The Fourth Crusade
The Divide between East and West
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> Scriptural starting points:
- Judges 18
- Matt. 5:9
- Gal. 5:19 - 21
> The Background
- Second Crusade (1147 - 1150) had ended in disaster for the crusading armies, the bulk of which had come from France under Louis VII and Germany under Conrad. The forces were badly beaten in Anatolia and finally were crushed during an ill-fated siege of Damascus.
- Third Crusade (1189 - 1192) was a response to the capture of Jerusalem by Muslim forces under Saladin in 1187. The Crusader states had also lost to Saladin in the Battle of Hattin in 1187. England, under Richard I the Lionheart, France, under Philip II, and Germany under Frederick Barbarossa. The crusade failed to retake Jerusalem, but several strongholds were established along coastal areas.
- Pope Innocent III called for a new crusade in 1198, hoping that the fierce Richard would lead a contingent from France/England along with the French monarch Philip II. However, Richard died in 1199, after a long feud with Philip, who also declined to take the cross again.
- At a tournament in the North of France in 1199, at Ecry-sur-Aisne, Count Thibaut of Champagne and other nobles and knights took the cross. During this time, Fulk of Neuilly, a French monk, preached Innocent’s crusade and claimed to have gathered 200,000. Thibaut died shortly after, and Boniface of Montferrat (N. Italy), an experienced soldier and heir to a long line of crusading leaders, took command of the crusading force.
- After contacting the Pisans, Genoans, and Venetians, it was decided to sail out of Venice and make for Cairo, Egypt, to dominate the Mediterranean and establish a future crusading base.
- The Venetians agreed to transport 33,500 crusaders for 88,000 silver marks.
- Only 12,000 showed up by 1202! The Crusaders had to make a bargain with the Venetians.
- Meanwhile, in Byzantium, Emperor Isaac II Angelos was deeply unpopular. Known for his extravagance and stupidity, he was deposed in a coup in 1195. His brother, Alexios III Angelos ascended to the throne.
> The Siege of Zara
- A Catholic city located in what is today modern Croatia, Zara had been under Venetian control until it rebelled in 1181 and allied itself with the King of Hungary.
- The Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, convinced the crusaders to assist him in intimidating Zara and returning it to Venice (this was in lieu of the rest of the payment for transportation to Egypt).
- The city fell after a 14 day siege in November of 1202. Innocent III excommunicated the Crusaders.
> The Siege and Sack of Constantinople
- Meanwhile... Boniface of Montferrat had visited his brother, Philip of Swabia, and met the son of the deposed Isaac II Angelos, Alexios IV Angelos (born c. 1182). Alexios promised Byzantine funds, weapons, and soldiers if the Crusaders allowed him to retake the throne in Constantinople from his uncle. Boniface and Enrico Dandolo agreed.
- The Crusaders arrived at Constantinople with Alexios IV on June 23, 1203. After some skirmishes in the suburbs, a major engagement happened on July 6 when a crusader vessel snapped the chain across the Golden Horn, Crusaders destroyed mercenary troops manning a tower across from the city, and Venetian ships sailed alongside the Constantinopolitan defensive walls.
- Alexios III displayed cowardice during the siege, and when he led out a sally of 8,500 troops to smash the vastly smaller force of crusaders, he retreated without a fight. Meanwhile... the Venetians set fire to about 120 acres of the city; between the fire and the fleeing of the emperor, the Byzantines suffered confusion and a loss of morale. They re-instated Isaac II as Emperor, and, at the Crusaders’ insistence, elevated Alexios IV as co-emperor.
- Alexios struggled to pay the crusaders. He even resorted to melting down sacred icons. Soon unrest broke out in the city. In retaliation, the crusaders and Venetians started a fire 19-21 August 1203 that burned many neighborhoods of the city.
- A nobleman named Alexios Doukas ended up coming to power after the death of Isaac II and the imprisonment and strangulation of Alexios IV in February of 1204. Doukas took the name Alexios V. The crusaders launched attacks that were repulsed, before a successful breach of the walls April 12, 1204 and a general conquest of the city a day later. A three day-long sack followed.
> The Consequences
- “The Greeks were convinced that even the Turks, had they taken the city, would not have been as cruel as the Latin Christians. The defeat of Byzantium, already in a state of decline, accelerated political degeneration so that the Byzantines eventually became an easy prey to the Turks. The Fourth Crusade and the crusading movement generally thus resulted, ultimately, in the victory of Islam, a result which was of course the exact opposite of its original intention.” - Speros Vryonis
- This was the nail in the coffin of "The Great Schism" of 1054. Rather than limited and mutual excommunications, this was a vast political, cultural, and religious split between Eastern Christendom and Western Christendom.
- Latin Empire of Constantinople established (lasted until 1261).
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