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: