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LXII.

CHA P. doctrine more eafy to conceive, but more painful to acknowledge; yet Michael reprefented to his monks and prelates, that they might fubmit to name the Roman bihop as the first of the patriarchs; and that their distance and discretion would guard the liberties of the Eastern church from the mifchievous confequences of the right of appeal. He protefted that he would facrifice his life and empire, rather than yield the smallest point of orthodox faith or national independence; and this declaration was fealed and ratified by a golden bull. The patriarch Jofeph withdrew to a monaftery, to refign or refume his throne, according to the event of the treaty; the letters of union and obedience were fubfcribed by the emperor, his fon Andronicus, and thirty-five archbishops and metropolitans, with their respective fynods; and the epifcopal lift was multiplied by many dioceses which were annihilated under the yoke of the infidels. An embaffy was composed of fome trufty ministers and prelates; they embarked for Italy, with rich ornaments and rare perfumes, for the altar of St. Peter; and their fecret orders authorised and recommended a boundless compliance. They were received in the general council of Lyons, by pope Gregory the tenth, at the head of five hundred bifhops (32). He embraced with tears his long-loft and repentant children; accepted the oath of the ambassadors, who abjured the fchifm in the name of the two emperors; adorned the prelates with the ring and mitre; chaunted in Greek and Latin the Nicene creed with the addition of filioque; and rejoiced in the union of the Eaft and Weft, which had been referved for his reign. To confummate this pious work, the Byzantine deputies were speedily followed by the pope's nuncios; and their inftruction discloses the policy of the Vatican, which could not be fatisfied with the vain title of fupremacy. After viewing the temper of the prince and people, they were enjoined to abfolve the schifmatic clergy, who should subscribe and fwear their abjuration and obedience; to establish in all the churches the ufe of the perfect creed; to prepare the entrance of a cardinal

(32) See the ads of the council of Lyons in the year 1274. Fleury, Hift. Eccléfiaftique, tom. xviii. p. 181-199. Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclef. tom, x. p. 135

LXII.

dinal legate, with the full powers and dignity of his office; CHA P. and to inftruct the emperor in the advantages which he might derive from the temporal protection of the Roman pontiff (33).

the Greeks,

But they found a country without a friend, a nation in His perfewhich the names of Rome and Union were pronounced cution of with abhorrence. The patriarch Jofeph was indeed re- A. D. moved; his place was filled by Veccus, an ecclefiaftic of 1277-1282. learning and moderation; and the emperor was still urged by the fame motives, to perfevere in the fame profeffions. But in his private language, Palæologus affected to deplore the pride, and to blame the innovations, of the Latins; and while he debased his character by this double hypocrify, he juftified and punished the oppofition of his fubjects. By the joint fuffrage of the new and the antient Rome a fentence of excommunication was pronounced. against the obstinate fchifmatics: the cenfures of the church were executed by the sword of Michael; on the failure of perfuafion, he tried the arguments of prison and exile, of whipping and mutilation; thofe touchftones, fays an hif torian, of cowards and the brave. Two Greeks ftill reigned in Ætolia, Epirus, and Theffaly, with the appellation of defpots: they had yielded to the fovereign of Conftantinople, but they rejected the chains of the Roman pontiff, and fupported their refufal by fuccefsful arms. Under their protection, the fugitive monks and bishops affembled in hoftile fynods; and retorted the name of heretic with the galling addition of apoftate: the prince of Trebizond was tempted to affume the forfeit title of emperor; and even the Latins of Negropont, Thebes, Athens, and the Morea, forgot the merits of the convert, to join, with open or clandeftine aid, the enemies of Palæologus. His favourite generals, of his own blood and family, fucceffively deferted, or betrayed, the facrilegious truft. His fifter Eulogia, a niece, and two female coufins, conspired against him; another niece, Mary queen of Bulgaria, negociated his ruin with the fultan of Egypt; and, in the public eye, their treafon was confecrated as the moft fub

lime

(33) This curious instruction, which has been drawn with more or less honefty by Wading and Leo Allatius from the archives of the Vatican, is given in an abstract or verfion by Fleury (tom. xviii. p. 252-258.).

LXII.

CHA P. lime virtue (34). To the pope's nuncios, who urged the confummation of the work, Palæologus expofed a naked recital of all that he had done and fuffered for their fake. They were affured that the guilty fectaries, of both fexes and every rank, had been deprived of their honours, their fortunes, and their liberty; a spreading lift of confifcation and punishment, which involved many perfons, the dearest to the emperor, or the best deserving of his favour. They were conducted to the prifon, to behold four princes of the royal blood chained in the four corners, and shaking their fetters in an agony of grief and rage. Two of these captives were afterwards released; the one by fubmiffion, the other by death: but the obftinacy of their two companions was chaftifed by the lofs of their eyes; and the Greeks, the least adverse to the union, deplore that cruel and inaufpicious tragedy (35). Perfecutors must expect the hatred of those whom they opprefs; but they commonly find fome confolation in the testimony of their confcience, the applaufe of their party, and, perhaps, the fuccefs of their undertaking. But the hypocrify of Mithael, which was prompted only by political motives, must have forced him to hate himself, to defpife his followers, and to esteem and envy the rebel champions by whom he was detefted and despised. While his violence was abhorred at Conftantinople, at Rome his flownefs was arraigned and his fincerity fufpected; till at length pope Martin the fourth excluded the Greek emperor from the pale of a church, into which he was ftriving to reduce a The union fchifmatic people. No fooner had the tyrant expired, than the union was diffolved, and abjured by unanimous confent; the churches were purified; the penitents were reconciled; and his fon Andronicus, after weeping the fins

diffolved,

A. D. 1283.

and

(34) This frank and authentic confeffion of Michael's distress, is exhibited in barbarous Latin by Ogerius, who figns himself Protonotarius Interpretum, and tranfcribed by Wading from the MSS. of the Vatican (A. D. 1278, N° 3.). His annals of the Francifcan order, the Fratres Minores, in xvii volumes in folio (Rome, 1741), I have now accidentally feen among the wafte paper of a bookfeller.

18.24-27

(35) See the 6th book of Pachymer, particularly the chapters, 1. 11. 16. He is the more credible, as he speaks of this perfecution with lefs anger than forrow.

and errors of his youth, moft piously denied his father the CHA P. burial of a prince and a Chriftian (36).

LXII.

II. In the diftrefs of the Latins, the walls and towers Charles of of Conftantinople had fallen to decay; they were restored Anjou fubdues Naples and fortified by the policy of Michael, who depofited a and Sicily, plenteous ftore of corn and falt provifions, to fuftain the A.D. 1265. fiege which he might hourly expect from the refentment Feb. 26. of the Western powers. Of thefe, the fovereign of the two Sicilies was the moft formidable neighbour; but as long as they were poffeffed by Mainfroy, the bastard of Frederic the fecond, his monarchy was the bulwark rather than the annoyance of the Eastern empire. The usurper, though a brave and active prince, was fufficiently employed in the defence of his throne: his profcription by fucceffive popes had feparated Mainfroy from the common cause of the Latins; and the forces that might have befieged Conftantinople, were detained in a crusade againft the domestic enemy of Rome. The prize of her avenger, the crown of the two Sicilies, was won and worn by the brother of St. Louis, by Charles count of Anjou and Provence, who led the chivalry of France on this holy expedition (37). The difaffection of his Christian subjects compelled Mainfroy to enlift a colony of Saracens whom his father had planted in Apulia and this odious fuccour will explain the defiance of the Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation. "Bear this meffage," faid Charles, to the fultan of Nocera, that God and the "fword are umpire between us; and that he fhall either "fend me to paradife, or I will fend him to the pit of "hell." The armies met, and though I am ignorant of Mainfroy's doom in the other world, in this he loft his friends, his kingdom, and his life, in the bloody battle of Benevento. Naples and Sicily were immediately peopled with a warlike race of French nobles; and their afpiring VOL. VI. leader

(36) Pachymer, 1. vii. c. 1-11. 17. The fpeech of Andronicus the elder (1. xii. c. ii.) is a curious record, which proves, that if the Greeks were the flaves of the emperor, the emperor was not less the flave of superstition and the clergy.

(37) The best accounts, the nearest the time, the most full and entertaining, of the conqueft of Naples by Charles of Anjou, may be found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano Malafpina (c. 175-193.) and Giovanni Villani (1 vii. c. 1-10. 25-30.), which are published by Muratori in the 8th and 9th volumes of the hiftorians of Italy. In his Annals (tom. xi. p. 56-72.), he has abridged these great events, which are likewife described in the Iftoria Civile of Giannone, tom. ii. 1. xix. tom. iii. 1. xx,

LXII.

CHA P. leader embraced the future conqueft of Africa, Greece, and Palestine. The moft fpecious reafons might point his firft arms against the Byzantine empire; and Palæologus, diffident of his own ftrength, repeatedly appealed from the ambition of Charles to the humanity of St. Louis, who fili preferved a juft afcendant over the mind of his ferocious brother. For a while the attention of that brother was confined at home by the invafion of Conradin, the laft heir of the Imperial houfe of Swabia: but the haplefs boy funk in the unequal conflict; and his execution on a public fcaffold taught the rivals of Charles to tremble for their heads as well as their dominions. A fecond reIpite was obtained by the last crufade of St. Louis to the African coaft; and the double motive of interest and duty urged the king of Naples to affift, with his powers and his prefence, the holy enterprife. The death of St. Louis releafed him from the importunity of a virtuous cenfor; the Threatens king of Tunis confeffed himself the tributary and vaffal of the Greek the crown of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights empire, were free to enlift under his banner against the Greek em

A. D. 1270.

&c.

pire. A treaty and a marriage united his intereft with the house of Courtenay; his daughter Beatrice was promised to Philip, fon and heir of the emperor Baldwin; a penfion of fix hundred ounces of gold was allowed for his maintenance; and his generous father distributed among his allies the kingdoms and provinces of the East, reserving only Conftantinople, and one day's journey round the city, for the Imperial domain (38). In this perilous moment, Palæologus was the most eager to fubfcribe the creed, and implore the protection, of the Roman pontiff, who affumed, with propriety and weight, the character of an angel of peace, the common father of the Chriftians. By his voice, the fword of Charles was chained in the scabbard; and the Greek ambaffadors beheld him, in the pope's antichamher, biting his ivory fceptre in a tranfport of fury, and deeply refenting the refufal to enfranchife and confecrate his arms. He appears to have refpected the difinterefted mediation of Gregory the tenth; but Charles was infentibly difgufted by the pride and partiality of Nicholas the third;

(38) Ducange, Hift. de C. P. 1. v. c. 49-56. I. vi. c. 1-13. See Pachymer, l. iv. c. 29. 1. v. c. 7-10. 25a 1. vi. c. 30. 32, 33. and Nicephorus Gregoras, 1. iv. 51, v. 1.6.

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