Was Geenghis Khann bloodier and

a more bru
utal than waas normal for
fo his time and place?

Patrick O'Neill, In the past, I studied

s histoory
Answerred Jul 20
Not partticularly, noo.
The Lattin sack of Constantino
C ople in 12044 during the Fourth Cruusade is insttructive as too
militaryy behavior during
d this period.
p

The Lattin soldiery subjected thhe greatest city in Euroope to an ind describablee sack. For thhree
days theey murderedd, raped, loooted and destroyed on a scale whicch even the ancient Vaandals
and Gotths would have
h found unbelievabl
u e. Constantinople had become
b a veritable
v muuseum of
ancient and Byzanttine art, an emporium
e o such incredible weallth that the Latins
of L weree
astoundded at the ricches they foound. Thoug gh the Veneetians had an n appreciatiion for the art
a
which thhey discoveered (they w were themseelves semi-B Byzantines) and saved muchm of it, the
French and others destroyed
d inndiscriminaately, haltingg to refresh themselvess with wine,,
violation of nuns, and
a murder of Orthodox clerics. The Crusaders vented thheir hatred for f the
Greeks most spectaacularly in the t desecrattion of the greatest
g Chuurch in Chriistendom. TheyT
smashedd the silver iconostasis, the icons anda the holyy books of HagiaH Sophhia, and seatted upon
the patriiarchal throone a whore who sang coarse
c songs as they drrank wine frrom the Chuurch's
holy vesssels.
t was durring a holy crusade to reclaim
Keep inn mind that this r Jeruusalem for Christendom
C m, and
that the Byzantiness were fellow w Christianns and (at leaast theoreticcal) allies in
n the fight against
a
the threat of Islam. If this is what
w medieval armies diid to their frriends, the violence
v of the
Mongolls against th here enemies hardly seeems unusuaal. It was a brutal
b time, and it was nnot
uncomm mon for peoople in wars to display brutality.
b Iff anything distinguished
d d the Mongols it
was the scale, not the
t particulaars.