The Panhagia of the Blachern

The easy sloth into which the possession of innumerable relics, and the consciousness of being under the protection of an army of saints and martyrs, had plunged a large part of the inhabitants, had been rudely dispelled. The Panhagia of the Blachern, with its relic of the Virgin’s robe, the host of heads, arms, bodies, and vestments of saints and of portions of the holy Cross, had been of no more use than the palladium which lay buried then, as now, under the great column which Constantine had built.

The rough energy of the Westerns had disregarded the talismans of the Greek Church as completely as those of paganism. In vain had the believers in these charms destroyed during the siege the statues which were believed to be of ill-omen or unlucky. The invaders had a superstition as deep as their own, but with the difference that they could not believe that a people in schism could have the protection of the hierarchy of heaven, or be regarded as the rightful possessors of so many relics. During the night following its capture the Golden Gate, which was at the Marmora side of the landward walls, had been opened, and already an affrighted crowd was pressing forward to make its escape from the captured city. Others were doing their best to bury their treasures.

The widow of Alexis

The empery Fiight of the or himself, either seized with panic or finding that emperor was lost—as, indeed, everything was lost so soon as the army had succeeded in obtaining a foothold within the walls—fled from the city. He, too, escaped by the Golden Gate, taking with him Euphrosyne, the widow of Alexis. The brave Theodore Lascaris determined, however, to make one more attempt. His appeal to the people was useless. Those who were not panic-stricken appear to have been indifferent. Some, at least, were apparently still dreaming of a mere change of rulers, like those of which the majority of them had seen several.

Venetiau transports was to be renewed

And remember that so good an arrangement was never offered, and he who refuses it will show that he has no wish for conquest.” These are the terms of the proposal as given by Villehardouin. There were other conditions which regarded the Venetians, and which may on that account have been omitted by the marshal. The advances made to the republic were to be repaid. The contract for the freight of the Venetiau transports was to be renewed for another year on its expiration in June, and the republic was to receive one hundred thousand marks.

The messengers had brought with them letters from Philip, ordering the Germans under his rule, under strict injunctions, to support the proposal for the restoration of Alexis. He promised the French and Flemings that, if Alexis should come to his own, he would always keep open a road through Romania safe and free.

Villehardouin insists

The meeting was adjourned until the next day. When it took place the division of opinion among the barons became at once evident. The Abbot of Vaux, who represented the party which Villehardouin insists was desirous of breaking up the army, declared that he and his friends would not agree to the proposal, though even this writer tells us that they gave as their reason that they had not left their homes for such work as that proposed, and that they wished to go to Syria. Those, says Gunther, who were anxious for the success of the Cross earnestly dissuaded the rest from accepting the proposals of Philip. They urged that the restoration could not be effected without bloodshed. The plan, says this writer, seemed foolish and dishonest; foolish, because a few foreigners were not likely to take a city so well fortified and so populous, and where there was sure to be much slaughter; dishonest,
because they were departing from the holy purpose to which they had pledged themselves.

Crusaders were encamped opposite the imperial palace

When the expedition had arrived and the Crusaders were encamped opposite the imperial palace, he wished to withdraw from the city. His relatives, however, and the ring which always surrounds an Eastern despot urged him to resist on their account. It was they who forced him to make a show of defence. The bravest among them was the emperor’s son- in-law, Theodore Lascaris. When, as we have seen, the seaward towers around Blachern were taken, and a part of the city set on fire, his subjects openly reproached him with cowardice, and it was then, probably, that the threats of which Robert de Clari speaks were uttered. Perhaps it was under the influence of these threats that he had been induced to lead his army outside the walls on the occasion mentioned. Lascaris begged hard to be allowed to attack the Crusaders. The emperor, however, was either afraid or possibly believed that as the city never had been captured it never could be.

According to Nicetas

The retreat, according to Nicetas, encouraged the Latins.

It strengthened the party of Isaac within the city. ieavesmtheror Even indifferent men argued that if there were no arrangement there should at least be fighting, and if an army more numerous than the invaders had yet been forbidden to attack, it was time to change their sovereign. The cowardly voluptuary had, however, no intention of making resistance. The same night he fled ignominiously from the city. He told Irene, his daughter, and several other women of his intention; took ten thousand pieces of gold, a number of precious stones and imperial ornaments,1 and embarked, deserting his wife and children, his throne and people.

The flight of Alexis filled the city with alarm. Constantine, the minister of finance, however, assembled the troops Restoration an deflated for Isaac. The blind old emperor was of Isaac ]ed, or rather carried, out of prison, placed upon the throne, and once more treated as the Emperor of Home. As soon as he understood the situation he sent the news of his release to his son, to the leaders of the Venetians, and to the Crusaders. His great anxiety was to hear once more his son’s voice.

Conrad to bear with the insolence of the Venetians

He advised Conrad to bear with the insolence of the Venetians, and appointed him, together with four Cistercian abbots, to go with the army to represent the pope. In the same way Abbot Martin was advised by the cardinal to remain with the army. Gunther says that when the abbot saw that the expedition would necessitate the shedding of Christian blood, he was at a loss what to do. He begged the cardinal to absolve him from his vow and to allow him to retire to the quiet of his cloister. The cardinal, however, flatly refused, and ordered him, in the pope’s name, to take charge of the German pilgrims. lie was further enjoined by the cardinal to go with the army wherever it went, and to use his influence, with that of the other religious leaders, to prevent all attacks upon Christians and their territory.

On Sunday, the 25th of August there was an imposing ceremony in Saint Mark’s, the object of which was probably The vene Partly to delude the pilgrims into the belief in the nans join the good faith of Dandolo and the Venetians, and partly to give a pretence to them to 30m the expedition.

Henry Dandolo

At the mass, which was of unusual solemnity, Henry Dandolo ascended the pulpit and addressed the Venetians: “You are allied with the bravest men on earth. I am old, and weak, and infirm ; as you see, I have need of rest; still, I know of no one more capable of taking command of your undertaking than I. If you wish that I should take the Cross, and that my son should remain here to replace me, I will go with you and the pilgrims for life or death.” The assembly cried, “ Come with us, for God’s sake.” Many in the congregation, both Venetians and pilgrims, shed tears as the old man was led to the altar, and a cross, made especially large so that it might be fiery Dan- seen by all, was affixed to his breast.

Great clearness in the pages of Anna Comnena

The characteristic differences be tween them come out with great clearness in the pages of Anna Comnena, and, at a later date, in those of Nicetas, of William of Tyre, of Yillehardonin, and a host of other contemporary historians. While it is clear that the men of the West were comparatively a horde of barbadians, who entered and finally destroyed a refined and civilized capital, the virtues and vices of the two races stand out with equal distinctness. The Crusaders felt, spoke, and acted in presence of the civilization, but also of the unmanly luxury, the lying and treachery, of the Byzantine court, as Englishmen have so often done in presence of some of the courts of farther Asia. They were rough and rude, drunken and licentious, and at times could be false and cruel. But their falseness and cruelty, compared with that of the Byzantines, were those of an average

English private soldier in comparison with the craftiness and falseness, the ingenuity and persistence in cruelty, of an Eastern sovereign of the worst type- In their way, and according to their lights, they were religious, by which I mean that they were actuated, not only with a profound belief that they were doing a duty which God had appointed them, but that they hated lying and cowardice and cruelty, because they believed them to be sinful. The religion of the West, though allied with numberless superstitions, existed side by side with a sense of duty. The religion of the East was not only involved in an almost equal number of superstitions, but seemed to the Crusaders to be divorced from morality.

Comparatively indifferent to morality

The great defect of the Eastern churches then, as now, was the very slight effect which they exercised upon the conduct of life. Comparatively indifferent to morality, they were jealously watchful of the last iota of what they chose to consider orthodoxy. The Byzantines were ready to spend their time in discussing the attributes of the Unknowable, in arguing upon some shade of meaning to be attached to a phrase in the creed or to the performance of a ceremony. All the intellectual ability of the race seemed, at times, to be spent in subtitle hair-splitting. The Western Crusaders could no more hold their own in argument with the Greeks than an English private in presence of a Bengalee.

Life among the wealthier classes of Constantinople

Life among the wealthier classes of Constantinople and its Constantino neighborhood must have been, on the whole, very pie a city of pleasant. There were villas on the neighboring shores of the Bosphorus, on the Marmora towards San Stefano, and on the shore beyond Chalcedon, where one might escape from the great heat of summer and spend half the year in a country life, while the well-built palaces of the city were warm and comfortable in winter. The inhabitants appreciated these privileges and were proud of the Queen of Cities. The Byzantine noble, when compelled to leave it, longed to be back again. He loved the sacred city and the Marmora, where the zephyrs blew so softly, where the fountains were so pleasant, the baths so delicious, where the dolphins and other varieties of fish disported themselves on the surface of the waters, and where the nightingales and other singing birds made delightful music for those who flocked from all parts of the world to hear it. Constantinople was a city of business, but it was likewise a city of pleasure.

Every-thing that wealth could buy could be secured within its walls. As in our own days men who have acquired money in remote regions flock to Paris or London to take part in the luxurious life of these capitals, so the Cyprian, the islander, the trader from many a remote province or country, went to Constantinople as the place where he could make the best investment of his money in pleasure. But the inhabitant of what the Western writers then called Romania had a greater inducement to go to Constantinople than the inhabitant of Manchester or Marseilles to go to London and Paris. Property is, in modern times, as safe in these provincial cities as in the capitals of the countries in which they are situated, but property at Smyrna or elsewhere in Asia Minor was liable to attacks from the Turks; property in Mitylene or others of the islands of the Aegean and along the seaboard of the empire had to be continually protected from the pirates who were already infesting the neighboring seas.

As so secure as Constantinople

No city was regarded as so secure as Constantinople, and amid this security the wealthy man could find rarer silks, finer linen, and purer dyed purple, richer furs, dishes of greater delicacy, and wines of more rare and costly vintage than in the provinces. Precious stones and jewelry of every kind, including those ropes of pearls which are yet to be seen in daily wear at Damascus and other remote cities of Turkey, and to the display of which the inhabitants of Eastern Europe, like those of Asia, have always attached great importance, might be more safely worn, could be shown to more people Visit Bulgaria, and would be more highly appreciated than in the provincial towns.

The Crusaders regarded the luxurious dresses of the Bjrzantines as marks of effeminacy, just as a Turcoman horde clothed in sheepskin, marching upon Paris, would bo sure to regard the luxury of the capital as a sign that the manliness had departed from the nation. The Byzantines looked on the rough and ill-dressed Crusaders as rude and uncouth barbarians, unskilled in science, ignorant of art and literature, and entire strangers to the luxuries of civilization. The Crusaders are never weary of calling attention to the luxury and the wealth of the inhabitants of Constantinople, and Nicetas himself, the chief Byzantine historian of this period, tells several stories against his own countrymen of the fault found by the Crusaders with the effeminate character of this luxury. We may be sure, however, that the Byzantine point of view was far different. All the pleasures of nature and of art were his.

The climate was safe from the great heat

The climate was safe from the great heat of Smyrna or the cold of even a few miles farther north on the Black, that is, the rough, bleak, Sea. The Golden Horn, the Marmora, and the Bosphorus were bright during six or seven months of the year with gayly decked and graceful caiques, probably not much unlike their present representatives, except that they were higher in the stem and stern, and thus more graceful in form. Carefully trained oarsmen from the Greek islands or from the neighboring shores were to be had at a cheap rate, and each noble family had its own crews with gay distinctive badges. The ruins
now existing in the neighborhood of Constantinople show how largely the nobles led a villa life on the borders of the sea.

No city in the world is so largely gifted by nature with the requirements for a happy life. The bright sky, the blue, tideless waters of the Marmora, the vine-producing shores, the forests which even yet have not been so far destroyed as to drive away the nightingale, the flights of quail which pass the city twice every year and still fall occasionally in the streets of Constantinople, the never-failing supply of fish and other food, the presence of birds of beautiful plumage and song, all contributed to the joyous life of this city of pleasure.

Grand Prince of Russia

The Warings were to have free trade throughout the empire, but were to take passports; subject to this provision the Grand Prince of Russia and his boyards were to be allowed to send as many ships and cargoes, as many deputies and guests, as they liked. The Waring merchants were to receive a monthly allowance. Waring offenders were to be punished by Waring law. Waring officers were to be named to take possession of testamentary and intestate successions. The treaties were duly ratified by Christian oaths on the part of the Greeks and on the part of those of the Russians who had become Christians, and by placing on the ground their swords, shields, and other arms on the part of those Russians who had not yet been baptized.

An interesting account is given of the Warings, a little later, Swendosiav’s by ^eo Deacon, a contemporary of the events expedition. }ie describes. The description he gives clearly shows that the Warings are meant, though he calls them Russians. lie does justice to their valor, but also to their cruelty. Like all the Greek writers, he makes mention of the fact that their distinctive weapon was the battle-axe. They never, says Leo, surrendered in battle, and rather than be taken prisoners would kill themselves.

Dorystolon or Silistria

They had flaxen or reddish hair, and blue eyes. One of the most striking incidents of the Waring war, which he describes, relates to a leader named Swen- doslav. He had led a host into the empire on a plundering expedition, and had occupied Dorystolon or Silistria, which commands the Derwend pass through the Balkans, lie had fought bravely and held his own against great numbers, but found himself at length unequal to the task of breaking through the lines which the imperial troops, under the Emperor John Zcmiskes (960-970), had drawn round Dorystolon. Eight thousand of his followers had been killed, and he was compelled to accept terms. lie stipulated that he should be allowed to leave the empire, and bound himself to send back the captives he had taken.

Count Baldwin or Aldwin and Kichard

Alexis Comnenos, who had urged the Sicilians to undertake the expedition and had accompanied them, was taken prisoner and blinded. Those who could took ship and endeavored to escape. A storm destroyed many and drove others back, who were slaughtered by the people whom they had grievously wronged.

In the engagement of Demetriza the two leaders, Count Baldwin, or Aldwin, and Kichard, the brother-in-law7 of Tan- cred, We’re made prisoners. They were sent to the capital, and, when brought into the presence of the emperor, behaved themselves with characteristic insolence. The emperor, clothed in imperial purple set with pearls, seated on his throne of gold, and surrounded by his guard, ordered his distinguished prisoners to be brought before him.

He asked Baldwin why he had written in reply to the anointed of the Lord1 letters which were full of insolence. Baldwin answered by expressing his contempt for the emperor, remarked that the imperial sword was good enough against effeminate and unarmored bodies, alluding to the death of Ilagiochristophorides, and told him that, instead of being used to wear a helmet and armor and to sleep in the open air under his shield, he had been brought up tenderly, had feared to be whipped by his tutor, and was a stranger to the noise of war or the call of the trumpet to battle.

He volunteered the advice that the best thing the emperor could do would be to lay aside his crown, and give it and the other imperial insignia to a prince who could win battles, and to be careful to keep in the good graces of such a prince. The emperor appears to have taken the insolence good-naturedly, and on Baldwin afterwards endeavoring to explain away his offensive language, and on his flattering the emperor, he and Bichard were sent back to prison. Shortly afterwards Baldwin was set at liberty, on his consenting never again to give aid to those who were fighting against Isaac, their grievances, were treated as barbarians and otherwise insulted, returned to the mountains, and were soon at the head of a formidable movement.

Asiatic barbarians pouring into Europe

We have thus seen that during centuries the capital had had to contend with a stream of Asiatic barbarians pouring into Europe as well as into Asia, and with uncivilized races which were already established in the Balkan peninsula.

At the end of the twelfth century the Wallachs and the Ser- Progresso vian division of the Slavs, the two races which had underemces teen placed under Boman rule at the time when prechosen Byzantium as his capital, had so far progressed as to have adopted Christianity and to have won national independence; the Huns, the first of the Asiatic races who had obtained a permanent settlement in the empire, and the Bulgarians had similarly progressed, and had likewise become independent; the more barbarian of the invaders had either been totally destroyed or, like the Patchinaks, the Uzes, and the Comans, still retained their nomadic habits and were still either Mahometans or pagans, and had not come under the civilizing influence of the New Borne. Though we read of Hungarian, Wallachian, and Bulgarian kingdoms, of Servian or other principalities, yet it must be remembered that these were all rather states in the making than countries under established rule and settled governments.

Their boundaries changed continually. One year they acknowledged the suzerainty of the New Borne and the next they claimed to be independent. New claimants for power were constantly rising in their midst. They were continually at war with their neighbors, while behind each and all of them was always, until later than the twelfth century, the constant stream of Asiatic immigrants, fresh from barbarism and hostile alike to all who had adopted Christianity or who had ceased to be nomads.

Roman law

The history, in truth, of the Byzantine empire is in great part the history of the education of barbarous races. The population of the capital and the Greeks of the south of the peninsula and of the islands still retained the traditions of art, of science, and of philosophy. The student of theology and of Roman law, as developed under Justinian and his successors, does not require to be reminded how acute was the intellect which dealt with these two great subjects, how great
was the power of generalization, how subtile the power of distinction, which was brought to bear on theological and legal questions. During long centuries the masses of people who appeared in the empire were being leavened with the Greek spirit. In time all the races of the empire would have to come within its influence. Huns and Bulgarians had been converted from cruel savages and nomadic hordes into nations which had entered upon the path of civilization.