Editing Laconia (section)

===Medieval===
[[File:Mystras palace.JPG|thumb|Palace of [[Mystras]]]]

In the medieval period, Laconia formed part of the [[Byzantine Empire]]. In the 7th century, [[Early Slavs|Slavic]] tribes settled in the Peloponnese. Two of them, the [[Melingoi]] and the [[Ezeritai]], who settled in parts of Laconia, survived the subsequent Byzantine reconquest and re-Hellenization of the Peloponnese, and are attested until the late Middle Ages.

Following the [[Fourth Crusade]], Laconia was gradually conquered by the [[Frankokratia|Frankish]] [[Principality of Achaea]]. In the 1260s, the Byzantines recovered [[Mystras]] and other fortresses in the region and managed to evict the Franks from Laconia, which became the nucleus of a new Byzantine province. By the mid-14th century, this evolved into the [[Despotate of the Morea]], held by the last [[Byzantine Greeks|Greek]] ruling dynasty, the [[Palaiologoi]]. The capital of the Despotate, [[Mystras]], was a major site of the [[Palaiologan Renaissance]], the last flowering of [[Byzantine culture]]. With the fall of the Despotate to the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottomans]] in 1460, Laconia was conquered as well.