Morea

Traditionally, scholars thought the name to have originated from the word morea (μορέα), meaning morus or mulberry,[1] 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.

After losing the Battle of Pelagonia (1259) against the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, Guillaume was forced to ransom himself by giving up most of the eastern part of Morea and his newly built strongholds.

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 Ottoman Empire.

In these conquests, the coastal and port cities remained in the hands of the Venetians such as Monemvasia, Lepanto, Modon, Koron, but these places were captured during the reigns of Bayezid II and Süleyman I.

The anonymous 14th century Chronicle of the Morea relates events of the Franks' establishment of feudalism in mainland Greece following the Fourth Crusade.