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He had also inadvertently initiated the First Crusade when he sent ambassadors to Western Europe seeking military assistance. The Crusaders had established a series of Crusader states, and these helped to improve the strategic situation for the Byzantines in the east.<ref> Harris, Jonathan, Byzantium and the Crusades (London, Bloomsbury, 2014), p 113</ref>
Moreover, the Muslim states focused their attention on the Crusaders and tended to leave the Byzantines alone. Under Emperors John and Manuel, the Empire began to grow in strength and was the leading Christian power. However, there were continuing tensions between Orthodox and Latin Christianity after the schism in the Christian Church in 1054, while the Italian maritime Republics had begun to dominate the trade of the Byzantine territories . <ref> Harris, p 203</ref>.
====The life of Andronicus====
====Recommended Reading====
Laiou-Thomadakis, A.E., 1980. <i>The Byzantine Economy in the Mediterranean Trade System; Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries</i>. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 34, pp.177-222.
Queller, D.E. and Madden, T.F., 1999. <i>The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople</i>. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Angold, M., 1999. "The road to 1204: The Byzantine background to the Fourth Crusade. " <i>Journal of Medieval History</i>, 25(3), pp.257-278.
Harris, Jonathan (2003), <i>Byzantium and the Crusades</i>. London: Bloomsbury Academic
<i>The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium</i>. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press
====References====
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