controversy to be regarded as important or the conduct of the controversialists themselves. The absence in Gibbon of any sympathetic attempt to understand the controversies which play so large a part in his great drama of human history renders him as unsatisfactory a guide in regard to them as a writer of English history during the period of Charles the First would be who should merely treat with contempt the half religious, half political questions which divided Englishmen. While the objection I have suggested to Gibbon's attitude would apply generally to his treatment of religious questions, I have only to deal with it in reference to the period of which I am treating. When writing of this period Gibbon did not realise that the religious question was nearly always a political one, and that union with Rome meant subjection to Rome. But unless it be realised how completely the citizens of Constantinople and the other great cities of the empire were engrossed with semi-religious and semi-political questions, no true conception of the life of the empire can be formed; for these questions were of interest not merely to Churchmen but to all.
Among the documents brought to light during the last fifty or sixty years which have contributed to our better knowledge of the siege the most important are the 'Diary' of Nicolo Barbaro and the 'Life of Mahomet' by Critobulus.
Barbaro belonged to a noble Venetian family. He was present in Constantinople throughout the siege, kept a journal[1] of what he saw and heard, and, though full of prejudices against Genoese, Greeks, and Turks, contrives to tell his story in a manner which carries conviction of its truthfulness. His narrative conveys the impression of an independent observer who had no object in writing except to relate what he knew about the siege. While probably written from day to day, the diary bears internal evidence
- ↑ Giornale dell' Assedio di Constantinopoli, di Nicolo Barbaro, P.V., corredato di note e documenti per Enrico Cornet (Vienna, 1856).
