Morea, Despotate of

▪ historical principality, Greece

      autonomous Byzantine principality located on the Greek Peloponnese (Morea). It was established in the mid-14th century by the Byzantine emperor John VI Cantacuzenus (reigned 1347–54) as an appanage for his son Manuel. Manuel Cantacuzenus consolidated his territory against the claims of Latins (western Europeans) and the inroads of Turks, but after his death (1380) the Palaeologians seized Byzantine territory in the Morea from Manuel's heirs. Theodore I Palaeologus (reigned 1383–1407), son of Byzantine emperor John V Palaeologus, ruled in the Morea from his capital at Mistra (modern Mistras, Greece). He consolidated Byzantine rule by recognizing Turkish suzerainty and settling Albanians in the territory to bring new blood and workers into the despotate, which, under his successor, became a bastion of Byzantine strength in the midst of a crumbling empire.

      Mistra, near the site of ancient Sparta, was the residence of the despots. Their tombs were located there, and an important cultural centre grew up within the castle walls. Educated Greeks, scholars, and artists flocked there in the 14th century.

      By the mid-15th century the Despotate of Morea had incorporated the remaining Latin possessions on the Peloponnese. But the Turks destroyed the Hexamilion wall built across the Isthmus of Corinth to protect southern Greece and overran the despotate in 1460 to incorporate it into the Ottoman Empire.

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