The Byzantine Empire became an empty shell too. The crusaders captured the new emperor and made him jump from the top of one of the tall marble columns. Then, after a lot of bickering, they elected one of their own number to succeed him. There was an empire, but it was now a Latin empire and no one but the crusaders recognized it. Even they did not leave it all its territory. Venice took over a third of Constantinople and most of the Byzantine islands in the Aegean and Ionian seas. Every knight or baron who wanted it was given a fief or a principality in southern Greece. Besides that, three Byzantine “governments in exile,” each claiming to be the real one, sprang into being. One was at Trebizond near the eastern end of the Black Sea. One was in Epirus, which is more or less the same as modern Albania. The third and most important was at Nicaea, which was just across the straights in Asia Minor. So for fifty-seven years, there was not one Byzantine Empire, but four of them, plus half a dozen other small states that all squabbled with each other. Then, in 1261, Michael Paleologus, a great-grandson of one of the old emperors recaptured Constantinople and put on the imperial crown. But although there was only one Byzantine Empire again, it was little more than a shadow. Nor could any of the nine Byzantine emperors who followed Michael restore the old-time glory. The crusaders had done too good a job. Constantinople was now too poor and shabby. Its trade was gone. Its famous bazaars were filthy, and their booths were empty of wares. Most of the population had moved away. Even the emperors themselves lived hand to mouth. Although they tried to keep up the ancient ceremony, they couldn’t do it. At the wedding of a daughter of one of the emperors, the guests had to eat off earthenware plates. Besides that, and probably because of it, anarchy reigned during the 200 years that the empire somehow lingered drearily on. Mercenary bands moved about the countryside robbing and stealing, instead of fighting for the emperor. They even moved on Constantinople when they weren’t paid, or thought they were not paid enough. The Byzantines also had to fight off outside enemies. The Bulgarians renewed their old-time warfare and nibbled away at the shrinking empire. A great Serbian king proclaimed himself Roman emperor as well as Serbian monarch. He almost succeeded. The Byzantines had to fight the Genoese, and sometimes the Venetians, and even the Frank barons, descendants of the crusaders. Finally the Ottoman Turks appeared upon the scene, and that was the last blow. These wonderful fighters conquered all of Anatolia and then step by step they worked their way into Europe. It was not long before the Byzantine Empire was only Constantinople itself with a few square miles of the surrounding countryside. The Byzantines soon couldn’t even raise an army without Turkish permission, and usually that permission wasn’t granted.