The Medieval Russian Account of the Fourth Crusade David Savignac, Ph.D. Crofton 2020 A medieval Russian literary and historical work known as The Tale of the Capture of Constantinople by the Franks (Повесть о взятии Царьграда фрягами) is the sole contemporary or near- contemporary account of the Fourth Crusade written by a person not associated with either the Crusader or the Byzantine camp. The oldest witness of the Tale appears in the Synodal manuscript of the Novgorod 1 st Chronicle (N1stC), 1 a work dating from the 13th-14th centuries and one which is strongly associated with the Yuryev Monastery on the outskirts of Novgorod. 2 Linguistic features of this text of the Tale reflect the Old Novgorodian dialect of the early 13th century. There is a near-consensus that the anonymous author was likely either an eye-witness of the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders and its subsequent sacking, or perhaps a person who had arrived on the scene shortly after these things occurred; it is not known whether the author was present as a permanent resident, a pilgrim, a trader, or in some other capacity. The author’s use of the first person singular and plural in his description of the looting of churches after the city had fallen further strengthens the view that he had personally observed the events which he was describing. The genre of the Tale is atypical of the Novgorod chronicle tradition in that it deals with distant events in a foreign land with no obvious connection with Novgorod; it is inserted into the chronicle without warning and ends without a follow-up of any sort. Its structure — having a preface, an exposition, and a conclusion— has the earmarks of being a literary composition written outside of the chronicle tradition. The Tale appears in the N1stC and other chronicles as an entry under the year 6712 anno mundi (~1204 AD), but the narrative begins in 1195 with the deposing and subsequent blinding of Emperor Isaac II Angelos, and it continues through the coronation of Baldwin of Flanders in May 1204 and the establishment of the Latin Empire. The Tale ends with a statement that the Franks (Crusaders) were still in control of Constantinople, a clear indication that the Tale was written between 1204 and 1261. The Tale is not found anywhere in Old Russian literature other than in chronicles. Aside from appearing in both the Older and the Younger Redactions of the Novgorod 1st Chronicle, it is present in its most complete Old Russian form in the Sophia 1 st Chronicle, the Voskresenskaya Chronicle, the Tver Chronicle, the Moscow Chronicle Compilation of the Late 15th Century, the Vologodsko-Permskaya Chronicle, the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle, and the Nikonian Chronicle. For the most part, the textual differences among them are minor and tend to reflect variations not of content but rather of stylistics, grammar, and language. The Tale also appears in synopsis in the Novgorod 4 th and 5 th Chronicles, the Yermolinskaya Chronicle, the Chronicle Compilations of 1497 and 1518, the Gustynskaya Chronicle, the Kholmogorskaya Chronicle, the Lvovskaya Chronicle, the Nikonian Chronicle, and several others. 3 1 2 3 4 The Novgorod 1 st Chronicle: ПСРЛ том III, pp. 46-49 (Older Redaction) and pp. 240-246 (Younger Redaction); the Sophia 1 st Chronicle: ПСРЛ том VI вып. 1, cols. 253-259 and ПСРЛ том XXXIX, pp. 67-69; the Voskresenskaya Chronicle: ПСРЛ том VII, pp.109-111; the Tver Chronicle: ПСРЛ том XV, cols. 294-300; the Moscow Chronicle Compilation of the Late XV Century: ПСРЛ том XXV, pp. 101-103; the Vologodsko-Permskaya Chronicle: ПСРЛ том XXVI, pp. 57-60; the Nikonian Chronicle, ПСРЛ том X, pp. 37-41; the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle: Летописец еллинский и римский, О. В. Творогов ред., том 1, Текст. СПб, 1999, pp. 507-510. So also in abbreviated form in the Novgorod 4 th Chronicle: ПСРЛ, том IV ч.1, p. 180; the Novgorod Karamzinskaya Chronicle ПСРЛ том 42, p. 106; the Yermolinslaya Chronicle: ПСРЛ том XXIII, p. 59; the Gustynskaya Chronicle: ПСРЛ том XL, p. 108; the Kholmogorskaya Chronicle, ПСРЛ том XXXIII, p. 58; and in the Chronicle Compilations of 1497 and 1