§ 55. THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 271
Flanders, and Simon de Montfurt took the vow. So also did Villehardouin, marshal of Champagne, who accompanied the expedition, and became its spicy historian. As in the case of the First Crusade, the armament was led by nobles, and not by sovereigns.
The leaders, meeting at Soissons in 1200, sent a deputa tion to Venice to secure transportation for the army. Egypt was chosen as the point of landing and attack, it being held that a movement would be most apt to be successful which cut off the Saracens' supplies at their base in the land of the Nile.1
The Venetian Grand Council agreed to provide ships for 9000 esquires, 4500 knights, 20,000 foot-soldiers, and 4500 horses, and to furnish provisions for nine months for the sum of 85,000 marks, or about $1,000,000 in present money.2 The agreement stated the design of the enterprise to be " the deliverance of the Holy Land." The doge, Henry Dandolo, who had already passed the limit of ninety years, was in spite of his age and blindness full of vigor and decision.3
The crusading forces mustered at Venice. The fleet was ready, but the Crusaders were short of funds, and able to pay only 50,000 marks of the stipulated sum. Dandolo took ad vantage of these straits to advance the selfish aims of Venice, and proposed, as an equivalent for the balance of the passage
1 Villehardouin, who was one of the six members of the commission (Wailly's ed., p. 11), says, "The Turks could be more easily destroyed there than in any other country." Egypt was often called by the Crusaders "the land of Babylon."
2 Wailly's edition of Villehardouin, p. 452, makes the sum 4,420,000 francs. It reckons a mark as the equivalent of 52 francs. The Grand Council added fifty armed galleys "for the love of God," on condition that during the continuance of the alliance Venice should have one-half the spoils of conquest.
3 Villehardouin describes him as a man de bien grand cceur. He died at ninety-seven, in 1205, and was buried in the Church of St. Sophia. In his reply to the deputation, the doge recognized the high birth of the Crusaders in the words, " we perceive that the lords are in the highest rank of those who do not wear a crown " (Villehardouin, 16 ; Wailly's ed., 13).
"212 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1291.
money, that the Crusaders aid in capturing Zara.1 The offer was accepted. Zara, the capital of Dalmatia and the chief market on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, belonged to the Christian king of Hungary. Its predatory attacks upon Venetian vessels formed the pretext for its reduction.2 The threat of papal excommunication, presented by the papal legate, did not check the preparations ; and after the solemn celebration of the mass, the fleet set sail, with Dandolo as virtual commander.
The departure of four hundred and eighty gayly rigged vessels is described by several eye-witnesses 3 and constitutes one of the most important scenes in the naval enterprise of the queen of the Adriatic.
Zara was taken Nov. 24, 1202, given over to plunder, and razed to the ground. No wonder Innocent wrote that Satan had been the instigator of this destructive raid upon a Christian people and excommunicated the participants in it.4
Organized to dislodge the Saracens and reduced to a fili bustering expedition, the Crusade was now to be directed against Constantinople. The rightful emperor, Isaac Angelus, was languishing in prison with his eyes put out by the hand of the usurper, Alexius III., his own brother. Isaac's son, Alexius, had visited Innocent III. and Philip of Swabia,
1 Villehardouin, 56 sqq. ; Wailly's ed., 33 sq.
2 Villehardouin mentions only the proposition to go against Zara. Kobert of Clary and other writers state that Dandolo made a previous proposition that the fleet should proceed to Mohammedan territory and that the first booty should be used to pay the Crusaders' debt. He then substituted the propo sition to go against Zara, and the Crusaders were forced by their circum stances to accept. There is some ground for the charge that in May, 1202, Dandolo made a secret treaty with the sultan of Egypt. See Pears, 271 sqq.
8 Villehardouin and Robert de Clary. Clary's account is very vivacious and much the more detailed of the two.
4 A deputation afterwards visited Innocent and secured his absolution, Villehardouin, 107; Wailly's ed., 61. The news of the death of Fulke of Neuilly reached the Crusaders on the eve of their breaking away from Venice. Villehardouin, 73; Wailly's ed., 43, calls him le bon, le saint homme.