QUEST AFTER RELICS. 305

iTlie pillage of the relics of Constantinople lasted fur forty years. More than lialf of the total amount of objects car- ried off were, however, taken away between the years 120-i and 1208. During the few days which followed the capture of the city the bishops and priests who were with the Cru- saders were active in laying hands on this species of sacred spoil ; and the statement of a contemporary writer is not im- probable, that the priests of the Orthodox Church preferred to surrender such spoil to those of their own cloth rather than to the rough soldier or the rougher Venetian sailor. On the other hand, the highest priestly dignitaries in the army — men, even, who refused to take of the earthly spoil — were eager to obtain possession of this sacred booty, and unscrupulous as to the means by which they obtained it. The holy cross was carefully divided by the bishops for distribution among the barons. Gunther gives us a specimen of the means to which Abbot Martin, who had had the German Crusaders placed under his charge, had recourse. The abbot had learned that many relics had been hidden by the Greeks in a particular church. This building was attacked in the general pillage. He, as a priest, searched carefully for the relics, while the soldiers were looking for more commonplace booty. The abbot found an old priest, with the long hair and beard com- mon then, as now, to Orthodox ecclesiastics, and roughly ad- dressed him, "Show me your relics, or you are a dead man." The old priest, seeing that he was addressed by one of his own profession, and frightened probably by the threat, thought, says Gunther, that it was better to give up the relics to him than to the profane and blood-stained hands of the soldiers, lie opened an iron safe, and the abbot, in his de- light at the sight, buried his hands in the precious store. lie and his chaplain filled their surplices, and ran with all haste to the harbor to conceal their prize. That they were success- ful in keeping it during the stormy days which followed could only be attributed to the virtue of the relics themselves. The way in which Dalmatius de Sergy obtained the head of St. Clement is an illustration of the Crusader's belief that the acquisition of a relic and its transport to the West would be