This book offers a new perspective on the Latin take-over of Byzantine territories after the crusader sack of Constantinople in 1204, arguing that the new rulers very consciously aimed at continuing the Eastern Empire, drawing many Byzantines to their side.

In 1204 the army of the Fourth Crusade sacked the great city of Constantinople. In earlier historiography the view prevailed that these Western barons and knights temporarily destroyed the Byzantine state and replaced it with a series of feudal states of their own making. Through a comprehensive rereading of better and lesser-known sources this book offers an alternative perspective arguing that the Latin rulers did not abolish, but very consciously wanted to continue the Eastern Empire. In this, the new imperial dynasty coming from Flanders-Hainaut played a pivotal role. Despite religious and other differences many Byzantines sided with the new regime and administrative practices at the different governmental levels were to a larger or lesser degree maintained.

This comparative study explores three key cultural and political spheres – the Latin west, Byzantium and the Islamic world from Central Asia to the Atlantic – roughly from the emergence of Islam to the fall of Constantinople. These spheres drew on a shared pool of late antique Mediterranean culture, philosophy and science, and they had monotheism and historical antecedents in common. Yet where exactly political and spiritual power lay, and how it was exercised, differed. This book focuses on power dynamics and resource-allocation among ruling elites; the legitimisation of power and property with the aid of religion; and on rulers' interactions with local elites and societies. Offering the reader route-maps towards navigating each sphere and grasping the fundamentals of its political culture, this set of parallel studies offers a timely and much needed framework for comparing the societies surrounding the medieval Mediterranean.

In The Horoscope of Emperor Baldwin II Filip Van Tricht presents a microstudy of political, social and cultural life in Latin-Byzantine Constantinople and Romania. A ‘new’ set of sources is used to question the traditionally negative view of the Byzantine capital under Latin rule. Combined with an analysis of other underused historical materials, mid-13th century Latin-Byzantine Constantinople is redefined as a city that—in spite of the Western conquest during the Fourth Crusade—remained dynamic, with vibrant internal and international politics, and with interesting developments in the social, religious, artistic, and scientific spheres. Against the background of a shared Roman past the metropolis on the Bosporus became a fascinating laboratory of Latin-Byzantine interaction.

The conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the armies of the Fourth Crusade resulted in the foundation of several Latin political entities in the lands of Greece. The Companion to Latin Greece offers thematic overviews of the history of the mixed societies that emerged as a result of the conquest. With dedicated chapters on the art, literature, architecture, numismatics, economy, social and religious organisation and the crusading involvement of these Latin states, the volume offers an introduction to the study of Latin Greece and a sampler of the directions in which the field of research is moving. Contributors are: Nikolaos Chrissis, Charalambos Gasparis, Anastasia Papadia-Lala, Nicholas Coureas, David Jaccoby, Julian Baker, Gill Page, Maria Georgopoulou and Sophia Kalopissi-Verti.

Crusades covers the seven hundred years from the First Crusade (1095-1102) to the fall of Malta (1798) and draws together scholars working on theatres of war, their home fronts and settlements from the Baltic to Africa and from Spain to the Near East and on theology, law, literature, art, numismatics and economic, social, political and military history. Routledge publishes this journal for The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Particular attention is given to the publication of historical sources - narrative, homiletic and documentary - but studies and interpretative essays are welcomed too. Crusades also incorporates the Society's Bulletin. The editors are Professor Jonathan Phillips, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK; Iris Shagrir, The Open University of Israel; Professor Benjamin Z. Kedar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; and Nikolaos G. Chrissis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.

Publicly performed rituals and ceremonies form an essential part of medieval political practice and court culture. This applies not only to western feudal societies, but also to the linguistically and culturally highly diversified environment of Byzantium and the Mediterranean basin. The continuity of Roman traditions and cross-fertilization between various influences originating from Constantinople, Armenia, the Arab-Muslim World, and western kingdoms and naval powers provide the framework for a distinct sphere of ritual expression and ceremonial performance. This collective volume, placing Byzantium into a comparative perspective between East and West, examines transformative processes from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, succession procedures in different political contexts, phenomena of cross-cultural appropriation and exchange, and the representation of rituals in art and literature. Contributors are Maria Kantirea, Martin Hinterberger, Walter Pohl, Andrew Marsham, Björn Weiler, Eric J. Hanne, Antonia Giannouli, Jo Van Steenbergen, Stefan Burkhardt, Ioanna Rapti, Jonathan Shepard, Panagiotis Agapitos, Henry Maguire, Christine Angelidi and Margaret Mullett.

A detailed introduction provides a broad geopolitical context to the contributions and discusses at length the broad themes which unite the articles and which transcend traditional interpretations of the eastern Mediterranean in the later medieval period.

Byzantine Religious Law in Medieval Italy is a historical study of manuscripts containing Byzantine canon law produced after the Norman conquest of southern Italy, exploring how and why the Greek Christians of the region persisted in using them so long after the end of Byzantine rule.

Jonathan Harris's classic text chronologically surveys Byzantine history in the time of the Crusades. The book reveals the attitudes of the Byzantine ruling elites towards the Crusades and their ultimate inability to adapt to the challenges this presented. Using evidence amassed in a wealth of primary sources, Harris successfully makes the point that Byzantine interactions with Western Europe, the Crusades and the crusader states is best understood in the nature of the Byzantine Empire and the ideology which underpinned it, rather than in any generalised hostility between the peoples. Incorporating recent scholarship, this 3rd edition has 25 further images, as well as additional maps and genealogical tables. This new edition also comes with two significant additions to the text: * Appendix I sees the inclusion of seven critical Latin primary sources taken from across three centuries. Translated by the author, these sources are then discussed in detail, providing multiple first-hand perspectives on the subject in the process * Appendix II provides assessments of various representations of the subject in key fiction and non-fiction works, thereby enriching your appreciation of the way that Byzantine interaction with the Crusades has been constructed at different times, from various standpoints and in other languages This book remains the keystone to understanding the East-West relationship during the Crusades and what this meant for the Byzantine Empire.