The History of Chivalry

by G. P. R. James

At length, after the Venetians had demolished Zara,[769] to prevent its falling again into the hands of their enemies, the expedition, having been joined by the prince Alexius, set sail, and at the end of a short and easy passage came within sight of Constantinople.[770]

The allies were instantly met by ambassadors from the Emperor, who, mingling promises with threats, endeavoured to drive them again from the shore, but in vain. The crusaders demanded the restoration of Isaac, and submission from the usurper, and prepared to force their landing; but before they commenced hostilities, they approached the walls of Constantinople, and sailed underneath them, showing the young Alexius to the Greek people, and calling to them to acknowledge their prince. No sympathy was excited, and the attack being determined on, the chiefs held a council on horseback, according to the custom of the ancient Gauls, when the order of their proceedings was regulated. The army was portioned into seven divisions, the first of which was commanded by the Count of Flanders, and the last by the Marquis of Montferrat. Having procured a number of flat-bottomed boats, one of which was attached to every galley, the knights entered with their horses, armed at all points, and looking, as Nicetas says, like statues of bronze.[771] The archers filled the larger vessels, and it was the general understanding that each should fight as he came up.

“The morning was beautiful,”[772] writes the old Mareschal of Champagne, “the sun beginning to rise, and the Emperor Alexius waited for them with thick battalions and a great armament. On both sides the trumpets were sounded, and each galley led on a boat. The knights sprang out of the barks, while the water was yet to their girdle,[773] with their helmets laced and their swords in their hands; and the good archers, the sergeants, and the crossbowmen did the same wherever they happened to touch. The Greeks, at first, made great show of resistance, but when they saw the lances levelled they turned their backs and fled.”

The tents and camp equipage of the fugitives fell immediately into the hands of the crusaders; and siege was laid to the tower of Galata, which guarded one end of the great chain wherewith the mouth of the harbour was closed. Before night the Greeks had recovered from their panic, and some severe fighting took place ere the fort could be taken and the barrier removed; but at length this being accomplished, the Venetians entered the port. After ten days of continual skirmishing, a general attack was determined upon; and it was agreed that the Venetians[774] should assail the city by sea, while the French attempted to storm the walls by land. The enterprise began on the land side against the barbican; but so vigorously was every inch of ground disputed by the Pisans, the English and Danish mercenaries who guarded the fortifications, that though fifteen French knights obtained a footing for some time on the ramparts, they were at length cast out, while four of their number were taken.

In the mean while, the fleet of the Venetians advanced to the walls; and after a severe fight of missiles between the defenders and the smaller vessels which commenced the assault, the galleys themselves approached the land; and, provided with high towers of wood, began to wage a nearer warfare with those upon the battlements. Still the besieged[775] resisted with extraordinary valour, and the galleys were beaten off; when the blind chief of the republic, armed at all points, commanded, with tremendous threats in case of disobedience, that his vessel should be run on shore;[776] and then, borne out with the standard of St. Mark before him, he led the way to victory. Shame spread through the rest of the fleet; galley after galley was brought up close under the walls, and all the principal towers round the port were in a moment stormed and taken. Alexius made one great effort to recover the twenty-five towers which the Venetians had captured; but, with remorseless resolution, Dandolo set fire to the neighbouring buildings, and thus raised up a fiery bulwark to his conquest.[777]

As a last resource, the Emperor now issued forth to give battle to the French: and so infinite was the superiority of his numbers, that the hearts of the pilgrims almost failed them. The gallant Doge of Venice no sooner heard of their danger, than, abandoning the ramparts he had so nobly won, he brought his whole force[778] to the aid of the French, declaring that he would live or die with his allies. Even after his arrival, however, the disparity was so great, that the crusaders dared not quit their close array to begin the fight, and the troops of Alexius hesitated to attack those hardy warriors whose prowess they had often witnessed. The courage of the Latins gradually increased by the indecision of their enemy, while the fears of the Greeks spread and magnified by delay and at length Alexius abandoned the last hope of courage, and retreated into the city. The weary crusaders hastened to disarm and repose themselves, after a day of immense fatigues; but Alexius, having no confidence either in his own resolution, or in the steadiness of his soldiery, seized what treasure he could carry, and abandoned Constantinople to its fate.[779] The coward Greeks, deserted by their chief, drew forth the miserable Isaac from his prison; and having robed the blind monarch in the long-lost purple, they seated him on the throne, and sent to tell the Franks that their object was accomplished. The crusaders would hardly believe the tidings, but despatched four of their body to ascertain the truth. The envoys found Isaac enthroned in the palace of Blachernæ,[780] and surrounded by as large and splendid a court as if fortune had never ceased to smile upon him.

They now represented to the restored Emperor the conditions of their treaty with his son; and Isaac, after some slight hesitation, accepted them as his own. He also agreed to associate the young Alexius in the throne; but as all these hard terms, especially that which implied the subjection of the Greek church to the Roman prelate, deeply offended his subtle and revengeful subjects, he prayed the crusaders to delay their departure till complete order was re-established.[781] This was easily acceded to; and the Franks and Venetians, during their stay, wrote to Innocent III., excusing their having again turned from the road to Jerusalem.[782] The Pope willingly pardoned both; but intimated, that to make that pardon efficacious, they must be responsible that the schism in the church should be healed by the submission of the Greeks to the see of Rome.

At first, the harmony between the Franks and the Greeks appeared to be great. The young Alexius paid several portions of the money which had been stipulated;[783] and while the presence of the Latin army kept the capital in awe, he proceeded to reduce the provinces to obedience. When this was completed, however, and the tranquillity of the empire seemed perfectly restored, his conduct changed towards his benefactors. A fire which broke out in the city[784] was attributed to the French, who were at the very moment engaged in serious dispute with a party of Greeks, exasperated by an insult to their religion. The very domineering presence of the crusaders was a continual and irritating reproach, and the Greeks began to testify no small hatred towards their armed guests. Alexius himself, ungrateful in his own nature, contending with his father about their divided sovereignty, and hesitating between the people he was called to govern and those who upheld him in the government, refused or evaded the fulfilment of many of the items in his treaty with the Latins. The chiefs soon found that they were deceived, and formally summoned the young monarch to accomplish his promises. The messengers who bore the haughty demand to a despotic court hardly escaped with their lives; and the same desultory warfare which had been waged by the emperors against each body of crusaders that had passed by Constantinople was now commenced against the Count of Flanders and his companions.[785] A thousand encounters took place, in which the Franks were always victorious; and though the Greeks directed a number of vessels, charged with their terrific fire, against the Venetian fleet, the daring courage and conduct of the sailors freed them from the danger, and only one Pisan galley was consumed.

In the mean while the Greeks of the city, hating and despising a monarch who had seated himself among them by the swords of strangers, and who had drained their purses to pay the troops that held them down;[786] seeing, also, that his ingratitude, even to his allies, had left him without the support by which alone he stood, suddenly rose upon Alexius, and cast him into prison. Isaac himself died, it is said, of fear; and the Greeks at first elected a nobleman of a different family, named Nicholas Canabus; but he was mild and weak, a character which little suited the times or country in which he assumed so high a station. A rival, too, existed in a man who had shown unremitting enmity to the Latins, and after a short struggle, Alexius Ducas, a cousin of the late monarch, a bold, unscrupulous villain,[787] was proclaimed emperor. Among his first acts—though at what exact period remains in doubt[788]—the new Alexius, who was more commonly called Murzuphlis, caused the preceding Alexius to be put to death. The manner of his fate is uncertain: but the usurper had the cunning impudence to yield his victim’s body a public funeral.

War was now determined between the crusaders and Murzuphlis, and the attack of the city was resolved; but previous to that attempt, the crusaders, who were in great want of provisions, despatched Henry, brother of the Count of Flanders, with a considerable force to Philippopoli, in order to take possession of the rich magazines which it contained. Returning loaded with spoil, he was attacked by Murzuphlis; but the Greeks scattered like deer before the Latins,[789] and Henry rejoined his companions not only rich in booty, but in glory also. Negotiations were more than once entered into, for the purpose of conciliating the differences of the Greeks and the Latins; but all proved ineffectual; and early in the spring the armies of France and Venice prepared for the attack. The first step was, as usual, a treaty between the allies to apportion the fruits of success. By this it was determined that the whole booty should be divided equally between the French and Venetians;[790] that six persons from each nation should be chosen to elect an emperor; that the Venetians should retain all the privileges they had hitherto enjoyed under the monarchs of Constantinople; and that, from whichever of the two nations the emperor was selected, a patriarch should be named from the other. There were various other conditions added, the principal of which were, that one-fourth of the whole conquest should be given to the new emperor, besides the palaces of Bucoleon and Blachernæ, while the rest was divided among the French and Venetians; and that twelve persons should be selected from each nation, to determine the feudal laws by which the land was to be governed, and to allot the territory in feoffs among the conquerors.