Fourth Crusade Quotes

The Fourth Crusade was an epic clusterfuck a comic-opera misadventure a tragic saga with farcical elements.

The supposedly eyewitness authority of the Pseudo-Turpin finds a parallel in another genre in which vernacular prose was pioneered: that of the historical memoir. There were twelfth-century verse histories narrated by authors who had personally participated in the events they describe, such as the Third Crusade. But the Fourth Crusade of 1202-4 saw a switch to prose. This shameful fiasco, in which the crusaders were induced to turn aside from the Holy Land and attack instead the Christian city of Constantinople, inspired two contrasting accounts. Robert de Clari--ignorant of higher-level strategy, but all agog at the splendours of Constantinople--gives a worm's eye view. Geoffroi de Villehardouin, by contrast, has a top diplomat's suave authority and a leader's eye for the aesthetics of war--the splendid sight of a fleet, or the noble heroism of a ruler. For both authors the medium of prose seems to convey the purported authenticity and transparency of lived experience.

Scientific works and entire libraries were set to torch kindled by the insane religious fanatics. We have already mentioned the Bishop of Yucatan, who burned the entire native literature of the Maya in the 1560's, and Bishop Theophilus, who destroyed much of the remnants of the Library of Alexandria (391). The Christian Roman emperor Valens ordered the burning of non-Christian books in 373. In 1109, the crusaders captured Tripoli, and after the usual orgy of butchery typifying the crusades (through this one did not yet include the murderous Teutonic Knights), they burned over 100,000 books of Muslim learning. In 1204, the fourth crusade captured Constantinople and sacked it with horrors unparalleled even in the bloody age of the crusades; the classical works that had survived until then were put to the torch by crusaders in what is generally considered the biggest single loss to classical literature. In the early 15th century, Cardinal Ximenes (Jimenez), who succeeded Torquemada as Grand Inquisitor and was directly responsible for the cruel deaths of 2,500 persons, had a haul of 24,000 books burned at Granada.

Shortly after the Gulf War in 1992 I happened to visit a July Fourth worship service at a certain megachurch. At center stage in this auditorium stood a large cross next to an equally large American flag. The congregation sang some praise choruses mixed with such patriotic hymns as “God Bless America.” The climax of the service centered on a video of a well-known Christian military general giving a patriotic speech about how God has blessed America and blessed its military troops, as evidenced by the speedy and almost “casualty-free” victory “he gave us” in the Gulf War (Iraqi deaths apparently weren’t counted as “casualties” worthy of notice). Triumphant military music played in the background as he spoke. The video closed with a scene of a silhouette of three crosses on a hill with an American flag waving in the background. Majestic, patriotic music now thundered. Suddenly, four fighter jets appeared on the horizon, flew over the crosses, and then split apart. As they roared over the camera, the words “God Bless America” appeared on the screen in front of the crosses. The congregation responded with roaring applause, catcalls, and a standing ovation. I saw several people wiping tears from their eyes. Indeed, as I remained frozen in my seat, I grew teary-eyed as well - but for entirely different reasons. I was struck with horrified grief. Thoughts raced through my mind: How could the cross and the sword have been so thoroughly fused without anyone seeming to notice? How could Jesus’ self-sacrificial death be linked with flying killing machines? How could Calvary be associated with bombs and missiles? How could Jesus’ people applaud tragic violence, regardless of why it happened and regardless of how they might benefit from its outcome? How could the kingdom of God be reduced to this sort of violent, nationalistic tribalism? Has the church progressed at all since the Crusades? Indeed, I wondered how this tribalistic, militaristic, religious celebration was any different from the one I had recently witnessed on television carried out by Taliban Muslims raising their guns as they joyfully praised Allah for the victories they believed “he had given them” in Afghanistan?

8) The fourth period in the history of indul gences, from the Council of Clermont (1095) to the Second Council of Lyons (1274), coincides with the crusades, during which the practice as sumed a new form. At Clermont, for the first time, participation in a crusade was suggested as a ransom from all penance. The Council decreed as follows: " Whoever, out of pure devotion, and not for the purpose of gaining honor or money, shall go to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God, let that journey be counted in lieu of all penance." 27 Pope Urban II, who personally attended this council, said in a sermon: " But we, trusting in the mercy of God and the authority of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, remit to the faithful who take up arms against the Sara cens and assume the burden of this pilgrimage [to Jeru salem], the unmeasured penalties of their sins. Those who shall die there with a truly contrite heart, may rest as sured that they will obtain forgiveness of their sins and the fruit of eternal reward." 28 Urban's example was followed by Callistus II (1123), Eugene III (1146), Alexander III (1179), and other popes. At about the same time the Schoolmen, notably St. Thomas Aquinas (+ I 2 74)> turned their attention to

However, if the moneylenders are not some other country but are situated within your own kingdom, and you’ve borrowed what you feel is too much money from them, you can play a very dirty trick. This dirty trick has indeed been played, and quite often. It’s called “Kill the Creditors.” (Please don’t try this at your local bank.) Consider, for instance, the sad fate of the Knights Templar. They were a religious order of fighting knights who’d amassed a great store of capital through gifts given to them by the pious, as well as through various treasures they’d acquired during the Crusades, and they acted as Europe’s major moneylenders to kings as well as to others for more than two centuries. It was unlawful for Christians to charge for the use of money, but it wasn’t unlawful for them to charge “rent” for the use of land, so the Templars charged so-called “rent” for the use of money, which you paid at the same time you got the loan, rather than after you’d used it. But you still had to pay the principal amount back at the stipulated time. This could be a problem for those who’d borrowed the money, as it still is today. In 1307, Philip the Fourth of France found he owed a cumbersome lot of money to the Templars. With the aid of the Pope and of torture, he accused them falsely of heretical and sacrilegious activities and had them rounded up and burned at the stake. As if by magic, his debts disappeared. (So did the vast wealth of the Templars, which has never been adequately accounted for since.)

As each German and Italian and Frankish nobleman arrived in Constantinople with his own private army, ready to cross over the Bosphorus Strait and face the enemy, Alexius had demanded a sacred oath. Whatever “cities, countries or forces he might in future subdue . . . he would hand over to the officer appointed by the emperor.” They were, after all, there to fight for Christendom; and Alexius Comnenus was the ruler of Christendom in the east.1 Just as Alexius had feared, the chance to build private kingdoms in the Holy Land proved too tempting. The first knight to bite the apple was the Norman soldier Bohemund, who had arrived in Constantinople at the start of the First Crusade and immediately became one of the foremost commanders of the Crusader armies. Spearheading the capture of the great city Antioch in 1098, Bohemund at once named himself its prince and flatly refused to honor his oath. (“Bohemund,” remarked Alexius’s daughter and biographer, Anna, “was by nature a liar.”) By 1100, Antioch had been joined by two other Crusader kingdoms—the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Edessa—and Bohemund himself was busy agitating the Christians of Asia Minor against Byzantium. By 1103, Bohemund was planning a direct attack against the walls of Constantinople itself.2 To mount this assault, Bohemund needed to recruit more soldiers. The most likely source for reinforcements was Italy; Bohemund’s late father, Robert Guiscard, had conquered himself a kingdom in the south of Italy (the grandly named “Dukedom of Apulia and Calabria”), and Bohemund, who had been absent from Italy since heading out on crusade, had theoretically inherited its crown. Alexius knew this as well as Bohemund did, so Byzantine ships hovered in the Mediterranean, waiting to intercept any Italy-bound ships from the principality of Antioch. So Bohemund was forced to be sneaky. Anna Comnena tells us that he spread rumors everywhere: “Bohemond,” it was said, “is dead.” . . . When he perceived that the story had gone far enough, a wooden coffin was made and a bireme prepared. The coffin was placed on board and he, a still breathing “corpse,” sailed away from Soudi, the port of Antioch, for Rome. . . . At each stop the barbarians tore out their hair and paraded their mourning. But inside Bohemond, stretched out at full length, was . . . alive, breathing air in and out through hidden holes. . . . [I]n order that the corpse might appear to be in a state of rare putrefaction, they strangled or cut the throat of a cock and put that in the coffin with him. By the fourth or fifth day at the most, the horrible stench was obvious to anyone who could smell. . . . Bohemond himself derived more pleasure than anyone from his imaginary misfortune.3 Bohemund was a rascal and an opportunist, but he almost always got what he wanted; when he arrived in Italy and staged a victorious resurrection, he was able to rouse great public enthusiasm for his fight against Byzantium. In fact, his conquest of Antioch in the east had given him hero stature back in Italy. People swarmed to see him, says one contemporary historian, “as if they were going to see Christ himself.”4

While the First and Fourth Crusades could reasonably be described as successful, the majority of the other seven crusading expeditions to the Muslim east ended with disaster. Over two centuries, repeated attempts to reclaim the Holy Land of Jerusalem ended in failure and yet, again and again, ordinary people took the cross and made the arduous journey east. In launching their Holy War and maintaining its momentum over two centuries, the Crusaders showed the world the devastating effect of forcibly dividing the world along the lines of religion.

There was never a greater crime against humanity than the fourth crusade,” says Stephen Runciman. It destroyed the treasures of the past and broke down the most advanced culture of Europe. Far from uniting Eastern and Western Christendom, it implanted in the Greeks a hostility toward the West that has never entirely disappeared, and it weakened the Byzantine defenses against the rising power of the Ottoman Turks, to whom they eventually succumbed.

Hine had climbed into the Carpathian Mountains to minister when he heard—get this—a Russian translation of Boberg’s Swedish poem attached to the Swedish melody. Hine was standing in the street preaching on John chapter 3 when a nasty storm blew in, so a local schoolteacher housed him for the night. As Hine watched the storm roll through those mountains, he added what we now call the first verse. Next he crossed over into Romania and Bukovina, and somewhere beneath the trees and birds, he added the second verse. He finished the third verse after spending time with the Carpathian mountain dwellers and, finally, the fourth verse when he returned to Britain. The song as we know it ended up in the States at a youth camp in California in the early 1950s, where crusade team member George Beverly Shea handed it to a man named Billy Graham. Then in 1967, a fellow by the name of Presley recorded ‘How Great Thou Art,’ and the album went platinum.” Dad held up two fingers. “Twice.

by the armies of the Fourth Crusade in 1261. The Latin Christians, who diverted from their original goal of capturing the Holy Land,

To summarize, these are the three main problems of bed-and-breakfast establishments: throw pillows, potpourri, and breakfast conversation, and the fourth problem is gazebos. And the fifth problem is water features. And the sixth problem is themed rooms, and the seventh problem is provenance (who owned the inn before and who owned the inn before that, and who owned it before that, and what year the bed-and-breakfast was built, and how old the timber is in the main hall), and the eighth problem is pride of ownership, because why can't it just be a place you stay, why does it always have to be an ideological crusade? And the ninth problem is excessive amounts of regional advice. And the tenth problem is the absence of telephones. Even if you aren't going to use the telephone, you want to know that the telephone is there. And the eleventh problem is price. There is no bed-and-breakfast that you can see from the interstate that says $39.95 in a neon sign above it, and although you can really sleep peacefully in the bed-and-breakfast if you are the sort of person who can be comfortable in the presence of a superabundance of pillows, that rush of uncertainty and danger that you get from the motel by the interstate is absent.

Starting with the First Crusade in 1096, thousands of soldiers were sent to the Holy Land by the church to reclaim Jerusalem. At first they were successful; the crusading armies managed to establish a Christian-ruled kingdom in Muslim Palestine. However, ultimately the crusades were futile, culminating with the fiasco of the Fourth Crusade (1204), during which the European armies sacked Constantinople (Byzantium). By the late 1200s the region had reverted to uniform Muslim rule.

The First Crusade: 1096-1099: Jerusalem was recaptured from Muslim rulers in 1099. The Second Crusade: 1147-1149: Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany lead a campaign to capture the County of Edessa. The Third Crusade: 1189-1192: Lead by three European kings with the aim of recapturing Jerusalem, which was again under Muslim rule. The Fourth Crusade: 1202-1204: This represented another attempt at regaining the Holy City. However, it ended with the sacking of Constantinople. The Fifth Crusade:1217-1221: An attempt to succeed where the Fourth Crusade had failed, this campaign also ended in defeat. The Sixth Crusade: 1228-1229: A major success, this Crusade ended with the capture of Jerusalem, Nazareth and other cities. The Seventh Crusade: 1248-1254: Louis IX attempted to conquer Egypt and recapture parts of the Holy Land that had fallen outside of Christian rule. However, he failed as he had to return home to France when his mother died. The Eighth Crusade: 1270: This represented Louis’ second attempt. He began in Tunisia, but died shortly after arriving. His brother was left to ensure the army returned home to France. Prince Edward of England then launched his own campaign, but left to return home once he received news that his father had fallen ill.

It is important to realize, however, that the Crusades are not the only story of the Christian response to Islam during the Middle Ages. The fourth historical focus highlights the life and ministry of Raymond Lull (1232-1315), known as the Father of Islamic Apologetics.

The failure of Byzantium to uphold its territorial integrity from 1180 or defend itself 1203-1204 did not suggest it could necessarily have presented much of a bastion against the later Turkish invasion, however unpleasant the fourth crusade did not lead to the triumph of the Ottoman Turk

during the Fourth Crusade.

opposite number, Andrea Dandolo—a relative of the old doge Enrico Dandolo who had burned Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.

The Fourth Crusade was one of the most disgraceful and notorious escapades in the whole of the Middle Ages,

a contemporary account of the Fourth Crusade by Villehardouin

Tenacious dynasties of city-kings seem to have flourished at Kish ca. 4500 B.C., and at Ur ca. 3500 B.C. In the competition of these two primeval centers we have the first form of that opposition between Semite and non-Semite which was to be one bloody theme of Near-Eastern history from the Semitic ascendancy of Kish and the conquests of the Semitic kings Sargon I and Hammurabi, through the capture of Babylon by the “Aryan” generals Cyrus and Alexander in the sixth and fourth centuries before Christ, and the conflicts of Crusaders and Saracens for the Holy Sepulchre and the emoluments of trade, down to the efforts of the British Government to dominate and pacify the divided Semites of the Near East

lost more than the Greeks, and much were the Greeks rejoiced thereat. And some there were who drew back from the assault, with the ships in which they were. And some remained with their ships at anchor so near to the city that from either side they shot at one another with petraries and mangonels. Then, at vesper time, those of the host and the Doge of Venice called together a parliament, and assembled in a church on the other side of the straits-on the side where they had been quartered. There were many opinions given and discussed; and much were those of the host moved for the mischief that had that day befallen them. And many advised that they should attack the city on another side the side where it was not so well fortified. But the Venetians, who had fuller knowledge of the sea, said that if they went to that other side, the current would carry them down the straits, and that they would be unable to stop their ships. And you must know that there were those who would have been well pleased if the current had home them down the straits, or the wind, they cared not whither, so long -as they left that land behind, and went on their way. Nor is this to be wondered at, for they were in sore peril. Enough was there spoken, this way and in that; but the conclusion of their deliberation was this: that they would repair and refit on the following day, which was Saturday, and during the whole of Sunday, and that on the Monday they would return to the assault; and they devised further that the ships that carried the scaling ladders should be 61 bound together, two and two, so that two ships should be in case to attack one tower; for they had perceived that day how only one ship had attacked each tower, and that this had been too heavy a task for the ship, seeing that those in the tower were more in number than those on the ladder. For this reason was it well seen that two ships would attack each tower with greater effect than one. As had been settled, so was it done, and they waited thus during the Saturday and Sunday. THE CRUSADERS TAKE A PART OF THE CITY Before the assault the Emperor Mourzuphles had come to encamp, with all his power, in an open space, and had there pitched his scarlet tents. Thus matters remained till the Monday morning, when those on the ships, transports, and galleys were all armed. And those of the city stood in much less fear of them than they did at the beginning, and were in such good spirits that on the walls and towers you could see nothing but people. Then began an assault proud and marvellous, and every ship went straight before it to the attack. The noise of the battle was so great that it seemed to read the earth. Thus did the assault last for a long while, till our Lord raised a wind called Boreas which drove the ships and vessels further up on to the shore. And two ships that were bound together, of which the one was called the Pilgrim and the other the Paradise,

petraries and mangonels. Then, at vesper time,