Placing Blame

Yesterday we looked at Geoffrey de Villehardouin's account of the Fourth Crusade and how he managed to obscure any culpability of his in the major decision-making that took the Crusade in so many wrong directions ethically. Just as he was about to get to the attack of the Crusaders and Venetians on Constantinople, he slows down the pace and reminds the reader of:

...those who sailed from other ports than Venice, and of the ships of Flanders that had sojoumed during the winter at Marseilles, and had all gone over in the summer to the land of Syria; and these were far more in number than the host before Constantinople.

Notice how he lets you know the the group in Constantinople was significantly smaller (so marvel at all they were able to accomplish), and the others group was so much larger (meaning if they had joined up in Venice then the Crusade never would have had the financial difficulties that led to these disasters).

One could argue that the larger group was the Crusade, rather than the smaller group through Venice, since the larger group managed to get to the Holy Land. Geoffrey assures you that their choice was sinful:

...for in that case would Christendom have been for ever exalted. But because of their sins, God would not so have it, for some died of the sickness of the land, and some turned back to their own homes. Nor did they perform any great deeds, or achieve aught of good, in the land overseas.

Geoffrey neglects to mention how many of his own company died from illness or warfare.

And well does this book bear witness, that of those who avoided the host of Venice, there was not one but suffered harm or shame. He therefore must be accounted wise who holds to the better course.

As it turns out, Geoffrey's is not the only account of the Crusade. A knight from Picardy named Robert de Clari was on the Crusade, and his account is understandably different, since he was never part of any high-level meetings and negotiations. He shows no knowledge of (or chooses not to cast blame on) other Crusaders who did not go to Venice. His account is that, upon reaching Venice, they simply did not have enough to pay the Venetians, and the Venetians—who he thought already decided to accompany the Crusade—then decide to ask for the spoils of the adventure to repay the price of the ships.

Robert de Clari also claims that he saw, after the Sack of Constantinople, a cloth that, from his description, sounds like the Shroud of Turin. I want to mention that tomorrow.

Geoffrey's Account

Remember Geoffrey de Villehardouin? He was one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade who negotiated with Venice to get the Crusaders across the Mediterranean, which turned out to be a bad deal. You could say that it wasn't Geoffrey's fault that a large number of Crusaders took port from Marseilles instead, but let's talk about the other decisions made by Geoffrey and the leaders. Agreeing to attack Zara (for which they were temporarily excommunicated), agreeing to ally themselves with Prince Alexios, agreeing to attack Constantinople—none of these were wise or appropriate for a group who had taken a vow to free the Holy land.

Geoffrey, a literate man who was involved in all the high-level discussions, wrote an account, De la Conquête de Constantinople ("On the Conquest of Constantinople"), in which he shows absolutely no shame for a Crusade attacking a Christian city. He never criticizes the actions of the Crusade leaders. In fact, he stresses that the young Emperor Alexios IV offered them more and wanted them to stay:

Now the term of your departure is nigh, and your fellowship with the Venetians is timed only to last till the feast of St. Michael. And within so short a term I cannot fulfil our covenant. Be it known to you therefore, that, if you abandon me, the Greeks hate me because of you: I shall losemy land, and they will kill me. But now do this thing that I ask of you: remain here till March, and I will entertain your ships for one year from the feast of St. Michael, and bear the cost of the Venetians, and will give you such things as you may stand in need of till Easter. And within that term I shall have placed my land in such case that I cannot lose it again; and your covenant will be fulfilled, for I shall have paid such moneys as are due to you, obtaining them from all mi lands; and I shall be ready also with ships either to go with you myself, or to send others, as I have covenanted; and you will have the summer from end to end in which to carry on the war against the Saracens.

Geoffrey lays the groundwork for the Crusade's delay, and makes Alexios' later ability to pay them a much greater betrayal of their trust in him. When the Crusaders realize that they cannot trust Alexios to make good on his promise, Geoffrey is part of the small embassy that goes to him and demands what is possible, but Geoffrey wants sympathy for his embassy, stressing that they were in danger by speaking to the emperor:

When they got outside the gate, there was not one of them but felt glad at heart; nor is that to be marvelled at, for they had escaped from very great peril, and it held to very little that they were not all killed or taken.

He then breaks off from the narrative about Constantinople to blame others. I'll tell you about that tomorrow.

Constantinople Under Siege

We saw yesterday that hostility between Byzantines and the Fourth Crusade came to a head when the new(est) emperor, Alexios V, ejected all the foreigners from the city and began reinforcing the defenses. The Crusaders of course had brought siege engines with them for use against Saracens in the Holy Land, but they were happy to use them here against a Christian city.

The first assault came on 9 April 1204 on the northwest walls. Unfortunately (for the westerners), the open ground between the shore and the wall left them open to a hail of arrows. That and bad weather made them retreat.

The weather cleared a few days later, so on 12 April the Crusaders attacked again. They managed to knock a few holes in the wall sufficient for knights to crawl through. Meanwhile, Venetians were scaling the walls and encountering the ferocious Varangian Guards. The northwest was the site of the Palace of Blachernae, where the emperors prior to Alexios V had barricaded themselves. The Crusaders used Blachernae as a base. Creating a wall of fire to defend their base got out of hand and started burning down other parts of the city.

Emperor Alexios V fled the city that night. The Crusaders spent three days looting and pillaging. Now we come to the point of the week-long build-up to explain the last paragraph of this post about influences of Italo-Byzantine art. Constantinople was looted of many of its art treasures, which found there way west to reside in and influence Western Europe.

St. Mark's Basilica in Venice became the recipient of a large number of valuable artworks, thanks to Doge Enrico Dandolo commanding them as part of the Crusade's debt to Venice. Bronze horses from the Hippodrome, a sculpture of Four Tetrarchs (confirmed by the broken-off foot being identified in Constantinople), marble reliefs (including of Alexander the Great), and even carved marble pillars taken from Byzantine buildings—these and more found their way to Venice. The Treasury of San Marco (see more here) is full of the spoils of Constantinople.

Icons and other artworks were claimed by Crusaders and became family heirlooms.

Other art was too large to take but had more valuable purposes. Gold, silver, bronze artifacts were melted down for their value in precious metal and to become coins. Contemporary historian Niketas Choniates mentions a bronze statue of a resting Hercules that was so large "it took a cord the size of a man's belt to go round the thumb, and the shin was the size of a man." That and hundreds of bronze statues at the Hippodrome were melted down. So also was a bronze statue of Hera, so large that her head alone needed four oxen to move it. You can see a longer list by Niketas Choniates here.

So what happened afterward to Constantinople? I'm going to turn back to the Western European knight who also wrote a history, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, and talk tomorrow about how history is written by the victors.

Regime Change in Constantinople

We saw yesterday that very early in 1204 Isaac and Alexios were holed up in the Palace of Blachernae against the upset citizenry, who held an election to choose another leader (who did not want anything to do with it, and fled to Hagia Sophia for sanctuary). The two sent a trusted advisor, Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos, to seek help from the Crusaders, whom the citizenry were also attacking.

Doukas, who had until recently been imprisoned because he had tried to overthrow Isaac's brother (who had usurped the throne from Isaac in 1195 and blinded and imprisoned Isaac), took on the assignment, but considered a way to satisfy everyone involved—and by everyone, he included himself.

Doukas went to the main palace and approached the Varangian Guards—essentially Vikings who were personal bodyguards for Byzantine Emperors—with bribes. Niketas Choniates wrote that he had help from a eunuch who had access to the treasure, but this was unnecessary, since Doukas after his release from prison was made protovestiarios—"first of the wardrobe"—a position as head of imperial finances.

Doukas made himself Emperor Alexios V. On the night of 27 January, the Varangian Guards arrested Issac and Alexios. Alexios was strangled in prison about a week later, and Isaac, old and feeble already, died around the same time. The previously elected Nicholas Kanabo was brought from Hagia Sophia and offered a position in the new emperor's court, but refused. He fled again to the Hagia Sophia but was dragged from it and killed on its steps. (Having been elected by a majority, he was a "loose thread" that a new emperor could not allow to have a rebellion form around.)

Alexios V met with Doge Enrico Dandolo (the meeting was illustrated by Gustave Doré; see above) to negotiate a resolution to the conflict between the Empire and the Fourth Crusade, but there was no easy solution. The Empire did not have the money even to help itself, never mind pay enormous sums that had been promised by the younger Alexios. The Crusaders insisted that Alexios IV, with whom they had the agreement, be restored to the throne. This demand is probably why Alexios IV was killed, to eliminate any reason for the Crusaders to attempt a coup.

Alexios V confiscated money from the aristocracy (endearing himself to the lower classes but alienating his friends and relatives) in order to begin fortifying the city against the inevitable clash with the Crusading army. The death of Alexios IV was a further sign that Constantinople was not about to deal with the Crusaders in good faith. In March of 1204, all members of the Crusade who had taken up residence in the city were rounded up and expelled. That was the final straw.

The Crusaders drew up battle plans, and then made ready to put them into action. See you next time.

Crusade versus Constantinople

(It would be best to ready yesterday's post to understand where we are.)

So the Fourth Crusade was now in Constantinople, waiting to get support of men and money from Emperor Alexios IV Angelos per their agreement for putting him on the throne (even though they had to coerce his blind emperor father Isaac II to elevate the son).

Emperor Isaac must have been horrified when he discovered the offer made by his son to the Crusade. Isaac knew very well that Constantinople could not provide the 200,000 silver marks on top of 34,000 marks needed to repay a debt to Venice, or the thousands of soldiers promised to join the Crusade. Much of the financial problem was due to Isaac's brother Alexios III, who had usurped the throne in 1195 and fled to Thrace when the Crusaders attacked the city on 18 July 1203. Alexios III had cemented his power after usurpation with lavish bribes, depleting the treasury. When he fled, he took 1000 pounds of gold with him.

Alexios IV scraped together 100,000 silver marks by confiscating church treasures and property of those he considered enemies (supporters of his uncle), and sacking some Thracian towns. By December, however, it was clear that the Crusade was not going to get the support they were promised. Foolishly, Alexios did not even try to placate them further, stating "I will not do any more than I have done."

Meanwhile, the citizens of Constantinople were increasingly annoyed with the overbearing Westerners, and the young emperor who had brought them there and now was proving to be an incompetent ruler. The locals started acting violently toward the Europeans, attacking and killing many. Isaac compounded the problem by spreading rumors that his son kept company with "depraved men." A contemporary historian, Niketas Choniates (c.1155 - 1217) criticized Alexios' childishness, his lavish lifestyle, and his familiarity with the Western outsiders. Alexios, quite foolishly, tried to teach the Crusaders a lesson (and get the citizens on his side) by setting fire to several ships and aiming them at the Venetian fleet. (The illustration is the Venetian fleet at the shore, from a 15th century miniature.)

By January 1204, the citizens of Constantinople had had enough with the Crusaders and with the rulers that were ineffective at dealing with this threat to the city. They wanted a new emperor, and the senate and priests and populace gathered to find one. Anyone who had been paying attention knew the situation was hopeless: the Crusaders would not go away without Alexios' agreement being satisfied, and there was no way to meet their demands. On 27 January 1204 they elected Nicholas Kanabos, a young noble described by Choniates as "gentle by nature, of keen intelligence, and versed in generalship and war". He absolutely refused the authority they wanted to give him and fled to the Hagia Sophia for sanctuary.

Knowing that the citizenry en masse wanted them gone, Isaac and Alexios barricaded themselves in the Palace of Blachernae, one of the imperial residences in the northwestern part of the city. (On the Second Crusade, Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine had been hosted there.) They sent a trusted advisor, Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos, to go to the Crusaders and get help. Doukas had tried to overthrow Isaac's usurping uncle and been imprisoned for it. When Isaac was restored, Doukas was released and put in charge of the federal finances. Isaac felt Doukas was a man he could trust.

That was a mistake. Tomorrow the Byzantine intrigue goes on, and includes Vikings!

Going to Constantinople

After attacking Zara at the request of the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, the members of the Fourth Crusade headed toward Constantinople. Why Constantinople and not the Holy land? After the siege, one of the leaders, Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, had left Zara to visit his cousin, the King of Germany, Philip of Swabia. There he met a Byzantine prince in exile, Alexios Angelos. His father, Isaac II Angelos, had had the throne usurped by Isaac's brother, Alexios III, who had Isaac blinded (rendering him unfit to rule) and imprisoned. Alexios wondered if the Crusaders would help put him on the throne that had been usurped from his father.

Alexios offered 10,000 Byzantine soldiers to join the Crusade if he were made emperor, as well as 500 knights to stay in the Holy land to maintain order. (The sketch above is from the Doge's Palace in Venice, and shows Alexios at Zara requesting aid.) He also offered ships and money to pay off the debt to Venice, as well as having the Greek Orthodox Church accept the pope's authority, and an additional 200,000 silver marks.

This sounded too good to be true...and it was. But at the time it seemed like a deal that could not be passed up. (Not everyone thought this was a good idea: Simon de Montfort, for instance, was opposed. They should have listened to him.)

The Crusader fleet arrived at Constantinople in 1202. The came up to the walls of the city and showed Alexios, telling the people that their rightful ruler had been brought to them. The reaction was less than enthusiastic. The usurper, 50-year-old Alexios III, had ruled well since 1195. The 20-year-old prince Alexios was untried as a ruler. Change for the sake of change did not appeal to the citizens of Constantinople.

The Crusaders were patient, setting up camp and taking their supplies from the countryside, but on 18 July 1203 they lost their patience and attacked Constantinople. Emperor Alexios III, seeing that the invaders were finally serious, fled. When the city gates were opened up the next morning, the Crusaders and Alexios entered to find that the citizens had released Isaac from prison and declared him emperor, even though his blindness disqualified him. They apparently preferred a seasoned politician over the untried youth. The Crusaders, showing a constant disregard for local politics, forced Isaac to declare his son co-emperor, making him Alexios IV Angelos.

So now Alexios had the authority to make good on his promises and reward the Crusaders. That's when the real trouble started.

You may recall that a few days ago I said I would explain one of the sources of Byzantine culture that influenced Italian art, etc. We are getting closer. See you next time.

Attacking Zara

As we saw in yesterday's post, Venice was able to coerce the members of the Fourth Crusade to winter over in Zara (a Dalmatian city now called Zadar and part of Croatia), on the east coast of the Adriatic. Probably unknown to the Crusaders at the time, Venice had an ulterior motive: to lead the Crusaders as an army against Zara. The reason for this requires us to dig into the past.

Zara had asked Venice for help in 998CE; they were being menaced by Narentine pirates, a south Slavic tribe. Venice took advantage of the request by sending a fleet that defeated the pirates and then landed on some of the islands in the Adriatic and took them over. Dalmatia offered little resistance.

The Zaran anti-Venice resistance led to them becoming part of the Byzantine Empire. Meanwhile, the trading power of Venice grew until they became a powerful force in the Adriatic and continued to attack Zara several times during the 1100s. Now, in November 1202, Doge Enrico Dandolo had a large army that owed him a lot of money and accepted his leadership. It was time to strike and subjugate Zara once and for all time.

As Geoffrey de Villehardouin wrote in his account of the Crusade:

On the eve of the feast of Saint Martin, they arrived before Zara in Sclavonia and saw the city fortified with lofty walls and tall towers; you would have sought a finer, stronger, more impressive city in vain. And when the pilgrims saw it they were greatly astounded and said to one another, "How could such a city be taken by force, unless God Himself brought it about?"

The ships landed; siege engines intended to be used against Saracens were unloaded, and Zara was attacked and taken. This was an appalling act: an attack by a Christian Crusading army on a Christian city. It was universally condemned. Pope Innocent III excommunicated all involved and wrote:

Behold your gold has turned into base metal and your silver has almost completely rusted since, departing from the purity of your plan and turning aside from the path onto the impassable road, you have, so to speak, withdrawn your hand from the plough [...] for when [...] you should have hastened to the land flowing with milk and honey, you turned away, going astray in the direction of the desert.

In 1203, however, Innocent undid the excommunication of the non-Venetians in the Crusading army, urging them to complete their mission. Unfortunately, the siege of Zara was simply a foreshadowing of a larger transgression. We will start leading up to that tomorrow.

Controlling the Crusaders

I wrote about Enrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, 10 years ago here, but let's look at the man who "imprisoned" the Fourth Crusade. Born c.1107, he was 85 when he was elected Doge. His family was very powerful in Venetian society, and the men seemed to live to ripe old ages. This world to Enrico's disadvantage, because his father (Vitale) controlled all the family business until his death in 1174, the sons didn't have much of a public record until then.

One of his first public roles was when Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenos, intending to reclaim Italy as a possession, befriended the Pisa's and Genoese living on Constantinople. Pisa and Genoa were currently enemies of Venice, and the Venetians in Constantinople attacked the Genoese. Manuel responded by having thousands of Venetians in the Empire imprisoned and their goods confiscated. Enrico was part of the retaliatory expedition that failed due to plague. (The enmity between Venice and Constantine would come into play during the Fourth Crusade.)

As Doge, he was involved in the negotiations to have ships ready to ferry the Fourth Crusade from Europe to the Holy Land, as I mentioned yesterday. When only part of the army showed up without all the men and financial resources that hd been arranged, Venice was in a bind: how to recoup the expense of the ship-building they had incurred. based on the promise of payment? The solution was also the solution to another issue: where to house an influx of thousands of people and their equipment.

The temporary housing was resolved by ferrying them all to the island of Lido, a long thin barrier island in the Venetian Lagoon. (The Venice Film Festival takes place there annually in late summer.) Once there, the Crusaders were stuck with no way to leave. Dandolo demanded 85,000 marks in payment. The Crusaders pooled what they had, and came up with 51,000 marks.

Dandolo made an additional offer. Venice would lend the remaining 34,000 marks to the Crusade, so long as it could be paid back by the spoils of the venture. At this point it was late summer, and Enrico had two further suggestions/offers. One was to spend the winter at Zara, cross the Adriatic, and resume the Crusade to the Holy land in the spring weather. This was agreed to, since they relied on the ships and good will of Venice to get to their destination anyway.

The second offer was that Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, aged as he was, would take up the Cross and join them, bring the support of the people of Venice. The offer was made and accepted in a grand ceremony, and in the early days of October 1202, the Crusade departed Venice for the city of Zara to spend the harsher winter months.

The problem on the horizon? Zara was not controlled by Venice. It was a Croatia-Hungary city. Dandolo wanted it subjugated so Venice would have total control over the northern Adriatic, and now he had an army of thousands whom he could coerce to do his bidding. This will turn into the second (but not the last) disaster of the Fourth Crusade. See you tomorrow.

Geoffrey de Villehardouin

The influence of Byzantine art and culture on Italy (especially in the 13th century) was discussed yesterday, and I referred obliquely to a reason for it. The reason for it was the Fourth Crusade. Before we dig further into why the Fourth Crusade produced those influences, however, I want to mention a chief historical source of what happened on that crusade.

His name was Geoffrey de Villehardouin (his seal is to the left), and he lived from about 1150 until c.1213, not too many years after the Fourth Crusade ended. He was a literate French knight, who was made Marshal of Champagne in 1185. In 1199 the Crusade had been called by Pope Innocent III. On 28 November, Count Thibaud III of Champagne called a tournament for his nobles. Also present was Fulk of Neuilly, a preacher who fervently supported the Fourth Crusade.

Thibaud urged all present to "take up the Cross" and join Innocent's Crusade. They did, and chose Thibaud to lead their contingent. Thibaud died in 1201, a few years before the Crusade started; before he died, however, he had appointed Geoffrey and some others to go to Venice and make arrangements for ships to ferry the armies of Western Europe to the Holy Land.

In Venice, Geoffrey and the other envoys made arrangements for hundreds of ships, and predicted when (a few years hence) the armies would arrive over the Alps and reach Venice. He had to deal with the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, who at the time was well into his 80s but still a shrewd leader. Dandolo was eager for the revenue that would come from the armies of France, etc., bringing their money to pay for their passage.

What Geoffrey could not have known, however, is that all the different groups of armed men and supporters would not follow the same plan. Instead of meeting up in Venice, some chose a different approach. Several of the collected groups that chose to join this Crusade went to Marseilles and commissioned ships there. When The French group of which Geoffrey was a part arrived in Venice, there were too few Crusaders to be able to pay for the three years of ship-building costs incurred by the Venetians.

For Venice and the Crusaders, this seemed like a disaster. For Dandolo, however, it was an opportunity, and he knew just how to exploit it. Step one was to effectively incarcerate the entire army of thousands, and he had a way to do that.

Tomorrow we'll see how the well-intentioned Fourth Crusade went "off the rails."

The Italo-Byzantine style

Yesterday I introduced the Florentine artist Coppo di Marcovaldo (c. 1225 – c. 1276), who painted in the Italo-Byzantine style, which became the major style of Italian painters in the 13th century, continuing for some painters into the 15th century. (Cimabue and Giotto started developing their own styles, helping to usher in the Italian Renaissance.) The illustration here is of a 13th-century Italian triptych in the Italo-Byzantine style.

The original Italo-Byantine artworks were religious icons, primarily of the Madonna and Child; small framed works, often with a golden background. The term is also applied to some architecture, and is apparent in a few very old structures, such as San Marco in Venice.

Whence came this influence? You may remember recently this post that discussed the presence of Byzantines in parts of Italy. Emperor Constans II had moved his headquarters to Sicily in the 7th century, and although the following emperors remained in Constantinople, there was still a lot of Greek culture and cultural influences in the middle part of the Mediterranean.

Although the 7th century influx of Byzantine influence in Sicily and southern Italy may have hung around until the 13th century, there was a later event that brought a larger influx of Byzantine artistic influence to the West. I'm talking about the Fourth Crusade and the events of 1204.

Called by Pope Innocent III, it did not attract as much excitement as he would have liked. Saladin had reconquered Jerusalem, and the Third Crusade had barely finished, so enthusiasm for the Crusades was waning. One result was a lack of donations to finance the venture. One must plan ahead, however, and so six envoys were sent to Venice to discuss arrangements for ships to transfer thousands of men, their horses, and supplies across the sea to the Holy Land. What these envoys did not know, of course, was how much (few) the donations were back in England and France.

It is fortunate for us that one of the envoys was a literate man who wrote a detailed account of the negotiations (after the fact, so we have to question how faithful he was to his own part in everything, once he knew how badly things had gone). He, and why the Fourth Crusade was crucial to bringing Byzantine art to Western Europe, will be a subject worthy of a few entries, starting tomorrow.

A Known Artist

One of the things that makes Coppo di Marcovaldo (c. 1225 – c. 1276) interesting is that he is one of the earliest artists from Florence whose work can be reliably attributed. His most famous work, the Madonna del Bordone ("The Madonna of the Pilgrim's Staff") was signed and dated, and came about under sightly unusual circumstances.

It is a large (7.5 x 4 feet) tempera painting (seen here) in a basilica in Siena, produced in the year 1261. What makes it particularly interesting is that one of the first records including Coppo's name is a list of Florentine soldiers in the war with Siena that ended in 1260, which the Sienese won.

The assumption of some historians is that Coppo may have been taken prisoner in Siena, and that his reputation as a painter must have been so well-established that he was asked (required) to produce the Madonna del Bordone, perhaps as a condition of his release. Otherwise, perhaps he was not a prisoner and was commissioned as part of ongoing peace-keeping attempts between the two city-states.

Many depictions of Madonna and Christ Child up to this point focused on the abstract nature of divinity, and the child and mother are displayed looking straight at the viewer, sometimes sitting in a very symmetrical pose facing outward. Coppo's painting shows the child looking tenderly at his mother, while she has her head turned slightly towards him but with her eyes looking toward and engaging the viewer.

Although the clothing of the two figures is indicative of northern Italy, the poses of the two figures are similar to the way Byzantine art at the time was representing Madonna-Child art. This Italo-Byzantine style is well-known to art historians, and we'll look at some further examples (and the reason for them) tomorrow.

Medieval Hell(s)

The concept was simple: be good and go to Heaven, be bad and go to Hell. Each of these outcomes was eternal: you either had bliss or torment forever. Eternal bliss was a fairly straightforward concept, but eternal torment opened the gates for imagination.

We've recently seen some version of Hell specifically for Judas Iscariot in posts here and here. Dante Alighieri of course offers his version of Hell in the Divine Comedy. The Gospel of Luke tells of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus; when they die, Lazarus is carried to Heaven, from which he can look down on the rich man (called Dives), tormented in flame so badly that he wants Lazarus to be sent by Abraham with just the water from the tip of his finger to cool the rich man's tongue. 

Modern theology has abandoned this imagery, and describes Hell is being as far distant from God as it is possible to be. Medieval theologians, however, preferred to make Hell such a ghastly outcome that avoiding sin in this world was preferable.

Some individuals had visions of Hell that were shared to help others avoid that fate. The Vision of Tnugdalus shows what an evil life can lead to, and saves the man from continuing in his wicked ways. Even the non-wicked had visions: Hildegard of Bingen in her 1171 Liber Vitae Meritorum ("The Book of the Rewards of Life") relates a vision she had (which surely wasn't needed to turn her away from a sinful life):

I saw a great swamp. A black cloud of smoke hung over it and a mass of little worms swarmed all over it. In the swamp were the souls of those who had enjoyed foolish fun when they were alive. And I saw a great fire, black, red and white, and in it horrible fiery vipers spitting flame; the vipers tortured the souls of those who had been nasty to others. And I saw a great fire burning in the blackness, and there were dragons in it. Nearby was an icy river. The liars were punished here. To escape the heat, they went into the river. Then, because of the cold, they returned to the fire, and the dragons tormented them. And I saw the thickest darkness. In it were those people who had not obeyed their bishop. They lay on a fiery pavement and were bitten by sharp-toothed worms. And I saw high in the air a hail of ice and fire falling ... and I saw demons with fiery whips beating here and there.

Common aspects of Hell for the Middle Ages were heat/flames, often including brimstone (sulphur), being immersed in blood or boiling water, demons conducting torture, different punishments for different sins, and a subterranean nature (as in the Greek hades), with an opening somewhere on the surface of the Earth that would resemble a gaping maw.

The torturing being conducted in the illustration above is an example of how artists tried to capture the horrific nature of the afterlife for the damned. This particular illustration was by a 13th century Florentine painter by the name of Coppo di Marcovaldo. I think four posts in four days about sin and Hell are sufficient, and it's time to move to something a little more wholesome, like Italian art by Marcovaldo. I'll see you tomorrow.

Other Versions of Judas

The character of Judas in the New Testament fascinated the Middle Ages, even so far as creating more stories about him that take place after his death. One of the common places to find him is the various versions of the voyage of Brendan. Whether there is an original, authentic version of this tale is unknown; what is true is that 1) almost every version of the tale (and there are about 100) includes the encounter with Judas, and 2) the accounts do not all match. Different authors produced different versions of the meeting.

Judas is found on a rock in the ocean. One version does not tell of the encounter in "real time," but has Brendan mention it afterward to his companions. His companions, set with the cold and hail they've been enduring, complain that the warmth of Hell would not be worse. Brendan says:

We have seen Judas, the betrayer of our Lord, in a dreadful sea, on the Lord’s day, wailing and lamenting, seated on a rugged and slimy rock, which was now submerged by the waves and again emerged from them somewhat. Against the rock there rushed a fiery wave from the east, and a wave of coldness from the west alternatively, which drenched Judas in a frightful manner; and yet this grievous punishment seemed to him a relief from pain, for thus the mercy of God granted this place to him on the Sundays as some ease amidst his torments. What, therefore, must be the torments suffered in hell itself?

Some think that, because this is such a simple way to describe it, that this is an earlier version that gave later writers the motivation to expand with more detail. The author might have wanted to skip over (if he knew them) some of the details of the version we saw yesterday, since they have had theological implications that would be unorthodox and unwelcome.

Another version describes a devil that appears on the ship, visible only to Brendan, who questions why he is present. The devil explains that he is being tortured in the deep dark sea, and shows Brendan a vision of Hell. There Brendan sees various torments, and, at the very bottom of Hell, hears weeping. There he sees Judas on a rock in the sea (but this is in Hell), being buffeted by fire at the front and ice from behind. Judas looks up and explains that this will continue until Judgment Day. There are no mollifying circumstances because of any good deeds he may have performed in his lifetime, as we saw yesterday.

(Interesting that Dante also puts Judas at the very bottom and that ice is involved.)

An Anglo-Norman version has him clinging to the rock himself lest he be washed away, and he tells Brendan his whole story, claiming that his punishment is because he despaired of Christ's mercy and killed himself instead of asking forgiveness. This Judas lists two Hells, and that he is the only soul tortured by both: one is a hot mountaintop, one is a cold and odorous valley, with a sea in between. Six days of the week he is tortured in a different way in the alternate Hells, and on Sunday he gets to cling for life to this rock in the middle sea.

Scholars have tried to match details of Brendan's voyage with geography, linking the voyage to the Canary Islands, the Azores, Faroes, or even as far as Greenland or North America. One person thinks the rock on which Judas is found is Rockall, a granite islet of <8500 square feet (see illustration).

But away from geography and back to literature. There is a lot of variety in Judas' suffering because of his status as (probably) Hell's most famous citizen. Writers felt comfortable outing various methods of suffering. So what was the medieval concept of Hell? Was there a uniform, agreed-upon version of what Hell was for, who went there, and how souls were treated? Let's take a very un-Dante-esque trip starting tomorrow.

Judas and Brendan

I discussed the medieval attitude toward Judas yesterday, and how the Middle Ages found a place for him in literature and legend outside of his brief appearance in the New Testament. One of the oddest ideas is that, because of a good deed or two attributed to him during his life, he is allowed time out of Hell.

I have written before of Brendan the Navigator, who was the main character of a "medieval best-seller." Over 100 manuscripts exist, from as early as the 10th century, about Brendan undertaking a voyage with 16 monks (or 14, or three) to find the Isle of the Blessed (or the Garden of Eden). The story produced several versions, with Brendan experiencing different lands and strange beings. The most consistent anecdote that appears in all versions, however, is the meeting with Judas Iscariot.

After passing by the fiery mountain which is the entrance to Hell, and the loss of a crew member, Brendan and the remaining crew sail south and see something protruding from the ocean. It is a stone, with an unkempt man one it. He wears a cloak, attached to two forks in a way that allows the wind and waves to lash the cloak folds against his face constantly.

Brendan asks the man his identity and the reason for his punishment. It turns out that this is Judas Iscariot, and the punishment they observe is actually a respite from Hell. He is normally stuck on the fiery mountain they saw, where he is constantly burned. But this is not for every day of the year. On certain days he is freed from the fire and put on this rock. Those days are Sundays, the Twelve Days of Christmas (25 December to 6 January), from Easter to Pentecost, and the feast days of the Purification and Assumption of Mary (quite a few, really).

Brendan asks Judas about the significance of this "respite" and why it is arranged this way. The cloak he wears is granted him because he once gave a cloak to a leper who was exposed to too much sun. The rock is because he once put a rock as a stepping stone in a trench to make a journey easier. The forks represent forks that Judas gave to priests to hold up a cauldron. But why does the cloak whip him around the face and eyes, if it is supposed to represent a good deed? Because originally he stole the cloak that he later gave away.

While they talk, Brendan and crew become surrounded by demons who have come to return Judas to Hell. Brendan invokes the name of Jesus and holds the demons at bay. Threatening to torture Judas doubly because they are being prevented from torturing him at the mountain, Brendan tells them they have no authority to do so. The demons eventually drag Judas away and Brendan continues his voyage.

I mentioned that an encounter with Judas was standard in the various version of Brendan's voyage. This version is very detailed, but there were other versions. Let's cover them tomorrow before moving on.

Judas in the Middle Ages

The character of Judas (mentioned yesterday) from the New Testament both horrified and fascinated Christians of the Middle Ages. Although he does not survive after the Crucifixion like the other apostles, who went on to travel and proselytize, he lived on in the imagination and in literature. Someone in the 2nd century CE created the Coptic Gospel of Judas, a series of dialogues between Judas and Jesus that express 2nd century theological ideas. It paints Judas' actions as directed by Jesus himself, rather than a disgruntled (for whatever reason) apostle turning on his leader.

Matthew 27:5 says he hanged himself. Acts 1:18 says he fell into a field that he bought with the silver and his body burst open. Judas does not get mentioned outside of Acts and the Gospels. The canonical New Testament has nothing else to say about him. Although Judas' end is mentioned in the Bible, not every early Christian writer knew his story, leading some to extend it, which in turn gave later centuries fodder for literature.

Papias, Bishop of Hieropolis, writing around 130 CE, relates how Judas, rather than killing himself right after the betrayal:

went about in this world as a great model of impiety. He became so bloated in the flesh that he could not pass through a place that was easily wide enough for a wagon – not even his swollen head could fit. They say that his eyelids swelled to such an extent that he could not see the light at all; and a doctor could not see his eyes even with an optical device, so deeply sunken they were in the surrounding flesh.

The 12th century Latin Vita Judae ("Life of Judas") creates a biography for him, painting him as a tragic figure with an anecdote that might seem familiar to fans of Greek tragedy:

Before the child is born, his father has a vision that his son will kill him; so when Judas is born, his legs are wounded and he is abandoned outside of Jerusalem. Some shepherds find the baby and he is raised by a woman in a town called Scariot. As a grown man, Judas enters the service of King Herod. When Herod desires fresh fruit for one of his feasts, Judas steals some from a local orchard, and when caught he kills the farmer, not knowing it is his own father. When the townspeople threaten to kill Judas, he finds protection in Herod, who has him married to the murdered farmer’s wife (Judas’s mother, though unknown) to make peace. Judas’s true identity is revealed when his mother sees him naked and recognizes the scars on his legs.

Judas flees and meets Jesus; the rest happens as the Gospels tell it.

So there he is, turned from a demonic betrayer into a villain, but a villain perhaps worthy of pity because of fate and circumstances out of his control. Even more interesting than that, however, is the medieval idea that Judas was not completely bad, and that during his life he performed one or more good deeds. Those good deeds had a softening effect on his post-death existence. Tomorrow I'll tell you how his good deeds allowed people (like a Celtic saint) to meet him and speak to him.