The crusaders—now better styled the invaders—took
Constantinople by storm. No "infidels" could have treated in worse
fashion this home of ancient civilization. They burned down a great part of it;
they slaughtered the inhabitants; they wantonly destroyed monuments, statues,
paintings, and manuscripts—the accumulation of a thousand years. Much of the
movable wealth they carried away. Never, declared an eye-witness of the scene,
had there been such plunder since the world began.
THE LATIN EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 1204-1261 A.D.
The victors hastened to divide between them the lands of
the Roman Empire in the East. Venice gained some districts in Greece, together
with nearly all the Aegean islands. The chief crusaders formed part of the
remaining territory into the Latin Empire of Constantinople. It was organized
in fiefs, after the feudal manner. There was a prince of Achaia, a duke of
Athens, a marquis of Corinth, and a count of Thebes. Large districts, both in
Europe and Asia, did not acknowledge, however, these "Latin" rulers.
The new empire lived less than sixty years. At the end of this time the Greeks
returned to power.
DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES OF THE FOURTH CRUSADE
Constantinople, after the Fourth Crusade, declined in
strength and could no longer cope with the barbarians menacing it. Two
centuries later the city fell an easy victim to the Turks. The
responsibility for the disaster which gave the Turks a foothold in Europe rests
on the heads of the Venetians and the French nobles. Their greed and lust for
power turned the Fourth Crusade into a political adventure.
