As The Komnenoi World Turns, S3 E2
Back in Constantinople, calamity followed rebellion followed scandal. As Choniates tells us, the empress Euphrosyne became obsessed with fortune-telling and in her "mad delusions and excessive zeal" she had many statues beheaded and had the snout of a bronze boar that stood in the Hippodrome cut off. She even tried to have the back of the famous statue of Herakles lashed for some obscure occultish purpose.
Constantinople had often hosted exiles, and a new one arrived. Keyhüsrev was a son of Kılıç Arslan, the old Selcuk sultan of Konya. According to the Tarikh-i-al-i-Saljuq, his mother was "the sister of the wife of Kaloyan"; as Kaloyan was married to a Kuman princess, this suggests that Keyhüsrev was half-Kuman. In 1187, Kılıç Arslan was ready to retire, so he decided to divide his lands between his nine sons, his brother, and his nephew. This worked out about as well as you might expect. Continual warfare between the various brothers led to Keyhüsrev fleeing Konya to Syria. There he sought refuge at the court of az-Zahir Ghazi, the son of Saladin, but because az-Zahir "disdained" him, as Ibn al-Athir informs us, Keyhüsrev packed up and went to Constantinople.
Alexios III welcomed Keyhüsrev like the son he'd never had. Ibn Bibi, who was sort of the official court biographer for three Selcuk sultans 1, tells us that Alexios III took Keyhüsrev into his own house and "gave him abundant gifts and countless riches: beautiful horses, golden brocade garments, Byzantine brocade, purses full of gold coins, well-built Kuman slaves, virginal maidservants with blossoming cheeks... That night until daybreak they occupied themselves with pleasures and delights and enjoyed lute and wine until dawn... And that day they remained there, neither living nor dead, because of the pleasantries of the table, so that they were spilling wine from their cups."
According to Georgios Akropolites, Alexios III even adopted him and had Keyhüsrev baptized an Orthodox Christian, with himself as godfather. The baptism didn't "take", but it's the thought that counts. Keyhüsrev also married an Imperial cousin, the daughter of Manuel Mavrozomes 2.
It seemed nearly every month another pretender was trying to topple Alexios III from his throne. Ioannes Axoukh 3, who Niketas tells us was "potbellied and shaped like a barrel", walked into the Hagia Sophia, placed a small crown on his head, and proclaimed himself emperor. In no time at all curious mouth-breathing onlookers flocked to him. Alexios III sent his henchmen to beat Ioannes' followers about their faces and necks until they fled in terror. They then killed Ioannes Axoukh "as if he were a fatted beast", carrying his severed head to Alexios III, who had it mounted so that the public could look upon it.
On another occasion, a floor in the palace collapsed for no reason, sending the emperor's bed falling into a great chasm; Alexios III himself was unharmed, but his son-in-law Alexios Palaiologos 4 was badly injured by the debris, and a eunuch was killed when he tumbled into the chasm. Alexios Palaiologos died soon afterward, although whether from his injuries I do not know, but I think it likely.
In faraway Germany, Alexakos Angelos was pleading his case to Bonifazio of Montferrat and Philipp of Swabia. Irene Angelina begged her husband Philipp and Bonifazio to help her brother and their desperate, pathetic, blinded papa back in Constantinople. Bonifazio decided he needed to consult with the pope, so he and Alexakos set out soon after Christmas 1201 to Rome.
The scheme Bonifazio, Philipp, and Alexakos had come up with was to divert the Crusading army to Constantinople. In 900 years, Constantinople had never been taken by an invading force, but it had surrendered itself many times to a rival emperor. Alexakos was confident that all he had to do was show his face and the common people would rise up on his behalf. This, he felt, was guaranteed on account of Alexios III's dumbassery. Pope Innocent III didn't like this idea. He didn't want the Fourth Crusade getting stalled out at Constantinople.
Things weren't looking too good for the Fourth Crusade. They were supposed to liberate the Christian kingdoms of the Holy Land, but as it turned out, their Christian brothers weren't exactly jumping for joy at the thought of them showing up. The Christian lords were afraid that these newcomers meant to replace them, while the common people were enjoying a truce with the Muslims. When the Crusader envoy, Renaud de Dampierre, arrived in the Holy Land, he begged King Amalric 5 to break the truce. Amalric basically told him to stick his thumb up his ass and get the fuck out of his face. Renaud de Dampierre flounced off and decided to go help the prince of Antioch fight King Levon II of Armenia, only to get captured by the emir of Lattakia and held captive for 35 years 6.
Meantime, the Venetians had busily prepared hundreds of ships for the massive Crusading army that was expected to show up any day now. What actually showed up was a far cry from the 250,000 that had been estimated. At most, 18,000 arrived in Venice in spring 1202. This was nowhere near enough to pay the massive debt owed to Venice for constructing the ships. Villehardouin says that the Crusader leaders gathered what money they could, but that amounted to less than half their debt. Furthermore, a substantial number of would-be Crusaders were actually women, the sick, the weak, and the elderly. The papal legate, Pietro Capuano, actually had to command them to go home.
The Venetians housed the Crusading army on the island of St. Nicholas, but almost immediately the army began to starve and sicken. Many died, others deserted and returned home. Chaos threatened to break out. By October 1202, Enrico Dandolo knew he had to get the Crusader army off his front lawn before they began devouring everything in sight. He offered to postpone the debt the Crusaders owed Venice if they would load up in their ships and go capture the wealthy city of Zara, which lay nearby on the Dalmation coast. The Crusaders were resistant to this, but by this point they had little option. Their numbers had whittled down to about 12,000, and they could neither pay their debt and embark for the Holy Land, nor stay on St. Nicholas and starve.
The Venetians had for a long time claimed Zara for one of their own cities, but lately Zara had been two-timing Venice with Hungary. Enrico Dandolo steered his army of Crusaders directly to their doorstep in November 1202 to get some unholy retribution. The pope sent a letter forbidding the Crusaders to sack Zara, but they had given their word to the Venetians and were in desperate need of supplies, anyway.
Innocent III was furious when he heard that Zara had been sacked. This Crusade was turning into total balls-out buffoonery. Alexakos then made a counter-offer: in return for restoring him to his rightful throne, he pledged to not only cough up money to pay the Crusading debt owed to Venice, but to bring the Greek Orthodox Church under the authority of Rome. Suddenly, if was as if the whole world were within Innocent III's grasp. He could salvage the Crusade. The debt could be paid. The church could be reunited. And for what? Just to march the boy to the gates of Constantinople? And surely once Alexakos had his throne, he would be grateful to the pope who'd put him there...
Bonifazio and Alexakos set out to rendezvous with the Crusader army. The soldiers, already heart sore at having sacked and devoured Zara, weren't eager to go all the way to Constantinople to help this callow boy, but their leaders convinced them. Alexakos had promised a shit-ton of money to pay off the Venetians. Soon, soon, they would be in the Holy Land.
As the Crusading army beared down on him in May 1203, Alexios III finally roused himself to action. Belatedly he had the remaining naval ships repaired, only twenty in number, which had been left to rot and get worm-eaten.
In June, the Crusaders entered Byzantine territory, and encountering little resistance, pushed their way right up to the city walls of Constantinople itself. Their camp was so near the walls behind the Blachernai palace that Niketas tells us that the Greek defenders manning the wall could almost talk to the Crusaders camped out below.
Alexios III sent one of his courtiers, a Lombard named Nicolas Roux, to flatter the Crusaders and offer to pay them off. They blew him off. Instead, Alexakos was put on a boat and rowed back and forth in front of the city's walls, but the locals pelted him with fruit and rocks and shit like that. Realizing that Alexakos' promises that the city would voluntarily surrender to him were as meaningless as a Kardashian's wedding vows, the Venetians broke the chain that blocked the Golden Horn and they and the Crusaders sailed in to pick a fight.
Immediately, it became obvious that the Byzantines weren't going to give up without a fight. The Crusaders built catapults and lobbed stones at the palace. Robert de Clari relates how even the "horseboys and cooks" went into battle armed and "fitted out with quilts and saddle cloths and copper pots and maces and pestles, and they were so ugly and hideous that the common foot soldiers of the emperor [Alexios III], who were in front of the walls, had great fear and terror when they saw them."
Enrico Dandolo himself lept from his galley and led the charge of the Venetians, holding aloft the standard of St. Mark, despite being as blind as Stevie Wonder.
The Crusaders took a battering ram to the city walls, while others swarmed over the walls on ladders and tore through the Greeks there, also lighting a massive fire that consumed a chunk of the city. Alexios III, who until now had been holed up in the palace, was forced to march out with his best troops, accompanied by his kinsmen. Niketas tells us that "had the emperor's troops moved in one body against the enemy" that they might've delivered the city, but instead Alexios III broke and ran back to the palace. There he gathered together everything he could carry, taking with him his daughter Irene but abandoning his wife and other daughters, and snuck out of the city under cover of night.
The courtiers went into a panic when they discovered their own emperor had abandoned them. Not knowing what else to do, they brought out the ex-emperor Isaakios II and placed him on his former throne. Alexios III's wife, Euphrosyne Kamaterina, was thrown into prison, along with her relatives.
Isaakios sent messages to the Crusaders, but they brushed him off. He asked for his son Alexakos; they refused, unless he agreed to honor the covenants that Alexakos had sworn to. Envoys were sent into Constantinople to meet with Isaakios II. Villehardouin tells us they went to the imperial court to find Isaakios II "so richly clad that you would seek in vain throughout the world for a man more richly appareled than he", with his beautiful empress, Margit of Hungary, by his side. It was decided that Alexakos would rule beside him as co-emperor, for the Crusaders didn't trust that the Greeks would keep their word otherwise. The nobles who had been loyal to Alexios III switched sides to Isaakios II and Alexakos. Many prisoners were freed, including a courtier who called himself Alexios Doukas, better known as Mourtzouphlos 7 for his bushy eyebrows.
The Crusader lords asked after Agnes, the widow of Alexios II and Andronikos I, for by birth she was a French princess, the sister of King Philippe Auguste of France. Lo and behold, Agnes, who had twice been an empress and twice been widowed before she was thirteen-years-old, lived in the palace. She met with the Crusader lord reluctantly, Robert de Clari tells us, "she was very cold to them and very angry with them for having come and crowned [Alexios IV]." She refused to speak in her native tongue, explaining that she had forgotten all her French and had to speak through an interpreter. Agnes had become the lover of Theodoros Vranas, the son of the dead rebel Alexios Vranas, and they had a daughter.
The sight of their young companion Alexakos sitting the imperial throne must've been astonishing to the Crusaders. The hall where the emperor received visitors, the Triclinium of the Magnaura, contained a magnificent throne where the emperor sat with gilded lions at his feet. The lions could roar and wag their tails; little gilded birds sang. At the sound of an organ, the throne would lift into the air so that the emperor could look down from on high. A flock of eunuchs served the emperor, while the famed Varangian guard, mostly made up of Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons, guarded his person. Perhaps that Christmas they even got to see an amazing spectacle, related by Benjamin of Tudela in 1161, of a parade of exotic animals through the Hippodrome, "lions, leopards, bears, and wild asses", some of which had been trained to fight one another.
Choniates criticizes Alexakos for his favoritism towards his Crusader friends, describing how he would often visit the Crusader camp to get crunk and play dice. He even allowed them to take the imperial diadem from his forehead and wore a shaggy wool cap the Crusaders gave him. On at least one occasion he brought Mourtzophlos along with him. Another amazing person Alexakos introduced to the Crusader lords was a king "who's skin was all black, and who had a cross in the middle of his forehead made with a hot iron". Alexakos introduced him as the king of Nubia. The Crusader lords gazed upon him with wonder.
Alexakos set out from the city to visit the rest of the empire and receive fealty from the other cities; with him went many of the Crusader lords, notably Bonifazio and Hendrik of Flanders. Baldwin of Flanders and Louis of Blois remained behind at Constantinople with Isaakios II. The Crusader lords were restless and sick of being wined and dined. They wanted Isaakios II to deliver on the money that Alexakos had promised them. The problem was after several disastrous reigns, and now Alexios III looting the treasury for everything he could carry, there was precious little left to pay them off with. Isaakios II resorted to raiding the churches and monasteries, having the icons of Christ hacked up with axes and cast into fires to be melted down into gold and silver.
In August, a force of mercenary Flemings, Pisans, and Venetians attacked the Saracan quarter of the city, intending to plunder their mosques. The Saracens fought back, and the Greeks came to their aid, scattering the would-be plunderers. Angered, these men retreated and lit a fire in retaliation that would scorch most of the city into ashes. The fire roared across Constantinople, burning down part of the Hippodrome. Embers even caught a passing ship on fire.
The mob vented their fury on the Latins who lived within their city. These foreigners, from various lands, fled with their families and joined the Crusading army outside the city walls. When Alexakos returned from his journey, Villehardouin claims he became pompous and forgot "those who had done so much for him", and refused to come visit the Crusader lords in their camps. Isaakios II was himself becoming insane with jealousy over his son usurping more and more power from him. Choniates laments that the emperor ignored everyone but the sooth-sayers who gathered around him, promising him miraculous restoration of his sight and a return to ultimate power. Isaakios II spread rumors about his own son, accusing him of being effeminate and "keeping company with depraved men."
Tensions flared all around. The Greeks were pissed at the Crusaders having forced Alexakos on them as co-emperor, and they gave chilly receptions to those who entered the city to adore holy relics or gawk at the magnificence of Constantinople. Robert of Clari, a knight who wrote a chronicle of his time on the Fourth Crusade, tells us of the many marvels found in Constantinople, helpfully informing us that the bronze statues found in the Hippodrome once could move and talk, but did so no longer 8.
Tired of the delays, Bonifazio and the envoys went to meet with Alexakos, who dismissed them arrogantly, saying he wasn't going to pay a dime, that he wasn't afraid of them, and that he was ready for them to go ahead and get gone. Enrico Dandolo was mad as hell when he heard this. He confronted Alexakos, with dialogue memorably supplied by Robert de Clari:
DANDOLO: Don't you mean to keep your agreement with us?
ALEXAKOS: No, I won't do anything more than what I've done.
DANDOLO: Wicked boy, we pulled you out of shit, and will return you to shit. Be warned that I will seek to do you all the harm in my power from this moment on.
The Blachernai Palace, as recreated by the Byzantium 1200 project.
In the midst of all this we find several young persons stranded in the palace of Blachernai: the sisters Eudokia and Anna Angelina, and their men. Anna and Eudokia had left behind by their father Alexios III and sister Irene. Eudokia's lover, Mourtzouphlos, felt not a shred of gratitude to Alexakos for rescuing him from the chokey. Anna's husband was Theodoros Laskaris, "a daring youth and fierce warrior", who's brother Konstantinos, whom Villehardouin called "the best of the Greeks", was injured during the battles with the Crusaders. Theodoros had been heir-apparent to Alexios III after Irene's husband Alexios Palaiologos' unexpected death. The Laskaris brothers were of somewhat obscure origins; their surname derives from the Persian laskar, warrior.
A riot broke out in January, as the populace gathered together and proclaimed a reluctant young nobleman, Nikolaos Kannavos, their emperor in opposition to Isaakios II and Alexakos. Kannavos' supporters also destroyed an ancient statue of Athena that faced west, believing this statue had beckoned the Crusaders into their city. Mourtzouphlos, who desired the throne for himself, had Kannavos arrested and thrown into prison. He then turned on Alexakos. Niketas Choniates tells us he twice tried to poison Alexakos, but when Alexakos' strong constitution overcame the poison, Mourtzouphlos sent assassins into his room in the dark of night and had him strangled.
Isaakios II died under mysterious circumstances soon after. Robert de Clari claims he was strangled, too; Villehardouin says the shock of his son dying made him fall ill, and then he died.
Thrilled with his coup, Mourtzouphlos quickly had himself crowned emperor as Alexios V. The Crusaders had mixed feelings when they learned of the death of Alexakos. Some cursed Alexakos as a liar, while Robert de Clari says others pitied him, "for it weighed on them that he had been killed in this way".
Mourtzouphlos strutted about in his imperial boots, and sent a letter to the Crusaders, demanding that they get the hell out. The Crusader lords replied with contempt. "He who treacherously murdered his lord by night sends this word to us?" Robert de Clari has them say. They sent warning that they would not abandon Constantinople until Alexakos' murder had been avenged and they had got all the riches they had come for.
1. Keyhüsrev, his son Keykubad, and his grandson Keyhüsrev II. Although Choniates is dismissive of Keyhüsrev, Ibn Bibi's account seems to reflect Keyhüsrev's viewpoint on this time period.
2. Mavrozomes' mother was an illegitimate daughter of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos.
3. Son of Maria Komnene (daughter of Manuel I's eldest brother Alexios) and Alexios Axouch. His father had been exiled by Manuel I back in the 1160s.
4. Son of Georgios Palaiologos, megas hetaireiarches, that is, commander of imperial bodyguards. Alexios had divorced his first wife, a beautiful woman of noble parentage, to marry Alexios III's eldest daughter, Irene. Alexios' epitaph tells us that he was "redheaded like David."
5. This was Amalric de Lusigan, husband of Queen Isabella of Jerusalem. His brother was Guy de Lusignan who was portrayed (terribly) in that Kingdom of Heaven movie.
6. Bizarrely, the handful of his men who escaped capture or death limped on to meet up with other Crusaders and wound up fighting with Levon II against the prince of Antioch.
7. He doesn't seem to have been a scion of any important family, and it's unknown how (or if) he was related to the imperial Doukai. Imprisoned by Alexios III, perhaps for his love affair with the emperor's daughter, he had been freed after Alexios III fled the city.
8. It's amazing his leg didn't pop off, as much as his Byzantine tour guide was pulling it.
Constantinople had often hosted exiles, and a new one arrived. Keyhüsrev was a son of Kılıç Arslan, the old Selcuk sultan of Konya. According to the Tarikh-i-al-i-Saljuq, his mother was "the sister of the wife of Kaloyan"; as Kaloyan was married to a Kuman princess, this suggests that Keyhüsrev was half-Kuman. In 1187, Kılıç Arslan was ready to retire, so he decided to divide his lands between his nine sons, his brother, and his nephew. This worked out about as well as you might expect. Continual warfare between the various brothers led to Keyhüsrev fleeing Konya to Syria. There he sought refuge at the court of az-Zahir Ghazi, the son of Saladin, but because az-Zahir "disdained" him, as Ibn al-Athir informs us, Keyhüsrev packed up and went to Constantinople.
Alexios III welcomed Keyhüsrev like the son he'd never had. Ibn Bibi, who was sort of the official court biographer for three Selcuk sultans 1, tells us that Alexios III took Keyhüsrev into his own house and "gave him abundant gifts and countless riches: beautiful horses, golden brocade garments, Byzantine brocade, purses full of gold coins, well-built Kuman slaves, virginal maidservants with blossoming cheeks... That night until daybreak they occupied themselves with pleasures and delights and enjoyed lute and wine until dawn... And that day they remained there, neither living nor dead, because of the pleasantries of the table, so that they were spilling wine from their cups."
According to Georgios Akropolites, Alexios III even adopted him and had Keyhüsrev baptized an Orthodox Christian, with himself as godfather. The baptism didn't "take", but it's the thought that counts. Keyhüsrev also married an Imperial cousin, the daughter of Manuel Mavrozomes 2.
It seemed nearly every month another pretender was trying to topple Alexios III from his throne. Ioannes Axoukh 3, who Niketas tells us was "potbellied and shaped like a barrel", walked into the Hagia Sophia, placed a small crown on his head, and proclaimed himself emperor. In no time at all curious mouth-breathing onlookers flocked to him. Alexios III sent his henchmen to beat Ioannes' followers about their faces and necks until they fled in terror. They then killed Ioannes Axoukh "as if he were a fatted beast", carrying his severed head to Alexios III, who had it mounted so that the public could look upon it.
On another occasion, a floor in the palace collapsed for no reason, sending the emperor's bed falling into a great chasm; Alexios III himself was unharmed, but his son-in-law Alexios Palaiologos 4 was badly injured by the debris, and a eunuch was killed when he tumbled into the chasm. Alexios Palaiologos died soon afterward, although whether from his injuries I do not know, but I think it likely.
In faraway Germany, Alexakos Angelos was pleading his case to Bonifazio of Montferrat and Philipp of Swabia. Irene Angelina begged her husband Philipp and Bonifazio to help her brother and their desperate, pathetic, blinded papa back in Constantinople. Bonifazio decided he needed to consult with the pope, so he and Alexakos set out soon after Christmas 1201 to Rome.
The scheme Bonifazio, Philipp, and Alexakos had come up with was to divert the Crusading army to Constantinople. In 900 years, Constantinople had never been taken by an invading force, but it had surrendered itself many times to a rival emperor. Alexakos was confident that all he had to do was show his face and the common people would rise up on his behalf. This, he felt, was guaranteed on account of Alexios III's dumbassery. Pope Innocent III didn't like this idea. He didn't want the Fourth Crusade getting stalled out at Constantinople.
Things weren't looking too good for the Fourth Crusade. They were supposed to liberate the Christian kingdoms of the Holy Land, but as it turned out, their Christian brothers weren't exactly jumping for joy at the thought of them showing up. The Christian lords were afraid that these newcomers meant to replace them, while the common people were enjoying a truce with the Muslims. When the Crusader envoy, Renaud de Dampierre, arrived in the Holy Land, he begged King Amalric 5 to break the truce. Amalric basically told him to stick his thumb up his ass and get the fuck out of his face. Renaud de Dampierre flounced off and decided to go help the prince of Antioch fight King Levon II of Armenia, only to get captured by the emir of Lattakia and held captive for 35 years 6.
Meantime, the Venetians had busily prepared hundreds of ships for the massive Crusading army that was expected to show up any day now. What actually showed up was a far cry from the 250,000 that had been estimated. At most, 18,000 arrived in Venice in spring 1202. This was nowhere near enough to pay the massive debt owed to Venice for constructing the ships. Villehardouin says that the Crusader leaders gathered what money they could, but that amounted to less than half their debt. Furthermore, a substantial number of would-be Crusaders were actually women, the sick, the weak, and the elderly. The papal legate, Pietro Capuano, actually had to command them to go home.
The Venetians housed the Crusading army on the island of St. Nicholas, but almost immediately the army began to starve and sicken. Many died, others deserted and returned home. Chaos threatened to break out. By October 1202, Enrico Dandolo knew he had to get the Crusader army off his front lawn before they began devouring everything in sight. He offered to postpone the debt the Crusaders owed Venice if they would load up in their ships and go capture the wealthy city of Zara, which lay nearby on the Dalmation coast. The Crusaders were resistant to this, but by this point they had little option. Their numbers had whittled down to about 12,000, and they could neither pay their debt and embark for the Holy Land, nor stay on St. Nicholas and starve.
The Venetians had for a long time claimed Zara for one of their own cities, but lately Zara had been two-timing Venice with Hungary. Enrico Dandolo steered his army of Crusaders directly to their doorstep in November 1202 to get some unholy retribution. The pope sent a letter forbidding the Crusaders to sack Zara, but they had given their word to the Venetians and were in desperate need of supplies, anyway.
Innocent III was furious when he heard that Zara had been sacked. This Crusade was turning into total balls-out buffoonery. Alexakos then made a counter-offer: in return for restoring him to his rightful throne, he pledged to not only cough up money to pay the Crusading debt owed to Venice, but to bring the Greek Orthodox Church under the authority of Rome. Suddenly, if was as if the whole world were within Innocent III's grasp. He could salvage the Crusade. The debt could be paid. The church could be reunited. And for what? Just to march the boy to the gates of Constantinople? And surely once Alexakos had his throne, he would be grateful to the pope who'd put him there...
Bonifazio and Alexakos set out to rendezvous with the Crusader army. The soldiers, already heart sore at having sacked and devoured Zara, weren't eager to go all the way to Constantinople to help this callow boy, but their leaders convinced them. Alexakos had promised a shit-ton of money to pay off the Venetians. Soon, soon, they would be in the Holy Land.
As the Crusading army beared down on him in May 1203, Alexios III finally roused himself to action. Belatedly he had the remaining naval ships repaired, only twenty in number, which had been left to rot and get worm-eaten.
In June, the Crusaders entered Byzantine territory, and encountering little resistance, pushed their way right up to the city walls of Constantinople itself. Their camp was so near the walls behind the Blachernai palace that Niketas tells us that the Greek defenders manning the wall could almost talk to the Crusaders camped out below.
Alexios III sent one of his courtiers, a Lombard named Nicolas Roux, to flatter the Crusaders and offer to pay them off. They blew him off. Instead, Alexakos was put on a boat and rowed back and forth in front of the city's walls, but the locals pelted him with fruit and rocks and shit like that. Realizing that Alexakos' promises that the city would voluntarily surrender to him were as meaningless as a Kardashian's wedding vows, the Venetians broke the chain that blocked the Golden Horn and they and the Crusaders sailed in to pick a fight.
Immediately, it became obvious that the Byzantines weren't going to give up without a fight. The Crusaders built catapults and lobbed stones at the palace. Robert de Clari relates how even the "horseboys and cooks" went into battle armed and "fitted out with quilts and saddle cloths and copper pots and maces and pestles, and they were so ugly and hideous that the common foot soldiers of the emperor [Alexios III], who were in front of the walls, had great fear and terror when they saw them."
Enrico Dandolo himself lept from his galley and led the charge of the Venetians, holding aloft the standard of St. Mark, despite being as blind as Stevie Wonder.
The Crusaders took a battering ram to the city walls, while others swarmed over the walls on ladders and tore through the Greeks there, also lighting a massive fire that consumed a chunk of the city. Alexios III, who until now had been holed up in the palace, was forced to march out with his best troops, accompanied by his kinsmen. Niketas tells us that "had the emperor's troops moved in one body against the enemy" that they might've delivered the city, but instead Alexios III broke and ran back to the palace. There he gathered together everything he could carry, taking with him his daughter Irene but abandoning his wife and other daughters, and snuck out of the city under cover of night.
The courtiers went into a panic when they discovered their own emperor had abandoned them. Not knowing what else to do, they brought out the ex-emperor Isaakios II and placed him on his former throne. Alexios III's wife, Euphrosyne Kamaterina, was thrown into prison, along with her relatives.
Isaakios sent messages to the Crusaders, but they brushed him off. He asked for his son Alexakos; they refused, unless he agreed to honor the covenants that Alexakos had sworn to. Envoys were sent into Constantinople to meet with Isaakios II. Villehardouin tells us they went to the imperial court to find Isaakios II "so richly clad that you would seek in vain throughout the world for a man more richly appareled than he", with his beautiful empress, Margit of Hungary, by his side. It was decided that Alexakos would rule beside him as co-emperor, for the Crusaders didn't trust that the Greeks would keep their word otherwise. The nobles who had been loyal to Alexios III switched sides to Isaakios II and Alexakos. Many prisoners were freed, including a courtier who called himself Alexios Doukas, better known as Mourtzouphlos 7 for his bushy eyebrows.
The Crusader lords asked after Agnes, the widow of Alexios II and Andronikos I, for by birth she was a French princess, the sister of King Philippe Auguste of France. Lo and behold, Agnes, who had twice been an empress and twice been widowed before she was thirteen-years-old, lived in the palace. She met with the Crusader lord reluctantly, Robert de Clari tells us, "she was very cold to them and very angry with them for having come and crowned [Alexios IV]." She refused to speak in her native tongue, explaining that she had forgotten all her French and had to speak through an interpreter. Agnes had become the lover of Theodoros Vranas, the son of the dead rebel Alexios Vranas, and they had a daughter.
The sight of their young companion Alexakos sitting the imperial throne must've been astonishing to the Crusaders. The hall where the emperor received visitors, the Triclinium of the Magnaura, contained a magnificent throne where the emperor sat with gilded lions at his feet. The lions could roar and wag their tails; little gilded birds sang. At the sound of an organ, the throne would lift into the air so that the emperor could look down from on high. A flock of eunuchs served the emperor, while the famed Varangian guard, mostly made up of Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons, guarded his person. Perhaps that Christmas they even got to see an amazing spectacle, related by Benjamin of Tudela in 1161, of a parade of exotic animals through the Hippodrome, "lions, leopards, bears, and wild asses", some of which had been trained to fight one another.
Choniates criticizes Alexakos for his favoritism towards his Crusader friends, describing how he would often visit the Crusader camp to get crunk and play dice. He even allowed them to take the imperial diadem from his forehead and wore a shaggy wool cap the Crusaders gave him. On at least one occasion he brought Mourtzophlos along with him. Another amazing person Alexakos introduced to the Crusader lords was a king "who's skin was all black, and who had a cross in the middle of his forehead made with a hot iron". Alexakos introduced him as the king of Nubia. The Crusader lords gazed upon him with wonder.
Alexakos set out from the city to visit the rest of the empire and receive fealty from the other cities; with him went many of the Crusader lords, notably Bonifazio and Hendrik of Flanders. Baldwin of Flanders and Louis of Blois remained behind at Constantinople with Isaakios II. The Crusader lords were restless and sick of being wined and dined. They wanted Isaakios II to deliver on the money that Alexakos had promised them. The problem was after several disastrous reigns, and now Alexios III looting the treasury for everything he could carry, there was precious little left to pay them off with. Isaakios II resorted to raiding the churches and monasteries, having the icons of Christ hacked up with axes and cast into fires to be melted down into gold and silver.
In August, a force of mercenary Flemings, Pisans, and Venetians attacked the Saracan quarter of the city, intending to plunder their mosques. The Saracens fought back, and the Greeks came to their aid, scattering the would-be plunderers. Angered, these men retreated and lit a fire in retaliation that would scorch most of the city into ashes. The fire roared across Constantinople, burning down part of the Hippodrome. Embers even caught a passing ship on fire.
The mob vented their fury on the Latins who lived within their city. These foreigners, from various lands, fled with their families and joined the Crusading army outside the city walls. When Alexakos returned from his journey, Villehardouin claims he became pompous and forgot "those who had done so much for him", and refused to come visit the Crusader lords in their camps. Isaakios II was himself becoming insane with jealousy over his son usurping more and more power from him. Choniates laments that the emperor ignored everyone but the sooth-sayers who gathered around him, promising him miraculous restoration of his sight and a return to ultimate power. Isaakios II spread rumors about his own son, accusing him of being effeminate and "keeping company with depraved men."
Tensions flared all around. The Greeks were pissed at the Crusaders having forced Alexakos on them as co-emperor, and they gave chilly receptions to those who entered the city to adore holy relics or gawk at the magnificence of Constantinople. Robert of Clari, a knight who wrote a chronicle of his time on the Fourth Crusade, tells us of the many marvels found in Constantinople, helpfully informing us that the bronze statues found in the Hippodrome once could move and talk, but did so no longer 8.
Tired of the delays, Bonifazio and the envoys went to meet with Alexakos, who dismissed them arrogantly, saying he wasn't going to pay a dime, that he wasn't afraid of them, and that he was ready for them to go ahead and get gone. Enrico Dandolo was mad as hell when he heard this. He confronted Alexakos, with dialogue memorably supplied by Robert de Clari:
DANDOLO: Don't you mean to keep your agreement with us?
ALEXAKOS: No, I won't do anything more than what I've done.
DANDOLO: Wicked boy, we pulled you out of shit, and will return you to shit. Be warned that I will seek to do you all the harm in my power from this moment on.
The Blachernai Palace, as recreated by the Byzantium 1200 project.
In the midst of all this we find several young persons stranded in the palace of Blachernai: the sisters Eudokia and Anna Angelina, and their men. Anna and Eudokia had left behind by their father Alexios III and sister Irene. Eudokia's lover, Mourtzouphlos, felt not a shred of gratitude to Alexakos for rescuing him from the chokey. Anna's husband was Theodoros Laskaris, "a daring youth and fierce warrior", who's brother Konstantinos, whom Villehardouin called "the best of the Greeks", was injured during the battles with the Crusaders. Theodoros had been heir-apparent to Alexios III after Irene's husband Alexios Palaiologos' unexpected death. The Laskaris brothers were of somewhat obscure origins; their surname derives from the Persian laskar, warrior.
A riot broke out in January, as the populace gathered together and proclaimed a reluctant young nobleman, Nikolaos Kannavos, their emperor in opposition to Isaakios II and Alexakos. Kannavos' supporters also destroyed an ancient statue of Athena that faced west, believing this statue had beckoned the Crusaders into their city. Mourtzouphlos, who desired the throne for himself, had Kannavos arrested and thrown into prison. He then turned on Alexakos. Niketas Choniates tells us he twice tried to poison Alexakos, but when Alexakos' strong constitution overcame the poison, Mourtzouphlos sent assassins into his room in the dark of night and had him strangled.
Isaakios II died under mysterious circumstances soon after. Robert de Clari claims he was strangled, too; Villehardouin says the shock of his son dying made him fall ill, and then he died.
Thrilled with his coup, Mourtzouphlos quickly had himself crowned emperor as Alexios V. The Crusaders had mixed feelings when they learned of the death of Alexakos. Some cursed Alexakos as a liar, while Robert de Clari says others pitied him, "for it weighed on them that he had been killed in this way".
Mourtzouphlos strutted about in his imperial boots, and sent a letter to the Crusaders, demanding that they get the hell out. The Crusader lords replied with contempt. "He who treacherously murdered his lord by night sends this word to us?" Robert de Clari has them say. They sent warning that they would not abandon Constantinople until Alexakos' murder had been avenged and they had got all the riches they had come for.
1. Keyhüsrev, his son Keykubad, and his grandson Keyhüsrev II. Although Choniates is dismissive of Keyhüsrev, Ibn Bibi's account seems to reflect Keyhüsrev's viewpoint on this time period.
2. Mavrozomes' mother was an illegitimate daughter of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos.
3. Son of Maria Komnene (daughter of Manuel I's eldest brother Alexios) and Alexios Axouch. His father had been exiled by Manuel I back in the 1160s.
4. Son of Georgios Palaiologos, megas hetaireiarches, that is, commander of imperial bodyguards. Alexios had divorced his first wife, a beautiful woman of noble parentage, to marry Alexios III's eldest daughter, Irene. Alexios' epitaph tells us that he was "redheaded like David."
5. This was Amalric de Lusigan, husband of Queen Isabella of Jerusalem. His brother was Guy de Lusignan who was portrayed (terribly) in that Kingdom of Heaven movie.
6. Bizarrely, the handful of his men who escaped capture or death limped on to meet up with other Crusaders and wound up fighting with Levon II against the prince of Antioch.
7. He doesn't seem to have been a scion of any important family, and it's unknown how (or if) he was related to the imperial Doukai. Imprisoned by Alexios III, perhaps for his love affair with the emperor's daughter, he had been freed after Alexios III fled the city.
8. It's amazing his leg didn't pop off, as much as his Byzantine tour guide was pulling it.