Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to grow in wealth and strength as a Christian state. In the ensuing centuries, Byzantine
Greece faced continued pressure from the Persians and Arabs, but it managed to retain its
stronghold over the region.
It is ironic that the demise of the Byzantine Empire was accelerated by fellow Christi-
ans from the west - the Frankish Crusaders. The stated mission of the Crusades was to
liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims, but in reality they were driven as much by
greed as by religious zeal. The first three Crusades passed by without affecting the area,
but the leaders of the Fourth Crusade (in the early part of the 13th century) decided that
Constantinople presented richer pickings than Jerusalem and struck a deal with Venice,
who had helped prop up the Crusades.
Constantinople was sacked in 1204 and much of the Byzantine Empire was partitioned
into fiefdoms ruled by self-styled 'Latin' (mostly Frankish or western-Germanic)
princes. The Venetians, meanwhile, had also secured a foothold in Greece. Over the next
few centuries they acquired all the key Greek ports, including Methoni, Koroni and
Monemvasia in the Peloponnese (then known as the Morea), and the island of Crete, and
became the wealthiest and most powerful traders in the Mediterranean.
Despite this sorry state of affairs, Byzantium was not yet dead. In 1259 the Byzantine
Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologos recaptured the Peloponnese and made the city of
Mystras his headquarters. Many eminent Byzantine artists, architects, intellectuals and
philosophers converged on the city for a final burst of Byzantine creativity. Michael VIII
managed to reclaim Constantinople in 1261, but by this time Byzantium was a shadow of
its former self.
Greece is home to the oldest mosque in Europe. The Bayezit's Mosque at Didymotiho
was built by Ottoman Sultan Bayezit I in the late 14th century.
Ottoman Rule
Constantinople was soon facing a much greater threat from the east. The Seljuk Turks, a
tribe from central Asia, had first appeared on the eastern fringes of the empire in the
middle of the 11th century. The Ottomans (the followers of Osman, who ruled from 1289
to 1326) supplanted the Seljuks as the dominant Turkish tribe. The Muslim Ottomans
began to rapidly expand the areas under their control and by the mid-15th century were
harassing the Byzantine Empire on all sides.
On 29 May 1453, Constantinople fell under Turkish Ottoman rule (referred to by
Greeks as
turkokratia
). Once more Greece became a battleground, this time fought over
