the hereditary, aswell as personal, merit of Otho Colonna recommended him to the conclave. Rome accepted with joy and obedience the noblest of her sons; theecclesiastical state was defended by his powerful family; and theelevation of Martin the Fifth is the æra of the restoration andestablishment of the popes in the Vatican. [76]

[Footnote 75: I cannot overlook this great national cause, which wasvigorously maintained by the English ambassadors against thoseof France. The latter contended, that Christendom was essentiallydistributed 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 thesegreat divisions. The English asserted, that the British islands, ofwhich they were the head, should be considered as a fifth and coördinatenation, with an equal vote; and every argument of truth or fable wasintroduced to exalt the dignity of their country. Including England, Scotland, Wales, the four kingdoms of Ireland, and the Orkneys, theBritish Islands are decorated with eight royal crowns, and discriminatedby 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 parishchurches, (a bold account!) besides cathedrals, colleges, priories, andhospitals. They celebrate the mission of St. Joseph of Arimathea, thebirth 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. OfConstantinople, 3. Of Ireland, which had been transferred to the Englishmonarchs, 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 himprinted in 1517 at Louvain. From a Leipsic MS. They are more correctlypublished in the collection of Von der Hardt, tom. V. ; but I have onlyseen 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 ofcandor, 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 theCollection. ]

Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State. --Part IV. 

The royal prerogative of coining money, which had been exercised nearthree hundred years by the senate, was _first_ resumed by Martin theFifth, [77] and his image and superscription introduce the series of thepapal medals. Of his two immediate successors, Eugenius the Fourth wasthe _last_ pope expelled by the tumults of the Roman people, [78] andNicholas the Fifth, the _last_ who was importuned by the presence ofa Roman emperor. [79] I. The conflict of Eugenius with the fathers ofBasil, and the weight or apprehension of a new excise, emboldened andprovoked the Romans to usurp the temporal government of the city. Theyrose in arms, elected seven governors of the republic, and a constableof the Capitol; imprisoned the pope's nephew; besieged his person in thepalace; and shot volleys of arrows into his bark as he escaped down theTyber in the habit of a monk. But he still possessed in the castle ofSt. Angelo a faithful garrison and a train of artillery: their batteriesincessantly thundered on the city, and a bullet more dexterously pointedbroke down the barricade of the bridge, and scattered with a single shotthe heroes of the republic. Their constancy was exhausted by a rebellionof five months. Under the tyranny of the Ghibeline nobles, the wisestpatriots regretted the dominion of the church; and their repentancewas unanimous and effectual. The troops of St. Peter again occupied theCapitol; the magistrates departed to their homes; the most guilty wereexecuted or exiled; and the legate, at the head of two thousand foot andfour thousand horse, was saluted as the father of the city. The synodsof Ferrara and Florence, the fear or resentment of Eugenius, prolongedhis absence: he was received by a submissive people; but the pontiffunderstood from the acclamations of his triumphal entry, that to securetheir loyalty and his own repose, he must grant without delay theabolition of the odious excise. II. Rome was restored, adorned, andenlightened, by the peaceful reign of Nicholas the Fifth. In the midstof these laudable occupations, the pope was alarmed by the approach ofFrederic the Third of Austria; though his fears could not be justifiedby the character or the power of the Imperial candidate. After drawinghis military force to the metropolis, and imposing the best security ofoaths [80] and treaties, Nicholas received with a smiling countenance thefaithful advocate and vassal of the church. So tame were the times, so feeble was the Austrian, that the pomp of his coronation wasaccomplished with order and harmony: but the superfluous honor was sodisgraceful to an independent nation, that his successors have excusedthemselves from the toilsome pilgrimage to the Vatican; and rest theirImperial title on the choice of the electors of Germany. 

[Footnote 77: See the xxviith Dissertation of the Antiquities ofMuratori, and the 1st Instruction of the Science des Medailles of thePère Joubert and the Baron de la Bastie. The Metallic History of MartinV. And his successors has been composed by two monks, Moulinet, aFrenchman, and Bonanni, an Italian: but I understand, that the firstpart 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 Petroniand Stephen Infessura are the best original evidence for the revolt ofthe Romans against Eugenius IV. The former, who lived at the time and onthe spot, speaks the language of a citizen, equally afraid of priestlyand popular tyranny. ]

[Footnote 79: The coronation of Frederic III. Is described by Lenfant, (Concile de Basle, tom. Ii. P. 276--288, ) from Æneas Sylvius, aspectator and actor in that splendid scene. ]

[Footnote 80: The oath of fidelity imposed on the emperor by the pope isrecorded and sanctified in the Clementines, (l. Ii. Tit. Ix. ;) and ÆneasSylvius, who objects to this new demand, could not foresee, that ina few years he should ascend the throne, and imbibe the maxims, ofBoniface VIII. ]

A citizen has remarked, with pride and pleasure, that the king of theRomans, after passing with a slight salute the cardinals and prelateswho met him at the gate, distinguished the dress and person of thesenator of Rome; and in this last farewell, the pageants of the empireand the republic were clasped in a friendly embrace. [81] According tothe laws of Rome, [82] her first magistrate was required to be a doctorof laws, an alien, of a place at least forty miles from the city; withwhose inhabitants he must not be connected in the third canonical degreeof blood or alliance. The election was annual: a severe scrutiny wasinstituted into the conduct of the departing senator; nor could he berecalled to the same office till after the expiration of two years. Aliberal salary of three thousand florins was assigned for his expenseand reward; and his public appearance represented the majesty of therepublic. His robes were of gold brocade or crimson velvet, or in thesummer season of a lighter silk: he bore in his hand an ivory sceptre;the sound of trumpets announced his approach; and his solemn steps werepreceded at least by four lictors or attendants, whose red wands wereenveloped with bands or streamers of the golden color or livery of thecity. His oath in the Capitol proclaims his right and duty to observeand assert the laws, to control the proud, to protect the poor, and toexercise justice and mercy within the extent of his jurisdiction. Inthese useful functions he was assisted by three learned strangers; thetwo _collaterals_, and the judge of criminal appeals: their frequenttrials of robberies, rapes, and murders, are attested by the laws; andthe weakness of these laws connives at the licentiousness of privatefeuds and armed associations for mutual defence. But the senator wasconfined to the administration of justice: the Capitol, the treasury, and the government of the city and its territory, were intrusted tothe three _conservators_, who were changed four times in each year: themilitia of the thirteen regions assembled under the banners oftheir respective chiefs, or _caporioni_; and the first of these wasdistinguished by the name and dignity of the _prior_. The popularlegislature consisted of the secret and the common councils of theRomans. The former was composed of the magistrates and their immediatepredecessors, with some fiscal and legal officers, and three classes ofthirteen, twenty-six, and forty, counsellors: amounting in the wholeto about one hundred and twenty persons. In the common council allmale citizens had a right to vote; and the value of their privilegewas enhanced by the care with which any foreigners were prevented fromusurping the title and character of Romans. The tumult of a democracywas checked by wise and jealous precautions: except the magistrates, none could propose a question; none were permitted to speak, except froman open pulpit or tribunal; all disorderly acclamations were suppressed;the sense of the majority was decided by a secret ballot; and theirdecrees were promulgated in the venerable name of the Roman senate andpeople. It would not be easy to assign a period in which this theory ofgovernment has been reduced to accurate and constant practice, since theestablishment of order has been gradually connected with the decayof liberty. But in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty theancient statutes were collected, methodized in three books, and adaptedto present use, under the pontificate, and with the approbation, ofGregory the Thirteenth: [83] this civil and criminal code is the modernlaw of the city; and, if the popular assemblies have been abolished, a foreign senator, with the three conservators, still resides in thepalace of the Capitol. [84] The policy of the Cæsars has been repeatedby the popes; and the bishop of Rome affected to maintain the form ofa republic, while he reigned with the absolute powers of a temporal, aswell as a spiritual, monarch. 

[Footnote 81: Lo senatore di Roma, vestito di brocarto con quellaberetta, e con quelle maniche, et ornamenti di pelle, co' quali va allefeste di Testaccio e Nagone, might escape the eye of Æneas 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 threejudges_, (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 _secretcouncil_, (l. Iii. C. 2, ) the _common council_, (l. Iii. C. 3. ) Thetitle of _feuds_, _defiances_, _acts of violence_, &c. , is spreadthrough many a chapter (c. 14--40) of the second book. ]

[Footnote 83: _Statuta alm Urbis Rom Auctoritate S. D. N. Gregorii XIIIPont. Max. A Senatu Populoque Rom. Reformata et edita. Rom, 1580, infolio_. The obsolete, repugnant statutes of antiquity were confounded infive books, and Lucas Pætus, a lawyer and antiquarian, was appointed toact as the modern Tribonian. Yet I regret the old code, with the ruggedcrust of freedom and barbarism. ]

[Footnote 84: In my time (1765) and in M. Grosley's, (Observations surl'Italie torn. Ii. P. 361, ) the senator of Rome was M. Bielke, a nobleSwede and a proselyte to the Catholic faith. The pope's right to appointthe senator and the conservator is implied, rather than affirmed, in thestatutes. ]

It is an obvious truth, that the times must be suited to extraordinarycharacters, and that the genius of Cromwell or Retz might now expirein obscurity. The political enthusiasm of Rienzi had exalted him to athrone; the same enthusiasm, in the next century, conducted his imitatorto the gallows. The birth of Stephen Porcaro was noble, his reputationspotless: his tongue was armed with eloquence, his mind was enlightenedwith learning; and he aspired, beyond the aim of vulgar ambition, tofree his country and immortalize his name. The dominion of priests ismost odious to a liberal spirit: every scruple was removed by the recentknowledge of the fable and forgery of Constantine's donation; Petrarchwas now the oracle of the Italians; and as often as Porcaro revolved theode which describes the patriot and hero of Rome, he applied to himselfthe visions of the prophetic bard. His first trial of the popularfeelings was at the funeral of Eugenius the Fourth: in an elaboratespeech he called the Romans to liberty and arms; and they listened withapparent pleasure, till Porcaro was interrupted and answered by agrave advocate, who pleaded for the church and state. By every law theseditious orator was guilty of treason; but the benevolence of the newpontiff, who viewed his character with pity and esteem, attempted by anhonorable office to convert the patriot into a friend. The inflexibleRoman returned from Anagni with an increase of reputation and zeal; and, on the first opportunity, the games of the place Navona, he tried toinflame the casual dispute of some boys and mechanics into a generalrising of the people. Yet the humane Nicholas was still averse to acceptthe forfeit of his life; and the traitor was removed from the scene oftemptation to Bologna, with a liberal allowance for his support, and theeasy obligation of presenting himself each day before the governor ofthe city. But Porcaro had learned from the younger Brutus, that withtyrants no faith or gratitude should be observed: the exile declaimedagainst the arbitrary sentence; a party and a conspiracy were graduallyformed: his nephew, a daring youth, assembled a band of volunteers;and on the appointed evening a feast was prepared at his house for thefriends of the republic. Their leader, who had escaped from Bologna, appeared among them in a robe of purple and gold: his voice, hiscountenance, his gestures, bespoke the man who had devoted his life ordeath to the glorious cause. In a studied oration, he expiated on themotives and the means of their enterprise; the name and liberties ofRome; the sloth and pride of their ecclesiastical tyrants; the activeor passive consent of their fellow-citizens; three hundred soldiers, andfour hundred exiles, long exercised in arms or in wrongs; the licenseof revenge to edge their swords, and a million of ducats to reward theirvictory. It would be easy, (he said, ) on the next day, the festival ofthe Epiphany, to seize the pope and his cardinals, before the doors, orat the altar, of St. Peter's; to lead them in chains under the walls ofSt. Angelo; to extort by the threat of their instant death a surrenderof the castle; to ascend the vacant Capitol; to ring the alarm bell; andto restore in a popular assembly the ancient republic of Rome. While hetriumphed, 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 hisenemies had anticipated by three hours the execution of his design. After such manifest and repeated guilt, even the mercy of Nicholas wassilent. Porcaro, and nine of his accomplices, were hanged without thebenefit of the sacraments; and, amidst the fears and invectives of thepapal court, the Romans pitied, and almost applauded, these martyrs oftheir country. [85] But their applause was mute, their pity ineffectual, their liberty forever extinct; and, if they have since risen in avacancy of the throne or a scarcity of bread, such accidental tumultsmay be found in the bosom of the most abject servitude. 

[Footnote 85: Besides the curious, though concise, narrative ofMachiavel, (Istoria Florentina, l. Vi. Opere, tom. I. P. 210, 211, edit. Londra, 1747, in 4to. ) the Porcarian conspiracy is related in the Diaryof Stephen Infessura, (Rer. Ital. Tom. Iii. P. Ii. P. 1134, 1135, ) andin a separate tract by Leo Baptista Alberti, (Rer. Ital. Tom. Xxv. P. 609--614. ) It is amusing to compare the style and sentiments ofthe courtier and citizen. Facinus profecto quo. .. . Neque periculohorribilius, neque audaciâ detestabilius, neque crudelitate tetrius, aquoquam perditissimo uspiam excogitatum sit. .. . Perdette la vita quell'huomo da bene, e amatore dello bene e libertà 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. Aprivilege of rapine and oppression was long maintained by the barons ofRome; their houses were a fortress and a sanctuary: and the ferocioustrain of banditti and criminals whom they protected from the law repaidthe hospitality with the service of their swords and daggers. Theprivate interest of the pontiffs, or their nephews, sometimes involvedthem in these domestic feuds. Under the reign of Sixtus the Fourth, Romewas distracted by the battles and sieges of the rival houses: after theconflagration of his palace, the prothonotary Colonna was tortured andbeheaded; and Savelli, his captive friend, was murdered on the spot, forrefusing to join in the acclamations of the victorious Ursini. [86]But the popes no longer trembled in the Vatican: they had strengthto command, if they had resolution to claim, the obedience of theirsubjects; and the strangers, who observed these partial disorders, admired the easy taxes and wise administration of the ecclesiasticalstate. [87]

[Footnote 86: The disorders of Rome, which were much inflamed by thepartiality of Sixtus IV. Are exposed in the Diaries of two spectators, Stephen Infessura, and an anonymous citizen. See the troubles of theyear 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 cettepartialité (des Colonnes et des Ursins) come nous dirions Luce etGrammont, ou en Hollande Houc et Caballan; et quand ce ne seroit cedifférend la terre de l'église seroit la plus heureuse habitation pourles sujets qui soit dans toute le monde (car ils ne payent ni tailles niguères autres choses, ) et seroient toujours bien conduits, (car toujoursles papes sont sages et bien consellies;) mais très souvent en advientde 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 mayidly waste itself in the air; and the helpless priest is exposed tothe brutal violence of a noble or a plebeian adversary. But after theirreturn from Avignon, the keys of St. Peter were guarded by the swordof St. Paul. Rome was commanded by an impregnable citadel: the use ofcannon is a powerful engine against popular seditions: a regular forceof cavalry and infantry was enlisted under the banners of the pope: hisample revenues supplied the resources of war: and, from the extent ofhis domain, he could bring down on a rebellious city an army of hostileneighbors and loyal subjects. [88] Since the union of the duchiesof Ferrara and Urbino, the ecclesiastical state extends from theMediterranean to the Adriatic, and from the confines of Naples to thebanks of the Po; and as early as the sixteenth century, the greater partof that spacious and fruitful country acknowledged the lawful claims andtemporal sovereignty of the Roman pontiffs. Their claims were readilydeduced from the genuine, or fabulous, donations of the darker ages: thesuccessive steps of their final settlement would engage us too far inthe transactions of Italy, and even of Europe; the crimes of Alexanderthe Sixth, the martial operations of Julius the Second, and the liberalpolicy of Leo the Tenth, a theme which has been adorned by the pens ofthe noblest historians of the times. [89] In the first period of theirconquests, till the expedition of Charles the Eighth, the popes mightsuccessfully wrestle with the adjacent princes and states, whosemilitary force was equal, or inferior, to their own. But as soon as themonarchs of France, Germany and Spain, contended with gigantic armsfor the dominion of Italy, they supplied with art the deficiency ofstrength; and concealed, in a labyrinth of wars and treaties, theiraspiring views, and the immortal hope of chasing the Barbarians beyondthe Alps. The nice balance of the Vatican was often subverted by thesoldiers of the North and West, who were united under the standard ofCharles the Fifth: the feeble and fluctuating policy of Clement theSeventh exposed his person and dominions to the conqueror; and Rome wasabandoned seven months to a lawless army, more cruel and rapaciousthan the Goths and Vandals. [90] After this severe lesson, the popescontracted their ambition, which was almost satisfied, resumedthe character of a common parent, and abstained from all offensivehostilities, except in a hasty quarrel, when the vicar of Christ andthe Turkish sultan were armed at the same time against the kingdom ofNaples. [91] The French and Germans at length withdrew from the field ofbattle: Milan, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and the sea-coast of Tuscany, were firmly possessed by the Spaniards; and it became their interestto maintain the peace and dependence of Italy, which continued almostwithout disturbance from the middle of the sixteenth to the openingof the eighteenth century. The Vatican was swayed and protected bythe religious policy of the Catholic king: his prejudice and interestdisposed him in every dispute to support the prince against the people;and instead of the encouragement, the aid, and the asylum, which theyobtained from the adjacent states, the friends of liberty, or theenemies of law, were enclosed on all sides within the iron circleof despotism. The long habits of obedience and education subdued theturbulent spirit of the nobles and commons of Rome. The barons forgotthe arms and factions of their ancestors, and insensibly became theservants of luxury and government. Instead of maintaining a crowd oftenants and followers, the produce of their estates was consumed in theprivate expenses which multiply the pleasures, and diminish the power, of the lord. [92] The Colonna and Ursini vied with each other in thedecoration of their palaces and chapels; and their antique splendor wasrivalled or surpassed by the sudden opulence of the papal families. InRome the voice of freedom and discord is no longer heard; and, insteadof the foaming torrent, a smooth and stagnant lake reflects the image ofidleness and servitude. 

[Footnote 88: By the conomy of Sixtus V. The revenue of theecclesiastical state was raised to two millions and a half of Romancrowns, (Vita, tom. Ii. P. 291--296;) and so regular was the militaryestablishment, that in one month Clement VIII. Could invade the duchy ofFerrara 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 RömischenPäpste, i. P. 459. --M. ]

[Footnote 89: More especially by Guicciardini and Machiavel; in thegeneral history of the former, in the Florentine history, the Prince, and the political discourses of the latter. These, with their worthysuccessors, Fra Paolo and Davila, were justly esteemed the firsthistorians of modern languages, till, in the present age, Scotlandarose, to dispute the prize with Italy herself. ]

[Footnote 90: In the history of the Gothic siege, I have compared theBarbarians with the subjects of Charles V. , (vol. Iii. P. 289, 290;) ananticipation, which, like that of the Tartar conquests, I indulged withthe less scruple, as I could scarcely hope to reach the conclusion of mywork. ]

[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 theholy character, which would have sanctified his victory was decentlyapplied to protect his defeat. * Note: But compare Ranke, Die RömischenPäpste, i. P. 289. --M. ]

[Footnote 92: This gradual change of manners and expense is admirablyexplained by Dr. Adam Smith, (Wealth of Nations, vol. I. P. 495--504, )who proves, perhaps too severely, that the most salutary effects haveflowed from the meanest and most selfish causes. ]

A Christian, a philosopher, [93] and a patriot, will be equallyscandalized by the temporal kingdom of the clergy; and the local majestyof Rome, the remembrance of her consuls and triumphs, may seem toimbitter the sense, and aggravate the shame, of her slavery. If wecalmly weigh the merits and defects of the ecclesiastical government, it may be praised in its present state, as a mild, decent, and tranquilsystem, exempt from the dangers of a minority, the sallies of youth, theexpenses of luxury, and the calamities of war. But these advantagesare overbalanced by a frequent, perhaps a septennial, election of asovereign, 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 laborsof his transitory reign. The successful candidate is drawn from thechurch, and even the convent; from the mode of education and lifethe most adverse to reason, humanity, and freedom. In the trammels ofservile faith, he has learned to believe because it is absurd, to revereall that is contemptible, and to despise whatever might deserve theesteem of a rational being; to punish error as a crime, to rewardmortification and celibacy as the first of virtues; to place the saintsof the calendar [94] above the heroes of Rome and the sages of Athens;and to consider the missal, or the crucifix, as more useful instrumentsthan the plough or the loom. In the office of nuncio, or the rank ofcardinal, he may acquire some knowledge of the world, but the primitivestain will adhere to his mind and manners: from study and experiencehe may suspect the mystery of his profession; but the sacerdotal artistwill imbibe some portion of the bigotry which he inculcates. The geniusof 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 andmilitary force, restored and emulated the monuments of antiquity, and after a liberal use and large increase of the revenue, left fivemillions of crowns in the castle of St. Angelo. But his justice wassullied with cruelty, his activity was prompted by the ambition ofconquest: after his decease the abuses revived; the treasure wasdissipated; he entailed on posterity thirty-five new taxes and thevenality of offices; and, after his death, his statue was demolishedby an ungrateful, or an injured, people. [97] The wild and originalcharacter of Sixtus the Fifth stands alone in the series of thepontiffs; the maxims and effects of their temporal government maybe collected from the positive and comparative view of the arts andphilosophy, the agriculture and trade, the wealth and population, ofthe ecclesiastical state. For myself, it is my wish to depart in charitywith all mankind, nor am I willing, in these last moments, to offendeven the pope and clergy of Rome. [98]

[Footnote 93: Mr. Hume (Hist. Of England, vol. I. P. 389) too hastilyconclude that if the civil and ecclesiastical powers be united in thesame person, it is of little moment whether he be styled prince orprelate 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 orjudgment of Sixtus V. , who placed the statues of the apostles St. Peterand St. Paul on the vacant columns of Trajan and Antonine. ]

[Footnote 95: A wandering Italian, Gregorio Leti, has given the Vita diSisto-Quinto, (Amstel. 1721, 3 vols. In 12mo. , ) a copious and amusingwork, but which does not command our absolute confidence. Yet thecharacter of the man, and the principal facts, are supported bythe annals of Spondanus and Muratori, (A. D. 1585--1590, ) and thecontemporary history of the great Thuanus, (l. Lxxxii. C. 1, 2, l. Lxxxiv. C. 10, l. C. C. 8. ) * Note: The industry of M. Ranke hasdiscovered the document, a kind of scandalous chronicle of the time, from which Leti wrought up his amusing romances. See also M. Ranke'sobservations 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. JuliusII. Had once abolished the abominandum et detestandum franchitiarumhujusmodi nomen: and after Sixtus V. They again revived. I cannotdiscern either the justice or magnanimity of Louis XIV. , who, in 1687, sent his ambassador, the marquis de Lavardin, to Rome, with an armedforce of a thousand officers, guards, and domestics, to maintain thisiniquitous claim, and insult Pope Innocent XI. In the heart of hiscapital, (Vita di Sisto V. Tom. Iii. P. 260--278. Muratori, Annalid'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 onmarble, and placed in the Capitol. It is expressed in a style of manlysimplicity and freedom: Si quis, sive privatus, sive magistratum gerensde collocandâ _vivo_ pontifici statuâ mentionem facere ausit, legitimoS. P. Q. R. Decreto in perpetuum infamis et publicorum munerum expersesto. MDXC. Mense Augusto, (Vita di Sisto V. Tom. Iii. P. 469. ) Ibelieve that this decree is still observed, and I know that everymonarch who deserves a statue should himself impose the prohibition. ]

[Footnote 98: The histories of the church, Italy, and Christendom, havecontributed to the chapter which I now conclude. In the original Livesof the Popes, we often discover the city and republic of Rome: and theevents of the xivth and xvth centuries are preserved in the rudeand domestic chronicles which I have carefully inspected, and shallrecapitulate 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 singularinterpolation, in which the author relates his own death at the age of115 years. 

2. Fragmenta Historiæ Romanæ (vulgo Thomas Fortifioccæ) in RomanaDialecto vulgari, (A. D. 1327--1354, in Muratori, Antiquitat. Medii ÆviItaliæ, tom. Iii. P. 247--548;) the authentic groundwork of the historyof Rienzi. 

3. Delphini (Gentilis) Diarium Romanum, (A. D. 1370--1410, ) in the RerumItalicarum, 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 Romæ, (A. D. 1481--1492, ) tom. Iii. P. Ii. P. 1069. 

8. Infessuræ (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, in14to. The large and valuable Journal of Burcard might be completed fromthe 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 theCollections of Muratori, my guide and master in the history of Italy. His country, and the public, are indebted to him for the following workson 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 andalphabetical tables is still wanting as a key to this great work, whichis yet in a disorderly and defective state. 2. _Antiquitates ItaliæMedii Ævi_, vi. Vols. In folio, Milan, 1738--1743, in lxxv. Curiousdissertations, on the manners, government, religion, &c. , of theItalians 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 bequoted 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, fromthe 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 Brunswickkings, the critic is not seduced by the loyalty or gratitude of thesubject. In all his works, Muratori approves himself a diligent andlaborious writer, who aspires above the prejudices of a Catholic priest. He was born in the year 1672, and died in the year 1750, after passingnear 60 years in the libraries of Milan and Modena, (Vita del PropostoLudovico Antonio Muratori, by his nephew and successor Gian. FrancescoSoli Muratori Venezia, 1756 m 4to. )]

Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The FifteenthCentury. --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 viewedfrom that commanding spot the wide and various prospect of desolation. [2] The place and the object gave ample scope for moralizing on thevicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest ofhis works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave; and it wasagreed, that in proportion to her former greatness, the fall of Rome wasthe more awful and deplorable. "Her primeval state, such as she mightappear in a remote age, when Evander entertained the stranger of Troy, [3] has been delineated by the fancy of Virgil. This Tarpeian rock wasthen a savage and solitary thicket: in the time of the poet, it wascrowned with the golden roofs of a temple; the temple is overthrown, the gold has been pillaged, the wheel of fortune has accomplished herrevolution, and the sacred ground is again disfigured with thorns andbrambles. The hill of the Capitol, on which we sit, was formerly thehead of the Roman empire, the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings;illustrated by the footsteps of so many triumphs, enriched with thespoils and tributes of so many nations. This spectacle of the world, how is it fallen! how changed! how defaced! The path of victory isobliterated by vines, and the benches of the senators are concealed bya dunghill. Cast your eyes on the Palatine hill, and seek among theshapeless and enormous fragments the marble theatre, the obelisks, thecolossal statues, the porticos of Nero's palace: survey the other hillsof the city, the vacant space is interrupted only by ruins and gardens. The forum of the Roman people, where they assembled to enact their lawsand elect their magistrates, is now enclosed for the cultivation ofpot-herbs, or thrown open for the reception of swine and buffaloes. The public and private edifices, that were founded for eternity, lieprostrate, naked, and broken, like the limbs of a mighty giant; and theruin is the more visible, from the stupendous relics that have survivedthe injuries of time and fortune. " [4]

[Footnote 101: It should be Pope Martin the Fifth. See Gibbon's ownnote, 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 theage, character, and writings of Poggius; and particularly noticed thedate of this elegant moral lecture on the varieties of fortune. ]

[Footnote 2: Consedimus in ipsis Tarpeiæ arcis ruinis, pone ingensportæ cujusdam, ut puto, templi, marmoreum limen, plurimasque passimconfractas columnas, unde magnâ ex parte prospectus urbis patet, (p. 5. )]

[Footnote 3: Æneid viii. 97--369. This ancient picture, so artfullyintroduced, and so exquisitely finished, must have been highlyinteresting to an inhabitant of Rome; and our early studies allow us tosympathize in the feelings of a Roman. ]

[Footnote 4: Capitolium adeo. .. . Immutatum ut vineæ in senatorumsubsellia successerint, stercorum ac purgamentorum receptaculum factum. Respice ad Palatinum montem. .. .. Vasta rudera. .. . Cæteros collesperlustra omnia vacua ædificiis, ruinis vineisque oppleta conspicies, (Poggius, de Varietat. Fortunæ p. 21. )]

These relics are minutely described by Poggius, one of the first whoraised his eyes from the monuments of legendary, to those of classic, superstition. [5] _1. _Besides a bridge, an arch, a sepulchre, and thepyramid of Cestius, he could discern, of the age of the republic, adouble row of vaults, in the salt-office of the Capitol, which wereinscribed with the name and munificence of Catulus. _2. _ Eleven templeswere visible in some degree, from the perfect form of the Pantheon, to the three arches and a marble column of the temple of Peace, whichVespasian erected after the civil wars and the Jewish triumph. _3. _ Ofthe number, which he rashly defines, of seven _therm_, or public baths, none were sufficiently entire to represent the use and distribution ofthe several parts: but those of Diocletian and Antoninus Caracallastill retained the titles of the founders, and astonished the curiousspectator, who, in observing their solidity and extent, the variety ofmarbles, the size and multitude of the columns, compared the labor andexpense with the use and importance. Of the baths of Constantine, ofAlexander, of Domitian, or rather of Titus, some vestige might yet befound. _4. _ The triumphal arches of Titus, Severus, and Constantine, were entire, both the structure and the inscriptions; a falling fragmentwas honored with the name of Trajan; and two arches, then extant, in theFlaminian way, have been ascribed to the baser memory of Faustina andGallienus. [501] _5. _ After the wonder of the Coliseum, Poggius might haveoverlooked small amphitheatre of brick, most probably for the use of theprætorian camp: the theatres of Marcellus and Pompey were occupied ina great measure by public and private buildings; and in the Circus, Agonalis and Maximus, little more than the situation and the form couldbe investigated. _6. _ The columns of Trajan and Antonine were stillerect; but the Egyptian obelisks were broken or buried. A people of godsand heroes, the workmanship of art, was reduced to one equestrian figureof gilt brass, and to five marble statues, of which the most conspicuouswere the two horses of Phidias and Praxiteles. _7. _ The two mausoleumsor sepulchres of Augustus and Hadrian could not totally be lost: but theformer was only visible as a mound of earth; and the latter, thecastle of St. Angelo, had acquired the name and appearance of a modernfortress. With the addition of some separate and nameless columns, suchwere the remains of the ancient city; for the marks of a more recentstructure might be detected in the walls, which formed a circumferenceof ten miles, included three hundred and seventy-nine turrets, andopened into the country by thirteen gates. 

[Footnote 5: See Poggius, p. 8--22. ]

[Footnote 501: One was in the Via Nomentana; est alter præterea Gallienoprincipi dicatus, ut superscriptio indicat, _Viâ Nomentana_. Hobhouse, p. 154. Poggio likewise mentions the building which Gibbon ambiguouslysays be "might have overlooked. "--M. ]

This melancholy picture was drawn above nine hundred years after thefall 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 incapableof restoring or adorning the city; and, as all that is human mustretrograde if it do not advance, every successive age must have hastenedthe ruin of the works of antiquity. To measure the progress of decay, and to ascertain, at each æra, the state of each edifice, would bean endless and a useless labor; and I shall content myself with twoobservations, which will introduce a short inquiry into the generalcauses and effects. _1. _ Two hundred years before the eloquent complaintof Poggius, an anonymous writer composed a description of Rome. [6] Hisignorance may repeat the same objects under strange and fabulous names. Yet this barbarous topographer had eyes and ears; he could observe thevisible remains; he could listen to the tradition of the people; and hedistinctly enumerates seven theatres, eleven baths, twelve arches, and eighteen palaces, of which many had disappeared before the timeof Poggius. It is apparent, that many stately monuments of antiquitysurvived till a late period, [7] and that the principles of destructionacted with vigorous and increasing energy in the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries. _2. _ The same reflection must be applied to thethree last ages; and we should vainly seek the Septizonium of Severus;[8] which is celebrated by Petrarch and the antiquarians of the sixteenthcentury. While the Roman edifices were still entire, the first blows, however weighty and impetuous, were resisted by the solidity of the massand the harmony of the parts; but the slightest touch would precipitatethe fragments of arches and columns, that already nodded to their fall. 

[Footnote 6: Liber de Mirabilibus Romæ ex Registro Nicolai Cardinalis deArragoniâ in Bibliothecâ 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 criticalopinion: Scriptor xiiimi. Circiter sæculi, ut ibidem notatur; antiquariærei imperitus et, ut ab illo ævo, nugis et anilibus fabellis refertus:sed, quia monumenta, quæ iis temporibus Romæ supererant pro modulorecenset, non parum inde lucis mutuabitur qui Romanis antiquitatibusindagandis operam navabit, (p. 283. )]

[Footnote 7: The Père Mabillon (Analecta, tom. Iv. P. 502) has publishedan anonymous pilgrim of the ixth century, who, in his visit roundthe 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 theruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than athousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostileattacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of thematerials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans. 

I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more permanent thanthe narrow span of his own existence; yet these monuments, like himself, are perishable and frail; and in the boundless annals of time, hislife and his labors must equally be measured as a fleeting moment. Of asimple and solid edifice, it is not easy, however, to circumscribe theduration. As the wonders of ancient days, the pyramids [9] attracted thecuriosity of the ancients: a hundred generations, the leaves of autumn, have dropped [10] into the grave; and after the fall of the Pharaohs andPtolemies, the Cæsars and caliphs, the same pyramids stand erect andunshaken above the floods of the Nile. A complex figure of various andminute parts to more accessible to injury and decay; and the silentlapse of time is often accelerated by hurricanes and earthquakes, byfires and inundations. The air and earth have doubtless been shaken; andthe lofty turrets of Rome have tottered from their foundations; butthe seven hills do not appear to be placed on the great cavities of theglobe; nor has the city, in any age, been exposed to the convulsions ofnature, which, in the climate of Antioch, Lisbon, or Lima, have crumbledin a few moments the works of ages into dust. Fire is the mostpowerful agent of life and death: the rapid mischief may be kindled andpropagated by the industry or negligence of mankind; and every periodof 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, suppliedperpetual fuel for the flames; and when they ceased, four only of thefourteen regions were left entire; three were totally destroyed, andseven were deformed by the relics of smoking and lacerated edifices. [12]In the full meridian of empire, the metropolis arose with fresh beautyfrom her ashes; yet the memory of the old deplored their irreparablelosses, the arts of Greece, the trophies of victory, the monuments ofprimitive or fabulous antiquity. In the days of distress and anarchy, every wound is mortal, every fall irretrievable; nor can the damage berestored either by the public care of government, or the activityof private interest. Yet two causes may be alleged, which render thecalamity of fire more destructive to a flourishing than a decayed city. _1. _ The more combustible materials of brick, timber, and metals, arefirst melted or consumed; but the flames may play without injury oreffect on the naked walls, and massy arches, that have been despoiled oftheir ornaments. _2. _ It is among the common and plebeian habitations, that a mischievous spark is most easily blown to a conflagration; but assoon as they are devoured, the greater edifices, which have resisted orescaped, are left as so many islands in a state of solitude andsafety. From her situation, Rome is exposed to the danger of frequentinundations. Without excepting the Tyber, the rivers that descend fromeither side of the Apennine have a short and irregular course; a shallowstream in the summer heats; an impetuous torrent, when it is swelled inthe 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 theordinary bed is inadequate to the weight of waters, they rise above thebanks, and overspread, without limits or control, the plains and citiesof the adjacent country. Soon after the triumph of the first Punic war, the Tyber was increased by unusual rains; and the inundation, surpassingall former measure of time and place, destroyed all the buildings thatwere situated below the hills of Rome. According to the variety ofground, the same mischief was produced by different means; and theedifices were either swept away by the sudden impulse, or dissolved andundermined by the long continuance, of the flood. [13] Under the reignof Augustus, the same calamity was renewed: the lawless river overturnedthe palaces and temples on its banks; [14] and, after the labors ofthe emperor in cleansing and widening the bed that was encumbered withruins, [15] the vigilance of his successors was exercised by similardangers and designs. The project of diverting into new channels theTyber itself, or some of the dependent streams, was long opposed bysuperstition and local interests; [16] nor did the use compensate thetoil and cost of the tardy and imperfect execution. The servitude ofrivers is the noblest and most important victory which man has obtainedover the licentiousness of nature; [17] and if such were the ravages ofthe Tyber under a firm and active government, what could oppose, or whocan enumerate, the injuries of the city, after the fall of the Westernempire? A remedy was at length produced by the evil itself: theaccumulation of rubbish and the earth, that has been washed down fromthe hills, is supposed to have elevated the plain of Rome, fourteen orfifteen feet, perhaps, above the ancient level; [18] and the modern cityis less accessible to the attacks of the river. [19]

[Footnote 9: The age of the pyramids is remote and unknown, sinceDiodorus Siculus (tom. I l. I. C. 44, p. 72) is unable to decide whetherthey were constructed 1000, or 3400, years before the clxxxth Olympiad. Sir John Marsham's contracted scale of the Egyptian dynasties would fixthem about 2000 years before Christ, (Canon. Chronicus, p. 47. )]

[Footnote 10: See the speech of Glaucus in the Iliad, (Z. 146. ) Thisnatural but melancholy image is peculiar to Homer. ]

[Footnote 11: The learning and criticism of M. Des Vignoles (HistoireCritique 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 thesubsequent persecution of the Christians from November 15 of the sameyear. ]

[Footnote 12: Quippe in regiones quatuordecim Roma dividitur, quarumquatuor integræ manebant, tres solo tenus dejectæ: septem reliquis paucatestorum vestigia supererant, lacera et semiusta. Among the old relicsthat were irreparably lost, Tacitus enumerates the temple of the moonof Servius Tullius; the fane and altar consecrated by Evander præsentiHerculi; the temple of Jupiter Stator, a vow of Romulus; the palace ofNuma; the temple of Vesta cum Penatibus populi Romani. He then deploresthe opes tot victoriis quæsitæ et Græcarum artium decora. .. . Multa quæseniores meminerant, quæ reparari nequibant, (Annal. Xv. 40, 41. )]

[Footnote 13: A. U. C. 507, repentina subversio ipsius Romæ prævenittriumphum Romanorum. .. . Diversæ ignium aquarumque clades pene absumsereurbem Nam Tiberis insolitis auctus imbribus et ultra opinionem, veldiuturnitate vel maguitudine redundans, _omnia_ Romæ ædificia in planoposita delevit. Diversæ qualitates locorum ad unam convenere perniciem:quoniam et quæ segnior inundatio tenuit madefacta dissolvit, et quæcursus torrentis invenit impulsa dejecit, (Orosius, Hist. L. Iv. C. 11, p. 244, edit. Havercamp. ) Yet we may observe, that it is the plan andstudy of the Christian apologist to magnify the calamities of the Paganworld. ]

[Footnote 14:

 Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis Littore Etrusco violenter undis, Ire dejectum monumenta Regis Templaque Vestæ. (Horat. Carm. I. 2. )

If the palace of Numa and temple of Vesta were thrown down in Horace'stime, what was consumed of those buildings by Nero's fire could hardlydeserve the epithets of vetustissima or incorrupta. ]

[Footnote 15: Ad coercendas inundationes alveum Tiberis laxavit, acrepurgavit, completum olim ruderibus, et ædificiorum prolapsionibuscoarctatum, (Suetonius in Augusto, c. 30. )]

[Footnote 16: Tacitus (Annal. I. 79) reports the petitions of thedifferent towns of Italy to the senate against the measure; and we mayapplaud the progress of reason. On a similar occasion, local interestswould undoubtedly be consulted: but an English House of Commons wouldreject with contempt the arguments of superstition, "that nature hadassigned to the rivers their proper course, " &c. ]

[Footnote 17: See the Epoques de la Nature of the eloquent andphilosophic Buffon. His picture of Guyana, in South America, is that ofa new and savage land, in which the waters are abandoned to themselveswithout being regulated by human industry, (p. 212, 561, quartoedition. )]

[Footnote 18: In his travels in Italy, Mr. Addison (his works, vol. Ii. P. 98, Baskerville's edition) has observed this curious andunquestionable fact. ]

[Footnote 19: Yet in modern times, the Tyber has sometimes damaged thecity, and in the years 1530, 1557, 1598, the annals of Muratori recordthree mischievous and memorable inundations, (tom. Xiv. P. 268, 429, tom. Xv. P. 99, &c. ) * Note: The level of the Tyber was at one timesupposed to be considerably raised: recent investigations seem to beconclusive against this supposition. See a brief, but satisfactorystatement 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 ofthe Roman monuments to the Goths and the Christians, have neglected toinquire how far they were animated by a hostile principle, and how farthey possessed the means and the leisure to satiate their enmity. Inthe preceding volumes of this History, I have described the triumph ofbarbarism and religion; and I can only resume, in a few words, theirreal or imaginary connection with the ruin of ancient Rome. Our fancymay create, or adopt, a pleasing romance, that the Goths and Vandalssallied from Scandinavia, ardent to avenge the flight of Odin; [20] tobreak the chains, and to chastise the oppressors, of mankind; that theywished to burn the records of classic literature, and to found theirnational architecture on the broken members of the Tuscan and Corinthianorders. But in simple truth, the northern conquerors were neithersufficiently savage, nor sufficiently refined, to entertain suchaspiring ideas of destruction and revenge. The shepherds of Scythia andGermany had been educated in the armies of the empire, whose disciplinethey acquired, and whose weakness they invaded: with the familiar use ofthe Latin tongue, they had learned to reverence the name and titles ofRome; and, though incapable of emulating, they were more inclined toadmire, than to abolish, the arts and studies of a brighter period. Inthe transient possession of a rich and unresisting capital, the soldiersof Alaric and Genseric were stimulated by the passions of a victoriousarmy; amidst the wanton indulgence of lust or cruelty, portable wealthwas the object of their search; nor could they derive either pride orpleasure from the unprofitable reflection, that they had battered to theground the works of the consuls and Cæsars. Their moments were indeedprecious; the Goths evacuated Rome on the sixth, [21] the Vandals on thefifteenth, day: [22] and, though it be far more difficult to build thanto destroy, their hasty assault would have made a slight impressionon the solid piles of antiquity. We may remember, that both Alaricand Genseric affected to spare the buildings of the city; that theysubsisted in strength and beauty under the auspicious government ofTheodoric; [23] and that the momentary resentment of Totila [24] wasdisarmed by his own temper and the advice of his friends and enemies. From these innocent Barbarians, the reproach may be transferred to theCatholics of Rome. The statues, altars, and houses, of the dæmons, werean abomination in their eyes; and in the absolute command of the city, they might labor with zeal and perseverance to erase the idolatry oftheir ancestors. The demolition of the temples in the East [25] affordsto _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 withjustice to the Roman proselytes. Yet their abhorrence was confined tothe monuments of heathen superstition; and the civil structures thatwere dedicated to the business or pleasure of society might be preservedwithout injury or scandal. The change of religion was accomplished, notby a popular tumult, but by the decrees of the emperors, of the senate, and of time. Of the Christian hierarchy, the bishops of Rome werecommonly the most prudent and least fanatic; nor can any positive chargebe opposed to the meritorious act of saving or converting the majesticstructure of the Pantheon. [26] [261]

[Footnote 20: I take this opportunity of declaring, that in the courseof twelve years, I have forgotten, or renounced, the flight of Odinfrom Azoph to Sweden, which I never very seriously believed, (vol. I. P. 283. ) The Goths are apparently Germans: but all beyond Cæsar and Tacitusis 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, quodappellatur _Pantheon_, in quo fecit ecclesiam Sanctæ Mariæ semperVirginis, et omnium martyrum; in quâ ecclesiæ princeps multa bonaobtulit, (Anastasius vel potius Liber Pontificalis in Bonifacio IV. , inMuratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. Iii. P. I. P. 135. ) Accordingto the anonymous writer in Montfaucon, the Pantheon had been vowed byAgrippa to Cybele and Neptune, and was dedicated by Boniface IV. , on thecalends of November, to the Virgin, quæ est mater omnium sanctorum, (p. 297, 298. )]

[Footnote 261: The popes, under the dominion of the emperor and of theexarchs, according to Feas's just observation, did not possess the powerof disposing of the buildings and monuments of the city according totheir own will. Bunsen and Platner, vol. I. P. 241. --M. ]

III. The value of any object that supplies the wants or pleasures ofmankind is compounded of its substance and its form, of the materialsand the manufacture. Its price must depend on the number of personsby whom it may be acquired and used; on the extent of the market; andconsequently on the ease or difficulty of remote exportation, accordingto the nature of the commodity, its local situation, and the temporarycircumstances of the world. The Barbarian conquerors of Rome usurpedin a moment the toil and treasure of successive ages; but, except theluxuries of immediate consumption, they must view without desire allthat could not be removed from the city in the Gothic wagons or thefleet of the Vandals. [27] Gold and silver were the first objects oftheir avarice; as in every country, and in the smallest compass, theyrepresent the most ample command of the industry and possessions ofmankind. A vase or a statue of those precious metals might tempt thevanity of some Barbarian chief; but the grosser multitude, regardlessof the form, was tenacious only of the substance; and the melted ingotsmight be readily divided and stamped into the current coin of theempire. The less active or less fortunate robbers were reduced to thebaser plunder of brass, lead, iron, and copper: whatever had escapedthe Goths and Vandals was pillaged by the Greek tyrants; and the emperorConstans, in his rapacious visit, stripped the bronze tiles from theroof of the Pantheon. [28] The edifices of Rome might be considered as avast and various mine; the first labor of extracting the materials wasalready performed; the metals were purified and cast; the marbleswere hewn and polished; and after foreign and domestic rapine had beensatiated, the remains of the city, could a purchaser have been found, were still venal. The monuments of antiquity had been left naked oftheir precious ornaments; but the Romans would demolish with their ownhands the arches and walls, if the hope of profit could surpass the costof the labor and exportation. If Charlemagne had fixed in Italy the seatof the Western empire, his genius would have aspired to restore, ratherthan to violate, the works of the Cæsars; but policy confined the Frenchmonarch to the forests of Germany; his taste could be gratified only bydestruction; and the new palace of Aix la Chapelle was decorated withthe marbles of Ravenna [29] and Rome. [30] Five hundred years afterCharlemagne, a king of Sicily, Robert, the wisest and most liberalsovereign of the age, was supplied with the same materials by the easynavigation of the Tyber and the sea; and Petrarch sighs an indignantcomplaint, that the ancient capital of the world should adorn from herown bowels the slothful luxury of Naples. [31] But these examples ofplunder or purchase were rare in the darker ages; and the Romans, aloneand unenvied, might have applied to their private or public usethe remaining structures of antiquity, if in their present form andsituation they had not been useless in a great measure to the city andits inhabitants. The walls still described the old circumference, butthe city had descended from the seven hills into the Campus Martius; andsome of the noblest monuments which had braved the injuries of timewere left in a desert, far remote from the habitations of mankind. The palaces of the senators were no longer adapted to the manners orfortunes of their indigent successors: the use of baths [32] andporticos was forgotten: in the sixth century, the games of the theatre, amphitheatre, and circus, had been interrupted: some temples weredevoted to the prevailing worship; but the Christian churches preferredthe holy figure of the cross; and fashion, or reason, had distributedafter a peculiar model the cells and offices of the cloister. Underthe ecclesiastical reign, the number of these pious foundations wasenormously multiplied; and the city was crowded with forty monasteriesof men, twenty of women, and sixty chapters and colleges of canons andpriests, [33] who aggravated, instead of relieving, the depopulationof the tenth century. But if the forms of ancient architecture weredisregarded by a people insensible of their use and beauty, theplentiful materials were applied to every call of necessity orsuperstition; till the fairest columns of the Ionic and Corinthianorders, the richest marbles of Paros and Numidia, were degraded, perhapsto the support of a convent or a stable. The daily havoc which isperpetrated by the Turks in the cities of Greece and Asia may afford amelancholy example; and in the gradual destruction of the monuments ofRome, Sixtus the Fifth may alone be excused for employing the stones ofthe Septizonium in the glorious edifice of St. Peter's. [34] A fragment, a ruin, howsoever mangled or profaned, may be viewed with pleasure andregret; but the greater part of the marble was deprived of substance, aswell as of place and proportion; it was burnt to lime for the purpose ofcement. [341] Since the arrival of Poggius, the temple of Concord, [35] andmany capital structures, had vanished from his eyes; and an epigram ofthe same age expresses a just and pious fear, that the continuance ofthis practice would finally annihilate all the monuments of antiquity. [36] The smallness of their numbers was the sole check on the demands anddepredations of the Romans. The imagination of Petrarch might create thepresence of a mighty people; [37] and I hesitate to believe, that, evenin the fourteenth century, they could be reduced to a contemptible listof thirty-three thousand inhabitants. From that period to the reign ofLeo the Tenth, if they multiplied to the amount of eighty-five thousand, [38] the increase of citizens was in some degree pernicious to theancient city. 

[Footnote 27: Flaminius Vacca (apud Montfaucon, p. 155, 156. His memoiris likewise printed, p. 21, at the end of the Roman Antica of Nardini)and several Romans, doctrinâ graves, were persuaded that the Gothsburied their treasures at Rome, and bequeathed the secret marks filiisnepotibusque. He relates some anecdotes to prove, that in his own time, these places were visited and rifled by the Transalpine pilgrims, theheirs of the Gothic conquerors. ]

[Footnote 28: Omnia quæ erant in ære ad ornatum civitatis deposuit, sed e ecclesiam B. Mariæ ad martyres quæ de tegulis æreis coopertadiscooperuit, (Anast. In Vitalian. P. 141. ) The base and sacrilegiousGreek had not even the poor pretence of plundering a heathen temple, thePantheon was already a Catholic church. ]

[Footnote 29: For the spoils of Ravenna (musiva atque marmora) see theoriginal 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 theHistorians of France, (tom. V. P. 180:)

 Ad quæ marmoreas præstabat Roma columnas, Quasdam præcipuas pulchra Ravenna dedit. De tam longinquâ poterit regione vetustas Illius ornatum, Francia, ferre tibi. 

And I shall add from the Chronicle of Sigebert, (Historians ofFrance, tom. V. P. 378, ) extruxit etiam Aquisgrani basilicam plurimæpulchritudinis, ad cujus structuram a Roma et Ravenna columnas etmarmora devehi fecit. ]

[Footnote 31: I cannot refuse to transcribe a long passage of Petrarch(Opp. P. 536, 537) in Epistolâ hortatoriâ ad Nicolaum Laurentium; it isso strong and full to the point: Nec pudor aut pietas continuit quominusimpii spoliata Dei templa, occupatas arces, opes publicas, regionesurbis, atque honores magistratûum inter se divisos; (_habeant?_) quamunâ in re, turbulenti ac seditiosi homines et totius reliquæ vitæconsiliis et rationibus discordes, inhumani fderis stupendà societateconvenirent, in pontes et mnia atque immeritos lapides desævirent. Denique post vi vel senio collapsa palatia, quæ quondam ingentestenuerunt viri, post diruptos arcus triumphales, (unde majores horumforsitan corruerunt, ) de ipsius vetustatis ac propriæ impietatisfragminibus vilem quæstum turpi mercimonio captare non puduit. Itaquenunc, heu dolor! heu scelus indignum! de vestris marmoreis columnis, deliminibus templorum, (ad quæ nuper ex orbe toto concursus devotissimusfiebat, ) de imaginibus sepulchrorum sub quibus patrum vestrorumvenerabilis civis (_cinis?_) erat, ut reliquas sileam, desidiosaNeapolis adornatur. Sic paullatim ruinæ ipsæ deficiunt. Yet King Robertwas the friend of Petrarch. ]

[Footnote 32: Yet Charlemagne washed and swam at Aix la Chapelle with ahundred of his courtiers, (Eginhart, c. 22, p. 108, 109, ) and Muratoridescribes, as late as the year 814, the public baths which were built atSpoleto in Italy, (Annali, tom. Vi. P. 416. )]

[Footnote 33: See the Annals of Italy, A. D. 988. For this and thepreceding fact, Muratori himself is indebted to the Benedictine historyof Père 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 besuspected that this slow but continual process of destruction was themost fatal. Ancient Rome eas considered a quarry from which the church, the castle of the baron, or even the hovel of the peasant, might berepaired. --M. ]

[Footnote 35: Porticus ædis Concordiæ, quam cum primum ad urbem accessividi fere integram opere marmoreo admodum specioso: Romani postmodum adcalcem ædem totam et porticûs partem disjectis columnis sunt demoliti, (p. 12. ) The temple of Concord was therefore _not_ destroyed by asedition in the xiiith century, as I have read in a MS. Treatise del'Governo civile di Rome, lent me formerly at Rome, and ascribed (Ibelieve falsely) to the celebrated Gravina. Poggius likewise affirmsthat the sepulchre of Cæcilia Metella was burnt for lime, (p. 19, 20. )]

[Footnote 36: Composed by Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II. , and published by Mabillon, from a MS. Of the queen of Sweden, (MusæumItalicum, tom. I. P. 97. )

 Oblectat me, Roma, tuas spectare ruinas: Ex cujus lapsû 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 illâ urbe tam magnâ; quæ, cum propterspatium vacua videretur, populum habet immensum, (Opp p. 605 Epist. Familiares, ii. 14. )]

[Footnote 38: These states of the population of Rome at differentperiods 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 ofdestruction, the domestic hostilities of the Romans themselves. Underthe dominion of the Greek and French emperors, the peace of the citywas disturbed by accidental, though frequent, seditions: it is from thedecline of the latter, from the beginning of the tenth century, that wemay date the licentiousness of private war, which violated with impunitythe laws of the Code and the Gospel, without respecting the majesty ofthe absent sovereign, or the presence and person of the vicar of Christ. In a dark period of five hundred years, Rome was perpetually afflictedby the sanguinary quarrels of the nobles and the people, the Guelphsand Ghibelines, the Colonna and Ursini; and if much has escaped theknowledge, and much is unworthy of the notice, of history, I haveexposed in the two preceding chapters the causes and effects of thepublic disorders. At such a time, when every quarrel was decided by thesword, and none could trust their lives or properties to the impotenceof law, the powerful citizens were armed for safety, or offence, againstthe domestic enemies whom they feared or hated. Except Venice alone, thesame dangers and designs were common to all the free republics of Italy;and the nobles usurped the prerogative of fortifying their houses, anderecting strong towers, [39] that were capable of resisting a suddenattack. The cities were filled with these hostile edifices; and theexample of Lucca, which contained three hundred towers; her law, whichconfined their height to the measure of fourscore feet, may be extendedwith suitable latitude to the more opulent and populous states. Thefirst step of the senator Brancaleone in the establishment of peace andjustice, was to demolish (as we have already seen) one hundred and fortyof the towers of Rome; and, in the last days of anarchy and discord, aslate as the reign of Martin the Fifth, forty-four still stood in oneof the thirteen or fourteen regions of the city. To this mischievouspurpose the remains of antiquity were most readily adapted: the templesand arches afforded a broad and solid basis for the new structures ofbrick and stone; and we can name the modern turrets that were raised onthe triumphal monuments of Julius Cæsar, 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 castleof St. Angelo; [41] the Septizonium of Severus was capable of standingagainst a royal army; [42] the sepulchre of Metella has sunk under itsoutworks; [43] [431] the theatres of Pompey and Marcellus were occupied bythe Savelli and Ursini families; [44] and the rough fortress has beengradually softened to the splendor and elegance of an Italian palace. Even the churches were encompassed with arms and bulwarks, and themilitary engines on the roof of St. Peter's were the terror of theVatican and the scandal of the Christian world. Whatever is fortifiedwill be attacked; and whatever is attacked may be destroyed. Could theRomans have wrested from the popes the castle of St. Angelo, they hadresolved by a public decree to annihilate that monument of servitude. Every building of defence was exposed to a siege; and in every siegethe arts and engines of destruction were laboriously employed. After thedeath of Nicholas the Fourth, Rome, without a sovereign or a senate, was abandoned six months to the fury of civil war. "The houses, " saysa cardinal and poet of the times, [45] "were crushed by the weightand velocity of enormous stones; [46] the walls were perforated by thestrokes of the battering-ram; the towers were involved in fire andsmoke; and the assailants were stimulated by rapine and revenge. " Thework was consummated by the tyranny of the laws; and the factions ofItaly alternately exercised a blind and thoughtless vengeance on theiradversaries, whose houses and castles they razed to the ground. [47] Incomparing the _days_ of foreign, with the _ages_ of domestic, hostility, we must pronounce, that the latter have been far more ruinous tothe city; and our opinion is confirmed by the evidence of Petrarch. "Behold, " says the laureate, "the relics of Rome, the image of herpristine greatness! neither time nor the Barbarian can boast the meritof this stupendous destruction: it was perpetrated by her own citizens, by the most illustrious of her sons; and your ancestors (he writes toa noble Annabaldi) have done with the battering-ram what the Punic herocould not accomplish with the sword. " [48] The influence of the two lastprinciples of decay must in some degree be multiplied by each other;since the houses and towers, which were subverted by civil war, requiredby a new and perpetual supply from the monuments of antiquity. [481]

[Footnote 39: All the facts that relate to the towers at Rome, andin other free cities of Italy, may be found in the laborious andentertaining compilation of Muratori, Antiquitates Italiæ Medii Ævi, dissertat. Xxvi. , (tom. Ii. P. 493--496, of the Latin, tom. . P. 446, ofthe Italian work. )]

[Footnote 40: As for instance, templum Jani nunc dicitur, turris CentiiFrangipanis; et sane Jano impositæ turris lateritiæ conspicua hodiequevestigia supersunt, (Montfaucon Diarium Italicum, p. 186. ) The anonymouswriter (p. 285) enumerates, arcus Titi, turris Cartularia; arcus JuliiCæsaris et Senatorum, turres de Bratis; arcus Antonini, turris deCosectis, &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 deVarietate Fortunæ, 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: Turrisingens rotunda. .. . Cæciliæ Metellæ. .. . Sepulchrum erat, cujus muri tamsolidi, ut spatium perquam minimum intus vacuum supersit; et _Torredi Bove_ dicitur, a boum capitibus muro inscriptis. Huic sequiori ævo, tempore intestinorum bellorum, ceu urbecula adjuncta fuit, cujus mnia etturres etiamnum visuntur; ita ut sepulchrum Metellæ quasi arx oppidulifuerit. Ferventibus in urbe partibus, cum Ursini atque Columnensesmutuis cladibus perniciem inferrent civitati, in utriusve partisditionem cederet magni momenti erat, (p. 142. )]

[Footnote 431: This is inaccurately expressed. The sepulchre is stillstanding 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 stillgreat and conspicuous. ]

[Footnote 45: James, cardinal of St. George, ad velum aureum, in hismetrical 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 Senatû 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 Antiquità 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. Orxviii _cantari_ of Genoa, each _cantaro_ weighing 150 pounds. ]

[Footnote 47: The vith law of the Visconti prohibits this common andmischievous practice; and strictly enjoins, that the houses of banishedcitizens should be preserved pro communi utilitate, (Gualvancus de laFlamma in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. Xii. P. 1041. )]

[Footnote 48: Petrarch thus addresses his friend, who, with shameand tears had shown him the mnia, laceræ specimen miserable Romæ, anddeclared 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 integræ fuit olim gloria Romæ Reliquiæ testantur adhuc; quas longior ætas 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 emperorHenry the Fourth, but more particularly that of Robert Guiscard, whoburned down whole districts, inflicted the worst damage on the ancientcity 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 amphitheatreof Titus, which has obtained the name of the Coliseum, [49] either fromits magnitude, or from Nero's colossal statue; an edifice, had it beenleft to time and nature, which might perhaps have claimed an eternalduration. The curious antiquaries, who have computed the numbers andseats, are disposed to believe, that above the upper row of stone stepsthe amphitheatre was encircled and elevated with several stages ofwooden galleries, which were repeatedly consumed by fire, and restoredby the emperors. Whatever was precious, or portable, or profane, thestatues of gods and heroes, and the costly ornaments of sculpture whichwere cast in brass, or overspread with leaves of silver and gold, became the first prey of conquest or fanaticism, of the avarice of theBarbarians or the Christians. In the massy stones of the Coliseum, manyholes are discerned; and the two most probable conjectures representthe various accidents of its decay. These stones were connected by solidlinks of brass or iron, nor had the eye of rapine overlooked the valueof the baser metals; [50] the vacant space was converted into a fair ormarket; the artisans of the Coliseum are mentioned in an ancient survey;and the chasms were perforated or enlarged to receive the poles thatsupported the shops or tents of the mechanic trades. [51] Reduced to itsnaked majesty, the Flavian amphitheatre was contemplated with awe andadmiration by the pilgrims of the North; and their rude enthusiasmbroke forth in a sublime proverbial expression, which is recorded in theeighth century, in the fragments of the venerable Bede: "As long as theColiseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Coliseum falls, Rome willfall; when Rome falls, the world will fall. " [52] In the modern systemof war, a situation commanded by three hills would not be chosen fora fortress; but the strength of the walls and arches could resistthe engines of assault; a numerous garrison might be lodged in theenclosure; 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 marquisMaffei professedly treats of amphitheatres, particularly those ofRome and Verona, of their dimensions, wooden galleries, &c. It is frommagnitude that he derives the name of _Colosseum_, or _Coliseum_; sincethe same appellation was applied to the amphitheatre of Capua, withoutthe aid of a colossal statue; since that of Nero was erected in thecourt (_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 ofa history of Præneste, has composed a separate dissertation on the sevenor eight probable causes of these holes, which has been since reprintedin the Roman Thesaurus of Sallengre. Montfaucon (Diarium, p. 233)pronounces the rapine of the Barbarians to be the unam germanamquecausam foraminum. * Note: The improbability of this theory is shownby 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 manufactorywas 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 Colyseus, cadet Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus, (Beda in Excerptisseu Collectaneis apud Ducange Glossar. Med. Et Infimæ Latinitatis, tom. Ii. P. 407, edit. Basil. ) This saying must be ascribed to theAnglo-Saxon pilgrims who visited Rome before the year 735 the æra ofBede's death; for I do not believe that our venerable monk ever passedthe sea. ]

[Footnote 53: I cannot recover, in Muratori's original Lives of thePopes, (Script Rerum Italicarum, tom. Iii. P. I. , ) the passage thatattests this hostile partition, which must be applied to the end of thexiith or the beginning of the xiith century. * Note: "The division ismentioned in Vit. Innocent. Pap. II. Ex Cardinale Aragonio, (Script. Rer. Ital. Vol. Iii. P. I. P. 435, ) and Gibbon might have found frequentother records of it at other dates. " Hobhouse's Illustrations of ChildeHarold. P. 130. --M. ]

The abolition at Rome of the ancient games must be understood with somelatitude; and the carnival sports, of the Testacean mount and the CircusAgonalis, [54] were regulated by the law [55] or custom of the city. Thesenator presided with dignity and pomp to adjudge and distribute theprizes, the gold ring, or the _pallium_, [56] as it was styled, of clothor silk. A tribute on the Jews supplied the annual expense; [57] and theraces, on foot, on horseback, or in chariots, were ennobled by a tiltand tournament of seventy-two of the Roman youth. In the year onethousand three hundred and thirty-two, a bull-feast, after the fashionof the Moors and Spaniards, was celebrated in the Coliseum itself; andthe living manners are painted in a diary of the times. [58] A convenientorder of benches was restored; and a general proclamation, as far asRimini and Ravenna, invited the nobles to exercise their skill andcourage in this perilous adventure. The Roman ladies were marshalled inthree squadrons, and seated in three balconies, which, on this day, thethird of September, were lined with scarlet cloth. The fair Jacova diRovere led the matrons from beyond the Tyber, a pure and native race, who still represent the features and character of antiquity. Theremainder of the city was divided as usual between the Colonna andUrsini: the two factions were proud of the number and beauty of theirfemale 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 ofthe champions were drawn by an old and respectable citizen; and theydescended into the arena, or pit, to encounter the wild bulls, on footas it should seem, with a single spear. Amidst the crowd, our annalisthas selected the names, colors, and devices, of twenty of the mostconspicuous knights. Several of the names are the most illustrious ofRome and the ecclesiastical state: Malatesta, Polenta, della Valle, Cafarello, Savelli, Capoccio, Conti, Annibaldi, Altieri, Corsi: thecolors were adapted to their taste and situation; the devices areexpressive of hope or despair, and breathe the spirit of gallantry andarms. "I am alone, like the youngest of the Horatii, " the confidence ofan intrepid stranger: "I live disconsolate, " a weeping widower: "I burnunder the ashes, " a discreet lover: "I adore Lavinia, or Lucretia, " theambiguous declaration of a modern passion: "My faith is as pure, " themotto of a white livery: "Who is stronger than myself?" of a lion'shide: "If am drowned in blood, what a pleasant death!" the wish offerocious courage. The pride or prudence of the Ursini restrained themfrom 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 thesubjects of the Vatican, they alone were the supporters of the Capitol. The combats of the amphitheatre were dangerous and bloody. Everychampion successively encountered a wild bull; and the victory may beascribed to the quadrupeds, since no more than eleven were left on thefield, with the loss of nine wounded and eighteen killed on the sideof their adversaries. Some of the noblest families might mourn, but thepomp of the funerals, in the churches of St. John Lateran and St. MariaMaggiore, afforded a second holiday to the people. Doubtless it was notin such conflicts that the blood of the Romans should have been shed;yet, in blaming their rashness, we are compelled to applaud theirgallantry; and the noble volunteers, who display their magnificence, and risk their lives, under the balconies of the fair, excite a moregenerous sympathy than the thousands of captives and malefactors whowere reluctantly dragged to the scene of slaughter. [59]

[Footnote 54: Although the structure of the circus Agonalis bedestroyed, it still retains its form and name, (Agona, Nagona, Navona;)and the interior space affords a sufficient level for the purpose ofracing. But the Monte Testaceo, that strange pile of broken pottery, seems only adapted for the annual practice of hurling from top tobottom some wagon-loads of live hogs for the diversion of the populace, (Statuta Urbis Romæ, p. 186. )]

[Footnote 55: See the Statuta Urbis Romæ, l. Iii. C. 87, 88, 89, p. 185, 186. I have already given an idea of this municipal code. The races ofNagona and Monte Testaceo are likewise mentioned in the Diary of PeterAntonius 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 therobe or cloak, to the materials, and from thence to their application asa prize, (Muratori, dissert. Xxxiii. )]

[Footnote 57: For these expenses, the Jews of Rome paid each year 1130florins, of which the odd thirty represented the pieces of silver forwhich Judas had betrayed his Master to their ancestors. There was afoot-race of Jewish as well as of Christian youths, (Statuta Urbis, ibidem. )]

[Footnote 58: This extraordinary bull-feast in the Coliseum isdescribed, from tradition rather than memory, by Ludovico BuonconteMonaldesco, on the most ancient fragments of Roman annals, (Muratori, Script Rerum Italicarum, tom. Xii. P. 535, 536;) and however fancifulthey may seem, they are deeply marked with the colors of truth andnature. ]

[Footnote 59: Muratori has given a separate dissertation (the xxixth) tothe 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 thecitizens could gratify without restraint or remorse. In the fourteenthcentury, a scandalous act of concord secured to both factions theprivilege of extracting stones from the free and common quarry of theColiseum; [60] and Poggius laments, that the greater part of these stoneshad been burnt to lime by the folly of the Romans. [61] To check thisabuse, and to prevent the nocturnal crimes that might be perpetratedin the vast and gloomy recess, Eugenius the Fourth surrounded it with awall; and, by a charter long extant, granted both the ground and edificeto the monks of an adjacent convent. [62] After his death, the wall wasoverthrown in a tumult of the people; and had they themselves respectedthe noblest monument of their fathers, they might have justified theresolve that it should never be degraded to private property. The insidewas damaged: but in the middle of the sixteenth century, an æra of tasteand learning, the exterior circumference of one thousand six hundredand twelve feet was still entire and inviolate; a triple elevation offourscore arches, which rose to the height of one hundred and eightfeet. Of the present ruin, the nephews of Paul the Third are the guiltyagents; and every traveller who views the Farnese palace may curse thesacrilege and luxury of these upstart princes. [63] A similar reproach isapplied to the Barberini; and the repetition of injury might be dreadedfrom every reign, till the Coliseum was placed under the safeguard ofreligion by the most liberal of the pontiffs, Benedict the Fourteenth, who consecrated a spot which persecution and fable had stained with theblood 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) hasmentioned this agreement of the factions of the xivth century deTiburtino faciendo in the Coliseum, from an original act in the archivesof Rome. ]

[Footnote 61: Coliseum. .. . Ob stultitiam Romanorum _majori ex parte_ adcalcem deletum, says the indignant Poggius, (p. 17:) but his expressiontoo strong for the present age, must be very tenderly applied to thexvth century. ]

[Footnote 62: Of the Olivetan monks. Montfaucon (p. 142) affirms thisfact from the memorials of Flaminius Vacca, (No. 72. ) They still hopedon 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 theguilt of the Farnese pope, and the indignation of the Roman people. Against the nephews of Urban VIII. I have no other evidence than thevulgar saying, "Quod non fecerunt Barbari, fecere Barberini, " which wasperhaps suggested by the resemblance of the words. ]

[Footnote 64: As an antiquarian and a priest, Montfaucon thus deprecatesthe ruin of the Coliseum: Quòd si non suopte merito atque pulchritudinedignum fuisset quod improbas arceret manus, indigna res utique in locumtot martyrum cruore sacrum tantopere sævitum 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 Romansthemselves; [66] he was humbled rather than elated by the discovery, that, except his friend Rienzi, and one of the Colonna, a stranger ofthe Rhône was more conversant with these antiquities than the nobles andnatives of the metropolis. [67] The ignorance and credulity of theRomans are elaborately displayed in the old survey of the city whichwas composed about the beginning of the thirteenth century; and, withoutdwelling on the manifold errors of name and place, the legend of theCapitol [68] may provoke a smile of contempt and indignation. "TheCapitol, " says the anonymous writer, "is so named as being the headof the world; where the consuls and senators formerly resided for thegovernment of the city and the globe. The strong and lofty walls werecovered with glass and gold, and crowned with a roof of the richest andmost curious carving. Below the citadel stood a palace, of gold for thegreatest part, decorated with precious stones, and whose value mightbe esteemed at one third of the world itself. The statues of all theprovinces were arranged in order, each with a small bell suspended fromits neck; and such was the contrivance of art magic, [69] that if theprovince rebelled against Rome, the statue turned round to that quarterof the heavens, the bell rang, the prophet of the Capitol repeatedthe prodigy, and the senate was admonished of the impending danger. " Asecond example, of less importance, though of equal absurdity, may bedrawn from the two marble horses, led by two naked youths, who havesince been transported from the baths of Constantine to the Quirinalhill. The groundless application of the names of Phidias and Praxitelesmay perhaps be excused; but these Grecian sculptors should not have beenremoved above four hundred years from the age of Pericles to that ofTiberius; they should not have been transferred into two philosophersor magicians, whose nakedness was the symbol of truth or knowledge, whorevealed to the emperor his most secret actions; and, after refusingall pecuniary recompense, solicited the honor of leaving this eternalmonument of themselves. [70] Thus awake to the power of magic, the Romanswere insensible to the beauties of art: no more than five statues werevisible to the eyes of Poggius; and of the multitudes which chance ordesign had buried under the ruins, the resurrection was fortunatelydelayed till a safer and more enlightened age. [71] The Nile which nowadorns the Vatican, had been explored by some laborers in digging avineyard near the temple, or convent, of the Minerva; but the impatientproprietor, who was tormented by some visits of curiosity, restored theunprofitable marble to its former grave. [72] The discovery of a statueof Pompey, ten feet in length, was the occasion of a lawsuit. It hadbeen found under a partition wall: the equitable judge had pronounced, that the head should be separated from the body to satisfy the claims ofthe contiguous owners; and the sentence would have been executed, ifthe intercession of a cardinal, and the liberality of a pope, had notrescued 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 afine of 500 _aurei_ on whosoever shall demolish any ancient edifice, neruinis civitas deformetur, et ut antiqua ædificia decorem urbis perpetuorepresentent. ]

[Footnote 66: In his first visit to Rome (A. D. 1337. See Mémoires surPétrarque, tom. I. P. 322, &c. ) Petrarch is struck mute miraculo rerumtantarum, et stuporis mole obrutus. .. . Præsentia vero, mirum dictû nihilimminuit: vere major fuit Roma majoresque sunt reliquiæ quam rebar. Jamnon orbem ab hâc urbe domitum, sed tam sero domitum, miror, (Opp. P. 605, Familiares, ii. 14, Joanni Columnæ. )]

[Footnote 67: He excepts and praises the _rare_ knowledge of JohnColonna. Qui enim hodie magis ignari rerum Romanarum, quam Romani cives!Invitus dico, nusquam minus Roma cognoscitur quam Romæ. ]

[Footnote 68: After the description of the Capitol, he adds, statuæerant quot sunt mundi provinciæ; et habebat quælibet tintinnabulum adcollum. Et erant ita per magicam artem dispositæ, ut quando aliqua regioRomano Imperio rebellis erat, statim imago illius provinciæ vertebatse contra illam; unde tintinnabulum resonabat quod pendebat ad collum;tuncque vates Capitolii qui erant custodes senatui, &c. He mentions anexample of the Saxons and Suevi, who, after they had been subdued byAgrippa, again rebelled: tintinnabulum sonuit; sacerdos qui erat inspeculo in hebdomada senatoribus nuntiavit: Agrippa marched back andreduced the--Persians, (Anonym. In Montfaucon, p. 297, 298. )]

[Footnote 69: The same writer affirms, that Virgil captus a Romanisinvisibiliter exiit, ivitque Neapolim. A Roman magician, in the xithcentury, is introduced by William of Malmsbury, (de Gestis RegumAnglorum, l. Ii. P. 86;) and in the time of Flaminius Vacca (No. 81, 103) it was the vulgar belief that the strangers (the _Goths_) invokedthe dæmons for the discovery of hidden treasures. ]

[Footnote 70: Anonym. P. 289. Montfaucon (p. 191) justly observes, thatif Alexander be represented, these statues cannot be the work of Phidias(Olympiad lxxxiii. ) or Praxiteles, (Olympiad civ. , ) who lived beforethat conqueror (Plin. Hist. Natur. Xxxiv. 19. )]

[Footnote 71: William of Malmsbury (l. Ii. P. 86, 87) relates amarvellous discovery (A. D. 1046) of Pallas the son of Evander, who hadbeen slain by Turnus; the perpetual light in his sepulchre, a Latinepitaph, the corpse, yet entire, of a young giant, the enormous woundin his breast, (pectus perforat ingens, ) &c. If this fable rests on theslightest 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 Minervæ, statua est recubantis, cujus caputintegrâ effigie tantæ magnitudinis, ut signa omnia excedat. Quidam adplantandas arbores scrobes faciens detexit. Ad hoc visendum cum pluresin dies magis concurrerent, strepitum adeuentium fastidiumque pertæsus, horti patronus congestâ humo texit, (Poggius de Varietate Fortunæ, 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 peacefulauthority of Martin the Fifth and his successors restored the ornamentsof the city as well as the order of the ecclesiastical state. Theimprovements of Rome, since the fifteenth century, have not been thespontaneous produce of freedom and industry. The first and most naturalroot of a great city is the labor and populousness of the adjacentcountry, which supplies the materials of subsistence, of manufactures, and of foreign trade. But the greater part of the Campagna of Rome isreduced to a dreary and desolate wilderness: the overgrown estates ofthe princes and the clergy are cultivated by the lazy hands of indigentand hopeless vassals; and the scanty harvests are confined or exportedfor the benefit of a monopoly. A second and more artificial cause of thegrowth of a metropolis is the residence of a monarch, the expense ofa luxurious court, and the tributes of dependent provinces. Thoseprovinces and tributes had been lost in the fall of the empire; andif some streams of the silver of Peru and the gold of Brazil have beenattracted by the Vatican, the revenues of the cardinals, the feesof office, the oblations of pilgrims and clients, and the remnantof ecclesiastical taxes, afford a poor and precarious supply, whichmaintains, however, the idleness of the court and city. The populationof Rome, far below the measure of the great capitals of Europe, does notexceed one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants; [74] and within thespacious enclosure of the walls, the largest portion of the seven hillsis overspread with vineyards and ruins. The beauty and splendor of themodern city may be ascribed to the abuses of the government, to theinfluence of superstition. Each reign (the exceptions are rare) has beenmarked by the rapid elevation of a new family, enriched by the childishpontiff at the expense of the church and country. The palaces ofthese fortunate nephews are the most costly monuments of elegance andservitude: the perfect arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting, have been prostituted in their service; and their galleries and gardensare decorated with the most precious works of antiquity, which taste orvanity has prompted them to collect. The ecclesiastical revenues weremore decently employed by the popes themselves in the pomp of theCatholic worship; but it is superfluous to enumerate their piousfoundations of altars, chapels, and churches, since these lesser starsare 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 ofreligion. The fame of Julius the Second, Leo the Tenth, and Sixtus theFifth, is accompanied by the superior merit of Bramante and Fontana, of Raphael and Michael Angelo; and the same munificence which had beendisplayed in palaces and temples was directed with equal zeal to reviveand emulate the labors of antiquity. Prostrate obelisks were raised fromthe ground, and erected in the most conspicuous places; of the elevenaqueducts of the Cæsars and consuls, three were restored; the artificialrivers were conducted over a long series of old, or of new arches, to discharge into marble basins a flood of salubrious and refreshingwaters: and the spectator, impatient to ascend the steps of St. Peter's, is detained by a column of Egyptian granite, which rises between twolofty and perpetual fountains, to the height of one hundred and twentyfeet. The map, the description, the monuments of ancient Rome, have beenelucidated by the diligence of the antiquarian and the student: [75] andthe footsteps of heroes, the relics, not of superstition, but of empire, are devoutly visited by a new race of pilgrims from the remote, and oncesavage countries of the North. 

[Footnote 74: In the year 1709, the inhabitants of Rome (withoutincluding eight or ten thousand Jews, ) amounted to 138, 568 souls, (LabatVoyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom. Iii. P. 217, 218. ) In 1740, theyhad increased to 146, 080; and in 1765, I left them, without theJews 161, 899. I am ignorant whether they have since continued in aprogressive state. ]

[Footnote 75: The Père Montfaucon distributes his own observations intotwenty days; he should have styled them weeks, or months, of his visitsto the different parts of the city, (Diarium Italicum, c. 8--20, p. 104--301. ) That learned Benedictine reviews the topographers of ancientRome; the first efforts of Blondus, Fulvius, Martianus, and Faunus, thesuperior labors of Pyrrhus Ligorius, had his learning been equal to hislabors; the writings of Onuphrius Panvinius, qui omnes obscuravit, andthe recent but imperfect books of Donatus and Nardini. Yet Montfauconstill sighs for a more complete plan and description of the oldcity, which must be attained by the three following methods: 1. Themeasurement of the space and intervals of the ruins. 2. The study ofinscriptions, and the places where they were found. 3. The investigationof all the acts, charters, diaries of the middle ages, which nameany spot or building of Rome. The laborious work, such as Montfaucondesired, must be promoted by princely or public munificence: butthe great modern plan of Nolli (A. D. 1748) would furnish a solid andaccurate basis for the ancient topography of Rome. ]

Of these pilgrims, and of every reader, the attention will be excitedby a History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of mankind. The variouscauses and progressive effects are connected with many of the eventsmost interesting in human annals: the artful policy of the Cæsars, wholong maintained the name and image of a free republic; the disorders ofmilitary despotism; the rise, establishment, and sects of Christianity;the foundation of Constantinople; the division of the monarchy; theinvasion and settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia; theinstitutions of the civil law; the character and religion of Mahomet;the temporal sovereignty of the popes; the restoration and decay of theWestern 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 historianmay applaud the importance and variety of his subject; but while he isconscious of his own imperfections, he must often accuse the deficiencyof his materials. It was among the ruins of the Capitol that I firstconceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised near twentyyears of my life, and which, however inadequate to my own wishes, Ifinally delivere to the curiosity and candor of the public. 

Lausanne, June 27 1787