MAGNIFICENT ECCLESIASTICAL ENDOWMENTS. 445 A. D. Theoskepastos, which occupies a fine position before a cavern in the rocky face of Mount Mithrios, overlooking 1360-1390. the romantic city of Trebizond, was enlarged, decorated, and enriched by his care and liberality. He built a church and founded a monastery of St Phokas at Kordylé.2 The great monastery of Sumelas, buried in an immense cavern amidst the sublime rocks and magnificent forests which overhang the roaring torrents of the Melas, was enriched and protected by his imperial bounty, and still possesses the golden bull he signed as the charter of its privileges.3 But the most splendid existing monument of the liberality of Alexios is the monastery of St Dionysius, situated in an enchanting site, overlooking the sea, on the south-western coast of the holy mountain. It was the last constructed of the two-and-twenty great monasteries which consecrate the mountain in the eyes of the Eastern church. The golden bull of Alexios, the charter of its foundation, is still preserved in its archives, and forms one of the most valuable monuments of the pictorial and caligraphic art of the Greeks in the middle ages. This imperial charter of foundation consists of a roll of paper, a foot and a half broad and fifteen feet long, surrounded by a rich border of arabesques. The imperial titles are 1 Inscriptions commemorating the generosity of Alexios and the imperial family to this monastery are given by Tournefort, Relation d'un Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. p. 81, edit. in 8vo; by Fallmerayer, Original-Fragmente, Erste Abth., p. 101; and Pfaffenhoffen, Essai sur les Aspres Comnenats, pl. xiv. The paintings of Alexios, his mother, the lady Irene of Trebizond, and the empress Theodora, the size of life and clad in their imperial robes, which were seen in the vestibule of the church by Tournefort and Fallmerayer, were effaced in 1843. The church was then repaired and the vestibule replastered by the liberality of an ignorant abbess, when some hideous figures, true types of modern Greek art, were daubed over the ancient paintings. 2 The site of Kordylé is now occupied by the Turkish fort of Ak-kala. 3 The romantic district in which the monastery of Sumelas is situated, amidst primeval forests, often impenetrable from the thick underwood of azaleas and rhododendrons, was called Matzouka. The distance from Trebizond is reckoned at twelve hours, but is not more than thirty miles. The golden bull of Alexios is not so magnificent as that of the monastery of St Dionysius on Mount Athos. The imperial portraits are only about six inches high, and the seals are wanting. It is dated in December 1365. § 1. CHAP. IV. set forth in capitals about three inches high, emblazoned in gold and ultramarine; and the word Majesty, wherever it occurs in the document, is always written, like the emperor's signature, with the imperial red ink. This curious document acquires its greatest value from containing at its head, under a half-length figure of our Saviour with hands extended to bless the imperial figures, two full-length portraits of the emperor Alexios and the empress Theodora, about sixteen inches high, in which their features, their imperial crowns, their rich robes and splendid jewels, are represented in colour, with all the care and minuteness of the ablest Byzantine artists. Immediately under the imperial titles, below the portraits, are the two golden bulla or seals, each of the size of a crown-piece, bearing the respective effigies and titles of the two sovereigns. The seals are attached to the bull by clasps of gold.1 Alexios III. died in the year 1390, after a reign of forty-one years. The period in which he lived was one of almost universal war, civil broils, and anarchy; and few countries in Europe enjoyed as much internal tranquillity, or so great security for private property, as the empire of Trebizond. By his diplomatic arrangements he succeeded in preserving a degree of political influence which his military reverses frequently endangered, and the commercial advantages of his territories gave him financial resources vastly exceeding the apparent wealth of his small empire. The most powerful princes in his vicinity were eager to maintain friendly relations with his court, for all their subjects profited by the trade carried on in the city of Trebizond. Alexios availed himself of this disposition to form matrimonial alliances 1 The account of this interesting document is given by Fallmerayer, who has published the text both of it and of the golden bull of Sumelas in the Transactions of the Academy of Munich, 1843-Original-Fragmente, Erste Abth. Montfaucon's Paleographia Græca, p. 476, notices this monastery in the description of Mount Athos by John Comnenus, M.D. A. D. between the princesses of his family and several neighbouring sovereigns, both Mohammedan and Christian. 1390-1417. His sister Maria was married to Koutloubeg, the chief of the great Turkoman horde of the White Sheep; his sister Theodora to the emir of Chalybia, Hadji-Omer. His daughter Eudocia was first married to the emir Tadjeddin,1 who gained possession of Limnia; and after Tadjeddin was slain by the emir of Chalybia, she became the wife of the Byzantine emperor, John V. That prince had selected her as the bride of his son, the emperor Manuel II., (Paleologos ;) but when she arrived at Constantinople, her beauty made such an impression on the decrepid old debauchee that he married the young widow himself. Anna, another daughter of Alexios, was married to Bagrat VI., king of Georgia ;2 and a third daughter was bestowed on Taharten, emir of Arsinga or Erdzendjan.3 Constantinople was now tributary to the Othoman Turks; and its vassal emperor was glad to find an ally in the wealthy and still independent emperor of Trebizond. The countenance and whole personal appearance of Alexios were extremely noble. He was florid, blonde, and regular-featured, with an aquiline nose, which, his flatterers often reminded him, was considered by Plato to be a royal feature. In person he was stout and well formed; in disposition he was gay and liberal; but his enemies reproached him with rashness, violence, and brutal passions. SECT. II.-REIGN OF MANUEL III. RELATIONS WITH THE EMPIRE OF TIMOR-1390-1417. Manuel III. had received the title of emperor from his 1 Tadjeddin is called Dschiatines, Zetines, and Tatziatin. He occupied the coast of Pontus between the cities of Kerasunt and Oinaion. 2 Bagrat VI. reigned at Teflis from 1360 to 1396. 3 Clavijo, p. 92; cited by Fallmerayer, 209. CHAP. IV. father in 1376, when only twelve years of age. $ 2. As a sovereign, he appears to have been more prudent than his father, and to have possessed all his diplomatic talent. He lived in critical times, and fortune favoured his prudence. The great Tartar irruption that desolated the greater part of Asia Minor during his reign left his little empire unscathed. Though he was compelled to acknowledge himself a vassal of the mighty Timor, and pay tribute to the Mongol empire for a few years, still his government was disturbed by no political vicissitudes of any general importance. The only interest we feel in his reign, of twenty-seven years' duration, is derived from its transitory connection with the exploits of Timor. Alexios III. left the empire of Trebizond reduced to a narrow strip of coast, extending in an uninterrupted line from Batoun to Kerasunt, and including also the territory of Oinaion, separated from the rest of the empire by the possessions of Arsamir, the son of Tadjeddin, emir of Limnia. Its breadth rarely exceeded forty miles, its frontier running along the high range of mountains that overlook the sea. Within these limits several Christian nobles owned a doubtful allegiance to the imperial authority. The city of Oinaion, with its territory, extending westward to the Thermodon, was governed by a Greek named Melissenos. As his possessions were separated from the imperial garrison at Kerasunt by the possessions of the emir of Limnia, he was almost virtually independent. Arsamir, the emir of Limnia, was, however, fortunately closely allied with Manuel, both by relationship and political interest. He was the son of Manuel's sister, the beautiful Eudocia. Leo Kabasites, the head of a distinguished family, which had long possessed great influence in the empire, ruled an extensive territory in the mountains, and held several fortified castles, that gave him the command of LEO KABASITES AND CLAVIJO. 449 the caravan route leading southward from the capital.1 The possession of these castles, which after the Othoman conquest became the residence of Deré-Begs, enabled him to levy tribute on all travellers who passed through his district, along the great road leading to Persia and Armenia. The Spanish traveller Gonsalez de Clavijo, who was sent by Henry III., king of Castile, as ambassador to Timor, has left us a curious account of the power of Leo Kabasites, and of the manner in which he exercised it on those who came within his jurisdiction as duke of Chaldia.2 The picture he gives of the insubordination and rapacity of the great nobles in, the empire of Trebizond shows how generally the frame of society was convulsed by aristocratic anarchy, which was a feature of the social movement of the human race, not merely of a change in the feudal system of Europe. Clavijo confirms the expressions used by Alexios III., in his golden bull to the monastery of Sumelas, which he wished to protect against the exactions of his nobles. The Spanish traveller accompanied an envoy sent to Henry by Timor, on his way back to Samarcand. After quitting Trebizond, they were stopped by Leo Kabasites, as they entered his territory, and required to pay toll or make a present. In vain the Mongol envoy protested that an ambassador of the great Timor was not bound to pay toll like the agent of a merchant, and insisted that he was entitled to a free passage through a land which was tributary to the Great Mongol-for Leo, as a vassal of the emperor of Trebizond, had no pretext for exacting toll from the representative of the suzerain of his prince. To all this Leo replied, 1 John Kabasites, who was killed in the shameful flight at Cheriana, was duke of Chaldia, or that portion of the mountains to the south-east of Trebizond inhabited by the Lazes, who still resisted the advances of the Turkoman power. The Itinerary of Clavijo and the Historia del Gran lished by Gongalo Argote de Molino, Sevilla, 1582, folio. de los Reyes de Castilla, Madrid, 1782, 4to, vol. 3. Tamerlan were pub- A. D. 1404. |