Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
If, therefore, Alexius Comnenus was, during his anxious seat upon the throne of the East, reduced to use a base and truckling course of policy if he was sometimes reluctant to fight when he had a conscious doubt of the valour of his troops if he commonly employed cunning and dissimulation instead of wisdom, and perfidy instead of courage his expedients were the disgrace of the age, rather than his own.
My "brother," the King, smiled as he told his lordship he was right. Prince Comnenus was of the same opinion, and, being expressly invited to do so, he briefly recounted his adventures, and stated the object of his journey to Paris. "The whole world," said he, "is aware of the great misfortunes of my family.
The result was that, instead of opposition, the Hungarian prince gave him help, and escorted the Crusaders with a body of cavalry into the territories of Greece. Alexius Comnenus was by this time alarmed at the eagerness with which the Christian states had responded to his appeal for aid against the infidel.
It was after one or two preliminary efforts that the Princess Anna began her reading, with an uncertain voice, which gained strength and fortitude as she proceeded with the following passage from a well-known part of her history of Alexius Comnenus, but which unfortunately has not been republished in the Byzantine historians.
The crafty policy of Alexius Comnenus in transferring his allies with all speed into Asia, and declining to take the lead in the expedition, was almost justified by the necessity of delivering his subjects from these unwelcome visitors and avoiding further embarrassments. But the iniquitous Fourth Crusade produced an ineradicable feeling of animosity in the minds of the Byzantine people.
In 1112 Peter Grosolanus the defeated candidate for the archbishopric of Milan, as an emissary of Pope Pascal II discussed the points at issue before the Emperor Alexius Comnenus and was answered by Eustratius Archbishop of Nicaea.
He returned through Constantinople, where many of the English fugitives were serving in the Varangian guard. The Emperor Alexius Comnenus was much pleased with him, and offered him high preferment if he would remain with him; but Edgar loved his own country too well, and proceeded homeward. He found a changed state of affairs on his arrival in Normandy.
But Heaven cured me of so foolish an idea; and if I did not actually come to love Alexius Comnenus for how could that have been a possible effect in any rational state of my intellects? yet as I became convinced of my own crimes, sins, and follies, the more and more I was also persuaded that Alexius was but the agent through whom Heaven exercised a dearly-purchased right of punishing me for my manifold offences and transgressions; and that it was not therefore upon the Emperor that my resentment ought to visit itself.
Before I end my tale, do not let me forget to say that the King strongly recommended Prince Comnenus to the Republic of Genoa, and obtained for him considerable property in Corsica and a handsome residence at Ajaccio. He accepted five or six beautiful jewels that had belonged to Andronicus, and caused the sum of twelve hundred thousand francs to be paid to the young Comnenus from his treasury.
"Cyprus will seem nearer now," said one of them, pausing for a moment before the map to point out a speck in the Mediterranean with his gold-topped staff. "A century nearer than it was in the days of Comnenus," the other answered him, with a recollection of the attempted purchase and occupancy of the island in those earlier times. "But now praise be to San Marco, the time is ripe."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking