AD 1202

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The novel is a fusion of real and fictional characters and events, filled with action, grand battles, spies, assassination by poison, and forbidden love games within the most powerful monastery in the city.The novel AD 1202 describes true and brutal events that were described in diminished versions of the events by two French knights who were present. The Frenchmen’s modest accounts were used to justify the crimes committed by the crusaders to the wider European public. The sacking of Constantinople symbolised the irreversible weakening of the Byzantine Empire bordering with Muslim nations growing stronger by the day.The first chronicler, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, the nephew of both the French and the English king, Marshal of Champagne, was in charge of negotiating with the Venetians. He is one of the more prominent characters in the novel and represents the highest rung of knights in the crusader army. This is how he described the city walls when he first saw Zadar:And they saw a city enclosed by high wallsand tall towers, knowing that they would never seea more beautiful, better fortified, or wealthier town.When the pilgrims saw it,many were astounded and they would say to each other:“What kind of force would be needed to take such a city by force,other than God himself subduing it?”The second chronicler, Robert de Clari, is a lowborn knight who will also play an important role in the events described in the novel.Zadar is the most powerful city in Dalmatia at the time. It commands an exceptional fleet of warships and merchant vessels. The city has successfully defended against Venice, its sworn enemy since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, on several occasions and brought it before bankruptcy. Zadar has friendly relations with other Italian cities such as Pisa and Ancona, as well as the pirates from Neretva Valley. It accepts heretics (Albigenses and Bogomils), it appoints its own archbishops and is in open dispute with the Pope.But prior to the events described in the novel, Doge Dandolo rises to power in Venice. Ninety-seven years old at the time of the siege, the doge was blinded as a young diplomat to the Byzantine court for seeing things he should have not. The blind old man even bends an experienced diplomat such as Villehardouin to his will.In 1202, a knight called Maius comes to Zadar (Iadera) to find his under-aged daughter who had been kidnapped from their family estate in order to be sold into slavery. He finds employment as a personal guard serving the most powerful noble family in Zadar. Serving the Madie family, he will become entangled in numerous diplomatic and political schemes.The novel about the crusaders' siege of Zadar AD 1202 depicts real events that occurred eight centuries ago, when more than 40 000 thousand French and Venetian knights and 350 siege engines arrived before Zadar on more than 500 ships, later sailing for Constantinople.This unbelievable army for that time period was mustered under the patronage of Pope Innocent III in order to reclaim Jerusalem from Saracen control. However, the crusader army never reached Jerusalem, nor will such an army ever again be mustered, and Christ’s Tomb will remain in Muslim hands to this day. Furthermore, the army was cursed by the Pope for neglecting his warnings and conquering two Christian cities.