Frangokratia

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The beginning of Frangokratia: the division of the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade.

The Frangokratia (Greek: Φραγκοκρατία, lit. "Francocracy", "rule of the Franks"), also known as Latinokratia (Greek: Λατινοκρατία, "rule of the Latins") is a term referring to the period in Greek history after the Fourth Crusade (1204), when a number of Western European Crusader states were established in Greece, on the territory of the dissolved Byzantine Empire. The term derives from the fact that Orthodox Greeks called the Catholic Westerners "Latins" or "Franks" (in common with many other Middle Eastern peoples). The span of the Frangokratia period is different for every region: the political situation was highly volatile, as the Frankish states were fragmented and changed hands, and in many cases were re-conquered by the Greek successor states. With the exception of the Ionian Islands, the final end of the Frangokratia in the Greek lands was the Ottoman conquest in the 15th-16th centuries, which ushered in the period known as "Tourkokratia" (see Ottoman Greece).