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Originally Posted by Sethomas
You're neglecting what happened when the first Crusaders arrived at Constantinople three months after Urban II's Deus Vult speech. Thousands were massacered, mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians and Jews.
From 1090 onwards, I think it would be fair to say that the relationship between Western Europe and the Bynzantine Empire was fairly amiable... so animosity between the two sides on religious grounds was really quite negligible. My impression has always been that the Bynzantines were largely ignored simply because their power was decaying so rapidly that the Westerners didn't need to take them seriously.
Oh, and I think the Templar stronghold at Acre fell in 1296, not 1290.
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I suppose I hadn't taken all of that into consideration. I will concede the point for now.
The way that I understand it is that the East and West had shaky relations. Until the Crusades, the Saracens had been enough of a threat to Rome that they were willing to leave the Byzantines to their own business in the East, but their was a certain mistrust and contempt for the Byzantine Greeks. They were seen as a treacherous people that had been corrupted by the decadence of their empire. The emperors employed eunuchs not only as bodyguards to his wives, but also as high officials in Church and State. there were only four (i think) positions that were denied to them. Liudprand of Cremona, sent to Byzantium on a diplomatic mission by Emperor Otto I, described the Byzantines as "full of lies, tricks, perjury and greed. the city is rapacious, avaricious, and vainglorious" plus there was more than a measure of resentment of the Byzantines arrogance and the envy of such a magnificent city as Constantinople, one city that surpassed Rome in size and splendor. it was also a deeply religious society that was better educated than any of the western nations. in short, they had stayed true to the "Roman ideal."
on the religious front, many of the differences that had been growing between the two sects finally came out, such as the primacy of the two patriarchs, the allegiance of newly converted people (Bulgarians, Moldovians, etc.), and, most importantly, on doctrine-namely the veneration of images or icons of Christ and the saints. they Byzantines had begun to accept the Islamic belief that the veneration of religious icons was indistinguishable from the worship of graven images and false idols. the Roman pope had condemned this kind of iconoclasm, if it had succeded there would quite probably have been no Renaissance art. hell, for a time, the two sects were lobbing anathemas and excommunications at each other.
however, when it came to conflict with Islam, the two branches stood fast by each other.
regarding the fall of Acre, we were both wrong. the templar stronghold fell in 1291.