Byzantium and the Crusades
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Byzantium and the Crusades
(Crusader worlds)
Hambledon and London, 2003
Available at 5 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [227]-243
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The first great city to which the Crusaders came in 1089 was not Jerusalem but Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire. It was the Muslim threat to the empire which had led Urban II to preach the First Crusade. Almost as much as Jerusalem itself, Byzantium was the key to the foundation, survival and ultimate eclipse of the crusading kingdom. The Byzantines had developed an ideology over seven hundred years which placed Constantinople, rather than Rome or Jerusalem, at the centre of the world. The attitudes of its rulers reflected this priority, and led to tensions with the crusaders over military and diplomatic strategy. At the same time, the riches and sophistication of the great city made a lasting impression on the crusaders, even though they found Byzantine society alien and remote. In the end, the lure of the city's wealth was irresistibly fatal to the claims of Christian unity. In April 1204, the Fourth Crusade under the Venetian doge Enrico Dandolo captured and sacked Constantinople, signalling the effective end of almost a thousand years of Byzantine dominance in the east.
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