NEW UNIVERSAL BIOGRAPHY.

PERIOD XXVI.

FROM MICHAEL V. TO MANUEL COMNENUS.

[CENT. XI.]

REMARKABLE FACTS, EVENTS, AND DISCOVERIES.

A. D.

1002 The emperor Henry assumes the title of king of the Romans. 1014 Sueno the Dane becomes master of England, Sept. 28.

1022 A new species of music invented by Aretin.

1035 Togrul Beg, or Tangrolipix, the Turkish sultan, establishes himself in Khorasan. The kingdoms of Castile and Arragon begun.

1036 Canute the Great conquers England.

1040 The Danes, after several engagements with various success, driven

out of Scotland.

1041 The Saxon line restored under Edward the Confessor.

1043 The Turks become formidable and take possession of Persia. The Russians come from Scythia and land in Thrace.

1054 Leo IX. the first pope that kept up an army.

1055 The Turks take Bagdad, and overturn the empire of the Saracens. 1057 Malcolm III., king of Scotland, kills the tyrant Macbeth at Dunsinnan, and marries princess Margaret, sister to Edgar Atheling.

1065 The Turks take Jerusalem from the Saracens.

1066 The conquest of England by William the bastard, duke of Normandy, in the battle of Hastings, where Harold was slain.

1070 The feudal law introduced into England.

1074 Asia Minor being now under the power of Solyman, is from this time called Turkey.

1075 Henry IV., emperor of Germany, and the pope, quarrel about the nomination of the German bishops. Henry, in penance, walks barefooted to the pope in the month of January.

1076 Justices of peace first appointed in England.

1080 Doomsday book begun to be compiled by order of William, from a

survey of all the estates in England, and finished in 1086. William builds the Tower of London to curb his English subjects; many of whom fly to Scotland, where they introduce the English language, are protected by Malcolm, and receive lands.

VOL. III.

B

1086 The order of Carthusians established by Bruno.

1090 The dynasty of Hathinees or Assassins begins in Irak, and continues for 117 years.

1091 The Saracens in Spain being hard pressed by the Spaniards, call to their assistance Joseph king of Morocco; by which the Moors get possession of all the Saracen dominions in Spain.

1096 The first crusade to the Holy Land, to drive the infidels from Jerusalem.

1098 The order of St. Benedict instituted.

1099 Jerusalem taken by the crusaders; Godfrey elected king; and the order of Knights of St. John instituted.

DURING this period the Danes and Normans began to make depredations, and to infest the neighbouring states. The former conquered the Anglo-Saxons, and seized the government, but were in their turn expelled by the Normans in 1066. In Germany and Italy the greatest disturbances arose from the contests between the popes and emperors. To all this if we add the internal contests, which happened through the ambition of the powerful barons of every kingdom, we can scarcely form an idea of times more calamitous than these. All Europe, nay, all the world, was one great field of battle; for the empire

of the Mahometans was not in a more settled state than that of the Europeans. Caliphs, sultans, emirs, &c. waged continual war with each other in every quarter; new sovereignties every day sprung up, and were as quickly destroyed. In short, through the ignorance and barbarity with which the whole world was overspread, it seemed in a manner impossible that the human race could long continue to exist; when happily the crusades, by directing the attention of the Europeans to one particular object, made them in such measure to suspend their slaughter of one another.

The crusades originated from the superstition of the two grand parties into which the world was at that time divided, namely the Christians and Mahometans. Both looked upon the small territory of Palestine, which they called the Holy Land, to be an invaluable acquisition, for which no sum of money could be an equivalent; and both took the most unjustifiable methods to accomplish their desires. The superstition of Omar, the second caliph, had prompted him to invade this country, part of the territories of the Greek emperor, who was doing him no hurt; and now when it had been so long under the subjection of the Mahometans, a similar superstition prompted the pope to send an army to the recovery of it. The crusaders accordingly poured forth in multitudes, like those with which the kings of Persia formerly invaded Greece; and their fate was pretty similar. Their impetuous valour at first, indeed, carried every thing before them; they recovered Palestine, Phoenicia, and part of Syria, from the infidels; but their want of conduct soon lost what their valour had obtained, and very few of that vast multitude which had left Europe ever returned.

GOVERNMENT.

ROME.

MICHAEL V., emperor of the east, surnamed Calaphates from his father's occupation of a caulker of ships, was proclaimed emperor in 1041, after the death of his uncle. Soon after his accession he basely banished his uncle John the eunuch, and confined the empress Zoe in a monastery. The resentment of the people for this conduct broke out into a sedition, in which Zoe and her sister Theodora were recalled, and proclaimed joint sovereigns. Michael retired to a monastery and took the religious habit, hoping to escape further injury; but Theodora caused his eyes to be amputated, and he was banished, with all his relations and adherents after he had possessed the throne only four months.

CONSTANTINE X., surnamed Monomachus, or the Gladiator, a Greek of a noble family, was recalled from exile in Lesbos, at the deposition of the emperor Michael V., was married to Zoe, the daughter of Constantine IX., then the widow of two emperors, and was raised to the throne in 1042. He brought with him a fair widow, the sister of Romanus Seberus, whom he made his declared concubine, with the title of Augusta, and Zoe, who was advanced in years, consented to this. Constantine's reign was disturbed by various revolts, in which he generally remained victor, though one of the rebels, Leo Tomitius, besieged him in his capital. He was also successful against foreign enemies; but his indolence or avarice gave opportunity to the Turks, then a new foe to the empire, to gain a footing in Lesser Asia. He died in 1054.

MICHAEL VI, emperor of the east, surnamed Stratioticus, was appointed by the empress Theodora her successor to the throne, which he ascended in 1056. He was then advanced in years, and enjoyed a reputation for military talents, but was entirely unacquainted with the art of government. In consequence, he was governed by the court eunuchs, at whose instigation he disobliged the principal officers of the army. A conspiracy was formed against him, and Isaac Comnenus was elected to the imperial dignity. Isaac assembled an army in the eastern provinces, with which he proceeded towards the capital. He was met by Michael's army in the neighbourhood of Nice, and a battle ensued, in which the latter was totally defeated. At the approach of Comnenus a decree was unanimously passed, investing him with the title of emperor, and a deputation of bishops was sent to Michael, commanding him to renounce the sovereign power. "What will you give me," said he, "in exchange for the empire?" "The kingdom of heaven,"

they replied. He recognized the call, and retired to a monastery, after a reign of little more than a year.

ISAAC I., COMNENUS, emperor of the east, son of Manuel, was the first of the noble family of Comneni who arrived at the imperial throne. He, with his brother John, was brought up in the camp and court to civil and military offices of distinction, and he stood in high esteem as a general, when the promotion of Michael Stratioticus to the purple, gave great discontent to the leading men. A conspiracy was formed to dethrone Michael, and raise Isaac Comnenus to the throne. Comnenus now invested with the ensigns of royalty, marched to Nice, which he surprised; and being encountered in the neighbourhood by the generals of Michael, totally routed them, and marched to Constantinople. Michael was obliged by the senate and people to resign his dignity and retire to a monastery; and Isaac was solemnly crowned on Sept. 1, 1057. His short reign was peaceable; but his attempt to recruit the exhausted treasury with the wealth of the monasteries occasioned an arrogant opposition from the patriarch, which the emperor quelled by banishing that prelate. Not long after, he fell into a decline of health, which admonished him to retire from the world. His brother John refusing to accept of the toil of empire, the purple was conferred upon Constantine Ducas; and Isaac, in 1059, ended his reign of two years and three months in a monastery. He spent the remainder of his life in exercises of piety, not disdaining to perform the most servile offices of the convent, and was frequently honoured by the respectful visits of his successor.

CONSTANTINE XI., emperor of the east, surnamed Ducas, of a noble Greek family, was chosen by the emperor Isaac Comnenus at his voluntary abdication in 1059, as the fittest person to succeed him. Constantine had obtained reputation as an orator and a judge, but was ill-suited to govern an empire, then threatened by numerous barbarian foes. He governed at home with equity and moderation, but his avarice having induced him to neglect the maintenance of the garrisons on the frontier, a body of Uzians, a people of Scythia, consisting of five hundred thousand persons, passed the Danube, and laid the country waste. They penetrated even into Greece, and defeated the imperial generals who had been sent against them. The emperor in vain offered to purchase peace of them by rich presents and a tribute; but at length a great part of the host were destroyed by the plague, and the remainder were cut in pieces by the Bulgarians. Several cities of the empire were much injured by an earthquake during this disastrous reign. Constantine, whose great care was to secure the succession of his three sons, died in 1067, at the age of sixty.

ROMANUS IV., emperor of the East, named Diogenes, a descendant of Romanus Argyrus, in the regency of Eudocia, widow of Constantine Ducas, engaged in a conspiracy for raising