[zemnmez]

A lot of it was moved to Byzantium / Constantinople / İstanbul by Constantine, who tried to pay all the Roman elite he could, especially senators to move to his 'New Rome'. The ERE would continue to be wealthier until the sack of Constantinople by crusaders due to its domination of the European silk trade (after stealing the secrets via a Christian mission to China). That is a little ironic considering the first crusade was initiated by the Emperor in the east to recapture Jerusalem and the middle east.

After the sack of Constantinople, much of that wealth, including the secret of silk-making was taken back to Italy, and the ERE would never recover from this.

For reference, the amount looted from Constantinople during its sack is meant to be around 900,000 silver marks -- enough to raise the entire Venetian navy almost 6 times over. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Constantinople#sack_of...)

Of course, a huge amount of wealth remained in the west, even after Odoacer's conquest (see this mosaic of the palace of Theodoric: https://www.worldhistory.org/image/3090/palace-of-theodoric-... which is in undeniably Roman form). That said, the ERE would continue to be the center of wealth in Europe up until at least the sack.

I think it's important to note that Odoacer, in destroying the WRE was not considered by his contemporaries to have destroyed the Roman Empire. He immediately sent the imperial regalia to the Emperor in the east and declared himself a Viceroy of the eastern Roman emperor. In this way, I think the ERE thought it kind of convenient, as they now, at least on paper had full control of the whole Roman empire. The identity of 'Roman' in the West was not broken, so I've read until the ERE decided to 'reconquer' Rome and mainland Italy for being barbarian, which, as you can imagine would throw your personal identity for a bit of a loop.

Despite still being greatly dilapidated when Constantinople was finally invaded by the Ottomans 200 years after the sack, it was still famous for silk. Mehmed The Conqueror is attested to have said, upon wandering its ruins:

  The spider is curtain-bearer in the palace of Chosroes,
  
  The owl sounds the relief in the castle of Afrasiyab.

[scythe]

>That is a little ironic considering the first crusade was initiated by the Emperor in the east to recapture Jerusalem and the middle east.

I don't think this is quite right. The sequence of events is roughly as follows:

1054: Great Schism, Patriarchate of Constantinople diverges from Papacy in Rome.

1071: Battle of Manzikert, Seljuk (Turkish) Empire conquers most of Anatolia

[also 1071: Norman invasion of southern Italy and Sicily, final de facto eviction of Byzantines from Italy]

1095: First Crusade, Frankish armies storm the Levant and capture Nicaea and Jerusalem -- also the only Crusade that had any real success, others at most reversed previous losses.

It seems more than a little suspicious that all of this happens so quickly. It can't just be about Jerusalem, which had fallen to the Muslim conquests four centuries prior. Rather, after the Schism, there is a "switch" from formal (but usually ignored) ERE suzerainty over European kingdoms, with European military assistance under the banner of ERE armies, to European armies fighting as "equal partners" of the ERE. This second arrangement worked well at first, but it was less stable and less successful in the long run, ultimately leading to the disastrous Fourth Crusade and the Fall of Acre.

In fact, the ERE/Byzantines had already been making gains against the Arabs in the Levant up until the Schism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Antioch_(968%E2%80%93...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Byzantine_wars#By...

[MichaelMoser123]

Interesting, i thought that the church was a power center that was complementary if not secondary to the secular powers of western Europe. However you seem to be saying, that the formal legitimacy granted by the Eastern Roman Empire was more important to maintain some very fragile equilibrium between the church vs the state, and that this equilibrium was then lost with the church schism.

I find it somewhat hard understand, how the church managed to mobilise europe into a crusade, it is possible that the various competing establishments weren't very enthusiastic about the project, to begin with.

[mr_toad]

> In fact, the ERE/Byzantines had already been making gains against the Arabs in the Levant up until the Schism

The Patriarch in Rome had been operating effectively independently for centuries before the schism.

The Romans made gains after the collapse of the Caliphate, retaking Anatolia, Crete, Bulgaria and Antioch and even Armenia and Georgia, but then they experienced a series of setbacks when the Turks appeared.

[scythe]

Take a look at what actually happened at Manzikert. One of the generals walked off with half the army and didn't fight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tarchaneiotes

I'm not an expert on the motivations of medieval generals, but if you've spent your whole life fighting for "God" and suddenly the people who are supposed to be close to God don't seem to have a clue what they're doing, don't you think that might impact your willingness to fight?

The Roman Empire had always centered on Italy, Greece and Anatolia. Until 1050 the ERE had always had a toehold in Italy and most of Anatolia. By 1100 they had lost all of Italy and most of Anatolia:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Byzantin...

It's true that theological disputes accumulated gradually before the Schism and were interleaved with political disputes, but this doesn't really dispute the importance of the theological split and instead smears it over the previous two centuries (arguably beginning with the coronation of Charlemagne).

[zemnmez]

I mean, it is factually true that the Emperor in the east sent an envoy in 1095 to ask Pope Urban II for aid. I am not sure if the crusades would have happened without that.