INTRODUCTION

The year 1204 and the Frankenburg of Mistra

By 13 April 1204, the so-called crusaders had conquered Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire, which they systematically plundered over the course of the following days. The area of the former empire was carved up by the victors, each of whom tried to obtain as much as possible. The Greeks had withdrawn to Asia Minor to found the empire of Nikaia-Nymphaion, and it was not until 1261 that Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos could take his capital back.

The Peloponnese peninsula had also fallen to the crusaders and was granted to the Villehardouin family. In 1249, Wilhelm II de Villehardouin built a Frankish fortress above the city of Mistra, 7 kilometres north-west of Sparta. But already in 1261 or 1262, William, Prince of Achaia, had to relinquish the fortress to the emperor. Therefore, relatively soon after its foundation by the Franks, the fortress became Greek and was to remain so until 1460. In the political reality of the thirteenth century, Greek and Frankish culture came together in the town of Mistra. It is this fortress that qualified as the location of Goethe's third act of Faust ii. Goethe never mentions Mistra, only Sparta. But it is clearly Mistra that he intends.

Goethe and Mistra

Already towards the end of 1800, Goethe had intensively studied the history of Sparta. We know, for, example, that he read La Guilletière's Lacédémone ancienne et moderne at that time.