tory in Macedonia and the north of Thessaly, forming the Kingdom of Thessalonica, which he held as Baldwin's vassal. Venice secured the lion's share of the partition of Romania. The Republic of St. Mark received some points on the Adriatic shore, for example, Dyrrachium, the Ionian islands, the greater part of the islands of the Aegean, some places in the Peloponnesus, the island of Crete, some seaports in Thrace, with Gallipoli on the Hellespont, and some territory in the interior of Thrace. Dandolo assumed the Byzantine title of "Despot", was dispensed from paying homage to the Emperor, and styled himself "lord of the fourth and a half of all the Empire of Romania", that is to say, of three-eighths (quartae partis et dimidiae totius imperii Romanie dominator); this title was used by the doges until the middle of the fourteenth century. According to the treaty, the Church of St. Sophia was delivered into the hands of the Venetian clergy, and a Venetian, Thomas Morosini, was raised to the patriarchate and became the head of the Catholic Church in the new Empire. A Byzantine historian, Nicetas Choniates, a strong partisan of the Greek Orthodox Church, has given in his history a very unfavorable portrait of Thomas Morosini.248 It is clear that, owing to the acquisitions made by Venice, the new Empire was very weak compared with the powerful Republic, whose position in the East became commanding. The best part of the Byzantine possessions passed into the hands of the Republic of St. Mark: the best harbours, the most important strategic points, and many fertile territories; the whole maritime way from Venice to Constantinople was in the power of the Republic. The Fourth Crusade, which had created "the Colonial Empire" of Venice in the East, gave the Republic innumerable commercial advantages and raised her to the pinnacle of her political and economic power. It was a complete victory for the able, thoughtfully pondered, and egoistically patriotic policy of the Doge Dandolo. The Latin Empire was founded on the feudal basis. The conquered territory was divided by the Emperor into a great 248 Nic. Chon., pp. 824, 854-55. number of larger or smaller fiefs, for the possession of which the western knights were obliged to take vassal oath to the Latin Emperor of Constantinople. Boniface of Montferrat, King of Thessalonia, marched through Thessaly southward, into Greece, and conquered Athens. In the Middle Ages, Athens was a half-forgotten provincial city where upon the Acropolis, in the ancient Parthenon, an Orthodox cathedral in honor of the Virgin Mary was located. At the time of the Latin conquest, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the famous Michael Acominatus (Choniates), had been archbishop of Athens for about thirty years. Michael has left us a rich literary inheritance, in speeches, poetry, and letters, which gives us good information on the internal history of the Empire under the Comneni and Angeli, as well as on the conditions of Attica and Athens in the Middle Ages. Those provinces are represented in Michael's works in a very dark aspect, with barbarian population, perhaps partly Slavonic, with barbarian language round about Athens, with Attica desolate, and its population poor. "Having stayed a long time at Athens I have become barbarian", wrote Michael and compared the city of Pericles to Tartarus.249 An assiduous protector of mediaeval Athens who had devoted much time and work to his poor flock, Michael, judging it impossible to resist the troops of Boniface, abandoned his seat and spent the rest of his life in solitude, in one of the islands close to the shores of Attica. The Latins conquered Athens, which, with Thebes, was transmitted by Boniface to a Burgundian knight, Othon de la Roche, who assumed the title of the Duke of Athens and Thebes (dux Athenarum atque Thebarum). The cathedral upon the Acropolis passed into the hands of the Latin clergy. While the Duchy of Athens and Thebes was founded in central Greece, in southern Greece, that is to say, in the ancient Peloponnesus, which was at that time often called Morea, a name whose etymological origin is not clear, was formed the Principality of Achaia, which was organized by the French. Geoffrey de Villehardouin, nephew of the famous historian, was off the shore of Syria when he learned of the taking of Con 249 Mich. Acom., ed. Lampros, II, 44 and 127. stantinople by the crusaders; he hastened thither, but he was driven by stress of weather upon the southern shores of the Peloponnesus. He landed there and conquered a part of the country. But feeling that he could not maintain himself with merely his own forces, he asked help from the King of Thessalonica, Boniface, who at that time was, as we know, in Attica. The latter granted the right of conquering Morea to one of his knights, a Frenchman, William de Champlitte, from the family of the counts of Champagne. In the course of two years he and Villehardouin subdued the whole country. Thus, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Byzantine Peloponnesus was converted into the French Principality of Achaia, with Prince William at the head of its government; it was divided into twelve baronies and received the West European feudal organization. After William, the princely power passed over to the house of the Villehardouins. The court of the prince of Achaia was marked by its brilliancy and, to quote a source, "seemed larger than the court of any great king."250 To quote another source, "there French was spoken as well as in Paris."251 About twenty years after the formation of the Latin feudal states and possessions on the Byzantine territory, Pope Honorius III, in his letter to Blanche, queen of France, spoke of the creation in the east "as a sort of new France" (ibique noviter quasi nova Francia est creata).252 The Peloponnesian feudaries built fortified castles with towers and walls, on the west European model; the best known among them was Mistra, on the slopes of Mount Taygetus, in ancient Laconia, close to ancient Sparta. This imposing mediaeval feudal construction became in the second half of the thirteenth century the capital of the Greco-Byzantine despots in the Pelo 250 Marino Sanudo, Istoria del regno di Romania, in Hopf, Chroniques gréco-romanes inédites (Berlin, 1873), p. 102. 251 Chronique de Ramon Muntaner, chap. 261. Buchon, Chroniques étrangères (Paris, 1841), p. 502; ed. by K. Lanz (Stuttgart, 1844), pp. 468-69 (Bibliothek des literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, VIII, 1844). The Chronicle of Muntaner, in the works issued by The Hakluyt Society, vol. L (1921), 627 (transl. from the Catalan by Lady Goodenough). 252 Epistolae Honorii III (May 20, 1224), in Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France (Paris, 1833), XIX, 754. ponnesus, when the Palaeologi had reconquered Mistra from the Franks; even today Mistra strikes scholars and tourists, with its imposing half-ruined buildings, as one of the rarest spectacles of Europe, and preserves intact in its churches the precious frescoes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which are extremely important for the history of later Byzantine art. In the western part of the peninsula was the strongly fortified castle of Clermont, which was preserved almost intact until the third decade of the nineteenth century, when it was destroyed by the Turks. A Greek chronicler wrote of that castle that, if the Franks had lost Morea, the possession of Clermont only would have sufficed to reconquer the whole peninsula.2 253 The Franks also built some other strongholds. In the Peloponnesus the Franks succeeded in establishing themselves firmly in two of the three southern peninsulas; but in the central one in spite of two fortified castles that they built, they never really overcame the stubborn resistance of the Slavs (the tribe of Melingi) who lived in the mountains. The Greeks of Morea, at least the majority of them, might have seen in the rule of the Franks a welcome relief from the financial oppression of the Byzantine government.254 In the south of the Peloponnesus Venice possessed two important seaports, Modon and Coron, which were excellent stations for the Venetian vessels on their way to the east and at the same time very good points for observing the maritime trade of the Levant, to quote an official document, they were the two "principal eyes of the commune" (oculi capitales communis).255 Concerning the epoch of the Latin sway in the Peloponnesus, we find a great deal of most interesting information in, among other sources, the so-called Chronicle of Morea (fourteenth century) which has reached us in different versions, Greek (in verse), French, Italian, and Spanish. If from the point of view of exact exposition of fact the Chronicle of Morea cannot occupy The Chronicle of Morea, ed. J. Schmitt (London, 1904), vers. 2712-13 (Greek text). 254 See W. Miller, The Latins in the Levant (London, 1908), p. 6. 255 See K. Hopf, Geschichte Griechenlands, II, 10. a chief place among the other sources, nevertheless this source gives a rich mine of precious material for our acquaintance with the internal conditions of living in the epoch of the Frankish rule in the Peloponnesus, with the institutions, the public and private life, and, finally, with the geography of Morea at that time. The Chronicle of Morea, as a source exceptionally rich and various in its information on the internal and cultural history of the epoch, when Greco-Byzantine and Western feudal elements united together to create exceedingly interesting living conditions, deserves our particular attention. 256 It is interesting to notice that some scholars suppose," that, certainly, the Frankish rule in Morea, and, probably, the Chronicle of Morea itself, have influenced Goethe, who in the third act of the second part of his tragedy "Faust" lays the scene in Greece, at Sparta, where the love story between Faust and Helena takes place. Faust himself is represented there as a prince of the conquered Peloponnesus surrounded by the feudaries; the character of his rule reminds us somewhat of one of the Villehardouins, as the latter has been represented in the Chronicle of Morea. In a conversation between Mephistopheles, in the form of Phorcias, and Helena, without any doubt, J. Schmitt thinks, Mistra, which had been built precisely at the time of the Latin sway in Morea, is described. I shall give these verses in English translation: Phorcias Thus stood, for many years, forlorn the sloping ridge Whence land and folk around they harry, as they list. 256 See, for example, John Schmitt, The Chronicle of Morea (London, 1904), pp. LVIII-LXVI. |