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Sack of Constantinople
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Sack of Constantinople
The sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Crusaders sacked and destroyed most of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the city, the Latin Empire (known to the Byzantines as the Frankokratia, or the Latin occupation) was established and Baldwin IX of Flanders crowned emperor in Hagia Sophia.
After the city's sacking, most of the Byzantine Empire's territories were divided up among the Crusaders. Byzantine aristocrats also established a number of small independent splinter states—one of them being the Empire of Nicaea, which eventually recaptured Constantinople in 1261 and proclaimed the reinstatement of the Empire. However, the restored Empire never managed to reclaim all its former territory or attain its earlier economic strength, and it gradually succumbed to the rising Ottoman Empire over the following two centuries.
The Byzantine Empire was left poorer, smaller, and ultimately less able to defend itself against the Seljuk and Ottoman conquests that followed. The actions of the Crusaders, therefore, accelerated the collapse of Christendom in the east, and in the long run helped facilitate the later Ottoman conquests of southeastern Europe.
The sack of Constantinople is considered a turning point in medieval history. Reports of Crusader looting and brutality horrified the Orthodox world; relations between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were wounded for many centuries afterwards.
The Massacre of the Latins, a massacre of the Roman Catholic or "Latin" inhabitants of Constantinople by the usurper Andronikos Komnenos and his supporters in May 1182, affected political relations between Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire and led to the 1185 sack of Thessalonica by Normans. Although regular trade agreements were soon resumed between Byzantine and Latin States, some Westerners sought some form of revenge.
Venetian merchants had carefully mapped Constantinople's harbours years before the sack, possibly anticipating its economic potential.
Alexios IV Angelos, the son of deposed emperor Isaac II Angelos persuaded Boniface of Montferrat and the Venetians to help him reinstate his father and make him co-emperor of the Byzantines by diverting the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople. In return, he promised 200,000 marks of silver as payment, as well as the submission of the Eastern Orthodox Church to Rome. Additionally he promised to pay for the provisions of the expedition and to join the crusade against the Saracens.
Following the siege of Constantinople in 1203, on 1 August 1203 the pro-Crusader Alexios Angelos was crowned Emperor Alexios IV of the Byzantine Empire. He attempted to pacify the city, but riots between anti-Crusader Greeks and pro-Crusader Latins broke out later that month and lasted until November, during which time most of the populace began to turn against him.
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Sack of Constantinople
The sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Crusaders sacked and destroyed most of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the city, the Latin Empire (known to the Byzantines as the Frankokratia, or the Latin occupation) was established and Baldwin IX of Flanders crowned emperor in Hagia Sophia.
After the city's sacking, most of the Byzantine Empire's territories were divided up among the Crusaders. Byzantine aristocrats also established a number of small independent splinter states—one of them being the Empire of Nicaea, which eventually recaptured Constantinople in 1261 and proclaimed the reinstatement of the Empire. However, the restored Empire never managed to reclaim all its former territory or attain its earlier economic strength, and it gradually succumbed to the rising Ottoman Empire over the following two centuries.
The Byzantine Empire was left poorer, smaller, and ultimately less able to defend itself against the Seljuk and Ottoman conquests that followed. The actions of the Crusaders, therefore, accelerated the collapse of Christendom in the east, and in the long run helped facilitate the later Ottoman conquests of southeastern Europe.
The sack of Constantinople is considered a turning point in medieval history. Reports of Crusader looting and brutality horrified the Orthodox world; relations between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were wounded for many centuries afterwards.
The Massacre of the Latins, a massacre of the Roman Catholic or "Latin" inhabitants of Constantinople by the usurper Andronikos Komnenos and his supporters in May 1182, affected political relations between Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire and led to the 1185 sack of Thessalonica by Normans. Although regular trade agreements were soon resumed between Byzantine and Latin States, some Westerners sought some form of revenge.
Venetian merchants had carefully mapped Constantinople's harbours years before the sack, possibly anticipating its economic potential.
Alexios IV Angelos, the son of deposed emperor Isaac II Angelos persuaded Boniface of Montferrat and the Venetians to help him reinstate his father and make him co-emperor of the Byzantines by diverting the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople. In return, he promised 200,000 marks of silver as payment, as well as the submission of the Eastern Orthodox Church to Rome. Additionally he promised to pay for the provisions of the expedition and to join the crusade against the Saracens.
Following the siege of Constantinople in 1203, on 1 August 1203 the pro-Crusader Alexios Angelos was crowned Emperor Alexios IV of the Byzantine Empire. He attempted to pacify the city, but riots between anti-Crusader Greeks and pro-Crusader Latins broke out later that month and lasted until November, during which time most of the populace began to turn against him.
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