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1204: The Capture of Constantinople
- Text in English |
Nicholas Mesarites
Crusaders Run Wild in Constantinople
[From Der Epitaphios des auf seinen Bruder Johannes, ed. by A. Heisenberg, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaft, translated by Deno Geanakoplos, Byzantium, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1984, p. 369]
And so the streets, squares, houses of two and three stories, sacred places, nunneries,
houses for nuns and monks, sacred churches, even the Great Church of God and the
imperial palace, were filled with men of the enemy, all of them maddened by war
and murderous in spirit, all clad in armor and bearing spears, swords and lances, archers
and horsemen boasting terribly, barking like Cerberus and exhaling like Charon, as they
sacked the sacred places and trampled on the divine things [and] ran riot over the holy
vessels. ... Moreover, they tore children from their mothers and mothers from their children, and they defiled the virgins in the holy chapels, fearing neither God's anger nor man's vengeance. They searched breasts of women to find out whether some womanly ornament or gold was attached or hidden in the body; hair was loosened and head-coverings removed, and those without homes or money were struck down.
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