LX. church in the reproach of heresy and schism. Photius sacri- CHAP. ficed the peace of the world to a short and precarious reign: he fell with his patron, the Cesar Bardas; and Basil the Macedonian performed an act of justice in the restoration of Ignatius, whose age and dignity had not been sufficiently respected. From his monastery, or prison, Photius solicited the favour of the emperor by pathetic complaints and artful flattery; and the eyes of his rival were scarcely closed, when he was again restored to the throne of Constantinople. After the death of Basil, he experienced the vicissitudes of courts and the ingratitude of a royal pupil: the patriarch was again deposed, and in his last solitary hours he might regret the freedom of a secular and studious life. In each revolution, the breath, the nod, of the sovereign had been accepted by a submissive clergy; and a synod of three hundred bishops was al ways prepared to hail the triumph, or to stigmatize the fall, of the holy, or the execrable, Photius. By a delusive promise of succour or reward, the popes were tempted to countenance these various proceedings; and the synods of Constantinople were ratified by their epistles or legates. But the court and the people, Ignatius and Photius, were equally adverse to their claims; their ministers were insulted or imprisoned; the procession of the Holy Ghost was forgotten: Bulgaria was for ever annexed to the Byzantine throne: and the schism was prolonged by the rigid censure of all the multiplied ordinations of an irregular patriarch. The darkness and corruption of the tenth century suspended the intercourse, without reconciling the minds, of the two nations. But when the Norman sword restored the churches of Apulia to the jurisdiction of Rome, the departing flock was warned, by a petulant epistle of the Greek patriarch, to avoid and abhor the errors of the Latins. The rising majesty of Rome could no longer brook the insolence of a rebel; and Michael Cerularius was excommunicated in the heart of Constantinople by the pope's legates. Shaking the dust from their feet, they deposited on The popes the altar of St. Sophia a direful anathema, 10 which enumerates nicate the the seven mortal heresies of the Greeks, and devotes the patriarch of guilty teachers, and their unhappy sectaries, to the eternal so-nople and ciety of the devil and his angels. According to the emergen-4. D. 104, cies of the church and state, a friendly correspondence was sometimes resumed; the language of charity and concord was sometimes affected; but the Greeks have never recanted the errors; the popes have never repealed their sentence; and from this thunderbolt we may date the consummation of 9 The Synod of Constantinople, held in the year 869, is the viiith of the general councils, the last assembly of the East which is recognised by the Roman church. She rejects the synods of Constantinople of the years 867 and 879, which were, however, equally numerous and noisy; but they were favourable to Photius. 10 See this anathema in the Councils, tom. xi. p. 1457-1460. VOL. VI. 5 excommu Constanti the Greeks, July 16. CHAP. the schism. It was enlarged by each ambitious step of the LX. Roman pontiffs: the emperors blushed and trembled at the ignominious fate of their royal brethren of Germany; and the people were scandalized by the temporal power and military life of the Latin clergy. ' Enmity of and Latins, -1200. The aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and the Greeks manifested in the three first expeditions to the Holy Land. A D. 1100 Alexius Comnenus contrived the absence at least of the formidable pilgrims: his successors, Manuel and Isaac Angelus, conspired with the Moslems for the ruin of the greatest princes of the Franks; and their crooked and malignant policy was seconded by the active and voluntary obedience of every order of their subjects. Of this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless be ascribed to the difference of language, dress, and manners, which severs and alienates the nations of the globe. The pride, as well as the prudence of the sovereign, was deeply wounded by the intrusion of foreign armies, that claimed the right of traversing his dominions and passing under the walls of his capital; his subjects were insulted and plundered by the rude strangers of the West; and the hatred of the pusillanimous Greeks was sharpened by secret envy of the bold and pious enterprises of the Franks. But these profane causes of national enmity were fortified and inflamed by the venom of religious zeal. Instead of a kind embrace, a hospitable reception from their Christian brethren of the East, every tongue was taught to repeat the names of schismatic and heretic, more odious to an orthodox ear than those of pagan and infidel; instead of being loved for the general conformity of faith and worship, they were abhorred for some rules of discipline, some questions of theology, in which themselves or their teachers might differ from the Oriental church. In the crusade of Louis the seventh, the Greek clergy washed and purified the altars which had been defiled by the sacrifice of a French priest. The companions of Frederic Barbarossa deplore the injuries which they endured, both in word and deed, from the peculiar rancour of the bishops and monks. Their prayers and sermons excited the people against the impious barbarians, and the patriarch is accused of declaring, that the faithful might obtain the redemption of all their sins by the extirpation of the schismatics. 12 An enthusiast, named Dorotheus, alarm 11 Anne Comnena (Alexiad, 1. i. p. 31-33,) represents the abhorrence, not only of the church, but of the palace, for Gregory VII. the popes, and the Latin communion. The style of Cinnamus and Nicetas is still more vehement. Yet how calm is the voice of history compared with that of polemics! 12 His anonymous historian (de Expedit. Asiat. Fred. I. in Canisii Lection. Antiq. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 511. edit. Basnage) mentions the sermons of the Greek patriarch, quomodo Græcis injunxerat in remissionem peccatorum peregrinos occidere et delere de terra. Tagino observes (in Scriptores Freher. tom. I. p. 409, edit. Struv.) Græci hæreticos nos appellant: clerici et monachi dictis et factis persequuntur. We may add the declaration of the emperor Baldwin LX. at Constan ed the fears, and restored the confidence, of the emperor, by a cHAP. prophetic assurance, that the German heretic, after assaulting the gate of Blachernes, would be made a signal example of the divine vengeance The passage of these mighty armies were rare and perilous events, but the crusaders introduced a frequent and familiar intercourse between the two nations, which enlarged their knowledge without abating their prejudices. The wealth and luxury of Constantinople demanded the pro- The Latins ductions of every climate: these imports were balanced by tinople, the art and labour of her numerous inhabitants; her situation invites the commerce of the world; and in every period of her existence, that commerce has been in the hands of foreigners. After the decline of Amalphi, the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, introduced their factories and settlements into the capital of the empire: their services were rewarded with bonours and immunities; they acquired the possession of lands and houses; their families were multiplied by marriages with the natives; and after the toleration of a Mahometan mosque, it was impossible to interdict the churches of the Roman rite. The two wives of Manuel Comnenus' were of the race of the Franks; the first, a sister-in-law of the emperor Conrad; the second, a daughter of the prince of Antioch: he obtained for his son Alexius a daughter of Philip Augustus king of France; and he besto ved his own daughter on a marquis of Montferrat, who was educated and dignified in the palace of Constantinople. The Greek encountered the arms, and aspired to the empire, of the West; he esteemed the valour and trusted the fidelity, of the Franks :15 their military talents were unfitly recompensed by the lucrative offices of judges and treasurers; the policy of Manuel had solicited the alliance of the pope; and the popular voice accused him of a partial bias to the nation and religion of the Latins. During his reign, and that of his successor Alexius, they were exposed fifteen years afterward: Hæc est (gens) quæ Latinos omnes non hominum nomine, sed canum dignabatur: quorum sanguinem effundere pene inter merita reputabant (Gesta Innocent III. c. 92, in Muratori. Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i. p. 536.) There may be some exaggeration, but it was as effectual for the action and reaction of hatred. 13 See Anne Comnena (Alexiad, 1. vi. p. 161, 162,) and a remarkable passage of Nicetas (in Manuel. I. v. c. 9,) who observes of the Venetians, kura σμ και φρατρίας την Κωνσαντινόπολιν της οικείας ηλλάξαντο, &ε. 14 Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 186, 187. 15 Nicetas in Manuel. 1. vii. c. 2. Regnante enim (Manuele )..........apud eum tantam Latinus populus repererat gratiam ut neglectis Græculis suis tanquam viris molibus et effœminatis,...solis Latinis grandia committeret negotia....erga eos profusâ liberalitate abundabat ...ex omni orbe ad eum tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles et ignobiles concurrebant. Willerm. Tyr. xxii. c. 10. 16 The suspicions of the Greeks would have been confirmed, if they had seen the political epistles of Manuel to pope Alexander III. the enemy of his enemy Frederic I. in which the emperor declares his wish of uniting the Greeks and Latins as one flock under one shepherd, &c. (See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. zv. p. 187. 213. 243.) sacre, CHAP. at Constantinople to the reproach of foreigners, heretics, and LX. favourites; and his triple guilt was severely expiated in the tumult, which announced the return and elevation of AndroniTheir mas- cus.7 The people rose in arms. from the Asiatic shore the AD1183. tyrant despatched his troops and galleys to assist the national revenge; and the hopeless resistance of the strangers served only to justify the rage and sharpen the daggers, of the assassins. Neither age, nor sex, nor the ties of friendship or kindred, could save the victims of national hatred, and avarice, and religious zeal: the Latins were slaughtered in their houses and in the streets; their quarter was reduced to ashes; the clergy were burnt in their churches, and the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate may be formed of the slain from the clemency which sold above four thousand Christians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and monks were the loudest and most active in the destruction of the schismatics; and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord, when the head of a Roman cardinal, the pope's legate, was severed from his body, fastened to the tail of a dog, and dragged, with savage mockery through the city. The more diligent of the strangers had retreated on the first alarm, to their vessels, and escaped through the Hellespont from the scene of blood. In their flight they burnt and ravaged two hundred miles of the seacoast; inflicted a severe revenge on the guiltless subjects of the empire; marked the priests and monks as their peculiar enemies; and compensated by the accumulation of plunder, the loss of their property and friends On their return, they exposed to Italy and Europe the wealth and weakness, the perfidy and malice, of the Greeks, whose vices were painted as the genuine characters of heresy and schism. The scruples of the first crusaders had neglected the fairest opportunities of securing, by the possession of Constantinople, the way to the Holy Land a domestic revolution invited, and almost compelled the French and Venetians to achieve the conquest of the Roman empire of the East. Reign and character A. D. 1185 -1195, In the series of the Byzantine princes, I have exhibited the hypocrisy and ambition, the tyranny and fall, of Andronicus, the last male of the Comnenian family who reigned at Constantinople. The revolution, which cast him headlong from the throne, saved and exalted Isaac Angelus,18 who descended by the females from the same Imperial dynasty. The successor of a second Nero might have found it an easy task to deserve the esteem and affection of his subjects; they some 17 See the Greek and Latin narratives in Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, c. 10,) and William of Tyre (l. xxii. c. 10, 11, 12, 13 ;) the first soft and concise, the second loud, copious, and tragical. 18 The history of the reign of Isaac Angelus is composed, in three books, by the senator Nicetas (p. 228-290 ;) and his offices of logothete, or principal sesecretary, and judge of the veil or palace, could not bribe the impartiality of the historian. He wrote, it is true, after the fall and death of his benefactor. OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 53 times had reason to regret the administration of Andronicus. CHAP. The sound and vigorous mind of the tyrant was capable of LX. discerning the connexion between his own and the public interest; and while he was feared by all who could inspire him with fear, the unsuspected people, and the remote provinces, might bless the inexorable justice of their master. But bis successor was vain and jealous of the supreme power, which he wanted courage and abilities to exercise; his vices were pernicious, his virtues (if he possessed any virtues) were useless, to mankind; and the Greeks, who imputed their calamities to his negligence, denied him the merit of any transient or accidental benefits of the times. Isaac slept on the throne, and was awakened only by the sound of pleasure: his vacant hours were amused by comedians and buffoons, and even to these buffoons the emperor was an object of contempt his feasts and buildings exceeded the examples of royal luxury; the number of his eunuchs and domestics amounted to twenty thousand; and a daily sum of four thousand pounds of silver would swell to four millions sterling the annual expense of his household and table. His poverty was relieved by oppression; and the public discontent was inflamed by equal abuses in the collection, and the application, of the revenue. While the Greeks numbered the days of their servitude, a flattering prophet, whom he rewarded with the dignity of patriarch, assured him of a long and victorious reign of thirty-two years; during which he should extend his sway to mount Libanus, and his conquests beyond the Euphrates. But his only step toward the accomplishment of the prediction, was a splendid and scandalous embassy to Saladin,19 to demand the restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to propose an offensive and defensive league with the enemy of the Christian name. In these unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of the Greek empire crumbled into dust. The island of Cyprus, whose name excites the ideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by his namesake, a Comnenian prince; and by a strange concatenation of events, the sword of our English Richard bestowed that kingdom on the house of Lusignan, a rich compensation for the loss of Jerusalem. the Bulga A.-D. 1186. The honour of the monarchy, and the safety of the capital, Revolt of were deeply wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Wa-rians, lachians. Since the victory of the second Basil, they had supported, above a hundred and seventy years, the loose dominion of the Byzantine princes; but no effectual measures had been adopted to impose the yoke of laws and manners on these savage tribes. By the command of Isaac, their sole means of 19 See Bobadin, Vit. Saladin. p. 129-131. 226, vers. Schultens. The ambassador of Isaac was equally versed in the Greek, French, and Arabic languages; a rare instance in those times. His embassies were received with honour, dis missed without effect, and reported with scandal in the West. 5* |