Golden athens: Episcopal wealth and power in Greece at the time of the crusades

Such was the uncompromising message disseminated by the refugees who, fleeing the sack of the imperial capital and the invasion of the imperial provinces, regrouped to create in the ‘eastern lands of the Romans’ and the ‘western lands of the Romans’ substantial territories where it was claimed the ‘ways of freedom’ were still practised. In order to keep the spirit of the old regime alive, the refugees established courts and acclaimed emperors while waiting for the opportunity to drive out the western invaders, to whom they referred as ‘Roman-haters’. Thus the refugees insisted not only on the ancient glories of the tradition of the Roman Empire, but also on the continuing validity in the contemporary eastern Mediterranean of a political identity that defined itself in terms of its Romanness. The Roman race, they declared, had held sway from Constantinople for hundreds of years and would soon return there. ‘Our fatherlands’ would be reclaimed. Once again, an emperor from his capital city would watch over all his subjects within a restored empire: ‘one shepherd over one flock’.4.