In his 1978 book, The Fourth Crusade, Donald Queller opens with the following words of Francesco Guicciardini:
If you consider the matter carefully, you cannot deny that Fortune has great power over human affairs. We see these affairs constantly being affected by fortuitous circumstances that men could neither foresee nor avoid.
It’s an interesting way to start the history of a project that has generally been framed as an unmitigated disaster, a project that left the rails early and never returned to its station, but just kept ploughing along up to the point it ran out of momentum within the ruined walls of Constantinople. Was this all just the work of Fate? Had the human beings involved no control over the matter at all?
Some observers, many even, have seen quite distinct human-agency at work, a nefarious hand steering the entire enterprise for self-serving purposes, to the misery of many. But the story seems less clearly one-sided to me. It seems more a tragic series of ongoing blunders, miscalculations, overconfident commitments, and yes, people using other people, until it all collapsed.
Could they have foreseen it? Could they have avoided it? Surely, there was a time when they might have, but as we’ll see, the participants in our drama pursued their goals within a narrowing field of options, the cruel logic of the moment carrying them along towards an end which most involved would never have chosen.
Hello, and welcome back. I’m Devon, and this is Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World. I remind you at this time that rating, reviewing, and, for as little as one dollar a month, signing on to the Patreon, is how we extricate ourselves from the khan’s drunken embrace; and that you can find the link to the Patreon, and all other things Human Circus, at humancircuspodcast.com. On that note, a special thank you to Mark, the newest member of the Human Circus patreon family. Your support is hugely appreciated. And now, back to the story.
As I’m sure you’ve realized, we’re onto something new with this episode. This isn’t Marco Polo, but it is a topic we briefly touched on at the beginning of the Marco Polo series, and it certainly does concern his birthplace. Today, I’ll be talking about the Fourth Crusade, a massive military misadventure by most measurements and an unpleasant confirmation of all the people of Constantinople had grown to suspect of their Latin Christian visitors. It would never reach its stated goal of Ayyubid Egypt, but it would have serious consequences, not the least of which was the hastened demise of the Byzantine Empire.
I’m not going to be exhaustive about the crusade here. Instead, in keeping with how I usually do things, I’ll loosely be following the story of an individual, or in this case two. You’ll be getting the lead up to the Fourth Crusade from the perspectives of Robert de Clari and Geoffrey de Villehardouin, the former a common knight from Picardy, the latter the Marshal of Champagne, a leader, and fortunately for us, a chronicler who gives us access to events at the level of command. Together, they give us a bit of a picture of what it was to go on crusade at the dawn of the 13th century, and they take us up to the story I want to tell next. “Here,” to quote the report of Robert, “beginneth the history of them that took Constantinople, and presently we will tell you who they were and for what cause they went thither.”
But we need to take few steps back before any of that. We should know that at this point there were crusader states all along the Syrian coast. There was the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which held sway over Beirut, Tyre, Acre, Caesarea, and Jaffa, but crucially, not Jerusalem itself. That had been taken by Salahuddin in 1187, and had not been won back in the Third Crusade.
We should know that in the city of Rome, on the 8th of January, 1198, Pope Celestine III had died. He was 92 years old and had been pope for the last 7 of them, having attempted to step down from his position just the year before. Into his place stepped Lotario dei Conti di Segni, better known now as Pope Innocent III.
Innocent was in his 30s then, a distinctly youthful change from his predecessor, and he began his papal reign energetically. When he wrote to the Patriarch of Jerusalem with news of his elevation, he was already announcing his intent to take back the Holy City, and it wasn’t only empty words either. Soon he was acting on that promise. He declared a new crusade in August of that summer, and set a date of March, 1199 for the campaign to begin. He deliberately excluded the kings of Europe, who he did not want exerting too much control over the operation, and he called for all barons, counts, and towns to provide men and to supply them for two years. He extended the usual offers of indulgence for those who took the cross or contributed, and also protection for participants’ worldly goods while they were away. He named legates, and he imposed a tax upon the clergy. But the results of all these efforts were distinctly underwhelming. It maybe have been relatively easy time to assert papal authority, but it was a difficult one in which to raise an army.
Europe was divided. Of course it was; always was. But here, France and England were at war with each other, as were Genoa and Pisa, and Germany was at war with itself, with Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick struggling over the imperial throne. There are indications that the clergy resisted the taxation attempts, and neither blood nor treasure were pouring into the war chest as the Spring of 1199 deadline rushed up and was gone. Innocent was disappointed, but a light was flickering on in France which would turn things around.
On the outskirts of Paris, a preacher was making a name for himself. Fulk of Neuilly, as he was called, was filling the streets with his enthusiastic listeners, and a contemporary called him “another Paul.” He railed against usury, lechery, and the concubinage of the clergy, picking out offenders right there in the crowd. And he preached Innocent’s crusade.
With Innocent’s approval, Fulk went to work, extending his reach well beyond the suburbs of the city and enlisting men, some nobles, but mostly the poor, thousands of whom signed up at his urging. And then, at a late November tournament at Ecry, in Northern France, the host, Count Thibaut de Champagne, and his cousin, Count Louis de Blois, took the cross, and took the other attending knights along them. With those two grandsons of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine officially on board, the floodgates opened. Innocent’s crusade was behind schedule, but it was gaining momentum.
Both of our chroniclers open their stories by listing some of those notables to take the cross: Thibaut and Louis, who we’ve already met, and also Count Baldwin of Flanders, with his brother, and Count Simon of Montfort with his; the bishops of Soissons and Troyes, a bishop from Germany, the future Bishop of Acre; and many more knights, abbots, and monks than could easily be mentioned; lords are named from Burgundy, Champagne, Beauvais, the Ile-de-France, Flanders, and elsewhere. Robert lists those who would be most notable for their deeds and prowess, the rich of course, but also, interestingly, the poor - Hugh of Beauvais, Robert of Ronsoi, and so on.
If it’s Robert de Clari, much closer in station to a commoner, who provides the more inclusive list of crusaders, it is Geoffrey who gives us the details of what would happen next. He was by far the more senior of the two and personally involved in much that Robert could only piece together after the fact.
He tells us that when the lords met at Soissons to make plans, they at first could come to no agreement. Many felt they didn’t yet have enough men. And so, the year 1200 passed, with more meetings taken every two months, but no immediate moves toward departure, until it was agreed at least that envoys should be selected to make the arrangements. There were to be two each chosen by Thibault, Louis, and Baldwin, and these six representatives would be provided with sealed charters from the barons guaranteeing their commitment to carry out whatever agreement the envoys entered into, “in all sea ports, and [wherever] else the envoys might fare.” It was an open ended assignment to see about getting them all to the Holy Land, and conveniently for us, our Geoffrey was going to be one of Thibault’s chosen two.
The envoys’ first decision was where to take their business. Genoa, Pisa, and Venice were all good possibilities to find transportation for a crusading army, each twice a year carrying men and supplies to the Levant, but Genoa and Pisa had for the time exhausted themselves in their wars against one another and there had besides been many complaints over the Genoans’ handling of Philip Augustus during the Third Crusade. Venice then, was to be the envoys’ selection and Geoffrey’s destination.
In the first week of Lent, February 1201, they arrived in the city of Venice and were welcomed by its Doge, Enrico Dandolo. He was “very wise and very valiant,” Geoffrey wrote. He was in fact very old too, perhaps in his 90s, and also at least partially blind. Some would come to say that he had been blinded by Manuel Comnenus of Constantinople, but this detail was probably added for dramatic effect later on. Dandolo would really become something of a legendary character, and not just when it came to avenging blindings. He’s given parts of unlikely heroism in some depictions, while in others, he’s the manipulative villain with only the prosperity of himself and his city on his mind, a kind of criminal mastermind almost.
The man Geoffrey and the others met, was not yet any of those things. What was it they might want of him, he wondered aloud, upon reviewing the letters of their lords, likely having a pretty strong idea already why the barons of France might call upon his sea-going city, and when the envoys asked to appear before his council, and let it be tomorrow, he invited them to return in four days and make their wishes known.
On the fourth day, the envoys presented themselves at the palace, “passing rich and beautiful,” and found the doge and his council within. What did they want? That Venice should, “take pity on the land overseas and the shame of Christ, and use diligence that [their] lords have ships for transport and battle.” And how were the Venetians to use diligence? “After all manners that [they] may advise and propose,” the envoys responded, just so long as it was within the means of their lords to cover the cost. That was of course going to turn out to be a real problem, but for now Dandolo asked for eight days in which to consider the proposal, and the envoys took their leave.
If it seems that Dandolo was really stringing his visitors along here, four to eight days at a time, know that this was no small bit of business for the Venetians. This was an all-in affair that would replace all others until it was done, requiring the total commitment of the city and its resources to this one cause. They’d be emptying their other baskets entirely to do this, and, if Geoffrey’s account is to be believed, the entire operation was going to be left to the Venetians to plan out. This is where we want to go, the would-be crusaders had told them; now show us what you can do. And after this brief pause, we’ll hear what the Venetians came up with.
...
As it happened, the Venetians could do quite a bit. When Geoffrey and the others returned on the eighth day, their meeting concluded with this: the Venetians would construct transport ships for 4,500 horses and 9,000 squires, ships for 4,500 knights and 20,000 “sergeants of foot,” and they would provide nine months of food for horses and men, at a price of four marks for four-leggers, two marks for two. In addition, if the crusading army would cut them in on 50% of their loot while the Venetians were with them, then they could also count on 50 armed galleys to accompany the fleet.
It was a serious contract, and the envoys, after taking the night to think it over, not nearly long or hard enough it would seem, went in to tell the Doge that they found it agreeable. Now, he just had to see if his people found it agreeable. He took the matter to his great council of forty, and then on to one hundred of his citizens, then two hundred, and then a thousand, building consensus before his grand piece of public theatre: an assembly of 10,000 in the Church of St Mark.
There, in what Geoffrey called “the most beautiful church that there is,” mass was said. Then the envoys themselves were brought to the front of the church, and Dandolo had them address the people, and humbly asked for what they wanted. Geoffrey de Villehardouin, the Marshal of Champagne, stepped forward, and he began to speak:
Lords, the barons of France, most high and [powerful], have sent us to you; and they cry to you for mercy, that you take pity on Jerusalem, which is in bondage to the Turks, and that, for God's sake, you help to avenge the shame of Christ Jesus. And for this end they have elected to come to you, because they know full well that there is none other people having so great power on the seas, as you and your people. And they commanded us to fall at your feet, and not to rise till you consent to take pity on the Holy Land which is beyond the seas.
The envoys went to their knees, openly weeping, and the doge, whether calculating or authentically moved, maybe both, burst into tears too, as did the entire assembly in a great display of shared emotion. “We consent! We consent!” they shouted, their hands raised. The doge took the front again, and gave a speech, all “good and beautiful words,” and the people left, happy and united.
The next day, Geoffrey and the other envoys again met with Dandolo. The treaties were officially signed; the following year was chosen for their departure, when the “barons and pilgrims were to be in Venice, and the ships ready against their coming;” and a destination was set too. Geoffrey tells us that the council was told those ships would be headed for Egypt, but to the general public it was to be the much vaguer “overseas,” something they would surely take to mean a straight line to Jerusalem. The arrangements were forwarded on to Rome for the pope’s ratification, and the envoys, having borrowed enough money for an initial deposit, left for France.
They had been successful in their mission, and a deal had been secured, but at what a cost, some 85,000 marks. With all that was going to happen later on, people often portray this agreement as the first of a series of cunning Venetian maneuvers bent on achieving a private self-serving goal, but actually their price was close to standard, as such things went, close to recent prices set by the Genoans for example. The prices per knight, horse, and squire were actually all reasonable enough. The problem was with how many were supposed to be involved. This wasn’t a “bring who you will, and we’ll build a fleet to match”-type situation; the Venetians were putting all they had into being ready to shift some 35,000 people, and they expected to be paid for it, whether 35,000 people really showed up or not. This was the agreement Geoffrey and the other envoys had signed on behalf of their lords, and they have to be considered at least partly responsible for this wild optimism, as do their lords who they represented.
There were no mixed feelings on Geoffrey’s return, no hint that he’d signed the French barons up for something undesirable, something that was going to set the whole thing horribly off course. Maybe he, quite understandably, presented his actions in the best possibly light when the moment came to write things down. Or maybe nobody yet saw the implications, too full with the glory of what they were embarking on to consider it would be anything less than a thing of wonder.
In his account, we do actually get a little taste of what was going to make things difficult for the crusaders. On his way home from Venice, he meets with a Walter of Brienn. Walter was off to Apulia to conquer the lands of his wife, and Geoffrey identified some of the best of Champagne going with him, knights who had all taken the cross. They told Geoffrey that they would be ready to join him when the time came, but they wouldn’t.
As Geoffrey reflected on Walter’s case, “events fall out as God wills, and never had they power to join the host,” but Walter and the many knights who accompanied him didn’t just happen to be busy at that moment. Pope Innocent had enlisted them in his struggles in southern Italy with the House of Staufen. So it was that when all those knights were to be needed to make up the numbers in Venice, Walter would be fighting in Apulia, and in June of 1205, when the events of the Fourth Crusade had all played out, he was still going to be there in Italy to be surprised and killed in his own camp, he and his many much needed knights never leaving Italian shores.
Geoffrey travelled on from this encounter to Troyes, where he found his lord Thibaut still entirely on board. Unfortunately, Thibaut was also sick, very sick, bedridden and slipping away towards the end. Count Thibaut was briefly revived by Geoffrey’s arrival and his news. He rose from his bed, and for the first time in a long time, mounted and rode his horse, but that would be the last time. He soon died, and on his tomb, the following words were inscribed:
Intent upon making amends for the injuries of the Cross
and the land of the Crucified
He paved a way with expenses, an army, a fleet.
Seeking the terrestrial city, he finds the one celestial;
While he is obtaining his goal far away,
he finds it at home.
Behind him, Count Thibaut left money for his friends and followers that they should, upon receiving it, swear on holy relics to join the gathering in Venice, but there were many among them, Geoffrey says, who kept that oath badly. They took the money made their promises, but they did not hold to them. Like the passing of Walter of Brienn into Apulia, they were very much the smoke of a fire still to come.
The death of Thibaut also left the issue of leadership to be arranged, and it wasn’t so simple as handing things off to Louis or Baldwin, or at least that’s not what they did. The crusaders likely viewed this as an opportunity to pull someone in, to dangle the prospect of the glory of command, with support and resources already attached, and to land a powerful baron who had not yet taken the cross, and with him, his many men. From Robert and Geoffrey we get different perspectives on quite how this went.
Robert will tell us that the Marquis de Montferrat in Lombardy was sent for, and that he agreed to take his place at their head. But Geoffrey lets us know that the Marquis was not the first to be asked. The job had been offered around a little before coming to him. Odo, Duke of Burgundy, had said no, and so had another count, before Geoffrey, who often - perhaps fairly - takes on the role of wise counselor in his own narrative, suggested that they might ask Boniface, the Marquis de Montferrat, and that he would not refuse them. Geoffrey does not mention it, but he’d quite likely visited Boniface on his way home from Venice, and knew the marquis would not say no.
In Boniface, the crusaders were getting a leader that was acceptable to their different factions, and to the pope. They were getting the son of a crusading family, and an experienced campaigner, and they were getting his many followers too.
Boniface came to the assembly in Soissons, in the abbey’s orchard, and the crusaders prayed he accept the leadership; they threw themselves at his feet, crying, and he threw himself at theirs. Maybe Geoffrey was romanticizing the scene a little here, reaching for a moment more chivalric than factual, but it really was a very emotionally demonstrative time. Either way, the fourth crusade now had a leader, and it had a rapidly approaching appointment to keep in Venice.
After Easter, the crusaders began to make their journeys, and “at their departure many were the tears shed for pity and sorrow, by their own people and by their friends.” They would have been making preparations for a long and potentially life-ending journey. Money would have been raised for the trip and affairs put in order at home. Some would have put thought to the state of their soul, what grievances might still be held in the balance against them, that they might now correct before it was too late. Others would have had second thoughts about going at all. They had perhaps first taken the cross in an outpouring of public enthusiasm, and at the encouragements of a passionate preacher like Fulk, but now they were alone with their own thoughts, and the whole thing was more real, and more immediate.
At eight centuries distance, we might think these knights with their religious convictions and their sense of heroic virtue would be immune to such misgivings, having already given their word, but we would be mistaken. Raimbaut, troubadour and friend to the Marquis de Montferrat himself, agonized over the thought of leaving his love, Beatrice, and wavered between staying with her and staying loyal to his friend. He pictured the banners and the battle cries, and the heavenly rewards of dying in such a cause, but he was not entirely convinced. In the end, he would go, but not until 1203.
Those who did leave on time, reached Venice in the spring of 1202. For many, it would not have been a direct journey. They were on an extended pilgrimage, even if one that would culminate in violence, and they would have stopped on the way at sites like Clairvaux and Citeaux, strengthening their resolve at the homes of sacred relics. Arriving in Venice, they, quote, “saw the goodly fleet that had been made ready, the goodly ships, the great ... transports for carrying the horses, and the galleys, greatly did they marvel at these and at the great riches that they found in the city.” By Robert’s view of things, it was all pretty great and goodly, and the new arrivals settled themselves in among tents on the Isle of Saint Nicholas.
With Geoffrey, however, the picture was not nearly so rosy. He knew that all wasn’t proceeding as planned, that the multitudes who had taken the cross were not pouring into the city as projected. Many of them were taking other routes; they were departing from other ports. Some likely suspected there would be problems, and looked to the muster in Venice before committing themselves, and of course by doing so they made of their concerns a reality. Even Count Louis of Blois, one of the initial leaders, held back in this way at first. Envoys were sent out to try to lessen the damage and “by encouragements and prayers” to convince any waverers that Venice was the still the best option to leave from. Geoffrey was, again, among these envoys. He persuaded Louis, and some other crusaders do seem to have been talked into sticking with the plan, but not all, and, as we’ll see, not enough.
Some knights didn’t just skip the communal travel option. They failed to present themselves entirely. Geoffrey saves his bitterest words for these, people like those on the fleet from Flanders, those who had sworn on holy relics they would bring the fleet to Venice, and its cargo of cloth, food, and men at arms with it. They had not kept to their promises, and their captains were listed off by Geoffrey: John of Nêle, Castellan of Bruges, Thierri, and the rest. And there were other disappointments too: bishops, counts, Walter of Saint-Denis’ brother Hugh. Some would prove of little worth where they were going. Others were causing mission-crippling difficulties simply by not going at all. There were too few knights , and they had too little money.
Pope Innocent saw the problems well enough, but this was no longer his crusade. He ordered some of the knights biding their time in Lombardy to join the host in Venice, but to no great effect. His legate meanwhile arrived only in late July, and then was not allowed by the Venetians to join as a legate, but only as a common preacher. There were many hands on the wheel now, and the pope’s were not the strongest.
The Venetians had held their end of things up. There were all those goodly boats. Indeed, “the fleet they had got ready was so goodly and fine that never did Christian man see one goodlier or finer; as well galleys as transports, and sufficient for at least three times as many men as were in the host.” And that last part was really the issue.
The doge’s people had thrown themselves into the project with everything they had; Robert even has all other projects forbade, all other trade curtailed, while the resources went into constructing, and provisioning, this one great fleet. But now the crusaders were assembled there on Lido, it was painfully obvious that there were not enough of them to necessitate such a grand fleet or to cover its costs. The knights on hand paid their quoted shares of the fee, but they were like the last of a very large party leaving the table. They were expected to pick up the entirety of the tab that remained. And they weren’t quite there. They were not quite halfway there, and the Venetians were not pleased.
Now the crusaders faced an interesting decision, and key to this was the fact that “the crusaders,” was not a homogenous mass, tidily calculating in all it did. It was messy collection of individuals, that might just as easily come apart. Some wanted to cut their losses in Venice. They’d paid for their portion, no great outlay for some of them, and if the Venetians were not then willing to take them, well, they could easily find someone else who would; they’d vowed to go on crusade to the Holy Land not to Venice. For others, this might have been an opportunity to just go home; they’d made the effort after all, and maybe it really would be for the best for all of this to be over. That’s not how everyone saw it though. For some, Geoffrey wrote, it was better that they gave “all that [they had] and go penniless with the host, than that the host should fall to pieces and fail; for God [would] doubtless repay [them] when it so please[d] Him.”
This side started scraping the bottom of the savings they had available to them. The Count of Flanders gave “all that he had and all that he could borrow,” and so did Count Louis, and others too. Up to the palace these nobles went, with silver and gold, in coinage and other forms until, when all was totalled up, they were still more than 30,000 marks short! Those who’d held back were gladdest of all now, for, the scheduled departure date of June 29th having long passed, they were certain the whole thing would at last fail, and at least they would have lost very little out of it themselves and would be free to pursue other possibilities, their conscience clear. Some did leave. It was inactive army tied by a shared goal rather than any kind of command structure, and they had nothing to do save for complain at the apparent greed of their abusive hosts. The season for sailing was winding down, and things looked bleak.
However, this was when Dandolo intervened, and where the narrative of the doge as a conniving manipulator starts to gather steam. They had squeezed all the money they were going to have from the agreement, he told his people, and though it was not everything they had been promised, if they held it without delivering on their end of the bargain, it was sure to attract blame and recriminations. Would it not be better to find some other way for the crusaders to pay their way? Surely, if they put their heads together they could come up with something. What about the city of Zara for example? Maybe their guests could help with that. Maybe they could all winter there together, it being now too late to sail for Egypt. Maybe he and his people could then see their way to forgiving “the debt of 34,000 marks ...,” or at least “until such time as it [should] please God to allow [them] to gain the moneys by conquest… ." After this short pause, we’ll hear about Zara, and why they went there.
...
Zara, or Zadar, was an old Roman and then Byzantine city, and a port across the Adriatic Sea. It was useful as a site of resupply on voyages to the east, and crucial as a gateway for Dalmation oak to reach the Venetain shipyards. And it was no longer in their hands. The city had achieved independence around 1180, fought off attempts at recapture, and sought protective friendships first with the Hungarian King, who had build them a fortress, and then with one of Venice’s aquatic rivals, the city of Pisa.
So this was where the Venetians wanted their guests to go with them, and the crusaders were in a bit of a bind. They could say no and hope that their hosts would fulfill their end of the contract despite not being paid in full, but then “they,” again, was not a homogenous entity. There were many who wanted this all to disintegrate, who did not see it as necessary for the fulfillment of their personal crusading vows, so the party that wanted to hold it all together, our friend Geoffrey among them, couldn’t let the momentum fall away. They felt bound to agree to this that would keep things on course, no matter how they may have felt about it, because there was always that greater good to consider at the end of it all, that shining goal that could supersede so much else.
And all of that was enough for many of the crusading knights. They were in, and that meant another of Enrico’s grand gestures, his wonderful public displays, was in store for them. Up he went before his people at the church of St Marks, with many of the crusaders there too. Before the mass was given, he stepped up before them.
“You are associated with the most worthy people in the world,” he said, “and for the highest enterprise ever undertaken; and I am a man old and feeble, who should have need of rest, and I am sick in body; but I see that no one could command and lead you like myself, who am your lord. If you will consent that I take the sing of the cross to guard and direct you, and that my son remain in my place to guard the land, then shall I go to live or die with you and with the pilgrims.”
And they shouted their agreement; they cried; they wept. Geoffrey mused at Enrico’s “great heart,” and “how little like him were those who had gone to other ports to escape the danger.” The doge knelt before the altar, weeping, and they sewed the cross upon his hat for all to see, and his people and the armed pilgrims shared in the sight of his dedication. They were united in this, for now, and they were going to Zara together.
Or at least most of them were. There were some who left at this stage, either because they had now exhausted their more meager funds or because they could not stomach this new revelation which must have been filtering down through the ranks, for all the leadership likely did to prevent it. If going to Egypt would have been off-putting, then think how much more so would be assaulting a Christian city, under the protection of a king who had taken the cross no less, and all on the behalf of the hosts that some now viewed as abusive and irredeemably greedy. The disaffected bled more numbers from the ailing army and then spread their unhappiness to those arriving late or waiting to see what transpired in Venice. The papal legate, denied official recognition, did what he could to keep too many from abandoning the crusade, and then left to consult with Innocent. He hadn’t wanted anyone to leave this army, but he also would have no part of storming Zara. And neither would the crusade’s official leader. He too chose this time to go and see the pope. For those that remained, their fleet put to sea in early October, 1202.
This was not the monumental force that Geoffrey and his compatriots had once imagined, but it was still, in Geoffrey’s eyes and Robert’s, pretty grand. “...the shields were ranged round the bulwarks and castles of the ships, and the banners displayed, many and fair.” The priests all chanted. The Doge of Venice himself was aboard a vermillion coloured ship, a matching pavilion above him, and four silver trumpets before. In Robert’s words:
...it was the goodliest thing to behold that ever hath been since the beginning of the world. For there were full an hundred pair of trumpets, both silver and brass, which all sounded for the departure, and so many timbrels and tabours and other instruments that it was a fair marvel to hear. But when they were come forth upon the sea, and had spread their sails and hoisted their banners upon the castles of the ships, and their ensigns, then verily did it seem that the whole sea was all as warm, and that it was all ablaze with the ships that they were steering and the great rejoicing that they made.
The fleet gathered supplies and men at Venetian subject cities along the coast, and, on November 10th, they appeared before the fortified city of Zara. Looking up, they said to one another, “How could such a city be taken by force, save by the help of God himself?" But I suspect the people of the city looking down at more than 200 transports and galleys, saw very well how it might be done. The chain at the mouth of the harbour was quickly broken and men poured ashore, bringing horses and siege machinery with them. From the walls, the Zarans did not contest the landing, but watched as camp took shape below. Predictably, tragic twists were about unfold, but we’ll be getting to those next episode.
We’ll witness the fate of Zara, and the unspooling of events that would lead Geoffrey, Robert, and the rest, to the doorstep of the Byzantine Empire. All that, and more, next time.
Sources:
Geoffrey de Villehardouin. Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople, translated by Frank T. Marzials. J.M. Dent, 1908.
Three Old French Chronicles Of The Crusades: The History Of The Holy War; The History Of Them That Took Constantinople; The Chronicle Of Reims, translated by Edward Noble Stone. University Of Washington Publications In The Social Sciences, 1939.
Madden, Thomas F. Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Madden, Thomas F. Venice: A New History. Viking, 2012.
Queller, Donald E. The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople, 1201-1204. Leicester University Press, 1978.