428 THE DECLINE AND FALL trust them. No more than four hundred knights, with their Serjeants and archers, could be assembled under his banner; and with this slender force he fought and repulsed the Bulgarian, who, besides his infantry, was at the head of forty thousand horse. In this expedition, Henry felt the difference between an hostile and a friendly countiy ; the remaining cities were preserved by his arms ; and the savage, with shame and loss, was compelled to re- linquish his prey. The siege of Thessalonica was the last of the evils which Calo-John inflicted or suffered; he was stabbed in the night in his tent ; and the general, perhaps the assassin, who found him weltering in his blood, ascribed the blow, with general applause, to the lance of St. Demetrius.-^'-' After several victories the prudence of Henry concluded an honourable peace with the successor of the tyrant, and with the Greek princes of Nice and Epirus. If he ceded some doubtful limits, an ample kingdom was resented for himself and his feudatories ; and his reign, which lasted only ten years, afforded a short interval of prosper- ity and peace. Far above the narrow policy of Baldwin and! Boniface, he freely entrusted to the Greeks the most important offices of the state and army ; and this liberality of sentiment and practice was the more seasonable, as the princes of Nice and Epirus had already learned to seduce and employ the mercenary valour of the Latins. It was the aim of Henry to unite and re- ward his deserving subjects of every nation and language ; buti he appeared less solicitous to accomplish the impracticable union of the two churches. Pelagius, the pope's legate, who acted as^ the sovereign of Constantinople, had interdicted the worship of | the Greeks, and sternly imposed the pavment of tithes, the I double procession of the Holy Ghost, and a blind obedience to the Roman pontiff. As the Aveaker party, they pleaded thai duties of conscience, and implored the rights of toleration : " Our bodies," they said, "are Caesar's, but: our souls belong only to God". The persecution was checked by the finnness of the emperor ; ^'^ and, if we can believe that the same prince wasj poisoned by the Greeks themselves, we must entertain a con- temptible idea of the sense and gratitude of mankind. His I valour was a vulgar attribute which he shared with ten thousand I knights ; but Henry possessed the superior courage to oppose,! ^ The church of this patron of Thessalonica was served by the canons of the ' holy sepulchre, and contained a divine ointment which distilled daily and stupen- dous miracles (Ducange, Hist, de C. P. ii. 4).
- " Acropolita (c. 17) observes the persecution of the legate, and the toleration of
Henry {'Ep-q, ['Epp^ gen. ; "Epp^? nom.] as he calls him) K.KvSiava Kareoropeo-f.
