Fourth Crusade: Conquest of Constantinople

MHQ  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

In April 1204, the armies of the Fourth Crusade broke into the city of Constantinople and began to loot, pillage, and slaughter their way across the greatest metropolis in the Christian world. Within months Pope Innocent III, the man who had first called for the Crusade, bitterly lamented the spilling of ‘blood on Christian swords that should have been used on pagans’ and described the expedition as ‘an example of affliction and the works of Hell.’

Niketas Choniates, one of the inhabitants of the city, condemned the Crusaders’ actions in understandably harsh terms: ‘In truth, they were exposed as frauds. Seeking to avenge the Holy Spirit they raged openly against Christ and sinned by overturning the Cross with the cross they bore on their backs, not even shuddering to trample on it for the sake of a little gold or silver.’ To the Crusaders themselves, the capture of Constantinople seemed an astonishing turn of events. One wrote: ‘We might safely say that no history could ever relate marvels greater than these so far as the fortunes of war are concerned….This was done by the Lord and is a miracle above all miracles in our eyes.’

How could a combined land and naval force of perhaps twenty thousand men take a city with an estimated population of 350,000? In reality, the combination of a particularly favorable set of political circumstances, military and maritime skills of the highest order, religious zeal, and sheer good fortune enabled the Crusaders to succeed.

Before we explore the reasons behind this victory, it is crucial to explain why the Fourth Crusade arrived at Constantinople. Just over one hundred years earlier, in November 1095, Pope Urban II had issued a call to the knights of France to liberate the city of Jerusalem from Islam. In return for their efforts, these warriors would be rewarded with the remission of all their sins.

In spite of the intense religiosity of the time knights were, because of their way of life, deeply immersed in sin; the prospect of receiving an unprecedented spiritual reward (thereby avoiding eternal damnation) and being able to continue to fight was hugely alluring. To some men the prospects of land and loot were additional attractions. Urban’s appeal received a rapturous response, and around sixty thousand men spent the next three years struggling across Asia Minor toward the Holy Land. They endured terrible hardships — starvation, enemy attacks, and sickness — but eventually, on July 15, 1099, they captured Jerusalem, the epicenter of the Christian faith. A Second Crusade in 1145-49 ended ingloriously, with the Christians abandoning their siege of Damascus after four futile days.

The Muslim world took several years to understand and to respond to this new war of religious colonization, but then the jihad, or countercrusade, slowly gathered momentum. Finally, in July 1187, Saladin crushed the Christian army at the Battle of Hattin, and two months later, he regained Jerusalem and much of the Levant for Islam.

The people of the West were horrified; the pope was said to have died of a heart attack, and his successor launched the Third Crusade. In spite of the participation of the mightiest Western rulers of the day (the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Philip II Augustus of France, and King Richard the Lion-Hearted of England), they only managed to regain control of the Palestinian coastline. It remained essential, therefore, for the Christians to launch a new campaign. When Innocent III was elected to the papal throne in 1198, he made the recovery of Christ’s patrimony his overriding priority: the Fourth Crusade was born.

Preachers urged the faithful to act, but the monarchs of the day were too preoccupied with domestic issues to respond. Instead, it was the next strata of society, the senior nobility, who took up the cross and prepared to journey to Jerusalem. Foremost among these were the counts of Champagne, Blois, and Flanders. These families had a magnificent crusading heritage: The counts of Flanders had been to the Holy Land in 1099, 1108, 1139, 1147, 1157, 1164, 1177, and 1190 — an unparalleled level of commitment. Crucial for the outcome of the Fourth Crusade, they were also enthusiastic supporters of an integral part of knightly life at the time: the tournament. The chivalric culture of the day was a combination of status, religion, ritual, patronage, and a warrior ethos. The central stage for these young knights to display their prowess was the tournament field, and afterward great feasts would be held where the audience listened to tales of the deeds of heroes of days past (such as the men of the First Crusade) or the mythical quest for the Holy Grail.

Tournaments were held in a regular circuit of events across northern Europe and were easily the most realistic preparation for warfare. Roger of Howden, a contemporary writer, commented, ‘He is not fit for battle who has never seen his own blood flow, who has not heard his teeth crunch under the blow of an opponent, or felt the full weight of his adversary upon him.’ Tournaments of the late twelfth century bore little resemblance to the bright, highly ritualized affairs depicted by modern moviemakers. There was no well-ordered arena with grandstands full of seated spectators watching two men charge at each other. Instead, teams of up to two hundred knights fought a contest that ranged over miles of open countryside, with spectators confined to castle walls for their own safety. On the signal of a herald the two sides would charge, and with a splintering of lances they smashed into one another. Hand-to-hand fighting would break out as each group sought supremacy; the winners were likely to be the team that best preserved good order. Of course, the idea was to capture rather than kill an opponent, although fatalities were not uncommon. However, tournaments taught tight discipline, good coordination, and fighting skills — all essential elements in bringing victory to the northern European Crusaders.

Alongside the strength of their knights, the Crusaders had another formidable military attribute at their disposal: the Venetian navy. The involvement of the foremost maritime power of the day was a consequence of the Crusade’s target: Egypt. It was a widely held belief at the time that the best way to regain Jerusalem was to seize the Nile Delta, because its enormous wealth would give the Christians the strength and resources to make long-term tenure in the holy city feasible. As one Muslim contemporary advised his leader, ‘From Egypt you can defy all other monarchs; if you hold it, you hold the entire East and they will strike coins and recite prayers in your name.’ To attempt the conquest of Egypt, a delegation of northern European knights traveled to Venice to negotiate a deal to transport the army to the Nile.

The ruler of Venice, Doge Enrico Dandolo, was an incredible man; blind and over ninety years old, he still radiated enormous charisma and authority and was keen to close the contract and, as is often forgotten, to enable his people to share in the spiritual benefits of the Crusade. Venice was as full of churches as any other medieval city, and to suggest a complete absence of religious motives from his efforts to involve his city is simply not credible. Nonetheless, the opportunity to secure prime trading privileges in Alexandria, by far the most important port in the entire Mediterranean, was also highly attractive. For Dandolo the chance to assist the Christian cause and to place his city in a position of trading supremacy would represent a dazzling legacy to future generations.

In April 1201, the Crusaders agreed to return to Venice the following year with 33,500 men and eighty-five thousand marks — an enormous commitment — in return for passage and provisioning of a fleet. It is not known why these experienced negotiators made a contract on such a scale; perhaps they were convinced that many more were poised to take the cross. They were wildly optimistic in their calculations and unwittingly imposed a destructive and crippling straitjacket on the expedition.

To complete their side of the bargain, the Venetians closed their entire commercial operations for a year — a demonstration of the massive effort required to build and equip a fleet of such a size. The ships were of three basic types: troop carriers, horse transports, and battle galleys. The troop carriers were by far the largest, with the greatest called World in acknowledgement of its size. Evidence from mosaics, ceramics, and manuscripts reveal these vessels as short, rounded creations approximately 110 feet long and 32 feet wide. Wooden structures known as ‘castles’ took the height of the hull over forty feet, and a massive steering oar provided directional control. A crew of about one hundred men joined six hundred passengers for a journey to the East that lasted six to eight weeks. The horse transports had specially designed slings to carry their precious cargo; once the ship drew close to shore, a door below the waterline could be opened to allow a fully armed and mounted knight to charge directly into battle — rather like a modern landing craft disgorging a tank. Finally, the long, slim Venetian battle galleys formed the principal fighting force in the fleet. These vessels, powered by one hundred oarsmen and carrying a metal-tipped ram just above the waterline, protected the fleet from hostile ships.

The first of the northern European Crusaders started to gather in Venice in the summer of 1202, but as time wore on it became apparent that the huge army promised by the envoys was not going to materialize. In fact, only around twelve thousand men arrived, and they could not hope to find the necessary cash to pay the Venetians. Clearly, this was a crisis for the Crusaders; for Doge Dandolo it represented a disaster, too. He had urged his fellow citizens to take on the Crusaders’ contract, and now he had to explain to his people how he would protect their investment of time and effort.

The doge proposed an interim solution. Payment would be forestalled while the expedition went to the port of Zara (Zadar in modern Croatia) on the Adriatic. The city had recently escaped from Venetian overlordship, and the doge saw the presence of the Crusader army as an opportunity to reassert proper order. There was, however, one catch: The Zarans now were under the jurisdiction of King Emico of Hungary, and he had taken the cross. His lands, therefore, were subject to the protection of the papacy. Could a Crusade attack a Catholic city in such circumstances? To many in the army, such a scheme seemed abhorrent. Pope Innocent was furious and threatened the Crusaders with excommunication, but the Venetians insisted: Take Zara or they would not set sail.

The leadership of the Crusader army faced a dilemma. They were already deeply embarrassed by their failure to fulfill their side of the bargain at Venice. Now, if they refused the doge’s request, they would be forced to return home in shame. If, however, they tolerated this aberration, then the greater cause — recapturing Jerusalem — would still be attainable. The leaders suppressed Pope Innocent’s threat of excommunication. While some of the Crusaders left the fleet, the majority chose to stay, and they duly besieged and captured Zara in the autumn of 1202.

Pope Innocent wrote, ‘Behold, your gold has turned into base metal and your silver has almost completely rusted since, departing from the purity of your plan and turning aside from the path onto the impassable road, you have, so to speak, withdrawn your hand from the plough…for when…you should have hastened to the land flowing with milk and honey, you turned away, going astray in the direction of the desert.’ He excommunicated the Crusaders and the Venetians, and although a penitent delegation from the former group managed to gain absolution, the latter were viewed in a largely negative light from that time onward.

As the fleet wintered in Zara, they received a delegation bearing an intriguing offer. Representatives of Prince Alexius Angelos, a claimant to the throne of Byzantium, arrived at the Crusader camp. Well aware of their ongoing shortfalls of men and money, the prince offered to provide two hundred thousand silver marks, the services of ten thousand fighting men, provisions for all the Crusaders, and maintenance of a garrison of five hundred men in the Holy Land. Even more enticing, these Byzantines indicated that the Orthodox Church would recognize the authority of Rome.

Back in 1054, a long-running dispute between the Orthodox and the Catholic churches over differences of liturgy and doctrine resulted in a formal schism (which lasts to the present day). If Prince Alexius fulfilled his promise, this development would represent a huge increase in authority for the Catholic Church. There was, of course, a price attached to this. The Crusaders had to take the prince back to Constantinople and secure the imperial throne for him. This, his envoys assured the Crusaders, would be easy since the people resented the incumbent ruler of Byzantium, Emperor Alexius III, and would welcome the young man with open arms. The idea of restoring land to a wrongfully dispossessed cause was something the Crusaders — in their efforts to regain Christ’s land for the faithful — could easily understand and, in conjunction with their dire financial position, made the Greeks’ offer very attractive.

Tags: Ancient-Medieval, Historical Conflicts

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.