Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

The Fourth Crusade and Byzantium 

Page 7

A Russian chronicle of Novgorod, in which is preserved a detailed account, not yet sufficiently studied, of the Fourth Crusade, the taking of Constantinople by the crusaders, and the foundation of the Latin Empire, remarks, The Franks and all their chiefs have loved the gold and silver which the son of Isaac has promised them, and have forgotten the precepts of the Emperor and Pope. Thus, the Russian point of view holds the crusaders blameworthy for their deviation from their original aim. The most recent investigator of the account of Novgorod, P. Bizilli, considered it very important and said that it gives a special theory explaining the crusade upon Byzantium which no west European source mentions, namely that that crusade was decided by the Pope and Philip of Swabia together. Many scholars have devoted much attention to the problem of the Fourth Crusade. Their chief attention has been turned to the causes of the change of direction of the crusade. One party of scholars explained the whole unusual course of the crusading enterprise by accidental circumstances and were the followers of the so-called theory of accidents. An opposing group of scholars saw the cause of the change in the premeditated policy of Venice and Germany and became the partisans of the so-called theory of premeditation.

Until about 1860 no dispute on that problem had existed because all historians had depended mainly on the statements of the chief western source of the Fourth Crusade and a participant in it, the French historian Geoffrey de Villehardouin. In his exposition the events of the crusade progressed simply and accidentally: not having vessels, the crusaders hired them at Venice and therefore assembled there; after having hired the vessels they could not pay the Republic of St. Mark the full amount fixed and were forced to support the Venetians in their strife with Zara; then followed the coming of the prince Alexius, who inclined the crusaders against Byzantium. Thus, there was no question of any treason of Venice nor of any complicated political intrigue.

In 1861, for the first time, a French scholar, Mas-Latrie, author of the very well-known history of the island of Cyprus, accused Venice, which had important commercial interests in Egypt, of making a secret treaty with the sultan of Egypt and thereupon skillfully forcing the crusaders to abandon the original plan of the expedition upon Egypt and to sail against Byzantium. Then the German historian, Karl Hopf, seemed definitely to prove the treason of the Venetians towards the Christian task, stating that the treaty between Venice and the sultan of Egypt was concluded on the 13th of May, 1202. Although Hopf produced no text of the treaty and did not even indicate where this text was to be found, the authority of the German scholar was so great that many scholars adopted his standpoint without any doubt. But it was shown soon after that Hopf had no new document in his hands at all and that his date was quite arbitrary. A French scholar, Hanotaux, who a little later investigated this problem, refuted the theory of Venetian treason and, consequently, the theory of premeditation. But he thought that if the Venetians were the chief instigators of the change of direction of the Fourth Crusade, they had obvious motives: the desire to subdue Zara, which had revolted; the wish to restore their candidate to the Byzantine throne, to revenge themselves on Byzantium for the sympathy Alexius III had given the Pisans, and, possibly, the hope to obtain some profit, if the Empire fell to pieces. The theory of Hopf at the present time is considered refuted. If the Venetians can be really accused of treason, they became traitors not because of a secret treaty with the Muslims, but exclusively because they had in view their commercial interests in the Byzantine Empire.

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