2 – The Crusades
After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Byzantine Empire’s military was in a terrible state. Alexios I became emperor in 1081 and realized that he needed help from the West if he was to rebuild his shattered empire. This was awkward given that relations between the east and west were less than friendly since the East-West Schism of 1054 which involved a break of communion between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.
However, Alexios was desperate, so he appealed for mercenaries. Despite the agreements, Western Europe believed that the Byzantine Empire was the only thing preventing the Muslims from invading the continent. Pope Urban II called for a Crusade against the Muslims so, in 1095, armies of soldiers from Western Europe called Latins or Franks by the Byzantines, marched east in what became known as the First Crusade. Although these men were supposed to help the Byzantines, they also hoped to win back Jerusalem.
The Crusaders agreed to return any lands they recovered that were previously under control of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Byzantines. The Crusaders reneged on the agreement and turned Edessa and Antioch into their kingdoms. The westerners took Jerusalem in 1099, and by now, the Byzantines viewed them as a threat comparable to the Muslims.
It wasn’t all bad news for the Byzantines. They retook control of Anatolia and were able to keep the Turks at bay. In the 12th century, Byzantine Emperors gave trade concessions to major Western cities such as Venice and Genoa as a means of receiving military aid from the West. This strategy backfired spectacularly. Some 60,000 Latins were living in Constantinople by 1180, and they put local merchants out of business. In 1182, angry locals rioted, and tens of thousands of Latins were killed.
Pope Innocent III called for the Fourth Crusade in 1198 to restore Christian control over the Holy Land. It didn’t begin until 1202, and the crusade was under the supervision of the Venetians who had supplied the ships for the mission. The Crusaders met Alexios IV Angelos, a Byzantine prince, and son of recently deposed Emperor Isaac II Angelos. He offered the Crusaders a huge sum of money to divert their mission from its original destination of Egypt to Constantinople to help him defeat emperor Alexios III Angelos.
The Crusaders took Constantinople, but Alexios IV was unable to keep his promise as the fleeing former emperor took at least 1,000 pounds of gold and countless jewels. Alexios IV left to fight Alexios III, and in his absence, another riot broke out, and more Latins died. The angry Venetians wanted vengeance while the Crusaders only wanted money. In the end, they sacked Constantinople in 1204 and pillaged most of the wealth the Empire had accumulated in its history.
Constantinople languished under Latin rule until 1261 when Michael VIII Palaiologos regained the city. However, he found it in a terrible state and while he oversaw a recovery of sorts, the Byzantine Empire was practically finished; all that was left was a slow, lingering decay.