Imaging the Byzantines : Latin perceptions, representations, and memory, c.1095-c.1230

Abstract

On 16 April 1204, Constantinople fell to the armies of the Fourth Crusade and the Byzantine Empire was dismembered among its conquerors. More than six hundred years later, a controversy over the diversion of the Fourth Crusade broke out among scholars. To this day, a century and a half after its beginning, the controversy has not yet been resolved satisfactorily. By focusing on the Latin attitudes towards and perceptions of the Byzantines in the period from the eve of the First Crusade to the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, this project approaches the ‘diversion debate’ from a new angle in an attempt to offer an original interpretation of the evidence, based on the primary sources. By studying the complex relationship between Latins and Byzantines in the period c. 1095-c. 1230, and by building up a critical and analytical picture of how' the Byzantines were perceived by the Latins and how they were represented and remembered in the Latin narratives and accounts, my research revisits the question of what led to the capture and sack of Constantinople by the armies of the Fourth Crusade in 1204.