Latin rule and the late Byzantine Aegean: an end that differs by place

The frame

The Met's page "Balkan Peninsula, 1000-1400 A.D." dates the start: in 1204 "Byzantium is conquered and occupied by Western armies of the Fourth Crusade". The same entry adds that "In place of a centralized Byzantine government, with its one capital in Constantinople," "independent Byzantine states in exile are established"; the overview lists among the states of the time the Byzantine despotates of Epirus and Thessaly and "Latin principalities in southern Greece"; the Latin Empire established in 1204 "lasts until 1261", when Michael VIII Palaiologos regains the capital, "reestablishing the empire on a much reduced scale". The period's name joins Latin and late Byzantine rule because the page shows them side by side. The end, 1453, is the year in which, in the overview's words, Constantinople becomes "the capital of the Ottoman empire". Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

1453 is a date of the capital, not of every place in the Aegean. At Mystras, according to UNESCO, the Franks surrendered the castle to the Byzantines in 1262, the town was the seat of the Despotate of Morea from 1348, and it was "Captured by the Turks in 1460". In Rhodes the Order of St John held the city "from 1309 to 1523", while the same page says that "Rhodes finally fell in 1522". The period therefore continues place by place: to 1460 at Mystras, beyond 1453; to 1522 or 1523 in Rhodes, beyond both 1453 and 1516, the year at which the site's page on the Middle Ages in the Levant ends. Neither range is trimmed to fit the period. Sources 2, 3.

On this site

The article on Mystras follows a fortress built in 1249 by the prince of Achaia, which the Franks surrendered to the Byzantines and which became the centre of Byzantine power in southern Greece. The article on the medieval city of Rhodes reads how the Order turned the city into a stronghold, with the Great Hospital built between 1440 and 1489. Sources 2, 3.