Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium. Episode 259, The Fourth Crusade.

Part 1 After listening to the previous eight episodes,

I imagine some of you are still wondering how exactly did it come to this.

Just 20 years ago in our narrative, Manoel Comlinos seemed to be firmly in charge of a regional

superpower. Now the Roman capital is about to be sacked by an enemy army.

Manoel was not a hugely successful emperor, but his armies could march to Hungary or Antioch

with little trouble. His fleet could capture ports in Egypt, and his diplomats could turn Italian

cities simply by opening a chest filled with gold coins. Now, his realm was in ruins.

Its far-flung province is gone. Its people mutinous. Its army miserable.

What had happened in such a short space of time to make this calamity possible?

As many scholars have identified, the problem likely lies in the personal nature of Comlinian

government. In the old days, as you know, Constantinople was the central distribution point

for the wealth of the entire region. The Roman government taxed the lands from Sermium

to Samosata and then handed out the proceeds to anyone willing to do their bidding. This included

their own officials and generals, but also foreign leaders who'd agreed to leave the

borders alone. This system of court honors collapsed in the wake of the battle of Manzacard.

The loss of so many provinces to the Turks broke the bank, and the Romans had to scramble

to find an alternative way to bind the empire's elites to the centre.

Alexia's Comlinos' solution was to make government a family affair. Instead of rewarding

distant patenteids, he made authority dependent on someone's relationship with him personally.

So in order to share in the spoils of the state, men had to marry into the ruling family.

This was a remarkably effective solution for three generations. John and Manoel suffered

...