In 1181—2 Constantinople was the scene of plot and counter-plot and when the anti-western usurper—Andronicus Comnenus—triumphed, both Renier and Maria were poisoned. For Boniface this episode created a grudge for the Montferrat family against the Byzantines, which was to prove an unhealthy background to later events. Andronicus became emperor in September 1183, but he was brutally removed after just two years. His successor, Isaac II Angelos (1185-95), wanted to rebuild a relationship with the Montferrats so he offered Boniface the hand in marriage of his sister, Theodora. Boniface already had a wife, but his brother Conrad was proposed as an alternative and the pair were duly married.
Once at Constantinople, Conrad took charge of the imperial army and fought off yet another revolt. His bravery won him the plaudits of local commentators: Niketas Choniates described him as one who ‘so excelled in bravery and sagacity that he was far-famed ... graced as he was with good fortune, acute intelligence and strength of arm’.
13
Conrad used a number of western mercenaries in his army but a mistrust of outsiders provided a pretext for many in the political hierarchy to delay the true rewards of his status and position. Judging that the anti-western attitude still prevalent among some factions in the city posed a threat, Conrad decided to fulfil a crusade vow that he had made before accepting the offer to marry Theodora. This was in the summer of 1187—the very moment when Saladin was destroying the Frankish armies in the Holy Land. Conrad sailed to the Levant and arrived at the port of Tyre (in the south of modern-day Lebanon) on 13 July, unaware of the Christians’ terrible defeat at Hattin. Saladin swept through the Crusader East until he reached the walls of Tyre. The citizens thanked God that ‘He had sent them a ship [Conrad’s] at such a moment of crisis’.
14
The marquis led a valiant last-ditch defence of the city and his success in fending off the Muslims gave the Christians a crucial, solitary bridgehead on the coast of southern Palestine. Such was his determination that even when Saladin paraded Conrad’s captured father, William the Old (taken at Hattin), in front of the walls of Tyre and threatened to kill him if the marquis did not surrender, Conrad was defiant. He shouted: “‘Tie him to a stake and I shall be the first to shoot at him, for he is too old and is hardly worth anything.” They brought him [William the Old] before the city and he cried out and said, “Conrad, dear son, guard well the city!” And Conrad took a crossbow in his hand and shot at his father. When Saladin heard that he had shot at his father, he said, “This man is an unbeliever and very cruel.”’
15
Then Saladin sent messengers to convince Conrad that he really did mean to kill his prisoner, but the marquis responded that he wished his father to die, because after all William’s shameful deeds such a wicked man would have a noble end and he, the marquis, would have a martyr as a father!
16
As well as being an uncompromising negotiator, Conrad was a great soldier and an extremely ambitious man.
17
With King Guy of Jerusalem in captivity, the marquis began to act as the
de facto
ruler of the Holy Land. Even when Guy was released, Conrad refused to cede authority to a man whom he viewed as discredited by the loss of Jerusalem. Guy was only king by virtue of his wife Sibylla’s royal blood and, when she died at the siege of Acre, his claim to the throne was weakened. A period of rivalry saw the energetic newcomer emerge as the stronger candidate for the crown and in 1191 Conrad married Sibylla’s sister, Isabella, the sole heiress to Jerusalem. This was a move of breathtaking political opportunism : his own marriage to Princess Theodora remained in place; Isabella too was married; and if this were not enough, Conrad and Isabella were distantly related. The union therefore possessed the rare distinction of being both incestuous and doubly bigamous. Protests against its legitimacy, however, were scarcely under way when, on 28 April 1192, Conrad fell victim to the Assassins’ knife in the coastal city of Acre.
Isabella was at the town baths and, to pass the time before she returned for supper, the marquis went to see his friend, the bishop of Beauvais. Unfortunately for Conrad, the bishop had already eaten and so the marquis set out for home again. As he rode along the narrow alleyways of the city, he passed two men clothed in monastic habits who gestured, as if to present him with a letter. Suspecting nothing, Conrad greeted them both and held out his hand, whereupon they stabbed him in the stomach. The marquis collapsed, mortally wounded, and died within the hour.
18
There was confusion as to who had hired members of the Shi’i sect—the master murderers of the age—to carry out this task. Some blamed Saladin, while many others felt Richard the Lionheart was responsible because he had long opposed Conrad’s candidacy for the throne.
A few months earlier William the Old had died as well. The eastern Mediterranean had claimed the lives of four members of the Montferrat family. Perhaps this contained a warning, but the new crusade offered Boniface the opportunity to add even greater glory to his dynasty’s legacy and to lead an expedition to the land that his brother should have been ruling over.
Boniface was the cultured and dynamic patron of a brilliant chivalric court, and many knights and troubadours clustered around such a generous and stimulating figure. Raimbaut of Vaqueiras, who was both a troubadour and a knight, became a close companion of the marquis. He originated from the Orange region, deep in southern France, but took service with Boniface at Montferrat around 1179-80. He wrote to the marquis thus: ‘In your court reign all good usages: munificence and services of ladies, elegant raiment, handsome armour, trumpets and diversions and viols and song, and at the hour of dining it has never pleased you to see a keeper at the door.’
19
To the leadership of the Fourth Crusade, Boniface and his family brought an impressive combination of prestige, military experience and crusading connections to the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean. In this respect he was a clever choice, although as a northern Italian involved with Genoa and imperial Germany he carried with him a number of political tensions that affected the predominantly northern French complexion of the crusade.
It is thought likely that Villehardouin visited the marquis on his way home from Venice in 1201, so Boniface must have known at an early stage about the crusade’s plans, including the invasion of Egypt. Once Villehardouin had persuaded the French nobles gathered at Soissons to agree to his recommendation, envoys were dispatched to Montferrat. The marquis’s response was promising. In the late summer he travelled north across the Alps, via the Great St Bernard Pass, towards Soissons, accompanied by other Lombard nobles and the Cistercian churchman Abbot Peter of Lucedio, who was later to become patriarch of Antioch. En route Boniface made a detour to visit King Philip in Paris. The
Gesta
(Deeds) of Pope Innocent III suggests that it was Philip who put forward Boniface’s name in the first instance. Whether or not this is true, it was good politics for the marquis to pay his respects to his cousin, the French monarch, as he passed through royal lands and as he contemplated leading many of Philip’s subjects overseas.
20
The meeting with the French nobility was arranged to take place in an orchard next to the abbey of Notre-Dame of Soissons. In late August the trees were heavy with apples, and the orchard provided a peaceful, shady setting for such serious business. The French crusaders spared no effort in their bid to convince the marquis that he should be their leader. They offered Boniface full command of their army, half of Thibaut’s crusading money and the commitment of the count’s men. ‘We sent for you as the most worthy man that we knew ... be our lord and take the cross for the love of God.’
21
They implored the marquis to agree to their request and fell at his feet in tears. Given his presence in northern France and his visit to King Philip, it is obvious that Boniface was already highly receptive to the proposal. After hearing out the Frenchmen, he knelt before them and solemnly agreed to lead the army of Christ.
There must have been delight and relief amongst the leadership. It still remained for Boniface to take the cross and the marquis, along with Bishop Nivelo of Soissons (already a crusader himself), Abbot Peter of Lucedio and Fulk of Neuilly (the man who had led much of the crusade preaching around northern Europe over the previous two years) walked the short distance from the orchard to the church of Notre-Dame.
The rite for taking the cross was a fairly simple process, according to the first surviving liturgical text to describe the event. There was a blessing and then the presentation of the cross, accompanied by the words ‘Lord, bless this ensign of the Holy Cross that it may help forward the salvation of Thy servant’. The crusader then attached the cross to his shoulder. He was also given the traditional pilgrim’s insignia of a staff and a scrip (wallet) to emphasise the close links between crusade and pilgrimage.
22
Before leaving the church itself, the crusaders may well have paused at one particular tomb to ask for divine help.The abbey contained a splendid, sculptured sarcophagus (surviving today in the Louvre) that contained the remains of St Drausius, a seventh-century bishop of Soissons. Drausius was famed for his ability to confer success in battle on all those who spent the night in vigil at his tomb. Generations of Soissons crusaders had venerated this site and there was a strong belief in the protection accorded by the saint. One writer from the 1160s reported that so widespread was the conviction in Drausius’s powers that men from Burgundy and Italy travelled to the tomb to ask for his intervention. Perhaps Boniface himself, as a northern Italian, was pleased to undertake the vigil and to seek all possible divine help as he contemplated the burden of leadership.
The following day Boniface prepared to leave Soissons. If he was to depart for the Levant in the spring (1202), he had much to do to set his affairs in order. He urged his fellow-crusaders to do the same and bade them farewell, knowing that their next meeting would be in Venice. As he turned southwards, the achievements of his family must have loomed large in the marquis’s mind; this was his chance to emulate, exceed and, possibly, take revenge for some episodes in their past. He must also have been very proud; to have such powerful French nobles turn to him and to have the cachet of undisputed leadership of the crusade were marks of great distinction. His troubadour friend, Raimbaut of Vaqueiras, was not present at Soissons, but he was moved to write a song in praise of his lord and to outline the noble task of the crusaders:
Now men may know and prove that for fair deeds God gives a fair reward, for He has bestowed on the noble marquis a recompense and a gift, granting him to surpass in worth even the best, so that the crusaders of France and Champagne have besought God for him as the best of all men, to recover the Sepulchre and the Cross whereon lay Jesus, who would have him in His fellowship; and God has given him true vassals and land and riches and high courage in abundance, so that he may better perform the task.
... With such honour he has taken the cross that no further honour seems wanting, for it is with honour that he would possess this world and the next, and God has given him the power, the wit and the wisdom to possess both, and for this he strives his utmost.
... May Saint Nicholas of Bari guide our fleet, and let the men of Champagne raise their banner, and let the marquis cry ‘Montferrat and the lion!’ and the Flemish count ‘Flanders!’ as they deal heavy blows; and let every man strike then with his sword and break his lance, and we shall easily have routed and slain all the Turks, and will recover on the field of battle the True Cross which we have lost ...
Our Lord commands and tells us all to go forth and liberate the Sepulchre and the Cross. Let him who wishes to be in His fellowship die for His sake, if he would remain alive in Paradise, and let him do all in his power to cross the sea and slay the race of dogs.
23
On leaving Soissons, Boniface did not ride directly home, but chose to make his way about 175 miles southwards to the abbey of Citeaux, the fulcrum of the Cistercian order of monks. Every year, on 13 September, the Feast of the Holy Cross, the abbots of this huge international organisation assembled to discuss the affairs of their brotherhood.
The Cistercians were founded at the end of the eleventh century and their order was based on the principles of poverty, simplicity and separation from the evils of the world. They wore undyed white habits and liked to contrast their austere lifestyle with that of other monastic orders, such as the Cluniacs, whose splendour and wealth were well known. The Cistercian monasteries were simple, undecorated buildings, strikingly beautiful in their starkness. With Bernard of Clairvaux as a charismatic and compelling spokesman, the order attracted thousands of recruits and was given numerous donations of land. By the end of the twelfth century there were 530 Cistercian houses across the Christian world, stretching from Palestine to Spain and from Norway to Sicily.
24
Such remarkable success led to phenomenal institutional wealth. The Cistercians were expert farm managers and were known to turn rough rural regions they had been given by pious patrons into highly profitable farmlands. This wealth also enabled them to finance many individual crusaders.
Notwithstanding these riches, the personal integrity of the Cistercians was highly esteemed by the papacy and the white monks were often commissioned to preach crusades. Over time, the Cistercian General Chapter (as the annual gathering was known) had evolved into something more than an internal business meeting: it was an important focus for the intersection between Church and secular society. The news that Boniface would be present added an extra attraction to the event and members of the Burgundian nobility and crowds of other lay people were reported in attendance as well.