The Real History of the Crusades (2002)

crisismagazine ^ | 2002 | By Thomas F. Madden

[dennisw]

 

 

"So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands."

 

 

The Real History of the Crusades
By Thomas F. Madden

With the possible exception of Umberto Eco, medieval scholars are not used to getting much media attention. We tend to be a quiet lot (except during the annual bacchanalia we call the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places), poring over musty chronicles and writing dull yet meticulous studies that few will read. Imagine, then, my surprise when within days of the September 11 attacks, the Middle Ages suddenly became relevant.

As a Crusade historian, I found the tranquil solitude of the ivory tower shattered by journalists, editors, and talk-show hosts on tight deadlines eager to get the real scoop. What were the Crusades?, they asked. When were they? Just how insensitive was President George W. Bush for using the word "crusade" in his remarks? With a few of my callers I had the distinct impression that they already knew the answers to their questions, or at least thought they did. What they really wanted was an expert to say it all back to them. For example, I was frequently asked to comment on the fact that the Islamic world has a just grievance against the West. Doesn’t the present violence, they persisted, have its roots in the Crusades’ brutal and unprovoked attacks against a sophisticated and tolerant Muslim world? In other words, aren’t the Crusades really to blame?

Osama bin Laden certainly thinks so. In his various video performances, he never fails to describe the American war against terrorism as a new Crusade against Islam. Ex-president Bill Clinton has also fingered the Crusades as the root cause of the present conflict. In a speech at Georgetown University, he recounted (and embellished) a massacre of Jews after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and informed his audience that the episode was still bitterly remembered in the Middle East. (Why Islamist terrorists should be upset about the killing of Jews was not explained.) Clinton took a beating on the nation’s editorial pages for wanting so much to blame the United States that he was willing to reach back to the Middle Ages. Yet no one disputed the ex-president’s fundamental premise.

Well, almost no one. Many historians had been trying to set the record straight on the Crusades long before Clinton discovered them. They are not revisionists, like the American historians who manufactured the Enola Gay exhibit, but mainstream scholars offering the fruit of several decades of very careful, very serious scholarship. For them, this is a "teaching moment," an opportunity to explain the Crusades while people are actually listening. It won’t last long, so here goes.

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity—and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion—has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed’s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt—once the most heavily Christian areas in the world—quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The response was tremendous. Many thousands of warriors took the vow of the cross and prepared for war. Why did they do it? The answer to that question has been badly misunderstood. In the wake of the Enlightenment, it was usually asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne’er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. The Crusaders’ expressed sentiments of piety, self-sacrifice, and love for God were obviously not to be taken seriously. They were only a front for darker designs.

During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have demolished that contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to undertake the holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did so not because they expected material wealth (which many of them had already) but because they hoped to store up treasure where rust and moth could not corrupt. They were keenly aware of their sinfulness and eager to undertake the hardships of the Crusade as a penitential act of charity and love. Europe is littered with thousands of medieval charters attesting to these sentiments, charters in which these men still speak to us today if we will listen. Of course, they were not opposed to capturing booty if it could be had. But the truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.

* * *

Urban II gave the Crusaders two goals, both of which would remain central to the eastern Crusades for centuries. The first was to rescue the Christians of the East. As his successor, Pope Innocent III, later wrote:

How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbor as himself when, knowing that his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held by the perfidious Muslims in strict confinement and weighed down by the yoke of heaviest servitude, he does not devote himself to the task of freeing them? ...Is it by chance that you do not know that many thousands of Christians are bound in slavery and imprisoned by the Muslims, tortured with innumerable torments?

"Crusading," Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith has rightly argued, was understood as an "an act of love"—in this case, the love of one’s neighbor. The Crusade was seen as an errand of mercy to right a terrible wrong. As Pope Innocent III wrote to the Knights Templar, "You carry out in deeds the words of the Gospel, ‘Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friends.’"

The second goal was the liberation of Jerusalem and the other places made holy by the life of Christ. The word crusade is modern. Medieval Crusaders saw themselves as pilgrims, performing acts of righteousness on their way to the Holy Sepulcher. The Crusade indulgence they received was canonically related to the pilgrimage indulgence. This goal was frequently described in feudal terms. When calling the Fifth Crusade in 1215, Innocent III wrote:

Consider most dear sons, consider carefully that if any temporal king was thrown out of his domain and perhaps captured, would he not, when he was restored to his pristine liberty and the time had come for dispensing justice look on his vassals as unfaithful and traitors...unless they had committed not only their property but also their persons to the task of freeing him? ...And similarly will not Jesus Christ, the king of kings and lord of lords, whose servant you cannot deny being, who joined your soul to your body, who redeemed you with the Precious Blood...condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of infidelity if you neglect to help Him?

The reconquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism but an act of restoration and an open declaration of one’s love of God. Medieval men knew, of course, that God had the power to restore Jerusalem Himself—indeed, He had the power to restore the whole world to His rule. Yet as St. Bernard of Clairvaux preached, His refusal to do so was a blessing to His people:

Again I say, consider the Almighty’s goodness and pay heed to His plans of mercy. He puts Himself under obligation to you, or rather feigns to do so, that He can help you to satisfy your obligations toward Himself.... I call blessed the generation that can seize an opportunity of such rich indulgence as this.

It is often assumed that the central goal of the Crusades was forced conversion of the Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the perspective of medieval Christians, Muslims were the enemies of Christ and His Church. It was the Crusaders’ task to defeat and defend against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood, and always their religion. Indeed, throughout the history of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Muslim inhabitants far outnumbered the Catholics. It was not until the 13th century that the Franciscans began conversion efforts among Muslims. But these were mostly unsuccessful and finally abandoned. In any case, such efforts were by peaceful persuasion, not the threat of violence.

The Crusades were wars, so it would be a mistake to characterize them as nothing but piety and good intentions. Like all warfare, the violence was brutal (although not as brutal as modern wars). There were mishaps, blunders, and crimes. These are usually well-remembered today. During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing and murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local bishops attempted to stop the carnage. In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it was a righteous deed, since the Jews’ money could be used to fund the Crusade to Jerusalem. But they were wrong, and the Church strongly condemned the anti-Jewish attacks.

Fifty years later, when the Second Crusade was gearing up, St. Bernard frequently preached that the Jews were not to be persecuted:

Ask anyone who knows the Sacred Scriptures what he finds foretold of the Jews in the Psalm. "Not for their destruction do I pray," it says. The Jews are for us the living words of Scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered.... Under Christian princes they endure a hard captivity, but "they only wait for the time of their deliverance."

Nevertheless, a fellow Cistercian monk named Radulf stirred up people against the Rhineland Jews, despite numerous letters from Bernard demanding that he stop. At last Bernard was forced to travel to Germany himself, where he caught up with Radulf, sent him back to his convent, and ended the massacres.

It is often said that the roots of the Holocaust can be seen in these medieval pogroms. That may be. But if so, those roots are far deeper and more widespread than the Crusades. Jews perished during the Crusades, but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews. Quite the contrary: Popes, bishops, and preachers made it clear that the Jews of Europe were to be left unmolested. In a modern war, we call tragic deaths like these "collateral damage." Even with smart technologies, the United States has killed far more innocents in our wars than the Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose of American wars is to kill women and children.

By any reckoning, the First Crusade was a long shot. There was no leader, no chain of command, no supply lines, no detailed strategy. It was simply thousands of warriors marching deep into enemy territory, committed to a common cause. Many of them died, either in battle or through disease or starvation. It was a rough campaign, one that seemed always on the brink of disaster. Yet it was miraculously successful. By 1098, the Crusaders had restored Nicaea and Antioch to Christian rule. In July 1099, they conquered Jerusalem and began to build a Christian state in Palestine. The joy in Europe was unbridled. It seemed that the tide of history, which had lifted the Muslims to such heights, was now turning.

* * *

But it was not. When we think about the Middle Ages, it is easy to view Europe in light of what it became rather than what it was. The colossus of the medieval world was Islam, not Christendom. The Crusades are interesting largely because they were an attempt to counter that trend. But in five centuries of crusading, it was only the First Crusade that significantly rolled back the military progress of Islam. It was downhill from there.

When the Crusader County of Edessa fell to the Turks and Kurds in 1144, there was an enormous groundswell of support for a new Crusade in Europe. It was led by two kings, Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, and preached by St. Bernard himself. It failed miserably. Most of the Crusaders were killed along the way. Those who made it to Jerusalem only made things worse by attacking Muslim Damascus, which formerly had been a strong ally of the Christians. In the wake of such a disaster, Christians across Europe were forced to accept not only the continued growth of Muslim power but the certainty that God was punishing the West for its sins. Lay piety movements sprouted up throughout Europe, all rooted in the desire to purify Christian society so that it might be worthy of victory in the East.

Crusading in the late twelfth century, therefore, became a total war effort. Every person, no matter how weak or poor, was called to help. Warriors were asked to sacrifice their wealth and, if need be, their lives for the defense of the Christian East. On the home front, all Christians were called to support the Crusades through prayer, fasting, and alms. Yet still the Muslims grew in strength. Saladin, the great unifier, had forged the Muslim Near East into a single entity, all the while preaching jihad against the Christians. In 1187 at the Battle of Hattin, his forces wiped out the combined armies of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and captured the precious relic of the True Cross. Defenseless, the Christian cities began surrendering one by one, culminating in the surrender of Jerusalem on October 2. Only a tiny handful of ports held out.

The response was the Third Crusade. It was led by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of the German Empire, King Philip II Augustus of France, and King Richard I Lionheart of England. By any measure it was a grand affair, although not quite as grand as the Christians had hoped. The aged Frederick drowned while crossing a river on horseback, so his army returned home before reaching the Holy Land. Philip and Richard came by boat, but their incessant bickering only added to an already divisive situation on the ground in Palestine. After recapturing Acre, the king of France went home, where he busied himself carving up Richard’s French holdings. The Crusade, therefore, fell into Richard’s lap. A skilled warrior, gifted leader, and superb tactician, Richard led the Christian forces to victory after victory, eventually reconquering the entire coast. But Jerusalem was not on the coast, and after two abortive attempts to secure supply lines to the Holy City, Richard at last gave up. Promising to return one day, he struck a truce with Saladin that ensured peace in the region and free access to Jerusalem for unarmed pilgrims. But it was a bitter pill to swallow. The desire to restore Jerusalem to Christian rule and regain the True Cross remained intense throughout Europe.

The Crusades of the 13th century were larger, better funded, and better organized. But they too failed. The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) ran aground when it was seduced into a web of Byzantine politics, which the Westerners never fully understood. They had made a detour to Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great rewards and support for the Holy Land. Yet once he was on the throne of the Caesars, their benefactor found that he could not pay what he had promised. Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world. Pope Innocent III, who had previously excommunicated the entire Crusade, strongly denounced the Crusaders. But there was little else he could do. The tragic events of 1204 closed an iron door between Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, a door that even today Pope John Paul II has been unable to reopen. It is a terrible irony that the Crusades, which were a direct result of the Catholic desire to rescue the Orthodox people, drove the two further—and perhaps irrevocably—apart.

The remainder of the 13th century’s Crusades did little better. The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) managed briefly to capture Damietta in Egypt, but the Muslims eventually defeated the army and reoccupied the city. St. Louis IX of France led two Crusades in his life. The first also captured Damietta, but Louis was quickly outwitted by the Egyptians and forced to abandon the city. Although Louis was in the Holy Land for several years, spending freely on defensive works, he never achieved his fondest wish: to free Jerusalem. He was a much older man in 1270 when he led another Crusade to Tunis, where he died of a disease that ravaged the camp. After St. Louis’s death, the ruthless Muslim leaders, Baybars and Kalavun, waged a brutal jihad against the Christians in Palestine. By 1291, the Muslim forces had succeeded in killing or ejecting the last of the Crusaders, thus erasing the Crusader kingdom from the map. Despite numerous attempts and many more plans, Christian forces were never again able to gain a foothold in the region until the 19th century.

* * *

One might think that three centuries of Christian defeats would have soured Europeans on the idea of Crusade. Not at all. In one sense, they had little alternative. Muslim kingdoms were becoming more, not less, powerful in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The Ottoman Turks conquered not only their fellow Muslims, thus further unifying Islam, but also continued to press westward, capturing Constantinople and plunging deep into Europe itself. By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world. One of the great best-sellers of the time, Sebastian Brant’s The Ship of Fools, gave voice to this sentiment in a chapter titled "Of the Decline of the Faith":

Our faith was strong in th’ Orient,

It ruled in all of Asia,

In Moorish lands and Africa.

But now for us these lands are gone

’Twould even grieve the hardest stone....

Four sisters of our Church you find,

They’re of the patriarchic kind:

Constantinople, Alexandria,

Jerusalem, Antiochia.

But they’ve been forfeited and sacked

And soon the head will be attacked.

Of course, that is not what happened. But it very nearly did. In 1480, Sultan Mehmed II captured Otranto as a beachhead for his invasion of Italy. Rome was evacuated. Yet the sultan died shortly thereafter, and his plan died with him. In 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna. If not for a run of freak rainstorms that delayed his progress and forced him to leave behind much of his artillery, it is virtually certain that the Turks would have taken the city. Germany, then, would have been at their mercy.

Yet, even while these close shaves were taking place, something else was brewing in Europe—something unprecedented in human history. The Renaissance, born from a strange mixture of Roman values, medieval piety, and a unique respect for commerce and entrepreneurialism, had led to other movements like humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Exploration. Even while fighting for its life, Europe was preparing to expand on a global scale. The Protestant Reformation, which rejected the papacy and the doctrine of indulgence, made Crusades unthinkable for many Europeans, thus leaving the fighting to the Catholics. In 1571, a Holy League, which was itself a Crusade, defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto. Yet military victories like that remained rare. The Muslim threat was neutralized economically. As Europe grew in wealth and power, the once awesome and sophisticated Turks began to seem backward and pathetic—no longer worth a Crusade. The "Sick Man of Europe" limped along until the 20th century, when he finally expired, leaving behind the present mess of the modern Middle East.

From the safe distance of many centuries, it is easy enough to scowl in disgust at the Crusades. Religion, after all, is nothing to fight wars over. But we should be mindful that our medieval ancestors would have been equally disgusted by our infinitely more destructive wars fought in the name of political ideologies. And yet, both the medieval and the modern soldier fight ultimately for their own world and all that makes it up. Both are willing to suffer enormous sacrifice, provided that it is in the service of something they hold dear, something greater than themselves. Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. Without the Crusades, it might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam’s rivals, into extinction.

Thomas F. Madden is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University. He is the author of numerous works, including A Concise History of the Crusades, and co-author, with Donald Queller, of The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople.

 

 

[knews_hound]

bttt

[Doctor Stochastic]

Follow the money.

[VOA]

bump

[agere_contra]

The 4th crusade went to Constantinople at the request of the legal heir to the throne: Alexius Angelus, who was a refugee prince of Byzantium at the time, having been deposed by his uncle, who was now Emperor Alexius III.

Alexius Angelus begged the Latins to take up his cause and right the wrong pepetrated by his evil uncle. He assured them that the people of Constantinople would welcome them, and that he would then support the Crusade financially, maintain 500 knights in the holy land and personally join the crusade with 10,000 men. And he promised that he would also bring the Greek church under the Pope - basically the crusaders were given a terrific offer.

The 4th crusade was financially bankrupt at the time, due to a miscalculation of transportation requirements with the Venetians. Angelus's offer was stunningly attractive: the crusaders saw a chance to redeem their finances by returning Angelus to his throne.

Of course the Latins and Franks didn't think an attack on Constantinople would be required. They had been assured that there would be a popular uprising against the usurper in favour of the true emperor.

But no such peaceful coup took place. From the walls the Byzantines jeered at the Crusaders who found themselves in a tight spot, deep in hostile territory, on a fool's errand. They needed the money that Angelus had offered them, if only to pay the Venetians to take them off. And they were also duty-bound to help Angelus, the victim of treachery who they had sworn to protect and to restore to his throne. So they began the attack.

The defenders were three times the numbers of the attackers, but the Crusaders and Venetians managed to gain control of Galata and some of the sea walls. However the attackers were making little impression on the heavily defended city.

However Alexius III (the usurping uncle, who had no particular title to the throne) smelt political trouble: suspecting an imminent palace coup he fled. The people of the city restored the old blind King Issac II to the throne: shortly after Angelus was crowned Alexius IV. The crusaders had won a relatively peaceful victory.

The trouble started when Alexius IV found that he did not have enough money to meet his contract with the crusaders. He opened the tombs of the emperors to take the jewellry, and siezed ecclesiastical items such as chalices and icons, to partially repay his debt.

In short order Alexius IV became very unpopular - he feared that if he paid anything further to the crusaders he would lose his throne. And if the crusaders left, he feared that he would also ... lose his throne. So he temporised - he got the crusaders to camp outside the city and held them off with promises and a few token payments.

In 1203 the crusaders began to suspect that they would never see the money Alexius IV owed them. They reminded him of the great service they had rendered him, and asked him to confirm his promises. If not, they would no longer call him friend and would do all in their power to seize the debt from his domains.

At their words Alexius remained frozen in indecision, saying nothing. Meanwhile his court erupted in anger at the crusader envoys. The envoys returned to the crusader camp with the news that Alexius had failed to fulfill his promises.

According to feudal morality the Crusaders began to raid the lands around to regain their debt, and to feed themselves.

Matters were coming to a head in Constantinople. The mob were getting tired of Alexius IV: they demanded a new emperor who would use the Imperial Army to destroy the crusaders.

However none of the Senators of Constantinople wanted the job: it would be very difficult to remove Alexius IV from the palace if he were to call upon his former friends, the Crusaders. But Alexius IV heard of the imminent uprising, and panicked, asking his trusted lieutenant Mourtzouphlus to bring the Crusader leader Boniface of Montferrat to him.

Talking to Boniface, Alexius offered to let the Crusaders occupy an imperial palace as an earnest that they would be repaid in time. But Mourtzouphlus (a veteran of several palace coups) acted first. He bribed the Varangian guard to neglect their duties for a night and whisked Alexius IV into a dungeon. The old King Issac II died rather conveniently at about the same time.

Mourtzouphlus was subsequently crowned Alexius V, and energetically did all he could to stop crusader raids on the countryside. But the troops at his disposal were of amazingly poor quality when it came to actual fighting: it seemed that no numerical superiority was enough to defeat the Franks. He negotiated with the Crusaders, who demanded that he release Alexius IV.

Realising that the Crusaders deal with Alexius IV was the moral underpinning for their attacks on Byzantium, Alexius V ordered Alexius IV to be strangled.

It was at this point that the prelates of the Crusader camp redefined an attack on Constantinople as a legitimate function of the Crusade: Mourtzouphlus was a murderer and had no right to rule Constantinople, and the people who accepted his rule were abettors to murder - so the logic ran. Of course the rank-and-file crusaders had no idea that the verdict of their bishops contradicted the commands of the Pope. The bishops' sermons contained much dehumanising rhetoric aimed at the Greeks inside the walls: this in time would yield bitter fruit.

The decisive attack, on April 12 1204, was stalemated for a long time. The defenders vastly outnumbered the attackers, and the physical defences were extremely heavy. But a small group of about 70 soldiers led by Peter of Amiens landed on a strip of groundby the harbour wall. They broke a hole through a walled-up postern gate, and saw a huge crowd of soldiers inside waiting for them.

It would clearly be suicide to enter. But one man, an armed priest named Alleumes of Clari, inisted on the honour of being the first to enter the city. No amount of pleading could dissuade him. His brother, Robert of Clari, was particularly upset and tried to prevent him from crawling through the hole by grabbing his legs. It was no use. Alleumes scrambled through the other side where he was faced by a large multitude.

With enormous confidence Alleumes drew his sword and ran towards the assembled greek troops - who scattered. The poorly trained Byzantine troops proved themselves unwilling to fight unless the danger to themselves was miniscule.

Alleumes called to his companions, who also came through the hole and stood with their backs to the wall. When Greek troops at other locations saw the flight of those stationed by the walled gate they also fled, causing a snowball effect. The crusader army entered and occupied a burnt part of the city (which had been burnt down many months earlier)

The collapse of the city's defences can be explained as follows. Basically - no-one was willing to risk themselves for Mourtzouphlus's throne. They would have been quite happy for Boniface to become the next emperor - once he had the throne he would surely restrain his army, as it was not in his interests to have his own city destroyed. At least that's the way in which all the other armed coups in the city's long history had operated.

But that's not what happened this time. Boniface had agreed with other crusaders to elect an Emperor after the city's loot had been distributed, and so looting was very much on the cards.

The sack of Constantinople ranks as one of the most profitable and shameful in history. Although the sack of a city that had resisted capture was more or less routine under the medieval moral code, the Crusaders did more than just plunder: they ruthlessly and systematically violated the holy sanctuaries, destroying or stealing all they could lay hands on, and committing notorious acts of rape. When the pope Innocent III heard of the conduct of his pilgrims he was filled with shame. He wrote to his legate:

For those who are supposed to serve Christ rather than themselves, who should have used their swords against the infidel, have bathed their swords in the blood of Christians. They have not spared religion, nor age, nor sex, and have committed adultery and fornication in public, exposing matrons and even nuns to the filthiness of their troops.

The Byzantines' deep sense of bitterness and betrayal after the sack became one of the primary legacies of 1204: another legacy IMO was the concomitant rise in Venetian power. Meanwhile back in the west the crusaders were given hero's welcomes: the outcome of the fourth crusade was popularly seen as God's vengeance upon the Greeks for their horse-trading and temporizing with the First Crusade, and the original loss of the Holy Land itself.

Not a happy moment in history. But we must be careful not to revise: the Crusaders went to Constantinople at the request of, as they saw it, the rightful King. They were keen to stick to the letter of their agreements but were messed around by indefatigable Byzantine politics. At the core of the tragedy is Alexis Angelus, who made a deal that his city didn't know about, and weren't prepared to honour, setting events in motion that left both sides feeling betrayed. If the crusaders had taken control of the city without a violent sack there would have been very little to offend our modern sensibilities. But, of course, they did sack the city. And so the east and west lungs of Christianity carry on not talking to one another.

[Ben Ficklin]

There is nothing wrong with reading the newer authors but only after reading Runciman. At the very least, when you read Runciman, you don't have to read Comnina(sp?), the arab historians, or many, many other older sources because he faithfully represents those works.

As for the above author's dis-agreement with Runciman on the financial status of many of the crusaders, you don't have to depend on Runciman to know that at this time in history, land was the only basis of wealth and primogenitor was in effect.

[LS]

Fascinating and informative mini-essay. This makes sense now. As much as people want "loot," it just didn't stand to reason that the walked or rode across half of Europe to sack a well-defended city, when many others were on their doorstep.

[DariusBane]

You are correct, the crusades and the venetians laid waste to the Byzantines, and laid the groundwork for the Muslims expansion.

[Antoninus]

except during the annual bacchanalia we call the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places

I'd been there for three straight years in a row at one point in my younger days. A great place to meet very nice and very intelligent young women as I remember it.

[Antoninus]

Excellent post. Bookmarking...

[Antoninus]

The goal of this crusade was the total destruction of the Orthodox Christian faith and subjugation of the Orthodox city and people unto them, period. We know this because the Popes of the time confirmed this atrocity with generations of imposed puppet leaders loyal to them, and were not bothered to return stolen religious relics and riches.

Your response is over the top and not terribly Christian. BTW, if not for the Fourth Crusade, those relics and works of art from Constantinople which we still have would likely have shared the fate of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople or the Monastery of St. Simeon in Syria.

It's ridiculous to get worked up over ancient history (literally) at this point in our history anyway. I'll never understand why some Orthodox still, 800 years later, manage to harbor such a deep hatred for their Latin brethern while giving the muslims and communists who truly persecuted them for centuries a comparative pass.

[Antoninus]

Excellent post.

[Mount Athos]

Not a happy moment in history. But we must be careful not to revise:

That's exactly what you have posted, a shameful historical revision.

Did you notice the contradition between the two bogus histories, yours and the original one of this thread? The first one explicitly boasted that the 4th crusade was "well funded" from the outset, while this one said it was utterly bankrupt. Each false history is inventive in its own way, but yours is especially creative.

Of course the Latins and Franks didn't think an attack on Constantinople would be required. They had been assured that there would be a popular uprising against the usurper in favour of the true emperor. And he promised that he would also bring the Greek church under the Pope

Of course? Not of course, ridiculous! Why did the crusaders feel the need to go at all, if the king would be installed so very peacefully by the people? From the outset their plan was to forcably install their puppet ruler, newly loyal to Rome, changing the religion established there a thousand years prior. They absolutely knew the people would not willingly go along with any of this and their violent action would be necessary, it is grossly dishonest to suggest they ever believed otherwise. The Crusaders had such peaceful intent, that they butchered the populace, desecrated the christian churches, and hauled away shiploads of stolen booty. So very peaceful, the intent of the 4th Crusaders.

From the walls the Byzantines jeered at the Crusaders who found themselves in a tight spot, deep in hostile territory, on a fool's errand.

We know historically, for a fact, that this is a total lie, from accounts on both sides. If it was such a tight spot and hostile territory, then why was this army freely let *inside* the gates of the city? The Crusaders did not attack from outside the walls. They were welcomed *inside* the outer gates as fellow Christians, who falsely proclaimed they were there peaceably as defenders of Christians. Had they not used trickery and betrayal for a surprise backstab, they would have certainly lost trying to fight from outside the walls. They did not have equipment and supplies needed for a long siege. Constantinople was a near impregnable fortress at the time, withstanding numerous attacks from one muslim army after another. Only with the development of cannon and massive opposing armies (plus the weakening by this attack from fellow Christians) were muslims able to win two and a half centuries later. Isn't it amazing to see only the attitude of the Byzantine hecklers criticised here? What attitude and haughtiness do you think the crusaders had, which enabled them to readily slaughter the populace and desecrate the churches? What is the mentality -- I don't like this jeering, lets kill the Christians we are sworn to protect and descrate their churches? Does this history add up to you?

They needed the money that Angelus had offered them, if only to pay the Venetians to take them off.

This historian neglected to mention that the Venetian Prince was the one who tempted them into the looting plan in the first place. Looting was the plan from the outset, that's why the Venetians provided lots of empty ships, which came back utterly full of rich booty. This was perhaps the most profitable looting event in history. They had arrived at Constantinople with long lists of treasures they had intended to seize! A shopping list! Doors from the Hagia Sofia for the Cathedral of Notre Dame -- check.

And they were also duty-bound to help Angelus, the victim of treachery [...] So they began the attack.

You got that? The Usurper who plots to be let within the gates under false pretenses and surprise attack from within, who offers to subjugate his people to foreigners and change their religion, is the one who is the victim of treachery. The author doesn't describe the kings deposed by the surprise-attacking crusader armies as victims of treachery, but this guy gets the honor.

And the crusaders who are sworn to defend Christians, are according to this writer, "duty bound" to slaughter these christians and desecrate their churches. What Christian duty compells them to install puppet rulers and steal massive amounts of loot? There was no Christian duty that compelled this atrocity -- booty and subjugation was the goal. This historian has truth turned upside down.

However Alexius III smelt political trouble: suspecting an imminent palace coup he fled.

Is it really smelling "political trouble", when the ruling king suddenly realizes that the allied army he peaceably led into the gates is really there to overthrow him by force? Wouldn't you rather call that smelling "military trouble"? Is a sizable hostile army within the city gates imposing a puppet ruler a "palace coup"? This writer is very, very creative. It is really amazing anyone would buy this.

The people of the city restored the old blind King Issac II to the throne: shortly after Angelus was crowned Alexius IV. The crusaders had won a relatively peaceful victory.

The Crusaders chose an old blind King to be forced upon the people, precisely because being old weak and blind made him an excellent candidate to be their puppet. This author disingenuously suggests the people would have willingly chosen this candidate had the crusaders not threatened to keep slaughtering their people until they submitted.

It is a bold rewriting of history to describe this atrocity as "relatively peaceful". The crusaders systematically desecrating Christian churches did get the populace to submit earlier than they would have otherwise, however. Something a non-Christian invader would have had considerably more difficulty doing, since they wouldn't have been let peaceably into the gates.

The trouble started when Alexius IV found that he did not have enough money to meet his contract with the crusaders.

Isn't it amazing that the populace of this richest city weren't eager to hand over their treasure to a traitor usurper king and the invading army which installed him?

In short order Alexius IV became very unpopular

What a surprise, why would a puppet usurper king who betrayed his own people with slaughter and subjugation be unpopular? Why unpopular, when the armies he came with desecrated their churches, and stole the most revered relics in Christendom? Could it be the author was wrong to suggest that even the crusaders really believed this fellow was the rightful ruler?

The mob were getting tired of Alexius IV: they demanded a new emperor who would use the Imperial Army to destroy the crusaders.

That's interesting, the author earlier claimed this same king was willingly installed "by the people". Perhaps the invading crusader army had something to do with the forced choice which the people did not respect from the outset?

Realising that the Crusaders deal with Alexius IV was the moral underpinning for their attacks on Byzantium

Hint: There was no moral underpinning for their attacks on Byzantium, hauling away the largest booty in history.

It was at this point that the prelates of the Crusader camp redefined an attack on Constantinople as a legitimate function of the Crusade

Actually that was defined that from the outset, that's why they showed up with lists of items to seize and empty ships for hauling massive amounts of booty.

Of course the rank-and-file crusaders had no idea that the verdict of their bishops contradicted the commands of the Pope.

This author uses "of course" to preceed his most bold lies. Of course the crusaders had no idea that there was anything unchristian about slaughtering christians, desecrating christian churches, using a "holy crusade" to install puppet rulers, or stealing huge amounts of Christian relics. Of course! The pope was so upset by all of this that he kept the looted treasure, and confirmed the usurper rulers loyal to him.

The bishops' sermons contained much dehumanising rhetoric aimed at the Greeks inside the walls: this in time would yield bitter fruit.

Dehumanizing rhetoric from bishops which backed this atrocity took place before they even set sail.

With enormous confidence Alleumes drew his sword and ran towards the assembled greek troops - who scattered. The poorly trained Byzantine troops proved themselves unwilling to fight unless the danger to themselves was miniscule.

Isn't it heartwarming to see the author describing the leaders of this atrocity in such heroic terms? The Byzantine soldiers were so poorly trained that they resisted muslim invasions for centuries longer than their neighbors. They were trained to defend against a siege! Could the surprise attack and gaining entry to the outer walls by treachery have something to the do with the victory? How heroic is this trickery and betrayal? Constantinople would have resisted Islam for much longer had the Roman Catholic armies not severely weakened them with this crusade in 1204. For centuries it stood as a bullwark protecting Europe from invading muslim armies. Islam would have never reached the gates of Vienna without this backstabbing of the Orthodox christians by the 4th Crusade. Had Constantinople not been so weakened, many peoples in the region would have been spared from forcable conversion to islam -- some of whose decendents today are terrorists threatening civilization.

[DariusBane]

Thank you for taking the time to really flesh this out. The vatican still holds ill gotten trophies from sacking the Royal Palaces and the Hagia Sophia. The Western European Powers despised the "effeminate Greeks", because they read, bathed, and revered knowledge. They coveted the wealth and civilization that resided as a bulwark against the Muslim, and the steppe barbarians.