When the empire's fall became 'inevitable' so to speak is an interesting question, and one I tend to go back and forth on whenever I read into the later history. Just when I think I've settled on an answer, I flip lol. On the one hand, I do agree with the likes of Kaldellis that the final loss of Anatolia under Andronikos robbed the state of any remaining wealth and resources necessary to recover after 1204. Asia Minor had fuelled the Nicaean state and was the most wealthy area of the empire by this time. But the loss of so many pronoias there pushed the empire into the disastrous civil war of the 1340's that all but sealed it's fate. The Laskarids and Michael Palaiologos had set the empire on an upwards trajectory up until that point. At the same time...I also agree with you that something was irrevocably lost after 1204. The Roman state was smashed to pieces and drained of much of it's wealth, breaking both the bureaucracy and tax system which had given the empire the edge over its neigbours for so long. It also no longer had a high imperial culture due to the severe material damages suffered. And even after 1261, you still had rival separatist Roman states in Epirus and Trebizond (though they had at least given up the imperial titles of 'emperor of the Romans' by 1281). From that perspective, the hard work of the Laskarids and Michael VIII read more as a swan song than anything else.
In Hebrew "katlani" means killer or "death causing" for instance used to describe a widow who's two former husbands have died I wonder if it's related to the Catalan company I believe the rabbis who began using it were relatively contemporary
Thanks for all your work
When the empire's fall became 'inevitable' so to speak is an interesting question, and one I tend to go back and forth on whenever I read into the later history. Just when I think I've settled on an answer, I flip lol.
On the one hand, I do agree with the likes of Kaldellis that the final loss of Anatolia under Andronikos robbed the state of any remaining wealth and resources necessary to recover after 1204. Asia Minor had fuelled the Nicaean state and was the most wealthy area of the empire by this time. But the loss of so many pronoias there pushed the empire into the disastrous civil war of the 1340's that all but sealed it's fate. The Laskarids and Michael Palaiologos had set the empire on an upwards trajectory up until that point.
At the same time...I also agree with you that something was irrevocably lost after 1204. The Roman state was smashed to pieces and drained of much of it's wealth, breaking both the bureaucracy and tax system which had given the empire the edge over its neigbours for so long. It also no longer had a high imperial culture due to the severe material damages suffered. And even after 1261, you still had rival separatist Roman states in Epirus and Trebizond (though they had at least given up the imperial titles of 'emperor of the Romans' by 1281). From that perspective, the hard work of the Laskarids and Michael VIII read more as a swan song than anything else.
In Hebrew "katlani" means killer or "death causing" for instance used to describe a widow who's two former husbands have died
I wonder if it's related to the Catalan company I believe the rabbis who began using it were relatively contemporary