Chapter XIII
Death of Saladin—Disunion among his Successors—Celestine III. preaches a new Crusade—Henry of Germany takes the Cross—Abandons his Purpose—Crusaders proceed without him—Saif Eddin takes the Field, and captures Jaffa—The Crusaders are reinforced—Defeat Saif Eddin—Lay Siege to Thoron—Seized with Panic, and retreat—Disperse—Death of Henry of Champagne, King of Jerusalem—His Widow marries Almeric, King of Cyprus—Truce—Death of Almeric and Isabella—Mary, Heiress of Jerusalem, wedded to John of Brienne—Affairs of Europe—Innocent III. and Foulque of Neuilly promote a Crusade—The Barons of France take the Cross—Proceed to Venice—Their Difficulties—Turn to the Siege of Zara—A Change of Purpose—Proceed to Constantinople—Siege and Taking of that City—Subsequent Proceedings—A Revolution in Constantinople—Alexius deposed by Murzuphlis—Second Siege and Capture of the Greek Capital—Flight of Murzuphlis—Plunder and Outrage—Baldwin, Count of Flanders, elected Emperor.
For some time the Christians of the Holy Land enjoyed an interval of repose. Saladin was a religious observer of his word; and during the short space that intervened between the departure of Richard Cœur de Lion and the death of his great adversary, the Latins received the full benefit of the treaty which had been executed between those monarchs.
A year had scarcely elapsed ere Saladin was seized with a mortal sickness; and, finding his end approaching, he commanded the black standard, which had so often led the way to victory, to be taken down, and replaced by the shroud which was to wrap his body in the grave. This was then borne through the streets, while the criers called all men to behold what Saladin, the mighty conqueror, carried away with him of all his vast dominion.725 Saladin died, a monarch in whose character, though the good was not unmixed with evil, the great qualities so far preponderated, that they overbalanced the effects of a barbarous epoch and a barbarous religion, and left in him a splendid exception to most of the vices of his age, his country, and his creed.
At that period the principle of hereditary succession was not very clearly ascertained either in Europe or in Asia; and the vast monarchy which Saladin had been enabled to consolidate was broken in pieces at his death. Saif Eddin, his brother, took possession of the greater part of Syria, and strengthened himself by the soldiers of his dead relative, who both loved and esteemed him. Three of the great monarch’s sons seized upon such portions of their father’s dominions as they could reach; and civil dissensions followed, highly detrimental to the power of the Moslem, and favourable to the security of the Christians. This, indeed, was the moment when a crusade was most practicable, and Pope Celestine III. exhorted all Christendom to snatch the opportunity. In most instances his call fell upon cold and unwilling ears. Philip Augustus was too deeply engaged in those vast and magnificent schemes which, however impeded by the prejudices of the day, rendered his reign a great epoch in the history of nations.726 Richard Cœur de Lion had learned the danger of quitting his own kingdom, and the vanity of hoping for union among ambitious men. Henry of Germany alone, moved by wild schemes for aggrandizing his territories, assented at once to the crusade; but finding that Sicily seemed ready to receive him, he deemed the nearer conquest the more advisable; and on the same principle he had taken the Cross, he abandoned it again. Not so his subjects; an immense number of the vassals followed eagerly the road which he had quitted;727 and several Teutonic bishops, with the Dukes of Saxony, Brabant, and Bavaria, set out from Germany, and reached Acre in safety.
The Christians of Palestine were at that moment in the enjoyment of peace,728 and they beheld the coming of new crusaders with horror and despair. Had the troops that arrived been sufficient, indeed, to give any thing like certainty to their enterprise, all the Latins of the Holy Land would willingly have concurred; but the prospect of new and desolating wars, waged by scanty forces, was, notwithstanding the dissensions of their enemies, a hopeless and painful anticipation. Nevertheless, the Germans began their operations at once;729 and Saif Eddin, with his whole attention suddenly directed to the Christians, showed, by the energetic activity of his movements, that the spirit of Saladin survived in his brother. Jaffa was taken by assault,730 with a great slaughter of the Christians, and all promised a speedy destruction to the small remains of the Latin kingdom. Fresh succours, however, were received from Europe; the hopes of the Christians revived; and, under the command of the Duke of Saxony, they marched on towards Beritus. Saif Eddin hastened to meet them, and attacked the Latin forces near Sidon; but his army was completely routed by the firm and steady gallantry of the Germans; and the way to Jerusalem was once more open to the followers of the Cross. But the crusaders embarrassed themselves with the siege of the castle of Thoron. The Saracens had time to recover from their panic; civil dissensions were forgotten; and while the garrison of Thoron held out with persevering valour, the sultaun of Egypt advanced to join his uncle, and repel the Christian invasion. Vague rumours of immense preparation on the part of the infidels reached the besieging army. The crusaders were, as usual, disunited among themselves; the Saracens within the castle were fighting with the coinage of despair; and, at last, a sudden panic seized the leaders of the German army.731 They abandoned the camp in the night, and, flying to Tyre, left their soldiers to follow as they could.732 A complete separation ensued between the Germans and the Latins, each accusing the other of treachery; while the Syrian Christians remained at Tyre, the Teutonic crusaders proceeded to Jaffa. Thither Saif Eddin pursued them; and another battle was fought, in which the Germans were once more victorious, though victory cost them the lives of many of their princes. Almost at the same time news reached their camp of the death of the emperor Henry. From that moment, none of the German nobles remembered aught but the election of a new emperor; and as soon as vessels could be procured, the principal barons set off for Europe. They left behind them in Jaffa about twenty thousand of the inferior soldiers, and a few knights; but the town was surprised by the Saracens on the night of the following festival of St. Martin; and the Germans, plunged in revelry and drunkenness,733 were slaughtered to a man.
Such was the end of the German crusade in Palestine; and before proceeding to speak once more of the affairs of Europe, it may be as well to touch upon the brief and uninteresting series of events that followed in that country. Henry, Count of Champagne, who had married Isabella, the heiress of Jerusalem, had proved but an indolent monarch; and in the year 1197, at the precise moment when the Saracens had newly captured Jaffa, he was killed by falling from a window. His loss was attended by no evil consequences;734 for the Saracens were soon involved once more in civil dissensions by the death of Saladin’s second son, Malek el Aziz, sultaun of Egypt, and the truce with the Christians was willingly renewed. Isabella, the queen, whose grief was not even so stable as that of the dame of Ephesus, was easily prevailed on, by the Grand Master of the order of St. John,735 to give her thrice-widowed hand to Almeric of Lusignan, now—by the cession of Richard of England—King of Cyprus. This marriage was certainly a politic one, as Cyprus afforded both a storehouse and a granary to Palestine; but the peace with the Saracens remained unbroken till the bigoted Simon de Montfort, detaching himself from another body of knights,736 which I shall mention hereafter, arrived at Acre, and made some feeble and ineffectual incursions on the Mussulman territory. After his fruitless attempts, the truce was once more established, and lasted till the death of Almeric and Isabella, when the crowns of Jerusalem and Cyprus were again separated. The imaginary sovereignty of the Holy City now became vested in Mary,737 the daughter of Isabella, by Conrad of Tyre, while the kingdom of Cyprus descended to the heirs of Lusignan. According to feudal custom it was necessary to find a husband for Mary who could defend her right, and on every account it was determined to seek one in Europe. The choice was left to Philip Augustus; and he immediately fixed upon Jean de Brienne, a noble, talented, and chivalrous knight, who willingly accepted the hand of the lady of Palestine, and that thorny crown which was held out to him from afar.
The news of his coming, and the prospect of large European reinforcements to the Christians,738 depressed the mind of Saif Eddin, who had already to struggle with vast and increasing difficulties. He tendered the most advantageous terms of peace; but at that time the two great military orders may be said to have governed Palestine.739 They were then, as usual, contending with jealous rivalry;740 and the Templars, having for the moment the superiority, the offers of the sultaun were refused, because the Hospitallers counselled their acceptance. Jean de Brienne arrived, and wedded Mary, but the succour that he brought was very far inferior to that which the Latins had anticipated, and the war which had begun was confined to predatory excursions on the territory of the enemy.741
I must now retrograde in my history for some years, and speak of the affairs of Europe. No crusade, as we have seen, had been desired by the Christians of Palestine742 since they had enjoyed the comforts of peace, and no crusade had reached that country; but, nevertheless, one of the most powerful expeditions which Europe had ever brought into the field had set out for the purpose of delivering Jerusalem.743
This crusade was, in the first place, instigated by the preaching of a man less mighty than St. Bernard in oratory,744 and less moved by enthusiasm than Peter the Hermit; but it was encouraged by one of the most talented and most ambitious of the prelates of Rome. Foulque of Neuilly would have produced little effect, had he not been supported by Innocent III.; and the influence of neither the one nor the other would possibly have obtained the object desired, had not the young and enterprising Thibalt, Count of Champagne, embraced the badge of the Cross with his court and followers, at a grand tournament745 to which he had invited all the neighbouring princes. In the midst of their festivities, Foulque appeared, and called the whole assembly to the crusade. Partly, it is probable, from the love of adventure, partly from religious feeling, Thibalt, in his twenty-second year, assumed the Cross. The Count of Blois, who was present, followed his example; and of eighteen hundred knights who held vassalage under the lord of Champagne, scarcely enough were left to maintain the territories of their sovereign. Nothing, except fear, is so contagious as enthusiasm: the spirit of crusading was revived in a wonderfully short time. The Count of Flanders, with various other persons, took the Cross at Bruges, and many more knights joined them from different parts of France, among whom was Simon de Montfort, who afterward proved the detestable persecutor of the Albigeois.
After holding two general conferences at Soissons and at Compiegne, it was determined to send messengers to Italy for the purpose of contracting with one of the great merchant states to convey the armament to the Holy Land.746 The choice of the city was left to the deputies; and they proceeded first to Venice, furnished with full powers from the crusading princes to conclude a treaty in their name. Venice was at that time governed by the famous Henry Dandolo, who, with the consent of the Senate, agreed not only to carry the crusaders to Palestine for a certain sum, but also promised to take the Cross himself and aid in their enterprise.747 Well satisfied with this arrangement, the deputed barons returned to France, but found the Count of Champagne sick of a disease which soon produced his death. After having been refused by Eudes, Duke of Burgundy, and Thibalt, Count of Bar, the office of commander of the expedition was offered to Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, and accepted. The new chief of the crusade repaired to Soissons, to confer with the rest of the knights, and then proceeded to Italy to prepare for his departure. All these delays retarded their departure till the year 1202, when they set out in several bodies for Venice, and arrived safely at that city with very little difficulty.748
Innocent III. had made infinite efforts in favour of the crusade: and, with the daring confidence of genius, had even taxed the unwilling clergy, while he merely recommended charitable subscriptions among the laity. Under such circumstances it will be easily conceived that the voluntary donations amounted to an equal sum with the forced contributions; but what became of the whole is very difficult to determine. Certain it is, that when the crusaders arrived at Venice, not half the money could be raised among them which they had agreed to pay for the use of the republic’s transports,749 although the chiefs melted down their plate to supply those who had not the means to defray their passage.
This poverty was attributed to the fact of various large bodies having, either by mistake or perversity, taken the way to the Holy Land750 by other ports, and carried with them a large part of the stipulated sum; but it does not appear that the Pope, into whose hands flowed the full tide of European alms, made any effort to relieve the crusaders from their difficulties. In this distress the Venetians offered to compromise their claim, and to convey the French to Palestine, on condition that they should aid in the recapture of the city of Zara, in Sclavonia, which had been snatched from the republic some time before by the King of Hungary.751 With this stipulation, Dandolo, though aged and stone blind, agreed to take the Cross; and so deeply affected were the knights, both with his forbearance and gallant enthusiasm, that the iron warriors of Europe were melted to tears by the old man’s noble daring.
The news of this undertaking having reached Rome, the most vehement opposition was raised to any change of destination; and Innocent752 launched the thunders of the church at the refractory crusaders. Many of the chiefs—terrified by the excommunication pronounced against those who should quit the direct road to the Holy Land, to attack the possessions of a Christian prince—remained in Italy;753 but the greater part made every preparation to second the Venetians against Zara.
Before their departure, the crusaders received envoys, the event of whose solicitations afterward gave a new character to their expedition. At the death of Manuel Comnenus, emperor of the east, Andronicus, his brother, seized upon the throne and murdered his nephew, Alexius II., who had succeeded. Either urged by indignation or ambition, Isaac Angelus, a distant relation of the slaughtered prince, took arms against the usurper, overthrew and put him to death; after which he in turn ascended the throne of Constantinople.754 His reign was not long; for, at the end of two years, a brother, named Alexius, whom he had redeemed from Turkish captivity, snatched the crown from his head, and, to incapacitate him from ruling, put out his eyes.
His son, named also Alexius, made his escape from prison, and fled to Italy, where he endeavoured to interest the Pope in his favour. But the church of Rome entertained small affection for the schismatic Greeks; and though Innocent wrote an impotent letter755 to the usurper, he showed no real favour to the unhappy prince. The young exile then turned to Philip of Suabia (then Emperor of Germany), who had married his sister Irene; and at the same time hearing of the crusade, which was delayed at Venice,756 he sent deputies from Verona to the chiefs, to solicit their aid against his treacherous uncle. The barons of France met his prayers with kindness; and the envoys were accompanied, on their return to the court of Philip of Suabia,757 by a party of the crusaders, who were instructed to receive any proposition which Alexius might think fit to make.
In the mean while, the knights embarked on board the Venetian galleys, round the decks of which they ranged their shields, and planted their banners; and having been joined by Conrad, Bishop of Halberstadt, with a large body of German soldiers, a finer armament never sailed from any port.758
The chain which protected the harbour of Zara was soon broken through; the crusaders landed, pitched their tents,759 and invested the city on all sides. The besiegers, as usual, were much divided among themselves; and those who had unwillingly followed the host to Zara, against the commands of the Pope,760 still kept up a continual schism in the camp, which produced fatal consequences to the people of the city. The morning after the disembarkation, a deputation of citizens came forth to treat with Dandolo for the capitulation of the town. The Doge replied that he could enter into no engagement without consulting his allies, and went for that purpose to the tents of the French chiefs. During his absence, those who opposed the siege persuaded the deputies from Zara that the crusaders761 would not assist the Venetians in an assault. With this assurance the Doge’s reply was not waited for; the envoys returned, and the city prepared for defence. At the same time, the Abbot of Vaux Cernay presented himself to the assembled barons, and commanded them, in the name of the Pope, to refrain from warring against Christians while engaged under the banners of the Cross. On this the Doge angrily remonstrated; the greater part of the knights embraced his cause; and Zara, after being furiously attacked, surrendered at discretion.
The town was now occupied during the winter by the army of the crusade; and the chiefs of the French forces sent a deputation to Rome to obtain pardon for their disobedience. This was easily granted; but the Venetians, who seemed to care little about excommunication, remained under the papal censure. Notwithstanding the forgiveness they had obtained, many of the most celebrated knights quitted Zara,762 and made their way to the Holy Land. Such desertions took place especially after the return of the deputies sent to Philip of Suabia; and it was difficult to keep the army763 together, when it became known that its destination was likely to be changed from Acre to Constantinople.
Alexius, however, offered, in case of his being re-established in his father’s dominions,764 to place the Greek church under the authority of the Roman pontiff, to turn the whole force of the eastern empire against the infidels of Palestine, and either to send thither ten thousand men, and there maintain five hundred knights during his life, or to lead his forces towards Jerusalem in person. Besides this he promised to pay two hundred thousand marks of silver765 to the crusading army, and to place himself in the hands of the chiefs till the city of Constantinople was retaken.
These offers were so advantageous that the greater part of the barons embraced them at once: but many exclaimed loudly against the proposed interruption of the main purpose of the crusade, and many abandoned the host altogether.
Alexius the usurper trembled at the news of the treaty between his nephew and the crusaders, and sent instant ambassadors to Rome,766 in order to engage the pontiff in his interest. Such of the chiefs as were opposed to the measure talked loudly of the papal injunction to refrain from all wars with the Christians;767 but it does not appear that Innocent exerted himself strenuously to turn the Latins from their design. It was far too much his desire to bring the Greek church under the domination of the Roman see, for him to dream of thwarting an enterprise backed with the solemn conditions I have mentioned; and it was not at all likely that the clearsighted prelate should renounce absolute engagements, as Mills has supposed,768 for the vague hope of wringing the same from a treacherous usurper.
At length, after the Venetians had demolished Zara,769 to prevent its falling again into the hands of their enemies, the expedition, having been joined by the prince Alexius, set sail, and at the end of a short and easy passage came within sight of Constantinople.770
The allies were instantly met by ambassadors from the Emperor, who, mingling promises with threats, endeavoured to drive them again from the shore, but in vain. The crusaders demanded the restoration of Isaac, and submission from the usurper, and prepared to force their landing; but before they commenced hostilities, they approached the walls of Constantinople, and sailed underneath them, showing the young Alexius to the Greek people, and calling to them to acknowledge their prince. No sympathy was excited, and the attack being determined on, the chiefs held a council on horseback, according to the custom of the ancient Gauls, when the order of their proceedings was regulated. The army was portioned into seven divisions, the first of which was commanded by the Count of Flanders, and the last by the Marquis of Montferrat. Having procured a number of flat-bottomed boats, one of which was attached to every galley, the knights entered with their horses, armed at all points, and looking, as Nicetas says, like statues of bronze.771 The archers filled the larger vessels, and it was the general understanding that each should fight as he came up.
“The morning was beautiful,”772 writes the old Mareschal of Champagne, “the sun beginning to rise, and the Emperor Alexius waited for them with thick battalions and a great armament. On both sides the trumpets were sounded, and each galley led on a boat. The knights sprang out of the barks, while the water was yet to their girdle,773 with their helmets laced and their swords in their hands; and the good archers, the sergeants, and the crossbowmen did the same wherever they happened to touch. The Greeks, at first, made great show of resistance, but when they saw the lances levelled they turned their backs and fled.”
The tents and camp equipage of the fugitives fell immediately into the hands of the crusaders; and siege was laid to the tower of Galata, which guarded one end of the great chain wherewith the mouth of the harbour was closed. Before night the Greeks had recovered from their panic, and some severe fighting took place ere the fort could be taken and the barrier removed; but at length this being accomplished, the Venetians entered the port. After ten days of continual skirmishing, a general attack was determined upon; and it was agreed that the Venetians774 should assail the city by sea, while the French attempted to storm the walls by land. The enterprise began on the land side against the barbican; but so vigorously was every inch of ground disputed by the Pisans, the English and Danish mercenaries who guarded the fortifications, that though fifteen French knights obtained a footing for some time on the ramparts, they were at length cast out, while four of their number were taken.
In the mean while, the fleet of the Venetians advanced to the walls; and after a severe fight of missiles between the defenders and the smaller vessels which commenced the assault, the galleys themselves approached the land; and, provided with high towers of wood, began to wage a nearer warfare with those upon the battlements. Still the besieged775 resisted with extraordinary valour, and the galleys were beaten off; when the blind chief of the republic, armed at all points, commanded, with tremendous threats in case of disobedience, that his vessel should be run on shore;776 and then, borne out with the standard of St. Mark before him, he led the way to victory. Shame spread through the rest of the fleet; galley after galley was brought up close under the walls, and all the principal towers round the port were in a moment stormed and taken. Alexius made one great effort to recover the twenty-five towers which the Venetians had captured; but, with remorseless resolution, Dandolo set fire to the neighbouring buildings, and thus raised up a fiery bulwark to his conquest.777
As a last resource, the Emperor now issued forth to give battle to the French: and so infinite was the superiority of his numbers, that the hearts of the pilgrims almost failed them. The gallant Doge of Venice no sooner heard of their danger, than, abandoning the ramparts he had so nobly won, he brought his whole force778 to the aid of the French, declaring that he would live or die with his allies. Even after his arrival, however, the disparity was so great, that the crusaders dared not quit their close array to begin the fight, and the troops of Alexius hesitated to attack those hardy warriors whose prowess they had often witnessed. The courage of the Latins gradually increased by the indecision of their enemy, while the fears of the Greeks spread and magnified by delay and at length Alexius abandoned the last hope of courage, and retreated into the city. The weary crusaders hastened to disarm and repose themselves, after a day of immense fatigues; but Alexius, having no confidence either in his own resolution, or in the steadiness of his soldiery, seized what treasure he could carry, and abandoned Constantinople to its fate.779 The coward Greeks, deserted by their chief, drew forth the miserable Isaac from his prison; and having robed the blind monarch in the long-lost purple, they seated him on the throne, and sent to tell the Franks that their object was accomplished. The crusaders would hardly believe the tidings, but despatched four of their body to ascertain the truth. The envoys found Isaac enthroned in the palace of Blachernæ,780 and surrounded by as large and splendid a court as if fortune had never ceased to smile upon him.
They now represented to the restored Emperor the conditions of their treaty with his son; and Isaac, after some slight hesitation, accepted them as his own. He also agreed to associate the young Alexius in the throne; but as all these hard terms, especially that which implied the subjection of the Greek church to the Roman prelate, deeply offended his subtle and revengeful subjects, he prayed the crusaders to delay their departure till complete order was re-established.781 This was easily acceded to; and the Franks and Venetians, during their stay, wrote to Innocent III., excusing their having again turned from the road to Jerusalem.782 The Pope willingly pardoned both; but intimated, that to make that pardon efficacious, they must be responsible that the schism in the church should be healed by the submission of the Greeks to the see of Rome.
At first, the harmony between the Franks and the Greeks appeared to be great. The young Alexius paid several portions of the money which had been stipulated;783 and while the presence of the Latin army kept the capital in awe, he proceeded to reduce the provinces to obedience. When this was completed, however, and the tranquillity of the empire seemed perfectly restored, his conduct changed towards his benefactors. A fire which broke out in the city784 was attributed to the French, who were at the very moment engaged in serious dispute with a party of Greeks, exasperated by an insult to their religion. The very domineering presence of the crusaders was a continual and irritating reproach, and the Greeks began to testify no small hatred towards their armed guests. Alexius himself, ungrateful in his own nature, contending with his father about their divided sovereignty, and hesitating between the people he was called to govern and those who upheld him in the government, refused or evaded the fulfilment of many of the items in his treaty with the Latins. The chiefs soon found that they were deceived, and formally summoned the young monarch to accomplish his promises. The messengers who bore the haughty demand to a despotic court hardly escaped with their lives; and the same desultory warfare which had been waged by the emperors against each body of crusaders that had passed by Constantinople was now commenced against the Count of Flanders and his companions.785 A thousand encounters took place, in which the Franks were always victorious; and though the Greeks directed a number of vessels, charged with their terrific fire, against the Venetian fleet, the daring courage and conduct of the sailors freed them from the danger, and only one Pisan galley was consumed.
In the mean while the Greeks of the city, hating and despising a monarch who had seated himself among them by the swords of strangers, and who had drained their purses to pay the troops that held them down;786 seeing, also, that his ingratitude, even to his allies, had left him without the support by which alone he stood, suddenly rose upon Alexius, and cast him into prison. Isaac himself died, it is said, of fear; and the Greeks at first elected a nobleman of a different family, named Nicholas Canabus; but he was mild and weak, a character which little suited the times or country in which he assumed so high a station. A rival, too, existed in a man who had shown unremitting enmity to the Latins, and after a short struggle, Alexius Ducas, a cousin of the late monarch, a bold, unscrupulous villain,787 was proclaimed emperor. Among his first acts—though at what exact period remains in doubt788—the new Alexius, who was more commonly called Murzuphlis, caused the preceding Alexius to be put to death. The manner of his fate is uncertain: but the usurper had the cunning impudence to yield his victim’s body a public funeral.
War was now determined between the crusaders and Murzuphlis, and the attack of the city was resolved; but previous to that attempt, the crusaders, who were in great want of provisions, despatched Henry, brother of the Count of Flanders, with a considerable force to Philippopoli, in order to take possession of the rich magazines which it contained. Returning loaded with spoil, he was attacked by Murzuphlis; but the Greeks scattered like deer before the Latins,789 and Henry rejoined his companions not only rich in booty, but in glory also. Negotiations were more than once entered into, for the purpose of conciliating the differences of the Greeks and the Latins; but all proved ineffectual; and early in the spring the armies of France and Venice prepared for the attack. The first step was, as usual, a treaty between the allies to apportion the fruits of success. By this it was determined that the whole booty should be divided equally between the French and Venetians;790 that six persons from each nation should be chosen to elect an emperor; that the Venetians should retain all the privileges they had hitherto enjoyed under the monarchs of Constantinople; and that, from whichever of the two nations the emperor was selected, a patriarch should be named from the other. There were various other conditions added, the principal of which were, that one-fourth of the whole conquest should be given to the new emperor, besides the palaces of Bucoleon and Blachernæ, while the rest was divided among the French and Venetians; and that twelve persons should be selected from each nation, to determine the feudal laws by which the land was to be governed, and to allot the territory in feoffs among the conquerors.
On the 8th of April, 1204, the whole army, having embarked on board the ships,791 as had been previously concerted, attacked the city by water. The vessels approached close to the walls, and a tremendous fight began between the assailants and the besieged: but no hope smiled on the Franks; they were repelled in every direction; and those who had landed,792 were forced to regain their vessels with precipitancy, approaching to flight. The Greeks rejoiced in novel victory, and the Franks mourned in unwonted defeat. Four days were spent in consultations regarding a further attempt; and the chiefs, judging that no one vessel contained a sufficient number of troops to effect a successful assault on any particular spot,793 it was resolved to lash the ships two and two together, and thus to concentrate a greater force on each point of attack. On the fourth day the storm was recommenced, and at first the fortune of battle seemed still in favour of the Greeks; but at length, a wind springing up, drove the sea more fully into the port, and brought the galleys closer to the walls.794 Two of those lashed together, called the Pilgrim and the Paradise, now touched one of the towers, and, from the large wooden turret with which the mast was crowned, a Venetian and a French knight named Andrew d’Arboise sprang upon the ramparts of the city.795
The crusaders rushed on in multitudes; and such terror seized the Greeks, that the eyes of Nicetas magnified the first knight who leaped on the walls to the unusual altitude of fifty feet.796 One Latin drove before him a hundred Greeks;797 the defence of the gates was abandoned; the doors were forced in with blows of axes; and the knights, leading their horses from the ships, rode in, and took complete possession of the city. Murzuphlis once, and only once, attempted to rally his troops before the camp he had formed, in one of the open spaces of the town. But the sight of the Count of St. Pol, with a small band of followers, was sufficient to put him to flight; and a German having set fire to a part of the buildings798 no further effort was made to oppose the victorious crusaders. The fire was not extinguished for some time; and the Latin host, in the midst of the immense population of Constantinople, like a handful of dust in the midst of the wilderness, took possession of the purple tents of Murzuphlis, and keeping vigilant guard, passed an anxious and a fearful night, after all the fatigues and exploits of the day. Twenty thousand was the utmost extent of the Latin numbers;799 and Constantinople contained, within itself, four hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms. Each house was a citadel, which might have delayed and repelled the enemy; and each street was a defile, which might have been defended against a host. But the days of Leonidas were passed; and the next morning the Latins found that Murzuphlis had fled, and that their conquest was complete. Plunder and violence of course ensued;800 but there was much less actual bloodshed than either the nature of the victory or the dangerous position of the victors might have occasioned.
Fear is the most cruel of all passions; and perhaps the fact that not two thousand persons were slain in Constantinople after the storm, is a greater proof of the courage of the Latins than even the taking of the city. Many noble and generous actions mingled with the effects of that cupidity and lust which follow always upon the sack of a great town. Nicetas mentions a striking example which happened to himself, wherein a noble Venetian dedicated his whole attention to protect an ancient benefactor;801 and a body of Frenchmen, in the midst of the unbounded licentiousness of such a moment, were moved by a father’s agony to save his daughter from some of their fellows. This is the admission of a prejudiced and inveterate enemy; and it is but fair to suppose, that many such instances took place. The great evils that followed the taking of the eastern capital, originated in the general command to plunder. Constantinople had accumulated within it the most precious monuments of ancient art,802 and these were almost all destroyed by the barbarous hands of an avaricious soldiery. Naught was spared; the bronzes, which, valueless as metal, were inestimable as the masterpieces and miracles of antique genius, were melted down,803 and struck into miserable coin; the marble was violated with wanton brutality; all the labour of a Phidias or a Lysippus was done away in an hour; and that which had been the wonder and admiration of a world left less to show what former days had been, than the earth after the deluge.
In this the Latins were certainly barbarians; but in other respects—unless subtilty, deceit, vice, and cowardice can be called civilization, and courage, frankness, and honour can be considered as barbarism—the Latins deserved not the opprobrious name by which the Greeks designated them.
The plunder of the city was enormous. In money804 a sufficient sum was collected to distribute twenty marks to each knight, ten to each servant of arms, and five to each archer. Besides this, a vast quantity of jewels and valuable merchandise was divided between the French and Venetians; and the republic, who understood the value of such objects better than the simple Frankish soldiers, offered to buy the whole spoil from their comrades, at the rate of four hundred marks for a knight’s share, and in the same proportion to the rest. The booty—with a few individual instances of concealment,805 which were strictly punished with death when discovered—was fairly portioned out; and, after this partition, the twelve persons selected to choose an emperor proceeded to their deliberations. They were bound by oath to elect without favour the best qualified of the nobles; and after a long hesitation, between the Marquis of Montferrat and the Count of Flanders, they named the latter.806 In all probability the determining consideration was, that Baldwin, by his immediate connexion with France, was more capable of supporting the new dynasty than the Marquis, whose Italian domains could not afford such effective aid. To prevent the evil consequences of rivalry, the island of Crete and the whole of Asiatic Greece were given to Montferrat, who afterward, with the consent of Baldwin, exchanged them for the Sclavonian territory. Baldwin was then raised upon a buckler,807 and carried to the church of St. Sophia. After a brief space of preparation, he was formally proclaimed, and crowned as emperor; and, according to old usage, a vase filled with ashes,808 and a tuft of lighted wool, were presented to the new monarch, as a symbol of the transitory nature of life and the vanity of greatness—emblems too applicable to himself and his dominions; for ere two years had passed, Baldwin had gone down into the grave; and less than the ordinary life of one man elapsed before the dynasty that he established was again overthrown.