Essays on the Latin Orient

BY WILLIAM MILLER, M.A. (OXON.) HON. LL.D. IN THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF GREECE: CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF GREECE: AUTHOR OF _THE LATINS...

The land now enjoyed a long period of peace, and began to recover from the effects of the civil wars. A further boon was the transference of Achaia from the jurisdiction of the...

It was at this period, too, that the traveller Pausanias wrote his famous _Description of Greece_, a work which gives a faithful account of that country as it struck his observa...

The triumph of paganism ceased with the death of Julian; but his successor Jovian, though he ordered the Church of the Virgin to be erected at Corfù out of the fragments of a he...

The history of Greece becomes very obscure after the death of Justinian, and the historian must be content to piece together from the Byzantine writers such stray allusions as t...

A generation elapsed without a renewal of the Slav agitation in the Peloponnese; but about 849 a fresh rising took place. On this occasion the appearance of a Byzantine commande...

There now appeared, for the first time in the history of Greece, that vigorous race which in the same century conquered our own island. The Normans of Italy, under their redoubt...

While the Crusaders are traversing the vale of Tempe, let us ask ourselves for a moment, who were the races, and what was the condition, of the country which they were about to...

The conquest of the Morea has been compared with that of England by the Normans. In both cases a single pitched battle decided the fate of the country, but in the Morea, the con...

We are not told where the first Frankish ruler of Athens resided, but there can be no doubt that, like his immediate successors, he fixed his capital at Thebes—for it was not ti...

It is satisfactory to note that, after a long period of neglect, the great romance of mediæval Greek history is finding interpreters. Since George Finlay revealed to the British...

The government of the principality accordingly fell into the hands of bailies appointed by the suzerain at Naples. Sometimes the bailie was a man who knew the country, like Nich...

The news that Constantinople had fallen and that the Emperor had been slain came like a thunderbolt upon his wretched brothers, who naturally expected that they would be the nex...

In one respect the Court of Athens, under Othon de la Roche, must have resembled the Court of the late King George, namely, that there was no one, except the members of his own...

As if he had some presentiment of his coming death, Walter made his will—a curious document still preserved[86]—and then, on March 15, took up his stand on the hill called the T...

The people of Athens and Salona, whose loyalty to the crown of Aragon had saved the duchies, were well aware of the value of their services, and were resolved to have their rewa...

Nerio feared for his own dominions, whence the Greek Metropolitan had fled—so it was alleged—to the Turkish camp, and had promised the infidels the treasures of the Athenian Chu...

When one morning in 1435, after a reign of thirty-two years, Antonio’s attendants found him dead in his bed, a Greek as well as an Italian party disputed the succession. The Ita...

Within the last sixteen years a great deal of new material has been published on the subject of Frankish Athens. The late Professor Lampros[128] not only translated into Greek t...

During the long and peaceful reign of his son Angelo, little occurred to disturb the progress of the Duchy. But its external relations underwent a change at this time, in conseq...

Towards the close of the fifteenth century the condition of the islanders had become intolerable, and matters came to a climax under the rule of Giovanni III. That despotic Duke...

After the recapture of Constantinople by the Greeks, the value of the island became greater than ever to the Venetians. Three years after that event we find the Doge Zeno writin...

Sphakia lies on the south coast of the island, almost exactly opposite the Bay of Suda on the north. Foscarini describes it as consisting of “a very weak tower,” occupied by a V...

So, after 465 years, the Venetian domination came to an end. From the Roman times to the present day no government has lasted so long in that restless island; and the winged lio...

The administration of the islands during the Venetian period was modelled on that of the Republic. In Corfù, the first occupied and most important of the seven, the chief Veneti...

Ionian commerce was hampered by the selfish colonial policy then prevalent in Europe, which aimed at concentrating all colonial trade in the metropolis, through which the export...

When the Candian war broke out further fortifications were built at Corfù as a precautionary measure; but during the whole length of the struggle the Turks came no nearer than P...

There are few places in Greece which possess the combined charms of natural beauty and of historic association to the same extent as Monemvasia. The great rock which rises out o...

Down to the peace of 1502-3, Monemvasia seems to have been fairly prosperous under Venetian rule. By the Turco-Venetian treaty of 1479 she had been allowed to retain the depende...

The fifth Marquess is mentioned as among those summoned by Philip of Savoy, Prince of Achaia, to the famous Parliament and tournament on the Isthmus of Corinth in the spring of...

Capta. Cum dominacio ducalis ex debito teneatur suos cives in eorum iuribus et honoribus cum justicia conservare et dominus Nicolaus Georgio, Marchio Bondanicie, sit iniuriatus...

Mykonos remained united with Tenos under the flag of St Mark till the first great raid of the Turkish fleet in the Cyclades under Khaireddîn Barbarossa in 1537. Neither Andrea M...

Salonika recovered from the ravages of the Saracens, who later in the tenth century were driven out of Crete, and the collapse of the Bulgarians in the eleventh enabled her to d...

The Zaccaria were at this time one of the leading families of Genoa, whither they had emigrated from the little Ligurian town of Gavi some two centuries earlier. The grandfather...

After the restoration of Greek rule in Chios and the appointment of Kalothetos as Imperial viceroy, Andronikos III had proceeded to Phocæa. By this time the Genoese had abandone...

The _podestà_ had the right of coining money, provided that his coins bore the effigy of the Doge of Genoa and the inscription “Dux Ianuensium Conradus Rex” in memory of Conrad...

But we must also look at the picture from another point of view—that of the governed. The judgment of Finlay that the rule of the company was “the least oppressive government in...

When the ransom had been settled, the three French and Burgundian envoys who had been treating with Bayezid, embarked for Lesbos, escorted by Francesco and Nicolò and accompanie...

The indefatigable antiquary may have paid an earlier visit to Lesbos in 1431, but the accounts which he has left of the Gattilusj, their dominions, and the neighbouring islands...

The Turkish annexation of Samothrace and Imbros and the appointment of a native governor had an immediate effect upon the neighbouring island of Lemnos. The Lemnians had had lit...

The fleet, bearing Nicolò, Luchino, the Archbishop Leonardo, and the rest of the captives, reached Constantinople on October 16, where some of them received houses, or sites in...

Both the law of Islâm and the laws of human nature forbade the wholesale conversion of the conquered to the faith of the conquerors. But Mohammed II, who spoke Greek and knew th...

But it was not only in the numbers, but also in the quality of their population, that the Greek provinces of Turkey suffered from the effects of the Turkish conquest. Almost all...

The battle of Lepanto has made a great noise in history, and Rome and Venice still preserve many memorials of that victory. But its results were valueless, so far as the Greeks...

Unable to subdue the Mainates by force, the Grand Vizier now had recourse to diplomacy. The hereditary blood feud had long been the curse of Maina, and its inhabitants were divi...

Education was not neglected by the Athenians of the seventeenth century. From 1614 to 1619 and again in 1645 a wayward Athenian genius, named Korydalleus, was teaching philosoph...

The Republic at this time still retained a considerable insular dominion in Greek waters—six out of the seven Ionian islands, Tenos, and the three Cretan fortresses of Grabusa,...

Whether Athens could be defended, that was the question which its conquerors now had to decide. At a council of war, held at the Piræus on December 31, it was pointed out that i...

One important privilege was granted to the communities from political motives—the election of the Orthodox bishops. Of all the difficulties, which Venice had to face, the greate...

The fourth crusade, which led to the dismemberment of the Greek Empire, consequently affected the Adriatic coast. The partition treaty of 1204 assigned to Venice the province of...

The Turks neglected Valona, as they neglected all their Albanian possessions. Sinan Pasha had been so good and popular a governor that, although a native of Konieh, he was nickn...

We have an interesting description of life at the Serbian court in the time of the next King, Stephen Urosh I[860] (_c._ 1268), from the Byzantine historian Pachymeres. There wa...

Brankovich by his “enlightened egoism” managed to maintain a precarious autonomy till after the capture of Constantinople (1453). Then, Mohammed II resolved to end what remained...

Meanwhile the Herzegovina, or the “Land of Hum,” as it was then called, had had a considerable history of its own. Early in the tenth century, at the time when the Croatian King...

Stephen Kotromanich proved himself to be the ablest ruler whom Bosnia had had since Kulin, and laid the foundations upon which his successor built up the Bosnian kingdom. His re...

The great Turkish invasion, which took place in 1398 and almost entirely ruined Bosnia, convinced the great nobles that a woman was unfitted to rule. Headed by Hrvoje, they acco...

Bosnia had entered upon her four centuries of submission to the Turks. Her King was dead, his consort and his step-mother, Queen Catherine, in exile, and his people at the mercy...

Such was the map of the Near East in 1450, on the eve of the accession of the greatest of the Sultans, Mohammed II. With his advent ancient Empires and mediæval Principalities d...

Upon the death of the bastard in 1473, we find Queen Charlotte renewing her attempts to recover the island. She then waited at Rhodes, and endeavoured to negotiate with the Sult...

Besides these exiled Princes, a number of Greek authors found a permanent or temporary home in Rome, whither their famous fellow-countryman, Bessarion of Trebizond, had preceded...

The middle class was a far more important body than in either the England or the France of that day. Palestine during the Crusades was not visited exclusively for religious or m...

In conclusion we may ask how Frankish society in Palestine compares with Frankish society in Cyprus and in the Latin Principalities of the present Greek Kingdom. Very different...

She begins her history by describing her father’s exploits during the three previous reigns, the “three labours of Hercules[953],” as she characteristically calls his suppressio...

She uses the correct word _jupan_ (or “count”) for the Serbian chieftains[979], but designates both King Michael (who was the first ruler of Dioklitia to bear the royal title an...

[249] Saint-Sauveur, III. 8, 91. When, in the sixteenth century, the Cephalonians claimed precedence over Zante, they quoted to the Venetians, in support of their claim, the fac...

[507] Thuani, _Historiarum sui temporis Libri cxxxviii._ (ed. 1620), II. 368-70; Bosio, _Dell’ Istoria della Sacra Religione et illᵐᵃ Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano_, I...

[709] There is a picture, taken from Stuart, of this Παναγία στὴν πέτρα in Kampouroglos, Ἱστορία, II. 280. See his Μνημεῖα, I. 93. It was destroyed by Hadji Ali, to provide mate...

Albania, and the Albanians, 50, 59, 103 ff., 129, 146, 149, 188, 193, 217, 228, 361, 368, 370, 383, 384, 388 n., 412, 419, 430 ff., 434 ff., 438 ff., 442, 443, 447, 449, 450, 45...

Constantinople, 1, 20, 22, 25, 26, 29 ff., 33, 37 ff., 47 ff., 55, 58, 59, 65, 67, 68, 80, 86 ff., 92, 98, 100, 102, 104, 105, 107, 110, 113, 115, 116, 128, 151, 152, 159, 162,...

Italy, and the Italians, 11, 49 ff., 55, 58, 67, 73, 93, 125, 138, 139, 145, 174, 175, 184, 198, 224, 233, 238, 253, 271, 275, 277, 280, 298, 311, 315, 343, 344, 349, 369, 371,...

Palaiologos, family of, 102 ff., 115, 149, 237, 240, 329, 334, 351, 352, 381, 390, 411 Andrew, 106, 240, 500, 513, 514 Andronikos II, 94, 108, 117 ff., 235, 278, 279, 286, 287,...

Thebes (Estives), and the Thebans, 4, 10, 15, 25, 33, 37, 38, 45, 48, 50 ff., 60, 63, 75 ff., 82 ff., 94, 95, 100 ff., 108, 112 ff., 116 ff., 121, 123, 125, 127 ff., 131, 133, 1...