thinkingthroughsources

Source 10.5: A Byzantine Perspective on the Crusades

The Crusades began in an effort by Pope Urban II to reconcile long-standing tensions between the Eastern and Western Churches by coming to the aid of a Byzantine Empire beleaguered by Muslim armies. Precisely the opposite actually occurred, as even a common hostility to Islam failed to overcome those differences. Mutual distrust and some violence between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians came to climax in 1204, when Crusaders on their way to Egypt diverted to Constantinople and sacked the city. In an emotional eyewitness account, the Byzantine official and historian Nicetas Choniates described that event, which solidified the hostility between these two branches of Christendom.

Questions to consider as you examine the source:

How does this passage characterize the Crusaders?
How does the sense of violation expressed in this passage compare with that of Pope Urban II in Source 10.1 and the Muslim historians in Source 10.3? What common features can you discern?
How do you think this event affected the possibility of reconciliation between the Eastern and Western Churches?

Nicetas Choniates

The Sack of Constantinople, 1204

How shall I begin to tell of the deeds wrought by these nefarious men! Alas, the images, which ought to have been adored, were trodden under foot! Alas, the relics of the holy martyrs were thrown into unclean places! . . . [T]he divine body and blood of Christ was spilled upon the ground or thrown about. They snatched the precious reliquaries [containers for sacred relics], thrust into their bosoms the ornaments which these contained, and used the broken remnants for pans and drinking cups, precursors of Anti-Christ. . . .

Nor can the violation of the Great Church [Hagia Sophia] be listened to with equanimity. For the sacred altar was broken into bits and distributed among the soldiers, as was all the other sacred wealth of so great and infinite splendor.

When the sacred vases and utensils of unsurpassable art and grace and rare material, and the fine silver, wrought with gold . . . were to be borne away as booty, mules and saddled horses were led to the very sanctuary of the temple. Some of these which were unable to keep their footing on the splendid and slippery pavement, were stabbed when they fell, so that the sacred pavement was polluted with blood and filth.

Nay more, a certain harlot, a sharer in their guilt . . . , a servant of the demons, a worker of incantations and poisonings, insulting Christ, sat in the patriarch’s seat, singing an obscene song and dancing frequently. Could those, who showed so great madness against God Himself, have spared the honorable matrons and maidens or the virgins consecrated to God?

Nothing was more difficult and laborious than to soften by prayers, to render benevolent, these wrathful barbarians, vomiting forth bile at every unpleasing word, so that nothing failed to inflame their fury. . . . Often they drew their daggers against anyone who opposed them at all or hindered their demands.

No one was without a share in the grief. In the alleys, in the streets, in the temples, complaints, weeping, lamentations, grief, the groaning of men, the shrieks of women, wounds, rape, captivity, the separation of those most closely united. Nobles wandered about ignominiously, those of venerable age in tears, the rich in poverty. Thus it was in the streets, on the corners, in the temple, in the dens, for no place remained unassailed or defended the suppliants.

Source: D. C. Munro, trans., Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, series 1, vol. 3:1, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1912), 15–16.