Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/194

 182 THE LATER MIDDLE AGES the crusading spirit of Europe was thoroughly exhausted. For two centuries more we hear of princes and captains who made End of the pious resolutions to strike one more blow for the Crusades, Cross in Palestine, but they invariably found that 1272, the blow must be deferred until some other task nearer home was completed. The last real crusade was that of Prince Edward, if even that can be called a real one. A few years later the order of the Knights Templars was destroyed by the King of France, though the Knights Hospitallers survived in Cyprus and in Rhodes and in Malta for some centuries. The era of the crusades in its earlier stages was not without its advantages for the Greek Empire. Alexius Comnenus and 5. Eastern his successors were men of ability, and the establish- Europe. ment of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was a The Greek Empireunder check on the advance of the Seljuks, whose theComneni. dominions were already breaking up into several states. The Greek influence was extended in Asia Minor, and the emperors were able to deal vigorously with the enemies who had threatened their European territories on the north. On the other hand they lost the last remnants of their possessions in Southern Italy when the Normans became masters of Naples. There was a moment when it even seemed possible that the Emperor Manuel might effect a reconciliation with the papacy, and appear as its ally in the struggle between Alexander in. and Frederick Barbarossa, which is recorded in the next chapter. But reconciliation could not from the papal point of view mean anything short of the subjection of the Greek Church to the papal authority. Manuel was not long in finding out that ecclesiastical agreement was impossible, and that the western emperor was more likely to assert his own claims to be the universal Emperor of Christendom than to permit any extension of the claims of Byzantium. In fact Latin Christendom was hostile to Greek Christendom, and this was made manifest when a crusade was diverted from The Greek Palestine in the time of Innocent in., and Emperors ex- wa s directed instead against the Greek Empire P eiied,i204. mainly for the benefit of the Venetians. The Greek princes were forced to betake themselves to Asia Minor,