Dan Scavone on Alexios' letter to Robert of Flanders
Justifiably, some historians believe that authenticity of Alexios’ letter to the Robert, the Count of Flanders must be dismissed. The emperor Alexios would not have itemized the treasures of Constantinople. It is, seemingly nothing more than a fictitious propaganda document, written in Western Europe, in order to mobilize support for the crusades. But, as Dan Scavone notes:
To dismiss this letter as a spurious piece of Latin propaganda virtually making the Byzantine emperor beg for the Latins’ expropriation of the imperial relics during the Fourth Crusade is to miss its significance as a Byzantine document referring to the presence of Jesus’ burial wrappings in Constantinople. . . . Most historians have agreed that Alexios would not have written such words, but they also concur that this epistula probably “depends on an authentic letter of the basileus” written with another end in mind and that it dates, variously, from 1091 to 1105.
Though the letter may well have been a propaganda piece, it nonetheless suggests that the burial cloth of Jesus—real or not—was in Constantinople.