History Repeats Itself
Because Humans are still Humans
What happened in the past was real then; but the same types of events still happen today. The nature of humanity, and the things we do, remain constant in history. The same people who exist today could have existed centuries ago. That’s why the study of history is important—so that we can know what humans have done, can do, and will do again.
Here, I am going to relate an eyewitness account of the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204 CE) that should demonstrate my point. (It’s a good read, don’t worry.) First, I will set the scene, so you have some context. Then the eyewitness account. What you read in it—it could have happened yesterday in any war zone.
Context: The Fourth Crusade
The story of the Fourth Crusade is laughable and tragic. The crusader armies’ original plan was to recapture Muslim-controlled Jerusalem for the Christian world. On their way to Jerusalem, the crusaders passed through Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which had deposed its emperor seven years before. Constantinople had 500,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest cities of that time. Before they reached the city, the crusader leaders entered into an agreement with a Byzantine prince sent out to meet them. They would help him restore his father as emperor in Constantinople. And in exchange, the Byzantine royal family, after returning to rule, would supply money and military aid to support the crusade. According to plan, the crusaders then defeated Byzantium and restored the prince and his father as co-emperors. And the money flowed to the crusader leaders. Everything was working perfectly. A few months later the people of Byzantium again deposed the father and son and replaced them with someone else. Now, as the Byzantine prince and his father were no longer in power, they could no longer pay the crusaders as agreed. So the crusaders returned to Byzantium and attacked it to get what was coming to them. The new Byzantine emperor lined up for battle with his army, grossly outnumbering the crusader army, but he lost his nerve and fled without fighting. The Byzantines then restored their old emperors, the same ones the crusaders had installed on the throne, but the crusaders did not stop fighting. They were angry. They sacked and plundered the city.
A historian wrote,
For three days they murdered, raped, looted and destroyed on a scale which even the ancient Vandals and Goths would have found unbelievable. Constantinople had become a veritable museum of ancient and Byzantine art, an emporium of such incredible wealth that the Latins were astounded at the riches they found. Though the Venetians had an appreciation for the art that they discovered (they were themselves semi-Byzantines) and saved much of it, the French and others destroyed indiscriminately, halting to refresh themselves with wine, violation of nuns and murder of Orthodox clerics. The Crusaders vented their hatred for the Greeks most spectacularly in the desecration of the greatest Church in Christendom. They smashed the silver iconostasis, the icons and the holy books of Hagia Sophia and seated upon the patriarchal throne a whore who sang coarse songs as they drank wine from the Church’s holy vessels. The estrangement of East and West, which had proceeded over the centuries, culminated in the horrible massacre that accompanied the conquest of Constantinople. The Greeks were convinced that even the Turks, had they taken the city, would not have been as cruel as the Latin Christians.[1]
Eyewitness Account of the Franks’ Attack on Constantinople
The snippet that follows is an eye-witness account by Nikitas Khoniatis about an unfortunate event that occurred during this sack of Byzantium by the crusader army. Much of the best history is from personal narratives, where the reader can envision the experiences and empathize with the writer who lived through them. Khoniatis was one of a party of refugees trying to make a dangerous escape from the city of Byzantium during the war.
One of their number, a girl, was kidnapped before their helpless eyes by Frankish soldiers. Our writer was making a hopeless attempt to rescue her. After all, he had no power, no weapons. He was just another refugee.
Our chief anxiety was for the women, so we had put them in the middle of our party with a cordon of men outside and had instructed the girls to smear their faces with dirt [in order to conceal their sexual attractions from the Frankish soldiery’s eyes]. . .We were bound for the Golden Gate; but, when we had got about as far as the church of Mocius the Martyr, a barbarian. . .snatched a beautiful girl from among us. She was a judge’s daughter. . .and her father, whose stamina had been broken by old age and sickness, had slipped and fallen in a puddle and was now lying there crumpled up, lamenting aloud and plastered with mud. He kept on looking at me as if he were expecting at least some show of assistance from me, and he began to call upon me by name to do anything that I could to help him to retrieve his daughter. So I turned back there and then, without more ado, and started to follow at the kidnapper’s heels, weeping and denouncing at the top of my voice the crime that had just been committed. As I went, I made supplication to any passing soldiers of the Frankish army who were not altogether ignorant of our [Modern Greek] tongue—trying to induce them to come to the rescue and taking some of them by the hand, till I had managed to work upon the feelings of some of them so far as to prevail upon them to form a posse for the pursuit of that lecherous beast. I led the way with my posse behind me; we arrived at the villain’s billet; and then he pushed the girl inside and took his stand at the gates in a truculent posture. . .When my companions told him with some vigour to give the girl back, his first reply was an insolent refusal. Two imperious passions—lust and rage—had him fast in their grip; but, when he saw that the men were losing their tempers, and heard them threatening him with impalement for misconduct aggravated by contumacy, and when he was convinced that they were really in earnest, he reluctantly yielded and gave the girl up! [2]
The point of this anecdote is to convey that what happened in the past can still happen today. In fact it does. I am sure some encountered this same story during the Soviet sack of Berlin in WW2.
The nature of humanity, and the things we do, remain constant in history. The same people who exist today could have existed centuries ago. Our need for love, our fear of rejection, our competition with others, stupid organizational behavior, arbitrary government, all of this remains constant over our history, and as a result, the same dramas play out over and over again.
The wheel keeps on turning. Same old stories, but with new faces and new gadgets.
[1] Speros Bryonis, Byzantine and Europe, 1967, Harcourt and Brace, 152.
[2] Toynbee, A Study of History, Volume 10, 133-134, where he quotes from Nikitas Khoniátis, Narrative of Events after the Capture of the City, Immanuel Bekker’s edition (Weber, Bonn, 1835) 779-782.