1204, the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders; 1453, by the Turks. Between these two significant dates, the third and final volume of the Byzantine world narrates the decline of the Greek empire as well as the history of its neighbors, the Serbs and Bulgarians, as well as the Latins, who settled in its territory after the Fourth Crusade.

Here unfolds the story of a fragmented space through all the elements that compose it, including the Turkish. We see the once-great power of the 12th century shrink to the borders of a state that first loses the territories of Asia Minor, then North Greece, to end up, in 1373, under the subjugation of the Ottoman sultan.

Limited to Constantinople and the Peloponnese, its survival depends more on the goodwill of the Turks and the interests of Genoa or Venice rather than on the rare crusades that often failed. The union of the Greek and Latin Churches in Lyon (1274) and then in Florence (1439), which the emperors attempted in the hope of saving Byzantium, was rejected by the majority of the Orthodox and proved futile.

The authority of the Patriarch was definitively imposed over that of the emperor. The poverty of the state, however – exacerbated by the Black Death and the recession of the 14th century, with the resulting social conflicts – contrasts with the prosperity of certain classes. For, paradoxically, Byzantium participates in the economic, artistic, and cultural development of the West. It even leads: its techniques (silk, glass) are transferred there, its intellectuals rediscover and transmit to the humanists the ancient Greek heritage, and its artists influence the Italian painting of the Trecento.

However, the trauma of the Fourth Crusade prevented any merger. Byzantine identity lost its universality and was restricted to two characteristics: Hellenism and Orthodoxy, which allowed the Greek language to survive.

Angeliki Laiou (1941-2008), a professor at Harvard University, a renowned historian specializing in Byzantine society and economy, died before she could complete this volume.

The direction of the publication was entrusted to Cécile Morrisson, research director at CNRS, a historian of the economy and numismatics and author of numerous works. The volume involved ten other authors (Bulgarians, French, Russians, Greeks, and Serbs).

The authors of the volume:

• Michel Balard, emeritus professor at the University of Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne
• Ivan Božilov, professor at the University of Sofia
• Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, researcher at CNRS
• Sergei Karpov, professor at Lomonosov University in Moscow
• Ivana Jevtić, lecturer at Koç University in Istanbul
• Jacques Lefort, honorary director of studies at EPHE, IV department
• Ljubomir Maksimović, emeritus professor at the University of Belgrade, director of the Institute of Byzantine Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences
• Brigitte Mondrain, director of studies at EPHE, IV department
• Cécile Morrisson, emeritus research director at CNRS
• Jean-Michel Spieser, professor at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland
• Élisabeth Zachariadou (†), professor at the University of Crete

From Polis Publications, the first two volumes of the Byzantine World are also available: Volume I: The Eastern Roman Empire (330-641) [edited by Cécile Morrisson] Volume II: The Byzantine Empire (641-1204) [edited by Jean-Claude Cheynet].