Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 299, Baldwin II with John Keep Freed.

Last time, Constantinople was captured by the forces of Nicia.

Alexius Strathiopulos led his men through the streets of the city,

and the sitting Emperor Baldwin second fled for his life.

As he sailed away from his capital, Baldwin was deeply saddened by these events.

You see Baldwin was not a French knight who'd grown up in the fields of Flanders or Champagne.

He hadn't come to the boss for us looking to get rich or seeing by Zantium as just a stup over

on the way to Jerusalem. No, he was born and bred in

Constantinople. His childhood memories were of the great palace, of Lachiernai, of the Hippodrome and the messy. He was a Latin man, yes, but he was also a

Constantinople, through and through.

We've spent so much time recently with the Nicians and the Epirates that we haven't actually

checked in with the Latin perspective since the Emperor Henry died back in 1216. It was soon afterwards that the Latin suffered a double defeat,

their forces in Europe and Asia being routed in the same season.

Those twin disasters left the Latins unable to venture out of Thrace,

and soon the Nicians and Bulgarians were besieging the Theodotion walls.

Today we take a look at the perspective of Baldwin II,

the longest reigning and last of the Latin emperors of Constantinople. He is a tragic figure in many ways, trapped between

two worlds, not fully a part of either. He is emblematic of the mixed allegiances and confused identities which the Latin occupation introduced into the Byzantine world.

Baldwin was crowned emperor at a young age but never really exercised much power.

He controlled little more than Constantinople for much of his reign and was constantly begging

others to lend him help since he didn't have the resources to act on

his own.

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