also known as Byzantium
The story of Byzantium begins with the Roman Emperor Constantine, whose ascension to Emperor and conversion to Christianity influenced the religious and governmental development of Byzantium. The capital city of Byzantium was founded by Constantine on the site of an older Greek city named for the legendary Byzas on the Bosphorus. Constantine named the city New Rome, but it became known as the city of Constantine, or Constantinople. The later division of the Roman Empire allowed for the rule of an Eastern Roman Empire by an Eastern Emperor in Constantinople and rule of a Western Roman Empire by a Western Emperor in the city of Rome. The eventual disintegration of the western half of the Roman Empire during the 5th century C.E. left only the eastern half of the Roman Empire, Byzantium, remaining until 1453.
The role of the Byzantine Empire was central to the crusading period. Byzantium, along with Latin Christendom and Islam, were the three dominant civilizations of the Middle Ages. It was primarily these three societies that clashed during the crusades, which may have hastened the decline of the Byzantine Empire. Byzantium had experienced military hostilities with the Arab world even before the rise of Islam in the seveneth-century, but it was during the extensive Arab conquests during the seventh-ninth centuries that much Byzantine land, as well as lands in the West including parts of Spain, Italy, and France, came under Arab control through military conquest.
Byzantium went through a series of renewals during its more than one thousand year history, esperiencing periods of high prosperity and the flourishing of arts and scholarship, and other periods of weakness, dismal political infighting and stagnation artistically. Byzantium was awakened to just such a period of weakness in 1071 when an army assembled by the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes was humiliated by Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan at the battle of Mantzikert. During the battle, the Emperor was taken hostage by the Turks and had to be ransomed. As a result, it appears that appeals for help were sent to the West, as Pope Gregory VII in 1074 considered organizing what would have been the First Crusade if his efforts were successful, which they were not.
After Mantzikert, the West and Byzantium entered into greater negotiations over the threat posed to both Eastern and Western Christians by Muslim armies in Iberia and Asia Minor. As Byzantium seemed to be experiencing weakness during this period, the West was becoming more powerful and looking beyond its borders towards the Holy Land. As diplomatic relations between East and West continued, it was finally Pope Urban II in 1095 at the Council of Clermont that called what became known as the First Crusade. Among the themes he cited in his enthusiastically received speech, was the liberation of Eastern Christians from the tyranny of their Muslim oppressors.
Relations between the Byzantium and the West quickly descended into animosity as soon as the First Crusaders arrived in Constantinople. A series of strained relations during the First Crusade led to Byzantine distrust of the crusader's motives during the Second Crusade and after.This history or mistrust between the two groups led to the massacre of Latins living in the Latin quarter of Constantinople in 1182, five years before they negotiated a secret pact with Saladin against the crusaders during the Third Crusade. Westerners were aware of the fact and became equally distrustful of the Byzantines.
Nothing was more detrimental to East-West relations during the crusades than the events of the Fourth Crusade, which through a series of unusual events resulted in the crusaders attacking and looting the Christian city of Constantinople and the establishment of a Latin Empire that lasted until 1261. The Byzantine Empire limped along until its final conquest in 1453 by the Ottoman Turks led by Mehmed II. In 1930, the Capital of Constantinople became known as Istanbul.
First Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Primary Sources of the First Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Second Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Primary Sources of the Second Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Third Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Primary Sources of the Third Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Fourth Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Primary Sources of the Fourth Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Manzikert- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Romanus IV Diogenes- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Alp Arslan- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Pope Gregory VII- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Pope Urban II- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Speech at Clermont, 1095- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Seljuk Turks- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Saladin- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Ottoman Turks- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Constantinople- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Mehmed II- Crusades-Encyclopedia
(c) Andrew Holt, May 2005- Permission is granted for electronic copying and distribution in print for educational and personal use. No permission is granted for commercial use.