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1204
Year 1204 ( MCCIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. Events * January 27– 28 – Byzantine emperor Alexios IV Angelos is overthrown in a revolution. * February 5 – Alexios V Doukas is crowned Byzantine emperor. * April 12 – Sack of Constantinople: Crusaders enter Constantinople by storm and start pillaging the city as part of the Fourth Crusade. Forces of the Republic of Venice seize the antique statues that will become the horses of Saint Mark. * May 16 – Baldwin, Count of Flanders, is crowned emperor of the Latin Empire a week after his election by the members of the Fourth Crusade. * Theodore I Laskaris flees to Nicaea after the capture of Constantinople, and establishes the Empire of Nicaea; Byzantine successor states are also established in Epirus and Trebizond. * Boniface I, Marquis of Montferrat, a leader of the Fourth Crusade, founds the Kingdom of Thessalonica. * The writings of French theologian Amalric of B ...
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Fourth Crusade
The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate. However, a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army's 1202 siege of Zara and the 1204 sack of Constantinople, rather than the conquest of Egypt as originally planned. This led to the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae or the partition of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders and their Venetian allies leading to a period known as Frankokratia, or "Rule of the Franks" in Greek. In 1201, the Republic of Venice contracted with the Crusader leaders to build a dedicated fleet to transport their invasion force. However, the leaders greatly overestimated the number of soldiers who would embark from Venice, since many sailed from other ports, and the army that appeared could not pay the contracted price. I ...
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Empire Of Trebizond
The Empire of Trebizond or the Trapezuntine Empire was one of the three successor rump states of the Byzantine Empire that existed during the 13th through to the 15th century. The empire consisted of the Pontus, or far northeastern corner of Anatolia, and portions of southern Crimea. The Trapezuntine Empire was formed in 1204 with the help of Queen Tamar of Georgia after the Georgian expedition in Chaldia and Paphlagonia, which was commanded by Alexios Komnenos a few weeks before the Sack of Constantinople. Alexios later declared himself emperor and established himself in Trebizond (now Trabzon in Turkey). Alexios and David Komnenos, grandsons and last male descendants of the deposed emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, pressed their claims as Roman emperors against Alexios V Doukas. While the rulers of Trebizond bore the title of emperor until the end of their state in 1461, their rivals, the Laskarids in Nikaia and the Palaiologoi in Constantinople contested their claim to t ...
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Alexios V Doukas
Alexios V Doukas (; died December 1204), Latinized as Alexius V Ducas, was Byzantine emperor from February to April 1204, just prior to the sack of Constantinople by the participants of the Fourth Crusade. His family name was Doukas, but he was also known by the nickname Mourtzouphlos or Murtzuphlus (), referring to either bushy, overhanging eyebrows or a sullen, gloomy character. He achieved power through a palace coup, killing his predecessors in the process. Though he made vigorous attempts to defend Constantinople from the crusader army, his military efforts proved ineffective. His actions won the support of the mass of the populace, but he alienated the elite of the city. Following the fall, sack, and occupation of the city, Alexios V was blinded by his father-in-law, the ex-emperor Alexios III, and later executed by the new Latin regime. He was the last Byzantine emperor to rule in Constantinople until the Byzantine recapture of Constantinople in 1261. Origins and c ...
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Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th centuryAD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'. During the early centuries of the Roman Empire, the western provinces were Romanization (cultural), Latinised, but the eastern parts kept their Hellenistic culture. Constantine the Great, Constantine I () legalised Christianity and moved the capital to Constantinople. Theodosius I, Theodosius I () made Christianity the state religion and Greek gradually replaced Latin for official use. The empire adopted a defensive strategy and, throughout its remaining history, expe ...
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Latin Empire
The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzantine Empire as the Western-recognized Roman Empire in the east, with a Catholic Church, Catholic emperor enthroned in place of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Roman emperors. The main objective to form a Latin Empire was planned over the course of the Fourth Crusade, promoted by crusade leaders such as Boniface I, Marquis of Montferrat, Boniface of Montferrat, as well as the Republic of Venice. The Fourth Crusade had originally been called to retake the Abbasid Caliphate, Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, but a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army Sack of Constantinople, sacking the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Originally, the plan had been to restore the de ...
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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 of Flanders crowned as Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople 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 would eventually recapture Constantinople in 1261 and proclaim 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 ...
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Empire Of Nicaea
The Empire of Nicaea (), also known as the Nicene Empire, was the largest of the three Byzantine Greeks, Byzantine Greek''A Short history of Greece from early times to 1964'' by Walter Abel Heurtley, W. A. Heurtley, H. C. Darby, C. W. Crawley, C. M. Woodhouse (1967), p. 55: "There in the prosperous city of Nicaea, Theodoros Laskaris, the son in law of a former Byzantine Emperor, establish a court that soon become the Small but reviving Greek empire." rump states founded by the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire that fled when Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Republic of Venice, Venetian armed forces during the Fourth Crusade, a military event known as the Sack of Constantinople. Like the other Byzantine rump states that formed due to the 1204 fracturing of the empire, such as the Empire of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus, it was a continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived well into the Middle Ages. A fourth state, known in histori ...
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Byzantine Emperor
The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, which Fall of Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised sovereign authority are included, to the exclusion of junior co-emperors who never attained the status of sole or senior ruler, as well as of the List of Byzantine usurpers, various usurpers or rebels who claimed the imperial title. The following list starts with Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, who rebuilt the city of Byzantium as an imperial capital, Constantinople, and who was regarded by the later emperors as the model ruler. Modern historians distinguish this later phase of the Roman Empire as Byzantine due to the imperial seat moving from Rome to Byzantium, the Empire's integration of Christianity, and the predominance of Greek instead of Latin. The Byzantine Empire was the direct legal continuation of the eastern ...
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Baldwin I Of Constantinople
Baldwin I (; ; July 1172 – ) was the first Emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople; Count of Flanders (as Baldwin IX) from 1194 to 1205 and Count of Hainaut (as Baldwin VI) from 1195 to 1205. Baldwin was one of the most prominent leaders of the Fourth Crusade, which resulted in the sack of Constantinople in 1204, the conquest of large parts of the Byzantine Empire, and the foundation of the Latin Empire. The following year he was defeated at the Battle of Adrianople by Kaloyan, the emperor of Bulgaria, and spent his last days as a prisoner. Early life and family history Baldwin was the son of Count Baldwin V of Hainaut and Countess Margaret I of Flanders.. When the childless Count Philip I of Flanders left on the last of his personal crusades in 1177, he designated Baldwin, his brother-in-law, as his heir. When Philip returned in 1179 after an unsuccessful siege of Harim during a joint campaign on behalf of the Principality of Antioch, he was designated as the ...
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Alexios IV Angelos
Alexios IV Angelos (; – February 1204), Latinized as Alexius IV Angelus, was Byzantine Emperor from August 1203 to January 1204. He was the son of Emperor Isaac II Angelos and his first wife, an unknown Palaiologina, who became a nun with the name Irene. His paternal uncle was his predecessor Emperor Alexios III Angelos. He is widely regarded as one of the worst Byzantine emperors for calling upon the Fourth Crusade to help him gain power, which ultimately led to the sack of Constantinople. Prince in exile The young Alexios was imprisoned in 1195 when Alexios III overthrew Isaac II in a coup. His father was ultimately blinded, but Alexios was largely unharmed. In 1201, two Pisan merchants were employed to smuggle Alexios out of Constantinople to the Holy Roman Empire, where he took refuge with his brother-in-law Philip of Swabia,Philip was married to Irene Angelina a sister of Alexios IV. King of Germany. According to the contemporary account of Robert of Clari it was ...
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Theodore I Laskaris
Theodore I Laskaris or Lascaris (; 1175November 1221) was the first emperor of Nicaea—a successor state of the Byzantine Empire—from 1205 to his death. Although he was born to an obscure aristocratic family, his mother was related to the imperial Komnenos clan. He married Anna, a younger daughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos in 1200. He received the title of despot before 1203, demonstrating his right to succeed his father-in-law on the throne. The Fourth Crusade forced AlexiosIII to flee from Constantinople in 1203. Theodore was imprisoned by the crusaders (commonly referred to as "Latins" by the Byzantines), but he escaped. After crossing the Bosporus into Asia Minor (in present-day Turkey), he started to organise the local Greeks' resistance against the Latins in Bithynia in his father-in-law's name. He concluded an alliance with the Seljuq sultan of Rum, but he could not stop the Latins' expansion. Neither could he prevent a claimant to the imperial t ...
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Constantinople
Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empires between its consecration in 330 until 1930, when it was renamed to Istanbul. Initially as New Rome, Constantinople was founded in 324 during the reign of Constantine the Great on the site of the existing settlement of Byzantium, and shortly thereafter in 330 became the capital of the Roman Empire. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire; 330–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). Following the Turkish War of Independence, the Turkish capital then moved to Ankara. Although the city had been known as Istanbul since 1453, it was officially renamed as Is ...
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