chronology of such events. Of course, absence proves nothing, but it ought to introduce some doubt into the conversation about the plundering of the city. For more concrete information about the treatment of relics following the conquest, we must look to hagiographical sources. It is from these that one can reconstruct the deeds of specific crusaders, track the fate of relics, and more clearly demarcate the knowable from the unknowable.
Four hagiographical texts in particular open small windows into the history of relics in the postconquest city—the “Gesta episcoporum Halberstadensium,” “The Land of Jerusalem” (De terra Iherosolimitana), the Historia Constantinopolitana, and the “Translatio Symonensis.” A fifth text, the “Translatio Mamantis,” also contains a description of the initial relic looting, although secondhand at best, and it will be treated more carefully during the discussion of phase two. The four texts describe four acts of relic acquisition. Two depict the risk-free (authorized) acquisition of relics by Bishops Conrad von Krosigk of Halberstadt and Nivelon de Chérisy of Soissons; the other two record careful and surreptitious (unauthorized) raids by Abbot Martin of Pairis and a group of lower-status Venetian crusaders.
Bishop Conrad von Krosigk of Halberstadt
To piece together this relic-centered narrative, we must begin before the final capture of Constantinople. The crusaders spent months camping just outside the city walls while ostensibly working for the rightful emperor, Alexius IV, and they were free to enter in small groups. Among the crusaders was Bishop Conrad von Krosigk of Halberstadt, a supporter and client of Philip of Swabia, Alexius’s brother-in-law and backer in the Latin West. During this time, Conrad ostensibly benefitted from a long-established practice of relic gifting. He later professed to have received several objects from Alexius, who in fact pillaged his own churches for gold and silver items to melt down in an attempt to pay off his debts. In the “Gesta episcoporum Halberstadensium,” the anonymous author makes grandiose claims that Conrad returned to Halberstadt with “the blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, [portions of] the Lord’s wood, the Lord’s Sepulchre, the Lord’s crown of thorns, His shroud and sudarium, the purple garment, the sponge and reed,” and other objects.32 These were among the most venerated relics in all of Christendom, but Conrad did not acquire the main Byzantine relics of the Passion. Those ultimately ended up in the hands of the French king Louis IX. Instead, the author of the “Gesta” is following typical medieval practice by equating tiny fragments of a relic with the whole. For example, Conrad’s “crown of thorns” was merely one thorn.33 In truth, the fragmentary pieces that arrived in Halberstadt could easily have been products of looting. A contemporary Greek writer, Nicholas Hydruntinus, accused Conrad of being a relic thief, but Conrad’s own 1208 proclamation of celebration for the sacred items (making August 16 a feast day) describes them as gifts from Alexius.34 The claim is supportable. The extant reliquaries, small and ornate, are comparable to other types of reliquaries long used by Byzantine rulers in sacral diplomacy.35
If Alexius favored Conrad, the short-lived emperor perhaps favored other elite Latins similarly. While Conrad might have acquired additional pieces after the conquest, as there were plenty of relics to be gained and his hoard is impressive, the physical evidence supports the bishop’s statement that at least some were gifts. The Halberstadt trove, overall, suggests that at least a fraction of the relics taken west after the conquest were not stolen, looted, bought, or otherwise acquired as a result of war; they were diplomatic mementos of contact with the last of the Angeloi emperors.36 Such gifting served as one, largely unconsidered, vector by which relics of Christ proliferated in the West after 1204.37
One of the more precise descriptions of a relic muddies the water. Conrad acquired “a [portion of] the skull of St. Stephen the protomartyr, along with his elbow,” in order to bring Halberstadt a relic belonging to its patron saint.38 Venice had laid claim to the relics of St. Stephen, stealing them from Constantinople in 1107 or 1108. Nearly a century later, Conrad and others found more. We cannot say whether these relics were simply pieces the Venetians had missed, forgeries created by the Greeks after Venice’s theft, or a postconquest invention by Greeks or Latins. Regardless, Conrad did not acquire a relic of his cathedral’s patron by chance. Other crusaders made similar acquisitions. Conrad’s conduct, in conjunction with several examples discussed below, suggests that instead of just grabbing whatever sacred item was at hand, some crusaders sought out objects of special personal significance.
Bishop Nivelon de Chérisy of Soissons
The “Gesta episcoporum Halberstadensium” is suggestive about the postcrusade environment but not definitive. No sources attest to Conrad’s whereabouts in the days after the sack, so one is left with some questions, especially given the mystery of St. Stephen’s head and elbow. Thanks to Robert of Clari’s description of the relics of the churches in the Bucoleon Palace complex, we know somewhat more about the activities of Nivelon de Chérisy, who served as the bishop of Soissons from 1176 to 1207 and was another notable translator of relics. The sacred items that Nivelon brought back to Soissons are recorded in “The Land of Jerusalem,” an anonymously authored text that he presumably commissioned. The author framed the translatio within a discussion of the larger struggle to redeem the Holy Land, placing the recent conquest of Constantinople in the context of that struggle. The text begins with the loss of Jerusalem and the famed relic of the True Cross to Saladin in 1187 and ends with Nivelon’s return to Soissons with four Constantinopolitan fragments of the True Cross, along with other relics.39 Nivelon was one of the most important clerics on the crusade; he led the army’s clergy, just as Boniface of Montferrat led the secular force. At the end, he served as one of the twelve electors of Baldwin of Flanders and crowned him emperor in Hagia Sophia.40 While Peter Capuano, the papal legate, came and went (depending on the army’s current relationship with Rome), Nivelon was the constant leading ecclesiastical presence on the crusade.41
Nivelon’s relics, according to “The Land of Jerusalem,” included another head of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, a finger and the head of the Apostle Thomas, the crown of the head of Mark the Evangelist, a thorn from the Crown of Thorns, a belt of Mary and a piece of her robe, a piece of the towel with which Christ girded himself at the Last Supper, a forearm and the head of St. John the Baptist, a rib and the head of the blessed Blaise, the pieces of the True Cross, the staff of Moses, and many other objects.42 The text tells us that Nivelon divided them among churches in his diocese, where the newly translated saints began to work miracles.
“The Land of Jerusalem” does not record how Nivelon actually acquired his relics, but, as a source on the relic looting, it does permit some modest deductions. First, one can correlate its list with relics described by Clari. He lists the Crown of Thorns, the Virgin’s robe, the head of St. John the Baptist, and two large pieces of the True Cross as residing in the church of the Blessed Virgin of the Pharos, which was located in the Bucoleon Palace.43 Boniface of Montferrat, a friend of Nivelon’s, took control of the Bucoleon in the initial weeks after the conquest.44 A month later, Doge Enrico Dandolo of Venice suggested that everyone vacate their (fortified) palaces before the election of the emperor, presumably to stave off any thought of armed resistance from the loser. That month gave Nivelon ample time to organize the churches, go through the inventories, and take whatever he wanted. Indeed, the March Pact specifically stated that “the clerics of each party ought to organize those churches that have come into the possession of their party.”45 Nivelon followed the agreed-upon arrangement.
Thus, we can place Nivelon and the relics that he eventually took home in the same place at the same time and speculate about what might have happened. Regardless of what Nivelon did in the privacy of the Bucoleon’s treasury—even if he personally went in with a tool or snapped finger bones off a dead saint’s hands—his actions cannot be characterized as looting or relic theft. The bishop encountered no danger, which, as we will see, is a prerequisite for the narrative traditions relating to relic theft. Nivelon was organizing the churches that his faction controlled. As the leading clerical overseer of these churches, he was within his canonical rights to translate
