rious capital. But the distance weakened the powers of control; and the son of Andronicus was surrounded with artful or unthinking companions, who taught him to hate his guardian, to deplore his exile, and to vindicate his rights. A private treaty with the cral or despot of Servia was soon followed by an open revolt; and Cantacuzene, on the throne of the elder Andronicus, defended the cause of age and prerogative, which in his youth he had so vigorously attacked. At his request, the empress mother undertook the voyage of Thessalonica, and the office of mediation; she returned without success; and unless Anne of Savoy was instructed by adversity, we may doubt the sincerity, or at least the fervour, of her zeal. While the regent grasped the sceptre with a firm and vigorous hand, she had been instructed to declare, that the ten years of his legal administration would soon elapse; and that after a full trial of the vanity of the world, the emperor Cantacuzene sighed for the repose of a cloister, and was ambitious only of a heavenly crown. Had these sentiments been genuine, his voluntary abdication would have restored the peace of the empire, and his conscience would have been relieved by an act of justice. Palæologus alone was responsible for his future government; and whatever might be his vices, they were surely less formidable than the calamities of a civil war, in which the Barbarians and infidels were again invited to assist the Greeks in their mutual destruction. By the arms of the Turks, who now struck a deep and everlasting root in Europe, Cantacuzene prevailed in the third contest in which he had been involved; and the young emperor, driven from the sea and land, was compelled to take shelter among the Latins of the isle of Tenedos. His insolence and obstinacy provoked the victor to a step which must render the quarrel irreconcilable; and the association of his son Matthew, whom he invested with the purple, established the succession in the family of the Cantacuzeni. But Constantinople was still attached to the blood of her ancient princes; and this last injury accelerated the restoration of the rightful heir. A noble Genoese espoused the cause of Palæologus, obtained a promise of his sister, and achieved the revolution with two galleys and two thousand five hundred auxiliaries. Under the pretence of distress, they were admitted into the lesser port; a gate was opened, and the Latin shout of

"Long life and victory to the emperor, John Palæologus!" was answered by a general rising in his favour. A numerous and loyal party yet adhered to the standard of Cantacuzene; but he asserts in his history (does he hope for belief?) that his tender conscience rejected the assurance of conquest; that, in free obedience to the voice of religion and philosophy, he descended from the throne, and embraced with pleasure the monastic habit and profession.* So soon as he ceased to be a prince, his successor was not unwilling that he should be a saint: the remainder of his life was devoted to piety and learning; in the cells of Constantinople and mount Athos, the monk Joasaph was respected as the temporal and spiritual father of the emperor; and if he issued from his retreat, it was as the minister of peace, to subdue the obstinacy, and solicit the pardon, of his rebellious son.t

Yet in the cloister, the mind of Cantacuzene was still exercised by theological war. He sharpened a controversial. pen against the Jews and Mahometans; and in every state he defended with equal zeal the divine light of mount Thabor, a memorable question, which consummates the religious follies of the Greeks. The fakirs of India,§ and the monks of the Oriental church, were alike persuaded, that in total abstraction of the faculties of the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion and practice of the monasteries of mount Athos will be best represented in the words of an *The awkward apology of Cantacuzene (1. 4, c. 39-42), who relates with visible confusion his own downfall, may be supplied by the less accurate, but more honest, narratives of Matthew Villani (1. 4, c. 46, in the Script. Rerum. Ital. tom. xiv. p. 268) and Ducas (c. 10, 11).

Cantacuzene, in the year 1375, was honoured with a letter from the pope (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 250). His death is placed by respectable authority on the 20th of November, 1411 (Ducange, Fam, Byzant. p. 260). But if he were of the age of his companion Andronicus the younger, he must have lived one hundred and sixteen years; a rare instance of longevity, which, in so illustrious a person, would have attracted universal notice. His four dis

courses, or books, were printed at Basil, 1543 (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 473). He composed them to satisfy a proselyte, who was assaulted with letters from his friends of Ispahan. Cantacuzene had read the Koran; but I understand from Maracci, that he adopts the vulgar prejudices and fables against Mahomet and his religion. § See the Voyages de Bernier, tom. i. p. 127.

Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 522, 523. Fleury, Hist. Ecclés.

abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. "When thou art alone in thy cell," says the ascetic teacher, "shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner; raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and thy thought towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel; and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first, all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light." This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly was confined to mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not inquisitive how the divine essence could be a material substance, or how an immaterial substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body. But in the reign of the younger Andronicus, these monasteries were visited by Barlaam,* a Calabrian monk, who was equally skilled in philosophy and theology; who possessed the languages of the Greeks and Latins; and whose versatile genius could maintain their opposite creeds, according to the interest of the moment. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed to the curious traveller the secrets of mental

prayer; and Barlaam embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists, who placed the soul in the navel; of accusing the monks of mount Athos of heresy and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to renounce or dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren: tom. xx. p. 22. 24. 107-114, &c. The former unfolds the causes with the judgment of a philosopher, the latter transcribes and translates with the prejudices of a Catholic priest.

*Basnage (in Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iv. p. 363–368) has investigated the character and story of Barlaam. The duplicity of his opinions had inspired some doubts of the identity of his person. See likewise Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 427-432.) [An ample notice of Barlaam will be found in ch. 66. He was advanced beyond his age, and on his first visit to Constantinople, gave great offence by his manifest contempt for the prevalent ignorance of the people. Though he left the Greek for the Roman church, he was always consistent in his ridicule of the navel-souls, oμpaλouxo, as he jeeringly styled the absurd visionaries, who chose for themselves the graver appellation of Hesychastæ.-ED.]

and Gregory Palamas introduced a scholastic distinction between the essence and operation of God. His inaccessible essence dwells in the midst of an uncreated and eternal light; and this beatific vision of the saints had been manifested to the disciples on mount Thabor, in the transfiguration of Christ. Yet this distinction could not escape the reproach of Polytheism; the eternity of the light of Thabor was fiercely denied; and Barlaam still charged the Palamites with holding two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God. From the rage of the monks of Mount Athos, who threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to Constantinople, where his smooth and specious manners introduced him to the favour of the great domestic and the emperor. The court and the city were involved in this theological dispute, which flamed amidst the civil war; but the doctrine of Barlaam was disgraced by his flight and apostacy; the Palamites triumphed; and their adversary, the patriarch John of Apri, was deposed by the consent of the adverse factions of the state. In the character of emperor and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the synod of the Greek church, which established, as an article of faith, the uncreated light of mount Thabor; and, after so many insults, the reason of mankind was slightly wounded by the addition of a single absurdity. Many rolls of paper or parchment have been blotted; and the impenitent sectaries who refused to subscribe the orthodox creed, were deprived of the honours of Christian burial; but in the next age the question was forgotten; nor can I learn that the axe or the fagot were employed for the extirpation of the Barlaamite heresy.*

For the conclusion of this chapter, I have reserved the Genoese war, which shook the throne of Cantacuzene, and betrayed the debility of the Greek empire. The Genoese, who, after the recovery of Constantinople, were seated in the suburb of Pera or Galata, received that honourable fief from the bounty of the emperor. They were indulged in the use of their laws and magistrates; but they submitted

* See Cantacuzene (1. 2, c. 39, 40; 1. 4, c. 3, 23-25) and Nic. Gregoras (1. 11, c. 10; 1. 15. 3. 7, &c.), whose last books, from the nineteenth to the twenty-fourth, are almost confined to a subject so interesting to the authors. Boivin (in Vit. Nic. Gregora) from the unpublished books, and Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 462—473)

*

to the duties of vassals and subjects; the forcible word of liegemen was borrowed from the Latin jurisprudence; and their podesta, or chief, before he entered on his office, saluted the emperor with loyal acclamations and vows of fidelity. Genoa sealed a firm alliance with the Greeks; and, in case of a defensive war, a supply of fifty empty galleys, and a succour of fifty galleys completely armed and manned, were promised by the republic to the empire. In the revival of a naval force, it was the aim of Michael Palæologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his vigorous government contained the Genoese of Galata within those limits which the insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to exceed. A sailor threatened that they should soon be masters of Constantinople, and slew the Greek who resented this national affront; and an armed vessel, after refusing to salute the palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in the Black Sea. Their countrymen threatened to support their cause; but the long and open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the imperial troops; till, in the moment of the assault,

or rather Montfaucon, from the MSS. of the Coislin library, have added some facts and documents. * Pachymer (1. 5, c. 10) very properly explains Autious (ligios) by idious. The use of these words in the Greek and Latin of the feudal times may be amply understood from the Glossaries of Ducange (Græc. p. 811, 812. Latin. tom. iv. p. 109-111). [The explanation of Ducange is not altogether satisfactory. Spelman (Gloss. 368) has better shown the distinction between ligii and vassalli, but left the true meaning of the former still obscure. Many derivations have been assigned for it; but of these the most generally adopted is evidently false, since it forms a word of Gothic origin from the Latin ligare. It denoted, in a mass, all the subjects of a higher power, without discriminating position or obligation; and as a sovereign now speaks of his people, or lieges, so in early times the Gothic lord, or king, called all whom he governed, his leo, leudes, or leute (Adelung, Wörterbuch, 3. 190); and this, some Latins of the transition ages, who, it must be remembered, did not give our soft pronunciation to their g, adopted into their language as ligii. See in ch. 38, vol. iv. p. 194, the note on the term allodial. The Genoese of Pera simply acknowledged their allegiance to the emperor to be the same as that of his own idiovs, native Greeks, which is plainly Pachymer's meaning. So early as in the year 1169 they made this concession in their treaty with the emperor Manuel, in the hope of supplanting their Venetian rivals. Sauli, Della Colonia dei Genovesi in Galata, ii. 181. Vincens, Histoire de la République de Gènes, i. 220. Finlay, Hist. Byzant. ii, 189.-ED.]