Chapter XXIX: Book XIV: A.d. 1248-1255 (6)

[78] Katona, in his _Histoire Critique des Rois de Hongrie_, expresses himself with bitterness against the Crusaders, and relates facts very little favourable to the Venetians and French who laid siege to Zara. Archdeacon Thomas, one of the historians of Hungary, does not spare the Venetians, whom he accuses of tyranny, and who made, he says, their maritime power detested by all the excesses of violence and injustice.

[79] We feel bound to present the text of this oath:—B. Fland. et Hain., L. Blesen et Clar. et H. S. P. comites, Oddo de Chanliet, et W. frater ejus, omnibus ad quos litteræ istæ pervenerint, salutem in Domino. Notum fieri volumus, quod super eo quod apud Jaderam incurrimus excommunicationem apostolicam, vel incurrisse nos timemus, tam nos quam successores nostros sedi apostolicæ obligamus, quod ad mandatum ejus satisfactionem curabimus exhibere. Dat. apud Jaderam, anno Domini 1203, mense Aprilis.

[80] The pope adds, whilst speaking of the Venetians: “Excommunicated as they are, they still remained tied by their promises; and you are not the less authorized to require the performance of them; it is further a maxim of right, that in passing over the land of a heretic or an excommunicated person, you may buy or receive necessary things from him. Moreover, excommunication denounced against the father of a family, does not prevent his household from communicating with him.”

[81] This permission to live by pillage, even in a friendly country, is remarkable, particularly as the pope pretends to authorize it by examples from Scripture.—_Fleury_, _Hist. Eccl._ book lxxv.

Innocent, in giving the Crusaders permission to take provisions wherever they may find them, adds, “Provided it be with the fear of God, without doing injury to any person, and with a resolution to make restitution.”

[82] We find in the continuator of William of Tyre the following circumstance:—Malek-Adel being informed that the Crusaders were assembling at Venice, conceived great uneasiness regarding their ulterior designs. He called together the heads of the Christian clergy at Cairo, and announced to them that a new expedition was preparing in Europe, and that they must provide themselves with horses, arms, and provisions. The bishops, to whom he addressed himself to obtain the succour of which he stood in need, replied that their sacred ministry did not allow them to fight. “Well,” answered Malek-Adel, “since you cannot fight yourselves, you must provide me with men to fight in your place.” He then demanded of them an account of the lands they possessed, and ordered that these lands should be sold; and the money produced by this confiscation was sent to Venice, to corrupt the leaders of that republic, and to engage them to divert the Crusaders from an expedition into Egypt or Syria. Malek-Adel at the same time promised the Venetians all sorts of privileges for their trade in the port of Alexandria. This singular circumstance, related at first, as we have said, by the continuator of William of Tyre, is to be found also in Bernard _Thesaurarius_, and in the _Chronicle_ of St. Victor. Marin. Sanut, it is true, passes it by in silence, and contents himself with saying that Malek-Adel went into Egypt and there collected a treasure. But it may be observed that Marin. Sanut was a Venetian, and had a good reason not to report all the details of a fact which was not to the glory of his country. Bernard when relating it, adds:—Qualiter autem hujus rei effectus fuerit in opinione patenti multorum est, si legantur quæ Veneti cum baronibus ipsis peregerunt, detrahendo eos ad obsidionem Jadræ, et deinde Constantinopolim.

[83] The marshal of Champagne lets no opportunity escape for blaming with bitterness those who abandoned the army of the Crusaders.

[84] A double alliance and the dignity of Cæsar had connected the two elder brothers of Boniface with the imperial family. Reinier of Montferrat had married Mary, daughter of the emperor Manuel Comnenus; Conrad, who had defended Tyre before the third crusade, was married to Theodora Angela, sister of the emperors Isaac and Alexius.

[85] The army was no longer to be dreaded by the emperors as it had been in the early days of the empire; but it was no more an object of fear to its enemies than to its master. A modern historian, M. Sismondi, finds in the government of the Greek empire a complete and incontestable evidence of the natural and necessary effects of the worst of governments. The ancients were acquainted with scarcely any medium between liberty and despotism. The government of Constantinople had retained, up to the middle of the middle ages, all which characterized the despotism of the ancients, although we must allow that this despotism was sometimes tempered by religion and the influence of the patriarchs of Byzantium.

[86] Lebeau, in his _History_, describes at length the decline of the Greek empire and the vices of the emperors. Gibbon, a much more enlightened observer, sometimes neglects important details connected with this period, and in his latter volumes, too often forgets the Greeks to speak of the barbarous nations of the East and West that had shared the wrecks of the Roman empire.

[87] We may consult, for an account of this expedition, the marshal of Champagne, Gunther, and some passages of Nicetas. Rhamnusius has only made a pompous paraphrase of Villehardouin. Lebeau and the Abbé Laugier say a great deal of the events we are relating. This expedition of the Crusaders has been splendidly described by the historian Gibbon.

[88] Villehardouin.

[89] It would be difficult to give a very exact idea of the city of Constantinople as it was at the period of this crusade. Among the travellers who have described this capital at a time nearer than our own to the middle ages, we ought to remark Peter Gilles and Grelot, who saw Constantinople, the one in the reign of Francis I., and the other in the reign of Louis XIV. Their description has furnished those who came after them with many documents. Revolutions, wars, the Turks, and fires change every day the aspect of this city, which was already much altered in the times of the travellers we have named. Ducange, in his _Christiana Constantinopolis_, and Banduri, in his _Imperium Orientale_, have collected all the information of the old travellers and the Greek historians. Among modern travellers _Constantinople, Ancient and Modern_, by the Englishman Dallaway, and _Le Voyage de la Propontide_, by M. Lechavalier, may be consulted with advantage.

[90] Having cast anchor, such as had never been there before began to contemplate this beautiful and magnificent city, the equal to which they thought could not be found in the whole world. When they perceived those high walls and large towers so near to each other, with which it was furnished all round, and those rich and superb palaces and churches rising above all, and in such great number, that they could not easily believe they saw them with their eyes; together with the fine situation of the city, in its length and breadth, which of all other cities was the sovereign, &c.—_Villehardouin._

[91] Ducange, in his observations upon Villehardouin, gives a very learned note upon the arms and escutcheons which the warriors of the middle ages caused to be ranged on board their vessels, and which served them as battlements to shelter them from all the arrows of the enemy.

[92] The Greek historian Nicetas says, that the navigation of the Crusaders had been so favourable and so rapid, “that they arrived in the port of St. Stephen without being perceived by anybody.”

[93] Nicetas, speaking of the Crusaders, says they were almost all as tall as their spears.

[94] Nicetas says, among the Venetian vessels there was one so large that it was called _the World_.

[95] The Varangians, who were in the service of the Greek emperors, have given rise to many discussions among the learned. Villehardouin says that the Varangians were English and Danes. The count de St. Pol, in a letter written from Constantinople, calls them English, Livonians, Dacians. Other historians call them Celts, Germans. The word Varangians appears to be taken from an English word _waring_,(a) which means warrior; this word is met with in the Danish, and several other tongues of the north of Europe. Ducange thinks the Varangians came from Danish England, a small province of Denmark, between Jutland and Holstein. M. Malte Brun, in the notes that accompany the _History of Russia_, by Lévesque, thinks the Varangians drew their recruits from Scandinavia; that some came from Sweden by Norvogorod and Kiow, others from Norway and Denmark by the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. We still possess a dissertation upon the Varangians by M. de Villoison, in which we find more learning than criticism. The most probable opinion is that of Ducange and M. Malte Brun. We have but one observation to make, which is, that it is probable the Varangians were not members of the Roman church; if they followed the Greek religion, may we not believe that they belonged to the nations of the North, among whom it had been introduced?

(a)An Englishman is rather at a loss to tell where our author finds this word. Johnson derives _war_ from _werre_—old Dutch.—TRANS.

[96] Le Père d’Outreman speaks thus of Conon de Béthune: Vir domi militæque nobilis et fœcundus in paucis.—_Constantin. Belg._ lib. iii. Villehardouin says that Conon de Béthune “was a wise knight and well-spoken.”

[97] Thus went they sailing along by the side of the walls, where they showed Alexius to the Greeks, who from all parts flocked to the mole: Sieurs Greeks, behold your natural lord, of that there is no doubt, &c. &c.—_Villehardouin_, book iii.

[98] It was nearly at this period that the city of Chrisopolis began to be called Scutari. The name of Scutari is employed by Villehardouin.

[99] The breaking of the chain of the port, according to the account of Nicetas, spread the greatest consternation among the Greeks; and misfortune, says the historian of Byzantium, assumed so many different forms, and produced so surprising a number of afflicting images, that no mind is able to conceive them.

[100] For the first siege we may profitably consult the _Letter of the Crusaders to the Pope_; the _History_ of Villehardouin; Nicetas, _Reign of Alexius_; the _Chronicle_ of Dandolo; the _War of Constantinople_, by D’Outreman, Rhamnusius _de Bell. Constantinop._ &c. &c.

[101] The name of Barbysses is at present unknown to the Turks, who call this river Kiathana; the Greeks call it Karturicos, names which, in both languages remind us of the paper-mills that are at its mouth.

[102] Nevertheless the superb palaces were ruined by the stones of an extraordinary size that the besiegers launched with their machines, and they were themselves terrified by the heavy masses that the Romans rolled upon them from the walls.—_Nicetas, Hist. of Alexius Comnenus_, book iii.

[103] The historian of Byzantium says, with regard to this fire, that so lamentable a spectacle was capable of producing floods of tears sufficiently abundant to have extinguished the conflagration.

[104] The marshal of Champagne describes to us the order of battle of the Latins, as it was drawn up according to the tactics of the middle ages. The Crusaders issued from their camp divided into six bodies; they ranged themselves before their palisades. The knights were on horseback, their sergeants and esquires were behind them close to the quarters of their horses; the crossbow-men and archers were in front.

[105] Certes, voila une capitulation bien étrange, répondit l’empereur, et ne voy pas comme elle se puisse accomplir, tant elle est grande et excessive. Nompourtant vous avez tout fait pour lui et pour moy, que si l’on vous donnerait tout cet empire entièrement, si l’avez vous bien desuivi.—_Villehardouin_, book iv.

[106] The Crusaders addressed Otho, and not Philip of Swabia, which is very strange, as Philip was the brother-in-law of Alexius; but it is to be observed that at this period the pope had declared in favour of Otho, and threatened Philip with the thunders of the Church.

[107] This speech is given in its entirety by Villehardouin.

[108] The Greeks and Latins were divided on three principal points; first, the addition made by the Latin Church to the creed of Constantinople, to declare that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father; 2nd the refusal on the part of the Greeks to acknowledge the primacy of the pope; 3rdly the pretension of the Greeks that it is not possible to consecrate in the Eucharist with unleavened bread. Photius began the schism; the patriarch Cerularius established it; this latter wished to be acknowledged as the head of the universal Church instead of the pope. L’Abbé Fleury, in his _Histoire Ecclesiastique_, thinks that the schism of the Greeks only really began at the period the Latins were masters of Constantinople.

[109] The Bulgarians had shaken off the yoke under the first reign of Isaac. They had for leaders two brothers, Peter and Asan, who had for successor a third brother, Joannices.

[110] Nicetas devotes an entire chapter to the description of this fire. Villehardouin, in the fourth volume of his _History_, speaks thus of it: De quoi les pélerins Français farent mult dolent, et mult en eurent grand pitié.

[111] Nicetas gives a sufficiently long description of this statue of Pallas.—See the _History of Isaac Angelus_, chap. iii. This statue was thirty feet high; its eyes, says the Greek historian, were turned towards the south, so that those who were ignorant of the science of angles considered she was looking towards the West, and that she invited the nations from the north of Europe to come to the shores of the Bosphorus.

[112] Nicetas.

[113] The continuator of William gives the Greek prince the name of Marofle.

[114] Lebeau, _Histoire du Bas-Empire_, says that Mourzoufle had been employed to put out the eyes of Isaac.—See _Hist. du Bas-Emp._ liv. xciv.

[115] Jacques de Vitri, Alberic, and the continuator of William of Tyre speak of this battle fought between Antioch and Tripoli; Villehardouin likewise makes mention of it, and names many knights that were killed or made prisoners.

[116] Vigenère, when translating Villehardouin, renders thus the passage in which the marshal of Champagne expresses the dissatisfaction of the Crusaders, and the ill-conduct of Alexius towards them:—Alexis les menait de délai en délai, de respit en respit, le bec dans l’eau, quant au principal, et pour le regard de certaines menues parties, qu’il leur fournissait comme à lesche doigt, formait tant de petites difficultés et chicaneries, que les barons commencèrent à s’ennuyer.

[117] Villehardouin, after having described the court of Alexius, in this ceremony naïvely adds: Tout cela se sentait bien sa cour d’un si puissant et riche prince. The title of _puissant_ scarcely suited a prince who was hearing war declared against him in his own palace; and the epithet _rich_ was hardly more applicable to him, since he could not pay what he had promised, and thereby redeem his empire from the greatest danger.

[118] Là-desseus bruit se leva fort grand au palais; et les messagers s’en retournuèrent aux portes, où ils montèrent habilement à cheval; n’y ayant celui, quand ils furent hors, qui ne se sentit très heureux et content en son esprit, voire estonné, d’être reschappé à si bon marché d’un si manifeste danger; car il ne tint presque à rien qu’ils n’y demeurassent tous morts ou pris.—_Villehardouin_, liv. vi.

[119] Mourzoufle deprived Nicetas of the place of Logothete, to give it to his brother-in-law Philocales. Nicetas treats Mourzoufle with much severity, and among the reproaches he addresses to him, we may remark one which suffices to paint the court of Byzantium. The greatest crime of the usurper was not that of having obtained sovereignty by parricide, but postponing the distribution of his favours.

[120] The two attempts to burn the Venetian fleet are described in a letter of Baldwin to the pope.—See _Gesta Innocent_. The marshal of Champagne only mentions the first attempt of the Greeks.

[121] Dandolo demanded of Mourzoufle fifty centenaries of gold, which have been valued at 50,000 pounds’ weight of gold, or 48,000,000 of francs (about £2,000,000 sterling.—TRANS.). Nicetas alone speaks of this interview, of which Villehardouin and other historians make no mention.

[122] The whole of this interview militates very strongly, as indeed do all the scenes in which the doge is an actor, against the story of his blindness.—TRANS.

[123] The monuments we have consulted for the second siege of Constantinople are the _History_ of Villehardouin, the reign of Mourzoufle in Nicetas, the account of Gunther, and the second letter of Baldwin to the sovereign pontiff, which is found in the Life of Innocent (_Gesta Innocent._).

[124] Eidem civitati de quâ fugere non audebant, obsidionem ponebant.—_Gunther._ The same Gunther describes the Crusaders as trembling and distracted: De victoriâ tantæ multitudinis obtinen lâ, sive expugnatione urbis nulla eis spes poterat arridere.

[125] This treaty, made under the walls of Constantinople, is still preserved, and is to be found in _Muratori_, vol. xii.

[126] Et là, il eut maintes choses alléguées se trouvant en grand emoy ceux de l’ost, pour leur être ainsi pris ce jour là.—_Villehardouin_, liv. v.

[127] Et sachez qu’il y en avait qui eussent volontiers desiré, que la vague et le vent les eussent ravis jusqu’au delà de l’archipel; car à tels ne chaillait sinon que de parter de là, et aller leur voie droite en leurs maisons.—_Idem._

[128] According to Gunther, the taking of Constantinople was more wonderful than all that has been related by Homer and the poets of antiquity.

[129] Gunther says it was a German count that set fire to the city,—_comes Teutonicus_; he did it to prevent the Greeks from rallying:—Comes Teutonicus jussit urbem in quâdam parte succendi, ut Græci duplici laborantes incommodo, belli scilicet atque incendii, faciliùs vincerentur; quod et factum est, et hoc illi consilio victi penitùs in fugam conversi sunt.

[130] The crowd of Greeks fled principally by the Golden Gate. M. le Chevalier, in his _Voyage de la Propontide_, informs us that vestiges of the Golden Gate are still to be seen within the inclosure of the seven towers. This gate was a triumphal arch erected by Theodosius, after his victory over Maximus; it was surmounted by a statue of Victory in bronze, and ornamented profusely with gold. On the remains of this gate may still be read these Latin verses:—

Theodosi jussis, gemino nec mense peracto,
Constantinus ovans hæc mœnia firma locavit;
Tam citò tam stabilem Pallas vix conderet arcem.

Raoul de Dicetto, quoted by Ducange, says that these words were upon the Golden Gate:—Quando veniet rex flavus occidentalis, ego per meipsam aperiar. Raoul de Dicetto wrote thirteen years before the taking of Constantinople.

[131] Agnes, daughter of Louis VII., had been at the age of eight years, given in marriage to Alexius Comnenus, the son of Manuel, in 1179. After the death of Alexius, his murderer Andronicus usurped the empire and married Agnes, but had no children by her. Agnes remained a widow at Constantinople to the time of its being taken, when she married Branas, who was attached to the party of the Latins.

[132] Nicetas speaks of the carnage which followed the taking of Constantinople. We have quoted the words even of Villehardouin, who does not materially contradict Nicetas. The pope in his letters warmly reproached the Crusaders on this subject. Gunther only carries the number of slain, on the entrance of the Crusaders into Jerusalem, to two thousand persons, and attributes this slaughter to the Latins established at Constantinople, who had great cause of complaint against the Greeks. The same historian informs us that the ecclesiastics that followed the army contributed, by their discourses, to put an end to the massacre. He does not omit this occasion to praise the piety and humanity of Martin Litz, who went through the ranks of the victorious army, preaching moderation to the conquerors.

[133] There was nothing so difficult, says Nicetas, as to soften the fierce temper, appease the anger, or gain the affections of these barbarians. Their bile was so heated, that it only required a word to set it in a blaze; it was a ridiculous undertaking to attempt to render them tractable, a folly to speak reason to them.

[134] This is a very remarkable passage; it describes the hero of the crusades with the pencil of the painter as well as with the pen of the historian.—TRANS.

[135] The lamentations of Nicetas are not always natural; whilst deploring the fate of Byzantium he says, “I complained to the walls, that they alone should be insensible to calamities, and should remain standing, instead of melting away in tears.”

[136] The eleventh and twelfth volumes of the _Memoirs of the Royal Society of Gottingen_ contain a beautiful work of the illustrious Heyne, upon the monuments of art that have existed at Constantinople. In the first memoir he gives the nomenclature of the ancient monuments,—_Priscæ Artis Opera_. In the second those that were erected under the emperors of Byzantium. In two other memoirs, the same learned author describes the loss of these same monuments: _De Interitu Operum cum antiquæ tam verioris ætatis_.

[137] The Bellerophon. This statue is that of Theodosius, showing a trophy placed upon a neighbouring column; it was thus the Pacificator was represented: _fuit a Deo pacificatoris habitus_. Nicetas says that in his left hand he held a globe. The statues of the other emperors of Constantinople present a similar sign, to which a cross is attached. The people believed that under the hoof of the left fore foot, was the figure of a Venetian or a Bulgarian, or of a man of some other country which had no intercourse with the Romans. The statue being destroyed by the Latins, it was said that the figure of a Bulgarian was found concealed in the hoof, crossed by a nail and incrusted in lead. This statue came from Antioch in Syria. At the quadrilateral base was a basso-relievo, in which the populace, ever superstitious, fancied they beheld the prediction of the fall of the empire. They even said that the Russians there represented would accomplish the prediction.

[138] One of the French translators of Gibbon, of a single statue has made two; he speaks of a statue of Joshua and of another of Bellerophon. It is true that this gross error is only met with in one French translation; the English original says that in the opinion of the vulgar, this statue passed for that of Joshua, but that a more classical tradition recognised in it that of Bellerophon and Pegasus; the free and spirited attitude of the courser indicating that he trod on air rather than on the earth.

[139] Heyne attributes it to Lysippus; he thinks it is the same as the colossal Hercules of Tarentum, which was brought to Rome and placed in the Capitol. From this city it went to Constantinople, with ten other statues, under the consulate of Julian and the reign of Constantine, that is to say, about 322; but it was not till after being exhibited in the Basilic that it was placed in the Hippodrome.

[140] Gibbon calls this _an osier basket_; Michaud says, _un lit d’osier_, which I have preferred. I can imagine Hercules sitting upon a bed or mattress of osier, but not upon a basket.—TRANS.

[141] The learned Harris, in his historical Essay upon the literature and arts of the middle ages, thinks that the monument which represented the wolf suckling Romulus, was the same as that to which Virgil makes allusion when describing the buckler of Æneas:—

Illam tereti cervice reflexam
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere linguâ.

_Æneid_, b. viii.

[142] Cum ergo victores victam, quam jure belli suam fecerant, alacriter spoliarent, cœpit Martinus abbas de suâ etiam prædâ cogitare, et ne ipse vacuus remaneret, proposuit et ipse sacratas manus suas ad rapinam extendere.—_Gunther._

The same Gunther relates how Martin committed violence upon a Greek priest to obtain relics from him. When speaking of Martin Litz Gunther employs these singular expressions—_prædo sanctus_.

[143] We have spoken in the early part of the work of the true cross which the kings of Jerusalem caused to be borne before them in battle, and which was taken by Saladin at the battle of Tiberias; Saladin refused to deliver it up to Richard, as many of the Crusaders must have known. How then could the true cross be found at Constantinople? The Greeks, however, were not very nice with respect to the authenticity of their relics, and the Christians of the West on this point yielded very easy faith to them. [I cannot but think our author a little out in his criticism here: they were but fragments or portions of the cross, at Constantinople the Saracens still held the main body of the true cross—_if true it was_.—TRANS.]

[144] Villehardouin, when speaking of the rigorous justice exercised upon all who endeavoured to conceal any part of the plunder, says: Et en y eut tout plein de pendus.

[145] One edition of Villehardouin makes the plunder of Constantinople amount to five hundred thousand silver marks, equivalent to twenty-four millions; if we add to this sum the fifty thousand marks due to the Venetians, and deducted before the division, and the part which they had in the division itself, we shall find the total amount of booty fifty millions four hundred thousand francs (about £2,100,000.—TRANS.). As much, says the modern historian who supplies us with this note, perhaps, was appropriated secretly by individuals. The three fires which had consumed more than half the city had destroyed at least as much of its riches, and in the profusion that followed the pillage, the most precious effects had lost so much of their value, that the advantage of the Latins probably was not equivalent to a quarter of what they had cost the Greeks. Thus we may suppose that Constantinople, before the attack, contained 600,000,000 of wealth (£25,000,000). (What would the plunder of London amount to in 1852?—TRANS.)

[146] The ceremony of the lighted flax still takes place at the exaltation of the popes; these words are addressed to them: _Sic transit gloria mundi_.

[147] Nicetas relates all the circumstances of the sharing of the lands of the empire. We find in _Muratori_ the treaty for the division which was made before the siege; we do not offer it to our readers, because it is unintelligible in several places, and cannot shed any light over geography. The names of the cities and provinces of the empire are given in a very unfaithful and imperfect manner. The Venetians without doubt furnished the necessary information for the drawing up of the treaty, but this information was very incomplete.

[148] The pope would not at first recognise this election, which appeared to him a usurpation of the rights of the Holy See; but as Morosini was an ecclesiastic of great merit, Innocent was not willing to choose another. Morosini was sent to Constantinople not as if elected by the Crusaders, but as if appointed by the pope.

[149] Innocent, when speaking of the sack of Constantinople, expresses himself thus in his letter:—Quidam nec religioni, nec ætati, nec sexui pepercerunt; sed fornicationes, adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium exercentes, non solum meretriculas et viduas, sed et matronas et virgines Deoque dicatas exposuerunt spurcitiis garcionum. The pope is more severe towards the Crusaders than Nicetas himself; the indignation that the disobedience of the Crusaders had created, led him to exaggerate their faults. The word _incestus_, applied to warriors who had no family relations with the Greeks, alone serves to prove that there is more bitterness than truth in the letter of Innocent.

[150] Some modern writers have asserted that the column from which Mourzoufle was precipitated is still to be seen at Constantinople: but there existed two columns in that city; one of Theodosius and the other of Arcadius. The first was destroyed by Bajazet, and nothing remains of the other but the pedestal, which is in the Avret Baras (the women-market). See the _Voyage to the Propontis_, by M. le Chevalier, who has cleared up this fact on the spot.

[151] Claudian has made in his panegyrics of Stilicho, a picture of the invasion of the Goths in the provinces of Greece. These beautiful countries had not been invaded since the third century. The Franks scarcely knew how to guard their conquests better than the barbarians that had preceded them.

[152] There is in the king’s library a manuscript in modern Greek, bearing the number 2,898; the first part of this manuscript is a romance in verse, entitled “Les Amours de Thésée et des Amazones.” The second part of the manuscript is a poem on the crusades; all the tenth canto describes in detail the conquests of the Franks in Greece. M. Khazis, professor of modern Greek, had made a short analysis of this poem.

[153] The letters of Innocent speak of the city of Athens, which was no longer dedicated to Minerva, but to the holy virgin.—See b. xx. epis. vi. _Idem._

[154] It is here that for the last time we quote the _History_ of Villehardouin; we shall perhaps be reproached with having quoted it too often, and by that means given too much monotony to our account. We will answer, that the natural relation and expressions of such an historian, who relates what he has seen and that which he has experienced, have appeared to us above all that talent or the art of writing could substitute in their place. We are pleased at believing, that if our recital has been able to interest our readers, we owe a great part of this interest to the multiplied quotations from Villehardouin and other contemporary historians.

[155] Among the romantic accounts that were circulated concerning Baldwin, we must not omit the following:—The emperor was kept close prisoner at Terenova, where the wife of Joannice became desperately in love with him, and proposed to him to escape with her. Baldwin rejected this proposal, and the wife of Joannice, irritated by his disdain and refusal, accused him to her husband of having entertained an adulterous passion. The barbarous Joannice caused his unfortunate captive to be massacred at a banquet, and his body was cast on to the rocks, a prey to vultures and wild beasts.

But people could not be convinced that he was dead. A hermit had retired to the forest of Glançon, on the Hainault side, and the people of the neighbourhood became persuaded that this hermit was Count Baldwin. The solitary at first answered with frankness, and refused the homage they wished to render him. They persisted, and at length he was induced to play a part, and gave himself out for Baldwin. At first he had a great many partisans; but the king of France, Louis VIII., having invited him to his court, he was confounded by the questions that were put to him: he took to flight, and was arrested in Burgundy by Erard de Chastenai, a Burgundian gentleman, whose family still exists. Jane countess of Flanders caused the impostor to be hung in the great square of Lisle.—See _Ducange_, _Hist. de Constant._ book iii.

[156] Dandolo was magnificently buried in the church of St. Sophia, and his mausoleum existed till the destruction of the Greek empire. Mahomet II. caused it to be demolished, when he changed the church of St. Sophia into a mosque. A Venetian painter, who worked during several years in the court of Mahomet, on returning to his own country obtained from the sultan the cuirass, the helmet, the spurs, and the toga of Dandolo, which he presented to the family of this great man.

[157] Nicetas did not know whether he ought to give a place in his _History_ to the Latins, who were for him nothing but barbarians, but he makes up his mind to continue—“when God, who confounds the wisdom of human policy, and lowers the pride of the lofty, has struck with confusion those who had outraged the Greeks, and delivered them up to people still more wicked than themselves.”—See the history of that which happened after the taking of Constantinople, chap. i.

[158] How is it that our author, who is evidently partial to Villehardouin, has neglected to speak of his skilful retreat from Adrianople, upon which Gibbon bestows such high praise “His masterly retreat of three days would have deserved the praise of Xenophon and the ten thousand.” Gibbon has fine passages on Villehardouin.—TRANS.

[159] Innocent, to get rid of the neighbourhood of the emperor, demanded of Philip Augustus a knight who might marry a daughter of Tancred, and possibly reconquer Sicily. The adventures and the wars of Gauthier de Brienne are related by Conrad, abbot of Usberg, Robert the Monk, Alberic, and, as we have already said, by the author of the _Acts of Innocent_.

[160] We cannot refrain from offering our readers a curious passage from an excellent manuscript memoir which M. Jourdain has communicated to us, entitled _Recherches sur les Anciennes Versions Latines d’Aristote employées par les Ecclésiastiques du 13me Siècle_. “Two circumstances contributed in the thirteenth century to materially spread the knowledge of the Greek language in the West. Baldwin, who was placed upon the imperial throne, wrote to Pope Innocent III. to beg of him to send to him men distinguished by their piety and knowledge, chosen from the religious orders and the University of Paris, to instruct his new people in the Catholic religion and Latin letters. The pope wrote to several monastic orders and to the University of Paris. About the same time Philip Augustus founded at Paris, near the mountain St. Geneviève, a Constantinopolitan college, destined to receive the young Greeks of the most distinguished families of Constantinople. The intention of this prince was to extinguish in the hearts of these young men the hatred they had imbibed against the Latins, by offering to them all sorts of kind treatment, and perhaps also to secure hostages against the fickleness and bad faith of the Greeks.” We can conceive that this circumstance contributed powerfully in diffusing the knowledge of Greek, not only in France but in all the West, for Paris was then the most celebrated school, and almost all the men to whom Latin translations from the Greek are attributed, had studied in that city: we must also assign to the same cause the Latin versions of Aristotle made from the Greek and published before St. Thomas. Nevertheless, if the Arabs had not previously spread throughout the West a taste for the Peripatetic philosophy, it is very doubtful whether the relations established between the East and the West by the inauguration of Baldwin, would have produced any desire to obtain it from purer sources.

[161] Since their restoration to Venice, the history of these three celebrated horses has given birth to three dissertations. In one (_Narrazione Storica dei Quatro Cavalli di Bronzo_, &c.), Count Cicognara, president of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Venice, pretends that this monument was cast at Rome in the reign of Nero, in commemoration of the victory over Tiridates. M. Schlegel (_Lettera ai Signori Compilatori della Biblioteca Italiana_) rejects this opinion of the count, and thinks that the four bronze horses are from the hands of a Greek statuary of the time of Alexander.—_Dei Quatro Cavalli della Basilica di S. Marco._ Andre Mustoxidi, a very learned young Greek, makes this superb group come from Chios, which was rich in skilful sculptors, and believes they were transmitted to Rome in the time of Verres, and to Constantinople under Theodosius the Great.

[162] We find in the first volume of an Italian work entitled _Storia d’Incisa e del già celebre suo Marchesato_, published at Asti, in 1810, a precious monument; this is a charter which proves the sending of the seeds of maize to a city of Montferrat. This is a very interesting document.

[163] It is well worthy of remark that it is very little more than a quarter of a century since this sentence was written; and, in that short period, what has not science effected!—the East, of which we were then said to be so ignorant, is better known to Europeans than it was at any time during the crusades.—TRANS.

[164] The account of this famine, and the disasters by which it was followed, is to be found in its details, in _Les Relations de l’Egypte_, translated from Abdallatif by M. Letvestre de Lacy. This Arabian author was a skilful physician and an enlightened man; and his recital, which contains many extraordinary facts, bears all the characters of truth.

[165] The circumstances of this earthquake are related by Abdallatif, the Latin historians scarcely name this great calamity.

[166] M. Langlès has furnished us with this valuable incident, which he has taken from the Persian biographer Daulet Chah. The biographer adds, that a merchant of Aleppo redeemed Saadi, by paying the Christians the sum of ten golden crowns, and he likewise gave the poet another hundred as the dowry of his daughter, whom he gave him in marriage.

[167] History has great trouble in following the events of this period through the cloud of anarchy which reigned everywhere; and that which increases the difficulty is, that the authors of our old chronicles were only acquainted with the kingdom of Jerusalem, and knew nothing of what was going on in the interior of the states. The Arab historians, on the contrary, take much more note of the expeditions of the interior than of the events that happened at Ptolemaïs, situated on the sea-coast, and in some sort isolated from the rest of Syria.

[168] We find few details upon this epoch in the continuator of William of Tyre, or the other historians of the middle ages who mention the Christian colonies.

[169] This penitence and that which follows are mentioned by Fleury, in the sixteenth volume of his History; the guilty were condemned, in addition to the pilgrimage, to wear neither vair, grey squirrel fur, ermine, nor coloured stuffs; they were never to be present at public games; after becoming widowers, were never to marry again; to walk barefooted and be clothed in woollen, and to fast on bread and water on Wednesdays, Fridays, Ember-week, and Vigils; to perform three Lent fasts in the course of the year, to recite the Pater Noster a hundred times, and make a hundred genuflexions every day. When they came to a city, they were to go to the principal church barefooted, in drawers, with halters round their necks and rods in their hands, and there receive from the canons discipline, &c. &c.

[170] Son of Erard II., count of Brienne in Champagne, and Agnes Monthéliard.

[171] The continuator of William of Tyre relates that the barons of Palestine themselves demanded John of Brienne of the king of France.

[172] As Gibbon has done, I have preferred the real name of this sect to the Latinized _Albigenses_.—TRANS.

[173] Bossuet, _Histoire des Variat._ vol. ii. L’Abbé Paquet, in his _Dictionnaire des Hérésies_, and Fleury, in his _Histoire Ecclésiastique_, express the same opinion.

[174] Notwithstanding the partiality I naturally feel for an author whose work I am translating, and to which task I was led by my admiration of it, I cannot allow such opinions of the war against the Albigeois to pass unnoticed. A very sensible French historian says:—“The inhabitants of these provinces were industrious, intellectual, and addicted to commerce, the arts, and poetry; their numerous cities flourished, governed by consuls with forms approaching to republican; all at once this beautiful region was abandoned to the furies of fanaticism, its cities were ruined, its arts and its commerce destroyed, and its language cast back into barbarism. The preaching of the first religious reform gave birth to the devastation of these rich countries. The clergy were not distinguished there, as in France or the northern provinces, by their ardour to improve themselves and diffuse knowledge; they signalized themselves by gross disorders, and sank daily into greater contempt. The need of reform had been long felt among the people of Provence and many reformers had already appeared. For a length of time associations had existed whose aim it was to purify the morals and the doctrines of the Church; such were the Paterins, the Catharins, and the Poor of Lyons; and the greater part of these had obtained the sanction of the popes, who considered them as so many orders of monks, highly calculated to awaken public devotion. But the reforms that were operated extended gradually; dogmas even were attacked, priests were subjected to the insults of the people, and the domains of the Church were invaded. Such was the state of things when the famous Innocent III., at the age of thirty-nine, ascended the pontifical throne in 1198. To his great task he brought the talents of an ambitious, and the energy of a violent and an inflexible character. This pontiff, who dominated over Europe by indulgences and excommunications, watched for and punished with severity every free exercise of thought in religious matters; he was the first to feel how serious and threatening for the Church of Rome that liberty of mind must be that had already degenerated into revolt. He saw with great inquietude and anger the new tendency of men’s minds in Provence and Languedoc, and proscribed the reformers, the most numerous of whom, and who gave their name to all the others, were known under the names of Albigeois and Vaudois. Some among them were Manicheans, that is to say, admitted the two principles; _but the greatest number of them professed doctrines differing but very little from those which, three centuries later, were preached by Luther_. They denied transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Eucharist, rejected confession, and the sacraments of confirmation and marriage, and taxed the worship of images with idolatry.” In this war papacy put forth all its most dreaded powers; indulgences to its brutal, mercenary soldiers; heaven for wholesale slaughterers of their fellow-creatures; hell for all who dared to think when they worshipped, or to breathe a word against the veriest nonsense of Romish rites: many instances occurred in which the odious doctrine of _no faith to be observed with heretics_, was unblushingly advanced and cruelly acted upon. I will close my notice of this war against men who ventured to entertain a shade of difference in opinion from their fellow-Christians and the head of the Church, by a quotation that vividly stamps its character. “The Crusaders precipitated themselves in a mass upon the lands of the young viscount de Béziers, took his castles and burnt all the men, violated the women and massacred the children they found in them; then, turning towards Béziers, they carried it by assault. A prodigious number of the inhabitants of the circumjacent country had taken refuge in this city; the abbot of Citeaux, legate of the pope, upon being consulted by the knights as to the fate of these unhappy beings, a part of whom only were heretics, replied by these execrable and ever-memorable words: ‘_Kill away! kill away! God will take care of his own!_’” The crusade against the Albigeois is one of the blackest pages in the history of mankind, and ought to be described as such by every historian whose disagreeable duty it is to name it.—TRANS.

[175] The abbot of Vaux-de-Cernai, who signalized himself in the crusade against the Albigeois, has left us a history of this period, in which he relates with an air of triumph, facts which passed before his eyes, at which religion as well as humanity ought to blush. When we have read his account, we are persuaded of two things: the first, that he was sincere in the excess of his fanatical zeal; the second, that his age thought as he did, and did not disapprove of the violences and persecutions of which he so candidly exposes the history. Le Père Langlois, a Jesuit, has written, in French, a history of the crusades against the Albigeois. The _Histoire Ecclésiastique_ of Fleury, and _L’Histoire de la Province de Languedoc_ may be consulted with advantage.

[176] This crusade of the children is related by so great a number of contemporary authors, that we cannot entertain any doubt of it. We will refer to our Appendix the different versions of the ancient chronicles of this singular event.

[177] Vetus est hoc artificium Jesus Christi, quod ad suorum salutem fidelium diebus istis dignatus est innovare.—_Epist. Innocent._

[178] The year 1263 answered to the year 602 of the Hegyra.

[179] Montesquieu foretells the fate of Mahometanism; not as Innocent did, but philosophically. He likewise predicts “that France will fall by the sword;” but whether the sword will be drawn by foreigners or her own sons, he does not say.—TRANS.

[180] Gibbon says: “Some deep reasoners have suspected that the whole enterprise, from the first synod at Placentia, was contrived and executed by the policy of Rome. The suspicion is not founded either in matter or fact. The successors of St. Peter appear to have _followed_, rather than _guided_ the impulse of manners and prejudice.” With great respect for our illustrious historian, I cannot quite agree with him; the popes were in many instances the first to kindle the flame, and were always anxious to keep it burning. In the part of our history now before us, it is plain it would have gone out but for the great exertions of Innocent. The crusades were a powerful engine in the hands of the popes; they could not afford to let them go to decay.—TRANS.

[181] The cardinal de Courçon was an Englishman by family. He had studied at the University of Paris, and from that was connected with Lothaire, who became pope under the name of Innocent III. It is to this friendship that Peter Robert de Courçon owed his elevation. There is a very long notice of this person by the late M. du Theil, in _Les Notices des Manuscrits_, tom. vi.

[182] The continuator of William of Tyre expresses himself thus:—Il ot en France un clerc qui prescha de la croix, qui avait nom mâitre Jacques de Vitri; cil en croisa mult, là où il étoit en la predication, l’eslurent les chanoines d’Acre, et mandèrent à l’apostolle (le pape) qu’il lor envoyast pour estre évesque d’Acre; et sachiez s’il n’en eust le commandement l’apostolle, il ne l’eust mie reçu, mais toutes voies passa-t-il outremer, et fust évesque grand pièce, et fist mult de biens en la terre; mais puis resigna-t-il, et retourna en France, et puis fut il cardinal de Rome. [As M. Michaud has placed this note all in the text, and has only given it to show the curious mode of expression, I have followed his example.—TRANS.]

[183] Philip granted this fortieth, without reference to the future—_absque consuetudine_, and upon condition that this voluntary gift should be employed wherever the king of England and the barons of the two kingdoms should think best.—See _Le Rec. des Ord._ tom. i. p. 31.

[184] In the royal regulations of Philip Augustus, there is an order relative to the debts contracted by the Crusaders as members of a commune. We think our readers will not be displeased by the particulars of this order. “As to the Crusaders, members of certain communes, we order,” says the king, “that if the commune itself be charged with any levy, whether for foot or horse soldiers (l’ost et la chevauchée), the inclosure of the city, the defence of the city in the event of a siege, or for any debt that is due, and contracted before they took the cross, they shall be held subject to the payment of their proportion, equally with the other inhabitants who have not taken the cross; but as to the debts contracted after the period at which they shall have taken the cross, the Crusaders shall remain exempt, not only until their approaching departure, but until their return.”—See the _Recueil des Ordonnances_, _Dachery_, and the sixth vol. of the _Notices des Manuscrits, dissertation de M. du Theil sur Robert de Courçon_.

[185] In the charter granted by King John, that monarch expressly says that he grants this charter by the advice of the archbishop of Canterbury, of seven bishops, and the pope’s nuncio.

[186] This victory of Bouvines, which had such happy results for the French monarchy, will be worthily celebrated in the poem of _Philip Auguste_, by M. Perceval de Grand-maison: we cannot sufficiently praise our poets who take their subjects from the greatest periods of our annals.

[187] Upon the holding of this council, the Chronicle of Opsberg, the monk Godfrey, Matthew Paris, Albert Stadensis, the Chronicle of Fassano, and particularly the collection of the councils, may be consulted. Fleury enters into very copious details.—See the sixteenth vol. of the _Histoire Ecclésiastique_.

[188] The discourse of the pope is preserved in its entirety in the collection of the councils.—See the fourth Council of the Lateran.

[189] M. Raynourd, who has made profound researches into the language and poetry of the troubadours, communicated to us this piece of Pierre of Auvergne, with several others which appear to us of great interest, and which we will insert in our Appendix.

[190] In a dissertation upon the cardinal de Courçon, M. du Theil has undertaken to make the apology of Innocent III. We have the greatest respect for this _savant_; but he evinces too strong an inclination to justify Innocent in all respects; and an application of the common proverb, “_He who proves too much proves nothing_,” is quite in place here.

[191] Innocent pronounced these words against Louis, the son of Philip Augustus, whom he had induced to make war against the king of England; and whom he afterwards wished to excommunicate, because this prince persisted in continuing a war begun by the commands and advice of the Holy See.

[192] I have observed more than once, that our author is so absorbed in the history he has undertaken, that he is somewhat loose in his remarks upon that of the nations nearest to him. It was not likely that Henry III., a boy of nine years old, should take the cross, or that the prudent Pembroke and his other counsellors would allow the forces of an unsettled kingdom to be wasted upon such a scheme. The king of France again, who he says was constantly occupied in the war against the Albigeois, had absolutely nothing to do with that war. The southern provinces subjected to this calamity were fiefs of the crown of Aragon, and did not belong at that time to France in any way. Whilst these wars were raging, Philip was prudently extending his dominions to the north and north-east.—TRANS.

[193] Bonfinius, the historian of Hungary, says that Gertrude gave up the wife of Banc, the chancellor of the kingdom, to the criminal desires of her brother. He adds that Banc killed the queen to avenge this injury; but this assertion is contradicted by all historians. The same author says that the wife of Andrew was assassinated during his voyage to the Holy Land; but this assertion is as false as the first. Gertrude was assassinated on the 18th of September, 1213.—See Palma, _Notitia Rer. Hung._ t. i.

[194] Marguerite, queen of Hungary, set out for Palestine after the death of Bela, her husband.—See the ninth book of this History.

[195] The Chronicle of Peter Durburg, a priest of the Teutonic order, may be consulted on the manners and religion of the ancient Prussians. This chronicle, whose purpose is to describe the conquests of the Teutonic knights, contains several historical dissertations, which appear to us to have great merit; the most curious are, _Dissertatio de Diis Veterum Prussorum_; _Dissertatio de Sacerdotibus Veterum Prussorum_; _Dissertatio de Cultu Deorum_, _de Nuptiis_, _de Funeribus_, _de Locis Divino Cultui dicatis_, &c. &c. A Latin dissertation, _De Moribus Tartarorum, Lithuanorum, et Moschorum_, may likewise be consulted. This work contains curious details upon the worship and manners of Lithuania and Samogitia, which bore a strong resemblance to the worship and manners of the Prussians. M. Kotzbue, in his history of the Teutonic knights, has thrown great light upon the origin of the legislation, and the customs and religion of the ancient inhabitants of Prussia.

[196] A letter from Pope Honorius to the archbishop of Maïence, says that there is in Prussia a nation of barbarians, of whom it is said that they kill all the girls but one born of each mother; that they prostitute their daughters and wives, immolate captives to their gods, and bathe their swords and lances in the blood of these victims, to bring them success in battle—See _Raynal_, 1218. We refer our readers to our Appendix, for some details upon the manners of the Prussians.

[197] Le Père Maimbourg and most historians make the king of Hungary embark at Venice; but they are unacquainted with the Chronicle of Thomas, deacon of Spalatro, who furnishes the fullest details of the passage of Andrew II. into the Holy Land, and his return to his dominions. This Chronicle, it is true, contains many doubtful things concerning the crusade, and the kingdom of Hungary on the return of Andrew; but it is quite worthy of confidence in all that passed at Spalatro.

[198] “This year,” 614 of the Hegyra, says the continuator of Tabary, “the Franks received succours by sea from Rome the great, and other countries of the Franks, both west and north. It was the chief of Rome, a prelate much revered among the Christians, who directed them; he sent troops from his own country under various commanders, and he ordered the other Frank kings either to march in person or send their troops.”