he crusaders on Greek soil
ripened the seeds of mutual dislike and distrust. As long as
negotiations between the two parties took place at a distance, the
differences, however irreconcilable they might be in principle, did not
necessarily bring them into open antagonism, whereas their more intimate
acquaintance with one another produced personal and national ill-will.
The people of the West now appeared more than ever barbarous and
overbearing, and the Court of Constantinople more than ever senile and
designing. The crafty policy of Alexius Comnenus in transferring his
allies with all speed into Asia, and declining to take the lead in the
expedition, was almost justified by the necessity of delivering his
subjects from these unwelcome visitors and avoiding further
embarrassments. But the iniquitous Fourth Crusade (1204) produced an
ineradicable feeling of animosity in the minds of the Byzantine people.
The memory of the barbarities of that time, when many Greeks died as
martyrs at the stake for their religious convictions, survives at the
present day in various places bordering on the Aegean, in legends which
relate that they were formerly destroyed by the Pope of Rome.

Still, the anxiety of the Eastern emperors to maintain their position by
means of political support from Western Europe brought it to pass that
proposals for reunion were made on several occasions. The final attempt
at reconciliation was made when the Greek empire was reduced to the
direst straits, and its rulers were prepared to purchase the aid of
Western Europe against the Ottomans by almost any sacrifice.
Accordingly, application was made to Pope Eugenius IV, and by him the
representatives of the Eastern Church were invited to attend the council
which was summoned to meet at Ferrara in 1438. The Emperor, John
Palaeologus and the Greek patriarch Joseph proceeded thither.

The Emperor, however, on his return home, soon discovered that his
pilgrimage to the West had been lost labor. Pope Eugenius, indeed,
provided him with two galleys and a guard of three hundred men, equipped
at his own expense, but the hoped-for succors from Western Europe did
not arrive. His own subjects were completely alienated by the betrayal
of their cherished faith; the clergy who favored the union were regarded
as traitors. John Palaeologus himself did not survive to see the final
catastrophe; but Constantinople was captured by the Turks, and the
Empire of the East ceased to