THE BACKGROUND: ROMANS IN EXILE
The Fourth Crusade was an event where a western army which swore an oath to God and their Church that they would go to Egypt to fight for the Holy Land was directed instead against the largest Christian city in the world. The crusaders attempted to divide the entire Eastern Roman Empire among themselves, but not fully succeed. Steven Runciman wrote in Byzantine Civilization that “A Latin Emperor was set up in Constantinople. Latin Lords overran the Greek peninsula…Venice took islands and built colonies along the coastline and won concessions that captured for her the whole Eastern trade. But the attempt to take over the whole Empire failed. Imperial Asia Minor remained in Greek-speaking hands. In the western Anatolian city of Nicaea, Alexius III’s son-in-law Theodore Lascaris established a court that soon became the quarters of the Empire in exile (commonly known as the “Empire of Nicaea”). At Trebizond, a Comnenus declared his independence, and in Epirus, an Angelus, who soon acquired Thessalonica from its Latin Lords. These three self-styled Empires disputed the claim to be the Roman Empire in exile, but Nicaea’s was always the most generally accepted and in the end triumphed.”
The story of the Roman liberation of their sacred capital of Constantinople was the triumph of Nicaea which Runciman is referring to. The Nicaeans had always focused on trying to piece the Empire back together, but it was an overwhelming task. The Laskarid dynasty did a superb job of steering the Empire to first survival, and then expansion. But they would never liberate Constantinople, that would fall to the usurper Michael VIII Palaiologos.
PREPERATIONS:
Around springtime in the year 1260 Michael VIII made his first attempt to seize Constantinople, through a bit of Latin treachery. One of the prisoners captured in the Byzantine victory at the battle of Pelagonia offered to get one of the gates to Constantinople open in exchange for being released. Michael took his force into Thrace and to the outskirts of Constantinople, however the Latin could not match his promises in action.
Michael then had to return to Nicaea and strategize. During the winter of 1260 the Emperor began to put the pieces on place to try to liberate Constantinople. He signed peace treaties with the Seljuk Turks, with the Mongols, and with the Bulgarians. He also had to deal with the Venetian dominance of the seas, and for that he turned to the Republic of Genoa, their great rivals. In fact, the Genoese were so eager it is said they made the suggestion. The result was the Treaty of Nymphaion, giving the Emperor 50 ships to aid his plans. The Genoese were to gain the trade privileges which were enjoyed by Venice in Constantinople, if Michael succeeded. This meant they would pay no trade duties in the entire Empire, in fact. It is arguable that Michael VIII made bad deal to offer such valuable concessions for just 50 ships. But it is possible Michael just thought the means justified the ends and that if the Empire became more powerful it could change things later on. Now the Romans had two Italian republics looking to exploit them economically and dominate their seas.
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: THE CITY IS FREED WITHOUT A FIGHT
As it turned out, this treaty was entirely unnecessary. Michael would never need to implement a naval blockade of Constantinople, nor even really besiege the city. What occurred most certainly must have been seen as a gift from God himself. Constantinople was basically liberated accidentally.
The Emperor sent a very small force under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos to scout out the situation in July 1261. When this force reached the town of Selymbria, 30 milies to the west of Constantinople, Strategopoulos received amazing information. The locals told him that the entire Crusader army and their Venetian fleet had left Constantinople to go on a raiding mission in the Black Sea. Even still the mighty walls of Constantinople would be a huge obstacle even if they were only lightly defended.
Strategopoulos also learned of a secret entrance in the walls, and a spot where ladders would be easier to place. He did not have time to write back to the Emperor, the chance of an easy victory was now or never. I think this undertaking is exceptionally brave, if the Latin army returned at the wrong time he could have been slaughtered with all his men.
His men snuck through the walls, and stealthily took out the guards at the gate, like a scene in a movie. They then chopped down a gate so it could not be closed again, and before any of the defender could raise the alarm the Roman forces had entered Constantinople. They had to go through the streets of Constantinople, but the lack of organization of the defenders made it doable. The “emperor” Baldwin was himself sleeping in the Komnenian palace at Blachernae, and he heard all of this commotion and fled for his life. He ran so fast and so cowardly that he even forgot to bring his own regalia, leaving behind his crown and sceptre.
The Romans then burned the Venetian quarter which lined the Golden Horn. The Venetian fleet, which had been gone, returned only to see their warehouses and homes burning. They saw their wives, children, and families sitting on the shore waiting to rescued and escape. It is likely the Latin force never knew how small of a force Alexios Strategopoulous commanded, or perhaps they would have engaged him. But his victory was total.
The Emperor Michael was 200 miles away, thinking his small army was just scouting the walls, when he received the jaw-dropping news. His sister Eulogia woke him up to tell him was now the Emperor not of just Nicaea, but of Constantinople. Michael, reasonably thinking it was too good to be true, was hesitant to believe this tall tale. However, Stratagopoulos had sent Baldins regalia over to Michael to show him it was true. Michael thanked God, it truly could not have seemed like anything other than Gods will that the city could fall to him in this manner.
According to Donald M. Nicol “At once he summoned an assembly of the people and in their hearing gave thanks to God for what surely must be accounted a miracle of divine favour to the Empire of Nicaea. ‘Many times‘ he told them, ‘have we tried and failed to win back Constantinople. For God wished to show us that the possession of this city was in his gift and his alone. The gift has been reserved for our reign, a fact for which we must be eternally thankful.’
Michael had been a usurper, and there was no better way to prove God backed his legitimacy as Emperor. And there was no greater military victory that could be had than this to legitimize him. No one could deny the liberator of Constantinople as the rightful Emperor.
On August 15, 1261 – a traditional imperial triumphal procession was held in the city on the day of the Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin. Michael entered Constantinople through the famous Golden Gate to walk down the Mese to the Hagia Sophia. The Golden Gate was where Emperors past had entered for their triumphs after great victories, it symbolized the return of imperial power. But this was exceptional, Michael had never even seen Constantinople before. This was more of a religious procession than a military one though. At the front of the procession was an ancient icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, seen as the protecter of Constantinople. Michael himself chose to walk rather than ride on horse, to be humble. God deserved more credit than him.
Michael was to be crowned a second time, this time inside Hagia Sophia like a real Emperor by the Patriarch Arsenios. Arsenios also was getting his proper capital back, the Hagia Sophia was the church of the Patriarch of Constantinople once more. But there is a sad ending to all this. Michael had his two year old son crowned as his heir, but the true heir was John IV Laskaris. Michael was supposed to be a regent Emperor, but now with Gods favor he felt confident enough to get rid of this little problem. The young boy was back in Nicaea, and he was killed. The Laskarid dynasty laid all the foundations of liberating Constantinople, but its fruition led to their demise.
NO WAY BACK TO THE GLORY OF THE PAST:
Just because the Emperor was back, the city’s fortunes were not. The wealth of the city was symbolically and literally stripped during and after the Fourth Crusade, it was impossible to get it back. One cannot simply reverse the desecration of places like the Holy Apostles and Hagia Sophia. It did improve, it did receive investment from Michal Palaiologos, but it could not be brought back to what it was. Michael did try, but he did not have the resources to create a new Late Antiquity style city. It took centuries for Constantinople to recover from its first decline following the Arab invasions and outbreaks of plague. The state had bigger resources then, and the population of Romans was far larger and they demographically dominated more lands. But demographic, fiscal, and territorial decline created a reality which was far different in the 13th century. The following passage from Paul Magdalino describes better than I can the transformation which occurred in Constantinople when it became the capital of the Roman Empire again:
“They were thwarted by the irreversible decline in their territorial base and by the development of the Genoese trading colony in the suburb of Pera into a separate fortified settlement, where immunity from imperial tolls drew business away from the old city. Constantinople became once more, as in the seventh and eighth centuries, a ruralized network of scattered nuclei, though with several important differences. It was now the south coast that declined, as the Great Palace fell into decay, the Port of Julian became a military naval base, and the Jewish quarter, with its stinking tanneries, moved from Pera to Vlanga, near the former Port of Theodosios. The great open cisterns ran dry and served as kitchen gardens. The main foci of power and wealth were now at the corners of the urban triangle, particularly in the Blachernae quarter, and at the east end, where the patriarchal church of Hagia Sophia still remained the center of religious life, but as such looked more to the monasteries on and around the Acropolis than to the decaying civic center to the west. The shore of the Golden Horn, where the Venetians reestablished themselves, took over from the Mese as the main commercial axis. Finally, in a complete inversion of the early medieval situation, the state sector was weak and fragmented, but building continued, albeit on a modest scale. The Palaiologoi operated an even more devolved version of the Komnenian dynastic system and literally encouraged the imperial nobility to enrich themselves at the state’s expense; individuals accordingly built themselves sumptuous palaces and commissioned extensive additions or improvements to old monasteries. Such munificence became rarer from the mid-fourteenth century, when Constantinople was hit by the Black Death and progressively deprived of its agricultural hinterland. Yet profits were to be made in commerce, in spite of, but also in association with, the predominant Genoese and Venetian enterprises. Western visitors described a space “made up of villages, more empty than full,” a ghost city of crumbling tourist attractions that caught the eye of humanists and invited comparison with Rome. But imperial Constantinople, like papal Rome after the Great Schism, was untypical of the wider Mediterranean urban scene, with which it was inextricably involved. In the final decades before the fall, the population numbered seventy thousand, and along the Golden Horn, on the hills above the busy markets, the new three-story houses of a prosperous aristocratic bourgeoisie turned their back on the urban decay behind them, creating a built environment that had much in common with the bustling Genoese business center across the water.”
But Paul Magdalino is just one of many scholars who conclude that the recapture of Constantinople and the successes of Michael’s reign were hollow and they did not strengthen the Empire more than they cost it. The recapture of Constantinople was a big victory, one which was achieved without a bloody siege as well. It did make the map look better, temporarily, and it makes it sound like the Romans made a huge comeback. However, it seems it did not really change the grim reality the Romans faced in the 13th century.
It’s possible with better leaders more could have been made of the situation, but as Steven Runciman put it after 1204: “the harm was irrevocable. Michael entered a half-ruined depopulated city. It was a valuable recovery…and it was glorious for the prestige of the Empire. But it brought problems and expenses that were too much for him to bear. The Genoese had been his allies; they must be paid with commercial privileges which reduced the Empire’s revenues. The Latins found a champion and would-be avenger in Charles of Anjou, now King of the Two Sicilies; he had to be outmaneuvered by a movement for Union with the Latin Church, a movement which infuriated the Emperor’s subjects without restraining Charles. The imperial coinage, stabilized by the thrift of the Nicaean Emperors, began to fall again; and Michael, unable to afford the system of paying his frontier forces with gifts of tax-free land, abolished such holdings in Asia, and so weakened his defenses. On Michael’s death in 1282 the Empire showed the barrenness of its political revival.”
DRASTIC CONSEQUENCES:
Ultimately, the Romans would have to weaken their defenses in Anatolia to deal with Michael’s European aspirations and to invest in Constantinople. The consequences would be severe. And there were many contemporary Romans in Anatolia who were infuriated at this.
Nicaea had been able to convince the local elites that it could defend them and their interests. The Emperor in Nicaea, Theodore Laskaris had to convince a couple other local strongmen to buy into his rule. Laskaris thus was able to show other Romans around him that he could defend them, reward them, and that his state was worth being part of. The Emperors in the newly liberated Constantinople could not match this feat.
The Seljuks also had been able to hold together large swaths of territory under relatively stable conditions as well. Bryers noted in his article that “the coefficient between the decline of centralized government and the spread of pastoralism is familiar enough, but what is striking is not the evaporation of Byzantine authority in western Anatolia and its subsequent supplanting by seven emirates of more or less Turkmen origin, within half a century of the loss of its local government in 1261, but the survival (until 1390) of the one enclave there which had local autonomy and wished to keep it: Philadelphia(Alasehir).”
Local powers could cater to the interest of the local people, and keep them invested in the state enough to resist incursions. Keeping the elites happy and eager to be involved in the affairs of the state was crucial defending any territory. In much of Byzantine history, the Roman state used a system of court titles and salaries to keep the magnates and military commanders of Anatolia looking to Constantinople. The Roman Empire could not keep the local people fighting for it in full strength after the 1260’s.
In contrast to Theodore Laskaris, whom convinced the elites of western Anatolia that his rule was the best path forward, Michael VIII Palaiologos changed the sentiment. George Pachymeres wrote that: “The Emperor had exhausted the treasury and bankrupted the Empire…and he has imposed crushing taxation on the people of these areas to make up the deficiencies…the farmers of Paphlagonia and further afield, unable to find the tax in currency, which they were required to do, gave up the hopeless task and went over to the Turks day by day, regarding them as better masters than the Emperor. The trickle of defectors became a flood, and the Turks employed them as guides and allies to lead them the other way and to ravage the land of those who remained loyal to the Emperor, at first by way of raiding parties, but soon as permanent settlers taking over the land. The Emperor meanwhile turned aeaf ear to all appeals for help, and spent all his energies on the west, disregarding what was at his own feet(Anatolia).”
Pachymeres text is really a great illustration of how the shifted focus of the state from Anatolia to Europe directly led locals feeling their prosperity no longer was tied to the state. For a farmer or town-dweller on the frontier, why fight and day to pay crippling taxes while receiving subpar military protection? Elites would either switch sides or relocate to safer areas. The lost territory was then demographically changed by Turkic settlers. It was a vicious cycle.
SOURCES:
Medieval Constantinople: Built Environment and Urban Development. Paul Magdalino (2002)
The Last Centuries of Byzantium 1261-1453. Donald M. Nicol (1999)
David Nicolle, John Haldon, Stephen Turnbull. The Fall of Constantinople: The Ottoman Conquest of Byzantium (2007)
Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. Judith Herrin (2007)
Steven Runciman – Byzantine Civilization (1933)
shadowsofconstantinople.com 