Various motives have been assigned by different authors as having
induced the Emperor to this treacherous and imprudent proceeding. By
every writer he has been condemned for so flagrant a breach of
hospitality and justice. The most probable reason for his conduct
appears to be that suggested by Guibert of Nogent, who states that
Alexius, fearful of the designs of the crusaders upon his throne,
resorted to this extremity in order afterwards to force the Count to
take the oath of allegiance to him, as the price of his liberation.
The example of a prince so eminent as the brother of the King of
France, would, he thought, be readily followed by the other chiefs of
the Crusade. In the result he was wofully disappointed, as every man
deserves to be who commits positive evil that doubtful good may ensue.
But this line of policy accorded well enough with the narrowmindedness
of the Emperor, who, in the enervating atmosphere of his highly
civilized and luxurious court, dreaded the influx of the hardy and
ambitious warriors of the West, and strove to nibble away by unworthy
means, the power which he had not energy enough to confront. If danger
to himself had existed from the residence of the chiefs in his
dominions, he might easily have averted it, by the simple means of
placing himself at the head of the European movement, and directing
its energies to their avowed object, the conquest of the Holy Land.
But the Emperor, instead of being, as he might have been, the lord and
leader of the Crusades, which he had himself aided in no
inconsiderable degree to suscitate by his embassies to the Pope,
became the slave of men who hated and despised him. No doubt the
barbarous excesses of the followers of Gautier and Peter the Hermit
made him look upon the whole body of them with disgust, but it was the
disgust of a little mind, which is glad of any excuse to palliate or
justify its own irresolution and love of ease.