The Fourth
Crusade, in which a host originally raised to relieve the Holy Land was instead
deployed to attack and sack the Christian city of Constantinople, is usually
described as an act of perfidy, barbarity and Western arrogance. Even at the
time, it was highly controversial, with many of the initial crusaders, (e.g.
Simon de Montfort the Elder and his sons) refusing to take part.
But no
historical event is without its antecedents, and the Fourth Crusade is no
exception. There was a long and complex history of interaction between the West
and the Byzantine Empire that included both periods of cooperation and periods
of deep suspicion, hostility and conflict. While that long history is beyond the
scope of a blog entry, two important incidents of that history go a long way to
explaining the Fourth Crusade.
After a long and
mutually productive alliance between the Eastern Roman Empire and the
city-state of Venice, tensions began to develop in the mid-12th
century. The Venetians opposed the
Byzantine Emperor’s expansion in Dalmatia and his aggressive policies in
Southern Italy. Meanwhile, the Venetian enclaves in the Byzantine Empire and
especially in Constantinople were increasingly resented by the local
population, who considered them arrogant and insufferable — largely because
they were exempt from certain taxes and had become extremely wealthy. So, in a move reminiscent of Philip IV of
France’s arrest of the Templars 147 years later, on March 12, 1171, Emperor
Manuel I ordered the simultaneous arrest of all Venetians in his realm by the
local authorities. He then confiscated
all their property and held the captives prisoner.
Venice launched a naval expedition to free
the prisoners, but it was repelled and negotiations for the release of the
prisoners got nowhere. For the time being, Venice had to capitulate, but the
insult, the massive loss of wealth and loss of freedom for thousands of
citizens was not something proud Venice was prepared to forget. Venice had good
reason to hate the Byzantine Empire and to want revenge in 1204.
Meanwhile,
Venice’s rivals Pisa and Genoa initially benefited from the abrupt elimination
of Venetian presence in the Byzantine Empire.
For just over a decade, they basked in the sun of Imperial favor,
expanding their own trading empires, especially after the death of Manuel I with
the ascension of his 11 year old son, Alexius II. Alexius II was the son of a Latin princess,
namely the Princess Maria of Antioch, and she and her lover pursued a decidedly
“pro-Western” policy — which soon aroused the hostility of the bureaucracy and
the people in Constantinople. The anti-Western faction in the capital found an
ally in the ambition of an uncle of the late Manuel I, and in April 1182 the mob was
set loose on the Latin population in Constantinople.
According to
Charles M. Brand in his history Byzantium
Confronts the West, 1180-1204, (Harvard University Press, 1968): “The
populace turned on the merchants, their families, and the Catholic monks and
clerics who lived in the crowded quarters along the Golden Horn…When the mobs
attacked, no attempt at defense was made. The crowds raced through the streets
seeking Latins. The choicest victims were the helpless: women and children, the
aged and the sick, priests and monks. They were killed in streets and houses,
dragged from hiding places and slaughtered. Dwellings and churches full of
refugees were burned, and at the Hospital of the Knights of St. John, the sick
were murdered in their beds. The clergy
were the particular objects of the crowd’s hatred. The head of the pope’s
emissary, Cardinal John, was cut off and dragged through the streets on the
tail of a dog….The Orthodox clergy took the lead in searching out concealed
Latins to deliver to the killers.”
Does this
massacre of a few thousand people justify the Sack of Constantinople in 1204?
Certainly not! But if the terror attacks of September 11, 2000 could fill a
modern democracy with rage and the desire for revenge — including the
willingness to conduct long, drawn-out and expensive wars in distant places and
assassinations — than it is only reasonable to factor in the anger this
massacre incited in the West when analyzing the causes of the Fourth Crusade.
Balian d'Ibelin's wife was a Byzantine Princess, Maria Comnena and the relationship between the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Byzantine Empire plays a minor role in my biographical novel of Balian d'Ibelin. The first and second books in the series are already available for purchase.
Sounds like it was asked for. Unchristian behavior evoked an unchristian response. Typical.
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