“You had nothing against the Greeks, and you were false to your vows because you did not fight the Saracens, but the Christians; you did not capture Jerusalem, but Constantinople; you preferred earthly to heavenly treasures. But what was far graver, you have spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex, and you have committed adulteries, fornications and incests before men’s eyes.... Nor did the imperial treasures suffice you, nor the plunder alike of rich and poor. You laid your hands on the possessions of the Church, you tore the silver panels from the altars, you broke into the sanctuaries and carried away the images, the crosses and the relics, so that the Greeks, though afflicted by persecution, scorn to render obedience to the apostolic chair, since they see in the Latins nothing but an example of perdition and of the works of darkness, and therefore rightly abhor them more than dogs.”[142] For the north and west of Europe the crusade of Constantinople seems to have been the turning point whence the imagination rapidly declined. At the opening of the thirteenth century, everything shows that the genuine ecstatic type predominated in the Church--the quality of mind which believed in the miracle, and therefore valued the amulet more than money. Innocent himself, with all his apparent worldliness, must have been such a man; for, though the material advantages of a union with the Greek Church far outweighed the Sepulchre, his resistance to the diversion of the army from Palestine was unshaken to the last. The same feeling permeated the inferior clergy; and an anecdote told by Gunther shows that even so late as the year 1204 the monks unaffectedly despised wealth in its vulgar form. “When therefore the victors set themselves with alacrity to spoil the conquered town, which was theirs by right of war, the abbot Martin began to think about his share of the plunder; and lest, when everything had been given to others, he should be left empty-handed, he proposed to stretch out his consecrated hand to the booty. But since he thought the taking of secular things unworthy, he bestirred himself to obtain a portion of the sacred relics, which he knew were there in great quantities.”[143] The idea was no sooner conceived than executed. Although private marauding was punished with death, he did not hesitate, but hastened to a church, where he found a frightened old monk upon his knees, whom he commanded in a terrible voice to produce his relics or prepare for death. He was shown a chest full to the brim. Plunging in his arms, he took all he could carry, hurried to his ship and hid his booty in his cabin; and he did this in a town whose streets were literally flowing with gold and silver. He had his reward. Though a sacrilegious thief, angels guarded him by sea and land until he reached his cloister at Bâle. Then he distributed his plunder through the diocese.