emperor and that it was only this man who was obeyed. Thereupon—as in the case of Henry ii.'s impatient exclamation about Thomas à Becket—obsequious attendants took action. The imperial bodyguard dashed into the prison, dragged the bold monk out into the street, and there battered him to death with clubs and stones.[1]
Ruthless conduct such as this provoked fierce opposition on the part of the image worshippers. The patriarch of Constantinople was suspected of taking part in a conspiracy against the emperor. He was deposed, tried, and condemned to death. Thereupon he confessed himself an Iconoclast; but no mercy was shown him. He was set on an ass with his face towards the tail and conducted in this insulting way to the amphitheatre, where he was beheaded. The persecution had now become much more than an iconoclastic reformation. It had developed into a brutal attack on monasticism. The victims were no longer painted pictures; they were living men. As at the English Reformation, there was a "dissolution of monasteries." But this was less general, and more cruel. "Where the monks were turned out of their monasteries, these buildings were converted into taverns. Constantine degraded himself in his attempt to degrade his ecclesiastical enemies. He compelled a number of monks to march round the circus at Constaninople hand in hand with women—either nuns or persons of less respectable character;[2] it is not clear which.
