The Fourth Crusade
Or should it be called "The Failed Crusade"? Or "The Farcical Crusade"? Or can we even call it a crusade?!?
Every once in a while, I come across some history that just makes me laugh out loud at how ridiculous it is. I must retell you what I stumbled across this past week. Please note this is my novice rendering of events. Obviously, grossly over simplified, and not taking into consideration any of the scholarly discussions or professionalism I should probably hold when doing history. But...whatevs.
I’ve been reading about the Fourth Crusade…which some scholars claim was an accident. How can a crusade happen accidentally you ask?! Great question!
It was the first crusade not aimed at the Holy Land. The goal for this one was Egypt. The plan was to send a massive fleet of ships filled with soldiers to Alexandria to defeat the Egyptian Ayyubid Sultan. So, in 1202, they hired Venice to build this fleet...which they did. It was such an undertaking that the doge of Venice had ordered all merchants to help prepare it. They spent over a year and a half solely working on this project alone.
But when it came time for all the soldiers to arrive and for the Venetians to get paid, there was a bit of a mix up. First, not as many soldiers showed up and thus, there wasn’t enough to pay the Venetians. They were pissed.
So, the doge of Venice decided to take matters into his own hands. He decided, “Hey, these crusaders can’t pay for their ships. Let’s take them ourselves and do our own thing!” He said he would postpone the payment of the crusaders’ debts in exchange for helping them in recapturing the city of Zara, “a city that had done them much evil.” Some crusaders bailed at this point, saying it wasn’t what they signed on for. The pope wrote a letter saying he did NOT approve, forbidding them to attack a Christian city. But the Venetians’ minds were made up. Thus, they went, they conquered, and retook Zara. Is this the end of it? Nope. It’s gets better.
While wintering in Zara, the Venetians (and remaining crusaders) were propositioned by a disgraced Byzantine prince, Alexios/Alexis IV, who had been imprisoned but somehow escaped. His uncle had treasonously taken the throne from his father, Isaac II. He negotiated with the Venetians that if they attacked Constantinople, captured the current emperor (his uncle, Alexios III) and helped restore his father to the Byzantine throne, he would pay them handsomely, allow Constantinople to be under papal authority (which was a big deal due to the schism between the papacy and the Eastern Orthodox Church), and he would take the cross himself supplying his own knights to the crusading cause. Well, this was an offer the Venetians (and some of the crusaders) couldn’t refuse. Just to note, more crusaders bailed at this point.
The pope had officially lost control of the crusade. No one was listening to him. He pleaded with the crusaders, claiming he would absolve them of their sins if they abandoned their plans. But the Venetians…that was going too far. He simply excommunicated those greedy guys. But apparently, they didn’t care. It did not deter them one bit.
In 1203, the part Venetian and part crusader army sieged Constantinople. The current emperor fled the city by night, taking the wealth of the treasury with him…but leaving his wife the empress. What an outstanding guy. The young Alexios and his father were restored to the throne, Alexios was crowned co-emperor himself. But…it gets crazier.
Alexios realized he couldn’t pay the Venetians and crusaders since his treasury was empty. I’m sure the Venetians were growing a bit perturbed that this kept happening to them. Again, they had followed through with their end of the bargain but couldn’t get paid. At the same time, the Byzantine people and Eastern Orthodox clergy resented this takeover from the Latin West. Clashes broke out in the city between the locals and the crusaders. Then there was a coup d’état of sorts that removed Alexios from the throne, replacing him with an anti-Latin emperor, Alexius V (I know, all of their names are basically the same, I don’t know why they did that).
The Venetians and crusaders found themselves stranded in a hostile place. The ally they had put on the throne was gone…along with the handsome reward he had promised them. They couldn’t afford to return home or continue the original plans of the crusade in Alexandria. And the city’s inhabitants did not want them there.
So, what did they do, you ask? The obvious rational thing…they attacked the city. The great city of Constantinople! They ransacked and pillaged palaces and churches. They imprisoned then killed the emperor, taking control once again. And just to be clear, the Venetians negotiated that for their help in all of this, they were to get three quarters of the booty. And that was that. Close curtain on the Fourth Crusade.
So, at the end of the day, the Fourth Crusade that was originally planned and sanctioned by the pope, intending to fight for the Holy City of Jerusalem by attacking the Muslim Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt ended up being led by excommunicated Venetians, sacking the great fellow Christian city of Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire’s dominance in the eastern Mediterranean. Oops!
I just shake my head at stuff like this. “The Fourth Crusade was one of the most disgraceful and notorious escapades in the whole of the Middle Ages,” (Jones, 299). I agree Mr. Jones, I agree.
SIDE NOTE: In the spirit of wanting to be a bridge between academic and popular history. Here are a few of the ongoing discussions regarding the Fourth Crusade. Some have argued the crusade was an accident (this is an outdated argument from the nineteenth century). Some claim it was a Venetian conspiracy led by their greedy ambitions (there are primary sources and scholars that claim the Venetians had an alliance and/or commercial treaties with the Sultan of Egypt). Others point the blame at other participants (eg. Boniface of Montferrat, the crusader who was to lead the crusade, or Pope Innocent III). Then some argue Constantinople fell because of its weakness due to internal instability and fragmentation.
In my humble opinion, I don’t think it was an accident. It was more a product of poor reactions to unfortunate circumstances, one after the other, culminating in a very unfortunate disaster. I think the conspiracy claims are weak…but I haven’t done a deep dive into them yet. I do agree the Venetians hold a considerable amount of blame. However, they were simply making the best of a bad situation, they needed to recoup their losses and seized the opportunities to do so. Can you blame ‘em? The sources I’ve read paint a dismal picture of the health of Byzantine Empire at the time. It was paralyzed in a sense by corruption, incompetent leadership, lack of funds, and so on. So, while they were weak and not in a position to defend themselves, they weren’t necessarily victims, because their weaknesses were due to their own crap.
That’s my novice two cents. Take it or leave it. What say you?
Main Sources:
Byzantium and the Crusades, by Jonathan Harris
The Crusades: A History, by Jonathan Riley-Smith
Powers & Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages, by Dan Jones
Primary Source Material: