The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355-1462

In The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355-1462, Christopher Wright offers a window into the culturally and politically diverse late medieval Aegean. The overlapping influences of the contrasting networks of power at work in the region are explored through the history of one of many small and distinctive political units that flourished in this fragmented environment, the lordships of the Gattilusio family, centred on Lesbos. Though Genoese in origin, they owed their position to Byzantine authority. Though active in crusading, they cultivated congenial relations with the Ottomans. Though Catholic, they afforded exceptional freedom to the Orthodox Church. Their regime is shown to represent both a unique fusion of influences and a revealing microcosm of its times.

Christopher Wright, Ph.D. (2006), Royal Holloway, University of London, is a researcher at that college. He has published articles on cultural and political interactions between Byzantium and the Latin world and on commerce and crusading in the eastern Mediterranean.