Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 6
by Edward Gibbon
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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[Footnote 61: 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 colors.]

[Footnote 62: Synopsis Hist. Sinicae, p. 74 - 76, (in the ivth
part of the Relations de Thevenot,) 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.)]

Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death

Part III.

     On the throne of Samarcand, ^63 he displayed, in a short
repose, his magnificence and power; listened to the complaints of
the people; distributed a just measure of rewards and
punishments; employed his riches in the architecture of palaces
and temples; and gave audience to the ambassadors of Egypt,
Arabia, India, Tartary, Russia, and Spain, the last of whom
presented a suit of tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of the
Oriental artists. The marriage of six of the emperor's grandsons
was esteemed an act of religion as well as of paternal
tenderness; and the pomp of the ancient caliphs was revived in
their nuptials. They were celebrated in the gardens of Canighul,
decorated with innumerable tents and pavilions, which displayed
the luxury of a great city and the spoils of a victorious camp.
Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for the kitchens; the
plain was spread with pyramids of meat, and vases of every
liquor, to which thousands of guests were courteously invited:
the orders of the state, and the nations of the earth, were
marshalled at the royal banquet; nor were the ambassadors of
Europe (says the haughty Persian) excluded from the feast; since
even the casses, the smallest of fish, find their place in the
ocean. ^64 The public joy was testified by illuminations and
masquerades; the trades of Samarcand passed in review; and every
trade was emulous to execute some quaint device, some marvellous
pageant, with the materials of their peculiar art. After the
marriage contracts had been ratified by the cadhis, the
bride-grooms and their brides retired to the nuptial chambers:
nine times, according to the Asiatic fashion, they were dressed
and undressed; and at each change of apparel, pearls and rubies
were showered on their heads, and contemptuously abandoned to
their attendants. A general indulgence was proclaimed: every law
was relaxed, every pleasure was allowed; the people was free, the
sovereign was idle; and the historian of Timour may remark, that,
after devoting fifty years to the attainment of empire, the only
happy period of his life were the two months in which he ceased
to exercise his power. But he was soon awakened to the cares of
government and war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion
of China: the emirs made their report of two hundred thousand,
the select and veteran soldiers of Iran and Touran: their baggage
and provisions were transported by five hundred great wagons, and
an immense train of horses and camels; and the troops might
prepare for a long absence, since more than six months were
employed in the tranquil journey of a caravan from Samarcand to
Pekin. Neither age, nor the severity of the winter, could retard
the impatience of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed the
Sihoon on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs, three hundred
miles, from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the
neighborhood of Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of
death. Fatigue, and the indiscreet use of iced water,
accelerated the progress of his fever; and the conqueror of Asia
expired in the seventieth year of his age, thirty-five years
after he had ascended the throne of Zagatai. His designs were
lost; his armies were disbanded; China was saved; and fourteen
years after his decease, the most powerful of his children sent
an embassy of friendship and commerce to the court of Pekin. ^65
[Footnote 63: For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, see
Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 1 - 30) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 36 -
47.)]

[Footnote 64: Sherefeddin (l. vi. 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. Avertissement a 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.)]
[Footnote 65: See the translation of the Persian account of their
embassy, a curious and original piece, (in the ivth part of the
Relations de Thevenot.) 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.]

     The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West: his
posterity is still invested with the Imperial title; and the
admiration of his subjects, who revered him almost as a deity,
may be justified in some degree by the praise or confession of
his bitterest enemies. ^66 Although he was lame of a hand and
foot, his form and stature were not unworthy of his rank; and his
vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the world, was
corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar
discourse he was grave and modest, and if he was ignorant of the
Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian
and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the
learned on topics of history and science; and the amusement of
his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or
corrupted with new refinements. ^67 In his religion he was a
zealous, though not perhaps an orthodox, Mussulman; ^68 but his
sound understanding may tempt us to believe, that a superstitious
reverence for omens and prophecies, for saints and astrologers,
was only affected as an instrument of policy. In the government
of a vast empire, he stood alone and absolute, without a rebel to
oppose his power, a favorite to seduce his affections, or a
minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, that
whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should
never be disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously
observed, that the commands of anger and destruction were more
strictly executed than those of beneficence and favor. His sons
and grandsons, of whom Timour left six-and-thirty at his decease,
were his first and most submissive subjects; and whenever they
deviated from their duty, they were corrected, according to the
laws of Zingis, with the bastinade, and afterwards restored to
honor and command. Perhaps his heart was not devoid of the
social virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving his
friends and pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are
founded on the public interest; and it may be sufficient to
applaud the wisdom of a monarch, for the liberality by which he
is not impoverished, and for the justice by which he is
strengthened and enriched. To maintain the harmony of authority
and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to
reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness from his
dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain the
depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of the
husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal
and moderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without
increasing the taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince; but, in
the discharge of these duties, he finds an ample and immediate
recompense. Timour might boast, that, at his accession to the
throne, Asia was the prey of anarchy and rapine, whilst under his
prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and unhurt, might carry a
purse of gold from the East to the West. Such was his confidence
of merit, that from this reformation he derived an excuse for his
victories, and a title to universal dominion. The four following
observations will serve to appreciate his claim to the public
gratitude; and perhaps we shall conclude, that the Mogul emperor
was rather the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. 1. If
some partial disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by
the sword of Timour, the remedy was far more pernicious than the
disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and discord, the petty
tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but whole nations
were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. The ground
which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by
his abominable trophies, by columns, or pyramids, of human heads.

Astracan, Carizme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus,
Boursa, Smyrna, and a thousand others, were sacked, or burnt, or
utterly destroyed, in his presence, and by his troops: and
perhaps his conscience would have been startled, if a priest or
philosopher had dared to number the millions of victims whom he
had sacrificed to the establishment of peace and order. ^69 2.
His most destructive wars were rather inroads than conquests. He
invaded Turkestan, Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia,
Armenia, and Georgia, without a hope or a desire of preserving
those distant provinces. From thence he departed laden with
spoil; but he left behind him neither troops to awe the
contumacious, nor magistrates to protect the obedient, natives.
When he had broken the fabric of their ancient government, he
abandoned them to the evils which his invasion had aggravated or
caused; nor were these evils compensated by any present or
possible benefits. 3. The kingdoms of Transoxiana and Persia
were the proper field which he labored to cultivate and adorn, as
the perpetual inheritance of his family. But his peaceful labors
were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the absence of
the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges,
his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their
duty. The public and private injuries were poorly redressed by
the tardy rigor of inquiry and punishment; and we must be content
to praise the Institutions of Timour, as the specious idea of a
perfect monarchy. 4. Whatsoever might be the blessings of his
administration, they evaporated with his life. To reign, rather
than to govern, was the ambition of his children and
grandchildren; ^70 the enemies of each other and of the people.
A fragment of the empire was upheld with some glory by Sharokh,
his youngest son; but after his decease, the scene was again
involved in darkness and blood; and before the end of a century,
Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbeks from the
north, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race
of Timour would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in
the fifth degree, had not fled before the Uzbek arms to the
conquest of Hindostan. His successors (the great Moguls ^71)
extended their sway from the mountains of Cashmir to Cape
Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the
reign of Aurungzebe, their empire had been dissolved; their
treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the
richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of
Christian merchants, of a remote island in the Northern Ocean.
[Footnote 66: From Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 96. The bright or
softer colors are borrowed from Sherefeddin, D'Herbelot, and the
Institutions.]
[Footnote 67: 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!]

[Footnote 68: See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 15, 25. Arabshah tom.
ii. c. 96, p. 801, 803) approves the impiety of Timour and the
Moguls, who almost preferred to the Koran the Yacsa, or Law of
Zingis, (cui Deus male dicat;) nor will he believe that Sharokh
had abolished the use and authority of that Pagan code.]
[Footnote 69: Besides the bloody passages of this narrative, I
must refer to an anticipation in the third volume of the Decline
and Fall, which in a single note (p. 234, note 25) accumulates
nearly 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.]

[Footnote 70: 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.]

[Footnote 71: Shah Allum, the present Mogul, is in the fourteenth
degree from Timour, by Miran Shah, his third son. See the second
volume of Dow's History of Hindostan.]

     Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy. The
massy trunk was bent to the ground, but no sooner did the
hurricane pass away, than it again rose with fresh vigor and more
lively vegetation. When Timour, in every sense, had evacuated
Anatolia, he left the cities without a palace, a treasure, or a
king. The open country was overspread with hordes of shepherds
and robbers of Tartar or Turkman origin; the recent conquests of
Bajazet were restored to the emirs, one of whom, in base revenge,
demolished his sepulchre; and his five sons were eager, by civil
discord, to consume the remnant of their patrimony. I shall
enumerate their names in the order of their age and actions. ^72
1. It is doubtful, whether I relate the story of the true
Mustapha, or of an impostor who personated that lost prince. He
fought by his father's side in the battle of Angora: but when the
captive sultan was permitted to inquire for his children, Mousa
alone could be found; and the Turkish historians, the slaves of
the triumphant faction, are persuaded that his brother was
confounded among the slain. If Mustapha escaped from that
disastrous field, he was concealed twelve years from his friends
and enemies; till he emerged in Thessaly, and was hailed by a
numerous party, as the son and successor of Bajazet. His first
defeat would have been his last, had not the true, or false,
Mustapha been saved by the Greeks, and restored, after the
decease of his brother Mahomet, to liberty and empire. A
degenerate mind seemed to argue his spurious birth; and if, on
the throne of Adrianople, he was adored as the Ottoman sultan,
his flight, his fetters, and an ignominious gibbet, delivered the
impostor to popular contempt. A similar character and claim was
asserted by several rival pretenders: thirty persons are said to
have suffered under the name of Mustapha; and these frequent
executions may perhaps insinuate, that the Turkish court was not
perfectly secure of the death of the lawful prince. 2. After his
father's captivity, Isa ^73 reigned for some time in the
neighborhood of Angora, Sinope, and the Black Sea; and his
ambassadors were dismissed from the presence of Timour with fair
promises and honorable gifts. But their master was soon deprived
of his province and life, by a jealous brother, the sovereign of
Amasia; and the final event suggested a pious allusion, that the
law of Moses and Jesus, of Isa and Mousa, had been abrogated by
the greater Mahomet. 3. Soliman is not numbered in the list of
the Turkish emperors: yet he checked the victorious progress of
the Moguls; and after their departure, united for a while the
thrones of Adrianople and Boursa. In war he was brave, active,
and fortuntae; his courage was softened by clemency; but it was
likewise inflamed by presumption, and corrupted by intemperance
and idleness. He relaxed the nerves of discipline, in a
government where either the subject or the sovereign must
continually tremble: his vices alienated the chiefs of the army
and the law; and his daily drunkenness, so contemptible in a
prince and a man, was doubly odious in a disciple of the prophet.

In the slumber of intoxication he was surprised by his brother
Mousa; and as he fled from Adrianople towards the Byzantine
capital, Soliman was overtaken and slain in a bath, ^* after a
reign of seven years and ten months. 4. The investiture of Mousa
degraded him as the slave of the Moguls: his tributary kingdom of
Anatolia was confined within a narrow limit, nor could his broken
militia and empty treasury contend with the hardy and veteran
bands of the sovereign of Romania. Mousa fled in disguise from
the palace of Boursa; traversed the Propontis in an open boat;
wandered over the Walachian and Servian hills; and after some
vain attempts, ascended the throne of Adrianople, so recently
stained with the blood of Soliman. In a reign of three years and
a half, his troops were victorious against the Christians of
Hungary and the Morea; but Mousa was ruined by his timorous
disposition and unseasonable clemency. After resigning the
sovereignty of Anatolia, he fell a victim to the perfidy of his
ministers, and the superior ascendant of his brother Mahomet. 5.
The final victory of Mahomet was the just recompense of his
prudence and moderation. Before his father's captivity, the
royal youth had been intrusted with the government of Amasia,
thirty days' journey from Constantinople, and the Turkish
frontier against the Christians of Trebizond and Georgia. The
castle, in Asiatic warfare, was esteemed impregnable; and the
city of Amasia, ^74 which is equally divided by the River Iris,
rises on either side in the form of an amphitheatre, and
represents on a smaller scale the image of Bagdad. In his rapid
career, Timour appears to have overlooked this obscure and
contumacious angle of Anatolia; and Mahomet, without provoking
the conqueror, maintained his silent independence, and chased
from the province the last stragglers of the Tartar host. ^! He
relieved himself from the dangerous neighborhood of Isa; but in
the contests of their more powerful brethren his firm neutrality
was respected; till, after the triumph of Mousa, he stood forth
the heir and avenger of the unfortunate Soliman. Mahomet
obtained Anatolia by treaty, and Romania by arms; and the soldier
who presented him with the head of Mousa was rewarded as the
benefactor of his king and country. The eight years of his sole
and peaceful reign were usefully employed in banishing the vices
of civil discord, and restoring on a firmer basis the fabric of
the Ottoman monarchy. His last care was the choice of two
viziers, Bajazet and Ibrahim, ^75 who might guide the youth of
his son Amurath; and such was their union and prudence, that they
concealed above forty days the emperor's death, till the arrival
of his successor in the palace of Boursa. A new war was kindled
in Europe by the prince, or impostor, Mustapha; the first vizier
lost his army and his head; but the more fortunate Ibrahim, whose
name and family are still revered, extinguished the last
pretender to the throne of Bajazet, and closed the scene of
domestic hostility.

[Footnote 72: 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.]
[Footnote 73: 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.)]

[Footnote *: He escaped from the bath, and fled towards
Constantinople. Five mothers from a village, Dugundschi, whose
inhabitants had suffered severely from the exactions of his
officers, recognized and followed him. Soliman shot two of them,
the others discharged their arrows in their turn the sultan fell
and his head was cut off. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 349. - M]
[Footnote 74: Arabshah, loc. citat. Abulfeda, Geograph. tab.
xvii. p. 302. Busbequius, epist. i. p. 96, 97, in Itinere C. P.
et Amasiano.]
[Footnote !: See his nine battles. V. Hammer, p. 339. - M.]
[Footnote 75: 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.)]

     In these conflicts, the wisest Turks, and indeed the body of
the nation, were strongly attached to the unity of the empire;
and Romania and Anatolia, so often torn asunder by private
ambition, were animated by a strong and invincible tendency of
cohesion. Their efforts might have instructed the Christian
powers; and had they occupied, with a confederate fleet, the
Straits of Gallipoli, the Ottomans, at least in Europe, must have
been speedily annihilated. But the schism of the West, and the
factions and wars of France and England, diverted the Latins from
this generous enterprise: they enjoyed the present respite,
without a thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a
momentary interest to serve the common enemy of their religion.
A colony of Genoese, ^76 which had been planted at Phocaea ^77 on
the Ionian coast, was enriched by the lucrative monopoly of alum;
^78 and their tranquillity, under the Turkish empire, was secured
by the annual payment of tribute. In the last civil war of the
Ottomans, the Genoese governor, Adorno, a bold and ambitious
youth, embraced the party of Amurath; and undertook, with seven
stout galleys, to transport him from Asia to Europe. The sultan
and five hundred guards embarked on board the admiral's ship;
which was manned by eight hundred of the bravest Franks. His
life and liberty were in their hands; nor can we, without
reluctance, applaud the fidelity of Adorno, who, in the midst of
the passage, knelt before him, and gratefully accepted a
discharge of his arrears of tribute. They landed in sight of
Mustapha and Gallipoli; two thousand Italians, armed with lances
and battle-axes, attended Amurath to the conquest of Adrianople;
and this venal service was soon repaid by the ruin of the
commerce and colony of Phocaea.

[Footnote 76: See Pachymer, (l. v. c. 29,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. ii. c. 1,) 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 Phocaea, he mentions the English; an early evidence of
Mediterranean trade.]

[Footnote 77: For the spirit of navigation, and freedom of
ancient Phocaea, or rather the Phocaeans, consult the first book
of Herodotus, and the Geographical Index of his last and learned
French translator, M. Larcher (tom. vii. p. 299.)]

[Footnote 78: Phocaea 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 Phocaea, the
Genoese, in 1459, found that useful mineral in the Isle of
Ischia, (Ismael. Bouillaud, ad Ducam, c. 25.)]

     If Timour had generously marched at the request, and to the
relief, of the Greek emperor, he might be entitled to the praise
and gratitude of the Christians. ^79 But a Mussulman, who carried
into Georgia the sword of persecution, and respected the holy
warfare of Bajazet, was not disposed to pity or succor the
idolaters of Europe. The Tartar followed the impulse of
ambition; and the deliverance of Constantinople was the
accidental consequence. When Manuel abdicated the government, it
was his prayer, rather than his hope, that the ruin of the church
and state might be delayed beyond his unhappy days; and after his
return from a western pilgrimage, he expected every hour the news
of the sad catastrophe. On a sudden, he was astonished and
rejoiced by the intelligence of the retreat, the overthrow, and
the captivity of the Ottoman. Manuel ^80 immediately sailed from
Modon in the Morea; ascended the throne of Constantinople, and
dismissed his blind competitor to an easy exile in the Isle of
Lesbos. The ambassadors of the son of Bajazet were soon
introduced to his presence; but their pride was fallen, their
tone was modest: they were awed by the just apprehension, lest
the Greeks should open to the Moguls the gates of Europe.
Soliman saluted the emperor by the name of father; solicited at
his hands the government or gift of Romania; and promised to
deserve his favor by inviolable friendship, and the restitution
of Thessalonica, with the most important places along the
Strymon, the Propontis, and the Black Sea. The alliance of
Soliman exposed the emperor to the enmity and revenge of Mousa:
the Turks appeared in arms before the gates of Constantinople;
but they were repulsed by sea and land; and unless the city was
guarded by some foreign mercenaries, the Greeks must have
wondered at their own triumph. But, instead of prolonging the
division of the Ottoman powers, the policy or passion of Manuel
was tempted to assist the most formidable of the sons of Bajazet.

He concluded a treaty with Mahomet, whose progress was checked by
the insuperable barrier of Gallipoli: the sultan and his troops
were transported over the Bosphorus; he was hospitably
entertained in the capital; and his successful sally was the
first step to the conquest of Romania. The ruin was suspended by
the prudence and moderation of the conqueror: he faithfully
discharged his own obligations and those of Soliman, respected
the laws of gratitude and peace; and left the emperor guardian of
his two younger sons, in the vain hope of saving them from the
jealous cruelty of their brother Amurath. But the execution of
his last testament would have offended the national honor and
religion; and the divan unanimously pronounced, that the royal
youths should never be abandoned to the custody and education of
a Christian dog. On this refusal, the Byzantine councils were
divided; but the age and caution of Manuel yielded to the
presumption of his son John; and they unsheathed a dangerous
weapon of revenge, by dismissing the true or false Mustapha, who
had long been detained as a captive and hostage, and for whose
maintenance they received an annual pension of three hundred
thousand aspers. ^81 At the door of his prison, Mustapha
subscribed to every proposal; and the keys of Gallipoli, or
rather of Europe, were stipulated as the price of his
deliverance. But no sooner was he seated on the throne of
Romania, than he dismissed the Greek ambassadors with a smile of
contempt, declaring, in a pious tone, that, at the day of
judgment, he would rather answer for the violation of an oath,
than for the surrender of a Mussulman city into the hands of the
infidels. The emperor was at once the enemy of the two rivals;
from whom he had sustained, and to whom he had offered, an
injury; and the victory of Amurath was followed, in the ensuing
spring, by the siege of Constantinople. ^82

[Footnote 79: The writer who has the most abused this fabulous
generosity, is our ingenious Sir William Temple, (his Works, vol.
iii. p. 349, 350, octavo 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.]

[Footnote 80: 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.]
[Footnote 81: The Turkish asper 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.)

     Note: According to Von Hammer, this calculation is much too
low. The asper was a century before the time of which writes, the
tenth part of a ducat; for the same tribute which the Byzantine
writers state at 300,000 aspers the Ottomans state at 30,000
ducats, about 15000l Note, vol. p. 636. - M]

[Footnote 82: 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.)]

     The religious merit of subduing the city of the Caesars
attracted from Asia a crowd of volunteers, who aspired to the
crown of martyrdom: their military ardor was inflamed by the
promise of rich spoils and beautiful females; and the sultan's
ambition was consecrated by the presence and prediction of Seid
Bechar, a descendant of the prophet, ^83 who arrived in the camp,
on a mule, with a venerable train of five hundred disciples. But
he might blush, if a fanatic could blush, at the failure of his
assurances. The strength of the walls resisted an army of two
hundred thousand Turks; their assaults were repelled by the
sallies of the Greeks and their foreign mercenaries; the old
resources of defence were opposed to the new engines of attack;
and the enthusiasm of the dervis, who was snatched to heaven in
visionary converse with Mahomet, was answered by the credulity of
the Christians, who beheld the Virgin Mary, in a violet garment,
walking on the rampart and animating their courage. ^84 After a
siege of two months, Amurath was recalled to Boursa by a domestic
revolt, which had been kindled by Greek treachery, and was soon
extinguished by the death of a guiltless brother. While he led
his Janizaries to new conquests in Europe and Asia, the Byzantine
empire was indulged in a servile and precarious respite of thirty
years. Manuel sank into the grave; and John Palaeologus was
permitted to reign, for an annual tribute of three hundred
thousand aspers, and the dereliction of almost all that he held
beyond the suburbs of Constantinople.
[Footnote 83: 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.]

[Footnote 84: For this miraculous apparition, Cananus appeals to
the Mussulman saint; but who will bear testimony for Seid
Bechar?]

     In the establishment and restoration of the Turkish empire,
the first merit must doubtless be assigned to the personal
qualities of the sultans; since, in human life, the most
important scenes will depend on the character of a single actor.
By some shades of wisdom and virtue, they may be discriminated
from each other; but, except in a single instance, a period of
nine reigns, and two hundred and sixty-five years, is occupied,
from the elevation of Othman to the death of Soliman, by a rare
series of warlike and active princes, who impressed their
subjects with obedience and their enemies with terror. Instead
of the slothful luxury of the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were
educated in the council and the field: from early youth they were
intrusted by their fathers with the command of provinces and
armies; and this manly institution, which was often productive of
civil war, must have essentially contributed to the discipline
and vigor of the monarchy. The Ottomans cannot style themselves,
like the Arabian caliphs, the descendants or successors of the
apostle of God; and the kindred which they claim with the Tartar
khans of the house of Zingis appears to be founded in flattery
rather than in truth. ^85 Their origin is obscure; but their
sacred and indefeasible right, which no time can erase, and no
violence can infringe, was soon and unalterably implanted in the
minds of their subjects. A weak or vicious sultan may be deposed
and strangled; but his inheritance devolves to an infant or an
idiot: nor has the most daring rebel presumed to ascend the
throne of his lawful sovereign. ^86

[Footnote 85: See Ricaut, (l. i. c. 13.) The Turkish sultans
assume the title of khan. Yet Abulghazi is ignorant of his
Ottoman cousins.]
[Footnote 86: The third grand vizier of the name of Kiuperli, who
was slain at the battle of Salankanen 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 Militaire, &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.]

     While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually
subverted by a crafty vizier in the palace, or a victorious
general in the camp, the Ottoman succession has been confirmed by
the practice of five centuries, and is now incorporated with the
vital principle of the Turkish nation.
     To the spirit and constitution of that nation, a strong and
singular influence may, however, be ascribed. The primitive
subjects of Othman were the four hundred families of wandering
Turkmans, who had followed his ancestors from the Oxus to the
Sangar; and the plains of Anatolia are still covered with the
white and black tents of their rustic brethren. But this
original drop was dissolved in the mass of voluntary and
vanquished subjects, who, under the name of Turks, are united by
the common ties of religion, language, and manners. In the
cities, from Erzeroum to Belgrade, that national appellation is
common to all the Moslems, the first and most honorable
inhabitants; but they have abandoned, at least in Romania, the
villages, and the cultivation of the land, to the Christian
peasants. In the vigorous age of the Ottoman government, the
Turks were themselves excluded from all civil and military
honors; and a servile class, an artificial people, was raised by
the discipline of education to obey, to conquer, and to command.
^87 From the time of Orchan and the first Amurath, the sultans
were persuaded that a government of the sword must be renewed in
each generation with new soldiers; and that such soldiers must be
sought, not in effeminate Asia, but among the hardy and warlike
natives of Europe. The provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, Albania,
Bulgaria, and Servia, became the perpetual seminary of the
Turkish army; and when the royal fifth of the captives was
diminished by conquest, an inhuman tax of the fifth child, or of
every fifth year, was rigorously levied on the Christian
families. At the age of twelve or fourteen years, the most
robust youths were torn from their parents; their names were
enrolled in a book; and from that moment they were clothed,
taught, and maintained, for the public service. According to the
promise of their appearance, they were selected for the royal
schools of Boursa, Pera, and Adrianople, intrusted to the care of
the bashaws, or dispersed in the houses of the Anatolian
peasantry. It was the first care of their masters to instruct
them in the Turkish language: their bodies were exercised by
every labor that could fortify their strength; they learned to
wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with the bow, and afterwards
with the musket; till they were drafted into the chambers and
companies of the Janizaries, and severely trained in the military
or monastic discipline of the order. The youths most conspicuous
for birth, talents, and beauty, were admitted into the inferior
class of Agiamoglans, or the more liberal rank of Ichoglans, of
whom the former were attached to the palace, and the latter to
the person, of the prince. In four successive schools, under the
rod of the white eunuchs, the arts of horsemanship and of darting
the javelin were their daily exercise, while those of a more
studious cast applied themselves to the study of the Koran, and
the knowledge of the Arabic and Persian tongues. As they
advanced in seniority and merit, they were gradually dismissed to
military, civil, and even ecclesiastical employments: the longer
their stay, the higher was their expectation; till, at a mature
period, they were admitted into the number of the forty agas, who
stood before the sultan, and were promoted by his choice to the
government of provinces and the first honors of the empire. ^88
Such a mode of institution was admirably adapted to the form and
spirit of a despotic monarchy. The ministers and generals were,
in the strictest sense, the slaves of the emperor, to whose
bounty they were indebted for their instruction and support.
When they left the seraglio, and suffered their beards to grow as
the symbol of enfranchisement, they found themselves in an
important office, without faction or friendship, without parents
and without heirs, dependent on the hand which had raised them
from the dust, and which, on the slightest displeasure, could
break in pieces these statues of glass, as they were aptly termed
by the Turkish proverb. ^89 In the slow and painful steps of
education, their characters and talents were unfolded to a
discerning eye: the man, naked and alone, was reduced to the
standard of his personal merit; and, if the sovereign had wisdom
to choose, he possessed a pure and boundless liberty of choice.
The Ottoman candidates were trained by the virtues of abstinence
to those of action; by the habits of submission to those of
command. A similar spirit was diffused among the troops; and
their silence and sobriety, their patience and modesty, have
extorted the reluctant praise of their Christian enemies. ^90 Nor
can the victory appear doubtful, if we compare the discipline and
exercise of the Janizaries with the pride of birth, the
independence of chivalry, the ignorance of the new levies, the
mutinous temper of the veterans, and the vices of intemperance
and disorder, which so long contaminated the armies of Europe.

[Footnote 87: Chalcondyles (l. v.) and Ducas (c. 23) exhibit the
rude lineament of the Ottoman policy, and the transmutation of
Christian children into Turkish soldiers.]

[Footnote 88: This sketch of the Turkish education and discipline
is chiefly borrowed from Ricaut's State of the Ottoman Empire,
the Stato Militaire del' Imperio Ottomano of Count Marsigli, (in
Hava, 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.]
[Footnote 89: From the series of cxv. viziers, till the siege of
Vienna, (Marsigli, p. 13,) their place may be valued at three
years and a half purchase.]

[Footnote 90: See the entertaining and judicious letters of
Busbequius.]
     The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire, and the
adjacent kingdoms, would have been some more powerful weapon,
some discovery in the art of war, that would give them a decisive
superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their
hands; such a discovery had been made in the critical moment of
their fate. The chemists of China or Europe had found, by casual
or elaborate experiments, that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur,
and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, a tremendous
explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force were
compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be
expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise
aera of the invention and application of gunpowder ^91 is
involved in doubtful traditions and equivocal language; yet we
may clearly discern, that it was known before the middle of the
fourteenth century; and that before the end of the same, the use
of artillery in battles and sieges, by sea and land, was familiar
to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and England. ^92
The priority of nations is of small account; none could derive
any exclusive benefit from their previous or superior knowledge;
and in the common improvement, they stood on the same level of
relative power and military science. Nor was it possible to
circumscribe the secret within the pale of the church; it was
disclosed to the Turks by the treachery of apostates and the
selfish policy of rivals; and the sultans had sense to adopt, and
wealth to reward, the talents of a Christian engineer. The
Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as
his preceptors; and it was probably by their hands that his
cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople. ^93
The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful; but in the general
warfare of the age, the advantage was on their side, who were
most commonly the assailants: for a while the proportion of the
attack and defence was suspended; and this thundering artillery
was pointed against the walls and towers which had been erected
only to resist the less potent engines of antiquity. By the
Venetians, the use of gunpowder was communicated without reproach
to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their allies against the
Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities
of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to his
easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast
the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow
and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace,
a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the
folly of mankind.

[Footnote 91: The first and second volumes of Dr. Watson's
Chemical Essays contain two valuable discourses on the discovery
and composition of gunpowder.]

[Footnote 92: 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. Yet Muratori (Antiquit. Italiae Medii
Aevi, tom. ii. Dissert. xxvi. p. 514, 515) has produced a
decisive passage from Petrarch, (De Remediis utriusque Fortunae
Dialog.,) who, before the year 1344, execrates this terrestrial
thunder, nuper rara, nunc communis.

     Note: Mr. Hallam makes the following observation on the
objection thrown our by Gibbon: "The positive testimony of
Villani, who died within two years afterwards, and had manifestly
obtained much information as to the great events passing in
France, cannot be rejected. He ascribes a material effect to the
cannon of Edward, Colpi delle bombarde, which I suspect, from his
strong expressions, had not been employed before, except against
stone walls. It seems, he says, as if God thundered con grande
uccisione di genti e efondamento di cavalli." Middle Ages, vol.
i. p. 510. - M.]

[Footnote 93: The Turkish cannon, which Ducas (c. 30) first
introduces before Belgrade, (A.D. 1436,) is mentioned by
Chalcondyles (l. v. p. 123) in 1422, at the siege of
Constantinople.]

Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.

Part I.

     Applications Of The Eastern Emperors To The Popes. - Visits
To The West, Of John The First, Manuel, And John The Second,
Palaeologus. - Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches, Promoted By
The Council Of Basil, And Concluded At Ferrara And Florence. -
State Of Literature At Constantinople. - Its Revival In Italy By
The Greek Fugitives. - Curiosity And Emulation Of The Latins.

     In the four last centuries of the Greek emperors, their
friendly or hostile aspect towards the pope and the Latins may be
observed as the thermometer of their prosperity or distress; as
the scale of the rise and fall of the Barbarian dynasties. When
the Turks of the house of Seljuk pervaded Asia, and threatened
Constantinople, we have seen, at the council of Placentia, the
suppliant ambassadors of Alexius imploring the protection of the
common father of the Christians. No sooner had the arms of the
French pilgrims removed the sultan from Nice to Iconium, than the
Greek princes resumed, or avowed, their genuine hatred and
contempt for the schismatics of the West, which precipitated the
first downfall of their empire. The date of the Mogul invasion
is marked in the soft and charitable language of John Vataces.
After the recovery of Constantinople, the throne of the first
Palaeologus was encompassed by foreign and domestic enemies; as
long as the sword of Charles was suspended over his head, he
basely courted the favor of the Roman pontiff; and sacrificed to
the present danger his faith, his virtue, and the affection of
his subjects. On the decease of Michael, the prince and people
asserted the independence of their church, and the purity of
their creed: the elder Andronicus neither feared nor loved the
Latins; in his last distress, pride was the safeguard of
superstition; nor could he decently retract in his age the firm
and orthodox declarations of his youth. His grandson, the younger
Andronicus, was less a slave in his temper and situation; and the
conquest of Bithynia by the Turks admonished him to seek a
temporal and spiritual alliance with the Western princes. After
a separation and silence of fifty years, a secret agent, the monk
Barlaam, was despatched to Pope Benedict the Twelfth; and his
artful instructions appear to have been drawn by the master-hand
of the great domestic. ^1 "Most holy father," was he commissioned
to say, "the emperor is not less desirous than yourself of a
union between the two churches: but in this delicate transaction,
he is obliged to respect his own dignity and the prejudices of
his subjects. The ways of union are twofold; force and
persuasion. Of force, the inefficacy has been already tried;
since the Latins have subdued the empire, without subduing the
minds, of the Greeks. The method of persuasion, though slow, is
sure and permanent. A deputation of thirty or forty of our
doctors would probably agree with those of the Vatican, in the
love of truth and the unity of belief; but on their return, what
would be the use, the recompense, of such an agreement? the
scorn of their brethren, and the reproaches of a blind and
obstinate nation. Yet that nation is accustomed to reverence the
general councils, which have fixed the articles of our faith; and
if they reprobate the decrees of Lyons, it is because the Eastern
churches were neither heard nor represented in that arbitrary
meeting. For this salutary end, it will be expedient, and even
necessary, that a well-chosen legate should be sent into Greece,
to convene the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch,
and Jerusalem; and, with their aid, to prepare a free and
universal synod. But at this moment," continued the subtle
agent, "the empire is assaulted and endangered by the Turks, who
have occupied four of the greatest cities of Anatolia. The
Christian inhabitants have expressed a wish of returning to their
allegiance and religion; but the forces and revenues of the
emperor are insufficient for their deliverance: and the Roman
legate must be accompanied, or preceded, by an army of Franks, to
expel the infidels, and open a way to the holy sepulchre." If the
suspicious Latins should require some pledge, some previous
effect of the sincerity of the Greeks, the answers of Barlaam
were perspicuous and rational. "1. A general synod can alone
consummate the union of the churches; nor can such a synod be
held till the three Oriental patriarchs, and a great number of
bishops, are enfranchised from the Mahometan yoke. 2. The Greeks
are alienated by a long series of oppression and injury: they
must be reconciled by some act of brotherly love, some effectual
succor, which may fortify the authority and arguments of the
emperor, and the friends of the union. 3. If some difference of
faith or ceremonies should be found incurable, the Greeks,
however, are the disciples of Christ; and the Turks are the
common enemies of the Christian name. The Armenians, Cyprians,
and Rhodians, are equally attacked; and it will become the piety
of the French princes to draw their swords in the general defence
of religion. 4. Should the subjects of Andronicus be treated as
the worst of schismatics, of heretics, of pagans, a judicious
policy may yet instruct the powers of the West to embrace a
useful ally, to uphold a sinking empire, to guard the confines of
Europe; and rather to join the Greeks against the Turks, than to
expect the union of the Turkish arms with the troops and
treasures of captive Greece." The reasons, the offers, and the
demands, of Andronicus were eluded with cold and stately
indifference. The kings of France and Naples declined the
dangers and glory of a crusade; the pope refused to call a new
synod to determine old articles of faith; and his regard for the
obsolete claims of the Latin emperor and clergy engaged him to
use an offensive superscription, - "To the moderator ^2 of the
Greeks, and the persons who style themselves the patriarchs of
the Eastern churches." For such an embassy, a time and character
less propitious could not easily have been found. Benedict the
Twelfth ^3 was a dull peasant, perplexed with scruples, and
immersed in sloth and wine: his pride might enrich with a third
crown the papal tiara, but he was alike unfit for the regal and
the pastoral office.

[Footnote 1: This curious instruction was transcribed (I believe)
from the Vatican archives, by Odoricus Raynaldus, in his
Continuation of the Annals of Baronius, (Romae, 1646 - 1677, in
x. volumes in folio.) I have contented myself with the Abbe
Fleury, (Hist. Ecclesiastique. tom. xx. p. 1 - 8,) whose
abstracts I have always found to be clear, accurate, and
impartial.]
[Footnote 2: 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.]

[Footnote 3: The first epistle (sine titulo) of Petrarch exposes
the danger of the bark, and the incapacity of the pilot. Haec
inter, vino madidus, aeve gravis, ac soporifero rore perfusus,
jamjam nutitat, dormitat, jam somno praeceps, 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 Ghibe lines, by
Papists and Protestants, (see Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque,
tom. i. p. 259, ii. not. xv. p. 13 - 16.) He gave occasion to the
saying, Bibamus papaliter.]

     After the decease of Andronicus, while the Greeks were
distracted by intestine war, they could not presume to agitate a
general union of the Christians. But as soon as Cantacuzene had
subdued and pardoned his enemies, he was anxious to justify, or
at least to extenuate, the introduction of the Turks into Europe,
and the nuptials of his daughter with a Mussulman prince. Two
officers of state, with a Latin interpreter, were sent in his
name to the Roman court, which was transplanted to Avignon, on
the banks of the Rhone, during a period of seventy years: they
represented the hard necessity which had urged him to embrace the
alliance of the miscreants, and pronounced by his command the
specious and edifying sounds of union and crusade. Pope Clement
the Sixth, ^4 the successor of Benedict, received them with
hospitality and honor, acknowledged the innocence of their
sovereign, excused his distress, applauded his magnanimity, and
displayed a clear knowledge of the state and revolutions of the
Greek empire, which he had imbibed from the honest accounts of a
Savoyard lady, an attendant of the empress Anne. ^5 If Clement
was ill endowed with the virtues of a priest, he possessed,
however, the spirit and magnificence of a prince, whose liberal
hand distributed benefices and kingdoms with equal facility.
Under his reign Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure: in his
youth he had surpassed the licentiousness of a baron; and the
palace, nay, the bed-chamber of the pope, was adorned, or
polluted, by the visits of his female favorites. The wars of
France and England were adverse to the holy enterprise; but his
vanity was amused by the splendid idea; and the Greek ambassadors
returned with two Latin bishops, the ministers of the pontiff.
On their arrival at Constantinople, the emperor and the nuncios
admired each other's piety and eloquence; and their frequent
conferences were filled with mutual praises and promises, by
which both parties were amused, and neither could be deceived.
"I am delighted," said the devout Cantacuzene, "with the project
of our holy war, which must redound to my personal glory, as well
as to the public benefit of Christendom. My dominions will give
a free passage to the armies of France: my troops, my galleys, my
treasures, shall be consecrated to the common cause; and happy
would be my fate, could I deserve and obtain the crown of
martyrdom. Words are insufficient to express the ardor with
which I sigh for the reunion of the scattered members of Christ.
If my death could avail, I would gladly present my sword and my
neck: if the spiritual phoenix could arise from my ashes, I would
erect the pile, and kindle the flame with my own hands." Yet the
Greek emperor presumed to observe, that the articles of faith
which divided the two churches had been introduced by the pride
and precipitation of the Latins: he disclaimed the servile and
arbitrary steps of the first Palaeologus; and firmly declared,
that he would never submit his conscience unless to the decrees
of a free and universal synod. "The situation of the times,"
continued he, "will not allow the pope and myself to meet either
at Rome or Constantinople; but some maritime city may be chosen
on the verge of the two empires, to unite the bishops, and to
instruct the faithful, of the East and West." The nuncios seemed
content with the proposition; and Cantacuzene affects to deplore
the failure of his hopes, which were soon overthrown by the death
of Clement, and the different temper of his successor. His own
life was prolonged, but it was prolonged in a cloister; and,
except by his prayers, the humble monk was incapable of directing
the counsels of his pupil or the state. ^6
[Footnote 4: 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 cavallaresco, poco religioso; Fleury,
(Hist. Eccles. tom. xx. p. 126;) and the Vie de Petrarque, (tom.
ii. p. 42 - 45.) The abbe de Sade treats him with the most
indulgence; but he is a gentleman as well as a priest.]

[Footnote 5: 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.)]

[Footnote 6: 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.]

     Yet of all the Byzantine princes, that pupil, John
Palaeologus, was the best disposed to embrace, to believe, and to
obey, the shepherd of the West. His mother, Anne of Savoy, was
baptized in the bosom of the Latin church: her marriage with
Andronicus imposed a change of name, of apparel, and of worship,
but her heart was still faithful to her country and religion: she
had formed the infancy of her son, and she governed the emperor,
after his mind, or at least his stature, was enlarged to the size
of man. In the first year of his deliverance and restoration,
the Turks were still masters of the Hellespont; the son of
Cantacuzene was in arms at Adrianople; and Palaeologus could
depend neither on himself nor on his people. By his mother's
advice, and in the hope of foreign aid, he abjured the rights
both of the church and state; and the act of slavery, ^7
subscribed in purple ink, and sealed with the golden bull, was
privately intrusted to an Italian agent. The first article of
the treaty is an oath of fidelity and obedience to Innocent the
Sixth and his successors, the supreme pontiffs of the Roman and
Catholic church. The emperor promises to entertain with due
reverence their legates and nuncios; to assign a palace for their
residence, and a temple for their worship; and to deliver his
second son Manuel as the hostage of his faith. For these
condescensions he requires a prompt succor of fifteen galleys,
with five hundred men at arms, and a thousand archers, to serve
against his Christian and Mussulman enemies. Palaeologus engages
to impose on his clergy and people the same spiritual yoke; but
as the resistance of the Greeks might be justly foreseen, he
adopts the two effectual methods of corruption and education.
The legate was empowered to distribute the vacant benefices among
the ecclesiastics who should subscribe the creed of the Vatican:
three schools were instituted to instruct the youth of
Constantinople in the language and doctrine of the Latins; and
the name of Andronicus, the heir of the empire, was enrolled as
the first student. Should he fail in the measures of persuasion
or force, Palaeologus declares himself unworthy to reign;
transferred to the pope all regal and paternal authority; and
invests Innocent with full power to regulate the family, the
government, and the marriage, of his son and successor. But this
treaty was neither executed nor published: the Roman galleys were
as vain and imaginary as the submission of the Greeks; and it was
only by the secrecy that their sovereign escaped the dishonor of
this fruitless humiliation.
[Footnote 7: See this ignominious treaty in Fleury, (Hist.
Eccles. p. 151 -  154,) from Raynaldus, who drew it from the
Vatican archives. It was not  worth the trouble of a pious
forgery.]

     The tempest of the Turkish arms soon burst on his head; and
after the loss of Adrianople and Romania, he was enclosed in his
capital, the vassal of the haughty Amurath, with the miserable
hope of being the last devoured by the savage. In this abject
state, Palaeologus embraced the resolution of embarking for
Venice, and casting himself at the feet of the pope: he was the
first of the Byzantine princes who had ever visited the unknown
regions of the West, yet in them alone he could seek consolation
or relief; and with less violation of his dignity he might appear
in the sacred college than at the Ottoman Porte. After a long
absence, the Roman pontiffs were returning from Avignon to the
banks of the Tyber: Urban the Fifth, ^8 of a mild and virtuous
character, encouraged or allowed the pilgrimage of the Greek
prince; and, within the same year, enjoyed the glory of receiving
in the Vatican the two Imperial shadows who represented the
majesty of Constantine and Charlemagne. In this suppliant visit,
the emperor of Constantinople, whose vanity was lost in his
distress, gave more than could be expected of empty sounds and
formal submissions. A previous trial was imposed; and, in the
presence of four cardinals, he acknowledged, as a true Catholic,
the supremacy of the pope, and the double procession of the Holy
Ghost. After this purification, he was introduced to a public
audience in the church of St. Peter: Urban, in the midst of the
cardinals, was seated on his throne; the Greek monarch, after
three genuflections, devoutly kissed the feet, the hands, and at
length the mouth, of the holy father, who celebrated high mass in
his presence, allowed him to lead the bridle of his mule, and
treated him with a sumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The
entertainment of Palaeologus was friendly and honorable; yet some
difference was observed between the emperors of the East and
West; ^9 nor could the former be entitled to the rare privilege
of chanting the gospel in the rank of a deacon. ^10 In favor of
his proselyte, Urban strove to rekindle the zeal of the French
king and the other powers of the West; but he found them cold in
the general cause, and active only in their domestic quarrels.
The last hope of the emperor was in an English mercenary, John
Hawkwood, ^11 or Acuto, who, with a band of adventurers, the
white brotherhood, had ravaged Italy from the Alps to Calabria;
sold his services to the hostile states; and incurred a just
excommunication by shooting his arrows against the papal
residence. A special license was granted to negotiate with the
outlaw, but the forces, or the spirit, of Hawkwood, were unequal
to the enterprise: and it was for the advantage, perhaps, of
Palaeologus to be disappointed of succor, that must have been
costly, that could not be effectual, and which might have been
dangerous. ^12 The disconsolate Greek ^13 prepared for his
return, but even his return was impeded by a most ignominious
obstacle. On his arrival at Venice, he had borrowed large sums
at exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty, his creditors
were impatient, and his person was detained as the best security
for the payment. His eldest son, Andronicus, the regent of
Constantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource;
and even by stripping the churches, to extricate his father from
captivity and disgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of
the disgrace, and secretly pleased with the captivity of the
emperor: the state was poor, the clergy were obstinate; nor could
some religious scruple be wanting to excuse the guilt of his
indifference and delay. Such undutiful neglect was severely
reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who instantly sold
or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice, relieved
his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsible for the
debt. On his return to Constantinople, the parent and king
distinguished his two sons with suitable rewards; but the faith
and manners of the slothful Palaeologus had not been improved by
his Roman pilgrimage; and his apostasy or conversion, devoid of
any spiritual or temporal effects, was speedily forgotten by the
Greeks and Latins. ^14

[Footnote 8: 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, A.D. 1369, No. 7,) and Raynaldus, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles.
tom. xx. p. 223, 224.) Yet, from some variations, I suspect the
papal writers of slightly magnifying the genuflections of
Palaeologus.]

[Footnote 9: Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum.
Yet his title of Imperator Graecorum was no longer disputed,
(Vit. Urban V. p. 623.)]
[Footnote 10: 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 corporale. Yet the abbe de Sade generously
thinks that the merits of Charles IV. might have entitled him,
though not on the proper day, (A.D. 1368, November 1,) to the
whole privilege. He seems to affix a just value on the privilege
and the man, (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 735.)]

[Footnote 11: Through some Italian corruptions, the etymology of
Falcone in bosco, (Matteo Villani, l. xi. c. 79, in Muratori,
tom. xv. p. 746,) suggests the English word Hawkwood, the true
name of our adventurous countryman, (Thomas Walsingham, Hist.
Anglican. inter Scriptores Cambdeni, p. 184.) After
two-and-twenty victories, and one defeat, he died, in 1394,
general of the Florentines, and was buried with such honors as
the republic has not paid to Dante or Petrarch, (Muratori, Annali
d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 212 - 371.)]
[Footnote 12: This torrent of English (by birth or service)
overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in
1630. 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."]

[Footnote 13: Chalcondyles, l. i. p. 25, 26. 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 Palaeologus departed from Italy, valde
bene consolatus et contentus, (Vit. Urban V. p. 623.)]

[Footnote 14: His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel,
Sept. 25, 1373, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241,) leaves some
intermediate aera for the conspiracy and punishment of
Andronicus.]

     Thirty years after the return of Palaeologus, his son and
successor, Manuel, from a similar motive, but on a larger scale,
again visited the countries of the West. In a preceding chapter
I have related his treaty with Bajazet, the violation of that
treaty, the siege or blockade of Constantinople, and the French
succor under the command of the gallant Boucicault. ^15 By his
ambassadors, Manuel had solicited the Latin powers; but it was
thought that the presence of a distressed monarch would draw
tears and supplies from the hardest Barbarians; ^16 and the
marshal who advised the journey prepared the reception of the
Byzantine prince. The land was occupied by the Turks; but the
navigation of Venice was safe and open: Italy received him as the
first, or, at least, as the second, of the Christian princes;
Manuel was pitied as the champion and confessor of the faith; and
the dignity of his behavior prevented that pity from sinking into
contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua and Pavia; and even
the duke of Milan, a secret ally of Bajazet, gave him safe and
honorable conduct to the verge of his dominions. ^17 On the
confines of France ^18 the royal officers undertook the care of
his person, journey, and expenses; and two thousand of the
richest citizens, in arms and on horseback, came forth to meet
him as far as Charenton, in the neighborhood of the capital. At
the gates of Paris, he was saluted by the chancellor and the
parliament; and Charles the Sixth, attended by his princes and
nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace. The
successor of Constantine was clothed in a robe of white silk, and
mounted on a milk-white steed, a circumstance, in the French
ceremonial, of singular importance: the white color is considered
as the symbol of sovereignty; and, in a late visit, the German
emperor, after a haughty demand and a peevish refusal, had been
reduced to content himself with a black courser. Manuel was
lodged in the Louvre; a succession of feasts and balls, the
pleasures of the banquet and the chase, were ingeniously varied
by the politeness of the French, to display their magnificence,
and amuse his grief: he was indulged in the liberty of his
chapel; and the doctors of the Sorbonne were astonished, and
possibly scandalized, by the language, the rites, and the
vestments, of his Greek clergy. But the slightest glance on the
state of the kingdom must teach him to despair of any effectual
assistance. The unfortunate Charles, though he enjoyed some
lucid intervals, continually relapsed into furious or stupid
insanity: the reins of government were alternately seized by his
brother and uncle, the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose
factious competition prepared the miseries of civil war. The
former was a gay youth, dissolved in luxury and love: the latter
was the father of John count of Nevers, who had so lately been
ransomed from Turkish captivity; and, if the fearless son was
ardent to revenge his defeat, the more prudent Burgundy was
content with the cost and peril of the first experiment. When
Manuel had satiated the curiosity, and perhaps fatigued the
patience, of the French, he resolved on a visit to the adjacent
island. In his progress from Dover, he was entertained at
Canterbury with due reverence by the prior and monks of St.
Austin; and, on Blackheath, King Henry the Fourth, with the
English court, saluted the Greek hero, (I copy our old
historian,) who, during many days, was lodged and treated in
London as emperor of the East. ^19 But the state of England was
still more adverse to the design of the holy war. In the same
year, the hereditary sovereign had been deposed and murdered: the
reigning prince was a successful usurper, whose ambition was
punished by jealousy and remorse: nor could Henry of Lancaster
withdraw his person or forces from the defence of a throne
incessantly shaken by conspiracy and rebellion. He pitied, he
praised, he feasted, the emperor of Constantinople; but if the
English monarch assumed the cross, it was only to appease his
people, and perhaps his conscience, by the merit or semblance of
his pious intention. ^20 Satisfied, however, with gifts and
honors, Manuel returned to Paris; and, after a residence of two
years in the West, shaped his course through Germany and Italy,
embarked at Venice, and patiently expected, in the Morea, the
moment of his ruin or deliverance. Yet he had escaped the
ignominious necessity of offering his religion to public or
private sale. The Latin church was distracted by the great
schism; the kings, the nations, the universities, of Europe were
divided in their obedience between the popes of Rome and Avignon;
and the emperor, anxious to conciliate the friendship of both
parties, abstained from any correspondence with the indigent and
unpopular rivals. His journey coincided with the year of the
jubilee; but he passed through Italy without desiring, or
deserving, the plenary indulgence which abolished the guilt or
penance of the sins of the faithful. The Roman pope was offended
by this neglect; accused him of irreverence to an image of
Christ; and exhorted the princes of Italy to reject and abandon
the obstinate schismatic. ^21

[Footnote 15: Memoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 35, 36.]

[Footnote 16: His journey into the west of Europe is slightly,
and I believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (l. ii. c. 44
- 50) and Ducas, (c. 14.)]
[Footnote 17: 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.]

[Footnote 18: For the reception of Manuel at Paris, see
Spondanus, (Annal. Eccles. tom. i. p. 676, 677, A.D. 1400, No.
5,) who quotes Juvenal des Ursins 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.]
[Footnote 19: A short note of Manuel in England is extracted by
Dr. Hody from a Ms. at Lambeth, (de Graecis illustribus, p. 14,)
C. P. Imperator, diu variisque et horrendis Paganorum insultibus
coarctatus, ut pro eisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret,
Anglorum Regem visitare decrevit, &c. Rex (says Walsingham, p.
364) nobili apparatu . . . suscepit (ut decuit) tantum Heroa,
duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies exhibuit gloriose, pro
expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respiciens tanto fastigio
donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustriae, (p.
556.)]

[Footnote 20: Shakspeare 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.]

[Footnote 21: This fact is preserved in the Historia Politica,
A.D. 1391 - 1478, published by Martin Crusius, (Turco Graecia, p.
1 - 43.) The image of Christ, which the Greek emperor refused to
worship, was probably a work of sculpture.]

Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.

Part II.

     During the period of the crusades, the Greeks beheld with
astonishment and terror the perpetual stream of emigration that
flowed, and continued to flow, from the unknown climates of their
West. The visits of their last emperors removed the veil of
separation, and they disclosed to their eyes the powerful nations
of Europe, whom they no longer presumed to brand with the name of
Barbarians. The observations of Manuel, and his more inquisitive
followers, have been preserved by a Byzantine historian of the
times: ^22 his scattered ideas I shall collect and abridge; and
it may be amusing enough, perhaps instructive, to contemplate the
rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whose ancient and
modern state are so familiar to our minds. I. Germany (says the
Greek Chalcondyles) is of ample latitude from Vienna to the
ocean; and it stretches (a strange geography) from Prague in
Bohemia to the River Tartessus, and the Pyrenaean Mountains. ^23
The soil, except in figs and olives, is sufficiently fruitful;
the air is salubrious; the bodies of the natives are robust and
healthy; and these cold regions are seldom visited with the
calamities of pestilence, or earthquakes. After the Scythians or
Tartars, the Germans are the most numerous of nations: they are
brave and patient; and were they united under a single head,
their force would be irresistible. By the gift of the pope, they
have acquired the privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; ^24
nor is any people more devoutly attached to the faith and
obedience of the Latin patriarch. The greatest part of the
country is divided among the princes and prelates; but Strasburg,
Cologne, Hamburgh, and more than two hundred free cities, are
governed by sage and equal laws, according to the will, and for
the advantage, of the whole community. The use of duels, or
single combats on foot, prevails among them in peace and war:
their industry excels in all the mechanic arts; and the Germans
may boast of the invention of gunpowder and cannon, which is now
diffused over the greatest part of the world. II. The kingdom
of France is spread above fifteen or twenty days' journey from
Germany to Spain, and from the Alps to the British Ocean;
containing many flourishing cities, and among these Paris, the
seat of the king, which surpasses the rest in riches and luxury.
Many princes and lords alternately wait in his palace, and
acknowledge him as their sovereign: the most powerful are the
dukes of Bretagne and Burgundy; of whom the latter possesses the
wealthy province of Flanders, whose harbors are frequented by the
ships and merchants of our own, and the more remote, seas. The
French are an ancient and opulent people; and their language and
manners, though somewhat different, are not dissimilar from those
of the Italians. Vain of the Imperial dignity of Charlemagne, of
their victories over the Saracens, and of the exploits of their
heroes, Oliver and Rowland, ^25 they esteem themselves the first
of the western nations; but this foolish arrogance has been
recently humbled by the unfortunate events of their wars against
the English, the inhabitants of the British island. III.
Britain, in the ocean, and opposite to the shores of Flanders,
may be considered either as one, or as three islands; but the
whole is united by a common interest, by the same manners, and by
a similar government. The measure of its circumference is five
thousand stadia: the land is overspread with towns and villages:
though destitute of wine, and not abounding in fruit-trees, it is
fertile in wheat and barley; in honey and wool; and much cloth is
manufactured by the inhabitants. In populousness and power, in
richness and luxury, London, ^26 the metropolis of the isle, may
claim a preeminence over all the cities of the West. It is
situate on the Thames, a broad and rapid river, which at the
distance of thirty miles falls into the Gallic Sea; and the daily
flow and ebb of the tide affords a safe entrance and departure to
the vessels of commerce. The king is head of a powerful and
turbulent aristocracy: his principal vassals hold their estates
by a free and unalterable tenure; and the laws define the limits
of his authority and their obedience. The kingdom has been often
afflicted by foreign conquest and domestic sedition: but the
natives are bold and hardy, renowned in arms and victorious in
war. The form of their shields or targets is derived from the
Italians, that of their swords from the Greeks; the use of the
long bow is the peculiar and decisive advantage of the English.
Their language bears no affinity to the idioms of the Continent:
in the habits of domestic life, they are not easily distinguished
from their neighbors of France: but the most singular
circumstance of their manners is their disregard of conjugal
honor and of female chastity. In their mutual visits, as the
first act of hospitality, the guest is welcomed in the embraces
of their wives and daughters: among friends they are lent and
borrowed without shame; nor are the islanders offended at this
strange commerce, and its inevitable consequences. ^27 Informed
as we are of the customs of Old England and assured of the virtue
of our mothers, we may smile at the credulity, or resent the
injustice, of the Greek, who must have confounded a modest salute
^28 with a criminal embrace. But his credulity and injustice may
teach an important lesson; to distrust the accounts of foreign
and remote nations, and to suspend our belief of every tale that
deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man. ^29

[Footnote 22: 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. Graec. 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, 44 - 50.]

[Footnote 23: 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?]

[Footnote 24: A citizen of new Rome, while new Rome survived,
would have scorned to dignify the German with titles: 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.]

[Footnote 25: Most of the old romances were translated in the
xivth century into French prose, and soon became the favorite
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.]

[Footnote 26: Even since the time of Fitzstephen, (the xiith
century,) London appears to have maintained this preeminence of
wealth and magnitude; and her gradual increase has, at least,
kept pace with the general improvement of Europe.]

[Footnote 27: If the double sense of the verb (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.)

     Note: I can discover no "pious horror" in the plain manner
in which Chalcondyles relates this strange usage. Gibbon is
possibly right as to the origin of this extraordinary mistake. -
M.]

[Footnote 28: 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.]

[Footnote 29: Perhaps we may apply this remark to the community
of wives among the old Britons, as it is supposed by Caesar and
Dion, (Dion Cassius, l. lxii. tom. ii. p. 1007,) 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.]
     After his return, and the victory of Timour, Manuel reigned
many years in prosperity and peace. As long as the sons of
Bajazet solicited his friendship and spared his dominions, he was
satisfied with the national religion; and his leisure was
employed in composing twenty theological dialogues for its
defence. The appearance of the Byzantine ambassadors at the
council of Constance, ^30 announces the restoration of the
Turkish power, as well as of the Latin church: the conquest of
the sultans, Mahomet and Amurath, reconciled the emperor to the
Vatican; and the siege of Constantinople almost tempted him to
acquiesce in the double procession of the Holy Ghost. When
Martin the Fifth ascended without a rival the chair of St. Peter,
a friendly intercourse of letters and embassies was revived
between the East and West. Ambition on one side, and distress on
the other, dictated the same decent language of charity and
peace: the artful Greek expressed a desire of marrying his six
sons to Italian princesses; and the Roman, not less artful,
despatched the daughter of the marquis of Montferrat, with a
company of noble virgins, to soften, by their charms, the
obstinacy of the schismatics. Yet under this mask of zeal, a
discerning eye will perceive that all was hollow and insincere in
the court and church of Constantinople. According to the
vicissitudes of danger and repose, the emperor advanced or
retreated; alternately instructed and disavowed his ministers;
and escaped from the importunate pressure by urging the duty of
inquiry, the obligation of collecting the sense of his patriarchs
and bishops, and the impossibility of convening them at a time
when the Turkish arms were at the gates of his capital. From a
review of the public transactions it will appear that the Greeks
insisted on three successive measures, a succor, a council, and a
final reunion, while the Latins eluded the second, and only
promised the first, as a consequential and voluntary reward of
the third. But we have an opportunity of unfolding the most
secret intentions of Manuel, as he explained them in a private
conversation without artifice or disguise. In his declining age,
the emperor had associated John Palaeologus, the second of the
name, and the eldest of his sons, on whom he devolved the
greatest part of the authority and weight of government. One
day, in the presence only of the historian Phranza, ^31 his
favorite chamberlain, he opened to his colleague and successor
the true principle of his negotiations with the pope. ^32 "Our
last resource," said Manuel, against the Turks, "is their fear of
our union with the Latins, of the warlike nations of the West,
who may arm for our relief and for their destruction. As often as
you are threatened by the miscreants, present this danger before
their eyes. Propose a council; consult on the means; but ever
delay and avoid the convocation of an assembly, which cannot tend
either to our spiritual or temporal emolument. The Latins are
proud; the Greeks are obstinate; neither party will recede or
retract; and the attempt of a perfect union will confirm the
schism, alienate the churches, and leave us, without hope or
defence, at the mercy of the Barbarians." Impatient of this
salutary lesson, the royal youth arose from his seat, and
departed in silence; and the wise monarch (continued Phranza)
casting his eyes on me, thus resumed his discourse: "My son deems
himself a great and heroic prince; but, alas! our miserable age
does not afford scope for heroism or greatness. His daring
spirit might have suited the happier times of our ancestors; but
the present state requires not an emperor, but a cautious steward
of the last relics of our fortunes. Well do I remember the lofty
expectations which he built on our alliance with Mustapha; and
much do I fear, that this rash courage will urge the ruin of our
house, and that even religion may precipitate our downfall." Yet
the experience and authority of Manuel preserved the peace, and
eluded the council; till, in the seventy-eighth year of his age,
and in the habit of a monk, he terminated his career, dividing
his precious movables among his children and the poor, his
physicians and his favorite servants. Of his six sons, ^33
Andronicus the Second was invested with the principality of
Thessalonica, and died of a leprosy soon after the sale of that
city to the Venetians and its final conquest by the Turks. Some
fortunate incidents had restored Peloponnesus, or the Morea, to
the empire; and in his more prosperous days, Manuel had fortified
the narrow isthmus of six miles ^34 with a stone wall and one
hundred and fifty-three towers. The wall was overthrown by the
first blast of the Ottomans; the fertile peninsula might have
been sufficient for the four younger brothers, Theodore and
Constantine, Demetrius and Thomas; but they wasted in domestic
contests the remains of their strength; and the least successful
of the rivals were reduced to a life of dependence in the
Byzantine palace.

[Footnote 30: See Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom.
ii. p. 576; and or the ecclesiastical history of the times, the
Annals of Spondanus the Bibliotheque of Dupin, tom. xii., and
xxist and xxiid volumes of the History, or rather the
Continuation, of Fleury.]

[Footnote 31: 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. i.) Yet the emperor John was cold, and he preferred the
service of the despots of Peloponnesus.]

[Footnote 32: 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, Simocattae:
Ingolstadt, 1604,) so deficient in accuracy and elegance,
(Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 615 - 620.)

     Note: The Greek text of Phranzes was edited by F. C. Alter
Vindobonae. It has been re-edited by Bekker for the new edition
of the Byzantines, Bonn, 1838 - M.]

[Footnote 33: See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 243 - 248.]

[Footnote 34: The exact measure of the Hexamilion, from sea to
sea, was 3800 orgyiae, 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, Wheeler and
Chandler.]

     The eldest of the sons of Manuel, John Palaeologus the
Second, was acknowledged, after his father's death, as the sole
emperor of the Greeks. He immediately proceeded to repudiate his
wife, and to contract a new marriage with the princess of
Trebizond: beauty was in his eyes the first qualification of an
empress; and the clergy had yielded to his firm assurance, that
unless he might be indulged in a divorce, he would retire to a
cloister, and leave the throne to his brother Constantine. The
first, and in truth the only, victory of Palaeologus, was over a
Jew, ^35 whom, after a long and learned dispute, he converted to
the Christian faith; and this momentous conquest is carefully
recorded in the history of the times. But he soon resumed the
design of uniting the East and West; and, regardless of his
father's advice, listened, as it should seem with sincerity, to
the proposal of meeting the pope in a general council beyond the
Adriatic. This dangerous project was encouraged by Martin the
Fifth, and coldly entertained by his successor Eugenius, till,
after a tedious negotiation, the emperor received a summons from
the Latin assembly of a new character, the independent prelates
of Basil, who styled themselves the representatives and judges of
the Catholic church.
[Footnote 35: 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.)]
     The Roman pontiff had fought and conquered in the cause of
ecclesiastical freedom; but the victorious clergy were soon
exposed to the tyranny of their deliverer; and his sacred
character was invulnerable to those arms which they found so keen
and effectual against the civil magistrate. Their great charter,
the right of election, was annihilated by appeals, evaded by
trusts or commendams, disappointed by reversionary grants, and
superseded by previous and arbitrary reservations. ^36 A public
auction was instituted in the court of Rome: the cardinals and
favorites were enriched with the spoils of nations; and every
country might complain that the most important and valuable
benefices were accumulated on the heads of aliens and absentees.
During their residence at Avignon, the ambition of the popes
subsided in the meaner passions of avarice ^37 and luxury: they
rigorously imposed on the clergy the tributes of first-fruits and
tenths; but they freely tolerated the impunity of vice, disorder,
and corruption. These manifold scandals were aggravated by the
great schism of the West, which continued above fifty years. In
the furious conflicts of Rome and Avignon, the vices of the
rivals were mutually exposed; and their precarious situation
degraded their authority, relaxed their discipline, and
multiplied their wants and exactions. To heal the wounds, and
restore the monarchy, of the church, the synods of Pisa and
Constance ^38 were successively convened; but these great
assemblies, conscious of their strength, resolved to vindicate
the privileges of the Christian aristocracy. From a personal
sentence against two pontiffs, whom they rejected, and a third,
their acknowledged sovereign, whom they deposed, the fathers of
Constance proceeded to examine the nature and limits of the Roman
supremacy; nor did they separate till they had established the
authority, above the pope, of a general council. It was enacted,
that, for the government and reformation of the church, such
assemblies should be held at regular intervals; and that each
synod, before its dissolution, should appoint the time and place
of the subsequent meeting. By the influence of the court of Rome,
the next convocation at Sienna was easily eluded; but the bold
and vigorous proceedings of the council of Basil ^39 had almost
been fatal to the reigning pontiff, Eugenius the Fourth. A just
suspicion of his design prompted the fathers to hasten the
promulgation of their first decree, that the representatives of
the church-militant on earth were invested with a divine and
spiritual jurisdiction over all Christians, without excepting the
pope; and that a general council could not be dissolved,
prorogued, or transferred, unless by their free deliberation and
consent. On the notice that Eugenius had fulminated a bull for
that purpose, they ventured to summon, to admonish, to threaten,
to censure the contumacious successor of St. Peter. After many
delays, to allow time for repentance, they finally declared,
that, unless he submitted within the term of sixty days, he was
suspended from the exercise of all temporal and ecclesiastical
authority. And to mark their jurisdiction over the prince as
well as the priest, they assumed the government of Avignon,
annulled the alienation of the sacred patrimony, and protected
Rome from the imposition of new taxes. Their boldness was
justified, not only by the general opinion of the clergy, but by
the support and power of the first monarchs of Christendom: the
emperor Sigismond declared himself the servant and protector of
the synod; Germany and France adhered to their cause; the duke of
Milan was the enemy of Eugenius; and he was driven from the
Vatican by an insurrection of the Roman people. Rejected at the
same time by temporal and spiritual subjects, submission was his
only choice: by a most humiliating bull, the pope repealed his
own acts, and ratified those of the council; incorporated his
legates and cardinals with that venerable body; and seemed to
resign himself to the decrees of the supreme legislature. Their
fame pervaded the countries of the East: and it was in their
presence that Sigismond received the ambassadors of the Turkish
sultan, ^40 who laid at his feet twelve large vases, filled with
robes of silk and pieces of gold. The fathers of Basil aspired
to the glory of reducing the Greeks, as well as the Bohemians,
within the pale of the church; and their deputies invited the
emperor and patriarch of Constantinople to unite with an assembly
which possessed the confidence of the Western nations.
Palaeologus was not averse to the proposal; and his ambassadors
were introduced with due honors into the Catholic senate. But
the choice of the place appeared to be an insuperable obstacle,
since he refused to pass the Alps, or the sea of Sicily, and
positively required that the synod should be adjourned to some
convenient city in Italy, or at least on the Danube. The other
articles of this treaty were more readily stipulated: it was
agreed to defray the travelling expenses of the emperor, with a
train of seven hundred persons, ^41 to remit an immediate sum of
eight thousand ducats ^42 for the accommodation of the Greek
clergy; and in his absence to grant a supply of ten thousand
ducats, with three hundred archers and some galleys, for the
protection of Constantinople. The city of Avignon advanced the
funds for the preliminary expenses; and the embarkation was
prepared at Marseilles with some difficulty and delay.
[Footnote 36: 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.]

[Footnote 37: 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.]

[Footnote 38: 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.]

[Footnote 39: 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 neighboring and confederate Swiss.

In 1459, the university was founded by Pope Pius II., (Aeneas
Sylvius,) who had been secretary to the council. But what is a
council, or a university, to the presses o Froben and the studies
of Erasmus?]

[Footnote 40: This Turkish embassy, attested only by Crantzius,
is related with some doubt by the annalist Spondanus, A.D. 1433,
No. 25, tom. i. p. 824]
[Footnote 41: 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.]

[Footnote 42: 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.]

     In his distress, the friendship of Palaeologus was disputed
by the ecclesiastical powers of the West; but the dexterous
activity of a monarch prevailed over the slow debates and
inflexible temper of a republic. The decrees of Basil
continually tended to circumscribe the despotism of the pope, and
to erect a supreme and perpetual tribunal in the church.
Eugenius was impatient of the yoke; and the union of the Greeks
might afford a decent pretence for translating a rebellious synod
from the Rhine to the Po. The independence of the fathers was
lost if they passed the Alps: Savoy or Avignon, to which they
acceded with reluctance, were described at Constantinople as
situate far beyond the pillars of Hercules; ^43 the emperor and
his clergy were apprehensive of the dangers of a long navigation;
they were offended by a haughty declaration, that after
suppressing the new heresy of the Bohemians, the council would
soon eradicate the old heresy of the Greeks. ^44 On the side of
Eugenius, all was smooth, and yielding, and respectful; and he
invited the Byzantine monarch to heal by his presence the schism
of the Latin, as well as of the Eastern, church. Ferrara, near
the coast of the Adriatic, was proposed for their amicable
interview; and with some indulgence of forgery and theft, a
surreptitious decree was procured, which transferred the synod,
with its own consent, to that Italian city. Nine galleys were
equipped for the service at Venice, and in the Isle of Candia;
their diligence anticipated the slower vessels of Basil: the
Roman admiral was commissioned to burn, sink, and destroy; ^45
and these priestly squadrons might have encountered each other in
the same seas where Athens and Sparta had formerly contended for
the preeminence of glory. Assaulted by the importunity of the
factions, who were ready to fight for the possession of his
person, Palaeologus hesitated before he left his palace and
country on a perilous experiment. His father's advice still
dwelt on his memory; and reason must suggest, that since the
Latins were divided among themselves, they could never unite in a
foreign cause. Sigismond dissuaded the unreasonable adventure;
his advice was impartial, since he adhered to the council; and it
was enforced by the strange belief, that the German Caesar would
nominate a Greek his heir and successor in the empire of the
West. ^46 Even the Turkish sultan was a counsellor whom it might
be unsafe to trust, but whom it was dangerous to offend. Amurath
was unskilled in the disputes, but he was apprehensive of the
union, of the Christians. From his own treasures, he offered to
relieve the wants of the Byzantine court; yet he declared with
seeming magnanimity, that Constantinople should be secure and
inviolate, in the absence of her sovereign. ^47 The resolution of
Palaeologus was decided by the most splendid gifts and the most
specious promises: he wished to escape for a while from a scene
of danger and distress and after dismissing with an ambiguous
answer the messengers of the council, he declared his intention
of embarking in the Roman galleys. The age of the patriarch
Joseph was more susceptible of fear than of hope; he trembled at
the perils of the sea, and expressed his apprehension, that his
feeble voice, with thirty perhaps of his orthodox brethren, would
be oppressed in a foreign land by the power and numbers of a
Latin synod. He yielded to the royal mandate, to the flattering
assurance, that he would be heard as the oracle of nations, and
to the secret wish of learning from his brother of the West, to
deliver the church from the yoke of kings. ^48 The five
cross-bearers, or dignitaries, of St.Sophia, were bound to attend
his person; and one of these, the great ecclesiarch or preacher,
Sylvester Syropulus, ^49 has composed a free and curious history
^50 of the false union. ^51 Of the clergy that reluctantly obeyed
the summons of the emperor and the patriarch, submission was the
first duty, and patience the most useful virtue. In a chosen list
of twenty bishops, we discover the metropolitan titles of
Heracleae and Cyzicus, Nice and Nicomedia, Ephesus and Trebizond,
and the personal merit of Mark and Bessarion who, in the
confidence of their learning and eloquence, were promoted to the
episcopal rank. Some monks and philosophers were named to
display the science and sanctity of the Greek church; and the
service of the choir was performed by a select band of singers
and musicians. The patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and
Jerusalem, appeared by their genuine or fictitious deputies; the
primate of Russia represented a national church, and the Greeks
might contend with the Latins in the extent of their spiritual
empire. The precious vases of St. Sophia were exposed to the
winds and waves, that the patriarch might officiate with becoming
splendor: whatever gold the emperor could procure, was expended
in the massy ornaments of his bed and chariot; ^52 and while they
affected to maintain the prosperity of their ancient fortune,
they quarrelled for the division of fifteen thousand ducats, the
first alms of the Roman pontiff. After the necessary
preparations, John Palaeologus, with a numerous train,
accompanied by his brother Demetrius, and the most respectable
persons of the church and state, embarked in eight vessels with
sails and oars which steered through the Turkish Straits of
Gallipoli to the Archipelago, the Morea, and the Adriatic Gulf.
^53

[Footnote 43: 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. Was Constantinople unprovided with a map?]

[Footnote 44: 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.]

[Footnote 45: 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.]

[Footnote 46: Syropulus mentions the hopes of Palaeologus, (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.)]

[Footnote 47: Phranzes himself, though from different motives,
was of the advice of Amurath, (l. ii. c. 13.) Utinam ne synodus
ista unquam fuisset, si tantes 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.]
[Footnote 48: The reader will smile at the simplicity with which
he imparted these hopes to his favorites (p. 92.) Yet it would
have been difficult for him to have practised the lessons of
Gregory VII.]

[Footnote 49: The Christian name of Sylvester is borrowed from
the Latin calendar. In modern Greek, as a diminutive, is added
to the end of words: nor can any reasoning of Creyghton, the
editor, excuse his changing into Sguropulus, (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?]

[Footnote 50: From the conclusion of the history, I should fix
the date to the year 1444, four years after the synod, when great
ecclesiarch had abdicated his office, (section xii. p. 330 -
350.) His passions were cooled by time and retirement; and,
although Syropulus is often partial, he is never intemperate.]

[Footnote 51: Vera historia unionis non veroe inter Graecos et
Latinos, (Hagae 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.]

[Footnote 52: Syropulus (p. 63) simply expresses his intention;
and the Latin of Creyghton may afford a specimen of his florid
paraphrase. Ut pompa circumductus noster Imperator Italiae
populis aliquis deauratus Jupiter crederetur, aut Croesus ex
opulenta Lydia.]

[Footnote 53: 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.]

Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.

Part III.

     After a tedious and troublesome navigation of seventy-seven
days, this religious squadron cast anchor before Venice; and
their reception proclaimed the joy and magnificence of that
powerful republic. In the command of the world, the modest
Augustus had never claimed such honors from his subjects as were
paid to his feeble successor by an independent state. Seated on
the poop on a lofty throne, he received the visit, or, in the
Greek style, the adoration of the doge and senators. ^54 They
sailed in the Bucentaur, which was accompanied by twelve stately
galleys: the sea was overspread with innumerable gondolas of pomp
and pleasure; the air resounded with music and acclamations; the
mariners, and even the vessels, were dressed in silk and gold;
and in all the emblems and pageants, the Roman eagles were
blended with the lions of St. Mark. The triumphal procession,
ascending the great canal, passed under the bridge of the Rialto;
and the Eastern strangers gazed with admiration on the palaces,
the churches, and the populousness of a city, that seems to float
on the bosom of the waves. ^55 They sighed to behold the spoils
and trophies with which it had been decorated after the sack of
Constantinople. After a hospitable entertainment of fifteen
days, Palaeologus pursued his journey by land and water from
Venice to Ferrara; and on this occasion the pride of the Vatican
was tempered by policy to indulge the ancient dignity of the
emperor of the East. He made his entry on a black horse; but a
milk-white steed, whose trappings were embroidered with golden
eagles, was led before him; and the canopy was borne over his
head by the princes of Este, the sons or kinsmen of Nicholas,
marquis of the city, and a sovereign more powerful than himself.
^56 Palaeologus did not alight till he reached the bottom of the
staircase: the pope advanced to the door of the apartment;
refused his proffered genuflection; and, after a paternal
embrace, conducted the emperor to a seat on his left hand. Nor
would the patriarch descend from his galley, till a ceremony
almost equal, had been stipulated between the bishops of Rome and
Constantinople. The latter was saluted by his brother with a
kiss of union and charity; nor would any of the Greek
ecclesiastics submit to kiss the feet of the Western primate. On
the opening of the synod, the place of honor in the centre was
claimed by the temporal and ecclesiastical chiefs; and it was
only by alleging that his predecessors had not assisted in person
at Nice or Chalcedon, that Eugenius could evade the ancient
precedents of Constantine and Marcian. After much debate, it was
agreed that the right and left sides of the church should be
occupied by the two nations; that the solitary chair of St. Peter
should be raised the first of the Latin line; and that the throne
of the Greek emperor, at the head of his clergy, should be equal
and opposite to the second place, the vacant seat of the emperor
of the West. ^57

[Footnote 54: At the time of the synod, Phranzes was in
Peloponnesus: but he received from the despot Demetrius a
faithful account of the honorable 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, 15, 16.)]

[Footnote 55: The astonishment of a Greek prince and a French
ambassador (Memoires 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.)]

[Footnote 56: Nicholas III. of Este reigned forty-eight years,
(A.D. 1393 -  1441,) and was lord of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio,
Parma, Rovigo, and Commachio. See his Life in Muratori,
(Antichita Estense, tom. ii. p. 159 - 201.)]
[Footnote 57: 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 color, and his diadem or
tiara, with a jewel on the top, (Hody de Graecis 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.)]

     But as soon as festivity and form had given place to a more
serious treaty, the Greeks were dissatisfied with their journey,
with themselves, and with the pope. The artful pencil of his
emissaries had painted him in a prosperous state; at the head of
the princes and prelates of Europe, obedient at his voice, to
believe and to arm. The thin appearance of the universal synod
of Ferrara betrayed his weakness: and the Latins opened the first
session with only five archbishops, eighteen bishops, and ten
abbots, the greatest part of whom were the subjects or countrymen
of the Italian pontiff. Except the duke of Burgundy, none of the
potentates of the West condescended to appear in person, or by
their ambassadors; nor was it possible to suppress the judicial
acts of Basil against the dignity and person of Eugenius, which
were finally concluded by a new election. Under these
circumstances, a truce or delay was asked and granted, till
Palaeologus could expect from the consent of the Latins some
temporal reward for an unpopular union; and after the first
session, the public proceedings were adjourned above six months.
The emperor, with a chosen band of his favorites and Janizaries,
fixed his summer residence at a pleasant, spacious monastery, six
miles from Ferrara; forgot, in the pleasures of the chase, the
distress of the church and state; and persisted in destroying the
game, without listening to the just complaints of the marquis or
the husbandman. ^58 In the mean while, his unfortunate Greeks
were exposed to all the miseries of exile and poverty; for the
support of each stranger, a monthly allowance was assigned of
three or four gold florins; and although the entire sum did not
amount to seven hundred florins, a long arrear was repeatedly
incurred by the indigence or policy of the Roman court. ^59 They
sighed for a speedy deliverance, but their escape was prevented
by a triple chain: a passport from their superiors was required
at the gates of Ferrara; the government of Venice had engaged to
arrest and send back the fugitives; and inevitable punishment
awaited them at Constantinople; excommunication, fines, and a
sentence, which did not respect the sacerdotal dignity, that they
should be stripped naked and publicly whipped. ^60 It was only by
the alternative of hunger or dispute that the Greeks could be
persuaded to open the first conference; and they yielded with
extreme reluctance to attend from Ferrara to Florence the rear of
a flying synod. This new translation was urged by inevitable
necessity: the city was visited by the plague; the fidelity of
the marquis might be suspected; the mercenary troops of the duke
of Milan were at the gates; and as they occupied Romagna, it was
not without difficulty and danger that the pope, the emperor, and
the bishops, explored their way through the unfrequented paths of
the Apennine. ^61
[Footnote 58: For the emperor's hunting, see Syropulus, (p. 143,
144, 191.) The pope had sent him eleven miserable hacks; 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.]
[Footnote 59: The Greeks obtained, with much difficulty, that
instead of provisions, money should be distributed, four florins
per month to the persons of honorable 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.)]

[Footnote 60: Syropulus (p. 141, 142, 204, 221) deplores the
imprisonment of the Greeks, and the tyranny of the emperor and
patriarch.]
[Footnote 61: The wars of Italy are most clearly represented in
the xiiith vol. of the Annals of Muratori. The schismatic Greek,
Syropulus, (p. 145,) appears to have exaggerated the fear and
disorder of the pope in his his retreat from Ferrara to Florence,
which is proved by the acts to have been somewhat more decent and
deliberate.]

     Yet all these obstacles were surmounted by time and policy.
The violence of the fathers of Basil rather promoted than injured
the cause of Eugenius; the nations of Europe abhorred the schism,
and disowned the election, of Felix the Fifth, who was
successively a duke of Savoy, a hermit, and a pope; and the great
princes were gradually reclaimed by his competitor to a favorable
neutrality and a firm attachment. The legates, with some
respectable members, deserted to the Roman army, which insensibly
rose in numbers and reputation; the council of Basil was reduced
to thirty-nine bishops, and three hundred of the inferior clergy;
^62 while the Latins of Florence could produce the subscriptions
of the pope himself, eight cardinals, two patriarchs, eight
archbishops, fifty two bishops, and forty- five abbots, or chiefs
of religious orders. After the labor of nine months, and the
debates of twenty-five sessions, they attained the advantage and
glory of the reunion of the Greeks. Four principal questions had
been agitated between the two churches; 1. The use of unleaven
bread in the communion of Christ's body. 2. The nature of
purgatory. 3. The supremacy of the pope. And, 4. The single or
double procession of the Holy Ghost. The cause of either nation
was managed by ten theological champions: the Latins were
supported by the inexhaustible eloquence of Cardinal Julian; and
Mark of Ephesus and Bessarion of Nice were the bold and able
leaders of the Greek forces. We may bestow some praise on the
progress of human reason, by observing that the first of these
questions was now treated as an immaterial rite, which might
innocently vary with the fashion of the age and country. With
regard to the second, both parties were agreed in the belief of
an intermediate state of purgation for the venial sins of the
faithful; and whether their souls were purified by elemental fire
was a doubtful point, which in a few years might be conveniently
settled on the spot by the disputants. The claims of supremacy
appeared of a more weighty and substantial kind; yet by the
Orientals the Roman bishop had ever been respected as the first
of the five patriarchs; nor did they scruple to admit, that his
jurisdiction should be exercised agreeably to the holy canons; a
vague allowance, which might be defined or eluded by occasional
convenience. The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father
alone, or from the Father and the Son, was an article of faith
which had sunk much deeper into the minds of men; and in the
sessions of Ferrara and Florence, the Latin addition of filioque
was subdivided into two questions, whether it were legal, and
whether it were orthodox. Perhaps it may not be necessary to
boast on this subject of my own impartial indifference; but I
must think that the Greeks were strongly supported by the
prohibition of the council of Chalcedon, against adding any
article whatsoever to the creed of Nice, or rather of
Constantinople. ^63 In earthly affairs, it is not easy to
conceive how an assembly equal of legislators can bind their
successors invested with powers equal to their own. But the
dictates of inspiration must be true and unchangeable; nor should
a private bishop, or a provincial synod, have presumed to
innovate against the judgment of the Catholic church. On the
substance of the doctrine, the controversy was equal and endless:
reason is confounded by the procession of a deity: the gospel,
which lay on the altar, was silent; the various texts of the
fathers might be corrupted by fraud or entangled by sophistry;
and the Greeks were ignorant of the characters and writings of
the Latin saints. ^64 Of this at least we may be sure, that
neither side could be convinced by the arguments of their
opponents. Prejudice may be enlightened by reason, and a
superficial glance may be rectified by a clear and more perfect
view of an object adapted to our faculties. But the bishops and
monks had been taught from their infancy to repeat a form of
mysterious words: their national and personal honor depended on
the repetition of the same sounds; and their narrow minds were
hardened and inflamed by the acrimony of a public dispute.
[Footnote 62: 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.]
[Footnote 63: 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.)]
[Footnote 64: (Syropulus, p. 109.) See the perplexity of the
Greeks, (p. 217, 218, 252, 253, 273.)]

     While they were most in a cloud of dust and darkness, the
Pope and emperor were desirous of a seeming union, which could
alone accomplish the purposes of their interview; and the
obstinacy of public dispute was softened by the arts of private
and personal negotiation. The patriarch Joseph had sunk under
the weight of age and infirmities; his dying voice breathed the
counsels of charity and concord, and his vacant benefice might
tempt the hopes of the ambitious clergy. The ready and active
obedience of the archbishops of Russia and Nice, of Isidore and
Bessarion, was prompted and recompensed by their speedy promotion
to the dignity of cardinals. Bessarion, in the first debates, had
stood forth the most strenuous and eloquent champion of the Greek
church; and if the apostate, the bastard, was reprobated by his
country, ^65 he appears in ecclesiastical story a rare example of
a patriot who was recommended to court favor by loud opposition
and well-timed compliance. With the aid of his two spiritual
coadjutors, the emperor applied his arguments to the general
situation and personal characters of the bishops, and each was
successively moved by authority and example. Their revenues were
in the hands of the Turks, their persons in those of the Latins:
an episcopal treasure, three robes and forty ducats, was soon
exhausted: ^66 the hopes of their return still depended on the
ships of Venice and the alms of Rome; and such was their
indigence, that their arrears, the payment of a debt, would be
accepted as a favor, and might operate as a bribe. ^67 The danger
and relief of Constantinople might excuse some prudent and pious
dissimulation; and it was insinuated, that the obstinate heretics
who should resist the consent of the East and West would be
abandoned in a hostile land to the revenge or justice of the
Roman pontiff. ^68 In the first private assembly of the Greeks,
the formulary of union was approved by twenty-four, and rejected
by twelve, members; but the five cross-bearers of St. Sophia, who
aspired to represent the patriarch, were disqualified by ancient
discipline; and their right of voting was transferred to the
obsequious train of monks, grammarians, and profane laymen. The
will of the monarch produced a false and servile unanimity, and
no more than two patriots had courage to speak their own
sentiments and those of their country. Demetrius, the emperor's
brother, retired to Venice, that he might not be witness of the
union; and Mark of Ephesus, mistaking perhaps his pride for his
conscience, disclaimed all communion with the Latin heretics, and
avowed himself the champion and confessor of the orthodox creed.
^69 In the treaty between the two nations, several forms of
consent were proposed, such as might satisfy the Latins, without
dishonoring the Greeks; and they weighed the scruples of words
and syllables, till the theological balance trembled with a
slight preponderance in favor of the Vatican. It was agreed (I
must entreat the attention of the reader) that the Holy Ghost
proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from one principle and
one substance; that he proceeds by the Son, being of the same
nature and substance, and that he proceeds from the Father and
the Son, by one spiration and production. It is less difficult
to understand the articles of the preliminary treaty; that the
pope should defray all the expenses of the Greeks in their return
home; that he should annually maintain two galleys and three
hundred soldiers for the defence of Constantinople: that all the
ships which transported pilgrims to Jerusalem should be obliged
to touch at that port; that as often as they were required, the
pope should furnish ten galleys for a year, or twenty for six
months; and that he should powerfully solicit the princes of
Europe, if the emperor had occasion for land forces.
[Footnote 65: See the polite altercation of Marc and Bessarion in
Syropulus, (p. 257,) who never dissembles the vices of his own
party, and fairly praises the virtues of the Latins.]

[Footnote 66: 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.)]

[Footnote 67: Syropulus denies that the Greeks received any money
before they had subscribed the art of union, (p. 283:) yet he
relates some suspicious circumstances; and their bribery and
corruption are positively affirmed by the historian Ducas.]

[Footnote 68: 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.)]

[Footnote 69: I had forgot another popular and orthodox
protester: a favorite bound, 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.)]

     The same year, and almost the same day, were marked by the
deposition of Eugenius at Basil; and, at Florence, by his reunion
of the Greeks and Latins. In the former synod, (which he styled
indeed an assembly of daemons,) the pope was branded with the
guilt of simony, perjury, tyranny, heresy, and schism; ^70 and
declared to be incorrigible in his vices, unworthy of any title,
and incapable of holding any ecclesiastical office. In the
latter, he was revered as the true and holy vicar of Christ, who,
after a separation of six hundred years, had reconciled the
Catholics of the East and West in one fold, and under one
shepherd. The act of union was subscribed by the pope, the
emperor, and the principal members of both churches; even by
those who, like Syropulus, ^71 had been deprived of the right of
voting. Two copies might have sufficed for the East and West;
but Eugenius was not satisfied, unless four authentic and similar
transcripts were signed and attested as the monuments of his
victory. ^72 On a memorable day, the sixth of July, the
successors of St. Peter and Constantine ascended their thrones
the two nations assembled in the cathedral of Florence; their
representatives, Cardinal Julian and Bessarion archbishop of
Nice, appeared in the pulpit, and, after reading in their
respective tongues the act of union, they mutually embraced, in
the name and the presence of their applauding brethren. The pope
and his ministers then officiated according to the Roman liturgy;
the creed was chanted with the addition of filioque; the
acquiescence of the Greeks was poorly excused by their ignorance
of the harmonious, but inarticulate sounds; ^73 and the more
scrupulous Latins refused any public celebration of the Byzantine
rite. Yet the emperor and his clergy were not totally unmindful
of national honor. The treaty was ratified by their consent: it
was tacitly agreed that no innovation should be attempted in
their creed or ceremonies: they spared, and secretly respected,
the generous firmness of Mark of Ephesus; and, on the decease of
the patriarch, they refused to elect his successor, except in the
cathedral of St. Sophia. In the distribution of public and
private rewards, the liberal pontiff exceeded their hopes and his
promises: the Greeks, with less pomp and pride, returned by the
same road of Ferrara and Venice; and their reception at
Constantinople was such as will be described in the following
chapter. ^74 The success of the first trial encouraged Eugenius
to repeat the same edifying scenes; and the deputies of the
Armenians, the Maronites, the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the
Nestorians and the Aethiopians, were successively introduced, to
kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff, and to announce the obedience
and the orthodoxy of the East. These Oriental embassies, unknown
in the countries which they presumed to represent, ^75 diffused
over the West the fame of Eugenius; and a clamor was artfully
propagated against the remnant of a schism in Switzerland and
Savoy, which alone impeded the harmony of the Christian world.
The vigor of opposition was succeeded by the lassitude of
despair: the council of Basil was silently dissolved; and Felix,
renouncing the tiara, again withdrew to the devout or delicious
hermitage of Ripaille. ^76 A general peace was secured by mutual
acts of oblivion and indemnity: all ideas of reformation
subsided; the popes continued to exercise and abuse their
ecclesiastical despotism; nor has Rome been since disturbed by
the mischiefs of a contested election. ^77

[Footnote 70: From the original Lives of the Popes, in Muratori's
Collection, (tom. iii. p. ii. 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.]

[Footnote 71: 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.)]

[Footnote 72: 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
of August, 1439) the final separation of the pope and emperor,
(Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xliii. p. 287 -
311.)]

[Footnote 73: (Syropul. p. 297.)]

[Footnote 74: 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.)]
[Footnote 75: 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 Assemannus,
a faithful slave of the Vatican.]
[Footnote 76: 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. Aeneas 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.]
[Footnote 77: In this account of the councils of Basil, Ferrara,
and Florence, I have consulted the original acts, which fill the
xviith and xviiith tome 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, (Bibliotheque Eccles. 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.]
     The journeys of three emperors were unavailing for their
temporal, or perhaps their spiritual, salvation; but they were
productive of a beneficial consequence - the revival of the Greek
learning in Italy, from whence it was propagated to the last
nations of the West and North. In their lowest servitude and
depression, the subjects of the Byzantine throne were still
possessed of a golden key that could unlock the treasures of
antiquity; of a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul
to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of
philosophy. Since the barriers of the monarchy, and even of the
capital, had been trampled under foot, the various Barbarians had
doubtless corrupted the form and substance of the national
dialect; and ample glossaries have been composed, to interpret a
multitude of words, of Arabic, Turkish, Sclavonian, Latin, or
French origin. ^78 But a purer idiom was spoken in the court and
taught in the college; and the flourishing state of the language
is described, and perhaps embellished, by a learned Italian, ^79
who, by a long residence and noble marriage, ^80 was naturalized
at Constantinople about thirty years before the Turkish conquest.
"The vulgar speech," says Philelphus, ^81 "has been depraved by
the people, and infected by the multitude of strangers and
merchants, who every day flock to the city and mingle with the
inhabitants. It is from the disciples of such a school that the
Latin language received the versions of Aristotle and Plato; so
obscure in sense, and in spirit so poor. But the Greeks who have
escaped the contagion, are those whom we follow; and they alone
are worthy of our imitation. In familiar discourse, they still
speak the tongue of Aristophanes and Euripides, of the historians
and philosophers of Athens; and the style of their writings is
still more elaborate and correct. The persons who, by their
birth and offices, are attached to the Byzantine court, are those
who maintain, with the least alloy, the ancient standard of
elegance and purity; and the native graces of language most
conspicuously shine among the noble matrons, who are excluded
from all intercourse with foreigners. With foreigners do I say?
They live retired and sequestered from the eyes of their
fellow-citizens. Seldom are they seen in the streets; and when
they leave their houses, it is in the dusk of evening, on visits
to the churches and their nearest kindred. On these occasions,
they are on horseback, covered with a veil, and encompassed by
their parents, their husbands, or their servants." ^82

[Footnote 78: In the first attempt, Meursius collected 3600
Graeco-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. Graec. 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.]

[Footnote 79: The life of Francis Philelphus, a sophist, proud,
restless, and rapacious, has been diligently composed by Lancelot
(Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 691 - 751)
(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.]

[Footnote 80: He married, and had perhaps debauched, the daughter
of John, and the granddaughter 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.]

[Footnote 81: Graeci quibus lingua depravata non sit . . . . ita
loquuntur vulgo hac etiam tempestate ut Aristophanes comicus, aut
Euripides tragicus, ut oratores omnes, ut historiographi, ut
philosophi . . . . litterati autem homines et doctius et
emendatius . . . . Nam viri aulici veterem sermonis dignitatem
atque elegantiam retinebant in primisque ipsae nobiles mulieres;
quibus cum nullum esset omnino cum viris peregrinis commercium,
merus ille ac purus Graecorum 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 moderata et suavi et maxime Attica.]
[Footnote 82: Philelphus, absurdly enough, derives this Greek or
Oriental jealousy from the manners of ancient Rome.]

     Among the Greeks a numerous and opulent clergy was dedicated
to the service of religion: their monks and bishops have ever
been distinguished by the gravity and austerity of their manners;
nor were they diverted, like the Latin priests, by the pursuits
and pleasures of a secular, and even military, life. After a
large deduction for the time and talent that were lost in the
devotion, the laziness, and the discord, of the church and
cloister, the more inquisitive and ambitious minds would explore
the sacred and profane erudition of their native language. The
ecclesiastics presided over the education of youth; the schools
of philosophy and eloquence were perpetuated till the fall of the
empire; and it may be affirmed, that more books and more
knowledge were included within the walls of Constantinople, than
could be dispersed over the extensive countries of the West. ^83
But an important distinction has been already noticed: the Greeks
were stationary or retrograde, while the Latins were advancing
with a rapid and progressive motion. The nations were excited by
the spirit of independence and emulation; and even the little
world of the Italian states contained more people and industry
than the decreasing circle of the Byzantine empire. In Europe,
the lower ranks of society were relieved from the yoke of feudal
servitude; and freedom is the first step to curiosity and
knowledge. The use, however rude and corrupt, of the Latin
tongue had been preserved by superstition; the universities, from
Bologna to Oxford, ^84 were peopled with thousands of scholars;
and their misguided ardor might be directed to more liberal and
manly studies. In the resurrection of science, Italy was the
first that cast away her shroud; and the eloquent Petrarch, by
his lessons and his example, may justly be applauded as the first
harbinger of day. A purer style of composition, a more generous
and rational strain of sentiment, flowed from the study and
imitation of the writers of ancient Rome; and the disciples of
Cicero and Virgil approached, with reverence and love, the
sanctuary of their Grecian masters. In the sack of
Constantinople, the French, and even the Venetians, had despised
and destroyed the works of Lysippus and Homer: the monuments of
art may be annihilated by a single blow; but the immortal mind is
renewed and multiplied by the copies of the pen; and such copies
it was the ambition of Petrarch and his friends to possess and
understand. The arms of the Turks undoubtedly pressed the flight
of the Muses; yet we may tremble at the thought, that Greece
might have been overwhelmed, with her schools and libraries,
before Europe had emerged from the deluge of barbarism; that the
seeds of science might have been scattered by the winds, before
the Italian soil was prepared for their cultivation.
[Footnote 83: See the state of learning in the xiiith and xivth
centuries, in the learned and judicious Mosheim, (Instit. Hist.
Eccles. p. 434 - 440, 490 - 494.)]

[Footnote 84: 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.]

Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.

Part IV.

     The most learned Italians of the fifteenth century have
confessed and applauded the restoration of Greek literature,
after a long oblivion of many hundred years. ^85 Yet in that
country, and beyond the Alps, some names are quoted; some
profound scholars, who in the darker ages were honorably
distinguished by their knowledge of the Greek tongue; and
national vanity has been loud in the praise of such rare examples
of erudition. Without scrutinizing the merit of individuals,
truth must observe, that their science is without a cause, and
without an effect; that it was easy for them to satisfy
themselves and their more ignorant contemporaries; and that the
idiom, which they had so marvellously acquired was transcribed in
few manuscripts, and was not taught in any university of the
West. In a corner of Italy, it faintly existed as the popular,
or at least as the ecclesiastical dialect. ^86 The first
impression of the Doric and Ionic colonies has never been
completely erased: the Calabrian churches were long attached to
the throne of Constantinople: and the monks of St. Basil pursued
their studies in Mount Athos and the schools of the East.
Calabria was the native country of Barlaam, who has already
appeared as a sectary and an ambassador; and Barlaam was the
first who revived, beyond the Alps, the memory, or at least the
writings, of Homer. ^87 He is described, by Petrarch and Boccace,
^88 as a man of diminutive stature, though truly great in the
measure of learning and genius; of a piercing discernment, though
of a slow and painful elocution. For many ages (as they affirm)
Greece had not produced his equal in the knowledge of history,
grammar, and philosophy; and his merit was celebrated in the
attestations of the princes and doctors of Constantinople. One
of these attestations is still extant; and the emperor
Cantacuzene, the protector of his adversaries, is forced to
allow, that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato, were familiar to that
profound and subtle logician. ^89 In the court of Avignon, he
formed an intimate connection with Petrarch, ^90 the first of the
Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was the
principle of their literary commerce. The Tuscan applied himself
with eager curiosity and assiduous diligence to the study of the
Greek language; and in a laborious struggle with the dryness and
difficulty of the first rudiments, he began to reach the sense,
and to feel the spirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds
were congenial to his own. But he was soon deprived of the
society and lessons of this useful assistant: Barlaam
relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on his return to Greece,
he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, by attempting to
substitute the light of reason to that of their navel. After a
separation of three years, the two friends again met in the court
of Naples: but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasion
of improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally
settled in a small bishopric of his native Calabria. ^91 The
manifold avocations of Petrarch, love and friendship, his various
correspondence and frequent journeys, the Roman laurel, and his
elaborate compositions in prose and verse, in Latin and Italian,
diverted him from a foreign idiom; and as he advanced in life,
the attainment of the Greek language was the object of his wishes
rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of age,
a Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a master of both tongues,
presented him with a copy of Homer; and the answer of Petrarch is
at one expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After
celebrating the generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift
more precious in his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus
proceeds: "Your present of the genuine and original text of the
divine poet, the fountain of all inventions, is worthy of
yourself and of me: you have fulfilled your promise, and
satisfied my desires. Yet your liberality is still imperfect:
with Homer you should have given me yourself; a guide, who could
lead me into the fields of light, and disclose to my wondering
eyes the spacious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas!
Homer is dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the
beauty which I possess. I have seated him by the side of Plato,
the prince of poets near the prince of philosophers; and I glory
in the sight of my illustrious guests. Of their immortal
writings, whatever had been translated into the Latin idiom, I
had already acquired; but, if there be no profit, there is some
pleasure, in beholding these venerable Greeks in their proper and
national habit. I am delighted with the aspect of Homer; and as
often as I embrace the silent volume, I exclaim with a sigh,
Illustrious bard! with what pleasure should I listen to thy song,
if my sense of hearing were not obstructed and lost by the death
of one friend, and in the much-lamented absence of another. Nor
do I yet despair; and the example of Cato suggests some comfort
and hope, since it was in the last period of age that he attained
the knowledge of the Greek letters." ^92

[Footnote 85: Of those writers who professedly treat of the
restoration of the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are
Hodius, Dr. Humphrey Hody, (de Graecis Illustribus, Linguae
Graecae Literarumque humaniorum 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
Modema enjoys the superiority of a modern and national
historian.]

[Footnote 86: In Calabria quae olim magna Graecia dicebatur,
coloniis Graecis repleta, remansit quaedam linguae 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.)]

[Footnote 87: 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.]
[Footnote 88: See the character of Barlaam, in Boccace de
Genealog. Deorum, l. xv. c. 6.]

[Footnote 89: Cantacuzen. l. ii. c. 36.]

[Footnote 90: For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the
two interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the
excellent Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 406 - 410,
tom. ii. p. 74 - 77.]
[Footnote 91: The bishopric to which Barlaam retired, was the old
Locri, in the middle ages. Scta. Cyriaca, and by corruption
Hieracium, Gerace, (Dissert. Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi, 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.)]
[Footnote 92: I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of
Petrarch, (Famil. ix. 2;) Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem
Alienum sermonen violento alveo derivatum, sed ex ipsis Graeci
eloquii scatebris, et qualis divino illi profluxit ingenio . . .
. Sine tua voce Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immo vero ego apud
illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel adspectu solo, ac saepe illum
amplexus atque suspirans dico, O magne vir, &c.]
     The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was obtained
by the fortune and industry of his friend Boccace, the father of
the Tuscan prose. That popular writer, who derives his reputation
from the Decameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may
aspire to the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study
of the Greek language. In the year one thousand three hundred
and sixty, a disciple of Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius
Pilatus, was detained in his way to Avignon by the advice and
hospitality of Boccace, who lodged the stranger in his house,
prevailed on the republic of Florence to allow him an annual
stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greek professor,
who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe. The
appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager disciple, he was
clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or a mendicant; his
countenance was hideous; his face was overshadowed with black
hair; his beard long an uncombed; his deportment rustic; his
temper gloomy and inconstant; nor could he grace his discourse
with the ornaments, or even the perspicuity, of Latin elocution.
But his mind was stored with a treasure of Greek learning:
history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were alike at his
command; and he read the poems of Homer in the schools of
Florence. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed ^*
and transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey,
which satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which,
perhaps, in the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by
Laurentius Valla, the Latin interpreter. It was from his
narratives that the same Boccace collected the materials for his
treatise on the genealogy of the heathen gods, a work, in that
age, of stupendous erudition, and which he ostentatiously
sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite the
wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers. ^94 The first
steps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten
votaries of Homer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither
Rome, nor Venice, nor Naples, could add a single name to this
studious catalogue. But their numbers would have multiplied,
their progress would have been accelerated, if the inconstant
Leo, at the end of three years, had not relinquished an honorable
and beneficial station. In his passage, Petrarch entertained him
at Padua a short time: he enjoyed the scholar, but was justly
offended with the gloomy and unsocial temper of the man.
Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated his
present enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear to
his imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a
native of Calabria: in the company of the Latins he disdained
their language, religion, and manners: no sooner was he landed at
Constantinople, than he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and
the elegance of Florence. His Italian friends were deaf to his
importunity: he depended on their curiosity and indulgence, and
embarked on a second voyage; but on his entrance into the
Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the unfortunate
teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast, was
struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped
a tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether
some copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the
hands of the mariners. ^95

[Footnote 93: For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born
in 1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. Medii Aevi,
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.]
[Footnote *: This translation of Homer was by Pilatus, not by
Boccacio. See Halleza, Hist. of Lit. vol. i. p. 132. - M.]

[Footnote 94: Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis
causa Graeca carmina adscripsi . . . . jure utor meo; meum est
hoc decus, mea gloria scilicet inter Etruscos Graecis uti
carminibus. Nonne ego fui qui Leontium Pilatum, &c., (de
Genealogia Deorum, l. xv. c. 7, a work which, though now
forgotten, has run through thirteen or fourteen editions.)]
[Footnote 95: Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made
known by Hody, (p. 2 - 11,) and the abbe de Sade, (Vie de
Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 625 - 634, 670 - 673,) who has very
happily caught the lively and dramatic manner of his original.]

     But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Petrarch
had encouraged and Boccace had planted, soon withered and
expired. The succeeding generation was content for a while with
the improvement of Latin eloquence; nor was it before the end of
the fourteenth century that a new and perpetual flame was
rekindled in Italy. ^96 Previous to his own journey the emperor
Manuel despatched his envoys and orators to implore the
compassion of the Western princes. Of these envoys, the most
conspicuous, or the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras, ^97 of
noble birth, and whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have
migrated with the great Constantine. After visiting the courts
of France and England, where he obtained some contributions and
more promises, the envoy was invited to assume the office of a
professor; and Florence had again the honor of this second
invitation. By his knowledge, not only of the Greek, but of the
Latin tongue, Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, and surpassed the
expectation, of the republic. His school was frequented by a
crowd of disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in a
general history, has described his motives and his success. "At
that time," says Leonard Aretin, ^98 "I was a student of the
civil law; but my soul was inflamed with the love of letters; and
I bestowed some application on the sciences of logic and
rhetoric. On the arrival of Manuel, I hesitated whether I should
desert my legal studies, or relinquish this golden opportunity;
and thus, in the ardor of youth, I communed with my own mind -
Wilt thou be wanting to thyself and thy fortune? Wilt thou
refuse to be introduced to a familiar converse with Homer, Plato,
and Demosthenes; with those poets, philosophers, and orators, of
whom such wonders are related, and who are celebrated by every
age as the great masters of human science? Of professors and
scholars in civil law, a sufficient supply will always be found
in our universities; but a teacher, and such a teacher, of the
Greek language, if he once be suffered to escape, may never
afterwards be retrieved. Convinced by these reasons, I gave
myself to Chrysoloras; and so strong was my passion, that the
lessons which I had imbibed in the day were the constant object
of my nightly dreams." ^99 At the same time and place, the Latin
classics were explained by John of Ravenna, the domestic pupil of
Petrarch; ^100 the Italians, who illustrated their age and
country, were formed in this double school; and Florence became
the fruitful seminary of Greek and Roman erudition. ^101 The
presence of the emperor recalled Chrysoloras from the college to
the court; but he afterwards taught at Pavia and Rome with equal
industry and applause. The remainder of his life, about fifteen
years, was divided between Italy and Constantinople, between
embassies and lessons. In the noble office of enlightening a
foreign nation, the grammarian was not unmindful of a more sacred
duty to his prince and country; and Emanuel Chrysoloras died at
Constance on a public mission from the emperor to the council.

[Footnote 96: 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.]
[Footnote 97: 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.]

[Footnote 98: 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 A.D. 1444,
at the age of seventy-five, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii Aevi, tom. i.
p. 190 &c. Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33 - 38)]

[Footnote 99: See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo
Tempore in Italia gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28 - 30.]

[Footnote 100: 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, (Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 700 -
709.)]

[Footnote 101: Hinc Graecae Latinaeque scholae exortae 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 Vincentius, Poggius, Franciscus
Barbarus, &c. But I question whether a rigid chronology would
allow Chrysoloras all these eminent scholars, (Hodius, p. 25 -
27, &c.)]
     After his example, the restoration of the Greek letters in
Italy was prosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were destitute
of fortune, and endowed with learning, or at least with language.

From the terror or oppression of the Turkish arms, the natives of
Thessalonica and Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom,
curiosity, and wealth. The synod introduced into Florence the
lights of the Greek church, and the oracles of the Platonic
philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the union, had the
double merit of renouncing their country, not only for the
Christian, but for the catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrifices
his party and conscience to the allurements of favor, may be
possessed, however, of the private and social virtues: he no
longer hears the reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and
the consideration which he acquires among his new associates will
restore in his own eyes the dignity of his character. The
prudent conformity of Bessarion was rewarded with the Roman
purple: he fixed his residence in Italy; and the Greek cardinal,
the titular patriarch of Constantinople, was respected as the
chief and protector of his nation: ^102 his abilities were
exercised in the legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and
France; and his election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a
moment on the uncertain breath of a conclave. ^103 His
ecclesiastical honors diffused a splendor and preeminence over
his literary merit and service: his palace was a school; as often
as the cardinal visited the Vatican, he was attended by a learned
train of both nations; ^104 of men applauded by themselves and
the public; and whose writings, now overspread with dust, were
popular and useful in their own times. I shall not attempt to
enumerate the restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth
century; and it may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the
names of Theodore Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John
Argyropulus, and Demetrius Chalcocondyles, who taught their
native language in the schools of Florence and Rome. Their
labors were not inferior to those of Bessarion, whose purple they
revered, and whose fortune was the secret object of their envy.
But the lives of these grammarians were humble and obscure: they
had declined the lucrative paths of the church; their dress and
manners secluded them from the commerce of the world; and since
they were confined to the merit, they might be content with the
rewards, of learning. From this character, Janus Lascaris ^105
will deserve an exception. His eloquence, politeness, and
Imperial descent, recommended him to the French monarch; and in
the same cities he was alternately employed to teach and to
negotiate. Duty and interest prompted them to cultivate the
study of the Latin language; and the most successful attained the
faculty of writing and speaking with fluency and elegance in a
foreign idiom. But they ever retained the inveterate vanity of
their country: their praise, or at least their esteem, was
reserved for the national writers, to whom they owed their fame
and subsistence; and they sometimes betrayed their contempt in
licentious criticism or satire on Virgil's poetry, and the
oratory of Tully. ^106 The superiority of these masters arose
from the familiar use of a living language; and their first
disciples were incapable of discerning how far they had
degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice of their
ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, ^107 which they introduced,
was banished from the schools by the reason of the succeeding
age. Of the power of the Greek accents they were ignorant; and
those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue, and to an Attic
ear, must have been the secret soul of harmony, were to their
eyes, as to our own, no more than minute and unmeaning marks, in
prose superfluous and troublesome in verse. The art of grammar
they truly possessed; the valuable fragments of Apollonius and
Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and their treatises
of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit, are
still useful to the Greek student. In the shipwreck of the
Byzantine libraries, each fugitive seized a fragment of treasure,
a copy of some author, who without his industry might have
perished: the transcripts were multiplied by an assiduous, and
sometimes an elegant pen; and the text was corrected and
explained by their own comments, or those of the elder
scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek
classics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of
style evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza
selected the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and
their natural histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund
of genuine and experimental science.
[Footnote 102: See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p. 136 -
177.) Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, aud 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.]
[Footnote 103: The cardinals knocked at his door, but his
conclavist refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion:
"Nicholas," said he, "thy respect has cost thee a hat, and me the
tiara."

     Note: Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. i. p. 75)
considers that Hody has refuted this "idle tale." - M.]

[Footnote 104: 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 aevo
perituri, p. 156.)]

[Footnote 105: He was born before the taking of Constantinople,
but his honorable life was stretched far into the xvith century,
(A.D. 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.)]
[Footnote 106: Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three
against Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus,
who can find no better names than Graeculus ineptus et impudens,
(Hody, p. 274.) In our own times, an English critic has accused
the Aeneid 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,
(praefat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22.)]

[Footnote 107: Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are
accused of ignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c., tom. ii.
p. 235.) The modern Greeks pronounce it as a V consonant, and
confound three vowels, and several diphthongs. Such was the
vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by penal
statutes in the university of Cambridge: but the monosyllable
represented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep, and a
bellwether 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 O, th, is approved by Erasmus, (tom. ii. p. 130.)]

     Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with
more curiosity and ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was
revived in Italy by a venerable Greek, ^108 who taught in the
house of Cosmo of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was
involved in theological debate, some beneficial consequences
might flow from the study of his elegant philosophy: his style is
the purest standard of the Attic dialect, and his sublime
thoughts are sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and
sometimes adorned with the richest colors of poetry and
eloquence. The dialogues of Plato are a dramatic picture of the
life and death of a sage; and, as often as he descends from the
clouds, his moral system inculcates the love of truth, of our
country, and of mankind. The precept and example of Socrates
recommended a modest doubt and liberal inquiry; and if the
Platonists, with blind devotion, adored the visions and errors of
their divine master, their enthusiasm might correct the dry,
dogmatic method of the Peripatetic school. So equal, yet so
opposite, are the merits of Plato and Aristotle, that they may be
balanced in endless controversy; but some spark of freedom may be
produced by the collision of adverse servitude. The modern
Greeks were divided between the two sects: with more fury than
skill they fought under the banner of their leaders; and the
field of battle was removed in their flight from Constantinople
to Rome. But this philosophical debate soon degenerated into an
angry and personal quarrel of grammarians; and Bessarion, though
an advocate for Plato, protected the national honor, by
interposing the advice and authority of a mediator. In the
gardens of the Medici, the academical doctrine was enjoyed by the
polite and learned: but their philosophic society was quickly
dissolved; and if the writings of the Attic sage were perused in
the closet, the more powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the
oracle of the church and school. ^109
[Footnote 108: 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. Graec. tom. x. p.
739 - 756.)]

[Footnote 109: The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is
illustrated by Boivin, (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.
ii. p. 715 - 729,) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 259 -
288.)]

     I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks;
yet it must be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed
by the ardor of the Latins. Italy was divided into many
independent states; and at that time it was the ambition of
princes and republics to vie with each other in the encouragement
and reward of literature. The fame of Nicholas the Fifth ^110
has not been adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin he
raised himself by his virtue and learning: the character of the
man prevailed over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened
those weapons which were soon pointed against the Roman church.
^111 He had been the friend of the most eminent scholars of the
age: he became their patron; and such was the humility of his
manners, that the change was scarcely discernible either to them
or to himself. If he pressed the acceptance of a liberal gift,
it was not as the measure of desert, but as the proof of
benevolence; and when modest merit declined his bounty, "Accept
it," would he say, with a consciousness of his own worth: "ye
will not always have a Nicholas among you." The influence of the
holy see pervaded Christendom; and he exerted that influence in
the search, not of benefices, but of books. From the ruins of
the Byzantine libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany
and Britain, he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of
antiquity; and wherever the original could not be removed, a
faithful copy was transcribed and transmitted for his use. The
Vatican, the old repository for bulls and legends, for
superstition and forgery, was daily replenished with more
precious furniture; and such was the industry of Nicholas, that
in a reign of eight years he formed a library of five thousand
volumes. To his munificence the Latin world was indebted for the
versions of Xenophon, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus,
and Appian; of Strabo's Geography, of the Iliad, of the most
valuable works of Plato and Aristotle, of Ptolemy and
Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the Greek church. The
example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or imitated by a
Florentine merchant, who governed the republic without arms and
without a title. Cosmo of Medicis ^112 was the father of a line
of princes, whose name and age are almost synonymous with the
restoration of learning: his credit was ennobled into fame; his
riches were dedicated to the service of mankind; he corresponded
at once with Cairo and London: and a cargo of Indian spices and
Greek books was often imported in the same vessel. The genius
and education of his grandson Lorenzo rendered him not only a
patron, but a judge and candidate, in the literary race. In his
pallace, distress was entitled to relief, and merit to reward:
his leisure hours were delightfully spent in the Platonic
academy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius Chalcocondyles
and Angelo Politian; and his active missionary Janus Lascaris
returned from the East with a treasure of two hundred
manuscripts, fourscore of which were as yet unknown in the
libraries of Europe. ^113 The rest of Italy was animated by a
similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid the
liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive
property of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece
were soon capable of transmitting and improving the lessons which
they had imbibed. After a short succession of foreign teachers,
the tide of emigration subsided; but the language of
Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the natives of
France, Germany, and England, ^114 imparted to their country the
sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence and
Rome. ^115 In the productions of the mind, as in those of the
soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the
Greek authors, forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been
illustrated on those of the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or
Gaza might have envied the superior science of the Barbarians;
the accuracy of Budaeus, the taste of Erasmus, the copiousness of
Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the discernment of Reiske,
or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the discovery of
printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has been
applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate
and multiply the works of antiquity. ^116 A single manuscript
imported from Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each
copy is fairer than the original. In this form, Homer and Plato
would peruse with more satisfaction their own writings; and their
scholiasts must resign the prize to the labors of our Western
editors.

[Footnote 110: 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.]

[Footnote 111: 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.)]

[Footnote 112: 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.]

[Footnote 113: 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 Thraciae monte. Eas
Larcaris . . . . in Italiam reportavit. Miserat enim ipsum
Laurentius ille Medices in Graeciam ad inquirendos simul, et
quantovis emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable enough,
that the research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.]

[Footnote 114: 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 Chalcocondyles. 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.]
[Footnote 115: 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, (said 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 Rhemanus.)]

[Footnote 116: 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.
Graec. 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 Typographical of Mattaire, and the Bibliographie
Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.]

     Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in
Europe were immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were
marked with the rudeness and poverty of their manners. The
students of the more perfect idioms of Rome and Greece were
introduced to a new world of light and science; to the society of
the free and polished nations of antiquity; and to a familiar
converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime language
of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to refine
the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet,
from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the
ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind.
However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast;
and the first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of
strangers in the midst of their age and country. The minute and
laborious diligence which explored the antiquities of remote
times might have improved or adorned the present state of
society, the critic and metaphysician were the slaves of
Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proud to
repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works of
nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and
some Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of
Homer and Plato. ^117 The Italians were oppressed by the strength
and number of their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the
deaths of Petrarch and Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin
imitators, who decently repose on our shelves; but in that aera
of learning it will not be easy to discern a real discovery of
science, a work of invention or eloquence, in the popular
language of the country. ^118 But as soon as it had been deeply
saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened into
vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics
of Athens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous
emulation; and in Italy, as afterwards in France and England, the
pleasing reign of poetry and fiction was succeeded by the light
of speculative and experimental philosophy. Genius may
anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a
people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised,
before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may
the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to
imitate, the works of his predecessors.

[Footnote 117: I will select three singular examples of this
classic enthusiasm. I. 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 Laetus; and the principal members were accused of
heresy, impiety, and paganism, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p. 81,
82.) 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, as 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.]

[Footnote 118: The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we
cannot place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore
of Pulo and the Orlando Innamorato of Boyardo, (Tiraboschi, tom.
vi. P. ii. p. 174 - 177.)]

Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.

Part I.

     Schism Of The Greeks And Latins. - Reign And Character Of
Amurath The Second. - Crusade Of Ladislaus, King Of Hungary. -
His Defeat And Death. - John Huniades. - Scanderbeg. -
Constantine Palaeologus, Last Emperor Of The East.

     The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are
compared and celebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the
Italian schools. ^1 The view of the ancient capital, the seat of
his ancestors, surpassed the most sanguine expectations of
Emanuel Chrysoloras; and he no longer blamed the exclamation of
an old sophist, that Rome was the habitation, not of men, but of
gods. Those gods, and those men, had long since vanished; but to
the eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin restored the
image of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of the consuls
and Caesars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides
the curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he
confessed that in every age the arms and the religion of Rome
were destined to reign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired
the venerable beauties of the mother, he was not forgetful of his
native country, her fairest daughter, her Imperial colony; and
the Byzantine patriot expatiates with zeal and truth on the
eternal advantages of nature, and the more transitory glories of
art and dominion, which adorned, or had adorned, the city of
Constantine. Yet the perfection of the copy still redounds (as
he modestly observes) to the honor of the original, and parents
are delighted to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior
merit of their children. "Constantinople," says the orator, "is
situate on a commanding point, between Europe and Asia, between
the Archipelago and the Euxine. By her interposition, the two
seas, and the two continents, are united for the common benefit
of nations; and the gates of commerce may be shut or opened at
her command. The harbor, encompassed on all sides by the sea,
and the continent, is the most secure and capacious in the world.

The walls and gates of Constantinople may be compared with those
of Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and lofty
structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be
sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A
broad and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the
artificial island may be encompassed, like Athens, by land or
water." Two strong and natural causes are alleged for the
perfection of the model of new Rome. The royal founder reigned
over the most illustrious nations of the globe; and in the
accomplishment of his designs, the power of the Romans was
combined with the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities
have been reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties
are mingled with disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants,
unwilling to remove from their natal spot, are incapable of
correcting the errors of their ancestors, and the original vices
of situation or climate. But the free idea of Constantinople was
formed and executed by a single mind; and the primitive model was
improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects and successors of
the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored with an
inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials were
transported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; and
the public and private buildings, the palaces, churches,
aqueducts, cisterns, porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes,
were adapted to the greatness of the capital of the East. The
superfluity of wealth was spread along the shores of Europe and
Asia; and the Byzantine territory, as far as the Euxine, the
Hellespont, and the long wall, might be considered as a populous
suburb and a perpetual garden. In this flattering picture, the
past and the present, the times of prosperity and decay, are art
fully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape, from the
orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchre of
its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced
by Christian zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures
were demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt
for lime, or applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the
place was marked by an empty pedestal; of many a column, the size
was determined by a broken capital; the tombs of the emperors
were scattered on the ground; the stroke of time was accelerated
by storms and earthquakes; and the vacant space was adorned, by
vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of gold and silver.
From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, he
distinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and
colossus of Justinian, ^3 and the church, more especially the
dome, of St. Sophia; the best conclusion, since it could not be
described according to its merits, and after it no other object
could deserve to be mentioned. But he forgets that, a century
before, the trembling fabrics of the colossus and the church had
been saved and supported by the timely care of Andronicus the
Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had fortified St. Sophia
with two new buttresses or pyramids, the eastern hemisphere
suddenly gave way: and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary,
were crushed by the falling ruin. The mischief indeed was
speedily repaired; the rubbish was cleared by the incessant labor
of every rank and age; and the poor remains of riches and
industry were consecrated by the Greeks to the most stately and
venerable temple of the East. ^4

[Footnote 1: The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor
John Palaeologus 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
Palaeologus II. was associated in the empire before the year
1414, 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.)]
[Footnote 2: Somebody observed that the city of Athens might be
circumnavigated. 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.]
[Footnote 3: 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.)]

[Footnote 4: 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.]

     The last hope of the falling city and empire was placed in
the harmony of the mother and daughter, in the maternal
tenderness of Rome, and the filial obedience of Constantinople.
In the synod of Florence, the Greeks and Latins had embraced, and
subscribed, and promised; but these signs of friendship were
perfidious or fruitless; ^5 and the baseless fabric of the union
vanished like a dream. ^6 The emperor and his prelates returned
home in the Venetian galleys; but as they touched at the Morea
and the Isles of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins
complained that the pretended union would be an instrument of
oppression. No sooner did they land on the Byzantine shore, than
they were saluted, or rather assailed, with a general murmur of
zeal and discontent. During their absence, above two years, the
capital had been deprived of its civil and ecclesiastical rulers;
fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the most furious monks reigned
over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatred of the
Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion.
Before his departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the
city with the assurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succor;
and the clergy, confident in their orthodoxy and science, had
promised themselves and their flocks an easy victory over the
blind shepherds of the West. The double disappointment
exasperated the Greeks; the conscience of the subscribing
prelates was awakened; the hour of temptation was past; and they
had more to dread from the public resentment, than they could
hope from the favor of the emperor or the pope. Instead of
justifying their conduct, they deplored their weakness, professed
their contrition, and cast themselves on the mercy of God and of
their brethren. To the reproachful question, what had been the
event or the use of their Italian synod? they answered with
sighs and tears, "Alas! we have made a new faith; we have
exchanged piety for impiety; we have betrayed the immaculate
sacrifice; and we are become Azymites." (The Azymites were those
who celebrated the communion with unleavened bread; and I must
retract or qualify the praise which I have bestowed on the
growing philosophy of the times.) "Alas! we have been seduced by
distress, by fraud, and by the hopes and fears of a transitory
life. The hand that has signed the union should be cut off; and
the tongue that has pronounced the Latin creed deserves to be
torn from the root." The best proof of their repentance was an
increase of zeal for the most trivial rites and the most
incomprehensible doctrines; and an absolute separation from all,
without excepting their prince, who preserved some regard for
honor and consistency. After the decease of the patriarch
Joseph, the archbishops of Heraclea and Trebizond had courage to
refuse the vacant office; and Cardinal Bessarion preferred the
warm and comfortable shelter of the Vatican. The choice of the
emperor and his clergy was confined to Metrophanes of Cyzicus: he
was consecrated in St. Sophia, but the temple was vacant. The
cross-bearers abdicated their service; the infection spread from
the city to the villages; and Metrophanes discharged, without
effect, some ecclesiastical thunders against a nation of
schismatics. The eyes of the Greeks were directed to Mark of
Ephesus, the champion of his country; and the sufferings of the
holy confessor were repaid with a tribute of admiration and
applause. His example and writings propagated the flame of
religious discord; age and infirmity soon removed him from the
world; but the gospel of Mark was not a law of forgiveness; and
he requested with his dying breath, that none of the adherents of
Rome might attend his obsequies or pray for his soul.

[Footnote 5: 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.]

[Footnote 6: On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza, (l.
ii. c. 17,) Laonicus Chalcondyles, (l. vi. p. 155, 156,) 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, (A.D.
1440 - 50.) The sense of the latter is drowned in prejudice and
passion, as soon as Rome and religion are concerned.]

     The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the
Byzantine empire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the three
patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, assembled a
numerous synod; disowned their representatives at Ferrara and
Florence; condemned the creed and council of the Latins; and
threatened the emperor of Constantinople with the censures of the
Eastern church. Of the sectaries of the Greek communion, the
Russians were the most powerful, ignorant, and superstitious.
Their primate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened from Florence to
Moscow, ^7 to reduce the independent nation under the Roman yoke.

But the Russian bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; and the
prince and people embraced the theology of their priests. They
were scandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the
legate, the friend of those impious men who shaved their beards,
and performed the divine office with gloves on their hands and
rings on their fingers: Isidore was condemned by a synod; his
person was imprisoned in a monastery; and it was with extreme
difficulty that the cardinal could escape from the hands of a
fierce and fanatic people. ^8 The Russians refused a passage to
the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convert the Pagans beyond
the Tanais; ^9 and their refusal was justified by the maxim, that
the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism. The
errors of the Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for the
pope; and a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the
friendship of those sanguinary enthusiasts. ^10 While Eugenius
triumphed in the union and orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was
contracted to the walls, or rather to the palace of
Constantinople. The zeal of Palaeologus had been excited by
interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt to violate
the national belief might endanger his life and crown; not could
the pious rebels be destitute of foreign and domestic aid. The
sword of his brother Demetrius, who in Italy had maintained a
prudent and popular silence, was half unsheathed in the cause of
religion; and Amurath, the Turkish sultan, was displeased and
alarmed by the seeming friendship of the Greeks and Latins.

[Footnote 7: Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks
subject to Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to
Lemberg, or Leopold, (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.)]
[Footnote 8: 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.]

[Footnote 9: The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the
Samanaeans 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 a la Domination
des Russes, tom. i. p. 194 - 237, 423 - 460.)]

[Footnote 10: Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. tom ii. A.D. 1451, No.
13. The epistle of the Greeks with a Latin version, is extant in
the college library at Prague.]

     "Sultan Murad, or Amurath, lived forty-nine, and reigned
thirty years, six months, and eight days. He was a just and
valiant prince, of a great soul, patient of labors, learned,
merciful, religious, charitable; a lover and encourager of the
studious, and of all who excelled in any art or science; a good
emperor and a great general. No man obtained more or greater
victories than Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his attacks. ^*
Under his reign, the soldier was ever victorious, the citizen
rich and secure. If he subdued any country, his first care was
to build mosques and caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges.
Every year he gave a thousand pieces of gold to the sons of the
Prophet; and sent two thousand five hundred to the religious
persons of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem." ^11 This portrait is
transcribed from the historian of the Othman empire: but the
applause of a servile and superstitious people has been lavished
on the worst of tyrants; and the virtues of a sultan are often
the vices most useful to himself, or most agreeable to his
subjects. A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and
law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty
of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion,
of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness. If the most
reasonable excuse be rejected, few acts of obedience will be
found impossible; and guilt must tremble, where innocence cannot
always be secure. The tranquillity of the people, and the
discipline of the troops, were best maintained by perpetual
action in the field; war was the trade of the Janizaries; and
those who survived the peril, and divided the spoil, applauded
the generous ambition of their sovereign. To propagate the true
religion, was the duty of a faithful Mussulman: the unbelievers
were his enemies, and those of the Prophet; and, in the hands of
the Turks, the scimeter was the only instrument of conversion.
Under these circumstances, however, the justice and moderation of
Amurath are attested by his conduct, and acknowledged by the
Christians themselves; who consider a prosperous reign and a
peaceful death as the reward of his singular merits. In the
vigor of his age and military power, he seldom engaged in war
till he was justified by a previous and adequate provocation: the
victorious sultan was disarmed by submission; and in the
observance of treaties, his word was inviolate and sacred. ^12
The Hungarians were commonly the aggressors; he was provoked by
the revolt of Scanderbeg; and the perfidious Caramanian was twice
vanquished, and twice pardoned, by the Ottoman monarch. Before
he invaded the Morea, Thebes had been surprised by the despot: in
the conquest of Thessalonica, the grandson of Bajazet might
dispute the recent purchase of the Venetians; and after the first
siege of Constantinople, the sultan was never tempted, by the
distress, the absence, or the injuries of Palaeologus, to
extinguish the dying light of the Byzantine empire.

[Footnote *: See the siege and massacre at Thessalonica. Von
Hammer vol. i p. 433 - M.]

[Footnote 11: See Cantemir, History of the Othman Empire, p. 94.
Muraq, or Morad, may be more correct: but I have preferred the
popular name to that obscure diligence which is rarely successful
in translating an Oriental, into the Roman, alphabet.]

[Footnote 12: 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.]

     But the most striking feature in the life and character of
Amurath is the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were
not his motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must
praise the royal philosopher, ^13 who at the age of forty could
discern the vanity of human greatness. Resigning the sceptre to
his son, he retired to the pleasant residence of Magnesia; but he
retired to the society of saints and hermits. It was not till
the fourth century of the Hegira, that the religion of Mahomet
had been corrupted by an institution so adverse to his genius;
but in the age of the crusades, the various orders of Dervises
were multiplied by the example of the Christian, and even the
Latin, monks. ^14 The lord of nations submitted to fast, and
pray, and turn round ^* in endless rotation with the fanatics,
who mistook the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the
spirit. ^15 But he was soon awakened from his dreams of
enthusiasm by the Hungarian invasion; and his obedient son was
the foremost to urge the public danger and the wishes of the
people. Under the banner of their veteran leader, the Janizaries
fought and conquered but he withdrew from the field of Varna,
again to pray, to fast, and to turn round with his Magnesian
brethren. These pious occupations were again interrupted by the
danger of the state. A victorious army disdained the
inexperience of their youthful ruler: the city of Adrianople was
abandoned to rapine and slaughter; and the unanimous divan
implored his presence to appease the tumult, and prevent the
rebellion, of the Janizaries. At the well-known voice of their
master, they trembled and obeyed; and the reluctant sultan was
compelled to support his splendid servitude, till at the end of
four years, he was relieved by the angel of death. Age or
disease, misfortune or caprice, have tempted several princes to
descend from the throne; and they have had leisure to repent of
their irretrievable step. But Amurath alone, in the full liberty
of choice, after the trial of empire and solitude, has repeated
his preference of a private life.

[Footnote 13: Voltaire (Essai sur l'Histoire Generale, 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.]

[Footnote 14: See the articles Dervische, Fakir, Nasser,
Rohbaniat, in D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale. Yet the
subject is superficially treated from the Persian and Arabian
writers. It is among the Turks that these orders have
principally flourished.]

[Footnote *: Gibbon has fallen into a remarkable error. The
unmonastic retreat of Amurath was that of an epicurean rather
than of a dervis; more like that of Sardanapalus than of Charles
the Fifth. Profane, not divine, love was its chief occupation:
the only dance, that described by Horace as belonging to the
country, motus doceri gaudet Ionicos. See Von Hammer note, p.
652. - M]
[Footnote 15: Ricaut (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 dervises, most of
whom ascribed their origin to the time of Orchan. He does not
mention the Zichidae of Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 286,) among
whom Amurath retired: the Seids of that author are the
descendants of Mahomet.]

     After the departure of his Greek brethren, Eugenius had not
been unmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender regard
for the Byzantine empire was animated by a just apprehension of
the Turks, who approached, and might soon invade, the borders of
Italy. But the spirit of the crusades had expired; and the
coldness of the Franks was not less unreasonable than their
headlong passion. In the eleventh century, a fanatic monk could
precipitate Europe on Asia for the recovery of the holy
sepulchre; but in the fifteenth, the most pressing motives of
religion and policy were insufficient to unite the Latins in the
defence of Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse
of men and arms: ^16 but that complex and languid body required
the impulse of a vigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike
impotent in his personal character and his Imperial dignity. A
long war had impaired the strength, without satiating the
animosity, of France and England: ^17 but Philip duke of Burgundy
was a vain and magnificent prince; and he enjoyed, without danger
or expense, the adventurous piety of his subjects, who sailed, in
a gallant fleet, from the coast of Flanders to the Hellespont.
The maritime republics of Venice and Genoa were less remote from
the scene of action; and their hostile fleets were associated
under the standard of St. Peter. The kingdoms of Hungary and
Poland, which covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin
church, were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of
the Turks. Arms were the patrimony of the Scythians and
Sarmatians; and these nations might appear equal to the contest,
could they point, against the common foe, those swords that were
so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic quarrels. But the same
spirit was adverse to concord and obedience: a poor country and a
limited monarch are incapable of maintaining a standing force;
and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were not armed
with the sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, have
given irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this
side, the designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of
Cardinal Julian, his legate, were promoted by the circumstances
of the times: ^18 by the union of the two crowns on the head of
Ladislaus, ^19 a young and ambitious soldier; by the valor of a
hero, whose name, the name of John Huniades, was already popular
among the Christians, and formidable to the Turks. An endless
treasure of pardons and indulgences was scattered by the legate;
many private warriors of France and Germany enlisted under the
holy banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or at least
some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and Asia. A
fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress and ardor of
the Christians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to
vindicate their religion and liberty. The Greek emperor, ^20
with a spirit unknown to his fathers, engaged to guard the
Bosphorus, and to sally from Constantinople at the head of his
national and mercenary troops. The sultan of Caramania ^21
announced the retreat of Amurath, and a powerful diversion in the
heart of Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West could occupy at
the same moment the Straits of the Hellespont, the Ottoman
monarchy would be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and earth
must rejoice in the perdition of the miscreants; and the legate,
with prudent ambiguity, instilled the opinion of the invisible,
perhaps the visible, aid of the Son of God, and his divine
mother.

[Footnote 16: 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, 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 wagons. The united armies of the king of England and the
duke of Burgundy scarcely equalled one third of this German host,
(Memoires 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.]
[Footnote 17: It was not till the year 1444, that France and
England could agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer's
Foedera, and the chronicles of both nations.)]

[Footnote 18: In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. Eccles.
A.D. 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.]
[Footnote 19: 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.]
[Footnote 20: 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.]

[Footnote 21: 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 it formed of the
state of Christendom and the situation and correspondence of the
knights of Rhodes must connect them with the sultan of
Caramania.]

     Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the
unanimous cry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led an
army of his confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of
the Bulgarian kingdom. In this expedition they obtained two
signal victories, which were justly ascribed to the valor and
conduct of Huniades. In the first, with a vanguard of ten
thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp; in the second, he
vanquished and made prisoner the most renowned of their generals,
who possessed the double advantage of ground and numbers. The
approach of winter, and the natural and artificial obstacles of
Mount Haemus, arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a
narrow interval of six days' march from the foot of the mountains
to the hostile towers of Adrianople, and the friendly capital of
the Greek empire. The retreat was undisturbed; and the entrance
into Buda was at once a military and religious triumph. An
ecclesiastical procession was followed by the king and his
warriors on foot: he nicely balanced the merits and rewards of
the two nations; and the pride of conquest was blended with the
humble temper of Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards,
and four thousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as
all were willing to believe, and none were present to contradict,
the crusaders multiplied, with unblushing confidence, the myriads
of Turks whom they had left on the field of battle. ^22 The most
solid proof, and the most salutary consequence, of victory, was a
deputation from the divan to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to
ransom the prisoners, and to evacuate the Hungarian frontier. By
this treaty, the rational objects of the war were obtained: the
king, the despot, and Huniades himself, in the diet of Segedin,
were satisfied with public and private emolument; a truce of ten
years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus and Mahomet, who
swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested the word of God as
the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy. In the place
of the Gospel, the Turkish ministers had proposed to substitute
the Eucharist, the real presence of the Catholic deity; but the
Christians refused to profane their holy mysteries; and a
superstitious conscience is less forcibly bound by the spiritual
energy, than by the outward and visible symbols of an oath. ^23
[Footnote 22: In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the
Hungarians slay 80,000 Turks in one battle; but the modest Julian
reduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels, (Aeneas
Sylvius in Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum.)]

[Footnote 23: 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.]

     During the whole transaction, the cardinal legate had
observed a sullen silence, unwilling to approve, and unable to
oppose, the consent of the king and people. But the diet was not
dissolved before Julian was fortified by the welcome
intelligence, that Anatolia was invaded by the Caramanian, and
Thrace by the Greek emperor; that the fleets of Genoa, Venice,
and Burgundy, were masters of the Hellespont; and that the
allies, informed of the victory, and ignorant of the treaty, of
Ladislaus, impatiently waited for the return of his victorious
army. "And is it thus," exclaimed the cardinal, ^24 "that you
will desert their expectations and your own fortune? It is to
them, to your God, and your fellow-Christians, that you have
pledged your faith; and that prior obligation annihilates a rash
and sacrilegious oath to the enemies of Christ. His vicar on
earth is the Roman pontiff; without whose sanction you can
neither promise nor perform. In his name I absolve your perjury
and sanctify your arms: follow my footsteps in the paths of glory
and salvation; and if still ye have scruples, devolve on my head
the punishment and the sin." This mischievous casuistry was
seconded by his respectable character, and the levity of popular
assemblies: war was resolved, on the same spot where peace had so
lately been sworn; and, in the execution of the treaty, the Turks
were assaulted by the Christians; to whom, with some reason, they
might apply the epithet of Infidels. The falsehood of Ladislaus
to his word and oath was palliated by the religion of the times:
the most perfect, or at least the most popular, excuse would have
been the success of his arms and the deliverance of the Eastern
church. But the same treaty which should have bound his
conscience had diminished his strength. On the proclamation of
the peace, the French and German volunteers departed with
indignant murmurs: the Poles were exhausted by distant warfare,
and perhaps disgusted with foreign command; and their palatines
accepted the first license, and hastily retired to their
provinces and castles. Even Hungary was divided by faction, or
restrained by a laudable scruple; and the relics of the crusade
that marched in the second expedition were reduced to an
inadequate force of twenty thousand men. A Walachian chief, who
joined the royal standard with his vassals, presumed to remark
that their numbers did not exceed the hunting retinue that
sometimes attended the sultan; and the gift of two horses of
matchless speed might admonish Ladislaus of his secret foresight
of the event. But the despot of Servia, after the restoration of
his country and children, was tempted by the promise of new
realms; and the inexperience of the king, the enthusiasm of the
legate, and the martial presumption of Huniades himself, were
persuaded that every obstacle must yield to the invincible virtue
of the sword and the cross. After the passage of the Danube, two
roads might lead to Constantinople and the Hellespont: the one
direct, abrupt, and difficult through the mountains of Haemus;
the other more tedious and secure, over a level country, and
along the shores of the Euxine; in which their flanks, according
to the Scythian discipline, might always be covered by a movable
fortification of wagons. The latter was judiciously preferred:
the Catholics marched through the plains of Bulgaria, burning,
with wanton cruelty, the churches and villages of the Christian
natives; and their last station was at Warna, near the sea-shore;
on which the defeat and death of Ladislaus have bestowed a
memorable name. ^25
[Footnote 24: 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 Warna]

[Footnote 25: 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 of promontory of Mount
Haemus, which advances into the sea.]

Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.

Part II.

     It was on this fatal spot, that, instead of finding a
confederate fleet to second their operations, they were alarmed
by the approach of Amurath himself, who had issued from his
Magnesian solitude, and transported the forces of Asia to the
defence of Europe. According to some writers, the Greek emperor
had been awed, or seduced, to grant the passage of the Bosphorus;
and an indelible stain of corruption is fixed on the Genoese, or
the pope's nephew, the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary
connivance betrayed the guard of the Hellespont. From
Adrianople, the sultan advanced by hasty marches, at the head of
sixty thousand men; and when the cardinal, and Huniades, had
taken a nearer survey of the numbers and order of the Turks,
these ardent warriors proposed the tardy and impracticable
measure of a retreat. The king alone was resolved to conquer or
die; and his resolution had almost been crowned with a glorious
and salutary victory. The princes were opposite to each other in
the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or generals of Anatolia and
Romania, commanded on the right and left, against the adverse
divisions of the despot and Huniades. The Turkish wings were
broken on the first onset: but the advantage was fatal; and the
rash victors, in the heat of the pursuit, were carried away far
from the annoyance of the enemy, or the support of their friends.

When Amurath beheld the flight of his squadrons, he despaired of
his fortune and that of the empire: a veteran Janizary seized his
horse's bridle; and he had magnanimity to pardon and reward the
soldier who dared to perceive the terror, and arrest the flight,
of his sovereign. A copy of the treaty, the monument of Christian
perfidy, had been displayed in the front of battle; and it is
said, that the sultan in his distress, lifting his eyes and his
hands to heaven, implored the protection of the God of truth; and
called on the prophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery
of his name and religion. ^26 With inferior numbers and
disordered ranks, the king of Hungary rushed forward in the
confidence of victory, till his career was stopped by the
impenetrable phalanx of the Janizaries. If we may credit the
Ottoman annals, his horse was pierced by the javelin of Amurath;
^27 he fell among the spears of the infantry; and a Turkish
soldier proclaimed with a loud voice, "Hungarians, behold the
head of your king!" The death of Ladislaus was the signal of
their defeat. On his return from an intemperate pursuit,
Huniades deplored his error, and the public loss; he strove to
rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmed by the tumultuous
crowd of the victors and vanquished; and the last efforts of his
courage and conduct were exerted to save the remnant of his
Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand Christians were slain in the
disastrous battle of Warna: the loss of the Turks, more
considerable in numbers, bore a smaller proportion to their total
strength; yet the philosophic sultan was not ashamed to confess,
that his ruin must be the consequence of a second and similar
victory. ^* At his command a column was erected on the spot where
Ladislaus had fallen; but the modest inscription, instead of
accusing the rashness, recorded the valor, and bewailed the
misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. ^28

[Footnote 26: 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. A.D. 1444, No. 8.)]

[Footnote 27: A critic will always distrust these spolia opima of
a victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so easy
for flattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91.) Callimachus (l.
iii. p. 517) more simply and probably affirms, supervenitibus
Janizaris, telorum multitudine, non jam confossus est, quam
obrutus.]

[Footnote *: Compare Von Hammer, p. 463. - M.]

[Footnote 28: Besides some valuable hints from Aeneas 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. 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 Infimae Aetatis, tom. i. p. 324.

Vossius, de Hist. Latin. l. iii. c. 8, 11. Bayle, Dictionnaire,
Bonfinius.) A small tract of Faelix Petancius, chancellor of
Segnia, (ad calcem Cuspinian. de Caesaribus, p. 716 - 722,)
represents the theatre of the war in the xvth century.]

     Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to
pause on the character and story of two principal actors, the
cardinal Julian and John Huniades. Julian ^29 Caesarini was born
of a noble family of Rome: his studies had embraced both the
Latin and Greek learning, both the sciences of divinity and law;
and his versatile genius was equally adapted to the schools, the
camp, and the court. No sooner had he been invested with the
Roman purple, than he was sent into Germany to arm the empire
against the rebels and heretics of Bohemia. The spirit of
persecution is unworthy of a Christian; the military profession
ill becomes a priest; but the former is excused by the times; and
the latter was ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood
dauntless and alone in the disgraceful flight of the German host.
As the pope's legate, he opened the council of Basil; but the
president soon appeared the most strenuous champion of
ecclesiastical freedom; and an opposition of seven years was
conducted by his ability and zeal. After promoting the strongest
measures against the authority and person of Eugenius, some
secret motive of interest or conscience engaged him to desert on
a sudden the popular party. The cardinal withdrew himself from
Basil to Ferrara; and, in the debates of the Greeks and Latins,
the two nations admired the dexterity of his arguments and the
depth of his theological erudition. ^30 In his Hungarian embassy,
we have already seen the mischievous effects of his sophistry and
eloquence, of which Julian himself was the first victim. The
cardinal, who performed the duties of a priest and a soldier, was
lost in the defeat of Warna. The circumstances of his death are
variously related; but it is believed, that a weighty encumbrance
of gold impeded his flight, and tempted the cruel avarice of some
Christian fugitives.

[Footnote 29: 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]

[Footnote 30: Syropulus honorably praises the talent of an enemy,
(p. 117:).]
     From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of
John Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian
armies. His father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her
unknown race might possibly ascend to the emperors of
Constantinople; and the claims of the Walachians, with the
surname of Corvinus, from the place of his nativity, might
suggest a thin pretence for mingling his blood with the
patricians of ancient Rome. ^31 In his youth he served in the
wars of Italy, and was retained, with twelve horsemen, by the
bishop of Zagrab: the valor of the white knight ^32 was soon
conspicuous; he increased his fortunes by a noble and wealthy
marriage; and in the defence of the Hungarian borders he won in
the same year three battles against the Turks. By his influence,
Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of Hungary; and the
important service was rewarded by the title and office of Waivod
of Transylvania. The first of Julian's crusades added two
Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress the fatal
errors of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and minority
of Ladislaus of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was elected
supreme captain and governor of Hungary; and if envy at first was
silenced by terror, a reign of twelve years supposes the arts of
policy as well as of war. Yet the idea of a consummate general
is not delineated in his campaigns; the white knight fought with
the hand rather than the head, as the chief of desultory
Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without shame; and
his military life is composed of a romantic alternative of
victories and escapes. By the Turks, who employed his name to
frighten their perverse children, he was corruptly denominated
Jancus Lain, or the Wicked: their hatred is the proof of their
esteem; the kingdom which he guarded was inaccessible to their
arms; and they felt him most daring and formidable, when they
fondly believed the captain and his country irrecoverably lost.
Instead of confining himself to a defensive war, four years after
the defeat of Warna he again penetrated into the heart of
Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova, sustained, till the third
day, the shock of the Ottoman army, four times more numerous than
his own. As he fled alone through the woods of Walachia, the
hero was surprised by two robbers; but while they disputed a gold
chain that hung at his neck, he recovered his sword, slew the
one, terrified the other, and, after new perils of captivity or
death, consoled by his presence an afflicted kingdom. But the
last and most glorious action of his life was the defence of
Belgrade against the powers of Mahomet the Second in person.
After a siege of forty days, the Turks, who had already entered
the town, were compelled to retreat; and the joyful nations
celebrated Huniades and Belgrade as the bulwarks of Christendom.
^33 About a month after this great deliverance, the champion
expired; and his most splendid epitaph is the regret of the
Ottoman prince, who sighed that he could no longer hope for
revenge against the single antagonist who had triumphed over his
arms. On the first vacancy of the throne, Matthias Corvinus, a
youth of eighteen years of age, was elected and crowned by the
grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous and long: Matthias
aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a saint: but his purest
merit is the encouragement of learning; and the Latin orators and
historians, who were invited from Italy by the son, have shed the
iustre of their eloquence on the father's character. ^34

[Footnote 31: 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?]
[Footnote 32: Philip de Comines, (Memoires, 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 valor.]
[Footnote 33: See Bonfinius (decad. iii. l. viii. p. 492) and
Spondanus, (A.D. 456, 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
condescend to take notice of his rival's merit.]
[Footnote 34: 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, (A.D. 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
Galestus 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.]

     In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are
commonly associated; ^35 and they are both entitled to our
notice, since their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the
ruin of the Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of
Scanderbeg, ^36 was the hereditary prince of a small district of
Epirus or Albania, between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea.
Unable to contend with the sultan's power, Castriot submitted to
the hard conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered his four
sons as the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths,
after receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the
Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish
policy. ^37 The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd
of slaves; and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed
cannot be verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet
the suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and
paternal treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who,
from his tender youth, displayed the strength and spirit of a
soldier. The successive overthrow of a Tartar and two Persians,
who carried a proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended
him to the favor of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of
Scanderbeg, (Iskender beg,) or the lord Alexander, is an
indelible memorial of his glory and servitude. His father's
principality was reduced into a province; but the loss was
compensated by the rank and title of Sanjiak, a command of five
thousand horse, and the prospect of the first dignities of the
empire. He served with honor in the wars of Europe and Asia; and
we may smile at the art or credulity of the historian, who
supposes, that in every encounter he spared the Christians, while
he fell with a thundering arm on his Mussulman foes. The glory of
Huniades is without reproach: he fought in the defence of his
religion and country; but the enemies who applaud the patriot,
have branded his rival with the name of traitor and apostate. In
the eyes of the Christian, the rebellion of Scanderberg is
justified by his father's wrongs, the ambiguous death of his
three brothers, his own degradation, and the slavery of his
country; and they adore the generous, though tardy, zeal, with
which he asserted the faith and independence of his ancestors.
But he had imbibed from his ninth year the doctrines of the
Koran; he was ignorant of the Gospel; the religion of a soldier
is determined by authority and habit; nor is it easy to conceive
what new illumination at the age of forty ^38 could be poured
into his soul. His motives would be less exposed to the
suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken his chain from
the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but a long
oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every year
of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the
sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the
belief of Christianity and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind
must condemn the base dissimulation, that could serve only to
betray, that could promise only to be forsworn, that could
actively join in the temporal and spiritual perdition of so many
thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise a secret
correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of
the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard,
a treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the
enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye
of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal
secretary: with the dagger at his breast, he extorted a firman or
patent for the government of Albania; and the murder of the
guiltless scribe and his train prevented the consequences of an
immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had
revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapid marches,
from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gates of
Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he
command the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of
dissimulation; abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed
himself the avenger of his family and country. The names of
religion and liberty provoked a general revolt: the Albanians, a
martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their
hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were indulged in the
choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the states of
Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and
each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion
of men and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial
estate, and from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an
annual revenue of two hundred thousand ducats; ^39 and the entire
sum, exempt from the demands of luxury, was strictly appropriated
to the public use. His manners were popular; but his discipline
was severe; and every superfluous vice was banished from his
camp: his example strengthened his command; and under his
conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and
that of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and
Germany were allured by his fame and retained in his service: his
standing militia consisted of eight thousand horse and seven
thousand foot; the horses were small, the men were active; but he
viewed with a discerning eye the difficulties and resources of
the mountains; and, at the blaze of the beacons, the whole nation
was distributed in the strongest posts. With such unequal arms
Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powers of the Ottoman
empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his greater
son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued with
seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty
thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered
Albania: he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless
towns, convert the churches into mosques, circumcise the
Christian youths, and punish with death his adult and obstinate
captives: but the conquests of the sultan were confined to the
petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the garrison, invincible to his
arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and a superstitious
scruple. ^40 Amurath retired with shame and loss from the walls
of Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the march,
the siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost
invisible, adversary; ^41 and the disappointment might tend to
imbitter, perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. ^42 In
the fulness of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his
bosom this domestic thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to
negotiate a truce; and the Albanian prince may justly be praised
as a firm and able champion of his national independence. The
enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the names
of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush to acknowledge
their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and slender
powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes of
antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions.
His splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the
armies that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were
slain by his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of
suspicious criticism. Against an illiterate enemy, and in the
dark solitude of Epirus, his partial biographers may safely
indulge the latitude of romance: but their fictions are exposed
by the light of Italian history; and they afford a strong
presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale of his
exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to
the succor of the king of Naples. ^43 Without disparagement to
his fame, they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by
the Ottoman powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius
the Second for a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his
resources were almost exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive
at Lissus, on the Venetian territory. ^44 His sepulchre was soon
violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore
his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious
amulet their involuntary reverence for his valor. The instant
ruin of his country may redound to the hero's glory; yet, had he
balanced the consequences of submission and resistance, a patriot
perhaps would have declined the unequal contest which must depend
on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg might indeed be
supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that the
pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join
in the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the
sea-coast of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to
Italy. His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the
Castriots ^45 were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their
blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm. A
colony of Albanian fugitives obtained a settlement in Calabria,
and they preserve at this day the language and manners of their
ancestors. ^46
[Footnote 35: 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; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first
prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and
George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]

[Footnote 36: 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 Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis
Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in
fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersoms robes are stuck with many false
jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. p.
229.]
[Footnote 37: His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by
Marinus with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]

[Footnote 38: Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year
of his age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403;
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, nine years before the accession of Amurath II., who must
have inherited, not acquired the Albanian slave. Spondanus has
remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431, No. 31, 1443, No. 14.]
[Footnote 39: His revenue and forces are luckily given by
Marinus, (l. ii. p. 44.)]

[Footnote 40: There were two Dibras, the upper aud 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.]

[Footnote 41: 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.]
[Footnote 42: In honor 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
Adrianople.]

[Footnote 43: 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 Sfortiae, 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, (Memoires de
Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]

[Footnote 44: Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most
rational criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human
size, (A.D. 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 neighboring isle of Corfu,
demonstrate his last distress, which is awkwardly concealed by
Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]

[Footnote 45: See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam.
Dalmaticae, &c, xviii. p. 348 - 350.)]

[Footnote 46: This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr.
Swinburne, (Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350 -
354.)]

     In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman
empire, I have reached at length the last reign of the princes of
Constantinople, who so feebly sustained the name and majesty of
the Caesars. On the decease of John Palaeologus, who survived
about four years the Hungarian crusade, ^47 the royal family, by
the death of Andronicus and the monastic profession of Isidore,
was reduced to three princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas,
the surviving sons of the emperor Manuel. Of these the first and
the last were far distant in the Morea; but Demetrius, who
possessed the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs, at the head
of a party: his ambition was not chilled by the public distress;
and his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had already
disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late
emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste:
the claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a
trite and flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the
eldest son of his father's reign. But the empress-mother, the
senate and soldiers, the clergy and people, were unanimous in the
cause of the lawful successor: and the despot Thomas, who,
ignorant of the change, accidentally returned to the capital,
asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his absent brother.
An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately despatched
to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor and
dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the
Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching
downfall of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious
deputies, the Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of
Constantine. In the spring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the
encounter of a Turkish squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his
subjects, celebrated the festival of a new reign, and exhausted
by his donatives the treasure, or rather the indigence, of the
state. The emperor immediately resigned to his brothers the
possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of the two
princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother's
presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next
occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge
of Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected
the distance between an hereditary monarch and an elective
magistrate; and in their subsequent distress, the chief of that
powerful republic was not unmindful of the affront. Constantine
afterwards hesitated between the royal families of Trebizond and
Georgia; and the embassy of Phranza represents in his public and
private life the last days of the Byzantine empire. ^48
[Footnote 47: The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic;
but instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A.D. 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 Aethiopia.]
[Footnote 48: Phranza (l. iii. c. 1 - 6) deserves credit and
esteem.]
     The protovestiare, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from
Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of
wealth and luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His
numerous retinue consisted of nobles and guards, of physicians
and monks: he was attended by a band of music; and the term of
his costly embassy was protracted above two years. On his
arrival in Georgia or Iberia, the natives from the towns and
villages flocked around the strangers; and such was their
simplicity, that they were delighted with the effects, without
understanding the cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was
an old man, above a hundred years of age, who had formerly been
carried away a captive by the Barbarians, ^49 and who amused his
hearers with a tale of the wonders of India, ^50 from whence he
had returned to Portugal by an unknown sea. ^51 From this
hospitable land, Phranza proceeded to the court of Trebizond,
where he was informed by the Greek prince of the recent decease
of Amurath. Instead of rejoicing in the deliverance, the
experienced statesman expressed his apprehension, that an
ambitious youth would not long adhere to the sage and pacific
system of his father. After the sultan's decease, his Christian
wife, Maria, ^52 the daughter of the Servian despot, had been
honorably restored to her parents; on the fame of her beauty and
merit, she was recommended by the ambassador as the most worthy
object of the royal choice; and Phranza recapitulates and refutes
the specious objections that might be raised against the
proposal. The majesty of the purple would ennoble an unequal
alliance; the bar of affinity might be removed by liberal alms
and the dispensation of the church; the disgrace of Turkish
nuptials had been repeatedly overlooked; and, though the fair
Maria was nearly fifty years of age, she might yet hope to give
an heir to the empire. Constantine listened to the advice, which
was transmitted in the first ship that sailed from Trebizond; but
the factions of the court opposed his marriage; and it was
finally prevented by the pious vow of the sultana, who ended her
days in the monastic profession. Reduced to the first
alternative, the choice of Phranza was decided in favor of a
Georgian princess; and the vanity of her father was dazzled by
the glorious alliance. Instead of demanding, according to the
primitive and national custom, a price for his daughter, ^53 he
offered a portion of fifty-six thousand, with an annual pension
of five thousand, ducats; and the services of the ambassador were
repaid by an assurance, that, as his son had been adopted in
baptism by the emperor, the establishment of his daughter should
be the peculiar care of the empress of Constantinople. On the
return of Phranza, the treaty was ratified by the Greek monarch,
who with his own hand impressed three vermilion crosses on the
golden bull, and assured the Georgian envoy that in the spring
his galleys should conduct the bride to her Imperial palace. But
Constantine embraced his faithful servant, not with the cold
approbation of a sovereign, but with the warm confidence of a
friend, who, after a long absence, is impatient to pour his
secrets into the bosom of his friend. "Since the death of my
mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone advised me without interest
or passion, ^54 I am surrounded," said the emperor, "by men whom
I can neither love nor trust, nor esteem. You are not a stranger
to Lucas Notaras, the great admiral; obstinately attached to his
own sentiments, he declares, both in private and public, that his
sentiments are the absolute measure of my thoughts and actions.
The rest of the courtiers are swayed by their personal or
factious views; and how can I consult the monks on questions of
policy and marriage? I have yet much employment for your
diligence and fidelity. In the spring you shall engage one of my
brothers to solicit the succor of the Western powers; from the
Morea you shall sail to Cyprus on a particular commission; and
from thence proceed to Georgia to receive and conduct the future
empress." - "Your commands," replied Phranza, "are irresistible;
but deign, great sir," he added, with a serious smile, "to
consider, that if I am thus perpetually absent from my family, my
wife may be tempted either to seek another husband, or to throw
herself into a monastery." After laughing at his apprehensions,
the emperor more gravely consoled him by the pleasing assurance
that this should be his last service abroad, and that he destined
for his son a wealthy and noble heiress; for himself, the
important office of great logothete, or principal minister of
state. The marriage was immediately stipulated: but the office,
however incompatible with his own, had been usurped by the
ambition of the admiral. Some delay was requisite to negotiate a
consent and an equivalent; and the nomination of Phranza was half
declared, and half suppressed, lest it might be displeasing to an
insolent and powerful favorite. The winter was spent in the
preparations of his embassy; and Phranza had resolved, that the
youth his son should embrace this opportunity of foreign travel,
and be left, on the appearance of danger, with his maternal
kindred of the Morea. Such were the private and public designs,
which were interrupted by a Turkish war, and finally buried in
the ruins of the empire.
[Footnote 49: 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.]
[Footnote 50: The happy and pious Indians lived a hundred and
fifty 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.]

[Footnote 51: He sailed in a country vessel from the spice
islands to one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque
navem grandem Ibericam qua 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.]

[Footnote 52: 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.)]

[Footnote 53: The classical reader will recollect the offers of
Agamemnon, (Iliad, c. v. 144,) and the general practice of
antiquity.]

[Footnote 54: Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the
emperor of that name) was 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.)]

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
Eastern Empire

Part I.

     Reign And Character Of Mahomet The Second. - Siege, Assault,
And Final Conquest, Of Constantinople By The Turks. - Death Of
Constantine Palaeologus. - Servitude Of The Greeks. - Extinction
Of The Roman Empire In The East. - Consternation Of Europe. -
Conquests And Death Of Mahomet The Second.

     The siege of Constantinople by the Turks attracts our first
attention to the person and character of the great destroyer.
Mahomet the Second ^1 was the son of the second Amurath; and
though his mother has been decorated with the titles of Christian
and princess, she is more probably confounded with the numerous
concubines who peopled from every climate the harem of the
sultan. His first education and sentiments were those of a devout
Mussulman; and as often as he conversed with an infidel, he
purified his hands and face by the legal rites of ablution. Age
and empire appear to have relaxed this narrow bigotry: his
aspiring genius disdained to acknowledge a power above his own;
and in his looser hours he presumed (it is said) to brand the
prophet of Mecca as a robber and impostor. Yet the sultan
persevered in a decent reverence for the doctrine and discipline
of the Koran: ^2 his private indiscretion must have been sacred
from the vulgar ear; and we should suspect the credulity of
strangers and sectaries, so prone to believe that a mind which is
hardened against truth must be armed with superior contempt for
absurdity and error. Under the tuition of the most skilful
masters, Mahomet advanced with an early and rapid progress in the
paths of knowledge; and besides his native tongue it is affirmed
that he spoke or understood five languages, ^3 the Arabic, the
Persian, the Chaldaean or Hebrew, the Latin, and the Greek. The
Persian might indeed contribute to his amusement, and the Arabic
to his edification; and such studies are familiar to the Oriental
youth. In the intercourse of the Greeks and Turks, a conqueror
might wish to converse with the people over which he was
ambitious to reign: his own praises in Latin poetry ^4 or prose
^5 might find a passage to the royal ear; but what use or merit
could recommend to the statesman or the scholar the uncouth
dialect of his Hebrew slaves? The history and geography of the
world were familiar to his memory: the lives of the heroes of the
East, perhaps of the West, ^6 excited his emulation: his skill in
astrology is excused by the folly of the times, and supposes some
rudiments of mathematical science; and a profane taste for the
arts is betrayed in his liberal invitation and reward of the
painters of Italy. ^7 But the influence of religion and learning
were employed without effect on his savage and licentious nature.

I will not transcribe, nor do I firmly believe, the stories of
his fourteen pages, whose bellies were ripped open in search of a
stolen melon; or of the beauteous slave, whose head he severed
from her body, to convince the Janizaries that their master was
not the votary of love. ^* His sobriety is attested by the
silence of the Turkish annals, which accuse three, and three
only, of the Ottoman line of the vice of drunkenness. ^8 But it
cannot be denied that his passions were at once furious and
inexorable; that in the palace, as in the field, a torrent of
blood was spilt on the slightest provocation; and that the
noblest of the captive youth were often dishonored by his
unnatural lust. In the Albanian war he studied the lessons, and
soon surpassed the example, of his father; and the conquest of
two empires, twelve kingdoms, and two hundred cities, a vain and
flattering account, is ascribed to his invincible sword. He was
doubtless a soldier, and possibly a general; Constantinople has
sealed his glory; but if we compare the means, the obstacles, and
the achievements, Mahomet the Second must blush to sustain a
parallel with Alexander or Timour. Under his command, the
Ottoman forces were always more numerous than their enemies; yet
their progress was bounded by the Euphrates and the Adriatic; and
his arms were checked by Huniades and Scanderbeg, by the Rhodian
knights and by the Persian king.
[Footnote 1: For the character of Mahomet II. it is dangerous to
trust either the Turks or the Christians. The most moderate
picture appears to be drawn by Phranza, (l. i. c. 33,) whose
resentment had cooled in age and solitude; see likewise
Spondanus, (A.D. 1451, No. 11,) and the continuator of Fleury,
(tom. xxii. p. 552,) the Elogia of Paulus Jovius, (l. iii. p. 164
- 166,) and the Dictionnaire de Bayle, (tom. iii. p. 273 - 279.)]

[Footnote 2: Cantemir, (p. 115.) and the mosques which he
founded, attest his public regard for religion. Mahomet freely
disputed with the Gennadius on the two religions, (Spond. A.D.
1453, No. 22.)]

[Footnote 3: Quinque linguas praeter suam noverat, Graecam,
Latinam, Chaldaicam, Persicam. The Latin translator of Phranza
has dropped the Arabic, which the Koran must recommend to every
Mussulman.

    Note: It appears in the original Greek text, p. 95, edit.
Bonn. - M.]
[Footnote 4: Philelphus, by a Latin ode, requested and obtained
the liberty of his wife's mother and sisters from the conqueror
of Constantinople. It was delivered into the sultan's hands by
the envoys of the duke of Milan. Philelphus himself was suspected
of a design of retiring to Constantinople; yet the orator often
sounded the trumpet of holy war, (see his Life by M. Lancelot, in
the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718, 724,
&c.)]

[Footnote 5: Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his
xii. books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of
bombs. By his patron Sigismund Malatesta, prince of Rimini, it
had been addressed with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.]

[Footnote 6: According to Phranza, he assiduously studied the
lives and actions of Alexander, Augustus, Constantine, and
Theodosius. I have read somewhere, that Plutarch's Lives were
translated by his orders into the Turkish language. If the
sultan himself understood Greek, it must have been for the
benefit of his subjects. Yet these lives are a school of freedom
as well as of valor.

     Note: Von Hammer disdainfully rejects this fable of
Mahomet's knowledge of languages. Knolles adds, that he
delighted in reading the history of Alexander the Great, and of
Julius Caesar. The former, no doubt, was the Persian legend,
which, it is remarkable, came back to Europe, and was popular
throughout the middle ages as the "Romaunt of Alexander." The
founder of the Imperial dynasty of Rome, according to M. Von
Hammer, is altogether unknown in the East. Mahomet was a great
patron of Turkish literature: the romantic poems of Persia were
translated, or imitated, under his patronage. Von Hammer vol ii.
p. 268. - M.]

[Footnote 7: The famous Gentile Bellino, whom he had invited from
Venice, was dismissed with a chain and collar of gold, and a
purse of 3000 ducats. With Voltaire I laugh at the foolish story
of a slave purposely beheaded to instruct the painter in the
action of the muscles.]

[Footnote *: This story, the subject of Johnson's Irene, is
rejected by M. Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 208. The German
historian's general estimate of Mahomet's character agrees in its
more marked features with Gibbon's. - M.]
[Footnote 8: These Imperial drunkards were Soliman I., Selim II.,
and Amurath IV., (Cantemir, p. 61.) The sophis of Persia can
produce a more regular succession; and in the last age, our
European travellers were the witnesses and companions of their
revels.]

     In the reign of Amurath, he twice tasted of royalty, and
twice descended from the throne: his tender age was incapable of
opposing his father's restoration, but never could he forgive the
viziers who had recommended that salutary measure. His nuptials
were celebrated with the daughter of a Turkman emir; and, after a
festival of two months, he departed from Adrianople with his
bride, to reside in the government of Magnesia. Before the end
of six weeks, he was recalled by a sudden message from the divan,
which announced the decease of Amurath, and the mutinous spirit
of the Janizaries. His speed and vigor commanded their
obedience: he passed the Hellespont with a chosen guard: and at
the distance of a mile from Adrianople, the viziers and emirs,
the imams and candhis, the soldiers and the people, fell
prostrate before the new sultan. They affected to weep, they
affected to rejoice: he ascended the throne at the age of
twenty-one years, and removed the cause of sedition by the death,
the inevitable death, of his infant brothers. ^9 ^* The
ambassadors of Europe and Asia soon appeared to congratulate his
accession and solicit his friendship; and to all he spoke the
language of moderation and peace. The confidence of the Greek
emperor was revived by the solemn oaths and fair assurances with
which he sealed the ratification of the treaty: and a rich domain
on the banks of the Strymon was assigned for the annual payment
of three hundred thousand aspers, the pension of an Ottoman
prince, who was detained at his request in the Byzantine court.
Yet the neighbors of Mahomet might tremble at the severity with
which a youthful monarch reformed the pomp of his father's
household: the expenses of luxury were applied to those of
ambition, and a useless train of seven thousand falconers was
either dismissed from his service, or enlisted in his troops. ^!
In the first summer of his reign, he visited with an army the
Asiatic provinces; but after humbling the pride, Mahomet accepted
the submission, of the Caramanian, that he might not be diverted
by the smallest obstacle from the execution of his great design.
^10

[Footnote 9: Calapin, one of these royal infants, was saved from
his cruel brother, and baptized at Rome under the name of
Callistus Othomannus. The emperor Frederic III. presented him
with an estate in Austria, where he ended his life; and
Cuspinian, who in his youth conversed with the aged prince at
Vienna, applauds his piety and wisdom, (de Caesaribus, p. 672,
673.)]
[Footnote *: Ahmed, the son of a Greek princess, was the object
of his especial jealousy. Von Hammer, p. 501. - M.]

[Footnote !: The Janizaries obtained, for the first time, a gift
on the accession of a new sovereign, p. 504. - M.]

[Footnote 10: See the accession of Mahomet II. in Ducas, (c. 33,)
Phranza, (l. i. c. 33, l. iii. c. 2,) Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p.
199,) and Cantemir, (p. 96.)]

     The Mahometan, and more especially the Turkish casuists,
have pronounced that no promise can bind the faithful against the
interest and duty of their religion; and that the sultan may
abrogate his own treaties and those of his predecessors. The
justice and magnanimity of Amurath had scorned this immoral
privilege; but his son, though the proudest of men, could stoop
from ambition to the basest arts of dissimulation and deceit.
Peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart: he incessantly
sighed for the possession of Constantinople; and the Greeks, by
their own indiscretion, afforded the first pretence of the fatal
rupture. ^11 Instead of laboring to be forgotten, their
ambassadors pursued his camp, to demand the payment, and even the
increase, of their annual stipend: the divan was importuned by
their complaints, and the vizier, a secret friend of the
Christians, was constrained to deliver the sense of his brethren.

"Ye foolish and miserable Romans," said Calil, "we know your
devices, and ye are ignorant of your own danger! The scrupulous
Amurath is no more; his throne is occupied by a young conqueror,
whom no laws can bind, and no obstacles can resist: and if you
escape from his hands, give praise to the divine clemency, which
yet delays the chastisement of your sins. Why do ye seek to
affright us by vain and indirect menaces? Release the fugitive
Orchan, crown him sultan of Romania; call the Hungarians from
beyond the Danube; arm against us the nations of the West; and be
assured, that you will only provoke and precipitate your ruin."
But if the fears of the ambassadors were alarmed by the stern
language of the vizier, they were soothed by the courteous
audience and friendly speeches of the Ottoman prince; and Mahomet
assured them that on his return to Adrianople he would redress
the grievances, and consult the true interests, of the Greeks.
No sooner had he repassed the Hellespont, than he issued a
mandate to suppress their pension, and to expel their officers
from the banks of the Strymon: in this measure he betrayed a
hostile mind; and the second order announced, and in some degree
commenced, the siege of Constantinople. In the narrow pass of
the Bosphorus, an Asiatic fortress had formerly been raised by
his grandfather; in the opposite situation, on the European side,
he resolved to erect a more formidable castle; and a thousand
masons were commanded to assemble in the spring on a spot named
Asomaton, about five miles from the Greek metropolis. ^12
Persuasion is the resource of the feeble; and the feeble can
seldom persuade: the ambassadors of the emperor attempted,
without success, to divert Mahomet from the execution of his
design. They represented, that his grandfather had solicited the
permission of Manuel to build a castle on his own territories;
but that this double fortification, which would command the
strait, could only tend to violate the alliance of the nations;
to intercept the Latins who traded in the Black Sea, and perhaps
to annihilate the subsistence of the city. "I form the
enterprise," replied the perfidious sultan, "against the city;
but the empire of Constantinople is measured by her walls. Have
you forgot the distress to which my father was reduced when you
formed a league with the Hungarians; when they invaded our
country by land, and the Hellespont was occupied by the French
galleys? Amurath was compelled to force the passage of the
Bosphorus; and your strength was not equal to your malevolence.
I was then a child at Adrianople; the Moslems trembled; and, for
a while, the Gabours ^13 insulted our disgrace. But when my
father had triumphed in the field of Warna, he vowed to erect a
fort on the western shore, and that vow it is my duty to
accomplish. Have ye the right, have ye the power, to control my
actions on my own ground? For that ground is my own: as far as
the shores of the Bosphorus, Asia is inhabited by the Turks, and
Europe is deserted by the Romans. Return, and inform your king,
that the present Ottoman is far different from his predecessors;
that his resolutions surpass their wishes; and that he performs
more than they could resolve. Return in safety - but the next who
delivers a similar message may expect to be flayed alive." After
this declaration, Constantine, the first of the Greeks in spirit
as in rank, ^14 had determined to unsheathe the sword, and to
resist the approach and establishment of the Turks on the
Bosphorus. He was disarmed by the advice of his civil and
ecclesiastical ministers, who recommended a system less generous,
and even less prudent, than his own, to approve their patience
and long-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt
of an aggressor, and to depend on chance and time for their own
safety, and the destruction of a fort which could not long be
maintained in the neighborhood of a great and populous city.
Amidst hope and fear, the fears of the wise, and the hopes of the
credulous, the winter rolled away; the proper business of each
man, and each hour, was postponed; and the Greeks shut their eyes
against the impending danger, till the arrival of the spring and
the sultan decide the assurance of their ruin.

[Footnote 11: Before I enter on the siege of Constantinople, I
shall observe, that except the short hints of Cantemir and
Leunclavius, I have not been able to obtain any Turkish account
of this conquest; such an account as we possess of the siege of
Rhodes by Soliman II., (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions,
tom. xxvi. p. 723 - 769.) I must therefore depend on the Greeks,
whose prejudices, in some degree, are subdued by their distress.
Our standard texts ar those of Ducas, (c. 34 - 42,) Phranza, (l.
iii. c. 7 - 20,) Chalcondyles, (l. viii. p. 201 - 214,) and
Leonardus Chiensis, (Historia C. P. a Turco expugnatae.
Norimberghae, 1544, in 4to., 20 leaves.) The last of these
narratives is the earliest in date, since it was composed in the
Isle of Chios, the 16th of August, 1453, only seventy-nine days
after the loss of the city, and in the first confusion of ideas
and passions. Some hints may be added from an epistle of
Cardinal Isidore (in Farragine Rerum Turcicarum, ad calcem
Chalcondyl. Clauseri, Basil, 1556) to Pope Nicholas V., and a
tract of Theodosius Zygomala, which he addressed in the year 1581
to Martin Crucius, (Turco-Graecia, l. i. p. 74 - 98, Basil,
1584.) The various facts and materials are briefly, though
critically, reviewed by Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 1 - 27.) The
hearsay relations of Monstrelet and the distant Latins I shall
take leave to disregard.

     Note: M. Von Hammer has added little new information on the
siege of Constantinople, and, by his general agreement, has borne
an honorable testimony to the truth, and by his close imitation
to the graphic spirit and boldness, of Gibbon. - M.]

[Footnote 12: The situation of the fortress, and the topography
of the Bosphorus, are best learned from Peter Gyllius, (de
Bosphoro Thracio, l. ii. c. 13,) Leunclavius, (Pandect. p. 445,)
and Tournefort, (Voyage dans le Levant, tom. ii. lettre xv. p.
443, 444;) but I must regret the map or plan which Tournefort
sent to the French minister of the marine. The reader may turn
back to chap. xvii. of this History.]

[Footnote 13: The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on the
infidels, is expressed by Ducas, and Giaour by Leunclavius and
the moderns. The former term is derived by Ducange (Gloss. Graec
tom. i. p. 530), in vulgar Greek, a tortoise, as denoting a
retrograde motion from the faith. But alas! Gabour is no more
than Gheber, which was transferred from the Persian to the
Turkish language, from the worshippers of fire to those of the
crucifix, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 375.)]

[Footnote 14: Phranza does justice to his master's sense and
courage. Calliditatem hominis non ignorans Imperator prior arma
movere constituit, and stigmatizes the folly of the cum sacri tum
profani proceres, which he had heard, amentes spe vana pasci.
Ducas was not a privy-counsellor.]
     Of a master who never forgives, the orders are seldom
disobeyed. On the twenty-sixth of March, the appointed spot of
Asomaton was covered with an active swarm of Turkish artificers;
and the materials by sea and land were diligently transported
from Europe and Asia. ^15 The lime had been burnt in Cataphrygia;
the timber was cut down in the woods of Heraclea and Nicomedia;
and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each of the
thousand masons was assisted by two workmen; and a measure of two
cubits was marked for their daily task. The fortress ^16 was
built in a triangular form; each angle was flanked by a strong
and massy tower; one on the declivity of the hill, two along the
sea-shore: a thickness of twenty-two feet was assigned for the
walls, thirty for the towers; and the whole building was covered
with a solid platform of lead. Mahomet himself pressed and
directed the work with indefatigable ardor: his three viziers
claimed the honor of finishing their respective towers; the zeal
of the cadhis emulated that of the Janizaries; the meanest labor
was ennobled by the service of God and the sultan; and the
diligence of the multitude was quickened by the eye of a despot,
whose smile was the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the
messenger of death. The Greek emperor beheld with terror the
irresistible progress of the work; and vainly strove, by flattery
and gifts, to assuage an implacable foe, who sought, and secretly
fomented, the slightest occasion of a quarrel. Such occasions
must soon and inevitably be found. The ruins of stately
churches, and even the marble columns which had been consecrated
to Saint Michael the archangel, were employed without scruple by
the profane and rapacious Moslems; and some Christians, who
presumed to oppose the removal, received from their hands the
crown of martyrdom. Constantine had solicited a Turkish guard to
protect the fields and harvests of his subjects: the guard was
fixed; but their first order was to allow free pasture to the
mules and horses of the camp, and to defend their brethren if
they should be molested by the natives. The retinue of an Ottoman
chief had left their horses to pass the night among the ripe
corn; the damage was felt; the insult was resented; and several
of both nations were slain in a tumultuous conflict. Mahomet
listened with joy to the complaint; and a detachment was
commanded to exterminate the guilty village: the guilty had fled;
but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were massacred by the
soldiers. Till this provocation, Constantinople had been opened
to the visits of commerce and curiosity: on the first alarm, the
gates were shut; but the emperor, still anxious for peace,
released on the third day his Turkish captives; ^17 and
expressed, in a last message, the firm resignation of a Christian
and a soldier. "Since neither oaths, nor treaty, nor submission,
can secure peace, pursue," said he to Mahomet, "your impious
warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it should please him to
mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if he
delivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to
his holy will. But until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce
between us, it is my duty to live and die in the defence of my
people." The sultan's answer was hostile and decisive: his
fortifications were completed; and before his departure for
Adrianople, he stationed a vigilant Aga and four hundred
Janizaries, to levy a tribute on the ships of every nation that
should pass within the reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel,
refusing obedience to the new lords of the Bosphorus, was sunk
with a single bullet. ^* The master and thirty sailors escaped in
the boat; but they were dragged in chains to the Porte: the chief
was impaled; his companions were beheaded; and the historian
Ducas ^18 beheld, at Demotica, their bodies exposed to the wild
beasts. The siege of Constantinople was deferred till the
ensuing spring; but an Ottoman army marched into the Morea to
divert the force of the brothers of Constantine. At this aera of
calamity, one of these princes, the despot Thomas, was blessed or
afflicted with the birth of a son; "the last heir," says the
plaintive Phranza, "of the last spark of the Roman empire." ^19

[Footnote 15: Instead of this clear and consistent account, the
Turkish Annals (Cantemir, p. 97) revived the foolish tale of the
ox's hide, and Dido's stratagem in the foundation of Carthage.
These annals (unless we are swayed by an anti-Christian
prejudice) are far less valuable than the Greek historians.]

[Footnote 16: In the dimensions of this fortress, the old castle
of Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with Chalcondyles,
whose description has been verified on the spot by his editor
Leunclavius.]

[Footnote 17: Among these were some pages of Mahomet, so
conscious of his inexorable rigor, that they begged to lose their
heads in the city unless they could return before sunset.]

[Footnote *: This was from a model cannon cast by Urban the
Hungarian. See p. 291. Von Hammer. p. 510. - M.]

[Footnote 18: Ducas, c. 35. Phranza, (l. iii. c. 3,) who had
sailed in his vessel, commemorates the Venetian pilot as a
martyr.]

[Footnote 19: Auctum est Palaeologorum genus, et Imperii
successor, parvaeque Romanorum scintillae haeres natus, Andreas,
&c., (Phranza, l. iii. c. 7.) The strong expression was inspired
by his feelings.]

     The Greeks and the Turks passed an anxious and sleepless
winter: the former were kept awake by their fears, the latter by
their hopes; both by the preparations of defence and attack; and
the two emperors, who had the most to lose or to gain, were the
most deeply affected by the national sentiment. In Mahomet, that
sentiment was inflamed by the ardor of his youth and temper: he
amused his leisure with building at Adrianople ^20 the lofty
palace of Jehan Numa, (the watchtower of the world;) but his
serious thoughts were irrevocably bent on the conquest of the
city of Caesar. At the dead of night, about the second watch, he
started from his bed, and commanded the instant attendance of his
prime vizier. The message, the hour, the prince, and his own
situation, alarmed the guilty conscience of Calil Basha; who had
possessed the confidence, and advised the restoration, of
Amurath. On the accession of the son, the vizier was confirmed
in his office and the appearances of favor; but the veteran
statesman was not insensible that he trod on a thin and slippery
ice, which might break under his footsteps, and plunge him in the
abyss. His friendship for the Christians, which might be
innocent under the late reign, had stigmatized him with the name
of Gabour Ortachi, or foster-brother of the infidels; ^21 and his
avarice entertained a venal and treasonable correspondence, which
was detected and punished after the conclusion of the war. On
receiving the royal mandate, he embraced, perhaps for the last
time, his wife and children; filled a cup with pieces of gold,
hastened to the palace, adored the sultan, and offered, according
to the Oriental custom, the slight tribute of his duty and
gratitude. ^22 "It is not my wish," said Mahomet, "to resume my
gifts, but rather to heap and multiply them on thy head. In my
turn, I ask a present far more valuable and important; -
Constantinople." As soon as the vizier had recovered from his
surprise, "The same God," said he, "who has already given thee so
large a portion of the Roman empire, will not deny the remnant,
and the capital. His providence, and thy power, assure thy
success; and myself, with the rest of thy faithful slaves, will
sacrifice our lives and fortunes." - "Lala," ^23 (or preceptor,)
continued the sultan, "do you see this pillow? All the night, in
my agitation, I have pulled it on one side and the other; I have
risen from my bed, again have I lain down; yet sleep has not
visited these weary eyes. Beware of the gold and silver of the
Romans: in arms we are superior; and with the aid of God, and the
prayers of the prophet, we shall speedily become masters of
Constantinople." To sound the disposition of his soldiers, he
often wandered through the streets alone, and in disguise; and it
was fatal to discover the sultan, when he wished to escape from
the vulgar eye. His hours were spent in delineating the plan of
the hostile city; in debating with his generals and engineers, on
what spot he should erect his batteries; on which side he should
assault the walls; where he should spring his mines; to what
place he should apply his scaling-ladders: and the exercises of
the day repeated and proved the lucubrations of the night.

[Footnote 20: Cantemir, p. 97, 98. The sultan was either
doubtful of his conquest, or ignorant of the superior merits of
Constantinople. A city or a kingdom may sometimes be ruined by
the Imperial fortune of their sovereign.]
[Footnote 21: It, by the president Cousin, is translated pere
nourricier, most correctly indeed from the Latin version; but in
his haste he has overlooked the note by which Ishmael Boillaud
(ad Ducam, c. 35) acknowledges and rectifies his own error.]

[Footnote 22: The Oriental custom of never appearing without
gifts before a sovereign or a superior is of high antiquity, and
seems analogous with the idea of sacrifice, still more ancient
and universal. See the examples of such Persian gifts, Aelian,
Hist. Var. l. i. c. 31, 32, 33.]

[Footnote 23: The Lala of the Turks (Cantemir, p. 34) and the
Tata of the Greeks (Ducas, c. 35) are derived from the natural
language of children; and it may be observed, that all such
primitive words which denote their parents, are the simple
repetition of one syllable, composed of a labial or a dental
consonant and an open vowel, (Des Brosses, Mechanisme des
Langues, tom. i. p. 231 - 247.)]

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
Eastern Empire

Part II.

     Among the implements of destruction, he studied with
peculiar care the recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins;
and his artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the
world. A founder of cannon, a Dane ^* or Hungarian, who had been
almost starved in the Greek service, deserted to the Moslems, and
was liberally entertained by the Turkish sultan. Mahomet was
satisfied with the answer to his first question, which he eagerly
pressed on the artist. "Am I able to cast a cannon capable of
throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the walls
of Constantinople? I am not ignorant of their strength; but were
they more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine
of superior power: the position and management of that engine
must be left to your engineers." On this assurance, a foundry was
established at Adrianople: the metal was prepared; and at the end
of three months, Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of
stupendous, and almost incredible magnitude; a measure of twelve
palms is assigned to the bore; and the stone bullet weighed above
six hundred pounds. ^24 ^* A vacant place before the new palace
was chosen for the first experiment; but to prevent the sudden
and mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, a proclamation
was issued, that the cannon would be discharged the ensuing day.
The explosion was felt or heard in a circuit of a hundred
furlongs: the ball, by the force of gunpowder, was driven above a
mile; and on the spot where it fell, it buried itself a fathom
deep in the ground. For the conveyance of this destructive
engine, a frame or carriage of thirty wagons was linked together
and drawn along by a team of sixty oxen: two hundred men on both
sides were stationed, to poise and support the rolling weight;
two hundred and fifty workmen marched before to smooth the way
and repair the bridges; and near two months were employed in a
laborious journey of one hundred and fifty miles. A lively
philosopher ^25 derides on this occasion the credulity of the
Greeks, and observes, with much reason, that we should always
distrust the exaggerations of a vanquished people. He
calculates, that a ball, even o two hundred pounds, would require
a charge of one hundred and fifty pounds of powder; and that the
stroke would be feeble and impotent, since not a fifteenth part
of the mass could be inflamed at the same moment. A stranger as
I am to the art of destruction, I can discern that the modern
improvements of artillery prefer the number of pieces to the
weight of metal; the quickness of the fire to the sound, or even
the consequence, of a single explosion. Yet I dare not reject
the positive and unanimous evidence of contemporary writers; nor
can it seem improbable, that the first artists, in their rude and
ambitious efforts, should have transgressed the standard of
moderation. A Turkish cannon, more enormous than that of
Mahomet, still guards the entrance of the Dardanelles; and if the
use be inconvenient, it has been found on a late trial that the
effect was far from contemptible. A stone bullet of eleven
hundred pounds' weight was once discharged with three hundred and
thirty pounds of powder: at the distance of six hundred yards it
shivered into three rocky fragments; traversed the strait; and
leaving the waters in a foam, again rose and bounded against the
opposite hill. ^26

[Footnote *: Gibbon has written Dane by mistake for Dace, or
Dacian. Chalcondyles, Von Hammer, p. 510. - M.]

[Footnote 24: The Attic talent weighed about sixty minae, or
avoirdupois pounds (see Hooper on Ancient Weights, Measures,
&c.;) but among the modern Greeks, that classic appellation was
extended to a weight of one hundred, or one hundred and
twenty-five pounds, (Ducange.) Leonardus Chiensis measured the
ball or stone of the second cannon Lapidem, qui palmis undecim ex
meis ambibat in gyro.]

[Footnote *: 1200, according to Leonardus Chiensis. Von Hammer
states that he had himself seen the great cannon of the
Dardanelles, in which a tailor who had run away from his
creditors, had concealed himself several days Von Hammer had
measured balls twelve spans round. Note. p. 666. - M.]
[Footnote 25: See Voltaire, (Hist. Generale, c. xci. p. 294,
295.) He was ambitious of universal monarchy; and the poet
frequently aspires to the name and style of an astronomer, a
chemist, &c.]

[Footnote 26: The Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 85 - 89,) who
fortified the Dardanelles against the Russians, describes in a
lively, and even comic, strain his own prowess, and the
consternation of the Turks. But that adventurous traveller does
not possess the art of gaining our confidence.]
     While Mahomet threatened the capital of the East, the Greek
emperor implored with fervent prayers the assistance of earth and
heaven. But the invisible powers were deaf to his supplications;
and Christendom beheld with indifference the fall of
Constantinople, while she derived at least some promise of supply
from the jealous and temporal policy of the sultan of Egypt. Some
states were too weak, and others too remote; by some the danger
was considered as imaginary by others as inevitable: the Western
princes were involved in their endless and domestic quarrels; and
the Roman pontiff was exasperated by the falsehood or obstinacy
of the Greeks. Instead of employing in their favor the arms and
treasures of Italy, Nicholas the Fifth had foretold their
approaching ruin; and his honor was engaged in the accomplishment
of his prophecy. ^* Perhaps he was softened by the last extremity
o their distress; but his compassion was tardy; his efforts were
faint and unavailing; and Constantinople had fallen, before the
squadrons of Genoa and Venice could sail from their harbors. ^27
Even the princes of the Morea and of the Greek islands affected a
cold neutrality: the Genoese colony of Galata negotiated a
private treaty; and the sultan indulged them in the delusive
hope, that by his clemency they might survive the ruin of the
empire. A plebeian crowd, and some Byzantine nobles basely
withdrew from the danger of their country; and the avarice of the
rich denied the emperor, and reserved for the Turks, the secret
treasures which might have raised in their defence whole armies
of mercenaries. ^28 The indigent and solitary prince prepared,
however, to sustain his formidable adversary; but if his courage
were equal to the peril, his strength was inadequate to the
contest. In the beginning of the spring, the Turkish vanguard
swept the towns and villages as far as the gates of
Constantinople: submission was spared and protected; whatever
presumed to resist was exterminated with fire and sword. The
Greek places on the Black Sea, Mesembria, Acheloum, and Bizon,
surrendered on the first summons; Selybria alone deserved the
honors of a siege or blockade; and the bold inhabitants, while
they were invested by land, launched their boats, pillaged the
opposite coast of Cyzicus, and sold their captives in the public
market. But on the approach of Mahomet himself all was silent
and prostrate: he first halted at the distance of five miles; and
from thence advancing in battle array, planted before the gates
of St. Romanus the Imperial standard; and on the sixth day of
April formed the memorable siege of Constantinople.
[Footnote *: See the curious Christian and Mahometan predictions
of the fall of Constantinople, Von Hammer, p. 518. - M.]

[Footnote 27: Non audivit, indignum ducens, says the honest
Antoninus; but as the Roman court was afterwards grieved and
ashamed, we find the more courtly expression of Platina, in animo
fuisse pontifici juvare Graecos, and the positive assertion of
Aeneas Sylvius, structam classem &c. (Spond. A.D. 1453, No. 3.)]

[Footnote 28: Antonin. in Proem. - Epist. Cardinal. Isidor. apud
Spondanum and Dr. Johnson, in the tragedy of Irene, has happily
seized this characteristic circumstance: -

The groaning Greeks dig up the golden caverns. The accumulated
wealth of hoarding ages; That wealth which, granted to their
weeping prince, Had ranged embattled nations at their gates.]

     The troops of Asia and Europe extended on the right and left
from the Propontis to the harbor; the Janizaries in the front
were stationed before the sultan's tent; the Ottoman line was
covered by a deep intrenchment; and a subordinate army enclosed
the suburb of Galata, and watched the doubtful faith of the
Genoese. The inquisitive Philelphus, who resided in Greece about
thirty years before the siege, is confident, that all the Turkish
forces of any name or value could not exceed the number of sixty
thousand horse and twenty thousand foot; and he upbraids the
pusillanimity of the nations, who had tamely yielded to a handful
of Barbarians. Such indeed might be the regular establishment of
the Capiculi, ^29 the troops of the Porte who marched with the
prince, and were paid from his royal treasury. But the bashaws,
in their respective governments, maintained or levied a
provincial militia; many lands were held by a military tenure;
many volunteers were attracted by the hope of spoil and the sound
of the holy trumpet invited a swarm of hungry and fearless
fanatics, who might contribute at least to multiply the terrors,
and in a first attack to blunt the swords, of the Christians.
The whole mass of the Turkish powers is magnified by Ducas,
Chalcondyles, and Leonard of Chios, to the amount of three or
four hundred thousand men; but Phranza was a less remote and more
accurate judge; and his precise definition of two hundred and
fifty-eight thousand does not exceed the measure of experience
and probability. ^30 The navy of the besiegers was less
formidable: the Propontis was overspread with three hundred and
twenty sail; but of these no more than eighteen could be rated as
galleys of war; and the far greater part must be degraded to the
condition of store-ships and transports, which poured into the
camp fresh supplies of men, ammunition, and provisions. In her
last decay, Constantinople was still peopled with more than a
hundred thousand inhabitants; but these numbers are found in the
accounts, not of war, but of captivity; and they mostly consisted
of mechanics, of priests, of women, and of men devoid of that
spirit which even women have sometimes exerted for the common
safety. I can suppose, I could almost excuse, the reluctance of
subjects to serve on a distant frontier, at the will of a tyrant;
but the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his
children and his property, has lost in society the first and most
active energies of nature. By the emperor's command, a
particular inquiry had been made through the streets and houses,
how many of the citizens, or even of the monks, were able and
willing to bear arms for their country. The lists were intrusted
to Phranza; ^31 and, after a diligent addition, he informed his
master, with grief and surprise, that the national defence was
reduced to four thousand nine hundred and seventy Romans.
Between Constantine and his faithful minister this comfortless
secret was preserved; and a sufficient proportion of shields,
cross-bows, and muskets, were distributed from the arsenal to the
city bands. They derived some accession from a body of two
thousand strangers, under the command of John Justiniani, a noble
Genoese; a liberal donative was advanced to these auxiliaries;
and a princely recompense, the Isle of Lemnos, was promised to
the valor and victory of their chief. A strong chain was drawn
across the mouth of the harbor: it was supported by some Greek
and Italian vessels of war and merchandise; and the ships of
every Christian nation, that successively arrived from Candia and
the Black Sea, were detained for the public service. Against the
powers of the Ottoman empire, a city of the extent of thirteen,
perhaps of sixteen, miles was defended by a scanty garrison of
seven or eight thousand soldiers. Europe and Asia were open to
the besiegers; but the strength and provisions of the Greeks must
sustain a daily decrease; nor could they indulge the expectation
of any foreign succor or supply.

[Footnote 29: The palatine troops are styled Capiculi, the
provincials, Seratculi; and most of the names and institutions of
the Turkish militia existed before the Canon Nameh of Soliman II,
from which, and his own experience, Count Marsigli has composed
his military state of the Ottoman empire.]

[Footnote 30: The observation of Philelphus is approved by
Cuspinian in the year 1508, (de Caesaribus, in Epilog. de Militia
Turcica, p. 697.) Marsigli proves, that the effective armies of
the Turks are much less numerous than they appear. In the army
that besieged Constantinople Leonardus Chiensis reckons no more
than 15,000 Janizaries.]

[Footnote 31: Ego, eidem (Imp.) tabellas extribui non absque
dolore et moestitia, mansitque apud nos duos aliis occultus
numerus, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 8.) With some indulgence for
national prejudices, we cannot desire a more authentic witness,
not only of public facts, but of private counsels.]
     The primitive Romans would have drawn their swords in the
resolution of death or conquest. The primitive Christians might
have embraced each other, and awaited in patience and charity the
stroke of martyrdom. But the Greeks of Constantinople were
animated only by the spirit of religion, and that spirit was
productive only of animosity and discord. Before his death, the
emperor John Palaeologus had renounced the unpopular measure of a
union with the Latins; nor was the idea revived, till the
distress of his brother Constantine imposed a last trial of
flattery and dissimulation. ^32 With the demand of temporal aid,
his ambassadors were instructed to mingle the assurance of
spiritual obedience: his neglect of the church was excused by the
urgent cares of the state; and his orthodox wishes solicited the
presence of a Roman legate. The Vatican had been too often
deluded; yet the signs of repentance could not decently be
overlooked; a legate was more easily granted than an army; and
about six months before the final destruction, the cardinal
Isidore of Russia appeared in that character with a retinue of
priests and soldiers. The emperor saluted him as a friend and
father; respectfully listened to his public and private sermons;
and with the most obsequious of the clergy and laymen subscribed
the act of union, as it had been ratified in the council of
Florence. On the twelfth of December, the two nations, in the
church of St. Sophia, joined in the communion of sacrifice and
prayer; and the names of the two pontiffs were solemnly
commemorated; the names of Nicholas the Fifth, the vicar of
Christ, and of the patriarch Gregory, who had been driven into
exile by a rebellious people.

[Footnote 32: In Spondanus, the narrative of the union is not
only partial, but imperfect. The bishop of Pamiers died in 1642,
and the history of Ducas, which represents these scenes (c. 36,
37) with such truth and spirit, was not printed till the year
1649.]

     But the dress and language of the Latin priest who
officiated at the altar were an object of scandal; and it was
observed with horror, that he consecrated a cake or wafer of
unleavened bread, and poured cold water into the cup of the
sacrament. A national historian acknowledges with a blush, that
none of his countrymen, not the emperor himself, were sincere in
this occasional conformity. ^33 Their hasty and unconditional
submission was palliated by a promise of future revisal; but the
best, or the worst, of their excuses was the confession of their
own perjury. When they were pressed by the reproaches of their
honest brethren, "Have patience," they whispered, "have patience
till God shall have delivered the city from the great dragon who
seeks to devour us. You shall then perceive whether we are truly
reconciled with the Azymites." But patience is not the attribute
of zeal; nor can the arts of a court be adapted to the freedom
and violence of popular enthusiasm. From the dome of St. Sophia
the inhabitants of either sex, and of every degree, rushed in
crowds to the cell of the monk Gennadius, ^34 to consult the
oracle of the church. The holy man was invisible; entranced, as
it should seem, in deep meditation, or divine rapture: but he had
exposed on the door of his cell a speaking tablet; and they
successively withdrew, after reading those tremendous words: "O
miserable Romans, why will ye abandon the truth? and why,
instead of confiding in God, will ye put your trust in the
Italians? In losing your faith you will lose your city. Have
mercy on me, O Lord! I protest in thy presence that I am
innocent of the crime. O miserable Romans, consider, pause, and
repent. At the same moment that you renounce the religion of
your fathers, by embracing impiety, you submit to a foreign
servitude." According to the advice of Gennadius, the religious
virgins, as pure as angels, and as proud as daemons, rejected the
act of union, and abjured all communion with the present and
future associates of the Latins; and their example was applauded
and imitated by the greatest part of the clergy and people. From
the monastery, the devout Greeks dispersed themselves in the
taverns; drank confusion to the slaves of the pope; emptied their
glasses in honor of the image of the holy Virgin; and besought
her to defend against Mahomet the city which she had formerly
saved from Chosroes and the Chagan. In the double intoxication
of zeal and wine, they valiantly exclaimed, "What occasion have
we for succor, or union, or Latins? Far from us be the worship
of the Azymites!" During the winter that preceded the Turkish
conquest, the nation was distracted by this epidemical frenzy;
and the season of Lent, the approach of Easter, instead of
breathing charity and love, served only to fortify the obstinacy
and influence of the zealots. The confessors scrutinized and
alarmed the conscience of their votaries, and a rigorous penance
was imposed on those who had received the communion from a priest
who had given an express or tacit consent to the union. His
service at the altar propagated the infection to the mute and
simple spectators of the ceremony: they forfeited, by the impure
spectacle, the virtue of the sacerdotal character; nor was it
lawful, even in danger of sudden death, to invoke the assistance
of their prayers or absolution. No sooner had the church of St.
Sophia been polluted by the Latin sacrifice, than it was deserted
as a Jewish synagogue, or a heathen temple, by the clergy and
people; and a vast and gloomy silence prevailed in that venerable
dome, which had so often smoked with a cloud of incense, blazed
with innumerable lights, and resounded with the voice of prayer
and thanksgiving. The Latins were the most odious of heretics and
infidels; and the first minister of the empire, the great duke,
was heard to declare, that he had rather behold in Constantinople
the turban of Mahomet, than the pope's tiara or a cardinal's hat.
^35 A sentiment so unworthy of Christians and patriots was
familiar and fatal to the Greeks: the emperor was deprived of the
affection and support of his subjects; and their native cowardice
was sanctified by resignation to the divine decree, or the
visionary hope of a miraculous deliverance.

[Footnote 33: Phranza, one of the conforming Greeks, acknowledges
that the measure was adopted only propter spem auxilii; he
affirms with pleasure, that those who refused to perform their
devotions in St. Sophia, extra culpam et in pace essent, (l. iii.
c. 20.)]

[Footnote 34: His primitive and secular name was George
Scholarius, which he changed for that of Gennadius, either when
he became a monk or a patriarch. His defence, at Florence, of the
same union, which he so furiously attacked at Constantinople, has
tempted Leo Allatius (Diatrib. de Georgiis, in Fabric. Bibliot.
Graec. tom. x. p. 760 - 786) to divide him into two men; but
Renaudot (p. 343 - 383) has restored the identity of his person
and the duplicity of his character.]

[Footnote 35: It, may be fairly translated a cardinal's hat. The
difference of the Greek and Latin habits imbittered the schism.]

     Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople,
the two sides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy;
the Propontis by nature, and the harbor by art. Between the two
waters, the basis of the triangle, the land side was protected by
a double wall, and a deep ditch of the depth of one hundred feet.

Against this line of fortification, which Phranza, an
eye-witness, prolongs to the measure of six miles, ^36 the
Ottomans directed their principal attack; and the emperor, after
distributing the service and command of the most perilous
stations, undertook the defence of the external wall. In the
first days of the siege the Greek soldiers descended into the
ditch, or sallied into the field; but they soon discovered, that,
in the proportion of their numbers, one Christian was of more
value than twenty Turks: and, after these bold preludes, they
were prudently content to maintain the rampart with their missile
weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused of pusillanimity.
The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; but the last
Constantine deserves the name of a hero: his noble band of
volunteers was inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign
auxiliaries supported the honor of the Western chivalry. The
incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the
smoke, the sound, and the fire, of their musketry and cannon.
Their small arms discharged at the same time either five, or even
ten, balls of lead, of the size of a walnut; and, according to
the closeness of the ranks and the force of the powder, several
breastplates and bodies were transpierced by the same shot. But
the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches, or covered
with ruins. Each day added to the science of the Christians; but
their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations
of each day. Their ordnance was not powerful, either in size or
number; and if they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to
plant them on the walls, lest the aged structure should be shaken
and overthrown by the explosion. ^37 The same destructive secret
had been revealed to the Moslems; by whom it was employed with
the superior energy of zeal, riches, and despotism. The great
cannon of Mahomet has been separately noticed; an important and
visible object in the history of the times: but that enormous
engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude: ^38
the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the
walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most
accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously
expressed, that it was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns,
or that it discharged one hundred and thirty bullets. Yet in the
power and activity of the sultan, we may discern the infancy of
the new science. Under a master who counted the moments, the
great cannon could be loaded and fired no more than seven times
in one day. ^39 The heated metal unfortunately burst; several
workmen were destroyed; and the skill of an artist ^* was admired
who bethought himself of preventing the danger and the accident,
by pouring oil, after each explosion, into the mouth of the
cannon.
[Footnote 36: We are obliged to reduce the Greek miles to the
smallest measure which is preserved in the wersts of Russia, of
547 French toises, and of 104 2/5 to a degree. The six miles of
Phranza do not exceed four English miles, (D'Anville, Mesures
Itineraires, p. 61, 123, &c.)]

[Footnote 37: At indies doctiores nostri facti paravere contra
hostes machina menta, quae tamen avare dabantur. Pulvis erat
nitri modica exigua; tela modica; bombardae, si aderant
incommoditate loci primum hostes offendere, maceriebus alveisque
tectos, non poterant. Nam si quae magnae erant, ne murus
concuteretur noster, quiescebant. This passage of Leonardus
Chiensis is curious and important.]

[Footnote 38: According to Chalcondyles and Phranza, the great
cannon burst; an incident which, according to Ducas, was
prevented by the artist's skill. It is evident that they do not
speak of the same gun.

     Note: They speak, one of a Byzantine, one of a Turkish, gun.

Von Hammer note, p. 669]

[Footnote 39: Near a hundred years after the siege of
Constantinople, the French and English fleets in the Channel were
proud of firing 300 shot in an engagement of two hours, (Memoires
de Martin du Bellay, l. x., in the Collection Generale, tom. xxi.
p. 239.)]

[Footnote *: The founder of the gun. Von Hammer, p. 526.]
     The first random shots were productive of more sound than
effect; and it was by the advice of a Christian, that the
engineers were taught to level their aim against the two opposite
sides of the salient angles of a bastion. However imperfect, the
weight and repetition of the fire made some impression on the
walls; and the Turks, pushing their approaches to the edge of the
ditch, attempted to fill the enormous chasm, and to build a road
to the assault. ^40 Innumerable fascines, and hogsheads, and
trunks of trees, were heaped on each other; and such was the
impetuosity of the throng, that the foremost and the weakest were
pushed headlong down the precipice, and instantly buried under
the accumulated mass. To fill the ditch was the toil of the
besiegers; to clear away the rubbish was the safety of the
besieged; and after a long and bloody conflict, the web that had
been woven in the day was still unravelled in the night. The
next resource of Mahomet was the practice of mines; but the soil
was rocky; in every attempt he was stopped and undermined by the
Christian engineers; nor had the art been yet invented of
replenishing those subterraneous passages with gunpowder, and
blowing whole towers and cities into the air. ^41 A circumstance
that distinguishes the siege of Constantinople is the reunion of
the ancient and modern artillery. The cannon were intermingled
with the mechanical engines for casting stones and darts; the
bullet and the battering-ram ^* were directed against the same
walls: nor had the discovery of gunpowder superseded the use of
the liquid and unextinguishable fire. A wooden turret of the
largest size was advanced on rollers this portable magazine of
ammunition and fascines was protected by a threefold covering of
bulls' hides: incessant volleys were securely discharged from the
loop-holes; in the front, three doors were contrived for the
alternate sally and retreat of the soldiers and workmen. They
ascended by a staircase to the upper platform, and, as high as
the level of that platform, a scaling-ladder could be raised by
pulleys to form a bridge, and grapple with the adverse rampart.
By these various arts of annoyance, some as new as they were
pernicious to the Greeks, the tower of St. Romanus was at length
overturned: after a severe struggle, the Turks were repulsed from
the breach, and interrupted by darkness; but they trusted that
with the return of light they should renew the attack with fresh
vigor and decisive success. Of this pause of action, this
interval of hope, each moment was improved, by the activity of
the emperor and Justiniani, who passed the night on the spot, and
urged the labors which involved the safety of the church and
city. At the dawn of day, the impatient sultan perceived, with
astonishment and grief, that his wooden turret had been reduced
to ashes: the ditch was cleared and restored; and the tower of
St. Romanus was again strong and entire. He deplored the failure
of his design; and uttered a profane exclamation, that the word
of the thirty-seven thousand prophets should not have compelled
him to believe that such a work, in so short a time, could have
been accomplished by the infidels.

[Footnote 40: I have selected some curious facts, without
striving to emulate the bloody and obstinate eloquence of the
abbe de Vertot, in his prolix descriptions of the sieges of
Rhodes, Malta, &c. But that agreeable historian had a turn for
romance; and as he wrote to please the order he had adopted the
same spirit of enthusiasm and chivalry.]

[Footnote 41: The first theory of mines with gunpowder appears in
1480 in a Ms. of George of Sienna, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p.
324.) They were first practised by Sarzanella, in 1487; but the
honor and improvement in 1503 is ascribed to Peter of Navarre,
who used them with success in the wars of Italy, (Hist. de la
Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 93 - 97.)]

[Footnote *: The battering-ram according to Von Hammer, (p. 670,)
was not used - M.]

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
Eastern Empire

Part III.

     The generosity of the Christian princes was cold and tardy;
but in the first apprehension of a siege, Constantine had
negotiated, in the isles of the Archipelago, the Morea, and
Sicily, the most indispensable supplies. As early as the
beginning of April, five ^42 great ships, equipped for
merchandise and war, would have sailed from the harbor of Chios,
had not the wind blown obstinately from the north. ^43 One of
these ships bore the Imperial flag; the remaining four belonged
to the Genoese; and they were laden with wheat and barley, with
wine, oil, and vegetables, and, above all, with soldiers and
mariners for the service of the capital. After a tedious delay,
a gentle breeze, and, on the second day, a strong gale from the
south, carried them through the Hellespont and the Propontis: but
the city was already invested by sea and land; and the Turkish
fleet, at the entrance of the Bosphorus, was stretched from shore
to shore, in the form of a crescent, to intercept, or at least to
repel, these bold auxiliaries. The reader who has present to his
mind the geographical picture of Constantinople, will conceive
and admire the greatness of the spectacle. The five Christian
ships continued to advance with joyful shouts, and a full press
both of sails and oars, against a hostile fleet of three hundred
vessels; and the rampart, the camp, the coasts of Europe and
Asia, were lined with innumerable spectators, who anxiously
awaited the event of this momentous succor. At the first view
that event could not appear doubtful; the superiority of the
Moslems was beyond all measure or account: and, in a calm, their
numbers and valor must inevitably have prevailed. But their
hasty and imperfect navy had been created, not by the genius of
the people, but by the will of the sultan: in the height of their
prosperity, the Turks have acknowledged, that if God had given
them the earth, he had left the sea to the infidels; ^44 and a
series of defeats, a rapid progress of decay, has established the
truth of their modest confession. Except eighteen galleys of some
force, the rest of their fleet consisted of open boats, rudely
constructed and awkwardly managed, crowded with troops, and
destitute of cannon; and since courage arises in a great measure
from the consciousness of strength, the bravest of the Janizaries
might tremble on a new element. In the Christian squadron, five
stout and lofty ships were guided by skilful pilots, and manned
with the veterans of Italy and Greece, long practised in the arts
and perils of the sea. Their weight was directed to sink or
scatter the weak obstacles that impeded their passage: their
artillery swept the waters: their liquid fire was poured on the
heads of the adversaries, who, with the design of boarding,
presumed to approach them; and the winds and waves are always on
the side of the ablest navigators. In this conflict, the
Imperial vessel, which had been almost overpowered, was rescued
by the Genoese; but the Turks, in a distant and closer attack,
were twice repulsed with considerable loss. Mahomet himself sat
on horseback on the beach to encourage their valor by his voice
and presence, by the promise of reward, and by fear more potent
than the fear of the enemy. The passions of his soul, and even
the gestures of his body, ^45 seemed to imitate the actions of
the combatants; and, as if he had been the lord of nature, he
spurred his horse with a fearless and impotent effort into the
sea. His loud reproaches, and the clamors of the camp, urged the
Ottomans to a third attack, more fatal and bloody than the two
former; and I must repeat, though I cannot credit, the evidence
of Phranza, who affirms, from their own mouth, that they lost
above twelve thousand men in the slaughter of the day. They fled
in disorder to the shores of Europe and Asia, while the Christian
squadron, triumphant and unhurt, steered along the Bosphorus, and
securely anchored within the chain of the harbor. In the
confidence of victory, they boasted that the whole Turkish power
must have yielded to their arms; but the admiral, or captain
bashaw, found some consolation for a painful wound in his eye, by
representing that accident as the cause of his defeat. Balthi
Ogli was a renegade of the race of the Bulgarian princes: his
military character was tainted with the unpopular vice of
avarice; and under the despotism of the prince or people,
misfortune is a sufficient evidence of guilt. ^* His rank and
services were annihilated by the displeasure of Mahomet. In the
royal presence, the captain bashaw was extended on the ground by
four slaves, and received one hundred strokes with a golden rod:
^46 his death had been pronounced; and he adored the clemency of
the sultan, who was satisfied with the milder punishment of
confiscation and exile. The introduction of this supply revived
the hopes of the Greeks, and accused the supineness of their
Western allies. Amidst the deserts of Anatolia and the rocks of
Palestine, the millions of the crusades had buried themselves in
a voluntary and inevitable grave; but the situation of the
Imperial city was strong against her enemies, and accessible to
her friends; and a rational and moderate armament of the marine
states might have saved the relics of the Roman name, and
maintained a Christian fortress in the heart of the Ottoman
empire. Yet this was the sole and feeble attempt for the
deliverance of Constantinople: the more distant powers were
insensible of its danger; and the ambassador of Hungary, or at
least of Huniades, resided in the Turkish camp, to remove the
fears, and to direct the operations, of the sultan. ^47

[Footnote 42: It is singular that the Greeks should not agree in
the number of these illustrious vessels; the five of Ducas, the
four of Phranza and Leonardus, and the two of Chalcondyles, must
be extended to the smaller, or confined to the larger, size.
Voltaire, in giving one of these ships to Frederic III.,
confounds the emperors of the East and West.]
[Footnote 43: In bold defiance, or rather in gross ignorance, of
language and geography, the president Cousin detains them in
Chios with a south, and wafts them to Constantinople with a
north, wind.]

[Footnote 44: The perpetual decay and weakness of the Turkish
navy may be observed in Ricaut, (State of the Ottoman Empire, p.
372 - 378,) Thevenot, (Voyages, P. i. p. 229 - 242, and Tott,
(Memoires, tom. iii;) the last of whom is always solicitous to
amuse and amaze his reader]

[Footnote 45: I must confess that I have before my eyes the
living picture which Thucydides (l. vii. c. 71) has drawn of the
passions and gestures of the Athenians in a naval engagement in
the great harbor of Syracuse.]
[Footnote *: According to Ducas, one of the Afabi beat out his
eye with a stone Compare Von Hammer. - M.]

[Footnote 46: According to the exaggeration or corrupt text of
Ducas, (c. 38,) this golden bar was of the enormous or incredible
weight of 500 librae, or pounds. Bouillaud's reading of 500
drachms, or five pounds, is sufficient to exercise the arm of
Mahomet, and bruise the back of his admiral.]
[Footnote 47: Ducas, who confesses himself ill informed of the
affairs of Hungary assigns a motive of superstition, a fatal
belief that Constantinople would be the term of the Turkish
conquests. See Phranza (l. iii. c. 20) and Spondanus.]

     It was difficult for the Greeks to penetrate the secret of
the divan; yet the Greeks are persuaded, that a resistance so
obstinate and surprising, had fatigued the perseverance of
Mahomet. He began to meditate a retreat; and the siege would
have been speedily raised, if the ambition and jealousy of the
second vizier had not opposed the perfidious advice of Calil
Bashaw, who still maintained a secret correspondence with the
Byzantine court. The reduction of the city appeared to be
hopeless, unless a double attack could be made from the harbor as
well as from the land; but the harbor was inaccessible: an
impenetrable chain was now defended by eight large ships, more
than twenty of a smaller size, with several galleys and sloops;
and, instead of forcing this barrier, the Turks might apprehend a
naval sally, and a second encounter in the open sea. In this
perplexity, the genius of Mahomet conceived and executed a plan
of a bold and marvellous cast, of transporting by land his
lighter vessels and military stores from the Bosphorus into the
higher part of the harbor. The distance is about ten ^* miles;
the ground is uneven, and was overspread with thickets; and, as
the road must be opened behind the suburb of Galata, their free
passage or total destruction must depend on the option of the
Genoese. But these selfish merchants were ambitious of the favor
of being the last devoured; and the deficiency of art was
supplied by the strength of obedient myraids. A level way was
covered with a broad platform of strong and solid planks; and to
render them more slippery and smooth, they were anointed with the
fat of sheep and oxen. Fourscore light galleys and brigantines,
of fifty and thirty oars, were disembarked on the Bosphorus
shore; arranged successively on rollers; and drawn forwards by
the power of men and pulleys. Two guides or pilots were stationed
at the helm, and the prow, of each vessel: the sails were
unfurled to the winds; and the labor was cheered by song and
acclamation. In the course of a single night, this Turkish fleet
painfully climbed the hill, steered over the plain, and was
launched from the declivity into the shallow waters of the
harbor, far above the molestation of the deeper vessels of the
Greeks. The real importance of this operation was magnified by
the consternation and confidence which it inspired: but the
notorious, unquestionable fact was displayed before the eyes, and
is recorded by the pens, of the two nations. ^48 A similar
stratagem had been repeatedly practised by the ancients; ^49 the
Ottoman galleys (I must again repeat) should be considered as
large boats; and, if we compare the magnitude and the distance,
the obstacles and the means, the boasted miracle ^50 has perhaps
been equalled by the industry of our own times. ^51 As soon as
Mahomet had occupied the upper harbor with a fleet and army, he
constructed, in the narrowest part, a bridge, or rather mole, of
fifty cubits in breadth, and one hundred in length: it was formed
of casks and hogsheads; joined with rafters, linked with iron,
and covered with a solid floor. On this floating battery he
planted one of his largest cannon, while the fourscore galleys,
with troops and scaling ladders, approached the most accessible
side, which had formerly been stormed by the Latin conquerors.
The indolence of the Christians has been accused for not
destroying these unfinished works; ^! but their fire, by a
superior fire, was controlled and silenced; nor were they wanting
in a nocturnal attempt to burn the vessels as well as the bridge
of the sultan. His vigilance prevented their approach; their
foremost galiots were sunk or taken; forty youths, the bravest of
Italy and Greece, were inhumanly massacred at his command; nor
could the emperor's grief be assuaged by the just though cruel
retaliation, of exposing from the walls the heads of two hundred
and sixty Mussulman captives. After a siege of forty days, the
fate of Constantinople could no longer be averted. The
diminutive garrison was exhausted by a double attack: the
fortifications, which had stood for ages against hostile
violence, were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon:
many breaches were opened; and near the gate of St. Romanus, four
towers had been levelled with the ground. For the payment of his
feeble and mutinous troops, Constantine was compelled to despoil
the churches with the promise of a fourfold restitution; and his
sacrilege offered a new reproach to the enemies of the union. A
spirit of discord impaired the remnant of the Christian strength;
the Genoese and Venetian auxiliaries asserted the preeminence of
their respective service; and Justiniani and the great duke,
whose ambition was not extinguished by the common danger, accused
each other of treachery and cowardice.

[Footnote 48: The unanimous testimony of the four Greeks is
confirmed by Cantemir (p. 96) from the Turkish annals; but I
could wish to contract the distance of ten miles, and to prolong
the term of one night.
     Note: Six miles, not ten. Von Hammer. - M]

[Footnote 49: Phranza relates two examples of a similar
transportation over the six miles of the Isthmus of Corinth; the
one fabulous, of Augustus after the battle of Actium; the other
true, of Nicetas, a Greek general in the xth century. To these
he might have added a bold enterprise of Hannibal, to introduce
his vessels into the harbor of Tarentum, (Polybius, l. viii. p.
749, edit. Gronov.)

     Note: Von Hammer gives a longer list of such
transportations, p. 533. Dion Cassius distinctly relates the
occurrence treated as fabulous by Gibbon. - M.]

[Footnote 50: A Greek of Candia, who had served the Venetians in
a similar undertaking, (Spond. A.D. 1438, No. 37,) might possibly
be the adviser and agent of Mahomet.]

[Footnote 51: I particularly allude to our own embarkations on
the lakes of Canada in the years 1776 and 1777, so great in the
labor, so fruitless in the event.]

[Footnote !: They were betrayed, according to some accounts, by
the Genoese of Galata. Von Hammer, p. 536. - M.]

     During the siege of Constantinople, the words of peace and
capitulation had been sometimes pronounced; and several embassies
had passed between the camp and the city. ^52 The Greek emperor
was humbled by adversity; and would have yielded to any terms
compatible with religion and royalty. The Turkish sultan was
desirous of sparing the blood of his soldiers; still more
desirous of securing for his own use the Byzantine treasures: and
he accomplished a sacred duty in presenting to the Gabours the
choice of circumcision, of tribute, or of death. The avarice of
Mahomet might have been satisfied with an annual sum of one
hundred thousand ducats; but his ambition grasped the capital of
the East: to the prince he offered a rich equivalent, to the
people a free toleration, or a safe departure: but after some
fruitless treaty, he declared his resolution of finding either a
throne, or a grave, under the walls of Constantinople. A sense
of honor, and the fear of universal reproach, forbade Palaeologus
to resign the city into the hands of the Ottomans; and he
determined to abide the last extremities of war. Several days
were employed by the sultan in the preparations of the assault;
and a respite was granted by his favorite science of astrology,
which had fixed on the twenty-ninth of May, as the fortunate and
fatal hour. On the evening of the twenty-seventh, he issued his
final orders; assembled in his presence the military chiefs, and
dispersed his heralds through the camp to proclaim the duty, and
the motives, of the perilous enterprise. Fear is the first
principle of a despotic government; and his menaces were
expressed in the Oriental style, that the fugitives and
deserters, had they the wings of a bird, ^53 should not escape
from his inexorable justice. The greatest part of his bashaws
and Janizaries were the offspring of Christian parents: but the
glories of the Turkish name were perpetuated by successive
adoption; and in the gradual change of individuals, the spirit of
a legion, a regiment, or an oda, is kept alive by imitation and
discipline. In this holy warfare, the Moslems were exhorted to
purify their minds with prayer, their bodies with seven
ablutions; and to abstain from food till the close of the ensuing
day. A crowd of dervises visited the tents, to instil the desire
of martyrdom, and the assurance of spending an immortal youth
amidst the rivers and gardens of paradise, and in the embraces of
the black-eyed virgins. Yet Mahomet principally trusted to the
efficacy of temporal and visible rewards. A double pay was
promised to the victorious troops: "The city and the buildings,"
said Mahomet, "are mine; but I resign to your valor the captives
and the spoil, the treasures of gold and beauty; be rich and be
happy. Many are the provinces of my empire: the intrepid soldier
who first ascends the walls of Constantinople shall be rewarded
with the government of the fairest and most wealthy; and my
gratitude shall accumulate his honors and fortunes above the
measure of his own hopes." Such various and potent motives
diffused among the Turks a general ardor, regardless of life and
impatient for action: the camp reechoed with the Moslem shouts of
"God is God: there is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of
God;" ^54 and the sea and land, from Galata to the seven towers,
were illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires. ^*

[Footnote 52: Chalcondyles and Ducas differ in the time and
circumstances of the negotiation; and as it was neither glorious
nor salutory, the faithful Phranza spares his prince even the
thought of a surrender.]
[Footnote 53: These wings (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 208) are no
more than an Oriental figure: but in the tragedy of Irene,
Mahomet's passion soars above sense and reason: -

     Should the fierce North, upon his frozen wings.
     Bear him aloft above the wondering clouds,
     And seat him in the Pleiads' golden chariot -
     Then should my fury drag him down to tortures.

Besides the extravagance of the rant, I must observe, 1. That the
operation of the winds must be confined to the lower region of
the air. 2. That the name, etymology, and fable of the Pleiads
are purely Greek, (Scholiast ad Homer, Sigma 686. Eudocia in
Ionia, p. 399. Apollodor. l. iii. c. 10. Heyne, p. 229, Not.
682,) and had no affinity with the astronomy of the East, (Hyde
ad Ulugbeg, Tabul. in Syntagma Dissert. tom. i. p. 40, 42.
Goguet, Origine des Arts, &c., tom. vi. p. 73 - 78. Gebelin,
Hist. du Calendrier, p. 73,) which Mahomet had studied. 3. The
golden chariot does not exist either in science or fiction; but I
much fear Dr. Johnson has confounded the Pleiades with the great
bear or wagon, the zodiac with a northern constalation.]
[Footnote 54: Phranza quarrels with these Moslem acclamations,
not for the name of God, but for that of the prophet: the pious
zeal of Voltaire is excessive, and even ridiculous.]

[Footnote *: The picture is heightened by the addition of the
wailing cries of Kyris, which were heard from the dark interior
of the city. Von Hammer p. 539. - M.]

     Far different was the state of the Christians; who, with
loud and impotent complaints, deplored the guilt, or the
punishment, of their sins. The celestial image of the Virgin had
been exposed in solemn procession; but their divine patroness was
deaf to their entreaties: they accused the obstinacy of the
emperor for refusing a timely surrender; anticipated the horrors
of their fate; and sighed for the repose and security of Turkish
servitude. The noblest of the Greeks, and the bravest of the
allies, were summoned to the palace, to prepare them, on the
evening of the twenty-eighth, for the duties and dangers of the
general assault. The last speech of Palaeologus was the funeral
oration of the Roman empire: ^55 he promised, he conjured, and he
vainly attempted to infuse the hope which was extinguished in his
own mind. In this world all was comfortless and gloomy; and
neither the gospel nor the church have proposed any conspicuous
recompense to the heroes who fall in the service of their
country. But the example of their prince, and the confinement of
a siege, had armed these warriors with the courage of despair,
and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings of the
historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournful
assembly. They wept, they embraced; regardless of their families
and fortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander,
departing to his station, maintained all night a vigilant and
anxious watch on the rampart. The emperor, and some faithful
companions, entered the dome of St. Sophia, which in a few hours
was to be converted into a mosque; and devoutly received, with
tears and prayers, the sacrament of the holy communion. He
reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with cries
and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all whom he might have
injured; ^56 and mounted on horseback to visit the guards, and
explore the motions of the enemy. The distress and fall of the
last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of
the Byzantine Caesars. ^*
[Footnote 55: I am afraid that this discourse was composed by
Phranza himself; and it smells so grossly of the sermon and the
convent, that I almost doubt whether it was pronounced by
Constantine. Leonardus assigns him another speech, in which he
addresses himself more respectfully to the Latin auxiliaries.]

[Footnote 56: This abasement, which devotion has sometimes
extorted from dying princes, is an improvement of the gospel
doctrine of the forgiveness of injuries: it is more easy to
forgive 490 times, than once to ask pardon of an inferior.]

[Footnote *: Compare the very curious Armenian elegy on the fall
of Constantinople, translated by M. Bore, in the Journal
Asiatique for March, 1835; and by M. Brosset, in the new edition
of Le Beau, (tom. xxi. p. 308.) The author thus ends his poem:
"I, Abraham, loaded with sins, have composed this elegy with the
most lively sorrow; for I have seen Constantinople in the days of
its glory." - M.]

     In the confusion of darkness, an assailant may sometimes
succeed; out in this great and general attack, the military
judgment and astrological knowledge of Mahomet advised him to
expect the morning, the memorable twenty- ninth of May, in the
fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the Christian aera. The
preceding night had been strenuously employed: the troops, the
cannons, and the fascines, were advanced to the edge of the
ditch, which in many parts presented a smooth and level passage
to the breach; and his fourscore galleys almost touched, with the
prows and their scaling-ladders, the less defensible walls of the
harbor. Under pain of death, silence was enjoined: but the
physical laws of motion and sound are not obedient to discipline
or fear; each individual might suppress his voice and measure his
footsteps; but the march and labor of thousands must inevitably
produce a strange confusion of dissonant clamors, which reached
the ears of the watchmen of the towers. At daybreak, without the
customary signal of the morning gun, the Turks assaulted the city
by sea and land; and the similitude of a twined or twisted thread
has been applied to the closeness and continuity of their line of
attack. ^57 The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the
host, a voluntary crowd who fought without order or command; of
the feebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and
of all who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and
martyrdom. The common impulse drove them onwards to the wall;
the most audacious to climb were instantly precipitated; and not
a dart, not a bullet, of the Christians, was idly wasted on the
accumulated throng. But their strength and ammunition were
exhausted in this laborious defence: the ditch was filled with
the bodies of the slain; they supported the footsteps of their
companions; and of this devoted vanguard the death was more
serviceable than the life. Under their respective bashaws and
sanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and Romania were successively led
to the charge: their progress was various and doubtful; but,
after a conflict of two hours, the Greeks still maintained, and
improved their advantage; and the voice of the emperor was heard,
encouraging his soldiers to achieve, by a last effort, the
deliverance of their country. In that fatal moment, the
Janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible. The sultan
himself on horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was the
spectator and judge of their valor: he was surrounded by ten
thousand of his domestic troops, whom he reserved for the
decisive occasion; and the tide of battle was directed and
impelled by his voice and eye. His numerous ministers of justice
were posted behind the line, to urge, to restrain, and to punish;
and if danger was in the front, shame and inevitable death were
in the rear, of the fugitives. The cries of fear and of pain
were drowned in the martial music of drums, trumpets, and
attaballs; and experience has proved, that the mechanical
operation of sounds, by quickening the circulation of the blood
and spirits, will act on the human machine more forcibly than the
eloquence of reason and honor. From the lines, the galleys, and
the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides; and the
camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud
of smoke which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance
or destruction of the Roman empire. The single combats of the
heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our
affections: the skilful evolutions of war may inform the mind,
and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the
uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood,
and horror, and confusion nor shall I strive, at the distance of
three centuries, and a thousand miles, to delineate a scene of
which there could be no spectators, and of which the actors
themselves were incapable of forming any just or adequate idea.

[Footnote 57: Besides the 10,000 guards, and the sailors and the
marines, Ducas numbers in this general assault 250,000 Turks,
both horse and foot.]
     The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the
bullet, or arrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani.
The sight of his blood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the
courage of the chief, whose arms and counsels were the firmest
rampart of the city. As he withdrew from his station in quest of
a surgeon, his flight was perceived and stopped by the
indefatigable emperor. "Your wound," exclaimed Palaeologus, "is
slight; the danger is pressing: your presence is necessary; and
whither will you retire?" - "I will retire," said the trembling
Genoese, "by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;"
and at these words he hastily passed through one of the breaches
of the inner wall. By this pusillanimous act he stained the
honors of a military life; and the few days which he survived in
Galata, or the Isle of Chios, were embittered by his own and the
public reproach. ^58 His example was imitated by the greatest
part of the Latin auxiliaries, and the defence began to slacken
when the attack was pressed with redoubled vigor. The number of
the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, times superior to that
of the Christians; the double walls were reduced by the cannon to
a heap of ruins: in a circuit of several miles, some places must
be found more easy of access, or more feebly guarded; and if the
besiegers could penetrate in a single point, the whole city was
irrecoverably lost. The first who deserved the sultan's reward
was Hassan the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With
his cimeter in one hand and his buckler in the other, he ascended
the outward fortification: of the thirty Janizaries, who were
emulous of his valor, eighteen perished in the bold adventure.
Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the summit: the
giant was precipitated from the rampart: he rose on one knee, and
was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his
success had proved that the achievement was possible: the walls
and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks; and the
Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by
increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, ^59
who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was
long seen and finally lost. The nobles, who fought round his
person, sustained, till their last breath, the honorable names of
Palaeologus and Cantacuzene: his mournful exclamation was heard,
"Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" ^60 and
his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the
infidels. ^61 The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the
purple: amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his
body was buried under a mountain of the slain. After his death,
resistance and order were no more: the Greeks fled towards the
city; and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow pass of the
gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through the
breaches of the inner wall; and as they advanced into the
streets, they were soon joined by their brethren, who had forced
the gate Phenar on the side of the harbor. ^62 In the first heat
of the pursuit, about two thousand Christians were put to the
sword; but avarice soon prevailed over cruelty; and the victors
acknowledged, that they should immediately have given quarter if
the valor of the emperor and his chosen bands had not prepared
them for a similar opposition in every part of the capital. It
was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople,
which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the
caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the
Second. Her empire only had been subverted by the Latins: her
religion was trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors. ^63
[Footnote 58: In the severe censure of the flight of Justiniani,
Phranza expresses his own feelings and those of the public. For
some private reasons, he is treated with more lenity and respect
by Ducas; but the words of Leonardus Chiensis express his strong
and recent indignation, gloriae salutis suique oblitus. In the
whole series of their Eastern policy, his countrymen, the
Genoese, were always suspected, and often guilty.

     Note: M. Brosset has given some extracts from the Georgian
account of the siege of Constantinople, in which Justiniani's
wound in the left foot is represented as more serious. With
charitable ambiguity the chronicler adds that his soldiers
carried him away with them in their vessel. - M.]
[Footnote 59: Ducas kills him with two blows of Turkish soldiers;
Chalcondyles wounds him in the shoulder, and then tramples him in
the gate. The grief of Phranza, carrying him among the enemy,
escapes from the precise image of his death; but we may, without
flattery, apply these noble lines of Dryden: -
     As to Sebastian, let them search the field;
     And where they find a mountain of the slain,
     Send one to climb, and looking down beneath,
     There they will find him at his manly length,
     With his face up to heaven, in that red monument
     Which his good sword had digged.]

[Footnote 60: Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 10,) who has hopes of
his salvation, wishes to absolve this demand from the guilt of
suicide.]

[Footnote 61: Leonardus Chiensis very properly observes, that the
Turks, had they known the emperor, would have labored to save and
secure a captive so acceptable to the sultan.]

[Footnote 62: Cantemir, p. 96. The Christian ships in the mouth
of the harbor had flanked and retarded this naval attack.]

[Footnote 63: Chalcondyles most absurdly supposes, that
Constantinople was sacked by the Asiatics in revenge for the
ancient calamities of Troy; and the grammarians of the xvth
century are happy to melt down the uncouth appellation of Turks
into the more classical name of Teucri.]

     The tidings of misfortune fly with a rapid wing; yet such
was the extent of Constantinople, that the more distant quarters
might prolong, some moments, the happy ignorance of their ruin.
^64 But in the general consternation, in the feelings of selfish
or social anxiety, in the tumult and thunder of the assault, a
sleepless night and morning ^* must have elapsed; nor can I
believe that many Grecian ladies were awakened by the Janizaries
from a sound and tranquil slumber. On the assurance of the
public calamity, the houses and convents were instantly deserted;
and the trembling inhabitants flocked together in the streets,
like a herd of timid animals, as if accumulated weakness could be
productive of strength, or in the vain hope, that amid the crowd
each individual might be safe and invisible. From every part of
the capital, they flowed into the church of St. Sophia: in the
space of an hour, the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the upper
and lower galleries, were filled with the multitudes of fathers
and husbands, of women and children, of priests, monks, and
religious virgins: the doors were barred on the inside, and they
sought protection from the sacred dome, which they had so lately
abhorred as a profane and polluted edifice. Their confidence was
founded on the prophecy of an enthusiast or impostor; that one
day the Turks would enter Constantinople, and pursue the Romans
as far as the column of Constantine in the square before St.
Sophia: but that this would be the term of their calamities: that
an angel would descend from heaven, with a sword in his hand, and
would deliver the empire, with that celestial weapon, to a poor
man seated at the foot of the column. "Take this sword," would
he say, "and avenge the people of the Lord." At these animating
words, the Turks would instantly fly, and the victorious Romans
would drive them from the West, and from all Anatolia as far as
the frontiers of Persia. It is on this occasion that Ducas, with
some fancy and much truth, upbraids the discord and obstinacy of
the Greeks. "Had that angel appeared," exclaims the historian,
"had he offered to exterminate your foes if you would consent to
the union of the church, even event then, in that fatal moment,
you would have rejected your safety, or have deceived your God."
^65

[Footnote 64: When Cyrus suppressed Babylon during the
celebration of a festival, so vast was the city, and so careless
were the inhabitants, that much time elapsed before the distant
quarters knew that they were captives. Herodotus, (l. i. c. 191,)
and Usher, (Annal. p. 78,) who has quoted from the prophet
Jeremiah a passage of similar import.]

[Footnote *: This refers to an expression in Ducas, who, to
heighten the effect of his description, speaks of the "sweet
morning sleep resting on the eyes of youths and maidens," p. 288.

Edit. Bekker. - M.]

[Footnote 65: This lively description is extracted from Ducas,
(c. 39,) who two years afterwards was sent ambassador from the
prince of Lesbos to the sultan, (c. 44.) Till Lesbos was subdued
in 1463, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 27,) that island must have been
full of the fugitives of Constantinople, who delighted to repeat,
perhaps to adorn, the tale of their misery.]

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
Eastern Empire

Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.

Part I.

     State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century. - Temporal Dominion
Of The Popes. - Seditions Of The City. - Political Heresy Of
Arnold Of Brescia. - Restoration Of The Republic. - The Senators.
- Pride Of The Romans. - Their Wars. - They Are Deprived Of The
Election And Presence Of The Popes, Who Retire To Avignon. - The
Jubilee. - Noble Families Of Rome. - Feud Of The Colonna And
Ursini.

     In the first ages of the decline and fall of the Roman
empire, our eye is invariably fixed on the royal city, which had
given laws to the fairest portion of the globe. We contemplate
her fortunes, at first with admiration, at length with pity,
always with attention, and when that attention is diverted from
the capital to the provinces, they are considered as so many
branches which have been successively severed from the Imperial
trunk. The foundation of a second Rome, on the shores of the
Bosphorus, has compelled the historian to follow the successors
of Constantine; and our curiosity has been tempted to visit the
most remote countries of Europe and Asia, to explore the causes
and the authors of the long decay of the Byzantine monarchy. By
the conquest of Justinian, we have been recalled to the banks of
the Tyber, to the deliverance of the ancient metropolis; but that
deliverance was a change, or perhaps an aggravation, of
servitude. Rome had been already stripped of her trophies, her
gods, and her Caesars; nor was the Gothic dominion more
inglorious and oppressive than the tyranny of the Greeks. In the
eighth century of the Christian aera, a religious quarrel, the
worship of images, provoked the Romans to assert their
independence: their bishop became the temporal, as well as the
spiritual, father of a free people; and of the Western empire,
which was restored by Charlemagne, the title and image still
decorate the singular constitution of modern Germany. The name of
Rome must yet command our involuntary respect: the climate
(whatsoever may be its influence) was no longer the same: ^1 the
purity of blood had been contaminated through a thousand
channels; but the venerable aspect of her ruins, and the memory
of past greatness, rekindled a spark of the national character.
The darkness of the middle ages exhibits some scenes not unworthy
of our notice. Nor shall I dismiss the present work till I have
reviewed the state and revolutions of the Roman City, which
acquiesced under the absolute dominion of the popes, about the
same time that Constantinople was enslaved by the Turkish arms.

[Footnote 1: The abbe Dubos, who, with less genius than his
successor Montesquieu, has asserted and magnified the influence
of climate, objects to himself the degeneracy of the Romans and
Batavians. To the first of these examples he replies, 1. That
the change is less real than apparent, and that the modern Romans
prudently conceal in themselves the virtues of their ancestors.
2. That the air, the soil, and the climate of Rome have suffered
a great and visible alteration, (Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur
la Peinture, part ii. sect. 16.)

     Note: This question is discussed at considerable length in
Dr. Arnold's History of Rome, ch. xxiii. See likewise Bunsen's
Dissertation on the Aria Cattiva Roms Beschreibung, pp. 82, 108.
- M.]

     In the beginning of the twelfth century, ^2 the aera of the
first crusade, Rome was revered by the Latins, as the metropolis
of the world, as the throne of the pope and the emperor, who,
from the eternal city, derived their title, their honors, and the
right or exercise of temporal dominion. After so long an
interruption, it may not be useless to repeat that the successors
of Charlemagne and the Othos were chosen beyond the Rhine in a
national diet; but that these princes were content with the
humble names of kings of Germany and Italy, till they had passed
the Alps and the Apennine, to seek their Imperial crown on the
banks of the Tyber. ^3 At some distance from the city, their
approach was saluted by a long procession of the clergy and
people with palms and crosses; and the terrific emblems of wolves
and lions, of dragons and eagles, that floated in the military
banners, represented the departed legions and cohorts of the
republic. The royal path to maintain the liberties of Rome was
thrice reiterated, at the bridge, the gate, and on the stairs of
the Vatican; and the distribution of a customary donative feebly
imitated the magnificence of the first Caesars. In the church of
St. Peter, the coronation was performed by his successor: the
voice of God was confounded with that of the people; and the
public consent was declared in the acclamations of "Long life and
victory to our lord the pope! long life and victory to our lord
the emperor! long life and victory to the Roman and Teutonic
armies!" ^4 The names of Caesar and Augustus, the laws of
Constantine and Justinian, the example of Charlemagne and Otho,
established the supreme dominion of the emperors: their title and
image was engraved on the papal coins; ^5 and their jurisdiction
was marked by the sword of justice, which they delivered to the
praefect of the city. But every Roman prejudice was awakened by
the name, the language, and the manners, of a Barbarian lord.
The Caesars of Saxony or Franconia were the chiefs of a feudal
aristocracy; nor could they exercise the discipline of civil and
military power, which alone secures the obedience of a distant
people, impatient of servitude, though perhaps incapable of
freedom. Once, and once only, in his life, each emperor, with an
army of Teutonic vassals, descended from the Alps. I have
described the peaceful order of his entry and coronation; but
that order was commonly disturbed by the clamor and sedition of
the Romans, who encountered their sovereign as a foreign invader:
his departure was always speedy, and often shameful; and, in the
absence of a long reign, his authority was insulted, and his name
was forgotten. The progress of independence in Germany and Italy
undermined the foundations of the Imperial sovereignty, and the
triumph of the popes was the deliverance of Rome.

[Footnote 2: The reader has been so long absent from Rome, that I
would advise him to recollect or review the xlixth chapter of
this History.]
[Footnote 3: The coronation of the German emperors at Rome, more
especially in the xith century, is best represented from the
original monuments by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom. i. dissertat. ii. p. 99, &c.) and Cenni, (Monument. Domin.
Pontif. tom. ii. diss. vi. p. 261,) the latter of whom I only
know from the copious extract of Schmidt, (Hist. des Allemands
tom. iii. p. 255 - 266.)]

[Footnote 4: Exercitui Romano et Teutonico! The latter was both
seen and felt; but the former was no more than magni nominis
umbra.]
[Footnote 5: Muratori has given the series of the papal coins,
(Antiquitat. tom. ii. diss. xxvii. p. 548 - 554.) He finds only
two more early than the year 800: fifty are still extant from Leo
III. to Leo IX., with the addition of the reigning emperor none
remain of Gregory VII. or Urban II.; but in those of Paschal II.
he seems to have renounced this badge of dependence.]
     Of her two sovereigns, the emperor had precariously reigned
by the right of conquest; but the authority of the pope was
founded on the soft, though more solid, basis of opinion and
habit. The removal of a foreign influence restored and endeared
the shepherd to his flock. Instead of the arbitrary or venal
nomination of a German court, the vicar of Christ was freely
chosen by the college of cardinals, most of whom were either
natives or inhabitants of the city. The applause of the
magistrates and people confirmed his election, and the
ecclesiastical power that was obeyed in Sweden and Britain had
been ultimately derived from the suffrage of the Romans. The
same suffrage gave a prince, as well as a pontiff, to the
capital. It was universally believed, that Constantine had
invested the popes with the temporal dominion of Rome; and the
boldest civilians, the most profane skeptics, were satisfied with
disputing the right of the emperor and the validity of his gift.
The truth of the fact, the authenticity of his donation, was
deeply rooted in the ignorance and tradition of four centuries;
and the fabulous origin was lost in the real and permanent
effects. The name of Dominus or Lord was inscribed on the coin
of the bishops: their title was acknowledged by acclamations and
oaths of allegiance, and with the free, or reluctant, consent of
the German Caesars, they had long exercised a supreme or
subordinate jurisdiction over the city and patrimony of St.
Peter. The reign of the popes, which gratified the prejudices,
was not incompatible with the liberties, of Rome; and a more
critical inquiry would have revealed a still nobler source of
their power; the gratitude of a nation, whom they had rescued
from the heresy and oppression of the Greek tyrant. In an age of
superstition, it should seem that the union of the royal and
sacerdotal characters would mutually fortify each other; and that
the keys of Paradise would be the surest pledge of earthly
obedience. The sanctity of the office might indeed be degraded by
the personal vices of the man. But the scandals of the tenth
century were obliterated by the austere and more dangerous
virtues of Gregory the Seventh and his successors; and in the
ambitious contests which they maintained for the rights of the
church, their sufferings or their success must equally tend to
increase the popular veneration. They sometimes wandered in
poverty and exile, the victims of persecution; and the apostolic
zeal with which they offered themselves to martyrdom must engage
the favor and sympathy of every Catholic breast. And sometimes,
thundering from the Vatican, they created, judged, and deposed
the kings of the world; nor could the proudest Roman be disgraced
by submitting to a priest, whose feet were kissed, and whose
stirrup was held, by the successors of Charlemagne. ^6 Even the
temporal interest of the city should have protected in peace and
honor the residence of the popes; from whence a vain and lazy
people derived the greatest part of their subsistence and riches.

The fixed revenue of the popes was probably impaired; many of the
old patrimonial estates, both in Italy and the provinces, had
been invaded by sacrilegious hands; nor could the loss be
compensated by the claim, rather than the possession, of the more
ample gifts of Pepin and his descendants. But the Vatican and
Capitol were nourished by the incessant and increasing swarms of
pilgrims and suppliants: the pale of Christianity was enlarged,
and the pope and cardinals were overwhelmed by the judgment of
ecclesiastical and secular causes. A new jurisprudence had
established in the Latin church the right and practice of
appeals; ^7 and from the North and West the bishops and abbots
were invited or summoned to solicit, to complain, to accuse, or
to justify, before the threshold of the apostles. A rare prodigy
is once recorded, that two horses, belonging to the archbishops
of Mentz and Cologne, repassed the Alps, yet laden with gold and
silver: ^8 but it was soon understood, that the success, both of
the pilgrims and clients, depended much less on the justice of
their cause than on the value of their offering. The wealth and
piety of these strangers were ostentatiously displayed; and their
expenses, sacred or profane, circulated in various channels for
the emolument of the Romans.

[Footnote 6: See Ducange, Gloss. mediae et infimae Latinitat.
tom. vi. p. 364, 365, Staffa. This homage was paid by kings to
archbishops, and by vassals to their lords, (Schmidt, tom. iii.
p. 262;) and it was the nicest policy of Rome to confound the
marks of filial and of feudal subjection]

[Footnote 7: The appeals from all the churches to the Roman
pontiff are deplored by the zeal of St. Bernard (de
Consideratione, l. iii. tom. ii. p. 431 - 442, edit. Mabillon,
Venet. 1750) and the judgment of Fleury, (Discours sur l'Hist.
Ecclesiastique, iv. et vii.) But the saint, who believed in the
false decretals condemns only the abuse of these appeals; the
more enlightened historian investigates the origin, and rejects
the principles, of this new jurisprudence.]

[Footnote 8: Germanici . . . . summarii non levatis sarcinis
onusti nihilominus repatriant inviti. Nova res! quando hactenus
aurum Roma refudit? Et nunc Romanorum consilio id usurpatum non
credimus, (Bernard, de Consideratione, l. iii. c. 3, p. 437.) The
first words of the passage are obscure, and probably corrupt.]

     Such powerful motives should have firmly attached the
voluntary and pious obedience of the Roman people to their
spiritual and temporal father. But the operation of prejudice and
interest is often disturbed by the sallies of ungovernable
passion. The Indian who fells the tree, that he may gather the
fruit, ^9 and the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce, are
actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, which overlooks
the future in the present, and relinquishes for momentary rapine
the long and secure possession of the most important blessings.
And it was thus, that the shrine of St. Peter was profaned by the
thoughtless Romans; who pillaged the offerings, and wounded the
pilgrims, without computing the number and value of similar
visits, which they prevented by their inhospitable sacrilege.
Even the influence of superstition is fluctuating and precarious;
and the slave, whose reason is subdued, will often be delivered
by his avarice or pride. A credulous devotion for the fables and
oracles of the priesthood most powerfully acts on the mind of a
Barbarian; yet such a mind is the least capable of preferring
imagination to sense, of sacrificing to a distant motive, to an
invisible, perhaps an ideal, object, the appetites and interests
of the present world. In the vigor of health and youth, his
practice will perpetually contradict his belief; till the
pressure of age, or sickness, or calamity, awakens his terrors,
and compels him to satisfy the double debt of piety and remorse.
I have already observed, that the modern times of religious
indifference are the most favorable to the peace and security of
the clergy. Under the reign of superstition, they had much to
hope from the ignorance, and much to fear from the violence, of
mankind. The wealth, whose constant increase must have rendered
them the sole proprietors of the earth, was alternately bestowed
by the repentant father and plundered by the rapacious son: their
persons were adored or violated; and the same idol, by the hands
of the same votaries, was placed on the altar, or trampled in the
dust. In the feudal system of Europe, arms were the title of
distinction and the measure of allegiance; and amidst their
tumult, the still voice of law and reason was seldom heard or
obeyed. The turbulent Romans disdained the yoke, and insulted the
impotence, of their bishop: ^10 nor would his education or
character allow him to exercise, with decency or effect, the
power of the sword. The motives of his election and the
frailties of his life were exposed to their familiar observation;
and proximity must diminish the reverence which his name and his
decrees impressed on a barbarous world. This difference has not
escaped the notice of our philosophic historian: "Though the name
and authority of the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote
countries of Europe, which were sunk in profound ignorance, and
were entirely unacquainted with its character and conduct, the
pope was so little revered at home, that his inveterate enemies
surrounded the gates of Rome itself, and even controlled his
government in that city; and the ambassadors, who, from a distant
extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble, or rather abject,
submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found the
utmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw
themselves at his feet." ^11

[Footnote 9: Quand les sauvages de la Louisiane veulent avoir du
fruit, ils coupent l'arbre au pied et cueillent le fruit. Voila
le gouvernement despotique, (Esprit des Loix, l. v. c. 13;) and
passion and ignorance are always despotic.]

[Footnote 10: In a free conversation with his countryman Adrian
IV., John of Salisbury accuses the avarice of the pope and
clergy: Provinciarum diripiunt spolia, ac si thesauros Croesi
studeant reparare. Sed recte cum eis agit Altissimus, quoniam et
ipsi aliis et saepe vilissimis hominibus dati sunt in
direptionem, (de Nugis Curialium, l. vi. c. 24, p. 387.) In the
next page, he blames the rashness and infidelity of the Romans,
whom their bishops vainly strove to conciliate by gifts, instead
of virtues. It is pity that this miscellaneous writer has not
given us less morality and erudition, and more pictures of
himself and the times.]

[Footnote 11: Hume's History of England, vol. i. p. 419. The
same writer has given us, from Fitz-Stephen, a singular act of
cruelty perpetrated on the clergy by Geoffrey, the father of
Henry II. "When he was master of Normandy, the chapter of Seez
presumed, without his consent, to proceed to the election of a
bishop: upon which he ordered all of them, with the bishop elect,
to be castrated, and made all their testicles be brought him in a
platter." Of the pain and danger they might justly complain; yet
since they had vowed chastity he deprived them of a superfluous
treasure.]

     Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was
exposed to envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to
violence. But the long hostility of the mitre and the crown
increased the numbers, and inflamed the passions, of their
enemies. The deadly factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, so
fatal to Italy, could never be embraced with truth or constancy
by the Romans, the subjects and adversaries both of the bishop
and emperor; but their support was solicited by both parties, and
they alternately displayed in their banners the keys of St. Peter
and the German eagle. Gregory the Seventh, who may be adored or
detested as the founder of the papal monarchy, was driven from
Rome, and died in exile at Salerno. Six- and-thirty of his
successors, ^12 till their retreat to Avignon, maintained an
unequal contest with the Romans: their age and dignity were often
violated; and the churches, in the solemn rites of religion, were
polluted with sedition and murder. A repetition ^13 of such
capricious brutality, without connection or design, would be
tedious and disgusting; and I shall content myself with some
events of the twelfth century, which represent the state of the
popes and the city. On Holy Thursday, while Paschal officiated
before the altar, he was interrupted by the clamors of the
multitude, who imperiously demanded the confirmation of a
favorite magistrate. His silence exasperated their fury; his
pious refusal to mingle the affairs of earth and heaven was
encountered with menaces, and oaths, that he should be the cause
and the witness of the public ruin. During the festival of
Easter, while the bishop and the clergy, barefooted and in
procession, visited the tombs of the martyrs, they were twice
assaulted, at the bridge of St. Angelo, and before the Capitol,
with volleys of stones and darts. The houses of his adherents
were levelled with the ground: Paschal escaped with difficulty
and danger; he levied an army in the patrimony of St. Peter; and
his last days were embittered by suffering and inflicting the
calamities of civil war. The scenes that followed the election
of his successor Gelasius the Second were still more scandalous
to the church and city. Cencio Frangipani, ^14 a potent and
factious baron, burst into the assembly furious and in arms: the
cardinals were stripped, beaten, and trampled under foot; and he
seized, without pity or respect, the vicar of Christ by the
throat. Gelasius was dragged by the hair along the ground,
buffeted with blows, wounded with spurs, and bound with an iron
chain in the house of his brutal tyrant. An insurrection of the
people delivered their bishop: the rival families opposed the
violence of the Frangipani; and Cencio, who sued for pardon,
repented of the failure, rather than of the guilt, of his
enterprise. Not many days had elapsed, when the pope was again
assaulted at the altar. While his friends and enemies were
engaged in a bloody contest, he escaped in his sacerdotal
garments. In this unworthy flight, which excited the compassion
of the Roman matrons, his attendants were scattered or unhorsed;
and, in the fields behind the church of St. Peter, his successor
was found alone and half dead with fear and fatigue. Shaking the
dust from his feet, the apostle withdrew from a city in which his
dignity was insulted and his person was endangered; and the
vanity of sacerdotal ambition is revealed in the involuntary
confession, that one emperor was more tolerable than twenty. ^15
These examples might suffice; but I cannot forget the sufferings
of two pontiffs of the same age, the second and third of the name
of Lucius. The former, as he ascended in battle array to assault
the Capitol, was struck on the temple by a stone, and expired in
a few days. The latter was severely wounded in the person of his
servants. In a civil commotion, several of his priests had been
made prisoners; and the inhuman Romans, reserving one as a guide
for his brethren, put out their eyes, crowned them with ludicrous
mitres, mounted them on asses with their faces towards the tail,
and extorted an oath, that, in this wretched condition, they
should offer themselves as a lesson to the head of the church.
Hope or fear, lassitude or remorse, the characters of the men,
and the circumstances of the times, might sometimes obtain an
interval of peace and obedience; and the pope was restored with
joyful acclamations to the Lateran or Vatican, from whence he had
been driven with threats and violence. But the root of mischief
was deep and perennial; and a momentary calm was preceded and
followed by such tempests as had almost sunk the bark of St.
Peter. Rome continually presented the aspect of war and discord:
the churches and palaces were fortified and assaulted by the
factions and families; and, after giving peace to Europe,
Calistus the Second alone had resolution and power to prohibit
the use of private arms in the metropolis. Among the nations who
revered the apostolic throne, the tumults of Rome provoked a
general indignation; and in a letter to his disciple Eugenius the
Third, St. Bernard, with the sharpness of his wit and zeal, has
stigmatized the vices of the rebellious people. ^16 "Who is
ignorant," says the monk of Clairvaux, "of the vanity and
arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursed in sedition,
untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too feeble to
resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; if
they swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet
they vent their discontent in loud clamors, if your doors, or
your counsels, are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief,
they have never learned the science of doing good. Odious to
earth and heaven, impious to God, seditious among themselves,
jealous of their neighbors, inhuman to strangers, they love no
one, by no one are they beloved; and while they wish to inspire
fear, they live in base and continual apprehension. They will
not submit; they know not how to govern faithless to their
superiors, intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their
benefactors, and alike impudent in their demands and their
refusals. Lofty in promise, poor in execution; adulation and
calumny, perfidy and treason, are the familiar arts of their
policy." Surely this dark portrait is not colored by the pencil
of Christian charity; ^17 yet the features, however harsh or
ugly, express a lively resemblance of the Roman of the twelfth
century. ^18
[Footnote 12: From Leo IX. and Gregory VII. an authentic and
contemporary series of the lives of the popes by the cardinal of
Arragon, Pandulphus Pisanus, Bernard Guido, &c., is inserted in
the Italian Historians of Muratori, (tom. iii. P. i. p. 277 -
685,) and has been always before my eyes.]
[Footnote 13: The dates of years int he in the contents may
throughout his this chapter be understood as tacit references to
the Annals of Muratori, my ordinary and excellent guide. He
uses, and indeed quotes, with the freedom of a master, his great
collection of the Italian Historians, in xxviii. volumes; and as
that treasure is in my library, I have thought it an amusement,
if not a duty, to consult the originals.]

[Footnote 14: I cannot refrain from transcribing the high-colored
words of Pandulphus Pisanus, (p. 384.) Hoc audiens inimicus pacis
atque turbator jam fatus Centius Frajapane, more draconis
immanissimi sibilans, et ab imis pectoribus trahens longa
suspiria, accinctus retro gladio sine more cucurrit, valvas ac
fores confregit. Ecclesiam furibundus introiit, inde custode
remoto papam per gulam accepit, distraxit pugnis calcibusque
percussit, et tanquam brutum animal intra limen ecclesiae acriter
calcaribus cruentavit; et latro tantum dominum per capillos et
brachia, Jesu bono interim dormiente, detraxit, ad domum usque
deduxit, inibi catenavit et inclusit.]

[Footnote 15: Ego coram Deo et Ecclesia dico, si unquam possibile
esset, mallem unum imperatorem quam tot dominos, (Vit. Gelas. II.
p. 398.)]
[Footnote 16: Quid tam notum seculis quam protervia et
cervicositas Romanorum? Gens insueta paci, tumultui assueta, gens
immitis et intractabilis usque adhuc, subdi nescia, nisi cum non
valet resistere, (de Considerat. l. iv. c. 2, p. 441.) The saint
takes breath, and then begins again: Hi, invisi terrae et coelo,
utrique injecere manus, &c., (p. 443.)]

[Footnote 17: As a Roman citizen, Petrarch takes leave to
observe, that Bernard, though a saint, was a man; that he might
be provoked by resentment, and possibly repent of his hasty
passion, &c. (Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p.
330.)]

[Footnote 18: Baronius, in his index to the xiith volume of his
Annals, has found a fair and easy excuse. He makes two heads, of
Romani Catholici and Schismatici: to the former he applies all
the good, to the latter all the evil, that is told of the city.]

     The Jews had rejected the Christ when he appeared among them
in a plebeian character; and the Romans might plead their
ignorance of his vicar when he assumed the pomp and pride of a
temporal sovereign. In the busy age of the crusades, some sparks
of curiosity and reason were rekindled in the Western world: the
heresy of Bulgaria, the Paulician sect, was successfully
transplanted into the soil of Italy and France; the Gnostic
visions were mingled with the simplicity of the gospel; and the
enemies of the clergy reconciled their passions with their
conscience, the desire of freedom with the profession of piety.
^19 The trumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded by Arnold of
Brescia, ^20 whose promotion in the church was confined to the
lowest rank, and who wore the monastic habit rather as a garb of
poverty than as a uniform of obedience. His adversaries could
not deny the wit and eloquence which they severely felt; they
confess with reluctance the specious purity of his morals; and
his errors were recommended to the public by a mixture of
important and beneficial truths. In his theological studies, he
had been the disciple of the famous and unfortunate Abelard, ^21
who was likewise involved in the suspicion of heresy: but the
lover of Eloisa was of a soft and flexible nature; and his
ecclesiastic judges were edified and disarmed by the humility of
his repentance. From this master, Arnold most probably imbibed
some metaphysical definitions of the Trinity, repugnant to the
taste of the times: his ideas of baptism and the eucharist are
loosely censured; but a political heresy was the source of his
fame and misfortunes. He presumed to quote the declaration of
Christ, that his kingdom is not of this world: he boldly
maintained, that the sword and the sceptre were intrusted to the
civil magistrate; that temporal honors and possessions were
lawfully vested in secular persons; that the abbots, the bishops,
and the pope himself, must renounce either their state or their
salvation; and that after the loss of their revenues, the
voluntary tithes and oblations of the faithful would suffice, not
indeed for luxury and avarice, but for a frugal life in the
exercise of spiritual labors. During a short time, the preacher
was revered as a patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of
Brescia against her bishop, was the first fruits of his dangerous
lessons. But the favor of the people is less permanent than the
resentment of the priest; and after the heresy of Arnold had been
condemned by Innocent the Second, ^22 in the general council of
the Lateran, the magistrates themselves were urged by prejudice
and fear to execute the sentence of the church. Italy could no
longer afford a refuge; and the disciple of Abelard escaped
beyond the Alps, till he found a safe and hospitable shelter in
Zurich, now the first of the Swiss cantons. From a Roman
station, ^23 a royal villa, a chapter of noble virgins, Zurich
had gradually increased to a free and flourishing city; where the
appeals of the Milanese were sometimes tried by the Imperial
commissaries. ^24 In an age less ripe for reformation, the
precursor of Zuinglius was heard with applause: a brave and
simple people imbibed, and long retained, the color of his
opinions; and his art, or merit, seduced the bishop of Constance,
and even the pope's legate, who forgot, for his sake, the
interest of their master and their order. Their tardy zeal was
quickened by the fierce exhortations of St. Bernard; ^25 and the
enemy of the church was driven by persecution to the desperate
measures of erecting his standard in Rome itself, in the face of
the successor of St. Peter.

[Footnote 19: The heresies of the xiith century may be found in
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 419 - 427,) who entertains a
favorable opinion of Arnold of Brescia. In the vth volume I have
described the sect of the Paulicians, and followed their
migration from Armenia to Thrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France.]

[Footnote 20: The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are
drawn by Otho, bishop of Frisingen, (Chron. l. vii. c. 31, de
Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 27, l. ii. c. 21,) and in the iiid
book of the Ligurinus, a poem of Gunthur, who flourished A.D.
1200, in the monastery of Paris near Basil, (Fabric. Bibliot.
Latin. Med. et Infimae Aetatis, tom. iii. p. 174, 175.) The long
passage that relates to Arnold is produced by Guilliman, (de
Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p. 108.)

     Note: Compare Franke, Arnold von Brescia und seine Zeit.
Zarich, 1828 - M.]

[Footnote 21: The wicked wit of Bayle was amused in composing,
with much levity and learning, the articles of Abelard, Foulkes,
Heloise, in his Dictionnaire Critique. The dispute of Abelard
and St. Bernard, of scholastic and positive divinity, is well
understood by Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 412 - 415.)]

[Footnote 22: -     Damnatus ab illo Praesule,
                    qui numeros vetitum contingere
                    nostros Nomen ad innocua ducit laudabile
vita.
We may applaud the dexterity and correctness of Ligurinus, who
turns the unpoetical name of Innocent II. into a compliment.]

[Footnote 23: A Roman inscription of Statio Turicensis has been
found at Zurich, (D'Anville, Notice de l'ancienne Gaul, p. 642 -
644;) but it is without sufficient warrant, that the city and
canton have usurped, and even monopolized, the names of Tigurum
and Pagus Tigurinus.]

[Footnote 24: Guilliman (de Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p.
106) recapitulates the donation (A.D. 833) of the emperor Lewis
the Pious to his daughter the abbess Hildegardis. Curtim nostram
Turegum in ducatu Alamanniae in pago Durgaugensi, with villages,
woods, meadows, waters, slaves, churches, &c.; a noble gift.
Charles the Bald gave the jus monetae, the city was walled under
Otho I., and the line of the bishop of Frisingen,

Nobile Turegum multarum copia rerum,

is repeated with pleasure by the antiquaries of Zurich.]

[Footnote 25: Bernard, Epistol. cxcv. tom. i. p. 187 - 190.
Amidst his invectives he drops a precious acknowledgment, qui,
utinam quam sanae esset doctrinae quam districtae est vitae. He
owns that Arnold would be a valuable acquisition for the church.]

Part III.

     While they expected the descent of the tardy angel, the
doors were broken with axes; and as the Turks encountered no
resistance, their bloodless hands were employed in selecting and
securing the multitude of their prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the
appearance of wealth, attracted their choice; and the right of
property was decided among themselves by a prior seizure, by
personal strength, and by the authority of command. In the space
of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, the females
with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked with
their slaves; the prelates, with the porters of the church; and
young men of the plebeian class, with noble maids, whose faces
had been invisible to the sun and their nearest kindred. In this
common captivity, the ranks of society were confounded; the ties
of nature were cut asunder; and the inexorable soldier was
careless of the father's groans, the tears of the mother, and the
lamentations of the children. The loudest in their wailings were
the nuns, who were torn from the altar with naked bosoms,
outstretched hands, and dishevelled hair; and we should piously
believe that few could be tempted to prefer the vigils of the
harem to those of the monastery. Of these unfortunate Greeks, of
these domestic animals, whole strings were rudely driven through
the streets; and as the conquerors were eager to return for more
prey, their trembling pace was quickened with menaces and blows.
At the same hour, a similar rapine was exercised in all the
churches and monasteries, in all the palaces and habitations, of
the capital; nor could any place, however sacred or sequestered,
protect the persons or the property of the Greeks. Above sixty
thousand of this devoted people were transported from the city to
the camp and fleet; exchanged or sold according to the caprice or
interest of their masters, and dispersed in remote servitude
through the provinces of the Ottoman empire. Among these we may
notice some remarkable characters. The historian Phranza, first
chamberlain and principal secretary, was involved with his family
in the common lot. After suffering four months the hardships of
slavery, he recovered his freedom: in the ensuing winter he
ventured to Adrianople, and ransomed his wife from the mir bashi,
or master of the horse; but his two children, in the flower of
youth and beauty, had been seized for the use of Mahomet himself.

The daughter of Phranza died in the seraglio, perhaps a virgin:
his son, in the fifteenth year of his age, preferred death to
infamy, and was stabbed by the hand of the royal lover. ^66 A
deed thus inhuman cannot surely be expiated by the taste and
liberality with which he released a Grecian matron and her two
daughters, on receiving a Latin doe From ode from Philelphus, who
had chosen a wife in that noble family. ^67 The pride or cruelty
of Mahomet would have been most sensibly gratified by the capture
of a Roman legate; but the dexterity of Cardinal Isidore eluded
the search, and he escaped from Galata in a plebeian habit. ^68
The chain and entrance of the outward harbor was still occupied
by the Italian ships of merchandise and war. They had signalized
their valor in the siege: they embraced the moment of retreat,
while the Turkish mariners were dissipated in the pillage of the
city. When they hoisted sail, the beach was covered with a
suppliant and lamentable crowd; but the means of transportation
were scanty: the Venetians and Genoese selected their countrymen;
and, notwithstanding the fairest promises of the sultan, the
inhabitants of Galata evacuated their houses, and embarked with
their most precious effects.

[Footnote 66: See Phranza, l. iii. c. 20, 21. His expressions
are positive: Ameras sua manu jugulavit . . . . volebat enim eo
turpiter et nefarie abuti. Me miserum et infelicem! Yet he could
only learn from report the bloody or impure scenes that were
acted in the dark recesses of the seraglio.]
[Footnote 67: See Tiraboschi (tom. vi. P. i. p. 290) and
Lancelot, (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718.)
I should be curious to learn how he could praise the public
enemy, whom he so often reviles as the most corrupt and inhuman
of tyrants.]

[Footnote 68: The commentaries of Pius II. suppose that he
craftily placed his cardinal's hat on the head of a corpse which
was cut off and exposed in triumph, while the legate himself was
bought and delivered as a captive of no value. The great Belgic
Chronicle adorns his escape with new adventures, which he
suppressed (says Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No. 15) in his own
letters, lest he should lose the merit and reward of suffering
for Christ.
     Note: He was sold as a slave in Galata, according to Von
Hammer, p. 175. See the somewhat vague and declamatory letter of
Cardinal Isidore, in the appendix to Clarke's Travels, vol. ii.
p. 653. - M.]

     In the fall and the sack of great cities, an historian is
condemned to repeat the tale of uniform calamity: the same
effects must be produced by the same passions; and when those
passions may be indulged without control, small, alas! is the
difference between civilized and savage man. Amidst the vague
exclamations of bigotry and hatred, the Turks are not accused of
a wanton or immoderate effusion of Christian blood: but according
to their maxims, (the maxims of antiquity,) the lives of the
vanquished were forfeited; and the legitimate reward of the
conqueror was derived from the service, the sale, or the ransom,
of his captives of both sexes. ^69 The wealth of Constantinople
had been granted by the sultan to his victorious troops; and the
rapine of an hour is more productive than the industry of years.
But as no regular division was attempted of the spoil, the
respective shares were not determined by merit; and the rewards
of valor were stolen away by the followers of the camp, who had
declined the toil and danger of the battle. The narrative of
their depredations could not afford either amusement or
instruction: the total amount, in the last poverty of the empire,
has been valued at four millions of ducats; ^70 and of this sum a
small part was the property of the Venetians, the Genoese, the
Florentines, and the merchants of Ancona. Of these foreigners,
the stock was improved in quick and perpetual circulation: but
the riches of the Greeks were displayed in the idle ostentation
of palaces and wardrobes, or deeply buried in treasures of ingots
and old coin, lest it should be demanded at their hands for the
defence of their country. The profanation and plunder of the
monasteries and churches excited the most tragic complaints. The
dome of St. Sophia itself, the earthly heaven, the second
firmament, the vehicle of the cherubim, the throne of the glory
of God, ^71 was despoiled of the oblation of ages; and the gold
and silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal
ornaments, were most wickedly converted to the service of
mankind. After the divine images had been stripped of all that
could be valuable to a profane eye, the canvas, or the wood, was
torn, or broken, or burnt, or trod under foot, or applied, in the
stables or the kitchen, to the vilest uses. The example of
sacrilege was imitated, however, from the Latin conquerors of
Constantinople; and the treatment which Christ, the Virgin, and
the saints, had sustained from the guilty Catholic, might be
inflicted by the zealous Mussulman on the monuments of idolatry.
Perhaps, instead of joining the public clamor, a philosopher will
observe, that in the decline of the arts the workmanship could
not be more valuable than the work, and that a fresh supply of
visions and miracles would speedily be renewed by the craft of
the priests and the credulity of the people. He will more
seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which were
destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred and
twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; ^72 ten
volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same
ignominious price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology,
included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest
productions of the science and literature of ancient Greece. We
may reflect with pleasure that an inestimable portion of our
classic treasures was safely deposited in Italy; and that the
mechanics of a German town had invented an art which derides the
havoc of time and barbarism.
[Footnote 69: Busbequius expatiates with pleasure and applause on
the rights of war, and the use of slavery, among the ancients and
the Turks, (de Legat. Turcica, epist. iii. p. 161.)]

[Footnote 70: This sum is specified in a marginal note of
Leunclavius, (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 211,) but in the
distribution to Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Ancona, of 50, 20,
and 15,000 ducats, I suspect that a figure has been dropped.
Even with the restitution, the foreign property would scarcely
exceed one fourth.]

[Footnote 71: See the enthusiastic praises and lamentations of
Phranza, (l. iii. c. 17.)]

[Footnote 72: See Ducas, (c. 43,) and an epistle, July 15th,
1453, from Laurus Quirinus to Pope Nicholas V., (Hody de Graecis,
p. 192, from a MS. in the Cotton library.)]

     From the first hour ^73 of the memorable twenty-ninth of
May, disorder and rapine prevailed in Constantinople, till the
eighth hour of the same day; when the sultan himself passed in
triumph through the gate of St. Romanus. He was attended by his
viziers, bashaws, and guards, each of whom (says a Byzantine
historian) was robust as Hercules, dexterous as Apollo, and equal
in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals. The
conqueror ^74 gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange,
though splendid, appearance of the domes and palaces, so
dissimilar from the style of Oriental architecture. In the
hippodrome, or atmeidan, his eye was attracted by the twisted
column of the three serpents; and, as a trial of his strength, he
shattered with his iron mace or battle-axe the under jaw of one
of these monsters, ^75 which in the eyes of the Turks were the
idols or talismans of the city. ^* At the principal door of St.
Sophia, he alighted from his horse, and entered the dome; and
such was his jealous regard for that monument of his glory, that
on observing a zealous Mussulman in the act of breaking the
marble pavement, he admonished him with his cimeter, that, if the
spoil and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public and
private buildings had been reserved for the prince. By his
command the metropolis of the Eastern church was transformed into
a mosque: the rich and portable instruments of superstition had
been removed; the crosses were thrown down; and the walls, which
were covered with images and mosaics, were washed and purified,
and restored to a state of naked simplicity. On the same day, or
on the ensuing Friday, the muezin, or crier, ascended the most
lofty turret, and proclaimed the ezan, or public invitation in
the name of God and his prophet; the imam preached; and Mahomet
and Second performed the namaz of prayer and thanksgiving on the
great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been
celebrated before the last of the Caesars. ^76 From St. Sophia he
proceeded to the august, but desolate mansion of a hundred
successors of the great Constantine, but which in a few hours had
been stripped of the pomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on
the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on his mind;
and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry: "The spider
has wove his web in the Imperial palace; and the owl hath sung
her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab." ^77

[Footnote 73: The Julian Calendar, which reckons the days and
hours from midnight, was used at Constantinople. But Ducas seems
to understand the natural hours from sunrise.]

[Footnote 74: See the Turkish Annals, p. 329, and the Pandects of
Leunclarius, p. 448.]

[Footnote 75: I have had occasion (vol. ii. p. 100) to mention
this curious relic of Grecian antiquity.]

[Footnote *: Von Hammer passes over this circumstance, which is
treated by Dr. Clarke (Travels, vol. ii. p. 58, 4to. edit,) as a
fiction of Thevenot. Chishull states that the monument was broken
by some attendants of the Polish ambassador. - M.]

[Footnote 76: We are obliged to Cantemir (p. 102) for the Turkish
account of the conversion of St. Sophia, so bitterly deplored by
Phranza and Ducas. It is amusing enough to observe, in what
opposite lights the same object appears to a Mussulman and a
Christian eye.]

[Footnote 77: This distich, which Cantemir gives in the original,
derives new beauties from the application. It was thus that
Scipio repeated, in the sack of Carthage, the famous prophecy of
Homer. The same generous feeling carried the mind of the
conqueror to the past or the future.]

     Yet his mind was not satisfied, nor did the victory seem
complete, till he was informed of the fate of Constantine;
whether he had escaped, or been made prisoner, or had fallen in
the battle. Two Janizaries claimed the honor and reward of his
death: the body, under a heap of slain, was discovered by the
golden eagles embroidered on his shoes; the Greeks acknowledged,
with tears, the head of their late emperor; and, after exposing
the bloody trophy, ^78 Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honors
of a decent funeral. After his decease, Lucas Notaras, great
duke, ^79 and first minister of the empire, was the most
important prisoner. When he offered his person and his treasures
at the foot of the throne, "And why," said the indignant sultan,
"did you not employ these treasures in the defence of your prince
and country?" - "They were yours," answered the slave; "God had
reserved them for your hands." - "If he reserved them for me,"
replied the despot, "how have you presumed to withhold them so
long by a fruitless and fatal resistance?" The great duke alleged
the obstinacy of the strangers, and some secret encouragement
from the Turkish vizier; and from this perilous interview he was
at length dismissed with the assurance of pardon and protection.
Mahomet condescended to visit his wife, a venerable princess
oppressed with sickness and grief; and his consolation for her
misfortunes was in the most tender strain of humanity and filial
reverence. A similar clemency was extended to the principal
officers of state, of whom several were ransomed at his expense;
and during some days he declared himself the friend and father of
the vanquished people. But the scene was soon changed; and
before his departure, the hippodrome streamed with the blood of
his noblest captives. His perfidious cruelty is execrated by the
Christians: they adorn with the colors of heroic martyrdom the
execution of the great duke and his two sons; and his death is
ascribed to the generous refusal of delivering his children to
the tyrant's lust. ^* Yet a Byzantine historian has dropped an
unguarded word of conspiracy, deliverance, and Italian succor:
such treason may be glorious; but the rebel who bravely ventures,
has justly forfeited his life; nor should we blame a conqueror
for destroying the enemies whom he can no longer trust. On the
eighteenth of June the victorious sultan returned to Adrianople;
and smiled at the base and hollow embassies of the Christian
princes, who viewed their approaching ruin in the fall of the
Eastern empire.

[Footnote 78: I cannot believe with Ducas (see Spondanus, A.D.
1453, No. 13) that Mahomet sent round Persia, Arabia, &c., the
head of the Greek emperor: he would surely content himself with a
trophy less inhuman.]

[Footnote 79: Phranza was the personal enemy of the great duke;
nor could time, or death, or his own retreat to a monastery,
extort a feeling of sympathy or forgiveness. Ducas is inclined
to praise and pity the martyr; Chalcondyles is neuter, but we are
indebted to him for the hint of the Greek conspiracy.]

[Footnote *: Von Hammer relates this undoubtingly, apparently on
good authority, p. 559. - M.]

     Constantinople had been left naked and desolate, without a
prince or a people. But she could not be despoiled of the
incomparable situation which marks her for the metropolis of a
great empire; and the genius of the place will ever triumph over
the accidents of time and fortune. Boursa and Adrianople, the
ancient seats of the Ottomans, sunk into provincial towns; and
Mahomet the Second established his own residence, and that of his
successors, on the same commanding spot which had been chosen by
Constantine. ^80 The fortifications of Galata, which might afford
a shelter to the Latins, were prudently destroyed; but the damage
of the Turkish cannon was soon repaired; and before the month of
August, great quantities of lime had been burnt for the
restoration of the walls of the capital. As the entire property
of the soil and buildings, whether public or private, or profane
or sacred, was now transferred to the conqueror, he first
separated a space of eight furlongs from the point of the
triangle for the establishment of his seraglio or palace. It is
here, in the bosom of luxury, that the Grand Signor (as he has
been emphatically named by the Italians) appears to reign over
Europe and Asia; but his person on the shores of the Bosphorus
may not always be secure from the insults of a hostile navy. In
the new character of a mosque, the cathedral of St. Sophia was
endowed with an ample revenue, crowned with lofty minarets, and
surrounded with groves and fountains, for the devotion and
refreshment of the Moslems. The same model was imitated in the
jami, or royal mosques; and the first of these was built, by
Mahomet himself, on the ruins of the church of the holy apostles,
and the tombs of the Greek emperors. On the third day after the
conquest, the grave of Abu Ayub, or Job, who had fallen in the
first siege of the Arabs, was revealed in a vision; and it is
before the sepulchre of the martyr that the new sultans are
girded with the sword of empire. ^81 Constantinople no longer
appertains to the Roman historian; nor shall I enumerate the
civil and religious edifices that were profaned or erected by its
Turkish masters: the population was speedily renewed; and before
the end of September, five thousand families of Anatolia and
Romania had obeyed the royal mandate, which enjoined them, under
pain of death, to occupy their new habitations in the capital.
The throne of Mahomet was guarded by the numbers and fidelity of
his Moslem subjects: but his rational policy aspired to collect
the remnant of the Greeks; and they returned in crowds, as soon
as they were assured of their lives, their liberties, and the
free exercise of their religion. In the election and investiture
of a patriarch, the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived
and imitated. With a mixture of satisfaction and horror, they
beheld the sultan on his throne; who delivered into the hands of
Gennadius the crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his
ecclesiastical office; who conducted the patriarch to the gate of
the seraglio, presented him with a horse richly caparisoned, and
directed the viziers and bashaws to lead him to the palace which
had been allotted for his residence. ^82 The churches of
Constantinople were shared between the two religions: their
limits were marked; and, till it was infringed by Selim, the
grandson of Mahomet, the Greeks ^83 enjoyed above sixty years the
benefit of this equal partition. Encouraged by the ministers of
the divan, who wished to elude the fanaticism of the sultan, the
Christian advocates presumed to allege that this division had
been an act, not of generosity, but of justice; not a concession,
but a compact; and that if one half of the city had been taken by
storm, the other moiety had surrendered on the faith of a sacred
capitulation. The original grant had indeed been consumed by
fire: but the loss was supplied by the testimony of three aged
Janizaries who remembered the transaction; and their venal oaths
are of more weight in the opinion of Cantemir, than the positive
and unanimous consent of the history of the times. ^84

[Footnote 80: For the restitution of Constantinople and the
Turkish foundations, see Cantemir, (p. 102 - 109,) Ducas, (c.
42,) with Thevenot, Tournefort, and the rest of our modern
travellers. From a gigantic picture of the greatness,
population, &c., of Constantinople and the Ottoman empire,
(Abrege de l'Histoire Ottomane, tom. i. p. 16 - 21,) we may
learn, that in the year 1586 the Moslems were less numerous in
the capital than the Christians, or even the Jews.]

[Footnote 81: The Turbe, or sepulchral monument of Abu Ayub, is
described and engraved in the Tableau Generale de l'Empire
Ottoman, (Paris 1787, in large folio,) a work of less use,
perhaps, than magnificence, (tom. i. p. 305, 306.)]

[Footnote 82: Phranza (l. iii. c. 19) relates the ceremony, which
has possibly been adorned in the Greek reports to each other, and
to the Latins. The fact is confirmed by Emanuel Malaxus, who
wrote, in vulgar Greek, the History of the Patriarchs after the
taking of Constantinople, inserted in the Turco-Graecia of
Crusius, (l. v. p. 106 - 184.) But the most patient reader will
not believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholic form, "Sancta
Trinitas quae mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham novae Romae
deligit."]
[Footnote 83: From the Turco-Graecia of Crusius, &c. Spondanus
(A.D. 1453, No. 21, 1458, No. 16) describes the slavery and
domestic quarrels of the Greek church. The patriarch who
succeeded Gennadius threw himself in despair into a well.]

[Footnote 84: Cantemir (p. 101 - 105) insists on the unanimous
consent of the Turkish historians, ancient as well as modern, and
argues, that they would not have violated the truth to diminish
their national glory, since it is esteemed more honorable to take
a city by force than by composition. But, 1. I doubt this
consent, since he quotes no particular historian, and the Turkish
Annals of Leunclavius affirm, without exception, that Mahomet
took Constantinople per vim, (p. 329.) 2 The same argument may be
turned in favor of the Greeks of the times, who would not have
forgotten this honorable and salutary treaty. Voltaire, as usual,
prefers the Turks to the Christians.]

     The remaining fragments of the Greek kingdom in Europe and
Asia I shall abandon to the Turkish arms; but the final
extinction of the two last dynasties ^85 which have reigned in
Constantinople should terminate the decline and fall of the Roman
empire in the East. The despots of the Morea, Demetrius and
Thomas, ^86 the two surviving brothers of the name of
Palaeologus, were astonished by the death of the emperor
Constantine, and the ruin of the monarchy. Hopeless of defence,
they prepared, with the noble Greeks who adhered to their
fortune, to seek a refuge in Italy, beyond the reach of the
Ottoman thunder. Their first apprehensions were dispelled by the
victorious sultan, who contented himself with a tribute of twelve
thousand ducats; and while his ambition explored the continent
and the islands, in search of prey, he indulged the Morea in a
respite of seven years. But this respite was a period of grief,
discord, and misery. The hexamilion, the rampart of the Isthmus,
so often raised and so often subverted, could not long be
defended by three hundred Italian archers: the keys of Corinth
were seized by the Turks: they returned from their summer
excursions with a train of captives and spoil; and the complaints
of the injured Greeks were heard with indifference and disdain.
The Albanians, a vagrant tribe of shepherds and robbers, filled
the peninsula with rapine and murder: the two despots implored
the dangerous and humiliating aid of a neighboring bashaw; and
when he had quelled the revolt, his lessons inculcated the rule
of their future conduct. Neither the ties of blood, nor the oaths
which they repeatedly pledged in the communion and before the
altar, nor the stronger pressure of necessity, could reconcile or
suspend their domestic quarrels. They ravaged each other's
patrimony with fire and sword: the alms and succors of the West
were consumed in civil hostility; and their power was only
exerted in savage and arbitrary executions. The distress and
revenge of the weaker rival invoked their supreme lord; and, in
the season of maturity and revenge, Mahomet declared himself the
friend of Demetrius, and marched into the Morea with an
irresistible force. When he had taken possession of Sparta, "You
are too weak," said the sultan, "to control this turbulent
province: I will take your daughter to my bed; and you shall pass
the remainder of your life in security and honor." Demetrius
sighed and obeyed; surrendered his daughter and his castles;
followed to Adrianople his sovereign and his son; and received
for his own maintenance, and that of his followers, a city in
Thrace and the adjacent isles of Imbros, Lemnos, and Samothrace.
He was joined the next year by a companion ^* of misfortune, the
last of the Comnenian race, who, after the taking of
Constantinople by the Latins, had founded a new empire on the
coast of the Black Sea. ^87 In the progress of his Anatolian
conquest, Mahomet invested with a fleet and army the capital of
David, who presumed to style himself emperor of Trebizond; ^88
and the negotiation was comprised in a short and peremptory
question, "Will you secure your life and treasures by resigning
your kingdom? or had you rather forfeit your kingdom, your
treasures, and your life?" The feeble Comnenus was subdued by his
own fears, ^! and the example of a Mussulman neighbor, the prince
of Sinope, ^89 who, on a similar summons, had yielded a fortified
city, with four hundred cannon and ten or twelve thousand
soldiers. The capitulation of Trebizond was faithfully
performed: ^* and the emperor, with his family, was transported
to a castle in Romania; but on a slight suspicion of
corresponding with the Persian king, David, and the whole
Comnenian race, were sacrificed to the jealousy or avarice of the
conqueror. ^!! Nor could the name of father long protect the
unfortunate Demetrius from exile and confiscation; his abject
submission moved the pity and contempt of the sultan; his
followers were transplanted to Constantinople; and his poverty
was alleviated by a pension of fifty thousand aspers, till a
monastic habit and a tardy death released Palaeologus from an
earthly master. It is not easy to pronounce whether the
servitude of Demetrius, or the exile of his brother Thomas, ^90
be the most inglorious. On the conquest of the Morea, the despot
escaped to Corfu, and from thence to Italy, with some naked
adherents: his name, his sufferings, and the head of the apostle
St. Andrew, entitled him to the hospitality of the Vatican; and
his misery was prolonged by a pension of six thousand ducats from
the pope and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel, were
educated in Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies
and burdensome to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of
his life and marriage. A title was his sole inheritance; and
that inheritance he successively sold to the kings of France and
Arragon. ^91 During his transient prosperity, Charles the Eighth
was ambitious of joining the empire of the East with the kingdom
of Naples: in a public festival, he assumed the appellation and
the purple of Augustus: the Greeks rejoiced and the Ottoman
already trembled, at the approach of the French chivalry. ^92
Manuel Palaeologus, the second son, was tempted to revisit his
native country: his return might be grateful, and could not be
dangerous, to the Porte: he was maintained at Constantinople in
safety and ease; and an honorable train of Christians and Moslems
attended him to the grave. If there be some animals of so
generous a nature that they refuse to propagate in a domestic
state, the last of the Imperial race must be ascribed to an
inferior kind: he accepted from the sultan's liberality two
beautiful females; and his surviving son was lost in the habit
and religion of a Turkish slave.

[Footnote 85: For the genealogy and fall of the Comneni of
Trebizond, see Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 195;) for the last
Palaeologi, the same accurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248.)
The Palaeologi of Montferrat were not extinct till the next
century; but they had forgotten their Greek origin and kindred.]
[Footnote 86: In the worthless story of the disputes and
misfortunes of the two brothers, Phranza (l. iii. c. 21 - 30) is
too partial on the side of Thomas Ducas (c. 44, 45) is too brief,
and Chalcondyles (l. viii. ix. x.) too diffuse and digressive.]

[Footnote *: Kalo-Johannes, the predecessor of David his brother,
the last emperor of Trebizond, had attempted to organize a
confederacy against Mahomet it comprehended Hassan Bei, sultan of
Mesopotamia, the Christian princes of Georgia and Iberia, the
emir of Sinope, and the sultan of Caramania. The negotiations
were interrupted by his sudden death, A.D. 1458. Fallmerayer, p.
257 - 260. - M.]

[Footnote 87: See the loss or conquest of Trebizond in
Chalcondyles, (l. ix. p. 263 - 266,) Ducas, (c. 45,) Phranza, (l.
iii. c. 27,) and Cantemir, (p. 107.)]

[Footnote 88: Though Tournefort (tom. iii. lettre xvii. p. 179)
speaks of Trebizond as mal peuplee, Peysonnel, the latest and
most accurate observer, can find 100,000 inhabitants, (Commerce
de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 72, and for the province, p. 53 -
90.) Its prosperity and trade are perpetually disturbed by the
factious quarrels of two odas of Janizaries, in one which 30,000
Lazi are commonly enrolled, (Memoires de Tott, tom. iii. p. 16,
17.)]
[Footnote !: According to the Georgian account of these
transactions, (translated by M. Brosset, additions to Le Beau,
vol. xxi. p. 325,) the emperor of Trebizond humbly entreated the
sultan to have the goodness to marry one of his daughters. - M.]

[Footnote 89: Ismael Beg, prince of Sinope or Sinople, was
possessed (chiefly from his copper mines) of a revenure of
200,000 ducats, (Chalcond. l. ix. p. 258, 259.) Peysonnel
(Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 100) ascribes to the
modern city 60,000 inhabitants. This account seems enormous; yet
it is by trading with people that we become acquainted with their
wealth and numbers.]
[Footnote *: M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume of
his Anecdota Graeca (p. 387, 401.) a very interesting letter from
George Amiroutzes, protovestia rius of Trebizond, to Bessarion,
describing the surrender of Trebizond, and the fate of its chief
inhabitants. - M.]

[Footnote !!: See in Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 60, the striking
account of the mother, the empress Helena the Cantacuzene, who,
in defiance of the edict, like that of Creon in the Greek
tragedy, dug the grave for her murdered children with her own
hand, and sank into it herself. - M.]
[Footnote 90: Spondanus (from Gobelin Comment. Pii II. l. v.)
relates the arrival and reception of of the despot Thomas at
Rome,. (A.D. 1461 No. NO. 3.)]

[Footnote 91: By an act dated A.D. 1494, Sept. 6, and lately
transmitted from the archives of the Capitol to the royal library
of Paris, the despot Andrew Palaeologus, reserving the Morea, and
stipulating some private advantages, conveys to Charles VIII.,
king of France, the empires of Constantinople and Trebizond,
(Spondanus, A.D. 1495, No. 2.) M. D. Foncemagne (Mem. de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p. 539 - 578) has
bestowed a dissertation on his national title, of which he had
obtained a copy from Rome.]
[Footnote 92: See Philippe de Comines, (l. vii. c. 14,) who
reckons with pleasure the number of Greeks who were prepared to
rise, 60 miles of an easy navigation, eighteen days' journey from
Valona to Constantinople, &c. On this occasion the Turkish
empire was saved by the policy of Venice.]
     The importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in
its loss: the pontificate of Nicholas the Fifth, however peaceful
and prosperous, was dishonored by the fall of the Eastern empire;
and the grief and terror of the Latins revived, or seemed to
revive, the old enthusiasm of the crusades. In one of the most
distant countries of the West, Philip duke of Burgundy
entertained, at Lisle in Flanders, an assembly of his nobles; and
the pompous pageants of the feast were skilfully adapted to their
fancy and feelings. ^93 In the midst of the banquet a gigantic
Saracen entered the hall, leading a fictitious elephant with a
castle on his back: a matron in a mourning robe, the symbol of
religion, was seen to issue from the castle: she deplored her
oppression, and accused the slowness of her champions: the
principal herald of the golden fleece advanced, bearing on his
fist a live pheasant, which, according to the rites of chivalry,
he presented to the duke. At this extraordinary summons, Philip,
a wise and aged prince, engaged his person and powers in the holy
war against the Turks: his example was imitated by the barons and
knights of the assembly: they swore to God, the Virgin, the
ladies and the pheasant; and their particular vows were not less
extravagant than the general sanction of their oath. But the
performance was made to depend on some future and foreign
contingency; and during twelve years, till the last hour of his
life, the duke of Burgundy might be scrupulously, and perhaps
sincerely, on the eve of his departure. Had every breast glowed
with the same ardor; had the union of the Christians corresponded
with their bravery; had every country, from Sweden ^94 to Naples,
supplied a just proportion of cavalry and infantry, of men and
money, it is indeed probable that Constantinople would have been
delivered, and that the Turks might have been chased beyond the
Hellespont or the Euphrates. But the secretary of the emperor,
who composed every epistle, and attended every meeting, Aeneas
Sylvius, ^95 a statesman and orator, describes from his own
experience the repugnant state and spirit of Christendom. "It is
a body," says he, "without a head; a republic without laws or
magistrates. The pope and the emperor may shine as lofty titles,
as splendid images; but they are unable to command, and none are
willing to obey: every state has a separate prince, and every
prince has a separate interest. What eloquence could unite so
many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard?
Could they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume the
office of general? What order could be maintained? - what
military discipline? Who would undertake to feed such an
enormous multitude? Who would understand their various
languages, or direct their stranger and incompatible manners?
What mortal could reconcile the English with the French, Genoa
with Arragon the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia?

If a small number enlisted in the holy war, they must be
overthrown by the infidels; if many, by their own weight and
confusion." Yet the same Aeneas, when he was raised to the papal
throne, under the name of Pius the Second, devoted his life to
the prosecution of the Turkish war. In the council of Mantua he
excited some sparks of a false or feeble enthusiasm; but when the
pontiff appeared at Ancona, to embark in person with the troops,
engagements vanished in excuses; a precise day was adjourned to
an indefinite term; and his effective army consisted of some
German pilgrims, whom he was obliged to disband with indulgences
and arms. Regardless of futurity, his successors and the powers
of Italy were involved in the schemes of present and domestic
ambition; and the distance or proximity of each object determined
in their eyes its apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of
their interest would have taught them to maintain a defensive and
naval war against the common enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg
and his brave Albanians might have prevented the subsequent
invasion of the kingdom of Naples. The siege and sack of Otranto
by the Turks diffused a general consternation; and Pope Sixtus
was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, when the storm was
instantly dispelled by the death of Mahomet the Second, in the
fifty-first year of his age. ^96 His lofty genius aspired to the
conquest of Italy: he was possessed of a strong city and a
capacious harbor; and the same reign might have been decorated
with the trophies of the New and the Ancient Rome. ^97
[Footnote 93: See the original feast in Olivier de la Marche,
(Memoires, P. i. c. 29, 30,) with the abstract and observations
of M. de Ste. Palaye, (Memoires sur la Chevalerie, tom. i. P.
iii. p. 182 - 185.) The peacock and the pheasant were
distinguished as royal birds.]

[Footnote 94: It was found by an actual enumeration, that Sweden,
Gothland, and Finland, contained 1,800,000 fighting men, and
consequently were far more populous than at present.]

[Footnote 95: In the year 1454, Spondanus has given, from Aeneas
Sylvius, a view of the state of Europe, enriched with his own
observations. That valuable annalist, and the Italian Muratori,
will