The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 6

Title: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 6

Author: Edward Gibbon

Publisher: Everyman’s Library, 1993 (First published 1788)

ISBN: 9780679435938

Pages: 684

 

The journey of a lifetime ends with this volume several months after it started with Gibbon observing vespers-chanting friars among the ruins of Rome’ Capitol. It took Gibbon twenty years to research and write this epic piece which took me nine months to complete – only to make a cursory study of the contents. The language is enticing and difficult at the same time. Even now, I can’t claim to have grasped all the nuances the author had cleverly hidden behind and between the lines. But the flowery prose does not hinder Gibbon in evaluating the topic lucidly and making a clear and direct observation of the state of things. This volume contains chapters 57 to 71 and the storyline runs from the Latin conquest of Constantinople and ends with its irrecoverable fall to the Turks. It also includes an analysis of the rise of Mongols, Seljuks and Ottoman Turks, the plight of the city of Rome in the middle ages and the crusades. The growth of the papacy utilizing the state of no sovereigns residing in the city or Italy is also described.

 

This book portrays a pathetic picture of the inroads of Islam to Asia Minor and then to Eastern Europe with its savagery exceeding that of the times. By the eleventh century, Turkish occupation of Anatolia was complete, with their capital situated hardly 100 km away from Constantinople. With the payment of tribute and guaranteeing perpetual servitude, Christians were permitted limited exercise of their religion. But their most holy churches were profaned and bishops were regularly insulted. Gibbon sardonically remarks that ‘many thousand children were marked by the knife of circumcision and many thousand captives were devoted to the service or pleasure of their masters’ (p.31). The sultans then found an easy way to supply a professional military corps to their army. Christian children were forcibly taken away from their parents as slaves and converted to Islam. They were then given a strict training imparting lessons of discipline and valour. Having thus cut their roots off their families, these slaves sometimes astonished their masters in their religious bigotry and attacks over the Christians. The sultans treated the entire Christian community as war booty and demanded a fifth part of them as the sultan’s share. The fifth child of Christian families were snatched away from them and converted to become the special force known as Janissaries in adulthood. The author also narrates the position of Athens under the suffocating yoke of Turkish rule. He remarks that the Athenians walked with supine indifference among the glorious ruins of antiquity and such was the debasement of their character that they were incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors. The modern language of Athens is the most corrupt and barbarous of the seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek.

 

Muslim fanatics even now claim the Crusades as a gross injustice perpetrated by Christendom on the Islamic kingdoms of the Middle East in the middle ages. It is curious to examine their claims of victimhood from the information provided by this book. The question is whether the Christians were justified in reclaiming their holiest places from sacrilege. We now turn to what the author has to say. Caliph Omar subdued Jerusalem in the seventh century and by the year 1000, three-fourths of the Palestinians had become Muslim. The Fatimite caliph Hakem of Egypt demolished the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem to its foundations and interrupted Easter prayers. He also damaged the holiest Church of Holy Sepulchre. Seljuk Turks captured Jerusalem in the eleventh century and their fanaticism alienated and oppressed the Christian pilgrims to the holy land. The Turks insulted the clergy of every sect and the Patriarch was dragged by the hair along the streets and cast into a dungeon to extract a hefty ransom. With this level of humiliation, no person having even a trace of self-respect can continue to watch it impotently and Europe erupted in attack. A new spirit had arisen in Europe of religious chivalry and papal dominion. A nerve was touched of exquisite feeling and the sensation vibrated to the heart of Europe – that’s how Gibbon poetically frames it.

 

There were seven crusades in all, but all except the early ones were poorly motivated and inadequately taken up. The armed ‘pilgrims’ of Europe marched into Palestine with a determination to wrest Jerusalem at any cost or fall a martyr. In a sense, this was the moment when Europe instilled a spirit of ‘jihad’ in the Christian cause. The first crusaders were unprepared for the task they undertook at a moment’s notice. 300,000 of them perished before a single city was rescued from the Turks. Yet, the myriads that survived, marched and pressed forwards were a subject of astonishment to themselves and to the Eastern Greeks. The crusaders’ march through Constantinople alarmed the Eastern Emperor and he heaved a sigh of relief when the last of the troops moved on from his city. But in 1204, the situation became very nasty and they turned against the emperor and sacked Constantinople. This was reclaimed by the Greeks six decades later. The crusades were successful as far as the immediate goals were concerned. They re-took Jerusalem and obtained control of the holiest shrines of Christianity, but Gibbon mockingly concludes that their objective was ‘possessing a tombstone 2000 miles from their country’ (p.116). But the Muslims were relentlessly rampaging against the crusader kingdoms and finally Saladin took it back from the Christians. This book also notes the social implications of the crusades in European society. Feudalism in Europe suffered greatly as a consequence. The estates of the barons were dissipated and their race extinguished in these costly and penniless expeditions. Their poverty unlocked the fetters of the slave and extorted their charters of freedom. The crusades also opened up a lucrative field transporting holy relics to European churches where they were displayed and worshipped. Devotees flocked to such places in large numbers and the churches made a windfall in revenue. These relics included such objects as the true cross, crown of thorns, baby linen of Jesus, the lance, the sponge and the chain of the Passion, the rod of Moses and part of the skull of John the Baptist.

 

The fall of Constantinople is an epoch-making event in history and Gibbon traces the ascent of Turks around the city for nearly a century before they finally decided to take the plunge. Ottomans established their rule around Constantinople and encircled the city. The namesake Greek emperor was forced to serve as their vassal. He paid generous tributes and even sent troop contingents to fight alongside the Ottomans against other Christian kingdoms. They were also made to present their princesses to the Sultan’s harems. Functionally, they were thus similar to Rajputs under Mughals. The property and person of the Christian nobles were not above the frowns of the Sultan. On suspicion of sedition, Sultan Murad commanded Emperor John Palaeologus to blind his own son Andronicus and his infant grandson John, which he meekly carried out. The Ottomans could have taken Constantinople anytime, but they hesitated to do it fearing a possible backlash from the Christian kingdoms that might unite in a second and more formidable crusade. Then came the invasion of Timur which pulverized the Ottomans and their defeated Sultan Bayazid was taken to Samarkand in an animal cage. This put back the fall of Constantinople by fifty years.

 

Curtains fall with the victory of Mehmet II over Constantinople and the perpetual doom of the Greek church. Eastern emperors desperately tried to patch up their religious differences with the western powers under the spiritual guidance of the pope. The nobles openly repudiated their sect and joined the pope in communion. But the dispute over a supernatural concept cannot be resolved by arguments to reason. They can only be settled by conquest, whether physical or spiritual. The eastern clergy forcibly opposed the efforts of union and saw it only as a ruse to involve European Christendom in the former’s fight for survival against the Ottomans. This interaction had other effects such as helping to diffuse the Greek language in western courts and thus smoothing the way to renaissance. The timing was perfect. The Italian soil was prepared for the cultivation of the seeds of knowledge before they were scattered by the Turkish winds. Gibbon provides a detailed review of the sack of Constantinople and the sacrilege of Christian holy places and people that followed it. The Cathedral of St. Sophia was immediately converted to a mosque. He also tells the miserable story of how the victors selected their victims and pressed them into the meanest slavery.

 

This volume ends with a survey of the vicissitudes of papal power from its temporal and spiritual rivals. By the fifteenth century, Pope’s rule was firmly established at Rome. As a personal curiosity, Gibbon investigates the reasons behind the heavy ruin of ancient monuments in Rome. Even though invaders performed a small part in the outcome, the substantial cause is ascribed to the avarice of native Romans who pillaged the material for other buildings from the remains of ancient ones. At the end of the volume and series which took twenty years of the author’s life, Gibbon hopes that he may come up with another series on a suitable topic in future. Unfortunately, it never materialized.

 

The book is highly recommended.

 

Rating: 4 Star