Pope Innocent
III
The setbacks suffered by the Third Crusade
did not dampen enthusiasm for crusading. The election of a youthful pope, Innocent
III, in 1198 marked the beginning of a new effort to organize the crusade along
more effective lines. Innocent, who was an able administrator, proclaimed his
commitment to reform of the church and the crusade. In August 1198 Innocent
called upon all Christian people to participate in a crusade. Times were not
propitious for royal participation. The German Crown was in dispute. Philip II
of France, who had repudiated his marriage to Ingeborg of Denmark, was under a
papal interdict. Richard the Lionheart died in March 1199, to be succeeded by
his brother John. By default, the crusade, which was received enthusiastically
by many among the nobility, especially those whose families already had strong
ties to the movement, found its leadership in their midst.
A seaborne expedition was planned in order
to avoid the arduous journey overland and the attendant military risks.
Agreement was reached with the republic of Venice to provide transport, which
specified the number of crusaders (about 30,000) and the charges, as well as
providing that the Venetians would themselves participate with fifty ships and
would share equally in the conquest. The total price to the crusaders was
85,000 marks. There was also a secret codicil specifying that the goal of the
crusade was to be Egypt: the main power base of the Ayyubids, Saladin’s successors,
was increasingly seen as the key to the recovery of the Holy Land. The date for
departure was set for late June 1202. Innocent ordered a general tax of a
fortieth of all church incomes for one year and pledged that the Roman Church
would pay a tenth of its income. He also issued a generous crusade indulgence
to all who would take part in the crusade at their own expense.
The death of Count Thibaud III of Champagne
deprived the crusade of its putative leader at a critical stage. His
replacement was Boniface, marquis of Montferrat. Well connected to both the
French and German royal houses, Boniface was a friend to one of the claimants
to the German Crown, Philip of Swabia, who was married to a Byzantine princess,
Irene. Her father, Emperor Isaac II Angelos, had been deposed and blinded by
his brother, who had assumed the throne as Alexios III. Isaac’s son, also named
Alexios, escaped and came to the West seeking aid to restore his father, but he
found no support from Innocent III, who was already negotiating with Alexios
III.
The crusaders began to gather in Venice
during the summer of 1202. Yet many had decided on alternative routes, and the
number that appeared at Venice was insufficient to raise the money needed to
pay the Venetians for passage. After paying about 50,000 marks, almost 35,000
was still owed. The Venetians proposed that the crusaders should join them in
retaking Zara (mod. Zadar, Croatia), a port on the Dalmatian coast, which had
thrown off Venetian rule. The town was in the possession of King Emeric of
Hungary, who had himself taken the crusade vow and was thus under the
protection of the papacy. Despite the pope’s prohibition and internal divisions
among the crusaders, the majority of the crusaders agreed to help the
Venetians. The leaders also listened to the younger Alexios, who promised to
solve their economic problems with the Venetians and to provide aid for the
crusade in return for their support. Behind Innocent’s refusal to countenance
this idea lay not only the fact that it represented a diversion of the crusade
but also, in all likelihood, his hopes for cooperation with Alexios III and for
a reunification of the Latin and Greek Orthodox churches.
Zara was captured after a short siege.
Innocent’s attempt to punish the Venetians with excommunication was thwarted by
Boniface of Montferrat, who delayed publication of the pope’s decree until the
crusaders had moved on to Constantinople. There, the Venetians and their
crusader allies met with quick success. After their initial attack on the city,
Alexios III fled and Isaac was restored, with his son as coemperor. But it soon
became clear that the newly crowned Alexios IV had promised more than he could
deliver. As the winter of 1202–1203 came and went, the crusaders sought
absolution from the pope and tried to persuade Alexios IV to further the
reunification of the Greek and Latin churches. From the Greek side, however,
opposition mounted, and Isaac II and Alexios IV were overthrown by a Greek
nobleman, who seized the throne as Emperor Alexios V. The crusaders now decided
to take the city: in April 1204 they breached the walls, and the great capital
of the eastern Roman Empire fell. In the sack that followed, the riches of the
empire were dispersed to the West. Religious relics found their way to Venice
and to virtually every French homeland.
The Venetians and the crusaders had
conquered not only the city of Constantinople but much of the European
territory of the Byzantine Empire. Count Baldwin IX of Flanders was elected and
crowned as emperor, to the disappointment of Boniface of Montferrat. For all
practical purposes, the crusade was over. Only a few of the crusaders ever
arrived in the Holy Land, and their presence there made no difference. Although
some effort was made to view the con quest of Constantinople as a
stepping-stone to further success, that expectation was doomed to
disappointment. Reunification of the Latin and Greek churches, which had long
proved to be elusive, was now still more remote. The energies of the crusaders
and their supporters and an increasing amount of Western resources were devoted
to defending and conquering lands and fending off the efforts of various Greek
claimants to reconquer the empire. New Frankish principalities were established
throughout Greece, but their existence did nothing to further the liberation of
the Holy Land.
Even though the Greeks recaptured
Constantinople in 1261, the restored Byzantine Empire was a shadow of its
former self. Most of all, the events of 1204 gave rise to a deep distrust of
the Latin West on the part of Greek Orthodox Christians that persisted for
centuries and still finds its echoes today. Innocent III had suffered a severe
setback in his dream of a successful crusade. He tried to make the best of
things, but his letters reveal a bitterness, especially toward the Venetians,
that never entirely receded. This experience undoubtedly helped shape the
attitude of the pope to the crusade. It did not discourage him so much as act
as a challenge. He would build on this experience.
The diversion of the Fourth Crusade did not
dampen the enthusiasm of western Europeans for the crusade, though it may well
have undermined the confidence of many in their leadership. If anything, the
crusade increased in popularity. The crusade indulgence and the privileges
attached to it proved a most effective instrument in the arsenal of both
preachers and papal legates. In the mid-twelfth century the indulgence and
other privileges had already been granted to those fighting for the interests
of Christianity in other areas besides the East. The pontificate of Innocent
III marked the further development of this tendency, building on the enthusiasm
for the crusade to support papal efforts to aid the young king of Sicily,
Frederick, the son of Henry VI of Germany and Constance of Sicily, who had been
placed in the pope’s care by his mother before her death. Part of the forces
that had joined the Fourth Crusade but refused to attack Zara were devoted to
this cause, though their leader, Walter III of Brienne, had family interests
that drew him into the struggle as well.
The
thirteenth century marked the culmination of religious currents that both influenced
the crusade and drew sustenance from the movement. Lay piety flourished among
the nobility and the urban middle and upper classes. The deeply emotional note
sounded in the sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux in the mid-twelfth century
became integral to crusade preaching by such famous figures as Oliver of
Paderborn and James of Vitry in the early thirteenth. The cross, the Passion of
Christ, and a profound sense of identification with the life of Christ formed
themes for preaching throughout the period that were codified by the former
Dominican master general, Humbert of Romans. The powerful religious energy
generated in this period was harnessed not merely for the crusade to the East
but also for the defense and expansion of Latin Christianity.
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