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

by W. S. Lindsay

Nor were they simply traders: Venetian glass and silk manufactures had an early reputation; while their system of banking and of foreign exchange, which they worked on a much more extensive scale than any other nation, gave them a great commercial preponderance in the south of Europe. To assert these rights and to protect the freedom of their subjects, they are said to have been able to equip at very short notice one hundred galleys; but their usual policy was essentially that of merchants, and was almost wholly regulated by their trading interests. In their religious dogmas the Venetians avoided the schism of the Greeks without yielding a servile obedience to the Roman pontiff; while an unrestrained intercourse with the Muhammedans, as well as with other nations, encouraged in her people a spirit of toleration unknown to the Crusaders.

Her ships join in the Crusade, which was afterwards altered from its original design.

Venice was, therefore, in no haste to launch into a holy war, and the appeal of the pilgrim ambassadors, “sent by the greatest and most powerful barons of France, to implore the aid of the masters of the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem,” though ultimately successful, was granted only with reservation and mainly on selfish conditions. The Crusaders, after considering these (they had, indeed, little option), determined to assemble at Venice, so as to start on their expedition on the feast of St. John of the ensuing year; the Venetians, at the same time, engaging to provide flat-bottomed vessels enough for the conveyance of four thousand five hundred knights and twenty thousand foot, with the necessary provisions for nine months, together with a squadron of fifty galleys. The pilgrims, on the other hand, promised to pay the Venetians, before their departure, eighty-four thousand marks of silver; any conquests by sea and land to be equally divided between the confederates. These exorbitant demands were acceded to, the enthusiasm of the people enabling fifty-two thousand marks to be collected and paid within a short time.

But the expedition was diverted from its original design. Thirty-two thousand of the promised marks being still wanted to complete the stipulated sum, the Doge, Henry Dandolo, offered to waive this claim, provided the combined forces were first employed in the reduction of Zara, a strong city on the opposite shores of the Adriatic, which had recently thrown off its allegiance to Venice. After much discussion and many differences of opinion this proposal was accepted, and proved fully successful; but the sack of Zara scattered wide the seeds of discord and scandal; and many were shocked that the arms of professing Crusaders should have been first stained with the blood, not of the Infidel, but of the Christian.

The presence of this great force revived the hopes of the young Alexius, while the tale of the massacre of the Latins at Constantinople seemed to demand a punishment adequate to its atrocity. The separate interests of many and various parties supported his appeal; the Doge hoped to increase the commercial power of Venice by humbling that of the eastern capital; Alexius was warmly backed by Philip of Germany and the Marquis of Montferrat; while the promises of the young man himself were liberal enough to suggest more than a suspicion of his honesty. In the end it was determined to make a further diversion of the hosts originally consecrated to the deliverance of Jerusalem, and to employ them on what to the miscellaneous multitude must have been the far more congenial office of ravaging and plundering the Greek empire. It can, indeed, hardly be supposed that many of the Crusaders could have believed themselves bound to aid in the restoration of an exiled prince as a step in any way necessary for the recovery of Jerusalem; while the savage treatment the unfortunate Jews met with at their hands in every city they passed through, shows how little their enthusiasm for the Cross was tempered by anything resembling Christianity. The large majority were, doubtless, mainly swayed by the hope or the certainty of public plunder or private gain.

They besiege and take Constantinople, A.D. 1204.

Although the boldest hearts were appalled by the report of the naval power and impregnable strength of Constantinople, the Venetians vigorously urged on the scheme, seeing clearly that for them it was now or never, and that, with the aid of the formidable forces at their disposal, they would be able to avenge themselves for many insults and injuries they had received from the Byzantine court. No such armament had, indeed, for ages, if ever, assembled on the waters of the Adriatic. Consisting of no less than one hundred and twenty flat-bottomed vessels for the horses; of two hundred and forty transports filled with men and arms; of seventy store ships laden with provisions; and of fifty stout galleys prepared to encounter any enemy, the expedition presented a most imposing appearance.

Favoured with fine weather and a fair wind the fleet made rapid progress, and, without interruption or loss, anchored, after an unusually quick passage, at Abydos, on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont. But here a strong gale sprung up, and swept them to the eastward, and so close were they brought to the city, that some volleys of stones and darts were exchanged between them and the ramparts. Most of the invaders then beheld, for the first time, the capital of the East; and few cities can boast of so imposing an appearance; nor could it fail to create a deep impression on the minds of the invaders. Vain, indeed, would have been the attempt of the Crusaders to conquer such a city had its people been united, or its ruler a man of ability and honesty. The sixteen hundred fishing boats of Constantinople could in themselves have manned a fleet, which, with their fire-ships, would have been sufficient to have annihilated the forces of the Crusaders; but the negligence of the prince, and the venality of his ministers rendered the great city under their charge an easy prey. There was of course a show of resistance, but it was so feeble that the tower of Galata, in the suburb of Pera, was quickly stormed, and easily captured by the French; while the Venetians forced the boom or chain that was stretched from the tower to the Byzantine shores, captured or destroyed twenty Grecian ships of war, and made themselves masters of the port of Constantinople.

Commerce declines under the Latins, but revives on the restoration of the empire, A.D. 1261.

During the sixty years that the Latins held in their hands the empire of the East, the Greek emperors kept their court and maintained a feeble dignity at Nicæa (Nice), the most important city in Bithynia. Yet, though at that city a certain show of pomp and power was maintained, the removal of the empire from Constantinople, and the sway there of the Latin princes, produced the most disastrous effects on the trade of the capital: a race alien in religion and language, and anarchy withal, were not, indeed, likely to be favourable to peaceful arts or commerce. When, however, the Greek empire was afterwards restored in the person of Manuel, that wise monarch paid little heed to the factions of the Venetians and of other republicans from Italy, but encouraged their industry by many privileges, and allowed them full use of their own customs. Thus the merchants resident at Constantinople preserved their respective quarters in the city, trading thence whither and how they pleased.