Mystras in Peloponnese Greece
Magnificent and impressive, distant but at the same time so close. Untouched by the time, the dead city lies on the slope of the steep, strange knoll with the castle on its top. Only 5 kilometers northeast of Sparta, time has stopped at one of the golden eras of history.
Mystras, the “God-protected land of Mizithras”, the capital of Despotate of Moreas, the last stronghold of the Byzantine Empire, is still alive in the historic memory and conscience of people.
Through its fortifications and churches, its palaces, mansions and houses, its streets and springs, Mystras attracts every day the admiration of thousands of visitors but also it offers valuable knowledge on the course and culture of Byzantium. Being at the forefront of history for two centuries, Mystras experienced an unprecedented course of glory, magnificence and offer at the political, social and cultural level.
The history begins in the middle of the 13th century, when Franks were dominating Peloponnese. In 1249, Villehardouin II raised an impregnable castle on the top of a hill named Mystras or Mizithras. Ten years later, he was taken prisoner by the Emperor of Byzantium Micheal Palaeologus and purchased his freedom by giving away the castles of Mystras, Monemvasia and Mani. Mystras offered security. Therefore, the inhabitants of Lacedaemonia, as Sparta was called at that time, built their houses on the slope around the castle.
The district of Chora was protected with wall, but new houses were built at the outer part of the city wall. Another wall protected the new district, called Kato Chora. With generals being permanent governors since 1308 and with the seat of the Metropolital Bishop having being transferred from Lacedaemonia, Mystras became in the middle of the 13th century the capital of Peloponnese, the seat of Despotate of Moreos in which the Despot had with a life-long tenure of office.
First Despot in 1348 was Manuel, the second son of Emperor John Cantacuzenus and second Despot Matthew in 1380. Then it was the time for Palaeologus dynasty, of whom the first Despot was Theodore I, son of the Emperor John Palaeologus succeeded by Theodore II in 1407 and Constantine Palaelogus in 1443. All these years, Mystras experienced days of glory in spite of the external threats. Its dominance was spread all over Peloponnese, it became the center of the spiritual and political life and provided a fertile ground for the development of arts and sciences. Here, George Gemistus or Plithon founded his famous philosophical school.
On 6th January 1449 at the Metropolis of Mystras, St. Demetrios, Constantine Palaelogus was crowned emperor and left for Constantinopole, where he died during the fall of 1453. But Mystras had an inglorious end. The new Despot Demetrios surrendered the castle to Moameth B. During the Turkish occupation, the city maintained its prosperity with a population of 42.000 people. Following the unsuccessful rebellion in 1770, the inhabitants of Mystras amounted just to 8000. Poor but brave, the population of Mystras offered significantly to the war of independence in 1821 but in 1825 the Egyptians of Ibrahim burned down Kato Chora.
The inhabitants started leaving the town. Others were settled at the foot of the hill in New Mystras. And some others returned to the banks of Evrotas in order to create the modern Sparta. In the Byzantine Town, abandonment gave its way to time deterioration.
The Byzantine museum of Mystras is located in St Demetrios church. The exhibits include wall-paintings, icons, inscriptions and sculptures from the archaeological site of the dead town.
source by lakonia.gr
