The Online Library of Liberty

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• The Works of Edward Gibbon
• List of Illustrations
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Chapter L
• Chapter Li
• Chapter Lii
• Chapter Liii
• Appendix Additional Notes By the Editor
• 1.: Gold In Arabia — ( P. 4 )
• 2.: The Sabians — ( P. 26 , 27 )
• 3.: Two Treaties of Mohammad — ( P. 72 , 80 )
• 4.: Mokaukas — ( P. 88 , 177 )
• 5.: Chronology of the Saracen Conquest of Syria and Egypt — ( P. 134-182 )
• 6.: Authorities — ( Ch. Lii . Sqq. )
• 7.: Saracen Coinage — ( P. 241 )
• 8.: The Themes of the Roman Empire — ( P. 243 , 315 , 320 Sqq. )
• 9.: Constantine Porphyrogennetos On the Administration of the Empire — ( P. 315-351 )
• 10. The Byzantine Navy — ( P. 248 , 351 Sqq. )
• 11.: The Slavs In the Peloponnesus — ( P. 323-4 )

APPENDIX

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE EDITOR

1.

GOLD IN ARABIA — (

P. 4

)

Gibbon states that no gold mines are at present known in Arabia, on the authority of Niebuhr. Yet gold mines seem to have existed in the Hijāz under the caliphate, for M. Casanova has described some gold dīnārs bearing the date 105 a.h. (723-4 ) and inscriptions containing the words: “Mine of the commander of the Faithful in the Hijāz” (Casanova, Inventaire sommaire de la coll. des monnaies musulmanes de S. A. la Princesse Ismaīl, p. iv., v., 1896).

For this note I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. S. Lane-Poole.

2.

THE SABIANS — (

P. 26

,

27

)

Vague and false ideas prevailed concerning Sabianism, until the obscure subject was illuminated by the labours of Chwolsohn and Petermann in the present century. Gibbon does not fall into the grosser, though formerly not uncommon, error of confusing the Sabians with the Sabaeans (of Yemen); the two names begin with different Arabic letters. But in his day the distinction had not been discovered between the true Sabians of Babylonia and the false Sabians of Harran. The first light on the matter was thrown by Norberg’s publication of the Sacred Book of the Sabians entitled Sidra Rabba, “Great Book,” which he edited under the name of the Book of Adam (or Codex Nasiraeus). But the facts about the two Sabianisms were first clearly established in Chwolsohn’s work, Ssabier und Ssabismus (1856).

This book is mainly concerned with an account of the false Sabians of Harran. It was in the 9th century that this spurious Sabianism was so named. The people of Harran, in order not to be accounted heathen by their Abbāsid lords, but that they might be reckoned among the unbelievers to whom a privileged position is granted by the Koran — Jews, Christians, and Sabians — as they could not pretend to be Christians or Jews, professed Sabianism, a faith to which no exact idea was attached. The religion, which thus assumed the Sabian name, was the native religion of the country, with Greek and Syrian elements super-imposed. It is to this spurious Sabianism, with its star-worship, that Gibbon’s description applies.

The true Sabianism sprang up in Babylonia in the 1st and 2nd centuries of the Christian era, and probably contains as its basis misunderstood gnostic doctrines. Its nature was first clearly explained by Petermann, who travelled for the purpose of studying it, and then re-edited the Sidra Rabba, which is written in a Semitic dialect known as Mandaean. There were two original principles: matter, and a creative mind (“the lord of glory”). This primal mental principle creates Hayya Kadmaya (“first life”), and then retires from the scene of operations; and the souls of very holy Sabians have the joy of once beholding the lord of glory, after death. The emanation Hayya Kadmaya is the deity who is worshipped; from him other emanations proceed. (For the ceremonies and customs of modern Sabians see M. Siouffi’s Etudes sur la religion des Soubbas, 1880. For a good account of the whole subject, Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole’s Studies in a Mosque, c. viii.)

3.

TWO TREATIES OF MOHAMMAD — (

P. 72

,

80

)

The text of the treaty of Hudaibiya between Mohammad and the Koreish in 628, is preserved by Wākidī, and is thus translated by Sir W. Muir (Life of Mahomet, p. 346-7): —

“In thy name, O God! These are the conditions of peace between Mohammad, son of Abdallah, and Suhail, son of Amr [deputy of the Koreish]. War shall be suspended for ten years. Whosoever wisheth to join Mohammad or enter into treaty with him, shall have liberty to do so; and likewise whosoever wisheth to join the Koreish or enter into treaty with them. If one goeth over to Mohammad without the permission of his guardian, he shall be sent back to his guardian; but should any of the followers of Mohammad return to the Koreish, they shall not be sent back. Mohammad shall retire this year without entering the City. In the coming year Mohammad may visit Mecca, he and his followers, for three days, during which the Koreish shall retire and leave the City to them. But they may not enter it with any weapons, save those of the traveller, namely to each a sheathed sword.” This was signed by Abū Bekr, Omar, Abd ar-Rahmān, and six other witnesses.

As another example of the treaties of Mohammad, I take that which he concluded with the Christian prince of Aila, — the diploma securitatis, mentioned by Gibbon; who refrains from pronouncing an opinion as to its authenticity. It too is preserved by Wākidī and there is no fair reason for suspecting it. Here again I borrow the translation of Sir W. Muir (p. 428): —

“In the name of God the Gracious and Merciful! A compact of peace from God and from Mohammad the Prophet and Apostle of God, granted unto Yuhanna [John], son of Rubah, and unto the people of Aila. For them who remain at home and for those that travel by sea and by land there is the guarantee of God and of Mohammad, the Apostle of God, and for all that are with them, whether of Syria or of Yemen or of the sea-coast. Whoso contraveneth this treaty, his wealth shall not save him; it shall be the fair prize of him that taketh it. Now it shall not be lawful to hinder the men of Aila from any springs which they have been in the habit of frequenting, nor from any journey they desire to make, whether by sea or by land. The writing of Juhaim and Sharāhbil by command of the Apostle of God.”

4.

MOKAUKAS — (

P. 88

,

177

)

Papyri discovered in Egypt throw some interesting light on the position of the Copt Mokaukas (al-Mukaukis), famous for his correspondence with Mohammad and for the part he played in the Saracen conquest. Mokaukas had been the subject of a monography by the Dutch orientalist de Goeje (1885), and had engaged the special attention of Ranke (Weltgeschichte, vol. v. p. 140 sqq.); but the investigation of Prof. J. Karabacek, the editor of the Mittheilungen from the collection of the Archduke Rainer’s papyri, puts new evidence at our disposal (Der Mokaukis von Aegypten; Mittheil., pt. i. p. 1 sqq.). The results briefly are: —

The proper name of Mokaukas (al-Mukaukis) was George, and he was the son of Menas Parkabios, an instance of a Copt with a double name (Greek and Coptic), of which there are constant examples in papyri. At this time Egypt had three eparchies, each under a dux; each eparchy was divided into several nomes under stratêgoi. The financial administration of the nome was in the hands of a pagarch. Sometimes the offices of the stratêgos and pagarch were united; and Mokaukas combined the double functions. But it seems that though he was always connected with the eparchy of Lower Egypt, he was not throughout his whole career pagarch of the same nome. For we find him at Alexandria as well as at Misr (Babylon). In 628 Hātib, the envoy of Mohammad, found him governor of Alexandria. In Bilādhurī he appears as governor first of Alexandria and afterwards of Misr. Eutychius and Elmacin represent him as an Āmil set by Heraclius over the taxes in Misr. There is no question that at the time of the Saracen invasion his official residence was Misr. Karabacek thinks that the name Mokaukis is a corruption of μεγαυχής, which might have been one of his titles, since we find applied to pagarchs such titles as μεγαλοπρεπέστατος, ἐνδοξότατος. But μεγαυχής seems a very unlikely titular epithet.

We can now see what is meant by the “prefects” mentioned by John of Nikiu (p. 559, 577), according to Zotenberg’s translation. Thus John’s Abākīrī can be identified with Ἅππα κν̂ρος, who is found in a papyrus as pagarch of Heracleopolis magna.

For the position of Mokaukas as head of the Copts see John of Nikiu.

5.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE SARACEN CONQUEST OF SYRIA AND EGYPT — (

P. 134-182

)

The discrepancies in the original authorities (Greek and Arabic) for the Saracen conquests in the caliphates of Abū Bekr and Omar have caused considerable uncertainty as to the dates of such leading events as the battles of the Yermūk and Cadesia, the captures of Damascus and Alexandria, and have led to most divergent chronological schemes.

I. Conquest of Syria. Gibbon follows Ockley, who, after the false Wākidī, gives the following arrangement: —

Clinton (Fasti Romani, ii. p. 173-5) has also adopted this scheme. But it must certainly be rejected. (1) Gibbon has himself noticed a difficulty concerning the length of the siege of Damascus, in connection with the battle of Ajnādain (see p. 146, n. 73). (2) The date given for that battle, Friday, July 13, 633 (Ockley, i. p. 65), is inconsistent with the fact that July 13 in that year fell on Tuesday. (3) The battle of the Yermūk took place without any doubt in August, 634. This is proved by the notice of Arabic authors that it was synchronous with the death of Abū Bekr; combined with the date of Theophanes (suba.m. 6126), “Tuesday, the 23rd of Lous (that is, August),” which was the day after Abū Bekr’s death. The chronology of Theophanes is confused in this period; there is a discrepancy between the Anni Incarnationis and Indications on one hand, and the Anni Mundi on the other; and the Anni Mundi are generally a year wrong. So in this case, the Annus Mundi 6126 (= March 25, 633 to 634) ought to be 6127; the 23rd of Lous fell on Tuesday in 634, not in 633 or 635 or 636. There is no question about the reading Λώου, which appears in de Boor’s edition (p. 338) instead of the old corruption Ἰουλίου; it is in the oldest of the MSS., and is confirmed by the Latin translation.1 (4) The capture of Damascus in Gibbon’s chronology precedes the battle of the Yermūk. But it was clearly a consequence, as Theophanes represents, as well as the best Arabic authorities. Khālid who arrived from Irāk just in time to take part in the battle of the Yermūk led the siege of Damascus. See Tabarī, ed. Kosegarten, ii. p. 161 sqq. (5) The date of the capture of Damascus was Ann. Hij 13 according to Masūdī and Abū-l-Fidā, in winter (Tabarī); hence Weil deduces Jan. 635 (see Weil, i. p. 47).

On these grounds Weil revised the chronology, in the light of better Arabic sources. He rightly placed the battle of the Yermūk in Aug. 634, and the capture of Damascus subsequent to it. The engagement of Ajnādain he placed shortly before that of the Yermūk, on July 30, 634, but had to assume that Khālid was not present. As to the battle of Cadesia, he accepts the year given by Tabarī (tr. Zotenberg, iii., p. 400) and Masūdī (a.h. 14, 535) as against that alleged by the older authority Ibn Ishāk (ap. Masūdī) as well as by Abū-l-Fidā and others (op. cit. p. 71). Finlay follows this revision of Weil: —

As to the main points Weil is undoubtedly right. That the conquest of Syria began in 634 and not (as Gibbon gives) 633, is asserted by Tabarī2 and strongly confirmed by the notice in Χρονογρ. σύντομον of Nicephorus (p. 99, ed. de Boor): οἱ Σαρακηνοὶ ἤρξαντο τη̂ς τον̂ παντὸς ἐρημώσεως τῷ [Editor: Illegible Greek character]ρκς′ ἔτει ἰνδ. ζ′. Mr. Milne, in his History of Egypt under Roman Rule (1898), thinks that Mokaukas was prefect, perhaps of Augustamnica, p. 225. The Saracens began their devastation in a.m. 6126 = Ind. 7. a.m. 6126 is current from 633 March 25 to 634 March 25, and the 7th Indiction from 633 Sept. 1 to 634 Sept. 1; the common part is Sept. 1 633 to March 25 634; so that we are led to the date Feb., March 634 for the advance against the Empire. In regard to the capture of Damascus it seems safer to accept the date a.h. 14, which is assigned both by Ibn Ishāk and Wākidī (quoted by Tabarī, ed. Kosegarten, ii. p. 169), and therefore place it later in the year 635.

The weak point in Weil’s reconstruction would be the date for the battle of Ajnādain, as contradicting the natural course of the campaign marked out by geography, if it were certain that Ajnādain lay west of the Jordan, as is usually supposed (see map in this volume, where it is indicated in the commonly accepted position). The battle of the Yermūk on the east of the Jordan naturally preceded operations west of the Jordan. This has been pointed out by Sir W. Muir (Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 206-7), who observes that the date 634 (before the Yermūk) “is opposed to the consistent though very summary narrative of the best authorities, as well as to the natural course of the campaign, which began on the east side of the Jordan, all the eastern province being reduced before the Arabs ventured to cross over to the well-garrisoned country west of the Jordan.” Muir accordingly puts the battle in 636.3 But there seems to be no certainty as to the geographical position of Ajnādain, and it must therefore be regarded as possible that it lay east of the Jordan, and was the scene of a battle either shortly before or shortly after the battle of the Yermūk. The reader may like to have before him the order of events in Tabarī; Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole has kindly supplied me with the references to the original text (ed. de Goeje): —

Abū Bekr sends troops into Syria (a.h. 13), i. 2079.

Khālid brings up reinforcements in time for the Yermūk, i. 2089.

Battle of the Yermūk, i. 2090 sqq.

Battle of Ajnādain (end of July, 634), i. 2126-7.

Battle of Fihl (Jan., Feb., 635), i. 2146.

Capture of Damascus (Aug., Sept., 635), i. 2146.

As to the date of the capture of Jerusalem, Weil does not commit himself; Muir places it at the end of 636 (so Tabarī, followed by Abū-l-Fidā, while other Arabic sources place it in the following year). Theophanes, under a.m. 6127, says: “In this year Omar made an expedition against Palestine; he besieged the Holy City, and took it by capitulation at the end of two years.” a.m. 6127 = March 634-635; but, as the Anni Mundi are here a year late (see above), the presumption is that we must go by the Anni Incarnationis and interpret the a.m. as March, 635-636. In that case, the capitulation would have taken place at earliest in March, 637 — if the two years were interpreted strictly as twelve months. But διετη̂ χρόνον might be used for two military years, 635 and 636; so that the notice of Theophanes is quite consistent with Sir Wm. Muir’s date. The same writer agrees with Weil in setting the battle of Cadesia in a.h. 14, with Tabarī, but sets it in Nov. 635, instead of near the beginning of the year. Nöldeke (in his article on Persian History in the Encyc. Brit.) gives 636 or 637 for Cadesia. Muir’s arrangement of the chronology is as follows: —

II. Conquest of Egypt. Our Greek authorities give us no help as to the date of the conquest of Egypt, and the capture of Alexandria; and the Arabic sources conflict. The matter, however, has been cleared up by Mr. E. W. Brooks (Byz. Zeitschrift, iv. p. 435 sqq.), who has brought on the scene an earlier authority than Theophanes, Nicephorus, and all the Arabic histories, — John of Nikiu, a contemporary of the event. (For his work see above, vol. viii. Appendix 1.) This chronicler implies (Mr. Brooks has shown) that Alexandria capitulated on October 17, 641 (towards the end of a.h. 20). This date agrees with the notice of Abū-l-Fidā, who places the whole conquest within a.h. 20, and is presumably following Tabarī (here abridged by the Persian translator); and it is borne out by a notice of the 9th century historian Ibn Abd al Hakam (cp. Weil, i. p. 115, note). Along with the correct tradition that Alexandria fell after the death of Heraclius, there was concurrent an inconsistent tradition that it fell on the 1st of the first month of a.h. 20 (Dec. 21, 640); a confusion of the elder Heraclius with the younger (Heraclonas) caused more errors (Books, loc. cit. p. 437); and there was yet another source of error in the confusion of the first capture of the city with its recapture, after Manuel had recovered it, in 645 (loc. cit. p. 443).4 Mr. Brooks’ chronology is as follows: —

As to the digressive notice of Theophanes sub anno 6126, which places an invasion of Egypt by the Saracens in 638, it would be rash, without some further evidence, to infer that there was any unsuccessful attempt made on Egypt either in that year, or before 639.

6.

AUTHORITIES — (

Ch. LII

. sqq.)

Greek Sources

Photius was born at Constantinople about 820. He was related by blood to the Patriarch Tarasius, and by marriage to the Empress Theodora (wife of Theophilus). He had enjoyed an excellent training in grammar and philology, and devoted his early years to teaching, a congenial employment which he did not abandon after he had been promoted to the Patriarchate ( 858). “His house was still a salon of culture, the resort of the curious who desired instruction. Books were read aloud and the master of the house criticised their style and their matter.”1 He was an indefatigable collector of books, and his learning probably surpassed that of any of the mediaeval Greeks (not excepting Psellus). For his historical importance and public career see vol. x. p. 331-2.

Of his profane works the most famous — which Gibbon singles out — was his Myriobiblon or Bibliotheca, written (before 858) for his brother Tarasius, who had been absent in the East and desired information about the books which had been read and discussed in the circle of Photius while he was away. It contains most valuable extracts from historians whose works are no longer extant, and the criticisms of Photius are marked by acuteness and independence. The Lexicon, compiled doubtless by a secretary or pupil, is a later work.2 There are about 260 extant letters (in Migne, P.G. vol. 102; and edition by Valettas, 1864).

A recent critic has said that the importance of Photius as a theologian has been often exaggerated.3 Of his theological writings only those pertaining to the controversy of the day need be mentioned here. In the treatise On the Mystagogia of the Holy Ghost he has put together all the evidence from scripture and the Fathers in favour of the Greek doctrine, but assigns more weight to theological argument than to authority. This is characteristic of the man. It is also to be observed (as Ehrhard remarks) that he does not attack the Roman church directly; but he appeals to previous Popes as supporters of the true view, in opposition to Jerome, Augustine, &c.

Two of the homilies of Photius have historical importance as sources for the Russian invasion of 860. They were edited by P. Uspenski in 1864, and with improved text by A. Nauck in Lexicon Vindobonense, p. 201-232 (1867); reprinted in Müller’s Frag. Hist. Gr. 5, p. 162 sqq.

The works of Photius (except the Lexicon) are collected in Migne’s Patr. Gr. vols. 101-104. The chief work on Photius is that of J. Hergenröther, in 3 volumes: Photius, Patriarch von Konstantinopel, sein Leben, seine Schriften, und das griechische Schisma (1867-9), a learned, thorough, and impartial work.

The Tactica of the Emperor Leo VI. contains a great deal that is merely a re-edition of the Strategicon ascribed to the Emperor Maurice. The general organisation, the drill, the rules for marching and camping, the arms, are still the same as in the 6th century. But there is a great deal that is new. A good account and criticism of the work will be found in Mr. Oman’s History of the Art of War, vol. 2, p. 184 sqq. “The reader is distinctly prepossessed in favour of Leo by the frank and handsome acknowledgment which he makes of the merits and services of his general, Nicephorus Phocas, whose successful tactics and new military devices are cited again and again with admiration. The best parts of his book are the chapters on organisation, recruiting, the services of transport and supply, and the methods required for dealing with the various Barbarian neighbours of the empire. . . . The weakest point, on the other hand, — as is perhaps natural, — is that which deals with strategy. . . . Characteristic, too, of the author’s want of aggressive energy, and of the defensive system which he made his policy, is the lack of directions for campaigns of invasion in an enemy’s country. Leo contemplates raids on hostile soil, but not permanent conquests. . . . Another weak point is his neglect to support precept by example; his directions would be much the clearer if he would supplement them by definite historical cases in which they had led to success” (ib. p. 184-5).

Zachariä von Lingenthal propounded4 the theory that the Leo to whom the title of the Tactics ascribes the authorship was not Leo VI. but Leo III., and that consequently the work belongs to the first half of the eighth century. But internal evidence is inconsistent with this theory.5 Besides the references to Nicephorus Phocas mentioned above, the author speaks of “our father the Emperor Basil,” and describes his dealings with the Slavs, 18, § 101; the Bulgarians who were still heathen in the reign of Leo the Iconoclast appear as Christians in this treatise, 18, § 42, 44, and 61; the capture of Theodosiopolis from the Saracens (under Leo VI., cp. Const. Porph., de Adm. Imp. c. 45, p. 199-200, ed. Bonn) is mentioned.

The most interesting chapters of the work are c. 18, which contains an account of the military customs of the nations with which the empire was brought into hostile contact (Saracens, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Slavs, Franks), and c. 19, on naval warfare (see below, Appendix 10). [The edition of Meursius used by Gibbon is reprinted in Migne’s Patr. Gr. 107, p. 671 sqq.]

Only a part of the two Books De Cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae which pass under the name of Constantine Porphyrogennetos is really due to that Emperor.

The first 83 chapters of Bk. I. represent the treatise on the Court Ceremonies which he complied by putting together existing documents which prescribed the order of the various ceremonies. The work is arranged as follows: Chaps. 1-37, religious ceremonies (thus chap. 1 gives the order of processions to the Great Church — St. Sophia; chap. 2, the ceremonies on Christmas Day; chap. 3, those on the Epiphany, &c., in the order of the calendar); chaps. 38-44, the ceremonies on great secular occasions, such as the coronation of the Emperor and the Empress; chaps. 45-59, ceremonies on the promotions of ministers and palace functionaries; chaps. 60-64, an Emperor’s funeral, and other solemnities; chaps. 65-83, palace banquets, public games, and other ceremonies.6

The remaining chapters of Bk. I. are an excrescence and were added at a later date. Chaps. 84-95 are an extract from the work of Peter the Patrician who wrote under Justinian I. (cp. headings to chaps. 84 and 95). Chap. 96 contains an account of the inauguration of Nicephorus Phocas, and chap. 97 perhaps dates from the reign of Tzimisces.

There are two Appendices to Bk. I. concerning the proceedings to be adopted when an Emperor goes forth on a military expedition. Both date from the reign of Constantine VII.; and the second (p. 455 sqq. ed. Bonn) is from the pen of Constantine himself.

The second Book is a much later compilation (perhaps put together in the early part of the eleventh century) in which some documents drawn up in the time of Constantine VII. have been incorporated. It professes (in the Preface, p. 516) to contain matters which had never been committed to writing. It contains the descriptions of many ceremonies; but written documents have been interpolated, contrary to the intention of the writer of the Preface. Thus chaps. 44 and 45 contain the returns of the expenses, &c., of naval armaments; chap. 50 contains a list of themes which belongs to the reign of Leo VI.; chap. 52, a separate treatise on the order of precedence at Imperial banquets composed by Philotheus protospatharius in 900; chap. 54 is a list of patriarchs and metropolitans drawn up by Epiphanius of Cyprus.

The Ceremonies are included in the Bonn ed. of the Byzantine writers (1829), with Reiske’s notes in a separate volume. On the composition of the work see A. Rambaud, L’empire grec au x^me siècle, p. 128 sqq., also Krumbacher, Byz. Litt. p. 254-5; for the elucidation of the ceremonies, &c., D. Bieliaiev, Byzantina, vol. 2 (1893).

The work on the Themes (in 2 Books, see above, p. 320 sqq.) was composed while Romanus I. was still alive, and after, probably not very long after, 934 (see Rambaud, L’empire grec au dixième siècle, p. 165). For an Armenian general Melias is mentioned, who was alive in 934, as recently dead; and the theme of Seleucia is noticed, which seems to have been formed after 934. For the contents of the book cp. below, Appendix 8.

The treatise on the Administration of the Empire is dealt with in a separate note below, Appendix 9.

George Codinus (probably 15th century) is merely a name, associated with three works: a short, worthless chronicle (ed. Bonn, 1843); an account of the offices of the Imperial Court and of St. Sophia, generally quoted as De Officiis (ed. Bonn, 1839); the Patria of Constantinople (ed. Bonn, 1843). But it is only with the third of these works that Codinus, whoever he was, can have any connection. The Chronicle is anonymous in the MSS., and there is no reason for ascribing it to Codinus. The De Officiis is likewise anonymous, and the attribution of it to Codinus was due to the blunder of an editor; it is a composition of the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century. As for the Πάτρια Κωνσταντινοπόλεως, Codinus may have been connected with it in the capacity of a copyist. Later MSS. give the work under his name. But he was no more than a copyist. The other MSS. do not know him, and the original anonymous work belongs to the end of the tenth century7 — to the reign of Basil II.

The compilation, entitled the Πάτρια, consists of five distinct works: (1) on the founding of Constantinople and the origin of its various parts; (2) the topography of the city; (3) its works of art; (4) its buildings (churches, palaces, hospitals, &c.); (5) the building of St. Sophia. In the reign of Alexius Comnenus the compilation was arranged in sections on a topographical plan; and the famous “Anonymus,” edited by Banduri (in the Imperium Orientale, vol. i), is simply a copy of this Comnenian edition. The chief sources of the Patria are: (a) the Patria of Hesychius of Miletus; (b) Παραστάσεις σύντομοι χρονικαί, an anonymous work composed between the reigns of Leo III. and Theophilus; it has been edited recently (Munich, 1898) by Th. Preger, who is preparing an edition of the Patria, (c) an anonymous narrative concerning St. Sophia (source of the last part of the treatise); (d) a lost chronicle.

Eustathius, educated at Constantinople, became Archbishop of Thessalonica in 1175; he died c. 1193. Besides his famous commentaries on Homer, his commentary on Pindar, and his paraphrase of the geographical poem of Dionysius, he composed an account of the Norman siege of Thessalonica in 1185. This original work was published by L. F. Tafel in 1832 (Eustathii Opuscula, i. p. 267-307) and reprinted by Bekker at the end of the Bonn ed. of Leo Grammaticus. There are also extant various speeches (e.g. a funeral oration by the Emperor Manuel) which have been published by Tafel either in his edition of the lesser works of Eustathius or in his treatise De Thessalonica ejusque agro (1839). A collection of letters (some not by Eustathius but by Psellus) is also published by Tafel (Eustathii Op. p. 507 sqq.) and some others by Regel, Font. rer. Byz. i. (1892).

George Acropolites, born in 1217 at Constantinople, migrated to Nicaea at the age of eighteen, and studied there under the learned Nicephorus Blemmydes. He was appointed (1244) to the office of Grand Logothete, and instructed the young prince Theodore Lascaris who afterwards became Emperor. Unsuccessful as a general in the war with the Despot of Epirus (1257), he was made prisoner, and after his release he was employed by Michael Palæologus as a diplomatist. He represented the Greek Emperor at the Council of Lyons, for the purpose of bringing about a reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches. He died in 1282. His history embraces the period from 1203 to the recovery of Constantinople in 1261, and is thus a continuation of Nicetas. For the second half of the period treated it is not only a contemporary work, but the work of one who was in a good position for observing political events. [The Χρονικὴ συγγραϕή in its original form was published by Leo Allatius 1651, and is reprinted in the Venice and Bonn collections. An abridgment was published by Dousa in 1614. There is also, in a MS. at Milan, a copy of the work with interpolations (designated as such) by a contemporary of Acropolites (see Krumbacher, Gesch. der byz. Litt., p. 287; A. Heisenberg, Studien zur Textgeschichte des Georgios Akropolites, 1894).]

George Pachymeres ( 1242-1310) carries us on from the point where Acropolites deserts us. He is the chief literary figure of the first fifty years of the restored Empire. His work in 13 Books begins at 1255 and comes down to 1308. His chief interest was in the theological controversies of the day, and there is far too much theology and disputation about dogma in his history; but this was what absorbed the attention of the men of his time. “Pachymeres, by his culture and literary activity, overtops his contemporaries, and may be designated as the greatest Byzantine Polyhistor of the 13th century. We see in him the lights and shadows of the age of the Palæologi. He is not wanting in learning, originality, and wit. But he does not achieve the independence of view and expression, which distinguishes a Photius or a Psellus.” Other works of Pachymeres are extant, but only his autobiography in hexameter verses need be mentioned here (it was suggested by Gregory Nazianzen’s περὶ ὲαυτον̂). It is worthy of note — as a symptom of the approaching renaissance — that Pachymeres adopted the Attic, instead of the Roman, names of the months. [The edition of Possinus, used by Gibbon, was reprinted in the Bonn collection, 1835.]

Nicephorus Gregoras (1295-c. 1359) of Heraclea in Pontus was educated at Constantinople, and enjoyed the teaching of Theodore Metochites, who was distinguished not only as a trusted councillor of the Emperor Andronicus, but as a man of encyclopaedic learning.8 Nicephorus won the favour of Andronicus, but on that Emperor’s deposition in 1328 his property was confiscated and he had to live in retirement. He came forth from his retreat to do theological battle with the pugnacious Barlaam of Calabria, who was forming a sort of school in Constantinople (see vol. xi. p. 119-120); and his victory in this controversy was rewarded by reinstatement in his property and offices. Subsequently he played a prominent part in the renewed attempts at reuniting the eastern and western churches. He fell into disfavour with Cantacuzenus and was banished to a monastery. His Roman History in 37 Books begins with the Latin capture of Constantinople in 1204, and reaches to 1359. But the greater part of this period, 1204-1320, is treated briefly in the first 7 Books, which may be regarded as an introduction to the main subject of his work, namely his own times (1320-1359). This history, like that of Pachymeres, is disproportionately occupied with theological disputation, and is, as Krumbacher says, “eine memoirenhafte Parteischrift im vollsten Sinne des Wortes.” In style, Gregoras essays to imitate Plato; for such base uses has Platonic prose been exploited. [Only Books 1-24 were accessible to Gibbon, as he complains (ed. Boivin, 1702). The remaining Books 25-37 (numbered 23-36) were first edited by Bekker in the Bonn ed. vol. 3, 1855. Among other works of Gregoras may be mentioned his funeral oration on Theodore Metochites, ed. by Meursius, 1618 (Th. Metochitae hist. Rom., liber singularis).]

For the Emperor Cantacuzenus and his history see vol. xi. cap. lxiii. and cp. vol. xi. p. 104, n. 21. [In the Bonn series, ed. by Schopen in 3 vols., 1828-32.]

Nicephorus Blemmydes was, beside George Acropolites, the most important literary figure at the court of the Emperor of Nicaea. He was born at Constantinople (c. 1198), and soon after the Latin Conquest migrated to Asia, and in Prusa, Nicaea, Smyrna, and Scamander he received a liberal education under the best masters of the day. He became proficient in logic, rhetoric, and mathematics, and studied medicine. He finally embraced a clerical career; he took an active part in the controversies with the Latins in the reign of John Vatatzes, and was a teacher of the young prince Theodore Lascaris. The extant (not yet published) correspondence of Theodore and Blemmydes testifies their friendly intimacy. But Blemmydes was an opinionated man; he was constantly offending and taking offence; and he finally became a monk and retired to a monastery at Ephesus which he built himself. He had the refusal of the Patriarchate in 1255, and he died c. 1272. His autobiography and his letters (monuments of pedantry and conceit) have importance for the history of his time. Besides theological, scientific, and other works, he composed an icon basilike (βασιλικός ανδριάς) for his royal pupil.9 [The autobiography (in two parts) has been edited by A. Heisenberg, 1896. An edition of the Letters is a desideratum.]

In the first quarter of the 14th century, a native of the Morea, certainly half a Frank, and possibly half a Greek, by birth, composed a versified chronicle of the Latin conquest of the Peloponnesus and its history during the 13th century. This work is generally known as the Chronicle of Morea.10 The author is thoroughly Grecised, so far as language is concerned; he writes the vulgar tongue as a native; but feels toward the Greeks the dislike and contempt of a ruling stranger for the conquered population. He may have been a Gasmul (Γασμον̂λος, supposed to be derived from gas (garçon) and mulus), as the offspring of a Frank father by a Greek mother was called. It is a thoroughly prosaic work, thrown into the form of wooden political verses; and what it loses in literary interest through its author’s lack of talent, it gains in historical objectivity. A long prologue relates the events of the first and the fourth crusades; the main part of the work embraces the history of the Principality of Achaea from 1205 to 1292. The book appealed to the Franks, not to the Greeks, of the Peloponnesus; and shows how Greek had become the language of the conquerors. It was freely translated into French soon after its composition; and this version (with a continuation down to 1304), which was made before the year 1341, is preserved (under the title “The Book of the Conquest of Constantinople and the Empire of Roumania and the country of the Principality of Morea”). J. A. Buchon was the first to edit both the Greek and the French; but he sought to show that the French was the original and the Greek the version. The true relation of the two texts has been established by the researches of Dr. John Schmitt (Die Chronik von Morea, 1889), who is now the chief authority on the work.

As an example of the style of this famous work, I quote a few lines from the description of the investiture of Geoffrey (Ντζεϕρές) Villehardouin with Morea.

• Μὲ δακτυλίδιον χρυσὸν εὐθὑς τὸν ῥεβεστίζει (invests),
• κ’ αϕον̂ τὸν ἐπαράδωσε κ’ ἐποɩ̂κε του τὸ ὁμάντζιο (homage),
• τότε τὸν μετελάλησε καὶ λέγει πρὸς ἐκεɩ̂νον ·
• “Μισὲρ Ντζεϕρὲ, ἀπὸ τον̂ νν̂ν ἄνθρωπος μ’ εɩ̂̓σαι λίζιος (liege),
• ἀϕον̂ τὸν τόπον σου κρατεɩ̂ς ἀπὸ τὴν αὐθεντειάν μου ·
• κ’ ἀρμόζει νὰ εɩ̂̓σαι εἰς ἐμὲ ἁληθινὸς εἰς πάντα
• κ’ ἐγὼ πάλιν ν’ ἀποθαρρω̂ τὰ πάντα μου’ς ἐσένα ·
• ἑπεὶ όϕείλω νὰ διαβω̂ ἑκεɩ̂σ’ εἰς τὴν Φραγκίαν,
• παρακαλω̂ καὶ ὁρίζω σε διὰ τὴν ἐμὴν ἀγάπην,
• τὸν τόπον, τὸν ἐκέρδισα ἐδω̂ εἰς τὸν Μωρέαν,
• παράλαβε καὶ κράτειε τον, δι’ ἐμένα τὸν ϕυλάττῃς
• εἰς τέτοιον τρόπον κ’ ἀϕορμὴν δίκαιός μου νἀσαι μπάϊλος (bailiff)
• τον̂ νὰ κρατῃ̑ς τὴν αὐθεντειὰν ὤσπερ ἐγὼ αὐτός μου κ.τ.λ.”
• . . . . . . . . . .
• κ’ ὄσον ταɩ̂ς ἐκατεστησε ταɩ̂ς συμϕωνιαɩ̂ς ἐκείναις
• ὁ Καμπανέσης ὤρθωσεν, ἐδιάβηκεν ἐκεɩ̂θεν ·
• οὐδὲν ἠθέλησε ποσω̂ς μετ’ αὐτὸν νὰ ἐπάρῃ
• μόνον δύο καβαλλαρίους καὶ δώδεκα σεργένταις.
• μὲ κάτεργον (galley) ἐπέρασεν, ὑπάει11 τη̂ς Βενετἰας,
• κ’ ἐδιάβη ὁλόρθα ’ς τὴν Φραγκιὰν ἐκεɩ̂σε ’ς τὴν Τζαμπάνια
• κ’ ἔμεινεν ὁ μισὲρ Ντζεϕρὲς αὐθέντης εἰς τὸν τόπον.

[Of the Greek original there are two widely different redactions, of which one, preserved in a Paris MS., was published by Buchon in his Chroniques étrangères relatives aux expeditions françaises pendant le xiii. siècle, in 1840; the other, preserved in a Copenhagen MS., was published in the second volume of his Recherches historiques sur la principauté française de Morée et ses hautes baronies (1845), while in the first vol. of this latter work he edited the French text. A final edition, with the Paris and Copenhagen texts on opposite pages, by Dr. John Schmitt, is in preparation.]12

Slavonic Sources

The old Russian chronicle, which goes by the name of Nestor and comprises the history of Russia and the neighbouring countries from the middle of the ninth century to the year 1110, has come down in two redactions: (1) the Laurentian MS., written by Laurence of Souzdal in 1377, and (2) the Hypatian, written in the monastery of St. Hypatius at Kostroma in the 15th century. All other MSS. can be traced back to either of these two. In neither of them does the old chronicle stand alone; it is augmented by continuations which are independent.

The work was compiled apparently in the year 1114-1115,13 and it can be divided into two parts.14 (1) Caps. 1-12, without chronological arrangement. It is to this part alone that the title refers: “History of old times by the monk of the monastery of Theodosius Peshtcherski, of the making of Russia, and who reigned first at Kiev (cp. c. 6), and of the origin of the Russian land.” (2) The rest of the works, chaps. 13-89, is arranged in the form of annals. It falls into three parts, indicated by the compiler in cap. 13. (a) Caps. 14-36, from the year 852 to death of Sviatoslav, 972; (b) caps. 37-58, to the death of Jaroslav, 1054; (c) caps. 59-89, to the death of Sviatopolk, 1114.15

Sources of the chronicle:16 (1) George the monk, in an old Bulgarian translation of 10th century (cp. chap. 11; see also chaps. 24, 65). (2) A work ascribed to Methodius of Patara (3rd cent.): “On the things which happened from the creation and the things which will happen in the future” — also doubtless through a Slavonic translation.17 (3) Lives of the apostles of the Slavs, Cyril and Methodius. (4) The Bible. (5) The Palaia (collection of Bible-stories), in Slavonic form. (6) The Symbolum Fidei of Michael Syncellus in Slavonic version (c. 42). (7) Oral information indicated by the chronicler; communications of (a) the monk Jeremiah, who was old enough to remember the conversion of the Russians, c. 68; (b) Gurata Rogovich of Novgorod, c. 80; (c) John, an old man of ninety, from whose mouth the chronicler received many notices. (8) A relation of the murder of Boris and Gleb by their brother Sviatopolk; an account which does not agree with the biography of these saints by the monk Nestor, but does agree with the relation of the monk Jacob.18 (9) A paschal calendar in which there were a few notices entered opposite to some of the years. (10) Written and dated notices preserved at Kiev, beginning with 882, the year in which the centre of the Russian realm was transferred from Novgorod to Kiev. Srkulj conjectures that these notices were drawn up in the Norse language by a Norman who had learned to write in England or Gaul, and perhaps in Runic characters. (11) Local chronicles, cp. a chronicle of Novgorod, of the existence of which we are otherwise certified. (12) Possibly a relation of the story of Vasilko, c. 82.

The traditional view that the monk Nestor, who wrote the biography of Boris and Gleb, and a life of Theodosius of Peshtcherski (see vol. x, p. 73), was the author of the chronicle is generally rejected. Nestor lived in the latter part of the 11th century, and, as we do not know the date of his death, so far as chronology is concerned, he might have compiled the chronicle in 1115. But not only does the account of Boris and Gleb (as noticed above) not agree with Nestor’s biography of those sainted princes, but there are striking discrepancies between the chronicler’s and Nestor’s accounts of Theodosius. And, while the chronicler expressly says that he was an eyewitness, Nestor expressly says that he derived his information from others. It is very hard to get over this. There are two other candidates for the authorship: (1) Sylvester, abbot of St. Michael, who states, at the end of the Chronicle in the Laurentian MS., that he “wrote these books of annals” in 1116; as long as Nestor was regarded as the author, the word for wrote was interpreted as copied (though a different compound is usually employed in that sense), but Golubinski and Kostomarov have proposed to regard the abbot as the author and not a mere copyist; (2) the monk Basil who is mentioned in the story of Vasilko (c. 82), and speaks there in the first person: “I went to find Vasilko.” But this may be explained by supposing that the compiler of the chronicle has mechanically copied, without making the necessary change of person, a relation of the episode of Vasilko written by this Basil. The authorship of the chronicle is not solved; we can only say that the compiler was a monk of the Peshtcherski monastery of Kiev.

[For a minute study of Nestor the editions of the Laurentian (1846 and 1872) and the Hypatian (1846 and 1871) MSS. published by the Archæographical Commission must be used. For ordinary purposes the text of Miklosich (1860) is still convenient. Excellent French translation by L. Leger, Chronique dite de Nestor, 1884, with an index19 which is half a commentary.]

Latin and other Western Sources

Amatus of Salerno, monk of Monte Cassino and bishop of an unknown see, wrote about 1080 a history of the Norman conquest of southern Italy, taking as a model the Historia Langobardorum of Paul the Deacon. We do not possess the work in its original shape, but only in a faulty French translation, made perhaps c. 1300 , which has survived in a single MS. It was edited for the first time, and not well, by Champollion-Figeac in 1835 (L’Ystoire de li Normant et la Chronique de Robert Viscart, par Aimé, moine de Mont-Cassin), but has been recently edited by O. Delarc, 1892. The work is divided into 8 Books, and embraces the history of the Normans from their first appearance in Italy to 1078. “It is,” says Giesebrecht, “no dry monosyllabic annalistic account, but a full narrative of the conquest with most attractive details, told with charming naiveté. Yet Amatus does not overlook the significance of the events which he relates, in their ecumenical context. His view grasps the contemporary Norman conquest of England, the valiant feats of the French knights against the Saracens of Spain, and the influence of Norman mercenaries in the Byzantine empire. In beginning his work (which he dedicates to the Abbot Desiderius, Robert Guiscard’s intimate friend) he is conscious that a red thread runs through all these undertakings of the knight-errants and that God has some special purpose in His dealings with this victorious race.” [For criticism of the work, the most important study is that of F. Hirsch in Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, 8, p. 205 sqq. (1868).]

Amatus was unknown to Gibbon, but he was a source of the most important works which Gibbon used. He was one of the sources of the poem of William of Apulia (begun c. 1099, finished by 1111), who also utilised the Annals of Bari. Now that we have Amatus (as well as the Annals of Bari) the value of William lies in the circumstance that he used also a lost biography of Robert Guiscard. [New ed. by Wilmans, in Pertz, Mon. ix. p. 239 sqq.]

Amatus was also a source of Geoffrey Malaterra, who wrote the history of the Normans in Sicily (up to 1099) at the instance of Count Roger (see above, Gibbon’s notes in chap. lvi.). [For the relation of this to the Anonymi Vaticani Historia Sicula, see A. Heskel, Die Hist. Sic. des Anon. Vat. und des Gaufredus Malaterra, 1891.]

Leo, monk and librarian of Monte Cassino, afterwards Cardinal-bishop of Ostia (died 1115), wrote a chronicle of his monastery, which he carried down to 1075. It is a laudable work, for which ample material (discreetly used by Leo) lay in the library of the monastery. [Ed. by Wattenbach in Pertz, Mon. vii. p. 574 sqq. Cp. Balzani, Le cronache Italiane nel medio evo, p. 150 sqq. (1884).] The work was continued (c. 1140) by the Deacon Peter, who belonged to the family of the Counts of Tusculum, as far as the year 1137. [Ed. Wattenbach, ib. p. 727 sqq.]

Other sources (Annales Barenses, Chron. breve Nortmannicum, &c.) are mentioned in the notes of chap lvi. It should be observed that there is no good authority for the name “Lupus protospatharius,” under which name one of the Bari chronicles is always cited. Contemporary Beneventane annals are preserved in (1) Annales Beneventani, in Pertz, Mon. iii. p. 173 sqq. and (2) the incomplete Chronicon of the Beneventane Falco (in Del Re’s Cronisti, vol i. p. 161 sqq.); both of which up to 1112 have a common origin. Cp. Giesebrecht, Gesch. der deutschen Kaiserzeit, iii. 1069.

The credibility of the history of Hugo Falcandus has been exhibited in some detail by F Hillger (Das Verhältniss des Hugo Falcandus zu Romuald von Salerno, 1878), and Gibbon’s high estimate seems to be justified. Gibbon is also right in rejecting the guess of Clément the Benedictine that the historian is to be identified with Hugo Foucault, Abbot of St. Denis (from 1186-1197). In the first place Foucault would never be Latinised as Falcandus. In the second place, the only plausible evidence for the identification does not bear examination. It is a letter of Peter of Blois to an abbot H. of St. Denys (Opera. ed. Giles, ep. 116, i. p. 178), in which Peter asks his correspondent to send him a tractatus quem de statu aut potius de casu vestro in Sicilia descripsistis. But this description does not apply to the Historia Sicula of Falcandus, and it has been shown by Schroter that the correspondent of Peter is probably not Hugo Foucault, but his successor in the abbacy, Hugo of Mediolanum. Schroter has fully refuted this particular identification, and has also refuted the view (held by Amari, Freeman, and others) that Falcandus was a Norman or Frank. On the contrary Falcandus was probably born in Sicily, which he knew well, especially Palermo, and when he wrote his history, he was living not north of the Alps (for he speaks of the Franks, &c., as transalpini, transmontani) but in southern Italy. He wrote his Historia Sicula, which reaches from 1154 to 1169, later than 1169, probably (in part at least) after 1181, for he speaks (p. 272, ed. Muratori) of Alexander III. as qui tunc Romanae praesidebat ecclesiae, and Alexander died in 1181 (F. Schroter, Über die Heimath des Hugo Falcandus, 1880). The letter to Peter of Palermo which is prefixed to the History as a sort of dedication seems to have been a perfectly independent composition, written immediately after the death of William the Good in November, 1189, and before the election of Tancred two months later. [Opera cit. of Schroter and Hillger; Freeman, Historical Essays, 3rd ser.; and cp. Holzach, op. cit. vol. x. p. 141, note 145; Del Re, preface to his edition (cp. vol. x. p. 141, note 145).]

Compared with Falcandus, Romuald, Archbishop of Salerno, is by no means so ingenuous. Although he does not directly falsify facts, his deliberate omissions have the effect of falsifying history; and these omissions were due to the desire of placing the Sicilian court in a favourable light. He is in fact a court historian, and his Annals clearly betray it. The tendency is shown in his cautious reserve touching the deeds and policy of the cruel and ambitious Chancellor Majo. Romuald was related to the royal family and was often entrusted with confidential and important missions. He was a strong supporter of the papacy, but it has been remarked that he entertained “national” ideas — Italy for the Italians, not for the trans-Alpines. He was a learned man and skilled in medicine. [Cp. vol. x. p. 126, n. 111; p. 128, n. 116.]

The name of the author of the Gesta Francorum was unknown even to those contemporary writers who made use of the work. Whatever his name was, he seems to have been a native of southern Italy; he accompanied the Norman crusaders who were led by Boemund, across the Illyric peninsula, and shared their fortunes till the end of 1098, when he separated from them at Antioch and attached himself to the Provençals, with whom he went on to Jerusalem. He was not an ecclesiastic like most authors of the age, but a knight. He wrote his history from time to time, during the crusade, according as he had leisure. It falls into eight divisions, each concluded by Amen; and these divisions seem to mark the various stages of the composition; they do not correspond to any artistic or logical distribution of the work. Having finished his book at Jerusalem, the author deposited it there — perhaps in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — where it could be, and was, consulted or copied by pilgrims of an inquiring turn of mind. The author was a pious and enthusiastic crusader, genuinely interested in the religious object of the enterprise; he entirely sinks his own individuality, and identifies himself with the whole company of his fellows. Up to the autumn of 1098 he is devoted to his own leader Boemund; but after c. 29 it has been noticed that the laudatory epithets which have hitherto attended Boemund’s name disappear, and, although no criticism is passed, the author thus, almost unintentionally, shows his dissatisfaction with the selfish quarrels between Boemund and Raymond, and has clearly ceased to regard Boemund as a disinterested leader. No written sources were used by the author of the Gesta except the Bible and Sibylline Oracles. [See the edition by H. Hagenmeyer, 1889, with full introduction and exegetical notes.]

Tudebod of Sivrai, who himself took part in the First Crusade, incorporated (before 1111) almost the whole of the Gesta in his Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere; and it used to be thought that the Gesta was merely an abridged copy of his work. The true relation of the two works was shown by H. von Sybel.

The Historia belli Sacri, an anonymous work, was compiled after 1131, from the Gesta and Tudebod The works of Raymond of Agiles and Radulf of Caen were also used. [Ed. in the Recueil, iii. p. 169 sqq.] The Expeditio contra Turcos, c. 1094, is also for the most part an excerpt from the Gesta.

Raymond of Agiles, in his Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Jerusalem, gives the history of the First Crusade from the Provençal side. It has been shown by Hagenmeyer (Gesta Francorum, p. 50 sqq.) that he made use of the Gesta; and Sybel, who held that the two works were entirely independent, remarks on the harmony of the narratives. Raymond is impulsive and gushing, he is superstitious in the most vulgar sense; but his good faith is undoubted, and he reproduces truly his impressions of events. In details he seems to be very accurate. (See the criticism of Sybel, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, ed. 2, p. 15 sqq., C. Klein, Raimund von Aguilers, 1892.)

Fulcher of Chartres accompanied the host of Robert of Normandy and Stephen of Blois through Apulia and Bulgaria to Nicaea. At Marash he went off with Baldwin against Edessa, and for events in Edessa he is the only eye-witness among the western historians; but from the moment when he begins to be of unique value for Edessa, he becomes of minor importance for the general course of the Crusade. After Godfrey’s death he accompanied Baldwin, the new king, to Jerusalem, and remained at his court. His work, which seems to have been written down as a sort of diary, from day to day or month to month, is of the highest importance for the kingdom of Jerusalem from the accession of Baldwin down to 1127, where it ends. Fulcher consulted the Gesta for the events of the First Crusade, of which he was not an eye-witness. (Cp. Sybel, op. cit. p. 46 sqq.; Hagenmeyer, op. cit. p. 58 sqq.)

Guibert (born 1153), of good family, became abbot of Nogent in 1104. In his Historia quae dicitur Gesta per Francos, he has thrown the Gesta Francorum into a literary form and added a good deal from other sources. The history of the First Crusade ceases with Bk. 6, and in Bk. 7 he has cast together a variety of notices connected with the kingdom of Jerusalem up to 1104. He had been present at the Council of Clermont, he was personally acquainted with Count Robert of Flanders, from whom he derived some pieces of information, and he had various connections throughout France which were useful to him in the composition of his book. He is conscious of his own importance, and proud of his literary style; he writes with the air of a well-read dignitary of the Church. (Cp. Sybel, op. cit. p. 33-4.)

Baldric, who became Archbishop of Dol in 1107, was of a very different character and temper from Guibert, and has been taken under the special protection of Sybel, who is pleased “to meet such a pure, peaceful, and cheerful nature in times so stern and warlike.” Baldric was opposed to the fashionable asceticism, he lived in literary retirement, enjoying his books and garden, taking as little a part as he could in the ecclesiastical strife which raged around, and exercising as mildly as possible his archiepiscopal powers. He died in 1130. His Historia Jerusalem, composed in 1108, is entirely founded on the Gesta, — the work, as he says, of nescio quis compilator (in the Prologue). See Sybel, op. cit. p. 35 sqq.

Of little value is the compilation of Robert the Monk of Reims, who (sometime in the first two decades of the 12th century) undertook the task of translating the Gesta into a better Latin style and adding a notice on the Council of Clermont. It has been shown by Sybel that there is no foundation for the opinion that Robert took part in the Crusade or visited the Holy Land; had he done so, he would certainly have stated the circumstance in his Prologue. (Sybel, op. cit. p. 44-6.)

Of Fulco, who wrote an account in hexameters of the events of the First Crusade up to the siege of Nicaea, we know nothing more than that he was a contemporary and was acquainted with Gilo who continued the work. His account has no historical value; he used the Gesta, but did not rifle that source in such a wholesale manner as Gilo of Toucy, his collaborator, who took up the subject at the siege of Nicaea. Gilo, who calls himself —

• o nomine Parisiensis
• incola Tuciaci non inficiandus alumnus,

was appointed in 1121 bishop of Tusculum, and composed his Libellus de via Hierosolymitana between 1118 and 1121. For the first four Books he used Robert the Monk and Albert of Aachen as well as the Gesta; for Bks. 5 and 6 he simply paraphrased the Gesta. (Cp. Hagenmeyer, op. cit. p. 74-6.) [Complete ed. in Migne, P.L. vol. 155.]

Radulf of Caen took no part in the Crusade, but he went to Palestine soon afterwards and stood in intimate relations with Tancred. After Tancred’s death he determined to write an account of that leader’s exploits, Gesta Tancredi in expeditione Hierosolymitana, which he dedicated to Arnulf, Patriarch of Jerusalem. For all that concerns Tancred personally his statements are of great value, but otherwise he has the position merely of a second-hand writer in regard to the general history of the First Crusade. The importance of his information about the capture of Antioch has been pointed out by Sybel. Hagenmeyer has made it probable that he used the Gesta. [Ed. in Muratori, Scr. rer. It., vol. 5, p. 285 sqq.; Recueil, iii. p. 603 sqq.]

The chronicle of Albert of Aachen contains one of the most remarkable of the narratives of the First Crusade. From this book, says Sybel, we hear the voice not of a single person, but of regiments speaking with a thousand tongues; we get a picture of western Europe as it was shaken and affected by that ecumenical event. The story is told vividly, uninterrupted by any reflections on the part of the author; who is profoundly impressed by the marvellous character of the tale which he has to tell; has no scruple in reporting inconsistent statements; and does not trouble himself much about chronology and topography. But the canon of Aachen, who compiled the work as we have it, in the third decade of the 12th century, is not responsible for the swing of the story. He was little more than the copyist of the history of an unknown writer, who belonged to the Lotharingian crusaders and settled in the kingdom of Jerusalem after the First Crusade. Thus we have, in Albert of Aachen, the history of the Crusade from the Lotharingian side. The unknown author probably composed his history some time after the events; Hagenmeyer has shown that he has made use of the Gesta. [The most important contribution to the criticism of Albert is the monograph of Kugler, Albert von Aachen, 1885, which is to be supplemented by Kühn’s article in the Neues Archiv, 12, p. 545 sqq., 1887.]

The Hierosolymita (or Libellus de expugnatione Hierosolymitana) of Ekkehard, of the Benedictine abbey of Aura near Kissingen, was published in the Amplissima Collectio of Martene and Durand (vol. 5, p. 511 sqq.), where it might have been consulted by Gibbon, but he does not seem to have known of it. Ekkehard went overland to Constantinople with a company of German pilgrims in 1101, sailed from the Imperial city to Joppa, remained six weeks in Palestine, and started on his return journey before the year was out. He became abbot of his monastery and died in 1125. His Chronicon Universale is a famous work and is the chief authority for German history from 1080 to the year of the author’s death. The Hierosolymita has the value of a contemporary work by one who had himself seen the Holy Land and the Greek Empire. [Edited in Pertz, Mon. vi. p. 265 sqq.; and by Riant in the Recueil, vol. 5, p. 1 sqq.; but most convenient is the separate edition of Hagenmeyer, 1877.]

Another contemporary writer on the First Crusade, who had himself visited Palestine, is Cafaro di Caschifelone, of Genoa. He went out with the Genoese squadron which sailed to the help of the Crusaders in 1100. He was at jerusalem at Easter 1101 and took part in the sieges of Arsuf and Caesarea in the same year. He became afterwards a great person in his native city, was five times consul, composed Annales Genuenses, and died in 1166. His work De Liberatione civitatum Orientis was not accessible to Gibbon; for it was first published in 1859 by L. Ansaldo (Cronaca della prima Crociata, in vol. i. of the Acts of the Società Ligure di storia patria). It was then edited by Pertz, Mon. xviii p. 40 sqq.; and in vol. v. of the Recueil des historiens des croisades. Contents: chaps. 1-10 give the events of the First Crusade before the author’s arrival on the scene; c 11 relates the arrival of the Genoese fleet at Laodicea, and the defeat of the Lombard Expedition in Asia Minor in 1101; chaps. 12-18 (in the edition of the Recueil) are an extract from the Annales Genuenses, inserted in this place by the editor Riant, and describing the events of the year, 1100-1101; chaps. 19-27 enumerate the towns of Syria and their distances from one another; describe the capture of Margat in 1140 by the Crusaders; a naval battle between the Genoese and Greeks; and the capture of Tortosa, Tripolis, and other places. The work seems never to have been completed.

For the authorship of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta regis Ricardi, see vol. x. p. 310, note 89. It remains to be added that in its Latin form the work is not an original composition, but is a very free elaboration of a French poem written by a Norman named Ambrose, in rhyming verses of seven syllables. In the prologue to the Latin work (p. 4, ed. Stubbs) the writer says nos in castris fuisse cum scripsimus; but we should expect him to mention the fact that he had first written his account in Franco-Gallic. Nicholas Trivet (at the beginning of the 14th cent ) distinctly ascribes the Itinerarium to Richard of London, Canon of the Holy Trinity (qui itinerarium regis prosa et metro scripsit);20 but the contemporary Chronicon Terrae Sanctae (see below) states that the Prior of the Holy Trinity of London caused it to be translated from French into Latin (ex Gallica lingua in Latinum transferri fecit).21 The natural inference is that Richard the Canon transformed the rhymed French of Ambrose into a Latin prose dress; but it is not evident why the name of Ambrose is suppressed. Nor is it quite clear whether Trivet, when he says prosa et metro, meant the French verse and the Latin prose, or whether metro refers to the Latin rhymes which are occasionally introduced (chiefly in Bk I.) in the Itinerarium. [Extracts from the Carmen Ambrosii are edited by F. Liebermann (1885) in Pertz, Mon. 27, 532 sqq. See Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, ed. 6, ii. p. 316 ]

For the crusade of Richard I Ralph of Coggeshall’s Chronicon Anglicanum ( 1066-1223) is an important authority, and it was the source of the account in Matthew Paris. Ralph, who was abbot of the Cistercian Monastery of Coggeshall, in Essex, died about 1228, was not in the Holy Land himself, but he obtained his information from eye-witnesses (e.g., from Hugh de Neville, who described for him the episode of Joppa in Aug., 1192, and from Anselm, the king’s chaplain). [Edited in the Rolls series by J. Stevenson, 1875.]

Another contemporary account of the Third Crusade is contained in the Chronicon Terrae Sanctae, ascribed without any reason to Ralph of Coggeshall, and printed along with his Chronicle in Martene and Durand, Ampl. Coll. vol. 5, and in the Rolls series (p. 209 sqq.). An independent narrative, derived apparently from a crusader’s journal,22 is incorporated in the Gesta Henrici II. et Ricardi I., which goes under the name of Benedict of Peterborough (who, though he did not compose the work, caused it to be compiled). [Edited by Stubbs in the Rolls series, 1867.] Material for Richard’s Crusade will also be found in other contemporary English historians, such as Ralph de Diceto, William of Newburgh, &c.

William of Tyre is the greatest of the historians of the Crusades and one of the greatest historians of the Middle Ages. He was born in Palestine in 1127 and became archbishop of Tyre in 1174. A learned man, who had studied ancient Latin authors (whom he often cites), he had the advantage of being acquainted with Arabic, and he used Arabic books to compose a history of the Saracens from the time of Mohammad (see his Prologue to the History of the Crusades). He was always in close contact with the public affairs of the kingdom of Jerusalem, political as well as ecclesiastical. He was the tutor of Baldwin IV., and was made Chancellor of the kingdom by that king. His great work (Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum) falls into two parts: (1) Books 1-15, to 1144: so far his narrative depends on “the relation of others” (Bk. 16, c. 1), and he has used (though he does not say so) the works of earlier writers (such as Fulcher of Chartres, and Albert of Aachen), as well as the memories of older men with whom he was acquainted; but his judgment is throughout entirely independent. (2) Books 16-23, to 1184: here he writes as a contemporary eye-witness, but he is careful and conscientious in informing himself, from every possible source, concerning the events which he relates; and he is remarkably cautious in his statements of facts. The miraculous seldom plays a part in his story; he is unfeignedly pious, but he seeks an earthly explanation of every earthly event.23 His history, along with the Book of the Assises, is the chief material for forming a picture of the Latin colonies in Palestine. Chronology, Sybel remarks, is the weak side of his work; and we may add that it is often spoiled by too much rhetoric. It was translated into French in the second quarter of the 13th century. [Included in the Recueil, Hist. Occ. vol. i. (1844).]

The work of William of Tyre was continued in French by Ernoul (squire of Balian, lord of Ibelin; he had taken part in the battle of Hittin and the siege of Jerusalem) down to 1229; and by Bernard (the Treasurer of St. Peter at Corbie) down to 1231. These continuations were continued by anonymous writers down to 1277; and the French translation of William along with the continuations was current as a single work under the title of the Chronique d’Outremer, or L’Estoire de Éracles24 [The Continuations were first critically examined and analysed by M. de Mas-Latrie,25 who edited the works of Ernoul and Bernard (1871). Edition of Guillaume de Tyr et ses Continuateurs, by P. Paris, 2 vols., 1879-80.]

It may be added here that the charters and letters pertaining to the Kingdom of Jerusalem have been edited under the title Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani, by Röhricht, 1893. The numismatic material has been collected and studied by M. G. Schlumberger: Numismatique de l’Orient Latin, 1878.

Marshal Villehardouin’s Conquest of Constantinople is, along with Nicetas, the main guide of Gibbon in his account of the Fourth Crusade. Gibbon thought, and it has been generally thought till late years, that this famous book, composed by one of the wisest and most moderate of the Crusaders, was a perfectly naīve and candid narrative, partial indeed to the conduct of the conquerors, but still — when allowance has been made for the point of view — a faithful relation of facts without an arrière pensée. But, though there are some, like his editor M. de Wailly, who still maintain the unblemished candour of Villehardouin as an author, recent criticism in the light of new evidence leaves hardly room for reasonable doubt that Villehardouin’s work was deliberately intended to deceive the European public as to the actual facts of the Fourth Crusade. There can be no question that Villehardouin was behind the scenes; he represents the expedition against Constantinople as an accidental diversion, which was never intended when the Crusade was organised; and therefore his candour can be rescued only by proving that the episode of Constantinople was really nothing more than a diversion. But the facts do not admit of such an interpretation. During the year which elapsed between the consent of the Venetian Republic to transport the Crusaders and the time when the Crusaders assembled at Venice ( 1201-2), the two most important forces concerned in the enterprise — Venice and Boniface of Montferrat — had determined to divert the Crusade from its proper and original purpose. Venice had determined that, wherever the knights sailed, they should not sail to the place whither she had undertaken to transport them, namely to the shores of Egypt. For in the course of that eventful year she made a treaty with the Sultan of Egypt, pledging herself that Egypt should not be invaded. And on his part, Boniface of Montferrat had arranged with the Emperor Philip and Alexius that the swords of the Crusaders should be employed at Constantiople. (For all this see vol. x. p. 350-1, n. 51 and 53, and p. 354, n. 63.) On these facts, which were of the first importance, Villehardouin says not a word; and one cannot hesitate to conclude that his silence is deliberate. In fact, his book is, as has been said, an “official” version of the disgraceful episode. The Fourth Crusade shocked public opinion in Europe; men asked how such a thing had befallen, how the men who had gone forth to do battle against the infidels had been drawn aside from their pious purpose to attack Christian states. The story of Villehardouin, a studied suppression of the truth, was the answer. [Mm. Mas-Latrie and Riant take practically this point of view, which has been presented well and moderately by Mr. Pears in his Fall of Constantinople (an excellent work). M. J. Tessier, La diversion sur Zara et Constantinople (1884), defends Villehardouin. Cp. also L. Streit’s Venedig und die Wendung des vierten Kreuzzuges gegen Constantinopel. — Editions: by N. de Wailly, 3rd ed., 1882; E. Bouchet, 2 vols., 1891.]

Besides Gunther’s work, which Gibbon used (see vol. x. p 352, note 54), some new sources on the Fourth Crusade have been made accessible. The most important of these is the work of Robert de Clary, Li estoires de chiaus qui conquisent Constantinoble; which, being “non-official,” supplies us with the check on Villehardouin. [Printed by Riant in 1868 and again in 1871, but in so few copies that neither issue could be properly called an edition. Edited (1873) by Hopf in his Chroniques Gréco-romaines, p. 1 sqq.]

Another contemporary account is preserved, the Devastatio Constantinopolitana, by an anonymous Frank, and is an official diary of the Crusade. [Pertz, Mon. xvi. p. 9 sqq.; Hopf, Chron. Gréco-romaines, p. 86 sqq.]

The work of Moncada, which Ducange and Gibbon used for the history of the Catalan expedition, is merely a loose compilation of the original Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner, who was not only a contemporary but one of the most prominent members of the Catalan Grand Company. A Catalonian of good family, born at Peralada, in 1255, he went to reside at Valencia in 1276, witnessed the French invasion of Philip the Bold in 1285, and in 1300 set sail for Sicily and attached himself to the fortunes of Roger de Flor, whom he accompanied to the east. He returned to the west in 1308; died and was buried at Valencia about 1336. The account of the doings of the Catalans in the east is of course written from their point of view; and the adventurer passes lightly over their pillage and oppression. It is one of the most interesting books of the period. [Most recent edition of the original Catalan, by J. Corolen, 1886; conveniently consulted in Buchon’s French version, in Chroniques étrangères (1860). Monographs: A. Rubió y Lluch, La expedicion y dominacion de los Catalanes en oriente juzgedas por los Griegos, 1883, and Los Navarros en Grecia y el ducado Catalan de Atenas en la época de su invasion, 1886 (this deals with a later period).]

[To works on the Fourth Crusade may now be added W. Norden’s Der vierte Kreuzzug im Rahmen der Beziehungen des Abendlandes zu Byzanz, 1898.]

Oriental Sources

[Extracts from the writers mentioned below, and others, will be found in vol. iv. of Michaud’s Bibliothèque des Croisades (1829), translated and arranged by M. Reinaud.]

Imād ad-Dīn al-Kātib al-Ispahāni was born at Ispahan in 1125, and studied at Baghdad. He obtained civil service appointments, but fell into disfavour and was imprisoned; after which he went to Damascus, where Nūr ad-Dīn was ruling. He became the friend of Prince Saladin, and was soon appointed secretary of state under Nūr ad-Dīn, but after this potentate’s death his position was precarious, and he set out to return to Baghdad. But hearing of Saladin’s successes in Egypt he went back to Damascus and attached himself to his old friend. After Saladin’s death ( 1193) he withdrew into private life. He wrote a history of the Crusades with the affected title: Historia Cossica [Coss was a contemporary of Mohammad] de expugnatione Codsica [that is, Hierosolymitana], of which extracts were published by Schultens; he also wrote a History of the Seljūks. See Wüstenfeld, Arabische Geschichtschreiber, no. 284.

Bahā ad-Dīn (the name is often corrupted to Bohadin) was born in 1145 at Mōsil, and became professor there in 1174 in the college founded by Kamāl ad-Dīn. In 1188 he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and on his way back visited Damascus, where Saladin sent for him and offered him a professorship at Cairo. This he declined, but he afterwards took service under Saladin and was appointed judge of the army and to a high official post at Jerusalem. After Saladin’s death he was made judge of Aleppo, where he founded a college and mosque, and a school for teaching the traditions of the Prophet. He died in 1234. His biography of Saladin is one of the most important sources for the Third Crusade, and the most important source for the life of Saladin. [Edited with French translation in vol. iii. of the Recueil des historiens des Croisades, Hist. Or. (Here too will be found a notice of the author’s life by Ibn Khallikān.) Translation (unscholarly) published by the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1897.]

Abū-l-Hasan Alī Ibn al-Athīr was born 1160. He studied at Mōsil and was there when Saladin besieged it in 1186. He was in Syria about 1189, so that he saw something of the Third Crusade. But he was a man of letters and took little part in public affairs. He wrote (1) a history of the Atābegs of Mōsil and (2) a universal history from the creation of the world to 1231. The part of this second work bearing on the Crusades, from 1098 to 1190, will be found in the Recueil, Hist. Or. vol. i. p. 189 sqq.; and on the author’s life see ib. p. 752 sqq. The history of the Atābegs is published in the 2nd part of vol. ii.

Kamāl ad-Dīn ibn al-Adīm, born c. 1192, belonged to the family of the cadhis of Aleppo. Having studied at Baghdad and visited Damascus, Jerusalem, &c., he became judge of Aleppo himself, and afterwards vizier. When the Tartars destroyed the place in 1260, he fled to Egypt. He wrote a History of his native city, and part of this is the Récit de la première croisade et des quatorze années suivantes, published in Defrêmery, Mémoires d’histoire orientale, 1854. [Recueil des hist. des Croisades, Hist. Or. vol. iii. p. 577 sqq.]

Abū-l-Kāsim Abd ar-Rahmān (called Abū Shāma, “father of moles”) was born in Damascus 1202 and assassinated 1266. He wrote Liber duorum hortorum de historia duorum regnorum, a history of the reigns of Nūr ad-Dīn and Saladin, which is edited by Quatremère in vol. iv. of the Recueil des hist. des Croisades, Hist. Or.

Jalāl ad-Dīn ( 1207-1298) was born at Hamāh in Syria and afterwards went to Egypt, where he was a witness of the invasion of Louis IX. He visited Italy (1260) as the ambassador of the Sultan Baybars to King Manfred. He was a teacher of Abū-l-Fidā, who lauds his wide knowledge. He wrote a history of the Ayyūbid lords of Egypt. The work which Reinaud used for Michaud’s Bibliothèque des Croisades is either part of this history or a separate work.

Abū-l-Fida, born at Damascus 1273, belonged to the family of the lords of Hamāh (a side branch of the Ayyūbids). He was present at the conquest of Tripolis in 1289 and at the siege of Acre (which fell 1291); and he joined in the military expeditions of his cousin Mahmūd II. of Hamāh. He took part also in the expeditions of the Egyptian Sultan, to whom he was always loyal. In 1310 he received himself the title of sultan, as lord of Hamāh. But in this new dignity, which he was reluctant to accept, he used to go every year to Cairo to present gifts to his liege lord. He died in 1332, having ruled Hamāh for eleven years. His great work, Compendium historiae generis humani, came down to 1329. (The first or pre-Mohammadan part has been edited with Lat. tr. by Fleischer in 1831; the second, or Life of Mohammad — ed. by Gagnier, 1723 — was translated into French by M. des Vergers, 1837.) The post-Mohammadan part of this work was edited by Reiske in 5 vols. under the title Annales Moslemici, with Lat. transl. (1789-1794); Gibbon had access to extracts in the Auctarium to the Vita Saladini of Schultens (1732). A résumé of Abū-l-Fidā’s account of the Crusades will be found in vol. i. of the Recueil, Hist. Or. [F. Wilken, Commentatio de bellorum cura ex Abulf. hist. 1798.]

A large number of extracts from Armenian writers, bearing on the Crusades, are published with French translation by Dulaurier in the Recueil des historiens des Croisades, Doc. Arm. tome i. Among these is the Chronological Table ( 1076-1307) of Haitum (p. 469 sqq.), who belonged to the family of the princes of Lampron, and became Count of Courcy (Gorigos). He became a monk of the Praemonstratensian order in 1305 and went to Cyprus. He visited Clement V. at Avignon, and Gibbon refers to the History of the Tartars, which he dictated, at the Pope’s request, in French to Nicolas Falconi, who immediately translated it into Latin. This work of “Haythonus” is extant in both forms. Among the other sources included in this collection of Dulaurier may be mentioned: a rhymed chronicle on the kings of Little Armenia, by Vahram of Edessa, of the 13th cent. (p. 493 sqq.); works of St. Narses of Lampron (born 1153); extracts from Cyriac (Guiragos) of Gantzac (born 1201-2), who wrote a history of Armenia26 from the time of Gregory Illuminator to 1269-70. There are also extracts from the chronicle of Samuel of Ani, which reached from the beginning of the world to 1177-8 (p. 447 sqq.), and from its continuation up to 1339-40: this chronicle was published in a Latin translation by Mai and Zohrab, 1818, which is reprinted in Migne’s Patr. Gr. 19, p. 599 sqq. But the best known of these Armenian authors is Matthew of Edessa, whose chronicle covers a century and three quarters ( 963-1136). We know nothing of the author’s life, except that he flourished in the first quarter of the 12th century. His work is interesting as well as valuable; his style simple, without elegance and art; for he was a man without much culture and had probably read little. He depended much on oral information (derived from “old men”); but he has preserved a couple of original documents (one of them is a letter of the Emperor Tzimisces to an Armenian king, c. 16). He is an ardent Armenian patriot; he hates the Greeks as well as the Turks, and he is, not without good cause, bitter against the Frank conquerors. [French translation by Dulaurier (along with the Continuation by the priest Gregory to 1164), 1858, in the Bibliothèque hist. Arménienne. Extracts in the Recueil, p. 1 sqq.]

Modern Works. Finaly, History of Greece, vols. ii.-iv.; Hopf, Griechische Geschichte (in Ersch und Gruber, Enzyklopädie, sub Griechenland); Gregorovius Geschichte der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter, 1897; Ranke, Weltgeschichte, vol. 8. For military history, C. Oman, History of the Art of War, vol. 2, books iv. and v.

For the Normans: G. de Blasiis, La insurrezione pugliese e la conquista Normanna nel secolo xi., 1864; J. W. Barlow, The Normans in Southern Italy, 1886; O. Delarc, Les Normands en Italie, 1883; L. von Heinemann, Geschichte der Normannen in Unter-Italien und Sizilien, vol. i., 1893.

For the Crusades: F. Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, 1807-32; Michaud, Histoire des Croisades (in 6 vols.), 1825 (Eng. tr. in 3 vols., by W. Robson, 1852); H. von Sybel, Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges, 1881 (ed. 2); B. von Kugler, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, 1880, and Studien zur Gesch. des 2ten Kreuzzuges, 1866; Röhricht, Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem, 1898; H. Prutz, Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzüge, 1883; Archer and Kingsford, The Crusades; G. Le Strange, Palestine under the Muslims, 1890. For the institutions and organisation of the Kingdom: G. Dodu, Hist. des institutions monarchiques dans le royaume latin de Jér., 1894.

7.

SARACEN COINAGE — (

P. 241

)

The following account of the introduction of a separate coinage by the Omayyads is taken from Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole’s Coins and Medals, p. 164 sqq.

“It took the Arabs half a century to discover the need of a separate coinage of their own. At first they were content to borrow their gold and copper currency from the Byzantine Empire, which they had driven out of Syria, and their silver coins from the Sassanian kings of Persia, whom they had overthrown at the battles of Kadisia and Nehavend. The Byzantine gold served them till the seventy-sixth year of the Flight, when a new, but theologically unsound and consequently evanescent, type was invented, bearing the effigy of the reigning Khalif instead of that of Heraclius, and Arabic instead of Greek inscriptions. So, too, the Sassanian silver pieces were left unaltered, save for the addition of a governor’s name in Pehlvi letters. The Khalif ’Aly or one of his lieutenants seems to have attempted to inaugurate a purely Muslim coinage, exactly resembling that which was afterwards adopted, but only one example of this issue is known to exist, in the Paris collection, together with three other silver coins struck at Damascus and Merv between a.h. 60 and 70, of a precisely similar type. These four coins are clearly early and ephemeral attempts at the introduction of a distinctive Mohammadan coinage, and their recent discovery in no way upsets the received Muslim tradition that it was the Khalif ’Abd-El-Melik who, in the year of the Flight 76 (or, on the evidence of the coins themselves, 77), inaugurated the regular Muslim coinage which was thenceforward issued from all the mints of the empire, so long as the dynasty endured, and which gave its general character to the whole currency of the kingdoms of Islam. The copper coinage founded on the Byzantine passed through more and earlier phases than the gold and silver, but it always held [an] insignificant place in the Muslim currency. . . . ”

The gold and silver coins of ’Abd-El-Melik “both bear the same formulae of faith: on the obverse, in the area, ‘There is no god but God alone, He hath no partner’; around which is arranged a marginal inscription, ‘Mohammad is the apostle of God, who sent him with the guidance and religion of truth, that he might make it triumph over all other religions in spite of the idolaters,’ the gold stopping at ‘other religions.’ This inscription occurs on the reverse of the silver instead of the obverse, while the date inscription, which is found on the reverse of the gold, appears on the obverse of the silver. The reverse area declares that ‘God is One, God is the Eternal: He begetteth not, nor is begotten’; here the gold ends, but the silver continues, ‘and there is none like unto Him.’ The margin of the gold runs, ‘In the name of God: the Dînâr was struck in the year seven and seventy’; the silver substituting ‘Dirhem’ for ‘Dînâr,’ and inserting the place of issue immediately after the word Dirhem, e.g., ‘El-Andalus (i.e., Andalusia) in the year 116.’ The mint is not given on the early gold coins, probably because they were usually struck at the Khalif’s capital, Damascus.

“These original dînârs (a name formed from the Roman denarius) and dirhems (drachma) of the Khalif of Damascus formed the model of all Muslim coinages for many centuries; and their respective weights — 65 and 43 grains — served as the standard of all subsequent issues up to comparatively recent times. The fineness was about ·979 gold in the dînârs, and ·960 to ·970 silver in the dirhem. The Mohammadan coinage was generally very pure. . . . At first ten dirhems went to the dînâr, but the relation varied from age to age.”

Thus the dīnār of the Omayyad Caliphs, weighing on the average 65·3 grains of almost pure gold, was worth about 11s. 6d. In later times there were double dīnārs, and under the Omayyads there were thirds of a dīnār, which weighed less than half a dirhem.

As to a coin which Gibbon supposes (p. 241, note 9) to be preserved in the Bodleian Library, Mr. S. Lane-Poole kindly informs me that no such coin exists there. “The Wāsit coins there preserved were acquired long after Gibbon’s time and none has the date 88 a.h. There is a dirhem of that year in the British Museum weighing 44·6 grains. [S. Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Mohammadan Coins in the Bodleian Library, 1888; Catalogue of Oriental Coins in the British Museum, vol. i. no. 174 (1875).]”

8.

THE THEMES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE — (

P. 243

,

315

,

320

sqq.)

In the tenth century we find the Empire divided into a number of themes, each of which is governed by a stratêgos. Not only the title of the governor, but the word theme (θέμα, a regiment) shows their military origin. These themes existed in the eighth and ninth centuries; they originated in the seventh. In the latter part of the seventh century we find the empire consisting of a number of large military provinces, not yet called themes, but probably known as στρατηγίαι. We have no official list of them; but from literary notices we can reconstruct an approximate list of the provinces c. 700 :1 —

We have to consider first how this system originated, and secondly how it developed into the system of themes which we find two centuries later.

The identification of the stratêgoi of the seventh century with the magistri militum of the sixth century gives the clue to the origin of the thematic system. (This was pointed out in Bury’s Later Roman Empire, ii. 346-8.) The stratêgos of the Armeniacs is the magister militum of Armenia, instituted by Justinian; the stratêgos of the Anatolics is the magister militum per Orientem; the “count” of the Opsikians corresponds to the mag. mil. praesentalis;2 the stratêgos of Thrace is the mag. mil. per Thraciam; the stratêgos of the Helladics is probably the representative of the mag. mil. per Illyricum. The magistri militum of Africa and Italy remain under the title of exarchs. The maritime provinces arose probably, as M. Diehl attractively suggests, from the province of Caria, Cyprus, Rhodes, the Cyclades and Scythia, instituted by Justinian, and placed by him under a quaestor Justinianus.

Thus, what happened was this. In the seventh century the old system of dioceses and provinces was swept away. Its place was taken by the already existing division of the Empire into military provinces — the spheres of the magistri militum; and a new Greek nomenclature was introduced. The cause of the change was the extreme peril of the Empire from the Saracens. The needs of defence suggested a military organisation; when the frontier was reduced and every province was exposed to the attacks of the enemy, there was a natural tendency to unite civil and military power. In the west, the exarch of Africa and the exarch of Italy are the magistri militum who have got into their hands the power of the Praetorian prefects of Africa and Italy respectively; and in the same way in the east, the stratêgoi of Thrace, the Anatolics, the Armeniacs, and the Opsikians have each a parcel of the prerogatives of the Praetorian Prefect of the East.

During the eighth and ninth centuries the provinces came to be generally called themes, and the list was modified in several ways. (1) It was reduced by losses of territory; thus Africa was lost. (2) Some of the large provinces were broken up into a number of smaller. (3) Some small frontier districts, which were called clisurarchies (κλεισον̂ρα, a mountain pass), and had been dependent on one of the large districts, were raised to the dignity of independent themes. Thus the Bucellarian theme was formed in the north of Asia Minor between the Opsikian and the Armeniac themes. Then Paphlagonia was cut out as a separate province. The Thracesian theme was cut off the Anatolic. The Marine theme ultimately became three: the Cibyrrhaeot,3 the theme of Samos, and the Aegean Sea. The Helladic province was divided into three (at least): Hellas, Nicopolis, and the Peloponnesus. The Dalmatian towns were constituted into a separate district; a separate theme seems to have been formed out of Calabria and the Ionian islands; but these islands were subsequently detached and constituted as the theme of Cephallenia. In the east of Asia Minor: Colonea, Lycandos, Sebastea, &c. The Armeniac and Anatolic provinces were abridged by the creation of the themes of Charsianon and Cappadocia.

We can trace in the chronicles some changes of this kind which were carried out between the seventh and the tenth centuries But it is not till the beginning of the tenth century that we get any official list to give us a general view of the divisions of the Empire. The treatise on the themes by the Emperor Constantine (see above, p. 320 sqq.), composed about 934, is generally taken as the basis of investigation, and, when historians feel themselves called upon to give a list of the Byzantine themes, they always quote his. In my opinion this is a mistake. We possess better lists than Constantine’s, of a somewhat earlier date. Emperor though Constantine was, his list is not official; it is a concoction, in which actual facts are blended with unmethodical antiquarian research. His treatise is valuable indeed; but it should be criticised in the light of the official lists which we possess.

(1) The earliest list is one included in the Cletorologion of Philotheus (see above, p. 383): Const. Porph. De Cer. Bk. ii. c. 52, p. 713-14 and 727-8. The stratêgoi of the themes are enumerated with other officials in their order of precedence. The list used by Philotheus must date from the first years of the tenth century; it does not mention the themes of Langobardia and Sebastea, which existed before the death of Leo VI., but Cephallenia, which he created, appears in the enumeration.4

(2) The second list is a table of the salaries of the governors of themes and clisurae, in the reign of Leo VI., and is included in c. 50 of the Second Book of the De Cerimoniis. But its editor lived in the reign of Romanus I. For he speaks of the governors of Sebastea, Lycandos, Seleucia, Leontocomis, as having been at that time, that is in Leo’s reign, clisurarchs (ὡς ὣν τότε κλεισουράρχης). In other words, a list was used in which these four districts appeared as clisurarchies. Subsequently they were made themes (strategiai) and the editor brought them up to date. But the list on which he worked seems to be later than the list used by Philotheus, for it includes the theme of Langobardia.

(3) Incomplete enumerations of the themes, in the reign of Romanus I., are given by some Arabic writers, especially by Ibn Khordadbeh (see M. Rambaud, L’empire grec, p. 182).

(4) The Treatise on the Themes. We must criticise Constantine for including Sicily and Cyprus, which did not belong to the Empire, and at the same time omitting Dalmatia, where there was the semblance of a province. Constantine raises the Optimaton to the dignity of a theme, but apologises for doing so; it is only a quasi-theme. In this he was justified; for, though the Optimaton was not governed by a stratêgos but by a domesticus, and was not in a line with the other themes, it was a geographical province.

But the most serious matter that calls for criticism is Constantine’s inconsistency in stating definitely that Charsianon and Cappadocia are themes, and yet not enumerating them in his list. He discusses them under the heading of the Armeniac theme, but they should have headings of their own. This unaccountable procedure has led to the supposition that these two themes were temporarily merged in the Armeniac, out of which they had originally been evolved.

(5) A number of notices in the treatise de Administratione supply material for reconstructing a list of the themes c. 950-2.

(6) To these sources must be added, the seals of the various military and civil officers of the themes. M. Gustave Schlumberger’s important work, Sigillographie byzantine (1884), illustrates the lists.

Sardinia passed away from the empire in the 9th century, but it seems to have never formed a regular theme. We have however traces of its East-Roman governors in the 9th cent. A seal of Theodotus, who was “hypatos and dux of Sardinia,” has been preserved; and also seals of archons of Cagliari, with the curious style ΑΡΧΟΝΤΙ ΜΕΡΕΙΑΣ ΚΑΛΑΡΕΟΣ.

[Rambaud, L’empire grec au dixième siècle, p. 175 sqq.; Bury, Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 339 sqq.; Diehl, L’origine du régime des thèmes dans l’empire byzantin (in Etudes d’histoire du moyen âge, dédiées à Gabriel Monod, 1896); Schlumberger, Sigillographie byzantine, passim (1884). All studies on the Byzantine themes are now susperseded by Professor H. Gelzer’s memoir, Die Genesis der byzantinischen Themenverfassung (in vol. xviii. of the Abhandlungen of the Kon. Sächsische Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften), 1899.]

9.

CONSTANTINE PORPHYROGENNETOS ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE — (

P. 315-351

)

The treatise of Constantine Porphyrogennetos on the Administration of the Roman Empire is one of the most interesting books of the Middle Ages, and one of the most precious for the early mediæval history of south-eastern Europe. The author wrote it as a handbook for the guidance of his son Romanus. Internal evidence allows us to infer the exact date of its composition. Chaps. 1-29 were composed between 948 and 950; chap. 45 was composed in 952. The work was probably published in 953.

In his preface1 Constantine promises his son instruction on four subjects. He will explain (1) which of the neighbouring nations may be a source of danger to the Empire, and what nations may be played off against those formidable neighbours; (2) how the unreasonable demands of neighbouring peoples may be eluded. (3) He will give a geographical and ethnographical description of the various nations and an account of their relations with the Empire; and (4) enumerate recent changes and innovations in the condition and administra