![]() ![]() ![]() Though relations between Christians in the East and those in the West had long been fractious, Alexius’s request came at a time when the situation was improving. In 1095, Alexius sent envoys to Pope Urban II asking for mercenary troops from the West to help confront the Turkish threat. After years of chaos and civil war, the general Alexius Comnenus seized the Byzantine throne in 1081 and consolidated control over the remaining empire as Emperor Alexius I. However, Byzantium had lost considerable territory to the invading Seljuk Turks. ![]() By the end of the 11th century, Western Europe had emerged as a significant power in its own right, though it still lagged behind other Mediterranean civilizations, such as the Byzantine Empire (formerly the eastern half of the Roman Empire) and the Islamic Empire of the Middle East and North Africa. ![]()
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