Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Empire of Nicaea (1204-1261)

Theodore and John Lascaris and the restoration of the Byzantine Empire 

Page 5

On July 25, 1261, without striking a blow, the troops of Michael took possession of Constantinople. Michael himself was at that time in Asia Minor, where he received the news that Constantinople had been taken. He set out immediately and at the beginning of August entered the city, cheerfully greeted by the populace; shortly after, his second coronation was performed in St. Sophia. Baldwin II fled to Euboea (Negroponte). The Latin patriarch and the chief members of the Catholic clergy had time enough to leave the city before it was taken. By Michael's order, the unfortunate John IV Lascaris was blinded. Michael Palaeologus became the restorer of the Byzantine Empire, Michael VIII, the founder of the last Byzantine dynasty of the Palaeologi, by his success in taking advantage of what had been prepared by the emperors of Nicaea. The capital was transferred from Nicaea to Constantinople.

The fugitive Baldwin proceeded from Euboea to Thebes and Athens. There, on the venerable rock of Athens was played the last pitiful scene in the brief drama of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Then Baldwin sailed from the Peiraeus for Monemvasia; and leaving behind him not a few of his noble retinue in the Morea, set out for Europe, to solicit aid for his lost cause and to play the sorry part of an emperor in exile.

Thus, the Latin Empire, in the severe judgment of a German historian, Gregorovius, a creation of western European crusading knights, of the selfish trade-policy of the Venetians, and of the hierarchic idea of the papacy, fell after a miserable existence of fifty-seven years, leaving behind it no other trace than destruction and anarchy. That deformed chivalrous feudal state of the Latins belongs to the most worthless phenomena of history. The sophistical maxim of the German philosopher who asserted that all that exists is rational, becomes here merely an absurdity. Another German historian remarked: The Latin ignominy belongs to the past.

While Western sources, almost without exception, confine themselves to the mere mention of the taking of Constantinople by Michael and of the expulsion of the Franks, Greek sources express great joy on this occasion. George Acropolita, for example, wrote: Because of this fact all the Roman people were then in merriment, great cheerfulness, and inexpressible joy; there was no one who did not rejoice and exult. Still a discordant note sounded in the words of a high official under Michael Paleologus, a teacher, commentator of Homer, and jurist, Senakherim, who after the taking of Constantinople by the Greeks exclaimed: What do I hear! This has been reserved to our days! What have we done that we should live through and see such disasters? For the rest, no one can hope for good, since the Romans walk again in the city!

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