DEATH JOINVILLE REJOINS

INTERVIEW BETWEEN JOINVILLE AND THE ADMIRAL OF THE GALLEYS THE SICK PUT TO DEATH JOINVILLE REJOINS THE OTHER PRISONERS AT MANSOURAH

The chief emir of the galleys sent for me and asked me if I were cousin to the king; and I said “No,” and told him how and why the mariner had said I was the king’s cousin. And he said I had acted wisely, for otherwise we should all have been put to death. And he asked me if I was in any manner of the lineage of the Emperor Frederic of Germany, who was then living. I replied that I thought my lady mother was the emperor’s cousin-german. And he said that he loved me the more for it.

Citizen of Paris

While we were at meat, he caused a citizen of Paris to be brought before us. When the citizen came in, he said to me: “ Lord, what are you doing? ” “ Why, what am I doing? ” said I. “ In God’s name,” said he, “ you are eating flesh on a Friday! ” When I heard that, I put my bowl behind me. And the emir asked my Saracen why I had done so, and he told him. And the emir replied that God would not take what I had done amiss, seeing I did it unwittingly. And you must know that this same reply was given to me by the Legate after we were out of prison; and yet, notwithstanding, I did not afterwards forbear to fast on bread and water, every Friday in Lent; wherefore the legate was very wroth with me, seeing that I was the only man of substance that had remained with the king.

On the Sunday after, the emir caused me, and all the other prisoners taken on the water, to be landed on the bank of the river. While they were taking my Lord John, my good priest, out of the hold of the galley, he fainted, and they killed him and threw him into the river. His clerk fainted also, by reason of the sickness of the host that was upon him, and they threw a mortar on his head, so that he died, and they threw him into the river.

While the other sick people were being disembarked from the galleys in which they had been kept prisoners, there were Saracens standing by, with naked swords, who killed those that fell, and cast them all into the river. I caused them to be told, through my Saracen, that it seemed to me his was not well done; for it was against the teachings of paladin, who said you ought never to kill a man after he taken of your bread and of your salt. And the emir, answered that the men in question were of no account, seeing hey were helpless because of the sickness they had upon hem.

IN FRONT OF THE SARACENS

THE CRUSADERS DISEMBARK IN FRONT OF THE SARACENS

My Lord Baldwin of Rheims, a right good man, who had come to land, requested me, by his squire, to wait for him; and I let him know I should do so willingly, for that a right good man such as he ought surely to be waited for in like case of need, whereby I had his favour all the time that he lived. With him came to us a thousand knights; and you may be assured that, when I landed, I had neither squire, nor knight, nor varlet that I had brought with me from my own country, and yet God never left me without such as I needed.

At our left hand landed the Count of Jaffa, who was cousin-german to the Count of Montbeliard, and of the lineage of Joinville. It was he who landed in greatest pride, for his galley came all painted, within and without, with escutcheons of his arms, which arms are or with a cross of gules patee. He had at least three hundred rowers in his galley, and for each rower there was a targe with the count’s arms thereon, and to each targe was a pennon attached with his arms wrought in gold.

While he was coming it seemed as if his galley flew, so did the rowers urge it forward with their sweeps; and it seemed as if the lightning were falling from the skies at the sound that the pennants made, and the cymbals, and the drums, and the Saracenic horns that were in his galley. So soon as the galley had been driven into the sand as far up as they could drive it, both he and his knights leapt from the galley, well armed and well equipped, and came and arrayed themselves beside us.

I had forgotten to tell you that when the Count of Jaffa landed he immediately caused Ids tents and pavilions to be pitched; and so soon as the. Saracens saw them pitched, they all came and gathered before us, and then came on again, spurring hotly, as if to run in upon us. But when they saw that we should not fly, they shortly turned and went back again.

On our right hand, at about a long-crossbow-shot’s distance, landed the galley that bore the ensign of St. Denis. And there was a Saracen who, when they had landed, came and charged in among them, either because he could not hold in his horse, or because he thought the other Saracens would follow him; but he was hacked in pieces.

ST. LEWIS TAKES POSSESSION OF DAMIETTA

When the king heard tell that the ensign of St. Denis was on shore he went across his ship with large steps; and maigre the legate who was with him he would not leave from following the ensign, but leapt into the sea, which was up to his armpits. So he went, with his shield hung to his neck, and his helmet on his head, and his lance in his hand, till he came to his people who were on the shore customised private istanbul tour. When he reached the land, and looked upon the Saracens, he asked what people they were, and they told him they were Saracens; and he put his lance to his shoulder, and his shield before him, and would have run in upon the Saracens if the right worthy men who were about him would have suffered it.

The Saracens sent thrice to the Soldan, by carrier-pigeons, to say that the king had landed, but never received any message in return, because the Soldan’s sickness was upon him. Wherefore they thought that the Soldan was dead, and abandoned Damietta. The king sent a knight forward to know if it was sooth that Damietta was so abandoned. The

knight returned to the king and said it was sooth and that he had been into the houses of the Soldan. Then the king sent for the legate and all the pi elates of the host, and all chanted with a loud voice  Deumlaudamtts. Afterwards the king mounted his horse, and we all likewise, and we went and encamped before Damietta.

Very unadvisedly did the Turks leave Damietta, in that they did not cut the bridge of boats, for that would have been a great hindrance to us; but they wrought us very much hurt in setting fire to the bazaar, where all the merchandise is collected, and everything that is sold by weight. The damage that followed from this was as great as if which God forbid! some one were, to-morrow, to set fire to the Petit-Pont in Paris.

Now let us declare that God Almighty was very gracious to us when He preserved us from death and peril on our dis-embarkation, seeing that we landed on foot and affronted our enemies who were mounted. Great grace did our Lord also show us when He delivered Damietta into our hands, for otherwise we could only have taken it by famine, and of this we may be fully assured, for it was by famine that King John had taken it in the days of our fathers (in 1219).

JOHANNIZZA CONTINUES RAVAGES

JOHANNIZZA CONTINUES HIS CONQUESTS AND RAVAGES

Near there was another city called Panedor, which sur-rendered to him; and he caused it to be utterly destroyed, and the people to be led captive to Wallachia like the people of Rodosto. Afterwards he rode to the city of Heraclea, that lay by a good seaport, and belonged to the Venetians, who had left in it but a weak garrison; so he assaulted it, and took it by force. There again was a mighty slaughter, and the remnant that escaped the slaughter he caused to be led captive to Wallachia, while the city itself he destroyed, as he had destroyed the others.

Thence he marched to the city of Daonium, which was very strong and fine; and the people did not dare to defend it. So he caused it to he destroyed and rased to the ground. Then he marched to the city of Tzurulum, which had already surrendered to him, and caused it to be destroyed and rased to the ground, and the people to be led away captive. And thus he dealt with every castle and city that surrendered; even though he had promised them safety, he caused the buildings to be destroyed, and the men and women to be led away captive; and no covenant that he made did he ever keep, ~

Then the Comans and Wallachians scoured the land up to che gates of Constantinople, where Henry the Regent then was, with as many men as he could command; and very dolorous was he and very wroth, because he could not get men enough to defend his land. So the Comans seized the cattle off the land, and took captive men, women, and children, and destroyed the cities and castles, and caused such ruin and desolation that never has man heard tell of greater.

So they came to a city called Athyra, which was twelve leagues from Constantinople, and had been given to Payen of Orleans by Henry, the emperor’s brother. This city held a very great number of people, for the dwellers in the country round about had fled thither; and the Comans assaulted it, and took it by force. There the slaughter was so great, that there had been none such in any city where they had been. And you must know that all the castles and all the cities that surrendered to Johannizza under promise of safety were destroyed and rased to the ground, and the people led away captive to Wallachia in such manner as you have heard guided istanbul tour.

And you must know that within five days’ journey from Constantinople there remained nothing to destroy save only the city of Bizye, and the city of Salymbria, which were garrisoned by the French. And in Bizye abode Anseau of Cayeux, with six score knights, and in Salymbria abode Macaire of Sainte-Menehould with fifty knights; and Henry the brother of the Emperor Baldwin remained in Constanti nople with the remainder of the host. And you may know that their fortunes were at the lowest, seeing that outside of Constantinople they had kept possession of no more than these two cities.

THE GREEKS ARE RECONCILED TO THE CRUSADERS JOHANNIZZA BESIEGES DEMOTICA

When the Greeks who were in the host with Johannizza the same who had yielded themselves up to him, and rebelled against the Franks- -when they saw how he destroyed their castles and cities, and kept.no covenant with them, theyTield themselves to be but dead men, and betrayed. They spoke one to another, and said that as Johannizza had dealt with other cities, so would he deal with Adrianople and Demotica, when he returned thither, and that if these two cities were destroyed, then was Roumania for ever lost.

So the}’ took messengers privily, and sent them to Vernas in Constantinople. And they besought Vernas to cry for pity to Henry, the brother of the Emperor Baldwin, and to the Venetians, so that they might make peace with them; and they themselves, in turn, would restore Adrianople and Demotica to the Franks; and the Greeks would all turn to Henry; and the Greeks and Franks dwell together in good accord.

So a council was held, and many words were spoken this way and that, but in the end it was settled that Adrianople and Demotica, with all their appurtenances, should be be stowed on Vernas and the empress his wife, who was sister to the King Philip of France, and that they should do service therefor to the emperor and to the empire. Such was the convention made and concluded, and so was peace established between the Greeks and the Franks.

BALDWIN COUNT OF FLANDERS ELECTED EMPEROR

Then a parliament assembled, and the commons of the host declared that an emperor must be elected, as had been settled aforetime. And they parliament so long that the matter was adjourned to another day, and on that day would they choose the twelve electors who were to make the election. Nor was it possible that there should be lack of candidates, or of men covetous, seeing that so great an honour was in question as the imperial throne of Constanti nople. But the greatest discord that arose was the discord concerning Count Baldwin of Flanders and Hainault and the Marquis Boniface of Montferrat; for all the people said that either of those two should be elected.

And when the chief men of the host saw that all held either for Count Baldwin or for the Marquis of Montferrat, they conferred together and said: “ Lords, if we elect one of these two great men, the other will be so filled with envy that he will take away with him all his people. And then the land that we have won may be lost, just as the land of Jerusalem came nigh to be lost when, after it had been con quered, Godfrey of Bouillon was elected king, and the Count of St. Giles became so fulfilled with envy that he enticed the other barons, and whomsoever he could, to abandon the host.

God had not sustained them

Then did many people depart, and there remained so few that, if God had not sustained them, the land of Jerusalem ‘ would have been lost. Let us therefore beware lest the same mischance befall us also, and rather bethink ourselves how we may keep both these lords in the host. Let the one on whom God shall bestow the empire so devise that the other is well content; let him grant to that other all the land on the further side of the straits, towards Turkey, and the Isle of Greece, and that other shall be his liegeman. Thus shall we keep both lords in the host.”

As had been proposed, so was it settled, and both con sented right willingly. Then came the day for the parliament, and the parliament assembled. And the twelve electors were chosen, six on one side and six on the other; and they swore on holy relics to elect, duly, and in good faith, whomsoever would best meet the needs of the host, and bear rule over the empire most worthily.

p” twelve electors met at a rich palace, one of the fairest in the world, where the Doge of Venice had his quarters, Great and marvellous was die concourse, for every one wished to see who should be elected. Then were the twelve electors called, and set in a very rich chapel within the palace, and the door was shut, so that no one remained with them. The barons and knights stayed without in a great palace.

Quite close to the walls of Constantinople

They went thus quite close to the walls of Constantinople and showed the youth to the people of the Greeks, and said, Memoirs of the Crusades”?

“ Behold your natural lord; and be it known to you that we have not come to do you harm, but have come to guard and defend you, if so be that you return to your duty. For he whom you now obey’ as your lord holds rule by wrong and wickedness, against God and reason. And you know full well that he has dealt treasonably with him who is your lord and his brother, that he has blinded his eyes and left from him his empire by wrong and wickedness. Now behold the rightful heir. If you hold with him, you will be doing as you ought; and if not we will do to you the very worst that we can.” But for fear and terror of the Emperor Alexius, not one person on the land or in the city made show as if he held for the prince. So all went back to the host, and each sought his quarters.

On the morrow, when they had heard mass, they assembled in parliament, and the parliament was held on horseback in the midst of the fields. There might you have seen many a fine war-horse, and many a good knight thereon. And the council was held to discuss the order of the battalions, how many they should have, and of what strength. Many were the words said on one side and the other. But in the end it was settled that the advanced guard should be given to Baldwin of Flanders, because he had a very great number of good men, end archers and crossbowmen, more than any other chief that was in the host.

Matthew of Walincourt

And after, it was settled that Henry his brother, and Matthew of Walincourt, and Baldwin of Beauvoir, and many other good knights of their land and country, should form the second division.

The third division was formed by Count Hugh of St. Paul, Peter of Amiens his nephew, Eustace of Canteleu, Anselm of Cayeux, and many good knights of their land and country.

The fourth division was formed by Count Lewis of Blois and Chartres, and was very’ numerous and rich and redoubt able; for he had placed therein a great number of good knights and men of worth.

The fifth division was formed by Matthew of Montmorency and the men of Champagne. Geoffry the Marshal of Cham pagne formed part of it, and Oger of Saint-Ch6ron, Manasses of l’lsle, Miles the Brebant, Macaire of Sainte-Menehould, John Foisnons, Guy of Chappes, Cleremband his nephew, Robert of Ronsoi: all these people formed part of the fifth division. Be it known to you that there was many a good knight therein.

Gluttonous spirit creeps

It is often thus, that when we begin with good intentions in the eyes of God, a secret tagalong yen for the praise of our fellow men comes along, waylaying our intentions from the side of the road. We take food, for example, out of necessity, but while we are eating, a gluttonous spirit creeps in and we begin to take delight in the eating for its own sake. So often it happens that what began as nourishment to protect our health ends by becoming a pretext for our pleasures.

As commentator

But I think it’s worthwhile for me to reveal unhesitatingly here to the ears of my brothers everything I secretly revile in myself. As commentator, I have not hidden what I felt, and as confessor, I have not hidden what I suffer. In my commentary I reveal the gifts of God, and in my confession I uncover my wounds. In this vast human race there are always little ones who need to be instructed by my words, and there are always great ones who can take pity on my weakness once they know of it. Thus with commentary and confession I offer my help to some of my brethren (as much as I can), and I seek the help of others. . . . I have not withheld medicine from the ones I can help, but I have not hidden my wounds and lacerations from the others. So I ask that whoever reads this should pour out the consolation of prayer before the strict judge above for me, so that he may wash away with tears every sordid thing he finds in me. When I balance the power of my commentary and the power of prayer, I see that my reader will have more than paid me back if for what he hears from me, he offers his tears for me.

That extraordinary self-mistrust epitomizes his description of the ideal life of the Christian in the world. “Our life is all a temptation” (Job 7.1). Trial, temptation, travail: that is human life in this world for Gregory. Job’s story is not merely a story, not merely a case study, but an archetype. The world is not evil, but the world is a testing ground, shaped by man’s sin into a place imperfect in many ways, where death and suffering have power over human life and human hope. Augustine never took his innovative theory of original sin this distressingly far.

Constantinople Deflated

The Debris of Empire

The Stary of Justinian’s empire after his death is an embarrassment to all who try, still, to praise him. Count no man happy, the old Greeks had said, until he has died; and one should count no emperor a success until one knows what becomes of his creations after he is gone. Justinian falls rapidly from his pedestal when we look at what he left behind.

THE POET CORIPPUS gives an account of the night Justinian died, which reads like a fragment of Soviet Kremlinology in the latter days, when Brezhnev gave way to Andropov, who yielded to Chernenko, each a more preposterous parody of Bolshevik loyalty than the one before. You can almost hear in Corippus’s lines the purring engines of big black limousines sliding through the streets around the palace as the word got out among the leading courtiers that the time had finally come. There were many choices, at that point, for emperor; but the deal was clearly done and the fix was in: Justin—Justin II in the history books—was the man.

Nephew of the emperor

Justin was in his mid-forties, a nephew of the emperor, married to a niece of Theodora’s: his relationships gave him a claim to power. He had a cousin, also named Justin, the son of a cousin of Justinian’s: Germanus, who had been moving into leading military commands in the late 540s until premature death removed him from the scene. This other Justin showed promise, often a strong disqualifier in imperial politics. Worse, he was away from court doing useful military service in the Balkans when Justinian’s end came, and thus was at a disadvantage in any competition requiring stealth and intrigue at court. The successful Justin had waited there in a discreet administrative role since 552 and had won the support of the church in the person of the patriarch, John Scholasticus—and of the military in the person of the count of the excubitors, Tiberius, a Balkan officer of real talent, as we shall see.

Justinian died in the palace he had scarcely left for years. Callinicus, the majordomo of the imperial residence (we might render his official title “provost of the sacred bedchamber”), claimed obligingly that Justinian had named his nephew to succeed him. The machinery of court spun into action. The excubitors blockaded the palace, the patriarch raised the crown on Justin’s head, and before anyone was the wiser, the new emperor was installed.

GREGORY’S WORLD

Rome’s Remains (565- 604)

The final scenes of our drama: in which it has begun to seem normal that the city of Rome is a pale shadow of its old self and that the older order of life in much of the Roman world has given way to new routines and new figures of authority. During these scenes, “noises off” will remind us of what is to come, while memories of a more robust imperial past will remind us that the medieval future was made possible—or necessary?— by the hubris of an empire that did not know what was in its own best interest.

Learning to Live Again

Justinian died on November 14, 565. We will visit his airless palace and witness his botched succession in a few pages, but we will see best what he left behind if we look first to the four corners of his earth. The affairs of the court at Constantinople were now, almost suddenly with Justinian’s passing, diminished in scale and importance. One can almost look around the world of 565, take a deep breath, and say, Well, that’s over. Justinian had worn out his mandate and his throne, and even the Ottomans would never match what Constantinople had known in antiquity. We are suddenly in a different world, where people were learning to live again, with very dif¬ferent expectations.

NORTHERN EXPOSURES

Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, but left the job unfinished. What he left undone made the European middle ages possible. Nowhere in the Roman world is the question of “decline and fall” more irrelevant, for northern Gaul was the part of the Roman empire that rose under Rome’s rule, rose again as that rule faded, and continued to rise almost without interruption for hundreds of years.

Consider again Theoderic’s fortunes in Gaul. He succeeded in staking a claim for himself across the Alps—a remarkable achievement for a king based in Italy and rivaling the success of the Roman republic in expanding into this territory after the Punic Wars. But Provence and the Rhone valley up to about Lyon were all he could manage. Aquitaine—that is, southwestern Gaul from the Mediterranean coast to the Atlantic and up to Bordeaux on the Garonne—was always beyond his reach. Farther north, another world.

Formally, of course, Roman rule of law had extended throughout the land. Gifts of land to colonists created nuclei of romanization, and more prominent figures came to possess extensive estates over which they presided from dignified country villas. But at no point did the landscape of northern Gaul—a landscape we now associate with the heart of what is French, from Normandy to the Ile de France to Champagne and Burgundy—ever become the home of the kind of aristocracy, first arriviste and then eventually quite settled and self-satisfied, that marked the lands of the south kukeri carnival.

More than that, northern Gaul, like the other western provinces, lacked the healthiest form of premodern culture, the village of peasant farmers. The villa and its plantation dominated in Africa, Italy, Spain, and Provence; they never had the kind of well-rooted local communities of people who farm the land because they care about it. That absence is what made these provinces most unlike the eastern realms of Syria and Egypt. It doesn’t matter so much whether peasants owned the land or rented it, as long as they had control over their lives and produce and had opportunities to benefit from what they did. The great Roman estates in southern Gaul offered few such opportunities, and created a population dependent on its “betters” for social leadership and economic development. Farther north, until you came to the Rhine valley and Rome’s military presence, there was even less structure.

When Theoderic crossed the Alps into Gaul, therefore, the advantage he had over Julius Caesar’s armies almost 600 years earlier was that there was already a natural community of interest and even family relationship between southern Gaul and northern Italy, and a long history of collegial association. By contrast, northern Gaul was terra incognita—dark much of the year on winter days shorter than the Mediterranean ever knew, dank, and too close to the military frontier for many travelers to venture that way. Militarily, the Roman momentum ran out at the Rhine, true enough, but the force of Roman civilization had truly dissipated hundreds of miles before reaching it. If Rome had really been ready to preserve and even extend its northern frontiers, it would have built cities in places like Trier and Strasbourg that were not merely camps and markets but centers of influence and radiation well beyond, supporting the growth and enrichment of people inside and outside the boundaries of the empire.

12 Theological handbooks

What that amphibiousness entailed needs a moment’s further reflection.12 Theological handbooks can tell us the distinction between Arian and Nicene doctrines of Christ, but not many of the military men on the frontier could have explained how their creed differed from Rome’s. The distinction was important, because religion had become integrated with the community in a manner casting long shadows into the future. Modern people may identify with a religious tradition even when, often, they do not practice it; by contrast, traditionalist ancient men and women all practiced religion, but they did not personally identify with it. As late antique religions gradually became part of people’s identities, those identities themselves began to be portable.

So if you let your religion mark you completely, then you were no longer defined by your birthplace, your family, or any other social status. You could pack up, move, and still be who you were before you moved. Social mobility was possible in the ancient world; but if you moved from Antioch on the Orontes to Rome on the Tiber, you didn’t just learn a new language: you probably also changed your religious practices. Judaism first, then Christianity, and then, especially, Islam capitalized on this emerging form of religion-based identity to enable believers to live more independent and mobile lives, and not incidentally this had the effect of making the religions themselves more powerful, cohesive, and influential. The Arians of the frontier would vanish into the Catholic community of the Latin church eventually, but not for decades or centuries after they began living among the Catholics. In the meantime, their presence would anticipate and rehearse our modern confrontations between cult, creed, and identity.

Think of Theoderic as Othello. Shakespeare’s Moor appears in his first scenes very much like the Theoderic we have met. Othello is the best of generals, but a gentleman withal, keenly intelligent, articulate, soft-spoken, patient, and magnanimous: the best of the Venetians, yet for all that, men call him “Moor” to claim superiority over him. Imagine Othello, only moderately darker of skin than the Venetians, rather better dressed, rather better spoken, and considerably more intelligent than those who surround him. The tragedy of that Othello lay in others’ ascribing to him the Moor’s stereotyped traits, traits entirely alien to him. In the course of the play, the people around him tell the story of Othello the Moor so convincingly that eventually the man becomes what people fear him to be. Desdemona’s killer is the man whom such fear and ignorance have created, and his tragedy is the betrayal of his true self. A fate not unlike Othello’s awaited Theoderic at the end of his life.

A BAD HALF CENTURY

Ordinary bad times in the Roman empire had brought hunger and disease to this city or that province, but worse lay in store when the heavy hand of distant government grew unsteady or unpredictable, and the years from the 420s to the 470s accustomed dwellers in the Latin west to an enduring, dispiriting sense of crisis. People who live through such times are seldom rational or farsighted in their interpretation of events around them balkan tours.

The Latin provinces of the empire, from the western Balkans through the upper Danube and the Rhine valleys to Britain, then down through Gaul, the Iberian peninsula, around to Africa, and back to Italy and the islands between, exemplified old Roman characteristics, yet did so on the periphery of the Mediterranean. How was that west different from the Greek, Syriac, and Egyptian lands to the east? First and most simply, Rome had gone from obscurity to empire by picking the right enemies and learning from them. Its best models were the seagoing, prosperous Carthaginians, who challenged Rome and lost, leaving the Romans suddenly masters of far more than they had ever dreamed possible .

But Rome and much of what it had conquered were unready for empire. Though Greek and Carthaginian outposts boasted some history and culture, the romanization of the west came about through the establishment of colonies of retired soldiers and the extension of institutions of Roman government and taxation to the new countries. A little emperor worship and a lot of taxpaying were enough to satisfy the government, and Latin was the language of prestige among elites—unless you had the pride of knowing Greek. The cities the Romans built all had a bit of modern-day planned cities like Brasilia or Canberra about them, and not much of the commercial vigor and sprawl of Mumbai or Chicago. They were official constructions, with economies that depended heavily on a government far away. Carthage, destroyed in 146 BCE, then reborn from the ruins, might claim to be the second city of the west, but there was never a serious candidate for third. The natural condition of the countryside, moreover, was villa rather than village: the home of large landowners and their tenants rather than the autonomous community generating its own prosperity. (Rome itself was the unruliest Roman city of all, the one that hadn’t been planned and embraced a nearly constant flow of immigrants.)

Theodore Lascaris

The Crusaders were obliged to withdraw to the capital, and nearly the whole of the country was abandoned to the enemy. Still less success awaited them in Asia Minor, where the Greeks were able to hold their own after the first surprise caused by the capture of the capital, and where the invaders found themselves glad, in 1206, to make a trance with Theodore Lascaris. The story of the following years is one of struggle with the people whom they had conquered, of reckless disregard of their rights, of raids over the country in search of plunder, of attacks from the Bulgarians and Comans, and of almost incessant warfare until, sixty years after the conquest, the Greeks again obtained possession of the capital, and the Latin Empire of the East came to an ignominious end.

Venice obtained the richest rewards and the fullest pay- The gains of ment for her share in the conquest of Constantino- vice. ple. Her acquisition of territory and of commerce made her for a time the undisputed mistress of the Mediterranean. Dandolo had stipulated that she should receive three out of the eight portions into which it had been agreed that Romania should be divided. He appears to have been allowed to take his choice of the portions of territory which were to be allotted as the share of the republic. He naturally chose lands adjacent to those already possessed by Venice on the Adriatic, and such ports, islands, or sea-boards as she could readily defend with her fleet. Dandolo retained the rank which had already been given him of Despot, and was allowed to wear the imperial buskins. In addition, he took the curious title of Lord of one quarter and a half of the Homan Empire.

The death of Dandolo

On the death of Dandolo his successor obtained a concession from the emperor authorizing any Venetian citizen or ally to take possession of any of the islands in the zEgean or places on its coasts which were not already occupied by the republic, and to hold it for him and his heirs. The granting1 of this concession was followed by a series of buccaneering expeditions, which speedily captured and occupied a number of important positions. Gallipoli, on the Dardanelles, was seized by Marc Dandolo and another prominent citizen, and with the Thracian Chersonese was erected into a duchy. Another band, under Sanuto, occupied Naxos, Paros, and other isles, which were held by him and his descendants for four centuries. Chios was occupied by the great chiefs, Justiniani and Michaeli.

Dalmatius went to the chest behind the altar

Dalmatius went to the chest behind the altar where the relic had been kept, stole the remainder, went out, mounted his horse and rode away. The head was placed with pious joy in the chapel of his house. He returned, disguised, some days after to the church, in order, as he pretended, to do reverence to the relic, in order really to ascertain that he had taken the right head, for there had been two in the chest. He was informed that the head of St. Clement had been stolen.

Church of Cluny

Then, being satisfied as to its authenticity, he took a vow that he would give the relic to the Church of Cluny in case he should arrive safely. He erabarked. The devil, from jealousy, sent a hurricane, but the tears and prayers before the relic defeated him, and the knight arrived safely home. The monks of Cluny received the precious treasure with every demonstration of reverent joy, and in the fullest confidence that they had secured the perpetual intercession of St. Clement on behalf of themselves and those who did honor to his head. The relics most sought after were those which related to the events mentioned in the New Testament, especially to the infancy, life, and passion of Christ, and to the saints popular in the West.

But the mass possessed by the imperial city ranged from the stone on which Jacob had slept, and from the rod of Moses which changed into a serpent, down to that of the latest opponents of heresy in Constantinople. Those connected with the life of Christ and his Mother existed in great number, and comprised objects supposed to be connected with almost every event of his life. There was the cross on which the Saviour had been crucified, the great drops of blood which he had shed in Gethsemane, one of his first teeth, and some of the hair of his childhood. The devout had venerated the purple robe, and could reverence also a portion of the bread which he had blessed at the Last Supper. But besides these there was hardly a disciple, a saint, or a martyr of whom some relic did not exist.