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The nominal power of the Western emperors was considerable. No pontiff could be legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the Church, had graciously signified his approbation and consent. Gregory VII., in 1073, usurped this power, and fixed for ever in the college of cardinals the freedom and independence of election. Nominally, also, the emperors held sway in Rome, but this supremacy was annihilated in the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century the power derived from his title was still recognised in Europe; the hereditary monarchs confessed the pre-eminence of his rank and dignity.

The persecution of images and their votaries in the East had separated-Rome and Italy from the Byzantine throne, and prepared the way for the conquests of the Franks. The rise and triumph of the Mahometans still further diminished the empire of the East. The successful inroads of the Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Russians, who assaulted by sea or by land the provinces and the capital, seemed to advance the approach of its final dissolution. The Norman adventurers, who founded a powerful kingdom in Apulia and Sicily, shook the throne of Constantinople (1146), and their hostile enterprises did not cease until the year 1185.

II.--Latin Rulers of Constantinople

Under the name of the Latins, the subjects of the pope, the nations of the West, enlisted under the banner of the Cross for the recovery or the release of the Holy Sepulchre. The Greek emperors were terrified and preserved by the myriads of pilgrims who marched to Jerusalem with Godfrey of Bouillon (1095-99) and the peers of Christendom. The second (1147) and the third (1189) crusades trod in the footsteps of the first. Asia and Europe were mingled in a sacred war of two hundred years; and the Christian powers were bravely resisted and finally expelled (1291) by Saladin (1171-93) and the Mamelukes of Egypt.

In these memorable crusades a fleet and army of French and Venetians were diverted from Syria to the Thracian Bosphorus; they assaulted the capital (1203), they subverted the Greek monarchy; and a dynasty of Latin princes was seated near three-score years on the throne of Constantine.

During this period of captivity and exile, which lasted from 1204 to 1261, the purple was preserved by a succession of four monarchs, who maintained their title as the heirs of Augustus, though outcasts from their capital. The de facto sovereigns of Constantinople during this period, the Latin emperors of the houses of Flanders and Courtenay, provided five sovereigns for the usurped throne. By an agreement between the allied conquerors, the emperor of the East was nominated by the vote of twelve electors, chosen equally from the French and Venetians. To him, with all the titles and prerogatives of the Byzantine throne, a fourth part of the Greek monarchy was assigned; the remaining portions were equally snared between the republic of Venice and the barons of France.

Under this agreement, Baldwin, Count of Flanders and Hainault, was created emperor (1204-05). The idea of the Roman system, which, despite the passage of centuries devoted to the triumphs of the barbarians, had impressed itself on Europe, was seen in the emperor's letter to the Roman pontiff, in which he congratulated him on the restoration of his authority in the East.

The defeat and captivity of Baldwin in a war against the Bulgarians, and his subsequent death, placed the crown on the head of his brother Henry (1205-16). With him the imperial house of Flanders became extinct, and Peter of Courtenay, Count of Auxerre (1217-19), assumed the empire of the East. Peter was taken captive by Theodore, the legitimate sovereign of Constantinople, and his sons Robert (1221-28) and Baldwin II. (1228-37) reigned in succession. The gradual recovery of their empire by the legitimate sovereigns of the East culminated in the capture of Constantinople by the Greeks (1261). The line of Latin sovereigns was extinct. Baldwin lived the remainder of his life a royal fugitive, soliciting the Catholic powers to join in his restoration. He died in 1272.

From the days of the Emperor Heraclius the Byzantine Empire had been most tranquil and prosperous when it could acquiesce in hereditary succession. Five dynasties--the Heraclian, Isaurian, Amorian, Basilian, and Comnenian families--enjoyed and transmitted the royal patrimony during their respective series of five, four, three, six, and four generations. The imperial house of Comnenius, though its direct line in male descent had expired with Andronicus I. (1185), had been perpetuated by marriage in the female line, and had survived the exile from Constantinople, in the persons of the descendants of Theodore Lascaris.

Michael Palæologus, who, through his mother, might claim perhaps a prior right to the throne of the Comnenii, usurped the imperial dignity on the recovery of Constantinople, cruelly blinded the young Emperor John, the legitimate heir of Theodore Lascaris, and reigned until 1282. His career of authority was notable for an attempt to unite the Greek and Roman churches--a union which was dissolved in 1283--and his instigation of the revolt in Sicily, which ended in the famous Sicilian Vespers (March 30, 1282), when 8,000 French were exterminated in a promiscuous massacre.

He saved his empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion and blood. From these seeds of discord uprose a generation of iron men, who assaulted and endangered the empire of his son, Andronicus the Elder (1282-1332). Thousands of Genoese and Catalans, released from the wars that Michael had aroused in the West, took service under his successor against the Turks. Other mercenaries flocked to their standard, and, under the name of the Great Company, they subverted the authority of the emperor, defeated his troops, laid waste his territory, united themselves with his enemies, and, finally, abandoning the banks of the Hellespont, marched into Greece. Here they overthrew the remnant of the Latin power, and for fourteen years (1311-1326) the Great Company was the terror of the Grecian states.