The final result of the Pope's Crusades
A History of Europe by Henri Pirenne
University Books, first published 1938 but written during the Great War
Sorry for the delay. It's been a little crazy around here.
Book Seven
The Hegemony of the Papacy and of France in the Thirteenth Century
Chapter I
The Papacy and the Church
2. The Papal Policy
p298 It is often said that the 13th century was a theocracy. But we must define the term. If by theocracy we mean a state of affairs in which the Church enjoys an incomparable prestige and in which no one can escape from its moral ascendancy, the 13th century was undoubtedly a theocracy. But it was not a theocracy if theocracy consists in confiding to the Church itself the guidance and government of political interests. [Footnote: Theoretically the Popes aimed at theocracy, although they never actually achieved it, but it was acknowledged that they possessed... a rudimentary power of supreme arbitration, which... often excited opposition, though not quite open conflict.]
p299 [About the Fourth Crusade] ...Innocent III... still inspired by Christian idealism, made preparations for a new expedition [after the Third Crusade achieved nothing] with the intention of attacking Egypt... This time... the kings had had their fill of crusading... The princes of the Low Countries, Champagne, and Blois, set out on the Crusade; but the Venetians, the owners of the fleet, who had not been paid in full for their services (these expeditions were becoming more costly, and the nobles were ruined), persuaded the Crusaders to attack Zara, a Christian city which incommoded their trade in the Adriatic. The Pope excommunicated them, but in vain... The Pope was opposed... [to the plan to attack Constantinople] However, his opposition was ignored... On May 16th [1203, after seizing Constantinople] Baldwin, who had the largest number of soldiers, was elected Emperor and crowned by a Papal legate. Innocent III had suddenly reversed his policy. His confidential agent, the Venetian Tomaso Morosini, was created Patriarch of Constantinople. However, it was not really the Church that profited by this expedition, but mainly Venice, who founded a magnificent colonial empire in the ancient Byzantine provinces.
p301 ...in history nothing is improvised, and here once more we can see how untrue it is that little causes lead to great results. Here the events were on a small scale, and so were their results. The Westerners could enter Constantinople by assault, but they could not keep it... In 1261 Michael Palaeologus, with the help of the Genoese, who were jealous of the Venetians, recaptured Constantinople and restored the Empire. Of the union of the Greek and Roman Churches not a trace was left... The Empire was weaker than it had been [since it was unable to reclaim the lost islands from Venice], less capable of resisting the Turks. This was the practical result of the Crusade!
p303 ...Europe had no need of Syria and Jerusalem. She took them in a fit of enthusiasm and had not the strength to retain them. Their retention would have involved a permanent crusade, and the transformation of all Europe into a military order. This was impossible. Moreover, the agricultural civilization which had made the levy en masse possible was gradually disappearing, so that each successive Crusade was recruited with greater difficulty. The urban populations, and the rural populations who maintained them, could no longer be uprooted. The knights were ruining themselves, and they had to be paid... In the Christian sense of the word, in the sense understood and intended by the Popes, the Crusade had failed, and with it, the pontifical policy. It was shattered against the realities of a Europe whose conditions of political and social life had evolved while the papacy had remained faithful to its ideals... Taking it all in all, the universal policy had been as unsuccessful in the spiritual sphere, with the Popes, as with the Emperors in the temporal sphere.
And yet, the resulting rise of the cities and of the bourgeoisie also lead in time to the global spread of the Roman Church (and the Protestant faiths) in the baggage of colonialism and empire.
History really is just "Good luck. Bad luck. Who knows?" writ large.
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