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.

The first study that focuses on the extent of the knowledge of Latin and Roman culture by Post-Byzantine scholars (15th - 19th cent.)00This volume aims at filling a major gap in international literature concerning the knowledge of the Latin language and literature by Post-Byzantine scholars from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth centuries. Most of them, immigrants to the West after the Fall of Byzantium, harmoniously integrated into their host countries, practiced and perfected their knowledge of the Latin language and literature, excelled in arts and letters and, in many cases, managed to obtain civil, political and clerical offices. They wrote original poetic and prose works in Latin, for literary, scholarly and/or political purposes. They also translated Greek texts into Latin, and vice versa. The contributors to this volume explore the multifaceted aspects of the knowledge of the Latin language and literature by these scholars. Among the many issues addressed in the volume are: a) the reasons that urged Post-Byzantine scholars to compose Latin works and disseminate Ancient Greek works to the West and Latin texts to the East, b) their audience, c) the fate of their projects, d) their relations among them and with Western scholars. In the contents of the volume one can identify well known Post-Byzantine scholars such as Bessarion or Isidore of Kiev, as well as less known ones like Ioannis Gemistos, Nikolaos Sekoundinos and others. Hence, hereby is provided a canon of scholars who, albeit Greek, are considered essentially as representatives of Neo-Latin literature, along with others who, through their translations, contributed to the rapprochement - literary and political - of East and West.

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.

The studies included in this latest volume by Professor Jacoby deal with demographic, social, economic and institutional issues in the history of Byzantium and Latin Romania (the Byzantine territories conquered by the Latins after the Fourth Crusade), as well as with Mediterranean trade between the 10th and the 15th century. Special attention is devoted to the following subjects: migration from Muslim countries and the West into the Empire and, after the Fourth Crusade, into former Byzantine territories; the social and economic impact of the encounter between Greeks, Jews and Westerners in Constantinople, Asia Minor and Greece; institutional and economic continuity and change in Latin Romania; trade and shipping between Byzantium, Egypt and the major Italian maritime cities; and last, to silk in Byzantium and the Mediterranean: raw materials and textiles, production and trade.

"The lists were written by Byzantines who believed that western Christians had fallen into heresy and impiety. Systematically addressing each fault enumerated in the lists - including the Filioque, fasting on the Sabbath, prohibiting clerical marriage, eating unclean food, and crossing themselves the wrong way - Kolbaba traces the likely explanations of the differences in custom and ritual between eastern and western Christians."--BOOK JACKET.

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.