A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

The crusaders’ initial success in 1099 was actually a disastrous chimera; it held out the prospect that God would repeat his favour, and the piling up of evidence to the contrary did not prevent the triumph of hope over experience, prolonging the efforts to achieve new victories. Ironically, as we will see, one of the most permanent achievements of the crusaders was fatally to weaken the Christian empire of the East. In 1204 a crusade which had begun with the aim of attacking Muslim Egypt turned instead to Constantinople, had no hesitation in sacking it and then set up a ‘Latin’ empire there. This catastrophe led to deep bitterness among the Greeks against Westerners, which ruined the chances for any scheme of religious reunion before the final destruction of Byzantine power in 1453 (see pp. 475–7).