Episode 293 - Governing Constantinople with John Giebfried

Today we look at Constantinople itself. What was the physical state of the city and what was the Latin administration like? Guiding us today is Dr John Giebfried.
John completed his PhD in Medieval History at St Louis University in 2015 and has subsequently worked at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Georgia Southern University, East Georgia State College, and since 2022 has been a faculty member at the University of Vienna, where he teaches History and Digital Humanities. His academic work focuses on the Crusades, the Crusader-States, and European interactions with the Mongols.
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[@robertferrick494]

Really fascinating; it was very instructive to hear such a concise yet comprehensive examination of the frequently belittled Latin Empire

[@johngiebfried1154]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

[@user-vm3cl2yu5j]

The sack of Constantinople starts the end of south - eastern Europe and ends with fall to ottomans. The crusaders take and destroy tousands of historical monuments, subjects of art, building and books. Not just when the sack take place, but decates in the future. No one knows how many precious things are lost forewer. Eastern roman empire will be never the same again. And all that for money and fortune. I am disappointed that you are trying to protect these crimes. I will never again watch your videos and will delete my subscription.

[@bobflemming100]

Glad someone sane is here. This podcast is declining harder than Byzantium. Robin feels the need to play down the sack and subsequent events and brings guests onto the show to fill out the time that he clearly can’t. The “historian” on this episode was particularly bad.

[@johngiebfried1154]

@@bobflemming100 I'm that historian - I'm happy to discuss any questions you have about my arguments. Let me just reiterate - I'm not denying that terrible things happened during the sack of Constantinople - just that the cultural destruction of Byzantium took place across half a century, not just three days of looting. The only thing I am questioning is one passage from the account of Choniates - and only because he was not any eyewitness, and direct eyewitness testimony disproves his claims.

[@bobflemming100]

@@johngiebfried1154 Hello John. Thanks for your response. I apologise for my harsh comment, but I don’t think it seems fair to write Choniates off as a historian because he “wasn’t there” and use the testimony of someone with an obvious bias to disprove him. I understand Choniates’s account can’t be entirely trusted, no testimony should be.

[@johngiebfried1154]

@@bobflemming100 So, there is more evidence than I could get into in the context of a short podcast interview. There are two Greek eyewitness sources to the destruction of Constantinople - the other Nicholas Mesarites - mentions lots of terrible things the Crusaders did, but doesn't mention the destruction of the Hagia Sophia at all - something he would mention since his mother fled to the convent right next door to avoid crusader violence. Moreover, while no other crusader account gives as detailed a description as Robert of Clari - there are several more descriptions of the altar being there (for instance in the accounts of the Coronation of Baldwin I) after its supposed destruction. Moreover, bias doesn't come into the picture with Robert - he is clearly awed by the beauty of the church - and provides a description that a common knight could never give unless he saw the church himself in person - and the only chance for him to see it, was after the sack ended. In the end, I think you have to look at the description of the sack in Choniates as a "poetic lament" - rather than a history - Byzantine officials like Choniates were trained in classical rhetoric and biblical studies, and part of their court work was to produce literary, as well as historical texts. I think this passage - which is full of biblical allusions, should be treated as a literary work. I hope that helps explain my argument a bit more.

[@johngiebfried1154]

@@bobflemming100 So, I am not writing off Choniates simply because he wasn't there, although I point that out to say that by his own testimony, he is not an eyewitness to these events - but Robert of Clari is an eyewitness to the aftermath - and unlike Choniates, he does not have an ax to grind in this passage, instead, he is just describing a pretty church to people back home, and that description shows Choniates' account to be historically incorrect. Moreover, there is also another Greek eyewitness to the sack, Nicholas Mesarities, who says lots of horrible things about the sack, but who does not mention the destruction of the Hagia Sophia, even though his own mother fled to the convent next door. Finally, there are other references to the Hagia Sophia during the first year of Latin rule (like descriptions of the coronation of Baldwin I) which say the altar is still clearly there. In the end, we have to come to the conclusion that what is going on here is a 'rhetorical lament' - he is mixing and matching biblical and classical tropes to express his sadness about the sack, it's a work of literature, not history. (I thought I posted a response yesterday but I don't see it here now - so apologies if you saw another version of this)