No More Learning

He had meanwhile been left a widower; and, after
i Recueil des historiens des Croisades. Lois, 11. 470.
2 Ibid. , Historiens Orientaux, 1. 87; Papadopoulos-Keraméus, Fontes, 131.
. XVI.


## p. 486 (#528) ############################################

486
Theodore's death. His character
an unfortunate alliance with an Armenian princess, he married the
daughter of the Latin Empress Yolande, Maria de Courtenay, a politic
match which might give him a claim to her brother's throne. In fact,
during the interregnum which elapsed before the arrival of the
Emperor Robert at Constantinople in 1221, he planned a second attack
upon that city. His plan was frustrated by a counter-attack; he made
peace with his brother-in-law, and was only prevented by death from
strengthening their relationship and therewith his own claims by giving
the hand of his daughter Eudocia to Robert. He died in 1222, and was
laid beside his first wife and her father Alexius III in the monastery of
Hyakinthos at Nicaea. He had living one son by his Armenian
consort, but as this child was only eight years old, he bequeathed his
empire to the second husband of his eldest daughter-John Ducas
Vatatzes.
The Greeks, as their historians acknowledged, owed a great debt to
Theodore Lascaris as the re-founder of the fallen empire. In the face of
great difficulties he obtained recognition as the leader of Hellenism in
Asia, and even the Franks admired his courage and his military skill.
He was generous to his friends, and if he once, as was said, flayed an
enemy alive, the man was a double-dyed traitor and a disgrace to French
chivalry. As a diplomatist, he shewed the audacity which the times
demanded, and availed himself of those opportunities for playing off one
race against another which the Eastern question has always afforded ;
while he displayed the talent of a constructive statesman in making his
new capital the centre of all that was best in the Greek world. From
Euboea and Thrace, as well as from Byzantium, the local aristocracy
flocked to his court; he and his family were addressed by the begging-
letter writers of the Bosphorus; he sheltered the historian Nicetas, who
repaid him by three panegyrics, and he tried to attract the historian's
brother from his lonely island. Under his auspices, Nicaea became a
learned city, where rhetoric and poetry could be studied, while at
Smyrna Demetrius Karykes, called “ the chief of philosophers,” gave
lectures on logic. But the patriotism and common-sense of the
sovereign made him discourage those nice theological discussions which
were the delight of Byzantine divines, and which might have been
expected to find a congenial atmosphere in the city which had witnessed
two great Councils of the Church. Theodore was, however, fully alive to
the value of the hierarchy as a national and political force. He had
established the Patriarchate in his capital, and he supported the efforts
of the Patriarch for the Union of the Churches at a synod to be held
there. But this scheme failed ; both the Greeks of Epirus and the
Greeks of Trebizond declined to acknowledge the authority of the
Patriarch of Nicaea, whose actual jurisdiction was further restricted by
1 Blemmýdes, 4.


## p. 487 (#529) ############################################

John III Vatatzes succeeds
487
the creation of an autocephalous Serbian Church and of two Latin
bishoprics, one at Nicomedia, the other at Troy'.
During the later and more peaceful years of his reign, Theodore
encouraged trade with the Venetians, to whom he granted freedom from
customs dues throughout his empire, and for this a proper system of
coinage was required. Five issues of gold coins bear his image and
superscription, while inscriptions on towers at Prusa, at Nicaea, and at
Bender-Eregli still preserve his name and serve as an example of the
many buildings which he erected.
In the same year as Theodore, died his rival, the first Emperor of
Trebizond. Cut off by the Turkish occupation of Sinope from all hope of
expansion to the west, he seems to have turned his attention to the
northern coast of the Black Sea, and to have made the Crimea tributary
to Trebizond. His Asiatic Empire now extended no farther westward
than Oenaeum and the river Thermodon, while Savastopoli 18 hours
beyond Trebizond was its eastern boundary? But his capital was
deemed impregnable, alike by nature and art. Its mild climate, its
vineyards and oliveyards, its excellent water, and its abundant supply of
wood combined to make it, in the phrase of an enthusiastic panegyrist,
“ the apple of the eye of all Asia. ” It had long been under the special
protection of St Eugenius, whose monastery, and that of “the Golden-
headed Virgin,” were already features of the city.
John III Vatatzes, the second Emperor of Nicaea, was not long
allowed to occupy the throne unopposed. Two of Theodore's brothers
could not brook the succession of this Thracian nobleman, who, if he
belonged to a good family and had held high office at Court, was only
connected by marriage with the founder of the Empire. By money and
promises they raised a Frankish force at Constantinople, and returned at
its head to Asia Minor. Vatatzes met them near Poimanenón, the scene
of the battle twenty years before, and by his personal courage won a
decisive victory. Four neighbouring Frankish fortresses fell into his
hands, and in 1225 the Latin Emperor was glad to obtain peace by the
cession of Pegae, The Franks, in the words of one of their own
chroniclers, lost “nearly all the land which had been won beyond the
Hellespont”; they abandoned the Troad, and retained nothing but the
territory near Constantinople and Nicomedia. Well might the enthusi-
astic Patriarch bid them begone to their own countryEven beyond
the coasts of Asia Minor the long arm of the Greek Emperor smote
them. His fleet not only watched the Dardanelles from the former
factory of the Quirini at Lampsacus and intercepted vessels coming from
the west to Constantinople, but captured the four islands of Lesbos,
Chios, Samos, and Icaria, which had been assigned to the Latin
1 VV, 11. 275; Epistolarum Innocentii III, Lib. xiv. 90.
2 Papadopoulos-Keraméus, Fontes, 117-8.
3 Revue des études grecques, vii. 76.
CH. XVI.


## p. 488 (#530) ############################################

488
Conspirucies against Vatatzes
Empire by the partition treaty. An expedition in 1233 against Leo
Gabalâs, the “ Lord of Rhodes and the Cyclades,” who bore the proud
title of “ Caesar," and asserted his independence of the Greek Emperor,
failed, however, to take his famous fortress. Another naval under-
taking in aid of the Cretans, who had risen against Venice, was equally
unsuccessful. The Emperor's troops did, indeed, capture several Cretan
fortresses, and a detachment of them held out for some years in the
island. But the expedition cost him nearly the whole of his fleet,
shipwrecked in a storm off the island of Cerigo.
Vatatzes had defeated the Franks; but he still had enemies to fear
within his own court. The capture of the late sovereign's brothers at the
battle of Poimanenón, and the loss of their eyesight as the penalty of
their treason, had rendered them harmless ; but a fresh conspiracy,
organised by his first cousin Nestóngos and several other magnates, was
discovered at the very moment when he was fighting against his
country's foes.
The Emperor's clemency towards the principal con-
spirator, who was merely imprisoned and then allowed to escape,
surprised his contemporaries. But from that moment he surrounded
himself with guards, and listened to the prayers of his wife that he
would be careful of a life so valuable to his country. It was probably
about this time that he moved the capital to Nymphaeum, his favourite
winter residence, which thenceforth continued to be the seat of govern-
ment till the recapture of Constantinople, while the fertile plain near
Clazomenae was chosen as the imperial villeggiatura in spring. Nicaea
remained, however, the seat of the Patriarch, and it was there that the
Emperors were crowned.
The election of the old warrior John of Brienne as Latin Emperor
inspired the Franks with the hope of recovering the territory which they
had lost in Asia Minor by the last peace. One of the conditions of his
election was that he should have “the Duchy of Nicomedia," and that
“the Kingdom of Nicaea with all its appurtenances and all the land that
the Latins ever possessed beyond the Hellespont, comprising the Duchy
of Neokastra,"2 should become the domain of Baldwin II. John waited
patiently till he had made adequate preparations for the re-conquest of
these hypothetical “kingdoms" and "duchies” and till a favourable
moment for attack should arrive. The exhaustion of the Greek forces
after their unsuccessful expedition against Rhodes in 1233 seemed to be
a suitable opportunity, and the Latin Emperor landed at Lampsacus.
But Vatatzes, though his forces were diminished in numbers, proved
himself so clever a strategist that he compelled his adversaries to hug
the shore where their fleet was constantly at hand. One important suc-
cess, the recapture of Pegae, was the sole result of this long-planned
1 Blemmýdes, 61-2; Schlumberger, Numismatique de l'Orient latin, 215;
Pl. viii. 17, 18.
2 Fontes Rerum Austriacarum, Abt. 11. xiii. 265.
יל


## p. 489 (#531) ############################################

Greco-Bulgarian Alliance
489
campaign? . John returned to Constantinople, nor did the Franks
re-attempt the invasion of Asia Minor. Henceforth it was not they but
the rejuvenated Greek Empire which could take the offensive, and it
became the object of Vatatzes to carry out the aspirations of his
predecessor and drive them from their diminished dominions alike in
Europe and in Asia.
With this policy in view, he sought an alliance with the hereditary
enemy of his race, the Bulgarian Tsar, John Asên II, whose signal
victory over the victorious Greeks of Epirus on the field of Klokotinitza
had made him the dominant factor in Balkan politics. The engagement
of their children, both still in the schoolroom, seemed to guarantee their
co-operation against the Franks, and Vatatzes celebrated the capture of
the Venetian colony of Gallipoli and the betrothal of his son Theodore
in rapid succession. Thrace was soon almost entirely freed from the
Latins, and the Empire of Nicaea for the first time extended into
Europe, where the river Maritza became the frontier between the Greek
and the Slavonic states. The allies even laid siege to Constantinople
“with infinite thousands of armed men," till the approaching winter of
1235 compelled them to return to their homes. In the following year
they renewed the siege by land and sea, but this time the united forces
of the Latins repulsed their attack. Had they been successful, the
Greeks and the Bulgarians would have quarrelled over the possession of
the city which both coveted. As it was, the unnatural alliance grew
weaker as one ally realised what he had had to sacrifice and the other
what he had assisted to restore. The Greek Emperor could not but
regret that the price which he had to pay for the Bulgarian's aid was the
recognition of the independence of the Church of Trnovo and its
separation from the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch. The
Bulgarian Tsar could not fail to perceive that he had exchanged a weak
and tottering neighbour for a vigorous and powerful prince, and that on
the ruins of the alien Latin Empire he was reinstating a national
dynasty which would bar the way to Byzantium and the Aegean.
Personal and theological influences further combined to break up the
alliance. Asên's consort, a Hungarian princess, was connected with the
reigning family of Constantinople; while Pope Gregory IX, who had
hopes of converting the Bulgarian Tsar to the Roman faith, denounced
Vatatzes as “the enemy of God and the Church," and received from him
a haughty letter, in which the Greek ruler claimed to be the real
Emperor as the heir of Constantine, and plainly told the Pontiff that, if
he had yielded to superior force, he had not relinquished his rights, but
would never desist from besieging Constantinople.
1 BZ. , xiv. 219; Recueil des historiens des Croisades. Historiens Occidentaux, II.
382.
2 Les Registres de Grégoire IX, 11. 217.
3 Ibid. 11. 512, 659–60, 672–3; ’Adnvalov, 1. 369–78 ; BZ. xvi. 141-2.
CA. XVI.


## p. 490 (#532) ############################################

490
Triple League against Vatatzes
.
Asên accordingly resolved to abandon his ally; he obtained possession
of his daughter on the pretext of a father's natural longing to see her,
and then demonstrated his paternal affection by chastising the damsel
when she lamented her enforced separation from her youthful husband
and his kind parents. The appearance of a new factor in Balkan politics
at this moment facilitated the formation of a triple alliance against the
Greek Emperor. The Cumans, a horde of savages from the Caspian,
driven from their home by the Mongol invasion, had crossed the Danube
and penetrated as far south as Thrace. With them and with the
Bulgarians the Franks of Constantinople formed a league against
Vatatzes, for all three races had a common interest in driving him from
his newly-won possessions on Thracian soil. Their first effort was the
siege of Tzurulum, the modern Chorlu, between the present railway
and the Sea of Marmora, then an important fortress and the key of the
Greek position in Europe. The place was defended by one of those
generals who are better known for their good luck than for their good
strategy. On the present occasion the commander's reputation was once
more verified; in the midst of the siege the news reached Asên that his
wife, one of his children, and the newly-created Patriarch were dead.
This triple calamity dissolved the triple alliance; the pious Bulgarian
saw in his affliction the judgment of Heaven for his breach of faith ; he
sent his daughter back to the court of Vatatzes, and made peace with
the Greeks. The Franks and the Cumans, however, only waited for
reinforcements to renew the attack; at this second attempt Chorlu fell,
and its commander, a better but a less fortunate soldier than his
predecessor, was taken a prisoner to Constantinople. So important did
the capture of this fortress seem to the Latin Emperor that he wrote a
letter to King Henry III of England, setting forth the political results
of its submission? . It was some compensation for this loss that Vatatzes
captured two of the fortresses (Gebseh and Tusla, now stations on the
Anatolian railway) which the Franks still possessed between Nicomedia
and Constantinople. The Greek frontier was thus little more than
twenty miles from the imperial city. But the defeat of the Greek navy,
manned by raw sailors and commanded by an inexperienced Armenian,
prevented a further advance? .
Before renewing his attack upon the Latin Empire, Vatatzes resolved
to realise the dream of his predecessor and reunite all the Greeks under
one sceptre. The Emperors of Nicaea had viewed with suspicion the growth
of an independent Greek principality in Epirus under the despots of the
house of Angelus; and, when the despotat of Epirus became the Empire
of Salonica, this assumption of the imperial title bitterly offended the
only true “Emperor of the Romans” at Nicaea. Theological controversies
between the ecclesiastical authorities of the two rival Greek states further
1 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iv. 54.
2 BZ. xiv. 220.


## p. 491 (#533) ############################################

First attack on Salonica
491
envenomed their relations, and the resentment of the Nicene divines was
doubtless all the deeper because the logic and the learning of the Epirote
party were superior to their own. Accordingly, the Asiatic Greeks had
viewed with equanimity the capture of the Emperor of Salonica by the
Bulgarians at the battle of Klokotinitza. But although Theodore
Angelus was a prisoner and blinded, his brother Manuel continued to
rule at Salonica, with the permission of the Bulgarian Tsar, till the latter,
smitten with the charms of his blind captive's daughter, made her his
wife and set her father free to plot against Manuel. The plot succeeded ;
incapacitated by the loss of his sight from reigning himself, Theodore
placed his son John on the imperial throne of Salonica, while Manuel
sought an asylum at the court of Vatatzes, thus providing his diplomatic
host with an excuse for intervention in the affairs of the sister-state. He
had no difficulty in pleading his cause, for Vatatzes had long had a casus
belli against the Empire of Salonica. In 1225 Theodore had cheated
him out of the good city of Hadrianople, which he had sent his officers,
at the invitation of the inhabitants, to occupy in his name.
He now
avenged himself by furnishing Theodore's exiled brother with the means
of taking a large part of Thessaly. But Manuel had no sooner achieved
this object than he threw over his benefactor and made his peace with
Theodore. Thus the first move failed ; Salonica had outwitted Nicaea.
Vatatzes, however, could afford to wait.
In 1241 the favourable moment seemed to have arrived. The great
Bulgarian Tsar had died, leaving a child as his successor; Manuel had
died also; while the Emperor John of Salonica, whom nature had intended
for a monk rather than a sovereign, relied upon the advice of his old
blind father. A truce with the Latin Empire left Vatatzes at liberty to
devote his whole energies to his long-cherished design? He first enticed
old Theodore to his court, and flattered the childish vanity of that ex-
perienced ruler by calling him “uncle” and giving him a seat at his own
table. When all was ready, in the spring of 1242, he crossed over into
Europe and began the first fratricidal war between the two Greek Empires
of Nicaea and Salonica. Aided by a body of Cuman mercenaries whom
he had attracted to his service, he marched along the coast so as not to
violate Bulgarian territory, and met with no resistance till he arrived
within about eight stades of his rival's capital. The size and strength of
Salonica rendered difficult the use of siege-engines; and, while Vatatzes
was still ravaging the neighbourhood, the news arrived that the dreaded
Mongols had defeated the Seljūgs of Iconium and were threatening his
Asiatic dominions. Keeping the fatal secret to himself, he made the
best terms he could with the Emperor John through the medium of old
Theodore. His vanity was perforce contented with the degradation of his
rival to the rank of a Despot, who no longer outraged the Byzantine
protocol by wearing the imperial emblems.
1 Albricus in M. G. H. Script. xxIII. 950.
CH. XVI.


## p. 492 (#534) ############################################

492
Reconquest of Macedonia from the Bulgarians
The Mongol peril and internal affairs kept Vatatzes occupied in Asia
during the next few years, for he had pledged himself to aid the new
Seljūq Sultan, Kai-Khusrū II, against this common enemy of both. But,
as soon as the Mongols abandoned their attack on Iconium for other
enterprises, he bethought himself once more of his European possessions.
John of Salonica was now dead, and his brother, the Despot Demetrius,
who had received his title from the Emperor of Nicaea, was a man of loose
and vicious habits, which rendered him unpopular. It was therefore
obvious that his position was insecure and that Vatatzes only needed a
plausible excuse for the annexation of Salonica. His western frontier had
now advanced from the Maritza to a place called Zichna near Seres, and
only a small strip of Bulgarian territory served as a buffer-state between
the two Greek Empires. A coincidence enabled him in the same year to
conquer this Slavonic outpost of Salonica and Salonica itself.
In the autumn of 1246 he was returning from a tour of inspection in
his European dominions. On the banks of the Maritza he received the
news that the young Bulgarian Tsar Kaliman was dead, and that his still
younger brother, Michael Asên, had succeeded him. The temptation to
attack the Bulgarians at such a moment was great, for Greek rulers have
ever been haunted by the vision of Basil“ the Bulgar-slayer. ” Accordingly
Vatatzes returned at once to Philippi, and there on the historic battle-field
summoned a council of war to consider the question. Some argued against
the proposal, on the ground that the army was weak and that the citadel
of Seres, the first Bulgarian fortress, was a strong natural position ;
but Andronicus Palaeologus, father of the future Emperor, whose advice
was all the weightier because he held the post of commander-in-chief, .
urged a forward policy. The governor of Seres speedily capitulated;
the citizens of Melnik responded to an appeal to their Greek origin, while
the Bulgarian party was reminded that a Bulgarian princess was the wife
of the future Greek Emperor. Other places followed their example; the
conquests which John Asên II had made at the expense of the Empire
of Salonica sixteen years before were restored to the Empire of Nicaea;
a treaty of peace was signed with Bulgaria which made the Maritza
the northern, as it had once been the western, boundary of Vatatzes;
while Köstendil in the modern kingdom of Bulgaria and Skoplje in
Serbian Macedonia owned his sway. The days of Basil “ the Bulgar-
slayer " seemed to have returned. A patriotic historian could truly boast
that “ the western frontier of Nicaea marched with that of Serbia. ”ı
At this moment the discontent at Salonica had reached a climax.
The frivolous despot had trampled on the ancient customs and privileges
of that city, and a body of leading citizens sent one of their number to
Vatatzes' camp at Melnik, praying for a renewal of their charter. The
Emperor gladly consented, and resolved to see for himself how matters
stood. He ordered Demetrius to present himself before his lawful
Acropolita, 11. 18.


## p. 493 (#535) ############################################

Annexation of Salonica
493
suzerain and render the homage due. The foolish youth was persuaded
by the conspirators to refuse. A second refusal sealed his fate. The
troops of Vatatzes, aided by treachery, entered the city, and thus in
December 1246 the last shadow of the short-lived Empire of Salonica ceased
to exist. Its last ruler was imprisoned in an Asiatic dungeon; his dominions
were annexed to those of his conqueror. Still, however, Vatatzes had not
united all the free Greeks beneath his sceptre. Michael II, a bold scion
of the house of Angelus, had established himself in Corfù and Epirus and
extended his sway as far east as Monastir, while old blind Theodore still
exercised his ruling passion for power by the waters of Vodená and on
the lake of Ostrovo. For the present, however, the Emperor deemed it
wiser to content himself with the organisation of his new and vast pos-
sessions. Each of the captured cities received an imperial message ;
the future Emperor, Michael Palaeologus, was appointed governor of
Seres and Melnik, and his father governor-general of the European pro-
vinces of the Nicene Empire with residence at Salonica.
Elated with these bloodless triumphs over Bulgarians and Greeks,
Vatatzes returned to Europe in the following spring for the purpose of
recovering the fortress of Chorlu from the Franks, an undertaking
which the growing weakness of the Latin Empire seemed to facilitate.
The governor was Anseau de Cayeux, ex-Regent of the Empire, whose wife
was sister-in-law of the Greek sovereign. Thinking that the latter would
never besiege a place which contained his wife's sister, Anseau left the
castle almost undefended. But Vatatzes was not the man to allow his
private relationships to interfere with his public policy; he prosecuted
the siege, recaptured Chorlu, and cut off the communications of Con-
stantinople with the west by land. But this exploit nearly cost him his
life; he rashly approached the walls to parley with the garrison, and was
only saved as by a miracle from the well-aimed bolt of a Frankish
bowman. He did not press further the advantages which he had gained.
Probably the fear of the Mongols restrained him from continuing his
campaign against Constantinople, for in 1248 we find two Mongol envoys
at the Papal court. Innocent IV received them cordially, and did not
scruple to suggest that their master should attack the schismatic Vatatzes.
But the Mongol emissaries rejoined, with delicate irony, that they could
not advise this policy, because they disliked to encourage “the mutual
hatred of Christians. ”i Having given the Holy Father this lesson in
Christianity, the infidels returned to their own savage country. The
reluctance of the Mongols to invade his dominions seems to have
reassured Vatatzes, for in 1249 he was once more preparing for an
attempt upon Constantinople, with the assistance of his vassal, John
Gabalās, the new ruler of Rhodes, when a sudden revolution in the
fortunes of that island caused the postponement of his plans for the
annexation of what little still remained of the Latin Empire.
1 Matthew Paris, Iistoria Minor, . 38-9; Chronica Majora, v. 38.
cross-
CH, XVI.


## p. 494 (#536) ############################################

494
Recovery of Rhodes. Defeat of Michael II
וי
We saw how Vatatzes had failed, sixteen years before, in his expedition
against Leo Gabalâs, the independent “Lord of Rhodes and the
Cyclades. " Gabalâs had, however, thought it prudent, after that invasion,
to become “the man of Venice," the most powerful maritime state of
that day, and had promised to assist the Venetian authorities in Crete
against Vatatzes during the Cretan insurrection. Soon, however, he
seems to have recognised the suzerainty of Nicaea, retaining the title of
“Caesar" but adding that of “servant of the Emperor" on his coins,
and perhaps receiving as his reward the post of Lord High Admiral'.
His brother and successor dropped the Caesarean style and described
himself as simple “Lord of Rhodes," who, if he were bound to help
his suzerain, looked to him for protection. While the two were at
Nicomedia, the news arrived that the Genoese, who coveted Rhodes as
a commercial centre, had surprised the citadel by a night attack.
Vatatzes at once sent one of his best officers to recover the place. But
the Genoese received valuable assistance from a body of the famous
Frankish cavalry of the Morea, left by Prince William of Achaia on his
way through the island. Reinforcements were necessary before the
French knights could be annihilated, the Genoese garrison reduced to
surrender, and the imperial suzerainty restored.
The last campaign of Vatatzes was directed against his still existing
Greek rivals in Europe. Michael II, the crafty Despot of Epirus, had
thought it prudent to remain on good terms with the conqueror of
Salonica, who was since 1246 his neighbour in Macedonia. He made
a treaty with him and even affianced his eldest son and heir, Nicephorus,
to the Emperor's grand-daughter Maria. But, before the wedding had
taken place, the restless despot, instigated by his uncle, the old in-
triguer Theodore, invaded the Nicene territory in Europe and thus
forced Vatatzes to take up arms for the preservation of his recent
conquests. The despot had shown little diplomatic skill in his choice
of opportunity, for his rival had nothing to fear from either the
Musulmans in Asia or the Bulgarians in Europe. Vatatzes carried all
before him. Old Theodore fled from his possessions at Vodená and
Ostrovo; one distinguished personage after another deserted the despot's
standard, and the latter was compelled to send the Metropolitan of
Lepanto to sue for peace. The Nicene envoys, of whom the historian
Acropolita was one, met Michael II at Larissa, the ancient Thessalian
city, then an important political, ecclesiastical, and even learned? centre.
There peace was signed ; Michael ceded the three Macedonian lakes of
Castoria, Prespa, and Ochrida, as well as the historic fortress of Kroja
in Albania, to the victor; and the historian returned to his master with
the despot's eldest son and the aged schemer Theodore as his prisoners.
1 Schlumberger, Numismatique de l'Orient latin, 216 ; Pl. viii. 19-20; Miklosich
and Müller, Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi, iv. 254.
2 Blemmýdes, 36.


## p. 495 (#537) ############################################

Second marriuge of Vatatzes
495
Theodore vanishes from history in the dungeons of Vatatzes. For half
a century he had disturbed the peace of the Balkan peninsula; he had
experienced every change of fortune; he had made and lost an empire;
he had been the victor and the captive of an Emperor. Now at last
he was at rest.
Meanwhile, the domestic life of the Emperor had been less fortunate
than his campaigns against Franks, Bulgarians, and Epirote Greeks.
On the death of his first wife, Irene, for whose loss the courtly Acropolita',
turned poet for the occasion, had expressed the fear that he would never
be comforted, Vatatzes had married in 1244 Constance of Hohenstaufen,
daughter of the Emperor Frederick II and sister of the luckless Manfred.
The union, despite the great discrepancy of age between the two parties,
promised considerable political advantages. Both the Emperors hated
the Papacy, and while Greek troops were sent to aid Frederick in his
struggle against Rome, Frederick asserted the rights of “the most
Orthodox Greeks” to Constantinople. Vatatzes, as we learn from his
own son’, was dazzled by the brilliance of a match which made him the
son-in-law of the most famous and versatile monarch of the thirteenth
century, while the scholars and theologians of Nicaea would not have
been Greeks if they had not admired the abilities of a ruler who, if a
Frank by birth, yet wrote letters in their beautiful language in praise
of their historic Church. The wedding was celebrated at Prusa with all
the pomp of a military Empire, a court poet composed a nuptial ode,
and Constance took the Greek name of Anna, the more closely to
identify herself with her husband's people. On the other hand, the
Pope was furious at the marriage, and one of the counts of the indict-
ment drawn up against Frederick II at the Council of Lyons was that
he had given his daughter to the excommunicated heretic Vatatzes.
Unfortunately, the young Empress had brought with her from the
West a dangerous rival to her own charms in the person of an attractive
young Italian marchioness, who was one of her maids of honour. The
languishing eyes and the graceful manners of the lady-in-waiting
captivated the heart of the susceptible sovereign, and his infatuation
for his mistress reached such a pitch that he allowed her to wear the
purple buskins of an Empress and gave her a more numerous suite than
that of his lawful consort. The ceremonious court of Nymphaeum was
scandalised at this double breach of morals and etiquette. Its indigna-
tion found vent in the bitter lampoons of Nicephorus Blemmýdes, the
Abbot of St Gregory near Ephesus, whose autobiography is one of the
most vivid pieces of Byzantine literature. Blemmýdes hated the
favourite for her abandoned life and her Italian nationality, for women
and foreigners were his pet aversions. Resolved to brave the patriotic
6.
2 “Satire du Précepteur” (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale), MS. sup. gr. , xxxvII.
f. 56 vº.
1
II.
CH. XVI.


## p. 496 (#538) ############################################

496
Career of Constance of Hohenstaufen
moralist, she forced her way into his church, in all the pomp of the
imperial emblems, at the moment of the consecration. The abbot
instantly ordered the service to cease and bade the shameless hussy quit
the holy place which she defiled by her presence. Stunned by his rebuke,
she burst into tears, while one of her escort attempted to draw his sword
to slay the bold monk at the altar. But the weapon stuck in the scabbard;
the accident was, of course, ascribed to the black arts of the abbot;
and Blemmýdes was accused of lèse-majesté and magic by the infuriated
woman and her baffled cavalier. The accused defended himself in a
violent encyclical"; and the Emperor, from qualms of conscience or
motives of policy, refused to punish so just a man, who had only spoken
the truth, and whose influence was so great with the Puritans and the
Chauvinists of the Empire. From this moment the marchioness dis-
appears from the chronicles of the Nicene court; possibly she married
an Italian and returned to Italy and respectability? For a time the
legitimate Empress gained influence over her husband; she doubtless
read with pleasure the rhetorical funeral oration which her stepson, the
future Emperor Theodore, composed on the death of her father in 1250;
she welcomed her uncle Galvano Lancia and her other relatives, when
they were exiled by Frederick's successor; and a special mission under
the direction of Berthold of Hohenburg was required to procure their
removal from a court at which they had so powerful a protectresss.
The death of Vatatzes and the accession of her step-son deprived her
of her power; but she was still young and attractive, and when
Michael Palaeologus usurped the throne, he sought her first as his
mistress, then, when she scorned the liaison with one who had been her
subject, as his wife, although he was already married. Defeated in this
object, he sent the ex-Empress back to her brother Manfred; but the
latter's fall at Benevento placed her at the mercy of Charles of Anjou.
The Angevin conqueror allowed her to seek an asylum at the court of
Aragon, where her nephew Peter III granted her and her daughter an
annuity. At last, entering a convent, she renounced her claims to the
Greek Empire to James II, and died at a great age in the city of
Valencia. There, in the little church of St John-of-the-Hospital a wooden
coffin still bears the simple epitaph: “Here lies the lady Constance,
august Empress of Greece. "" Even in the strange romance of medieval
Greek history there are few stranger pages than the varied career of this
unhappy exile, a sacrifice to politics and the sport of chance.
The connexion between Vatatzes and the great enemy of the Papacy
in Western Europe did not prevent the astute Emperor from endeavour-
1 MPG. , cxlii. 605-9.
2 Les Registres d'Alexandre IV, 1. 88.
3 N. de Jamsilla apud Muratori, RR. II. SS. vii. 506.
+ Carini, Gli Archivi e le biblioteche di Spagna, 11. 9, 18, 19, 189; Revue des deux
Mondes, 15 March 1902; Diehl, Figures byzantines, 11. 207–25.


## p. 497 (#539) ############################################

Futile attempts at Union with Rome
497
ing to secure the support of Rome, when it suited his policy, by holding
out hopes of a reunion of the Churches. In 1232 the presence of five
Minorites at Nicaea suggested to the Patriarch the despatch of letters to
Pope Gregory IX and the Sacred College, advocating an enquiry into
the differences between the East and the West. The Pope replied,
urging the Greeks to return to the bosom of the Church, and sent four
learned theologians to discuss the doctrinal points at issue. The nice
points raised by the Latins in support of the filioque clause proved too
much for the distinguished philosopher whom the Greeks had put
forward as their champion. Blemmýdes had to be called in to their
aid, and, in the presence of the Emperor, refuted their arguments to his
own complete satisfaction. Vatatzes acted throughout like a statesman,
seeking to make one of those compromises which are the essence of
politics but which are rare in theology. His wise policy failed to
appease the celestial minds of the controversialists, and for some time at
Nymphaeum it rained treatises on the Procession of the Holy Ghost, till
at last the Patriarch excommunicated the Pope. Still, whenever he
thought that he could hasten the fall of the Latin Empire, Vatatzes
renewed his diplomatic overtures to the Holy See, thus calling down
upon his head the reproaches of his father-in-law, who plainly told him
that the papal emissaries really aimed, not at uniting the Churches, but
at sowing tares between the two affectionate sovereigns of the East and
the West. To the very last the Greek Emperor maintained this policy of
compromise. Constantinople, he thought, was worth the promise of a
mass.
Vatatzes was no more successful in healing the schism which had
arisen with the foundation of the despotat of Epirus between the Greek
Churches in Europe and Asia. The despots did not go so far as to
elect a rival Patriarch ; but the bishops in their dominions were con-
secrated by the local metropolitans instead of going to Nicaea. At
first the Metropolitan of Lepanto acted as the head of the Epirote
Church ; when the political centre of gravity was transferred to Salonica,
Demetrius Chomatianós, the learned theologian who held the ancient
see of Ochrida, became its primate, and crowned the Emperor Theodore,
an act which caused the greatest indignation at Nicaea, as a usurpation
of the Patriarch's prerogative. The dispute between the rival ecclesias-
tical authorities reached its height when the Emperor of Salonica refused
to allow the see of Durazzo to be filled by a nominee of the Nicene
Patriarch. The schism continued until 1232, when the Emperor
Theodore had fallen and his brother Manuel, anxious to secure the
favour of Vatatzes, made his submission to the Patriarch, who sent an
ecclesiastic from Asia to represent him in Europe? . But, even after the
annexation of the Empire of Salonica and throughout the rest of this
1 Miklosich and Müller, Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi, III. 59–65; B2.
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. XVI.
32
XVI. 120-42.


## p. 498 (#540) ############################################

498
Ecclesiastical policy. Material prosperity
period, the Greek Church in the independent despotat of Epirus
remained autocephalous. The only European bishops who took part in
the synods of Nicaea were those from the European provinces of the
Empire. As both the Serbian and Bulgarian Churches had obtained
the recognition of their independence, owing to the political exigencies
of the Nicene Emperors, the Ecumenical Patriarch had a very restricted
jurisdiction. Even in Asia Minor, Trebizond continued to dispute his
authority, while the Manichaean heresy, which has played so important
a part in the history of Bosnia and Bulgaria, now crept into the Nicene
Empire. It was some compensation, however, that after 1231 no Roman
Catholic bishopric survived there.
Like a wise statesman, Vatatzes took pains to cultivate the favour of
so powerful a national and political force as the Greek Church, while he
was careful to see that the Patriarch should not be too independent.
One of his biographers? tells us that he was especially good to monks,
and that" he spoke to an archbishop almost as if he were in the presence
of God. ” He issued strict orders that the civil authorities should not
seize Church property either in the lifetime or on the demise of a bishop,
but that an ecclesiastical administrator should take charge of the estate
until the vacancy had been filled? He founded or restored the famous
monastery of Sósandra near Magnesia--that “wonder of the world"
which inspired Blemmýdes to write verses, and which was the mausoleum
of the Emperor and his son; he rebuilt and endowed the monastery on
Mt Lembos near Smyrna, and erected the church of St Anthony the
Great at Nicaea, while his first wife founded that of St John Baptist
at Prusa and a convent of Our Lady. But, with a view to the extension
of his political influence, he did not confine his munificence to his
own dominions. He redeemed many churches in Constantinople from
destruction by the Franks, and even in the French seigneurie of Athens
the Greek monasteries received benefits from his hand 3.
In the intervals of his campaigns Vatatzes devoted himself with con-
spicuous success to the economic development of his Empire. Under his
patriarchal government the land enjoyed great material prosperity. He
was so excellent a manager that the produce of the crown lands not only
sufficed for the maintenance of his table, but left him a surplus for the
foundation of hospitals, workhouses, and asylums for the aged, so that
after his time Nicaea was said to have better philanthropic institutions
than any other city. He devoted much attention to stock-breeding,
after the fashion of modern monarchs, and endeavoured to induce the
aristocracy to subsist on their landed estates by practical farming. The
Seljūq Empire afforded a ready market for their cattle and corn, owing
1 Sathas, Μεσαιωνική Βιβλιοθήκη, νια. 506.
2 Revue des études grecques, vii. 71-80.
3 Blemmýdes, 112, 115; Ephraemius, 318; Sáthas, op. cit. , 509; Nicephorus
Gregorâs, I. 44, 50; BZ. xiv. 217, 232.


## p. 499 (#541) ############################################

Literature
499
to the devastations committed there by the Mongols, and so great was the
demand that the Greek farmers could command fancy prices for their
produce. Out of the money obtained from the sale of eggs from the
imperial hen-roosts the Emperor was able in a short time to buy his
consort a magnificent coronet of pearls. The natural result of this
general prosperity was the increase of luxury, and the nobles spent their
money in silken garments from Italy and the East. The Emperor resolved to
restrain the extravagance of his subjects and at the same time to encourage
national industries at the expense of the foreigner, who had profited by
the free-trade policy of his predecessor. He therefore forbade them to
wear foreign stuffs or to consume foreign products, under pain of losing
their position in society. A Greek nobleman should wear, he thought,
a Greek costume, a doctrine no longer esteemed by his countrymen.
He shewed his sincerity by making his own family conform to the law,
and sternly rebuked his son for going out hunting in a rich garment of
silk, reminding him that such luxuries were wrung from the life-blood of
the Greeks, and should only be displayed when it was necessary to
impress foreign ambassadors with the wealth of the nation. Instead of
wasting its resources upon court pageants, he devoted what was thus
saved to the strengthening of the national defences against the Mongols,
forming a central depôt at Magnesia, and accumulating large quantities
of corn, which was stored in sealed granaries for use in case of invasion.
In short, all his financial arrangements were of the most business-like
character; every effort was made to prevent the Oriental vice of pecula-
tion on the part of the “dukes " who governed the provinces, and the
dilatoriness of an official of the treasury was punished by so severe a
fogging that he died.
Although he was a practical man of affairs, Vatatzes shewed the
usual Greek desire for the encouragement of learning. The historian
Acropolita acted as his secretary and envoy; the austere Blemmýdes
and the historian were successively tutors of his son; another historian,
George Pachyméres, was born at Nicaea during his reign ; one of his
Patriarchs, Germanus II, has left behind him some literary remains.
Rhetoric and philosophy were cultivated under his auspices; he founded
libraries of technical and scientific books in various cities, sent Blem-
mýdes to collect valuable manuscripts in Thessaly and Macedonia, and
expressed the opinion that the king and the philosopher are alone really
famous.
His first wife, a woman of masculine abilities, shared his
literary tastes, and once tried to pose the young Acropolita by asking
hin the cause of an eclipse, while the Margrave of Hohenburg's mission
was made the occasion for a learned competition between the Latins and
their Greek hosts, in which the latter were victorious.
Vatatzes did not long survive his campaign against the Epirote
Greeks. On his return to Nicaea he was suddenly seized with an attack
of apoplexy, which rendered him speechless for thirty-six hours. As
יי
CH. XVI.
3242


## p. 500 (#542) ############################################

500
Death and Canonisation of Vatatzes
soon as he had recovered sufficiently to travel, he ordered his attendants
to convey him to his beloved Nymphaeum. The change of climate
availed nothing, however, against the return of his malady. He was
affected with frequent fainting-fits; his flesh wasted away; and he in
vain made a pilgrimage to the miraculous image of Our Lord at Smyrna
in the hope of obtaining relief. At length, after his malady had lasted
for more than a year, he died at Nymphaeum on 30 October 1254, aged
62 years, nearly 33 of which he had passed on the throne. The faithful
Acropolita delivered his funeral oration ; a eulogy of his exploits was
composed by his son, and future generations looked back upon him as
“the father of the Greeks. ” In the fourteenth century he even attained
to the honours of a saint. When the Turks threatened the Sósandra
monastery about 1304, his remains were removed for safety to Magnesia.
The watchman of the castle, while going his rounds, was struck by the
appearance of a strange lamp, which moved about the ramparts as if
on a tour of inspection. When the phenomenon was thrice repeated, he
reported it to his superiors, and a search was made. For some time the
phantom light eluded the investigators, until at last the watchman's
deaf brother declared that he had seen a man dressed in imperial robes
and had heard him say that he had charge of the watch. The ghostly
guardian of Magnesia was at once recognised as none other than that of
the dead Emperor John “the Merciful,” who had risen from his grave to
defend the city. The capture of Magnesia confirmed, instead of dimin-
ishing, the fame of his supernatural power ; for when the Turks threw
his bones over the cliffs, they worked miracles on the faithful, who
collected them with pious care and built a shrine above them. Thence-
forth St John Vatatzes the Merciful was worshipped as a saint at
Magnesia, at Nymphaeum, and in Tenedos; 4 November was celebrated
as his festival ; and an encomium and a choral service were composed in
his honourl.
Vatatzes had not followed the usual Byzantine custom of proclaiming
his successor during his own lifetime, for he was afraid of spoiling the
character of the heir-apparent and of offending the susceptibilities of the
people. But there was no doubt that his only son Theodore, who bore
the name of Lascaris to shew his direct descent from the founder of the
dynasty, would be chosen. As soon as his father's funeral was over, he
was lifted on a shield and proclaimed Emperor at Nymphaeum. The
ceremony was not, however, complete until he had been consecrated by
the Patriarch, whose office had just fallen vacant. Theodore accordingly
hastened on the election of that official ; and, for the sake of form,
offered the post to his old tutor Blemmýdes, in the hope that the
wilful ecclesiastic would refuse. Blemmýdes knew his former pupil, and
did not disappoint him. He declined the honour so insincerely tendered ;
i Pachyméres, 11. 400–2; B2. xiv. 193-233 ; Agathángelos, ’Aquatekŋ ’Akolovdia
του Αγίου Βασιλέως Ιωάννου του Βατάτση του Ελεήμονος.


## p. 501 (#543) ############################################

Theodore II Lascaris : his education and writings 501
Theodore at once ordered the election of a monk of little culture who in
the brief space of a single week was consecrated successively deacon,
priest, and Patriarch. Without further delay, on Christmas Day,
Theodore II Lascaris was crowned Emperor at Nicaea.
The new Emperor had not completed his thirty-third year when he
ascended the throne. Few sovereigns have been more carefully pre-
pared for their duties than the heir of Vatatzes. All that education, in
the Byzantine sense of the word, could do, had been done for the future
monarch. He had enjoyed the best instruction that his father's Empire
could provide; he had studied literature, mathematics, and, above all,
philosophy, and he professed the eminently Greek opinion that know-
ledge was synonymous with virtue. Save for an occasional hunting-
party, he had devoted his ample leisure before his accession exclusively
to his books, and he early aspired to a place in the gallery of royal
authors. He has accordingly left us a voluminous literary legacy, mostly
the work of these earlier years. Theology and satire, a prayer to the
Virgin and a eulogy of Nicaea, a funeral oration on Frederick II, and
no less than 218 letters, are among the varied products of his instructed
mind. But as a writer he was too academically educated to be original;
his ideas are overwhelmed in a jungle of rhetoric; and his style, on
which he prided himself and eagerly sought the judgment of the critics,
strikes us, even in his private letters, as frigid and jejune. His corre-
spondence, to which we naturally look for interesting sidelights on his
temperament and times, abounds in commonplaces, but, with the excep-
tion of the letters written after his accession, is singularly barren of
historical facts. Upon his character his studies had made no real imprint;
like Frederick the Great, he affected philosophy as a Crown Prince, only
to discard it as mere theory when he was brought face to face with the
realities of government. Feeble in health and fond of solitude, he had
abnormally developed one side of his nature. He was, in a word, a
mass of nerves, an“ interesting case” for a modern mental specialist.
His short reign not only falsified the maxim of Plato that all would be
well if kings were philosophers or philosophers kings, but afforded one
more instance of the truism that the intellectual type of monarch is not
the most successful, even for a nation which, in its darkest hours, by the
waters of Nicaea or in the Turkish captivity, has never ceased to cherish
the love of learning.
The new Emperor had good reasons for hastening on his coronation.
No sooner had the news of Vatatzes' death reached the Bulgarian capital
than the Tsar Michael Asên seized this opportunity of recovering his
lost provinces, which the Greek Government had not had time to con-
solidate with the rest of the Empire. The Bulgarian inhabitants
welcomed, and the Greek garrisons were not strong enough to resist, the
invaders. Rhodope at once rose in rebellion; it was feared that the
whole Greek Empire in Europe might become Bulgarian.