incapacity brought the Empire by rapid steps far on the way towards disintegration and humiliation. Not without malicious irony a historian of that time (Nicetas Choniates) remarks concerning Alexius III: "Whatever paper might be presented to the Emperor for his signature, he signed it immediately; it did not matter that in this paper there was a senseless agglomeration of words, or that the supplicant demanded that one might sail by land or till the sea, or that mountains should be transferred into the middle of the seas or, as a tale says, that Athos should be put upon Olympus."185 The Emperor's conduct found imitators among the nobility of the capital, who exerted themselves to the utmost to compete with each other in expense and luxury. Riots took place in both the capital and the provinces. The foreigners who resided in Constantinople, the Venetians and Pisans, often met in bloody conflicts on the streets of the capital. External relations were also unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, the son of the deposed Isaac II, the young prince Alexius, had succeeded in escaping on a Pisan vessel from Byzantium to Italy, whence he went to Germany, to the court of Philip of Swabia, King of Germany, who was married to his sister Irene, daughter of Isaac Angelus. It was the time of the beginning of the Fourth Crusade. The Prince begged the Pope and the King of Germany, his brother-in-law, to help him to restore the throne to his blind father Isaac. After many complications of which we shall speak later in the discussion of the Fourth Crusade, Alexius succeeded in inducing the crusaders in the Venetian vessels to sail to Constantinople instead of Egypt. In 1203 the crusaders seized the capital of Byzantium and, deposing Alexius III, reestablished upon the throne the old and blind Isaac (12031204); then they seated his son Alexius by the side of his father, as his co-emperor (Alexius IV). The crusaders encamped close to Constantinople expecting the accomplishment of the terms for which they had stipulated.

But it was impossible for the Emperors to fulfill those terms; and their complete obedience to the crusaders roused a riot in 185 Nicetas Choniates, pp. 599-600.

the capital which resulted in the proclamation as Emperor of a certain Alexius V Ducas Mourtzouphlos (1204) related to the family of the Angeli and married to a daughter of Alexius III. Isaac II and Alexius IV perished during the revolt. The crusaders, seeing that they had lost their chief support in the capital, in the persons of the two dead Emperors, and realizing that Mourtzouphlos, who had raised the banner of the anti-Latin movement, was their enemy, decided to take Constantinople for themselves. After a stubborn attack by the Latins and desperate resistance by the inhabitants of the capital, on April 13, 1204, Constantinople passed over into the hands of the western knights and was given up to terrific devastation. The Emperor Mourtzouphlos had time to flee from the capital. The Byzantine Empire fell. In its place there were formed the feudal Latin Empire with Constantinople as its capital and a certain number of vassal states in various regions of the Eastern Empire. Such of the above events as were of importance to the destinies of Byzantium will be narrated in more detail and discussed below in the chapter on the history of the Fourth Crusade.

The dynasty of the Angeli or Angeli-Comneni, Greek in its origin, gave the Empire not one talented Emperor; it only accelerated the ruin of the Empire, already weakened without and disunited within.

Relations with the Normans and Turks. Formation of the second Bulgarian Kingdom.-In the year of the revolution of 1185, which dethroned Andronicus I and elevated Isaac Angelus to the throne, the condition of the Empire was very dangerous. After the taking of Thessalonica, the Norman land army started to advance towards the capital, where the Norman fleet had already arrived. But, drunk with their successes, the Normans began to pillage the captured regions; over-confident and having too little respect for the Byzantine army, they were defeated and forced to evacuate Thessalonica and Dyrrhachium. This failure of the Normans on land obliged their vessels to leave Constantinople. A treaty of peace concluded between Isaac Angelus and William II put an end to the Norman war. As for the Seljuq danger in

Asia Minor, Isaac Angelus succeeded in reducing it temporarily by rich presents and an annual tribute to the Turkish sultan.

For Isaac Angelus even a temporary interruption of hostilities against the Normans was of very great advantage, for in the first years of his reign events of great importance to the Empire had taken place in the Balkan peninsula. Bulgaria, which had been conquered by Basil II Bulgaroctonus in 1018, after several unsuccessful attempts to regain her independence, finally threw off the Byzantine yoke and in 1186 established the so-called second Bulgarian Kingdom. The final success of the Bulgarian movement was due not only to the Slavs, but also the Turkish tribes of Cumans or Polovtzi and to a Romance element, the Wallachs (Vlachs) or Roumanians. The Wallachs, siding with the Bulgars, took a particularly active part in the insurrection.

At the head of the Bulgarian movement stood two brothers, Peter or Kalopeter and John Asen, who were perhaps descendants of the former Bulgarian Tsars; but they had grown up among the Wallachs and adopted their tongue. To quote a historian (V. Vasilievsky), "in the person of the leaders there was embodied exactly that fusion into one unit of the two nationalities, Bulgarian and Wallachian, that has been obvious in all narratives of the struggle for freedom and has been emphasized by modern historians."'186 But, in all probability, the influence of the Wallachian element in the Bulgarian events of the end of the twelfth century was not so strong as has been believed. Modern Bulgarian historians deny both the Roumanian origin of the Asens and the Roumanian element in the insurrection of 1186,187 and consider the foundation of the second Bulgarian Kingdom of Trnovo a national Bulgarian achievement.

The cause of the revolt was the discontent of the Bulgarians with Byzantine sway and their desire to obtain independence. Particularly at that time success seemed possible because the Em

186 V. Vasilievsky, in his review of Th. Uspensky's book "The formation of the second Bulgarian Kingdom", in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Instruction, vol. 204 (1879), 181 (in Russian).

187 See, for instance, P. Mutafchiev, The rulers of Prosec. Pages from the history of Bulgaria at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century (Sofia, 1913), pp. 6-7 (in Bulgarian).

pire, which was still enduring the consequences of the troubles of Adronicus' time and the revolution of 1185, could not adequately set about putting down the revolt. A contemporary writer (Nicetas Choniates) sees naively the cause of the revolt in the driving away the cattle of the Wallachs for the wedding festivities on the occasion of the marriage of Isaac Angelus to a daughter of the King of Hungary.188

After some defeats inflicted upon the Bulgarian rebels by the Byzantine troops, Peter, this "renegade and evil slave", to quote the Metropolitan of Athens, Michael Acominatus,189 and John Asen got into touch with the Cumans who lived beyond the Danube and called on them to participate in the struggle against Byzantium. The struggle proved very hard for the Empire, so that a sort of treaty was concluded with the Asens. At the outset of the revolt Peter had assumed the title of Tsar and begun to wear the imperial robes. The capital of the new Bulgarian state was at Trnovo. Immediately after the proclamation of the political independence of Bulgaria, Peter and Asen created an independent national church.190 This kingdom was known as the Bulgarian Kingdom of Trnovo.191

Simultaneously with the Bulgarian insurrection a similar movement may be noted in Serbian territory where the founder of the dynasty of Nemanya, the "Great Župan" (Great Ruler), Stephen Nemanya, who had laid a foundation for the unification of Serbia, made an alliance with Peter of Bulgaria for the common fight against the Empire.192

In 1189, as a participant in the Third Crusade, Frederick Barbarossa, of Germany, was passing across the Balkan peninsula towards Constantinople, on his way to the Holy Land. The Serbs

158 Nic. Choniates, p. 481.

189 Μιχαὴλ Ακομινάτου Τὰ σωζόμενα, ed. Sp. Lambros (Athens, 1879), Ι, 246-47. 199 See P. Nikov, Studies in historical sources of Bulgaria and in the history of the Bulgarian church (Sofia, 1921), pp. 8-13 (a reprint from the Transactions of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, vol. XX). (In Bulgarian.)

191 See the preceding note. Also P. Nikov, Bulgarian diplomacy of the beginning of the thirteenth century, in the Bulgarian Historical Library, Sofia, I (1928), 76-77 (in Bulgarian).

190 See C. Jireček, Geschichte der Serben (Gotha, 1911), I, 270.

and Bulgarians intended to use that favourable opportunity and to obtain their aim with Frederick's help. During his stay at Nish Frederick received the Serbian envoys and the Great Župan Stephen Nemanya himself, and at the same time opened negotiations with the Bulgarians. The Serbs and Bulgarians proposed to Frederick an alliance against the Byzantine Emperor, but on condition that Frederick should allow Serbia to annex Dalmatia and retain the regions which had been taken away from Byzantium, as well as that he should leave the Asens in permanent possession of Bulgaria and secure the imperial title to Peter. Frederick gave them no decisive reply and continued his march.1 193 In this connection a historian of the nineteenth century (V. Vasilievsky) remarks: "There was a moment when the solution of the Slavonic problem in the Balkan peninsula was in the hands of the Western Emperor; there was a moment when Barbarossa was about to accept the help of the Serbian and Bulgarian leaders against Byzantium, which undoubtedly would have led to the ruin of the Greek Empire."194

Soon after the crossing of the crusaders into Asia Minor the Byzantine army was severely defeated by the Bulgarians. The Emperor himself narrowly escaped capture. To quote a contemporary source, "The many slain filled the cities with weeping and made villages sing mournful songs.'

195

As we know, in 1195 a revolution occurred in Byzantium which deprived Isaac of the throne and of his sight and made his brother Alexius emperor. First of all, Alexius had to confirm himself on the throne and therefore he opened peace negotiations with the Bulgarians. But they presented unacceptable terms. Some time later, in 1196, by means of Greek intrigues, both the brothers, John Asen and later Peter, fell by the hand of murderers. Thereupon John, their younger brother, who had formerly lived for some time in Constantinople as hostage and had become very well acquainted with Byzantine customs, reigned in Bulgaria.

183 Jireček, op. cit., I, 271-72.

194 Vasilievsky, in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Instruction, vol. 204 (1879), 196-97 (in Russian).

19% Nic. Chon., p. 565.