Matthew’s Reviews > Byzantium and the Crusades > Status Update

Accounts by Byzantine sources Kinnamos and Choniates on Roman capture of Antioch

"As part of their payment to induce John to withdraw, the citizens of Shaizar handed over a cross, carved from red marble, supposedly fashioned on the orders of Constantine I, and taken by the Turks from Romanos IV after the Battle of Manikert 1071(Harris 90)."

Kinnamos, 1976, pp. 24-5; Choniates, 1984, p.22

An interesting note to add is how the author relays some of the letters he sent to the pope regarding the supposed deeds of Alexios as a usurper being only influenced by his vices.

and how he ties this in with an example of similar policy making the Normans made before invading Britain in 1066.

Bohemond to Pope Paschal II in Holtzman, 1935, pp. 280-82

In the chapter "Jerusalem and Antioch" he closes with the efforts imposed by Bohemond to demonize the Emperor. As mention, his "Deeds of the Franks" laid the perceptions that was to fuel Western thought for the next few centuries. The events of the schism allowed for certain religious figures to relay Johns seizure of Antioch as "legitimate" claims to attack Constantinople...

Another big emphasis Harris points out is the efforts by the Emperors Alexios and John attempted at having good relations with the West. Mentioning banquets Alexios would hold for the visiting rulers and the gifts he would give to them. Even when John II attempted to arrange a marriage with the regent Constance to his son Manuel I. Plans fell through when it was decided that she would marry Raymond of Poitiers

Throughout much of the chapters "The Passage of the First Crusade' and "Jerusalem and Antioch" these conflicts arise even more clearly to highlight much of the side-stepping the Latins went in avoiding cooperation with the Emperor. The fall of Nicaea was considered in the West as evidence for belief of infidel ties with the Emperor, when in reality it was to avoid further bloodshed that loomed in ranks of the Latins

To this point, Johnathon Harris has given the reader a glimpse of scale of the First Crusade; the papal conflict between Clement III and Urban II, The Three waves of Peter the Hermit, Bohemond of Taranto, Godfrey of Bullio, and of course the struggles that the Emperors Alexios I and John II had to deal with. A big topic in the chapter is the Latin "seizure" of Antioch and how the author explores the differing sources

To start, Johnathon Harries leaves a impressionable opening remarks for the first few chapters. His introduction and the first chapter set the stage for the understanding the story Byzantium offers and how these eventual westerners would begin their interactions in 800.

In the course of three centuries, one act would lead to another between east and west impeding ambitions. Fingers would be pointed, names called.