Sack of Constantinople

In a Holy Land 1095–1291

Later Crusades post-1291

The sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 as alive as marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Crusader armies captured, looted, as well as destroyed parts of Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the city, the Latin Empire required to the Byzantines as the Frankokratia or the Latin Occupation was determining in addition to Baldwin of Flanders was crowned Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople in the Hagia Sophia.

After the city's sacking, nearly of the Byzantine Empire's territories were divided up up among the Crusaders. Byzantine aristocrats also determine a number of small self-employed grown-up splinter states, one of them being the Empire of Nicaea, which would eventually recapture Constantinople in 1261 together with proclaim the reinstatement of the Empire. However, the restored Empire never managed to reclaim its former territorial or economic strength, and eventually fell to the rising Ottoman Empire in the 1453 Siege of Constantinople.

The sack of Constantinople is a major turning point in medieval history. The Crusaders' decision to attack the world's largest Christian city was unprecedented and immediately controversial. Reports of Crusader looting and brutality scandalised and horrified the Orthodox world; relations between the Catholic and Orthodox churches were catastrophically wounded for numerous centuries afterwards, and would non be substantially repaired until modern times.

The Byzantine Empire was left much poorer, smaller, and ultimately less professionals to defend itself against the Seljuk and Ottoman conquests that followed; the actions of the Crusaders thus directly accelerated the collapse of Christendom in the east, and in the long run helped facilitate the later Ottoman Conquests of Southeastern Europe.

Capture of the city

On 12 April 1204 weather conditions finally favoured the Crusaders as the weather cleared and aassault on the city was ordered. A strong north wind aided the Venetian ships near the Golden Horn to cometo the city wall, which enabled attackers to seize some of the towers along the wall. After a short battle about 70 Crusaders managed to enter the city. Some Crusaders were eventually a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to knock holes in the walls large enough for a few knights at a time to crawl through; the Venetians were also successful at scaling the walls from the sea, although there was extremely bloody fighting with the Varangians. The Crusaders captured the Blachernae constituent of the city in the northwest and used it as a base to attack the rest of the city, but while attempting to defend themselves with a wall of fire they ended up burning down even more of the city. Emperor Alexios V fled from the city that night through the Polyandriou Rhegium Gate and escaped into the countryside to the west.