Soldan therewith in the middle of the hand

They went therefore to those of the Halca, and demanded of them that they should kill the Soldan, so soon as they had eaten with him, as he had invited them to do. Thus it befell that, after they had eaten, and the Soldan had taken leave of his emirs, and was going to his chamber, one of the knights of the Halca, who bore the Soldan’s sword, struck the Soldan therewith in the middle of the hand, between the four fingers, and clove the hand up to the arm. The Soldan turned to the emirs, who had caused this to be done to him, and said: “Lords, I make appeal to you against these people of the Halca, who desire to slay me, as you can see! ” Then the knights of the Halca made answer to the Soldan with one voice, and said: “ As thou safest that we desire to slay thee, better is it that we should slay thee than that thou should slay us! ”

Then they caused the cymbals to be struck, and all the host came to ask what was the Soldan’s will. And they answered that Damietta was taken, and that the Soldan was going thither, and that he ordered them to follow. So the host gat to their arms, and spurred towards Damietta. And when we saw that they were going towards Damietta, we were in sore trouble of heart, for we thought that Damietta was lost. But the Soldan, being young and active, fled into ‘ the tower that stood behind his chamber (as you have already ‘ heard), with three of his bishops, who had sat at meat with him; and he was there with them in the tower.

Soldan’s pavilions

Those of the Halca, who were in number five hundred mounted men, threw down the Soldan’s pavilions, and swarmed round and about the tower, besieging him and the three bishops; and they cried to him to come down. And he said so he would if they promised him safety’. They told him they would make him come down by force, for he was not in Damietta. Then they threw at him Greek fire, and it caught the tower, which was made of pine planks and cotton cloth. The tower flared up quickly, nor have I ever seen finer nor straighter flame. When the Soldan saw this, he gat down swiftly, and came flying towards the river, all along the way of which I have already spoken to you.

GREEK TIRE HURLED AGAINST THE TOWERS

GREEK TIRE HURLED AGAINST THE TOWERS THAT GUARDED THE COVERED WAYS

One night when we were keeping guard over the towers that guarded the covered ways, it happened that the Saracens brought an engine called a petrarv, which they had not hitherto done, and put Greelefire into the sling of the engine. When my Lord Walter of Ecurey guided tour istanbul, the good knight who was with me, saw it, he spoke thus: “ Lords, we are in the greatest peril that we have ever been in, for if they set fire to our towers and we remain here we are but lost and burnt up; while if we leave these defenses which we have been set to guard, we are dishonoured. Wherefore none can defend us in this peril save God alone. So my advice and counsel is, that even time they hurl the fire at us, we throw ourselves on our elbows and knees, and pray to our Saviour to keep us in this peril.”

So soon as they hurled the first cast, we threw ourselves on our elbows and knees as he had taught us. That first cast fell between our two towers guarding the covered ways. It fell on the place in front of us, where the host had been working at the dam. Our firemen were ready to put out the fire; and because the Saracens could not shoot straight at them, because of two pavilion wings that the king had caused to be set up, they shot up into the clouds, so that the darts fell on the firemen’s heads.

The fashion of the Greek

The fashion of the Greek fire was such that it came front wise as large as a barrel of verjuice, and the tail of fire that issued from it was as large as a large lance. The noise it made in coming was like heaven’s thunder. It had the seeming of a dragon flying through the air. It gave so great a light, because of the great foison of fire making the fight, that one saw as dearly throughout the camp as if it had been day. Three times did they hurl Greek fire at us that night (from the petraries), and four times with the swivel crossbow.

Every time that our saintly king heard them hurling the Greek fire, he would raise himself in his bed, and lift up his hands to our Saviour, and say, weeping: “Fair Lord God, guard me my people! ” And verily I believe that his prayers did us good service in our need. At night, every time the fire had fallen, he sent one of his chamberlains to ask how we fared, and whether the fire had done us any hurt.

Once when they hurled it at us, the fire fell near the tower which the people of my Lord of Courtenay were guarding, and struck the bank of the stream. Then, look you, a knight, whose name was Aubigoiz, came to me, and said, “ Lord, if you do not come to our help we shall all be burned; for the Saracens have shot so many of their shafts that it is as if a great hedge were coining burning against our tower.” We sprang up, and went thither, and found he spoke sooth. We put out the fire, and before we had put it out, the Sara cans had struck us all with shafts that they shot across the stream.

THEODORE LASCARIS FORMS ATT ALLIANCE WITH JOHANNIZZA

Theodore Lascaris, who was warring against the Emperor Henry, took messengers and sent them to Johannizza, the King of Wallachia and Bulgaria. And he advised Johan nizza that all the forces of the Emperor Henry were fighting against him (Lascaris) on the other side of the straits towards Turkey; that the emperor was in Constantinople with but very few people; and that now was the time for vengeance, inasmuch as he himself would be attacking the emperor on the one side, and Johannizza on the other, and the emperor had so few men that he would not be able to defend himself against both. Now Johannizza had already engaged a great host of Comans, who were on their way to join his host; and had collected together as large a force of Wallachians and Bulgarians as ever he could. And so much time had now gone by, that it was the beginning of Lent (7th March 1207).

Macaire of Sainte-Menehould had begun to build a castle at Charax, which lies on a gulf of the sea, six leagues from Nicomedia, towards Constantinoplet And William of Sains began to build another castle at Cibotos, that lies on the gulf of Nicomedia, on the other side, towards Nice. And you must know that the Emperor Henry had as much as he could do near Constantinople; as also the barons who were in the land. And well does Geoffry of Villehardouin, the Marshal of Champagne and Roumania, who is dictating this work, bear witness, that never at any time were people so dis tracted and oppressed by war; this was by reason that the ; were scattered in so many places.

SIEGE OF ADRIANOPLE BY JOHANNIZZA SIEGE OF SKTZA AND CIBOTOS BY LASCARIS

Then Johannizza left Wallachia with all his hosts, and with a great host of Comans who joined themselves to him, and entered Roumania. And the Comans overran the country up to the gates of Constantinople; and he himself besieged Adrianople, and erected there thirty-three great petraries, which hurled stones against the walls and the towers. And inside Adrianople were only the Greeks and Peter of Radinghem, who had been set there by the emperor, with ten knights. Then the Greeks and the Latins together sent to tel) the Emperor Henry how Johannizza had besieged them, and prayed for succor guided istanbul tour.

Much was the emperor distraught when he heard this; for his forces on the other side of the straits were so scattered, and were everywhere so hard pressed that they could do no more than they were doing, while he himself had ‘but few men in Constantinople. None the less he undertook to take the field with as many men as he could collect, in the Easter fortnight; and he sent word to Sldza, where most of his people were, that they should come to him. So these began to come to him by sea; Eustace, the brother of the Emperor Henry, and Anseau of Cayeux, and the main part of their men, and thus only Peter of Bracieux, and Payen of Orleans, with but few men, remained in Skiza.

When Theodore Lascaris heard tidings that Adrianople was besieged, and that the Emperor Henry, through utter need, was recalling his people, and did not know which way to turn whether to this side or to that so heavily was he oppressed by the war, then did Lascaris with the greater zeal gather together all the people he could, and pitched his tents and pavilions before the gates of Skiza; and many were the battles fought before Skiza, some lost and some won. And when Theodore Lascaris saw that there were few people remaining in the city, he took a great part of his host, and such ships as he could collect on the sea, and sent them to the castle of Cibotos, which William of Sains was fortifying; and thev set siege to the castle by sea and land, on the Saturday In mid-Lent (31st March 1207).

Within were forty knights, very good men, and Macaire of Sainte-Menehould was their chief; and their castle was as yet but little fortified, so that their foes could come at them with swords and lances. The enemy attacked them by land and by sea very fiercely; ami the assault lasted during the whole of Saturday, and our people defended themselves verv well And this book bears witness that never did fifty knights defend themselves at greater disadvantage against such odds. And well may tliis appear, for of the knights that were there, all were wounded save five only; and one was killed, who was nephew to Miles the Brabant, and his name was Giles.

Gcoffry the Marshal

Gcoffry the Marshal, with whom he was on very good terms, spoke to him verv sharply, reproaching him with the fashion in which he had taken the land of the emperor and besieged the emperor’s people in Adrianople, and that with out apprising those in Constantinople, who surely would have obtained such redress as was due if the emperor had done him any wrong. And the marquis disculpated himself much, and said it was because of the wrong the emperor had done him that he had acted in such sort.

So wrought Geoffry, the Marshal of Champagne, with the help of God, and of the barons who were in the confidence of the marquis, and who loved the said Geoffry well, that the marquis assured him he would leave the matter in the hands of the Doge of Venice, and of Count Lewis of Blois and Lartres, and of Conon of Bethune, and of Geoffry of Villehardduin, the Marshal all of whom well knew what was the covenant made between himself and the emperor. So was a truce established between those in the camp and those in the city.

And you must know that Geoffry the Marshal, and Manasses of Fisle, were right joyously looked upon, both by those in the ramp and those in the city, for very strongly did either side wish for peace. And in such measure as the Franks rejoiced, so were the Greeks dolent, because right willingly would they have seen the Franks quarrelling and at war. Thus was the siege of Adrianople raised, and the •marquis returned with all his people to Demotica, where was the empress his wife.

MESSAGE OF THE CRUSADERS TO BALDWIN DEATH OF SEVERAL KNIGHTS

The envoys returned to Constantinople, and told what they had done. Greatly did the Doge of Venice, and Count Lewis
of Blois, and all besides, then rejoice that to these envoys had been committed the negotiations for a peace- and they chose good messengers, and wrote a letter, and sent it to the Emperor Baldwin, telling him that the marquis had referred himself to them, with assurances that he would accept their arbitration, and that he (the emperor) was even more strongly bound to do the same, and that they besought him to do so for they would in no wise countenance war and promise to accept their arbitration, as the marquis had done.

Meanwhile the Doge of Venice

Meanwhile the Doge of Venice had not forgotten to do his part, but had ranged his ships and transports and vessels In line, and that line was well three crossbow-shots in length; and the Venetians began to draw near to the part of the shore that lay under the walls and the towers. Then might you have seen the mangonels shooting from the ships and transports, and the crossbow bolts flying, and the bows letting five their arrows deftly and well; and those within defending the walls and towers very fiercely; and the ladders on the ships coming so near that in many places swords and lances crossed; and the tumult and noise were so great that it seemed as if the very earth and sea were melting together. And be it known to you that the galleys did not dare to come to the shore.

CAPTURE OF TWENTY-FIVE TOWERS

Now may you hear of a strange deed of prowess; for the Doge of Venice, who was an old man, and saw naught (seeing he was blind), stood, fully armed, on the prow of his galley, and had the standard of St. Mark before him; and he cried to his people to put him on land, or else that he would do justice upon their bodies with his hands. And so they did, for the galley was run aground, and they leapt therefrom, and bore the standard of St. Mark before him on to the land.

Geoffry of VillehardouinAnd when the Venetians saw the standard of St. Mark on ad, and the galley of their lord touching ground before em, each held himself for shamed, and they all gat to the land; and those in the transports leapt forth, and landed; and those in the big ships got into barges, and made for the shore, each and all as best they could. Then might you have seen an assault, great and marvellous; and to this bears witness Geoffry of Villehardouin, who makes this book, that more than forty people told him for sooth that they saw the standard of St. Mark of Venice at the top of one of the towers, and that no man knew who bore it thither.

Now hear of a strange miracle: those who are within the city fly and abandon the walls, and the Venetians enter in, each as fast and as best he can, and seize twenty-five of the towers, and man them with their people. And the Doge takes a boat, and sends messengers to the barons of the host to tell them that he has taken twenty-five towers, and that they may know for sooth that such towers cannot be re taken. The barons are so overjoyed that they cannot believe their ears; and the Venetians begin to send to the host in boats the horses and palfreys they have taken.

entered into the city, he sent his people against them in sue.. numbers that our people saw they would be unable to endure the onset. So they set fire to the buildings between them and the Greeks; and the wind blew from our side, and the fire began to wax so great that the Greeks could not see our people, who retired to the towers they had seized and con-

Augustine thus left the experience

Augustine thus left the experience, and the technology, of the moment of true delight mysterious, wrapped in the difficult doctrines of predestination and free will that puzzled and outraged his readers in his lifetime and after. Gregory belongs to the Latin church that had decided, by the time of the Council of Orange in 529, to let its Augustine be an optimist and at least a bit of a Pelagian. There isn’t much optimism in Gregory’s depiction of a falling, temptation-fraught world, the place where he implicitly identifies himself with Job on his dung heap. But his gloom masks a belief that, whatever the explanation in deep divine terms, salvation is in the hands of the believer, who will watch, pray, read, and find within himself the God-given spontaneous act of discernment and thus the ability to choose the right over the wrong. “Discern, and do as you will” is Gregory’s message, one in which a little of the vitality of Augustinian religion has ebbed away.

Gregory’s book on Job was with him in Constantinople and accompanied him back to Rome. Modern scholars detect in the surviving text the remnants of oral sermons to a monkish audience revised into textual dignity, probably originally in a master copy sent along to bishop Leander of Seville, an old acquaintance from Constantinople and one of the triumphant generation of Catholic Christians of post-Arian Spain. (Leander’s brother, Isidore, was the most abundantly learned man of his generation and of his century, and his books would be textbooks for centuries. To modern eyes, he is medieval, not classical; to his own contemporaries, however, he represented the inherited tradition of Latin learning. The twenty-first-century Roman church has declared him the patron saint of the Internet.)

BURDENS OF OFFICE

Relieved from his mission and called back to Rome, Gregory was a senior cleric in 590 when another wave of the plague that had seeped through the Mediterranean for the last half century carried away Pope Pelagius II. The election quickly and obviously fell on Gregory, and he was heartbroken. To hear him tell it, anticipation of the burdens of office was more than he could face and he tried every possible way to escape what was being laid on him. It would have been surprising if he had succeeded in escaping, though later legend had him halfway down the road to missionary work in England (work he would later send others to perform) when he heard— a poetic moment here—the chirp of a locust. He thought of the Latin name locusta as though it told him to stay where he was (loco sta—“stay in place”), and he returned to Rome and to duty.

Augustus almost 600 years earlier

Tiberius II brought back to the throne the name last borne by the successor of Augustus almost 600 years earlier. Whereas Justin had been parsimonious, Tiberius was a spendthrift, and such lavishness is always a popular quality in a ruler. While Justin was still alive, he sent a general to try to help his Italian outposts against the Lombards, but to no avail; and when in 578 the senate of Rome (making its last formal appearance in history) sent him money to try to purchase protection, he told the senators they would be better off taking it to the Lombards or the Franks instead, to see what deal they could make for themselves. He expanded the palace and bought peace in the Balkans from the Avars—who promptly reneged on the deal. His one lasting blunder was to yield to his impatience with the Ghassanid leadership, arresting their leader al-Mundhir in 581 on grounds of his religious (monophysite) sympathies and exiling him to Sicily.6 With that gesture, Tiberius lost the support and reliability of the Ghassanids, and he unwittingly smoothed the path to Syria and Asia Minor for any forces that would arise in Arabia. Tiberius cultivated a reputation for generosity: tax cuts marked his accession as sole emperor.

Ancient obsessiveness

In a subtle way, Tiberius also marks the end of imperial religion’s ancient obsessiveness. Emperors before Justinian had supervised doctrinal strife without caring about it; Justinian had cared deeply about it and thus created a new intimacy of union between state and church. Tiberius inherited an empire in which state and church were now so identical that an emperor could cease to care about theology himself.

Justin II had inherited his predecessor’s talent for dithering, trying to conciliate the monophysites and at one point in 571 issuing what was spoken of as a “second Henotikon,” in memory of Zeno’s attempt of 100 years earlier to find a formula of words that would bring unity. Nothing worked. Tiberius, on the other hand, enforced orthodoxy without a moment’s care for what it meant. The emperors after him who did care about theology knew in their hearts that they were playacting and that nothing they did would change the religious landscape. Tiberius was not unwise to let things be. Emperor Heraclius would stir the hornet’s nest again briefly, giving his enthusiasm to a factitious doctrine called monotheletism.7 His enthusiasm faded into irrelevance when the Arabs took Syria and Egypt away from the empire. Chalcedon prevailed by disaster and default as the religion of the Byzantine empire.