The age of the crusades

by James M. Ludlow

THE FOURTH CRUSADE.

CHAPTER XXXII.
HISTORY AND CONDITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

In the year 395 the Roman world was divided into the empires of the East and the West, and Constantinople became the rival capital of that on the Tiber. Eighty-one years later (476) Odoacer, the barbarian, sacked Rome and brought to an end the Western Empire, from which time Constantinople claimed the sole heirship to the power of the Cæsars. In 800 Charlemagne reëstablished the imperial power in western Europe, but within fifty years it again fell to pieces in the hands of his less puissant sons. The Greek emperors and people assumed the title of Romans. Their capital was called New Rome.

There had occurred a similar breach between the Roman and Greek churches. A doctrinal divergence had assumed irreconcilable proportions in the sixth century. The controversy centred chiefly in the question of whether the Holy Spirit proceeded equally from the Father and the Son, or solely from the Father; the Roman Church maintaining the former dogma, as expressed by the addition of the word “Filioque” to the Nicene Creed, the Greek Church repudiating it. Many minor differences of doctrine and discipline were also generated. Ecclesiastical separation followed. After generations of wrangling, the Pope’s legates shook the dust from their feet and departed from Constantinople, leaving on the altar of St. Sophia a writ of excommunication and anathema. Thus the last tie between the two peoples was sundered.

From 867 to 1057 the Basilian dynasty steadily compacted the power, developed the governmental system, augmented the wealth, and extended the area of the Greek empire. From 1057, however, under the dynasty of the Comneni, Greek prestige has steadily declined. The strength of its dominion had been largely due to the preservation of a municipal and provincial spirit, a virtual independence of its various communities, each seeking its own welfare, while all maintained their loyalty to the central authority. Under the later Basilians ambitious emperors adopted the policy of absorbing all the local rights into their personal control. The Comneni continued this fatal policy, but their hands were not strong enough to retain what they had grasped. The occupants of the Greek throne were weak men. The names of Isaac, Michael, Nicephorus, and Alexius are those of pygmies compared with the German emperors and the popes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Indeed, in the East the art of statesmanship had been lost. The rulers of Constantinople were intriguers, not diplomats. With them dissimulation took the place of caution, trickery that of courage, and prosperity was measured only by the number and value of the royal perquisites. The Oriental practice of farming the revenue was the easiest method of obtaining income. He was regarded as the wisest administrator who squeezed the largest amount from the unwilling people. Officers were commissioned without salary or even provision for their expenses, it being expected that they would first of all feather their own nests. Even an emperor is accused of fitting out vessels for piracy upon his own seas.

The personal character of the later Greek monarchs was equally despicable with their system of government. Alexius Comnenus spent his time in play. Andronicus was chiefly renowned for the magnificence of his horse-shows, attendance at which was varied by drunken debauches and acts of cowardly cruelty. Isaac was noted for the wasteful extravagance of his table, the frequent changes of his apparel, and the peacock magnificence of his public appearances. It is said that madmen were held in honor as being under the special direction of Heaven, and it would seem from their conduct that the emperors were ambitious to secure this sole mark of the divine favor.

Such rulers, having lost the respect, could not hold the loyalty of their subjects. The people no longer responded to the calls of the throne for aid in the war-fields. Indeed, the independent peasant class, having been reduced to virtual slavery, were more ready to admit a change of rulers than to risk their lives for the support of such as they had. The emperors were thus compelled to surround themselves with mercenaries whom they hired in foreign countries. Slavonians, Italians, Warings (Saxons who were crowded out of England by the recent Norman conquest), filled the armies and oppressed the citizens. The Greek navy was composed chiefly of Venetian bottoms, and manned by water-dogs from every seaport in Europe. To these elements of decrepitude we must add the ceaseless strife for occupancy of the imperial throne. During the quarter-century ending with 1200 there were more claimants than there were years.

This internal weakness of the Byzantine or Greek empire left it largely the prey of enemies from without. Ever since their first irruption from their original home in central Asia the Turks had menaced the imperial provinces. They succeeded in wresting vast lands, and in either driving out their Christian inhabitants or making them tributary to the cause of Islam. Asia Minor was lost to the Greek, and the Moslem negotiated with his foe from the banks of the Bosporus. During the twelfth century scarcely a year passed which did not witness some battle between the Byzantines and the Turks. Defeated by the crusaders, these quick-moving hordes of the East found redress in ravaging some part of the empire. When victorious in Syria they echoed their joy in new battle-shouts in the direction of the Greek capital. Their swords dripped blood on the shores of the Marmora and the Black Sea almost as frequently as on the fields of Syria. In 1185 the emperor was compelled to purchase immunity from attack by paying tribute to the Sultan of Iconium, and even to call in the assistance of Saladin to secure him from the aggressions of other Moslem hordes.

The Huns also assailed the Byzantine power. In 1184 Maria, dowager empress at Constantinople, was put to death for having engaged these ruthless people, under their king, Bela, to invade the empire. Bulgarians, Patchinaks, Turkomans, Wallachs, and Servians raided in turn the Balkan peninsula.

The crusaders also, with their enormous armies and the pilgrim hordes that followed them, made the Greek lines their camping-ground, their forage-fields, and their battle-sites, until Constantinople dreaded these fellow-Christians as much as it feared the Infidels. Richard of England took Cyprus from the Greeks and ultimately gave it to the Templars. Henry VI. of Germany forced from the emperor five thousand pounds of gold, as the price of the immunity of his lands from the ravages of Western armies. The imperial treasury was so depleted that the churches of Constantinople were rifled to raise what was thus called the “German tax.”

Beyond the actual aggressions of the Latin Christians upon their Greek brethren there was developed a deeper menace in the hatred which had sprung up between the two peoples. Throughout Europe the eagerness to exterminate the Moslems was almost matched by a purpose to subjugate the Greek power. For this antipathy there were other and special occasions, some of which we will narrate.

The Normans, who, under Robert Guiscard, had in 1062 conquered Sicily, were the inveterate foes of Constantinople. Robert and his son, Bohemond, invaded Epirus and Thessaly. In 1107 Bohemond repeated the attempt to capture the western borders of the empire. In 1130 Roger of Sicily made alliance with the German emperor for the same purpose. William, son of Roger, in 1156 pillaged Corfu, Corinth, and some of the Ægean Islands, and sent a fleet to parade his insults in the Bosporus and Golden Horn, where his sailors shot gilded arrows against the very palace walls.

About 1180 the Emperor Andronicus cruelly massacred the Latins in Constantinople, dragging the sick from their beds in the hospital of St. John, and decapitating the papal envoy, Cardinal John, whose head was tied to a dog’s tail and dragged about the streets. William II. of Sicily appointed a certain Tancred, his agent, to avenge these atrocities. Tancred sacked Salonica and ravaged Macedonia and Thrace. In 1194 Henry, King of Sicily, claimed all these lands and held Irene, daughter of the Emperor Isaac, as hostage. Thus the Sicilians were always ready to leap at the throat of the Greek empire in sheer vengeance, if not with thirst for the blood of spoil.

Another menace to the Eastern Empire was from the Italians, who were represented by large colonies throughout the imperial territories, and even in the capital itself, where they enjoyed for a time exceptional privileges, such as being directly governed by their own ambassadors, having favored rates of tariff on their commerce, often amounting to free trade, and at times receiving high appointments in the service of the empire. Yet these prosperous conditions were frequently interrupted by quarrels with the Greeks, reaching on occasions to civil war within the walls of the capital. Pisan and Genoese pirates ravaged the Ægean, and even blockaded the Dardanelles against the passage of Greek ships. In 1198 these freebooters defeated the imperial navy.

Venice, however, was the most formidable of these rivals for power within the empire, as she had been at times the most favored nation. In 1171 the Venetians attacked Dalmatia and pillaged the Ægean, until they were forced by herculean efforts of the Greek government to sue for peace. Henry Dandolo conducted the mission for treaty, and during his stay in Constantinople became blind. It is asserted by the Venetians that his affliction was due to torture perpetrated upon him by command of the emperor. It was a common practice of the Greeks to destroy the sight of those they would render impotent to do them harm. This ancient punishment was called abacination; the process was that of forcing the victim to gaze into a basin of highly polished metal, which by its shape concentrated the rays of sunlight and constituted a burning-mirror. Whether this is the true explanation of his blindness or not, it is certain that Dandolo ever after displayed an absorbing passion to wreak vengeance upon the Greek power, and we shall find him foremost among its foes in the fatal expedition called the fourth crusade.

But, aside from these inducements, the wealth of the city offered to the covetous a prize second to none in the world. The situation of Constantinople on the narrow highway of the Bosporus or Strait of St. George, which connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean, made it mistress of the maritime commerce between Europe and Asia. Neighboring countries contributed by their very geographical relation to the power on the Bosporus. The Balkan peninsula, terminating in the classic land of Greece, and fringed with the islands of the Ægean and the Adriatic; the eastern provinces of Europe, drained by the Danube, whose mouth was hard by; Russia from the Siberian snows to the temperate climate of the Euxine; Asia Minor, the seat of ancient civilization in the middle Orient, even to the entrance of Persia; the Holy Land, and the fertile valley of the Nile—each of these, in extent and population enough for an empire, and all of them lying in easy accessibility, fitted Constantinople to be the natural capital of the greatest power in the world.

Its immediate site, too, was inviting. Enthroned upon magnificent hills, with the harbor of the Golden Horn as a safe refuge for its fleets, and a salubrious climate assured by the perpetual breeze from either of the great seas which lay at its feet, it was the especial abode of comfort and splendor. In its stately palaces, churches, and public squares was preserved the best art inherited from the ancient world, for which the temples of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and the isles of the Mediterranean had been rifled. Its merchants lived with the splendor of princes, dwelling in palatial homes, adorning themselves with most costly robes and rarest gems, and clothing even their horses with gold. To outrank their subjects in splendor, princes lived in houses whose columns and walls were sheathed in golden plates. The palaces of Blachern and Bucolion were furnished with incredible treasures.

The Church of St. Sophia, says Benjamin of Tudela (1161), was richer than “all other places of worship in the world.” To its magnificence Ephesus had contributed eight pillars from the temple of Diana; Aurelian’s Roman temple of the sun, eight columns of porphyry; the temples of the Nile, twenty-four columns of polished granite. Its vestries contained “forty-two thousand robes embroidered with pearls and precious stones.” But St. Sophia was only one of many churches whose golden domes flashed over the Bosporus. Other structures vied with the temples. The hippodrome was nine hundred feet long, lined with tiers of white marble seats, from which the spectators, in the intervals of the races, admired the four horses in bronze which now surmount the entrance of St. Mark’s in Venice. Columns, statues, baths innumerable, feasted the eyes or invited the indulgence of the citizens.

Even more tempting to the covetous piety of the western Europeans were the stores of sacred relics possessed by the churches and monasteries. It was believed that more than half the objects of veneration associated with dead saints throughout the world were in case or crypt within Constantinople; and the common faith attributed to the army of saints thus honored, and whose ghosts were presumably guarding their bones, the preservation of the city during so many generations. Most of these relics had been purchased at or stolen from their original resting-places in different parts of the East; but many undoubtedly were manufactured to gratify the credulity of the foreigners who thronged the bazaars.

To the treasures of the capital itself must be added the wealth of the territory subject to it. Western Europe, as we have seen, had been impoverished by generations of feudal control; district had warred upon district until the spoil was insufficient to evoke further forays. In marked contrast, the Greek lands had been measurably protected by having a central government. The ground was well tilled; many handicrafts were developed. Instead of feudal towers, shadowing the lower classes with desolation, were well-filled granaries and storehouses of goods. Fair roads invited intercourse of adjacent communities; and at a time when robbers infested the suburbs of every town, and lay in wait in every forest of Europe, the shores of the Bosporus and the eastern end of the Marmora were enlivened with cosey cottages and pleasant villas. The Westerner cast envious glances about him whenever he passed the beautiful city on the strait, and the early crusaders paused to wonder if it would not pay them as well to extirpate the Greek heresies as to slaughter the Moslems. This inquiry was keener from the fact that on every side, as has been narrated, they saw evidences of weakness. While amazed at the prosperity, they thought of the opportunities offered to the sword.

The most envious eyes turned upon the Greek lands were those of the blind old Dandolo. This remarkable man had become doge of Venice in 1192, at the age of seventy-two (some say eighty-two), and was to close his octogenarian period with a series of exploits which might have been the envy of the most daring and ambitious youth. To understand the final diversion of the fourth crusade from its original religious purpose, we must not lose sight of Dandolo’s sleepless purpose. This was not recognized at the time, but is abundantly illustrated by the subsequent events of the crusade, and confirmed by documents which have but recently come to light.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SUMMONS TO THE FOURTH CRUSADE—CONTRACT WITH VENICE—EGYPT THE DESTINATION—PHILIP OF SWABIA.

In the year 1198 there came to the papal throne Innocent III., one of the most astute, tireless, and ambitious of the pontiffs, and, to those who accept the righteousness of the hierarchical supremacy over the world, one of the best. The failure of recent enterprises in Palestine afflicted Innocent’s soul. He announced to the titular Patriarch of Jerusalem his purpose of massing Europe in another endeavor. His summons sounded over Christendom: “Arise, ye faithful; arise, gird on the sword and buckler; arise and hasten to the help of Jesus Christ. He Himself will lead your banner to victory.” The Pope sent his prelates everywhere to bid princes cease their mutual quarrels and unite in the common cause. To all who obeyed he gave the usual promise, in the name of God, of remission of sins. He especially entreated sinners to mark with the badge of the cross their moral reformation, and the saintly disposed to thus add new adornment to their crown of glory. His own earnestness was illustrated by his melting the gold and silver dishes in his palace into marketable metal, and replacing them with vessels of clay or wood. Foreseeing a lack of money for the holy emprise, he bade Christian people borrow from the Jews, who should be compelled to lend without interest. If such help of the Lord did not procure any positive blessing to this accursed people, it would at least prevent the penalty of the total destruction of their business, which was threatened in case of their not complying. Even the hated Greeks were to be allowed some part in this holy warfare. In his appeals to the Emperor Alexius the Pope predicts, “The pagans will flee before you;” and promises, “You yourself will share with the others in the pontifical favors.” Lest the heretical emperor should not feel the need of such patronage, Innocent reminds him that God had said to the Roman pontiff what He had said of old to Jeremiah: “I have placed thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, to waste, and to destroy, to build, and to plant.” He further compares himself to the sun, and secular princes to the moon, which shines in borrowed light. The emperor in reply, with perhaps a premonition of what was about to transpire, reminded the Pope of the ravages which Western crusaders were accustomed to inflict upon his realm, and begged him to first rebuke the crimes which these zealots for God were disposed to perpetrate against their fellow-men.

At this time a French priest, Fulque, was filling the land with his fame for eloquence. Crowds thronged to his services in the churches and fields. He denounced sin with the power of an Elijah, and comforted the penitent with the sweetness of a St. John. He adapted himself marvellously to all men, leading the lordly profligate to repent at the incensed altar, and making the boorish peasants kiss the stick with which he beat them to be quiet as they crowded about him in the fields. Pope Innocent enlarged this zealot’s commission to be that of another Peter the Hermit, or Bernard, in preaching the crusade.

Among Fulque’s first converts was Count Theobald of Champagne, to whom over two thousand knights did homage as his vassals. He was chosen to command the French contingent. Louis of Chartres and Blois followed, and soon a host was enrolled representing the nobility and wealth of France. Among these was Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne, to whom we are largely indebted as the historian of the events we are about to narrate. Germany also answered the call. But for the death of Richard of England (April, 1199), this hero would doubtless have been chosen to lead the combined host with an English army. The Venetians do not seem to have volunteered any help; perhaps it was not anticipated. The Pope, in his call for the crusade, had expressly forbidden Venice to furnish the Saracens with iron, ropes, wood, arms, ships, or munitions of war; for in the previous holy adventures they had not regarded trade with the Infidels as infringing upon their Christian duty.

The military leaders already chosen were averse to another overland march to the East, since every interjacent country was marked with the disasters of previous armies; they therefore decided to go by sea. The commissioners having charge of the expedition therefore sent messengers to Venice, as the chief maritime power in the West, to negotiate with Dandolo for transportation of men and furnishing of provisions. After a week’s deliberation the Council of Venice made answer. Dandolo proposed, the people approving, that the republic should provide the required vessels and a definite amount of food, and also an independent fleet, which Dandolo said he would send “for the love of God.” He, however, required in payment for such equipment and service eighty-five thousand silver marks, and that half the cities and lands conquered should fall to the Venetian possession. This was eagerly agreed to by the commissioners.

A general assembly was convoked in St. Mark’s in Venice (April, 1201). Mass was celebrated to secure Heaven’s blessing upon the compact. Villehardouin thus addressed the people: “The lords and barons of France, the most high and the most powerful, have sent us to you to pray you in the name of God to take pity on Jerusalem, which the Turks hold in bondage. They cry to you for mercy and supplicate you to accompany them to avenge the disgrace of Jesus Christ. They have made choice of you because they know that no people that be upon the sea have such powers as your nation. They have commanded us to throw ourselves at your feet and not to rise until you shall have granted our prayer.” The commissioners fell upon their knees and raised their hands in supplication to the people. The crowd caught the enthusiasm and cried, “We grant your request.” Dandolo himself overflowed with pious, not to say politic, emotion. This spectacle of fraternal union in the cause of Christ drew from all eyes “tears of tenderness and joy.” The Pope, to whom the compact was submitted, ratified it with the strict condition that under no circumstances should an attack be made upon any Christian state.

It was deemed best to land the crusading armies at Alexandria in Egypt; the voyage thither would be unmolested. Besides, a series of events had taken place in Egypt which led many to see the hand of Providence pointing to that country. In 1200 the Nile had for some mysterious cause failed to give its annual inundation; harvests had failed; famine afflicted the inhabitants, who were reduced to feeding upon grass, the dung of animals, and even the carcasses of their fellow-victims. At Cairo women, in the insanity of starvation, had killed and eaten their own children. To famine succeeded plague; one hundred and eleven thousand died of it at Cairo. The unburied lay everywhere; a fisherman counted four hundred corpses that floated by him during a single day. The wrappings of dead bodies were as numerous on the waters of the Nile as lotus flowers in their season. In the language of an Arabian, “The most populous provinces were as a banqueting-hall for the birds of prey.” The Roman pontiff urged Europe to take the opportunity of these terrible visitations to break the treaties between Christians and Moslems and occupy the land of the Delta. To this advice the military leaders added the less inhuman consideration that Alexandria would afford a ready entrepôt for supplies from the West, and a convenient point from which to strike the enemy; at the same time it would enable the crusaders to sever the Eastern Infidels from their Saracen coreligionists along the North African coast. Egypt was thus chosen as the immediate destination of the crusade.

Shortly after the ratification of the Venetian compact with the crusaders, Theobald of Champagne, the chosen commander, died. Boniface of Montferrat was chosen in his stead. The first movement of Boniface is suggestive in view of the sequel. He spent several months at the court of Philip of Swabia, the rival of Otho for the German throne. Philip had married the daughter of Isaac Angelus, a deposed emperor of Constantinople, who had been blinded by his successor and was now a captive. A son of Isaac, “young Alexius,” as he was called, to distinguish him from the reigning monarch of the same name, a lad of twelve years, was led about by the Emperor Alexius to grace his triumph. Young Alexius eluded the vigilance of his keepers and, disguised as a common sailor, or, as some say, in a box as freight, made his way to Italy and eventually to the court of his brother-in-law, Philip of Swabia. Philip was undoubtedly pledged by his own interests, as well as by vengeance on behalf of his kinsman, to forward the project of young Alexius for the restoration of Isaac to the throne of Constantinople. Boniface, the commander of the crusaders, was a relative of Philip. He had also family alliances with the throne of Constantinople. One of his brothers, Conrad, had married Theodora, a sister of Isaac; another, Reynier, had married Maria, a daughter of the Emperor Manuel. As the heir of this latter brother, Boniface regarded himself as de jure King of Salonica. That he was not averse to the project of Philip and young Alexius is proved by the fact that on leaving Philip he went to Rome and endeavored to induce the Pope to declare himself in favor of young Alexius as a contestant for the throne of Constantinople against the reigning monarch. It is well to keep these facts in mind if one would understand the depth of the plot which subsequent events exposed.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE PLOT FOR THE DIVERSION OF THE CRUSADE—CAPTURE OF ZARA.

The grand departure of the crusaders from Venice had been fixed for June, 1202. At that time but a part of the leaders appeared. Some had taken ship from Bari, Genoa, and even the ports on the Northern Ocean, as served their convenience or as they were able to make better terms than with the Venetians. Of four thousand expected knights, but one thousand had arrived; of one hundred thousand men, less than sixty thousand; of the eighty-five thousand marks pledged for passage, but thirty-four thousand were in hand. Dandolo protested against this as breach of faith with him, and pointed to his fleet, waiting, manned and provisioned, in the harbor. He demanded the immediate payment of the entire sum. In vain had the crusaders sent what they could to the ducal palace—money, vessels of silver and gold, jewels, and securities on their lands. The doge declared, according to Robert de Clari, who was in this army, “If you do not pay, understand well that you will not move from this spot, nor will you find any one who will furnish you with meat and drink.” The crusading army thus found itself a crowd of starving prisoners on a fever-fraught island near Venice. In the heat of the summer many sickened and died; others managed to escape. Those who remained communicated with friends in France and induced a few more knights and nobles to join them. But with this assistance, and though the richest of them had stripped themselves of possessions until nothing but horses and armor were left, the debt was unpaid.

Having gotten from them all that was possible, Dandolo assumed the rôle of friendship and proposed to forgive the remainder of their obligation upon condition of first receiving their help as soldiers in an expedition against Zara, which he had in contemplation. The city of Zara was Christian, the capital of Dalmatia, a province of Hungary, and just across the Adriatic from Venice. It was rapidly rising into the position of a competitor for the commerce of those waters, and thus excited the greed of the doge.

But a richer prize than Zara was before the ambition of the Venetian ruler. From the beginning of his negotiations with the crusaders he doubtless contemplated the diversion of these forces, though collected in the name of religion, to the conquest of the Greek empire. Documents that have recently come to light make it clear that Dandolo had no purpose of assisting in war against Egypt and Palestine, but, in collusion with Boniface and Philip of Swabia, planned and executed one of the most marvellous schemes of perfidy that history portrays.

As the basis of this severe judgment we must be content to give the dates of certain events.

February 1, 1201, commissioners of the crusaders arrive in Venice, asking Dandolo’s assistance with the fleet.

Autumn, 1201, Dandolo sends agents to Malek-Ahdel, of Egypt, proposing a settled peace with him.

May 13, 1202, Dandolo concludes secret treaty with Malek-Ahdel, in accordance with which the Venetians are to have favored quarters in Alexandria for trade, and all pilgrims to Jerusalem who come under Venetian patronage are to be forwarded with safety.

June 24, 1202, crusaders arrive in Venice, and Dandolo refuses to provide them ships.

July, 1202, treaty between Dandolo and Malek-Ahdel formally ratified.

With these layers of the foundation we may understand the superstructure of after events. The proposal to attack Zara thus appears as the first movement in realizing the plot to divert the Christian forces from Egypt. Vainly did the noblest of the crusaders protest against this sacrilegious use of arms which had been consecrated only to the service of the cross. In vain did Pope Innocent denounce it with his divine authority. Dandolo relentlessly pursued his advantage, and with such consummate tact that the cardinal legate of the Pope, Peter Capuano, expressed himself convinced that it would be less of a sin to take part in the capture of Zara, and then pursue the original object of the crusade, than to return home having done nothing. Dandolo completed the delusion he was practising upon the people by allowing himself to be led up the pulpit of St. Mark’s (August 25th), where he thus addressed the Venetians: “I am old and infirm; as you see, I have need of rest; yet I know of no one more capable of taking command of your undertaking than myself. If you desire it, I will myself take the cross and go with you and the pilgrims for life and death.” The assembly cried, “Come with us for God’s sake!” Dandolo was then led to the altar, and, while his agents were signing the compact with the Infidel, knelt amid the tears and huzzas of his people to have the cross fastened upon his ducal bonnet. The papal legate indeed protested against any one posing as the head of the armies summoned by the Pope who did not acknowledge the pontiff’s leadership through his representative, but Dandolo read him a lesson on the duty of ecclesiastics to content themselves with preaching the gospel and setting a godly example to the flock.

Villehardouin narrates at this point “a great wonder, an unhoped-for circumstance, the strangest that ever was heard of.” This event was the arrival in Venice of the ambassadors of young Alexius, asking in the name of justice and humanity the aid of the Venetians in the liberation of his father and the restoration of his own princely rights at Constantinople. It is evident that Villehardouin’s surprise was not shared by either Dandolo or Boniface of Montferrat.

October 8th the fleet sailed from the lagoons. It consisted of four hundred and eighty ships. It was a gala-day: palaces and storehouses were covered with brilliant banners and streamers; the guilds rivalled one another in the gorgeousness of their flags, floats, and various insignia. The ships were arrayed in responsive glory as one by one they glided out to sea. About the bulwarks of each vessel were hung the polished shields of the knights it carried. The doge’s galley was vermilion-hued, the color of royalty. The sound of silver trumpets echoed the lapping of the waves as the fleet moved out upon the Adriatic, while the ancient hymn, “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” was chanted by priests and monks from the crosstrees of the ships.

Pausing at Trieste, the fleet on November 11th entered and captured the harbor of Zara. The citizens at first proposed to surrender if their lives should be spared; but later, learning of the Pope’s mandate forbidding the crusaders to attack their fellow-Christians, and assuming that it would suffice for their protection, they withdrew the offer. Dandolo ordered an assault. Many of the crusaders refused to obey his order. At a council in the tent of the doge, the Abbot of Vaux exclaimed, “I forbid you, in the name of the Pope, to attack this city. It is a city of Christian men, and you are soldiers of the cross.” This bold speech nearly cost him his life. Dandolo braved the threat of excommunication and assailed the walls. In five days (November 24, 1202) Zara fell. The people were pillaged, many were banished, some beheaded, and others mercifully allowed to flee, leaving their houses and goods to the captors. Dandolo proposed to divide the city as common spoil and to enjoy its comforts for the winter. His purpose was too evident; it was to take time to effectually establish the Venetian control on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.

The crusaders were made aware that they had been used as cat’s-paws for the doge’s chestnuts. To disappointment succeeded remorse. They began to meditate upon the papal excommunication they had so foolishly provoked. The Venetians, meanwhile, managed to get the larger part of the spoil, and the soldiers were often suffering while their allies were feasting. This led to continual fighting in the streets, where more fell than had been slain during the siege. The more valiant longed for service against the Infidel, not against Christians; the commoner souls longed for home. Desertions took place in bands of hundreds and even thousands. The French leaders humbly petitioned the Pope’s forgiveness. It was granted on condition of their setting out for Syria, “without turning to the right or left.” The Holy Father pledged them his care if they immediately obeyed, and promised, “In order that you may not want for provisions, we will write to the Emperor of Constantinople to furnish them; if that be refused it will not be unjust if, after the example of many holy persons, you take provisions wherever you may find them.” This permission to pillage the Pope extenuates by adding, “Provided it be with the fear of God, without doing harm to any person, and with a resolution to make restitution.” At the same time he argues for the righteousness of taking other’s goods without their permission: “For it will be known that you are devoted to the cause of Christ, to whom all the world belongs.”

This papal intervention jeopardized the schemes of the Venetians; but, very opportunely for those opposed to the Pope’s counsel, there arrived at Zara ambassadors from Philip of Swabia, the brother-in-law of young Alexius. In their address they said: “We do not come for the purpose of turning you aside from your holy enterprise, but to offer you an easy and sure means of accomplishing your noble designs.... We propose to you to turn your victorious arms towards the capital of Greece, which groans under the rod of a usurper, and to assure yourselves forever of the conquest of Jerusalem by that of Constantinople.... We will not tell you how easy a matter it would be to wrest the empire from the hands of a tyrant hated by his subjects; nor will we spread before your eyes the riches of Byzantium and Greece.... If you overturn the power of the usurper in order that the legitimate sovereign may reign, the son of Isaac [young Alexius] promises, under the faith of oaths the most inviolable, to maintain during a year both your fleet and your army, and to pay you two hundred thousand silver marks towards the expenses of the holy war. He will accompany you in person in the conquest of Syria or Egypt, and will furnish ten thousand men, and maintain during his whole life five hundred knights in the Holy Land.” Then followed a clause which was supposed to catch the consciences of the most pious: “Alexius is willing to swear on the holy Gospels that he will put an end to the heresy which now defiles the Empire of the East, and will subject the Greek Church to the Church of Rome.”

The proposal did not carry to all conviction of its wisdom and justice. The Franks had reason to suspect the good faith of the Greeks. Blind Isaac, whom they were called upon to restore to his throne, had been himself a usurper, as unjust to his predecessor as his successor had been to him, and, moreover, had done everything in his power to defeat the previous crusades. But the Venetian influence prevailed.

CHAPTER XXXV.
ON TO CONSTANTINOPLE—CAPTURE OF GALATA.

The Venetians and crusaders left Zara in ruins, its palaces and walls razed to the ground. They sailed for Corfu. Dandolo and Boniface waited five days until they were joined by young Alexius. These chiefs paused at Durazzo, where the inhabitants were led to recognize Alexius as the lawful heir to the sovereignty, and on May 4, 1203, they joined the army before Corfu.

Here there was developed great dissatisfaction among the soldiers as the full meaning of the diversion of the crusade burst upon them. More than half the army rose in rebellion; they held their parliament of protest; the leaders were gathered in a secluded valley preparatory to desertion. It seemed for the moment that conscience and piety, fanned by resentment, would triumph over chicanery and deceit; but Dandolo and Boniface were equal to the situation. They threw themselves at the feet of the malcontents, shed abundance of tears, and so wrought upon the sympathies of the multitude that they effected a compromise, by which it was agreed that the army should hold together until Michaelmas and serve Alexius’s project, and after that should be carried to Syria.

Dandolo realized that there was no security for his schemes with such a host, except by their quick accomplishment. May 23d the harbor of Corfu witnessed a repetition of the gala-scene when the fleet left Venice. Far as the eye could reach the sea was colored with the sails of the invaders of a Christian empire in the name of Christ. The inhabitants of the islands touched by the voyagers, impressed with the martial might thus displayed, threw off their allegiance to the reigning Alexius and waved their banners for Alexius the Young. The natural beauties of the Ægean, the riches of the islands, the acquiescence of the people, and the abundant gifts from fields and vineyards that loaded the vessels filled all hearts with enthusiasm. By the shores of ancient Troy, up through the Dardanelles, where they lingered a week to ravage the harvest, and then over the wide Marmora they sped onward as if the very breezes articulated benedictions from Heaven. If conscience intruded, its mutterings were silenced with the thought, “After this, after Constantinople, when we shall have been sated with the spoil of the heretic, then for Jerusalem!” This mingled greed and piety burst into huzzas as they sailed by the beautiful villas which lined the western shores of the Marmora or watched the steadily enlarging roofs and gardens of Chalcedon and Scutari on the Asiatic side, until the domes and palaces of Constantinople, in multitude and massiveness beyond anything seen elsewhere in Europe, seemed to rise and welcome them.

But the mighty walls, which appeared to have been erected by Titans and rivalled the hills upon which the city sat, awakened a corresponding fear lest the glory they witnessed should prove beyond their possession. “Be sure,” says Villehardouin, “there was not a man who did not tremble, because never was so great an enterprise undertaken by so small a number of men.”

June 23d the fleet came to anchor off the Abbey of San Stefano, twelve miles below the city. Dandolo determined upon a reconnaissance in force which should also strike terror into the Greeks by its magnificent display. All the standards were spread to the breeze. The sides of the ships were sheathed in glowing shields. The warriors of the West stood on the deck, each one, says Nicetas, the Greek eye-witness, “as tall as his spear.” Thus they glided close under the walls of the city, upon which the inhabitants crowded to witness this picturesque prediction of their doom.

Having made a sufficiently valiant show, the fleet crossed the Bosporus and anchored in the harbor of Chalcedon. Here the army captured the harvests just gathered from the neighboring country, and pillaged Chalcedon, while the leaders occupied the palaces and gardens, upon which the emperor had just expended great wealth in making them the abode of his pleasure. The reigning Alexius deigned to send to his unwelcome guests a body of troopers, who were driven off with severe chastisement for their temerity. He then addressed them through Nicholas Roux, a Lombard retainer: “The emperor knows that you are the most puissant and noble of all those who do not wear the crown; but he is astonished at your invasion of a Christian state. It is said that you have come to deliver the Holy Land from the Infidel. The emperor applauds your zeal and begs to assist you. If you are needy he will provision your army if you will be gone. Do not think this generous offer prompted by any fear; with one word the emperor could gather about him innumerable hosts, disperse your fleet and armies, and forever close against you the routes to the East.”

Conan de Bethune made response for the Latins: “Go tell your master that the earth we tread upon does not belong to him, but is the heritage of the prince you see seated among us,” pointing to young Alexius. “A usurper is the enemy of all princes; a tyrant is the foe of mankind. Your master can escape the justice of God and men only by restoring his brother and nephew to the throne.”

Dandolo then tried the spirit of the people of Constantinople. A splendid galley bearing young Alexius moved close along the walls of the city. Boniface and the doge supported the prince on their arms, while a herald proclaimed, “Behold the heir of your throne!” This met with no response save the derisive shout, “Who is this Alexius?” But the defiance hurled by the Greeks from the safety of their walls was not the voice of universal courage. Nicetas tells us that “the Greek commanders were more timid than deer, and did not dare to resist men whom they called ‘exterminating angels, statues of bronze, which spread around terror and death.’”

The next day at Scutari the leaders, according to their custom, held council of war in the saddle in the presence of their waiting troops. An instant assault was determined upon. After due religious solemnities they embarked. The war-horses, heavily caparisoned for battle, with their knights in armor at their sides, were put upon huissiers, or flat-bottomed boats constructed with wide gangways across which a number could quickly dash from ship to shore. The rank and file were packed into larger vessels. The fighting galleys were trimmed for action, and each took in tow a huissier. Much depended upon the celerity of the crossing and the surprise of the Greeks, since the swift current of the Bosporus might quickly ingulf them in the terrible Greek fire if the combustible material should be spread upon the water. At sound of trumpet the Venetian rowers sprang to the oars; the narrow Bosporus suddenly foamed with the impact of hundreds of prows. No order was observed, except that the crossbowmen and archers led the van to drive the enemy from the landing-places. The ships struck the shore probably near the modern Tophana, north of the Golden Horn. The Greek soldiers could not withstand the showers of arrows that swept the open places, and precipitately fled. The knights leaped their horses into the water and prevented the enemy’s return to attack. Within an hour the open camp of the Greeks was in possession of the Latins. The harbor of the Golden Horn had been closed with a chain, behind which the Greek fleet lay in apparent immunity from attack by the Venetian galleys. The northern end of this chain was fastened within the strong tower of Galata. That fortress was quickly carried and the chain released, but not until the Venetian ship, the Eagle, with its tremendous ram armed with enormous shears of steel, had already severed it midway. The Latin galleys swept in, sinking or capturing the entire Greek fleet.

The marine defence of Constantinople, which might with ordinary foresight have been made resistless, was inconsiderable. The demoralization of the Greek service was pitiable. Admirals had sold the very sails for their own private gain. Useless masts had not been replaced, though the near forests abounded in timber; for the trees, as Nicetas tells us, were guarded by the eunuchs like groves of worship, but really as hunting-preserves for the pleasure of the court.

The victory of the Latin fleet left Galata their easy prey, and gave them a near basis from which to conduct operations against the city across the Golden Horn.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
CONSTANTINOPLE SECURED TO ISAAC AND YOUNG ALEXIUS—USURPATION OF MOURTZOUPHLOS.

Four days were spent in bringing over from the Asiatic side the provisions. Dandolo proposed to transport all the soldiers with his fleet and assault the water wall of the city, where, presuming upon the defence of their ships, the Greeks had left the fortifications weakest. But the crusaders, accustomed only to land operations, were averse to this plan and marched around the end of the Golden Horn. The fleet met them opposite the palace of Blachern, which occupied the corner of the northwestern wall and thus faced both land and sea. Though the walls extended for seven miles, this spot was regarded as the strongest of all. A wide moat was backed by three enormous lines of masonry, to capture one of which was only to lodge beneath the terrible menace of the others. Immense towers were so close together that to pass between them would be to challenge burial beneath the missiles which could readily be dropped from almost above their heads. Here twice within the preceding half-century the Greeks had discomfited the Arab hosts. At this point the Turks, under Mohammed II., were, two hundred and fifty years later, to make their victorious assault. The Greeks within the city were assisted by armies without, which, under Theodore Lascaris, the hero of the day on the part of the besieged, assailed the camps of the crusaders.

July 17th witnessed the grand assault. Boniface and Baldwin were in command. The battering-rams delivered their blows until one tower fell. Platform-ladders were quickly reared; fifteen Flemings secured a footing on the outer wall, but were slain or captured by men of their own blood, the hired Waring guard. The Venetians’ attack was more successful; their ships were covered with rawhides to protect them from the Greek fire, which flashed like liquid lightning from the walls above and spread in sheets of flame over the water. Bridges had been arranged from the crosstrees, which, as the vessels were anchored close to the shore, reached to the top of the walls. Every huissier carried a mangonel, which returned the stones hurled by the besieged.

The battle being contested thus far with equal skill, Dandolo gave orders to land; he himself set the example. Old and blind, he was carried in the arms of his attendants, and, with the banner of St. Mark floating above him, placed upon the shore. His heroism inspired his men. While the fight raged above their heads, on the bridges that ran from the rigging to the walls, the host below erected their scaling-ladders and emerged upon the parapets. Soon the gonfalon of St. Mark floated from a captured tower. Twenty-five more of these strongholds were quickly taken. The Venetians poured down through the streets of the city. Setting fire to the buildings, their progress was led by a vanguard of flame.

In this terrible emergency the emperor was caught by a momentary impulse of valor, and, putting himself at the head of sixty battalions, sallied from the city to strike the crusaders. The multitude of his men, their splendid accoutrements, and their unanticipated appearance led the crusaders to leave their assault upon the ramparts and range for defence behind their palisades. A more serious consequence of this valiant counter-attack was that it forced Dandolo to leave what he had already conquered and hasten to the assistance of his allies. But the Greeks had exhausted their fury in its first outburst, and made no further onset, contenting themselves with showering arrows from safe distance. Theodore Lascaris, the son-in-law of the emperor, in vain asked the imperial permission to assail the crusaders’ intrenchments. Alexius III. was content with the martial glory of having paraded before his foe; his troops, carrying the eagles of ancient Rome, as if the more to emphasize their shame, retreated without having struck a blow with the naked sword.

The next morning (July 18, 1203) the city was filled with a deeper sense of disgrace as the people learned that the emperor himself had stolen away during the night, taking with him a bag of gold and jewels, leaving his empire to him who could hold it, and his wife amid the spoil. Alexius III. was a despicable character, as cowardly as he was cruel, crafty, but without will power to sustain his own designs when they exacted much energy. His natural weaknesses had been increased by the habits of a voluptuary and drunkard until he had become but a crowned imbecile.

Realizing the condition of affairs, the troops, led by Constantine, the minister of finance, raised the cry for the deposed Isaac. The courtiers ran to his prison in the vaults of the Blachern, broke off his chains, and led the old and blinded man out, as he, having become hopeless of relief, believed, to execution, but, to his grateful surprise, to be seated again upon his throne. The wife of Isaac was sought out in an obscure quarter of the city, where she was living, grateful for even life; while the wife of the fugitive Alexius III. was thrust into a dungeon.

The recall of their former emperor could scarcely have been prompted by affection or even respect for him personally. Isaac was without character. Buffoons despised him for allowing himself to be the chief court fool. His ambition was divided between his sensuality and his extravagance; he had twenty thousand eunuchs, and spent four million pounds sterling on the housekeeping of his palace. His piety seems to have been limited to a belief in the prediction of a flattering patriarch, who had once assured him of an indefinite conquest of the world, for which, however, he made no preparation other than invoking an alliance with Saladin, whose sword he would buy to hew down his Christian opponents.

The news of the change of emperors was not assuring to the leaders of the Latins. Notwithstanding the pretence of having come to right the wrongs of Isaac, their plans necessitated either their own occupancy of the empire or the placing of young Alexius as the creature of their will upon the throne. Alexius, not Isaac, had made the bargain to pay the Westerners for their expedition two hundred thousand marks of silver, to furnish the army and fleet with provision for a year, and to bring the Greek Church into subjection to Rome. Would Isaac assume the same obligations?

The Latins sent a deputation to the palace; they passed between the lines of the same hired soldiers that yesterday guarded Alexius III., equally loyal to whatever hand fed them. There, upon a throne of superlative splendor, the Latin deputies saw the resurrected relic of a former monarch, blind and emaciated. To have rendered the picture sensationally complete, old and blind Dandolo should have stood before Isaac.

Villehardouin, who was one of the deputies, demanded of Isaac the confirmation of the contract made by young Alexius. On learning its nature, Isaac expressed his amazement and the impossibility of meeting it. The deputies assured the old man that his son should never be permitted to enter the city unless his father assumed his pledges. The emperor replied, “Surely the bargain is a hard one, and I cannot see how to carry it out; but you have done so much for him and me that you deserve our whole empire.” With hand trembling with age and fright he set to the compact the golden seal.

The deputies returned to the camp. Young Alexius entered the city, riding, with a retinue of knights, between Dandolo and Baldwin of Flanders, and followed by the Latin clergy; they were met at the gates by the various ranks of Greek ecclesiastics, arrayed in splendid vestments. The churches throughout the city resounded with thanksgiving and the streets with festivity, while within the palace Isaac, having endured a dungeon for eight years, embraced his son whom he could not see.

August 1st Alexius was crowned coemperor in St. Sophia; he immediately cancelled a portion of his indebtedness to his allies, and wrote to the Pope, avowing his purpose to recognize Rome as the ecclesiastical head of the Greek empire. The Pope, knowing the vicissitude of affairs and distrusting the volatile disposition of the youth, replied, urging him to speedily practicalize his good intention. At the same time the Holy Father addressed the crusaders, declaring that, “unless the emperor made haste to do what he had promised, it would appear that neither his protestations nor their intentions were sincere.”

The payment Alexius was able to make to those who had sold themselves to his service was not sufficient to satisfy their ambitious greed; it barely sufficed to pay back to each soldier the money he had been compelled to cash down to the Venetians for his passage, and which had left the Latin army bankrupt in a foreign land. But the Greek treasury was empty and could not meet the expenses of the new government, nor even provide for the personal protection of the emperors against their domestic foes.

If the adherents of the fugitive Alexius III. were not to be feared, there were new aspirants to the throne, which had come to be recognized as the legitimate spoil of usurpers; besides, the emperor’s pledge to recognize the Pope’s supremacy had kindled fury in the breasts of the Greek devotees. The monk was accustomed in those days to finger his dagger as well as his beads. The Waring guard could alone be trusted, but their loyalty would lapse at the first passing of a pay-day. Some men are stimulated by necessity—hardship evokes their genius; but the Latins knew that Alexius was not of this sort. Scarcely out of boyhood, he was already displaying the vices and weaknesses for which his race was notorious. He needed a guardian—a Dandolo or Boniface, or both.

It was therefore evident that if the new régime were not to be an immediate failure, carrying down with it the honor of the Latins, the latter must continue at Constantinople in spite of the fact that the agreement between the Venetians and the army expired at Michaelmas. They were forced to accept Alexius’s proposition that they should remain with him for another year. Thus circumstances conspired to favor Dandolo in his compact with Malek-Ahdel and to check the impatience of the crusaders for a march upon Syria or Egypt.

The reign of Alexius and Isaac was inaugurated by a terrible calamity. According to long custom, the Arab and other Moslem traders had been allowed to occupy a section of the city with their bazaars and mosque. The crusading zeal, baffled of finding its natural vent in Palestine, sought a slight compensation in looting this smaller nest of Infidels. During the fighting that ensued fire was started in several places. Under a strong north wind it swept in a wide swath across the city; then, the breeze shifting, the conflagration raged in another direction. For eight days there was a continual crash of falling houses, palaces, and churches, thousands of the homeless population fleeing through smoke and cinders from the pursuing flames. Many perished, and at the cessation of the ravages multitudes were left in utter destitution. The blackened ruins covered a section half a league in width and two leagues in length, extending from the Golden Horn to the Marmora.

The fury of the elements was followed by as destructive a fury of human passions. The Greek rose to exterminate the Latin resident population. All were driven out. Fifteen thousand of these sojourners escaped across the harbor to Galata, that their lives might be saved in the camp of the crusaders.

This disaster rendered hopeless any further payment of the debt pledged by Alexius. The crusaders took advantage of the situation to inaugurate a plan to capture the city for themselves, to depose both emperors, and seat upon the throne one of their own number. It was first necessary to provoke a formal breach with Alexius and Isaac. A deputation was therefore sent them to demand instant payment or war. The Greek populace resented this insult to their rulers, whose office they worshipped even if they had contempt for their pusillanimity. They retaliated upon the Westerners by attempting to burn the Venetian fleet with fire-boats floated among the ships, and trying to destroy the crusaders’ camp by a sudden cavalry attack.

A more serious menace was in the popular meetings held daily in St. Sophia to denounce the emperors and to demand their displacement to make way for some stronger hand. The leader of this movement was Alexius Ducas, called Mourtzouphlos because of his meeting eyebrows. The populace, with whom this man was unsavory, offered the crown to Nicholas Kanabos. Alexius was kept a virtual prisoner in the Blachern, defended by his Warings. Mourtzouphlos came to the palace, and, persuading Alexius that a mob was about to attack him, pretended to conduct him to a place of safety. Getting him thus to his own tent, Mourtzouphlos put the young man in irons, shod himself with the vermilion buskins, and strode out, proclaiming that he was emperor.

With vast energy the usurper set about refortifying the city. He impressed Dandolo and Boniface with the fact that they had now to deal with a man not unlike themselves in ability and daring. What they were to do must be done quickly. They made to Mourtzouphlos the proposition, “Give us Alexius, and we will depart and allow you to remain emperor.” With this prince in their hands they could still scheme. The reply came, “Alexius is dead.” He had been found lifeless in his chamber (February 1, 1204). Isaac soon followed his son with as mysterious a taking off. Dandolo then proposed a personal interview with the new monarch. The meeting was held a half-mile beyond the palace. Treacherously a squad of Latin horsemen raided the place of conference, capturing some of the imperial body-guard, but Mourtzouphlos escaped.

Nothing now remained for the Latins but to risk all in an assault upon the city.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

By April 8th all preparations were completed. It was determined to boldly cross the Golden Horn from Galata and assail the water front of the city. At a hundred points at once they flung the bridges from the yard-arms to the top of the wall, while at the same time they battered the base with rams. The air about them was a firmament of flame from the heavy discharges of Greek fire, through which hurtled stones, javelins, and arrows in such storm that flesh could not stand against it. At night the Latins retired, confessing the failure of the first attempt. The churches of the city resounded with grateful prayers, and the streets were riotous with joy.

On the 12th the assault was renewed. The ships now fought in pairs, so that a heavier force of men might land upon the walls from each drawbridge. Two transports, the Pilgrim and the Paradise, having on board the bishops of Troyes and Soissons, carried one of the towers and planted there the banners of these ecclesiastics. Soon four towers more succumbed; the gates beneath them were forced open, and the knights, who had waited by their horses on the transports, dashed into the city. The Venetians say that their blind old hero was among the first to pass the gates, and that there was fulfilled the prophecy of an ancient sibyl: “A gathering together of the powerful shall be made amid the waves of the Adriatic under a blind leader; they shall beset the goat [the symbol of Greek power in Daniel’s vision], ... they shall profane Byzantium, ... they shall blacken her buildings; ... her spoils shall be dispersed.” The Latins charged straight for Mourtzouphlos’s headquarters; his body-guard fought well, but were no match for the heavy-armored knights, and soon fled. Such was the consternation of the Greeks that even the size of the Latins was fabulously exaggerated, Nicetas crediting one gigantic soldier with eighteen yards to his stature, and a proportionate strength.

At night the crusaders, having set fire to the houses on every side of them, occupied the deserted camps of the emperor, which he had set up in the district burned by the previous conflagration. The next day they encountered no opposition, as Mourtzouphlos had fled away through the Golden Gate on the Marmora side of the city. With the exception of the imperial treasury and arsenal, all was given up to be plundered by sailors and soldiers. Before the assault the barons had divided among themselves the palaces. Villehardouin boastfully narrates: “Never since the world was created was there so much booty gained in one city; each man took the house which pleased him, and there was enough for all. Those who were poor found themselves suddenly rich. There was captured an immense supply of gold and silver, of plate and precious stones, of satins and silks, of furs, and of every kind of wealth found upon earth.”

The Greek eye-witnesses give the same picture, but in other colors. They tell how neither matron nor nun, age nor condition, home nor church, was safe from brigandage; nor yet the tombs of the dead, since the coffins of the ancient emperors were opened, that the gems might be taken from their wrappings and golden rings from their finger-bones. The body of Justinian was thus rudely exposed after its sleep of centuries. The sacred chalices of the communion-table were distributed to the crowd for drinking-cups. The vessels of the altar were thrown into heaps, together with the table plate of the rich, to be parcelled out among the victors. Holy vestments were used as saddle-cloths. Mules were driven into St. Sophia and there on the mosaic floors were loaded with the furniture which piety had adored and art had cherished for ages. The altars were broken into pieces, that the bits of precious metal in them might be extracted, and the veil of the sanctuary was torn into shreds for the sake of its golden fringe. A slattern courtesan was enthroned in the chair of the patriarch and entertained the rabble with obscene dances and songs, while men who had left their homes for the service of Christ played at dice upon the tables which represented His apostles.

Nicetas, the historian, describes his own escape. A Venetian, whom he had served a good turn, defended his house as long as he could. When this was no longer possible he led away the unfortunate family and a few friends, roughly treating them as if they were his prisoners. The young ladies of Nicetas’s household blackened their faces to mar their fairness. The beauty of one shone through this disguise; she was seized by some passing soldiers and liberated only at the tearful solicitation of her father. Looking back upon the city, of which he had been a chief ornament and whose epitaph he was to write, Nicetas exclaimed, “Queen of cities, who art become the sport of strangers, the companions of the wild beasts that inhabit the forests, we shall never revisit thy august domes, and can only fly with terror around thee, like sparrows around the spot where their nest has been destroyed.” On the road he came up with the Patriarch of Constantinople, without bag or money, stick or shoes, and with but “one coat, like a true apostle.”

The plunder of the city was evenly divided between the crusaders and the Venetians. The hard cash discovered in treasure vaults or concealed in wells amounted in value to over eight millions of dollars. The value of movable wealth of various kinds has been estimated at one hundred millions.

The greed thus fed, but not satiated, seemed to turn the brains of the conquerors and to transform them into veritable barbarians, as the Greeks denominated them. Works of art were ruthlessly destroyed, bronze statues were melted for the sake of their metal, and rarest marbles broken in the abandon of resuscitated savagery. Thus perished the colossal figure of Juno from Samos, so large that it required four oxen to carry away its head; the statue of Paris presenting the apple of discord to Venus; the famous obelisk surmounted by a female figure that turned with the wind, and covered with exquisite bas-reliefs; the equestrian statue of Pegasus; the “Hercules” of Lysippus, whose thumb was the size of a living man’s waist; the bronze ass which Augustus Cæsar had ordered to commemorate the victory of Antium; the ancient group of the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus; and the statue of Helen of Troy. Out of the ruin of such inestimable treasures of art the four horses which now adorn the porticos of St. Mark’s in Venice were saved from the general wreck, to stand as a monument among the Venetians not of the glory, but of the vandalism of their ancestors.

But more than the spoils of art and treasure, the sacred relics stored in Constantinople excited the saintly cupidity of the conquerors. In their greed for these objects men utterly forgot the divine law, and silenced the last remonstrance of human conscience. Martin Litz, Abbot of Basel, worming his way through the pillage piles in a church, came upon an old Greek monk at prayer. “Your relics or your life!” was the alternative offered him. Martin thus procured the key to an iron safe and rifled it of bones and jewels, without thought that the eighth commandment held good as between a Romanist and heretics. Gunther, a German monk, telling the story of what he witnessed at this time, rejoices that thus was secured a piece of the True Cross, the skeleton of John the Baptist, and an arm of St. James. As the transportation of these articles to the West was accomplished without their having been again stolen by some shrewder saint or sunk to the bottom of the sea, Gunther believed that they had been watched over by angels especially sent from heaven to convoy the treasure. It would seem that some ghostly intervention must have restrained John the Baptist and St. James from visiting their wrath upon these unconscionable robbers of their bones. The abbey of Cluny received thus the head of St. Clement; the cathedral of Amiens the head of John the Baptist; and the various churches of Europe such articles as Jacob’s pillow at Bethel, the rod of Moses, the wood of the True Cross, the drops of blood shed in Gethsemane, the sponge and reed of Calvary, the first tooth and locks of the infant Jesus, a piece of the bread of the Last Supper, a tear of our Lord, a thorn from His crown, the finger which Thomas thrust into His side, the shirt and girdle of the Virgin Mary. But these did not satisfy the relic-hunters. Churches in Europe competed with one another for the objects of adoration, which brought revenue to their coffers; prices went up, but Byzantine craft was able to make the supply equal the demand. A few years later (1215) the Lateran Council had, in the name of common sense, to caution the faithful against becoming the prey of their own credulity.

Even the enormous aggrandizement of the Latins, and the advantages to be derived, in the estimate of Western piety, from the union of the Greek and Roman churches, could not subdue the general sense of shame at the atrocities which had been perpetrated. Pope Innocent III. wrote: “Since, in your obedience to the Crucified One, you took upon yourself the vow to deliver the Holy Land from the power of the pagans, and since you were forbidden, under pain of excommunication, to attack any Christian land or to damage it, unless its inhabitants opposed your passage or refused you what was necessary, and since you had neither right nor pretence of right over Greece, you have slighted your vow; you have preferred earthly to heavenly riches; but that which weighs more heavily upon you than all this is that you have spared nothing that is sacred, neither age nor sex. You have given yourselves up to debauchery in the face of all the world, you have glutted your guilty passions, and you have pillaged in such fashion that the Greek Church, although borne down by persecution, refuses obedience to the apostolical see, because it sees in the Latins only treason and the works of darkness, and loathes them like dogs.”

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
FOUNDING THE LATIN KINGDOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

Having conquered Constantinople and presumably the empire hitherto ruled from its palaces, it now devolved upon the Latins to select an emperor from their own race. Twelve electors were chosen, six from the Venetians and six from the crusaders, to whom was delegated the responsibility of making the final choice. These met at the Church of our Lady the Illuminator, which was located within the walls of the palace of Bucolion. After celebration of mass the electors took a solemn oath upon the relics deposited in that church, that they would bestow the crown upon him whom they regarded as the ablest to defend and exalt their new possessions. To silence any popular opposition to their choice, the bravest of the guards were placed about the palace, pledged to maintain the election.

There were three, possibly four, preëminent candidates for the imperial honor. Dandolo was recognized as chief in ability, but he was far advanced in years and could promise at best but a brief tenure of the sceptre; besides, the Venetians themselves were not agreed in asking for his elevation. If the doge of Venice should have his capital in the East, Venice herself, the queen of the Adriatic, would sink beneath the splendors of the queen of the Bosporus. The men who had exalted their city to that of chief prominence in the maritime world were naturally jealous of this transfer of prestige. Dandolo himself was astute enough to foresee the danger and declined to contest the election.

Boniface, as head of the crusaders, was next in prominence. He had, moreover, sought to make himself more eligible by marrying Maria, the widow of the late Emperor Isaac, that thus he might secure the loyalty of the Greeks. But his election would be fraught with disadvantage to Venice in that his alliance would be first of all with his relative, Philip of Swabia, and, in the event of the union of the East with that German power, Venice would be politically overshadowed.

It is alleged by some writers that Philip himself was proposed. He was at the time, as we have stated, contesting the sceptre of Germany with Otho, who had been approved by the Pope. Philip’s acquisition of the Eastern sceptre might give him predominant weight in the West and possibly convert the Pope to his interests, especially as thus the union of the churches would be facilitated. Thus the reasons urged against Boniface were of equal force against Philip.

Dandolo declared his preference for Baldwin, Earl of Flanders. This chieftain was but thirty-two years of age, a cousin of the King of France, and of the blood of Charlemagne. He had proved his bravery on many a field, and was, moreover, unobjectionable to the more ardent among the crusaders from the fact that, unlike Boniface, he had taken no active part in originally diverting the movement from its legitimate destination against Syria and Egypt. The French, who were the majority in the host, sided with him. Between the parties of Boniface and Baldwin it was agreed that, in the event of either attaining to the immediate government of the empire, the other should acquire as his special dominion the Peloponnesus and the Asiatic provinces beyond the Bosporus.

While the electors deliberated the crowd without waited with anxiety. At midnight, May 9th, the doors of the church were opened. The Bishop of Soissons announced the decision: “This hour of the night, which saw the birth of God, sees also the birth of a new empire. We proclaim as emperor Earl Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaut.” The successful candidate was raised upon a shield and carried into the church, where he was vested with the vermilion buskins. A week later he was solemnly crowned in St. Sophia. At the coronation Boniface attended his rival, carrying in the procession the royal robe of cloth of gold.

But Boniface’s loyalty scarcely endured the strain put upon it. He soon exchanged the dominion of the Peloponnesus and Asia Minor, which had been assigned to him by the electors’ agreement, for that of Salonica. Over this he and Baldwin incessantly quarrelled. This strife between the leaders was the indication of the dissensions everywhere among the Latins in their greedy division of the estates of the new realm.

The chief actors in that stirring drama soon passed off the scene. Baldwin was captured, and probably murdered, by the Bulgarians before Adrianople in 1205, and was succeeded by his brother Henry. Dandolo, having acquired the title “Lord of a Quarter and a Half of all the Roman World,” died June, 1205. A slab recently discovered in St. Sophia is inscribed, “Henrico Dandolo,” and probably marks his grave. With all his faults, the modern Venetian might well cry with Byron:

“Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo,

The octogenarian chief, Byzantium’s conquering foe!”

Boniface two years later was mortally wounded in a fight with the Bulgarians in the Rhodope Mountains. Mourtzouphlos was soon taken prisoner and hurled headlong from the column of Theodosius, thus fulfilling a local prophecy relative to the column, that it should witness the destruction of some perfidious ruler.

It is not within our scope to narrate the history of the Latin empire thus established. For fifty-seven years it maintained a precarious existence, and finally fell again into the hands of the Greeks, who had constantly menaced it from their opposing capital of Nicæa (1264).

The most serious consequence of the capture of Constantinople by the Latins was the new hope and opportunity imparted to the Turks. The Greeks, with all their weaknesses, had for generations been a buffer between Islam and Europe. The empire had stood like a wall across the great highway of the Asiatic incursion. If the Greeks had been generally the losers in the struggle, they had maintained sufficient power to occupy the arms of their contestants, leaving the Christians of the West free to prey upon the Moslems of Syria and adjacent countries. Now all was changed in this respect. The war of Latins with Greeks engrossed, and largely used up, the power of both as against their common enemy. Though the capital had fallen, the Greek everywhere was still the sworn enemy of the Latin.

In the meantime the Moslems were compacting and extending their military power. They were growing in multitude by the migration of new swarms from the original hive in the farther East. They were destined to become too strong for Christendom to resist, to move steadily on to their own conquest of Constantinople, and even to knock at the gate of Vienna. The words of Edward Pears are undoubtedly warranted: “The crime of the fourth crusade handed over Constantinople and the Balkan peninsula to six centuries of barbarism.”

CHAPTER XXXIX.
BETWEEN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CRUSADES—CONDITION OF EAST AND WEST—THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE.

The campaign of Europe against Constantinople wrought only evil among the Christian colonists of Syria and Palestine. In the time of their deepest need there were diverted from their cause the enormous sums of money that had been raised for their succor, multitudes of brother warriors, whose swords were sadly missed amid the daily menaces of their foes, and the active sympathies, if not even the prayers, of their coreligionists at home. Dire calamities also fell upon them, which no human arm could have prevented. The plague had followed the terrible Egyptian famine of 1200, and spread its pall far to the East. Earthquakes of the most terrific sort changed the topography of many places; tidal waves obliterated shore-lines; fortresses, like those of Baalbec and Hamah, tottered to their fall upon the unsteady earth; stately temples, which had monumented the art and religion of antiquity, became heaps of ruins; Nablous, Damascus, Tyre, Tripoli, and Acre were shaken down. It would seem that only the common prayers of Christians and Mussulmans averted the calamity from Jerusalem, the city that was sacred in the creed of both.

Such sums of money as the cries for help brought from Europe were expended first in repairing the walls of Acre, into which service the Christians forced their Moslem prisoners. Among the chain-gangs thus set at work was the famous Sa’di, the greatest of Persian poets, almost equally noted for his eloquence as a preacher and for his adventures as a traveller.

Amaury, King of Jerusalem, died, leaving his useless sceptre in the hands of his wife, Isabella, whose demise passed it on to her daughter, Mary, by her former husband, Conrad of Tyre. Such were the burdens of the unsupported throne that none of the warriors in the East ventured to assume the responsibility of the new queen’s hand. A husband was sought for her in Europe. John of Brienne was nominated by Philip of France for the hazardous nuptials. John had been a monk, but his adventurous and martial spirit soon tired of the cowl. He abandoned the austerities of a professional saint for the freedom of the camp and the dangers of the field. The romantic perils of wedding the dowerless queen attracted him.

Rumors of a new crusade of gigantic proportions led Malek-Ahdel to propose a renewal of the truce with the Christians, which, though continually broken, was in his estimation safer than an openly declared war. The Hospitallers approved peace. This was sufficient to make their rivals, the Templars, eager for the reverse, and the majority of the knights and barons flew to arms against one another.

John of Brienne reached Acre with a meagre following of three hundred knights. His nuptials with the young Queen Mary were rudely disturbed by the Moslems, who besieged Ptolemaïs and swarmed in threatening masses around Acre. In their straits the Christians again appealed to Europe; but Christendom was fully occupied with contentions within its own borders. France was at war with England to repossess the fair provinces which the Angevine kings had wrested from her along the Atlantic. At the same time she was pressing her conquests beyond the Rhine against the Germans. Germany was divided by the rival claimants for the imperial sceptre, Otho and Philip of Swabia.

A more serious diversion of interest from the affairs of Palestine was due to the crusade under Simon de Montfort against the Albigenses, whose record makes one of the blackest pages of human history. (See Dr. Vincent’s volume in this series.) The Saracens in Spain were also threatening to overturn the Christian kingdom of Castile, and were defeated only with tremendous effort, which culminated in the great battle of Tolosa (1212).

In 1212 or 1213 occurred what is known as the Children’s Crusade, a movement that doubtless has been greatly exaggerated by after writers, but the facts of which illustrate the ignorance and credulity, as well as the adventurous, not to say marauding, spirit of the times. If in our day the free circulation of stories relating the adventures of cutthroats and robbers inflames the passions and engenders lawless conceits in the young, we may imagine that reports of the bloody work done by persecutors of the Albigenses, dastardly and cruel deeds, which were applauded by Pope and people, could not but make a similar impression upon the callow mind of childhood in the middle ages. Boys practised the sword-thrust at one another’s throats, built their pile of fagots about the stake of some imaginary heretic, and charged in mimic brigades upon phantom hosts of Infidels. It needed only the impassioned appeals of unwise preachers to start the avalanche thus trembling on the slope. It was proclaimed that supernal powers waited to strengthen the children’s arms. The lads were all to prove Davids going forth against Goliaths; the girls would become new Judiths and Deborahs without waiting for their growth. It was especially revealed that the Mediterranean from Genoa to Joppa would be dried up so that these children of God could pass through it dry-shod.

From towns and cities issued bands of boys and girls, who in response to the question, “Whither are you going?” replied, “To Jerusalem.” “Boy preachers” were universally encouraged to proclaim the crusade. One lad, named Stephen, announcing that Christ had visited him, led hundreds away. A boy named Nicholas, instigated by older persons, deluded a company into crossing the Alps, where many starved, were killed, or kidnapped. The real leaders, however, seem to have been men and women of disorderly habits, who in an age of impoverished homes readily adopted the lives of tramps, and used the pitiable appearance of the children to secure the charities of the towns and cities they passed through. Saracen kidnappers also took advantage of the craze to lure children on board of ships by promise of free passage to the Holy Land. Thus entrapped, they were sold as slaves for Eastern fields or harems. Seven vessels were loaded with Christian children at Marseilles. Five of the ships reached Egypt, consigned to slave merchants; two were wrecked off the isle of St. Peter, where Pope Gregory IX. afterwards caused a church to be built in memory of the victims.