Demorali

sation of the Em

pire.

by the jealousies of the sons of Kiliji-Arslan. On the death of one of these, two out of the others who had divided their father's empire among them contended for the succession of their dead brother. The victor then attacked Kaikhosro, Sultan of Iconium, who was the son of a Christian mother, and was hated on that account.' Kaikhosro thereupon made a truce with the Empire. He subsequently asked the aid of Leo, king of Armenia, but was nevertheless defeated and came to Constantinople, where he was allowed to live as a private citizen. The further quarrels among the sons of Kiliji-Arslan contributed to make the end of the century a favourable opportunity in the eyes of the Pope, and of other Western statesmen, for striking an effective blow at Moslemism.

The troubles of the Empire were now crowding upon it, and Alexis was not the man to meet them with success. He had begun his reign amid a considerable amount of popularity. He had promised to maintain that which was good in the policy of his predecessor, to remove the restrictions in the way of trade, and especially to appoint the most capable men to govern instead of selling public offices. But he was surrounded by creatures who had placed him upon the throne, and who intended to be rewarded for their trouble. These men acquired immense wealth by selling their influence and the favour of the sovereign. We have already seen how they induced him to grant monopolies. They publicly sold the highest dignities and the governorships of the provinces. Not only nobles but money-lenders and changers, Scythians and Syrians, were able to buy the title of Cæsar. The Empress herself was at the head of the avaricious gang which

That the Turkish sultans were often the sons of Christian slaves has had a very important effect upon Turkish history. This is a point which the late Mr. Scudamore carefully examined. The undoubtedly able sultans who carried the Turkish arms successfully, first to Constantinople and then to the gates of Vienna, were almost in every case the sons of Christian mothers, and were therefore after a few generations of almost purely European descent. The decline in ability amongst the Ottoman sultans dates from the destruction in the last century of the corsairs who ravaged the coasts of Italy, France, Spain, and, in the previous century, even the south coast of England, for the capture of slaves.

traded on the weakness of the Emperor. Her brother-inlaw, Michael Stryphnos, the admiral of the imperial fleet, used his office solely to enrich himself, and sold the stores from the arsenal, confident that his influence with the Empress would save him from punishment. The Emperor made a feeble protest against her conduct, and was supported by some of the nobles, who openly charged her with unfaithfulness. Notwithstanding that she claimed a public trial she was shut up in a monastery, and remained thus banished from the court for six months, after which she returned again to the palace to become a centre of evil influence. An incident is mentioned by Nicetas which is strikingly like what has happened in Constantinople in our time, and what is happening continually throughout the Turkish empire at the present day. From the manner, however, in which Nicetas makes mention of the fact, it was evidently of rare and exceptional occurrence even among the worst days of the Byzantine empire. A jailer who had probably bought his appointment allowed his prisoners to leave the jail at night, and shared with them the proceeds of their plunder. He was accused of the offence, and, although the Emperor promised to punish him, was set at liberty. Popular feeling, however, was much more healthy at Constantinople then than now. A workman having been beaten by this jailer, the companions of his guild came together, attempted to seize the offender, and to lynch him for his misdeeds. When they found that he had fled, they hastened to the Great Church to proclaim a new emperor. The guards, however, opposed their entrance. A tumult was raised, and the news was conveyed to Alexis, who was at Chrysopolis. He sent orders to attack the people, but the mob fought with stones, scattered the troops, broke open the prisons, set free the prisoners, and destroyed a Saracen mosque. The son-in-law of the Emperor appeared with a fresh detachment of troops, but even then the mob, consisting of unarmed and unarmoured men, fought valiantly against well-clad troops. Some of them threw down the tiles from the houses, others attacked with stones. The fight was kept up till night, during which the mob dispersed. The

populace on other occasions made demonstrations against the attempts of the court to extort money by unlawful means from private citizens, and numerous instances are recorded which show that the people of the capital would not tolerate anything like general or unusual oppression.

Nicetas himself charges the Emperor with having been in league with a pirate. He states that Alexis sent a certain Francopolous with six galleys to the Black Sea, on pretext of collecting the salvage of a ship which had been wrecked near Kerasund, but in reality to plunder the merchants who lived at Aminsos, a town on the coast near Kerasund. Francopolous plundered all the ships he could find, whether going to or from Constantinople. Some of the merchants escaped, came to Constantinople, and entered the Great Church with candles in their hands as suppliants demanding justice. The Emperor threw all the blame upon the pirate. His subjects obtained no redress. Those of the Sultan of Aminsos who had been similarly plundered were more fortunate, and the Emperor was compelled to give as an indemnity fifty of the silver lead mines with which the north shore of the coast of Asia Minor abounds. In this instance, as in so many others, the necessity of money to meet his personal expenditure and that of the creatures around him was the motive which led to his infamous conduct. The excessive amount of taxation which he had levied upon his own subjects had made him unpopular, while the restrictions upon trade made with the same object, and in violation of the capitulations, had contributed to alienate the Venetians and Pisans, as well as his own merchants. To maintain himself upon the throne he was compelled to bribe the nobles and the populace; to raise money for maintaining the defence against Turks, Wallachs, and Italians, his exactions had become intolerable. The trading classes were crushed down under taxation. The capital, instead of being the city which gathered through the government an immense income, which was in great part distributed among the citizens, had become the city where the inhabitants felt most heavily the exactions of their ruler. These exactions made the people anxious for any change, hopeful that any

new Emperor would be less exacting than the actual occupant of the throne. The inhabitants of the provinces were not less dissatisfied. They had lost the sense of protection and security with which during long centuries the New Rome had surrounded them. They, moreover, had lost their respect for the imperial city, which had seen within a generation so many changes and attempted changes of rulers. The revenues of

the Empire had been squandered by the last three occupants of the throne, partly in useless gratification of their own love of luxury, partly in maintaining themselves upon the throne. The whole population had lost patriotism under the belief that the existing order of things was not worth defending. The machinery of government had been strained to the utmost during the period when Constantinople had been occupied with dynastic struggles. Roads were neglected ; bridges, harbours, aqueducts, and fortifications were allowed to fall into ruins. Governors were too frequently changed. The organisation of the army was allowed to get out of order. The navy had been sacrificed. People even lost confidence in the administration of justice. The dynastic struggles had produced anarchy and national demoralisation. Contemporaneously with these struggles there was no side of the Empire which was not repeatedly attacked, and these attacks were often, as in the case of Tancred's expedition, and as in the case of the Turkish attack following the accession of Andronicos, due directly to the dynastic troubles; while in other cases, where it is inexact to say that they were the direct cause, the attacks were invited by the disturbed state of the Empire. The opposition of pretenders to the throne, the struggles and differences in the imperial family within the city, and the attacks from without upon the Empire contributed tremendously to the weakening of the Empire.

I

Difficulties in way of co-operation be

tween Cru

saders and Empire.

CHAPTER V.

WEAKENING OF THE EMPIRE BY THE CRUSADES.

THE Crusades, and especially the third, contributed not a little to the weakening of the Empire. When the continual inroads of the Saracens, and, at a later date, of the Turks, had begun to tell upon the strength of the Empire, Western Europe grew alarmed at Mahometan progress. Although the Pope had summoned Christian princes to take up the cross, yet the movement of which he made himself the head, and which resulted in the first crusade, was in great part spontaneous. The first crusade, which was also the most successful, was the one with the least careful organisation, and is in this sense correctly described by Michaud, the historian of the Crusades, as a republican movement. Its members were inspired by a religious fervour which formed an excellent basis for discipline.

At an early period the Emperors of the East were glad to take advantage of the religious movement in the West, in order to inflict a defeat upon the common enemy of Christendom. I have already traced the history of the first and second crusades in so far as they affected the Empire, and have shown that the soldiers of the West found the Seljukian Turks of Asia Minor the most formidable enemies they had to encounter. In 1137 the Emperor, John Comnenos, took an active part in the crusade and captured several cities. His intention was to make Antioch his base of operations against the Mahometans. But the old spirit of jealousy between the members of the Eastern and Western Churches soon displayed itself. John considered that as the cities and countries taken from the Saracens had been captured by them from the Empire, they ought to be placed under his rule.