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The Letter of Alexius to Count Robert of Flanders [Full Text]
Introduction
Some historians have viewed the letter either as based in part on the crusading sermons of Pope Urban II or having been influenced by the same Pope's sermons because there is too great a resemblance of some portions of the letter and the various accounts of Urban's speech. Historian Dana Carleton Munro notes that most historians date the letter to anywhere from 1088-1099. Although some have claimed the letter was genuine, the surviving form of the letter that has been passed down to the present is probably a forgery that was based on a real document. For an excellent account of the letter, see Einor Joranson "The Spurious Letter of Alexius." American Historical Review 55 (1949-1950), 811-832. The article is the source of the full text version below.
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The Letter of Alexius to Count Robert of Flanders
O most Illustrious count and especial comforter of the Christian faith! I wish to make known you prudence how the most sacred empire of the Greek Christians is being sorely distressed by the Patzinaks and the Turks, who daily ravage it and unitermittently seize [its territory]; and trerc is promiscuous slaughter and indesribable killing and derision of the Christians. But since the evil things they do are many and, as we have said, indescribable, we will mention but a few of the many, which nevertheless are horrible to hear and disturb even the air itself.
For they circumcise the boys and youths of the Christians over the Christian baptismal fonts, and in contempt of Christ they pour the blood from the circumcision into the said baptismal fonts and compel them to void urine thereon; and thereafter they violently drag them around in the church, compelling them to blaspheme the name of the Holy Trinity and the belief therein. But those who refuse to do these things they punish in diverse ways and ultimately they kill them. Noble matrons and their daughters whom they have robbed [of their possessions] they, one after another like animals, defile in adultery. Some, indeed, in their corrupting shamelessly place virgins before the faces of their mothers and compell them to sing wicked and obscene songs, until they have finished their own wicked acts.
Thus, we read, it was done also against God's people in antiquity , to whom the impious Babylonians, after making sport of them in diverse ways, said: "Sing us one of the songs of Zion." Likewise, at the dishonoring of their daughters, the mothers are in turn compelled to sing wicked songs, [though] their voices sound forth not a song but rather, we believe, a plaint, as is written concerning the death of the innocents: "A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she would not be comforted, because they are not."
However, even if the mothers of the innocents, who are figured by Rachel, could not be comforted for the death of their children, yet they could derive comfort from the salvation of their souls; but these [mothers] are in worse plight, for they cannot be comforted at all, because they perish in both body and soul. But what further? Let us come to matters of greater depravity. Men of every age and order i.e. boys, adolescents, youths, old men, nobles, serfs, and, what is worse and more shameless, clergymen and monks, and alas and alack, what from the beginning has never been said or heard, bishops! - they defile with the sin of sodomy and now they are also trumpeting abroad that one bishop has succumbed to this abominable sin.
The holy places they desecrate and destroy in numberless ways, and they threaten them with worse treatment. And who does not lament over these things? Who has not compassion? Who is not horrified? Who does not pray? For almost the entire land from Jerusalem to Greece, and the whole of Greece with its upper regions, which are Cappadocia Minor, Cappadocia Major, Phrygia, Bithynia, Lesser Phrygia (i.e. the Troad), Pontus, Galatia, Lydia, Pamphylia, Isauria, Lycia, and the principal islands Chios and Mytilene, and many other regions and islands which we cannot even enumerate, as far as Thrace, have already been invaded by them, and now almost nothing remains except Constantinople, which they are threatening to snatch aware from us very soon, unless the aid of God and the faithful Latin Christians should reach us speedily.
For even the Propontis, which is also called the Avidus and which flows out of the Pontus near Constantinople into the Great Sea, they have invaded with two hundred ships, which the Greeks robbed by them had built; and they are launching them with their rowers, willy nilly, and they are threatening, as we have said, speedily to capture Constantinople by land as well as by way of the Propontis. These few among the innumerable evil things which this most impious people is doing we have mentioned and written to you, count of the Flemings, lover of the Christian faith. The rest, indeed, let us omit in order not to disgust the readers. Accordingly, for love of God and out of sympathy for all Christian Greeks, we beg that you lead hither to my aid and that of the Christian Greeks whatever faithful warriors of Christ you may be able to enlist in your land- those of major as well as those of minor and middle condition: and as they in the past year liberated Galicia an other kingdoms of the Westerners somewhat from the yoke of the pagans, "so also may they now, for the salvation of their souls, endeavor to liberate the Kingdom of the Greeks; since I, albeit I am emperor, can find no remedy or suitable counsel, but am always fleeing from the face of the Turks and Patzinaks: and I remain in a particular city only until I perceive that their arrival is imminent. And I think it is better to be subjected to your latins than to the abominations of the pagans. Therefore, before Constantinople is captured by them, you most certainly ought to fight with all your strength so that you may joyfully receive in heaven a glorious and ineffable reward.
For it is better that you should have Constantinople than the pagans because in that city precious relics of the Lord, to wit: the pillar to which he was bound: the lash with which he was scourged: the scarlet robe in which he was arrayed: the crown of throns with which he was crowned: the reed he held in his hands, in place of scepter: the garments of which he was despoiled before the cross: the larger part of the wood of the cross in which he was crucified: the nails with which he was affixed: the linen clothes found in the sepulcher after his resurrection: the twelve baskets of remnants of from the five loaves and the two fishes: the entire head of St. John the Baptist with the hair and the beard: the relics or bodies of many of the innocents, of certain prophets and apostles, of martyrs and, especially, of the protomartyr St. Stephen, and of confessors and virgins, these latter being of such great number that we have omitted writing each about them individually.
Yet all the aforesaid the Christians rather than the pagans ought to possess: and it will be a great momument for all Christians if they retain possession of all these, but it will be to their detriment and doom if they should lose them. However, if they should be unwilling to fight for the sake of these relics, and if their love of gold is greater, they will find more of it there than in all the world; for the treasure vaults of the churches of Constantinople abound in silver, gold, gems, and precious stones, and silken gaements, i,e, vestments, which could suffice for all the churches in the world. But the inestimable treasure of the mother church, , namely St. Sophia, the Wisdom of God, surpasses the treasures of all other churches and without doubt, equals the treasures of the Temple of Solomon. Again, what shall I say of the infinite treasures of the nobles, when no one can estimate the treasure of the common merchants? What is contained in the treasures of the former emperors? I say for certain that no tongue can tell it; because not only the treasure of the Constantinopolitian emperors is there contained, but the treasure of all the ancient Roman emperors has been brought thither and hidden in the palaces. What more shall I say? Certainly, what is exposed to men's eyes is as nothing compared with that which lies hidden.
Hasten, therefore, with your entire people and fight with all your strength, lest such treasure fall into the hands of the Turks and Patzinaks: because, while they are infinite, just now sixty thousand are daily expected, and I fear that by means of this treasure they gradually will seduce our covetous soldiers, as did formerly Julius Caesar who by reason of avarice invaded the kingdom of the Franks and as antichrist will do at the end of the world after he has captured the whole earth. Therefore, lest you should lose the kingsom of the Christians and, what is greater, the Lord's Sepulcher, act while you still have time; and then you will have not doom, but a reward in heaven.
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