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