fighting forces seen in the Adriatic since classical times; the sustained commitment of Venice to the ultimate goal of the crusade; and immediate Venetian political interests. Dandolo’s scheme to break the deadlock relied on all of these.
Some time in September 1202, the doge proposed a temporary moratorium on the crusaders’ debt, which would now be held on account to be paid off by the proceeds of future conquests. In return, the crusaders were to embark in the already prepared fleet to assist the Venetians capture the Dalmatian port of Zara, with their share of any booty, it was hoped, satisfying the debt. This move was portrayed as the first step towards Egypt which, given the time of year, was out of reach until the spring. To sweeten the pill, and allay doubts as to Venetian sincerity, in a carefully theatrical performance, the aged Dandolo himself took the cross and promised to accompany the expedition.8 Despite the agreement of the crusade high command, who presumably saw little alternative, the plan to attack Zara was highly controversial. Zara was a semi-independent Christian maritime city that had spent much of the twelfth century under the control of Venice. However, from the 1180s, despite numerous Venetian attacks, Zara enjoyed the protection of the king of Hungary, and in 1202 King Emeric was a crusader. Any campaign against Zara would attract the condemnation of the pope on the grounds that Zara was Christian and its overlord, as a crusader, entitled to the protection of the church. The leaders of the crusade who struck the deal were well aware of its sensitivity. Although they were told the good news of the freezing of the debt, according to Robert of Clari, who was there, ‘the host as a whole did not know anything of this plan, save only the highest men’.9 The leadership clung to the line that the end justified the means, a dominant theme of Villehardouin’s account: anything rather than ‘the army broken up and our enterprise a failure’. When challenged by the bishop of Halberstadt, Peter Capuano, the papal legate, acknowledged the problem, insisting that the pope ‘would prefer to overlook whatever was unbefitting of them rather than have this pilgrimage campaign disintegrate’. The legate was entirely wrong. As soon as he heard of it Innocent III sent letters prohibiting the attack and threatening all those involved with excommunication.10
ZARA
Whatever the murmurings and dissent, temporarily, the leadership’s obfuscation worked. Early in October, the great fleet set sail. Strangely, it left without its supposed leader, Boniface of Montferrat. Nervous, perhaps, at such a controversial operation, he may have been more concerned to explore the wider diplomatic possibilities for the crusade army opened up by the presence in Italy for most of 1202 of the Byzantine claimant, Alexius Angelus. Boniface was hardly missed. The size and quality of the fleet impressed not just those it carried. The citizens of the coastal cities of the northern Adriatic in its path quickly submitted to Venice. Zara would have followed suit if the unity of its opponents had not suddenly collapsed. Confronted with the prospect of dispossessing co-religionists, the consciences of many rebelled, ironically provoking not just a serious crisis for the crusade but the very thing they most opposed, a violent attack on the Christian city. The day after the fleet arrived on 11 November 1202, the Zaran authorities sought a negotiated surrender that would give the Venetians the city and its possessions in return for sparing the lives of its inhabitants. With the approval of most of the crusader leadership, Dandolo was prepared to accept the terms. But the Zarans withdrew their offer after contact with a group of crusader dissidents led by Simon of Montfort and Robert of Boves. They told the Zarans that the crusaders would never help the Venetians fight for Zara, so the city had nothing to gain by surrender, as there would be no attack. Unfortunately for them, the Zarans believed this, thus passing up a chance of a peaceful settlement.11 Whatever else, the crusader force knew how to invest a city. Scores of siege engines, presumably carried with the fleet in pre-fabricated sections as on the Third Crusade, were erected. When direct assault achieved nothing, mining was begun. The odds were clear. On 24 November Zara surrendered. The lives of the surviving citizens were in theory spared, although some killing occurred. The city and its contents were divided between the crusaders and the Venetians, who settled for the winter as uneasy neighbours in the conquered port.
The failure of the initial peace negotiations exposed the divisions of opinion within the crusader army and its peculiar political dynamics. Having scuppered the discussions with the Zarans, the faction hostile to the diversion provoked uproar when Abbot Guy of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, an associate of Simon of Montfort, produced a letter from Innocent III expressly forbidding an attack on Zara on pain of excommunication and cancellation of the crusade indulgences. The Venetians, incandescent with rage and unmoved in purpose, insisted that the crusaders honour their agreement to help capture Zara, Dandolo declaring: ‘I will not in any degree give over being avenged on them [the Zarans], no, not even for the pope’.12 Abbot Guy only narrowly avoided being beaten up. Once again the crusade leaders found themselves in a moral trap, to keep faith with their allies or to obey the pope (and canon law). Either way incurred dishonour. There seems to have been a view among those most committed to the Venetian alliance that the conundrum could be solved satisfactorily and honour saved by fulfilling their obligations, even the distasteful ones, in sequence. Once all intervening agreements with the Venetians had been concluded, then the original oath to recover Jerusalem would fall into place. This perception of the crusade as a series of contracts was shared by participants on opposite sides of the arguments over the diversions. Those wishing to preserve the Venetian alliance – and transport – could claim that the best interests of the crusade were served by keeping the expedition and abiding by accords freely negotiated, a sort of moral pragmatism. Their opponents countered with a far simpler slogan. Simon of Montfort was recorded as saying, ‘I have not come here to destroy Christians’.13 Yet, as in Venice, the pragmatists prevailed. Simon withdrew from the crusader camp, taking no part in the siege. The following spring, he left the army altogether with a large group of sympathizers. After some help from the king of Hungary, ‘our enemy’ Villehardouin called him, they reached Italy and sailed to the Holy Land.14
The crisis at Zara revealed just how secular the direction of the crusade had become. A striking feature of the whole campaign was the lack of ecclesiastical lead, partly the result of the absence of a papal legate. Peter Capuano, after his mealy-mouthed approval of the Zara plan, had not accompanied the fleet from Venice but had gone to Rome, whence he departed for the Holy Land to await events and, he presumably hoped, the arrival of the crusade. Without the authority of even a pusillanimous legate, the churchmen with the crusade army alternately squabbled among themselves on partisan lines mirroring those within the soldiery or followed the wishes of the commanders. At Zara, the majority – how large is impossible to guess – of the barons persisted in supporting the Venetians. Their actions were later justified to the pope as driven by necessity rather than choice. Yet to maintain the approval of the rank and file, they deliberately suppressed the papal letter. It would be facile to argue that the less exalted crusaders possessed greater religious commitment than their more sophisticated leaders. However, away from the baronial council, the issues appeared clearer, the ambition to recover Jerusalem more direct, attitudes reflected in a number of surviving accounts from sources not privy to the pressures on the high command. The profile of popular opinion in the army of the Fourth Crusade matches those found during the First and Third. The ‘commons’, their own term, were far from simple or ignorant.15 They appeared well informed, articulate and capable of exerting organized, precise, effective political influence, reminiscent of the early weeks of 1099 or the Palestine war of 1191–2. Leaders could not ignore the led; hence the repeated concealment during the Fourth Crusade. A number of eyewitnesses away from the baronial council were highly critical of the Venetians, if not their own leadership, and recorded extensive discontent with some of the decisions reached. After Zara fell there was serious rioting between crusaders and Venetians; little love appeared lost. A sense of exploitation was, perhaps, inevitable. In the winter of 1202–3, defection became endemic, some giving up altogether, but most apparently intent on travelling directly to the Holy Land. This raises the two related questions of how the leadership was able to push through their decisions and why they chose to do so.
One largely passive factor working for the leaders lay in the accustomed acceptance of decisions by troops tied into command structures by loyalty or cash. Robert of Clari’s attitude of neutral acceptance of the turns of events may have been widespread. His complaints revolved around the treatment of the less important or poor in the distribution of booty, not how or where it was won. Yet, deference was a negotiable commodity rather than a fixed asset. Without money or the means to provide largesse, lords lost authority. It is no coincidence that the crusade followed the course determined by the wealthiest lords, in particular Boniface of Montferrat and Baldwin of Flanders. Neither can it be surprising that the consent or instigation of the Venetian shippers exerted a decisive influence, especially once the crusade left Venice. As Simon of Montfort discovered in the winter of 1202–3, finding alternative travel arrangements was not easy. Groups of ‘menues genz’, non-aristocrats, sought to hire merchant ships or even horse transports. One ship carrying 500 defectors foundered with all hands. Escape overland risked attack by local bandits.16 Without a strong contrary motive, staying with the Venetian fleet made sense.
