184 Coureas
In concluding this survey of the relations between the Latin and Greek
Churches in former Byzantine territories passing under Latin rule, one recalls
the words of the Venetian merchant Marino Sanudo. Born just before 1270 in
Venice into an old and influential family whose members included Marco
Sanudo, the conqueror of the Cyclades in the wake of the Fourth Crusade, he
travelled extensively throughout the Greek-speaking world and the Eastern
Mediterranean. In describing the Greeks’ attitude towards their Latin over-
lords in his Istoria di Romania, written between the years 1324 and 1337, he
made the following observation:
In the islands of Cyprus, Crete, Euboea (Negroponte), Rhodes and
other islands and in the principality of the Morea, even though these
places have been placed under the dominion of the Franks and are sub-
ject to the Church of Rome, nonetheless virtually all the population
is Greek and inclined towards this sect and their hearts gravitate towards
Greek practices, and should they be able to demonstrate this freely they
will do so.7676 Marino Sanudo Torsello, Ιστορία της Ρωμανίας: Ιstoria di Romania, ed. and trans. Eutychia
Papadopoulou (Athens, 2000), pp. 3–8 and 166–69.