Turkey and the Isle of Greece

Boniface the Marquis of Montferrat called upon him to carry out the covenant made, and give him, as he was bound to do, the land on the other side of the straits towards Turkey and the Isle of Greece. And the emperor acknew ledged that he was bound so to do, and said he would do it right willingly. And when the Marquis of Montferrat saw that the emperor was willing to carry out this covenant so debonairly, he besought him. in exchange for this land, to bestow upon him the kingdom of Salonika, because it lay near the land of the King of Hungary, whose sister he had taken to wife.

Much was this matter debated in various ways; but in the end the emperor granted the land of Salonika to the marquis, and the marquis did homage therefor. And at this there was much joy throughout the host, because the marquis was one of the knights most highly prized in all the world, and one whom the knights most loved, inasmuch as no one dealt with them more liberally than he. Thus the marquis remained in the land, as you have heard.

BALDWIN MARCHES AGAINST MOURZUPHLES

The Emperor Mourzuphles had not yet removed more than four days’ journey from Constantinople; and he had taken with him the empress who had been the wife of the Emperor Alexius, who aforetime had tied, and his daughter. This Emperor Alexius was in a city called Messinople, with all his people, and still held a great part of tiie land. And at that time the men 01 note in Greece departed, and a large number passed over the straits towards Turkey; and each or for his own advantage, made himself master of such lands as he could lay hands upon; and the same thing happened also throughout the other parts of the empire.

The Emperor Mourzuphles made no long tarrying before he took a city which had surrendered to my lord the Emperor Baldwin, a city called Tchorlu. So he took it and sacked it, and seized whatever he found there. When the news thereol came to the Emperor Baldwin, he took counsel with the barons, and with the Doge of Venice, and they agreed to this, that he should issue forth, with all his host, to make con quest of the land, and leave a garrison in Constantinople to keep it sure, seeing that the city had been newly taken and was peopled with the Greeks.

THE FORAGERS DEFEAT THE GREEKS

During this time, a company of good and trustworthy men issued (from the camp) to guard the host, for fear it should be attacked, and the foragers searched the country. In the said company were Odo of Champlitte, of Champagne, and William his brother, and Oger of Saint-Cheron, and Manasses of l’lsle, and Count Girard, a count of Lombardy, a retainer of the Marquis of Montferrat; and they had with them at least eighty knights who were good men and true.

And they espied, at the foot of a mountain, some three leagues distant from the host, certain tents belonging to the Grand Duke of the Emperor of Constantinople, who had with him at least five hundred Greek knights. When our people saw them, they formed their men into four battalions, and decided to attack. And when the Greeks saw this, they formed their battalions, and arrayed themselves in rank ‘ before their tents, and waited. And our people went for ward and fell upon them right vigorously.

By the help of God our Lord, this fight lasted but a little while, and the Greeks turned their backs. They were discomfited at the first onset, and our people pursued them for a full great league. There they won plenty of horses and stallions, and palfreys, and mules, and tents and pavilions, and such spoil as is usual in such case. So they returned to the host, where they were right well received, and their spoils were divided, as was fit.

MESSAGE OF THE EMPEROR ALEXIUS REPLY OF THE CRUSADERS

The next da}” after, the Emperor Alexius sent an envoy with letters to the counts and to the barons. This envoy was called Nicholas Roux, and he was a native of Lombardy. He found the barons in the rich palace of Scutari, where they were holding council, and he saluted them on the part of the Emperor Alexius of Constantinople, and tendered his letters to the Marquis of Montferrat who received them. And the letters were read before all the barons; and there were in them words, written after various manners, which the book does not (here) relate, and at the end of the other words so written, came words of credit, accrediting the bearer of the letters, whose name was Nicholas Roux.

No surprises of plot

Does saying this in a few words truly give away the plot of a book that had no surprises of plot? Hardly, but the magic of the book—and I must admit that it has magic—is in the patient, elaborate, luxuriant practice of meditative reflection on the difficult and holy words, rarely more than a few at a time. The work may strike some readers as bizarre, but it is serious and even artful, and it has the power to move many. Job on his dung heap is Christ accepting incarnate life and its ills; Job’s four sons represent the classical cardinal virtues of justice, wisdom, fortitude, and temperance; and his three daughters stand for the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The book can be read as a mechanical parlor game, but its function is to give rise to a loosely connected series of meditations on the Christian life. The wide readership and influence of the Moralia indicate that it evidently did what it needed to for its church.

Rome around him

We cannot follow Gregory this way without remembering that the book of Job is a book that appeals especially to self-absorption and selfpity. Back in Rome, we saw Gregory regularly lamenting the fall of Rome around him, and though he never quite made himself out to be Job in so many words, the link is unmistakable. On the last pages of the Moralia, he comes as close as he ever does to telling us a version of his own story— what we might call his confessions. There we capture behind the rhetoric some flavor of what it felt like to be wise, holy, and saved; to be unsure and anxious at the same time; and still to be Roman as well.

Now that I have finished this work, I see that I must return to myself.

For our mind is much fragmented and scattered beyond itself, even when it tries to speak rightly. While we think of words and how to bring them out, those very words diminish the soul’s integrity by plundering it from inside. So I must return from the forum of speech to the senate house of the heart, to call together the thoughts of the mind for a kind of council to deliberate how best I may watch over myself, to see to it that in my heart I speak no heedless evil nor speak poorly any good. . . . For when I turn inward to myself, pushing aside the leafy verbiage, pushing aside the branching arguments, and examine my intentions down at the very root, I know it really was my intention to please God, but some little appetite for the praise of men crept in, I know not how, and intruded on my simple desire to please God. And when later, too much later, I recognize this, I find that I have in fact done something different from what I know I set out to do.

Labid loves a camel less favored in appearance

Labid loves a camel less favored in appearance:

. . . with a lean camel to ride on, that many journeyings

have refined to a bare thinness of spine and shrunken hump,

one that, when her flesh is fallen away and her strength is spent

and her ankle-thongs are worn to ribbons of long fatigue,

yet rejoices in her bridle, and runs still as if she were

a roseate cloud, rain-emptied, that flies with the south wind,

or a great-uddered she-ass, pregnant of a white-bellied sire worn lean

by the stampeding and kicking and biting of fellow-stallions.

The poet Tarafah was himself ambitious but realistic:

Had my Lord willed, I’d have been another Kais bin Khdlid, and had my Lord willed, I’d have been another Amr bin Marthad; then I’d have been a man of much substance, visited by all the sprigs of the nobility, chiefs and sons of chiefs.

I’m the lean, hard-bitten warrior you know of old, intrepid, lively as the darting head of a serpent;

I have vowed my loins cease not to furnish a lining

for an Indian scimitar sharp as to both its edges,

trenchant—when I stand forth to take my revenge with it

its first blow suffices; I need no repeat stroke; it’s no pruning-hook-

a trusty blade, recoiling not from its target.

In another ode, ascribed to Zuhayr, we see lovely ladies borne along in litters on their journey:

Kainite camels

Their howdahs hung with costly cloths, and fine-spun veils whose fringes are rose-red, the very hue of dragon’s blood; issuing from Es-Soobdn, they have threaded its twisting course mounted on Kainite camels sleek and excellently nourished, swerved through hollow Es-Soobdn, ascended its rugged ridge wearing the sweet coyness of the luxuriously nurtured.

It is as though the thrums of dyed wool littering every spot where they alighted were uncrushed berries of the red fand.

With the dawn they arose, and sunrise saw them stirring, then into Wadi Er-Rass they plunged like hand into mouth, and when they came to the waters blue in the brimming well they cast down their sticks, as one who pitches his tent to stay; a sweet diversion are they to the gentle, a pretty sight well worth the scrutiny of those who like looking at beauty.

Islam is, among other things, what Abraham made of that magnificent world when Muhammad gave him the chance. In Arabia as in Judaea and all up and along the eastern frontiers, life could take its own course in these communities, barely touched by the twitches on the strings of au¬thority that ran back to Constantinople.

Constantine to the reign of Justinian

Of all the councils and confabulations that took place from the reign of Constantine to the reign of Justinian, the few that emerged as authoritative were understood—or at least argued—to have had a privileged access to the truth and to have left behind concise formulas that could stand beyond controversy and time and guide right belief. Reciting a proper creed with heartfelt assent was the Christian shibboleth, the phrase whose utterance revealed and ensured identity and loyalty. God’s power frowned so heavily on insincere assertion that no one would utter a creed he disbelieved—or so men thought. Why did God require the assertions of his creatures to capture so accurately and precisely his own nature and report it back to him? No one asked that question loudly enough to unsettle the obsession with definition.

Public compromise and private coercion both played a part in Justinian’s strategy. One way to go forward was to rewrite history, and so in the 540s, Justinian began to throw historical baggage over the side.

Intellectual Christianity

The first victim was an astonishing one: Origen, the greatest scriptural interpreter in the history of early, and arguably of all, Christianity, had always been slightly suspect. His name was a code word for a style of intellectual Christianity that had partisans but was also easily sacrificed to make a political point. Barsanuphius of Gaza, for example, had no time for these elite intellectuals: “These are the speculations of the Greeks; these are the dreams of people who fancy themselves to be something.

But these doctrines do not lead those who believe them to the light, but rather to the darkness.” The teachings of the monastic innovator Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399) had shaped the way Origen’s ideas integrated with monastic pride. But Origen had written things that could embarrass even his followers, such as his defense of “apocatastasis,” the doctrine that at the end of all things even hell would pass away and the damned would be rejoined to their benevolent creator. What Origenists had in common by the sixth century was resistance to the emperors, attachment to freedom of thought, a mystical impulse, and Platonic intellectualism. They were too smart, too well read, too independent, too little attached to party politics for their own good.34

Jerusalem

There were monks around Jerusalem who invoked Origen’s name in support of positions too far outside Justinian’s comfort zone to be tolerated, and so in 543, Justinian himself condemned Origen and his works. This condemnation went far afield in several ways. For one, it led loyal believers to destroy most of the surviving works of Origen himself in Greek. (We depend for our knowledge of his contributions on surviving fragments and on works translated into Latin by 400 or so.) For another, it let the emperor be seen and known as the arbiter of theology in his own voice and his own name kukeri carnival.

This imperial ukase ran afoul of deep conservative traditions. Living theologians could find their work and doctrine disputed, controverted, and praised, but once they had died, their fate and the approval or disapproval of their teaching was traditionally to be left in the hands of God. To condemn the dead because of their teaching seemed dangerously arrogant. But Justinian knew what others had not fully internalized, that books were now forces in their own right, and there was no necessary difference in authority between the books of the dead and the books of the living.

A deeper strategy animated Justinian. By attacking the dead, he could implicitly attack the living at little cost. Firing over the heads of the monophysites to attack Origen was one thing, and turning then to attack Theodoret, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Ibas of Edessa—the authors condemned in what came to be called the “Three Chapters” of an edict—brought the extreme Chalcedonians within firing range. Attacking the three extreme “dyophysite” (“twoish”) authors would frighten any contemporary sympathizers, who may have been few enough in number, except for those who rightly venerated the contributions of Theodore of Mopsuestia, but it would also reassure the monophysite (“oneish”) faction that attention was being paid to their concerns.

Pay close attention to Theoderic’s role

This ecclesiastical power struggle resembles many others, but we should pay close attention to Theoderic’s role. The reader who knows something—anything—of this history will have been puzzled until now at the omission of some important words regarding him and his followers: Goths, Ostrogoths, barbarians, invasion, tribes, even hordes, Arians, heretics. Theoderic’s life conventionally takes up part of the history of the barbarian invasions of Europe, the Volkerwanderung or “migration of peoples.” This standard tale has as its centerpiece a group of insensate, unfeeling brutes who insidiously overthrew civilization, little understanding what they had done. We must learn to do without that story.

Theoderic was ever remarkable. The story you have just read of him, whatever labels you might wish to put on various people and their deeds, is as exact as I can make it, carefully adjusted (I hope) for the exaggerations and prettifications with which loyal and disloyal narrators over time varnished their accounts. Theoderic’s truth at the moment I have tried to capture him, robed in imperial splendor in 500, is complex and not to be reduced to stereotypes, labels, or slogans. He was brought up in the imperial court, and that exposure to monument and ceremony strongly shaped his ambitions for the Italian cities he made his own, including Rome itself. He had to be fluent in Latin, probably knew a fair amount of Greek, and also knew the Germanic language his troops shared. For the first fifty years through which we can trace him, beginning with his return to the Balkans from Constantinople in the early 470s, when he was in his late teens, until the 520s, his self-presentation and his performances were consistently Roman, citizenly, imperial, and respectful of the old ways of the lands where he dwelled. The few and mild military adventures that made his reputation among his people were exactly comparable to the exploits of generals with impeccably Roman pedigrees who came both before and after him.

Christian religious traditions

He was Christian by birth. His father was brought up in the Christian religious traditions of the Danube armies, whom missionaries from Constantinople had converted 150 years earlier. Those armies were faithful to the Christianity they had been taught, but in the meantime doctrinal fashion had changed at Constantinople. The dominant orthodox clergy at court now condemned what had been orthodox under Constantine, calling it Arianism. Theoderic’s followers had a Bible that Ulfilas, a bishop trained in Constantinople, translated into Gothic10 in the fourth century under the influence of Constantine’s version of orthodoxy. But this Bible translation was barely intelligible, although it was probably the first serious attempt ever to render Greek into a language with almost no written tradition. That official Christianity and this Bible quickly became the possession of peoples deeply integrated in the Latin Roman world balkan tours, even when they found themselves rebuked as Arian heretics by followers of contemporary doctrinal fashion at court.11 Rome’s military leaders from 459 onward were all Arians of that kind, and they built and maintained half a dozen churches at Ravenna and at least one in Rome. We have a collection of Latin sermons copied in 500 that comes to us from an Arian preacher in Verona. A little after that date, a monk at Naples—Eugippius, whom we will meet again—wrote to a colleague with a theological question for an ongoing debate with a “count of the Goths” who was pressing Arian points of view on him. That debate captures a relationship between two communities marked simultaneously by disagreement and civility. No one in Theoderic’s Italy thought of burning anyone else at the stake.

Theoderic’s father’s family was Arian, but his mother, Erelieva, was orthodox, taking the name Eusebia (meaning “pious”) in baptism, and Theoderic’s own experience of Christianity when he was a youngster in Constantinople must have been mainly if not exclusively orthodox. He and his army stayed faithful to the creed and clergy that they brought with them to Italy, and so on Sunday found themselves in different church buildings from most of the native population. Theoderic, though, was repeatedly called on to arbitrate the business of the orthodox church of Rome during his reign. Some of his authority came with his role as the legitimate imperial ruler of the province, and some came easily owing to the religious amphibiousness of his childhood and youth.

Jerusalem under Christian rule

He hoped that the conquest of the city might still be of use in reducing Jerusalem under Christian rule. lie believed that its capture during Easter week might possibly be regarded as a token that Christ intended to make use of the wicked act of the Crusaders by leading to a new entry into the Holy City, and that the Greeks had been justly punished for their refusal to help the Crusaders and for their toleration of a mosque within their city. In these facts he found consolation. The existence of this consolation and of this rejoicing in the union which so many pontiffs had labored fruitlessly to effect brings out into stronger relief the intensity of his conviction that the destruction of the rival empire was a blunder and a crime. He was profoundly sad at the failure of his expedition, at the conquest of an empire whose preservation would absorb all the force of Christendom, and at the necessary diversion of Christian troops from Palestine.

We who can be wise after the event can see even more distinctly than Innocent how disastrous the conquest of Constantinople had been. The city had spent its strength in fighting against the hordes of Asia. Her outposts in Asia Minor had been carried by successive waves of barbarian invasion from the great plains of Central Asia. These waves had come flowing on multitudinously and overwhelmingly during a century and a half, pushed by the mighty movement of a Tartar emigration westward. Her powers had been exhausted in thus defending the first lines of Europe against a host whose deficiencies were immediately supplied by newcomers. We have seen in our recent small war in the Soudan what is the force which the spring-tide of fanaticism may supply to a horde of barbarians. The Seljukian Turks and the other Mahometan tribes against which the strength of the New Rome had been spent were still drunk with the new wine of their conversion to Islam, and fought with the same confidence of victory, recklessness of life, and even desire for death, with which the half-naked and ill-armed followers of an African Mahdi threw themselves on English bayonets. The legions of the New Rome withstood the rush of the Asiatic fanatics as steadily as did our own countrymen those of Africa.

The presence of Sead Eddin in Venice

But there is no evidence to prove that even any of the leaders had any certain knowledge that a treaty had been signed, by which the services of the Venetians in carrying the army to Egypt had become impossible. The presence of Sead Eddin in Venice, in July, 1202, possibly gave rise to doubts as to the good faith of the republic, though the presence of an envoy from the sultan may have been concealed or may have been disregarded amid the multitude of visitors to the great centre of Eastern trade in Western Europe. If such doubts arose, the conduct of the Venetians to the Crusaders while at Lido increased them, while the attack upon Zara brought conviction into the minds of a large body of the army that they were not being fairly dealt with by the Venetians.

It is probable that the belief that Venice was not acting fairly was one of the causes of the ill-feeling which showed itself in the riot between the Venetians and the Crusaders within a week after the occupation of the city. But the secret of the treaty was well kept. The interest of Dandolo was, on the one hand, not to allow its provisions to transpire, and, on the other, to take advantage of every circumstance in order to divert the attention of the Crusaders from Egypt. Henceforward, and without any explanation being suggested, we find that the Crusaders speak rather of going to Syria than to Egypt.

The arrival of a smaller number of Crusaders in Venice than had been contracted for gave a plausible excuse to Dandolo, first, to delay the departure of the expedition, then to divert it towards Zara, and afterwards to keep it there during the winter. We have seen that he entirely succeeded. From the ratification of the treaty with the Sultan of Egypt, in July, 1202, the intention was to divert the expedition from its intended attack upon Egypt, the weakest and at the same time the most important point under Moslem sway.

Palaces of Bucoleon and Blachern

The greater portion of these objects formed part of the plunder of the city which was collected during the first few days after its capture, and which was officially divided among the invaders. Three eighths were allotted to the clergy and monks who accompanied the Crusaders; the remainder were bought or otherwise acquired subsequently, mostly by private persons. The officially certified relics first mentioned seemed to have come chiefly from the imperial palaces of Bucoleon and Blachern. Many of those which were collected after the scramble of the first few days were certified with imperial golden bulls. When they reached their destination they were received with great honor and ceremony. Princes attended and took part in the solemn procession which met them on their way to the church, where, with solemn rites, they were to be deposited. A sermon often followed, relating to the events with which the relic was supposed to be connected. In many instances an annual festival was appointed to celebrate the arrival of the relic, and occasionally the gift was made conditional upon the establishment of such annual festival in its honor.

Lessons from the Old or New Testament

Lessons from the Old or New Testament appropriate to the saint, a relic of whom had been received, were selected for public reading on such festivals. Special services were framed to commemorate the event. Hymns were composed in honor of the relic. In the case of the monastery of Selincourt, where a sacred tear of Christ had been carried, the name was changed, through the reception of this relic, to that of the monastery of the Sacred Tear. A few of the more important objects of the same kind may be mentioned in order to show both the quantity which were received in the West and the honor with which they were regarded.

The Venetians are accused by the author of the “ Continuation of William of Tyre” of having taken an undue share of the spoil and of having concealed it in their ships. Many of the beautiful objects which had adorned the Church of the Divine Wisdom went to decorate St. Mark’s. The high-altar of that church, with its columns of marble and its bronze gates, was one of the most valuable acquisitions. The Venetian church obtained also many pieces of sculpture, pictures, gold and silver vessels, and a mass of church furniture. The Venetians obtained the famous picture of the Virgin which was painted by St. Luke under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

The Marmora and the Golden Horn are deep enough

The tieless waters of the Marmora and the Golden Horn are deep enough within ten feet of the walls to float larger vessels than the great galleys of the Venetians. The procession crossed the Bosphorus. The walls were crowded with spectators. The boats went quite near and then stopped. “ Here,” proclaimed some one on board the galley containing Alexis—“here is your rightful lord. We have not come to do you any harm. We will protect you if you do what you ought. He whom you obey rules you wrongfully against God and law. You know how disloyally he behaved to his lord and his brother, how he put out his eyes and usurped his empire. Here is the real heir. If you do not acknowledge him we will do the worst we can against you.”

The proclamation was received with laughter. The only answer given, and that in derision, was, “ We know nothing about him. Who is he?”

The Crusaders returned to Scutari

The Crusaders returned to Scutari. Next day a parliament was held to consider what steps should be for an attack, taken for attacking the city. It was agreed that the army should be divided into seven parts. Baldwin of Flanders was appointed to lead the van, because of the great number of archers and crossbowmen who were under his command. The Marquis of Montferrat was to bring up the rear with the Lombards, Tuscans, Germans, and men from the country between Mont Cenis and Lyons.

The business in hand was felt to be a serious one. There was apparently no longer any disaffection. The consciences of all had been quieted or their scruples overcome by the prospect of rich booty. All that remained was to fulfil their part of the contract and to receive their reward. But many a stout heart quailed at the prospect of the difficult undertaking before them.

The magistrates present were themselves

Some of the magistrates present were themselves asked to become emperor. A second and a third day were spent in these meetings. Finally the choice fell upon a Toung man named Nicolas Kanabos, who was, however, chosen against his will. Alexis and Isaac knew what was going on, but were powerless. Isaac was ill. Alexis, alarmed for himself, seeing that whoever the next emperor might be the citizens were at least determined that he should no longer reign, feeling that power was rapidly slipping away from him, and that but for the presence of his foreign guards his own life would be in immediate danger, took what under the circumstances was perhaps a natural act, but what was nevertheless justly regarded by the citizens as an act of treason. lie sent to the Marquis of Montferrat, and invited him to fill the palace of Blachern with Frenchmen and Italians, in order to defend his life and maintain him on the throne. This treason to the city cost him both his throne and his life.

Mourtzouphlos decided

On hearing of what Alexis had done, Mourtzouphlos decided that the time had come for him to act. The new emperor minister of finance was in his favor, but the imperial guard of the Warings, who knew that their duty was to defend the emperor, constituted a serious obstacle to any attack on the occupant of the throne. It is probable that, as foreign mercenaries, they were by no means favorably regarded by the people. The very fidelity for which, as we have seen, they were so justly esteemed by the imperial family, even in the time of Anna, made their opposition on the present occasion the more probable. The object of Mourtzouphlos was now to secure the person of Alexis, either by inducing him to leave the palace or by withdrawing the Warings themselves. The latter course was found to be the easier. The Warings were therefore deceived, and led to believe that in leaving the palace they were to fight for Alexis.

The empire resemble that of the Ottoman Turks

Rodeos the fall of the empire resemble that of the Ottoman Turks. The rule of the first fell after long two empires centuries of struggles with external enemies, and after a long period of success which had helped to demoralize the conquerors. Its rule had been weakened by dynastic struggles, due in part to the fact that the people were progressive, and that a more modern form of government —that of oligarchy—was being evolved from the older one of an absolute sovereign with divine attributes.

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire has lost successively its possessions in South Russia, in Hungary, in Roumania, Servia, Greece, Bulgaria, Asia Minor, and Africa in consequence of the incapacity of its rulers to govern, and, above all, of their powerlessness to absorb conquered races or acquire the habits of commerce, manufacture, or civilization. One empire fell, after an honorable existence of eleven centuries, the most civilized power in Europe; the other, inheriting such civilization, has been powerful only to destroy, and will leave its territories far in the rear of the least progressive country in Europe, and Constantinople the most backward of European capitals.

So long as the armies of the present rulers were fed from the boundless supplies of men in Central Asia, so long as the harems were filled with European captives, and the supply of rulers kept up from Christian sources on the female side, so long was their military triumph secure, and their government at least better than organized brigandage. When these supplies were cut off and the Turkish race and religion were left to their own resources, decline immediately commenced, and is rapidly bringing the rule of the Ottoman Turk to its end.

The essential difference between the condition of the Em- signs of bet- Vire even under the Comneni and that of the Turk- ter things. jsh Empire is to be found in the results produced respectively by the religion of Christ and of Mahomet. The Christianity of the empire would have provided a means of regeneration, or would not have prevented the natural spirit of the population from developing itself. The religion of the Ottoman Turks is a hinderance to advancement. I am fully alive to the low condition into which the Orthodox Church has now fallen, though it was by no means so low seven hundred years ago.

But I repeat, that if that Church had fallen as low as that of Abyssinia, it would still, as a philosophical system accepted and entirely believed in by the people, be superior as a civilizing force to Mahometanism Visit Bulgaria, because at least it would not have been a hinderance to progress. As a fact, however, the Greek Church was still the preacher of morality, the torch-bearer of civilization, and the faithful guardian of the treasures of ancient Greece.

Nicetas Choniate

The monks of Mount Athos were already multiplying the manuscripts which were to bring about a revival of learning in the West. Amidst the general indifference to public morality, priests and monks could be found whose lives and teaching were long protests against the general corruption. The work of Nicetas Choniate, our principal Greek authority on the history of the Latin conquest, is imbued with a religious spirit — religious in the sense that he believed that God rules the world and will punish national immorality, that morality implies progress and immorality the reverse.

He and others with him protested in the strongest manner against the corruption in government, the dissoluteness of the court, the absence of morality in statesmanship. In reading the history of his own times we are apt sometimes to forget that these protests were written in the thirteenth and not in the nineteenth century. The abuses in the State and the cruelty of the emperors were hateful to him. But for the fact that we meet with passages showing that his religion partook of the superstition of his age, we should hardly remember that he was the contemporary of what he records.

The very discontent, amounting to querulousness, which runs through the whole of his narrative, and which is found in other contemporary, or nearly contemporary, writers, is one of the most hopeful signs of his time. That he and so many of his contemporaries were profoundly dissatisfied with the condition of the empire gives reasonable hope that, had the Latin invasion turned out otherwise than it did, there would have been a national movement towards reform or revolution. This movement, as in Western Europe, would probably have first been felt in religion, and the Eastern Church might again have taken the lead in shaping the creed of Western Europe. For, in spite of the subserviency into which the Church had fallen, its nominal masters were obliged to respect the opinion of its governing bodies.

The imperial shores had become the prey of every pirate

The weakness of the empire, and particularly at sea, from the accession of Isaac the Second, had become clear to every Italian state. The imperial shores had become the prey of every pirate who chose to attack them. Pisans and Venetians, though during the last fifteen years of the century almost constantly fighting against each other, occasionally united in piratical attacks upon the empire, while they regarded Constantinople as neutral ground.

The ill-feeling between the Greeks and Venetians

Put while the hostility which had been growing between the empire and the Italian states generally greatly weakened the former, that displayed by Venice was the strongest, and contributed most largely to the capture of Constantinople. The ill-feeling between the Greeks and Venetians had gained great strength with the grant of concessions to Pisans and other Italian states in the time of Manuel. It had been increased by several events in the same reign, until, in 1171, in a moment of irritation, all the Venetians in the empire wTere arrested and their property placed under sequester. A short war with but hotly contested war followed. In the following year the republic sent a fleet of a hundred vessels to attack the imperial forces in Dalmatia.

Pagusa surrendered on the second day of the siege. Dalmatia was conquered. Negropont, Chios, Scyros, and other places were pillaged. For a while everything seemed to be going in favor of the republic. Everywhere, however, the Venetians were opposed by the inhabitants. A portion of the Venetian fleet was destroyed by that of the empire, but the rest occupied itself during the next three years in piratical attacks on the islands of the Egean. Aid was given on every hand to the enemies of the empire. The Serbians were subsidized.