01-10-2022, 04:12 PM
If I read the history correctly, the Pope excommunicated the crusaders after Zara and ordered them to return to their vows and go to Jerusalem. So forgiveness would have been dependent upon them actually doing that, and at the time they sacked Constantinople they would still not have been forgiven. The second unauthorized sacking, followed by not going on to the official target, should have left them permanently excised from the Church.
Officially, the objective of the Fourth Crusade was to bring Muslim Jerusalem under Christian rule. I suspect that looting any city, Christian or Muslim, was not openly sanctioned by the Church (though who knows what was unofficially ignored). Bringing loot home to the royal patrons would probably have been an off-the-books side job.
I wonder whether the crusaders actually thought they were funding their continuing mission to Jerusalem in Constantinople or if by then they had just gone rogue and were in it only for themselves. I don't recall either Kelly or Renard ever saying that the knights were pious Christians motivated by their faith.
Officially, the objective of the Fourth Crusade was to bring Muslim Jerusalem under Christian rule. I suspect that looting any city, Christian or Muslim, was not openly sanctioned by the Church (though who knows what was unofficially ignored). Bringing loot home to the royal patrons would probably have been an off-the-books side job.
I wonder whether the crusaders actually thought they were funding their continuing mission to Jerusalem in Constantinople or if by then they had just gone rogue and were in it only for themselves. I don't recall either Kelly or Renard ever saying that the knights were pious Christians motivated by their faith.