Chapter VII: Part 7

The crusaders had expected another day's fighting, and knew nothing of the flight of Mourtzouphlos. To their surprise they encountered no resistance. The day was occupied in taking possession of their conquest. The Byzantine troops laid down their arms on receiving assurances of personal safety. The Italians who had been expelled took advantage of the entry of their friends and appear to have retaliated upon the population for their expulsion. Two thousand of the inhabitants, says Gunther, were killed, and mostly by these returned Italians. As the victorious crusaders passed through the streets, women, old men, and children, who had been unable to flee, met them, and, placing one finger over another so as to make the sign of the cross, hailed the Marquis of Montferrat as king, while a hastily gathered procession, with the cross and the sacred emblems of Christ, greeted him in triumph.

Then began the plunder of the city. The imperial treasury and the arsenal were placed under guard; but with these exceptions the right to plunder was given indiscriminately to the troops and sailors. Never in Europe was a work of pillage more systematically and shamelessly carried out. Never by the army of a Christian state was there a more barbarous sack of a city than that perpetrated by these soldiers of Christ, sworn to chastity, pledged before God not to shed Christian blood, and bearing upon them the emblem of the Prince of Peace. Reciting the crimes committed by the crusaders, Nicetas says, with indignation: "You have taken up the cross, and have sworn on it and on the holy Gospels to us that you would pass over the territory of Christians without shedding blood and without turning to the right hand or to the left. You told us that you had taken up arms against the Saracens only, and that you would steep them in their blood alone. You promised to keep yourselves chaste while you bore the cross, as became soldiers enrolled under the banner of Christ. Instead of defending his tomb, you have outraged the faithful who are members of him. You have used Christians worse than the Arabs used the Latins, for they at least respected women."

An immense mass of treasure was found in each of the imperial palaces and in those of the nobles. Each baron took possession of the castle or palace which was allotted to him, and put a guard upon the treasure which he found there. "Never since the world was created," says the marshal, "was there so much booty gained in one city. Each man took the house which pleased him, and there were enough for all. Those who were poor found themselves suddenly rich. There was captured an immense supply of gold and silver, of plate and of precious stones, of satins and of silk, of furs, and of every kind of wealth ever found upon earth."

The sack of the richest city in Christendom, which had been the bribe offered to the crusaders to violate their oaths, was made in the spirit of men who, having once broken through the trammels of their vows, are reckless to what lengths they go. Their abstinence and their chastity once abandoned, they plunged at once into orgies of every kind.

The lust of the army spared neither maiden nor the virgin dedicated to God. Violence and debauchery were everywhere present; cries and lamentations and the groans of the victims were heard throughout the city; for everywhere pillage was unrestrained and lust unbridled. The city was in wild confusion. Nobles, old men, women, and children ran to and fro trying to save their wealth, their honor, and their lives. Knights, foot soldiers, and Venetian sailors jostled each other in a mad scramble for plunder. Threats of ill-treatment, promises of safety if wealth were disgorged, mingled with the cries of many sufferers. These "pious brigands," as Gunther aptly calls them, acted as if they had received a license to commit every crime. Sword in hand, houses and churches were pillaged. Every insult was offered to the religion of the conquered citizens. Churches and monasteries were the richest storehouses, and were therefore the first buildings to be rifled.

Monks and priests were selected for insult. The priests' robes were placed by the crusaders on their horses. The icons were ruthlessly torn down from the screens or were broken. The sacred buildings were ransacked for relics or their beautiful caskets. The chalices were stripped of their precious stones and converted into drinking-cups. The sacred plate was heaped with ordinary plunder. The altar cloths and the screens of cloth of gold, richly embroidered and bejewelled, were torn down, and either divided among the troops or destroyed for the sake of the gold and silver which were woven into them. The altars of Hagia Sophia,[48] which had been the admiration of all men, were broken for the sake of the material of which they were made. Horses and mules were taken into the church in order to carry off the loads of sacred vessels and the gold and silver plates of the throne, the pulpits, and the doors, and the beautiful ornaments of the church. The soldiers made the chief church of Christendom the scene of their profanity. A prostitute was seated in the patriarchal chair, who danced, and sang a ribald song for the amusement of the soldiers.

Nicetas, in speaking of the desecration of the Great Church, writes with the utmost indignation of the barbarians who were incapable of appreciating and therefore respecting its beauty. To him it was an "earthly heaven, a throne of divine magnificence, an image of the firmament created by the Almighty." The plunder of the same church in 1453 by Mahomet II compares favorably with that made by the crusaders of 1204.

The sack of the city went on during the three days after the capture. An order was issued, probably on the third day, by the leaders of the army, for the protection of women. Three bishops had pronounced excommunication against all who should pillage church or convent. It was many days, however, before the army could be reduced to its ordinary condition of discipline. A proclamation was made throughout the army that all the booty should be collected, in order to be divided fairly among the captors. Three churches were selected as depots, and trusty guards of crusaders and Venetians were stationed to watch what was thus brought in. Much, however, was kept back, and much stolen. Stern measures had to be resorted to before order was restored. Many crusaders were hanged. The Count of St. Paul hanged one of his own knights with his shield round his neck because he had not given up the booty he had captured. A contemporary writer, the continuator of the history of William of Tyre, forcibly contrasts the conduct of the crusaders before and after the capture. When the Latins would take Constantinople they held the shield of God before them. It was only when they had entered that they threw it away, and covered themselves with the shield of the devil.

The Italians resident in Constantinople, who had returned to the city with their countrymen, were conspicuous in their hostility to the Greeks. Amid this resentment there were examples, however, that former friendships were not forgotten. The escape of Nicetas himself is an illustration in point. He had held the position of grand logothete,[49] but he had been deposed by Mourtzouphlos. When the Latins entered the city he had retired to a small house near Hagia Sophia, which was so situated as to be likely to escape observation. His large house, and probably his official residence, which he is careful to tell us was adorned with an abundant store of ornaments, had been burned down in the second fire. Many of his friends found refuge with him, apparently regarding his dwelling as specially adapted for concealment. Nothing, however, could escape the observation of the horde which was now ransacking every corner. When the Italians had been banished from the city Nicetas had sheltered a Venetian merchant, with his wife and family. This man now clothed himself like a soldier and, pretending that he was one of the invaders, prevented his countrymen or any other Latins from entering the house. For some time he was successful, but at length a crowd, principally of French soldiers, pushed past and flocked within. From that time protection became impossible.

The Venetian advised Nicetas to leave, in order to prevent himself from being imprisoned and to save the honor of his daughters. Nicetas and his friends accepted the advice. Having clothed themselves in skins or the poorest garments, they were conducted through the city by their faithful friend as if they were his prisoners. The girls and young ladies of the party were placed in their midst, their faces having been intentionally smeared in order to give them the appearance of being of the poorest class. As they reached the Golden Gate the daughter of a magistrate, who was one of the party, was suddenly seized and carried off by a crusader. Her father, who was weak and old, and wearied with the long walk, fell, and was unable to do anything but cry for assistance. Nicetas followed and called the attention of certain soldiers who were passing, and after a long and piteous appeal, after reminding them of the proclamation which had been made against the violation of women, he ultimately succeeded in saving the maiden. The entreaties would have been in vain if the leader of the party had not at length threatened to hang the offender. A few minutes later the fugitives had passed out of the city, and fell on their knees to thank God for his protection in having permitted them to escape with their lives. Then they set out on their weary way to Silivria. The road was covered with fellow-sufferers. Before them was the Patriarch himself, "without bag or money, or stick or shoes, with but one coat," says Nicetas, "like a true apostle, or rather like a true follower of Jesus Christ, in that he was seated on an ass, with the difference that instead of entering the new Zion in triumph he was leaving it."

A large part of the booty had been collected in the three churches designated for that purpose. The marshal himself tells us that much was stolen which never came into the general mass. The stores which had been collected were, however, divided in accordance with the compact which had been made before the capture. The Venetians and the crusaders each took half. Out of the moiety belonging to the army there were paid the fifty thousand silver marks due to the Venetians. Two foot sergeants received as much as one horse sergeant, and two of the latter sergeants received as much as a knight. Exclusive of what was stolen and of what was paid to the Venetians, there were distributed among the army four hundred thousand marks, or eight hundred thousand pounds, and ten thousand suits of armor.

The total amount distributed among the crusaders and Venetians shows that the wealth of Constantinople had not been exaggerated. Eight hundred thousand pounds were given to the crusaders, a like sum to the Venetians, with the one hundred thousand pounds due to them. These sums had been collected in hard cash from a city where the inhabitants were hostile, and where they had in their wells and cisterns an easy means of hiding their treasures of gold, silver, and precious stones--a means traditionally well known in the East. Abundance of booty was taken possession of by the troops which never went into the general mass. Sismondi estimates that the wealth in specie and movable property before the capture was not less than twenty-four million pounds sterling.

The distribution was made during the latter end of April. Many works of art in bronze were sent to the melting-pot to be coined. Many statues were broken up in order to obtain the metals with which they were adorned. The conquerors knew nothing and cared nothing for the art which had added value to the metal. The weight of the bronze was to them the only question of interest. The works of art which they destroyed were sacrificed not to any sentiment like that of the Moslem against images which they believed to be idols or talismans. No such excuse can be made for the Christians of the West Their motive for destroying so much that was valuable was neither fanaticism nor religion. It was the simple greed for gain. No sentiment restrained their cupidity. The great statue of the Virgin which ornamented the Taurus was sent as unhesitatingly to the furnace as the figure of Hercules. No object was sufficiently sacred, none sufficiently beautiful, to be worth saving if it could be converted into cash. Amid so much that was destroyed it is impossible that there were not a considerable number of works of art of the best periods. The one list which has been left us by the Greek logothete professes to give account of only the larger statues which were sent to the melting-pot. But it is worth while to note what were these principal objects so destroyed.

Constantinople had long been the great storehouse of works of art and of Christian relics, the latter of which were usually encased with all the skill that wealth could buy or art furnish. It had the great advantage over the elder Rome that it had never been plundered by hordes of barbarians. Its streets and public places had been adorned for centuries with statues in bronze or marble. In reading the works of the historians of the Lower Empire the reader cannot fail to be struck alike with the abundance of works of art and with the appreciation in which they were held by the writers.

First among the buildings as among the works of art, in the estimation of every citizen, was Hagia Sophia. It was emphatically the Great Church. Tried by any test, it is one of the most beautiful of human creations. Nothing in Western Europe even now gives a spectator who is able with an educated eye to restore it to something like its former condition, so deep an impression of unity, harmony, richness, and beauty in decoration as does the interior of the masterpiece of Justinian. All that wealth could supply and art produce had been lavished upon its interior--at that time, and for long afterward, the only portion of a church which the Christian architect thought deserving of study. "Internally, at least," says a great authority on architecture, "the verdict seems inevitable that Santa Sophia is the most perfect and most beautiful church which has yet been erected by any Christian people. When its furniture was complete the verdict would have been still more strongly in its favor."

We have seen that to Nicetas, who knew and loved it in its best days, it was a model of celestial beauty, a glimpse of heaven itself. To the more sober English observer, "its mosaic of marble slabs of various patterns and beautiful colors, the domes, roofs, and curved surfaces, with gold-grounded mosaic relieved by figures or architectural devices," are "wonderfully grand and pleasing." All that St. Mark's is to Venice, Hagia Sophia was to Constantinople. But St. Mark's, though enriched with some of the spoils of its great original, is, as to its interior at least, a feeble copy. Hagia Sophia justified its founder in declaring, "I have surpassed thee, O Solomon!" and during seven centuries after Justinian his successors had each attempted to add to its wealth and its decoration. Yet this, incomparably the most beautiful church in Christendom, at the opening of the thirteenth century was stripped and plundered of every ornament which could be carried away. It appeared to the indignant Greeks that the very stones would be torn from the walls by these intruders, to whom nothing was sacred.

Around the Great Church were other objects which could be readily converted into bronze, and the destruction of which was irreparable. The immense hippodrome was crowded with statues. Egypt had furnished an obelisk for the centre, Delphi had given its commemoratory bronze of the victory of Platæa. Later works of pagan sculptors were there in abundance, while Christian artists had continued the traditions of their ancestors. The cultured inhabitants of Constantinople appreciated these works of art and took care of them. In giving a list of the more important of the objects which went to the melting-pot, Nicetas again and again urges that these works were destroyed by barbarians who were ignorant of their value. Incapable of appreciating either their historical interest or the value with which the labor of the artist had endowed them, the crusaders knew only the value of the metals of which they were composed.

The emperors had been buried within the precincts of the Church of the Holy Apostles, the site of which was afterward chosen by Mahomet II for the erection of the mosque now called by his name. Their tombs, beginning with that of Justinian, were ransacked in the search for treasure. It was not until the palaces of the nobles, the churches, and the tombs had been plundered that the pious brigands turned their attention to the statues, A colossal figure of Juno, which had been brought from Samos, and which stood in the forum of Constantine, was sent to the melting-pot. We may judge of its size from the fact that four oxen were required to transport its head to the palace. The statue of Paris presenting to Venus the apple of discord followed. The Anemodulion, or "Servant of the Winds," was a lofty obelisk, whose sides were covered with bas-reliefs of great beauty, representing scenes of rural life, and allegories depicting the seasons, while the obelisk was surmounted by a female figure which turned with the wind, and so gave to the whole its name. The bas-reliefs were stripped off and sent to the palace to be melted.

A beautiful equestrian statue of great size, representing either Bellerophon and Pegasus or, as the populace believe, Joshua on horseback commanding the sun to stand still, was likewise sent to the furnace. The horse appeared to be neighing at the sound of the trumpet, while every muscle was strained with the ardor of battle. The colossal Hercules of Lysippus, which, having adorned Tarentum, had thence been transported to the Elder and subsequently to the hippodrome of the New Rome, met with a like fate. The artist had expressed, in a manner which had won the admiration of beholders, the deep wrath of the hero at the unworthy tasks set before him. He was represented as seated, but without quiver or bow or club. His lion's skin was thrown loosely about his shoulders, his right foot and right hand stretched out to the utmost, while he rested his head on his left hand with his elbow on his bent knee. The whole figure was full of dignity; the chest deep, the shoulders broad, the hair curly, the arms and limbs full of muscle.

The figure of an ass and its driver, which Augustus had had cast in bronze to commemorate the news brought to him of the victory of Actium, met with the same fate.

For the sake of melting them down into money the barbarians seized also the ancient statue of the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus; the statues of a sphinx, a hippopotamus, a crocodile, an elephant, and others, which had represented a triumph over Egypt; the monster of Scylla and others; most of which were probably executed before the time of Christ.

The celebrated statue of Helen was destroyed by men who knew nothing of its original. There must be added to these the graceful figure of a woman who held in her right hand the figure of an armed man on horseback. Then near the eastern goals, known as the "reds," stood the statues of the winners in the chariot races. They stood erect in their bronze chariots, as the originals also had been seen when they gained their victories, as if they were still directing their steeds to the goals. A figure of the Nile bull in deadly conflict with a crocodile stood near. These and other statues were hastily sent to the furnace to be converted into money. We may judge of the value and artistic merit of the bronze statues which were destroyed, by the specimens which remain. The four horses which the emperor Theodosius had brought from Chios and placed in the hippodrome escaped, by some lucky chance, the general plunder, and were taken to Venice, where they still adorn the front of St. Mark's.

The pillage of the relics of Constantinople lasted for forty years. More than half of the total amount of objects carried off were, however, taken away between the years 1204 and 1208. During the few days which followed the capture of the city the bishops and priests who were with the crusaders were active in laying hands on this species of sacred spoil; and the statement of a contemporary writer is not improbable, that the priests of the orthodox Church preferred to surrender such spoil to those of their own cloth rather than to the rough soldier or the rougher Venetian sailor. On the other hand, the highest priestly dignitaries in the army--men, even, who refused to take of the earthly spoil--were eager to obtain possession of this sacred booty, and unscrupulous as to the means by which they obtained it. The holy Cross was carefully divided by the bishops for distribution among the barons.

Gunther gives us a specimen of the means to which Abbot Martin, who had had the German crusaders placed under his charge, had recourse. The abbot had learned that many relics had been hidden by the Greeks in a particular church. This building was attacked in the general pillage. He, as a priest, searched carefully for the relics, while the soldiers were looking for more commonplace booty. The abbot found an old priest, with the long hair and beard common then, as now, to orthodox ecclesiastics, and roughly addressed him, "Show me your relics, or you are a dead man."

The old priest, seeing that he was addressed by one of his own profession, and frightened probably by the threat, thought, says Gunther, that it was better to give up the relics to him than to the profane and blood-stained hands of the soldiers. He opened an iron safe, and the abbot, in his delight at the sight, buried his hands in the precious store. He and his chaplain filled their surplices, and ran with all haste to the harbor to conceal their prize. That they were successful in keeping it during the stormy days which followed could only be attributed to the virtue of the relics themselves.

The way in which Dalmatius de Sergy obtained the head of St. Clement is an illustration of the crusader's belief that the acquisition of a relic and its transport to the West would be allowed as a compensation for the fulfilment of the crusader's vow. That knight was grievously afflicted that he could not go to the Holy Land, and earnestly prayed God to show him how he could execute some other task equivalent to that which he had sworn, but failed, to accomplish. His first thought was to take relics to his own country. He consulted the two cardinals who were then in Constantinople, who approved his idea, but charged him not to buy these relics, because their purchase and sale were forbidden. He accordingly determined to steal them, if such a word may be applied to an act which was clearly regarded as praiseworthy. The knight, in order to discover something of especial value, remained in Constantinople until Palm Sunday in the following year. A French priest pointed out to him a church in which the head of St. Clement was preserved. He went there in the company of a Cistercian monk and asked to see the relics. While one kept the persons in charge speaking with him, the other stole a portion of the relic.

On leaving, the knight was disgusted to find that the whole head had not been taken, and, on the pretext that he had left his gauntlet behind, a companion regained admittance to the church, while the knight again kept the monk in charge in conversation at the door. Dalmatius went to the chest behind the altar where the relic had been kept, stole the remainder, went out, mounted his horse and rode away. The head was placed with pious joy in the chapel of his house. He returned, disguised, some days after to the church, in order, as he pretended, to do reverence to the relic--in order really to ascertain that he had taken the right head, for there had been two in the chest. He was informed that the head of St. Clement had been stolen. Then, being satisfied as to its authenticity, he took a vow that he would give the relic to the Church of Cluny in case he should arrive safely. He embarked. The devil, from jealousy, sent a hurricane, but the tears and prayers before the relic defeated him, and the knight arrived safely home. The monks of Cluny received the precious treasure with every demonstration of reverent joy, and in the fullest confidence that they had secured the perpetual intercession of St. Clement on behalf of themselves and those who did honor to his head. The relics most sought after were those which related to the events mentioned in the New Testament, especially to the infancy, life, and passion of Christ, and to the saints popular in the West.

In the years which followed the conquest Latin priests were sent to Constantinople from France, Flanders, and Italy, to take charge of the churches in the city. These priests appear to have been great hunters after relics. Thus it came to pass that there was scarcely an important church or monastery in most Western countries which did not possess some share of the spoil which came from Constantinople.

For some years the demand for relics seemed to be insatiable, and caused fresh supplies to be forthcoming to an almost unlimited extent. The new relics, equally with the old, were certified in due form to be what they professed to be. Documents, duly attested and full of detailed evidence--sometimes, doubtless, manufactured for the occasion--easily satisfied those to whom it was of importance to possess certified relics, and throughout the West the demand for relics which might bring profit to their possessors continued to increase. At length the Church deemed it necessary to put a stop to the supply, and especially to that of the apocryphal and legendary acts which testified to their authenticity, and in 1215 the fourth Lateran council judged it necessary to make a decree enjoining the bishops to take means to prevent pilgrims from being deceived.

LATIN EMPIRE OF THE EAST

ITS FOUNDATION AND FALL

A.D. 1204-1261

W.J. BRODRIBB AND SIR WALTER BESANT

As a result of the intrigues connected with the Fifth
Crusade, in which crusaders and Venetians--the latter for
their own commercial advantage--jointly participated, it was
decided to capture Constantinople, the seat of the Byzantine
empire, and to partition the empire itself among the
captors. The combined forces of the Latins accordingly made
two assaults upon the capital of their Eastern
fellow-Christians, who had from the first made passive
opposition to the crusades, fearing for the integrity of
their empire. The city succumbed to the second attack and
was thoroughly plundered. The division of the empire was
especially insisted upon by Dandolo, the aged doge, who led
the Venetians in the expedition.

The Venetians well knew that whoever held the city of
Constantinople held the key of the East. It proved in the
end that they had an imperfect knowledge of the strength and
resources, as well as of the peculiar weakness, of the
Byzantine possessions, which at best were but loosely held
together, and required ceaseless vigilance on the part of
the central government to guard them against outward attack
and hold in check the spirit of internal revolt.

It was nevertheless the cautious policy of the Venetians not
to hold the key of the East, Constantinople, since to hold
it would entail the necessity of defending its possessions.
They preferred to be on such terms of friendship, not
necessarily alliance, with those who should hold the key, as
would give them all the advantages they desired, without
involving them in irksome obligations if there came a change
of masters. "Venice fought for her own hand," let other
nations as they might be led astray by illusory hopes of
allies and friends bound by ties of gratitude. She well knew
how to guard herself against the spirit of perfidy so active
in the Middle Ages, as well as how to exercise that spirit
in her own interest.

Once in possession and control of Constantinople, the Latins
found it necessary to proceed directly to the partition of
the empire. It had been agreed between old Dandolo and
Baldwin, Boniface and others of the crusaders that one full
quarter of the whole dominion was to be assigned to the
Latin emperor, who was to be elected by Venetians and
crusaders together. This left three-quarters remaining, of
which Venice was to take half, the rest to be in some manner
divided among the crusaders. First of all, however, came the
election of an emperor for the new state.

Venice wanted no imperial dignity, nor could any dignity be bestowed upon the nonagenarian Dandolo greater than that which he actually enjoyed as doge of his native republic. He accepted, however, the title of Despot of Romania.[50] The emperor must therefore be chosen from among the French or Flemings. Two of the chiefs might show strong claims for the choice. Of these two, the Marquis of Montferrat, who at first seemed the most likely to be chosen, was already connected by means of his brother's marriage with the late reigning dynasty of Constantinople. He was, besides, proved to be a valorous soldier and a prudent general. On the other hand, Baldwin, the count of Flanders, a younger man, had displayed all the prowess of his rival, and was personally more popular. Besides, the larger part of the army consisted of his own people, Flemings.

There was, therefore, no surprise when the council of election announced that the choice had fallen upon Baldwin, and his rival was among the first to acknowledge the validity of the election. The Marquis of Montferrat obtained for his prize Crete and the Asiatic part of the empire. As, however, he discovered that the latter part of the Byzantine realm would require to be conquered, he exchanged it for the kingdom of Thessalonica. The Greek empire had at one blow fallen to pieces. What the crusaders had conquered was that part of the country now called Roumelia. Across the Dardanelles, Theodore Lascaris established himself as emperor at Nicæa; and Alexius, a son of Manuel Comnenus, created an empire for himself at Trebizond; another established himself as despot of Epirus; and the other two wandering emperors, Alexius III and Alexius V, joined their forces, in the hope of keeping the Latins out of the northwest provinces.

But these two passed masters in duplicity could not, even in misfortune, trust one another, and Alexius III, the craftier if not the stronger of the two vagabond usurpers, seized his ally, put out his eyes, and handed him over to the Latins. They went through the formality of a trial, and found him guilty of the murder of Alexius IV. He was sentenced to death, and after a good deal of discussion it was decided that the manner of his death should be by being hurled from the top of a lofty column, and this was accordingly done.

As for Alexius III, after a great variety of adventures he finally fell into the hands of his son-in-law, Theodore Lascaris, who shut him up in a monastery, where his troubled life came to an end.

Baldwin began his reign by sending a conciliatory letter to the Pope.[51] He had not, it is true, attempted to carry out the vows which he and his brother-crusaders had taken upon themselves. Palestine still groaned under the yoke of the infidel. At the same time the Pope could not but feel gratified at the extinction of the Greek schism and the restoration of the unity of Christendom, That event was undoubtedly due to him, and the Pope acknowledged it in a careful letter, which left him free at any time to express his disapprobation of the course pursued by the crusaders. To the King of France Baldwin wrote, inviting the French knights to find their way to this new scene of conquest and glory. To Palestine he sent promises of assistance, with, as tokens of his power, the gates of Constantinople and the chain which barred the port.

And then, the empire being fairly parcelled out, the Marquis of Montferrat took his knights and men-at-arms to establish his own kingdom of Thessalonica. Other chiefs, who had obtained each his own part of the Byzantine territories, went off to conquer them for themselves; and the Greeks began to perceive that they were ruled by a mere handful of Latin adventurers, only to be dreaded when they were together, and now scattered in small garrisons and feeble bands all about the country. When this knowledge was thoroughly acquired, troubles began to befall the new empire.

These troubles were originated, however, not by the Greeks, but by the Bulgarians, and were due to the arrogance and pride of Baldwin. John, King of this savage people, was of the Latin Church. Being as orthodox as he was barbarous, he rejoiced mightily at the fall of the Greeks, and sent an embassy of congratulation to the new Latin Emperor. Weak as he was upon his unstable throne, Baldwin actually had the folly and impudence to assault these ambassadors, to treat them as rebels, and to send a message to their master that, before his servants could be received at the Byzantine court, he must first deserve pardon by touching with his forehead the footstool of the imperial throne. It was not likely that a high-spirited and independent sovereign would brook such a message.

He instantly threw the whole weight of his influence and strength into the cause of the Greeks, and with their leaders concerted a scheme of general and simultaneous massacre worthy of his barbarism and their treachery. The secret was well kept; the conspirators were in no hurry to strike the blow. They waited patiently till a time when it seemed as if the force of the Latins was at the lowest; that is, when Prince Henry, brother of the Emperor, had crossed the Hellespont with the flower of the troops. The empire in Europe was covered with thin and sparse garrisons; there were no forces in Constantinople to come to their succor should they try to hold out; they might be taken in detail and at once. And then those Byzantine Vespers began. It was a revolt of thousands against tens; there was a great slaughter, a rush of the little bands who escaped upon Adrianople, where there was a fresh slaughter; and while the Greeks were up in successful revolt, the Bulgarians, accompanied by a savage band of fourteen thousand Comans, invaded the country, mad for pillage and revenge.

The position was one of extreme peril. Baldwin sent messengers to his brother, ordering him to return in all haste, and then made such hasty preparations as were possible, and sallied forth to the siege of Adrianople. Had he waited for Henry's return, all might have gone well with him, but he would not wait. It was the rule of the crusaders never to refuse battle, whatever the odds, a rule to which their greatest victories as well as their greatest disasters were chiefly due. What Godfrey did before Ascalon, Baldwin was ready to do before Adrianople. He had with him no more than a hundred and forty knights, with three trains of archers and men-at-arms--say two thousand men in all. The gallant Villehardouin, Marshal of Romania, who was destined to survive this day and write its story, led the vanguard.

The main body, with whom was Baldwin, was commanded by the Count of Blois; the rear was brought up by old Dandolo. The slender ranks of the little army were continually being recruited by the accession of the fugitive remains of the garrisons. On the way to Adrianople they met the light cavalry of the Comans. Orders were given not to pursue these light horsemen, who fought after the manner of the Parthians. In a solid phalanx the western knights were able to face any odds, but scattered and dispersed they would fall beneath the weight of numbers.

The order insisted on by Dandolo, who knew this kind of enemy, was broken by no others than the Emperor himself and the Count of Blois. The Comans, as usual, fled at the first charge of the heavily armed knights, who spurred after them, regardless of the order, and led by the Emperor. When they had ridden a mile or so, when their horses were breathed, then the Comans closed in upon the little band of knights, and the unequal contest began of a hundred and forty against fourteen thousand. Some few struggled out of the _mêlée_ and found their way back to the rest of the army. Most fell upon the field. Among these was the Count of Blois. A few were taken prisoners, among whom was the Emperor. No one ever knew his fate. The wildest stories were told of this unfortunate Prince. His hands and feet, it was said, were cut off, and he was exposed, mutilated, to the wild animals; he was beheaded; he enacted the part of Joseph--Potiphar's wife being King John's queen. Nothing was too wild to be believed about him. Twenty years later a hermit of the Netherlands thought it would be possible to pass himself off as the real Baldwin, who had escaped from captivity and was thus expiating his early sins.

He obtained the fate from justice and the sympathy from the vulgar which have commonly been the lot of pretenders. Whatever the real end of this Emperor, King John wrote a year later to the Pope, calmly informing him that his intercession for Baldwin was no longer of any use, because he was no longer living. Then it was, and not till then, that his brother, Henry of Flanders, consented to assume the title of Emperor. Already the leaders of the crusade, who only three years before had set sail so proudly from Venice, were dead or on the point of death: Baldwin murdered in captivity; the Count of Blois killed on the field of battle; Dandolo dead, at the age, say some writers, of a hundred, in the year 1205; the Marquis of Montferrat about to be slain in an obscure skirmish with the barbarous Bulgarians.

Henry stood alone, save for the faithful Geoffrey de Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne and Romania, who, though his narrative ceases at this point, is believed to have remained with the new Emperor. His reign lasted for ten years only. It was a reign of successful, brave, and prudent administration in things military, civil, and ecclesiastical Its success was greatly assisted by the fact that very early in his reign the Greeks discovered the mistake they had made in changing the rule of the Latins for the rule of the Bulgarians.

The first were hard masters, with rough, rude ways, and little sympathy with the culture of the Byzantines; but the latter proposed, as soon as the Latins were driven south, to exterminate the population of Thrace, or at least to transplant the Greeks beyond the Balkans. They called upon the Emperor to forgive them and to help them. Henry, with a little army of eight hundred knights, with archers and men-at-arms, perhaps five thousand in all, made no scruple of going out to attack this disorderly mob of forty thousand Bulgarians. As no mention is made of the Comans, it is presumable that these had gone home again with their booty. At the siege of Thessalonica King John was murdered--slain by no less a person than St. Demetrius himself, said the Greeks--and a peace was concluded between his successor and Henry.

The last years of this exemplary monarch's life were spent in wise administration. He checked the zeal of the Pope's legate, and would not countenance persecution about the double procession and other controverted dogmas. He checked the pretensions of the clergy, by placing his throne on the same level with that of the Patriarch, whereas it had formerly been lower; and he prohibited the alienation of fiefs, which would have handed over the patrimony of the knights to the Church, and turned, as Gibbon says, a colony of soldiers into a college of priests. When he died, childless, the next heir to the empire was his sister Yolande, who had married Peter of Courtenay, Count of Auxerre, a member of that princely house which still survives in the line of the English earls of Devon.

It was an unfortunate day for that prince when he accepted the crown which had already in ten years carried off two of his brothers. Yet the chance was splendid. What count or duke or knight of these days but would seize a crown thus offered, however great the peril? He accepted the crown, then, and, to make a worthy appearance on entering into possession, he either mortgaged or sold the best part of ten estates, and raised, with the help of Philip Augustus, an army of one hundred and forty knights and five thousand five hundred men-at-arms and archers. He persuaded the pope Honorius III to crown him, it being understood that, as Emperor of the East, he had no claim to jurisdiction or right over Rome, and, following the example of Baldwin, engaged the Venetians to convey him and his army to Constantinople. They would do so on similar terms and for a consideration--let him first recover for them the port of Durazzo from the Despot of Epirus; this was no longer Michael, the founder of the kingdom, but his brother Theodore. The Emperor delivered his assault on Durazzo, and was unsuccessful. Then the Venetians refused the transport. Peter thereupon made an agreement with the despot Theodore, by which the latter undertook to convey him and his army safely to his dominion overland. It is another story of Greek treachery. The Emperor, with his troops, while in the mountains, was attacked by Greeks of Theodore's army. Such of his men as did not surrender were cut to pieces. He himself was taken prisoner, detained for two years, and then put to death in some mysterious way.

Yolande, the Empress, while yet she was uncertain of the fate of her lord, gave birth to a son, the most unfortunate Baldwin. The eldest of Yolande's sons, Philip de Courtenay, had the singular good-sense and good-fortune to decline the offered crown. He found plenty of fighting in Europe of an equally adventurous kind, and less treacherous than that among the Greeks. The second son, Robert, accepted the responsibilities and dangers of the position. For seven years he held the sceptre with a trembling hand amid all kinds of disasters. The Despot of Epirus, the treacherous Theodore, swept across the country as far as Adrianople, where he raised his standard and called himself emperor. Vatatces, the successor of Theodore Lascaris, seized upon the last relics of the Asiatic possessions, intercepted western succor, actually persuaded a large body of French mercenaries to serve under him, constructed a fleet, and obtained the command of the Dardanelles.

A personal and private outrage of the grossest kind, offered to the unfortunate Emperor by an obscure knight, drove him in rage and despair from the city. He sought refuge in Italy, but was recalled by his barons, and was on his way back to Constantinople when he was seized with some malady which killed him. It is a miserable record of a weak and miserable life. On his death, his brother Baldwin being still a boy, the barons looked about them for a stronger hand to rule the tottering State. They found the man they wanted in gallant old John de Brienne, the last of those who raised themselves from simple knightly rank to a royal palace.

Gauthier de Brienne was King of Sicily and Duke of Apulia. John himself, one of the last specimens of the great crusading heroes, was titular King of Jerusalem, having married Constance, daughter of Isabelle and granddaughter of Amaury.

Philip Augustus himself selected John de Brienne as the most worthy knight to become the husband of Constance and the King of Jerusalem. He was now an old man of more than seventy years. His daughter, Yolande, was married to Frederick II, who had assumed the title of King of Jerusalem, but old as he was he was still of commanding stature and martial bearing. His arm had lost none of its strength, nor his brain any of its vigor. He accepted the crown on the understanding that the young Baldwin, then eleven years of age, should join him as emperor on coming of age. Great things were expected from so stout a soldier. Yet for two years nothing was done. Then the Emperor was roused into action.

It was understood at Constantinople that Vatatces, the successor of Theodore Lascaris, was on the point of concluding an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Agan, King of the Bulgarians and successor of John. The alliance could have but one meaning, the destruction of the Latin empire.

It must be remembered that the vast Roman Empire of the East was shrunken in its dimensions to the city of Constantinople and that narrow strip of territory commanded by her walls, her scanty armies, and her diminished fleets. Of territory, indeed, the Latin empire had none in the sense of land producing revenue. What it held was held with the drawn sword in the hand ready for use. The kingdom of Thessalonica was gone; and though the dukedoms, marquisates, and countships of Achaia, Athens, Sparta, and other independent petty states were still held by the emperors or their sons, they were like the outlying provinces of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem--Edessa, Tripoli, and the rest--a source of weakness rather than of strength. Little help, if any, could be looked for from them.

The alliance, however, was concluded, and the allies, with an immense army, estimated at a hundred thousand, besides three hundred ships-of-war, sat down before the city and besieged it by sea and land. The incident that follows reads like a story from the history of Amadis de Gaul. Gibbon says that he "trembles" to relate it. While this immense host lay outside his walls; while thirty ships armed with their engines of war menaced his long line of seaward defences in the narrow strait, brave old John de Brienne, who had but one hundred and sixty knights with their following of men-at-arms and archers---say two thousand in all--led forth his little band, and at one furious onset routed the besieging army. Probably it was mainly composed of the Bulgarian hordes, undisciplined, badly armed, and, like all such hosts, liable to panic. Perhaps, too, the number of the enemy was by no means so great as is reported, nor were the forces of John de Brienne so small.

Nor was his success limited to the rout of the army, for the citizens, encouraged by their flight, attacked the ships, and succeeded in dragging five-and-twenty of them within the port. It would appear that the Bulgarians renewed their attempt in the following year, and were again defeated by the old Emperor. It would have been well for the Latins had his age been less. He died in the year 1237, and young Baldwin, who was married to his daughter Martha, became sole emperor. John de Brienne made so great a name that he was compared with Ajax, Odin the Dane, Hector, Roland, and Judas Maccabæus. Baldwin, who came after him, might have been compared with any of those kinglings who succeeded Charlemagne, and sat in their palaces while the empire fell to pieces.

His incapacity is proved, if by nothing else, by his singular and uniform ill-luck. If, after the fight of life is over, no single valiant blow can be remembered, the record is a sorry one indeed. Baldwin's difficulties were, it must be owned, very great: they were so great that for a considerable portion of the four-and-twenty years during which he wore the Roman purple his crown was left him by sufferance, and his manner of reigning was to travel about Europe begging for money. The Pope proclaimed a crusade for him, but it was extremely difficult to awaken general enthusiasm for a Courtenay in danger of being overthrown by a Lascaris; and the other point, the submission of Constantinople to Rome in things ecclesiastical, could not be said to touch the popular sentiment at all. The Pope, however, supplemented his exhortation by bestowing upon the indigent Emperor a treasure of indulgences, which he no doubt sold at their marketable value, whatever that was. One fears that it was not much. From England he obtained, after an open insult at Dover, a small contribution toward the maintenance of his empire. Louis IX of France would have rendered him substantial assistance, but for the more pressing claims of the Holy Land and his project for delivering the holy places by a new method. His brother-in-law, Frederick II, excommunicated by the Church, was not likely to manifest any enthusiasm for an ecclesiastical cause; and those allies from whom he might have expected substantial aid, the Venetians, were at war with the Genoese; the Prince of Achaia was in captivity, and the feeble son of Boniface, King of Thessalonica--the sons of all these sturdy crusaders were feeble, like the Syrian _pullani_, sons of Godfrey's heroes--had been deposed. Yet money and men must be raised, or the city must be abandoned. A wise man would have handed over the empire to any who dared defend it. Baldwin was not a wise man. He proceeded to sell the remaining lands of Courtenay and the marquisate of Namur, and by this and other expedients managed to return with an army of thirty thousand men. What would not Baldwin I, or Henry his uncle, or John de Brienne his father-in-law have been able to effect with an army of thirty thousand soldiers of the West? But Baldwin the Incapable did next to nothing.

By this time the strip of country remaining to the Emperor was only that immediately surrounding the city. All the rest was in the hands of Greek or of Bulgarian. When these were at war, the city was safe; when these were united, the city was every moment in danger of falling. Baldwin used his new recruits in gaining possession of the country for a distance of three days' journey round his capital--about sixty miles in all--which was something. But how was the position to be maintained or to be improved? There were no revenues in that bankrupt city, from whose port the trade had passed away, and which had lost the command of the narrow seas. What was the condition of the citizens we know not. That of the imperial household was such that the Emperor's servants were fain to demolish empty houses for fuel, and to strip churches of the lead upon their roofs to supply the daily wants of his family. He sent his son Philip to Venice as security for a debt; he borrowed at enormous interest of the merchants of Italy; and when all else failed, and the money which he had raised at such ruinous sacrifices had melted away, and his soldiers were clamoring for pay, he remembered the holy relics yet remaining to the city, in spite of the cartloads carried off during the great sack of 1204, and resolved to raise more money upon them.