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The Byzantine Empire considered itself the only true inheritor both of the Roman Empire and of the Christian religion. This fact made the Empire something somewhere between an ally and an enemy to the West. Whether the two were cooperating or fighting, though, events in Byzantium were of great importance to Outremer (especially to Antioch) and to the Crusading movement. Constantinople was the capital and the greatest city in Christendom in terms of wealth, population, …

…ion of the Churches. One of the first things Michael did was to restore all the Greek churches, and the Greek Patriarch. The only lasting legacy of the Fourth Crusade was the creation of Latin duchies in Greece, and a vast expansion of Venetian power in the eastern Mediterranean. The recapture of the city by the Greeks, in turn, brought extensive privileges to Genoa, which now began its expansion into the Black Sea region.