DOCUMENT XV.
THEODORE ANGELUS’ LETTER 1205
In
the wake of the Fourth Crusade large portions of Greece
fell into the hands of or were awarded to western
knights as fiefs from the Latin Byzantine Emperor
Baldwin of Flanders and later from his brother Henry.
Thus Boniface of Montferrat occupied the Kingdom of
Thessalonika; William of Champlitte and later Geoffrey
of Villehardouin, nephew of Guillaume de Villehardouin
the historian, controlled the Morea (Peloponnese) as
Prince of Achaea; and Othon de La Roche became Lord of
Athens, to which Thebes was later added. The territory
of Epirus, however, remained a center of Greek power
under Michael Angelus as Despot. Michael and his
brother, Theodore, were nephews of Isaac II Angelus, one
of three Byzantine Emperors who were deposed during the
Fourth Crusade. The document in this instance is a
letter dated 1 August 1205 from Theodore in the name of
Michael to Pope Innocent III. Here are the pertinent
passages.
Theodore
Angelus wishes long life for Innocent [III], Lord and
Pope at old
Rome, in
the name of Michael, Lord of Epirus and in his own name.
In April
of last year a crusading army, having falsely set out to
liberate
the Holy Land, instead laid waste the city of
Constantine.
During
the sack, troops of Venice and France looted even the
holy
sanctuaries. The Venetians partitioned the treasures of
gold, silver,
and
ivory while the French did the same with the relics of
the saints
and the
most sacred of all, the linen in which our Lord Jesus
Christ
was
wrapped after his death and before the resurrection.
We know
that
the sacred objects are preserved by their predators in
Venice,
in
France, and in other places, the sacred linen in Athens
. . .
Rome,
Kalends of August, 1205.51
The letter
was published in 1902 but was not considered in the
present connection. The Greek original had by then been
lost. If this letter is authentic, and its publication
was accompanied by a suitably convincing authentication,
then it is even more probable that it was in Athens that
Nicholas of Otranto saw this cloth. If so, instead of
the previously frustrating total absence of
documentation concerning the departure from
Constantinople of Jesus’ burial wrapping, we now possess
two documents which tend to place it in Athens after the
sack and already by 1205.