Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/524

 518 BYZANTINE EMPIRE BYZANTINE HISTORIANS 1425). Bajazet laid siege to Constantinople, but raised it to levy war upon the Hungarians. He returned in 1397, but made peace through fear of another western crusade. In 1400 he made a third attempt upon the metropolis; but the invasion of Tamerlane, which threat- ened the existence of the Turkish empire, re- called Bajazet into Asia, and saved the Byzan- tine empire for a time. Manuel recovered some lost ground while the sons of Bajazet were quarrelling. Yet in 1422 Sultan Amu- rath II. appeared before the walls of Constan- tinople, and employed cannon, for the first time in eastern wars. Another fraternal quar- rel on the part of the Turks brought about the return of peace. During this reign a Turkish cadi was established and a royal mosque erect- ed in Constantinople. John VI. or VII., son of Manuel, succeeded (1425-'48). Seeing that he was unable to defend his empire from the Turks, he endeavored to effect a reconciliation between the eastern and western churches, on the condition of a new western crusade in his favor. For this purpose he went to the coun- cil of Ferrara and Florence, which was pre- sided over by Pope Eugenius IV. The re- union was proclaimed at Florence, but it did not take effect in the East. In 1444 Amurath reduced the Byzantine empire to the city and suburbs of Constantinople, and out of gene- rosity allowed the emperor to end his days in peace, on condition of paying tribute. His brother, Constantine XIII. (1448-'53), was the last of the Byzantine emperors. He made a last appeal to the princes of the West, and to the prince of Georgia, whose daughter he had married. Giovanni Giustiniani, a Genoese no- bleman, with 2,000 Genoese and Venetian aux- iliaries, and four Genoese ships of war, were the sole results of Constantine's appeal. The total garrison did not exceed 8,000 soldiers. The Turks appeared before the walls of Con- stantinople April 6, 1453, with an army of 400,000. They were not able to break the chain which protected the entrance of the harbor, but Sultan Mohammed II. had his fleet carried on rollers 10 miles overland, and launched into the inner gulf. Both sides fought bravely, but after a siege of 53 days Constan- tinople fell. May 29, 1453. Constantine died heroically in the breach. The city was de- livered over to rapine, and the mass of the inhabitants sold into slavery. The brothers of Constantine, Demetrius and Thomas, held out for a short season in the Morea. This with the rest of the Latin principalities, which had acknowledged a loose feudal subjection to the Byzantine emperor, had fallen by 1460. David, the last of the Comneni and the last emperor of Trebizond, submitted in 1461. Thus perished an empire which had kept the light of letters and civilization burning through all the night of the dark ageSj when western Enrope, including even Italy, lay prostrate at the feet of barbarian conquerors, with whom the will of the strongest was the solo law. The Byzantine empire was divided for admin- istrative purposes into prefectures, dioceses, and themes or provinces. The power of the emperor was absolute. He claimed to inherit the rights of the Roman emperors, and to be the lawful ruler of the West. He was anointed and crowned by the patriarchs of Constan- tinople. -As has been seen, the influence of women, favorites, and the clergy was great. The ceremonial of the Byzantine court was carefully elaborated and rigidly maintained. The consulate became extinct in the 6th cen- tury, and the senate and the last forms of municipal self-government in the 10th. The emperor was advised by a council of state, in which none found admittance except at his pleasure. The functionaries of government were divided into many classes, and each class had distinctive privileges. Eunuchs enjoyed high rank, and to them was intrusted the im- mediate attendance upon the holy person of the emperor. The major domus of the East was called first curopalates, and afterward pro- tovestiarius. The body guard of the emperors began in the 10th century to be composed of Germans and Northmen. The commandant of the fleet was the megas dux. The original sources of Byzantine history are the Byzan- tine historians themselves, who wrote in cor- rupt Greek. Only a few of these have been translated into any of the modern languages. Of the authorities in the modern tongues, we cite Le Beau, Hitoire du Bat Empire; Zink- eisen, Geschichte Griechenlandi ; Fallmerayer, GescMchte des Eaiserthums Trapczunt; Gib- bon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- pire;" Finlay's "History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires" (London, 1854); and for the Latin settlement in the East, Bnchon's Hittoire dea conquetes et de Tetdblistcment de Fratifais dans leg fitats de Vancienne Grece (Paris, 1846). Du Gauge's work in Latin, Historia Byzantina (Paris, 1680), was before Gibbon the only au- thority generally consulted. An interesting work on the Byzantine empire is Muralt's Eaai de chronographie Byzantine (St. Peters- burg, 1855). BYZAJfTINE HISTORIANS, a series of little read but important lower Greek authors, who wrote between the 4th and 15th centuries chiefly on the history of the Byzantine em- pire. Among the most noteworthy of them are Zosimus, Procopius, Agathias, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Cedrenus, Anna Comnena, and Zonaras. Of these, Procopius is the best known, and is the only one who has been trans- lated into English. Anna Comnena, daugh- ter of the emperor Alexis I., who wrote a his- tory of her father's reign, is also well known. A collection of the most important of them was made and published at the expense of Louis XIV. (Corpus Scriptorum Histories By- zantina!, 36 vols., Paris, 1648-1711). The Greek text is accompanied with a Latin trans- lation and notes. The editors of this work were the Jesuits Labbe and Maltrait, Pctau