of the. historian Falcaudus. 66 66 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 Lamentation 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 trea"sures, and now returns, with her savage allies, to contaminate "the beauties of her venerable. parent. Already I behold the 66 swarms of angry Barbarians : our opulent cities, the places flou"rishing 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 unani"mous election of a king of valour and experience, Sicily and Ca“labria might yet be preserved (130); for in the levity of the Apu"lians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose neither confi"dence 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 “Ætna (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 (129) Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarum tuarum affluentia diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinis et moribus informata, tandem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura discessit: et nunc cum ingentibus copiis revertitur, ut pulcherrima nutricis ornamenta barbarica fœditate contaminet..... Intueri mihi jam videor turbulentas barbarorum acies.... civitates opulentas et loca diuturna pace florentia, metu concutere, cæde vastare, rapinis atterere, et fœdare luxuria: hinc cives aut gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi, virgines constuprata, matronæ, &c. (130) Certe si regem non dubiæ virtutis elegerint, nec a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus licet quasi desperatis et perditis subvenire, et incursus hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare. (131) In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum rerum studiis aguntur, nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciæ reponendum. (132) Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas, ... murorum etiam ambitum densis turribus circumseptum. (133) Cum crudelitate piratica Theutonum confligat atrocitas, et inter ambustos lapides, et Æthræ flagrantis incendia, &c. (134) Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor illustrat, quæ et toti regno singulari meruit privilegio præminere, nefarium esset. . . . . vel barbarorum ingressu pollui. I wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description of the palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo. 66 66 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 Barba"rians with invincible arms. But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should now retire and rebel; if they should 66 occupy the castles of the mountains and sea-coast, the unfortu"nate 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. the kingdom of Sicily by the emperor Henry VI. A. D. 1194. The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus, were at first gra- Conquest of tified 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 (135) Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt. (136) At vero, quia difficile est Christianos in tanto rerum turbine, sublato regis timore Saracenos non opprimere, si Saraceni injuriis fatigati ab eis cœperint dissidere, et castella forta maritima vel montanas munitiones occupaverint; ut hinc cum Theutonicis summa virtute pugnandum, illinc Saracenis crebris insultibus occurrendum, quid putas acturi sunt Siculi inter has depressi angustias, et velut inter malleum et incudem multo cum discrimine constituti? hoc utique agent quod poterunt, ut se Barbaris miserabili conditione dedentes, in eorum se conferant potestatem. 0 utinam plebis et proceruin, Christianorum et Saracenorum vota conveniant; ut regem sibi concorditer eligentes, barbaros totis viribus, toto conamine, totisque desideriis proturbare contendant. The Normans and Sicilians appear to be confounded. (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. departure (138): their fleet commanded the streights of Messina, and opened the harbour 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 rumour 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 unFinal der the name of Frederic the Second. Ten years after this revoluthe Normans, tion, the French monarchs annexed to their crown the duchy of A. D. 1204. Normandy: the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been transmitted, extinction of (138) Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo ( Caffari, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 367, 368.). (139) For the Saracens of Sicily and Nocera, see the Annals of Muratori (tom. x. p. 149. and A. D. 1223, 1247), Giannone (tom. ii. p. 385.), and of the originals, in Muratori's Collection, Richard de St. Germano (tom. vii. p. 996.), Matteo Spinelli de Giovenazzo (tom. vii. p. 1064.), Nicholas de Jamsilla (tom. x. p. 494.), and Matteo Villani (tom. xiv. 1. vii. p. 103.). The last of these insinuates, that in reducing the Saracens of Nocera, Charles II. of Anjou employed rather artifice than violence. (140) Muratori quotes a passage from Arnold of Lubec (1. iv. c. 20.): Reperit thesauros absconditos, et omnem lapidum pretiosorum et gemmarum gloriam, ita ut oneratis 160 somariis, gloriose ad terram suam redierit. Roger de Hoveden, who mentions the violation of the royal tombs and corpses, computes the spoil of Salerno at 200,000 ounces of gold (p. 746.). On these occasions, I am almost tempted to exclaim with the listening maid in La Fontaine, "Je voudrois bien avoir "ce qui manque. *It is remarkable that at the same time the tombs of the Roman emperors, even of Constantine himself, were violated and ransacked by their degenerate successor, Alexius Comnenus, in order to enable him to pay the "German" tri bute exacted by the menaces of the emperor by a grand-daughter 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. CHAPTER LVII. The Turks of the House of Seljuk. — Their Revolt against Mahmud Conqueror of Hindostan. Togrul subdues Persia, and protects the Caliphs. Defeat and Captivity of the Emperor Romanus Diogenes by Alp Arslan. - Power and Magnificence of Malek Shab. Conquest of Asia Minor and Syria. State and Oppression of Jerusalem. Pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre. FROM the isle of Sicily, the reader must transport himself beyond THE TURKS. the Caspian Sea, to the original seat of the Turks or Turkmans, against whom the first crusade was principally directed. Their Scythian empire of the sixth century was long since dissolved; but the name was still famous among the Greeks and Orientals; and the fragments of the nation, each a powerful and independent people, were scattered over the desert from China to the Oxus and the Danube: the colony of Hungarians was admitted into the republic of Europe, and the thrones of Asia were occupied by slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. While Apulia and Sicily were subdued by the Norman lance, a swarm of these northern shepherds overspread the kingdoms of Persia: their princes of the race of Seljuk erected a splendid and solid empire from Samarcand to the confines of Greece and Egypt; and the Turks have maintained their dominion in Asia Minor, till the victorious crescent has been planted on the dome of St. Sophia. Gaznevide, A. D. 997-1028. One of the greatest of the Turkish princes was Mahmood or Mah- Mahmud, the mud (1), the Gaznevide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of Persia, one thousand years after the birth of Christ. His father Sebectagi was the slave of the slave of the slave of the commander of the faithful. But in this descent of servitude, the first degree (1) I am indebted for his character and history to D'Herbelot (Bibliothèque Orientale, Mahmud, p. 533-537.), M. de Guignes (Histoire des Huns, tom. iii. p. 155-173.), and our countryman Colonel Alexander Dow (vol. i. p. 23-83.). In the two first volumes of his History of Hindostan, he styles himself the translator of the Persian Ferishta; but in his florid text, it is not easy to distinguish the version and the original.* was merely titular, since it was filled by the sovereign of Transoxiana and Chorasan, who still paid a nominal allegiance to the Caliph of Bagdad. The second rank was that of a minister of state, a lieutenant of the Samanides (2), who broke, by his revolt, the bonds of political slavery. But the third step was a state of real and do-. mestic servitude in the family of that rebel; from which Sebectagi, by his courage and dexterity, ascended to the supreme command of the city and province of Gazna (3), as the son-in-law and successor of his grateful master. The falling dynasty of the Samanides was at first protected, and at last overthrown, by their servants; and, in the public disorders, the fortune of Mahmud continually increased. For him the title of Sultan (4) was first invented; and his kingdom was enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighbourhood of Ispahan, from the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus. But the principal source of his fame and riches was the His twelve holy war which he waged against the Gentoos of Hindostan. In this expeditions foreign narrative I may not consume a page; and a volume would Hindostan scarcely suffice to recapitulate the battles and sieges of his twelve expeditions. Never was the Musulman hero dismayed by the inclemency of the seasons, the height of the mountains, the breadth of the rivers, the barrenness of the desert, the multitudes of the enemy, or the formidable array of their elephants of war (5). The sultan of Gazna surpassed the limits of the conquests of Alexander: after a march of three months, over the hills of Cashmir and Thibet, he reached the famous city of Kinnoge (6), on the Upper Ganges; and, into (2) The dynasty of the Samanides continued 125 years, A. D. 874-999, under ten princes. See their succession and ruin, in the Tables of M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 404-406.). They were followed by the Gaznevides, A. D. 999–1183 (see tom. i. p. 239, 240.). His division of nations often disturbs the series of time and place. (3) Gaznah hortos non habet : est emporium et domicilium mercaturæ Indicæ. Abulfedæ Geograph. Reiske, tab. xxiii. p. 349. D'Herbelot, p. 364. It has not been visited by any modern traveller. (4) By the ambassador of the caliph of Bagdad, who employed an Arabian or Chaldaic word that signifies lord and master (D'Herbelot, p. 825.). It is interpreted Avtoxpáτwp, Basileus Bachev, by the Byzantine writers of the xith century; and the name (Zovltavos, Soldanus) is familiarly employed in the Greek and Latin languages, after it had passed from the Gaznevides to the Seljukides, and other emirs of Asia and Egypt. Ducange (Dissertation xvi. sur Joinville, p. 238240. Gloss. Graec. et Latin.) labours to find the title of Sultan in the ancient kingdom of Persia; but his proofs are mere shadows; a proper name in the Themes of Constantine (ii. 11.), an anticipation of Zonaras, &c. and a medal of Kai Khosrou, not (as he believes) the Sassanide of the vith, but the Seljukide of Iconium of the xiiith century (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 246.). (5) Ferishta (apud Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 49.) mentions the report of a gun * in the Indian army. But as I am slow in believing this premature (A. D. 1008) use of artillery, I must desire to scrutinise first the text, and then the authority of Ferishta, who lived in the Mogul court in the last century. (6) Kinnouge, or Canouge (the old Palimbothra †) is marked in latitude 27° 3', longitude 80° 13'. See D'Anville (Antiquité de l'Inde, p. 60-62), corrected by the local knowledge of Major Rennel (in *This of gunpowder before the time usually assigned for its invention (A. D. 1317) ; long after which it was first applied to the purposes of war. Briggs's Ferishta, vol. i. p. 47. note.-M. Mr. Wilson (Hindu Drama, vol. iii. p. 12.) |