1. Text of entry

The Fourth Crusade that ended with the capture of Constantinople in 1204, is one of the most important and most spectacular events in the medieval history. One and a half century later, Nikephoros Gregoras wrote that in those days the Byzantine Empire dissolved into many shreds like a ship in a storm.¹ With the collapse of Byzantium, of the state that exercised full right of authority over the entire Christian world, an entirely new system of Latin and Greek states was created in the region of the southeastern Europe and the northwestern fringe of Asia Minor.

2. Background

The failure of the Third Crusade did not diminish the religious enthusiasm of the Western Europe. Under the auspices of pope Innocent III (1198-1216) a new campaign was prepared and before the summer of 1202 the crusaders were gathered in Venice in order to sail with their ships to Egypt. However, because they did not have enough money for the expenses of the travel, the doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo proposed them to occupy the Hungarian city of Zara on the account of Venice. This was the first divergence of the crusaders and a symbolic prelude of what was going to happen next. Because they had occupied Zara on November 1202, the crusaders decided to spend their winter there. Then the Byzantine prince Alexios Angelos appeared in their camp, son of the blinded Isaac II, who was asking for help from the West so as to resume the Byzantine throne for his father’s shake as well as for his own shake. He promised them large sums of money and, in order to please the pope, he said that he could take a look on the issue of the union of the Churches. The proposal was so tempting that the crusaders were unable to reject it and their conscience would stay tranquil because the crusade, after its sojourn in Constantinople, could be continued with more money. The two parties signed a treaty in Corfu on May 1203 and already on the 24^th of June the crusaders’ fleet appeared on the sea of Bosporos.

3. At the "Queen of cities"

The crusaders first occupied Galata on the 5^th of July 1203 and cut the chain that was blocking the entry to the Golden Horn. Then their ships entered the harbor of Constantinople and the attack against the city walls by land and sea started. While intruding into Constantinople, the crusaders set some buildings on fire, but the fire rekindled so quickly that everything was on fire in an area extending from the hillock of Blachernai to the monastery of Evergetissa. As Geoffrey Villehardoin writes, the fire was so strong that the Byzantine defenders could not see the crusading invaders.² Although the Byzantine garrison strongly resisted, on the 17^th of July 1203 Constantinople fell on crusaders’ hands, while the emperor Alexios III Angelos (1195-1203) escaped taking with him the state fiscus containing seventy-five thousand Byzantine golden pieces.

Blinded Isaac II was restituted on the throne and his son Alexios IV was crowned co-emperor. After fulfilling their promises and receiving guarantees that the agreement which was closed in Zara would be kept, the crusaders came out of the city, settled in Galata and waited to get paid the agreed amount. Unable to pay the crusaders, Alexios IV was found between the crossfire of the impatient newcomers from the West on the one side, who demanded their money, and on the other side of the population of Constantinople, angry at the young emperor who had brought the crusaders in the city.

4. Fall of Constantinople

At the end of January 1204 in Constantinople a revolt broke out that brought into power Alexios V Doukas Mourtzouphlos. Isaac II died and Alexios IV was murdered. The arrival of the anti-latin party accelerated only the last act of the Byzantine tragedy. When they realized that they would not receive their money, the crusaders started preparing themselves for a new fight. They decided to occupy once more the Byzantine capital, but this time not to establish a new Byzantine government but to utterly defeat Byzantium and to establish a Latin empire on its territories.

After that the attack against Constantinople started and the unavoidable happened. On Tuesday, the 13^th of April 1204 the big city on Bosporos succumbed to the superiority of the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade. Thus Constantinople, which for centuries remained impregnable and lasted the mighty attacks of the Persians, the Arabs, the Avars, the Slavs, the Bulgarians and the Pechenegs, fell on the hands of the crusaders and of the Venetians.

Robert de Clari, crusader and witness from a Latin point of view, wrote that French knights and crusaders of the Fourth Crusade believed to be descendants of the inhabitants of the ancient city of Troy.³ This was a widely spread legend in 13^th-century France, which was used as one of the excuses for the capture of the Byzantine capital. We should note here that the Latin bishops were convincing the crusaders encamped on Bosporos that their military operation was legitimate because the Greeks offended the Roman religion by pointing out that it was preached by dogs, therefore the attack against Constantinople was not a sin but a pious action.⁴

After occupying Constantinople, the crusaders for three days and three nights were plundering the city and committing cruel deeds. Niketas Choniates, an eyewitness, describes the horror on the streets of Constantinople after the crusaders’ entry on 13 April 1204. He writes that on the streets were heard cries, screams, mourning; at the crossroads moanings, in the churches weepings; men week because of the misery and the sorrow; women yelling because the arrogant invaders were drugging them on the streets, separating them from their men and then raping them.⁵ Thereafter, he continues in the same tone that many were carrying on horses women that the crusaders had raped, wrapping some of them into large cloaks and tying back their interlacing curls and their mingled hair into a ball.⁶ In a well-known formulation, Niketas Choniates comments on the atrocities of the Latin invaders in the Byzantine capital: “Even the Saracens are merciful and gentle compared to these men that carried the cross on their shoulders.“⁷

Niketas Choniates, according to the medieval way of thinking, bitterly mourns and points out that no omen, heavenly or earthly – in contrast to many older occasions– had foretold the disaster of the Byzantine capital. Neither a bleeding rain from the sky, nor the crop being red like blood, nor burning rocks falling from the sky, nor any other omen came as forbearer of the forthcoming disaster.⁸

When the Latins occupied Constantinople, precious treasures from the richest cultural center of the world were plundered and extracted, and a big part of it was ruthlessly destroyed. Robert de Clari is referred to the vast wealth that fell on the hands of the conquerors and points out that such a wealth existed neither in the period of Alexander nor in the period of Charlemagne, neither before nor after; hardly enough could be found so much wealth among the forty richest cities as the one in the Byzantine capital alone; besides, the Greeks as well believed that two thirds of the earthly riches have been gathered at Constantinople whereas the rest one third is scattered around the world.⁹

It should be especially pointed out the barbarian behavior of the Latins against artistic monuments, the libraries and the Byzantine sacred spaces. By intruding into the churches, the crusaders turned on the religious objects and ornaments, violated reliquaries containing saints’ relics, stole religious vessels, demolished and broke off precious monuments, burnt manuscripts. Constantinople was never again capable of recovering from the Latin destruction, because the Empire deprived of its strength was not in a position of renewing the incomparable thousand-year treasures accumulated from the 4^th and the5^th centuries onwards. Monuments of classical art and sacred things from the apostolic era were destroyed or dispersed in all parts of Europe. We have to say in addition that Niketas Choniates in his historical work added a short tribute for the Constantinopolitan monuments ruined when the Latins occupied the city.¹⁰

Niketas Choniates, who after five days of tremendous uncertainty in a city exposed to the devastation of the Latin knights and noblemen, managed to leave, describes his meeting with the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. It is a shocking testimony of the deep rupture within the Byzantine society of those days. He narrates about the disdain and the hate as well as the ill will with which the Thracian villagers welcomed the miserable and the once so much proud Byzantine aristocracy. The inhabitants of the villages near Constantinople not only mocked at the poverty and nudeness of the refugees but, in their fanaticism, they viewed their situation as a state of equality. They insisted that the poverty of the until yesterday rich nobles was now similar to their own, while there were some others who were thanking God for giving them the opportunity to get rich by purchasing goods at extremely low prices from their poor compatriots.¹¹

Due to the fall of Constantinople on the April of 1204, the Byzantine Empire collapsed. Upon the territory of the former Empire were created some Latin and Greek states. The Byzantine powers were pushed off towards the periphery and only after six decades did Constantinople return to the hands of the Byzantines and the Byzantine Empire was restored in 1261. On the contrary, the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders, kept off for ever the Christian East from the Christian West and both these cultural antipodes were settled in mutually excluding fronts of history. For that reason any attempts of a real approach between these two worlds could not have a future any more. In short, the Byzantines never forgave the westerns for this unheard of operation and for all those ensued from it.