[77] Villehardouin and Gunther give very circumstantial details of the siege of Zara, and of the debates that followed it. (See also, on the subject of these debates, the letters of Innocent.) The Abbé Fleury, in the sixteenth volume of his Ecclesiastical History, displays sufficiently the spirit that then actuated the Crusaders. M. Lebeau, in the twentieth volume of the History of the Lower Empire, and the Abbé Laugier, in the second volume of his History of Venice, say a great deal concerning the siege of Zara.
[78] Katona, in his Histoire Critique des Rois de Hongrie, expresses himself with bitterness against the Crusaders, and relates facts very little favourable to the Venetians and French who laid siege to Zara. Archdeacon Thomas, one of the historians of Hungary, does not spare the Venetians, whom he accuses of tyranny, and who made, he says, their maritime power detested by all the excesses of violence and injustice.
[79] We feel bound to present the text of this oath:—B. Fland. et Hain., L. Blesen et Clar. et H. S. P. comites, Oddo de Chanliet, et W. frater ejus, omnibus ad quos litteræ istæ pervenerint, salutem in Domino. Notum fieri volumus, quod super eo quod apud Jaderam incurrimus excommunicationem apostolicam, vel incurrisse nos timemus, tam nos quam successores nostros sedi apostolicæ obligamus, quod ad mandatum ejus satisfactionem curabimus exhibere. Dat. apud Jaderam, anno Domini 1203, mense Aprilis.
[80] The pope adds, whilst speaking of the Venetians: “Excommunicated as they are, they still remained tied by their promises; and you are not the less authorized to require the performance of them; it is further a maxim of right, that in passing over the land of a heretic or an excommunicated person, you may buy or receive necessary things from him. Moreover, excommunication denounced against the father of a family, does not prevent his household from communicating with him.”
[81] This permission to live by pillage, even in a friendly country, is remarkable, particularly as the pope pretends to authorize it by examples from Scripture.—Fleury, Hist. Eccl. book lxxv.
Innocent, in giving the Crusaders permission to take provisions wherever they may find them, adds, “Provided it be with the fear of God, without doing injury to any person, and with a resolution to make restitution.”
[82] We find in the continuator of William of Tyre the following circumstance:—Malek-Adel being informed that the Crusaders were assembling at Venice, conceived great uneasiness regarding their ulterior designs. He called together the heads of the Christian clergy at Cairo, and announced to them that a new expedition was preparing in Europe, and that they must provide themselves with horses, arms, and provisions. The bishops, to whom he addressed himself to obtain the succour of which he stood in need, replied that their sacred ministry did not allow them to fight. “Well,” answered Malek-Adel, “since you cannot fight yourselves, you must provide me with men to fight in your place.” He then demanded of them an account of the lands they possessed, and ordered that these lands should be sold; and the money produced by this confiscation was sent to Venice, to corrupt the leaders of that republic, and to engage them to divert the Crusaders from an expedition into Egypt or Syria. Malek-Adel at the same time promised the Venetians all sorts of privileges for their trade in the port of Alexandria. This singular circumstance, related at first, as we have said, by the continuator of William of Tyre, is to be found also in Bernard Thesaurarius, and in the Chronicle of St. Victor. Marin. Sanut, it is true, passes it by in silence, and contents himself with saying that Malek-Adel went into Egypt and there collected a treasure. But it may be observed that Marin. Sanut was a Venetian, and had a good reason not to report all the details of a fact which was not to the glory of his country. Bernard when relating it, adds:—Qualiter autem hujus rei effectus fuerit in opinione patenti multorum est, si legantur quæ Veneti cum baronibus ipsis peregerunt, detrahendo eos ad obsidionem Jadræ, et deinde Constantinopolim.
[83] The marshal of Champagne lets no opportunity escape for blaming with bitterness those who abandoned the army of the Crusaders.
[84] A double alliance and the dignity of Cæsar had connected the two elder brothers of Boniface with the imperial family. Reinier of Montferrat had married Mary, daughter of the emperor Manuel Comnenus; Conrad, who had defended Tyre before the third crusade, was married to Theodora Angela, sister of the emperors Isaac and Alexius.
[85] The army was no longer to be dreaded by the emperors as it had been in the early days of the empire; but it was no more an object of fear to its enemies than to its master. A modern historian, M. Sismondi, finds in the government of the Greek empire a complete and incontestable evidence of the natural and necessary effects of the worst of governments. The ancients were acquainted with scarcely any medium between liberty and despotism. The government of Constantinople had retained, up to the middle of the middle ages, all which characterized the despotism of the ancients, although we must allow that this despotism was sometimes tempered by religion and the influence of the patriarchs of Byzantium.