§ 6.

CHAP. VII. visited the court of Guy II., the last duke of the family of De la Roche; he had viewed the magnificent halls of the castle of Santomeri at Thebes, where his friend and master, the Infant Don Fernand, of Majorca, was detained a prisoner. What can be more touching than the stout old warrior's tale of how his heart swelled in his breast as he took leave of his king's son in prison; and how he gave his own rich habit to the cook of the castle, and made him swear on the Holy Scriptures that he would rather allow his own head to be cut off, than permit anything hurtful to be put in the food of the Infant of Majorca ? 1

Gibbon tells us that "from the Latin princes of the fourteenth century, Boccacio, Chaucer, and Shakspeare have borrowed their Theseus, duke of Athens;"" and the great historian adds, "An ignorant age transfers its own language and manners to the most distant times." 2 The fact is, that every age does the same thing. The name of Dante must be added to those enumerated by Gibbon. Dante was a cotemporary of Guy II. and Walter de Brienne, and in his day the fame of the dukes of Athens was a familiar theme in the mouths of the Italians of all the commercial republics, as well as of the statesmen at Naples and the priests at Rome. It was natural, therefore, that the "great poet-sire of Italy" should think that he gave his readers a not unapt idea of the grandeur of Pisistratus, by calling him

"Sire della villa

Del cui nome ne' Dei fu tanta lite,
Ed onde ogni scienzia disfavilla."
"3

Surely this is at least as correct as our established phrase, which styles him tyrant of Athens. Dante also calls Theseus duca d'Atene—and he did so, doubtless, because

1 Muntaner, chap. ccxxxviii.

2 Decline and Fall, chap. lxii. vol. xi. p. 353.

3 Purgatorio, xv. st. 33.

THE ATHENIAN DUCHY OF SHAKSPEARE.

201

the title appeared to him more appropriate than that of CHAP. VII. king, and he was compelled to choose between them.1

Boccacio, whose relations with Nicholas Acciaiuoli have been already noticed, and who was familiar with the state of Athens from many sources, has left us a charming picture of the Athenian court.2

Chaucer and his cotemporary readers must have been well acquainted with the fame of Walter de Brienne, titular duke of Athens, who, as constable of France, perished on the field of Poitiers; and the history of his father, whom the Catalans had deprived of life and duchy in the battle of the Cephissus, must have been the theme of many a tale in every country in Europe. Chaucer may therefore have considered that he adorned the name of Theseus by lending it the title of a great and wealthy prince, instead of leaving it with that of a paltry king.3

Shakspeare, on the contrary, very probably never bestowed a thought either on the history of Theseus or the chronology of the Athenian duchy. Little did he care for that literary fastidiousness which allows the attention to be diverted from a true picture of human. nature by historical anachronisms. To such critics it is possible that the Midsummer Night's Dream would appear more perfect if Theseus had been inventoried in the dramatis persona as a member of the house of De la Roche, and Hippolyta as a princess of Achaia; but the defect is in the critics, who can allow their minds to go wandering into history, and thinking of Doric temples or feudal towers, when they ought to be following Shakspeare into the fairy-land he creates.

1 Inferno, xii. st. 6.

See the history of the princess Alathiel-Decameron, ii. 7.

3 The Knight's Tale.

§ 6.

CHAPTER VIII.

PRINCIPALITY OF ACHAIA, OR THE MOREA

SECT. I.-CONQUEST OF ACHAIA BY WILLIAM OF CHAMPLITTE.
FEUDAL ORGANISATION OF THE PRINCIPALITY.

THE conquest of the Peloponnesus by the French differs considerably from the other military operations of the Crusaders in the Byzantine empire, and bears a closer resemblance to the conquest of England by the Normans. The conquering force was small-the conquest was quickly yet gradually effected-the opposition did not become a national struggle that interested the great mass of the population, and the conquerors perpetuated their power and kept their race, for some generations, distinct from the conquered people; so that the enterprise unites in some degree the character of a military conquest with that of a colonial establishment. The number of the Frank troops that invaded the Peloponnesus, or at least that began its conquest after the retreat of the king of Saloniki from Corinth, was numerically inadequate to the undertaking; nor could any degree of military skill and discipline have compensated for this inferiority, had the Byzantine provincial government possessed the means of organising any efficient union among the local authorities, or had the native Greck population felt a patriotic determination to defend their country, and avail themselves of the many strong positions scattered over the surface of a

STATE OF THE PELOPONNESUS.

203

But the

land filled with defiles and mountain-passes.
high state of material civilisation-the wealth of a large
portion of the inhabitants, who generally lived collected
together in towns-their love of ease, and their indifference
to the fate of the Byzantine empire, which was viewed as
a foreign domination-made the people both careless of
any change in their rulers, and unfit to offer any serious
resistance to a determined enemy. The inhabitants of
Greece were habitually viewed with jealousy by the
Byzantine government, which feared to see them in pos-
session of arms, lest they should avail themselves of the
singular advantages their country presents for asserting
their independence. The Peloponnesians were, conse-
quently, little exercised in the use of offensive weapons,
unaccustomed to bear the weight of defensive armour, and
unacquainted with military discipline; they were, there-
fore, absolutely ignorant of the simplest dispositions
necessary to render their numbers of any practical advan-
tage in the occupation of posts and the defence of towns.
The Frank invaders found that they had little else to do
but to drive them together into masses, in order to insure
their defeat and submission. Under such circumstances,
it need not surprise us to learn that the little army of
Champlitte subdued the Greeks with as much ease as the
band of Cortes conquered the Mexicans; for the bravest
men, not habituated to the use of arms, and ignorant how
to range themselves on the field of battle or behind the
leaguered rampart, can do little to avert the catastrophe of
their country's ruin. Like the virtuous priest who, ignorant
of theological lore, plunges boldly into public controversy
with a learned and eloquent heretic, they can only injure
the cause they are anxious to defend.

William de Champlitte and his brother Eudes are frequently mentioned by Geffrey de Villehardoin, in his Chronicle, as distinguished leaders of the Crusaders during the siege of Constantinople. Eudes, the elder brother,

A. D.

1205.

§ 1.

CHAP. VIII. died before the conquest of the Byzantine empire, but William received his portion of territory in the Peloponnesus, and accompanied Boniface, king of Saloniki, in his expedition into Greece.1 The Crusaders, after defeating Leo Sguros at Thermopylæ, and installing Otho de la Roche in his possessions at Thebes and Athens, pursued the Greeks into the Peloponnesus, and laid siege to Corinth and Nauplia. James d'Avesnes commanded the force which held Sguros himself blockaded in the Acrocorinth, while Boniface and William de Champlitte advanced with the main body, and invested Nauplia.

In the mean time, Geffrey Villehardoin the younger arrived in the camp. He was nephew of the celebrated marshal of Romania, whose inimitable history of the expedition to Constantinople is one of the most interesting literary monuments of the middle ages; but instead of accompanying his uncle and the members of the fourth Crusade who attacked the Byzantine empire, he had sailed direct from Marseilles to Syria. Like most of the Crusaders who visited the Holy Land on this occasion, he performed no exploit worthy of notice; and as soon as he had completed the year's service to which he was bound by his vow, he hastened to return to France. On his voyage he was assailed by a tempest, which drove his ships into the harbour of Modon, where he found himself compelled to pass the winter. It was already known in Greece that the Crusaders had taken Constantinople, and that the central government of the Byzantine empire was destroyed. One of the principal Greek nobles of the

1 The family of Champlitte was often called of Champagne. The father of the two Crusaders was Eudes, son of Hugh, eighth count of Champagne, and his wife, Elizabeth of Burgundy. Hugh, believing himself impotent, refused to acknowledge his son Eudes, and ceded the county of Champagne and all his property to his nephew, Thibaut, count of Blois and Chartres. It was this Hugh, count of Champagne, who bestowed Clairvaux on St Bernard. He died a Templar in Palestine. Eudes, who was called le Champenois, was bred up at his mother's property of Champlitte, which he inherited.-Ducange, note to Villehardoin, p. 268. L'Art de verifier les Dates. Comtes de Champagne et Blois, tom. iii. part ii. p. 125.