The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (55 page)
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Authors: Jonathan Phillips
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BOOK: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
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The fundamental problem for the Latin Empire was that it lacked the unparalleled cachet of the Holy Places. It could not boast of a biblical past and it had not been seized from the hands of the infidel, but rather from Christians, albeit heretics. Baldwin’s lands were in competition with the allure of the Holy Sepulchre, quite apart from the existing regional holy wars in Spain, the Baltic and the new campaigns in southern France, and those against the Mongols and Frederick II of Germany. For this reason the conquests of the Fourth Crusade were always destined to struggle for attention except from those parties directly interested in the area, such as the Montferrat dynasty or the Venetians. The fact that the Latin emperors were not from a royal house of the West, coupled with a decline in the standing of the counts of Flanders, reduced the obvious sources of help even further.
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As early as 1204, the Latin Empire and the Holy Land competed with each other for the attention of the Christian world. A letter from the archbishop of Nazareth pleaded for assistance ‘for the recovery of the patrimony of the Crucified One’; yet around the same time the papal legate, Peter Capuano, released crusaders at Constantinople from their obligation to go to the Levant so that they could stay to defend the new empire.
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The appeal sent to the papacy in the aftermath of the Battle of Adrianople was another request for help that reached the West just as the pleas from the archbishop of Nazareth were being considered.
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The appeal sent to the papacy in the aftermath of the Battle of Adrianople was another request for help that reached the West just as the pleas from the archbishop of Nazareth were being considered.
In the early years, the Latin conquerors and the papacy had clung to the belief that their conquests might help the holy war against Islam, but this optimism was utterly misplaced. Even Pope Innocent came to recognise the conflict between consolidating the Latin Empire and liberating the Levant. In 1211 he wrote to Emperor Henry and grumbled, ‘since you and other crusaders have striven to capture and keep the empire ... principally in order that by this means you may bring help more easily to the Holy Land, you have not only failed to provide any assistance in this, but have also brought trouble and damage ...’ to those trying to resist the infidel.
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In the aftermath of the conquest, the prospect of land and money had attracted people from—of all places—the Levant. In 1202-3 the Crusader States had experienced a plague, a colossal earthquake and were confronted with a numerically overwhelming enemy. Thus, in the aftermath of the conquest of Byzantium, many inhabitants of the Levant —unwilling to pass up new opportunities to win land and money—eagerly decamped to Constantinople. As we have seen, men such as Stephen of Perche, Reynald of Montmirail and Geoffrey of Villehardouin’s nephew (as well as some recent settlers in the kingdom of Jerusalem, such as Stephen of Tenremonde, a Fleming who had remained after the Third Crusade) were quick to abandon the defence of the Frankish East. Defections such as these caused Pope Innocent to complain that the exodus of pilgrims from the Holy Land left it weakened. Of course, given their overall vulnerability, the papacy was obliged to call for support for the Christians in the new empire. Yet every time a crusade set out, or money was sent to Constantinople, it meant less assistance for the Holy Land. Thus, far from preparing a way to liberate Christ’s patrimony, the conquests of the Fourth Crusade actually weakened it.
It was not, however, until 1224 that the first crusade preached for the defence of the Latin Empire prepared to set out. This was a northern Italian (Montferrese) expedition focused on the relief of Thessalonica, but the leadership was delayed by illness and lack of funds and by the time the crusade reached the area, the city had already surrendered to the Greeks of Epirus.
Notwithstanding the adverse effects on campaigns to the Holy Land, the papacy tried hard to persuade some potential crusaders that they should fight for the Latin Empire instead of going to the Levant. In 1239 Richard of Cornwall, brother of King Henry III of England, and his companions were asked to commute their vows to Jerusalem in return for a money payment to help Constantinople or to go there in person, but they refused to be diverted and to shed Christian blood. The popes raised direct clerical taxation in Greece for the defence of the empire but the large-scale crusade that was required to defeat the Byzantines never looked like materialising. In fact, by 1262 Pope Urban IV was so desperate to encourage a new expedition to regain Constantinople that he offered free passage to participants (in contrast to the payments to the Venetians required in 1204) and—astonishingly—an indulgence of 40-100 days’ penance for simply listening to the crusade sermon in the first instance.
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The Latin emperors worked hard to gather men and money and Baldwin II (1228-61) resorted to long tours around the courts of western Europe (1236—9) and 1244—8) in the hope of securing support, but all he received were polite displays of interest, small gifts and open-ended promises. Baldwin himself cut an unimpressive figure and contemporaries described him as ‘young and childish’ and not the ‘wise and vigorous’ figure needed.
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In 1237 he had to pawn the Crown of Thorns, worn by Christ on the Cross, to a Venetian merchant for 13,134 gold pieces. When he could not redeem the debt, the relic was taken by agents acting for the pious King Louis IX of France, who was so delighted with this treasure that he constructed the magnificent Sainte-Chapelle in Paris especially for it.
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A year later Louis was involved in a more secular transaction when Baldwin mortgaged him the title to the county of Namur (a region of northern France—a link back to the emperor’s Flemish forefathers) for 50,000 livres. By 1257 so impoverished was the empire that Venetian creditors required Baldwin’s son Philip as surety for a loan, and even the lead from the palace roof was being sold to generate cash.
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A year later Louis was involved in a more secular transaction when Baldwin mortgaged him the title to the county of Namur (a region of northern France—a link back to the emperor’s Flemish forefathers) for 50,000 livres. By 1257 so impoverished was the empire that Venetian creditors required Baldwin’s son Philip as surety for a loan, and even the lead from the palace roof was being sold to generate cash.
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In spite of this generally sorry tale on the mainland, the fertility and relative security of the principality of Achaea (in the Peloponnese peninsula), and the Venetian-controlled island of Crete, formed two regions of economic strength. The export of bulk products, including wheat, olive oil, wine and wool, as well as luxury items such as silk, created real wealth for the Italians and the Villehardouin dynasty who ruled Achaea. The latter fostered a flourishing court life and the chivalric traditions of the West blossomed. On one occasion Geoffrey II (1229-46) rode through his lands accompanied by 80 knights wearing golden spurs and the French spoken in Achaea was said to be as good as that in Paris. Frescos depicting chivalric deeds decorated palace walls, and tournaments and hunting were popular pastimes. The capture of Prince William (1246-78) at the Battle of Pelagonia (1259) marked the end of Achaean ascendancy, although the principality did survive through the female line.
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Crete remained under Venetian rule until 1669 and was by far the most durable manifestation of the Fourth Crusade.
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Crete remained under Venetian rule until 1669 and was by far the most durable manifestation of the Fourth Crusade.
Elsewhere the Latins were less successful. Boniface of Montferrat did not enjoy his hard-won prize of the kingdom of Thessalonica for long. In September 1207 he was killed in battle, and years of pressure from the Greek rulers of Epirus led to their winning Thessalonica in 1224. It was, however, the empire of Nicaea, based in Asia Minor, which posed the most potent threat to the Latins. John III Vatatzes (1222-54), later canonised by the Orthodox Church, pushed the westerners out of Asia Minor, established a bridgehead at Gallipoli on the European side of the Bosphorus and later took over Thessalonica to tighten the noose around Constantinople. John’s death meant that the final push to eject the Latins came from his general, Michael Palaeologus, who became regent for John’s young son and then seized the imperial title for himself. The boy was, inevitably, imprisoned and blinded.
In July 1261, as the Greeks gathered for a full assault on Constantinople, a sympathiser opened one of the gates and the Byzantine advance party took the city with barely a struggle. Most of the Latin garrison was engaged on a campaign elsewhere and the citizenry were generally pleased to see the return of their natural lords. So unexpected was this turn of events that Michael Palaeologus had yet to cross the Bosphorus. His sister, Eulogia, heard the news early one morning and, as her brother lay sleeping in his tent, is said to have crept in and tickled his feet with a feather. When he awoke she told him that he was now the ruler of Constantinople. Playing along with her lighthearted mood, Michael laughed, but refused to accept what he heard. Only when a messenger entered with the imperial crown and sceptre did he believe it; God had indeed delivered Constantinople back to the Greeks.
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The principal achievement of the Fourth Crusade was thus wiped out.
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The principal achievement of the Fourth Crusade was thus wiped out.
In reality then, the Latin Empire proved to be an unwanted burden that only hindered the cause of the Holy Land. It expired 30 years before the fierce Mamluk dynasty prised the westerners from the city of Acre (1291) to mark the end of Christian power in the Levant until the British general, Edmund Allenby, entered Jerusalem in 1917. By one of history’s neater ironies, in later centuries, as the reconstituted Byzantine Empire struggled against the mighty Ottoman Turks, the papacy tried to rouse western Europe for another crusade to help defend the Greeks.
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The effort failed and, when the Ottomans took the city of Constantinople in 1453, it was finally lost to Byzantium for ever.
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The effort failed and, when the Ottomans took the city of Constantinople in 1453, it was finally lost to Byzantium for ever.
AFTERWORD
S
ET AGAINST ITS original aim of the reconquest of Jerusalem, the Fourth Crusade was an utter failure. Yet the sack of Constantinople means that the expedition has achieved lasting notoriety as the crusade that turned against fellow-Christians. The reasons why the campaign followed its tragic path are numerous and overlapping. It is undeniable that—at the cost of some contemporary disquiet—the papacy, the Venetians and many other crusaders all derived enormous, if sometimes short-lived, increases in wealth and authority. Furthermore, an attack on Constantinople helped to settle many old scores. The papacy had watched the Byzantines openly obstruct recent crusading efforts and even form a rapprochement with Saladin. The Venetians had seen their citizens purged from Constantinople in 1171. Boniface of Montferrat, the leader of the crusade, had more personal reasons to dislike the Byzantines: one of his brothers, Renier, was murdered by the Greeks and another, Conrad, had been forced to flee Byzantium in fear of his life.
ET AGAINST ITS original aim of the reconquest of Jerusalem, the Fourth Crusade was an utter failure. Yet the sack of Constantinople means that the expedition has achieved lasting notoriety as the crusade that turned against fellow-Christians. The reasons why the campaign followed its tragic path are numerous and overlapping. It is undeniable that—at the cost of some contemporary disquiet—the papacy, the Venetians and many other crusaders all derived enormous, if sometimes short-lived, increases in wealth and authority. Furthermore, an attack on Constantinople helped to settle many old scores. The papacy had watched the Byzantines openly obstruct recent crusading efforts and even form a rapprochement with Saladin. The Venetians had seen their citizens purged from Constantinople in 1171. Boniface of Montferrat, the leader of the crusade, had more personal reasons to dislike the Byzantines: one of his brothers, Renier, was murdered by the Greeks and another, Conrad, had been forced to flee Byzantium in fear of his life.
Several other issues created broader tensions between Byzantium and the West prior to 1204. The long-running schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches dated back to 1054. A persistent antagonism between crusading armies and the Greeks had started with the First Crusade, and the savage pogroms against westerners living in Constantinople in 1182 were the most prominent markers along this trail of mutual ill-feeling and mistrust.
Many from each party viewed the other in terms of simplistic and hostile caricatures. The westerners often regarded the Greeks as mendacious, effeminate heretics. Odo of Deuil described them as lacking ‘all manly vigour, both of words and of spirit ... they have the opinion that anything done for the holy empire cannot be considered perjury’.
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To the Byzantines, as Niketas Choniates graphically indicates, the westerners were often just as distasteful:
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To the Byzantines, as Niketas Choniates graphically indicates, the westerners were often just as distasteful:
Between us and them [the Latins] is set the widest gulf. We are poles apart. We have not a single thought in common. They are stiff-necked, with a proud affectation of an upright carriage and love to sneer at the modesty and smoothness of our manners. But we look upon their arrogance and boasting and pride as a flux of the snivel which keeps their noses in the air and we tread them down by the might of Christ, who giveth unto us the power to trample upon the adder and the scorpion.
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All of these feelings lay close to the surface in relations between Byzantium and the West, yet none was exactly a ‘live’ issue in 1204; in fact there were some indications of a more positive nature. For example, the Greeks had ended their cordial relationship with the Muslims in 1192. Furthermore, although Innocent had urged Alexius III to help the Fourth Crusade and made vague threats against the emperor if he failed to comply, the papal letters of 1202 were far more emollient. The Venetians were again trading with the Greeks (although full compensation for 1171 had yet to be made) and a large western European community existed once more in Constantinople. In spite of this marginally warmer atmosphere, however, the underlying difficulties persisted. The various points of friction could encourage, or provide partial reasons to justify or explain, an attack on Constantinople, but were insufficient to prompt as bold a step as a planned assault on the great city. In consequence, there can be no question of a pre-conceived plot to seize the Byzantine Empire by any of the western powers involved in the crusade.
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The reason why the Fourth Crusade went to Constantinople in the late spring of 1203 was, ironically, in response to the invitation of a Greek —the appeal by Prince Alexius to help him and his father secure what they regarded as their rightful position as rulers of the Byzantine Empire. Had this request not been made, there is no convincing evidence to suggest that the expedition would have turned towards Constantinople. To explain why the westerners’ fleet sailed down to the Bosphorus, rather than heading towards Egypt and the Holy Land, one has to ask why the prince’s offer was accepted.
Herein lay the Achilles heel of the whole enterprise: the lack of men and money. These were hardly new considerations and were, indeed, two prime causes of the collapse of the Second Crusade in 1148. Richard the Lionheart took great care to learn from this experience in preparing for the Third Crusade, but in 1201-2 these same concerns once again lay in ambush. The Fourth Crusade, however, possessed an additional constituent—the contract between the French and the Venetians—and it was the need to make good the terms of this agreement that became a powerful force in driving and shaping the expedition.
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