BYZANTINE EMPIRE 4: The Conquest of the Crusaders and the Latin and Nicaea Empires

The emperors of the Comnenus dynasty had to face several problems. First the Normans, then the Pechenegs and then the Seljuk Turks. Seeing Alexius I that the thing was screwed, he asked for help from Europe, and here the Crusades began. In the first, the Crusader knights managed to take Jerusalem, but the fourth was different.

Alexius IV Angelus had lost the throne of Constantinople and asked for help to recover it. The Crusaders assaulted the Byzantine city in 1204 and took control of it, creating the Latin Empire, as opposed to the Empire of Nicea, that of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus, ruled by members of the ComnenoLáscarisÁngelo family.

After 60 years of crossed rule, Michael VIII Palaiologos would take control of Nicaea and start a war to redominate Constantinople and restore the Byzantine Empire.