YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

SOME PAGES OF LEVANTINE
HISTORY

SOME PAGES OF
LEVANTINE HISTORY

Rev. H. T. F. DUCKWORTH, M.A.
Professor of Divinity, Trinity College, Toronto j Formerly
Assistant Chaplain, representing the Eastern Church
Association, in Cyprus, and Postmaster of
Merton College, Oxford

LONDON
ALEXANDER MORING LTD.
THE DE LA MORE PRESS
32 GEORGE STREET HANOVER SQUARE W

CONTENTS
CHAP. pAGE
I. Great Britain and Cyprus — A Rider to the
Eastern Question ...... i
II. Ditto ditto ll
III. Ditto ditto 25
The Latin Conquest of Cyprus . . • 41
I. Athens in the Twelfth Century ... 79
II. Ditto . . .85
III. Ditto ... 98
IV. Ditto . . .116
00 A, V. Ditto (The Frankish Conquest) 122
Appendix A . . . . . . 131
Appendix B. . . . . . . 135
Index . . . . . . . 137

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Nicosia, from the South ....
Sta. Sofia, Nicosia. — West Front (Fourteenth
Century) ......
St. Nicholas, Famagusta. — West Front (Four
teenth Century) .....
St. Nicholas, Famagusta. — East End .
Ruined Church, Famagusta ....
Athens. — The Acropolis (Mount Lycabettus in
the background) .....
Athens. — The Capnicarea Church
Athens. — The Old Metropolitan Church .

facing page 6j

19

68

19

72

19

75

11

78

11

80

11

83

11

84-

PREFACE
Those chapters of this little book which deal
with " Great Britain and Cyprus " and " Athens
in the Twelfth Century " were contributed to the
Trinity University Review (Toronto) in 1903 and
1 904. It is due to the editorial staff of the Review
that the author should here thank them for the
kindness and courtesy shown by them in consent
ing to the publication of these chapters in the form
of a book. The paper on the " Latin Conquest
of Cyprus " was originally written in 1 902. Some
passages in it have been taken from a lecture on
Cyprus delivered at Trinity College in March of
that year.
Pilgrimages are an " institution " in this Age
of Trusts as much as ever they were in the Ages
of Faith, and though the old " Pilgerstrassen "
have been almost entirely abandoned, the places
visited by pilgrims of old are still included in
the itineraries of their latter-day successors. To
those of his countrymen who have either made,
or intend to make, a pilgrimage to the holy places
of Christian and Classical Antiquity, the author
hopes that his work, if it should come under their
notice, may be of service. H.T.F.D.
Trinity College, Toronto.
September 24/^, 1906.

GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS— A
RIDER TO THE EASTERN QUESTION
7/ L
A WELL-KNOWN legend asserts that Ma
homet's coffin, in the place of his sepulchre
at Medina, floats suspended in the air, between
heaven and earth. Commentators of the typo
logical school might be excused for finding in
this legend a prophecy, or parable of the fate
which has overtaken the island of Cyprus.
The island, in so far as its inhabitants are subject
to the authority and jurisdiction of a Governor and
other officials, appointed by the Secretary of State
for the Colonies, must be considered a dependency
of the British Crown. But it is not so in the sense
in which Trinidad or Newfoundland are dependen
cies. The Sultan of Turkey regards Cyprus as
properly a part of his empire, of which Great
Britain enjoys the use, by his consent and per
mission. Cyprus is really a Turkish province
under British administration, and a written agree
ment exists, between Great Britain and Turkey,
specifying the contingency in which the former
would evacuate the island. That contingency is
indeed extremely remote. But when Great Britain
is pledged, in the event of the restoration of Kars
and Batoum to Turkey by Russia, to evacuate
Cyprus, it is plain that Cyprus cannot be regarded

2 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
as a British possession in the full sense of the
phrase. Great Britain is not indeed bound to
wait for that contingency, if she wishes to part
with Cyprus. She is free to evacuate the island
at any moment. But when the British High
Commissioner goes, the Turkish Vali returns.
Great Britain was entirely at liberty to make over
the Ionian Islands to Greece. She is equally at
liberty to restore Gibraltar to Spain, or transfer
Malta to the Kingdom of Italy. But with regard
to Cyprus, she has no such freedom. Apart from
the remote contingency mentioned above, Cyprus
must either remain under British administration,
or be handed back to the direct and plenary
government of the Turk, unless other arrange
ments be made profoundly modifying the Cyprus
convention of June, 1878, and its supplement of
July in the same year. It is far from probable,
however, that the Turk would agree to such
modifications as would enable us to dispose of
Cyprus entirely according to our pleasure.
The occupation of Cyprus was a " nine days'
wonder" in 1878, but the event was soon for
gotten, and the darkness of secular oblivion
descended once more upon the island. Very few,
probably, of those who hear the story of the
conversion of Sergius Paulus, the " deputy of
Cyprus," by his namesake, " Paul the apostle,"
bethink them that the "deputy" now-a-days is
an Englishman.
The circumstances, however, of the British
occupation of Cyprus are decidedly interesting.
It will be worth while to recall and review them.

THE ' CYPRUS QUESTION ' 3
not only on account of their own inherent interest,
but for the light which they may serve to throw
upon a question which, so far at least as the
native Cypriote is concerned, is a serious one, the
question, " What is to be done with Cyprus ? " or,
to put it more exactly, " What is to be done in
the matter of the occupation of Cyprus ? Is it to
be ended, or mended, or left alone, undisturbed
and unaltered ? "
The " Cyprus question " — as it is called in the
native Greek press — is a minor department of
what is generally known as the Eastern Question,
though perhaps one ought rather to speak of
Eastern Questions. They are all closely related,
however, to one master-problem — the possession
of Constantinople.
The Eastern Question may be considered as
having its origin from the policy of Russian ex
pansion inaugurated by Peter the Great, and
continued by Catherine II. At the beginning of
the eighteenth century, Russia was a backward,
barbarous country. It had been thrown back by
Mongolian and Tartar invasion and oppression in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and had
made but little progress in the way of recovery.
The eighteenth century witnessed not only the
consolidation, but the enlargement of Russia —
and this enlargement took place very much at the
expense of Turkey. The survival of such place-
names as Yeni-Kale, Kadikoi, Baktchi-Serai, etc.,
in the Crimea, or on the Sea of Azov, bears out
the witness of history that the Ottoman Empire
at one time embraced the northern shores of the

4 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
Euxine. It was not till nearly the end of the
eighteenth century that Russia obtained possession
of the coasts, and proved her superiority in
military power and resources over Turkey.
Moreover, the position of affairs arrived at by
1 800 was anything but final. Russia was a grow
ing power. Turkey was declining, and there was
no hope of recovery or restoration for her. In
the Middle Ages piratical fleets from South
Russia had entered the Bosphorus, and given
battle — though with very ill success — to Byzantine
war-ships under the very walls of the city of
Constantine. When the nineteenth century began
the Russians were already within measurable dis
tance of achieving what their forefathers had
attempted. Those who claim to have knowledge
of the matter, declare that the possession of
" Tsarigrad," the City of the Great King, is by no
means the goal of Russian ambition, and indeed
a Russian emperor has expressly asserted that
Russian policy does not seek the capture of
Constantinople. If this be true, then indeed
truth may sometimes be stranger than fiction.
Russia has everything to gain by securing the
complete, unimpeded, and direct command of
Constantinople, and with it the passage between
the Euxine and the iEgean. It would indeed be
surprising if Russian emperors and statesmen
were in truth absolutely indifferent, absolutely
nonchalant, in this matter.
Two at least of the great Powers of Europe
could not regard the question of the future of
Constantinople and the Turkish Empire with

DISTRUST OF RUSSIA

indifference. These Powers were, and still are,
Austria and Great Britain. A glance at the
map of Europe will serve to show the difference
that the extension of Russian dominion over the
Balkan Peninsula would make to Austria. To
Great Britain the capture of Constantinople by
the Muscovite meant danger to communications
with India, even before the construction of the
Suez Canal. The danger of Russian advance and
aggression upon the western frontier of India was
sufficient, without the added peril of an encum
bered, or even completely severed line of com
munication. Russia was strongly suspected of complicity in
the disturbances which broke out in Afghanistan
in 1839, and led to the calamitous events of 1841
— the murder of the British resident at Cabul and
the debdcle in the Khyber Pass. Distrust and
suspicion of Russian designs upon India had
much, one might say everything, to do with
Britain's acceptance of the French Emperor's
invitation to join in hostilities against Russia in
1854. And once more, in 1878, this traditional
distrust prevailed over the horror excited by the
Bulgarian atrocities, so that the nation, as a whole,
warmly applauded the measures taken by the
Beaconsfield Government for the deliverance of
the " unspeakable Turk " from the deadly embrace
of the Russian Bear.
The Russo-Turkish war of 187 7- 1878 was
generally regarded in England as a fight between
the Muscovite and the Osmanli for the possession
of Constantinople. There were those in England,

6 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
Mr. Gladstone, for example, who would gladly
have seen the Turk turned out of Europe, " bag
and baggage," and out of most of Asia Minor as
well. But the majority of the nation, led by
Lord Beaconsfield — no difficult leading was it,
indeed, in this matter — desired the protection, not
the expulsion, of the Turk. His methods, or
non-methods, of government might be " unspeak
ably " bad, but so long as he remained in possession
of Constantinople he was " unspeakably " useful
and serviceable as a barrier to Russian exten
sion southward. Great Britain's interests in the
Mediterranean and India, in the Nearer and
Further East, demanded that the Turk, and his
bag, and his baggage, and all that was his, should
not be turned out of Europe — nor, indeed, for the
matter of that, out of Asia Minor.
At the beginning of 1878, however, the prospect
was alarming. The fall of Plevna, in December,
1877, after a most heroic resistance, had left the
Russians free to essay the passage of the Balkans,
if they were ready to do so in the depth of winter.
They were ready, and not many days of the new
year, 1878, had passed by when the Shipka Pass
was forced, and the road across Eastern Roumelia
lay open. Very soon the Russians had occupied
Adrianople, and an armistice was declared. But
it is less than two hundred miles from Adrianople
to the city of Constantine — a small matter to
troops which had marched from the Dniester to
the Maritza. The temptation was too strong,
and in spite of the armistice, the Russians con
tinued their advance (February, 1878).

SAN STEFANO

The news of the Russian advance set England
in a ferment. The government seems to have
taken it for granted that the Russians all along
intended a dash upon the Turkish capital, for a
squadron of British men-of-war was lying at
anchor in Besika Bay, just outside the Mediter
ranean entrance of the Dardanelles.1 This squad
ron was ordered to steam up the Dardanelles and
the Sea of Marmora, and cast anchor off Con
stantinople, to protect the city in case the Russians
should attempt to effect an entrance.
The Russians advanced as far as San Stefano, a
place on the coast of the Marmora, only a few
miles outside the ruined land-walls of Constanti
nople, while the British warships took up their
station by the Prince's Islands, under the Asiatic
shore, and thus the two greatest of the great
powers of Europe confronted each other. The
Russians, however, were not disposed to push
matters to extremities. An agreement was come
to by which the Russians were bound not to
advance beyond San Stefano, and the British not
to land any armed force.
Almost under the very walls of Constantinople,
Russia opened peace negotiations with the Porte,
and a treaty was drawn up and signed at San
Stefano, by which Russia would have secured
almost complete independence for the Christians
in the Turkish Empire, independence, that is, in

1 Just off Besika Bay lies the island of Tenedos — statio malefida carinis I
Close by, to the south, is Troas, and to the north is the site of Sigeum, the
refuge of the Pisistratidae. North-east, at a distance of about six miles, is
the River Scamander and the site of Troy.

8 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
relation to the Sultan, and would have set up a
greatly extended Bulgarian state, with a seaport
on the .ZEgean. But these provisions were
vehemently called in question by the British
Government, and not without reason, for they
completely subverted the arrangements made by
the Treaty of Paris in 1856 after the Crimean
War, especially in regard to the Sultan's relations
to his Christian subjects.1
The San Stefano treaty was not executed. In
view of the Treaty of Paris, Russia had taken up
an untenable position. The western powers could
not be expected to let her dictate peace to Turkey
on her own terms. Finally, through the media
tion of Prince Bismarck, a congress of representa
tives of the great powers (Britain, France, Germany,
Austria, Russia, Italy), was announced to be held
in Berlin. June 13th was appointed as the day
on which the congress was to open its proceedings.
Russia agreed to submit the whole contents of the
San Stefano treaty to the direction of the congress.
The congress met, discussed the treaty, made
considerable modifications in it, and broke up on
July 13th. Great Britain was represented by Lord
Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury. The results of
the Berlin proceedings were far from leaving Russia
discontented. Russia, indeed, appears to have
obtained not only all that she could have expected,
but all that she did, as a matter of fact, expect and
desire. Kars, Batoum, and Ardahan were added
1 For the provisions of this Paris Treaty, see Justin McCarthy's " History
of Our Own Times," chapter xxviii. It was signed by representatives of
Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Russia, and Turkey.

GAINS OF RUSSIA 9
to her possessions south of the Caucasus, and she
recovered the Bessarabian territory taken from her
in 1856, the Roumanian Government being per
suaded, not to say coerced, into exchanging it for
the Dobrudscha. It was a Diomedean bargain —
yjpvata yaXiaiuiv, tKaTO/xfloi £W£aj3oiojv
Bulgaria became a principality under the suze
rainty of the Sultan, but within its own borders
autonomous. Bosnia and Herzegovina were
handed over to Austria. The area of the Sultan's
full jurisdiction and authority in Europe was
reduced by at least one half, if not more.
Russia had begun by refusing to submit the
San Stefano treaty to Prince Bismarck's proposed
congress. Afterwards she consented. Why ?
Did she fear that a coalition of the western powers
would be formed against her? The experiences
of 1 854-1 855 can hardly have inspired Russia
with much respect for, still less fear of, coalitions.
The real reason why the Russian Government
gave way was that secret negotiations had been
carried on with Lord Beaconsfield and Lord
Salisbury, the result being an agreement, by which
the British representatives bound themselves
beforehand to let Russia obtain everything that
she specially wanted. Russia did not specially
want an enlarged Bulgaria extending to the
.ZEgean. But she did want Bessarabia, Kars, and
Batoum, and she got them. So far then as the
British and Russian envoys to the congress were
concerned, the Berlin treaty was practically a chose
jugie before the first line of it had been written.

IO GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
While these secret negotiations were in process,
Lord Beaconsfield made bellicose demonstrations,
for the edification of the world in general and the
British public in particular. Indian troops were
summoned to Malta. The reserves were called
out. A special vote of credit for six millions
was obtained from Parliament. This warlike de
meanour scandalized Lord Derby, the Foreign
Secretary, who resigned, and was succeeded by
Lord Salisbury.
The discovery of the secret negotiations was
perhaps accidental. But whether made by accident
or by treachery, it could not be denied without
complete disregard of veracity on the part of the
Foreign Office. Yet it does not appear to have
greatly damaged Lord Beaconsfield's cause, for
the moment, at any rate. The Berlin Congress at
least preserved the Turk in possession of Con
stantinople. Russian ships of war might present
themselves at either gate of the sea-pass between
the iEgean and the Euxine, but they were, like
all the rest, forbidden to enter. Moreover, it was
announced that so far as Great Britain was con
cerned, something substantial, over and above
these negative advantages, had been secured.
The negotiations with Russia had not been the
only secret business transacted through the Foreign
Office before the assembling ofthe Berlin Congress.
On June 4th, 1878, nine days before the congress
met, a convention was signed at Constantinople
by Sir A. H. Layard and Safed Pasha, representa
tives plenipotentiary of Great Britain and Turkey,
the effect of which was to pledge the former

REASONS FOR THE CESSION I I
power to a defensive alliance with the latter
against Russia, in consideration of an express
promise on the Sultan's part to introduce necessary
reforms into the administration of his empire,
especially so far as concerned his Christian sub
jects ; the island of Cyprus, which had been a part
of the Turkish dominions since 1571, being ceded,
or rather lent, to Great Britain " in order to enable
her to make necessary provision for executing her
engagement," the engagement being to give armed
assistance to the Sultan in case of any attempt
which Russia should venture upon in future to
enlarge her possessions further at the expense of
the Turkish empire.
By the wording of Article 1 of the Convention,
the agreement would not have taken effect if
Russia had restored Kars, Batoum, and Ardahan
to Turkey. At the time when the convention
was drawn up, Russia was in possession of those
places. There was not the least likelihood of her
being persuaded to evacuate them. Of this the
correspondence simultaneously in progress between
the Foreign Offices in London and St. Petersburg
would leave no room for doubt. Lord Beacons
field, therefore, determined to obtain something
for Great Britain as a set-off to the Russian ac
quisitions in the north-eastern regions of Asia
Minor.

II.
The set-off to the enlargement of the Czar's
dominions in Asia Minor in 1878 was the

12 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
right conceded to Great Britain to occupy and
administer Cyprus. This achievement of British
diplomacy met in some quarters with outspoken
censure. Mr. Archibald Forbes, the celebrated
correspondent of the Daily News, could discern
no sort of wisdom in the occupation of an " un
healthy island in a dead corner of the Mediter
ranean." Cyprus does not deserve the stigma of
a name for unhealthiness, but the condition of
commerce in that region of the Levant is certainly
somnolent, if not moribund. From the com
mercial point of view there was but little to be
said for the occupation. But the case for the
occupation rested, and must always rest, upon
other than commercial considerations. Cyprus
was selected on account of the value attributed to
it as a strategical point. A strong naval power,
holding Cyprus as a properly equipped base, can
dominate the Eastern Mediterranean fromTasnarus
to Tyre, from Tripoli to Thessalonica. The
island lies on the flank of the steamship routes
which converge upon Port Said and the entrance
of the Suez canal. It commands the maritime
lines of communication between Constantinople
and Syria quite as effectually as Rhodes or Crete,
while the point which lies nearest the mainland is
just the very last one at which an invader could
hope to effect a successful landing.
The Russians, by taking possession of Kars and
a considerable extent of Armenia, had made a
notable step forward in their gradual advance
southward from the Caucasus towards the Gulf of
Alexandretta (Issus). It appeared that they were

THE PORTCULLIS OF THE ROUTE TO INDIA I 3
seeking direct access to the Mediterranean by this
route, as well as by Constantinople and the Dar
danelles. In possession of Alexandretta, a power
hostile to Britain would be as inconvenient and
dangerous as in Constantinople, unless a good
naval base could be secured for Britain in the near
neighbourhood. So far as geographical situation
was required, then, Cyprus offered all that was
required. By establishing a naval station there,
Britain could effect a vast diminution in the value
of Alexandretta for any possible adversary.
There was another consideration besides. For
a considerable time past the possibility of opening
a new route to India, by the construction of a
railway running from a port on the Eastern
Mediterranean down the Euphrates valley, and so
to the head of the Persian Gulf, had been discussed
more than once. It was obviously most advisable
for the British Government to obtain the largest
possible measure of control over the proposed new
route to the Far East. For this purpose it would
not be necessary to get " that blessed word Meso
potamia " inscribed on the roll of the dependencies
of the British Crown. The possession of a point
at which, so to speak, a portcullis might be
dropped upon the road at any moment would be
quite enough. Cyprus, again, was the very point
required. This was the real justification of the Cyprus
Treaty. The reason mentioned in the treaty
itself, viz., the protection of Turkey against further
aggression on the part of Russia, was nothing
more than a pretext, and a very thin one at that.

14 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
Five thousand battleships in the Gulf of Alex
andretta could not prevent a single Cossack from
riding across the frontier between Russian and
Turkish Armenia. The Muscovite might come
right down to the Taurus range without drawing
their fire. Nor could the British occupation of
Cyprus make any difference to the interior govern
ment of Asia Minor. A fleet cruising along the
Cilician coast might deter the Moslems from
butchering the Christians in the maritime towns,
but it would be powerless to save a single
Christian throat in places like Konieh (Iconium)
or Sivas.
The only reason, the only justification, of the
measures taken by the Beaconsfield Government
with regard to Cyprus, lies in the considerations
propounded above, and these were relative to
British interests alone.
But in order to make Cyprus such a naval
base as the conditions of modern warfare demand,
a great deal more was needed over and above the
mere hoisting of the Union Jack upon the
" Konak " in Larnaca. A complete harbour with
docks, store buildings, etc., protected by fortifica
tions and equipped with the newest plant and appli
ances, had to be constructed. In 1878 there were
no harbours in Cyprus of which modern shipping
could make any use — nothing but roadsteads.
The old harbours of Famagusta and Paphos were
choked and silted up, and even had they been in
such service-condition as was theirs in their best
days, their accommodation would still have been
utterly inadequate.

THE OCCUPATION 1 5
Such harbour-works and fortifications as were
needed, in order to make Cyprus really serviceable
for the purpose with which it was taken over
from Turkey, could not be constructed without a
heavy outlay. But the benefits expected to accrue,
and the dangers to be averted, might be con
sidered an ample compensation.
As we have already noticed, Great Britain came
into Cyprus as a tenant, not as owner. The rent
of the " estate " was about £92,000 per annum.
But Great Britain might lose much more than
this by neglecting to secure the command of the
Euphrates valley route, and leaving Cyprus to be
occupied, some day or other, by an unfriendly
power. The occupation took place, with a proper
degree of pomp and circumstance, in July, 1878.
A considerable body of troops was disembarked
at Larnaca, and encamped on the outskirts of the
town. Climatic conditions, it is said, were largely
ignored in the arrangements made for camping
the troops. It has also been alleged that Private
Thomas Atkins violated his allegiance to the
national brew by compelling it to share the
honours of his interior with the " vin du pays."
This defection brought on its appropriate chas
tisement : —
L,v6oq yap o'lvui avyytaq ravrw kvtu,
SiyoGTarovvT av ov <j>i\o)g Trpoatvveiroic..
(cat tojv wiovtojv Kai Kparovp-cviov irovoie;
(jtOoyyag aKovuv 'iari av/LKJJOpae. cWAJJe.
" Malarial fever " scourged the camp before

1 6 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
Larnaca. The malady is not dangerous, but it
prostrates all the energies of mind and body for
the time being. The number of sick cases re
corded in the camp while it remained at Larnaca
was so large that Cyprus got a bad name as being
" fever-stricken," unhealthy, a sort of Hong-
Kong. The troops would have suffered much
less from the summer heat had they been moved
up at once to the drier atmosphere of Nicosia, the
capital, which lies almost in the middle of the
island, and about 400 feet above the sea. They
would have suffered not at all had they been sent
to Mount Troodos. But the Troodos camping
site had not been discovered, and in any case the
time that elapsed between the signing of the treaty
and the occupation was too short to allow a site
to be prepared up there in the forest.
After all that has been said with regard to the
strategical importance of Cyprus, or rather its
strategical possibilities, it will not be out of place
to give some account of the steps which have been
taken to realize these possibilities.
In 1878 there were no serviceable harbours in
Cyprus. It was not till five years ago that the
work of rendering the old harbour of Famagusta
available for modern shipping was taken in hand.
The coasts of the island are entirely defenceless.
The only pieces of artillery to be found there are
five or six old smooth-bore guns, cast at Woolwich
in the time of George IV. These curiosities are
mounted on the northern face of the old fortifica
tions erected round Nicosia by the Venetians in
1567. Very possibly they had their part in the

THE GARRISON 1 7
destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino.
Now they give notice of sunset and sunrise in the
month of Ramadan, or signalize such anniversaries
as the Sultan's accession day. Time brings its
revenges. The military garrison of Cyprus consists of one
company from a line regiment, with a few army
ordnance and army service corps details, say a
hundred, all told, officers and men together.
This imposing force is stationed during the winter
at Polymidia, near Limassol, in the summer on
Mount Troodos.
Such has been the military force (leaving the
native police out of account) by whose presence
the civilian government has been supported since
1894. Before that time the garrison consisted of
a complete battalion.
Cyprus as a great naval station, a second Malta,
still remains within the bounds ofthe possible, but
has not yet, after an occupation of nearly thirty
years, been brought within the sphere of the actual.
Meanwhile, the rent has been paid regularly year
after year. Not, indeed, altogether to the benefit
ofthe Imperial Treasury in Constantinople. Since
1 8 8 1 the money has been utilized as a contribution
towards the payment of interest on various debts
contracted by the Turkish Government.1 But who
is expected to find the £92,000 or so per annum
which goes into the pockets of Turkey's creditors ?
The Cypriote.
You have a farm on a lease, paying x + y per
"'Statesman's Year Book," 1906, p. 1464.

10 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
annum, calculated in paper money, depreciated to
the extent of 50 per cent. 1 make an arrangement
with your landlord by which the lease is transferred
to me, and I covenant to pay x + y reckoned in
hard gold, fat British sovereigns. I put in an
agent who collects the money from you every
year, and over and above that makes you pay his
salary. The agent is perfectly honest, but he is
as hard as nails ; he has to be, whether he likes it
not. He has to exact the uttermost farthing.
That is what he is sent to do. You send com
plaints and protests. You get words smoother
than butter, and very little besides.
Such, in a parable, is the position of affairs in
Cyprus from the Cypriote point of view. It is a
point of view which ought not to be ignored, for
the Cypriote certainly knows " where the shoe
pinches." We made it, but he has to wear it.
Openly and publicly, as the representative of
the Sovereign, Sir Garnet Wolseley, the first High
Commissioner of Cyprus, proclaimed on July 22nd,
1878, that the new administration would neglect
no measure " contributing to the moral and
material welfare of the people." Has this pledge
been kept?
Since 1878 Cyprus has certainly been governed,
as Sir Garnet Wolseley promised, "without dis
tinction of race or religion." Justice has been
" equally administered to all." Everyone has
equally enjoyed "the equitable and impartial pro
tection ofthe law."1
1 Proclamation of Sir Garnet Wolseley, first High Commissioner, July,
1878.

POPULATION 19
The road system has been greatly improved
and extended. A department of education has
been, since 1880, attached to the administration.
Much has been done to assist and encourage
improvements in the management of the native
schools, both Christian and Moslem, and the
number of these schools has been largely increased.
The forests have been saved from destruction.
Efforts have been made to encourage the introduc
tion of new and improved methods and appliances
in agriculture. Old-established rights and customs
have been respected, and, as far as possible, left
untouched.1 The population of Cyprus in 1881 was about
185,000. In 1 90 1 it had risen to 237,000. This
increase was not due to immigration. In 1882
an Order of the Queen in Council granted the
Cypriotes a considerable measure of constitutional
government. A Legislative Council was estab
lished, consisting of twelve native elected members
(nine Christian and three Moslem), associated
with the High Commissioner (as President), the
Chief Secretary, and four or five other leading
officials. The native elected members always
form a majority of the Legislative Council.2
Cypriotes — both Moslem and Christian — are
appointed to act as assessors to the District Judges,
and as judges in the village courts, which are
empowered to deal with petty offences.
1 The most ancient existing institution in the island, viz., the Greek
language, is still the language "par excellence " of Cyprus.
2 The debates are conducted, and all official documents are printed, in
three languages— Greek, Turkish, English.

20 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
They are not eligible for appointment as heads
of departments, but they obtain all sorts of sub
ordinate positions, some of which are important
and responsible.
On the whole there has been among the native
population of Cyprus a distinct advance in the
standard of living and comfort since the island
passed under the British regime.
Yet the Cypriote is dissatisfied. He maintains
that, in spite of apparent improvements, the
economic condition of Cyprus has gone steadily
from bad to worse since 1878, owing to the
crushing fiscal burdens which it has had to bear.
Let us call Mr. George Chacalli, a native
Cypriote, to give evidence. Mr. Chacalli, person
ally, has no reason to be greatly dissatisfied with
the British administration. He himself has pros
pered under it fairly well. He would hardly
pretend, a fit) Oemv Sia^vAarrojv, that he would have
done so well had the Turks continued to govern.
" The source of all our miseries," says Mr.
Chacalli,1 " is the annual tribute paid to Turkey.2
Under the convention of 1 878 England undertook
to pay to the Porte the excess of revenue over
expenditure, calculated and determined by the
average of the last five years preceding the English
occupation (i.e., 1 873-1 877). "England, in her
hurry to secure the occupation of Cyprus, did not
pay proper attention to this question (of the
1 "Cyprus under British Rule," p. 43 (Nicosia, 1902).
2 i.e., nominally to Turkey, but really retained for payment of interest on
certain loans contracted by Turkey.

THE TRIBUTE 21
average surplus of revenue over expenditure), and
the amount now paid as tribute is far in excess
of the real surplus of revenue over expendi
ture during the above-mentioned period of five
years." "The annual charges payable (nominally) to
Turkey are £87,686, with 4,166,220 okes1 of salt
in kind; £113 us. 3d. in respect of certain
light-dues, and £5,000 for the produce of certain
Crown lands; making £92,799 us. 3d. payable
in money, besides the salt in kind."
These dues and payments were arranged for in
the Annexes or Supplements to the Cyprus Treaty,
signed July ist, 1878, and February 3rd, 1879,
respectively ; the latter agreement being a com
mutation of the " property, revenues and rights "
possessed and enjoyed by the Porte in the " Arazi-
mirye," or Crown Lands in Cyprus, for an annual
payment of £5,000.
Mr. Chacalli makes two contentions, viz :
1. The sum of £92,799 is much too heavy an
estimate of the surplus of revenue over expenditure
for the five years, 1 873-1 877.
2. Whatever the true estimate may be, Great
Britain, and not Cyprus, ought to discharge obliga
tions and liabilities incurred for imperial purposes,
with which the Cypriotes have no concern.
It must be remembered that the Cypriotes are
not reckoned as British subjects. As soon as they
1 The oke (oicagj = 2'8 pounds. This salt is made at Larnaca, hence
the Turkish name of the place "Tuzla'' (from tuz = salt), and the
mediasval name Salines (Salina — salt-pans). Cf. "Joppa Pans" and
"Preston Pans" in Scotland.

22 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
leave the island they relapse to their old status of
Ottoman subjects, "of all men the most miserable."
They cannot claim the protection and assistance of
British Embassies and Consulates.
In support of his two-fold contention, Mr.
Chacalli cites the Times'1 comment upon his own
article. "We occupy Cyprus," said that journal,
" for our own purposes, and so long as the pur
poses are held to be adequate, we ought to be
prepared to bear our fair share of the burden."
It was soon discovered that the resources of
Cyprus were not sufficient to provide a revenue
equal to the payment of £92,799 per annum over
and above the expenses of administration, z'.£., salaries
of officials, public works, and so forth. When these
expenses had been met, the surplus was a good deal
less than the sum required for the " Tribute." To
make up the shortage, the Imperial Government
had to supply " grants-in-aid." This brought no
real benefit to Cyprus. "At present," said the
Times (September, 1888), "all the proceeds of
economical administration and good finance are
applied to the reduction of the grant-in-aid, and
thus benefit only the British Exchequer. In such
circumstances, though we may keep the peace of
the island and administer impartial justice to its
inhabitants, we cannot restore it to its ancient
prosperity and fertility."
In 1889 a Cypriote deputation, headed by the
Archbishop of Cyprus, came to England to plead
in person for some remission ofthe fiscal burdens
imposed upon the island and its population. The
deputies laid before the Imperial Government a

TURKISH TAXATION 23
memorial setting forth grievances and suggesting
remedies. " It is reckoned," says the memorial,1 " that each
individual (Cypriote tax- payer) pays a yearly tax
about equal to one-fifth of his income. Taxation,
we admit, was heavy and oppressive under the
former Government. It has been increased much
more under the present Government, which, in
the course of five years, 1 882-1 886, collected the
sum of£9i4,835 — that is, on an average, £18 2, 96 7
per annum. In the course of the five years, 1 873-
1877, immediately preceding the British occupa
tion, the Turkish Government collected the sum
of 83,950,051 piastres, equal to £736,405,* that is
an average yearly sum of £147,281. Even this is
greater than the real amount, for arrears definitely
remitted have to be deducted, and allowance has
to be made for the difference between Kaime (paper
money) and cash payments in the years 1876 and
1877." The difference was indeed enormous, if it
be true, as the memorial asserts, that 100 piastres
Kaime were equivalent to no more than 50 piastres
in cash.
Increase of taxation had not been accompanied
by increase in production. The Turkish authori
ties had received a revenue of £301,000 in tithes.
The British had not been able to collect more than
a net return of £256,000 " in spite ofthe fact that
the produce is often over-assessed." To make
1 The text of this document is reproduced in Mr. Chacalli's " Cyprus
under British Rule," pp. 46-53.
2 Reckoning about 1 14 piastres to the pound sterling. The full rate in
Constantinople in 1899 was 120 piastres to the £.

24 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
matters worse, at the time when the deputation
came to London, the imposition of extra duties
in certain markets had operated very injuriously
against the exportation of some of the staple pro
ducts of Cyprus.
" By the taxation that is now paid," the memorial
went on to state, "the English Government collects
a much greater sum than is required for the ad
ministration ofthe country, and yet it is necessary
to ask Parliament every year for a grant-in-aid."
The grant-in-aid benefits, not the Cypriote tax
payer, but the holders of certain Turkish bonds.
Cyprus is forced to contribute towards the pay
ment of interest on loans contracted by the Porte
between 1858 and 1881, and the grant-in-aid
simply goes to make up the difference, when
Cyprus cannot pay — as is almost invariably the
case — the full amount of the annual contribution
imposed upon her.
The reforms and improvements for which the
deputies petitioned were as follows :
1 . The conversion of the annual " Tribute "
into payment of a lump sum obtained by a loan
contracted in the name of the island, and guaran
teed by the Imperial Government. Cyprus would
then find the interest and sinking fund. But this
would entail payments not exceeding £50,000 per
annum, only a little over half the amount of the
" Tribute." 2. That the Sovereign alone should have power
to veto resolutions or decisions of the Legislative
Council; that no duties should be established
without the consent of the Council ; and that the

REMEDIES 25
elected members should be empowered to introduce
bills modifying taxation.
3. That two native members should be added
to the personnel of the Executive Council, which
consisted only of British officials.
4. That assistance should be given for the pro
motion of secondary education in Cyprus.
5. The organization of a Department of Agri
culture as a branch of the Cyprus Civil Service.
6. The establishment of an Agricultural Credit
Bank as a means of rescuing the peasantry from
the toils of private money-lenders.
7. The removal of the restrictions laid upon
tobacco-planting. 8. An act defining the relations of the Island
Government and the orthodox Church of Cyprus.

III.
It goes without saying, that the Cypriote deputies
were courteously received by " the powers that
be." Their venerable leader, the Archbishop, came
in for special attentions, in his ecclesiastical charac
ter, — these special attentions being rendered by the
authorities ofthe Church of England. The Bishop
of Salisbury (Dr. John Wordsworth) took particular
charge ofthe Cyprian prelate, and it is through him
that Archbishop Sophronios was enrolled among
the Doctors of Divinity in the University of Oxford,
the degree being conferred " honoris causd " at the
Encania of 1889. But though all due courtesy

2 6 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
was shown to the members of the deputation, they
had, in the end, to return to their country " re
infecta." The justice of their protests and represen
tations was not denied — indeed, it found open and
public recognition in the London press. " In plain
language " said one journal " the Cypriotes are
sacrificed, in order that the interest on the Turkish
loan may be met. This may be a very pleasant
arrangement for England, but it is very unfair to
Cyprus. The island has an immense future before
it, if only it were allowed fair play, and by fair play
we mean the power to spend on the island the
revenue raised in the island." On some points,
naturally enough, the representations made in the
"Memorial" of 1889 were controverted by the
then High Commissioner of Cyprus, Sir H.Bulwer.
But even he admitted, as the Times of August 2 ist,
1889, pointed out, that considering local conditions
and circumstances, such as the insufficiency of
capital, the scarcity of money, and the uncertainty of
the seasons (in other words, ofthe rains) the amount
of revenue raised in Cyprus was large in proportion
to its resources. He could not have said less,
without showing high disregard for the facts of the
case. The amount was, and is, not merely large
in proportion, but altogether disproportionate.
It was something, no doubt, to have obtained
such recognition of the justice of the Cypriote
taxpayer's cause. But the satisfaction was, at best,
very scant. No further result was forthcoming.
The high hopes, which had been entertained, of
certain and speedy relief, were doomed to complete
disappointment. " No steps to relieve us of the

THE SLUMBER OF BAAL 27
payment of the Tribute," writes Mr. Chacalli (op.
cit. p. c^), " no measures to alleviate the burdens
of the people, no public works to develop the
resources of the country. Even the Military
Exemption Tax1 and the Trade Tax, the abolition
of which was recommended by Sir Robert Biddulph
in his despatch of June 7 th, 1 880, are still collected
with the greatest severity by the Government."
Mr. Chacalli goes indeed, rather too far in saying
that there has been no undertaking of public works
for the development of Cyprus. As a matter of
fact, there has been, especially under the last two
Governors (Sir W. J. Sendall and Sir W. Haynes
Smith) an expenditure of money, by no means in
significant, upon the construction and improvement
of roads and bridges in the island. The internal
communications are vastly better than they were
in 1878. Furthermore, the construction of reser
voirs, for purposes of irrigation, was begun in 1898
at two places in the Mesoria, between Nicosia and
the Bay of Famagusta. At the same time, not
nearly enough has been done to meet and satisfy
the needs and requirements of the country and its
population. Five years passed away, after the protest of
1889, bringing no alleviation of fiscal burdens.
It was time once more to call upon Baal, who
apparently was asleep, and needed wakening. So
the Hellenes of Cyprus assembled in their cities,

'The Cypriotes, being Ottoman subjects, though not under direct Ottoman
Government, are treated as liable to render military service, or pay an ex
emption impost. But it is not the Ottoman treasury that profits by the
collection of this tax.

2 8 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
and resolutions (i/^/oyiara) were recorded, of which
the following, voted in the convention held at
Nicosia, on April 28th, 1895, is a type.
"The Greek inhabitants of the District of
Nicosia and Kyrenia, beholding with terror the
impending ruin of their country, have assembled
and do resolve :
1. That provision ought to be made immedi
ately, to relieve them from heavy taxation leading
to certain ruin.
2. That they protest against any further pay
ment of the tribute unjustly imposed upon them.
3. That in the event of any political changes,
they declare again, as they have done a thousand
times already, that they have one desire only, for
the fulfilment of which they have waited for ages
— namely, union with Greece, and they are firmly
resolved to resist any other procedure, in case of
the abandonment of the island by England.
4. That a committee be appointed, consisting of
His Beatitude, Sophronios, Archbishop of Cyprus;
The Very Reverend Gerasimos, Abbot of Kykkos;
Messrs. Pascal Constantinides, Achilleus Liassides,
Georgios Chacalli, and others ; to communicate
with the committees appointed in the districts and
draw up and submit to Her Majesty's Govern
ment a memorial in accordance with this resolu
tion, and to agitate for the satisfaction ofthe popular
desire." Alas for the departed glories of the Hellenic
race ! Such a convention is called, not £/c/cX?jo-ta,
not a\la, but o-vWaXiirripiov ! Why is so ill-
omened a name tolerated ? It brands the thing as

A RESOLUTION 29
ineffectual ; probably, indeed, contributes to make
it so in the end. "EvWaXyTripiov — a concourse for
talking, for immersion in waves of stormy sound.
There is a spasm of passion and excitement — a
\fjri<j>io-p.a — an interview, — a report sent to Downing
Street, — and then the end, in the pigeon-holes of
the Colonial Office.
I have transcribed this iprt^iap.a or resolution at
length, as it is a very good example of its class,
and clearly expresses, in sum and substance, the
hopes and persuasions of the leaders and represen
tatives ofthe Greek Christian population of Cyprus.
To what extent the Moslems of Cyprus took part
in the agitation of 1895 I do not know. It is
most improbable, however, that they had anything
to do with it, in view of the expressions of desire
for annexation to Greece. So far as the lightening
of fiscal burdens was concerned the Moslems could
easily make common cause with their Christian
brethren, but for annexation to the Kingdom
of Greece they could have no desire. In their
opinion — which is supported by the terms of the
Cyprus Treaty of 1878 — the British, if they
abandon Cyprus, must restore the island to its
former status of a province ofthe Ottoman Empire
under direct Ottoman authority and administration.
The second Cyprus memorial was drawn up by
the delegates of the Greek Christian population
assembled at the monastery of Kykkos, their labours
being brought to a close on July 26th, 1895.
This document, the text of which is reproduced
by Mr. Chacalli in his book (pp. 57-73), opened
with a prologue, setting forth the aspiration of the

30 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
Cyprian Greeks to union with the Kingdom of
Greece. In their view, the British occupation was
only a stage in the process of events leading to the
fulfilment ofthe idea of" Reunion with our mother
Hellas." This desire had been notified to the
British authorities from the very first days of the
occupation, and they looked for their long-prayed-
for liberation to the generosity ofthe British people
and its sense of right. Only on the understanding
that Cyprus was ultimately to be reunited with the
free and independent State of Greece had the
Christians of Cyprus ever acquiesced in the occupa
tion of their country by Great Britain.
Such was the drift, though not the exact word
ing of the prologue. It is worth while staying for
a moment to consider it, in order to realise, as fully
as we can, the Greek-Cypriote point of view —
which is the view taken by four-fifths at least of
the population. What is the meaning of all this
talk about freedom and union with Greece ? Are
we to understand that, however lighdy the Cypriotes
were taxed, however lavish the expenditure on public
works on the island might be, the Greek majority
in the population would still refuse to acquiesce in
the British occupation as anything more than a
temporary arrangement ?
" Yes." So their leaders tell us. " You Britons
occupied Cyprus for your own purposes and
interests only. We never invited you to come.
We could not, of course, prevent your coming.
You had, and you have still, the right of the
stronger party. But the right, such as it is, which
superior force confers, cannot extinguish our right

NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS 3 I
to form and nourish our own hopes and aspirations
— hopes and aspirations springing from facts of
racial and religious affinity which have been estab
lished for centuries. You have no right to crush
those hopes and aspirations. You may despise
them. You may turn a deaf ear to our petitions.
But the fact that you can do so in safety does not
justify you. If you wish to do us full justice, do
by us as you did by the inhabitants of the Ionian
Islands in 1864. But, if you refuse to recognise
our claim to union with Greece, at least refrain
from loading us with unjust fiscal burdens. By
what right do you saddle us with the expenses and
losses entailed by negotiations in which we had no
voice, in which we were not considered, and which
were intended to serve your interests and schemes,
and yours alone ? You find that you allowed the
Turks to deceive and hoodwink you as to the real
position of the Cyprus finances. But what right
have you to make us suffer for your diplomatic
blunders ? Is it thus that you act upon the exhor
tation of your Apostle of Imperialism, ' Take up
the white man's burden ' ? Will you let us poor
'Dagoes' of Cypriotes bear your burden for you ?"
So far as " national aspirations " are concerned,
the Cypriote Greeks, of course, are free to form
and nourish them for themselves. But Great
Britain is not bound to encourage them. More
over, the popular mind is not infallible, and the
fact that the governed withhold their consent does
not, per se, prove the government to be in the
wrong. The governed may be unwise, ignorant,
petulant, mutinous. It is quite open, however,

32 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
for any one to argue — and much might be said on
this head — that the precedent of 1864 supplies
the true solution of the Cyprian Question. Yet
such pleading would be no more than an academic
exercise. The terms of the Treaty of 1878 pro
hibit any transfer of Cyprus to Greece, or to any
other power or state save the Ottoman Empire.
But these considerations make no difference in
the least degree to the Cypriote's petition and de
mand for the diminution of his fiscal liabilities.
It is not fair that he should have to pay the ex
penses entailed by arrangements made entirely
over his head.
The 1895 memorial embodied statements (in
figures) of revenue and expenditure, which proved,
beyond all dispute, the soundness of the conten
tion that the British fiscal administration was much
more exacting and oppressive than the Turkish,
and out of all reasonable proportion to the re
sources of the island. In the course of seventeen
financial years, ending in 1895, the Government of
the Occupation collected a total sum of £2,938,090,
or, on an average, £172,829 per annum.
Making allowance for two very important con
siderations, namely, (a) that over £36,000 was
raised in 1874 and 1875 by a temporary extra tax,
and {F) that by being allowed to pay in paper
money, the tax-payers profited to the amount of
over £96,000 in 1876 and 1877, it was ascertained
that the amount of revenue collected by the Turks
in the quinquennium 1873-7, when calculated in
terms of British money, was £568,769 — or, on an
average, £1 13,754 per annum.

" PROGRESS ! 33
From £113,000 per annum to £172,000 isa
formidable stride for the Cypriote. He was led
to expect of course that Cyprus would " make pro
gress " under the British rigime. But he did not
expect that " progress " would take this line.
On the British side it is argued that the increase
is warranted by greater prosperity as evinced by
increase in the customs and excise returns. But
to this reply there is a rejoinder. It is quite true
that these returns have increased by some £30,000
per annum, but then it must be remembered that
duties are imposed by the British authorities which
were not imposed by their predecessors. Further
more this sum of £30,000 includes the amount
raised by an additional tax, imposed since 1884,
upon wine, spirits, raisins, and tobacco. Besides,
the sums raised by the "Locust Tax" (nominally
for destruction of locusts — first imposed in 1881)
and the " Field- Watchman Tax " (first imposed in
1890) have to be added, as imposts unknown
before the British occupation, and when these are
reckoned in, the increase in the " receipt of cus
tom " is pretty well cancelled. The fact remains,
that in 1895 the Cypriote, without any exaggera
tion, could assert that his taxes had been increased
at the rate of fifty per cent.
And now for a statement of the resources of the
country. The value of the yearly produce of
Cyprus — cereals, fruit, wine, together with the
increase of the flock and the herd — was calculated
in 1895 as not exceeding £800,000. There are
no great industries. Nothing is manufactured for
export — unless wine and spirits be counted as

34 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
manufactures. The prosperity of the island and
its population is very largely, not to say entirely,
dependent upon the rainfall. If that should be in
sufficient, or unseasonable, great distress ensues.
Over against the sum of £2,938,090 collected
as revenue from 1878 to 1895, we have the sum
of £1,970,850 as expenditure for the same period,
yielding an average of £1 15,932 per annum. The
proportion of this sum which was expended upon
public works, public instruction (grants to schools),
and hospitals, was not very heavy. Between 1884
and 1895 it appears not to have exceeded £17,000
a year. The extreme points in the relation between
revenue and expenditure seem to have been touched
in 1 88 1-2 and 189 1-2. In the former year, the
revenue collected ran up to £163,733. The amount
of the expenditure was £157,673. In the latter
year, the government made what, I believe, is
still its record "scoop," £217,161.' It spent
£112,742. The reforms and improvements requested in
the Memorial of 1895 na-d already appeared in
1889, the main difference between the two memo
rials being that the latter went further into points
of detail. That such repetition was necessary is
a fact which does not altogether redound to the
credit of the British authorities. Introduction, by
the aid of the Government, allocating public
moneys for the purpose, of improved methods of
cultivation, under the superintendence of a Govern-

:The record was beaten in the financial year 1904-5, when the revenue
ran up to ^21 8,804.

35
ment Director of Agriculture ; construction of
irrigation-reservoirs and canals ; removal of the
restrictions imposed upon tobacco-planting ; in
creased grants-in-aid for the schools which the
Greeks had, not without efforts and sacrifices on
their own part, established in the villages and
towns ; reorganisation of the police ; all these
" wants " had been advertised in the petition of
1889, but their reaffirmation, six years later, shows
that the fact of their existence had not aroused
much attention or concern. Besides these, an in
crease in expenditure upon the work of afforestation
(which was, and is a most important matter for the
island) and provision for regular as well as expe
ditious communications with the outer world were
asked for, and improvements in the internal com
munications as well. There was also a demand
for the regular opening of the higher appointments
in the civil service to Cypriotes — such places, for
instance, as those of the presidents of the district
courts in Famagusta, Kyrenia, and Paphos, or the
local commandants of police.
" The British Government," says Mr. Chacalli
(p. 73), "again shut their ears to our complaints
and just demands." This, when the situation is
viewed from the standpoint of the present day, is
less than fair. The request for the appointment
of a Government Director of Agriculture, and the
organisation of a Department of Agriculture in the
civil service, was received favourably, and, in the
latter part of 1896, the new department began
work under the superintendence of Mr. Panag-
iotes Gennadios. The internal communications

36 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
have undergone a steady process of improvement
and extension. In 1899 the British Government
advanced £314,000 for various public works. A
railroad connecting Nicosia with Famagusta was
opened in 1905. Improvements have been made
in the harbour of Famagusta. The pecuniary
assistance afforded to the native schools of all
grades has been greatly increased, and, on the
whole, it is quite probable that the Cypriotes are
getting just as much education as is good for them.
Some appear to get more than enough — excitable
souls who are not inspired, but intoxicated, by the
waters of Castalia. Finally, as I have pointed out,
the construction of irrigation-works has been taken
in hand.
Over against these considerations, however,
stands the grim fact that the load of taxation is no
lighter. Britain has bound upon the backs of the
Cypriotes burdens grievous and heavy to bear, and
shows no readiness to do the one thing needful,
and that is, relieve the population of the island
from being chargeable for the " tribute." So long
as that root of bitterness remains untouched, the
economical condition of Cyprus will continue to
be a source of anxiety.
Again, and again, and again, have the repre
sentatives of the people assembled in the Legis
lative Council recorded their protest against the
"tribute" as a charge upon the revenues of the
island, and their demand for its abolition. Hardly
a session of the Legislative Council has passed,
since 1895 at least, and the terminus a quo might
well be fixed much further back, without a protest

CHAMPIONS OF THE CYPRIOTE CLAIM 37
against the " tribute," and the oppressive taxation
entailed thereby, making its appearance in a pro
minent place in the reply to the High Commis
sioner's inaugural address.
Nor have the Cypriotes been left to plead their
cause entirely alone. Its justice has been acknow
ledged in the columns of such journals as the
Times. The fiscal methods which the island govern
ment is obliged to pursue have been sharply criti
cized by Britons who have visited the locality, and
have used their eyes and ears with intelligence, and
their criticisms find powerful support in the pro
nouncements of a writer well-qualified to speak
with authority, Sir Hamilton Lang, who resided
in Cyprus, as local manager of the Ottoman Bank,
for a number of years before the occupation, and
has always been in a position to obtain reliable in
formation since he left Cyprus for Constantinople.
The reports coming in from the branches of the
Ottoman Bank in Larnaca and Nicosia, which
necessarily were laid before Sir Hamilton, would
by themselves provide significant disclosures of
the economic situation in Cyprus. And this is
one of Sir Hamilton's latest public expressions of
opinion : — " Production has not increased, the
value of land has diminished, and taxation is
heavier than it was under the Turkish Govern
ment." Of late years, indeed, the authorities at the
Colonial Office have had much bigger fish to fry
than the financial difficulties of Cyprus. For all
that, it is a pity that our savour should be made
to stink, though it be only in the nostrils of the

38 GREAT BRITAIN AND CYPRUS
Cypriotes, especially when the removal of half the
burden of the " tribute " would avail for the re
moval of more than half the reproach. Here is
where the beginning of financial reform and alle
viation ought to be made. The beginning, says
Aristotle, is half the whole matter — in this case it
would be a good three-quarters.

Note i . — The expenses of the Turkish admini
stration (salaries of the Vali and other officials) are
stated in Mr. Chacalli's book (p. 75) to have
amounted to no more than £30,000 a year. We
must make an indefinite allowance, however, for
the collection of certain or uncertain sums, never
recorded in government books, by means of which
underpaid or irregularly paid functionaries in
demnified themselves as far as they could. But
even on the supposition that for every cent sanc
tioned by authority, two were actually collected,
the total cost of the administration would not
have exceeded £60,000 a year. The British ad
ministration has never cost less than £100,000.
There would be more readiness to acknowledge
that the change was worth the difference, did
not the economic decline of the last twenty-
five years overshadow the advantages ensured
by the characteristic virtues of British adminis
trators. Note 2. — The Porte appears to have derived
a real surplus of revenue over expenditure from
Cyprus. But the true quotation of the surplus,
in terms of British money, was not £92,686, but
£66,216, a formidable difference.

A STATEMENT 39
Note 3. — Statement of revenue and expendi
ture in Cyprus, for the financial years (ending
March 31st) 1901-5: —

Revenue.

Expenditure

£

£

1 90 1

 215,268

135.387

1902

198,090

135,824

1903

160,112

139,714

1904

 215.360

140,284

1905

 218,884

1 54,406

THE LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
THE first, and most successful — or least dis
appointing — of the Crusades took effect in
the establishment of a Christian state in Palestine,
organized in accordance with the feudal institutions
of Western Europe. This feudal state, generally
known as the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, lasted
for eighty-eight years, viz. from a.d. 1099 to a.d.
1 187. Its existence at all times was precarious,
being maintained, and that with difficulty, by
almost incessant fighting. It was finally over
thrown by the far-famed Saladin, who in the year
1 1 87 defeated King Guy de Lusignan, and took
him prisoner, at a place called Kurn-Hattin, on the
hills overlooking Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee.
The battle was fought on July 1 st, and on October
2nd, in the same year, Jerusalem opened its gates
to receive the Mohammedan conqueror. Once
more the Holy City passed into captivity to the
Paynim. The news of this calamity threw Western
Christendom into the depths of grief, dismay, and
wrath. Henry II. of England and Philip Augustus
of France both assumed the Cross, and their ex
ample was followed by the Counts of Champagne
and Flanders, and a multitude of barons and
knights, who devoted themselves to the sacred cause
of the recovery of the Holy City and Land from
the unrighteous dominion of Islam. Henry IL,

42 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
by the imposition of a special tax, called the
Saladin Tithe, raised the sum of £70,000 — an
enormous amount for those days — for the expenses
of the new Crusade, and in addition to this sum
a contribution of £60,000 was wrung from the
Jews resident in England. But the King of
England died before he could take any further
measures for the fulfilment of his vow.
The Crown of England passed to Henry's eldest
surviving son Richard, who, having collected funds,
over and above the revenue of the Saladin Tithe,
by the sale of earldoms and feudal rights, and other
means less allowable, joined forces with his ally,
Philip of France, at Vezelai in the year 1 1 90. At
that time Richard and Philip were as good friends
as two men, whose characters and interests differed
so widely, could be. Richard had secured Philip's
support in the parricidal war which he waged
against his father Henry, by doing homage to
the French king, for all the possessions and
dependencies of the English Crown that lay
on the Continental side of the Channel. He
was also betrothed to Philip's sister, Adelais or
Alice. The plan of campaign which the two sovereigns
proposed to carry out in concert was to march
overland to Marseilles and Genoa, and thence
embark their hosts for the Holy Land. The
winter was to be spent in Sicily.
Philip and his army arrived at Messina in Sicily,
the appointed waiting-station, before Richard,
who, having to wait at Genoa for his fleet, which
came round by the Straits of Gibraltar, did not

JEALOUSIES AND QUARRELS 43
rejoin his comrade-in-arms till nearly the end of
September.1 During the winter of H90-i,the French and
Anglo-Norman crusaders, having no Moslems to
fight with, kept their hands in practice for the
approaching conflict by joining battle with each
other, or with the inhabitants of Sicily. The
jealousies and quarrels, personal and international,
that fermented in the camp, well-nigh brought the
expedition to an end before it had well started.
There is a Turkish proverb, rude but eminently
true, which says that " the fish begins to stink
from the head." If the lesser barons and knights,
with their esquires, men-at-arms, etc., quarrelled
and fought, there was little cause for wonder, in
view of the unpleasant relations which had taken
the place of the friendship formerly subsisting
between the Kings of England and France. Philip
took offence — and not without reason — at Richard's
overbearing demeanour, and, in order to secure
himself against the outbreak of an open conflict,
invited Tancred, the Norman King of Sicily, to
form a secret alliance with him against the King of
England. Tancred betrayed the correspondence
to Richard, who denounced Philip to his face as
a traitor. But censures ori the ground of bad
faith came with a very ill grace from Richard, who
had shamelessly repudiated his engagement with
the sister of Philip, having bestowed his affections
upon Berengaria, daughter of Sancho, King of
Navarre. "T. A. Archer, "The Crusade of King Richard," pp. 19 and 28.

44 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
The rupture of the betrothal of Richard to the
Princess Adelais was, in part at least, the work of
Richard's mother Eleanor, the Queen-dowager,
who arrived at Messina in the spring of 1191,
bringing Berengaria with her. When Queen
Eleanor arrived, Philip had already set sail for
St. Jean d'Acre. Richard refused to stir before
the arrival of his mother and his new fiancie.
Philip with equal firmness refused to wait — and,
indeed, it was hardly to be expected that he should
wait. Holy Week had set in before Richard sailed for
the Holy Land. The embarkation took place on
April 8th or 9th, Monday or Tuesday before
Easter.1 A large vessel was set apart for Beren
garia of Navarre and Joanna, widow of William
the Good, King of Sicily, and sister of Richard.
On Good Friday, April 12th, a stormy wind came
up from the south, and scattered the fleet. Richard
himself found refuge in the harbour of Rhodes,
where he was joined in time by the rest of the
armada, with the exception of Berengaria's vessel
and two others, which were driven by stress of
weather towards Cyprus. One of these vessels
was wrecked on the south-west coast of the island,
and those who succeeded in making their escape to
land were arrested, plundered of such belongings
as they had been able to save, and shut up in
prison. Berengaria's ship weathered the storm,
and was brought without damage into the road-

'Wednesday, April loth, according to Richard of Devizes, in Archer,
op. cit. p. 57.

CYPRUS A BYZANTINE PROVINCE 45
stead of Limassol, on the southern coast of the
island. Cyprus, which had been formally annexed and
occupied by the Romans in b.c. 58, was assigned, on
the division of the Roman Empire, to the eastern
half, and at the date of Richard's Crusade was still
— de jure at least — a province of the East Roman
or Byzantine Empire. But de facto it was, and had
been for some five or six years, outside the juris
diction of the Eastern Emperor. In the year
1 185, Isaac Comnenus, a member of the imperial
house, had presented himself in the island, bringing
with him documents, purporting to be imperial
letters-patent, constituting him governor of Cyprus.
The letters were forged, but they served their pur
pose. Isaac obtained recognition as governor, and
having secured himself in possession, declared him
self an independent sovereign, assuming the title
of emperor. The rightful (or at any rate, the more
legitimate) emperor, who reigned at Constanti
nople, sent a fleet and army to put down the
usurper and to recover possession of the island, but
the expedition was totally and disastrously defeated
by the joint forces of Isaac Comnenus and the
famous admiral of Sicily, Margaritone. Comnenus
showed what manner of man he was in the bar
barous treatment to which he subjected the imperial
commanders who fell into his hands. His cruelty
on that occasion was fully in keeping with his
general use of the authority which he had so
fraudulently assumed. In the twelfth century,
oppression was no new thing in Cyprus. But
Isaac Comnenus was the worst tyrant of all who

46 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
had ever ground the face of the Cypriote people.
Even the dark age of Turkish misrule in the island
has nothing to show that equals the measure of
this petty potentate's unbridled iniquity.1 Com
nenus was in Limassol, or in the neighbourhood,
when Berengaria's vessel cast anchor in the roads.
His ill-fame had already come to the ears of those
who were on board, and his invitations to land
were not unreasonably received with suspicion,
which must have deepened as soon as it was
ascertained that he had allowed, if not ordered,
the imprisonment of a number of Crusaders.
Berengaria's escort declared that they only desired
to replenish their stores of food and water ; but
the island despot, incensed at their refusal to come
ashore, prepared to attack them in force, when
King Richard, who with the rest of the fleet had
left Rhodes on May 1st, entered the bay of
Limassol, just in time to avert the danger.
Richard's wrath rose high and fierce when the
tale of Comnenus' evil doings was recounted. He
sent envoys to the shore, demanding full and instant
satisfaction for the injuries inflicted upon his people.
The demand was contemptuously refused, and
Richard gave orders to his army to get out boats
and force a landing. Comnenus mustered his own
array, caused hasty defences to be thrown up along
the beach, and made ready to receive the attack.
But his Cypriote levies gave way before the on
slaught of the English and Norman knights and

1 Hackett, " History of the Church of Cyprus," pp. 55-8 ; Satha, " Biblio-
theca Graeca Medii Aevi," Tom. II.

colossi 47
men-at-arms, and fled in all directions, leaving the
town of Limassol, and everything in it, in the
hands of the invaders.1
Richard effected this landing on May 6th, a.d.
i 191. During the night Comnenus rallied his
scattered forces and marched them down to a place
called Colossi, six miles to the west of Limassol.
News of this move being brought, the King of
England marched out on the night of May 7th
and attacked the camp ofthe Cypriotes under cover
of the darkness. Comnenus made good his escape
in the confusion, abandoning his camp and army
to the tender mercies of the enemy, which were
inclined to be cruel. A splendid booty was carried
off by the victors — Comnenus' treasure-chests,
armour, horses, tents, and imperial banner. The
banner, which was all glorious with wrought gold,
was sent to the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds in
England. What became of it afterwards is not
known. Probably some of Henry VIII.'s com
missioners, could they be brought to life again,
might give curious and interesting information.2
Four days later, on May 1 ith, Guy de Lusignan,
King of Jerusalem — now a king without a king
dom — landed at Limassol. He had been kept in
captivity by Saladin for two years, and then liberated
on binding himself by a solemn oath never to take
up arms thenceforth against the Sultan of Egypt.
Guy took the oath, procured absolution from it by
the good offices of the priesthood, at the first
'T. A. Archer, "The Crusade of King Richard," pp. 62-3.
nd., pp. 63-4.

48 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
available opportunity, and having collected an army,
laid siege to St. Jean d'Acre.1 The defenders held
out stubbornly, and the winter of 1 1 90 found the
Crusading host, though greatly augmented by rein
forcements from Europe, still outside the walls.
In that same winter, Guy's wife, Sibylle, through
marriage with whom he had obtained the crown of
Jerusalem, fell sick and died. Conrad of Mont-
ferrat, the Seigneur of Tyre, now persuaded, or
compelled, Sibylle's sister and heritrix, Isabelle, to
obtain a divorce from her husband, Homfroi de
Toron, and, this being done, took her to wife.
The death of Sibylle had left Isabelle the heiress
to the crown of Jerusalem, for which Conrad, as
her husband, now put in a claim, which was of
course vigorously contested by Guy de Lusignan
and his friends. It was decided that the question
should be referred for arbitration to the Kings of
England and France upon their arrival. Philip of
France arrived at St. Jean d'Acre on April 13 th,
Easter Eve. At that moment, Richard's fleet was
scattered by the storm in the Cretan Sea. Now
Guy de Lusignan, being one of the nobility of
Poitou, which was a dependency of the Crown of
England, was a vassal of Richard. To support
his claim to the crown of Jerusalem would be to
strengthen the influence of England in Palestine —
and that, from the French point of view, would
have been a blunder worse than a crime. Philip,
of course, could not arbitrate before his ally arrived.

' Accho of the Hebrews, Ptolemais of the Greeks, Akka of the Arabs ; on
the coast of North Palestine.

cceur-de-lion and comnenus 49
But he might not be careful to conceal his sym
pathies and antipathies. Or it may be that Guy
attempted to procure his favour in advance, and
failed. At any rate, Guy found soon after Philip's
arrival that his hopes depended upon Richard of
England, and, hearing that Richard was in Cyprus,
or in the neighbourhood thereof, he set sail to meet
him on the way, and, if possible, make sure of his
support. He found him in possession of Limassol,
and waiting to see what Comnenus' next move was
to be. With Guy de Lusignan came his brother
Geoffroi, and other barons of the Holy Land, also
the Prince of Antioch and his son, the Count of
Tripoli. " These," says Roger of Hoveden,
" offered their services to the King, and became
his men, swearing fealty to him against all folk."
On the same day came messengers from Comnenus
offering satisfaction for the past and services for
the future. A favourable reply was returned, and
Comnenus presented himself in the Crusaders'
camp, where, in the presence of the barons, he did
homage and swore fealty to the King of England.
Within a few hours of this ceremony, however, he
certified his bad faith by clandestine flight, and
having rejoined his own following, sent back a
message of insult and defiance.1
This message, indeed, was not altogether dis
pleasing to Richard, who was ever a passionate
lover of fighting. But before setting out to avenge
the insult put upon him, he had himself united
with Berengaria in the bonds of holy matrimony
1 Hackett, op. cit. pp. 66-70 ; Archer, op. cit. pp. 64-7.

50 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
by the ministrations of the Bishop of Evreux at
Limassol, on Sunday, May I2th, the festival of
SS. Nereus and Achilles. Berengaria was also
crowned Queen of England on the same day.1 It
is not often that a bride has a honeymoon so
exciting as that of Queen Berengaria.
From the raptures of the nuptial festivities
Richard turned to the more solemn and earnest
joys of campaigning. One-half of his fleet followed
by sea the advance of the army along the southern
coast eastward, the other half cruising round the
island and seizing all the craft found in the several
bays and roadsteads. Richard marched without
opposition as far as Larnaca, and then, detaching
Guy de Lusignan with part of the army to attack
Famagusta, the chief town and harbour on the east
coast, marched inland with the remainder upon
Nicosia, the capital, which lies in the Mesaoria or
midland plain. At Tremithousia, some twenty
miles from Nicosia, Richard found himself con
fronted by Comnenus and a Cypriote army. A
pitched battle was fought, in which Comnenus was
again defeated, and had a narrow escape of being
taken prisoner. He escaped to the casde of
Kantara, in the northern mountain range, and from
thence to the monastery-fortress of Hagios Andreas,
at the north-east extremity of the island. Richard
rode triumphantly into Nicosia, which opened its
gates without any resistance. Meanwhile, Guy
had taken possession of Famagusta.
There remained, however, several strongholds
'Archer, p. 68.

cceuR-de-lion's conquest 51
in which Cypriote garrisons still held out, and
without the reduction of these the conquest of the
island could not be deemed secure. In the south
west region, Paphos, and in the northern, the town
of Kyrenia and the three mountain-fortresses, St.
Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara, were capable of
keeping Richard's forces occupied for months in
besieging and forcing them to surrender.1 Richard
could not afford to spend much time in Cyprus,
and a stubborn, well-sustained resistance on the
part of the garrisons might have compelled him to
restore the island to Comnenus. But the Cypriotes
fought with no great spirit to uphold the cause of
their soi-disant Emperor, and truly, if ever a ruler
was righteously hated by his subjects, it was this
tyrant, in whom all the vices of the Byzantine court
were incarnate.
The surrender of Kyrenia, where Comnenus had
placed his daughter and a large amount of treasure
for safety, determined him to throw himself upon
the mercy of the conqueror. He requested but
one favour — that he should not be fettered with
chains of iron. Richard granted this request, substi
tuting silver for iron chains, and handed him over to
Guy de Lusignan, to keep in ward. Paphos and
the castles in the northern mountains surrendered
at the same time, or soon after, and by the end
of May Richard was in full and undisputed pos
session ofthe whole island (June 1st, a.d. 1191).2
The ultimate fate of Isaac Comnenus is variously
1 Appendix A.
2 Archer, pp. 67-9.

52 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
reported by the chroniclers, but the most probable
account is that Guy de Lusignan gave him into
the hands of the Hospitallers, who imprisoned the
fallen despot in their strong castle of Margat, on
the coast of Syria, where he died. His daughter
was made lady-in-waiting to Queen Berengaria, in
whose retinue she came to St. Jean d'Acre on
Whitsun Eve, June ist, 1191. She remained in
attendance on Berengaria, who took her back to
England, but was obliged to restore her to liberty
in 1 1 94, this being one of the conditions exacted
by Henry VI. of Germany for the release of Richard
from captivity. The ground upon which Henry
VI. claimed the liberation of Comnenus' daughter
was that of kinship, her mother being sister of
William II. of Sicily, and niece to Constantia of
Sicily, Henry's wife. After her release, the daughter
of Comnenus married Raymond de S. Gilles, Count
of Toulouse, who subsequently divorced her. To
wards the end of 1202, the fleet which brought the
Flemish contingent to the Fourth Crusade put into
Marseilles. The Cypriote princess was residing in
Marseilles at the time, and accepted the proposals
of a Flemish knight, who had conceived the design
of marrying her and claiming the crown of Cyprus
in her name. The marriage took place, and the
knight of Flanders proceeded to Cyprus, and pre
sented himself before King Amaury de Lusignan,
brother and successor of Guy. Amaury affected
to regard the claimant as a madman, but delivered
a stringent order that he should either quit the
kingdom or be put to death.1
¦Hackett, p. 62 ; Archer, p. 69 (note).

RIVAL CLAIMS TO JERUSALEM 53
In following the fortunes of Comnenus' daughter,
we have somewhat anticipated. the course of events.
We must return to Richard Cceur-de-Lion, whom
we left in Cyprus at the beginning of June, 1191,
in full possession of the island.
Richard set sail from Famagusta for Acre on
June 5th, having already sent on before him a
squadron escorting Berengaria and Joanna. On
the 8 th he arrived in the camp of the Crusaders,
and was received with loud rejoicings.1 The
besieged, though harder pressed than ever, after
Richard's arrival, still maintained a gallant defence,
and it was not till July 3rd that the town fell,
having defied the Christian hosts for two years.
During that month of July there was great strife
among the leaders of the Crusade over the rival
claims of Guy de Lusignan and Conrad de Mont
ferrat to the crown of Jerusalem. It seems a trifle
absurd that this lion-and-unicorn quarrel for the
crown should have broken out while Jerusalem and
all the Holy Land lay still in the power of the
Moslem. However, the Crusaders took it for
granted that Jerusalem would be recovered, and it
was just as well that they should settle beforehand
who was to be king there, when the infidel should
have been once more expelled.
Philip Augustus now openly favoured Conrad
de Montferrat. Richard championed the cause of
Guy de Lusignan. At last an agreement was come
to, the terms of which were (1) that Guy should
retain the crown for life, with reversion to Conrad
1 Archer, pp. 69 and 79.

54 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
and Conrad's children by Isabelle, the heiress of
the extinct kingdom ; (2) that Conrad should be
made Count of Tyre, Sidon and Beyrout ; and (3)
that in the event of the decease of Conrad and his
wife while Richard was still in Palestine, the crown
of Jerusalem should be absolutely at Richard's
disposal. Soon after this arrangement had been
made, Philip left Acre and returned to France. —
August ist, 1191.1
Richard had appointed two lieutenants — Richard
de Canville and Robert of Turnham — to govern
his new conquest. Richard de Canville, however,
appears to have died soon after his appointment —
either in Cyprus or at St. Jean d'Acre — and his
colleague Robert was left in sole charge. It was
then that the inhabitants of the mountain-region
in the south-west of Cyprus rose in arms against
the dominion of the alien, proclaiming as their
ruler a monk who was said to be a kinsman of
Isaac Comnenus. The insurrection was quickly
put down by Robert of Turnham, who captured
the pretender and hanged him. But the news of
the insurrection disquieted Richard. He could
not spare a large detachment from his army in the
occupation of Cyprus, and he saw that a large force
was necessary if peace and order were to be pre
served. He needed all his men for the operations
of the Crusade, and when that was over, he would
still need every warrior whose services he could
obtain to repair the mischief which his evil-minded
brother John was already working in England, and
¦Archer, pp. 118-122; Hackett, p. 69.

WHIPS EXCHANGED FOR SCORPIONS rr
defend his possessions in Normandy and Anjou
against the aggressive designs of Philip Augustus.
These considerations set him thinking how he
might most profitably dispose of his new conquest,
and he was glad to sell it to the Knights of the
Temple for 100,000 byzants, of which 40,000 were
to be paid in advance, and the rest by instalments.
The substitution of the Templars' rule for that
of Richard's lieutenant was an exchange of whips
for scorpions. Clearly, the Templars entertained
the loftiest contempt for the Cypriotes, for the
force which they sent to occupy Cyprus was
absurdly small. Their garrison of Nicosia con
sisted of no more than 107 men all told — 14
knights, 29 esquires, and 64 men-at-arms. In
furiated by the arrogance and cruelty of these
fighting monks, and encouraged by the smallness
of their force, the Cypriotes rose once more in
arms, and besieged the garrison of Nicosia in the
citadel, which was ill-provided with food and water.
This took place on Easter Eve, 1 1 9 2 . The knights,
finding themselves unable to resist a siege, offered
to evacuate the island at once, if their lives were
spared. But the Cypriotes thirsted for vengeance,
and rejected the proposal, whereupon the knights
resolved to cut their way out, or die in the attempt.
On Easter morning, April 5th, they attended mass
in the castle chapel, then armed themselves, and
suddenly rushed out upon the enemy, whom they
caught completely by surprise. The Cypriotes
were seized with panic and fled in all directions,
pursued by the Templars, who slaughtered them
without mercy. A crowd of miserable fugitives

<j6 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
sought refuge in a church, but the Templars
forced the doors and slew every soul they found
within.1 The flames of rebellion had been quenched in a
torrent of blood, but the Knights of the Temple
resolved to concern themselves no more with
Cyprus, and entreated Richard to resume posses
sion, which he did, paying back the 40,000 byzants
already received.
Richard spent Easter that year — 1 192 — at Asca
lon. Soon after Easter, the Prior of Hereford
arrived from England, bringing evil news. John,
the King's brother, had expelled the Bishop of Ely,
who was Chancellor of the Kingdom, and was
exacting oaths of fealty from the barons of England.
Richard saw that if he stayed any longer in the
Holy Land he was like to lose his kingdom. He
therefore laid the matter before the Crusading
chieftains present with him, urging the necessity
that lay upon him of returning to his own country,
and promising to maintain a strong force of knights
and men-at-arms in his absence. The chiefs replied
that in that case it would be necessary to appoint
a new king, whom all might obey, and they prayed
that the crown of Jerusalem might be given at
once to Conrad of Montferrat.2 Richard saw no
way out of the difficulty save by consent to this
request, and envoys were despatched to Tyre to
announce the election of Conrad. The Count of

¦Satha, " Bibliotheca Graeca Medii Aevi," Tom. IL, Intr., pp. 75-6.
2 The salient points in this Crusader's life are given by Archer, op. cit.
p. 112 (note).

MURDER OF CONRAD 57
Tyre exulted greatly at the news, but his destiny
allowed him a very short and fleeting enjoyment
of his honours. On April 27th, within a few days
of receiving the joyful news of his election to the
kingdom, he was murdered. Richard was accused
of having procured his death — but the murderers
were emissaries of the " Old Man of the Moun
tain," the chief of the Assassins, a society whose
ramifications extended over Syria, Armenia, and
Persia. Conrad being dead, the Crusading barons elected
Richard's nephew, Henri de Champagne, to be
King of Jerusalem. To this Richard gave his
consent, and Henri secured his position by marry
ing Conrad's widow Isabelle. Guy de Lusignan
was now completely deprived and disinherited.
Richard felt himself in duty bound to provide some
consolation for the loss of Jerusalem, and this he
did by offering him the sovereignty of Cyprus.
It is not quite certain whether the offer was un
conditional or not — in other words, whether Guy
was required to make himself responsible for any
payment of money. The historians of the time
are at variance in their testimony. It is possible
that Guy had to find the 40,000 byzants which
were owing to the Templars, and that when this
sum was paid, the King of England made no
further claim.1
Guy took possession of his new kingdom in
1 1 93. He brought over to Cyprus, as a first
contingent, 300 knights, upon whom he bestowed
¦Hackett, pp. 62-3, 64-70 ; Archer, pp. 217-35.

58 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
fiefs out of the royal domain, which had been
greatly enlarged by Isaac Comnenus' confiscations,
and the seizure of lands belonging to those who
had been implicated in the recent rebellions. The
population of the island had been greatly reduced,
mainly by the flight of numbers who preferred
exile to Frankish dominion. Guy caused proclama
tion to be made in Syria and Armenia that the
houses and lands of the refugees would be restored
to them if they returned by a certain appointed
day. Failing that, their properties would be
assigned to others. The proclamation, however,
did not produce the results that Guy hoped for,
and in order to fill the vacant places he invited
settlers from Syria and the neighbouring regions.
This invitation met with a ready response. All
sorts and conditions of men flocked over to Cyprus,
and became fief-holders. Even cobblers and masons
and interpreters came, and were made nobles and
landed proprietors. So lavish were Guy's grants
that the Crown domain was unduly diminished, and
in order to provide a proper estate for the King,
Guy's brother and successor, Amaury, had to revoke
some of these grants.
One of the mediaeval chroniclers says that Guy
de Lusignan, being about to take possession of his
kingdom, wrote to Saladin for advice respecting
the government of it. In answer to this request,
Saladin said to Guy's envoys — " I have no great
liking for your master" (this is not surprising,
when we remember how Guy broke his word of
honour with Saladin) — " but since he has sent to
me for counsel, take this word to him — ' Let him

ASSIZES OF JERUSALEM 59
give all, if he will possess all.' " ' Certainly, Guy
appears to have acted on this principle, and the
measures he took had the effect of investing the
name of Lusignan with associations of liberality and
kindliness, which it never afterwards entirely lost.
The constitution of the kingdom of Cyprus
was in most respects identical with that of the
kingdom of Jerusalem. In fact, the celebrated
feudal code known as the Assizes of Jerusalem
was adopted for the administration of Cyprus,
and to this circumstance the preservation of that
code is largely due. The Assizes of Jerusalem
were originally compiled in the French language,
under the direction of Godfrey de Bouillon, the
conqueror of Jerusalem, in the year 1 1 oo. The
original copy was kept in the church of the Holy
Sepulchre. It was lost in 1187 when Saladin
recovered the city for Islam, but its contents were
preserved by oral tradition till the middle of the
thirteenth century, when they were again com
mitted to writing by Jean d'Ibelin, Count of Jaffa,
and guardian of the young King Henri I. of
Cyprus. A final revision was made in Cyprus in
the year 1369 by a commission of sixteen persons
representing the estates of the realm. The code,
thus revised, was kept in the cathedral church of
Sta. Sofia, in Nicosia, the capital of the island.
lt remained in force during the Venetian occupa
tion, from 1489 to 1 57 1, an Italian version being
made when the sovereignty of the Republic suc
ceeded that of the Lusignan princes.2
¦The story is quoted by Mas Latrie, "Histoire de l'lle de Chypre."
"Hackett, p. 71.

60 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
By the provisions of this code Cyprus was
constituted a limited monarchy, the royal pre
rogative being confined to the exercise of military
authority. Public affairs were dealt with by two
courts, the High Court, or King's Court, and the
Lower Court, or Court of the Bourgeois, i.e., the
Burgesses. In the High Court the King or his deputy
presided. It was composed of the fief-holders
and high civil functionaries, and decided all the
most important affairs of the realm. Without its
consent and authority no laws — or, as they were
called, usages — could be passed.
The Court of the Bourgeois took cognizance of
all matters concerning the inhabitants of the towns
— the bourgeois class, consisting of merchants and
artisans. It was also responsible for the police
administration. Its president was an official who
bore the title of Vicomte.
The nucleus of the class of landed proprietors
was formed by the knights and squires who
accompanied Guy when he took possession in
1 193, and those who subsequently came over
from the Continent in answer to his invitation to
settle in the kingdom. Next to these were the
bourgeois, i.e., the traders and artisans residing in
the towns. Of the rural population there were
five distinct classes before the conquest of Cyprus
by Cceur- de-Lion, and these five divisions were
retained. The lowest class of the peasantry was
known as the Parici. They were serfs, regarded
and treated very much as slaves. Every Paricos
householder had to pay the lord of the manor an

PARICI, LEFTERI, ALBANI 6 1
annual impost of fifty Cyprian byzants,1 and a
third of the produce of the plot of ground which
he cultivated. He was also bound to give two
days' labour every week on his lord's fields,
receiving for this work nothing beyond his food.
The Parici were liable to be sold or exchanged,
and any punishment might be inflicted upon
them, save death, by the lord of the manor.
Next above them were the Perperiarii,, whose
name was derived from the Greek word inripirvpov,
an alternative designation for the byzant. The
Perperiarii and their children were free, being the
decendants of Parici, who had purchased manumis
sion from the Byzantine governors in former ages.
But though not bound to the soil as the Parici
were, they paid an annual tribute of fifteen byzants
to their feudal lords. Above them, again, were
the Lefteri, who had been emancipated either for
payment or by the goodwill of their lords, but
paid a certain proportion of the produce of their
fields and gardens. The Albani, or Albanians,
were descendants of Albanian soldiers, who had
originally been brought to Cyprus to guard the
coasts against piratical raids. These coast-guards,
having settled down in the island, married native
women, and their progeny retained the name of
Albanians, and continued to bear arms and hold
lands. By the twelfth century, however, they had
lost their distinctive military character, and were
simply cultivators of the soil, though they drew
pay for the supposed discharge of military duties.
¦ Appendix B.

62 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
Guy de Lusignan, finding them quite useless from
a military point of view, stopped their pay and
withdrew the right of bearing arms, but apparently
left them in possession of their holdings.
A fifth class of the rural population was known
as the White Venetians. According to William of
Tyre, the Doge of Venice, Vital Michiele, set out
in the year 1123 for the Holy Land, with a fleet
of seventy-two ships, to lend a helping hand to
the King of Jerusalem. This Venetian expedition
took part in the siege of Tyre, which was sur
rendered by the Saracens in the following year.
The Venetians had undertaken to help the
Crusaders for a twelvemonth, and this period
seems to have expired soon after the fall of Tyre.
Some of the Venetians then went over to Cyprus,
which at the time was still a province of the East-
Roman Empire, and settled there. Guy de
Lusignan conferred a number of privileges and
exemptions upon them, one of their privileges
being the right of having their causes tried by a
Venetian nobleman who resided in Nicosia. The
White Venetians recognized no authority save
that of the King and their Resident, but, as an
act of courtesy, they paid a small sum annually to
the lord of the manor on whose land they were
settled.1 Guy de Lusignan died in April, 1194. He is
sometimes spoken of as the first King of Cyprus,
but the phrase is inaccurate, for he never assumed
that title. His coins, it is true, bear the inscrip-
1 Hackett, pp. 7C-4.

AMAURY, KING OF CYPRUS 63
tion " Rex Guido " on the obverse, and " De
Cipro " on the reverse side. But the word
" Rex " refers to Guy's claims to the crown of
Jerusalem, of which he regarded himself as having
been unjustly deprived. Moreover, the coins,
though they bear his name, are not stamped with
his image. On the obverse they display a cross
with limbs of equal length, on the reverse a
tower with a star.1 No coins of Guy's successor
Amaury are extant, but when we come to Amaury's
successor Hugues I. we find coins stamped with the
figure of the King, who is crowned, and bearing
the legend, " Hugo Rex Cipri."2
Guy de Lusignan, whilst claiming to be King
of Jerusalem, did not claim to be more than
Seigneur, or Lord, of Cyprus. It was his suc
cessor Amaury who first assumed the royal style
and insignia. In the spring of 1 1 95 Amaury sent
two envoys to Europe — the Archdeacon of Lydda,
whose mission was to negotiate with the Pope for
the organization of a Latin Church Establishment
in Cyprus, and Rainer of Djebail, who presented
himself before the Emperor Henry VI. with the
request that the Emperor would be pleased to
receive the Seigneur of Cyprus as a vassal and
liegeman of the Holy Roman Empire, and
authorise him to assume the title and badges of
royalty. Henry VI. was well pleased to laccept
Amaury's oath of allegiance, taken in his name by
Rainer. He was at the moment busily engaged
1 Satha, op. cit., Plate II., No. 1 1.
2 Id., op. cit., Plate II. No. 12.

64 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
in preparations for a crusade, and promised to
visit Cyprus on the way to the Holy Land, and
be present in person at Amaury's coronation.
But Henry did not live to carry out his purpose.
The coronation of Amaury, however, took place
in September, 1197, the ceremony being per
formed by Conrad, Archbishop of Hildesheim
and Chancellor of the Empire.1
Henri de Champagne, King of Jerusalem, met
his death by falling from a window in his house at
St. Jean d'Acre, on the 10th September, n 97.
Thus for the second time Isabelle of Jerusalem
was left a widow. Henri's place was taken by
Amaury of Cyprus, who was married to Isabelle
and crowned King of Jerusalem at Beyrout, in
Syria, in the last week of October in the same
year, and thus the crowns of Cyprus and Jerusalem
were for the first time united. On the death of
Amaury, however, the two crowns were separated.
His son Hugues I. succeeded to the crown of
Cyprus, but that of Jerusalem was inherited by
Marie, daughter of Conrad de Montferrat by his
marriage with Isabelle. Marie became the wife
of Jean de Brienne in 1208, and their daughter
Isabelle married the Emperor Frederick IL, bring
ing the thorny crown of Jerusalem as her dowry.
Frederick II. fell under the ban of the Papacy,
and in 1247 Innocent IV., by a remarkable stretch
even of Papal power, relieved Henri I., King of
Cyprus, of his allegiance to the Empire, and con
stituted the realm a fief of the Holy See, whilst
1 Mas Latrie " Histoire," torn i. ; Rohricht, " Geschichte des KBnigreichs
Jerusalem," pp. 666-9.

JACQUES I., OF CYPRUS, JERUSALEM, ARMENIA 6^
he conferred upon Henri the title of Lord of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem. This title was borne by
Henri's son and successor, Hugues II., who reigned
from 1253 to 1267, and was the last King of
Cyprus in the direct line of descent from the
Counts of Lusignan. Hugues II. was succeeded
by his cousin Hugues d'Antioche, who belonged to
the princely house of Antioch, founded in the
eleventh century by Bohemond, son of Robert
Guiscard, the Norman conqueror of Sicily. Hugues
d'Antioche, who had been appointed Protector of
the kingdom in his predecessor's lifetime, received
the crown of Cyprus at Nicosia in the month of
December, 1267, and on the 24th September,
1269, was crowned King of Jerusalem at Tyre.
From that time forward the two crowns remained
constantly associated. Towards the end of the
fourteenth century a third crown was added to
these two. Leo VI., King of Cilicia and Little
Armenia, died at Paris in 1393. Between his
family and that of the Kings of Cyprus there was
affinity, which had originated in the marriage of a
daughter of Amaury de Lusignan to one of Leo's
predecessors and namesakes, nearly two hundred
years before. The next of kin to Leo VI. was
Jacques I. of Cyprus, who inherited his title —
beyond which, indeed, there was little or nothing
to inherit — and thus acquired the right to be
proclaimed as King of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and
Armenia. Jacques I.'s great grand -daughter
Carlotta, who became Queen of Cyprus in 1458,
married Ludovico, son of the Duke of Savoy.
Ludovico of Savoy was made King-Consort, and

66 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
thus the threefold crown and title passed into his
family. Carlotta and her husband were driven
out of Cyprus in 1460, but neither of them ever
relinquished the claim to be regarded as the
rightful sovereign of the island, and Carlotta in
particular not only asserted her claims, but made
more than one attempt to enforce them and regain
possession of the realm. All her schemes, how
ever, were frustrated by the Venetians, who, after
the marriage of Caterina Cornaro and Jacques II.
of Cyprus in 1472, became the protectors of the
kingdom, and in 1489, having persuaded Caterina,
who survived both her husband and her son, to
abdicate, annexed Cyprus to the dominions of the
Republic. Carlotta de Lusignan, in spite of her failures,
continued to assert her claims till the year 1485,
when she abdicated in favour of her nephew,
Carlo 1. of Savoy, from whom the title of King
of Cyprus, Armenia, and Jerusalem has been
handed down, from one generation to another, to
the present King of Italy, who inherited it from
his mother, Margarita of Savoy.1
The interest of the mediaeval history of Cyprus
centres almost entirely upon two localities —
Nicosia, the capital, and Famagusta, the seaport
on the east coast.
Nicosia is almost in the centre of the island,
the distances by road to the coast being 1 6 miles
to Kyrenia on the northern coast, 36 to Famagusta

1 See Bishop Stubbs' paper on the Mediaeval Kingdoms of Cyprus and
Armenia in "Essays on Mediaeval and Modern History."

I k

NICOSIA, FROM THE SOUTH.

NICOSIA 67
on the east, 26 to Larnaca on the south, and about
25 to Morphou, which lies due west. From Paphos,
on the south-west coast of the island, to Apostolos
Andreas at its north-east horn, is a distance of about
140 miles as the crow flies, and Nicosia lies just
about half-way between these points. The town
is still encircled by the fortifications which the
Venetians constructed in the sixteenth century,
shortly before the invasion and conquest of the
island by the Turks.1 These fortifications, built
of earth faced with stone, consist of eleven bastions,
connected by curtain walls. The Venetians con
structed three gateways in these walls, facing north,
south-east, and south-west respectively, but since
the occupation of Cyprus by the British the south
west gate has been closed and replaced by a wide
opening cut through the wall alongside of it, and
two other openings have been made on the south
side of the town, where a sort of suburb is growing
up. At the present day, Nicosia is one of the most
picturesque towns in the Levant. There are not
many views more pleasing than that of Nicosia
from the plateau of Hagia Paraskevi, to the south.
In front of the town are extensive plantations of
pine and eucalyptus. White-walled and red-roofed
houses stand amidst pleasant gardens. The town,
within its grey circle of bastions, is a meUe of white
walls, red and brown roofs, minarets, and bell-
towers, diversified with the foliage of palms and
orange-trees. Almost in the centre is the greyish-
brown bulk of the mediseval cathedral, now a
¦ Sakellarios, " Cypriaca," I., p. 542.

68 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
mosque, with twin minarets, tall, slender, and
graceful, rising from its western front.
The cathedral-mosque, originally dedicated to the
Divine Wisdom, and known, like the more famous
mosque in Constantinople, as Sta. Sofia, occupies
the site, and has inherited the title, of a Greek
church which was in existence at the time when
the Lusignan dynasty was established in Cyprus.1
This Greek church, however, was demolished, in
order to make room for a structure more in
accordance with Western ideas and practices. The
foundations ofthe existing fabric were laid in 1209,
and it was consecrated, though not completed, in
1228. It measures about 230 feet in extreme
length, and 70 feet in height. The east end is
apsidal, with an ambulatory. Two chapels open
into the south aisle. From the travel-book of the
Dominican Felix Faber, who visited Cyprus in the
latter part of the fifteenth century, we learn that
one of these chapels was dedicated to St. Thomas
Aquinas, and adorned with frescoes, etc. representing
scenes from the life of the great theologian. These
frescoes and all others that adorned Sta. Sofia in
the days of its glory, disappeared long ago under
a thick layer of whitewash. Possibly this chapel
of St. Thomas Aquinas is the one which now
contains the Mihrab — a sort of reredos, with a
niche in the middle, marking the direction of
Mecca, towards which the faithful turn their faces
in prayer.2 Since its conversion into a mosque,
¦See P. Georgiou's "Church of Cyprus," p. 57.
2 See Hackett, pp. 490-2.

STA. SOFIA, NICOSIA. — WEST FRONT.
(Fourteenth Century).

DESECRATION OF SANTA SOFIA 69
the glory of Sta. Sofia has departed. Stripped of
all adornment in the way of frescoes, mosaics, or
stained windows, it is as it were but the shadow
of its former self. It requires an effort to realize
the fact that there, for nearly three centuries, the
Kings and Queens of Cyprus were crowned, that
the eastern apse, now bare, dirty, ill-kept, was once
a magnificent sanctuary, and that beneath the pave
ment, hidden by flea-infested straw mats, princes
and nobles of the kingdom were laid in their last
resting-place. It must be borne in mind, however,
that it is not only the Moslem who has defaced this
holy house with sacrilegious hands. In 1373, the
Genoese, having possessed themselves of Fama
gusta, marched up to Nicosia and plundered the
city. The churches were pillaged, all alike,
Catholic, Orthodox, or heretic, Roman, Greek,
Maronite, Armenian, suffering the same indignities.
From Sta. Sofia the plunderers carried off reli
quaries, jewels, and chalices, and the sacred pave
ment was stained with the blood of priests, cut down
and slain by men professing and calling themselves
Christians. Still, the damage done by the Genoese
could be restored in some measure. The injuries
inflicted by the Turks have yet to be repaired.
To the north of Sta. Sofia lay the archiepiscopal
palace, occupied by the Latin Metropolitans of the
island under the Lusignan Kings and Venetian
Governors, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth
century. Very little remains of the building now-
a-days — hardly more than a bit of wall with a
doorway, surmounted by two heraldic shields carved
in the stone.

70 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
Mediaeval Nicosia covered a much greater extent
of ground than the present city. The Venetian
fortifications measure about three miles in circum
ference, but those which they replaced are said to
have measured nine miles. Before they constructed
the bastions and walls which are still standing, the
Venetians demolished the old walls and towers, and
a great part of the city enclosed within them.
Their object was to reduce the extent of the works
which would have to be defended against a besieging
army. But the fact that they could pack, as they
must have packed, the population previously spread
over an area of about seven square miles into one of
seven-tenths of a square mile suggests that Nicosia
was, at the time, thinly populated for its size.
According to a native historian, who was him
self a scion of the royal family of Cyprus, the
Venetians pulled down eighty churches when they
refortified the city.1 One of these was the Church
of St. Peter and St. Paul, which belonged to the
convent of the Dominicans. This convent stood
close by the royal palace, and both were enclosed
within the walls of the citadel built by Pierre II. in
1380. The Mamelukes of Egypt, who invaded
Cyprus in 1426 and took King Janus prisoner in
a great battle at a place called Choirokitia, overran
the midland plain, captured Nicosia, and stormed
the citadel. The royal palace was set on fire and
burnt to the ground, but the Dominicans, by dint
of great exertions, managed to save their convent.
The traditional site of the citadel and convent is
¦Steffano Lusignano, quoted by Hackett, p. 500.

FAMAGUSTA 7 1
that of a small village, the name of which in
English is "The Holy Confessors," which lies
about a mile and a half to the south of Nicosia.
Hardly any traces of the buildings, with the ex
ception of the debris of tombs are to be seen now,
for the Venetians not only levelled everything with
the ground, but carried off the stones and timber
to provide materials for the new fortifications. This
convent was the St. Denis and Campo Santo of
Cyprus. Besides the tombs ofthe D'Ibelin family,
by whom it was founded, it contained those of
most of the Lusignan sovereigns. Hugues II. ,
Hugo III., Pierre I., Pierre IL, Jacques I., Jacques
IL, Jean II. , were all laid to rest there, also Louis,
son of St. Louis, King of France, who died in
Cyprus during his father's first crusade. There
also were to be seen the tombs and monuments of
seneschals, constables, admirals and chamberlains
ofthe kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus — princes,
counts and seigneurs of Galilee, Antioch, Sidon,
Caesarea, Beyrout, Jaffa, Tripoli, sixteen Latin Pat
riarchs of Jerusalem, and a number of archbishops
and bishops.1
Famagusta (Ammochostos), on the east coast,
succeeded in the seventh century to the honours
of the more famous Salamis, which was des
troyed by the Saracens. Salamis, the city that
claimed Teucer as its founder, the city where
St. Barnabas and St. Paul preached the Gospel,
the metropolis of Cyprus in the centuries that
followed, lay about four miles to the north of
'Hackett, p. 592 f. For the disaster at Choirokitia, see Hackett, p. 149,
Sakellarios' " Cypriaca," pp. 512-15.

72 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
Famagusta. Its site is now marked only by
broken columns and other debris. After the
seventh century, Famagusta was the residence of
the Archbishops of the native Greek Orthodox
Church of Cyprus, and continued so to be till the
native episcopate was placed in subjection to the
Latin prelates established in the island after the
foundation of the feudal kingdom. During the
age of the Crusades, Famagusta was a prosperous
and important maritime city, one of the great
centres of trade between Europe and Asia. After
the fall of St. Jean d'Acre in 1291 it was refortified
by Henri II., who hoped to make it supply the
place of the lost stronghold. In the fourteenth
century the cathedral of St. Nicholas, which is still
standing, was built. St. Nicholas, like Sta. Sofia
in the capital, is now a mosque. According to
mediaeval travellers' tales there was a church in
Famagusta for every day in the year, but it is
much to be doubted whether the vestiges of as
many as twenty could be discovered amid the
remains of the ancient city. The See of Fama
gusta was last in order of precedence of the four
which were established in Cyprus in accordance
with the rescript of Pope Celestine III., delivered
in 1 196, although the city was the successor and
representative of Salamis.1
In 1372 Famagusta was seized most iniquitously
by the Genoese. Two years of warfare followed,
in which the kingdom suffered severely. Nicosia
was sacked by a Genoese army, and Genoese fleets
'Hackett, pp. 469-70, 521-2; Sakellarios, p. 395.

ST. NICHOLAS, FAMAGUSTA. — WEST FRONT.
(Fourteenth Century).

FAMAGUSTA UNDER THE GENOESE 73
raided the coasts. On the other hand, the Genoese
suffered severe losses in the siege of Kyrenia
in 1374, and were forced to retire baffled from
before its walls. In May, 1374, a treaty of peace
was concluded, which left the Genoese in posses
sion of Famagusta, and bound the King of Cyprus
to pay a heavy war indemnity to the Genoese
Republic. Famagusta remained in possession of
Genoa for ninety years. Its recovery was effected
by Jacques II. , one ofthe ablest, and perhaps the
most unscrupulous, of his lineage. The Genoese
occupation of Famagusta was very destructive to
the well-being of the kingdom. The greater part
of the foreign trade of Cyprus passed in and out
through Famagusta, which had the best harbour
in the island, and its occupation by another power
diverted a considerable stream of revenue from
the treasury.1
In the fifteenth century Famagusta appears to
have been almost a Venetian city, before the island
was annexed by the Republic. It was at Fama
gusta that the annexation was proclaimed on
March 14th, 1489, and signalized by the hoisting
of the banner of St. Mark in the open place in
front of St. Nicholas' Cathedral/
When Guy de Lusignan took possession, there
were fourteen bishoprics in Cyprus, including the
archiepiscopal see. This number of fourteen had
been maintained for several centuries. Guy himself
had no time left him to deal with the ecclesiastical
¦ Sakellarios, p. 484^
'Id., pp. 535-7.

74 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
problem involved in the Latin occupation, and
left it to his brother Amaury.
The problem was — what modus vivendi ought to
be established between the Latin rulers and their
Greek subjects ? The solution propounded by
the Roman ecclesiastics was — complete subordina
tion of the Greek Orthodox bishops, clergy, and
people to the Latin Metropolitan and his suffra
gans. Amaury thought at first of providing for
the maintenance of the Latin bishops and clergy
in Cyprus by the payment of stipends. But
Celestine III., to whom he applied for permission
to establish a proper ecclesiastical organization in
the island, would not agree to this, and insisted
upon permanent endowments being made. Such
endowments could only be made at the expense of
the native Greek episcopate and clergy — as they
actually were made. The Greeks disputed the
claims, and resisted the aggressive proceedings, of
the Latin churchmen as long as they could. Their
view was that they were being unjustly despoiled,
and that the Pope's action in ordaining and
appointing bishops for Cyprus, where a duly
ordained episcopate already existed, was utterly
uncanonical. Another grievance, over which they
raised loud complaints, was the demand, urged by
the Latin Metropolitan and diocesans, that the
Greek bishops should be reduced in number from
fourteen to four, and do homage to them as their
feudal superiors.1
A final settlement, in every way unfavourable to
¦Hackett, pp. 74-6, 81-5, 478/.

ST. NICHOLAS, FAMAGUSTA. — EAST END.

GREEK SUBJECTED TO LATIN PRELATES 75
the Greeks, was made by Pope Alexander IV., and
formulated in a rescript known as the " Constitutio
Cypria," delivered in June, 1260. The result
arrived at was that the native Orthodox Church
of Cyprus, the Church founded by St. Barnabas,
and adorned by the fame of Spyridon and Epi-
phanius, the Church recognised as independent
and autonomous by the Council of Ephesus in the
fifth century, was completely disestablished and
disendowed in favour of the Latin ecclesiastical
corporations; and the Greek prelates, compelled
to reside in out-of-the-way villages, became the
suffragans and delegates of the Latin prelates,
their feudal superiors, to whom they did homage,
for ministering to the native population.1 There
were indeed, in practice, some mitigations of this
very unequal modus vivendi. More than once the
propagandist zeal of the ecclesiastics was restrained
and held in check by the temporal power.2 In the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the stricter ad
herents of the Papacy — such, for instance, as the
Dominican Felix Faber — were scandalized to find,
in the country districts if not in the towns,
members of the ruling classes, presumably children
of the Apostolic See, attending the public services
ofthe Greek Orthodox, and using the ministrations
of Greek priests. Felix Faber asserts that in one
village he found a priest who served two churches
— saying Mass in one according to the Latin rite,
and in the other according to the Greek rite.
¦Hackett, p. 114/
*Id., pp. 85, I32-3.

76 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
This meant that in the one liturgy he used un
leavened bread, and in the other ordinary bread.
The priest had thus compromised upon one of the
burning questions at issue between Rome and the
East, viz., whether leavened or unleavened bread
ought to be employed in the Eucharist. He had
no idea that he was doing anything wrong, but
Felix Faber had a very distinct opinion that such
a man was worse than the most hardened and
defiant of heretics.1
Religious dissension was a great source of evil
in the kingdom of Cyprus, as indeed it was in all
the Latin principalities in the East. It made the
subject peasant population disloyal, and thus under
mined the strength of the state. In comparison
with the aggressive and intolerant action of the
Roman ecclesiastics, the other grievances of the
Cypriotes — and there were not a few of them —
were not held of much account. They had been
overtaxed by Byzantine governors, and the con
tinuance of their burdens under the new regime
would have passed without much notice. But
that pressure and force should be put upon them
to change the religious customs and beliefs which
they had inherited from their fathers was an abuse
to which they neither could nor would be recon
ciled. The kingdom of Cyprus survived the age ofthe
Crusades longer than any other kingdom or prin
cipality founded during that epoch. Its continued
existence was an offence to the neighbouring
¦Hackett, pp. 152-3.

THE TURKISH INVASION 77
Mahometan powers, principally because its coasts
harboured pirates who harried Mahometan ship
ping. The government made its profit out of
these pirates, and took no steps, though earnestly
requested and warned to do so, in order to force
them to seek refuges elsewhere. It was the depre
dations of these sea-robbers that brought down
upon the island the fearful chastisement of the
Mameluke invasion in 1426, when the king, taken
prisoner in battle, was carried off to Cairo, and
only liberated on condition that his realm should
be for ever tributary to the Sultan of Egypt.1 In
1517 the Turks conquered Egypt, and succeeded
to the Mamelukes' rights over Cyprus. The
Venetians paid the tribute, but they also encour
aged piracy. But the Turks in those days hardly
needed even so colourable a pretext as this, and
the considerations which appear to have really
moved Sultan Selim to invade Cyprus were, that
he wished to build a mosque at Adrianople, and
needed to add a province to the empire, in order
to endow the mosque with the spoils of conquest,
a condition from which the Rabbis of his religion
would grant no dispensation ; and secondly, that
Venice was not in a favourable position to defend
her transmarine possessions, by reason of the losses
sustained through the burning of the Arsenal in
1569. A great expedition was despatched from Con
stantinople to Cyprus in 1570. The Venetian
Republic made very inadequate efforts to save the
^Sakellarios, "Cypriaca," I., pp. 510-17 j Hackett, pp. 149-51.

78 LATIN CONQUEST OF CYPRUS
island, the garrison of Which was left almost
entirely to make the best shift it could on its
own resources. Nicosia held out for about seven
weeks, and was then taken by storm, with all the
hideous accompaniments of such a fatality. Fama
gusta sustained a siege and blockade which lasted
nearly a year, being finally starved into submission
in August, 1 57 1. The other fortresses offered
no resistance at all. But though the Turks had
only to force two strongholds in order to complete
the conquest of the island, that conquest is said to
have cost them the lives of fifty thousand men.1

¦ For the Turkish conquest of Cyprus, see Hackett " Church of Cyprus,''
pp. 176-89; Sakellarios " Cypriaca," pp. 540-57; Satha "Greece under
the Turks," pp. 131-63 (a long excerpt from the history of Cyprus by the
Archimandrite Kyprianos, who in his turn drew upon Steftano Lusignano's
"Chorograffia").

RUINED CHURCH, FAMAGUSTA.

ATHENS
IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
I.
ALL educated people know something about
ancient Athens, " the eye of Greece, mother
of arts and eloquence," though for a great many
the story of ancient Athens comes to an end long
before its proper conclusion. With the rise of
the Macedonian Empire, the existence of ancient
Athens fades into obscurity, and few, perhaps,
even among students of history, could at a mo
ment's notice recall to mind very much more than
the siege and sack of the city by Sulla's army, in
B.c. 86, the visit of St. Paul, the Gothic raid in
the troublous days of Valerian and Gallienus, and
the closing of the schools of philosophy by Jus
tinian. Over and above these salient events, one
would also remember that Athens became a sort of
university city, and that her university life was
still vigorous in the fourth century of the Chris
tian era, when St. Basil and the Emperor Julian
were to be seen in her " studious walks and
shades." The twilight of Athens becomes dark
ness when the voice of philosophy is silenced by
the stern decree of the Caesar-Pope Justinian.
Here and there, however, fragmentary records
throw some rays of light across the gloom. We
can see that Athens still continued to exist as

80 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
a city, and was always to be reckoned among the
chief centres of population in Greece.
As a matter of political geography, Athens was
included in the " theme " or province of Hellas,
which extended from the Gulf of Corinth to the
Vale of Tempe in Thessaly. The city and the
surrounding territory claimed certain privileges in
regard to taxation, and unusual powers of local
autonomy — privileges and powers which were not
always respected by the fiscal agents of the Byzan
tine Government.
We are accustomed to think of the Parthenon
as a heathen sanctuary, and only in that character.
It was a heathen temple for about 880 years,
but it was a Christian church for 1,000 — and after
ten centuries of consecration to Christian worship,
it became a Mohammedan mosque. It appears to
have served as a mosque right down to the time
when Morosini and Koenigsmarck landed at the
Piraeus and bombarded the Acropolis — a period of
231 years (a.d. 1456-1687). In the course of the
bombardment a shell pierced the roof of the
Parthenon, and exploded inside the building, where
the Turks — with recklessness even for them quite
extraordinary — had placed their powder magazine.
The magazine blew up, and ever since that day
the Parthenon has been a ruin.
Among the glories of pagan Athens, one of the
chief was the famous ivory and gold statue of
Athena. This was still in existence when the
Emperor Theodosius II. came to the throne (a.d.
408). It was removed, twenty-one years later, to
Constantinople, and appears to have been set up

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(under some sort of cover, let us hope) in the
Forum of Constantine. What became of it ulti
mately, no one can tell. Probably it perished in
the terrible Nika riots (a.d. 532).
The consecration ofthe Parthenon as a Christian
church can hardly have been long delayed after the
removal of Phidias' masterpiece. We may assume
that by the end of Theodosius II. 's reign (a.d. 450)
the house of Athena the Virgin had become the
church of the Virgin Mary. Certain structural
alterations had to be made. The main entrance
of the temple had been from the eastern end. To
suit the arrangements of Christian worship, the
great eastern doorway was blocked up, or masked
by an apse, while a doorway was opened in the
western wall. When Spon and Wheler visited
Athens in the latter part of the seventeenth cen
tury, the Parthenon had an inner roof or ceiling
composed of a series of shallow domes or cupolas,
but whether this ceiling was inserted into the fabric
in the fifth century, or later on, there is no evi
dence to show.
Several writers of repute — e.g., the Count La-
borde — have lent their support to the notion that
the Parthenon, when it became a Christian church,
was dedicated to the Divine Wisdom (Hagia
Sophia), but there is absolutely nothing, either in
literature or incriptions, to prove this. All the
evidence tends to show that the dedication, from
the first, was to St. Mary the Virgin-Mother —
and this would certainly be the most natural
dedication. In cases where a pagan temple was
turned into a church there was a tendency, almost

82 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
invariable, to select as the patron-saint of the
church some Christian personage who resembled,
more or less, the heathen god whose cultus had been
abolished. Thus the Theseum became a church
of St. George. The cave of Dictynna (Artemis),
in the Acropolis-rock, above the theatre of Dio
nysus, became a shrine of the Virgin (Panagia
Spiliotissa — Our Lady of the Cave). The temple
of Athena in Syracuse is now a church of the
Virgin, and the Festival of All Saints was instituted
by Boniface IV. in a.d. 608 to commemorate the
consecration of the Pantheon to the worship of
God, who is glorified in " the multitude of His
holy ones." There is no reason to suppose that
the dedication of the Parthenon as a Christian
church was ever changed in the whole course of
the ten centuries which separate the pagan and
Mohammedan periods of its history. From first
to last, whether the worship held within was accord
ing to the Greek or the Latin rite, it was a Church
of the Mother of Christ — while both as a temple
and as a church it has been a " Parthenon."
The " Geographica " of Guido (compiled in the
twelfth century), and the " Relatio " of the pilgrim
Saewulf, who visited Palestine in a.d. 1 102-3, both
make mention of the ever-burning lamp in the
Church of the Virgin Mary.1 This was the sanctuary
lamp which is a familiar sight in Greek churches —
and, as it would seem, was once a familiar sight
in Greek temples. In the case of this " lychnos

1 " Guidonis Geographica," cap. 1 10 (Pinder and Parthey). Saewulf,
" Relatio Peregrinationis " in the " Palestine Pilgrim Texts," Vol, IV.

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DEDICATION TO THE VIRGIN 83
aenaos " in the Parthenon, we certainly have an
instance of the " continuity of history," for the
heathen forefathers ofthe Athenians whom Saewulf
saw kept a golden lamp or candelabrum burning
continuously in the holy house of their Virgin-
goddess. In the year 1019 came the Emperor
Basil, " the Slayer of Bulgarians," to offer thanks
and praise and rich gifts to the Virgin-Mother, in
recognition of the aid which, as he believed, had
been vouchsafed by her to his armies in the course
of twenty years' warfare with an enemy who had
torn from the East-Roman Empire the greater
part of its European provinces. " Having dedi
cated many rich gifts to the service of the sanctu
ary, he returned to Constantinople, and celebrated
a triumph." So we learn from Zonaras, whose
evidence is confirmed by that of George Cedrenus.
Both of these authorities speak of Basil as pre
senting his offerings " to the Theotokos " (Mother
of God). On the approach of Boniface de Mont
ferrat, in 1204, Michael Akominatos, the Arch
bishop of Athens, fearing the fanatical violence of
the " Crusaders," fled to Eubcea, and thence to
Ceos, one of the islands of the Archipelago. It
was in Ceos that, ten years later, he received the
news of the death of his brother Nicetas, the
historian, and composed in honour of the departed
a " monodia," in which he bewails the fate of the
" famous and opulent shrine, dedicated to the
honour of Christ's Mother by our predecessors,"
but then dishonoured and pillaged by heretic hands.
The evidence of book-writers is ratified and
illustrated by that of inscriptions. In the flutings

84 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
of the great columns more than eighty inscrip
tions were discovered by M. Pittakis and the
Archimandrite Antonius, and in a great many of
these the Virgin Mary is the object of praise or
invocation.1 The most usual form of invocation
is "Theodoche Despoina" (Theodoche perhaps by
mistake for Theotoke — " Mother of God, our
Lady"), sometimes "Theotoke," more rarely
"Panagia." In one case the invocation was as
follows : " Hail, thou that art highly favoured,
the living sanctuary of God ! " All these inscrip
tions appear to belong to the " Byzantine " epoch
— i.e., they are earlier than the thirteenth century.
One class of these column-inscriptions is of especial
interest for ecclesiastical annalists. This class sup
plies the names of the bishops (later on, arch
bishops and metropolitans) from the sixth to the
end ofthe twelfth century. In a.d. 733 LeO the
Iconoclast transferred Macedonia, Epirus, Greece,
and Crete from the jurisdiction of Rome to that of
Constantinople, leaving the Pope no ecclesiastical
province in the Eastern Empire. The bishopric
of Athens was then made " independent " of all
superior ecclesiastical authority save that of the
Patriarch of Constantinople. By the time of
Photius' patriarchate (a.d. 857-67) the bishop has
become an "archbishop," and in 869 the chief
pastor of the faithful in Athens is found with
the title of "metropolitan."2 The ecclesiastical
¦ Mommsen, "Athenae Christianas," cap. vi.
2 It is not very easy to see what distinction the Greeks draw between a
metropolitan and an archbishop. The chief prelate in Cyprus is an arch
bishop, the other three bishops of the island being metropolitans. The
Archbishop of Smyrna is the equal in rank of the Metropolitan of Ephesus.

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ATHENS. — THE OLD METROPOLITAN CHURCH.
MICHAEL AKOMINATOS 85
province, of which Athens was the metropolis,
included the following dioceses : Euripos, Oreos,
Karystos, Porthmos, and Aulon (all these in
Eubcea), Daulis or Daulia in Phocis, Coronea in
Bceotia, and the islands of Andros, Scyros, Syros,
and Seriphos. Of all the occupants of the metro
politan throne of Athens the most famous and
notable was the last — Michael Akominatos of
Chonae in Phrygia, who entered on his episcopate
in the year 1180.

II.
Mention has already been made of the bom
bardment of the Acropolis by the Venetians
in 1687. The Venetians succeeded on that
occasion in capturing Athens and its citadel,
but found themselves unable to retain their con
quest. In March, 1688, therefore, they evacuated
Athens and the Piraeus and returned home.
Morosini would gladly have carried off some of
the Parthenon sculptures as the spoils of his
transient victory, but the group selected for re
moval was destroyed by the clumsiness of the
workmen appointed to take it down, and the
admiral had to content himself with four stone
lions, one of which had stood for ages at the
entrance to the Piraeus harbour, and had given
that resort of shipping its mediaeval name of
Porto Leone. This lion, which is of colossal
proportions — its height, in a sitting posture, being

86 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
some ten feet — is recognised as the work of a
sculptor of the fifth century b.c On its shoulders
are inscriptions which for a long time baffled the
attempts made by antiquarians to decipher them.
A little over fifty years ago, however, the Danish
scholar Rafn examined them, and found that they
were written in Runic character. The letters are
considerably blurred and worn, so that Rafn's
interpretation must be regarded as resting to
some extent upon conjecture. That they are
Runic characters is not to be doubted, but those
who are qualified to speak with authority on the
subject of Runic inscriptions are not in entire
agreement with Rafn as to their exact meaning.
According to Rafn the inscription on the lion's
left shoulder states that " Hakon, with Ulf,
Asmund, and Orm, took this haven. They, and
Harold the Tall, wrung heavy scot from the
Greeks who had forsaken their king. [. . .]
was held in bondage in a far land, but Egil and
Ragnar bare shield and sword in Romania and
Armenia." That on the right shoulder records
how "Asmund and Asgir, Thorleif, Thord and
Ivar carved these Runes, for so did Harold the
Tall give the word, albeit the Greeks in high
wrath forbade them."
This " Harold the Tall " is identified by Rafn
and those who follow him with Harold Hardrada,
the half-brother of St. Olaf, King of Norway.
Harold, though only fifteen years of age at the time,
fought in the battle of Stiklestad, in which St. Olaf
fell (a.d. 1030), and having escaped the sword of
his enemies, made his way to the court of St. Olaf's

87
brother-in-law, Yaroslav, Grand Prince of Kiev,
in Russia. Yaroslav was a descendant of the
Swede Rurik, who had become Grand Prince of
Russia in the ninth century. Since the days of
Rurik, Scandinavian adventurers had constantly
resorted to Russia, and it was due to their active
spirit of enterprise that the Russians were brought
into those relations with the East-Roman Empire
which have exercised so important and decisive an
influence upon the history of the nation.
Led by the Scandinavian captains the Russians
alternately traded and fought with the Byzantines,
whose rulers with reason conceived a high opinion
of the warlike prowess of these Hyperboreans.
Early in the tenth century, the emperors of the
East, finding that there was a possibility of secur
ing the assistance of these redoubtable warriors,
invited some of them to Constantinople, and
formed them into a bodyguard under the name of
" Varangians " or " Variagians," a name which
appears to have reference to the oath by which
they bound themselves to faithful service. These
Varangians were the best-disciplined and most
reliable corps in the whole of the Byzantine
Caesar's armies.
"To Constantinople " then (a.d. 1032 or 1033)
" Harold came, and in the service of the Emperor
led the Varangian Guard against the Saracens in
Egypt and Syria, thus anticipating the future
deeds of the Normans in the Crusades, and saw
Greece and Italy, where he fought with his distant
kinsmen the Normans, who were already settled
in Italy. In this service he gained a wide-spread

88 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
fame, and amassed an enormous treasure. Then,
quarelling with his master the Emperor, he went
back to Russia to marry Elizabeth, the daughter
of Yaroslav. Thence he returned to Norway, to
share that kingdom with Magnus the Good, his
nephew, till the death of his rival left him in sole
possession of the Norwegian throne (a.d. 1047).
Nineteen years afterwards he crossed to England
to claim that kingdom from Harold the son of
Godwine, and to end his strange life at the battle
of Stamford Bridge (a.d. 1066.) " J
The mere outline of Harold Hardrada's ex
periences in the service of Romanus II. , Michael
the Paphlagonian, and Constantine Monomachus,
is enough to show that the swords of the Eastern
Emperor's mercenaries were in little danger of
rusting through disuse. Mohammedan Emirs
in Syria and on the Armenian frontier, wild Pat-
zinaks from the Ukraine, Normans in Southern
Italy, Mohammedans again in Sicily, were ever
ready to trouble the peace of the Empire by land
or sea. But, as though the difficulties of beating
back foreign foes were not enough to contend
with, the Eastern emperors frequently stirred up
wars within their own dominions by the tyrannous
character of their fiscal policy. Thus it was that
in 1040 the Servians rose in arms and severed
themselves and their country from the Empire,
¦ A. H. Johnson, " The Normans in Europe," pp. 29, 30. The account
given above of the inscriptions on the Pirasic lion is drawn from Finlay,
" History of Greece," ii., p. 41 8, v., p. 188, and Constantinidi, IcFTO/Oia
TlOV A0JJVWV, p. 240.

THE STONING OF CHARES 89
and in the same year rebellion broke out in
Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly, and Greece. In
this widespread insurrection the people of Athens
took part. This was not indeed the first time
that they had manifested their resentment against
maladministration and abuse of power. In the
year 915 they had stoned to death the Protos-
patharios Chares within the very sanctuary of
the Panaghia on the Acropolis, where he had
sought refuge from their fury. M. Constantinidi
("History of Athens," pp. 191, 192) asserts that
no punishment was inflicted upon the community
for this extreme act of violence, which is hard to
believe, save on the supposition that the murdered
man had no friends at court.
The person chiefly to be blamed for the troubles
of 1040 — 1 04 1 was a high official known as John
the Orphanotrophos. This man, who was the
brother of the Emperor Michael, is said to have
begun life as a physician. For some reason or
other — perhaps because he found the profession
unprofitable — he entered the monastic order.
It is also recorded of him that he entered
the order of those who had suffered, some of
their own accord, some perforce, that terrible
mutilation which was supposed to render a man
untempted and untemptable of evil. Under the
Emperor Romanus III. he was appointed to the
office and dignity of Orphanotrophos, i.e., Minister
of Charitable Foundations. His brother's acces
sion to the imperial throne in 1034 brought him
further promotion, inasmuch as he then became
president of the Imperial Council of State, and

90 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
was entrusted (very unwisely on the Emperor's
part) with the direction and control of the financial
administration of the Empire. The rapacity and
lucre-madness of his agents must have caused the
name Orphanotrophos — " Orphanage-nurse " — to
ring very ironically in the ears of the Emperor's
tax-paying subjects. There is, however, at least
an appearance of consistency in his career, which
he began, continued, and ended as a leech !
Greece then, as well as the provinces distinguish
able by the origin of their population as Slavo-
Bulgarian, had felt the scorpions of the " Orphan
age-nurse's " finance, and so strong was the
general feeling of dissatisfaction, discontent, and
disaffection, that all Hellas, both north and south
of the Corinthian Gulf, fell in with the Slavo-Bul-
garian insurrection of 1040, with the exception of
the town of Naupactus. To pacify the disturb
ances in Greece Harold the Tall was sent, having
at his back " Hakon, Orm, Thorleif," and the rest
of his fellow-countrymen of the Imperial Guard.
By the mere terror of their presence, they seem to
have straightway brought back Athens to her
allegiance, levying a notable fine or amercement
from the population, but shedding no blood, and
destroying no dwellings of men. Thus was the
Emperor's authority restored in Athens, and the
event was recorded in rude scratches upon a
masterpiece of the stone-carver's art which had
survived from the glorious age of Phidias and
lctinus. The Athenians, so it is said, were highly
displeased at this. Was it because they resented
the defacing of a venerable monument of antiquity ?

THE LION OF THE PIR^US 9 1
Very few probably of that generation of Athenians
knew anything of Themistocles or Cimon, Pericles
or Nicias, or any of those who in the fifth century
before Christ had made Ajhens for ever glorious.
Very few would be capable of appreciating the
beauties of ancient Greek sculpture and architec
ture. Ancient Athens was given over to idols ;
mediaeval Athens was given over to icons, but
icons, however sacred they may be reputed, are
bad instruments for the formation and develop
ment of artistic taste. It is quite possible, and
indeed likely enough, that the Athenians of the
eleventh century and ofthe Middle Ages generally,
regarded the great stone lion at the entrance of
the Piraeus-haven with superstitious reverence as
connected in some mysterious but very real and
intimate way with the fortune of the city — a sacred
object, to be touched, if touched at all, only by
the pious and devout hands of persons to whom
Attica was home and fatherland, and not to be
profaned by rude and uncouth strangers, between
whom and the Greeks there could be nothing in
common. We may suppose, then, the Athenians
were agitated by the sight of " Asmund with
Asgir, Thorleif, Thord and Ivar " scratching their
Runes upon the lion of the Piraeus, because they
feared either that the profanation would bring
upon them the wrathful chastisement of ghostly
powers, or that it was the sign that wrath was
already kindled against them, and that therefore
mischief must soon befall. Such fears, however,
if they were entertained for the time being, were
destined to be falsified by events. A long time

92 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
passed away before any great calamity befell
Athens, and, so far as the immediate present was
concerned, it was evident soon enough that timely
submission had averted much evil. The Thebans
took the field in the name of Greek liberties, but
were defeated with great slaughter, and it is to the
last degree unlikely that their losses were losses of
friends and kinsmen only, and not of property as
well, for Thebes in those days was wealthy and
prosperous, a city of scholars and students as well
as of merchants and manufacturers, a city where
the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela found
(a.d. i i 63), two thousand of his people engaged
in the production of silk and purple cloth.1 If
Athens, in those days poor in comparison with
Thebes, had to pay up heavily for rebellion, much
more would Thebes have to pay in gold, as well
as in blood shed on the field of battle.
Fortunately for the Empire and the Imperial
Government, the Slavo-Bulgarians, with whom the
rebellion had originated, had no leaders of any
ability, or indeed of any moral worth. In the
summer of 1041, Michael the Paphlagonian led
out an expedition from Thessalonica, and before
the winter season came on, had made an end of
the insurgents. Macedonia, Epirus, and Greece
were recovered, but Servia was lost — so much at
least had the rapacious fiscal policy of the Orphano
trophos cost the state. Byzantine statesmen may

'Finlay, "History of Greece," ii., p. 417; Wright, "Early Travels in
Palestine." Tudela is a town in Navarre. There is a short account of
Benjamin of Tudela in Gratz, " History of the Jews," iii., p. 400 (Miss
LSwy's translation).

FISCAL EXACTIONS 93
have forgotten nothing, but at the same time they
never learned anything. They may be said never
to have forgotten any of the numerous ways in
which it had been at any time pointed out that
taxation might be imposed, and the provinces
drained for the sustenance, or rather the pamper
ing of the capital — and indeed not of the capital so
much as of the court. But they do not appear to
have learned that exhaustion ofthe provinces would
involve the ultimate exhaustion of Constantinople
as well, and the collapse of the whole imperial
system. Against such fiscal tyranny as that of
John the Orphanotrophos the provincials pro
tested and rebelled frequently enough, only to
find that there was no hope of deliverance save in
separation from the Empire. Between the Govern
ment and the governed, in the Byzantine Empire,
there was little love lost — there never was much,
if any, to lose, for the East-Roman Empire was
a Government unsupported by anything like what
we understand by national feeling or consciousness.
All the more necessary, then, was it to attach the
provinces to the capital and the court by the feeling
of common interest, to make the relation of
governors and governed, capital and provinces,
one in the maintenance of which the provincial
populations should perceive and know that their
welfare was involved, while the dissolution ofit with
equal clearness meant for them loss and disaster.
But this requirement was hardly met by increasing
the burdens of taxation, either by adding to their
amount, or by changes in the manner in which
the taxes were raised — changes which brought the

94 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
tillers of the soil into economical difficulties and
dangers.1 The Eastern Emperors and their ministers dis
cerned, clearly enough, that multifarious and bur
densome imposts tended to alienate the minds of
the tax-payers, and were a perpetual incentive to
rebellion and secession. This difficulty, however,
they tried to meet by disarming the provincials as
far as possible, and maintaining large bodies of
foreign mercenary troops, which could be fully
relied on to take drastic proceedings in the sup
pression of revolts with which they had no sym
pathy. Thus the position of affairs in the Eastern
Empire was not unlike the position of affairs in
Egypt under the twenty-sixth dynasty. The
Pharaohs of that dynasty (b.c 660-525) looked for
support, not to the natural allegiance of the Egyp
tians, but rather to the disciplined service of
Ionian and Carian mercenaries. History is marked
by repetitions and brings its revenges. Greek
hirelings kept Egypt in subjection to Psammitichiis
and his successors. Northmen upheld the autho
rity of the Constantinopolitan Emperors over the
very countries from which the Egyptian monarchs
of the seventh and sixth centuries B.c had drawn
the men whose military prowess was the surest
defence and support of their throne. Greek
soldiers, returning from an expedition into Nubia,
scratched their names on the leg of one of the four
colossal statues of Rameses the Great at Abu-
S'imbel. Scandinavian mercenaries, in the pay of
¦For the insurrections in Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece, see Finlay,
" History of Greece," ii., pp. 415-419.

95
a Roman Emperor who habitually conversed in
Greek, scratched their names on the Piraeic lion
before taking their departure from the city which
they had brought back to its allegiance and com
pelled to make satisfaction for its offence by the
payment of a heavy fine. Doubtless the Ionians
and Carians in the service of a Necho or a Hophra
despised the Egyptians, who indeed were not al
together an unarmed people, but for all that were
considered incapable of supplying such a corps
d 'elite as the grandeur of the Pharaoh called for.
So likewise — or even more so — must the Varan
gians have despised the " Romaioi," as the Greeks
of the Middle Ages called themselves, — a multi
tude purposely made unwarlike by the Byzantine
Government, which showed itself a true "tyranny"
in distrusting its own proper subjects so far as to
make the least possible use of them for the defence
of the Empire, lest, being trained to wield weapons
of war, they should turn those weapons against
their rulers.
It was by this same distrust that the Emperors
were impelled to devitalize the city communities
in their dominions, to restrict local autonomy, to
centralize the administration to a degree which a
Greek of the palmy days of Greece would have
regarded as monstrous and intolerable. The an
cient "constitution of the Athenian Commonwealth
had been worn to a shadow long before the time
of Justinian, though we do hear of " archons "
even as late as the year 500. J For a detailed
¦ Constantinidi, " Iffropia TUJV A9r)VU)V, pp. 134, 156.

96 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
account of the constitution and government of
Athens in the period between Justinian and the
Latin Conquest (a.d. 565-1205) there is no ade
quate material, but the few isolated facts discover
able in the records of that age may serve for the
formation of a general idea of the way in which
the affairs of the city were managed. The highest
local official was the Dioecetes (AtotK^rrjc) or
" Commissioner," also spoken of (by those who
affected classical phrases) as the Archon or Athen-
arch ('A077vapx.°c)- -^e received his appointment
directly from the Emperor at Constantinople.
With him were associated, in the capacity of
advisers, the Metropolitan and other prominent
citizens. The members of this advisory board
were perhaps chosen by the Dioecetes himself.
Other officials receiving their appointment from
Constantinople were the Protocritor (Chief Justice),
the Asecretis (A Secretis, i.e. Secretary), also called
Grammateus — who probably stood in the same
relation to the Dioecetes as the Chief Secretary to
the High Commissioner in the present Government
of Cyprus — and the Drungarii (Apovyyapioi), who
were military officers.
The city of Athens with its " horion " or terri
tory, the limits of which were much the same as
those of ancient Attica, was in theory allowed a
lighter burden of taxation than the neighbouring
territories of Thebes and Chalcis. We say in
theory, for in practice the privilege, originally
granted, according to Michael Akominatos, by an
imperial " Bulla Aurea " or charter, was liable to
be disregarded. It was the duty of the Athenians,

QUASI-COLONIAL POSITION OF ATHENS 97
as of many other communities in the Empire, to
present a crown of gold to the Emperor on his
accession to the throne.
Athens and Attica were visited from time to
time by the Governor-General (Jlpa'iTwp) of the
" Helladic Theme " (province of Hellas), who
seems to have had authority to correct, redress,
and reform, when appealed to by the inhabitants.
So much we may infer from the oration of Michael
Akominatos to the " Praetor of Hellas and Pelo
ponnesus " sent out by Andronicus I. in 1182.
He was not authorized, however, to enter Athens
at the head of an army.
In the eleventh century the " themata " of Hellas
and Peloponnesus were united, but this change
made no difference with respect to the privileges
conceded by the "Bulla Aurea" cited in the
memorial of Michael Akominatos. It is a pity
that he does not mention the Emperor who granted
this charter, but only speaks of the " worshipful
charter " and " ancient custom." A man of his
bent of mind, however, would be likely to measure
antiquity on a large scale.
From these details we may infer that Athens
and Attica were rather in the position of a Crown
Colony, whose charter privileges were exposed
to be ignored and trampled upon by arbitrary
Governors-General. It was certainly not the
position of the " nomos " of Attica and Bceotia in
the modern kingdom of Greece. But there was
no Parliament in the Byzantine Empire, and the
quasi-colonial position of Athens and Attica under
the Byzantine rigime becomes all the clearer in the
H

98 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
light of the fact that in Constantinople there
resided an official entitled " Defendarius " or
" Mysticus," appointed by the Emperor, the
business of this official being to submit petitions
and memorials from Athens to the sovereign, and
generally to act as the Athenian "Agent" or
"Resident."1

III.
The Bulla Aurea, or imperial charter, granted by
Alexius in 1082 as part of the remuneration
promised for services rendered by the navy of
Venice in the war between the Emperor and
Robert Guiscard, the Norman King of Sicily,2 put
the Venetians in exclusive possession of a complete
quarter or section of Constantinople on the Golden

¦This account ofthe government of Athens and Attica in the period a.d.
565-1205 is drawn from Constantinidi, op. cit. pp. 191-2, 245/^, and
Lambros, " Ai AOrjvai Trspi ra teXv tov co)SsKa.TOv aiwvoe,
pp. 23-6, 63 f. The exact nature and extent ofthe Prsetor's authority and
powers with respect to Athens cannot well be ascertained from the docu
ments. In the memorial addressed (a.d. n 99) to Alexius III., Michael
asserts that the Praetor has no jurisdiction in the horion of Athens. Yet in
a.d. 1 1 82 he appealed to the Praetor Nicephorus for reform and redress. It
is absurd to suppose that the Prastor was allowed no jurisdiction in Attica,
but it is quite possible that a "golden bull" or charter forbade him to bring
troops with him into Athens.
2This war broke out in 1081. Robert Guiscard, under colour of restor
ing the dethroned Michael VII. attacked the Byzantine Empire in the hope
of surpassing the exploits of his countryman, William the Conqueror. His
forces were, however, unable to gain any decisive success, and the war was
terminated by his death in Cephalonia, in 1085.

VENETIANS IN CONSTANTINOPLE 99
Horn, near the Bucoleon Palace,1 with the
quays, magazines, workshops, dwelling-houses,
and churches comprised within its limits, where
they might reside and do business under the juris
diction of their own magistrates. All goods im
ported by Venetian traders were to enter free of
duty, and the same exemption was granted in
relation to exports. No harbour-dues were to be
levied on any Venetian ship. These arrangements,
moreover, were made to apply not only at Con
stantinople, but in thirty-one other cities as well,
ten of these being situated in Asia, and twenty-
one in Europe. Among these " open doors "
were Thebes, Corinth, and Athens.2 From this
time forward, Timon of Athens might promise
himself frequent opportunities of meeting the
Merchant of Venice.
Thus did Alexius stand forth as an advocate
both of free imports and a preferential tariff. The
difficulty of reconciling these two apparent oppo
sites was solved by diverting to foreign conces
sionaires the profits obtainable from each. Few
more destructive blunders were ever committed

¦ This palace, with the adjoining palace of Mangana, occupied the site of
the ancient Byzantium, above and behind Seraglio Point. Venetian mer
chants already had establishments in Constantinople, and a church had been
assigned for their use.
2 The following is a catalogue of these "treaty ports" —
(a) in Asia — Latakia, Antioch, Malmistra, Adana, Tarsus, Adalia,
Strovilo, Chios, Theologos (Ephesus), Phokia (Phoca=a), Abydos.
lb) in Europe — Durazzo, Corfu, Avlona, Vonitza, Modon, Coroni,
Nauplia, Corinth, Thebes, Athens, Egripo (Chalcis), Demetrias
(near Volo), Saloniki, Christopoli, Peritheorion, Rhodosto,
Adrianople, Apra, Erekli, Silivri. See Paparrhigopoulos,
" 'lo-TOpia tov EXA))VlKOV ' EOvovq, iv., 433-434-

IOO ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
by even the most reckless and incapable in all the
long line of emperors from Constantine to the
Angeli. The Venetian trading colonies, headed
by the settlement in Constantinople, became a
veritable " imperium in imperio," and a thorn in
the side, a smoke in the eyes, a stink in the
nostrils, of the native rulers. John Comnenus,
the son, and Manuel, the grandson, of Alexius,
attempted to shake the Venetian Old Man of the
Sea off the neck of the Empire, but in vain, and
both had to submit to the humiliation of renewing
the charter, with all its baneful concessions.
There was one department of trade, however,
in dealing with which the emperors acted stricdy
upon Dido's principle, " Tros Tyriusve mihi
nullo discrimine agetur," and that was the supply
of food. The emperors held the monopoly of
wheat and barley, wine and oil, and every sort of
food in the whole of their dominions, a source of
revenue too copious to be abandoned, even to
friends so dear as the Venetians. By this abuse
the facilities lavished upon foreign competition
were rendered less injurious than they might
otherwise have been. Moreover, no foreigners
were allowed to trade in Black Sea ports without
a special licence from the Emperor. Further,
some reduction of the iniquitous gains allowed to
the Venetians was effected, without infringing
their charter-rights, by the commercial treaties
into which Manuel Comnenus entered with the
merchants of Genoa and Pisa. A Genoese colony
grew up at Galata, on the shore of the Golden
Horn, opposite Constantinople, and all Genoese

AN EASTERN CCEUR DE LION IOI
and Pisans residing at the capital for purposes of
trade and commerce, were under obligation to
render military aid to the Emperor.1
Manuel Comnenus was one of the most notable
warriors of his day — an Eastern Cceur de Lion.
But the glory he gained by his exploits in battle
was altogether barren, and his reign was a dis
astrous epoch in the history of the Empire, which
he left much worse off than he found it.2
In the year 1 147 he gave Roger IL, the Norman
King of Sicily and Southern Italy, an opening for
picking a quarrel with him. It was an unfortu
nate moment for joining hostilities with an
adversary so powerful and resolute. The German
Emperor and the King of France were both at the
head of large armies on the march to help the
sorely-beset Baldwin, King of Jerusalem. Their
route lay through the northern provinces of
Manuel's empire, and he had to concentrate his
forces to watch the progress of these formidable
potentates, and be prepared for the defence of his
capital. Such naval forces as he possessed were
quite unequal to the task of repelling the Norman
invasion without the help of Venice — and Venice
took her own time to supply this need.
A numerous fleet, commanded by George the
¦ The treaties with Genoa and Pisa were made in 1155. The facilities
and exemptions granted were not so generous as those which had been
lavished upon the Venetians, who still held the position of the most
favoured nation. But this difference diminished the chances of concerted
and co-operating hostilities on the part of the Italians. The rapid numerical
increase and the turbulent behaviour of these strangers within the gates —
there were 60,000 of them at the close of Manuel's reign in n 80 — might
well excite the gravest fears of the Byzantine rulers.
2 Manuel reigned from 1143 to 11 80.

102 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
Antiochene, whose surname bespeaks his Oriental
nativity, set sail from Brindisi and cast anchor in
the harbour of Corfu. The Corfiotes, wearied
and disaffected by long years of fiscal tyranny and
judicial wickedness, surrendered themselves to the
invader, hoping for some measure of relief from a
change of rulers. A garrison of 1,000 Normans
was left in possession, and the fleet, sailing round
the Morea, attacked Monemvasia or Malvasia, on
the eastern coast of the peninsula.1 The Monem-
vasians, however, defended themselves with cour
age and vigour, and beat off the Normans, who
then retraced their course and devastated the shores
of iEtolia and Acarnania. Passing the Straits of
Naupactus (Lepanto), they sailed up to the head
ofthe Gulf of Salona. There an army was landed,
which marched through Phocis and Bceotia to
wards Thebes, plundering every town on the
route. The wealthy and populous community of
Thebes had lost the spirit which had prompted it
to take active part in the insurrection of 1040.
For a hundred years the Thebans had dwelt
" careless, after the manner of the Zidonians,
quiet and secure." They were utterly unprepared
to offer any resistance to the Normans, who cap
tured the town without striking a blow, and
plundered it at their leisure, as the Vandals
plundered Rome in 455 a.d. Nothing of any

¦ Monemvasia or Malvasia gave its name to " Malmsey," a wine held in
great esteem in the Middle Ages. A cask of this wine was ennobled by
the immersion of a ducal body therein, if we may believe a legend familiar
to all who have ploughed their way through English history.

THE NORMANS IN THEBES AND CORINTH IO3
value that could be carried off was left in the
place. Many of the richest inhabitants were made
prisoners of war, to be ransomed at exorbitant
rates. Hundreds of workmen from the silk fac
tories, which made Thebes famous in the Middle
Ages, were taken down to the fleet and compelled
to labour at the oar.
From Thebes the Normans, leaving Athens un
touched, passed on to Corinth. The garrison
retreated to the Acrocorinthus, which, in the hands
of ordinarily courageous occupants, ought to have
proved impregnable. But the commandant was
a coward, and surrendered at the first summons.
Corinth suffered the same indignities as Thebes,
and then the invaders, their ships full laden with
captives and all sorts of plunder, set sail for
Palermo. On the return of the expedition, the
silk-workers from Corinth and Thebes were settled
in the Sicilian capital, where their industry was
encouraged and protected by King Roger, greatly
to the profit of the realm.
The war dragged on with alternations of victory
and defeat, until the year 1 1 5 8 . Manuel recovered
Corfu, but failed disastrously in his attempts to
carry the war into the enemy's country. When
the terms of peace were under discussion, Manuel
had an opportunity of procuring the repatriation
of that multitude of useful and productive subjects
which had been carried off to Sicily, but he let it
slip. Thebes, however, managed to recover, to
some extent at least, from the devastation inflicted
by the Normans. Benjamin of Tudela, as we
have already noticed, visited the town in 1 1 61, and

IO4 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
found it a wealthy and prosperous community.
Possibly the two thousand Jews of whom he
speaks as the chief manufacturers of silk and
purple cloth in all Greece had come in to take the
place of the workpeople whom the Normans had
removed. In 1197 Sultan Moieddin of Ancyra
demanded from Alexius III. (Angelus) forty robes
of Theban silk, such as were made for the Em
peror's use, as part of the annual tribute, on pay
ment of which he would be pleased to allow the
Romans to live in peace.1
Roger of Sicily appears to have been perfectly
free from prejudice against Orientals. He had a
Syrian for the admiral of his fleet, and reconciled
his Theban and Corinthian captives to their ex
patriation by enabling them to resume the industry
in which they excelled, to their own profit as well
as to that of the kingdom at large. There was a
considerable Mohammedan population in Sicily,
descendants of the Arabs who had conquered the
island in the ninth century. These people were
allowed to live unmolested in the practice of Islam.
Most notable among the Moslem protigis of King
Roger was the Arab Edrisi, who was appointed
Geographer-Royal. Edrisi, the greatest of the
mediaeval Arabian geographers, produced in 1 1 54
a description of the world, in which there are
interesting and valuable notices of the countries
included in the Byzantine Empire. In dealing with
Greece, Edrisi mentions among its chief towns

¦ Finlay, " History of Greece," iii., 162, 247. Paparrhigopoulos, " History
ofthe Greek Nation," iv., 555.

EDRISI S DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD IO5
Corinth, " Batra " — i.e. Patras — Arcadia,1 Methone
or Modon, " El Kedemona " (Lacedaemon), " Ma-
liasa " (Monemvasia), Argos, and Athens, describ
ing the last as a populous town, surrounded by
gardens and cornfields. He does not mention
Thebes, and thus it would seem that the recovery
of Thebes began at some time between 1 154, when
Edrisi's geographical treatise was finished, and 1 1 63,
when Benjamin of Tudela's visit took place.
It is fairly certain that the Norman invasion of
the year 1147 spared Athens. Had Athens been
attacked and plundered, we should have been told
of it by Nicetas Choniates, who could not have
passed over such an event in silence. The object
of the invaders seems to have been to seize the
greatest amount of plunder in the shortest possible
time, and the prospect of plunder in Athens was
too poor to make it appear worth while to incur
the expenditure of time which would have been
required to bring the fleet round the Peloponnesus
into the Saronic Gulf, or even to haul the ships
overland across the Isthmus, supposing that their
size and tonnage allowed of this. That the
Normans spared Athens for any sentimental
reasons is not to be supposed for a moment.
Edrisi's notice of the gardens and cornfields
round Athens is interesting. In the times of Pliny
and Pausanias there were numerous gardens in the
neighbourhood of the city, probably for the most
part market-gardens. Figs and olives have been
naturalized for ages in the soil of Attica, and the
¦ Cyparissiae in ancient days.

106 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
quality of the barley-crops raised in antiquity was
excellent, though the quantity was insufficient for
the population when Athens was in her glory.
The general aspect of the city, as viewed from a
distance, was in all probability very much the same
in the twelfth century as in the second, though
Herodes Atticus might have had some difficulty
in recognizing the place had he been brought back
to earthly life in the days of Michael Akominatos.
But between the classical and the mediaeval city
there may have been much more resemblance than
could be supposed between either of them and the
capital of the present kingdom of Greece.
The streets and lanes which occupy the ground
north and north-east of the Acropolis, between the
rock and " Hermes Street " in the one direction,
and " Constitution Square " in the other, may be
taken as representing the main features of the
mediaeval city, though only a few of the buildings
now standing are actually of mediaeval origin.
Narrow and tortuous roadways, houses of an
aboriginal rather than original style of construction
— one need not say " architecture " — built very
largely out of the debris of the pagan city ; quaint
little churches, crowned with octagonal or circular
lanterns on which rest shallow cupolas, and roofed
in, as also are the houses, with curved red-brown
tiles ; fig-trees or olives thrusting branches over
garden-walls here and there ; memorials of pagan
antiquity, such as the choragic monument of Lysi-
crates, the Horologion of Andronicus Cyrrhestes
(" Tower of the Winds "), Hadrian's arch, his
forum — the delapidated remains of which have

CHARACTER OF THE MEDIEVAL ATHENIANS IO7
been used as the nuclei for two churches, one of
St. Michael the Taxiarch, the other of the Pan-
aghia, and the Theseum, which has become a
church of St. George ; the " bazari," as it would
have been called in the more corrupt speech of
later days, a plexus of lanes, where the glare of the
sun is broken by awnings stretched across, or per
haps even by the more solid shelter of stone vault
ing, which converts the thoroughfare into a tunnel,
lighted through openings overhead — such are some
of the details of the picture. It is not easy to
resuscitate, in imagination, the life that pulsated
through those streets and lanes, the arterial and
venous system of the city. The Athenians of the
twelfth century, however, can hardly have differed
very greatly in nature and temperament from their
descendants of the twentieth. We may picture
them to ourselves as a dark-complexioned, bright-
eyed folk, voluble in speech, animated in gesture,
nervous and excitable, quick-witted and intelligent,
but inclined to use their wits for base purposes, tem
perate and abstemious, but grievously beset by love
of lucre, devout and scrupulous in the matter of
fasts and festivals, cross-signings, genuflexions and
so forth, but not always greatly rejoicing in truth,
born actors and orators, yet incapable of even ap
proaching the excellence of their pagan forefathers,
by reason of their inveterate tendency towards ex
aggeration. Between them and the Athenians of
the Periclean age a wall of separation has been
raised up in the course of ages. That accomplished
ecclesiastic, Michael Akominatos, in whom there
had been kindled a genuine fire of enthusiasm for

108 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
the literary and artistic glories of ancient Hellas,
many memorials of which he must have seen and
touched and handled during the years of his so
journing in Constantinople,1 experienced a terrible
disenchantment when he first came to Athens as
its Metropolitan in the year 1 1 80. Yet he can
hardly have lacked previous warning. The gran
dees appointed by the Emperors and sent from
Constantinople to administer the government of
Athens and its " horion " or district brought back
an evil report of the place. They compared it to
the deserts of Scythia, and complained of the stiff-
necked petulance of its inhabitants, who complained,
protested, haggled, squabbled, and orated whenever
called upon to pay their taxes, and deferred pay
ment as long as they could. Doubtless they had
plenty of reason on their side in this matter. So
indeed thought Michael Akominatos, who went
twice to the capital to plead in proprid persond for
some measure of relief to be granted to his dis
tressed spiritual flock.2 But with these same
spiritual sheep he was not altogether well pleased.
They received him, according to his own state
ment, with enthusiasm. But to his great mortifi
cation he found that " the Muses had taken wing,
carrying philosophy, oratory, and everything with
them," and that their inheritance had been invaded
by " boorishness and a barbarous dialect." Very
soon he came to look upon Athens as a place of
¦ Michael was born at Chonae near the site of Colossae in Asia Minor,
about a.d. 1 140, but was sent to Constantinople to complete his education
for the priesthood about a.d. 1155.
2 In 1 185 and 1201.

A TERRIBLE DISENCHANTMENT IO9
banishment, and he implored George Xiphilinos,
the Patriarch of Constantinople, to rescue him
from " this pit," " this infernal Valley of Lamenta
tion." The aspect and condition of the city,
moreover, distressed him. He found it a " dirty
dust-heap," where commerce and industry were
hopelessly decaying. " There is no worker in iron
or copper among us," he wrote on one occasion ;
and tagain, " everything they make in Athens is
poor and rude, down to the very instruments of
field-labour." In the bitterness of his spirit, how
ever, the good Metropolitan must have written
unadvisedly with his pen. Athens and its district
had been included in the list of free ports granted
to the Venetians by Alexius in the treaty of 1082
— which indicates that the Venetians thought it
worth while to do business there. The treaty was
renewed in 1126, 1174, 1187, and 1199. And
Michael himself, writing from the island of Ceos,
whither he had fled for refuge when Otto de la
Roche came to take possession of his duchy of
Athens and Bceotia, mentions the " conchyleutae," or
purple-fishers, from Chalcis, Carystos, and Athens.
Some consolation Michael might have found in
the Acropolis, which guarded the city on its
southern side, rising up with its stately diadem of
buildings and walls sharply defined against the
pure and brilliant sky of Attica. From the ridge
connecting the Acropolis with the Areopagus, the
long flight of steps, worn by the tread of countless
feet for centuries past, led up to the Propyl aea.
Close within this matchless gateway was the archi
episcopal residence with its chapel ofthe Archangels

IIO ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
Michael and Gabriel — this chapel, according to the
antiquarian Pittakes, being actually part of the
structure of the Propylaea, so that the Archangels
seemed to keep the gate of the stronghold. The
very dedication ofthe shrine should have suggested
comforting thoughts to one, whose baptismal name
commended him to the protection of St. Michael,
and whose native city of Chonae had long been a
place where the prince of the warrior hosts of
heaven was venerated with especial devotion. The
people of Chonae had inherited from their ancestors,
the Christians of Colossae,1 a tradition of angel-
worship, and much the same thing might be said
of other Orthodox Greek communities.
The view inward and eastward from the Pro
pylaea is almost filled by the Erechtheum and the
Parthenon. Very considerable changes had been
made in the interior of the Parthenon, when it
was made a Christian church, but outwardly it
probably looked much as it did in the days when
the Panathenaic procession, portrayed upon the
frieze of the cella, was still a present reality, an
actual and regularly recurring event in the life of
the city. The colours indeed must have faded
from the sculptures of the pediments, metopes,
and frieze, and from the triglyphs and the capitals
and flutings of the columns. So likewise it is
doubtful whether much, if anything, of the bronze
accessories of the sculptured work and the ex-voto
shields once fastened upon the architrave existed
¦Colossians ii., 18. The Colossians migrated to Chonae in the eighth
century. See Ramsay, "The Church in the Roman Empire," p. 477, and
Lightfoot, " Colossians," pp. 65, 68.

THE PARTHENON IN THE MIDDLE AGES III
in Akominatos' days. Yet the building was still
fair to look upon. The main features of its excel
lence and beauty had been preserved. Akomi
natos would be justified in speaking of it as " a
glorious sanctuary, radiant in brightness, the palace
of the Virgin who is the vessel and fountain of
light celestial."
The brightness of which Michael Akominatos
speaks was most likely brightness of exterior
aspect. Within, there must have been the mystic
gloom proper to so august a sanctuary, a religious
twilight in which gleamed, like stars, the lamps
suspended before the pictured screen bearing,
among others, the sacred icon of the Virgin-
Mother with the Christ-child. The great glory
of the heathen temple had been the colossal
statue of Athene, wrought in ivory and gold,
bearing in her hand a figure representing Vic
tory. Not the least of the glories of the Chris
tian church was the icon of Mary, holding in her
arms the Child who was born to conquer Death
and Satan.
Michael Akominatos certainly had need of such
consolation as the immediate surroundings of his
abode on the Acropolis might afford. In his
episcopate, the inhabitants of Attica suffered
grievously in many ways. A succession of dry
seasons, and consequent scarcity, drove many into
self-imposed exile. Pirates — some of whom were
Christians, from Genoa and Malta — established
themselves in iEgina and other islands, from which
they could dart forth upon the merchant ships
leaving or approaching the Piraeus, and ravage the

112 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
coasts of Attica.1 So inadequate were the measures
taken to repel them — if indeed any were taken at
all — by the Dicecetes, that the sea-robbers pushed
their incursions far inland, and the peasantry from
fear of being slaughtered or dragged off into
slavery, would not stir from their villages to till
the fields, but left them uncultivated.
In respect of the miseries inflicted by piratical
raids, the Athenians were suffering for the folly
and madness of those who ruled in the capital of
the Empire. In 1183 the Greeks of Constanti
nople rose en masse against the " Latin " residents,
i.e. the Venetians, Amalfitans, Pisans, and others
from Italy and other countries of the West2 —
slaughtered large numbers, enslaved others, and
forced the remainder to fly. The insolence of the
privileged foreigners had at last become intolerable
to the native population, which exacted compensa
tion in murder, rapine, and pillage.
But the cities and communities whose represen
tatives had suffered regarded the action taken by
the Greeks, not as the settling of an old account,
but as the opening of a new one. Genoese and
other pirates swarmed in the iEgean — some of
them joining with, or rivalling, Saracens and Turks
in harrying the shores of Christian Attica, and in
1 1 8 5 the Normans of Sicily assailed, captured, and
plundered Thessalonica.
As though these things were not enough, there
¦ Thus did J£.gmn once more become the eye-sore of the Piraeus.
3 Styled " Latins " because Latin was the language of their public acts of
religion, and of the greater part of their literature.

MICHAELS MEMORIAL TO THE EMPEROR II3
was also the greed and cruelty of fiscal agents and
officials. Michael succeeded in getting Alexius II.
and Andronicus I. (i 180-3) to send governors of
Hellas who were ready and willing to effect reforms
in the system of taxation. But their efforts were
defeated by the influence of the friends whom the
guilty officials had at court. In 11 85 Michael
went in person to the capital to congratulate Isaac
Angelus, the new Emperor, upon the expulsion of
the Normans from Macedonia by Alexius Branas,
and to plead the poverty of the Athenians as an
excuse for their failure to send the Sovereign the
customary gift of a gold crown at his accession.
He took this opportunity of urging the necessity
for relief-measures, but no permanent result fol
lowed. Under Alexius III. the Byzantine admiral,
Giovanni Stirioni (a Calabrian), took from the
Athenians a forced contribution to the mainten
ance of the imperial navy. The admiral appropri
ated the money and left the naval defences of
Attica as he found them — that is to say, utterly
ineffective. This took place in 1198, and in the
following year Michael addressed to the Emperor
a memorial, setting forth at length the abuses and
violations of justice by which the provincial
governors oppressed the inhabitants of Athens
and Attica and devoured their substance. In this
document the Metropolitan complained (1) ofthe
unjust difference made between Attica and neigh
bouring districts, which were relieved at the ex
pense of the Athenians, from whom far more was
exacted than old-established custom and definite
assessments allowed ; (2) of the rapacious tyranny

114 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
of the Praetor or Governor of Hellas and Pelopon
nesus, who inflicted his visits upon Athens under
pretence of paying his devotions to the Panaghia
on the Acropolis. On such occasions the city was
invaded by a veritable army of guards, officials,
etc., accompanying the Praetor, and requisitioning
all sorts of provisions and supplies from the un
fortunate people, who received never a farthing of
compensation. Whilst sojourning in Athens, the
Praetor lived entirely at the expense of the city,
and had to be bribed to take his departure.
Having obtained the promise of this honorarium,
the Prastor would depart, leaving an official to
collect the money. To carry the Praetor's baggage,
pack-animals were requisitioned. The owners
might recover possession on payment of such price
as to his Excellency seemed proper. Of these
iniquities Michael prayed that there might be a
speedy termination. Furthermore, he requested
that the Athenians should not be forced to con
tribute money towards the maintenance of the
navy instead of providing — as the law properly
required — the contingent of sailors due from their
territory. But no protests or representations, whether
written or verbal, effected any result. Meanwhile,
the disorganization of the whole imperial system
went on apace. Bulgaria had risen once more in
revolt, and thrown off the yoke of allegiance.
Michael's complaints of the persistent violation, by
imperial officials, of Athenian rights conferred by
imperial charters and edicts, shows how little
control the central government now exerted over

COLLAPSE OF IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION II5
its provincial subordinates. Further illustration
of this collapse of the imperial administration is
supplied by the exploits of Leon Sgouros, Prince
of Argos and Nauplia.
Leon's father, whose possessions gave him power,
had forcibly seized the governorship of the town
of Nauplia, the port of Argos, and Leon himself,
inheriting this wrongfully acquired domain, added
to it, first Argos, and then Corinth, by similar ways
and means of iniquity. He had thus made him
self master of Argolis and the Isthmus, when
Alexius III. was dethroned, and Isaac Angelus
restored, by a filibustering league of Venetians,
Frenchmen, and Flemings (July, 1203).
In the utter confusion of affairs which followed
the restoration of Isaac Angelus, Leon saw an
admirable opportunity of extending his own power.
Athens appeared to be incapable of offering any
resistance, and Leon flattered himself that he had
only to stretch out his hand to seize the prize.
But though their city was ill-provided with means
of defence, the Athenians were not minded to
yield themselves tamely, and in their Metropolitan
they had a leader both willing and capable. Leon
marched towards Athens by Eleusis and the Sacred
Way. Near the monastery of Daphni he met
Michael, who had come out to dissuade him, if
possible, from attacking Athens. Leon demanded
the surrender of a young Athenian against whom
he had some grudge. The youth in question was
a bad character, and had wronged Michael as well
as Leon Sgouros. But Michael refused to sur
render him, and earnestly exhorted the invader to

Il6 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
retire, and not stir up civil war at a time when all
Greece was threatened with an incursion of Franks
and Venetians. Leon rejected the Metropolitan's
representations with contempt, and continued his
march. Michael thereupon retired to the Acro
polis with such forces as he could raise. The in
vaders had no difficulty in entering the city, but
the Acropolis, bravely held under the leadership
of Michael, resisted their utmost efforts. Leon,
enraged by defeat, was compelled to withdraw,
having first set fire to the city and plundered the
surrounding country. He then marched upon
Thebes, which surrendered without striking a
blow. It is not certain whether he made a second
attempt upon Athens in the following year (1204)
— if he did, he met with another repulse. With
the exception of Athens, all the eastern regions of
Greece, from Nauplia to the limits of Thessaly
were now in Leon's power. But he was not des
tined long to retain the dominion so unrighteously
acquired.

IV.
Some modern authorities plead for the administra
tion of the proverbial grain of salt along with
Michael Akominatos' vehement strictures upon the
ignorance and barbarism of Athens in his day.
We are asked to believe that Athens was not, after
all, so lacking in culture and learned attainment
as her worthy Metropolitan would have us believe.

LEARNING IN MEDIAEVAL ATHENS II7
There was no longer, indeed, a great seat of learn
ing ; but the traditions of earlier, brighter, happier
days were very far from having died out.
The evidence, however, produced in favour of
this more moderate view is not by any means
cogent. The facts alleged are as follows : —
(1) St. Ghislain, who founded a monastery in
the Hennegau region of Belgium, about a.d. 640,
was a native of Athens, and a learned man withal.
(2) In the legend of Pope Joan, Athens is
represented as a place to which the studious
resorted in the pursuit of learning.
(3) The fame of Athens reached the ears of
Icelandic Sagamen.
(4) David II. of Iberia (a.d. 1088-1125) used
to send young men year by year to study in
Athens. (5) Master iEgidius, a medical author, whose
name was great in Paris at the end of the twelfth
century, was reported to have studied his science
in Athens.
(6) John of Basingstoke, Archdeacon of Leices-
who died a.d. 1252, had studied in Athens. His
instructor (so he told Matthew Paris the Chroni
cler) was Constantina, daughter of the Archbishop
of that city.
In this list, (3) and (4) hardly call for con
sideration. The occurrence of any mention of
Athens in Icelandic Sagas is called in question by
Gregorovius (" Geschichte der Stadt Athens im
Mittelalter," p. 172), and the same authority on
the mediseval history of Athens, holds that the
" Athens " to which David II. of Iberia sent young

I 1 8 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
men to complete their education was a monastery,
so named, which had been founded by that
monarch. With regard to the rest of the evidence, the
following general observations may be made.
Granting that Athens actually did enjoy in the
Middle Ages the reputation of being a sanctuary
and stronghold of learning, this reputation may
may be accounted for as resting upon an assump
tion that Athens was still such as it had been
down to the days of St. Basil and St. Gregory
Nazianzene. The compilers of the "acta" of
saints, or of such curiosities of mythopoeia as the
legend of Pope Joan, would have some knowledge
of what Athens was in the earlier ages of Christen
dom. There would also be some knowledge of
what the city had been in pre-Christian times.
In point of fact, the best mental adornment which
a Western European could acquire in Athens in
the Middle Ages, would be such a knowledge of
Greek as would enable him to read the Greek
Fathers and the liturgical books of the Orthodox
Greek Church. But such an accomplishment
would make him a marked man in his own
country and among his own people, at a time
when any knowledge of Greek was indeed a rarity
in Western Europe. To have acquired a good
working knowledge of Patristic Greek would gain
for a man no small reputation for learning in those
days, and confirm the traditional impression that
Athens was still a " university town." But Athens
offered no more opportunities to the student than
any other Greek provincial town where there was

A MEDIAEVAL HYPATIA II9
an ecclesiastical society centred upon a bishopric,
save indeed when ' some exceptional person was
residing there, such as Constantina, under whose
tuition John of Basingstoke declared that he had
learnt more than even the lecturers at Paris
could impart to him. Who was this Hypatia
of the Middle Ages ? According to the statement
handed down in the Chronicle of Matthew Paris,
she was the daughter of the Archbishop of Athens.
Her father's name is not given. John of Basing
stoke died in a.d. 1252. Matthew Paris has
unluckily omitted to say how old the Archdeacon
of Leicester was at the time of his death, so that
we are forced to proceed upon conjecture. If
John of Basingstoke had attained the age of
seventy in a.d. 1252, his sojourn in Athens might
have fallen within the episcopate of Michael
Akominatos (a.d. 1 180-1205). But even if this
could be made certain, there would remain the
difficulty that Akominatos, according to his own
account, never had any children. Furthermore,
Constantina was still under twenty years of age
when the future Archdeacon of Leicester was her
pupil. Now Basingstoke's sojourn in Athens, on
the supposition that he was seventy years of age
when he died in a.d. 1252, would not be likely to
fall earlier than a.d. 1200, and Constantina, being
under twenty in that year, must have been born after
her father's appointment to the See of Athens. A
date for her birth subsequent to n 80 could not
be established without convicting her father of
having committed a serious breach of the laws
of the Eastern Church and Empire concerning

120 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
clerical marriages. The ordination of married
men is lawful in the Greek Church, but the
marriage of ordained men is not, and he whose
wife is still alive when he is elected to a bishopric,
must, before taking possession of his see, send his
wife to live away from him in a monastery.
It is to little purpose, however, that the question
whether Akominatos was or was not the father of
Constantina is debated, so long as Basingstoke's
age at the time of his death is unknown. The
average duration of life in Western Europe in the
Middle Ages was probably less prolonged than it
is now, even among clerics and monastics. Bas
ingstoke may have been hardly more than fifty
years of age when he died. In that case his
sojourn in Athens would fall later than the estab
lishment of the French Duchy under the House
of La Roche. A Latin Archbishop of Athens
might no doubt have a daughter — even a daughter
who in or about a.d. 1220 was no more than
eighteen years of age. In such a case we should
have to suppose a violation of the Canon Law
similar to Cranmer's marriage. The offspring of
such a marriage would find it hard to obtain a
good report. But in Matthew Paris's account,
Constantina's name has no reproach fastened upon
it. She is not rebuked for the error of her
nativity. The story of John of Basingstoke and Con
stantina, the learned maid of Athens, is so full of
difficulties as it stands that one is tempted to set
the whole account down as an impudent invention.
It is not inseparable from the rest of Basingstoke's

TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS 121
story as given by Matthew Paris. Between Con
stantina and Pope Joan there is an uncanny
resemblance; indeed, Constantina may be Pope
Joan in a particular manifestation.
Of more value and at least equal interest is
Matthew Paris's citation of a statement made by
John of Basingstoke to Robert Grossetete, Bishop
of Lincoln, concerning the apocryphal document
known as the "Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs." "This Master John told Robert,
Bishop of Lincoln, that when he was pursuing his
studies in Athens, he had seen and heard from
some learned Greek doctors of things unknown
to the Latins," among these things being the
" Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs," " which
were evidently a portion of Holy Writ, but had
long been concealed by the malice of the Jews, in
consequence of the manifest prophecies of Christ
contained in them. Whereupon the said Bishop
sent to Greece, and having obtained possession of
them [the Testaments] translated them into the
Latin tongue." More probably, he caused them
to be translated by Master John, who had proved
his ability to render Greek by his Latin version of
a Greek treatise on Grammar, a work undertaken
no doubt in the hope that it might prepare the
way for the study of Greek in all English centres
and seats of learning.
[See the following authorities : Spyridon Lam-
bros, Al 'Adrivai mpl to. teXjj tov AujSe/carov Aiwvoc,
pp. 45-50, and G. Constantinidi, 'Io-ropia twv
'AOvvOjv, pp. 232, 241-244.)

122 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
V.
THE FRANKISH CONQUEST1
In 1204 Constantinople was captured and pillaged
by a Franco-Venetian armada. The conquerors,
having stabbed the Eastern Empire to the heart,
proceeded to dismember the corpse and seize every
man his portion. Baldwin of Flanders was elected
to the throne of the Comneni and Angeli, the
Venetians receiving compensation through being
allowed to nominate a successor to the Patriarch
John Kamateros, who had fled when the city was
taken. Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, who
had hoped to be invested with the imperial purple,
received at first a feudatory kingdom in Asia, but
this was exchanged for Macedonia, with Salonica
(Thessalonica) for his capital. Venice received as
her share in the spoils of iniquity " one quarter
and one eighth ofthe Roman Empire" — more
than was assigned to the Emperor Baldwin himself
— this fraction consisting mainly of islands and
places on the sea-coast. The remainder of the
Empire was divided and sub-divided into feudal
domains, many of which were never occupied by
those to whom they had been assigned.
At the time when these arrangements were made,
the cities and territories which made up the various
principalities, baronies, etc., had still to be con
quered. Many were never conquered at all. No
'See Finlay, "History of Greece," p. 88 f, i^zf. ; Constantinidi,
" l(TTOpia TdJV A9r)VU)V, p. 26a/.;Paparrhigopoulos, " IffTOpia,
Vol. V., p. 16/.

BALDWIN AND BONIFACE 1 23
Latin principality was established on the Asiatic
side of the JEgean or the Marmora, though the
conquerors had marked out claims for themselves
in provinces which had for centuries ceased to
form part ofthe Eastern Empire. Even in Europe
the " conquest " was very far from complete, and
the whole enterprise was well-nigh arrested for
good and all at the very outset, by the open
quarrel which blazed up between Baldwin the
Emperor and Boniface the King-Marquis. To
receive from Boniface the oath of fealty and recog
nition of suzerainty was a matter of the first con
sequence to Baldwin, while to Boniface the evasion
of any such oath was no less important. Baldwin
marched to Salonica, purposing to invest Boniface
with the kingdom. Boniface asserted his equality
with the Emperor by laying siege to Adrianople,
where he would probably have invested the im
perial commandant with a halter, if he had caught
him. The fighting was stopped by the interven
tion ofthe Doge of Venice1 and the Count of
Blois, who ultimately persuaded the King of
Salonica to do homage for his realm, which con
sisted of all the country from the Strymon to the
Spercheus.2 He was also appointed to the chief
command of the army which was to effect the
conquest of Greece.
Sooner or later in the course ofthe year 1204,

¦ The Doge may have been influenced by the consideration that Adrianople
was included in the three-eighths of the Empire made over to Venice.
2 Contrast Boniface's conduct with that of Amaury, King of Cyprus, who
voluntarily made himself the liegeman of the (Western) Emperor Henry VI.
in 1 196.

124 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
Sgouros must have heard of the occupation of
Salonica and the surrounding country. He could
not expect the invasion to stop there — the ques
tion was, where he could best meet it. He selected
the Pass of Thermopylae. Next year the Crusaders
were at the gates of Hellas. Thermopylae was a
first-rate defensive position, but defensive positions
will not hold themselves, and Sgouros' army made
no attempt to hold the pass. Thus — not for the
first time in the history of Greece — its strong
gateway was tamely abandoned to an invader. J
The evacuation of Thermopylae carried with it
the surrender of all the country between the
Malian Gulf and the Isthmus of Corinth. Sgouros
took refuge in the lofty stronghold of the Acro-
corinthus, while the King of Salonica marched
through Locris, Bceotia, and Attica.
Montferrat, having failed in his attempt to
evade taking the oath of fealty to Baldwin, sought
to indemnify himself by inducing those to whom
lands in Central Greece and the Morea had been
assigned, to accept investiture at his hands, render
him homage, and swear fealty to him. Thus
Otho De la Roche, a Burgundian knight who had
taken part in this " Crusade," did homage to
Montferrat for the seigneury of Thebes and
Athens (a.d. 1205).
Under the leadership of their Metropolitan, the
Athenians had beaten back Sgouros from the

¦ Thermopylae was abandoned to the Romans by the army of the Achaean
League in B.c. 146. It was again abandoned without fighting when Alaric
invaded Greece in a.d. 396, and yet again on the occasion of the Slavo-
Bulgarian inroad in a.d. 539 or 540.

DEATH OF AKOMINATOS 1 25
Acropolis, two years before, but no attempt was
made to oppose the entry of Montferrat and De
la Roche. The new assailant was more formidable
than the tyrant of Argos, and Michael Akominatos,
seeing that resistance would only end in useless
bloodshed, fled from Athens, first to Euboea, and
then to Ceos in the Cyclades, where he found a
refuge in the monastery ofthe Prodromos.1 From
his island retreat the exiled prelate maintained a
correspondence with some of his people, and thus
it was that he heard, to his sorrow, of the cessation
ofthe ancient Orthodox liturgies and offices in the
Parthenon, and the substitution, in their place, of
the rites and ceremonies, the prayers and psalmody,
of Gallican Christendom.2 Yet this afflicted him
less than to hear that many of his flock had aban
doned the still waters and green pastures of ortho
doxy for the thorn-brakes and snares of heresy and
innovation. Akominatos died in 1220, full of years, and
leaving behind him a name and memory to lighten
the gloom of the unhappy history of those evil
times. Having secured Bceotia and Athens, Mont
ferrat advanced into the Morea, and, dividing his
forces, laid siege to Corinth and Nauplia. But
before he could capture these strongholds, evil
tidings from Macedonia compelled him to return

¦ i.e., St. John the Baptist.
2 The "Use of Athens" was in all probability the "Use of Notre Dame"
in Paris. The first Latin archbishop was a Frenchman, and the statutes
of Notre Dame in Pari3 were adopted for the administration of Ste. Marie
d'Athenes.

126 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
northwards. A rebellion had broken out in
Salonica, and the Bulgarians were threatening to
overrun the kingdom. Montferrat quickly sup
pressed the rebellion, but in 1207 he was killed in
a skirmish with a band of Bulgarian raiders.
His widow, Margaret of Hungary,1 became
regent, in name at least, on behalf of her infant
son Demetrius, but the reality of power went to
Count Umberto Biandrate, elected bailli of the
kingdom by the Lombard knights of Montferrat's
following. Biandrate and the Lombards were set
upon throwing off the suzerainty of the Emperor
of Romania, and establishing an independent king
dom under the rule of William of Montferrat, son
of the late Marquis by an earlier marriage. The
great baronies to the south — Athens and Thebes,
Salona, Eubcea, etc., were to be fiefs of the King
dom of Salonica, not of the Empire of Romania.
Baldwin of Flanders had fallen in battle with
the Bulgarians in 1205, and his brother Henry
reigned in his stead. The new Emperor only
obtained entrance into Salonica by feigning assent
to Biandrate's demands, but having once estab
lished himself and an armed escort within the city,
he took charge, as feudal superior and suzerain, of
the young Crown Prince Demetrius, and caused
him to be solemnly proclaimed and crowned King
of Salonica, on January 6th, 1209. Demetrius,
having been admitted to the order of knighthood
by Henry, and crowned by his command, was now
the Emperor's liegeman . Biandrate was compelled
¦Formerly wife of Isaac Angelos (r. 1185 — 1195).

PARLIAMENT OF RAVENIKA 1 27
to swear fealty, but having shown soon after that
the words of his mouth in no way restrained the
meditations of his heart, he was imprisoned. His
adherents then raised the standard of rebellion.
Henry defeated them at Larissa, but allowed them
to escape over Mount Othrys, and enter Bceotia,
where they seized Thebes, which was the head
quarters of Otho's domain. That they were able
to do so appears to be due to the circumstance
that Otho was absent at the time, assisting Geoffrey
Villehardouin, bailli of Achaia, in besieging Corinth.
In the hope of arriving at a settlement of the
affairs of Macedonia and Greece by peaceful nego
tiation, the Emperor convened a Parliament of his
vassals at Ravenika, in the upper valley of the
Spercheus, in May, 1209. Thither the Seigneur
of Athens, the bailli of Achaia, and other barons
betook themselves, but Guido of Voudonitza and
Ravanno dalle Carceri, one of the lords of Eubcea,
defiantly maintained themselves in possession of
Thebes. De la Roche, Villehardouin, and Marco
Sanudo of Naxos did homage, preferring the Em
peror of Romania to the King of Salonica as a
suzerain. The preference was very natural, as the
Emperor lived further off, and therefore was less
likely to be troublesome. From Ravenika Henry
marched on to Thebes, which the Lombards, after
a short resistance, surrendered on condition that
Biandrate should be set at liberty. Thebes was
then restored to De la Roche, and Henry proceeded
to visit Athens, where the Grand Seigneur enter
tained him in the residence on the Acropolis. The
imperial visit lasted only two days, and then

128 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
Henry went over to Eubcea, having received the
submission of Ravanno dalle Carceri, who proved
his sincerity by persuading Biandrate to make his
peace with the Emperor. Soon afterwards Bian
drate returned to Italy.
Leon Sgouros had departed this life in 1208, but
the fortresses of Corinth, Argos, and Nauplia were
still held by Greek garrisons. These forces were
under the chief command of Theodore, brother of
Michael Angelus Ducas, the despot of Epirus.
Otho De la Roche and Geoffrey Villehardouin had
already made one unsuccessful attack upon Corinth,
before the Lombard rebellion and the Parliament
of Ravenika. When the Emperor returned north
ward, they resumed the siege of Corinth, which
was surrendered in 12 10. Argos and Nauplia fell
within the next two years. An arrangement was
made by De la Roche and Villehardouin, by which
the former received Argos and Nauplia, together
with a yearly revenue of 400 byzants from the
customs at Corinth, as a fief of Achaia. This
arrangement, however, gave the Prince of Achaia
no claims over the Seigneur of Athens in respect
of his domains in Attica and Bceotia.
This appears to have been the last military
achievement of any note in the career of Otho.
Thirteen years later, he resigned his seigneury to
his nephew, Guy De la Roche, and returned to his
old home in Burgundy.
The history of the mediaeval Duchy of Athens
begins with Otho De la Roche, but Otho himself
never bore the title of Duke, and Thebes, rather
than Athens, was the capital down to the fourteenth

129
century. Otho's title was "Grand Seigneur"
(Mtyoc Kvpws), that of "Duke" being first assumed
by his successor Guy, on whom it was bestowed
by Louis IX. of France (St. Louis) in a.d. 1260.1
Otho, as we have seen, became a vassal of the
Emperor who reigned in Constantinople. Under
him were subordinate fief-holders, lay and clerical,
who formed the aristocracy represented in the
"Haute Cour," the merchants and the rest ofthe
" bourgeoisie " being represented in the " Basse
Cour." The laws administered in these courts
were those of the code known as the " Assises de
Romanie," which were simply, like the " Assises
de Chypre," a modification of the "Assises de
Jerusalem," the traditional code ofthe feudal state
established in the Holy Land by the Crusaders in
1099. The Dukes of Athens, indeed, at their
accession swore to maintain " the good usages and
customs of the Kingdom of Jerusalem." The
language used in the proceedings before these
courts, and in all official proclamations, etc., was,
of course, French, which was spoken as correctly
in Attica, under the House of De la Roche, as in
Paris itself. The native population consisted of
two classes: (1) serfs, " SovXoirapoiicoi," and (2) those
who were free, but had to bear the burden of taxa
tion. Among the free Greeks not a few held
estates as tenants of the Grand Seigneur or Duke,
to whom they paid rent corresponding to the
amount of taxation they had previously paid under

¦ Similarly, Guy de Lusignan was only Seigneur of Cyprus. The first
king was his brother and successor Amaury.

I30 ATHENS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
the Byzantine regime. All matters in which the
Greeks alone were concerned, were regulated by
the "Basilica," i.e., the code of the Byzantine
Empire, and these ordinances were administered
by their ecclesiastical authorities.
These Greek ecclesiastics had suffered consider
ably by the overthrow of the Byzantine govern
ment. Latin prelates occupied the episcopal
thrones and residences of the Orthodox metro
politans and bishops, while the estates of Orthodox
churches and monasteries had become a bone of
contention between the temporal and spiritual
rulers whom destiny had thrust upon the land and
its people. And as if this were not enough, the
Orthodox clergy, though not called upon to abjure
the doctrine inherited from their fathers for cen
turies, were required to do homage for their poor
temporalities to the .usurping Latin archbishops.
This, indeed, appears to have been the common
lot of the Greek Orthodox clergy wherever Latin
principalities were established on the ruins of the
Byzantine Empire. In Cyprus, for example, the
conflict over the yzipoZoaia, as the Greeks called
the act of homage, forms a notable episode in the
history of the native church of the island.1

'Hackett, "The Orthodox Church of Cyprus," pp. 74-126.

Arnaoutj

C. KormaKiT

C.Hagios Andreas

The. Castles in the Mountains
I+ S. Hilarion
LI Buffavento
lH* Kantara

Paphos

MAP OF CYPRUS
Showing Ancient Strongholds.

APPENDIX A
It is doubtful whether Coeur-de-Lion would have turned
aside out of his course to land in Cyprus, had the weather
held fair and rendered it possible for him to proceed straight
to the Holy Land. Even as things fell out, with the storm
scattering his armada and driving part of it to Cyprus, it is
doubtful whether he would have taken in hand the conquest
of the island had not Isaac Comnenus supplied him with a
casus belli. The duty of inflicting condign chastisement upon
Comnenus probably suggested the advisability of seizing his
kingdom. It was evident that he would be a bad neighbour
to the crusading principalities in Syria and Palestine. To
make an end of his dominion, therefore, would be beneficial in
so far as it would mean the removal of a nuisance. That,
however, was not the only advantage to be gained. The
conquest of Cyprus would provide the Crusading strongholds
on the coast of the mainland with a source of supplies always
available so long as the Moslem could be kept in check by sea,
a requirement easier to meet than that of repressing him by land.
Furthermore, the conquest would add lustre to the Crown of
England, and give the English King a peculiarly distinguished
position among the crusading princes. Such, we may believe,
were the expectations which were suggested to Cceur-de-Lion,
and impelled him to risk a long delay in conquering the
dominion of Comnenus.
The risk, indeed, was not very great. Comnenus had
proved himself a son of Belial in time of peace, and thereby
had estranged the hearts of his people. He was now to prove
himself incompetent in time of war. His Cypriotes indeed
were far from being equal in fighting capacity to Richard's
English and Normans. But they were fighting in, and for,
their own country, and under an able commander they might
have made the conquest a very difficult, if not an impossible,
enterprise. Richard's advance from Limassol to Larnaca might
have been disputed with damaging effect, if not victoriously,

132 APPENDIX
at the point where the road, shut in between the hills and the
shore, passes the site of Amathus, and this is not the only
place where annoying delay, if not actual repulse, might have
been inflicted upon an invader to whom time was a serious
consideration. In 1426 there was some sort of a road con
necting Limassol with Nicosia which followed a line very
much the same as that of the present road. So much, at any
rate, may be inferred from the fact that King Janus gave battle
to the Mamelukes at Choirokitia. After the battle the Mame
lukes would cross the hills by the pass immediately west of
Stavrovouni (Mount Santa Croce). Richard, however, pushed
on to Larnaca, thereby avoiding all chance of untoward events
which might have befallen him in the hills, and placing himself
in a position from which he could strike simultaneously at
Famagusta and Nicosia, approaching the latter point by the
easiest route. The longer way round was the shorter way in.
The three fortresses in the northern mountain-range of
Cyprus were in existence at the time of Richard I.'s landing,
and in all probability were originally constructed in the eighth
or ninth century. They are fortresses of the same kind as the
castles built in Asia Minor by the Iconoclast Emperors, which
Professor Ramsay has described in his paper on " The War of
Moslem and Christian for the possession of Asia Minor " in the
"Contemporary Review," No. 487 (July, 1906). By reason
of their position the three Cyprian strongholds (whose ruins are
still to be seen) were difficult even to approach, and almost im
possible to take save by dint of prolonged blockading, and starv
ing their garrisons into surrender. At the same time their very
position, crowning high and precipitous peaks, whilst it enabled
them to defy all the then known methods of attacking fortified
places, still allowed very readily of their being completely isolated
and surrounded, so that their reduction became only a question
of time. But the enemies whom they were designed to check
were only those who, like Cceur-de-Lion, had no time to spare.
Had these fortresses been ably defended, Cceur-de-Lion might
have found himself compelled to leave Cyprus without having
taken them — that is to say, he would have had to abandon the
island altogether. In that case all the time expended on the
march to Larnaca and from thence inland would have been
wasted. Moreover, the invading army, compelled to fall back
from the mountain castles, would hardly have been allowed by

APPENDIX I33
the naturally exultant Cypriotes to re-embark unmolested and
undisturbed. It is no improbable supposition then that the speedy sur
render of these fortresses saved Cceur-de-Lion and his army
from serious difficulties, which might nearly have issued in a
disaster. According to one account of the English conquest,
the surrender was prompted by a message from Comnenus
himself. The fallen despot was perhaps trying to curry favour
with the conqueror, in the hope of being left in charge as
vice-gerent when Cceur-de-Lion departed for the Holy Land.
The most difficult of access, but the least useful withal, of
the three strongholds was the Castle of Buffavento, perched on
the rocky precipitous summit of the highest peak in the
northern mountain range, at an altitude of more than 3000 feet
above the sea-level. The largest, and the most important, as it
commanded the defile through which runs the road from
Nicosia to Kyrenia (the chief town on the north coast of
Cyprus) was called by the Greeks the Castle of St. Hilarion,
but by the Crusaders Deudeamur (Dieu d 'Amour). The
Greek name commemorates the hermit Hilarion, who was
said to have passed the closing years of his life in a retreat
which he found for himself upon the steep height on which
the castle was afterwards built. In the Crusaders' name,
Deudeamur, we have really a corruption of Didymos, a name
given to the height on which the castle was built on account
of the twin peaks which form its summit. The fortifications,
of which considerable ruins still remain, ran up to both of
these twin peaks. They were not particularly massive, and
indeed did not need to be so, as battering-rams could never
have been brought to bear upon them, and machines for
casting heavy stones could not have been placed within effective
distance. The rock of St. Hilarion looks right down upon
the town of Kyrenia from a height of nearly 2,400 feet,
commanding one of the grandest views in Cyprus — one might
say, indeed, in all the Levant — the sweeping curve of the
coastland for some fifty or sixty miles, a series of fertile
slopes, planted with countless caroui-trees, between the blue
Pamphylian Sea and the steep rocky sierra, which closes in the
scene like a Titanic wall, while beyond the sea rise the snowy
masses of Mount Taurus. In this scene, the most interesting
details are the town of Kyrenia with its castle, and the Abbey

134 APPENDIX
of Bella Pai's. The castle, originally a Byzantine fortress, under
went successive reconstructions by the French and the Venetians,
the work of the latter being now most in evidence. The
walls of the castle, like those of Famagusta, which belong to
the same epoch (towards the end of the fifteenth century), are
of the most solid and massive kind of building. They were
designed to resist the impact of cannon-shot, and no doubt
were quite equal to that test in their day. Bella Pais was
originally founded at an early date in the thirteenth century,
and occupied by a corporation at first professing the Augus-
tinian rule, which was exchanged subsequently for the Pre-
monstratensian. The monastery chapel, which is the oldest
part of the buildings, is now the parish church of the village of
Bella Pais. On its north side is a cloister enclosing an open
space planted with orange and lemon trees. The south, east,
and north walks of the cloister are still in good condition, but
of the west walk there remains little save one or two broken
archer East and north of the cloister are buildings erected
in the fourteenth century at the expense of Hugues IV. and
Pierre I., Kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem, the building on the
north being the refectory, a noble hall with groined vaulting.
Below the refectory is a crypt. The ground on which the
Bella Pais stands slopes very steeply, and the northern face of
the buildings is a lofty and imposing structure, not unlike
La Merveille on Mont St. Michel in Normandy.
The third hill-fortress, Kantara, or Hekatospitia (the
Hundred Chambers) was much smaller than St. Hilarion, and
not nearly so loftily situated, the hill on which it was built
rising not much more than 1600 feet above the sea. It stands
just at the base of the long Karpasi peninsula. In hostile
possession it would have been a source of considerable annoy
ance, under the conditions of mediasval warfare, to the inhabi
tants of the plain-country lying to the south. To what degree,
or in what manner, it served the defence of Cyprus is not very
clear. Its main function may have been that of a station from
which the movements of shipping in the sea on either side of
the Karpasi peninsula might be watched.

APPENDIX B
The hyperpyron or " byzant" of Cyprus, under the Lusignan
dynasty, down to the reign of Pierre I. (a.d. 1359-1369), was a
coin made of an alloy of gold, silver, and copper, fused in the
proportion of about 17-1 per cent, of gold, 19-4 per cent, of
copper, and 63-5 per cent of silver. In the earlier half of the
fourteenth century a gold ducat of Venice was the equivalent
of 3| Cyprian byzants or hyperpyra. These hyperpyra were
called "white byzants," from their colour, which was deter
mined by the predominance of silver in their composition.
After the reign of Pierre I. the value of the hyperpyron fell,
until in the reign of Jacques II. (a.d. 1460-1473) five hyper
pyra at the least were required to balance a Venetian ducat.
The name hyperpyron is of rather uncertain origin. It might
be understood as meaning " somewhat ruddy," " having a red
gleam in it," but this is rather hard to reconcile with the name
" white byzants," unless the latter be taken to mean that the
Cyprian byzant was white or pale in comparison with the gold
byzant issued by the imperial mint in Constantinople. The
imperial byzant was a gold coin weighing 72 grains. This
weight was fixed by Constantine early in the fourth century,
and maintained without change down to the time when Con
stantinople was captured by the French and Venetians, viz.,
a.d. 1204, a period of nearly 900 years. From the eighth to
the thirteenth century the imperial byzants were the only gold
currency circulating in Europe. The value of this byzant,
calculated simply with reference to its weight, was about eleven
shillings, but it must be remembered that the purchasing power
of money in the Middle Ages was much greater than it is now.
If the 100,000 byzants for which Cceur-de-Lion sold Cyprus
to the Templars were imperial byzants, the real equivalent in
modern currency would be over j£6oo,ooo.
M. Satha reckons the value of the Cyprian hyperpyron as
1 drachma and 90 lepta in modern Greek money. This
seems to be a rather low estimate. Still, it may be taken as at
least probable that the gold byzant would be equal to not less
than ten "white" byzants.

INDEX

Acarnania and ^Etolia devasta
ted by Normans, 102
Achilles, festival of Saint, 50
Adelais or Alice, sister of Philip
Augustus, betrothed to Rich
ard, 42
Adrianople, 6
Aegidius and Athens, 117
^Egina, pirates of, m
iEtolia and Acarnania devasta
ted by Normans, 102
Akominatos, Michael (of
Chonas), 85 ; appeals to Alex
ius II. and Andronicus I., 1 1 3 ;
flight from Athens, 83, 125 ;
memorial to the Emperor,
113 ; opinion of Athens 107,
1 08 ; repulses Sgouros from
Athens, 116; death of, 125
Albani, 61
Alexander IV., Pope, 75
Alexandretta, Gulf of, 14
Alexius, 98, 99, 100, 109
Alexius Branas expels Normans
from Athens, 1 1 3
Alexius II. and Akominatos,
113
Alexius III. (Angelus) and Sul
tan Moieddin, 104; de
throned, 1 1 5
Amaury of Cyprus marries
Isabelle, 64 ; swears fealty to
Henry VI., 63
Ammochostos, see Famagusta

Ancyra, Sultan Moieddin of,
104
Andronicus I., 97 ; and Akomi
natos, 1 1 3
Andronicus Cyrrhestes, Horo
logion of, 106
Angel- worship at Chonas, no
Angelus, see Alexius
Angelus, Isaac, reforms of, 113;
restored, 115
Antioch, Prince of, 49
Antonius, Archimandrite, 84
Athena, ivory and gold statue
of, 80 ; temple of, in Syra
cuse, as a church of the Vir
gin, 82
Athene, colossal statue of, in
Athens, Acropolis and Areopa
gus at, 109; ancient and
modern contrasted, 107;
Barony of, a fief of the king
dom of Salonica (Macedonia),
126; bombarded by Moro-
sini and Koenigsmarck, 80 ;
freemen of, taxed, 129;
gardens and cornfields round,
105 ; medieval, evidence for
learning and culture in, 1 17 ;
Normans' reason for sparing,
105 ; Normans expelled from,
113; oppression of, by pro
vincial governors or praetors,
112, 113 ; poverty of, 113 ;
purple-fishers of, 1 09 ; quasi-

I38 INDEX
colonial position of, 97 ; re
pulses Sgouros, 116; serfs at,
129; seized by Montferrat,
125 ; taken by Venetians,
85 ; visited by the Emperor
Henry, 127
Apostolos Andreas, 67
Aquinas, St. Thomas, chapel of,
68
Arazimirye, crown lands of
Cyprus, 21
Arcadia mentioned by Edrisi,
105
Arch of Hadrian, 106
Archangels, chapel of, at Athens,
109
Archbishop Sophronios, 25
Archon or Athenarch (another
name for the Dioecetes), 96
Ardahan, 8, 1 1
Areopagus and Acropolis of
Athens, 109
Argos handed over to De la
Roche, 128; seized by Sgou
ros, 1 1 5
Armenia, 1 2 ; Russian and
Turkish, 14
Ascalon, Richard spends Easter
at, 56
Asecratis (or ' Grammateus '), or
chief secretary, 96
Assassins, their chief, ' Old
Man ofthe Mountain,' 57
Assises de Chypre, 129
Assises de Jerusalem, 129;
adopted for Cyprus, 59
Assises de Romanie, 1 29
Austria acquires Bosnia and
Herzegovina, 9
Austrian interest in Constanti
nople, 5

Baldwin, King of Jerusalem,
helped by France and the
German Emperor, 10 1
Baldwin of Flanders made Em
peror, 122; quarrels with
Boniface, 123
Balkans, passage of, 6
Basil the Emperor, " Slayer of
Bulgarians, 83
" Basilica," the code of the By
zantine Empire, 130
Basingstoke, John of, 117
Batoum, 1,8, 11
Batra (or Patras), mentioned by
Edrisi, 105
Bazari of Athens, 107
Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury,
8
Benjamin of Tudela visits
Thebes, 103
Berengaria (daughter of Sancho,
King of Navarre), 43 ; at
Messina, 44 ; attacked at
Limassol, 46 ; wedded to
Richard, 49 ; crowned Queen
of England, 50, 52
Berlin Congress, 8, 10
Berlin Treaty, 9
Besika Bay, 7
Bessarabian territory, 9
Biandrate, Count Umberto,
elected bailli of Macedonia,
126; his followers defeated
by the Emperor at Larissa,
127; rebelling against the
Emperor, is imprisoned, 127;
released, returns to Italy, 128
Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. John
Wordsworth), 25
Bishopric of Athens made " in
dependent," 84

Bishoprics in Cyprus, 73
Bismarck, mediation of, 8
Blois, Count of, reconciles Bald
win and Boniface, 123
Bceotia, Normans march through
102
Bohemond, son of Robert Guis
card, 65
Boniface, Marquis of Mont
ferrat, 122. See also Mont
ferrat
Bosnia and Herzegovina handed
over to Austria, 9
Bouillon, Godfrey de, compiles
"Assises of Jerusalem," 59
Branas, see Alexius
Brienne, Jean de, marries Marie,
H . .
Brindisi, George the Antioch-
ene sails from, 102
British interest in Constanti
nople, 5
Bucoleon Palace, 99
Buffavento, 5 1 ; castle of, App.
A
Bulgaria a principality, 9 ; revolt
of, 114; against Montferrat,
126
Bulgarian atrocities, 5
Bulla aurea, or imperial charter,
granted to Athens, 96
Bulwer, Sir H., High Commis
sioner of Cyprus, 26
Bury St. Edmunds, banner of
Comnenus sent to the abbey
of, 47
Byzant, bezant, or besant {hyper
pyron), A pp. B
Byzantine or East Roman Em
pire, Cyprus a province of,
45 ; code of, 130

INDEX I39
Cabul, murder of British Re
sident at, 5
Cairo, King of Cyprus taken
prisoner to, 77
Canville, Richard de, 54
Carlo I. of Savoy succeeds Car
lotta de Lusignan, 66
Carlotta de Lusignan abdicates,
66 ; marries Ludovico of
Savoy, 65 ; Queen of Cyprus,
Castles of Cyprus, App. A
Cedrenus, George, 83
Celestine III., Pope, 74
Ceos, island of, 109; flight of
Akominatos to, 125
Chacalli, Mr., 38
Champagne, Count of, 41
Champagne, Henri de, elected
King of Jerusalem, 57; his
death, 64
Chares, Prospatharios, stoned to
death by Athenians, 89
Choirokitia, battle of, 70
Chonae tradition of angel-wor
ship, 1 10
Choniates, Nicetas, 105
Choragic monument of Lysi-
crates, 106
Chypre, Assises de, 129
Classes of rural population, five,
in Cyprus, 60-2
Colossce, traditions of Christians
at, 1 10
Colossi, near Limassol, scene of
the defeat of Comnenus by
Richard, 47
Comnenus attacks Berengaria,
46 ; defeated by Richard, 46,
50 ; fettered with silver, 5 1 ;
swears fealty to Richard, 49

140

INDEX

Comnenus, Isaac, 45
Comnenus, John, 100
Conchyleutae, or purple-fishers,
of Chalcis, Carystos, and
Athens, 109
Constantina, a 'mediaeval Hy-
patia,' identity of, 1 1 7-2 1
Constantinidi, M., " History of
Athens," 89
Constantinople, Austrian and
British interest in, 5 ; George
Xiphilinos as Patriarch of,
109 ; Greeks rise against
Latins at, 1 12 ; question as to
possession of, 3 ; sacked by
Franco-Venetian fleet, 122;
the Venetian quarter of, 98
Constitutio Cypria, 75
Constitution Street (Athens),
106
Corfu recovered by Manuel
Comnenus, 103 ; surrenders
to George the Antiochene,
102
Corinth besieged by Geoffrey
Villehardouin, 127, 128 ; be
sieged by Montferrat, 125 ;
sacked by Normans, 103 ;
seized by Sgouros, 115
Cornaro, Caterina, marries
Jacques II of Cyprus, 66
Council, Legislative, 19
Cour, Basse ("Low Court"),
129
Cour, Haute ("High Court"),
129
Courts of Cyprus, 60
Cretan Sea, Richard's fleet scat
tered in, 48
Crown lands or Arazimirye in
Cyprus, 21

Crusades, 41
Crusade, Richard's First, 42 ;
the Fourth, 52
Cyprus a Turkish province
under British administration,
1 ; once a province of the
Byzantine empire,45 ; bishop
rics in, 7 3 ; constitution of, 59,
75 ; courts of, 60, 1 29; crown
lands or Arazimirye in, 21 ;
deputation from, 22 ; ex
penses of Turkish and British
administration compared, 38 ;
five classes of rural population
in, 60-2 ; Genoese in, 73 ;
invaded by Mamelukes, 77 ;
irrigation in, 27 ; its rela
tions with Egypt, 77 ; King
Henri I. of, 59; King
Hugues I. of, 63 ; 'lent' to
Great Britain, 1 1 ; limited
monarchy in, 60 ; memorial
(first), 28; (second), 29;
national aspirations of Greeks
in, 3 1 ; native Greek ortho
dox church of, 72 ; occupa
tion of, 2 ; pirates off the
coast of, 77 ; Question of, 3 ;
resources of, 33-4; revenue
and expenditure of, 39;
Richard lands in, 46 ; Sir
Garnet Wolseley, first High
Commissioner of, 1 8 ; Sir H.
Bulwer, High Commissioner
of, 26; Sir W. J. Sendall
and W. Haynes Smith,
Governors of, 27 ; sold to
Knights of the Temple by
Richard, 5 5 ; strategical value
of, 12; three great strong
holds of, App. A ; Treaty of,

1 3 ; tribute paid annually to
Turkey by, 20; Turkish expe
dition to, 77 ; under the
Romans, 45 ; under the Vene
tians, 59; wants of, 35
Cyrrhestes, Andronicus, see
Horologion
Daily News, Archibald Forbes
on Cyprus in, 12
Dardanelles, 7
David II. of Iberia and Athens,
117
Defendarius, c)j
De la Roche, Guy, first " Duke"
of Athens, 1 29
De la Roche, Otho or Otto,
actually Grand Seigneur, not
Duke, of Athens, 128, 129;
his headquarters at Thebes
seized by Biandrate's fol
lowers, 127 ; pays homage to
Montferrat, 1 24 ; receives
Argos and Nauplia, 128;
resigns his seigneury to Guy,
128 ; takes Corinth, 128
Demetrius, crown prince (in
fant son of Margaret of
Hungary) of the kingdom of
Salonica, made a liegeman
by the Emperor Henry, 126
Deputation from Cyprus, 22
Dictynna (Artemis), the cave of,
a shrine of Panagia Spilio-
tissa, 82
Dioceses, Greek, 85
Dioecetes, or commissioner, 96 ;
and piracy, 1 1 2
Djebail, Rainer of, 63
Dniester, the, 6
Dobrudscha, 9

INDEX 141
Drungarii, or military officers,
96
East Roman Empire, see By
zantine
Eastern Question, 3
Edrisi, the Arab, appointed
Geographer Royal by Roger
of Sicily, 104
Egypt and Cyprus, 77
Egypt, Mamelukes of, invade
Cyprus, 70
El Kedemona (Lacedaemon)
mentioned by Edrisi, 105
Eleanor, queen dowager, mother
of Richard, 44
Ely, Bishop of, expelled by John,
56
Emperor's authority restored at
Athens, 90
Emperor's war with Robert
Guiscard (of Sicily), 98
England, King Henry II. of, 41
Epiphanius, 75
Erechtheum, 1 10
Euboea, Ravanno dalle Carceri,
a lord of, 127
Evreux, Bishop of, marries
Richard to Berengaria, 50
Ex-voto shields on architrave of
Parthenon, no
Faber, the Dominican Felix,
68, 75
Famagusta (Ammochostos) suc
ceeds Salamis, 71 ; annexa
tion proclaimed at, 73 ;
attacked by Guy de Lusignan,
50; bay of, 27; cathedral
of St. Nicholas, 72 ; descrip-
of, Jiff-; harbour of, 14,

I42 INDEX
16, 36; once a great trade
centre, 72; railway to, 36;
seized by Genoese, 72 ; taken
by the Turks, 78 ; under
Genoese, 73
Field-watchman tax, 33
Flanders, Count of, 41
Flanders, Baldwin of, see Bald
win ; Henry of, succeeds
Baldwin, 126
Flemish contingent to Fourth
Crusade, 52
Forbes, Archibald, on . Cyprus,
12
Fortresses of Cyprus, App. A
Forum of Constantine, 8 1
France, King of, marches to
assist Baldwin, 101 ; King
Philip Augustus of, 41
Franco -Venetian fleet sacks
Constantinople, 122
Freemen at Athens taxed, 129
Free ports granted to Venetians
by Alexius, 109
French language employed in
feudal courts, 129; its cor
rectness as spoken, ibid.
Galata, Genoese at, roo
Gennadios, Panagiotes, 35
Genoa, Richard waits for his
fleet at, 42
Genoese colony at Galata, 100
Genoese in Cyprus (Famagusta),
73
Genoese pirates, in, 112
Genoese plunder Nicosia, 69
Geoffroi, brother of Guy de
Lusignan, 49
Geographer Royal, Edrisi ap
pointed as, 104

"Geographica" of Guido, 82
George the Antiochene, 1 01 -2
German Emperor, 101 ; marches
to assist Baldwin, 10 1
Germany, Henry VI. of, releases
Richard, 52
Gibraltar, Straits of, 42
Governor-General of the ' Hel-
ladic Theme,' 97
Greek ecclesiastics subjected to
Latins, 130; the act of
homage, ibid.
Greeks of Constantinople rise
against Latins, 112
Greek Orthodox Church of
Cyprus, 72
Greeks in Cyprus, national
aspirations of, 3 1
Gregorovius on mediaeval
Athens, 1 17
Grossetete, Robert, Bishop of
Lincoln, 121
Guiscard, Robert (of Sicily), his
war with the Emperor, 98
Gulf of Alexandretta (Issus),
12
Guy de Lusignan, see Lusignan

Hadrian's arch, 106
Hagia Paraskevi, plateau of, 67
Hagia Sofia (or Sophia), Parthe
non as a church of, 81, 82
Hagios Andreas, Comnenus es
capes to fortress of, 50
Harold Hardrada, adventures
of, 86, 87 ; claims English
crown, dies at Stamford
Bridge, 88
Haynes Smith, Sir W., Gover
nor of Cyprus, 27

INDEX

Helladic Theme, Governor-
General of, 97
Hellas and Peloponnesus, Prae
tor of, 97
Hellas, " theme " or province
of, 80
Henry of Flanders succeeds
Baldwin, 126
Hereford, Prior of, brings news
to Richard, 56
Hermes Street, Athens, 106
Herodes Atticus, 106
Herzegovina handed over to
Austria, 9
Hilarion, castle of St. (Deude
amur of Crusaders), 5 1 ; App. A
Hildesheim, Conrad, archbishop
of, crowns Amaury, 64
Homage to be paid by Greek
ecclesiastics to Latins in
Cyprus, 130
Horologion of Andronicus Cyr
rhestes (Tower ofthe Winds),
106
Hospitallers imprison Com
nenus, 52
Hoveden, Roger of, 49
Hugues I., king of Cyprus, 63
Hugues II., son and successor
of Henri, 65
Hugues d'Antioche succeeds
Hugues II. in Cyprus, 65
Hungary, Margaret of, becomes
regent, 126
Hyperpyron, see Byzant
Icelandic saga-men and Athens,
117
Iconium, see Konieh
Indian troops summoned to
Malta, 10

H3
Ionian and Carian mercenaries,
9+
Ionian Islands, 2
Irrigation in Cyprus, 27
Isaac Angelus, reforms of, 113
Isabelle, daughter of Jean de
Brienne and Marie, marries
the emperor, 64
Isabelle inherits the crown of
Jerusalem, 48 ; sister and
heritrix of Sibylle, 48
Italy, present king of, inherits
the titles of King of Cyprus,
Armenia and Jerusalem, 66
Jacques I. of Cyprus, 65
Jacques II. of Cyprus marries
Caterina Cornaro, 66
Jaffa, Jean d'Ibelin, Count of,
59
Janus, King, taken prisoner at
Choirokitia, 70
Jerusalem admits Mohamme
dans, 41
Jerusalem, Assises of, compiled
by G. de Bouillon, 59, 129 ;
Henri de Champagne, King
of, 57 ; Latin kingdom of, 41
Joan, legend of Pope, 117
Joanna, widow of William the
Good of Sicily, sister of
Richard, 44
John intrigues against Richard,
5+
Kamateros, John, 122
Kantara, or Hekatospitia (castle
ofthe "Hundred Chambers"),
SO, Si, App. A.
Kars, 1, 8, n, 12
Khyber Pass, 5

I44 INDEX
Koenigsmarck and Morosini
bombard Athens, 80
"Konak" in Larnaca, 14
Konieh (Iconium), 14
Kurn-Hattin, 41
Kyrenia, siege of, 73 ; sur
renders to Richard, 5 1

Laborde, Count, views as to
Parthenon, 81
Lacedasmon (" El Kedemona ")
mentioned by Edrisi, 105
Lamp, ever-burning, in the
Church of the Virgin Mary,
82
Lang, Sir Hamilton, 37
Larissa, Biandrate's followers de
feated by the emperor at, 127
Larnaca, 16, 67; Richard
marches to, 50 ; the "Konak"
of, 14
Latin Church establishment, 63
Latin ecclesiastics succeed to
authority and position of
Greeks, 1 30
Layard, Sir A. H., 10
Learning and culture in mediae
val Athens, evidence for and
against, 117
Lefteri, 61
Leo the Iconoclast, 84
Leo VI., King of Cilicia and
Little Armenia, dies at Paris,
65
Leon Sgouros, see Sgouros
Lepanto, or Naupactus, Straits
of, 102
Limassol, Berengaria shelters at,
45 ; Comnenus attacks Be
rengaria at, 46 ; Richard de
feats Comnenus at, 47

Lion ofthe Piraeus, 85
Locust tax, 33
Lombard knights under Mont
ferrat, 1 26
Louis IX. of France (St. Louis)
bestows title of Duke on Guy
De la Roche, 129
Lusignan, Carlotta de, 66 ;
Geoffroi de, 49
Lusignan, Guy de, a vassal of
Richard, 48 ; and a rival of
Conrad de Montferrat, 5 3 ;
besieges St. Jean d'Acre,
48 ; appeals to Richard, 49 ;
attacks Famagusta, 50 ; de
feated, 41 ; lands at Limassol,
47 ; his wife Sibylle, 48 ; Guy
surrenders Comnenus, 52;
writes to Saladin for advice,

, -, 52
of, envoy

Lusignan, King Amaury de.
Lydda, Archdeacon of, en
to Europe, 63
Lysicrates, monument of, 106
Macedonia, awarded to Marquis
of Montferrat, 122; bailli
of, 126 ; boundaries of, 123 ;
rebels against Montferrat,
126
Mahomet's coffin, 1
Malta, Indian troops summoned
to, 10
Malvasia or Monemvasia
(Malmsey), 102
Mameluke invasion of Cyprus,
11
Mamelukes, see Egypt
Manuel Comnenus, an "eastern
Cceur de Lion," 1 00, 101 ;
recovers Corfu, 103

Margaritone, the " famous
admiral of Sicily," 45
Margat, Hospitallers' castle of,
5*
Marie, daughter of Conrad de
Montferrat and Isabelle, 64 ;
marries Jean de Brienne, 64
Maritza, 6
Marmora, Sea of, 7
Matthew Paris, 1 17-21
Mesaoria, or midland plain of
Cyprus, 50
Messina, arrival of Philip at, 42 ;
Eleanor's arrival at, 44
Methone or Modon, mentioned
by Edrisi, 105
Michael Akominatos, his efforts
for reform, 113
Michael, the Emperor, 89
Michael the Paphlagonian puts
down the Slavo-Bulgarians,
92
Michael the Taxiarch, church
of St., 107
Michiele, Vital, Doge of Venice,
62
Modon or Methone, mentioned
by Edrisi, 105
Mohammedans conquer Jerusa
lem, 41
Moieddin, Sultan, of Ancyra,
104
Monemvasia or Malvasia, 102
Montferrat besieges Corinth
and Nauplia, 125 ; Boniface,
Marquis of, 122; quarrels
with Baldwin, 123; Conrad
de, and Guy de Lusignan,
their rival claims, 53 ; Conrad
Seigneur of Tyre, 48 ; made
Count of Tyre, 54 ; exacts

INDEX 145
homage for Seigneuries in
Central Greece and the
Morea, 124; seizes Athens,
125; killed by Bulgarians,
126; William of, 126
Monument of Lysicrates, 106
Morea, Normans sail round
the, 102
Morosini and Koenigsmarck
bombard Athens, 80
Morphon, 67
Mountain, Old Man of the
(chief of the 'Assassins'), 57
Mysticus, 97
Naupactus or Lepanto, Straits
of, 102
Nauplia, the port of Argos,
seized by Sgouros, 115;
handed over to De la Roche,
128
Navarino, destruction of Turk
ish fleet at, 17
Nereus, festival of St., 50
Newfoundland, I
Nicetas Choniates, 105
Nicosia (Cyprus), 27 ; attacked
by Richard, 50; cathedral
church of, 59; church of St.
Peter and St. Paul at, 70 ;
description of, 66-71 ; rail
way to, 36 ; royal tombs at,
71 ; sacked by Genoese, 72 ;
stormed, 78 ; Venetian forti
fications at, 16
Nika riots, 8 1
Norman garrison at Corfu, 102;
invasion of jEtolia and Acar
nania, 102 ; King of Sicily,
Tancred a,43 ; sack of Corinth,
103 ; sack of Thebes, 102

I46 INDEX
Normans expelled from Athens
by Alexius Branas, 113;
Sicilian, sack Thessalonica,
112; spared Athens, reason
why, 105 ; Varangian guard
of, 87
Old Man of the Mountain,
chief of the Assassins, 57
"Open door " at Thebes, Athens,
and Corinth, 99
Orphanotrophos, John the, 89
Otho (or Otto) de la Roche, 109
Othrys, Mount, 127
Palermo, Normans sail for, 103
Panaghia, church of, 107
Panagiotes, Gennadios, 35
Panathenaic procession, no
Pantheon consecrated to " All
Saints," 82
Paphos, 5 1 ; old harbour of, 14
Parici, or serfs, 60
Paris, Treaty of, 8
Parliament of Ravenika, 127
Parthenon, 1 10 ; consecrated as
a Christian church, 81 ;
wrecked by a shell, 80
Patriarch of Constantinople,
George Xiphilinos as, 109
Patriarchs, Testaments of the
Twelve, 121
Peloponnesus and Hellas, Praetor
of, 97
Perperiarii, 61
Phocis,Normans march through,
102
Photius, patriarchate of, 84
Piracy off the coasts of Attica
unpunished, 112
Piraeic lion, 85

Pirates, Maltese, in; oLEgina,
n i;offthecoastofCyprus,77
Pittakes, the antiquarian, 1 10
Pittakis, M., discoveries of in
scriptions, 84
Plevna, fall of, 6
Polymidia near Limassol, 17
Pope Joan, legend of, 117
Porto Leone, 85
Praetor of Hellas and Pelopon
nesus, 97
Praetor or governor of Hellas,
abuse of his visits to Athens,
114
Prince's Islands, 7
Prodromos, monastery of, at
Ceos, 125
Propylasa, 109
Protocritor, or Chief Justice, 96
Purple-fishers of Athens, 109
Rafn on the Piraeic runes, 86
Railway, Nicosia-Famagusta, 36
Rainer of Djebail, 63
Ravenika, parliament of, 127
Ravanno dalle Carceri (of Eu-
boea) holds Thebes against
the Emperor, 127; surren
ders, 128
"Relatio" of Saewulf, 82
Reservoirs for irrigation con
structed in Cyprus, 27
Rhodes, Richard takes refuge at,
.+4
Richard attacks Nicosia, 50 ;
defeats Comnenus, 50 ; enters
Kyrenia, 51; his first cru
sade, 42 ; lands in Cyprus,
46 ; sails for Acre, 5 3 ; weds
Berengaria, 49
Roger of Sicily, 101, 104

INDEX

"Romaioi," name taken by
mediaeval Greeks, 95
Romania, Emperor of, rebelled
against by Biandrate, 1 26
Romanie, Assises de, 129
Roman Empire, East,jw Byzan
tine
Romans in Cyprus, 45
Romanus II. , Emperor
Royal tombs at Nicosia, 7 1
Runes inscribed on the Piraeic
lion, 86, 91
Russian expansion, policy of, 3 ;
Armenia, 14
Saewulf, see " Relatio "
Safed Pasha, 10
Saint Gilles, see Toulouse
St. Achilles, festival of, 50
St. Basil, 118
St. Barnabas preaches at Salamis,
St. Ghislain and Athens, 117
St. Gregory Nazianzene, 118
St. Jean d'Acre, 44, 48
St. Louis, see Louis
St. Nereus, festival of, 50
St. Nicholas, cathedral of, at
Famagusta, 72
St. Paul preaches at Salamis, 71
St. Peter and St. Paul, church of,
at Nicosia, 70
Saladin, 41 ; advice given to Guy
de Lusignan by, 58 ; Tithe,
42
Salamis, St. Paul and St. Bar
nabas at, 71
Salisbury and Beaconsfield, 8
Salisbury, Dr. John Wordsworth,
Bishop of, 25
Salona, Gulf of, 102

H7
Salonica (Thessalonica), capital
of Marquis of Montferrat,
122 ; rebellion against Mont
ferrat, 126
San Stefano, 7 ; treaty, 8
Sta. Sofia, cathedral of Nicosia,
59 ; converted into a mosque,
68
Sanudo, Marco, of Naxos, does
homage to the emperor, 127
Savoy, Carlo I. of, 66 ; Ludo
vico of, marries Carlotta, 65 ;
Margarita of, 66
Sea of Marmora, 7
Sendall, Sir W. J., Governor of
Cyprus, 27
Serfs at Athens, 1 29
Sergius Paulus, "deputy of
Cyprus," 2
Servia, loss of, 92
Sgouros evacuates Thermopylae
and takes refuge in Acro-
corinthus, 1 24 ; Leon, Prince
of Argos and Nauplia, seizes
Argos and Corinth, 115;
repulsed from Athens by
Akominatos, 1 16
Shipka Pass, 6
Sibylle, wife of Guy de Lusig
nan, 48
Sicily, Constantia of, wife of
Henry VI. of Germany, 52 ;
Normans of, 1 1 z ; Roger of,
101, 104 ; Tancred, King of,
43 ; William II. of, 52
Silk factories at Thebes and
Corinth, 103
Silk robes as tribute, 104
Silver fetters of Comnenus, 5 1
Sivas, 14
Slavo-Bulgarian insurrection, 90

I48 INDEX
Sophronios, Archbishop, 25
Spon and Wheler visit Athens,
81
Spyridon, 75
Statue of Athena, ivory and
gold, 80
Strongholds of Cyprus, App. A.
Sultan Moieddin of Ancyra, 104
Tancred, Norman King of
Sicily, 43
Taurus range, 14
Tax, Field - Watchman, 33 ;
locust, 33
Taxiarch, church of St. Michael
the, 107
Temple, Knights of the, pur
chase Cyprus from Richard,
5 5 ; besieged in Nicosia, 5 5
" Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs," 121
Theban silk factories, 103 ; silk
robes as tribute, 104
Thebes, Barony of, a fief of the
Kingdom of Salonica (Mace
donia), 126
Thebes sacked by Normans, 102;
seized by followers of Bian
drate, 127; taken by the
Emperor from the Lombards,
127; restored to De la Roche,
127; visited by Benjamin of
Tudela, 103
Themata of Hellas and Pelopon
nesus, 97
Theme or province of Hellas, 80
Theodore, brother of Michael
Angelus Ducas, despot of
Epirus, 128
Theodosius II., Emperor, reign
of, 81

Thermopylae evacuated by Sgou
ros, 124
Theseum as a church of St.
George, 82, 107
Thessalonica sacked by Normans
of Sicily, 1 1 2
Titles of King of Cyprus, Jeru
salem, and Armenia com
bined, 65
Tombs, royal, at Nicosia, 71
Toron, Homfroi de, husband of
Isabelle, o.v., 48
Toulouse, Raymond de St.
Gilles, Count of, marries
Comnenus' daughter, 52
Tower of the Winds, see Horo
logion
Treaty of Paris, 8 ; of San
Stefano, 8 ; of Berlin, 9 ; of
Cyprus, 13
Tremithousia, Richard defeats
Comnenus at, 50
Tribute, paid annually by
Cyprus to Turkey, 20 ;
robes of Theban silk as, 104
Trinidad, I
Tripoli, Count of, 49
Troodos, camping site, 16
"Tsarigrad," City ofthe Great
King, 4
Tudela, Benjamin of, the Jewish
traveller, 92, 103
Turkey, annual tribute paid by
Cyprus to, 20
Turkish Armenia, 14; expedi
tion to Cyprus, 77 ; fleet, de
stroyed at Navarino, 1 7
Turnham, Robert of, puts down
insurrection in Cyprus, 54
Twelve Patriarchs, Testaments
ofthe, 121

Tyre besieged by Venetians, 62
Tyre, Sidon, and Beyrout, Con
rad made Count of, 54
Tyre, William of, 62
" Varangians " or " Varia-
gians," 87
Venetian expedition besieges
Tyre, 62 ; filibusters restore
Isaac Angelus, 115; fortifica
tions at Nicosia, 1 6 ; occupa
tion of Cyprus, 59; quarter
of Constantinople, 98
Venetians capture Athens, 85 ;
granted free ports by Alexius,
109 ; the White, 62
Venice, Doge of, reconciles
Baldwin and Boniface, 123;
helps Manuel Comnenus,
10 1 ; services rendered to
Empire by Navy of, 98 ;
share of, in dismemberment
ofthe Empire, 122
Vezelai, 42

INDEX I49
Villehardouin and De la Roche
take Corinth, 128
Villehardouin, Geoffrey, Bailli
of Achaia, besieges Corinth,
127
Voudonitza, Guido of, holds
Thebes against the Emperor,
127 ; surrenders, 127
Wheler and Spon visit Athens,
81
White Venetians, 62
Winds, Tower of the, see
Horologion
Wolseley, Sir Garnet, first High
Commissioner of Cyprus, 18
Wordsworth, Dr. John, Bishop
of Salisbury, 2 5
Xiphilinos, George, Patriarch
of Constantinople, 109
Zonaras, evidence of, 83

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