In this highly documented essay, I. Ortega examines the ways in which the papacy favored and advantaged the Latin nobility established in the Morea following the Greek acquisitions of the Fourth Crusade. Among a variety of strategies, the papacy allowed marriages otherwise forbidden by canon law that favored the local Latin nobility, did not oppose unions with Greek orthodox partners for the same reason, and turned a blind eye to illegitimate conquests, all in the interest of strengthening the ruling elite. This strategy was used both during the Catalan threat in the thirteenth century as against the Turkish thread of the fifteenth.