capital of the Roman empire was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of the West had violated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of Constantine : their Imperial clients soon became as unpopular as themselves: the well-known vices of Isaac were rendered still more contemptible by his infirmities; and the young Alexius was hated as an apostate, who had renounced the manners and religion of his country. His secret covenant with the Latins was divulged or suspected; the people, and especially the clergy, were devoutly attached to their faith and superstition; and every convent and every shop resounded with the danger of the church and the tyranny of the pope.[1] An empty treasury could ill supply the demands of legal luxury and foreign extortion; the Greeks refused to avert, by a general tax, the impending evils of servitude and pillage; the oppression of the rich excited a more dangerous and personal resentment; and, if the emperor melted the plate, and despoiled the images, of the sanctuary, he seemed to justify the complaints of heresy and sacrilege. During the absence of marquis Boniface and his Imperial pupil, Constantinople was visited with a calamity which might be justly imputed to the zeal and indiscretion of the Flemish pilgrims.[2] In one of their visits to the city they were scandalized by the aspect of a mosque or synagogue, in which one God was worshipped, without a partner or a son.[3] Their effectual mode of controversy was to attack the infidels with the sword, and their habitation with fire; but the infidels, and some Christian neighbours, presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flames which bigotry had kindled consumed the most orthodox and innocent structures. During eight days and nights the conflagration spread above a league in front, from the harbour to the Propontis, over the thickest and most populous regions of the city. It is not easy to count the stately churches and palaces that were reduced to a smoking ruin, to value the merchandise that perished in the trading streets, or to number the families that were involved in the common destruction. By this outrage,
- ↑ When Xicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious league, he bestows the
harshest names on the pope's new religion, (
Greek characters) (p. 348 [in Alex. iii. c. 9]). Such was the sincere language of every Greek to the last gasp of the empire.
- ↑ Nicetas (p. 355 [c. 2]) is positive in the charge, and specifies the Flemings [(Greek characters)], though he is wrong in supposing it an ancient name. Villehardouin (No. 107) exculpates the barons, and is ignorant (perhaps affectedly ignorant) of the names of the guilty.
- ↑ [The mosque of the Musulman merchants.]
