The Great Betrayal (21 page)

One thing was certain—Murtzuphlus could no longer count on any support from the common people and certainly not from the nobles. Early that evening, after his withdrawal to the Palace of Boucoleon, he was forced to the conclusion that his cause was hopeless. True, there was the Waring guard, always prepared to fight to the death, but they were no more than a comparative handful of men. The Byzantine troops themselves were demoralised, and subject to officers who felt no allegiance to Murtzuphlus. As the murderer of Alexius, the Crusaders’ chosen emperor, he knew what his fate would be if he fell into their hands. There was nothing for him but to go while there was still a chance of escape. During that dark night, while the Golden Gate was open to permit a throng of people to fly from the city, Murtzuphlus left the palace. He joined the press of merchants and rich citizens who were driving out in heavily laden wagons from the doomed city. Murtzuphlus in his short reign had attempted the impossible: to put heart into an enfeebled people and to repair the ravages of nearly a century of decadent and cynical rulers. He had failed, but there was gallantry in his failure. He was, perhaps, the last Emperor of the ancient Byzantine Empire worthy to bear the name.

At this late hour Theodore Lascaris, the only other noble who had shown himself capable of nobility, made a last appeal to the people. It took him little time to realise the futility of his gesture. The city was already lost—not so much through the breach in its walls, as through the defeatist attitude of its citizens. Following the example of Murtzuphlus he, too, escaped from the city. But his choice of route was different. Instead of making his way south into Thrace, Theodore Lascaris took ship across the Bosphorus, and then made his way overland to Nicea. The most important Byzantine city in northern Asia Minor, Nicea on the lake of Ascania, was soon destined to become the seat of the Greek Byzantine Emperors.

“During that night,” writes Villehardouin, “certain unknown individuals, afraid that the Greeks might attack them, set fire to the buildings between themselves and the enemy…” Thus began the third fire of Constantinople, the third holocaust for which the invaders were responsible. The works of art and of literature lost in these successive fires must in themselves be enough to brand the Fourth Crusade with infamy. Recalling sadly how much was destroyed even before the Crusaders had sacked and looted the city, Villehardouin remarked, “More houses were burnt in these fires than there are to be found in any of the three largest cities in France.” Yet even after all this wanton destruction the city still dazzled the invaders with its size and splendour. Even after acres of it had been reduced to ashes, it was still grander and nobler than anything any of them had ever seen before.

“So the night passed and the next day came…” On Tuesday, April 13th, 1204, the combined forces of the Crusaders and the Venetians under Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, and Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, took possession of the greatest Christian city in the world. The Byzantine forces, under their supine leaders, formally laid down their arms. Even the Warings, totally confused as to whether there was still an emperor to whom they owed allegiance (or, if there was an emperor, who he was), at last submitted to the Latins.

The Marquis of Montferrat rode straight to the imperial palace of Boucoleon. This, as he knew, was the heart of Constantinople and the true seat of power. No one opposed him as he passed in triumph along the shore, followed by his armoured knights. In the palace they found the ladies of the court, among them the sister of the King of France, and the sister of the King of Hungary. So much gracious nobility could hardly fail to impress these simple barons. But what impressed them even more was, in Villehardouin’s words, “the amount of treasure in that palace, so many precious things that one could not count them. Words fail me in any attempt to describe them!”

Meanwhile Henri of Flanders, brother of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, had received the formal surrender of the palace of Blachernae. Words failed Villehardouin yet again when he tried to enumerate the treasures of the second imperial palace. But a simple Crusader’s view of the aftermath of the surrender of the city was less enthusiastic. As Robert de Clari wrote: “Now all the rich and important men got together and decided between them to take for themselves the most important places in the city. They made their arrangements without letting the lesser folk know what they had in mind, let alone the poor foot soldiers in the army. It was from that moment on that they began to break faith with the rank and file and to forget their old companions. They set out to seize all the richest palaces—and so swiftly, that they had occupied them before the poorer knights or men-at-arms even realised what they were doing. But when the rest of the army finally saw what was afoot, they started to look after themselves and to lay their hands on whatsoever they could…” Thus began the sack of Constantinople and the spoliation of the richest city in Europe. It was the beginning of a shameful episode, a day that should be deep-edged in black in the church calendars of the western world. It was one of the greatest betrayals in history—a betrayal of their Crusading oaths, of the Christian faith and of the Byzantines who had laid down their arms and peacefully submitted their city.

Secure in the knowledge that the city was now in the hands of the invaders, the dispossessed Italian colonists who had been living in Galata ever since the second great fire, began to stream back across the water. Imbued with a hatred of the Byzantines who had driven them from their shops and houses, and confident that they had the protection of their fellow-countrymen and co-religionists, these Pisans and Genoese now took an ample revenge. As the monk Gunther tells us, they were the first to take arms against the Byzantines and they alone were responsible for killing nearly 2,000 Greeks. They had, as they felt, wrongs to be avenged against a city that had permitted Moslems to trade in rivalry with them, and many a grievance to be redressed against the trading community of Constantinople.

Despite de Clari’s statement that the best of the houses and the loot was divided beforehand among the leaders of the expedition, the whole city lay defenceless before the army and they hastened to take advantage of it. In Villehardouin’s words, “The army spread through the city and began to loot it: and they took more than anyone can calculate. They seized gold and silver, precious stones and tableware of precious metal:, silks and satins, coats of fur—squirrel, ermine and miniver—and indeed all the riches of the earth. I, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, stake my word that never had any army gained so much plunder in the whole history of the world…”

While a procession of Orthodox priests made their formal acknowledgement to the conquerors, the citizens knelt in the streets as the mounted Crusaders spurred by. Placing one forefinger over another in the sign of the Cross, these eastern Christians attempted to remind the westerners that they were members of the same faith. There were still many—particularly among the rich and powerful—who believed that the advent of Boniface of Montferrat could only be the salvation of their city and themselves. These men who had all along opposed Murtzuphlus (and among them one must count the historian Nicetas) had never before seen the Berserker fury of a western European army when it was unleashed upon a city that had been taken by siege. They were still innocent enough to believe that all that was happening was, as it were, a change of ruler. They had seen emperors come and go, and they were under the illusion that they were about to receive a Latin emperor—and no more. This ingenuous belief was to be shattered within a few dreadful hours.

Describing the entry of the Persians into Europe many centuries before, A. R. Burn writes: “Greed is not usually an important ingredient in a conqueror’s character. The famous conqueror inevitably possesses or controls, before he is in mid-career, the means to luxury beyond the most gargantuan powers of consumption. Moreover, the great man of action, even ‘the great bad man’, is often personally austere. But avarice may be a very important motive in the ‘average, sensual’ poor men, who jump on the band-wagon and form a conqueror’s armies; which is why the thesis of the importance of economic, material motives is not controverted by insistence on the idealism or personal austerity of the leader…”
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There was no great conqueror involved in the siege and capture of Constantinople. The opportunist Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, had indeed master-minded the conflicting ambitions of a number of men to serve his own interests—and those of his state. But there was no real controlling influence or authority over the invaders as a whole. The Venetians were still under the penalty of excommunication by Pope Innocent, and most of the Crusaders had long ago dispensed with their Crusading oaths. Once released upon the city, the army became no more than a rabble inflamed by lust and greed.

When the Russians had attacked the city in the ninth century the Patriarch Photius had seen this threat to Constantinople as a divine visitation for the wrongdoings of its inhabitants: “We enjoyed ourselves and grieved others. We were glorified and dishonoured others. We grew strong and throve, while waxing insolent and foolish… For these reasons there is a sound of war and destruction in the land.” But the Russians had been driven back in defeat. It was only now, three centuries later, that the prophecies were fulfilled—not least those ominous words to be found in the Book of Revelation:

“And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, and cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!”

Seventeen times in the past nine centuries the city had come under the attack of its enemies and seventeen times it had survived, lifting the proud line of its unconquered walls above the smoke of battle, the thunder of siege-engines and the snorting fury of Greek fire. Now it had fallen ignominiously, captured by a comparatively minor assault that had left untouched the splendour of the Theodosian walls to the west and the great sea-ramparts scowling above the Marmora.

“But now that the city was ours our men took up their quarters where they pleased for there were innumerable fine houses in the city. All of us gave thanks to God for the victory and rejoiced, for even those of us who had been poor now lived in wealth and comfort…” Thus Villehardouin, but the ‘wealth and comfort’ were not arrived at without brutality and terror. The uncontestably true story of the sack of Constantinople is given by Nicetas and Gunther, and it is amply confirmed by the famous letter which Innocent III later wrote denouncing the conquest and sack of the city.

Nicetas, who had perhaps looked for a solution to his country’s difficulties from the Crusaders, and who certainly had no love either for Murtzuphlus or the previous two emperors, said of the Crusaders’ crimes that “They had taken up the Cross and had sworn on it and on the Holy Gospels that they would pass over the lands of the Christians without shedding blood and without turning to the right hand or the left. They had told us that they had taken up arms against the Saracens only and that they would steep them in their blood alone. They had promised to keep themselves chaste while they bore the Cross as befitted soldiers of Christ. But instead of defending His tomb, they had outraged the faithful who are members of Him. They used Christians worse than the Arabs
use
Latins, for at least the Arabs respected women.”

Even in a century when men have grown numbed by atrocities, the story of the sack of Constantinople must cause a sigh of despair at the stupidity and inhumanity of man. “They respected nothing,” cries Nicetas, “neither the churches, nor the sacred images of Christ and his Saints! They acted like enemies of the Cross! They committed atrocities upon men, respectable women, virgins, and young girls!”

Monasteries and convents were sacked and looted, nuns raped, and even the sacred precincts of Santa Sophia, noblest cathedral in Christendom, were invaded by hordes of drunken rapacious soldiery. They rode their horses into the great sanctuary of the Divine Wisdom and tore the very vestments from the priests at the altar. Not content with profaning that shrine, the majesty of whose surroundings and awe-inspiring mosaics of Christ Pantocrator and his Virgin Mother should have stilled their hearts, they broke up the altars for the sake of their marbles and gold and silver. The wealth of sacred vessels which had been accumulating in the cathedral throughout nine centuries was seized upon by soldiers ignorant of everything save that they might be melted down and converted into coin. Frames and settings were ripped from priceless ikons so that the gold in them might be melted down and the gem-stones sold. The art of the enameller which had been brought to its greatest peak of perfection by Byzantine craftsmen meant nothing to ignorant soldiers. Enamelled vessels, reliquaries, book covers, chalices and patens were eagerly seized upon for the weight of precious metal they contained.