While in the end the opponents of the iconoclasts won, and images retained an important place in Christian art, the political independence of the Byzantine Church was greatly reduced and it became subject to the imperial will. The strong emperors had some success in enforcing their order. On the other hand, the deep involvement of the pope in politics of Western Europe was bound to have some effect on the imperial policy.
A crucial point in the relations between East and West was the year 800 A.D., when Charlemagne (768-814), King of the Franks, assumed the title of the Roman Emperor. The Byzantine Empire was ruled for the first time by a woman, Irene, mother of the Emperor Constantine VI (780-797). Charlemagne did argue that he was the sole emperor. The Church and the State were in a difficult period during the time of the Patriarch Photios on the see of Constantinople.
A long period of disagreement between the east and western churches over the matters of ecclesiastical authority and doctrinal assertions ended in an actual schism in 1054, which is still in place today.
By the end of the twelfth century, the people of Western Europe in general disliked and mistrusted the Byzantine emperor and his subjects, but the Venetians had a practical interest in their destruction. They wanted to have the monopoly of the rich trade of Constantinople. Thus the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople and Baldwin of Flandre became emperor. Very few Greeks or Balkan Slavs ever view as legitimate the election of Baldwin of Flandres. Many more of the men were ready to accept universal political monarchy of the Roman pope, which was, in principle, the official ideology of the Latin West. In 1356 a Turkish army crossed to Europe and captured Adrianopole. During the next thirty years, the Turks became masters over the Balkans. The extinction of the Macedonian dynasty marked the end of the Byzantine Empire's era of glory.
By the turn of the twelfth century Byzantium had become useless to western Christendom. The overcoming of the Byzantine Empire was the logical outcome of the needs of the West. Pope Innocent III saw the conquest of Constantinople as a miraculous vindication of the papal claims to supremacy over the Byzantine Church. The Byzantines admired the prowess of the western knight and the Latins respected the Byzantine wealth and subtlety.
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