Can you do a review of the massacre of the Latins in Constantinople? I know it's not necessarily during the crusades but I think it indirectly caused the Fourth Crusade.
Nice video. Unfortunately it's all true , the analysis was accurate , the Angelos family was indeed the worst ever dynasty in the Byzantine empire. Alexios III Angelos after the events of the 4th Crusade in 1211 even joined the Seljuk army against emperor Theodore I Laskaris of Nikaia. But thankfully Theodore I merged victorious in the battle of Antioch on the Meander, he killed the Seljuk Sultan in a single fight and captured Alexios III Angelos too.
I love your videos Your comments are insightful and awesome. Can you possibly make one video talking about the total amount of crusades spanning which years and on WHICH land masses? Like a graph showing the info on each of the 9 crusades. That would be awesome and easier to share with people I'm trying to teach the truth to. Thank you. God bless you
Real Crusades History Hey Stephen, as usual brilliant session and very easy to follow. Just out of curiosity, is there a specific reason you left out the massacre(s) of latins as a contribution to the 4th crusade. Or does this fall in the general category the depravity and insanity of the Angelii bro's.?
It's an interesting point of view, i'm agree the angeloi emperor were worst emperors for byzantines. Alexios III was even worst than Isaac (at least fight sometimes himself). However i'm not agree for Venice, Alexandria indeed is interesting but Constantinople too ! When Manuel arrested all venitians in 1171 the lose for Venice was very important, so yes it's the weakness of the empire who made the sucess of the fourth crusade but Alexis IV was only a pretext and Venice took the opportunity to finish one of it's rivals
they did but its just the difference in population during Constantine and Theodoius from what I could find Anatolia had an estimated 15mil population Greek and Macedon 3,5mil ... So it makes sense that a large part of their forces would be recruited from Anatolia as it was the most populated province of the Easter Empire when they controlled it
Just an hypothesis - if the so called Byzantine empire, or roman empire if we want to be correct how they viewed them self and the rest of the world. The fragmentation of the Byzantine empire, wouldn't that have helped - in the long run to preserve Greek and latin culture, in Greece and Anatolia?
Since the different fraction would then have their own realms - and so on could create alliance between them self. This would the force them to reform this smaller areas, or realms.
Nicely covered points. Though, if I may add in a few more reasons. In 1199, a group of French Knights met at a tournament and decided to sell tickets to a packaged Crusade. Their aim, to attack Egypt and move onward to Jerusalem. The organizers met with negotiators from Venice, and that was where everything went wrong. You see, Venice did good business with the Arabs, and they promised the Egyptians that the Crusade would never arrive.
TheLionofSparta480 If you think about it, "Venice did good business with the Arabs" makes no sense. If Venice made good money by sailing over and trading with the Egyptians, imagine how much they could make if Egypt became a colony. Just so you know, colonization generates more money than trade alone.
Wrong. Other Italian city states like Pisa and Genoa DID DO trade with Egypt, Venice listening to papal bulls did not. Even as well, it would be much more profitable to have contours over the trading territory rather than just a trade deal with the local emir.
@@blazekelly7455 while that is true the preparations and negotiations would have been going on before... after all the ships needed time to be build and the fleet the 4th crusade organizers requested was quite big ...
Great work, what a shame actual history gets obscured. Before this I though Byzantium were doing well and that the fourth crusaded was the turning point in the downfall. It makes me wonder how today's history will be obscured and manipulated.
while the angelos dynasty was incompetent, the sack of constantinople and the partition of the byzantine was a devastating blown to the byzantine empire
hey, those 3 brothers were walachians, like me: Petriță, Ioniță & Tudorică ,,Asănescu'' Egypt controlled Sues route through Red Sea to Indopersia, to condiment routes of Asia, that Serenissima wanted
Walachians? Are you freaking kidding me? Even if they were of mixed origin it had nothing to do with walachians but cumans. 2 quite different nations. Their family estates and birthplace were in the middle of nowadays Bulgaria, not Walachia. Not to mention that the oldest of the three's birth name was Theodor which name is of greek christian origin not walachian or cuman, the latter still being pagan. And same Theodor later was crowned tzar of Bulgaria and accepted the name Peter or Петър in bulgarian following the name of the first officially recognized by the Byzantine empire bulgarian tzar.
băi bulgarule, erau vlahi, asociaţi matrimonial în vre-un clan de generali cumani (Aşan/Aslan), dinastie vlahă peste Vulgaria ta, iar vlahii provin de la traci pe când bulgarii sunt o mixtură : vlahi, slavi, proto-bulgari (turcici), sciţi, cumani, pecenegi, uzi, secui, makidoni, huni, avari, coloni bizantini din orient, albani, maghiari, tătari....
how abaut: wallachian dinasty over your Voulgaria, wallachians comes from thrakians where as voulgarians are from mixt group of people: wallachians, slaves (sklavini), proto-voulgarians (turks from Siberia), cumans, avars, huns, hungarians, albanians, gypsies, selgiucid turks...
I won't waste my time commenting on this nonsense. Clearly you have no idea of who bulgarians are, where they came from and what they did. Just a suggestion, before you make a comment on a matter that is far away from your experience and knowledge, just read some books, educate yourself otherwise you risk of showing how little if any you know about the things you comment.
I don't think the Fourth Crusade was the reason for the collapse of the Byzantines due to the fact that the end came 250 years later. That is like something which happened at the time of the American Revolution effecting us today. However if one is to take an unrealistic long term opinion, it could be argued that the weakening of Byzantia caused by the Crusade as well as the internal differences you mention led to the Ottoman victory in 1453 which in turn eventually was one of the reasons for the downfall of Venice. But that took centuries to happen.
Blaming the fall of Constantinople to the 4th crusade is anti-western/latin propaganda typical of the behaviour of these pathetic eastern orthodox people. It's like American blacks today blaming their stagnation in the economic ladder on white people that lived 200 - 300 years ago.
the point people make about the fourth crusade causing it's later fall, has always seemed a bit weird to me. The byzantine empire had in many periods prior been in a sorry state, at least if one considers their losses of land in different periods. Sure the empire was temporarily dissolved, but (i may be wrong here) the empire seemed to have been a sinking ship long before the fourth crusade
+ww12tt This is an excellent point you're making. When people point to much earlier causes of some later fall, it's almost always excessively speculative. The Fourth Crusade was in many ways just another manifestation of Byzantine dynastic conflict. The Byzantines had a long history of civil wars, and they almost always involved proxies from the West being used by one side or another. The Fourth Crusade was just the biggest version of that yet.
Real Crusades History indeed. i think the problem is, that a lot of people see the empire as this super state, which couldn't be compared to any other prior to the fourth crusade, even though they have had plenty of catastrophic defeats against the Arabs. Sure they also had many great victories but the Byzantines is in my opinion not one of the greatest empires in history. It was impressive, and especially if one considers how long it existed, but not extraordinary great
Real Crusades History indeed. In fact, had the Holy roman empire gained a stable royal dynasty i think it would have become an empire to be admired instead of the Byzantine praise
+ww12tt well the reason the Byzantines have this greatness surround them is probably because they are the successors of the Romans after Constantine the Great moved the capital east to Constantinople and the fact that they held on their own years before the west could pick themselves up and rebuild it's former glory. Plus they did some outstanding military achievements against the Persians saving the Holy Cross and Constantinople was an amazing beacon of wealth,power and beauty that rivaled Rome. So even when they declined they had built a great status in the known world. Despite not being something great at the time of the Holy roman empire it was the wall west needed to regroup for the past centuries.
The Byzantine Empire hired mercenaries at the time!? Don't they remember how bad the original western Roman Empire ended up when they hired mercenaries?! And Byzantines witnessed rome's fall and are, you know, really the SAME EMPIRE!!!! I think they have themselves to blame for being sacked by crusaders and being sized by the Ottomans. They dug their own grave.
well done,, so ,, the eastern roman empire did the same thing as the western did some 600 hundred years or so before.. decadence, ha ........... again well done, gives much room for thought.
You make good points but I never held the view that the Byzantine empire was stable and strong before the 4th crusade. Before I watched the video I knew that it was already impotent and gutted (and why that is not solely due to ineffective top leadership, instead think of it as an oligarchy, and with a 'weak' or ineffective central ruler they are then free to do what they want, and one thing they do is things that are counter to the general health of the empire. The Latins, who did have designs and did want to replace the existing trading powers (like Alexandria and Constantinople) capitalize on the opportunity. When they loot they knew where to loot. They knew where much of the treasure was and thus must have had some planning. It is not a simple choice between conspiracy OR ineffective Byzantium leadership but rather both, and latter allowed the former. It was not simple greed though, there was a lot of other factors. In the end, it was an act if not done under the blessing of the Pope, at least without protest. I think of it as an example of the true character of Christianity, as it demonstrates that though armies claim to be 'of God' on both the Muslim or Christian side, that in fact each was capable of killing each other as well as their fellow Muslims or Christians. It demonstrates how hallow these religions really are. They are economic political ideologies. Often you see rulers convert to one or the other religion to make strong economic ties.
Manuel was not a good empeor he screwed byzantium by focusing too much on italy and less on Anatolia. Rather than help Italian cities like Milan or try to conquer southern Italy and alienate everybody in the area or launch useless raids on Egypt and Syria he should have focused on driving turks out of Anatolia. Had he concentrated all his efforts on Rum even with the defeat at Myriokeplon he could have succeeded in beating the Turks. Not to mention under him the pronoi system went out of control leading to extremely powerful landed magnates taking over. Manuel overextended the empire and laid the foundations for its dissolution. he was not a good emperor just an egotistical megalomaniac
For byzantium less they interacted with franks the better they did. And Andronikos wasnt all bad. He was trying to do what basil did to curb the powerful landed aristocracy that had become too poweful as a result of a certain Manuel Komnenos. He is an undderrated emperor who while in his latter part of reign went crazy he was genuinly trying to replicate what basil did with bringing to heel the corrupte Byzantine nobility
Why? Because Pope Innocent III was an egotist. But he was too lazy to follow up on his Crusaders or discipline them to have them not visit Constantinople. Byzantium was already dying before the Crusade. Larger armies of Byzantine soldiers get royally screwed by Latin knights.
Simple story: Innocent could've prevented the 1204 sack if he just ACCOMPANIED HIS DAMN SOLDIERS. Pope Gregory VII had that idea: prior to his fisticuffs with the German Emperor, he had assembled 50,000 troops on his own to attack Jerusalem directly. He would lead the assault himself. Too bad later on Alexius Comnenus paid Kaiser Henry IV to attack Pope Gregory........Gregory's crusade would've taken pressure off Byzantium and allowed her to focus on the Turks.
HolyknightVader999 How, indeed, will the church of the Greeks, no matter how severely she is beset with afflictions and persecutions, return into ecclesiastical union and to a devotion for the Apostolic See, when she has seen in the Latins only an example of perdition and the works of darkness, so that she now, and with reason, detests the Latins more than dogs? As for those who were supposed to be seeking the ends of Jesus Christ, not their own ends, who made their swords, which they were supposed to use against the pagans, drip with Christian blood, they have spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex. They have committed incest, adultery, and fornication before the eyes of men. They have exposed both matrons and virgins, even those dedicated to God, to the sordid lusts of boys. Not satisfied with breaking open the imperial treasury and plundering the goods of princes and lesser men, they also laid their hands on the treasures of the churches and, what is more serious, on their very possessions. They have even ripped silver plates from the altars and have hacked them to pieces among themselves. They violated the holy places and have carried off crosses and relics.- Pope Innocent III
Magnus Gudmundsson So? The Greeks were no different in the Massacre of the Latins. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins "Following the death of Manuel I in 1180, his widow, the Latin princess Maria of Antioch, acted as regent to her infant son Alexios II Komnenos. Her regency was notorious for the favoritism shown to Latin merchants and the big aristocratic land-owners, and was overthrown in April 1182 by Andronikos I Komnenos, who entered the city in a wave of popular support. Almost immediately, the celebrations spilled over into violence towards the hated Latins, and after entering the city's Latin quarter a mob began attacking the inhabitants. The ensuing massacre was indiscriminate: neither women nor children were spared, and Latin patients lying in hospital beds were murdered. Houses, churches, and charities were looted. Latin clergymen received special attention, and Cardinal John, the papal legate, was beheaded and his head was dragged through the streets at the tail of a dog. Although Andronikos himself had no particular anti-Latin attitude, he allowed the massacre to proceed unchecked. The Roman Catholics of Constantinople at that time dominated the city's maritime trade and financial sector. Although precise numbers are unavailable, the bulk of the Latin community, estimated at 60,000 at the time by Eustathius of Thessalonica, was wiped out or forced to flee. The Genoese and Pisan communities especially were decimated, and some 4,000 survivors were sold as slaves to the (Turkish) Sultanate of Rum." See? The Greeks were just as bad as the Latins. Even worse, considering the Latins at least allowed most of the citizens to flee during the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. They only violated the architecture and the treasury. And of course, Innocent III was no witness to it, so the accounts he got were susceptible to bias or embellishments. And of course, the local riff-faff didn't give a shit about the change of the leaders. They hated the Byzantine elite and were happy to see them expelled by the Latins: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(1204)#Aftermath Most of the Byzantine aristocracy fled the city. Amongst the ordinary people of the former empire, there was no sympathy for the Byzantine elite, who were seen as having ruled the empire increasingly badly. The contemporary Byzantine historian and eye-witness, Nicetas Choniates closed his account of the fall of the city with the following description of a column of aristocratic refugees, including the Patriarch, making their way to Selymbria: "The peasants and common riff-raff jeered at those of us from Byzantium and were thick-headed enough to call our miserable poverty and nakedness equality...Many were only too happy to accept this outrage, saying "Blessed be the Lord that we have grown rich", and buying up for next to nothing the property that their fellow-countrymen were forced to offer for sale, for they had not yet had much to do with the beef-eating Latins and they did not know that they served a wine as pure and unmixed as unadulterated bile, nor that they would treat the Byzantines with utter contempt." -Nicetas Choniates Angold, Michael (1997). The Byzantine Empire 1025-1204. pp. 327-328. ISBN 0 582 29468 1. And of course, after the establishment of the Latin Empire, the Latins didn't discriminate against the peasants. Life just went on as before, with the peasants happy that the Byzantine elite that mistreated them for so long were all gone.
It"s easier, the crussader were more warriors of money than god, and in the end the only thing they were successful to was to destroy the Byzantine Empire wich i belive would be today a great (maybe a superpower) state like England and France had the forth crssade not happened , Also the crussades made the muslim caliphates not just a thread for midle east, but for all europe. If byzant hadn"t destroy the arab armies, or even ally with the muslim in the 8-th centery, Frankish kindom would fall on islam and become a caliphate in the heart of Europe.
It's because Byzantine Elites are corrupt and cowards, they even conspire with the Muslims against the Crusaders just to save their own throat, how low can you get? When those same people are fighting for you and you stab them in the back.
Can you do a review of the massacre of the Latins in Constantinople? I know it's not necessarily during the crusades but I think it indirectly caused the Fourth Crusade.
1182. And this is preceded by 1171 war with Venice, started by... latins?
@@psychoalien1720 I don't think you know how that war started.
Nice video. Unfortunately it's all true , the analysis was accurate , the Angelos family was indeed the worst ever dynasty in the Byzantine empire. Alexios III Angelos after the events of the 4th Crusade in 1211 even joined the Seljuk army against emperor Theodore I Laskaris of Nikaia. But thankfully Theodore I merged victorious in the battle of Antioch on the Meander, he killed the Seljuk Sultan in a single fight and captured Alexios III Angelos too.
I love your videos
Your comments are insightful and awesome.
Can you possibly make one video talking about the total amount of crusades spanning which years and on WHICH land masses?
Like a graph showing the info on each of the 9 crusades.
That would be awesome and easier to share with people I'm trying to teach the truth to.
Thank you. God bless you
Thank you.
Excellent overview. Thanks
Question: what's your opinion on the influence of the Massacre of the Latins committed by the Byzantines that preceded the Crusade?
1171 war, Venice? This rings a bell?
@@psychoalien1720 10,000 imprisoned Latins. This rings a bell?
Real Crusades History Hey Stephen, as usual brilliant session and very easy to follow. Just out of curiosity, is there a specific reason you left out the massacre(s) of latins as a contribution to the 4th crusade. Or does this fall in the general category the depravity and insanity of the Angelii bro's.?
That was under the rule of Andronikos Komnenos not the Angeloi.
It's an interesting point of view, i'm agree the angeloi emperor were worst emperors for byzantines. Alexios III was even worst than Isaac (at least fight sometimes himself). However i'm not agree for Venice, Alexandria indeed is interesting but Constantinople too ! When Manuel arrested all venitians in 1171 the lose for Venice was very important, so yes it's the weakness of the empire who made the sucess of the fourth crusade but Alexis IV was only a pretext and Venice took the opportunity to finish one of it's rivals
I've always wondered this but why didn't the Byzantines recruit from Greece and Macedonia?
I think everything happened too fast the siege was quite quick.
they did but its just the difference in population
during Constantine and Theodoius from what I could find
Anatolia had an estimated 15mil population
Greek and Macedon 3,5mil ...
So it makes sense that a large part of their forces would be recruited from Anatolia as it was the most populated province of the Easter Empire when they controlled it
Isaac II is unfairly hated
Envy West to Byzantium made this massacre in Constantinople, the only truth.
I wish you would cover the economy of the East and why it made it weak at that time.
Just an hypothesis - if the so called Byzantine empire, or roman empire if we want to be correct how they viewed them self and the rest of the world. The fragmentation of the Byzantine empire, wouldn't that have helped - in the long run to preserve Greek and latin culture, in Greece and Anatolia?
Since the different fraction would then have their own realms - and so on could create alliance between them self. This would the force them to reform this smaller areas, or realms.
Nicely covered points. Though, if I may add in a few more reasons. In 1199, a group of French Knights met at a tournament and decided to sell tickets to a packaged Crusade. Their aim, to attack Egypt and move onward to Jerusalem. The organizers met with negotiators from Venice, and that was where everything went wrong. You see, Venice did good business with the Arabs, and they promised the Egyptians that the Crusade would never arrive.
TheLionofSparta480 Actually that's a myth. There is no historical evidence whatsoever that there was any agreement prior between Venice and Egypt.
TheLionofSparta480 If you think about it, "Venice did good business with the Arabs" makes no sense. If Venice made good money by sailing over and trading with the Egyptians, imagine how much they could make if Egypt became a colony. Just so you know, colonization generates more money than trade alone.
+TheLionofSparta480 the 4th crusade only lasted from 1202-1204
Wrong. Other Italian city states like Pisa and Genoa DID DO trade with Egypt, Venice listening to papal bulls did not. Even as well, it would be much more profitable to have contours over the trading territory rather than just a trade deal with the local emir.
@@blazekelly7455 while that is true the preparations and negotiations would have been going on before... after all the ships needed time to be build and the fleet the 4th crusade organizers requested was quite big ...
Great work, what a shame actual history gets obscured. Before this I though Byzantium were doing well and that the fourth crusaded was the turning point in the downfall.
It makes me wonder how today's history will be obscured and manipulated.
the turks were a huge stroke,but what in my opinion is an underated cause of destruction to the roman empire is the bulgarian invasion
*****
by that i mean the movement in its wholeness...they should have stay the other side of the river instead of helping saracens destroying rome
*****
bulgarian are central asian steppe mixy mish-mash.....turks also claims these days that they are native from the land lol
ok bye bye
while the angelos dynasty was incompetent, the sack of constantinople and the partition of the byzantine was a devastating blown to the byzantine empire
hey, those 3 brothers were walachians, like me: Petriță, Ioniță & Tudorică ,,Asănescu''
Egypt controlled Sues route through Red Sea to Indopersia, to condiment routes of Asia, that Serenissima wanted
Walachians? Are you freaking kidding me? Even if they were of mixed origin it had nothing to do with walachians but cumans. 2 quite different nations. Their family estates and birthplace were in the middle of nowadays Bulgaria, not Walachia. Not to mention that the oldest of the three's birth name was Theodor which name is of greek christian origin not walachian or cuman, the latter still being pagan. And same Theodor later was crowned tzar of Bulgaria and accepted the name Peter or Петър in bulgarian following the name of the first officially recognized by the Byzantine empire bulgarian tzar.
băi bulgarule, erau vlahi, asociaţi matrimonial în vre-un clan de generali cumani (Aşan/Aslan), dinastie vlahă peste Vulgaria ta, iar vlahii provin de la traci pe când bulgarii sunt o mixtură : vlahi, slavi, proto-bulgari (turcici), sciţi, cumani, pecenegi, uzi, secui, makidoni, huni, avari, coloni bizantini din orient, albani, maghiari, tătari....
I don't speak romanian, can't comment on that
how abaut: wallachian dinasty over your Voulgaria, wallachians comes from thrakians where as voulgarians are from mixt group of people: wallachians, slaves (sklavini), proto-voulgarians (turks from Siberia), cumans, avars, huns, hungarians, albanians, gypsies, selgiucid turks...
I won't waste my time commenting on this nonsense. Clearly you have no idea of who bulgarians are, where they came from and what they did. Just a suggestion, before you make a comment on a matter that is far away from your experience and knowledge, just read some books, educate yourself otherwise you risk of showing how little if any you know about the things you comment.
This is period is pretty similar to the western empire's fall.
I don't think the Fourth Crusade was the reason for the collapse of the Byzantines due to the fact that the end came 250 years later. That is like something which happened at the time of the American Revolution effecting us today.
However if one is to take an unrealistic long term opinion, it could be argued that the weakening of Byzantia caused by the Crusade as well as the internal differences you mention led to the Ottoman victory in 1453 which in turn eventually was one of the reasons for the downfall of Venice. But that took centuries to happen.
uuuuh the american revolution is indeed affecting us today
Blaming the fall of Constantinople to the 4th crusade is anti-western/latin propaganda typical of the behaviour of these pathetic eastern orthodox people. It's like American blacks today blaming their stagnation in the economic ladder on white people that lived 200 - 300 years ago.
Sorry. I'm just curious okay. Their is a lot of ways the author could gain that information.
No worries. He was a scholar of Byzantine history. He used the same sources all Byzantine historians use.
Interesting. How did the author of that book gain the information about the Byzantine world at time if he from Britain?
You're joking, right?
the point people make about the fourth crusade causing it's later fall, has always seemed a bit weird to me. The byzantine empire had in many periods prior been in a sorry state, at least if one considers their losses of land in different periods. Sure the empire was temporarily dissolved, but (i may be wrong here) the empire seemed to have been a sinking ship long before the fourth crusade
+ww12tt This is an excellent point you're making. When people point to much earlier causes of some later fall, it's almost always excessively speculative. The Fourth Crusade was in many ways just another manifestation of Byzantine dynastic conflict. The Byzantines had a long history of civil wars, and they almost always involved proxies from the West being used by one side or another. The Fourth Crusade was just the biggest version of that yet.
Real Crusades History
indeed. i think the problem is, that a lot of people see the empire as this super state, which couldn't be compared to any other prior to the fourth crusade, even though they have had plenty of catastrophic defeats against the Arabs. Sure they also had many great victories but the Byzantines is in my opinion not one of the greatest empires in history. It was impressive, and especially if one considers how long it existed, but not extraordinary great
+ww12tt Right, and honestly during most of the Middle Ages it was more of a kingdom than an empire.
Real Crusades History
indeed. In fact, had the Holy roman empire gained a stable royal dynasty i think it would have become an empire to be admired instead of the Byzantine praise
+ww12tt well the reason the Byzantines have this greatness surround them is probably because they are the successors of the Romans after Constantine the Great moved the capital east to Constantinople and the fact that they held on their own years before the west could pick themselves up and rebuild it's former glory. Plus they did some outstanding military achievements against the Persians saving the Holy Cross and Constantinople was an amazing beacon of wealth,power and beauty that rivaled Rome.
So even when they declined they had built a great status in the known world. Despite not being something great at the time of the Holy roman empire it was the wall west needed to regroup for the past centuries.
The Byzantine Empire hired mercenaries at the time!? Don't they remember how bad the original western Roman Empire ended up when they hired mercenaries?! And Byzantines witnessed rome's fall and are, you know, really the SAME EMPIRE!!!!
I think they have themselves to blame for being sacked by crusaders and being sized by the Ottomans. They dug their own grave.
well done,, so ,, the eastern roman empire did the same thing as the western did some 600 hundred years or so before.. decadence, ha ........... again well done, gives much room for thought.
For the Emperor !!!!
You make good points but I never held the view that the Byzantine empire was stable and strong before the 4th crusade. Before I watched the video I knew that it was already impotent and gutted (and why that is not solely due to ineffective top leadership, instead think of it as an oligarchy, and with a 'weak' or ineffective central ruler they are then free to do what they want, and one thing they do is things that are counter to the general health of the empire. The Latins, who did have designs and did want to replace the existing trading powers (like Alexandria and Constantinople) capitalize on the opportunity. When they loot they knew where to loot. They knew where much of the treasure was and thus must have had some planning. It is not a simple choice between conspiracy OR ineffective Byzantium leadership but rather both, and latter allowed the former. It was not simple greed though, there was a lot of other factors. In the end, it was an act if not done under the blessing of the Pope, at least without protest. I think of it as an example of the true character of Christianity, as it demonstrates that though armies claim to be 'of God' on both the Muslim or Christian side, that in fact each was capable of killing each other as well as their fellow Muslims or Christians. It demonstrates how hallow these religions really are. They are economic political ideologies. Often you see rulers convert to one or the other religion to make strong economic ties.
Manuel was not a good empeor he screwed byzantium by focusing too much on italy and less on Anatolia. Rather than help Italian cities like Milan or try to conquer southern Italy and alienate everybody in the area or launch useless raids on Egypt and Syria he should have focused on driving turks out of Anatolia. Had he concentrated all his efforts on Rum even with the defeat at Myriokeplon he could have succeeded in beating the Turks. Not to mention under him the pronoi system went out of control leading to extremely powerful landed magnates taking over. Manuel overextended the empire and laid the foundations for its dissolution. he was not a good emperor just an egotistical megalomaniac
For byzantium less they interacted with franks the better they did. And Andronikos wasnt all bad. He was trying to do what basil did to curb the powerful landed aristocracy that had become too poweful as a result of a certain Manuel Komnenos. He is an undderrated emperor who while in his latter part of reign went crazy he was genuinly trying to replicate what basil did with bringing to heel the corrupte Byzantine nobility
Why? Because Pope Innocent III was an egotist. But he was too lazy to follow up on his Crusaders or discipline them to have them not visit Constantinople.
Byzantium was already dying before the Crusade. Larger armies of Byzantine soldiers get royally screwed by Latin knights.
Simple story: Innocent could've prevented the 1204 sack if he just ACCOMPANIED HIS DAMN SOLDIERS.
Pope Gregory VII had that idea: prior to his fisticuffs with the German Emperor, he had assembled 50,000 troops on his own to attack Jerusalem directly. He would lead the assault himself. Too bad later on Alexius Comnenus paid Kaiser Henry IV to attack Pope Gregory........Gregory's crusade would've taken pressure off Byzantium and allowed her to focus on the Turks.
HolyknightVader999 How, indeed, will the church of the Greeks, no matter how severely she is beset with afflictions and persecutions, return into ecclesiastical union and to a devotion for the Apostolic See, when she has seen in the Latins only an example of perdition and the works of darkness, so that she now, and with reason, detests the Latins more than dogs? As for those who were supposed to be seeking the ends of Jesus Christ, not their own ends, who made their swords, which they were supposed to use against the pagans, drip with Christian blood, they have spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex. They have committed incest, adultery, and fornication before the eyes of men. They have exposed both matrons and virgins, even those dedicated to God, to the sordid lusts of boys. Not satisfied with breaking open the imperial treasury and plundering the goods of princes and lesser men, they also laid their hands on the treasures of the churches and, what is more serious, on their very possessions. They have even ripped silver plates from the altars and have hacked them to pieces among themselves. They violated the holy places and have carried off crosses and relics.- Pope Innocent III
Magnus Gudmundsson
So? The Greeks were no different in the Massacre of the Latins.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins
"Following the death of Manuel I in 1180, his widow, the Latin princess Maria of Antioch, acted as regent to her infant son Alexios II Komnenos. Her regency was notorious for the favoritism shown to Latin merchants and the big aristocratic land-owners, and was overthrown in April 1182 by Andronikos I Komnenos, who entered the city in a wave of popular support. Almost immediately, the celebrations spilled over into violence towards the hated Latins, and after entering the city's Latin quarter a mob began attacking the inhabitants. The ensuing massacre was indiscriminate: neither women nor children were spared, and Latin patients lying in hospital beds were murdered. Houses, churches, and charities were looted. Latin clergymen received special attention, and Cardinal John, the papal legate, was beheaded and his head was dragged through the streets at the tail of a dog. Although Andronikos himself had no particular anti-Latin attitude, he allowed the massacre to proceed unchecked. The Roman Catholics of Constantinople at that time dominated the city's maritime trade and financial sector. Although precise numbers are unavailable, the bulk of the Latin community, estimated at 60,000 at the time by Eustathius of Thessalonica, was wiped out or forced to flee. The Genoese and Pisan communities especially were decimated, and some 4,000 survivors were sold as slaves to the (Turkish) Sultanate of Rum."
See? The Greeks were just as bad as the Latins. Even worse, considering the Latins at least allowed most of the citizens to flee during the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. They only violated the architecture and the treasury. And of course, Innocent III was no witness to it, so the accounts he got were susceptible to bias or embellishments.
And of course, the local riff-faff didn't give a shit about the change of the leaders. They hated the Byzantine elite and were happy to see them expelled by the Latins:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(1204)#Aftermath
Most of the Byzantine aristocracy fled the city. Amongst the ordinary people of the former empire, there was no sympathy for the Byzantine elite, who were seen as having ruled the empire increasingly badly. The contemporary Byzantine historian and eye-witness, Nicetas Choniates closed his account of the fall of the city with the following description of a column of aristocratic refugees, including the Patriarch, making their way to Selymbria:
"The peasants and common riff-raff jeered at those of us from Byzantium and were thick-headed enough to call our miserable poverty and nakedness equality...Many were only too happy to accept this outrage, saying "Blessed be the Lord that we have grown rich", and buying up for next to nothing the property that their fellow-countrymen were forced to offer for sale, for they had not yet had much to do with the beef-eating Latins and they did not know that they served a wine as pure and unmixed as unadulterated bile, nor that they would treat the Byzantines with utter contempt."
-Nicetas Choniates
Angold, Michael (1997). The Byzantine Empire 1025-1204. pp. 327-328. ISBN 0 582 29468 1.
And of course, after the establishment of the Latin Empire, the Latins didn't discriminate against the peasants. Life just went on as before, with the peasants happy that the Byzantine elite that mistreated them for so long were all gone.
It"s easier, the crussader were more warriors of money than god, and in the end the only thing they were successful to was to destroy the Byzantine Empire wich i belive would be today a great (maybe a superpower) state like England and France had the forth crssade not happened ,
Also the crussades made the muslim caliphates not just a thread for midle east, but for all europe.
If byzant hadn"t destroy the arab armies, or even ally with the muslim in the 8-th centery, Frankish kindom would fall on islam and become a caliphate in the heart of Europe.
It's because Byzantine Elites are corrupt and cowards, they even conspire with the Muslims against the Crusaders just to save their own throat, how low can you get? When those same people are fighting for you and you stab them in the back.