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persuading the Latins to attack Constantinople in the years 1203-4.
After the final capture of Constantinople on 13 April 1204, Baldwin
of Flanders was crowned in Haghia Sophia as Emperor of Rumania,
as the Latins called the portion of the Byzantine Empire which they
had conquered. But the Latin Emperor did not reign supreme even
in his capital city, for three-eighths of Constantinople, including the
church of Haghia Sophia, was awarded to the Venetians and ruled by
Dandalo. The old Doge now added the title of Despot to his name
and thereafter styled himself “Lord of the fourth and a half of all the
Roman Empire.” But proud Dandalo had little time to lord it over
his fractional kingdom, for he died the following year, 16 June 1205,
and was buried in the gallery of Haghia Sophia. After the Conquest,
according to tradition, Dandalo's tomb was broken open and his
bones thrown to the dogs.
After the Palaeologian renaissance of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries the fortunes of the Empire declined rapidly, and in the last
decades of Byzantine rule Haghia Sophia shared in the general decay
of the dying capital. Travellers to Constantinople in that period report
that the church showed signs of grievous neglect and was beginning
to fall into ruins. Then, towards the very end, Haghia Sophia was all
but deserted by its congregation, who stayed away in protest over the
Emperor's attempted union with the Church of Rome. The people
of the city began returning to their church only in the very last days
before Constantinople fell to the Turks, when doctrinal diferences
no longer seemed important, not even to a Byzantine.
The final Christian liturgy in Haghia Sophia began shortly after
sunset on Monday 28 May 1453. The Emperor Constantine XI
Dragases arrived in Haghia Sophia an hour or so before midnight,
and there made his peace with God before returning to his post on
the city walls. The prayers continued in Haghia Sophia throughout
the night, and the church filled with crowds of refugees as the sound
of the Ottoman artillery grew more intense. Shortly after dawn word
came that the defence walls had been breached and that the city had
fallen. Then the doors of the church were barred and the congregation
huddled inside, praying for a miraculous deliverance which never
came. Soon afterwards the vanguard of the Turkish soldiery forced
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