Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/382

 364 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. a crocodile stood near. These and other statues were hastily sent to the furnace to be converted into money. We may judge of the value and artistic merit of the bronze statues which were destroyed by the specimens which remain. The four horses which the Emperor Theodosius had brought from Chios and placed in the hippodrome escaped by some lucky chance the general plunder, and were taken to Yenice, where they still adorn the front of St. Mark's. I have already alluded to the wealth of Constantinople in Hnnt after I'^lics. As the city had become the storehouse of relics. works of art, so also, from the same causes, it had drawn to it nearly all the relics of the Eastern world. There was even an additional reason why the relics should have flowed in greater number to the capital than did works of art, because faithful Christians felt bound to prevent them falling into the hands of the Moslem miscreant. This was a species of wealth which the Crusaders could much more readily ap- preciate than that which consisted merely in marble or bronze, to which the genius of the sculptor had added value. Even among the more conscientious of the soldiers it seems to have been held that the surest way to compensate for the breach of their vow was to steal a relic for the use of the church in the neighborhood from which they had come. I hav^e already said that the relics were usually encased either in coverings of silver or gold, to which the best art of the time had added value, and the caskets were often set with precious stones. The coverings w^ould, of course, be preferred by us to the contents, but that is because we do not believe in the genuine- ness of the relics. To understand the feelings of the Crusa- ders we must remember that doubt as to their genuineness scarce entered their minds. Out of the great number of documents which have been collected together by the zeal of a recent writer, and which give minute accounts of the re- ception of these relics in the West, there are very few that speak of the value of the covering, and, even when they do so speak, it is only incidentally. The fragment of the true cross or the arm of the true saint was the gem ; the silver or gold covering was only the suitable casket to contain it.