TRENDEAtlas of the Sultans · Wars, battles and treaties
Campaign · 1460
The Ottoman conquest of the Morea occurred in two phases, in 1458 and 1460, and marked the end of the Despotate of the Morea, one of the last remnants of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, which had been extinguished in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Despotate of the Morea had been founded as an autonomous appanage ruled by members of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) imperial Palaiologos dynasty. During the 14th and 15th centuries, it was the scene of the last flourishing of Eastern Roman (Byzantine) culture, but in the 1420s it was repeatedly attacked by Ottoman raiders under Turahan Bey, and was reduced to a tributary vassal by Sultan Murad II in 1446.
Mehmed II left the Morea in late summer, taking Demetrios and his family with him. Helena did not enter the Sultan's harem, and Demetrios received the proceeds of the islands of Imbros and Lemnos, as well as the Thracian town of Ainos, and parts of the islands of Thasos and Samothrace, as well as additional payments, so that he received a yearly income of 700,000 silver akçes, before an embezzlement scandal saw him disgraced and reduced to a much smaller pension. Increasingly ill and of advanced age, Demetrios retired to a monastery in Adrianople where he and his wife died in 1470, shortly after their daughter Helena. Thomas was lavishly received in Rome by the Pope, where he died in 1465.
Took place during the reign of Mehmed II (1451–1481). Mehmed II
The atlas records this territorial change for the year:
Text: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), adapted for the atlas.