Latin Empire

The Latin Empire, also called the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. It existed from 1204 until its disestablishment in 1261. It was intended to replace the Byzantine Empire as the Western-recognized Roman Empire in the east, with a Catholic emperor in place of the Eastern Orthodox Roman emperors. After the crusaders sacked Constantinople in April 1204 they chose Baldwin IX of Flanders as their emperor and divided Byzantine territory into vassal crusader states. Its authority was challenged at once by Byzantine rump states at Nicaea, Trebizond, Epirus and Thessalonica, and after early military successes it declined through constant war with Bulgaria and the Byzantine claimants. The Nicene Empire recovered Constantinople under Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261, and although the last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, went into exile, the imperial title survived with pretenders until the 14th century.