13th–14th centuries
Sacking of the city by the Fourth Crusade
1204·Constantinople
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
the Jewish quarter burned and pillaged
Diverted from its destination, the Fourth Crusade storms Constantinople and delivers the city to pillage. The Jewish quarter, long established in Péra, on the northern shore of the Golden Horn, is burned and sacked along with the rest of the city; the Romaniote communities of the capital lose their synagogues and their archives.
The event shatters the equilibrium in which Byzantine Judaism had lived for centuries, one of narrow legal tolerance and continuity. The traveler Benjamin de Tudèle had described, a generation earlier, a numerous community living from the silk trade. The Latin Empire that subsequently installs itself would not restore its standing, and many then made their way to the lands of Asia Minor or the islands.
- Period :
- 13th–14th centuries
- Type :
- Pogrom
- Region :
- Near and Middle East
- Country :
- Empire byzantin
Nicétas Choniatès, *Histoire* ; Benjamin de Tudèle, *Livre des voyages* ; Steven Bowman, *The Jews of Byzantium*.