Recapture of Constantinople (1261): Byzantium Restored

The recapture of Constantinople on 25 July 1261 ended almost sixty years of Latin rule over the Byzantine capital. A small army of the Empire of Nicaea, led by the general Alexios Strategopoulos, slipped into the city while its Latin defenders were away and took it almost without a fight. Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos entered in triumph three weeks later, founding the dynasty that ruled Byzantium until 1453.

Background: an empire in exile

In April 1204 the army of the Fourth Crusade captured and plundered Constantinople, an event described in Sack of Constantinople. The crusaders crowned Baldwin of Flanders as emperor of a new Latin Empire and divided much of the Byzantine world among themselves and Venice.

Byzantine nobles set up rival states in the territories the crusaders could not hold. The most important were the Empire of Nicaea in north-western Asia Minor, the Despotate of Epirus in western Greece and the Empire of Trebizond on the Black Sea. Each claimed to be the true heir of Byzantium.

Nicaea, founded by Theodore I Laskaris, proved the most successful. Under John III Doukas Vatatzes (1221–1254) it built a strong economy, took back large parts of Thrace and Macedonia and surrounded the shrinking Latin Empire, which by the 1250s controlled little more than Constantinople itself. The Latin emperor Baldwin II was so short of money that he pawned relics and sold lead from palace roofs.

The rise of Michael Palaiologos

When Theodore II Laskaris died in 1258, his son John IV was only seven years old. The aristocrat Michael Palaiologos, an experienced general, had the regent George Mouzalon murdered, became guardian of the boy and was crowned co-emperor at the start of 1259.

Later in 1259 Michael’s forces won a major victory at the Battle of Pelagonia over a coalition of Epirus, the Frankish Principality of Achaea and King Manfred of Sicily. The prince of Achaea, William II of Villehardouin, was captured. This removed the most dangerous rivals to Nicaea’s plans for Constantinople.

Michael tried to take the city in 1260 by attacking Galata, across the Golden Horn, but failed. To counter Venetian sea power, he signed the Treaty of Nymphaeum with Genoa on 13 March 1261, promising the Genoese trading privileges in return for naval help.

What happened in July 1261

In the summer of 1261 Michael sent Alexios Strategopoulos, holding the title of caesar, with a small force of around 800 men, many of them Cumans, to watch the Bulgarian frontier and test the city’s defences. A one-year truce with the Latins appears to have been in force.

Near the city Strategopoulos met local farmers, the so-called thelematarioi or “volunteers”, who lived outside the walls and were sympathetic to Nicaea. They told him that the Venetian fleet and most of the Latin garrison had sailed off to attack Daphnousia, a Nicaean-held island in the Black Sea. They also showed him a way into the city near the Gate of the Spring.

During the night of 24–25 July a small group got inside, overpowered the guards and opened a gate. At dawn the Nicaean troops poured in. The Latins, taken by surprise, offered little resistance. Strategopoulos set fire to the Venetian quarter so that the returning sailors would rush to save their families rather than fight.

Baldwin II fled to the harbour and escaped on a Venetian ship. When the Venetian fleet came back, it found the city lost and evacuated thousands of Latin residents.

Michael VIII enters the city

The news reached Michael at his camp in Asia Minor. According to a well-known story, his sister Eulogia woke him to tell him, and he at first refused to believe it. On 15 August 1261, the feast of the Dormition of the Virgin, he entered Constantinople on foot through the Golden Gate. The procession followed the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, believed to be the city’s protector, to the Monastery of Stoudios and then to Hagia Sophia.

Michael was crowned again in Hagia Sophia, with his young son Andronikos proclaimed heir. The legitimate emperor, John IV Laskaris, was left out. On 25 December 1261 Michael had the boy blinded, which made him unfit to rule. Patriarch Arsenios excommunicated Michael for the crime, starting a long church dispute known as the Arsenite schism.

Key people

Michael VIII Palaiologos (1224/25–1282) ruled as emperor from 1259 to 1282. A skilful diplomat, he restored the capital but spent much of his reign defending it against Western plans for a new crusade.

Alexios Strategopoulos was a senior Nicaean general who led the force that took the city. He was rewarded with a triumph and honours.

Baldwin II (1217–1273) was the last Latin emperor in Constantinople, reigning from 1228 to 1261; as he was a child at his accession, regents governed for him at first.

John IV Laskaris (1250–c. 1305) was the young legitimate heir of the Laskarid dynasty, blinded and confined after the restoration.

Consequences

The restored city was battered and half-empty. Michael worked to repair the walls, churches and palaces, invited Greeks to settle, and gave Galata to the Genoese as a trading colony. Venice soon regained its own trading rights through negotiation.

Many Latin rulers in the West hoped to restore the Latin Empire. The most dangerous was Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily from 1266. Michael countered him by agreeing to the union of the Greek and Latin churches at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, which was deeply unpopular at home, and by supporting the revolt known as the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, which wrecked Charles’s plans.

The return of the court to Constantinople also shifted Byzantine attention towards Europe. Defences in Asia Minor were neglected, and over the following decades Turkish emirates, including the one founded by Osman, took over most of the former Nicaean heartland.

Legacy

The Palaiologan dynasty founded by Michael VIII was the longest-ruling in Byzantine history. Its era, though one of political decline, saw a cultural flowering in scholarship and art, visible in the mosaics of the Chora Church in Constantinople. The restored empire lasted until the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, when the last emperor, Constantine XI, was a descendant of Michael VIII.

The city’s Theodosian Walls, which had failed against the crusaders in 1204 and were bypassed by stealth in 1261, were repaired by the Palaiologoi and served the city until its final siege.

Timeline

• 1204, 13 April: The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople; the Latin Empire is founded.
• 1258: Theodore II Laskaris dies; Michael Palaiologos becomes guardian of John IV.
• 1259, January: Michael is crowned co-emperor at Nicaea.
• 1259: Nicaean victory at the Battle of Pelagonia.
• 1261, 13 March: Treaty of Nymphaeum with Genoa.
• 1261, 25 July: Alexios Strategopoulos takes Constantinople; Baldwin II flees.
• 1261, 15 August: Michael VIII enters the city through the Golden Gate.
• 1261, 25 December: John IV Laskaris is blinded.
• 1274: Union of the churches proclaimed at the Second Council of Lyon.

Why it matters

The recapture of 1261 restored Constantinople as the seat of a Greek Orthodox empire and gave Byzantium nearly two more centuries of life. It also locked the restored state into a long struggle with Western powers that, together with the rise of the Turks, shaped the late medieval history of the eastern Mediterranean.