West as in the East his lawful title of sole emperor of the Romans. With this view he solicited the alliance of the people and the bishop of Rome. Several of the nobles embraced the cause of the Greek monarch; the splendid nuptials of his niece with Odo Frangipani secured the support of that powerful family,116 and his royal standard or image was entertained with due reverence in the ancient metropolis.117 During the quarrel between Frederic and Alexander the Third, the pope twice received in the Vatican the ambassadors of Constantinople. They flattered his piety by the long-promised union of the two churches, tempted the avarice of his venal court, and exhorted the Roman pontiff to seize the just provocation, the favourable moment, to humble the savage insolence of the Alemanni and to acknowledge the true representative of Constantine and Augustus.118 119 But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon escaped from the hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were Failure of eluded by the prudence of Alexander the Third, who paused his designs, on this deep and momentous revolution; nor could the pope be seduced by a personal dispute to renounce the perpetual inheritance of the Latin name. After his re-union with Frederic, he spoke a more peremptory language, confirmed the acts of his predecessors, excommunicated the adherents of Manuel, and pronounced the final separation of the churches, or at least the empires, of Constantinople and Rome.120 The free cities of Lombardy no longer remembered their foreign benefactor, and, without preserving the friendship of Ancona, he soon incurred the enmity of Venice.121 By his own avarice, or the complaints of his subjects, the Greek emperor was provoked to arrest the persons, and confiscate the effects, of the Venetian merchants. This violation of the public faith exasperated a free and commercial people: one hundred galleys were launched and armed in as many days; they swept the coasts of Dalmatia and Greece but after some mutual wounds, the war was terminated by : 116 We derive this anecdote from an anonymous chronicle of Fossa Nova, published by Muratori (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 874). 17 The Bario nus of Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 14, p. 99 [p. 171, ed. Bonn]) is susceptible of this double sense. A standard is more Latin, an image more Greek. is Nihilominus quoque petebat, ut quia occasio justa et tempus opportunum et acceptabile se obtulerant, Romani corona imperii a sancto apostolo sibi redderetur; quoniam non ad Frederici Alamanni, sed ad suum jus asseruit pertinere (Vit. Alexandri III. a Cardinal. Arragoniæ, in Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. par. i. p. 458). His second embassy was accompanied cum immensa multitudine pecuniarum. 119 Nimis alta et perplexa sunt (Vit. Alexandri III. p. 460, 461) says the cautious pope. 12 Μηδὲν μετὸν εἶναι λέγων Ρώμῃ τῇ νεωτέρᾳ πρὸς τὴν πρεσβυτέραν, πάλαι ἀποῤῥαγεισῶν (Cinnamus, 1. iv. c. 14, p. 99 [p. 171, ed. Bonn]). 121 In his vith book, Cinnamus describes the Venetian war, which Nicetas has not thought worthy of his attention. The Italian accounts, which do not satisfy our curiosity, are reported by the annalist Muratori, under the years 1171, &c. Peace with A.D. 1156. : an agreement, inglorious to the empire, insufficient for the republic; and a complete vengeance of these and of fresh injuries was reserved for the succeeding generation. The lieutenant of Manuel had informed his sovereign that he was strong enough to quell any domestic revolt of Apulia and Calabria; but that his forces were inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of Sicily. His prophecy was soon verified: the death of Palæologus devolved the command on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike defective in military talents; the Greeks were oppressed by land and sea; and a captive remnant that escaped the swords of the Normans and Saracens abjured all future hostility against the person or dominions of their conqueror.122 Yet the king of Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who had landed a second army on the Italian shore he respectfully addressed the new Justinian ; the Normans, solicited a peace or truce of thirty years; accepted as a gift the regal title; and acknowledged himself the military vassal of the Roman empire. 123 The Byzantine Cæsars acquiesced in this shadow of dominion, without expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of a Norman army; and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of that period, the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman tyrant, who had deserved the abhorrence of his country and mankind the sword of William the Second, the grandson of Roger, was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race; and the subjects of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin historians 124 expatiate on the rapid progress of the four counts who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many castles and cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily. The Greeks 125 accuse and magnify the wanton and sacri Last war of the Greeks and Nor mans, A.D. 1185. 122 This victory is mentioned by Romuald of Salerno (in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 198). It is whimsical enough that, in the praise of the king of Sicily, Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 13, p. 97, 98 [p. 168, ed. Bonn]) is much warmer and more copious than Falcandus (p. 268, 270). But the Greek is fond of description, and the Latin historian is not fond of William the Bad. 123 For the epistle of William I. see Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 15, p. 101, 102 [p. 173-175, ed. Bonn]) and Nicetas (1. ii. c. 8 [p. 128, ed. Bonn]). It is difficult to affirm whether these Greeks deceived themselves or the public in these flattering portraits of the grandeur of the empire. 124 I can only quote of original evidence the poor chronicles of Sicard of Cremona (p. 603), and of Fossa Nova (p. 875), as they are published in the viith tome of Muratori's historians. The king of Sicily sent his troops contra nequitiam Andronici ad acquirendum imperium C. P. They were capti aut confusi .. decepti captique, by Isaac. ..... 125 By the failure of Cinnamus, we are now reduced to Nicetas (in Andronico, 1. i. c. 7, 8, 9, 1. ii. c. 1, in Isaac Angelo, 1. i. c. 1-4), who now becomes a respectable contemporary. As he survived the emperor and the empire, he is above flattery: but the fall of Constantinople exasperated his prejudices against the Latins. For the legious cruelties that were perpetrated in the sack of Thessalonica, the second city of the empire. The former deplore the fate of those invincible but unsuspecting warriors who were destroyed by the arts. of a vanquished foe. The latter applaud, in songs of triumph, the repeated victories of their countrymen on the sea of Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Strymon, and under the walls of Durazzo. A revolution which punished the crimes of Andronicus had united against the Franks the zeal and courage of the successful insurgents: ten thousand were slain in battle; and Isaac Angelus, the new emperor, might indulge his vanity or vengeance in the treatment of four thousand captives. Such was the event of the last contest between the Greeks and Normans: before the expiration of twenty years the rival nations were lost or degraded in foreign servitude; and the successors of Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the Sicilian monarchy. William I., king of the Bad, Sicily, A.D. 1154, Feb. 26 A.D. 1166, The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and grandson: they might be confounded under the name of William: they are strongly discriminated by the epithets of the bad and the good; but these epithets, which appear to describe the perfection of vice and virtue, cannot strictly be applied to either of the Norman princes. When he was roused to arms by danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the valour of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners were dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the monarch is responsible, not only for his personal vices, but for those of Majo, the great admiral, who abused the confidence, and conspired against the life, of his benefactor. From the Arabian conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of Oriental manners; the despotism, the pomp, and even the haram, of a sultan; and a Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of the eunuchs, who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the religion of Mahomet. An eloquent historian of the times 126 has delineated the misfortunes of his country: 127 the ambition and fall of the ungrateful Majo; the honour of learning I shall observe that Homer's great commentator, Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, refused to desert his flock. 125 The Historia Sicula of Hugo Falcandus, which properly extends from 1154 to 1169, is inserted in the viith volume of Muratori's Collection (tom. vii. p. 259-344), and preceded by an eloquent preface or epistle (p. 251-258, de Calamitatibus Siciliæ). Falcandus has been styled the Tacitus of Sicily; and, after a just, but immense, abatement, from the ist to the xiith century, from a senator to a monk, I would not strip him of his title: his narrative is rapid and perspicuous, his style bold and elegant, his observation keen; he had studied mankind, and feels like a man. I can only regret the narrow and barren field on which his labours have been cast. The laborious Benedictines (l'Art de vérifier les Dates, p. 896) are of opinion that the true name of Falcandus is Fulcandus or Foucault. According to them, Hugues Foucault, a Frenchman by birth, and at length Abbot of St. Denys, had fol the Good, A.D. 1166, May 7 A.D. 1189, revolt and punishment of his assassins; the imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself; the private feuds that arose from the public confusion; and the various forms of calamity and discord which afflicted Palermo, the island, and the continent, during the reign of William the First, and the minority of his son. The youth, William II., innocence, and beauty of William the Second, 128 endeared him to the nation: the factions were reconciled; the laws were revived; and from the manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily enjoyed a short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose value was enhanced by the remembrance of the past and the dread of futurity. The legitimate male posterity of Tancred of Hauteville was extinct in the person of the second William; but his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married the most powerful prince of the age; and Henry the Sixth, the son of Frederic Barbarossa, descended from the Alps, to claim the Imperial crown and the inheritance of his wife. Against the unanimous wish of a free people, this inheritance could only be acquired by arms; and I am pleased to transcribe the style and sense of the historian Falcandus, who writes at the moment, and on the spot, with the feelings of a patriot, and the prophetic eye of a statesman. "Constantia, the daughter of Sicily, nursed " from her cradle in the pleasures and plenty, and educated "in the arts and manners, of this fortunate isle, departed long since to enrich the barbarians with our treasures, and now "returns, with her savage allies, to contaminate the beauties of her "venerable parent. Already I behold the swarms of angry barba"rians: our opulent cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are "shaken with fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity "of our citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons.29 In this "extremity (he interrogates a friend) how must the Sicilians act? lowed into Sicily his patron Stephen de la Perche, uncle to the mother of William II., archbishop of Palermo, and great chancellor of the kingdom. Yet Falcandus has all the feelings of a Sicilian; and the title of Alumnus (which he bestows on himself) appears to indicate that he was born, or at least educated, in the island. Lamentation of the historian Falcandus. 66 128 Falcand. p. 303. Richard de St. Germano begins his history from the death and praises of William II. After some unmeaning epithets, he thus continues: Legis et justitiæ cultus tempore suo vigebat in regno; suâ erat quilibet sorte contentus; (were they mortals?) ubique pax, ubique securitas, nec latronum metuebat viator insidias, nec maris nauta offendicula piratarum (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii. p. 969). 129 Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarum tuarum affluentiâ diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinis et moribus informata, tandem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura discessit: et nunc cum ingentibus copiis revertitur, ut pulcherrimæ nutricis ornamenta barbaricâ fœditate contaminet . . . .. Intueri mihi jam videor turbulentas barbarorum acies . . . . . civitates opulentas et loca diuturnâ pace florentia metû concutere, cæde vastare, rapinis atterere, et fædare luxuriâ: [occurrunt] hinc cives aut gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi, virgines constupratæ, matronæ, &c. (p. 253 and 254.] 66 "By the unanimous election of a king of valour and experience, Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved; 130 for in the levity of "the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose neither "confidence nor hope.13 Should Calabria be lost, the lofty towers, "the numerous youth, and the naval strength of Messina, 132 might "guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage 66 66 Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if they destroy "with fire the fruitful region, so often wasted by the fires of Mount Ætna,133 what resource will be left for the interior parts of the "island, these noble cities which should never be violated by the "hostile footsteps of a barbarian ? 134 Catana has again been over"whelmed by an earthquake: the ancient virtue of Syracuse expires "in poverty and solitude; 135 but Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of "Christians and Saracens. If the two nations, under one king, can "unite for their common safety, they may rush on the barbarians "with invincible arms. But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition "of injuries, should now retire and rebel; if they should occupy the "castles of the mountains and sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double attack, and placed as it were between the "hammer and the anvil, must resign themselves to hopeless and "inevitable servitude." 136 We must not forget that a priest here prefers his country to his religion: and that the Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were still numerous and powerful in the state of Sicily. 66 139 Certe si regem [sibi] non dubiæ virtutis elegerint, nec a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus licet quasi desperatis et perditis subvenire, et incursus hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare. [p. 253 and 254.] In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum rerum studiis aguntur, nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciæ reponendum. [ib.] 132 Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas, densis turribus circumseptum. [ib.] .... murorum etiam ambitum 13 Cum crudelitate piraticâ Theutonum confligat atrocitas, et inter ambustos lapides, et Ethnæ flagrantis incendia, &c. [ib.] Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor illustrat, quæ et toti regno singulari meruit privilegio præminere, nefarium esset vel barbarorum ingressû pollui. I wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description of the palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo. [ib.] 135 Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt. [ib.] 136 At vero, quia difficile est Christianos in tanto rerum turbine, sublato regis timore Saracenos non opprimere, si Saraceni injuriis fatigati ab eis cœperint dissidere, et castella forte maritima vel montanas munitiones occupaverint; ut hinc cum Theutonicis summâ [sit] virtute pugnandum, illinc Saracenis crebris insultibus occurrendum, quid putas acturi sunt Siculi inter has depressi angustias, et velut inter malleum et incudem multo cum discrimine constituti? hoc utique agent quod poterunt, ut se Barbaris miserabili conditione dedentes, in eorum se conferant potestatem. O utinam plebis et procerum Christianorum et Saracenorum vota conveniant; ut regem sibi concorditer eligentes, [irruentes] barbaros totis viribus, toto conamine, totisque desideriis proturbare contendant [p. 254]. The Normans and Sicilians appear to be confounded. |