Constantinople and the Crusades: Byzantium in the 12th Century

Undergraduate

This course investigates the era of the first four Crusades (1095-1204) from a Byzantine perspective. Under the Komnenians (1081-1204), Byzantium was one of the most powerful states of Christendom, and the one most closely connected to the Latin-ruled Crusader States in Syria/Palestine. However, budding animosities between former Byzantine and Crusader allies culminated in the Fourth Crusade, in which the Crusaders sacked the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 1204. This event shifted the balance of power from Eastern to Western Europe for the first time in nearly a millennium and changed the history of Christendom. Students in this course are introduced to Byzantine history, as well as the centuries-long history of interactions between Eastern and Western Christendom and between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East. This course also asks how European proto-Orientalist and colonial discourses developed in medieval Syria/Palestine and across the Mediterranean before being deployed globally in the early modern period. WR , HU Th 9:25am-11:20am