principality of Thessalonica, and died of a leprosy soon after the sale of that city to the Venetians, and its final conquest by the Turks. Some fortunate incidents had restored Peloponnesus, or the Morea, to the empire; and in his more prosperous days, Manuel had fortified the narrow isthmus of six miles* with a stone wall and one hundred and fiftythree towers. The wall was overthrown by the first blast of the Ottomans; the fertile peninsula might have been sufficient for the four younger brothers, Theodore and Constantine, Demetrius and Thomas; but they wasted in domestic contests the remains of their strength; and the least successful of the rivals were reduced to a life of dependence in the Byzantine palace.

The eldest of the sons of Manuel, John Palæologus the Second, was acknowledged, after his father's death, as the sole emperor of the Greeks. He immediately proceeded to repudiate his wife, and to contract a new marriage with the princess of Trebizond;† beauty was, in his eyes, the first qualification of an empress; and the clergy had yielded to

* The exact measure of the Hexamilion, from sea to sea, was three thousand eight hundred orgygiæ, or toises, of six Greek feet (Phranzes, 1. 1, c. 38), which would produce a Greek mile, still smaller than that of six hundred and sixty French toises, which is assigned by D'Anville as still in use in Turkey. Five miles are commonly reckoned for the breadth of the isthmus. See the Travels of Spon, Wheeler, and Chandler. [All the oldest authorities, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, and Mela Pomponius, agree in the breadth of the isthmus being forty stadia, five thousand paces, or five miles. Chalcocondylas (p. 98, edit. Par.) says forty-two stadia. The name of Hexamilion is of later date Dr. Clarke and Mr. Dodwell considered it to be sufficient authority for making the distance from sea to sea six miles. This seems to indicate an enlargement of the space. The name and early traditions of the Peloponnesus warrant the opinion, that it was in ancient times an island, and this is rendered still more probable by the level tract along which in Strabo's time (1. 8), was the Diolkos, or tram-way, for dragging ships overland, between Schoenus and Lechæum. The above measurements refer to the winding course of this road and of the wall erected by Justinian (see vol. iv. p. 339) and repaired by Manuel, for Finlay (Med. Greece, p. 280) makes the distance, in a straight line, only about three miles and a half. The subsidence of the waters, which produced such changes, may have expanded this narrow neck of land by an additional mile. See note on the Baltic, ch. 9, vol. i. p. 275.-ED.]

+ [La Brocquière's lively description of this princess and of her visit to the cathedral of St. Sophia, will gratify the reader. "She looked young and 'air," he says: "in one word, I should not have had a fault

his firm assurance that, unless he might be indulged in a divorce, he would retire to a cloister, and leave the throne to his brother Constantine. The first, and in truth the only, victory of Palæologus was over a Jew,* whom, after a long and learned dispute, he converted to the Christian faith; and this momentous conquest is carefully recorded in the history of the times. But he soon resumed the design of uniting the East and West; and, regardless of his father's advice, listene 1, as it should seem, with sincerity to the proposal of meeting the pope in a general council beyond the Adriatic. This dangerous project was encouraged by Martin the Fifth, and coldly entertained by his successor Eugenius, till, after a tedious negotiation, the emperor received a summons from a Latin assembly of a new character, the independent prelates of Basil, who styled themselves the representatives and judges of the Catholic Church.

The Roman pontiff had fought and conquered in the cause of ecclesiastical freedom; but the victorious clergy were soon exposed to the tyranny of their deliverer; and his sacred character was invulnerable to those arms which they found so keen and effectual against the civil magistrate. Their great charter, the right of election, was annihilated by appeals, evaded by trusts or commendams, disappointed by reversionary grants, and superseded by previous and arbitrary reservations. A public auction was instituted in the court of Rome; the cardinals and favourites were enriched with the spoils of nations; and every country might complain that the most important and valuable benefices were accumulated on the heads of aliens and absentees. During their residence at Avignon, the ambition of the popes subsided in the meaner passions of avarice‡ and to find with her, had she not been painted, and of this she assuredly had not any need." The whole scene is graphically pourtrayed. Early Travels in Palestine, Bohn, p. 338, 339.--ED.]

The first objection of the Jew is on the death of Christ; if it were voluntary, Christ was a suicide; which the emperor parries with a mystery. They then dispute on the conception of the virgin, the sense of the prophecies, &c. (Phranzes, 1. 2, c. 12, a whole chapter.)

In the treatise Delle Materie Beneficiare of Fra-Paolo (in the fourth volume of the last and best edition of his works), the papal system is deeply studied and freely described. Should Rome and her religion be annihilated, this golden volume may still survive, a philo. sophical history, and a salutary warning.

Pope John XXII. (in 1334) left behind him, at Avignon eighteen

luxury: they rigorously imposed on the clergy the tributes of first-fruits and tenths; but they freely tolerated the impunity of vice, disorder, and corruption. These manifold scandals were aggravated by the great schism of the West, which continued above fifty years. In the furious conflicts of Rome and Avignon, the vices of the rivals were mutually exposed; and their precarious situation degraded their anthority, relaxed their discipline, and multiplied their wants and exactions. To heal the wounds and restore the monarchy of the Church, the synods of Pisa and Constance* were successively convened; but these great assemblies, conscious of their strength, resolved to vindicate the privi leges of the Christian aristocracy. From a personal sentence against two pontiffs, whom they rejected, and a third, their acknowledged sovereign, whom they deposed, the fathers of Constance proceeded to examine the nature and limits of the Roman supremacy; nor did they separate till they had established the authority, above the pope, of a general council It was enacted that, for the government and reformation of the church, such assemblies should be held at regular intervals; and that each synod, before its dissolution, should appoint the time and place of the subsequent meeting. By the influence of the court of Rome. the next convocation of Sienna was easily eluded; but the millions of gold florins, and the value of seven millions more in plate and jewels. See the Chronicle of John Villani (1. 11, c. 20, in Mura tori's Collection, tom. xiii. p. 765), whose brother received the account from the papal treasurers. A treasure of six or eight millions sterling in the fourteenth century is enormous, and almost incredible. [The avarice of the popes is well exposed by Mr. Hallan (ii. 335-340). Not less perceptible is the working of these "meaner passions," at every step by which the hierarchy rose to this pinnacle of greatness. For their gratification alone was power coveted; the seemingly most splendid and daring ambition was actuated by none but this secret and sordid motive; beneath the pallium, the shield, the treaty, the missive, and the Bull, the concealed hand was ever rapaciously seizing money, and enriching its treasury at the cost, and to the detriment, of all other interests. To lay bare this hidden mainspring of every social movement, through the whole course of more than twelve hundred years, has been the consistent purpose of so many previous notes, that it is sufficient here to refer to them, and to the confirmation of their principle, by this full view of practices and arts, over which the veil of a plausible hypocrisy can no longer be thrown.-ED.]

* A learned and liberal Protestant, M. Lenfant, has given a fair history of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basil, in six volumes

bold and vigorous proceedings of the council of Basil* had almost been fatal to the reigning pontiff, Eugenius the Fourth. A just suspicion of his design prompted the fathers to hasten the promulgation of their first decree, that the representatives of the church-militant on earth were invested with a divine and spiritual jurisdiction over all Christians, without excepting the pope; and that a general council could not be dissolved, prorogued, or transferred, unless by their free deliberation and consent. On the notice that Eugenius had fulminated a Bull for that purpose, they ventured to summon, to admonish, to threaten, to censure, the contumacious successor of St. Peter. After many delays, to allow time for repentance, they finally declared that, unless he submitted within the term of sixty days, he was suspended from the exercise of all temporal and ecclesiastical authority. And, to mark their jurisdiction over the prince as well as the priest, they assumed the government of Avignon, annulled the alienation of the sacred patrimony, and protected Rome from the imposition of new taxes. Their boldness was justified, not only by the general opinion of the clergy, but by the support and power of the first monarchs of Christendom; the emperor Sigismund declared himself the servant and protector of the synod; Germany and France adhered to their cause; the duke of Milan was the enemy of Eugenius; and he was driven from the Vatican by an insurrection of the Roman people. Rejected at the same time by his temporal and spiritual subjects, submission was his only choice; by a most humiliating Bull, the pope repealed his own acts, and ratified those of the council; incorporated his legates and cardinals with those of that venerable body; and seemed to resign himself to the decrees of the supreme legislature. Their fame pervaded the countries of the East; and it was in their presence that

In quarto; but the last part is the most hasty and imperfect, except in the account of the troubles of Bohemia.

* The original acts or minutes of the council of Basil are preserved in the public library, in twelve volumes in folio. Basil was a free city, conveniently situate on the Rhine, and guarded by the arms of the neighbouring and confederate Swiss. In 1459, the university was founded by pope Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius), who had been secretary to the council. But what is a council, or a university, to the presses o Froben and the studies of Erasmus ?

VOL. VIL

Sigismund received the ambassadors of the Turkish sultan.* who laid at his feet twelve large vases, filled with robes of silk and pieces of gold. The fathers of Basil aspired to the glory of reducing the Greeks, as well as the Bohemians, within the pale of the Church; and their deputies invited the emperor and patriarch of Constantinople to unite with an assembly which possessed the confidence of the Western nations. Palæologus was not averse to the proposal; and his ambassadors were introduced with due honours into the Catholic senate. But the choice of the place appeared to be an insuperable obstacle, since he refused to pass the Alps, or the sea of Sicily, and positively required that the synod should be adjourned to some convenient city in Italy, or at least on the Danube. The other articles of this treaty were more readily stipulated: it was agreed to defray the travelling expenses of the emperor, with a train of seven hundred persons,t to remit an immediate sum of eight thousand ducats, for the accommodation of the Greek clergy; and in his absence to grant a supply of ten thou sand ducats, with three hundred archers and some galleys, for the protection of Constantinople. The city of Avignon advanced the funds for the preliminary expenses: and the embarkation was prepared at Marseilles with some difficulty and delay.

In his distress, the friendship of Paleologus was disputed by the ecclesiastical powers of the West; but the dexterous activity of a monarch prevailed over the slow debates and inflexible temper of a republic. The decrees of Basil con

This Turkish embassy, attested only by Crantzius, is related, with some doubt, by the annalist Spondanus, A.D. 1433, No. 25, tom. i. p. 824. + Syropulus, p. 19. In this list, the Greeks appear to have exceeded the real numbers of the clergy and laity which afterwards attended the emperor and patriarch, but which are not clearly specified by the great ecclesiarch. The seventy-five thousand florins which they asked in this negotiation of the pope (p. 9), were more than they could hope or want.

I use indifferently the words ducat and florin, which derive their names, the former from the dukes of Milan, the latter from the republic of Florence. These gold pieces, the first that were coined in Italy, perhaps in the Latin world, may be compared in weight and value, to one third of the English guinea. [Gibbon here overlooks that as early as the sixth century the Merovingian kings of France and the Visigoths of Spain issued their gold triens. (See vol. iv. p. 180, ncte) After the eighth century no gold was coined in Latin Europe