WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CRUSADES?
Between 1192 and 1228 A. D., the Kingdom of Jerusalem, ruled from Cyprus, clung to life on the shore of what is now Lebanon and Israel. Efforts to reinforce and expand Outremer by Crusade went badly awry. In 1202, the Fourth Crusade set out for Outremer. Unable to supply themselves because of poor financial planning by their leaders, the Crusaders let the doge (duke) of Venice, the blind, eighty-year-old Enrico Dandolo, talk them into attacking Constantinople. The heirs of Alexius Comnenus had lost control of the Byzantine Empire, and the dynasty of the Angeli now held the eastern throne. Enrico Dandolo meant to put onto the throne a pretender favorable to Venetian interests in the eastern capital. When the Crusaders, against all odds, sacked the city, though, they made it the seat of a Latin Empire amid Byzantine lands. Pope Innocent III deplored the tragic war of Christians against Christians, but was willingly appointed a Catholic patriarch of Constantinople. For many years after th
