Over the centuries the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire grew to be the pinnacle of civilization.
Its high walls attracted and protected architecture, literature, science, and art belonging to
different regions and eras.
On April 13, 1204, the city fell to the crusading force of Enrico Dandolo, and the forces that
took it would go on to commit one of the greatest crimes against humanity, as they feasted on
the corpse of the fallen empire, wreaking havoc on the most prosperous city in the world.
In this video, we will give an account of losses in art and material culture during
the sack of Constantinople.
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As depicted in our previous episode, the crusaders quartered in three different parts of the
city, which had by this point sustained heavy damage from the three separate fires . One
of the leaders of the crusade, the marquis of Montferrat Boniface took the Palace of
Boukoleon, where he found all the prominent ladies of the court, count Baldwin of Flanders
took quarters in the Palace of Blachernae, while the Doge Enrico Dandolo occupied Hagia
Sophia.
Alexios III had left with the entire treasury and the crusaders were determined to receive
what they were promised by Alexios IV, but having learned their lesson from the infighting
that occurred over spoils in Zara they laid out a plan on how to sack the city.
The citizens were not to be harmed, especially if they were Latins and all the gathered spoils
would be collected in designated piles within several churches and then divided equally,
half going to the Venetians and the second half to the crusaders.
Every major leader condemned acts of violence and selfishness under the threat of excommunication.
Despite these clear instructions many men turned to savages as they took spoils for
themselves while raping and killing innocent citizens.
One particular episode describes a knight carrying loot on his shield stacked up to
his chin.
That knight and many others were hanged immediately.
One of the primary contemporary chroniclers Niketas Choniates describes an event from
which we can draw several conclusions.
As he and his wife were attempting to leave the city five days after it fell, they saw
a young girl who was grabbed by a knight and dragged through the streets until he barred
the door of his newfound home with her inside.
The act was reported to other knights nearby, who immediately threatened him with death
if he did not release the girl, at which point he obeyed.
Yet again we see the division in the crusader camp, with some choosing to disobey direct
orders, but most following them out of discipline, oaths, or fear.
But while they did their best to limit violence, their greed rolled over the city, destroying
artifacts, monuments, and works of art.
The imperial treasury was empty, so the crusaders began stripping metal ornaments, ivory containers,
pearls, and precious stones, melted down chalices and relics, plundered churches, and the stone
homes of the rich which were left exposed by the fire after it devoured the timber houses
of the commoners.
Around half of the population of the city was left homeless and became refugees, making
their way to Bulgaria and the new successor states.
The Church of the Holy Apostles also known as the imperial cemetery, which for more than
700 years was the second most important church in the city was already ransacked by Alexios
III when he was gathering a tribute that was demanded of him from the Holy Roman Emperor
Henry VI, but that did not stop the crusaders from breaking into the sarcophagi of the buried
Emperors , including Constantine, Justinian and Theodora, Heraclius and many others.
The invaders were surprised to find Justinian's body still intact with no signs of rot, the
bodies themselves were untouched, but the precious objects Alexios III didn’t dare
to touch were taken to the pile of spoils.
Every church was ransacked, including the great Hagia Sophia with its great golden altar,
engraved with the colours of 72 pearls, cut into pieces, and carted off on mules.
The heavy load and slippery marble floor, caused some of the animals to slip and fall
and before long the floor of the temple was covered in blood and excrements.
The Empire was dead and now the vultures were dismembering its corpse.
Countless marble statues and columns were shipped off and sold, the harbor chain that
protected the Golden Horn was separated into pieces and delivered to Acre alongside the
very gates of the city.
Doors, furniture, silk, and other valuables were also sold or sent back to the west.
The Catholics found no interest in icons, which were not nearly as popular in the Catholic
world, so they destroyed or desecrated a vast quantity of them to the dismay of the local
populace.
And yet the biggest tragedy was what they did to the numerous bronze works of art throughout
the city.
Giant statues, symbolising authority, beauty, strength, and wisdom were thrown into the
smelters and melted down to be turned into cheap copper coins.
Among them were a statue of Hera, charioteers, a man wrestling with a lion, a monument celebrating
Actium, a statue of Aphrodite, being handed the golden apple of discord by Paris of Troy,
a bronze statue of the she-wolf suckling the founders of Rome, a tetrapylon, built by Theodosius,
with a beautiful facade that depicted birds, sheep, lamb, fish as well as mythological
creatures and figures, with a large bronze pyramid and a female figure that acted as
a weather vane, showing the direction of the wind.
This is just the beginning of the list.
Among the lost cultural items was a crocodile with prickly bronze scales clutching a struggling
African buffalo in its jaws.
The Nile bull, as the locals called it, attempted to break free by biting the crocodile, both
killing each other in the process, neither achieving its goal.
Another smelted art piece was a large statue that stood at the base of the Forum of the
Theodosius depicting the hero of the ancient Greek myth Bellerophon as he gazed towards
the sun, riding the winged Pegasus, alongside a large bronze eagle with extended wings and
a coiled snake in its claws.
The latter also served as a sundial, with its wings split into twelve sections, from
which the observer could determine the hour of the day.
Also lost was a massive bronze sculpture made by the legendary Lysippos, the personal sculptor
of Alexander the Great, whose pupil constructed the Colossus of Rhodes.
Lysippos created a giant Heracles , with the lion’s skin over him and a club in his hands.
His shin was as tall as a man and a man’s belt could go around his thumb.
The masterpiece was cut piece by piece and thrown into the fire like all the rest.
Sphinxes, sea monsters, and other mythological creatures were also destroyed.
For the description of the last notable statue we turn to the contemporary chronicler: “What
of the white-armed, beautiful-ankled, and long-necked Helen, who mustered the entire
host of the Hellenes and overthrew Troy, whence she sailed to the Nile and, after a long absence,
returned to the abodes of the Laconians?
Was she able to placate the implacable?
Was she able to soften those men whose hearts were made of iron?
On the contrary!
She who had enslaved every onlooker with her beauty was wholly unable to achieve this,
even though she was appareled ornately; though fashioned of bronze, she appeared as fresh
as the morning dew, anointed with the moistness of erotic love on her garment, veil, diadem,
and braid of hair.
Her vesture was finer than spider webs, and the veil was cunningly wrought in its place;
the diadem of gold and precious stones which bound the forehead was radiant, and the braid
of hair that extended down to her knees, flowing down and blowing in the breeze, was bound
tightly in the back with a hairband.
The lips were like flower cups, slightly parted as though she were about to speak; the graceful
smile, at once greeting the spectator, filled him with delight; her flashing eyes, her arched
eyebrows, and the shapeliness of the rest of her body were such that they cannot be
described in words and depicted for future generations.
O Helen, Tyndareus's daughter, the very essence of loveliness, off-shoot of Erotes, ward of
Aphrodite, nature's most perfect gift, the contested prize of Trojans and Hellenes, where
is your drug granted you by Thon's wife which banishes pain and sorrow and brings forgetfulness
of every ill?"'
Where are your irresistible love charms?
Why did you not make use of these now as you did long ago?
But I suspect that the Fates had foreordained that you should succumb to the flame's fervor
so that your image should no longer arouse spectators’ sexual passions.
It was said that these Aeneadae condemned you to the flames as retribution for Troy's
having been laid waste by the firebrand because of your scandalous amours.
But the gold-madness of these men does not allow me to conceive and utter such a thing,
for that madness was the reason why rare and excellent works of art everywhere were given
over to total destruction.”
Considering the extensive list of art that was present all over the city, in the forum,
Hippodrome, overlooking the streets and churches it is easy to see why the citizens of the
empire considered themselves Roman.
The Fourth Crusade didn’t just demolish monuments, it struck a blow against their
identity, severing their ties with Antiquity.
One of the few bronze works of art that were not thrown into the smelters was the Quadriga.
These four life-sized bronze gilded horses originally sat on the top of Hadrian's Mausoleum,
before they were moved to the Hippodrome.
The Venetians took these horses, cut off their heads, and transported them back to Venice,
where they were reassembled and put on top of the St Mark church, with collars on their
neck to hide the cut.
The brilliant works of art looked over the city until history once again repeated itself,
Napoleon took control of Venice in 1797 and forcibly removed the statues along with an
immense quantity of art from all over Italy.
Yet again gold and silver objects were melted down to pay for soldier salaries, but the
chariot of the gods was placed on top of the newly commissioned Arc de Triomphe, before
it was returned to Venice following the Congress of Vienna.
Along with the horses, St Mark’s Basilica was decorated with the Carmagnola, four life-sized
sculptures of the tetrarchs, and marvelous pillars of Acre.
Additionally, Venice also seized the Colossus of Barletta, a massive bronze statue of either
Markian or Leo I, which washed up on the beach of Barletta after the ship that carried it
sank.
This clearly shows that unlike the rest of the crusaders, the Venetians preferred to
preserve the bronze statues, rather than smelt them and turn them into coins.
One theory suggests that the reason behind this is that the Franks considered the great
bronze statues to glorify polytheism, making them go out of their way to destroy them for
very little monetary gain.
But Venice was not the only one that got to bring trophies home, over the next few decades
many artifacts were shipped off to the west.
The head relics and bones of multiple patriarchs and saints, including Andrew the patron saint
of Constantinople were taken by various cardinals and clergymen.
Conrad of Krosig, bishop of Halberstadt, was one of the crusaders who sacked the city and
a year later he returned home, enriching his cathedral with several precious artifacts.
The Blood of Christ, a strand of the Virgin Mary’s hair, pieces of the True Cross, the
crown of thorns, his purple robe, and his sandals along with other objects attributed
to various apostles and saints, several gold disks, and two ivory panels.
Traditionally splinters of the True Cross were stored in special precious containers,
which the crusaders scattered to Limburg, Trier, Koblenz, Amiens, Rome with the largest
of them going to Paris.
The French city also obtained the mysterious shroud of Turin bearing the negative image
of a man, leading many to believe that this was the burial shroud that Jesus was wrapped
in.
Paris received many other great artifacts, a majority of which were destroyed during
the French Revolution centuries later.
Robert of Claris was a lowborn French knight who provided us with a glimpse of the treasures
that were lost to us: “not even one person above Earth, as much as he had lived in this
city, would be able to count and tell the riches.
Because whoever narrated even the slightest about this wealth, about the beauty and precious
things that were found in the monasteries, churches, in the palaces, and in the city,
would appear a liar and not one would believe him”.
Another account of one of the leaders of the crusade tells us how the great heaps of spoils
were split in half with the crusaders receiving 150000, of which 50000 went to Venice, alongside
their own share of 150000 marks.
But this figure does not account for all the precious treasures that were destroyed, melted,
sold, or shipped off.
In reality, this was arguably the greatest loss of art in human history.
When the Western Roman Empire fell, Constantinople became a bastion of knowledge and art, keeping
the secrets of both behind its tall walls.
The fourth crusade opened those walls and spread the spoils all over western Europe,
arguably setting the foundation of the Renaissance.
The stone and marble statues were cut, the bronze marvels smelted, the churches and palaces
were plundered and now the crusaders were preparing to divide the land and elect the
first Emperor of this new Latin Empire to spread their reign over the remnants of the
shattered Roman one.
In our next video we will talk about this partition and the reaction of the local polities
to it, including the famous battle of Adrianople of 1205, so make sure you are subscribed and
have pressed the bell button to see the next video in the series.
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