APPENDIX ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE EDITOR
1.: AUTHORITIES
LAONICUS CHALCONDYLES 1 belonged to a good Athenian family. He went twice as an ambassador to the Sultan Murad, and was on both occasions imprisoned. His History in 10 books covers the period 1298-1463, and thus includes the fall of the Empire of Trebizond. He was a man of great ability, and, though we may wish that he had not set it before himself to imitate Herodotus and Thucydides, we must recognise the talent which he displayed in handling a most intractable period of history. It is very interesting to pass from his predecessors in the series of the Byzantine historians to this writer. We no longer watch events from the single and simple standpoint of Constantinople. The true theme of Chalcondyles is not the decline of the diminished empire, but the growth and development of the Ottoman State. 2 The centre of events shifts with the movements of the sultan. The weakest point of Chalcondyles is his chronology. (Ed. Baumbach (Geneva), 1615; ed. Bekker (Bonn), 1843.)
DUCAS was a grandson of Michael Ducas (a scion of the imperial family of that name), who is mentioned as having taken part in the struggle between Cantacuzenus and John Palaeologus in the 14th century. He was secretary of the Genoese podestà at Phocaea, before the siege of Constantinople, and afterwards he was employed by the Gattilusi of Lesbos as an ambassador to the sultan. His connection with the Genoese helped, probably, to determine his ecclesiastical views; he was a hearty supporter of union with the Latin Church, as the great safeguard against the Turks. His History covers the period 1341-1462; he is more accurate than Chalcondyles. In language he is not a purist; his work is full of foreign words. (Ed. Bullialdus (Paris), 1649; ed. Bekker (Bonn), 1834, with a 15th cent. Italian translation, which fills up some gaps in the Greek.)
GEORGE PHRANTZES (cp. above, p. 250, note 33), born 1401, was secretary of the Emperor Manuel, whose son Constantine he rescued at Palias in 1429. In 1432 Protovestiarios, he was made Prefect of Sparta in 1448, and then elevated to the post of Great Logothete. See further above, p. 250 and p. 322 sqq. Taken prisoner on the capture of Constantinople (cp. vol. xii. p. 47), he fled to the Peloponnesus, visited Italy, and ended his life as Brother Gregory in a monastery of Corfu, where he composed his Chronicle. This work, when Gibbon wrote, was accessible only in the Latin translation of Pontanus (1604). The Greek original was first published by F. K. Alter (Vienna, 1796), from an inferior MS. An improved text was issued by Bekker in the Bonn series, 1838. 3 The history covers a longer period than that of Chalcondyles; beginning AD 1258, it comes down to AD 1476, the year before the work was completed. Bk. 1 comes down to the death of Manuel, Bk. 2, to the death of John; Bk. 3 treats of the reign of Constantine and the capture of the city; Bk. 4 the events of the following twenty-three years. The high position which he held in the State and his opportunities of knowledge render Bks. 2 and 3 especially valuable. He is naturally a good hater of the Turks, from whom he had suffered so much. His style is not pedantic like that of Chalcondyles. (Biographical Monograph by G. Destunis in the Zhurnal Ministerstva narodn. prosv., vol. 287, p. 427 sqq. , 1893.)
CRITOBULUS of Imbros wrote a history of the deeds of Mohammad II. from AD 1451 to 1467. Although he is not out of sympathy with his countrymen, he has thrown his lot in with the conquerors, and he writes from the Turkish point of view. This is the interesting feature of his work, which is thus sharply contrasted with the histories of Chalcondyles and Ducas. He inscribes the book, in a dedicatory epistle, to Mohammad himself, whom he compares to Alexander the Great. Like Ducas and Chalcondyles, he describes the siege of Constantinople at second hand; but like theirs his very full description is a most valuable source for comparison with the accounts of the eyewitnesses. He can indeed be convicted of many small inaccuracies. For example, he states that Giustiniani was wounded in the chest, and that Constantine was slain near the Cercoporta; and in other parts of his work, his chronology is at fault. He was an imitator of Thucydides, and puts Thucydidean speeches into the mouth of Mohammad. But he does not scruple to use a “modern” foreign word like τούϕακες, “guns” (from the Turkish; cp. modern Greek τουϕέκι, a gun). The history of Critobulus is extant in an MS. at Constantinople, and it was first published by C. Müller, in the 2nd part of vol. v. of Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, p. 40 sqq. , 1870, with very useful notes.
The description of Murad’s siege of Constantinople by JOHN CANANUS is mentioned above, p. 224, note 93; and that of the siege of Thessalonica in 1430, by JOHN ANAGNOSTES , on p. 302, note 14.
The chronicle of the last years of the empire is briefly told in the anonymous EKTHESIS CHRONIKE , a work of the 16th century, published by C. Sathas in Bibl. Graec. Med. Aev. vii. p. 556 sqq. (1894). A new edition of this little work by Prof. Lampros is in preparation.
It remains to mention the Anonymous Dirge concerning Tamurlane, Θρη̂νος περὶ Ταμυρλάγγου, written during the campaign of Timur into Asia Minor. It is published by Papadimitriu in the Lietopis ist.-phil. obschestva of Odessa (Vizant. Otdiel.), ii. p. 173 sqq. (Older, bad ed. in Wagner’s Medieval Greek Texts, p. 105 sqq. ) Timur’s name also appears in this poem as Ταμυρλάνης (l. 47) and Τεμύρης (l. 41).
RASHĪD AD-DĪN , born 1247 at Hamadān was originally a physician, but became Vizir of Persia, 1298. He was executed by Abū Said in 1318. In the preface to his Jāmi at-Tawārīkh he acknowledges his obligations to a minister of Mongol birth and name, who was versed in Turkish and Mongolian history. He refers to the Altan depter , a book of Mongol annals which was in the Khan’s treasury, text and Russian translation by J. N. Berezin, 1858 sqq.
Alā ad-Dīn Ata-mulk JUVAINĪ composed a work entitled Jahān Kushāi (a history of the Conqueror of the World) on the last ten years of Chingiz, and coming down as far as AD 1257. Born in Khorāsān in AD 1227-8, he visited the court of Mangū Khān c. AD 1249. His work (of which there is a MS. in the British Museum) has never been printed, though he is one of the best authorities on the history of his time. But it has been largely used by D’Ohsson and others. For his biography see Fundgruben des Orients, i. 220-34.
Minhāj-i-Sirāj JŪZJĀNĪ , son of a cadi of the army of Mohammad Ghōrī, lived c. AD 1200-70, and wrote his history, the Tabākāt-i-Nāsirī, about the middle of the century, at the court of Nāsir ad-Dīn Mahmūd, King of Delhi. Beginning with the Patriarchs, he brought his history down to his own day, and Bk. 23 is occupied with the incursions of the Turks and Mongols, — the Karā-Khitāy Chingiz and his successors, to AD 1259. The author writes in a clear straightforward style, and supports his narrative by references to sources. The work was translated by Major Raverty in the Bibliotheca Indica (1848, etc.), and there are large extracts in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, ii. 266 sqq.
The second and third Books of the Memoirs of TĪMŪR are the Institutions and Designs which were translated by Major Davy (1783) and used by Gibbon. Book iv. coming down to 1375 AD has since been translated by Major Charles Stewart, 1830 (The Mulfuzāt Timūry, or autobiographical Memoirs of the Moghul Emperor Timūr). The original memoirs were written in Turkish (in the “Jagtay Tūrky language”) and were rendered into Persian by Abū Tālib Husainī. The English translations are made from the Persian version.
Mirza HAIDAR lived in the 16th century and was a cousin of the famous Bābar. His Tarīkh-i-Rashīdī (transl. by Elias and Ross, see above p. 133, note 12, with learned apparatus of introduction and notes) is “the history of that branch of the Moghul Khans who separated themselves, about the year 1321, from the main stem of the Chaghatai, which was then the ruling dynasty in Transoxiana; and it is the only history known to exist of this branch of the Moghuls” (Elias, ib. p. 7). There are two parts of the work; the second contains memoirs of the author’s life, etc., which do not concern any events touched upon by Gibbon. In the first part, written in 1544-6 in Cashmir, the author follows the history of two dynasties: the Khans of Moghulistān, beginning with Tughluk Tīmūr; and their vassals the Dughlāt amīrs of Eastern Turkestan, from one of whom Haidar was descended. This part of the work is based largely on oral traditions, but the author also made use of the work of Sharaf ad-Dīn. Mr. Elias criticises “the weakness of the chronology and the looseness with which numbers and measurements are made.”
Of Chinese authorities for the history of the Mongols, the most important is the annals entitled YUAN SHI , of which Bretschneider (Mediaeval Researches for Eastern Asiatic Sources, 1888) gives the following account (vol. i. p. 180 sqq. ). In 1369 “the detailed records of the reigns of the thirteen Yüan emperors were procured, and the emperor (Hungwu) gave orders to compile the history of the Yüan [Mongols], under the direction of Sung Lien and Wang Wei. The work, which occupied sixteen scholars, was begun in the second month of 1369 and finished in the eighth month of the same year. But as at that time the record of the reign of Shun ti (the last Mongol emperor in China) was not yet received, the scholar Ou yang Yu and others were sent to Pei p’ing to obtain the required information. In the sixth month of 1370 the Yüan Shi was complete.” There were various subsequent editions. “The Yüan Shi has been compiled from official documents. Perhaps we must except the biographies, for which the information was probably often derived from private sources. It seems that the greater part of the documents on which the Chinese history of the Mongols is based had been drawn up in the Chinese language; but in some cases they appear to have been translated from the Mongol. I conclude this from the fact that in the Yüan Shi places are often mentioned, not, as usually, by their Chinese names, but by their Mongol names represented in Chinese characters” (p. 183). The Yuan Shi (p. 185 sqq. ) is divided into four sections: (1) consists of the lives of the 13 Mongol Khans in Mongolia and China, and the annals of their reigns from Chingiz to Shun ti (1368); (2) memoirs (geographical, astronomical, politico-economical notices; regulations on dress, rites, public appointments, etc.; military ordinances, etc.); (3) genealogical tables and lists; (4) about a thousand biographies of eminent men of the period [Bretschneider observes that these biographies “bear evidence to the liberal views of the Mongol emperors as to the acknowledgment of merit. They seem never to have been influenced by national considerations”]; and notices of foreign lands and nations south and east of China ( e.g. , Korea, Japan, Burma, Sumatra).
An abstract of the annals of the Yüan shi is contained in the first ten chapters of the YÜAN SHI LEI PIEN (an abbreviated History of the Mongols) which were translated by Gaubil in his Histoire de Gentchiscan (see above p. 133, note 11). From this abstract, and the Yüan shi and another work entitled the Shi Wei (Woof of History), Mr. R. K. Douglas compiled his Life of Jinghiz Khān, 1877.
The YÜAN CH‘AO PI SHI , Secret History of the Mongol dynasty, is a Chinese translation of a Mongol work, which was completed before 1240. It contains the early history of the Mongols, the reign of Chingiz, and part of the reign of Ogotai; and it was translated into Chinese in the early period of the Ming dynasty. An abridgment of this work was translated into Russian by Palladius, and published in 1866 in the Records of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission at Peking, vol. 4. It was only six years later that Palladius found that the work was extant in a fuller form. Bretschneider says: This document “corroborates generally Rashid-eddin’s records, and occasionally we find passages in it which sound like a literal translation of the statements of the Persian historiographer. This proves that Rashid had made use of the same source of information as the unknown author of the Yüan ch‘ao pi shi. As to the dates in the latter work, they are generally in accordance with the dates given by the Mohammadan authors; but in a few cases the Yüan ch‘ao pi shi commits great chronological blunders and misplacements of events, as, for instance, with respect to the war in the west.”
In his work cited above Bretschneider has rendered accessible other Chinese documents bearing on Mongol history, especially some relations of Chinese travellers and envoys; for example, an extract (i. p. 9 sqq. ) from the Si Yu Lu (Description of Journey to the West) of Ye-lü Ch’u ts‘ai, a minister of Chingiz who attended him to Persia, 1219-24. (There is a biography of this Ye-lü in the Yüan Shi.) Bretschneider makes valuable contributions to the difficult subject of geographical identifications, and discusses among other documents the account of the Armenian prince Haithon’s visit to Mongolia, written by Guiragos Gandsaketsi. This Haithon I. must not be confounded with Haithon, the monk of Prémontré, mentioned by Gibbon (above p. 133, note 13). The account of Guiragos was translated into French by Klaproth (Nouv. Journ. Asiat., p. 273 sqq. , 1833) from a Russian version by Argutinski; but the history of Guiragos has since been translated by Brosset.
SSANANG SSETSEN , a prince of the tribe of Ordus and a descendant of Chingiz, born AD 1604, wrote in Turkish a history of the eastern Mongols which he finished in 1662. It was thus written after the Manchus had conquered China and overthrown the Mongols. The earlier part of the book is practically a history of Tibet. The account of the origin of the Mongols is translated from Chinese sources. The author is a zealous Buddhist and dwells at great length on all that concerned the interests of his religion; other matters are often dismissed far too briefly. The relation of the career of Chingiz is marked by many anachronisms and inaccuracies. The work was made accessible by the German translation of I. J. Schmidt, under the title: Geschichte der Ostmongolen und ihres Fürstenhauses, 1829.
MODERN WORKS. Finlay, History of Greece, vol. iii. J. von Hammer, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, vol. i. 1834. J. W. Zinkeisen, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches in Europa, vol. i., 1840. Sir H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols (see above, p. 133, note 12). Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages (see vol. xii. p. 66, note 2).
For a sketch of the history of the Ottoman Turks: S. Lane-Poole, Turkey (Story of the Nations); La Jonquière, Histoire de l’empire Ottoman.
For the laws, constitution, etc., of the Ottoman empire, the chief work is Mouradja d’Ohsson’s Tableau général de l’empire Ottoman, 7 vols. 1788-1824.
2.: THE ACCIAJOLI — ( P. 92 )
If Gibbon had been more fully acquainted with the history of the family of the Acciajoli, he would have probably devoted some pages to the rise of their fortunes. They rose to such power and influence in Greece in the 14th century that the subjoined account, taken from Finlay (vol. iv. p. 157 sqq. ) — with a few additions in square brackets — will not be out of place.
“Several members of the family of Acciajoli, which formed a distinguished commercial company at Florence in the thirteenth century, settled in the Peloponnesus about the middle of the fourteenth, under the protection of Robert, king of Naples. Nicholas Acciajoli was invested, in the year 334, with the administration of the lands which the company had acquired in payment or in security of the loans it had made to the royal House of Anjou; and he acquired additional possessions in the principality of Achaia, both by purchase and grant, from Catherine of Valois, titular empress of Romania and regent of Achaia for her son prince Robert. [It is disputed whether he was her lover.] The encroachments of the mercantile spirit on the feudal system are displayed in the concessions obtained by Nicholas Acciajoli in the grants he received from Catherine of Valois. He was invested with the power of mortgaging, exchanging, and selling his fiefs, without any previous authorisation from his suzerain. Nicholas acted as principal minister of Catherine during a residence of three years in the Morea; and he made use of his position, like a prudent banker, to obtain considerable grants of territory. He returned to Italy in 1341 and never again visited Greece; but his estates in Achaia were administered by his relations and other members of the banking house at Florence, many of whom obtained considerable fiefs for themselves through his influence.
“Nicholas Acciajoli was appointed hereditary grand seneschal of the kingdom of Naples by Queen Jeanne, whom he accompanied in her flight to Provence when she was driven from her kingdom by Louis of Hungary. On her return he received the rich country of Amalfi, as a reward for his fidelity, and subsequently Malta was added to his possessions. He was an able statesman and a keen political intriguer; and he was almost the first example of the superior position the purse of the moneyed citizen was destined to assume over the sword of the feudal baron and the learning of the politic churchman. Nicholas Acciajoli was the first of that banking aristocracy which has since held an important position in European history. He was the type of a class destined at times to decide the fate of kingdoms and at times to arrest the progress of armies. He certainly deserved to have his life written by a man of genius, but his superciliousness and assumption of princely state, even in his intercourse with the friends of his youth, disgusted Boccaccio, who alone of Florentine contemporaries could have left a vivid sketch of the career which raised him from the partner of a banking-house to the rank of a great feudal baron and to live in the companionship of kings. Boccaccio, offended by his insolence, seems not to have appreciated his true importance as the type of a coming age and a new state of society; and the indignant and satirical record he has left of the pride and presumption of the mercantile noble is by no means a correct portrait of the Neapolitan minister. Yet even Boccaccio records in his usual truthful manner that Nicholas had dispersed powerful armies, though he unjustly depreciates the merit of the success, because the victory was gained by combinations effected by gold, and not by the headlong charge of a line of lances. [Boccaccio dedicated his Donne illustri to Niccolo’s sister Andrea, the countess of Monte Oderisio.]
“Nicholas Acciajoli obtained a grant of the barony and hereditary governorship of the fortress of Corinth in the year 1358. He was already in possession of the castles of Vulcano [at Ithome], Piadha near Epidauros, and large estates in other parts of the Peloponnesus. He died in 1365; 1 and his sons Angelo and Robert succeeded in turn to the barony and government of Corinth. Angelo mortgaged Corinth to his relative [second cousin], Nerio Acciajoli, who already possessed fiefs in Acbaia, and who took up his residence at Corinth on account of the political and military importance of the fortress as well as to enable him to administer the revenues of the barony in the most profitable manner.
“Nerio Acciajoli, though he held the governorship of Corinth only as the deputy of his relation, and the barony only in security of a debt, was nevertheless, from his ability, enterprising character, great wealth, and extensive connections, one of the most influential barons of Achaia; and, from the disorderly state of the principality he was enabled to act as an independent prince.”
“The Catalans were the constant rivals of the Franks of Achaia, and Nerio Acciajoli, as governor of Corinth, was the guardian of the principality against their hostile projects. The marriage of the young countess of Salona [whose father Count Lewis died 1382] involved the two parties in war. The mother of the bride was a Greek lady; she betrothed her daughter to Simeon [Stephen Ducas], son of the prince of Vallachian Thessaly; and the Catalans, with the two Laurias at their head, supported this arrangement. But the barons of Achaia, headed by Nerio Acciajoli, pretended that the Prince of Achaia as feudal suzerain of Athens was entitled to dispose of the hand of the countess. Nerio was determined to bestow the young countess, with all her immense possessions, on a relative of the Acciajoli family, named Peter Sarrasin. 2 The war concerning the countess of Salona and her heritage appears to have commenced about the year 1386 [1385]. The Catalans were defeated; and Nerio gained possession of Athens, Thebes, and Livadea.”
“About the commencement of the year 1394 Ladislas, king of Naples, conferred on him by patent the title of Duke of Athens — Athens forming, as the king pretended, part of the principality of Achaia.”
Nerio died in 1394. His illegitimate son Antonio inherited Thebes and Livadia, and wrested to himself the government of Athens, which Nerio’s will had placed under the protection of Venice on behalf of his daughter (the wife of Count Tocco of Cephalonia). Under Antonio “Athens enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity for forty years. The republic of Florence deemed it an object worthy of its especial attention to obtain a commercial treaty with the duchy, for the purpose of securing to the citizens of the republic all the privileges enjoyed by the Venetians, Catalans, and Genoese.” The conclusion of this treaty is almost the only event recorded concerning the external relations of Athens during the long reign of Antonio. The Athenians appear to have lived happily under his government; and he himself seems to have spent his time in a joyous manner, inviting his Florentine relations to Greece, and entertaining them with festivals and hunting parties. Yet he was neither a spendthrift nor a tyrant; for Chalcocondylas, whose father lived at his court, records that, while he accumulated great wealth with prudent economy, he at the same time adorned the city of Athens with many new buildings. He died in 1435, and was succeeded by Nerio II., grandson of Donato, the brother of Nerio I.
[Buchon, Nouvelles Recherches, vols. i. and ii.; L. Tanfani, Niccolo Acciajoli, 1863; Hopf, Hist. Duc. Att. Fontes; Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter, vol. ii.]
3.: THE ISLAND DYNASTIES AFTER THE LATIN CONQUEST — ( P. 89 )
The facts about the history of the Greek islands during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries were enveloped in obscurity, and fictions and false hypotheses were current, until the industry of Professor C. Hopf drew the material from the archives of Vienna and Venice. His publications rendered the work of Buchon and Finlay obsolete so far as the islands are concerned. He won the right of referring with contempt to Buchon’s schönrednerische Fabeleien und Finlays geistreich-unkritischer Hypothesenwust. The following list of the island-lordships is taken from his Urkunden und Zusätze zur Geschichte der Insel Andros und ihrer Beherrscher in dem Zeitraume von 1207 to 1566, published in the Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy, 1856, vol. 21, p. 221 sqq.
1 Ceos and Seriphos were under the Greek Empire from 1269 to 1296.
1 Ceos and Seriphos were under the Greek Empire from 1269 to 1296.
Corfu.
Venetian 1207-c. 1214; to Despotate of Epirus c. 1214-1259; King Manfred and Filippo Chinardo 1259-1267; Neapolitan 1267-1386; Venetian 1386-1797.
Cefalonia, Zante, Ithaca.
Despotate of Epirus 1205-1337; Greek Empire 1337-1357; the Tocchi 1357-1482.
Santa Maura.
Despotate of Epirus 1205-1331; Giorgi 1331-1362; the Tocchi 1362-1482.
Paxo.
With Cefalonia 1205-1357; St. Ippolyto 1357-1484; Ugoth (Gotti) 1484-1527. With Cerigotto 1527-1797.
Cerigo (Cythera).
The Venieri 1207-1269; the Monojanni 1267-1309; the Venieri 1309-1797.
Cerigotto.
The Viari 1207-1655; the Foscarini and Giustiniani 1655-1797.
Salamis.
With Athens.
Aegina.
With Carystos 1205-1317; Aragonese 1317-c. 1400; Cavopena c. 1400-1451; Venetian 1451-1537.
Delos, Gyaros, Cythnos (Patmos).
With Naxos. [Sanudo allowed Patmos, the apostle’s island, to preserve its independence.]
Tinos and Miconos.
The Ghisi 1207-1390; Venetian 1390-1718. (Held in fief by Venetian counts belonging to the houses of Bembo, Quirini, and Fabieri 1407-1429.)
Andros.
The Dandoli 1207-1233; the Ghisi 1233-c. 1250; the Sanudi c. 1250-1384; the Zeni 1384-1437; the Sommaripa 1437-1566.
Syra.
With Naxos.
Zia (Ceos). 1
¼: The Giustiniani 1207-1366; the da Coronia 1366-1464; the Gozzadini 1464-1537.
{ ¼: The Michieli 1207-1355; the Premarini 1355 forward.
{ ½: The Ghisi 1207-1328; the Premarini 1328-1375.
{ 9/16: The Premarini 1375-1537.
{ 3/16: The Sanudi 1375-1405; the Gozzadini 1405-1537.
Serfene (Seriphos). 1
¼: the Michieli 1207-1537;
¼: the Giustiniani 1207-c. 1412; the Adoldi 1412 forward.
½: the Ghisi 1207-1334; the Bragadini 1334-1354; the Minotti 1354-1373; the Adoldi 1373-1432; the Michieli 1432-1537.
Thermia (Cythnos).
The Sanudi 1207-c. 1320; the Castelli c. 1322-1331; the Gozzadini 1331-1537.
Sifanto (Siphnos), Sikino,
Polycandro (Pholegandros). }
The Sanudi 1207-1269 (titular, 1341; the Grimani titular 1341-1537); Greek Empire 1269-1307; the da Coronia 1307-1464; the Gozzadini 1464-1617.
Milos and Cimolos.
The Sanudi 1207-1376; the Crispi 1376-1566.
Santorin (Thera) and Therasia.
The Barozzi 1207-1335; with Naxos 1335-1477; the Pisani 1477-1487; with Naxos 1487-1537.
Namfio (Anaphe).
The Foscoli 1207-1269; Greek Empire 1269-1307; the Gozzadini 1307-1420; the Crispi 1420-1469; the Barbari 1469-1528; the Pisani 1528-1537.
Nio (Anaea).
The Sanudi 1207-1269; Greek Empire 1269-1292; the Schiavi 1292-c. 1320; with Naxos c. 1320-1420; collateral branch of the Crispi 1420-1508; the Pisani 1508-1537.
Paros and Nausa.
With Naxos 1207-1389; the Sommaripa 1389-1516; the Venieri 1516-1531; the Sagredi 1531-1537.
Antiparos.
With Paros 1207-1439; the Loredani 1439-c. 1490; the Pisani 1490-1537.
Naxos.
The Sanudi 1207-1362; the Dalle Carceri 1362-1383; the Crispi 1383-1566.
Scyros, Sciathos, }
The Ghisi 1207-1269; Greek Empire 1269-1455; Venetian 1455-1537.
Chelidromi. }
Scopelos.
The Ghisi 1207-1262; the Tiepoli 1262-1310; the Greek Empire 1310-1454; Venetian 1454-1538.
Negroponte.
⅓: the dalle Carceri 1205-1254; the da Verona 1254-1383; the Sommaripa 1383-1470.
⅓: the Peccorari 1205-1214; the dalle Carceri 1214-c. 1300; the Ghisi c. 1300-1390; Venetian 1390-1470.
⅓: The da Verona 1205-1383; the da Noyer 1383-1470.
Carystos (in Negroponte).
The dalle Carceri 1205-c. 1254; the Cicons c. 1254-1292; the da Verona, 1292-1317; Aragonese 1317-1365; Venetian 1365-1386; the Giustiniani 1386-1404; Venetian 1404-1406; the Giorgi 1406-1470.
Lemnos.
The Navigajosi (with these, subsequently, the Gradenighi and Foscari) 1207-1269; Greek Empire 1269-1453; the Gattilusj 1453-1462.
Lesbos.
The Greek Empire 1205-1355; the Gattilusj 1355-1462.
Chios, Samos.
With Constantinople (Empire of Romania) 1205-1247; with Lesbos 1247-1303; the Zaccaria 1303-1333; Greek Empire 1333-1346; the joint stock company of the Giustiniani, in 14 and more branches, 1346-1566.
Nikaria (Icaria).
The Beazzani 1205-1333; with Chios 1333-1481; the knights of St. John 1309-1521.
Stampali (Astypalaea).
The Quirini 1207-1269; Greek Empire 1269-1310; the Quirini and Grimani 1310-1537.
Amorgos.
The Ghisi 1207-1269; Greek Empire 1269-1296 [? 1303]; the Ghisi 1296-1368;
½: the Quirini 1368-1537;
½: the Grimani 1368-1446; the Quirini 1446-1537.
Nisyros, Piscopia, Calchi.
With Rhodes 1205-1306; the Assanti 1306-1385; with Rhodes 1385-1521.
Rhodes.
Gavalas 1204-1246; Greek Empire 1246-1283; the Aidonoghlii 1283-1309; the Knights of St. John 1309-1521.
Scarpanto (Carpathos).
With Rhodes 1204-1306; the Moreschi 1306-1309; the Cornari 1309-1522.
Candia.
Montferrat 1203-1204; Venetian 1204-1669.
[See further Hopf’s Griechische Geschichte (cited above, vol. xi. App. 1. ad fin. ); on Carystos, his art. in the Sitzungsber. of the Vienna Acad., 11, p. 555 sqq. (1853); on Andros, ib. , 16, p. 23 sqq. (1855); on Chios, his article on the Giustiniani in Ersch and Gruber’s Enzyklopädie, vol. 68, p. 290 sqq. , 1859 (and see T. Bent, The Lords of Chios, Eng. Hist. Rev. 4, p. 467 sqq. , 1889); on the Archipelago his Veneto-byzantinische Analekten, 1860, and his article on the Ghisi in Ersch and Gruber, vol. 64, p. 336 sqq. , 1857; on Negroponte, see J. B. Bury, The Lombards and Venetians in Euboea, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 7, p. 309 sqq. , 8, p. 194 sqq. , 9, p. 91 sqq. (1886-8); and L. de Mas Latrie in the Rev. de l’Orient Latin, 1, p. 413 sqq. (1893).]
4.: MONGOL INVASION OF EUROPE, ad 1241 — ( P. 146 , 147 )
It is only recently that European history has begun to understand that the successes of the Mongol army which overran Poland and occupied Hungary in the spring of AD 1241 were won by consummate strategy and were not due to a mere overwhelming superiority of numbers. But this fact has not yet become a matter of common knowledge; the vulgar opinion which represents the Tartars as a wild horde carrying all before them solely by their multitude, and galloping through Eastern Europe without a strategic plan, rushing at all obstacles and overcoming them by mere weight, still prevails. It will therefore not be amiss to explain very briefly the plan and execution of the Mongol campaign. The nominal commander-in-chief was Batu, but there is no doubt that the management of the expedition was in the hands of Subutai.
The objective of Subutai was Hungary, — the occupation of Hungary and the capture of Gran (Strigonium), which was then not only the ecclesiastical capital but the most important town in the country. In advancing on Hungary, his right flank was exposed to an attack from the princes of Poland, behind whom were the forces of Bohemia and North Germany. To meet this danger, Subutai divided his host into two parts, which we may call the northern and the southern army. The duty of the northern army was to sweep over Poland, advance to Bohemia, and effectually prevent the princes of the north from interfering with the operations of the southern army in Hungary. Thus strategically the invasion of Poland was subsidiary to the invasion of Hungary, and the northern army, when its work was done, was to meet the southern or main army on the Danube.
The northern army advanced in three divisions. The main force under Baidar marched through the dominions of Boleslaw the Chaste, and took Cracow; then bearing north-westward it reached Oppeln on the Oder, where it defeated Prince Mieczyslaw; and descended the Oder to Breslau. At the same time Kaidu advanced by a more northerly route through the land of Conrad, prince of Mosovia and Cujavia; while on the extreme right a force under Ordu terrified the Lithuanians and Prussians and crossed the Lower Vistula. The three divisions reunited punctually at Breslau, the capital of Henry II. of Lower Silesia; and all took part in the battle of Liegnitz (April 9), for which King Wenzel of Bohemia arrived too late. Just one day too late: the Mongol generals had skilfully managed to force Prince Henry to fight before his arrival. Wenzel discreetly withdrew beyond the mountains into Bohemia; all he could hope to do was to defend his own kingdom. Saxony now lived in dread that its turn had come. But it was no part of the plan of Subutai to launch his troops into Northern Germany. They had annihilated the forces of Poland; it was now time for them to approach the main army in Hungary. The Mongols therefore turned their back upon the north, and marched through Upper Silesia and Moravia, capturing town after town as they went. Upon Wenzel who watched them with a large army, expecting them to invade Bohemia, they played a trick. He was posted near the defile of Glatz and the Mongols were at Ottmachau. They were too wary to attack him in such a position; it was necessary to remove him. Accordingly they marched back as if they purposed to invade Bohemia by the pass of the Königstein in the north. Wenzel marched to the threatened point; and when the Mongols saw him safely there, they rapidly retraced their steps and reached Moravia (end of April, beginning of May).
Meanwhile the main army advanced into Hungary in three columns converging on the Upper Theiss. The right wing was led by Shaiban, a younger brother of Batu, and seems to have advanced on the Porta Hungariae — the north-western entrance to Hungary, in the Little Carpathians. The central column under Subutai himself, with Batu, marched on the Porta Rusciae, the defile which leads from Galicia into the valley of the Theiss. The left column, under Kadan and Buri, moved through Transylvania towards the Körös.
The Porta Rusciae was carried, its defenders annihilated, on March 15; and a flying column of Tartars shot across Hungary, in advance of the main army. On March 15 they were half a day’s journey from Pest, having ridden about 180 miles in less than three days. On the 17th they fought and defeated an Hungarian force, and on the same day Shaiban’s right column captured Waitzen, a fort near the angle where the Danube bends southward. The object of Subutai in sending the advance squadron Pestward was doubtless to multiply difficulties for the Hungarians in organising their preparations. These preparations were already hampered by the conflicts and jealousies between the king and his nobles; and then towards the end of March befell the murder of Kutan, the chief of the Cumans, and the consequent revolt of the Cumans, — mentioned by Gibbon, — which demolished the defence of Eastern Hungary. Meanwhile Kadan’s left column had advanced through Transylvania and passed the Körös and Theiss; in the first days of April it advanced to the Danube, in the neighbourhood of Pest. Subutai had in the meantime arrived himself with the main central column, and the three columns of the central army were now together in position on the left bank of the Danube from Waitzen to Pest. But the Hungarian army with its German allies and Slavonic contingents had united at Pest, about 100,000 strong; and it was impossible for the Mongols to cross in the face of such a host. Accordingly Subutai began a retreat, drawing the enemy after him. He retired behind the Sajó, not far from the confluence of that river with the Theiss, — a central position on the route from Pest to Galicia, where he was in touch with his own base of operations near Unghvar and the Porta Rusciae. The Hungarians took up their position on the opposite bank in the plain of Mohi. By skilful tactics the Mongols surrounded their camp and cut them to pieces on April 11, two days after the northern army had gained the battle of Liegnitz.
It was wonderful how punctually and effectually the arrangements of the commander were carried out in operations extending from the Lower Vistula to Transylvania. Such a campaign was quite beyond the power of any European army of the time; and it was beyond the vision of any European commander. There was no general in Europe, from Frederick II. downward, who was not a tiro in strategy compared to Subutai. It should also be noticed that the Mongols embarked upon the enterprise, with full knowledge of the political situation of Hungary and the condition of Poland; they had taken care to inform themselves by a well-organised system of spies: on the other hand, the Hungarians and Christian powers, like childish Barbarians, knew hardly anything about their enemies.
The foregoing summary is founded on the excellent study of G. Strakosch-Grassmann, Der Einfall der Mongolen, in Mitteleuropa in den Jahren 1241 und 1242, 1893, and the vivid account of L. Cahun, in his Introduction à l’Histoire de l’Asie, p. 352 sqq. The chief defect in Strakosch-Grassmann’s book is that he does not give to Subutai his proper place. The important Chinese biography of Subutai is translated in the first vol. of Bretschneider’s Mediæval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, 1888. All the western authorities have been carefully studied and analysed by Strakosch-Grassmann. (The account of the Mongol campaigns in Köhler’s Die Entwicklung des Kriegswesens und der Kriegführung in der Ritterzeit, vol. 3, pt. 3, 1889, may also be compared.)
See the original treaty of partition, in the Venetian Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo, p. 326-330 [Tafel und Thomas, Urkunden zur ältern Handelsund Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, i. 454. The treaty was concluded and drawn up before the city was taken], and the subsequent election in Villehardouin, No. 136-140, with Ducange in his Observations, and the 1st book of his Histoire de Constantinople sous l’Empire des François.
After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a French elector, his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion, quidam Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex, usus oratione satis probabili, c., which has been embroidered by modern writers from Blondus to Le Beau.
Nicetas (p. 384), with the vain ignorance of a Greek, describes the marquis of Montferrat as a maritime power. Λαμπαρδίαν δὲ οἰκεɩ̂σθαι παράλιον. Was he deceived by the Byzantine theme of Lombardy, which extended along the coast of Calabria?
They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint no canons of St. Sophia, the lawful electors, except Venetians who had lived ten years at Venice, c. But the foreign clergy were envious, the pope disapproved this national monopoly, and of the six Latin patriarchs of Constantinople only the first and last were Venetians.
Nicetas, p. 383.
[The Assises of Jerusalem, at least the Assise of the Haute Cour, was probably not codified so early as 1204. But it had been introduced into the Peloponnesus before 1275.]
The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for the ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of which the collection in 2 vols. in folio is published by Stephen Baluze) are inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. p. 1, c. 94-105. [Migne, Patrol. Lat., vols. 214, 215, 216.]
In the treaty of partition, most of the names are corrupted by the scribes; they might be restored, and a good map, suited to the last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an improvement of geography; but, alas! d’Anville is no more! [The act of partition annexed to the treaty with geographical notes was edited by Tafel in his Symbolæ criticæ geographiam Byzantinam Spectantes, part 2.]
Their style was Dominus quartæ partis et dimidiæ imperii Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected Doge in the year 1356 (Sanuto, p. 530, 641). For the government of Constantinople, see Ducange, Histoire de C. P. p. 37.
Ducange (Hist. de C. P. ii. 6) has marked the conquests made by the state or nobles of Venice of the islands of Candia, Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros, Myconè, Scyro, Cea, and Lemnos. [See Appendix 3.]
Boniface sold the isle of Candia, Aug. 12, AD 1204. See the acts in Sanuto, p. 533; but I cannot understand how it could be his mother’s portion, or how she could be the daughter of an emperor Alexius. [Boniface’s Refutatio Cretis is printed in Tafel u. Thomas, Urkunden, 512, and in Buchon, Recherches et Matériaux, i. 10. Crete had been formally promised him by the young Alexius. He seems to have claimed Thessalonica on the ground that his brother had been created king of Thessalonica by Manuel, see vol. x. p. 335. The erection of the kingdom of Thessalonica was by no means agreeable to Baldwin; it threatened, weakened, and perhaps ruined the Empire of Romania. It was nearly coming to war between Baldwin and Boniface, but the Doge persuaded Baldwin to yield.]
In the year 1212, the doge Peter Zani sent a colony to Candia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But, in their savage manners and frequent rebellions, the Candiots may be compared to the Corsicans under the yoke of Genoa; and, when I compare the accounts of Belon and Tournefort, I cannot discern much difference between the Venetian and the Turkish island.
[He married Margaret, widow of Isaac Angelus.]
Villehardouin (No. 159, 160, 173-177) and Nicetas (p. 387-394) describe the expedition into Greece of the marquis Boniface. The Choniate might derive his information from his brother Michael, archbishop of Athens, whom he paints as an orator, a statesman, and a saint. His encomium of Athens, and the description of Tempe, should be published from the Bodleian MS. of Nicetas (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 405), and would have deserved Mr. Harris’s inquiries. [The works of Michael Akominatos have been published in a full edition by S. Lampros (1879-80, 2 vols.). The dirge on Athens had been already published by Boissonade in Anecdota Græca, 5, p. 373 sqq. (1833). Gregorovius in his Gesch. der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter (where he draws a most interesting sketch of Akominatos in caps. 7 and 8) gives specimens of a German translation of the dirge, p. 243-4.]
[Leo Sguros of Nauplia made himself master of Nauplia, Argos, Corinth, and Thebes. He besieged Athens (see below, p. 90, note 72); and the Acropolis, defended by the archbishop Akominatos, defied him. From Thebes he went to Thessaly, and meeting the Emperor Alexius at Larissa married his daughter and received from him the title of Sebastohypertatos. When Boniface and his knights approached, father-in-law and son-in-law retreated to Thermopylæ, but did not await the approach of the enemy. Bodonitza close to the pass was granted by Boniface as a fief to Guy Pallavicini. Before he proceeded against Thebes, Amphissa, which about this time assumes the name Salona (or Sula), was taken, and given with the neighbouring districts including Delphi and the port of Galaxidi to Thomas of Stromoncourt. For Thebes and Athens see below, p. 90-1.]
Napoli di Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient sea-port of Argos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate on a rocky peninsula, with a good harbour (Chandler’s Travels into Greece, p. 227). [It narrowly escaped becoming the capital of the modern kingdom of Greece.]
I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who strives to expose the presumption of the Franks. See de Rebus post C. P. expugnatam, p. 375-384.
A city surrounded by the river Hebrus, and six leagues to the south of Hadrianople, received from its double wall the Greek name of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into Demotica and Dimot. I have preferred the more convenient and modern appellation of Demotica. This place was the last Turkish residence of Charles XII.
Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No. 146-158) with the spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of the marshal are acknowledged by the Greek historian (p. 387), μέγα παρὰ τοɩ̂ς Λατίνων δυναμένου στρατεύμασι: unlike some modern heroes, whose exploits are only visible in their own memoirs.
See the fate of Mourzoufle, in Nicetas (p. 393), Villehardouin (No. 141-145, 163), and Guntherus (c. 20, 21). Neither the marshal nor the monk afford a grain of pity for a tyrant or rebel, whose punishment, however, was more unexampled than his crime.
The column of Arcadius, which represents in basso-relievo his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is still extant at Constantinople. It is described and measured, Gyllius (Topograph. iv. 7), Banduri (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P. p. 507, c.), and Tournefort (Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre xii. p. 231). [Nothing of the column remains now except its base.]
The nonsense of Gunther and the modern Greeks concerning this columna fatidica is unworthy of notice; but it is singular enough that, fifty years before the Latin conquest, the poet Tzetzes (Chiliad, ix. 277) relates the dream of a matron, who saw an army in the forum, and a man sitting on the column, clapping his hands and uttering a loud exclamation.
The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of which Nicetas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope) are learnedly explored, and clearly represented, in the Familiæ Byzantinæ of Ducange.
[Rather, by the help of his aunt Queen Thamar of Iberia. On the death of Andronicus in 1185 his two grandsons, Alexius and David, escaped to Iberia. Their aunt helped Alexius to found the independent state of Trapezus in 1204; and there he assumed the title of Grand-Komnenos. His brother David seized Paphlagonia. The Comneni never made common cause with the Emperors of Nicaea against the common enemies, either Turks or Latins. On the contrary, Theodore Lascaris defeated David and wrested his kingdom from him, leaving him only a small region about Sinope (1212), and in 1214 the Turks captured Sinope and David fell fighting. On the other hand Alexius maintained himself at Trebizond, and the Empire of Trebizond survived the Turkish conquest of Constantinople by eight years.]
Except some facts in Pachymer and Nicephorus Gregoras, which will hereafter be used, the Byzantine writers disdain to speak of the empire of Trebizond, or principality of the Lazi; and among the Latins, it is conspicuous only in the romances of the xivth or xvth centuries. Yet the indefatigable Ducange has dug out (Fam. Byz. p. 192) two authentic passages in Vincent of Beauvais (l. xxxi. c. 144), and the protonotary Ogerius (apud Wading, AD 1279, No. 4). [The short history of the Emperors of Trebizond from 1204-1426, by Michael Panaretos of Trebizond (lived in first half of 15th century) was published by Tafel at the end of his edition of Eustathius (p. 362 sqq. ), 1833. It is translated in St. Martin’s ed. of Lebeau’s Hist. du bas-empire, vol. xx. p. 482 sqq. The first, who went thoroughly into the history of Trebizond, was Fallmerayer, and he published more material. See the Abhandlungen of the Bavarian Academy, 3cl., vol. 3, 1843; and Geschichte des Kaiserthums von Trapezunt, 1827. The story is told at length by Finlay in History of Greece, vol. iv. p. 307 sqq. But there is much more material, and A. Papadopulos-Kerameus has recently (1897) issued vol. i. of Fontes Historiæ Imperii Trapezuntini. And a new history of Trapezus, from the earliest times to the present day, has appeared in modern Greek: Ἱστορία τη̂ς Τραπεζον̂ντος (Odessa), 1898, by T. E. Evangelides.]
[His stepson Andronicus Gidos succeeded him in 1222, and was succeeded in 1235 by John, the eldest son of Alexius, who reigned only three years. Then came Manuel; and then John, who assumed the title “Emperor of the East, Iberia, and Peratea,” avoiding the title of Roman Emperor, in order to keep the peace with the Palaeologi of Constantinople. Peratea was a part of the Crimea which acknowledged his sway.]
[Michael was natural son of Constantine Angelus, uncle of the Emperors Isaac and Alexius III. He and his successors assumed the name Comnenus Angelus Ducas. Michael was murdered in 1214 and succeeded by his brother Theodore.]
The portrait of the French Latins is drawn in Nicetas by the hand of prejudice and resentment: οὐδὲν τω̂ν ἄλλων ἐθνω̂ν εἰς Ἅρεος ἔργα παρασυμβεβλη̂σθαι ἠνείχοντο, ἀλλ’ οὐδέ τις τω̂ν χαρίτων ἢ τω̂ν μουσω̂ν παρὰ τοɩ̂ς βαρβάροις τούτοις ἐπεξενίζετο, καὶ παρὰ τον̂το οἰμαι τὴν ϕύσιν ἠσαν ἀνήμεροι, καὶ τὸν χόλον εἰχον τον̂ λόγου προτρέχοντα.
I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence, the eight books of the Histoire de C. P. sous l’Empire des François, which Ducange has given as a supplement to Villehardouin; and which, in a barbarous style, deserves the praise of an original and classic work.
In Calo-John’s answer to the Pope, we may find his claims and complaints (Gesta Innocent. III. c. 108, 109); he was cherished at Rome as the prodigal son. [The name Kalo -John was also used of John Vatatzes, and of the young John Lascaris, son of Theodore ii.; see Mêliarakês, Ἱστορία τον̂ βασ. τη̂ς Νικαίας, p. 541, note.]
The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which encamped in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of Moldavia. The greater part were Pagans, but some were Mahometans, and the whole horde was converted to Christianity ( AD 1370) by Lewis, king of Hungary. [See vol. x. p. 49, n. 52, and p. 165, n. 36.]
Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the defeat to the cowardice of Dandolo (p. 383); but Villehardouin shares his own glory with his venerable friend, qui viels home ére et gote ne veoit, mais mult ére sages et preus et vigueros (No. 193).
The truth of geography and the original text of Villehardouin (No. 194 [366]) place Rodosto [Rhædestus] three days’ journey (trois jornées) from Hadrianople; but Vigenère, in his version, has most absurdly substituted trois heures; and this error, which is not corrected by Ducange, has entrapped several moderns, whose names I shall spare.
The reign and end of Baldwin are related by Villehardouin and Nicetas (p. 386-416); and their omissions are supplied by Ducange, in his Observations, and to the end of his first book.
After brushing away all doubtful and improbable circumstances, we may prove the death of Baldwin: 1. By the firm belief of the French barons (Villehardouin, No. 230). 2. By the declaration of Calo-John himself, who excuses his not releasing the captive emperor, quia debitum carnis exsolverat cum carcere teneretur (Gesta Innocent. III., c. 109).
See the story of this impostor from the French and Flemish writers in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. iii. 9; and the ridiculous fables that were believed by the monks of St. Alban’s in Matthew Paris, Hist. Major, p. 271, 272.
Villehardouin, No. 257. I quote, with regret, this lamentable conclusion, where we lose at once the original history, and the rich illustrations of Ducange. The last pages may derive some light from Henry’s two epistles to Innocent III. (Gesta, c. 106, 107). [Villehardouin’s story is poorly continued by Henry of Valenciennes, whose chronicle is printed along with Villehardouin in Wailly’s edition (ed. 3, 1882).]
The marshal was alive in 1212, but he probably died soon afterwards, without returning to France (Ducange, Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 238). His fief of Messinople, the gift of Boniface, was the ancient Maximianopolis, which flourished in the time of Ammianus Marcellinus, among the cities of Thrace (No. 141). [Messinopolis is the Mosynopolis of Greek historians.]
The church of this patron of Thessalonica was served by the canons of the holy sepulchre, and contained a divine ointment which distilled daily and stupendous miracles (Ducange, Hist. de C. P. ii. 4).
Acropolita (c. 17) observes the persecution of the legate, and the toleration of Henry (Ἔρη [Ἐρρη̂ gen.; Ἐρρη̂ς nom.], as he calls him) κλυδω̂να κατεστόρεσε.
[The dispute with Innocent was compromised at a parliament which Henry held at Ravennika in northern Greece (near Zeituni?) on May 2, 1210.]
See the reign of HENRY , in Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. i. c. 35-41, l. ii. c. 1-22), who is much indebted to the Epistles of the Popes. Le Beau (Hist. du Bas Empire, tom. xxi. p. 120-122) has found, perhaps in Doutreman, some laws of Henry, which determined the service of fiefs and the prerogatives of the emperor.
Acropolita (c. 14) affirms that Peter of Courtenay died by the sword (ἔργον μαχαίρας γενέσθαι); but from his dark expressions, I should conclude a previous capacity, ὡς πάντας ἄρδην δεσμώτας ποιη̂σαι σὑν πα̂σι σκεύεσι. The Chronicle of Auxerre delays the emperor’s death till the year 1219; and Auxerre is in the neighbourhood of Courtenay.
See the reign and death of Peter of Courtenay in Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. ii. c. 22-28), who feebly strives to excuse the neglect of the emperor by Honorius III.
[When the empire was overthrown by the crusaders, Leo Gabalas made himself master of Rhodes. In 1233 John Vatatzes compelled him to acknowledge his supremacy, but left him in possession. The island was conquered by the knights of St. John in 1310.]
Marinus Sanutus (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. p. 4, c. 18, p. 73) is so much delighted with this bloody deed that he has transcribed it in his margin as a bonum exemplum. Yet he acknowledges the damsel for the lawful wife of Robert.
See the reign of Robert in Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iii. c. 1-12). [Finlay thinks that Robert should have “seized the culprit immediately, and hung him in his armour before the palace gates, with his shield round his neck” (iv. p. 114).]
Rex igitur Franciæ, deliberatione habitâ, respondit nuntiis, se daturum hominem Syriæ partibus aptum, in armis probum ( preux ), in bellis securum, in agendis providum, Johannem comitem Brennensem. Sanut. Secret. Fidelium, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4, p. 205. Matthew Paris, p. 159.
Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 380-385) discusses the marriage of Frederic II. with the daughter of John of Brienne, and the double union of the crowns of Naples and Jerusalem.
[For the act see Buchon, Recherches et Matériaux, p. 21-23.]
Acropolita, c. 27. The historian was at that time a boy, and educated at Constantinople. In 1233, when he was eleven years old, his father broke the Latin chain, left a splendid fortune, and escaped to the Greek court of Nice, where his son was raised to the highest honours.
[He did not arrive at Constantinople till 1231.]
[For this able and humane prince, see Jireček, Geschichte der Bulgaren, chap. xvi. He defeated the forces of Thessalonica and Epirus in the battle of Klokotnitza (near the Strymon), 1230, and extended his power over the greater part of Thrace, Macedonia, and Albania. His empire touched three seas and included the cities of Belgrade and Hadrianople. An inscription in the cathedral of Trnovo, which he built, records his deeds as follows: “In the year 6738 [= 1230] Indiction 3, I, Joannes Asēn, the Tsar, faithful servant of God in Christ, sovereign of the Bulgarians, son of the old Asēn, have built this magnificent church and adorned it with paintings, in honour of the Forty Martyrs, with whose help, in the 12th year of my reign, when the church was painted, I made an expedition to Romania and defeated the Greek army and took the Tsar, Kyr Thodor Komnin, prisoner, with all his bolyars. I conquered all the countries from Odrin [Hadrianople] to Dratz [Durazzo], — Greek, Albanian, and Servian. The Franks have only retained the towns about Tzarigrad [Constantinople] and that city itself; but even they submitted to my empire when they had no other Emperor but me, and I permitted them to continue, as God so willed. For without him neither work nor word is accomplished. Glory to him for ever, Amen.” (Jireček, p. 251-2.)]
Philip Mouskes, bishop of Tournay ( AD 1274-1282), has composed a poem, or rather a string of verses, in bad old Flemish French, on the Latin emperors of Constantinople, which Ducange has published at the end of Villehardouin. [What Ducange published was an extract from the Chronique rimée of Mouskès, which began with the Trojan war. The whole work was first published by De Reiffenberg in 1836. Gibbon identifies Mouskès with Philip of Ghent, who became bishop of Tournay in 1274. This is an error. Mouskès was a native of Tournay and died in 1244.] See p. 224, for the prowess of John of Brienne.
- N’Aie, Ector, Roll’ ne Ogiers
- Ne Judas Machabeus li fiers
- Tant ne fit d’armes en estors
- Com fist li Rois Jehans cel jors,
- Et il defors et il dedans
- La paru sa force et ses sens
- Et li hardiment qu’il avoit.
[John Asēn, threatened by the approach of Zenghis Khan (see below, chap. lxiv.), gave up the war and made a separate peace and alliance with the Eastern Emperors. But the alliance was soon abandoned, and Asēn returned to his friendship with Nicæa.]
See the reign of John de Brienne, in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. iii. c. 13-26.
See the reign of Baldwin II. till his expulsion from Constantinople, in Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 1-34, the end l. v. c. 1-33).
Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II. to the English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armatâ manu, p. 407, his letters of his nomen formidabile, c. p. 481 (a passage which had escaped Ducange), his expulsion, p. 850.
Louis IX. disapproved and stopped the alienation of Courtenay (Ducange, l. iv. c. 23). It is now annexed to the royal demesne, but granted for a term ( engage ) to the family of Boulanvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in the Isle de France, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the remains of a castle (Mélanges tirés d’une grande Bibliothèque, tom. xiv. p. 74-77).
[Tzurulos.]
Joinville, p. 104, édit. du Louvre. A Coman prince, who died without baptism, was buried at the gates of Constantinople with a live retinue of slaves and horses.
Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Crucis, l. ii. p. iv. c. 18, p. 73.
Under the words Perparus, Perpera, Hyperperum , Ducange is short and vague: Monetæ genus. From a corrupt passage of Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10), I guess that the Perpera was the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark of silver, or about ten shillings sterling in value. In lead it would be too contemptible.
For the translation of the holy crown, c. from Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 11-14, 24, 35), and Fleury (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvii. p. 201-204).
Mélanges tirés d’une grande Bibliothèque, tom. xliii. p. 201-205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the soul and manners of the Sainte Chapelle; and many facts relative to the institution are collected and explained by his commentators, Brossette and de St. Marc.
It was performed AD 1656, March 24, on the niece of Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, c. were on the spot to believe and attest a miracle which confounded the Jesuits, and saved Port Royal (Oeuvres de Racine, tom. vi. p. 176-187, in his eloquent History of Port Royal).
Voltaire (Siècle de Louis XIV. c. 37; Oeuvres, tom. ix. p. 178, 179) strives to invalidate the fact; but Hume (Essays, vol. ii. p. 483, 484), with more skill and success, seizes the battery, and turns the cannon against his enemies.
The gradual losses of the Latins may be traced in the third, fourth, and fifth books of the compilation of Ducange; but of the Greek conquests he has dropped many circumstances, which may be recovered from the large history of George Acropolita, and the three first books of Nicephorus Gregoras, two writers of the Byzantine series, who have had the good fortune to meet with learned editors, Leo Allatius at Rome, and John Boivin in the Academy of Inscriptions of Paris.
[The conquest of Thessalonica, from the young Demetrius, son of Boniface, by Theodore Angelus, despot of Epirus, and Theodore’s assumption of the Imperial title AD 1222, have been briefly mentioned above, p. 24. His brother Manuel, and then his son John, succeeded to the Empire of Salonica. It was a matter of political importance for Vatatzes to bring this rival Empire into subjection; he marched against Thessalonica, but raised the siege ( AD 1243) on condition that John should lay down the title of Emperor and assume that of despot. John died in the following year and was succeeded by his brother Demetrius; but in 1246 Demetrius was removed by Vatatzes, and Thessalonica became definitely part of the empire of Nicæa. Thus the Thessalonian empire lasted 1222-1243. Meanwhile Epirus had split off from the empire of Salonica, in 1236-7, under Michael II. (a bastard son of Michael I.), whose Despotate survived that Empire. See below, note 71.]
George Acropolita, c. lxxviii. p. 89, 90, edit. Paris.
[This victory was won by John Palæologus, brother of Michael, in the plain of Pelagonia near Kastoria, in Macedonia. The despot of Epirus, Michael II. (bastard of Michael I.), had extended his sway to the Vardar, and threatened Salonica. He was supported by Manfred, king of Sicily, who sent four hundred knights to his aid, as well as William Villehardouin, prince of Achaia. Finlay places the coronation of Michael Palæologus in Jan. 1259 — before the battle of Pelagonia (iii. 339); but it seems to have been subsequent, in Jan. 1260; see Mêliarakês, Ἱστορία τον̂ βασιλείου τη̂ς Νικαίας κ.τ.λ. (1898), p. 536-543.]
The Greeks, ashamed of any foreign aid, disguise the alliance and succour of the Genoese; but the fact is proved by the testimony of J. Villani (Chron. l. vi. c. 71, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 202, 203) and William de Nangis (Annales de St. Louis, p. 248, in the Louvre Joinville), two impartial foreigners; and Urban IV. threatened to deprive Genoa of her archbishop. [For the treaty of Michael with Genoa in March, 1261, see Buchon, Recherches et matériaux, p. 462 sqq. (in French), or Zachariä v. Lingenthal, Jus. Græco-Rom., iii. p. 574 sqq. (in Latin). The Genoese undertook to furnish a fleet; but when these ships arrived Michael was already in possession of the city.]
[Spring, 1260.]
[Anseau de Cayeux (if that is the name), who was married to a sister-in-law of John Vatatzes. Cp. Mêliarakês, op. cit. p. 551-2.]
[Michael himself this spring passed and repassed repeatedly from Asia to Europe. He first took Selymbria, which was a valuable basis for further operations (Pachymeres, p. 110). Ecclesiastical business then recalled him to Asia; and having settled this he recrossed the Hellespont and for the second time besieged Galata (Pachymeres, p. 118 sqq. ). He raised the siege and returned to Nymphæum, where he concluded the treaty with the Genoese.]
Some precautions must be used in reconciling the discordant numbers; the 800 soldiers of Nicetas; the 25,000 of Spandugino (apud Ducange, l. v. c. 24); the Greeks and Scythians of Acropolita; and the numerous army of Michael, in the Epistles of Pope Urban IV. (i. 129).
Θεληματάριοι. They are described and named by Pachymer (l. ii. c. 14). [The chief of these, who was very active in the capture of the city, was named Kutritzakês.]
It is needless to seek these Comans in the deserts of Tartary, or even of Moldavia. A part of the horde had submitted to John Vataces and was probably settled as a nursery of soldiers on some waste lands of Thrace (Cantacuzen. l. i. c. 2).
[Daphnusia, a town on a little island (now desert and named Kefken Adassi) off the coast of Bithynia, about 70 miles east of the mouth of the Bosphorus. Thynias was another name. Cp. Ramsay, Hist. Geography of Asia Minor, p. 182.]
[Near the Gate of Selymbria or Pegæ (see above, vol. iii., plan opp. p. 100); and it was through this gate that the entrance was to be broken.]
The loss of Constantinople is briefly told by the Latins; the conquest is described with more satisfaction by the Greeks: by Acropolita (c. 85), Pachymer (l. ii. c. 26, 27), Nicephorus Gregoras (l. iv. c. 1, 2). See Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 19-27. [It is also described by Phrantzes, p. 17-20, ed. Bonn.; and in an anonymous poem on the Loss (1204) and Recovery (1261) of Constantinople, composed in AD 1392 (published by Buchon. Recherches historiques 2, p. 335 sqq. , 1845).]
See the three last books (l. v.-viii.), and the genealogical tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular emperor of Constantinople was James de Baux [titular Emperor, 1373-1383], duke of Andria in the kingdom of Naples, the son of Margaret, daughter of Catherine de Valois [married to Philip of Tarentum], daughter of Catherine [married to Charles of Valois], daughter of Philip, son of Baldwin II. (Ducange, l. viii. c. 37, 38). It is uncertain whether he left any posterity.
Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades, speaks of the kingdom of the Franks, and those of the negroes, as equally unknown (Prolegom. ad Geograph.). Had he not disdained the Latin language, how easily might the Syrian prince have found books and interpreters!
A short and superficial account of these versions from Latin into Greek is given by Huet (de Interpretatione et de claris Interpretibus, p. 131-135). Maximus Planudes, a monk of Constantinople ( AD 1327-1353 [born c. 1260, died 1310]), has translated Cæsar’s Commentaries, the Somnium Scipionis, the Metamorphoses and Heroides of Ovid [the proverbial philosophy of the elder Cato, Boethius’ De Consolatione], c. (Fabric. Bib. Græc. tom. x. p. 533 [ed. Harl. xi. 682 sqq.; Krumbacher, Gesch. der byz. Litt. 543 sqq. The Letters of Planudes have been edited by M. Treu (1890), who has established the chronology of his life (Zur Gesch. der Ueberlieferung von Plutarchs Moralia, 1877)].)
Windmills, first invented in the dry country of Asia Minor, were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105 (Vie privée des François, tom. i. p. 42, 43; Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iv. p. 474).
See the complaints of Roger Bacon (Biographia Britannica, vol. i. p. 418, Kippis’s edition). If Bacon himself, or Gerbert, understood some Greek, they were prodigies, and owed nothing to the commerce of the East.
Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz (Oeuvres de Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 458), a master of the history of the middle ages. I shall only instance the pedigree of the Carmelites, and the flight of the house of Loretto, which were both derived from Palestine.
If I rank the Saracens with the Barbarians, it is only relative to their wars, or rather inroads, in Italy and France, where their sole purpose was to plunder and destroy.
On this interesting subject, the progress of society in Europe, a strong ray of philosophic light has broke from Scotland in our own times; and it is with private as well as public regard that I repeat the names of Hume, Robertson, and Adam Smith.
I have applied, but not confined, myself to A Genealogical History of the Noble and Illustrious Family of Courtenay, by Ezra Cleaveland, Tutor to Sir William Courtenay, and Rector of Honiton; Exon. 1735, in folio. The first part is extracted from William of Tyre; the second from Bouchet’s French history; and the third from various memorials, public, provincial, and private, of the Courtenays of Devonshire. The rector of Honiton has more gratitude than industry, and more industry than criticism.
The primitive record of the family is a passage of the Continuator of Aimoin, a monk of Fleury, who wrote in the xiith century. See his Chronicle, in the Historians of France (tom. xi. p. 176).
Turbessel, or as it is now styled Telbesher, is fixed by d’Anville four and twenty miles from the great passage over the Euphrates at Zeugma. [Tell Bāsher, now Saleri Kaleh, “a large mound with ruins near the village of Tulbashar,” two days’ journey north of Aleppo (Sir C. Wilson, note to Bahā ad-Dīn, p. 58).]
His possessions are distinguished in the Assises of Jerusalem (c. 326) among the feudal tenures of the kingdom, which must therefore have been collected between the years 1153 and 1187. His pedigree may be found in the Lignages d’Outremer, c. 16.
The rapine and satisfaction of Reginald de Courtenay are preposterously arranged in the epistles of the abbot and regent Suger (cxiv. cxvi.), the best memorials of the age (Duchesne, Scriptores Hist. Franc. tom. iv. p. 530).
In the beginning of the xith century, after naming the father and grandfather of Hugh Capet, the monk Glaber is obliged to add, cujus genus valde in-ante reperitur obscurum. Yet we are assured that the great-grandfather of Hugh Capet was Robert the Strong, count of Anjou ( AD 863-873), a noble Frank of Neustria, Neustricus . . . generosæ stirpis, who was slain in the defence of his country against the Normans, dum patriæ fines tuebatur. Beyond Robert, all is conjecture or fable. It is a probable conjecture that the third race descended from the second by Childebrand, the brother of Charles Martel. It is an absurd fable that the second was allied to the first by the marriage of Ansbert, a Roman senator and the ancestor of St. Arnoul, with Blitilde, a daughter of Clotaire I. The Saxon origin of the house of France is an ancient but incredible opinion. See a judicious memoir of M. de Foncemagne (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 548-579). He had promised to declare his own opinion in a second memoir, which has never appeared.
Of the various petitions, apologies, c., published by the princes of Courtenay, I have seen the three following all in octavo: 1. De Stirpe et Origine Domus de Courtenay: addita sunt Responsa celeberrimorum Europæ Jurisconsultorum, Paris, 1607. 2. Représentation du Procédé tenu a l’instance faicte devant le Roi, par Messieurs de Courtenay, pour la conversation de l’Honneur et Dignité de leur Maison, Branch de la Royalle Maison de France, a Paris, 1613. 3. Représentation du subject qui a porté Messieurs de Salles et de Fraville, de la Maison de Courtenays, à se retirer hors du Royaume, 1614. It was an homicide, for which the Courtenays expected to be pardoned, or tried, as princes of the blood.
The sense of the parliaments is thus expressed by Thuanus: Principis nomen nusquam in Galliâ tributum, nisi iis qui per matres e regibus nostris originem repetunt: qui nunc tantum a Ludovico Nono beatæ memoriæ numerantur: nam Cortinaei et Drocenses, a Ludovico crasso genus ducentes, hodie inter eos minime recensentur: — a distinction of expediency rather than justice. The sanctity of Louis IX. could not invest him with any special prerogative, and all the descendants of Hugh Capet must be included in his original compact with the French nation.
The last male of the Courtenays was Charles Roger, who died in the year 1730, without leaving any sons. The last female was Helen de Courtenay, who married Louis de Beaufremont. Her title of Princesse du Sang Royal de France was suppressed (February 7, 1737) by an arrêt of the parliament of Paris.
The singular anecdote to which I allude, is related in the Recueil des Pièces intéressantes et peu connues (Maestricht, 1786, in four vols. 12mo); and the unknown editor [M. de la Place, of Calais] quotes his author, who had received it from Helen de Courtenay, Marquise de Beaufremont.
Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. i. p. 786. Yet this fable must have been invented before the reign of Edward III. The profuse devotion of the three first generations to Ford Abbey was followed by oppression on one side and ingratitude on the other; and in the sixth generation the monks ceased to register the births, actions, and deaths of their patrons.
In his Britannia, in the list of the earls of Devonshire. His expression, e regio sanguine ortos credunt, betrays, however, some doubt or suspicion.
In his Baronage, p. i. p. 634, he refers to his own Monasticon. Should he not have corrected the register of Ford Abbey, and annihilated the phantom Florus, by the unquestionable evidence of the French historians?
Besides the third and most valuable book of Cleaveland’s History, I have consulted Dugdale, the father of our genealogical science (Baronage, p. i. p. 634-643).
This great family, de Ripuariis, de Redvers, de Rivers, ended, in Edward the First’s time, in Isabella de Fortibus, a famous and potent dowager, who long survived her brother and husband (Dugdale, Baronage, p. i. p. 254-257).
Cleaveland, p. 142. By some it is assigned to a Rivers, earl of Devon; but the English denotes the xvth rather than the xiiith century.
Ubi lapsus! Quid feci? a motto which was probably adopted by the Powderham branch, after the loss of the earldom of Devonshire, c. The primitive arms of the Courtenays were, or, three torteaux, gules , which seem to denote their affinity with Godfrey of Bouillon and the ancient counts of Boulogne.
[Some further information on the family of the Courtenays will be found in a short note in the Gentleman’s Magazine for July, 1839, p. 39. Cp. Smith’s note in his ed. of Gibbon, vol. vii. p. 354.]
For the reigns of the Nicene emperors, more especially of John Vataces and his son, their minister, George Acropolita, is the only genuine contemporary; but George Pachymer returned to Constantinople with the Greeks, at the age of nineteen (Hanckius, de Script. Byzant. c. 33, 34, p. 564-578; Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 448-460). Yet the history of Nicephorus Gregoras, though of the xivth century, is a valuable narrative from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins. [We have subsidiary contemporary sources, such as the autobiography of Nicephorus Blemmydes (recently edited by A. Heisenberg, 1896), who was an important person at the courts of Vatatzes and Theodore II. See vol. ix. Appendix 6. The Empire of Nicæa and Despotate of Epirus have been treated in the histories of Finlay and Hopf, but more fully in a recently published special work in modern Greek by Antonios Mêliarakês: Ἱστορία τον̂ βασιλείου τη̂ς Νικαίας καὶ τον̂ δεσποτάτου τη̂ς Ἠπείρου, 1898.]
Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 1) distinguishes between the ὁξεɩ̂α ὁρμή of Lascaris, and the εὐστάθεια of Vataces. The two portraits are in a very good style.
Pachymer, l. i. c. 23, 24; Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6. The reader of the Byzantines must observe how rarely we are indulged with such precious details.
Μόνοι γὰρ ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων ὀνομαστότατοι βασιλεὺς καὶ ϕιλόσοϕος (Georg. Acropol. c. 32). The emperor, in a familiar conversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his future logothete.
[Her mother was Bianca Lancia of Piedmont. Frederick seems to have married her ultimately (towards the close of his life) and legitimised her children (Matthew Paris, ed. Lond., vol. 7, p. 216). The lady’s true name was Constance (as western writers called her); only Greek writers name her Anna, so that she was probably baptised under this name into the Greek church.]
[The Greek writers call her the Μαρκεζίνα — Marchioness. Her liaison with the Emperor caused an incident which produced a quarrel between him and Nicephorus Blemmydes. She entered the Monastery of St. Gregory in grand costume. Blemmydes, when he observed her presence, ordered the communion service to be discontinued. Vatatzes refused to punish a just man, as the Marchioness demanded, but showed his resentment by breaking off all relations with him. Besides Nicephorus Gregoras, i. p. 45, 46, we have a description of the incident from the pen of Blemmydes himself in his autobiography, c. 41 (ed. Heisenberg).]
Compare Acropolita (c. 18, 52) and the two first books of Nicephorus Gregoras.
A Persian saying, that Cyrus was the father , and Darius the master , of his subjects, was applied to Vataces and his son. But Pachymer (l. i. c. 23) has mistaken the mild Darius for the cruel Cambyses, despot or tyrant of his people. By the institution of taxes, Darius had incurred the less odious, but more contemptible, name of Κάπηλος, merchant or broker (Herodotus, iii. 89).
Theodore led two expeditions in person against the Bulgarians, in 1256 and 1257. At the end of the second expedition he had a meeting with Theodora Petraleipha, the wife of Michael II., Despot of Epirus, at Thessalonica, where a marriage was both arranged and celebrated between his daughter Maria and her son Nicephorus. The third expedition, to which Gibbon refers, was that of 1258 against Michael II., which however was conducted not by Theodore but by Michael Palæologus, the future emperor.]
Acropolita (c. 63) seems to admire his own firmness in sustaining a beating, and not returning to council till he was called. He relates the exploits of Theodore, and his own services, from c. 53 to c. 74 of his History. See the third book of Nicephorus Gregoras. [Among some unpublished works of this remarkable monarch, Theodore Lascaris, is an encomium on George Acropolites. There is also a rhetorical estimate of his contemporary Frederick II., a work which ought to have been published long ago. George Acropolites made a collection of his letters; some of these are extant but not yet printed. Professor Krumbacher designates Theodore II. “as statesman, writer, and man, one of the most interesting figures of Byzantium, a sort of oriental parallel to his great contemporary Frederick II.; a degenerate, no doubt; intellectually highly gifted, bodily weak, without moral force, with a nervous system fatally preponderant” ( op. cit. p. 478). On his theological productions cp. J. Dräseke, Byz. Zeitschrift, iii. p. 498 sqq. ] [Since this note was written, an edition of the Correspondence of Theodore Lascaris was published by N. Festa.]
[He seems to have suffered from a cerebral disease, and to have been subject to fits of epilepsy. Cp. Mêliarakês, op. cit. p. 479.]
[A sister of Michael Palæologus.]
Pachymer (l. i. c. 21) names and discriminates fifteen or twenty Greek families καὶ ὅσοι ἄλλοι, οɩ̂̓ς ἡ μεγαλογενὴς σεɩ̂ρα καὶ χρυση̂ συγκεκρότητο. Does he mean, by this decoration, a figurative or a real golden chain? Perhaps both.
[So Pachymeres, Gregoras, and Phrantzes; but Acropolita says the third , p. 165, ed. Bonn.]
The old geographers, with Cellarius and d’Anville, and our travellers, particularly Pocock and Chandler, will teach us to distinguish the two Magnesias of Asia Minor, of the Mæander and of Sipylus. The latter, our present object, is still flourishing for a Turkish city, and lies eight hours, or leagues, to the north-east of Smyrna (Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxiii. p. 365-370. Chandler’s Travels into Asia Minor, p. 267).
See Acropolita (c. 75, 76, c.), who lived too near the times; Pachymer (l. i. c. 13-25); Gregoras (l. iii. c. 3-5).
The pedigree of Palæologus is explained by Ducange (Famil. Byzant. p. 230, c.); the events of his private life are related by Pachymer (l. i. c. 7-12), and Gregoras (l. ii. 8, l. iii. 2, 4, l. iv. 1), with visible favour to the father of the reigning dynasty.
Acropolita (c. 50) relates the circumstances of this curious adventure, which seems to have escaped the more recent writers.
Pachymer (l. i. c. 12), who speaks with proper contempt of this barbarous trial, affirms that he had seen in his youth many persons who had sustained, without injury, the fiery ordeal. As a Greek, he is credulous; but the ingenuity of the Greeks might furnish some remedies of art or fraud against their own superstition or that of their tyrant.
Without comparing Pachymer to Thucydides or Tacitus, I will praise his narrative (l. i. c. 13-32, l. iii. c. 1-9), which pursues the ascent of Palæologus with eloquence, perspicuity, and tolerable freedom. Acropolita is more cautious, and Gregoras more concise.
[In Astytzion on the Scamander. The treasures here were deposited by Theodore II.]
The judicial combat was abolished by St. Louis in his own territories; and his example and authority were at length prevalent in France (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 29).
In civil cases, Henry II. gave an option to the defendant; Glanville prefers the proof by evidence, and that by judicial combat is reprobated in the Fleta. Yet the trial by battle has never been abrogated in the English law, and it was ordered by the judges as late as the beginning of the last century.
Yet an ingenious friend has urged to me, in mitigation of this practice, 1. That , in nations emerging from barbarism, it moderates the licence of private war and arbitrary revenge. 2. That it is less absurd than the trials by the ordeal, or boiling water, or the cross, which it has contributed to abolish. 3. That it served at least as a test of personal courage: a quality so seldom united with a base disposition that the danger of the trial might be some check to a malicious prosecutor, and an useful barrier against injustice supported by power. The gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey might probably have escaped his unmerited fate, had not his demand of the combat against his accuser been over-ruled.
The site of Nymphæum is not clearly defined in ancient or modern geography. [Turkish Nif; it lay on the road from Smyrna to Sardis. Cp. Ramsay, Asia Minor, p. 108.] But from the last hours of Vataces (Acropolita, c. 52) it is evident the palace and gardens of his favourite residence were in the neighbourhood of Smyrna. Nymphæum might be loosely placed in Lydia (Gregoras, l. vi. 6). [Pachymeres says that Michael was at Nymphaeum when he received the glad tidings; but Gregoras says Nicaea, and Acropolites says Meteorion. As Acropolites was with Michael at the time, we must follow him (so Mêliarakês, p. 509). Meteorion “must have been in the Hermos valley, and may possibly be the purely Byzantine fortress Gurduk Kalesi, a few miles north of Thyateira, near the site of Attaleia” (Ramsay, op. cit. p. 131).]
This sceptre, the emblem of justice and power, was a long staff, such as was used by the heroes in Homer. By the latter Greeks it was named Dicanice , and the Imperial sceptre was distinguished as usual by the red or purple colour.
Acropolita affirms (c. 87) that this bonnet was after the French fashion; but from the ruby at the point or summit Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 28, 29) believes that it was the high-crowned hat of the Greeks. Could Acropolita mistake the dress of his own court?
[The Genoese had sent ships, in accordance with the treaty of Nymphaeum; but these had not arrived in time to be of actual service.]
See Pachymer (l. 2, c. 28-33), Acropolita (c. 88), Nicephorus Gregoras (l. iv. 7), and for the treatment of the subject Latins, Ducange (l. v. c. 30, 31).
This milder invention for extinguishing the sight was tried by the philosopher Democritus on himself, when he sought to withdraw his mind from the visible world: a foolish story! The word abacinare , in Latin and Italian, has furnished Ducange (Gloss. Latin.) with an opportunity to review the various modes of blinding; the more violent were, scooping, burning with an iron or hot vinegar, and binding the head with a strong cord till the eyes burst from their sockets. Ingenious tyrants!
See the first retreat and restoration of Arsenius, in Pachymer (l. ii. c. 15, l. iii. c. 1, 2), and Nicephorus Gregoras (l. iii. c. 1, l. iv. c. 1). Posterity justly accused the ἀϕέλεια and ῥᾳθυμία of Arsenius, the virtues of an hermit, the vices of a minister (l. xii. c. 2).
The crime and excommunication of Michael are fairly told by Pachymer (l. iii. c. 10, 14, 19, c.), and Gregoras (l. iv. c. 4). His confession and penance restored their freedom.
Pachymer relates the exile of Arsenius (l. v. c. 1-16); he was one of the commissaries who visited him in the desert island. The last testament of the unforgiving patriarch is still extant (Dupin, Bibliothèque Ecclésiastique, tom. x. p. 95).
Pachymer (l. vii. c. 22) relates this miraculous trial like a philosopher, and treats with similar contempt a plot of the Arsenites, to hide a revelation in the coffin of some old saint (l. vii. c. 13). He compensates this incredulity by an image that weeps, another that bleeds (l. vii. c. 30), and the miraculous cures of a deaf and a mute patient (l. xi. c. 32).
The story of the Arsenites is spread through the thirteen books of Pachymer. Their union and triumph are reserved for Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. c. 9), who neither loves nor esteems these sectaries.
[These islands were subject to Michael, but not conquered by him; see Appendix 3.]
[Michael released William Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, who had been taken prisoner at the battle of Pelagonia (see above, p. 34). For his liberty William undertook to become a vassal of the Empire, and to hand over to Michael the fortresses of Misithra, Maina, and Monemvasia. See (besides Pachymeres, Gibbon’s source) the Chronicle of Morea (in Buchon, Chroniques Etrangères. Cp. vol. ix. Appendix 6).]
Of the xiii books of Pachymer, the first six (as the ivth and vth of Nicephorus Gregoras) contain the reign of Michael, at the time of whose death he was forty years of age. Instead of breaking, like his editor the Père Poussin, his history into two parts, I follow Ducange and Cousin, who number the xiii books in one series.
Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 33, c. from the Epistles of Urban IV.
From their mercantile intercourse with the Venetians and Genoese, they branded the Latins as κάπηλοι and βάναυσοι (Pachymer, l. v. c. 10). “Some are heretics in name; others, like the Latins, in fact,” said the learned Veccus (l. v. c. 12), who soon afterwards became a convert (c. 15, 16), and a patriarch (c. 24).
In this class we may place Pachymer himself, whose copious and candid narrative occupies the vth and vith books of his history. Yet the Greek is silent on the council of Lyons, and seems to believe that the popes always resided in Rome and Italy.
See the Acts of the Council of Lyons in the year 1274. Fleury, Hist. Ecclésiastique, tom. xviii. p. 181-199. Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. x. p. 135. [George Acropolites was the chief ambassador of Michael.]
This curious instruction, which has been drawn with more or less honesty by Wading and Leo Allatius from the archives of the Vatican, is given in an abstract or version by Fleury (tom. xviii. p. 252-258).
[Johannes Veccus (Patriarch 1275) was the chief theologian who supported the Union. His work, On the Union and Peace of the Churches of Old and New Rome, and others on the same subject, were published in the Graecia Orthodoxa of Leo Allatius (vol. i., 1652) and will be found in Migne, P.G. vol. 141. His most formidable controversial opponent, Gregory of Cyprus (for whose works see Migne, vol. 142), became Patriarch in 1283.]
This frank and authentic confession of Michael’s distress is exhibited in barbarous Latin by Ogerius, who signs himself Protonotarius Interpretum, and transcribed by Wading from the MSS. of the Vatican ( AD 1278, No. 3). His Annals of the Franciscan order, the Fratres Minores, in xvii. volumes in folio (Rome, 1741), I have now accidentally seen among the waste paper of a bookseller.
See the vith book of Pachymer, particularly the chapters 1, 11, 16, 18, 24-27. He is the more credible, as he speaks of this persecution with less anger than sorrow.
[Finlay shows no mercy to Michael. “He was a type of the empire he re-established and transmitted to his descendants. He was selfish, hypocritical, able and accomplished, an inborn liar, vain, meddling, ambitious, cruel and rapacious. He has gained renown in history as the restorer of the Eastern Empire; he ought to be execrated as the corrupter of the Greek race, for his reign affords a signal example of the extent to which a nation may be degraded by the misconduct of its sovereign when he is entrusted with despotic power” (vol. 3, p. 372).]
Pachymer, l. vii. c. 1-11, 17. The speech of Andronicus the Elder (lib. xii. c. 2) is a curious record, which proves that, if the Greeks were the slaves of the emperor, the emperor was not less the slave of superstition and the clergy.
The best accounts, the nearest the time, the most full and entertaining, of the conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou, may be found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano Malespina [ leg. Malespini] (c. 175-193) and Giovanni Villani (l. vii. c. 1-10, 25-30), which are published by Muratori in the viiith and xiiith volumes of the Historians of Italy. In his Annals (tom. xi. p. 56-72), he has abridged these great events, which are likewise described in the Istoria Civile of Giannone (tom. ii. l. xix.; tom. iii. l. xx.). [The chronicle attributed to Malespini has been proved not to be original but to depend on Villani. See Scheffer-Boichorst, in Sybel’s Historische Zeitschrift, 24, p. 274 sqq. (1870).]
Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 49-56, l. vi. c. 1-13. See Pachymer, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 7-10, 25, l. vi. c. 30, 32, 33, and Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv. 5, l. v. 1, 6.
The reader of Herodotus will recollect how miraculously the Assyrian host of Sennacherib was disarmed and destroyed (l. ii. c. 141).
According to Sabas Malaspina (Hist. Sicula, l. iii. c. 16, in Muratori, tom. viii. p. 832), a zealous Guelph, the subjects of Charles, who had reviled Mainfroy as a wolf, began to regret him as a lamb; and he justifies their discontent by the oppressions of the French government (l. vi. c. 2, 7). See the Sicilian manifesto in Nicholas Specialis (l. i. c. 11, in Muratori, tom. x. p. 930).
See the character and counsels of Peter of Arragon, in Mariana (Hist. Hispan. l. xiv. c. 6, tom. ii. p. 133). The reader forgives the Jesuit’s defects, in favour always of his style, and often of his sense.
After enumerating the sufferings of his country, Nicholas Specialis adds, in the true spirit of Italian jealousy, Quæ omnia et graviora quidem, ut arbitror, patienti animo Siculi tolerassent, nisi (quod primum cunctis dominantibus cavendum est) alienas fæminas invasissent (l. i. c. 2, p. 924).
The French were long taught to remember this bloody lesson: “If I am provoked,” said Henry the Fourth, “I will breakfast at Milan, and dine at Naples.” “Your Majesty,” replied the Spanish ambassador, “may perhaps arrive in Sicily for vespers.”
This revolt, with the subsequent victory, are related by two national writers, Bartholemy a Neocastro (in Muratori, tom. xiii. [and in Del Re, Cronisti e scrittori, vol. 2]) and Nicholas Specialis (in Muratori, tom. x.), the one a contemporary, the other of the next century. The patriot Specialis disclaims the name of rebellion and all previous correspondence with Peter of Arragon (nullo communicato consilio), who happened to be with a fleet and army on the African coast (l. i. c. 4, 9). [For the Sicilian vespers and the sequel, see also the contemporary chronicle of Bernard d’Esclot (an obscure figure), which is published by Buchon in his Chroniques Etrangères (1860), c. 81 sqq.; and also an anonymous contemporary relation of the conspiracy of John Prochyta, in the Sicilian idiom; of which Buchon ( ib. p. 736 sqq. ) has given a French translation.]
Nicephorus Gregoras (l. v. c. 6) admires the wisdom of Providence in this equal balance of states and princes. For the honour of Palæologus, I had rather this balance had been observed by an Italian writer.
See the Chronicle of Villani, the xith volume of the Annali d’Italia of Muratori, and the xxth and xxist books of the Istoria Civile of Giannone.
In this motley multitude, the Catalans and Spaniards, the bravest of the soldiery, were styled by themselves and the Greeks Amogavares [Almugavari=scouts]. Moncada derives their origin from the Goths, and Pachymer (l. xi. c. 22) from the Arabs; and, in spite of national and religious pride, I am afraid the latter is in the right.
[A falconer (Ramon Muntaner, c. 194). His name was Richard Blum. It was translated by an Italian equivalent. See Buchon’s note.]
[Before he went himself, Roger sent envoys to make the terms. The Emperor’s niece, whom he married, was daughter of the Bulgarian Tsar, John Asēn IV. (whom Muntaner calls the emperador Lantzaura, c. 199). As to the numbers of the expedition Muntaner says (c. 201) that there were about 36 sail; 1500 horsemen; 4000 almogavars; 1000 foot-soldiers; as well as the oarsmen and sailors.]
Some idea may be formed of the population of these cities, from the 36,000 inhabitants of Tralles, which, in the preceding reign, was rebuilt by the emperor, and ruined by the Turks (Pachymer, l. vi. c. 20, 21).
I have collected these pecuniary circumstances from Pachymer (l. xi. c. 21; l. xii. c. 4, 5, 8, 14, 19), who describes the progressive degradation of the gold coin. Even in the prosperous times of John Ducas Vataces, the byzants were composed in equal proportions of the pure and the baser metal. The poverty of Michael Palæologus compelled him to strike a new coin, with nine parts, or carats, of gold, and fifteen of copper alloy. After his death the standard rose to ten carats, till in the public distress it was reduced to the moiety. The prince was relieved for a moment, while credit and commerce were for ever blasted. In France, the gold coin is of twenty-two carats (one twelfth alloy), and the standard of England and Holland is still higher.
[Is this a misprint for Alanic or Alan?]
[Roger had crossed to Europe to help the Emperor Andronicus against the Bulgarians. Before returning he wished to take leave of the young Emperor “Kyr Michael” who was at Hadrianople, though it was known that Michael bore him a grudge. Roger’s wife and others tried to dissuade him, in vain (Muntaner, c. 213, 215).]
[Ramon Muntaner, the historian of the expedition, was for a long time captain of Gallipoli, and he describes (c. 225) the good time he had.]
The Catalan war is most copiously related by Pachymer, in the xith, xiith, and xiiith books, till he breaks off in the year 1308. Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 3-6) is more concise and complete. Ducange, who adopts these adventurers as French, has hunted their footsteps with his usual diligence (Hist. de C. P. l. vi. c. 22-46). He quotes an Arragonese history, which I have read with pleasure, and which the Spaniards extol as a model of style and composition (Expedicion de los Catalanes y Arragoneses contra Turcos y Griegos; Barcelona, 1623, in quarto; Madrid, 1777, in octavo). Don Francisco de Moncada, Conde de Osona, may imitate Cæsar or Sallust; he may transcribe the Greek or Italian contemporaries; but he never quotes his authorities, and I cannot discern any national records of the exploits of his countrymen. [See vol. ix. Appendix 6.]
[For a summary of the island dynasties see Appendix 3.]
See the laborious history of Ducange, whose accurate table of the French dynasties recapitulates the thirty-five passages in which he mentions the dukes of Athens. [Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter.]
He is twice mentioned by Villehardouin with honour (No. 151, 235); and under the first passage Ducange observes all that can be known of his person and family.
From these Latin princes of the xivth century, Boccace, Chaucer, and Shakespeare have borrowed their Theseus Duke of Athens. [And Dante, Inferno, 12, 17.] An ignorant age transfers its own language and manners to the most distant times. [Otto de la Roche had not the ducal title. He called himself sire (not grand sire ) or dominus Athenarum. The title is μέγας κύρ in the Chronicle of Morea. The ducal title was first assumed by Guy I. in 1260 with permission of Louis IX. of France. Megara went along with Athens as a pertinence (cum pertinentia Megaron, in the Act of Partition).]
The same Constantine gave to Sicily a king, to Russia the magnus dapifer of the empire, to Thebes the primicerius: and these absurd fables are properly lashed by Ducange (ad Nicephor. Greg. l. vii. c. 5). By the Latins, the lord of Thebes was styled, by corruption, the Megas Kurios, or Grand Sire! [See last note. He took his title from Athens, not from Thebes.]
Quodam miraculo , says Alberic. He was probably received by Michael Choniates, the archbishop who had defended Athens against the tyrant Leo Sgurus [ AD 1204] (Nicetas in Baldwino [p. 805, ed. Bonn]). Michael was the brother of the historian Nicetas; and his encomium of Athens is still extant in MS. in the Bodleian Library (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 405). [See above, p. 7, note 15. It is supposed that Archbishop Akominatos made conditions of surrender with Boniface. The Western soldiers sacrilegiously pillaged the Parthenon church. Akominatos left Athens after its occupation by De la Roche.]
[This should be: nephew, two grand-nephews, and a great-grandnephew, Guy II. AD 1287-1308. Guy II.’s aunt Isabella had married Hugh de Brienne; Walter de Brienne was their son.]
[See Ramon Muntaner, chap. 240.]
[They also held Neopatras in Thessaly; their title was Duke of Athens and Neopatras; and the kings of Spain retained the title.]
[For the Acciajoli see Appendix 2.]
The modern account of Athens, and the Athenians, is extracted from Spon (Voyage en Grèce, tom. ii. p. 79-199) and Wheler (Travels into Greece, p. 337-414), Stuart (Antiquities of Athens, passim ), and Chandler (Travels into Greece, p. 23-172). The first of these travellers visited Greece in the year 1676, the last 1765; and ninety years had not produced much difference in the tranquil scene. [At the end of the 12th century Michael Akominatos deplores the decline of Athens (for his dirge see above, p. 7, note 14). He says that he has become a Barbarian by living so long in Athens (ed. Lampros. vol. 2, p. 44).]
The ancients, or at least the Athenians, believed that all the bees in the world had been propagated from Mount Hymettus. They taught that health might be preserved, and life prolonged, by the external use of oil and the internal use of honey (Geoponica, l. xv. c. 7, p. 1089-1094, edit. Niclas).
Ducange, Glossar. Græc. Præfat. p. 8, who quotes for his author Theodosius Zygomalas, a modern grammarian [of the 16th cent.]. Yet Spon (tom. ii. p. 194), and Wheler (p. 355), no incompetent judges, entertain a more favourable opinion of the Attic dialect.
Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name of Athens, which they still call Athini. From the εἰς τὴν Ἀθήνην we have formed our own barbarism of Setines. [ Setines comes from (στὰ)ς Ἀθήνας.]
Andronicus himself will justify our freedom in the invective (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. i. c. 1) which he pronounced against historic falsehood. It is true that his censure is more pointedly urged against calumny than against adulation.
For the anathema in the pigeon’s nest, see Pachymer (l. ix. c. 24), who relates the general history of Athanasius (l. viii. c. 13-16, 20-24; l. x. c. 27-29, 31-36; l. xi. c. 1-3, 5, 6; l. xiii. c. 8, 10, 23, 35), and is followed by Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vi. c. 5, 7; l. vii. c. 1, 9), who includes the second retreat of this second Chrysostom.
Pachymer, in seven books, 377 folio pages, describes the first twenty-six years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the date of his composition by the current news or lie of the day ( AD 1308). Either death or disgust prevented him from resuming the pen.
After an interval of twelve years from the conclusion of Pachymer, Cantacuzenus takes up the pen; and his first book (c. 1-59, p. 9-150) relates the civil war and the eight last years of the elder Andronicus. The ingenious comparison of Moses and Cæsar is fancied by his French translator, the President Cousin.
Nicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire life and reign of Andronicus the Elder (l. vi. c. i.; l. x. c. 1, p. 96-291). This is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false and malicious representation of his conduct.
He was crowned May 21, 1295, and died October 12, 1320 (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239). His brother, Theodore, by a second marriage, inherited the marquisate of Montferrat, apostatised to the religion and manners of the Latins (ὄτι καὶ γνώμῃ καὶ πίστει καὶ σχήματι, καὶ γενείων κουρᾳ̑ καὶ πα̂σιν ἔθεσιν Λατɩ̂νος ἠ̂ν ἀκραιϕνής, Nic. Greg. l. ix. c. 1), and founded a dynasty of Italian princes, which was extinguished AD 1533 (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 249-253).
We are indebted to Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 1) for the knowledge of this tragic adventure; while Cantacuzene more discreetly conceals the vices of Andronicus the Younger, of which he was the witness and perhaps the associate (l. i. c. 1, c.).
His destined heir was Michael Catharus, the bastard of Constantine his second son. In this project of excluding his grandson Andronicus, Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 3 [p. 295-6, ed. Bonn]) agrees with Cantacuzene (l. i. c. 1, 2).
See Nicephorus Gregoras, l. viii. c. 6. The younger Andronicus complained that in four years and four months a sum of 350,000 byzants of gold was due to him for the expenses of his household (Cantacuzen. l. i. c. 48). Yet he would have remitted the debt, if he might have been allowed to squeeze the farmers of the revenue.
I follow the chronology of Nicephorus Gregoras, who is remarkably exact. It is proved that Cantacuzene has mistaken the dates of his own actions, or rather that his text has been corrupted by ignorant transcribers.
I have endeavoured to reconcile the 24,000 [ leg. 12,000] pieces of Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. i. [vol. i. p. 311, ed. Bonn]) with the 10,000 of Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ix. c. 2); the one of whom wished to soften, the other to magnify, the hardships of the old emperor.
See Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ix. 6-8, 10, 14; l. x. c. 1). The historian had tasted of the prosperity, and shared the retreat, of his benefactor; and that friendship, which “waits or to the scaffold or the cell,” should not lightly be accused as “a hireling, a prostitute to praise.”
The sole reign of Andronicus the Younger is described by Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1-40, p. 191-339) and Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ix. c. 7-l. xi. c. 11, p. 262-361).
Agnes, or Irene, was the daughter of Duke Henry the Wonderful, the chief of the house of Brunswick, and the fourth in descent from the famous Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, and conqueror of the Salvi on the Baltic coast. Her brother Henry was surnamed the Greek , from his two journeys into the East; but these journeys were subsequent to his sister’s marriage; and I am ignorant how Agnes was discovered in the heart of Germany, and recommended to the Byzantine court (Rimius, Memoirs of the House of Brunswick, p. 126-137).
Henry the Wonderful was the founder of the branch of Grubenhagen, extinct in the year 1596 (Rimius, p. 287). He resided in the castle of Wolfenbüttel, and possessed no more than a sixth part of the allodial estates of Brunswick and Luneburg, which the Guelph family had saved from the confiscation of their great fiefs. The frequent partitions among brothers had almost ruined the princely houses of Germany, till that just but pernicious law was slowly superseded by the right of primogeniture. The principality of Grubenhagen, one of the last remains of the Hercynian forest, is a woody, mountainous, and barren tract (Busching’s Geography, vol. vi. p. 270-286; English translation).
The royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburg will teach us how justly, in a much later period, the north of Germany deserved the epithets of poor and barbarous (Essai sur les Mœurs, c.). In the year 1306, in the woods of Luneburg, some wild people, of the Vened race, were allowed to bury alive their infirm and useless parents (Rimius, p. 136).
The assertion of Tacitus that Germany was destitute of the precious metals must be taken, even in his own time, with some limitation (Germania, c. 5, Annal. xi. 20). According to Spener (Hist. Germaniæ Pragmatica, tom. i. p. 351), Argentifodinæ in Hercyniis montibus, imperante Othone magno ( AD 968), primum apertæ, largam etiam opes augendi dederunt copiam; but Rimius (p. 258, 259) defers till the year 1016 discovery of the silver mines of Grubenhagen, or the Upper Hartz, which were productive in the beginning of the xivth century, and which still yield a considerable revenue to the house of Brunswick.
Cantacuzene has given a most honourable testimony, yη̑̓ν δ’ ἑκ Γερμανω̂ν αὕτη θυγατὴρ δουκὸς ντὶ μπρουζουὶκ (the modern Greeks employ the ντ for the δ, and the μπ for the β, and the whole will read, in the Italian idiom, di Brunzuic), τον̂ παρ’ αὐτοɩ̂ς ἑπιϕανεστάτου, καὶ λαμπρότητιπάντας τοὺς ὁμοϕύλους ὑπερβάλλοντος τον̂ γένους. The praise is just in itself, and pleasing to an English ear.
Anne, or Jane, was one of the four daughters of Amédée the Great, by a second marriage, and half-sister of his successor, Edward count of Savoy (Anderson’s Tables, p. 650). See Cantacuzene (l. i. c. 40-42).
That king, if the fact be true, must have been Charles the Fair, who, in five years (1321-1326), was married to three wives (Anderson, p. 628). Anne of Savoy arrived at Constantinople in February, 1326.
The noble race of the Cantacuzeni (illustrious from the xith century in the Byzantine annals) was drawn from the Paladins of France, the heroes of those romances which, in the xiiith century, were translated and read by the Greeks (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 258). [Monograph on Cantacuzene: V. Parisot, Cantacuzène, Homme d’état et historien, 1845.]
See Cantacuzene (l. iii. c. 24, 30, 36).
Saserna, in Gaul, and Columella, in Italy or Spain, allow two yoke of oxen, two drivers, and six labourers, for two hundred jugera (125 English acres) of arable land; and three more men must be added if there be much underwood (Columella de Re Rusticâ, l. ii. c. 13, p. 441, edit. Gesner).
In this enumeration (l. iii. c. 30), the French translation of the President Cousin is blotted with three palpable and essential errors. 1. He omits the 1000 yoke of working oxen. 2. He interprets the πεντακόσιαι πρὸς δισχιλίαις, by the number of fifteen hundred. [The mistake has not been corrected in the Bonn edition, vol. ii. p. 185.] 3. He confounds myriads with chiliads, and gives Cantacuzene no more than 5000 hogs. Put not your trust in translations!
See the regency and reign of John Cantacuzenus, and the whole progress of the civil war, in his own history (l. iii. c. 1-100, p. 348-700), and in that of Nicephorus Gregoras (l. xii. c. 1-l. xv. c. 9, p. 353-492).
He assumed the royal privilege of red shoes or buskins; placed on his head a mitre of silk and gold; subscribed his epistles with hyacinth or green ink; and claimed for the new, whatever Constantine had given to the ancient, Rome (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 36; Nic. Gregoras, l. xiv. c. 3).
Nic. Gregoras (l. xii. c. 5) confesses the innocence and virtues of Cantacuzenus, the guilt and flagitious vices of Apocaucus; nor does he dissemble the motive of his personal and religious enmity to the former; νν̂ν δὲ διὰ κακίαν ἄλλων αἴτιος ὁ πραότατος τη̂ς τω̂ν ὄλων ἔδοξεν εɩ̂̓ναι ϕθορα̂ς.
[The people seem to have clung to the legitimate heir; the officials to have supported Cantacuzene.]
The princes of Servia (Ducange, Famil. Dalmaticæ, c. c. 2-4, 9) were styled Despots in Greek, and Cral in their native idiom (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. p. 751). That title, the equivalent of king, appears to be of Sclavonic origin, from whence it has been borrowed by the Hungarians, the modern Greeks, and even by the Turks (Leunclavius, Pandect. Turc. p. 422), who reserve the name of Padishah for the Emperor. To obtain the latter instead of the former is the ambition of the French at Constantinople (Avertissement à l’Histoire de Timur Bec, p. 39). [The Servian and Bulgarian Kral , “king,” from which the Hungarian Király , “king,” is borrowed, seems to be derived from Karl the Great; just as the German and Slavonic word for Emperor is from the name of Caesar. We find Κράλ in a Greek diploma of King (and saint) Stephen of Hungary: ἐγὼ Στέϕανος Χριστιανὸς ὀ καὶ κρὰλ πάσης Οὐγγρίας. It is cited in Hunfalvy’s Magyarország Ethnographiája, p. 322.]
Nic. Gregoras, l. xii. c. 14. It is surprising that Cantacuzene has not inserted this just and lively image in his own writings.
[The author does not seem to realise, he certainly has not brought out, the dominant position of Servia at this time under its king Stephen Dushan, a name which deserves a place in the history of the Fall of the Roman Empire. Servia was the strongest power in the peninsula under Stephen (1331-1355), and its boundaries extended from the Danube to the gulf of Arta. “He was a man of great ambition and was celebrated for his gigantic stature and personal courage. His subjects boasted of his liberality and success in war; his enemies reproached him with faithlessness and cruelty. He had driven his father Stephen VII. [Urosh III.] from the throne, and the old man had been murdered in prison by the rebellious nobles of Servia, who feared lest a reconciliation should take place with his son. Stephen Dushan passed seven years of his youth at Constantinople, where he became acquainted with all the defects of the Byzantine government and with all the vices of Greek society. The circumstances in which the rival Emperors were placed during the year 1345 were extremely favourable to his ambitious projects, and he seized the opportunity to extend his conquests in every direction. To the east he rendered himself master of the whole valley of the Strymon, took the large and flourishing city of Serres and garrisoned all the fortresses as far as the wall that defended the pass of Christopolis. He extended his dominions along the shores of the Adriatic, and to the south he carried his arms to the gulf of Ambracia. He subdued the Vallachians of Thessaly, and placed strong garrisons in Achrida, Kastoria and Joannina. Flushed with victory he at last formed the ambitious scheme of depriving the Greeks of their political and ecclesiastical supremacy in the Eastern Empire and transferring them to the Servians” (Finlay, iv. p. 441-2). In 1346 he was crowned at Skopia as “Tsar of the Serbs and Greeks,” and gave his son the title of Kral; and he raised his archbishop to the rank of Patriarch. The prosperity of his reign is better shown by the growth of trade in the Servian towns than by the increase of Servian territory. Moreover Stephen did for Servia what Yaroslav did for Russia; he drew up a code of laws, which might be quoted to modify Gibbon’s contemptuous references to the Servians as barbarians. This Zakonik has been repeatedly edited by Shafarik, Miklosich, Novakovich, and Zigel.]
The two avengers were both Palæologi, who might resent, with royal indignation, the shame of their chains. The tragedy of Apocaucus may deserve a peculiar reference to Cantacuzene (l. iii. c. 86 [ leg. 87-8]) and Nic. Gregoras (l. xiv. c. 10).
Cantacuzene accuses the patriarch, and spares the empress, the mother of his sovereign (l. iii. 33, 34), against whom Nic. Gregoras expresses a particular animosity (l. xiv. 10, 11; xv. 5). It is true that they do not speak exactly of the same time.
[“The Greek Empire consisted of several detached provinces when Cantacuzenos seated himself on the throne; and the inhabitants of these different parts could only communicate freely by sea. The direct intercourse by land, even between Constantinople and Thessalonica, by the Egnatian Way, was interrupted, for the Servian Emperor possessed Amphipolis, and all the country about the mouth of the Strymon from Philippi to the lake Bolbe. The nucleus of the imperial power consisted of the city of Constantinople and the greater part of Thrace. On the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, the Greek possessions were confined to the suburb of Skutari, a few forts and a narrow strip of coast extending from Chalcedon to the Black Sea. In Thrace the frontier extended from Sozopolis along the mountains to the south-west, passing about a day’s journey to the north of Adrianople, and descending to the Aegean Sea at the pass and fortress of Christopolis. It included the districts of Morrah and the Thracian Chalkidike [of which Gratianopolis was the chief town]. The second portion of the Empire in importance consisted of the rich and populous city of Thessalonica, with the western part of the Macedonian Chalkidike and its three peninsulas of Cassandra, Longos and Agionoros [Ἅγιον Ὄρος]. By land it was entirely enclosed in the Servian empire. The third detached portion of the empire consisted of a part of Vallachian Thessaly and of Albanian Epirus, which formed a small imperial province interposed between the Servian empire and the Catalan duchy of Athens and Neopatras. The fourth consisted of the Greek province in the Peloponnesus, which obtained the name of the Despotat of Misithra, and embraced about one third of the peninsula. Cantacuzenos conferred the government on his second son, Manuel, who preserved his place by force of arms after his father was driven from the throne. The remaining fragments of the empire consisted of a few islands in the Aegean Sea which had escaped the domination of the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Knights of St. John; and of the cities of Philadelphia and Phocaea, which still recognised the suzerainty of Constantinople, though surrounded by the territories of the emirs of Aidin and Saroukhan. Such were the relics of the Byzantine empire.” Finlay, iv. p. 447-8.]
The traitor and treason are revealed by Nic. Gregoras (l. xv. c. 8), but the name is more discreetly suppressed by his great accomplice (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 99).
Nic. Greg. l. xv. 11. There were, however, some pearls, but very thinly sprinkled. The rest of the stones had only παντοδαπὴν χροιὰν πρὸς τὸ διαυγές.
From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene continues his history, and that of the empire, one year beyond the abdication of his son Matthew, AD 1357 (l. iv. c. 1-50, p. 705-911). Nicephorus Gregoras ends with the synod of Constantinople, in the year 1351 (l. xxii. c. 3, p. 660; the rest, to the conclusion of the xxivth book, p. 717, is all controversy); and his fourteen last books are still MSS. in the king of France’s library. See vol. ix. App. 6.]
The emperor (Cantacuzen. l. iv. c. 1) represents his own virtues, and Nic. Gregoras (l. xv. c. 11) the complaints of his friends, who suffered by its effects. I have lent them the words of our poor cavaliers after the Restoration.
[One important consequence of the Servian conquests, and the wars connected therewith, may be noticed here, — the Albanian invasion of Greece. The highlanders of northern Epirus, descendants of the ancient Illyrians, and speaking in idiom which represents the old Illyrian language, descended into Thessaly, laid it waste, and were a terror to the Catalan adventurers themselves. They settled in the Thessalian mountains and spread over Greece, where they formed a new element in the population. The Albanian settlers speak their own language, amid the surrounding Greeks, to the present day, therein differing remarkably from the Slavonic settlers, who adopted the Greek tongue. For the Albanians, see Hahn, Albanesische Studien.]
The awkward apology of Cantacuzene (l. iv. c. 39-42), who relates, with visible confusion, his own downfall, may be supplied by the less accurate but more honest narratives of Matthew Villani (l. iv. c. 46, in the Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xiv. p. 268) and Ducas (c. 10, 11).
Cantacuzene, in the year 1375, was honoured with a letter from the pope (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 250). His death is placed, by a respectable authority, on the 20th of November, 1411 (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 260). But, if he were of the age of his companion Andronicus the Younger, he must have lived 116 years: a rare instance of longevity, which in so illustrious a person would have attracted universal notice. [Date of death: AD 1383.]
His four discourses, or books, were printed at Basil, 1543 (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 473) [reprinted in Migne, Patr. Gr. vol. 154, p. 372 sqq. ]. He composed them to satisfy a proselyte who was assaulted with letters from his friends of Ispahan. Cantacuzene had read the Koran; but I understand from Maracci that he adopts the vulgar prejudices and fables against Mahomet and his religion.
See the Voyages de Bernier, tom. i. p. 127.
Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 522, 523. Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 22, 24, 107-114, c. The former unfolds the causes with the judgment of a philosopher, the latter transcribes and translates with the prejudices of a Catholic priest.
Basnage (in Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iv. p. 363-368) has investigated the character and story of Barlaam. The duplicity of his opinions had inspired some doubts of the identity of his person. See likewise Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 427-432). [G. Mandolori, Fra Barlaamo Calabrese, maestro del Petrarca, 1888.]
[The chief upholders of Barlaam were Gregory Akindynos (for whose works see Migne, P.G. vol. 151) and Nicephorus Gregoras, whose Φλωρέντιος ἢ περὶ σοϕίας (in Jahns Archiv, 10, p. 485 sqq. , 1844) is founded on a dispute with Barlaam. The chief opponent was Gregory Palamas, who had lived at Athos, and came forward as defender of the Hesychasts, to whose doctrine he gave a dogmatic basis (cp. Ehrhard, ap. Krumbacher, p. 103). Some of his works are printed in Migne, P.G. vols. 150, 151; a large number are happily buried in MSS.]
See Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 39, 40; l. iv. c. 3, 23-25) and Nic. Gregoras (l. xi. c. 10; l. xv. 3, 7, c.), whose last books, from the 19th to the 24th, are almost confined to a subject so interesting to the authors. Boivin (in Vit. Nic. Gregoræ), from the unpublished books, and Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 462-473), or rather Montfaucon, from the MSS. of the Coislin Library, have added some facts and documents. [Sauli, Colonia dei Genovesi in Galata.]
Pachymer (l. v. c. 10) very properly explains λιζίους ( ligios ) by ἰδίους. The use of these words in the Greek and Latin of the feudal times may be amply understood from the Glossaries of Ducange (Græc. p. 811, 812, Latin. tom. iv. p. 109-111).
The establishment and progress of the Genoese at Pera, or Galata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. i. p. 68, 69), from the Byzantine historians, Pachymer (l. ii. c. 35, l. v. 10, 30, l. ix. 15, l. xii. 6, 9), Nicephorus Gregoras (l. v. c. 4, l. vi. c. 11, l. ix. c. 5, l. xi. c. 1, l. xv. c. 1, 6), and Cantacuzene (l. i. c. 12, l. ii. c. 29, c.). [The golden Bulls of Michael VIII. ( AD 1261) and Andronicus the Elder ( AD 1304) granting privileges to the Genoese will found in Zachariä, Jus Graeco-Romanum, iii. p. 574 sqq. , p. 623 sqq. ]
Both Pachymer (l. iii. c. 3-5) and Nic. Gregoras (l. iv. c. 7) understand and deplore the effects of this dangerous indulgence. Bibars, sultan of Egypt, himself a Tartar, but a devout Musulman, obtained from the children of Zingis the permission to build a stately mosque in the capital of Crimea (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343).
Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 48) was assured at Caffa that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or twenty-six feet long, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and yielded three or four quintals of caviar. The corn of the Bosphorus had supplied the Athenians in [and long before] the time of Demosthenes.
De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343, 344. Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 400. But this land or water carriage could only be practicable when Tartary was united under a wise and powerful monarch.
Nic. Gregoras (l. xiii. c. 12) is judicious and well-informed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea. Chardin describes the present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty days, he saw above 400 sail employed in the corn and fish trade (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 46-48).
See Nic. Gregoras, l. xvii. c. 1.
The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene (l. iv. c. 11) with obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras (l. xvii. c. 1-7) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest was less responsible than the prince for the defeat of the fleet.
The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene (l. iv. c. 18, p. 24, 25, 28-32), who wishes to disguise what he dares not deny. I regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is still in MS. at Paris. [It has since been edited, see vol. ix. Appendix 6.]
Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. xii. p. 144) refers to the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus [Raffaino Carasini; ob. 1390], the continuator of Andrew Dandolus, tom. xii. p. 421, 422) and Genoa (George Stella [ob. 1420], Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092); both which I have diligently consulted in his great Collection of the Historians of Italy.
See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, l. ii. c. 59, 60, p. 145-147, c. 74, 75, p. 156, 157, in Muratori’s Collection, tom. xiv.
The Abbé de Sade (Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 257-263) translates this letter, which he had copied from a MS. in the king of France’s library. Though a servant of the Duke of Milan, Petrarch pours forth his astonishment and grief at the defeat and despair of the Genoese in the following year (p. 323-332).
[Text (the Latin copy) in Sauli, Colonia dei Genovesi in Galata, ii. 216; and in Zachariä, Jus Graeco-Romanum, iii. 706.]
The reader is invited to review the chapters of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh volumes; the manners of pastoral nations, the conquests of Atila and the Huns, which were composed at a time when I entertained the wish, rather than the hope, of concluding my history.
[The miraculous origin of the race of Chingiz Khan appears in Turkish and Chinese as well as in Mongol legend. The family to which he belonged was called the Borjigen; it seems to have been of Turkish origin on the female side, but Mongol on the male (Cahun, Intr. à l’histoire de l’Asie, p. 203). It possessed lands and high prestige among the Mongol tribes to the north of China between the rivers Selinga and Orchon. It is important to realise that the Mongols were not very numerous. In the Mongol empire, as it is called, which Chingiz Khan created, the Mongolian element was small. What he did was to create a great Turkish empire under Mongol domination.]
The Khans of the Keraites [Karaits] were most probably incapable of reading the pompous epistles composed in their name by the Nestorian missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous wonders of an Indian kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the Presbyter or Priest John) had submitted to the rites of baptism and ordination (Assemann. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. ii. p. 487-503). [Sir H. Howorth has shown very clearly (Hist. of the Mongols, i. p. 696 sqq. ) that the Karaits were Turks, not Mongols. Their territory was near the Upper Orchon, between the rivers Selinga and Kernlen. They were Christians. Their chief Tughril received the title of Wang (“king”) from the (Manchu) Emperor of Northern China for his services in 1193 against the Naiman Turks of the regions of the Altai and Upper Irtish. Chingiz also took part in this war, and his services were recognised by the title of Dai Ming, “high Brightness.” For an account of Prester John — the name by which the Karait khans were known in the west — and the legends attached to him, see Howorth, i. cap. x. p. 534 sqq. ]
Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis , at least in French, seems to be the more fashionable spelling; but Abulghazi Khan must have known the true name of his ancestor. His etymology appears just; Zin , in the Mogul tongue, signifies great , and gis is the superlative termination (Hist. Généalogique des Tartars, part iii. p. 194, 195). From the same idea of magnitude the appellation of Zingis is bestowed on the ocean. [Chingiz (= very great, or autocrat) represents the true spelling. He also bore the title Sutu Bodgo, “son of Heaven.”]
The name of Moguls has prevailed among the Orientals, and still adheres to the titular sovereign, the Great Mogul of Hindostan. [Mongol, Mogul, and (Arabic) Mughal are all attempts to represent a name which among the true Mongols is pronounced something between Moghol (or Mool) and Mongol, but never with the u sound. See Tarīkh-i-Rashīdī, tr. Elias and Ross, p. 73 note.]
The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended from Tatar Khan, the brother of Mogul Khan (see Abulghazi, part i. and ii.), and once formed a horde of 70,000 families on the borders of Kitay (p. 103-112). In the great invasion of Europe ( AD 1238), they seem to have led the vanguard; and the similitude of the name of Tartarei recommended that of Tartars to the Latins (Matth. Paris, p. 398, c.). [The Tatars seem to have been a mixture of Manchus and Turks. On one of the old Turkish inscriptions of AD 733 (see above vol. vii. p. 399) Tatars are mentioned.]
[The code drawn up by Chingiz was called Yāsāk or Law. (On it, see Sir H. Howorth’s paper in the Indian Antiquary , July, 1882.) The cruelties of Chingiz were always the simple execution of the laws: he was never capricious.]
A singular conformity may be found between the religious laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke (Constitutions of Carolina, in his works, vol. iv. p. 535, 4to edition, 1777).
[When Chingiz conquered the Naiman Turks of the Altai regions, c. 1203-4, the vizir of the Naiman king passed into his service and became his chancellor. This minister was an Ūigur and had Ūigur successors. Through these Ūigurs, the Ūigur alphabet (derived from the Syriac) was adopted by the Mongols, and the old Turkish script (of the Orchon inscriptions, see above vol. vii. p. 399) became obsolete.] On the Ūigurs see Vámbéry’s Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku Bilik, 1870.
In the year 1294, by the command of [Mahmūd Ghāzān] Cazan, khan of Persia, the fourth [fifth] in descent from Zingis. From these traditions, his vizir, Fadlallah [Rashīd ad-Dīn], composed a Mogul history in the Persian language, which has been used by Petit de la Croix (Hist. de Genghizcan, p. 537-539) [see D’Ohsson, Hist. des Mongols, i. 627 sqq. For Rashīd’s Jāmi al-Tawārīkh see Appendix 1.] The Histoire Généalogique des Tatars (à Leyde, 1726, in 12mo, 2 tomes) was translated by the Swedish prisoners in Siberia, from the Mogul MS. of Abulgasi Bahadur Khan, a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over the Usbeks of Charasm, or Carizme ( AD 1644-1663). He is of most value and credit for the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation. Of his nine parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the iid, from Mogul to Zingis; the iiid is the life of Zingis; the ivth, vth, vith, and viith, the general history of his four sons and their posterity; the viiith and ixth, the particular history of the descendants of Sheibani Khan, who reigned in Maurenahar and Charasm. [The work of Abulghazi has been edited and translated by Des Maisons (St. Petersburg, 1870). For Jūzjānī and Juvainī see Appendix 1.]
Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie des Mongous ses Successeurs, Conquérans de la Chine; tirée de l’Histoire de la Chine, par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Société de Jésus, Missionaire à Pekin; à Paris, 1739, in 4to. This translation is stamped with the Chinese character of domestic accuracy and foreign ignorance. [It has been superseded by the Russian work of the Père Hyacinth, on the first four Khans of the house of Chingiz, 1829. A contemporary Chinese work by Men-Hun has been translated by Vasiliev in the ivth vol. of the Transactions of the Russian Arch. Soc., Oriental Sect.]
See the Histoire du Grand Genghizcan, premier Empereur des Mogols et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, à Paris, 1710, in 12mo [it has been translated into English]: a work of ten years’ labour, chiefly drawn from the Persian writers, among whom Nisavi, the secretary of Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and prejudices of a contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault of the originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of Genghizcan, Mohammed, Gelaleddin , c., in the Bibliothèque Orientale of d’Herbelot. [Several histories of the Mongols have appeared in this century: D’Ohsson, Histoire des Mongols, 1852; Wolff, Geschichte der Mongolen oder Tataren, 1872; Quatremère, Histoire des Mongoles de la Perse, 1836; Howorth, History of the Mongols, Part 1, 1876, Part 2 (in 2 vols.), 1880 (on the “Tartars” of Russia and Central Asia); Part 3, 1888 (on Mongols of Persia); Cahun, Introduction à l’Histoire de l’Asie, 1896. For later Mongols of Central Asia, see the Tarīkh-i-Rashīdī of Mirzā Muhammad Haidar Dughlāt, transl. by E. D. Ross, ed. by N. Elias, 1895; for which, and for Schmidt, Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen, cp. Appendix 1. For Chingiz Khan: Erdmann, Temudschin der Unerschütterliche, 1862; R. K. Douglas, Life of Jinghiz Khān, 1877; Howorth, op. cit. Pt. 1. Gibbon does not mention: Pallas, Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die Mongolischen Völkerschaften, which appeared at St. Petersburg in 1776, 2 vols.]
Haithonus, or Aithonus, an Armenian prince, and afterwards a monk of Premontré (Fabric. Bibliot. Lat. medii Ævi, tom. i. p. 34), dictated, in the French language, his book De Tartaris , his old fellow-soldiers. It was immediately translated into Latin, and is inserted in the Novus Orbis of Simon Grynæus (Basil, 1555, in folio). [See above, vol. ix. p. 398. For Haithon I. see Appendix 1.]
Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy the conclusion of the ixth Dynasty of Abulpharagius (vers. Pocock, Oxon. 1663, in 4to); and his xth Dynasty is that of the Moguls of Persia. Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.) has extracted some facts from his Syriac writings, and the lives of the Jacobite maphrians or primates of the East.
Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we may distinguish Abulfeda, sultan of Hamah in Syria, who fought in person, under the Mamaluke standard, against the Moguls.
Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 5, 6) has felt the necessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. He describes, with truth and elegance, the settlement and manners of the Moguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and corrupts the names of Zingis and his sons.
M. Levesque (Histoire de Russie, tom. ii.) has described the conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the patriarch Nicon and the old chronicles. [See Soloviev, Istoriia Rossii, vol. iii. cap. ii. p. 820 sqq. ].
For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica et Europaea of Matthew à Michou, or de Michoviâ, a canon and physician of Cracow ( AD 1506), inserted in the Novus Orbis of Grynæus. Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. mediæ et infimæ Ætatis, tom. v. p. 56. [The most important Polish source is the Historia Polonica of Johannes Dlugossius (who lived in the 15th century and died 1480). His works have been edited in 14 vols. by Alexander Przezdziecki (1867-87) and the Hist. Pol. occupies vols. x.-xiv. Roepell’s Geschichte Polens, vol. i. (1840). Only one contemporary Polish chronicle has survived: the Annals of the Cracow Chapter, Mon. Germ. xix. 582 sqq. ]
I should quote Thuroczius, the oldest general historian (pars ii. c. 74, p. 150), in the first volume of the Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, did not the same volume contain the original narrative of a contemporary, an eyewitness, and a sufferer (M. Rogerii, Hungari, Varadiensis Capituli Canonici, Carmen miserabile, seu Historia super Destructione Regni Hungariæ, Temporibus Belæ IV. Regis per Tartaros factâ, p. 292-321) [it will be found in Endlicher, Rer. Hung. Monum. Arpadiana, p. 255 sqq. ]; the best picture that I have ever seen of all the circumstances of a Barbaric invasion. [Gibbon omits to mention another contemporary account (of great importance) of the invasion of Hungary, by Thomas Archdeacon of Spalato, in his Historia Salonitana, published in Schwandtrer’s Scriptores Hung., vol. iii.]
Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic documents, the danger and distress of Europe (consult the word Tartari in his copious Index). [It has been conjectured that among the documents used by Matthew were anti-Semitic fly-leaves, accusing the Jews of inviting and helping the Mongols. Strakosch-Grassmann, Der Einfall der Mongolen, p. 116.] From motives of zeal and curiosity, the court of the great Khan, in the xiiith century, was visited by two friars, John de Plano Carpini and William Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetian gentleman. The Latin relations of the two former are inserted in the first volume of Hackluyt: the Italian original, or version, of the third (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. medii Ævi, tom. ii. p. 198; tom. v. p. 25) may be found in the second tome of Ramusio. [Colonel H. Yule’s English translation, The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian, in 2 vols., 1875, with plans and illustrations, and most valuable elucidations and bibliography, is indispensable to the study of the traveller. A new edition of Rubruquis is wanted. The account of a journey among the Mongols by another traveller, Ascellinus, is printed in Fejér, Codex diplomaticus Hungariae, iv. 1, 428 sqq. ]
In his great History of the Huns, M. de Guignes has most amply treated of Zingis Khan and his successors. See tom. iii. l. xv.-xix., and in the collateral articles of the Seljukians of Roum, tom. ii. l. xi., the Carizmians. l. xiv., and the Mamalukes, tom. iv. l. xxi.; consult likewise the tables of the ist volume. He is ever learned and accurate; yet I am only indebted to him for a general view, and some passages of Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text.
[The people who ruled over Northern China at this time were the Niu-Chi or Man-Chu. (They called themselves Aisin, “golden,” which the Chinese translated by Kin, and hence they are generally called the Kin dynasty.) They had conquered Northern China in 1120 from the Karā-Khitay Turks, who had held it since 1004. Chingiz, who was always punctilious in matters of form, chose his moment when the Emperor Chang-Tsong, to whom he had taken a feudal oath, was dead (1208); then he openly refused allegiance to the successor. He had prepared the way for the overthrow of the Niu-Chi by the conquest of the land of the Hia (north of Tibet, and west of the great bend of the Hoang Ho: the country of the Tanguts), which was then a republic of brigands, who (with their capital at Ning-Hia on the Hoang Ho), commanding the routes to the west, were a pest both to the southern and the northern Chinese empires. Cahun, Intr. à l’histoire de l’Asie, p. 248. Chingiz in conquering the Hia thus appeared as a public benefactor, but really seized a key position both in regard to China and in regard to the routes to the west through Dzungaria and through Cashgaria. On the Kin empire see the Histoire de l’empire de Kin ou empire d’or, Aisin Gurun-i Suduri Bithe, transl. by C. de Harlez, 1887.]
More properly Yen-king , an ancient city, whose ruins still appear some furlongs to the south-east of the modern Pekin , which was built by Cublai Khan (Gaubel, p. 146). Pe-king and Nan-king are vague titles, the courts of the north and of the south. The identity and change of names perplex the most skilful readers of the Chinese geography (p. 177). [When the Karā-Khitay Turks (under their chiefs the Ye-Lu family) conquered Northern China in 1004, they took Yen as their capital; it is now called Pe-king, “capital of the north.” “Khitan” is the Chinese form of Khitay.]
[In the last quarter of the 11th cent., Anushtigīn a Turkish slave was appointed governor of Carizme (Khwārizm) by the Sultan Malik Shāh. His son took the title of Carizme Shāh, and his grandson Atsīz made himself independent of the Seljuk sultans in the second quarter of the 12th cent. Alā ad-Dīn Mohammad ( AD 1199-1220) made this principality of Carizme (which Atsīz and Tukush (1172-1199) had already extended as far as Jand in the north and Ispahan in the west), into a great realm, subduing Persia and Transoxiana, overthrowing the Ghōrid dynasty of Afghanistan, and invaded Eastern Turkestan (the kingdom of the Karā-Khitay).]
[On the middle Jaxartes. It was the capital of the Gūr-Khans of the Turkish kingdom of Karā-Khitay. Gibbon omits to mention the conquest of this kingdom (the south-western provinces of the modern empire of China) by Chingiz, before he came face to face with the Carizmian empire.]
M. de Voltaire, Essai sur l’Histoire Générale, tom. iii. c. 60, p. 8. His account of Zingis and the Moguls contains, as usual, much general sense and truth, with some particular errors.
[The strategical ability displayed in the campaigns of Chingiz and his successors has been well brought out by Cahun. It is wholly an error to regard the Mongol conquests as achieved merely by numbers and intrepid physical bravery. The campaigns were carefully planned out — not by Chingiz himself, he only considered, and approved or rejected, the plans submitted to him by his military advisers. He knew how to choose able generals (Samuka and Subutai were two of the most illustrious), but he did not interfere with them in their work. The invasion of the Carizmian empire was carried out thus: a Mongol army which had just conquered the land of Cashgar advanced over the great southern pass into Fergana and descended upon Khojend. The main army advanced by the great northern gate, through Dzungaria and the Ili regions, to Otrār on the Jaxartes. Half the army spread up the river to take or mask the Carizmian fortresses and join hands at Khojend with the corps from Cashgar. The other half, under Chingiz himself, marched straight across the Red Sand Desert upon Bochara. Cahun, op. cit. p. 285. Success was rendered easy by the strategical mistakes of Mohammad.]
[Jūjī received the realm of Karā-Khitay, and his son Bātū obtained possession of the Khanate of Kipchak; see below, p. 145.]
Zagatai [Chagatāy] gave his name to his dominions of Maurenahar [Mā-warā-l-nahr], or Transoxiana [along with part of Kashgar, Balkh, and Ghazna]; and the Moguls of Hindostan, who emigrated from that country, are styled Zagatais by the Persians. This certain etymology, and the similar example of Uzbek, Nogai, c. may warn us not absolutely to reject the derivations of a national, from a personal, name. [The succession of the Chagatāy Khans of Transoxiana is very uncertain. On this branch see Mr. Oliver’s monograph, “The Chaghatai Mughals,” in Journ. R. As. Soc., vol. xx. Cp. the list in Lane-Poole’s Mohammadan Dynasties, p. 242.]
[Mangū (1251-1257) appointed his brother Khubilāy governor of the southern provinces. On Mangū’s death, Khubilāy defeated the attempts of the line of Jūjī to recover the chief Khanate, and reigned till 1294. He transferred the royal residence from Karakorum to Peking.]
In Marco Polo and the Oriental geographers, the names of Cathay and Mangi distinguish the Northern and Southern empires, which, from AD 1234 to 1279, were those of the Great Khan and of the Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had been found, excited and misled our navigators of the sixteenth century, in their attempts to discover the north-east passage. [Cp. Cathay and the Way Thither: a collection of all minor notices of China previous to the sixteenth century, translated and edited by Col. H. Yule, 2 vols. 1866.]
I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Père Gaubil, who translates the Chinese text of the annals of the Moguls or Yuen (p. 71, 93, 153); but I am ignorant at what time these annals were composed and published. The two uncles of Marco Polo, who served as engineers at the siege of Siengyangfou (l. ii. c. 61, in Ramusio, tom. ii.; see Gaubil, p. 155, 157) must have felt and related the effects of this destructive powder, and their silence is a weighty and almost decisive objection. I entertain a suspicion that the recent discovery was carried from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century, and falsely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival of the Portuguese and Jesuits in the xvith. Yet the Père Gaubil affirms that the use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese above 1600 years. [For Chinese Annals see Appendix 1.]
[Hūlāgū. His reign in Persia began in AD 1256. His dynasty was called the Il Khāns, that is “Khāns of the Ils” or tribes ( i.e. provincial). Hammer has made them the subject of a book: Geschichte der Ilchane, 1842.]
All that can be known of the Assassins of Persia and Syria, is poured from the copious, and even profuse, erudition of M. Falconet, in two Mémoires read before the Academy of Inscriptions (tom. xvii. p. 127-170). [One of the princes Jelal ad-Dīn Hasan had sent his submission to Chingiz: it was his son Rukn ad-Dīn who fought with Hūlāgū. On the Assassins see Hammer’s History of the Assassins, transl. by O. C. Wood, 1835.]
The Ismaelians of Syria, 40,000 assassins, had acquired or founded ten castles in the hills above Tortosa. About the year 1280, they were extirpated by the Mamalukes. [See Guyard, Un grand-Maître des Assassins, in the Journal asiatique, 1877.]
As a proof of the ignorance of the Chinese in foreign transactions, I must observe that some of their historians extend the conquests of Zingis himself to Medina, the country of Mahomet (Gaubil, p. 42).
[On the history of the Mongols in the West and the Golden Horde, see Hammer’s Geschichte der goldenen Horde, 1840, and Howorth’s History of the Mongols, part ii. In May 1334 the Moorish traveller Ibn Batūta visited the camp of Uzbeg Khan of the Golden Horde (Voyages, ed. and transl. Defrémery and Sanguinetti, vol. ii. 1877).]
[The numbers given in the western sources are mere metaphors for immensity. Cp. Cahun, op. cit. p. 343-344; Strakosch-Grassmann, Der Einfall der Mongolen in Mitteleuropa, p. 182-184. The total number of the Mongols may have been about 100,000.]
[Bātū was son of Jūjī (not of Tulūy).]
[Bātū was only nominally the leader. The true commander was Subutai, who deserves to be remembered among the great generals of the world for the brilliant campaign of 1241. See Appendix 4.]
The Dashte Kipzak [Dasht-i-Kipchāk] or plain of Kipzak, extends on either side of the Volga, in a boundless space towards the Jaik and Borysthenes, and is supposed to contain the primitive name and nation of the Cossacks.
[Riazan was taken 21st December, 1237; then Moscow; then Vladimir, the Grand Duke’s capital, 7th January, 1238; then the Grand Duke’s army was routed, 4th March. Subutai did not go farther north-westward than Torjok; he turned to subdue the Caucasian regions, the valley of the Don and the land of the Kipchaks. This occupied him till the end of 1239. Then he advanced on Kiev, and ruined it, with an exceptional and deliberate malice, which requires some explanation. Kiev was at this time a most prosperous and important centre of commerce with the East. From this time forward Venice had a monopoly of trade with the extreme East. Now the Venetian merchants of the Crimea were on very good terms with the Mongols. It has been plausibly suggested by M. Cahun that in the destruction of Kiev the Mongols acted under Venetian influence ( op. cit. p. 350).]
[And a band of Knights Templar of France.]
[This is not correct. The battle of Liegnitz was gained by the right wing of the Mongol army. The advance into Hungary, under Bātū and Subutai, was simultaneous. See Appendix 4.]
In the year 1238, the inhabitants of Gothia ( Sweden ) and Frise were prevented, by their fear of the Tartars, from sending, as usual, their ships to the herring fishery on the coast of England; and, as there was no exportation, forty or fifty of these fish were sold for a shilling (Matthew Paris, p. 396). It is whimsical enough that the orders of a Mogul Khan, who reigned on the borders of China, should have lowered the price of herrings in the English market.
I shall copy his characteristic or flattering epithets of the different countries of Europe: Furens ac fervens ad arma Germania, strenuæ militiæ genetrix et alumna Francia, bellicosa et audax Hispania, virtuosa viris et classe munita fertilis Anglia, impetuosis bellatoribus referta Alemannia, navalis Dacia, indomita Italia, pacis ignara Burgundia, inqueta Apulia, cum maris Græci, Adriatici, et Tyrrheni insulis pyraticis et invictis, Cretâ, Cypro, Siciliâ, cum Oceano conterminis, insulis, et regionibus, cruenta Hybernia, cum agili Walliâ, palustris Scotia, glacialis Norwegia, suam electam militiam sub vexillo Crucis destinabunt, c. (Matthew Paris, p. 498).
[The news of the death of the Grand Khan Ogotai recalled Bātū and Subutai to the East. The Mongols left Siebenbürgen in summer, 1242, Bulgaria in the following winter. Europe did not deceive itself. It was fully conscious that the Mongols could have extended their conquests if they had chosen. As Roger puts it, they disdained to conquer Germany — Tartari aspernabantur Theutomain expugnare (Miserabile Carmen, in M.G.H. 29, p. 564). On the position of the capital of the Golden Horde, Serai, the chief works are Grigor’ev, O miestopolozhenii stolitsy zolotoi Ordy Saraia, 1845; and Brun, O rezidentsii chanov zolotoi Ordy do vremen Dzhanibeka (in the publications of the 3rd Archeological Congress at Kiev), 1878. Brun attempts to show that there were two (old) Serais, — the elder, nearer the Caspian Sea, not far from the village of Selitrian, the later at Tsarev.]
See Carpin’s relation in Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 30. The pedigree of the khans of Siberia is given by Abulghazi (part viii. p. 485-495). Have the Russians found no Tartar chronicles at Tobolskoi?
The Map of d’Anville and the Chinese Itineraries (de Guignes, tom. i. p. 57) seem to mark the position of Holin, or Caracorum, about six hundred miles to the north-west of Pekin. The distance between Selinginsky and Pekin is near 2000 Russian versts, between 1300 and 1400 English miles (Bell’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 67). [For the situation of Caracorum, at a place still called Kara-Kharam, on the north bank of the Orchon, see Geographical Magazine for July 1874, p. 137; Yule’s Marco Polo, vol. i. p. 228-229.]
Rubruquis found at Caracorum his countryman Guillaume Boucher, orfèvre de Paris , who had executed, for the khan, a silver tree, supported by four lions, and ejecting four different liquors. Abulghazi (part iv. p. 336) mentions the painters of Kitay or China.
[Which was called Khān Baligh, City of the Khān.]
The attachment of the khans, and the hatred of the mandarins, to the bonzes and lamas (Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine, tom. i. p. 502, 503) seems to represent them as the priests of the same god, of the Indian Fo , whose worship prevails among the sects of Hindostan, Siam, Thibet, China, and Japan. But this mysterious subject is still lost in a cloud, which the researches of our Asiatic Society may gradually dispel.
[Under Chu Yuen Chang, who became emperor and founded the Ming dynasty.]
Some repulse of the Moguls in Hungary (Matthew Paris, p. 545, 546) might propagate and colour the report of the union and victory of the kings of the Franks on the confines of Bulgaria. Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 310), after forty years, beyond the Tigris, might be easily deceived.
See Pachymer, l. iii. c. 25, and l. ix. c. 26, 27; and the false alarm at Nice, l. iii. c. 27 [28]. Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv. c. 6.
[Izz ad-Dīn II. reigned AD 1245-1257.]
G. Acropolita, p. 36, 37 [c. 41]. Nic. Gregoras, l. ii. c. 6, l. iv. c. 5.
Abulpharagius, who wrote in the year 1284, declares that the Moguls, since the fabulous defeat of Batou, had not attacked either the Franks or Greeks; and of this he is a competent witness. Hayton, likewise, the Armeniac prince, celebrates their friendship for himself and his nation.
Pachymer gives a splendid character of Cazan Khan, the rival of Cyrus and Alexander (l. xii. c. 1). In the conclusion of his history (l. xiii. c. 36), he hopes much from the arrival of 30,000 Tochars, or Tartars, who were ordered by the successor of Cazan [Ghāzān Mahmūd, AD 1295-1304; his successor was Uljāitu, AD 1304-1316] to restrain the Turks of Bithynia, AD 1308.
The origin of the Ottoman dynasty is illustrated by the critical learning of MM. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 329-337), and d’Anville (Empire Turc, p. 14-22), two inhabitants of Paris, from whom the Orientals may learn the history and geography of their own country.
[Jalăl ad-Dīn Mangbarti, AD 1220-1231.]
[They were a clan of the tribe of Oghuz.]
[Sugut (Turkish name = “willow”), south of Malagina on the way to Dorylaeum, is mentioned by Anna Commena (Σαγουδάους, xv. 2). Othmān was born in AD 1258. Gibbon has shown his critical faculty in neglecting the confused and false accounts of the Greek historians, Phrantzes and Chalcondyles, of the deeds of Ertughrul.]
[This is the correct form of the name — Othmān. The name of the people is Othmānli: Ottoman is a corruption.]
See Pachymer, l. x. c. 25, 26; l. xiii. c. 33, 34, 36; and concerning the guard of the mountains, l. i. c. 3-6; Nicephorus Gregoras, l. vii. c. 1; and the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles, the Athenian.
I am ignorant whether the Turks have any writers older than Mahomet II., nor can I reach beyond a meagre chronicle (Annales Turcici ad annum 1550), translated by John Gaudier, and published by Leunclavius (ad calcem Laonic. Chalcond. p. 311-350), with copious pandects, or commentaries. The History of the Growth and Decay ( AD 1300-1683) of the Othman empire was translated into English from the Latin MS. of Demetrius Cantemir, Prince of Moldavia (London, 1734, in folio). The author is guilty of strange blunders in Oriental History; but he was conversant with the language, the annals, and institutions of the Turks. Cantemir partly draws his materials from the Synopsis of Saadi Effendi of Larissa, dedicated in the year 1696 to Sultan Mustapha, and a valuable abridgment of the original historians. In one of the Ramblers, Dr. Johnson praises Knolles (a General History of the Turks to the present year, London, 1603), as the first of historians, unhappy only in the choice of his subject. Yet I much doubt whether a partial and verbose compilation from Latin writers, thirteen hundred folio pages of speeches and battles, can either instruct or amuse an enlightened age, which requires from the historian some tincture of philosophy and criticism. [See Appendix 1.]
[Alā ad-Dīn was a political thinker. Having resigned all claim to a share in Othman’s inheritance he spent some years in retirement and thought, and then gave to his brother the result of his meditations. Orchan made him vizir and followed his suggestions. The chief reforms introduced by Alā ad-Dīn were three. (1) The regulation of Turkish dress is mentioned in the text. (2) The introduction of an independent Ottoman coinage. Hitherto the Seljuk money circulated. The historian Sad ad-Dīn (transl. Bratutti, i. p. 40) states that the first Ottoman coins, gold and silver, with Orchan’s name, were issued in 1328. There are no dates on Orchan’s coins. (3) The institution of the Janissaries (Yani Chari, “new soldiery”), probably in AD 1330 (cp. Sad ad-Dīn, ib. p. 42). This used to be wrongly ascribed to Murad I. (so Marsigli, Stato militare, i. 67, and Gibbon). Compare Hammer, Gesch. des osmanischen Reiches, i. 97 sqq. Alā ad-Dīn clearly grasped the fact that an establishment of well-trained infantry was indispensable. A regular body of cavalry was also established at the same time. The regular troops received pay; whereas the great general levy of cavalry performed military service for their fiefs.]
Cantacuzene, though he relates the battle and heroic flight of the younger Andronicus (l. ii. c. 6-8), dissembles, by his silence, the loss of Prusa, Nice, and Nicomedia, which are fairly confessed by Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. 15; ix. 9, 13; xi. 6). It appears that Nice was taken by Orchan in 1330, and Nicomedia in 1339, which are somewhat different from the Turkish dates. [Capture of Nicomedia, AD 1326; battle of Philocrene, AD 1330; capture of Nicæa, AD 1330; reduction of Karāsī (the ancient Mysia, including Pergamus) after AD 1340. See Zinkeisen, Gesch. des osmanischen Reiches in Europa, i. 102-117.]
The partition of the Turkish emirs is extracted from two contemporaries, the Greek Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 1), and the Arabian Marakeschi (de Guignes, tom. ii. P. ii. p. 76, 77). See likewise the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles.
Pachymer, l. xiii. c. 13. [The western coast of Asia Minor south of Karāsī (Mysia) was not incorporated in the Ottoman realm till the reign of Bayezid I. The most powerful rival of the Ottomans in Asia, at this time, was the state of Caramania (which reached from the Sangarius to the Pamphylian sea, and included Galatia, Eastern Phrygia, Lycaonia, Pisidia and Pamphylia). Murad took Angora (Ancyra) in AD 1360, and in 1386 he inflicted a demoralising defeat on the Caramanian Sultan in the battle of Iconium. In 1391 the prince of Sarūkhān (the regions of the Hermus, including Sardis and Magnesia) and the prince of Aidin (south of Sarūkhān, reaching to south of the Mæander) submitted, and likewise the lord of Mentesia (Caria, including Miletus). At the same time Bayezid subdued Kermiyān (Western Phrygia) and Tekka (Lycia), and the western part of Caramania. In 1393 the principality of Kastamunīyā (in Paphlagonia, including Sinope) was conquered; and with the exception of the eastern parts of Caramania all the little Seljuk states of Anatolia were in the hands of the Ottomans. Cp. the table in S. Lane-Poole’s Mohammadan Dynasties, p. 134. See below, p. 34.]
See the Travels of Wheler and Spon, of Pocock and Chandler, and more particuarly Smith’s Survey of the Seven Churches of Asia, p. 205-276. The more pious antiquaries labour to reconcile the promises and threats of the author of the Revelations with the present state of the seven cities. Perhaps it would be more prudent to confine his predictions to the characters and events of his own times. [For Ephesus and the temple of Diana see Wood’s Discoveries at Ephesus, 1877.]
[The date of the Ottoman capture of Philadelphia is uncertain (cp. Finlay, History of Greece, iii. p. 469, note). Probably AD 1391.]
Consult the fourth book of the Histoire de l’Ordre de Malthe, par l’Abbé de Vertot. That pleasing writer betrays his ignorance in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the Bithynian hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land.
[For the success of the Ottomans, “the last example of the conquest of a numerous Christian population by a small number of Musulman invaders, and of the colonisation of civilised countries by a race ruder than the native population,” Finlay assigns three particular causes (History of Greece, iii. p. 475). “1. The superiority of the Ottoman tribe over all contemporary nations in religious convictions and in moral and military conduct. 2. The number of different races that composed the population of the country between the Adriatic and the Black Sea, the Danube, and the Aegean. 3. The depopulation of the Greek empire, the degraded state of its judicial and civil administration, and the demoralisation of the Hellenic race.”]
Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on this amiable character (l. xii. 7; xiii. 4, 10; xiv. 1, 9; xvi. 6). Cantacuzene speaks with honour and esteem of his ally (l. iii. c. 56, 57, 63, 64, 66-68, 86, 89, 95, 96); but he seems ignorant of his own sentimental passion for the Turk, and indirectly denies the possibility of such unnatural friendship (l. iv. c. 40).
After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the defence of this fortress was imposed by Pope Gregory XI. on the Knights of Rhodes (see Vertot, l. v.).
See Cantacuzenus, l. iii. c. 95. Nicephorus Gregoras, who, for the light of Mount Thabor, brands the emperor with the names of tyrant and Herod, excuses, rather than blames, this Turkish marriage, and alleges the passion and power of Orchan, ἐγγύτατος, καὶ τῃ̑ δυνάμει τοὺς κατ’ αὐτὸν ἤδη Περσικοὺς ( Turkish ) ὑπεραίρων Σατράπας (l. xv. 5). He afterwards celebrates his kingdom and armies. See his reign in Cantemir, p. 24-30.
The most lively and concise picture of this captivity may be found in the history of Ducas (c. 8), who fairly transcribes what Cantacuzene confesses with a guilty blush!
In this passage, and the first conquests in Europe, Cantemir (p. 27, c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish guides; nor am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles (l. i. p. 12, c. [p. 25 ed. Bonn]). They forget to consult the most authentic record, the ivth book of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which are still manuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras. [They have been since published. See above, vol. ix. p. 384-5. The Ottomans captured the little fortress of Tzympe, near Gallipoli, in 1356, and Gallipoli itself in 1358. For Tzympe, cp. Cantacuzenus, iv. 33; vol. iii. p. 242 ed. Bonn.]
After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras, there follows a dark interval of an hundred years. George Phranza, Michael Ducas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after the taking of Constantinople.
[Hadrianople was taken in 1361, Philippopolis in 1362. In the next year (1363) a federate army of the Servians (under Urosh V.), Bosnians, and Walachians marched to deliver Hadrianople, but were defeated by a far inferior force on the banks of the Maritza. (Cp. Sad ad-Dīn, tr. Bratutti, i. p. 91 sqq. ) In 1365 Murad established his residence at Hadrianople. In 1373-4 he pressed into Macedonia. In 1375 the Bulgarian prince Sisman became his vassal. In 1385 Sophia was captured. It should be noted that in 1365 Murad made a treaty with the important commercial city of Ragusa.]
See Cantemir, p. 37-41, with his own large and curious annotations. [The institution of the Janissaries is here wrongly ascribed to Murad; it belongs to the reign of Orchan. See above, p. 158, note 67.]
White and black face are common and proverbial expressions of praise and reproach in the Turkish language. Hic niger est, hunc tu Romane caveto, was likewise a Latin sentence.
[They were abolished (massacred) by the sultan Mahmūd II. in 1826.]
[Lazarus, the Kral of Servia, won important successes over Ottoman invaders of Bosnia in 1387. This emboldened the other Slavs of the Balkan peninsula. Shishman of Bulgaria revolted, and this led to the direct incorporation of Bulgaria in the Ottoman empire. The Servian Kral, who was the leader of the Slavs in their struggle to maintain their independence, took the field at the head of a federate army in spring 1389. He was supported by the King of Bosnia, the princes of Croatia, Albania, and Chlum (afterwards Herzegovina) and Walachia; and there were some Bulgarians (who had escaped the wreck of their country) and Hungarian auxiliaries in his army. The battle was fought, 15th June, on the Kosovo-polje or Amselfeld (blackbird field) on the banks of the Lab, west of Pristina. The name of the Servian who stabbed Murad was Milosh Obilić (or Kobilović). See the Turkish historian Nesri’s account of the campaign (Hungarian translation by Thúry in Török történetírók, i. p. 32 sqq. ). For the general history of the Slavonic struggles against the Turks see Rački’s articles in the Rad (South Slavonic Journal), vols. ii. iii. and iv.; on the battle of Kosovo, iii. p. 91.]
See the life and death of Morad, or Amurath I., in Cantemir (p. 33-45), the 1st book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales Turcici of Leunclavius. According to another story, the sultan was stabbed by a Croat in his tent: and this accident was alleged to Busbequius (Epist. i. p. 98), as an excuse for the unworthy precaution of pinioning, as it were, between two attendants, an ambassador’s arms when he is introduced to the royal presence.
The reign of Bajazet I. or Ilderim Bayazid, is contained in Cantemir (p. 46), the iid book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales Turcici. The surname of Ilderim, or lightning, is an example that the conquerors and poets of every age have felt the truth of a system which derives the sublime from the principle of terror.
Cantemir, who celebrates the victories of the great Stephen over the Turks (p. 47), had composed the ancient and modern state of his principality of Moldavia, which has been long promised, and is still unpublished.
[The reign of Bayezid [Bāyezīd] was marked by a general corruption of morals and manners, propagated by the example of the court — especially of Bayezid himself and his grand vizir, Ali Pasha. See Zinkeisen. Gesch. des osm. Reiches, i. p. 384-6.]
Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The venality of the cadhis has long been an object of scandal and satire; and, if we distrust the observations of our travellers, we may consult the feeling of the Turks themselves (d’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 216, 217, 229, 230).
The fact, which is attested by the Arabic history of Ben Schounah [Ibn-Shihna], a contemporary Syrian (de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 336), destroys the testimony of Saad Effendi and Cantemir (p. 14, 15), of the election of Othman to the dignity of Sultan.
See the Decades Rerum Hungaricarum (Dec. iii. l. ii. p. 379) of Bonfinius, an Italian, who, in the xvth century, was invited into Hungary to compose an eloquent history of that kingdom. Yet, if it be extant and accessible, I should give the preference to some homely chronicle of the time and country. [There is an account of the battle by John Schiltberger of Munich (who was made prisoner), in his story of his Bondage and Travels, 1394-1427, which has been translated into English by J. B. Telfer, 1879 (Hakluyt Society). Mirtschea the Great, prince of Walachia, who had been made prisoner at Kosovo, was also engaged at Nicopolis, as the ally of Sigismund; but seeing that the battle was hopeless, he drew off his forces in good time. He was followed by a Turkish force to Walachia, and defeated it near Craiova. On the confusion in the Turkish historians on the Nicopolis campaign, see Thúry, Török történetírók, i. p. 50 note.]
I should not complain of the labour of this work, if my materials were always derived from such books as the Chronicle of honest Froissard (vol. iv. c. 67, 69, 72, 74, 79-83, 85, 87, 89), who read little, inquired much, and believed all. The original Mémoires of the Maréchal de Boucicault (Partie i. c. 22-28) add some facts, but they are dry and deficient, if compared with the pleasant garrulity of Froissard. [Very important is the Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, published in a French translation under the title Histoire de Charles VI., roy de France, in 1663. The original Latin was first published by Bellaguet (in 6 vols.) in 1839-52. There is a study on the work by H. Delaborde, La vraie Chronique du Religieux de Saint Denis, 1890.]
An accurate Memoir on the life of Enguerrand VII. Sire de Coucy, has been given by the Baron de Zurlauben (Hist. de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.). His rank and possessions were equally considerable in France and England; and, in 1375, he led an army of adventurers into Switzerland, to recover a large patrimony which he claimed in right of his grandmother, the daughter of the emperor Albert I. of Austria (Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Occidentale, tom. i. p. 118-124).
That military office, so respectable at present, was still more conspicuous when it was divided between two persons (Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise, tom. ii. p. 5). One of these, the marshal of the crusade, was the famous Boucicault, who afterwards defended Constantinople, governed Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in the field of Azincour.
[Bayezid was engaged in besieging Constantinople when he received news that the Franks were besieging Nicopolis.]
[About half the Turkish army, which amounted altogether to about 100,000.]
For this odious fact, the Abbé de Vertot quotes the Hist. Anonyme de St. Denys [see above note 93], l. xvi. c. 10, 11 (Ordre de Malthe, tom. ii. p. 310).
Sherefeddin Ali (Hist. de Timour Bec, l. v. c. 13) allows Bajazet a round number of 12,000 officers and servants of the chase. A part of his spoils was afterwards displayed in a hunting-match of Timour: 1. Hounds with satin housings; 2. Leopards with collars set with jewels; 3. Grecian greyhounds; and, 4. dogs from Europe, as strong as African lions ( idem , l. vi. c. 15). Bajazet was particularly fond of flying his hawks at cranes (Chalcondyles, l. ii. p. 35 [p. 67 ed. Bonn]).
For the reigns of John Palæologus and his son Manuel, from 1354 to 1402, see Ducas, c. 9-15, Phranza, l. i. c. 16-21, and the ist and iid books of Chalcondyles, whose proper subject is drowned in a sea of episode.
[And beheading him. The prince’s name, Saudshi, is given rightly by Chalcondyles: Saûzes, but Ducas and Phrantzes give wrong names.]
[A confirmation of this treaty by the Patriarch Nilus (1380-8) is published in the Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy 1851, p. 345.]
Cantemir, p. 50-53. Of the Greeks, Ducas alone (c. 13, 15) acknowledges the Turkish cadhi at Constantinople. Yet even Ducas dissembles the mosch.
[The Sultan had forced John to come forward as pretender to the throne, extorting a secret promise that he would hand over Constantinople to himself.]
Mémoires du bon Messire Jean le Maingre, dit Boucicault , Maréchal de France, partie i. c. 30-35.
These journals were communicated to Sherefeddin, or Cherefeddin Ali, a native of Yezd, who composed in the Persian language a history of Timour Beg [entitled Zafar Nāma = Book of Victory] which has been translated into French by M. Petis de la Croix (Paris, 1722, in 4 vols. 12mo), and has always been my faithful guide. [Translated into English under the title, The History of Timur Beg (in 2 vols.), 1723.] His geography and chronology are wonderfully accurate; and he may be trusted for public facts, though he servilely praises the virtue and fortune of the hero. Timour’s attention to procure intelligence from his own and foreign countries may be seen in the Institutions, p. 215, 217, 349, 351. [There is an older Life of Timur, bearing the same title as that of Sheref ad-Din (Book of Victory). It was written by Nizām Shāmī, at the command of Timur himself. The work has never been published, but an edition is promised by Professor E. Denison Ross from a MS. in the British Museum dated 1434. See note in Skrine and Ross, The Heart of Asia, p. 168.]
These commentaries are yet unknown in Europe; but Mr. White gives some hope that they may be imported and translated by his friend Major Davy, who had read in the East this “minute and faithful narrative of an interesting and eventful period.” [See Appendix 1.]
I am ignorant whether the original institution, in the Turkish or Mogul language, be still extant. The Persic version, with an English translation and most valuable index, was published (Oxford, 1783, in 4to) by the joint labours of Major Davy and Mr. White, the Arabic professor. This work has been since translated from the Persic into French (Paris, 1787) by M. Langlès, a learned Orientalist, who has added the Life of Timour and many curious notes.
Shaw Allum, the present Mogul, reads, values, but cannot imitate the institutions of his great ancestor. The English translator relies on their internal evidence; but, if any suspicions should arise of fraud and fiction, they will not be dispelled by Major Davy’s letter. The Orientals have never cultivated the art of criticism; the patronage of a prince, less honourable perhaps, is not less lucrative than that of a bookseller; nor can it be deemed incredible that a Persian, the real author, should renounce the credit, to raise the value and price, of the work.
The original of the tale is found in the following work, which is much esteemed for its florid elegance of style: Ahmedis Arabsiadæ (Ahmed Ebn Arabshaw) Vitæ et Rerum gestarum Timuri. Arabice et Latine. Edidit Samuel Henricus Manger. Franequeræ , 1767, 2 tom. in 4 to. This Syrian author is ever a malicious and often an ignorant enemy; the very titles of his chapters are injurious; as how the wicked, as how the impious, as how the viper, c. The copious article of TIMUR , in Bibliothèque Orientale, is of a mixed nature, as d’Herbelot indifferently draws his materials (p. 877-888) from Khondemir, Ebn Schounah, and the Lebtarikh.
Demir or Timour [Tīmūr] signifies, in the Turkish language, iron; and Beg is the appellation of a lord or prince. By the change of a letter or accent it is changed into Lenc [Lang], or lame; and a European corruption confounds the two words in the name of Tamerlane. [Timur’s lameness was due to an arrow wound in the foot, received in a battle in Sīstān, when he was conquering the countries south of the Oxus, before he won Transoxiana.]
After relating some false and foolish tales of Timour Lenc , Arabshah is compelled to speak truth, and to own him for a kinsman of Zingis, per mulieres (as he peevishly adds) laqueos Satanæ (pars i. c. i. p. 25). The testimony of Abulghazi Khan (p. ii. c. 5, p. v. c. 4) is clear, unquestionable, and decisive. [M. Cahun also agrees that the claim to connection with the family of Chingiz was justified.]
According to one of the pedigrees, the fourth ancestor of Zingis, and the ninth of Timour, were brothers; and they agreed that the posterity of the elder should succeed to the dignity of Khan, and that the descendants of the younger should fill the office of their minister and general. This tradition was at least convenient to justify the first steps of Timour’s ambition (Institutions, p. 24, 25, from the MS. fragments of Timour’s History).
[Not Sebzewār but Shehr-i-sebz. The province of Kesh had been given as a fief to Taragai, Timur’s father, by Kazghan, the emir or governor of Transoxiana.]
See the preface of Sherefeddin, and Abulfeda’s Geography (Chorasmiæ, c. Descriptio, p. 60, 61), in the 3d volume of Hudson’s Minor Greek Geographers. [Timur’s family, the Barlas, belonged to the clan of the Kurikan (or Kureken) a Turkish clan mentioned in one of the old Turkish inscriptions of AD 733 (see above, vol. vii. p. 399). Thus Timur was a Turk not a Mongol. Cp. Cahun, Intr. á l’histoire de l’Asie, p. 444-445.]
See his nativity in Dr. Hyde (Syntagma Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 466), as it was cast by the astrologers of his grandson Ulugh Beg. He was born AD 1336, 9th April, 11° 57′ P.M. lat. 36. I know not whether they can prove the great conjunction of the planets from whence, like other conquerors and prophets, Timour derived the surname of Saheb Keran, or master of the conjunctions (Bibliot. Orient. p. 878). [Ulugh Beg founded his observatory at Samarcand in 1428. The “Gurganian” astronomical tables were calculated there.]
In the institutions of Timour, these subjects of the Khan of Kashgar are most improperly styled Ouzbegs, or Uzbeks, a name which belongs to another branch and country of Tartars (Abulghazi, p. v. c. 5; p. vii. c. 5). Could I be sure that this word is in the Turkish original, I would boldly pronounce that the Institutions were framed a century after the death of Timour, since the establishment of the Uzbeks in Transoxiana. [The people of the Kirghiz steppes now came to be known as Uzbegs, and the reading in Timur’s Institutes is quite genuine. Gibbon, with others, probably thought the Jātā were Getæ. It is like the inveterate mistake (into which he also falls) of confounding the Goths with the Getae (who were Dacians). Jātā is regularly used for Mogolistān in the Zafar Nāma. It is a nickname, meaning “ne’er-do-well,” applied to Central Asian Mongols by their neighbours. Petis de la Croix translated it Geta.]
[Timur had not entered the field of action so early. He says in his Memoirs that from the age of twelve he could receive his visitors with dignity. At eighteen, he was a good knight, skilled in the science of venery, and amused himself with reading pious books, playing chess, and exercising himself in arms. At twenty-two, we find him taking part ( AD 1458) in an expedition of Kazghan the emir against the Iranians of Khorasan. On Kazghan’s death, Timur (by the advice of the religious orders of Islam) supported the Chagatāy sultan Taghlak-Timur, who first made him emir of Transoxiana, and then deposed him in favour of his own son. Then Timur took to the desert.]
[Timur himself says he had ten left; Sheref ad-Dīn says seven. The name of Timur’s brave wife, who was with him throughout his adventures, was Oljai.]
The 1st book of Sherefeddin is employed on the private life of the hero; and he himself, or his secretary (Institutions, p. 3-77), enlarges with pleasure on the thirteen designs and enterprises which most truly constitute his personal merit. It even shines through the dark colouring of Arabshah, p. i. c. 1-12.
The conquests of Persia, Tartary, and India are represented in the iid and iiid books of Sherefeddin, and by Arabshah, c. 13-55. Consult the excellent Indexes to the Institutions.
[Rather Mūsā AD 1336: Abū Sa’īd reigned 1316-1335. See Lane-Poole, Mohammadan Dynasties, p. 220.]
The reverence of the Tartars for the mysterious number of nine is declared by Abulghazi Khan, who, for that reason, divides his Genealogical History into nine parts.
According to Arabshah (p. i. c. 28, p. 183), the coward Timour ran away to his tent, and hid himself from the pursuit of Shah Mansour under the women’s garments. Perhaps Sherefeddin (l. ii. c. 25) has magnified his courage.
The history of Ormuz is not unlike that of Tyre. The old city, on the continent, was destroyed by the Tartars, and renewed [in the 14th cent.] in a neighbouring island without fresh water or vegetation. The kings of Ormuz, rich in the Indian trade and the pearl fishery, possessed large territories both in Persia and Arabia; but they were at first the tributaries of the sultans of Kerman, and at last were delivered ( AD 1505) by the Portuguese tyrants from the tyranny of their own vizirs (Marco Polo, l. i. c. 15, 16, fol. 7, 8; Abulfeda Geograph. tabul. xi. p. 261, 262; an original Chronicle of Ormuz, in Texeira, or Stevens’ History of Persia, p. 376-416, and the Itineraries inserted in the 1st volume of Ramusio; of Ludovico Barthema (1503), fol. 167; of Andrea Corsali (1517), fol. 202, 203; and of Odoardo Barbessa (in 1516), fol. 315-318).
Arabshah had travelled into Kipzak, and acquired a singular knowledge of the geography, cities, and revolutions of that Northern region (p. i. c. 45-49). [The position of Tōktāmish cannot be understood without a knowledge of the relations of the rulers of the Golden Horde. Orda, the eldest son of Jūjī (eldest son of Chingiz Khan) had succeeded his father in the rule over the tribes north of the Jaxartes. The tribes of the Western Kipchak (the regions of the Volga and Ural, north of the Caspian) had been conquered by Bātū, a younger son of Jūjī (see above, p. 144-147). Tūka-Tīmūr, another son, ruled over Great Bulgaria on the Middle Volga; and a fourth, named Shaybān, was lord of the Kirghiz Kazaks, in Siberia, to the north of Orda’s land. The tribes ruled over by all these brothers and their descendants were included under the “Golden Horde,” which derived its name from the Sir Orda, the golden camp of the Khan. The tribes under the line of Orda were called the White Horde; and the Khans of this line were nominally the head of the family. The tribes subject to Bātū’s line were the Blue Horde, and they were far the most important. The line of Bātū came to an end in 1358, and after 20 years of anarchy Tōktāmish won the Khanate with Timur’s help in 1378. Tōktāmish was a descendant of Orda, and had won the lordship of the White Horde in 1376. Under him the Khanate of the Golden Horde reasserted itself in Russia, and Moscow was burned in 1382.]
[Timur routed Tōktāmish in 1391 at Urtupa, and in 1395 on the Terek. By thus destroying the power of the Khanate of the Golden Horde, Timur involuntarily delivered Russia.]
Institutions of Timour, p. 123, 125. Mr. White, the editor, bestows some animadversion on the superficial account of Sherefeddin (l. iii. c. 12-14), who was ignorant of the designs of Timour, and the true springs of action. [M. Charmoy contributed to the 3rd vol. of the Transactions of the Academy of St. Petersburg an important account of these campaigns of Timur.]
The furs of Russia are more credible than the ingots. But the linen of Antioch has never been famous; and Antioch was in ruins. I suspect that it was some manufacture of Europe, which the Hanse merchants had imported by the way of Novogorod.
M. Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom. ii. p. 247. Vie de Timour, p. 64-67, before the French version of the Institutes) has corrected the error of Sherefeddin, and marked the true limit of Timour’s conquests. His arguments are superfluous, and a simple appeal to the Russian annals is sufficient to prove that Moscow, which six years before had been taken by Toctamish [ AD 1382], escaped the arms of a more formidable invader.
An Egyptian consul from Grand Cairo is mentioned in Barbaro’s voyage to Tana in 1436, after the city had been rebuilt (Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 92).
The sack of Azoph is described by Sherefeddin (l. iii. c. 55), and much more particularly by the author of an Italian chronicle (Andreas de Redusiis de Quero, in Chron. Tarvisiano, in Muratori Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xix. p. 802-805). He had conversed with the Mianis, two Venetian brothers, one of whom had been sent a deputy to the camp of Timour, and the other had lost at Azoph three sons and 12,000 ducats. [After the disintegration of the Golden Horde by Tīmūr, the house of Tūka-Tīmūr (see above note 21) begins to come into prominence. Members of this house established the three Khanates of Kazan, the Crimea, and Kazimov.]
Sherefeddin only says (l. iii. c. 13) that the rays of the setting, and those of the rising, sun were scarcely separated by any interval: a problem which may be solved in the latitude of Moscow (the 56th degree) with the aid of the Aurora Borealis and a long summer twilight. But a day of forty days (Khondemir apud d’Herbelot, p. 880) would rigorously confine us within the polar circle.
For the Indian war, see the Institutions (p. 129-139), the fourth book of Sherefeddin, and the history of Ferishta (in Dow, vol. ii. p. 1-20), which throws a general light on the affairs of Hindostan.
The rivers of the Punjab, the five eastern branches of the Indus, have been laid down for the first time with truth and accuracy in Major Rennell’s incomparable map of Hindostan. In his Critical Memoir he illustrates with judgment and learning the marches of Alexander and Timour.
The two great rivers, the Ganges and Burrampooter [Brahmapootra], rise in Thibet, from the opposite ridges of the same hills, separate from each other to the distance of 1200 miles, and, after a winding course of 2000 miles, again meet in one point near the gulf of Bengal. Yet, so capricious is fame that the Burrampooter is a late discovery, while his brother Ganges has been the theme of ancient and modern story. Coupele, the scene of Timour’s last victory, must be situate near Loldong, 1100 miles from Calcutta; and, in 1774, a British camp! (Rennell’s Memoir, p. 7, 59, 90, 91, 99).
See the Institutions, p. 141, to the end of the 1st book, and Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 1-16), to the entrance of Timour into Syria.
We have three copies of these hostile epistles in the Institutions (p. 147), in Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 14), and in Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 19, p. 183-201), which agree with each other in the spirit and substance, rather than in the style. It is probable that they have been translated, with various latitude, from the Turkish original into the Arabic and Persian tongues. [The genuineness of these letters is doubtful.]
The Mogul emir distinguishes himself and his countrymen by the name of Turks , and stigmatises the race and nation of Bajazet with the less honourable epithet of Turkmans. Yet I do not understand how the Ottomans could be descended from a Turkman sailor; those inland shepherds were so remote from the sea and all maritime affairs.
According to the Koran (c. ii. p. 27, and Sale’s Discourses, p. 134), a Musulman who had thrice divorced his wife (who had thrice repeated the words of a divorce) could not take her again, till after she had been married to , and repudiated by , another husband; an ignominious transaction, which it is needless to aggravate by supposing that the first husband must see her enjoyed by a second before his face (Rycaut’s State of the Ottoman Empire, l. ii. c. 21).
The common delicacy of the Orientals, in never speaking of their women, is ascribed in a much higher degree by Arabshah to the Turkish nations; and it is remarkable enough that Chalcondyles (l. ii. p. 55 [p. 105, ed. Bonn]) had some knowledge of the prejudice and the insult.
[And he put to death Bayezid’s eldest son Ertogrul.]
For the style of the Moguls, see the Institutions (p. 131, 147), and for the Persians, the Bibliothèque Orientale (p. 882); but I do not find that the title of Cæsar has been applied by the Arabians, or assumed by the Ottomans themselves. [From Timur to Bayezid the name is an insult; he will not give him a Musulman title.]
See the reigns of Barkok and Pharadge, in M. de Guignes (tom. iv. l. xxii.), who from the Arabic texts of Aboulmahasen, Ebn Schounah, and Aintabi has added some facts to our common stock of materials. [In 1390 the Bahrī dynasty made way for the Burjī dynasty, founded by Al-Zāhir Sayf al-Dīn Barkūk, who in 1398 was succeeded by Al-Nāsir Nāsir al-Dīn Faraj.]
For these recent and domestic transactions, Arabshah, though a partial, is a credible, witness (tom. i. c. 64-68; tom. ii. c. 1-14). Timour must have been odious to a Syrian; but the notoriety of facts would have obliged him, in some measure, to respect his enemy and himself. His bitters may correct the luscious sweets of Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 17-29).
These interesting conversations appear to have been copied by Arabshah (tom. i. c. 68, p. 625-645) from the cadhi and historian Ebn Schounah, a principal actor. Yet how could he be alive seventy-five years afterwards (d’Herbelot, p. 792)?
[The destruction attributed to Timur has been greatly exaggerated. That he did not burn the mosque of Damascus is proved by its remains. (It had been partly burnt in a tumult in 1068.) Compare the remarks of Cahun, op. cit. p. 495-497.]
The marches and occupations of Timour between the Syrian and Ottoman wars are represented by Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 29-43) and Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 15-18).
This number of 800,000 was extracted by Arabshah, or rather by Ebn Schounah, ex rationario Timuri, on the faith of a Carizmian officer (tom. i. c. 68, p. 617); and it is remarkable enough that a Greek historian (Phranza, l. i. c. 29) adds no more than 20,000 men. Poggius reckons 1,000,000; another Latin contemporary (Chron. Tarvisianum, apud Muratori, tom. xix. p. 800) 1,100,000; and the enormous sum of 1,600,000 is attested by a German soldier who was present at the battle of Angora (Leunclav. ad Chalcondyl. l. iii. p. 82). Timour, in his Institutions, has not deigned to calculate his troops, his subjects, or his revenues.
A wide latitude of non-effectives was allowed by the Great Mogul for his own pride and the benefit of his officers. Bernier’s patron was Penge-Hazari, commander of 5000 horse, of which he maintained no more than 500 (Voyages, tom. i. p. 288, 289).
Timour himself fixes at 400,000 men the Ottoman army (Institutions, p. 153), which is reduced to 150,000 by Phranza (l. i. c. 29), and swelled by the German soldier to 1,400,000. It is evident that the Moguls were the more numerous. [The forces of Bayezid are put at 90,000 by Sad ad-Din (tr. Bratutti, 214). Of course the number given by Timur cannot be accepted.]
It may not be useless to mark the distances between Angora and the neighbouring cities, by the journeys of the caravans, each of twenty or twenty-five miles; to Smyrna 20, to Kiotahia 10, to Boursa 10, to Cæsarea 8, to Sinope 10, to Nicomedia 9, to Constantinople 12 or 13 (see Tournefort, Voyage au Levant, tom. ii. lettre 21).
See the Systems of Tactics in the Institutions, which the English editors have illustrated with elaborate plans (p. 373-407).
The Sultan himself (says Timour) must then put the foot of courage into the stirrup of patience. A Tartar metaphor, which is lost in the English, but preserved in the French, version of the Institutes (p. 156, 157).
The Greek fire, on Timour’s side, is attested by Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 47); but Voltaire’s strange suspicion that some cannon, inscribed with strange characters, must have been sent by that monarch to Delhi is refuted by the universal silence of contemporaries.
Timour has dissembled this secret and important negotiation with the Tartars, which is indisputably proved by the joint evidence of the Arabian (tom. i. c. 47, p. 391), Turkish (Annal. Leunclav. p. 321), and Persian historians (Khondemir, apud d’Herbelot, p. 882). [And cp. Ducas, p. 35 ed. Bonn.]
For the war of Anatolia, or Roum, I add some hints in the Institutions, to the copious narratives of Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 44-65) and Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 20-35). On this part only of Timour’s history, it is lawful to quote the Turks (Cantemir, p. 53-55, Annal. Leunclav. p. 320-322), and the Greeks (Phranza, l. i. c. 29, Ducas, c. 15-17, Chalcondyles, l. iii.). [Add Sad ad-Dīn’s account of the battle, tr. Bratutti, i. p. 213 sqq. ]
The scepticism of Voltaire (Essai sur l’Histoire Générale, c. 88) is ready on this, as on every, occasion to reject a popular tale, and to diminish the magnitude of vice and virtue; and on most occasions his incredulity is reasonable. [The fable of the iron cage is fully discussed by Hammer (Gesch. des osmanischen Reiches, i. 252-6), who refers to three points unknown to Gibbon: (1) the silence of the eye-witness, John Schiltberger, whom we have already seen captured in the battle of Nicopolis, and who was again captured by the Mongols at Angora; (2) the evidence of the two oldest Ottoman historians, Neshri and Ashikpashazādé; (3) the discussion and denial of the story by the later Ottoman historian Sad ad-Dīn. Hammer points out that the story arose out of a misconception of the words of Ashikpashazādé and Neshri, who state that a litter, furnished with bars like a cage, was provided for Bayezid. Such litters were the kind of vehicle regularly used for conveying a prince’s harem.]
[According to Ducas, Timur was playing chess at the moment of Bayezid’s arrival (p. 37).]
See the history of Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 49, 52, 53, 59, 60). This work was finished at Shiraz, in the year 1424, and dedicated to Sultan Ibrahim, the son of Sharokh, the son of Timour, who reigned in Farsistan in his father’s lifetime.
After the perusal of Khondemir, Ebn Schounah, c. the learned d’Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 882) may affirm that this fable is not mentioned in the most authentic histories; but his denial of the visible testimony of Arabshah leaves some room to suspect his accuracy.
Et fut lui-même ( Bajazet ) pris, et mené en prison, en laquelle mourut de dure mort! Mémoires de Boucicault, p. i. c. 37. These Memoirs were composed while the Marshal was still governor of Genoa, from whence he was expelled in the year 1409 by a popular insurrection (Muratori Annali d’Italia, tom. xii. p. 473, 474). [On Boucicaut’s Memoirs and Life see Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient au 14 siècle. Expéditions du Maréchal Boucicaut, 2 vols., 1886.]
The reader will find a satisfactory account of the life and writings of Poggius, in the Poggiana, an entertaining work of M. Lenfant [ AD 1720], and in the Bibliotheca Latina mediæ et infimæ Ætatis of Fabricius (tom. v. p. 305-308). Poggius was born in the year 1380, and died in 1459.
The dialogue de Varietate Fortunæ (of which a complete and elegant edition has been published at Paris in 1723, in 4to) was composed a short time before the death of Pope Martin V. (p. 5), and consequently about the end of the year 1430.
See a splendid and elegant encomium of Tamerlane, p. 36-39, ipse enim novi (says Poggius) qui fuere in ejus castris. . . . Regem vivum cepit, caveâque in modum feræ inclusum per omnem Asiam circumtulit egregium admirandumque spectaculum fortunæ.
The Chronicon Tarvisianum (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xix. p. 800), and the Annales Estenses (tom. xviii. p. 974). The two authors, Andrea de Redusiis de Quero and James de Delayto, were both contemporaries, and both chancellors, the one of Trevigi, the other of Ferrera. The evidence of the former is the most positive.
See Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 28, 34. He travelled in regiones Rumæas, A.H. 839 ( AD 1435, 27th July), tom. ii. c. 2, p. 13.
Busbequius in Legatione Turcicâ, epist. i. p. 52. Yet his respectable authority is somewhat shaken by the subsequent marriages of Amurath II. with a Servian, and of Mahomet II. with an Asiatic, princess (Cantemir, p. 83, 93).
See the testimony of George Phranza (l. i. c. 29), and his life in Hanckius (de Script. Byzant. p. i. c. 40). Chalcondyles and Ducas speak in general terms of Bajazet’s chains.
Annales Leunclav. p. 321; Pocock, Prolegomen. ad Abulpharag. Dynast.; Cantemir, p. 55. [See above note 53.]
A Sapor, king of Persia, had been made prisoner, and enclosed in the figure of a cow’s hide, by Maximian, or Galerius Cæsar. Such is the fable related by Eutychius (Annal. tom. i. p. 421, vers. Pocock). The recollection of the true history (Decline and Fall, c. vol. ii. p. 171 sqq. ) will teach us to appreciate the knowledge of the Orientals of the ages which precede the Hegira.
Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 25) describes, like a curious traveller, the straits of Gallipoli and Constantinople. To acquire a just idea of these events, I have compared the narratives and prejudices of the Moguls, Turks, Greeks, and Arabians. The Spanish ambassador mentions this hostile union of the Christians and Ottomans (Vie de Timour, p. 96).
Since the name of Cæsar had been transferred to the sultans of Roum, the Greek princes of Constantinople (Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 54) were confounded with the Christian lords of Gallipoli, Thessalonica, c. under the title of Tekkur , which is derived by corruption from the genitive τον̂ κυρίου (Cantemir, p. 51).
See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 4, who marks, in a just itinerary, the road to China, which Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 33) paints in vague and rhetorical colours.
Synopsis Hist. Sinicæ, p. 74-76 (in the ivth part of the Relations de Thévenot), Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine (tom. i. p. 507, 508, folio edition); and for the chronology of the Chinese Emperors, de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 71, 72.
For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, see Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 1-30) and Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 35-47).
Sherefeddin (l. xi. c. 24) mentions the ambassadors of one of the most potent sovereigns of Europe. We know that it was Henry III. King of Castile; and the curious relation of his two embassies is still extant, Mariana, Hist. Hispan. l. xix. c. 11, tom. ii. p. 329, 330. Advertissement à l’Hist. de Timur Bec, p. 28-33. There appears likewise to have been some correspondence between the Mogul emperor, and the court of Charles VII. King of France (Histoire de France, par Velly et Villaret, tom. xii. p. 336). [The account of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo of his embassy to the court of Timur in 1403-6 has been translated, with elucidations, by Sir Clements R. Markham, for the Hakluyt Society, 1859.]
See the translation of the Persian account of their embassy, a curious and original piece (in the ivth part of the Relations de Thévenot). They presented the emperor of China with an old horse which Timour had formerly rode. It was in the year 1419, that they departed from the court of Herat, to which place they returned in 1422 from Pekin. [Timur died in February, 1405, see Elias and Ross, Tarīkh-i-Rashīdī, p. 54 note.]
From Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 96. The bright or softer colours are borrowed from Sherefeddin, d’Herbelot, and the Institutions. [In one important respect Gibbon’s account of Timur and his work is deficient. He has not realised, or brought out, the fact that the greatest result of Timur’s empire was the victory of Islam in Central Asia. Timur acted from the beginning in close co-operation with the Musulman ecclesiastics of Transoxiana, and when he won supreme power, he did away with the Mongol and Turkish legislative system of Chingiz and substituted the law of Islam. In regard to the very foundations of the political constitution there is a vast difference between the two systems. Chingiz and his successors were subject to the law (the Yāsāk) and bound by its provisions; whereas according to the principles of Islam the head of the state is not bound by the law, but is responsible only to God. Thus the will of the sovereign is set above the law. Timur then broke completely with the Mongol tradition, such as it had been developed under Chinese influence, and drew the Turks of Central Asia out of touch with the far East. As the Mongol power in China was overthrown about the same time by the revolution which set the Ming dynasty on the throne ( AD 1370), this period marks a general decline of Mongol influence in Asia.]
His new system was multiplied from 32 pieces and 64 squares, to 56 pieces and 110 or 130 squares. But, except in his court, the old game has been thought sufficiently elaborate. The Mogul emperor was rather pleased than hurt with the victory of a subject; a chess-player will feel the value of this encomium!
See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 15, 25. Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 96, p. 801, 803) reproves the impiety of Timour and the Moguls, who almost preferred to the Koran the Yacsa , or Law of Zingis (cui Deus maledicat): nor will he believe that Sharokh had abolished the use and authority of that Pagan code.
Besides the bloody passages of this narrative, I must refer to an anticipation in the sixth volume of the Decline and Fall, which, in a single note (p. 16, note 26) accumulates near 300,000 heads of the monuments of his cruelty. Except in Rowe’s play on the fifth of November, I did not expect to hear of Timour’s amiable moderation (White’s preface, p. 7). Yet I can excuse a generous enthusiasm in the reader, and still more in the editor, of the Institutions.
Consult the last chapters of Sherefeddin and Arabshah, and M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. l. xx.), Fraser’s History of Nadir Shah (p. 1-62). The story of Timour’s descendants is imperfectly told; and the second and third parts of Sherefeddin are unknown.
Shah Allum [Shāh-Ālam, AD 1759-1806], the present Mogul, is in the fourteenth [rather fifteenth from Bābar, who was fifth from Timur] degree from Timour by Miran Shah, his third son. See the iid volume of Dow’s History of Hindustan. [The shadowy survival of the Mogul empire ceased to exist in 1857.]
The civil wars, from the death of Bajazet to that of Mustapha, are related, according to the Turks, by Demetrius Cantemir (p. 58-82). Of the Greeks, Chalcondyles (l. iv. and v.), Phranza (l. i. c. 30-32), and Ducas (c. 18-27), the last is the most copious and best informed.
[It is difficult to decide whether he was an impostor, as the Ottoman, or genuine, as the Greek, historians allege. Zinkeisen leaves the question open (i. 383-384) but with an inclination to the former opinion; Hammer argues for the view that the claimant was the true Mustapha, i. 297.]
Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 26, whose testimony on this occasion is weighty and valuable. The existence of Isa (unknown to the Turks) is likewise confirmed by Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 57).
[Mohammad defeated Isa in battle at Ulubad, AD 1403, and again in 1404 (Sad ad-Dīn, transl. Bratutti, p. 284).]
Arabshah, loc. citat. Abulfeda, Geograph. tab. xvii. p. 302. Busbequius, epist. i. p. 96, 97, in Itinere C. P. et Amasiano.
[Mohammad’s character was marked by justice, mildness, and freedom from fanaticism.]
The virtues of Ibrahim are praised by a contemporary Greek (Ducas, c. 25). His descendants are the sole nobles in Turkey; they content themselves with the administration of his pious foundations, are excused from public offices, and receive two annual visits from the sultan (Cantemir, p. 76).
See Pachymer (l. v. c. 29), Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. i.), Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 57), and Ducas (c. 25). The last of these, a curious and careful observer, is entitled, from his birth and station, to particular credit in all that concerns Ionia and the islands. Among the nations that resorted to New Phocæa he mentions the English (Ἰγγλη̂νοι); an early evidence of Mediterranean trade.
For the spirit of navigation and freedom of ancient Phocæa, or rather of the Phocæans, consult the first book of Herodotus, and the Geographical Index of his last and learned French translator, M. Larcher (tom. vii. p. 299).
Phocæa is not enumerated by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxv. 52) among the places productive of alum; he reckons Egypt as the first, and for the second the isle of Melos, whose alum mines are described by Tournefort (tom. i. lettre iv.), a traveller and a naturalist. After the loss of Phocæa, the Genoese, in 1459, found that useful mineral in the isle of Ischia (Ismael. Bouillaud, ad Ducam, c. 25).
The writer who has the most abused this fabulous generosity is our ingenious Sir William Temple (his Works, vol. iii. p. 349, 350, 8vo edition), that lover of exotic virtue. After the conquest of Russia, c. and the passage of the Danube, his Tartar hero relieves, visits, admires, and refuses the city of Constantine. His flattering pencil deviates in every line from the truth of history; yet his pleasing fictions are more excusable than the gross errors of Cantemir.
For the reigns of Manuel and John, of Mahomet I. and Amurath II., see the Othman history of Cantemir (p. 70-95), and the three Greeks, Chalcondyles, Phranza, and Ducas, who is still superior to his rivals.
The Turkish asper (from the Greek ἄσπρος [= white]) is, or was, a piece of white or silver money, at present much debased, but which was formerly equivalent to the 54th part, at least, of a Venetian ducat, or sequin; and the 300,000 aspers, a princely allowance or royal tribute, may be computed at 2500l. sterling (Leunclav. Pandect. Turc. p. 406-408). [Cantacuscino (in Sansovino, Historia Universale de Turchi, fol. 11 v.) counts 54 aspers to a sultanin or ducat, and this was still the value about the beginning of the 16th century, but in the reign of Selim I., before 1520, 60 aspers went to a ducat, and this value was maintained during the reign of Sulayman and Selim II.]
For the siege of Constantinople in 1422, see the particular and contemporary narrative of John Cananus, published by Leo Allatius, at the end of his edition of Acropolita (p. 188-199).
Cantemir, p. 80. Cananus, who describes Seid Bechar, without naming him, supposes that the friend of Mahomet assumed, in his amours, the privilege of a prophet, and that the fairest of the Greek nuns were promised to the saint and his disciples.
[This number, given by Ducas and Phrantzes, is obviously a gross exaggeration, perhaps a slip of the pen. Cp. Zinkeisen, i. 524 (and 527), who thinks the besiegers did not exceed 40,000 or 50,000. According to Cananus the first corps brought against the city was 10,000; then followed “another army” like a hail storm, p. 459 ed. Bonn.]
For this miraculous apparition, Cananus appeals to the Musulman saint; but who will bear testimony for Seid Bechar?
See Rycaut (l. i. c. 13). The Turkish sultans assume the title of Khan. Yet Abulghazi is ignorant of his Ottoman cousins.
The third grand vizir of the name of Kiuperli, who was slain at the battle of Salankamen in 1691 (Cantemir, p. 382), presumed to say that all the successors of Soliman had been fools or tyrants, and that it was time to abolish the race (Marsigli Stato Militare, c. p. 28). This political heretic was a good Whig, and justified, against the French ambassador, the revolution of England (Mignot, Hist. des Ottomans, tom. iii. p. 434). His presumption condemns the singular exception of continuing offices in the same family.
Chalcondyles (l. v.) and Ducas (c. 23) exhibit the rude lineaments of the Ottoman policy, and the transmutation of Christian children into Turkish soldiers.
[It is uncertain at what time the rule of levying this tribute every 5th year was introduced; it had become established by the time of Selim I.; but the tribute was sometimes exacted oftener, and many witnesses say “every three years.” Cp. Zinkeisen, iii. p. 216.]
[In earlier times, the age seems to have been younger — six or seven.]
This sketch of the Turkish education and discipline is chiefly borrowed from Rycaut’s State of the Ottoman Empire, the Stato Militare del’ Imperio Ottomano of Count Marsigli (in Haya, 1732, in folio), and a Description of the Seraglio, approved by Mr. Greaves himself, a curious traveller, and inserted in the second volume of his works. [One important feature of the Ottoman education was that pains were taken to discover the natural faculties of each individual and to train him for the work to which he was best adapted. On the history of the Janissaries, their organisation and duties, the variations in their effective strength, see A. Djevad Bey, Etat militaire Ottoman, vol. i. 1882. There is a good brief account of the military establishment in Ranke’s little work on the Ottoman Empire (Engl. transl. by Kelly, 1843).]
From the series of 115 vizirs till the siege of Vienna (Marsigli, p. 13), their place may be valued at three years and a half purchase.
See the entertaining and judicious letters of Busbequius.
The 1st and 2d volumes of Dr. Watson’s Chemical Essays contain two valuable discourses on the discovery and composition of gunpowder.
On this subject, modern testimonies cannot be trusted. The original passages are collected by Ducange (Gloss. Latin. tom. i. p. 675, Bombarda ). But in the early doubtful twilight, the name, sound, fire, and effect, that seem to express our artillery, may be fairly interpreted of the old engines and the Greek fire. For the English cannon at Crecy, the authority of John Villani (Chron. l. xii. c. 65) must be weighed against the silence of Froissard [and the English authorities]. Yet Muratori (Antiquit. Italiæ medii Ævi, tom. ii. Dissert. xxvi. p. 514, 515) has produced a decisive passage from Petrarch (de Remediis utriusque Fortunæ Dialog.), who, before the year 1344, execrates this terrestrial thunder, nuper rara, nunc communis. [La Cabane, De la poudre á canon et de son introduction en France, 1845; Reinaud et Favé, Du feu grégois et des origines de la poudre à canon, 1860.]
The Turkish cannon, which Ducas (c. 30) first introduces before Belgrade ( AD 1436), is mentioned by Chalcondyles (l. v. p. 123 [p. 231 ed. Bonn]) in 1422, at the siege of Constantinople.
[The following works deal with the general history of the schism of the Greek and Latin Churches and the attempts at reunion: Maimbourg, Histoire du Schisme des Grecs, 2 vols., 1677; Pitzipios, L’église orientale, 1855; Pichler, Geschichte der kirchlichen Trennung zwischen Orient und Occident, 2 vols., 1864-5; Demitrakopulos, Ἱστορία τον̂ σχίσματος τη̂ς Λατινικη̂ς ἐκκλησίας ἀπὸ τη̂ς ὀρθοδόξου Ἑλληνικη̂ς, 1867; Lebedev, History of the Byzantine-Oriental Church from the end of the 11th to the middle of the 15th century (in Russian), 1892.]
This curious instruction was transcribed (I believe) from the Vatican archives by Odoricus Raynaldus, in his Continuation of the Annals of Baronius (Romæ, 1646-1677, in 10 volumes in folio). I have contented myself with the Abbé Fleury (Hist. Ecclésiastique, tom. xx. p. 1-8), whose extracts I have always found to be clear, accurate, and impartial. [For Barlaam the Calabrian see below, p. 276-6.]
The ambiguity of this title is happy or ingenious; and moderator , as synonymous to rector, gubernator , is a word of classical, and even Ciceronian, Latinity, which may be found, not in the Glossary of Ducange, but in the Thesaurus of Robert Stephens.
The first epistle (sine titulo) of Petrarch exposes the danger of the bark and the incapacity of the pilot. Hæc inter, vino madidus, ævo gravis ac soporifero rore perfusus, jamjam nutitat, dormitat, jam somno præceps, atque (utinam solus) ruit. . . . Heu quanto felicius patrio terram sulcasset aratro, quam scalmum piscatorium ascendisset. This satire engages his biographer to weigh the virtues and vices of Benedict XII., which have been exaggerated by Guelphs and Ghibelines, by Papists and Protestants (see Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 259; ii. not. 15, p. 13-16). He gave occasion to the saying, Bibamus papaliter.
See the original Lives of Clement VI. in Muratori (Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 550-589); Matteo Villani (Chron. l. iii. c. 43, in Muratori, tom. xiv. p. 186), who styles him, molto cavalleresco, poco religioso; Fleury (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 126); and the Vie de Pétrarque (tom. ii. p. 42-45). The Abbé de Sade treats him with the most indulgence; but he is a gentleman as well as a priest.
Her name (most probably corrupted) was Zampea. She had accompanied and alone remained with her mistress at Constantinople, where her prudence, erudition, and politeness deserved the praises of the Greeks themselves (Cantacuzen. l. i. c. 42).
See this whole negotiation in Cantacuzene (l. iv. c. 9), who, amidst the praises and virtues which he bestows on himself, reveals the uneasiness of a guilty conscience.
See this ignominious treaty in Fleury (Hist. Ecclés. p. 151-154), from Raynaldus, who drew it from the Vatican archives. It was not worth the trouble of a pious forgery.
See the two first original Lives of Urban V. (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 623, 635), and the Ecclesiastical Annals of Spondanus (tom. i. p. 573, AD 1369, No. 7) and Raynaldus (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 223, 224). Yet, from some variations, I suspect the papal writers of slightly magnifying the genuflexions of Palæologus.
Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum. Yet his title of Imperator Græcorum was no longer disputed (Vit. Urban. V. p. 623).
It was confined to the successors of Charlemagne, and to them only on Christmas Day. On all other festivals, these Imperial deacons were content to serve the pope, as he said mass, with the book and the corporal. Yet the Abbé de Sade generously thinks that the merits of Charles IV. might have entitled him, though not on the proper day ( AD 1368, 1st November), to the whole privilege. He seems to affix a just value on the privilege and the man (Vie de Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 735).
Through some Italian corruptions, the etymology of Falcone in bosco (Matteo [rather, Filippo, the Continuer of Matteo] Villani, l. xi. c. 79, in Muratori, tom. xiv. p. 746) suggests the English word Hawkwood , the true name of our adventurous countryman (Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Anglican. inter Scriptores Camdeni, p. 184). After two and twenty victories and one defeat, he died, in 1394, General of the Florentines, and was buried with such honours as the republic has not paid to Dante or Petrarch (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. xii. p. 212-371).
This torrent of English (by birth or service) overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in 1360. Yet the exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197) is rather true than civil. “Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo essere calpestrata l’Italia da tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed Ungheri, venissero fin dall’ Inghliterra nuovi cani a finire di divorarla.”
Chalcondyles, l. i. p. 25, 26 [p. 50 ed. Bonn]. The Greek supposes his journey to the king of France, which is sufficiently refuted by the silence of the national historians. Nor am I much more inclined to believe that Palæologus departed from Italy, valde bene consolatus et contentus (Vit. Urban. V. p. 623).
His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel, 25th September, 1373 (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241), leaves some intermediate era for the conspiracy and punishment of Andronicus.
Mémoires de Boucicault, p. i. c. 35, 36.
His journey into the west of Europe is slightly, and I believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (l. ii. p. 44-50 [p. 84 sqq. ed. Bonn]) and Ducas (c. 14).
Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. xii. p. 406. John Galeazzo was the first and most powerful duke of Milan. His connection with Bajazet is attested by Froissard; and he contributed to save and deliver the French captives of Nicopolis.
For the reception of Manuel at Paris, see Spondanus (Annal Eccles. tom. i. p. 676, 677, AD 1400, No. 5), who quotes Juvenal des Ursins [Histoire de Charles vi., 1380-1422 (ed. in Buchon’s Choix de Chroniques, vol. iv.)] and the monk of St. Denys; and Villaret (Hist. de France, tom. xii. p. 331-334), who quotes nobody, according to the last fashion of the French writers.
A short note of Manuel in England is extracted by Dr. Hody from a MS. at Lambeth (de Græcis illustribus, p. 14), C. P. Imperator, diu variisque et horrendis Paganorum insultibus coartatus, ut pro eisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret Anglorum Regem visitare decrevit, c. Rex (says Walsingham, p. 364) nobili apparatu . . . suscepit (ut debuit) tantum Heroa, duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies exhibuit gloriose, pro expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respiciens [dignis] tanto fastigio donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustriæ (p. 556).
Shakespeare begins and ends the play of Henry IV. with that prince’s vow of a crusade, and his belief that he should die in Jerusalem.
This fact is preserved in the Historia Politica, AD 1391-1478, published by Martin Crusius (Turco-Græci, p. 1-43). The image of Christ which the Greek emperor refused to worship was probably a work of sculpture.
The Greek and Turkish history of Laonicus Chalcondyles ends with the winter of 1463, and the abrupt conclusion seems to mark that he laid down his pen in the same year. We know that he was an Athenian, and that some contemporaries of the same name contributed to the revival of the Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous digressions the modest historian has never introduced himself; and his editor Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 474), seems ignorant of his life and character. For his descriptions of Germany, France, and England, see l. ii. p. 36, 37 [p. 70 sqq. ], 44-50 [p. 85 sqq ].
I shall not animadvert on the geographical errors of Chalcondyles. In this instance, he perhaps followed and mistook Herodotus (l. ii. c. 33), whose text may be explained (Herodote de Larcher, tom. ii. p. 219, 220), or whose ignorance may be excused. Had these modern Greeks never read Strabo, or any of their lesser geographers?
A citizen of new Rome, while new Rome survived, would have scorned to dignify the German Ῥήξ with the titles of Βασιλεύς, or Αὐτοκράτωρ Ῥωμαίων; but all pride was extinct in the bosom of Chalcondyles; and he describes the Byzantine prince and his subject, by the proper, though humble names of Ἕλληνες, and Βασιλεὺς Ἑλλήνων. [Cp. above, vol. x. p. 279.]
Most of the old romances were translated in the xivth century into French prose, and soon became the favourite amusement of the knights and ladies in the court of Charles VI. If a Greek believed in the exploits of Rowland and Oliver, he may surely be excused, since the monks of St. Denys, the national historians, have inserted the fables of Archbishop Turpin in their Chronicles of France.
Λονδύνη . . . δέ τε πόλις δυνάμει τε προέχουσα τω̂ν ἐν τῃ̑ νήσῳ ταύτῃ πασω̂ν πόλεων, ὅλβῳ τε καὶ τῃ̑ ἄλλῃ εὐδαιμονίᾳ οὐδεμια̂ς τω̂ν πρὸς ἑσπέραν λειπομένη [ii. p. 93 ed. Bonn]. Even since the time of Fitzstephen (the xiith century), London appears to have maintained this pre-eminence of wealth and magnitude; and her gradual increase has at least kept pace with the general improvement of Europe.
If the double sense of the verb κύω (osculor, and in utero gero) be equivocal, the context and pious horror of Chalcondyles can leave no doubt of his meaning and mistake (p. 49). [There is no ambiguity. Chalcondyles uses the middle form κύεσθαι instead of the active κύειν which is used in classical Greek; but there is no second sense. Neither κύω nor κυω̂ is ever used in the sense of κυνω̂ (kiss). It is only in the aorist (ἔκῡσα: ἔκῦσα) that there would be a danger of confusion. — Cp. Phrantzes, iii. 2.]
Erasmus (Epist. Fausto Andrelino) has a pretty passage on the English fashion of kissing strangers on their arrival and departure, from whence, however, he draws no scandalous inferences.
Perhaps we may apply this remark to the community of wives among the old Britons, as it is supposed by Cæsar and Dion (Dion Cassius, l. lxii. tom. ii. p. 1007 [c. 6]), with Reimar’s judicious annotation. The Arreoy of Otaheite, so certain at first, is become less visible and scandalous, in proportion as we have studied the manners of that gentle and amorous people.
[Manuel composed in 26 dialogues a defence of orthodox Christianity against Islam. The whole work was entitled Διάλογος περὶ τη̂ς τω̂ν Χριστιανω̂ν θρησκείας πρός τινα Πέρσην, and grew out of conversations which Manuel had had at Ancyra in 1390 with a Turkish muterizis. Only the two first dialogues have been published (Migne, P.G. 156, p. 126 sqq. ). Manuel wrote much, and most of his published works will be found in Migne, tom. cit. His letters have been edited by Legrand, 1893, and this volume contains the interesting essay of Manuel, “What Timur may have said to the conquered Bajazet.” There is an excellent monograph on Manuel and his writings by Berger de Xivrey in the Mémoires de l’Institut de France, Ac. des Inscr. xix. 1 sqq. (1853).]
See Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom. ii. p. 576; and for the ecclesiastical history of the times, the Annals of Spondanus; the Bibliothèque of Dupin, tom. xii.; and xxist and xxiid volumes of the History, or rather the Continuation, of Fleury.
From his early youth, George Phranza, or Phranzes, was employed in the service of the state and palace; and Hanckius (de Script. Byzant. p. i. c. 40) has collected his life from his own writings. He was no more than four and twenty years of age at the death of Manuel, who recommended him, in the strongest terms, to his successor: Imprimis vero hunc Phranzen tibi commendo, qui ministravit mihi fideliter et diligenter (Phranzes, l. ii. c. 1). Yet the emperor John was cold, and he preferred the service of the despots of Peloponnesus.
See Phranzes, l. ii. c. 13. While so many manuscripts of the Greek original are extant in the libraries of Rome, Milan, the Escurial, c. it is a matter of shame and reproach that we should be reduced to the Latin version, or abstract, of James Pontanus, ad calcem Theophylact. Simocattæ (Ingolstadt, 1604), so deficient in accuracy and elegance (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 615-620). [See Appendix 1.]
See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 243-248.
The exact measure of the Hexamilion from sea to sea, was 3800 orgygiæ, or toises , of six Greek feet (Phranzes, l. i. c. 38), which would produce a Greek mile, still smaller than that of 660 French toises , which is assigned by d’Anville as still in use in Turkey. Five miles are commonly reckoned for the breadth of the Isthmus. See the Travels of Spon, Wheler, and Chandler.
The first objection of the Jews is on the death of Christ: if it were voluntary, Christ was a suicide; which the emperor parries with a mystery. They then dispute on the conception of the Virgin, the sense of the prophecies, c. (Phranzes, l. ii. c. 12, a whole chapter).
In the treatise delle Materie Beneficiarie of Fra Paolo (in the ivth volume of the last and best edition of his works), the papal system is deeply studied and freely described. Should Rome and her religion be annihilated, this golden volume may still survive, a philosophical history and a salutary warning.
Pope John XXII. (in 1334) left behind him, at Avignon, eighteen millions of gold florins, and the value of seven millions more in plate and jewels. See the Chronicle of John Villani (l. xi. c. 20, in Muratori’s Collection, tom. xiii. p. 765), whose brother received the account from the Papal treasurers. A treasure of six or eight millions sterling in the xivth century is enormous, and almost incredible.
A learned and liberal Protestant, M. Lenfant, has given a fair history of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basil, in six volumes in quarto; but the last part is the most hasty and imperfect, except in the account of the troubles of Bohemia. [For the Council of Pisa see Erler, Zur Geschichte des Pisaner Conzils, 1884. The history of the Council of Constance has been rewritten by L. Tosti, Storia del concilio di Costanza, 1853 (in 2 vols.), a work which has been translated into German by W. Arnold (1860). See also F. Stuhr, Die Organisation und Geschäftsordnung des Pisaner und Costanzer Konzils, 1891; and the document (Ein Tagebuch-fragment über das Kostanzer Konzil) edited by Knöpfler in the Historisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft, vol. xi. p. 267 sqq. , 1890. Gibbon does not mention the big work of Hardt: Magnum oecumenicum Constantiense concilium (6 vols.), 1697-1700 (Index, 1742).]
The original acts or minutes of the council of Basil are preserved in the public library, in twelve volumes in folio. Basil was a free city, conveniently situate on the Rhine, and guarded by the arms of the neighbouring and confederate Swiss. In 1459, the university was founded by Pope Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius), who had been secretary to the council. But what is a council, or an university, to the presses of Froben and the studies of Erasmus? [The first 3 vols. (1853-94) of the Vienna Monumenta conciliorum generalium are devoted to the council of Basil. For the union question see Mugnier, L’Expédition du concile de Bâle à Constantinople pour l’union de l’église grecque à l’église latine (1437-8), 1892.]
This Turkish embassy, attested only by Crantzius, is related with some doubt by the annalist Spondanus, AD 1433, No. 25, tom. i. p. 824.
Syropulus, p. 19. In this list, the Greeks appear to have exceeded the real numbers of the clergy and laity which afterwards attended the emperor and patriarch, but which are not clearly specified by the great ecclesiarch. The 75,000 florins which they asked in this negotiation of the pope (p. 9) were more than they could hope or want.
I use indifferently the words ducat and florin , which derive their names, the former from the dukes of Milan, the latter from the republic of Florence. These gold pieces, the first that were coined in Italy, perhaps in the Latin world, may be compared, in weight and value, to one third of the English guinea.
At the end of the Latin version of Phranzes, we read a long Greek epistle or declamation of George of Trebizond, who advises the emperor to prefer Eugenius and Italy. He treats with contempt the schismatic assembly of Basil, the Barbarians of Gaul and Germany, who had conspired to transport the chair of St. Peter beyond the Alps: οἳ ἄθλιοι (says he) σὲ καὶ τὴν μετὰ σον̂ σύνοδον ἔξω τω̂ν Ἡρακλείων στηλω̂ν καὶ πέρα Γαδήρων ἐξάξουσι. Was Constantinople unprovided with a map? [The writings of the humanist George of Trebizond, on the union question, will be found in Migne, P.G. vol. 161, 829 sqq. ]
Syropulus (p. 26-31) attests his own indignation, and that of his countrymen; and the Basil deputies, who excused the rash declaration, could neither deny nor alter an act of the council.
Condolmieri, the pope’s nephew and admiral, expressly declared, ὄτι ὸρισμὸν ἔχει παρὰ τον̂ Πάπα ἵνα πολεμήσῃ ὄπου ἃν εὕρῃ τὰ κάτεργα τη̂ς Συνόδου, καὶ εἰ δυνήθῃ καταδὑσῃ καὶ ἀϕανίσνῃ. The naval orders of the synod were less peremptory, and, till the hostile squadrons appeared, both parties tried to conceal their quarrel from the Greeks.
Syropulus mentions the hopes of Palæologus (p. 36), and the last advice of Sigismond (p. 57). At Corfu, the Greek emperor was informed of his friend’s death; had he known it sooner, he would have returned home (p. 79).
Phranzes himself, though from different motives, was of the advice of Amurath (l. ii. c. 13). Utinam ne synodus ista unquam fuisset, si tantas offensiones et detrimenta paritura erat. This Turkish embassy is likewise mentioned by Syropulus (p. 58); and Amurath kept his word. He might threaten (p. 125, 219), but he never attacked, the city.
The reader will smile at the simplicity with which he imparted these hopes to his favourites: τοιαύτην πληροϕορίαν σχήσειν ἤλπιζε καὶ διὰ τον̂ Πάπα ἐθάρρει ἐλευθερω̂σαι τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἀπὸ τη̂ς ἀποτεθείσης αὐτον̂ δουλείας παρὰ τον̂ βασιλέω (p. 92). Yet it would have been difficult for him to have practised the lessons of Gregory VII.
The Christian name of Sylvester is borrowed from the Latin Calendar. In modern Greek, πουλος, as a diminutive, is added to the end of words; nor can any reasoning of Creyghton, the editor, excuse his changing into Sguro pulus (Sguros, fuscus) the Syropulus of his own manuscript, whose name is subscribed with his own hand in the acts of the council of Florence. Why might not the author be of Syrian extraction? [The name Syropulos occurs repeatedly in the Collection of Letters (dating from the 14th century) in the Florentine Codex S. Marco 356. See Krumbacher, Gesch. der byzantinischen Litteratur, p. 485.]
From the conclusion of the history, I should fix the date to the year 1444, four years after the synod, when the great ecclesiarch had abdicated his office (sectio xii. p. 330-350). His passions were cooled by time and retirement; and, although Syropulus is often partial, he is never intemperate.
Vera historia unionis non veræ inter Græcos et Latinos ( Hagæ Comitis , 1660, in folio) was first published with a loose and florid version, by Robert Creyghton, chaplain to Charles II. in his exile. The zeal of the editor has prefixed a polemic title, for the beginning of the original is wanting. Syropulus may be ranked with the best of the Byzantine writers for the merit of his narration, and even of his style; but he is excluded from the orthodox collections of the councils.
Syropulus (p. 63) simply expresses his intention: ἴν’ οὔτω πομπἁων ἐν Ἰτάλοις μέγας βασιλεὺς παρ’ ἐκείνων νομίζοιτο; and the Latin of Creyghton may afford a specimen of his florid paraphrase. Ut pompâ circumductus noster Imperator Italiæ populis aliquis deauratus Jupiter crederetur, aut Crœsus ex opulentâ Lydiâ. [In the Greek citation πομπάων is unintelligible, but so it stands in Creyghton’s text. Evidently Syropulus wrote πομπεύων.]
Although I cannot stop to quote Syropulus for every fact, I will observe that the navigation of the Greeks from Constantinople to Venice and Ferrara is contained in the ivth section (p. 67-100), and that the historian has the uncommon talent of placing each scene before the reader’s eye.
At the time of the synod, Phranzes was in Peloponnesus; but he received from the despot Demetrius a faithful account of the honourable reception of the emperor and patriarch, both at Venice and Ferrara (Dux . . . sedentem Imperatorem adorat ), which are more slightly mentioned by the Latins (l. ii. c. 14-16).
The astonishment of a Greek prince and a French ambassador (Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, l. vii. c. 18) at the sight of Venice abundantly proves that in the xvth century it was the first and most splendid of the Christian cities. For the spoils of Constantinople at Venice, see Syropulus (p. 87).
Nicholas III. of Este reigned forty-eight years ( AD 1393-1441), and was lord of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Rovigo, and Commachio. See his life in Muratori (Antichità Estense, tom. ii. p. 159-201).
The Latin vulgar was provoked to laughter at the strange dresses of the Greeks, and especially the length of their garments, their sleeves, and their beards; nor was the emperor distinguished, except by the purple colour, and his diadem or tiara with a jewel on the top (Hody de Græcis Illustribus, p. 31). Yet another spectator confesses that the Greek fashion was piu grave e piu degna than the Italian (Vespasiano, in Vit. Eugen. IV. in Muratori, tom. xxv. p. 261).
For the emperor’s hunting, see Syropulus (p. 143, 144, 191). The pope had sent him eleven miserable hawks: but he bought a strong and swift horse that came from Russia. The name of Janizaries may surprise; but the name, rather than the institution, had passed from the Ottoman to the Byzantine court, and is often used in the last age of the empire.
The Greeks obtained, with much difficulty, that, instead of provisions, money should be distributed, four florins per month to the persons of honourable rank, and three florins to their servants, with an addition of thirty more to the emperor, twenty-five to the patriarch, and twenty to the prince or despot Demetrius. The payment of the first month amounted to 691 florins, a sum which will not allow us to reckon above 200 Greeks of every condition (Syropulus, p. 104, 105). On the 20th October 1438, there was an arrear of four months; in April 1439, of three; and of five and a half in July, at the time of the union (p. 172, 225, 271).
Syropulus (p. 141, 142, 204, 221) deplores the imprisonment of the Greeks, and the tyranny of the emperor and patriarch.
The wars of Italy are most clearly represented in the xiiith volume of the Annals of Muratori. The schismatic Greek, Syropulus (p. 145), appears to have exaggerated the fear and disorder of the pope in his retreat from Ferrara to Florence, which is proved by the acts to have been somewhat more decent and deliberate.
Syropulus is pleased to reckon seven hundred prelates in the council of Basil. The error is manifest, and perhaps voluntary. That extravagant number could not be supplied by all the ecclesiastics, of every degree, who were present at the council, nor by all the absent bishops of the West, who, expressly or tacitly, might adhere to its decrees.
The Greeks, who disliked the union, were unwilling to sally from this strong fortress (p. 178, 193, 195, 202, of Syropulus). The shame of the Latins was aggravated by their producing an old MS. of the second council of Nice, with filioque in the Nicene creed. A palpable forgery! (p. 173).
ᾩς ἐγὼ (said an eminent Greek) ὅταν εἰς ναὸν εἰσέλθω Λατίνων οὐ προσκυνω̂ τινα τω̂ν ἐκεɩ̂σε ἁγἱων, ἐπεὶ οὐδὲ γνωρἰζω τινά (Syropulus, p. 109). See the perplexity of the Greeks (p. 217, 218, 252, 253, 273).
See the polite altercation of Mark and Bessarion in Syropulus (p. 257), who never dissembles the vices of his own party, and fairly praises the virtues of the Latins. [The works of Bessarion are collected in Migne’s Greek Patrology, vol. clxi., where Bandini’s monograph on his life and writings (1777) is reprinted. There are two recent monographs: Le Cardinal Bessarion, by H. Vast (1878), and a Russian monograph by A. Sadov (1883). The writings of his opponent Markos Eugenikos, metropolitan of Ephesus, will be found in Migne, P.G. vols. clx. and clxi. There is a Greek work on these two men by N. Kalogeras (Μάρκος ὁ Εὐγενικὸς καὶ Βησσαρίων ὀ Καρδινάλις, 1893). Cp. J. Dräseke, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, iv. p. 145 sqq. ]
For the poverty of the Greek bishops, see a remarkable passage of Ducas (c. 31). One had possessed, for his whole property, three old gowns, c. By teaching one-and-twenty years in his monastery, Bessarion himself had collected forty gold florins; but of these, the archbishop had expended twenty-eight in his voyage from Peloponnesus, and the remainder at Constantinople (Syropulus, p. 127).
Syropulus denies that the Greeks received any money before they had subscribed the act of union (p. 283); yet he relates some suspicious circumstances; and their bribery and corruption are positively affirmed by the historian Ducas.
The Greeks most piteously express their own fears of exile and perpetual slavery (Syropul. p. 196); and they were strongly moved by the emperor’s threats (p. 260).
I had forgot another popular and orthodox protester: a favourite hound, who usually lay quiet on the foot-cloth of the emperor’s throne; but who barked most furiously while the act of union was reading, without being silenced by the soothing or the lashes of the royal attendants (Syropul. p. 265, 266).
From the original Lives of the Popes, in Muratori’s Collection (tom. iii. p. 2, tom. xxv.), the manners of Eugenius IV. appear to have been decent, and even exemplary. His situation, exposed to the world and to his enemies, was a restraint, and is a pledge.
Syropulus, rather than subscribe, would have assisted, as the least evil, at the ceremony of the union. He was compelled to do both; and the great ecclesiarch poorly excuses his submission to the emperor (p. 290-292).
None of these original acts of union can at present be produced. Of the ten MSS. that are preserved (five at Rome, and the remainder at Florence, Bologna, Venice, Paris, and London), nine have been examined by an accurate critic (M. de Brequigny), who condemns them for the variety and imperfections of the Greek signatures. Yet several of these may be esteemed as authentic copies, which were subscribed at Florence before (26th August 1439) the final separation of the Pope and emperor (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xliii. p. 287-311). [On these copies see Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. vii. part 2, p. 757 sqq. The true original is the copy which is kept under glass in the Laurentian Library at Florence. The text of the Union decree — in Greek, in Latin, and a German translation — is given in Hefele, ib. p. 742-753.]
Ἡμɩ̂ν δὲ ὡς ἄσημοι ἐδόκουν ϕω̂ναι (Syropul. p. 297).
In their return, the Greeks conversed at Bologna with the ambassadors of England; and, after some questions and answers, these impartial strangers laughed at the pretended union of Florence (Syropul. p. 307).
So nugatory, or rather so fabulous, are these reunions of the Nestorians, Jacobites, c. that I have turned over, without success, the Bibliotheca Orientalis of Assemanus, a faithful slave of the Vatican.
Ripaille is situate near Thonon in Savoy, on the southern side of the lake of Geneva. It is now a Carthusian abbey; and Mr. Addison (Travels into Italy, vol. ii. p. 147, 148, of Baskerville’s edition of his works) has celebrated the place and the founder. Æneas Sylvius, and the fathers of Basil, applaud the austere life of the ducal hermit; but the French and Italian proverbs most unluckily attest the popular opinion of his luxury.
In this account of the councils of Basil, Ferrara, and Florence, I have consulted the original acts, which fill the xviith and xviiith tomes of the edition of Venice, and are closed by the perspicuous, though partial, history of Augustin Patricius, an Italian of the xvth century. They are digested and abridged by Dupin (Bibliothèque Ecclés. tom. xii.), and the continuator of Fleury (tom. xxii.); and the respect of the Gallican church for the adverse parties confines their members to an awkward moderation. [An English translation of Gorski’s (Russian) History of the Council of Florence appeared in 1861 (ed. by Neale). Kalligas wrote an important essay on it, which is published in his Μελέται καὶ λόγοι (1882), p. 1-181. See also Dräseke Zum Kircheneinigungsversuch des Jahres 1439, in Byz. Zeitsch. v. p. 572 sqq.; Frommann, Kritische Beiträge zur Geschichte der florentinischen Kircheneinigung, 1862. The full story of the Councils of Constance, Basil, Ferrara, and Florence is contained in vol. vii., parts i. and ii., of Hefele’s Conciliengeschichte.]
In the first attempt, Meursius collected 3600 Græco-Barbarous words, to which, in a second edition, he subjoined 1800 more: yet what plenteous gleanings did he leave to Portius, Ducange, Fabrotti, the Bollandists, c.! (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 101, c.). Some Persic words may be found in Xenophon, and some Latin ones in Plutarch; and such is the inevitable effect of war and commerce; but the form and substance of the language were not affected by this slight alloy. [On foreign words in Greek see: G. Meyer, Neugriechische Studien, ii. (Slavonic, Albanian, and Roumanian loanwords in modern Greek), iii. and iv. (Latin and Romance loanwords), in the Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy, vol. cxxx., 1894, and vol. cxxxii., 1895. Also F. Miklosich, Die slavischen Elemente im Neugriechischen, ib. vol. lxiii., 1870; and Die türkischen Elemente in den südosteuropäischen Sprachen, in the Denkschriften of the Vienna Acad., vols. xxxiv., xxxv., xxxviii. (1884, 1886, 1890).]
The life of Francis Philelphus, a sophist, proud, restless, and rapacious, has been diligently composed by Lancelot (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 691-751), and Tiraboschi (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. p. 282-294), for the most part from his own letters. His elaborate writings, and those of his contemporaries, are forgotten; but their familiar epistles still describe the men and the times. [G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Alterthums, 3rd ed., 1893; T. Klette, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Litteratur der italienischen Gelehrtenrenaissance, 1890 (part iii. contains Greek Letters of Philelphus). Legrand, Centdix lettres grecques de François Filelfe, 1892.]
He married, and had perhaps debauched, the daughter of John, and the grand-daughter of Manuel, Chrysoloras. She was young, beautiful, and wealthy; and her noble family was allied to the Dorias of Genoa and the emperors of Constantinople.
Græci quibus lingua depravata non sit . . . ita loquuntur vulgo hâc etiam tempestate ut Aristophanes comicus, aut Euripides tragicus, ut oratores omnes, ut historiographi, ut philosophi . . . literati autem homines et doctius et emendatius. . . . Nam viri aulici veterem sermonis dignitatem atque elegantiam retinebant in primisque ispæ nobiles mulieres; quibus cum nullum esset omnino cum viris peregrinis commercium, merus ille ac purus Græcorum sermo servabatur intactus (Philelph. Epist. ad ann. 1451, apud Hodium, p. 188, 189). He observes in another passage, uxor illa mea Theodora locutione erat admodum moderatâ et suavi et maxime Atticâ.
Philelphus, absurdly enough, derives this Greek or Oriental jealousy from the manners of ancient Rome.
See the state of learning in the xiiith and xivth centuries, in the learned and judicious Mosheim (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 434-440, 490-494).
At the end of the xvth century, there existed in Europe about fifty universities, and of these the foundation of ten or twelve is prior to the year 1300. They were crowded in proportion to their scarcity. Bologna contained 10,000 students, chiefly of the civil law. In the year 1357, the number at Oxford had decreased from 30,000 to 6000 scholars (Henry’s History of Great Britain, vol. iv. p. 478). Yet even this decrease is much superior to the present list of the members of the university. [These numbers are grossly exaggerated. See Mr. H. Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, vol. ii., pt. ii., where a short chapter (xiii.) is devoted to the subject. He concludes (p. 589) that “the maximum number at Oxford was something between 1500 and 3000. By about 1438 the numbers had fallen to under 1000.” He thinks it improbable that the number at Bologna or at Paris ever went beyond about 6000 or 7000.]
Of those writers, who professedly treat of the restoration of the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are Hodius, Dr. Humphrey Hody (de Græcis Illustribus, Linguæ Græcæ Literarumque humaniorium Instauratoribus; Londini, 1742, in large octavo), and Tiraboschi (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. v. p. 364-377, tom. vii. p. 112-143). The Oxford professor is a laborious scholar, but the librarian of Modena enjoys the superiority of a modern and national historian. [Cp. above note 81. Legrand, Biographie hellénique, vol. i., 1885. J. A. Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, ii., The Revival of Learning, 1877. Therianos, in the first volume of his biography of Koraês (Ἀδαμάντιος Κοραη̂ς, 1889), gives a good summary of the movement. G. Fioretto, Gli umanisti, o lo studio del Latino e del Greco nel secolo xv. in Italia, 1881. See also the excellent monograph on Vittorino da Feltre, dealing with the education of the Humanist teachers in Italy, by W. H. Woodward, 1897.]
In Calabriâ quæ olim magna Græcia dicebatur, coloniis Græcis repletâ remansit quædam linguæ veteris cognitio (Hodius, p. 2). If it were eradicated by the Romans, it was revived and perpetuated by the monks of St. Basil, who possessed seven convents at Rossano alone (Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, tom. i. p. 520). [Greek is still spoken by a population of about 20,000 in both the heel and the toe of Italy — in the land of Otranto and in the territory of Bova; these two dialects differ considerably. Comparetti, Saggi dei dialetti greci dell’ Italia meridionale, 1866; Morosi, Studi sui dialetti greci della Terra d’Otranto, 1870, and Dialetti romaici del mandamento di Bova in Calabria, 1874; Pellegrini, Il dialetto greco-calabro di Bova, 1880; H. F. Tozer, The Greek-speaking Population of Southern Italy, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, x. p. 11 sqq. ]
Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans) vix non dicam libros sed nomen Homeri audiverunt. Perhaps, in that respect, the xiiith century was less happy than the age of Charlemagne. [Barlaam was a native of Seminaria in Calabria. His work (against the Roman church) περὶ τη̂ς ἀρχη̂ς τον̂ πάπα is published in Migne, P.G. 151, p. 1256 sqq. There is an account of Barlaam’s work in T. Uspenski’s essay, Philosophskoe i bogoslovskoe dvizhenie v xiv viekie, printed in his Ocherki, p. 246-364 (1892).]
See the character of Barlaam in Boccace de Genealog. Deorum, l. xv. c. 6.
Cantacuzen. l. ii. c. 36.
For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the two interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the excellent Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 406-410, tom. ii. p. 75-77. [G. Mandolori, Fra Barlaamo Calabrese, maestro del Petrarca, 1888; P. de Nolhac, Pétrarque et l’humanisme, 1892. On Petrarch see further below chap. lxx. ad init.]
The bishopric to which Barlaam retired was the old Locri, in the middle ages Scta Cyriaca, and by corruption Hieracium, Gerace (Dissert. Chorographica Italiæ medii Ævi, p. 312). The dives opum of the Norman times soon lapsed into poverty, since even the church was poor; yet the town still contains 3000 inhabitants (Swinburne, p. 340).
I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of Petrarch (Famil. ix. 2): Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem violento alveo derivatum, sed ex ipsis Græci eloquii scatebris, et qualis divino illi profluxit ingenio. . . . Sine tuâ voce Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immo, vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel adspectu solo, ac sæpe illum amplexus atque suspirans dico, O magne vir! c.
For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born in 1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. medii Ævi, tom. i. p. 248, c.) and Tiraboschi (tom. v. p. 83, 439-451) may be consulted. The editions, versions, imitations of his novels are innumerable. Yet he was ashamed to communicate that trifling and perhaps scandalous work to Petrarch his respectable friend, in whose letters and memoirs he conspicuously appears.
Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis causâ Græca carmina adscripsi . . . jure utor meo; meum est hoc decus, mea gloria scilicet inter Etruscos Græcis uti carminibus. Nonne ego fui qui Leontium Pilatum, c. (de Genealogiâ Deorum, l. xv. c. 7, a work which, though now forgotten, has run through thirteen or fourteen editions). [It was Leontius Pilatus himself who translated Homer.]
Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made known by Hody (p. 2-11), and the Abbé de Sade (Vie de Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 625-634, 670-673), who has very happily caught the lively and dramatic manner of his original.
Dr. Hody (p. 54) is angry with Leonard Aretin, Guarinus, Paulus Jovius, c. for affirming that the Greek letters were restored in Italy post septingentos annos; as if, says he, they had flourished till the end of the viith century. These writers most probably reckoned from the last period of the exarchate; and the presence of the Greek magistrates and troops at Ravenna and Rome must have preserved, in some degree, the use of their native tongue.
See the article of Emanuel, or Manuel Chrysoloras, in Hody (p. 12-54), and Tiraboschi (tom. vii. p. 113-118). The precise date of his arrival floats between the years 1390 and 1400, and is only confined by the reign of Boniface IX. [The Greek grammar of Chrysoloras was printed in Venice in 1484. For the chronology of his life cp. Klette, op. cit. part i.]
The name of Aretinus has been assumed by five or six natives of Arezzo in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and the most worthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, the disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator, and an historian, the secretary of four successive popes, and the chancellor of the republic of Florence, where he died, AD 1444, at the age of seventy-five (Fabric. Bibliot. medii Ævi, tom. i. p. 190, c.; Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33-38).
See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo Tempore in Italiâ gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28-30.
In this domestic discipline, Petrarch, who loved the youth, often complains of the eager curiosity, restless temper, and proud feelings, which announce the genius and glory of a riper age (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 700-709).
Hinc Græcæ Latinæque scholæ exortæ sunt, Guarino Philelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque aliis tanquam ex equo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione multa ingenia deinceps ad laudem excitata sunt (Platina in Bonifacio IX.). Another Italian writer adds the names of Paulus Petrus Vergerius, Omnibonus [Ognibene da Lonigo], Vincentius, Poggius, Franciscus Barbarus, c. But I question whether a rigid chronology would allow Chrysoloras all these eminent scholars (Hodius, p. 25-27, c.). [Vergerius (who was one of his pupils) wrote the epitaph on Chrysoloras which is to be seen in the kitchen of the Hôtel Insel at Constance.]
See in Hody the article of Bessarion (p. 136-177). Theodore Gaza [of Thessalonica], George of Trebizond, and the rest of the Greeks whom I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper chapters of his learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st and 2d parts of the vith tome. [See Legrand’s work quoted above, note 87.]
The cardinals knocked at his door, but his conclavist refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion: “Nicholas,” said he, “thy respect hath cost thee an hat, and me the tiara.”
Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza, Argyropulus, Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius, Blondus, Nicholas Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, c. Viri (says Hody, with the pious zeal of a scholar) nullo ævo perituri (p. 156).
He was born before the taking of Constantinople, but his honourable life was stretched far into the xvith century ( AD 1535). Leo X. and Francis I. were his noblest patrons, under whose auspices he founded the Greek colleges of Rome and Paris (Hody, p. 247-275). He left posterity in France; but the counts de Vintimille, and their numerous branches, derive the name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage, in the xiiith century, with the daughter of a Greek emperor (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 224-230).
Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three against Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus, who can find no better names than Græculus ineptus et impudens (Hody, p. 274). In our own times, an English critic has accused the Æneid of containing multa languida, nugatoria, spiritu et majestate carminis heroici defecta; many such verses as he, the said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed of owning (præfat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22).
Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are accused of ignorance, envy, or avarice (Sylloge, c. tom. ii. p. 235). The modern Greek pronounces the B as a V consonant, and confound three vowels (η ι υ) and several diphthongs [ει, οι, υι]. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the University of Cambridge; but the monosyllable βη represented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep; and a bell-wether is better evidence than a bishop or a chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, who asserted a more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Sylloge of Havercamp (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740); but it is difficult to paint sounds by words; and in their reference to modern use they can be understood only by their respective countrymen. We may observe that our peculiar pronunciation of the θ to th is approved by Erasmus (tom. ii. p. 130) [θ is so pronounced in modern Greek].
[It is to be observed however that the system of accent-notation was first introduced by the Alexandrines. Gibbon assumes that the meaning of the accents was in ancient times entirely different from their meaning in modern Greek. This is improbable. But it is still a problem how the Greeks conciliated their accentuation with the rhythms of their verses.]
[On Theodore Gaza see the biographical essay of L. Stein in the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, ii. p. 426 sqq. , 1889.]
George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous writer, the master of Bessarion and all the Platonists of the times. He visited Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end his days in Peloponnesus. See the curious Diatribe of Leo Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 739-756). [The study of Plato was revived in the 11th century by Michael Psellus. For Plethon see H. F. Tozer, A Byzantine Reformer, in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, vii. p. 353 sqq. , 1886; and F. Schultze, Geschichte der Philosophie der Renaissance, vol. i., 1874. The Memoir on the state of the Peloponnesus, which he addressed to the emperor Manuel, is edited by Ellissen in his Analekten der mittel- und neugriechischen Litteratur, vol. iv., part ii., with a German translation. Plethon’s works are collected in Migne’s P.G. vol. clx. On the theological side of his works see W. Gass, Gennadius und Pletho, Aristotelismus und Platonismus in der griechischen Kirche, 1844.]
The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is illustrated by Boivin (Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 715-729) and Tiraboschi (tom. vi. p. i. p. 259-288).
See the life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary authors, Janottus Manettus (tom. iii. p. ii. p. 905-962), and Vespasian of Florence (tom. xxv. p. 267-290), in the collection of Muratori; and consult Tiraboschi (tom. vi. p. i. p. 46-52, 109), and Hody in the articles of Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, c.
Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit, that the popes, in this instance, were worse politicians than the muftis, and that the charm which had bound mankind for so many ages was broken by the magicians themselves (Letters on the Study of History, l. vi. p. 165, 166, octavo edition, 1779).
See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of Medicis, in Tiraboschi (tom. vi. p. i. l. i. c. 2), who bestows a due measure of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples, the dukes of Milan, Ferrara, Urbino, c. The republic of Venice has deserved the least from the gratitude of scholars.
Tiraboschi (tom. vi. p. i. p. 104), from the preface of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at Florence, 1494. Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek Orators, apud Hodium, p. 249) in Atho Thraciæ monte. Eas Lascaris . . . in Italiam reportavit. Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius ille Medices in Græciam ad inquirendos simul et quantovis emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable enough that the research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.
The Greek language was introduced into the University of Oxford in the last years of the xvth century, by Grocyn, Linacer, and Latimer, who had all studied at Florence under Demetrius Chalcondyles. See Dr. Knight’s curious Life of Erasmus. Although a stout academical patriot, he is forced to acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at Oxford and taught it at Cambridge.
The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a monopoly of Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the Greek scholiasts on Sophocles and Euripides, Cave (say they), cave hoc facias, ne Barbari istis adjuti domi maneant, et pauciores in Italiam ventitent (Dr. Knight, in his Life of Erasmus, p. 365, from Beatus Rhenanus).
The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was established at Venice about the year 1494. He printed above sixty considerable works of Greek literature, almost all for the first time; several containing different treatises and authors, and of several authors two, three, or four editions (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. xiii. p. 605, c.). Yet his glory must not tempt us to forget that the first Greek book, the Grammar of Constantine Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and that the Florence Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical art. See the Annales Typographici of Mattaire and the Bibliographie Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris. [A. F. Didot, Alde Manuce et l’hellénisme à Venise, 1875.]
I will select three singular examples of this classic enthusiasm. 1. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho said in familiar conversation to George of Trebizond, that in a short time mankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the Koran for a religion similar to that of the Gentiles (Leo Allatius, apud Fabricium, tom. x. p. 751). 2. Paul II. persecuted the Roman academy which had been founded by Pomponius Lætus; and the principal members were accused of heresy, impiety, and paganism (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. p. i. p. 81, 82). [Cp. Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, ii. 252.] 3. In the next century, some scholars and poets in France celebrated the success of Jodelle’s tragedy of Cleopatra by a festival of Bacchus; and, it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat (Bayle, Dictionnaire, JODELLE; Fontenelle, tom. iii. p. 56-61). Yet the spirit of bigotry might often discern a serious impiety in the sportive play of fancy and learning.
The survivor of Boccace died in the year 1375; and we cannot place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci, and the Orlando Inamorato of Boyardo (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. p. ii. p. 174-177).
The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor John Palæologus will not offend the eye or ear of a classical student (ad calcem Codini de Antiquitatibus C. P. p. 107-126). The superscription suggests a chronological remark that John Palæologus II. was associated in the empire before the year 414, the date of Chrysoloras’s death. A still earlier date, at least 1408, is deduced from the age of his youngest sons Demetrius and Thomas, who were both Porphyrogeniti (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 244, 247).
Somebody observed, that the city of Athens might be circumnavigated (τις εἴπεν τὴν πόλιν τω̂ν Ἀθηναίων δύνασθαι καὶ παραπλεɩ̂ν καὶ περιπλεɩ̂ν). But what may be true in a rhetorical sense of Constantinople cannot be applied to the situation of Athens, five miles from the sea, and not intersected or surrounded by any navigable streams.
Nicephorus Gregoras has described the colossus of Justinian (l. vii. 12); but his measures are false and inconsistent. The editor, Boivin, consulted his friend Girardon; and the sculptor gave him the true proportions of an equestrian statue. That of Justinian was still visible to Peter Gyllius, not on the column, but in the outward court of the seraglio; and he was at Constantinople when it was melted down and cast into a brass cannon (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 17). [The equestrian statue of Justinian was in the Augusteum. What seems to be the base of the statue has been found near the Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus (the Kutchuk Aya Sophia) with an inscription beginning: Ἐπιβίσι ( sic ) ἐπὶ τοὺς ἵππους σου καὶ ἡ ἱππασία σου σωτηρία (from Habakkuk, iii. 8). See Mordtmann, Esquisse topographique, § 97 (p. 55).]
See the decay and repairs of St. Sophia, in Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 12; l. xv. 2). The building was propped by Andronicus in 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in 1345. The Greeks, in their pompous rhetoric, exalt the beauty and holiness of the church, an earthly heaven, the abode of angels, and of God himself, c. [Cp. Cantacuzenus, i. p. 30, ed. Bonn. See Lethaby and Swainson, Sancta Sophia, p. 124 and p. 152.]
The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus (p. 312-351) opens the schism from the first office of the Greeks at Venice to the general opposition at Constantinople of the clergy and people.
On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza (l. ii. c. 17), Laonicus Chalcondyles (l. vi. p. 155, 156 [pp. 292 sqq. ed. B.]), and Ducas (c. 31); the last of whom writes with truth and freedom. Among the moderns we may distinguish the continuator of Fleury (tom. xxii. p. 338, c., 401, 420, c.) and Spondanus ( AD 1440-80). The sense of the latter is drowned in prejudice and passion, as soon as Rome and religion are concerned.
[Since the publication of the De Ecclesiae occidentalis atque Orientalis perpetuâ consensione of Leo Allatius, it has been generally supposed that a Synod, held at St. Sophia in AD 1450, under the auspices of the Emperor Constantine, repudiated the Acts of the Council of Florence. Allatius (c. 1380) gave an account of the “Acts” of this Synod, and condemned them as spurious, on account of some obvious blunders which appeared in their Title. An edition of these Acts was shortly afterwards published by Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in his Τόμος καταλλαγη̂ς, p. 454 sqq.; but in the Title, in his edition, the blunders were corrected, and he defended the genuineness of the document. But, quite apart from the title, the document is marked by anachronisms and blunders which have been recently exposed by Ch. Papaioannu. This Russian scholar has submitted the Acts to a thorough-going criticism (Akty tak nazyvaemago posliedniago Sophiiskago Sobora (1450 g.) i ich istoricheskoe dostoinstvo, in Vizantiiskii Vremennik, ii. p. 394 sqq. , 1895), and has shown convincingly not only that the Acts are spurious but that no such Synod was ever held. The first Synod that rejected the decrees of Florence was that of AD 1484. The Synod of 1450 was invented and the Acts forged probably not later than the beginning of the 17th century. One of the anachronisms which the unknown forger committed was making Marcus of Ephesus take part in the Synod. But Marcus had died before 1448; probably (as Papaioannu shows, p. 398-399) in 1447.]
Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks subject to Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to Lemberg or Leopold [Lvov] (Herbestein, in Ramusio, tom. ii. p. 127). On the other hand, the Russians transferred their spiritual obedience to the archbishop, who became, in 1588, the patriarch of Moscow (Levesque, Hist. de Russie, tom. iii. p. 188, 190, from a Greek MS. at Turin, Iter et labores Archiepiscopi Arsenii).
The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom. ii. p. 242-247) is extracted from the patriarchal archives. The scenes of Ferrara and Florence are described by ignorance and passion; but the Russians are credible in the account of their own prejudices.
The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the Samanæans and Gymnosophists, has been driven by the more popular Bramins from India into the northern deserts; the naked philosophers were compelled to wrap themselves in fur; but they insensibly sunk into wizards and physicians. The Mordvans and Tcheremisses, in the European Russia, adhere to this religion, which is formed on the earthly model of one King or God, his ministers or angels, and the rebellious spirits who oppose his government. As these tribes of the Volga have no images, they might more justly retort on the Latin missionaries the name of Idolaters (Levesque, Hist. des Peuples soumis à la Domination des Russes, tom. i. p. 194-237, 423-460).
Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. tom. ii. AD 1451, No. 13. The epistle of the Greeks, with a Latin version, is extant in the college library at Prague.
See Cantemir, History of the Othman Empire, p. 94. Murad, or Morad, may be correct; but I have preferred the popular name to that obscure diligence which is rarely successful in translating an Oriental into the Roman alphabet. [A Burgundian knight, Bertrandon de la Brocquière (see below p. 326, note 62) gives the following description of Murad: —
“He is a little short thick man, with the physiognomy of a Tartar. He has a broad and brown face, high cheek bones, a round beard, a great and crooked nose, with little eyes; but they say he is kind, good, generous, and willingly gives away lands and money. . . . He is thought not to love war, and this seems to be well founded. . . . He loves liquor and those who drink hard.” He threw a Moor into prison who ventured to admonish him against indulgence in wine (T. Wright’s Early Travels in Palestine, p. 346-347).]
See Chalcondyles (l. vii. p. 186, 198), Ducas (c. 33), and Marinus Barletius (in Vit. Scanderbeg, p. 145, 146). In his good faith towards the garrison of Sfetigrade he was a lesson and example to his son Mahomet.
[There is an account of Murad’s conquest of Thessalonica, AD 1430, by John Anagnostes (publ. at the end of the Bonn edition of Phrantzes, p. 484 sqq. ), written in imitation of the account of the Saracen siege in AD 904 by Cameniates. Two popular Greek ballads on the capture are given in Passow’s Popularia Carmina Graeciae recentioris, cxciv. cxcv. (cp. Miss F. M.‘Pherson, Journal of Hellenic Studies, x. p. 86, 87). The lines occur: —
- πη̂ραν τὴν πόλι, πη̂ραν τὴν, πη̂ραν τὴν Σαλονίκη,
- πη̂ραν καὶ τὴν ἀγιὰ Σοϕιὰ, τὸ μέγα μοναστη̂ρι.]
Voltaire (Essai sur l’Histoire Générale, c. 89, p. 283, 284) admires le Philosophe Turc; would he have bestowed the same praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a monastery? In his way, Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerant bigot.
See the articles Dervische, Fakir, Nasser, Rohbaniat , in d’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale. Yet the subject is superficially treated from the Persian and Arabian writers. It is among the Turks that these orders have principally flourished.
Rycaut (in the Present State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 242-268) affords much information, which he drew from his personal conversation with the heads of the dervishes, most of whom ascribed their origin to the time of Orchan. He does not mention the Zichidæ of Chalcondyles (l. vii. p. 286), among whom Amurath retired; the Seids of that author are the descendants of Mahomet.
In the year 1431, Germany raised 40,000 horse, men at arms, against the Hussites of Bohemia (Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 318). At the siege of Nuys [Neuss] on the Rhine, in 1474, the princes, prelates, and cities sent their respective quotas; and the bishop of Munster (qui n’est pas des plus grands) furnished 1400 horse, 6000 foot, all in green, with 1200 waggons. The united armies of the king of England and the duke of Burgundy scarcely equalled one third of this German host (Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, l. iv. c. 2). At present, six or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay and admirable discipline by the powers of Germany.
It was not till the year 1444, that France and England could agree on a truce of some months (see Rymer’s Fœdera, and the chronicles of both nations).
In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. Eccles. AD 1443, 1444) has been my leading guide. He has diligently read, and critically compared, the Greek and Turkish materials, the historians of Hungary, Poland, and the West. His narrative is perspicuous; and, where he can be free from a religious bias, the judgment of Spondanus is not contemptible.
I have curtailed the harsh letter (Wladislaus) which most writers affix to his name, either in compliance with the Polish pronunciation, or to distinguish him from his rival the infant Ladislaus of Austria. Their competition for the crown of Hungary is described by Callimachus (l. i. ii. p. 447-486), Bonfinius (Decad. iii. l. iv.), Spondanus, and Lenfant.
The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcondyles, and Ducas, do not ascribe to their prince a very active part in this crusade, which he seems to have promoted by his wishes and injured by his fears.
Cantemir (p. 88) ascribes to his policy the original plan, and transcribes his animating epistle to the king of Hungary. But the Mahometan powers are seldom informed of the state of Christendom; and the situation and correspondence of the knights of Rhodes must connect them with the sultan of Caramania.
[For this expedition see Katona, Histor. crit. reg. Hung. Stirpis mixtae, vi. p. 245 sqq.; Nesri (in Thúry’s Török történetírók, vol. i.), p. 58; the Anonymous of 1486, ib. p. 18, 19; Sad ad-Din, ib. p. 136 sqq.; Zinkeisen, Gesch. des osmanischen Reiches, i. 611 sqq. ]
In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the Hungarians slay 30,000 Turks in one battle, but the modest Julian reduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels (Æneas Sylvius in Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum).
See the origin of the Turkish war, and the first expedition of Ladislaus, in the vth and vith books of the iiid Decad of Bonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy with tolerable success. Callimachus (l. ii. p. 487-496) is still more pure and authentic.
I do not pretend to warrant the literal accuracy of Julian’s speech, which is variously worded by Callimachus (l. iii. p. 505-507), Bonfinius (Dec. iii. l. vi. p. 457, 458), and other historians, who might indulge their own eloquence, while they represent one of the orators of the age. But they all agree in the advice and arguments for perjury, which in the field of controversy are fiercely attacked by the Protestants and feebly defended by the Catholics. The latter are discouraged by the misfortune of Varna.
Warna, under the Grecian name of Odessus, was a colony of the Milesians which they denominated from the hero Ulysses (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 374; d’Anville, tom. i. p. 312). According to Arrian’s Periplus of the Euxine (p. 24, 25, in the first volume of Hudson’s Geographers), it was situate 1740 stadia, or furlongs, from the mouth of the Danube, 2140 from Byzantium, and 360 to the north of a ridge or promontory of Mount Hæmus, which advances into the sea.
[It is difficult to understand what the Papal fleet was doing. The place where Murad crossed is uncertain. The Turkish sources differ; they agree only that he did not cross at Gallipoli. Cp. Thúry’s note, op. cit. p. 21.]
Some Christian writers affirm that he drew from his bosom the host or wafer on which the treaty had not been sworn. The Moslems suppose, with more simplicity, an appeal to God and his prophet Jesus, which is likewise insinuated by Callimachus (l. iii. p. 516, Spondan. AD 1444, No. 8).
A critic will always distrust these spolia opima of a victorious general, so difficult for valour to obtain, so easy for flattery to invent (Cantemir, p. 90, 91). Callimachus (l. iii. p. 517) more simply and probably affirms, supervenientibus Janizaris, telorum multitudine non tam confossus est quam obrutus.
Besides some valuable hints from Æneas Sylvius, which are diligently collected by Spondanus, our best authorities are three historians of the xvth century, Philippus Callimachus (de rebus a Vladislao Polonorum atque Hungarorum Rege gestis, libri iii. in Bel. [= Schwandtner] Script. Rerum Hungaricarum, tom. i. p. 433-518), Bonfinius (decad iii. l. v. p. 460-467), and Chalcondyles (l. vii. p. 165-179). The two first were Italians, but they passed their lives in Poland and Hungary (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. med. et infimæ Ætatis, tom. i. p. 324; Vossius de Hist. Latin. l. iii. c. 8, 11; Bayle, Dictionnaire, BONFINIUS ). A small tract of Fælix Petancius, chancellor of Segnia (ad calcem Cuspinian. de Cæsaribus, p. 716-722), represents the theatre of the war in the xvth century. [The story of the Varna campaign by Callimachus or Philip Buonaccorsi has recently been edited by Kwiatkovski in vol. vi. of the Monum. Polon. Hist. (1893). See also the authorities cited in Katóna, op. cit. vol. vi., and the Turkish writers cited above, note 24. A full description of the battle will be found in Hammer, i. p. 355-357, and in Zinkeisen, i. p. 689 sqq. There is a description of the battle in Greek verse by Paraspondylus Zoticus, who professes to have been an eye-witness. It has been edited (with Hungarian notes) by W. Pecz, 1894; and it was included in Legrand’s Collection de Monuments, Nouvelle série, v. p. 51 sqq. ]
M. Lenfant has described the origin (Hist. du Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 247, c.), and Bohemian campaign (p. 315, c.), of Cardinal Julian. His services at Basil and Ferrara, and his unfortunate end, are occasionally related by Spondanus and the continuator of Fleury.
Syropulus honourably praises the talents of an enemy (p. 117): τοιαν̂τά τινα εɩ̂̓πεν ὸ Ἰουλιανός, πεπλατυσμένως ἄγαν καὶ λογικω̂ς, καὶ μετ’ ἐπιστήμης καὶ δεινότητος ῥητορικη̂ς.
See Bonfinius, decad iii. l. iv. p. 423. Could the Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without a blush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of a Walachian village with the casual though glorious epithet of a single branch of the Valerian family at Rome? [For the Walachian origin of Hunyady, cp. Xénopol, Histoire des Roumains, i. p. 264.]
Philip de Comines (Mémoires, l. vi. c. 13), from the tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but under the whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne (Valachia). The Greek Chalcondyles, and the Turkish Annals of Leunclavius, presume to accuse his fidelity or valour. [Teleki, A Hunyadiak kora Magyarországon (The Age of the Hunyadys in Hungary), vols. 1-5, 1852-7.]
See Bonfinius (decad iii. l. viii. p. 492) and Spondanus ( AD 1456, No. 1-7). Huniades shared the glory of the defence of Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in their respective narratives neither the saint nor the hero condescends to take notice of his rival’s merit. [On John Capistrano see Hermann, Capistranus triumphans seu historia fundamentalis de S. Joanne Cap., 1700; Cataneo, Vita di S. Giovanni da Capistrano, 1691; Guérard, S. Jean de Capistran et son temps, 1865. The last campaign of Hunyady is the subject of a monograph by Kiss (Hunyadi János utolsó hadjárata, 1857). The siege of Belgrade has been treated fully by Mr. R. N. Bain in the Eng. Historical Review for July, 1892.]
See Bonfinius, decad iii. l. viii.-decad iv. l. viii. The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of Matthias Corvinus are curious and critical ( AD 1464, No. 1; 1475, No. 6; 1476, No. 14-16; 1490, No. 4, 5). Italian fame was the object of his vanity. His actions are celebrated in the Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p. 322-412) of Peter Ranzanus, a Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings are registered by Galeotus Martius of Narni (528-568); and we have a particular narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three tracts are all contained in the first vol. of Bel’s Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum. [The best monograph on Matthias Corvinus is that of W. Franknói which has appeared in a German translation (from the Hungarian) in 1891. It is furnished with interesting illustrations.]
They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his pleasing Essay on Heroic Virtue (Works, vol. iii. p. 385), among the seven chiefs who have deserved, without wearing, a royal crown; Belisares, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.
I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the time, and the place. In the old and national history of Marinus Barletius, a priest of Scodra (de Vitâ, Moribus, et Rebus gestis Georgii Castrioti, c. libri xiii. p. 367, Argentorat. 1537, in fol.), his gaudy and cumbersome robes are stuck with many false jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l. vii. p. 185 [p. 350, ed. B.]; l. viii. p. 229 [p. 432]. [Besides the contemporary authority, Barletius, we know indirectly of another contemporary source written by an anonymous man of Antivari. This work (Historia Scanderbegi edita per quendam Albanensem) was printed at Venice in 1480, but is now lost. But it is known to us through Giammaria Biemmi, who used it for his Istoria di Giorgio Castriota, detto Scander Begh, 1742. The best modern work on the life and exploits of Scanderbeg is that of Julius Pisko: Skanderbeg, 1894; a number of new documents are printed in an appendix.]
His circumcision, education, c. are marked by Marinus with brevity and reluctance (l. i. p. 6, 7).
Since Scanderbeg died, AD 1466, in the 63d year of his age (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370), he was born in 1403 [1404]; since he was torn from his parents by the Turks when he was novennis (Marinus, l. i. p. 1, 6), that event must have happened in 1412 [or 1413], nine years before the accession of Amurath II., who must have inherited, not acquired, the Albanian slave. Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, AD 1431, No. 31; 1443, No. 14.
His revenue and forces are luckily given by Marinus (l. ii. p. 44).
[Biemmi says that the total number of fighting men did not exceed 70,000; see Pisko, p. 47.]
There were two Dibras, the upper and lower, the Bulgarian and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya (l. i. p. 17), was contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose inhabitants refused to drink from a well into which a dead dog had traitorously been cast (l. v. p. 139, 140). We want a good map of Epirus. [The site of Sfetigrad is uncertain. It was in the Upper Dibre, and perhaps near Trebište. See Pisko, p. 18 note; and for the mode of its capture, p. 50, 51.]
Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92) with the pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and vith books of the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the tribe of strangers and moderns.
In honour of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188-192) kills the sultan, by disease indeed, under the walls of Croya. But this audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who agree in the time and manner of Amurath’s death at Hadrianople.
See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the ixth and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified by the testimony or silence of Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. xiii. p. 291), and his original authors (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus Francisci Sfortiæ, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p. 728, et alios). The Albanian cavalry, under the name of Stradiots , soon became famous in the wars of Italy (Mémoires de Comines, l. viii. c. 5). [The date of Scanderbeg’s expedition to Italy is fixed by Pisko (p. 86-88) by means of new documents. According to Antonius Guidobonus, the ambassador of Milan at Venice, the troops which Scanderbeg took with him numbered 2000 foot and 1000 horse.]
Spondanus, from the best evidence and the most rational criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human size ( AD 1461, No. 20; 1463, No. 9; 1465, No. 12, 13; 1467, No. 1). His own letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza (l. iii. c. 28), a refugee in the neighbouring isle of Corfu, demonstrate his last distress, which is awkwardly concealed by Marinus Barletius (l. x.).
See the family of the Castriots in Ducange (Fam. Dalmaticæ, c. xviii. p. 348-350).
This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr. Swinburne (Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350-354).
[Constantine is generally numbered as Constantine XI., but Gibbon (who counts Constantine, son of Romanus I., as Constantine VIII.; see above, vol. viii. p. 265) makes him Constantine XII. He was distinguished by the surname Dragases, derived through his mother Irene, who was daughter of Constantine Dragases, a Servian prince.]
The chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic; but, instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus ( AD 1445, No. 7) assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last Constantine, which he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius IV. to the king of Ethiopia.
[The ceremony was not renewed at Constantinople. The emperor desired to avoid any occasion for quarrels between the Unionists and anti-Unionists.]
Phranza (l. iii. c. 1-6) deserves credit and esteem.
Suppose him to have been captured in 1394, in Timour’s first war in Georgia (Sherefeddin, l. iii. c. 50), he might follow his Tartar master into Hindostan in 1398, and from thence sail to the spice-islands.
The happy and pious Indians lived 150 years, and enjoyed the most perfect productions of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. The animals were on a large scale: dragons seventy cubits, ants (the formica Indica ) nine inches long, sheep like elephants, elephants like sheep. Quidlibet audendi, c.
He sailed in a country vessel from the spice-islands to one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque navem grandem Ibericam , quâ in Portugalliam est delatus. This passage, composed in 1477 (Phranza, l. iii. c. 30), twenty years before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, is spurious or wonderful. But this new geography is sullied by the old and incompatible error which places the source of the Nile in India.
Cantemir (p. 83), who styles her the daughter of Lazarus Ogli, and the Helen of the Servians, places her marriage with Amurath in the year 1424. It will not easily be believed that in six and twenty years’ cohabitation the sultan corpus ejus non tetigit. After the taking of Constantinople, she fled to Mahomet II. (Phranza, l. iii. c. 22).
The classical reader will recollect the offers of Agamemnon (Iliad I. v. 144) and the general practice of antiquity.
Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the emperor of that name) was a great domestic, a firm assertor of the Greek creed, and a brother of the queen of Servia, whom he visited with the character of ambassador (Syropulus, p. 37, 38, 45).
[A Burgundian knight, Bertrandon de la Brocquière, returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, visited Constantinople in 1432, and has left us a very interesting description of life in that city, and also of Murad’s court at Hadrianople. Legrand D’Aussy published this work (Voyage d’Outremer et Retour de Jérusalem en France) in 1804, and it has been re-edited by C. Schefer, 1892. An English edition appeared in T. Wright’s Early Travels in Palestine (ed. Bohn, 1848, p. 283-382).
Finlay writes (Hist. of Greece, iii. p. 492): “Court processions, religious ceremonies, and national vanity amused and consoled the Greeks as they hastened along the path of degradation and ruin. Dramatic representations of sacred subjects were performed in the Church of St. Sophia, as musical exhibitions had been celebrated in earlier days. Exercises of archery and imitations of Turkish horsemanship replaced the military pageants and the games of the hippodrome which had been the delight of the Byzantine populace in better days.”]
Chalcondyles, for Chalc<oc>ondyles, is explained by Krumbacher as meaning the man with the bronze handle (Gesch. der byz. Litt., p. 305).
This has been excellently brought out by Krumbacher, op. cit. p. 302.
There is also extant an abbreviated version of the Chronicle in colloquial Greek, and it seems to have been prepared by Phrantzes himself. Cp. Krumbacher, op. cit. p. 308. It has been edited in Mai’s Class. Auct. ix. p. 594 sqq. , 1837, and reprinted in Migne, P.G. 156.
[There is a great memorial of Niccolo at Florence, the Gothic Certosa San Lorenzo. Gregorovius calls it “the first monument of historical relations between Florence and Greece”; for just as Pisa used her revenue from Constantinople to build her cathedral, Niccolo devoted moneys from Greece to build San Lorenzo. His tomb is to be seen in a subterranean chapel.]
[His own brother-in-law; for he was married to Agnes Saraceno.]
