Thus terminated what some writers denominate the fourth crusade, but which surely deserves no such designation. It was a European raid in which the religious motive scarcely evidenced itself except in the fact that it was proclaimed by a Pope. The thirty ounces of gold which Henry VI. promised to each of his soldiers seem to have been more influential over their minds than even the desire to pray at the Holy Sepulchre. The movement inspired new confidence in the prowess of the Moslems, confirming their own belief in the invincibility of their Prophet, and exciting a query throughout the Christian world, if Christ had not deserted His people because of their sins.
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.