Crusades and Age of Papal Dominion 259 patriarch Lif Jerusalem found himself in a far worse ease under the triumphant Latins than imder the Turks. The crusaders discovered themselves between Byzantine and Turk and fighting both. Much of Asia Minor was recovered by the liyzantine Empire, and the Latin princes were left, a buffer between Turk and (Jreek, with Jerusalem and a few small principalities, of ^'(-.sm •?- 1 IT! which Edessa was one of the chief, in Syria. Their grip even on these pos- sessions M'as pre- carious, and in 1144 Edessa fell to the Moslim, leading to an ineffective Second Crusade, which failed to recover Edessa but saved Antioch from a similar fate. In 1169 the forces of Islam were rallied under a Kurdish adventurer named Saladin who had made himself master of Egypt. He preached a Holy War against the Christians, re- captured Jerusalem in 1187, and so provoked the Third Crusade. This failed to recover Jerusalem. In the Eourth Crusade (1202-4) the Latin Church turned frankly upon the Crreek empire, and there was not even a pretence of fighting the Turks. It started from Venice and in 1204 it stormed Constantinople. The great rising trading city of Venice was the leader in this adven- ture, and most of the coasts and islands of the Byzantine Empire THE HORSES OF ST. MARK, VENICE Originally on the arch of Trajan at Constantinople, the Doge Dandalo V took them after the Fourth Crusade, to Venice, whence Napoleon I removed them to Paris, hut in 1815 they were returned to Venice. During the Great War of 1914-18 they were hidden away for fear of air raids
