Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And

Venetians.—Part I.

Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians,—Five Latin
Emperors Of The Houses Of Flanders And Courtenay.— Their Wars
Against The Bulgarians And Greeks.—Weakness And Poverty Of The
Latin Empire.—Recovery Of Constantinople By The Greeks.—General
Consequences Of The Crusades.

After the death of the lawful princes, the French and Venetians,
confident of justice and victory, agreed to divide and regulate
their future possessions. 1 It was stipulated by treaty, that
twelve electors, six of either nation, should be nominated; that
a majority should choose the emperor of the East; and that, if
the votes were equal, the decision of chance should ascertain the
successful candidate. To him, with all the titles and
prerogatives of the Byzantine throne, they assigned the two
palaces of Boucoleon and Blachernæ, with a fourth part of the
Greek monarchy. It was defined that the three remaining portions
should be equally shared between the republic of Venice and the
barons of France; that each feudatory, with an honorable
exception for the doge, should acknowledge and perform the duties
of homage and military service to the supreme head of the empire;
that the nation which gave an emperor, should resign to their
brethren the choice of a patriarch; and that the pilgrims,
whatever might be their impatience to visit the Holy Land, should
devote another year to the conquest and defence of the Greek
provinces. After the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins,
the treaty was confirmed and executed; and the first and most
important step was the creation of an emperor. The six electors
of the French nation were all ecclesiastics, the abbot of Loces,
the archbishop elect of Acre in Palestine, and the bishops of
Troyes, Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem, the last of whom
exercised in the camp the office of pope’s legate: their
profession and knowledge were respectable; and as _they_ could
not be the objects, they were best qualified to be the authors of
the choice. The six Venetians were the principal servants of the
state, and in this list the noble families of Querini and
Contarini are still proud to discover their ancestors. The twelve
assembled in the chapel of the palace; and after the solemn
invocation of the Holy Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and
vote. A just impulse of respect and gratitude prompted them to
crown the virtues of the doge; his wisdom had inspired their
enterprise; and the most youthful knights might envy and applaud
the exploits of blindness and age. But the patriot Dandolo was
devoid of all personal ambition, and fully satisfied that he had
been judged worthy to reign. His nomination was overruled by the
Venetians themselves: his countrymen, and perhaps his friends, 2
represented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefs that
might arise to national freedom and the common cause, from the
union of two incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of
a republic and the emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge
left room for the more equal merits of Boniface and Baldwin; and
at their names all meaner candidates respectfully withdrew. The
marquis of Montferrat was recommended by his mature age and fair
reputation, by the choice of the adventurers, and the wishes of
the Greeks; nor can I believe that Venice, the mistress of the
sea, could be seriously apprehensive of a petty lord at the foot
of the Alps. 3 But the count of Flanders was the chief of a
wealthy and warlike people: he was valiant, pious, and chaste; in
the prime of life, since he was only thirty-two years of age; a
descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of the king of France, and a
compeer of the prelates and barons who had yielded with
reluctance to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel,
these barons, with the doge and marquis at their head, expected
the decision of the twelve electors. It was announced by the
bishop of Soissons, in the name of his colleagues: “Ye have sworn
to obey the prince whom we should choose: by our unanimous
suffrage, Baldwin count of Flanders and Hainault is now your
sovereign, and the emperor of the East.” He was saluted with loud
applause, and the proclamation was reechoed through the city by
the joy of the Latins, and the trembling adulation of the Greeks.
Boniface was the first to kiss the hand of his rival, and to
raise him on the buckler: and Baldwin was transported to the
cathedral, and solemnly invested with the purple buskins. At the
end of three weeks he was crowned by the legate, in the vacancy
of the patriarch; but the Venetian clergy soon filled the chapter
of St. Sophia, seated Thomas Morosini on the ecclesiastical
throne, and employed every art to perpetuate in their own nation
the honors and benefices of the Greek church. 4 Without delay the
successor of Constantine instructed Palestine, France, and Rome,
of this memorable revolution. To Palestine he sent, as a trophy,
the gates of Constantinople, and the chain of the harbor; 5 and
adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws or customs best
adapted to a French colony and conquest in the East. In his
epistles, the natives of France are encouraged to swell that
colony, and to secure that conquest, to people a magnificent city
and a fertile land, which will reward the labors both of the
priest and the soldier. He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the
restoration of his authority in the East; invites him to
extinguish the Greek schism by his presence in a general council;
and implores his blessing and forgiveness for the disobedient
pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended in the answer of
Innocent. 6 In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he
arraigns the vices of man, and adores the providence of God; the
conquerors will be absolved or condemned by their future conduct;
the validity of their treaty depends on the judgment of St.
Peter; but he inculcates their most sacred duty of establishing a
just subordination of obedience and tribute, from the Greeks to
the Latins, from the magistrate to the clergy, and from the
clergy to the pope.

1 (return) [ See the original treaty of partition, in the
Venetian Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo, p. 326—330, and the
subsequent election in Ville hardouin, No. 136—140, with Ducange
in his Observations, and the book of his Histoire de
Constantinople sous l’Empire des François.]

2 (return) [ After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a
French elector his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion,
quidam Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex, usus oratione satis
probabili, &c., which has been embroidered by modern writers from
Blondus to Le Beau.]

3 (return) [ Nicetas, (p. 384,) with the vain ignorance of a
Greek, describes the marquis of Montferrat as a _maritime_ power.
Dampardian de oikeisqai paralion. Was he deceived by the
Byzantine theme of Lombardy which extended along the coast of
Calabria?]

4 (return) [ They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint
no canons of St. Sophia the lawful electors, except Venetians who
had lived ten years at Venice, &c. But the foreign clergy was
envious, the pope disapproved this national monopoly, and of the
six Latin patriarchs of Constantinople, only the first and the
last were Venetians.]

5 (return) [ Nicetas, p. 383.]

6 (return) [ The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for
the ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of
Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of
which the collection in 2 vols. in folio is published by Stephen
Baluze) are inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. iii. p. l. c. 94—105.]

In the division of the Greek provinces, 7 the share of the
Venetians was more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more
than one fourth was appropriated to his domain; a clear moiety of
the remainder was reserved for Venice; and the other moiety was
distributed among the adventurers of France and Lombardy. The
venerable Dandolo was proclaimed despot of Romania, and invested
after the Greek fashion with the purple buskins. He ended at
Constantinople his long and glorious life; and if the prerogative
was personal, the title was used by his successors till the
middle of the fourteenth century, with the singular, though true,
addition of lords of one fourth and a half of the Roman empire. 8
The doge, a slave of state, was seldom permitted to depart from
the helm of the republic; but his place was supplied by the
_bail_, or regent, who exercised a supreme jurisdiction over the
colony of Venetians: they possessed three of the eight quarters
of the city; and his independent tribunal was composed of six
judges, four counsellors, two chamberlains two fiscal advocates,
and a constable. Their long experience of the Eastern trade
enabled them to select their portion with discernment: they had
rashly accepted the dominion and defence of Adrianople; but it
was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a chain of
factories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast,
from the neighborhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the
Bosphorus. The labor and cost of such extensive conquests
exhausted their treasury: they abandoned their maxims of
government, adopted a feudal system, and contented themselves
with the homage of their nobles, 9 for the possessions which
these private vassals undertook to reduce and maintain. And thus
it was that the family of Sanut acquired the duchy of Naxos,
which involved the greatest part of the archipelago. For the
price of ten thousand marks, the republic purchased of the
marquis of Montferrat the fertile Island of Crete or Candia, with
the ruins of a hundred cities; 10 but its improvement was stinted
by the proud and narrow spirit of an aristocracy; 11 and the
wisest senators would confess that the sea, not the land, was the
treasury of St. Mark. In the moiety of the adventurers the
marquis Boniface might claim the most liberal reward; and,
besides the Isle of Crete, his exclusion from the throne was
compensated by the royal title and the provinces beyond the
Hellespont. But he prudently exchanged that distant and difficult
conquest for the kingdom of Thessalonica Macedonia, twelve days’
journey from the capital, where he might be supported by the
neighboring powers of his brother-in-law the king of Hungary. His
progress was hailed by the voluntary or reluctant acclamations of
the natives; and Greece, the proper and ancient Greece, again
received a Latin conqueror, 12 who trod with indifference that
classic ground. He viewed with a careless eye the beauties of the
valley of Tempe; traversed with a cautious step the straits of
Thermopylæ; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes, Athens, and
Argos; and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth and Napoli, 13
which resisted his arms. The lots of the Latin pilgrims were
regulated by chance, or choice, or subsequent exchange; and they
abused, with intemperate joy, their triumph over the lives and
fortunes of a great people. After a minute survey of the
provinces, they weighed in the scales of avarice the revenue of
each district, the advantage of the situation, and the ample or
scanty supplies for the maintenance of soldiers and horses. Their
presumption claimed and divided the long-lost dependencies of the
Roman sceptre: the Nile and Euphrates rolled through their
imaginary realms; and happy was the warrior who drew for his
prize the palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium. 14 I shall not
descend to the pedigree of families and the rent-roll of estates,
but I wish to specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were
invested with the duchy of Nice and the lordship of Demotica: 15
the principal fiefs were held by the service of constable,
chamberlain, cup-bearer, butler, and chief cook; and our
historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fair
establishment on the banks of the Hebrus, and united the double
office of marshal of Champagne and Romania. At the head of his
knights and archers, each baron mounted on horseback to secure
the possession of his share, and their first efforts were
generally successful. But the public force was weakened by their
dispersion; and a thousand quarrels must arise under a law, and
among men, whose sole umpire was the sword. Within three months
after the conquest of Constantinople, the emperor and the king of
Thessalonica drew their hostile followers into the field; they
were reconciled by the authority of the doge, the advice of the
marshal, and the firm freedom of their peers. 16

7 (return) [ In the treaty of partition, most of the names are
corrupted by the scribes: they might be restored, and a good map,
suited to the last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an
improvement of geography. But, alas D’Anville is no more!]

8 (return) [ Their style was dominus quartæ partis et dimidiæ
imperii Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in
the year of 1356, (Sanuto, p. 530, 641.) For the government of
Constantinople, see Ducange, Histoire de C. P. i. 37.]

9 (return) [ Ducange (Hist. de C. P. ii. 6) has marked the
conquests made by the state or nobles of Venice of the Islands of
Candia, Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros,
Mycone, Syro, Cea, and Lemnos.]

10 (return) [ Boniface sold the Isle of Candia, August 12, A.D.
1204. See the act in Sanuto, p. 533: but I cannot understand how
it could be his mother’s portion, or how she could be the
daughter of an emperor Alexius.]

11 (return) [ In the year 1212, the doge Peter Zani sent a colony
to Candia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But in their
savage manners and frequent rebellions, the Candiots may be
compared to the Corsicans under the yoke of Genoa; and when I
compare the accounts of Belon and Tournefort, I cannot discern
much difference between the Venetian and the Turkish island.]

12 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 159, 160, 173—177) and Nicetas
(p. 387—394) describe the expedition into Greece of the marquis
Boniface. The Choniate might derive his information from his
brother Michael, archbishop of Athens, whom he paints as an
orator, a statesman, and a saint. His encomium of Athens, and the
description of Tempe, should be published from the Bodleian MS.
of Nicetas, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 405,) and would
have deserved Mr. Harris’s inquiries.]

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

14 (return) [ I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who
strives to expose the presumption of the Franks. See the Rebus
post C. P. expugnatam, p. 375—384.]

15 (return) [ A city surrounded by the River Hebrus, and six
leagues to the south of Adrianople, received from its double wall
the Greek name of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into
Demotica and Dimot. I have preferred the more convenient and
modern appellation of Demotica. This place was the last Turkish
residence of Charles XII.]

16 (return) [ Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No.
146—158) with the spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of
the marshal are so acknowledged by the Greek historian (p. 387)
mega para touV tvn Dauinwn dunamenou strateumasi: unlike some
modern heroes, whose exploits are only visible in their own
memoirs. * Note: William de Champlite, brother of the count of
Dijon, assumed the title of Prince of Achaia: on the death of his
brother, he returned, with regret, to France, to assume his
paternal inheritance, and left Villehardouin his “_bailli_,” on
condition that if he did not return within a year Villehardouin
was to retain an investiture. Brosset’s Add. to Le Beau, vol.
xvii. p. 200. M. Brosset adds, from the Greek chronicler edited
by M. Buchon, the somewhat unknightly trick by which
Villehardouin disembarrassed himself from the troublesome claim
of Robert, the cousin of the count of Dijon. to the succession.
He contrived that Robert should arrive just fifteen days too
late; and with the general concurrence of the assembled knights
was himself invested with the principality. Ibid. p. 283. M.]

Two fugitives, who had reigned at Constantinople, still asserted
the title of emperor; and the subjects of their fallen throne
might be moved to pity by the misfortunes of the elder Alexius,
or excited to revenge by the spirit of Mourzoufle. A domestic
alliance, a common interest, a similar guilt, and the merit of
extinguishing his enemies, a brother and a nephew, induced the
more recent usurper to unite with the former the relics of his
power. Mourzoufle was received with smiles and honors in the camp
of his father Alexius; but the wicked can never love, and should
rarely trust, their fellow-criminals; he was seized in the bath,
deprived of his eyes, stripped of his troops and treasures, and
turned out to wander an object of horror and contempt to those
who with more propriety could hate, and with more justice could
punish, the assassin of the emperor Isaac and his son. As the
tyrant, pursued by fear or remorse, was stealing over to Asia, he
was seized by the Latins of Constantinople, and condemned, after
an open trial, to an ignominious death. His judges debated the
mode of his execution, the axe, the wheel, or the stake; and it
was resolved that Mourzoufle 17 should ascend the Theodosian
column, a pillar of white marble of one hundred and forty-seven
feet in height. 18 From the summit he was cast down headlong, and
dashed in pieces on the pavement, in the presence of innumerable
spectators, who filled the forum of Taurus, and admired the
accomplishment of an old prediction, which was explained by this
singular event. 19 The fate of Alexius is less tragical: he was
sent by the marquis a captive to Italy, and a gift to the king of
the Romans; but he had not much to applaud his fortune, if the
sentence of imprisonment and exile were changed from a fortress
in the Alps to a monastery in Asia. But his daughter, before the
national calamity, had been given in marriage to a young hero who
continued the succession, and restored the throne, of the Greek
princes. 20 The valor of Theodore Lascaris was signalized in the
two sieges of Constantinople. After the flight of Mourzoufle,
when the Latins were already in the city, he offered himself as
their emperor to the soldiers and people; and his ambition, which
might be virtuous, was undoubtedly brave. Could he have infused a
soul into the multitude, they might have crushed the strangers
under their feet: their abject despair refused his aid; and
Theodore retired to breathe the air of freedom in Anatolia,
beyond the immediate view and pursuit of the conquerors. Under
the title, at first of despot, and afterwards of emperor, he drew
to his standard the bolder spirits, who were fortified against
slavery by the contempt of life; and as every means was lawful
for the public safety implored without scruple the alliance of
the Turkish sultan Nice, where Theodore established his
residence, Prusa and Philadelphia, Smyrna and Ephesus, opened
their gates to their deliverer: he derived strength and
reputation from his victories, and even from his defeats; and the
successor of Constantine preserved a fragment of the empire from
the banks of the Mæander to the suburbs of Nicomedia, and at
length of Constantinople. Another portion, distant and obscure,
was possessed by the lineal heir of the Comneni, a son of the
virtuous Manuel, a grandson of the tyrant Andronicus. His name
was Alexius; and the epithet of great 201 was applied perhaps to
his stature, rather than to his exploits. By the indulgence of
the Angeli, he was appointed governor or duke of Trebizond: 21
211 his birth gave him ambition, the revolution independence;
and, without changing his title, he reigned in peace from Sinope
to the Phasis, along the coast of the Black Sea. His nameless son
and successor 212 is described as the vassal of the sultan, whom
he served with two hundred lances: that Comnenian prince was no
more than duke of Trebizond, and the title of emperor was first
assumed by the pride and envy of the grandson of Alexius. In the
West, a third fragment was saved from the common shipwreck by
Michael, a bastard of the house of Angeli, who, before the
revolution, had been known as a hostage, a soldier, and a rebel.
His flight from the camp of the marquis Boniface secured his
freedom; by his marriage with the governor’s daughter, he
commanded the important place of Durazzo, assumed the title of
despot, and founded a strong and conspicuous principality in
Epirus, Ætolia, and Thessaly, which have ever been peopled by a
warlike race. The Greeks, who had offered their service to their
new sovereigns, were excluded by the haughty Latins 22 from all
civil and military honors, as a nation born to tremble and obey.
Their resentment prompted them to show that they might have been
useful friends, since they could be dangerous enemies: their
nerves were braced by adversity: whatever was learned or holy,
whatever was noble or valiant, rolled away into the independent
states of Trebizond, Epirus, and Nice; and a single patrician is
marked by the ambiguous praise of attachment and loyalty to the
Franks. The vulgar herd of the cities and the country would have
gladly submitted to a mild and regular servitude; and the
transient disorders of war would have been obliterated by some
years of industry and peace. But peace was banished, and industry
was crushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The _Roman_
emperors of Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities,
were armed with power for the protection of their subjects: their
laws were wise, and their administration was simple. The Latin
throne was filled by a titular prince, the chief, and often the
servant, of his licentious confederates; the fiefs of the empire,
from a kingdom to a castle, were held and ruled by the sword of
the barons; and their discord, poverty, and ignorance, extended
the ramifications of tyranny to the most sequestered villages.
The Greeks were oppressed by the double weight of the priests,
who were invested with temporal power, and of the soldier, who
was inflamed by fanatic hatred; and the insuperable bar of
religion and language forever separated the stranger and the
native. As long as the crusaders were united at Constantinople,
the memory of their conquest, and the terror of their arms,
imposed silence on the captive land: their dispersion betrayed
the smallness of their numbers and the defects of their
discipline; and some failures and mischances revealed the secret,
that they were not invincible. As the fears of the Greeks abated,
their hatred increased. They murdered; they conspired; and before
a year of slavery had elapsed, they implored, or accepted, the
succor of a Barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose
gratitude they trusted. 23

17 (return) [ See the fate of Mourzoufle in Nicetas, (p. 393,)
Villehardouin, (No. 141—145, 163,) and Guntherus, (c. 20, 21.)
Neither the marshal nor the monk afford a grain of pity for a
tyrant or rebel, whose punishment, however, was more unexampled
than his crime.]

18 (return) [ The column of Arcadius, which represents in basso
relievo his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is
still extant at Constantinople. It is described and measured,
Gyllius, (Topograph. iv. 7,) Banduri, (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P.
p. 507, &c.,) and Tournefort, (Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre
xii. p. 231.) (Compare Wilken, note, vol. v p. 388.—M.)]

19 (return) [ The nonsense of Gunther and the modern Greeks
concerning this _columna fatidica_, is unworthy of notice; but it
is singular enough, that fifty years before the Latin conquest,
the poet Tzetzes, (Chiliad, ix. 277) relates the dream of a
matron, who saw an army in the forum, and a man sitting on the
column, clapping his hands, and uttering a loud exclamation. *
Note: We read in the “Chronicle of the Conquest of
Constantinople, and of the Establishment of the French in the
Morea,” translated by J A Buchon, Paris, 1825, p. 64 that Leo
VI., called the Philosopher, had prophesied that a perfidious
emperor should be precipitated from the top of this column. The
crusaders considered themselves under an obligation to fulfil
this prophecy. Brosset, note on Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 180. M
Brosset announces that a complete edition of this work, of which
the original Greek of the first book only has been published by
M. Buchon in preparation, to form part of the new series of the
Byzantine historian.—M.]

20 (return) [ The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of
which Nicetas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope) are
learnedly explored, and clearly represented, in the Familiæ
Byzantinæ of Ducange.]

201 (return) [ This was a title, not a personal appellation.
Joinville speaks of the “Grant Comnenie, et sire de
Traffezzontes.” Fallmerayer, p. 82.—M.]

21 (return) [ Except some facts in Pachymer and Nicephorus
Gregoras, which will hereafter be used, the Byzantine writers
disdain to speak of the empire of Trebizond, or principality of
the _Lazi_; and among the Latins, it is conspicuous only in the
romancers of the xivth or xvth centuries. Yet the indefatigable
Ducange has dug out (Fam. Byz. p. 192) two authentic passages in
Vincent of Beauvais (l. xxxi. c. 144) and the prothonotary
Ogerius, (apud Wading, A.D. 1279, No. 4.)]

211 (return) [ On the revolutions of Trebizond under the later
empire down to this period, see Fallmerayer, Geschichte des
Kaiserthums von Trapezunt, ch. iii. The wife of Manuel fled with
her infant sons and her treasure from the relentless enmity of
Isaac Angelus. Fallmerayer conjectures that her arrival enabled
the Greeks of that region to make head against the formidable
Thamar, the Georgian queen of Teflis, p. 42. They gradually
formed a dominion on the banks of the Phasis, which the
distracted government of the Angeli neglected or were unable to
suppress. On the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, Alexius
was joined by many noble fugitives from Constantinople. He had
always retained the names of Cæsar and BasileuV. He now fixed the
seat of his empire at Trebizond; but he had never abandoned his
pretensions to the Byzantine throne, ch. iii. Fallmerayer appears
to make out a triumphant case as to the assumption of the royal
title by Alexius the First. Since the publication of M.
Fallmerayer’s work, (München, 1827,) M. Tafel has published, at
the end of the opuscula of Eustathius, a curious chronicle of
Trebizond by Michael Panaretas, (Frankfort, 1832.) It gives the
succession of the emperors, and some other curious circumstances
of their wars with the several Mahometan powers.—M.]

212 (return) [ The successor of Alexius was his son-in-law
Andronicus I., of the Comnenian family, surnamed Gidon. There
were five successions between Alexius and John, according to
Fallmerayer, p. 103. The troops of Trebizond fought in the army
of Dschelaleddin, the Karismian, against Alaleddin, the Seljukian
sultan of Roum, but as allies rather than vassals, p. 107. It was
after the defeat of Dschelaleddin that they furnished their
contingent to Alai-eddin. Fallmerayer struggles in vain to
mitigate this mark of the subjection of the Comneni to the
sultan. p. 116.—M.]

22 (return) [ The portrait of the French Latins is drawn in
Nicetas by the hand of prejudice and resentment: ouden tvn allwn
eqnvn eiV ''AreoV?rga parasumbeblhsqai sjisin hneiconto all’ oude
tiV tvn caritwn h tvn?mousvn para toiV barbaroiV toutoiV
epexenizeto, kai para touto oimai thn jusin hsan anhmeroi, kai
ton xolon eixon tou logou prstreconta. [P. 791 Ed. Bek.]

23 (return) [ I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence,
the eight books of the Histoire de C. P. sous l’Empire des
François, which Ducange has given as a supplement to
Villehardouin; and which, in a barbarous style, deserves the
praise of an original and classic work.]

The Latin conquerors had been saluted with a solemn and early
embassy from John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the revolted chief
of the Bulgarians and Walachians. He deemed himself their
brother, as the votary of the Roman pontiff, from whom he had
received the regal title and a holy banner; and in the subversion
of the Greek monarchy, he might aspire to the name of their
friend and accomplice. But Calo-John was astonished to find, that
the Count of Flanders had assumed the pomp and pride of the
successors of Constantine; and his ambassadors were dismissed
with a haughty message, that the rebel must deserve a pardon, by
touching with his forehead the footstool of the Imperial throne.
His resentment 24 would have exhaled in acts of violence and
blood: his cooler policy watched the rising discontent of the
Greeks; affected a tender concern for their sufferings; and
promised, that their first struggles for freedom should be
supported by his person and kingdom. The conspiracy was
propagated by national hatred, the firmest band of association
and secrecy: the Greeks were impatient to sheathe their daggers
in the breasts of the victorious strangers; but the execution was
prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor’s brother, had
transported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellespont. Most
of the towns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and
the signal; and the Latins, without arms or suspicion, were
slaughtered by the vile and merciless revenge of their slaves.
From Demotica, the first scene of the massacre, the surviving
vassals of the count of St. Pol escaped to Adrianople; but the
French and Venetians, who occupied that city, were slain or
expelled by the furious multitude: the garrisons that could
effect their retreat fell back on each other towards the
metropolis; and the fortresses, that separately stood against the
rebels, were ignorant of each other’s and of their sovereign’s
fate. The voice of fame and fear announced the revolt of the
Greeks and the rapid approach of their Bulgarian ally; and
Calo-John, not depending on the forces of his own kingdom, had
drawn from the Scythian wilderness a body of fourteen thousand
Comans, who drank, as it was said, the blood of their captives,
and sacrificed the Christians on the altars of their gods. 25

24 (return) [ In Calo-John’s answer to the pope we may find his
claims and complaints, (Gesta Innocent III. c. 108, 109:) he was
cherished at Rome as the prodigal son.]

25 (return) [ The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which
encamped in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of
Moldavia. The greater part were pagans, but some were Mahometans,
and the whole horde was converted to Christianity (A.D. 1370) by
Lewis, king of Hungary.]

Alarmed by this sudden and growing danger, the emperor despatched
a swift messenger to recall Count Henry and his troops; and had
Baldwin expected the return of his gallant brother, with a supply
of twenty thousand Armenians, he might have encountered the
invader with equal numbers and a decisive superiority of arms and
discipline. But the spirit of chivalry could seldom discriminate
caution from cowardice; and the emperor took the field with a
hundred and forty knights, and their train of archers and
sergeants. The marshal, who dissuaded and obeyed, led the
vanguard in their march to Adrianople; the main body was
commanded by the count of Blois; the aged doge of Venice followed
with the rear; and their scanty numbers were increased from all
sides by the fugitive Latins. They undertook to besiege the
rebels of Adrianople; and such was the pious tendency of the
crusades that they employed the holy week in pillaging the
country for their subsistence, and in framing engines for the
destruction of their fellow-Christians. But the Latins were soon
interrupted and alarmed by the light cavalry of the Comans, who
boldly skirmished to the edge of their imperfect lines: and a
proclamation was issued by the marshal of Romania, that, on the
trumpet’s sound, the cavalry should mount and form; but that
none, under pain of death, should abandon themselves to a
desultory and dangerous pursuit. This wise injunction was first
disobeyed by the count of Blois, who involved the emperor in his
rashness and ruin. The Comans, of the Parthian or Tartar school,
fled before their first charge; but after a career of two
leagues, when the knights and their horses were almost
breathless, they suddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the
heavy squadrons of the Franks. The count was slain on the field;
the emperor was made prisoner; and if the one disdained to fly,
if the other refused to yield, their personal bravery made a poor
atonement for their ignorance, or neglect, of the duties of a
general. 26

26 (return) [ Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the
defeat to the cowardice of Dandolo, (p. 383;) but Villehardouin
shares his own glory with his venerable friend, qui viels home
ére et gote ne veoit, mais mult ére sages et preus et vigueros,
(No. 193.) * Note: Gibbon appears to me to have misapprehended
the passage of Nicetas. He says, “that principal and subtlest
mischief. that primary cause of all the horrible miseries
suffered by the _Romans_,” i. e. the Byzantines. It is an
effusion of malicious triumph against the Venetians, to whom he
always ascribes the capture of Constantinople.—M.]