“But,” they said, -these things are prohibited; and when the emperor spoke as you say he did, he could not imagine that you would even dream of such things as these. For, as we surpass other nations in wealth and wisdom, so also we ought to surpass them in dress; so that those who are singularly endowed with virtue, should have garments unique in beauty.”
“Such a garment can hardly be called unique,” I answered, ” when with us the street-walkers and conjurers wear them.”
“Where do they get them? ” they asked.
“From Venetian and Amalfian traders,” I said, ” who, by bringing them to us, support themselves from the food we give them.”
“Well, they shall not do so any longer,” they said. They shall be closely examined , and if any thing of this kind shall be found on them they shall be punished with blows and shorn of their hair.”
Margrave Berengar
“In the time of the emperor Constantine, of blessed memory,” I said, ” I came here not as bishop but as deacon; not sent by an emperor or king but by the margrave Berengar; and I bought many more and more precious vestments, which were neither looked at nor viewed by the Greeks nor stamped with lead. Now, having become a- bishop by the mercy of God, and being sent by the magnificent emperors Otto and Otto, father and son, L am so insulted that my vestments are marked after the manner of the Venetians; and, as they are being transported for the use of the church entrusted to me, whatever seems of any worth is taken away.
Are you not weary of insulting me, or rather my masters, for whose sake I am derided? Is it not enough that I am given into custody, that I am tortured by hunger and thirst, that I could not return to them, being detained until now,-without, to fill the measure of their disrespect to them, my being robbed of my own things ? Take away from me at least only what I have bought; leave me those things that have been given me as a gift by my friends!
“The emperor Constantine,” they said, “was a mild man, who always stayed in his palace, and by such means as this made the natives friendly to him; but the emperor Nicephorus, a man given to war, abhors the palace as if it were the plague. And he is called by us warlike and almost a lover of strife; nor does he make the nations friendly to him by paying them, but subjects them to his rule by terror and the sword. And in order that you may see what is our opinion of your royal masters, all that has been given to you of this color, and all that has been bought shall revert to us by the same process.”
Read More about The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 14
