Baldwin I, Latin Emperor

Baldwin inherited Flanders in 1194 and Hainaut the next year, turning him into one of the Low Countries' most powerful lords. When the Fourth Crusade assembled, he joined as a leading commander, but the expedition never reached the Holy Land. In 1204 the crusaders stormed Constantinople instead, toppling the Byzantine Empire and carving out a new Latin state from its remains. Baldwin was elected its first emperor that May. The throne proved brief: in 1205 Kaloyan of Bulgaria crushed his army at Adrianople, took him captive, and Baldwin vanished into a Bulgarian prison, never seen again.