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The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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Murad resolved to punish Manuel for his intrigues. The emperor was now weakened by age, and the direction of public affairs was in a great measure entrusted to his son Joannes, who endeavoured to appease the sultan with abject apologies. Murad gave the imperial ambassadors no answer until his preparations were completed. He then marched forward and formed the siege of Constantinople, establishing his own headquarters at the church of the Fountain, and commencing his lines of circumvallation in the month of June, 1422. His lines extended from the Golden Gate to the Wooden Gate; two movable towers were built to assist the storming of the wall, and cannon were employed by the Ottomans for the first time. This early artillery, however, was so ill-constructed and ill-served that it produced little effect. A thousand of the bravest janizaries fell before the walls; while the Greeks, fighting under cover of their battlements, lost only 130 killed and wounded. Murad II did not renew his attack on Constantinople, and the last act of Manuel’s reign was to sign a treaty of peace, by which Murad left the empire in possession of a few cities in Thrace, of Thessalonica, and a few forts near the mouths of the Strymon, Mount Athos, Zeitounion, and some places in Thessaly. Manuel also engaged to pay the sultan an annual tribute of three hundred thousand aspers.
Manuel adopted the monastic habit two years before his death, and took the name of Matthew, but he continued to give his advice on public affairs. He died in July, 1425, at the age of seventy-seven, after a reign of thirty-four years.
REIGN OF JOANNES VII (1423-1448 A.D.)
Joannes VII found the Eastern Roman Empire reduced to the city of Constantinople, a few neighbouring towns, Thessalonica, and a part of the Peloponnesus. His reign of twenty-three years passed in almost uninterrupted peace; yet this long period of tranquillity was productive of no improvement. As far as the revenues both of the government and of the nation were concerned, the emperor and the people alike consumed, before the expiration of each year, all that the year had produced.
The diminution of the Greek population contrasted strangely with the rapid increase of the Ottomans, while their decline in wealth and industry offered a still more unfavourable point of comparison with the Genoese colony of Galata. The trade of the Greeks had passed into the hands of the Italians; the power of the Byzantine emperors was transferred to the Ottoman sultans. The loss of personal dignity and courage followed the loss of national honour and power. Plague and pestilence, as often happens, came as attendants on neglected police, bad government, and social disorder. In the year 1431 a contagious disease of fearful mortality decimated the population of Constantinople; and it was the ninth return of pestilence since the great plague of 1347. Nations, however, are rarely sensible of their own degradation, and at this time the Greeks looked on the Latins with contempt as well as hatred; they despised the western Europeans as heretics, and the Turks as barbarians. Court processions, religious ceremonies, and national vanity amused and consoled them as they hastened along the path of degradation and ruin.
All the fortified posts had been destroyed by Murad II when he besieged Constantinople, and the country, as far as Selymbria, was inhabited only by a few Greeks engaged in agriculture, who dwelt in open villages. The Greek empire ended at Selymbria. The frontier territory of the Ottomans was a similar scene of devastation, the land being tilled by a few Christian peasants for their Turkish masters.
BRIEF UNION OF THE GREEK AND ROMAN CHURCHES
[1430-1440 A.D.]
The conquest of Thessalonica by Sultan Murad in 1430, the quarrels of the despots Theodore, Constantine, and Thomas in the Peloponnesus, and the insolence of the Genoese of Galata, who attacked Constantinople on account of some disputes relating to the Black Sea trade, warned the emperor Joannes VII that, unless he could secure some efficient military aid from strangers, the Ottoman power would soon overwhelm the Greek Empire. The pope was the only sovereign who possessed sufficient power and influence to obtain effectual aid for the Eastern Empire: but there was no probability that he would exert that influence, unless the emperor Joannes consented to the union of the Greek and Latin churches, and recognised the papal supremacy. In this critical conjuncture the statesmen and ecclesiastics of rank at Constantinople decided that the political exigencies of their situation authorised their truckling even with the doctrines of their church.
In the year 1438 the emperor Joannes and the Greek patriarch made their appearance at the council of Ferrara. In the following year the council was transferred to Florence, where, after long discussions, the Greek emperor and all the members of the clergy who had attended the council, with the exception of the bishop of Ephesus, adopted the doctrines of the Roman church concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost, the addition to the Nicene Creed, the nature of purgatory, the condition of the soul after its separation from the body until the day of judgment, the use of unleavened bread in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and the papal supremacy. The union of the two churches was solemnly ratified in the magnificent cathedral of Florence on the 6th of July, 1439, when the Greeks abjured their ancient faith in a vaster edifice and under a loftier dome than that of their own much-vaunted temple of St. Sophia.
The emperor Joannes derived none of the advantages he had expected from the simulated union of the churches. Pope Eugenius, it is true, supplied him liberally with money, but his holiness forgot his promise to send a fleet to defend Constantinople.
On his return Joannes found his subjects indignant at the manner in which the honour and doctrines of the Greek church had been sacrificed in an unsuccessful diplomatic speculation. The bishops who had obsequiously signed the articles of union at Florence, now sought popularity by deserting the emperor, and making a parade of their repentance, lamenting their wickedness in falling off for a time from the pure doctrine of the orthodox church. The only permanent result of this abortive attempt at Christian union was to increase the bigotry of the orthodox, and to furnish the Latins with just grounds for condemning the perfidious dealings and bad faith of the Greeks. In both ways it assisted the progress of the Ottoman power.
[1440-1448 A.D.]
The emperor Joannes, seeing public affairs in this hopeless state, thought only of keeping on good terms with the sultan. His brother Demetrius, however, who had accompanied him to Florence, shared his apostasy, and partaken of the papal bounty, now basely attempted to take advantage of the popular dissatisfaction with the union. He claimed the throne as being the first child of Manuel who was a Porphyrogenitus, but he trusted to gain his ends by the aid of Turkish troops rather than by the merits of his title or the preference of the Greeks. Collecting a large force composed of the Turkish nomads, who were ready to join any standard that offered them an opportunity of plundering and enslaving the Christians, Demetrius marched to besiege his brother in Constantinople. Sultan Murad took no direct part in the contest, but he allowed Demetrius to enrol Turkish troops without opposition, and viewed with satisfaction a rebellion which tended to weaken the empire. When called upon to choose between the two brothers, the Greek people acknowledged the superiority of the reigning emperor. Demetrius, after plundering the suburbs of Constantinople, saw his army melt away, and was happy to find that his brother’s moderation and love of peace was so great that he was allowed to retain his principality at Mesembria with the title of despot.