Download PDF | The Latin Renovatio Of Byzantium The Empire Of Constantinople, 1204– 1228 ( Medieval Mediterranean)
Pages: 549
PREFACE
The present book has been in the making for a long time. I first came into contact with the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1995 during my history studies at the University of Ghent when a professor of mine, dr. Thérése de Hemptinne, suggested Henry of Flanders/ Hainaut—the second Latin Emperor of Constantinople—as a possible subject for my licentiate’s thesis. The prospect of writing a biography of such a valiant knight, as he is for instance portrayed in Henry of Valenciennes’ chronicle, appealed to me instantly.
Since my childhood days I have been interested in the Middle Ages and, of course, especially in the knightly lifestyle. On our many holidays in France my parents always took me and my older brothers to visit the nearby castles, abbeys and cathedrals. Carcassonne was unforgettable. The sight of the magnificent ruins of the so-called Cathar strongholds in the Pyrenees, such as Peyrepertuse, captured my imagination. Closer to home my favourites were, and still remain, the castle of Beersel (near Brussels)—which functioned as the setting of an episode of an in Belgium well-known comic book—and the unique Count’s Castle in my hometown of Ghent, which my now six year old stepson Stan is also very fond of.
It is true to say that my mother and father with these and other cultural excursions nurtured in me a deep love for human history, with a clear partiality for the medieval period. As a kid I consequently built many a Lego fortress, fought many a fierce battle with my Playmobil army and—last but not least— enthusiastically dressed up as a Templar knight.
After I had succesfully completed my licentiate’s thesis, I obtained a scholarship enabling me to prepare a doctorate’s thesis. It went without saying that I would continue my research concerning the Latin Empire, which had aroused my interest with its complex and fascinating relations between the various peoples and cultures involved. The dissertation that I embarked upon in short aimed at unravelling the political identity of the Latin Empire in the years 1204-1261. In the Spring of 2003 this work was finished.
The publication at hand is to be considerd as a thoroughly reworked version of the first part of my dissertation. A number of revisions were indeed in order in the context of the relative flood of publications that appeared in the wake of the 800th anniversary of the crusader conquest of Constantinople in 2004. Professionally I had meanwhile taken on a job as a parliamentary assistant, in which capacity I passed as it happens on a regular basis the first Latin Emperor Baldwin of Flanders/Hainaut’s somewhat forgotten statue, portraying him in imperial robes, in the entrance hall of the federal parliament building in Brussels.
Because of the international character of the chosen topic there were many challenges I had to overcome while writing this book. These were mainly related to the varied nature, inter alia linguistically and typologically, of the available source material and of the already existing literature. The path often seemed uncertain, the road ahead a slippery slope. However, in the years that have past since I began my research, I have been fortunate in being able to rely on the never failing aid and support of a number of people, whom I would all like to thank warmly.
My promotor, the kindhearted prof. dr. Thérése de Hemptinne, without doubt deserves a special mention. She inspired me to undertake this work and motivated me to finish it. I also want to single out prof.-em. dr. Edmond Voordeckers, who encouraged me while still working on my licentiate thesis and who has managed to pass on to me his passion for Byzantium, though he most likely is unaware of his influence. Further I should thank prof. dr. David Jacoby, prof. dr. Walter Prevenier, prof. dr. Jeannine Vereecken and dr. Krijnie Ciggaar for their valuable remarks.
On a more personal level I am indebted to my good friends Kim and Stijn, who—at a time when morale was low—jestingly made me solemnly promise that one day I would complete this book. Of course I also thank my mother-in-law Chris for providing the beautiful cover painting and my brother Peter for skillfully photographing it. Last but certainly not least I want to thank my sweetheart Borg (you truly are the love of my life), my dear stepson Stan—who likens himself to Constantine the Great and aspires to be a knight one day, or an astronaut or a racing cyclist for that matter—and my little daughter Juno Guinevere for the happiness and joy they daily bring to me. Ultimately I would like to thank my ever caring mother and father, without whom this book would never have been written and to whom it is thus dedicated.
INTRODUCTION
The Latin Empire of Constantinople, under which name the political construction that ensued from the conquest of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by a Western crusading army in 1204 is known in literature, has often been treated in contemporary historiography in a rather step-motherly manner. This can be explained because, from a thematic point of view, the Latin Empire lies at the crossroads of two domains of study, both of which can be looked upon as sub-disciplines of medieval studies, on the one hand Byzantine studies and on the other Crusades studies. For Byzantinists, the Latin Empire unvaryingly remains a regrettable anomaly in the history of glorious Byzantium.
The violent Latin occupation of Constantinople, as well as that of a number of surrounding territories, was to herald the definitive beginning of the end of the Byzantine Empire. As the consequence of the Fourth Crusade, crusade historians for their part view the Latin Empire as a blot on its escutcheon. The crusade against fellow Christians is judged as an unparalleled act of ignominy that further weakened the already difficult position of the Latin principalities in Syria and Palestine.
The consequence of the virtually invariable negative image that the Latin Empire has had to bear, has been that it has in itself scarcely formed the object of in-depth or extensive research. It has generally only received indirect attention from an explicit crusading or Byzantine perspective. For example, in the more recent monographs on the neighbouring Byzantine principalities of the Latin Empire—the empire of Nicaea and the state of Epiros, the later empire of Thessalonike—we therefore receive a not very elucidating, even biased image of the Latin Empire, which has then been adopted in more general works on the history of the Byzantine Empire.’ Of course there has already been some research into various sub-aspects in respect of the Latin takeover of former Byzantine territories.
However, the emphasis in this lay principally on socio-economic themes, whilst politico-institutional subjects were treated only in detail studies with limited scope.’ The most recent world-language monograph about the Latin Empire— Longnon’s Histoire de l’Empire latin de Constantinople—dates back to 1949 and was set up mainly as a narrative history of the empire.* Up to this very day there has been no modern monograph on the political history of this empire, such as that in existence for Nicaea and Epiros. Rather, as a consequence of this, until now our knowledge about the Latin Empire in this domain has remained somewhat superficial. It is the intention that this book will provide a contribution to remedying this unsatisfactory situation.
DEFINITION OF THE PROBLEM
The concrete aim that we have in the formulation of this work is the writing of a politico-institutional history of the Latin Empire in the period 1204-1228. The commencement date of this period speaks for itself in the light of the fact that the Latin occupation of Byzantium started in the year 1204. The end date is inspired by the finding that around the year 1228 some very fundamental changes occurred in the character of the Latin Empire. Suffice it to say here that in the mid1220s the Latin Empire lost permanently some very considerable territories, which was to change the face of the empire drastically and irrevocably.
In writing this political history we would like to examine two postulations that currently dominate the historiography with respect to the Latin Empire. The first of these is that the Latin Empire was a political construction that can be characterized as fundamentally Western, both as regards its institutional organization and its political elite. Byzantine administrative mechanisms will, if at all, have been retained only at a local level. Further, the political elite of the Latin Empire will to a great extent have been Latin, whereby at the very most there would be a place in the administration only at local level for the Byzantine aristocracy and population.
In line with this, Latin-Byzantine relations in the Latin Empire are usually described in negative terms. The second postulation is that the empire, which was built on the basis of feudalistic principles, formed to only a very small extent a real political entity. The feudal principalities and regions in the empire, which were in principle dependent on the Latin emperor’s suzerainty, would de facto have formed practically independent entities. Moreover, with regard to these two postulations, in general only little attention is paid to any possible evolutions that might have taken place.’
Taking these two hypotheses in the current literature as our starting point, we come to the two central issues of this study. Firstly, we shall examine the way in which the Latin Empire formed a real political entity, if indeed it did so. Essentially, this comes down to making a comparative assessment between the centripetal and centrifugal political forces in the feudally structured empire. What was the relationship between the imperial authority in Constantinople and the regional, feudal authorities? Secondly, we ask the question as to the extent to which the Latin Empire in its administrative organization can now be characterized as Latin or as Byzantine. Central to this will be the nature of the administrative mechanisms and the constitution of the political elite at the various levels of policy. The combination of both questions must make it possible to chart the essence of the political system of the Latin Empire in the years 1204-1228.
In order to address these issues, we designed the following plan for this study. To ascertain the political identity of the Latin Empire, we have divided this work into two large sections. We discuss in the first section the internal administrative organization of the empire. In the various chapters we examine in succession the context in which the Latin Empire came into being, the imperial ideology that the Latin emperors endeavoured to build up, the reality of the imperial authority and its relationship with the feudal princes and lords in the empire, the concrete administrative organization of both the imperial domain and the diverse feudal entities within the empire, the constitution of the central political elite of the empire and, finally, the role of a number of supraregional, religious institutions.
In the second section we examine the empire’s international position, and in particular the position taken by the empire in the eastern Mediterranean basin. In this, we make a distinction between two sub-regions, the Byzantine space and the Latin Orient. Although the examination of the relations between Latin Romania and the more distant, West European powers—in itself a subject for an exhaustive, separate study—would certainly have provided us with useful information concerning our question, from a practical point of view it was not possible for us to carry out in-depth research into this subject too. However, in the course of the various chapters the relations with, inter alia, the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire certainly are dealt with.
SOURCES
The source material that is available for the study of the political structure of the Latin Empire of Constantinople can be described as being both comprehensive and very limited at the same time. An abundance of sources of diverse origins report on the Latin Empire, but most of them can provide us with only a modest amount of information. In this work we have tried to collate these numerous sources as exhaustively as possible, with the intention of reconstructing an as complete and multifaceted possible picture of the political essence of the Latin Empire. In this we focus principally on published source material, since, with respect to the politico-institutional history of the Latin Empire scarcely any archival material has been handed down to us.
Nonetheless, a small-scale examination of archives in Venice introduced us to a number of interesting documents about which up to now little or nothing was known. On the basis of their language and origin, the source material can be categorized as coming from Latin, Byzantine and Eastern sources, and we provide a brief discussion of the available material in each of these categories.°
The Latin sources form a diverse entity. Firstly, there are the sources that originated in the Latin Empire itself. As regards narrative material, for the early years of the empire we have at our disposal the comprehensive chronicles from the pen of Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Henry of Valenciennes and Robert of Clari. As marshal of the Empire, Villehardouin was one of the most influential Latin barons at the imperial court in the first two decades of the empire. However, his chronicle encompasses only the early years of the imperium (1204-1207).° The clerk Henry of Valenciennes was part of the entourage of the second Latin Emperor, Henry of Flanders/Hainaut. In some way, his chronicle forms the chronological sequel to that of Villehardouin, and covers the period 1208-1209.’
Because of their prominent position at the imperial court, each of these chroniclers can be seen as spokesmen of an official, imperial view of the Latin Empire. In contrast, Robert of Clari, who had already left the imperium in 1205, was a minor knight in the army of the Fourth Crusade. He voiced the feelings of the bulk of this army that took Constantinople in 1204 and laid the foundations for the Latin imperium. His chronicle contains information about the Latin Empire in the years 1204-1216, but concentrates mainly on the years 1204-1205, during which he was still present in the empire.
The three above-mentioned contemporary chroniclers regarded the Western take-over of the Byzantine imperial throne in an almost matter-of-fact manner as completely legitimate, an element that should be constantly borne in mind in the critical reading of their chronicles. Incidentally, the same comment also applies to all Western accounts of the Fourth Crusade, which for the greater part also deal with the first years of the Latin Empire. An example of this is Gunther of Pairis’ account of the Fourth Crusade and the first years of the Latin Empire. This chronicle was drawn up on the basis of the word-of-mouth account that Martinus, abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Pairis and participant in the Fourth Crusade, gave to the monk Gunther after his return to his home province in the West.
After circa 1210 there are scarcely any narrative sources available to us that have their origins in the empire itself, with the exception of a few narrative imperial letters sent to friendly Western princes and authorities.’? One exception is the fourteenth-century Chronicle of Morea, extant in four different languages and versions, which for the first decades of the thirteenth century, however, is strongly tinted with legend and offers only little relevant information."
Just as the narrative sources, the diplomatic material originating in the Latin Empire itself can de described as very limited. Of the Latin emperors there are only a few charters known. Furthermore, most of these documents relate to the relations with Western powers, rulers and institutions. There are virtually no imperial documents available that provide information about the internal administration of the empire.”
The same also applies to the regional rulers in the empire, and to the religious institutions, the bishoprics, monasteries and convents. For example, of the Latin patriarchs of Constantinople there are only five known charters.* There is rather more diplomatic material that throws light on the administrative structure of the empire at our disposal from the archives of the city of Venice, an important partner in the Latin Empire. However, this is material that offers us information from a principally Venetian point of view, and relates to those territories where La Serenissima had interests to defend.'* Notarial material from Venetian merchants based in Constantinople or elsewhere in Latin Romania occasionally provides interesting information.’
In addition to the sources emanating from the empire itself there is an abundance of Latin sources available; these originated either in the West or in the Latin principalities in Syria and Palestine. Of the Western chronicles from the Holy Land it is in particular the continuations of William of Tyre’s twelfth-century chronicle Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum that are of interest.'° Diplomatic material from religious institutions in the Holy Land with possessions in the Latin Empire provided limited additional information.’” Of the Western chronicles with more than a local perspective there are only few that contain any amount of data on the Latin Empire. Nonetheless, a few universal chronicles provide substantial information. One of these is that of Aubry of Trois-Fontaines.
The work of this monk from the Cistercian abbey of the same name in the county of Champagne provides information about the Latin Empire from 1204 to 1241. A second interesting author is Philippe Mouskes from Tournai, a town in the border area between the French crown domain and the county of Flanders. His Chronique Rimée runs until circa 1243. Interesting data is also to be found in the historic works of Matthew of Paris, a monk of the Benedictine monastery of Saint Albans in England.
The chronological ending point van Paris’ oeuvre is the year 1259.'* The information provided by these authors, despite their considerable geographic separation, can generally be looked upon as reliable. The chroniclers, some of whom provide highly detailed information, generally appear—either directly or indirectly—to have relied on the accounts of travellers and pilgrims who had visited the Latin Empire or on those of envoys who had been sent from Constantinople to the West.
A number of Venetian chronicles also provide some interesting information, albeit invariably from a Venetian viewpoint. Apart from the very brief Chronicon Venetum and the equally fragmentary Historia Ducum Veneticorum, most of the chronicles were composed after the Byzantine recapture of Latin Constantinople in 1261, which had its repercussions on the description of the former vicissitudes of the empire.’” An important chronicle is Martin da Canal’s Estoires de Venise, which was written in the second half of the thirteenth century. Canal, a lower Venetian functionary, possibly wrote by order of Doge Rainerio Dandolo (1253-1268). Essential too is the somewhat later Chronica per extensum descripta from the pen of Doge Andreas Dandolo (1343-1354).”
Also containing interesting information are the works of Marino Sanudo Torsello, and in particular his Istoria del Regno di Romania. The author completed a number of diplomatic missions to Latin Romania and the regained Byzantine Constantinople, and thus had the chance—inter alia from his relatives, the princes of the ducatus of Naxos—to gain information, as it were, on the spot.””
One last type of Western narrative sources that provides information about the Latin Empire is formed by the relatively numerous hagiographic texts that were written as a result of the transference of valuable relics from Latin Romania to various Western countries, and in particular France, the homeland of most Western barons in the Latin Empire, and Venice. Although in the main this material reports on the relations between the empire and the West, nevertheless these texts occasionally contain information about the internal administrative organization of the empire, and in particular about the local political elite.”
A wealth of Western diplomatic material concerning the Latin Empire is available in the papal registers. This series of sources indeed offers interesting and indispensable information for a study on the subject of the political structure of the Latin imperium. In addition, also available is diplomatic material from the various different Western rulers, authorities and institutions with which successive Latin emperors— and regional princes in the empire—had contacts. Whilst this material mainly concerns the Western interests of the Latin emperors, princes and barons, it also occasionally contains information about the internal organization of the empire.
As regards the above-mentioned Western material from outside the Latin Empire, we emphasize that this too generally presents the Latin Empire as the obvious legitimate successor to the Byzantine Empire.
It is also important to note that this Western source material, both diplomatic and narrative, does not always cast an equally adequate light on the administrative structures of the Latin Empire in the sense that it is quite often the case that these are translated to fit a typical Western political frame of reference. These two considerations make cautious treatment of these sources essential.
Under the Byzantine sources that can be used in a study about the Latin Empire we understand both the Greek and Old Slavic sources that came into being in the Latin Empire’s neighbouring states within the entire Byzantine space. Byzantine source material from the Latin Empire itself is virtually non-existent. Furthermore the narrative material is almost exclusively limited to the empire of Nicaea.
A first important chronicler is Niketas Choniates (1155/57-1217), prior to 1204 a senior official in the imperial administration and in 1204 an exile who eventually resettled at the imperial court in Nicaea, where he would no longer gain a prominent position. In addition to his chronicle, which provides an overview of the history of the Byzantine Empire in the years 1204-1207, there are from his pen a number of orations too, these being addressed to the first Nicaean Emperor Theodore I Laskaris (1204-1222).??
A second interesting author is Nicolas Mesarites (circa 1163-post 1214), prior to 1204 member of the patriarchal clergy and after 1204 initially a leading figure among the Byzantine clergy that had remained in Constantinople. After negotiations in the years 1204-1207 about the union of the Churches had not achieved the desired result, Mesarites settled in Nicaea, where he obtained a position in the entourage of the Byzantine patriarch in exile. He later became metropolitan of Ephesos. Mesarites wrote a number of texts in which he reported on the discussions in the years 1204-1206 and in 1214 about the union of the Churches, as well as about the re-establishment of a Byzantine patriarchate and emperorship in Nicaea circa 1207-1208. Mesarites was closely involved in all these matters. Although in the first place the texts deals for the greater part with theological matter, they also provide a large amount of information about Latin-Byzantine relations in Constantinople and about the relations between the Latin and the Nicaean Empire.”
George Akropolites (1217-1282) wrote an extensive chronicle about the period 1204-1261. Born in Latin Constantinople, his father sent him to Nicaea, where he built up a fruitful political career for himself. He occupied the highest positions in the state administration of the Nicaean emperors, and thereafter at the court of Michael VIII Paleologos (1258-1282). Important to the interpretation of his work is that he wrote his chronicle at a time that Constantinople was once more in Byzantine hands and the Latin Empire and the Byzantine Empire of Thessalonike had fallen. His description of the historical evolutions that took place in the period 1204-1261 can be viewed in the light of this final Nicaean victory.”
From the period following the Nicaean taking of Latin Constantinople in 1261 there is also the chronicle of Nikephoros Gregoras (1295-1361), which covers the years 1204-1354. Although Akropolites’ work was an important source of information for the period until 1261, Gregoras also occasionally consulted other sources for these years. Just as Akropolites, the author who held a prominent position at the imperial court, voices a historiographical view of the developments after 1204 from the standpoint of the Nicaean recapture of Constantinople in 1261. That is also the case for the verse chronicle of the early fourteenth-century author Ephraem Aenius, over whose societal background we have no specific details. His Historia Chronica, which is in essence based on the work of Niketas Choniates and George Akropolites, nonetheless offers in a number of passages some original and very interesting detailed information about the Latin imperial administration.”
In reading the above-mentioned works it is important to bear in mind that, in so far as is known, the authors belonged to the imperial elite. Consequently, the view that they voice prior to 1261 is that of the Nicaean establishment, and after 1261 that of the Byzantine imperial court of Constantinople. Bredenkamp recently drew attention to this in the context of his study of the Byzantine Empire of Thessalonike. For example, the author states quite correctly that Akropolites cannot possibly be seen as an objective spokesman for the Western Byzantines of the empire of Thessalonike. Quite the reverse, the chronicler unvaryingly portrays the Doukai of Epiros and Thessalonike, the direct rivals of the Nicaean emperors, in negative terms.” As the extension of this, we may assume that Akropolites and the other authors could not possibly be seen as the spokesmen of the Byzantine elite and population of the Latin Empire.
From the Slavic region of the Byzantine space there are a few Serbian hagiographies that provide information about Latin-Serbian relations and about the internal organization of the Latin Empire that are worthy of mention.** Also in the case of these hagiographic sources, the main purpose of which was not to provide an accurate historical account, we must bear in mind the specific intentions of the authors. They had, via the biographies of Saint Symeon (+1199) and Saint Sava (+1236) who could be described as national saints of Serbia, the intention of underpinning the secular independence and ecclesiastical autonomy of the budding Serbian principality, and later kingdom.
The Byzantine diplomatic material that can be used for the purposes of this study is relatively limited. A number of documents of the Byzantine emperors and the Byzantine patriarchs in Nicaea provide information about the Latin-Byzantine relations in the ecclesiasticalreligious sphere.” Further, there is in the main the correspondence from a number of prominent prelates in the state of Epiros, later the empire of Thessalonike. A leading figure in this category is John Apokaukos (+1233/34), metropolitan of Naupaktos. In his correspondence, which covers the period 1212-1232, Apokaukos occasionally provides information about, inter alia, the situation of the Byzantine population under Latin rule and also about the confrontations between the rulers of Epiros and the Latin kingdom of Thessalonike.
In addition, there is the canonistical correspondence of Demetrios Chomatenos (+1236/40), the Archbishop of Achrida, who in some instances refers to the Latin-Byzantine relations in the contiguous regions of the Latin Empire (the principality of Achaea and the kingdom of Thessalonike), to the relations between the Latin and Nicaean imperial courts, and to the military confrontations of Theodore Doukas, ruler of Epiros—and later Emperor of Thessalonike—with the Latin Empire.” The limited corpus of letters of George Bardanes, metropolitan of Corfu (+ circa 1238/39), here and there also contains data that are interesting within the framework of this study.”
In the interpretation of the works of the above-mentioned three authors it is important to bear in mind that these prelates, just as the Nicaean chroniclers, cannot be seen as the spokesmen for a generalized Byzantine view of the developments that took place after 1204. After all, they were closely allied to the court of the local princes of Epiros (and later of Thessalonike), whose interests they defended and propagated. Their work, and in particular what they report about Latin-Byzantine relations in Romania, should therefore be read in this light.
A last important Byzantine author is Michael Choniates (+1222), the elder brother of the earlier mentioned Niketas Choniates and, prior to 1204, metropolitan of Athens. After 1204, in the context of the Latin conquests he felt the necessity to retreat in exile. For many years he remained on the island of Kea, off the coast of Attica, after which he went to live in a Byzantine monastery close to Bodonitza in Beotia, a region that was under Latin rule.* In his extensive, wellpreserved correspondence, this prelate provides unique information about the Latin-Byzantine relations in the Latin territory. However, the exceptional character of this source must not allow us to forget that Choniates should not per se be seen as the spokesman for the entire Byzantine population living under Latin rule. We emphasize here that in his letters this author first and foremost expressed his own personal views and, as an extension of this, the views both of the people in his entourage and of those with whom he was in correspondence.
Lastly, a small number of sources that could be catalogued as Eastern appeared to be useful for this study. These are principally chronicles with a universal perspective, written by Christian—Armenian and Syrian—historiographers and by Islamic authors from, inter alia, the Kingdom of Cilician Armenia, from the Seljuk Sultanate of Konya, from the Latin principalities in Syria and Palestine, and from the neighbouring Islamic principalities.** Some diplomatic documents from the rulers of Cilician Armenia also contain relevant information.*° Whilst these sources were in geographical terms a considerable distance from the Latin Empire, on occasion they do provide some fascinating and, in exceptional cases, even unique information.
LANGUAGE ISSUES, TRANSLITERATION AND TERMINOLOGY
A practical difficulty facing the execution of the present study was that of language. The study of a highly international theme such as the Latin Empire means that the sources and literature available to us are in a large number of different languages. We are by no means master of all these languages. The most serious obstacle was that we ourselves do not have a firm grasp of Greek. However, we do have available to us reliable translations of most of the narrative Greek sources. As a rule, these translations follow the division in chapters and paragraphs used in the source editions, which means that reference to them does not cause problems. For those sources that are not available in translation, mainly sources of a diplomatic nature such as collections of letters, we were fortunate in receiving the intensive help of a translator who is highly proficient in Byzantine Greek. As regards the modern literature, from sheer necessity we felt obliged to restrict ourselves to the studies written in the Western languages. We endeavoured to overcome this problem to some extent by devoting special attention to the works written by Greek and Slavonic authors in Western languages, in order that their perceptions were not completely lost to us.
Following on from the issues of language, we must make mention of the fact that, for practical reasons, we have opted to reproduce Greek and Slavic terms, words and references via transliteration in Latin characters. A practice such as this is certainly not new or revolutionary in the historiography concerning Byzantium and is used, for example, in the authoritative Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.” We endeavoured to carry out the transliteration as consistently as possible, but absolute consistency did not always seem to be appropriate as the result of a number of terms having been established in common use. For example, the letter beta is represented either as ‘b’ or as ‘v’, and the letter upsilon as ‘uw’ or ‘y’. In addition, we have generally written the names of persons and places in the commonly used anglicized versions. Here again, absolute consistency appeared to be fundamentally wrong, since a number of less familiar names would possibly become unrecognizable if we were to adhere blindly and without exception to our principle.
Finally a word on our use of the terms Latins and Byzantines. With the term Latins we in general refer to the conglomerate of peoples or nations of Western Europe, who religiously speaking in principle all belonged to the Roman Church headed by the Pope. More specifically we use the term for the Westerners who in the context of the Fourth Crusade, or in the wake thereof, established themselves in Romania. With the term Byzantines we refer to the autochthonous and ethnically varied population of the Byzantine Empire as it was shaped by the beginning of the thirteenth century. This population, the ensemble of the subjects of the Byzantine Emperor, included of course Greeks, who were the dominant ethnic group, but also for example Bulgarians and Armenians.
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