David M. Perry. Sacred Plunder

The history of the Fourth Crusade and its most dramatic and fateful event, namely the conquest of the Byzantine capital Constantinople and the subsequent looting of its churches, palaces, and public monuments in April 1204, has attracted the attention of students and scholars of history for centuries, leading to a rich corpus of academic works—not to mention books of more popular reach—on a variety of important issues. Such issues range from the crusade’s political repercussions across Europe, to questions and concerns of religious and ecclesiastical nature, to the cultural and artistic impact in the West of the arrival of numerous works of late Roman and Byzantine art, which included small and large-scale sculptures in gold, silver, ivory, and marble, as well as painted books and panels, richly decorated with enamels and precious stones. In Sacred Plunder: Venice and the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, David M. Perry is concerned with a different set of objects and objectives associated with the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople. His objects, however, are even more precious and valuable than the above-mentioned spolia removed from the capital’s palaces, sanctuaries, and public spaces: namely the relics of Old and New Testament saints and the Virgin Mary, and especially those of the Passion of Christ. His interests are tied to a broader contest over memory and meaning that followed the short historical episode that began with Pope Innocent III’s call for a new crusade in 1198 and ended with the pillaging of the largest city of Christendom in 1204. He aims to trace “the ways in which that contest shaped the emergence, development, and cultural influence of a distinct body of hagiographical texts known as translatio narratives” (2). As such, Perry’s study forms part of a recent trend in the history of scholarship on the Fourth Crusade, which is particularly concerned with questions of memory and its construction in the aftermath of the events of 1204. Perry’s focus on translatio narratives allows him to analyze similarities and differences in the ways specific beneficiaries of notable relic transfers attempted to valorize their newly acquired treasures and to exempt them from the kind of scrutiny and criticism leveraged by Innocent III against the participants of the Fourth Crusade for looting churches and dispersing church property in the Byzantine capital and beyond.

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Byzantine architecture · Capital (architecture) · CONTEST · Cult · Looting · Passion · Political science · Politics · Sculpture · Classics · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law