LX.

CHA P. even to thefe buffoons the emperor was an object of contempt; his feafts and buildings exceeded the examples of royal luxury; the number of his eunuchs and domestics amounted to twenty thoufand; and a daily fum of four thousand pounds of filver would fwell to four millions fterling the annual expence of his household and table, His poverty was relieved by oppreffion; and the public difcontent was inflamed by equal abufes in the collection, and the application, of the revenue. While the Greeks numbered the days of their fervitude, a flattering prophet, whom he rewarded with the dignity of patriarch, affured him of a long and victorious reign of thirty-two years; during which he fhould extend his fway to mount Libanus, and his conquefts beyond the Euphrates. But his only ftep towards the accomplishment of the prediction, was a fplendid and scandalous embaffy to Saladin (19), to demand the reftitution of the holy fepulchre, and to propose an offenfive and defenfive league with the enemy of the Chrif tian name. In these unworthy hands, of Ifaac and his brother, the remains of the Greek empire crumbled into duft. The island of Cyprus, whofe name excites the ideas of elegance and pleasure, was ufurped by his namesake, a Comnenian prince and by a strange concatenation of events, the word of our English Richard beflowed that kingdom on the house of Lufignan, a rich compenfation for the lofs of Jerusalem.

rians,

The honour of the monarchy, and the fafety of the ca Revolt of pital, were deeply wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians the Bulga and Walachians. Since the victory of the fecond Bafil, 4.D.1186, they had supported, above an hundred and feventy years, the loofe dominion of the Byzantine princes; but no effectual measures had been adopted to impofe the yoke of laws and manners on thefe favage tribes. By the com mand of Ifaac, their fole means of fubfiftence, their flocks and herds, were driven away, to contribute towards the pomp of the royal nuptials; and their fierce warriors were exafperated by the denial of equal rank and pay in the military fervice. Peter and Afan, two powerful chiefs, of

the

(19) See Bohadin, Vit. Saladin. p. 129-131. 226. verf. Schultens. The amballador of Ifaac was equally verfed in the Greek, French, and Arabic languages; a rare inflance in those times. His embaffies were received with honour, dimified without effect, and reported with feandal in the Weft.

LX.

the race of the ancient kings (20), afferted their own CHA P. rights and the national freedom: their dæmoniac impoftors proclaimed to the crowd, that their glorious patron St. Demetrius had for ever deferted the cause of the Greeks; and the conflagration fpread from the banks of the Danube to the hills of Macedonia and Thrace. After fome faint efforts, Isaac Angelus and his brother acquiefced in their independence; and the Imperial troops were foon difcouraged by the bones of their fellow foldiers, that were scattered along the paffes of mount Hamus. By the arms and policy of John or Joannices, the fecond kingdom of Bulgaria was firmly eftablifhed. The fubtle Barbarian fent an embaffy to Innocent the third, to acknowledge himself a genuine fon of Rome in descent and religion (21); and humbly received from the pope, the licence of soining money, the royal title, and a Latin archbishop or patriarch. The Vatican exulted in the fpiritual conqueft of Bulgaria, the firft object of the fchifm; and if the Greeks could have preferved the prerogatives of the church, they would gladly have refigned the rights of the monarchy.

A. D.

The Bulgarians were malicious enough to pray for the Ufurpation long life of Ifaac Angelus, the furest pledge of their free- and charac dom and profperity. Yet their chiefs could involve in terof Alexthe fame indifcriminate contempt, the family and nation iusAngelus, of the emperor. "In all the Greeks," faid Afan to his 1195-1203, troops, "the fame climate, and character, and education, April 8. ❝ will be productive of the fame fruits. Behold my lance,' continued the warrior," and the long ftreamers that float in the wind. They differ only in colour; they are formed of the fame filk and fashioned by the fame "workman; nor has the ftripe that is ftained in purple, any fuperior price or value above its fellow (22)."

་

Se

veral

(20) Ducange, Familie Dalmaticæ, p. 318, 319, 320. The original correfpondence of the Bulgarian king and the Roman pontiff, is infcribed in the Gefta Innocent. III. c. 66-82. p. 513-525.

(21) The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis Romæ profapiâ genitores tui originem traxerunt. This tradition, and the ftrong refemblance of the Latin and Walachian idioms, is explained by M. d'Anville (Etats de l'Europe, p. 258-262.). The Italian colonies of the Dacia of Trajan, were fwept away by the tide of emigration from the Danube to the Volga, and brought back by another wave from the Volga to the Danube. Poffible but ftrange!

(22) This parable is in the best favage ftyle; but I wish the Walach had not introduced the claffic name of Myfians, the experiment of the magnet or loadstone, and the passage of an old comic poet (Nicetas, in Alex, Com eno, 1. i. p. 299, 300.).

LX.

CHA P. veral of thefe candidates for the purple fucceffively rofe and fell under the empire of Ifaac: a general who had repelled the fleets of Sicily, was driven to revolt and ruin by the ingratitude of the prince; and his luxurious repofe was difturbed by fecret confpiracies and popular infurrections. The emperor was faved by accident, or the merit of his fervants: he was at length oppreffed by an ambitious brother, who, for the hope of a precarious diadem, forgot the obligations of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship (23). While Ifaac in the Thracian vallies purfued the idle and folitary pleafures of the chace, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invefted with the purple, by the unanimous fuffrage of the camp: the capital and the clergy fubfcribed to their choice; and the vanity of the new fovereign rejected the name of his fathers, for the lofty and royal appellation of the Comnenian race. On the defpicable character of Ifaac, I have exhaufted the language of contempt; and can only add, that in a reign of eight years, the bafer Alexits (24) was fupported by the mafculine vices of his wife Euphrofyne. The first intelligence of his fall was conveyed to the late emperor by the hoftile afpect and purfuit of the guards, no longer his own: he fled before them above fifty miles as far as Stagyra in Macedonia; but the fugitive, without an object or a follower, was arrested, brought back to Conftantinople, deprived of his eyes, and confined in a lonefome tower, on a fcanty allowance of bread and water. At the moment of the revolution, his fon Alexius, whom he educated in the hope of empire, was twelve years age. He was fpared by the ufurper, and reduced to attend his triumph both in peace and war; but as the army was encamped on the fea fhore, an Italian veffel facilitated. the efcape of the royal youth; and, in the difguife of a common failor, he eluded the fearch of his enemies, paffed the Hellefpont, and found a fecure refuge in the ifle of Sicily. After faluting the threshold of the apostles, and imploring the protection of pope Innocent the third, Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his fifter Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in

of

his

(23) The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, by fuppofing that he had been releafed by his brother Ifaac from Turkish captivity. This pathetic tale had doubtless been repeated at Venice and Zara: but I do not readily difcover its grounds in the Greek hiftorians.

(24) See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in three books of Nicetas, p. 291–352..

LX.

his paffage through Italy, he heard that the flower of CHA P. Western chivalry was affembled at Venice for the deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled in his bofom, that their invincible fwords might be employed The fourth in his father's restoration.

crufade,
A. D. 1198.

About ten or twelve years after the lofs of Jerufalem, the nobles of France were again fummoned to the holy war by the voice of a third prophet, lefs extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the hermit, but far below St. Bernard in the merit of an orator and a statesman. An illiterate prieft of the neighbourhood of Paris, Fulk of Neuilly (25), forfook his parochial duty, to affume the more flattering character of a popular and itinerant miffionary. The fame of his fanctity and miracles was fpread over the land; he declaimed, with feverity and vehemence, against the vices of the age; and his fermons, which he preached in the streets of Paris, converted the robbers, the ufurers, the prostitutes, and even the doctors and fcholars of the univerfity. No fooner did Innocent the third afcend the chair of St. Peter, than he proclaimed in Italy, Germany, and France, the obligation of a new crufade (26). The eloquent pontiff defcribed the ruin of Jerufalem, the triumph of the Pagans, and the fhame of Christendom: his liberality propofed the redemption of fins, a plenary indulgence to all who fhould ferve in Palestine, either a year in perfon, or two years by a substitute (27); and among his legates and orators who blew the facred trumpet, Fulk of Neuilly was the loudest and most fuccefsful. 'The fituation. of the principal monarchs was adverfe to the pious fummons. The emperor Frederic the fecond was a child; and his kingdom of Germany was difputed by the rival houses of Brunswick and Swabia, the memorable factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines. Philip Auguftus of France had performed, and could not be perfuaded to renew, the perilous vow; but as he was not less ambitious of praise than

of

(25) See Fleury, Hift. Ecclef. tom. xvi. p. 26, &c. and Villehardouin, No with the obfervations of Ducange, which I always mean to quote with the original text.

(26) The contemporary life of pope Innocent III. published by Baluze and Muratori (Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom iii. pars i. p. 486-568), is most valuable for the important and original documents which are inferted in the text. The bull of the crufade may be read, c. 84, 85.

(27) Por-ce que cil pardon fut iffi gran, fi s'en efmeurent mult li cuers des genz, et mult s'en croifierent, porce que li pardons ere fi gran. Villehardouin, N° 1. Our philofophers.may refine on the causes of the crufades, but fuch were the genuine feelings of a French knight.

LX.

CHA P. of power, he chearfully instituted a perpetual fund for the defence of the Holy Land. Richard of England was fatiated with the glory and misfortunes of his first adventure, and he prefumed to deride the exhortations of Fulk of Neuilly, who was not abafhed in the prefence of kings. "You advise me," said Plantagenet, "to difmifs my "three daughters, pride, avarice, and incontinence: I "bequeath them to the most deferving; my pride to the "knights-templars, my avarice to the monks of Cifteaux, "and my incontinence to the prelates." But the preacher was heard and obeyed by the great vaffals, the princes of the fecond order; and Theobald, or Thibaut, count of Champagne, was the foremost in the holy race. The valiant youth, at the age of twenty-two years, was encouraged embraced by the domeftic examples of his father, who marched in by the ba- the fecond crufade, and of his elder brother, who had ended his days in Palestine with the title of king of Jerufalem: two thousand two hundred knights owed service and homage to his peerage (28): the nobles of Champagne excelled in all the exercifes of war (29); and, by his marriage with the heirefs of Navarre, Thibaut could draw a band of hardy Gafcons from either fide of the Pyrenæan mountains. His companion in arms was Louis, count of Blois and Chartres; like himself of regal lineage, for both the princes were nephews, at the fame time, of the kings of France and England. In a crowd of prelates and barons, who imitated their zeal, I dif tinguish the birth and merit of Matthew of Montmorency; the famous Simon of Montfort, the scourge of the Albigeois; and a valiant noble, Jeffrey of Villehardouin (30), marshal of Champagne (31), who has condefcended

rons of

France.

(28) This number of fiefs (of which 1800 owed liege homage) was enrolled in the church of St. Stephen at Troyes, and attefted A. D. 1213, by the marshal and butler of Champagne (Ducange, Obferv. p. 254.).

(29) Campania.... militiæ privilegio fingularius excellit.... in tyrociniis... prolufione armorum, &c. Ducange, p. 249. from the old Chronicle of Jerufalem, A. D. 1177-1199.

(30) The name of Ville-hardouin, was taken from a village and castle in the diocefe of Troyes, near the river Aube, between Bar and Arceis. The family was ancient and noble; the elder branch of our historian existed after the year 1400; the younger, which acquired the principality of Achaia, merged in the houfe of Savoy (Ducange, p. 235-245;).

(31) This office was held by his father and his defcendants, but Ducange has not hunted it with his ufual fagacity. I find that, in the year 1356, it was in the family of Conflans; but thefe 'provincial, have been long fince eclipfed by the national, marshals of France.