him homage. The Greeks were always turning sulky and saying that they would go back home if they were not treated properly. Although it was the Easterns who had everything to gain by the union and who had really come to be saved from utter disaster, the ridiculous pride that never forsook Byzantines made them insist on the most exaggerated deference. All through the Latins showed much more zeal for the union than they did, and the Latins humoured their pride generously. It was agreed that the Latins should sit all down the Gospel side of the church with the Pope at their head, and the Byzantines down the Epistle side under the Emperor (that is what they wanted!); after the Emperor sat the Patriarch. Only in one point the Greeks could not have their way: the Patriarch's throne had to be three steps lower than the Pope's. While the long months dragged on in this strange land the Greeks got very homesick; they understood nothing of the rites they saw around them, they complained that when they went into a Latin church they could make nothing of the ikons, there was not a single Saint they even knew by sight, the crucifixes were solid statues, all they could do was to chalk up two lines on a wall cross-wise and say their prayers before that.[1] Indeed by this time the liturgy of either side had become a deep and suspicious mystery to the other. Towards the end of the council the Pope was to assist in state at the Byzantine Liturgy. Then he said that he was not sure what they did and that he would like to see it all done in private first before he committed himself to a public assistance. Naturally they were very indignant. On this occasion the Emperor let fall the astonishing remark that they had come all this way to reform the Latin Church. The Greeks could not bear our plainsong, but they had the comfort of being able to wear far more gorgeous vestments. The old Patriarch Joseph never went back to his own country. He died while the council was going on (June 10, 1439), having first written down his acceptance of the union and his acknowledgement of the Roman Primacy. So he was buried with great honour at Florence in St. Maria Novella. There he still lies, far
- ↑ Syropoulos, 109, quoted in Creighton's Hist. of the Papacy, Longmans, 1899, vol. ii. p. 335.
