Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Acknowledgements
- Note on transliteration
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1 The Byzantine world in the fourteenth–fifteenth centuries
- Map 2 Byzantium and its neighbors, c. 1350
- Map 3 Byzantium and its neighbors after 1402
- PART I INTRODUCTION AND POLITICAL SETTING
- PART II THESSALONIKE
- PART III CONSTANTINOPLE
- PART IV THE DESPOTATE OF THE MOREA
- Conclusion
- Appendix I Archontes of Thessalonike (fourteenth—fifteenth centuries)
- Appendix II “Nobles” and “small nobles” of Thessalonike (1425)
- Appendix III Constantinopolitan merchants in Badoer's account book (1436–1440)
- Appendix IV Members of the Senate of Constantinople cited in the synodal tome of August 1409
- Appendix V Some Greek refugees in Italian territories after 1453
- Bibliography
- Index
PART IV - THE DESPOTATE OF THE MOREA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Acknowledgements
- Note on transliteration
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1 The Byzantine world in the fourteenth–fifteenth centuries
- Map 2 Byzantium and its neighbors, c. 1350
- Map 3 Byzantium and its neighbors after 1402
- PART I INTRODUCTION AND POLITICAL SETTING
- PART II THESSALONIKE
- PART III CONSTANTINOPLE
- PART IV THE DESPOTATE OF THE MOREA
- Conclusion
- Appendix I Archontes of Thessalonike (fourteenth—fifteenth centuries)
- Appendix II “Nobles” and “small nobles” of Thessalonike (1425)
- Appendix III Constantinopolitan merchants in Badoer's account book (1436–1440)
- Appendix IV Members of the Senate of Constantinople cited in the synodal tome of August 1409
- Appendix V Some Greek refugees in Italian territories after 1453
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION TO PART IV
In 1453 those among the survivors of the fall of Constantinople who fled to the Despotate of the Morea for refuge found themselves in the midst of a turbulent environment. They discovered upon their arrival that the rulers of the province, the Despots Thomas and Demetrios Palaiologos, as well as some of the local magnates, were contemplating escaping to Italy in order to avoid the Ottoman danger. Indeed it was only after Sultan Mehmed II made a truce with them that the Despotate's rulers and magnates decided to remain in their homeland. Shortly afterwards peace in the peninsula was interrupted by an uprising of the Albanian subjects of the Despotate. The Albanian revolt, in addition to constraining the Despots to resort to the Ottomans for military help, led to the further deterioration of the Peloponnesian countryside which had already been devastated by earlier Ottoman and other foreign incursions. Yet what perhaps contributed most to the troubled state of affairs in the Byzantine Morea was the intense discord between the two Despots, brothers of the deceased Emperor Constantine XI. From the beginning of his political career Demetrios Palaiologos had been inclined towards collaborating with and accommodating the Ottomans, while his younger brother Thomas persistently favored the intervention of western powers as an alternative to submitting to Ottoman sovereignty.
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- Byzantium between the Ottomans and the LatinsPolitics and Society in the Late Empire, pp. 233 - 234Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009