The correspondence which he ex-
changed on this subject with Basil, Archbishop of Ochrida, shews us how
far more difficult the religious agreement was than the political alliance.
changed on this subject with Basil, Archbishop of Ochrida, shews us how
far more difficult the religious agreement was than the political alliance.
Cambridge Medieval History - v4 - Eastern Roman Empire
It is the rule with the East
that an independent sovereign requires an autonomous patriarch, whose
relations with the other patriarchs are only spiritual. The one link be-
tween the Churches is the participation in orthodoxy established by the
Councils. The Patriarch of Constantinople himself was bound, within his
own territory, to recognise the autocephalia of the island of Cyprus,
Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, and Moldo-Wallachia.
Since no agreement was possible between these two contradictory
conceptions, the questions of dogma and discipline were always in dis-
pute. Theologians, far from trying to solve them, took pleasure in
complicating them. This is the explanation why that protracted contro-
versy, in which on the Latin side men like St Anselm or St Thomas
Aquinas, on the Greek side men like John Beccus (Veccus), Barlaam,
Mark of Ephesus, Bessarion, Gemistos Plethon, are found, produced
absolutely no results.
It may be said that from 1054 to 1453 the question did not advance
one step. Nothing can surpass the monotony of these erudite treatises on
the Procession of the Holy Ghost, of these dialogues and contradictory
debates, which repeat over and over again the same arguments and appeal
continually to the same authorities. Whether at Constantinople in 1054,
at Lyons in 1274, or at Florence in 1439, the discussion revolves round
the same points and arrives at no result.
One chief hindrance to the establishment of the union was its compli-
cation at all times with political interests. It was never desired for its
own sake, but for the temporal advantages which the Emperors, Byzan-
tine and Western alike, expected from it. The consequence was that,
when the political advantages looked for from the union disappeared,
the union itself was abandoned.
From 1054 to 1453 the Emperors always looked to religious union as
a means of carrying out their political designs, or of assuring the defence
of the Empire. From 1055 to 1071 they, as Constantine IX had done,
contracted, by means of the union, a political and military alliance with
the Papacy against the Normans of Italy. Then from 1073 to 1099 the
CH. XIX.
38-2
## p. 596 (#638) ############################################
596
The different points of view
union was courted by Michael VII and Alexius Comnenus to assure the
defence of the Empire against the Seljūq Turks. In the twelfth century,
at the time of the Popes' struggle with the Germanic Emperors, John and
Manuel Comnenus had entertained the fond hope of reconquering Italy
by means of the union, and assuming at Rome the Western imperial
crown. After the conquest of 1204, at the time of the decadence of the
Latin Empire, Theodore I Lascaris, John Vatatzes, and Theodore II saw
in the union the means of re-entering Constantinople. Michael Palaeo-
logus, master of the capital in 1261, made full use of the union to check
the ambitious projects of Charles of Anjou. Finally, in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries the preliminary negotiations for the union were
more or less actively prosecuted according to the advance or the retreat
of the Ottomans, and it was not until the danger from them was pressing
that this union was finally realised at Florence in 1439.
The Popes, on their side, saw in the union primarily a means of saving
Eastern Christendom from the Musulman invasion. Such was the point
of view of Gregory VII and of Urban II. Then the Popes of the
twelfth century, Paschal II, Calixtus II, Honorius II, Hadrian IV, Alex-
ander III, thought to employ the union to secure for themselves at Con-
stantinople a protector against the schemes of the Germanic Emperors.
The series of Popes which starts with Innocent III saw, on the contrary,
that the sole chance of success in the Crusades lay in the union, and
pursued the policy of making Constantinople a base of operations against
the infidels. Finally, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Ot-
toman peril which threatened all Europe constituted the chief reason why
they sought the union.
The policy of the union, voluntarily adopted, was opposed by that
of conquest which was intended to bring about a union by force. The
Kings of Sicily-Roger II, William I, William II—being desirous of
founding a mighty Mediterranean empire, initiated this policy, which
was adopted by such men as St Bernard and Suger. The Hohenstaufen,
who were masters of Sicily by inheritance, dreamed of realising this
ambition of the Norman kings, and the conquest of 1204 was prepared
by an agreement between Philip of Swabia and Venice. The union had
been forcibly imposed on the Greek Church, and then, when some years
later the collapse of the Latin Empire was apparent, Charles of Anjou
and his heirs revived against Constantinople the plans of their prede-
cessors in Sicily.
Such are the different points of view which by their continuous
opposition add to the complication of this period of history, but they
all have the common characteristic of regarding the union merely as a
means of political profit, and this lack of sincerity and altruism on both
sides is the ultimate cause of the final failure of all these efforts.
We know that the solidarity, which united the interests of the Pope
to that of the Emperor in common cause against the Normans in Italy,
## p. 597 (#639) ############################################
Last attempts at alliance against the Normans
597
was
had been the principal obstacle to the schism of 10541. It is not sur-
prising then that the first efforts to resume relations were made in that
sphere. After 1055 the trusty emissary of the alliance between Pope and
Emperor, the Lombard Argyrus, comes once more on the scene. In order
to save Byzantine Italy he has recourse to Henry III, to whom he sends
an embassy. He himself, taking advantage of the semi-disgrace into
which Michael Cerularius fell in the reign of Theodora, went to Con-
stantinople to ask for fresh powers.
One of the legates of 1054, the Chancellor Frederick of Lorraine,
elected Pope under the name of Stephen IX (1057), thought the moment
had come to resume the policy of Leo IX, and chose Desiderius, Abbot-
designate of Monte Cassino, and two other legates to go to Constantinople.
But when the legates were on the point of embarking with Argyrus
(January 1058), the news of the Pope's death stopped their departure.
This policy was obsolete, and the counsellors of the Papacy, such as
Hildebrand, clearly saw that it did not correspond with the actual situa-
tion. The treaty of Melfi (1059), by which Nicholas II recognised the
sovereignty of the Norman Robert Guiscard over Apulia, Calabria, and
Sicily, set the seal to the expropriation of the imperial power in Italy.
The political basis on which the union might have been built
up
removed. In 1062 the Emperor Constantine X made a fruitless attempt
at Rome to secure the election of a Pope pledged to the alliance with
Byzantium. As the result of an intrigue engineered by the Piedmontese
Bishop Benzo and Pantaleone, a merchant of Amalfi in high repute at
Constantinople, Cadalus, Bishop of Parma, elected Pope under the style
of Honorius II, was opposed to the candidate of reform, Alexander II? .
But in 1064 Cadalus, who had sought asylum in the castle of Sant'Angelo,
was driven from Rome, and with him the plan of alliance against the
Normans disappeared. In 1071 the capture of Bari by Robert Guiscard
completed the fall of the imperial power in South Italy. The time was not
far off when, on the very territory of the Empire, the Basileus would
have to fight the Normans, now become the allies and protectors of the
Pope.
Henceforward, the negotiations towards the union were transacted in
another sphere. The victory of the Normans marked the first check to
the expansion of Byzantium which had begun at the end of the ninth
century. The Empire for the future is on the defensive: it has to face
the Normans on the west, the Patzinaks on the north, the Seljūq
Turks on the east. The most menacing danger was on the Turkish
side; the battle of Manzikert (1071), in which Romanus Diogenes was
taken prisoner, shook the Byzantine domination in Asia Minor and even
the security of Constantinople. For a long time now bodies of Western
1 See supra, Chapter ix.
2 Narrative of Benzo, MGH, Script. xl. p. 617. Gay, L'Italie méridionale et
l'empire byzantin, pp. 527-533.
CH. XIX.
## p. 598 (#640) ############################################
598
Union and the danger from the Turks
לי
mercenaries, Lombards, Anglo-Saxons, or Normans, had figured in the
imperial armies. Confronted by the new dangers which threatened the
Empire, the Basileus naturally thought of raising larger levies in the
West, and the religious union seemed to him the most effective means of
persuading the Popes to uphold their cause among the peoples.
This new policy was entered upon in 1073 by the Emperor Michael
VII. On his accession he sent two monks to convey to Gregory VII a
letter, in which he expresses his devotion to the Roman Church. The
Pope sent him an answer by Dominic, Patriarch of Grado, and informed
him of his wish to re-establish “ the ancient concord” between the two
Churches. As a result of these parleys Gregory VII published on
1 March 1074 a letter addressed to all the faithful, ad omnes christianos,
in which, after describing the outrages of the Turks, he exhorts them to
help the Christians of the East? In his letter of 7 December to Henry
IV he announced that he was ready himself to march at the head of
50,000 men to liberate the East and the Holy Sepulchre, and to bring the
Oriental Churches back to Christian unity. But circumstances pre-
vented the realisation of this grandiose plan. The Pope was soon involved
in the struggle with Henry IV; Michael VII was dethroned by Nice-
phorus Botaniates, whom the Pope solemnly excommunicated in 1078 as
a usurper, and relations were once more broken off between Rome and
Constantinople. The close alliance made in 1080 between Gregory VII
and Robert Guiscard excluded all possibility of an agreement.
Under Urban II and Alexius Comnenus the conferences were resumed.
On his accession (1088) the Pope sent the Emperor two legates, one of
whom was the Basilian Abbot of Grottaferrata, in order to ask him to
allow the Latin priests to celebrate mass with unleavened bread". The
Emperor received the request graciously, and invited the Pope to come
to Constantinople to settle the question.
The events of which Rome was then the theatre prevented Urban II
from leaving Italy, but towards 1091 the tension between Rome and
Constantinople was considerably relieved, as is shewn by a curious treatise
of Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrida, “On the errors of the Latins,”
written at this period. He twits the Greeks on their craze for finding
heresies everywhere, and for blaming the Latin priests because they shaved
their beards, wore gold rings, fasted on Saturday, and so on. The only
difference which seemed to him important was the addition to the
Creed
It appears certain that at the same time levies of troops were being
raised in Italy on behalf of the Emperor®, and a regular correspondence
2
1 Mansi, Concilia, xx. p. 74. Reg. 1. 49. Jaffé, Monumenta Gregoriana, p. 69.
3 Reg. 11. 31. lb. p. 144. On these projects vide Riant, Archives de l'Orient latin,
1. p. 56.
s Gaufridus Malaterra, iv. 13.
5 Chalandon, Essai sur le règne d'Alexis Comnène, p. 130.
0 Anna Comnena, Alexiad, viii. 5. CSHB, p. 401.
## p. 599 (#641) ############################################
Union and the First Crusade
599
was established between Urban II and Alexius Comnenus', who the whole
time continued to be in constant communication with the monks of
Monte Cassino? . Finally in 1094 Greek ambassadors appeared at the
Council of Piacenza to ask the Pope and the faithful to defend Christen-
dom against the pagans. At the request of Urban II many knights
pledged themselves by an oath to go to the Easts.
Such was the sequence of events, and it is clear,
of events, and it is clear, as has been established
by Chalandon", that, when asking for extensive reinforcements, Alexius
Comnenus did not contemplate the formidable movement of the Crusade,
of which the Council of Clermont (18-28 November 1095) was the start-
ing point. It is evident that the idea of proclaiming the Holy War and
launching armed multitudes on the East belonged to Urban II, but the
Pope was himself supported and probably incited by the mystic impulse
which drew the Western peoples to the Holy Sepulchre. The ambitious
programme of the Crusade widely surpassed in its scale that of the union
between the Churches, which according to the Pope's idea ought to have
followed naturally from it. The Crusade was to solve all difficulties, poli-
tical or religious
We know that the Crusade did not long remain true to this exalted
ideal. On the one hand, Alexius Comnenus tried to exploit it for re-
conquering the territories torn from the Empire by the Turks. On the
other hand, the Western barons, become sovereign princes in Syria, were
not slow in shewing their hostility to the Empire. The Crusade, far from
solving the problems, only increased the misunderstanding between the
East and the West. In 1098 the crusaders complained to the Pope,
charging Alexius with being the principal obstacle to their march on
Jerusalem
The capture of Antioch and of Jerusalem had at any rate the result
of bringing two of the ancient Eastern patriarchates, whose holders were
henceforward Latins, directly under the authority of the Pope. The
councils held by Urban II at Bari (1098) and at Rome (1099) were
probably intended to proclaim the religious union with these patri-
>>
1 Ekkehard, Hierosolymita, Ed. Hagenmeyer, v. 3—v1. 1.
2 Trinchera, Syllabus graecarum membranarum, pp. 78–83.
3 Bernold, MGH, Script. v. p. 450.
4 Chalandon, Alexis Comnène, pp. 129 and 155. Louis Bréhier, L'Eglise et
l'Orient, pp. 60–61.
6 The predominant idea of Urban II was "liberation of the Eastern Churches. ”
This is confirmed by a very interesting local document, a charge of Stephen, Bishop
of Clermont, to the faithful: “cum ad libertatem Orientalis ecclesiae devastandam
barbarica persecutio in horresceret, exhortans decretum a summo pontifice processit
ut omnis occidentalium nationum virtus ac fides in auxilium destructae religionis
festinaret. " Cartulaire de Sauxillanges, ed. Doniol, p. 502, No. 697. Clermont-
Ferrand, 1864.
6 MPL, CL). col. 155. Vide also the opinion of Guibert de Nogeut on the Greek
Church, MPL, CLVI. col. 686.
CH. XIX.
## p. 600 (#642) ############################################
600
The Papacy and the Germanic Empire
archates. At Bari there was a debate in the presence of the Pope between
St Anselm and the Greek clergy on the Procession of the Holy Ghost? ;
at Rome the Pope published decrees condemning the errors of the
Greeks? . But this was only a partial union, for the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople does not appear to have been represented at these meetings.
A more significant fact is that Pope Paschal II gave his support to
Bohemond, Prince of Antioch, in his attempt to conquer the Greek
Empire, which failed before Durazzo in 1108. This attack of Bohemond
may fairly be regarded as a first attempt to settle the Graeco-Latin dis-
pute by conquest? .
The negotiations for the religious union were soon placed on another
basis, and to achieve this object the Basileus tried to employ the pro-
tracted struggle between the Papacy and the Germanic Empire which
filled the twelfth century. Alexius Comnenus seems to have initiated this
policy. Paschal II having been made prisoner by Henry V in 1111 and
forced to crown him Emperor, Alexius wrote, in January 1112, a letter to
the Romans, in which he protested against this treatment of the Pope,
and professed his readiness to come in person to Rome to assume the
imperial crown. The Romans welcomed these proposals, and sent a
numerous embassy to Constantinople. An illness prevented Alexius from
keeping his promise. But the correspondence between the Pope and
the Emperor was continued. At the close of 1112 the Pope signified to
Alexius that the first condition of the alliance ought to be the submission
of the Greek Church, and suggested the calling of a new council. In
1113 Peter Chrysolanus, Archbishop of Milan, held a public debate with
Eustratius, Bishop of Nicaea, but the matter went no further.
Negotiations were again opened between Calixtus II and John Com-
nenus about 1124. The Pope sent an embassy to Constantinople, and
received one from the Emperor. New embassies were exchanged in 1126
between John Comnenus and Honorius II. In 1136 a new controversy
was broached at Constantinople between Anselm of Havelberg and
Nicetas, Archbishop of Nicomedia. No agreement resulted from it.
Meanwhile the opinion spread more and more widely in the West
that conquest alone would put an end to the ill-will of the Greeks, and
assure the success of the crusades. The chief mover in this direction was
Roger II, King of Sicily, who at the very moment when the Second Cru-
sade was starting had taken the offensive against the Greek Empire (1147).
But he tried in vain to induce the King of France, Louis VII, to favour
his project, and give permission to use the route through Southern Italy
1 Mansi, Concilia, xx. 950. Speech of St Anselm, De Processione sancti Spiritus
contra Graecos, MPL, clviii. col. 289.
2 Lambert of Arras, De primatu sedis Atrebatensis, MPL, CLXII. col. 644.
3 W. Norden, Das Papsttum und Byzanz, pp. 67-74.
4 d’Achery, Spicilegium, 1. 161. Dräseke, Bischof Anselm von Havelberg (Zeitschrift
für Kirchengesch. xxxi. 179).
و
## p. 601 (#643) ############################################
Manuel Comnenus and the Union
601
to gain the East? . The crusaders reached Constantinople by the Danube
route, but while Louis VII was actually the guest of Manuel Comnenus
the Bishop of Langres advised him to open the Crusade by seizing Con-
stantinople? . Such a proposal had no chance of being entertained by a
King of France, but Roger II returned to the attack when he had an inter-
view with Louis VII at Potenza on his return from the Crusade. The king,
passing through Italy, communicated the project to Pope Eugenius III
at Tivoli, but the Pope, who feared the ambition of the King of Sicily, did
not welcome the idea? . Nevertheless, the plan of Roger was approved by
highly qualified religious personalities, by Peter the Venerable, Abbot of
Cluny, by St Bernard, and above all by Suger, Abbot of St Denis, who in
his correspondence with the Pope saw in it the most effective means of
consummating the union between the Churches. The plan of a crusade
against Constantinople was definitely given to the world.
This danger being temporarily averted, Manuel Comnenus tried to
utilise the political rivalries which divided the West to revive the
grandiose project of Alexius Comnenus of bartering the religious union
for the imperial crown at St Peter's in Rome.
From the very first it was the common hostility of Pope Hadrian IV
and the Basileus against William I, King of Sicily, which furnished a basis
of negotiations. An alliance was concluded between them at Bari in
1155. This partook of a military character, and the Pope was pledged to
raise troops to help the Greek generals to conquer Apulia. But the
religious union was not forgotten, and Hadrian IV sent to Constantinople
two pontifical notaries to work there.
The correspondence which he ex-
changed on this subject with Basil, Archbishop of Ochrida, shews us how
far more difficult the religious agreement was than the political alliance.
When the Pope compared the Greek Church to the lost piece of silver
or the lost sheep of the Gospel, Basil replied somewhat sharply that
the Roman Church, which had herself made an addition to the Creed,
was not entitled to accuse the Greeks of having wandered from the
fold 4.
Circumstances seemed more propitious when in 1159 Alexander III
sent an embassy to Manuel, asking his alliance against Frederick Barba-
rossa”. The struggle between the Pope and the Germanic Empire began
afresh with Italy as the stake, but Manuel seemed to hesitate, when in
1161 he received letters from the King of France, Louis VII, and the
pontifical legate in France, William of Pavia, which urged him to recog-
nise Alexander III and proposed an alliance. The legate, after censuring
1 Odo of Deuil, MGH, Script. xxvi. 66.
2 Ib. xxvi. 66.
3 Chalandon, Jean II et Manuel Comnène, pp. 331-337.
4 Mansi, Concilia, xxxi. 799. Chalandon, op. cit. pp. 358-360. W. Norden,
op. cit. p. 95. Schmidt, Des Basilius aus Achrida bisher unedierte Dialoge.
5 Chalandon, op. cit. p. 558. Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, 11. p. 403.
CH. XIX.
## p. 602 (#644) ############################################
602
Failure of Manuel's policy
the conduct of the Germanic Emperors, recalled the prosperous times
which the Church had known when there was but one Empire in the
world. The allusion was clear? .
Manuel seems to have been favourably disposed towards this idea. On
25 December 1161 he writes to Louis VII that he recognises Alexander III
as lawful Pope, and asks the king to send an embassy to Constanti-
nople. He himself sent in 1163 to France three ambassadors’, whose
mission was to communicate a matter of extreme importance, not to
be divulged except in the joint presence of the Pope and the king
at the same conference? But this preliminary condition could not be
carried out, and it would appear from the correspondence exchanged on
the matter that it was the hesitation of Louis VII which destroyed the
formal conclusion of an alliance. After having seen the king, the ambassa-
dors waited a long time at Saint-Gilles for instructions which never came.
It was January 1164 before they once more reached Constantinople.
This want of success did not deter Manuel, who now adopted the
policy of addressing himself directly to the Pope, and proposed in 1166
the reunion of the Churches in exchange for the imperial crown of the
West. The Pope cordially welcomed these overtures and sent to Con-
stantinople Ubaldo, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, and Cardinal John”. Dis-
cussions were held at Constantinople between these legates and the
members of the Greek clergy, but they led to nothing. According to
Cinnamus? , the Pope required Manuel to transfer his residence to Rome,
and that was the cause of the discontinuance of the negotiations.
In 1170 Manuel made a final attempt with Alexander III, but the
favourable moment had passed. The formation of the Lombard League
had improved the position of the Pope, who only returned an evasive
answer to these overtures, but sent, however, two legates to Constanti-
nople. The relations between the Pope and the Basileus were excellent
right up to the last. In 1175 Manuel announced to Alexander III the
victory which he had just won over the Turks at Dorylaeum, and invited
him to accelerate the departure of the Western crusaders to fight the
Turks. The Pope gave instructions to this effect to the legate whom he
had sent to France. But notwithstanding sincerely good intentions the
Pope and the Emperor had been powerless to triumph over the obstacles
which militated against their agreement. The very curious dialogue
between the Emperor Manuel and the Patriarch Michael Anchialus
1 Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, xv. 55 and 772.
2 Ib. xvi. 81.
3 Ib. xv. 803-807.
4 16. xvi. 56, 57. Chalandon, op. cit. pp. 560-562.
6 Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, 11. p. 415.
• Chalandon, op. cit. p. 565. Hergenroether, Photius, III. p. 810.
7 Cinnamus, vi. 4 (CSHB, p. 262).
8 Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, 11. pp. 419-420.
9 Osberti Annales, MGH, Script. xvin. 86. Chalandon, op. cit. p. 567.
## p. 603 (#645) ############################################
Rupture between Byzantium and the West
603
shews unmistakably that the Greek clergy clung to all their distrust of
Rome? On the other hand, the incessant interference of the Comneni
in the doctrinal and disciplinary matters of the Greek Church proves that
the Basileus would never consent to resign the religious authority which
had been transmitted to him from his predecessors? .
The death of Manuel Comnenus in 1180 was followed by a violent
reaction against his Western policy and against the Latins. Andronicus
Comnenus, the usurper of the throne, consolidated his power by letting
popular hatred work its worst on the Western colonies in Constanti-
nople. The massacre of the Latins in 1182 was an unpardonable act
which led to the reprisals of 1204. From this moment it was open
warfare between the West and Byzantium, and act upon act of hostility
followed. Now it was the aggression of William II, King of Sicily, in
1189, and the sack of Thessalonica ; now the alliance of Isaac Angelus
with Saladin in 1189; now the hostility which he evinced to Frederick
Barbarossa in 1190; now the occupation of the island of Cyprus in 1191
by Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Above all, there were the preparations of
Henry VI, heir to the Norman Kings of Sicily, to have done once and
for all with the Byzantine Empire: a fleet had already been assembled
at Messina, and, in spite of the Pope, the Emperor was on the point of
embarking for Constantinople when he died prematurely (28 September
1198).
All these acts intensified bitterness. At the very time when Barba-
rossa's Crusade was passing through, the Greeks openly treated the Latins
as heretics, and the Patriarch in a sermon preached at St Sophia promised
indulgences to every Greek who killed a hundred crusaders. The crusade
against Constantinople seemed therefore inevitable, and would have taken
place sooner had not the death of Henry VI produced a lull which the
new Pope, Innocent III, tried to utilise on behalf of the union.
Ever since his accession, in fact, Innocent III had been busy in
organising a crusade, and to his mind the realisation of religious
union with Constantinople was the postulate of its success. The first
step towards agreement was taken by Alexius III, who found he had the
same enemy as the Pope in the person of Philip of Swabia, brother of
Henry VI and son-in-law of the deposed Emperor Isaac Angelus. He
openly proposed to the Pope an alliance against the Hohenstaufen, but
Innocent III in his answer brought the question on to the religious plane
by intimating to the Emperor that, if he wanted to end the complaints
of the Western peoples against him, he ought to lead a crusade to the
Holy Land, and work for the union of the Churches. A letter on the
1 Ed. Loparev, VV. , xiv. p. 344.
2 Oeconomos, La vie religieuse dans l'empire byzantin au temps des Comnènes et
des Anges.
3 Letter of Frederick Barbarossa to King Henry, ed. W. Norden, op. cit. p. 120;
Ansbert, Historia de expeditione (Fontes rerum Austriacarum Scriptores, v. 32).
CH. XIX.
## p. 604 (#646) ############################################
604
The Fourth Crusade
necessity of re-establishing the unity of the Church was at the same time
addressed to the Patriarch? For more than a year this correspondence
was kept up without any result, and in a style which shewed little diplo-
macy, for the two principals refused to make the slightest concession in
fundamentals.
The Pope, while negotiating with Alexius III, was all the time order-
ing the Crusade to be preached; but the expedition was organised inde-
pendently of him, and the barons who took the cross were content with
asking him to ratify the measures which they adopted. The Pope took
no share in the conclusion of the treaty with Venice for free passage
(March 1201), nor in the election of Boniface of Montferrat as leader
of the Crusade (May 1201). The prince Alexius, son of Isaac Angelus,
escaping from his prison, lost little time in coming, first of all, to ask
Innocent III to support the restoration of his father, and to undertake
the promotion of the religious union; but he next went to Germany to
his brother-in-law Philip of Swabia, and it was then probably that,
without the cognisance of Innocent III, Philip of Swabia and Boniface
of Montferrat decided at the interview at Haguenau (25 December 1201)
to divert the Crusade to Constantinople. Boniface of Montferrat, on
presenting himself at Rome in May 1202 to propose to Innocent III
the restoration of Isaac Angelus with the support of the crusaders,
encountered a categorical refusal.
The barons thereupon acted contrary to the wish of the Pope, and
the crisis was precipitated. There was, first of all, the diversion to Zara,
to which the crusaders consented on the plea of paying their debt to the
Venetians. Then, on the Pope's refusal to excuse the capture of Zara,
it was determined to confront him with the accomplished fact. The
arrival at Zara of embassies from Philip of Swabia (1 January 1203) and
from the pretender Alexius (7 April) decided the crusaders to attack
Constantinople. The conscience of the crusaders had been salved by most
specious promises, union of the Churches, participation of the restored
Emperor in the Crusade—the entire programme of the Pope himself.
Innocent III had in vain made the greatest efforts to keep the Crusade
on the route to Egypt. The alliance between the Ghibellines, of whom
Philip of Swabia was the leader, and the Venetians, which saw in the
Byzantine Empire a tempting prey, was stronger than the will of the
Pope. Further, Isaac Angelus and his son, once restored, were unable to
keep the promises which they had made, and the crusaders were forced
to besiege Constantinople a second time. This time it was conquest pure
and simple: the sack of the palace, the monasteries, and the churches,
the partition of the Empire between the barons and the Venetians. In
1205 the whole East was covered with Latin settlements, and only
two centres of resistance were left, the one in Epirus under the dynasty
of the Angeli, the other at Nicaea round Theodore Lascaris. The con-
1 MPL, CCXIV,
cols. 326–7.
## p. 605 (#647) ############################################
The compulsory union
605
querors could fondly flatter themselves that, by disobeying the orders of
the Pope, they had put an end to the schism of the Greeks, and assured
for ever the supremacy of the Roman Church in the East.
According to the principles of the Canon Law, the conquest of the
East in no way necessarily involved the absorption of the Greek Church
by the Latin Church. To realise the union, it was necessary, first, that
the Greeks gave a formal adherence, then, that the Greek Church should
return to the conditions previous to 1054, communion with Rome, auto-
nomous institutions, native clergy, national rites. But for this solution
to prevail the conquerors, clerics as well as laymen, would have had to
shew improbable self-abnegation ; the property and revenue of the Greek
clergy was too tempting a prey for them.
To do this, these men of the thirteenth century needed a perfect
familiarity with history which they could not possess. Between 1054 and
1204 the position of the Papacy had been completely changed; the
spiritual supremacy of the Holy See was accepted by all, and many
would defend its temporal supremacy. To the West, since the schism of
the Greeks, the Roman Church represented the Catholic Church. What
she required from the other Churches was no longer merely communion,
but submission in matters of dogma and discipline. The Christian republic
tended to become a monarchy.
On the side of the Greeks, finally, a spirit of conciliation would have
been necessary, but the events of which they had just been victims
rendered this impossible. The chronicle of Nicetas echoes the exasperation
which the sack of Constantinople roused among them. A contemporary
pamphlet, entitled “Our grievances against the Latin Church,” enume-
rates a long list, as absurd as it is spiteful, of the practices with which
they charged the Latins, and declares that it is impossible to communicate
with men who shave their beards and eat meat on Wednesday and fish
in Lent? The more moderate Greeks, in a letter to Innocent III about
1213, declared that they would gladly attempt a conciliation, but on con-
dition that the difficulties were solved by an Ecumenical Council and
that no violence should be employed to secure their adhesion? .
Innocent III, resigned to the conquest of Constantinople, which he
had never wished but in the end considered a providential event, resolved
at least to turn it to the best advantage of Christendom by realising
the religious union and organising the Church of the East. But the
crusaders, taking no account of his intentions, had confronted him with
actual facts. At the very outset, on their own authority, they placed
Latin clergy at the head of the churches and monasteries; their task
was lightened by the Greek clergy, of whom many members had fled for
refuge to Nicaea or Epirus. On the other hand, agreeably to the bargain
struck with Venice, the greater part of the property of the Church was
1 Luchaire, Innocent III, La question d'Orient, pp. 238–243.
2 16. pp. 251-257.
CH. XIX
## p. 606 (#648) ############################################
606
Innocent III and the Greek Church
secularised. At Constantinople itself the Venetians took possession of
the richest monasteries, and installed at St Sophia a chapter of canons,
who elected to the Patriarchate a Venetian noble, Thomas Morosini.
The Pope, much against his will, was forced to confirm this choice.
The same example was followed in all the states founded by the
Latins, the kingdom of Thessalonica, duchy of Athens, principality of
Achaia, the Venetian possessions in Crete and the Archipelago. The Latin
clergy and the religious or military orders of the West were installed
everywhere. Innocent III had no choice but to accept this spoliation of
the Greek Church; he did his best, however, to stop it, and to bring the
new clergy into strict subordination to the Holy See. His legate, Cardi-
nal Benedict of Santa Susanna, was able to sign a treaty in 1206 with the
regent of the Latin Empire, Henry of Flanders, by which the barons
relinquished to the Church a fifteenth of their estates and incomes. The
same legate was commissioned to obtain the consent of the Greek clergy
to the religious union. His instructions were to offer most conciliatory
terms. He negotiated with the Greek bishops of one power after another,
even treating with those of the Empire of Nicaea, and going so far as to
concede the use of leavened bread for the Eucharist. The Pope even
allowed the validity of the orders conferred by the Greek prelates.
The only obligation which he imposed on them was to recognise formally
the authority of the Holy See by means of an oath taken according to
the feudal form while clasping the hands of the legate. The bishop must
swear fidelity and obedience to the Roman Church, undertake to answer
every summons to a council, to make a journey, like the Western bishops,
to the threshold (ad limina) of the Apostles, to receive the legates with
due ceremony, and to inscribe the name of the Pope on the diptychs.
This was in reality a serious innovation, irreconcilable with the system
of autonomy which the Greek Church had enjoyed before 1054. Many
indeed of the Greek bishops agreed to take this oath, but it was one of
the principal obstacles to the duration of the union. In many places
resistance was offered to it, and there were even scenes of violence.
The mission entrusted to Cardinal Pelagius in 1213 completed the
exasperation of the Greeks. His instructions were far less conciliatory
than those of his predecessor, and he went far beyond them. Being
commissioned to obtain the submission of all the Greek clergy, he had
the recalcitrant thrown into prison, had seals affixed to the church doors,
and drove the monks out of their convents. The Emperor Henry was
alarmed at these events, and intervened, liberating the prisoners and re-
opening the churches.
In these circumstances Pelagius, in order to carry out the pontifical
instructions, called for the assembling of a conference at Constantinople
with the Greek clergy of Nicaea. Nothing could come of this. The
delegate of the Empire of Nicaea, Nicholas Mesarites, Metropolitan of
Ephesus, was received with honour, but complained of the haughty
## p. 607 (#649) ############################################
Fall of the Latin Empire
607
attitude of Pelagius. Sharp and sarcastic words were exchanged, and,
after a week of discussion, the meeting broke up without any results.
At the Lateran Council, in 1215, there was not a single representa-
tive of the Greek native clergy, and very few of the Latin bishops of the
Eastern Empire took the trouble to attend. The Council proclaimed that
the Greeks had come once more under the jurisdiction of the Holy
See. They were permitted to preserve their ritual and their peculiar
uses, but the hatred which they incessantly shewed towards the
Latins, by re-baptising the infants whom they had baptised, and by
purifying the altars which had been used by them, was denounced in
vigorous terms.
The situation did not improve under the successors of Innocent III,
and the relations between the Latin clergy and the natives became worse
and worse.
The correspondence of the Popes of the thirteenth century
is full of expostulations directed against the Latin bishops for their abuse
of power and their outrages? .
that an independent sovereign requires an autonomous patriarch, whose
relations with the other patriarchs are only spiritual. The one link be-
tween the Churches is the participation in orthodoxy established by the
Councils. The Patriarch of Constantinople himself was bound, within his
own territory, to recognise the autocephalia of the island of Cyprus,
Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, and Moldo-Wallachia.
Since no agreement was possible between these two contradictory
conceptions, the questions of dogma and discipline were always in dis-
pute. Theologians, far from trying to solve them, took pleasure in
complicating them. This is the explanation why that protracted contro-
versy, in which on the Latin side men like St Anselm or St Thomas
Aquinas, on the Greek side men like John Beccus (Veccus), Barlaam,
Mark of Ephesus, Bessarion, Gemistos Plethon, are found, produced
absolutely no results.
It may be said that from 1054 to 1453 the question did not advance
one step. Nothing can surpass the monotony of these erudite treatises on
the Procession of the Holy Ghost, of these dialogues and contradictory
debates, which repeat over and over again the same arguments and appeal
continually to the same authorities. Whether at Constantinople in 1054,
at Lyons in 1274, or at Florence in 1439, the discussion revolves round
the same points and arrives at no result.
One chief hindrance to the establishment of the union was its compli-
cation at all times with political interests. It was never desired for its
own sake, but for the temporal advantages which the Emperors, Byzan-
tine and Western alike, expected from it. The consequence was that,
when the political advantages looked for from the union disappeared,
the union itself was abandoned.
From 1054 to 1453 the Emperors always looked to religious union as
a means of carrying out their political designs, or of assuring the defence
of the Empire. From 1055 to 1071 they, as Constantine IX had done,
contracted, by means of the union, a political and military alliance with
the Papacy against the Normans of Italy. Then from 1073 to 1099 the
CH. XIX.
38-2
## p. 596 (#638) ############################################
596
The different points of view
union was courted by Michael VII and Alexius Comnenus to assure the
defence of the Empire against the Seljūq Turks. In the twelfth century,
at the time of the Popes' struggle with the Germanic Emperors, John and
Manuel Comnenus had entertained the fond hope of reconquering Italy
by means of the union, and assuming at Rome the Western imperial
crown. After the conquest of 1204, at the time of the decadence of the
Latin Empire, Theodore I Lascaris, John Vatatzes, and Theodore II saw
in the union the means of re-entering Constantinople. Michael Palaeo-
logus, master of the capital in 1261, made full use of the union to check
the ambitious projects of Charles of Anjou. Finally, in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries the preliminary negotiations for the union were
more or less actively prosecuted according to the advance or the retreat
of the Ottomans, and it was not until the danger from them was pressing
that this union was finally realised at Florence in 1439.
The Popes, on their side, saw in the union primarily a means of saving
Eastern Christendom from the Musulman invasion. Such was the point
of view of Gregory VII and of Urban II. Then the Popes of the
twelfth century, Paschal II, Calixtus II, Honorius II, Hadrian IV, Alex-
ander III, thought to employ the union to secure for themselves at Con-
stantinople a protector against the schemes of the Germanic Emperors.
The series of Popes which starts with Innocent III saw, on the contrary,
that the sole chance of success in the Crusades lay in the union, and
pursued the policy of making Constantinople a base of operations against
the infidels. Finally, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Ot-
toman peril which threatened all Europe constituted the chief reason why
they sought the union.
The policy of the union, voluntarily adopted, was opposed by that
of conquest which was intended to bring about a union by force. The
Kings of Sicily-Roger II, William I, William II—being desirous of
founding a mighty Mediterranean empire, initiated this policy, which
was adopted by such men as St Bernard and Suger. The Hohenstaufen,
who were masters of Sicily by inheritance, dreamed of realising this
ambition of the Norman kings, and the conquest of 1204 was prepared
by an agreement between Philip of Swabia and Venice. The union had
been forcibly imposed on the Greek Church, and then, when some years
later the collapse of the Latin Empire was apparent, Charles of Anjou
and his heirs revived against Constantinople the plans of their prede-
cessors in Sicily.
Such are the different points of view which by their continuous
opposition add to the complication of this period of history, but they
all have the common characteristic of regarding the union merely as a
means of political profit, and this lack of sincerity and altruism on both
sides is the ultimate cause of the final failure of all these efforts.
We know that the solidarity, which united the interests of the Pope
to that of the Emperor in common cause against the Normans in Italy,
## p. 597 (#639) ############################################
Last attempts at alliance against the Normans
597
was
had been the principal obstacle to the schism of 10541. It is not sur-
prising then that the first efforts to resume relations were made in that
sphere. After 1055 the trusty emissary of the alliance between Pope and
Emperor, the Lombard Argyrus, comes once more on the scene. In order
to save Byzantine Italy he has recourse to Henry III, to whom he sends
an embassy. He himself, taking advantage of the semi-disgrace into
which Michael Cerularius fell in the reign of Theodora, went to Con-
stantinople to ask for fresh powers.
One of the legates of 1054, the Chancellor Frederick of Lorraine,
elected Pope under the name of Stephen IX (1057), thought the moment
had come to resume the policy of Leo IX, and chose Desiderius, Abbot-
designate of Monte Cassino, and two other legates to go to Constantinople.
But when the legates were on the point of embarking with Argyrus
(January 1058), the news of the Pope's death stopped their departure.
This policy was obsolete, and the counsellors of the Papacy, such as
Hildebrand, clearly saw that it did not correspond with the actual situa-
tion. The treaty of Melfi (1059), by which Nicholas II recognised the
sovereignty of the Norman Robert Guiscard over Apulia, Calabria, and
Sicily, set the seal to the expropriation of the imperial power in Italy.
The political basis on which the union might have been built
up
removed. In 1062 the Emperor Constantine X made a fruitless attempt
at Rome to secure the election of a Pope pledged to the alliance with
Byzantium. As the result of an intrigue engineered by the Piedmontese
Bishop Benzo and Pantaleone, a merchant of Amalfi in high repute at
Constantinople, Cadalus, Bishop of Parma, elected Pope under the style
of Honorius II, was opposed to the candidate of reform, Alexander II? .
But in 1064 Cadalus, who had sought asylum in the castle of Sant'Angelo,
was driven from Rome, and with him the plan of alliance against the
Normans disappeared. In 1071 the capture of Bari by Robert Guiscard
completed the fall of the imperial power in South Italy. The time was not
far off when, on the very territory of the Empire, the Basileus would
have to fight the Normans, now become the allies and protectors of the
Pope.
Henceforward, the negotiations towards the union were transacted in
another sphere. The victory of the Normans marked the first check to
the expansion of Byzantium which had begun at the end of the ninth
century. The Empire for the future is on the defensive: it has to face
the Normans on the west, the Patzinaks on the north, the Seljūq
Turks on the east. The most menacing danger was on the Turkish
side; the battle of Manzikert (1071), in which Romanus Diogenes was
taken prisoner, shook the Byzantine domination in Asia Minor and even
the security of Constantinople. For a long time now bodies of Western
1 See supra, Chapter ix.
2 Narrative of Benzo, MGH, Script. xl. p. 617. Gay, L'Italie méridionale et
l'empire byzantin, pp. 527-533.
CH. XIX.
## p. 598 (#640) ############################################
598
Union and the danger from the Turks
לי
mercenaries, Lombards, Anglo-Saxons, or Normans, had figured in the
imperial armies. Confronted by the new dangers which threatened the
Empire, the Basileus naturally thought of raising larger levies in the
West, and the religious union seemed to him the most effective means of
persuading the Popes to uphold their cause among the peoples.
This new policy was entered upon in 1073 by the Emperor Michael
VII. On his accession he sent two monks to convey to Gregory VII a
letter, in which he expresses his devotion to the Roman Church. The
Pope sent him an answer by Dominic, Patriarch of Grado, and informed
him of his wish to re-establish “ the ancient concord” between the two
Churches. As a result of these parleys Gregory VII published on
1 March 1074 a letter addressed to all the faithful, ad omnes christianos,
in which, after describing the outrages of the Turks, he exhorts them to
help the Christians of the East? In his letter of 7 December to Henry
IV he announced that he was ready himself to march at the head of
50,000 men to liberate the East and the Holy Sepulchre, and to bring the
Oriental Churches back to Christian unity. But circumstances pre-
vented the realisation of this grandiose plan. The Pope was soon involved
in the struggle with Henry IV; Michael VII was dethroned by Nice-
phorus Botaniates, whom the Pope solemnly excommunicated in 1078 as
a usurper, and relations were once more broken off between Rome and
Constantinople. The close alliance made in 1080 between Gregory VII
and Robert Guiscard excluded all possibility of an agreement.
Under Urban II and Alexius Comnenus the conferences were resumed.
On his accession (1088) the Pope sent the Emperor two legates, one of
whom was the Basilian Abbot of Grottaferrata, in order to ask him to
allow the Latin priests to celebrate mass with unleavened bread". The
Emperor received the request graciously, and invited the Pope to come
to Constantinople to settle the question.
The events of which Rome was then the theatre prevented Urban II
from leaving Italy, but towards 1091 the tension between Rome and
Constantinople was considerably relieved, as is shewn by a curious treatise
of Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrida, “On the errors of the Latins,”
written at this period. He twits the Greeks on their craze for finding
heresies everywhere, and for blaming the Latin priests because they shaved
their beards, wore gold rings, fasted on Saturday, and so on. The only
difference which seemed to him important was the addition to the
Creed
It appears certain that at the same time levies of troops were being
raised in Italy on behalf of the Emperor®, and a regular correspondence
2
1 Mansi, Concilia, xx. p. 74. Reg. 1. 49. Jaffé, Monumenta Gregoriana, p. 69.
3 Reg. 11. 31. lb. p. 144. On these projects vide Riant, Archives de l'Orient latin,
1. p. 56.
s Gaufridus Malaterra, iv. 13.
5 Chalandon, Essai sur le règne d'Alexis Comnène, p. 130.
0 Anna Comnena, Alexiad, viii. 5. CSHB, p. 401.
## p. 599 (#641) ############################################
Union and the First Crusade
599
was established between Urban II and Alexius Comnenus', who the whole
time continued to be in constant communication with the monks of
Monte Cassino? . Finally in 1094 Greek ambassadors appeared at the
Council of Piacenza to ask the Pope and the faithful to defend Christen-
dom against the pagans. At the request of Urban II many knights
pledged themselves by an oath to go to the Easts.
Such was the sequence of events, and it is clear,
of events, and it is clear, as has been established
by Chalandon", that, when asking for extensive reinforcements, Alexius
Comnenus did not contemplate the formidable movement of the Crusade,
of which the Council of Clermont (18-28 November 1095) was the start-
ing point. It is evident that the idea of proclaiming the Holy War and
launching armed multitudes on the East belonged to Urban II, but the
Pope was himself supported and probably incited by the mystic impulse
which drew the Western peoples to the Holy Sepulchre. The ambitious
programme of the Crusade widely surpassed in its scale that of the union
between the Churches, which according to the Pope's idea ought to have
followed naturally from it. The Crusade was to solve all difficulties, poli-
tical or religious
We know that the Crusade did not long remain true to this exalted
ideal. On the one hand, Alexius Comnenus tried to exploit it for re-
conquering the territories torn from the Empire by the Turks. On the
other hand, the Western barons, become sovereign princes in Syria, were
not slow in shewing their hostility to the Empire. The Crusade, far from
solving the problems, only increased the misunderstanding between the
East and the West. In 1098 the crusaders complained to the Pope,
charging Alexius with being the principal obstacle to their march on
Jerusalem
The capture of Antioch and of Jerusalem had at any rate the result
of bringing two of the ancient Eastern patriarchates, whose holders were
henceforward Latins, directly under the authority of the Pope. The
councils held by Urban II at Bari (1098) and at Rome (1099) were
probably intended to proclaim the religious union with these patri-
>>
1 Ekkehard, Hierosolymita, Ed. Hagenmeyer, v. 3—v1. 1.
2 Trinchera, Syllabus graecarum membranarum, pp. 78–83.
3 Bernold, MGH, Script. v. p. 450.
4 Chalandon, Alexis Comnène, pp. 129 and 155. Louis Bréhier, L'Eglise et
l'Orient, pp. 60–61.
6 The predominant idea of Urban II was "liberation of the Eastern Churches. ”
This is confirmed by a very interesting local document, a charge of Stephen, Bishop
of Clermont, to the faithful: “cum ad libertatem Orientalis ecclesiae devastandam
barbarica persecutio in horresceret, exhortans decretum a summo pontifice processit
ut omnis occidentalium nationum virtus ac fides in auxilium destructae religionis
festinaret. " Cartulaire de Sauxillanges, ed. Doniol, p. 502, No. 697. Clermont-
Ferrand, 1864.
6 MPL, CL). col. 155. Vide also the opinion of Guibert de Nogeut on the Greek
Church, MPL, CLVI. col. 686.
CH. XIX.
## p. 600 (#642) ############################################
600
The Papacy and the Germanic Empire
archates. At Bari there was a debate in the presence of the Pope between
St Anselm and the Greek clergy on the Procession of the Holy Ghost? ;
at Rome the Pope published decrees condemning the errors of the
Greeks? . But this was only a partial union, for the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople does not appear to have been represented at these meetings.
A more significant fact is that Pope Paschal II gave his support to
Bohemond, Prince of Antioch, in his attempt to conquer the Greek
Empire, which failed before Durazzo in 1108. This attack of Bohemond
may fairly be regarded as a first attempt to settle the Graeco-Latin dis-
pute by conquest? .
The negotiations for the religious union were soon placed on another
basis, and to achieve this object the Basileus tried to employ the pro-
tracted struggle between the Papacy and the Germanic Empire which
filled the twelfth century. Alexius Comnenus seems to have initiated this
policy. Paschal II having been made prisoner by Henry V in 1111 and
forced to crown him Emperor, Alexius wrote, in January 1112, a letter to
the Romans, in which he protested against this treatment of the Pope,
and professed his readiness to come in person to Rome to assume the
imperial crown. The Romans welcomed these proposals, and sent a
numerous embassy to Constantinople. An illness prevented Alexius from
keeping his promise. But the correspondence between the Pope and
the Emperor was continued. At the close of 1112 the Pope signified to
Alexius that the first condition of the alliance ought to be the submission
of the Greek Church, and suggested the calling of a new council. In
1113 Peter Chrysolanus, Archbishop of Milan, held a public debate with
Eustratius, Bishop of Nicaea, but the matter went no further.
Negotiations were again opened between Calixtus II and John Com-
nenus about 1124. The Pope sent an embassy to Constantinople, and
received one from the Emperor. New embassies were exchanged in 1126
between John Comnenus and Honorius II. In 1136 a new controversy
was broached at Constantinople between Anselm of Havelberg and
Nicetas, Archbishop of Nicomedia. No agreement resulted from it.
Meanwhile the opinion spread more and more widely in the West
that conquest alone would put an end to the ill-will of the Greeks, and
assure the success of the crusades. The chief mover in this direction was
Roger II, King of Sicily, who at the very moment when the Second Cru-
sade was starting had taken the offensive against the Greek Empire (1147).
But he tried in vain to induce the King of France, Louis VII, to favour
his project, and give permission to use the route through Southern Italy
1 Mansi, Concilia, xx. 950. Speech of St Anselm, De Processione sancti Spiritus
contra Graecos, MPL, clviii. col. 289.
2 Lambert of Arras, De primatu sedis Atrebatensis, MPL, CLXII. col. 644.
3 W. Norden, Das Papsttum und Byzanz, pp. 67-74.
4 d’Achery, Spicilegium, 1. 161. Dräseke, Bischof Anselm von Havelberg (Zeitschrift
für Kirchengesch. xxxi. 179).
و
## p. 601 (#643) ############################################
Manuel Comnenus and the Union
601
to gain the East? . The crusaders reached Constantinople by the Danube
route, but while Louis VII was actually the guest of Manuel Comnenus
the Bishop of Langres advised him to open the Crusade by seizing Con-
stantinople? . Such a proposal had no chance of being entertained by a
King of France, but Roger II returned to the attack when he had an inter-
view with Louis VII at Potenza on his return from the Crusade. The king,
passing through Italy, communicated the project to Pope Eugenius III
at Tivoli, but the Pope, who feared the ambition of the King of Sicily, did
not welcome the idea? . Nevertheless, the plan of Roger was approved by
highly qualified religious personalities, by Peter the Venerable, Abbot of
Cluny, by St Bernard, and above all by Suger, Abbot of St Denis, who in
his correspondence with the Pope saw in it the most effective means of
consummating the union between the Churches. The plan of a crusade
against Constantinople was definitely given to the world.
This danger being temporarily averted, Manuel Comnenus tried to
utilise the political rivalries which divided the West to revive the
grandiose project of Alexius Comnenus of bartering the religious union
for the imperial crown at St Peter's in Rome.
From the very first it was the common hostility of Pope Hadrian IV
and the Basileus against William I, King of Sicily, which furnished a basis
of negotiations. An alliance was concluded between them at Bari in
1155. This partook of a military character, and the Pope was pledged to
raise troops to help the Greek generals to conquer Apulia. But the
religious union was not forgotten, and Hadrian IV sent to Constantinople
two pontifical notaries to work there.
The correspondence which he ex-
changed on this subject with Basil, Archbishop of Ochrida, shews us how
far more difficult the religious agreement was than the political alliance.
When the Pope compared the Greek Church to the lost piece of silver
or the lost sheep of the Gospel, Basil replied somewhat sharply that
the Roman Church, which had herself made an addition to the Creed,
was not entitled to accuse the Greeks of having wandered from the
fold 4.
Circumstances seemed more propitious when in 1159 Alexander III
sent an embassy to Manuel, asking his alliance against Frederick Barba-
rossa”. The struggle between the Pope and the Germanic Empire began
afresh with Italy as the stake, but Manuel seemed to hesitate, when in
1161 he received letters from the King of France, Louis VII, and the
pontifical legate in France, William of Pavia, which urged him to recog-
nise Alexander III and proposed an alliance. The legate, after censuring
1 Odo of Deuil, MGH, Script. xxvi. 66.
2 Ib. xxvi. 66.
3 Chalandon, Jean II et Manuel Comnène, pp. 331-337.
4 Mansi, Concilia, xxxi. 799. Chalandon, op. cit. pp. 358-360. W. Norden,
op. cit. p. 95. Schmidt, Des Basilius aus Achrida bisher unedierte Dialoge.
5 Chalandon, op. cit. p. 558. Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, 11. p. 403.
CH. XIX.
## p. 602 (#644) ############################################
602
Failure of Manuel's policy
the conduct of the Germanic Emperors, recalled the prosperous times
which the Church had known when there was but one Empire in the
world. The allusion was clear? .
Manuel seems to have been favourably disposed towards this idea. On
25 December 1161 he writes to Louis VII that he recognises Alexander III
as lawful Pope, and asks the king to send an embassy to Constanti-
nople. He himself sent in 1163 to France three ambassadors’, whose
mission was to communicate a matter of extreme importance, not to
be divulged except in the joint presence of the Pope and the king
at the same conference? But this preliminary condition could not be
carried out, and it would appear from the correspondence exchanged on
the matter that it was the hesitation of Louis VII which destroyed the
formal conclusion of an alliance. After having seen the king, the ambassa-
dors waited a long time at Saint-Gilles for instructions which never came.
It was January 1164 before they once more reached Constantinople.
This want of success did not deter Manuel, who now adopted the
policy of addressing himself directly to the Pope, and proposed in 1166
the reunion of the Churches in exchange for the imperial crown of the
West. The Pope cordially welcomed these overtures and sent to Con-
stantinople Ubaldo, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, and Cardinal John”. Dis-
cussions were held at Constantinople between these legates and the
members of the Greek clergy, but they led to nothing. According to
Cinnamus? , the Pope required Manuel to transfer his residence to Rome,
and that was the cause of the discontinuance of the negotiations.
In 1170 Manuel made a final attempt with Alexander III, but the
favourable moment had passed. The formation of the Lombard League
had improved the position of the Pope, who only returned an evasive
answer to these overtures, but sent, however, two legates to Constanti-
nople. The relations between the Pope and the Basileus were excellent
right up to the last. In 1175 Manuel announced to Alexander III the
victory which he had just won over the Turks at Dorylaeum, and invited
him to accelerate the departure of the Western crusaders to fight the
Turks. The Pope gave instructions to this effect to the legate whom he
had sent to France. But notwithstanding sincerely good intentions the
Pope and the Emperor had been powerless to triumph over the obstacles
which militated against their agreement. The very curious dialogue
between the Emperor Manuel and the Patriarch Michael Anchialus
1 Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, xv. 55 and 772.
2 Ib. xvi. 81.
3 Ib. xv. 803-807.
4 16. xvi. 56, 57. Chalandon, op. cit. pp. 560-562.
6 Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, 11. p. 415.
• Chalandon, op. cit. p. 565. Hergenroether, Photius, III. p. 810.
7 Cinnamus, vi. 4 (CSHB, p. 262).
8 Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, 11. pp. 419-420.
9 Osberti Annales, MGH, Script. xvin. 86. Chalandon, op. cit. p. 567.
## p. 603 (#645) ############################################
Rupture between Byzantium and the West
603
shews unmistakably that the Greek clergy clung to all their distrust of
Rome? On the other hand, the incessant interference of the Comneni
in the doctrinal and disciplinary matters of the Greek Church proves that
the Basileus would never consent to resign the religious authority which
had been transmitted to him from his predecessors? .
The death of Manuel Comnenus in 1180 was followed by a violent
reaction against his Western policy and against the Latins. Andronicus
Comnenus, the usurper of the throne, consolidated his power by letting
popular hatred work its worst on the Western colonies in Constanti-
nople. The massacre of the Latins in 1182 was an unpardonable act
which led to the reprisals of 1204. From this moment it was open
warfare between the West and Byzantium, and act upon act of hostility
followed. Now it was the aggression of William II, King of Sicily, in
1189, and the sack of Thessalonica ; now the alliance of Isaac Angelus
with Saladin in 1189; now the hostility which he evinced to Frederick
Barbarossa in 1190; now the occupation of the island of Cyprus in 1191
by Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Above all, there were the preparations of
Henry VI, heir to the Norman Kings of Sicily, to have done once and
for all with the Byzantine Empire: a fleet had already been assembled
at Messina, and, in spite of the Pope, the Emperor was on the point of
embarking for Constantinople when he died prematurely (28 September
1198).
All these acts intensified bitterness. At the very time when Barba-
rossa's Crusade was passing through, the Greeks openly treated the Latins
as heretics, and the Patriarch in a sermon preached at St Sophia promised
indulgences to every Greek who killed a hundred crusaders. The crusade
against Constantinople seemed therefore inevitable, and would have taken
place sooner had not the death of Henry VI produced a lull which the
new Pope, Innocent III, tried to utilise on behalf of the union.
Ever since his accession, in fact, Innocent III had been busy in
organising a crusade, and to his mind the realisation of religious
union with Constantinople was the postulate of its success. The first
step towards agreement was taken by Alexius III, who found he had the
same enemy as the Pope in the person of Philip of Swabia, brother of
Henry VI and son-in-law of the deposed Emperor Isaac Angelus. He
openly proposed to the Pope an alliance against the Hohenstaufen, but
Innocent III in his answer brought the question on to the religious plane
by intimating to the Emperor that, if he wanted to end the complaints
of the Western peoples against him, he ought to lead a crusade to the
Holy Land, and work for the union of the Churches. A letter on the
1 Ed. Loparev, VV. , xiv. p. 344.
2 Oeconomos, La vie religieuse dans l'empire byzantin au temps des Comnènes et
des Anges.
3 Letter of Frederick Barbarossa to King Henry, ed. W. Norden, op. cit. p. 120;
Ansbert, Historia de expeditione (Fontes rerum Austriacarum Scriptores, v. 32).
CH. XIX.
## p. 604 (#646) ############################################
604
The Fourth Crusade
necessity of re-establishing the unity of the Church was at the same time
addressed to the Patriarch? For more than a year this correspondence
was kept up without any result, and in a style which shewed little diplo-
macy, for the two principals refused to make the slightest concession in
fundamentals.
The Pope, while negotiating with Alexius III, was all the time order-
ing the Crusade to be preached; but the expedition was organised inde-
pendently of him, and the barons who took the cross were content with
asking him to ratify the measures which they adopted. The Pope took
no share in the conclusion of the treaty with Venice for free passage
(March 1201), nor in the election of Boniface of Montferrat as leader
of the Crusade (May 1201). The prince Alexius, son of Isaac Angelus,
escaping from his prison, lost little time in coming, first of all, to ask
Innocent III to support the restoration of his father, and to undertake
the promotion of the religious union; but he next went to Germany to
his brother-in-law Philip of Swabia, and it was then probably that,
without the cognisance of Innocent III, Philip of Swabia and Boniface
of Montferrat decided at the interview at Haguenau (25 December 1201)
to divert the Crusade to Constantinople. Boniface of Montferrat, on
presenting himself at Rome in May 1202 to propose to Innocent III
the restoration of Isaac Angelus with the support of the crusaders,
encountered a categorical refusal.
The barons thereupon acted contrary to the wish of the Pope, and
the crisis was precipitated. There was, first of all, the diversion to Zara,
to which the crusaders consented on the plea of paying their debt to the
Venetians. Then, on the Pope's refusal to excuse the capture of Zara,
it was determined to confront him with the accomplished fact. The
arrival at Zara of embassies from Philip of Swabia (1 January 1203) and
from the pretender Alexius (7 April) decided the crusaders to attack
Constantinople. The conscience of the crusaders had been salved by most
specious promises, union of the Churches, participation of the restored
Emperor in the Crusade—the entire programme of the Pope himself.
Innocent III had in vain made the greatest efforts to keep the Crusade
on the route to Egypt. The alliance between the Ghibellines, of whom
Philip of Swabia was the leader, and the Venetians, which saw in the
Byzantine Empire a tempting prey, was stronger than the will of the
Pope. Further, Isaac Angelus and his son, once restored, were unable to
keep the promises which they had made, and the crusaders were forced
to besiege Constantinople a second time. This time it was conquest pure
and simple: the sack of the palace, the monasteries, and the churches,
the partition of the Empire between the barons and the Venetians. In
1205 the whole East was covered with Latin settlements, and only
two centres of resistance were left, the one in Epirus under the dynasty
of the Angeli, the other at Nicaea round Theodore Lascaris. The con-
1 MPL, CCXIV,
cols. 326–7.
## p. 605 (#647) ############################################
The compulsory union
605
querors could fondly flatter themselves that, by disobeying the orders of
the Pope, they had put an end to the schism of the Greeks, and assured
for ever the supremacy of the Roman Church in the East.
According to the principles of the Canon Law, the conquest of the
East in no way necessarily involved the absorption of the Greek Church
by the Latin Church. To realise the union, it was necessary, first, that
the Greeks gave a formal adherence, then, that the Greek Church should
return to the conditions previous to 1054, communion with Rome, auto-
nomous institutions, native clergy, national rites. But for this solution
to prevail the conquerors, clerics as well as laymen, would have had to
shew improbable self-abnegation ; the property and revenue of the Greek
clergy was too tempting a prey for them.
To do this, these men of the thirteenth century needed a perfect
familiarity with history which they could not possess. Between 1054 and
1204 the position of the Papacy had been completely changed; the
spiritual supremacy of the Holy See was accepted by all, and many
would defend its temporal supremacy. To the West, since the schism of
the Greeks, the Roman Church represented the Catholic Church. What
she required from the other Churches was no longer merely communion,
but submission in matters of dogma and discipline. The Christian republic
tended to become a monarchy.
On the side of the Greeks, finally, a spirit of conciliation would have
been necessary, but the events of which they had just been victims
rendered this impossible. The chronicle of Nicetas echoes the exasperation
which the sack of Constantinople roused among them. A contemporary
pamphlet, entitled “Our grievances against the Latin Church,” enume-
rates a long list, as absurd as it is spiteful, of the practices with which
they charged the Latins, and declares that it is impossible to communicate
with men who shave their beards and eat meat on Wednesday and fish
in Lent? The more moderate Greeks, in a letter to Innocent III about
1213, declared that they would gladly attempt a conciliation, but on con-
dition that the difficulties were solved by an Ecumenical Council and
that no violence should be employed to secure their adhesion? .
Innocent III, resigned to the conquest of Constantinople, which he
had never wished but in the end considered a providential event, resolved
at least to turn it to the best advantage of Christendom by realising
the religious union and organising the Church of the East. But the
crusaders, taking no account of his intentions, had confronted him with
actual facts. At the very outset, on their own authority, they placed
Latin clergy at the head of the churches and monasteries; their task
was lightened by the Greek clergy, of whom many members had fled for
refuge to Nicaea or Epirus. On the other hand, agreeably to the bargain
struck with Venice, the greater part of the property of the Church was
1 Luchaire, Innocent III, La question d'Orient, pp. 238–243.
2 16. pp. 251-257.
CH. XIX
## p. 606 (#648) ############################################
606
Innocent III and the Greek Church
secularised. At Constantinople itself the Venetians took possession of
the richest monasteries, and installed at St Sophia a chapter of canons,
who elected to the Patriarchate a Venetian noble, Thomas Morosini.
The Pope, much against his will, was forced to confirm this choice.
The same example was followed in all the states founded by the
Latins, the kingdom of Thessalonica, duchy of Athens, principality of
Achaia, the Venetian possessions in Crete and the Archipelago. The Latin
clergy and the religious or military orders of the West were installed
everywhere. Innocent III had no choice but to accept this spoliation of
the Greek Church; he did his best, however, to stop it, and to bring the
new clergy into strict subordination to the Holy See. His legate, Cardi-
nal Benedict of Santa Susanna, was able to sign a treaty in 1206 with the
regent of the Latin Empire, Henry of Flanders, by which the barons
relinquished to the Church a fifteenth of their estates and incomes. The
same legate was commissioned to obtain the consent of the Greek clergy
to the religious union. His instructions were to offer most conciliatory
terms. He negotiated with the Greek bishops of one power after another,
even treating with those of the Empire of Nicaea, and going so far as to
concede the use of leavened bread for the Eucharist. The Pope even
allowed the validity of the orders conferred by the Greek prelates.
The only obligation which he imposed on them was to recognise formally
the authority of the Holy See by means of an oath taken according to
the feudal form while clasping the hands of the legate. The bishop must
swear fidelity and obedience to the Roman Church, undertake to answer
every summons to a council, to make a journey, like the Western bishops,
to the threshold (ad limina) of the Apostles, to receive the legates with
due ceremony, and to inscribe the name of the Pope on the diptychs.
This was in reality a serious innovation, irreconcilable with the system
of autonomy which the Greek Church had enjoyed before 1054. Many
indeed of the Greek bishops agreed to take this oath, but it was one of
the principal obstacles to the duration of the union. In many places
resistance was offered to it, and there were even scenes of violence.
The mission entrusted to Cardinal Pelagius in 1213 completed the
exasperation of the Greeks. His instructions were far less conciliatory
than those of his predecessor, and he went far beyond them. Being
commissioned to obtain the submission of all the Greek clergy, he had
the recalcitrant thrown into prison, had seals affixed to the church doors,
and drove the monks out of their convents. The Emperor Henry was
alarmed at these events, and intervened, liberating the prisoners and re-
opening the churches.
In these circumstances Pelagius, in order to carry out the pontifical
instructions, called for the assembling of a conference at Constantinople
with the Greek clergy of Nicaea. Nothing could come of this. The
delegate of the Empire of Nicaea, Nicholas Mesarites, Metropolitan of
Ephesus, was received with honour, but complained of the haughty
## p. 607 (#649) ############################################
Fall of the Latin Empire
607
attitude of Pelagius. Sharp and sarcastic words were exchanged, and,
after a week of discussion, the meeting broke up without any results.
At the Lateran Council, in 1215, there was not a single representa-
tive of the Greek native clergy, and very few of the Latin bishops of the
Eastern Empire took the trouble to attend. The Council proclaimed that
the Greeks had come once more under the jurisdiction of the Holy
See. They were permitted to preserve their ritual and their peculiar
uses, but the hatred which they incessantly shewed towards the
Latins, by re-baptising the infants whom they had baptised, and by
purifying the altars which had been used by them, was denounced in
vigorous terms.
The situation did not improve under the successors of Innocent III,
and the relations between the Latin clergy and the natives became worse
and worse.
The correspondence of the Popes of the thirteenth century
is full of expostulations directed against the Latin bishops for their abuse
of power and their outrages? .
