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.