of acquir and the Western empire. 1174, &c. 132 duction of three hundred cities or villages of Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles were inscribed on all the walls of the His design palace. The prejudices of the Latins were gratified by a genuine or fictitious donation under the seal of the German Cæsars; but the successor of Constantine soon renounced this A.D. 1155 ignominious pretence, claimed the indefeasible dominion of Italy, and professed his design of chasing the barbarians beyond the Alps. By the artful speeches, liberal gifts, and unbounded promises of their Eastern ally, the free cities were encouraged to persevere in their generous struggle against the despotism of Frederic Barbarossa; the walls of Milan were rebuilt by the contributions of Manuel; and he poured, says the historian, a river of gold into the bosom of Ancona, whose attachment to the Greeks was fortified by the jealous enmity of the Venetians.13 The situation and trade of Ancona rendered it an important garrison in the heart of Italy; it was twice besieged by the arms of Frederic; the Imperial forces were twice repulsed by the spirit of freedom; that spirit was animated by the ambassador of Constantinople; and the most intrepid patriots, the most faithful servants, were rewarded by the wealth and honours of the Byzantine court. 134 The pride of Manuel disdained and rejected a barbarian colleague; his ambition was excited by the hope of stripping the purple from the German usurpers, and of establishing, in the West, as in the East, his lawful title of sole emperor of the Romans. With this view, he solicited the alliance of the people and the bishop of Rome. Several of the nobles embraced the cause of the Greek monarch; the splendid nuptials of his niece with Odo Frangipani secured the support of that powerful family,135 and his royal standard or 132 The Latin, Otho (de Gestis Frederici I. 1. ii. c. 30, p. 734), attests the forgery; the Greek, Cinnamus (1. i. c. 4, p. 78), claims a promise of restitution from Conrad and Frederic. An act of fraud is always credible when it is told of the Greeks. 183 Quod Anconitani Græcum imperium nimis diligerent . . . Veneti speciali odio Anconam oderunt. The cause of love, perhaps of envy, were the beneficia, flumen aureum of the emperor; and the Latin narrative is confirmed by Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 14, p. 98). 134 Muratori mentions the two sieges of Ancona: the first, in 1167, against Frederic I. in person (Annali, tom. x. p. 39, &c.), the second, in 1173, against his lieutenant Christian, archbishop of Mentz, a man unworthy of his name and office (p. 76, &c.). It is of the second siege that we possess an original narrative, which he has published in his great collection (tom. vi. p. 921-946). 135 We derive this anecdote from an anonymous chronicle of Fossa Nova, published by Muratori (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 874). [=Annales Ceccanenses, in Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist. xix. 276 sqq.] image was entertained with due reverence in the ancient metro- his designs But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon escaped Failure of from the hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were eluded by the prudence of Alexander the Third, who paused on this deep and momentous revolution,138 nor could the pope be seduced by a personal dispute to renounce the perpetual inheritance of the Latin name. After his re-union with Frederic, he spoke a more peremptory language, confirmed the acts of his predecessors, excommunicated the adherents of Manuel, and pronounced the final separation of the churches, or at least the empires, of Constantinople and Rome.189 The free cities of Lombardy no longer remembered their foreign benefactor, and, without preserving the friendship of Ancona, he soon incurred the enmity of Venice.140 By his own avarice, or the complaints of his subjects, the Greek emperor was provoked to arrest the persons, and confiscate the effects, of the Venetian merchants. This violation of the public faith exasperated a free and commercial people: one hundred galleys were launched and armed in as many days; they swept the coasts of Dalmatia and Greece; but, after some mutual wounds, the war was terminated by an agreement, inglorious to the empire, insufficient for the republic; and a complete vengeance of these and of fresh injuries was 16 The Baoiλetor onμetor of Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 14, p. 99) is susceptible of this double sense. A standard is more Latin, an image more Greek. 137 Nihilominus quoque petebat, ut quia occasio justa et tempus opportunum et acceptabile se obtulerant, Romani corona imperii a sancto apostolo sibi redderetur ; quoniam non ad Frederici Alamanni, sed ad suum jus asseruit pertinere (Vit. Alexandri III. a Cardinal. Arragoniæ, in Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. par. i. p. 458). His second embassy was accompanied cum immensâ multitudine pecuniarum. 138 Nimis alta et perplexa sunt (Vit. Alexandri III. p. 460, 461), says the cautious pope. 139 Μηδὲν μέσον εἶναι λέγων Ῥώμῃ τῇ νεωτέρα [νεοτέρᾳ in the quarto ed. vol. v. p. 636] πρὸς τὴν πρεσβυτέραν πάλαι ἀποῤῥαγεισών (Cinnamus, l. iv. o. 14, p. 99). 140 In his vith book, Cinnamus describes the Venetian war, which Nicetas has not thought worthy of his attention. The Italian accounts, which do not satisfy our curiosity, are reported by the annalist Muratori, under the years 1171, &c. VOL. VI.-15 reserved for the succeeding generation. The lieutenant of Manuel had informed his sovereign that he was strong enough to quell any domestic revolt of Apulia and Calabria; but that his forces were inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of Sicily. His prophecy was soon verified; the death of Palæologus devolved the command on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike defective in military talents; the Greeks were oppressed by land and sea; and a captive remnant, that escaped the swords of the Normans and Saracens, abjured all future hostility against the person or dominions of their conqueror.141 Yet the king of Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who had landed a second army on the Italian shore; he respectfully addressed the new Justinian, solicited a peace or truce of thirty years, accepted as a gift the regal title, and acknowledged himself the military vassal of the Roman empire. 142 The Byzantine Cæsars acquiesced in this Peace with shadow of dominion, without expecting, perhaps without demans. A.D. siring, the service of a Norman army; and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of that period, the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman tyrant, who had deserved the abhorrence of his country and mankind: the sword of William the Second, the grandson of Roger, was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race; and the subjects of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they detested their Last war of Sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin historians 143 exand Nor patiate on the rapid progress of the four counts who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many castles and cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily. The Greeks 144 the Nor 1156 the Greeks mans. A.D. 1185 141 This victory is mentioned by Romuald of Salerno (in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 198). It is whimsical enough that in the praise of the king of Sicily Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 13, p. 97, 98) is much warmer and more copious than Falcandus (p. 268, 270). But the Greek is fond of description, and the Latin historian is not fond of William the Bad. 142 For the epistle of William I. see Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 15, p. 101, 102) and Nicetas (1. ii. c. 8). It is difficult to affirm whether these Greeks deceived themselves, or the public, in these flattering portraits of the grandeur of the empire. 143 I can only quote of original evidence, the poor chronicles of Sicard of Cremona (p. 603), and of Fossa Nova (p. 875), as they are published in the viith tome of Muratori's historians. The king of Sicily sent his troops contra nequitiam Andronici. . . ad acquirendum imperium C. P. They were capti aut confusi . . . decepti captique, by Isaac. 144 By the failure of Cinnamus, we are now reduced to Nicetas (in Andronico, 1. i. c. 7 8, 9, 1. ii. c. i. in Isaac. Angelo, 1. i. c. 1-4), who now becomes a respectable accuse and magnify the wanton and sacrilegious cruelties that were perpetrated in the sack of Thessalonica, the second city of the empire. The former deplore the fate of those invincible but unsuspecting warriors, who were destroyed by the arts of a vanquished foe. The latter applaud, in songs of triumph, the repeated victories of their countrymen on the sea of Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Strymon, and under the walls of Durazzo. A revolution, which punished the crimes of Andronicus, had united against the Franks the zeal and courage of the successful insurgents: ten thousand were slain in battle, and Isaac Angelus, the new emperor, might indulge his vanity or vengeance in the treatment of four thousand captives. Such was the event of the last contest between the Greeks and Normans: before the expiration of twenty years, the rival nations were lost or degraded in foreign servitude; and the successors of Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the Sicilian monarchy. the Bad, of king of the A.D. 1154, Sicily. Feb. 26 May 7 The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and William I., grandson: they might be confounded under the name William; they are strongly discriminated by the epithets of bad and the good; but these epithets, which appear to describe A.D. 1166, the perfection of vice and virtue, cannot strictly be applied to either of the Norman princes. When he was roused to arms by danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the valour of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners were dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the monarch is responsible, not only for his personal vices, but for those of Majo, the great admiral, who abused the confidence, and conspired against the life, of his benefactor. From the Arabian conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of Oriental manners; the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem, of a sultan; and a Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of the eunuchs, who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the religion of Mahomet. An eloquent historian of the times 145 has delineated the misfortunes of contemporary. As he survived the emperor and the empire, he is above flattery; but the fall of Constantinople exasperated his prejudices against the Latins. For the honour of learning I shall observe that Homer's great commentator, Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, refused to desert his flock. [For Eustathius and his work on the siege of Thessalonica see Appendix 1.] 145 The Historia Sicula of Hugo Falcandus, which properly extends from 1154 to 1169, is inserted in the viith volume of Muratori's Collection (tom. vii, William Good. A.D. Nov. 16 his country: 146 the ambition and fall of the ungrateful Majo; the revolt and punishment of his assassins; the imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself; the private feuds that arose from the public confusion; and the various forms of calamity and discord which afflicted Palermo, the island, and the continent, during the reign of William the First, and the minority of his son. The youth, innocence, and beauty of William the Second 147 endeared him to the nation: the factions were reconA.D. 1189, ciled; the laws were revived; and, from the manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily enjoyed a short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose value was enhanced by the remembrance of the past and the dread of futurity. The legitimate male posterity of Tancred of Hauteville was extinct in the person of the second William; but his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married the most powerful prince of the age; and Henry the Sixth, the son of Frederic Barbarossa, descended from the Alps, to claim the Imperial crown and the inheritance of his wife. Against the unanimous wish of a free people, this inheritance could only be acquired by arms; and I am pleased to transcribe the style and sense of the historian Falcandus, who writes at the moment and on the spot, with the feelings of a patriot, and Lamenta the prophetic eye of a statesman. "Constantia, the daughter of historian Sicily, nursed from her cradle in the pleasures and plenty, and tion of the Falcandus p. 259-344), and preceded by an eloquent preface or epistle (p. 251-258) de Calamitatibus Siciliæ. [Re-edited by Del Re in Cronisti e scrittori sincroni napoletani, 1845.] Falcandus has been styled the Tacitus of Sicily; and, after a just but immense abatement, from the first to the twelfth century, from a senator to a monk, I would not strip him of his title: his narrative is rapid and perspicuous, his style bold and elegant, his observation keen; he had studied mankind, and feels like a man. I can only regret the narrow and barren field on which his labours have been cast. [Cp. Appendix 1. For the history of Sicily from the accession of William the Bad to 1177, see F. Holzach, Die auswärtige Politik des Königreichs Sicilien 1154-1177 (1892).] 146 The laborious Benedictines (l'Art de verifier les Dates, p. 896) are of opinion that the true name of Falcandus is Fulcandus, or Foucault. According to them, Hugues Foucault, a Frenchman by birth, and at length abbot of St. Denys, had followed into Sicily his patron Stephen de la Perche, uncle to the mother of William II. archbishop of Palermo, and great chancellor of the kingdom. Yet Falcandus has all the feelings of a Sicilian; and the title of Alumnus (which he bestows on himself) appears to indicate that he was born, or at least educated, in the island. [See Appendix 1.] 147 Falcand. p. 303. Richard de St. Germano begins his history from the death and praises of William II. After some unmeaning epithets, he thus continues: Legis et justitiæ cultus tempore suo vigebat in regno; suâ erat quilibet sorte contentus (were they mortals ?); ubique pax, ubique securitas, nec latronum metuebat viator insidias, nec maris nauta offendicula piratarum (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii. p. 969). |