ruled by the Comneni and the Palæologi. Nevertheless, now and then we have hints of the existence of a public conscience reflecting the private morals of the people. Finlay repeatedly asserts his opinion that a high standard of morality was maintained in the Greek Empire at this time, and that morally as well as intellectually the Eastern Church was now much superior to the Western. We have seen that these were by no means dark ages in regard to culture, scholarship, and art. They were centuries of luxurious life and refinement, contrasting strongly with the ignorant barbarism of the barons who conducted the Crusades. The disapproval of second marriages and the grave condemnation of third marriages indicate some strictness in the public conscience which a fortiori would reprobate more serious offences in the relation of the sexes. But even Finlay admits the degradation of morals in the eleventh century under the unscrupulous Empress Zoe. The patriarch Alexius declined to celebrate the third marriage of this empress, although he had performed the ceremony when she married her second husband—a court servant well known to be her accepted lover—the very night of the death of her first husband. The third husband was the dissolute Constantine ix., who had had two wives. Yet the patriarch crowned the new emperor with the usual Church ceremonies the day after his marriage.
In reading the history of these centuries, we are horrified at the frequent cases of mutilation of their rivals and victims perpetrated by the emperors. Blinding was quite the rule when a dangerous person was so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of his enemy. A young prince would be suddenly torn away from all the splendour and luxury of the court, and flung into a dungeon, there to languish for decades. The operation of blinding was carried out with cold-blooded, scientific skill. It was deemed an act of humanity and refinement when, in place of the brutal act of gouging out the eyes, a copper globe was held in front of them reflecting and concentrating the sun's rays so as to ruin the sight without actually destroying the
