FOUNDING THE LATIN KINGDOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Having conquered Constantinople and presumably the empire hitherto ruled
from its palaces, it now devolved upon the Latins to select an emperor
from their own race. Twelve electors were chosen, six from the Venetians
and six from the crusaders, to whom was delegated the responsibility of
making the final choice. These met at the Church of our Lady the
Illuminator, which was located within the walls of the palace of
Bucolion. After celebration of mass the electors took a solemn oath upon
the relics deposited in that church, that they would bestow the crown
upon him whom they regarded as the ablest to defend and exalt their new
possessions. To silence any popular opposition to their choice, the
bravest of the guards were placed about the palace, pledged to maintain
the election.
There were three, possibly four, preëminent candidates for the imperial
honor. Dandolo was recognized as chief in ability, but he was far
advanced in years and could promise at best but a brief tenure of the
sceptre; besides, the Venetians themselves were not agreed in asking for
his elevation. If the doge of Venice should have his capital in the
East, Venice herself, the queen of the Adriatic, would sink beneath the
splendors of the queen of the Bosporus. The men who had exalted their
city to that of chief prominence in the maritime world were naturally
jealous of this transfer of prestige. Dandolo himself was astute enough
to foresee the danger and declined to contest the election.
Boniface, as head of the crusaders, was next in prominence. He had,
moreover, sought to make himself more eligible by marrying Maria, the
widow of the late Emperor Isaac, that thus he might secure the loyalty
of the Greeks. But his election would be fraught with disadvantage to
Venice in that his alliance would be first of all with his relative,
Philip of Swabia, and, in the event of the union of the East with that
German power, Venice would be politically overshadowed.
It is alleged by some writers that Philip himself was proposed. He was
at the time, as we have stated, contesting the sceptre of Germany with
Otho, who had been approved by the Pope. Philip’s acquisition of the
Eastern sceptre might give him predominant weight in the West and
possibly convert the Pope to his interests, especially as thus the union
of the churches would be facilitated. Thus the reasons urged against
Boniface were of equal force against Philip.
Dandolo declared his preference for Baldwin, Earl of Flanders. This
chieftain was but thirty-two years of age, a cousin of the King of
France, and of the blood of Charlemagne. He had proved his bravery on
many a field, and was, moreover, unobjectionable to the more ardent
among the crusaders from the fact that, unlike Boniface, he had taken no
active part in originally diverting the movement from its legitimate
destination against Syria and Egypt. The French, who were the majority
in the host, sided with him. Between the parties of Boniface and Baldwin
it was agreed that, in the event of either attaining to the immediate
government of the empire, the other should acquire as his special
dominion the Peloponnesus and the Asiatic provinces beyond the Bosporus.
While the electors deliberated the crowd without waited with anxiety. At
midnight, May 9th, the doors of the church were opened. The Bishop of
Soissons announced the decision: “This hour of the night, which saw the
birth of God, sees also the birth of a new empire. We proclaim as
emperor Earl Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaut.” The successful candidate
was raised upon a shield and carried into the church, where he was
vested with the vermilion buskins. A week later he was solemnly crowned
in St. Sophia. At the coronation Boniface attended his rival, carrying
in the procession the royal robe of cloth of gold.
But Boniface’s loyalty scarcely endured the strain put upon it. He soon
exchanged the dominion of the Peloponnesus and Asia Minor, which had
been assigned to him by the electors’ agreement, for that of Salonica.
Over this he and Baldwin incessantly quarrelled. This strife between the
leaders was the indication of the dissensions everywhere among the
Latins in their greedy division of the estates of the new realm.
The chief actors in that stirring drama soon passed off the scene.
Baldwin was captured, and probably murdered, by the Bulgarians before
Adrianople in 1205, and was succeeded by his brother Henry. Dandolo,
having acquired the title “Lord of a Quarter and a Half of all the Roman
World,” died June, 1205. A slab recently discovered in St. Sophia is
inscribed, “Henrico Dandolo,” and probably marks his grave. With all his
faults, the modern Venetian might well cry with Byron:
“Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo,
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium’s conquering foe!”
Boniface two years later was mortally wounded in a fight with the
Bulgarians in the Rhodope Mountains. Mourtzouphlos was soon taken
prisoner and hurled headlong from the column of Theodosius, thus
fulfilling a local prophecy relative to the column, that it should
witness the destruction of some perfidious ruler.
It is not within our scope to narrate the history of the Latin empire
thus established. For fifty-seven years it maintained a precarious
existence, and finally fell again into the hands of the Greeks, who had
constantly menaced it from their opposing capital of Nicæa (1264).
The most serious consequence of the capture of Constantinople by the
Latins was the new hope and opportunity imparted to the Turks. The
Greeks, with all their weaknesses, had for generations been a buffer
between Islam and Europe. The empire had stood like a wall across the
great highway of the Asiatic incursion. If the Greeks had been generally
the losers in the struggle, they had maintained sufficient power to
occupy the arms of their contestants, leaving the Christians of the West
free to prey upon the Moslems of Syria and adjacent countries. Now all
was changed in this respect. The war of Latins with Greeks engrossed,
and largely used up, the power of both as against their common enemy.
Though the capital had fallen, the Greek everywhere was still the sworn
enemy of the Latin.
In the meantime the Moslems were compacting and extending their military
power. They were growing in multitude by the migration of new swarms
from the original hive in the farther East. They were destined to become
too strong for Christendom to resist, to move steadily on to their own
conquest of Constantinople, and even to knock at the gate of Vienna. The
words of Edward Pears are undoubtedly warranted: “The crime of the
fourth crusade handed over Constantinople and the Balkan peninsula to
six centuries of barbarism.”