Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204-1453

The conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade shattered irreversibly the political and cultural unity of the Byzantine world in the Greek peninsula, the Aegean and western Asia Minor. This volume brings together western medievalists, Byzantinists and Ottomanists, combining recent research in the relevant fields in order to provide a holistic interpretation of this world of extreme fragmentation. Although the impact of the crusades on Byzantine history leading up to 1204 has been extensively examined in the past, there has been little research on the way crusading was implemented in Greece and the Aegean after that point. Far from being limited to crusading per se, however, the papers put it into its wider context and examine other aspects of contact, such as trade, interfaith relations, and geographical exploration.