Later Roman Empire

Dismemberment of the Empire.

In the fatal year 1204 the perils with which the eastward expansion of western Christendom (the Crusades and the commercial predominance and ambitions of Venice) had long menaced the empire, culminated in its conquest and partition. It was due to a series of accidents that the cloud burst at this moment, but the conditions of such a catastrophe had long been present. Isaac Angelus was dethroned by his brother Alexius III., and his son escaped 0200 to the west, where arrangements were being made for a new crusade, which Venice undertook to transport to the Holy Land. The prince per suaded Philip of Swabia (who had married his sister) and Boni face of Montferrat to divert the expedition to Byzantium, in order to restore his father and himself to the throne, promising to fur nish help to the Crusade and to reconcile the Greek Church with Rome; Venice agreed to the plan; but Pope Innocent III., the enemy of Philip, forbade it. Isaac and his son, Alexius IV., were restored without difficulty in 1203, and the crusading forces were prepared to proceed to Palestine, if Alexius had performed his promises. But the manner of this restoration, under Latin auspices, was intensely unpopular; he was not unwilling, but he was unable, to fulfil his pledges; and a few months later he was overthrown in favour of one who, if an upstart, was a patriot, Alexius V. Then the Crusaders, who were waiting encamped out side the city, resolved to carry out the design which the Normans had repeatedly attempted, and put an end to the Greek empire. The leaders of the Fourth Crusade must be acquitted of having formed this plan deliberately before they started ; it was not conceived before 1204. They first arranged how they .would divide the empire amongst themselves (March) ; then they cap tured the city, which had to endure the worst barbarities of war. In partitioning the empire, which was now to become the spoil of the conquerors, the guiding mind was the Venetian leader, the blind doge, Henry Dandolo. He looked to the interests of Venice from the narrowest point of view, and in founding the new Latin empire, which was to replace the Greek, it was his aim that it should be feeble, so as to present no obstacles to Venetian policy. The Latin empire of Romania was a feudal State like the kingdom of Jerusalem ; the emperor was suzerain of all the princes who established themselves on Greek territory; under his own imme diate rule were Constantinople, southern Thrace, the Bithynian coast, and some islands in the Aegean. But he was hampered from the beginning by dependence on Venice, want of financial resources, and want of a fleet ; the feudal princes, occupied with their separate interests, gave him little support in his conflict with Greeks and Bulgarians; at the end of ten years the worthless fabric began rapidly to decline, and the efforts of the popes, for whom it was the means of realizing Roman supremacy in the East, were unavailing to save it from the extinction to which it was doomed in its cradle.

Three Greek States emerged from the ruin of the Roman em pire. A member of the Comnenian house had founded an inde pendent State at Trebizond, and this empire survived till 1461, when it was conquered by the Ottomans. A relation of the Angeli maintained in Europe an independent Greek State known as the Despotate of Epirus. But the true representative of the imperial line was Theodore Lascaris, who collected the Byzantine aristoc racy at Nicaea and was elected emperor in 1206. He and his suc cessors advanced surely and rapidly against the Latin empire, both in Europe and Asia. It was a question whether Constanti nople would fall to the Walacho-Bulgarians or to the Greeks. But an astute diplomat and general, the emperor Michael Palaeologus, captured it in 1261. His object was to recover all the lost terri tory from the Latins, but he was menaced by a great danger through Charles of Anjou, who had overthrown the rule of the Hohenstaufen in the two Sicilies, and determined to restore the Latin kingdom of Romania. To avert this peril, Michael nego tiated with Pope Gregory X. ; he was ready to make every con cession, and a formal union of the Churches was actually brought about at the Council of Lyons in 1274. The emperor had the ut most difficulty in carrying through this policy in face of clerical opposition ; it aroused disgust and bitterness among his subjects; and it was undone by his successor. Meanwhile the pope had with

difficulty bridled Charles of Anjou; but in Martin IV. he found a more pliable instrument, and in 1282 he made vast preparations for an expedition against the Greek empire. It was saved by the Sicilian Vespers (see SICILY), to be the prey of other Powers.

The Ottoman Turks.

The end of the 13th century saw the rise of the Ottoman power in Asia and the Servian in Europe. The empire was assisted by a band of Spanish mercenaries (the Catalan Grand Company; see GREECE, History, "Byzantine Period") against the advance of the Ottoman Turks in Asia Minor ; they distinguished themselves by saving Philadelphia (1304). In 1326 Brusa (Prusa) became the Ottoman capital, while on the other side the Servians (crushing the Bulgarians in 133o) were grad ually closing in on Byzantium. Under Stephen Dugan (1331-55) Servia attained the height of her power. The enemies were strengthened by the domestic struggles within the empire, first between Andronicus II. and his son, then between John VI. and the usurper Cantacuzenus. But before the fate of Byzantium was settled the two enemies on its flanks came face to face. In 1389 the Servian power was crushed on the field of Kossovo by the Ottomans (who had crossed the Hellespont in 136o and taken Philippopolis in 1363). Sultan Bayezid I. won Philadelphia, the last Asiatic possession of the empire, and conquered Trnovo, the Bulgarian capital, in 1393. Constantinople was now surrounded. The Ottoman power was momentarily eclipsed, and the career of conquest checked, by the Mongol invasion of Timur and the great defeat which it sustained in the battle of Angora (1402). Moham med I. found it necessary to ally himself with the emperor Man uel. But the pause was brief. Murad II. took Adrianople, and tried (1422) to take Constantinople.

It was small compensation that during this time the Palaeologi had been successful against the Franks in Greece. The situation was desperate. The Turks were in possession of the Balkan penin sula, threatening Hungary; there was no chance of rescue, except from western Europe. John VI. and Manuel had both visited the West in search of help. The jeopardy of the empire was the op portunity of Rome, and the union of the Churches became the pressing question. It was taken up earnestly by Pope Eugenius IV., and the result was the Decree of Union at the Council of Florence in 1439. The emperor and the higher clergy were really in earnest, but the people and the monks did not accept it, and the last agony of Byzantium was marked by ecclesiastical quar rels. Eugenius IV. preached a crusade for the rescue of the empire, and in 1443 an army of Hungarians and Poles, led by the Hungarian king, won a victory over Murad, which was more than avenged in the next year on the memorable field of Varna. The end came nine years later under Murad's successor, Mohammed II. An army of about blockaded the city by land and sea, and Mohammed began the siege on the 7th of April. The emperor Constantine XI., Palaeologus, on whom the task of the forlorn defence devolved (and whose position was all the more difficult because he was alienated from his subjects, having embraced the Latin rite), can have had little more than 8,000 men at his dis posal; he received no help from the Western powers ; but an ex perienced Genoese soldier of fortune, John Justiniani, arrived with two vessels and 400 cuirassiers and aided the emperor with his courage and advice. The resident foreigners, both Venetians and Genoese, loyally shared in the labours of the defence. The final storm of the land walls took place on the night of the 29th of May. All looked to Justiniani for salvation, and when he, severely wounded, retired from the wall to have his wound looked to, a panic ensued. The enemy seized the moment, and the Janissaries in a final charge rushed the stockade which had been constructed to replace a portion of the wall destroyed by the Turkish cannon. This decided the fate of the city. Constantine fell fighting hero ically. Soon after sunrise (May 3o) the Mohammedan army en tered Constantinople (Stambul = 's T7lv roXtv, "the city"), which was in their eyes the capital of Christendom.