Changes

A Roman Catholic patriarch was established and attempted to introduce Roman Catholicism by force. The new Venetian Patriarch in Constantinople, Tommaso Morosini, was appointed by the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo (the main person who engineered the diversion of the Fourth Crusade); and according to Gibbon, the Venetians employed every art to perpetuate in their own nation the honors and benefices of the Greek church. Morosini appealed to the Pope for aid, and being unable to serve so many derisive masters, he died a madman. The new papal legate, Pelagius, rode into Constantinople dressed in scarlet from head to foot, like a Greek Emperor himself, and soon asserted that the easy days were over: Thenceforth the Greek clergy must adapt themselves in all religious rites and beliefs to those of the Church of Rome. He was prepared to wade through blood, he quickly showed, should the Orthodox Greeks deny any part of his assertion (Treece, pp.230-231).

After the ''Battle of the Olive Grove of Koundouros,'' which took place in the spring of 1205, in Messinia, Peloponnese, between the Franks and the Greeks, all the castles and cities of the Peloponnese fell to the Franks. Meanwhile, the Venetians took possession of Crete, and retained it until ousted by the Ottoman Turks in 1669, a full 465 years later.

'''Recovery'''

In 1261 Emperor Michael Palaeologus reconquered Constantinople for the Byzantines, and control of the city at last passed from the Venetians to the Paleologus Dynasty. Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus made the city of Mystras in the Peloponnese the seat of the new Despotate of Morea, which was to last until 1460.