The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 07 : $b the history of the later Roman Empire
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 07 : $b the history of the later Roman Empire
World history
1387 Mary retires to Italy. She is last sovereign to rule
over the whole of the principality. Achaia falls into a state
of anarchy. The country is ravaged by the Seljuk and Ottoman
Turks; the strategi and despots of the Palæologus family
established by the emperor of Constantinople in the Morean
territory that was the price of William Villehardouin’s
ransom, gradually reconquer the Peloponnesus from the French
feudal lords. About 1425, Murad II sets about ruining the
Byzantine possessions in the Peloponnesus. After this the
Ottoman power in the land steadily increases. In 1458 Muhammed
II visits the Peloponnesus, and it is finally conquered by
him in 1460, except some cities still in the hands of the
Venetians. For world-historic interest, perhaps the most
important feature of the feudal states in Greece is thus
stated by Finlay: “The Franks ruled the greater part of the
Peloponnesus for two centuries, and the feudal system which
they introduced was maintained in full vigour for sufficient
time to admit of its effects on civilised communities living
under the simpler system of personal rights, traced out in
the Roman law, being fully developed. The result was that the
Franks were demoralised, the Greeks impoverished, and Greece
ruined.”
THE VENETIAN ACQUISITIONS (1207-1566 A.D.)
In the partition of the Byzantine Empire, the republic of
Venice receives about three-eighths of the whole empire of
Romania; but her resources not being adequate to conquer
this amount of territory, she makes no effort to take a
considerable portion of her share. We have seen how a portion
of Thessaly was exchanged with Boniface of Montferrat, and
a considerable amount of land falls into the hands of the
other adventurers. Venice pursues the policy, allowing her
barons personally to conquer certain territories, on condition
that they be held as fiefs of the republic. Thus the Dandolo
and Viaro families take Gallipoli and the island of Andros;
the Ghisi seize Tinos, Scyros, Mycone, and other islands.
Ceos falls to the Justiniani and Michicle, Lemnos to the
Navigajosa, Astypalia to the Quirini. The twelve islands of
the Archipelago forming the Byzantine theme of the Ægean Sea
are taken by Mark Sanduno. He invades Naxos about 1207. The
Sanduno and Della Carceri rule the islands, vassals of Romania
and Venice--uneventful rules in which a fierce Seljuk invasion
of Naxos in 1330 is perhaps the most important event--until
1381 when through conspiracy the Crispo family seizes the
duchy. In the treaty between Muhammed II and Venice after
the capture of Constantinople, the dukes of the Archipelago
act as subjects of Venice. When the republic and the Ottoman
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