ABSTRACT
The Fourth Crusade, which ended with the conquest of Constantinople in 1204, generated important developments in three closely related fields. First, it furthered and hastened the political and territorial fragmentation of Byzantium, initiated some twenty-five years earlier, and led to the establishment of new political entities in the territories conquered by the Latins. Latin demographic expansion into this region was yet another outgrowth of the Fourth Crusade. The conquest opened the way to Latin migration and settlement on a scale and along patterns unknown before in the Byzantine lands or Romania. The volume and effects of these processes were particularly pronounced in the former western territories of the Byzantine Empire, some of which remained for more than two centuries under Latin rule. The Italians had a major share in both migration and settlement and contributed decisively to the long-term economic evolution of western Romania, which is the third field that warrants our attention. The interaction between migration, settlement and economic development is particularly well documented for some areas of Latin Greece in the period extending from the early thirteenth century to about 1390, on which we shall focus. Yet the nature and impact of this interaction can only be understood in the wider context of the Eastern Mediterranean, to which frequent references will be made.
