POPE INNOCENT III
One man who wrestled with just this issue was Pope Innocent III–perhaps the mightiest and most influential Roman pontiff in all medieval history; certainly the most active and enthusiastic papal patron of the crusades in the central Middle Ages. Innocent was elected pope on 8 January 1198 and immediately brought a refreshing lease of exuberant vitality to the office. Over the preceding seventeen years, no fewer than five elderly popes had died in succession soon after elevation to the pontifical throne. Innocent, by contrast, was just thirty-seven, brimful with vigour, afire with ambition. In background, he was perfectly suited to his new role. Being born of Roman aristocracy, he possessed excellent political and ecclesiastical connections in central Italy. He had also been educated in Europe’s finest centres of learning, studying Church law in Bologna and theology in Paris.
Moreover, the timing of Innocent’s rise to power was fantastically propitious. Since the days of Pope Gregory VII and the eleventh-century Reform movement, papal authority had been stifled persistently by the combative predations of the German Hohenstaufen Empire. Rome’s predicament only deepened in 1194 when Emperor Henry VI (Frederick Barbarossa’s son and heir) also became king of Sicily through marriage, thereby encircling the Papal State from north and south. But in September 1197, Henry VI died unexpectedly of malaria, leaving behind only a three-year-old son, Frederick, as heir. The Hohenstaufen world was suddenly plunged into a crippling dynastic crisis that would rattle on for decades. This gave the papacy under Innocent III an extraordinary opportunity to act on the European stage relatively unhindered.2
Innocent’s vision of papal authority
Pope Innocent was remarkably confident of the essential–and, in his opinion, divinely sanctioned–authority vested in the papal office. Innocent saw himself as Christ’s earthly vicar (or representative). Earlier pontiffs may have dreamt of achieving meaningful, rather than simply theoretical, dominion over the entire Latin Church; Innocent’s aspirations extended well beyond the ecclesiastical or spiritual sphere. Indeed, in his view, the pope should be the overlord of all western Christendom, perhaps even of all Christians on Earth; an arbiter of God’s will whose power superseded that of temporal rulers; capable of making (and breaking) kings and emperors.
Innocent also possessed a clear vision of what he wished to achieve with this absolute power–the recovery of Jerusalem. He seems to have felt an earnest and authentic attachment to the Holy City; much of his pontificate would be dedicated, one way or another, to securing its reconquest. But like many of his generation in the West, the new pope had been dispirited by the Third Crusade’s limited achievements. In his mind, the expedition’s failure to retake Jerusalem could be traced to two overriding causes, and he had solutions for each.
God evidently was allowing the Franks to be defeated in the Levant as punishment for the manifest sins of all Latin Christendom. Therefore, the work of reform and purification in the West must be redoubled. Europe had to be brought–by force if necessary–to a new state of perfection: unified spiritually and politically under the righteous authority of Rome; purged of the dreadful, corrupting taint of heresy. And the faithful must be shepherded towards lives of virtue; given every possible opportunity to atone for their transgressions, so that they might find a path to salvation. By these means, the Latin world could be cleansed so that the Lord might lift Christianity to victory in the war for the Holy Land.
Pope Innocent also believed that the practice of crusading itself should urgently be amended, and seems to have concluded that functional measures would lead to spiritual rejuvenation. He set out, therefore, to refine the management and operation of holy war, so as to empower participants to act with greater purity of intent. Looking back over the last century, the pope perceived three fundamental problems: too many of the wrong people (especially non-combatants) were taking the cross; the expeditions were poorly funded; and they were also subject to ineffective command. Not surprisingly, Innocent was certain that he knew how to resolve these difficulties–the Latin Church would step forth, reaffirming its ‘right’ to direct the crusading movement, assuming control of recruitment, financing and leadership. The beauty of this whole scheme, as far as the pope was concerned, was that crusaders fighting in a ‘perfected’ holy war not only stood a better chance of driving Islam from Jerusalem; the very involvement of these Latins in a penitential expedition would serve simultaneously to expiate their sins, thus helping the whole of western Christendom along the road to rectitude.
With all this in mind, Innocent sought to launch a new crusade to the Holy Land once he became pope, issuing a call to arms on 15 August 1198. He visualised a glorious endeavour–the preaching, organisation and prosecution of which would be under his direct control–imagining that so orderly and sacred an expedition could not fail to win divine approval.
Summoning a crusade
During the first years of his pontificate, Innocent III set out to recentre the mechanisms and machinery of crusading in Rome, hoping to institutionalise holy war as an endeavour governed by the papacy. In 1198 and 1199 he introduced a raft of innovative reforms, which came to form the backbone of his crusading policy throughout his time in office. Under Innocent, the spiritual reward (or indulgence) offered to crusaders was reconfigured and reinforced. Those taking the cross were given a firm promise of ‘full forgiveness of their sins’ and assured that their military service would absolve them of any punishment due, either on Earth or in the hereafter. Crusaders were required, however, to show ‘penitence in voice and heart’ for their transgressions–that is, external and internal remorse. Innocent’s indulgence also carefully distanced the purificational force of holy war from the physical works of Man: it was no longer suggested that the suffering and hardship endured on campaign itself served to salve the soul; instead, the spiritual benefits gained through the indulgence were presented as a gift, mercifully granted by God as just reward for acts of merit. This was a subtle shift, but one that laid to rest some of the theological difficulties raised by crusading (such as God’s relationship to Man). This formulation of the indulgence became the established ‘gold standard’ within the Latin Church, enduring virtually unchanged throughout the Middle Ages and beyond.
Innocent also tried to create a new financial system that placed the onus for crusade funding on the Church. This included a one-fortieth tax on almost all aspects of ecclesiastical income for one year and a ten per cent levy on papal revenue. The new pope set up donation chests in churches across Europe, into which lay parishioners were expected to place alms in support of the war effort. Crucially, the pope suggested that these monetary gifts, in and of themselves, would bring benefactors an indulgence similar to that enjoyed by actual crusaders. Over time, this notion would remould crusade ideology, and have far-reaching consequences for the whole history of the Roman Church.
Innocent openly acknowledged that the onerous burden of his duties in Rome made it impossible for him to lead a crusade in person, but in 1198 and 1199, he appointed a number of papal legates to represent his interests and oversee the holy war. He also placed precise limits on who was permitted to preach the crusade, enlisting the renowned French evangelist Fulk of Neuilly to trumpet the call. At the same time, the pope sought to impose stringent minimum terms of service on prospective crusaders, declaring that only after a set period of time spent fighting for the cross would an indulgence be earned (this began at two years, but was later downgraded to one year).
This all seemed wonderfully efficient. Yet, despite the verve and assurance of Innocent’s vision, all his multifarious efforts elicited only a muted response: the anticipated hordes of enthusiastic warriors did not enlist (although many of the poor took the cross); the donation chests strewn across the West failed to fill. Innocent’s first crusade encyclical had called for an expedition to start in March 1199, but that date soon came and went without any sign of action, and eventually a second call was made in December 1199. By this time, control of wha
t would become the Fourth Crusade was already slipping through his fingers.
In fact, Innocent’s conception of crusading was fundamentally flawed. Absolutist in tone, it made no provision for interactive collaboration between the Church and the secular leaders of lay society. The pope imagined that he would simply bend the kings and lords of Latin Christendom to his will, as mere tools of God’s purpose. But this proved to be entirely unrealistic. From the First Crusade onwards, Europe’s lay nobles had been utterly essential to the crusading movement. It was their febrile enthusiasm that could spark expanding waves of recruitment through the social networks of kinship and vassalage, and their military leadership that could direct the holy war. Innocent had certainly hoped to enrol knights, lords and even kings in his crusade, but only as obedient pawns, not equals or allies.
Historians used to suggest that Innocent deliberately limited the degree of royal involvement in the crusade, but this is not entirely true. To begin with, at least, he sought to broker a peace deal between Angevin England and Capetian France, and made some attempt at convincing King Richard I to take the cross. But when the Lionheart died in 1199, these nebulous plans somehow still to incorporate the Latin monarchy within the ‘papal crusade’ evaporated. After Richard’s demise, his brother John was too busy battling to assume control of England and the Angevin realm to consider crusading. King Philip II Augustus of France equally made it clear that, until the Angevin succession was resolved, he would not leave Europe. And the ongoing power struggle in Germany precluded any direct Hohenstaufen participation. But even when it became obvious that there would be no crown involvement from these three realms, Innocent did not attempt to consult or recruit secular leaders from the upper aristocracy. He probably believed that the members of this class would flock to his cause of their own natural volition, eager to serve at his beck and call–but he was wrong, and this lapse of judgement would have tragic consequences for Christendom.3
THE FOURTH CRUSADE
Contrary to Pope Innocent III’s hopes and expectations, the Fourth Crusade was shaped largely by the laity, being subject to secular leadership and the influence of worldly concerns. Real enthusiasm and widespread recruitment for the expedition among Europe’s elite warriors only took hold after two prominent northern French lords–Count Thibaut III of Champagne and his cousin Louis, count of Blois–took the cross at a knightly tournament at Écry (just north of Rheims) in late November 1199. In February 1200 Count Baldwin of Flanders followed suit. All three men were drawn from the highest echelon of the Latin nobility, with connections to the royal houses of England and France. Each possessed an inestimable ‘crusade pedigree’ as multiple generations of their respective families had fought in the war for the Holy Land. Yet, although they appear to have been aware of Fulk of Neuilly’s preaching of the crusade, there is no evidence to suggest that they were directly contacted or encouraged to enlist by any representative of the pope. Certainly, like most earlier crusaders, they regarded themselves as answering a call to arms issued and sanctioned by the papacy–but they do not seem to have perceived any special need to work alongside Rome in planning or executing their expedition. This resulted in a worrying disjuncture between their outlook and the idealised notions entertained by Innocent III.
Diversions to disaster
In April 1201, a group of crusader envoys–representing Thibaut, Louis and Baldwin–negotiated an ill-fated treaty with the Italian naval and commercial superpower of Venice. The agreement called for the construction of a vast fleet to transport 33,500 crusaders and 4,500 horses across the Mediterranean in return for the payment of 85,000 silver marks. This massive commission prompted the Venetians to call a temporary halt to their wider trading interests, putting all their energy into building the requisite number of ships in record time.
This scheme was unsound from its inception. The notion of using seaborne transport to reach the Holy Land had been popularised during the Third Crusade, with both the English and French contingents sailing to war. The problem was that sea travel was expensive and, in comparison to an overland march, required a massive initial outlay of hard cash. The fleets used by the Third Crusaders had to be underwritten by royal treasuries, and even then the requisite funds were not easily amassed. Lacking crown involvement or support, the Fourth Crusade inevitably struggled to foot the bill owed to Venice. The 1201 treaty was also predicated on the unrealistic assumption that every Latin who took the cross would agree to travel from the same port on a specified date, even though there was no precedent for this type of systematic departure and no commitment to embark from Venice was included in the crusading vow. The plan might just have worked had the secular leadership coordinated their efforts with the papacy to orchestrate a general muster–as it was, Innocent does not even seem to have been consulted about the deal with Venice. Realising that he was fast losing any semblance of control over the expedition, the pope grudgingly confirmed the treaty. From this point onwards, Innocent gradually found himself trapped between conflicting impulses: the desire to bring the crusade to heel by withdrawing his support; and the lingering hope that the campaign would still somehow find a way to enact God’s will.
The Fourth Crusade’s prospects were dealt a grievous blow in May 1201 when Thibaut of Champagne, though barely twenty years old, fell ill and died. Overall leadership passed to the north Italian nobleman Boniface of Montferrat–who, through his brothers William and Conrad, possessed his own notable ‘crusade pedigree’–but Thibaut’s demise nonetheless weakened recruitment in northern France. When the crusaders began to congregate at Venice from around June 1202 onwards, it quickly became obvious that there was a problem. By midsummer 1202, only around 13,000 troops had arrived. Far fewer Franks had taken the cross than predicted, and, of those who had enrolled, many chose to take ship to the East from other ports like Marseilles.
Even scraping together every available ounce of money, the crusade leaders were thus left with a massive financial shortfall. The Venetians had carried out their part of the bargain–the grand armada was ready–but they were still owed 34,000 marks. The expedition was saved from immediate collapse by the intervention of Venice’s venerable leader, or doge, Enrico Dandalo. A wizened, half-blind octogenarian whose spirited character and unbounded energy belied his age, Dandalo possessed a shrewd appreciation of warfare and politics, and was driven by an absolute determination to further Venetian interests. He now offered to commute the crusaders’ debt and to commit his own troops to join the Levantine war, so long as the crusade first helped Venice to defeat its enemies. In agreeing to this deal, the Fourth Crusade drifted from the path to the Holy Land.
Within months the expedition had sacked the Christian city of Zara on the Dalmatian coast, Venice’s political and economic rival. Innocent was dismayed when he heard about this affront and reacted by excommunicating the entire crusade. At first, this act of censure–the ultimate spiritual sanction at the pope’s disposal–seemed to stop the campaign in its tracks. But Innocent rather foolishly accepted the French crusaders’ pledges of contrition and later rescinded their punishment (although the Venetians, who made no move to seek forgiveness, remained excommunicate). By this time, dissenting voices within the crusader host had begun to question the direction taken by the expedition; some Franks even left for the Holy Land under their own steam. The majority, however, continued to follow the advice and leadership offered by the likes of Boniface of Montferrat and Doge Dandalo.
When the plunder gathered from Zara’s conquest proved insufficient, the crusade turned towards Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. The ‘just cause’ cited for this extraordinary decision was that the crusaders planned to reinstate the ‘legitimate’ heir to Byzantium, Prince Alexius Angelus (son of the deposed Emperor Isaac II Angelus), who would then pay off the debt to Venice and finance an assault on the Muslim Near East. But there was a darker subtext at work. The Greeks had stifled Venetian ambitions to dominate Mediterranean commerce for decades. At the very least
, Dandalo was hoping to install a ‘tame’ emperor on the throne, but perhaps he already had a more direct conquest in mind–certainly the doge was only too happy to usher the crusade towards Constantinople.
Once there, the expedition rapidly lost sight of its ‘sacred’ goal to recapture Jerusalem. After a short-lived military offensive, the existing imperial regime was toppled in July 1203–at only limited cost in Greek blood–and Alexius was proclaimed emperor. But when he proved unable to redeem his lavish promises of financial reward to the Latins, relations soured. In January 1204 Alexius’ grip on power faltered and he was overthrown (and then strangled) by a member of the rival Doukas family, nicknamed Murtzurphlus (or ‘heavy-brow’, on account of his prominent eyebrows). In spite of their own recent estrangement from the late emperor, the crusaders interpreted his deposition as a coup and characterised Murtzurphlus as a tyrannical usurper who must himself be removed from office. Girded by this cause for war, the Latins prepared for a full-scale assault on the great capital of Byzantium.
On 12 April 1204, thousands of western knights broke into the city and, in spite of their crusading vows, subjected its Christian population to a horrific three-day riot of violence, rape and plunder. In the course of this gruesome sack the glory of Constantinople was smashed, the city stripped of its greatest treasures–among them holy relics such as the Crown of Thorns and the head of John the Baptist. Doge Dandalo seized an imposing bronze statue of four horses and shipped it back to Venice, where it was gilded and erected above the entrance of St Mark’s Basilica as a totem of Venetian triumph. It remains within the church to this day.
The Fourth Crusaders never did sail on to Palestine. Instead they stayed in Constantinople, founding a new Latin empire, which they dubbed Romania. Aping Byzantine practice, its first sovereign, Baldwin, count of Flanders, donned the elaborate jewel-encrusted robes of imperial rule on 16 May 1204 and was anointed emperor in the monumental Basilica of St Sophia–the spiritual epicentre of Greek Orthodox Christianity. Across the Bosphorus Strait in Asia Minor, the surviving Greek aristocracy established their own empire in exile at Nicaea, awaiting revenge.
The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land Page 54
