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Massacre of the Latins

1180s in the Byzantine Empire1182 in Asia1182 in Europe12th-century massacresAnti-Catholic riots
Anti-Catholicism in Eastern OrthodoxyAttacks on hospitals in AsiaAttacks on hospitals in EuropeConflicts in 1182ConstantinopleMass murders in IstanbulMassacres in the Byzantine EmpireMassacres of CatholicsMassacres of ChristiansPersecution of CatholicsPogroms
Byzantine Constantinople en
Byzantine Constantinople en

The Massacre of the Latins was a large-scale massacre of Italian-descent Catholics (called "Latins") in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, by the Eastern Orthodox population of the city in April 1182. The Catholics of Constantinople at that time dominated the city's maritime trade and financial sector. Although precise numbers are unavailable, the bulk of the Latin community, estimated at 60,000 at the time by Eustathius of Thessalonica, was wiped out or forced to flee. The Genoese and Pisan communities especially were devastated, and some 4,000 survivors were sold as slaves to the Turkish Sultanate of Rum. The massacre further worsened relations and increased enmity between the Western and Eastern Christian churches, and a sequence of hostilities between the two followed.

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Massacre of the Latins
Yalıköşkü Caddesi, Istanbul Hobyar Mahallesi

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N 41.016 ° E 28.975 °
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Yurtiçi kargo

Yalıköşkü Caddesi
34112 Istanbul, Hobyar Mahallesi
Turkey
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Byzantine Constantinople en
Byzantine Constantinople en
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Sack of Constantinople
Sack of Constantinople

The sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the city, the Latin Empire (known to the Byzantines as the Frankokratia or the Latin Occupation) was established and Baldwin of Flanders was crowned Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople in the Hagia Sophia. After the city's sacking, most of the Byzantine Empire's territories were divided up among the Crusaders. Byzantine aristocrats also established a number of small independent splinter states, one of them being the Empire of Nicaea, which would eventually recapture Constantinople in 1261 and proclaim the reinstatement of the Empire. However, the restored Empire never managed to reclaim its former territorial or economic strength, and eventually fell to the rising Ottoman Empire in the 1453 Siege of Constantinople. The sack of Constantinople is a major turning point in medieval history. The Crusaders' decision to attack the world's largest Christian city was unprecedented and immediately controversial. Reports of Crusader looting and brutality scandalised and horrified the Orthodox world; relations between the Catholic and Orthodox churches were catastrophically wounded for many centuries afterwards, and would not be substantially repaired until modern times. The Byzantine Empire was left much poorer, smaller, and ultimately less able to defend itself against the Seljuk and Ottoman conquests that followed; the actions of the Crusaders thus directly accelerated the collapse of Christendom in the east, and in the long run helped facilitate the later Ottoman Conquests of Southeastern Europe.