| Description |
xxii, 374 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 349-361) and index. |
| Contents |
The origins and preaching of the Fourth Crusade, 1187-99 -- Abbot Martin's Crusade Sermon, Basel Cathedral, May 1200 -- The tournament at Ecry, November 1199 -- The Treaty of Venice, April 1201 -- Final preparations and leaving home, May 1201-June 1202 -- The Crusade at Venice and the Siege of Zara, summer and autumn 1202 -- The offer from Prince Alexius, December 1202-May 1203 -- The Crusade arrives at Constantinople, June 1203 -- The first siege of Constantinople, July 1203 -- Triumph and tensions at Constantinople, July-August 1203 -- The Great Fire of August 1203 -- The murder of Alexius IV and the descent into war, early 1204 -- The conquest of Constantinople, April 1204 -- The sack of Constantinople, April 1204 -- The end of the Fourth Crusade and the early years of the Latin Empire, 1204-5 -- The fate of the Latin Empire, 1206-61. |
| Summary |
In April 1204, the armies of Western Christendom wrote another bloodstained chapter in the history of holy war. Aflame with religious zeal, the Fourth Crusade had set out to free Jerusalem from the grip of Islam. But after a dramatic series of events, the crusaders turned against the Christian city of Constantinople, the heart of the Byzantine Empire and the greatest metropolis in the known world. The crusaders spared no one in their savagery: they murdered old and young, raped women and girls, desecrated churches and plundered treasuries, and much of the city was put to the torch. Some contemporaries felt God had approved this punishment of the effeminate, treacherous Greeks; others expressed shock and disgust. History has judged this as the crusade that went wrong, and even today its violence and brutality provokes deep ill-feeling towards the Catholic Church.--From publisher description. |
| Subject |
Crusades -- Fourth, 1202-1204.
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Istanbul (Turkey) -- History -- Siege, 1203-1204.
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| ISBN |
0670033502 alkaline paper |
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