The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (39 page)
Read The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople Online
Authors: Jonathan Phillips
Tags: #Religion, #History
BOOK: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
5.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
For Alexius this was a rare moment of triumph - he had imposed his authority on at least one section of his lands. As befitted a returning emperor, the people of Constantinople received their ruler in style and it was essential for the senior families of the city to pay him the appropriate respect. The leading lords and ladies donned their finest robes and rode out to meet the emperor and escort him back into the city. The crusaders also came out to meet their friends, doubtless relieved to be able to greet their colleagues and to see that all had returned safely.
As they drew close to Constantinople, Alexius and the crusaders would have seen the tremendous devastation wrought by the great fire. While the westerners stopped at their camp on the northern side of the Golden Horn and the emperor carried on across the inlet to the Blachernae palace, the terrible black scar left by the blaze would have been evident to all. News of the conflagration had reached Alexius and his allies as they moved around Thrace, but the huge scale of the damage was stunning. The emperor must have been chastened by the loss of so many fine buildings, and to see his people living as squatters amongst their ruined houses. To realise that his western allies were held responsible for this atrocity probably took much of the satisfaction away from his achievements in the empire. The crusaders would have appreciated this too and must have recognised that a long, tense winter lay ahead before the expedition could leave for the Levant.
Once settled back in Constantinople, Emperor Alexius was a changed man: the acclamation of the provinces and his welcome back into the city acted as a massive boost to his self-confidence. Before, he had been in the shadow of his father, but now, as an anointed emperor with a successful campaign under his belt, he sought to stand free and assert his own independence.
On returning from campaign one of his first acts was to order the hanging of all those who had been involved in the deposition and blinding of his father in 1195. The removal of these potential plotters was a sensible move given the unpredictable situation in Constantinople. But of much greater impact on the stability of the Byzantine Empire was a calamitous deterioration in the relationship between Alexius and his father. Put simply, their familial bond was not strong enough to overcome the desire of each man to exercise ultimate power. Alexius had, with his allies, managed to remove the usurper from Constantinople and now he had just toured the nearby imperial territories and been recognised as emperor. These were the actions of a young and successful ruler. While it was prudent that Isaac had stayed in Constantinople, his blindness, the fact that he had already been deposed, and the presence of his son as a co-emperor meant that he was experiencing a very different form of imperial authority to that which he had enjoyed in 1195.
Niketas Choniates reports that people looked increasingly towards Alexius as the senior figure in the imperial partnership. The young man’s name began to appear first in public pronouncements, while Isaac’s followed ‘like an echo’.
8
With his blindness a constant reminder of his limitations, the older emperor felt the reins of power slipping from his hands and he grew bitter and resentful. He began to murmur of Alexius’s lack of self-control and started to spread rumours about the younger man’s sexual preferences, suggesting that ‘he kept company with depraved men whom he smote on the buttocks and was struck by them in return’.
9
8
With his blindness a constant reminder of his limitations, the older emperor felt the reins of power slipping from his hands and he grew bitter and resentful. He began to murmur of Alexius’s lack of self-control and started to spread rumours about the younger man’s sexual preferences, suggesting that ‘he kept company with depraved men whom he smote on the buttocks and was struck by them in return’.
9
During the first few weeks after his return from Thrace, Alexius stayed in close contact with the crusaders. They had worked together now for more than a year and had built up a reasonable affinity. The emperor enjoyed socialising with the westerners - he had, after all, spent several months at the courts of Europe, too - and he frequently went to the crusader camp where he passed the day drinking heavily and playing at dice. So relaxed was the atmosphere that Alexius was happy for his companions to remove the golden and jewelled diadem from his head and replace it with a shaggy woollen headdress. To Niketas Choniates such behaviour was disgraceful and brought shame to the imperial name and sullied the glory of the Byzantine Empire.
10
10
The Greek chronicler also notes a sharp decline in Isaac’s political skills. Earlier he had been characterised as a mild and unwarlike man, but now, perhaps worn down by his suffering and feeling pressured by his weakening authority, he sought respite in the company of seers and astrologers. To Niketas, these men were simply scroungers who exploited the situation and only looked to gorge themselves on imperial hospitality. The blind emperor had always been attracted to divination and fortune-telling, but now he turned to such practices even more; it was, perhaps, a way of shielding himself from the realities of his own incapacity and the rise of his son.
Under the influence of the fortune-tellers, Isaac began to imagine himself as the sole ruler of Byzantium and then, incredibly, his ambitions stretched even further to encompass uniting the Eastern Empire (Byzantium) with the Western (the German imperial title) in his own person. While Manuel Comnenus, for example, had sought to assert his pre-eminence over Frederick Barbarossa, he had never seriously entertained the notion of taking over and joining the two empires together to form one mighty unit. For an ageing, blind man, penned in a city with a determined and desperate foreign army outside its walls, the conception of such an idea revealed an abject failure to grasp reality. Isaac also believed that he would rub his eyes and his blindness would go, the gout that so plagued him would abate and he would be ‘transformed into a godlike man’.
11
Certain monks with beards grown ‘full like a deep cornheld’ spurred Isaac on in his delusions while they indulged in the finest food and wine the imperial palace could offer. The credulous emperor was hugely receptive to the prophecies of these men and delighted in their alluring predictions.
11
Certain monks with beards grown ‘full like a deep cornheld’ spurred Isaac on in his delusions while they indulged in the finest food and wine the imperial palace could offer. The credulous emperor was hugely receptive to the prophecies of these men and delighted in their alluring predictions.
In one of his more eccentric decisions, Isaac ordered the removal of the famous Boar of Kalydon, a creature from Greek mythology, from its pedestal in the Hippodrome.
12
This fearsome beast—complete with hair bristling up its back - was now placed in front of the Great Palace in order to protect the emperor from the rabble of the city. While this constituted some recognition of the dangers posed by the mob, it was hardly a serious way to protect his hold on the throne. To a modern reader these seem like the actions of a feeble figure, far distant from reality and heading inexorably towards calamity. Isaac’s physical sightlessness was matched by a blindness to any sense of political awareness and, like his son, he was soon despised by the people of Constantinople.
12
This fearsome beast—complete with hair bristling up its back - was now placed in front of the Great Palace in order to protect the emperor from the rabble of the city. While this constituted some recognition of the dangers posed by the mob, it was hardly a serious way to protect his hold on the throne. To a modern reader these seem like the actions of a feeble figure, far distant from reality and heading inexorably towards calamity. Isaac’s physical sightlessness was matched by a blindness to any sense of political awareness and, like his son, he was soon despised by the people of Constantinople.
A more astute political operator could have exploited the overt links between Alexius and the crusaders to his own advantage. Given Isaac’s desire for power and his growing dislike of his son, there was an opportunity to harness the genuine groundswell of opposition to the outsiders. Although the westerners undoubtedly posed a serious military threat, had the older Greek leader taken the battle to the crusaders in the way that Alexius III had failed to, or had he taken advantage of the crusaders’ total reliance on the Byzantines for food, then Isaac might have been able to seize the supremacy that he so desired. In reality, both father and son were so wrapped up in their personal obsessions and the political machinations of the palace that they marginalised themselves from the fundamental wishes of the people of Constantinople. The imperial name was being damaged and sullied in every way: the cowardice of Alexius III, followed by the remoteness and unpopularity of his two replacements. The aura and dignity of the Byzantine throne - built up over the centuries and an essential element in the self-image of the people of Constantinople - was in grievous decline. The monolith of power had been severely eroded and this in turn meant that loyalty to the individuals who held the title was fragile and, at times, barely existent. Isaac and Alexius needed to wake up and act to bring their own interests in line with those of Constantinople. The alternative was a predictable, and probably painful, political exit.
The patent lack of leadership encouraged unrest amongst the citizenry. The people of Constantinople, angered at the desertion of Alexius III, humiliated by the crusaders’ strength and enraged by the destruction wrought by the great fires, sought answers to their predicament. One victim of the ‘wine-bibbing portion of the vulgar masses’ (as Niketas Choniates so elegantly described them) was a statue of the goddess Athena that stood on a pedestal in the Forum of Constantine. Niketas rhapsodised over the beauty of this 10-foot-high bronze creation and his description lingeringly traced the statue’s body from foot to head. He lovingly recalled the deep folds in the robe that covered her body, the tight girdle around her waist and the goatskin cape, decorated with the Gorgon’s head, that covered her prominent breasts and shoulders. He delighted in the sensuality of her long bare neck and suggested that her lips were so fair that, if one stopped to listen, a voice would be heard. So lifelike was this creation that Athena’s veins seemed dilated as if filled with blood and the body seemed infused with the bloom of life. The eyes were said to be full of yearning, her helmet topped by a horsehair crest, while her own hair was braided tightly into tresses at the back of her head and fell in braids around her face. Athena’s left hand was folded into her dress, but it was the bearing of her right hand that sealed her fate from the mob. According to Niketas, her head and right hand were directed southwards, but the masses (ignorant of the points of the compass) believed the goddess to be looking to the west and, therefore, beckoning the crusader army to the city. For this perceived act of treachery the statue was dragged from its pedestal and broken into pieces.To Niketas this was akin to an act of self-mutilation and to turn against a patroness of war and wisdom was a foolish mistake. He was careful, of course, not to grant her divine status and referred to her only as a symbol of these virtues.
13
13
Alongside such open manifestations of unrest, the emperors continued their remorseless extraction of money to satisfy the demands of their allies; naturally an unenthusiastic populace resisted all demands to pay. Faced with a potentially explosive situation, the imperial administrators turned to softer targets, namely the Church and the wealthy. Some of the treasures that could be moved from the Hagia Sophia were taken away and melted down - the dozens of silver lamps that hung from the ceiling of the great church were gathered together and cast into the flames. Citizens of means (probably including Niketas himself) were required to contribute. The author contemptuously dismissed this as throwing meat to dogs and wrote of ‘an unholy mingling of the profane with the sacred’.
14
14
The money-gatherers used informers to lead them to sources of wealth and ceaselessly sought out new objects of value. The crusaders also began to apply pressure to gather resources and paid visits to the prosperous estates and religious institutions that lay near Constantinople to take the money they needed.
By the winter of 1203 the situation in Constantinople had reached crisis point. Niketas Choniates paints a vivid and compelling picture of a great civilisation rotting from within. The sense of internal decline and disintegration in Constantinople was palpable. The Queen of Cities, with all its great buildings and symbols of power, was being brought to its knees by incompetent rulers, its own febrile citizenry and its uncompromising enemies.
Of the Byzantines, Alexius was, of course, the key figure. With each passing day the young ruler became boxed into an ever-tighter corner. He owed his position entirely to the crusaders and had promised them large sums of money. His political survival depended on their military strength and he had evidently formed a close friendship with several of their number. He also recognised as early as August—when he asked the crusaders to move their camp to Galata - that his allies were acutely unpopular. The great fire and the continued exactions of money salted the wound further. Put simply, the people of Constantinople wanted the westerners gone. The young emperor therefore had to achieve a balancing act: he had to remain in power until their departure and, meanwhile, he had to use the crusaders’ presence to try to build up his own position so as to stand a chance of surviving once they did leave in March 1204.
He had to placate his people while taking their gold; at the same time, he could not risk alienating his allies by failing to pay them or by appearing to sanction any military aggression towards them. A contemporary oration in favour of Alexius praised the emperor, as convention dictated; more interestingly it omitted any reference to Isaac (suggesting that his son held practically full power) and displayed an overt hostility towards the westerners: ‘Just because they conveyed you, emperor, who have come hither by God’s will, let them not grow wanton, but because they, restoring the lord emperor, have fulfilled servants’ roles, let them be bent to servile laws.’ The speech warned against the greed of the ‘old’ Rome trying to renew its youth at the expense of the ‘new’ Rome.
15
15
Alexius Ducas, the nobleman known as Murtzuphlus, was prominent in the anti-crusader party in Constantinople and castigated the emperor for paying so much money to them, for mortgaging so many lands. He urged Alexius to ‘make them go away’.
16
16
The crusaders, of course, relied on Alexius for food and wanted his financial and military support in the spring. Yet, as the ferocious arguments on Corfu had shown, a large proportion of the army was lukewarm in their support of the emperor and had little patience with broken promises. The longer Alexius failed to pay over the money he owed, the greater the sense of dissatisfaction that stirred in the crusader army. Mistrust of the Greeks grew like a canker.
Other books
A Lick of Frost by Laurell K. Hamilton
A case of curiosities by Kurzweil, Allen
A Fatal Glass of Beer by Stuart M. Kaminsky
T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 01 - Southern Fatality by T. Lynn Ocean
Veda: A Novel by Ellen Gardner
The Sheriff Catches a Bride by Cora Seton
Thai Horse by William Diehl
If a Stranger Approaches You: Stories by Laura Kasischke
Preta's Realm by J Thorn
Thin Blood Thick Water (Clueless Resolutions Book 2) by W B Garalt
