§ 2.

CHAP. IV. extending as far as the Strymon in Europe, and the Sangarius in Asia; but his possessions were intermingled with those of the Venetians and the vassals of the empire. Prokonnesos, Lesbos, Chios, Lemnos, Skyros, and several smaller islands, also fell to his share.

Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, in the first instance. received a feudatory kingdom in the Asiatic provinces ; but, in order to be nearer support from his hereditary principality in Italy, his share was transferred to the province of Macedonia, and he received Thessalonica as his capital, with the title of King of Saloniki. At the same time, taking advantage of a promise which he had received. from Alexius IV. to confer on him the island of Crete as a reward for special services rendered while commanderin-chief of the Crusaders, he assumed that he had thus obtained a legal title to that island before the signature of the treaty of partition, and he now enlarged his continental dominions by exchanging his title to Crete with the Venetians, for their title to several portions of Thessaly, besides receiving from them the sum of one thousand marks of silver.1

The Venetian republic obtained three-eighths of the empire. Adrianople, and many inland towns, formed part of the territory assigned to the republic; but the Venetian senate never made any attempt to take possession of a considerable portion of its share. We have seen that the territory in Thessaly was ceded to Boniface, in exchange for Crete. Other portions were occupied by private adventurers before Venice had time to take possession of them; and many islands and maritime cities were conceded by the senate to private citizens, as fiefs of the republic, on condition that those to whom they were granted should conquer them at their own expense.

1 Muratori, Sc. Rer. Ital. Chron.; And. Dandolo, Flaminio Cornelio Creta Sacra; and Buchon, Recherches et Matériaux, 10, give the text of the treaty between Boniface and the Venetians. It is dated August, 1204.

EMPEROR BALDWIN AND KING BONIFACE.

113

The remainder of the empire was parcelled out among a certain number of great vassals, many of whom never conquered the fiefs assigned to them; while some new adventurers, who arrived after the partition was arranged, succeeded in possessing themselves of larger shares of the spoil than most of the original conquerors. The most important of the Frank possessions in Greece was the principality of Achaia, which, though conferred on William of Champlitte, soon passed into the hands of the younger Geffrey Villehardoin, who had not been present at the siege of Constantinople.1

A. D. 1204.

SECTION III. BALDWIN I.

The reign of Baldwin was short and troubled. Though no braver knight, nor more loyal gentleman, ever occupied a throne, he was deficient in the prudence necessary to command success, either as a statesman or a general, and he even wanted the moderation required to secure tranquillity among his great vassals. In his first expedition to extend his territory and establish his immediate vassals in their fiefs, he involved himself in disputes with Boniface the king-marquis. The emperor announced his intention. of visiting Thessalonica, in order to establish the imperial suzerainty, and confer the investiture of the kingdom of Saloniki on Boniface, whose oath of fealty he was naturally extremely anxious to receive as soon as possible. The king-marquis opposed this arrangement, as tending to exhaust the resources of his new dominions, by burdening them with the maintenance of Baldwin's army; but his real objection was that he had all along hoped to render his kingdom independent of the empire, and he wished to evade taking the oath. The mutual antipathy

1 Among those who arrived after the conquest were Stephen du Perche, created duke of Philadelphia, and Thierry de Teuremonde, appointed great constable of Romania. Both were killed at the battle of Adrianople.

H

§ 3.

CHAP. IV. of the Flemings and the Lombards led them to espouse the quarrel of their princes with warmth. Baldwin marched with his army to Thessalonica; Boniface led his troops to Adrianople, and besieged the governor placed there by the emperor Baldwin. A civil war threatened to destroy the Frank empire of Romania before the Crusaders had effected the conquest of Greece; but the doge of Venice and the count of Blois succeeded, by their intervention, in re-establishing peace, and persuading Baldwin to agree to a convention, by which all disputes were arranged. Boniface did homage to the emperor for the kingdom of Saloniki, consisting of all the country from the valley of the Strymon to the southern frontier of Thessaly; and he was appointed commander-in-chief of the army of the Crusaders destined to march against Greece, in order to take possession of the fiefs appropriated to those who had been assigned their shares of the conquest in that part of the empire by the act of partition.1

Next year (1205) one army, under the count of Blois and Henry of Flanders, the emperor's brother, attacked the Greeks in Asia; while another, under the king of Saloniki, invaded Greece. As soon as the Frank forces were thus dispersed, and engaged in distant operations, the Greeks of Adrianople rose in revolt, expelled the Frank garrison, and obtained assistance from Joannes, king of Bulgaria and Vallachia, who was deeply offended with the emperor Baldwin for having rejected his offers of alliance. Joannes had recently received the royal unction from a cardinal legate, deputed for the purpose by Pope Innocent III.; and he conceived that, in virtue of this dignity as a Latin monarch, he was entitled to share with the Franks in dividing the Greek empire.

The emperor Baldwin, the old doge of Venice, and the count of Blois, no sooner heard of the revolt of 1 Villehardoin, 113, compared with Henri de Valenciennes, 187, edit. Buchon.

Adrianople, than they hastened with all the troops they
could collect to besiege the city. The king of Bulgaria
soon arrived to relieve it, at the head of a powerful army.
Baldwin rashly risked a battle with his small force, and
the greater part of his army was cut to pieces. The
count of Blois and a host of knights perished on the
field; the emperor was taken prisoner, and murdered by
his
conqueror during the first year of his captivity, though
in the west of Europe his death was long doubted. The
doge Dandolo, and the historian Villehardoin, marshal of
the empire, were the only men of rank and military
experience who survived in the camp. They hastily
rallied the remains of the army, and by abandoning
everything but the arms in their hands, succeeded, with
great difficulty, in conducting the surviving soldiers safe
to Rhedestos.

A. D.

1205.

SECT. IV.-HENRY OF FLANDERS. ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS.
POLITICAL DIFFICULTIES. PARLIAMENT OF RAVENIKA.

Henry of Flanders immediately took upon himself the direction of the administration, acting as regent until he was assured of his brother's death, when he assumed the title of emperor. But though certain tidings arrived at Constantinople of Baldwin's death, various romantic tales were long current that seemed to throw a doubt over his ultimate fate. On the 20th August 1206, Henry was crowned; and, during his whole reign, he devoted all his energy and talent to the difficult task of endeavouring to give a political as well as military organisation to the heterogeneous elements of his empire. The cruel ravages of the Bulgarian troops-who, after the battle of Adrianople, were allowed by Joannes to plunder the whole country, from Serres to Athyras-taught the Greeks to regret the more regular and moderate exactions of the Franks, and many voluntarily made their submission to

$ 4.

CHAP. IV. Henry, who treated all his subjects with mildness. He possessed more military as well as civil capacity than his unfortunate brother, and carried on war successfully against the king of the Bulgarians, in Europe, and against Theodoric Laskaris, the Greek emperor of Nicæa, in Asia.

The internal organisation of the Frank empire presented a series of obstacles to the introduction of order and regular government, that no genius could have removed in less than a generation. Henry effected wonders in his short reign; but all he did proved nugatory, from the incapacity of his successors. His great success was in part due to the popularity he acquired by his mild and conciliatory conduct, perhaps quite as much as to his political sagacity and brilliant courage. The situation of his empire was every way anomalous. Its foundation by Crusaders acting under papal authority, and serving avowedly as a means of carrying on holy wars, conferred on Innocent III. a just pretext for interfering in its internal affairs. The emperor and barons also, standing constantly in need of new recruits in order to maintain and extend their conquests, could not fail to feel the necessity of conciliating the pontiff, by whose influence these recruits could be most easily obtained. Though the conquest of the Byzantine empire had been made in express violation of the commands of Innocent III., that Pope showed a determination to profit by the crime as soon as it was perpetrated, and displayed a willingness to promote the views of the Crusaders, on condition that the affairs of the church should be settled in a manner satisfactory to the papal see.1 There were, nevertheless, so many dis

1 See a translation of Innocent's letter to the marquis Boniface and the counts of Flanders, Blois, and St Pol, in Harter's Histoire du Pape Innocent III., i. 607, French translation. The original is in the portion of Innocent's letters published in the rare collection of Brequiny, lib. vi. ep. 48, 103; see also Gesta Innoc. III., cap. 89, in the edition of Baluze.