The Fourth Crusade: And the Sack of Constantinople by Jonathan Phillips

Author:Jonathan Phillips [Phillips, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

‘I should like you to know that a number of my people do not love me’

Triumph and Tensions at Constantinople, July—August 1203

IN SPITE OF the crusaders’ successes, they needed to keep a very firm check on their emotions. While the news of Emperor Alexius’s flight and Isaac’s return to power seemed to guarantee the status of the young prince, the standing of the westerners was far less clear. They had, after all, just been bombarding the very city that was now poised to open its gates to them – how would its inhabitants react to the prince’s allies, particularly in light of Alexius III’s intensive anti-western propaganda over recent months? The overwhelming feeling throughout the camp was one of caution. Suspicion of Byzantine duplicity dated back to the First Crusade when Emperor Alexius I had failed to bring support to the crusaders at the siege of Antioch in 1098. Greek treachery was widely trumpeted as the reason for the crushing defeats suffered by the kings of France and Germany during the Second Crusade. The massacre of westerners in 1182 and the later alliance with Saladin served to consolidate a deeply held scepticism concerning Byzantine reliability. With firm news yet to emerge, the crusaders donned their armour and wearily prepared their weapons just in case Isaac, or his advisers, continued to resist the holy warriors.

Throughout the morning of 18 July a steady trickle of information and messengers came out from Constantinople, but all repeated the same story. The emperor was gone and his blind brother was back on the imperial throne. The doge and the nobles determined to clarify their own position. They selected four envoys: two (unnamed) Venetians and two Frenchmen, Matthew of Montmorency and Geoffrey of Villehardouin. They were instructed to ask Isaac to confirm the agreements made by the prince – covenants that, without a shadow of doubt, the future of the crusade rested upon. Prince Alexius was an asset of paramount importance to the westerners. They were counting on his father feeling sufficient paternal devotion and a moral obligation to ratify the promises made by the young man.

Thanks to Villehardouin’s presence on the embassy we have an eye-witness account of the events inside Constantinople on 18 July 1203. The four envoys rode out of the crusader camp and headed the few hundred yards towards the city walls. Escorts met them and they proceeded to the Blachernae palace. The presence of the Varangian guard at the gates showed that the new regime had the support of this vital faction. Shouldering their heavy battle-axes, the guard formed a menacing corridor right up to the main door of the palace itself. As he had in St Mark’s 15 months earlier, Villehardouin found himself amongst a small group of crusaders entering a magnificent but unfamiliar building, not knowing how he would be received. In Venice he was, at the very least, assured of the support of the city’s ruler, the doge, but in Constantinople he had no such guarantees. After

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.