CHAP. VII.

COMMERCE.

133

the mistress of the human mind-commercial enterprise. Venice was rising towards the zenith of her Venice. greatness, if with some of the danger and the

glory of the Crusades, with a far larger share of the wealth, the arts, the splendour of the East. The sagacious mind of Innocent might seem to have foreseen the growing peril to the purely religious character of the Crusades; but he miscalculated his power in supposing that a papal edict could arrest the awakened passion for the commodities of the East, and the riches which accrued to those who were their chief factors and distributors to Europe. There was already a canon of the Lateran Council under Alexander III. prohibiting, under pain of excommunication, all trade with the Saracens in instruments of war, arms, iron, or timber for galleys. Innocent determined to prohibit all commerce whatever with the Mohammedans during the war in the East. The republic, according to her usual prudence, sought not by force and open resistance what she might better gain by policy; she sent two of her noble citizens, Andrea Donato and Benedetto Grillon, to Rome to represent with due humility, that the republic of Venice, having no agriculture, depended entirely on her commerce; and that such restriction would be her ruin. Innocent brought back the edict to its former limits. He positively prohibited the supply of iron, tow, pitch, sharp stakes, cables, arms, gallies, ships, and ship-timber, either hewn or unhewn. He left the rest of their dealings with the kingdom of Egypt and of Babylon till further orders entirely free, expressing his hope that the republic would show her gratitude by assisting to the utmost the Christians in the East."

Venice alone could furnish a fleet to transport a powerful army. After long debate the three Counts of Flanders, of Champagne, and of Blois agreed to despatch each two ambassadors to Venice to frame a treaty for the conveyance of their forces. The ambassadors of the Count of Flanders were Conon de Bethune and Alard Maquerau; those of the Count of Blois, John of Friaise and Walter of Gandonville, those of the Count of ChamEpist. i. 539.

A.D. 1201.

pagne Miles of Brabant and Geoffroy of Villehardouin, the historian of the Crusade. The envoys arrived in Venice in the first week of Lent; they were received with great courtesy by the Doge, the aged Henry Dandolo they were lodged in a splendid palace, as became the messengers of such great princes; after four days they were summoned to a public audience before the "Sire," they said, Doge and his council. 66 we are come in the name of the great barons of France, who have taken the cross, to avenge the insults against our Lord Jesus Christ, and by God's will to conquer Jerusalem. As no power on earth can aid us as you can, they implore you, in God's name, to have compassion on the Holy Land, to avenge with them the contumely on Jesus Christ, by furnishing them with ships and other conveniences to pass the sea." "On what terms?" inquired the Doge. "On any terms you may please to name, proIvided we can bear them." "It is a grave matter,' answered the Doge; "and an enterprise of vast moment. In eight days ye shall have your answer.' At the end of eight days the Doge made known the terms of the republic. They would furnish palanders and flat vessels to transport 4500 horses and 9000 squires, and ships for 4500 knights and 20,000 infantry, and provision the fleet for nine months. They were to receive four marks of silver for each horse, for each man two; the total 85,000 marks. They promised to man 50 galleys of their Treaty with own to join the expedition. The bargain was ratified in a great public assembly of ten thousand of the Venetian citizens before the church of St. Mark. The ambassadors threw themselves on the pavement and wept. The grave Venetians expressed their emotions by loud acclamations. Mass was celebrated with great solemnity; the next day the agreements were reduced to writing, and signed by the covenanting parties. The ambassadors returned; at Piacenza they separated, four to visit Pisa and Genoa and implore further aid; they were coldly

Ville

hardouin.

CHAP. VII.

CRUSADERS AT VENICE.

135

received by those jealous republics; Villehardouin and Maquerau returned to France. Villehardouin found his young master the Count of Champagne at Troyes, dangerously ill; the youth, in his joy at beholding his faithful servant, mounted his horse for the last time; he died in a few days. Thiebault was to have been at the head of the Crusade. The command was offered to the Duke of Burgundy, to the Count of Bar le Duc; the proudest nobles declined the honour; it was accepted by the Marquis Boniface of Montferrat. The armament suffered another heavy loss by the death of the Count of Perche.

Between Easter and Whitsuntide in the following year (1202) the Crusaders were in movement in all Crusaders parts. But Venice was thought by some to have assemble. driven a hard bargain; among others there was some mistrust of the republic. Innocent had given but a reluctant assent to the treaty of Villehardouin. Baldwin himself and his brother kept their engagement with Venice. The Count of Flanders manned his own fleet, himself embarked his best troops, which set sail for Palestine round by the Straits of Gibraltar. Some went to Marseilles. Multitudes passed onwards on the chance of easier freight to the south of Italy. The French and Burgundians arrived but slowly, and in small divisions, at Venice; they were lodged apart in the island of St. Nicolas; among these was Baldwin of Flanders. The Count of Blois was at Pavia, on his way to the south of Italy, where he was stopped by Villehardouin, and persuaded to march to Venice. The Republic kept her word with commercial punctuality; never had been beheld a nobler fleet; her ships were in the highest order, amply sufficient for the whole force which they had stipulated to convey. They demanded the full amount of the covenanted payment, the 85,000 marks, and declared themselves ready at once to set sail. The Crusaders were in the utmost embarrassment, they bitterly complained of those who had deserted them to embark at other ports. There were multitudes of poor knights who could not pay, others who

"Ha! cum grant domages fu quant ne vindrent illuec."-Villehardouin, c. li autre qui allèrent as autres pors, 29.

pose conquest

had paid, sullenly demanded, in hopes of breaking up the expedition, that they should at once be embarked and conveyed to their place of destination. The Count of Flanders, the Count Louis of Blois, the Count of St. Pol, and the Marquis of Montferrat contributed all their splendid plate, and stretched their credit to the utmost, there were yet 34,000 marks wanting to make up the inexorable demand. The wise old Doge saw his advantage; his religion Venetians pro- was the greatness of his country. It is imposof Zara. sible not to remember in the course of events, by which the Crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land became a crusade for the conquest of the Eastern Empire, that Henry Dandolo had been, if not entirely, nearly blinded by the cruelty of the Byzantine court. His sagacity could scarcely foresee the fortuitous circumstances which led at length to that unexpected victory of the West over the East, but he had the quick-sightedness of ambition and revenge to profit by those circumstances as they arose. He proposed to his fellow citizens, with their full approval he explained to the Crusaders, that Venice would fulfil her part of the treaty, if in discharge of the 34,000 marks of silver they would lend their aid in the conquest of Zara,' (which had been wrested from them unjustly, as they said, by the King of Hungary.) The gallant chivalry of France stood aghast; that knights sworn to war for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre should employ their arms against a Christian city, the city of a Christian King under the special protection of the Pope! that the free armies of the cross should be the hirelings of the Venetian republic! But the year was wearing away; the hard necessity bowed them to submission. The Doge pursued his plan with consummate address. As though he too shared in the religious enthusiasm which was to be gratified in all its fulness after the capture of Zara, on the great festival of the Nativity of the Virgin, Dandolo ascended the pulpit in the church of St. Mark. In a powerful speech he extolled the religious zeal of the pilgrims: "Old and feeble as I am, what can I do better than join these noble cavaliers in their holy enter

Sept. 2.

Called also Jadara.

CHAP. VII.

ALEXIUS COMNENUS.

137

prise? Let my son Rainer take the rule in Venice; I will live or die with the pilgrims of the Cross." But there was a careful stipulation behind that Venice was to share equally in all the conquests of the Crusaders. The Doge advanced to the altar, and fixed the cross in his high cotton cap; the people and the pilgrims melted into tears.

Alexius Com

No sooner was this over than a new and unexpected event excited the utmost amazement among the Arrival of French pilgrims: the appearance of messengers nenus in Vefrom the young Prince Alexius Comnenus, entreat- nice. ing the aid of the Crusaders to replace his father on his rightful throne of Constantinople. After the overthrow of the first noble line of Comnenus, the history of Byzantium had for some years been one bloody revolution; a A.D 1185 to short reign ended in blinding or death was the 1195. fate of each successive Emperor. Isaac Angelus, hurried from the sanctuary in which he had taken refuge to be placed on the throne, had reigned for nearly ten years, when he was supplanted by the subtle treason of his brother Alexius. Isaac was blinded, his young son Alexius imprisoned. But mercy is a proscribed indulgence to an usurper; a throne obtained by cruelty can only be maintained by cruelty. Alexius abandoned himself to pleasure; in his Mohammedan harem he neglected the affairs of state, he increased the burthens of the people, he even relaxed his jealousy of his brother and nephew. The blind Isaac, in a pleasant villa on the Bosphorus, could communicate with his old partisans and the discontented of all classes. The son was allowed such freedom as enabled him to make his escape in a Pisan vessel, under the disguise of a sailor, and to reach Ancona. From Ancona he hastened to Rome; the son of a blinded father, to seek sympathy; a prince expelled from his throne by an usurper, to seek justice; an exile, to seek generous compassion from the Vicar of Christ. He was coldly received. Innocent had already been tempted by some advances-religious advances-on the part of the usurper: he would not risk the chance of subjugating the Eastern Church to the See of Rome through the means of the sovereign in actual possession. The sister of young