Download or read book The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453 written by Donald M. Nicol and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1993-10-14 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Byzantine Empire, fragmented and enfeebled by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, never again recovered its former extent, power and influence. Its greatest revival came when the Byzantines in exile reclaimed their capital city of Constantinople in 1261 and this book narrates the history of this restored empire from 1261 to its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. First published in 1972, the book has been completely revised, amended, and in part rewritten, with its source references and bibliography updated to take account of scholarly research on this last period of Byzantine history carried out over the past twenty years.