the Good, A.D. 1166, May 7 A.D. 1189 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, William II. innocence, and beauty of William the Second, 128 endeared him to the nation: the factions were reconciled; the laws were revived; and from the manhood to the premature Νον. 16. 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 the prophetic eye of a statesman. "Constantia, the daughter of Sicily, nursed "from her cradle in the pleasures and plenty, and educated "in the arts and manners, of this fortunate isle, departed long since to enrich the barbarians with our treasures, and now returns, with her savage allies, to contaminate the beauties of her "venerable parent. Already I behold the swarms of angry barba"rians: our opulent cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are "shaken with fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity "of our citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons. '29 In this extremity (he interrogates a friend) how must the Sicilians act? lowed 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. Lamentation of the historian Falcandus. 66 66 66 128 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 justitia 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). 129 Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarum tuarum affluentiâ diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinis et moribus informata, tandem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura discessit: et nunc cum ingentibus copiis revertitur, ut pulcherrimæ nutricis ornamenta barbaricâ fœditate contaminet..... Intueri mihi jam videor turbulentas barbarorum acies..... civitates opulentas et loca diuturnâ pace florentia metà concutere, cæde vastare, rapinis atterere, et fœdare luxuriâ: [occurrunt] hinc cives ant gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi, virgines constupratæ, matronæ, &c. [p. 253 and 254.] "By the unanimous election of a king of valour and experience, "Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved; 130 for in the levity of "the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose neither "confidence nor hope.131 Should Calabria be lost, the lofty towers, "the numerous youth, and the naval strength of Messina,132 might "guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage "Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if they destroy "with fire the fruitful region, so often wasted by the fires of Mount "Ætna,133 what resource will be left for the interior parts of the "island, these noble cities which should never be violated by the "hostile footsteps of a barbarian ? 134 Catana has again been over"whelmed by an earthquake: the ancient virtue of Syracuse expires "in poverty and solitude; 135 but Palermo is still crowned with a "diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of "Christians and Saracens. If the two nations, under one king, can "unite for their common safety, they may rush on the barbarians "with invincible arms. But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition "of injuries, should now retire and rebel; if they should occupy the "castles of the mountains and sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, "exposed to a double attack, and placed as it were between the "hammer and the anvil, must resign themselves to hopeless and "inevitable servitude." 136 We must not forget that a priest here prefers his country to his religion: and that the Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were still numerous and powerful in the state of Sicily. 130 Certe si regem [sibi] non dubiæ virtutis elegerint, nec a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus licet quasi desperatis et perditis subvenire, et incursus hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare. [p. 253 and 254.] 131 In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum rerum studiis aguntur, nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciæ reponendum. [ib.] .... 132 Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas, . . . . murorum etiam ambitum densis turribus circumseptum. [ib.] 133 Cum crudelitate piraticâ Theutonum confligat atrocitas, et inter ambustos lapides, et Ethnæ flagrantis incendia, &c. [ib.] 14 Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor illustrat, quæ et toti regno singulari meruit privilegio præminere, nefarium esset... vel barbarorum ingressû pollui. I wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description of the palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo. [ib.] 135 Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt. [ib.] 136 At vero, quia difficile est Christianos in tanto rerum turbine, sublato regis timore Saracenos non opprimere, si Saraceni injuriis fatigati ab eis cœperint dissidere, et castella forte maritima vel montanas munitiones occupaverint; ut hinc cum Theutonicis summa [sit] virtute pugnandum, illinc Saracenis crebris insultibus occurrendum, quid putas acturi sunt Siculi inter has depressi angustias, et velut inter malleum et incudem multo cum discrimine constituti? hoc utique agent quod poterunt, ut se Barbaris miserabili conditione dedentes, in eorum se conferant potestatem. O utinam plebis et procerum Christianorum et Saracenorum vota conveniant; ut regem sibi concorditer eligentes, [irruentes] barbaros totis viribus, toto conamine, totisque desideriis proturbare contendant [p. 254]. The Normans and Sicilians appear to be Confounded. of Sicily by Henry VI., A.D. 1194. The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus were at first Conquest of gratified by the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the kingdom the grandson of the first king, whose birth was illegitithe emperor mate, but whose civil and military virtues shone without a blemish. During four years, the term of his life and reign, he stood in arms on the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier against the powers of Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of Constantia herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the most liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease the kingdom of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle, and Henry pursued his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The political balance of Italy was destroyed by his success; and if the pope and the free cities had consulted their obvious and real interest, they would have combined the powers of earth and heaven to prevent the dangerous union of the German empire with the kingdom of Sicily. But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican has so often been praised or arraigned, was on this occasion blind and inactive; and if it were true that Celestine the Third had kicked away the Imperial crown from the head of the prostrate Henry,137 such an act of impotent pride could serve only to cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened to the promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure: 138 their fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the harbour of Palermo ; and the first act of his government was to abolish the privileges and to seize the property of these imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was defeated by the discord of the Christians and Mahometans: they fought in the capital; several thousands of the latter were slain, but their surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of Frederic the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor and his son Mainfroy were strengthened and disgraced by the service of the enemies of Christ; and this national colony maintained their religion and manners in the heart of Italy till they were extirpated, at the end of the thirteenth century, by the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou.139 All the calamities which the 137 The testimony of an Englishman, of Roger de Hoveden (p. 689), will lightly weigh against the silence of German and Italian history (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. I. p. 156). The priests and pilgrims, who returned from Rome, exalted, by every tale, the omnipotence of the holy father. 138 Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo (Caffari, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 367, 368). 139 For the Saracens of Sicily and Nocera, ses the Annals of Muratori (tom. x. p. 148 prophetic orator had deplored were surpassed by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated the royal sepulchres," and explored the secret treasures of the palace, Palermo, and the whole kingdom; the pearls and jewels, however precious, might be easily removed, but one hundred and sixty horses were laden with the gold and silver of Sicily.140 The young king, his mother and sisters, and the nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses of the Alps, and, on the slightest rumour of rebellion, the captives were deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of posterity. Constantia herself was touched with sympathy for the miseries of her country, and the heiress of the Norman line might struggle to check her despotic husband, and to save the patrimony of her new-born son, of an emperor so famous in the next age under the name of Frederic the Second. Ten years after this revolu- Final extion, the French monarchs annexed to their crown the tinction of duchy of Normandy: the sceptre of her ancient dukes had A.D. 1204. been transmitted, by a grand-daughter of William the Conqueror, to the house of Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised so many trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia, Sicily, and the East, were lost, cither in victory or servitude, among the vanquished nations. the Normans. and A.D. 1223, 1247), Giannone (tom. ii. p. 385), and of the originals, in Muratori's Collection, Richard de St. Germano (tom. vii. p. 996), Matteo Spinelli de Giovenazzo (tom. vii. p. 1064), Nicholas de Jamsilla (tom. x. p. 494), and Matteo Villani (tom. xiv. 1. vii. p. 103). The last of these insinuates, that, in reducing the Saracens of Nocera, Charles II. of Anjou employed rather artifice than violence. 140 Muratori quotes a passage from Arnold of Lubec (1. iv. c. 20): Reperit theBauros absconditos, et omnem lapidum pretiosorum et gemmarum gloriam, ita ut oneratis 160 somariis, gloriose ad terram suam redierit. Roger de Hoveden, who mentions the violation of the royal tombs and corpses, computes the spoil of Salerno at 200,000 ounces of gold (p. 746). On these occasions I am almost tempted to exclaim with the listening maid in La Fontaine, "Je voudrois bien avoir ce qui manque." "It is remarkable that at the same time the tombs of the Roman emperors, even of Constantine himself, were violated and ransacked by their degenerate successor Alexius Comnenus, in order to enable him to pay the "German" tribute exacted by the menaces of the emperor Henry. See the end of the first book of the Life of Alexius in Nicetas, p. 632, edit. Bonn. -M. VOL. VII. CHAPTER LVII. THE TURKS OF THE HOUSE OF SELJUK. THEIR REVOLT AGAINST MAHMUD, CONQUEROR OF HINDOSTAN. TOGRUL SUBDUES PERSIA, AND PROTECTS THE CALIPHS. DEFEAT AND CAPTIVITY OF THE EMPEROR ROMANUS DIOGENES BY ALP ARSLAN. POWER AND MAGNIFICENCE OF MALEK SHAH. CONQUEST OF ASIA MINOR AND SYRIA. - STATE AND OPPRESSION OF JERUSALEM -PILGRIMAGES TO THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. THE TURKS b FROM the isle of Sicily the reader must transport himself beyond the Caspian Sea to the original seat of the Turks or Turkmans, against whom the first crusade was principally directed.* Their Scythian empire of the sixth century was long since dissolved, but the name was still famous among the Greeks and Orientals, and the fragments of the nation, each a powerful and independent people, were scattered over the desert from China to the Oxus and the Danube: the colony of Hungarians was admitted into the republic of Europe, and the thrones of Asia were occupied by slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. While Apulia and Sicily were subdued by the Norman lance, a swarm of these northern shepherds overspread the kingdoms of Persia; their princes of the race of Seljuk erected a splendid and solid empire from Samarcand to the confines of Greece and Egypt, and the Turks have maintained their dominion in Asia Minor till the victorious crescent has been planted on the dome of St. Sophia. One of the greatest of the Turkish princes was Mamood or Mahmud,' the Gaznevide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of 1 I am indebted for his character and history to D'Herbelot (Bibliothèque Orientale, Mahmud, p. 533-537), M. de Guignes (Histoire des Huns, tom. iii. p. 155-173), and our countryman Colonel Alexander Dow (vol. i. p. 23-83).° In the two first volumes of his History of Hindostan he styles himself the translator of the Persian Ferishta; but in his florid text it is not easy to distinguish the version and the original.d • On the ethnology of the Turks see Editor's notes, vol. iii. p. 303, vol. v. p. 172.-S. This implies that the Hungarians were Turks; but it has been shown in a previous note that they belonged to the Finnish or Tschudish race. See vol. vii, p. 71, 72.-S. • Besides these sources Weil mentions Otbi and Mirchond's History of the Gaz nevides. Geschichte der Chalifen, vol. iii. p. 60.-S. d The European reader now possesses a more accurate version of Ferishta, that of Col. Briggs. Of Col. Dow's work, Col. Briggs observes, "that the author's name "will be handed down to posterity as one "of the earliest and most indefatigable of our Oriental scholars. Instead of confining himself, however, to mere trans " |