The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

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[Footnote 109: The silence of the Sicilian historians, who end
too soon, or begin too late, must be supplied by Otho of
Frisingen, a German, (de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 33, in
Muratori, Script. tom. vi. p. 668,) the Venetian Andrew Dandulus,
(Id. tom. xii. p. 282, 283) and the Greek writers Cinnamus (l.
iii. c. 2 - 5) and Nicetas, (in Manuel. l. iii. c. 1 - 6.)]

[Footnote 110: To this imperfect capture and speedy rescue I
apply Cinnamus, l. ii. c. 19, p. 49. Muratori, on tolerable
evidence, (Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 420, 421,) laughs at the
delicacy of the French, who maintain, marisque nullo impediente
periculo ad regnum proprium reversum esse; yet I observe that
their advocate, Ducange, is less positive as the commentator on
Cinnamus, than as the editor of Joinville.]

[Footnote 111: In palatium regium sagittas igneas injecit, says
Dandulus; but Nicetas (l. ii. c. 8, p. 66) transforms them, and
adds, that Manuel styled this insult. These arrows, by the
compiler, Vincent de Beauvais, are again transmuted into gold.]

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.

Part V.

A prince of such a temper could not be satisfied with having
repelled the insolence of a Barbarian. It was the right and
duty, it might be the interest and glory, of Manuel to restore
the ancient majesty of the empire, to recover the provinces of
Italy and Sicily, and to chastise this pretended king, the
grandson of a Norman vassal. ^112 The natives of Calabria were
still attached to the Greek language and worship, which had been
inexorably proscribed by the Latin clergy: after the loss of her
dukes, Apulia was chained as a servile appendage to the crown of
Sicily; the founder of the monarchy had ruled by the sword; and
his death had abated the fear, without healing the discontent, of
his subjects: the feudal government was always pregnant with the
seeds of rebellion; and a nephew of Roger himself invited the
enemies of his family and nation. The majesty of the purple, and
a series of Hungarian and Turkish wars, prevented Manuel from
embarking his person in the Italian expedition. To the brave and
noble Palaeologus, his lieutenant, the Greek monarch intrusted a
fleet and army: the siege of Bari was his first exploit; and, in
every operation, gold as well as steel was the instrument of
victory. Salerno, and some places along the western coast,
maintained their fidelity to the Norman king; but he lost in two
campaigns the greater part of his continental possessions; and
the modest emperor, disdaining all flattery and falsehood, was
content with the reduction of three hundred cities or villages of
Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles were inscribed on all
the walls of the palace. The prejudices of the Latins were
gratified by a genuine or fictitious donation under the seal of
the German Caesars; ^113 but the successor of Constantine soon
renounced this ignominious pretence, claimed the indefeasible
dominion of Italy, and professed his design of chasing the
Barbarians beyond the Alps. By the artful speeches, liberal
gifts, and unbounded promises, of their Eastern ally, the free
cities were encouraged to persevere in their generous struggle
against the despotism of Frederic Barbarossa: the walls of Milan
were rebuilt by the contributions of Manuel; and he poured, says
the historian, a river of gold into the bosom of Ancona, whose
attachment to the Greeks was fortified by the jealous enmity of
the Venetians. ^114 The situation and trade of Ancona rendered it
an important garrison in the heart of Italy: it was twice
besieged by the arms of Frederic; the imperial forces were twice
repulsed by the spirit of freedom; that spirit was animated by
the ambassador of Constantinople; and the most intrepid patriots,
the most faithful servants, were rewarded by the wealth and
honors of the Byzantine court. ^115 The pride of Manuel disdained
and rejected a Barbarian colleague; his ambition was excited by
the hope of stripping the purple from the German usurpers, and of
establishing, in the West, as in the East, his lawful title of
sole emperor of the Romans. With this view, he solicited the
alliance of the people and the bishop of Rome. Several of the
nobles embraced the cause of the Greek monarch; the splendid
nuptials of his niece with Odo Frangipani secured the support of
that powerful family, ^116 and his royal standard or image was
entertained with due reverence in the ancient metropolis. ^117
During the quarrel between Frederic and Alexander the Third, the
pope twice received in the Vatican the ambassadors of
Constantinople. They flattered his piety by the long-promised
union of the two churches, tempted the avarice of his venal
court, and exhorted the Roman pontiff to seize the just
provocation, the favorable moment, to humble the savage insolence
of the Alemanni and to acknowledge the true representative of
Constantine and Augustus. ^118

[Footnote 112: For the invasion of Italy, which is almost
overlooked by Nicetas see the more polite history of Cinnamus,
(l. iv. c. 1 - 15, p. 78 - 101,) who introduces a diffuse
narrative by a lofty profession, iii. 5.]

[Footnote 113: The Latin, Otho, (de Gestis Frederici I. l. ii. c.
30, p. 734,) attests the forgery; the Greek, Cinnamus, (l. iv. c.
1, p. 78,) claims a promise of restitution from Conrad and
Frederic. An act of fraud is always credible when it is told of
the Greeks.]

[Footnote 114: Quod Ancontiani Graecum imperium nimis diligerent
... Veneti speciali odio Anconam oderunt. The cause of love,
perhaps of envy, were the beneficia, flumen aureum of the
emperor; and the Latin narrative is confirmed by Cinnamus, (l.
iv. c. 14, p. 98.)]

[Footnote 115: Muratori mentions the two sieges of Ancona; the
first, in 1167, against Frederic I. in person (Annali, tom. x. p.
39, &c.;) the second, in 1173, against his lieutenant Christian,
archbishop of Mentz, a man unworthy of his name and office, (p.
76, &c.) It is of the second siege that we possess an original
narrative, which he has published in his great collection, (tom.
vi. p. 921 - 946.)]

[Footnote 116: We derive this anecdote from an anonymous
chronicle of Fossa Nova, published by Muratori, (Script. Ital.
tom. vii. p. 874.)]

[Footnote 117: Cinnamus (l. iv. c. 14, p. 99) is susceptible of
this double sense. A standard is more Latin, an image more
Greek.]

[Footnote 118: Nihilominus quoque petebat, ut quia occasio justa
et tempos opportunum et acceptabile se obtulerant, Romani corona
imperii a sancto apostolo sibi redderetur; quoniam non ad
Frederici Alemanni, sed ad suum jus asseruit pertinere, (Vit.
Alexandri III. a Cardinal. Arragoniae, in Script. Rerum Ital.
tom. iii. par. i. p. 458.) His second embassy was accompanied cum
immensa multitudine pecuniarum.]

But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon
escaped from the hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands
were eluded by the prudence of Alexander the Third, who paused on
this deep and momentous revolution; ^119 nor could the pope be
seduced by a personal dispute to renounce the perpetual
inheritance of the Latin name. After the reunion with Frederic,
he spoke a more peremptory language, confirmed the acts of his
predecessors, excommunicated the adherents of Manuel, and
pronounced the final separation of the churches, or at least the
empires, of Constantinople and Rome. ^120 The free cities of
Lombardy no longer remembered their foreign benefactor, and
without preserving the friendship of Ancona, he soon incurred the
enmity of Venice. ^121 By his own avarice, or the complaints of
his subjects, the Greek emperor was provoked to arrest the
persons, and confiscate the effects, of the Venetian merchants.
This violation of the public faith exasperated a free and
commercial people: one hundred galleys were launched and armed in
as many days; they swept the coasts of Dalmatia and Greece: but
after some mutual wounds, the war was terminated by an agreement,
inglorious to the empire, insufficient for the republic; and a
complete vengeance of these and of fresh injuries was reserved
for the succeeding generation. The lieutenant of Manuel had
informed his sovereign that he was strong enough to quell any
domestic revolt of Apulia and Calabria; but that his forces were
inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of Sicily.
His prophecy was soon verified: the death of Palaeologus devolved
the command on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike
defective in military talents; the Greeks were oppressed by land
and sea; and a captive remnant that escaped the swords of the
Normans and Saracens, abjured all future hostility against the
person or dominions of their conqueror. ^122 Yet the king of
Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who had
landed a second army on the Italian shore; he respectfully
addressed the new Justinian; solicited a peace or truce of thirty
years, accepted as a gift the regal title; and acknowledged
himself the military vassal of the Roman empire. ^123 The
Byzantine Caesars acquiesced in this shadow of dominion, without
expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of a Norman
army; and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any
hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of
that period, the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman
tyrant, who had deserved the abhorrence of his country and
mankind: the sword of William the Second, the grandson of Roger,
was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race; and the subjects
of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they
detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin
historians ^124 expatiate on the rapid progress of the four
counts who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced
many castles and cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily.
The Greeks ^125 accuse and magnify the wanton and sacrilegious
cruelties that were perpetrated in the sack of Thessalonica, the
second city of the empire. The former deplore the fate of those
invincible but unsuspecting warriors who were destroyed by the
arts of a vanquished foe. The latter applaud, in songs of
triumph, the repeated victories of their countrymen on the Sea of
Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Strymon, and under the
walls of Durazzo. A revolution which punished the crimes of
Andronicus, had united against the Franks the zeal and courage of
the successful insurgents: ten thousand were slain in battle, and
Isaac Angelus, the new emperor, might indulge his vanity or
vengeance in the treatment of four thousand captives. Such was
the event of the last contest between the Greeks and Normans:
before the expiration of twenty years, the rival nations were
lost or degraded in foreign servitude; and the successors of
Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the
Sicilian monarchy.

[Footnote 119: Nimis alta et perplexa sunt, (Vit. Alexandri III.
p. 460, 461,) says the cautious pope.]

[Footnote 120: (Cinnamus, l. iv. c. 14, p. 99.)]

[Footnote 121: In his vith book, Cinnamus describes the Venetian
war, which Nicetas has not thought worthy of his attention. The
Italian accounts, which do not satisfy our curiosity, are
reported by the annalist Muratori, under the years 1171, &c.]

[Footnote 122: This victory is mentioned by Romuald of Salerno,
(in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 198.) It is whimsical
enough, that in the praise of the king of Sicily, Cinnamus (l.
iv. c. 13, p. 97, 98) is much warmer and copious than Falcandus,
(p. 268, 270.) But the Greek is fond of description, and the
Latin historian is not fond of William the Bad.]

[Footnote 123: For the epistle of William I. see Cinnamus (l. iv.
c. 15, p. 101, 102) and Nicetas, (l. ii. c. 8.) It is difficult
to affirm, whether these Greeks deceived themselves, or the
public, in these flattering portraits of the grandeur of the
empire.]

[Footnote 124: I can only quote, of original evidence, the poor
chronicles of Sicard of Cremona, (p. 603,) and of Fossa Nova, (p.
875,) as they are published in the viith tome of Muratori's
historians. The king of Sicily sent his troops contra nequitiam
Andronici .... ad acquirendum imperium C. P. They were ....
decepti captique, by Isaac.]

[Footnote 125: By the failure of Cinnamus to Nicetas (in
Andronico, l. . c. 7, 8, 9, l. ii. c. 1, in Isaac Angelo, l. i.
c. 1 - 4,) who now becomes a respectable contemporary. As he
survived the emperor and the empire, he is above flattery; but
the fall of Constantinople exasperated his prejudices against the
Latins. For the honor of learning I shall observe that Homer's
great commentator, Eustathias archbishop of Thessalonica, refused
to desert his flock.]

The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and
grandson: they might be confounded under the name of William:
they are strongly discriminated by the epithets of the bad and
the good; but these epithets, which appear to describe the
perfection of vice and virtue, cannot strictly be applied to
either of the Norman princes. When he was roused to arms by
danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the
valor of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners were
dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the
monarch is responsible, not only for his personal vices, but for
those of Majo, the great admiral, who abused the confidence, and
conspired against the life, of his benefactor. From the Arabian
conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of Oriental manners;
the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem, of a sultan; and a
Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of
the eunuchs, who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the
religion of Mahomet. An eloquent historian of the times ^126 has
delineated the misfortunes of his country: ^127 the ambition and
fall of the ungrateful Majo; the revolt and punishment of his
assassins; the imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself;
the private feuds that arose from the public confusion; and the
various forms of calamity and discord which afflicted Palermo,
the island, and the continent, during the reign of William the
First, and the minority of his son. The youth, innocence, and
beauty of William the Second, ^128 endeared him to the nation:
the factions were reconciled; the laws were revived; and from the
manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily
enjoyed a short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose
value was enhanced by the remembrance of the past and the dread
of futurity. The legitimate male posterity of Tancred of
Hauteville was extinct in the person of the second William; but
his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married the most powerful
prince of the age; and Henry the Sixth, the son of Frederic
Barbarossa, descended from the Alps to claim the Imperial crown
and the inheritance of his wife. Against the unanimous wish of a
free people, this inheritance could only be acquired by arms; and
I am pleased to transcribe the style and sense of the historian
Falcandus, who writes at the moment, and on the spot, with the
feelings of a patriot, and the prophetic eye of a statesman.
"Constantia, the daughter of Sicily, nursed from her cradle in
the pleasures and plenty, and educated in the arts and manners,
of this fortunate isle, departed long since to enrich the
Barbarians with our treasures, and now returns, with her savage
allies, to contaminate the beauties of her venerable parent.
Already I behold the swarms of angry Barbarians: our opulent
cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are shaken with
fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by
intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our
citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons. ^129 In this
extremity (he interrogates a friend) how must the Sicilians act?
By the unanimous election of a king of valor and experience,
Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved; ^130 for in the
levity of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can
repose neither confidence nor hope. ^131 Should Calabria be lost,
the lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength, of
Messina, ^132 might guard the passage against a foreign invader.
If the savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if
they destroy with fire the fruitful region, so often wasted by
the fires of Mount Aetna, ^133 what resource will be left for the
interior parts of the island, these noble cities which should
never be violated by the hostile footsteps of a Barbarian? ^134
Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake: the ancient
virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude; ^135 but
Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls
enclose the active multitudes of Christians and Saracens. If the
two nations, under one king, can unite for their common safety,
they may rush on the Barbarians with invincible arms. But if the
Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should now retire
and rebel; if they should occupy the castles of the mountains and
sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double
attack, and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil,
must resign themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude."
^136 We must not forget, that a priest here prefers his country
to his religion; and that the Moslems, whose alliance he seeks,
were still numerous and powerful in the state of Sicily.

[Footnote 126: The Historia Sicula of Hugo Falcandus, which
properly extends from 1154 to 1169, is inserted in the viiith
volume of Muratori's Collection, (tom. vii. p. 259 - 344,) and
preceded by a eloquent preface or epistle, (p. 251 - 258, de
Calamitatibus Siciliae.) Falcandus has been styled the Tacitus of
Sicily; and, after a just, but immense, abatement, from the ist
to the xiith century, from a senator to a monk, I would not strip
him of his title: his narrative is rapid and perspicuous, his
style bold and elegant, his observation keen; he had studied
mankind, and feels like a man. I can only regret the narrow and
barren field on which his labors have been cast.]

[Footnote 127: The laborious Benedictines (l'Art de verifier les
Dates, p. 896) are of opinion, that the true name of Falcandus is
Fulcandus, or Foucault. According to them, Hugues Foucalt, a
Frenchman by birth, and at length abbot of St. Denys, had
followed into Sicily his patron Stephen de la Perche, uncle to
the mother of William II., archbishop of Palermo, and great
chancellor of the kingdom. Yet Falcandus has all the feelings of
a Sicilian; and the title of Alumnus (which he bestows on
himself) appears to indicate that he was born, or at least
educated, in the island.]

[Footnote 128: Falcand. p. 303. Richard de St. Germano begins
his history from the death and praises of William II. After some
unmeaning epithets, he thus continues: Legis et justitiae cultus
tempore suo vigebat in regno; sua erat quilibet sorte contentus;
(were they mortals?) abique pax, ubique securitas, nec latronum
metuebat viator insidias, nec maris nauta offendicula piratarum,
(Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii p 939.)]

[Footnote 129: Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarun
tuarum affluentia diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinus
et moribus informata, tandem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura
discessit: et nunc cum imgentibus copiis revertitur, ut
pulcherrima nutricis ornamenta barbarica foeditate contaminet
.... Intuari mihi jam videor turbulentas bar barorum acies ....
civitates opulentas et loca diuturna pace florentia, metu
concutere, caede vastare, rapinis atterere, et foedare luxuria
hinc cives aut gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi,
virgines constupratae, matronae, &c.]

[Footnote 130: Certe si regem non dubiae virtutis elegerint, nec
a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus
licet quasi desperatis et perditis subvenire, et incursus
hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare.]

[Footnote 131: In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum
rerum studiis aguntur, nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciae
reponendum.]

[Footnote 132: Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas,
.... muriorum etiam ambitum densis turribus circumseptum.]

[Footnote 133: Cum erudelitate piratica Theutonum confligat
atrocitas, et inter aucbustos lapides, et Aethnae flagrant's
incendia, &c.]

[Footnote 134: Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor
illustrat, quae et toti regno singulari meruit privilegio
praeminere, nefarium esset .... vel barbarorum ingressu pollui.
I wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description, of the
palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo.]

[Footnote 135: Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia
civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt.]

[Footnote 136: The Normans and Sicilians appear to be
confounded.]

The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus were at
first gratified by the free and unanimous election of Tancred,
the grandson of the first king, whose birth was illegitimate, but
whose civil and military virtues shone without a blemish. During
four years, the term of his life and reign, he stood in arms on
the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier, against the powers of
Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of Constantia
herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the most
liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the
kingdom of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle; and
Henry pursued his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The
political balance of Italy was destroyed by his success; and if
the pope and the free cities had consulted their obvious and real
interest, they would have combined the powers of earth and heaven
to prevent the dangerous union of the German empire with the
kingdom of Sicily. But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican
has so often been praised or arraigned, was on this occasion
blind and inactive; and if it were true that Celestine the Third
had kicked away the Imperial crown from the head of the prostrate
Henry, ^137 such an act of impotent pride could serve only to
cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who
enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened
to the promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure:
^138 their fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the
harbor of Palermo; and the first act of his government was to
abolish the privileges, and to seize the property, of these
imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was defeated by the
discord of the Christians and Mahometans: they fought in the
capital; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their
surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above
thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of Frederic
the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera
in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor
and his son Mainfroy were strengthened and disgraced by the
service of the enemies of Christ; and this national colony
maintained their religion and manners in the heart of Italy, till
they were extirpated, at the end of the thirteenth century, by
the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou. ^139 All the
calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored were surpassed
by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated
the royal sepulchres, ^* and explored the secret treasures of the
palace, Palermo, and the whole kingdom: the pearls and jewels,
however precious, might be easily removed; but one hundred and
sixty horses were laden with the gold and silver of Sicily. ^140
The young king, his mother and sisters, and the nobles of both
sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses of the Alps;
and, on the slightest rumor of rebellion, the captives were
deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of posterity.
Constantia herself was touched with sympathy for the miseries of
her country; and the heiress of the Norman line might struggle to
check her despotic husband, and to save the patrimony of her
new-born son, of an emperor so famous in the next age under the
name of Frederic the Second. Ten years after this revolution,
the French monarchs annexed to their crown the duchy of Normandy:
the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been transmitted, by a
granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the house of
Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised so many
trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia, Sicily, and
the East, were lost, either in victory or servitude, among the
vanquished nations.

[Footnote 137: The testimony of an Englishman, of Roger de
Hoveden, (p. 689,) will lightly weigh against the silence of
German and Italian history, (Muratori, Annali d' Italia, tom. x.
p. 156.) The priests and pilgrims, who returned from Rome,
exalted, by every tale, the omnipotence of the holy father.]

[Footnote 138: Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo,
(Caffari, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom vi. p. 367, 368.)]