However, because of previo For only $5 per month you can become a member and support our mission to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. We got an email that said: Also, during the Crusades- many Orthodox Christian Churches were pillaged and destroyed in the area and many holy relics and ancient items stolen or destroyed (among them the Holy Napkin) by the Catholics, who had mostly forgotten the Orthodox. The riches of Constantinople could then pay for the rest of the Crusade as it marched on to Jerusalem. For now Doge Dandolo and the Crusaders saw their golden opportunity not just to receive aid from the Byzantines but to loot the city entirely for all it was worth. A strong north wind aided the Venetian ships near the Golden Horn to come close to the city wall, which enabled attackers to seize some of the towers along the wall. The Crusaders arrived outside Constantinople on 24 June 1203 and played their trump card. As well as being stolen, works of immeasurable artistic value were destroyed merely for their material value. The sack of Constantinople in 1204 remains one of the enduring memories of the Crusades. According to a prearranged treaty the empire was apportioned between Venice and the crusade's leaders, and the Latin Empire of Constantinople was established. The Venetians took three-eighths of Constantinople, the Ionian islands, Crete, Euboea, Andros, Naxos, and a few strategic points along the coast of the Sea of Marmara. Indeed, the opposite was true, for the unstable Latin empire siphoned off much of Europes Crusading energy. [18][19] Boniface went on to found the Kingdom of Thessalonica,[20] a vassal state of the new Latin Empire. Why did the Crusaders sack Constantinople? The solution came in the form of the city of Zara, which had revolted against Venetian rule in 1183 and declared itself part of the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1205 CE, following the death of Baldwin in a Bulgarian prison, William I Champlitte and Geoffrey I Villehardouin (nephew of the historian of the same name) founded a Latin principality in the Peloponnese while the French duke Othon de la Roche grabbed Attica and Boeotia. Sack of Constantinople (1204) - Wikipedia "The Crusaders looted, terrorized, and vandalized Constantinople for three days, during which many ancient and medieval Roman and Greek works were either stolen or destroyed. Discussion/Question I was just watching a alternate history video about what if the Byzantine empire survived and the guy that made the video pointed to the siege of 1204 as a major step towards their collapse. Crusades - Crusades - The Fourth Crusade and the Latin empire of Constantinople: Pope Innocent III was the first pope since Urban II to be both eager and able to make the Crusade a major papal concern. However, because of previous siege of a Catholic Zara, revenge is disputable as a significant motive. His special interests include pottery, architecture, world mythology and discovering the ideas that all civilizations share in common. The Pope was not best pleased to hear the news that Christian Zara had been sacked in November 1202 CE, and he promptly excommunicated the Crusaders and the Venetians. The Byzantines remained in nominal control, but the French and Venetians were the true power in the city now even as they pretended to let things play out in Constantinople before launching any more attacks. Sack of Constantinople, (April 1204). Crusades: The View from the East. Books The Venetians also founded the Duchy of the Archipelago in the Aegean Sea. The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople. Constantinople held the masterpieces of the ancient world. Another record, this time by an author closer to the leadership, was compiled by Geoffrey de Villehardouin, the Marshal of Champagne. A 16th century CE painting by Domenico Tintoretto depicting the Venetians attacking the sea walls of Constantinople in 1204 CE during the Fourth Crusade. The Byzantines had never fully understood the concept of a Holy War, which the western leaders used to rouse armies to be sent to the east. The crusaders were promised the riches of the Constantinople by a pretender to the throne if they would help him take the Empire back. The Venetians Attack Constantinople, 1204 CE. Before we explore the reasons behind this victory, it is crucial to explain why the Fourth Crusade arrived at Constantinople. It is true that Pope Innocent III had called for a new crusade to liberate Jerusalem indirectly by seizing control of Egypt. [13] The very altars of these churches were smashed and torn to pieces for their gold and marble by the warriors. [12] Although the Venetians engaged in looting too, their actions were far more restrained. Then awe was swiftly replaced by greed. First, the crusaders might be persuaded to leave; second, with or without Emperor Alexius IIIs agreement, the Greeks The world had lost something great and undefinable, as powerfully summarised here by the historian J. J. Norwich: By the sack of Constantinople, Western civilization suffered a loss greater than the burning of the library of Alexandria in the fourth century or the sack of Rome in the fifth - perhaps the most catastrophic single loss in all history. The old regime had fallen. It was no surprise, then, that a usurper came along, one Alexios V Doukas. Why did crusaders sack Constantinople in 1204? He attempted to pacify the city, but riots between anti-Crusader Greeks and pro-Crusader Latins broke out later that month and lasted until November, during which time most of the populace began to turn against him. The Venetians, being the rapacious traders they were, insisted that their 240 ships be paid for, but the Crusaders could not meet the asking price of 85,000 silver marks. From there they sailed to Egypt - seen as the soft underbelly of the enemy - or at least, that was the original plan. Amongst the ordinary people of the former empire there was no sympathy for the Byzantine elite, who were seen as having ruled the empire with increasing incompetence. https://www.ancient.eu/article/1188/. License. "The spirit of reconciliation of the resurrection incites us toward reconciliation of our churches. [citation needed] Doge Dandolo still appeared to have far more control over his men. One of the most precious of all Byzantine religious relics to be stolen was the Mandylion shroud, a cloth or scarf said to have carried an impression of Christ himself. [13] Women, including nuns, were raped by the Crusader army,[14] which also sacked churches, monasteries and convents. The western powers had agreed to back Alexios IV Angelos, the son of the deposed Byzantine emperor Isaac Angelos II (r. 1185-1195 CE) and promised to return his father (then imprisoned in Constantinople) to the throne if he promised to help the Crusaders with money, soldiers, and supplies. Okay, then why did the Crusaders sack Constantinople and claim Byzantine territory during the Fourth Crusades? Alexios fled to Thrace, and three days of looting followed. It turned out that was a bit of an overestimate, but Venice insisted on payment nonetheless. Cartwright, Mark. Historians continue to debate the exact reason why the Crusaders then turned on Constantinople instead of Jerusalem, but one crucial ingredient in the troublesome mix of mutual suspicions between the western powers and Byzantium was the Republic of Venice and one man, in particular, the Doge Enrico Dandolo (r. 1192-1205 CE). During the invasion the lives of the citizens were respected, but the city was subjected to sack without any kind of restraint. The diversion of the Fourth Crusade from the Holy Land to attack, capture, and pillage the Byzantine city of Constantinople divided and dissipated the efforts of the Christians to maintain the war against the Muslims. By the first week of April, the Crusaders had begun their siege from their encampment in the town of Galata across the Golden Horn from Constantinople. Boniface of Montferrat took over Thessalonica and formed a new kingdom there which also included Athens and Macedonia. Constantinople was surrounded by thick ramparts or defensive walls, which were over a thousand years old when the Ottoman Turks attacked the city in 1453. The Crusaders captured the Blachernae section of the city in the northwest and used it as a base to attack the rest of the city, but while attempting to defend themselves with a wall of fire they ended up burning down even more of the city. On 12 April 1204 weather conditions finally favoured the Crusaders as the weather cleared and a second assault on the city was ordered. The ban was later lifted for the former, otherwise, they would not have been much use as Crusaders, one supposes. It is widely regarded as a shocking betrayal of principles out of greed. Robinson is clearly no friend of the Roman Catholic Church, and I will even go so far as to say that he is anti-Catholic in his point of view, but he does give an interesting account of the Crusader's sack on Constantinople in 1204. A further 100,000 silver marks were divided evenly between the Crusaders and Venetians. Horses from the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Bartholomew said his acceptance came in the spirit of Pascha. One of the most precious works to suffer such a fate was a large bronze statue of Hercules, created by the legendary Lysippos, court sculptor of Alexander the Great. The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople (Eugne Delacroix, 1840). Enrico Dandolo did not miss the opportunity to propose to the Crusaders that he would postpone the payment of their debt in exchange for help in recapturing t The Fourth Crusade was launched by Pope Innocent III (r. 1198-1216 CE) in 1202 CE with the principal intention of reclaiming Jerusalem for Christendom after its fall in 1187 CE to Saladin, Sultan of Egypt (r. 1169-1193 CE). Consequently, a deal was made that in return for passage the Crusaders would stop off at Zara on the Dalmatian coast and reconquer it for the Italians, the city having recently defected to the Hungarians. Emperor Michael VIII (r. 1259-1282 CE) was then able to place his throne back in the palace of his Byzantine predecessors. The Byzantines, with their capital at Constantinople founded by Roman emperor Constantine I in 324 CE, saw themselves as the defenders of Christendom, the beacon which shone out across the Mediterranean and central Asia, hosts to the holiest city outside Jerusalem, and the rock which stood against the tide of Islam sweeping in from the east. [9], By the end of March, the combined Crusader armies were besieging Constantinople as Emperor Alexios V began to strengthen the city's defences while conducting more active operations outside the city. When the crusaders took the piles of money, jewels, and gold that they had captured in the sack of Constantinople back to Rome, Innocent III welcomed the stolen items and agreed to let the crusaders back into the Church So, why has Constantinople considered a continuation of the Roman Empire and why did it eventually fall? Reports of Crusader looting and brutality scandalised and horrified the Orthodox world; relations between the Catholic and Orthodox churches were catastrophically wounded for many centuries afterwards, and would not be substantially repaired until modern times. The most infamous action of the Fourth Crusade was the sack of the Orthodox Christian city of Constantinople. The incumbent emperor and brother of Isaac, Alexios III Angelos, caught completely unprepared by the arrival of the Crusaders, fled the city. Related Articles. On this day, April 12 th , in 1202, Constantinople is sacked by the Fourth Crusade. All three, though, would prove to be unsuccessful in permanently securing Christianity's Holy Places from the Arabs. Before we explore the reasons behind this victory, it is crucial to explain why the Fourth Crusade arrived at Constantinople. The Crusaders would sack the city, eventually conquering it in 1204 after multiple raids. The First Siege of Constantinople, July 1203 THERE REMAINED TWO ways in which conflict could be averted. Web. With your help we create free content that helps millions of people learn history all around the world. In order to obtain the fleet of ships required to transport knights, squires, soldiers, and their supplies, as well as warships to protect them, the Crusaders first went to Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, who undertook to provide the ships. In short, the Venetian republic offered to provide a fleet for 30,000 crusaders. AmazonThe Fourth Crusade 1202-04: The betrayal of Byzantium (Campaign)AmazonNicolle, David, Hook, Christa The Byzantines depended on a series of defenses to keep people away from those, including naval power and a heavy chain across the mouth of the Golden Horn. Thank you! World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization. [8] In March 1204, the Crusader and Venetian leadership decided on the outright conquest of Constantinople in order to settle debts, and drew up a formal agreement to divide the Byzantine Empire between them. Boniface was not elected as the new emperor, although the citizens seemed to consider him as such; the Venetians thought he had too many connections with the former empire because of his brother, Renier of Montferrat, who had been married to Maria Comnena, daughter and for a time heir-apparent of Manuel I. "[23][24] This has been regarded by some as an apology to the Greek Orthodox Church for the slaughter perpetrated by the warriors of the Fourth Crusade. The Fourth Crusade was actually conceived in 1199 at a jousting tournament held by Thibaut, Count of Champagne, at Ecry-sur-Aisne in northern France. Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Constantinople had fallen remarkably easily once the Crusaders had overcome the garrison at Galata and lowered the massive chain which blocked the harbour of the Golden Horn. Despite Alexius the IV, who had an agreement with the Crusaders to fund the Why did the Fourth Crusade sack Constantinople? Just over one hundred years earlier, in November 1095, Pope Urban II had issued a call to the knights of France to liberate the city of Jerusalem from Islam. This did not mean that the Crusaders had taken Constantinople because they had not. Instead they placed Baldwin of Flanders on the throne. After a short battle approximately 70 Crusaders managed to enter the city.