Taps Coogan – October 23rd, 2021

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The following ‘miniature’ is from a manuscript by French calligrapher David Aubert (1449-79) and depicts the Fourth Crusade’s sack of Constantinople in 1203 AD – one of the most regrettable decisions in the long history of highly dubious decisions made by the Crusaders.

How did it come to pass? At great expense, the forces of the Fourth Crusade had commissioned the Venetians to build a fleet and transport them across the Mediterranean to attack Muslim held Egypt, the original target of the Fourth Crusade. When the Crusaders couldn’t pay the full amount owed, the Venetian leader Doge Enrico Dandolo offered to settle the debt if the Crusaders provided their fighting services to him first. The Doge then redirected the massive Crusader army, ostensibly gathered to conquer Egypt and then Jerusalem, to sack Constantinople, the largest and wealthiest city in Christendom and capital of the Byzantine Empire, a rival of Venice. The permanently weakened city fell to the Ottoman Turks 200 years later.

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