The events of April 1204 appeared to be a manifest indication of divine favour towards Western Christians and a chastisement of the Byzantines for their failure to accept papal authority and to cooperate in the defence of Jerusalem. They had, at a stroke, delivered the strategically important city and its wealth into the hands of the crusaders and appeared to have put an end to the schism once and for all. The vision now opened up of a Levant dominated by a swathe of Latin-dominated territory with only the Seljuk Turks of Ikonion standing between a Catholic Byzantine empire and the principality of Antioch, the county of Tripoli and the tiny kingdom of Jerusalem. When the news reached Innocent III he was delighted and gave permission to the crusade army to abandon the expedition to Egypt and remain in Constantinople since ‘through the aid of its assistance the Holy Land might be more easily liberated from pagan hands’.1
The victors certainly had every intention of making their conquest permanent. With Constantinople in their hands, they implemented a pact which had been made between the Venetians and the crusade leaders shortly before the final attack. It provided for the replacement of the Byzantine ruling hierarchy with a Latin one. An electoral council of six Venetians and six Franks was to elect a new emperor from among the crusade leadership.
Contrary to expectations, they chose not Boniface of Montferrat but Baldwin of Flanders: the marquis’s close links to Genoa might well have cost him the Venetian vote. Baldwin was duly crowned in Hagia Sophia by the bishop of Soissons on 16 May 1204. This takeover of the upper echelons of the empire was completed when Boniface of Montferrat married Margaret of Hungary, the widow of Isaac II.2
The pact made in March 1204 also provided for the partition of the Byzantine empire. The newly elected emperor was to take Asia Minor, Thrace, and some of the Aegean islands to form what has become known as the Latin empire of Constantinople. The rest was to be divided among the Venetians, the Roman Church and the emperor’s vassals. During the summer of 1204, the crusade army marched out into Thrace and Macedonia to implement
BYZANTIUM AND THE CRUSADES 178
the division, and a number of Latin states on former Byzantine territory came into being, not unlike those formed in the Syria and Palestine after the First Crusade. In Thessaly and Macedonia, Boniface of Montferrat formed the kingdom of Thessalonica, for which he paid homage to the emperor Baldwin while Renier of Trit received Philippopolis. In the Peloponnese, the Latin principality of Achaia was set up by William of Champlitte and Athens became the centre of another Latin feudatory, the duchy of Athens and Thebes, ruled by Otto de la Roche. Lesser figures received one of some 600 smaller parcels of land, held either from the emperor in Constantinople or from the king of Thessalonica.3 A substantial proportion of the spoils went to Venice which had after all provided the fleet to convey the expedition.
Constantinople itself was divided between the Italian republic and Emperor Baldwin, with Baldwin receiving the greater part, including the Great Palace and the palace of Blachernae, but the Venetians taking Hagia Sophia and a vastly increased commercial quarter along the Golden Horn. They also secured the exclusion of their Genoese and Pisan rivals from the commerce of the empire. Outside Constantinople, the Venetians acquired footholds in the Ionian Islands and on the Dalmatian coast, Andros and part of Euboea in the Aegean. Their biggest prize was the island of Crete which they purchased from Boniface of Montferrat in August 1204 but for which they then had to fight the angry Genoese for 14 years before their control was complete.4
The land grab was paralleled by an ecclesiastical takeover, similar to that which had occurred in Jerusalem and Antioch in 1099. The treaty of March 1204 had provided for the election of a patriarch of Constantinople as well as that of an emperor, disregarding the claims of the Byzantine incumbent, John X Kamateros. Since the emperor had been chosen from among the Franks, the Venetians effectively chose the patriarch, opting, hardly surprisingly, for one of their own people, Tommaso Morosini. Innocent III was greatly displeased by the uncanonical election but reluctantly endorsed it. The new Latin hierarchy was extended out into the provinces. Byzantine prelates were replaced with Latins: in Athens Niketas Choniates’s brother Michael was succeeded by a Frenchman, Berard.5
As the takeover proceeded in late 1204 and early 1205, it encountered remarkably little resistance. Faced with what appeared to be the invincible strength and power of the western Europeans who now ruled them, many of the inhabitants of Constantinople seem to have been prepared at first to throw in their lot with the new order. Their own leaders, Alexios III Angelos, Alexios V Mourtzouphlos, the patriarch John X Kamateros, and large numbers of the nobility and bureaucracy had, in any case, abandoned them and fled the city. When it was clear that the Latins were in control, some Byzantines openly hailed Boniface of Montferrat as the new emperor, and when Baldwin of Flanders was crowned in Hagia Sophia a number of Byzantines were in the congregation to acclaim him. For their part, the new rulers did their best to foster a sense of continuity, modelling Baldwin’s coronation ceremony on that of the Byzantine emperors of the past. They
THE RIVERS OF BABYLON 179
seem to have succeeded in persuading much of the populace of the new emperor’s legitimacy. Shortly afterwards, when Alexios V was taken prisoner and brought to Constantinople in chains, he was jeered and taunted by his former subjects as he passed through the streets, on his way to execution by being hurled from the column of Theodosius. Baldwin’s successor as Latin emperor, his brother Henry of Flanders (1206–16), integrated Byzantines into his regime by giving them posts in the administration and army.6
There was a similar initial lack of resistance in many of the provinces of the empire. When, in the summer of 1204, Emperor Baldwin moved towards Thessalonica with his army, the population streamed out to welcome him and acknowledged him as emperor. When Renier of Trit arrived with 120 knights to take over his town of Philippopolis the people were overjoyed because at last they would have some protection against Bulgarian raids. Boniface of Montferrat experienced a similar reception in Thessaly, thanks to some Byzantines who accompanied him and carefully arranged matters. William of Champlitte was aided in his conquest of the Peloponnese by some of the local Byzantine archons.7 Niketas Choniates and his fellow bureaucrats received a less cordial welcome when they fled from Constantinople to the countryside of Thrace. They found themselves the object of scorn and derision from the local people, who rejoiced that those who had once lorded it over them and collected their taxes were now reduced to poverty and misery.
The old educated elite that had led the empire to disaster was completely discredited.8 Once the new Latin overlords were established, many archons adjusted quite easily to the change, simply swapping masters and holding on to the same land. Nor was there a huge change in matters of religion.
Although the Byzantine bishops were replaced with Latin ones and Greeks were compelled to pay a tax to support the Latin Church, at parish level no changes were made and the local Byzantines carried on worshipping in their own churches much as they had always done.9
Thus, in the months immediately following the sack of Constantinople, it might well have appeared that the ideology that had sustained Byzantium for so long had been utterly destroyed along with so much else, and that all the lands of the empire would be integrated into a wider, Western Christendom.
That, in fact, did not happen and the Byzantine empire was to revive and to recover Constantinople some 57 years after its loss to the Fourth Crusade.
The revival came about through a strange combination of radical renewal and conservative entrenchment.
While in some areas Latin rule was accepted passively, in others where a local archon with some imperial link provided leadership, there was resistance.
At Corinth, both William of Champlitte and Boniface of Montferrat found their advance blocked by Leo Sgouros who ostensibly held the town and the castle there in behalf of his father-in-law, the fugitive Alexios III Angelos.10 Sgouros’s resistance was more of a nuisance than a challenge.
He was bottled up in the castle at Corinth and died there in 1208. A much
BYZANTIUM AND THE CRUSADES 180
more serious opponent was Michael Angelos, a cousin of Alexios III, who was of those who had originally hoped to accommodate himself to the new regime. He had entered the service of Boniface of Montferrat and, during the autumn of 1204, had accompanied the marquis on his campaign in Thrace and Macedonia, only abruptly to abandon him and head north into Epiros. This area had originally been assigned to Venice in the partition but the republic had only taken control of the coastal cities of Dyrrachion and Ragusa. Angelos was thus able to seize the inland town of Arta and to proclaim himself despot or ruler of the entire area.11 Further resistance was encountered in Asia Minor. In the autumn of 1204, a Latin expedition crossed the Bosporus to subdue the area and to parcel it out among the crusaders: Nicaea had been promised to Louis of Blois who sent 120 knights to take possession. Nikomedeia fell without a fight but then the expedition encountered forces led by another son-in-law of Alexios III, Theodore Laskaris who had established himself at Nicaea. Laskaris was by no means an outstanding general and that December his forces were routed by the Latin force at Poimamenon. By then, however, the Latin emperor was embroiled in a war with the Tsar of Bulgaria and had to postpone the project of bringing Asia Minor to heel.12
Thanks to that lucky break, two successor states to Byzantium emerged at Nicaea and Arta, their rulers laying claim to the imperial title. Theodore Laskaris of Nicaea was crowned ‘Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans’
in 1208 by a new, Byzantine patriarch of Constantinople, appointed in opposition to the Latin patriarch, Morosini. Theodore of Epiros, brother and successor of Michael Angelos, took the same step in 1227, with the archbishop of Ochrid performing the ceremony. Both men now considered themselves the legitimate successor of the Byzantine emperors who had FIGURE 13 Castle of Platamonas built to defend Boniface of Montferrat’s short-lived kingdom of Thessalonica. It fell to Theodore Angelos of Epiros in 1218.
(Fritz16/Shutterstock.com)
THE RIVERS OF BABYLON 181
Black Sea
Cherson Kingdom of Bulgaria Dyrrachion Ochrid Despotate of Epiros
Thessalonica
Adrianopole Constantinople
Latin Empire of Constantinople Empire of Nicaea
Nikomedeia Nicaea Poimamenon Arta Duchy of Athens CorinthAthens Crete (Venetian)
RhodesKingdom of Cyprus
Ephesus
Smyrna Philadelphia Laodikeia on the Lykos
Seljuk Sultanate of Ikonion Ikonion Seleukeia
Tarsus
Kingdom of Armenia
Sis Aleppo Antioch Tripoli
Edessa
Trebizond Empire of Trebizond
Philippopolis
Danube
Principality of Achaia MAP 5 The Latin empire of Constantinople and the successor states, c.1215.
BYZANTIUM AND THE CRUSADES 182
reigned in Constantinople before 1204. The clergy of Arta hailed their ruler as ‘the descendant of various emperors’ and to reinforce the point he added the name Komnenos to his title. The Nicaean emperor claimed that ‘the ancestors of our majesty . . . for many centuries held sway over Constantinople’.13 The courts of Nicaea and Arta were carefully modelled on that of Constantinople in every detail of administration, civil service and imperial household. Their rulers were advised by officials who sported grandiose titles such as Megalepifanestatos (‘Great, Most High Appearing’) and Paneutychestatos (‘All Most Fortunate’), and who had been schooled in the traditional course of higher education. These functionaries turned out polished speeches in praise of their particular emperor just as they had in the past of Isaac II and Alexios III. They reminded them that like the Israelites in Babylon, they would all soon be returning to the new Jerusalem.14
These assertions of continuity were all very well but they had two very obvious flaws. In the first place, given the inglorious collapse of the empire in 1203–4 and the unheroic behaviour of its rulers during the defence of Constantinople, it could have been risky to revive a system that appeared to have been so utterly discredited. Indeed critics of the system were to be found among the exiles. Nikephoros Blemmydes (1197–1272) blamed the ‘culpable conduct of those who were on the throne’ for delivering Constantinople into the hands of the Latins and Niketas Choniates, who revised and completed his historical work at Nicaea, said much the same. It was not just the individual rulers who came in for criticism but traditional Byzantine ideology and outlook as well. Whereas in the past it had been customary to compare
‘barbarous’ Latins unfavourably with sophisticated and subtle Byzantines, now those roles were reversed. The ousted archbishop of Athens, Michael Choniates, wrote despairingly that, while the Latins could debate matters among themselves in an orderly fashion, the Byzantines were incapable of restraining their anger. As has been seen, his brother Niketas even went so far as to question the Byzantine political system vis-à-vis that of the West.15 Secondly, the adoption of the imperial title by both the ruler of Nicaea and that of Epiros inevitably would inevitably have raised the question of which one was, in fact, the legitimate emperor. They were, moreover, not the only claimants. Alexios III Angelos was still alive and seeking to make a political comeback while at Trebizond the grandson of Andronicus I was claiming that he was the real emperor of the Romans. The greatest challenge of all was the Latin emperor who by possessing Constantinople held the traditional key to what made a Roman emperor as opposed to a simple ruler like any other.
To counter these flaws, the courts in exile had subtly to modify traditional Byzantine ideology even as they stridently claimed complete continuity with the past and militantly to voice their rulers’ claim to be the rightful emperor. The process can be most clearly traced through the speeches that were delivered on special occasions at the court of Nicaea. In stark contrast to previous practice, some orators now took to referring to the Byzantines not as ‘Romans’ but as ‘Hellenes’, a word that in the past would have had
THE RIVERS OF BABYLON 183
the connotation of ‘pagans’. This was probably a direct riposte to the Latin seizure of Constantinople and the claim that this victory demonstrated Western superiority. On the contrary, as heirs of the ancient Greeks, whose language they spoke, the Byzantines had inherited a sophistication and culture of which the Latins knew nothing. One had only to look, claimed Niketas Choniates, at the thoughtless way in which the Westerners smashed classical bronze statues and melted them down into coin, revealing them as ‘haters of the beautiful’.16 Another departure was a recognition that Byzantium was more than just its capital city. In the past, the educated elite had scarcely acknowledged the existence of anything beyond the walls of Constantinople. Now the emperor himself made a speech in praise of Nicaea, extolling the city a second Athens. The alienation that had grown up between Constantinople and the provinces in the later twelfth century had certainly been noted.17
At the same time, the speechmakers in Nicaea were shrill in vindicating their ruler’s claim to the imperial title and rubbishing that of his rivals in Arta and Trebizond. Choniates denounced the ‘polyarchy’ to which these competing claims had given rise while George Akropolites sneered at Michael Angelos of Epiros because ‘he did not understand the hierarchy or protocol or the many ancient customs’.18 The most dangerous rival of all was the Latin emperor in Constantinople who, Innocent III sternly told Theodore Laskaris, was the ruler that all Christians including Byzantines ought to honour and respect.19 In response to that claim, the orators of Nicaea had a very potent weapon: the stories of the behaviour of the Latin troops when they had stormed into Constantinople in April 1204.
There had certainly been plunder, murder and rape. Choniates had been an eyewitness to an attempted rape, which he succeeded in preventing, as he and his family were escaping from Constantinople and there were claims that new-born babes had been murdered, monks had been tortured and nuns indecently assaulted.20 To some extent though, such acts were only to be expected when a victorious army took possession of a conquered city.
What really played into the hands of the propagandists of Nicaea was the yawning gap between the professed pious intention of the crusaders and their conduct towards the churches and holy places. It was reported that a crowd of them had entered Hagia Sophia and started to remove the gold and silver candlesticks and ecclesiastical vessels, including a huge ciborium that weighed thousands of pounds. So numerous and heavy were these objects that they had brought donkeys and mules into the cathedral to carry them away. Hardly surprisingly, these creatures had left their dung and urine within the hallowed precincts. One of them had lost its footing on the slippery marble pavement and, as it went crashing down, had impaled itself on the metal objects with which it was loaded and its blood had spread in a pool over the floor. It was also claimed that the looters had brought in a prostitute who performed a dance on the synthronon, the most sacred part of the church, behind the screen that separated the congregation from
BYZANTIUM AND THE CRUSADES 184
the altar. Another group was reported to have burst into the Church of the Holy Apostles, where many emperors of the past lay buried. They opened the tomb of the emperor Justinian. Finding that his corpse was uncorrupted after over 600 years, they left it alone but stripped off anything of value from the sarcophagus. At other shrines and churches, they destroyed icons and turned a marble altar screen into a latrine. In short, they had desecrated and profaned everything that the Byzantines held sacred.21
No doubt there was exaggeration but the Byzantine account is confirmed by Western sources, in spite of the Latin claim that before the attack in April 1204 the crusaders took a vow not to harm any ecclesiastical building.22 Innocent III was outraged when news of these events reached his ears:
It was not enough for them to empty the imperial treasuries and to
It was not enough for them to empty the imperial treasuries and to