THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY-EXTENT OF EMPIRE IN TWELFTH CENTURY- empire. THE Greek-speaking Roman empire at the end of the twelfth Extent of century was very much smaller than it had once been. It is no part of my purpose to trace the history of its decline, further than to show what were the immediate causes which led to its weakness in 1203, when the Fourth Crusade effected what is generally known as the Latin Conquest of Constantinople. In the year 1200 the territory over which the Roman emperor in the East ruled no longer included any part of Italy or Sicily. Cyprus had been taken possession of by our Richard the Lion-hearted in 1190, and never again came under the sway of the emperors. The Saracens had captured some of the fairest Asiatic provinces which had owned allegiance to Constantinople. The successes of the Crusaders had for a time established a kingdom of Jerusalem, and had won a considerable number of important places from the enemy, but as the century closed nearly all of them had been lost. The principality of Antioch, together with Beyrout and two or three other strongholds of less importance, were still held by the Christians. But the progress made under Saladin had threatened to drive every western knight out of Syria, and the victories of the Third Crusade B Empire Roman. had proved fruitless. Saladin, however, was now dead, and members of his family were quarrelling about the division of his territory. In Asia Minor the Seljukian Turks had firmly established themselves in the interior, with unbroken communication into Central Asia. But in 1200 a quarrel similar to that which was weakening the Saracens was dividing also the Turks. The ten sons of the famous Sultan Kilidji Arslan of Iconium had apportioned his empire among them, and were themselves quarrelling about the division. The Armenians and the Georgians, or Iberians, had again struggled into national life. Under Leo the Second the former had established themselves in Little Armenia around Marash, where they were destined to hold their own for centuries, and to play a part which recalls the struggle for independence of the Montenegrins down to our own time. The shores of Asia Minor on all its three sides, with the exception of a few isolated points, still acknowledged the rule of the New Rome. In the Balkan peninsula, at the close of the twelfth century, the empire, though still supreme, had many troublesome neighbours. The Normans had indeed been expelled from Durazzo and from Salonica. But on the north-west of the peninsula Dalmatia and Croatia had fallen under the rule of Venice, with the exception of two or three cities on the coast held by Hungary. Branitzova and Belgrade had been captured by Bela, king of Hungary, though Emeric, his successor, had not been able to extend his dominions further south. Volk, king of the Servians, held his own on the eastern frontier of Hungary, and was attempting to conquer territory from the Huns rather than from the empire. The Wallachs and the Bulgarians were unsettled, but were attempting, on the north of the Balkans, to shake off the imperial yoke. South of the Danube, as far westward as Belgrade, and thence westward still to the boundary of Dalmatia, the whole of the peninsula, with the exception of a territory pretty closely corresponding to the newly-established Bulgaria, remained loyal to the capital. Until the accession of the first of the Basils in 867, the empire is usually regarded as the eastern branch of the Roman empire. With Basil, however, commences a period when its rulers had turned their attention almost exclusively eastward. Hence the empire is often spoken of as the Byzantine, rather than the Eastern empire. If the term Byzantine be used, it is important to recall that the empire was also Roman. The emperors and people called themselves Romans, and their country, even by Western writers, was usually spoken of as Romania. The latter writers sometimes indeed speak of the European portion of Romania as Greece, but no inhabitant of Constantinople would have used the term in this sense. The capital was called indifferently Constantinople and New Rome, to distinguish it from what its writers speak of by contrast as the Elder Rome. Throughout the East, Rome was the name which attached most completely to the city and Roman to the territory which it ruled. The Turks, the Arabs, and the Persians knew the capital by this name only. The people under the rule of the empire were known to them not as Greeks but as Romans. The descendants of these races still call the Greek-speaking population of the empire I-roum, or Romans. The language of the Greek-speaking population of the empire is still known as Romaic. The traces of the ancient name are widespread. The imperial city founded on the borders of Armenia is Erzeroum. The Turkish province to the north of Constantinople is Roumelia. The Patriarch of the Orthodox Church still commonly describes himself as Bishop of the New Rome. The language of the capital and of the empire had become, Language. in the time of Basil, Greek. Latin lingered on in certain official formulas, and had supplied many technical words to common speech, but, on the whole, the triumph of the language of the great mass of the people had been as great as that of English over the Norman-French introduced into England by William the Conqueror. tinued Under the Basilian dynasty—that is, from 867 to 1057- Long-conthe empire of the New Rome had attained its most perfect prosperity development. Everywhere it gave signs of good government and great prosperity. The impression left most deeply in the mind of the reader of empire. of the native historians of the Byzantine empire, down to the middle of the twelfth century, is one of strength, of success, and of a government with singularly few changes in its uninterrupted prosperity. The organisation of the government of the empire was built upon the solid foundations of Roman administration and of Greek municipal government. From the selection of Byzantium as his capital by Constantine down to 1057, the machine of government had worked steadily and well. There had been few violent changes. There had been general accumulation of wealth. There had been security for life and property, and a good administration of law under a system of jurisprudence brought, indeed, from Rome, but developed in Constantinople—a system the most complete which the human mind has ever formulated, a system which has been directly copied or adapted by the whole of modern Europe, and which is the foundation of every body of jurisprudence now administered throughout the civilised world. While the New Rome had thus given to the world a body of law which was far in advance not only of the civil law, but even of the law of the Prætor Peregrinus of the Elder Rome, the same city had developed and formulated the religion of Christendom. Christianity and law were the bonds which united the various parts of the empire together. But there was, in at least the European portion of the empire, a spirit which made the inhabitants of the cities and provinces self-reliant, and to a great extent independent of the central government. Once that the communities were protected from external enemies, they had hardly any need of other protection. They formed their own police. They wished only to be let alone, to be allowed to engage in commerce or cultivate their own lands without being harassed by government. On the whole, they succeeded in their wish. Under the influences of Orthodox Christianity, Roman law, and the Greek spirit of individualism as represented in municipal government, a steady progress had been made, which had met with but few interruptions. No other government has ever existed in Europe which has secured for so long a period the like advantages to its people. |