Lost Relics of the Knights Templar (2021) Season 2 Episode 1: The First Crusade
Two treasure hunters investigate a sword and helmet that date back more than 900 years; they work to decode the symbolism on the ancient relics and discover the sword was used in the First Crusade when Christian knights took control of Jerusalem.
#documentary
Two treasure hunters investigate a sword and helmet that date back more than 900 years; they work to decode the symbolism on the ancient relics and discover the sword was used in the First Crusade when Christian knights took control of Jerusalem.
#documentary
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TVTranscript
00:00Obsessive antiquities hunter Hamilton White has built a world-class collection of rare and historic objects.
00:11Working with fellow collector and friend Carl Cookson, he investigated a group of artifacts that may be linked to the Knights Templar.
00:20Now, they're exploring the history behind some of the most important objects in Hamilton's collection.
00:27Assembled over a lifetime, Hamilton's prized pieces include ancient Celtic gold,
00:35a sword and helmet from the Crusades, and a mysterious white marble chalice from the Knights Templar treasure trove.
00:46It really is the best of the best.
00:50To solve the mysteries behind these artifacts, they're traveling across Europe and to the Middle East, seeking answers and making stunning new discoveries.
01:02They were heading for a purpose.
01:05It's changing history.
01:08The lost relic hunters are back on the trail, and what they uncover could rewrite history as we know it.
01:17Carl and Hamilton are investigating a Crusader sword and helmet that may be more than 900 years old.
01:28Yeah, I mean, that's the Venetian one I told you about before.
01:34God, that's incredible condition, isn't it?
01:36Very, very good.
01:38Absolutely fabulous.
01:40Beautiful piece of medieval art, isn't it?
01:42Knightly sword of the first Crusader.
01:44It's a weapon, isn't it?
01:46Really good.
01:48What's the story with this then?
01:50Very, very distinctive mark on it that dates it specifically to the time of the first Crusades.
01:54From the weight of it, it's cutting downwards, so it's a sort of mounted knight as opposed to a foot soldier.
02:01Condition-wise and everything about it, it's a fabulous sword.
02:04Oh, it's magnificent.
02:06Carl and Hamilton's investigation into the history and meaning behind the sword and helmet will take them on an epic journey to the canals of Venice and the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Istanbul.
02:19But before they leave, they're meeting Oxford University expert Dr. Janina Ramirez, who specializes in interpreting symbols and the cultural significance of ancient artifacts.
02:38Hi, Janina.
02:40Hi.
02:42She's getting an exclusive look at one of the most extraordinary private collections of antiquities anywhere in the world.
02:48I'm running to the treasures.
02:51They start in Hamilton's barn, where he's laid out highlights from his collection, ranging from prehistoric artifacts to medieval weaponry.
03:02This is a treasure trove.
03:05Hamilton is eager to show Janina the Crusader sword and helmet that he and Carl are going to investigate.
03:14Oh, wow.
03:17Oh, my goodness.
03:19One of the things I find fantastic about these, looking at them is incredible, but when you actually pick it up, it starts telling you a story and it tells you exactly what it's capable of.
03:32Wow.
03:34Look at the markings on it.
03:36Wow.
03:38That is a serious sword.
03:43Tell me about this sword.
03:44Well, it's a sword of the First Crusade.
03:47You have to get it in the right light to see the markings on it.
03:50Oh, I see a cross.
03:52Flip it over.
03:54Oh, S.
03:56S in a circle?
03:57In a circle, yeah.
03:58It's actually OS.
03:59OS?
04:00Os Sancti, the prayer of the First Crusade.
04:04In the late 11th century, Christian warriors from all over Europe took up arms against Jerusalem's Islamic rulers.
04:12Many performed a special prayer in Latin before they embarked.
04:17The markings on Hamilton's blade suggest that this sword was owned by a knight who joined the First Crusade around 1095.
04:27The OS Sancti being the prayer of the First Crusader, it's marking your blade.
04:33You're doing God's work.
04:34To learn more about the sword, Janina turns to historical accounts of how the First Crusade began and why so many responded to the call to arms.
04:44We could say that the First Crusade kicked off at a specific moment.
04:48Pope Urban II gives a speech at the Council of Claremont in November 1095, and it really is a powerful speech.
04:59He says,
05:20He is inciting religious war.
05:22And the take-up is astonishing.
05:24The fact that tens of thousands of people from all different demographics were drawn to this crusade is a sign that his words worked.
05:35Where was Hamilton's sword coming from?
05:38It probably came from one of the bases that were providing large numbers of crusading knights.
05:44Was it England? Was it France? Was it Italy?
05:47We don't know.
05:48But that stamp of OS does suggest it's someone that's already an existing member of a knightly order.
05:57And Hamilton's Crusader helmet holds an important clue that reveals which region and even which city its owner came from.
06:08I am very excited about the helmets.
06:11For a start, helmets are relatively rare.
06:13What's on the front line of St. Mark?
06:15So we're talking Venice?
06:18And what age do you think it is, then?
06:20First Crusade again.
06:21It's a bit of a dream, really, when you get an object that has a very clear symbol on it that can tell you exactly where it came from and roughly when it was made.
06:30I'm loving the mixed symbolism as well, the way that the lion is in this quatrefoil, so it's got Christian connotations of the cross.
06:38Of the surviving examples, that is certainly the only one with the Lion of Venice on that I've been able to find anywhere.
06:46It's interesting to know more about how it's made.
06:51Hamilton has had scientific tests, including x-rays, carried out on the helmet to prove its authenticity and determine when it was made.
07:00You can just see the slight difference in thicknesses on the metal.
07:04Do you know what you can see? That looks like...
07:06It's hammer marks.
07:07Hammer marks.
07:09That's the shape of the hammerhead, banging it into shape.
07:12There's a sense that this has been modified, worked out with the metal as you're going along.
07:16It's not perfect, it's not perfectly symmetrical, perfectly finished, but that suggests it's handmade and that suggests it's original.
07:24Ancient objects are like that.
07:26This is the kit of Crusaders and this is the beginning of the story of Crusading Knights.
07:33The helmet can tell me a lot.
07:35I'm already hearing the stories of the past that this object has to tell me.
07:40But let's see what else Carl and Hamilton can discover.
07:47To decode what the Lion of St. Mark on the helmet would have meant to the Crusaders,
07:52Hamilton travels to the Cotswolds in southwest England to visit coin expert and forensic archaeologist Roger Box.
08:01I'm a retired police officer.
08:02I was a detective, scenes of crime specialist, but I'm a specialist in ancient history and coins in particular.
08:11Hamilton, hello, come on in, come on in.
08:19Are you familiar with the coins of the Crusader period?
08:21Some, but not all.
08:23Well, the Crusaders had their own coinage, basically.
08:25Coinage was a vital part of the system.
08:30Venice was beginning to become the principal trader in the Mediterranean.
08:34They were on the rise.
08:36They had to have proper, good quality coinage.
08:39And these small, what's called dinars of the 12th century are very inconvenient.
08:45You need literally bucketfuls to do business.
08:48Well, this is no good for international trade.
08:50You must upgrade the quality.
08:54These are these particular coins, but they're larger and they were known as a grosso.
08:58And the word grosso means, in effect, big penny.
09:02These are almost pure, pure silver.
09:04And they're quite interesting.
09:06You will see the figure of Christ on the one side, okay, sitting on the throne.
09:11Opposite is the doge, who is receiving the standard or the banner from Saint Mark.
09:19The coins indicate just how powerful a force Venice had become in medieval Europe.
09:25They also echo the symbolism of Saint Mark displayed on the helmet.
09:29Carl and Hamilton's first stop on their mission to investigate the origin and meaning of that powerful symbol is the floating city, Venice.
09:39It just says money and power, doesn't it?
09:59Carl Cookson and Hamilton White have come to Venice, Italy to investigate the history of their crusader helmet.
10:07The city is made up of 118 islands connected by 170 canals and 400 bridges.
10:16The port city of Venice was in a perfect location to benefit from international trade.
10:22The gateway between Eastern and Western Europe, it became a leading naval and commercial power.
10:30It's just interesting that the helmet was here, what, 1,000 years ago?
10:35Yeah.
10:36They still exist.
10:37They shouldn't.
10:38Venice shouldn't exist either.
10:40The foundations for the city were made by driving wood poles into the clay seabed,
10:44allowing Venetians to defy the elements and build palaces on the water.
10:52The idea that you can build these monumental places on a swan.
10:58This floating city is a symbol of Venice.
11:02The idea that you can build these monumental places on a swan.
11:07This floating city was once the richest and most powerful in Europe.
11:12Wow, look at that sunset.
11:21The next morning, Carl and Hamilton are up early.
11:23They meet local guide and historian, Dario Canciello,
11:27to find out more about the Lion of St. Mark emblem on the Crusader helmet.
11:33Dario will help them navigate Venice's waterways and explore the city's Crusader history.
11:43Hamilton, why don't you tell me about your Crusader helmet?
11:47It relates specifically to Venice, which is very, very unusual.
11:51I mean, it's a fairly standard helmet of the period, you know, sort of 1100, it will take a little bit.
11:56But decorated with a sort of heraldic crest of the Lion of St. Mark.
12:01The lion is a pretty, that's the symbol for Venice.
12:04Pretty sure it's the only one that you can actually tie up to a specific city-state.
12:09Point.
12:19We are right in St. Mark's Square, Piazza San Marco.
12:23This is the heart of the city.
12:25To my right, we have Palazzo Ducale.
12:28The Palazzo Ducale, or Doge's Palace, was the residence of the Doge of Venice,
12:33the most powerful elected official in the old republic.
12:38And we're just standing by these columns.
12:43They represent the main entrance into town from the sea.
12:50And it's the lion, exactly the same as on the helmet, Lion of St. Mark.
12:53That's the line of the apostle St. Mark, the evangelist.
13:00But how did St. Mark become the patron saint of Venice?
13:04And what role did this play in the city's rise to power and involvement in the Crusades?
13:10The answer can be found in a series of mosaics that decorate the front of St. Mark's Cathedral,
13:16constructed in the 9th century.
13:18There's five arches here, and each one's got a different part of the story.
13:24There was two representatives of the Doge that went down to Alexandria,
13:29but it was under Muslim control.
13:31Sure.
13:32And they knew St. Mark's body or relics was in a church there.
13:40So they stole the body, but they placed it into a wicker basket,
13:46covered it in pork and cabbage leaves.
13:49It's really graphic, isn't it?
13:51Because to show what happened, and you've got the Muslim-controlled fort,
13:56trying to inspect it, opening it up, and you see the pork.
13:59You can see the faces. You can smell it.
14:01It's just food.
14:02Yeah.
14:03Taken away.
14:04They got away with it.
14:06The second mosaic's fantastic because it shows him returning with the body of St. Mark.
14:11And you've got the Doge there. He's absolutely delighted.
14:15They've actually...
14:16Made it.
14:17They've made it.
14:18I think it's a fantastic representation of what happened and how they must have felt.
14:23Rome had St. Peter, and now Venice had its own major saint.
14:30If you want to be a player, you need a big saint, and St. Mark was the top guy for it.
14:35That put Venice right on the map as a big-time power-trading city.
14:43And then they decided to adopt the winged lion of St. Mark as a symbol of Venice,
14:48and that's why it's everywhere, isn't it?
14:50Yeah, it is.
14:51You know, adopting the lion as a symbol, it's early branding.
14:55Yeah, it is.
14:56If anything else, it's on every important building.
15:01I mean, relating it to the use on the actual helmet, you know,
15:05there were no uniforms or no regular military coats at the time.
15:12To put it on the flag, to put it on your heraldic crests on your armour,
15:18you know, it's everywhere you go in the world.
15:20It becomes an instantly recognised...
15:22I suppose you'd call it a trademark now.
15:24To see the lion on a helmet, everybody would immediately recognise that's my fellow Venetian.
15:31If I'm in the Holy Land or wherever I am, that's one of us.
15:37Although Hamilton's helmet was manufactured around the time of the First Crusade,
15:42the Venetians joined the campaign to conquer the Holy Land relatively late.
15:47The First Crusade spans from 1095 up to 1102, and there are phases within it.
15:54So in the very earliest phase, it's known as the People's Crusade.
15:58The take-up was largely not the knightly class, but everyday people.
16:04Lacking military discipline, the People's Crusade struggled on the long journey to the Holy Land.
16:11Running out of money and supplies, this ragtag army never reached Jerusalem.
16:16But the next group of crusaders, known as the Prince's Crusade, were led by battle-hardened knights.
16:22Then there's a higher take-up of knights.
16:26And what's interesting is that people are coming from across Christendom.
16:31There are knights coming from England, from France, from Flanders.
16:35The slightly later phase of the First Crusade known as the Prince's Crusade.
16:41After three years of fighting across Europe and the Middle East, the Prince's Crusade finally reaches Jerusalem in 1099.
16:49The crusaders mount a brutal and bloody assault, capturing the city from its Muslim rulers.
16:55Jerusalem was now in Christian hands.
16:58Hamilton's sword, with its O.S. engraving, may have belonged to a knight who took part in that victorious campaign.
17:06What Hamilton's sword suggests is that it must have been someone from this knightly class because of that seal.
17:16By this time, Venice, with its potent emblem of the Lion of Saint Mark, had become so wealthy and powerful
17:23that it was able to make the largest single contribution to the First Crusade,
17:27deploying 200 war galleys with 9,000 crusaders on board.
17:32Hamilton's helmet may have been worn by one of those Venetian knights voyaging to the Holy Land.
17:39The Venetian crusaders land in Jaffa, west of Jerusalem, in 1100.
17:45Their war galleys and soldiers are used to conquer the coastal cities of Haifa and Sidon
17:51and secure crucial trade and transport routes to the sea.
17:56Venice was now a maritime power that could not be ignored.
18:13Relic hunters Carl and Hamilton are in Venice to investigate a mysterious crusader sword and helmet.
18:20In the 12th century, with Jerusalem under crusader control,
18:24the Republic of Venice had access to the entire eastern Mediterranean,
18:28as well as lucrative trade routes in the Far East.
18:31Venetians sought a leader who could build on their growing power and influence.
18:36Enter Enrico Dandolo, an ambitious member of a wealthy and important family.
18:41In his 80s and blind, Dandolo was elected 41st Doge of Venice in 1192.
18:48He upgraded the currency, introducing the grosso to replace the dinar.
18:53He was determined to make Venice a power greater than Rome.
18:58His opportunity came when Pope Innocent III rallied a fourth crusade in 1198 to recapture Jerusalem,
19:08which had once again fallen under Muslim control.
19:13In early 1201, six French envoys came to Venice, which was now the biggest maritime power in Europe.
19:20They sought to secure a fleet of ships to transport the crusader army to the Holy Land.
19:28We're in the spot where all the discussions took place.
19:32It was the French coming here to persuade the Venetians to use their shipbuilding skills.
19:38Exactly.
19:39With promises of how much they were going to be paid, how many crusaders would be coming here.
19:45Dandolo agreed to provide both the ships and the provisions for the new army.
19:50The price was set at 85,000 silver marks, double the entire annual revenue of France.
19:57It was the biggest project in Venetian history
20:00and would require most of the city's resources and manpower for at least a year.
20:07It was a major undertaking.
20:08It was the commitment of pretty much every person in Venice getting behind what the Doge said.
20:14Nearly 18 months later, in the summer of 1202, 33,000 crusaders were due to assemble in Venice.
20:23But when less than half of the promised knights arrived, they were unable to pay their bill.
20:31Venice faced financial ruin.
20:34It did nearly bankrupt the whole of Venice, didn't it?
20:37Yeah.
20:38Well, it sucked the entire economy for two years in preparation
20:42so that the whole budget of Venice has been blown on a promise that never materialized.
20:48Yeah, that's where the leverage came.
20:50Well, if you can't pay your bill, you're going to have to do us some favors in lieu of payment.
20:54Dandolo hatched a plan to recover the lost revenue.
20:58On their way to Jerusalem, he would use the crusader army to sack the richest city in the world,
21:04the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople.
21:07And I mean, what people don't realize is Dandolo himself was, what, nearly 90 at the time?
21:13He was, yeah.
21:14And then he actually took it upon himself that he was going to lead it.
21:18The fact he's 90 and he's blind?
21:20He walked the talk, didn't he?
21:21Yeah.
21:22What a guy.
21:23The crusaders set sail from Venice in October 1202.
21:28What happened next did not lead to a victorious campaign and the conquest of the holy city of Jerusalem.
21:35But it did lead to bloodshed.
21:38Not Christian against Muslim, but Christian against Christian.
21:42Roman Catholic crusaders killing the Greek Orthodox citizens of Constantinople.
21:49Today, the city is known as Istanbul,
21:53and Carl and Hamilton are traveling there following the trail of the fourth crusade led by the Venetians.
22:00Carl and Hamilton are in Istanbul, Turkey, known as Constantinople until the 15th century.
22:24This city was once the jewel of the Byzantine Empire.
22:31They are following the route of the fourth crusade,
22:35a fleet led by Doge Enrico Dandolo that set sail from Venice to liberate the Holy Land from Islamic rule.
22:45But the Venetians' real mission was anything but holy.
22:49Instead of heading to Jerusalem, they diverted the army to sack the wealthiest city in Europe
22:54and pillaged the money owed to them for building the fleet.
23:01Constantinople was founded in the 4th century by Emperor Constantine
23:06and became the new capital of the Roman Empire.
23:12The narrow approach to the city by ship, past heavily fortified walls,
23:17made it virtually impregnable for centuries.
23:21Carl and Hamilton have come to the ruins of the old city walls
23:25to try and figure out how the Venetian crusaders managed to breach them.
23:55And almost dropped a drawbridge flat on top of the walls from the ocean.
24:00And it seems that that's the way the Venetians got themselves into the city.
24:04And then once the tower had been taken, you got access to gates and the gates open
24:10and then everybody comes from every direction.
24:14I think they just got a bit overconfident with the wealth and the power.
24:19These walls were supposed to be impenetrable.
24:21And probably the last thing they ever expected was to fall on us.
24:25Yeah, exactly.
24:26Why would other Christian nations that we've been helping for 100 years
24:29suddenly turn on us in the way they did?
24:32That's why a lot of the crusaders didn't bother to actually carry on with it.
24:36And the Pope actually went berserk over it, didn't he, at the time?
24:40Well, I think he caused an awful lot of controversy
24:42because it was going diametrically opposed to the crusading ethos.
24:51Dr. Janina Ramirez has been digging into the history of Hamilton's crusader helmet.
24:56She has also been looking at the evolution of the Crusades
24:59and how, by the 13th century, the so-called Holy War against Muslims
25:05had turned into a battle between two Christian armies at the gates of Constantinople.
25:10With the First Crusade, there was a sense in which it was a holy war.
25:14It was inspired by the Pope and it was Christians against pagans.
25:18By the time of the Fourth Crusade, a line has been crossed.
25:22This is Christians killing other Christians.
25:29Venetian merchants, including Dandolo himself,
25:32felt that they had been discriminated against
25:35and persecuted by their commercial rivals in Constantinople.
25:40Some even claim that Dandolo's motives for attacking the city
25:44were personal as well as financial.
25:48I don't know, and I don't think many people know what his grudge was,
25:52but Dandolo certainly had some issues with Constantinople.
25:56There was definitely a personal loathing or a personal vendetta.
26:00He was on a mission, wasn't he?
26:02But he stood on the vocal of the ship when it came in to let everyone know,
26:07I'm coming in, guys.
26:08In his full armour, standing at the prow of the very first ship,
26:11leading it up against the wall.
26:14He certainly carved his name into history, certainly.
26:17Janina has found a first-hand account of the sacking of Constantinople
26:21by the Crusaders in April 1204.
26:24The events of that sacking were recorded by a chronicler,
26:29possibly who was a witness to the events himself.
26:32His name is Nikitas Konyates,
26:35and he writes this account, O city of Byzantium.
26:39He was a government official at the time,
26:42and what he says can be trusted.
26:45Some of his accounts are quite disturbing.
26:48He writes, the enemy, now that there was no one to raise a hand against them,
26:52ran everywhere and drew the sword against every age and sex.
26:58Each did not join with the next man to form a coherent battle array,
27:02but all poured out and scattered since everyone was terrified of them.
27:13Karl and Hamilton are in Istanbul,
27:15retracing the path of the Venetian Crusaders
27:18as they fought their way to the centre of the Byzantine capital,
27:22the Roman Hippodrome.
27:24The site where it stood is now known as Sultanahmet Square.
27:32This is where the Hippodrome was.
27:34The Hippodrome was. Fantastic.
27:36There's nothing left of it other than the outline,
27:38but in proportions and everything, this is how it was.
27:41This is how big the racetrack was.
27:44Absolutely staggering to think that this was a sports arena in that area with...
27:51About 2,000 years ago.
27:52...thunder and chariots.
27:54Must have been a fantastic spectacle.
27:56Down here.
27:58When Constantinople was the capital of the Roman Empire in the 4th century CE,
28:03the Hippodrome was the hub of the city.
28:06An estimated 100,000 people would pack the stadium
28:10to watch chariot races and marvel at artworks collected from across the Roman Empire.
28:16The centre of the racetrack was almost an art gallery to the emperor
28:21because this is not only the capital of the country,
28:24it's the capital of the whole empire.
28:26It's a symbol of absolute prestige and power that the emperor has.
28:31One of the only remaining symbols of the emperor's prestige and power
28:35is an ancient obelisk in the southwest corner of the square.
28:39I think an awful lot of people would ask,
28:41why do you have an enormous lump of granite,
28:43which is very clearly a sort of Egyptian obelisk,
28:46sat in the middle of the Hippodrome in Constantinople?
28:49Constantinople.
28:50It's demonstrating power again.
28:54The obelisk is one of the only sculptures left in the Hippodrome
28:58after the crusaders' rampage of destruction and looting.
29:02It may have survived because it was simply too big and too heavy to be carried off by ship.
29:10This account from Nikitas Koniartis' annals
29:15really captures the nature of the mob that descended on Constantinople.
29:20He writes,
29:21because they were in want of money,
29:23for the barbarians are unable to sate their love of riches,
29:28they covetously eyed the bronze statues.
29:35These barbarians, haters of the beautiful,
29:38did not allow the statues standing in the Hippodrome
29:41and other marvelous works of art to escape destruction.
29:48There's something very powerful about this account.
29:51What Nikitas is describing was an act of barbarism.
29:57The sack of Constantinople in 1204 may have been brutal and barbaric,
30:02but for the Doge of Venice, it was a success.
30:07The value of the treasures they looted
30:09far exceeded the money the Venetians were owed for building the crusader fleet.
30:31In their quest to unlock the history of their crusader sword and helmet,
30:35Karl and Hamilton have returned to St. Mark's Square in Venice
30:39to look for evidence of looted treasure from Constantinople.
30:43These bronze horses on the facade of St. Mark's Basilica
30:46are replicas of the originals that were looted from the Hippodrome in Constantinople
30:51and installed here on Doge Enrico Dandolo's orders.
30:56They date from classical antiquity
30:58and are renowned for their skillful rendering of horses in motion.
31:03Those are arguably one of the most famous statues of the whole ancient world,
31:08but still exist.
31:10They have taken what they perceived was probably the best piece of sculpture
31:15in Constantinople at the time,
31:17and they've put it in the most prominent place in Venice,
31:20again, to demonstrate to anybody looking,
31:23we can take your treasures.
31:25Really, these are the spoils of a war, aren't they?
31:27It's a trophy.
31:28Winner takes all.
31:30Hamilton and Karl have found another piece of evidence
31:33of the Venetian looting of Constantinople.
31:37Two mysterious pillars tucked away in a corner
31:40on the south side of St. Mark's Basilica.
31:44The thing about archaeology, it's a constantly evolving topic
31:48because up until the 1960s,
31:50these were always believed to have come from Acre over in the Holy Land,
31:54but it's been proven that that's not actually true,
31:58that they're much earlier and they're from Istanbul.
32:03I mean, I can see that one's been broken,
32:06whether that was broken 1,000 years ago when they moved it or more recently.
32:10Yeah, this is physical proof that the Venetians
32:13plundered Constantinople, isn't it?
32:16100%.
32:17It's one of the most conservational things ever,
32:20that a Christian nation would be attacking a Christian nation.
32:24It was commerce.
32:25It was commerce.
32:26They had no interest in fighting a holy war.
32:28They wanted to enrich themselves,
32:30and that's why Venice is the glorious place it is today.
32:35Karl and Hamilton return to Istanbul
32:37and make a remarkable discovery
32:39at the site where the two columns originated.
32:44I think that's quite a find.
32:56Karl and Hamilton are back in Istanbul,
32:59formerly known as Constantinople.
33:06They've come to the ruins of the once opulent Church of St. Polyeuctos,
33:11built in the 6th century.
33:13They're looking for evidence that the two pillars they found in Venice
33:17came from this church,
33:19proving they were once plundered by Doge Enrico,
33:22proving they were once plundered by Doge Enrico Dandolo's crusaders
33:26in the 13th century.
33:28Not that it looks much today,
33:30this was one of the larger Christian churches in Constantinople.
33:34We're actually at the level of the crypt,
33:36so there is really nothing in the way of overground structures left at all.
33:40This is the same church where those two columns came from in Venice.
33:45It seems to have been stripped.
33:47They explore the site,
33:49looking for evidence of the looted pillars inside the crypt.
34:08You know, this is a sink here.
34:12Well, I think I've found something very interesting.
34:15There's a stone here.
34:17It's a corner of a column. There's no doubt about that.
34:21Carl believes this could be a missing piece
34:24from one of the columns they saw at St. Mark's Basilica in Venice.
34:29It may have been lying here undisturbed for the last 800 years.
34:33I think the columns were in about three sections,
34:36and there was a frieze like that with egg and dot.
34:40There's a section here.
34:42Not only has it got that, but on the side,
34:45it's got the same vines and grapes.
34:47It's something so specific
34:50because that particular style of carving does appear to be unique.
34:55The lump of stone with the carving on it,
34:57it's got a value.
34:58A lump of stone with a carving that you can put to a specific building
35:03and match it up with something that you know was taken in the Crusades,
35:08well, you're talking a completely different ballgame.
35:12This fragment of stone is a new and vital piece of evidence
35:16linking the pillars in Venice to the desecration of this church.
35:22And this is not the only Christian site the Crusaders looted.
35:27Hagia Sophia itself was attacked.
35:30The idea that a Christian could go into a church
35:33and actually break up, destroy, melt down
35:38beautiful artworks but sacred objects.
35:42Carl and Hamilton have reached the final stage of their investigation.
35:46They have come to one of the last places destroyed by the ransacking Crusaders,
35:51the largest church of the Byzantine Empire,
35:54the magnificent Hagia Sophia.
36:02Now a mosque,
36:03the central dome stands at a breathtaking 180 feet,
36:07making it the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years.
36:13It's incredible. It's a mind-blowing building.
36:17It's just remarkable that it's actually lasted so long
36:21without being sort of either spoiled or desecrated.
36:25It's a tour de force.
36:27It's wonderful.
36:28Once the dust settled after the Crusaders' rampage,
36:31a new Latin Empire, led by the Roman Catholic Church, was declared.
36:36Dandolo was offered the position of emperor but declined,
36:40and Baldwin of Flanders was crowned instead.
36:43The old fellow Dandolo declined to take over Constantinople
36:48because of his, I suppose, health age.
36:51And that was the end of Byzantine Empire.
36:54The end of Constantinople.
36:56The end of Constantinople.
36:57Yeah, and the great days were over.
37:00For Dandolo, you could imagine him thinking
37:03that he must really love me back in Venice because of what I've achieved.
37:07He never returned.
37:08He lived out the last few years of his life here.
37:11He's actually left his mark forever.
37:14Well, more than that, he's buried here.
37:16One year after the sacking of Constantinople,
37:19Enrico Dandolo died and was buried in the Hagia Sophia.
37:24Under his questionable leadership,
37:27the Fourth Crusades had pitted Christian against Christian,
37:30leaving the Church divided and unable to conquer Jerusalem
37:34or properly defend Constantinople,
37:37which fell to the Ottomans 250 years later.
37:41Dandolo's bones remained in the Hagia Sophia
37:44until his tomb was destroyed in 1453
37:47when Ottomans overran the city and changed its name to Istanbul.
37:53Carl and Hamilton's investigation into the Crusader relics
37:57reveals a dramatic shift in what motivated the Crusades.
38:02The sword may have been wielded by a knight in the First Crusade
38:06and played a part in a stunning victory
38:08that put Jerusalem in Christian hands at the end of the 11th century.
38:15The Venetian helmet and Venice's role in the Fourth Crusade
38:19shows how just 100 years later,
38:22shifting economic and political events transformed these so-called Holy Wars
38:27into a play for power and money
38:30and ultimately led to the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
38:36The reputation of the Crusades as holy conquests was forever tarnished.
38:44Next time on Lost Relics of the Knights Templar…
38:48Carl and Hamilton investigate a rare collection of ancient Celtic gold…
38:55…that leads them through Portugal and 4,000 years of history…
39:02…and reveals a dark side of Celtic ritual and sacrifice.