II. The Byzantine Period.—In the 7th century the Greek language made its way into the imperial army and civil service, but European Greece continued to have little voice in the administration. The land was divided into four “themes” under a yearly appointed civil and military governor. Imperial troops were stationed at the chief strategic points, while the natives contributed ships for naval defence. During the dispute about images the Greeks were the backbone of the image-worshipping party, and the iconoclastic edicts of Leo III. led to a revolt in 727 which, however, was easily crushed by the imperial fleet; a similar movement in 823, when the Greeks sent 350 ships to aid a pretender, met with the same fate. The firm government of the Isaurian dynasty seems to have benefited Greece, whose commerce and industry again became flourishing. In spite of occasional set-backs due to the depredations of pirates, notably the Arab corsairs who visited the Aegean from the 7th century onwards, the Greeks remained the chief carriers in the Levant until the rise of the Italian republics, supplying all Europe with its silk fabrics.

In the 10th century Greece experienced a renewal of raids from the Balkan tribes. The Bulgarians made incursions after 929 and sometimes penetrated to the Isthmus; but they mostly failed to capture the cities, and in 995 their strength was broken by a crushing defeat on the Spercheius at the hands of the Byzantine army. Yet their devastations greatly thinned the population of northern Greece, and after 1084 Thessaly was occupied without resistance by nomad tribes of Vlachs. In 1084 also Greece was subjected to the first attack from the new nations of the west, when the Sicilian Normans gained a footing in the Ionian islands. The same people made a notable raid upon the seaboard of Greece in 1145-1146, and sacked the cities of Thebes and Corinth. The Venetians also appear as rivals of the Greeks, and after 1122 their encroachments in the Aegean Sea never ceased.

In spite of these attacks, the country on the whole maintained its prosperity. The travellers Idrīsī of Palermo (1153) and Benjamin of Tudela (1161) testify to the briskness of commerce, which induced many foreign merchants to take up their residence in Greece. But this prosperity revived an aristocracy of wealth which used its riches and power for purely selfish ends, and under the increasing laxity of imperial control the archontes or municipal rulers often combined with the clergy in oppressing the poorer classes. Least of all were these nobles prepared to become the champions of Greece against foreign invaders at a time when they alone could have organized an effectual resistance.

III. The Latin Occupation and Turkish Conquest.—The capture of Constantinople and dissolution of the Byzantine empire by the Latins (1204) brought in its train an invasion of Greece by Frankish barons eager for new territory. The natives, who had long forgotten the use of arms and dreaded no worse oppression from their new masters, submitted almost without resistance, and only the N.W. corner of Greece, where Michael Angelus, a Byzantine prince, founded the “despotat” of Epirus, was saved from foreign occupation. The rest of the country was divided up between a number of Frankish barons, chief among whom were the dukes of Achaea (or Peloponnese) and “grand signors” of Thebes and Athens, the Venetians, who held naval stations at different points and the island of Crete, and various Italian adventurers who mainly settled in the Cyclades. The conquerors transplanted their own language, customs and religion to their new possessions, and endeavoured to institute the feudal system of land-tenure. Yet recognizing the superiority of Greek civil institutions they allowed the natives to retain their law and internal administration and confirmed proprietors in possession of their land on payment of a rent; the Greek church was subordinated to the Roman archbishops, but upheld its former control over the people. The commerce and industry of the Greek cities was hardly affected by the change of government.

Greek history during the Latin occupation loses its unity and has to be followed in several threads. In the north the “despots” of Epirus extended their rule to Thessaly and Macedonia, but eventually were repulsed by the Asiatic Greeks of Nicaea, and after a decisive defeat at Pelagonia (1259) reduced to a small dominion round Iannina. Thessaly continued to change masters rapidly. Till 1308 it was governed by a branch line of the Epirote dynasty. When this family died out it fell to the Grand Catalan Company; in 1350 it was conquered along with Epirus by Stephen Dushan, king of Servia. About 1397 it was annexed by the Ottoman Turks, who after 1431 also gradually wrested Epirus from its latest possessors, the Beneventine family of Tocco (1390-1469).

The leading power in central Greece was the Burgundian house de la Roche, which established a mild and judicious government in Boeotia and Attica and in 1261 was raised to ducal rank by the French king Louis IX. A conflict with the Grand Catalan Company resulted in a disastrous defeat of the Franks on the Boeotian Cephissus (1311) and the occupation of central Greece by the Spanish mercenaries, who seized for themselves the barons’ fiefs and installed princes from the Sicilian house of Aragon as “dukes of Athens and Neopatras” (Thessaly). After seventy-five years of oppressive rule and constant wars with their neighbours the Catalans were expelled by the Peloponnesian baron Nerio Acciaiuoli. The new dynasty, whose peaceful government revived its subjects’ industry, became tributary to the Turks about 1415, but was deposed by Sultan Mahommed II., who annexed central Greece in 1456.

The conquest of the Peloponnese was effected by two French knights, William Champlitte and Geoffrey Villehardouin, the latter of whom founded a dynasty of “princes of all Achaea.” The rulers of this line were men of ability, who controlled their barons and spiritual vassals with a firm hand and established good order throughout their province. The Franks of the Morea maintained as high a standard of culture as their compatriots at home, while the natives grew rich enough from their industry to pay considerable taxes without discontent. The climax of the Villehardouins’ power was attained under Prince William, who subdued the last independent cities of the coast and the mountaineers of Maina (1246-1248). In 1259, however, the same ruler was involved in the war between the rulers of Epirus and Nicaea, and being captured at the battle of Pelagonia, could only ransom himself by the cession of Laconia to the restored Byzantine empire. This new dependency after 1349 was treated with great care by the Byzantine monarchs, who sought to repress the violence of the local aristocracies by sending their kinsmen to govern under the title of “despots.” On the other hand, with the extinction of the Villehardouin dynasty the Frankish province fell more and more into anarchy; at the same time the numbers of the foreigners were constantly dwindling through war, and as they disdained to recruit them by intermarriage, the preponderance of the native element in the Morea eventually became complete. Thus by 1400 the Byzantines were enabled to recover control over almost the whole peninsula and apportion it among several “despots.” But the mutual quarrels of these princes soon proved fatal to their rule. Already in the 14th century they had employed Albanians and the Turkish pirates who harried their coasts as auxiliaries in their wars. The Albanians largely remained as settlers, and the connexion with the Turks could no longer be shaken off. In spite of attempts to fortify the Isthmus (1415) an Ottoman army penetrated into Morea and deported many inhabitants in 1423. An invasion of central Greece by the despot Constantine was punished by renewed raids in 1446 and 1450. In 1457 the despot Thomas withheld the tribute which he had recently stipulated to pay, but was reduced to obedience by an expedition under Mahommed II. (1458). A renewed revolt in 1459 was punished by an invasion attended with executions and deportations on a large scale, and by the annexation of the Morea to Turkey (1460).

IV. The Turkish Dominion till 1800.—Under the Ottoman government Greece was split up into six sanjaks or military divisions: (1) Morea, (2) Epirus, (3) Thessaly, (4) Euboea, Boeotia and Attica, (5) Aetolia and Acarnania, (6) the rest of central Greece, with capitals at Nauplia, Jannina, Trikkala, Negropont (Chalkis), Karlili and Lepanto; further divisions were subsequently composed of Crete and the islands. In each sanjak a number of fiefs was apportioned to Turkish settlers, who were bound in return to furnish some mounted men for the sultan’s army, the total force thus held in readiness being over 7000. The local government was left in the hands of the archontes or primates in each community, who also undertook the farming of the taxes and the policing of their districts. Law was usually administered by the Greek clergy. The natives were not burdened with large imposts, but the levying of the land-tithes was effected in an inconvenient fashion, and the capitation-tax, to which all Christians were subjected was felt as a humiliation. A further grievance lay in the requisitions of forced labour which the pashas were entitled to call for; but the most galling exaction was the tribute of children for the recruiting of the Janissaries (q.v.), which was often levied with great ruthlessness. The habitual weakness of the central government also left the Greeks exposed to frequent oppression by the Turkish residents and by their own magistrates and clergy. But the new rulers met with singularly little opposition. The dangerous elements of the population had been cleared away by Mahommed’s executions; the rest were content to absorb their energies in agriculture and commerce, which in spite of preferential duties and capitulations to foreign powers largely fell again into the hands of Greeks. Another important instrument by which the people were kept down was their own clergy, whom the Turkish rulers treated with marked favour and so induced to acquiesce in their dominion.

In the following centuries Greece was often the theatre of war in which the Greeks played but a passive part. Several wars with Venice (1463-79, 1498-1504) put the Turks in possession of the last Italian strongholds on the mainland. But the issue was mainly fought out on sea; the conflicts which had never ceased in the Aegean since the coming of the Italians now grew fiercer than ever; Greek ships and sailors were frequently requisitioned for the Turkish fleets, and the damage done to the Greek seaboard by the belligerents and by fleets of adventurers and corsairs brought about the depopulation of many islands and coast-strips. The conquest of the Aegean by the Ottomans was completed by 1570; but Venice retained Crete till 1669 and never lost Corfu until its cession to France in 1797.

In 1684 the Venetians took advantage of the preoccupation of Turkey on the Danube to attack the Morea. A small mercenary army under Francesco Morosini captured the strong places with remarkable ease, and by 1687 had conquered almost the whole peninsula. In 1687 the invaders also captured Athens and Lepanto; but the former town had soon to be abandoned, and with their failure to capture Negropont (1688) the Venetians were brought to a standstill. By the peace of Karlowitz (1699) the Morea became a possession of Venice. The new rulers, in spite of the commercial restrictions which they imposed in favour of their own traders, checked the impoverishment and decrease of population (from 300,000 to 86,000) which the war had caused. By their attempts to cooperate with the native magistrates and the mildness of their administration they improved the spirit of their subjects. But they failed to make their government popular, and when in 1715 the Ottomans with a large and well-disciplined army set themselves to recover the Morea, the Venetians were left without support from the Greeks. The peninsula was rapidly recaptured and by the peace of Passarowitz (1718) again became a Turkish dependency. The gaps left about this time in the Greek population were largely made up by an immigration from Albania.