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Ch. XI THE FIFTH CRUSADE 387 
father had been unable to fulfill. Unstable conditions in Hungary, however,
had caused pope Celestine III to consent to the postpone ment of his departure.
Three times thereafter, in 1201, in 1209, and again in 1 213, after Andrew
had succeeded his brother Emeric on the throne, Innocent had granted further
postponements until, at last, he fixed the date of departure for the year
1 2 1 7.29 In case he should not return, Andrew's sovereign rights were to
descend successively to his three sons, Bela, Coloman, and Andrew, while
the actual governance of the kingdom of Hungary was left to John, archbishop
of Gran, and that of Croatia and Dalmatia to the master of the Hungarian
Templars, Pons of the Cross. 
 To secure the necessary shipping for his troops Andrew sent to Venice as
his agents plenipotentiary the provost Alexander of Siebenburgen and the
prior of the Hospitallers of Hungary, who concluded an agreement with the
doge, Peter Ziani. The crafty doge now compelled the king of Hungary to cede
the city of Zara in perpetuity to Venice: Hungarians and Venetians, after
paying the usual eightieth at the borders, might trade freely in each other's
territory; pearls, precious stones and metals, silks, and other luxury products
were to be duty-free, clauses which, of course, chiefly benefitted the Venetians,
who agreed to supply ten ships of 5,000 hundredweight at a rental of 550
Venetian silver marks each. Other ships were to have carrying capacities
of not less than 3,000 hundredweight with rates of hire proportional to their
sizes. Rentals were payable in instalments, the first to be made the following
Whitsunday, the second not later than May 31, and the last a week before
the actual departure. The ships, fully equipped, were to be in the harbor
of Spalato (Split) by July 25, and must wait at least thirty days for the
arrival of the king.30 
 To raise the necessary funds, Andrew sold and mortgaged property, and resorted
to the prevalent custom of debasing the coinage. There is evidence also that
he pillaged some of the churches and abbeys of their sacred utensils.31 At
the beginning of July 1217, the crusading army began its march toward Spalato.
In company with king Andrew were dukes Leopold of Austria and Otto of Meran,
the latter's brother Berthold, archbishop of Kalocsa, and numerous bishops,
abbots, and counts from all parts of the empire, 
29 B. Katona, Historia critica regum Hungariae, IV (Bratislava and Kosice,
178 1), pp. 
464 if., gives these preliminaries in detail. See also the letter of Honorius
III to Andrew, 
3 idus Febr. in Fejer, Codex diplomaticus Hungariae, III (Budapest, 1829),
189; and I. A. 
Fessler, Geschichte von Ungarn, I (Leipzig, 1867), 276, 313-314. 
 30 Monumenta spectantia historiam Slavorum meridionalium (ed. Academia scientiarum
et artium Slavorum meridionalium), I (1868), 29-31. 
 31 Röhricht, Funft. Kreuz., p. 24.