ABSTRACT
The establishment of a Latin church in Syria posed economic problems for the Prankish authorities. In theory the Franks were simply substituting Latin for Greek bishops in the Orthodox patriarchates, and had this been merely a matter of appointing new personnel to existing sees, as it was in the Byzantine empire after the Latin conquest of 1204, there would have been no economic difficulties since the endowments of those sees could have been transferred to new incumbents. But in many cases the Latins were creating a new church on an archaic model and were appointing to sees which had had no Orthodox bishop for centuries. New sources of income therefore had to be found to support the Latin ecclesiastical establishment, and various methods were used to provide them.
