When was Enrico Dandolo born?

Zioneer

Banned
The Fourth Crusade is a popular topic here, so many of you know of Enrico Dandolo, the infamous blind Doge who convinced the Crusaders to sack Constantinople. He was supposed to be in his 90s when the Sack of Constantinople happened, but even for an extraordinarily healthy and long-lived man with the best of medieval healthcare, that seems kind of unlikely.

So how old was Dandolo, really? Wikipedia claims that one of its sources proves that he was in his 90s by the time of the Fourth Crusade, but without buying the book to check, I'm unsure of how to find that, especially since most sources will probably agree with the 90s argument.

I'm not completely opposed to the idea of Dandolo being a really healthy and really old guy, but I wanted to use him in a TL and didn't want to miscast his age.

Also, as a side note, in 1100s Venice, what could get someone like Dandolo and his family exiled from the most Serene Republic? And if they were exiled permanently, what neighbor of Venice would they be most likely to gravitate towards first?
 
Dandolo would be quiet old even with standards of modern days. And it would be even bigger wonder if he would has been healthy enough to act as doge. It was somehow possible live to 90's on Middle Ages but staying relatively healthy was different thing. I even suspect that he was so old.
 

Zioneer

Banned
Dandolo would be quiet old even with standards of modern days. And it would be even bigger wonder if he would has been healthy enough to act as doge. It was somehow possible live to 90's on Middle Ages but staying relatively healthy was different thing. I even suspect that he was so old.

Exactly, that's my question. Given the fact that people in their 90s are generally quite frail and Dandolo was definitely not, was he actually that old, or was it medieval chroniclers exaggerating for effect? And if so, how old would he have been?
 
Exactly, that's my question. Given the fact that people in their 90s are generally quite frail and Dandolo was definitely not
Blindness, likely due to age or disease (accounts of it being due to a wound are not that certain), isn't exactly showing a spectacularly wealthy person.
An old man driven by an "inner fire" and quite strong mentally, yes.

was he actually that old, or was it medieval chroniclers exaggerating for effect? And if so, how old would he have been?
It wasn't uncommon to reach important duties and positions in Venice at this point, when being relatively aged (especially for a Dandelo that was probably a "compromise" candidate, heating the ducal crown for another, younger successor that people would have agreed on).

I'd would say he would have been at least in his 70's at the beggining of his mandate.
Giving that his son, Raniero, was old enough to regent the republic while Dandolo was in Romania, something around 80/90 doesn't seem that implausible : while it's almost impossible to give a precise age, tradition isn't really disproven and you could certainly accept, in lack of other clear alternatives, the date of 1107, take or give some years.
 
Blindness, likely due to age or disease (accounts of it being due to a wound are not that certain), isn't exactly showing a spectacularly wealthy person.
An old man driven by an "inner fire" and quite strong mentally, yes.


It wasn't uncommon to reach important duties and positions in Venice at this point, when being relatively aged (especially for a Dandelo that was probably a "compromise" candidate, heating the ducal crown for another, younger successor that people would have agreed on).

I'd would say he would have been at least in his 70's at the beggining of his mandate.
Giving that his son, Raniero, was old enough to regent the republic while Dandolo was in Romania, something around 80/90 doesn't seem that implausible : while it's almost impossible to give a precise age, tradition isn't really disproven and you could certainly accept, in lack of other clear alternatives, the date of 1107, take or give some years.

There are not a lot of information about the early life of Enrico Dandolo (for example, the name of his father is unknown and the same is true for his "position" inside the Dandolo clan; both these unknowns mean that he was not a son of the most important Dandolo. Vitale. He might have been a nephew, though), but we know when he lost his sight: it happened between 1174 (when he went on commercial business to Alexandria, where he signed a compromise which has survived: Ego Henricus Dandolo mano mea subscripsi) and 1183 when his mark on another document is simply authenticated: Signum suprascripti Henrici Dandolo qui hoc rogavit fieri). Since in 1178 he was among the 40 electors of the new doge, Orio Mastropiero and it is unlikely that a blind man could have been selected for this office, the most sound hypothesis is that he lost his sight between 1178 and 1183, although the reason for his blindness is unknown. The legend that he lost his sight because of a wound which he might have suffered during a tense negotiation in Constantinople in 1172 has been totally disproven.

The date of his birth is traditionally set around 1107 (but no document has survived) while the date of his death is certainly 1205: I would say that it is unlikely he was born before 1107, and may have been born even later (but not beyond 1110-1112). Anyway when he was elected doge in 1192 he was certainly quite old: the author of the Historia Ducum Venetianorum (who certainly knew ED) describes him as senex discretissimus, generosus, largus et benivolus. The key word is senex, old; all the other adjectives are typically attributed to any doge.

There are other things to debunk about the figure of ED, but I'll deal with them in another post.
 
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