THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE AND THE CRUSADES

CHARLES DIEHL, Paris.

When Pope Urban II., in the month of November, 1095, began to preach the crusade at Clermont, Alexius I., Comnenus, was reigning over the Greek Empire of the East. Borne to the throne in 1081 by a feudal and military revolution, this great lord had revealed himself to the world as a remarkable leader of the state. An excellent general, a good administrator, a clever and adroit diplomatist, he had by dint of energy and skill dispelled the perils which threatened the Empire; he had turned back the invasion of the Petchenegs and the Poloutzes, and the still more dangerous invasion of the Normans of Italy; he had reorganized the army and the fleet; he had triumphed over the discontent and conspiracies which threatened his growing power; and he had done much to make the imperial authority more absolute and to reëstablish in the monarchy the unity so essential to its existence. After fourteen years of efforts, in which time he had pacified his European possessions and extended the Byzantine frontiers to the Balkans, Alexius began to think of taking up in Asia the struggle against the Turks; and although of late years the unbelievers had made great progress, the death of the Sultan Malek-Shah (1092), and the anarchy which followed, seemed likely to favor the success of the Byzantine arms. It was at this moment that the crusade, in that it caused the Greek

(1) Translated by Mr. C. H. C. Wright of Harvard University.

Copyright, 1902, by Frederick A. Richardson.

Emperor new and anxious cares and obliged him to devote to other purposes the time, money, and men which he would have used in combating the Turks, seriously disturbed the situation of the Byzantine monarchy and perhaps hastened its decline and ruin.

It was said afterwards, and for a long time believed, that Alexius himself called the West to his aid, and there was current in Europe a pretended imperial letter addressed to the Count of Flanders, in which the Basileus, in order to persuade the Franks to give him assistance, boasted of the wealth of Constantinople, the relics preserved there, and especially of the beauty of Greek women. No one today doubts the spuriousness of this document.' To be sure, for several years Alexius had preserved fairly cordial relations with the papacy; he displayed before the eyes of Urban II. vague prospects for the union of the two Churches; he endeavored to take advantage of the papal good will in order to recruit in Italy the mercenaries needed by him. Like his predecessors, indeed, he was ready to seek among the adventurers of the West a vigorous support and reinforcement for the Byzantine arms; and in 1087 he had even requested Count Robert of Flanders, then staying in Constantinople, to send him a reinforcement of five hundred horsemen against the Petchenegs. But he was too wise to turn loose of his own accord on the Empire those numberless hosts of crusaders who reminded the Byzantines of the ancient migrations of the peoples; and his first care, when he learned of their approach, was to collect troops, in order, if necessary, to give them battle.

At the time when the disorderly mobs of the popular crusade, soon followed by the scarcely more disciplined army of knights, poured into the Greek Empire their invading tide, Constantinople was still one of the most admirable cities of the world. In its markets were collected or exchanged merchandise from all parts of the earth. From the homes of its artisans issued everything that was known to the Middle Ages in the way of

(1) See, however, Hagenmeyer, Der Brief des Kaisers Alexios I. an den Grafen Robert I. von Flandern, Byz. Zeitschr, 1897.

refined and elaborate luxury,-silks and purples, brocades, gold and silver wares, jewels, wrought ivory caskets, bronzes inlaid with silver, manuscripts with splendid miniatures, and reliquaries with enamel set in gold. Through the streets passed a multicolored and noisy crowd, in gay array, so richly dressed that according to a contemporary writer they all "seemed like the offspring of kings." In the public squares surrounded by palaces and porticos were displayed the masterpieces of ancient art. In the churches, with their giant cupolas, the mosaics emitted flashes of gold through the profusion of porphyry and of marble. In the imperial palaces, Blachern or Boucoleon, so vast that they seemed like cities within the city, the long, vaulted rooms displayed an unexampled luxury. The travelers who visited Constantinople in the course of this twelfth century, the pilgrims of the crusade who took the trouble to record in their naïve language the feelings they experienced,-Benjamin of Tudela, or Edrisi, or Villehardouin, or Robert of Clari,-cannot refrain from exclamations of admiration, and from wondering descriptions. The Western troubadours who heard the echoes of these splendors, spoke of Constantinople as of a fairyland, and were never weary of celebrating the enchantments of the imperial palace, the children in bronze winding their horns, the revolving room, turned by the breezes of the sea, the resplendent carbuncle which lighted up the apartments during the night. Other writers enumerate the precious relics which filled the churches. But one expression is constantly repeated by every one, the marvelous and wonderful wealth of the city, which, says Villehardouin, "was supreme over all others." Nor is this all. When the great cities of modern Europe were, for the most part, but sorry and insignificant villages, Constantinople was the sovereign of good taste, the true centre of the civilized world. While the coarse knights of the West cared only for hunting or fighting, Byzantine life was infinitely luxurious and refined, manners were curiously elaborate, the love of exquisite pleasures and a taste for art and letters universally predominant. And even more than by material prosperity, the rude Latin barons

were dazzled by the wonders of the pompous ceremonial that surrounded the person of the Basileus, by the complicated etiquette which placed an abyss between the proud ruler of Byzantium and the remainder of the human race, by the theatrical apotheosis in which the Emperor appeared to them as the representative of God, indeed as an emanation from him. And if one reflects that to this piling up of wealth, so likely to arouse envy, to this display of insolent arrogance, so well-calculated to ruffle sensitive self-esteem, was to be added the old misunderstanding increased by the recent memories of the schism still existing between the West and the East; if we consider, on the other hand, that in this elaborate society, in this court with its minutely determined hierarchies, the Franks appeared like ill-bred boors, like inconvenient and annoying elements of disturbance, it may be readily understood that from the first day of the meeting between Greek and Latin, the fundamental antagonism of the two civilizations immediately appeared in mutual suspicion, continual difficulties, incessant conflicts, reciprocal charges of brutality and treachery. The echoes of this conflict have reached through the ages, from the times of the crusades to our own day, and have contributed in no small degree to perpetuating in the West so many deeply-rooted and unjust prejudices against the Byzantine Empire.

I.

Alexius was, with good reason, troubled by the approach of the crusaders. He could not fully understand the great outburst of religious enthusiasm which carried Europe across the Greek Empire to the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre; he was suspicious of the violent ways of the Westerners, their inconstancy, their readiness to break compacts. He had hitherto known the Latins especially by the ambitious schemes of Robert Guiscard, and he was rightly annoyed at finding among the leaders of the crusade Robert's own son,-Bohemond. He incessantly feared some sudden onslaught upon Constantinople. And thus, while, as befitted a Christian prince, he gave a welcome to the Franks and furnished them freely with the necessary supplies, the Emperor

took care to watch and regulate their advance, to let these armies, in their interminable passage, halt only one by one under the walls of his capital. The crusaders, on their part, did nothing to diminish the anxieties of the Byzantine ruler. Dazzled by the wealth of the Empire, full of contempt for the schismatic Greeks, they went through the Byzantine land like professional bandits, burning, pillaging, ravaging everything on their way. The companions of Peter the Hermit, according to their own leader, behaved like "robbers and brigands." When the army of the princes appeared in turn before Constantinople, its behavior was scarcely more reassuring. Many great barons, oblivious of the religious object of their undertaking, were tempted to neglect Jerusalem in order to throw themselves upon their prey, and thought chiefly of their own private interests. It is easy to appreciate why, in the presence of these multitudes "more numerous than the stars of Heaven or the sands of the sea," in the presence of the ambitious lords "who dreamed of the Empire of Byzantium," Alexius Comnenus was, as his daughter wrote in the Alexiad, "immersed in a sea of troubles."

With undeniable skill he tried to make the best of the situation. The Empire had never renounced its claims to the lost provinces of Syria and of Asia; Alexius planned to make use of the crusaders in regaining these territories. Persuaded that by the use of money he would obtain from the Latins whatever he desired, he lavished bounties upon the soldiers and magnificent gifts upon the leaders, expecting, in return for these great expenditures, to induce them to acknowledge him as their lord. Very proud, moreover, of his imperial dignity, he had no intention of treating them as equals. They appeared to him mercenaries whom he was taking into his pay, and the better to bind them to him he tried to enter into their feudal ways, and to obtain from them an oath of fidelity and of homage, by which they should pledge themselves to hand over their conquests to him or to hold them as his vassals. The leaders of the crusade understood very well that without the help of the Greeks they would not be able to carry out their undertaking. Accordingly, after