In the early 13th century, possibly already before the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Rhodes and its nearby islands were detached from the control of the central Byzantine government under the rule of the Caesar Leo Gabalas.

Although at times Gabalas seems to have acknowledged the suzerainty of the main Byzantine Greek successor state, the Empire of Nicaea, Rhodes became the centre of a practically independent domain.

[4] This failure, as well as the threat posed to the two maritime republics by Frederick II Hohenstaufen, forced Genoa and Venice to a temporary rapprochement: in a treaty signed in 1248 they divided the Mediterranean into spheres of influence.

[6][7] In his absence, in spring or summer of 1248,[a] a Genoese fleet, possibly sailing to join King Louis IX of France's Seventh Crusade, came upon Rhodes, which they found to be virtually unprotected.

As a result, they were not greatly discomfited—the contemporary historian George Akropolites even complains that they slept with the most beautiful local women, expelling the old and ugly ones from the city—and the blockade dragged on into spring.

The arrival of Kontostephanos and his men once again tipped the balance: the Nicaean troops caught the Achaeans off guard while they were scattered in the countryside and busy with plundering, and killed them all at Kantakouzenos' orders.

[27][32] Nevertheless, already c. 1278, the increasing threat of Turkish raids led Michael VIII to grant Rhodes to John de lo Cavo, a Genoese corsair in Imperial service, as a fief.

With the rapid enfeeblement of the restored Byzantine Empire under Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 1282–1328), the Western powers hatched new plans to seize the strategically situated island.