Dandolo introduced the Frenchmen, and Villehardouin himself, presumably through an interpreter, addressed the crowd. He made an emotional appeal to the Venetians, flattering them that, as the greatest seafaring power, it was to their city that the nobles of France looked. He asked them to take pity on Jerusalem and begged them, in God’s name, ‘to avenge the insult offered to our Lord... They [the nobles of France] have commanded us to kneel at your feet, and not to rise until you consent to take pity on the Holy Land overseas.’ He drove home the familiar messages of civic pride and fundamental religious fervour: the envoys believed passionately in their cause and, as Villehardouin drew to a close, they all began to shed tears and fell to their knees in front of the assembled congregation. The call to help the holy places brought the doge and his associates to tears as well and everyone in the church cried out: ‘We consent! We consent!’
The shouts of the audience echoed up to the divine figures adorning the walls and domes, as though the Venetians were determined to convince their spiritual guardians of their enthusiasm and sincerity. The popular piety of the crowd had been harnessed; ‘this great surge of piety’, as Villehardouin expressed it, carried the concept of the crusade into reality. The expedition was acclaimed and the people of Venice were committed to the holy war. The doge returned to the lectern and, brimming with pride and emotion, said: ‘Behold the honour God has paid you in inspiring the finest nation in the world to turn aside from all other people and choose you to join with them in so high an enterprise as the deliverance of our Lord!’ Regardless of their relentless commercial drive, it is important to remember that the core spiritual appeal of the crusade had profoundly moved the Venetians.
The deeds of the agreement were duly drawn up. They embodied both the spiritual reasons for the crusade and the terms of the commercial contract. The following day these were confirmed: the two parties were now locked into a crushing contractual embrace of honour, huge financial outlay and high risk. The Venetians were to be paid in four instalments by April 1202 and the fleet would be prepared to set sail later that year on 29 June, the feast-day of Sts Peter and Paul.
18
The signed and sealed charters were brought to Dandolo’s palace and there, in the presence of his Grand Council, he prepared to hand over the documents to the envoys. It was a momentous occasion: the sight of the full covenant was too much for Dandolo and, as he presented the Frenchmen with the charters, the aged doge fell to his knees and began to weep. With tears streaming down his face, he swore on the Bible to hold firm to the terms of the contract. Moved by the emotion of their leader, the Venetian councillors gave their oath and then the crusaders followed suit. They too felt the enormity of the moment and shed tears as well. Perhaps at this moment the Venetians and the Frenchmen realised that their plans were moving decisively from theory into reality and that they were now irrevocably bound to the crusade.
19
While the scale of this agreement was unprecedented, the basic principles of the transportation of a body of crusaders at a fixed cost per man and horse were familiar. The most recent example was the contract of 1190 between the Genoese and the French. This specified the conveyance of 650 knights, 1,300 horses and 1,300 squires at a rate of nine marks per unit - that is to say, one knight, two horses and two squires for eight months - equivalent to 13½ marks per year. The Venetian charge was 14 marks per year, a similar enough rate.
20
In the case of the 1201 covenant, however, the key difference was the size of the army. The crusaders had sworn to bring 33,500 men to Venice by April 1202 and it was the failure to reach this figure that created a fundamental fault-line that proved critical in determining the fate of the entire expedition. It was as if here, at the moment the deal was conceived, a genetic flaw was introduced that had the capability of distorting or crippling the whole project as it grew towards fruition.
Tied to the number of crusaders required at Venice was the huge cost of transport for these men. The sum of 85,000 marks was equivalent to 60,000 pounds sterling, around twice the annual income of King John of England or of King Philip of France. On one hand, this demonstrates the massive outlay needed by the Venetians to prepare the fleet, but it also makes one pause at the scale of the commitment.
21
In the case of King Philip’s contract with the Genoese, he must have been certain that he would have 650 knights to accompany him: as the ruler of France he knew the size of his army from his advisers and from basic feudal obligations. With regard to the envoys in 1201 there was no such firm template to work from. They presumably had a clear idea of the number of men from Flanders, Champagne and Blois who had taken the cross; they may also have had some estimates of the size of some of the groups likely to join from Germany or Italy. Yet 33,500 was a substantial number to aim for in the contemporary political climate and was probably many more than the recruits already enlisted. By way of comparison, although we have no accurate figures for any earlier crusading expeditions, historians have estimated that 7,000 knights and 50,000 others took part in the First Crusade. The biggest crusader army to date had been Frederick Barbarossa’s huge force, said to have comprised about 20,000 knights and up to 80,000 other participants.
22
A key problem for the envoys in 1201 lay in their reliance on many men taking the cross in the future, rather than basing their figures on firm commitments already made. They were, in essence, making an educated guess. Yet these men were highly experienced crusaders and diplomats - they should have been able to arrive at a reasonably accurate figure for such a crucial agreement. Villehardouin himself had participated in the Third Crusade, as had Conon of Béthune, Milo of Brabant and John of Friaise; in other words, four of the six men had actually seen for themselves the size of the forces that could be assembled. They must have made a reasoned and carefully considered calculation to engage in the deal with Venice. Time alone would reveal whether their estimates reflected blind optimism, calamitous misjudgement or plain realism.
Aside from the provisions outlined in the sealed pact there was one further element introduced into the planning of the expedition - a secret agreement that the crusade would initially sail to Egypt, rather than to the Holy Land.
23
On the face of it, this seems illogical; if the objective of the campaign was to reclaim Jerusalem, why should it try to conquer other Muslim-held lands? In fact, the idea of an invasion of Egypt was, in strategic terms at least, an excellent and familiar solution to the problem of capturing the holy city. There was a long history of the crusaders and the Frankish settlers in the Levant trying to seize Egypt in order to compel the Muslims to surrender Jerusalem. The extraordinary wealth of the Nile Delta and the trade routes from North Africa across to the Middle East would give the Christians unparalleled military and economic strength to bring true stability to their hold on the Holy Land. Furthermore, it would end the Franks’ position as a fragile regional power clinging to the Mediterranean coast and surrounded on almost every landward side by the forces of Islam.
24
If they were to immediately capture Jerusalem, this would be acclaimed as a great triumph and would certainly weaken morale in the Muslim world, but the overall balance of power would simply return to the position created by Saladin before he invaded Jerusalem in 1187. The Muslims and the Franks had long recognised that control of Egypt led to possession of the Holy Land, and a later writer commented that ‘the keys to Jerusalem are to be found in Cairo’.
The prosperity of Egypt was a source of wonder to a Frankish visitor in the 1160s; Archbishop William of Tyre (d. 1185), the chancellor of the kingdom of Jerusalem and author of a history of the Latin East, wrote of ‘the marvellous abundance of all good things there and of each individual commodity; the inestimable taxes belonging to the ruler himself; the imposts and taxes from the cities both on the coast and farther inland; and the vast amount of annual revenue... The people there, devoted to luxurious living and ignorant of the science of war, had become enervated through a period of long-continued peace.’
25
After Saladin had taken the country in 1169, William lamented that ‘he draws an inestimable supply of the purest gold of the first quality’.
26
The Frankish settlers had expended enormous energies in their attempts to conquer the land they called Babylon. The first king of Jerusalem, Baldwin I (1100—18), died en route home from an expedition to Egypt; further campaigns were fought there in the 1120s and the 1140s. Between 1163 and 1169 King Amalric (1163-74) invaded the country no fewer than five times and during one incursion his royal flag fluttered over Alexandria, though ultimately his efforts failed. Later, as the consummate general of the age, Richard the Lionheart appreciated the need to take Egypt to ensure a long-term future for the Crusader States. Twice during the Third Crusade he tried to persuade the army to march southwards, rather than go towards Jerusalem, yet on both occasions opposition from the rank and file, who were determined to focus upon the object of their devotion rather than the bigger military picture, meant that he was unable to realise his plans. Richard had also opened contacts with the Genoese, proposing to engage their naval skills in any future invasion of Egypt in return for commercial advantages.
27
The essential components of the 1201 agreement can be seen in Richard’s experiences: a need for naval expertise to attack Egypt (Amalric had used Pisan and Byzantine fleets); the offer of trading benefits to the provider of this force; and an awareness of the potential pressure from the bulk of the crusader army to go to Jerusalem rather than first to Cairo. Villehardouin and his colleagues had experienced such tensions at first hand between 1191 and 1193 and they had few qualms about keeping this aspect of their plan hidden. As the marshal wrote: ‘[this part of the plan] was kept a closely guarded secret; to the public at large it was merely announced that we were going overseas’.
28
As the land in which Christ had lived and walked, Jerusalem had a spiritual potency that nowhere else could rival. As yet, the massive outbreak of popular enthusiasm needed to generate a viable crusade and to persuade men to risk their lives and leave their loved ones could not be shifted elsewhere. Regardless of the best long-term motives of the crusade leadership, a call to attack Egypt would not capture the popular imagination in western Europe. Villehardouin’s careful choice of the word ‘overseas’, was a clever deceit because, to the average knight, squire or foot-soldier, it automatically meant the Holy Land and would encourage him to take the cross in good heart.
It also made sound strategic sense to conceal the destination of the crusade. The Muslim world was in some disarray after the death of Saladin, with the rulers of Cairo, Aleppo and Damascus each seeking to dominate their rivals. The Franks were well aware of these difficulties and knew that it was a situation worth exploiting. A clearly signalled attack in one area might cause the Muslims to put their differences aside and prepare a strong defence against the invaders. Furthermore, Egypt itself was in a particularly fragile position at the turn of the thirteenth century because the Nile flood had failed for five consecutive years and had brought poverty and famine to the country.
Finally, there was a diplomatic consideration: the existence of a five-year truce between the kingdom of Jerusalem and the Muslims of Syria. Gunther of Pairis mentioned this agreement as a part of their motivation for attacking Egypt rather than Jerusalem. ‘They [the crusaders] had decided to ... sail in a direct assault against Alexandria, an Egyptian city. They chose this destination because at this time a truce between our people and the barbarians was in effect in the regions beyond the sea. Our people could not violate what they had pledged in good faith.’
29
In the early thirteenth century the Christians and Muslims of the Holy Land were both militarily under strength and needed a period to recover and regroup. The two sides tended to observe such truces, because to continually break them reduced their value in future. An invasion of Egypt did not, however, enter this category and would enable Christian aggression to fall outside the letter of the agreement.
Alongside this diplomatic factor, the superiority of western seapower was another reason to target Egypt. The Muslim navy was, compared to the maritime strength of Venice, relatively weak. The Syrian Muslims, who had ruled the country since the late 1160s, were from a landlocked equestrian culture who regarded seafaring as a dangerous activity best undertaken by common criminals; indeed, many sailors in the Muslim fleets were convicts. The Arab proverb, ‘It is preferable to hear the flatulence of camels than the prayers of fishes’, expresses this sentiment concisely. Saladin did try to develop a navy, but limited resources and poor seamanship rendered his efforts largely worthless. The bulk of his fleet was captured at the siege of Acre in 1191 and such was the scale of this disaster that his successors were still struggling to rebuild it by the time of the Fourth Crusade.
30
From the perspective of the Venetians, of course, the prospect of a dominant position in Alexandria was a truly tantalising one. Without doubt this was the commercial jewel of the eastern Mediterranean and would open up the markets of North Africa and the Middle East in an unprecedented way. Egypt was a major source of alum, sugar, spices and wheat and was an important market for wood and metals. The Venetians had a limited foothold in the country and conducted only around 10 per cent of their eastern Mediterranean business in Alexandria.This compared to about 65 per cent with Byzantium and 25 per cent with the Crusader States.
31
By contrast, the Genoese and the Pisans were much more active in Muslim ports.
32
Papal directives forbade trade with the Islamic world and, in response to Innocent’s attempts to enlist Venetian help at the start of the Fourth Crusade, the city sent envoys to ask for dispensation to deal with Egypt. The pope complained of Venetian sales of materials for war (weapons, iron, galley timbers) and threatened them with excommunication if this continued. He did, however, acknowledge that the Venetians - as a trading, rather than agricultural economy - gained their entire livelihood through commerce, and in order to encourage this help for the crusade he gave them grudging licence to continue supplying non-military items. This was a calculated, pragmatic move from Innocent as he tried to satisfy the conflicting diplomatic, religious and economic pressures created by the Venetians’ activities.
33