0:00

Cool fact, a crocodile can't stick out

0:02

its tongue. Also, you can get health

0:04

insurance for a month or just under

0:06

a year in some states. UnitedHealthcare short-term

0:09

insurance plans, underwritten by Golden Rule Insurance

0:11

Company, offer flexible, budget-friendly coverage for you.

0:13

Learn more at uh1.com. One.

0:15

Size fits all seems like a good

0:17

idea for close. Their stress a A

0:19

it's a T. Shirt until you tried

0:22

it on. Same goes for your

0:24

health care. That's why United Healthcare

0:26

offers a variety of flexible, budget

0:28

friendly coverage for medical vision, dental,

0:30

and more so whether you're between

0:32

jobs, coming off a parents plan

0:34

or even messed open enrollment, you

0:36

can find the plan that fits

0:38

you. Best find out more about

0:40

United Healthcare Coverage at U H

0:42

one.com That's You H One. Dot. Com.

0:55

Hello everyone and welcome to the

0:58

history of Byzantium Episode Two Hundred

1:00

and Ninety Three. Governing.

1:02

Constantinople. With. John Deep

1:04

fried. Today.

1:08

Is the last of our Vantage

1:10

point episodes as we look around

1:12

Constantinople itself. What was

1:14

the physical state of the city and

1:17

a lot and rule? And what was

1:19

the Latin government like? What was the

1:21

relationship for example, between the new quote

1:23

unquote Emperor and his nobles? To

1:26

talk us through these topics we're joined

1:28

by Dr. John Keep Reed who you

1:31

heard last week telling us about the

1:33

Venetian colony the capital. John

1:35

completed his Phd in Medieval History

1:37

at St. Louis University in Twenty

1:39

Fifty, and then went on to

1:41

work out the Hebrew University of

1:43

Jerusalem, Georgia Southern University, East Georgia

1:45

State College, and since Twenty Twenty

1:47

Two has been a faculty member

1:50

at the University of Vienna. There

1:53

he teaches history and digital humanities,

1:55

and his academic work focuses on

1:57

the Crusades and Crusader States. And

2:00

European interactions with the Mongols.

2:04

His doctoral work was on the final

2:06

Latin Emperor of Constantinople, Baldwin the Second,

2:09

and he will be back on the

2:11

podcast in a couple of episodes. Time

2:13

to tell us his life story. Today

2:16

that we focus on New Rome itself,

2:18

he is the interview and as I

2:20

often do, I will button from time

2:22

to time to add a few more

2:24

details. John.

2:27

Deep fried welcome to the history of Byzantium.

2:30

Thank. You so much Robin! I have

2:32

been listening for years and it's an

2:34

honor to i'm be here with you'd

2:36

say a while. It's a pleasure to

2:39

have you end up. It's wonderful always

2:41

to be talking to someone is actually

2:43

working on the material right now and

2:45

dance and uncovering new insights and that

2:47

we bring you in at this juncture

2:49

to tell us more about what's going

2:52

on. In Constantinople itself

2:54

because blow the action in the

2:56

narrative has been happening out in

2:58

the Balkans and we've been talking

3:00

about ah see it all a

3:02

scarce in Anatolia and people are

3:04

trying to were. Still,

3:07

the power vacuum that's opened up

3:09

with the sack of Constantinople. So

3:11

what's going on back in the

3:13

city itself? And the yeah, the

3:15

new a Crusader administration am. And

3:18

so the first thing I'd I think. We'd.

3:20

Like to talk about his is the

3:23

sack itself. In the so physical state

3:25

of Constantinople, I'm. Because. I

3:27

in my coverage of the sack, I

3:29

felt it was important to push back

3:31

on the kind of Wikipedia version of

3:34

history which suggests that the Crusaders committed

3:36

this some. Crime. Against Humanity destroying

3:38

the sir. Wonderful pristine city and

3:40

damn I had a lot of

3:42

caveats to that and sounds like

3:44

you are a very much on

3:46

the cabbie outside and don't want

3:48

to cook. Correct some errors in

3:50

that sort of popular version of

3:52

of the Sack and the physical

3:54

destruction of Constantinople. I

3:57

think now part of what

3:59

we. The been dealing with

4:01

is some historians cast long

4:03

shadows so steven run in

4:05

the great present and as

4:07

to call that fit the

4:09

Fourth Crusade the greatest crime

4:11

against humanity in history and

4:14

that sentiment basically. Was.

4:16

The dominant sentiment of every

4:18

account of the Fourth Crusade

4:20

for the next fifty years.

4:22

Ah, and really is the

4:24

dominant sentiment in every account

4:26

of it. And I think

4:28

if you step back and

4:30

look at the way. The.

4:33

Primary sources say what happened

4:35

happened, We get a very

4:37

condensed picture and we shove.

4:40

Everything. That happened wrong

4:43

from say. Andronicus to

4:45

Twelve Sixty One and the Business

4:47

going back into three warble days

4:49

of looting and destruction and violence

4:52

and mayhem that are the collectively

4:54

the worst, horrible possible thing that

4:56

could And and I think part

4:59

of this is narrative convenience. That.

5:02

Historians very much like to

5:04

say and then horrible things

5:06

happen to Constantinople and list

5:08

off everything. But. If you

5:11

read the sources about all of

5:13

those things, you find that they

5:15

didn't all happened at the same

5:18

time and that so much of

5:20

the destruction is really spread out.

5:22

And if you're counting the. Most.

5:26

Dangerous parts. The worst time to

5:28

be a person or something and

5:30

cultural value in Constantinople. The Sack

5:33

of Constantinople is not the worst

5:35

period. It may not actually the

5:37

second. There might be a period

5:39

later that's slightly worse. but it

5:42

is not as if those three

5:44

days are the epitome of evil.

5:46

Ah, and that everything comes together.

5:49

John. Is arguing along a similar line

5:51

to the one mentioned by Matt Lauer

5:54

a few episodes ago, but actually Constantinople

5:56

was slowly to spoiled over a much

5:58

longer period of time. Essentially

6:00

from Andronicus arriving in the city and

6:02

allowing the locals de sac, the Italian

6:05

caught his old way through to the

6:07

end of Latin rule as some eighty

6:09

years later. As

6:11

a reminder am after Andronicus attack

6:13

the Latins, he was overthrown by

6:16

Isaac Angle. Us and his supporters

6:18

stormed the palace when Andronicus was

6:20

ousted, and then Isaac Angles his

6:22

allies looted some of the suburbs

6:24

and when they defeated the rebel

6:27

general Alexis Roofs he was overthrown

6:29

by his brother Alexis angular communists

6:31

who then ransacked the tombs of

6:33

the Emperor's in order to pay

6:35

off his debts. And then the

6:38

great Palace was looted again by

6:40

the followers of. John the Fat.

6:43

And all of this before the

6:45

creases even arrived would sort of

6:47

pushes back against the idea that

6:49

Constantinople was a pristine repository of

6:51

the ancient world, which the Crusaders

6:53

was solely responsible for destroying. Their

6:55

behavior, as I argued at the

6:57

time, was better than is commonly

6:59

believed. For example, the

7:01

most famous account of Latin degeneracy

7:04

comes from Coney Artist where he

7:06

describes the Ikea some fear being

7:08

stripped of all it's wealth and

7:10

prostitutes dancing on the patriarchs throne

7:13

and beasts of burden being brought

7:15

into Carter Way the loot but

7:17

only to dedicate on the floor

7:19

am but says John. This particular

7:22

scene didn't actually happen. If

7:25

there's one passage that people remember,

7:27

it's just that it's this famous

7:30

passage where he talks about the

7:32

destruction of the highest vs are

7:34

they tore down the economist asses

7:36

and they toward out. Ah the

7:39

silver ammo and it's an eight,

7:41

smashed up the altar and all

7:43

the jewels were divided and all

7:46

of it. Ah, all of it

7:48

has just gone and destroyed and

7:50

taste as all these fantastical stories

7:53

of ah carrying and oxen. Ah

7:55

was by were dragging things out

7:57

and the prostitute sitting on the

7:59

page. the three arcs thrown and all these

8:01

colorful things that are there. The

8:04

problem is it didn't happen. It

8:06

didn't happen that way at all. So

8:09

how do we know that? Well, if

8:12

you want to talk about the problems

8:14

that come with Konyati's account, it's pretty

8:16

simple. He wasn't there. He

8:18

was hiding in a house protected by his

8:20

Venetian friend. He stays there under that friend's

8:23

protection. And then on basically

8:25

right after Easter, he and his family leave

8:27

the city. They never get a chance to

8:29

see it. And he doesn't

8:32

come back to Constantinople until 1206.

8:37

What we do know is that

8:39

there is an eyewitness who sees

8:41

what the High Azifiyah looks like a

8:44

week after the sack of Constantinople. And

8:46

that's Robert of Clary. So Robert

8:48

of Clary, you might remember, is

8:50

a knight

8:53

from northern France, who is one of

8:55

the vassals of one of the more

8:57

important lords. But he is one of

8:59

the two main Latin historians that

9:02

we have, who's the kind of there. And

9:05

after the sack is done, and after

9:07

Easter, basically the sack

9:10

ends and people just go around being

9:12

like tourists. And they see all the

9:14

sites that you would see as if

9:16

you're on pilgrimage to Constantinople. Now, a

9:19

lot of stuff has been stolen, but a lot of stuff

9:21

still remains. And the parts

9:23

that still remain are the parts where

9:26

the powerful lords exerted their control

9:28

over and said, we are going

9:30

to keep this mostly in

9:32

place. So for the

9:35

most part, places like the Blakir and

9:37

I, where Baldwin

9:39

of Flanders hung out, was

9:41

left largely intact at this period. The

9:43

Great Palace, where the leader of the

9:45

crusade, Boniface Montfort,

9:47

was perfectly intact. Everything

9:50

is still there. Everything is still

9:52

going to be there by the 1240s, when

9:54

it gets sold off by John Apprian, involved

9:56

in the second, to deal with their mounting

9:58

deaths. importantly also

10:00

the Hagia Sophia because the

10:03

patriarchs palace and the Hagia Sophia are

10:05

taken over by the most formidable person

10:07

in the entire crusade and that's Enrico

10:09

Dandolo. Dandolo is literally

10:11

sitting right there he knows

10:14

that this is going to be the

10:16

seat of a Venetian patriarchate in a

10:19

couple weeks or a couple months from now and

10:21

he does not want his sort of crown

10:24

jewel literally the place where a year from

10:26

now he's going to be buried to be

10:28

totally destroyed and so with there's

10:32

going to be some things taken

10:34

but if you listen to what

10:36

Robert of Clary has to say

10:38

that he very clearly

10:40

in his account says it's all

10:42

still there so his

10:44

account he says that the church of

10:46

San Sophia was entirely round there were

10:48

domes there were columns he goes and

10:50

talks about all the things that the

10:52

columns do but then you get to

10:54

there that and there was not a

10:56

door on the church nor its hinges

10:58

that were not made out of silver

11:01

the master altar of the church was

11:03

so rich and beyond price the table

11:05

of the altar was made of gold

11:07

and precious stones and he goes and

11:09

just talks about the iconostasis and the

11:11

dome over the altar and all the

11:13

stuff that Coniante says is destroyed here

11:15

a week after the sack it's

11:17

still there and in the

11:19

accounts of the coronation of Baldwin of

11:22

Flanders and of Henry that altar is

11:24

still there it's not it is not

11:27

it is not destroyed for at least a

11:29

year and a half and my

11:32

best guess as to it clearly

11:35

is gone by the time Coniantes is

11:37

back in the city otherwise

11:40

him writing his history and passing it

11:42

off saying that everything was destroyed and

11:44

if it's still up there he has

11:46

no sort of historical legitimacy he is

11:48

sort of filling in the gaps but

11:50

forgetting that the sack of

11:53

Constantinople really isn't just one

11:55

moment one three-day period in time

11:58

it's a gigantic process. Just

12:01

to go back to Carneati's description

12:03

of the Ajiya Sophia for a moment,

12:07

by the time Carneati's writes that

12:09

he's in Nicaea and

12:12

presumably writing for an audience who want to

12:15

hear that, that they want to

12:17

hear the Latins did everything terrible

12:20

you could imagine. And so

12:22

that story is calibrated for

12:24

their expectations. And

12:27

so the stuff may be gone by

12:29

that point, but he's imagining how bad

12:31

it would have been. And

12:34

he's writing for an aristocracy who basically

12:36

left the night before. That

12:40

these are people who also, like him,

12:42

left and don't know what's happened for

12:44

a year and a half. That

12:47

the people who are gathered

12:50

around the Las Caras court

12:52

in Nicaea haven't been

12:55

back to Constantinople don't know. Carneati's,

12:58

we think because he's temporarily trying to get

13:00

a job with the Emperor Henry, but that

13:02

doesn't work out. So he goes to Nicaea

13:04

where it also doesn't work out. But

13:09

it's still play. He still

13:11

has to sort of appeal to the line,

13:14

but more of what

13:16

Carneati's is doing is he's

13:18

just writing a lament from

13:21

classical and biblical tropes that

13:24

Alicia Simpson has written a beautiful book on

13:26

Carneantes. And although it doesn't talk nearly as

13:28

much about the sack as I would want

13:30

it to, she really

13:33

likes to highlight that so

13:37

much of what he is doing is

13:39

he is writing in a way that

13:42

is emphasizing classical

13:45

and biblical precedents. And

13:48

his account of the fact of Constantinople might

13:51

as well be the book

13:53

of lamentations for the destruction of Jerusalem

13:55

in the Old Testament. You just change

13:57

Jerusalem for Constantinople and it's essential.

14:00

the same thing. So

14:02

the Ahia Sophia was eventually robbed of

14:04

its wealth but not during the initial

14:06

occupation, only later when the

14:08

Venetians ran out of money and had

14:10

nowhere else to turn. Had

14:13

the Latin Empire been a success, it's possible

14:15

they wouldn't have taken all the things they

14:17

did. The

14:19

actual three-day sack of the city, says

14:21

John, was far from the most destructive

14:24

phase of the impoverishment of Constantinople. That

14:27

would obviously be the fires which the

14:29

Crusaders set during the siege. The removal

14:31

of the remaining wealth of New Rome

14:33

happened relatively slowly over the next few

14:36

years and John identifies

14:38

five phases of this destruction.

14:42

There is sort of this phase zero

14:44

of the various Greek civil wars that

14:46

Max Lao was talking about and then

14:48

you sort of have five phases of

14:51

destruction organized by the Latins.

14:55

One is the unintentional destruction by the fire.

14:58

The second is the sack

15:00

proper, those three days where they are

15:03

just taking everything that's not nailed down

15:05

from the general parts of the city.

15:08

What you then have afterwards is

15:11

sort of over

15:13

the summer and autumn of 1204, a

15:15

lot of unorganized post-sack looting.

15:19

And then phase four really sort of you

15:22

could argue is probably

15:25

more culturally destructive than

15:28

the sack is. And that's really what's going

15:30

on in 1205-1206 in the aftermath

15:33

of the Crusader defeat of Adrianople. And

15:37

Adrianople was about

15:39

the if the Crusaders were going to suffer

15:41

a terrible defeat

15:43

on the battlefield, not only did

15:46

they lose the Emperor who was captured

15:48

and one of the leading nobles in

15:50

Louisa Blah and most of their army,

15:53

They also lost them at exactly

15:56

the time that all the Venetian

15:58

contract for their ships. In

16:00

ah and the crusaders year long promised

16:02

to stay Ah which all the Crusaders

16:05

were made to swear a promise from

16:07

after the court order to stay for

16:09

about one year in order to do

16:11

this. Also the Venetian fleet of can

16:14

say here for one year and that

16:16

in one year promise ran out exactly

16:18

after there was this devastating loss in

16:21

battle. ah ad everybody is like okay

16:23

I'm to go home at this point

16:25

there is sort of a mass exodus

16:27

and you have large scale sort of.

16:30

Cultural looting it off to doesn't help

16:32

that the Doge is now dead and

16:34

there is no central leadership on the

16:36

Venetian park. and no one knows exactly

16:38

what happens because the council they are.

16:41

We. Do know in this period that

16:43

the new Emperor Henry is that this

16:45

point he needs to pay a soldier's

16:48

he's out of money and that is

16:50

when a year and a half later

16:52

he melts down all the statues ah

16:54

the ancient Greek statues that are in

16:56

the Hippodrome. And though this which in

16:59

many kids. including. Yours have

17:01

the Fourth Crusade you lump in do and then

17:03

the fact they melted down all the statues and

17:05

all this I was a year and half later

17:07

and is a response to the destruction that goes

17:10

on there. I suspect

17:12

this is when the highest of the

17:14

of his looted and taken for pieces.

17:16

This is when the famous picture of

17:18

the catwalks ah and the horses is

17:21

are going to be taken as well.

17:23

Ah I'm and you also have a

17:25

whole bunch of. Goodbye

17:27

gifts might. Here. Have

17:30

some relics. Tell your friends to

17:32

come back and help. Ah, and

17:34

so the Byzantine Imperial Relic collection.

17:37

While. The wholesale selling

17:39

of it ah is going to

17:41

go down. Another. Thirty.

17:43

Five years and future, or mortgaging

17:45

in redemption and all that is.

17:47

You can sell rocks. There's a

17:49

large number of relics sent away

17:51

with. Departing procedures in the

17:53

hopes that this will encourage more people

17:56

to come back and make up for

17:58

the man power shortage. And

18:00

I think it's fair to say

18:02

by the end of Twelve o'

18:04

Six. The great

18:07

wealth of Constantinople as left on

18:09

the Venetian fleet and then left

18:11

with the departing Crusaders and while

18:14

precious and cherished relics like the

18:16

Crown of Thorns like the large

18:18

sections the True Cross stay behind.

18:21

The. Number of men were left.

18:23

can't maintain the city can't

18:25

me pain in infrastructure and

18:27

so phased by. The final

18:29

phase is basically fifty years

18:32

of data and neglect where

18:34

we're getting down to. The.

18:36

Guy or the last laugh number

18:38

of Constantinople. The only way he

18:40

can make money is by taking

18:42

lead off the roof of the

18:44

great palace and melting. It down and

18:46

selling the lead. And that's kind

18:49

of like the sad sort of

18:51

climax. an end to this. Sort.

18:53

Of. Long.

18:56

Sad century of destruction

18:58

that befalls Constantinople. Of

19:01

course, it's little consolation to us that

19:03

the sacking of the city was spread

19:05

out over the course of the lot

19:08

an occupation. but he does again put

19:10

into context the behavior of the Crusaders.

19:12

They did attempt to preserve some important

19:14

parts of Constantinople, but the shocking defeated

19:17

Adrian Opal, and the sudden departure of

19:19

most of them and power saw the

19:21

city for the emptied and from then

19:23

on the situation became ever more desperate,

19:26

meaning any movable wealth was eventually going

19:28

to be taken. As

19:31

we've seen in the narrative peloton Emperor's

19:33

we're working with very limited resources. Few

19:36

men stays around to serve a new

19:38

emperor. Many went to Greece of the

19:40

Aegean. A new arrivals were as likely

19:42

to sign up with the Romans at

19:45

my see A or oppress as they

19:47

were the administration of Constantinople. The

19:50

Pope had not convincing the argued that

19:52

dying in the Balkans would save any

19:54

one soul and the new Roman states

19:56

were offering better pay. The.

20:00

Nature of land in Imperial power.

20:03

Further, Hamper their ability to command

20:05

men to do their bidding. John.

20:07

Now explains the constitutional set up

20:10

of the Latin administration. As.

20:13

Someone who teaches the Middle Ages star

20:15

to undergraduates a lot of the time

20:18

that when you look at American and

20:20

British government or any the British have

20:22

a better sense of discuss new you

20:24

have Magna Carta. Ah that We talk

20:27

a lot about democratic Athens and Republican

20:29

Rome. as like this is the bedrock

20:31

of modern democracy and the all go

20:33

back to Greece and Rome. We forget

20:36

that it's the Middle Ages that brings

20:38

us or the idea of a com

20:40

a written constitution which neither Athens or

20:42

Rome ever. Had Ah and

20:44

the idea of a bill

20:47

of rights. Both of these

20:49

are distinctly medieval institutions, mostly

20:51

negotiated between the aristocracy in

20:54

the king's that is not

20:56

you know, great popular democracy

20:58

but him. Early

21:00

British democracy until the nineteenth

21:02

century and even knew the

21:04

earliest American government was not

21:06

exactly a a meeting was

21:09

not democratic in that half

21:11

the population I women not

21:13

to mention slaves and people

21:15

who didn't hold property ah

21:17

were left out of it.

21:19

But generally speaking, the idea

21:21

that you have a republic

21:23

really rests on like. The

21:25

idea of a constitutional rights and

21:27

that's very much a medieval institution.

21:30

And. When I talk

21:32

about Medieval constitution civil rights, everyone

21:35

goes to Magna Carta. But Magna

21:37

Carta it is not alone. I

21:39

like to call this moment the

21:41

medieval constitutional reaction that in the

21:43

twelfth and. Thirteenth. Century. In

21:46

Western Europe you have people like

21:48

King Henry the Second England and

21:50

King Philip of Right Gustus of

21:53

France. Ah who basically. Were.

21:55

able to consolidate large

21:57

powerful royal states And

22:00

they handed it over to their successors

22:03

to either use or misuse as they

22:05

see fit. And when it comes to

22:07

misuse, we get to Magna Carta and

22:09

famously King John. And

22:12

you have the nobles reacting to

22:14

this as their way to limit

22:16

the excesses of the monarchy, you

22:19

get Magna Carta. Now Magna

22:22

Carta is not a document in

22:24

isolation. All over

22:26

Europe, there are these

22:28

constitutional treaties between the

22:30

aristocracy and the rulers of

22:33

these countries. It happens in Hungary in 1222

22:35

with a document known as the Golden Bull,

22:37

which is against the excesses of King Andrew

22:39

II. You also in the

22:42

Holy Roman Empire have what's called the Statute in

22:44

favor of the princes in 1231. And

22:47

you see this especially in crusade

22:51

in areas affected by the crusades.

22:54

It's in a frontier situation like

22:56

a crusader conquest that you can

22:58

really have the most leverage for

23:01

nobles to have over their lords.

23:04

And the fourth crusade as a

23:06

collection of nobles, where you're taking

23:09

one out of them to

23:12

be raised up higher than everyone

23:14

else, really gives you a chance

23:16

for the nobility to

23:18

exact confessions. Whereas in

23:20

the West, you really need sort of a King

23:24

John level, incompetent monarch to

23:27

get something like Magna Carta. That's

23:29

why when you have a century

23:31

of like successful rule in France

23:33

of people like Philip Augustus and

23:36

St. Louis, like literally a

23:38

saint king, you don't get this kind

23:40

of reaction because you have centralized power

23:42

and you have a good monarch. But

23:44

where you don't have the power or

23:46

where you don't have a good monarch,

23:48

the aristocracy of the 13th century are

23:51

really pushing back. And

23:53

I think the Latin Empire is one

23:56

of, if not the best cases of this.

24:00

So does this negotiation

24:02

take place right immediately after

24:04

the sack or does

24:06

this pushback go on over time? So

24:10

it's basically three documents make up

24:12

what could be called the constitution

24:14

of the latin empire One

24:17

is the march pact This is the

24:19

treaty that all the crusade leaders make

24:21

before entering the city Before they're about

24:23

to try to attack the city and

24:26

this lays out we're going to elect

24:28

an emperor If the emperor is a

24:30

frank the patriarch will be appointed as

24:32

a venetian and vice versa It

24:35

says we are going to have a partition treaty where

24:37

we divide up the land Which will be

24:39

half divided up and the emperor gets a

24:41

quarter of the land and the other

24:43

three quarters are divided up half for

24:45

franks half for venetians And

24:48

you have this idea that there is

24:50

going to be us there There's going

24:53

to be some rules that come in

24:56

About how we sack how things are

24:58

divided how the money is brought up.

25:00

So basically the rough system Principle

25:03

that we are going to elect an emperor

25:05

and a patriarch and divide up the land

25:07

is there Then you have a

25:09

partition treaty which happens later in Later

25:12

in 1204 in october where

25:14

everything is divided up And

25:17

that is sort of the second pillar of

25:19

this constitutional system. Here are the lands This

25:21

is what we're all supposed to get more

25:24

or less Finally the most

25:26

important part of this is the

25:29

coronation oath of the emperor henry the treaty

25:31

of october 1205 So

25:33

baldwin has died Henry

25:36

is regent But henry wants to be crowned

25:38

as emperor in his own right and he

25:40

is going to make a lot of concessions

25:42

to do this One of those

25:44

concessions is to hand over a very

25:46

powerful famous icon of the hoda gaitria to

25:48

the venetians and The other

25:51

main concession he makes is this This

25:53

coronation oath that he has to take

25:55

and every emperor after him has to

25:57

take and this coronation oath sets up

26:00

an executive council, which has the

26:02

Emperor, the leader of the Venetians

26:04

in Constantinople, the Pudestat, and

26:07

then six Frankish barons

26:09

and six Venetian barons. And

26:11

together, they, this council

26:13

decides when we go for war

26:15

and peace, where we attack, it limits

26:17

when the, when the

26:20

Emperor can bring war, it

26:22

demands that the Emperor has to pay

26:24

for siege weapons and other things as

26:27

part of, as part of the campaign,

26:29

and that this council is going

26:31

to be in charge of looking

26:34

at making sure the partition is

26:36

done fairly, and that law and

26:38

justice is respected within the empire.

26:40

And sort of most importantly of

26:43

all, this count, this

26:45

council can try anyone in

26:47

the empire, including the Emperor

26:50

himself who can be removed

26:52

as Emperor, if he violates the

26:55

terms of the three treaties, the

26:57

march, uh, packed before it,

26:59

the partition, uh, or this

27:02

coronation oath of the Emperor Henry.

27:04

And this constitution

27:07

is, this oath is

27:10

repeated by every, uh, by

27:12

every subsequent emperor. You can see

27:14

in various treaties, when you bring

27:16

in people from outside, they all

27:18

have to agree to these positions.

27:20

And when they're promising certain lands

27:22

to one of the imperial, like

27:24

one of the external emperors that

27:26

they're bringing in a guy named

27:29

John Abrian, who's a former king

27:31

of Jerusalem, what he's

27:33

allowed to get is only what

27:35

is allowed to be given to

27:37

the emperor under this period. So

27:40

even though he wants to give

27:42

some lands that may fall into the

27:44

Frankish or Venetian territory, that is technically

27:46

not allowed. And that is revised out

27:48

of the various versions of the treaty

27:51

that you can see. But

27:54

I'm pressing my case a little bit

27:56

here, but you can make the argument

27:58

that the Latin empire Constantinople

28:00

is Europe's first constitutional

28:02

monarchy. And while

28:04

you can't say there's a direct line from

28:07

Henry and Constantinople to King John and Runnymede

28:09

that flows all the way through to the

28:11

American founding fathers, what you

28:13

can say is that this sort

28:16

of very early act

28:18

of rebellion in the medieval constitutional

28:20

reaction a decade before Magna Carta

28:23

is the beginning of a wave

28:25

that is sort of cresting over

28:27

the monarchies of Europe and

28:30

is one step along the way to a

28:33

world of constitutional government, justice under law

28:35

and written bills of rights. And

28:39

it's very much completely forgotten that

28:41

this is one of the good

28:44

historical developments of the Latin

28:46

Empire that no

28:49

one, no one seems to notice

28:51

except for one footnote in one small

28:53

article and one passing

28:56

reference somewhere else. And

28:58

so I hope I have made my

29:00

case that this is a important

29:02

document and an important moment. And

29:04

while it's not Magna Carta, it

29:07

is part of that same story. Yeah,

29:10

and it's slightly

29:13

ironic in narrative terms because

29:16

it's the worst thing

29:19

for the survival of the Latin Empire to

29:22

divide power and to be held back

29:25

and to splinter

29:28

your resources when

29:31

you don't really control these lands. It's

29:34

true. And the same thing is

29:36

said about the Golden Bowl of

29:38

Hungary as well, that while we

29:40

look at these as great historical

29:42

events today, the weakening of central

29:44

power in Hungary and basically the

29:46

nobles taking larger and larger control

29:49

and not listening to a central authority means

29:51

a generation later, the Hungarian state is so

29:53

weak, the Mongols are just going to roll

29:55

over it and destroy it. And

29:59

if you look at the Huns years after Magna

30:01

Carta in British history, it's generally not

30:03

fun times again. And

30:05

you know there's a civil war where the barons take over

30:07

and it's not

30:09

really until Edward I that everything is

30:12

back in line working in England particularly

30:14

well. These

30:17

constitutional limits on the Emperor's power

30:19

made his task even harder. If

30:22

the Latin Empire was going to survive with

30:24

the limited manpower it had available, then a

30:26

centralized system of power would have been needed,

30:30

like the Roman Empire which they had

30:32

destroyed. But that

30:34

would have gone against the grain of

30:36

European constitutional practice, as John

30:39

argues. Between

30:41

this delegation of authority and the

30:43

disinterested Venetian presence, the

30:45

Crusader occupation of Byzantium was doomed to

30:48

fail. You

30:50

really have fractured foundations all around

30:52

and a lot of the

30:54

weaknesses of Latin rule where

30:56

they start out with all the advantages.

30:59

They spend more time fighting with each other,

31:02

dividing power and weakening

31:06

themselves such to a point that they could

31:08

never get in the state to win. That

31:10

I think as much

31:12

as I'm a historian of the Latin Empire,

31:14

as much as I love the guy I

31:16

wrote my PhD on the last Latin Emperor

31:18

Baldwin II, even I will say basically with

31:20

the death of the Emperor Henry, the

31:22

project is dead. Thank

31:24

you so much to John. We will hear more from

31:26

him in a moment and he'll be back to tell

31:28

us about the life story of Baldwin

31:31

II in a few episodes time. For

31:33

now, that is the end of our

31:36

vantage point perspective. I hope you've enjoyed

31:38

the whiff of 2008 in this medieval

31:40

tale. In our next

31:43

episode the narrative will move forward again

31:45

with just three remaining perspectives, those

31:47

of Epirus, Constantinople and Nicaea.

31:50

It will be their conflicts which will determine

31:53

the fate of the Roman world. But

31:56

I have a couple more questions for John before we go.

32:00

in queries about academia for the professor

32:02

called the less Q&A. So I asked

32:04

John about a couple of things he's

32:06

working on. The first is

32:08

about a digital database being created at

32:10

the University of Vienna. I

32:13

teach history and digital

32:15

humanities at the University of Vienna.

32:18

My the head of digital humanities

32:20

Tara Andrews is working on sort

32:22

of a giant project called relevant

32:24

or reevaluating the 11th century. Historians

32:27

love create giant databases that

32:29

have every possible bit of

32:31

data every person object date

32:33

that we can categorize and

32:35

find, you know, search

32:37

through we all grew up in a land

32:40

where you could search for anything at any

32:42

time, and you didn't have to open 500

32:44

books to find every reference. So

32:46

you build the database that has all everything

32:49

in those 500 books, so that you

32:51

can save yourself the time of rereading

32:53

and searching through 500 indexes. relevant

32:55

is another one of these gigantic

32:58

databases trying to understand sort

33:00

of what's going on in

33:02

Eastern Christian Byzantine world around

33:05

the period of the Battle of Mansekert in

33:08

the second half of the 11th century how

33:10

things change how things transform. It's

33:13

also sort of the test project

33:15

for a new methodology a new

33:17

way of doing large databases. And

33:20

it has to do with something that

33:22

is a problem for all historians, but

33:25

especially working in my field that

33:27

in history, there are very few

33:30

undisputed facts, even on

33:32

basic questions of what

33:34

day was this person born or what year

33:36

was this person born what year did this

33:38

person die. You have

33:41

different databases, so different

33:45

data points. And so how do

33:47

you as a database deal with the fact

33:49

that there are five sources,

33:51

three of them say that this historical figure died

33:53

in this year and two died in this year.

33:56

So one that you could do is you could

33:58

just choose one choose the one that you

34:00

think makes the most sense as a

34:02

historian. When my first job

34:05

after I finished my PhD was working

34:07

at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and I

34:09

was working on a giant database of the

34:11

Mongol Empire and when there was a

34:14

disputed fact you just picked

34:16

what you thought as the researcher

34:18

as this is the most

34:20

likely reason but I didn't have to explain

34:22

it. There are other

34:24

giant databases like the prosopography of

34:26

the Byzantine world that just gives

34:28

multiple death dates and just says

34:30

this person died in this year

34:32

or this year or this year

34:35

and doesn't make a statement beyond

34:37

that. What Relevin

34:39

is trying to do is

34:42

to add sort of the idea

34:44

of claims into a database.

34:47

Basically when you have a question

34:49

of what year did figure x

34:51

die you say well this

34:53

source and this source claims that he

34:55

died in 1148 but this source and

34:57

this source claim that he died in

35:00

this year and that way

35:02

you can build sort of a network

35:04

and a hierarchy that gives you

35:06

a sense that gives you a

35:09

deeper picture a more accurate picture

35:11

of how you sort

35:13

of build and think about a database. So

35:16

I am not working on Relevin. They're in

35:19

the same office as me on the other

35:21

side but what they did

35:23

made me think that if there's

35:25

ever something where we have to

35:27

evaluate various different eyewitness claims the

35:29

fourth crusade is very much

35:31

a case of we need to work on this.

35:34

So I am borrowing their model

35:37

and trying to come up with

35:39

my own database looking especially at

35:41

the movement of people and objects

35:43

during this long sack of Constantinople.

35:46

So what can we say about

35:48

the individuals what is going

35:50

on in this period to try to

35:52

get a sense of the mobility of

35:54

people of armies of objects of relics

35:57

of like what can we what do

35:59

the sources. say about these things as

36:02

they move. And I'm at the

36:04

beginning of this project. I will have

36:07

a lot more interesting things to say

36:09

half a decade from now than I

36:11

do now. But I think the idea

36:13

that we as historians have to not

36:16

just say, this is the date, this

36:18

is the date, and more attest our

36:20

claims when we're working in these large

36:22

databases is a useful thing. It's

36:24

not the most fun project I'm working on,

36:26

but I think it is a useful

36:29

historical framework when we're dealing

36:31

with sort of large digital databases.

36:34

A really interesting idea. Particularly when I

36:36

was reading about all the relics, that

36:38

you can actually track some of them. Some

36:40

of them are still in place and have

36:43

their written attestations

36:45

and things. And so, yeah. So this

36:47

is one of the projects that I've

36:49

been on and off working on that

36:52

the famous reformer,

36:54

John Calvin, said

36:58

that there was enough wood from

37:00

the true cross that you could

37:02

build a cargo and that John

37:05

the Baptist had to have at least like, must

37:07

be some sort of hydro with like six or

37:09

seven heads every time you cut off a head

37:11

and you one sort of comes in. But

37:15

one of the things that I've been working

37:17

through looking at the relics and you look

37:19

at the various pieces that

37:21

there is a relic of the head of John the Baptist that had

37:24

been hanging out in Constantinople

37:26

from about the time

37:28

of Heraclius onwards. And if you

37:30

look at all the purported

37:32

quote unquote heads of John the Baptist

37:34

all over Europe with the exception of

37:36

one that's off in Spain, and

37:39

you look at the descriptions of what those are,

37:42

I think you can basically put together

37:44

that each of the various

37:46

pieces of the skull are accounted

37:48

for. And that basically it's one

37:50

Byzantine head being divided into about

37:53

10 or 12 different relics of

37:56

the head of John the Baptist. But yeah, that's

37:58

one of the things that I'm... very

38:01

much trying to work on. Yeah

38:03

really interesting. And so

38:05

the other question was about

38:07

teaching because obviously the aim

38:10

of this podcast is to bring history

38:13

alive and obviously

38:16

teachers at universities can just

38:18

give the same lecture for 20 years

38:20

and maybe it's a good lecture and that's what they

38:23

do but you're you're trying something

38:25

different with the with the Fourth Crusade.

38:28

When you're an academic so much of

38:31

your day is really about teaching at the undergraduate

38:33

level and that's the most fun that's the most

38:35

fun part of the job for me is dealing

38:37

with students maybe if

38:39

I just get really tired of translating all

38:43

these medieval documents all the time. One

38:46

of the things that I discovered

38:48

as a graduate student is a

38:50

series of role-playing games called reacting

38:52

to the past. Basically what you

38:54

do in the this period in

38:56

one of these games is that you put

38:59

the students into a key moment in history

39:01

by putting them in the shoes of

39:04

historical figures and then giving them the

39:06

text that their historical alter egos would

39:08

read would have read and then have

39:10

them debate each other in sort of

39:12

written and oral arguments. So you have

39:14

one game in the series where the

39:17

students are assigned to be one

39:19

of the various American founding fathers and they

39:21

go debate what the US Constitution should look

39:24

like or you have one

39:26

set at the First Council of Nicaea

39:28

where students like Constantine and all the

39:30

various bishops both Orthodox and Arian and

39:32

try to debate out and figure out

39:34

what the creed should

39:36

historically look like and I think it's great

39:39

because students are part of teams which are

39:41

called factions and each of the

39:43

factions are sort of working together to get

39:45

their collective argument brought forward and to make

39:47

as much of an influence as here. So

39:50

I taught other games

39:53

I loved it so much and one day

39:56

after sort of giving an academic paper

39:58

talking about the stuff we talked about

40:01

earlier, one of my colleagues came up to

40:03

me and said this would make a really

40:05

good reacting to the past game. So we

40:08

sat down, we wrote it, we

40:10

iterated it, and after half a

40:13

decade of work on it, it was published.

40:15

It is a game about the

40:17

Fourth Crusade. It starts in March

40:19

1204, so Alexius

40:22

IV is dead, Alexius V has

40:24

just given the Crusaders basically an

40:26

ultimatum, leave or else, and

40:29

so the students are made,

40:31

each get to portray one of

40:34

the historical Crusaders and

40:36

have to decide do we stay, do

40:38

we fight, do we go on to

40:40

Jerusalem, is it moral for us to

40:42

attack the Greeks, is this in line

40:44

with our goals as crusading, and they

40:46

read and understand what exactly a crusade

40:49

is and learn about sort of what

40:51

just war theory means in

40:54

this period. They then sort of go

40:56

on debate the March Pact, this first

40:58

constitutional treaty of the Latin Empire, and

41:01

the students write their own version of

41:03

it. They negotiate power and the power

41:05

and status of the emperor, whether we

41:07

should keep the Pranoia system around or

41:10

whether we should impose like a western

41:12

feudal regime upon the Byzantine Empire,

41:14

what trade rights should Venice get,

41:16

and then all the

41:19

church debates. So they end up

41:21

knowing what the filialque clause is

41:23

and all the various debates about

41:26

papal supremacy, and it

41:28

gives you a sense of what the

41:30

Crusaders and the crusade leaders are thinking of.

41:32

So there are essentially four

41:34

factions. A quarter of the

41:37

class will be various Venetians as attested

41:39

in the historical sources led by Enrico

41:41

Dandolo. You have the northern French with

41:43

Baldwin of Flanders and Liliopoix. You have

41:45

the Crusaders in the Holy Roman Empire

41:47

led by Barnafis of Mont-Brat as

41:49

the third faction, and then a

41:52

fourth faction of the clergy led

41:54

by Nivelant-Soissons, one of the bishops

41:56

on the fourth crusade. And

41:58

because there are all these factions... You also

42:00

have some neutral convinced people who could

42:02

be convinced of the game. So you

42:04

have Robert of Clary as

42:07

one of the playable characters and even some of

42:09

the Greeks who will later come over to the

42:13

side of the Latin, famously,

42:16

Theodora of Raunas. It's a really

42:18

rich period of character history. So

42:21

the point of the game is to sort of put

42:24

them in the footsteps of the Crusaders and when inevitably,

42:27

almost always, they fail, just like

42:29

the Crusaders, to make them realize

42:31

sort of the difficult situation that

42:34

the Crusaders were in. Reacting

42:37

to the past, I love because it's

42:39

a wonderful, different way to

42:41

approach history. Normally, you know, you have

42:43

one lecture on the Fourth Crusade and

42:45

that's all you get. Something like this

42:48

would play out over two or three

42:50

weeks in a classroom where me as

42:52

an instructor, I just sit in the

42:54

back, watch, maybe answer

42:56

a question here and there, and the students

42:59

get to see how the Fourth Crusade played

43:01

out to see what the key decisions and

43:03

sort of turning points are. It's

43:05

been a wonderful experience for all the

43:07

students that I've worked with and the

43:10

whole React into the Past series has

43:13

really transformed my teaching

43:16

and how I make history

43:18

accessible and understandable. Thank

43:20

you so much to John Gipri. He

43:22

encourages those teaching history who like the

43:25

sound of reacting to the past to

43:27

get in touch with him or go

43:29

to reactingconsortium.org to find out more. There

43:32

are published games on that site already

43:34

covering a wide variety of historical topics

43:36

from acid rain to

43:38

ancient Athens and Confucianism to

43:41

Chicago in 1968. Thank

43:52

you. The

44:00

Best! And there's no better place

44:02

to south for Mother's Day than

44:04

Whole Foods Market. there. your destination

44:06

for unbeatable savings from premium gas

44:08

to so stopping, flowers and irresistible

44:10

desserts. Start by saving thirty three

44:12

percent with Prime on our body

44:14

hair and candles, then get a

44:17

fifteen stem bunch of tulips for

44:19

just ninety nine each. With Prime

44:21

round out Mom's the menu with

44:23

festive Rosie, irresistible, very Santillan cake

44:25

and more special treats. Come celebrate

44:27

Mother's Day and Whole Foods Market.

44:29

Need new glasses? Or want a fresh

44:31

new style more? d Parker has you

44:33

better bless a sturdy just Ninety five

44:35

bucks including anti reflective, scratch resistant prescription

44:38

lenses that block one hundred percent of

44:40

Uva rays. Every frames designed in house

44:42

with a huge selection of styles for

44:44

every say, shape and with or be

44:46

Parker's free home try on program you

44:48

can order five pairs to try it

44:50

home for free. Shipping is free both

44:52

ways. To go to War: Be parker.com/covered

44:54

to try five pairs of frames at

44:57

home for free or be parker.com. Slash

44:59

covered.