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2 was destroyed—the appointment of a Latin emperor in Constantinople, and the partition of such portions of the empire as could be occupied among the conquerors.

Baldwin, a Belgian, was elected emperor. An arrangement for the division of the spoil had been made by the leaders before the attack on the city, and this seems to have been fairly carried out. To Baldwin were assigned the two imperial palaces in Constantinople and one fourth of all that should be captured within the city and throughout the empire. The remaining three fourths were to be divided equally between the Crusaders and the Venetians. The difficulties of the conquerors began with this further division of the spoil. The task of parcelling out the empire was almost hopeless. It was next to impossible to accomplish such a partition, even on paper, because of the ignorance of the Western conquerors of the empire they had destroyed. Its extent was so great, the difficulty of communication so extreme, and ignorance of geography so profound, that the conquerors did not know what there was to divide. They sent into the provinces to obtain information as to the revenues and general condition of the country so that the partition might be fairly made; but, without waiting for the information, they proceeded to divide up the countries and provinces which they imagined to be within the empire. In their happy ignorance they drew lots for Alexandria and for the various countries along the north shore of the Mediterranean as well as for Georgia, Persia, and Assyria. They competed for the possession of Konia itself, the capital of the Seljukian Turks.

It was still more difficult to make a partition which should represent territory which could come at once into the occupation of the Crusaders. The one system of land tenure with which they were acquainted was the feudal. The lands of the empire must therefore be divided into fiefs and the barons and persons of higher and of lower degree must have grants according to their rank. But though Constantinople was in the possession of the men of the West, they held no more of the remainder of the empire