[15] The soldiers are those who received the soldi or pay, as distinguished from the Crusaders, who were supposed to fight only for the cause of the Cross.
[16] La Sainte Chapelle in Paris was built to receive these treasures.
[17] Πύλη τῆς πηγῆς, so called because it led to the Holy Well, is better known as the Silivria Gate. See Professor Van Millingen’s Byzantine Constantinople, p. 75.
[18] P. 191. Pachymer, writing fifty years afterwards, adds that they placed ladders against the walls; and Nicephorus Gregoras, writing a century afterwards, speaks of a secret entry by an old subterranean passage for water, through which fifty men passed. Gibbon makes the mistake of saying that the entry was at the Golden Gate. Strategopulus had the Gate of the Fountain—that is, the Silivria Gate—opened for his troops. The Emperor Michael subsequently entered by the Golden Gate; possibly, as Dethier suggests (iii. 605), by the ancient gate of that name in the Constantine Walls, which was still used for ceremonial purposes.
[19] It is unlikely that at this time there were any foreigners among the fighting men other than Frenchmen. The pope’s demands for the defence of the empire do not appear to have been responded to outside France.
[20] Epist. Inn. viii. 133.
[21] Pachymer, iii. 10. Greg. iv. 4.
[22] Pach. iii. 19.
[23] Ibid. iv. 1.
[24] Pach. iv. 6. Pachymer took part in these proceedings, and was in fact one of the clerks of the court.