The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон
Ref. 045
See the reign and death of Peter of Courtenay in Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. ii. c. 22-28), who feebly strives to excuse the neglect of the emperor by Honorius III.
Ref. 046
[When the empire was overthrown by the crusaders, Leo Gabalas made himself master of Rhodes. In 1233 John Vatatzes compelled him to acknowledge his supremacy, but left him in possession. The island was conquered by the knights of St. John in 1310.]
Ref. 047
Marinus Sanutus (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. p. 4, c. 18, p. 73) is so much delighted with this bloody deed that he has transcribed it in his margin as a bonum exemplum. Yet he acknowledges the damsel for the lawful wife of Robert.
Ref. 048
See the reign of Robert in Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iii. c. 1-12). [Finlay thinks that Robert should have “seized the culprit immediately, and hung him in his armour before the palace gates, with his shield round his neck” (iv. p. 114).]
Ref. 049
Rex igitur Franciæ, deliberatione habitâ, respondit nuntiis, se daturum hominem Syriæ partibus aptum, in armis probum (preux), in bellis securum, in agendis providum, Johannem comitem Brennensem. Sanut. Secret. Fidelium, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4, p. 205. Matthew Paris, p. 159.
Ref. 050
Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 380-385) discusses the marriage of Frederic II. with the daughter of John of Brienne, and the double union of the crowns of Naples and Jerusalem.
Ref. 051
[For the act see Buchon, Recherches et Matériaux, p. 21-23.]
Ref. 052
Acropolita, c. 27. The historian was at that time a boy, and educated at Constantinople. In 1233, when he was eleven years old, his father broke the Latin chain, left a splendid fortune, and escaped to the Greek court of Nice, where his son was raised to the highest honours.
Ref. 053
[He did not arrive at Constantinople till 1231.]
Ref. 054
[For this able and humane prince, see Jireček, Geschichte der Bulgaren, chap. xvi. He defeated the forces of Thessalonica and Epirus in the battle of Klokotnitza (near the Strymon), 1230, and extended his power over the greater part of Thrace, Macedonia, and Albania. His empire touched three seas and included the cities of Belgrade and Hadrianople. An inscription in the cathedral of Trnovo, which he built, records his deeds as follows: “In the year 6738 [= 1230] Indiction 3, I, Joannes Asēn, the Tsar, faithful servant of God in Christ, sovereign of the Bulgarians, son of the old Asēn, have built this magnificent church and adorned it with paintings, in honour of the Forty Martyrs, with whose help, in the 12th year of my reign, when the church was painted, I made an expedition to Romania and defeated the Greek army and took the Tsar, Kyr Thodor Komnin, prisoner, with all his bolyars. I conquered all the countries from Odrin [Hadrianople] to Dratz [Durazzo], — Greek, Albanian, and Servian. The Franks have only retained the towns about Tzarigrad [Constantinople] and that city itself; but even they submitted to my empire when they had no other Emperor but me, and I permitted them to continue, as God so willed. For without him neither work nor word is accomplished. Glory to him for ever, Amen.” (Jireček, p. 251-2.)]
Ref. 055
Philip Mouskes, bishop of Tournay (ad 1274-1282), has composed a poem, or rather a string of verses, in bad old Flemish French, on the Latin emperors of Constantinople, which Ducange has published at the end of Villehardouin. [What Ducange published was an extract from the Chronique rimée of Mouskès, which began with the Trojan war. The whole work was first published by De Reiffenberg in 1836. Gibbon identifies Mouskès with Philip of Ghent, who became bishop of Tournay in 1274. This is an error. Mouskès was a native of Tournay and died in 1244.] See p. 224, for the prowess of John of Brienne.
N’Aie, Ector, Roll’ ne Ogiers
Ne Judas Machabeus li fiers
Tant ne fit d’armes en estors
Com fist li Rois Jehans cel jors,
Et il defors et il dedans
La paru sa force et ses sens
Et li hardiment qu’il avoit.
Ref. 056
[John Asēn, threatened by the approach of Zenghis Khan (see below, chap. lxiv.), gave up the war and made a separate peace and alliance with the Eastern Emperors. But the alliance was soon abandoned, and Asēn returned to his friendship with Nicæa.]
Ref. 057
See the reign of John de Brienne, in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. iii. c. 13-26.
Ref. 058
See the reign of Baldwin II. till his expulsion from Constantinople, in Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 1-34, the end l. v. c. 1-33).
Ref. 059
Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II. to the English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armatâ manu, p. 407, his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c. p. 481 (a passage which had escaped Ducange), his expulsion, p. 850.
Ref. 060
Louis IX. disapproved and stopped the alienation of Courtenay (Ducange, l. iv. c. 23). It is now annexed to the royal demesne, but granted for a term (engage) to the family of Boulanvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in the Isle de France, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the remains of a castle (Mélanges tirés d’une grande Bibliothèque, tom. xiv. p. 74-77).
Ref. 061
[Tzurulos.]
Ref. 062
Joinville, p. 104, édit. du Louvre. A Coman prince, who died without baptism, was buried at the gates of Constantinople with a live retinue of slaves and horses.
Ref. 063
Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Crucis, l. ii. p. iv. c. 18, p. 73.
Ref. 064
Under the words Perparus, Perpera, Hyperperum, Ducange is short and vague: Monetæ genus. From a corrupt passage of Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10), I guess that the Perpera was the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark of silver, or about ten shillings sterling in value. In lead it would be too contemptible.
Ref. 065
For the translation of the holy crown, &c. from Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 11-14, 24, 35), and Fleury (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvii. p. 201-204).
Ref. 066
Mélanges tirés d’une grande Bibliothèque, tom. xliii. p. 201-205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the soul and manners of the Sainte Chapelle; and many facts relative to the institution are collected and explained by his commentators, Brossette and de St. Marc.
Ref. 067
It was performed ad 1656, March 24, on the niece of Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c. were on the spot to believe and attest a miracle which confounded the Jesuits, and saved Port Royal (Oeuvres de Racine, tom. vi. p. 176-187, in his eloquent History of Port Royal).
Ref. 068
Voltaire (Siècle de Louis XIV. c. 37; Oeuvres, tom. ix. p. 178, 179) strives to invalidate the fact; but Hume (Essays, vol. ii. p. 483, 484), with more skill and success, seizes the battery, and turns the cannon against his enemies.