A prostitute was seated in the patriarchal chair, who danced, and sang a ribald song for the amusement of the soldiers. Nicetas, in speaking of the dese-cration of the Great Church, writes with the utmost indignation of the barbarians who were incapable of appreciating and
therefore respecting its beauty. To him it was an "earthly heaven, a throne of divine magnificence, an image of the firmament created by the Almighty."

The plunder of the same church

The plunder of the same church in 1453 by Mahomet the Second compares favorably with that made by the Crusaders of 1204.

The sack of the city went on during the three days after the capture. An order was issued, probably on the third day, by the leaders of the army, for the protection of women. Three bishops had pronounced excommunication against all who should pillage church or convent. It was many days, however, before the army could be reduced to its ordinary condition of discipline. A proclamation was made throughout the army that all the booty should be collected, in order to be divided fairly among the captors. Three churches were selected as depots, and trusty guards of Crusaders and Venetians were stationed to watch what was thus brought in. Much, however, was kept back, and much stolen.

Stern measures had to be resorted to before order was restored. Many Crusaders were hanged. The Count of St. Paul hung one of his own knights with his shield round his neck because he had not given up the booty he had captured. A contemporary writer, the continuator of the history of William of Tyre, forcibly contrasts the conduct of the Crusaders before and after the capture. When the Latins would take Constantinople they held the shield of God before them. It was only when they had entered that they threw it away, and covered themselves with the shield of the devil.

I have already mentioned that the Italians resident in Constantinople who had returned to the city with their countrymen were conspicuous in their hostility to the Greeks.

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