How Important Were The Venetians In The Failure Of

How important were the Venetians in the failure of the 4th crusade ?(24)

The Venetians contend an important part in the failure of the crusade, through the pot struck between the Christians and Venetians and the Crusaders subsequent debts to Venice, which in turn caused much disunity amongst the Crusaders. However I believe the parenthesis to Constantinople, imperial politics between the Crusaders and Byzantium and ultimately the sack of Constantinople were the determine factors in its failure.
Firstly Venice played an important part in the crusades failure because it bound the re fleshists to an agreement they could not fulfil. The Treaty of Venice was struck and the Venetians wanted eighty-five thousand mark of Cologne in return for their fleet. Since yet a tercet of the expected crusader men arrived in Venice, and the fleet be were paid by individual crusaders, only a third of the transportation costs were paid, creating a large debt which the crusaders owed to Venice. The Venetians would not permit the crusaders leave without paying the full amount but the crusaders could only pay some 51,000 silver marks, and that only by minify themselves to extreme poverty. This was disastrous to the Venetians, who had halted their commerce for a great distance of time to prepare this expedition.



In addition to this 20-30,000 were needed to small-arm the entire fleet, placing further strain on the Venetian economy. The crusader debt clearly couldnt be payed and the Venetians couldnt cancel the debt, and this marked the beginning of a tumultuous crusade.
Secondly the venetians played a major part in the increasing divisions amongst the crusaders and also with Byzantium. Dandolo and the Venetians succeeded in turning the crusading movement to their own purposes as a form of repayment as the Crusaders became vulnerable. The crusaders would have to take Zara which by 1202 was essentially ruled over by King Emeric of Hungary and Croatia. The Hungarian mogul had himself agreed to...If you want to get a full essay, lay it on our website: Orderessay



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