History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 1 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Armistice, A.D. 1192.

The second Crusade called into action the whole of the West, from Rome to Britain. At its head were displayed the banners of the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, and Aquitaine; and the kings of Poland and Bohemia obeyed the summons of the leader of an army estimated at more than four hundred thousand men. But the numbers appear to have been still greater in the third Crusade, which was made both by sea and land, and included the siege of Acre, graphically described by Gibbon[364] in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” After the surrender of Acre, and the departure of Philip, Richard of England, whose name was long an object of terror among the Saracens, led the Crusaders to the recovery of the sea-coast; and the cities of Cæsarea and Jaffa, afterwards added to the fragments of the kingdom of Guy de Lusignan, fell into his hands, as Jerusalem would also have done, had he not been deceived by the envy or the treachery of his companions. But Plantagenet and Saládin became, in time, alike weary of a war so tedious and disastrous in its results, especially as both had suffered in health. An agreement between them was, after much delay, brought about, and was, naturally, disapproved by the zealots of both parties alike—the Roman pontiff and the Khalif of Baghdad. Its leading features were, that Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre should be open, without hindrance or tribute, to the pilgrimages of the Latin Christians; and that during three years and three months all hostilities should cease. In the following year Saládin died; and, immediately after the conclusion of the treaty, Richard returned to Europe “to seek a long captivity and a premature grave.”

Fourth Crusade, A.D. 1202.

But the spirit of religious warfare did not rest. Will it ever do so? A fourth Crusade soon followed. In this case, however, the Crusade was directed from Syria to Constantinople; and as there was an armistice between the Crescent and the Cross, the self-constituted avengers of the latter quarrelled among themselves—the restoration of the western empire by Charlemagne having created differences between the Greek and Latin Churches, which had in course of time become serious feuds, to be settled only by bloodshed. The aversion existing between the Greeks and Latins had been manifested in the three first expeditions. Though alike opposed to the creed of the Muhammedans, the pride of the emperor of the East was wounded by the intrusion of foreign armies, who claimed the right of traversing his dominions, and of passing under the walls of the capital. He urged, not without reason, that his subjects were insulted and plundered by the rude strangers of the West; perhaps, too, he secretly envied the bold enterprises of the Franks.

The effect of the Crusades on the commerce of Constantinople, A.D. 1148.

While, however, the passage of vast armies in their pilgrimage to the Holy Land roused feelings of animosity between the two great sections of professing Christians, they very materially increased their commercial intercourse, and enlarged their knowledge without abating their religious prejudices. Constantinople proved, commercially, of great importance to the West, as the then chief entrepôt of exchange with the distant nations of the East, and as requiring for the wants of her own wealthy and luxurious people the productions of every climate. From her situation she invited the commerce of the world, and the art and labour of her numerous inhabitants, while it balanced the imports, afforded profitable employment to the number of foreign merchants resident at Constantinople, and to their ships in which her over-sea trade was chiefly conducted. After the decline of Amalfi, the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, had introduced their factories and settlements into the capital of the empire, had acquired possession of land and houses, and had greatly increased in numbers, intermingling by marriage, and in all the social relations of life, with the natives. Constantinople was therefore largely indebted for her prosperity and wealth to the foreign merchants resident in, or frequenting her port; and, hence when these demanded the right of worshipping in accordance with the Latin forms of Christianity, the emperor, who had tolerated a Muhammedan mosque,[365] was unable to refuse the demand of the Christians of the West.

and on its fall.

But his good intentions, and those of his successor, Alexius, were stopped by a popular tumult, which ended in a terrible massacre of all the Latins whom the vengeance of a mob, headed and applauded by the Greek priesthood, could reach. Many, however, of the foreign merchants had escaped on the first alarm to their vessels, and in these they proceeded to the western ports to seek protection and redress for the wrongs inflicted upon themselves and their countrymen.

Power of Venice, A.D. 1202.

Joined in their appeal by the son[366] of the dethroned monarch, Alexius Angelus, who had escaped in the disguise of a common sailor on board an Italian vessel, their case was at once promised consideration, and was soon after brought under the notice of the leading pilgrims of the West, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and the Marquis of Montferrat, then assembled at Venice, to negotiate with that republic for shipping to convey them on the Fourth Crusade.[367] For many centuries the inhabitants of Venice had been considered as a portion of the subjects of the Greek empire; but when their power and influence had greatly increased, notably by the acquisition of the cities on the coasts of Istria and Dalmatia, the extent of their maritime commerce entitled them to assume an independent position. “The sea was their patrimony;” and with the chief command of the western shores of the Mediterranean, the Venetian galleys had now secured the still more lucrative commerce of Greece and Egypt.