1.
Doge of Venice
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The Doge of Venice, sometimes translated as Duke, was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for 1,100 years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-states aristocracy, commonly the man selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city. The doge was neither a duke in the sense, nor the equivalent of a hereditary duke. The title doge was the title of the senior-most elected official of Venice and Genoa, a doge was referred to variously by the titles My Lord the Doge, Most Serene Prince, and His Serenity. After a deadlocked tie at the election of 1229, the number of electors was increased from forty to forty-one, new regulations for the elections of the doge introduced in 1268 remained in force until the end of the republic in 1797. Their object was to minimize as far as possible the influence of great families. Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were reduced by lot to nine, the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, the twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine and the nine elected forty-five. Then the forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, none could be elected but by at least twenty-five votes out of forty-one, nine votes out of eleven or twelve, or seven votes out of nine electors. A detailed description of this process, and the procession that followed, is preserved in Martin Da Canales work Les Estoires de Venise. This practice came to an end in 1423, after the election of Francesco Foscari, the doges normally ruled for life. After a doges death, a commission of inquisitori passed judgment upon his acts, the official income of the doge was never large, and from early times holders of the office remained engaged in trading ventures. These ventures kept them in touch with the requirements of the grandi, from 7 July 1268, during a vacancy in the office of doge, the state was headed ex officio, with the style vicedoge, by the senior consigliere ducale. One of the duties of the doge was to celebrate the symbolic marriage of Venice with the sea. This was done by casting a ring from the state barge, in its earlier form this ceremony was instituted to commemorate the conquest of Dalmatia by Doge Pietro II Orseolo in 1000, and was celebrated on Ascension Day. It took its later and more magnificent form after the visit of Pope Alexander III, on state occasions the Doge was surrounded by an increasing amount of ceremony, and in international relations he had the status of a sovereign prince. The doge took part in processions, which started in the Piazza San Marco. The doge would appear in the center of the procession, preceded by civil servants ranked in ascending order of prestige, from the 14th century onwards, the ceremonial crown and well-known symbol of the doge of Venice was called corno ducale, a unique kind of a ducal hat. Every Easter Monday the doge headed a procession from San Marco to the convent of San Zaccaria where the abbess presented him a new camauro crafted by the nuns, the Doges official costume also included golden robes, slippers and a sceptre for ceremonial duties
2.
Republic of Venice
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It was based in the lagoon communities of the historically prosperous city of Venice. It was a leading European economic and trading power during the Middle Ages, the Venetian city state was founded as a safe haven for people escaping persecution in mainland Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In its early years, it prospered on the salt trade, in subsequent centuries, the city state established a thalassocracy. It dominated trade on the Mediterranean Sea, including commerce between Asia, Europe and North Africa, the Venetian navy was used in the Crusades. Venice achieved territorial conquests along the Adriatic Sea, the city became home to an extremely wealthy merchant class, who patronized renowned art and architecture along the citys lagoons. Venetian merchants were influential financiers in Europe, the city was also the birthplace of great European explorers, including Marco Polo, as well as the classical music composer Vivaldi. The republic was ruled by the Doge, who was elected by members of the Great Council of Venice, the ruling class was an oligarchy of merchants and aristocrats. Venice and other Italian maritime republics played a key role in fostering capitalism, Venetian citizens generally supported the system of governance. The city-state enforced strict laws and employed ruthless tactics in its prisons, the opening of new trade routes to the Americas and the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean marked the beginning of Venices decline as a maritime republic. The city state suffered defeats from the navy of the Ottoman Empire, in 1797, the country was colonized by Austria and France, following an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. Venice became a part of a unified Italy in the 19th century and it was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in reference to its title as one of the Most Serene Republics. He was the first historical Doge of Venice, whichever the case, the first doges had their power base in Heraclea. Ursuss successor, Deusdedit, moved his seat from Heraclea to Malamocco in the 740s and he was the son of Ursus and represented the attempt of his father to establish a dynasty. Such attempts were more commonplace among the doges of the first few centuries of Venetian history. They desired to remain well-connected to the Empire, another faction, republican in nature, believed in continuing along a course towards practical independence. The other main faction was pro-Frankish, supported mostly by clergy, they looked towards the new Carolingian king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, as the best provider of defence against the Lombards. A minor, pro-Lombard faction was opposed to close ties with any of these further-off powers, the successors of Obelerio inherited a united Venice. By the Pax Nicephori, the two emperors had recognised that Venice belonged to the Byzantine sphere of influence, many centuries later, the Venetians claimed that the treaty had recognised Venetian de facto independence, but the truth of this claim is doubted by modern scholars
3.
Constantinople
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Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was also called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis
4.
Latin Empire
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It was established after the capture of Constantinople in 1204 and lasted until 1261. Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, was crowned the first Latin emperor as Baldwin I on 16 May 1204, the last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, went into exile, but the imperial title survived, with several pretenders to it, until the 14th century. The original name of state in the Latin language was Imperium Romaniae. This name was used based on the fact that the name for the Eastern Roman Empire in this period had been Romania. The names Byzantine and Latin were not contemporaneous terms, the term Latin has been used because the crusaders were Roman Catholic and used Latin as their liturgical and scholarly language. It is used in contrast to the Eastern Orthodox locals who used Greek in both liturgy and common speech, after the fall of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, the crusaders agreed to divide up Byzantine territory. In the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae, signed on 1 October 1204, none of these polities actually controlled the city of Rome, which remained under the temporal authority of the Pope. The initial campaigns of the crusaders in Asia Minor resulted in the capture of most of Bithynia by 1205, with the defeat of the forces of Theodore I Laskaris at Poemanenum and Prusa. Latin successes continued, and in 1207 a truce was signed with Theodore, the Latins inflicted a further defeat on Nicaean forces at the Rhyndakos river in October 1211, and three years later the Treaty of Nymphaeum recognized their control of most of Bithynia and Mysia. The peace was maintained until 1222, when the resurgent power of Nicaea felt sufficiently strong to challenge the Latin Empire, Nicaea turned also to the Aegean, capturing the islands awarded to the empire. In 1235, finally, the last Latin possessions fell to Nicaea, unlike in Asia, where the Latin Empire faced only an initially weak Nicaea, in Europe it was immediately confronted with a powerful enemy, the Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan. When Baldwin campaigned against the Byzantine lords of Thrace, they called upon Kaloyan for help, at the Battle of Adrianople on 14 April 1205, the Latin heavy cavalry and knights were crushed by Kaloyans troops and Cuman allies, and Emperor Baldwin was captured. He was imprisoned in the Bulgarian capital Tarnovo until his later in 1205. At the same time, another Greek successor state, the Despotate of Epirus, under Michael I Komnenos Doukas, posed a threat to the vassals in Thessalonica. Henry demanded his submission, which Michael provided, giving off his daughter to Henrys brother Eustace in the summer of 1209 and this alliance allowed Henry to launch a campaign in Macedonia, Thessaly and Central Greece against the rebellious Lombard lords of Thessalonica. However, Michaels attack on the Kingdom of Thessalonica in 1210 forced him to north to relieve the city. In 1214 however, Michael died, and was succeeded by Theodore Komnenos Doukas, on 11 June 1216, while supervising repairs to the walls of Thessalonica, Henry died, and was succeeded by Peter of Courtenay, who himself was captured and executed by Theodore the following year. A regency was set up in Constantinople, headed by Peters widow, Yolanda of Flanders, epirote armies then conquered Thrace in 1225–26, appearing before Constantinople itself
5.
Hagia Sophia
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Hagia Sophia was a Greek Orthodox Christian patriarchal basilica, later an imperial mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. The building was converted into an Ottoman mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931. It was then secularized and opened as a museum on 1 February 1935, famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have changed the history of architecture. It remained the worlds largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years and it was designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. The church contained a collection of relics and featured, among other things. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Empire under Mehmed the Conqueror, by that point, the church had fallen into a state of disrepair. Nevertheless, the Christian cathedral made an impression on the new Ottoman rulers. Islamic features—such as the mihrab, minbar, and four minarets—were added and it remained a mosque until 1931, when it was closed to the public for four years. It was re-opened in 1935 as a museum by the Republic of Turkey, Hagia Sophia was, as of 2014, the second-most visited museum in Turkey, attracting almost 3.3 million visitors annually. According to data released by the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry, from its initial conversion until the construction of the nearby Sultan Ahmed Mosque in 1616, it was the principal mosque of Istanbul. The first church on the site was known as the Μεγάλη Ἐκκλησία, or in Latin Magna Ecclesia, inaugurated on 15 February 360 by the Arian bishop Eudoxius of Antioch, it was built next to the area where the imperial palace was being developed. The nearby Hagia Eirene church was completed earlier and served as cathedral until the Great Church was completed, both churches acted together as the principal churches of the Byzantine Empire. Writing in 440, Socrates of Constantinople claimed that the church was built by Constantius II, a tradition which is not older than the 7th or 8th century, reports that the edifice was built by Constantine the Great. Zonaras reconciles the two opinions, writing that Constantius had repaired the edifice consecrated by Eusebius of Nicomedia, after it had collapsed. Since Eusebius was bishop of Constantinople from 339 to 341, and Constantine died in 337, the edifice was built as a traditional Latin colonnaded basilica with galleries and a wooden roof. It was preceded by an atrium and it was claimed to be one of the worlds most outstanding monuments at the time. The Patriarch of Constantinople John Chrysostom came into a conflict with Empress Aelia Eudoxia, wife of the emperor Arcadius, during the subsequent riots, this first church was largely burned down. Nothing remains of the first church today, a second church on the site was ordered by Theodosius II, who inaugurated it on 10 October 415
6.
Istanbul
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Istanbul, historically known as Constantinople and Byzantium, is the most populous city in Turkey and the countrys economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosphorus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side, the city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, both hosting a population of around 14.7 million residents. Istanbul is one of the worlds most populous cities and ranks as the worlds 7th-largest city proper, founded under the name of Byzantion on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city developed to become one of the most significant in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as a capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine, the Latin. Overlooked for the new capital Ankara during the period, the city has since regained much of its prominence. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s, as migrants from across Anatolia have moved in, arts, music, film, and cultural festivals were established at the end of the 20th century and continue to be hosted by the city today. Infrastructure improvements have produced a complex transportation network, considered a global city, Istanbul has one of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies in the world. It hosts the headquarters of many Turkish companies and media outlets and accounts for more than a quarter of the gross domestic product. Hoping to capitalize on its revitalization and rapid expansion, Istanbul has bid for the Summer Olympics five times in twenty years, the first known name of the city is Byzantium, the name given to it at its foundation by Megarean colonists around 660 BCE. The name is thought to be derived from a personal name, ancient Greek tradition refers to a legendary king of that name as the leader of the Greek colonists. Modern scholars have hypothesized that the name of Byzas was of local Thracian or Illyrian origin. He also attempted to promote the name Nova Roma and its Greek version Νέα Ῥώμη Nea Romē, the use of Constantinople to refer to the city during the Ottoman period is now considered politically incorrect, even if not historically inaccurate, by Turks. By the 19th century, the city had acquired other names used by foreigners or Turks. Europeans used Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu. The name İstanbul is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase εἰς τὴν Πόλιν and this reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The importance of Constantinople in the Ottoman world was reflected by its Ottoman name Der Saadet meaning the gate to Prosperity in Ottoman. An alternative view is that the name evolved directly from the name Constantinople, with the first, a Turkish folk etymology traces the name to Islam bol plenty of Islam because the city was called Islambol or Islambul as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire
7.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
8.
Patrician (post-Roman Europe)
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In the rise of European towns in the 10th and 11th centuries, the patriciate, a limited group of families with a special constitutional position, in Henri Pirennes view, was the motive force. In 19th century central Europe, the term had become synonymous with the upper Bourgeoisie, except for the republics of Italy. As in Ancient Rome, patrician status could only be inherited. However, membership in the patriciate could be passed on through the female line, accession to a patriciate through this mechanism was referred to as erweibern. In any case, only patricians could hold, or participate in elections for. Often, as in Venice, non-patricians had almost no political rights, lists were maintained of who had the status, of which the most famous is the Libro dOro of the Venetian Republic. For instance in Scandinavia, the term synonymous with the rich mercantile class. The allegiance of the Principality of Salerno was bought in 887 by investing Prince Guaimar I, in 909 the Prince of Benevento, Landulf I, personally sought and received the title in Constantinople for both himself and his brother, Atenulf II. Amalfi was ruled by a series of Patricians, the last of whom was elected Duke, in the late Middle Ages and early modern period patricians also acquired noble titles, sometimes simply by acquiring domains in the surrounding contado that carried a heritable fief. The Republic of Genoa had a class, much smaller, of nobility. Some cities, such as Naples and Rome, which had never been republics in post-Classical times, also had patrician classes, though most holders also had noble titles. The Republic of Ragusa was ruled by a strict patriciate that was established in 1332. Subsequently, patrician became a term used for aristocrats and elite bourgeoisie in many countries. Florence, in 1244, came late in the peak period of these transformations. However Florence was to have other upheavals, reducing the power of the class, in the movement leading to the Ordinances of Justice in 1293. Of the major republics, only Venice managed to retain an exclusively patrician government, venetians with a disputed claim to the patriciate were required to present to the avogadori di commun established to adjudicate such claims a genealogy called a prova di nobiltà, a test of nobility. Beginning in the 11th century, a class which much later came to be called Patrizier formed in the German-speaking free imperial cities. Besides wealthy merchant Grand Burghers, they were recruited from the ranks of knights, administrators and ministeriales
9.
Latinisation of names
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Latinisation is the practice of rendering a non-Latin name in a Latin style. It is commonly found with personal names, with toponyms. It goes further than romanisation, which is the transliteration of a word to the Latin alphabet from another script and this was often done in the classical era for much the same reason as English-speaking cultures produce English versions of some foreign names. In the case of names in the post-Roman era this may be done to emulate Latin authors. In a scientific context, the purpose of Latinisation may be to produce a name which is internationally consistent. Humanist names, assumed by Renaissance humanists, were very largely Latinised names, Latinisation in humanist names may consist of translation from vernacular European languages, sometimes involving a playful element of punning. Such names could be a cover for social origins. Latinisation is a practice for scientific names. For example, Livistona, the name of a genus of trees, is a Latinisation of Livingstone. In English, place names appear in Latinised form. This is a result of many text books mentioning the places being written in Latin. Because of this, the English language often uses Latinised forms of place names instead of anglicised forms or the original names. Examples of Latinised names for countries or regions are, Estonia Ingria Livonia During the age of the Roman Empire, additionally, Latinised versions of Greek substantives, particularly proper nouns, could easily be declined by Latin speakers with minimal modification of the original word. During the medieval period, following the collapse of the Empire in Western Europe, in the early medieval period, most European scholars were priests and most educated people spoke Latin, and as a result, Latin became firmly established as the scholarly language for the West. Though during modern times Europe has largely abandoned Latin as a scholarly language, by tradition, it is still common in some fields to name new discoveries in Latin. Romanization, conversion of a text in Latin letters Nicolson, Dan H, orthography of Names and Epithets, Latinization of Personal Names
10.
Fourth Crusade
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The Fourth Crusade was a Western European armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III, originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, a sequence of events culminated in the Crusaders sacking the city of Constantinople, the intention of the crusaders was then to continue to the Holy Land with promised Byzantine financial and military assistance. On 23 June 1203 the main fleet reached Constantinople. In August 1203, following clashes outside Constantinople, Alexios Angelos was crowned co-Emperor with crusader support, however, in January 1204, he was deposed by a popular uprising in Constantinople. In April 1204, they captured and brutally sacked the city, Byzantine resistance based in unconquered sections of the empire such as Nicaea, Trebizond, and Epirus ultimately recovered Constantinople in 1261. Ayyubid Sultan Saladin had conquered most of the Frankish, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, including the ancient city itself, the Kingdom had been established 88 years before, after the capture and sack of Jerusalem in the First Crusade. The city was sacred to Christians, Muslims and Jews, Saladin led a Muslim dynasty, and his incorporation of Jerusalem into his domains shocked and dismayed the Catholic countries of Western Europe. Legend has it that Pope Urban III literally died of the shock, the crusader states had been reduced to three cities along the sea coast, Tyre, Tripoli, and Antioch. The Third Crusade reclaimed an extensive amount of territory for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, including the key towns of Acre and Jaffa, but had failed to retake Jerusalem. The crusade had also marked by a significant escalation in long standing tensions between the feudal states of western Europe and the Byzantine Empire, centred in Constantinople. The experiences of the first two crusades had thrown into relief the vast cultural differences between the two Christian civilisations. For their part, the educated and wealthy Byzantines maintained a sense of cultural, organizational. Constantinople had been in existence for 874 years at the time of the Fourth Crusade and was the largest and most sophisticated city in Christendom. Almost alone amongst major medieval urban centres, it had retained the civic structures, public baths, forums, monuments, at its height, the city held an estimated population of about half a million people behind thirteen miles of triple walls. As a result, it was both a rival and a target for the aggressive new states of the west, notably the Republic of Venice. Crusaders also seized the breakaway Byzantine province of Cyprus, rather than return it to the Empire, barbarossa died on crusade, and his army quickly disintegrated, leaving the English and French, who had come by sea, to fight Saladin. There they captured Sidon and Beirut, but at the news of Henrys death in Messina along the way, many of the nobles, deserted by much of their leadership, the rank and file crusaders panicked before an Egyptian army and fled to their ships in Tyre. Also in 1195, the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos was deposed in favour of his brother by a palace coup, ascending as Alexios III Angelos, the new emperor had his brother blinded and exiled
11.
Sack of Constantinople (1204)
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The Sack of Constantinople or Siege of Constantinople occurred in 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Mutinous Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of Constantinople, after the capture, the Latin Empire was created and Baldwin of Flanders was crowned Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople in the Hagia Sophia. After the citys sacking, most of the Byzantine Empires territories were divided up, however, the restored Empire would never return to its former territorial or economic status, and eventually fell to the rising Ottoman Sultanate in the 1453 Siege of Constantinople. The sack of Constantinople is a turning point in medieval history. The Crusaders decision to attack a major Christian capital was unprecedented and immediately controversial, the Fourth Crusade therefore left Christendom more divided and weakened than before. Following the siege of Constantinople in 1203, on 1 August 1203, the pro-Crusader Alexios Angelos was crowned Emperor Alexios IV of the Byzantine Empire, who then tried to pacify the city. But riots between anti-Crusader Greeks and pro-Crusader Latins broke out later that month and lasted until November, during which most of the populace began to turn against Emperor Alexios IV. Emperor Alexios V then attempted to negotiate with the Crusaders for a withdrawal from Byzantine territory, when Alexios V ordered Alexios IVs execution on 8 February, the Crusaders declared war on Alexios V. In March 1204, the Crusader and Venetian leadership decided on the outright conquest of Constantinople, by the end of March, the combined Crusader armies were besieging Constantinople as Emperor Alexios V began to strengthen the citys defences while conducting more active operations outside the city. By the first week of April, the Crusaders had begun their siege from their encampment in the town of Galata across the Golden Horn from Constantinople, on 12 April 1204 weather conditions finally favoured the Crusaders as the weather cleared and a second assault on the city was ordered. A strong north wind aided the Venetian ships near the Golden Horn to come close to the city wall, after a short battle approximately 70 Crusaders managed to enter the city. Emperor Alexios V fled from the city that night through the Polyandriou Gate, the Crusaders looted, terrorized, and vandalized Constantinople for three days, during which many ancient and medieval Roman and Greek works were either stolen or destroyed. The famous bronze horses from the Hippodrome were sent back to adorn the façade of St Marks Basilica in Venice, as well as being stolen, works of immeasurable artistic value were destroyed merely for their material value. One of the most precious works to such a fate was a large bronze statue of Hercules, created by the legendary Lysippos. Like so many other artworks made of bronze, the statue was melted down for its content by the Crusaders. The great Library of Constantinople was destroyed as well, the civilian population of Constantinople were subject to the Crusaders ruthless lust for spoils and glory, thousands of them were killed in cold blood. Women, even nuns, were raped by the Crusader army, the very altars of these churches were smashed and torn to pieces for their gold and marble by the warriors. Although the Venetians engaged in looting too, their actions were far more restrained, doge Dandolo still appeared to have far more control over his men
12.
Ferrara
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Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 kilometres north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, the town has broad streets and numerous palaces dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, when it hosted the court of the House of Este. For its beauty and cultural importance it has qualified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Modern times have brought a renewal of industrial activity, Ferrara is on the main rail line from Bologna to Padua and Venice, and has branches to Ravenna, Poggio Rusco and Codigoro. Ferrara appears first in a document of the Lombard king Desiderius of 753 AD, Desiderius pledged a Lombard ducatus ferrariae in 757 to Pope Stephen II. Obizzo II dEste was proclaimed ruler of Ferrara five hundred years later. He also became seignior of nearby Modena in 1288 and of Reggio in 1289, in 1452 the Este rulers were created Dukes of Modena and Reggio, and in 1471 Ferrara also became a duchy. In 1597, when Alfonso II died without heirs, the House of Este lost Ferrara to the Papal States. Ferrara remained a part of the Papal States from 1598 to 1859, with an interruption during the Napoleonic period, in 1859 it became part of the Kingdom of Italy. A fortress was constructed by Pope Paul V on the site of the castle called Castel Tedaldo, at the south-west angle of the town, all of the fortress was dismantled following the birth of the Kingdom of Italy and the bricks used for new constructions all over the town. On August 23,1944, the Ferrara synthetic rubber plant was a target of Strategic bombing during World War II, the town is still surrounded by more than 9 kilometres of ancient walls, mainly built in the 15th and 16th-centuries. Along with those of Lucca, they are the best preserved Renaissance walls in Italy, the imposing brick Castello Estense sited in the very centre of the town is iconic of Ferrara. The castle, erected in 1385, is surrounded by a moat, the pavilions on the top of the towers date from the 16th-century refurbishment. The City Hall, renovated in the 18th century, was the residence of the Este family. Close by it is the former Cathedral of San Giorgio, The Romanesque lower part of the main façade, according to a now lost inscription the church had been commissioned by Guglielmo I of Adelardi. The sculpture of the portal was signed by a Nicholaus. The upper part of the main façade, with arcades of pointed arches, dates from the 13th century, the recumbent lions guarding the entrance are copies of the originals, now in the narthex of the church. An elaborate 13th-century relief depicting the Last Judgement is found in the story of the porch
13.
Vitale II Michiel
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Vitale Michiel II was Doge of Venice from 1156 to 1172. Vitale Michiel II became Doge at a time when Venices relations with Byzantium were becoming increasingly strained, at the same time, on account of the growing profitability of mainland Italian markets, Venice was trying to remain on good terms with the Western Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. But eventually, Venice was to come into conflict with both East and West, in 1158, much of Northern Italy was in open revolt against Frederick after his crossing of the Alps. In August 1159, the towns of Milan, Crema, Brescia and Piacenza founded the Lombard League with backing from Pope Adrian and the Kingdom of Sicily. On September 1,1159 Pope Adrian died, and during the enthronement of his successor, Alexander III. The papacy was disputed for the next 18 years, although most of Europe backed Alexander III, Venice also declared for Alexander III, fearing that Frederick would treat Venice in much the same way as the rest of North Italy. Padua, Verona and Ferrara, which were loyal to Frederick, next, Frederick engaged The Patriarch of Aquileia to attack Grado. This attack also failed, and merely resulted in Grado having to pay a tribute to Venice - a dozen pigs annually on the Wednesday before Lent. These pigs were chased around the Piazza on the day by the people of Venice. Although Frederick Barbarossa would have liked Venice subdued, he had more pressing problems to deal with elsewhere in Italy, for example, he wanted to reclaim Ancona from Byzantium and to continue opposition to Norman Sicily. However, he succeeded in installing another anti-Pope in Rome - Paschal, the Romans fought ferociously to keep Fredericks forces out. St Peters Basilica was heavily defended and held out for eight days, but eventually the Imperial forces broke in and left the marble pavement of the nave strewn with dead and dying, and the high altar itself stained with blood. On July 30,1167 anti-Pope Paschal celebrated Mass, subsequently, Fredericks army was virtually destroyed by pestilence, which most of Europe considered divine retribution for the desecration of St. Peters. Venice became a state of the Greater Lombard League on December 1,1167. At this time there were many Latins in Constantinople enjoying privileges given them by Manuel, Most of these were Venetians, who were generally regarded as arrogant, and scornful of the Eastern Empire. Manuel began to reduce the privileges of Venice, and to improve the position of her rivals, Pisa, Genoa, Manuel also captured much of the Dalmatian coast from Stephen III of Hungary, which was another irritation to Venice. In 1171 the Genoese settlement in Constantinople was attacked and largely destroyed, the old alliance between Venice and Byzantium was over. In order to finance a war against the Eastern Empire, the six districts of Venice were founded to tax the Venetian citizens, San Marco, San Polo, Santa Croce, Dorsoduro, Castello and Cannaregio
14.
Enrico Dandolo (patriarch)
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Enrico Dandolo was Patriarch of Grado, Italy, from 1134 to 1182. A member of a noble Venetian family, after his appointment he put the interests of the church ahead of all other concerns, Dandolo supported reform of the clergy along the lines laid down by Bernard of Clairvaux. He was engaged in a dispute over jurisdiction with Giovanni Polani. He also became involved in a dispute with the doge of Venice over lay involvement in church affairs, the dispute with the doge escalated when the doge supported the Byzantine Empire when it was invaded by the Normans. Venice had critically important economic ties with the empire, but it was in schism with Rome, Dandolo was exiled until the war was over. Later he was restored to authority and gained most of his objectives including recognition of the separation of church from state, Enrico Dandolo was the uncle of the famous Doge of Venice, also called Enrico Dandolo. He grew up in the parish of San Luca, where his contemporary the future doge Pietro Polani also lived. In 1122 the doge Domenico Michiel launched a crusade to help Baldwin II of Jerusalem. Enrico Dandolo participated in the Venetian Crusade while in his early twenties, the Venetian fleet left on 8 August 1122, and invested Corfu, then a possession of the Byzantine Empire, with which Venice had a dispute over privileges. They abandoned the siege when they heard news that King Baldwin II had been taken prisoner, on 15 February 1124 the Venetians began the siege of Tyre, which fell on 7 July 1124. The fleet passed through the Aegean Sea on the voyage, pillaging Greek islands and forcing the Greeks to abandon the dispute. On his return Dandalo embarked on a career as a legal advocate, Dandalo was appointed Patriarch of Grado in 1134, nominated by his boyhood friend the doge Pietro Polani and accepted by the bishops of the lagoon. Dandolo was immediately thrown into the dispute over jurisdiction with the Patriarchate of Aquileia. In 1132 Pope Innocent II had restored many of the traditional episcopates to Aquileia, including the Diocese of Istria, Dandalo went to the Council of Pisa in June 1135, as did the reformist Bernard of Clairvaux. The pope confirmed Grados traditional rights and privileges, but would not restore the lost dioceses, Dandalo became a lifetime supporter of reform and a strong advocate for the freedom and rights of the church. On his return to Venice, Dandalo introduced a chapter of Cistercians to the monastery of San Giorgio di Pineto, Dandalo became involved in a dispute with Giovanni Polani, the Bishop of Castello. In 1139, encouraged by Dandolo, the clergy of the ancient church of San Salvatore in central Venice decided to become canons regular under the rule of St. Augustine, the diocese had less control over such semi-monastic communities, some of which were directly linked to Rome. The clergy failed to confirm their subordination to the diocese, Polani was furious at what he saw as an attempt to take this important parish away from his control, and placed it under interdict
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Patriarch of Grado
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This is a list of the Patriarchs of Grado. The patriarchate came into being when the schismatic Patriarch of Aquileia, Paulinus, but in their reunion with Rome in 606, a rival office was set up in Old-Aquileia. Aquileia later entered communion with Rome but was able to keep its independence, in 1451 the see of Grado was merged with Castello to form the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice. Paulinus I 557-569 Probinus 569-570 Elia 571-586 Severus 586-606 In 1451 the Patriarchate of Grado was merged with the Bishopric of Castello, in 1968 Pope Paul VI reestablished Grado as a titular archbishopric José López Ortiz Crescenzio Sepe Diego Causero Patriarch of Venice Archbishop of Udine
16.
William II of Sicily
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William II, called the Good, was king of Sicily from 1166 to 1189. Lacking in military enterprise, secluded and pleasure-loving, he emerged from his palace life at Palermo. Yet his reign is marked by a foreign policy and a vigorous diplomacy. Champion of the papacy and in league with the Lombard cities he was able to defy the common enemy. In the Divine Comedy, Dante places William II in Paradise and he is also referred to in Boccaccios Decameron. William was nicknamed the Good only in the following his death. It is due less to his character than to the cessation of the troubles that plagued his fathers reign. Under the Staufer dynasty his reign was characterised as an age of peace and justice. His numeral is contemporary and he used it. William was only eleven years old at the death of his father William I and this was not his first attempted marriage, an earlier effort by Bertrand II, archbishop of Trani, to negotiate the hand of a Byzantine princess yielded no fruit. In July 1177, William sent a delegation of Archbishop Romuald of Salerno, to secure the peace, he married off his aunt Constance to the Emperors son, the future Emperor Henry VI, causing a general oath to be taken to her as his heir presumptive. This step, of great consequence to the Norman realm, was taken that William might devote himself to foreign conquests. Unable to revive the African dominion, William directed his attack on Ayyubid Egypt, in July 1174,30,000 men were landed before Alexandria, but Saladins arrival forced the Sicilians to re-embark in disorder. A better prospect opened in the confusion in Byzantine affairs which followed the death of Manuel Comnenus, afterwards while the army marched upon Thessalonica, the fleet sailed towards the same target capturing on their way the Ionian islands of Corfu, Cephalonia, Ithaca and Zakynthos. In August Thessalonica fell to the joint attack of the Sicilian fleet, the troops then marched upon the capital, but the army of the emperor Isaac Angelus defeated the invaders on the banks of the Strymon. Thessalonica was at once abandoned and in 1189 William made peace with Isaac and he was now planning to induce the crusading armies of the West to pass through his territories, and seemed about to play a leading part in the Third Crusade. In November 1189 William died at Palermo, leaving no children, though Robert of Torigni records a short-lived son in 1181, Bohemond, who was named Duke of Apulia. After his death Norman nobles led by Matthew of Ajello supported Tancred, Count of Lecce and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. William II. of Sicily
17.
Venetian grosso
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The Venetian grosso is a silver coin first introduced in Venice in 1193 under doge Enrico Dandolo. It originally weighed 2.18 grams, was composed of 98. 5% pure silver and its name is from the same root as groschen and the English groat, all deriving ultimately from the denaro grosso. Its value was allowed to float relative to other Venetian coins until it was pegged to 4 soldini in 1332, in 1332,1 grosso was the equivalent of 4 soldini, or 48 dinarii. The Renaissance of the 12th century brought wealth and economic sophistication, Venice struck silver pennies based on the coinage of Verona, which contained less than half a gram of 25% fine silver. Domestic transactions predominantly used these coins or their Veronese counterparts, about 1180, however, Verona modified its coinage, upsetting this practice. For foreign trade, Venetian merchants favored Byzantine coinage or coins of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem in 1187 and the progressing debasement of the Byzantine aspron trachy, however, made this less viable. Elsewhere in Western Europe the situation was similar, a few efforts were made to reverse the decline of the Carolingian penny which had been their currency for four hundred years. In Lombardy, Frederick Barbarossa struck denari imperiali at double the weight of the pennies of Milan, the consistent fineness of the English sterling, or short cross penny, which Henry II introduced in 1180 made it a popular trading currency in Northern Europe. But it remained for Doge Enrico Dandolo of Venice to make the breakthrough with a higher denomination coin of fine silver called a grosso. These coins had two advantages over the old pennies, first, minting and handling costs were reduced by substituting one large coin for tens of smaller ones. Second, the purity of their silver made them acceptable outside of Venice, even though coinage of the grosso might have begun a few years earlier, the influx of silver used to pay for the crusaders’ ships led to its first large scale mintage. The coin had 2.2 grams of 98. 5% fine silver and it was initially called a ducatus argenti since Venice was a duchy, but is more widely known as a grosso or matapano, a Muslim term referring to the seated figure on its reverse. The designs for the grosso came from the seal and the Byzantine aspron trachy. The obverse shows the figures of the doge and Saint Mark the Evangelist. On the right, Saint Mark holds the gospel, which is his usual attribute, the doge holds the “ducal promise” Enrico Dandolo was the first doge to swear this coronation oath. The legend names the doge on the left, with his title, the legend on the right names the saint as S. M. VENETI, i. e. Saint Mark of Venice. The reverse shows Christ facing, sitting on a throne, the legend abbreviates his Greek name as, IC XC. A beaded bordure on both sides of the coin prevented silver from being shaved from the edge of the coin, indeed, around 1237 the doge’s coronation oath included a promise that he would not change the coinage without authorization from the council
18.
Zadar
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Zadar is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Croatia. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the part of Ravni Kotari region. Zadar serves as the seat of Zadar County and the wider northern Dalmatian region, the city proper covers 25 km2 with a population of 75,082 in 2011, making it the fifth largest city in the country. The area of present-day Zadar traces its earliest evidence of life from the late Stone Age. Before the Illyrians, the area was inhabited by an ancient Mediterranean people of a pre-Indo-European culture, Zadar traces its origin to its 4th-century BC founding as a settlement of the Illyrian tribe of Liburnians known as Iader. In 59 BC it was renamed Iadera when it became a Roman municipium, and in 48 BC, a Roman colonia. It was during the Roman rule that Zadar acquired the characteristics of a traditional Ancient Roman city with a road network, a public square. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and the destruction of Salona by the Avars and Croats in 614, in the beginning of the 9th century, Zadar came under short Frankish rule, and was returned to the Byzantines by the Pax Nicephori in 812. The first Croatian rulers gained control over the city in 10th century, in 1202, Zadar was conquered and burned by the Republic of Venice, which was helped by the Crusaders. Croats again regained control over the city in 1358, when it was given to the Croatian-Hungarian king Louis I, in 1409, king Ladislaus I sold Zadar to the Venetians. During this time, many famous Croatian writers, such as Petar Zoranić, Brne Krnarutić, Juraj Baraković and Šime Budinić, wrote in the Croatian language. After the fall of Venice in 1797, Zadar came under the Austrian rule until 1918, except for the period of short-term French rule, during the French rule, the first newspaper in the Croatian language, Il Regio Dalmata – Kraglski Dalmatin, was published in Zadar. During the 19th century, Zadar was a center of the Croatian movement for cultural and national revival, today, Zadar is a historical center of Dalmatia, Zadar Countys principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, educational, and transportation centre. Zadar is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zadar, in 2016, Zadar was named Best European Destination by the Belgian portal Europes Best Destinations. com after a three-week period of online voting and more than 288,000 cast votes. The name of the city of Zadar emerged as Iadera and Iader in ancient times and it was most probably related to a hydrographical term, coined by an ancient Mediterranean people and their Pre-Indo-European language. They transmitted it to settlers, the Liburnians. The name of the Liburnian settlement was first mentioned by a Greek inscription from Pharos on the island of Hvar in 384 BC, according to the Greek source Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax the city was Ίδασσα, probably a Greek transcription of the original Liburnian expression. In the Dalmatian language, Jadra was pronounced Zadra, due to the transformation of Ja- to Za-
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St Mark's Basilica
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The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark, commonly known as Saint Marks Basilica, is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice, northern Italy. It is the most famous of the churches and one of the best known examples of Italo-Byzantine architecture. It lies at the end of the Piazza San Marco, adjacent. For its opulent design, gold mosaics, and its status as a symbol of Venetian wealth and power. The church was burned in a rebellion in 976, when the populace locked Pietro IV Candiano inside to kill him, nothing certain is known of the form of these early churches. From perhaps 1063 the present basilica was constructed, the consecration is variously recorded as being in 1084-5,1093,1102 and 1117, probably reflecting a series of consecrations of different parts. In 1094 the supposed body of Saint Mark was rediscovered in a pillar by Vitale Faliero, the building also incorporates a low tower, believed by some to have been part of the original Doges Palace. The Pala dOro ordered from Constantinople was installed on the altar in 1105. The main features of the present structure were all in place by then, except for the narthex or porch, and the facade. — The basic structure of the building has not been much altered. Its decoration has changed greatly over time, though the impression of the interior with a dazzling display of gold ground mosaics on all ceilings. Gradually, the exterior brickwork became covered with marble cladding and carvings, some older than the building itself. The latest structural additions include the closing-off of the Baptistery and St Isidors Chapel, the carvings on the facade and the Sacristy. During the 13th century the emphasis of the churchs function seems to have changed from being the chapel of the Doge to that of a state church. The transfer of the see was ordered by Napoleon during his period of control of Venice, before this, Venices cathedral from 1451 was the much less grand San Pietro di Castello. The procurators, an important organ of the Republic of Venice, were in charge of administration, their seats were the Procuratie, all building and restoring works were directed by the protos, great architects such as Jacopo Sansovino and Baldassarre Longhena held the office. The doge himself appointed a group of clergy led by the primicerio. Procurators and protos still exist and perform the tasks for the Patriarchate. The exterior of the west facade of the basilica is divided in three registers, lower, upper, and domes, in the lower register of the façade, five round-arched portals, enveloped by polychrome marble columns, open into the narthex through bronze-fashioned doors
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Alexios IV Angelos
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Alexios IV Angelos or Alexius IV Angelus was Byzantine Emperor from August 1203 to January 1204. He was the son of Emperor Isaac II Angelus and his first wife, an unknown Palaiologina and his paternal uncle was Emperor Alexius III Angelus. The young Alexios was imprisoned in 1195 when Alexios III overthrew Isaac II in a coup, in 1201, two Pisan merchants were employed to smuggle Alexius out of Constantinople to the Holy Roman Empire, where he took refuge with his brother-in-law Philip of Swabia, King of Germany. Boniface and Alexios allegedly discussed diverting the Crusade to Constantinople so that Alexios could be restored to his fathers throne, additionally, he promised to bring the Greek Orthodox Church under the authority of the pope. The Venetians and most of the Leaders were in favour of the plan however some were not and there were defections, in 1202 the fleet arrived at Constantinople. On 18 July 1203 the Crusaders launched an assault on the city, the Crusaders could not accept this, and forced Isaac II to proclaim his son Alexios IV co-emperor on 1 August. Despite Alexios grand promises, Isaac, the experienced and practical of the two, knew that the Crusaders debt could never be repaid from the imperial treasury. Alexios, however, had not grasped how far the empires financial resources had fallen during the previous fifty years. Alexios did manage to raise half the sum promised, by appropriating treasures from the church and he then attempted to defeat his uncle Alexios III, who remained in control of Thrace. The sack of some Thracian towns helped Alexios situation a little, in December 1203 violence exploded between the citizens of Constantinople and the Crusaders. Enraged mobs seized and brutally murdered any foreigner they could lay hands upon, Alexios refused their demands, and is quoted as saying, I will not do any more than I have done. While relations with the Crusaders were deteriorating, Alexios had become unpopular with the Greek citizenry. Blinded and nearly powerless, Isaac II resented having to share the throne with his son, he spread rumours of Alexios supposed sexual perversity, the chronicler Nicetas Choniates dismissed Alexios as childish and criticized his familiarity with the Crusaders and his lavish lifestyle. At the end of January 1204, the populace of Constantinople rebelled and tried to proclaim a rival emperor in Hagia Sophia, Alexios IV attempted to reach a reconciliation with the Crusaders, entrusting the anti-western courtier Alexios Doukas Murzuphlus with a mission to gain Crusader support. However, Alexios Doukas imprisoned both Alexios IV and his father on the night of 27–28 January 1204, Isaac II died soon afterwards, possibly of old age or from poison, and Alexios IV was strangled on 8 February. Alexios Doukas was proclaimed emperor as Alexios V, during Alexios IVs brief reign, the empire lost its territories along the Black Sea coast to the Empire of Trebizond. Alexios IV is mentioned in the Map of the Seven Knights episode of the 5th season of the Grimm tv series and he is mentioned as a pro-Crusader. List of Byzantine emperors Angold, Michael, The Fourth Crusade, a Byzantine Plan for the Fourth Crusade, Speculum,43, pp. 462–75
21.
Isaac II Angelos
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Isaac II Angelos or Angelus was Byzantine Emperor from 1185 to 1195, and again from 1203 to 1204. His father Andronikos Doukas Angelos was a leader in Asia Minor who married Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa. Andronikos Doukas Angelos was the son of Constantine Angelos and Theodora Komnene, thus Isaac was a member of the extended imperial clan of the Komnenoi. During the brief reign of Andronikos I Komnenos, Isaac was involved in the revolt of Nicaea, atypically, the Emperor did not punish him for this disloyalty, and Isaac remained at Constantinople. On September 11,1185, while Andronikos was absent from the capital, Isaac killed Hagiochristophorites and took refuge in the church of Hagia Sophia. Andronikos was a ruler in some ways but was hated for his cruelty. Isaac appealed to the populace, and a tumult arose that spread rapidly over the whole city, when Andronikos returned he found that he had lost popular support, and that Isaac had been proclaimed emperor. Andronikos attempted to flee by boat but was apprehended, Isaac handed him over to the people of the City, and he was killed on 12 September 1185. Isaac II Angelos strengthened his position as emperor with dynastic marriages in 1185 and 1186 and his niece Eudokia Angelina was married to Stefan, son of Stefan Nemanja of Serbia. Isaacs sister Theodora was married to the Italian marquis Conrad of Montferrat, in January 1186 Isaac himself married Margaret of Hungary, daughter of King Béla III. Isaac inaugurated his reign with a victory over the Norman King of Sicily, William II. William had invaded the Balkans with 80,000 men and 200 ships towards the end of Andronikos Is reign, elsewhere Isaacs policy was less successful. In late 1185, he sent a fleet of 80 galleys to liberate his brother Alexius III from Acre and he then sent a fleet of 70 ships, but it failed to recover Cyprus from the rebellious noble Isaac Komnenos, thanks to Norman interference. The oppressiveness of his taxes, increased to pay his armies and finance his marriage, the rebellion led to the establishment of the Second Bulgarian Empire under the Asen dynasty. Also in 1187 an agreement was made with Venice, in which the Venetian Republic would provide between 40 and 100 galleys at six months notice in exchange for favorable trading concessions. Because each Venetian galley was manned by 140 oarsmen, there were about 18,000 Venetians still in the Empire even after Manuel Is arrests, the Emperors attention was next demanded in the east, where several claimants to the throne successively rose and fell. In 1189 the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa sought and obtained permission to lead his troops on the Third Crusade through the Byzantine Empire and he had no sooner crossed the border than Isaac, who had meanwhile sought an alliance with Saladin, threw every impediment in his way. In retaliation Barbarossas army occupied the city of Philippopolis and defeated a Byzantine army of 3,000 men that attempted to recapture the city, thus compelled by force of arms, Isaac II was forced to fulfill his engagements in 1190
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Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
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Eastern Orthodox Church
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The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
24.
Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae
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The Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae was a treaty signed amongst the crusaders after the sack of the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The Latin Empire itself, consisting of the area surrounding Constantinople, Thrace, Latin rule became most firmly established and lasted longest in southern Greece, as well as the Aegean islands, which came largely under the control of Venice. 1203, as well as the areas controlled by the Byzantine central government at the time. Alexander Kazhdan, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
25.
Ottoman dynasty
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The Ottoman dynasty was made up of the members of the imperial House of Osman. According to Ottoman tradition, the family originated from the Kayı tribe branch of the Oghuz Turks, the Ottoman dynasty, named after Osman I, ruled the Ottoman Empire from c.1299 to 1922. During much of the Empires history, the sultan was the regent, head of state. The imperial family was deposed from power and the sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922 after the Turkish War of Independence, the Republic of Turkey was declared the following year. The living members of the dynasty were sent into exile as persona non gratae, though some have been allowed to return. In its current form, the family is known as the Osmanoğlu family, before Orhans proclamation of the dynasty, the tribe was known as the Bilecik Söğüt Beylik or Beys but was renamed Osmanlı in honor of Osman. The Ottoman dynasty is known in modern Turkish as Osmanlı Hanedanı, meaning House of Osman, in Ottoman Turkish it was known as Hanedan-ı Âl-i Osman, thus they still formally acknowledged the sovereignty of the Seljuk Empire and its successor, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm. The first Ottoman ruler to claim the title of Sultan was Murad I. The holder of the title Sultan was in Arabic-Islamic dynasties originally the power behind the throne of the Caliph in Bagdad, the Ottoman sultans also claimed the title of Caliph starting with Murad I, who transformed the Ottoman state into a transcontinental empire. With the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II Fatih claimed the title Kaysar-i-Rûm Emperor of Rome and he appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadius Scholarius, whom he protected and whose status he elevated into leader of all the Eastern Orthodox Christians. As Emperor of Rome he laid claim to all Roman territories, Sultan Mehmed II also took the title of Padishah, a Persian title meaning Master of Kings and ranking as Emperor, claiming superiority among the other kings. He was the first Ottoman ruler to adopt the title of Padishah. The Ottoman claim to caliphate was strengthened when they defeated the Mamluks in 1517, as the empire grew, sultans adopted secondary titles expressing the empires claim to be the legitimate successor of the absorbed states. Furthermore, they tended to enumerate even regular provinces, not unlike the long lists of -mainly inherited- feudal titles in the style of many Christian European monarchs. Some early Ottoman Sultans even had to accept the status in the eyes of a foreign overlord. However, the Ottoman Caliphate too was abolished soon afterwards, and Abdulmecid II was utterly deposed and expelled from Turkey with the rest of the Ottoman dynasty on 3 March 1924
26.
Battle of Adrianople (1205)
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It was won by the Bulgarians, who took Baldwin prisoner. Instead of continuing onwards, on the 12–13 April, year 1204 AD, numerous cultural treasures were either destroyed or stolen, such as sacred texts, relics, manuscripts, icons, archives, works of art, as well as much wealth. The heart of Orthodox Christianity suffered irreparable damage, both from the sack and the fires caused by the Crusader siege, around the same time, Tsar Kaloyan, the Tsar of Bulgaria, successfully completed negotiations with Pope Innocent III. The Bulgarian ruler was granted the title rex, i. e. king, while the Bulgarian archbishop gained the title primas, Latin knights began crossing the border to pillage Bulgarian towns and villages. In the winter of 1204-1205 messengers of the local Greek aristocracy visited Kaloyan, in the spring of 1205, Didymoteicho and Adrianople revolted, followed soon after by the entirety of Thrace. Emperor Baldwin I marched his army north and reached Adrianople by the end of March, the Latins did not attack the castle head on, rather, they began a prolonged siege, in order to tire the defenders. By surrounding the city with siege machinery and digging mines under the walls, they weakened the defences. The main forces of Latin knights created well-structured guarded camps around the city to spot, in front of each gate of the castle walls a unit was placed, which notably included a Venetian contingent led by Doge Enrico Dandolo. Honouring his obligations to the rebellious Greeks, Tsar Kaloyan arrived with his army, According to Geoffrey of Villehardouin, a French historian and knight who had accompanied the Crusaders to the Balkans, the army consisted of up to 54,000 men. Numerous researchers pinpoint the location of the north of Adrianople and near the keep of Vukelon - K. Jireče, V. Guzelev. In other scriptures, it reads. and hid in the narrows in the shadowy forests, According to the monk Alberik, the location of the battle was plentiful with water marshes. Nowadays, the most common sight that is pointed as the place of the battle are the meanders of the Tùndzha river, army of Tsar/King Kaloyan According to the French historian Geoffrey of Villehardouin, the Bulgarian army numbered around 54 thousand strong. Within that army was also the cavalry of the Cumans. The French historian points out there were about 14,000 of them. Nonetheless, their cavalry played a key role in the battle, army of the Latin Empire and Venice The total number of knights under the walls of Adrianople was 300. Accompanying them were a number of cavalry and infantry soldiers and the Venetian forces. This being said, the amount was not greater than four thousand, yet it is not clear how many soldiers took part in the battle. Geoffrey of Villehardouin points out that the majority of the knights, each with his own unit, as well as all the Venetians chased after the Cumans and land directly into the Bulgarian ambush
27.
Bulgarians
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Bulgarians are a South Slavic ethnic group who are native to Bulgaria and its neighboring regions. Bulgarian citizenship shall further be acquirable through naturalization, the population of Bulgaria descend from peoples with different origins and numbers. They became assimilated by the Slavic settlers in the First Bulgarian Empire, from the indigenous Thracian people certain cultural and ethnic elements were taken. Other pre-Slavic Indo-European peoples, including Dacians, Celts, Goths, Romans, Greeks, the Thracian language has been described as a southern Baltic language. Some pre-Slavic linguistic and cultural traces might have preserved in modern Bulgarians. Medieval historians claimed that the Triballi are the largest tribe and that subsequently changed their name to Bulgarians or Serbs. Others claimed that the Paeonians are Bulgarians, others claimed that the Moesi, according to archeological evidence from the late periods of Roman rule, the Romans did not decrease the number of Thracians significantly in major cities. The latter gradually inflicting total linguistic replacement of Thracian if the Thracians had not already been Romanized or Hellenized and they continued coming to the Balkans in many waves, but also leaving, most notably Justinian II settled as many as 30,000 Slavs from Thrace in Asia Minor. The Byzantines grouped the numerous Slavic tribes into two groups, the Sklavenoi and Antes, some Bulgarian scholars suggest that the Antes became one of the ancestors of the modern Bulgarians. The control of the Bulgars in the west was indirect and in the hands of the Slavic chiefs, the Bulgars are first mentioned in the 4th century in the vicinity of the North Caucasian steppe. However, any connection between the Bulgars and postulated Asian counterparts rest on little more than speculative and contorted etymologies. The Bulgars are not thought to have numerous, becoming a ruling elite in the areas they controlled. Their archeological evidence is concentrated in northeast Bulgaria and in Macedonia, mixed Bulgar-Slavic settlements emerged according to archeological evidence. Omurtag was the last ruler with a Turkic name and during the reign of Boris the Slavonic language reached an official level, a substantional number of loan words of the Bulgar language remained in the Medieval Bulgarian Slavic language and fewer survived in the modern. During the Early Byzantine Era, the Roman provincials in Scythia Minor and Moesia Secunda were already engaged in economic, the major port towns in Pontic Bulgaria remained Byzantine Greek in their outlook. The establishment of a new state molded the various Slav, Bulgar, in different periods to the ethnogenesis of the local population contributed also different Indo-European and Turkic people, who settled or lived on the Balkans. The First Bulgarian Empire was founded in 681, after the adoption of Orthodox Christianity in 864 it became one of the cultural centres of Slavic Europe. Its leading cultural position was consolidated with the invention of the Cyrillic script in its capital Preslav at the eve of the 10th century
28.
Cenotaph
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A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek, κενοτάφιον kenotaphion Cenotaphs were common in the ancient world with many built in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and across Northern Europe. The Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, contains a number of cenotaphs including one for Dante Alighieri, a cenotaph is the focal point of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, South Africa. It is situated below the main point of interest, a marble Historical Frieze in the Hall of Heroes. The Hall of Heroes itself has a dome from the summit of one can view the interior of the monument. At noon on 16 December each year the sun shines through another opening in the dome onto the middle of the cenotaph, the ray of sunshine symbolises Gods blessing on the lives and endeavours of the Voortrekkers. 16 December is the date in 1838 that the Battle of Blood River was fought, durban, South Africa, has a striking and unusual cenotaph made of granite and lavishly decorated with brightly coloured ceramics. Port Elizabeth, South Africa, has a cenotaph, on either side of the central sarcophagus are statues by Technical College Art School principal, James Gardner, who served in the trenches during the war. One depicts St George and the Dragon, the other depicts the sanctity of family life, surrounding the sarcophagus are a number of bas-relief panels depicting scenes and people during the First World War. It was unveiled by Mrs W F Savage and dedicated by Canon Mayo on 10 November 1929, a surrounding memorial wall commemorates the men and women killed during World War II. In Livingstone there is a cenotaph at the Eastern Cataract of The Victoria Falls with the names of the men of Northern Rhodesia who died during the Great War 1914–18 and it was unveiled by HRH Prince Arthur of Connaught on 1 August 1923. There is also a cenotaph in Lusaka at Embassy Park, opposite the Cabinet Office along Independence Avenue, the cenotaph was commemorated in 1977. A monument which has come to be known to as the Cenotaph was erected in Plaza San Martín, in downtown Buenos Aires, to commemorate the Argentinian soldiers who died during the Falklands War, in 1982. The monument consists of a series of plaques of marble with the names of the fallen, surrounding a flame. Another cenotaph, which is a replica of the Argentine Military Cemetery in Darwin on the Falkland Islands, exists in Campo de Mayo, a limestone replica of the Cenotaph at Whitehall in London was erected outside the Cabinet Building in Hamilton, Bermuda in 1920. In the United States, a cenotaph in Yale Universitys Hewitt Quad honours men of Yale who died in battle, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial in Dallas is often described as a cenotaph. It has an Egyptian Revival cenotaph base, surmounted by a fasces bound together with ribbons bearing the names of the dead and it was designed by French émigré architect Maximilian Godefroy in 1815, and construction was completed in 1827
29.
Fall of Constantinople
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The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by an invading army of the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453. The Ottomans were commanded by the then 21-year-old Mehmed the Conqueror, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of Constantinople followed a 53-day siege that had begun on 6 April 1453, the capture of Constantinople marked the end of the Roman Empire, an imperial state that had lasted for nearly 1,500 years. The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople also dealt a blow to Christendom. After the conquest, Sultan Mehmed II transferred the capital of the Ottoman Empire from Edirne to Constantinople. The conquest of the city of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire was a key event in the Late Middle Ages, which also marks, for some historians, Constantinople had been an imperial capital since its consecration in 330 under Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great. In the following centuries, the city had been besieged many times but was captured only once. The crusaders established an unstable Latin state in and around Constantinople while the remaining empire splintered into a number of Byzantine successor states, notably Nicaea, Epirus and they fought as allies against the Latin establishments, but also fought among themselves for the Byzantine throne. The Nicaeans eventually reconquered Constantinople from the Latins in 1261, thereafter there was little peace for the much-weakened empire as it fended off successive attacks by the Latins, the Serbians, the Bulgarians, and, most importantly, the Ottoman Turks. The Black Plague between 1346 and 1349 killed almost half of the inhabitants of Constantinople, the Empire of Trebizond, an independent successor state that formed in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, also survived on the coast of the Black Sea. This optimism was reinforced by friendly assurances made by Mehmed to envoys sent to his new court, but Mehmeds actions spoke far louder than his mild words. Since the mutual excommunications of 1054, the Pope in Rome was committed to establishing authority over the eastern church, nominal union had been negotiated in 1274, at the Second Council of Lyon, and indeed, some Palaiologoi emperors had since been received into the Latin church. Emperor John VIII Palaiologos had also recently negotiated union with Pope Eugene IV, finally, the attempted Union failed, greatly annoying Pope Nicholas V and the hierarchy of the Roman church. Although some troops did arrive from the city states in the north of Italy. Some Western individuals, however, came to defend the city on their own account. One of these was a soldier from Genoa, Giovanni Giustiniani. A specialist in defending walled cities, he was given the overall command of the defense of the land walls by the emperor. In Venice, meanwhile, deliberations were taking place concerning the kind of assistance the Republic would lend to Constantinople
30.
Manuel I Komnenos
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Manuel I Komnenos was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean. His reign saw the last flowering of the Komnenian restoration, during which the Byzantine Empire had seen a resurgence of its military and economic power, and had enjoyed a cultural revival. Eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the superpower of the Mediterranean world, Manuel pursued an energetic, in the process he made alliances with the Pope and the resurgent West. He invaded the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, although unsuccessfully, the passage of the potentially dangerous Second Crusade was adroitly managed through his empire. Manuel established a Byzantine protectorate over the Crusader states of Outremer, facing Muslim advances in the Holy Land, he made common cause with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and participated in a combined invasion of Fatimid Egypt. Called ho Megas by the Greeks, Manuel is known to have inspired loyalty in those who served him. He also appears as the hero of a written by his secretary, John Kinnamos. Manuel, who was influenced by his contact with western Crusaders, modern historians, however, have been less enthusiastic about him. Manuel Komnenos was the son of John II Komnenos and Piroska of Hungary. His maternal grandfather was St. Ladislaus, having distinguished himself in his fathers war against the Seljuk Turks, in 1143 Manuel was chosen as his successor by John, in preference to his elder surviving brother Isaac. After John died on 8 April 1143, his son, Manuel, was acclaimed emperor by the armies and he still had to take care of his fathers funeral, and tradition demanded he organise the foundation of a monastery on the spot where his father died. Axouch arrived in the capital even before news of the death had reached it. He quickly secured the loyalty of the city, and when Manuel entered the capital in August 1143, he was crowned by the new Patriarch, Michael Kourkouas. A few days later, with nothing more to fear as his position as emperor was now secure, then he ordered 2 golden pieces to be given to every householder in Constantinople and 200 pounds of gold to be given to the Byzantine Church. The empire that Manuel inherited from his father had undergone great changes since its foundation by Constantine, in the time of his predecessor Justinian I, parts of the former Western Roman Empire had been recovered including Italy, Africa and part of Spain. They had then swept on westwards into what in the time of Constantine had been the provinces of the Roman Empire, in North Africa. In the centuries since, the emperors had ruled over a realm that largely consisted of Asia Minor in the east, yet the empire that Manuel inherited was a polity facing formidable challenges. At the end of the 11th century, the Normans of Sicily had removed Italy from the control of the Byzantine Emperor, the Seljuk Turks had done the same with central Anatolia
31.
Thomas F. Madden
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He has frequently appeared in the media, as a consultant for various programs on the History Channel and National Public Radio. In 2007, he was awarded the Haskins Medal from the Medieval Academy of America, for his book Enrico Dandolo, in 2012, he was named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Madden received his bachelors degree from the University of New Mexico in 1986, Madden is active in the Society for the Study of the Crusades in the Latin East, and organizes panels for the Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Saint Louis, Missouri. He is the Director of the Crusades Studies Forum and the Medieval Italy Prosopographical Database Project and his research specialties are ancient and medieval history, including the Fourth Crusade, as well as ancient and medieval Italian history. His 1997 revision of The Fourth Crusade, The Conquest of Constantinople was a selection of the History Book Club and he is also known for speaking about the ways that the history of the Crusades is often used for manipulation of modern political agendas. His book, The New Concise History of the Crusades has been translated into seven foreign languages and his book Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice won multiple awards, including the 2007 Haskins Medal from the Medieval Academy of America and the Otto Gründler Prize from the Medieval Institute. According to the Medieval Review, with this book Madden more than ever stakes out his place as one of the most important medievalists in America at present. His 2008 book, Empires of Trust, was a study that sought elements in historic republics that led to the development of empires. In the case of Rome, he argued that their citizens and leaders acquired a level of trust among allies and his most recent book, Venice, A New History is the culmination of decades of work in the archives and libraries of Venice. The Real History of the Crusades, ARMA, March 19,2011 Americas Days Arent Numbered, The Wall Street Journal, not Dead Yet, The Lost Tomb of Jesus -- One Year Later, NRO, March 21,2008. Unreasonable Response, Benedict XVI Hasnt Revived the Crusades, NRO, crusaders and Historians, First Things, June/July 2005. Soldiers, Ridley Scotts Kingdom of Heaven, NRO, May 27,2005, the Real Inquisition, Investigating the Popular Myth, NRO, June 18,2004. The Venetian Version of the Fourth Crusade, Memory and the Conquest of Constantinople in Medieval Venice, Speculum 87, 311-44. The Latin Empire of Constantinople’s Fractured Foundation, The Rift Between Boniface of Montferrat and Baldwin of Flanders, in The Fourth Crusade, Event, Aftermath, and Perceptions, 45-52. Food and the Fourth Crusade, A New Approach to the Diversion Question, in Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, John H. Pryor, ed. 209-28. Venice, the Papacy, and the Crusades before 1204, in The Medieval Crusade, Susan J. Ridyard, the Enduring Myths of the Fourth Crusade, World History Bulletin 20, 11-14. The Chrysobull of Alexius I Comnenus to the Venetians, The Date, venices Hostage Crisis, Diplomatic Efforts to Secure Peace with Byzantium between 1171 and 1184, in Ellen E. Kittell and Thomas F. Madden, eds. Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade, The International History Review 17, Venice and Constantinople in 1171 and 1172, Enrico Dandolo’s Attitude towards Byzantium, Mediterranean Historical Review 8, 166-85
32.
Steven Runciman
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Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman, CH, FBA, known as Steven Runciman, was an English historian best known for his three-volume A History of the Crusades. His three-volume history has had a impact on common conceptions of the Crusades, primarily portraying the Crusaders negatively. Runciman was an admirer of the Byzantine Empire, and consequently held a bias against the Crusaders for the Fourth Crusade evident in his work. While praised by older crusade historians as a storyteller and prose stylist, born in Northumberland, he was the second son of Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford, and Hilda Runciman, Viscountess Runciman of Doxford. Both of his parents were or became members of parliament for the Liberal Party and his father was created Viscount Runciman of Doxford in 1937. His paternal grandfather, Walter Runciman, 1st Baron Runciman, was a shipping magnate and he was named after his maternal grandfather, James Cochran Stevenson, the MP for South Shields. It is said that he was reading Latin and Greek by the age of five, a Kings Scholar at Eton College, he was an exact contemporary and close friend of George Orwell. While there, they both studied French under Aldous Huxley, in 1921 he entered Trinity College of Cambridge University as a history scholar and studied under J. B. Bury, becoming, as Runciman later claimed, falsely, his first, and only, student. At first the reclusive Bury tried to brush him off, then, when Runciman mentioned that he could read Russian, Bury gave him a stack of Bulgarian articles to edit and his work on the Byzantine Empire earned him a fellowship at Trinity in 1927. After receiving an inheritance from his grandfather, Runciman resigned his fellowship in 1938. Thus, for much of his life he was an independent scholar and he went on to be a press attache at the British Legation in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, in 1940 and at the British Embassy in Cairo in 1941. From 1945 to 1947 he was a representative in Athens of the British Council, in his personal life, Runciman was an old-fashioned English eccentric, known, among other things, as an aesthete, raconteur, and enthusiast of the occult. He died in Radway, Warwickshire, while visiting relatives, aged 97, earlier the same year, he had made a final visit to Mount Athos to witness the blessing of the Protaton Tower at Karyes, which had been refurbished thanks to a gift from him. He was interred in Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, jonathan Riley-Smith, one of the leading historians of the Crusades, denounced Runciman for his perspective on the Crusades. Riley-Smith had been told by Runciman during an interview that he considered himself not a historian. Runciman held sympathies toward the Byzantine Empire and blamed the Crusaders, consequently, a bias against the Crusaders is evident in his work. Less than a decade after the Second World War ended, Runciman called the Fourth Crusade the greatest crime committed against humanity, edward Peters claims Runcimans three-volume narrative history, instantly became the most widely known and respected single-author survey of the subject in English. John M. Riddle says that for the part of the twentieth century Runciman was the greatest historian of the Crusades
33.
Geoffrey of Villehardouin
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Geoffrey of Villehardouin was a knight and historian who participated in and chronicled the Fourth Crusade. The Conquest is the earliest French historical prose narrative that has survived to modern times, Ηis full title was, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne and of Romania. A layman and a soldier, he was appointed Marshal of Champagne from 1185, Thibaud named him one of the ambassadors to Venice to procure ships for the voyage, and he helped to elect Boniface of Montferrat as the new leader of the Crusade when Thibaud died. Although he does not say so specifically in his own account, he supported the diversion of the Crusade first to Zara. While at Constantinople he also served as an ambassador to Isaac II Angelus, in recognition of his services, Boniface of Montferrat gave to Geoffrey the city of Messinopolis in Thrace. After the Crusade, he was named Marshal of the Latin Empire, in 1207 he began to write his chronicle of the Crusade, On the Conquest of Constantinople. It was in French rather than Latin, making it one of the earliest works of French prose, villehardouins nephew Geoffrey I of Villehardouin went on to become Prince of Achaea in Morea in 1209. Villehardouin himself seems to have died shortly afterwards and his son Erard had taken, in 1213, the title of seigneur de Villehardouin. There is evidence of his children raising memorials for him in 1218, chronicle of Morea Chronicles of the Crusades, translated by Margaret R. B. ISBN 0-14-044124-7 Colin Morris, Geoffroy de Villehardouin and the Conquest of Constantinople, History 53, cristian Bratu, “Je, aucteur de ce livre, Authorial Persona and Authority in French Medieval Histories and Chronicles. ”In Authorities in the Middle Ages. Influence, Legitimacy and Power in Medieval Society, sini Kangas, Mia Korpiola, and Tuija Ainonen, eds. Cristian Bratu, “Clerc, Chevalier, Aucteur, The Authorial Personae of French Medieval Historians from the 12th to the 15th centuries. ”In Authority and Gender in Medieval, juliana Dresvina and Nicholas Sparks, eds
34.
Republic of Genoa
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It began when Genoa became a self-governing commune within the Regnum Italicum, and ended when it was conquered by the French First Republic under Napoleon and replaced with the Ligurian Republic. Corsica was ceded to France in the Treaty of Versailles of 1768, before 1100, Genoa emerged as an independent city-state, one of a number of Italian city-states during this period. Nominally, the Holy Roman Emperor was overlord and the Bishop of Genoa was president of the city, however, actual power was wielded by a number of consuls annually elected by popular assembly. The Adorno, Campofregoso, and other merchant families all fought for power in this Republic, as the power of the consuls allowed each family faction to gain wealth. The Republic of Genoa extended over modern Liguria and Piedmont, Sardinia, Corsica, through Genoese participation on the Crusades, Genoese colonies were established in the Middle East, in the Aegean, in Sicily and Northern Africa. The collapse of the Crusader States was offset by Genoa’s alliance with the Byzantine Empire, as Venices relations with the Byzantine Empire were temporarily disrupted by the Fourth Crusade and its aftermath, Genoa was able to improve its position. Genoa took advantage of opportunity to expand into the Black Sea and Crimea. Internal feuds between the families, the Grimaldi and Fieschi, the Doria, Spinola, and others caused much disruption. However, this prosperity did not last, the Black Death was imported into Europe in 1347 from the Genoese trading post at Caffa in Crimea, on the Black Sea. Following the economic and population collapse, Genoa adopted the Venetian model of government, the wars with Venice continued, and the War of Chioggia -- where Genoa almost managed to decisively subdue Venice—ended with Venices recovery of dominance in the Adriatic. In 1390 Genoa initiated a crusade against the Barbary pirates with help from the French, though it has not been well-studied, the fifteenth century seems to have been a tumultuous time for Genoa. After a period of French domination from 1394–1409, Genoa came under rule by the Visconti of Milan, Genoa lost Sardinia to Aragon, Corsica to internal revolt and its Middle Eastern, Eastern European and Asia Minor colonies to the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Under the ensuing economic recovery, many aristocratic Genoese families, such as the Balbi, Doria, Grimaldi, Pallavicini, according to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and others, the practices Genoa developed in the Mediterranean were crucial in the exploration and exploitation of the New World. At the time of Genoa’s peak in the 16th century, the city attracted many artists, including Rubens, Caravaggio and Van Dyck. The architect Galeazzo Alessi designed many of the city’s splendid palazzi, as did in the decades that followed by fifty years Bartolomeo Bianco, a number of Genoese Baroque and Rococo artists settled elsewhere and a number of local artists became prominent. At the time of its founding in the early 11th century the Republic of Genoa consisted of the city of Genoa, as the commerce of the city increased, so did the territory of the Republic. By 1015 all of Liguria fell under the Republic of Genoa, after the First Crusade in 1098 Genoa gained settlements in Syria. In 1261 the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor became Genoese territory, in 1255 Genoa established the colony of Caffa in Crimea
35.
Anna Dandolo
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Anna Dandolo was a Venetian noblewoman who became Queen consort of Serbia as the second wife of King Stefan the First-Crowned, founder of the Serbian kingdom. She was crowned at Stefans coronation in 1217, and she held this title until his death on 24 September 1228 and she was the granddaughter of Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice. King Stefan Uroš I was her son, Anna was born in Venice, Republic of Venice, on an unknown date, the daughter of Rainero Dandolo, Vice-Doge of Venice, and Procurator of San Marco. Her paternal grandfather was Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, who had made incursions into Zadar. In 1209, her father was killed in battle against the Genoese during the conquest of Candia, following the splendid festivities held in their honour, the bridal couple were then transported with much fanfare by galley to Dalmatia. Anna was his wife, his first, Eudokia Angelina. In 1217, Stefan was crowned the first King of Serbia by Archbishop Sava, shortly before his death on 24 September 1228, King Stefan took monastic vows. Anna lived until 1264, long enough to see her son, Stephen Uroš succeed to the Serbian throne in 1243 following the deposition of his half-brother. Stephen Uroš I married Helen of Anjou, by whom he had issue and it is believed that Anna died in 1258. She was buried in the Sopoćani monastery, a mausoleum where Stefan the First-Crowned. The work has dated to between 1263 and 1268. Together they had one son, Stephen Uroš I, born in about 1223, and she also had three stepsons from her husbands former marriage. Italian poet Gabriele dAnnunzio immortalised Anna in his 1914 Ode alla nazione serba with the line, O Serbia, list of Serbian consorts Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti. Glas - Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti
36.
Serbia
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Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a sovereign state situated at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central Balkans. Relative to its territory, it is a diverse country distinguished by a transitional character, situated along cultural, geographic, climatic. Serbia numbers around 7 million residents, and its capital, Belgrade, following the Slavic migrations to the Balkans from the 6th century onwards, Serbs established several states in the early Middle Ages. The Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by Rome and the Byzantine Empire in 1217, in the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the regions first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia formed a union with Montenegro which dissolved peacefully in 2006, in 2008 the parliament of the province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, with mixed responses from the international community. Serbia is a member of organizations such as the UN, CoE, OSCE, PfP, BSEC. An EU membership candidate since 2012, Serbia has been negotiating its EU accession since January 2014, the country is acceding to the WTO and is a militarily neutral state. Serbia is an income economy with dominant service sector, followed by the industrial sector. The country ranks high on the Social Progress Index as well as the Global Peace Index, relatively high on the Human Development Index, located at the crossroads between Central and Southern Europe, Serbia is found in the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain. Serbia lies between latitudes 41° and 47° N, and longitudes 18° and 23° E. The country covers a total of 88,361 km2, which places it at 113th place in the world, with Kosovo excluded, the area is 77,474 km2. Its total border length amounts to 2,027 km, all of Kosovos border with Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro are under control of the Kosovo border police. The Pannonian Plain covers the third of the country while the easternmost tip of Serbia extends into the Wallachian Plain. The terrain of the part of the country, with the region of Šumadija at its heart. Mountains dominate the third of Serbia. Dinaric Alps stretch in the west and the southwest, following the flow of the rivers Drina, the Carpathian Mountains and Balkan Mountains stretch in a north–south direction in eastern Serbia. Ancient mountains in the southeast corner of the country belong to the Rilo-Rhodope Mountain system, elevation ranges from the Midžor peak of the Balkan Mountains at 2,169 metres to the lowest point of just 17 metres near the Danube river at Prahovo. The largest lake is Đerdap Lake and the longest river passing through Serbia is the Danube, the climate of Serbia is under the influences of the landmass of Eurasia and the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea
37.
Stefan the First-Crowned
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Stefan Nemanjić or Stefan the First-Crowned was Grand Prince of Serbia from 1196, and the King of Serbia from 1217 until his death in 1228. Stefans literary opus is modest but of high quality and he wrote The Life of Stefan Nemanja a biography of his father. Stefan Nemanjić was the second-eldest son of Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja and Anastasija and his older brother and heir apparent, Vukan, ruled over Zeta and the neighbouring provinces while his younger brother Rastko ruled over Hum. The Byzantines attacked Serbia in 1191, raiding the banks of South Morava, Nemanja had a tactical advantage, and began to raid the Byzantine armies. Isaac II Angelus summoned a peace treaty, and the marriage of Nemanjas son Stefan to Eudokia Angelina, Stefan Nemanjić received the title of sebastokrator. In an inscription dated 1195 in the church of St. Luke in Kotor, Vukan is titled as King of Duklja, Dalmatia, Travunia, Toplica and Hvosno. Although Vukan was Nemanjas eldest son, Nemanja preferred to see Stefan II on the Serbian throne mostly because Stefan was married to Byzantine princess Eudokia and it seems that Vukan reacted on this change in succession by declaring himself King of Duklja. Although he assumed a royal title, Vukan remained under his fathers authority. On 25 March 1196, Stefan Nemanja summoned a Council in Ras and this decision was not in accordance with the traditional right of primogeniture, according to which Vukan should inherited the throne. This was not accepted lightly by Vukan, Nemanja took monastic vows in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul and adopted the monastic name of Simeon. Simeon subsequently retired to his Studenica monastery and Anastasia retired to the Monastery of the Mother of Christ in Kuršumlija, after numerous pleas by Sava, Simeon left to the Mount Athos, and joined Sava in 1197 in the Vatopedi monastery. In 1199, the two rebuilt the ruined Eastern Orthodox Monastery of Hilandar given to the Serbian people by the Byzantine Emperor. Simeon died on 13 February 1199, while Nemanja was alive Vukan didnt oppose Stefans rule but as soon as Nemanja died, he started to plot against him in order to become Grand Prince. He found aid in Hungarian king Emeric who at the time fought against the Second Bulgarian Empire, with the help of Hungarian troops in 1202, Vukan managed to overthrow Stefan, who fled into Bulgaria. Vukan was left to rule Serbia, in an inscription dating to 1202–1203, Vukan is titled as Grand Župan Vukan, Ruler of all Serbian land, Zeta, maritime towns and land of Nišava. In return for Hungarian help, Vukan became a Hungarian vassal, however, as a Hungarian vassal, Vukan soon got involved in the conflict with Bulgaria. In 1203 the Bulgarian army attacked Vukan, annexing Niš, in the chaos that followed, and using Vukanss sympaties for Catholicism against him, Stefan managed to return to Serbia and overthrow Vukan in 1204 becoming ruler again. Vukan was pushed into his holdings of Zeta, in the meantime, Bishop Sava, had success on Mount Athos, founding the cradle of Serbian Christianity
