Poor Enrico... So misunderstood...Originally posted by Sonny
Don't tell Doge Dandelo that.
The Venetians had one goal: To get pays what they had counted on when they built their fleet...
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The Venetians had one goal: To get pays what they had counted on when they built their fleet...
Well, the sacking of Constantinople is a special case here I'd say. Your statement was that crusading could be profitable was put forth as a general statement on all crusading, wasn't it?
Well, a few of them managed to claw out some principalities to hold for a few, and lesser fiefs for other lords. Did they make a profit? One should think that if they were profitable they shouldn't have been forced to continually ask for support from west, or?
Name me one knight from the First Crusade that returned home laden with riches...
The derailing of the fourth crusade (which had, until the sack of Constantinople, Egypt as its target) was caused by the gross overestimation by the crusaders of the forces they could muster. They struck as deal with Venice for building off and operation and supply for a year (IIRC) for a fleet large enough to carry more than twice the size of the host they arrived with. They couldn't pay the agreed sum and hence agreed to help the Venetians out in Zara. Then came the dealings with Alexius... The reward promised by Alexius would have been enough to pay the Venetians their due and support the fleet for another year so that they could reach Egypt.
Not knights, but Genoese and Venetians made great profit on transporting crusaders to Holy Land.
But that's not what I'm arguing against here...
I won't deny that the Italian cities could make a nice profit from the crusades. What I'm talking about is the assertion from Wulfram was that you as a Crusader could make great profit from the loot. My argument is that those who did are so few compared with the numbers of people who took the cross that it's ignorable.
I specified successful crusades. The 4th Crusade is one of only two successful crusades, and so can be called as typical as any.
You certainly wouldn't make a profit trying to hold territory in the east. Not worth trying really unless you're Sicily or the Byzantines, or need somewhere to dump excess brothers.
I can't find any sources on knights who returned, other than Stephen of Blois getting nagged by his wife, and he left before the crusaders took any significant cities.
The best I can do is the Saga of Sigurd the Crusader.
"Then King Sigurd sailed westwards along heathen Spain, and brought up at a town called Alkasse; and here he had his fourth battle with the heathens, and took the town, and killed so many people that the town was left empty. They got there also immense booty"
"King Baldwin prepared to go to Syria, to a heathen town called Saet. On this expedition King Sigurd accompanied him, and after the kings had besieged the town some time it surrendered, and they took possession of it, and of a great treasure of money; and their men found other booty"
Name one Crusader who had financial problems after he returned from the 1st Crusade.
None of this disagrees with what I intended to say - that the expense of crusading is what caused the diversion to C'nople, and that the diversion was done in order to gain more funds.
Also, it should be noted that I never said "Great Wealth". Merely that you could make a net profit if you succeeded (Which is unlikely to happen).
Yeah, but the same can be said about pyramid financial schemes, lotteries and casinos - the fact that people's naivette and greed can be used to tempt them to do something stupid to make rich only a selected few doesn't mean they are not motivated by greed and profit. The same was with crusaders - they were presented with largely false images of immesurable wealth of Byzantium and Levant - the fact that only few could profit from it doesn't mean that the gullible fools were saintsOriginally posted by Havard
But that's not what I'm arguing against here...
I won't deny that the Italian cities could make a nice profit from the crusades. What I'm talking about is the assertion from Wulfram was that you as a Crusader could make great profit from the loot. My argument is that those who did are so few compared with the numbers of people who took the cross that it's ignorable.
Knights during the first Crusade ought to have the monetary means to pay for supplies for four of five years. They had to sell their goods and some land, loan and demand help from monastaries, especially Cluniac ones, to be able to secure that money. Supplies' price were abherrant in the East, in little villages and cities, so quite a few poor knights were ruined by the Crusade.
Knights who went to the First Crusade with looting and riches in head were a VERY little minority. Most went there with very religious idea in their head, to deliver the Holy Land. Wealth was a very secondary idea. We are not in the 15th-18th century there, when religious cynism is rampant, but in the 11th century, where 99 % of Christian Europe had real faith in God and the Holy Church.
Drakken
Knights who went to the First Crusade with looting and riches in head were a VERY little minority. Most went there with very religious idea in their head, to deliver the Holy Land. Wealth was a very secondary idea. We are not in the 15th-18th century there, when religious cynism is rampant, but in the 11th century, where 99 % of Christian Europe had real faith in God and the Holy Church.
Drakken
Or are too afraid of the power of the church to openly declare otherwise.
I think Europe was far less christian than you say. Yes, most believed in their Christian God, many kept the saboth holy and other stuff, but real faith? not likely.
The Church was the only institution to give answers to the mysterious phemnomena unknown they were encountering. They promised heaven and eternal salute to the 98 % of the population - peasants and low-life - that could always die somewhere in their 35 years of life expectancy, in complete poverty, exhausted by landwork and rotten by sickness. In their situation, and thinking about their own baggages of knowledge, I would have believed too.
Who are we to judge them and to think that because we know now, they should have known then?
Drakken
I'm not judging, just that i'm saying most did not have the faith you say. They had a belief, yes, that's undeniable, but their faith was often mired as much in Christianity as it was in ancient traditions and beliefs that predated the Roman Empire in some cases. These beliefs and such, if the Church would have cared to look around instead of closing its eyes, would have been found by them to for the most part to be heretical. The chruch desired its power more than confomity so it ignored these things and infact tried to incorperate them into its doctrine.
So their faith was split, between Chrisitianity and local customs. The former which was overtly displayed by everyone and the latter which was mired in half-truths of festivals, changes in deities to saints, and other things to keep the population under its sway.