was defined, that the three remaining portions should be equally shared between the republic of Venice and the barons of France; that each feudatory, with an honourable exception for the doge, should acknowledge and perform the duties of homage and military service to the supreme head of the empire; that the nation which gave an emperor, should resign to their brethren the choice of a patriarch; and that the pilgrims, whatever might be their impatience to visit the Holy Land, should devote another year to the conquest and defence of the Greek provinces. After the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins, the treaty was confirmed and executed; and the first and most important step was the creation of an emperor. The six electors of the French nation were all ecclesiastics; the abbot of Loches, the archbishop clect of Acre in Palestine, and the bishops. of Troyes, Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem; the last of whom exercised in the camp the office of pope's legate: their profession and knowledge were respectable; and as they could not be the objects, they were best qualified to be the authors, of the choice. The six Venetians were the principal servants of the state, and in this list the noble families of Querini and Contarini are still proud to discover their ancestors. The twelve assembled in the chapel of the palace; and after the solemn invocation of the IIoly Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and vote. A just impulse of respect and gratitude prompted them to crown the virtues of the doge; his wisdom had inspired their enterprise; and the most youthful knights might envy and applaud the exploits of blindness and age. But the patriot Dandolo was devoid of all personal ambition, and fully satisfied that he had been judged worthy to reign. His nomination was overruled by the Venetians themselves; his countrymen, and perhaps his friends, represented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefs that might arise to national freedom and the common cause, from the union of two incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of a republic and the emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge left room for the more equal merits of Boniface and Baldwin; and at After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a French elector, his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion, quidam Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex usus oratione satis probabili, &c. which has been embroidered by modern writers from Blondus to Le Beau. their names all meaner candidates respectfully withdrew. The marquis of Montferrat was recommended by his mature age and fair reputation, by the choice of the adventurers and the wishes of the Greeks; nor can I believe that Venice, the mistress of the sea, could be seriously apprehensive of a petty lord at the foot of the Alps.* But the count of Flanders was the chief of a wealthy and warlike people; he was valiant, pious, and chaste; in the prime of life, since he was only thirty-two years of age; a descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of the king of France, and a compeer of the prelates and barons who had yielded with reluctance to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel, these barons, with the doge and marquis at their head, expected the decision of the twelve electors. It was announced by the bishop of Soissons, in the name of his colleagues: "Ye have sworn to obey the prince whom we should choose; by our unanimous suffrage, Baldwin count of Flanders and Hainault is now your sovereign, and the emperor of the East." He was saluted with loud applause, and the proclamation was re-echoed through the city by the joy of the Latins and the trembling adulation of the Greeks. Boniface was the first to kiss the hand of his rival, and to raise him on the buckler; and Baldwin was transported to the cathedral, and solemnly invested with the purple buskins. At the end of three weeks he was crowned by the legate, in the vacancy of a patriarch; but the Venetian clergy soon filled the chapter of St. Sophia, seated Thomas Morosini on the ecclesiastical throne, and employed every art to perpetuate in their own nation the honors and benefices of the Greek church. Without delay the successor of Constantine instructed Palestine, France, and Rome, of this memorable revolution. To Palestine he sent, as a trophy, the gates of Constantinople, and the chain of the harbour; * Nicetas (p. 384), with the vain ignorance of a Greek, describes the marquis of Montferrat as a maritime power. Λαμπαρδίαν δὲ οἰκεῖσε bai apádiov. Was he deceived by the Byzantine theme of Lombardy, which extended along the coast of Calabria? +They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint no canons of St. Sophia, the lawful electors, except Venetians, who had lived ten years at Venice, &c. But the foreign clergy was envious, the pope disapproved this national monopoly, and of the six Latin patriarchs of Constantinople, only the first and the last were Venetians. Nicetas, p. 383. [These trophics were given by Baldwin to the and adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws or customs best adapted to a French colony and conquest in the East. In his epistles, the natives of France are encouraged to swell that colony, and to secure that conquest, to people a magnificent city and a fertile land, which will reward the labours both of the priest and the soldier. He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the restoration of his authority in the East; invites him to extinguish the Greek schism by his presence in a gencral council; and implores his blessing and forgiveness for the disobedient pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended in the answer of Innocent. In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he arraigns the vices of man, and adores the providence of God; the conquerors will be absolved or condemned by their future conduct; the validity of their treaty depends on the judgment of St. Peter; but he inculcates their most sacred duty of establishing a just subordination of obedience and tribute, from the Greeks to the Latins, from the magistrate to the clergy, and from the clergy to the pope. In the division of the Greek provinces,† the share of the Knights Hospitallers, on whom he also settled a fourth part of his own private estate, the Duchy of Neocast. (Taaffe, ii. p. 88, App. lvi.) In the deed of gift, the new emperor styles himself "Balduinus Dei Gratia fidelissimus in Christo Imperator, a Deo coronatus Romanorum Moderator et semper Augustus."-ED.] * The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for the ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of which the collection in two vols. in folio, is published by Stephen Baluze) are inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. p. 1, c. 94–105. In the treaty of partition, most of the names are corrupted by the scribes; they might be restored, and a good map suited to the last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an improvement of geography. But, alas! D'Anville is no more. [This want has been in some degree, though far from completely, supplied by No. 61 of Spruner's Hand Atlas and Koeppen's fifth map, which exhibite Europe in the time of the Crusades. Koeppen (text 113-119) gives the following summary of the several portions allotted to the Latin conquerors of the Byzantine empire : I. THE CROWN-LANDS, or imperial domain, which comprized the city of Constantinople, the province of Thrace, part of Bithynia, as far as the river Sangarius, and the islands of Proconnesus, Lesbos, Chios Lemnos, Skigs, &c. ; Venetians was more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more than one-fourth was appropriated to his domain; a clear moiety of the remainder was reserved for Venice and the other moiety was distributed among the adven turers of France and Lombardy. The venerable Dandolo was proclaimed despot of Romania, and invested after the Greek fashion with the purple buskins. He ended at Constantinople his long and glorious life; and if the prerogative was personal, the title was used by his successors till the middle of the fourteenth century, with the singular though true addition of lords of one-fourth and a half of the Roman empire. The doge, a slave of state, was seldom II. THE KINGDOM OF SALONIKI (Thessalonica), formed out of the greater part of ancient Macedonia. III. THE DUCHY OF ATHENS, containing the former Attica and Boeotia. IV. THE PRINCIPALITY OF ACHAia and the Morea, consisting of the chief part of the peninsula of the Peloponnesus. V. THE ORIENTAL HOSSESSIONS OF VENICE, composed of, 1. A fortified post in Constantinople, with the suburbs of Pera and Galata. 2. The duchy of Gallipoli (Kallipolis), or the ancient Thracian Chersonesus. 3. The cities of Koron and Modon, with some tracts of land in the south-west of the Peloponnesus. 4. Candia or Crete; and 5. The county of Negropont (Euboea), with Ægina, Salamis, Cerigo (Cythere), and some smaller islands. VI. THE DUCHY OF NAXOS AND OF THE ARCHIPELAGO, extending over Paros, Antiparos, and some of the neighbouring Cyclades, held by Mark Sanudo, the Venetian adventurer, who soon became independent. VII. THE POSSESSIONS OF THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS (chiefly acquired from the year 1307 to 1314), viz., Rhodes and some neighbouring islands, several castles in Cyprus (granted to them by Henry II. Lusignan), and the fortress of Bodru (Halicarnassus), on the main-land of Caria.-ED.] Their style was dominus quartæ partis et dimidiæ imperii Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in the year 1356. (Sanuto, p. 530. 641.) For the government of Constantinople, see Ducange, Histoire de C. P. 1. 37. [A note to the fourth canto of Byron's Childe Harold, stanza xii, points out Gibbon's omission here of the important ce, he having written Romani instead of Romaniæ." This disregard of punctilio is of no other importance than as it regards the title of the Doges, which had this form in all their subsequent acts till 1357, when it was used by Giovanni Dolfino in a document preserved by Muratori, Script. Ital. xxii. 641. No question of fact is involved, for it is well-known that Romania was the designation given at that period to the small remnant of the Roman empire; and of this Gibbon has shown himself fully aware in this very page, as well a1 st p. 478 vol. vi.-Ep.] permitted to depart from the helm of the republic; but his place was supplied by the bail, or regent, who exercised a supreme jurisdiction over the colony of Venetians; they possessed three of the eight quarters of the city; and his independent tribunal was composed of six judges, four counsellors, two chamberlains, two fiscal advocates, and a constable. Their long experience of the Eastern trade enabled them to select their portion with discernment; they had rashly accepted the dominion and defence of Adrianople; but it was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a chain of factories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast, from the neighbourhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The labour and cost of such extensive conquests exhausted their treasury; they abandoned their maxims of government, adopted a feudal system, and contented themselves with the homage of their nobles, for the possessions which these private vassals undertook to reduce and maintain. And thus it was, that the family of Sanut acquired the duchy of Naxos, which involved the greatest part of the Archipelago. For the price of ten thousand marks, the republic purchased of the marquis of Montferrat the fertile island of Crete or Candia, with the ruins of a hundred cities; but its improvement was stinted by the proud and narrow spirit of an aristocracy; and the wisest senators would confess that * * Ducange (Hist. de C. P. 2. 6) has marked the conquests made by the state or nobles of Venice of the islands of Candia, Corfu, Cepha lonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros, Mycone, Scyro, Cea, and Lemnos. [Some of these islands were never subject to Venice, although they favoured her commerce and were at times protected by her fleets; and others among them were not acquired by her till a much later period. The Ionian Islands were at first held by Frankish nobles, who placed themselves under the guardianship of Naples or the despots of Epirus. Zante (Zacynthus), Cephalonia, Itaka, and Santa Maura (Leucadia), belonged to the Beneventine family of Tacco, and passed by marriage to the Greek dynasty of Arta, who reigned till they were expelled by the Turks in 1431 and 1469. Corfu (Corcyra), remained under the supremacy of Naples till 1386, when it was conquered by Venice. (Koeppen, p. 118.) For the disposition of Naxos, Paros, Scyros, Lemnos, &c. see a former note, p. 4 and 5.-ED.] + Boniface sold the isle of Candia, August 12, A.D. 1204. See the act in Sanuto, p. 533; but I cannot understand how it could be his mother's portion, or how she could be the daughter of an emperor Alexius. In the year 1212, the doge, Peter Zani |