ruin their ancient liberty, and subjugate the empire to their laws and to the authority of the Pope. This so excited them against us and against the young Prince, that they would not listen to us." They pretended to have been first attacked by the Greeks; they related what the old Emperor Isaac, together with his son Alexis, was doing for them, and took good care to add, "He further promises to render you that obedience which the Catholic emperors, his predecessors have rendered to the Popes, and to do all in his power to lead back the Greek Church to that obedience."
One of the chiefs of the Crusaders, the Count of St. Paul, wrote, on his part, to the Duke of Louvain: "We have so much advanced the cause of the Saviour that the Eastern Church, of which Constantinople was formerly the metropolis, being reünited to the Pope its head, with the Emperor and all his empire, as it was formerly, recognizes herself as the daughter of the Roman Church, and will humbly obey her for the future. The Patriarch himself is to go to Rome to receive his pallium, and has promised the Emperor on his oath to do so. The young Alexis wrote in the same strain to the Pope. "We own," he said, "that the chief cause which has brought the pilgrims to succor us is, that we have voluntarily promised, and upon oath, that we would humbly recognize the Roman Pontiff as the Ecclesiastical head of all Christendom, and as the successor of St. Peter, and that we would use all our power to lead the Eastern Church to that recognition, understanding well, that such reünion will be very useful to the empire and most glorious for us. We repeat to you the same promises by these presents, and we ask your advice how to woo back the Eastern Church."
It was, therefore, well understood that union meant nothing but submission to the Roman see. The Crusaders and their protegés knew that only such promises
