Women of Early Christianity

by Alfred Brittain; Mitchell Carroll

Byzantine etiquette required the widowed empress to weep for nine days beside the body of her deceased husband, who was laid out in state in the monastery of the Guiding Virgin, whither he had retired when death was near and where he assumed the habit and the devotions of a monk. But John Cantacuzenus, the grand domesticos and first minister of the Empire, was bent on playing the rôle of earlier usurpers, and during her absence determined to establish himself in the imperial palace as guardian of the emperor. The empress, recognizing the danger of infringement on the rights of her child, deemed it necessary to shorten the period of mourning to three days, and returned to the palace to assert her authority as regent. Then began a course of intrigue between the two parties. Cantacuzenus instituted a rebellion against the regent, and by his followers was crowned and invested with the imperial robe. Under the guidance of the patriarch and the grand duke Apocaucus, the Empress Anne adopted forceful measures to intimidate the partisans of the rebels. Among the interesting women of this period was Theodora, the mother of Cantacuzenus, a woman of preeminent virtue and talent, far superior in ability and moral force to her son. But against her the vengeance of Anne was chiefly directed. The aged lady was thrown into prison by order of the regent, and was subjected to great cruelty and privations until death came to her relief. The young emperor, John V., was solemnly crowned. Apocaucus was appointed prime minister, and a vigorous war was prosecuted against the rebels, who were threatened with extermination. To save his cause Cantacuzenus treacherously turned to the common enemy, the Turk, and sacrificing his daughter Theodora on the altar of his ambition gave her in marriage to Orkhan, and sent her to dwell at Brusa, as a member of the Sultan's harem. All the religious people of the day were incensed at this violation of common decency and lack of paternal feeling, but the tone of morality was too low to cause serious opposition.

Meanwhile, there was discord in the palace. The Empress Anne fell out with her chief supporter. She had a violent quarrel with the patriarch. Her prime minister Apocaucus was assassinated. Through the aid of his Turkish ally Cantacuzenus was successful. The empress-regent showed a determination to defend herself in the palace, but her partisans were less courageous than she, and she was compelled to submit. But Cantacuzenus was as wily as he was ambitious. Recognizing the strength of his opponents, after he himself had been crowned emperor, he determined on the marriage of his daughter Helena with the young heir-apparent, and agreed to associate John V. with him on the throne when he reached the age of twenty-five. The children, for John was only fifteen and Helena thirteen, were betrothed and wedded with great ceremony, and then received the crown, and the courtiers and people were entertained by the rare spectacle of two emperors and three empresses seated on their thrones.

"The strange spectacle delighted the gazers; but it was not viewed without some feeling of contempt, for it was generally known that the imperial crowns were bright with false pearls and diamonds; that the robes were stiffened with tinsel; that the vases were of brass, not gold; and instead of the rich brocade of Thebes, the hangings were of gilded leather."

Cantacuzenus deserves to rank with the two Angeli as the third of the great destroyers of the Eastern Empire. Through civil wars he depleted its resources; and by introducing the Turk into his dominions, he paved the way for the final downfall. Fortunately, John V. asserted himself at the age of twenty-four; Cantacuzenus was tonsured and placed in a monastery where he passed the rest of his days in literary labors. In native gifts and force of character, and in her checkered history, the Empress Anne of Savoy deserves a place by the side of the earlier self-asserting empresses of Constantinople.

The tale of the last hundred years of the Byzantine Empire is a mere bit of local history, and no longer forms an important warp in the woof of the annals of Christendom. Women there were who were deserving of a better destiny, but they are naturally obscured in the general demoralization. The Mussulman might have taken Constantinople seventy-five years earlier. The end came on May 29,1453. The city was captured by Mohammed II., and Constantine XIII., the last of the Cæsars, the worthy scion of degenerate sires, fell in the breach. Mohammed proceeded quickly to convert Constantinople from a Christian into a Turkish capital. The city was sacked. The Byzantine women were sold into slavery, or became wives or concubines of the conquerors and passed the rest of their days in a Turkish harem. And, from this date, for centuries the life of Greek womanhood under Turkish domination was passed in oppression and obscurity.

The fragment of the Greek Empire known in the history of the Middle Ages as the Empire of Trebizond was the creation of accident. A young man descended from the worst tyrant of Constantinople, but of an illustrious name which retained the glamour inspired by the founder of the Comneni dynasty, grasped the sovereignty of a most important commercial centre, and his descendants continued to hold it until overwhelmed by the all-conquering power of the Turk. The Empire of Trebizond possesses unique grandeur in the romances of the West: the beauty of its princesses was a theme of universal praise; its reputed wealth and splendor excited the cupidity of Venetian and Genoese merchants. But it was, after all, an insignificant kingdom, which owed its strength merely to the weakness of surrounding peoples; and whose ostentatious court ceremonials were but an attempt to keep up the traditions of the Byzantine Empire and of the Comneni family in more prosperous days.

Shortly after the assassination of Andronicus by Isaac II., --Angelus,--his son Manuel, with other members of his family, met a similar fate. Manuel was survived by two sons, Alexius and David, the former a little lad of four. The boys were concealed for a time, and were brought up in obscurity in Constantinople, where faithful friends gave them an education worthy of their station. At the time when the Crusaders captured the city, Alexius escaped, raised an army, and took possession of Trebizond, then one of the most important commercial seats on the borders of the Black Sea. The surrounding province gladly recognized him as the lawful sovereign of the Roman Empire, and the Comneni dynasty was continued through him for two and a half centuries or more. To mark the legitimacy of his claim, and to prevent confusion with the rival family of Alexius III.,--Angelus,--Alexius assumed the designation of "Grand-Comnenus," and by this title the family was known until its extermination.

The earlier years of the Empire of Trebizond were notable chiefly for the efforts of its rulers to retain and extend their power, which was circumscribed by the stronger empire of Nicæa. After the latter had been merged into the restored Byzantine Empire with Constantinople as its capital, Trebizond was still strong enough to maintain an independent existence. A league was formed between the reigning sovereigns, Michael VIII.,--Palæologus,--of Constantinople, and John II., then Emperor of Trebizond, through the espousal of the latter to Michael's youngest daughter, Eudocia, who was destined to show herself one of the best and most capable of the Palæologi princesses.

The ceremony was solemnized with great ostentation on September 12, 1282. The question of precedence was an important one, as the Trebizond government had considered itself the direct successor of the Empire of the Cæsars. But through this marriage the wily monarch of Constantinople gained the advantage; for John on this occasion laid aside the title of "Emperor of the Romans," to be henceforth reserved exclusively for the sovereign of the city of the Golden Horn, while that of Trebizond assumed the title of "Emperor of all the East, Iberia, and Perateia." Furthermore, the inhabitants of the city saw in the respective marriage robes a certain inferiority of the Trebizontine monarch to the family of his wife; for while the robes of John were embellished with single-headed eagles, the bride appeared in a dress covered with double-headed eagles to mark her rank in the Empire of the East and West as a princess of the Palæologi, born in the purple chamber.

John and his royal bride had not been long settled on the throne when he experienced a sudden and unexpected discomfiture at the hands of an aspiring sister. Theodora, the oldest child of Manuel I. by his marriage with Roussadan, an Iberian princess, jealous of the popularity of her sister-in-law, and proud of the superiority of Comneni traditions to those of the usurper of Constantinople, availed herself of the party intrigues of the nobles, and the popular dissensions in the capital, to assemble an army, surprise her imperial brother, and mount the throne. Her glory was of brief duration, but the existence of coins bearing her name and effigy demonstrates that her power was stable and that she was fully recognized as a sovereign of the Empire. No clue exists which enables us to determine how Theodora obtained the throne or how she was at length driven from power, but John appears to have finally recovered his throne and capital and to have expelled the ambitious princess.