Empire of the East

EMPIRE OF THE EAST. - I. ROMAN EMPIRE OF THE EAST. - The Byzantine Empire, which historically has always been called and ought to be called the Roman Empire of the East, had a history of more than a thousand years which can be divided into three periods, corresponding to those proper to every human or social organism: formation, which runs from the founding of Constantinople to the accession of Justinian I to the throne (326-565); consolidation, after lively internal conflicts caused by the new division of the Empire into civil-military provinces called themes, by the assault of the barbarians who came from the north and the east in search of territories, by the spread of Islam; a consolidation that reached its glorious culmination with the Macedonian dynasty (565-1025); the dissolution of political and social life because of the external threat that grew graver every day, of internal intrigue that stifled sound policy and broke religious unity with the Latin Church, and of the expansion of the West, which through the paths of commerce succeeded for 54 years in seating itself on the throne of Byzantium and dealt the Empire of the East a blow from which it would never rise again (1025-1453).

1. From Constantine to Justinian (326-565)

During the first, transitional phase, the elements that would become specific to Byzantine history took shape. Constantine indeed, Balkan by birth and a valiant soldier, saw at once that the defense of the Roman Empire lay in the Balkans, which mark the frontier between Asia and Europe; as a good politician he intuited that Christianity held all the hopes of the future and willed that the new capital he established at Byzantium, a small municipality of Thrace, should be oriented from the very beginning toward Christianity, while the old Rome was still too full of pagan memories; he accepted from Diocletian the administrative division of the Empire into four great provinces, but abolished the tetrarchs who had followed a too personal and independent policy and replaced them with four praetorian prefects who depended directly on him. Like Diocletian, he kept the civil administration distinct from the military and willed that both should report to a council of state ministers (consistorium sacrum) which was the official organ through which the Emperor carried out his work.

The Senate no longer constituted a diarchy with the prince; it retained only the prerogatives of honor and those of municipal governor of the new city, and if its members were admitted into the prince's cabinet, this happened by passing through the ranks of the new bureaucracy. The new servants of the State were no longer chosen from the old aristocracy, but from the middle class, for which nevertheless titles of bureaucratic nobility were created, corresponding to as many functions in the imperial cabinet.

From Constantine onward, therefore, one discerns the elements that would constitute the specific monarchy of Byzantium, but they would take their definitive shape only with Justinian.

Constantine's successors — Constantine II (d. 340), to whom the West fell, Constans (340-58), to whom Italy and Africa fell, Constantius (350-61), to whom the East fell and from 350 the whole Empire — continued the policy of their father, apart from fratricidal struggles and usurpations. Julian (361-63), son of a brother of Constantine, attempted to revive paganism according to the Neoplatonic formula, but died in battle against the Persians in 363.

Under his successors Jovian (364), Valentinian I (364-78), Gratian (375-83), Valentinian II (375-92) the Empire became increasingly bureaucratized and assumed the character of a vast organization. With Theodosius I the Great (379-95) Christianity established itself ever more rigidly and the Empire remained forever divided between its two halves, western and eastern, which, even under the legal fiction of Roman imperial unity, each lived its own life, providing for its own preservation.

For the West, indeed, under Honorius (d. 423, son and successor of Theodosius) and Valentinian III (425-455) the 5th century is the century of the barbarian invasions: Vandals, Visigoths, Suebi, of Germanic stock, who reduced the most important provinces of the West — Britain, Gaul, Spain, Africa — to barbarian principalities; barbarians more or less assimilated who infiltrated the army and the administration of the Empire's territory, rendering services but altering its ethnic physiognomy, and in part assimilating its language and the Christian religion. After Valentinian III nine emperors succeeded one another on the debased throne of the West, the new invasion of Rome by Genseric took place (455), until the Herul Odoacer, chief of Germanic militias in the service of the emperor Romulus Augustulus, upon being refused a settlement in Italy, deposed the ephemeral sovereign (476) and assumed power directly; which in theory did not mean the end of the Western Empire but the passage of Italy under the authority of the Emperor of the East.

In the eastern section of the Empire, on the other hand, things proceeded peacefully from the point of view of external attacks, inasmuch as the Goths and Ostrogoths were directed toward Italy, but there were quarrels from the political and religious point of view arising from the never extinguished rivalry between Constantinople and Alexandria, which took on the appearance of a religious dispute. On the death of the inept Arcadius (393-408) he was succeeded by his son Theodosius II (408-50), no more energetic than his father, who nevertheless linked his name to the Theodosian Code, which collects the imperial constitutions from 312 to 437, valid for both sections of the Empire, but which from that date onward had value especially for the West, while in the East it was replaced, a century later, by the Corpus Iuris of Justinian.

Theodosius II lived under the guardianship of his elder sister Pulcheria who, at his death, married the old and energetic Marcian (450-57), who knew how to resist Attila, who then directed himself toward the West. His successors were Leo I (457-74), Leo II (d. 474), Zeno (474-91), Anastasius (491-518) who married the widow of Zeno. With him begins the penetration of the Slavs into the Balkan peninsula.

From the religious point of view Zeno and Anastasius inclined toward Monophysitism because they understood that the West was by now practically lost to the Empire and it was therefore necessary to keep the eastern provinces well disposed: Egypt, Palestine, Syria, where the Monophysite heresy signified against Constantinople an affirmation of a national character. Anastasius's successors, on the other hand, abandoned the pro-Eastern policy with the aim of regaining in the West a political position by then forever set, and left the frontiers of the East ungarrisoned, whence the final ruin of the Byzantine Empire was to come.

Anastasius I was succeeded by Justin I (518-27) and he by his nephew Justinian I ([527-65]), who held two ideas especially dear: the Roman idea, for which he wished to reunite with the Empire the West by then occupied — for Italy by the Goths, for Africa by the Vandals, for Thrace by the Bulgars — and to unify in a single body (Corpus Iuris Civilis) the earlier legislation; and the Christian idea, which he regarded as the symbol of the protection of political unity.

2. From Justinian to the Macedonian dynasty (565-1025)

The period extending from Justinian to Heraclius (and this shows how politically short-sighted Justinian's westernism was) was among the most desolate in the history of Byzantium. War against the Slavs and Avars who had penetrated into the Balkan peninsula; the Lombard conquest of Italy; war against the Persia of Khosrow II, to which Justin II (565-78) had refused the stipulated tribute; a peace treaty with that same Persia on the part of the emperor Tiberius II (578-82), who won through the arms of his general Maurice, who succeeded him on the throne (568-602) and died murdered in a military uprising, in the aftermath of which the centurion Phocas (602-10) became emperor. But Khosrow II of Persia, with whom Maurice had once negotiated, moved to avenge him, and although Heraclius (610-41) killed the hated tyrant and succeeded him in the Empire, he invaded Syria, occupying Jerusalem (614) and carrying off from it the wood of the True Cross, then Egypt and Asia Minor, while the Avars were beating at the gates of the capital. Heraclius, at first uncertain whether to transfer the capital to Carthage, then threw himself upon Persia, penetrating it through Armenia, and after a campaign lasting five years succeeded in breaking the Persian army, reconquering Armenia and Syria and recovering the wood of the True Cross and the insignia of the Empire. And since during his critical situation he had understood the expediency of keeping friendly the Monophysite populations of Syria and Egypt, he devised, on the suggestion of the Byzantine patriarch Sergius, the conciliatory formula of the single will of Christ, which he imposed with a special document, the Ekthexis (= exposition [of the faith]) of 638, arousing the protests of the West and initiating the Monothelite controversy which, not quieted by a further decree, the Typos (= the model, the norm), of Constantine II, son of Heraclius, was closed with the Sixth Council of Constantinople (681), which gave victory to the Western protest.

But meanwhile the religious-political invasion of the Arabs had set out from Arabia, and they took back from Byzantium Syria with the battles of Aḡnāḏajīn (633) and Jarmūk (636) and proceeded to the conquest of Persia with the battles of Qādisijah (636) and Nihāwand (642).

The history of the descendants of Heraclius presents a tearful succession of folly and massacres; the exception was Constantine IV Pogonatus (668-85), who with the help of Greek fire repelled the Arabs who were besieging Constantinople; he ceded to the Bulgars the seats they had already occupied and, to uproot the Monothelite heresy, which by now no longer had any reason to be upheld given the loss of Syria and Egypt, he convoked the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which has been mentioned above, and which ratified the doctrine of Rome.

The emperors who succeeded Constantine IV were inert and cruel. Justinian II (685-95), Leontius (695-98), Tiberius III (698-705), Justinian II again (705-11), Philippicus Bardanes (711-13), Anastasius II (713-716), Theodosius III (716), under whom the Arabs, advancing in the Bosphorus, took possession of Constantinople.

To save the Empire, hemmed in between Slavs in the West and Barbarians in the East and by now close to ruin, there arose Leo III (717-21) of Germanicea in Syria, also called the Isaurian. He, together with his son Constantine, took care to improve the internal conditions of the Empire by promulgating (726) the Eḵkāyō, that is, a collection or extract of laws drawn from the Justinianic compilation with the aim of making this more practically agile and "philanthropic," conforming it to the changed conditions of the Empire. The Ecloga remained in force until the legislation of the Basilica (v. below). After having averted the assault of the Arabs and destroyed their fleet, he revived with special laws the army (νόμος στρατιωτικός "military code"), maritime commerce (νόμος ναυτικός "nautical code") and agriculture (νόμος γεωργικός "rural code"), afflicted by the very grave evil of the latifundium. He intended to remedy this by issuing measures in favor of small property and by striking at the great latifundists who exploited the colonate, especially the Anatolian, reduced to the most miserable conditions; among the greatest latifundists are to be placed the monks, whose possessions were exempt from every burden with regard to the fisc. It is not to be excluded that the struggle against the sacred images (iconoclasm), which he initiated, had as its essential motive the struggle against monasticism, the holder of so great a part of the landed property of the Empire and which was the painter of the sacred images, the devout propagator of their veneration, and was their most strenuous defender.

His son Constantine V Copronymus (741-75) continued the iconoclast struggle, persecuting even to martyrdom the defenders of the sacred images; he held the Arabs in check, won after a long campaign against the Bulgars, and concerned himself with agriculture by sending colonies of Slavs to Bithynia and of Syrians to Thrace to improve the lands. Leo IV the Khazar (775-80), his son, who succeeded him, continued the iconoclast struggle but in a mitigated form and soon associated with the Empire his son Constantine VI (780-97). The latter was assisted by his mother Irene as regent during the period of his minority, during which the iconoclast struggle had a pause, condemned in the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787), to which Pope Adrian I sent his legates.

Constantine VI, who had victoriously held back the Bulgars, saw Hārūn al-Rashīd cross Asia Minor as far as Scutari; he saw the Empire lose every vestige of authority over the West because of the creation of the Holy Roman Empire (800), retaining only its possessions in southern Italy, Sicily and Illyricum, which Leo III had already withdrawn from the pope's hierarchical obedience, and he ended up blinded by his mother, from whose guardianship he had sought to free himself. But Irene was punished for her cruelty, because Nicephorus (807-11), minister of finance, seized the Empire (802), which he governed along the line marked out by the Isaurians, of protecting agriculture, imposing a tribute on the monasteries (καπνικάν) and abolishing every fiscal exemption. He was assassinated during a campaign against the Bulgars. He was succeeded, after Staurakios, by the general Michael Rangabe (811), who followed a policy encouraged by the iconophile St. Theodore Studites, but because of his administrative incompetence and his military incapacity in the struggle against the Bulgars who were devastating Thrace and Macedonia, he paid the price to the army, which raised on its shields Leo V the Armenian (813-20), strategos of the Anatolian thema, with whom the Asiatic faction returned to the throne — a faction concerned with agriculture and administration, opposed to the interference of the clergy in public affairs and therefore with an iconoclast program, which he nevertheless applied without proceeding against the iconophiles. He fell victim to a palace conspiracy, and was succeeded by Michael II (820-29), under whom the Arabs occupied Sicily and Crete, and then by Theophilus (820-42), a fervent iconoclast; after his death the empress Theodora governed as regent during the infancy of her son Michael III the Drunkard (842-67) and definitively restored, after a council (whose acts, now lost, fully confirmed those of Nicaea), the veneration of images; this restoration is consecrated by a solemn liturgy called that of Orthodoxy, which the Byzantine Church celebrates on the first Sunday of Lent. The struggle, which ethnographically represents the contest of the Greek element against the Oriental element of the Empire (the iconoclast Emperors were Orientals, Syrians first and then Phrygians, and Oriental were the elements of which their army was composed), and socially the defense of small property against the large property held by the nobles and the monasteries, came to an end after about a century of struggle, leaving the good seed of agricultural protection, with the development of small agricultural property and of administrative reform — a seed that was to bear fruit in the time of the Macedonian dynasty, under which the Byzantine Empire reached the zenith of its strength and extent.

3. The Macedonian dynasty; the Greek schism (867-1025). — Basil I (867-86), of Thracian origin and distant Armenian descent, is the founder of the Macedonian dynasty. He too was concerned with the improvement of agriculture, gathered the sum of affairs into his own hands and prepared a reform of legislation (πρόχειρος = Manual, Ἐπαναγόνη = Introduction) that would culminate in the Βασιλικά = Imperial Laws. The Basilica contain in LX II all of Justinian's law still in force in the 9th century, gathering under the various titles the material that in Justinian's compilation is distributed among the Code, the Digest and the Novels, and adding everything that corresponded to the new conditions of economic and social life.

During his reign the schism of Photius broke out, which, composed for a time, would later produce the definitive split between the Greek and the Latin Church.

His son Leo VI, called the Wise (886-912), was the true compiler of the Basilica desired by his father, but his military skill was not equal to his learning, for he suffered a grave defeat at the hands of Simeon, tsar of the Bulgars. His son too, Constantine VII, called Porphyrogenitus (912-959), was a great scholar who devoted himself to erudite compilations (De thematibus, De administrando imperio, Biography of Basil I); his father-in-law Romanus I Lecapenus (959-63), whom he associated with the Empire, was meanwhile opposing with little success the Bulgars who were once again pressing at the gates of Constantinople, while, with better fortune, he secured for the Empire its possessions in southern Italy: the thema of Longobardia (land of Otranto, southern Lucania and Apulia) and the thema of Calabria, which were later united by Nicephorus Phocas in 965 into a single thema of Italy whose governor resided at Bari with the title of catepan.

Constantine was succeeded by his son Romanus II (959-63), whose widow Theophano (mother of the two minors Basil, the future Bulgar-Slayer, and Constantine) married Nicephorus Phocas (963-69), who drove the Arabs out of Crete, Anatolia and Syria, and died assassinated in a palace conspiracy. John Tzimisces (969-76) ascended the throne, an excellent general, also related to the Macedonians having married Theodora, sister of Romanus II. He penetrated victoriously into Mesopotamia, and in Syria he renewed the struggle against the Bulgars, whom his successor Basil II (976-1025) defeated bloodily, earning the title of "Slayer of the Bulgars." He also had the satisfaction of seeing the Russia of Vladimir accept Baptism en masse (988), thus entering the orbit of Byzantine influence.

4. The decline. The Comneni, the Angeli and the Palaeologi

With the death of Basil II begins the Empire's downward parabola, which coincides with the disappearance of the small proprietors, returned under the economic yoke of the great feudal lords and the monks: the Paulician and Bogomil heresies are an aspect of this politico-social and ethnic (Slavic) antagonism; Constantine VIII, brother of Basil, was an incompetent (1025-28). With the two daughters of the latter: Zoe, who successively married Romanus III Argyrus (1028-1034), Michael the Paphlagonian (1034-41) and Constantine IX Monomachus (1042-54); and Theodora, who appointed Michael VI Stratioticus emperor (1056-57), the Macedonian dynasty died out.

Once this dynasty was extinct — a dynasty that besides military glory also had the halo of legitimate dynastic succession — the great lords of Anatolia proclaimed one of their own emperor, Isaac Comnenus (1057-59), who after two years had to yield his place to Constantine X (1059-67), followed by Romanus IV Diogenes (1067-71), Michael VII Ducas (1071-78), Nicephorus Botaniates (1078-81), until the Empire came once again into the hands of a man capable of guiding it to better destinies, Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118), nephew of Isaac, whose family governed the Empire for almost the whole of the 12th century. Alexius skillfully maneuvered among the various enemies who oppressed the Empire, setting Pechenegs against Cumans, Normans against Venetians, crusaders of the First Crusade against the Turks. His son John (1118-43) thus entered into possession of a less burdensome inheritance and was able to devote himself to improving the finances of the State, which he left in good condition to his son Manuel (1143-80).

The latter was a chivalrous soldier, had sympathy for the Latins and was the last sovereign who did honor to the throne of Byzantium. His son Alexius II (1180-83) had his throne usurped by Andronicus I (1183-85), and the latter paid with his life for his evil deed, to which he had given the color of a national uprising against the Latin encroachment favored by Manuel and by Alexius II. Under the following perfidious dynasty of the Angeli: Isaac II (1185-95), Alexius III (1195-1203) and then again Isaac II (1203-1204), Constantinople fell into the power of the Latins of the Fourth Crusade, while the dynasty of Byzantium perpetuated itself in the see of Nicaea (v. below).

The reconquest of the capital under Michael Palaiologos (1259–61) did not remedy the fate of the Byzantine Empire, by then doomed, with the Turks masters of Anatolia, Slavs and Franks in possession of the Balkans, and Venice mistress of the Aegean islands and of the best ports of the Levant. Not even the ecclesiastical rapprochement with Rome, attempted by Michael VIII (1261–82) at the Council of Lyon in order to procure Latin aid, bore any fruit. Under his son Andronikos II (1282–1328) the Turks settled permanently at Bursa; his nephew Andronikos III (1328–41) witnessed the expansion of the Serbs led by Stefan Dušan; the usurper John Kantakouzenos allowed the Turks to establish themselves at Gallipoli and in Thrace; John V Palaiologos, son of Andronikos III (1341, 1354–76, 1379–91), saw the Turks become champions of his legitimacy and restore him to the throne against the new usurpation of his own son Andronikos IV. Manuel II (1391–1425) journeyed to Europe to invoke aid against the Turks of Bayezid who were besieging Constantinople; the same did John VIII (1425–48), who signed at the Council of Florence the doctrinal union with the Latins, broken by the Greeks, because of their anti-Latin hatred, as soon as it was signed.

The last of the Palaiologan dynasty and of the sovereigns of Byzantium is Constantine XI (1448–53), who died as emperor, on the breach opened by the artillery of Mehmed II. The political inheritance of Byzantium was taken up by the Ottoman Turks; the religious inheritance — prepared by the institution of the patriarchate of Moscow granted by the patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah II (1589), who had come to the Muscovite capital in search of aid — would in due course be absorbed in fact by Russia, with its theocratic monarchy founded on imperial power and on the "Orthodox" hierarchy. - See pl. XXI.

For the Heraclian dynasty (610–711): A. Pernice, L'imperatore Eratio, Florence 1905. For the Isaurian dynasty (717–802): L. Brehier, La querelle des images (VIIIe-IXe siècles), Paris 1904; J. B. Bury, A history of the Eastern Roman Empire from the fall of Irene to the accession of Basil, I, London 1912; G. Ostrogorski, Studien zur Geschichte des Byzantinischen Bildestreites, Breslau 1929. For the Macedonian dynasty (867–1926): A. Rambaud, L'Empire grec au Xe siècle: Constantin Porphyrogenète, Paris 1870; J. B. Bury, Roman emperors from Basil II to Isaac Komnenos, in English hist. Review, 4 (1889), pp. 41-64, 251-85, reprinted in Selected Essays, Cambridge 1930; G. Schlumberger, Un empereur byzantin au Xe siècle: Nicophore Phocas, Paris 1890; C. Neumann, Die Weltstellung des byzantinischen Reiches vor den Kreuzzügen, Leipzig 1894, French translation, Paris 1905; G. Schlumberger, L'épée byzantine à la fin du Xe siècle, I, Jean Tzimizes, Les jeunes années de Basile II, ibid. 1896 (runs from 969 to 989); id., L'épée byzantine à la fin du Xe siècle, II, Basile II, le sueur de Bulgares, ibid. 1900 (runs from 989 to 1025); J. Gay, L'Italie méridionale et l'Empire byzantin depuis l'avènement de Basile Ier, jusqu'à la prise de Bari par les Normands (867–1071), ibid. 1904; A. Vogt, Basile I empereur de Byzance (867–86) et la civilisation byzantine à la fin du IXe siècle, ibid. 1905; D. De Guldencrone, L'Italie byzantine, Etude sur le haut moyen âge (400–1056), ibid. 1914; S. Runciman, The emperor Romanus Lecapanus and his reign, Cambridge 1929. For the Komnenian dynasty (1081–1183): F. Chalandon, Les Comnenes: études sur l'Empire byzantin au XIe et XIIe siècles, I: Essai sur le règne d'Alexis I Comneni (1081–1118), Paris 1900; II: Jean II Comneni (1118–43) et Manuel Ier Comneni (1143–80), ibid. 1914; F. Cognasso, Partiti politici e lotte dinastiche a Bisanzio alla morte di Manuele Comneno, Turin 1912. For the Angelos dynasty (1185–1204): F. Cognasso, Un imperatore bizantino della decadenza: Isacco II Angelo, in Benerione, 19 (1915), pp. 45-70, 246-89. For the Laskarid dynasty of Nicaea (1204–61): A. Gardner, The Lascarides of Nicea, The story of an Empire in exile, London 1912. For the Palaiologan dynasty (1261–1453): G. Schlumberger, Le siège, la prise et le sac le Constantinople par les Turcs en 1453, Paris 1915; C. Chapman, Michel Paleologue, restaurateur de l'Empire byzantin (1161–82), ibid. 1926; L. Petit, Manuel II Paleologue, in DThC, IX, II, coll. 1925-32.

Nicola Turchi

II. LATIN EMPIRE OF THE EAST

The Fourth Crusade, proclaimed by Innocent III and organized by a group of Franco-Flemish princes with the support of the Republic of Venice, instead of heading for the coasts of Syria and Egypt, came under the influence of various interests and directed itself toward Constantinople to restore the legitimate emperor Isaac II Angelos to the throne; but the dispute that subsequently arose between the Crusaders and the Byzantines led to open war. The Latins conquered Constantinople on 12 April 1204. Already beforehand the leaders had decided on the partition of the conquest: a college of electors (six Venetians and six Frenchmen) would designate the new emperor, who would however have only a quarter of the Byzantine territories; of the other three quarters, half would fall to the Venetians and half to the crusading princes.

In May 1204 they proceeded to the appointment of the emperor: having set aside Boniface of Montferrat, who had commanded the expedition, the Venetians had Baldwin, Count of Flanders, chosen, and he was crowned in Hagia Sophia on 16 May. To him were assigned the territories of eastern Thrace and the northern coasts of Asia Minor with the islands of Samothrace, Lesbos, Chios, Samos; of the capital he possessed only five eighths, because Hagia Sophia with three eighths of the city belonged to Venice. The doge of Venice assumed the title of despôtes, lord of a quarter and a half of the Empire of Romania, but in practice the Republic could not occupy all that was due to it. It occupied the Ionian islands, of Epirus only Durazzo, in the Peloponnese only Corone and Modone, and then many islands which it gave in fief to various of its citizens: thus arose the duchy of Naxos, the marquisate of Cerigo, the grand duchy of Lemnos, the duchy of Crete, which in truth should have belonged to the marquis of Montferrat; the latter received Thessalonica with Thessaly and Macedonia and the title of king, as vassal of the emperor; thus Baldwin gave various territories in fief to his faithful knights: one was made duke of Nicaea, another of Philippopolis, one lord of Demotikón. To interest the greatest number of Crusaders in the organization of the Empire, Baldwin created six hundred knights and gave them fiefs.

Only apparently loyal, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, nephew of the historian of the Crusade, founded the principality of Achaea, and Otto de la Roche the duchy of Athens.

But if the Crusade had succeeded in dislodging the Byzantine territories, the emperor Baldwin and his allies did not succeed in preventing the formation of certain Greek states on the periphery, which claimed to continue the Byzantine tradition. Theodore Laskaris, son-in-law of Alexios III Angelos, succeeded immediately after the fall of Constantinople in creating a government at Nicaea, gathering around himself the surviving Byzantine clergy and aristocracy, and in 1206 he had himself crowned emperor; at Trebizond Alexios and David Komnenos, nephews of Andronikos I, created a Byzantine empire; in Epirus Michael Angelos Komnenos created a government and assumed the title of despôtes; at Rhodes, at Argos, at Sparta great Byzantine lords created particular lordships.

The emperor Baldwin in the autumn of 1204 began the conquest of all the territories recognized as his in the

ORIENTE, Impero d'. The Crusaders conquer Constantinople for the second time with the assistance of the Venetians. Painting by Domenico Tintoretto (16th cent.). Venice, Doge's Palace, Hall of the Great Council.

partition. With the support of Henry of Hainault he occupied Tzurulon, Didymóteikhon, Adrianople, Philippopolis and Mosinopolis, putting Alexios III Angelos to flight, but he provoked the opposition of the marquis of Montferrat, who claimed Adrianople for himself. Boniface went to besiege these cities, and the conflict between the two rivals was quieted only by the intervention of the doge of Venice and the other crusading princes. But the possession of Thrace brought about another serious conflict between the Latin Emperor and the tsar of the Bulgarians, who had only in Nov. 1204 been crowned by a legate of Innocent III. The tsar aspired to create a Greco-Bulgarian empire, while Baldwin demanded the restitution of all the territories that had formed part of the Byzantine Empire. War broke out in the spring of 1205: on 14 April Baldwin was defeated and taken prisoner, and he died shortly afterward in captivity.

The disappearance of the Latin Emperor seemed to mark the end of the Empire. The Bulgarians reached as far as the Sea of Marmara; in Asia Minor the Greeks of Nicaea recovered the territories occupied by the Latins in the preceding months.

The energetic Henry of Hainault assumed the regency of the Empire and with great skill saved the situation, driving back the Greeks and Bulgarians. In Aug. 1206 news came of the death of Baldwin, and then Henry of Hainault was made emperor. The enemies, however, persisted: in 1207 the Bulgarian tsar and the basileus of Nicaea moved in concert against the Latins. The Emperor succeeded in driving the Bulgarians back from the siege of Adrianople, Joannitza was killed in the attempt to conquer Thessalonica, and now Henry of Hainault defeated the new tsar Boris at Philippopolis (1 Aug. 1208). In Asia he re-established peace, leaving Nicomedia and Cyzicus to Theodore Laskaris.

The Emperor then had a little respite to provide for the needs of the Empire. Having gone to Thessalonica after the death of Boniface, he organized the government of the new king Demetrius of Montferrat, still a minor (1209). At Ravennika (in Phrygia) he assembled a solemn parliament where he received the homage of the Latin barons Otto de la Roche, of Athens, and Geoffrey of Villehardouin, of Achaea; even the Byzantine despot of Epirus paid him homage. In 1211 the peace was broken by a resumption of war with the Emperor of Nicaea, who was defeated. The Latins thus succeeded in extending their occupation in Anatolia.

For the internal organization of the Empire the most important problems were the religious ones: in the forefront was the question of Greco-Latin coexistence. Innocent III, though he had at first protested against the diversion of the Fourth Crusade, after the capture of Constantinople bowed to the accomplished fact, celebrating the Latin triumph as a miracle wrought by the Divinity.

It was hoped then that the organization of the Latin Empire of the East would serve to bring about the union of the two Churches. He therefore provided for the archiepiscopal sees with Latin prelates, leaving Greek prelates also in the episcopal sees, provided they adhered. In reality the Greek clergy, while remaining in the sees, silently regarded as their head the Orthodox patriarch established at Nicaea. Innocent III long persisted in tolerance; he permitted the continued officiating in Greek, then began to negotiate, seeking to persuade the Greek prelates to reconciliation by means of pontifical legates. The negotiations, which took place on several occasions, led to no result; indeed the Greeks repeatedly protested to the emperor Henry of Hainault against the harsh methods of the Latin prelates. The Emperor often took a position in favor of the Greek subjects. Even in the Latin Church of the victors there were conflicts. The Venetians had imposed as patriarch one of their own citizens, Thomas Morosini, hoping to create an entirely Venetian clergy: the Latin Church would have become an emanation of the government of Venice. Hence lively and continuous conflicts between the French clergy and the Venetian clergy, just as over ecclesiastical possessions there were struggles between the bishops and the knights. In 1210 the Emperor held a second Parliament at Ravennika to examine the religious disputes.

Henry of Hainault died at Thessalonica on 11 June 1216. The Latin barons elected in his place his brother-in-law Peter of Courtenay, count of Auxerre, who was crowned at Rome by Honorius III on 9 April 1217, but while traveling by land from Durazzo to Constantinople he fell into the hands of the despot Theodore Angelos, who had him die in prison. Peter's son, Robert of Courtenay, was summoned from France and was crowned in Hagia Sophia on 25 March 1221.

Robert of Courtenay reigned until 1228, and then he was succeeded by his underage brother Baldwin, for whom the former king of Jerusalem, John of Brienne, came to govern as regent, and he was also proclaimed colleague in the Empire.

When Brienne died in 1237, Baldwin II remained alone in the face of a desperate situation. Already Robert's reign had been a series of tearful misfortunes. Taking advantage of the incapacity of the Latin emperor and of the diminished forces of the Latins in Romania, the enemies all around had organized themselves and appeared threatening.

The despotate of Epirus had slowly expanded into Macedonia and Greece; while the king of Thessalonica, Demetrius, was traveling to the West to seek help, in 1221 the Greeks of Epirus occupied Thessalonica and put an end to the Latin Kingdom. In Asia, after Theodore Lascaris died in 1222, he was succeeded in the Empire by his son-in-law John Ducas Vatatzes, a man of great political ability. He in fact understood the danger that, by overthrowing the Latin Empire of Constantinople, his action would be exploited either by the Bulgarians or by the Greeks of Epirus. It was therefore necessary to proceed with great prudence.

In 1224 he attacked the Latins, defeated Peter of Courtenay and occupied Cyzicus, the Troad, Lesbos, Chios, Samos. Then he crossed the Dardanelles, occupied Madytus and Gallipoli, and drove the Latins out of Adrianople. But the despot of Epirus also advanced into Macedonia and Thrace, driving John Vatatzes out of Adrianople. The conflict between the two leaders could have been exploited by the Latins, but Robert of Courtenay was an indolent man and Baldwin, who succeeded him, was underage. In Constantinople there was talk of naming the Bulgarian tsar John Asen as his regent, but he was refused. The tsar now wanted to occupy Constantinople, but the despot of Epirus opposed him. Greeks and Bulgarians fought: Theodore Angelos was defeated and taken prisoner (1230). John Asen then thought he was master of the situation, but the basileus of Nicaea, John Vatatzes, rose against him. Distrusting one another, they resigned themselves to an alliance against Latin Constantinople, but the siege attempts of 1235 and 1236 failed. The Bulgarian tsar then feared that he was only doing the bidding of his ally and sought an understanding with the Latins.

John Vatatzes then turned against the Greek despotate of Epirus-Thessalonica and, after the death of the Bulgarian tsar, succeeded in occupying Thessalonica and in taking Macedonia from the Greek despotate (1252). When John Vatatzes died in 1254, the Empire of Nicaea surrounded on all sides the Latin Empire of the East, reduced to Constantinople and the great fiefs of Athens and Achaea.

His son Theodore II Lascaris reigned too briefly (1254-58) to resolve the problem of the conquest of Constantinople. He had to content himself with strengthening the State and reducing the domains of the Greeks of Epirus by taking from them Durazzo, Vodena, Ostrovo and Diavoli. By now the Latin emperor Baldwin II was at the end of his tether: his journeys to the West to seek help had accomplished nothing: without financial means, he had been forced to sell the relics of the churches of Constantinople.

When Theodore II Lascaris died in 1258, the regency for the very young John IV was assumed by the able general Michael Palaiologos, who had himself proclaimed co-emperor (1259). The final hour had struck for the Latins of Constantinople. In 1259 Michael VIII attacked the despotate of Epirus and destroyed its forces in the battles of Pelagonia. In 1260 he decided on the conquest of Constantinople: after crossing the Dardanelles, he occupied Selymbria and advanced beneath the Latin capital. He attacked the Galata quarter, but did not succeed in the attempt. Before returning to the attack, he sought to procure allies by concluding with Genoa the Treaty of alliance of Nymphaeum (13 March 1261): Michael VIII made great economic concessions to the Genoese in order to have them at his side in the struggle against the Latin Empire of the East and its protectors, the Venetians. But already in June 1261 he sent an army before Constantinople and on 25 July, without encountering resistance, the general Alexios Strategopoulos entered Constantinople. Baldwin II saved himself by fleeing and taking the Latin patriarch with him. The Latin Empire of the East had ceased to exist after fifty-seven years of wretched existence.

Michael VIII entered the capital on the Bosphorus on 15 Aug. 1261. Baldwin II went to the West in search of aid, but the new attempts to find allies were in vain. In 1267 Pope Urban IV and Manfred, king of Sicily, arranged a coalition with the deposed Michael II, but Michael VIII defeated the despot and took him prisoner. The coalition could not, moreover, succeed, because the Pope could not be satisfied to leave to King Manfred the direction of the struggle against the Byzantine emperor. The champion of the Pope against both Manfred and Michael VIII was to be Charles of Anjou.

On 15 May 1267 at Viterbo, in the presence of Clement IV, Baldwin II concluded an agreement with Charles of Anjou, ceding to him the rights over the domains of the Latin Empire of the East, reserving for himself only Constantinople. Subsequently Philip, son of Baldwin II, married Beatrice, daughter of Charles of Anjou. The latter could therefore consider himself the legitimate lord of the Empire of Romania and direct his policy toward the conquest of Constantinople. The consequence of such a policy, however, was to be the Sicilian Vespers.

Francesco Cognasso