Baldwin II, Latin Emperor
Baldwin II, also known as Baldwin of Courtenay, was the last Latin Emperor ruling from Constantinople.
Seal of Baldwin II
The Holy Crown of Jesus Christ was bought by Louis IX from Baldwin II. It was preserved in a 19th-century reliquary, in Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, until recently relocating to the Louvre after the 2019 fire.
The Latin Emperor was the ruler of the Latin Empire, the historiographical convention for the Crusader realm, established in Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade (1204) and lasting until the city was reconquered by the Byzantine Greeks in 1261. Its name derives from its Catholic and Western European ("Latin") nature. The empire, whose official name was Imperium Romaniae, claimed the direct heritage of the Eastern Roman Empire, which had most of its lands taken and partitioned by the crusaders. This claim however was disputed by the Byzantine Greek successor states, the Empire of Nicaea, the Empire of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus. Out of these three, the Nicaeans succeeded in displacing the Latin emperors in 1261 and restored the Byzantine Empire.
Last in Office Baldwin II Early 1228 – 24 July 1261
Seal of Catherine of Courtenay
Image: Baldwin I of Constantinople
Image: Eppignoc
