The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople
Western crusaders bound for Egypt turn on Christian Constantinople, plunder the city and set up a Latin empire, turning the split between East and West into lasting bitterness.
- The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople — Jonathan Phillips, Jonathan Cape (2004)
- The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)
- The Crusades: A History — Jonathan Riley-Smith, Yale University Press
- Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire — Judith Herrin, Allen Lane (2007)
The Fourth Crusade set out to attack Egypt, but its leaders could not pay Venice for the fleet that carried them. To clear the debt they first sacked the Christian city of Zara on the Adriatic, then backed a Byzantine prince, Alexios, who promised money and troops if they put him on the throne in Constantinople. When the deal collapsed, the crusaders stormed the city on 12–13 April 1204.
- The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople — Jonathan Phillips, Jonathan Cape (2004)
- The Crusades: A History — Jonathan Riley-Smith, Yale University Press
Three days of plunder followed. Churches were stripped, relics carried off to the West, and in Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates recorded, soldiers smashed the altar and a prostitute sat on the patriarch’s throne. The four bronze horses that stood for centuries on St Mark’s in Venice were taken from Constantinople’s Hippodrome.
- The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople — Jonathan Phillips, Jonathan Cape (2004)
- Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire — Judith Herrin, Allen Lane (2007)
A Latin Empire and a Latin patriarch ruled the city until the Byzantines recovered it in 1261, but the empire never regained its strength, which helped open the way for the Ottomans. In 2001, in Athens, John Paul II asked God’s forgiveness for Catholics’ sins against the Orthodox and named the sack, and in 2004 Patriarch Bartholomew accepted his apology in a spirit of reconciliation.
- The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)
- The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople — Jonathan Phillips, Jonathan Cape (2004)
Fellow Christians bearing the cross desecrated churches, stole relics and killed civilians. Many Greeks concluded that union with Rome meant domination, an attitude summed up two centuries later in the saying "better the Sultan's turban than the cardinal's hat".
- The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)
- The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople — Jonathan Phillips, Jonathan Cape (2004)
The sack was not planned by the pope, who had forbidden attacks on Christians; the crusade was diverted by debts to Venice and by entanglement in a Byzantine succession dispute. But the brutality was real, and Innocent III himself condemned it.
- The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople — Jonathan Phillips, Jonathan Cape (2004)
- The Crusades: A History — Jonathan Riley-Smith, Yale University Press
Why it matters today
For many Orthodox, 1204 rather than 1054 is when the schism became real: Christians from the West looted their holiest city and placed a Latin patriarch on the throne of Hagia Sophia. Pope John Paul II expressed sorrow for it in 2001 and 2004, but suspicion of Western Christianity, especially in Greece, still draws on this memory.