CHAPTER FIVE

‘Alas, Love, what a hard parting I shall have to make’

Final Preparations and Leaving Home, May 1201—June 1202

AS VILLEHARDOUIN REACHED the southern regions of the county of Champagne in May 1201 he heard deeply disturbing news. His master—one of the three leaders of the crusade—Thibaut of Champagne, lay seriously ill at the town of Troyes. The count was in low spirits when Geoffrey arrived, but he was greatly heartened to learn of the treaty with Venice. We do not know the nature of Thibaut’s illness, but he was sufficiently invigorated by these developments to ride his horse—something that he had not done for weeks. Sadly, this burst of energy was to be shortlived and he soon plunged into a terminal decline. Thibaut’s sickness was all the more poignant for the fact that his wife, Blanche, was approaching the ninth month of her pregnancy.

The count realised that his last days were drawing near and he made his final testament. According to Robert of Clari he had raised 50,000 livres, some of it extracted from the Jewish community of Champagne. The Jews were a common target for those seeking funds for the crusades because they were a wealthy section of society whose profits often derived from the practice of usury—the lending of money for interest—which was viewed as deeply sinful by the Catholic Church. The twelfth century saw a dramatic expansion in the economy of western Europe and this raised a number of moral questions: should a Christian society seek profit at all? Was it right to make a profit (from interest on a loan) without seeming to perform any work? As churchmen railed against the deadly crimes of avarice and fraud, usury began to be compared to theft. One aspect of this disapproval was the notion that usurers were selling time —the longer the loan, the greater the interest paid; yet time was not theirs, but belonged to God. The Book of Psalms described the righteous man as one ‘who does not put out his money at interest’ (Ps. 15:5). Deuteronomy ruled: ‘Thou shalt not lend to thy brother money to usury, nor corn, not any other thing: But to the stranger. To thy brother thou shalt lend that which he wanteth, without usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all thy works in the land, which thou shalt go into to possess’ (Deut. 23:19—20).¹

The Jews, operating outside these strictures, were the main practitioners of usury, which formed a central element in the blossoming economy. For many in western Europe, however, the Jews had a much more sinister legacy as the killers of Christ, a record that rendered them suitable targets for holy war. In 1096, the ill-disciplined rabble of the People’s Crusade (sometimes known as the Peasants’ Crusade) visited terrible acts of violence and murder on the Jewish communities of the Rhineland. Similarly, 50 years later, the Second Crusade provoked another outbreak of anti-Semitism in the same region. In simple terms, it was argued that if the crusade was intended to eradicate non-believers, then one should start at home and remove the impure from Christian lands. In 1146, Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, wrote: ‘But why should we pursue the enemies of the Christian faith in far and distant lands while the vile blasphemers, far worse than any Saracens, namely the Jews, who are not far away from us, but who live in our midst, blaspheme, abuse and trample on Christ and the Christian sacraments so freely, insolently and with impunity.’² In fact, the Bible stated that the Jews should not be killed in order that they may be punished on earth and, ultimately, be saved. In the same year as Peter’s pronouncements, Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: ‘Is it not a far better triumph for the Church to convince and convert the Jews than put them to the sword?’³ Bernard’s views prevailed and he did much to halt the persecution of Jews.

In the late 1190S, Thibaut of Champagne had sufficient control over his lands to prevent any outbreaks of anti-Semitism, and he chose the Jews as a suitable source of finance for his own expedition. By the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries secular rulers were able to exploit formal church legislation against the Jews and usury to impose special levies on Jewish communities; indeed, it was from a tax of this sort that Thibaut had secured part of his crusade funding. In his will the count stipulated that this money should be divided amongst those who had taken the cross, although individual beneficiaries had to swear to sail from Venice—an early recognition of the need to try to channel men and resources in that direction. A further proportion of the funds was to be allocated to the common purse of the army and spent as seen fit.

On 24 May the count finally passed away, greatly mourned by all. The death of such a prominent figure was a public affair. Villehardouin, who was almost certainly present, wrote that Thibaut died ‘surrounded by a great crowd of relations and vassals. As for the mourning over his death and at his funeral, I dare not venture to describe it, for never was more honour paid to any other man ... no man of his day was ever more deeply loved by his own people.’⁴ In part this is the tribute of a loyal retainer, but there is also a strong sense that Thibaut was genuinely loved and admired by his people. His widow, Blanche, commissioned a magnificent memorial for her husband in the church of Saint-Étienne in Troyes, where Thibaut was interred at the foot of his father’s grave. The tomb did not survive the French Revolution, but in 1704 a priest of the church wrote a highly detailed description of the monument. The plinth was decorated with 28 enamels, 34 columns of silver, and numerous niches that contained figures of relatives such as Louis VII of France (1137-80), who took part in the Second Crusade, and Henry II of Champagne, who ruled Jerusalem in the late twelfth century. The priest recorded a splendid image of a man holding a pilgrim’s staff and, on his right shoulder, bearing a cross made of the finest silver and decorated with gemstones. Such powerful imagery was, of course, linked to Thibaut’s unfulfilled crusade vow and the inscription on his tomb sought to draw a connection between the count’s planned expedition and the divine reward that his admirers felt was his due:

Intent upon making amends for the injuries of the Cross
and the land of the Crucified
He arranged the way with expenses, an army, a navy.
Seeking the terrestrial city, he finds the celestial one;
While he is obtaining his goal far distant, he finds it at home.⁵

In other words, in death Thibaut had gone to the heavenly Jerusalem, rather than the earthly one he hoped to reach on crusade. Around a week after the funeral, Blanche gave birth to a son, also named Thibaut, who would later succeed to the comital title and lead a crusade of his own to the Holy Land in 1239-40.⁶

Aside from the loss of a close friend, Thibaut’s death raised serious issues for the leadership of the crusade. A group of Champenois nobles turned to the duke of Burgundy and offered him all of Thibaut’s money and their loyalty if he would take the count’s place as their leader, but he declined. Soon afterwards, the count of Bar-le-Duc, Thibaut’s cousin, rejected a similar approach. Although it is difficult to assess the precise impact of the count’s passing, the demise of such an inspirational and popular figure, whose taking of the cross had done much to spark the initial enthusiasm for the crusade in northern France, must have had a significant effect on recruitment and morale. Thibaut had the charisma and pedigree to pull many other nobles and knights along with him and, as his will revealed, he was committed to going to the Holy Land via Venice and fulfilling the contract negotiated by Villehardouin. The marshal wrote that the crusaders were ‘greatly disheartened’ when Thibaut died.⁷ It is possible that worries over the succession to the county of Champagne may also have discouraged some of his nobles from leaving on crusade: a female regency (Thibaut had no other children) or the arrival of an outsider chosen to take charge of the area were recipes for instability and it might be more prudent to stay at home.⁸

In early June or July the senior crusaders met at Soissons in an attempt to resolve the growing crisis. The situation had become intensely serious and the counts of Flanders, Blois, Perche and Saint-Pol all joined the assembly to discuss how best to fill the vacuum caused by Thibaut’s death. Villehardouin credits himself with suggesting the solution: he proposed that Boniface, the marquis of Montferrat (in northern Italy), take overall charge of the crusade. Boniface was a man of truly international standing whose family was closely related to the Capetian kings of France and to the Hohenstaufen claimants to the imperial throne of Germany. The wealthy, fertile lands of Montferrat spread across Piedmont and included Turin, Casale and Tortona. Such was Boniface’s eminence that he was to be offered full control of the entire army, whereas previously it seems that Thibaut, Louis of Blois and Baldwin of Flanders had formed an unofficial triumvirate, each leading his own contingent.

Like Thibaut, Boniface came from a well-established crusading line with a long tradition of holy war. Unlike the northern French crusade leaders, he was an older man, aged about 50, who had ruled Montferrat since 1183, although he had not yet been on crusade. Over the latter half of the twelfth century, Boniface’s father, William the Old, and his (Boniface’s) three brothers, William Longsword, Conrad and Renier, had carved an indelible impression on the political landscape of western Europe, Byzantium and the Crusader States. William the Old fought on the Second Crusade and returned to the Holy Land in 1185, where he was captured by Saladin at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. Eleven years previously his son, William Longsword, had married Sibylla, the heiress to the throne of Jerusalem. The contemporary chronicler, William of Tyre, gives an incisive portrait of the qualities and failings of this member of the clan:

The marquis was a rather tall, good-looking young man with blond hair. He was exceedingly irascible, but generous and of an open disposition and manly courage. He never concealed any purpose but showed frankly just what he thought in his own mind. He was fond of eating and altogether too devoted to drinking, although not to such an extent to injure his mind. He had been trained in arms from the earliest youth and had the reputation of being experienced in the art of war. His worldly position was exalted—in fact, few, if any, could claim to be his equals.⁹

Unfortunately, a mere three months after the marriage, he became seriously ill—possibly with malaria—and very soon, in June 1177, he died, leaving his wife pregnant with the future King Baldwin V of Jerusalem (1185-6).

In 1179 the house of Montferrat began to extend its influence into the Byzantine world. Such was the family’s standing that Emperor Manuel Comnenus offered Renier the hand in marriage of Maria, second in line to the imperial throne. William of Tyre was present at the ceremony in 1180 and he enthused over the magnificent nuptial splendour and the generous gifts that the emperor lavished on his own people as well as strangers:

We may mention the games of the circus which the inhabitants of Constantinople call hippodromes, and the glorious spectacles of varied nature shown to the people with great pomp during the days of the celebration; the imperial magnificence of the vestments and the royal robes adorned with a profusion of precious stones and pearls of a great weight; the vast amount of gold and silver furniture in the palace of untold value. Words would fail to speak in fitting terms of the valuable draperies adorning the royal abode, to mention the numerous servants and members of court ...¹⁰

The union of the 17-year-old westerner with the 30-year-old Byzantine princess proved deeply unhappy. The Byzantine writer Niketas Choniates, no admirer of Maria, described the couple thus: ‘The maiden [Maria], a princess wooed by many, was like Agamemnon’s daughter, Electra, raving long in the palace and, stately as a white poplar wet with dew, longing for the marriage bed. Later ... she became the consort of [Renier] of Montferrat, who was fair of face and pleasant to look upon: his well-groomed hair shone like the sun and he was too young to grow a beard, while she had passed her thirtieth year and was as strong as a man.’¹¹

The emperor may also have granted Renier rights of overlordship to the city of Thessalonica in northern Greece, a considerable gift and one that later attracted the attention of Boniface.¹²

In 1181—2 Constantinople was the scene of plot and counter-plot and when the anti-western usurper—Andronicus Comnenus—triumphed, both Renier and Maria were poisoned. For Boniface this episode created a grudge for the Montferrat family against the Byzantines, which was to prove an unhealthy background to later events. Andronicus became emperor in September 1183, but he was brutally removed after just two years. His successor, Isaac II Angelos (1185-95), wanted to rebuild a relationship with the Montferrats so he offered Boniface the hand in marriage of his sister, Theodora. Boniface already had a wife, but his brother Conrad was proposed as an alternative and the pair were duly married.

Once at Constantinople, Conrad took charge of the imperial army and fought off yet another revolt. His bravery won him the plaudits of local commentators: Niketas Choniates described him as one who ‘so excelled in bravery and sagacity that he was far-famed ... graced as he was with good fortune, acute intelligence and strength of arm’.¹³ Conrad used a number of western mercenaries in his army but a mistrust of outsiders provided a pretext for many in the political hierarchy to delay the true rewards of his status and position. Judging that the anti-western attitude still prevalent among some factions in the city posed a threat, Conrad decided to fulfil a crusade vow that he had made before accepting the offer to marry Theodora. This was in the summer of 1187—the very moment when Saladin was destroying the Frankish armies in the Holy Land. Conrad sailed to the Levant and arrived at the port of Tyre (in the south of modern-day Lebanon) on 13 July, unaware of the Christians’ terrible defeat at Hattin. Saladin swept through the Crusader East until he reached the walls of Tyre. The citizens thanked God that ‘He had sent them a ship [Conrad’s] at such a moment of crisis’.¹⁴ The marquis led a valiant last-ditch defence of the city and his success in fending off the Muslims gave the Christians a crucial, solitary bridgehead on the coast of southern Palestine. Such was his determination that even when Saladin paraded Conrad’s captured father, William the Old (taken at Hattin), in front of the walls of Tyre and threatened to kill him if the marquis did not surrender, Conrad was defiant. He shouted: “‘Tie him to a stake and I shall be the first to shoot at him, for he is too old and is hardly worth anything.” They brought him [William the Old] before the city and he cried out and said, “Conrad, dear son, guard well the city!” And Conrad took a crossbow in his hand and shot at his father. When Saladin heard that he had shot at his father, he said, “This man is an unbeliever and very cruel.”’¹⁵ Then Saladin sent messengers to convince Conrad that he really did mean to kill his prisoner, but the marquis responded that he wished his father to die, because after all William’s shameful deeds such a wicked man would have a noble end and he, the marquis, would have a martyr as a father!¹⁶

As well as being an uncompromising negotiator, Conrad was a great soldier and an extremely ambitious man.¹⁷ With King Guy of Jerusalem in captivity, the marquis began to act as the de facto ruler of the Holy Land. Even when Guy was released, Conrad refused to cede authority to a man whom he viewed as discredited by the loss of Jerusalem. Guy was only king by virtue of his wife Sibylla’s royal blood and, when she died at the siege of Acre, his claim to the throne was weakened. A period of rivalry saw the energetic newcomer emerge as the stronger candidate for the crown and in 1191 Conrad married Sibylla’s sister, Isabella, the sole heiress to Jerusalem. This was a move of breathtaking political opportunism : his own marriage to Princess Theodora remained in place; Isabella too was married; and if this were not enough, Conrad and Isabella were distantly related. The union therefore possessed the rare distinction of being both incestuous and doubly bigamous. Protests against its legitimacy, however, were scarcely under way when, on 28 April 1192, Conrad fell victim to the Assassins’ knife in the coastal city of Acre.

Isabella was at the town baths and, to pass the time before she returned for supper, the marquis went to see his friend, the bishop of Beauvais. Unfortunately for Conrad, the bishop had already eaten and so the marquis set out for home again. As he rode along the narrow alleyways of the city, he passed two men clothed in monastic habits who gestured, as if to present him with a letter. Suspecting nothing, Conrad greeted them both and held out his hand, whereupon they stabbed him in the stomach. The marquis collapsed, mortally wounded, and died within the hour.¹⁸ There was confusion as to who had hired members of the Shi’i sect—the master murderers of the age—to carry out this task. Some blamed Saladin, while many others felt Richard the Lionheart was responsible because he had long opposed Conrad’s candidacy for the throne.

A few months earlier William the Old had died as well. The eastern Mediterranean had claimed the lives of four members of the Montferrat family. Perhaps this contained a warning, but the new crusade offered Boniface the opportunity to add even greater glory to his dynasty’s legacy and to lead an expedition to the land that his brother should have been ruling over.

Boniface was the cultured and dynamic patron of a brilliant chivalric court, and many knights and troubadours clustered around such a generous and stimulating figure. Raimbaut of Vaqueiras, who was both a troubadour and a knight, became a close companion of the marquis. He originated from the Orange region, deep in southern France, but took service with Boniface at Montferrat around 1179-80. He wrote to the marquis thus: ‘In your court reign all good usages: munificence and services of ladies, elegant raiment, handsome armour, trumpets and diversions and viols and song, and at the hour of dining it has never pleased you to see a keeper at the door.’¹⁹

To the leadership of the Fourth Crusade, Boniface and his family brought an impressive combination of prestige, military experience and crusading connections to the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean. In this respect he was a clever choice, although as a northern Italian involved with Genoa and imperial Germany he carried with him a number of political tensions that affected the predominantly northern French complexion of the crusade.

It is thought likely that Villehardouin visited the marquis on his way home from Venice in 1201, so Boniface must have known at an early stage about the crusade’s plans, including the invasion of Egypt. Once Villehardouin had persuaded the French nobles gathered at Soissons to agree to his recommendation, envoys were dispatched to Montferrat. The marquis’s response was promising. In the late summer he travelled north across the Alps, via the Great St Bernard Pass, towards Soissons, accompanied by other Lombard nobles and the Cistercian churchman Abbot Peter of Lucedio, who was later to become patriarch of Antioch. En route Boniface made a detour to visit King Philip in Paris. The Gesta (Deeds) of Pope Innocent III suggests that it was Philip who put forward Boniface’s name in the first instance. Whether or not this is true, it was good politics for the marquis to pay his respects to his cousin, the French monarch, as he passed through royal lands and as he contemplated leading many of Philip’s subjects overseas.²⁰

The meeting with the French nobility was arranged to take place in an orchard next to the abbey of Notre-Dame of Soissons. In late August the trees were heavy with apples, and the orchard provided a peaceful, shady setting for such serious business. The French crusaders spared no effort in their bid to convince the marquis that he should be their leader. They offered Boniface full command of their army, half of Thibaut’s crusading money and the commitment of the count’s men. ‘We sent for you as the most worthy man that we knew ... be our lord and take the cross for the love of God.’²¹ They implored the marquis to agree to their request and fell at his feet in tears. Given his presence in northern France and his visit to King Philip, it is obvious that Boniface was already highly receptive to the proposal. After hearing out the Frenchmen, he knelt before them and solemnly agreed to lead the army of Christ.

There must have been delight and relief amongst the leadership. It still remained for Boniface to take the cross and the marquis, along with Bishop Nivelo of Soissons (already a crusader himself), Abbot Peter of Lucedio and Fulk of Neuilly (the man who had led much of the crusade preaching around northern Europe over the previous two years) walked the short distance from the orchard to the church of Notre-Dame.

The rite for taking the cross was a fairly simple process, according to the first surviving liturgical text to describe the event. There was a blessing and then the presentation of the cross, accompanied by the words ‘Lord, bless this ensign of the Holy Cross that it may help forward the salvation of Thy servant’. The crusader then attached the cross to his shoulder. He was also given the traditional pilgrim’s insignia of a staff and a scrip (wallet) to emphasise the close links between crusade and pilgrimage.²²

Before leaving the church itself, the crusaders may well have paused at one particular tomb to ask for divine help.The abbey contained a splendid, sculptured sarcophagus (surviving today in the Louvre) that contained the remains of St Drausius, a seventh-century bishop of Soissons. Drausius was famed for his ability to confer success in battle on all those who spent the night in vigil at his tomb. Generations of Soissons crusaders had venerated this site and there was a strong belief in the protection accorded by the saint. One writer from the 1160s reported that so widespread was the conviction in Drausius’s powers that men from Burgundy and Italy travelled to the tomb to ask for his intervention. Perhaps Boniface himself, as a northern Italian, was pleased to undertake the vigil and to seek all possible divine help as he contemplated the burden of leadership.

The following day Boniface prepared to leave Soissons. If he was to depart for the Levant in the spring (1202), he had much to do to set his affairs in order. He urged his fellow-crusaders to do the same and bade them farewell, knowing that their next meeting would be in Venice. As he turned southwards, the achievements of his family must have loomed large in the marquis’s mind; this was his chance to emulate, exceed and, possibly, take revenge for some episodes in their past. He must also have been very proud; to have such powerful French nobles turn to him and to have the cachet of undisputed leadership of the crusade were marks of great distinction. His troubadour friend, Raimbaut of Vaqueiras, was not present at Soissons, but he was moved to write a song in praise of his lord and to outline the noble task of the crusaders:

Now men may know and prove that for fair deeds God gives a fair reward, for He has bestowed on the noble marquis a recompense and a gift, granting him to surpass in worth even the best, so that the crusaders of France and Champagne have besought God for him as the best of all men, to recover the Sepulchre and the Cross whereon lay Jesus, who would have him in His fellowship; and God has given him true vassals and land and riches and high courage in abundance, so that he may better perform the task.

... With such honour he has taken the cross that no further honour seems wanting, for it is with honour that he would possess this world and the next, and God has given him the power, the wit and the wisdom to possess both, and for this he strives his utmost.

... May Saint Nicholas of Bari guide our fleet, and let the men of Champagne raise their banner, and let the marquis cry ‘Montferrat and the lion!’ and the Flemish count ‘Flanders!’ as they deal heavy blows; and let every man strike then with his sword and break his lance, and we shall easily have routed and slain all the Turks, and will recover on the field of battle the True Cross which we have lost ...

Our Lord commands and tells us all to go forth and liberate the Sepulchre and the Cross. Let him who wishes to be in His fellowship die for His sake, if he would remain alive in Paradise, and let him do all in his power to cross the sea and slay the race of dogs.²³

On leaving Soissons, Boniface did not ride directly home, but chose to make his way about 175 miles southwards to the abbey of Citeaux, the fulcrum of the Cistercian order of monks. Every year, on 13 September, the Feast of the Holy Cross, the abbots of this huge international organisation assembled to discuss the affairs of their brotherhood.

The Cistercians were founded at the end of the eleventh century and their order was based on the principles of poverty, simplicity and separation from the evils of the world. They wore undyed white habits and liked to contrast their austere lifestyle with that of other monastic orders, such as the Cluniacs, whose splendour and wealth were well known. The Cistercian monasteries were simple, undecorated buildings, strikingly beautiful in their starkness. With Bernard of Clairvaux as a charismatic and compelling spokesman, the order attracted thousands of recruits and was given numerous donations of land. By the end of the twelfth century there were 530 Cistercian houses across the Christian world, stretching from Palestine to Spain and from Norway to Sicily.²⁴ Such remarkable success led to phenomenal institutional wealth. The Cistercians were expert farm managers and were known to turn rough rural regions they had been given by pious patrons into highly profitable farmlands. This wealth also enabled them to finance many individual crusaders.

Notwithstanding these riches, the personal integrity of the Cistercians was highly esteemed by the papacy and the white monks were often commissioned to preach crusades. Over time, the Cistercian General Chapter (as the annual gathering was known) had evolved into something more than an internal business meeting: it was an important focus for the intersection between Church and secular society. The news that Boniface would be present added an extra attraction to the event and members of the Burgundian nobility and crowds of other lay people were reported in attendance as well.

Fulk of Neuilly took advantage of the opportunity to preach a crusade sermon. Armed with a letter from Pope Innocent, he spoke to the meeting and recruited the abbots of Cernanceaux, Perseigne and Vaux-Cernay. As the English Cistercian, Ralph of Coggeshall, reported: ‘Truly, an exigency of great magnitude demanded that many men of proven religion accompany the army of the Lord on such a laborious pilgrimage—men who could comfort the faint of heart, instruct the ignorant, and urge on the upright to the Lord’s battle, assisting them in all matters that endanger the souls.’²⁵ Perhaps carried away by the occasion, Fulk is said to have broken into tears as he told the General Chapter that over the last three years he had personally recruited 200,000 people ‘who had all relinquished for the time being parents, homeland and the joy of life in order to serve Christ’.²⁶ It is true that Fulk had travelled through the Low Countries and France, but this number was clearly an exaggeration, particularly given the subsequent shortfall in the numbers of crusaders who reached Venice. There is evidence of Fulk gathering some support for the crusade, but it seems that he preached mainly to the poor. One writer suggested that he exhorted only the poor because ‘he believed the rich were not worthy of such a benefit’. In reality, therefore, Fulk was not the great success that he claimed to be and his contribution to the crusade was ultimately very limited.²⁷

Before the assembly at Citeaux, it had principally been the people of Champagne and Flanders who had committed themselves to the crusade, but Boniface’s involvement generated a new momentum. Now a number of Burgundian nobles—including Odo of Champlitte and his brother William; Richard of Dampierre and his brother Odo; and Guy of Pesmes and his brother Aimery—took the cross. This trio of fraternal crusaders again shows how certain families, often with crusade traditions, wholeheartedly embraced the cause of the Holy Land. In addition, Count Hugh of Berzé and his son (also called Hugh) joined the expedition, along with important churchmen such as Bishop Walter of Autun. And the crusade gained some recruits further south, such as the Provençal nobleman Peter of Bromont.²⁸

As the French crusaders set about making their preparations, Boniface (as befitted the leader of the expedition) engaged in a round of diplomacy to smooth the way for the campaign and to gather extra support. From Citeaux he rode more than 200 miles north-eastwards to Hagenau in the Rhine valley in the German Empire (today, however, in France, just north of Strasbourg) where he visited his overlord and cousin, Philip of Swabia, king of Germany. At the beginning of the thirteenth century the German Empire was split between two rival claimants to the imperial throne: Philip himself and Otto of Brunswick. Boniface, naturally, favoured the former, but Pope Innocent III supported Otto—a conflict of interest that would be a source of some tension during the crusade.

Boniface remained at Hagenau over Christmas 1201. During this time he had encountered an individual who would play a pivotal role in the destiny of the Fourth Crusade. Prince Alexius Angelos (b. 1182 or 1183) was an ambitious but immature young man with a claim to the imperial title of Byzantium.²⁹ He was touring the courts of Europe in an attempt to secure backing to recover what he regarded as his rightful inheritance. Almost all contemporary figures and writers condemn some aspect of his personality, although the lack of a source putting his side of the story may account for some imbalance. The doge came to see Alexius as ‘a wretched boy.’³⁰ The Byzantine writer, Niketas Choniates, regarded him as ‘womanish and witless’ and scorned his later drinking and dicing with the crusaders.³¹ The author concluded that he was ’deemed an abomination by sensible people’.

In the autumn of 1201, however, these judgements were yet to emerge. Because Prince Alexius’s sister Irene was married to Philip of Swabia, the young Byzantine was the German’s brother-in-law, hence his visit to Hagenau. Some historians regard the meeting between Boniface and Prince Alexius as a sinister precursor to the sack of Constantinople.³² They view the encounter as calculated to turn the crusade towards Byzantium, thereby giving Boniface the chance for revenge over the death of his brother Renier and an opportunity for Philip of Swabia to gain power and prestige in his attempt to become German emperor. This outcome might have fitted the more outlandish daydreams of the parties concerned, but to claim that Baldwin, Prince Alexius and Philip could have steered the Fourth Crusade through the sinuous twists of fortune that dragged the expedition through 1203 and 1204 is not credible.³³

Nevertheless Prince Alexius’s claim to the Byzantine throne was a crucial influence on the Fourth Crusade. His father, Isaac II Angelos, had ruled the Byzantine Empire between 1185 and 1195 when he was deposed by his own elder brother, also called Alexius (III). When Isaac took over the imperial throne after the collapse of the Comnenian line, he was the first member of the Angeloi dynasty to rule in Constantinople and he had to cope with the aftermath of a period of violent upheaval.

A generally amiable man, much given to luxury, Isaac was ill equipped for the task. Niketas Choniates described him thus:

Daily he fared sumptuously ... tasting the most delectable sauces, feasting on a lair of wild beasts, a sea of fish and an ocean of red wine. On alternate days, when he took pleasure in the baths he smelled of sweet unguents and was sprinkled with oils of myrrh ... The dandy strutted around like a peacock and never wore the same garment twice ... As he delighted in ribaldries and lewd songs and consorted with laughter-stirring dwarves, he did not close the palace to knaves, mimes and minstrels. But arm in arm with these must come drunken revel, followed by sexual wantonness and all else that corrupts the healthy and sound state of the empire. Above all, he had a mad passion for raising massive buildings and ... he built the most splendid baths and apartments, extravagant buildings ... he razed ancient churches and made a desolation of the outstanding dwellings of the queen of cities; there are those who pass by to this day and shed tears at the spectacle of the exposed foundations.³⁴

In spite of his love of luxury, Isaac stirred himself sufficiently to see off an invasion from the Normans of Sicily in late 1185 and to resist an internal revolt in 1187, helped, as we saw above, by Conrad of Montferrat. He was less successful, however, against two other enemies. First, he faced a series of revolts from the Bulgarian and Vlach lands in the Balkans. Second, he chose to form a positive relationship with Saladin to protect himself against their mutual enemy, the Seljuk Turks of Asia Minor. This, of course, brought him into conflict with the army of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa when the Germans marched to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. There had been decades of rivalry between the Byzantine and German Empires and on this occasion, with the two sides in close proximity, tensions erupted into open warfare. The westerners swept the Greek armies aside in northern Thrace in late 1189. Then, because Frederick’s army posed a direct threat to Constantinople, Isaac was compelled to provide shipping across the Bosphorus, food at fair prices and to waive any claim for losses already incurred against the Germans.³⁵ In the longer run this episode was damaging to both sides. So far as western Europe was concerned, it showed the Byzantines as enemies of the crusaders; again, for the Greeks it illustrated the danger that such campaigns posed to their territories.

Isaac tried to develop a power base in Constantinople through the patronage of a clique of bureaucrats, but the enmity of rival noble families, jealous that they had not managed to secure more favours for themselves, coupled with continued military failures against the Bulgarians and the Vlachs, meant that the emperor’s days were numbered. Conspirators plotted to replace Isaac with his brother, Alexius Angelos, whom they hoped would be more sympathetic to their wishes. Alexius himself was dissatisfied with the honours and position accorded to him and the idea of a coup gathered momentum.³⁶

A hunting expedition to Thrace offered the perfect opportunity: on 8 April 1195, as the imperial party left the main camp and rode off to hunt, Alexius and his men made their move. Feigning ill-health, the challenger remained in the camp. Once Isaac was fully engaged in the chase the conspirators led their man to the imperial tent and acclaimed him emperor. The army favoured Alexius and the imperial bureaucrats who were present prudently followed suit. Isaac became aware of the uproar and learned exactly what had happened. He thought to charge back into the camp, but his men were too few to fight effectively and so he fled. Alexius followed in pursuit, knowing that he had to capture his brother before he returned to Constantinople and reasserted his imperial authority in public. Isaac was soon caught and taken to the monastery of Vera, near Makre, in southern Thrace. There, as Niketas tells us, he endured an excruciating torture: ‘he looked upon the sun for the last time, and his eyes were soon gouged out’. The Byzantines judged that blinding rendered an individual unfit to rule; Isaac was then cast into prison.³⁷ Once enthroned, Alexius III (as he became) kept Isaac under a relaxed house arrest and extracted a promise from him and his son, Prince Alexius, that they would not conspire against him. Unsurprisingly the promise was not kept: father and son hatched a plot in which the young man would be sent to Germany to seek the help of his brother-in-law and sister: Philip and Irene of Swabia.

In 1201 the captives engaged two Pisan merchants based in Constantinople to engineer the prince’s freedom. When he joined Alexius III on a campaign in Thrace, the Pisans arranged for their boat to follow the expedition and lie offshore. The moment Prince Alexius saw a chance to flee, he bolted to an agreed rendezvous with the Pisans at the port of Athyras on the nearby Sea of Marmara. A waiting rowing boat quickly took him out to the Italians’ trading ship, although his safety was still far from assured. Once Alexius III discovered the daring escape he commanded that all ships in the vicinity should be searched.

There are different explanations of how his quarry escaped detection: Niketas Choniates wrote that Prince Alexius cut off his long hair, put on western-style clothing and, by mingling with the crew, evaded the emperor’s men.³⁸ The Cbronicle of Novgorod, a thirteenth-century account composed in Russia and based on information provided by a German source from the time of the Fourth Crusade, gives an alternative version. It states that the young Alexius hid in a false-bottomed water barrel and when the emperor’s agents checked the container by opening the plug they saw water flow out and, believing it to be full, moved on.³⁹ Whichever story is true, the Pisans’ plan worked and their ship sailed off, docking at Ancona, from where Irene’s escorts brought the escapee to Hagenau and eventually to his meeting with Philip and Boniface of Montferrat. Irene pleaded her brother’s case, but to little effect. Boniface was determined to take the crusade to Egypt and Jerusalem. Philip was embroiled in the German civil war with Otto of Brunswick. Neither would be distracted.

Prince Alexius was no less determined to raise help. He left for Rome in early 1202, but he was never likely to elicit much sympathy from the papacy and his appeal was rejected. Innocent was not prepared to divert his crusade to assist an individual related to Philip of Swabia, who by this time had been excommunicated in the course of his struggle with the pope’s preferred candidate. Furthermore, relations between Alexius III and the papacy, if rather chilly, were not so bad as to cause the pontiff to try to unseat the Byzantine ruler. In the early years of Innocent’s pontificate, the atmosphere between Rome and Constantinople had seen several changes of direction.

At first, Innocent hoped to work in conjunction with Alexius III to support the crusade and to bring the Orthodox and Catholic Churches closer together.⁴⁰ In November 1199, however, the pope had, at length, castigated the Greek ruler for failing to relieve the plight of the Holy Sepulchre and the Christians in the East, and for the continuation of the schism between the two churches. If the emperor did not help the cause of the crusade, Innocent suggested that his ‘negligence would incur divine displeasure’—an unerringly accurate prediction.⁴¹

Alexius Ill’s reply reminded the pope of the injuries inflicted by Barbarossa’s crusade and offered to discuss the union of the churches at a great council. In turn, Innocent attempted to persuade Alexius III of his Christian duty to assist the new crusade and hoped that he would bring the Greek Orthodox Church to recognise papal authority.⁴²

In the event, Alexius III did little to follow the papal directives and argued that the Byzantine emperor was above papal power. Such a notion was utterly unacceptable to Innocent, who believed the Bible provided ample authority for the subordination of all secular rulers to the priesthood. Nonetheless, in late 1200 or early 1201, Innocent moderated his tone to the Greek ruler in order to smooth the way for the imminent crusade:

Your Highness knows whether or not we have been able to lead your Imperial Excellency to welcoming the good and the useful through our letter and whether we have advised you of proper and honourable courses of actions because we remember that we invited you to nothing other than the unity of the Church and aid for the land of Jerusalem. May He, who holds the hearts of princes in His hand, so inspire your mind that you acquiesce to our advice and counsel and do that which should deservedly produce honour for the Divine Name, profit for the Christian religion, and the salvation of your soul.⁴³

The open hostility between the Greeks and the Third Crusade—an unnecessary drain on the westerners’ energies—together with a mutual dislike of Philip of Swabia were strong reasons for the pope to ensure that Alexius III behaved well towards the new crusade. Perhaps he had also recognised that the Byzantine emperor was not going to be bullied into line and, with the crusade poised to set out, Innocent decided to adopt a more emollient tone.

After the pope had rebuffed Prince Alexius, it was the turn of Boniface to have a papal audience. As the leader of the crusade, it was logical that the marquis should meet the spiritual guardian of the Catholic Church. They may well have discussed Alexius’s case, but Innocent would have been swift to dissuade Boniface from showing an interest in any diversion to Constantinople.

In April the marquis turned north towards home, pausing en route to try to establish peace between the warring cities of Pisa and Genoa. His idea was to create greater stability in the West before the crusade set out and to open up the possibility of other sources of naval help for the expedition. Boniface must have arrived back in his homelands in early May 1202; he had been away for around nine months since the first summons to lead the crusade and now, as a matter of urgency, he had to prepare himself for a much longer absence in the East.

Over the winter of 1201 and into the New Year of 1202 whole communities across Europe were gripped by preparations for the expedition. The leaders had set a date of Easter for the northern French armies to assemble and to begin the march south. The crusaders needed to work hard to gather the money and equipment for their journey. Some nobles had access to considerable wealth and could afford to sell assets to raise further revenue. The less well off often had to mortgage lands or rights to raise money. Some of these arrangements were made with other nobles, or with the commercial classes of the growing urban elite, but the vast majority of surviving documents record dealings with religious institutions whose deeply rooted traditions of literacy and record-keeping have resulted in the preservation of thousands of such agreements. Knights and nobles negotiated loans and gifts with local churchmen. Charters enshrined these agreements in writing and were witnessed by clergy, nobles, their families or household members.

Given the Church’s strictures against usury, nothing like the explicit lending of money for interest is found, but contracts that allowed the lender the free use of, or profits from, the land during the owner’s absence seem dangerously close to the spirit—if not the exact letter—of the practice.

Some charters were executed to make good a dispute and for a departing crusader to clear his moral as well as his practical obligations. A contemporary charter from the abbey of Floreffe, in the county of Namur (near Flanders), shows how Thomas, a knight, wanted to repent for his earlier behaviour and to put his soul at peace, as well as to end a long-standing argument:

Because what is not retained in writing slips easily from the memory, I, Wéric, by God’s grace abbot of Floreffe, and the community, make known to those present and future, that Thomas, a knight of Leez, a free man, was struck by the goad of covetousness and took back the eight bonuaria of land which he had legitimately bestowed in compensation for the damages often inflicted upon us, and he made accusation against us. Finally, because he was ready to go on crusade and recognised that he was guilty, he completely gave up, renounced and abandoned the aforesaid land and its fruits before many suitable witnesses ... Lest there be a possibility for someone to weaken the contents of this agreement and trouble our church in this matter, to verify its authenticity we append the seal of prudent men to this document, namely, the abbots of Gembloux, Corneux and Leffe.⁴⁴

Other charters simply record charitable bequests to assist the donor’s soul, although it is possible that unrecorded gifts were given in exchange. The following extract from a charter shows a knight of the Fourth Crusade making such a donation:

I, Geoffrey of Beaumont make it known to all in the present and the future that, setting out on the road to Jerusalem, with the agreement and wishes of my wife Margaret and my daughters Dionysie, Margaret, Aales and Heloise, I give and I concede to the poor monks of St Josaphat, for the love of God and the salvation of my soul, 5 solidi a year from my income at Beaumont. [It will be given] on the festival of Saint Remigius [13 January] to the hands of those of the brothers who bring forward these present documents. In order that this may be fixed and preserved I strengthen the confirmation of this present charter with my seal. Enacted in the year 1202 in the month of May.⁴⁵

For some men, a clause in Pope Innocent’s crusade bull of December 1198, Graves orientalie terrae, provided a source of income. The pope had imposed a tax of one-fortieth on the annual income of the Church and decreed that: ‘If the crusaders cannot afford the journey you should make suitable grants to them from this cash, after receiving sufficient assurance from them that they will remain to defend the eastern land for a year or more, according to the amount of the grant:⁴⁶ We do not know the sum of money raised by this measure—much may never have been collected at all, or may have failed to reach the intended recipients—but a number of men probably had their crusades financed in this way.

In addition to money, the crusaders needed to gather all the equipment needed for a military expedition several thousand miles from home. Hundreds of horses had to be obtained, from the finest chargers to the heavy pack-animals required to pull cartloads of equipment down to Venice. The forges of northern France pounded out thousands of spare horseshoes, and leather workers laboured over extra saddles and bridles. Arms and armour were manufactured and purchased, shields freshly painted; tradesmen ensured that each noble was fitted out in the finest equipment that he could afford and lords chose splendid cloaks and banners to adorn their contingents.

Some personalised their equipment. During the Third Crusade, Sancho Martin, a Spanish nobleman, wore a green tunic and decorated his helmet with the antlers of a stag. Sancho’s conspicuous display certainly attracted attention because, when he appeared on the battlefield, ‘the Saracens all rushed up, more to see his fine bearing than anything else’.⁴⁷ The men themselves trained for war, practising their swordsmanship and fighting skills. The ban on tournaments was restated and this time it was observed in case the contests injured or killed valuable crusader warriors. The army also had to be fed. Some provisions could be carried: smoked pig carcasses were often conveyed in their thousands; dozens of carts arrived, piled high with preserved foodstuffs, sacks of wheat and barrels of wine. Other edibles would have to be bought along the way and this meant that the crusaders had to take cash or valuables with them. To us, accustomed to using credit cards and taking foreign currency overseas, the notion of transporting bulky gold and silver objects abroad as a means of payment seems wildly inconvenient. However, given the sudden huge demand for coins created by thousands of men wanting cash—at a level well beyond anything most institutions could supply—the practicalities of taking thousands of small-denomination coins, and the mechanics of money-changing at the time, there was really no option. Crusaders had to carry with them great ornaments from churches, precious jewels or cloth, or household items such as plates and cutlery, to exchange for food and drink when it was needed.

As the moment of departure grew near, a mixture of excitement and dread must have affected all the crusaders, from the greatest of lords to the lowliest of servants. Similar emotions would have permeated the thoughts of the households and communities they were about to leave. What adventures awaited the crusaders? Fame and wealth? Or suffering, pain and death? Nobles often marked this time with a magnificent feast where they gathered together friends and family. This was also the moment to set any outstanding affairs in order, to resolve any existing disputes and to pray for a safe homecoming. For the clergy, a similar process took place; churchmen had to take leave of their brethren—their ‘family’—and, as clerics, armed only with their prayers and faith, they too must have wondered what God’s judgement would bring them.

Finally, on the day of leaving, everyone had to brace themselves for their farewells: final promises, last words and last embraces. Fulcher of Chartres described the anguish of a crusader parting from his wife:

Then husband told wife the time he expected to return, assuring her that if by God’s grace he survived he would come back home to her. He commended her to the Lord, kissed her lingeringly, and promised her as she wept that he would return. She though, fearing that she would never see him again, could not stand, but swooned to the ground, mourning her loved one whom she was losing in this life as if he were already dead. He, however, like one who had no pity—although he had—and as if he were not moved by the tears of his wife nor the grief of any of his friends—yet secretly moved in his heart—departed with firm resolution.⁴⁸

As Robert of Clari wrote: ‘many were there of fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, wives and children, who made great lamenting over their loved ones’.⁴⁹ The troubadour knight Conon of Béthune sang of his fears and pain at leaving his wife and, even though this verse has a strongly chivalric aspect, Conon’s true feelings also emerge:

Alas, Love, what a hard parting I
Shall have to make from the best
Lady ever to be loved and served.
May God in his goodness bring me
Back to her as surely as it is true
That I leave her with great pain.
Alas! What have I said? I am not
Leaving her: even if my body goes
To serve our Lord, my heart remains
Entirely at her service.⁵⁰

Villehardouin related that ‘many a tear, as you may imagine, was shed for sorrow at parting from their lands, their own people and their friends’.⁵¹ A later crusader captured the pain of the moment exquisitely, balancing feelings of both loss and anxiety: ‘I never once let my eyes turn back ... for fear my heart might be filled with longing at the thought of my lovely castle and the two children that I had left behind.’⁵²

Many of the northern French crusaders began their journey to Venice in the late spring and early summer of 1202. Villehardouin did not set out until Pentecost (2 June). which made the planned sailing date of 29 June wholly unrealistic and meant that those who arrived in northern Italy on time would have to tolerate a long wait for their colleagues.⁵³

The crusaders marched along some of the major trade routes of the time. Coincidentally, the Champagne region was at the heart of the European economy and enthusiastic comital patronage had led to the development of a series of four annual international fairs (held at Provins, Troyes, Lagny and Bar-sur-Aube) that together constituted the most important commercial events in the medieval West. These fairs were a meeting place for merchants from England, Flanders, Germany and northern Italy, as well as France itself. The needs of those attending them created an enhanced network of roads for the crusaders to use. For those marching from Flanders, a road ran from Bruges to Reims, to Châlons and from there to the scene of the biggest of the fairs, the city of Troyes. Just south of Troyes they followed a section of the River Seine and then joined the routes to Italy. For the crusaders this journey possessed the advantages of following well-established roads (in winter, still little more than atrociously muddy tracks) with all the associated facilities for buying food and for prayer and rest. By far the easiest way to transport bulky items was by river and the crusaders may have moved some of their equipment in this way, although the majority of the army would have remained on horse, foot or cart, and marched alongside the boats carrying their possessions. Down beyond Châtillon-sur-Seine the road passed through a deeply forested area where merchants were often attacked by robbers, although in the crusaders’ case sheer weight of numbers protected the main contingents. As the Seine became unnavigable, any riverborne equipment was moved back onto land. The road went south across a limestone plateau and then over a series of hills and valleys before reaching Dijon and continuing alongside another arterial river, the Saône, to move deep into Burgundy.

This road passed within 12 miles of the enormous abbey of Cluny, which, together with Citeaux, was one of the most powerful and prestigious religious institutions in medieval Europe. Some northern French knights held lands with priories affiliated to Cluny and they would have taken the opportunity to visit the great mother abbey itself. The church of Cluny was founded in 909, rebuilt in 1088 and finally consecrated in 1130. A magnificent 161 yards in length, it stood as the biggest building in the Christian West for centuries, and in sheer size and splendour was a paradigm for all religious houses. The Cluniacs believed in celebrating the glory of God through lavish decoration and rich, ornate frescos and sculptures. The great choir at Cluny was lit by a web of candelabra and the altar surmounted by a golden pyx studded with precious stones. In contrast to the austere Cistercian abbeys, the Cluniacs flaunted their wealth and were famous for their lengthy liturgical rituals and fine food and wine. As patrons of the abbey and as holy warriors, those who made the detour must have been received with particular good favour and the prayers of the black monks (the colour of their monastic habits) would have followed the crusaders southwards.

The road carried on past Lyon and Vienne before it turned towards the Alps. In normal times, merchants and travellers had to pay customs tolls to the local lords to secure a passage over the Alps, but the crusaders, as knights of Christ, were exempt from these charges. Villehardouin crossed the Alps using the Mount Cenis pass, which today is closed to wheeled traffic from November to April; but, incredibly, in medieval times a steady flow of traders and travellers braved its steep and precipitous paths throughout the year. In the summer, conditions were relatively good and the journey of 1202 is recorded as uneventful. A vertiginous descent towards Susa completed the passage into northern Italy; a couple of days later, a gentle march down the valley of Susa brought the army to Turin and the edge of Boniface of Montferrat’s lands. Here, it is likely that Baldwin and the other northern French crusaders again met the marquis to discuss the expedition’s progress. To reach this point would have taken about a month from Troyes, a distance of around 340 miles. From here it was a relatively easy route through Asti, Tortona, Piacenza, along the River Po and, finally, northwards again to Venice itself.⁵⁴