$ 5.

CHAP. II. in cultivating, manufacturing, and dyeing silk, and their industry had rendered them extremely rich. Everything they possessed was carried away by their avaricious conquerors, who conveyed their gold, silver, jewels, bales of silk and household furniture of value, to the ships which had anchored at the port of Livadostro. The unfortunate Thebans were compelled to take an oath on the Holy Scriptures, that they had not concealed from their plunderers any portion of their property; nor was the city evacuated by the Normans until they had removed everything they considered worth transporting to the fleet. The principal inhabitants were dragged into captivity, in order to profit by their ranson; while the most skilful workmen in the silk manufactories were carried as slaves to Sicily, there to exercise their industry for the profit of their new masters.

From Livadostro the fleet transported the troops to Corinth. Nicephorus Kalouphes, the governor, retired with the chief men of the city into the Acrocorinth. That fortress was impregnable, but the cowardly governor basely surrendered the place on the first summons. The Sicilian admiral, on examining the magnificent fortress of which he had so unexpectedly become master, could not refrain from exclaiming, that the Normans certainly fought under the protection of heaven, for, if Nicephorus Kalouphes had not been more timid than a woman, all their attacks might have been repulsed with ease.1 Corinth was sacked with the same rapacious avidity as Thebes all the men of

1 George Antiochenus was high-admiral, and one of the premier nobles of Sicily. The Greek deed by which Roger, King of Sicily, confers the title of protonobilissimus on Christodoulos the father of George, is preserved in the archives of the Royal Chapel at Palermo. Montfaucon has engraved it in his Palæographia Græca, 408. There is a stone bridge of five arches near Palermo, called Ponte del Ammiraglio, which was built by George, probably from the plunder of Greece. The church at Palermo, called La Martorana, was also built by George, and contains two curious mosaics with Greek inscriptions. Greek, indeed, seems to have been the habitual language of the admiral, and of many Sicilian nobles at the court of Roger.-Gally Knight, Normans in Sicily. 263, 301.

SILK MANUFACTURE AT THEBES.

69

rank, the most beautiful women, and the most skilful arti- A. D. sans, with their wives and families, were carried away, 1161-1195. either to obtain a ransom or to keep them as slaves. Even the shrines of the saints were plundered, and the relics of St Theodore were torn from his church; and it was only when the fleet was fully laden with the spoils of Greece that it sailed for Sicily.

The highest point of material improvement attained by the inhabitants of Greece during the middle ages was at this period; and perhaps the decline and ruin of Greece may be more directly attributed to the loss of the silk trade than to any other single event connected with the Normans and Crusaders. The establishment of the silk manufacturers of Thebes and Corinth at Palermo transferred superior skill from Greece to Sicily. Roger took the greatest care of the artisans his admiral had brought him. He collected together their wives and children, and furnished them with dwellings, and the means of resuming their former industry under the most favourable circumstances. He perceived that their skill was the most valuable part of the plunder of the expedition, and treated them with the greatest kindness, in order to attach them to their new home and naturalise their industry in Sicily. His plans were aided by the Byzantine emperors, who ruined the trade of Greece by oppressive monopolies and ill-judged restrictions, and thus prepared the way for the conquests of the Franks and Venetians.1

When the Emperor Manuel concluded a treaty of peace with William I. of Sicily in 1159, he abandoned the manufacturers of Greece at Palermo to their fate. Thebes, however, still continued for some time to retain its importance by its silk manufactures. Benjamin of Tudela,

1 Nicetas, 65. Roger seems to have paid more attention to improving the condition of his subjects than any contemporary sovereign. In his reign the cultivation of the sugar-cane was introduced into Sicily. For the Norman expedition to Greece, see Ducange's note to Cinnamus, 446; Otho of Frisingen, De Gestis Frederici I., i. c. 33, in Muratori Scrip. Rer. Ital., vi. 668. The passage is extracted in Carusius, Bibliotheca Hist. Regni Siciliæ, tom. ii. 934.

§ 5.

CHAP. II. who visited it about the year 1161, speaks of it as a large city with two thousand Jewish inhabitants, who were the most eminent silk-merchants and dyers of purple in Greece. The silks of Thebes continued to be celebrated throughout the East even at a later period. In 1195, Moieddin, Sultan of Iconium, required from the Emperor Alexius III. forty pieces of the Theban silk that was woven expressly for the imperial family, among other presents, as the price of his alliance.2

The last attempt of the Sicilian Normans to subdue the Byzantine empire was made in the year 1185. William II., hoping that the cruelty of the Emperor Andronicus I. would prove a powerful ally to the Sicilian arms, invaded the empire under the pretext of aiding Alexius Comnenus, one of the nephews of Manuel I., to dethrone the tyrant ; but his real object was to secure for himself some permanent possession in Greece. A powerful fleet under the command of Tancred, the king's cousin and successor, was sent to attack Dyrrachium, which was taken by assault after a siege of thirteen days. The army then marched by the Via Egnatia to Thessalonica, while the fleet with Tancred sailed round the Morea. The rich and populous city of Thessalonica fell into the hands of the Sicilians after a feeble defence; but the cruelty with which the inhabitants were treated roused a feeling of resistance in the unsubdued population of the empire, and the further progress of the Sicilians met with a firmer opposition. In the fury of conquest, neither age nor sex had been spared when Thessalonica was sacked, and the barbarity of the conquerors is described in frightful detail by Nicetas. Neither rich nor poor were safe from the most barbarous treatment. Similar horrors are the ordinary events of 1 Itinerary, vol. i. 47, Asher's edit.

Nicetas, 297. It was not until the reign of John III. at Nice, 1222-1255, when Thebes was in the hands of the Latins, that the Greeks of Asia Minor were forced to import silk from Persia and Sicily. A law was then promulgated to prohibit the use of foreign silk. Nicephorus Gregoras, 25; Bonefidius, Jus Orientale, 124.

every war in which religious bigotry excites the passions of mercenary soldiers; and the Greeks and Latins now regarded one another both as heretics and as political enemies. Many of the wealthiest inhabitants of Thessalonica were driven from their splendid palaces without clothes; many were tortured, to compel them to reveal the place where they had concealed their treasures; and some, who had nothing to reveal, were hung up by the feet and suffocated with burning straw. Insult was added to cruelty. The altars of the Greek churches were defiled, the religious ceremonies were ridiculed; while the priests were chaunting divine service in the nasal harmony admired by the Orientals, the Sicilian soldiers howled in chorus in imitation of beaten hounds. The celebrated Archbishop Eustathius, however, fortunately succeeded, by his prudence and dignified conduct, in conciliating the Sicilian generals, and in persuading them to make some exertions to bridle the license of their troops, which they had tolerated too long. By his exhortations, Thessalonica was saved from utter ruin.1

The Sicilian army at last put itself in march towards Constantinople. But the tyrant Andronicus was already dethroned and murdered; while the reports that had been spread far and wide concerning the infamous cruelties committed at Thessalonica had roused the indignation of the whole population of Thrace. In the mean time, the Sicilian fleet under Tancred had entered the Propontis, and advanced within sight of Constantinople, without being able to effect anything. The army continued to advance in two divisions in spite of all opposition; one of these divisions had reached Mosynopolis, while the other was engaged plundering the valley of the Strymon and country round Serres. Alexius Vranas, an experi

1 Nicetas, 191. Eustathius has left us a declamatory but valuable account of the capture of Thessalonica, which was first published by Tafel, Eustathii Opuscula, Tubingen, 1832, 4to, p. 267. It is reprinted in the collection of the Byzantine historians, published at Bonn, in the volume with Leo Grammaticus.

A. D. 1185.

§ 6.

CHAP. II. enced general, had now assumed the command of the Byzantine army. The new emperor, Isaac II., had secured the good-will of the troops by distributing among them four thousand pounds of gold, in payment of their arrears and to furnish a donative. The courage of the imperial forces was revived, and their success was insured by the carelessness and presumption of the Sicilian generals, whose contempt for the Greek army prevented them from concentrating their strength. Vranas, taking advantage of this confidence, suddenly drove in the advanced guard and offered battle to the division at Mosynopolis, which he defeated with considerable loss. The Sicilians retreated to the site of Amphipopolis, where they had collected their scattered detachments, and fought another battle at a place called Demerizé, on the 7th November 1185. In this they were utterly defeated, and the victory of the Byzantine army decided the fate of the expedition. Count Aldoin and Richard Acerra, the generals, with about four thousand soldiers, were taken prisoners. The fugitives who could gain Thessalonica immediately embarked on board the vessels in the port, and put to sea. Tancred abandoned his station in the Propontis, and, collecting the shattered remnants of the army as well as he was able, returned to Sicily. Even Dyrrachium was soon after abandoned, for William found the expense of retaining the place far greater than its political importance to Sicily warranted. The prisoners sent by Vranas to the Emperor Isaac II. were treated with great inhumanity. They were thrown into dungeons, and neglected to such a degree by the government, that they owed the preservation of their lives to private charity.'

SECT. VI.-SEPARATION OF THE GREEK AND LATIN CHURCHES.

The Normans of Italy were the vassals of the Pope.

1 Nicetas, 231.