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had trembled under the weight of the Imperial crown, till the provinces of the East and West were lost in the same month by a double rebellion of either chief Nicephorus was the common name; but the surnames of Bryennius and Botoniates distinguish the European and Asiatic candidates. Their reasons, or rather their promises, were weighed in the divan; and, after some hesitation, Soliman declared himself in favour of Botoniates, opened a free passage to his troops in their march from Antioch to Nice, and joined the banner of the "crescent to that of the cross. After his ally had ascended the throne of Constantinople, the sultan was hospitably entertained in the suburb of Chrysopolis or Scutari; and a body of two thousand Turks was transported into Europe, to whose dexterity and courage the new emperor was indebted for the defeat and captivity of his rival Bryennius. But the conquest of Europe was dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Asia; Constantinople was deprived of the obedience and revenue of the provinces beyond the Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the regular progress of the Turks, who fortified the passes of the rivers and mountains, left not a hope of their retreat or expulsion. Another candidate implored the aid of the sultan : Melissenus, in his purple robes and red buskins, attended the motions of the Turkish camp; and the desponding cities were tempted by the summons of a Roman prince, who immediately surrendered them into the hands of the barbarians. These acquisitions were confirmed by a treaty of peace with the emperor Alexius; his fear of Robert compelled him to seek the friendship of Soliman; and it was not till after the sultan's death that he extended as far as Nicomedia, about sixty miles from Constantinople, the eastern boundary of the Roman world. Trebizond alone, defended on either side by the sea and mountains, preserved at the extremity of the Euxine the ancient character of a Greek colony, and the future destiny of a Christian empire.

dom of

Since the first conquests of the caliphs, the establishment of the Turks in Anatolia or Asia Minor was the most deplorable The Seljuloss which the church and empire had sustained. By the kian kingpropagation of the Moslem faith, Soliman deserved the Roum. name of Gazi, a holy champion; and his new kingdom of the Romans, or of Roum, was added to the tables of Oriental geography. It is described as extending from the Euphrates to Constantinople, from the Black Sea to the confines of Syria; pregnant with mines of silver and iron, of alum and copper, fruitful in corn and wine, and productive of cattle and excellent horses. 52 The wealth of Lydia, the

52 Such is the description of Roum by Haiton, the Armenian, whose Tartar history may be found in the collections of Ramusio and Bergeron (see Abulfeda, Geograph. climat. xvii. p. 301-305).

arts of the Greeks, the splendour of the Augustan age, existed only in books and ruins, which were equally obscure in the eyes of the Scythian conquerors. Yet in the present decay Anatolia still contains some wealthy and populous cities; and, under the Byzantine empire, they were far more flourishing in numbers, size, and opulence. By the choice of the sultan, Nice, the metropolis of Bithynia, was preferred for his palace and fortress: the seat of the Seljukian dynasty of Roum was planted one hundred miles from Constantinople; and the divinity of Christ was denied and derided in the same temple in which it had been pronounced by the first general synod of the Catholics. The unity of God, and the mission of Mahomet, were preached in the moschs; the Arabian learning was taught in the schools; the Cadhis judged according to the law of the Koran; the Turkish manners and language prevailed in the cities; and Turkman camps were scattered over the plains and mountains of Anatolia. On the hard conditions of tribute and servitude, the Greek Christians might enjoy the exercise of their religion; but their most holy churches were profaned, their priests and bishops were insulted, they were compelled to suffer the triumph of the pagans and the apostacy of their brethren, many thousand children were marked by the knife of circumcision, and many thousand captives were devoted to the service or the pleasures of their masters. After the loss of Asia, Antioch still maintained her primitive allegiance to Christ and Cæsar; but the solitary province was separated from all Roman aid, and surrounded on all sides by the Mahometan powers. The despair of Philaretus the governor prepared the sacrifice of his religion and loyalty, had not his guilt been prevented by his son, who hastened to the Nicene palace, and offered to deliver this valuable prize into the hands of Soliman. The ambitious sultan mounted on horseback, and in twelve nights (for he reposed in the day) performed a march of six hundred miles. Antioch was oppressed by the speed and secrecy of his enterprise; and the dependent cities, as far as Laodicea and the confines of Aleppo, obeyed the example of

53

55

54

53 Dicit eos quendam abusione Sodomitica intervertisse episcopum (Guibert. Abbat. Hist. Hierosol. 1. i. p. 468). It is odd enough that we should find a parallel passage of the same people in the present age. Il n'est point d'horreur que ces Turcs "n'aient commis; et semblables aux soldats effrénés, qui dans le sac d'une ville, non " contens de disposer de tout à leur gré, prétendent encore aux succès les moins dé"sirables, quelques Sipahis ont porté leurs attentats sur la personne du vieux rabbi "de la synagogue, et celle de l'Archevêque Grec." (Mémoires du Baron de Tott, tom. ii. p. 193.)

The emperor, or abbot, describe the scenes of a Turkish camp as if they had been present. Matres correptæ in conspectû filiarum multipliciter repetitis diversorum coitibus vexabantur (is that the true reading?); cum filiæ assistentes carmina præcinere saltando cogerentur. Mox eadem passio ad filias, &c.

55 See Antioch, and the death of Soliman, in Anna Comnena (Alexias, 1. vi. p. 168, 169 [tom. i. p. 299-301, ed. Bonn]), with the notes of Ducange.

the metropolis. From Laodicea to the Thracian Bosphorus, or arm of St. George, the conquests and reign of Soliman extended thirty days' journey in length, and in breadth about ten or fifteen, between the rocks of Lycia and the Black Sea. The Turkish ignorance of navigation protected for a while the inglorious safety of the emperor; but no sooner had a fleet of two hundred ships been constructed by the hands of the captive Greeks, than Alexius trembled behind the walls of his capital. His plaintive epistles were dispersed over Europe to excite the compassion of the Latins, and to paint the danger, the weakness, and the riches of the city of Constantine.57

:

State and

Jerusalem,

A.D.

635-1099.

But the most interesting conquest of the Seljukian Turks was that of Jerusalem,58 which soon became the theatre of nations. In their capitulation with Omar, the inhabitants had stipu- pilgrimage of lated the assurance of their religion and property, but the articles were interpreted by a master against whom it was dangerous to dispute; and in the four hundred years of the reign of the caliphs the political climate of Jerusalem was exposed to the vicissitudes of storms and sunshine.59 By the increase of proselytes and population the Mahometans might excuse their usurpation of threefourths of the city but a peculiar quarter was reserved for the patriarch with his clergy and people; a tribute of two pieces of gold was the price of protection; and the sepulchre of Christ, with the church of the Resurrection, was still left in the hands of his votaries. Of these votaries the most numerous and respectable portion were strangers to Jerusalem; the pilgrimages to the Holy Land had been stimulated, rather than suppressed, by the conquest of the Arabs ; and the enthusiasm which had always prompted these perilous journeys was nourished by the congenial passions of grief and indignation. A crowd of pilgrims from the East and West continued to visit the holy sepulchre and the adjacent sanctuaries, more especially

William of Tyre (1. i. c. 9, 10, p. 635) gives the most authentic and deplorable account of these Turkish conquests.

57 In his epistle to the count of Flanders, Alexius seems to fall too low beneath his character and dignity; yet it is approved by Ducange (Not. ad Alexiad. p. 335, &c.), and paraphrased by the Abbot Guibert, a contemporary historian. The Greek text no longer exists; and each translator and scribe might say with Guibert (p. 475), verbis vestita meis-a privilege of most indefinite latitude.

58 Our best fund for the history of Jerusalem from Heraclius to the crusades is contained in two large and original passages of William archbishop of Tyre (1. i. c. 1-10; 1. xviii. c. 5, 6), the principal author of the Gesta Dei per Francos. M. de Guignes has composed a very learned Mémoire sur le Commerce des François dans le Levant avant les Croisades, &c. (Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvii. p. 467-500.)

Secundum Dominorum dispositionem plerumque lucida plerumque nubila recepit intervalla, et ægrotantis more temporum præsentium gravabatur aut respirabat qualitate (1. i. c. 3, p. 630). The Latinity of William of Tyre is by no means contemptible; but in his account of 490 years, from the loss to the recovery of Jerusalem, he exceeds the true account by thirty years.

60

at the festival of Easter; and the Greeks and Latins, the Nestorians and Jacobites, the Copts and Abyssinians, the Armenians and Georgians, maintained the chapels, the clergy, and the poor of their respective communions. The harmony of prayer in so many various tongues, the worship of so many nations in the common temple of their religion, might have afforded a spectacle of edification and peace; but the zeal of the Christian sects was embittered by hatred and revenge; and in the kingdom of a suffering Messiah, who had pardoned his enemies, they aspired to command and persecute their spiritual brethren. The pre-eminence was asserted by the spirit and numbers of the Franks, and the greatness of Charlemagne 6 protected both the Latin pilgrims and the Catholics of the East. The poverty of Carthage, Alexandria, and Jerusalem was relieved by the alms of that pious emperor, and many monasteries of Palestine were founded or restored by his liberal devotion. Harun Alrashid, the greatest of the Abbassides, esteemed in his Christian brother a similar supremacy of genius and power: their friendship was cemented by a frequent intercourse of gifts and embassies; and the caliph, without resigning the substantial dominion, presented the emperor with the keys of the holy sepulchre, and perhaps of the city of Jerusalem. In the decline of the Carlovingian monarchy the republic of Amalphi promoted the interest of trade and religion in the East. Her vessels transported the Latin pilgrims to the coasts of Egypt and Palestine, and deserved, by their useful imports, the favour and alliance of the Fatimite caliphs: 1 an annual fair was instituted on Mount Calvary; and the Italian merchants founded the convent and hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the cradle of the monastic and military order which has since reigned in the isles of Rhodes and of Malta. Had the Christian pilgrims been content to revere the tomb of a prophet, the disciples of Mahomet, instead of blaming, would have imitated, their piety; but these rigid Unitarians were scandalized by a worship which represents the birth, death, and resurrection of a God; the Catholic images were branded with the name of idols; and the Moslems smiled with indignation 62 at the miraculous flame which was

60 For the transactions of Charlemagne with the Holy Land, see Eginhard (de Vitâ Caroli Magni, c. 16, p. 79-82), Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administratione Imperii, 1. ii. c. 26, p. 80 [tom. iii. p. 115, ed. Bonn]), and Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 800, No. 13, 14, 15).

61 The caliph granted his privileges, Amalphitanis viris amicis et utilium introduc toribus (Gesta Dei, p. 934 [Willerm. Tyr. lib. xviii. c. 5]). The trade of Venice to Egypt and Palestine cannot produce so old a title, unless we adopt the laughable translation of a Frenchman who mistook the two factions of the circus (Veneti et Prasini) for the Venetians and Parisians.

62 An Arabic chronicle of Jerusalem (apud Asseman. Biblioth. Orient. tom. i. p. 628, tom. iv. p. 368) attests the unbelief of the caliph and the historian; yet Canta

kindled on the eve of Easter in the holy sepulchre.63 This pious fraud, first devised in the ninth century," was devoutly cherished by the Latin crusaders, and is annually repeated by the clergy of the Greek, Armenian, and Coptic sects,65 who impose on the credulous spectators 66 for their own benefit and that of their tyrants. In every age a principle of toleration has been fortified by a sense of interest, and the revenue of the prince and his emir was increased each year by the expense and tribute of so many thousand strangers.

Under the

Fatimite

The revolution which transferred the sceptre from the Abbassides to the Fatimites was a benefit rather than an injury to the Holy Land. A sovereign resident in Egypt was more caliphs, sensible of the importance of Christian trade; and the A.D. 969-1076. emirs of Palestine were less remote from the justice and power of the throne. But the third of these Fatimite caliphs was the famous Hakem,67 a frantic youth, who was delivered by his impiety and despotism from the fear either of God or man, and whose reign was a wild mixture of vice and folly. Regardless of the most ancient customs of Egypt, he imposed on the women an absolute confinement ; the restraint excited the clamours of both sexes; their clamours provoked his fury; a part of Old Cairo was delivered to the flames, and the guards and citizens were engaged many days in a bloody conflict. At first the caliph declared himself a zealous Musulman, the founder or benefactor of moschs and colleges: twelve hundred and ninety copies of the Koran were transcribed at his expense in letters of gold, and his edict extirpated the vineyards of the Upper Egypt. But his vanity was soon flattered by the hope of introducing a new religion; he aspired above the fame of a prophet, and styled himself the visible image of the Most High God, who, after nine apparitions on earth, was at length manifest in his royal person. At the name of Hakem,

cuzene presumes to appeal to the Mahometans themselves for the truth of this perpetual miracle.

6 In his Dissertations on Ecclesiastical History the learned Mosheim has separately discussed this pretended miracle (tom. ii. p. 214-306), de lumine sancti sepulchri.

64 William of Malmesbury (1. iv. c. ii. p. 209) quotes the Itinerary of the monk Bernard, an eye-witness, who visited Jerusalem A D. 870. The miracle is confirmed by another pilgrim some years older; and Mosheim ascribes the invention to the Franks soon after the decease of Charlemagne.

65 Our travellers, Sandys (p. 134), Thevenot (p. 621-627), Maundrell (p. 94, 95), &c., describe this extravagant farce. The Catholics are puzzled to decide when the miracle ended and the trick began.

66 The Orientals themselves confess the fraud, and plead necessity and edification (Mémoires du Chevalier D'Arvieux, tom. ii. p. 140; Joseph Abudacni, Hist. Copt. c. 20); but I will not attempt, with Mosheim, to explain the mode. Our travellers have failed with the blood of St. Januarius at Naples.

67 See D'Herbelot (Biblioth. Orientale, p. 411), Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 390, 397, 400, 401), Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 321-323), and Marei (p. 384-386), an historian of Egypt, translated by Reiske from Arabic into German, and verbally interpreted to me by a friend.

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