After the city's sacking, most of the Byzantine Empire's territories were divided up among the Crusaders. Byzantine aristocrats also established a number of small independent splinter states—one of them being the Empire of Nicaea, which would eventually recapture Constantinople in 1261 and proclaim the reinstatement of the Empire. However, the restored Empire never managed to reclaim all its former territory or attain its earlier economic strength, and it gradually succumbed to the rising Ottoman Empire over the following two centuries.
The Byzantine Empire was left poorer, smaller, and ultimately less able to defend itself against the Seljuk and Ottoman conquests that followed. The actions of the Crusaders, therefore, accelerated the collapse of Christendom in the east, and in the long run helped facilitate the later Ottoman conquests of southeastern Europe.
The sack of Constantinople is considered a turning point in medieval history. Reports of Crusader looting and brutality horrified the Orthodox world; relations between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were wounded for many centuries afterwards.
Map showing Constantinople and its walls during the Byzantine era
Following the siege of Constantinople in 1203, on 1 August 1203 the pro-Crusader Alexios Angelos was crowned Emperor Alexios IV of the Byzantine Empire. He attempted to pacify the city, but riots between anti-Crusader Greeks and pro-Crusader Latins broke out later that month and lasted until November, during which time most of the populace began to turn against him.
On 25 January 1204, the death of co-Emperor Isaac II set off rioting in Constantinople in which the people deposed Alexios IV. He turned to the Crusaders for help, but was imprisoned by the imperial chamberlain, Alexios Doukas, who declared himself Emperor on 5 February before executing Alexios IV on 8 February by strangulation. Emperor Alexios V then attempted to negotiate with the Crusaders for a withdrawal from Byzantine territory without payment, but they refused in order to avenge Alexios IV and receive the money that was promised. In March 1204, the Crusader and Venetian leadership decided on the outright conquest of Constantinople in order to settle debts, and drew up a formal agreement to divide the Byzantine Empire between them.
Siege
By the end of March, the combined Crusader armies were besieging Constantinople as Emperor Alexios V began to strengthen the city's defences while conducting more active operations outside the city. By the first week of April, the Crusaders had begun their siege from their encampment in the town of Galata across the Golden Horn from Constantinople.
On 9 April 1204, the Crusader and Venetian forces began an assault on the Golden Horn fortifications by crossing the waterway to the northwest wall of the city, but, because of bad weather, the assault forces were driven back when the troops that landed came under heavy archery fire in open ground between Constantinople's fortifications and the shore.
On 12 April 1204 weather conditions finally favoured the Crusaders as the weather cleared and a second assault on the city was ordered. A strong north wind aided the Venetian ships near the Golden Horn to come close to the city wall, which enabled attackers to seize some of the towers along the wall. After a short battle approximately 70 Crusaders managed to enter the city. Some Crusaders were eventually able to knock holes in the walls large enough for a few knights at a time to crawl through; the Venetians were also successful at scaling the walls from the sea, although there was extremely bloody fighting with the Varangians. The Crusaders captured the Blachernae section of the city in the northwest and used it as a base to attack the rest of the city, but while attempting to defend themselves with a wall of fire they ended up burning down even more of the city. Emperor Alexios V fled from the city that night through the Polyandriou (Rhegium) Gate and escaped into the countryside to the west.
The Crusaders looted, pillaged, and vandalized Constantinople for three days, during which many ancient and medieval Roman and Greek works were either seized or destroyed. The famous bronze horses from the Hippodrome were sent back to adorn the façade of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, where they remain. As well as being seized, works of considerable artistic value were destroyed for their material value. One of the most precious works to suffer such a fate was a large bronze statue of Hercules, created by the legendary Lysippos, court sculptor of Alexander the Great. Like so many other considerable artworks made of bronze, the statue was melted down for its content by the Crusaders for surplus profit.
Despite their oaths and the threat of excommunication, the Crusaders systematically assaulted the city's holy sanctuaries, destroying or seizing all that was deemed remotely of value; little was spared, and the tombs of the emperors inside the Church of the Holy Apostles fell victim to such looting as well. Of the civilian population of Constantinople, it is estimated 2,000 were killed. The Crusaders, with poor leadership, also sacked churches, monasteries and convents. The altars of these churches were smashed and torn to pieces for their gold and marble by the warriors. The Venetians stole religious relics and works of art, which they later took to Venice.
It was said that the total amount looted from Constantinople was about 900,000 silver marks. The Venetians received 150,000 silver marks that was their due and the Crusaders received 50,000 silver marks. A further 100,000 silver marks were divided evenly between the Crusaders and Venetians. The remaining 500,000 silver marks were secretly kept back by many Crusader knights.
Aftermath
According to a prearranged treaty the empire was apportioned between Venice and the crusade's leaders, and the Latin Empire of Constantinople was established. Boniface was not elected as the new emperor, although the citizens seemed to consider him as such; the Venetians thought he had too many connections with the former empire because of his brother, Renier of Montferrat, who had been married to Maria Comnena, daughter and for a time heir-apparent of Manuel I. Instead they placed Baldwin of Flanders on the throne. He was crowned Emperor in the Hagia Sophia as Baldwin I of Constantinople. Boniface went on to found the Kingdom of Thessalonica, a vassal state of the new Latin Empire. The Venetians also founded the Duchy of the Archipelago in the Aegean Sea.
Most of the Byzantine aristocracy fled the city. Amongst the ordinary people of the former empire there was no sympathy for the Byzantine elite, who were seen as having ruled the empire with increasing incompetence. The contemporary Byzantine historian and eyewitness Nicetas Choniates closed his account of the fall of the city with the following description of a column of aristocratic refugees, including the Patriarch, making their way to Selymbria:
The peasants and common riff-raff jeered at those of us from Byzantium and were thick-headed enough to call our miserable poverty and nakedness equality...Many were only too happy to accept this outrage, saying "Blessed be the Lord that we have grown rich", and buying up for next to nothing the property that their fellow-countrymen were forced to offer for sale, for they had not yet had much to do with the beef-eating Latins and they did not know that they served a wine as pure and unmixed as unadulterated bile, nor that they would treat the Byzantines with utter contempt.
Eight hundred years after the Fourth Crusade, Pope John Paul II twice expressed sorrow for how the events transpired. In 2001, he wrote to Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens, saying, "It is tragic that the assailants, who set out to secure free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their brothers in the faith. The fact that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret." In 2004, while Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, was visiting the Vatican, John Paul II asked, "How can we not share, at a distance of eight centuries, the pain and disgust?" This has been regarded by some as an apology to the Greek Orthodox Church for the slaughter perpetrated by the warriors of the Fourth Crusade.
In April 2004, in a speech on the 800th anniversary of the capture of the city, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I formally accepted the apology. "The spirit of reconciliation is stronger than hatred," he said during a liturgy attended by Roman Catholic Archbishop Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, France. "We receive with gratitude and respect your cordial gesture for the tragic events of the Fourth Crusade. It is a fact that a crime was committed here in the city 800 years ago." Bartholomew said his acceptance came in the spirit of Pascha. "The spirit of reconciliation of the resurrection... incites us toward reconciliation of our churches."
^ Donald M. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations, (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 143.
^Jacobi, David (1999), "The Latin empire of Constantinople and the Frankish states in Greece", in Abulafia, David (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume V: c. 1198–c. 1300, Cambridge University Press, pp. 525–542, ISBN0-521-36289-X
^W. Treadgold, A History of Byzantine State and Society, 663
^Герцберг, Г. Ф. История на Бизантия, Москва 1895, с. 359–360
^Gerland, Е. Geschichte des lateinischen Kaiserreiches von Konstantinopel. 1. Teil: Geschichte des Kaisers Balduin I und Heinrich. Homburg v. d. Höhe 1905. pp. 1–10
