God's War: A New History of the Crusades

by Christopher Tyerman

  The Treaty of Venice became possibly the most famous and notorious transport contract in European history. As the ultimate cause of determining the course of the Fourth Crusade to the walls of Constantinople, it has attracted enormous controversy, starting with some of the crusaders themselves, who lived with its consequences.36 The terms of the treaty acted as a vice from which the crusaders were unable to escape for the simple reason that the fundamental calculation on which the agreement was based proved spectacularly wrong. The fixed price in the treaty assumed an army of 33,500. This cut two ways. The crusaders had to collect the numbers because part, at least, of the price would have to be met by the individual crucesignati, even if the bulk of the money was expected to be met by the crusade leadership. The Venetians had to insist on the agreed price both because the fleet had to be prepared before the crusaders arrived and because of the effect of its construction on the Venetian economy. As Robert of Clari reported the doge arguing in 1202,

  as soon as your messengers had made the bargain with me I commanded through all my land that no trader should conduct any business but that all should help prepare this navy. So they have waited ever since and have not made money for a year and a half.37

  On top of that, unspecified in the treaty, but unavoidable, the Venetians needed to provide the crews for the fleet. On one recent calculation, these could have numbered over 30,000. Deprived of a large proportion of commercial income for a year, investing in a highly risky venture that promised no immediate dividend, the Venetians, especially the doge, whose pet project it so evidently was, were gambling as much as the crusaders.

  Thus the treaty became a potentially ruinous trap for both parties. The central issue revolved around the numbers. Per head, the sums negotiated for carrying the horses and men were not exorbitant. They were in line with Philip II’s contract with Genoa in 1190. But was it realistic to expect so many crusaders to enlist and, equally uncertain, follow the provisions of a contract drawn up only by one group of leaders? For all their wealth and political clout, the French counts had no authority to bind any but themselves and their vassals. Were the crusade ambassadors, therefore, ignorant, naive or just hopelessly optimistic? Not necessarily. In 1198, the pope had invited counts, barons and cities to raise troops according to their resources. His proposed clerical tax had been intended to pay for an army of mercenaries whose numbers could, presumably, have been calculated with some degree of accuracy. It may have been just such a force that Theobald of Champagne envisaged supporting with his treasure of 25,000 livres. The 20,000 ‘serjanz à pié’ of the Venice treaty possibly referred to this division of soldiers paid out of central funds. If so, the figure had probably been reached by the crusade leaders at Compiègne. If Robert of Clari is correct, Villehardouin and his colleagues already knew the massive scale of their proposed army before they reached Venice; it was what persuaded Pisa not to join the bidding. Veterans of the Third Crusade had seen tens of thousands of troops shipped to Palestine between 1189 and 1191. Richard I’s fleet when it sailed from Messina in 1191 probably comprised over 200 ships. A recent estimate of the number of war galleys, horse transports and passenger ships needed to fulfil the 1201 treaty puts the total figure at over 240 vessels, a figure not far from Nicetas Choniates’s estimate at the time. According to two independent crusader witnesses, the fleet that actually embarked from Venice in October 1202 numbered around 200 ships, still capable of carrying upwards of 20,000 men and crew.38 The Treaty of Venice may have exaggerated the putative size of the crusade host that would arrive at Venice, but the figures agreed were not beyond reason.

  Neither did inflated figures serve the interests of the Venetians, who stood to bear a massive loss if the contract was broken. The idea that the Venetians deliberately overpriced their services or increased the size of the contract in order to subvert the enterprise for their own advantage lacks circumstantial evidence unless it is assumed that they had a deep-seated plan to use the crusade to establish an empire of their own. Both the treaty and recent Venetian history makes this appear unlikely. There is nothing in the 1201 agreement to cast doubt on the sincerity of the plan to attack Egypt. There was no pressing need for war with Byzantium. Although Venetians had suffered badly from Greek hostility in 1171 and 1182, losing commercial privileges and their base in Constantinople, by 1187 their trading quarter had been restored and in 1189 reparations for the expulsion of 1171 agreed. Dandolo himself successfully negotiated a final settlement and confirmation of Venetian rights in the Byzantine empire in 1198. This secured Venice special status in the empire and free access to its markets, although Alexius III’s increasing favour towards the Genoese, who were especially dominant in the Black Sea, may have caused disquiet.39 More generally, Venice was not, in 1201, an imperial power in a political as opposed to commercial sense. Nothing in Doge Dandolo’s career suggested he was contemplating a radical departure from the vigorous pursuit of traditional Venetian interests. Nicetas Choniates thought Dandolo was motivated by revenge for longstanding personal as well as civic injuries done him by the Greeks.40 Yet despite the almost certainly groundless rumours that he had been blinded in Constantinople during the troubles of 1171, Dandolo seemed to be content with a pacific policy towards the Byzantines and the new status quo of the 1198 treaty. With well over half of Venice’s eastern trade coming through Byzantium, peace offered a more secure future than war.

  Egypt and the great entrepût of Alexandria presented a very different option, a greater risk for a much greater potential profit. The centre of the hugely lucrative spice trade, handling the spices that had been shipped from south-east Asia to the Red Sea ports and thence to the Nile before forward transit to Europe, as well as a source of wheat, sugar and alum (used in dyeing and leather making) and a market for timber and metals, Alexandria had accommodated western traders since the eleventh century. However, compared with Genoa and Pisa, Venice maintained only a modest presence there, trade with Egypt constituting perhaps 10 per cent of the city’s eastern business. Dandolo had seen the opportunities at first hand during a visit to Egypt in 1174. In 1198, perhaps in response to Cardinal Soffredo’s mission, the pope granted a licence to Venice to continue trading with Egypt in non-military materials (i.e. not metal and timber) despite the general, and largely ignored, ban decreed by the Third Lateran Council.41 A successful crusade presented Venice with the chance to expand its share of the richest market in the Levant. The stipulation in the 1201 treaty for equal shares in any conquests recognized Venice’s enormous risk as well as its huge material and human contribution, with the war galleys and numbers of crew amounting to only little less than the estimated crusader army. It also echoed the so-called Pactum Warmundi of 1124, under which the Venetians had agreed to assist the Franks under Patriarch Gormund of Jerusalem capture Tyre in return for a third of the city.42 In a new Frankish Alexandria, Venice would control most of the trade. Thus the crusade presented Venice with a unique commerical opportunity, a chance to assert civic patriotism and the undying glory of winning back Jerusalem, which the city’s Genoese and Pisan rivals had failed to achieve ten years before. It is profitless to disentangle these motives; each complemented the other in reinforcing what was an unprecedented act of corporate faith in both the crusade ideal and its practical achievement. The grand public ceremony in St Mark’s to accept the treaty – attended, Villehardouin insisted over-excitedly, by 10,000 people – formed an appropriately lavish act of civic dedication.

  THE MUSTER

  After leaving Venice, four of the French ambassadors unsuccessfully tried to interest Genoa and Pisa in a share of the crusade’s business, presumably hoping the Venice treaty would act as an incentive. Villehardouin and one of Count Baldwin’s envoys pressed on towards France.43 Crossing the Mont Cenis pass, they encountered a group of Champagne crusaders travelling south, bound for Apulia, where their leader, Walter of Brienne, held claims. His small company found service with the pope fighting Markward of Anweiler. None of them reached Venice.
This chance meeting underlined one of the most obvious faults in the Venice treaty. Those who could afford the journey east for themselves or who had no contacts with the three great French counts were under no obligation to abide by the treaty. Villehardouin’s account of the crusade is peppered by asides lamenting or criticizing the contingents that avoided Venice and made their way east independently. These included not just those outside the Champagne–Flanders–Blois orbit, such as the bishop of Autun, the count of Forez and crusaders from the Ile de France, but also many who had received financial help from Theobald of Champagne, including Renaud of Dampierre, the count’s own substitute. The same was true of some Flemish lords, such as Gilles de Trasignies, who enjoyed Count Baldwin’s largesse. The Flemish fleet also fell outside the Venice treaty; probably it was never intended to rendezvous at Venice. The binding nature of the oaths sworn at Venice that Villehardouin insisted upon appeared less obvious to others. The surprise is less that so few mustered at Venice but that so many with no direct association with the crusade leaders took advantage of the transport on offer, including the Basel crusaders with Martin of Pairis, lords from the middle Rhine under the count of Katzenellenbogen and the companions of the bishop of Halberstadt in Saxony.44

  The cohesive nature of the enterprise was further threatened by the death on 24 May 1201 of Theobald of Champagne shortly after Villehardouin’s return from Venice. A seemingly charismatic enthusiast, despite his inexperience, his fellow crusading counts may have recognized him as their leader, possibly because of his youthful political neutrality in the contest between his uncles Philip II and Richard I. He left the 50,000 livres for the crusade, half for his own followers and half to help cover the crusade’s general expenses, which presumably included the Venetian transport fee. If his money had gained Theobald authority over the expedition, his legacy acted as a bait to tempt another to take his place. The manoeuvres during the early summer of 1201 to find a replacement for Theobald with the now explicit brief to command the expedition (‘la seigneurie de l’ost’)45 remain obscure despite or perhaps because one of main players was Villehardouin himself. According to his testimony, he was part of a delegation of Champenois notables who offered Theobald’s money and the leadership first to Duke Eudes of Burgundy and then to another of Theobald’s cousins, the count of Bar-le-Duc. Both refused. Finally, at another gathering of the crusade leaders in June or July at Soissons, whose bishop, Nivelo, had already become established as the most influential bishop attached to the enterprise, Villehardouin proposed an unexpected candidate, Boniface marquis of Montferrat in northern Italy. The assembled lords agreed he should be approached.

  The choice of Boniface was both something of a coup and something of a mystery. The Montferrat family was immensely grand, related to the Capetians and the Hohenstaufen and with a pluperfect crusading pedigree. Boniface’s father had fought on the Second Crusade and at Hattin; his eldest brother, William, had been the first husband of Sybil of Jerusalem in 1176 and father of Baldwin V. Another brother, Renier, had tried his luck in Byzantium politics, marrying Manuel I’s muscular daughter Maria in 1179 and losing his life in the coup against his brother-in-law Alexius II by Andronicus I in 1182. A third brother, Conrad, married Theodora Angelus, sister of the Byzantine emperor, Isaac II, before avoiding the fate of his brother by sailing to Tyre in the summer of 1187 just in time to save the port from Saladin and begin his quest for the crown of Jerusalem. Boniface himself had been Isaac’s first choice for the hand of Theodora but, showing more scruples about bigamy than Conrad was later to display, declined as he was already married. This rather mixed record catalogues an important context for the events of the Fourth Crusade. Western aristocrats had been seeking their fortunes in Byzantium since the eleventh century, often with Greek encouragement. From mercenary chiefs to adopted members of the imperial family, the status of westerners rose, as more of Byzantine military and naval service were subcontracted to non-Greeks in the twelfth century. So, too, did local xenophobia and hostility. The family history also highlighted the differences between Boniface’s background and those of most of the French nobles who now sought his leadership.

  Yet if Boniface possessed unusually apposite credentials for a crusade commander – immense wealth, exemplary connections, chivalric repute – his selection was unexpected. A whiff of conspiracy hangs over the whole episode. Villehardouin may have played a more significant role than he was prepared to recall. The first peculiarity lay in who was not chosen as the new leader. By virtue of wealth, commitment, size of following, traditional crusading ties and familiarity with the plans already in place, the most obvious replacement for Theobald was Count Baldwin of Flanders. His leadership may have caused problems for the Champenois, witnessed by their search elsewhere, or for Louis of Blois, Theobald’s cousin. More clearly, Baldwin’s elevation, giving him added authority, status and access to funds, would scarcely have been welcomed by Philip II, against whom he had allied only a few years earlier. The approaches to the duke of Burgundy and the count of Bar-le-Duc may have represented a case of ‘anyone but Baldwin’.

  The second oddity rested with Boniface himself. Even Villehardouin admitted that his nomination was controversial, with many opposing the marquis.46 Until 1201 the crusade had been run by a close-knit group of young, related French counts. Boniface was a middle-aged Italian who may not even have spoken langue d’oil, the vernacular of his would-be companions. He had not taken the cross and was probably personally unknown to most of those who endorsed his candidacy. The only one who may have encountered the marquis was Villehardouin, who possibly met him in Italy on his return from Venice. Another who knew Boniface was Philip II. According to a life of Innocent III, the Gesta Innocenti, written only a few years later, it had been King Philip who had proposed Boniface in the first place. Certainly when Boniface came to France, before accepting the leadership, he visited Philip first. His formal acceptance of the cross and the ‘seigneurie de l’ost’ at Soissons was presided over by Bishop Nivelo, who enjoyed royal favour.47 The evidence of Capetian political intrigue is circumstantial but neither incredible nor unlikely. It would not only have been out of character but politically foolish for Philip not to try to influence events of profound tenurial and diplomatic significance.

  The sense of Boniface’s detachment from the other leaders persisted. After his appointment, he conducted his own independent diplomacy surrounding the crusade involving his cousin, Philip of Swabia, and the succession to the Greek throne. He was late arriving at Venice in 1202, leaving most of the arrangements for paying the Venetians to Baldwin of Flanders. He did not sail to Zara with the fleet in October 1202, arriving there only after the city’s fall in November. He delayed leaving Zara for Corfu in April 1203 to wait for his protégé, young Alexius Angelus, whose bid for the Byzantine throne Boniface had championed. This is not to suggest that Boniface subverted the crusade for his own ends or never intended to campaign in the Levant. However, his perspectives and interests were not those of his French colleagues. As the crusaders were securing Constantinople after its fall on 12 April 1204, Greek citizens apparently came up to westerners crying, ‘Aiios phasileos marchio,’ or ‘Blessed king marquis’: ‘they did so because they thought the marquis, whom the Greeks had known well… was undoubtedly about to be king of the captured city’.48 Boniface’s actual relationship with the French counts was made clear a few weeks later, when, despite being the nominal leader of the crusade, he failed to gain election as the new Latin emperor of Constantinople. That went to Baldwin of Flanders. Philip II would have been pleased. Count Baldwin would not be returning home.

  In August 1201 Boniface was installed as leader of the crusade, seemingly with more powers than had been accorded Theobald. The other leaders probably swore oaths of fealty to Boniface to establish some hierarchical order in what at the best of times remained a quarrelsome and fissiparous command structure. Importantly, Boniface added his own sworn ratification to the Treaty of Venice.49 He then left the oth
er commanders to settle his affairs and visit Germany. There, at Philip of Swabia’s Christmas court at Hagenau, he met the exiled Byzantine pretender and Philip’s brother-in-law Alexius Angelus, whose appeals for help added a new dimension to the crusade’s strategic possibilities. Boniface’s tour may have encouraged further German recruitment, not least among supporters of Philip of Swabia, such as Bishop Conrad of Halberstadt.

  These German contingents were among the last to reach Venice in the late summer of 1202.50 Before them, from Easter 1202 onwards, thousands of crucesignati and hired troops, who may or may not have taken the cross, had converged on the Venetian lagoon. Their travel experiences evidently differed. Abbot Martin of Pairis with his Basel company received enthusiastic hospitality at Verona, where they stayed for some weeks in May or June, even though the city was already crammed with crusaders heading eastwards. Another visitor at Verona at the time was Alexius Angelus, trying to drum up support for his cause. Others encountered a different sort of Lombard welcome, with crusaders denied markets and hurried on, not being allowed to stay anywhere for more than one night, an indication that local resources and charity were equally finite.51 Lombardy was particularly affected, with the German and most of the French contingents passing through, even if some of them decided to sail from the ports of southern Italy rather than Venice. This soon became a serious problem. Baldwin of Flanders, one of the first important lords to reach Venice, was sufficiently worried about the commitment even of Louis of Blois to send Villehardouin and Hugh of St Pol to meet him at Pavia to stiffen his resolve. Even this failed to persuade many travelling with or at the same time as Count Louis not to seek transport elsewhere. Reaching Piacenza, some well-connected Frenchmen from the Ile de France, Champagne and Flanders turned south to Apulia, probably to Brindisi.52 Even those who did proceed to Venice arrived well after the supposed deadline of late June.