The Orthodox Eastern Church/Chapter 7

by Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue

 

CHAPTER VII

 

THE CRUSADES AND THE BYZANTINE CHURCH

 

The story of the Florentine Synod has brought us to the eve of the fall of Constantinople, Before we come to the effects of that calamity, we must go back for a moment to say something about the relations between Latins and Byzantines at the time of the Crusades.

 

1. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The melancholy story of the Crusades themselves does not concern our subject. There are few so great disillusionments in history. The idea of a Crusade was everything that is chivalrous and unselfish. It was a triumph of the ages of faith that all Christian Europe could be moved to so great an effort for a purely religious motive. And the men who thought of saving the sacred land that our Lord had trod, and who preached the Crusades, Peter the Hermit, Pope Urban II, St. Bernard, were beautiful and ideal people, too. The first impulse was superb. One cannot remember that wave of enthusiasm, the Dieu le veult that rang through all the chivalry of Europe, the Truce of God, and the cross that they wore to show that they were going to fight for their Lord's fatherland, without still feeling something of the enthusiasm that Urban's voice called up in the church at Clermont. And then the Crusades were such superb pageants—the beautiful mediæval ships, with their gorgeous sails, ploughing through the Mediterranean, the men leaping out to kneel and kiss the sacred soil of Palestine, their armour shining in the Eastern sun, the old Latin hymn sung above the clang of steel under their great banners when they first see the Holy City, golden and mystic under the deep Syrian sky. One pictures, above the lines of steel, the English leopards, the lilies of France, the great sable eagle of the Empire, and then the other coats of the great houses of Europe—chevrons and fesses and pales—till they plant above the Holy Sepulchre the banner with the five potent crosses, argent and or, unearthly, wonderful, as should be the arms of the heavenly city. And, at any rate, some of the Crusaders were very valiant knights and courteous gentlemen. St. Lewis IX of France (1226–1270) is the one example of a king who was entirely perfect, and Godfrey of Bouillon, our Richard Lionheart, old Frederick Redbeard the Emperor, were at least eminently picturesque and imposing persons. But then, all through the Crusades, there is the other side, horrible cruelty,—as soon as they took Jerusalem (July 15, 1099) they massacred all the Jews and Moslems in the city—and then they quarrelled hopelessly among themselves. Each Crusade was less ideal than the last, till the whole movement whittled out into hordes of the riff-raff of the West pouring across Eastern Europe, plundering, burning, slaying, the pretence of fighting for the Holy Sepulchre now the merest farce.^[1]

And the Crusades had no lasting effect. To save themselves from having to concede that all that enthusiasm and all the blood shed came to nothing, people urge that they at any rate brought Christendom and the Mohammedan civilization together (so they did, across blood-dripping lances), and that they staved off the Turkish invasion of Europe for a time. At any rate, the cause the Crusaders fought for, their little Frank States planted out there between the desert and the deep sea, all came to nothing.

And they certainly did no good to the Eastern Christians. A result of the schism was that the Catholic Crusaders, when they had driven out the Turk from the Holy Land, never thought that the residuary right to this country then fell back on its former sovereign, the Roman Emperor. The Emperor was a schismatical "Greek," not much better than the Moslem they had been lighting. So they set up their Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,^[2] with the Duchy of Antioch and the County of Edessa, and (after the third Crusade) a Latin Kingdom of Cyprus, all made exactly on the model of their own States at home, with barons and a court, according to the feudal system. French was the official language, and they gave arms to all these cities, and astonishing titles to their own leaders—"Count of Jaffa," "Baron of Hebron," "Prince of Galilee," and so on. The ruins of the Romanesque churches^[3] they built still stand above the sands of the desert as witnesses of this strange little Western world planted in the midst of another civilization. In ecclesiastical matters they did the same. They had no idea of considering the Eastern Christians or the old lines of the Eastern bishops. If they did not actually persecute or massacre the schismatics, they left them as an inferior caste, a conquered population with endless disabilities, whom they never ceased trying to convert. On the whole, the Orthodox were distinctly worse off under the Crusaders than under the Moslem—the Crusaders promptly took their churches, for instance. The Frank knights, of course, never thought of anything but the Latin Mass and a Latin hierarchy, with mitres and chasubles and copes, just as at home. So they set up Latin Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem, and under them archbishops and bishops, who sang the Roman Mass in the Anastasis and in all the churches of the Holy Land.

Two results of the Crusades still last. After they had lost Jerusalem, when Richard Lion-heart treated with Selaheddin to secure rights for Christians at the holy places, he, of course, only thought of his own Latins. And Selaheddin granted privileges to Christians as Richard wanted—that is, to Latins. Those privileges still exist, and that is why the Turkish Government formally recognizes certain rights that the Latins still enjoy at the Anastasis and at all the holy places. Another faint memory of the Crusaders' kingdom remains in the ecclesiastical titles they set up. There are still in Rome Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch of the Latin rite,^[4] who are now only dignitaries of the Papal Court. These prelates do not in any sort of way represent the old line of Eastern bishops of those cities: they are the successors of the Latin patriarchs set up by the Crusaders. So also the titles of Eastern sees given to our auxiliary bishops, as far as they represent continuity from any line at all, are those of the sees established in the same way.^[5]

 

2. The Crusaders and the Empire.

The commoner way for the Crusaders to reach the Holy Land was down the valley of the Danube to Constantinople, and then by sea or across Asia Minor,^[6] It was in this way that they met most Eastern Christians. Unfortunately, it was always the meeting of enemies. The Franks were astounded by the magnificence of Constantinople, but they thought the Greeks a very poor set: they were cowards, frightful liars, and stubborn schismatics. And the Byzantines thought equally ill of the Crusaders. All their old scorn for Western barbarians was now quickened by theological hatred against Latin heretics. The Franks came pushing in, noisy, quarrelsome, rude, and quite shameless Azymites; the Byzantines were frightened to death of them; they flattered them, sold them sham relics^[7] (these barbarians were incredibly gullible), but their chief anxiety was to move them on, get rid of them across the Hellespont, where they could meet the infidel they wanted to fight. And whether they slew or were slain did not matter one jot. So Greek treachery, lying promises, and betrayal into the hands of the Turk fill up a large part of the story of the Crusades. And the Frankish knights, who, with all their roughness, were gentlemen, and had the (Western) mediæval sense of honour, stored up bitter memories against the liars who cajoled and deceived them. On the other hand the Byzantine Court was naturally furious at the ignoring of its rights shown in the establishment of the Latin States in Palestine.

 

3. The Fourth Crusade, 1204.

The mutual rancour between Franks and "Romans" came to a climax in the abominable story of the fourth Crusade. It was preached and energetically pushed forward by Pope Innocent III (1198–1216). It was to start for Palestine from Venice in 1202 under Count Baldwin of Flanders and Marquess Boniface of Monteferrato (near Genoa). The treachery was begun by the most Serene Republic. The old blind Doge, Henry Dandolo, hated the Eastern Empire, which was the rival of Venice throughout the Mediterranean, and did not at all mind the Moslem. So he had already made a secret treaty with the Turk not to let these Crusaders come and trouble them. He then skilfully managed to use the whole Crusade for his own private and nefarious purposes. First he pointed out that they had a fine army there, and nothing to do on the way to Palestine; if he supplied ships and money and generally made them comfortable, would they take the town of Zara in Dalmatia, now rebelling, and restore it to the most Serene Republic? Then, having begun their career by doing so, they see how much easier it is to fight Christians than Turks, and they ask themselves why they should go all that way to the melancholy plains of Syria when the most sumptuous city in the world lies naked and open to be plundered. So they sail to Constantinople, first restore the Emperor Isaac II (1185–1195; 1203–1204), who had been deposed and blinded, and make his son, Alexios IV (1203–1204), Emperor with him. Then they quarrel with these persons and sack the city (April 12, 1204). Isaac, who was very old, died of fear, and they murdered Alexios. This sack of Constantinople is one of the most horrible events of Byzantine history. The Crusaders massacre right and left, doing also untold destruction to the whole city.^[8] It is to the eternal honour of Pope Innocent III that as soon as he heard what they were doing, how they were using forces and money raised for a holy war to murder fellow-Christians, he sent after them to say that he had excommunicated them all. However, in spite of that they then set up a Latin Empire that lasted fifty-seven years (1204–1261). They made Baldwin the first Emperor, took away the Hagia Sophia and all the churches from the Byzantines, and set up a Venetian, Thomas Morosini, as Latin Patriarch.^[9] These Latin Patriarchs of Constantinople at once began quarrelling with the Pope, just as the old Byzantine ones had. Meanwhile the legitimate line of Emperors went on, having fled to Nicaea, and a third rival Empire was set up at Trebizond (Trapesus on the Black Sea).^[10] So that at this time there were Emperors at Constantinople, Nicæa, and Trebizond. The Orthodox Patriarch accompanied his Emperor to Nicæa. The Latin Empire covered Greece (where a Prince of Achaia ruled under the Emperor), Thessaly (which had a king), and some land on either side of the Propontis. There was an independent Despot of Epirus, and Venice got Crete.^[11] Behind the Empire at Nicæa were the Turks under a ruler who called himself Sultan of Rum, as he sat in a land conquered from the Roman Empire. Shut up in a corner was the little Empire at Trebizond, and south of the Sultanate of Rum came what was left of the Crusaders' kingdom of Jerusalem. At last, in 1261, Michael VIII (Palaiologos), of whom we have heard in connection with the Second Council of Lyons (p. 206), succeeded in reconquering Constantinople and driving out the Latins. Baldwin II (1228–1261), the fifth and last Frank Emperor, fled with the Latin Patriarch, Pantaleon. Michael VIII came back to the city in triumph, restored everything as it had been before 1204, and the incident of the fourth Crusade was at an end. Except that the Greek people have never forgotten it, and that of all the things they complain of against the Latins, none has left such a legacy of hatred as this. And, indeed, the thing was unpardonable. That an army, gathered together to defend the Christians against the Mohammedans, should, instead of doing so, destroy the very State that for five centuries had been the one bulwark of Christendom, is an unheard-of outrage. And when one remembers, too, the horrible cruelty and destruction of the sack of Constantinople, one is not surprised that even after many centuries the Greeks have not yet forgotten the day when a horde of Latin robbers so wantonly attacked their State, plundered their city, and massacred thousands of their forefathers.^[12] And since they always make the mistake of counting everything done by Latins as the Pope's work, one can understand why, two hundred years later, they said they would prefer the Sultan's turban to the Pope's tiara.

 

Summary.

As far as the relations between the Eastern and Western Churches go, the Crusades did nothing but harm. The Byzantines were angry that the Crusaders set up Frankish States in Palestine, entirely ignoring the rights of the Empire. The Franks did not treat the Orthodox well in their little principalities and they were a turbulent, unmanageable crowd when they passed through Constantinople. On the other hand they had a long score of Greek treachery, lying, and cheating to remember. But the friction between these two sides came to a climax when, in 1204, the fourth Crusade, seduced by Venice, instead of fighting against the Turk, sacked Constantinople with every possible cruelty. So little was Pope Innocent III, who had preached the Crusade, responsible for this outrage, that he excommunicated the Crusaders for it. The Latin Empire set up then in Constantinople lasted fifty-seven years, till the Byzantines came back and destroyed it. The only survivals of the Crusades are certain Latin rights at the holy places, still acknowledged by the Turkish Government, and our titular Latin Patriarchates.

 

1. This is what one should remember about the Crusades: 1st Crusade, 1095–1099. 1095, Council of Clermont (Peter the Hermit, Urban II). Godfrey of Bouillon, Adhemar of Puy Legate. 1099, Jerusalem taken. Kingdom of Jerusalem, Duchy of Antioch, County of Edessa. 2nd Crusade, 1147, preached by St. Bernard. Conrad III, Emperor, Lewis VII of France. Utter failure. 3rd Crusade, 1189 (Pope Clement III). Selaheddin had reconquered Jerusalem, Frederick I, Redbeard Emperor, Philip II, Augustus of France, Richard Lionheart of England. They conquer a strip of coast, not Jerusalem. Frederick I † 1190. 4th Crusade, 1202 (Innocent III). Baldwin of Flanders and Boniface of Monteferrata. Sack of Constantinople, 1204. Latin Empire, 1204–1261. Crusade of the Children, 1212. Thirty thousand children shipped off to conquer by miracle. All are made slaves by the Moslem pirates. 5th Crusade, 1228. Frederic II, Emperor, reconquers Jerusalem for about twenty years. 6th Crusade, 1248. St. Lewis IX of France taken prisoner at Damietta, in Egypt, and ransomed for a huge sum. 7th Crusade, 1270. St. Lewis IX to Tunis. He dies of the pest on the Assumption. 1291, Acre, the last Christian possession, lost.
2. It was an elective monarchy. After Godfrey († 1100) they chose Count Baldwin of Flanders (Baldwin I, 1100–1118). There were thirteen kings of Jerusalem altogether; the last was John of Brienne (1210–1237). There is an interesting little book on this kingdom, C. R. Conder: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. His conclusion is: "The kingdom of Jerusalem was the model of just and moderate rule" (p. 428). The kings of Jerusalem quartered the kingdom with their paternal coat, as German bishops their sees. The Wapenboek of Gelderland (c. 1350), in the Brussels Library (published by V. Bouton, Paris, 1881–1897), contains the arms of Guy of Lusignan (King of Jerusalem, 1186–1192, then King of Cyprus, 1192–1194). They are: 1 and 4 argent, a cross potent between four crosslets or, for Jerusalem; 2 and 3 barry of ten azure and argent, a lion rampant gules, crowned or, for Lusignan. Although these are obviously his arms as King of Jerusalem, they are labelled "Die Conine van Cipers."
3. They practically rebuilt the Anastasis (1103–1130), which accounts for its Western Romanesque appearance.
4. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem was sent back to that city in 1847 to be the head of all Latins in the Holy Land.
5. The Latin archbishoprics of the Crusades were: Adrianople, Corinth, Athens, Candia, Rhodes, Nicosia, Tarsus, Hierapolis, Apamea, Tyre, Nazareth, Cæsarea Pal., Petra; the bishoprics, Tripolis, Biblos, Beirut, Sidon, Acre, Sebaste, Lydda, Bethlehem.
6. The first and second Crusades went this way, so also the Germans in the third. The English and French in the third and St. Lewis went by sea all the way. The fourth went by sea to Constantinople.
7. The false relics sold by the Greeks to the Crusaders are a continual complaint.
8. They burned down a quarter of it. The massacre went on for days. What they did not destroy they stole: the four great bronze horses outside St. Mark's were brought from Constantinople on this occasion.
9. Old Dandolo had come with them and died at Constantinople. A plain slab in the floor of the Hagia Sophia still bears the inscription Henricus Dandolo.
10. The Emperor had made Alexios Komnenos Duke of Trebizond just before the fourth Crusade. About 1240, the fourth Duke, John Komnenos, seeing Emperors at both Constantinople and Nicæa, thought he might as well be one too, especially as he had Imperial blood (his forbears, the Komnenoi, had held the Roman throne from 1081 to 1185). So he called himself Emperor of the East, Iberia and Peratea, avoiding the name Roman so as not to offend the Palaiologos at Nicæa too utterly. This Empire at Trebizond lasted till 1461 (p. 232, n. 2).
11. The Doge of Venice now added to his titles that of "Despot of a quarter and an eighth of the whole Roman Empire." The Republic did not, of course, possess anything like a quarter or an eighth of the Empire. It is only the pleasant mediæval taste for fine titles.
12. In the reading-book prescribed for the primary schools of the kingdom of Greece (νεοελληνικὰ ἁναγνώσματα, Athens, 1889, vol. 2, p. 127), sliced between a gushing poem about the month of May and a description of the cholera in Athens in 1854, is a most lurid account of the horrors done in 1204 by the Franks out of hatred for the Orthodox faith.