Later we have a description of this castle with pillars, pilasters, arches, archlets, balconies, galleries, scutcheons, like a typical mediaeval castle. All this passage of the tragedy seems. to have been written under the influence of the Chronicle of Morea. The conquest of Morea by the Franks has supplied, therefore, some of the material for the poetical scenes of Faust. But it must be noted that this hypothesis of Schmitt is definitely confuted by other scholars.257

The taking of Constantinople by the crusaders and the establishment of the Latin Empire put the Pope in a difficult position. Innocent III had opposed the diversion of the crusade and had excommunicated the crusaders and Venetians after the seizure of Zara; but after the fall of the capital of the Byzantine Empire, he stood face to face with the accomplished fact.

The emperor Baldwin, who in his letter to the Pope named himself "by the Grace of God the Emperor of Constantinople and always Augustus", as well as "the vassal of the Pope" (miles suus),258 notified the latter of the taking of the Byzantine capital and of his election. In his reply to the Emperor's letter Innocent III, entirely forgetting his former attitude, "is rejoicing in the Lord" (gavisi sumus in Domino) on account of the miracle effected "for the praise and glory of His name, for the honour and benefit of the Apostolic throne, and for the profit and exaltation of the Christian people".29 The Pope calls upon the whole clergy, all the sovereigns, and all the peoples to support the cause of Baldwin and expresses the hope that after the taking of Constantinople it will be easier to reconquer the Holy Land from the hands of the Infidel; and at the end of his letter the Pope admonishes Baldwin to be a faithful and obedient son of the Catholic Church.20 In another letter Innocent III writes: "Of course, although we are pleased to know that Constantinople has returned to the obedience of its mother, the Holy Catholic Church,

260

257 See, for example, O. Pniower, in Deutsche Literaturzeitung, XXV (1904), no. 45. 2739-41; E. Gerland, "Die Quellen der Helenacpisode in Goethes Faust", in Neue Jahrbücher für das Klassische Altertum, XXV (1910), 735-39.

258 Tafel et Thomas, Urkunden, I, 502.

259 Ibidem, I, 516-17.

260 Innocentii III Epistolae, VII, 153. Migne, vol. 215, col. 455.

nevertheless we should be still more pleased, if Jerusalem had been restored to the power of the Christian people".261

But the state of mind of the Pope changed, when he had become acquainted in more detail with all the horrors of the sack of Constantinople and with the text of the treaty concerning the partition of the Empire. The treaty had a purely secular character with a clear tendency to eliminate the interference of the Church. Baldwin had not asked the Pope to confirm his imperial title; and Baldwin and Dandolo had independently decided the question of St. Sophia, of the election of the patriarch, of ecclesiastical property, and other religious affairs. During the sack of Constantinople many churches and monasteries as well as a great number of highly honored sanctuaries had been defiled and polluted. All this evoked in the heart of the Pope alarm and discontent with the crusaders. He wrote the Marquess of Montferrat: "Having neither right nor power over the Greeks you seem to have imprudently deviated from the purity of your vow, when you marched not against the Saracens, but against the Christians, meaning not to reconquer Jerusalem, but to take Constantinople, preferring earthly riches to heavenly riches. But it is much more important that some (of the crusaders) spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex. . .

17262

Thus, the Latin Empire in the East, established on feudal grounds, possessed no strong political power; moreover, in church affairs, the Empire was unable for a time to establish satisfactory relations with the Roman curia.

But the aim of the western knights and merchants was not thoroughly attained, for not all Byzantine territories were in the power of the new Latin possessions in the East. After 1204 there were three independent Greek states. The Empire of Nicaea, under the dynasty of the Lascaris, in the western part of Asia. Minor, situated between the Latin possessions in Asia Minor and the territories of the Sultanate of Iconium or Rum, and possessing a part of the seashore of the Aegean, was the biggest inde

261 Ibidem, IX, 139. Migne, vol. 215, col. 957-58. 202 Ibidem, VIII, 133. Migne, vol. 215, col. 712.

pendent Greek centre and the most dangerous rival of the Latin Empire. Then, in the western part of the Balkan peninsula, in Epirus, there was founded the Despotat of Epirus under the rule of the dynasty of the Comneni-Angeli. Finally, on the remote south-eastern shore of the Black Sea, in 1204, was founded the Empire of Trebizond with the dynasty of the "Great Comneni".

If the Latins in the East had no political unity, they had no religious unity either, for these three Greek states remained faithful to the doctrine and practice of the Greek Eastern Church; that is to say, from the point of view of the Pope they were schismatic. Nicaea was particularly displeasing to the Pope; there the Greek bishop, paying no attention to the residence of the Latin Patriarch in Constantinople was called the Patriarch of Constantinople. In addition, the Greeks of the Latin Empire, despite their political subjugation by the Latins, did not adopt Catholicism. The military occupation of the country did not signify ecclesiastical union.

The results of the Fourth Crusade were as fatal for the Byzantine Empire as for the future of the crusades. The Empire could never recover from the blow inflicted on it in 1204; it lost forever the significance of a political world power.

Politically, the Eastern Empire, as a whole, ceased to exist; it yielded its place to a number of west European feudal states and never again, even after the restoration of the Empire under the Palaeologi, did it regain its former brilliancy and influence.

As regards the significance of the Fourth Crusade for the general problem of the crusading movement, it showed, first of all, in the clearest way that the idea of the movement had become entirely secular; secondly, it bifurcated the single motive which had formerly drawn the Western peoples to the East. After 1204 they had to direct their forces not only to Palestine or Egypt, but, on a larger scale, to their new possessions on the territory of the Eastern Empire in order to support their power there. The result of this, of course, was to delay the struggle against the Muslims in the Holy Land.

III. INTERNAL AFFAIRS IN THE EPOCH OF THE COMNENI AND ANGELI

Ecclesiastical Relations.-The ecclesiastical life of Byzantium under the Comneni and Angeli is important mainly in two directions: first, in internal ecclesiastical relations which centered in the attempts to resolve certain religious problems and doubts which agitated Byzantine society and were of the most vital interest in that epoch; secondly, in the relations of the Eastern Church to the Western, of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the Papacy.

In their attitude to the Church the emperors of the dynasties of the Comneni and Angeli firmly adopted the caesaropapistic view which was so very characteristic of Byzantium. One version of the History of Nicetas Choniates quotes these words of Isaac Angelus: "On earth there is no difference in power between God and emperor; kings are allowed to do everything, and they may use without any distinction that which belongs to God along with their own possessions, because they have received the imperial power from God, and between God and them is no difference."263 The same writer, speaking of the ecclesiastical policy of Manuel Comnenus, gives the general belief of the Byzantine emperors, who consider themselves "the infallible judges of matters of God and man.' "264 This opinion was supported in the second half of the twelfth century by the clergy. A celebrated Greek canonist and commentator of the so-called pseudoPhotian Nomocanon (a canonical collection of fourteen titles), the Patriarch of Antioch, Theodore Balsamon, who lived under the last Comneni and the first Angelus, wrote: "The emperors and patriarchs must be esteemed, as church teachers, because of their holy anointment. Therefore, orthodox emperors have the power to teach Christian people and, like priests, to burn incense as an act of worship to God." Their glory is that, like the sun, they, by the brilliance of their orthodoxy, enlighten the world from one end to another. "The power and activities of the em

283 Nic. Chon., p. 583.

264 Nic. Chon., p. 274.

perors concern body and soul (of man), while the power and activity of the patriarch concern only soul."265

Ecclesiastical life under the Comneni and Angeli enabled the emperors to apply widely their caesaropapistic ideas: on the one hand, numerous "heresies" and "false doctrines" considerably agitated the minds of the population; on the other hand, the menace from the Turks and Patzinaks, and the new relations between the Empire and the West resulting from the crusades, began to threaten the very existence of Byzantium as an independent state, and forced the emperors to consider deeply and ponder seriously the problem of union with the Catholic Church, which in the person of the Pope, could prevent the political danger threatening the East from the West.

As regards religion, the first two Comneni, in general the defenders of the Eastern Orthodox faith and Church, nevertheless, under the pressure of political reasons, made some concessions in favor of the Catholic Church. Alexius Comnenus' daughter, Anna, struck by the activity of her father, calls him in her "Alexiad", doubtless with exaggeration, "the thirteenth Apostle"; or, if this honour must belong to Constantine the Great, Alexius Comnenus must "be set either side by side with the Emperor Constantine or, if any one objects to that, next to Constantine."266 The third Comnenus, Manuel, inflicted great harm upon the interests of the Eastern Church for the sake of his illusive Western policy.

In the internal church life of the Empire the chief attention of the emperors was directed to the struggle with dogmatic errors and heretic movements of their time. One side of the ecclesiastical life alarmed the emperors: it was the excessive growth of ecclesiastic and monastic property, against which the government, from time to time, had taken adequate measures.

In order to provide funds for state defense and the compensation of his supporters, Alexius Comnenus confiscated some monastic estates and converted several sacred vessels into money.

285 Ράλλη καὶ Πόλη, Σύνταγμα τῶν θείων καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων (Athens, 1854), IV, 544; 545.

266 Anna Comnena, XIV, 8 (II, 259).