Fourth Crusade Historiography / Choniates, Villehardouin, Luchaire, Norden, Runciman

Question 1

Niketas Choniates

Answer 1

The Byzantine perspective. Unsurprisingly denounced the whole affair as deliberately planned aggression, laying the blame on Venetian Enrico Dandolo, whom Choniates believed harboured a grudge due to earlier Byzantine moves to restrict Venetian trading privileges in Constantinople

Question 2

Geoffrey Villehardouin

Answer 2

A participant in the expedition, spokesperson and champion of the crusaders and confidence to its leaders

In a clear account, written in his native French rather than Latin, Villehardouin presented the event as a series of unfortunate accidents

• he blamed those crusaders who failed to show up at Venice in 1202 and contribute payment for passage as the villains of the story, as the expedition was left hopelessly under financed, leaving crusade leaders with no option other than to broker a deal with the Byzantine prince, Alexios Angelos, that they should accompany him to Constantinople and he’ll restore his father, emperor Isaac II, to his rightful throne in Constantinople
• after Isaac and Alexios had been restored to the throne they proved slow in repaying the debt, and when a new uncooperative emperor seized power in 1204, the crusaders, in Villehardouin’s view, had no choice but to attack

Question 3

Achille Luchaire (1846 -1908)

Answer 3

Ignoring the assertions of the Deeds of innocent III, as something written retrospectively to protect the pope’s reputation, Luchaire has argued that Innocent was prepared to accept anything to keep the army together

• the pope was willing to distance himself publicly from the crusade, but in truth was eager to let it run its course, as to profit from its consequences and establish papal primacy over Constantinople

Question 4

Walter Norden

Answer 4

Norden advanced a modified theory of accidents, a synthesis of the theory and accidents and the treason theories.
- rather than observe the event in isolation, Norden contextualised it within the Byzantine relations with the Latin west, finding that the idea of an attack on Constantinople was by no means startling as many westerners had reason for desiring it.

• no such attack was planned during the fourth crusade. It was more so that once the army was at Constantinople with an opportunity and provocation, the leaders naturally seized their chance

Question 5

Steven Runciman

Answer 5

Clash of civilisation theory

• the crusades had the effect of bringing into contact two societies, which had little do with each other in the past, into very close contact
  
  • Runciman saw the arrival of the first crusade as the beginning of the trouble as thousands of nights descended on Byzantine territory on their way to conquer Jerusalem, raising apprehensions amongst byzantines that these armies may one day be interested in occupying other parts of imperial territory

Question 6

Provide a counter argument to Runciman’s theory on the fourth crusade

Answer 6

It is not correct that Byzantium no Western Europe was completely estranged in the years before 1204, as Byzantine empowers regularly intermarried their European counterparts

Not only this, but the Byzantine empire was dependent on European manpower as the Latin contingents made up the the most effective areas of the imperial army