A Brief History
On November 10, 1202, despite letters from Pope Innocent III (a much more popular pope than Guilty III) forbidding it and threatening excommunication, Catholic crusaders on the Fourth Crusade began a siege of the Catholic city of Zara (now Zadar, Croatia).
Digging Deeper
Whereas the First Crusade successfully restored Jerusalem to Christian rule and laid the basis for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, subsequent crusades were far less productive for the crusaders. Jerusalem was lost after the failed Second Crusade. Nor would it be regained during the Third Crusade, even with the participation of Europe’s three most powerful (and badass nicknamed!) monarchs: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (“red beard”), French King Philip Augustus “the God-given”, and English King Richard “the Lionheart”.
The Fourth Crusade occurred over 100 years after the First Crusade and by then times had changed considerably. At least the first three crusades went for the Holy Land and were about undoing the wrong (as perceived by Christians) done in 637 when Muslims captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire. The Fourth Crusade, by contrast ultimately did not even go to the Holy Land, but instead resulted in the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 and the partition of the remnants of the Byzantine Empire among the leading crusaders.
If that is what the Crusaders did to fellow Christians in one of Christendom’s greatest cities, well, let us just say that what happened to Zara two years earlier was not much better. In November of 1202, the crusaders, allied with Venice, challenged Hungary and Croatia for control of the Zara, a rival town to Venice. The crusaders launched the attack on the Catholic city in order to receive Venetian support for their crusade. The combined crusader and Venetian force took the city in just under two weeks.
Pope Innocent III had envisioned the crusaders undertaking an attack on the Holy Land via Egypt, which the crusaders would have had to seize as their first objective. He did not plan anything along the lines of Catholics battling fellow Catholics. His response was to then excommunicate the crusading army and their Venetian allies. He wrote, “Behold, your gold has turned into base metal and your silver has almost completely rusted since, departing from the purity of your plan and turning aside from the path onto the impassable road, you have, so to speak, withdrawn your hand from the plough […] for when […] you should have hastened to the land flowing with milk and honey, you turned away, going astray in the direction of the desert.” The crusaders, now excommunicated from the Catholic Church, instead of heading to Egypt continued onto the Christian Byzantine Empire, in effect destroying it until its restoration several decades later.
The Crusades would ultimately end in failure less than a century after the siege of Zara and even the eventually restored Byzantine Empire was now weakened beyond salvation.
Question for students (and subscribers): Were the Crusaders justified in their attack on Zara? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
Given the amount of daring, betrayal, and adventure associated with the Fourth Crusade, it is not surprising that it has encouraged many an author to tell some of its tales. Some notable examples include these books:
Bartlett, W. B. An Ungodly War: The Sack of Constantinople & the Fourth Crusade. Sutton Publishing, 2000.
Galland, Nicole. Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade. Harper Paperbacks, 2008.
Hook, Christa and David Nicolle. The Fourth Crusade 1202-04: The betrayal of Byzantium (Campaign). Osprey Publishing, 2011.
The featured image in this article, the crusaders conquering the City of Zadar, painted by Tintoretto, is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="659 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=659">149 Comments
Although Byzantium wouldn’t fall for about another two centuries and a half, it certainly didn’t bode well for Christendom to be fighting amongst itself; this crusade seems to be among the least religiously motivated, considering that Zara was sacked by the crusaders in conjunction with the Venetians, who were primarily concerned with knocking down its rival. Attacking Byzantium wasn’t a bright move, mostly because it was the main defense against the Turks and other eastern groups. The entire crusade seems to be defined by self-aggrandizement. Most importantly, who knows what would have happened if Red Beard had not suddenly died while crossing a river?
The fourth crusade was important because it basically ended the Great Schism.
The fourth crusade was important because the Pope essentially split the Church further
The 4th crusade was important because this is when there was separation between church and state.
The fourth crusade is a good example of how power leads to greed. As Christianity spread, people wanted to rule over more and more in order to become more influential to history. The downfall is exactly what we see here, internal wars for control. In the end, all that is achieved is a weaker Christian empire.
The fourth crusade was surprising when the crusaders fought against their fellow believers in Zara, to fund the Crusade and to help the Venetians against their rivals, the city of Zara. They never completed their Crusade to the Holy Land.
The fourth crusade was important because it took a decisive turn from the other crusades. This was the first time that Catholics battled other Catholics. Resulting in the excommunication of the crusading army.
I’d say the the thing about this crusade that was really important was how huge of a failure it was at actually doing what it was intended to do. I mean come on, they went after their own cities!
This fourth crusade was so important because the Catholics wanted and needed to once again retake the land lost by the Byzantine empire to the muslims but instead the Crusaders had other plans and wonted to take what was left of the Byzantine empire. Making this the worst crusade failing in its goals and instead killing Catholics needed to defend Byzantine witch would lead in the complete falling of the Catholic Byzantine empire.
It was important because they didn’t even go to The Holy Land. The went to Constantinople instead. They fought their fellow Christians due to greed and power seeking.
If there was any chance of reconciling Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodoxy, the fourth crusade effectively destroyed it. Final nail in the coffin of cooperation that was the Great Schism, and goodbye Christian influence in the mideast.
The 4th crusade shows how the religions changed over a bit of time, and how they went about meeting their goals. At one point they even battled their own believers which is a turn from the previous crusades.
It was a decisive turn for the following crusades because they went against their own believers and never even made it to the holy land.
The fourth crusade further brought conflict within Christianity and the fight over Catholicism became harder. After the orthodox’s took foot hold in the east it made it much easier for new branches of Christianity to form and split from the catholic faith. The fourth crucade further proved the need for reform and reinforced newly built sects of Christianity.
The fourth crusade was important because it was not against the enemies of the first three crusades, but against other Catholics.
It was not important, it was a blemish on Western Civilization. Just like in Kosovo when American sided with the Muslims instead of fellow Christians and members of Western Civilization. In order to survive and continue to dominant, Western Civilization needs to unite in a universal empire to fight off the Muslim threats to civilization.
This event was important because it ended the great schism.
The Fourth Crusade crippled the Byzantine Empire which resulted in the loss of an important buffer state between the Muslims and the West. Furthermore, the events resulted in a definitive split between the Catholics and Orthodox.
The Catholics were going after other Catholics! They were tearing apart their own cities. The first three crusades went for the Holy Land. The reason that the fourth crusade was so important was because it ended the Great Schism
TMK
It was the decline of the Byzantine Empire and the end of Christianity. It ended the Great Schism.
The fourth crusade was a total disaster. Crusades were originally intended to spread Catholicism, not kill members of it. They never even made it to the holy land, complete failure. However, it did create separation of Orthodox and Roman catholics
It was important because it ended the Great Schism and Christianity at the time. It opened new doore for religion and created separation within the religions.
With all of the fourth crusades faults, it did end the Great Schism.
Through these Crusades, history certainly makes a point that if you fight over one thing for so long, you can lose the REASON you are fighting in the midst of the fight itself.
All that fighting and the goal wasn’t even accomplished, makes you think what if they never attempted it, how it would have been without all the killing
The crusades did not always accomplish what they set out to do. Catholics against Catholics just caused a schism in the Catholic religion which prrobably will never be totally fixed.
This is very interesting and one could argue that this was the beginning of the split in the Church that would become Protestantism some three-hundred years later..
Amazing to think of what may have happened if The Pope hadn’t ended the Crusades…
All these crusades and the Catholics end up fighting against their own people……this just reminds me of how useless going to war is! Attacking another city to get their support…….that is a real winner.
The crusades were ridiculous. You don’t force your beliefs on others.
Funny that the crusaders were excommunicated
The crusades really just showed how essentially pointless wars were.
I had no idea that there were Christian on Christian battles!
I find it kind of ironic that religion teaches people not to kill yet………
Christian on Christian battle… way to send the right message about Christanity guys.Why not have peace movements. That make sense no me….
I have to agree with the below comment that religion teaches and preaches not to kill..yet here we are.
We are human and we are capable of vile disgusting acts. It’s amusing that people are so shocked and or surprised.
People do horrific things to reach their goals… whether it is justified or not! — DAVID
WARDLE
It is so ridiculous that people commit murder, genocides in a sense, and the whole time claim a religious stance.
The whole 4th Crusade should probably not be considered a crusade at all. The men failed miserably in their task. After the first few crusades however, the men probably had no notion of the cause they were fighting for. This crusade is almost as ridiculous as the Children’s Crusade.
Well, you can’t fail much more than to actually accomplish the exact opposite of what you set out to do so I would have to say the 4th Crusade was one of the greatest blunders the of all of history, let alone the history of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately for the Church, another of their greatest blunders, the Children’s Crusade, was soon to follow.
I almost thought that this was some kind of joke. Did these people actually realize what they were doing, or did they not actually care and took advantage of the situation? I feel as if these people really were just riding on the coattails of the crusades in order to cause violence and create gain for themselves.
The Crusades were a complete failure. Only the first and sixth were successful. The fourth was an all time worst as it miserably failed.
The Crusades themselves were not at all successful if you go based on a success rate, which is why I am curious as to why people and rulers back then thought that continuing them would be beneficial for their people.
There were Nine Crusades. Only two were successful in capturing Jerusalem!! Then the Muslims took the city right back. Thousands of lives were lost for no net gain. The Crusades were masked under religious pressure.
Its sad to see that so many lives were lost.
It does seem like the Crusaders lost sight in what they were originally fighting for, and continuing the Crusades just because it had become a sort of tradition. Or they had to honor those who had failed before them by making more attempts in taking over Jerusalem.
I find it very ironic that a war which was originally meant to fight real enemies evolved into a sort of civil war.
It seems that the Christians who led the newer crusades did not take the previous ones into account at all. They basically made the same mistakes as before, but they still kept trying anyway, a total of nine times.
Can the 4th crusade even be considered one considering how unsuccessful it was? The lives lost throughout though is astonishing, people will honestly go to any extent to get what they want
Very interesting that religion teachings tend to gear towards non-violent acts and here that is thrown out the window.
It is amazing the terrible things people do to each other
It blows my mind how there were 9 total crusades and only 2 were somewhat successful!
Interesting read
Don’t understand why there were so many of them if none seemed to really be successful. Just killing tons and tons of people.
Interesting that they were taught so strongly about religion and non-violent life, but yet the carried out horrible acts on each other
Greed can be very powerful! — DAVID WARDLE
its amazing what greed can do to an entire army!!
If only people would actually follow their religious rules and not kill each other!
Religion is hard to understand sometimes
I think sometimes people loose sight of what is really important.
It’s awesome that you attach relevant literature for further reading!!
Just further proof of how horrible people will be to each other if they think they can use religion to justify it.
Like I said before, its crazy how some will act when pressured enough and put into situations
It’s almost as if we’re a war-making species that will find excuses to behave poorly.
Crusaders were definitely motivated since there were so many of them and all were so unsuccessful yet undeterred.
It is always sad to think of religion as death.
The Crusades are such a confusing subject. So much back and forth
I don’t understand why there had to be so many Crusades..one would think they’d stop fighting after the first or second Crusade..
I have to wonder if there wasn’t a better way to try and get support from Venice…
You’d think they would find another approach or just give up after the fourth crusade (which I didn’t know happened 100 years later). Wow! You’d think they would have another strategy by then.
It is ridiculous that religion even led to violence between the same religion.
Oh no way… Another crusade? This article even says that the first 3 were for the holy land and undoing the wrong… The 4th crusade just seems like unneccesary violence not to mention within the same religion
Its amazing how a concept can go from claiming a holy land into just constant failures and attacking of their own religion.
A new generation essentially thought they could take their crack at glory and instead had the same failure as prior crusades.
It is crazy to see something that originally had a good meaning behind it turn into killing people of your own faith! So disappointing!
I guess I really don’t understand why it was necessary to have a 4th crusade when the third crusade had already failed and divided Christians and other Christians. It was pointless and makes no sense
You would think they would try to band together and become more unified and try to fix things… I guess not.
You would think they stop with these crusades since the 3rd one didn’t work out. Also I feel they should of banned together and not not go on an attack one another. Seems like greed and revenge drove the 4th crusade
It is so sad how religion is used to justify people wanting to gain glory through conquering other nations.
I agree with Thomas , its crazy sad
i didnt know the crusades went to the Christian Byzantine Empire, in effect destroying it until its restoration several decades later.
Very sad indeed
It’s crazy how much of a role religion plays in just about everything
The Crusades laid the foundation for so much hate in Europe that still exists today. It is so sad that even after all this time very little has changed the mentality of those who think it makes sense to fight and kill for their religion.
The war on the Holy Land is still going on today. The crusades were just a footnote in this long history of conflict in this realm.
The Fourth Crusade was a fascinating event to me in history, something that I would like to look into further over the winter break.
It seems like the ego’s of the leaders on the fourth crusade made of had a lot to do with the issue. The men seemed to have no regard for their Pope who gave them the mission and appear to have gone rogue. Even though the Pope excommunicated these men it seems like it had no effect on their behavior.
This was obviously more about money and prestige than religion, but I suppose that could be said about most wars.
Something that is hard to grasp is the fact that the leaders are fighting over their religious issues and killing because of it. You would think there would be less murder and more compromise and agreement, unfortunately that is rarely ever the case.
I think that is funny that people are fighting there own people. Seems kind of pointless to me. But it still goes on in the world today. But I don’t think it was fighting about religion I think it was more than that.
None of the crusaders really worked out. I’m not really understanding why they would try for a fourth crusader.
I think that all of these religious wars are traumatizing me. It’s sickening to see how many wars were “backed” by religious reasoning and I just don’t understand why they would continue with such evil. It’s very sad and we’re doomed to repeat history if we don’t know it, but with all of the fighting in the Middle East right now I wondering if we’ve already been doomed, for a very long time.
I just find it odd that people are fighting others that are just like them, but may have a slight difference in a beliefs. It is pretty sad that people fight and are willing to kill over religious beliefs, it almost makes you wonder if there is more to it than religion.
Wow greed wins the day again, isn’t it ironic how “holy warriors” turns on their own so easily?
I personally feel like religion has done so much harm when it is supposed to be a model for morality.
You know, it is truly amazing how many wars are based off of religious purposes. It is really sad to me that religion could cause such a mess when you would never think of religion to be something to go to war over.
It seems like religion plays a role in just about everything
The Crusade IV: Civil War. The crusades are like a bad movie series that should have stopped after the first one. Even after enlisting a star studded cast for the third installment, they still sucked it up. Not sure why they thought a fourth one would be a good idea.
It’s a shame that religion can play a part in so much violence especially when people of the same faith start to turn on each other.
I feel like the original purpose of the crusades was long lost by the fourth crusade. attacking another Christian place will not help in trying to spread Christianity.
Religion always seems to start some type of war or battle. You still see the battle of putting religion on people. For example, look the the Islamic State. Spreading the teachings of what they believe and they don’t care if you like it or not.
It’s amazing how often religion is the root of war yet those same religions teach us not to kill one another. The dichotomy has existed for centuries
If you are willing to fight someone who stands for the same thing you believe in, something is obviously wrong.
religion has always taught us right from wrong, and even today we are fighting each other for what religion is “right” or the religion we should believe in. being killed for what you believe in is sick.
This might as well be genocide in a way people fighting people
So much death with religion, it is sad.
Violence mixed with religion is just dumb. Everyone should be able to believe in what they want without violence.
War knows no bounds, I mean for heavens sake they are fighting their own people.
I’ve never understood violence in the name of religion even when they still know some of the things they do are wrong.
Sounds like the ending of all of the other crusades: pointless violence and killing.
These articles don’t shed much positive light on religion with all the violence
The history of religion is largely the history of violence. Our modern times are actually the least violent religious times ever. How ’bout that?
A lot of these articles just go to show how strongly people believe in and will fight for their religion but also how blinded they are in the idea that their religion is the only “right” religion.
sounds like a common case in the hood, or poorer areas. Black on Black crime , gang violence well maybe close to off topic but you get the point same stuff happens today.
Religion has caused so many different wars in history. I never got this because religion is suppose to promote peace not violence.
Religion itself has caused countless battles and wars but for a battle to become between two of the same religion is different. They are putting the God they commonly believe in and follow in the back of their heads while they battle of something that they are putting before their beliefs and their God,
You know things have gone to far when soldiers must fight their own people to get support from another society.
sad to say but religion will always be controversy and have violence involved
After reading this article, I just didn’t see the point why Catholics fighting other Catholics. It’s just sad that there always has to be violence in religion.
I didn’t know there was an attack on the catholic city, and why the same religion people were fighting against one another. I don’t see the point of that.
It’s hard to understand why a group would be willing to fight each other instead of just coming together.
Instead of negotiation and compromise the people had turned to killing others not too different than themselves. It’s a shame there had to be so much violence.
If you look at today’s world, there is not as near as much violence as there was hundreds of years ago.
It seems like people were just fighting out of boredom.
I don’t understand why people of the same religion were fighting.. I guess it doesn’t surpise me because people still fight agaisnt there own people.
Now Catholics are attacking other Catholics nothing like a catholic war.
The Pope had no intention of Catholic on Catholic battle, he was innocent.
Sad that they thought they had to fight against each other.
Its sad that people dont result to more peaceful acts instead of fighting all the time
I wish people would find more peaceful ways to resolve a conflict rather than just fighting and killing their own people.
it sucks that the crusades ended in fsilure after going through so much
despite the warning they went ahead with the crusades. who can blame them? they already allowed and followed many crusades or the belief of killing many for their religion. so of course if someone tells them no thats no big deal, they already kill for the sake of their religion which can be seen as a big thing in itself
What is it with popes and very violent accidents.
I wish the human race would learn how to peacefully settle things rather than just killing all the time, but I highly doubt this will ever change.
After all this time and resources spent, they ended up where they started. This would be very frustrating.
Once people start fighting their own friends then you know that they are in a bad position.
I hate that they failed and had to go right back to where they started. That’s the thing with fighting over everything that goes wrong, its a waste of time and you don’t get anywhere.
As a catholic I am not surprised. We still fight each other to get on top.
It seemed just like blind rage. People were just attacking each other on blind intentions.
You would think that after the first two attempts at least.. that they would maybe learn to stop going for the Holy city but hey.. Guess not
Catholics fighting Catholics… this is why religion is confusing to me. All four of the Crusades are just giant fails.
History shows us many examples of factions within a religion fighting each other. Even the Amish community in Ohio has had violent confrontations! Right now the most notable example of sectarian violence is the Shia vs. Sunni Muslim conflict in the Middle East.
I never even knew there was a fourth crusade…the events of Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade led me to believe they stopped after the third. Nevertheless, it always seems to be the same old thing, fruitless conflict between Muslims and Christians.
I feel like the pope only caused more problems for the Catholic crusaders who had fought for their religion. He could have at least welcomed then back to their home instead of excommunicating them.
A lot of counterintuitive stuff goes on when dealing with religion, with a lot more politics, conniving, plotting, and treachery than you would think is appropriate for “men of God.”
People fighting their own people…what is the point? Was there even a moment to discuss things? It seems like a wasted effort sometimes.
Wars and fighting usually seem like a good idea at the time, and a bad idea in retrospect.
I don’t understand how people with the same belief system turn on each other and go to war.