Map 6.6: German Settlement in the Baltic Sea Region, Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries
Colonization was the unanticipated consequence of the Fourth Crusade as well.
Called by Innocent III, who intended it to re-establish the Christian presence in the
Holy Land, the crusade was diverted when the organizers overestimated the numbers
joining the expedition. The small army mustered was unable to pay for the large fleet
of ships that had been fitted out for it by the Venetians. Making the best of adversity,
the Venetians convinced the crusaders to “pay” for the ships by attacking Zara (today
Zadar), one of the coastal cities that Venice disputed with Hungary. Then, taking up
the cause of one claimant to the Byzantine throne, the crusaders turned their sights
on Constantinople. We already know the political results. The religious results were
more subtle. Europeans disdained the Greeks for their independence from the pope;
on the other hand, they considered Constantinople a treasure trove of the most
precious of relics, including the True Cross. When, in the course of looting the city,
one crusader, the abbot of a German Cistercian monastery, came upon a chest of
relics, he “hurriedly and greedily thrust in both hands.”^23 There was a long tradition
of relic theft in the West; it was considered pious, a sort of holy sacrilege. Thus,
when the abbot returned to his ship to show off his booty, the crusaders shouted,
