Michael Palaeo-
logus, master of the capital in 1261, made full use of the union to check
the ambitious projects of Charles of Anjou.
logus, master of the capital in 1261, made full use of the union to check
the ambitious projects of Charles of Anjou.
Cambridge Medieval History - v4 - Eastern Roman Empire
hist.
Slav.
Merid.
xxi.
pp.
10, 164, 205, 382, 384.
4 Ibid. xxII. pp. 67-8, 153.
6 Ibid. XXII. pp. 364, 383.
## p. 587 (#629) ############################################
End of the “ Black Princes”
587
especially of a peace on such terms. Abandoned by Venice, Ivan the
Black was now at the mercy of the invader. His capital was too near
the lake of Scutari to be any longer a safe residence; accordingly, he
set fire to Žabljak, and founded in 1484 his new capital at Cetinje,
which remained the seat of the Montenegrin government. There he
built a monastery and a church, and thither he transferred the
metropolitan see of the Zeta, hitherto established in the Craina', the
piece of the Dalmatian coast between the Narenta and the Cetina. The
Turks occupied the lower Zeta ; but a national ballad expresses the
belief that Ivan the Black would one day awake from his sleep in the
grotto of Obod near Rjeka, and lead his heroic Montenegrins to the
conquest of Albania. At Obod he erected a fortress and a building to
house a printing-press for the use of the church at Cetinje, and under
his eldest son George the first books printed in Slavonic saw the light
there in 1493, an achievement commemorated with much circumstance
four centuries afterwards. But George Crnojević was driven from
Montenegro in 1496 by his brother Stephen with the support of the
Turks. The exiled prince took refuge in Venice, the home of his wife,
whence, after a futile attempt to recover his dominions, he threw himself
upon the mercy of the Sultan, embraced Islām, and died, , a Turkish
pensioner, in Anatolia. Meanwhile, Montenegro was governed by
Stephen II till 1499, when’ it was annexed to the Sanjak of Scutari and
placed under a Turkish official who resided at Zabljak 3. But the
mountaineers resisted the Turkish tax-gatherers, and in 1514 Stephen II
was restored by the Sultan *. According to tradition, one of his
descendants, married to a Venetian wife who found residence at Cetinje
both monotonous and useless, abandoned the Black Mountain for ever
and retired to the delights of Venice in 1516, after transferring the
supreme power to the bishop, who was assisted by a civil governor
chosen from among the headmen of
the headmen of the Katunska district. The prince-
bishop, or Vladika, was elective, until in 1696 the dignity became
hereditary, with one interval, in the family of Petrović. Meanwhile, for
some years after the final abdication of the Crnojević family, another
brother of George, who had become a Musulman, held, under the name
of Skanderbeg, the post of Turkish “ governor of Montenegro," a
land which, although the Turks have often invaded and overrun it, they
never permanently conquered.
While Montenegro, the autonomous Mirdites, and the tiny republic
of Poljica alone remained free on the west of the Balkan peninsula, the
two Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia retained a large
2
1 Mon, spect. hist. Slav. Merid. xxii. p. 67.
Sanudo, Diarii, 11. pp. 372, 504.
3 Ibid. xii. p. 153.
4 Ibid. xvii. p. 397.
CH. XVIII.
## p. 588 (#630) ############################################
588
The Danubian Principalities
וי
measure of domestic independence, under the forms of vassalage, on the
east. After a long period of civil war between rival claimants, who
called in their neighbours and partitioned their distracted dominions,
Wallachia acknowledged in 1456 a strong if barbarous ruler in the
person of Vlad “ the Impaler,” and Moldavia in 1457 a vigorous prince
in that of Stephen the Great. The Wallach's hideous cruelties do not
belie his name; he executed 20,000 of his subjects to consolidate his
throne; but he achieved by his savage punishments what his pre-
decessors had failed to obtain, the loyalty of his terrified nobles and the
suppression of brigandage. As soon as he felt secure at home, he defied
his Turkish suzerain, refusing to send him the contingent of 500 children
which Mahomet demanded in addition to the customary annual tribute.
He impaled the Sultan's emissaries, and when the Sultan himself marched
forth to avenge them in 1462 forced him to retire in disgrace. In th
same year, however," the Impaler” was driven from his throne by his
brother, a Turkish puppet, aided by the great Prince of Moldavia. For
the rest of the century Stephen overshadowed the petty rulers of the
sister-principality, and became the leading spirit of resistance to the
Turks in Eastern Europe. His father had, indeed, paid tribute to them
as far back as 1456; but he completely routed them at the battle of
Racova in 1475, the first time that a Turkish and a Moldavian army
had
met. Europe applauded his success; but, after in vain trying to form
a league of the Christian Powers against the enemy, he realised at the
end of his long reign that his efforts had only postponed the necessity
of recognising the suzerainty of the Sultan. His son Bogdan in 1513
made his submission and promised to pay tribute, on condition that the
Moldaves should retain the right of electing their own princes and that
no Turks should reside in their country-a condition modified in 1541
by the imposition of a guard of 500 Turkish horsemen upon the prince
of that period. Thus, largely owing to the fraternal quarrels of their
rulers, both the principalities had fallen within the sphere of Turkish
influence; their constantly changing princes, whether natives or
Phanariote Greeks, were the creatures of the Sultan; but, unlike
Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia, they never came under his direct rule, were
never formally annexed to the Turkish Empire.
The medieval history of the Balkan states and the causes of their
fall are full of significance for our own time. In the Near East, and
in the Near East alone, the Middle Ages are but as yesterday to the
newly-emancipated nations, which look upon the centuries of Turkish
domination as a watch in the night, and aspire to take up the thread
of their interrupted national existence where it was left by their ancient
Tsars, each regardless of the other's overlapping claims to lands which
have been redeemed from the Turk. The medieval records of the motley
peninsula teach us to regard with doubt, in spite of 'Turkish vicinity,
the prospect of common action between Christian races, which, if small
=
## p. 589 (#631) ############################################
Jealousies of the Powers
589
individually, would, if united, have formed a powerful barrier against the
foreigner either from the East or from the West. But the greater
nations of Christendom cannot afford to criticise too harshly their weaker
brethren in the Balkans; for it was quite as much the selfishness and the
mutual jealousy of the Western Powers as the fratricidal enmities of the
Eastern States which allowed the East of Europe to be conquered by Asia,
and which has even in our own day retarded its complete emancipation.
CH. XVIII.
## p. 590 (#632) ############################################
TABLES OF RULERS.
590
SERBIA.
BULGARIAN TSARS.
John Asên 1}
1186
FRANKISH DUKES OF PHILIPPOPOLIS.
Renier de Trit
1204
Gerard de Stroem
1229
(Bulgarian : 1235]
Stephen Nemanja,"Great Zupan" 1143 (or
1159)_1196 + 1200
Stephen, “Great Župan
1196
King 1217
[Vukan, “King of Dioclea' 1195-1207]
Radoslav, King
1228
Vladislav, King
1234-43
+ 1263
Stephen Uroš I, King
1243
Stephen Dragutin, King 1276-81 + 1316
Stephen Uroš II, Milutin, King 1281
1321
Stephen Uroš III, Dečanski, King 1322
(Vladislav, King
1321-4]
Stephen Uroš IV, Dušan, King 1331
Tsar 1346
Stephen Uroš V, Tsar
1355-1371
Simeon Uroš, Tsar
1356–71
_Vukašin, King
1366-71]
Lazar I Hrebeljanović, Prince 1371
Lazar II, or Stephen Lazarević,
Despot
1389-1427
"Vuk Branković, Despot 1389
_George Branković, Prince 1398
George Branković, Despot 1427
Irene
1456
Lazar III Branković, Despot . . . )
Lazar III
alone 1457
Stephen Tomašević, Crown Prince
of Bosnia, Despot
1458-9
[Turkish : 1459)
Peter
Kalojan
Kalojan alone
Boril
John Asên II
Kaliman I
Michael Asên
Kaliman II
Constantine Asên
Ivailo
John Asen III.
George Terteri I
Smilec
Theodore Svętslav
George Terteri II
Michael Shishmanich
John Stephen
John Alexander
1196
1197
1207
1218
1241
1246
1257
1258
1277
1279
1280
1292
1295
1322
1323
1330 + 1373
1331
Tables of Rulers
. . .
John Shishman 1362
- 1393 +1395
(Trnovo) or 1365)
[Turkish : 1393]
John Sracimir
(Vidin)
1360-5; 1369-98
[Hungarian: 1366-9;
Turkish : 1398]
## p. 591 (#633) ############################################
. . . c. 1220
. . .
BOSNIA.
Borić
Ban. 1154-63
[Byzantine Empire: 1166–80]
Kulin
Ban. 1180-1204
Stephen
Bun, after 1204
Matthew Ninoslav
Ban. 1232-37 ; 1240-50
[Kingdom of Hungary: 1237-40)
Prijesda I, “the great
Ban. after 1250-87
Prijesda II and Stephen Kotroman Bans, 1287-90
Stephen Kotroman, alone
1290-1302
Paul Šubić
Ban. 1299-1312
Mladen Šubić
Ban. 1312-22
Hum. (Herzegovina. )
Miroslav, Prince.
1180-90
[Hungarian : 1198-1202]
Peter, Prince
[Hungarian: 1237]
Tolen, Prince
-1239
Andreas, Prince
1239
Radoslav, Župan
1254
[Hungarian: 1254]
[Serbian: c. 1284-1325]
[Bosnian : 1325–57]
(1 Hungarian : 1357-74]
Vojeslav Vojnov, Count 1357-71
2
Niccolò Altomanović 1371-4
[Bosnian*
1374–1435]
Stephen Vukčić
1435
“Duke of St Sava'
1445-66
Vladislav
Vlatko 3
1466–7
Vlatko, “Duke of St Sava 1467-83
[Turkish : 1483]
. . .
Tables of Rulers
Lower Bosnia
[under Hungary). Hungarian magnates, 1254-64.
Duchy of Mačva and Bosnia
Agnes, Duchess
1264
Béla, Duke
1271-2
Stephen Borić . . .
Ban. 1272
Egidius
Вап. 1273
Ugrin
Ban. 1279
Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, Duchess 1280-84
Stephen Dragutin, ex-King of Serbia 1284-1316
Stephen Kotromanić
1322
Stephen Tvrtko I
Ban. 1353, King 1376
Stephen Dabiša, King
1391
Helena Gruba, Queen
1395
Stephen Ostoja, King
1398
Stephen Tvrtko II Tvrtković, King
1404
Stephen Ostoja (2), King
1408
Stephen Ostojić, King . . .
1418
Stephen Tvrtko II Tvrtković (2), King
1421
Stephen Thomas Ostojić, King
1443
Stephen Tomašević, King
1461-3
* Sandalj Hranić-Kosača practically
independent 1404–35.
591
[Turkish 1403, except Banat of Jajce: Hungarian 1463–1528
and Bunut of Srebrenik:
1463-1520]
CH. XVIII.
## p. 592 (#634) ############################################
592
The ZETA (MONTENEGRO).
:::::
Radić Crnoje
1392-96
George and Alexius Jurašević 1403-c. 1427
[Part Serbian : 1421-7]
Stephen I Crnojević. . .
. . . c. 1427
Ivan I
1466
George I
1490-6 + before 1514
Stephen II
1496–9; 1514
Ivan II
1515
George II
1515-16
(Skanderbeg Crnojević, Turkish “Governor of
Montenegro
1523-6]
Tables of Rulers
THE REPUBLIC OF POLJICA.
Balša I
Stracimir
George I
Balša II
George II
Balša III
c. 1360
1362
1372
1378
1385
1405-21
(Part Venetian : 1421-1479) ]
VENETIAN COLONIES IN ALBANIA.
Founded
Under Hungariau Bans.
Under Venetian suzerainty
944
c. 1350
1444
Durazzo
Alessio
Drivasto
Scutari
Antivari
Dulcigno
Dagno
Sattis
1205-15; 1392–1501
1393–1478
1396–1419; 1421-3; 1442–78
1396-1479
1421-23; 1444-1571
1421-1571
1444-56 ; 1458-78
## p. 593 (#635) ############################################
TURKISH SULTANS.
PRINCES OF MOLDAVIA.
C. MEN, H. VOL. IV. CH. XVIII
Osman
Orkhān
Murād I
Bayazid I
Sulaiman
1299
1326
1360
1389
1402
1410
1413
1421
1451
1181
Mūsà . . .
>>
Mahomet I
Murad II
Mahomet II
Bayazid II
}
. . .
. . .
PRINCES OF WALLACHIA.
Radou I Negrou
. . . c. 1290
Ivanko Basaraba
1310
Nicholas Alexander Basaraba 1330
Vladislav
1364
Radou II
1372
Dan I
1385
Mircea «the Great
1386
[First Tributary to Turkey : 13911
(Vlad I
1394-5)
Michael I
1418
Dan II
1420
Radou III
1422
Dan II (2)
1427
Vlad II “the Devil
1432
Dan INI
1446
Vladislav II
1448
Vlad III “the Impaler
1456
Radou IV “the Fair'
1462
Laïote Basaraba
1465
Vlad III (2) “the Impaler 1477
Laïote Basaraba “the Young
1477
Vlad IV “the Monk'
1481
Radou V “the Great
1494
i ::
>>
: : :
Tables of Rulers
Elias (2)
(Under Hungarian suzerainty : c. 1288-1349)
Bogdan I
1349
Latzcou
1370
Juga I Coriatović
1374
Peter I Mouchate
1375
Roman I
1390
Stephen I
1394
Stephen II
1395
Peter II
Roman II
1399
Juga II
1400
Alexander I il the Good"
1401
Elias, alone
1433
Stephen JII, alone
1433
1435
Stephen III
Stephen III
Roman III
1444
Peter III
Roman III, alone
1447
Peter III (2)
1448
Alexander IIS
Bogdan II
1449
Peter III (3)
1451
Alexander II (2)
Peter III, alone
1455
[First Tributary to Turkey : 1456]
Stephen IV “the Great”.
1457
Bogdan III
1504
East Roman EMPERORS FROM 1261
Michael VIII Palaeologus 1259-82
Andronicus II
1282-1332
Michael JX
1295-1320
Andronicus III
1325(28)-41
John V
1341-76
John VI Cantacuzene
1347-54
Andronicus IV
1376-79
John V (restored)
1379-91
John VII, usurper
1390
Manuel II
1391–1425
John VII, co-regent (restored) 1399-1412
John VIII
1423-48
Constantine XI Dragases 1448-53
. . .
(23)}
. . .
38
593
## p. 594 (#636) ############################################
594
CHAPTER XIX.
ATTEMPTS AT REUNION OF THE GREEK
AND LATIN CHURCHES.
BETWEEN the schism of Michael Cerularius and the capture of Con-
stantinople by the Turks, a period of four hundred years, from 1054 to
1453, some thirty attempts were made to unite the Greeks and the Latins
once more in the same communion. At three separate times, in 1204
under compulsion, and in 1274 and 1439 by the terms of an agreement,
the union appeared to have been effected; but on each occasion it was
inchoate and ephemeral.
It might be said that, from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, the
union was the “great ambition " of the Popes and Emperors. It seemed
to them the one effective remedy for all the ills of Christendom, which
would reconstruct the unity of the Church and re-establish religious con-
cord; strengthened by it, Christendom could resist the attacks of the
infidels. Every time that this splendid ideal seemed within grasp, events
thwarted its realisation; and the wisest combinations, the most subtle
compromises, the fruit of long and laborious negotiations, were powerless
before the permanent causes of schism which were destined to render all
these efforts abortive. The history therefore of the attempts at union
is one of continued mortification, repeated checks, perpetual failures,
which militated against religious peace. In point of fact, the union
could never be completely attained, and it was the impossibility of
achieving this end which brought on the final fall of the Empire.
At the present day the dogmatic and disciplinary divergences which
were then separating the two Churches, the double Procession of the
Holy Ghost, the dispute as to the pains of purgatory, the use of un-
leavened bread, and so on, do not appear insuperable difficulties to the
union. Agreement on these points was reached several times, and the Popes
recognised the right of the Uniate Greeks to preserve their peculiar
uses.
But all these questions, which gave birth to countless controversies,
were really only an excuse for schism. The fundamental difficulty was the
recognition by the Greek Church of the papal supremacy, which was far
more wide-reaching in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries than in the
days of Photius and Cerularius. The Greek Church, jealous of her tra-
## p. 595 (#637) ############################################
Hindrances to the Union
595
ditions, proud of her history and of the Ecumenical Councils on which
orthodoxy was based, and in which she had played so prominent a part,
could not accept passively the idea of pontifical monarchy held by a
Gregory VII or an Innocent III. She admitted the primacy of the
Pope, while the more moderate of her members allowed the Papacy its
universal character, but one and all rejected the disciplinary jurisdiction
which made all bishops merely delegates and papal vicars.
Two irreconcilable parties were thus opposed, and there was no solu-
tion to the dispute on the religious side. The Western conception of the
freedom of the Church from the State, for which the supremacy of the
Pope was the essential guarantee, was confronted by the Eastern doctrine
of the autocephalous Church, whose autonomy corresponded to that of the
State, to which it was strictly subordinated. 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.
4 Ibid. xxII. pp. 67-8, 153.
6 Ibid. XXII. pp. 364, 383.
## p. 587 (#629) ############################################
End of the “ Black Princes”
587
especially of a peace on such terms. Abandoned by Venice, Ivan the
Black was now at the mercy of the invader. His capital was too near
the lake of Scutari to be any longer a safe residence; accordingly, he
set fire to Žabljak, and founded in 1484 his new capital at Cetinje,
which remained the seat of the Montenegrin government. There he
built a monastery and a church, and thither he transferred the
metropolitan see of the Zeta, hitherto established in the Craina', the
piece of the Dalmatian coast between the Narenta and the Cetina. The
Turks occupied the lower Zeta ; but a national ballad expresses the
belief that Ivan the Black would one day awake from his sleep in the
grotto of Obod near Rjeka, and lead his heroic Montenegrins to the
conquest of Albania. At Obod he erected a fortress and a building to
house a printing-press for the use of the church at Cetinje, and under
his eldest son George the first books printed in Slavonic saw the light
there in 1493, an achievement commemorated with much circumstance
four centuries afterwards. But George Crnojević was driven from
Montenegro in 1496 by his brother Stephen with the support of the
Turks. The exiled prince took refuge in Venice, the home of his wife,
whence, after a futile attempt to recover his dominions, he threw himself
upon the mercy of the Sultan, embraced Islām, and died, , a Turkish
pensioner, in Anatolia. Meanwhile, Montenegro was governed by
Stephen II till 1499, when’ it was annexed to the Sanjak of Scutari and
placed under a Turkish official who resided at Zabljak 3. But the
mountaineers resisted the Turkish tax-gatherers, and in 1514 Stephen II
was restored by the Sultan *. According to tradition, one of his
descendants, married to a Venetian wife who found residence at Cetinje
both monotonous and useless, abandoned the Black Mountain for ever
and retired to the delights of Venice in 1516, after transferring the
supreme power to the bishop, who was assisted by a civil governor
chosen from among the headmen of
the headmen of the Katunska district. The prince-
bishop, or Vladika, was elective, until in 1696 the dignity became
hereditary, with one interval, in the family of Petrović. Meanwhile, for
some years after the final abdication of the Crnojević family, another
brother of George, who had become a Musulman, held, under the name
of Skanderbeg, the post of Turkish “ governor of Montenegro," a
land which, although the Turks have often invaded and overrun it, they
never permanently conquered.
While Montenegro, the autonomous Mirdites, and the tiny republic
of Poljica alone remained free on the west of the Balkan peninsula, the
two Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia retained a large
2
1 Mon, spect. hist. Slav. Merid. xxii. p. 67.
Sanudo, Diarii, 11. pp. 372, 504.
3 Ibid. xii. p. 153.
4 Ibid. xvii. p. 397.
CH. XVIII.
## p. 588 (#630) ############################################
588
The Danubian Principalities
וי
measure of domestic independence, under the forms of vassalage, on the
east. After a long period of civil war between rival claimants, who
called in their neighbours and partitioned their distracted dominions,
Wallachia acknowledged in 1456 a strong if barbarous ruler in the
person of Vlad “ the Impaler,” and Moldavia in 1457 a vigorous prince
in that of Stephen the Great. The Wallach's hideous cruelties do not
belie his name; he executed 20,000 of his subjects to consolidate his
throne; but he achieved by his savage punishments what his pre-
decessors had failed to obtain, the loyalty of his terrified nobles and the
suppression of brigandage. As soon as he felt secure at home, he defied
his Turkish suzerain, refusing to send him the contingent of 500 children
which Mahomet demanded in addition to the customary annual tribute.
He impaled the Sultan's emissaries, and when the Sultan himself marched
forth to avenge them in 1462 forced him to retire in disgrace. In th
same year, however," the Impaler” was driven from his throne by his
brother, a Turkish puppet, aided by the great Prince of Moldavia. For
the rest of the century Stephen overshadowed the petty rulers of the
sister-principality, and became the leading spirit of resistance to the
Turks in Eastern Europe. His father had, indeed, paid tribute to them
as far back as 1456; but he completely routed them at the battle of
Racova in 1475, the first time that a Turkish and a Moldavian army
had
met. Europe applauded his success; but, after in vain trying to form
a league of the Christian Powers against the enemy, he realised at the
end of his long reign that his efforts had only postponed the necessity
of recognising the suzerainty of the Sultan. His son Bogdan in 1513
made his submission and promised to pay tribute, on condition that the
Moldaves should retain the right of electing their own princes and that
no Turks should reside in their country-a condition modified in 1541
by the imposition of a guard of 500 Turkish horsemen upon the prince
of that period. Thus, largely owing to the fraternal quarrels of their
rulers, both the principalities had fallen within the sphere of Turkish
influence; their constantly changing princes, whether natives or
Phanariote Greeks, were the creatures of the Sultan; but, unlike
Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia, they never came under his direct rule, were
never formally annexed to the Turkish Empire.
The medieval history of the Balkan states and the causes of their
fall are full of significance for our own time. In the Near East, and
in the Near East alone, the Middle Ages are but as yesterday to the
newly-emancipated nations, which look upon the centuries of Turkish
domination as a watch in the night, and aspire to take up the thread
of their interrupted national existence where it was left by their ancient
Tsars, each regardless of the other's overlapping claims to lands which
have been redeemed from the Turk. The medieval records of the motley
peninsula teach us to regard with doubt, in spite of 'Turkish vicinity,
the prospect of common action between Christian races, which, if small
=
## p. 589 (#631) ############################################
Jealousies of the Powers
589
individually, would, if united, have formed a powerful barrier against the
foreigner either from the East or from the West. But the greater
nations of Christendom cannot afford to criticise too harshly their weaker
brethren in the Balkans; for it was quite as much the selfishness and the
mutual jealousy of the Western Powers as the fratricidal enmities of the
Eastern States which allowed the East of Europe to be conquered by Asia,
and which has even in our own day retarded its complete emancipation.
CH. XVIII.
## p. 590 (#632) ############################################
TABLES OF RULERS.
590
SERBIA.
BULGARIAN TSARS.
John Asên 1}
1186
FRANKISH DUKES OF PHILIPPOPOLIS.
Renier de Trit
1204
Gerard de Stroem
1229
(Bulgarian : 1235]
Stephen Nemanja,"Great Zupan" 1143 (or
1159)_1196 + 1200
Stephen, “Great Župan
1196
King 1217
[Vukan, “King of Dioclea' 1195-1207]
Radoslav, King
1228
Vladislav, King
1234-43
+ 1263
Stephen Uroš I, King
1243
Stephen Dragutin, King 1276-81 + 1316
Stephen Uroš II, Milutin, King 1281
1321
Stephen Uroš III, Dečanski, King 1322
(Vladislav, King
1321-4]
Stephen Uroš IV, Dušan, King 1331
Tsar 1346
Stephen Uroš V, Tsar
1355-1371
Simeon Uroš, Tsar
1356–71
_Vukašin, King
1366-71]
Lazar I Hrebeljanović, Prince 1371
Lazar II, or Stephen Lazarević,
Despot
1389-1427
"Vuk Branković, Despot 1389
_George Branković, Prince 1398
George Branković, Despot 1427
Irene
1456
Lazar III Branković, Despot . . . )
Lazar III
alone 1457
Stephen Tomašević, Crown Prince
of Bosnia, Despot
1458-9
[Turkish : 1459)
Peter
Kalojan
Kalojan alone
Boril
John Asên II
Kaliman I
Michael Asên
Kaliman II
Constantine Asên
Ivailo
John Asen III.
George Terteri I
Smilec
Theodore Svętslav
George Terteri II
Michael Shishmanich
John Stephen
John Alexander
1196
1197
1207
1218
1241
1246
1257
1258
1277
1279
1280
1292
1295
1322
1323
1330 + 1373
1331
Tables of Rulers
. . .
John Shishman 1362
- 1393 +1395
(Trnovo) or 1365)
[Turkish : 1393]
John Sracimir
(Vidin)
1360-5; 1369-98
[Hungarian: 1366-9;
Turkish : 1398]
## p. 591 (#633) ############################################
. . . c. 1220
. . .
BOSNIA.
Borić
Ban. 1154-63
[Byzantine Empire: 1166–80]
Kulin
Ban. 1180-1204
Stephen
Bun, after 1204
Matthew Ninoslav
Ban. 1232-37 ; 1240-50
[Kingdom of Hungary: 1237-40)
Prijesda I, “the great
Ban. after 1250-87
Prijesda II and Stephen Kotroman Bans, 1287-90
Stephen Kotroman, alone
1290-1302
Paul Šubić
Ban. 1299-1312
Mladen Šubić
Ban. 1312-22
Hum. (Herzegovina. )
Miroslav, Prince.
1180-90
[Hungarian : 1198-1202]
Peter, Prince
[Hungarian: 1237]
Tolen, Prince
-1239
Andreas, Prince
1239
Radoslav, Župan
1254
[Hungarian: 1254]
[Serbian: c. 1284-1325]
[Bosnian : 1325–57]
(1 Hungarian : 1357-74]
Vojeslav Vojnov, Count 1357-71
2
Niccolò Altomanović 1371-4
[Bosnian*
1374–1435]
Stephen Vukčić
1435
“Duke of St Sava'
1445-66
Vladislav
Vlatko 3
1466–7
Vlatko, “Duke of St Sava 1467-83
[Turkish : 1483]
. . .
Tables of Rulers
Lower Bosnia
[under Hungary). Hungarian magnates, 1254-64.
Duchy of Mačva and Bosnia
Agnes, Duchess
1264
Béla, Duke
1271-2
Stephen Borić . . .
Ban. 1272
Egidius
Вап. 1273
Ugrin
Ban. 1279
Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, Duchess 1280-84
Stephen Dragutin, ex-King of Serbia 1284-1316
Stephen Kotromanić
1322
Stephen Tvrtko I
Ban. 1353, King 1376
Stephen Dabiša, King
1391
Helena Gruba, Queen
1395
Stephen Ostoja, King
1398
Stephen Tvrtko II Tvrtković, King
1404
Stephen Ostoja (2), King
1408
Stephen Ostojić, King . . .
1418
Stephen Tvrtko II Tvrtković (2), King
1421
Stephen Thomas Ostojić, King
1443
Stephen Tomašević, King
1461-3
* Sandalj Hranić-Kosača practically
independent 1404–35.
591
[Turkish 1403, except Banat of Jajce: Hungarian 1463–1528
and Bunut of Srebrenik:
1463-1520]
CH. XVIII.
## p. 592 (#634) ############################################
592
The ZETA (MONTENEGRO).
:::::
Radić Crnoje
1392-96
George and Alexius Jurašević 1403-c. 1427
[Part Serbian : 1421-7]
Stephen I Crnojević. . .
. . . c. 1427
Ivan I
1466
George I
1490-6 + before 1514
Stephen II
1496–9; 1514
Ivan II
1515
George II
1515-16
(Skanderbeg Crnojević, Turkish “Governor of
Montenegro
1523-6]
Tables of Rulers
THE REPUBLIC OF POLJICA.
Balša I
Stracimir
George I
Balša II
George II
Balša III
c. 1360
1362
1372
1378
1385
1405-21
(Part Venetian : 1421-1479) ]
VENETIAN COLONIES IN ALBANIA.
Founded
Under Hungariau Bans.
Under Venetian suzerainty
944
c. 1350
1444
Durazzo
Alessio
Drivasto
Scutari
Antivari
Dulcigno
Dagno
Sattis
1205-15; 1392–1501
1393–1478
1396–1419; 1421-3; 1442–78
1396-1479
1421-23; 1444-1571
1421-1571
1444-56 ; 1458-78
## p. 593 (#635) ############################################
TURKISH SULTANS.
PRINCES OF MOLDAVIA.
C. MEN, H. VOL. IV. CH. XVIII
Osman
Orkhān
Murād I
Bayazid I
Sulaiman
1299
1326
1360
1389
1402
1410
1413
1421
1451
1181
Mūsà . . .
>>
Mahomet I
Murad II
Mahomet II
Bayazid II
}
. . .
. . .
PRINCES OF WALLACHIA.
Radou I Negrou
. . . c. 1290
Ivanko Basaraba
1310
Nicholas Alexander Basaraba 1330
Vladislav
1364
Radou II
1372
Dan I
1385
Mircea «the Great
1386
[First Tributary to Turkey : 13911
(Vlad I
1394-5)
Michael I
1418
Dan II
1420
Radou III
1422
Dan II (2)
1427
Vlad II “the Devil
1432
Dan INI
1446
Vladislav II
1448
Vlad III “the Impaler
1456
Radou IV “the Fair'
1462
Laïote Basaraba
1465
Vlad III (2) “the Impaler 1477
Laïote Basaraba “the Young
1477
Vlad IV “the Monk'
1481
Radou V “the Great
1494
i ::
>>
: : :
Tables of Rulers
Elias (2)
(Under Hungarian suzerainty : c. 1288-1349)
Bogdan I
1349
Latzcou
1370
Juga I Coriatović
1374
Peter I Mouchate
1375
Roman I
1390
Stephen I
1394
Stephen II
1395
Peter II
Roman II
1399
Juga II
1400
Alexander I il the Good"
1401
Elias, alone
1433
Stephen JII, alone
1433
1435
Stephen III
Stephen III
Roman III
1444
Peter III
Roman III, alone
1447
Peter III (2)
1448
Alexander IIS
Bogdan II
1449
Peter III (3)
1451
Alexander II (2)
Peter III, alone
1455
[First Tributary to Turkey : 1456]
Stephen IV “the Great”.
1457
Bogdan III
1504
East Roman EMPERORS FROM 1261
Michael VIII Palaeologus 1259-82
Andronicus II
1282-1332
Michael JX
1295-1320
Andronicus III
1325(28)-41
John V
1341-76
John VI Cantacuzene
1347-54
Andronicus IV
1376-79
John V (restored)
1379-91
John VII, usurper
1390
Manuel II
1391–1425
John VII, co-regent (restored) 1399-1412
John VIII
1423-48
Constantine XI Dragases 1448-53
. . .
(23)}
. . .
38
593
## p. 594 (#636) ############################################
594
CHAPTER XIX.
ATTEMPTS AT REUNION OF THE GREEK
AND LATIN CHURCHES.
BETWEEN the schism of Michael Cerularius and the capture of Con-
stantinople by the Turks, a period of four hundred years, from 1054 to
1453, some thirty attempts were made to unite the Greeks and the Latins
once more in the same communion. At three separate times, in 1204
under compulsion, and in 1274 and 1439 by the terms of an agreement,
the union appeared to have been effected; but on each occasion it was
inchoate and ephemeral.
It might be said that, from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, the
union was the “great ambition " of the Popes and Emperors. It seemed
to them the one effective remedy for all the ills of Christendom, which
would reconstruct the unity of the Church and re-establish religious con-
cord; strengthened by it, Christendom could resist the attacks of the
infidels. Every time that this splendid ideal seemed within grasp, events
thwarted its realisation; and the wisest combinations, the most subtle
compromises, the fruit of long and laborious negotiations, were powerless
before the permanent causes of schism which were destined to render all
these efforts abortive. The history therefore of the attempts at union
is one of continued mortification, repeated checks, perpetual failures,
which militated against religious peace. In point of fact, the union
could never be completely attained, and it was the impossibility of
achieving this end which brought on the final fall of the Empire.
At the present day the dogmatic and disciplinary divergences which
were then separating the two Churches, the double Procession of the
Holy Ghost, the dispute as to the pains of purgatory, the use of un-
leavened bread, and so on, do not appear insuperable difficulties to the
union. Agreement on these points was reached several times, and the Popes
recognised the right of the Uniate Greeks to preserve their peculiar
uses.
But all these questions, which gave birth to countless controversies,
were really only an excuse for schism. The fundamental difficulty was the
recognition by the Greek Church of the papal supremacy, which was far
more wide-reaching in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries than in the
days of Photius and Cerularius. The Greek Church, jealous of her tra-
## p. 595 (#637) ############################################
Hindrances to the Union
595
ditions, proud of her history and of the Ecumenical Councils on which
orthodoxy was based, and in which she had played so prominent a part,
could not accept passively the idea of pontifical monarchy held by a
Gregory VII or an Innocent III. She admitted the primacy of the
Pope, while the more moderate of her members allowed the Papacy its
universal character, but one and all rejected the disciplinary jurisdiction
which made all bishops merely delegates and papal vicars.
Two irreconcilable parties were thus opposed, and there was no solu-
tion to the dispute on the religious side. The Western conception of the
freedom of the Church from the State, for which the supremacy of the
Pope was the essential guarantee, was confronted by the Eastern doctrine
of the autocephalous Church, whose autonomy corresponded to that of the
State, to which it was strictly subordinated. 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.
