Byzantine Crete

Crete Κρήτη (Krḗtē)
Province of the Byzantine Empire
←   ← c. 297 – c. 824/827 961–1205 →   →
Diocese of Macedonia, c. 400
Capital		Gortyn (until 820s) Chandax (from 961)
History
•	Crete separated     from Cyrenaica	c. 297
•	Muslim conquest	c. 824 or 827
•	Byzantine reconquest	960–961
•	Genoese / Venetian     conquest	1205
Today part of		Greece

The island of Crete came under the rule of the Byzantine Empire in two periods: the first extends from the late Roman period (3rd century) to the conquest of the island by Andalusian exiles in the late 820s, and the second from the island's reconquest in 961 to its capture by the competing forces of Genoa and Venice in 1205.

Under Roman rule, Crete had formed a joint province with Cyrenaica, that of Creta et Cyrenaica. Under Diocletian (r. 284–305) it was formed as a separate province, while Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) subordinated it to the Diocese of Moesia (and later the Diocese of Macedonia) within the praetorian prefecture of Illyricum, an arrangement that persisted until the end of Late Antiquity. Some administrative institutions, like the venerable Koinon of the island, persisted until the end of the 4th century, but as elsewhere in the empire these provincial civic institutions were abandoned in face of the increasing power of imperial officials.

Few contemporary sources mention Crete during the period from the 4th century to the Muslim conquest in the 820s. During this time, the island was very much a quiet provincial backwater in the periphery of the Greco-Roman world. Its bishops are even absent from the First Council of Nicaea in 325, in contrast to neighbouring islands like Rhodes or Kos. With the exception of an attack by the Vandals in 457 and the great earthquakes of 9 July 365, 415 448 and 531, which destroyed many towns, the island remained peaceful and prosperous, as testified by the numerous, large and well-built monuments from the period surviving on the island. In the 6th-century Synecdemus, Crete is marked as being governed by a consularis, with capital at Gortyn, and as many as 22 cities. The population in this period is estimated as high as 250,000, and was almost exclusively Christian, except for some Jews living in the main urban centres.

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