During the crusades to the Holy Land of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, western (primarily Italian) naval power had repeatedly triumphed against Muslim fleets in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean. Within a few decades most of the important ports on the Syrian coast had been seized by the Franks – largely thanks to the support of the Italian republics – and much of the significant Muslim naval presence in the region had been quashed. However, over the course of the thirteenth century the Latin grasp of the Levantine seaboard began to weaken significantly, culminating with the loss of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291. Although the Italians still remained the most active merchants in the eastern Mediterranean after this point, they had lost a major foothold on the Syrian coast. Within three decades after the fall of Acre, the presence of the Italian merchant colonies in the East – integral to western naval dominance in the region – was further compromised by a new Muslim foe, the Turks of the Anatolian maritime beyliks, who by then threatened Romania and the few remaining Latin possessions in the eastern Mediterranean. As was noted in the previous chapter, the depredations of the Turks against the Latins of Romania were primarily carried out by sea, usually consisting of raids on the Aegean islands and the Greek mainland, the seizing of goods and, where possible, the enslavement of the Christian population. Over the course of the fourteenth century, a new strategy in crusading warfare would evolve to combat the Turkish menace: the naval league. This was an allied Christian fleet of galleys, usually formed by the local Latin powers with the help of the papacy, for which the participants were sometimes awarded crusader privileges.