Read The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople Online
Authors: Jonathan Phillips
Tags: #Religion, #History
The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (24 page)
BOOK: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
9.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
For five days the crusaders tried to batter or climb their way into the city, but to little avail. They decided, therefore, to employ probably the most effective of all medieval siege weapons: the mine. The creation of a mine was a dangerous and complex affair that usually involved the construction of a series of underground galleries running towards the walls of the besieged city or stronghold. The type of ground determined how easy or difficult it was to dig such a structure. Marshy land or extensive water defences afforded some protection against the mine. In firmer conditions the passage was dug out and supported with wooden posts. When the mine was judged to be under the walls, the end of the shaft was filled with brushwood and other inflammable material and ignited. This explosion and the burning of the supports was intended to bring down both the tunnel and the wall above it, leaving a gaping chasm for the attackers to pour through. Muslims and Christians alike had used these techniques to deadly effect throughout the medieval age: at the siege of Lisbon in 1147 the crusaders constructed a huge series of mines. The eye-witness
Conquest of Lisbon
states:
Conquest of Lisbon
states:
The [crusaders] began to dig a mine beneath the wall of the stronghold —a mine which, marvellous to relate, had five entrances and extended inside to a depth of forty cubits from the front; and they completed it within a month ... When the wall had been undermined and inflammable material had been placed in the mine and lighted, the same night at cockcrow about thirty cubits of the wall crumbled to the ground. Then the Muslims who were guarding the wall were heard to cry out in their anguish that they might now make an end of their long labours and that this very day would be their last.
38
Three years earlier, Zengi, the Muslim ruler of Aleppo, had mined his way into the Christian city of Edessa in northern Syria. In 1202 the Zarans recognised the lethal nature of a mining campaign and immediately offered to surrender on the original terms they had proposed.
On 24 November the city opened its gates and, as with almost all medieval sieges, the victors divided the spoils. The crusaders had promised to spare the lives of those within, but this did not prevent the city being ransacked. One church held the body of St Chrysogonus; ironically, 24 November was his feast-day, but unfortunately for the Zarans he afforded them no divine protection.
39
Gunther of Pairis claimed that Zara fell without slaughter or bloodshed. Pope Innocent, on the other hand, accused the crusaders of taking lives in the course of the siege, rather than in the later occupation of the city.
40
39
Gunther of Pairis claimed that Zara fell without slaughter or bloodshed. Pope Innocent, on the other hand, accused the crusaders of taking lives in the course of the siege, rather than in the later occupation of the city.
40
Once Zara fell, the expedition was obliged to pause. Dandolo pointed out the practicalities of the sailing season—winter was upon the crusading host and it was impossible to continue any further. In any case, Zara was a wealthy city that could provide the supplies the expedition needed. The doge’s men took the half of the city nearest the harbour and the French the other part, each group commandeering the finest houses for its leading men.
As 1202 drew to a close Dandolo could reflect with some satisfaction on having quelled his rebellious neighbour. His crusading associates must have had more mixed feelings; their great enterprise had made a number of faltering steps: the loss of Thibaut of Champagne; the near-disaster of the shortfall of men at Venice; and then the limited progress of the campaign, still high up in the Adriatic. On the other hand, Thibaut’s replacement was a highly prestigious man, the expedition was still moving, it was superbly equipped and had already revealed lethal military effectiveness. Overarching all of this, however, the crusaders’ immediate anxiety was the reaction of Pope Innocent when he heard of the fall of Zara.
The leaders’ concern was soon apparent because they sent a mission to the pope in the hope of securing absolution from their excommunication. In part, this seems questionable because they had already taken Zara and were not likely to surrender it, whatever Innocent decreed. Yet an embassy to Rome was also a way to mollify the mass of crusaders who would almost certainly react with anger and violence when the news of the excommunication was publicly announced. The sack of Zara did not mean that the senior nobility had entirely abandoned the spiritual dimension of their work. The very fact that these men were on crusade in the first instance was a clear demonstration of their religious sincerity, yet trying to reconcile that piety with the demands of leading a crusade so deeply in debt was a challenge that seemed almost beyond the experience and the abilities of any of them.
An embassy of four men—Bishop Nivelo of Soissons; John of Noyen, a cleric who was Count Baldwin’s chancellor; Robert of Boves; and John of Friaise—set out for Rome in December 1202 to seek absolution for the crusaders’ actions. The Venetians did not send a representative, feeling that they had done nothing wrong and had no case to answer: an apparently confrontational approach, although one that Dandolo explained in a later letter to the pope. So far as he was concerned, the Zarans had deserved to be attacked because they had broken their feudal oaths to the Venetians. More contentiously, Dandolo asserted that he could not believe that the pope would offer protection to a man such as Emico who bore the cross for false reasons. He wrote that the king assumed the cross ‘only in order to wear it, not even to complete the journey for which pilgrims normally assume the cross but to acquire the possessions of another and to criminally hold them’.
41
The doge knew that Emico had taken the cross in 1200 mainly to use as a shield in a civil war with his brother Andrew, and that he had little intention of ever journeying to the Holy Land. Hindsight would bear this view out but, in the short term, it was not an argument well received in Rome.
41
The doge knew that Emico had taken the cross in 1200 mainly to use as a shield in a civil war with his brother Andrew, and that he had little intention of ever journeying to the Holy Land. Hindsight would bear this view out but, in the short term, it was not an argument well received in Rome.
Gunther of Pairis records that Abbot Martin joined the mission as an unofficial delegate to represent the German crusaders. Gunther has left an account of his abbot’s thoughts about this episode. In part, this may be an attempt to distance Martin from the events at Zara, but it also demonstrates the abbot’s profound spiritual unease at the direction of the crusade: ‘When Martin saw not only the entire business of the Cross tied up in delays but also our entire army being forced to shed Christian blood, he did not know where to turn or what to do. He was totally terror-stricken, and from many choices, all of which displeased him, he opted for the one which, in that particular situation, seemed best.’
42
A sense of being boxed into a corner, of being powerless to follow his own wishes, ensnared the abbot. Just 19 months earlier he had been sobbing with religious zeal, exhorting the people of Basel to help save the Holy Land. For a man who had inspired hundreds of individuals to take the cross to be so drained of motivation shows how the cruel realities of the Fourth Crusade contrasted with the high hopes with which the expedition had started. So distraught was Martin that he had tried to remove himself from the crusade: he went to Cardinal Peter Capuano and asked to be dispensed from his vow in order to return to the cloister. The cardinal rebuked him for his weakness and utterly forbade Martin to go home before completing his pilgrimage.
42
A sense of being boxed into a corner, of being powerless to follow his own wishes, ensnared the abbot. Just 19 months earlier he had been sobbing with religious zeal, exhorting the people of Basel to help save the Holy Land. For a man who had inspired hundreds of individuals to take the cross to be so drained of motivation shows how the cruel realities of the Fourth Crusade contrasted with the high hopes with which the expedition had started. So distraught was Martin that he had tried to remove himself from the crusade: he went to Cardinal Peter Capuano and asked to be dispensed from his vow in order to return to the cloister. The cardinal rebuked him for his weakness and utterly forbade Martin to go home before completing his pilgrimage.
Some crusaders had already left Venice and gone to Rome to obtain a similar dispensation where, unwillingly, Innocent had granted such permission on the condition that their vow was deferred for a few years. Most of these individuals were poorer men whose absence would have only a limited effect on the expedition, although, as Gunther of Pairis observed, ‘their defection ... dampened the deep fervour’ of others planning to join the crusade and affected the morale of those who remained.
43
The idea of allowing so important a figure as Abbot Martin to leave could not be countenanced and, by way of tying him to the crusade even more closely, Capuano confirmed him in the role of spiritual guardian of the Germans on the expedition and charged the abbot to remain alongside the soldiers at all times to try to restrain them from shedding Christian blood. Martin was saddened that his request was turned down, yet as Gunther relates, he steeled himself to carry on, to fulfil his vow and to bear his new responsibilities:
43
The idea of allowing so important a figure as Abbot Martin to leave could not be countenanced and, by way of tying him to the crusade even more closely, Capuano confirmed him in the role of spiritual guardian of the Germans on the expedition and charged the abbot to remain alongside the soldiers at all times to try to restrain them from shedding Christian blood. Martin was saddened that his request was turned down, yet as Gunther relates, he steeled himself to carry on, to fulfil his vow and to bear his new responsibilities:
How Martin groaned, when leave was denied him.
Who could imagine it, who would believe it if I tried to relate it?
He stands wavering; a man of devout mind, he stands with
breaking heart.
Pained in his breast, he has no wish for such things, and,
like one constrained,
He fears for himself and his comrades. He fears even more
For himself and his people lest he be party to wicked slaughter.
Yet he submits and suffers to yield to his vows;
He pledges to go on; barely the better course, but his heart is
not in it.
44
Back in Zara, trouble soon erupted amongst the crusading forces as they settled down for winter. In the event of a successful siege, conflict between the victorious contingents was a frequent occurrence. Sometimes this reflected long-standing tensions between groups from different areas, rather like modern-day football fans reliving old grudges and running riot through the streets of a foreign city. The problem in Zara had a different cause: only three days after the conquest a furious affray broke out between the Venetians and what Robert of Clari described as ‘the lesser people’ from France. This was not the product of some old enmity, but more likely a squabble over the division of booty: a legacy of the controversy over the payment for the sea passage and the relative poverty of the Frenchmen.
The cost of the sea passage would have made a substantial impact on the resources of most of the rank-and-file crusaders. Furthermore, as we saw earlier, the nobles had tried to extract from them even more cash to cover the financial shortfall caused by the lack of men arriving at Venice. For the ordinary soldiers, the sack of a city was a rare opportunity to acquire money and to cover the large sums already spent. The fact that Zara was a Christian city was a matter of real concern to some of these men, but, by late November, it had been captured, whether morally right or wrong. If another party (in this case, the Venetians) tried to appropriate desperately needed booty—and if that group was already perceived as being wealthy and greedy anyway—then men would fight to hold on to their winnings.
In the early evening of 27 November an argument broke out between groups of Frenchmen and Venetians. Conflict soon ripped through the city. What began as a localised brawl became all-out war with men rushing to arms, the streets ringing with the clash of swords, the whirring of crossbow bolts and the cries of the angry, the wounded and the dying. Faced with this breakdown of proper order, the crusade leaders had to intervene. Baldwin and Louis donned their full armour and charged into the affray to try to break it up, but so ferocious was the disturbance that, like a wild forest fire, as soon as it was quelled in one area, it sprang alight in another. All through the night the riot carried on until the combatants wore themselves out and finally calm prevailed. It was fortunate that the city itself was not burned to the ground, because the likelihood of fire during a riot was always high. Both the Venetians and the French suffered losses; a Flemish noble, Gilles of Landast, was struck in the eye and later died of his wound, and many lesser men were lost. The
Devastatio Constantinopolitana
gives a figure of almost 100 dead.
45
In the days afterwards, both the doge and the French nobles laboured steadily to bring peace to the two groups and to heal whatever the source of the conflict was. Villehardouin felt that the whole episode had been so serious that the army had a ‘narrow escape from being completely wiped out’.
46
Yet Baldwin, Louis and the doge evidently soothed the situation to good effect because Robert of Clari was able to write that ‘they made so good a peace that never afterwards was there ill-will between them’.
47
Devastatio Constantinopolitana
gives a figure of almost 100 dead.
45
In the days afterwards, both the doge and the French nobles laboured steadily to bring peace to the two groups and to heal whatever the source of the conflict was. Villehardouin felt that the whole episode had been so serious that the army had a ‘narrow escape from being completely wiped out’.
46
Yet Baldwin, Louis and the doge evidently soothed the situation to good effect because Robert of Clari was able to write that ‘they made so good a peace that never afterwards was there ill-will between them’.
47
Before the crusaders’ envoys could reach Rome, a letter from the papacy arrived at Zara. Innocent had heard of the capture of the city and was plainly both furious and saddened at this turn of events. His message made the depth of his feelings abundantly plain, and to anyone reading the letter his sense of anger and distaste rings out loud and clear. He believed that the sense of moral right that a successful crusade army should naturally possess had been compromised and corrupted: ‘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.’
48
48
Innocent blamed the Devil—envious of the sacrifice the crusaders were making—for causing them to make war on their fellow-Christians, ‘so that you might pay him [the Devil] the first fruits of your pilgrimage and pour out for demons your own and your brothers’ blood’. Aside from Satan, others were at fault, too: Innocent did not hide his view as to who the real culprits were and noted that the crusaders had fallen in ‘with thieves’—by which he undoubtedly meant the Venetians. Although they stripped you of the mantle of virtues laid upon you ... so far they have not wished to depart or to leave you half alive: Innocent criticised the taking of supplies from Trieste and Muglia, before turning to the sack of Zara. More seriously, he accused the crusaders of showing no mercy to a people whose city walls were decorated with the cross: ‘but you attacked the city and the citizens to the not insubstantial injury of the Crucified One, and what is more, by violent skill, you compelled them to surrender’.
49
49
BOOK: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
9.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Other books
Consumed by a Stranger (Craved Series #4) by Kelly, Hazel
Spank or Treat by Tymber Dalton
A Worthy Pursuit by Karen Witemeyer
Falling for Her by Sandra Owens
Colossus by D. F. Jones
Journey of Honor A love story by Hawkes, Jaclyn M.
Hindsight by Leddy Harper, Marlo Williams, Kristen Switzer
Snapshot by Angie Stanton
FIGHTER: An MMA Romance Novel by Black, Sadie, United, BWWM
The Summer of Me & You by Hachton, Rae