The Great Betrayal (15 page)

9

THE GREAT FIRE

The autumn and winter of 1203 were harsh and bitter for the citizens of Constantinople. It was not the first time in their history that they had had a foreign army encamped outside their walls, but it was the first time that the invaders had been encouraged to come inside them. Swaggering through the streets in their chain-mail, the knights and men-at-arms marvelled—and despised. Unable to speak Greek themselves, they felt that these foreigners should at least have been educated to speak French or Italian. Unable to understand a far older and more sophisticated civilisation, they were sure that these gowned and perfumed citizens were all effeminate. It is part of a soldier’s nature to despise civilians—but how much the more he despises the civilians of a foreign country.

During that autumn, part of the Crusading army accompanied the Emperor Alexius on an expedition through the neighbouring region of Thrace. “Alexius himself had said to the barons that he owned no more than Constantinople and that he would be very short of money if this was his only possession. His uncle was still the ruler of all the other cities and castles which ought to be his. He asked the barons, therefore, to help him establish control over the neighbouring country, saying that he would willingly give them some profit out of it…”

The idea of taking the young Emperor away from the city appealed to the Doge and to Boniface of Montferrat. It was sensible to ensure that the towns and garrisons of Thrace recognised their new emperor, for it was from them that much of the money would have to be raised to pay his debts. There was also the chance that they might run the ex-Emperor Alexius III to ground, for so long as he was at liberty there was always the danger of a counter-revolution being made against the present ruler from the provinces.
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Rumour had it that Alexius III was in the great fortress city of Adrianople in northern Thrace. An additional reason, and indeed the most important one, for getting the young Alexius away from the city was that there was every likelihood that he would be seduced from his allegiance to the Crusaders and Venetians by patriotic elements in the court.

The two figures who emerge as active in their resistance to the invaders are Theodore Lascaris and Alexius Ducas. Both were sons-in-law of Alexius III and both, therefore, had no reason to like either Isaac or his son, the new Emperor Alexius IV. Theodore Lascaris had already shown his mettle during the first skirmishes outside the city and had attempted, though unsuccessfully, to put some spirit into his father-in-law. After the latter’s flight, however, he seems to have become temporarily discouraged and to have withdrawn from public affairs. His time would yet come.

Alexius Ducas, nicknamed Murtzuphlus because his eyebrows met in the middle, was the principal influence among the patriots and nationalists. Murtzuphlus was a pragmatic patriot who desired to see the foreigners out of Byzantine territory, but who realised that the best way to achieve this was to appear to be friendly with them. To this end he cultivated Alexius IV and won his way into the Emperor’s favour, being made
Protovestiarius
or Chief of the Imperial Wardrobe and Private Treasury. This was not only an important position in the state but one that brought him daily into close contact with the Emperor.

It is clear that both the Doge and Boniface recognised an enemy to their cause in this bushy-eyebrowed son-in-law of the ex-Emperor. The sooner that Alexius could be removed from his influence, and of others of his persuasion, the better it would be for the Crusaders and the Venetians. Accordingly, a number of the leading barons, including the Marquis of Montferrat, took nearly half the army and set off as escort to the Emperor. Their intention was to reduce any cities that might refuse to acknowledge the new ruler, and to accept the allegiance of all his other subjects.

Alexius and his troops were away from the city for nearly three months, “conquering twenty cities and forty castles”, according to de Clari. Villehardouin, however, maintains that all the Greeks on either side of the Bosphorus willingly paid him allegiance as their rightful lord. (The only exception was the King of Wallachia and Hungaria to the north, who had sometime since established an almost independent state.)

It was during the absence of Alexius and the Marquis of Montferrat that the troubles in the city came to a head. Not a day passed without some brawl in the streets, some insult exchanged between Greek and Latin, or some drunken disturbance such as soldiers have always made when billeted in foreign countries. The hatred of the Byzantines for these Frankish invaders was repressed only by fear of their military strength and of the Venetian fleet.

It was by the Venetians and, by a simple corollary, all Italians, that the Byzantines felt most affronted. There had been Italian colonies in Constantinople for a long time, and indeed throughout the Empire. The Byzantines were not by nature xenophobic people—indeed they were an amalgam of nations somewhat similar to the modern United States. They had always been willing to accept merchants and craftsmen from other countries into their cities and dominions. The result was that there was a large colony of Pisans established in Constantinople itself, while many Genoese and Venetians had settled in the suburb of Galata across the Golden Horn. Throughout the fifty years or so before the Fourth Crusade, the power and influence of these foreign colonies had been steadily increasing. But whereas the Empire had been rich enough in the past to accept foreign traders without loss to itself or its native citizens, the position had changed greatly during the latter years of the twelfth century. The Byzantines had permitted foreign colonies to settle but had not assimilated them, with the result that the colonists’ loyalties were to their own native countries. A growing resentment against foreigners, therefore, was sure to arise among the native artisans and merchants as soon as their own fortunes dwindled. By 1203 it needed very little to spark this into life—let alone the presence of an invading army composed of co-religionists of the foreign colonists.

The incident that led to the calamitous fire of Constantinople—a fire that far eclipsed the one that had been started by the Venetians during their assault on the walls—was typical of the disturbed state of the city. “A party of drunken Franks,” says Nicetas, “undertook, when in their cups, to destroy the mosque of the Saracens. In the course of the brawl that followed (for the Greeks helped the Saracens to defend their property against the Latins) the city was set on fire.”

The fact that there should be a mosque frequented by Saracens in a Christian city had infuriated the Crusaders. They were incapable of realising that, just as the Byzantines tolerated Italian colonies of traders in their territory, so they allowed trade in the Empire between ‘infidels’ from the East and their own merchants. Constantinople had not survived for so many centuries by being a city of intolerance.

The Byzantines had fought the Turks for many years, but only because the Turks were attacking their empire. The idea of a Crusading mission against all the heathen was totally foreign to the Byzantine understanding of history. They had learned over many centuries that force of arms was not enough to make converts. In their long experience of the East they had noted that the followers of Mahomet were in many respects more tolerant than the Christians from Outremer. For themselves they were convinced of the sanctity and truth of the Christian Faith, but they recognised that they had to live—and survive—in an imperfect world.

It was this attitude of the Byzantines which had made both the city and its people disliked and distrusted by Crusading armies. Imbued with their militant conception of Christianity, they could only regard the Byzantines and their Church as backsliders, weak in the Faith, and cowardly in the face of its enemies. It was beyond their intelligence, or the statecraft of their rulers, to understand that the Byzantine Empire was the best and only shield for Europe against the forces of the East. Fired as they were by their preachers and by Papal ambitions, they could not understand that only by some element of tolerance, and by finding a
modus vivendi
with the races professing Islam, could the Christian world maintain its necessary eastern connections and survive.

The Mosque which was pillaged and sacked by a group of Flemish, Venetians and Pisans stood in the city itself between the Church of Saint Irene and the Golden Horn. It was north of St. Irene (itself a little north of Santa Sophia) and the quarter of the Saracen traders abutted on the Horn—right next to that of the Pisans, a little farther to the west. There can be no doubt that the Pisans had for a long time disliked the proximity of these Saracen traders, and that they found an admirable opportunity for venting their dislike of them under the protection of Crusading swords.

The Pisans furthermore had a current grievance against the citizens of Constantinople. Their own quarter had been attacked and pillaged by the Byzantine mob shortly after the arrival of the Crusaders. The people had somewhat naturally associated this invading Latin army with the presence in their midst of Italian merchants, who subscribed to the doctrines of Rome and spoke the same language as the Venetians. The result of all this was that the Pisans, having suffered at the hands of the Greeks saw an admirable opportunity of making good their own losses from the Saracen traders whose activities had long conflicted with their own.

Finding the Saracens at prayer in their mosque, “they sacked it and took away much priceless treasure”. It was at this point that Greek citizens joined the fray, as much to attack the hated Latins as to protect the Saracens. Somehow or other a fire broke out during the brawl—a fire that, as Nicetas tells us, “surpassed any that had ever previously occurred in the city”.

Fanned by a brisk northerly wind, the fire swept southward. The sparks and flying debris blown from the wooden houses swirled across the gaps of streets. The flames leaped right over Mesé (Middle) Street and engulfed one of the richest sections of the city. Mesé Street was the most important thoroughfare in Constantinople, and ran right through its heart from the Gate of Charisius in the western wall to the great Forum of Theodosius, the Hippodrome and finally to Santa Sophia itself. Acre upon acre of wooden houses were consumed, and the intense heat was too much even for stone and marble.

The Crusaders on the far side of the Golden Horn “were overcome with grief as they watched great churches and palaces sinking in ashes to the ground. The broad streets where the rich merchants and shopkeepers lived were swallowed up in the inferno. The fire ran right from the harbour through the most crowded part of the city, finally reaching the Sea of Marmora on the far side, and sweeping close to the cathedral of Santa Sophia itself…” It lasted for eight days, Villehardouin tells us, and at its peak cut a swathe over three miles wide through the heart of Constantinople. Hundreds of men, women and children were burned to death, thousands more lost their homes and possessions, and the city itself received the worst blow that had ever befallen it.
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The great fire marked the end of any reasonable relations between the citizens and the Crusaders. From now on the people of Constantinople were so distraught and incensed that no Latin was safe within the walls. Whatever may have been the initial cause of the fire, there could be no doubt in the minds of the Byzantines that, but for the invaders, this terrible blow would never have befallen them. Franks, Genoese, Pisans, Venetians were equally condemned and “none of the Latins who had previously lived in Constantinople dared to stay in the city”. They fled across the Golden Horn with their wives and children, and took refuge either in the camp of the Crusaders or among the other foreign colonies in Galata. Over 15,000 refugees were added to the numbers on the far side of the harbour. The lines of division were now clearly laid down: Crusaders, Venetians and foreign colonists on the one side; Greeks on the other.

This was the situation when, on November nth, 1203, Alexius IV, in company with the Marquis of Montferrat and the other half of the army, returned to the city. A large part of Constantinople lay in ruins and open hostilities had broken out between the citizens and all foreigners. Yet still Alexius must find the means to discharge his debts.

He retired to the palace at Blachernae. It was not long before the influences that the Doge had mistrusted began to make themselves felt. Murtzuphlus and his party could sense that the temper of the citizens was with them. They could feel the rising tide of indignation. They knew that further demands for money and increased taxation would provide the spark for an uprising.

While the blinded Isaac was still in theory co-emperor, he seems to have been almost equally disregarded by both court and Crusaders. Falling prey to the superstitions that were in the very air of Constantinople, he spent more and more of his time in the company of monks, priests and astrologers. Alexius, for his part, seems to have returned from the expedition curiously ignorant of his true position, and full of an unmerited self-confidence. The attention paid to him by the Marquis of Montferrat and the other barons, the evidence throughout his recent journey that most of his subjects were prepared to accept him as emperor, these together with his undoubted possession of the throne blinded him to the true facts. He was still emperor only upon the sufference of the Crusaders and, in the final analysis, of his own people. The former would tolerate him only so long as he discharged his debts, and the latter (although he did not fully realise it) viewed him as the author of all their misfortunes.

Everything revolved around the question of money—as indeed it had done ever since the Crusaders had entered into their misguided contract with the Venetians. Alexius had promised at Zara to pay 400,000 marks if the Crusaders would set him upon the throne. Immediately after the coronation he seems to have paid about a quarter of this, sum, but this had exhausted the immediate resources of his treasury. Since then he had been making further small payments as and when revenues came in, or by dint of melting down church plate and other ornaments. He had laid a further burden of debt at his door when he had persuaded the army and the fleet to stay in Constantinople until the spring.