If the Crusaders were concerned with examining the nature of their adversary, the inhabitants of Constantinople were no less interested to view the fleet. As far as they were concerned, Crusading armies had come through their territories before, and had never been anything other than a source of trouble. It had always needed immense diplomatic skill as well as payments of ready cash to get rid of them without open conflict. They had no reason to suspect that these Crusaders were bent on anything more than re-storing and revictualling, although it may well have seemed curious to the more intelligent members of the populace that a Crusading army and fleet should have come so far north, if it was on its way to attack the Moslem kingdoms in the Levant and Egypt.

The sea-walls of Constantinople stretched from Acropolis Point (modern Seraglio Point) to Studion near Porta Aurea, the Golden Gate. The men aboard the ships cannot have failed to remark this south-facing triple-entrance of marble, which stood only a quarter of a mile inland from the postern where the land walls of the city meet the sea. Built in imitation of the triumphal arches of ancient Rome, it was surmounted by a Cross, as befitted the New Rome where Christianity and the old Empire were allies.

Despite its crucifix, the gate was adorned with reliefs from classical mythology. It was through this gate that the Byzantine Emperors used to pass on their return from some victory in the field. Even here they managed to combine the memory of classical Rome with Christian Byzantium. They were dressed in the robes of the Caesars (though more gorgeous than any that the Roman Caesars had ever known) and they carried the sceptre of empire. Yet, as they passed through the Golden Gate, they were hailed by spectators who sang hymns of praise to God the Father, Giver of Victories.

As the ships worked their way up the strait, the inhabitants of the city crowded the battlements to watch them pass. “There were so many people on the walls,” commented Villehardouin, “that it seemed as if there could be no more people left anywhere else in the world.” Nobles and common soldiers, Frenchmen and Venetians alike, they gazed in awe at the majesty of a city which made even the largest in their own countries seem like villages. As they moved slowly to the north they passed the two small fortified harbours which were used by fishing-boats, and by shallow-draft merchantmen unable to round the Golden Horn on account of northerly winds. Eleven gates gave on to the sea between Studion and Acropolis Point, and the harbours of Eleutherius and Contoscalion were almost in the middle of the circuit. Although there had been no declaration or war, no word sent to the Emperor nor the people that they intended to place Alexius on the throne, no indication that they were other than friendly fellow-Christians, the Crusaders opened fire upon the anchored fishing-boats and merchantmen, showering them with arrows and the iron quarrels of crossbows.

Drawing level with the entrance of the Golden Horn, the fleet turned slightly to the east in order to keep the wind astern. It directed its course towards the Asiatic shore, at this point only one mile distant. Behind the great chain that barred the entrance to the Golden Horn, the Mediterranean’s finest natural harbour, they could see the lines of shipping at anchor and the shine of the white walls that guarded the city on its northern side. North of the Horn itself, the huddle of houses that constituted part of the international trading settlements, largely inhabited by Venetians and Genoese, climbed the steep slopes of Galata. In that quarter the invaders had many friends—merchants and ship-owners who owed their allegiance to Italy rather than Byzantium.

The size of the city and the vast extent of its walls and fortifications, the glistening towers of the palaces and the triumphal dome of Santa Sophia (the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom) floating above the smoke haze, made an unforgettable sight. Robert de Clari, a French soldier who took part in the expedition, later remembered how “The people of Constantinople stood on the walls and the roofs of their houses to look at the marvel of the fleet. But the men in the ships regarded the grandeur of the city—so large it was and so long—and they were dumb with amazement.”

 

 

 

2

CONSTANTINOPLE

 

“O city, city, queen of all cities!” exclaimed the Greek historian Ducas. “O city, heart of the four corners of the world! O Paradise planted in the west!” In his lament for a Constantinople that had for ever fled, he expressed something of the genuine reverence felt by all civilised men for this vast achievement in bricks, marble, stone and genius. It is difficult perhaps to comprehend in a century when the world is full of great cities, but explicable enough when one realises that in the Middle Ages Constantinople was the only capital known to Europeans that rivalled the glories of legendary Rome. It seemed like something left over from an age of giants. Within its walls there survived not only the memory of that great imperial past but also a rich and living culture that had grown, layer upon layer, ever since the even more distant days of Periclean Athens.

To most northerners, Constantinople was a dream not so far removed from Ultima Thule, the Golden Isles or the legendary land of Lyonnesse. So poor were communications, so difficult sea-passages, and so much had European civilisation declined since the collapse of the western Roman Empire, that the survival in the far east of Europe of a city which embraced an almost forgotten peak of human culture, and wedded it to the Christian tradition, seemed almost a miracle.

It was as if, in twentieth-century terms, the whole of Africa should revert to barbarism, and all its cities, roads and communications disappear. Yet at the same time a flourishing civilisation should still survive in the north, on the shores of the Mediterranean. At the heart of this civilisation there should stand a brilliant Algiers, with universities and craftsmanship and an elegant, sophisticated way of life. With what amazement, then, would the inhabitants of a derelict town called Johannesburg, or a backward fishing-village called Durban, hear of a city that sounded like the legends they told round their camp-fires—of the giants who had once lived in the immense ruins surrounding their own squalid settlements? They would hear of buildings beyond their imagination, of fresh water that flowed into every house from inexhaustible cisterns, of great ships and golden palaces, and of people who dressed in silks and jewels. The cynics would scoff, the credulous would equate the story with some religious paradise, and the majority would listen with wonder—but with a complete lack of comprehension. Occasionally some merchants would return over thousands of miles of difficult and failing roadways, bringing with them artefacts and clothing, and objects carved in marble or ivory, or made of almost magical substances like glass.