Sack of Constantinople in the context of "Frankokratia"

Arbanon (Old Gheg: Arbënia, Old Tosk: Arbëria; Latin: Arbanum) was a medieval principality in present-day Albania, ruled by the native Progoni family, and the first Albanian state to emerge in recorded history. The principality was established in 1190 by the Albanian archon Progon in the region surrounding Kruja, to the east and northeast of Venetian territories. Progon was succeeded by his sons Gjin and then Demetrius, who managed to retain a considerable degree of autonomy from the Byzantine Empire. In 1204, Arbanon attained full, though temporary, political independence, taking advantage of the weakening of Constantinople following its pillage during the Fourth Crusade. However, Arbanon lost its large autonomy c. 1216, when the ruler of Epirus, Michael I Komnenos Doukas, started an invasion northward into Albania and Macedonia, taking Kruja and ending the independence of the principality. From this year, after the death of Demetrius, the last ruler of the Progoni family, Arbanon was successively controlled by the Despotate of Epirus, then by the Bulgarian Empire and, from 1235, by the Empire of Nicaea.

During this period, the area was ruled by the Greco-Albanian lord Gregorios Kamonas, the new spouse of Demetrius' Serbian former wife Komnena Nemanjić, and by Golem (Gulam), a local magnate who had married Kamonas' and Komnena's daughter. Arbanon was eventually annexed in the winter of 1256–57 by the Byzantine statesman George Akropolites. Golem subsequently disappeared from historical records. Akropolites' historical writings are the main primary source for late Arbanon and its history.

Repatriation is the return of the cultural property, often referring to ancient or looted art, to their country of origin or former owners (or their heirs).

The disputed cultural property items are physical artifacts of a group or society taken by another group, usually in the act of looting, whether in the context of imperialism, colonialism, or war. The contested objects vary widely and include sculptures, paintings, monuments, objects such as tools or weapons for purposes of anthropological study, and human remains.

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns launched by the papacy between 1095 and 1291 against Muslim rulers for the recovery and defence of the Holy Land (Palestine), encouraged by promises of spiritual reward. The First Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095 in response to a Byzantine appeal for aid against the advancing Seljuk Turks. By this time, the papacy's position as head of the Catholic Church had strengthened, and earlier conflicts with secular rulers and wars on Western Christendom's frontiers had prepared it for the direction of armed force in religious causes. The First Crusade led to the creation of four Crusader states in the Middle East, whose defence required further expeditions from Catholic Europe. The organisation of such large-scale campaigns demanded complex religious, social, and economic institutions, including crusade indulgences, military orders, and the taxation of clerical income. Over time, the crusading movement expanded to include campaigns against pagans, Christian dissidents, and other enemies of the papacy, promoted with similar spiritual rewards and continuing into the 18th century.

The Crusade of 1101, the earliest papally sanctioned expedition inspired by the First Crusade, ended in disastrous defeats. For several decades thereafter, only smaller expeditions reached the Holy Land, yet their role in consolidating and expanding the Crusader states was pivotal. The fall of Edessa, the capital of the first Crusader state, prompted the Second Crusade, which failed in 1148. Its failure reduced support for crusading across Latin Christendom, leaving the Crusader states unable to resist Saladin's expansion. Having united Egypt and Muslim Syria under his rule, Saladin destroyed their combined armies at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. The Crusader states survived largely owing to the Third Crusade, a major campaign against Saladin, though Jerusalem remained under Muslim control. Initially directed against Egypt, the Fourth Crusade was diverted to the Byzantine Empire, culminating in the Sack of Constantinople and the establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204. The Fifth Crusade again targeted Egypt but failed to conquer it in 1219–21. By this period, crusade indulgences could also be obtained through other campaigns—such as the Iberian, Albigensian, and Northern Crusades—thereby diminishing enthusiasm for expeditions in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Empire of Trebizond or the Trapezuntine Empire was one of the three successor rump states of the Byzantine Empire that existed during the 13th through to the 15th century. The empire consisted of the Pontus, or far northeastern corner of Anatolia, and portions of southern Crimea.

The Trapezuntine Empire was formed in 1204 with the help of Queen Tamar of Georgia after the Georgian expedition in Chaldia and Paphlagonia, which was commanded by Alexios Komnenos a few weeks before the Sack of Constantinople. Alexios later declared himself emperor and established himself in Trebizond (now Trabzon in Turkey).

The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople or the Constantinopolitan Empire, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzantine Empire as the Western-recognized Roman Empire in the east, with a Catholic emperor enthroned in place of the Eastern Orthodox Roman emperors. The main objective to form a Latin Empire was planned over the course of the Fourth Crusade, promoted by crusade leaders such as Boniface I of Montferrat, as well as the Republic of Venice.

The Fourth Crusade had originally been called to retake the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, but a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army sacking the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Originally, the plan had been to restore the deposed Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos, who had been usurped by Alexios III Angelos, to the throne. The crusaders had been promised financial and military aid by Isaac's son Alexios IV, with which they had planned to continue to Jerusalem. When the crusaders reached Constantinople, the situation quickly turned volatile, and while Isaac and Alexios briefly ruled, the crusaders did not receive the payment they had hoped for. In April 1204, they captured and plundered the city's enormous wealth.

The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate. However, a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army's 1202 siege of Zara and the 1204 sack of Constantinople, rather than the conquest of Egypt as originally planned. This led to the partition of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders and their Venetian allies, leading to a period known as the Frankokratia ("Rule of the Franks" in Greek).

In 1201, the Republic of Venice contracted with the Crusader leaders to build a dedicated fleet to transport their invasion force. However, the leaders greatly overestimated the number of soldiers who would embark from Venice, since many sailed from other ports, and the army that appeared could not pay the contracted price. In lieu of payment, the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo proposed that the Crusaders back him in attacking the rebellious city of Zara (Zadar) on the eastern Adriatic coast. This led in November 1202 to the siege and sack of Zara, the first attack against a Catholic city by a Catholic Crusader army, despite Pope Innocent III's calls for the Crusaders not to attack fellow Christians. The city was then brought under Venetian control. When the Pope heard of this, he temporarily excommunicated the Crusader army.

The Empire of Nicaea (Greek: Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων), also known as the Nicene Empire, was the largest of the three Byzantine Greek rump states founded by the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire that fled when Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian armed forces during the Fourth Crusade, a military event known as the Sack of Constantinople. Like the other Byzantine rump states that formed due to the 1204 fracturing of the empire, such as the Empire of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus, it was a continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived well into the Middle Ages. A fourth state, known in historiography as the Latin Empire, was established by an army of Crusaders and the Republic of Venice after the capture of Constantinople and the surrounding environs.

Founded by the Laskaris family, it lasted from 1204 to 1261, when the Nicenes restored the Byzantine Empire after they recaptured Constantinople. Thus, the Nicene Empire is seen as a direct continuation of the Byzantine Empire, as it fully assumed the traditional titles and government of the Byzantines in 1205.