THE FOURTH CRUSADE
In the "black section" that follows you will find links on the Crusades.
Even though I have not studied this subject in detail, it is clear that the Fourth Crusade went out
of control and had grave consequences for the Byzantine Empire. And even though the sacking of
Constantinople wasn't planned beforehand, the fact that it happened isn't something that 'Western
Christianity' can be proud of. The references that follow shed more light on the reasons why
control was lost. 'Chronology of the Crusades' further down sums it up in a few paragraphs.
It is a good idea, also, to read more about the Crusades in general in order to understand
why they were initiated and to place the events of the Fourth Crusade in the proper context. In one
of the chapters of his site "Paradoxplave", Adrian Fletcher has managed to do this for us in a few
lines. His account of the Crusades (the next 2 bullets) is very clear, and the shortest and most
lively of anything I have seen todate.
THE CRUSADES (Paradoxplace Insight
Pages).
By Adrian
Fletcher.
*New!*
http://www.paradoxplace.com/Insights/Crusades/Crusades.htm
Paradox Site Directory
-
http://www.paradoxplace.com/Directory.htm.
*New!*
International Congress - The
Fourth Crusade and Its Consequences -
Athens, 9 - 12
March 2004
http://www.cc.uoa.gr/4thcrusade/
Medieval Sourcebook: The Fourth
Crusade 1204: Collected Sources (by Paul Halsall)
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/4cde.html
Google Search - Fourth Crusade
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Fourth+Crusade&btnG=Google+Search
Crusades (Catholic Encyclopedia)
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04543c.htm
- In "The Crusade against (!) Constantinople"
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04543c.htm#V
a detailed history of events can be found of how and why the Fourth Crusade went out of control.
Chronology of the Crusades
- World History, Byzantine and Islamic Worlds 5. Chronology of the
Crusades >> has short descriptions
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:_eCy5cyCFqkJ:www1.fccj.edu/lchandouts/Humlabhandouts/5-Crusades%2520Timeline.doc+Chronology+of+the+Crusades&hl=en
this is the html version of the (following) word.doc file
http://www1.fccj.edu/lchandouts/Humlabhandouts/5-Crusades%20Timeline.doc
(both files are believed to be part of Nancy Mautz Creative Impulse)
- Click following
Google Search / link for more chronology references :
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Chronology+of+the+Crusades&btnG=Google+Search
Chronology (Timeline) of the Crusades. Fourth Crusade 1198-1207
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/christian/blchron_xian_crusades07.htm
RECUEIL D'IMAGES RELATIVES AUX CROISADES ET À L'HISTOIRE BYZANTINE
http://www.callisto.si.usherb.ca/~croisade/IMAGES/Webimages.htm What exactly did
the Fourth Crusaders plunder?
*New!* http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6047&PN=1
If the people that made this entry in the "AllEmpires.com History Forum" are to be believed,
then this is what was stolen :
After the killing, after the city had been subdued, there
began a slow and steady removal of treasures out of the Orthodox temples and into the cathedrals,
churches, monasteries, convents, cities and towns of Latin Europe. Some of these items had been
venerated, cherished, and protected for centuries, others for a millennium. Now they were being
carted away from over a hundred and fifty churches: altars, altar screens, tabernacles, antimins,
icons, icon frames, processional, pectoral and altar crosses, gold and silver chains, panagias,
mitres, croziers, chalices, patens, star covers and spears, Gospels, Epistle books, ladles, church
plate, censers, votive lights, relics, candelabra, epitaphia, fans, reliquaries, vestments,
banners, manuscripts, miniatures, ivories, carvings, mosaics, thrones, tapestries, furniture and
architectural items. Cartloads of gold and silver from Santa Sophia found their way into the
Vatican treasury. Constantinople had become the gold mine which supplied Latin Christendom.
The wealth was so great that the looting continued for sixty years. A century earlier,
after the First Crusade, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Edessa were similarly stripped for a period of
forty years. Now it was happening to the imperial city. A scandalous traffic in relics was started.
The head of St. John the Baptist was carried off to Amiens. Amalfi, Italy took the head of St.
Andrew the First-Called from the Church of the Holy Apostles, along with a set of heavy bronze
doors. The bishop of Soissons shipped home the head of St. Stephen and a relic of St. John. The
remains of St. Clement, pillaged from the Church of St. Theodosia, were taken to Cluny. St. Albans
received the relics of St. Marina. Halbstadt claimed the relics of St. James. The True Cross was
divided up among the barons, with a portion sent to the pope, and another fragment taken to Paris.
A priceless gold and enamel reliquary encrusted with jewels, containing a fragment of the Wood
wound up in a nunnery in Steuben. King Louis IX of France paid 10,000 silver marks for the "true"
Crown of Thorns, for which he built St. Chapells in Paris.
Gone was the maphorion of the
Theotokos, as was her zone and the wonder-working icon. Gone or destroyed--the relics of St. Luke
and St. Timothy; no trace of the relics of St. John Chrysostom. An altar cloth with the relic of
St. Paul was missing. Nothing is known of the stone seat of St. Mark.
The Venetians were
the most discriminating--they knew exactly what to take. From the Monastery of the Pantacrator they
appropriated a group of exquisite gem-crusted enamel cameos, (a vast collection of panagias), to
enhance the Palo D'Oro, an elaborate Byzantine bejeweled gold screen which was used in the
Cathedral in Venice to cover the relics of St. Mark. (We will recall that St. Mark was stolen from
Alexandria in the ninth century). They also carried off the Icon of the Theotokos of Nikopeia, as
well as a relic of St. Stephen (the feet already were in Venice). The golden tabernacle from the
Church of the Holy Apostles, a replica of the church itself, was added to their booty. Venice's
prized possessions are the four magnificent glided bronze horses, cast in Constantine's time, which
once stood in the Hippodrome; today, except when removed for cleaning, they stand atop the gallery
of St. Mark's basilica. The porphyry statue of four tetrarchs, taken from a palace, stands in a
corner of St. Mark's treasury.
Venetians valued craftsmen, and they took away the best:
goldsmiths, silversmiths, jewel workers, iconographers, woodcarvers, stone and glass workers. Much
of the Venetian glass technique so famous today originated in Constantinople. St. Mark's contains
the finest collection of Byzantine craftsmanship in the world. It includes 32 Byzantine chalices,
plus assorted relics, reliquaries, altar pieces, Gospels, Jewels, vestments, manuscripts and church
plate. The collection includes the Veroli casket, the finest Byzantine carved ivory in the world,
and the Psalter of Emperor Basil.
Dandolo sent home shiploads of mosaics, panels, stones,
pillars, precious marbles, columns of rare stones and the many building components which have gone
into creating the texture of the city which today is Venice.
Byzantium: Byzantine
Studies on the Internet - Paul Halsall, Fordham, NY City's Jesuit
University 
The Christian Catacombs of Ancient Rome : An Introduction (by Dr. Joseph Byrne, Belmont
University) 
)
