Part 86 (1/2)
THE CRUSADERS AND THE VENETIANS
The leaders of the crusade decided to make Egypt their objective point, since this country was then the center of the Moslem power. Accordingly, the crusaders proceeded to Venice, for the purpose of securing transportation across the Mediterranean. The Venetians agreed to furnish the necessary s.h.i.+ps only on condition that the crusaders first seized Zara on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Zara was a Christian city, but it was also a naval and commercial rival of Venice. In spite of the pope's protests the crusaders besieged and captured the city. Even then they did not proceed against the Moslems. The Venetians persuaded them to turn their arms against Constantinople. The possession of that great capital would greatly increase Venetian trade and influence in the East; for the crusading n.o.bles it held out endless opportunities of acquiring wealth and power. Thus it happened that these soldiers of the Cross, pledged to war with the Moslems, attacked a Christian city, which for centuries had formed the chief bulwark of Europe against the Arab and the Turk.
SACK OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 1204 A.D.
The crusaders--now better styled the invaders--took Constantinople by storm. No ”infidels” could have treated in worse fas.h.i.+on this home of ancient civilization. They burned down a great part of it; they slaughtered the inhabitants; they wantonly destroyed monuments, statues, paintings, and ma.n.u.scripts--the acc.u.mulation of a thousand years. Much of the movable wealth they carried away. Never, declared an eye-witness of the scene, had there been such plunder since the world began.
THE LATIN EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 1204-1261 A.D.
The victors hastened to divide between them the lands of the Roman Empire in the East. Venice gained some districts in Greece, together with nearly all the Aegean islands. The chief crusaders formed part of the remaining territory into the Latin Empire of Constantinople. It was organized in fiefs, after the feudal manner. There was a prince of Achaia, a duke of Athens, a marquis of Corinth, and a count of Thebes. Large districts, both in Europe and Asia, did not acknowledge, however, these ”Latin” rulers.
The new empire lived less than sixty years. At the end of this time the Greeks returned to power.
DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES OF THE FOURTH CRUSADE
Constantinople, after the Fourth Crusade, declined in strength and could no longer cope with the barbarians menacing it. Two centuries later the city fell an easy victim to the Turks. [17] The responsibility for the disaster which gave the Turks a foothold in Europe rests on the heads of the Venetians and the French n.o.bles. Their greed and l.u.s.t for power turned the Fourth Crusade into a political adventure.
THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE, 1213 A.D.
The so-called Children's Crusade ill.u.s.trates at once the religious enthusiasm and misdirected zeal which marked the whole crusading movement.
During the year 1212 A.D. thousands of French children a.s.sembled in bands and marched through the towns and villages, carrying banners, candles, and crosses and singing, ”Lord G.o.d, exalt Christianity. Lord G.o.d, restore to us the true cross.” The children could not be restrained at first, but finally hunger compelled them to return home. In Germany, during the same year, a lad named Nicholas really did succeed in launching a crusade. He led a mixed mult.i.tude of men and women, boys and girls over the Alps into Italy, where they expected to take s.h.i.+p for Palestine. But many perished of hards.h.i.+ps, many were sold into slavery, and only a few ever saw their homes again. ”These children,” Pope Innocent III declared, ”put us to shame; while we sleep they rush to recover the Holy Land.”
END OF THE CRUSADES
The crusading movement came to an end by the close of the thirteenth century. The emperor Frederick II [18] for a short time recovered Jerusalem by a treaty, but in 1244 A.D. the Holy City became again a possession of the Moslems. They have never since relinquished it. Acre, the last Christian post in Syria, fell in 1291 A.D., and with this event the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem ceased to exist. The Hospitalers, or Knights of St. John, still kept possession of the important islands of Cyprus and Rhodes, which long served as a barrier to Moslem expansion over the Mediterranean.
174. RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES
FAILURE OF THE CRUSADES
The crusades, judged by what they set out to accomplish, must be accounted an inglorious failure. After two hundred years of conflict, after a vast expenditure of wealth and human lives, the Holy Land remained in Moslem hands. It is true that the First Crusade did help, by the conquest of Syria, to check the advance of the Turks toward Constantinople. But even this benefit was more than undone by the weakening of the Roman Empire in the East as a result of the Fourth Crusade.
WHY THE CRUSADES FAILED
Of the many reasons for the failure of the crusades, three require special consideration. In the first place, there was the inability of eastern and western Europe to cooperate in supporting the holy wars. A united Christendom might well have been invincible. But the bitter antagonism between the Greek and Roman churches [19] effectually prevented all unity of action. The emperors at Constantinople, after the First Crusade, rarely a.s.sisted the crusaders and often secretly hindered them. In the second place, the lack of sea-power, as seen in the earlier crusades, worked against their success. Instead of being able to go by water directly to Syria, it was necessary to follow the long, overland route from France or Germany through Hungary, Bulgaria, the territory of the Roman Empire in the East, and the deserts and mountains of Asia Minor. The armies that reached their destination after this toilsome march were in no condition for effective campaigning. In the third place, the crusaders were never numerous enough to colonize so large a country as Syria and absorb its Moslem population. They conquered part of Syria in the First Crusade, but could not hold it permanently in the face of determined resistance.
WHY THE CRUSADES CEASED
In spite of these and other reasons the Christians of Europe might have continued much longer their efforts to recover the Holy Land, had they not lost faith in the movement. But after two centuries the old crusading enthusiasm died out, the old ideal of the crusade as ”the way of G.o.d” lost its spell. Men had begun to think less of winning future salvation by visits to distant shrines and to think more of their present duties to the world about them. They came to believe that Jerusalem could best be won as Christ and the Apostles had won it--”by love, by prayers, and by the shedding of tears.”
INFLUENCE OF THE CRUSADES ON FEUDALISM
The crusades could not fail to affect in many ways the life of western Europe. For instance, they helped to undermine feudalism. Thousands of barons and knights mortgaged or sold their lands in order to raise money for a crusading expedition. Thousands more perished in Syria and their estates, through failure of heirs, reverted to the crown. Moreover, private warfare, that curse of the Middle Ages, [20] also tended to die out with the departure for the Holy Land of so many turbulent feudal lords. Their decline in both numbers and influence, and the corresponding growth of the royal authority, may best be traced in the changes that came about in France, the original home of the crusading movement.
THE CRUSADES AND COMMERCE
One of the most important effects of the crusades was on commerce. They created a constant demand for the transportation of men and supplies, encouraged s.h.i.+p-building, and extended the market for eastern wares in Europe. The products of Damascus, Mosul, Alexandria, Cairo, and other great cities were carried across the Mediterranean to the Italian seaports, whence they found their way into all European lands. The elegance of the Orient, with its silks, tapestries, precious stones, perfumes, spices, pearls, and ivory, was so enchanting that an enthusiastic crusader called it ”the vestibule of Paradise.”
THE CRUSADES AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE