At some point during the tournament at Écry, Count Thibaut and his cousin, Count Louis, halted the proceedings and took the cross, committing themselves to God’s service.
19
The two men must have been moved to this by a private sermon of which we have no record. Tournaments were often held in conjunction with major religious or family festivals and in 1199 the presence of a churchman preaching the cross would not have been unlikely. This, set against the background of Innocent’s appeal, would have prompted Thibaut and Louis to consider the matter. Both men were too powerful and had too great a set of responsibilities to have acted completely spontaneously. Their family heritages were rich in crusading ancestry and both would have known that their vows were binding before God. The two counts would have been aware of the profound undertakings they had made; to try to avoid them would bring upon themselves ecclesiastical sanctions and great shame. In fact, along with the essential religiosity of the time and the chivalric ethos, the family background of both these young men was almost certainly a fundamental element in their decision to take the cross.
Thibaut was the younger, aged only 20, but he had already ruled Champagne for three years. His lands comprised one of the largest, richest and most prestigious lordships in western Europe; the counts of Champagne were, along with the counts of Flanders, probably the most senior figures of the realm behind the king of France. Thibaut’s grand-parents included King Louis VII of France (1137-80) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (both crusaders as well), and he was also a nephew of Richard the Lionheart, King John of England and King Philip of France. As well as having this superior family tree, Thibaut’s crusading pedigree was highly impressive: his father, Henry, had participated in the Second Crusade and had made an expedition of his own in 1179-80. Thibaut’s brother, Count Henry II, had taken the cross for the Third Crusade and had commanded the French contingent before the arrival of King Philip. To add particular distinction to the family’s achievements, when Conrad of Montferrat, the man designated as the next ruler of Jerusalem, was murdered in 1192, it was Henry who was selected to take his place. On 5 May that year he became ruler of Jerusalem, a position of enormous prestige even though the city itself remained in Muslim hands. Henry reigned until 10 September 1197 when his dwarfish entertainer toppled from a balcony and pulled him down to his death. Henry’s wife Isabella remained the titular ruler of Jerusalem, and Thibaut became the count of Champagne. One can see how Thibaut had a strong incentive to uphold his family’s crusading traditions and to help regain the city that his father had once ruled. He had reached the age of majority in 1198 and now, as a grown man, he could live up to his heritage.
20
Louis of Blois was aged 28 when he took the cross. He too was a grandson of Louis VII and Eleanor and a nephew of King John and King Philip. In spite of his young age he already had crusading experience. His father, Thibaut the Good, had taken part in the Third Crusade and there is evidence that Louis had accompanied him. Thibaut the Good was amongst the many nobles who died at the siege of Acre in 1191, but his son survived and prospered. Louis’s wife, Catherine, brought the county of Clermont to him; her first husband, Raoul, had also perished at Acre and so Louis ruled over a considerable territory.
21
The actions of Thibaut and Louis ignited recruitment for the Fourth Crusade. At last Innocent’s project had attracted men of real authority. The pope must have been delighted that nobles of such distinguished rank were prepared to take part in the expedition. It was, after all, more than a year since he had first launched the appeal and, with the collapse of his efforts to persuade the kings of England and France to fight for Christ, there was a very real possibility that the whole plan might fade into oblivion: a dismal start to the pontificate of a man of such spiritual fire. The events at Écry were pivotal. As Thibaut’s marshal, Geoffrey of Villehardouin (the author of one of the most important accounts of the Fourth Crusade), wrote: ‘People throughout the country were greatly impressed when men of such high standing took the cross.’
22
Once Thibaut had signified his intention to participate in the crusade, there was a huge pressure on many of his vassals—or at least those of fighting age—to join. Geoffrey of Villehardouin provides lists of the nobles and knights who followed Thibaut and Louis and they feature many men with crusading ancestors, including the author himself. Geoffrey was a man in his early fifties and, as the marshal of Champagne, he was the count’s most senior military adviser and officer. Geoffrey took part in the Third Crusade, but on 14 November 1190 he was outside the Christian camp at the siege of Acre when he was ambushed by Muslim soldiers and imprisoned. It would be four years until he returned to Champagne, where he featured prominently in courtly life as an arbitrator of justice and as a key presence at most important events.
Before his death in 1212 or 1213 he narrated his story, probably relying on contemporary notes to support his memory. As a member of the elite inner circle of the crusade leadership, Geoffrey was party to most of its key meetings and his memoir provides an unparalleled insight into its workings. He boldly proclaimed the veracity of his text: ‘the author of this work ... has never, to his knowledge, put anything in it contrary to the truth’.
23
Some historians have been less convinced and view him as an apologist, concealing facts that could reflect badly on the crusade (such as the full details of the sack of Constantinople) and covering up any hint that there was a possible plot to divert the crusade to Byzantium. More commonly, however, he is regarded in a more positive light and as a man saturated in the values of his warrior class. As a result he may express distorted judgements and omit certain episodes, but he is generally judged to be without any sinister purpose.
24
Others who took the cross at Écry included Reynald of Montmirail, a cousin of Thibaut and Louis, and Simon of Montfort, a man who would later gain notoriety as the leader of the vicious crusade against the Cathar heretics of southern France in 1208-9. Simon had already fought in the Holy Land in 1198-9 and was now prepared to pledge himself to the crusading cause a second time.
25
Another contingent came from the Île-de-France region around Paris; its leader was Bishop Nivelo of Soissons. The involvement of leading churchmen in a crusade was commonplace throughout the movement. Such men were often close relatives of the major nobles and they were needed to provide spiritual direction to the troops through regular worship and the confession and absolution so essential before a major battle.
Enthusiasm for the crusade began to filter across northern Europe. On 23 February 1200, Ash Wednesday, Count Baldwin of Flanders and his wife Marie took the cross in the city of Bruges. Above all other noble houses in the West, it was the counts of Flanders who could boast the longest and most intense commitment to the crusades. Count Robert II had been one of the heroes of the First Crusade; Count Charles the Good had fought in defence of the Holy Land for a year in around 1108; Count Thierry had made no fewer than four crusades to the Levant in 1139, 1146-9, 1157-8 and 1164 - a unique record of endurance and piety; Count Philip had been to the Levant in 1177-8 and died at Acre in 1191. With this background, one suspects that Baldwin’s decision to become a crusader was merely a question of timing.
26
The count himself was aged 28; his wife Marie was aged 26. She was the sister of Thibaut of Champagne and therefore had the same impressive crusading traditions and ties to the ruling house of Jerusalem. Baldwin and Marie had been betrothed as infants and married at the ages of 14 and 12 respectively, but unlike many arranged marriages from the medieval period, their relationship was (as far as we can tell) genuinely very close. Gislebert of Mons, a contemporary chronicler, wrote of Baldwin’s ‘burning love’ for Marie and praised him for spurning all other women in a way few other nobles of the day did. The count was said to be deeply contented with his wife and did not turn to the usual collection of prostitutes and casual partnerships often found around the loveless marriages in the higher levels of medieval society. Even in official documents Baldwin chose to compliment Marie; instead of simply naming her as a witness to a charter, he described her as ‘my beautiful wife’, ‘my adored wife’ or ‘my most loving wife’; hardly the language of dry diplomacy. This was not mere convention, but a sign of Baldwin’s deep devotion. His love for Marie was widely recognised; the Byzantine writer Niketas Choniates, usually hostile towards those westerners who had sacked his beloved Constantinople, wrote of Baldwin: ‘He was, furthermore, devout in his duties to God, and was reported to be temperate in his personal conduct; for as long as he was separated from his dear wife, he never so much as cast a glance at another woman.’ It seems that Baldwin expected his fellow-crusaders to follow an equally continent code of behaviour because, as Niketas continued: ‘Most important, twice a week in the evening he had a herald proclaim that no one who slept within the palace was to have sexual intercourse with any woman who was not his legal wife.’
27
At the time Baldwin and Marie took the cross she was heavily pregnant, expecting their first child, a daughter, Joan, who was born in late 1199 or early 1200. The presence on the crusade of the wives of leading men was not unknown. Marie’s grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, provided an obvious (if infamous) precedent, and Richard the Lionheart had married his bride Berengaria of Navarre on Cyprus as he travelled east on the Third Crusade. Alongside personal feelings for one another —a wish to be together - it was religious devotion, the need to continue trying to provide heirs, and the crusader lord’s ability to protect and feed his own family that explained why women such as Marie could go on crusade. Many other Flemings, including Baldwin’s brother, Henry, took the cross for the Holy Land as well, and they formed a strong, experienced contingent that contained several veterans of the Third Crusade, as well as numerous men with strong crusading traditions stretching back through the twelfth century.
After the Flemings had joined the expedition, Villehardouin recorded that Count Hugh of Saint-Pol, Count Peter of Amiens and Count Geoffrey of Perche, three other important noblemen from northern France, also pledged themselves to the crusade, along with large numbers of their knights and men-at-arms. One particular recruit from the second of these contingents is of great significance for historians of the Fourth Crusade: numbered amongst the vassals of Peter of Amiens was a humble knight, Robert of Clari, who wrote a record of his experiences on the campaign that provides us with one of the most vivid and exciting of all crusade narratives. He returned from the expedition in 1205 and in 1216 wrote up, or dictated, his work, in Old French, rather than the Latin used by the clergy. Robert produced an account from the perspective of an ordinary knight who, unlike Villehardouin, was not privy to the highest decision-making levels. His work is full of ideas and opinions as to how and why the crusade developed and his front-line experiences at Constantinople and his engaging sense of marvel at the size and scale of the great city add true vigour and value to his authority as a first-rate historical source. Like Villehardouin, Robert named many individuals from the French contingents who took the cross and ‘carried banners’ to indicate their status as wealthy knights.
28
In the spring of 1200 the leading nobles chose to assemble at the town of Soissons in the north of Champagne. In spite of the encouraging involvement of these important men, there was still some concern that overall the crusaders were too few in number. Another meeting was scheduled to take place at Compiègne two months later and here some serious planning took place.
29
Perhaps by this time news had reached northern France that the crusade was attracting support in the German Empire. Abbot Martin’s sermon in Basel and the work of other preachers had led to men such as Conrad, bishop of Halberstadt (in Saxony), joining the crusade with a sizeable contingent. In any case, the nobles at Compiègne settled down to debate the essential framework of the crusade. Presumably they discussed financial matters and how each proposed to finance his expedition. They stated the projected numbers in each of their retinues, and probably debated who else might follow them. Most crucially, they had to decide how to reach the eastern Mediterranean. The First and Second Crusades had chosen to march across Europe, through the Byzantine Empire, and had then fought their way over Asia Minor to northern Syria. Since 1182, however, the Byzantines had been resolute opponents of their fellow-Christians and were bitterly hostile to any western incursions. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had managed to muscle his way past Constantinople and to defeat the Seljuk Turks in battle in 1190, but Richard and Philip had chosen to sail to the Levant. It was this latter course of action that the French nobles decided to follow. In reality it was the only realistic option open to them, on account of their relatively limited numbers and the continued enmity of the Greeks.
Many of the crusading ancestors of the Flemings - a seafaring people —had sailed from northern Europe, down the English Channel, around the Iberian peninsula and on to the Holy Land.
30
But for most on the Fourth Crusade the prospect of sea travel was profoundly terrifying, though it offered a quicker and, in military terms, safer route to the Levant than any other. The landbound expeditions could take at least eight months; by sea it was possible to sail from Italy to the eastern Mediterranean in four to six weeks.
31
Because the northern French crusaders were not seafarers, and the Flemings lacked the ships to transport an army of the size now recruited, it was necessary to seek the services of the Italian maritime cities of Venice, Genoa or Pisa.