Free The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople by Jonathan Phillips Page B
Authors: Jonathan Phillips
of the wife he would now summon to be his empress; he could have reflected upon his illustrious crusading ancestors; and he may have remembered the suffering and sacrifice of his fellow-men as they fought to capture Constantinople. Finally, amidst all the opulence and excitement at the dawning of a new era, he may have remembered that the Fourth Crusaders had first set out to recapture the holy city of Jerusalem, and not to destroy, as they had, the greatest civilisation in Christendom.
CHAPTER ONE
‘Oh God, the Heathens are come into thine inheritance’
CHAPTER TWO
‘Now, therefore, brothers, take the triumphal sign of the Cross’
CHAPTER THREE
‘The Tournament was a fully pitched battle and never
was there a better seen’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Our lords entreat you, in God’s name to take pity
on the land overseas’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Alas, Love, what a hard parting I shall have to make’
CHAPTER SIX
‘It seemed as if the sea were all a-tremble and all on
fire with the ships’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘It is your duty to restore their possessions to those who
have been wrongfully dispossessed’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘That city which reigns supreme over all others’
CHAPTER NINE
‘Never, in any city, have so many been besieged by so few’
CHAPTER TEN
‘I should like you to know that a number of my people
do not love me’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘The incendiary angel of evil’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘Our excessive disagreement allowed for no humane
feeling between us’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Break in! Rout menaces; crush cowards; press on more bravely!’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘These forerunners of Antichrist’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘For a high man—high justice!’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Nothing is lacking for the achievement of complete victory ...
except an abundance of Latins’
AFTERWORD
‘The science of war, if not practised beforehand, cannot be gained when it becomes necessary’
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.
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’. 1 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
CHAPTER ONE
‘Oh God, the Heathens are come into thine inheritance’
CHAPTER TWO
‘Now, therefore, brothers, take the triumphal sign of the Cross’
CHAPTER THREE
‘The Tournament was a fully pitched battle and never
was there a better seen’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Our lords entreat you, in God’s name to take pity
on the land overseas’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Alas, Love, what a hard parting I shall have to make’
CHAPTER SIX
‘It seemed as if the sea were all a-tremble and all on
fire with the ships’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘It is your duty to restore their possessions to those who
have been wrongfully dispossessed’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘That city which reigns supreme over all others’
CHAPTER NINE
‘Never, in any city, have so many been besieged by so few’
CHAPTER TEN
‘I should like you to know that a number of my people
do not love me’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘The incendiary angel of evil’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘Our excessive disagreement allowed for no humane
feeling between us’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Break in! Rout menaces; crush cowards; press on more bravely!’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘These forerunners of Antichrist’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘For a high man—high justice!’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Nothing is lacking for the achievement of complete victory ...
except an abundance of Latins’
AFTERWORD
‘The science of war, if not practised beforehand, cannot be gained when it becomes necessary’
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.
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’. 1 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
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