LXVI.

ions, devoutly kiffed the feet, the hands, and at length the CHA P. mouth, of the holy father, who celebrated high mass in his prefence, allowed him to lead the bridle of his mule, and treated him with a fumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The entertainment of Palæologus was friendly and honourable; yet fome difference was obferved between the emperors of the Eaft and Weft (9); nor could the former be entitled to the rare privilege of chaunting the gofpel in the rank of a deacon (10). In favour of his profelyte, Urban ftrove to rekindle the zeal of the French king, and the other powers of the Weft; but he found them cold in the general caufe, and active only in their domestic quarrels. The laft 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; fold his fervices to the hostile ftates; and incurred a juft excommunication by fhooting his arrows against the papal refidence. A fpecial licence was granted to negociate with the outlaw, but the forces, or the fpirit, of Hawkwood were unequal to the enterprise; and it was for the advantage perhaps of Palæologus to be difappointed of a fuccour, that must have been coftly, that could not be effectual, and which might have been dangerous (12). The difconfolate Greek (13) prepared for his return,

(9) Paullo minus quam fi fuiffet Imperator Romanorum. Yet his title of Imperator Græcorum was no longer difputed (Vit. Urban V. p. 623 ). (0) It was confined to the fucceffors of Charlemagne, and to them only on Christmas day. On all other feftivals, thefe Imperial deacons were content to ferve the pope, as he faid mafs, with the book and the corporal. Yet the abbé de Sade generously thinks, that the merits of Charles IV, might have entitled him, though not on the proper day (A. D. 1368, November 1.), to the whole privilege. He feems to affix a juft value on the privilege and the man (Vie de Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 735 ).

(11) Through fome Italian corruptions, the etymology of Falcone in basco (Matteo Villani, 1. xi. c. 79. in Muratori, tom. xv. p. 746.), suggests the English word Hawkwood, the true name of our adventurous countryman (Thomas Walfingham, Hift. 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 fuch honours as the republic has not paid to Dante or Petrarch (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 212371-).

(12) This torrent of English (by birth or fervice) overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in 1360. Yet the exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197.) is rather true than civil. " Ci mancava ancor quefto, che dopo effere calpeftrata l'Italia da tanti mafna"dieri Tedeschi ed Ungheri, veniffero fin dall' Inghilterra nuovi cani a "finire di divorarla."

(13) Chalcondyles, l. i. p. 25, 26. The Greek supposes his journey to

the

CHAP. return, but even his return was impeded by a most ignomiLXVI. nious obstacle. On his arrival at Venice, he had borrowed

large fums at exorbitant ufury; but his coffers were empty, his creditors were impatient, and his perfon was detained as the beft fecurity for the payment. His eldest fon Andronicus, the regent of Conftantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhauft every refource; and, even by ftripping the churches, to extricate his father from captivity and difgrace. But the unnatural youth was infenfible of the difgrace, and fecretly pleased with the captivity of the emperor; the state was poor, the clergy was obstinate; nor could fome religious fcruple be wanting to excufe the guilt of his indifference and delay. Such undutiful neglect was feverely reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who inftantly fold or mortgaged all that he poffeffed, embarked for Venice, relieved his father, and pledged his own freedom to be refponfible for the debt. On his return to ConHis return ftantinople, the parent and king diftinguifhed his two fons to Conftan with fuitable rewards; but the faith and manners of the tinople, flothful Palæologus had not been improved by his Roman pilgrimage; and his apoftacy or converfion, devoid of any fpiritual or temporal effects, was fpeedily forgotten by the Greeks and Latins (14).

A.D. 1370.

emperor Manuel

Thirty years after the return of Palæologus, his fon and Vifit of the fucceffor, Manuel, from a fimilar motive, but on a larger fcale, again vifited the countries of the Weft. In a preceding chapter I have related his treaty with Bajazet, the violation of that treaty, the fiege or blockade of Conftantinople, and the French fuccour under the command of the gallant Boucicault (15). By his ambaffadors, Manuel had folicited the Latin powers; but it was thought that the presence of a diftreffed monarch would draw tears and fupplies from the hardest Barbarians (16); and the marshal who advised the journey, prepared the reception, of the Byzan

the king of France, which is fufficiently refuted by the filence of the national hiftorians. Nor am I much more inclined to believe, that Palæologus departed from Italy, valde bene confolatus et contentus (Vit. Urban V. p. 623.).

(14) His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel, Sept. 25, 1373 (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241.), leaves fome intermediate æra for the confpiracy and punishment of Andronicus.

(15) Mémoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 35, 36.

(16) His journey into the weft of Europe, is flightly, and I believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (1. ii, c. 44-50.) and Ducas (c. 14.),

LXVI.

Byzantine prince. The land was occupied by the Turks; CHA P. but the navigation of Venice was fafe and open: Italy received him as the firft, or, at least, as the second of the Christian princes; Manuel was pitied as the champion and confeffor of the faith; and the dignity of his behaviour prevented that pity from finking into contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua and Pavia; and even the duke of Milan, a fecret ally of Bajazet, gave him fafe and honourable conduct to the verge of his dominions (17) to the court On the confines of France (18), the royal officers undertook of France, the care of his perfon, journey, and expences; and two A.D. 1409, June 3 ; thousand of the richeft citizens, in arms and on horseback, came forth to meet him as far as Charenton, in the neighbourhood of the capital. At the gates of Paris, he was faluted by the chancellor and the parliament; and Charles the fixth, attended by his princes and nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace. The fucceffor of Conftantine was clothed in a robe of white filk, and mounted on a milk-white fteed; a circumftance, in the French ce remonial, of fingular importance: the white colour is confidered as the fymbol of fovereignty; and, in a late vifit, the German emperor, after an haughty demand and a peevish refufal, had been reduced to content himself with a black courfer. Manuel was lodged in the Louvre; a fucceffion of feafts and balls, the pleafures of the banquet and the chace, were ingenioufly varied by the politeness of the French, to difplay their magnificence and amufe his grief: he was indulged in the liberty of his chapel; and the doctors of the Sorbonne were aftonifhed, and poffibly fcandalifed, by the language, the rites, and the vestments, of his Greek clergy. But the flighteft glance on the state of the kingdom, muft teach him to defpair of any effectual affiftance. The unfortunate Charles, though he enjoyed fome lucid intervals, continually relapsed into furious or stupid insanity; the reins of government were alternate

ly

(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 attefted by Froiffard; and he contributed to fave and deliver the French captives of Nicopolis.

(18) For the reception of Manuel at Paris, fee Spondanus (Annal. Ecclef. tom. i. p. 676, 677. A. D. 1400, N° 5.), who quotes Juvenal des Urfins, and the monk of St. Denys: and Villaret (Hift. France, tom. xii. P. 331 334), who quotes nobody, according to the last fashion of the French writers.

LXVI.

December.

CHA P. ly feized by his brother and uncle, the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whofe factious competition prepared the miferies of civil war. The former was a gay youth, diffolved in luxury and love: the latter was the father of John count of Nevers, who had fo 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 coft and peril of the first experiment. When Manuel had fatiated the curiofity, and perhaps fatigued the patience, of the French, he refolved on a of England, vifit to the adjacent ifland. In his progrefs from Dover, A.D. 1400, he was entertained at Canterbury with due reverence by the prior and monks of St. Auftin; and on Blackheath, king Henry the fourth, with the English court, faluted the Greek hero (I copy our old hiftorian), who, during many days, was lodged and treated in London as emperor of the Eaft (19). But the ftate of England was ftill more adverse to the defign of the holy war. In the fame year, the hereditary fovereign had been depofed and murdered; the reigning prince was a fuccefsful ufurper, whofe ambition was punished by jealousy and remorfe: nor could Henry of Lancaster withdraw his perfon or forces from the defence of a throne inceffantly fhaken by confpiracy and rebellion. He pitied, he praifed, he feafted, the emperor of Conftantinople; but if the English monarch affumed the cross, it was only to appeafe his people, and perhaps, his confcience, by the merit or femblance of this pious intention (20). Satisfied, however, with gifts and honours, His return Manuel returned to Paris; and after a refidence of two A. D. 1402. years in the Weft, fhaped 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 neceffity of offering his religion to public or private fale. The Latin church was dif

to Greece,

tracted

(19) A fhort note of Manuel in England, is extracted by Dr. Hody from a MS. at Lambeth (de Græcis illuftribus, p. 14.), C. P. Imperator, diu variifque et horrendis l'aganorum infultibus coarctatus, ut pro eifdem refiftentiam triumphalem perquireret Anglorum Regem vilitare decrevit, &c. Rex (fays Wallingham, p. 364.) nobili apparatû.... fufcepit (ut decuit) tantum Heroa, duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies exhibuit, gloriofè, pro expenfis hofpitii fui folvens, et eum refpiciens tanto faftigio donativis. He repeats the fame in his Upodigma Neuftriæ, p. 556.).

(20). Shakespeare begins and ends the play of Henry the IV, with that prince's vow of a crufade, and his belief that he fhould die in Jerufalem.

LXVI.

tracted by the great fchifm: the kings, the nations, the CHA P. univerfities, 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, abftained from any correfpondence with the indigent and unpopular rivals. His journey coincided with the year of the jubilee; but he paffed through Italy without defiring, or deferving, the plenary, indulgence which abolished the guilt or penance of the fins of the faithful. The Roman pope was offended by this neglect; accufed him of irreverence to an image of Chrift; and exhorted the princes of Italy to reject and abandon the obftinate fchifmatic (21).

and defcrip

During the period of the crufades, the Greeks beheld Greck with aftonishment and terror the perpetual ftream of emi- knowledge gration that flowed, and continued to flow, from the un- tions known climates of the Weft. The vifits of their last emperors removed the veil of separation, and they disclosed to their eyes the powerful nations of Europe, whom they no longer prefumed to brand with the name of Barbarians. The obfervations of Manuel, and his more inquifitive followers, have been preferved by, a Byzantine hiftorian of the times (22) is fcattered ideas I fhall collect and abridge; and it may be amufing enough, perhaps instructive, to contemplate the rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whofe ancient and modern ftate are fo familiar to our minds. I. GERMANY (fays the Greek Chalcondyles) is of ample latitude from Vienna to the Ocean; and it ftretches (a ftrange geography) from Prague in Bohemia to the river Tarteffus, and the Pyrenean mountains (23).

The

(21) This fact is preferved in the Hiftoria Politica, A. D. 1391-1478, publifhed by Martin Crufius (Turco Græcia, p. 1-43.). The image of Chrift, which the Greek emperor refufed to worship, was probably a work of fculpture.

(22) The Greek and Turkish hiftory of Laonicus Chalcondyles, ends with the winter of 1463, and the abrupt conclufion feems to mark, that he laid down his pen in the fame year. We know that he was an Athenian, and that fome contemporaries of the fame name contributed to the revival of the Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous digreffions, the modeft hiftorian has never introduced himself; and his editor Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 474. ), feems ignorant of his life and character. For his defcriptions of Germany, France, and England, fee 1. ii. p. 36, 37.44-50.

(23) fhall not animadvert on the geographical errors of Chalcondyles. In this inftance, he perhaps followed, and mistook, Herodotus (1. ii. c. 33.), whose text may be explained (Herodote de Larcher, tom. ii. p. 219, 220.), or whofe ignorance may be excufed. Had thefe modern Greeks never read Strabo, or any of their leffer geographers?

of Ger

many;