I answer listener questions about the Fourth Crusade. This episode focuses on the big picture. Who is to blame? Was it inevitable?
Pic: The Venetians climb the sea walls from thecollector.com
Stream: Questions IX
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The History of Byzantium 
Why wasn’t Romania sharing in the technological advances spreading from western Europe? My understanding is that the population explosion in western Europe was due to new agricultural technologies creating a food surplus, but we haven’t heard about anything like that in Byzantine territory.
I hope to talk about this on the podcast. But the ‘heavy plough’ which allowed northern European soils to be tilled in a way they hadn’t in earlier centuries made no difference to lands further south. Because the more easily-tilled soils of the Mediterranean did not need a heavier plough. They had been farmed adequately for centuries. So the population expansion of northern Europe which the plough unleashed (as the theory goes) did not affect the populations further south which continued on their traditional trajectory.
This is more of a future comment, but as we approach the inevitable fall in 1453 would you consider talking about the byzantine successor states or the descendents of Byzantine family’s in other parts of Europe. Just curious.
Sure 🙂
Robin, for what it is worth I am with you on looking forward to the story from this inflection point. Yes, I was emotionally invested in the glory of the Roman Empire and the loss of that glory is sad. (Objectively it makes no sense to be sad about it, but there it is. I am invested in the story.) But the coming decades are also fascinating in their own way.