4TH XDE 1.3

Question 1

Tensions grow between the crusaders and Alexios IV

Answer 1

1203, Winter

Question 2

Byzantines try to destroy the Venetian fleet using fire ships, deftly avoided by the Venetians

Answer 2

1204, 1 January

Question 3

Coronation of Emperor Nicholas Kannavos; Alexios IV appeals to Crusaders- Mourtzouphlos leader of the resistance to the Crusaders, won’t stand for this

Answer 3

1204, 27 January

Question 4

Imprisonment of Alexios IV and coronation of Emperor Alexios V Mourtzouphlos – now four emperors; Mourtzouphlos kills Emperors Isaac and Kannavos, and suspends three crusaders in front of the city walls and personally ignites them

Answer 4

1204, night of 27 January

Question 5

Strangulation of Emperor Alexios IV by Mourtzouphlos; justification for Crusaders to invade Constantinople- no food, hostile, usurper, Orthodox Church in open schism

Answer 5

1204, 8 February

Question 6

‘The March Pact’; agreement between the Venetians and the crusaders for the division of spoils should they take Constantinople; all booty to be pooled, with payment of remaining debts to the Venetians to take priority; a committee of six Frenchmen and six Venetians to decide the Latin emperor; a further committee to decide the division of Byzantine lands, with Venetian gaining economic dominance; campaign to the Holy land postponed until 1205; oaths taken not to assault women or clergy once Constantinople was captured

Answer 6

1204, March

Question 7

First assault on Constantinople; Crusaders sail across the Golden horn; failure- bad wind and firm defence; morale low; clergy ratchet up their rhetoric; Greek Christians are “worse than the Jews”, God was just testing their resolve; holy communion taken and prostitute expelled from the camp

Answer 7

1204, 9 April

Question 8

Second assault on Constantinople; some resistance but then the winds change; part of the walls taken by two French knights; a group from Amiens break through a small, makeshift wall on the shoreline; crusaders then open a gate to let the others in; by nightfall Crusaders hold the districts close to the Golden Horn

Answer 8

1204, 12/13 April

Question 9

Mourtzouphlos flees, remaining leadership surrenders in attempt to stem the violence

Answer 9

1204, night of 12/13 April

Question 10

Sack of Constantinople lasting three days; takeover of palaces by Crusade leaders is fairly orderly; rank and file ransack churches and houses, including the cathedral of Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Christ Pantocrator, and rape and murder inhabitants; actions later scorned by Byzantine writers; 300-500,000 marks worth taken- enough to fund a Western state for a decade

Answer 10

1204, latter half of April

Question 11

Count Baldwin of Flanders elected the first Latin Emperor of Constantinople; anointed and crowned a week later

Answer 11

1204, 9 May

Question 12

Boniface of Montferrat seizes Thessalonica; the Venetians take Crete and Corfu to set up their trading empire; Villehardouin establishes himself in the Peloponnese peninsula

Answer 12

aftermath of the conquest of Constantinople

Question 13

Innocent III speaks glowingly of the Crusaders in Constantinople for gaining the submission of the Eastern Orthodox Church, awards full crusading privileges for the defence of the Latin empire

Answer 13

1204, November

Question 14

Battle of Adrianople, a calamitous defeat inflicted by the Christian king of Bulgaria, Kaloyan, after repeated pillaging of Bulgarian towns and villages by Latin knights; Emperor Baldwin disappears and Louis of Blois dies; this defeat prompts first of a series of appeals to the West

Answer 14

1205, 14 April

Question 15

Death of Doge Enrico Dandalo in Venice, unreleased from his vow

Answer 15

1205, May

Question 16

Innocent appalled at the details of the sack of the city, and dismayed that the papal legate in Constantinople had ended any chance of the crusade going on to the Holy Land by releasing the men from their vows for the practical purpose of the defence of the vulnerable Latin Empire

Answer 16

1205, by mid-year