The Morea ( el, Μορέας or ) was the name of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...

during the

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and the early modern period. The name was used for the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

province known as the Despotate of the Morea, by the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

for the Morea Eyalet, and later by the

Republic of Venice The Republic of Venice ( vec, Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic ( vec, Repùblega Vèneta, links=no), traditionally known as La Serenissima ( en, Most Serene Republic of Venice, italics=yes; vec, Serenìsima Repùblega de Venèsia ...

for the short-lived Kingdom of the Morea.

Etymology

There is some uncertainty over the origin of the medieval name "Morea", which is first recorded only in the 10th century in the

chronicles. Traditionally, scholars thought the name to have originated from the word ''morea'' (μορέα), meaning morus or mulberry, a tree which, though known in the region from the ancient times, gained value after the 6th century, when mulberry-eating silkworms were smuggled from China to Byzantium. The British Byzantinist Steven Runciman suggested that the name comes "from the likeness of its shape to that of a mulberry leaf".

History

After the conquest of Constantinople by the forces of the Fourth Crusade (1204), two groups of

Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...

undertook the occupation of the Morea. They created the Principality of Achaea, a largely Greek-inhabited statelet ruled by a Latin (Western) autocrat. In referring to the Peloponnese, they followed local practice and used the name "Morea". The most important prince in the Morea was Guillaume II de Villehardouin (1246–1278), who fortified Mistra (Mystras) near the site of Sparta in 1249. After losing the Battle of Pelagonia (1259) against the

Byzantine Emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as l ...

Michael VIII Palaeologus, Guillaume was forced to ransom himself by giving up most of the eastern part of Morea and his newly built strongholds. An initial Byzantine drive to reconquer the entire peninsula failed in the battles of Prinitza and Makryplagi, and the Byzantines and Franks settled to an uneasy coexistence. In the mid-14th century, the later Byzantine Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos reorganized Morea into the Despotate of the Morea. Sons of the emperor with the rank of '' despotes'' were usually sent to rule the province as an appanage. By 1430, the Byzantines eventually recovered the remainder of the Frankish part of the Morea, but in 1460 the peninsula was almost completely overrun and conquered by the

. In these conquests, the coastal and port cities remained in the hands of the Venetians such as Monemvasia, Lepanto,

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, Koron, but these places were captured during the reigns of Bayezid II and Süleyman I. In July 1461, the last holdout, Salmeniko Castle, was taken. The peninsula was captured for the

by Francesco Morosini during the Morean War of 1684–99. Venetian rule proved unpopular, and the Ottomans recaptured the Morea in a lightning campaign in 1714. Under renewed Ottoman rule, centered at Tripolitsa, the region enjoyed relative prosperity. The latter 18th century was marked by renewed dissatisfaction. Armed bands of the klephts emerged, undeterred by the brutal repression of the Orlov revolt. They waged guerrilla war against the Turks, aided both by the decay of Ottoman power and the emergence of Greek national consciousness. Ultimately, the Morea and its inhabitants provided the cradle and backbone of the Greek Revolution.

Chronicle of the Morea

The anonymous 14th century ''

Chronicle of the Morea The ''Chronicle of the Morea'' ( el, Τὸ χρονικὸν τοῦ Μορέως) is a long 14th-century history text, of which four versions are extant: in French, Greek (in verse), Italian and Aragonese. More than 9,000 lines long, the ''C ...

'' relates events of the

' establishment of

feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structu ...

in mainland Greece following the Fourth Crusade. Despite its unreliability about historical events, the ''Chronicle'' is famous for its lively portrayal of life in the feudal community. The language in Greek versions is notable as it reflects the rapid transition from Medieval to Modern Greek. The original language of the Chronicle is disputed, but recent scholarship prefers the Greek version in MS ''Havniensis 57'' (14th–15th century, in

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). Other manuscripts include the Ms ''Parisinus graecus 2898'' (15th–16th century, at the Bibliothèque nationale de France,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

). The difference of about one century in the texts shows a considerable number of linguistic differences due to the rapid evolution of the Greek language.

References

Bibliography

* * *''Crusaders as Conquerors: the Chronicle of Morea,'' translated from the Greek with notes and introduction by Harold E. Lurier, Columbia University, 1964. *M.J. Jeffreys, "The Chronicle of Morea: Priority of the Greek Version." '' Byzantinische Zeitschrift'' 68 (1975), 304-350. * Teresa Shawcross, ''The Chronicle of Morea: Historiography in Crusader Greece'' (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) (Oxford Studies in Byzantium).

External links