[1237-1261 A.D.]
In the double victory of Jean de Brienne we cannot discover the name or exploits of his pupil Baldwin, who had attained the age of military service, and who succeeded to the imperial dignity on the decease of his adoptive father. The royal youth was employed on a commission more suitable to his temper; he was sent to visit the western courts of the pope more especially, and of the king of France; to excite their pity by the view of his innocence and distress; and to obtain some supplies of men or money for the relief of the sinking empire. He thrice repeated these mendicant visits, in which he seemed to prolong his stay, and postpone his return; of the five-and-twenty years of his reign, a greater number were spent abroad than at home, and in no place did the emperor deem himself less free and secure than in his native country and his capital.
By such shameful or ruinous expedients he returned to Romania with an army of thirty thousand soldiers, whose numbers were doubled in the apprehension of the Greeks. But the troops and treasures of France melted away in his unskilful hands; and the throne of the Latin emperor was protected by a dishonourable alliance with the Turks and Komans. To secure the former, he consented to bestow his niece on the unbelieving sultan of Cogni. To please the latter, he complied with their pagan rites; a dog was sacrificed between the two armies and the contracting parties tasted each other’s blood, as a pledge of their fidelity. In the palace, or prison, of Constantinople the successor of Augustus demolished the vacant houses for winter fuel, and stripped the lead from the churches for the daily expense of his family. Some usurious loans were dealt with a scanty hand by the merchants of Italy; and Philippe, his son and heir, was pawned at Venice as the security of a debt. Thirst, hunger, and nakedness are positive evils; but wealth is relative, and a prince who would be rich in a private station may be exposed by the increase of his wants to all the anxiety and bitterness of poverty.
THE CROWN OF THORNS
But in this abject distress, the emperor and empire were still possessed of an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value from the superstition of the Christian world. The merit of the true cross was somewhat impaired by its frequent division; and a long captivity among the infidels might shed some suspicion on the fragments that were produced in the East and West. But another relic of the Passion was preserved in the imperial chapel of Constantinople; and the crown of thorns which had been placed on the head of Christ was equally precious and authentic. It had formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtors to deposit, as a security, the mummies of their parents; and both their honour and their religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In the same manner, and in the absence of the emperor, the barons of Romania borrowed the sum of 13,134 pieces of gold [£7000 or $35,000] on the credit of the holy crown.
The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor to offer, with the same generosity, the remaining furniture of his chapel—a large and authentic portion of the true cross; the baby linen of the Son of God; the lance, the sponge, and the chain of his Passion; the rod of Moses; and part of the skull of St. John the Baptist. For the reception of these spiritual treasures, twenty thousand marks were expended by St. Louis on a stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris, on which the muse of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth of such remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles which they have performed.
PROGRESS OF THE GREEKS (1237-1261 A.D.)
[1237-1261 A.D.]
A Thirteenth Century Crusader