Tuesday September 14, 2004 – Exploring the 4th Crusade

Tuesday September 14, 2004 – Exploring the 4th Crusade

I spent the weekend stuck a thousand years or more in the past, around the time of the four Crusades into the holy land. In the process of understanding the Crusades, I stumbled upon a list of the popes heading the Catholic Church from the time of Christ. There have been a total of 264 up to the current Pope John Paul II. The line began with Peter who died somewhere around 64 or 67 AD. He was followed by St. Linus of Tuscany who held the post from 67 to 76 AD. Pope Anacletus ruled until 88 AD and he was followed by Pope St. Clements who held on until 97AD. It’s remarkable that the church has had a continuous line of popes dating back to the beginning of the Christian Era.

What got me started along this line of inquiry was a review of two books on the Crusades by Joan Acocella in the December 13th issue of The New Yorker: Thomas Asbridge”s The First Crusade: A New History and Jonathan Phillips’ The fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople. The second of the two sent me into a number of interesting Internet searches seeking background on the Hagia Sophia—the Church of the Holy Wisdom, in what is now Istanbul. The church, dedicated in 537 AD was commissioned by the Roman Emperior Justinian, who was smitten by and married to the infamous prostitute Theodora—this according to Procopius of Caesarea in his posthumous expose of the emperor The Secret History, the chapter on Theodora is not for those with easily offended sensibilities, a category that excludes me. Procopius was a civil servant and as early as A.D. 527, he became counsellor, assessor, and secretary to Belisarius, one of Justinian’s Generals.

Hagia Sophia was claimed to be a repository of many artifacts from early Christianity: the robe of the Virgin Mary, the Crown of Thorns of Christ, two heads of John the Baptist… What became of these riches is anyone’s guess as the church was looted by the Crusaders en route to the Holy Lands according to Phillips’ book. In reading Acocella’s piece detailing the Fourth Crusade I was struck by how it resembled a really black Monty Python comedy but with real murder, rape, mayhem and plunder. The Crusade aimed to attack Egypt, the center of Islamic power. From Egypt, the crusaders would move on to retake Jerusalem lost to the Turks in 1187. In 1201, the Crusaders struck a deal with the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo for ships to transport 35,000 men and horses for a fee of 85,000 marks—twice the annual income of the kings of France and England, according to Phillips’ history, to the coast of North Africa.

The 4th Crusade was launched by Pope Innocent III who ruled from 1198 to 1216, under leadership of Boniface the Marquis of Monferrat The incentive he offered all who volunteered for the enterprise was salvation from eternal damnation. After making the deal with the Venetian Doge the Crusaders had only a third of the funds needed to pay their debt. The Doge offered them a way to delay their debt—not forgive it—simply attack the city of Zara and return it to Venetian control. Zara was then under control of the King of Hungary, who was a Christian and in the service of Pope Innocent III who forbade the attack. The Crusaders, however, owed a monetary debt to Dandolo and gave him Zara. Furious, the Pope excommunicated the lot but reversed himself realizing he still needed them to attack his Islamic enemy.

Meanwhile, unknown to Innocent III and to Boniface the Marquis of Monferrat, Dandolo had reached an agreement with al-Adil, the Sultan of Egypt, granting the Venetians privileges of trade with the Egyptians and access to the rich trade route of the Red Sea to India. Dandolo now had to find a reason for diverting the Crusade from its intended target. He found it in another prize, Constantinople. Dandolo is a remarkable character. Reportedly in his eighties and nearly blind at the time he becomes Doge, he has taken up with Boniface and the Crusade to look after Venetian interests. But, Dandolo is a far more ruthless and cunning man as his manipulation of the Crusade clearly demonstrates.

The sources on Dandolo suspect that he knew the Crusade would come up short on funds and become in his debt. He allowed the indebtedness to occur to provide leverage he could use to exploit them. First, he uses their force to retake Zara, then he diverts them from Egypt to a target he has a personal reason for attacking. In an earlier part of his life, he had been blinded in Constantinople and seemingly held a grudge against the city. But, beyond the personal animosity, he saw in the conquest of this capital of the Byzantine world, a means of eliminating a powerful rival to Venice dominance of the Mediterranean. Thus, he arranges for Boniface to meet with the exiled prince of Constantinople Alexius Angelus (Alexius IV) son of Isaac II—the deposed emperor had been imprisoned by his own brother, Alexius III. Alexius IV promises the crusaders 200,000 marks and 10,000 men for the crusade against Egypt if they help restore his father to power.

With this much incentive, the Crusaders attack Constantinople and Alexius III flees. whereupon, Isaac II is returned to power and his son Alexius IV becomes co-emperor so that the crusaders are assured of receiving their payment. With a bankrupt city, a weary father sequesters himself in religious pursuits leaving his son to set about melting the precious metals from the city’s great churches into coins to pay the debt. The city’s outraged noblemen rebel and choose a new emperor to replace Alexius IV, a reluctant Nicholas Canobus. Alexius IV appeals to the Crusaders for help. Seeing a power vacuum, another seeking power, Alexius Ducas, rallies Constantinople’s elite Varangian Guard to throw off the attackers. The Varangian Guard were founded by Emperor Basil II in 988, with 6000 Russian Viking warriors sent by Varangian Tsar Vladimir of Russia. Their name comes from an Old Norse word relating to sharers of an oath. The guard decides to back Alexius Ducas, who has Alexius IV first imprisoned then killed. Seeing his initiative the Noblemen decide to rally round Ducas, thus making him emperor Alexius V. But the reign was short lived.

Through a number of unfortunate mistakes by Alexius V and his supporters, the Crusaders drove the new emperor from power. In the aftermath, the city was looted. According to the account of Geoffrey de Villehardouin, a Crusader, in his Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople, Boniface the Marquis of Monferrat and Dandolo, Doge of Venice, demanded all loot be collected and brought together. Three churches were appointed for the receiving of the spoils, and guards were set to ensure the loot’s safekeeping. From this plunder, the Crusaders paid the Venetians the 50,000 marks remaining on the debt and afterwards, divided at least 150,000 marks between themselves.

The cunning genius in this history is the Doge of Venice, who shrewdly manipulated a huge fighting force to his own ends. Besides ridding Venice of rivals, Constantinople and Zara, for domination of the Mediterranean, he secured Corfu, Crete, and ports in the Peloponnese. He also diverted a huge fighting force about to descend on his new ally Egypt. In the process the Doge completely subverted the intended aim of Pope Innocent III. Oddly, the Pope directly benefited in that the Eastern Orthodox Church was returned to Roman controlled albeit for only a half century—until 1261, when the Greeks retook Constantinople to hold it themselves less than two hundred years when the city fell to the Turks in 1453, who still hold it. Throughout this war of intrigue, the large fighting force is manipulated as if it were a puppet. Viewed from the distance of 800 years, their antics would be comical if they weren’t so incredibly brutal.

What I learned in this hyperlink journey about the Internet’s many ancient history sites is that an old Doge can teach you new tricks.