The decline of the empire

The Decline of the Empire

In the late 1000's, the Turks invaded the Byzantine Empire as well as the Holy Land. The Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenus, asked the Christians of Western Europe to help defend the empire. The military expeditions of the Christians against the invaders of the Holy Land became known as the Crusades. During the First Crusade, from 1096 to 1099, crusaders regained the coastal regions of the Holy Land.

Later crusades resulted in increased tension between the Byzantines and the West European Christians. In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, religious hatred played a key role in the capture of Constantinople by Western forces. This conquest occurred partly because merchants from the Italian city of Venice wanted to gain control over trade in the Middle East. The Venetians and the crusaders established a new empire and kept the government in Constantinople.

Excerpt adapted from the "Byzantine Empire" article, The World Book Encyclopedia, © 1999