Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

The Fourth Crusade and Byzantium 

Page 12

The spoils were collected and divided among the Latins, both laymen and ecclesiastics. After this crusade the whole of western Europe became enriched with the treasures exported from Constantinople; most of the western European churches received something from the holy relics of Constantinople. The greater part of the relics, which were in the monasteries of France, perished during the French Revolution. The four bronze horses of antique work which had served as one of the best ornaments of the Constantinopolitan Hippodrome were carried away by Dandolo to Venice, where they ornament today the portal of the cathedral of St. Mark.

Nicetas Choniates, in an eloquent lament, described and mourned the ruin of the city, imitating the Biblical lamentation of the Hebrew prophet, Jeremiah, and the Psalms. The Byzantine lamentation begins: Oh, city, city, eye of all cities, subject of narratives over all the world, spectacle above the world, supporter of churches, leader of faith, guide of orthodoxy, protector of education, abode of all good! Thou hast drunk to the dregs the cup of the anger of the Lord and hast been visited with fire fiercer than that which in days of yore descended upon the five cities (Pentapolis).

Meanwhile, the difficult task of organizing the captured territory confronted the conquerors. They decided to establish an empire like that which had existed before. The question of the selection of the emperor arose. One man seemed destined to occupy the throne the leader of the crusade. Marquis Boniface of Montferrat. But Dandolo seems to have opposed his candidacy; he judged Boniface too powerful and his possessions situated too near Venice. Accordingly Boniface was passed over. Dandolo himself as doge of the Republic of Venice did not pretend to the imperial crown. The electoral college assembled to elect the new emperor and fixed its choice, not without the influence of Dandolo, on Baldwin, count of Flanders, more distant from Venice and less powerful than Boniface. He was duly elected Emperor and was crowned in St. Sophia with great pomp.

At the time of Baldwin's ascension to the throne three Greek rulers were living; the two Emperors, Alexius III Angelus and Alexius V Ducas Mourtzouphlos, and Theodore Lascaris, who was then still the despot of Nicaea. Baldwin succeeded in conquering the partisans of the two Emperors; the relations of the Latin Empire to Theodore Lascaris, who founded an empire at Nicaea, belongs to a later chapter.

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Cf. Venetians and Crusaders take Constantinople (1204) - Plunder of the Sacred Relics, by E. Pears

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