The Empresses of Constantinople

by Joseph McCabe

It is interesting to notice that the thought of matrimony reminded Manuel of his “celibate and sad” daughter Maria. She was now in her thirty-first year. A spouse was found for her in a handsome seventeen-year-old Western youth, Reyner, son of the Marquis of Montferrat, and they were married with pomp at the Blachernæ palace. But the character of Maria will presently become clearer to us, and we shall see that it does not call for sympathy.

Weary and ill as Manuel was, he had by no means the idea that he was preparing for death in making these arrangements. The astrologers, in whom he put supreme confidence, assured him that he would yet live fourteen years, and he looked forward to rising from his bed and once more dashing with lance and sword against the Turks or Persians. A few months spent in his capital must have shaken his confidence. Thirty-five years of strenuous war had added no material security to his Empire and had alienated his subjects. Vast sums had been wrung from them, but they had passed into the purses of soldiers, foreigners, monks and astrologers, and the civil framework of the vast Empire was in a state of decay. Men spoke with bitterness of the superb palaces, their ceilings plated with gold, their walls lined with mosaic representations of the Emperor’s victories, which Manuel had added to the imperial town. He grew sombre, his illness increased, and, one day in September, he felt his own pulse and concluded that he was sinking. Impetuous to the last, he slapped his thigh and called for the robe of a monk. He at once exchanged his purple for the rough cloth, gave his signature to a condemnation of astrology, and bade farewell to the world. He died a few days later; and the shadow of tragedy began to creep over the gold-roofed halls in which his young widow, and the child-bride of his son, played with the imperial toys while men looked on with dark and selfish designs.

The character of the Empress Maria is obscured for us by the somewhat conflicting reports or suggestions of the authorities. Finlay says that she at once retired to a monastery, and, although I can find no direct authority for this, she is so frequently named “Xene” in later passages that one may conclude that she took the veil and changed her name. The next statement about her, however, is little in accord with this. The central and most powerful person at the Court after the death of Manuel was Alexis, brother of the sisters Theodora and Eudocia whose amours had enlivened the Court. Now advanced in years, but ambitious, covetous and luxurious, he became the virtual ruler of the Empire. A somewhat repulsive picture is drawn of his efforts to maintain himself in sufficient health to enjoy the sensual rewards of his position, and it is added that he contracted a liaison with Manuel’s young widow. We are quite free to reject this sordid suggestion, as a calumny of those who sought to displace her or of those who afterwards murdered her, but it must be recollected that we have arrived at a period of grosser immorality than ever. It is essential only to observe that she was closely allied to Alexis (the minister) and was accused of intimacy with him.

The Emperor Alexis, who was only thirteen years old at his coronation, was a flippant and heedless boy. The base and astute intriguers about him encouraged him to spend his time in hunting or drinking or dressing in imperial finery. On the other hand, his sister Maria (the daughter of Manuel) now began to display a dangerous ambition and an unscrupulous character. The supposed intimacy of the Empress and Alexis alarmed her; she feared, or affected to fear, that Alexis would marry Maria and seize the throne. She therefore conspired with her relatives, and sent assassins to make an end of Alexis, as he hunted in the country. Presently, however, a messenger returned, not with the head of the minister, but with the news that he had discovered the plot and was returning to wreak his vengeance. Maria and her young husband fled to St Sophia, and, as the crowd gathered in the church at the news, she loudly and bitterly harangued them on the scandalous vices of the Empress and the licentious dotage of her uncle. A judicious distribution of money opened the ears of the clergy and the mob to her charges, and she grew bolder. When the Emperor, or his minister, threatened to drag her from the church, she enlisted a troop of Italian gladiators and Iberian soldiers, and, before the clergy could follow her furious proceedings, turned the cathedral into a fortified citadel, and egged on the mob to loot the mansions of Alexis and his friends. On 7th May the troops issued from the palace, and a bloody battle was fought at the entrance to St Sophia, but the horrified clergy now intervened, and Maria and her husband were allowed to return in safety to the palace.

On this squabble of hawks there now descended a veritable eagle of intrigue, and a brief account of his story will greatly add to our knowledge of the noble women of the time. I have previously mentioned that, while Manuel made love to his niece Theodora, her sister Eudocia was the mistress of Manuel’s cousin Andronicus, one of the most romantic figures in history. Andronicus Comnenus, in whom the great line of the Comneni comes to an appalling end, was one of the most handsome, most robust, most fascinating and most unscrupulous men of his age. Tall and massive of build, tender and engaging in countenance, endowed with a voice of singular strength and sweetness and an easy flow of language, he could enslave any woman on whom his heart was set; and it was set on many. Sober in diet and drink, he would avoid the revels and carouses of his brother officers, and spend hours of delight in reading the rugged epistles of St Paul. But in the enjoyment of love or the pursuit of ambition he recognized no moral principle whatever, and few men ever crowded more adventure into a single career.

His father was the elder brother of the Emperor John, Manuel’s father, and, on the accession of Manuel, he was called to Court. He was married, but he admitted with equal freedom the devotion of his pretty cousin Eudocia and that of other ladies of less distinction. His wife seems to have cheerfully recognized that large need of his nature, and the lips of Manuel were sealed by his own love affair; but there were men and women of the family who cherished the older ideas, and Andronicus nearly lost his life at an early date. After failing in Armenia—for he was a lax and unskilful general—he was appointed governor of some of the chief towns on the Hungarian frontier. Hither the devoted Eudocia accompanied him, and she lay in his arms, one night, in the tent when it was announced that her brother and brother-in-law were approaching with drawn swords. She pressed him to disguise himself in some of her garments, but he buckled on his immense sword, slit the canvas of the tent, and was deep in the neighbouring forest when the young men arrived.

He was next detected in treasonable correspondence with the Hungarians. Manuel overlooked his crime, but Andronicus went on to make two attempts on the life of his cousin, and wore so brazen a face when he was charged, that he was sent in chains to Constantinople and lodged in a strong tower connected with the palace. Here he one day discovered an old and forgotten passage, almost filled with rubbish, which branched from his prison. He scooped out a hiding-place in it with his hands, entered it, and concealed the entrance. When the furious search of the guards had ended, and messengers had been despatched over the Empire with orders to arrest the fugitive, the Emperor, suspecting that his cousin’s wife had aided him to escape, ordered her to be lodged in the tower. No sooner had the jailers left her than the poor woman was terrified, and then delighted, to see the burly form of her missing husband emerge from a heap of rubbish, and they fell into each other’s arms. For a long time husband and wife lived together in the prison, but at length Andronicus escaped. His splendid frame betrayed him, and he was recaptured and enclosed in a more formidable prison. Once more he escaped and was caught, and for nine years he remained in prison.

At length he induced the boy who brought his meals to take an impression in wax of the key of his prison while the jailers enjoyed their midday siesta, the impression was sent to his faithful wife and son (the fruit of his earlier confinement in the tower), and a key and a rope were stealthily conveyed to him. He escaped at sundown, lay in the long grass in the garden for two days, until the search was abandoned, and then took a boat at the quay by night and reached his wife’s house, where his fetters were struck off. He returned to his boat, rowed to a district beyond the walls where a horse awaited him, and set out in the direction of Russia. Once again he was captured, but, as the soldiers conducted him through a forest during the night, he feigned illness and retired a few yards. After repeating the trick a few times, so that they watched him less closely, he put his mantle and hat on his stick, so that the soldiers seemed to perceive his figure crouching in the dark, and plunged into the forest. He reached Scythia in safety, and was after a time recalled by Manuel, pardoned, and, after striking a few heavy blows in the wars, was made Governor of Cilicia. Here a fresh chapter of his love stories opened. Eudocia had married after the vigorous intervention of her brother, and his wife seems to have entered a monastery.

Endowed by Manuel with the rich revenues of the island of Cyprus, as well as the poorer proceeds of his province, he entered with alacrity the gay circle of the Latin nobles at Antioch, clothed himself in the finest embroidered silks, and kept about him a handsome suite of young courtiers. It was not long before his fascinating manner and brilliant appearance won the heart of the Princess Philippa of Antioch, a sister of the Empress Maria, and she proved to be no more scrupulous than the Greek ladies had been. William of Tyre says that he married her, but the Greek writers speak of the relation as a scandal, and the sequel favours their view. Manuel was enraged at this outrage, and because Andronicus dallied in Antioch instead of taking the field against the Armenians, and he sent a noble to replace Andronicus in his office and in the affections of Philippa. The young princess scorned the meaner figure of the new governor, but Andronicus was alarmed and, quitting his new love with a light heart and taking with him all the imperial funds he could secure, he fled to Palestine.

In the town of Acre, to which he soon repaired, he found a pretty and wealthy widow with whom he could claim a cousinship, and we are introduced to another branch of the Comneni family. Eudocia and Theodora, the frail ladies who have previously engaged our attention, were the daughters of Manuel’s brother Andronicus. A third brother, Isaac, had left six daughters, of whom the eldest, Theodora, had been married in her fourteenth year to Baldwin III., King of Jerusalem. Baldwin had died four years afterwards, and the young widow had received the town of Acre as her estate. She was still in her early twenties, in the ripest development of her charms and her passions, when the handsome Andronicus came to tell the story of his misfortunes. From mutual consolation they quickly passed to love, and Manuel was once more infuriated to hear that his scapegrace cousin was openly fouling the honour of the family in the friendly kingdom of the Latins. He sent to Acre a secret and pressing request that the beaux yeux of his cousin should be cut out, and his dangerous person forwarded to Constantinople. But the letter fell into the hands of Theodora, she showed it to her lover, and the devoted pair packed their treasures and fled to Damascus and on to Mesopotamia.