Customer Reviews

The Fourth Crusade And The Sack Of Constantinople

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a well-written book that gives some background to the crusading movement in medieval Europe, but its primary focus is on the ill-starred Fourth Crusade. This was a crusade not led by monarchs, but rather like the First Crusade, an undertaking of many nobles of good family. The addition of the Venetian seamen with their needed ships, and an ill-advised agreement about men and money led this holy endeavor to attack, not the occupiers of Jerusalem, but rather the also Christian rulers of the Byzantine Empire. It's a somewhat convoluted tale, but the author tells it extremely well, and at no time does the reader feel that he is lost. This book gives some insight into the schism that exists still today between the Orthodox and Roman churches, and is excellent reading for anyone interested in this fractious history.

This book is a quick and fun read. The first problem to be faced is that Donald Queller in 1978 wrote a book that covers almost exactly the same ground except for Phillips last two chapters on the Latin Empire after the Crusade. In 1978 when first published, Queller's thesis regarding the "accidental" nature of the 4th Crusade's final destination was sensational. His conclusions were opposed to Runciman, Norwich and others. Queller offered a persuasive revisionist history of the 4th Crusade. The second problem is that in 1997, Queller and Thomas Madden, updated and reissued the 1978 work under the title, "The 4th Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople," and it a far superior book to this one.

The third problem is that, to the best of my knowledge, there is not an original thought in Phillip's book. So, where do the two stars come from? One of the stars is issued for a generally readable and accurate assessment of the 4th Crusade that is derivative from other secondary sources. The second star is earned for the extensive translated quotes from the actual crusaders, Greeks, and other contemporaries involved with or around this incident. This helps illuminate the thinking of those involved within their own cultures and time. From there it is downhill. The last two chapters on the end of the Crusade and the Latin Empire are weak and weaker. The book occasionally delves off into tenuously related sidetracks. No author should use the same quotes more than once in a book. Phillips manages to do this on at least two occasions. There are other indications of sloppy editorial work, but I will not enumerate them. Phillips uses 21st Century analogies gratuitously and unenlighteningly. Penguin published the paperback on lousy paper, with weak print density, and almost no white space.

I suggest you buy Qeuller and Madden's book on this topic. However, if you prefer, you may buy this inferior mirror image of their book. I wish I could be kinder to this book. It is far better that you read this book rather than nothing at all as this is important material seldom approached. At least, we can be thankful that Phillips did not rewrite Runciman and Norwich on the topic. Then his book would not have been only generally derivative but historically inaccurate as well.

I am not a medievalist in any way, shape, or form. But I decided to give this book a chance and learn about a period of time and event I knew so little about. What I found was an epic story of dramatic purportions. The characters and their motivations seem right out of a fictional drama: The elderly and manipulative Doge of Venice, the brash and ambitious Byzantine pretender, the hypocritical holy men, and the permissive Pope. The author not only provides the historical record, but provides real insight into the thinking of a time so different, and yet so similar, to our own. Replete with modern analogies and references, beyond a mere history book, its a real page-turner.

The Fourth Crusade was a disaster for the unity of Christianity. The rivalry between the Roman Catholic Church (and backed by the various kingdoms) in the West and the Greek Orthodox Church (and backed by the Greek Byzantine Empire) in the East had been simmering for two centuries. A common foe against the Islamist conquest of the Holy Land kept expediency in the forefront for the Latin West and the Greek East until the Fourth Crusade.

Instead of liberating Jerusalem, the knights and seamen of the West became embroiled in financial troubles and internal Byzantine politics. By the time the complex double-dealing was done, the Christian West had sacked Constantinople, the capital of the Christian East. Unity was out of the question forever more.

Mr. Philips has written an impressive and readable account of the Fourth Crusade for the lay reader. A more academic approach is "The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople" (1997) by Donald Queller and Thomas Madden. Of their 357 pages, over half belongs to a detail and lively narrative of medieval politics and the remaining 150 pages are devoted to an extensive bibliography and readable footnotes. A historical sequel is "The Fall of Constantinople" (1965) by Sir Steven Runciman about the conquest of the city of Constantine in 1453 by the Turks.

At first, it sounds like something out of Monty Python--the best of the best kings' knights arrange yet another Crusade to stop the "infidel" (by which they meant Muslim) from occupying the Holy Land. However, because of routine delays, a chronic shortage of money, and political infighting, the Fourth Crusade never actually meets up with reinforcements and never actually gets to the Holy Land. Looking for SOMEONE to straighten out, the Crusaders lay siege to and then sack Byzantium (Constantinople), most of whose residents are Christian Catholics, though admittedly with a different Holy See.

Jonathan Phillips lays it all out--the triumphs and the tragedies, the idealistic and the sorrily pragmatic--and all in a way general readers like me can warm to. His story--which in a sense is a Murphy's law for the declining success curve of Crusades in general--is well contexted and even better told. Especially detailed and especially enjoyable is his treatment of the venerable Doge of Venice, who, although blind, was a more fearsome warrior than some of the troops; also a more fearsome political infighter. Phillips' fight scenes are detailed and show a good understanding of when to write toward tactics but then show how they do (or do not) contribute to overall strategies. He has a good, economical prose style that makes this kind of reading a dream.

The place-specific maps were a wonderful help, but the overall map of the Mediterranean Region could have been a bit more detailed. The new paperback, which is usually cheaper, is that much more fun to own. If you think "The Crusades" is too daunting a topic, try THE FOURTH CRUSADE AND THE SACK OF CONSTANTINOPLE on--I bet you'll like it!

Some previous reviewers have decried the lack of originality in this book, and pointed to Thomas Madden's book on the same subject as a better option. This is indeed true, if you are a serious crusades scholar. Madden's book is oriented toward a scholarly audience, and he is the real pioneer of the new (and, I think, accurate) interpretation of the Fourth Crusade. However, Phillip's book is in itself a success because it achieves exactly what it sets out to do: make the Fourth Crusade accessable to everyone. This is a book that someone with no knowledge of the Fourth Crusade could pick up and read, and, most importantly, enjoy and understand. Phillips is not trying to revolutionize crusading history, so why are people blaming him for not doing that?

This book is one of the best popularizations of any period of crusading history that I have ever encountered (the only better one is Stephen Howarth's The Knights Templar). Phillip's prose is both smooth and engaging, and he cuts right to the heart of the issues. He clearly has done significant research into this subject, and he provides generous quotations from many primary sources.

Despite being a popularization, this book is surprisingly scholarly. He cites all of his sources, has explanatory footnotes, and seems to be very accurate. There are some minor inaccuracies (for example, he claimed that Henry II of Champagne [at the time King of the Latin Kingdom] was killed when an entertaining dwarf toppled from a balcony and pulled Henry down with him, when in actuality Henry fell and the dwarf tried to save him but was pulled down with Henry), but they are few and far between, and (at least the ones I noticed) were never of any significance to either the plot or Phillip's main arguments concerning the motivations of the attack on Constantinople.

The most serious complaint I have is that Phillips has the unfortunate compulsion to try to tie events of the Fourth Crusade to contemporary events. Early on in the book he often gives analogies which explain historical ideas/events by comparing/contrasting them with modern ideas (for example, he frequently inserts parenthetical statements saying something to the effect of "we today call this sort of thing political 'spin'"), and it just gets annoying after a while. I'm not sure if his idea of popularizing a subject is to constantly try to explain it it terms of contemporary events/ideas or what, but thankfully he seems to have forgetten to continue doing this about a quarter of the way in, and the remainder of the books is largely free from these annoyances. The fact that this is my greatest complaint about the book should be some indication of how highly I think of this book.

In all, it is an excellent book. Is it a definitive, scholarly summation of the entire Fourth Crusade? Of course not. It was not meant to be that. It was meant to be a popular introduction to the Fourth Crusade, and in that role it excels. It is vastly more scholarly than most historical popularizations, it does not dumb down any issues in an attempt to make them more understandable, and yet at the same time it is sufficiently clear that it is easily understood. I would definitely recommend checking this book out if you get the chance and are at all interested in the crusades.

Fascinating and concise look at the history of the Fourth Crusade and how it developed into a political fiasco leading to the sacking of Constantinople and one of the lowest points in the history of Crusades and Christianity. This story is a fine example of how the church lost control of the crusade, something that was to happen time and time again during crusade history.

Around 1200, Christian knights and nobles had dedicated themselves to the Fourth Crusade. Their sanctified objective was the reclaiming of the Holy Lands and the City of Jerusalem, most recently captured for Islam by Saladin during the Third Crusade. By 1204, this lean and terrifying army of pilgrims had come nowhere near Egypt, Jerusalem, or any other Muslim location and had, in fact, done nothing but ravage and conquer fellow Christians.

During the Siege of Zara in 1202, the Crusaders not only crushed a Christian city but found themselves in opposition to King Emico of Hungary, who was such a devout Christian that he wore the Cross and was dedicated to the same cause as the Crusaders themselves. By 2004 they had sacked Constantinople, the "queen of cities"; despite the fact the Pope Innocent III had threatened the participants with excommunication, the most terrifying weapon in the Holy arsenal.

What had happened? How could this army, so dedicated to reclaiming the earthly lands of Christ from Muslim defilement, do nothing but mercilessly pillage and slaughter fellow Christians and never even see a Muslim in battle?

Author Jonathan Phillips does a great job in explaining the complex reasons for this phenomenal misdirection. I won't go into a summary of the reasons here. That's the purpose of the book, and the pleasure you will get in reading it could only be blunted by my attempts. Suffice to say that this book strikes a graceful balance between academic reading for the historian and pleasure reading for the layman. The subject of the book calls for a great deal of background, but with Phillips' deft prose I never felt the momentum sagging and all was made crystal clear.

Phillips uses many first hand accounts of the Crusade, most notably writing by Robert of Clari (for the Christian viewpoint) and Niketas Choniates (representing the perspective of a Constantinople nobleman), and their entries are beautifully used, often to very moving or chilling effect.

What fascinates me about the Middle Ages is the raging conflict between sheer barbarity and lust for power and true religious devotion and idealism. This book is full of fascinating stories and antidotes that bring this dualism into stark light. Also, the author is simply a very good writer, and the descriptions of battle are really thrilling and horrifying.

The ultimate, overwhelming tragedy of the Fourth Crusade is described in the book at a perfect pace, brick by tragic brick, until finally the whole structure is made sound and clear. For a taste of that tragedy, I can only quote Pope Innocent III himself after the Pontiff had learned of the savage slaughter, pillage, and rape that had occurred during the siege of Constantinople:

"By that from which we appeared to have profited up to now we are impoverished, and by that from which we believed we were, above all else, made greater, we are reduced."

Thorough, lucid, and amusing, this book leads the reader inexorably through the twists and turns of medieval politics that led ultimately to the disgraceful sacking of a Christian city by Western Crusaders. This book is highly readable for a general audience; indeed, it pulls the reader along quite well, while vividly describing the personalities involved, the life of the average crusader, the magnificent city and court of Constantinople, and other lively evocations. Where there is discrepancy in the historical sources, Phillips gives us both sides and then weighs in with his own considered opinion. A tour de force of history writing.

This book is an extremely well-written narrative that describes the sequence of events that initiated the fourth crusade and eventually lead up to the sacking of Constantinople. Some readers have pointed out that the author's position - that the attack on Constantinople was more a bumbling movement of a disorderly gang rather than a planned military expedition - is a thesis from a much earlier book, the 1978 Queller and Madden text, The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople. That may very well be true. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that Phillip's work here is compellingly written, with an exceptionally strong narrative and an engaging style that brings the subject to life for the average reader, and will reintroduce the subject to a new generation of readers who wish to learn about this period of history.

Phillip's book is immensely interesting to read, and the non-historian can easily follow and become engaged in the story. But the book also evokes sickeningly negative emotions as we watch the story unfold. As we read of Constantinople's sack, we can hardly bear the thought of the loss sustained by the city and its people. And it's not limited to the injury and death sustained by those who were there. It's the loss of untold centuries of art and craftsmanship destroyed and forever lost to history for want of a few melted pellets of gold and silver. If there is anything like "group hysteria," perhaps this is a best-case study in it, because to see so many pillage, plunder, and destroy what will never be replaced (the immense art collection in the city that spanned at least 500 years) is surely some form of sickness. We feel the revulsion rise up in us as we read Phillip's retelling of the story, and wonder what the true extent of the loss is.

There are a number of books out these days on the crusades, and perhaps it is a worthwhile undertaking for us to be reminded of what went on in this period of history. Selecting any one of them might be a bit more difficult. If you are looking for a popular history written to a general audience but that doesn't skimp on facts or "dumb down" the narrative, Phillip's book is a very good choice. It would help if the reader knew a little about the crusades before starting this book, but it really isn't fully necessary to enjoy the volume. Read it to learn about the fourth crusade, but be ready for some of the awful lessons the story has to teach us.