§ 6.

CHAP. VIII. accumulation of capital on landed property which forms the surest mark of a long period of civilisation, and which it often takes ages of barbarism and bad government to annihilate. Roads, wells, cisterns, aqueducts, and plantations, with commodious houses, barns, and magazines, enable a numerous population to live in ease and plenty, where, without this accumulation of capital, only a few ploughmen and shepherds could drag out a laborious and scanty existence. Abundance creates markets where the difficulties of communication are not insurmountable.

In a fine meadow, near the town of Vervena, a fair of some importance was held, during the thirteenth century, in the month of June. Vervena was subject to the Franks, and was still included in the district of Skorta, once inhabited exclusively by Sclavonians. A rich Greek, named Chalkokondylas,1 from Great Arachova, on the western side of the Tzakonian mountains, had visited this fair to sell his silk. In consequence of some dispute in the public square, a Frank knight struck him with the stave of a lance. There was no hope of redress for the insult at Vervena, so Chalkokondylas returned home, and laid plans for revenging himself on the Franks by expelling them from the castle of St George, the frontier fortress on the eastern limits of their territory, situated not far from Great Arachova. He succeeded in his project, by gaining over the Greeks employed in the castle to act as cellarer and butler; and with the aid of a few troops, lent by the Byzantine governor of Misithra, who considered the prize of sufficient value to warrant the treachery, and risk a renewal of hostilities with the prince of Achaia, he made himself master of the strong castle of St George.

Florenz, who was never wanting in activity and energy, hastened to besiege the castle in person, hoping to recover possession of it before the Greeks were able to lay in a

1 Called in the French chronicle Corcondille, p. 378.

store of provisions. Its situation, however, rendered it almost impregnable, so that a very small force sufficed for its defence, and there seemed little chance of taking it, except by famine. In order, therefore, to prevent the Byzantine garrison which occupied it from commanding the roads leading to Nikli and Veligosti, Florenz found it necessary to construct a new castle, called Beaufort, in which he stationed a strong body of men. In the mean time, he sent agents to Italy to enrol veteran troops, experienced in the operations of sieges, and hired the services of Spany, the Sclavonian lord of the district of Kisterna, who joined the Achaian army with two hundred infantry, pikemen, and archers, accustomed to mountain warfare, and habituated to besiege their neighbours in the rock forts of their native province.1 Spany received from the prince of Achaia two fiefs in the plain near Kalamata, and in return engaged to maintain an armed vessel at the command of the prince. But before all the necessary preparations for making a vigorous attack on the castle of St George were completed, Florenz of Hainault died in the year 1297.

During the reign of Isabella and Florenz, the suzerainty of Achaia was transferred from the crown of Naples by king Charles II., and conferred on Philip of Tarentum, his second son, on the occasion of his marriage with Ithamar, daughter of Nicephorus, despot of Epirus. Philip received from his father-in-law the cities of Naupaktos, Vrachori, Angelokastron, and Vonitza, as the dowry of his wife; and his father bestowed on him Corfu, and all the lands possessed by the crown of Naples in Epirus, in actual sovereignty. These possessions, united to the suzerainty of Achaia, were intended to form the foundations of a Greco-Latin kingdom. The

1 The district of Kisterna, above Kardamyle and Leuktron, appears from existing remains to have been then, as now, filled with defensible towers. Spany was the master of several castles in the district.-Livre de la Conqueste,

384.

A. D.

1297.

§ 5.

CHAP. VIII. death of Ithamar, and the subsequent marriage of Philip of Tarentum with Catherine of Valois, the titular empress of Romania, opened new prospects of ambition to the house of Anjou.

Isabella, princess of Achaia, after a widowhood of four years, married Philip of Savoy. The marriage was ratified by Charles II. of Naples, who invested Philip of Savoy with the actual sovereignty of the principality of Achaia, in the name of his son Philip of Tarentum, the real suzerain.1 Philip of Savoy, on arriving in the Morea, was compelled by the feudatories of the principality to take an oath to respect the usages and privileges of the state before they would consent to offer him their homage as vassals. He was considerably younger than his wife; and his fear of losing the government of the principality after her death, and of sinking into the rank of a titular prince on his Italian lands, induced him to employ his time in amassing money, in violation of all the usages he had sworn to respect. In order to avoid awakening the opposition of the Frank knights and barons, he directed his first attacks against the purses of the Sclavonians and Greeks who inhabited the privileged territory of Skorta, on whom he imposed a tax. was a direct violation of the charter under which these people had long lived in tranquillity, and they determined to resist it. The Byzantine authorities at Misithra were invited to assist the insurrection; and the population of Skorta, with the auxiliary force sent to aid them from the Byzantine province, succeeded, by a sudden attack,

This

1 For the act of investiture, dated at Rome, 23d Feb. 1301, see Guichenon, Preuves de l'Histoire de la Maison de Savoie, p. 103; Buchon's edition of Muntaner, p. 505. But Buchon in his Nouvelles Recherches, vol. i. p. 236, and vol. ii. p. 339, has published an act, dated at Calvi, 6th Feb. 1301, in which Charles II. of Naples declares that Isabella had forfeited her title to the principality, in virtue of the stipulation entered into at the time of her marriage with Florenz of Hainault, prohibiting her or her female heirs to marry without the consent of the kings of Naples, as lords-paramount. It would appear that the influence of Pope Boniface VIII. effected the change in the conduct of the king of Naples; but Buchon does not even mention this discrepancy in his last work.

UNION OF THE GREEKS AND SCLAVONIANS.

253

in capturing the two castles of St Helena and Crevecœur, in the passes between Karitena and the lower plain of the Alpheus, both of which they levelled with the ground. The vigour of Philip, who collected all the military force of the principality, and hastened to the scene of action, arrested the progress of the rebellion, and recovered the ground lost by the Franks; but the country was laid waste, the wealth of the knights in the district was diminished, two strong castles were utterly destroyed, and there seemed little probability that means would be found to rebuild them. The ruinous effects of the avarice of the prince became evident to all, and it was made too apparent that the tenure on which the Franks continued to hold their possessions in the centre of the Peloponnesus would, by a repetition of such conduct, become extremely precarious. The Greeks and Sclavonians henceforward made common cause; and whenever an opportunity was afforded them, they threw off the yoke of the Franks, in order to place themselves under the protection of their Byzantine coreligionaries, who gradually gained ground on the Latins, and year after year expelled them from some new district. To this union of the Greeks and Sclavonians for a common object, we must attribute the complete amalgamation of the two races in the Peloponnesus, and the creation of social feelings, which soon led to the utter extinction of the Sclavonian language, and the abolition of all the distinctive privileges still retained by the Sclavonian population.

Isabella and Philip of Savoy quitted Greece in the year 1304. They appear to have taken this step in consequence of differences with their vassals in the principality, and of disputes with Philip of Tarentum, their lord-paramount, who, after the death of Boniface VIII., seems to have called in question the legality of the investiture granted by his father to Philip of Savoy.1

Ducange, Histoire de Constantinople, 213.

A. D.

1302.

$ 6.

CHAP. VIII. Isabella died at her husband's Italian possessions in the year 1311, and Philip of Savoy then became merely titular prince of Achaia, without having subsequently any direct connection with the political affairs in the principality.1

SECT. VI.-MAUD OF HAINAULT AND LOUIS OF BURGUNDY.

Maud or Matilda, the daughter of Isabella Villehardoin and Florenz of Hainault, though only eighteen years of age when she succeeded to the principality of Achaia, was already widow of Guy II., duke of Athens.2 In the year 1313, two years after her accession, she was married to Louis of Burgundy, a treaty having been concluded between the king of France, the duke of Burgundy, and Philip of Tarentum, in which her rights were most shamefully trafficked to serve the private interests of these princes. Hugh, duke of Burgundy, had been already engaged to Catherine of Valois, the titular empress of Romania ; but it now suited the interests of all parties that Philip of Tarentum, who was a widower, should marry Catherine of Valois; and in order to bribe the duke of Burgundy to consent, Maud of Hainault was forced to cede her principality to her husband, Louis of Burgundy, the duke's brother, and to his collateral heirs, even to the exclusion of her own children by any future marriage. Pope Clement V., the royal houses of France and Naples, and the proud dukes of Burgundy, all conspired to advance their political schemes, by defrauding a young girl of nineteen of her inheritance.3

1 Neither Philip's daughter by Isabella, nor his son by a subsequent marriage, though that son assumed the title of prince of Achaia, had any influence on the public affairs of Greece.-Buchon, Recherches et Matériaux, p. 260, 280. Data Storia dei Principi di Savoia del Ramo d'Achaia. 2 vols. Turin, 1832. 2 Maud, Mahaut, Matilda, Maiatis, and Maár, are all variations of her name found in documents and chronicles, and on coins.

3 On the subject of these arrangements, see page 140, note, and Duchesne, Histoire générale des Ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de France, preuves, p. 115. Buchon, Recherches et Matériaux, 238, has printed that part of the treaty which relates to the principality of Achaia.