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trial was imposed; and in the presence of four cardinals, he acknowledged, as a true Catholic, the supremacy of the pope, and the double procession of the Holy Ghost. After this purification, he was introduced to a public audience in the church of St. Peter: Urban, in the midst of the cardinals, was seated on his throne; the Greek monarch, after three genuflexions, devoutly kissed the feet, the hands, and at length the mouth, of the holy father, who celebrated high mass in his presence, allowed him to lead the bridle of his mule, and treated him with a sumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The entertainment of Palæologus was friendly and honourable; yet some difference was observed between the emperors of the East and West; nor could the former be entitled to the rare privilege of chanting the Gospel in the rank of a deacon.10 In favour of his proselyte, Urban strove to rekindle the zeal of the French king, and the other powers of the West; but he found them cold in the general cause, and active only in their domestic quarrels. The last hope of the emperor was in an English mercenary, John Hawkwood, or Acuto, who, with a band of adventurers, the white. brotherhood, had ravaged Italy from the Alps to Calabria; sold his services to the hostile states; and incurred a just excommunication by shooting his arrows against the papal residence. A special licence was granted to negotiate with the outlaw, but the forces, or the spirit, of Hawkwood were unequal to the enterprise: and it was for the advantage, perhaps, of Palæologus to be disappointed of a succour, that must have been costly, that could not be effectual, and which might have been dangerous. 12 The disconsolate Greek 13 prepared for his return, but even his return was

13

* Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum. Græcorum was no longer disputed (Vit., Urban V., p. 623.).

Yet his title of Imperator

10 It was confined to the successors of Charlemagne, and to them only on Christmasday. On all other festivals these Imperial deacons were content to serve the pope, as he said mass, with the book and the corporal. Yet the abbé de Sade generously thinks that the merits of Charles IV. might have entitled him, though not on the proper day (A. D. 1368, November 1.), to the whole privilege. He seems to affix a just value on the privilege and the man (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 735.).

11 Through some Italian corruptions, the etymology of Falcone in bosco (Matteo Villani, 1. xi. c. 79. in Muratori, tom. xv. p. 746.), suggests the English word Hawkwood, the true name of our adventurous countryman (Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Anglican. inter Scriptores Cambdeni, p. 184.). After two-and-twenty victories, and one defeat, he died, in 1394, general of the Florentines, and was buried with such honours as the republic has not paid to Dante or Petrarch (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 212 -371.).

12 This torrent of English (by birth or service) overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in 1360. Yet the exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197.) is rather true than civil. "Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo essere "calpestrata l'Italia da tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed Ungheri, venissero fin dall' Inghli"terra nuovi cani a finire di divorarla."

13 Chalcondyles, 1. i. p. 25, 26. The Greek supposes his journey to the king of France, which is sufficiently refuted by the silence of the national historians. Nor am

On his arrival at Venice,

impeded by a most ignominious obstacle. he had borrowed large sums at exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty, his creditors were impatient, and his person was detained as the best security for the payment. His eldest son Andronicus, the regent of Constantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource; and even by stripping the churches, to extricate his father from captivity and disgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of the disgrace, and secretly pleased with the captivity of the emperor: the state was poor, the clergy were obstinate; ncr could some religious scruple be wanting to excuse the guilt of his indifference and delay. Such undutiful neglect was severely reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who instantly sold or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice, relieved his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsible for the debt. On his return to Constantinople, the His return parent and king distinguished his two sons with suitable to Constan- rewards; but the faith and manners of the slothful PalæoA. D. 1370. logus had not been improved by his Roman pilgrimage; and his apostasy or conversion, devoid of any spiritual or temporal effects, was speedily forgotten by the Greeks and Latins."

tinople,

emperor

14

Visit of the Thirty years after the return of Palæologus, his son Manuel and successor, Manuel, from a similar motive, but on a larger scale, again visited the countries of the West. In a preceding chapter I have related his treaty with Bajazet, the violation of that treaty, the siege or blockade of Constantinople, and the French succour under the command of the gallant Boucicault.15 By his ambassadors, Manuel had solicited the Latin powers; but it was thought that the presence of a distressed monarch would draw tears and supplies from the hardest barbarians16; and the marshal who advised the journey prepared the reception of the Byzantine prince. The land was occupied by the Turks; but the navigation of Venice was safe and open: Italy received him as the first, or, at least, as the second of the Christian princes; Manuel was pitied as the champion and confessor of the faith; and the dignity of his behaviour prevented that pity from sinking into contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua and Pavia; and even the Duke of Milan, a secret ally

I much more inclined to believe, that Palæologus departed from Italy, valde bene consolatus et contentus (Vit. Urban V. p. 623.).

14 His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel, Sept. 25. 1373 (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241.), leaves some intermediate æra for the conspiracy and punishment of Andronicus.

15 Mémoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 35, 36.

16 His journey into the west of Europe is slightly, and I believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (1. ii. c. 44—50.) and Ducas (c. 14.).

A. D. 1400,

of Bajazet, gave him safe and honourable conduct to the verge of his dominions.17 On the confines of France 18 the royal to the court officers undertook the care of his person, journey, and of Franc60, expenses; and two thousand of the richest citizens, in June 3.: arms and on horseback, came forth to meet him as far as Charenton, in the neighbourhood of the capital. At the gates of Paris, he was saluted by the chancellor and the parliament; and Charles the Sixth, attended by his princes and nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace. The successor of Constantine was clothed in a robe of white silk, and mounted on a milk-white steed, a circumstance, in the French ceremonial, of singular importance: the white colour is considered as the symbol of sovereignty and, in a late visit, the German emperor, after an haughty demand and a peevish refusal, had been reduced to content himself with a black courser. Manuel was lodged in the Louvre : a succession of feasts and balls, the pleasures of the banquet and the chase, were ingeniously varied by the politeness of the French, to display their magnificence, and amuse his grief: he was indulged in the liberty of his chapel; and the doctors of the Sorbonne were astonished, and possibly scandalised, by the language, the rites, and the vestments, of his Greek clergy. But the slightest glance on the state of the kingdom must teach him to despair of any effectual assistance. The unfortunate Charles, though he enjoyed some lucid intervals, continually relapsed into furious or stupid insanity: the reins of government were alternately seized by his brother and uncle, the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose factious competition prepared the miseries of civil war. The former was a gay youth, dissolved in luxury and love the latter was the father of John count of Nevers, who had so lately been ransomed from Turkish captivity; and, if the fearless son was ardent to revenge his defeat, the more prudent Burgundy was content with the cost and peril of the first experiment. When Manuel had satiated the curiosity, and perhaps fatigued the patience, of the French, he resolved on a visit to the adjacent island. In his progress from Dover, he was entertained at Canterbury with due reverence by the prior and monks of St. Austin; and, on Blackheath, king Henry

of England,

A. D. 1400,

December.

17 Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 406. John Galeazzo was the first and most powerful duke of Milan. His connection with Bajazet is attested by Froissard; and he contributed to save and deliver the French captives of Nicopolis.

18 For the reception of Manuel at Paris, see Spondanus (Annal. Eccles. tom. i. p. 676, 677. A. D. 1400, No. 5.), who quotes Juvenal des Ursins, and the monk of St. Denys; and Villaret (Hist. de France, tom. xii. p. 331–334.), who quotes nobody, according to the last fashion of the French writers.

to Greece

the Fourth, with the English court, saluted the Greek hero (I copy our old historian), who, during many days, was lodged and treated in London as emperor of the East.19 But the state of England was still more adverse to the design of the holy war. In the same year, the hereditary sovereign had been deposed and murdered: the reigning prince was a successful usurper, whose ambition was punished by jealousy and remorse: nor could Henry of Lancaster withdraw his person or forces from the defence of a throne incessantly shaken by conspiracy and rebellion. He pitied, he praised, he feasted, the emperor of Constantinople; but if the English monarch assumed the cross, it was only to appease his people, and perhaps his conscience, by the merit or semblance of His return this pious intention.20 Satisfied, however, with gifts and A. D. 1402. honours, Manuel returned to Paris; and, after a residence of two years in the West, shaped his course through Germany and Italy, embarked at Venice, and patiently expected, in the Morea, the moment of his ruin or deliverance. Yet he had escaped the ignominious necessity of offering his religion to public or private sale. The Latin church was distracted by the great schism; the kings, the nations, the universities, of Europe, were divided in their obedience between the popes of Rome and Avignon; and the emperor, anxious to conciliate the friendship of both parties, abstained from any correspondence with the indigent and unpopular rivals. His journey coincided with the year of the jubilee; but he passed through Italy without desiring, or deserving, the plenary indulgence which abolished the guilt or penance of the sins of the faithful. The Roman pope was offended by this neglect; accused him of irreverence to an image of Christ; and exhorted the princes of Italy to reject and abandon the obstinate schismatic. 21.

Greek

and de

During the period of the crusades, the Greeks beheld knowledge with astonishment and terror the perpetual stream of scriptions emigration that flowed, and continued to flow, from the unknown climates of their West. The visits of their last emperors

19 A short note of Manuel in England is extracted by Dr. Hody from a MS. at Lambeth (de Græcis illustribus, p. 14.), C. P. Imperator, diu variisque et horrendis Paganorum insultibus coarctatus, ut pro eisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret, Anglorum Regem visitare decrevit, &c. Rex (says Walsingham, p. 364.) nobili apparatû... suscepit (ut decuit) tantum Heroa, duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies exhibuit gloriose, pro expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respiciens tanto fastigio donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustriæ (p. 556.).

20 Shakespeare begins and ends the play of Henry IV. with that prince's vow of a crusade, and his belief that he should die in Jerusalem.

21 This fact is preserved in the Historia Politica, A. D. 1391-1478, published by Martin Crusius (Turco Græcia, p. 1-43.). The image of Christ, which the Greek emperor refused to worship, was probably a work of sculpture.

removed the veil of separation, and they disclosed to their eyes the powerful nations of Europe, whom they no longer presumed to brand with the name of Barbarians. The observations of Manuel, and his more inquisitive followers, have been preserved by a Byzantine historian of the times 22: his scattered ideas I shall collect and abridge; and it may be amusing enough, perhaps instructive, to contemplate the rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whose ancient and modern state are so familiar to our minds. I. GERMANY (says the Greek Chalcondyles) is of ample of Gerlatitude from Vienna to the Ocean; and it stretches (a many; strange geography) from Prague in Bohemia to the river Tartessus, and the Pyrenæan mountains.23 The soil, except in figs and olives, is sufficiently fruitful; the air is salubrious; the bodies of the natives are robust and healthy; and these cold regions are seldom visited with the calamities of pestilence, or earthquakes. After the Scythians or Tartars, the Germans are the most numerous of nations: they are brave and patient; and were they united under a single head, their force would be irresistible. By the gift of the pope, they have acquired the privilege of choosing the Roman emperor 24; nor is any people more devoutly attached to the faith and obedience of the Latin patriarch. The greatest part of the country is divided among the princes and prelates; but Strasburg, Cologne, Hamburgh, and more than two hundred free cities, are governed by sage and equal laws, according to the will, and for the advantage, of the whole community. The use of duels, or single combats on foot, prevails among them in peace and war: their industry excels in all the mechanic arts; and the Germans may boast of the invention of gunpowder and cannon, which is now diffused over the greatest part of the world. II. The kingdom of FRANCE is spread above fifteen or twenty days'

of France;

2 The Greek and Turkish history of Laonicus Chalcondyles ends with the winter of 1463; and the abrupt conclusion seems to mark, that he laid down his pen in the same year. We know that he was an Athenian, and that some contemporaries of the same name contributed to the revival of the Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous digressions, the modest historian has never introduced himself; and his editor Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 474.), seems ignorant of his life and character. For his descriptions of Germany, France, and England, see 1. ii. p. 36, 37.44-50.

23 I shall not animadvert on the geographical errors of Chalcondyles. In this instance, he perhaps followed, and mistook, Herodotus (1. ii. c. 33.), whose text may be explained (Herodote de Larcher, tom. ii. p. 219, 220.), or whose ignorance may be excused. Had these modern Greeks never read Strabo, or any of their lesser geographers?

si A citizen of new Rome, while new Rome survived, would have scorned to dignify the German 'Ρηξ with the titles of Βασιλεὺς oι Αὐτοκράτωρ Ῥωμαίων : but all pride was extinct in the bosom of Chalcondyles; and he describes the Byzantine prince, and his subject, by the proper, though humble, names of "Eλλnves, and Baσiλeùs 'EAλývwv. ̧

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