Conquest of Constantinople (1204)

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Conquest of Constantinople (1204)
Part of: Fourth Crusade
Entrée des Croisés à Constantinople by Eugène Delacroix
Entrée des Croisés à Constantinople by Eugène Delacroix
date April 8 to April 13, 1204
place Constantinople Coordinates: 41 ° 1 ′ 0 ″  N , 28 ° 58 ′ 37 ″  EWorld icon
output Victory of the Crusaders
consequences Latin Empire
Parties to the conflict

Byzantine Empire

Red St George's Cross.svg Crusader Republic of Venice
Flag of Most Serene Republic of Venice.svg

Commander

Alexios V.

Red St George's Cross.svg Boniface I of Montferrat Enrico Dandolo
Flag of Most Serene Republic of Venice.svg

Troop strength
15,000 soldiers, 20 ships Crusaders: 10,000 soldiers
Venetians: 10,000 soldiers, 210 ships
losses

> 2,000

unknown

The conquest of Constantinople in April 1204 was part of the Fourth Crusade . The armies of the Crusaders conquered, looted and destroyed parts of the capital of the Byzantine Empire . After the conquest of the city which was Latin Empire founded and Baldwin I in the Hagia Sophia crowned emperor.

After the city was sacked, most of the territory of the Byzantine Empire was divided up among the Crusaders. Byzantine aristocrats founded a number of small independent states. The later Byzantine Empire, after the reconquest of Constantinople in 1261 , never regained its previous territorial or economic strength and finally fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 .

prehistory

On December 31, 1199, Pope Innocent III called. to the crusade. As reported by some of the few contemporary sources, the Historia Constantinopolitanea of the Cistercian monk Gunther von Pairis , the crusaders set out in Basel in the late spring of 1202 and traveled to Venice via Verona. The Venetians wanted to provide the cruisers with ships for crossing, but when the troops arrived they refused to hand over the ships without the contractually agreed financial consideration. The Venetians had undertaken to provide ships for 33,500 soldiers and 4,500 horses. For this they should receive four silver marks per horse and two silver marks per soldier. The knight and military leader Gottfried von Villehardouin reported in his Histoire de la Conquête de Constantinople that the crusaders were able to raise less than half of the required 85,000 silver marks. The Halberstadt episcopal chronicles and the devastatio constantinopolitana unanimously report that the Venetian doge Enrico Dandolo then took the crusaders hostage and demanded that the debt be paid in full. When displeasure rose against the capture, the Doge suggested that the Crusaders help him take the city of Zara . As Villehardouin reports, the plan should only be known to the Crusader leadership, but it leaked and sparked protests. Gunther von Pairis mentioned that many of the poorer crusaders decided to repent and that richer knights also decided to repent because they did not want to fight the Christian Hungarian king. In October 1202 the remaining crusaders set out and in November 1202 took Zara with the Venetians.

In the same year the Venetians signed a contract with Alexios Angelos , who had turned to the crusaders for help. As a reward for the enthronement of Alexios on the Byzantine throne, Alexios promised the crusaders 200,000 silver marks, participation in the crusade with 10,000 soldiers, the establishment of a permanent garrison in the Holy Land and the reunification of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

After the siege of Constantinople on August 1, 1203, Alexios Angelos was crowned Emperor of the Byzantine Empire as Alexios IV, who then tried to pacify the city. But just a few weeks later there were violent riots between the Orthodox Greeks and Roman Catholic Latins, which lasted until December and in which the majority of the population turned against Emperor Alexios IV because the state was in debt for the promises to the crusaders had to and could hardly settle these claims. When Alexios IV refused to meet the financial obligations of the Treaty of Zara, the situation came to a head.

On January 25, 1204, the death of the co-emperor Isaac II triggered an uprising in Constantinople that led to the deposition of Alexios IV. The emperor turned to the crusaders for help. But the imperial chamberlain Alexios Dukas imprisoned the dethroned emperor, proclaimed himself emperor on February 5 and was enthroned on the same day. Emperor Alexios V tried to negotiate a withdrawal from the Byzantine territory with the Crusaders, but they refused to terminate the old treaty of Zara with Alexios IV and demanded the reinstatement of the predecessor to the throne. When Alexios V ordered the execution of the dethroned Alexios IV on February 8, the crusaders declared war on Alexios V. In March 1204, the Crusaders and the Venetian Republic decided the final conquest of Constantinople and agreed to divide the Byzantine Empire among themselves.

Conquest and sack of Constantinople

In late March, the united Crusader armies besieged Constantinople when Emperor Alexios V began reinforcing the city's defenses and conducting active military operations outside the city. In the first week of April the crusaders began their siege of the city of Galata on the other side of the Golden Horn .

On April 9, 1204, the Crusader and Venetian forces advanced on the fortifications on the Golden Horn by crossing the waterway and landing at the northwest wall of the city. Due to the bad weather, however, the crusaders were pushed back when the landed troops got caught in a hail of arrows in the open terrain between Constantinople's fortifications and the shore.

The conquest of Constantinople in 1204, painting by Palma il Giovane

On April 12, 1204, weather conditions finally favored the Crusaders when the weather cleared and a second attack on the city was ordered. A strong north wind helped the Venetian ships in the Golden Horn to approach the city wall, which allowed the attackers to capture some towers along the wall. After a brief battle, about 70 crusaders managed to invade the city. Some attackers may have been able to punch holes in the walls large enough for a couple of knights to crawl through at the same time. The Venetians could also climb the walls from the sea, although there was fierce fighting with the Varangian Guard . The Crusaders captured the Blachernae district in the northwest and used it as a base to attack the rest of the city. When they tried to defend themselves with a wall of fire, they accidentally burned down parts of the city. Emperor Alexios V fled that night through the Polyandriou Gate (Rhegium Gate) from the city inland to the west.

The horses of San Marco in the museum of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice

The Crusaders looted and destroyed Constantinople for three days, with many ancient and medieval Roman and Greek works either stolen or destroyed. The famous bronze horses of San Marco from the Hippodrome were sent to Venice to adorn the facade of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. Many other works of artistic value were stolen and melted down due to their material value. One of the most valuable works was a large bronze statue of Hercules made by Lysippus .

Despite a threat of excommunication by the Pope, the crusaders systematically robbed churches, monasteries and convents. The altars were smashed by the warriors because of the gold and marble. The graves of the emperors in the Apostle Church were also looted. Thousands of people were killed. Women, including nuns, were raped. Although the Venetians also looted, their actions were far more targeted. They specifically searched for religious relics and works of art, which they stole and later brought to Venice to decorate their own churches.

consequences

The Byzantine Empire was divided between the Republic of Venice and the leaders of the Crusade, and the Latin Empire was established. Popular with the Latin population Boniface I of Montferrat was not emperor because the Venetians were concerned that he had the Byzantine imperial family to close relationships because his brother Renier of Montferrat with the daughter of Manuel I was married. Instead, Baldwin of Flanders was crowned emperor. Boniface founded the Kingdom of Thessaloniki , a vassal state of the Latin Empire. The Venetians also founded the Duchy of Archipelagos in the Aegean Sea.

Most of the Byzantine aristocrats fled the city. There was little sympathy for the Byzantine elite among the common people of the former empire, as they had ruled the empire with increasing incompetence. The Byzantine nobles founded their own successor states, including the Empire of Nikaia under Theodor I , the Empire of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus .

The conquest and sacking weakened the Byzantine Empire, which allowed neighboring empires such as the Sultanate of the Rum Seljuks and the Ottoman Turks to gain influence in the region and in 1453 conquered the Byzantine Empire.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II apologized for the events in a letter to the Archbishop of Athens Christodoulos I. In April 2004, the ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I officially accepted the apology in a speech on the 800th anniversary of the city's conquest.

See also

literature

  • Michael Angold: The Fourth Crusade. Event and Context , Harlow et al. a. 2003, ISBN 0-582-35610-5
  • Ernle Bradford: The great betrayal. Constantinople, 1204. White Lion Publishers, London 1975, ISBN 978-0-85617-078-2
  • Ralph-Johannes Lily: Byzantium and the Crusades. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-17-017033-3
  • Donald E. Queller: The Fourth Crusade. The Conquest of Constantinople 1201-1204. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1977, ISBN 0-8122-7730-9

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sigfús Blöndal: The Varangians of Byzantium . Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 164
  2. ↑ Jonathan Phillips: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople . Jonathan Cape, London 2004, ISBN 978-1448114528 , p. 159
  3. ↑ Jonathan Phillips: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople . Jonathan Cape, London 2004, ISBN 978-1448114528 , p. 269
  4. ↑ Jonathan Phillips: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople . Jonathan Cape, London 2004, ISBN 978-1448114528 , p. 106
  5. ^ The Latin empire of Constantinople and the Frankish states in Greece . In: David Abulafia: The New Cambridge Medieval History , Volume V, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-521-36289-X , pp. 525-542
  6. ^ A b Arthur Winfield Hodgman: The Fourth Crusade . In: The Classical Journal . Vol. 43, No. 4 (January 1948), pp. 225-228, here p. 225
  7. ↑ Donald E. Queller, Thomas K. Compton, Donald A. Campbell: The Fourth Crusade: The Neglected Majority . In: Speculum . Vol. 49, no. 3 (July 1974), pp. 441-465, here p. 446
  8. ↑ Donald E. Queller, Thomas K. Compton, Donald A. Campbell: The Fourth Crusade: The Neglected Majority . In: Speculum . Vol. 49, no. 3 (July 1974), p. 447
  9. ↑ Donald E. Queller, Thomas K. Compton, Donald A. Campbell: The Fourth Crusade: The Neglected Majority . In: Speculum . Vol. 49, no. 3 (July 1974), p. 448
  10. ^ Thomas F. Madden : Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204 . The International History Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (August 1993), p. 441
  11. ^ Thomas F. Madden: Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204 . The International History Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (August 1993), p. 446 ff.
  12. ^ Thomas F. Madden: Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204 . The International History Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (August 1993), pp. 448 f.
  13. ^ Thomas F. Madden: Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204 . The International History Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (August 1993), p. 453.
  14. ^ Thomas F. Madden: Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204 . The International History Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (August 1993), p. 455
  15. ^ Thomas F. Madden: Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204 . The International History Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (August 1993), p. 459
  16. ^ Thomas F. Madden: Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204 . The International History Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (August 1993), p. 465 f.
  17. ^ A b David Nicolle: The Fourth Crusade 1202-04. The betrayal of Byzantium . (= Osprey Campaign Series, Volume 237), Osprey Publishing
  18. ^ Thomas F. Madden: Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204 . The International History Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (August 1993), p. 466 f.
  19. ↑ Preserving The Intellectual Heritage Commission on Preservation and Access ( Memento of July 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  20. ^ A b Donald M. Nicol: Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations . Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 143
  21. ^ A b Victor Roudometof: Globalization and Orthodox Christianity: The Transformations of a Religious Tradition . Routledge, 2014, p. 47
  22. ↑ Aphrodite Papayianni: Memory and ideology: the image of the crusades in Byzantine historiography, 11th - 13th century . In: Adrian Boas (Ed.): The Crusader World . Routledge, 2016, p. 284
  23. ^ Robert Lee Wolff: Politics in the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople, 1204-1261 . Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 8 (1954), p. 227
  24. ↑ Г. Ф. Герцберг: История на Бизантия . Moscow 1895, pp. 359-360
  25. ^ E. Gerland: History of the emperor Baldwin I and Heinrich . (= Volume 1, History of the Latin Empire of Constantinople .) Homburg vd Höhe 1905, pp. 1–10
  26. ↑ The Latin kingdom of Thessalonica (1204–1224) ( Memento of the original from January 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Foundation of the Hellenistic World, accessed May 15, 2019 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.fhw.gr
  27. ↑ Michael Angold: The Byzantine Empire 1025-1204 . Longman, 1997, ISBN 0-582-29468-1 , pp. 327 f.
  28. ↑ In the Footsteps of St Paul: Papal Visit to Greece, Syria & Malta , Ewtn.com, accessed May 15, 2019
  29. ↑ Jonathan Phillips: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople . Jonathan Cape, London 2004, ISBN 978-1448114528 , p. XIII
  30. ↑ In Pascha messages, Patriarchs address question of violence ( Memento of the original of May 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Incommunion.org, accessed May 15, 2019 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / incommunion.org