Download PDF | Thomas F. Madden - Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice-Johns Hopkins University Press (2006).
321 Pages
Introduction
With the exception of Marco Polo, Doge Enrico Dandolo (1192‒ 1205) is the best-known Venetian of the Middle Ages—and with good reason. He stood at the center of events that transformed the Republic of St. Mark into a maritime empire and fundamentally altered the Mediterranean world. He was also blessed with a colorful character. When elected to the dogeship he was already in his eighties and completely blind. Nevertheless, he remained a man of vigor with a sharp intelligence and plenty of practical wisdom. Historians have long employed other terms to describe him, as well, including wily, clever, rascally, shrewd, and crafty.
In other words, Enrico Dandolo was a typical Venetian of the Middle Ages. But was he? My interest in Dandolo grew out of my work on the Fourth Crusade (1201‒4), that strange expedition that set out to conquer Muslim Egypt and ended by destroying Christian Byzantium. As the leader of the Venetians on the crusade, the doge played a crucial role in its course and outcome. I was struck early on, though, by the strong emphasis often placed on Enrico Dandolo’s character. Based on the events of the crusade and eyewitness descriptions of him, one could certainly conclude that he was a man of probity, prudence, sturdy patriotism, and pragmatic sense. Yet a great many interpretations of the crusade rest squarely on much darker depictions of the man. He is cast as a beguiling trickster who ensnared the naive crusaders in a web of deceit, a confidence man who found in the feudal knights the perfect mark. With little or no interest in religion, Dandolo is said to have hatched a secret plan to pervert the crusade, turning it from its holy mission in the East into a war of personal vengeance against Byzantium. Given such detailed characterizations, one would think that a great deal is known about Enrico Dandolo.
As I soon discovered, however, the opposite is true. Aside from his role in the Fourth Crusade, very little scholarly attention had ever been paid to the life of the doge, or to his family, or even to the political and social environment in which he lived. Instead, the nefarious portrayals of Dandolo rest ultimately on two main foundations: uninformed medieval antiVenetian bigotry and the early modern “countermyth” of Venice. The myth of early modern Venice is well known and much studied. It holds that Venetians belonged to a serene republic devoid of factionalism in which honor, honesty, and selfless devotion to the common good were plentiful virtues. The countermyth, which was favored by Venice’s critics and enemies, portrayed the republic as a place of dark intrigue, clandestine designs, and cynical motives. Moved by patriotism and profit, Venetians were said to be “Venetians first, Christians afterward.” It is this myth that has been most often projected back on Venice’s medieval past.
In short, what I learned was that the rich personality so often attributed to Enrico Dandolo was not his at all, but Venice’s. Encrusted with centuries of historical narrative, the doge has become a Venetian Everyman, adorned with characteristics that all Venetians, both medieval and early modern, are often thought to share. Enrico Dandolo was not so much a man of his times as a manikin dressed up in a myth. Although I came to study Enrico Dandolo to better understand the Fourth Crusade, I soon realized that to challenge the myth of Dandolo was to do the same for that of medieval Venice. Indeed, the life of the doge, which spanned the twelfth century, is an ideal tool for better understanding the medieval Republic. Dandolo and his family were in the thick of the profound changes that transformed Venice in the eleventh, twelfth, and early thirteenth centuries.
They provide, therefore, a useful way to examine events and larger trends while remaining grounded in the lives of real people. Of course, we must not mistakenly assume that all Venetians were like the Dandolo. But all, or at least most, were affected by the same factors and dynamics that altered Venice itself, albeit in different ways. It is not my intention to replace the old myth of medieval Venice with a new one. Venetians, like all people, were a diverse group, most of whom held common ideas and beliefs that bound them together, but otherwise differed in many respects. There is, however, one thing that I am convinced can be said of all medieval Venetians: They were medieval. Simply because Venetians were capitalists, for example, we should not assume that they were modern and therefore cynical in their outlook.
Thousands of parchments in the Venetian archives attest to the heartfelt and very medieval piety of these people. Venetians built churches and monasteries at an extraordinary rate, showered them with pious gifts, and carefully looked after their spiritual health and well-being. Medieval Venetians paid close attention to the papacy, in many ways closer than other Europeans since it was their only clear and abiding attachment to the West. They were early and enthusiastic supporters of papal initiatives, including Gregorian reform and the crusades. Indeed, as I was surprised to discover, until the Fourth Crusade relations between Venice and Rome had been exceptionally good.
This work, therefore, is revisionist—in the best sense of that word, I hope, remaining grounded in clear reasoning and a sober analysis of the sources. Misconceptions about medieval Venice are in part due to the relatively scant scholarly attention it has received. Although legions of scholars have enhanced our understanding of the majestic early modern Republic, only a handful now work on the medieval city of wood, stone, and mud. While it is true that archival materials in Venice are much more plentiful after the mid-thirteenth century, and do not really explode until the fourteenth century, thousands of documents are preserved from the eleventh and twelfth centuries and earlier. Most of these are from monastic archives and, therefore, not organized into neat topical categories—unless, that is, one is interested in the history of a particular monastery. But, with the help of a computer and a willingness to spend long hours in the Venetian state archives, it is possible to piece together some of these jumbled fragments of medieval Venetian lives.
Only in this way can the underbrush be cleared away and a new history of Venice in the Middle Ages be written, one based on the firm foundation of documentary evidence. Indeed, it has already begun, led by modern pioneers like Irmgard Fees, Gerhard Rösch, Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, Daniela Rando, Marco Pozza, Andrea Castagnetti, Juergen Schulz, Louise Buenger Robbert, and others. Much more work remains to be done. For the present study I have utilized my own database of several thousand documents before 1220 as well as the thousands more that have been published in collections. Together these form my main source for the reconstruction of the Dandolo family and the events in the life of Enrico Dandolo before the crusade. Throughout, I have treated literary sources written after Andrea Dandolo’s Chronica per extensum descripta with great caution.
Andrea Dandolo was doge with access to state documents that have since perished. His chronicle is judicious, sober, and frank, even when dealing with events embarrassing to his family. Venetian chronicles proliferated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, yet few of their authors had access to more information about the eleventh and twelfth centuries than did Andrea Dandolo. Most of these later writers were prone to the patrician puffery characteristic of Renaissance Venice. This is especially true in the various genealogies of noble families that sought to bolster the pedigrees of the ruling elite. Very little in these works concerning eleventh- and twelfth century families can be accepted without corroboration from contemporary sources. Venetian archival documents, chronicles, and genealogies all have one unfortunate trait in common during this period: They virtually ignore women.
Indeed, a glance at the genealogy at the end of this book might lead one to suppose that the Dandolo men spontaneously generated. There are a few exceptions. Primera Polani, Enrico Dandolo’s sister-in-law, is visible and active in several surviving documents. His wife, Contessa, also makes a brief appearance. Yet, aside from these, virtually nothing is known about the women of the Dandolo family. By necessity, therefore, this book is decidedly one-sided, focusing almost exclusively on the activities of the Dandolo in the public sphere. Although this study sheds new light on many aspects of Enrico Dandolo’s life, the documentation is still too fragmentary to produce a biography in the modern sense of that word.
I have therefore focused not only on the specifics of the doge’s life but also on its context, particularly as it relates to his family. The first chapter describes the political, economic, and social factors in the tenth and eleventh centuries that allowed the Dandolo and other new families to acquire great wealth and then to seek political and social status commensurate with it. These same dynamics fueled similar shifts in power in other fledgling communes in Italy. However, in Venice, where circumstances are always unique, this took the form not of revolution against existing authority but of a gradual move toward power sharing that retained the basic components of traditional government.
The Dandolo made their fortune in overseas trade and by the mideleventh century were sufficiently established to help found a new parish, San Luca, and to undertake service to the state. Like others of their social class, they would play a conspicuous role in Venice’s relations with Byzantium as well as the city’s crusading efforts. The early twelfth century was a time of great uncertainty for the Dandolo family. Chapter 2 examines the career of Patriarch Enrico Dandolo of Grado, the uncle of the doge. Like his predecessors, Patriarch Dandolo became an ardent proponent of Gregorian reform in the Veneto. Contrary to myth, church reform was warmly received in Venice, chiefly because the Venetian church, which lacked feudal ties, simply required less reform. Patriarch Dandolo ran afoul of the doge when he began to tread on traditional prerogatives. A dispute over the election of the abbess of San Zaccaria soured relations between the two, while a disagreement over an alliance against the Normans caused a complete break. The Dandolo family, which had no stake in the quarrel, was punished for it. In 1147, Patriarch Dandolo, his supporters, and his entire family were exiled. The houses of the Dandolo were leveled.
Thrust into a struggle between church and state, the family had no choice but to wait it out. A few years later, after successful negotiations between the pope and a new doge, the Dandolo were restored. The episode was an important turning point for the family, and it also serves to illuminate the otherwise poorly understood relationship between the ecclesiastical and political spheres in medieval Venice. Rising out of the ashes of their family compound, the Dandolo moved quickly back into the ranks of the elite. A new doge, Vitale II Michiel (1155‒72), was eager to patch up relations with the patriarch and, by extension, his family. Chapter 3 focuses on the pater familias, Vitale Dandolo, who became a regular official in the ducal court and one of the doge’s closest advisors. Indeed, Vitale Dandolo soon became a powerful man in his own right, achieving a reputation for fairness and judicial probity across the lagoon. Like his brother, the patriarch, Vitale lived a very long life.
He was in his eighties and had already retired from court when Emperor Manuel I Comnenus ordered the seizure of all Venetians and their goods in the Byzantine Empire. Nevertheless, he remained active. He sent his son, Enrico, the future doge, to accompany Michiel on a retaliatory expedition in 1172, which ended in complete failure and the murder of the doge. The expedition had been the brainchild of the people, almost certainly opposed by Vitale Dandolo and his son, as well as Michiel. The catastrophe led to a fundamental restructuring of the Venetian constitution, which is described in some detail. This transformation had the effect of concentrating power into the hands of a conservative oligarchy determined to bring order and stability to Venice and its relations with foreign powers.
Their challenge was to temper the rashness of popular will with reasoned judgment and cautious actions. Enrico Dandolo, the future doge, attempted to follow the example of his famous father. He, too, served on embassies to Constantinople and, contrary to common opinion, was a promoter of peace with Byzantium. However, sometime between 1174 and 1176, probably while on a voyage to the East, he received a blow to the head that damaged the occipital lobe of his brain. Within a few years he was completely blind. Chapter 4 begins with a detailed examination of Dandolo’s blindness, the importance of which far transcends a simple life experience. Despite his failing eyesight, Enrico Dandolo apparently continued to serve in the court of Doge Sebastiano Ziani until the latter’s death in 1178.
He took part in the pageantry and problems of the Peace of Venice of 1177, an event of enormous importance for the increasingly self-confident Venetians as well as a corIntroduction xvii nerstone in the evolving myth of Venice. This chapter also examines the last years of Patriarch Dandolo’s life. Chapter 5 utilizes the ducal election of Enrico Dandolo in 1192 in order to examine the changing nature of the dogeship itself. Dandolo’s oath of office, the earliest such oath to survive, is closely examined not only for what it tells us about Dandolo’s own authority but also for the clues it gives concerning the history of the dogeship in the twelfth century. In addition, Chapter 5 focuses on the increasingly complex and regularized government of the commune. Building on these findings, Chapter 6 then describes the major events of the first decade of Dandolo’s reign. These include a number of far-reaching domestic reforms, such as Venice’s first civil code of law and the minting of Venice’s first pure silver coin. Attention is also paid to Venetian foreign affairs at this time. It is in Chapter 7 that this study meets the vast historiography of the Fourth Crusade. Yet, as much as possible, this book remains a history of Venice.
The life of Enrico Dandolo, which served as a guide for understanding the medieval Republic, is put into similar service in an attempt to comprehend the Venetian perspective on and role within the crusade. Among the subjects examined in this chapter are Venice’s changing relationship with the papacy, the decisions of Venetians within the context of recent governmental reforms, and the sheer enormity of the Venetian effort to prepare the crusade fleet. Chapter 8 then looks at how it all went wrong. By late summer 1202, Enrico Dandolo had a large and angry foreign army in the lagoon that could not pay its bills. As the chief proponent of the crusade, he was caught between his people and the crusaders, both of whom believed they had been wronged. The reforms begun in 1172 were now put to their greatest test. Attempting to manage the risk, the oligarchy had meticulously planned and confirmed every aspect of the crusade. When reality was different, the government was called upon to avoid a rash and costly popular reaction, like that of 1171, and seek out a prudent and fair resolution to the problem.
The imperfect solution was the conquest of Zara. This allowed the crusade to get under way but convinced Pope Innocent III that Dandolo and the Venetians had hijacked the holy enterprise. This chapter also examines the effects in the Adriatic of the conquest of Zara and the subsequent departure of the crusade armada. More than half of Venice’s men and nearly all of its sea power were engaged in the Fourth Crusade, which was the focus of attention for all Venetians, including those left behind to manage things at home. Chapters 9 and 10 mirror this shift, looking closely at Dandolo and the Venetian crusaders’ perspective on the conquest of Constantinople and the foundation of the Latin Empire. xviii Introduction Scholars have tended to take for granted that Venetians desired and even worked toward the destruction of Byzantium.
These chapters demonstrate that the situation was much more complex. Stability and order were their primary goals. Doge Dandolo’s challenge was to manage events largely outside of his control, maneuvering as best he could toward a sustainable and stable environment for the Venetians of Byzantium. This he did within the constitutional framework forged by his father. Throughout the crusade Dandolo acted as the leader of the Venetian crusaders, not as the doge of Venice—an important distinction. Ducal authority rested with his son, the Vice-Doge Ranieri Dandolo, who remained in Venice. In all his agreements throughout the crusade, Enrico carefully avoided committing the communal government to anything. Yet matters remained beyond Dandolo’s control. Despite his attempts to craft a stable government at Constantinople, the rest of the Byzantine Empire was in chaos. The epilogue briefly examines the immediate effects of the Fourth Crusade and the death of Enrico Dandolo on Venice.
The complicated relationship between the commune and the Venetians of the Latin Empire is also explored. It is generally, and incorrectly, assumed that the Venetians seized the opportunity to gobble up the ruined pieces of Byzantium. Yet this chaotic state of affairs was precisely what the oligarchic Great Council had wanted to avoid. Its members were not at all sanguine about the achievements of the crusade. Indeed, they approached the whole matter with a great deal of trepidation. They feared the implications of a powerful Patriarch of Constantinople, even if he was a Venetian, and they balked at the cost and risk of capturing Byzantine lands.
Although Enrico Dandolo would long be remembered as a hero in Venice, not everything he accomplished was welcomed or wanted at the time. In the end the enormity of events would force the Venetian government to extend its reach into the Aegean, thus transforming Venice once again, now into a maritime empire. By any reckoning Enrico Dandolo was an extraordinary man. He was not the quintessential Venetian. Nevertheless, the study of his life and his world is a fruitful way to begin to better understand the rich history of the medieval Republic of St. Mark.
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