Fourth Crusade

From ancient times up to the Middle Ages, Tyrian purple dyeing blossomed in Byzantium. However, at the end of the Fourth Crusade and the conquest of Constantinople in 1204, the production of Tyrian purple for the Byzantine court came to an abrupt end. The new rulers were unable to raise sufficient funds required for the continuation of murex purple production. [31]... 

In the administration of Manuel I (1143-1180), Alexios Aristenos became one of the highest judicial officials of the empire (dikaiodotes) at the same time he supervised the Orphanage. Before the fall of Constantinople to the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade, John Belissariotes... 

That this song used Romania to refer to the Roman Empire proves a Byzantine origin for at least some of these verses. Before the Fourth Crusade (1203-1204), the West used the term "Romania to refer to the Romagna, the former exarchate of Ravenna, not to denote the entire Roman state. In the Byzantine East, however, the term Romania came to mean the East Roman Empire, especially in contrast to the barbarian world. A sixth-century inscription from Sirmium asked God to save Romania from the Avars. Thus, the children s victory acclamation surely came from the East, not from Italy. ... 

As the Crusades for the reconquest of the Holy Land were launched by papal bulls, so was this crusade for the reconquest of the spiritual purity of Christian Europe. The decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council were reshaped and redirected by a bull issued by Pope Innocent VIII on December 9, 1484. It read, in part, as follows ... 

---