CHAPTER XIII A BREATH OF CHIVALRY Our last chapter introduced the chivalry of the West into the East, and, as numbers of the princes of the West remained and set up principalities in the East, and mingled with it in matrimonial alliance, the hope may be entertained that at last we shall witness some signal alteration of the Greek character. The more informed reader, who knows how the severe historians of recent times have washed much of the colour from “the days of chivalry,” whose acquaintance with that epoch extends beyond the “Idylls of the King,” will, perhaps, not expect any transformation of the character of the East. I will not anticipate the verdict. We have reached a time when the ideas and sentiments of the Western knights make a marked impression on the minds and ways of the East, and it will be interesting to see what types of women now arise. I shall therefore not confine myself rigidly, in this chapter, to those women who are fortunate enough to attain the supreme title, but include in the survey a number of princesses who, in various ways, approach the throne. John the Handsome, as the citizens of Constantinople came to call the dark and by no means handsome young Emperor they had now obtained, does not provide us with an Empress of distinct or interesting character. His wife Irene, a daughter of Wratislav, King of Hungary, was too virtuous to leave a mark in the Byzantine chronicles. While her able and upright husband flung back the invaders from his territory, and essayed such improvement in its condition as his poor political faculty enabled him to achieve, she spent her days in prayer and the rearing of her family. Pearls and diamonds had no dangerous fascination for her; she maintained a modest demeanour in the pomp of the palace and gave the superfluous wealth to the poor and the monks. After bringing five children into the world, she died about six years after her coronation, and John remained a widower for the twenty further years of his arduous and exemplary reign. In the winter of 1142–1143, as he spent the truce from campaigning in hunting in Asia Minor, he accidentally poisoned himself with an arrow, nominated his youngest son Manuel for the succession, and died a few days afterwards.