The sacred buildings were
ransacked for relics or their beautiful caskets. The chalices were
stripped of their precious stones and converted into drinking-cups.
The sacred plate was heaped with ordinary plunder. The altar cloths
and the screens of cloth of gold, richly embroidered and bejewelled,
were torn down, and either divided among the troops or destroyed for
the sake of the gold and silver which were woven into them. The altars
of Hagia Sophia,[48] which had been the admiration of all men, were
broken for the sake of the material of which they were made. Horses
and mules were taken into the church in order to carry off the loads
of sacred vessels and the gold and silver plates of the throne, the
pulpits, and the doors, and the beautiful ornaments of the church. The
soldiers made the chief church of Christendom the scene of their
profanity. 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 desecration of the Great Church, writes
with the utmost indignation of the barbarians who were incapable of
appreciating and therefore respecting its beauty.
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