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The Fourth Crusade
The real author of the Fourth Crusade was the famous pope, Innocent III. Young, enthusiastic, and ambitious
for the glory of the Papacy, he revived the plans of Pope Urban II and sought once more to unite the forces of
Christendom against Islam. No emperor or king answered his summons, but a number of knights (chiefly
French) took the crusader's vow. None of the Crusades, after the Third, effected much in the Holy Land; either
their force was spent before reaching it, or they were diverted from their purpose by different objects and
ambitions. The crusaders of the Fourth expedition captured Constantinople instead of Jerusalem.
The Fourth Crusade - The Crusaders and the Venetians
The leaders of the crusade decided to make Egypt
their objective point, since this country was then the center of the Moslem power. Accordingly, the crusaders
proceeded to Venice, for the purpose of securing transportation across the Mediterranean. The Venetians agreed
to furnish the necessary ships only on condition that the crusaders first seized Zara on the eastern coast of the
Adriatic. Zara was a Christian city, but it was also a naval and commercial rival of Venice. In spite of the pope's
protests the crusaders besieged and captured the city. Even then they did not proceed against the Moslems. The
Venetians persuaded them to turn their arms against Constantinople. The possession of that great capital would
greatly increase Venetian trade and influence in the East; for the crusading nobles it held out endless
opportunities of acquiring wealth and power. Thus it happened that these soldiers of the Cross, pledged to war
with the Moslems, attacked a Christian city, which for centuries had formed the chief bulwark of Europe against
the Arab and the Turk.
The Fourth Crusade - The Sack of Constantinople in 1204
The crusaders, now better styled the invaders, took
Constantinople by storm. No "infidels" could have treated in worse fashion this home of ancient civilization.
They burned down a great part of it; they slaughtered the inhabitants; they wantonly destroyed monuments,
statues, paintings, and manuscripts - the accumulation of a thousand years. Much of the movable wealth they
carried away. Never, declared an eye-witness of the scene, had there been such plunder since the world began.
The Fourth Crusade - The Wealth of Constantinople
The victors hastened to divide between them the lands of
the Roman Empire in the East. Venice gained some districts in Greece, together with nearly all the Aegean
islands. The chief crusaders formed part of the remaining territory into the Latin Empire of Constantinople. It
was organized in fiefs, after the feudal manner. There was a prince of Achaia, a duke of Athens, a marquis of
Corinth, and a count of Thebes. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was crowned Emperor of the East. Large districts,
both in Europe and Asia, did not acknowledge, however, these "Latin" rulers. The new empire lived less than
sixty years. At the end of this time the Greeks returned to power.
Consequences of the Fourth Crusade Constantinople, after the Fourth Crusade, declined in strength and could
no longer cope with the barbarians menacing it. Two centuries later the city fell an easy victim to the Turks. The
responsibility for the disaster which gave the Turks a foothold in Europe rests on the heads of the Venetians and
the French nobles. Their greed and lust for power turned the Fourth Crusade into a political adventure.
The Fourth Crusade
In 1200 AD, Pope Innocent began to ask the rulers of Europe to participate in a fourth crusade, again attempting
to take Jerusalem away from the Muslims who ruled there. Saladin had died in 1193 AD, and the Crusaders
thought his successors were weaker and would be easier to beat. This time they would try something different.
Instead of coming down from the north, the European armies would sail south to Egypt, and then come up from
there to Jerusalem.
In order to get enough ships to take everyone to Egypt, the armies needed help from the great sea power,
Venice. In 1202, the Crusaders came to Venice to get their ships, but they didn't have enough money to pay for
them. So the Venetians said, "Okay, you can pay us later, but in exchange you have to fight for us to get back
the city of Zara (in modern Hungary) that went over to the Hungarians a few years ago." The Crusaders agreed
to do this, even though Zara was a Christian city. The Pope didn't like this and excommunicated all the
Crusaders.
The Crusaders succeeded in taking Zara, and were about to go on to Egypt with their ships when Alexius
Comnenus, who had recently been thrown out of Constantinople, asked the Crusaders to help him get into
power again. He said he would pay for the rest of the Crusade, once he was back on his throne. Instead of going
to Egypt, the Crusaders agreed to this plan, and in 1203 (with the help of the Venetians) they took
Constantinople and put Alexius IV on the throne. But Alexius IV could not raise the money he had promised,
and when he tried to raise the money through taxes he became so unpopular that he and his father were killed
and a new emperor, Alexius V, got on the throne.
In 1204 the Crusaders and Venetians attacked Constantinople and sacked the city. A lot of the islands which
had belonged to the Empire were taken over by the Venetians too. The Crusaders never did go on to Jerusalem,
and never fought the Muslims at all. They took the piles of money and jewels and gold that they had captured in
the sack of Constantinople and they went home. The Pope agreed to let them back into the Church.