defeat in 1259 of the allied forces of Manfred of Staufen, the rulers of Epirus, and the Frankish princes of Achaia at Pelagonia. The retaking of Constantinople of 1261 was then a foregone conclusion.
Return to Constantinople did not mean that the Byzantines had not suffered profoundly from the events of 1204-61. For one thing, however enterprising and efficient the rulers of Nicaea might have been, the pre-conquest territorial unity was never regained. For the next two hundred years western presence--in the Peloponnese, in the islands--was assured. The cause of the Latin Empire was championed by the Angevins who periodically intervened in eastern Mediterranean affairs in the late thirteenth century, and the Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologue's chief concern was the danger of an Angevin expedition. Indeed, a crusade to regain Constantinople in 1282 was only averted by the outbreak of the Sicilian Vespers (in which the Byzantine emperor was suspected of having a hand). But Byzantine resentment of the west, which by now had turned to hatred, caused paradoxically more rather than fewer problems for the empire. The best hope of averting western expeditions--and, later, the best hope of gaining western sup-
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