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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 17
end, and it seems that for two centuries the monks restricted them
selves to slight and hardly perceptible embellishments of the melodies.
It is true that new hymns were being written up to the twelfth century
in the Greek monasteries in Southern Italy and at Grottaferrata, the
Basilian monastery near Rome, but these hymns had only a local
importance and were not introduced into the Byzantine liturgy. The
last period of Byzantine hymnography coincided with the artistic
renaissance which took place during the reign of the Palaeologan
dynasty (1261-1453). The power of the Byzantine Empire had been
broken by the conquest of Constantinople on 13 April 1204 by the
Crusaders and the establishment of the Latin Empire (1204-61).
During this period the spirit of Byzantium found refuge at the court
of Nicaea, where Byzantine civilization flourished untouched by the
influence of the Western overlords. The situation of the Eastern
Empire seemed hopeless. Parts of Constantinople were in ruins, all
the wealthy quarters were in the hands of the Venetians and Genoese;
the size of the Empire had been considerably reduced, and its financial
state was precarious.
But the situation suddenly changed when, on 25 July 1261, Michael
Palaeologus took Constantinople by a surprise attack. On 15 August
he was crowned in St. Sophia. A spiritual revival began; churches
were built and monasteries were founded; historians wrote annals to
bring back the glory of the past to the memory of their contempo
raries. The writings of the theologians covered every field from
mysticism to polemics. Philosophy, rhetoric, and philology flourished
again. The monks began to embellish the music of the hymns with
fioriture. The balance of words and music, so characteristic of the
great period of Byzantine hymnography, was destroyed in favour of
the music, which began to abound in lavish ornamentation. But there
is a certain mannerism to be observed in this new development; for
the music became overloaded with a superficial figuration which
completely obscured the original melodic structure.
From the middle of the fourteenth century onwards the political
situation deteriorated rapidly, until finally the Byzantine Empire
was reduced to Constantinople and its immediate surroundings, with
Morea and a few islands in the Aegean. The end of the Empire became
inevitable. Up to the last, however, the Court maintained its solemn
ceremonial, and cultural life went on as in the days of the Empire's
grandeur. Nevertheless, there was something artificial about it, just
as there was in the coloratura of the music of the maistores (see p. 30,
n. 2). French, Italian, Slav, and Turkish influences had become so
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