No it’s pretty much that simple for the most part and there is no way to justify the massive fuckery that was the Fourth Crusade. Before the crusaders set off for Constantinople they sacked the Hungarian city of Zara as a job for the Venetians so that they would provide the ships to transport them across the sea. The crusaders were like, “well this is a pretty shitty thing to do but we’re doing God’s work so the ends justify the means”. This was a Catholic city, so as you can imagine Pope Innocent III was livid. He excommunicated the Crusaders proclaiming,
“Behold your gold has turned into base metal and your silver has almost completely rusted since, departing from the purity of your plan and turning aside from the path onto the impassable road, you have, so to speak, withdrawn your hand from the plough […] for when […] you should have hastened to the land flowing with milk and honey, you turned away, going astray in the direction of the desert.“
When the crusaders sacked Constantinople they not only looted but raped, murdered, and burned half the city down. The city’s population decreased by a third due to death or fleeing refugees. When the looting was done most of the army did not go home or go to Jerusalem, they stayed and founded a crusader state, installing Count Baldwin of Flanders as Roman emperor and founding what historians call the “Latin Empire”. This caused the empire to fracture resulting a civil war that would devastate the empire and finally seal it’s fate. After all was said and done the Byzantine Empire was thoroughly devastated and Constantinople became a depopulated ghost town. The Ottoman Turks would then put the Byzantines out of their misery.
OP is doge Enrico Dandolo.
ma is tanultam valamit, avagy fogalmam sem volt, hogy zadart zaranak is hivtak.
