SOURCE: “Byzantium and the Crusades 1081–120” in A History of the Crusades, Vol. II: The Later Crusades, 1189–1311, edited by Kenneth M. Setton, University of Wisconsin Press, 1969, pp. 123–51.

In the following essay, Hussey offers a brief history of the Crusades from the point of view of the Eastern Christian Byzantine empire, discussing the conflicts that arose between the Eastern Christian rulers and the Western European Christian Crusaders.

The middle part of the eleventh century was a watershed in the history of the Byzantine empire. It is only necessary to compare the successful expansion of the frontier under Basil II and his determined onslaught on the aristocracy with the straitened circumstances of Alexius I Comnenus and the steady growth in the power of the great military families. The period of transition was characterized by a bitter struggle between the civil and military parties. The accession of Alexius Comnenus in 1081 marked the...