True it depends on the exact period we are talking about. The situation was pretty different in ~1000AD and in 1200. By the later period Constantinople’s influence in the west was waning or even non-existant.
e.g. by during the first Crusade there was a clear expectation that the Emperor will be the one in charge and will lead the crusaders to the holy land. It was basically a relief expedition organized to help the Empire defend itself from the Turks. There was clear cooperation between the pope and the empire. While cultural and linguistic differences were obvious to everyone there was no clear animosity (e.g. a loose modern analogy would be the relationship between Europe/EU and America)
Obviously it didn’t exactly turn out the way the Pope, Emperor and most of the crusaders expected. The subsequent Crusades were very different in this regard. And 12th seems to be around the time when the political split between the papacy, the latin world and the empire became permanent.
> And 12th seems to be around the time when the political split between the papacy, the latin world and the empire became permanent.
And even that is an insight from retrospect. During the following centuries there were several attempts to overcome the Great Schism. Due to the political decline of the East at that times, the agreements more or less reflected to positions of the West, most notably an agreement (culminating in the papal bull "Laetentur Caeli: Bulla Unionis Graecorum", 6 July 1439) reached during the Council of Florence (starting at 1431), that would have ended the schism, but met with fierce resistance in the years that followed from important groups in the East (such as the monsk of Mount Athos and the population of Constantinopel).[1] The fate of the agreement was still somewhat open when Constantinopel fell to the Ottomans in 1453.
I think that the effort to unite the churches might have become stronger in the 15th century because the Empire was no longer a real political and economic rival to Italian merchant republic, Sicily and the rest of the Latin world. It was obvious to everyone in Byzantium that they have no chance of resisting the Turks on their own which made them much more amenable to potential compromise with the church of Rome.
The situation was pretty different in 1200, the Empire was in a much stronger position and due to the conflicts with Italian merchant states and the Massacre of the Latins of the Latins just a decade earlier the relations between Constantinople were extremely poor. But yes, even then most probably did not consider the Latin and Greek churches to be fully separate and distinct entities (i.e. the schism was likely closer to the Western Schism of 1378 than to the reformation in how most people perceived it at the time)
e.g. by during the first Crusade there was a clear expectation that the Emperor will be the one in charge and will lead the crusaders to the holy land. It was basically a relief expedition organized to help the Empire defend itself from the Turks. There was clear cooperation between the pope and the empire. While cultural and linguistic differences were obvious to everyone there was no clear animosity (e.g. a loose modern analogy would be the relationship between Europe/EU and America)
Obviously it didn’t exactly turn out the way the Pope, Emperor and most of the crusaders expected. The subsequent Crusades were very different in this regard. And 12th seems to be around the time when the political split between the papacy, the latin world and the empire became permanent.