was then called) and foreign nations long before the Crusades, no such treaties have been preserved as far as present knowledge extends. 76 IN BARBARY. Commercial relations between the European trade centers (Barcelona, Pisa, Amalfi, Venice, et al.), and the ports of North Africa date back to the eighth century. War, however, was the prevailing condition. It is recalled that in 1044 the Pisans conquered the city of Bona, which was a popular resort for Moslem pirates, and that in 1087 a large expedition of Pisans and Genoese, at the invitation of Pope Victor III, successfully attacked Mahdia, the port of Cairewan, which was the metropolis of the Barbary States, and compelled Prince Temin to grant them freedom of trade besides indemnifying them for previous losses. The first treaty known as between the Barbary States and the nations of Europe was that concluded between Pisa and the Sultan of Morocco in 1133, i. e., during the Crusades. Heyd, however, relates that the envoys whom Venice, during the administration of Doge Peter II Orseolo (991-1009), sent to various Moslem capitals (Aleppo, Damascus, Cairo, Cairewan, Palermo, etc.), undoubtedly brought back, on the termination of their uniformly successful mission, capitulations which assured to the Venetian merchant vessels anew a friendly reception among the Mohammedans of Syria, North Africa, and Sicily. It is not unlikely that several princes of Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Mogador, and Tangier were included among those with whom the Venetians at that time entered into compact. IN THE NORTH. In their piratical excursions, the Vikings followed two routes to the cast, one by the way of Gibraltar and the other hugging the rivers of Russia. These identical routes were frequented also by pilgrims and traders from the north after the introduction of Christianity into Scandinavia (1000-1035). More or less as Hengist and Horsa were "invited" to Britain and, obeying the call, ushered into the British Isles the Jutes, the Saxons, the Angles, so Rurik and other Varangian chiefs of his family in 862 were waited upon by a Slav embassy and exhorted to come east and rule over a confederation of Slav tribes at that time clustered about Novgorod (Holmgard). Though harassed by attacks on the part of Tartars, the Slavs suffered from the demoralizing effects of internal dissensions. Rurik and his Varangians promptly accepted the trust and on arrival in "Gardariki" built the camp of Aldegja (Ladoga). The Varangians had previously traded among the Slavs and at times raided some of their dominions." They were reputed inveterate 76 Pisa and Genoa were repeatedly sacked by Moslem pirates. 77 As early as the ninth century, taking advantage of the rivers and employing portable boats (cances), they traded as far as the Caspian Sea and beyond as shown by the numerous Arab and other coins unearthed in modern Scandinavia. Heyd (quoting Masudi): In 913 the Ras plundered the coasts of the Caspian Sea; they had 500 ships with 100 men in each ship. fighters who "sighed in the laziness of peace, and smiled in the agonies of death," 78 and as such they were wanted to face the turbulent Tartars.79 Quite naturally, they soon imposed their rule on the less warlike and disunited Slav tribes, and Rurik thus became the father (862) of a dynasty which reigned for more than 700 years 80 and the father of the present Russian Empire. Two of Rurik's chiefs, Askold (Hoskuldr) and Dir (Dyri), "not of his family," separated themselves from the main body and started for Constantinople in search of fresh adventures. At Kiew they defeated the Poljans, who paid tribute to the mighty Chazars, and there they settled down. Some 20 years later (882), Rurik's successor Oleg (Helgi) attacked Kiew and, after killing Askold and Dir, became master of the "mother of all Russian cities." From this time on, Kiew (Kaenugardr) remained the metropolis of "Slavonia" ("Scythia magna"). The Varangians (Nestor's Varegs) originally were inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries and came from across the Varangian Sea (Mare Varegum or, in Arabic, Bahr Varank, i. e., the Baltic). Among them Nestor mentions Swedes, Northmen, Angles, and Goths. Their common name, Varangian, indicates that they were professional vikings. By the Slavs, they were often called Rus, not because of their red hair and fair complexion, as some aver, but because they were known to the Finns, their neighbors, as oarsmen or sailors (ruotsi). In Greek accounts they were promiscuously termed pws (Rhôs or Rus) and Bapayyo (Varangoi), and the Arabs adopted this appellation (Rus, Varank). While the name of Rus (Latin: Rusii) was destined to survive in the end, the original founders of the Russian monarchy were best known in the Middle Ages as Varingi (Latin) or Varangians (derived from the root vara, which suggests a 78 Piracy was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue of the Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they stated from the banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement. The Baltic was the first scene of their naval achievements; they visited the castern shores, the silent residence of Fennic and Slavonian tribes; and the primitive Russians of the Lake Ladoga paid a tribute, the skins of white squirrels, to these strangers whom they saluted with the title of Varangians or Corsairs. Their superiority in arms, discipline, and renown commanded the fear and reverence of the natives.-Gibbon. In the court of Harald the Fairhaired (850-933), sea robbery was strictly forbidden as between Harald's own countries, but as against foreign countries it continued to be the one profession for a gentleman.Carlyle: Early Kings of Norway. 79 About this time (850), in the reign of Ethelwulf, King of the West Saxons and father of Alfred the Great, the fi st great invasion of England by Northmen took place. "In those days," say the Anglo-Saxon historians, the Omnipitent God sent hordes innumerable of cruel invaders who spared neither age, nor sex: Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Vandals, and Frisians, who from the beginning of King Ethelwulf's reign to the coming of Duke William of Normandy, for the period of nearly 200 years, laid waste this sinful land and destroyed both man and beast." 80 The Scandinavian predominance in "Big Sweden" (Svithiod hin mikla), as "Gardariki" sometimes was called, consisted largely in the fact that Scandinavians were employed by Rurik and his successors not only as commanders of their armies but also as auxiliary forces en masse, and it endured until about 1050, when the Varangians realized that, from the standpoint of gain and reward, Byzantine gold excelled the skins of Russia. Thenceforth Slav influences gained the ascendency in Kiew and subsequently in Novgorod. In examining this process of slavification, it is well to remember that the Viking age terminated about 1030 in consequence of the civilizing influence of Christianity, and that consequently the influx to the court at Kiew of Scandinavian fighting men rapidly subsided. Those who remained intermarried with the natives, and the amalgamation of the races set in. Igor's son had been given the Slay name of Svjatoslaf and his successors gradually drifted away from Scandinavian associations. Vladimir, son of Svjatoslaf, who raised Christianity into the position of State religion, introduced Slav as the language of the Church, and the Slav element gained considerable prestige and headway during his reign. His son, Jaroslaf, who died in 1054, was more inclined to favor Varangian traditions. His mother was Scandinavian, and he espoused Ingegard, a daughter of the Swedish King. During his reign, Scandinavians were made especially welcome at the Russian court. Among distinguished visitors mention may be made of Olaf the Saint, a brother in law of Jaroslaf, and Earald Sigurdsson, who ultimately married his daugher Elizabeth. While the Scandinavian language still was familiarly used in many parts of Russia, it had lost its official standing, and the country's slavification proceeded apace. In the twelfth century the Swedes possessed a trading post and a church in Novgorod. Later on they had to yield to the Germans and their Hanseatic League. sworn promise), i. e., warriors who would take the oath of fealty to some foreign prince.81 In those early days, among the Northmen, it was a common practice and not considered in the least humiliating or degrading, on the part of ambitious freemen, even of royal birth, to take service at foreign courts.52 Harald Sigurdsson, half brother to king Olaf the Saint of Norway, in 1034 accepted employ of the Greek Emperor as an officer of his Scandinavian bodyguard. After obtaining, by bravery and discretion, the command of these household troops, he fought for 15 years against pirates in the Mediterranean, Saracens in Syria and Egypt, enemies of Greece in Sicily,83 and then returned to Norway to share the throne with King Magnus the Good. Harald was present at the battle in which St. Olaf lost both his life and his crown, and afterwards sought an asylum at the court of Jaroslaf in Russia. Here he became enamored of Elisif or Elizabeth, the daughter of the Russian ruler, but his suit was not successful until his return from Constantinople.84 Among the Scandinavians the peaceful pursuits of commerce were frequently mingled with those of sea roving, and the strange and apparently incompatible union of the character of king, merchant, and pirate were seen united in the same individual. It is historically established that the Scandinavians, in the beginning of the tenth century, maintained a trading post at Itel, the capital of the Chazars, and that they extended their trading expeditions beyond the Caspian,85 as far as Syria and Egypt.86 No sooner were the Varangians settled at Kiew before they launched upon military or piratical enterprises against the Greek Empire. In 865 Constantinople was saved from the savage attack of the Scandinavians by a storm which shattered their vessels, already anchored in the Golden Horn. They returned in 904 under Oleg, regent at Kiew during the minority of Rurik's son Igor, with 2,000 barks. The Bosphorus having been closed against them by the Greeks, they carried their fleet overland (a feat which was more than duplicated by Mohammed the Conqueror in 1453), and then assailed the gates of the royal city. Oleg, on this occasion, as a sign of triumph, hung his shield on the highest tower of the Adrianople gate. A treaty of peace was concluded, greatly in favor of the Varangians who, besides a rich booty of goods and gold, obtained the privilege of having a settlement of merchants in Constantinople, governed by Scandinavian law and exempted, within certain prescribed limitations, from Greek jurisdiction. This capitulation, as already noted in these pages, was renewed in 944 and confirmed in 81 Thus we have among the Longobards the similar expression waregang (angl. vaergenga, frank-lat. wargengus, corresponding to the Icelandic handgenginn). 92 Tacitus: De Moribus Germanorum. 83 The Varangians were frequently used in foreign wars and also for garrison duty in outlying provinces. King Eric the Good of Denmark, on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1103, died in the arms of Varangians stationed at Paphos in Cyprus. In Venice may be seen to-day an interesting monument recalling the picturesque carerr of the Varangians. It is the immense marble statue of a cruching lion, which graces the entrance to the arsenal in Venice. This monument (according to Dr. Vilhelm Thomson, of the Royal Danish University), since time immemorial, had towered above the harbor of Piraeus, which on that account received its Italian name" Porto Leone." When Athens in 167 was conquered by the Venetians, the latter, on their return, brought the famous lion to Venice. It has since been discovered by northern archaeologists that certain Runic characters which are vaguely visible on the lion's flanks, and which have been carefully deciphered, prove the inscriptions to have been executed in the eleventh century by Swedes belonging to the Varangian guard and detailed for duty in Piraeus. 84 Wheaton. Heyd (quoting Masudi). 86 Heyd (quoting Ibn Kordadbeh). 971 after the battle of Silistria (Rumania) which largely terminated the Varangian assaults upon the Byzantine Empire, as about this time they accepted the Christian religion. THE ORIGIN, SPIRIT, AND APPLICATION OF THE CAPITULATIONS. THE CAPITULATIONS AS AN EXPRESSION. "The capitulations" as an expression which has deceived and is likely to deceive. It has nothing to do with the idea of surrender. Derived from the medieval Latin, it signifies a treaty with the conditions entered under minor heads (capitula), a complex of stipulations. The plenipotentiaries of the contracting parties brought to their meeting: Notes, memoranda or capitulations, i. e., a series of articles which ultimately were condensed into a treaty. In our day, the phrase "recapitulation of articles of agreement' would cover the point.87 As to just when the designation of treaties as capitulations first occurred is not of record. It probably did not antedate the Crusades. There is no cogent reason, however, for drawing any particular distinction between treaties before and after the Crusades as the criterion of all capitulations is the principle of exterritoriality, and this we find recognized in treaties concluded long before the idea of the Crusades materialized. Very frequently the capitulations are alluded to as "imperial diplomas" (or sworn promises), "letters patent," gratuitous concessions and favors (usually granted by proud Moslem rulers to suppliant Christians). In earlier days, owing to the more pronouncedly savage and uncompromising attitude of the nations towards each other which did not recognize in strangers anything but enemies, with whom, however, it might be necessary under certain conditions of reciprocal needs to treat otherwise than by the sword, the capitulations did seem unilateral.88 THE CAPITULATIONS AS INTERNATIONAL TREATIES. That, however, even the early capitulations between Moslems and Christians might be, as they actually were, treaties binding upon both parties, is proven by the fact that the Turks concluded numerous 87 Charles the Great's ordinances or chapters of legislation were called "capitularies." The early "Consular Regulations" of the Venetians, as prescribed for their consular representatives in Constantinople, were called Capitulare Baiuli Constantinopolitani. Diehl refers to a copy of 1374, which i. a. contains a civil and criminal code for the consul's guidance. Certain memoirs of the 17th century use as a synonym for capitulation a curious expression: They call the capitulations the "Cephaleoses.' It is the Greek word kepadaiwoes in which clearly appears the origin which we attribute to the woed capitulation. Some, like the golden bulls of the Greek emperors, were signed by the latter and by them only. The Saracen capitulations often were drawn up by Jewish secretaries in the name of the sultan and attested by witnesses. The closing sentences of Saladin's treaty with Pisa, of 1173, read as follows: On this wise has been made and established this agreement between them and us, in order that there be by it complete concord between us. That if they shall fail in such agreements, or in a part of them, the same shall be destroyed and lose all faith and trust. "Which agreements were drawn up and read before the ambassador, who underst od them well and agreed thereto and gave guarantees, taking with him our letters, and he guaranteed them by a thorough oath before the archbishop and priest, which was done in Babylon the 15th of the month which in the tongue of the Saracens is called Safar (Sept. 25, 1173). "Witnesses hereof were Mark, patriarch of Alexandria and of Babylon (i. e. Cairo) and of Nubia and of Saba, and Michael, bishop of Barbacana, and Homodeus, priest and prior of Cairo. The letters were written by Bulcaira (i. e. Abou-el-Kheir), son of the priest Homodeus.' 53210-S. Doc. 34, 67-1-3 90 treaties in the modern sense of the word. Not to mention earlier ones, it is sufficient to say that in 1453 Mohamed the Conqueror granted or renewed the capitulations already possessed by the Genoese in Galata.89 The treaty with Venice in 1454, like that with Genoa, is but a natural and normal perpetuation of the capitulations of Saladin and his Arab successors. Both are treaties in form and substance, involving reciprocal rights and obligations. The Moslems-in an academic discussion and from a purely philosophical point of view-might construe them as conditions of temporary truces, terminable at the will of the grantor, or as gracious boons by virtue of which Christians were tolerated rather than authorized to come upon the soil of Islam. In practice they raised no such points of distinction but acknowledged the commutual character of the instruments. In reality, as Van Dyck declares," although concluded under different names and in varying terms, the capitulations do, nevertheless, constitute real treaties and establish a real international rule of conduct." In the words of Martens: "There can not be the slightest doubt, that all these acts (capitulations) were the results of an agreement between two contracting parties, and that for this reason, from their very nature, they possessed the binding force of international treaties." 91 Even the earlier Arab capitulations, for instance that between Saladin and Pisa (1173), distinctly recognize the principle of mutuality and interdependence. In the treaty of Saladin with Pisa, the latter agreed not to carry in their ships the Franks who were making war in Palestine. In return " the Pisans obtained very special exemptions and endowments. With the Franks, however, Saladin would not enter into compact, protesting that they were the instigators and special champions of the Crusades-a rather significant distinction which destroys the pet theory of those who insist that the capitulations of the Arab sultans could deal with the Christians only as one indivisible body of unbelievers or enemies with whom it was impossible to enter into reciprocal relations. It is fully admitted that generally the capitulations have the external appearance of diplomas or imperial grants. The sovereign in those days (whether Christian or Saracen) would fain pose as the "monarch of all he surveyed" and surround himself with flamboyant titles 2 and a halo of magnanimity. Even to-day this indulgence in extravagance seems inherent in Royalty. But it is evident from a careful study of the times and circumstances that as a rule the capitulations were the result of heedful and provident negotiations between contracting parties, and that, furthermore, they were commonly in the nature of a bargain providing equivalents in consideration of advantages obtained or bestowed. 89 Pears: The Destruction of the Greek Empire, London, 1903; Von Hammer. * 90 For the treaty with Venice of 1454, which forms the basis of all subsequent Turkish capitulatious, see Appendix II. 9 We quote from the capitulation as follows: "* * In consideration of all which things, they (the Pisans) did promise us and did agree that they would faithfully and diligently keep in safety all our kingdom; whether by sea or land and secretly as well as openly, and would never give succor to the enemies of our kingdom nor cause harm to any cities or castles both in the east and in the west. They bound themselves not to carry, neither by sea nor by land (this engagement was intended to hinder the transport of Crusaders to the Levant), any man who might wish to do harm to our realm, nor to come with any man who might wish to make war upon or besiege our lands, nor to damage any Saracen merchant, nor betray him, nor deceive him. That if any Saracen should accompany them, they should keep and guard him like their own selves and not hand him over to the enemy * #2 The Sultans of Turkey were not the only monarchs posing as the Shadow of God upon earth. |